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Live at Other Music: Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band (Episode #16) But that is just hype, the real story was the performance, which, especially in the confines of our tiny space, was simply stunning. Raw and passionate and hauntingly beautiful, that band ran through much of their new album and added in a few surprises, and I don't think that anyone who saw the show could have been unmoved. I for one was converted into a believer, and I hope you enjoy the film as much as we all do. Let us know what you think, and thanks for watching! -Josh Madell Watch Conor Oberst "Live at Other Music"» Upcoming Live at Other Music Episodes: Watch earlier episodes of Live at Other Music with Stephin Merritt (Backstage with Other Music), Antipop Consortium, Blood on the Wall, The Dirtbombs, My Brightest Diamond, Blood on the Wall, Black Lips, Taken By Trees, Toumani Diabate, White Williams, Richard Hawley, Celebration, Vampire Weekend, The Clean, Tinariwen, No Age, and St. Vincent
Free song download of "Modern by Nature's Reward," from Jonas Reinhardt's self-titled album (coming out November 10th on Kranky). The referencing of Krautrock has become somewhat of a tired staple for a certain ilk of electronic producers and rock bands lately, but when the records are as good as Reinhardt's, bring 'em on! The California-based musician takes the droning, meditative parts of Ash Ra Tempel and Tangerine Dream, throws in a little bit of motorik thump, and sprinkles it all with psych vibes and John Carpenter cinematics. Sure, it might sound retro but there's nothing dated about it, instead Reinhardt's album is a fresh and organic take on the classics.
A digital advance release of an album I think we can safely assume is going to be huge (the CD comes out in January), Vacilando Territory Blues is apparently J.Tillman's fifth album, but this is the first we've heard of him and we'll no doubt be seeking out the other four post-haste. He's recently joined Fleet Foxes as a drummer and vocal harmonist, so his profile is likely to rise here in the near future. Like his new bandmates, Tillman's sound is certainly steeped in any number of late-sixties and early-seventies singer-songwriter and country-folk influences, but at no time does he come off as being slavishly indebted to them. Apart from a couple of "Tonight's the Night" type slow burners, Tillman's mainly trafficking in very hushed and exceedingly well-crafted songs of the sort we used to hear from Iron and Wine, till he made his big AOR leap. It's really tough to make this sort of thing memorable, but like Bon Iver and Vetiver, two other acts whose work this album reminds me of a bit, Tillman has a firm grasp and understanding of the kinds of dynamics needed to make a song stick in your craw. And it also helps that he really knows how to sing; I'm telling you this album is going to have folks positively swooning. A very beautiful piece of work that could easily inspire the same sort of devotion people have been feeling for For Emma this past year. -Michael Klausman
You just can't get away from Christian Fennesz at the moment what with re-issues appearing left right and center and the run-up to his imminent new album causing early coronaries in the bespectacled beard brigade. Interesting then that this collaboration album should also appear, creating even more speculation as to exactly what the laptop-fondler's next album is going to sound like. Here he appears in cahoots with Radian stick-man Martin Brandlmayr and bassist Werner Dafeldecker, both of whom add a considerable instrumental weight to the record. Working with "fragments" of compositions, re-composed by each member and then woven into a coherent whole (no I don't understand either) what we are left with is a lower-case, drifting soundscape, punctuated by snapshots of Americana, classical music or electronic noise. Occasionally your mind will latch onto some riff or another, maybe bedded in with a cloud of Fennesz-patented ambient sound, but before long the track has disappeared altogether giving room for another element to appear briefly. It makes for something of a fragmented listening experience, but gradually (and given that the opening track is a whopping 33 minutes in length) it all begins to fall into place. The final tryptich of shorter pieces are denser and vaguely more composed but equally as intriguing, delving further into the Earth-like windswept Americana you could just about make out from the opening cut. Fabulous experimental music showing further promise from the Radian-curated Mosz label -- recommended! -John Twells
This coming February will mark the three-year anniversary of the tragic passing of James "J Dilla" Yancey, the brilliant hip-hop producer who died on the eve of the release of his now classic instrumental album, Donuts. For all of his colleagues, fans and friends, it was all the more tragic because Donuts was a creative peak for Dilla and leaves one wondering what other masterpieces he had in store down the line. For Madlib this must be especially hard. They were definitely kindred spirits and their amazing collabo album as Jaylib still sounds as forward thinking as it did four-and-a-half years ago. These two instrumental tributes to his late friend finds Madlib paying tribute to the innovative sound Dilla created throughout his life. Both albums are dense sound and beat collages, where snippets of Dilla's vocals float in and out of the murky boom-bap beats. For Beat Konducta releases, they sound extremely focused and, like Donuts, sequenced for a seamless start-to-finish listen. On Dil Cosby Suite, Madlib mostly revisits the mellow, soul-jazz funky sound of Dilla's 90's production work for Slum Village, Tribe, and Pharcyde. Tracks such as "Floating Soul (Peace)," "Get Dollaz" and "Shades of Pete (Super)" have that sunny, contact high warmth to all of that era's production. During tracks like "The Get Over" and "King Chop (Top Line)," we hear Madlib flex his MPC muscle, chopping up Gary Wilson and Buzzcocks(!) samples in tribute to the king of the MPC.
Dil Withers Suite is the spacier of the two. While it still has the same head-snap drums of Cosby, it's less of an obvious "tribute," sounding more like a Jaylib record, without Dilla's rhymes. The spacey, Mooged-out thump of "Blast" and "Detroit Playaz (Gator Walk)"'s muted stutter-step snare cracks sound perfectly suited for Dilla's jagged flow. These are probably my favorite Beat Konducta releases so far and it's good to hear Madlib deliver a grimey one, ever so slowly inchin' into the ranks as one of the best who ever did it. -Duane Harriott
Be thankful indeed for a righteous forty-track overview of the best seventies work of Johnny Clarke, easily one of the most versatile singers in all of reggae history. This is the kind of stuff I never get tired of, it's so totally compulsive I could listen to it all month. Clarke had a curious reception in Jamaica; on the one hand he had some massive hits and is widely acknowledged as laying the groundwork for the deejay culture in the eighties, yet at the same time he found his career repeatedly stymied as he was denied spots on important bills, and as he continued to issue sides they would inexplicably never show up on the radio despite being killer tracks. Clarke's biggest hit was a cover of the Bob Marley album track "No Woman, No Cry" (included here), a tune Marley had deliberately declined to issue as a single to drive album sales. Clarke subsequently believed his apparent blacklisting was due to payback for that cover, forcing him to abandon Jamaica for a new start in London. Regardless, his range and facility across a wide swath of material is superb, at his most mysterious he's the dreadest of dreads, and yet his lover's material is totally sweet and sprite. Truly the consummate roots artist in every respect, dealing with the multiplicity of man engaged in politics, love, religion, and day-to-day struggle. Like I said, forty tracks, and not a single stinker. -Michael Klausman
(K)no(w)here is the third album for Wilderness, and a wildly more ambitious record than their debut and 2005's Vessel States. Written for a New York art exhibition, the record's forty-one minutes are handed over to one arching piece, split with eight index points. This will likely send shivers down the spines of many rock fans, bringing to mind the pretentious excesses of progressive rock but don't be scared -- for once this works coming across as coherent without being too alienating. The long passages of instrumental, almost post-rock phrasing give the perfect bedding for James Johnson's histrionics and while this might not sound so much like the PiL-lite post-punk of the band's earlier releases, it still has enough similarities to win over the band's core fanbase. The group, however, have definitely matured, and come to an intellectual and compositional peak with long-form pieces such as "Chinese Whisperers" and "Soft Cage" -- slow, pensive tracks with a menace and atmosphere usually set aside for other genres. Comparisons to Spiderland-era Slint could even be made, or occasionally to Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden as the songs get caught up in a wash of harmonic pads and echoing percussion. Deep and solid stuff from a band who have realized their heady ambitions -- not an easy listen by any means, but a worthwhile one without a doubt. -John Twells
There hasn't even been enough time for the first volume of Gozalo! to wear out its welcome on my stereo, and already Vampisoul delivers a follow-up that's just as good! Once again, the 28-track compilation dives into late '60s Peruvian boogaloo, focusing on the output of producer Manuel A. Silvestre's MAG label, a driving force behind the rise of the shing-a-ling in this South American country. You won't find names like Joe Bataan or Ray Baretto listed on the back cover, but it's a thrill to discover lesser-known artists creating music that's just as fiery and ecstatic as their Nuyorican counterparts. The Peruvian's approach is a little more freestyle and jazzy with less of an American soul influence, but what results is absolutely soulful. There's no lack of rolling pianos, blistering horns, Afro-Cuban rhythms, and plenty of spirited vocalists and performers including Mario Allison, Tito Chicoma, Nilo Espinosa, Nico Estrada, Alfredo Linares, Silvestre Montes, Charlie Palomares, and Willie Marambio. Lovers of the first volume of Gozalo!, boogaloo and Latin music in general shouldn't hesitate. If these tracks don't get your toes tapping, you don't have a pulse. -Gerald Hammill
Electronic pop, while not hard to find, is devilishly hard to get right. City Centre Offices has been away for a year now but was always a stronghold of good electronic pop music, most notably releasing the nu-gaze bliss of Ulrich Schnauss onto the world. Now they have returned with this sophomore album from German artist Miwon (a/k/a Hendrik Kroz) and probably their best release in a long while. Taking cues from the early days of the label, with definite pointers to the best work of Herrmann and Kleine and blending this with the kind of good-natured electroid pop popularized by DNTEL (or more obviously his Postal Service project), Kroz has definitely arrived at a sound he feels confident with. His debut album was a slightly uneasy mix of techno paradigm and pop reverie, but here we find the more obvious techno references pushed to one side allowing the drifting melodies and Fleetwood Mac references (seriously) to shine through above all else. Shimmering, half-heard synth lines remind me of Japan, the choppy, cyclic percussion at times reminds me of the Field and the feel-good basslines and chiming leads bring to mind early Ulrich Schnauss. It's incredibly good natured stuff and does exactly what electronic pop should -- put a big smile on your face and allow you to disregard the rain pouring outside. Lovely. -John Twells
Rutger Zuydervelt, a/k/a Machinefabriek, is a hyper-prolific artist who has had upwards of forty albums released in the last four years. Although he certainly has his partisans and champions, I've personally had a hard time figuring out what all the fuss was about. And although I don't claim to have heard every single thing he's ever done, I've heard quite a bit, and I think that with Dauw I can finally see what the big deal is. It's easily the most engaging release I've heard of his yet, as there is a much more palpable human presence at work here that I feel was perhaps somewhat lacking in the past. With over forty albums he's clearly mastered the art of sound design, as every element is perfectly paced and balanced. Whereas previously I had always felt that there was a distancing sheen going on in his work that made it difficult for me to find an "in" to, that is in no way the case here as the emotional warmth doesn't seem simply manufactured, but deeply felt. At its best, as in the title track, a very subtle combination of organic and digital sounds, combined with the spectral volume of a choir, is capable of delivering an incredibly moving investment. This could very well be his masterpiece, as he truly seems to have found a transcendence that is more than worth your time, and I must say that I do look forward to his next forty albums to see if I'm right, or hopefully proved wrong. -Michael Klausman
In hindsight, this well regarded British Invasion-era folk-pop duo did the almost impossible task of making unabashedly sensitive soft rock that didn't come off as trite or dishonest. The centerpiece of the album is the title track, "A Summer Song." This lush, string-laden tune brings to mine the sensitive phrasing of the Everly's, so much so that the song hit the country music charts before landing in the pop charts. Their honest and sensitive renditions of "The Girl from Ipanema" and "September in the Rain" were miles away from the Pat Boone schlock, and the John Barry-like arrangements -- featuring soft, sweeping strings and swinging drums -- are stellar. Throw in lively, largely acoustic versions of "Yesterday's Gone" and "If I Had My Way," and you have a surprisingly solid example of '60s folk-pop that still holds up today. -Duane Harriott
What can I say? This is a totally essential set for anyone even remotely interested in Minimalism, and despite the extraordinary success and range of Philip Glass' career in the years since its inception, it will still probably be the work that will secure his place in history and make it impossible for haters to dismiss. Composed between the years of 1971-74, Music for 12 Parts was the culmination of ideas he'd been developing since the '60s, and it is a work of extraordinary mathematical precision and hallucinatory repetition. Where his later music conjures the clean lines and fine craftsmanship of a luxury automobile, Music for 12 Parts brings to mind the obsessive architecture of a monumental Sol Lewitt sculpture or drawing of interlocking grids and shapes self generating into space. Four discs, a mere twenty dollars, you need it. -Michael Klausman
The third collaboration between Cluster/Harmonia man and all round Kraut-rock grandad Hans-Joachim Roedelius and electronica producer Tim Story, Inlandish is possibly their most focused work to date. Roedelius (who is now 72... crikey) finished his part of the collaboration in a mere ten days, but this set the scene for Story to work his magic slowly over a period of five months, weaving together Roedelius' synthesizer and piano parts into a coherent whole. As with many recent Roedelius projects, little touches the genre-defining heights of his work with Cluster, Harmonia or Brian Eno but at times on Inlandish we are reminded of his former glories. As the bubbling analogue sounds emerge from beneath piano parts or environmental sounds, it becomes obvious you're listening to someone with a great deal of experience. Simplistic wallpaper-ambient or "mere" new-age this is not, rather Inlandish is an album of beautiful melancholy vignettes. It might not be as cutting edge as it once might have been, but Roedelius still has it, and at 72 how many musicians can you really say that about? -John Twells
A pretty remarkable, if slightly flawed, debut album from seventeen-year-old Texas singer-songwriter Ariel Abshire, give her a few years and she'll no doubt be headlining Town Hall. The best songs on here demonstrate a classic timelessness and maturity that totally belie her young age. As to the rest, well, maybe I'm just getting a little too old and cranky to relate, so let's go ahead and not hold my grumpiness against her. Honestly, you could call it a great album due to the title track alone, a near perfect song that brings to mind everything I love about Neko Case and Richard Hawley, sung with the raspy assuredness of Jackie DeShannon's early work. It's easily one of the singles of the year, making the whole album worth a listen, and Abshire's career one to watch. -Michael Klausman |
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