November 29, 2024
Blood Incantation
Absolute Elsewhere (2024)
Blood Incantation have created a style unto themselves: Cosmic, Berlin School-inspired, Progressive Death Metal. More amazing than that, it’s all rather approachable! Crushingly heavy and still obsessed with outer space and alternate dimensions, this is their first full release to really meld these elements together. Their progressive electronic interludes and their commitment to melody are both well composed and effective at making the rest of the record’s brutal metal thrashing more entertaining.
March 16, 2024
Ten Years After
Cricklewood Green (1970)
I expect I will always be astounded by the uncanny ability of so many Brits from the 60’s and early 70’s to cop, elevate, and make their own the wholly original American music genre that is the Blues. Zeppelin, Clapton, the Stones, Jeff Beck, the list goes on and on… and Alvin Lee’s Ten Years After very deservedly belongs on that illustrious list. Cricklewood Green is a gem of its time and place, part Canned Heat boogie-woogie, part Creedance faux Southern rock, part Dead jam, and every so slightly psych-tinged, this is a rollicking great time with a badass rhythm section and scorching guitar licks that are sharp, snakey, and effortless sounding. Jammed hard to this out in the Mojave and haven’t been able to put it down since.
Sep 3, 2023
Link Wray
Link Wray (1971)
In This Is What It Sounds Like, record producer turned neuroscientist Susan Rogers argues that we connect with music on seven distinct dimensions. These dimensions describe the lenses through which we each uniquely experience, evaluate, and connect with music. It’s an eye-opening perpective that helps give us a language for explaining why like or dislike the music we do.
Authenticity. That’s the first of these dimensions, and the most potent part about this overlooked gem I’ve been grooving to lately. Link Wray was a legendary guitarist whose playing in the 1950’s helped forge the sound and attitude of Rock ‘N Roll, and served as a precursor to garage music. (You’ve heard his brooding, distorted licks in that game changing Tarantino flick.) But come 1971, the scene he’d helped find its soul was already on its way out, being washed away by the chaotic, acid-fueled experimentations of the 60’s and the bombastic mega productions of 70’s prog. Wray, it seems, had something to say about that.
Recorded in a shack in his backyard (because the basement was untenable for his wife), Link’s seeming response is a love letter to Rock’s roots. Instead of the aggressive bravado he made his name off of, Wray and co. jam, holler, and stomp out 11 raw cuts of authentic, swampy, country-soul-blues. This is warm, celebratory, gospel-tinged greatness that serves as a reminder of the essence from which Rock was born.
Aug 13, 2023
Mino Cinelu & Nils Petter Molvaer
Sulamadiana (2020)
I’ve been exploring my collection as part of our upcoming Music Night: World Travel, particularly looking for sounds of Africa. Jazz vet Mino Cinelu certainly brings a strong Afro influence to this collab with the Norwegian Nu Jazz pioneer Nils Molvaer, but it turns out that Mino is half French and half Martinique. That’s an island in the Carribean as I’ve now learned. The atmosphere created is both contemplative and inviting. Mino brings joyful tribal rhythms and chanting to Nils’s typically cold and sparse soundscapes for a unique, spiritual blend.
July 13, 2023
Dudu Tassa & Johnny Greenwood
Jarak Qaribak (2023)
Johnny Greenwood, the savant composer and musician of Radiohead acclaim, joins forces with Israel’s Tassa with a love letter to Middle Eastern multiculturalism. These are Arabic love songs performed by a different singer of a different point of origin across the album. The snakey, nasaly melodies typical of the region are joined by the sorts of delicate arpeggios and clever production Greenwood is famous for. As you’d expect from an album so inherently collaborative, some tracks hit better than others.
But you can feel the earnestness of the artists’ intent - a message about loving thy neighbor - there’s a lot of variety to appreciate, and the modernization of what sound like old folk melodies is exciting. These attributes come together to make this feel like a very special album well worth the listen.