Jerry Garcia/Merl Saunders: Keystone Companions: The Complete 1973 Fantasy Recordings. Official release of a live recording that’s been bootlegged endlessly – because it’s a gem.
Rolling Stones: Charlie Is My Darling, Ireland 1965. Tour documentary with frighteningly good previously unreleased live performances.
Various Artists/Orchestras: Mercury Living Presence Collector’s Edition. 50-CD anthology filled with painstakingly detailed recordings of the classical repertoire.
Govt Mule: The Georgia Bootleg Box. Three discs of live performance from 1996, when the Mule was ornery and hungry.
Roxy Music: Complete Studio Recordings 1972-1982. Covers the early, high-concept Eno masterworks as well as the atmospheric later studio creations.
Peter Gabriel: So (25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition). One of many “Anniversary” editions of classic rock albums; like most of them, this has been expanded to include demos, studio outtakes, and live performances.
Charles Mingus: The Complete Columbia and RCA Studio Collection. 10-CD box showcasing the roaring, endlessly restless ensemble of jazz bassist Charles Mingus at peak. Includes Mingus Ah Um, Tijuana Moods, and the posthumous Epitaph.
Various Artists: Surf Age Nuggets: Trash and Twang Instrumentals. Because there may be no better mood enhancer than surf guitar.
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During the second or third guitar excursion of “Walk Like a Giant” Thursday at the Wells Fargo Center, Neil Young veered into one of his favorite zones – that place where the crude sound of an overdriven and distorted guitar is transformed into something unexpectedly elegant, a rich array of tone and texture.
Under the watchful eyes of busy labcoated technicians (including one seated at an onstage desk), Young and Crazy Horse ventured into the first of several unapologetically arty extended explorations. It's part of the deal when Young performs with Crazy Horse: Everything, the new tunes and the big hits, is fair game for a complete overhaul.
Young often accomplishes this with long forays in which the guitar signal is modified slowly over time: He’ll seize a single tone from the tangled spectrum of a chord, and manipulate it using distortion boxes and other pedals until new sonic dimensions emerge from the thick shadows. Thursday, he started with the typical “crunch” of rhythm guitar, then gave it a nasty serrated edge that terrorized the ear like sandpaper on a pillow. He held that as a drone, and if you listened closely, you could hear an orchestra vying for attention inside it – upper string harmonics that resembled shrieking violins in nosebleed range, brutal helicoptering low tones that punctuated the air with tympani-drum thunder, and plenty shades (and shards) of errant rumbling in between.
Some in the crowd grew restless during that journey and a few other marathons (including an equally blown-open version of “Like a Hurricane”). For me, these wailing, formidable planks of instrumental texture were highlights, in part because they stood in powerful contrast to Young’s easygoing melodies and tender-hearted lyrics. Singing to be not simply understood but felt, he’d drop some profound notion – like the verse in “Walk Like a Giant” that expresses regret over his generation’s inability to fully change society – and then, capitalizing on his listener’s openness, slam the point home with a furious primal fire that is unlike any other in rock. It was the kind of yin/yang head/heart assault that rearranges your innards on a molecular level, shakes you up, leaves you somehow changed. If it’s been awhile since you had that experience at an arena rock show, go see Neil Young and Crazy Horse. While you can.
It’s the right time of year for the event, which is marked by limited-edition releases and live performances. Because there’s nothing like walking into a record store to trigger feelings of deep gratitude for the musical bounty that we have at our fingertips (and, alas, can sometimes take for granted) every day.
The event prompts an annual ritual of hand-writing and opinion-slinging about the importance of record stores. Here's my two centavos:
Record stores matter for the same reason great radio matters: Because regardless of how well informed you are or how many coolhunters you follow on the Internet, there’s nothing like the experience of encountering unfamiliar music that you didn’t seek out or ask for. In public. Amongst people with big ears and crazy tastes who are, like you, in search of the next obsession. In a makeshift shrine that holds sounds you know by heart and sounds from faraway galaxies. Go there not just to buy your wifty aunt the new James Taylor, but to come face to face with the astonishing and the innocent. Go there to be yanked away from the acts that have been pre-approved by the members of your tribe. Go to be challenged. And uplifted.
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yesterday about the Israeli singer Rita Jahanforuz's new album.
]]>ENTRY: Sly and the Family Stone: Stand! (1000 Recordings, pg. 713).
ALTERNATE NEXT STOP: Tim Maia: The Existential Soul of Tim Maia (Luaka Bop, 2012).
WHY: Singer and bandleader Tim Maia was among a handful of Brazilian artists who became entranced by American funk and R&B in the early ‘70s. Maia melded the utopian vision of Sly and the Family Stone with the deep percussion and chanting of his homeland’s ritual music. The fusion took on many dimensions, sometimes suggesting an urban samba; this new compilation focuses a bit too much on the backbeat funk that’ll be accessible to U.S. listeners. If you like the big, hurtling Maia groove on display here, also check out his eponymous debut, issued in 1970, and Racional Vols. 1 & 2.
ENTRY: My Morning Jacket: It Still Moves (1000 Recordings, pg. 537).
ALTERNATE NEXT STOP: Grizzly Bear: Shields (Warp, 2012).
WHY: The success of My Morning Jacket opened doors for a bunch of rock bands with ears for sonic textures and grooves that are well outside of the indie-rock soundset. On the rousing Shields, the Brooklyn collective tumbles headfirst into unexpectedly gorgeous reverb-drenched portraiture – and at times sounds like it’s trying to emulate the hard-charging fury of Charles Mingus circa Blues & Roots.
ENTRY: Jan Garbarek & Ralph Towner: Dis (1000 Recordings, pg. 299).
ALTERNATE CATALOG CHOICE: Magico: Carta de Amor (ECM, 2012).
WHY: The early 1980s collaboration between saxophonist Jan Garbarek, guitarist (and pianist) Egberto Gismonti and bassist Charlie Haden was known as Magico – a truth-in-labeling description of a wonderfully fluid, evanescent approach to music. The group toured some during its run, and fortunately some of its performances were recorded. Carta de Amor, captured in Munich in April 1981 and released for the first time this fall, shows what can happen when three sensitive souls share a journey toward lyricism. Stunning.
ENTRY: Frank Zappa: The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life (1000 Recordings, pg. 886).
ALTERNATE NEXT STOP: Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino, 2009).
WHY: Though it doesn’t immediately resemble Zappa, Merriweather Post Pavilion bubbles with the guitarist and composer’s delightfully unhinged experimental spirit. Animal Collective is the rare ensemble capable of extreme guitar-rock fury as well as elaborate sample-mangling mashups – at times, these awe-inspiring super-dense orchestrations seem plotted note for note. But, as with Zappa’s work, they could just as easily have been impromptu accidents.
ENTRY: Dr. John: Gris Gris (1000 Recordings, pg. 237).
ALTERNATE CATALOG CHOICE: Locked Down (Nonesuch, 2012).
WHY: As Louis Armstrong once said, “If you have to ask, you’ll never know…..”
When you look at Neil Young’s entire discography, a record like the just released Psychedelic Pill registers as decidedly second-tier. A two-disc studio foray with Crazy Horse, it’s destined to be compared with a raft of sharper, more rousing albums from the Young heyday, whichever heyday you like. There are flashes of brilliance in the songwriting and the playing, along with moments that are the musical equivalent of muscle-flexing. One of them is the marathon “Walk Like A Giant,” which can seem like a parody of the feedback-surfing detours of ‘90s Crazy Horse – or the too-earnest effort of old guys determined to show they can still “do it.” Whatever “it” is.
Putting together the short excerpts for the radio, I was struck by Young’s unusual situation: All he has to do is whip up a familiar verse/chorus structure, decked out with the chord progressions that he’s used since Buffalo Springfield days, and his faithful will be able to tap into what he’s saying. The sound acts as a kind of bridge -- even when he's ranting, his listeners, whose ears have been tuned by years of exposure to Rust Never Sleeps and Sleeps With Angels and all the rest, will be able to relate. That’s not a negative – somehow Young, like Dylan and very few others, has found a bandwidth that allows him to communicate effectively in the present moment, while gently tickling the memory lobes of his audience. His approach to working the myth is completely different from that of, say, Rod Stewart: It’s possible to be entirely aware of all the elements Young is rehashing and still be in awe of where he goes and how he and his crew get there. With Young and Crazy Horse, you happily take the journey even if you already know where they're going and the general route they'll follow.
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We’ve seen a bunch of highly touted new offerings in the last six weeks. Below is a brief inventory of them, based on my own inevitably unscientific listening.
Bob Dylan: Tempest. Every new Dylan project triggers massive – and unfairly outsized – expectation, and this one was no different. The material that drew the most media attention – tragedy-mired endurance-test songs about the Titanic and John Lennon that close the record– turned out to be the least significant. The rest? Trenchant, swinging, shrewdly observed songs that feel frighteningly timeless.
Calexico: Algiers; Avett Brothers: The Carpenter; Mumford & Sons: Babel. This turned out to be a great season if you like earnest, passionately sung and well-appointed folk pop brushed with hints of classic country. The Mumford record drew the lion’s share of attention, given the phenomenal success of the last one; it’s rousing in spots, plenty competent throughout, and still it somehow feels slight. Calexico’s songs have a distorted-reality fever-dream demeanor that’s enhanced by the wistful accordions and delicate instrumentation – I find myself reaching for this when I’m in the car at night and don’t want more Bill Evans. The Avett Brothers, produced by Rick Rubin, is more workmanlike, in a good way: These sturdy, affect-free songs will gather resonance as they age. Destined to sneak up on people months from now.
Green Day: Uno! The first of three (!) promised new albums to be released in 16 weeks, Uno! was one-and-done for me. Here’s hoping the other two are less of a flatlined affair, because if not, we’ll be reading lots of reviews on the theme of how stardom puts musicians out of touch with reality.
Beth Orton: Sugaring Season. Easily the most welcome surprise of the fall. On first listen, this long-overdue return (6 years!) seemed to echo the gentler realms of Central Reservation, her enduring great work. With a wonderfully open sound and transparent production from Tucker Martine, this record is shadowy and a bit less immediate on first pass. It blossoms over time.
Grizzly Bear: Shields. Record Four from fast-rising Brooklyn stars is sprawling and unruly and defined by a series of knockout-punch melodies. Breathtaking and impossibly alive, this is the sound we long for when we talk about rock from days gone by.
]]>This entry on Hypebot caught my eye the other day. It gets at another facet of music engagement that has been changed by digital culture. The oldheads love to say "It was better way back when..." but this fan is not an oldhead, and what he's sensing is part of a more fundamental shift, I think, or at least a shift on a higher order of magnitude than simply the "fan experience." Thoughts? I'm pretty sure I'll have more on this by and by....
]]>Motown scholars consider David one of the more baffling stories of the label's heyday: It showcases Ruffin with the Funk Brothers rhythm section and a team of A-list producers (Smokey Robinson, Henry Cosby, Clay McMurray), and contains several genius covers, including the Jackson Five's "I Want You Back" and a wrenching treatment of Brook Benton's "Rainy Night in Georgia." (Audio for that one can be heard here.) The album was shelved at the time, perhaps because another former Temp, Eddie Kendricks, was having big solo success. It was brought out in a limited edition in 2004.
The version appearing tomorrow includes the 12 tracks slated for the original release as well as seven bonus tracks from the sessions and four mono single mixes. It's a gem, top to bottom....
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Just looking at the first batch of albums under Charlie Rich’s name on Spotify, one gets the sense that some sort of reappraisal is on the horizon: The singer, pianist and songwriter is best known for his soft-country ‘70s megahit “Behind Closed Doors” and album of the same name (1000 Recordings pg. 644); since he died in 1995, his legacy has sorta held steady as a country singer with a persuasive voice and jazz and R&B leanings.
Still, among the most recent albums on Spotify are several different anthologies devoted to Rich’s early career at Sun Records, when he transitioned from session musician to frontman. (Of them, this is the most comprehensive.) These brisk little gems exude all the panache we associate with Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis and the other titans of Sun, but with one important difference: Rich sings them. His delivery is sly and unassumingly authoritative, and even when the lyrics veer toward the cornball, he somehow seals the deal in ways you wouldn’t expect knowing his more nuanced later work. The material covers significant stylistic range – there are blithe rockabilly rambles (“Whirlwind”), heartsick troubled blues (“Who Will The Next Fool Be?”) and astonishingly credible forays into New Orleans R&B (“Easy Money”), suggesting that though Sun had a “sound” and a distinct rhythmic feel, the label was not averse to experimentation. Rich never sounds like he’s faking it, or just dipping a toe into unfamiliar waters. Quite the opposite: The best moments here have enough punch to knock you sideways, and make you think there’s an entire alternate history of early rock you somehow missed.
Often, the derision is deserved: The record industry loves to seize and exploit a media-powered phenomena, especially when it involves a simple re-release of music that’s lingered for years, neglected, in the back catalog.
Thomas Tallis’ “Spem in alium,” a motet for 40 voices composed around 1570, fits the profile perfectly: It turns up in a scene in the book, and ever since the Fifty Shades mania erupted, various recorded versions of the piece have surfaced on the classical charts. It’s become one of those rare “hits” a la Chant. So it was only a matter of time before some enterprising label partnered with the author to create an “official” audio companion to the books.
The unexpected twist here is that James selected some genuinely sparkling performances – if you’re looking for music to engage and (to borrow heroine Anastasia’s reaction to Tallis from the book) “overwhelm” the senses, you could do far worse than this 15-track anthology. In addition to the Tallis Scholars version of “Spen in alium,” which was recorded in 1965, there’s a sweetly melodic treatment of Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas brasileiras No. 5 from soprano Barbara Hendricks and the cellos of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and several Chopin piano works played by Samson Francois. The English Chamber Orchestra’s treatment of the Faure Requiem Op. 48, beautifully recorded in 1969, conjures an unusual reverie -- contemplative grace underpinned by a sense of mourning.
And though there are plenty of competent versions of Ralph Vaugan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis out there, James’ choice – a 1976 performance by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Sir Adrian Bout – is notable for its sharp extremes. The piece is an essay in tense, surging chords, and where some renditions wallow and brood, this one lives in a realm of majesty and nuance and slow, delightfully slow, sensuality. It was this work that flipped my default cynicism: OK sure, this release piggybacks on a craze. But at the same time, it offers music that can accurately be described as overwhelming -- whether you happen to be in a dungeon or on an airplane. Never anything wrong with that.