José González

José González – In Our Nature

Television commercials have outpaced music television with introducing new act. Familiarity with Swedish singer/song writer José González can be credited to the slow motion, cinematic unleashing of a billion bouncing colorful rubber balls upon the streets on San Francisco, with his tender version of the Knife’s “Heartbeat” lilting in the background. Upon his sophomore release, In Our Nature, he continues to mesmerizing us with repetitive finger plucking and the soft delicate vocals that bring to mind the acoustic haunting of Nick Drake or Red House Painters. However, lyrically, José González looks outward rather than mining internal dilemmas as fodder. “How Low” aims biting words at modern leaders and the turmoil they reap: "Invasion after invasion/This means war/Someday you'll be up to your knees/in the shit you seek" With songs that call out our sleepwalking disillusionment and our “killing for love”, it’s a bitter medicine that swallows so much easier with his lush melodies, weighted with simplicity and restraint.

After Dark

Various Artists - After Dark

Disco can be blamed for killing the poly-rhythmic sounds of funk and instigating a whole subculture of youth, now ironically joining their parents, to have disdain for modern music. But disco, like the thumping sounds of House, were never really meant to be removed from the club, where sexiness and outlandish costuming flaunted easily together. Arriving from the noise and indie-rock record label Troubleman Unlimited, comes an off-shot outfit that lays their laurels at the feet of esteemed disco producer Giorgio Moroder. Italians Do It Better is the umbrella collective for a stream of dark, synthy retro-futuristic Italian-disco that will sound oh-so-much better with your gold Versace on. Featuring several tracks from Glass Candy, Chromatic, Farah, Professor Genius and Mirage, the whole albums pulses with deep noir bass lines that thump alongside synthesized atmospheric harmonies and Casio hammered keys. With even hip-hop’s Lil’ Jon layering thick washes of synthesized throbs amongst his most popular production, the steamy amorousness of disco is back, and these kids want you hit the town smoking.

Marissa Nadler

Marissa Nadler – Songs III: Bird On The Water

With a ghostly mezzo-soprano voice and a notebook bleeding out sorrowful songs, Marissa Nadler offers up a Gothic concoction that immediately envisions Mazzy Star reading the haunting tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Assisted and recorded by Greg Weeks and his Philadelphian allies who combine to form the neo pysch-folk outfit Espers, these songs are strengthen by their extra studio touches, though not to say her two previous self recorded albums are any less engaging. But when Greg Weeks opens up his acid drenched guitar leads on both “Bird On Your Grave” and “Rachel”, he emotes the same crying aches as Nadler’s sung lyrics, like two tears longitudinal falling together. But from start to finish, this is still the delightful workings of a single gifted talent. With her John Fahey style guitar leanings and a voice that recalls the melancholy of wistful recollection, this aches with same tragic beauty as a slo-motion, cinematic death scene. You just can’t turn away.

Budos Band

The Budos Band – Budos Band II

Erupting from the boroughs of Brooklyn and housed on Daptone Records (the fabulous independent funk label who also launched the careers of Sharon Jones and Amy Winehouse’s backing band the Dap-Kings), The Budos Band is the tightest afro-funk instrumental band in existence today. In the similar fashion of James Brown’s working band, the JB’s, who often operated freely without his lordship at center stage, the Budos Band can equally capture your attention sans showboating frontman. Fattening a stage with an eleven member ensemble, you’ll find a trio of horns as well a percussive section equipped with enough rattlers, thumpers and shakers to gain the approval of a small African tribe. Originating out of an after school jazz ensemble, you’ll hear their precision in their complex Afrobeat arrangements and stellar musicianship tinted with afro-latin horns and the most psychedelic soulful organ play. Plus the whole soundscape has been captured with analog warmness. Look no further for your perfect summertime barbeque / party music.

M.I.A.

M.I.A. – Kala

Consider Maya Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., as a human radio antenna: intercepting and re-broadcasting over the still populous airwaves, a sound saturated with dense rhythms, scattered noise and the street tough images of a non-Western landscape. Her latest album, Kala (named after her mother), projects much of the world by way of its multitude of aural color: the percussive heavy beats and patois vocals of Jamaican dancehall, the theatrical disco pop of Bollywood film music, the cut and paste dynamics of Brazilian baile funk, all mashed together to form a concoction with the bite and pleasure of a strong poured Mojito. But buried within these dance floor driven tracks, lurks the visuals of a third world status people. Opening track “Bamboo Banger” interpolates the Modern Lover’s “Road Runner” with new visuals of hungry arms “knocking on the doors of your Hummer Hummer” as “Bird Flu” references the new scrutiny applied to foreign passports. And with the Clash sampled-driven “Paper Planes”, a respect is paid to the egalitarian rockers who used the weapon of music to thumb their noise at rigid authority. Long live M.I.A.

Cave Singers

Cave Singers – Invitation Songs

If this was a simple record, the Cave Singers could have become revivalists: something akin to Old Crow Medicine Show hay-kicking, barn-storming razzle dazzle or the tender, intelligent Appalachian-folk of Gillian Welch. The songs are constructed from similar bare bone instrumentation- the finger-picked melodies of an acoustic guitar, the precision of a brushed slapped snare- and can often reflect a back-wood folk influence. “New Mounuments” has the Gothic hypnotic pull of 16 Horsepower most emotional preaching, and “Called” is ominous dirge, haunted by a darkly blown Melodica. But somewhere along the line, it sounds as if their Fleetwood Mac records got inserted into the cardboard jackets of the Violent Femmes. “Helen” repetitive melody has the warm, easy swallow of Tusk-era Mac, while singer Pete Quirk vocals often carry Lindsey Buckingham’s best nasally inflection. But don’t toss this off as updated soft-rock Rumours. There’s an energy that bristles within each song, as if beneath the layers of any fine suits, still exists the sweaty t-shirts that have rocked hundreds of house garage dance parties.

Extra Golden

Extra Golden – Hera Ma Nono

A sophomore release was an unlikely development for Extra Golden. Traveling to Kenya and Nairobi in 2000 for documentation on Benga music for his doctoral thesis, Ian Eagleson formed a collaboration with noted Kenyan musician Otieno Jagwasi and his drummer Onyango Wuod Omari of Orchestra Extra Solar Africa. It was with the arrival of Eagleson’s Washington D.C. bandmate, Alex Minoff (of Golden) that spawned the rudimentary recorded album Ok-Oyot System. Merging American rock and boogie with Benga’s guitar-heavy finger picking and bubbling percussions, Extra Golden has a true cross cultural pollination. An invitation to play the Chicago World Music Festival offered them their US concert debut, and the visa clearing hand of Senator Barak Obama (who is honored, as is Benga custome, with the song “Obama”) brought Extra Golden to the states, with a new singer in tow (Opiyo Bilongo replacing the void left by Jagwasi 2005 death). Recorded in actual studio, Hera Ma Nono (“Love In Vain”) sounds fuller in instrumentation and development, with the lightness and jovial spirit making this a perfect Sunday canopy retreat.

Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators

Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators – Keep Reachin’ Up

With the recent release of Amy Winhouse’s Motown influenced bad girl album and the upcoming arrival from deep-funk sensation Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, the sound of retro-soul is finally percolating up into the American spotlight. Funk and soul acts like the Bamboos (Australia) and the Poets Of Rhythm (Germany) have been captivating the attentive ears of an international audience with their brand of old school soul, with little appreciation of our mainstream airwaves. You may never have consider Finland the next location of soul superstardom, but one listen to the Soul Investigators, and you’ll accept the fact that this Finnish outfit is sitting on loads of classic Motown and mid-70’s soul cassette tapes. Fronted by New Yorker Nicole Willis, who occupied the ranks of the Brand New Heavies and Dee-Lite, the bite of Keep Reachin’ Up is immediate. Opening with a disco-tinged groover “Feeling Free”, the Soul Investigators continue forth with orchestra arrangements reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield’s middle period. A perfect soul revivalism album.

Tiny Vipers

Tiny Vipers – Hands Across The Void

An acoustical project of Seattle singer/songwriter Jesy Fortino, Hands Across The Void collects seven songs of acoustically quiet and darkly dreamy songs crafted with the simplest tools. With very little besides the strum of a guitar and the occasional addition of atmospheric texture, Tiny Vipers is built for campfire surroundings. With a voice that hesitates with the singing enunciation Joanna Newsom, Fortino powers her records with raw vocalized harmonies that are as sparsely haunting as a walk through an abandoned house that been re-occupied by nature. A sense of edge arrives half way through the album with “Forest On Fire”, as it crescendos from a few lazily plucked guitar notes into a wash of brash reverb distortion, that ends just before your nerves are wrecked. But pass this, everything is sparse in arrangements and easy to sink into. If you prefer your folk music with a slight darker edge, this is an adventure waiting for you.

Animal Collective

Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam

With the release of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper, the rules defining what pop music could sound like were expanded. Beneath innovative arrangements and the synthesizing several musical genres into a new sound, one could still bite into sweet melodicism and feel comfort. Animal Collective seems set to a similar trajectory as the Flaming Lips: a backlog of weird captivating early albums that have slowly evolved the aesthetics of pop into a palatable art the masses can finally consume. On Strawberry Jam, Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) and Avey Tare (Dave Portner) still push the boundaries of exploration with their trance-inducing repetitiveness and their fondness for noise-rock, but a balance is struck with their gorgeous Brian Wilson style harmonics and exuberant happy energy. Opening their album with a thick tangle of electronic mishmash that slowly unravels into a propulsive beat, “Peacebone” is a guiding indicator of the absurd delight that waits for you through is marvelous recording.

Young Marble Giants

Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth And The Collected Works

Young Marble Giants could easily have slipped off the radar, only to be heard in the closeted circles of extreme music hounds and the occasional college radio play. But our luck has changed. With a complete clearing of the vaults, we are now offered three discs of Young Marble Giants: a five-song BBC session for John Peel, an out-of-print collection of demos and rehearsal tapes, and their brilliant debut Colossal Youth. Arriving out of the UK in the early 80’s as English post-punk act like Gang Of Four and Joy Division sparked alive, YMG pushed their own D.I.Y. spirit by rejecting amplified power for an investigation of sparse, minimal production built around the trio’s voice, guitar, bass and often drum machine. Alison Statton’s monotone vocals are plainly understated, but in a similar manner to Miles Davis muted trumpet, the effect adds muscle by way of the lean backing arrangements. Simplistic in approach, YMG never-the-less introduced a new vernacular to modern rock and roll.

Joe Henry

Joe Henry – Civilians

As a producer, Joe Henry has polished some of the finest albums from the likes of soul legend Solomon Burke, Elvis Costello companion recording with New Orleans treasure Allen Toussaint, and singer/songwriter Aimee Mann. Now Joe Henry has put his ear to heart of the American saga. With a backing ensemble featuring Loudon Wainwright, pianist/songwriter Van Dyke Parks, jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and the touring band for Frisell’s album Good Dog, Happy Man, musically you’re unlikely to hear another album so tightly executed as well as well as unpretentiously straight forward. On Civilians, Henry constructs songs that are welded with the histrionics of America’s history: be it the bruised nature of “Our Song” which imagines Willie Mays within the aisles of a Home Depot reflecting on his tangled tenure within our twisted country, or the stoic isolation and rallying point that occurs in the tragedy of a civil war. An amazing accomplishment; Joe Henry may have just knocked one out of the park.

Heliocentrics

Heliocentrics – Out There

James Brown said it: Play every instrument as if it was a drum. Malcolm Catto, a UK drummer whose obsession for soul 7-inches provided the basis for three funk compilations (Midwest Funk, Texas Funk and Florida Funk), has turned his dusty fingered hobby and vast knowledgeable repertoire into a full length study of spaced out funk. With his relentless drumming, The Heliocentrics resemble the coming together of several ideas – the sparse, heady funk of No Wave artists ESG, the spatial and cutting-edge recording arrangements of David Axelrod, and the experimental and celestial jazz devotion of Sun Ra - all orbiting and influencing each others gravitational pull. “Distant Star” grabs your attention instantly with its crisp snare and hard bass thumps that decorated with a robotic-tinted organ and sound collages, revolving around sci-fi space exploration to the blipping sound of Sputnik. As kooky as this can all sound, at its core is the eternal beating rhythm of the best James Brown instrumental outfit in the universe.

Stereo Total

Stereo Total – Paris-Berlin

Operating within the lo-fi corners of rambunctious garage rock, synth-new wave and 1960’s influenced French pop, Stereo Total merge their international flair and multilingual lyrics into an album of quirky indie-pop appeal. Bouncing fluently between German, French and English, Stereo Total equally bop around between a variety of musical influences without losing cohesiveness due to their diverse sound. “Mehr Licht” sounds like the center of the dance floor; it’s built around a driving tech-beat flourished with chorus of Casio keyboard tones. The stripped down rock and roller “Plus Minus Null” shows the punchier aspects of the bands love of the raw edges of 50’s rhythm and blues. Think Bo Diddley guitar work combined with a drum machine freakout. With a graphical look of Russian Constructivism embedded within its cover arts as well as linear notes, Stereo Total use their art to push a subtle sexual revolution- a theme running in the background of this très chic party record.

Oh No

Oh No – Dr. No’s Oxperiment

Originally, a beat album was a compilation of instrumental tracks a hip-hop producer would gather onto a single disc, and showcase to interested lyricists. Like a buffet line, a rapper would peruse the selection, checking off the tracks he wanted and a deal would be struck. Beat records mainly existed in the background of hip-hop, but credit innovative producers like Dan the Automator, Jay Dee and Madlib for incorporating goofy over-looked kitsch and mining a wide array of odd ball samples to create instrumental albums that could capture a listeners attention without the hyperbole of an animated rapper. On the instrumental affair of Dr. No’s Oxperiment, Oxnard-born producer Oh No relies solely on a staple of folk and psychedelic albums from the Middle Eastern and Southern European as his source of inspiration. Awashed in Arabic vocals, crisp drum claps and fuzzed out melodic tones more intoned for a Turkish opium den, Oh No taps into an over-looked musical avenue to inject hip-hop with a future of new sounds.

Re:Sounds Volume One

Now-Again – Re:Sounds Volume One

Besides being the general manager of hip-hop indie label Stones Throw, Egon (Eothen Alapatt) also runs a side label entitled Now-Again. Its focus is on the forgotten gems of funk and soul that have often been sampled by DJ’s but overlooked by the general public. It was only a matter of time before these two interests converged, like chocolate discovering peanut butter, to deliver a special treat. On Re:Sounds, Egon has collects a slew of funk remixes culled from Now-Again’s back catalog of vinyl-only 7-inches and 12-inch releases, along with a few exclusive tracks to fill out this impressive release. Featuring the nimble hands of J.Rocc, Kenny Dope and Cut Chemist, they re-edit old tracks into new DJ friendly affairs. Aloe Blacc and Guilty Simpson both ride the funky instrumental and gift them with new vocals. But really, the spotlight is on the old masters, whose sound is just as contemporary today, as it was three decades back. An instant classic.

Miss Alex White & The Red Orchestra

Miss Alex White & The Red Orchestra – Space & Time

With a lip snarl that could rival a young Joan Jett, Miss Alex White & The Red Orchestra spit out pure garage rock & roll fuzz. Everything is recorded to the bone: no lavish production values and an album that just barely breaks the thirty-minute mark. Instantly it is something you’d hear on Little Steven Underground Garage, and reckon it was a misplaced 7 inch from the 60’s. Nope. Miss Alex White has been resurrecting the sounds of Velvet Underground, Modern Lovers and hints of the MC5 for some time now, and her new album Space & Time is an equally impressive artifact. From the reverb drenched bubblegum pop of “She Wanna” to the hefty guitar fuzz and drum blitzkrieg of the opening track “In The Snow”, everything has been recorded in the red, and is spiked with enough brash attitude to make you question authority.

Ezra Furman

Ezra Furman & The Harpoons – Banging Down The Doors

“Hello. This song is called Mother’s Day. It’s about a whore that I knew in Chicago.” And thus sparks the vibrant debut and twisted wit of Ezra Furman, a Chicago native who’s been building a repertoire of playfully confrontation songwriting built around an acoustically tough rock and roll style of à la Violent Femmes. With a voice that warbles with the awkwardness of Femmes’ Gordon Gano or yelps in a similar manner of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah frontman Alec Ounsworth, Ezra’s snide tales burst forth with the brashness that emphasis the tongue-in-cheek angst he often sings in machine gun type delivery. The slow shuffle opening of “God Is A Middle-Aged Woman”, an introspective tale of a relationship in question, ends with Ezra exploding with full vocal emotion that would probably have left the microphone dripping in spittle. With production by Brian Deck (Iron & Wine, Califone, Modest Mouse), the urgency is rendered perfectly in acoustic sharpness.