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| The Duke Spirit |
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The Duke Spirit
See Power 4:48
Magenta 3:17
from Sky Is Mine 2017
Most of the Duke Spirit's albums are graced by only one or two of their stately ballads, but on Sky Is Mine, they're in the majority... Indeed, the somber restraint they show on Sky Is Mine ends up feeling and sounding liberating, and the result is the band's most beautiful album yet.
Charlie Hunter
Everybody Has a Plan Until They Get Punched in the Mouth 5:01
No Money, No Honey 3:52
from Everybody Has a Plan Until They Get Punched in the Mouth 2016
Charlie Hunter's Everybody Has a Plan Until They Get Punched in the Mouth is not only his first recording for a major label in nine years, but his first with a larger-than-trio-sized band since 2003. His personnel include drummer Bobby Previte, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes (who both played on 2015's Let the Bells Ring On and 2003's Right Now Move), and cornetist Kirk Knuffke. The album's title paraphrases a quote by former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson. It's a metaphorical reference to the contrast between an envisioned plan for living and the reality that transpires later.
Hunter saturates his approach in blues and vintage R&B here. To get the vibe right, the band recorded live in a Hudson, New York studio; there are no overdubs -- everybody walked the tightrope. First single "No Money, No Honey" opens with a guitar hammer on, but the band quickly establishes a funky Meters-esque vamp that gets inverted by knotty jazz syncopation...
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| Charlie Hunter - 7-string guitar, Curtis Fowlkes - trombone, Kirk Knuffke - cornet, Bobby Previte - drums |
Jackson MacIntosh
Can It Be Love 2:40
My Dark Side 3:07
from My Dark Side 2018
... He decided to turn them into an album, and 2018's My Dark Side is the result. Digging into subdued '70s ballads like one might hear on a Todd Rundgren or Harry Nilsson record, dishing out heartbroken lyrics that were the result of two breakups in the span of three years, and keeping things sparse and simple, MacIntosh reveals himself as a very credible singer/songwriter in the classic sense. The record begins with a suite of slow, sad songs that showcase his aching, melancholy vocals and create a late-night, crying-in-a-drink mood that's hard to shake. Built around clunky drum machines, electric pianos, occasional guitars, and a thick coat of reverb, the songs come off like bedroom Memphis soul at times, only MacIntosh seems far too bummed to break a soulful sweat...
Jack White
Connected by Love 4:37
Corporation 5:39
from Boarding House Reach 2018
Due to his affection for prewar music and myths, Jack White often gets pigeonholed as a blues-rock revivalist -- an assessment that isn't so much wrong as it is incomplete. Even in the earliest days of the White Stripes, White limited his aural palette with deliberate zeal, a practice he sustained through the Stripes as well as his first two solo albums. Boarding House Reach is where he expands his horizons and that discipline begins to fracture, and quite intentionally so...
The Yawpers
Child of Mercy 3:04
Human Question 4:49
from Human Question 2019
Human Question isn’t meant for the meek or casual listener. It will make you dance, mosh, sing along, and dig deep into your soul. Some people lament that rock-n-roll is dead. They just haven’t heard the Yawpers yet.
Their most complete-sounding record yet. Incorporating country, punk, rock n roll, gospel, indie, blues, and pretty much anything that sounds good alongside excellent songwriting, they have created an extremely special body of work." (Americana UK)
Ultramarine
Elsewhere 2:47
Spark From Flint to Clayfeat. Anna Domino 5:31
from Signals Into Space 2019
Nearly 30 years after Folk, their debut long-player, Essex duo Ultramarine return to Les Disques du Crépuscule for Signals Into Space, their seventh album. Though hardly prolific, this outfit has been remarkably consistent... Signals Into Space is what you'd expect from Ultramarine: it's airy, spacy, and pillowy, and its textures frame unassuming loops colored with synthetic and organic rhythms, carefully arranged reeds, winds, stacked keyboards, and samplers. The American singer/songwriter Anna Domino -- whose recordings on Les Disques du Crepuscule and Factory inspired the lads early on -- co-wrote and sings on four tunes. Ian Cooper and Paul Hammond spent three years working in a cramped, windowless studio, creating tracks that traveled outside their enclosed surroundings, alternately evoking visions of nighttime beaches, sun-scorched deserts, pastoral country landscapes, and steamy jungles...
The Limiñanas
Istanbul Is Sleepy feat. Anton Newcombe 3:51
The Gift feat. Peter Hook 5:01
Shadow People feat. Emmanuelle Seigner 3:11
from Shadow People 2018
On their 2018 album Shadow People, French duo the Limiñanas don't budge an inch from the formula they honed to a knife edge on all the albums that preceded it. Starting in 2010, Lionel and Marie Limiñana mapped out territory that hit the sweet spot where the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Velvet Underground, sultry French pop, and Italian soundtrack music all meet to smoke cigarettes and look hard.... On Shadow People they bring in cool people to do their thing: Peter Hook again to play some swooping bass on the New Order-sounding "The Gift," Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre to add his distinctive vocals to the strutting "Istanbul Is Sleepy," and French actress Emmanuelle Seigner to give the insistently hooky title track some cinematic class.
Priests
Appropriate 5:13
No Big Bang 2:48
Nothing Feels Natural 3:59
Pink White House 4:05
from Nothing Feels Natural 2017
The creative leap that Priests make from the Bodies and Control and Money and Power EP to their first full-length Nothing Feels Natural is reflected in the titles of both works: Bodies spelled out society's ills with literal (and literate) rants, but this time, Priests use a more poetic, existential approach to express these frustrations. When nothing feels right, change is a natural response, and the band uses the space afforded by a full-fledged album to introduce more sounds and moods to its music...
Giorgio Tuma
The Wings of a Loser feat. Matilde Davoli 1:57
Mountain Elia K 2:20
from This Life Denied Me Your Love 2016
After releasing the gorgeous chamber pop album In the Morning We'll Meet, the Italian maestro Giorgio Tuma turned to singles as a means of experimentation and collaboration. Working with Lena Karlsson of Komeda, Laetitia Sadier, and Malik Moore of Stones Throw band the Lions, Tuma branched out into cabaret and reggae, before returning with an album in 2016. This Life Denied Me Your Love captures the experimental spirit of the singles, mixes it with Tuma's trademark swirl of rich chamber pop sounds, and delivers a typically warm listening experience...
The James Hunter Six
If That Don't Tell You 2:34
(Baby) Hold On 2:45
A Truer Heart 2:38
Satchelfoot 2:31
from Hold On! 2016
Hold On! is the fourth album by the rocking soul man James Hunter and his stalwart sextet. Daptone's Gabriel Roth produced the excellent Minute by Minute in 2013, but this is the band's debut for the label. Hold On! was recorded live in the studio, but Roth and Hunter decided on mono to best capture the immediacy of the performances. The songwriter has recorded only original material since 2006, and these ten tracks are no exception. What separates this date from previous outings -- excellent though they all were -- isn't the mono production, but the diversity in songwriting, rhythmic invention, and arranging...
Niia
Sideline 4:20
Nobody 4:08
Last Night In Los Feliz 5:55
from Niia I 2017
...Decay is the thing on “I,” Niia’s lavishly detailed full-length debut album, made in partnership with the producer Robin Hannibal. Together, they understand how to make songs melt, and how to make seismic shifts at a glacial pace. The result is trip-hop that strips away the pomp, leaving only the ooze...
Eyes of Love
Homeowners 1:36
Version of Tomorrow 2:39
Players of the Field 2:41
from End of the Game 2018
Andrea Schiavelli previously used the name Eyes of Love for a solo cassette in 2011, then debuted the band of the same name with a 7" EP of VU-indebted lo-fi rock songs in 2016. An entirely different lineup of the band recorded End of the Game, the first Eyes of Love full-length, and by this point the project had developed into a lushly arranged prog-pop unit. An entirely different lineup of the band recorded End of the Game, the first Eyes of Love full-length, and by this point the project had developed into a lushly arranged prog-pop unit. Joined by Palberta's Lily Konigsberg and two members of the Cradle (Sammy Weissberg and Paco Cathcart), Schiavelli pens soft, heartfelt semi-orchestral pop tunes with fractured rhythms and unexpected detours... End of the Game is complex but not discordant; it never seems like Schiavelli is trying to out-weird anyone or attack the listener with an over-abundance of sounds. It could've ended up a jumble of an album if it wasn't so tightly composed, well arranged, and cleanly recorded.
Le SuperHomard
Door After Door 3:54
Meadow Lane Park 3:20
from Meadow Lane Park 2019
After releasing the very promising MapleKey EP in 2016, the French band Le SuperHomard were positioned as the next great band in the tradition of Stereolab, Broadcast, and the High Llamas. 2019's Meadow Lane Park makes good on that promise and should please anyone who ever loved the kind of retro-looking, futuristic-sounding pop those bands made in their prime. With songs written, played, and produced by Christophe Vaillant, then sung by Julie Big in breathlessly soft tones, the album is a gentle musical hug that plays on nostalgic strings, but also adds something special -- and perhaps left over from his days playing power pop in the Strawberry Smell -- to the template...
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