"A Thought Is Just a Passing Train" > 077 ALTER.NATION.MiX weekly favtraX 15-03-2020

ALTER.NATION #77

John Moreland, Early James, Bullion, Circles Around the Sun, Kassa Overall, Yumi Zouma, Jeremy Cunningham, Monophonics, Dungen, Machine Girl, Horse Lords, Sam Gendel

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"A Thought Is Just a Passing Train"

Oklahoma's John Moreland is a rootsy, heartfelt singer/songwriter who grew out of punk in his teens to become a lauded Americana and alt-country artist.
John Moreland - LP5 / A Thought Is Just a Passing Train
The Oklahoma roots songwriter expands his increasingly experimental and genre-resistant songbook without sacrificing his empathetic, poetic core... John Moreland’s enormous voice never overshadows the small moments documented in his songs. In the past, his lyrical terrain—busted faith, regret, the losers in every fight—read as textbook “country,” earning him an opening spot for Jason Isbell and praise from Miranda Lambert. But the y’alternative marketing sometimes overpowered his increasingly experimental and genre-resistant songbook. On LP5, there’s no mistaking it, with its resulting mix of swamp-dunked soul, elevated AOR chords, thick grooves, multi-tracked vocals, drum machine clicks, and hovering ambient synths. Moreland’s heartland visions of devils, heretics, and existential discomfort were already kaleidoscopic; LP5 mutates his sound to match... (Jason P. Woodbury)

The stage name of wry and soulful Alabama singer/songwriter James Mullis, Early James draws from a deep well of American roots music.
Early James - Singing for My Supper / It Doesn't Matter Now
Early James’s songs have a foundation of vintage instruments and arrangements that hark back to the Nashville and California of yesteryear.Credit... (Alysse Gafkjen)
Early James — the Alabama-born singer and songwriter Frederick James Mullis Jr. — just sidles his way into the first song on “Singing for My Supper,” his debut album... He maintains that uneasy, oblique approach throughout the album, presenting himself as both a throwback and a character living in a fraught, uncertain present. Early James is 26, but his music has much older underpinnings, glancing back to the 1970s, the 1960s and before... (Jon Pareles)

The Lisbon-based producer of off-center pop whose recordings have found a home on labels like One-Handed, R&S, Honest Jon's, and his own Deek Recordings.
Bullion - We Had a Good Time / O Vermona
...We Had a Good Time, his newest collection of songs, explores repetition’s ability to find the novel in the ordinary. On We Had a Good Time, Bullion uses guitar, synth pads, and reverb for a mellow set of songs that center around memories of the mundane, finding the sublime in the banal. Opener “O Vermona” is made up of an Emeralds-like drone and Bullion’s lightly doubled vocals: “I’ll never go quiet on you.” He cuts the phrase into fragments and layers the pieces, turning a simple declaration into an arresting hook. When he allows the line to play out again before the song goes silent, it has obtained a peculiar power... (Hubert Adjei-Kontoh)

An all-star band assembled for the express purpose of recording intermission music for the Grateful Dead's Fare Thee Well concerts.
Circles Around the Sun - Circles Around the Sun / Leaving (Rogue Lemon)
Circles Around the Sun's seven-cut, self-titled album was tracked at recording engineer Jim Scott's Southern California studio only a week before bandleader and guitarist Neal Casal took his own life. In a note he left behind, Casal requested this album be completed and for the band to continue. Circles Around the Sun (CATS) honored those wishes. For the foreseeable future, keyboardist Adam MacDougall, bassist Dan Horne, and drummer Mark Levy will move forward without a permanent guitarist and will instead rotate different ones. Guitarists Eric Krasno, Jared Mattson, and Scott Metzger have all made tour appearances...  "Leaving (Rogue Lemon)" is spacy jazz-rock fusion with a moody organ line reminiscent of Alan Parsons' "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You," before finding and opening the door to the spiraling unknown with warmth and verve... (Thom Jurek)

New York-based drummer, producer, and rapper whose work straddles the line between jazz and hip-hop.
Kassa Overall - I Think I’m Good / Please don’t kill me in your sleep
The drummer/producer blends personal mental-health struggles with the subjugation of black America in a many-voiced, trap-jazz singer-songwriter opus... The childlike delivery of his opening plea in the follow-up (“Please don’t kill me in your sleep”) lands into the same unnerving atmosphere; Joel Ross’ vibraphone adds both melodic beauty and further textural destabilization, compounding Kassa’s chilling words that conflate the real and surreal (“Please don’t mind those chalk lines/They don’t know what’s inside of you and I”). Yet the songs also have musical escape hatches arranged into the claustrophobia. When Brandee Younger and Ross play short lead solo lines—the latter in a quick conversation with Theo Croker’s flugelhorn—the spaces unlock in ways that one can imagine growing expansive on stage, supporting evidence that, like the hesitant blues of the album title, Kassa doesn’t mean for it to be a completely dark ride. (Piotr Orlov)

Electro-pop group Yumi Zouma began in 2013 as a home-recording venture by three friends Christchurch, New Zealand, but quickly outgrew their humble beginnings to spread their relaxed, sweetly melodic sound throughout the world.
Yumi Zouma - Truth or Consequences / Sage
As on their first two albums, with 2020's Truth or Consequences Yumi Zouma prove once again that they are the very picture of restraint and calm. Their smoothly crafted, precisely played and sung electro-pop isn't designed to raise pulses or get the party started; it's made for quiet moments of reflections, tender feelings brought on by heartbreak, and the soft spaces in between the big emotions. As before, they do a lovely job of fulfilling that very specific role. There are few bands as committed to creating and sustaining a mood, and they are in fine form here. As steady as the group comes across, though, they have grown in some ways. Christie Simpson's vocals grow more expressive with each release, the arrangements are a little fuller overall, and they flirt a little bit more with late-night disco than before... (Tim Sendra)

Jeremy Cunningham is a drummer, composer, and improviser. Originally from Cincinnati, he moved to Chicago in 2009, where he currently performs and composes as an integral part of the city’s vibrant music scene.
Jeremy Cunningham - The Weather Up There / 1985
Assisted by Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, and Makaya McCraven, the Chicago drummer pays tribute to his late brother with an innovative fusion of jazz composition and spoken-word memorial... The exuberant half-note pulses that begin “1985” evoke the pop of “Bennie and the Jets” or “Super Rich Kids,” and then Cunningham and his collaborators loosen their playing styles to match Parker’s guitar heroics: a light skein of feedback and a couple solos. (Daniel Felsenthal)

Monophonics were formed in 2005; originally a instrumental ensemble comprised of guitarist Ian McDonald, bassist Myles O’Mahony, saxophonist Alex Baky, trumpeter Ryan Scott, and drummer Austin Bohlman, the band has recently added the dynamic soul vocals of keyboardist Kelly Finnigan. The result is a psychedelic soul & heavy funk sound, which harks back to the stylings of the late 60’s and early 70’s, all while keeping its feet planted in the present.
Monophonics - It's Only Us / Run for your Life
loppppppppppÍQWell into their second decade with four albums in the rearview, Monophonics tighten their alliance with Ohio's Colemine Records, the dusty soul specialists who have issued some of their singles, for It's Only Us. Recorded at their Transistor Sound Studio home base, this is a little trippier and looser than the preceding Sound of Sinning. Maybe it's merely coincidental, but it's certainly appropriate that the Bay Area band, recording for a Midwest label, move a little closer here toward the early-'70s output of Chicago and Detroit labels like Curtom, Cadet Concept, and Westbound...(Andy Kellman)

Long-running Swedish band whose nostalgic sound incorporates free jazz, their native folk and instrumental ambience into their expansive psychedelic rock.
Dungen - Live / A4
Recorded during the end of 2015 at a couple different Swedish concerts, Dungen's first live album is a ripping example of their prowess both as individual musicians and as a cohesive unit. The album is totally instrumental and it flows from short song fragments to extended expansive pieces in dynamic waves of psychedelic sound. The guitars as played mainly by Reine Fiske (mainly) and band leader Gustav Ejstes are massive when they are cranked up, riffing and soloing like large birds in flight. The other instrument to take the lead is saxophone, with Jonas Kullhamer doing his best Pharoah Sanders at crucial points throughout. Ejstes and he also add some flute to the mix, and the former does very nifty things with keyboards (piano, organ and mellotron) throughout... (Tim Sendra)

Brooklyn's Machine Girl produces an explosive, cathartic blend of footwork, jungle, digital hardcore, and rave.
Machine Girl - U-Void Synthesizer / The Fortress [The Blood Inside]
Relentlessly smashing together bits of punk, grindcore, rave, industrial, and more, the Pittsburgh duo’s maximalist music echoes the cruel momentum of the modern world... Even with volatility as one of the band’s core values, however, they’ve rarely felt as wonderfully feral as on U-Void Synthesizer. The music that Stephenson and Kelly make together has always been chaotic, but they try out more sounds and styles across these 11 tracks than seems possible. Take the immense first track, “The Fortress [The Blood Inside]”: In just under four minutes, Stephenson and Kelly squeeze in ecstatic trance synths, grinding noise-punk passages, open-hearted sacred-music harmonies, gargly grindcore vocals, half-stuttered rapping, and, yes, the sound of a barking dog... (Colin Joyce)

Baltimore-based experimental rock quartet who play in just intonation, microtonal harmonies, and using algorithmic composition techniques.
Horse Lords - The Common Task / Against Gravity
Baltimore quartet Horse Lords play a complex, polyrhythmic form of music that incorporates just intonation, algorithmic composition, and microtonal harmonies. Instead of being a purely academic exercise, however, the group apply these techniques to sprawling, groove-heavy instrumental rock songs, equally influenced by Krautrock and Saharan desert blues as well as composers like Terry Riley and James Tenney. The Common Task is their fourth studio album, and it's easily their most vibrant, dazzling recorded effort to date... "Against Gravity" showcases Andrew Bernstein's saxophone playing, beginning with a drone before playing hopscotch with the rhythm. The saxophone gradually lifts off, multiplies, and becomes scattered around the beat, while the music becomes more ecstatic, eventually beaming up into space courtesy of Max Eilbacher's synthesizer... (Paul Simpson)

Avant-garde saxophonist, guitarist, and vocalist with a knack for pairing psychedelic jazz with experimental pop.
Sam Gendel - Satin Doll / Freddie Freeloader
Saxophonist Sam Gendel's 2020 release Satin Doll is a truly unique standards album. Actually, even calling it a standards collection is a little misleading... Filtering his alto saxophone (or "saxofone" as he wryly lists it in the credits) through a spacy skrim of digital effects, Gendel sounds less like a jazz saxophonist and more like an alien singing in a wordless language whose voice has been picked up via satellite. It's a dichotomous sound, one that's at turns both digital and organic, yet flowing with the breath and intimacy of a live performance... (Matt Collar)

John Moreland, Early James, Bullion, Circles Around the Sun, Kassa Overall, Yumi Zouma, Jeremy Cunningham, Monophonics, Dungen, Machine Girl, Horse Lords, Sam Gendel

10-03-2020 > FAVTRAX:MiX ~ 33 FAVOURiTE tracks 1968-1963

PINK FLOYD

10-03-2020 > FAVTRAX:MiX ~ 33 FAVOURiTE tracks 1968-1963  >>Pink Floyd, THE BEATLES, John Mayall And The Bluesbreakers, The Kinks, The Animals, THE BEATLES, Bert Jansch, Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, Jimmy Smith, The Ventures<<

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1968-1963

One of the most predominant and celebrated rock bands of all time, prog- and space-rock legends, known for superlative musicianship.
Pink Floyd
Let There Be More Light (Roger Waters) 5:36
Remember a Day (Richard Wright) 4:32
from A Saucerful Of Secrets 1968
"Gathered together in a cave without a flashlight so to speak." (Tony Meador)

A transitional album on which the band moved from Syd Barrett's relatively concise and vivid songs to spacy, ethereal material with lengthy instrumental passages. Barrett's influence is still felt, and much of the material retains a gentle, fairy-tale ambience. ..on "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun," "Let There Be More Light," and the lengthy instrumental title track, the band begin to map out the dark and repetitive pulses that would characterize their next few records.

The most popular and influential rock act of all time, a band that blazed several new trails for popular music. So much has been said and written about the Beatles -- and their story is so mythic in its sweep -- that it's difficult to summarize their career without restating clichés that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans. To start with the obvious, they were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era, and introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century.

The Beatles 

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band  (John Lennon / Paul McCartney) 2:02

With a Little Help from My Friends  (John Lennon / Paul McCartney) 2:44

Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds  (John Lennon / Paul McCartney) 3:28

from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 1967

With Revolver, the Beatles made the Great Leap Forward, reaching a previously unheard-of level of sophistication and fearless experimentation. Sgt. Pepper, in many ways, refines that breakthrough, as the Beatles consciously synthesized such disparate influences as psychedelia, art-song, classical music, rock & roll, and music hall, often in the course of one song... After Sgt. Pepper, there were no rules to follow -- rock and pop bands could try anything, for better or worse. Ironically, few tried to achieve the sweeping, all-encompassing embrace of music as the Beatles did here.

Major British blues bandleader who, starting in London in 1963, featured some of the most successful rock musicians of the '60s and '70s. / Throughout the '60s, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers acted as a finishing school for the leading British blues-rock musicians of the era. Guitarists Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor joined his band in a remarkable succession in the mid-'60s, honing their chops with Mayall before going on to join Cream, Fleetwood Mac, and the Rolling Stones, respectively. John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, Jack Bruce, Aynsley Dunbar, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Andy Fraser (of Free), John Almond, and Jon Mark also played and recorded with the band for varying lengths of times in the '60s.

John Mayall And The Bluesbreakers 

A Hard Road (John Mayall) 3:09

You Don't Love Me (Willie Cobbs) 2:48

The Supernatural (Peter Green) 2:57

from A Hard Road 1967

Eric Clapton is usually thought of as John Mayall's most important right-hand man, but the case could also be made for his successor, Peter Green. The future Fleetwood Mac founder leaves a strong stamp on his only album with the Bluesbreakers, singing a few tracks and writing a couple, including the devastating instrumental "Supernatural." Green's use of thick sustain on this track clearly pointed the way to his use of guitar riffs with elongated, slithery tones on Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross" and "Black Magic Woman," as well as anticipating some aspects of Carlos Santana's style...

An early highlight of the British Invasion that artfully chronicled British life past and present, fueled by the songwriting genius of Ray Davies.

The Kinks 

Party Line (Dave Davies / Ray Davies) 2:31

Rosie Won't You Please Come Home (Ray Davies) 2:28

Dandy  (Ray Davies) 2:07

from Face to Face 1966

The Kink Kontroversy was a considerable leap forward in terms of quality, but it pales next to Face to Face, one of the finest collections of pop songs released during the '60s. Conceived as a loose concept album, Face to Face sees Ray Davies' fascination with English class and social structures flourish, as he creates a number of vivid character portraits. Davies' growth as a lyricist coincided with the Kinks' musical growth... making the record one of the most distinctive and accomplished albums of its time.

076 ALTER.NATION.MiX weekly favtraX 08-03-2020

ALTER.NATION #76

Gladie, Anna Calvi, Courtney Barnett, Islet, Stephen Malkmus, Jonathan Wilson, The James Hunter Six, Daniel Davies, Phantogram, Cornershop, Wasted Shirt, DISQ, Chromatics

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"Cosmic Joke"

Introspective and sometimes experimental indie rock outfit led by former Cayetana leader Augusta Koch.
Gladie - Safe Sins / Cosmic Joke
Augusta Koch made her name in the middle part of the 2010s as the frontwoman for Cayetana, a raucous all-female punk trio from Philadelphia whose unfussy songs took cues from classic '90s riot grrrl and lo-fi indie while taking on stigmatic issues of mental health and self-image. Even before parting ways with her bandmates in 2019, she had begun to shift toward a more personal and varied approach, playing a series of solo acoustic shows and teaming up with multi-instrumentalist Matt Schimelfenig to record under the name Gladie.

British singer/songwriter with influences ranging from Nick Cave's post-punk to Django Reinhardt's flamenco. Hailed as "the best thing since Patti Smith" by Brian Eno, as well as being included in the BBC's Sound of 2011 list, the hype surrounding London-born Anna Calvi came to a crescendo in late 2010.
Anna Calvi - Hunted / Don't Beat the Girl out of My Boy [Hunted Version] feat. Courtney Barnett
Early in her career, the full force of Anna Calvi's vocal and guitar virtuosity was so formidable that she sounded virtually immortal. With time, however, her work has become more open and vulnerable, and on 2018's Hunter, she explored strength, fragility, masculinity, and femininity in ways that let the humanity of her music shine through. Calvi takes another step in this direction with Hunted, a collection of Hunter demos that she revisits with the help of some talented friends. Letting her audience hear these songs being born -- or in this case, reborn -- is an intimate act in itself...

Welsh indie quartet Islet that built a cult following through the 21st century with a blend of psychedelic, folk-driven pop.
Islet - Eyelet / Good Gref
For more than a decade, Islet seemed happy to be completely independent, releasing their free-flowing experimental pop on their own label whenever the mood struck them. On Eyelet, however, the Welsh trio celebrate the power of connection. This is Islet's first album for Fire Records, one of many significant changes for the band since 2016's Liquid Half Moon EP. During that time, Alex Williams lost his mother and moved in with Emma and Mark Daman Thomas, who were expecting their second child while making Eyelet. This feeling of togetherness extends to the album's sound, which is more cohesive than any of Islet's previous work. It still feels like anything is possible in their music, but this time the trio leave fewer loose ends in their songs...

The former Pavement frontman's solo career has a broader musical palette, evoking British folk, '70s prog, psychedelia, and blazing guitar rock.
Stephen Malkmus - Traditional Techniques / ShadowBanned
Set aside the title Traditional Techniques, which appears to be a veiled riposte to Groove Denied, the happily modern, vaguely electronic album Stephen Malkmus released in 2019. The name accentuates the gulf between the two records, but Traditional Techniques is the album Malkmus has been threatening to make for nearly a quarter-century: an amiably trippy and decisively mellow psych-folk adventure, steeped in the obscure sounds of the British and American underground from the twilight of the hippies. A strain of this style has run through his music since at least Pavement's sprawling 1995 double-LP Wowee Zowee, but Traditional Techniques benefits from Malkmus' relaxed middle age...

Jonathan Wilson is a musical polymath. In addition to being a highly regarded songwriter and guitarist, he is a noted producer and guitarist. Deeply influenced by late-'60s West Coast psychedelia and the Laurel Canyon singer/songwriter scene of the '70s, he could easily be mistaken for a SoCal native (he's from North Carolina).
Jonathan Wilson - Dixie Blur / Just for Love
After Jonathan Wilson released 2018's wonderful Rare Birds, he realized he'd taken his third album of Topanga Canyon psychedelia-drenched singer/songwriter sound to its zenith, and needed a new direction. He found it inadvertently while appearing on NPR's eTown with Steve Earle. The elder songwriter advised him to travel to Nashville and take advantage of its top-notch studio aces. Wilson was more than intrigued. He headed East and enlisted Wilco's Pat Sansone as co-producer. The next call was to the iconic fiddler Mark O'Connor. Growing up in North Carolina, Wilson recalled with excitement the fiddle's place in country, mountain, and bluegrass music. O'Connor hadn't been a session musician since the '90s, but Wilson pleaded and cajoled convincingly and he agreed to participate. He and Sansone hired an illustrious cast of sidemen: guitarist Kenny Vaughn, bassist Dennis Crouch, pedal steel player Russ Pahl, Jim Hoke on woodwinds and harmonica, drummer Jon Radford, and keyboardist Drew Erickson. They all holed up at Cowboy Jack Clement's Sound Emporium Studio for six days and cut the album live from the studio floor; there are precious few overdubs...

The gritty, passionate, longstanding backing band of British soulman, songwriter, and guitarist James Hunter.
The James Hunter Six - Nick of Time / Missing in Action
Since the 1980s, exemplary British R&B singer, songwriter, and guitarist James Hunter has been plying his trade with his own bands, first with Howlin' Wilf and the Vee-Jays and then with the James Hunter Six. He's also accompanied some of his very famous friends like Van Morrison (you can hear Hunter on Days Like This and A Night in San Francisco). Nick of Time mark's the artist's fourth collaboration with Daptone producer Bosco Mann (Gabriel Roth), and his third full-length for the label. As ever, his music remains rooted in historic rhythm and blues, doo wop, and soul, but Hunter expands his range here to include cha cha, rhumba, and swing rhythms. He also hired a new cast of American players to be the second edition of the James Hunter Six...

Guitarist, singer, and composer known for fronting hard rock band Year Long Disaster and working with his godfather, horror legend John Carpenter.
Daniel Davies - Signals / Phantom Waltz
Daniel Davies' first solo album for Sacred Bones isn't a film soundtrack, real or imaginary, but it was composed with the visual art of Jesse Draxler in mind. His work is featured in the album's liner notes, and the pieces consist of dark, grainy landscapes with strange sculptural shapes superimposed onto them. They look obviously unnatural and pasted on, even to the point of seeming like an interruption, yet there's something about them that commands you to think that their presence is normal and expected. Davies' music attempts to work similar contrasts, forcing different moods and tones to coexist and somehow sound made for each other. It's not as jarring or discordant as that sounds -- there's lighter and darker elements, and there always seems like a balance between them... "Phantom Waltz" is spooky and also a bit playful, with staccato vocals dancing around harpsichords and circular guitar flickerings, anchored by steady waltz-time drums...

New York duo who lovingly re-create the sounds of classic trip-hop. The deeply emotional electronic pop of Phantogram revolves around Sarah Barthel's powerful vocals, which tower over their insistent, hip-hop-inspired left-field pop sound that's built on booming beats, washes of synths, and the occasional jagged guitar riff. 
Phantogram - Ceremony / Mister Impossible
...“We’re always conscious of how to string together our songs,” Carter said. “And we are well aware in this day and age, a lot of people don’t really listen to albums… I’m guilty of checking out bands who I’ve never heard and just see what they sound like. I’ll just click on a song. ‘Oh if it’s not for me,’ then I’m like ‘alright,’ which sucks. I don’t like that about myself. It’s definitely a different time we’re living in.”...

Indian-influenced indie band led by Tjinder Singh, who mix dance, reggae, dub, hip-hop, and rock.
Cornershop - England Is a Garden / No Rock: Save In Roll
Cornershop may have taken an eight-year break from releasing albums between 2012's Urban Turban: The Singhles Club and 2020's England Is a Garden, but they certainly weren't idle. Between running their label Ample Play, supporting political causes, and issuing an easy listening version of their 1993 record Hold On It Hurts (titled Hold On It's Easy), the duo of Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres definitely had a lot going on. Amidst this whirl of activity, they also spent a great deal of time and effort writing and recording songs; right around 40 in the end. After narrowing it down to the best of the batch and giving them a polish, they titled the sparkling result England Is a Garden. It's their most cohesive and powerful record yet, full of songs that have a hearty punch to go along with their typically sharp hooks. Alternating between tracks that have a driving, T. Rex-ian beat and rollicking mid-tempo groovers, the record is a blast of joyous rock & roll from start to finish.

All-out experimental noise rock assault created by garage punk hero Ty Segall and Lightning Bolt drummer Brian Chippendale.
Wasted Shirt - Fungus II / Four Strangers Enter the Cement at Dusk
One of the first rules of rock & roll is: you need a good drummer. The whole charmingly inept thing may work for a singer or guitarist, but if the drummer can't keep it together, the center will not hold and we all know how that plays out. So if one-man garage punk industry Ty Segall (not a bad drummer himself) was going to launch yet another project, joining forces with Brian Chippendale shows sound judgment on his part. Chippendale is the drummer and co-founder of Lightning Bolt, and whatever one might think about their assaultive style, his work has always been a remarkable example of precision in support of chaos, his tight yet frantic bursts of rhythm bounding all over the place but also giving the noise around him a unexpectedly stable framework. Chippendale is a good man to have around if you want to get noisy, and that's what Segall had in mind when he and Chippendale formed Wasted Shirt, who make their debut with 2020's Fungus II....

Wisconsin indie rock band Disq was formed by childhood friends when they were still teenagers, bringing their young obsessions with power pop and classic songwriters to a more tightly wound indie style. The band drew on elements of post-punk, psych folk, and melodic pop for their 2020 Saddle Creek debut, Collector.
Disq - Collector / Gentle
Wisconsin band Disq make a grand entrance with their debut album, Collector, a knotty bouquet of chugging indie rock, offbeat power pop, and psych-marinated post-punk. Formed around the creative partnership of lifelong friends Raina Bock (bass, vocals) and Isaac de Broux-Slone (guitar, vocals), the project grew into a highly collaborative five-piece populated with like-minded explorers Shannon Connor (guitar, keys, vocals), Logan Severson (guitar, vocals), and Brendan Manley (drums), who were also active in Madison's indie scene. A well-earned reputation as a fierce live act and a handful of small indie releases later, Disq joined the Saddle Creek roster and hit the studio with producer Rob Schnapf (Kurt Vile, Joyce Manor) to record their first full-length outing...

Beginning as a no wave band with an equally volatile lineup and sound, Chromatics evolved into one of the most influential electro-pop acts of the 2000s and 2010s. On albums such as Night Drive and Kill for Love, the group's evocative mix of Italo-disco, post-punk, and '80s pop was glamorous, heartbroken, and utterly distinctive.
Chromatics - Famous Monsters
Chromatics have shared a futuristic new single, ‘Famous Monsters.’ You can listen to the new song below.
‘Famous Monsters’ is the second new song from the band this year, following on from ‘TOY’ which was released back in February. The single came in three different versions: ‘TOY,’ ‘TOY (On Film),’ and ‘TOY (Instrumental).’
Describing that song, Chromatics wrote: “It’s a song about trying to forget someone you’re still in love with even though they treat you like an object. I’m not your TOY.”

Gladie, Anna Calvi, Courtney Barnett, Islet, Stephen Malkmus, Jonathan Wilson, The James Hunter Six, Daniel Davies, Phantogram, Cornershop, Wasted Shirt, DISQ, Chromatics

05-03-2020 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX

Sharon Jones

05-03-2020 alter:MiX # 33 alter tracks in PRSNT_PRFCT_MiX [from recent past] # Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Bahamas, FIDLAR, Courteeners, Cursive, Whyte Horses, Gladie, St. Vincent, Nina Kraviz, Jacco Gardner, The Heliocentrics, Ron Gallo, Sunwatchers, Wire, En Attendant Ana, Shadow Show

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By the sound of them, you would have thought Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings started making funk-threaded soul music together in the 1960s. Few devotedly retro acts were as convincing. Few singers as skilled as Sharon Jones at stuffing notes with ache and meaning would be willing to invest in a sound so fully occupied by the likes of Bettye LaVette and Tina Turner in the Ike years, too. But what Jones brought to the funkified table had legs of its own -- eight of them, to be exact -- and they belonged to Binky Griptite, Bugaloo Velez, Homer Steinweiss, and Dave Guy -- her Dap-Kings.
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
Matter of Time 3:22
Just Give Me Your Time 2:29
from Soul of a Woman 2017
Sharon Jones was 45 years old when she cut her first single with the retro-soul combo the Dap-Kings in 2001. She'd been trying to find a way into the music business for years before her partnership with the Dap-Kings unexpectedly made her a star, but it was obvious that once the right people heard her, they knew she one of the great R&B singers of her generation. Once the door opened for her, she didn't look back for a second. While Jones had beat cancer once, she wasn't as lucky when the disease reappeared in 2015, and through 2016 she played shows and recorded session in between rounds of treatment, with cancer finally claiming her life in November of that year. Some artists, knowing they have only so long to live, use their final recordings to sum up their lives and careers, but that was clearly not the case for Jones. Soul of a Woman, recorded during the last months of her life, is not an album about mortality; instead, this is the work of a woman who was determined to make the most of every moment allotted her. Soul of a Woman is a superb exercise in deep soul big-city style, and if Jones was ailing when she recorded her vocals, you would never guess to listen to the finished product...

Bahamas is the solo project of Toronto-based guitarist and musical gun-for-hire Afie Jurvanen. With a carefully trained ear for melody that he's honed during his time playing with the likes of Feist and Howie Beck, Jurvanen's solo project has a stripped-down and contemplative sound that focuses on doing more with less, allowing his voice and guitar to do most of the heavy lifting on his quiet indie folk meditations.
Bahamas
Alone 3:24
Bad Boys Need Love Too 3:41
from Earthtones 2018
Afie Jurvanen's fourth Bahamas LP, Earthtones finds the guitarist/songwriter joined by the all-star rhythm section of Pino Palladino and James Gadson. With decades of legendary albums to their individual credit, the bassist and drummer happen to have played together on none other than D'Angelo's Black Messiah. It's not a trivial recording note, as Jurvanen sought them out due to that album and wrote much of Earthtones with these particular collaborators in mind. The result dials up the soul and slow-boiling funk while retaining Jurvanen's laid-back demeanor, all to steady, head-bobbing effect...

Channeling classic skatepunk, thrash, and surfy lo-fi indie, Los Angeles combo FIDLAR emerged in the early 2010s, rising from the D.I.Y. underground to make a surprising run on Billboard's Heatseekers chart with their eponymous full-length debut, which was also a critical favorite.
FIDLAR
Get Off My Rock 3:17
Almost Free 2:15
from Almost Free 2019
---Their spotty sophomore release, 2016's Too, wrestled with frontman Zac Carper's newfound sobriety in the face of the group's chosen lifestyle and typical subject matter; on Almost Free, they further complicate things by introducing some politics and social commentary into the mix. To their credit, FIDLAR have made legitimate attempts to get out of their creative comfort zone and go somewhere new. That said, Almost Free is somewhat of a mess. Recording at Hollywood's legendary Sunset Sound with Ricky Reed (Jessie J, Twenty One Pilots), FIDLAR strike out in a variety of different directions, landing some new tricks but slamming a lot more...

01-03-2020 PREHiSTORiC:MiX ~ 33 pieces excavation finds from ancient sounds / before 1959

01-03-2020 ~ PREHiSTORiC:MiX ~ 33 pieces excavation finds from ancient sounds / before 1959   >>Missississippi Sheiks, Andy Kirk, Charlie Lincoln, Gitfiddle Jim, Fred McMullen, Sexteto Habanero, Fats Waller, Lionel Hampton, Mildred Bailey, Casey Bill Weldon, Cleoma Breaux Falcon, Amédé Breaux, Ségura Frères, Cajun music, Jimmy Rushing, Charlie Christian<<

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before 1959

The Mississippi Sheiks were a versatile Depression-era string band whose biggest song was "Sitting on Top of the World," later covered by the Grateful Dead, Howlin' Wolf, and Frank Sinatra.
Missississippi Sheiks
Driving That Thing 3:19
Stop and Listen Blues 3:29
Sitting on Top of the World (Lonnie Chatmon / Walter Vinson) 3:01
from Missississippi Sheiks, Vol 1 (1929-1930)
The Mississippi Sheiks were one of the most popular string bands of the late '20s and early '30s. Formed in Jackson around 1926, the band blended country and blues fiddle music -- both old-fashioned and risqué -- and included guitarist Walter Vinson and fiddler Lonnie Chatmon, with frequent appearances by guitarists Bo Carter and Sam Chatmon, who were also busy with their own solo careers. The musicians were the sons of Ezell Chatmon, uncle of Charlie Patton and leader of an area string band that was popular around the turn of the century. The Mississippi Sheiks (who took their name from the Rudolph Valentino movie The Sheik) began recording for Okeh in 1930 and had their first and biggest success with "Sitting on Top of the World," which was a crossover hit and multi-million seller...

Talented tuba player and leader of Clouds Of Joy, a subtly swinging band epitomizing commercial Kansas City jazz.
Andy Kirk
Mess-A-Stomp 2:41
Cloudy (Andy Kirk) 3:00
from Complete Jazz Series 1929 - 1931
This highly recommended CD from the European Classics label has all of the early recordings of Andy Kirk's Twelve Clouds of Joy, although unfortunately not the alternate takes. The most famous soloists were pianist Mary Lou Williams (who was also responsible for most of the arrangements), violinist Claude Williams (who unfortunately left Kirk before he had his big success in the mid-'30s), and trumpeter Edgar "Puddinghead" Battle, although the lesser-known players mostly fare pretty well too...

Charlie Lincoln - Doodle Hole Blues 3:17
Gitfiddle Jim - Rainy Night Blues 2:55
Fred McMullen - Wait And Listen 3:02
from The Georgia Blues (1927-1933)