Author Archives: Joseph Neff

Founded by Bruce Licher, Independent Project Records has been one of the more consistent labels in both sound and design over the last 50 years. For evidence, please look no further than the new 2CD compilation The Well, which offers 41 tracks ranging from well-known acts to deep obscurities. It’s available now.

Although difficult to pin down stylistically, Independent Project Records benefited from a focused sensibility. The Well bears this out. Opening the set is Afterimage, a band formed in early ’80s Los Angeles who garnered the description of their home burg’s Joy Division. Their collected early works validate that connection, but the eponymous track here is, frankly, more (if mildly) reminiscent of early Public Image Ltd.

Afterimage’s Barry Craig also recorded and was indeed quite prolific under the moniker A Produce, a project featured here with two instrumentals, “Tunnels” and “Jimbe,” that cavort in the atmospheric soundscape zone and wander toward trance-adjacent dance rhythms. Also included is “I Woke Up Screaming,” a very intriguing Craig solo track that exudes psych-folk vibes with a loner undercurrent.

As one of IPR’s bigger acts, San Francisco’s The Ophelias are represented here with the echoey flute-laden psych bombast of “Sleepy Hamlet.” Ophelias founder Leslie Medford also makes the cut with the thump-pulse post-Detroit vaguely-Velvets druggy-punk haze of “Leslie’s Dream.”

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Washington, DC denizen Elizabeth Nelson has returned, fronting and writing the songs for another strong full-length record under the moniker The Paranoid Style. As an astute observer of human behavior in a damaged world and a tireless student of pop and rock from across the decades, Known Associates balances timelessness and contemporary verve. The eleven-song set arrives February 13 on vinyl, compact disc, and digital through Bar/None Records.

Elizabeth Nelson has numerous strengths as a musician and lack of perceptible weaknesses. Writing smart songs isn’t an unusual gift but being able to cogently express ideas on how music works in text form from the perspective of a singer and player is rare enough, and then to turn that knowledge back into the creation of albums that are infused with a historical richness as they roll easily from track to track is an artistic skill even less frequently absorbed.

For Known Associates, Nelson has reconvened her recording lineup of Peter Holsapple, William Matheny, Michael Venutolo-Mantovani, Jon Langmead, and Timothy Bracy while welcoming guests Matt Douglas of the Mountain Goats, Lisa Walker of Wussy, and Eugene Edwards, a guitarist for Dwight Yoakam whose playing comes out of the Danny Gatton tradition.

Known Associates’ opener “Tearing the Ticket” name-checks Gatton and Roy Buchanan, with the track offering a gorgeously achy edge halfway between anthemic and melancholy. It’s new wave-tinged power pop, complete with guitar jangle and bursts of saxophone and some calliope-like flute down deep in the mix, courtesy of Douglas.

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Lulu Lewis, the duo of vocalist-songwriter Dylan Hundley and multi-instrumentalist-songwriter Pablo Martin, has amassed an impressive studio discography over the last decade, blending elements of synth-pop, post-punk, and electro pop into an edgy, danceable whole. On February 6, a welcome performance document arrives, as Lulu Lewis release Salon Lulu – Live at The Bridge via Ilegalia Records through Bandcamp.

That same evening, the group is playing live at the O+ Exchange Space at 334 Wall Street in Kingston, NY, and on February 20, they will be at the Strummer Bar venue for their debut in Buenos Aires. More on the latest from these erudite globetrotters below.

Salon Lulu – Live at The Bridge has a photo of a venue as its cover, and that’s sweet. But that space, the Two Bridges Luncheonette, is not where this live set was recorded. The locale was instead The Bridge Studio in Brooklyn, with the tight, robust performance captured with high-quality gear in crisp audio, taking place on May 10 of last year with an appreciative audience in attendance.

Why the Two Bridges Luncheonette? That was the Dimes Square venue and snack spot (no longer extant) that hosted the nine-week residency that evolved into the ongoing Lulu Lewis events program Salon Lulu. The Bridge Studio performance is described by Hundley as the culmination of the extended flow of musical expression and community building that began at Two Bridges Luncheonette and continues to thrive as Salon Lulu.

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Celebrating John Steel on his 85th birthday. —Ed.

In addition to The Beatles and Stones, the British Invasion produced numerous other noteworthy groups, and one of the most successful was The Animals. A serious-minded bunch led by that brawny-throated student of American blues and early rock ‘n’ roll Eric Burdon, they persist in the modern memory mainly for their hit singles. But on the subject of albums, they also had a few very good ones, though differing US and UK editions have frustrated collectors on both sides of the Atlantic for years. Of the two versions of their 1964 debut The Animals, the Brit issue may not be the best, but it does give a deep glimpse into what this no-nonsense, solidly rocking band was initially all about.

Eric Burdon seems like the kind of cat who’d rather keel over dead than quit singing. Nearly fifty years after his first album came out he’s still out there doing it on stages, and like the R&B legends that provided him with his formative inspiration, his continued activity comes without a whole lot of pomp and circumstance. Because he played an enjoyably quirky role in the landslide of ‘60s psychedelic rock by fronting a later incarnation of The Animals and proceeded from that to get his fingers nice and funky on a pair of albums in collaboration with the California groove merchants War, Burdon’s profile has easily transcended the outfit that began in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1962, when he joined up with a group then called The Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo.

In addition to Burdon and organist/keyboardist Price, the other members were Hilton Valentine on guitar, John Steel on drums, and Bryan “Chas” Chandler on bass. Rechristened as The Animals and following the advice of Yardbirds’ manager Giorgio Gomelsky, who obviously saw something in the band’s early stage act that was comparable to the act under his supervision, they moved to London and quickly hit the big time.

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Having spun off from the veteran Los Angelino punk outfit The Bronx, the rich and vibrant Mexican roots experience Mariachi El Bronx returns after a decade-long recording hiatus with IV, a 12-song set that rekindles the unbridled spirit essence of their previous work. It’s available February 13 on vinyl, compact disc, and digital through ATO Records.

The name Mariachi El Bronx solidifies the connection between the Cali punk rock of The Bronx, who sprang onto the scene by releasing the first of six eponymous albums in 2003, with the musical style outlined in the offshoot’s moniker. This connection doesn’t signify a genre hybridization but rather highlights that punk and mariachi share a like-minded sensibility.

Of course, punks have been branching out for decades, sometimes via hybrids (or through what can be described as form destruction) and in other examples by embodying the true, unvarnished nature of a style, even if it risks (and often deliberately strives for) the alternatingly fascinating and perplexing impression of anachronism.

Mariachi El Bronx is vocalist Matt Caughthran, guitarist and accordionist Joby J. Ford, drummer Jared Shavelson, trumpeters Keith Douglas and Brad Magers, violinist Ray Suen, jarana player Ken Horne, and guitarrón player Vincent Hidalgo. What they achieve on IV extends from their prior efforts, retaining the heft and spark of the mariachi style without registering as a throwback.

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Celebrating Roddy Frame on his 62nd birthday. —Ed.

While technically a band, Aztec Camera was always the creative brainchild of Scotsman Roddy Frame. On the debut LP High Land, Hard Rain, released in 1983 through Rough Trade in the UK and via Sire in the US, he made an outstanding case for himself as one of the decade’s great pop music auteurs. The album embraced intelligence and sophistication as it abandoned any pretense to a rapidly aging punk standard that spawned it, and if it isn’t perfect, 30 years after High Land, Hard Rain’s making it wears its minor flaws very gracefully.

High Land, Hard Rain opens with “Oblivious,” one of the record’s more famous tracks, though in hearing it with fresh ears after a very long absence I was struck by two elements. The first was the heights of Roddy Frame’s pop ability and at the tender age of 18; where much pop climbs to greatness in the details, “Oblivious” can be accurately assessed as an exceptionally written tune. It attains its success through sublime construction around a foundation that many well-respected songwriters twice his age had never managed to build.

The second element was Aztec Camera’s sheer level of dedication to an unabashedly erudite sensibility. This was maximal, accessible, unabashedly sophisticated Pop Music not only shirking off any tangible debt to punk but also steering far clear of the swelling tide of the synth-wave. And this relates directly to my third thought; in the bass line to “Oblivious” lays the key to so much of High Land, Hard Rain’s essence.

I’ll start by mentioning that I’m not smitten with Campbell Owens’ playing on the song, which is lightly and tastefully funk-tinged in a manner undeniably ‘80s, though my lack of regard for the bassist’s swagger hardly sinks the whole. Aztec Camera at this point functioned as a band, with Bernie Clark on keyboards and Dave Ruffy on drums/percussion alongside Owens’ bass and Frame’s vocals, guitar and harmonica, but they also operated squarely in the pop zone and lacked any significant rock gestures.

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The late Gary Young is best known as the talented and eccentric drummer on Pavement’s early records, including their breakout full-length Slanted and Enchanted. Naturally, there is more to the man’s life story, and the recent documentary directed by Jed I. Rosenberg does a solid job telling the musical side of it. Louder Than You Think: A Lo-Fi History of Gary Young & Pavement (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) gathers various relevant aural threads into a cohesive and pleasurable package. This portraiture is out on vinyl, compact disc, and digital January 30 through Independent Project Records.

Those with a casual appreciation of the band might not grasp the reality, but Jed I. Rosenberg’s loving but non-hagiographic cinematic tribute to Gary Young makes it pretty clear that Pavement simply wouldn’t exist in the form that we now know without his crucial shaping input as drummer and producer.

Louder Than You Think was Young’s studio in Stockton, CA, the town where Pavement was formed. Based on Young’s involvement in the local music scene, Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg chose his studio as the place to record Pavement’s debut 7-inch. Essentially a dual-guitar duo project, Young added drums and a guiding production principle that generated the initial subterranean buzz that first took them to Drag City and then to Matador Records.

Young’s often-entertaining, and just as frequently erratic, behavior is a major part of Pavement’s history. It can be argued that Young is the drummer for Pavement during their greatest discographical stretch. He hit the skins hard and loose, and loved drum fills in a manner that underlined his elder status in the lineup. If Young’s craziness could situate him as the Keith Moon of the band (which soon added Bob Nastanovich and Mark Ibold), his age added a curious wrinkle to the group dynamic.

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Blackwater Holylight was formed in Portland, OR, but after the release of their third album, they pulled up stakes and moved down the coast to Los Angeles. The current lineup is vocalist-guitarist-bassist Sunny Faris, bassist-guitarist Mikayla Mayhew, and drummer Eliese Dorsay. On their new full-length Not Here Not Gone, out January 30 on vinyl, compact disc and digital via Suicide Squeeze, Sarah McKenna contributes synths and Camille Getz violin. The sound is heavy as it possesses an ethereal quality, hovering and roaring in a zone between shoegaze and stoner rock.

The three prior LPs by Blackwater Holylight, their eponymous debut (2018), Veils of Winter (2019) and Silence/Motion (2021), were all released by RidingEasy Records, the label responsible for the extensive Brown Acid series of compilations dedicated to ultra obscure hard rock bands, mostly domestic, a few from foreign shores, who existed and recorded from the late ’60s through to the early ’80s.

Blackwater Holylight’s sound wouldn’t fit on a Brown Acid volume, but they do lay down the sinewy scorch on their own records. In 2025, they added a four-song EP, “If You Only Knew,” to their discography through Suicide Squeeze, a new label as the band adjusted to life in a new city.

Not Here Not Gone’s opener “How Will You Feel” is appropriately echoey and thick with distortion as a synth glistens and glides atop the instrumental breaks. Faris’ vocals are urgent but atmospheric, and the track blends expansiveness and crunch with the confidence one would expect from a band with four albums under their belts.

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October the last was the kickoff for Zev Feldman’s Time Traveler Recordings, which began by putting back into print albums by Roy Brooks, Kenny Barron, and Carlos Garnett on 180-gram analog-mastered vinyl as part of the Muse Master Edition series. On January 30, this program really hits its stride by reissuing Love Dance by trumpeter Woody Shaw and Double Exposure by drummer-pianist Joe Chambers. These two underrated sets are connected in interesting ways, as we detail below.

Woody Shaw should’ve been huge. For many who’ve spent much rewarding time soaking up his discography as a leader and sideman, Shaw is huge, indeed one of the defining trumpeters in post-bop jazz. But as alluded to by Bob Blumenthal in his notes for this edition of Love Dance, Shaw just didn’t get the deserved accolades when he was up and coming.

Eric Dolphy’s Iron Man was Shaw’s recording debut, after which he played in Europe for a spell before returning to the USA to join Horace Silver’s band just in time for Cape Verdean Blues, cut in October 1965 for Blue Note. European touring partner Larry Young’s Unity followed in November, and then Shaw cut material for his own set as a leader in December with Young (on piano) and such august names as Joe Henderson (who played on Cape Verdean Blues), Herbie Hancock, Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, and Joe Chambers.

Those sessions stayed in the can until Muse released them in 1983, titled first In the Beginning and for one 1989 CD edition Cassandranite, the opening cut on the album. Track two is the Young composition “Obsequious,” which gets a reprise as the second selection on Love Dance.

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Celebrating Robin Zander on his 73rd birthday. —Ed.

‘twas just recently that Real Gone Music released Cheap Trick’s Live at The Whisky 1977 in a 4CD 2,000 copy edition which sold out at the source. However, its rapid-fire scarcity doesn’t mean the release is no longer worthy of appraisal. To the contrary, this generous documentation of four nights in the early days of a canonical band explicates their sustained popularity across a spectrum of fandom that includes classic rock aficionados, power-pop diehards, and even punks with a passion for hooks. Parties interested in obtaining a copy of Live at The Whisky 1977 need to peruse store inventories while perhaps lobbying for a repress, hopefully this time on vinyl.

By the time I’d been fully exposed to Rockford, IL’s Cheap Trick in the early 1980s, they were fully established arena rock stars. Indeed, they had a bona fide frontman with charisma and sex appeal in Robin Zander, as bassist Tom Petersson was no slouch in the good looks department. Adding depth to the lineup, guitarist and primary songwriter Rick Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos were a pair of colorful characters.

Carlos (real name Brad Carlson), with his business suits (complete with loosened neck ties and unbuttoned vests) and smoldering cigarettes dangling from below his moustache, teetered on eccentricity, looking more like a public accountant under duress in the waning moments of a hotel bar’s happy hour than the on-the-money sticksman for one of ’70s power-pop’s defining and most successful bands.

This stature was earned through catchy, smart songwriting and sharp execution. By the early ’80s, Cheap Trick had settled comfortably into rock’s mainstream, getting there through the somewhat unexpected smash sales figures of the live in Japan LP Cheap Trick at Budokan (initially a US import) and the steadily rising chart placements of studio albums two (In Color, ’77), three (Heaven Tonight, ’78) and four (Dream Police, ’79), plus their associated hit singles.

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Remembering Sam Cooke, born on this day in 1931. —Ed.

Sam Cooke is one of the prime architects of 20th century music. Concise accolades frequently falter into overstatement, but in this instance the praise is offered sans hyperbole. The easiest way to test this claim is through ABKCO’s Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964; initially released on compact disc in 2003, it immediately vaulted to the forefront of Cooke compilations, and that it’s been available on double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve retaining Peter Guralnick’s splendid liner notes is cause for celebration.

With due respect to Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Sam & Dave, and other worthy belters, the indispensible Soul Gang of Four, Male Division is constituted by Ray Charles, James Brown, Otis Redding, and Sam Cooke. It’s a quartet as firm as Gibraltar, but if a member of this group occasionally receives a nagging quibble, it’s the man born January 22, 1931 as Samuel Cook.

Right now some might even be openly questioning Cooke’s importance as an essential builder of modern music, mainly because much of his discography lacks both the immediate brilliance of invention and sheer virtuosity found in Charles’ best material and the grit and fervor that still partially defines the reputations of Brown and Redding.

All four have been described as soul’s rightful ruler, but Cooke’s the only one who doesn’t also possess an instantly recognizable sobriquet. The Genius of Soul, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, The Godfather of Soul, Mr. Dynamite, The Big O, and Mr. Pitiful are nicknames of specificity; anybody with a basic knowledge of the genre will know exactly to whom they refer. Mention The King of Soul in a crowded bar after a few rounds of drinks and the debate on who most deserves that title could stretch beyond last call.

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Formed in 1981 in London, Talk Talk’s decade of existence flouts the norms for pop and rock acts. They began as a new wave band, sharing a producer with tour partners Duran Duran, only to lay the groundwork for what came to be known as post-rock. On February 6, Rhino Records is releasing a half-speed remaster of Talk Talk’s fourth and penultimate album, Spirit of Eden. The first of the band’s two consensus masterpieces, the record sounds as fresh in 2026 as the day it first hit stores.

If Talk Talk had cut their first two albums and then broken up, they’d still be highly regarded. Those albums are The Party’s Over, from 1981, and It’s My Life, from 1983, both unabashedly new wave in their stylistic thrust. Where numerous new wave acts had obvious ties to the punk scene, Talk Talk sauntered down the synth-pop side of the street, and in a manner comparable to their cohorts in titular repetition, Duran Duran.

But Talk Talk did have punk roots, specifically through vocalist and primary songwriter Mark Hollis, who was in The Reaction, and that band’s sole single, “I Can’t Resist” b/w “I Am a Case,” issued by Island in 1978. The Reaction had one more song, “Talk Talk Talk Talk,” which landed on Streets, the first release by Beggars Banquet compiling, amongst others, The Lurkers, The Art Attacks, The Doll, Slaughter & the Dogs, The Nosebleeds, John Cooper Clarke, The Members, and those filthy fuckers The Pork Dukes.

“Talk Talk Talk Talk” became “Talk Talk,” the opening track from The Party’s Over. It was Talk Talk’s second single and first minor chart hit. Along with Hollis, the band was completed by fretless bassist Paul Webb, synthesist-keyboardist Simon Brennan, and drummer Lee Harris. Contrary to assumptions, Talk Talk weren’t giant hitmakers, but they did build on the popularity of The Party’s Over with It’s My Life as Brennan was out, replaced by Tim Friese-Greene, who remained producer and instrumentalist until the band’s end.

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Erik Hall is a Michigan-based multi-instrumentalist. Along with recording under the moniker In Tall Buildings and in the outfits NOMO, Lean Year, and His Name Is Alive, Hall made a splash during that pandemic year of 2020 with a solo reconstruction of Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians.” His latest release, Solo Three, out January 23 via Western Vinyl on LP, CD, and digital, expands the focus on the 20th-century classical avant-garde by tackling works by Reich, Charlemagne Palestine, Glenn Branca, and Laurie Spiegel.

Solo Three is the culmination of a trilogy. Between this new release and Music for 18 Musicians (Steve Reich), which came out in May of 2020, Canto Ostinato (Simeon ten Holt) hit the racks in February of 2023. That set featured a multi-tracked, hour-long recording of a piece by the late Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt that utilized grand pianos, electric piano, and organ.

Hall’s choices for this culminating entry in the trilogy establish an inclusive breadth, spanning from foundational Minimalist figures (Steve Reich and Charlemagne Palestine) to a pioneering woman electronic composer (Laurie Spiegel) to a guitar-focused disruptor who spiraled out of the NYC No Wave scene (Glenn Branca).

Hall’s version of Branca’s “The Temple of Venus Pt. 1,” the opening movement from a seven-part ballet recorded by a large ensemble in 1991, is a stunning transformation from the symphonic thrust of the original recording to glistening, reverberating repetitions. This interpretation retains recognizable aspects of the source work as heard on The World Upside Down (released by the Atavistic label in 1992) while intensifying the nature of Hall’s approach, which has grown into an increasingly signature sound.

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Remembering Lead Belly, born on this date in 1888. —Ed.

Of Lead Belly records, there are a ton, and the reasons why are simple. Foremost, this titan of American music possessed a deep reservoir of songs, but he was also something of a crossover artist, robust enough in style to appeal to subsequent generations of blues fanatics as diversity of subject matter and musical approach ensconced him as a godfather-cornerstone to the burgeoning mid-20th century folk movement. Smithsonian Folkways’ reissue of Easy Rider: Leadbelly Legacy Volume Four is a tidy encapsulation of the man’s aptitude for social commentary.

Born in January of 1888, Huddie William Ledbetter was a performing musician prior to the 1920s commercial boom for the blues, which party explains the breadth of his talent beyond the form. Like many early blues players, he’s just as aptly described as a songster (versatility allowing a player to become something of a one-man show in those days), and while an effective multi-instrumentalist, his excellence on the 12-string guitar was matched by the strength of his voice and an ability to consistently communicate the essence of his songs, many of which were handed down from oral tradition.

All of these attributes found Lead Belly fitting nicely into the early US folk scene, but it was probably his relationship to the pre-recording industry roots of folk tradition (he was an eight-year elder of Blind Lemon Jefferson) that sealed the deal. This places him historically in strong and varied company; think Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, and Lightnin’ Hopkins for starters, but with the crucial difference that Lead Belly wasn’t a subject of rediscovery after an earlier dalliance with commercial record makers.

He was discovered, however. Like many others of his circumstance in Jim Crow USA, it was during a stay in prison, with Lead Belly first recorded in 1933-’34 by John and Alan Lomax while serving a term in Angola. These songs weren’t commercially released until the ’60s, but once he’d been given early release in ’34, the man took the ball of interest in his music and ran for a career-securing touchdown.

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That World’s Gone Wrong is Lucinda Williams’ 16th studio album is a striking fact to consider. This new record, an unapologetically topical undertaking, benefits from the enduring creative clarity of Williams and the potent energies of the band she’s assembled. It’s out January 23 through Highway 20 Records and Thirty Tigers.

Lucinda Williams hit the scene modestly but solidly with a pair of LPs for Folkways: Ramblin’ on My Mind, released in 1979, and Happy Woman Blues from the following year. The contents established her as one of the earliest examples of Americana, a sound (indeed a genre) she would continue to refine and help to define.

A self-titled third LP, issued in 1988 by Rough Trade, raised her profile a bit and included “Passionate Kisses,” which won Williams her first Grammy award through its cover by Mary Chapin Carpenter, a sizable hit in 1992. However, Williams remained somewhat underappreciated as a performer, at least until her two ensuing albums, Sweet Old World from 1992 and especially Car Wheels on a Gravel Road from 1988, brought record sales and tours to match the critical acclaim.

Williams has been building on that momentum ever since, but primarily through album sales, as her work maintains an edge that’s kept her from making too big a splash on the singles charts. This is notable when considering her ability as a songwriter and her continued vitality as a singer, even as her voice has matured. Disinterested in the safety of pigeonholing, Williams has collaborated with jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd and UK punk survivors The Mekons.

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