September 10, 2008

		OTHER MUSIC INTERN POSITION AVAILABLE Other Music is seeking an intern to help us grow our MP3 Download Web Store. Must be computer savvy and own a MacBook or MacBook Pro, with strong writing skills and, of course, a passion for music. We're looking for about 15 hours of work per week (some of this can be done from your home) in exchange for employee perks like discounts on your music purchases at the shop and concert guest lists, and college credit if approved through a school program. Please contact gerald@othermusic.com for more information.

		FEATURED NEW RELEASES Calexico Bird Show Claire Hamill Ribbons Okkervil River Augustus Pablo (Box Set) Lee Hazlewood B.T. Express Voices of East Harlem Les Baxter Marie Queenie Lyons The New Year Growing Tricky   Gnawa Home Songs (Various Artists) Portastatic Pontiak Fujiya & Miyagi ALSO AVAILABLE Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez Tindersticks Dungen Jesu Wovenhand LAST OF THE QUANTITY Diplo & Santogold

		SEP Sun 07 Mon 08 Tues 09 Wed 10 Thurs 11 Fri 12 Sat 13   WIN TICKETS TO ESG AT SANTOS PARTY HOUSE We thought original post-punk-funkers ESG were done for good, but the Sroggins are back, joined with a few new members, and will be hitting the stage at Santos Party House this Saturday! Other Music has one pair of tickets to give away to this must see concert. To enter, email tickets@othermusic.com. The winner will be notified on Friday. Good luck! SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 SANTOS PARTY HOUSE: 100 Lafayette Street, Ground Fl South (btwn Walker & White Streets) NYC

		SEP Sun 14 Mon 15 Tues 16 Wed 17 Thurs 18 Fri 19 Sat 20   SUPERSTAR DJ RECORD FAIR THIS SUNDAY This Sunday, September 14, the Brooklyn Flea is presenting its first "Superstar DJ Record Fair." The concept is known musicians and DJs selling records from their own collections. They'll also all take a turn spinning on the Flea's sound system, and every record they play will be on sale on the spot (i.e. "What's that track? I want it"). Other Music's own Duane, Mikey and Rob will be there selling along with DFA Records, DJ Rupture, Def Jux, EAT Records, DJs db and Dara (old-school rave and jungle), DJ Rekha (Basement Bhangra), McBoing Boing (Rubulad, etc.), and Brooklyn Beat. So come on by and dig through the crates. BROOKLYN FLEA: 176 Lafayette Avenue (between Clermont and Vanderbilt Avenue) Fort Greene, Brooklyn 10AM to 5PM / Rain or Shine

		SEP Sun 21 Mon 22 Tues 23 Wed 24 Thurs 25 Fri 26 Sat 27   OTHER MUSIC IN-STORE PERFORMANCE CALEXICO: Tuesday, September 23 @ 9PM Joey Burns and John Convertino (a/k/a Calexico) will be stopping by the store to play an intimate set in support of their fantastic new album, Carried to Dust. OTHER MUSIC: 15 East 4th Street NYC Free Admission / Limited Capacity

		$14.99 CD $14.99 LP $9.99 MP3   CALEXICO Carried to Dust (Quarterstick) "Victor Jara's Hands" "Fractured Air (Tornado Watch)" Calexico are one of the few bands that I have enjoyed at every stage of their career. While they have retained much of their southwestern flare throughout their 12 years as a musical group, they have added a little subtle something at every step of the way. From their largely instrumental duo-debut Spoke, to 2006's J.D. Foster produced indie-pop nugget Garden Ruin, Joey Burns, John Convertino and co. have been consistent in mixing the familiar with the unfamiliar in an alchemic way that evokes mirages amidst the arid landscape of their hometown of Tucson, AZ: their music surfs on sand and runs without legs. On Carried To Dust, the band seems to have returned to a duo-plus-other-musicians formula found on their work before 2001's EP Even My Sure Things Fall Through; perhaps the process of adding rather than taking away is a better modus operandi for the group. Whatever the reason, the results are fresh and fantastic. In addition to the members of Calexico's touring band for the past decade or so, Burns and Convertino enlisted pals Doug McCombs (Tortoise, Brokeback, etc.), Iron and Wine's Sam Beam, Pieta Brown, Amparo Sanchez (Amparanoia), and Willie Nelson's harp blower Mickey Raphael to resurrect and improve upon the cinematic sound that fans have come to love in their music. Among the highlights are the lushly orchestrated anthem "The News About William," reminiscent of Glen Campbell doing Jimmy Webb. Calexico has always excelled at doing more with less, particularly with respect to chords, and Carried To Dust reestablishes Burns as a master of the fine art of being musically succinct. "Victor Jara's Hands" is a perfect example of this skill. Incidentally, Jara was a Chilean singer/activist who was ultimately murdered for his political beliefs after the U.S. sanctioned coup of that country -- employing three chords continues to be the perfect avenue for calling out political corruption. The Gram/Emmylou-inspired "Slowness" features Brown's gorgeous and longing voice and a lilting pedal steel solo played by Paul Niehaus. The Latin-tinged, heavily grooving "Inspiracion" sees lead vocal duties taken over by multi instrumentalist Jacob Valenzuela and Sanchez = superb! McCombs adds space atmosphere to the album's creeping closer "Contention City," and stops just short of setting the controls for the heart of the sun -- a perfect way to close a collection of songs by a band that continues to evolve and surprise. Viva Calexico! [KC]

		$13.99 CD $9.99 MP3   BIRD SHOW Untitled (Kranky) "Two Organs and a Dumbek" "Berimbau" From the excellent opening moment of Bird Show's third full-length, you get a sense that things have changed. What was once a solo project of Ben Vida (Town & Country), Bird Show has now turned into a minimalist-psych-ethno five-piece jam band and that's not a bad thing at all. On the contrary, one of the best yet most underrated projects on Chicago's Kranky label seems to only get better with every outing. The talents of Adam Vida, Greg Davis, Robert Lowe (Lichens), and percussion extraordinaire Michael Zerang helps to bring a fuller, richer, and more fully realized journey into territory that Vida had only sketched out previously. Effected choral vocals float throughout the sparse and intimate landscapes, filled with bells, chimes, organs, synths, dumbeks, mbira, harp, berimbau, wood flute, guitar, and shakers -- simple song titles mainly list the instruments used on each piece. As before the influences of Steve Reich (think Music for 18 Musicians), Moondog, Tony Conrad, and world music still apply, yet the vocal infusion pairs him with other wilderness bands like Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective, and new school minimalist Nico Muhly. Mellow yet engaging, soothing with subtle rhythmic grooves, it's one of the most honestly refreshing records I've hear in awhile. Worth the investment if you're into any or all of the aforementioned. Recommended. [DG]

		$21.99 CD $9.99 MP3   CLAIRE HAMILL Voices (Esoteric) "Afternoon In A Wheatfield" "Harvest" Okay, I'm going to let you in on one of the dirty little secret's regarding a certain strand of popular indie rock and electronic music; it's heavily New Age. Does anybody talk about this? I'm sure some super-annoying grad student is writing a dissertation on the subject as we speak, but here's my argument; Pop Ambient=New Age, Panda Bear=New Age, Type records=New Age, High Places=New Age, Beaches and Canyons-era Black Dice=New Age, Dial Records=New Age, Growing=New Age, etc., etc. I'm sure I could go on, and granted none of the above mentioned is really that far into 'Hearts of Space' territory, but still, you've gotta see what I'm saying. Another thing, any record collector worth his salt always checks the used New Age bins, that's where some of the weirdest s**t is always filed. I for one pulled my first Cluster LP out of a New Age bin, not to mention albums by John Fahey, Arthur Russell, Brian Eno, Popol Vuh, and any number of bizarro private press jobs we'll be seeing reissued by Creel Pone sometime in the immediate future. So what I'm getting at is, just because Claire Hamill's 1986 masterpiece Voices topped the UK New Age charts for weeks doesn't mean you should hold it against her. If anything it's more relevant than ever, and could likely be a touchstone album for certain listeners just the way another ground breaking album from 1986 with which it shares a certain sensibility is, Arthur Russell's World of Echo. Hamill has been a presence on the UK music scene since 1971 when she was an extremely talented seventeen-year-old that managed to score a contract to cut albums for Island Records. She made a string of idiosyncratic singer-songwriter records through the seventies that have a cult following, and along the way has garnered comparisons to Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush, toured with John Martyn, embraced progressive rock, signed another deal with Ray Davies' short lived label, and recorded with everyone from King Crimson to Vangelis. None of which really explains how she arrived at her startling Voices album, whose sole instrument is Hamills' voice, painstakingly overdubbed and effected to create a vast palette of choral and percussive patterns. Layer upon layer of wordless harmonizing that conjures billowy islands of air, with repetitive hooks that harken back to the deceptively simple sounds of sixties pop like the Beach Boys, and onward to the brash joy of Swahili choral music. There is a timely ecological imperative at play here as well, as the record begins with "Awaken-Lark Rise" and then cycles through title descriptors such as "Tides," "Moss," "Leaf Fall" and "Icicle Rain," before closing the album with "Sleep," but the song's architecture is at no time cliched or simply programmatic. One of the most welcome ideas in forward thinking indie rock of the past eight or nine years is that the voice can be its own separate instrument, that it doesn't simply have to convey words with a specific meaning. We've seen this especially with artists associated with Brooklyn and Manhattan: Animal Collective and Panda Bear, Gang Gang Dance, Black Dice, High Places, White Magic, and Rings amongst many others. I've no idea if any of these artists have ever heard Voices or not, but I think any of them would immediately notice a shared sensibility with it. Like the aforementioned World of Echo, it's an extremely personal vision crafted with the barest of means, a deft destruction of pop conventions that remains infinitely engaging. [MK]

		$9.99 CD   RIBBONS Surprise Attacks (Electric Lights) "Inclusion" "Restraint" Ribbons are a duo of Brooklyn transplants from California who come forth with one of the most promising rock debuts I've heard in a long while. Consisting of vocalist/guitarist/bassist Jenny Logan and drummer/backing vocalist Sam Roudman, they deliver the raw, stripped intensity of early Factory Records stalwarts like the Durutti Column and Joy Division while harnessing the propulsion, angularity, and energy of a group like Josef K. Though this sound has most certainly been reexamined by plenty of bands, it's refreshing to hear Logan's distinctly female take on what has always been a male-dominated style, both vocally and instrumentally. Roudman ends up being the secret weapon, though, keeping things interesting with his wild, propulsive, Keith Moon-meets-Stephen Morris style, while his roots playing in metal bands definitely shine through in his double-time bass drum attacks and odd, wailing vocal harmonies. Over the course of 35 minutes, the group play through variations on a theme, keeping the intensity high and the tension taut throughout. These two are worth keeping an eye on -- definitely recommended! [IQ]

		$14.99 CD $14.99 LP $9.99 MP3   OKKERVIL RIVER The Stand Ins (Jagjaguwar) "Lost Coastlines" "Calling and Not Calling My Ex" The hyper-literate Okkervil River's latest thematic album, The Stand Ins, picks up where 2007's Stage Names left off. This sequel continues with tales of celebrity and the trials and tribulations of how to stay true to oneself once you appear in the Sunday New York Times. The songs are not only from the perspective of the famous musician or actress but also of those whose lives they affect -- fans, ex-lovers, etc. The question is how much verisimilitude is in these lyrics? The band concludes that the vacuous nature of fame forces one to create a sort of schizophrenia where you are one person on stage and to your adoring audience and another that is the reality...or is it? Sometimes this album feels like a play within a play, or more like a musical within an album. After 10 years of a revolving line-up, are the band members simply stand-ins themselves? Nothing illuminates this more than the marketing campaign they employ to promote the album -- asking their favorite musicians to record covers of each of their new songs. Check 'em out on You Tube. But back to the music... "Starry Stairs" (a bonus track on Stage Names) and the TONY® number "Blue Tulip" represent different sides of the same coin. The former about the price of fame -- the lack of privacy and the loss of self that comes with it ("They ask for blood"); the latter from an obsessed fan's perspective. Then there's the orchestral "On Tour with Zykos" about a bitter groupie who regrets hooking up with a band member. "Pop Lie" is, of course, a poppy song about how lyrics are crafted to manipulate the listener and is reminiscent of the New Pornographers, a band they have toured with. Not surprisingly, A.C. Newman recorded one of the covers. "Calling and Not Calling My Ex" is a sweet yet heartbreaking song about a dude who is left behind when his lady moves to pursue her nascent acting career. The story seems so authentic I couldn't help but wonder if Will Sheff was singing from experience. The alt-country "Singer Songwriter" is a pointed diatribe against a pretentious hipster "singer-songwriter" who can afford to live a certain lifestyle because they are from money. The Beirut-sounding closer "Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979" is this album's "Savannah Smiles," which was about the porn star Shannon Wilsey, who killed herself at the age of 23. (Bruce Wayne Campbell is the real name of Jobriath, and according to Okkervil River, he was "sick of singing -- sick of singing of the same old songs.") The outcomes of many of their songs are dreary but I hope that Okkervil River never succumb to the disillusionment of the protagonists they create. [TL]

		$45.99 CDx4+DVD $29.99 MP3 Volumes 1-4 $9.99 MP3 Volume 1 $9.99 MP3 Volume 2 $9.99 MP3 Volume 3 $9.99 MP3 Volume 4   AUGUSTUS PABLO The Rockers Story: The Mystic World of Augustus Pablo (Shanachie) "Baby I Love You So" Jacob Miller "Vibrate On" Augustus Pablo & Lee Perry As the story goes, a young Augustus (born Horace Swaby) was so entranced by the soundsystems he heard in his neighborhood that he could barely focus on anything else. His parents were clearly not happy with his intense interest in music, viewing it as a path to nowhere, but there was little they could do to stop his drive. One day in a chance encounter with a high school friend, he was introduced to the melodica, a simple wind instrument with a rudimentary keyboard commonly used in helping children learn to play the piano. Pablo would soon make this basic almost toy-like instrument his signature, creating a deeply haunting, otherworldy sound that was unlike anything heard before it. Pablo is also credited as being a very early pioneer of dub music and his collaborations with King Tubby created some of the genre's finest sides including the seminal King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown album, widely regarded as a masterpiece. But he was more than a dub innovator. Unlike Tubby, Scratch and others, Pablo was also an accomplished musician. A towering figure in reggae and a natural musical mystic, you can hear wisdom in the patient attention to detail and his contemplative tone. This exhaustive 4-CD & DVD collection attempts to show the tremendous range and beauty of this man's work -- from his early session recordings with some of the finest producers of the day including Bunny Lee, Derrick Harriott, Keith Hudson and Gussie Clark, to his own instrumental and vocal productions in rockers reggae and dub, on up to digital dancehall in the eighties and nineties. (Early on, Pablo's melodica and keyboard session work helped to usher in the "Far East" sound, typified by hard, staggered, rumbling drums that are offset by a minor key melody.) The opener of this set, "East of the River Nile," begins with large snappy drums and bloated bass lines that get sent through the echo chamber while Pablo's smoky keyboards and melodica passages lull you into a trance. Jacob Miller's "Baby I Love You So," which was later deconstructed to its bass elements as the aforementioned King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, is a lumbering choppy steppers classic with Miller's crooning riding over the staggered rhythm. There is a break several times in the song where everything momentarily comes crashing down in staccato thumps before picking up and chugging along again. Pablo was able to make something sound so rough, weighty and jagged while at the same time being meditative and hypnotic. The seven-minute "Drums of the King" sounds as if it were recorded late one night at someone's house. It opens with nyabinghi drumming pushing and pulling as trudging melodica lines come in and out. Occasional reverb effects give it an airy space and then slowly a gently plucked instrument enters and seems to tell a story in great lyrical detail. In spite of his enormous amount of vocal productions, Pablo considered himself to be first and foremost a musician. (Sadly, he passed away in 1999 at the age of 40, the cause, a rare nerve disorder that had been with him for most of his life.) The four CDs in the box set are loosely divided into three categories: the first two discs are more roots reggae and dub while the third showcases some lesser known vocalists and more digital dancehall, and the fourth disc contains many rare and unreleased tracks, versions, disco-mixes and dubs. The DVD features two live performances in Japan and a beautiful impromptu performance next to a river somewhere in Jamaica with Hugh Mundell on vocals and Pablo on guitar and melodica, as well as a short interview. Suffice to say, this set is highly recommended. [GA] All four volumes are available for purchase together or as separate volumes on Other Music Digital. Does not include download of the DVD.

		$49.99 CDx2   LEE HAZLEWOOD Strung Out on Something New (Rhino Handmade) "I'm Blue" "She Comes Running" Oh, hell yes. Rhino Handmade truly delivers with Strung Out on Something New, a 2-CD collection of American master songwiter/producer/performer Lee Hazlewood's three solo albums for the Reprise label -- 1964's The N.S.V.I.P.s (Not So Very Important People), 1965's Friday's Child, and 1968's Love And Other Crimes -- along with a treasure trove of bonus cuts from various singles not only by Hazlewood, but also showcasing his productions for the likes of Jack Nitzsche, Duane Eddy, the Wildcats, Sanford Clark, the Whisk Kids, and even a young, pre-Rat Pack Dean Martin. The N.S.V.I.P.s is a personal favorite among all of Hazlewood's LPs -- a mix of stripped down country pop tunes the man does so well about the seedier sides of small-town life, each introduced by a series of hilarious, biting spoken monologues and backed by longtime collaborator Al Casey's 12-string guitar. Take for instance the intro to "I Had a Friend" in which he riffs on the permanent bachelor status of Tarzan and his relationship to Jane -- "Did you know Tarzan ain't never paid no income tax? I can see that poor girl now saying 'Tarzan, you'd better pay your income tax or they gonna come git ya..." The result is one of Lee's most personal sounding records due to both its sonic intimacy and by showcasing the offbeat humor of its creator -- it also doesn't hurt that the songs are some of Lee's best. Disc one continues with Friday's Child, backed by a full band with a bit of an electric country rock sound, with songs akin to those on his MGM recordings recently reissued by Water -- among those tunes is "Houston," a song that would be sung not only by Lee but also by Sanford Clark (whose version is here), and then Dean Martin (whose version is not). If you've ever wanted to hear Lee make a rockabilly record, this is about as close as you'll ever get in his solo discography -- and yes, it's great. Disc two features Love and Other Crimes, the 1968 LP he made after he found success with Nancy Sinatra on the Nancy & Lee album (which, sadly and frustratingly, is NOT included here, despite being a Reprise release). Elements of the Nancy & Lee LP's psychedelic post-Spector production and arrangements definitely pop up on this record, particularly in the heavily reverbed vocals and drums; as usual though, Lee's own record was a much more personal affair, stripped of the strings and flourishes of the Sinatra productions, but as intense as ever. The second half of disc two is essentially a compilation of Hazlewood productions rather than tracks in which he performed -- equally as important, and providing a nice stylistic variety, from moody instrumentals to swinging girl-group sounds to groovy pop. The collection closes with a series of great tracks reuniting Lee with early collaborator Duane Eddy, including the tongue-in-cheek "This Guitar Was Made for Twangin." Limited and numbered to only 5000 copies, this is without question one of Rhino Handmade's crowning achievements thus far, and serves as further proof of Hazlewood's status as an American genius of songcraft. If you're a Lee fan, you know what to do. Anyone else would be wise to check out some sound clips and take the title's advice -- I can't think of a better drug to get strung out on than a strong hit of Hazlewood. Highest Recommendation!! [IQ]

		$9.99 LP   B.T. EXPRESS Do It Til You're Satisfied (Scepter) "Do It Til You're Satisfied" Here it is! One of the most influential funk albums of the '70s, a classic through and through, containing one of the musical blueprints of modern urban music of the next 35 years. B.T. Express was a tight nine-piece funk band from Brooklyn (B.T. stands for Brooklyn Trucker) who were popular on the NYC club circuit, and got signed in 1974 to fledgling East Coast imprint Scepter. The label's production head was Mel Cheren, who, noticing New York's burgeoning underground discotheque scene, enlisted the help of producer Tom Moulton to remix the title track for the city's discos. The result was a six-minute jam that slayed the dance floors and became the first crossover disco hit, cracking the top 5 in the summer of '74. The album sat on top of the R&B charts for weeks, selling nearly a million copes nationally. Thirty-four years later, it's still a classic of the genre. The gritty, horn-fueled funk of B.T. Express was an update on the classic JB's sound, but a bit denser, implementing more "sophisticated" arrangements for the horns. The grooves were minimal in execution, but thick with Randy Muller's sweeping strings; the added dimension of female vocal co-leads from Barbara Joyce Lomas took the sound up a notch, sonically. There were no ballads to speak of on the album, every song being constructed for the floor. And while it doesn't sound like much, it changed the game dramatically; Earth, Wind and Fire, Barry White, KC and the Sunshine Band and even James Brown adjusted accordingly. The JB's even went as far as covering "Express," rechristening it "Monorail". But where this album found the most longevity is within hip-hop circles. Since the days of up-rockin' in the mid '70s, breakbeats from "Express" "I Like It" and the title track found their way into the crates of everyone from Kool Herc and Bambaataa to Cut Chemist and Diplo. EPMD famously sampled two tracks from this record for the hip-hop classics, "So Whatcha Sayin'" and "Get the Bozack," and DMX, 3rd Bass, Dr. Dre and DJ Quik have all sampled tunes from this album as well. Although B.T. Express could never quite match the quality and impact of their debut, they remained a successful disco-funk band of the '70s. Cheren eventually left Scepter to start West End Records, one of the most influential dance labels of all time, and was a major investor in a little club called the Paradise Garage. Moulton became one of the sonic architects of disco and the inventor of the 12-inch record. Muller went on to form Brass Construction and SKYY, two influential NYC disco bands, and also was a major player and architect of the NY boogie-funk sound of the '80s...but it all started right here. Any fan of great black music who isn't familiar with this album, should get themselves acquainted with this phenomenal record. 15 outta 10! [DH]

		$12.99 LP   VOICES OF EAST HARLEM Can You Feel It (Just Sunshine) "Can You Feel It" Can You Feel It is the third and final album from this under-acknowledged singing ensemble made up of teens from East Harlem, whose most famous record is their debut, Right On Be Free. This album is regarded as one of the most successful fusions of protest soul and gospel, the choir singing messages of social empowerment and black pride. By '74, the 20-piece group had shrunk to 10 and, after switching labels, they had adopted a smoother, slightly slicker sound courtesy of their producers, Curtis Mayfield and Leroy Hutson. This is by no means a bad thing. If anything, Can You Feel It still retains the attitude of Right On, but the sound was updated for the funkier times, with lots of focus on the talented female lead vocals of Gerri Griffin and Monica Burress. The title track and "Take a Stand" sounds a lot like the mid-tempo soul-funk of Rufus and Chaka Khan and AWB, but with more socially conscious lyrics. VOEH never recorded an album again after this one and they never quite got their due. Still, their three records are examples of some of the best front-to-back albums of the era. [DH]

		$9.99 LP   LES BAXTER Hells Belles (Sidewalk) "Hot Wind" Not to be confused with the all female AC/DC cover band, this is a vinyl-only reissue of a rare soundtrack to an even rarer biker exploitation film courtesy of Roger Corman, the godfather of sexploitation. Corman use to churn 'em out for the midnight cinema theaters around the country and Les Baxter, the king of space-age exotica, used to score almost all of them. One of the forefathers of the easy listening movement, Baxter was an established composer and arranger who made dozens of well-regarded exotic instrumental records, and at the same time, he was a major "gun for hire" composer for television shows, commercials and low-budget movies. Generally working under serious time constraints and with limited access to full orchestras, Baxter's soundtracks are a lesson in efficiency and are remarkable in their fusion of a wide range of musical styles. In typical Corman style, this is a soundtrack to a film about a female biker gang, with a libidinous nihilistic streak. Baxter composed in appropriately over-the-top style, coming up with sexy, funky, garage rock, orch-rock that has some of the heeeaviest breakbeats ever recorded. Visions of sexy girls gyrating, covered in body paint will immediately invade the space when listening to this one. It's all groovy organ, fuzz guitars and tambourine poundin' rhythms, complete with the funky-ass bass lines provided by the legendary session bassist Carol Kaye (I'd recognize that bass tone anywhere). Fun, fun, fun, and if you're a fan of the B-Music releases, Axelrod, or Gainsbourg's Melody Nelson LP, you'll find a lot to like here. [DH]

		$9.99 LP   MARIE QUEENIE LYONS Soul Fever (Deluxe) "See and Don't See" After putting out a few highly regarded (and collectible) Southern soul style 45s in the early to mid '60s, Marie Queenie Lyons' sole LP was released in 1970 and it is a true lost treasure of the genre. It's an all too familiar tale of a gifted vocalist getting lost in the shuffle amongst the glut of talented vocalists of the classic soul era. Inspired by James Brown and his stable of female singers, Soul Fever is an extraordinary album that touches upon all the signature styles of that time. You get soaring, heart-wrenching ballads like "We'll Cry Together," mod soul-steppers like her cover of "Fever," and gospel funk workouts like "See and Don't See." Through it all, Marie's hefty, gospel-tinged voice lends itself to the gritty Memphis soul of the time, and of course JB himself. Sadly, this album failed to ignite the charts and she eventually faded into obscurity, but Soul Fever has gained a rep in the rare groove circles as must-have material. Fans of Sharon Jones, Amy Winehouse, Aretha and Tina should familiarize themselves with this album. [DH]

		$14.99 CD $16.99 LP $9.99 MP3   THE NEW YEAR The New Year (Touch and Go) "The Company" "Seven Days and Seven Nights" A few months after the dissolution of seminal slowcore group Bedhead, the core members popped back up with a new album and a slightly re-organized band called the New Year. The differences between the two projects were initially kind of hard to spot. Bedhead had eeked out an amazing catalog of snail-paced melancholic epics, weaving three guitarists into slowly building bummed-out bliss. The type of music that you put on repeat when you wanted to spend the day staring at the ceiling. So when the New Year came with almost identically moody and stretched-out three guitar jams, it seemed like an arbitrary name change more than anything. Now nine years into it, TNY have out-lived their old band, and with their new self-titled album, the band's development is slowly starting to grow edges and take discernible form. While opening track "Folios" starts with a classic Bedhead-style build up of gorgeous interlocking melodies, gears switch slightly with each subsequent song. Lingering pianos and ebow-ed guitar lines are scattered on percussion-free numbers, and quicker-paced songs are almost upbeat and joyful, but still steeped in a familiar desperation. No longer staring at the ceiling all day, but having spent enough years doing so that it's always gonna be there a little bit. For a band that takes five years between records and ten years and at least three albums to feel okay about rocking out a little bit, opening up and taking chances is going to be harder fought, but it's the ridiculous amount of subtlety and deliberating that have become these guys calling card and made their voice clear over the years. Like your friend who everyone thinks over-explains things, but in the end you realize he actually had the best, most accurate, most considered articulation of what you were both trying to get at, he just took the long way around. [FT]

		$14.99 CD $14.99 LP $9.99 MP3   GROWING All the Way (The Social Registry) "Green Flag" "Lens Around" After a 7" and an exceptional mini-LP, Growing finally release a proper full length on the Social Registry. The duo have come a long way from do-it-yourself cassettes released from their former locale in the Pacific Northwest. They have released albums with Kranky and Animal Disguise along the way, and it seems that their partnership at the Social Registry since their move to Brooklyn is bringing Growing some much deserved recognition. Recently they opened for Boris, and their slightly more animated stage antics reflected their sound as it deepened rhythmically, with more touch pad and sequencing bringing their droning and ambient guitar effect work looping to varying heights. The songs undulate and roll with complex layers on All the Way, but their purposeful transitions make strides in the direction of highly refined walls of sound. From shimmering ambience to triumphantly uproarious poundings that push their sound to a nearly catchy melody, this album is not easy to categorize in the best way. The songs are unpredictable and organic, yet the end results of each track sounds meticulously crafted, as if each note were plotted out on a graph before turning the amps on. Currently there seems to be more and more musicians that could be categorized in a similar genre of drone, ambience, or noise, but Kevin Doria and Joe DeNardo of Growing do it extraordinarily well; each release is an excitedly anticipated affair. [BCa]

		$13.99 CD $9.99 MP3   TRICKY Knowle West Boy (Domino) "Bacative" "Slow" From the unlikely return of the Verve to the rebirth of Portishead, there's no denying that a '90s revival is in full swing. Now, one of the enigmas of that decade sets his sights back to the country that borne him. Tricky's eighth full-length, Knowle West Boy, is an homage to his breeding ground and feels like a career long mix-tape. Throughout he touches on the various genres that he's always has flirted with, the record effortlessly blending dancehall, funk, rock, hip-hop, electronica, and Afro-punk (or as his new label's name suggests, Brown punk). Tricky continues to connect mainly with the female voice and here he utilizes a total of six women vocalists to give life to his words, feelings, and emotions. Gone for the most part is the murky, druggy, claustrophobic atmosphere that made his early work memorable and, at the time, unlike anything we'd heard before. What Tricky sounds like now is a more assured, streamlined and secure alt black rock "band" with a mixture of live and programmed instruments, not so different from what N.E.R.D., Saul Williams, Santogold, TV on the Radio, and Mos Def are doing. Tricky still doesn't really sound like any of these American comparisons, however, as his range feels wider. While he is still referencing Tom Waits, the Specials, Public Enemy, the Cure, the Pop Group and '80s hip-hop, now everything feels the most anxious, present, and current. Yeah, it's been a long and rough road for Tricky but compared to his last few records, this one sounds like he's reconnected with something and is inspired again. Mostly self-produced with some assistance from Bernard Butler, he also enlisted chameleon producer on the rise Switch (Santogold) to mix the whole album. Knowle West Boy is recommended if you were a fan beyond his debut, Maxinquaye, and is his best work in years. [DG]

		$22.99 CD   VARIOUS ARTISTS Gnawa Home Songs (Accords Croises) "Aicha Hamdouchia" Hamid Kasri "Sidi Koumy" Collectif I'll admit that most Gnawan music I'd ever heard before my first listen to Gnawa Home Songs was of the region's funeral music -- intense, heavy drum music that forever changed the way I heard most percussion ensembles ever since. This CD, however, carries an entirely different intensity; there are no drums to be found here, but rather a series of deep chants overtop the low rumbles of the guembri bass lute and some of the tightest handclapping ever heard. The result is the closest thing I've heard that ties the sound of American blues directly back to its African roots, while vocally carrying a spiritual ancestry to gospel music. This collection represents songs of life rather than drums of death; it is beautifully recorded yet totally raw, capturing every throb of the guembri's gut strings, and the liner notes are fascinating and informative -- always another plus when it comes to ethnographic recordings. Definitely recommended to both world music heads and blues enthusiasts -- this cuts straight to the core and delivers. [IQ]

		$14.99 CDx2 $11.99 MP3   PORTASTATIC Some Small History (Merge) "Make You Up" "Not the Same" Merge Records founder Mac McCaughan has been churning out the hits as principle songwriter of Superchunk since "indie" was called "college rock", and from 1992 on, almost that entire time, McCaughan has been silently releasing solo material under the name Portastatic. Despite putting out as much, if not more, music than his "real band", consistent touring and nearly two decades of development, Portastatic never quite graduated from the dreaded side-project zone in most people's minds. That's really a shame, because for every melancholic guitar-bombast pop gem that Superchunk ever got to tape there have been two similarly indie-perfect Portastatic songs creeping around in the shadows, allowing Mac a vehicle to try something different, get really personal, open things up, close things up or just screw around with beautiful results. Some Small History collects two discs worth of non-album tracks, a dizzying blur of different songs, moods and experiments varying from lo-fi bedroom pop to disjointed noise. Presented in no particular order, early four track experiments collide into well-produced full-band ballads, quickly dissolving into more homemade songcraft. There's also a wealth of awesome covers to be found, including takes on Bob Dylan, Magnetic Fields, Hot Chip (??) and Galaxie 500. The sheer amount of music makes for some uneasy transitions, but the best moments of this collection remind us McCaughan (like many songwriters of the '90s indie glory days) shines brightest in the concentrated glory of the 7" single or flukishly brilliant compilation track. CD is limited to 3,000 copies. [FT]

		$13.99 CD $12.99 LP $9.99 MP3   PONTIAK Sun on Sun (Thrill Jockey) "Shell Skull" "Tell Me About" Pontiak immerse themselves in heavy, psychedelic guitar rock at the risk of being lumped in with a comparison to the Doors. The band's sound owes as much to their farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and nineties stoner rock as they do to the overly romanticized psychedelic scene of Los Angeles in the sixties. The group is comprised of three brothers, and they recorded this record in four days fresh after they put out a rather fetching split LP with Arbouretum. Although this is absolutely a guitar-based album with plenty of ear-catching slide guitar work, a few anthemic ballads interspersed with a healthy dose of washed out guitar fuzz even it all out to a rather enjoyable piece you will want to listen to all the way through. It wouldn't be a brother band if they didn't go into three part harmonies, and these harmonies carry transitions and slower songs through catalytic choruses. Filled to the brim with healthy servings of feedback, delay, and reverb, as well as plotting organ melodies, this comes highly recommended for fans of Wooden Shjips or just about anything in the Tee Pee Records catalogue. [BCa]

		$13.99 CD   FUJIYA & MIYAGI Lightbulbs (Deaf, Dumb & Blind) "Knickerbocker" "Sore Thumb" With chilled-out grooves that massage the ears and soul, the follow-up to last year's Transparent Things by this British quartet draws in elements of funk, hip-hop and rock, producing some seriously cool and deceptively danceable jams. Rock enthusiasts will appreciate the solid chemistry of the band while more electronically-inclined listeners will delight in the occasional splashes of juicy synth work. The lyrics are charming commentaries on daily life, for instance telling us to "look inside our encyclopedias" or committing to themselves to stop "pussyfooting around," but by the same token this approach also provides an avenue for more intimate expressions of emotion. Regular repetition of the lyrics lends itself well to the hypnotizing motorik rhythms that drive this album, while the instrumentation and harmonies tug at our heartstrings, creating a seamless fusion of dance-rock energy and trip-hop mood. [CP]

		$13.99 CD $9.99 MP3   LESSER GONZALEZ ALVAREZ Why Is Bear Billowing? (Carpark) "Narwhal Horn" Hailing from the same Baltimore scene that spawned Dan Deacon, but sounding nothing like him, Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez's debut album Why Is Bear Billowing? is a collection of beautiful and unassuming folk songs, free of Devendra's theatrics and the darkest suicidal depths of Nick Drake/Elliott Smith, which to some is going to come across as pedestrian while others will cherish the album for what it is: A splendid collection of pure, simple pop songs stripped bare. Very nice.

		$16.99 CD   TINDERSTICKS Hungry Saw (Beggars Banquet) "Yesterdays Tomorrows" Tindersticks aren't dead, they were just slimming down. Five years in the making, Hungry Saw sees the band trimmed down to about half its original size but with the bleak yet enchanting arrangements and Stuart Staples' bewitching baritone (he's as close to Scott Walker as anyone's ever come) intact. He croons on top of string-laden arrangements that are sparser than before, and perhaps more effective for it. We still want Staples to spontaneously bust into Walker's rendition of "Jacky" but that's a whole other story. Another great record by a very special band.

		$15.99 12"   DUNGEN Satt Att Se (Mexcian Summer) "Satt Att Se" Here's a new teaser 12" by Dungen, before the album drops in a few weeks. "Satt att se" continues in Gustav Ejstes' late 60s/early 70s tradition, with hazy, lazy psych of the orchestrated variety. Not much of a departure but the title track is a KILLER so why fix what's far from broken. Limited and on colored vinyl.

		$10.99 CD   JESU Why Are We Not Perfect? (Hydra Head) "Farewell" Why Are We Not Perfect? features the tracks from Jesu's out of print vinyl-only split with Eluvium, and some additional mixes. For those of you who missed out on the vinyl edition, this is a perfect opportunity to sample Justin Broadrick in full-on shoegaze mode. The swirling washes of processed guitar and electronics combined with a perfectly fitting low-end rumble make for one of the most complete and blissful Jesu experiences to date.

		$14.99 CD $14.99 LP $9.99 MP3   WOVENHAND Ten Stones (Sounds Familyre) "Horsetail" "Kingdom of Ice" What began as a side project for 16 Horsepower (R.I.P.) singer David Eugene Edwards has since become his calling card. Very few bands can match Wovenhand's emotionally-packed Southern Gothic wallop, and Ten Stones finds Edwards and Co. transcending the genre. Produced by Daniel Smith, it's a dynamic set that moves from the fiery "The Beautiful Axe" to the soaring orchestrations of "Iron Feather" to the Bacharach-esque -- albeit still dark -- "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars."

		$12.99 CD   DIPLO & SANTOGOLD Top Ranking (Mad Decent) "Guns of Brooklyn" ""Save Me" Aretha Franklin" Totally out of print, these are the last remaining copies that we've got in stock at Other Music, so get it while you can. The crafty DJ Diplo is at it again, together with his new running mate Santogold, as they reshape and sculpt some classics and lesser known songs for a mix that really is Top Ranking. Across 34 tracks, timelines become blurred in true 2008 style. Call it a mash-up, a Diplo dub, a mix CD, or whatever you like, from Sir Mix-a-Lot to Panda Bear, or Devo to Aretha Franklin, nothing is spared and nothing is sacred. Exclusive freestyles and tracks from the "next M.I.A.," Santogold, are slammed next to and float atop a variety of post-post-modern jams, from dancehall to new wave, and rock to nu rave. Plenty of re-mixers and vocalists make appearances including XXXchange, Amanda Blank, M.I.A., Jammer, Ratatat, Disco D, Switch, Radioclit, Movado and more. There's even a cover of LL Cool J's "I Need Love" and a remake of the Clash called "Guns of Brooklyn." Looking for that head-twisting mix that may cause you a heat stroke? This is it. As an odd bonus, check the hilarious interlude by Mark Ronson commenting on his formula for a hit. [DG]

		PHONE ORDERS Phone orders are accepted at (212) 477-8150 (ext. #2, mailorder) Mon-Fri, Noon - 7pm EST EMAIL For general inquiries or other information please email sales@othermusic.com. Do not reply to this message. REMOVE This is an automated list. If you would like to be removed for any reason, please visit: digital.othermusic.com/subscribe.php   THIS WEEK'S CONTRIBUTORS [GA] Geoff Albores [BCa] Brian Cassidy [KC] Kevin Coultas [DG] Daniel Givens [DH] Duane Harriott [IQ] Mikey IQ Jones [MK] Michael Klausman [TL] Tanya Leet [CP] Chris Polcyn [FT] Fred Thomas THANKS FOR READING - all of us at Other Music

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