Author Archives: Joseph Neff

Boston’s Drop Nineteens made a bit of a shoegaze stir in the early 1990s, releasing two full-lengths on Caroline in the USA. It was debut Delaware that set them on the course for fleeting success. Formed in 1990, by ’95 they were done, but in 2022 they sprang back into action with 4/5ths of the original lineup. Hard Light, their third album, came out late last year via the esteemed Wharf Cat label, and it’s a welcome return that eschews predictable retread.

There’s been a whole lot of talk about shoegaze lately, but the flat fact is that the style has endured and evolved since its emergence in the late 1980s. Largely a UK development, Drop Nineteens were something of a US exception, though concurrent Boston act Swirlies can be considered fellow specialists in the sustain.

If My Bloody Valentine set the baseline shoegaze sound, then Drop Nineteens were admirably not mistakable for that august act or for that matter any of the other bands that defined this post-punk-Alt-indie subgenre. Delaware, with it’s distinctive color cover photo of a handgun wielding young woman (by Boston artist Petrisse Brièl), stood a bit a apart from the standard sound (a little noisier, and sometimes quieter).

And so, Hard Light can be considered a proper extension of the debut, as the returning band consists of guitarist-vocalist Greg Ackell, guitarist-vocalist Paula Kelley, guitarist Motohiro Yasue, and bassist Steve Zimmerman, all contributors to Delaware. Drummer Pete Koeplin, who joined for second album National Coma, completes the lineup.

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Gospel is a music best served hot. With their new CD Good Old Way, the Legendary Singing Stars carry on this crucial African-American tradition, bringing the scorch across nine tracks recorded live at the 2022 Telluride Blues and Brews Festival. As the performance unwinds, the link between gospel and classique soul shines through with raw and loud clarity. The disc is out January 12 via the Music Maker Foundation.

Formed in 1960 in Brooklyn, NYC by Tommy Ellison and Billie Hardie and originally named The Five Singing Stars, this band’s endurance is a major achievement, particularly as they remain a powerhouse live unit. Having left to form his own group, Hardie returned to the Stars in 2008 per Ellison’s request, as he’d been diagnosed with lung cancer and was hoping Hardie would carry the torch. Renamed The Legendary Singing Stars to honor Ellison after his death, the founder’s spot is now filled by the 21-year-old Michael Boone, a member of the Stars since age 15.

Good Old Way delivers hot gospel complete with a dash of ensemble flair that deepens rather than dilutes the whole. There is electric guitar and bass, always a good sign, additions that make The Legendary Singing Stars not just a highly effective vocal group but also a rock solid band. As is immediately clear by looking at the tracklist, “The Walk Off” is an instrumental that closes this release.

Hot gospel is a music of high energy and deep conviction. Many hungry record hounds got their first taste of the stuff through the two Get Right With God compilations the Krazy Kat label released in 1983-’84. In the decades since, a wealth of material has emerged or been rediscovered, including the Arhoolie label’s blistering Sacred Steel comps, individual artist spotlights like Arhoolie’s Rev. Louis Overstreet collections, Dust-to-Digital’s Johnny L. Jones set The Hurricane That Hit Atlanta, and CaseQuarter’s Reverend Charlie Jackson collection God’s Got It (The Legendary Booker and Jackson Singles).

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South African pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim is riding an extensive late-career creative peak. His latest is 3, which releases January 26 as a triple vinyl or double compact disc set through Gearbox Records. It finds Ibrahim in exquisite form, both solo and in discourse with his trio featuring Cleave Guyton Jr. on flute, piccolo, and saxophone and Noah Jackson on double bass and cello. Played live with and without an audience, it is a record of abundant beauty and power.

Abdullah Ibrahim originally came to prominence as Dollar Brand (he converted to Islam and changed his name in 1968), first with the Jazz Epistles, a South African outfit that included trumpeter Hugh Masekela, alto saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi, trombonist Jonas Gwangwa, bassist Johnny Gertze, and drummer Makaya Ntshoko. Their Jazz Epistle- Verse One has been reissued on wax a few times in the 21st century and their entire body of work (14 pieces of sharply executed bop) can be found on the Jazz in Africa – Volume One CD and streaming as The Complete Recordings.

Gertze and Ntshoko joined Ibrahim for numerous trio dates including the 1960 set Dollar Brand Plays Sphere Jazz and notably, Duke Ellington Presents the Dollar Brand Trio, which was released by Reprise in 1964. Moving forward, Ibrahim piled up a sizable discography ranging from solo to larger ensembles, most productively in connection with the Enja label (African Sketchbook, African Space Program, Banyana – Children of Africa), but also ECM subsidiary JAPO (African Piano and Ancient Africa).

Through all his work, Ibrahim maintained an adventurousness that strengthened his relationships with avant-garde and spiritual players while also cultivating a melodious sensibility that was distinctly South African. Related to this approach, there are notable duo albums with drummer Johnny Dyani (Good News From Africa, Echoes of Africa, Enja), drummer Max Roach (Steams of Consciousness, Baystate), and Archie Shepp (Duets, Denon).

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Celebrating Michael Stipe on his 64th birthday. —Ed.

It was nearly four decades ago to the day that R.E.M. released their debut EP “Chronic Town,” a crucial step in the evolution of the biggest act the US college rock era ever produced. It is a trim five-song effort bursting with energy and the jangle that would soon come to define the band’s ’80s work, and for a long stretch of time was the stereotypical sound of the Athens scene.

To be clear, the songs that comprise “Chronic Town,” were added to the CD release of the 1987 B-sides comp Dead Letter Office, and they also received their own CD in the 1995 European box set The Originals alongside R.E.M.’s first LP, 1983’s Murmur, and its follow-up, 1984’s Reckoning. They’ve just never been on CD by their lonesome before, which is interesting, since the EP, in retrospect, isn’t a formative work. And unlike their debut single, “Radio Free Europe” b/w “Sitting Still,” released in 1981 on the Hib-Tone label, nothing on “Chronic Town” ended up in the sequence of Murmur.

Around the time of the EP’s release and for a while after, R.E.M. was considered by many to be something of a throwback (not a synth, keyboard, or programmed rhythm in their scheme). And the band did emerge in tried-and-true fashion, announcing their presence with that 45, then raising their profile through “Chronic Town,” and finally making an even bigger splash with Murmur, largely left of the dial but with some commercial rock radio infiltration.

Not only was “Chronic Town” not formative, there was also not a thing tentative about it, with opener “Wolves, Lower” bursting forth with an urgency that the band never managed on a subsequent release. It’s striking to read in Easter’s notes that the decision was made to return to the studio for another take of “Wolves, Lower,” as the initial recording (lost to time, apparently) was deemed to be too fast (notably, the single version of “Radio Free Europe” is a more energetic take than the one that opens Murmur).

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We conclude our deep dive into the Guerssen label’s recent and upcoming output with a proper inspection of two terribly scarce LPs seeing reissue on January 19 by the Nicaraguan psychedelic Latin funk supergroup Poder del Alma (“Soul Power”), their self-titled debut from 1974 and its follow-up from the following year, Poder del Alma II. Cut by an evolving lineup organized and led by Román Cerpas, the records share a dynamic sound that’s intensity and vividness is particularly sharp on the second effort. The Latin groove heat is substantial.

Poder del Alma’s roots are in the devastating Nicaraguan earthquake of December 23, 1972, which destroyed much of Managua and killed over 20,000 people. Understandably, rebuilding was difficult and international help was needed. Nearly a year later, the band Santana came to Nicaragua to play a benefit for the victims. To secure an appropriately powerhouse opening act for a crowd of 44,000 people (Nicaragua’s biggest audience ever), the concert’s promotor Alfonso Lovo Jr. worked diligently to assemble an all-star combo.

A far more thorough accounting of Poder del Alma’s development comes via Ruffy “TNT” in the booklet that accompanies these albums, but it suits this review to say the group stuck together and under the guidance of multi-instrumentalist and musical director Román Cerpas, they desired to cut a record. To do so meant traveling outside the country, as studio facilities in Managua were compromised due to the quake.

To Guatemala they went, but the studio hosting them had fewer instruments than promised, plus equipment issues and a real jerk for a producer. Still, Poder del Alma cut the record, and if not as sonically crisp as the follow-up, the first set is the more psychedelic of the two. This quality is in large part a byproduct of the acid guitar of René “Chapo” Dominguez, heard straightaway in opener “El Valle del Ayatimbo” with its wailing soaring solos.

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Our spotlight on the Guerssen label’s autumn 2023 releases continues with considerations of two sets by The Artwoods, Art Gallery and the 2LP singles collection I Take It All (both in mono), the 2LP retrospective covering The Daily Flash The Legendary Recordings 1965-1967, Pulse’s self-titled album, Sabattis’ Warning in the Sky, and John St. Field’s Control. All six releases are out now.

For heavy-duty aficionados of 1960s UK Beat rock and Mod R&B, The Artwoods (originally The Art Woods) likely need no introduction, if only as a footnote. Formed by vocalist Art Wood, younger brother of Ronnie Wood, after the dissolution of the Art Wood Combo (Art also briefly sang in Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated), The Artwoods’ lineup cohered around lead guitarist Derek Griffiths, organist Jon Lord (later of Deep Purple), bassist Malcolm Pool, and drummer Keef Hartley (later of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and his own band); Hartley was later replaced by Colin Martin.

The Artwoods’ discography consists of the Art Gallery LP reissued here, plus a handful of singles and a four-song EP “Jazz in Jeans” that are compiled onto I Take It All, a 2LP set. Nearly everything The Artwoods released was originally issued by Decca, but with the exception of “I Take What I Want,” which rose to No. 28 on the UK pop singles chart, The Artwoods never had a hit. However, as detailed in Mike Stax’s typically strong liners, The Artwoods were a working band that toured up and down the UK playing to enthusiastic crowds.

I’ll confess to being a sizable fan of ‘60s Beat-Mod sounds, so I Take It All lands right in my zone. The Artwoods have sometimes been downgraded for a lack of original material and additionally for not transforming their sources a la “House of the Rising Sun” or “Go Now,” but I Take It All is the core Beat-Mod stuff. Furthermore, the band evolves as these songs unwind, as there are jazzy excursions.

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Celebrating Van Dyke Parks in advance of his 81st birthday tomorrow. —Ed.

Van Dyke Parks is easily one of the most eclectic and engaging musical minds of the last fifty years. Largely known for his involvement as lyricist in the resurrected phoenix that is The Beach Boys’ Smile, he’s also put his stamp on an array of important works, none better than his own 1972 masterpiece Discover America.

Please consider for a moment the impressive range of Van Dyke Parks. Yes, in addition to Smile there is his arranging for “The Bare Necessities” from Disney’s animated classic The Jungle Book. He’s also served as a producer and/or arranger for records as diverse as the debuts of Randy Newman and Ry Cooder, Phil Ochs’ Greatest Hits and Joanna Newsom’s Ys, and contributed as a player to Tim Buckley’s first album, The Byrds’ Fifth Dimension, Linda Thompson’s Fashionably Late, and Vic Chesnutt’s Ghetto Bells. The guy even composed music for TV commercials, including work for Datsun automobiles and the figure skating mayhem known as the Ice Capades.

But to really crack the delicious and nourishing nut that is Mr. Parks, inspection of his solo work is an absolute must. Song Cycle, his 1967 debut is in obvious retrospect one of the truly amazing introductory statements in all of 20th Century music. I say obvious because hardly anybody bought the thing when it came out. This was due in part to his low profile. While he’d released a couple singles on MGM, he wasn’t exactly stormtrooping the era’s cultural radar.

But the main reason Song Cycle was destined for a second life as a cherished cult magnum opus lies in how Parks’ thoroughly non-trite baroque pop and gently psychedelic sensibilities synched-up with both his uncommonly deep and diverse interest in the history of popular song and the man’s shrewd ear for value in the contemporary (the record featured covers of both Newman’s “Vine Street” and Donovan’s “Colours”). With tenuous ties to the rock scene and a lack of capital with the rising tide of youth culture, it’s really no surprise Song Cycle took four years to recoup its admittedly large for the era $35,000 budget.

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Based in Catalonia, Spain, the Guerssen label, which includes subsidiaries Out-sider Music, Pharaway Sounds, and Sommar, had a productive 2023. We begin the new year by throwing a multi-part spotlight onto a handful of recent Guerssen releases; the first five are Pete Fine’s On a Day of Crystaline Thought, Asgard’s For Asgard and eponymous records by Heavy Rain, Blind Willie, and Majic Ship, all available now and given proper consideration below.

Pete Fine’s On a Day of Crystaline Thought is a wildly ambitious slab of symphonic rock with prog, psych, and folk elements. It was recorded in NYC in 1974, privately pressed in an edition of 100 copies and is therefore totally scarce. In addition, this album is effectively Fine going solo, as he was previously in The Flow, a solid but equally obscure heavy psych band (think Blue Cheer and Cream) who cut a one-sided album, The Flow’s Greatest Hits in ’72 that was given an expanded reissue on CD by Shadoks Music a couple decades back. Guerssen delivered a repress on wax in August of 2023 with copies still available.

One song, “Bijinkes,” made the transition from The Flow to Crystaline, but overall, any similarities are hard to detect. Of course, when dudes in heavy bands fall under the sway of Anton Bruckner there are serious reasons to worry, but Fine had the skills and the organizational smarts to productively realize his flights of imagination. The title composition is a four-part suite loaded with flute, guitar strum and a legit string section; its sweep is lilting rather than ponderous. Even better, the singing across the record adds value, especially the gal vocals by Sam Hardesty on the folkier second side.

While Crystaline doesn’t radiate strong “private press” vibes, neither does it succumb to the sort of slick maneuvers that would’ve surely been thrust upon it by production pros, even those employed by a smaller label. The job in this case was handled by Fine and Hardesty, who captured a sound that is bright, full-bodied, and at times quite intense.

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High-quality new music flowed with abundance in 2023. Here’s part one of the best to hit our ears throughout the year.

20. The Garment District – Flowers Telegraphed to All Parts of the World (Happy Happy Birthday To Me) This one’s a grower, and it already made a strong positive impression when released back in September, so here we are. The Garment District is the project of Jennifer Baron, a founding member of Ladybug Transistor, and the connection is clear through occasional pop-psych vibes, though ultimately Baron’s direction is distinct and stylistically broad. Bottom line is Flowers Telegraphed to All Parts of the World is a fun record, and that makes it quite the worthwhile thing in non-fun times. “Cooling Station” is a gem.

19. Dex Romweber – Good Thing Goin’ (Propeller Sound Recordings) That Dex Romweber is still putting out killer records this deep into his extended venture into recording and performing (“career” just isn’t the right word) is cause for wonderment and celebration. Romweber first hit the scene as half of the Flat Duo Jets, a roots-manic experience if ever one was, but his recent stuff is bold, bright, and straight-up necessary, branching out with suave maturity while keeping a tight grip on classique American forms of all stripes. The aura of Gene Vincent is still tangible, is what I’m saying.

18. Dustin Wong – Perpetual Morphosis (Hausu Mountain) I’m guessing the long wait times in vinyl production played a part in this always interesting label Chicago label’s choice to release most of its recent catalog on cassette. And that’s exactly how Perpetual Morphosis was given a physical release, a fitting format as guitarist Dustin Wong’s layering and looping has gotten increasingly complex. It’s wonderful to imagine popping this into an auto-reversing deck and just letting it roll on for infinity, or at least until the tape or the machine breaks. So maybe buy two copies, just to be safe.

17. Ricardo Dias Gomes – Muito Sol LP (Hive Mind) Multi-instrumentalist Ricardo Dias Gomes played extensively in the band of Caetano Veloso and has collaborated in his own work with Arto Lindsay, relationships that help to situate where Muito Sol is coming from, though it’s where Gomes is headed that’s most exciting. While the experimentation is surely psychedelic at times, there are metallic touches, aspects of drone and a whole lot of post-rock. The record’s Brazilian bedrock is inviting but avoids the mellow, instead cultivating a naturally unwinding if sometimes jarring strangeness. That’s great.

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And here we are with our Top 10 new releases of 2023. Had time allowed for deep listening, so many more recordings put out this year would’ve entered into the equation and the list would’ve surely been different. If we say this every year, that’s because it remains true. This isn’t an exercise in finality but the beginning of a long discussion.

10. Rob Mazurek – Exploding Star Orchestra – Lightning Dreamers (International Anthem) Craig Taborn’s Wurlitzer and yes, Rob Mazurek’s trumpet really bring the Electric Miles vibes, but much of Lightning Dreamers goes farther out than Davis did and does so distinctly. Damon Locks bring his words to Mazurek’s banquet once again, and the band, a scaled-down version of his Orchestra, is a murderer’s row of a major players: along with Taborn and Locks, there’s guitarist Jeff Parker, keyboardist Angelica Sanchez, drummer Gerald Cleaver, percussionist Mauricio Takara, and flautist Nicole Mitchell.

9. Josephine Foster – Domestic Sphere (Fire) The music of Josephine Foster has always had currents of the eerie and the out-of-time about it, but Domestic Sphere, her 14th solo album, gets positively otherworldly as it consists of just Foster on guitar and vocals and field recordings that are interjected throughout, sometimes subtly, at other times abruptly, by producer-collaborator Daniel Blumberg. It’s a strikingly experimental work that only amplifies the unique characteristics of Foster’s work. Anyone with fond memories of the New Weird America should step right up to this one.

8. The Clientele – I Am Not There Anymore (Merge) It’s hard not to worry a little when a band reemerges after a long absence. What exactly have they been doing all that time? I hope nothing bad. And it’s always risky when a significant progression in sound gets unveiled after that period away. Hope you like our new direction! With I Am Not There Anymore, The Clientele’s first record since the autumn of 2017, the band swung into some musical strides, but to wholly positive effect, and without disconnecting from the sound that made them such an appealing indie pop outfit for so long. What a savvy bunch of cats.

7. Satoko Fujii & Otomo Yoshihide – Perpetual Motion (Ayler) & Ikue Mori + Kaze – Crustal Movement (Circum-Disc /Libra) It proved impossible to decide on which example of pianist-composer-bandleader Satoko Fujii’s collaborative prowess was the better, so deciding got the kibosh. Perpetual Motion takes the art of the duo to rare heights in a first time meeting, as Fujii tackles the keys with intense precision, getting deep inside the instrument at times. Otomo wiggles, roars and wails like a champ. Lovers of racket will find much to dig, but it’s a sublime racket. They also explore the atmospheric.

Crustal Movement finds Fujii’s group Kaze—that’s Fujii on piano, Christian Pruvost on trumpet and flugelhorn, Natsuki Tamura on trumpet, and Peter Orins on drums, teaming with Ikue Mori on electronics, and if racket’s your bag, this one’s suitable for all-day sack races. Valves and no reeds brings Kaze a distinct flavor, and with some fine extended techniques on display. Fujii can shift from full-on energy runs to captivating restraint, and sometimes she drops out entirely, waiting to strike. Orins excels at abstract rattle and thump, and Mori’s electronic splatters and spasms have rarely sounded better.

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A few of the selections below aren’t much slimmer than what was on offer in yesterday’s list of expanded releases and box sets, but please understand this sort of undertaking isn’t an exact science. Here’s part one of our picks for the best reissues and archival releases of 2023. Part two, with entries 10-1, will arrive tomorrow.

20. Come – Near Life Experience (Fire) On paper, the merger of ’90s indie rock and punky bluesy thump might not seem like that big a deal, but if it’s being dealt by Thalia Zedek and Chris Brokaw, then expectations do rise considerably. And on this reissue of their third album, initially released in ’96, they exceed expectations, which is particularly impressive, as the band was whittled down to Zedek and Brokaw plus a bunch of guest contributors. But with Tara Jane O’Neil, Bundy K. Brown, and John McEntire amongst the helping hands, Near Life Experience is right up there with Come’s very best stuff.

19. Moonshake – Eva Luna (Deluxe) (Beggars Arkive) Sole constant Moonshake member David Callahan was in the swell C86-affiliated outfit Wolfhounds. The main trait carried over to this band/project is Callahan’s vocals, or more specifically the sound of his voice; here, he lands securely in the agitated UK frontman zone as the music expands to the borders of post-rock (the choice of moniker was swiped from a Can song). Later, Moonshake eschewed guitar entirely, but Margaret Fielder’s presence on the instrument and vocals (and her songs) boost Eva Luna’s value considerably, plus an added Peel Session.

18. John Hartford – Aereo-Plain (Real Gone) Famous for writing “Gentle On My Mind” (a hit for Glen Campbell), multi-instrumentalist (a triple threat on guitar, banjo, and fiddle), singer and songwriter Hartford indulged his amiable eccentric side with Aereo-Plain, though the record, masterful though it was (featuring Norman Blake, Vassar Clements, Tut Taylor, and Randy Scruggs), didn’t exactly spark a retail firestorm. It did help set the stage for newgrass (Sam Bush advocates for its influence), and that’s fine as it lands in the zone between the Holy Modal Rounders and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

17. Shizuka – Heavenly Persona (Black Editions) Here’s the only studio album from this Japanese cult group affiliated with the legendary P.S.F. label featuring Shizuka Miura (vocals, guitar, bells, songs), Maki Miura (guitar, “music helper”), and Jun Kosugi (drums). While noise is an element in Heavenly Persona’s thrust (unsurprising as Maki and Kosugi were in Fushitsusha), Shizuka’s songs exude elements of psychedelic rock, ethereality, and acid-folk. There is a handful of live releases in the Shizuka discography, but this record is essential, and kudos to Black Editions for making it (briefly) available on wax.

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It’s striking that so many entries below are documents of live performances. This reaches down all the way to the top spot. Music created in the moment and captured in the moment to be returned to, shared and cherished. These are our picks for the best reissues and archival releases of 2023. The new releases list starts tomorrow.

10. Sonic Youth – Live in Brooklyn 2011 (Silver Current) With a pointed emphasis on pre-Geffen material, this unexpected late-summer arrival clarified the sharpness this band sustained until the end (or at least very near the end). The career-spanning set list (or as Thurston puts it, going “super-deep”) was by design, as this was their final US show, fittingly going down in the city where they came together decades before to permanently alter rock history. Over time, any lingering sense of the bittersweet has passed (bands break up, y’know?), but it’s fair to say Sonic Youth are still very much missed.

9. John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy – Evenings at the Village Gate (Impulse) I’m not a gambling man, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to discover they’re taking odds in Vegas on whether or not someone (most likely Zev Feldman) turns up some previously unheard material by John Coltrane to see release in 2024. When uncovered stuff by a single artist comes out with such frequency it can reduce the specialness a little, but Evenings at the Village Gate is from a crucial point in Coltrane and Dolphy’s development. Imperfectly recorded, it sounds at times like you’re sitting right beside Elvin Jones at the kit. Cool.

8. The Feelies – Some Kinda Love: Performing the Music of the Velvet Underground (Bar/None) Normally, a recording of an all-covers live set wouldn’t linger long in consideration on these year end lists, but when the band is The Feelies, and when the covers are all by that New Jersey band’s biggest influence (see the title for details), well, that changes the calculus more than a little. To begin, this set offers versions of 18 VU songs with nary a fumble. But what clearly puts Some Kinda Love over the top is the care, commitment, and clear pleasure the band is experiencing as they pull off this considerable feat.

7. V/A – The Secret Museum of Mankind: Atlas of Instruments–Fiddles Vol. 1 (Jalopy) Beginning in the mid-’90s, The Secret Museum of Mankind compilations, curated by 78 collector, fount of knowledge, and occasional recording artist Pat Conte and originally released by the Yazoo label, offered a sweet offramp from the increasing staleness of the indie era. Extending the “old weird” mythos of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music to the entire planet, The Secret Museum’s reemergence after a long hiatus in 2021 was cause for celebration, and this terrific set reveals the return wasn’t a one-off.

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As is mentioned every December when the time comes to unveil these Best of the Year lists, please keep in mind that these rankings are in no way attempt to represent the exhaustive, particularly in regard to expanded releases and box sets, which naturally take more time to absorb in the midst of slimmer reissues and archival material and the deluge of high quality new music. With this said, here’s our top ten expanded releases and box sets of 2023.

10. Superchunk – Misfits & Mistakes: Singles, B-sides & Strays 2007-2023 (Merge) When Superchunk returned to activity in the mid-’00s, they scaled back stylistically, ramping up the classic power pop in their sound while maintaining the punk punch that’s been a constant across the band’s run. This 4LP set roughly coincides with said comeback and rounds up all (or nearly all) of their material that didn’t originate on their full-length releases. This level of late-career prolificacy is striking and rather surprising, even as I already own a bunch of this stuff. The emphasis on cover material remains, and to fine effect.

9. Telex – S/T (Mute) The remastering and rounding up of this enduringly underrated Belgian techno pop outfit’s six albums is few of frills but still a wholly worthwhile gesture, as Telex’s albums were remarkably solid and consistent over time. Eccentric experimenters inside the realms of pop, Telex flexed a sense of humor without cracking jokes and against the odds, their cover versions always worked. The group’s disinterest in rock moves is well documented (no guitars here), which remains refreshing, and to get an idea of the shrewdness on display, check out the Martin Denny moves in “Café de la Jungle.”

8. Eddie Lockjaw Davis & Shirley Scott – Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen (Craft Recordings) The Prestige catalog is deep, and Craft Recordings handling of the reissues has been impeccable and inspiring. Organ jazz records often can’t escape getting ranked as likeable but ultimately minor in the scheme of things, but in the case of Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen, the sheer quantity of high quality ensures that Scott and Davis’ achievement can’t be denied. Davis blows with confidence and deep feeling, and Scott is soulful without succumbing to overabundant note spillage. When they play the blues it’s an utter treat.

7. Soft Machine – The Dutch Lesson (Cuneiform) It’s always struck me just how good Soft Machine remained for so long through so many personnel changes. This is the four-piece band that recorded Seven, featuring Roy Babbington on 6-string bass, Karl Jenkins on horns and electric piano, John Marshall on drums, and sole founding member Mike Ratledge on electric piano and organ, live in performance at De Lantaren, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, October 26, 1973. The 15 tracks document a band in transition, often heavy but never ponderous and very much in control of its direction.

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Remembering Frank Sinatra in advance of his birthdate tomorrow. —Ed.

When it comes to pop music icons, they don’t come much more durable than Frank Sinatra. So it remains, as the singer has accumulated fans who weren’t even alive in 1998, the year of his passing at 82 years of age. And as an influential and revered figure, the majority of his artistic output (on record and on celluloid) is well-known; an exception is Watertown, the concept album he released in 1970 with the help of Bob Gaudio of the Four Seasons and Jake Holmes (the writer of “Dazed and Confused”). Don’tcha know it’s some folks’ favorite album by the guy? Deserving of reissue, it’s out now on LP with a new mix and on CD expanded with bonus tracks through UMe and Frank Sinatra Enterprises.

A pop icon, but also a pop idol in his youth, Frank Sinatra had the kids screaming. And one barometer of 20th century pop icon/idol status is that those on the list didn’t just cut records, they made movies. Bing Crosby, Frank, Elvis Presley, The Beatles (notably, the only band in the bunch), and Michael Jackson: they all interacted to varying extents with the film industry, as the careers of all but Jackson hit their high points in the pre-music video era (and Jackson was arguably the defining artist across the short heyday of music video).

The content of the above paragraph is the stuff books are made of, so let’s rein it in. The short of it; fans clamored to see these icons/idols on big screens, larger than life. What makes Sinatra somewhat unique is how he continued making films long after the screaming subsided, and in fact that’s where his most interesting movie work is located. Forget about the Rat Pack flicks, we’re talking Guys and Dolls (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955), The Man With the Golden Arm (Otto Preminger, 1955), the sublime Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958), and The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962).

Make no mistake, Sinatra also starred in some crap (more crap than gems, honestly), but what’s noteworthy here is that he was ever even inclined to make a handful of films possessing substantial artistic merit, a circumstance that also applies to his recording career circa 1970. A year earlier, he’d somewhat unexpectedly scored a hit with “My Way.” Instead of playing it safe, he took a risk with Watertown, though it’s fair to say that working with Gaudio and Holmes (the co-writers of the album) likely didn’t register as commercially precarious at the time.

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The musically adventurous Virginia-based multi-instrumentalist and builder of drones Daniel Bachman has returned with another masterful album, When The Roses Come Again, which is out now on vinyl (standard black, limited red), compact disc, and digital through Three Lobed Recordings. The record continues Bachman’s expansive questing across 15 pieces that unfurl with a glorious interconnected flow. The unified progressions thrive on discipline and clarity of vision, and Bachman has once again cut one of the best records of its year.

Circa 2012-’13, when Daniel Bachman’s two excellent albums for Tomkins Square (Seven Pines and Jesus I’m a Sinner) were released, he was pretty easily described as a fingerpicker in the American Primitive tradition. His arrival on the scene was part of a sustained resurgence in Guitar Soli, just another welcome surprise in a style that few would have predicted would be successfully embraced by a younger generation of musicians.

Like a few American Primitive players including the originator of the form John Fahey, Bachman has migrated away from straight picking, and on When The Roses Come Again he largely sets the guitar aside for drones and extensive, at times collage-like editing of solo improvisational recordings that in his essay for the album, Jerry David DeCicca’s calls a week’s worth of 8-hour a day excursions emanating from a cabin on the border of Shenandoah National Park.

Bachman’s move into the abstract has certainly realigned his fanbase, but perhaps not as much as one might initially suspect, and that’s mainly through focus and determination. Instead of meandering, When The Roses Come Again is at times unnervingly in its intensity, and it’s all the more powerful through concision. That’s to be expected from the drones, as Bachman has grown increasingly adept as harnessing sustained tension, but it’s also heard in those edited improvs, which were assembled by cutting and pasting and altering speed and pitch on a laptop.

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