ALTER.NATION #83
Brendan Benson, Dead Ghosts, Hazel English, Other Lives, Wares, Lucinda Williams, Peter Oren, BC Camplight, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Macula Dog, Lorenzo Senni, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Adrian Younge, Azymuth
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"Freak Out"
Brendan Benson - Dear Life / Freak Out
Those familiar with Brendan Benson might know him for his role in the Raconteurs, the guitar-heavy rock band he started with Jack White, or for the striking solo albums he's been slowly releasing since the mid-'90s. With seventh solo album Dear Life, Benson actively explores beyond both the rock heaviness of the Raconteurs and, to a lesser degree, the power pop songwriting greatness that's defined his solo work... An amazing singer, Benson's ability to harmonize with himself is one of his many gifts as a songwriter. As with all of his albums, his understated vocal arrangements are one of the guiding forces on Dear Life. It's exciting to hear Benson take some new risks with these songs, but also a relief that he never gets too far away from the deft songwriting and pop sensibilities that he's been refining for all these years.
Dead Ghosts - Automatic Changer / You Got Away
Formed nearly a decade ago in Vancouver, Canada, the garage-rock group grew out of founders Byran Nicol, Drew Wilky, and Mike Wilky's desire to hang out, listen to records and play music. After the trio uploaded a few demos to Myspace--this was 2008, after all--a small punk record label from Iowa reached out and asked if they wanted to do a single... "When we started playing, we were just messing with recording, and generally goofing around. We had no vision at all... Playing a distinctive brand of swaggering, blues-infused lo-fi rock, the five-piece quickly won over transatlantic fans and scored fresh fodder for their lyrics with their punk-rock antics.
Hazel English - Wake UP! / Born Like
Following a handful of viral songs in the mid-2010s and a pair of EPs that landed her on Polyvinyl's roster, Wake UP! is the full-length debut of Australian ex-pat Hazel English... The resulting recordings still reflect core attributes that were part of English's music from the beginning: namely, a '60s sensibility, a knack for breezy melodies, and a touch of dream pop luster. Wake UP! opens with a swelling mixture of organ and guitar on "Born Like," a psychedelic pop tune that quickly settles into a midtempo bass groove shaded with broken guitar chords and rim clicks, as English addresses the other half of a harmonious relationship.
Other Lives - For Their Love / Sound of Violence
The fourth full-length effort from the Nebraska-based indie rockers, For Their Love finds Other Lives in fine form, applying their moody sonic expertise to a spectral ten-song set that parses themes of self-worth and existential dread in an age of political, social, and economic turmoil. Commencing with the ruminative "Sound of Violence," a sumptuous bit of '60s-leaning orchestral pop that evokes the Wally Stott string arrangements of "Montague Terrace"-era Scott Walker, For Their Love was self-produced in Oregon's Cooper Mountain region in frontman Jesse Tabish's A-framed cabin, and the material mostly reflects that pastoral setting...
Wares - Survival / Tether
...Now, she sounds impatient to dive in and live her truth. There's more heft, more urgency, and, most of all, more volume powering Survival's outsider anthems. That might be because this time around, she's not quite as much of a loner: While Wares is technically still Hardy's solo project, this time she's backed by the live band that supported her during her 2018 tours. The megawatt energy of an especially inspired show ignites the punk and emo roots of Wares' music, harnessing those styles' power to unite misfits and express the kinds of outsized emotions that are essential to Survival...
Lucinda Williams - Good Souls Better Angels / Man without a Soul
Lucinda Williams is incapable of sounding anything less than 100-percent engaged and sincere. Whatever she has to say, she clearly means it, and that more than anything else is the thread that runs through 2020's Good Souls Better Angels, her fourth album since she launched her own record label and took full control of her process of recording and releasing music. Cut mostly live in the studio with her road band -- Stuart Mathis on guitar, David Sutton on bass, and Butch Norton on drums -- these 12 songs play like a long stream-of consciousness journey, with Williams writing in blues structures that repeat certain lines like a mantra while her band either sneak up on the music like a ghost or howl with elemental, bluesy skronk (the raw, gritty tone of Mathis' guitar matches Williams' vocals for sheer ferocity...
Peter Oren - The Greener Pasture / In Line to Die
A kiadás, amelyet "disztopikus farmomnak / telefon témájú albumomnak" neveztek, a The Greener Pasture az Indiana énekes / dalszerző, Peter Oren harmadik teljes hosszúságú albuma. Ez egy ugyanolyan társadalmilag tudatos második albumot követi, az antropocén. Míg ez a rekord inkább az éghajlatváltozással foglalkozott, a Zöldebb Legelő úgy véli, hogy fokozottan támaszkodunk az okostelefonokra, valamint a gazdálkodás, a környezetvédelem és a nagyobb politika bizonyos romboló tendenciáira. In keeping with the album's phone-related themes of isolation, Oren decamped to a cabin in the woods outside of Nashville to record it... Throughout, Oren sells his consistently smart, crafted messages with a resonant voice and presence that command attention -- like a quality folkie should.
BC Camplight - Shortly After Takeoff / I Only Drink When I'm Drunk
He may have returned to the U.K., but Brian Christinzio's post-deportation blues remain, as do his mental health struggles, which suffered further damage after the sudden death of his father. Fortunately, his sharp wit and gallows humor are in abundance on Shortly After Takeoff, the Philadelphian singer/songwriter's third album since relocating to Manchester, getting signed to Bella Union, getting deported, and eventually moving back. Working under the name BC Camplight, Christinzio writes literate, self-effacing, darkly funny songs about his personal life in a tone similar to Stephin Merritt or Father John Misty, though his pop savvy recalls the sophistication of Brian Wilson or Todd Rundgren, albeit with a maverick synth-punk streak... Christinzio is a master craftsman in terms of song structure, building tension and discomfort only to provide a glorious uplift and rhythmic shift on the chorus of opener, "I Only Drink When I'm Drunk."...
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Chunky Shrapnel / A Brief History of Planet Earth
From the beginning of their career, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have been road warriors and over time have grown into a can't-miss live experience. Chunky Shrapnel captures the band in full flight over the European continent during the last part of 2019 and is made up of songs taken from various shows... The album ends with the epic-length "A Brief History of the Planet Earth," a jam that's spliced together from four different nights in four different cities and winds its way through trippy psychedelic riffs, flute solos, barely in-control guitar solos, and lots of crowd interaction. Chunky Shrapnel is a testament to the band's powers as a live act and is sure to make their fans happy...
Macula Dog - Breezy / Red's Corvette
Elaborately costumed, highly conceptual art-rock duo Macula Dog create mutated electronic pop filled with fractured rhythms and jarring sonic textures. While some bands try to write straightforward songs but can't help displaying the quirkier aspects of their personalities, Macula Dog go all in, making everything as weird and confusing as possible, because it makes sense to them, and they know there's someone else out there who gets it... "Reds Corvette" is the centerpiece, a sinister crime caper of a psychotic, Day-Glo-clad villain with a bounty of shrunken heads stashed away in the trunk of his getaway vehicle... The enigmatic duo dare their listeners to keep up with them and figure it all out, and their most tightly focused work to date is just as bewildering as anything else they've done.
Lorenzo Senni - Scacco Matto / Discipline of Enthusiasm
...Dubbing his style "pointillistic trance," the avant-garde Ferry Corsten gradually breathed more life into trance's hollowed-out skeleton with his subsequent releases, adding more bass, counterpoint, and progressive song structures, yet stopping short of constructing full-on trance anthems.. These tracks are bursting with playful melodies, and they move far beyond the hypnotic repetition of Senni's earlier releases in this style, contorting rhythms into fantastic formations... On tracks like opener "Discipline of Enthusiasm," he punches up the triumphant melodies with sparks of distortion, and hammers sharp curves into the rhythms, making sure nothing becomes predictable...
Adrian Younge is all-around talent with an uncanny ability to transform his obsession with late-'60s and early-'70s music into unique, impeccably made projects.
Ali Shaheed Muhammad / Adrian Younge - Jazz Is Dead 001 / Apocalíptico feat. Azymuth
Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad both have impressive resumes as purveyors of modern soul, jazz, and hip-hop. Younge, a bassist, keyboardist, composer, and producer, has scored films such Black Dynamite and collaborated with artists ranging from Philly soul legends the Delfonics to Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah. Meanwhile, Muhammad was a member of A Tribe Called Quest and has worked on various projects outside that group. Together, Younge and Muhammad formed the Midnight Hour, a versatile band that brought a modern edge to retro soul and jazz sounds...The lone long track on 001, "Apocalíptico", is a nine-minute long jam featuring the current incarnation of Azymuth, a Brazilian jazz-funk trio originally formed in 1971... While the purpose of 001 might be to pave the way for upcoming Jazz is Dead releases, the album exists nicely as a standalone example of where modern jazz has been, and where it could be going.
Brendan Benson, Dead Ghosts, Hazel English, Other Lives, Wares, Lucinda Williams, Peter Oren, BC Camplight, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Macula Dog, Lorenzo Senni, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Adrian Younge, Azymuth
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