Re: New Music: 2009 Releases!
The year is half over and I haven't added anything to this thread. I haven't been pursuing new music with as much fervor as I did in 2008, when I was trying to be as current as possible with artists I liked. However, while I've been trying to fill some holes in my collection (especially in the metal and bluegrass genres), I have managed to pick up a few new things.
Elvis Perkins in Deerland
Elvis Perkins in Deerland
Perkins is the son of Psycho star Anthony Perkins. I saw him perform "While You Were Sleeping" on Letterman a couple of years ago and was blown away by the excellent songwriting. This new album is more of the same, a moody, jangly, country-tinged rock album. I hate to compare him to Jakob Dylan and James McMurtry 'cause it looks like I'm just drawing parallels between musicians with famous dads, but he really does sound like a cross between them, including the super-literate lyrics. This new album has a kind of retro sound I can't put my finger on; I suspect it's in the way it was recorded. Anyway, if you don't know Elvis, check out "While Were You Were Sleeping" first, but from this album I really dig "Shampoo," "Hours Last Stand," and "Send My Fond Regards to Lonelyville."
Willie Nelson with Asleep at the Wheel
Willie and the Wheel
I am no fan of young Willie Nelson, but I am crazy about old Willie Nelson. Talk about a musician who's aged well. I'm not sure what to call this brand of old-timey country music. It's country, complete with tinny piano, but it's got elements of swing (lots of 40s-sounding clarinet) and Dixieland (in the form of very cool trombone and trumpet). I have a feeling this music has a name, but I'm really a country newbie and don't know my genres outside of bluegrass. All I can say is that this is some fun, happy music. Willie sounds like he's having a ball, and the musicians of Asleep at the Wheel (whom I'd only known by name before this album) are just killer. I love the sweet Hawaiian-sounding steel guitar and the don't-shoot-me piano playing. This is a great album. If these guys recorded a live performance DVD to accompany this album's release, I'm probably getting it.
Saxon
Into the Labyrinth
The trouble with Saxon is that if the band isn't playing with as much sincerity as possible, it sounds like a parody of this kind of music; in fact, the guys in Spinal Tap based a lot of their stuff on stories they got from the guys in Saxon. Here, it is played sincerely, but I've had trouble listening to it lately. This was my first purchase this calendar year, and at first I really really liked it, but I've spent a lot of time this summer listening to some KILLER metal by Shadows Fall and now when I listen to Saxon, it seems I can no longer listen sincerely, because a band like Saxon just can't compare to a band like Shadows Fall, either in musicianship or in interestingness. Still, it is the band's best effort in a long, long time. I don't think fans will be disappointed, but if you're not a fan, I'd stay away from this.
Sometymes Why
Your Heart is a Glorious Machine
I discovered this three-member all-female group in my pursuit of neo-bluegrass (a genre title I still don't get). Aoife O'Donovan, the lead singer of Crooked Still, is in this group, as is Kristin Andreassen, a member of Uncle Earl. It's cello-bass-violin-banjo music but it is so different from Crooked Still and Uncle Earl. This is haunting, pretty, dramatic, serious music, as if these Americana musicians spent a few weeks listening to Alice in Chains and Concrete Blonde. In fact, they do the sweetest cover of a Concrete Blonde song I've ever heard ("Joey"). This is a great album, but it makes me wanna lock myself in my house, lie upon my floor, and not come out for a month. Highly recommended!
Basia
It's That Girl Again
It sure is. If you like Basia, you'll like this. I do, and I do.
Alison Brown
The Company You Keep
Brown was a banjo player in Union Station but about fifteen years ago left to pursue a solo career. She's often tagged as a jazz musician, and I can hear a lot of that, but this is a lot closer to bluegrass if you ask me. Her banjo-playing has a unique sound first because she plays a nylon-stringed banjo, giving the instrument a much softer, mellower feel but second because it interacts with the other instruments in a very GRP-like manner. I don't know who her supporting musicians are on this album, but I almost wanna guess it's guys like David Benoit, or because of its almost improvised sound, maybe Bruce Hornsby. This is so far my favorite album of the year.
Abigail Washburn and the Shanghai Restoration Project
Afterquake
Washburn, a banjo player with Uncle Earl and with her Sparrow Quartet (one of whom is Bela Fleck) has recorded some amazing music. She was also a Chinese studies major in college and is fluent in (at least) one of the Chinese languages and writes some of her songs with Chinese lyrics. I don't know the story on this recording, but it was released after the China earthquake this year, and it sounds very Chinese. The instrumentation and song-structure is much more Chinese-sounding than American. An interesting seven-song album. I like it.
Isis
Wavering Radiant
It's tough to describe this intense, brutal metal band, because people without their metal ears on are mostly going to hear unintelligible, gutteral vocals, but Isis is a band that makes soundscapes, kind of like Friends of Dean Martinez. Their songs don't so much have beginnings, middles, and ends as they have foregrounds, backgrounds, and areas of light and shadow. If you can imagine department-store music played by metal-heads, you might have the right idea here. There's no verse-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus thing going on here. It's more like looking at a Japanese screen painting from one end to another. But with vocals that sound like someone's in agony.
Gutteral vocals are not my cup of tea since I can't understand the lyrics, but I was thinking a lot about this one night and I realized that I enjoy opera without understanding the lyrics either, and I enjoy a lot of Hawaiian music whose lyrics I don't understand. Approached this way, the vocals are more like one of the instruments, especially the way a band like Isis seems to compose its songs, which on this album are mostly in the eight-minute range. This is really not going to be a lot of people's idea of nice music, but I find it meditative and thoughtful.
I've got a few more to summarize, but this laptop's about out of juice, so I'll get to them later today.
The year is half over and I haven't added anything to this thread. I haven't been pursuing new music with as much fervor as I did in 2008, when I was trying to be as current as possible with artists I liked. However, while I've been trying to fill some holes in my collection (especially in the metal and bluegrass genres), I have managed to pick up a few new things.
Elvis Perkins in Deerland
Elvis Perkins in Deerland
Perkins is the son of Psycho star Anthony Perkins. I saw him perform "While You Were Sleeping" on Letterman a couple of years ago and was blown away by the excellent songwriting. This new album is more of the same, a moody, jangly, country-tinged rock album. I hate to compare him to Jakob Dylan and James McMurtry 'cause it looks like I'm just drawing parallels between musicians with famous dads, but he really does sound like a cross between them, including the super-literate lyrics. This new album has a kind of retro sound I can't put my finger on; I suspect it's in the way it was recorded. Anyway, if you don't know Elvis, check out "While Were You Were Sleeping" first, but from this album I really dig "Shampoo," "Hours Last Stand," and "Send My Fond Regards to Lonelyville."
Willie Nelson with Asleep at the Wheel
Willie and the Wheel
I am no fan of young Willie Nelson, but I am crazy about old Willie Nelson. Talk about a musician who's aged well. I'm not sure what to call this brand of old-timey country music. It's country, complete with tinny piano, but it's got elements of swing (lots of 40s-sounding clarinet) and Dixieland (in the form of very cool trombone and trumpet). I have a feeling this music has a name, but I'm really a country newbie and don't know my genres outside of bluegrass. All I can say is that this is some fun, happy music. Willie sounds like he's having a ball, and the musicians of Asleep at the Wheel (whom I'd only known by name before this album) are just killer. I love the sweet Hawaiian-sounding steel guitar and the don't-shoot-me piano playing. This is a great album. If these guys recorded a live performance DVD to accompany this album's release, I'm probably getting it.
Saxon
Into the Labyrinth
The trouble with Saxon is that if the band isn't playing with as much sincerity as possible, it sounds like a parody of this kind of music; in fact, the guys in Spinal Tap based a lot of their stuff on stories they got from the guys in Saxon. Here, it is played sincerely, but I've had trouble listening to it lately. This was my first purchase this calendar year, and at first I really really liked it, but I've spent a lot of time this summer listening to some KILLER metal by Shadows Fall and now when I listen to Saxon, it seems I can no longer listen sincerely, because a band like Saxon just can't compare to a band like Shadows Fall, either in musicianship or in interestingness. Still, it is the band's best effort in a long, long time. I don't think fans will be disappointed, but if you're not a fan, I'd stay away from this.
Sometymes Why
Your Heart is a Glorious Machine
I discovered this three-member all-female group in my pursuit of neo-bluegrass (a genre title I still don't get). Aoife O'Donovan, the lead singer of Crooked Still, is in this group, as is Kristin Andreassen, a member of Uncle Earl. It's cello-bass-violin-banjo music but it is so different from Crooked Still and Uncle Earl. This is haunting, pretty, dramatic, serious music, as if these Americana musicians spent a few weeks listening to Alice in Chains and Concrete Blonde. In fact, they do the sweetest cover of a Concrete Blonde song I've ever heard ("Joey"). This is a great album, but it makes me wanna lock myself in my house, lie upon my floor, and not come out for a month. Highly recommended!
Basia
It's That Girl Again
It sure is. If you like Basia, you'll like this. I do, and I do.
Alison Brown
The Company You Keep
Brown was a banjo player in Union Station but about fifteen years ago left to pursue a solo career. She's often tagged as a jazz musician, and I can hear a lot of that, but this is a lot closer to bluegrass if you ask me. Her banjo-playing has a unique sound first because she plays a nylon-stringed banjo, giving the instrument a much softer, mellower feel but second because it interacts with the other instruments in a very GRP-like manner. I don't know who her supporting musicians are on this album, but I almost wanna guess it's guys like David Benoit, or because of its almost improvised sound, maybe Bruce Hornsby. This is so far my favorite album of the year.
Abigail Washburn and the Shanghai Restoration Project
Afterquake
Washburn, a banjo player with Uncle Earl and with her Sparrow Quartet (one of whom is Bela Fleck) has recorded some amazing music. She was also a Chinese studies major in college and is fluent in (at least) one of the Chinese languages and writes some of her songs with Chinese lyrics. I don't know the story on this recording, but it was released after the China earthquake this year, and it sounds very Chinese. The instrumentation and song-structure is much more Chinese-sounding than American. An interesting seven-song album. I like it.
Isis
Wavering Radiant
It's tough to describe this intense, brutal metal band, because people without their metal ears on are mostly going to hear unintelligible, gutteral vocals, but Isis is a band that makes soundscapes, kind of like Friends of Dean Martinez. Their songs don't so much have beginnings, middles, and ends as they have foregrounds, backgrounds, and areas of light and shadow. If you can imagine department-store music played by metal-heads, you might have the right idea here. There's no verse-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus thing going on here. It's more like looking at a Japanese screen painting from one end to another. But with vocals that sound like someone's in agony.
Gutteral vocals are not my cup of tea since I can't understand the lyrics, but I was thinking a lot about this one night and I realized that I enjoy opera without understanding the lyrics either, and I enjoy a lot of Hawaiian music whose lyrics I don't understand. Approached this way, the vocals are more like one of the instruments, especially the way a band like Isis seems to compose its songs, which on this album are mostly in the eight-minute range. This is really not going to be a lot of people's idea of nice music, but I find it meditative and thoughtful.
I've got a few more to summarize, but this laptop's about out of juice, so I'll get to them later today.
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