Celebrating Arvo Pärt on his 91st birthday. —Ed. Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is considered to be one of the greats in the broad spectrum of 20th-century classical music, and he’s further distinguished as a trailblazer of “holy minimalism.” Befitting a composer of his stature, the discography of Pärt’s recorded works is vast, but from inside […]
Paul Simon called the German band Dissidenten the “true godfathers of ethno-beat.” Robert Christgau wrote disparagingly of them, “So German pop-rock isn’t your stein of beer? And Middle Eastern music still seems a little alien? Now imagine a fusion.” I wrote of Dissidenten [this very minute] “What we have here is shallow world beat hokum […]
Celebrating Don Powell, born on this day in 1950. —Ed. These lovable Wolverhampton cheaters at Scrabble certainly never won a spelling bee. One of ‘em (guitarist Dave Hill) walked around in a mullet so hideous it could even get you evicted from an Alabama trailer park, and come to think of it, the whole bunch […]
Celebrating Bill Stevenson, born on this day in 1963. —Ed. Though it seems they perennially garner fewer accolades than their Cali cohorts, Black Flag and the Minutemen, coffee-fueled Los Angeles band the Descendents’ full-length debut, Milo Goes to College, stands as one of the ’80s’ indispensable punk documents. Its grooves are teeming with furious catchiness, […]
The flood of Frank Zappa archival releases may soon edge out the number of such releases from Neil Young and the Grateful Dead. Like those from Young and the Dead, these archival releases are warmly received by fans and consistently top-notch in quality and/or historical significance. Two recent releases from the Zappa estate reflect two […]
Remembering Otis Redding, born on this day in 1941. —Ed. As one of the undisputed titans in the annals of Soul Music, Otis Redding seemingly needs no introduction. Any serious discussion of the genre he so thrillingly mastered will reflect upon the rewards to be found in his work, and that it’s never fallen out […]
Remembering Kelly Groucutt, born on this date in 1945. —Ed. How great is ELO? Randy Newman wrote a song (“The Story of a Rock and Roll Band”) making fun of ‘em! Talk about your honors. That’s better than a Grammy! Six Grammys! A dozen Grammys even! And how dumb was poor Roy Wood, who split […]
Arty, glammy, mathy, poppy, theatrical: Washington DC’s Shudder to Think emerged in the late 1980s as one of the most interesting bands to get slapped with the tag of post-hardcore. Persevering through productive lineup changes before transitioning to soundtrack work, they did what bands so often do; they broke up, only to reunite for shows, […]
Celebrating Martin Chambers on his 75th birthday. —Ed. A couple of days ago, I found myself doing something I haven’t done (no exaggeration) in years: dancing. I dervished about the apartment all by myself, like a lunatic, with the cat looking on from the safety of the bed, wide-eyed with imminent peril. I could tell […]
On their landmark 2006 LP Pink, Japan’s Boris are all over the place, delving into more metal genres than you can count and topping them off with a pair of ambient tracks. It would be downright disorienting if their fallback song strategy weren’t breakneck fast and furious. And noisy. Pink has been praised for being […]
Celebrating Don Brewer on his 78th birthday. —Ed. A half century and change down the line, it boggles the imagination to think that Flint, Michigan’s Grand Funk (with or without that “Railroad”) were one of the biggest touring acts of the early Seventies. The proof lies in this shocking factoid—in 1971 (the Chinese “Year of […]
Celebrating Al Jardine on his 84th birthday. —Ed. Existence is unutterably strange. It’s a fact. The world is filled with miracles and marvels and inexplicable occurrences that defy all rational explanation and that stand, in fact, as rebukes to the very conception of rationality itself. Take the 45 rpm record I hold metaphorically before me. […]
As Neil Young passes 80, time doesn’t stand still. For Young, time is a shifting, changing, moving force that encompasses the past, the present, and the future, and not always in that order. While his contemporary Bob Dylan has said “don’t look back,” Young often does, using memory as a jumping-off point for yet another […]
Thorn Wych builds her own instruments from the branches of trees. On her debut album, Aesthesis, she delves deep into an organic experimentation with a folkloric edge. Utilizing grooves, drones, chants, and hazy clouds of abstraction, her sound is connected to long-established traditions while standing apart through pure distinctiveness. Recorded and edited at home, Aesthesis has […]
Celebrating Barry Gibb on his 80th birthday. —Ed. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the most twee of them all? Belle and Sebastian? The Shop Assistants? The Pastels? Well, sure, if you adhere to a literalist definition of twee as a post-indie phenomenon. But I take the sniper’s long-range view of music history, and like […]
