I like to play hard to get. You know, listen to an album for a while before I ask it out on a date. Sure, there are exceedingly rare exceptions—thunderbolts of instantaneous amour that make me lose my composure and babble on about how wonderful an album is, and how I want to take it home to meet my family, and go out and surreptitiously shop around for a ring. This was what happened the first time I heard John Cale’s 1973 LP Paris 1919.

The Welsh Cale will forever be chiefly remembered for his work with The Velvet Underground, but he was playing experimental music—you know, the usual, like an 18-hour piano marathon of a piece by Erik Satie—with the likes of John Cage and La Monte Young before he joined the Velvets, and has recorded in a mad variety of styles since then. I’m loath to call any one a genius, because I prefer to reserve the title for myself, but for John Cale I’ll make an exception. He’s put out many an amazing and influential record—and produced just as many for other artists—and you never know what he’ll do next.

Take Paris 1919. The LPs that bookend it—namely 1974’s harder rocking Fear and 1971’s more experimental and classically-oriented The Academy in Peril—don’t bear the slightest resemblance to Paris 1919, or to one another for that matter. I love both albums for their unpredictability, but most people, myself included, consider Paris 1919 Cale’s masterpiece. The reason why is simple—it’s chockablock with sublime and lovely songs that you’re guaranteed to fall in love with, just as I did.

Cale may have quit The Velvet Underground because he didn’t share Lou Reed’s ambition to become a pop star at any price, but that doesn’t mean Cale was uninterested in exploring pop’s outer suburbs. Paris 1919 is proof positive that Cale had a pop side as well—he simply dressed it up and presto, instant baroque pop. Or art rock, although I’m hesitant to describe Paris 1919 as such because the LP includes only one tune that even vaguely resembles rock, namely “Macbeth.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | David Sylvian’s compilation album Everything & Nothing is coming to vinyl for the first time. Originally released in 2000, the 29-track triple LP is a career-spanning compilation containing previously released, unreleased, re-recorded, non-album, and alternate versions of tracks from Sylvian’s twenty years with Virgin Records. The album features key songs from David’s solo recordings, collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Robert Fripp, Mick Karn, Alesini & Andreoni, and tracks by Japan and Rain Tree Crow.

Sylvian’s approach to the proposition of a compilation album covering his time with Virgin Records was to create an overview of the multiple directions in which his work had taken him during that period. Focusing entirely on vocal compositions, this double album also included a wealth of previously unreleased material, including “Ride” from the sublime Secrets of the Beehive sessions, “The Scent of Magnolia” and “Cover Me With Flowers” from the Dead Bees On A Cake sessions, along with remixes of two of Sylvian’s Ryuichi Sakamoto collaborations, “Bamboo Houses” and “Heartbeat,” as well as a remix of Japan’s “Ghosts” and the unreleased “Some Kind of Fool” taken from Japan’s 1980 sessions for Gentleman Take Polaroids.

With its appearance on vinyl for the first time, Everything & Nothing provides a starting point for newcomers to David’s work and as a companion to the recently released 10-CD set Do You Know Me Now? which explores Sylvian’s work on his own label, Samadhisound.

Celebrating Ian Anderson in advance of his 77th birthday tomorrow. —Ed.

Sometimes you amaze yourself. Or perhaps I should say stupefy, dumbfound, perplex, befuddle, mystify, outrage, and downright disgust yourself. Such was the case when I recently ran over a “little person” in an abortive attempt to pass the D.C. driver’s test. I never saw him; in my defense, he was a very little little person. More like a half-little person. And such was also the case when I decided to review Jethro Tull’s Stand Up, solely as a joke and a chance to pan defenseless Englishman Ian Anderson, who for some inexplicable reason stands poised on one leg while playing the flute, like a hippie flamingo.

Only to discover, horror of horrors, I actually like the damn thing. Who was it that said, “He came to mock but remained to pray”? Because I’ve always considered Jethro Tull, despite a handful of songs I truly like, ridiculous, due largely to Anderson’s flute, an instrument (in my humble opinion) suitable only for tossing out the window. What’s more, Jethtro Tull always struck me as fairly dim. I clearly remember thinking, when they put out 1972’s Thick as a Brick, that it wasn’t the brightest move, touting one’s low IQ on one’s own album cover.

I picked 1969’s Stand Up for the historically important reason that it has a song called “Fat Man” on it. A Facebook friend gave me the idea, and I fully intend to unfriend her. A short history: Jethro Tull (they filched their name from a pioneer of the English Agricultural Revolution) was formed in 1967 as a blues-rock outfit in Luton, Bedfordshire, a town once famed for hat-making. The concrete hat was invented there, and the resulting epidemic of neck injuries very quickly put an end to hat-making in Luton.

Tull’s debut This Was—which includes jazz flute horror “Serenade to a Cuckoo”—came out in 1968, at which point original guitarist Mick Abrahams split to form Blodwyn Pig, balking at Anderson’s decision to expand the band’s sound to incorporate Celtic, folk, and classical influences. (Fun fact: Black Sabb’s Tommy Iommi briefly replaced Abrahams, until Anderson settled on the courtly Martin Lancelot Barre. Fun fact #2: Yes’ Steve Howe flunked the audition!)

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Keyboardist/composer Doug Carn was the biggest star on the legendary Black Jazz Records label, with four releases to his credit (all reissued by Real Gone Music), and remains a touchstone for spiritual jazz fans and musicians alike. But very, very few folks have heard his debut record, cut for the venerable Savoy label back in 1969.

In fact, it’s so rare that we couldn’t even find a copy to use for artwork, so, with Doug’s help, we enlisted his daughter Eroniffa Ibrahim to create illustrations for our reissue based on the original cover photos. But you know what we did find? That’s right…the original master tapes! So, not only is this the first LP reissue for The Doug Carn Trio, but it’s an all-analog edition to boot, pressed at Gotta Groove Records with their proprietary GrooveCoated stampers to minimize high-frequency loss with each successive pressing.

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And, we’ve added an insert with liner notes by Aaron Cohen based on an exclusive interview with the man himself. As for the music, it’s a tight organ trio set that starts cooking right from the get-go with a groovin’ cover of Gus Cannon’s “Walk Right In,” which became a folk hit for The Rooftop Singers.

Carn’s fluid, forward-thinking playing anticipates Larry Young’s future keyboard forays, and originals like “Butter from the Duck” and “Yna Yna’s Delight” presage the compositional prowess he flashed on the Black Jazz releases (note: that’s Don Hales on guitar, not Gary Starling as credited on the original record). The opening salvo from a scintillating career, finally available again!

I watched a documentary about Nick Drake last week. It featured a bunch of folkie types spouting all kinds of flamdoodle about what made Drake’s guitar playing so unique. I’m sure many members of the musical fraternity found this technical brouhaha illuminating, but seeing as how I’m a guy who has difficulty distinguishing an acoustic guitar from a tuba, the documentary’s cumulative effect was to render me insensible.

I admit to never having much listened to Nick Drake, mostly because he sounded to me like an oh so sensitive soul singing about so sensitive stuff expressly designed to make my hardened heart cringe. In fact the only Drake song I’d ever heard before listening to Pink Moon was its title track, which Volkswagen used in an ad a while back. I really liked the song, even if I thought its opening line went, “I saw it written in the soy sauce.”

But seeing as how my girlfriend is always telling me what a poetic genius and doomed romantic figure Drake is, I finally broke down and gave his third and final LP, 1972’s Pink Moon, a listen. And turns out I love it, despite the fact that it’s the work of an oh so sensitive soul singing about oh so sensitive stuff designed to make my hardened heart cringe. Just goes to show you it’s impossible to know if you like something until you’ve actually listened to it. Which may sound like Philosophy 101 to you, but comes as something of a revelation to me.

Pink Moon followed on the heels on 1971’s lavishly orchestrated Bryter Layter, and its failure to make a dent on the pop charts led a disheartened Drake to say to hell with it and strip things down to voice, guitar and piano. The results are stark, in large part because Drake chose to work with a palette limited to varying shades of grey. And unlike Bryter Layter, Pink Moon is an intensely private affair. A writer for Melody Maker complained that the music on Pink Moon “hides from you,” which is precisely what I love about it. What I hear when I listen to Pink Moon is Nick Drake playing to an audience of Nick Drake, making you, the listener, an eavesdropper.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Recordings and Independiente are proud to announce an expanded vinyl reissue for Martina Topley-Bird’s 2003 critically acclaimed and Mercury Award-nominated debut album Quixotic. Available for pre-order today, and due out September 6th, the expanded 2-LP edition housed in a gatefold sleeve features the original album and three B-sides, plus an unreleased alternate mix of the album’s lead single “Sandpaper Kisses.” It will also be made available digitally.

Martina Topley-Bird, the revered singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist gained immediate attention as the voice of Maxinquaye, on Tricky’s groundbreaking 1995 debut album. The album is still considered to be one of the most innovative and influential albums in modern music, and her breathtaking and instantly recognizable vocals positioned her as the voice of trip-hop. Topley-Bird went on to work on another three Tricky albums, before launching a solo career in 2003, releasing Quixotic via Independiente to critical acclaim.

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Admired for her ability to deliver an album with such a wide range of musical styles, yet retain her unique vocal style, Mojo called Quixotic “[a] sensual, endlessly inventive record”; while Q magazine praised the album’s “…classy, laid-back” and “beyond human” experience. Pitchfork applauded the vocal performance: “Topley-Bird’s voice continues to be a strange and beautiful thing.”

The album features production and accompaniment from several luminaries including Mark Lanegan (vocals) and founding member of Queens of the Stone Age, Josh Homme (guitar). ​David Holmes produced “Too Tough to Die,” which was also covered by both Neneh Cherry and The Twilight Singers.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Ten years after its original release, Matador Records is reissuing Spoon’s beloved eighth album, They Want My Soul, on all digital platforms, with a 2xLP gatefold vinyl / 2xCD release to follow on November 8th.

Along with the record’s original ten tracks—including all-time Spoon classics “Inside Out,” “Do You,” and “Rent I Pay”—They Want My Soul: Deluxe More Soul Edition features 11 demos and alternate versions, almost all of them previously unreleased. The reissue underlines the album’s vaunted place amid one of rock’s most bulletproof catalogs and offers a glimpse at the creative process behind a pivotal moment in ongoing the Spoon story. Listen and pre-order physical HERE. Spoon has just kicked off its summer tour, with headline dates booked across the west coast, midwest, and Canada along with festival appearances at Chicago’s Riotfest and the Seattle area’s Thing Festival.

Following 2010’s Transference, Spoon was feeling spent. At that point, the band had released seven albums in 14 years while touring relentlessly and becoming an institution known for its minimalist grooves, jagged swagger, and superhuman level of quality control. But Transference, the follow-up to their 2007 breakout Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, was marked by a dubby mysteriousness that made it a harder sell for the masses that tuned-in to their horn-laden hit, “The Underdog.” Even though Transference was their highest-charting album to date, reaching No. 4, the overall reaction to it was relatively muted. A subsequent year of touring left the group, led by frontman Britt Daniel and drummer Jim Eno, longing for a much-needed break.

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Cuneiform Tabs is the Bay Area-UK project of Matt Bleyle and Sterling Mackinnon, two indie scene long haulers whose self-titled debut album, a terrifically bent excursion into the land of lo-fi that’s spiked with uprisings of subterranean pop, was built the old-fashioned way; by trading tapes through the mail. Released on LP this past February in a tiny edition that sold out quickly, the lack necessitated Superior Viaduct subsidiary W.25TH to bring out a fresh pressing that’s due out August 9.

Matt Bleyle and Sterling Mackinnon have been in numerous bands prior to the formation of Cuneiform Tabs. Bleyle was in Abi Yoyos, Sopors, Rat Columns, Caged Animal, and Beatniks, while Mackinnon was in Broken Nobles, Holy Ghost Revival, and The False Berries. Most important is that Bleyle and Mackinnon played together up close in Violent Change; the name teases hardcore but the sound is indie rock, rough-edged and loose. With the duo spread out, Cuneiform Tabs takes a turn for the strange.

Opener “Healthy Reaction” is riff-laden but hazy and with the vocals pushed way back. Around mid-way through, there’s a jump cut into a loose drifting slow motion swirl, and then a fade out. “Penitence My Lord” begins as a slightly cleaner (but still substantially hissy) acoustic affair with addled echoey vocals and a ren faire folky vibe that’s fleetingly similar to a non-sexed-up version of first album Frogs.

“Gonged Fantasy” starts out with a mingled loop that’s suggestive of audio captured from the space ship in John Carpenter’s Dark Star, but then shifts into a lazy-day sunshiny psych-pop number with a judiciously applied sprinkling of crackle and glitchy fuzz. “I Think I Need You Tonight” is next, rising up with a song in progress and then dissipating just as quickly, only to reemerge as if the tape has been rapidly rewound and the volume turned up on an AM radio that’s wafting out a forgotten nugget of ’60s love ache.

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