Parenthetical Girls - Entanglements

Experimental popsters with panache toward the hurly burly musical production of show tunes and Broadway, the Parenthetical Girls offer up the majestic pomp of classic pop twisted to a modern aesthetics. Here, instruments are returned to their emotional capabilities. Just listen to the track “Unmentionables”. From the heavenly lushness of a violin’s vibrato, to the street carnival bounce of tuba and trombone's fat sliding voice or the dream-like wonderment caused by the glockenspiel's endless twinkling, all this noise is laced up within this one song to dramatic and invigorating effect. This is the baroque-pop of Andrew Bird, and though it tends to lean more toward Cabaret zaniness than MGM sophistication, its grandeur can never be questioned. And when the song writing carries the poetic literary heft of “The Former” as its twist with sexual tension accented by angelic choral harmonies and a rising unison of strings, it’s as cinematic as any stage production.

Koushik - Out My Window

For a producer, Koushik must have one of the most serene views in the country. As his second release for Stones Throw record, he balances oft-kiltering, cavernous beats with light-as-air harmonies, and with the album opener "Morning Comes", he'll coax the sun out of hiding and make your waking yawn a delightful experience. Its all about mood, with conventional song structure taking a back seat to textual ambience and soundscape. Part eclectic beat tape in the tradition of Madlib and J Dilla, Koushik adds large measures of pop melodies that swirl around his mist-thin falsetto and dramatically build to a glorious apex. And before you know it, the track ends as gently as it began, each track taking up on enough time to create an impression, then moving on. This is a masterful opus of organic chillout jazz, with the production clarity and inventiveness of legendary producer David Axelrod's best work.

Karl Hector + The Malcouns—Sahara Swing

Record label Now-Again has emerged as a funk aficionado’s dream, time and time again. As a side label to the forward thinking hip-hop label Stones Throw, it’s been the outlet for the upper management’s collection of obscure funk 7-inches, preserving rare soul gems from the dustbin of obscurity. With such sophisticated and honed tastes, it’s no surprise that when they discover a new artist, it’s like entering a time machine. Karl Hector’s full length debut merges the backbeat and horn ensembles of the rawest funk, with the poly-rhythmic complexity and found sound of Pan-African ethnomusicology. If you remember Mulatu Astatke’s Ethiopian jazz featured prominently in Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, then consider this your new tonic. With contributions from Poets Of Rhythm’s Jay Whitefield and his European soul brethren, this instrumental jazz-funk owes as much to the progressive exploratory vision of Funkadelic and Sun Ra as it does to the pure smoking grooves of Africa’s most dynamite soul ensemble.

One Day As A Lion—One Day As A Lion

Merging the intense velocity of punk and thrash with the biting lyrical commentary of hip-hop, Rage Against The Machine erupted in the ‘90s with its fiery, passionate frontman Zach de la Rocha as its figurehead. When the band folded, the rest of the group recruited Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell and formed Audioslave; everyone else eagerly anticipated Zach’s next move, a wait that lasted nearly a decade. Well, the return is here, but now as a duet, and with an equally polemic moniker taken from George Rodriguez 1970s photo of a wall scrawled with this defiant message: “It’s better to live one day as a lion, than a thousand years as a lamb.” As politically instigating and musically volatile as his previous band, it’s an excellent, kinetically charged return, all stuffed into a five-track EP. Heavy on Rage-like riffs built from skronky explosions of Zach’s overly amplified keyboard and the sizzling, bombastic drumming of Jon Theodore (ex- Mars Volta), it’s as explosive as anything Rage put out yet doesn’t sound like a mediocre re-hashing. A welcome return to a political voice that been sorely missed.

Abe Vigoda – Skeleton

Give the kids a place to play, and eventually the noise will be heard. In Los Angeles, it’s the Smell, a club that’s been the outlet for bands such as No Age, HEALTH, and Mika Miko to pound delirious sounds out to young, hungry ears. Taken full, capable advantage of their scenes newfound limelight is Abe Vigoda, a four man crew whose tumultuous drumming is underscored with equal measures tropical influenced guitar melodies as well feedback drenched noise. Instant comparison will be made to the other current Afro-pop/ indie-rock purveyors, Vampire Weekend. But instead of their Ivy League pop sentiments, Abe Vigoda turns up the mix until everything bleeds together in a wash of energetic, lo-fi hurly burly no wave. It can all be quite exhausting, even at thirty minutes, so the few investigation into sound- the subdued, shimmering reverb of “Visi Rings” or the hollow feedback of “Whatever Forever”- act as perfect palate cleanse before the percussion pummeling returns. Like Campari, this will be invigorating for some, bitter to others.

Rodriguez – Cold Fact

Opening his 1970 debut, Cold Fact, with the deeply seductive lure of “Sugar Man”, a tripped-out blues ode to his drug dealer, Sixtoo Rodriguez illustrates the working class, counter-culture of late 60’s with a tongue that was dipped in Dylan lyricism. With heavyweight fuzzed out guitar work provided by Dennis Coffey (that’s him on the Temptation’s “Cloud Nine”), and catchy psych-folk songs that stick to the inside of your brain after a single listen, this album, unfortunately, tittered on lip of the obscurity, despite being a sensation in foreign countries. In 2002, producer David Holmes re-introduced Rodriguez’s gem “Sugar Man” with its inclusion on his curated compilation “Come Get It, I Got It” and caught the attention of listeners world wide, which finally culminates in this re-issue. Rodriguez shuffles personal alienation with societal critiques as Marvin Gaye did on What’s Goin’ On, and like that classic, it still is refreshing enjoyable, and unfortunately, quite topical.

Prints – Just Thoughts EP

The beauty of the under-celebrated EP format is that when done right, you’re sparred any exhausting filler and your attention is kept from the opening to the closing song, usually with a finger poised to repeat the whole affair. Just Thoughts EP by Prints started as developing b-sides to accompany the single “Too Much Water” (included here as a music video), but luckily they’ve allowed to these tracks to shine in their own light. Crafted at home by multi-instrumentalist Zac Nelson and Kenseth Thibideau, the four tracks here bubble with laptop pop, suggesting a middle point between the emotional heft of the Postal Service and playfulness of Hot Chip. “Me and Mrs. Archer” bounces to synthesized beat and frolicsome flute, as “Fire” is pulled along gently with a slow stepping computerized snare, moody keyboard and serene lyrics that suggests early morning coddling with windows dappled with morning drizzle. The album ends with an electro-disco remix by Hercules and the Love Affair producer Tim Goldsworthy; a strong punctuation on this perfect constructed statement.

Bronx River Parkway & Candela All Stars – San Sebastian 152

Coming out of the Brooklyn boroughs (already home to the revivalist soul sounds of Daptone Records’s Sharon Jones & The Budos Band), up-and-coming record label Truth & Soul has slowly birthed a marvelous resurrections of funk, latin soul and Afro-funk that, until now, usually resided on white-jacketed 45’s. As their second full-length release, they’ve nailed the sound of 1970’s New York, where black and Latin styles merged to create a free-spirited exchange of salsa, funk and fusion. With a name that salutes the salsa heritage of Eddie Palmieri’s super group Harlem River Drive, Bronx River Parkway have issued a spectacular debut, full of tight horn arrangements that seem to slip and slide within each other, and a rhythm section that suggest the flair and heartbeat of Cuba’s finest. Teaming up with legendary Puerto Rican salsa musicians in San Juan, San Sebastian 152 is as top notch as an undiscovered Buena Vista Social Club recording, as impressive of a release you’ll find all year. Highly recommended.

MK Larada – Break In Two: Music For B-People

For young boys who learned to moonwalk and were mesmerized by the breakdancing acrobatics in movies like Beat Street, Breakin’ and even Flashdance, you couldn’t help but also be entranced by the distinctively, funky breaks the DJ spun flawless together that seemed to propel the dancers into a frenzy. Deejay MK Larada was a similar youth (just witness his 1985 cover shot), who now has tailored his own mix for keeping the B-boys popping and locking until the break of dawn. Melding familiar classics like Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust” and Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit” with known jams like Shannon’s “Let The Music Play” makes this an easy floor-filler. But the cleverness shines through when brief bars of the Muppet Show intro coalesce into Rob Base’s “It Takes Two” or when Lamar, the sole black outcast from Revenge Of The Nerd’s, lets loose his party rhyme, but now backed with a muscular booming beat. You’ll already be dancing, but now you’ll just be smiling much more.