Mugison - Mugiboogie 2007

Iceland’s Mugison may be considered a modern-day Frank Zappa. This one-man band boasts an eclectic style that ranges from blues-based alternative rock to stoner, doom-metal sludgery. At times, MUGIBOOGIE bears a resemblance to quirky, Beck-like fringe rock; at others, it veers off to Mr. Bungle’s sanitarium-styled schizo-metal, all of it draped in a soul-funky exterior. With a vocal style that sounds like a strait-jacketed Steven Tyler, Mugison’s brilliant musicianship tries to contain the manic psychodrama within. It's simply amazing that all this cacophony originates from the mind of one person. AMG.

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Nicole Mitchell - Xenogenesis Suite A Tribute to Octavia Butler 2008

Xenogenesis Suite is a very strong and convincing proposition from flutist Nicole Mitchell. Moving, intricate, and immediate, this album marks a paradigm shift in her work as a composer, toward a much more personal voice. This piece is based on Octavia Butler's novel Dawn, a reflection on how human beings can adapt to inhuman circumstances: "If anything you had known is no longer, and you were placed in a seamless space, what would you feel?" (from the track notes). The main (and sole) character, a woman, goes through feelings of fear (of the unknown), withdrawal (from her past), anguish (at what is to come), repulsion (at alien life forms), and resolution (to start anew). SingerMankwe Ndosi portrays these emotions with stunning beauty, mostly without any lyrics, her voice often featured as the main instrument through the nine movements. Mitchell's music is at times expressionistic (the dark "Sequence Shadows" or the uplifting "Dawn of a New Life," which has echoes of the ecstatic side of John Coltrane) and at times more abstract. The score leaves ample room for improvisation shaped into group macro-movements, but there are also plenty of written-down passages, from ostinati to riffs, fragile melodies, and ominous harmonic progressions. The opening "Wonder," "Sequence Shadows," and "Adrenalin" are the album's highlights, maybe simply because they stray further away from the Art Ensemble of Chicago's ethos. Mitchell's Black Earth Ensembledisplays excellent musicianship, but the focus is on a group sound and the score, not on individual prowess (Ndosi's vocals aside). Even Mitchell's flute remains discreet. Then again, Mitchell has never been about flashiness. Xenogenesis Suite is the kind of album that gains depth with each listen. AMG.

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Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio - Big Cliff 1995

Kahil El'Zabar is one of Chicago's jazz treasures. A member of the AACM, music holds no boundaries for El'Zabar, who has not only played alongside a myriad of jazz greats, but was in the bands of Stevie Wonder, Cannonball Adderley, Dizzy Gillespie, and Nina Simone (who he also designed clothes for), as well as recording with rock bands like Sonia Dada and Poi Dog Pondering and heading up the jazz/house outfit the JUBA Collective. He was also chosen to do the arranging for the stage performances of The Lion King. This is in addition to leading his own longstanding Ethnic Heritage Ensemble and Ritual Trio.

The son of a drummer, El'Zabar took to music at an early age, and was playing with members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago by his teens. While attending college in the early '70s, El'Zabar was given the opportunity to study mime with Marcel Marceau in Paris, but instead opted to use the money to study in Ghana. He started the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble upon his return in 1973, and while the lineup has changed over time, they are still an active group. He has also released a great many albums under his own name, including a long-running relationship with Chicago's great Delmark label. Kahil El'Zabar is not just a master percussionist, either. His efforts as a musician, educator, and community leader led to his being named "Chicagoan of the year" in 2004 by the Chicago Tribune. AMG.

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Ominous Seapods - The Guide to Roadside Ecology 1995

The Ominous Seapods' second album, The Guide to Roadside Ecology, was recorded in the studio instead of at a gig and it shows. By 1995, the lineup of Dana Monteith (guitar/vocals), Max Verna(guitar/vocals), Tom Pirozzi (bass/vocals), Brian Mangini (keyboards), and Ted Marotta (drums) had definitely solidified. By this time the band was playing 200 gigs a year. The production on this disc is improved from 1994's Econobrain. The Ominous Seapods' strength is teasing nuances out of the melodies, if not strictly in songwriting. Drummer Marotta once said that little dynamic shifts can affect how and where the song progresses. The Ominous Seapods are about those organic nuances and about having a good time. Overall this is an improved effort. AMG.

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Amina Claudine Myers - The Circle of Time 1984

In terms of depth, spirit, originality, and diversity, this is the recording that best brings those vibrant elements of Aminda Claudine Myers' musicianship to ultimate fruition. With bassist Don Pate and drummer Thurman Barker, Myers freely explores jazz, blues, and gospel-tinged creative music in her own inimitable way. All of these six pieces were written by Myers, each showcasing a different side of her joyous persona, making her music deep, listenable, tuneful, and emotional.
Starting off with the hot instrumental modal bop number titled "Louisville," the pianist proves to be a capable, refreshing melodicist in this area, with Pate's complimentary lines to the piano and Barker's crackling drums setting the upbeat pace nicely. "Plowed Fields" has a loose structure with equally peaceful and soulful, tender and poignant motifs. Myers sings the line "seeing the plowed fields, made me want to go barefooted, until my mother spoke of soles (souls?) tied to her feet." "Do You Want to Be Saved?" is an anthem for the ages -- organ and piano strains are overdubbed for this hip, steady tempo gospel blues. Inexorable caravan-like processional pacing for "Christine" has a dual line of Myers cascading piano apreggios with a deft chordal four-bar line that is dramatic and dynamic. Pate's avant bowed bass introduces "The Clock," which has several aspects of time musically represented. Creaking bass, meandering piano, free stride, and completely free segments are featured, and are liable to speed or slow at a moment's notice. "The Circle of Time" further illuminates this with the lyric "time moves by slowly, time moves by quickly." Myers adopts a little girlish falsetto over another patiently slower, steady rhythm, injecting ai-yi-yis in a rather Native American inflection on this song that represents Myers at her creative, free-flowing zenith. This recording and Sings Bessie Smith are must-buy items for fans of this brilliant musician, and iconic signposts for where African-American expressionism can be directed. AMG.

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Eddie Kamae - Sons Of Hawaii 2004

Accompanying a book and DVD on Eddie Kamae, this album covers the basic groundwork forKamae's long career with the Sons of Hawaii. The music is often rather folky, with banjo pluckin' and fiddle scratchin', but with clear and dignified vocals from Kamae over the top. Along with the folkier end, there's some noteworthy steel playing and sensitive work on the bass. Still, it's the vocal quality that brings the feeling out of the music. Kamae has a touch of the ancient within his delivery while keeping to relatively contemporary melodies (Queen Liliuokalani and forward, at any rate). Give it a listen as a primer of Kamae, not the only Hawaiian vocalist worth hearing by any means but certainly one of those worth hearing. AMG. Thanks to B. 

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Darker My Love - Alive As You Are 2010

A lot has changed for Darker My Love in the time since they released 2. Most notably, the band experienced the loss of founding member Andy Granelli (who left the band to focus on his family), while Tim Presley dealt with the loss of his father. With so much happening in and around Darker My Love, it’s no surprise that their third album, Alive as You Are, marks a stylistic shift, finding them moving away from their dark and murky sound to lighter, more psych-folk-oriented territories. Given the change to the band's sound, it feels like more than a coincidence that Granelli was replaced by Brian Jonestown Massacre drummer Dan Allaire. More Beatles/Dylan than My Bloody Valentine, Alive as You Are is an album that’s more about being listened to than just felt. With layers of vocal and guitar melodies at work, songs like “Trail the Line” and “Dear Author” have a carefully constructed depth that feels more intricate than 2’s thick fuzz was able to produce. This kind of precision helps to give you the feeling that this is an album that was written and not just jammed out, allowing you to feel the hand of its creator and to appreciate the songcraft at work here. While fans of Darker My Love’s earlier albums may be a bit put off by this sudden sea change, Alive as You Are marks a pleasant sonic shift for the band, offering anyone willing to listen a love letter to San Francisco’s psych-pop past and the sounds of the paisley underground. AMG.

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Keef Hartley Band - Not Foolish Not Wise 1999

Granted, Castle Records has done some fine reissues in their day, particularly with the reissues ofBig John Wrencher's Big John's Boogie with bonus tracks. This is another matter entirely. Issued in England in 1999, Keef Hartley's Not Foolish Not Wise is, apparently, a compilation of sorts of old live recordings and some from the studio. What is maddening is that apart from a personal reminiscence by Neil Slaven that covers some of Hartley's career, there isn't one iota of information -- other than titles and songwriting credits -- as to when or where these recordings were made, or even who played on them. One can deduce with a degree of certainty that many of these recordings were live gigs featuring outtakes and alternate material from the Halfbreed era that included the four-piece horn section of Henry Lowther (trumpet, violin), Harry Beckett (trumpet), Lyn Dobson (tenor sax, flute), andChris Mercer (tenor sax), with Hartley on drums, the late bassist Gary Thain (later with Uriah Heep!),Dino Dines on keyboards, and Miller Anderson (who also served as vocalist) and Spit James on guitars. Some come from a later edition of the band with only two horns. The music is rooted deeply in the progressive blues of the early '70s, where the influence of John Mayall's Jazz Blues Fusion project was just making itself known. But Hartley's band was deeper into a more raucous form of blues and R&B than jazz, though the horn charts are fairly sophisticated, as evidenced by the title track, "Marin County," "Too Much Thinking" with its subtly shaded trumpets shimmering over the saxophones, and the slippery funk groove of "Don't You Belong," driven by Thain's bass thud and punched up by the horns Famous Flames style. Given that many of these are live cuts and the rest are outtakes, the sound can be a tad muddy, but it only adds to the overall presence of the music. Despite the dodgy omissions in credits, this is a vital and thoroughly engaging release, capturing a band at the stellar height of its power both live and in the studio. As Slaven put it in his liner notes, this "was a no nonsense band that played no nonsense music." Recommended for anyone ever interested in Hartleyor in the evolution of British blues. AMG.

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Comic Book Opera - Comic Book Opera 1988

Think it was Rainy Day Sponge who requested this one a while ago.
The Comic Book Opera LP is one of the releases on the Insight label, run by Eric Cope of Glorious Din. It's also quite different from the other releases. Most of these like the Glorious Din albums and the Spahn Ranch LP, have a bit of a darker, gloomy atmosphere. Comic Book Opera are an instrumental band with an experimental and jazzy edge. Some pieces also have an Eastern feel. Sometimes it gets a bit too 'free jazz', especially with the saxophone.
Connie (saxophones, funeral horn) and Jesse Walkershaw (bass) are the core members of the band. Other members play drums, keyboards, guitar, cheesy organ and tabla." Thanks to ezhevika.blogspot.com!

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Alejandro Escovedo - With These Hands 1996

After recording two superb albums for the tiny independent label Watermelon Records, Alejandro Escovedo moved up, if not to the big leagues, then at least to AAA ball, when he signed with Rykodisc for his third solo set, With These Hands. While Escovedo's arrangements (he calls his band an orchestra without exaggeration) and Turner Stephen Bruton's production on Gravity and Thirteen Years were strikingly ambitious given their tiny budgets, With These Hands found them with a bit more money at their disposal, and if their approach wasn't remarkably different, the results display more polish and audibly greater depth than before, and Escovedo was able to bring along a few celebrity guests -- among them Willie Nelson, Jennifer Warnes, and his cousin Sheila Escovedo (aka Sheila E) -- who add to the music without calling undue attention to themselves. Lyrically, after the deeply (and sometimes painfully) personal material of Gravity and Thirteen Years, With These Hands foundEscovedo stepping a bit outside himself to tell stories less obviously based on his own life, though the results are as compelling (and ring as true) as his more autobiographical material, especially the failed rock star's lament of "Pissed Off 2 A.M.," the dead of night heartache of "Sometimes," and "Nickel and a Spoon"'s story of a devastated family. If With These Hands seems less immediately striking than the two albums that preceded it, that's only because it's less surprising -- with his first two solo albums, Alejandro Escovedo announced himself as a world class talent with a singular style, and ifWith These Hands doesn't break much new ground for him, it shows he's still in full command of his considerable gifts as a musician, and it's an impressive achievement. AMG.

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The Blues Preachers - Dry Long So 2008

"Last year, with the release of their second record, Dry Long So, the Sydney based Blues Preachers in my opinion, put out one of the best blues records of the decade", wrote Samuel Fell from Rhythms Magazine.

The Blues Preachers will take you to another place and time, somewhere between 1920 and 1940. Their music paints a landscape of pre-war struggle and determination with sounds reminiscent of the Deep South. The Blues Preachers perform a fusion of good old blues, rags, gospel and hillbilly folk. The powerful simplicity of driving finger-style and slide-guitar combined with the sounds of tasteful harmonica and old-school vocal harmonies create a traditional and untarnished sound that will have you on the edge of your seats. The Blues Preachers will make you want to get up and dance with their joyful country and ragtime blues, and send a shiver down your spine with their atmospheric feels, echoing and paying homage to the sacred sounds of early artists such as Blind Willie Johnson. Their 2008 album ‘Next Stop Beulah Land’ and their highly regarded 2009 release ‘Dry Long So’ showcase the talents of the Preachers: Brother John on guitar, banjo and vocals, and Captain Bluetongue on harmonica, mountain dulcimer and vocals.

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Steve Walsh - Glossolalia 2000

This solo offering from Kansas' lead vocalist was released in conjunction with that band's fine comeback, Somewhere to Elsewhere. This is an exploratory collection of songs that range from the metallic title track (thanks to Mike Slamer's explosive guitar playing) to the aggressive dance number "Heart Attack" and periodic progressive and symphonic meandering that parallels those of his main band. The song "Kansas" combines Magical Mystery Tour psychedelia with a haunting exorcism-like vibe that exemplifies this album's recurring theme of rebirth; Steve Walsh seems to be thumbing his nose at the demons and habits that have entrapped him for so many years. The more plaintive "Nothing" with its steel guitar and comparable vocals actually recalls early-'70s Neil Young, and "Mascara Tears" is reminiscent of mid-'70s Electric Light Orchestra. Co-producing this smorgasbord of styles along with Walsh is Magellan keyboardist Trent Gardner. Bassist Billy Greer who's appeared with Kansas and Streets continues his longtime association with Walsh on this recording. AMG.

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Oliver Nelson - More Blues And The Abstract Truth 1987

Unlike the original classic Blues and the Abstract Truth set from three years earlier, Oliver Nelsondoes not play on this album. He did contribute three of the eight originals and all of the arrangements but his decision not to play is disappointing. However there are some strong moments from such all-stars as trumpeter Thad Jones, altoist Phil Woods, baritonist Pepper Adams, pianist Roger Kellawayand guest tenor Ben Webster (who is on two songs). The emphasis is on blues-based pieces and there are some strong moments even if the date falls short of its predecessor. AMG.

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