A To Z: Lemon of Pink - The Books

2003 was a bit of a revelatory year in music for me. It was the year in which I discovered indie music blogs, review sites, and discussion forums. I tracked Pitchfork reviews tirelessly, even going through their archives at the time. I followed Fluxblog updates everyday, downloading whatever new song that was uploaded. Like many teenagers of the time, I grew into adulthood at a time when information availability was expanding and knowledge of new and relevant music seemed entirely too vast to ever attempt to conquer.

Sometime during that year, I read a review about "The Lemon Of Pink" by The Books. Earlier, I had already lost much time during an obsession over the divisive "Ether Teeth" by Fog, a record that I found mentioned through Anticon message boards. A description of The Books sound seemed that it would fall in line with the abstract samples and acoustic instrumentation found on "Ether Teeth"...but you know, this record was actually critically acclaimed and deemed "good" by just about everyone. Therefore it should have been my favorite record ever.

"The Lemon of Pink" isn't my favorite ever, but it is very good. As the spring months have been approaching and the spring weather seems here to stay, I can think of few experimental records from this decade that fit the time so perfectly. The acoustic strings present throughout, the ethereal original vocals that float above the shimmering tones, the random vocal samples that seem to appear out of nowhere, sneaking up on your like a person yelling from across the street. This is a folk album that breaks all folk tradition.

There are few albums that that float by as quickly as "The Lemon Of Pink." From the first female voice stating the title of the record out through "That Right Ain't Shit" and even "PS", this album comes together best as a whole piece. It is rare indeed that one would put a song from this record on a mixtape, other than with the intention of breaking apart whatever the general theme of your mix was. As individual songs, this music is pretty - but doesn't make a whole lot of sense. As a 37-minute album, everything comes together, bleeding into one another, creating memories of past picnics, spring sports, setting suns over the beach.

Perhaps I romanticize this record too much. I don't adore or obsess over this record and rarely listen to it 7 years after it's initial release. However, when I do take the time to listen to it, to remember why I enjoyed it so much all those years ago and the positive impact it had on broadening my listening tastes in the years that came after, I am overjoyed with what The Books have accomplished with this album. It's not a perfect recording and in 2010 there are records that are similar that might do part of this sound better, but it is one of those records that can be conditionally perfect. Sometimes you just have to wait to find that condition.

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A To Z: King Biscuit Flower Hour (Live 1976) - The Band

If THE BAND were any other band, their name would be audacious, obnoxious and forgettable. As it turned out, The Band aka The Hawks deserve the title of THE quintessential group of musicians and calling themselves THE BAND is as fitting a title as any.

I've loved The Band since high school. I'd seen The Last Waltz, more for the other musicians involved than The Band themselves. I found an old copy of their self-titled second album at a garage sale among the first week or two that I started collecting records. I knew "Up on Cripple Creek" and "The Weight" and a couple of other songs before I knew who sang them. I didn't know their story and I was hardly even into Bob Dylan at the time, but The Band was something special to me in those formative years.

Or rather, I claimed them to be.

After my initial exposure to The Band, I loved a handful of songs and appreciated what they were doing but I didn't really get it. I knew liking them was cooler than liking CSNY or CCR or other similarly styled bands that blurred the lines of rock, country, blues and folk. These scraggly dudes were accomplished musicians, that is what the internet told me. Robbie Robertson was one of the best songwriters of his generation, or so I heard. It took me years to finally succumb and agree.

This radio broadcast recorded live in 1976 isn't the best live document in The Band's catalogue, but for my money nothing they ever performed live was bad. It's good for a bootleg, but not the best audio quality ever. There is some major riffs and solos, but few instances that show what these musicians are actually capable of. The organ on this recording seems louder than actual studio albums which gives the songs a bit of a unique sound. They perform the songs you know, maybe some you don't. Good overview but no Last Waltz.

If you are a fan of The Band though, you should probably have this.



This is from The Last Waltz, but it still gives me chills, so I included it.

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A To Z: Journey In Satchidananda - Alice Coltrane

When you listen to a lot of different avant-garde jazz releases, you have to mentally prepare yourself. You don't listen to Cecil Taylor or Albert Ayler as background music. You don't put "Interstellar Space" on and just go ahead and do the dishes. Free jazz, spiritual jazz, vanguard jazz, this is is music literally created to combat the passive and often dismissive nature of people wanting to "listen" to jazz. With a notion of jazz being for the beatniks and the coffee shops, the idea was struck down quickly by these very masters - finding new ground in the same way that many psychedelic rock bands were allowing hippies to reach higher astral planes.

Alice Coltrane fits in with these masters perfectly. She created difficult music with her husband before his untimely death, and made a career of perpetuating different experiments that crossed various genre lines. However, with "Journey In Satchidanda", you don't have to mentally prepare yourself for the listening experience. It's not grating, it's beautiful. And regardless of where you are, it will pull you in. It works as both background music and as one of the most engaging listens in your library. It's a crossover record in the most personal way. And it gets better every time. Of all the spiritual jazz pioneers, perhaps none were quite as spiritual as Alice.

Oh and she plays the harp.

Alice also employs the piano in her repetoire, and on this album is joined by two of my favorite musicians: Pharoah Sanders on soprano sax and Charlie Haden on bass. These three create a dynamic nucleus that is engulfed by the constant drone provided by middle-eastern instruments the oud and tamboura. There have been many attempts at bridging traditional middle-eastern or indian instruments with western jazz music and I will say right here: "Journey In Satchidanda" is likely the best.

This is the rare album that expands the loose definition of jazz yet remains an accessible album. For those who like traditional jazz numbers or the lighter side, they are unlikely to feel too alienated with this release. For those who only like jazz that transports them places, that takes a while to understand - they will feel right at home here too.

The beauty this record can stop you in your tracks. It can cause obsession. It truly is a "journey".





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A To Z: Incunabula - Autechre

I first decided I wanted to delve into the world of electronic music somewhere around the year 2000. This was the beginning of my teenage years, the time in our lives where we are finding out our likes and dislikes, why we like the things we do and more importantly - we are getting bored of things we have always assumed to be "good."

High school became the place for me to become the music snob of my friends. Not so much in a formal setting, but within my own mind I was discovering new things daily. Electronic music was one of these things. Like many people my age, I was inspired by Radiohead's "Kid A" album and the bleeps and bloops that were found consistently through that record. I fell in love with "Idioteque", learning the words and wanting to devour more music like it. I didn't know where to start, so I asked around the internet.

The first album someone told me to get was "Music Has The Right To Children". I loved it instantly and still consider it one of my very favorite albums of all time. Through my own narrow investigation I was discovering that my preferences heavily leaned on the side of abstract, experimental dance music. Somewhere I ran into the term "IDM" which I hung above my peers as a beacon of how I was better than them, because I listened to INTELLIGENT dance music, none of this trance shit. I soon found my way to "Tri Repetae++" a collection that is about as out there as IDM got and perhaps the genre's finest offering. I liked the album a lot, but never fell in love with it. The years have carried on and while I've recognized that Autechre fans are some of the most dedicated that I talk with, I've never quite understood the hype. Until very recently.

Over the past few months, I've begun to delve into the early days of Warp Records. I mainly credit people like Flying Lotus and the other Brainfeeder artists for this, but the Warp20 compilation is an amazing collection of music and I wanted to go back and revisit all the things I wasn't around for during the "Artificial Intelligence" days.

"Incunabula" didn't do a whole lot for me the first time I heard it. But I listened to it while commuting around for work the following day and it made sense. You've heard it before: you're driving in the rain, the traffic is start and stop, you get a few stretches of open road and the music that is playing through your car stereo is just the most perfect thing you could be listening to at that point. I've been hooked on this record a bit for the last few weeks, pulling it out about every other day during work or at night to listen to.

It may be the most "accessible" of Autechre's work, it may also be the best. It can sound a bit dated compared to today's standards and it's hard to recognize the duo that created this record in 1993 is still putting out cutting edge electronic music in 2010 that is completely different.

I'm going to fill the gaps in my Autechre collection in, but for now - "Incunabula" will strike me as the high point in what many consider to be the most forward thinking act in electronic music.



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A To Z: Heart Food - Judee Sill

There are certain musicians who can take pop music and completely flip it on its head. Brian Wilson's "teenage symphonies" were extra lush song cycles meant that somehow appealed to the rock and roll crowd more akin to liking two-and-a-half minute standard pop tunes. Prior to Brian Wilson and his brothers, Phil Spector created the now infamous "wall of sound"- literally throwing everything into the mix that his recording capabilities could handle. Despite the noise, the songs maintained a feeling of completely literate, interesting and downright intelligent pop music. The Ronettes were making music for high school dances, yet there was artistry there. We can go through every decade of pop music and find specific examples of musicians and bands (and perhaps more appropriately, producers), whose knowledge of what pop music can and should be has constantly pushed the envelope. By synthesizing the best parts of different subgenres of popular music, many of our greatest artists are just that because somewhere in their career they put out music that was unheard of before then. Something new, something unique and ultimately, something that has a lasting impact on the listeners, who find meanings through the sheen of pop and obsess over the music in their own ways.

I've heard the name Judee Sill for years. I'd seen her two albums talked about many times throughout my forays and obsessions into the world of 1970s California Folk Rock. It wasn't until recently, however, that I finally took a chance at giving Judee a listen. Imagine my surprise when I heard music that could be likened those late 70s Beach Boys recordings (my favorite), instead of what I expected to be a mediocre Joni Mitchell or Carly Simon carbon copy with some heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics.

On Heart Food Judee Sill created what is one of the most unjustly unheralded achievements in all of contemporary folk music. Everything is based primarily on guitar and piano, but other stringed instruments get added to the music, giving her otherwise personal and intimate songs a grandiose sense. Sill's singing has a unique quality, often starting her verses at a quieter, softer timbre before barring her teeth and singing as though she has a case to plead to God.

In fact much of the album has religious conotations, references to God and spirituality without being overly zealous. The comparison to Brian Wilson applies in this aspect as well. Story-like lyrics that reference a troubled soul, allowing herself to breathe in the only way she knows how: creating beautiful music.

It's a shame that Judee Sill's Heart Food isn't considered by more to be one of the best records of its time. It's a record unlike any others. It's clearly folk music, but it's clearly pop music. References could be drawn, similarities between Judee and other artists could be attempted, but Heart Food is a record that is all it's own. A record of epic scope, rooted in the most minute details of the artist's voice.



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A To Z: Ghetto Music - Eddie Gale

If seeing the cover photo of this album doesn't make you want to listen to it, obsess over it and consider it one of the coolest things in your collection - you just might not be human.

Eddie Gale standing hooded with shades, his trumpet in hand, with a canine ready to rip your skull off. His backing musicians for the record, similarly hooded, with different instruments, expressionless facades on their face. They have attained a higher power through music and their look is forcing you to follow suit. Powerful.

During the late 60's, every important jazz musician tried their hand at the spiritual jazz movement that Coltrane spawned and mastered. While this resulted in some of the most exciting and invigorating jazz music that exists today, it also caused a plethora of great musicians to release lackluster work just for the sake of being "experimental."

Prior to 1968, Eddie Gale was known as a backing musician of various forms of Sun Ra's Arkestra, as well as playing on Cecil Taylor's Blue Note debut. These are big names and by the time that Gale was set to release his debut under his own name - the recording was entirely funded by Blue Note co-founder Francis Wolff, who believed that what Gale was accomplishing with this record was something that could truly shape what jazz is perceived to be and where it can go.

And with good reason. Despite the fact that Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music remained one of the most obscure Blue Note releases for years and has since been remastered on an entirely different label, the album continues to stick out amongst a catalogue of some of the best music the world has ever seen.

The deeply moving album opens with "The Rain" beginning with acoustic guitar and Eddie's sister Joann singing in a style that doesn't seem far removed from Fairport Convention. At 40 seconds, the rest of the 17-member ensemble reveals themselves, a jazz beat pushed along by the two basses and two drummers, the 11 member chorus preaching the gospel. The song alternates between these pastoral folk passages and the louder ensemble moments, with Eddie's trumpet soloing in between. Soon Eddie and his sister find themselves in a duet, his trumpet much louder than her voice. The track builds and builds, repeating "Stop the rain...Stop the rain." When listening, it is hard to think of a more powerful opening track through any genre of music. The next 4 tracks continue the wave of blending gospel and jazz and a little funk, create mass amounts of cacophony that never quite sound like "noise." Gale retains the ability to reign his ensemble inward at the proper time, continuously create musical passages that layer themselves to the point of bursting, before stopping and allowing breath. The chorus keeps things interesting throughout the 40-minute duration, making themselves apparent and noticeable, but never the center of attention, which rightly belongs to the amazing instrumental work.

Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music is one of the best spiritual / protest jazz albums that exists. A snapshot of life in 1968 and one that can still ring true as a snapshot of life in 2010. Powerful music.


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A To Z: Freedom Flight - Shuggie Otis

What did you do when you were 18?

When I was 18 I graduated high school without a desire in the world. I worked my first real job - getting my hands cut up by sheet metal, my lungs filled with asbestos and my hair filled with fiberglass filaments. I started college, or rather, attended classes at a university for a quarter before transferring to a community college that offered me nothing more than the high school I had just left. I lacked motivation, the most creative thing I did was write my 2nd of what has become 7 "Top 50 Albums of the Year" list, in which I claimed Madvillain to reign supreme.

When Shuggie Otis was 18, he released what has become what I consider to be one of the most complete albums of the 70s and perhaps one of my very favorite releases of all time.

At it's heart, Freedom Flight is a blues album - but unlike those albums that came before it, it is a blues so forward thinking without sounding entirely alien, it is hard to pinpoint influences or relatable musicians. Blurring the lines between psychedelic, orchestral pop, floor-stomping blues, Hendrix and jamming in a sundazed haze, Shuggie presents 7 tracks (plus a bonus cut) ranging from lengths of 2:30 to 13:00. The longer tracks that close out the album, "Purple" and "Freedom Flight" might very well be the best instrumental rock songs to have come out by this time on albums that were not completely instrumental.

Shuggie's guitar playing is essential listening. You can hear influences of Santana and other Woodstock luminaries in his plucking, but perhaps the most striking thing is the direct line you can draw from many of his licks to some of Prince's best moments (and yes I know they look alike). Shuggie will almost certainly be remembered as the kid who wrote "Strawberry Letter 23" which was later popularized by The Brothers Johnson or maybe he will be remembered as the guy who put out Inspiration Information a few years later, inspiring many of the best musicians and jazz groups of the next 20 years. Despite this and despite the legacy of influence that Shuggie has left in his short career (he hasn't recorded much over the last 30 years), I honestly think that Freedom Flight is his most important moment. It's an album that says "hey I can do what you do better than you can, and check this out too..."

Freedom Flight is a treasure of an album, and a vision rarely matched.




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A To Z: Eccsame The Photon Band - Lilys

There are certain records in all of our collections that we might praise, but ultimately undervalue. "Yeah, wow that IS a great record, I almost forgot about it!"

I've had Eccsame the Photon Band for years and listened to it quite a few times. At the behest of some friends and contemporaries I was constantly reminded that I should give this album it's due, but typically brushed it aside. It's underrated, under-mentioned, nearly unheard in comparison to similar records of the era. I knew it was good, but it wasn't until recently that I actually realized how good this record actually is.

Always placed within the confines of the shoegaze genre, the Lilys foray into the wonderful world of distorted guitars sounds nothing like Loveless or Nowhere. Listening to the record, you can make out individual guitar chords, hear the lyrics and never feel overwhelmed by the oft-suffocating limits and compression of records that employ sounds we typically deem "shoegaze." Eccsame sounds and feels like it has room to breathe. These are ostensibly pop songs hidden beneath the veil of distortion and slow-tempos. There are instances of extended guitar flourishes and electronic washes, but the pop songs remain just under the surface - seeking their way out of the haze, embedding themselves in your head.

No, this isn't My Bloody Valentine or even Slowdive - this is a less epic Stone Roses, a Byrds album recorded for the autumn, it's almost Yo La Tengo. This album could only be a product of the middle 1990's, a product of every band doing similar things at that time AND those bands' influences. This isn't party music, it's not music to listen to while hanging out with friends. The album is taken in best when you take it in alone. That's what I've done many times over the past week. Do I think it's an all-time classic now? No I still don't, but I don't think I'll ever undervalue Eccsame The Photon Band again. It deserves a place among the giants of the genre and the giants of your collection.


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A To Z: Doremi Fasol Latido - Hawkwind

1972 is an absolutely incredible year in music history. I cannot help but think what it would've been like to be the age I am now back then. Where would I have stood musically? Would I find myself part of the increasingly popular Glam Rock scene? Would I find myself with long hair and a hog, listening to Deep Purple? Would I be at crux in my life - rejecting traditional rock n roll for the likes of the classical influences inherent in Progressive Rock? Could I be cool enough to have connections to people following the apex of the Brazilian music scene? Maybe I would just be listening to the popular stuff by Elton John, Paul Simon, and Stevie Wonder.

37 years past that particular year, I find myself wanting to be a part of all these scenes, loving many albums released during this year retrospectively. I have no context of what it would have been like to actually have BEEN THERE. I've seen concerts, I've read anecdotes, I'm jealous to not have lived through this time, just as I'm jealous to not have lived through any significant time in pop music history.

As a natural extension and rebirth of the hippies at the end of the 60's, perhaps the burgeoning Space Rock, psych folk, Glastonbury scene would've been the scene for me. These people held true to what they wanted to do, mixing pop, rock and electronics to create music that was similar to that being created in Germany at the time - but distinctly different.

The difference was Hawkwind.

Doremi Fasol Latido came out on the heels of the massive UK single "Silver Machine" - a song that was not found on any Hawkwind album at the time, but still featured a sound that would soon define them. Lemmy's vocals sound like Roger Daltry, the guitar and bass chugging is reminiscent of the heavy rock found in Uriah Heep and Deep Purple - yet there was this ambience added to the music. A constant humming sound that gently slid up and down the scales, not distracting from the music but definitely noticable. Imagine your rock band performing in the middle of a hurricane, attempting to send it back from where it came. You get the point.

Doremi was 7 tracks the first time it was released. Alternating between hard rock, proto punk, kraut rock, and a handful of British folk moments - many consider this their masterpiece.

I've never really understood the genre title of "Space Rock" beyond the occasional synthesizer whirlings. To me, I think of the serene, minimal, bleep blopp fizz captured perfectly in the soundtracks to movies like Solaris, Moon and Sunshine as something "true" to space. I see The Orb as much more indicative of the loneliness I imagine space to be rather than what Hawkwind present it as.

A party. A huge, drug-fueled, week-long, awesome party.

If those soundtracks (or even perhaps the 2001: A Space Odyssey score) are what I imagine the true sound of space to be like, Doremi Fasol Latido is the quintessential soundtrack for teenagers traveling to space in rebellion against their aging parents. You see, there is a sense of urgency and defiance found throughout the album. The guitar is harsh, the recording is shit and everytime lyrics and singing are introduced I can't help but feel that Hawkwind is trying to write some melodramatic space opera.

But the drawn-out, mind-melting, feedback laden instrumental passages rock. This isn't space music to float around to. This is the your soundtrack to conquer space.

It's not a perfect album, I don't think it's even the best Hawkwind album, but it's fun to pull out every now and then and listen to loud. Grow your hair out, put on some bizarre threads. Hell, paint your face if you must. It might not be your version of space, but it's theirs. And it is one hell of a fun vision to have.

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PS. Album includes 4 bonus tracks - none of which I find as good as the any of the preceding 7.

A To Z: Chessa - Shuttle358

We tend to give ambient music two distinct purposes:

1. To serve as inoffensive background noise for activities like studying, sleeping or perhaps barely waking up.
2. To serve as a special soundtrack to a unique situation we may find ourselves in: weaving through travelers at an airport, riding on a morning train, watching the snow fall outside.

I know of few people who choose to listen to ambient or drone music as a means of sparking lively conversation or who elect to share their new favorite microtonal artists with their peers. It is not an entertaining music, nor is it a significantly artistic music. Yet somehow these sound sculptures can manage to be the most quiescent or the most absorptive music we listen to.

We have heard over the last 30 years of the brilliance found within the minimal compositions of masters like Brian Eno and Harold Budd. In half the time, we have been able to add artists like Wolfgang Voight, William Basinski, Christian Fennesz and Stars of The Lid to that list. What was once a genre that few tread within, dominated by tape loops, hazy guitar pedals and the tinkling of keys on a synth or piano, soon blossomed during the laptop age of the early 2000's. Anyone could be a sound musician. I tried, you tried, we failed.

And though the genre of microtonal ambient music is far from dead - it is altogether saturated by carbon copy artists, all clawing (softly) for that one standout review handed out by a major publication every year.

I love ambient music, and while I'm in no way someone who follows the actual scene (and there is a true art-based minimal scene in every corner of the western world), nor am I even learned enough to be able to write for mapsadaisical, I delve into many new releases every year that happen to catch my attention during the hyperbolic ramblings of their press releases or Boomkat reviews. Every year many of them are nothing but boring, soulless electro-acoustic meanderings that start nowhere and go nowhere. "A guy, a laptop and a guitar walk into a bedroom..."

It is funny that we can consider a music with no specific form to adhere to but whatever one hears in their own head as "soulless", yet many releases within this genre are exactly that. Dan Abrams aka Shuttle358 is anything but soulless.

All positive reviews of ambient music make reference that a particular release is good because of the "warmth" and "humanity" that the music brings up for the listener. Specific memories in time are recaptured, current moments in the present are captured for the first time. Chessa is warm, Chessa is human.

Recorded and released during the apex of the click-and-beep madhouse of 2004, Shuttle358's third album on 12k has spoken to me for 5 years now. The fuzz, the chimes, the buzzing sounds, the looped guitar - these are all elements that can be found on releases by any ambient composer - and yet, this release sticks out from the others. I listened to this album four times this afternoon as I watched the rain come and go out my window. As night set in, earlier than it should have, the music continued to soundtrack my evening. Every track seems to find itself matching my breaths as it clicks along, every track placed perfectly in context with the exact emotion I encounter upon this experience.

It is a quiet album, a beautiful album - one that has many situational uses. It just turns out that its beauty has not allowed me to tie it to one situation in particular, but many. And few albums can do that.

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A To Z: Bravebird - Amel Larrieux

*Note: I got a DMCA takedown notice for this, but you should still like Amel Larrieux, so I won't delete the post.*

I was 9 years old in 1995. I grew up in the first age of youth that began to make mix cds rather than mix tapes. I was of the first generation to see the MP3 and digitally available music become mainstream and readily accessible. I don't even own a cassette player anymore and I sold every single one of my cds over the 2009 holiday break. Music is as enjoyable to me in 2010 as it was in 1995, though the way I take it in is so different.

To top things off, the first time I heard Amel Larrieux was in 1995, a little song by Groove Theory called "Tell Me"



In high school I wrote a 5-page "personal" essay reflecting on my past in which I would scour my family's cds and cassettes and make mixtapes. I described the amount of time at the ages of 8, 9 and 10 that I would spend listening to popular radio stations in Portland, Oregon, waiting for the precise song to play so that I could record it onto tape at the right place. The primary inspiration for this essay and a large chunk of it consisted of me discussing my obsession to "Tell Me." I can't say that it was the first song I fell in love with, but it is definitely possible that the song was my first true, conscious musical obsession.

I didn't listen to the entire Groove Theory album until 2005, I hadn't listened to any of Amel's solo albums until 2004. I didn't even connect her to being the singer of what may have been the primary song of my youth.

I still can't really explain why I love that song. It's simple in structure, chorus and production. Amel's vocals are wonderful, but hardly hold a candle to the things found on her later solo efforts. "Bravebird", her second solo album, released in 2004 isn't my favorite work of hers, but the fact is that it is an Amel Larrieux album, and it's still very good.

The album shifts between jazzy numbers, more upbeat-almost Alicia Keys in 2007 style numbers, more traditionaly grrl-centric Neo-Soul, a song with a distinct Bossa Nova feeling, and a couple of tracks harkening back to the Acid Jazz styles of Groove Theory. Throughout the whole album, the production feels like ?uestlove and The Roots, the haze just barely hanging there.

Amel's voice sticks out though, as it should.

There is no doubt in my mind that Amel is one of the most gifted singers we have right now, with the ability to cover all the above-mentioned genres and still sound entirely herself. A more poppy Sade, a less menacingly pleading Mary J. Blige. If Erykah Badu wasn't already near perfect, Amel would hopefully be THE voice of the neo-soul movement.

The album isn't perfect and I won't pretend that it is. Some lyrics are ill-fitting, some messages are to heart-on-sleeve. Amel is trying to spread hope through her words and that works for some people, it would've worked on a younger me, maybe it'll work on you.

Regardless, it's an album you should listen to. She's a musician you should love.

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A To Z: Aerial Boundaries - Michael Hedges

In the last few days, I have uploaded a number of albums in an effort to revitalize this blog and to try my hand at getting better at writing music reviews (for what purpose? I don't know.)

Instead of starting with those albums, I thought that I might go ahead and start a new A to Z series just for the sake of doing it. It forces me to choose albums I want to post and write about. I'll intersperse other things in the blog while this is going on, but it at least gives you something concrete to look forward to, rather than just updates saying I'm going to update.



I recently watched three BBC4 90-minute music documentaries. The first focused on synth-pop and the synthesizer. The second was about Krautrock and its influence on popular music of the mid-70s. Then this past weekend I finally caught the year-old Prog Rock Britannia, chronicling the rise and fall of bands like King Crimson, ELP, Yes and Genesis. These documentaries are all immensely entertaining, and though their oversites are numerous, they still beat just about everything that I can find here on American television.

I tell you this because towards the end of the Prog Rock documentary, the mood that the musicians and contributors possess suddenly changes. They talk about excess, of saturation, of near stagnation in their genre. They talk of punk rock, the simplistic rock n roll model that was triumphing over their preposterous "art." Within a number of years, these musicians went from being some of the biggest, most recognizable names in rock music worldwide, to bands whose allegiance spurred immediate damnation. As writer Johnathan Coe puts it so bluntly: Prog Rock became THE genre in which people were suddenly saying "it's all shit."

Where I come from, who I grew up with, who I look up to: they would disagree. Genesis could be cool, Yes wrote some good tunes, Keith Emerson is a godsend. Instead people would look at me, point at the music labeled "New Age" and tell me "now THAT is all shit."

Like progressive rock music, new age music has more than its fair share of stereotypes. Long hair, nature photos, instrumental passages that don't really go anywhere or accomplish much other than serve as auditory wallpaper. Like many stereotypes, there is some truth in these intimations. Despite knowing better, somewhere a 16-year old me cannot help but envision Tim Robbin's character from High Fidelity whenever anyone mentions the genre by name. Just relaaaaaxxx man.

I'm not reaching beyond my grasp here, this isn't an attempt to validate the artistic merit of music labeled as "new age" nor is it an attempt to brainstorm a better title. It is my guess that somewhere within the souls of each and every musician within this genre, part of them truly is attempting to raise the listener up to a new level of peace, understanding, maturation, perhaps a "new age" of being. However, where many musicians fail and come off as wonky, uninspired synthesizer experimenters with source waterfall tape recordings (say, is that going to be on my Top 50 of 2010?), there is one artist in particular that has the ability to transcend the genre while staying firmly within and his name is Michael Hedges.

Long considered one of the most important figures in solo acoustic guitar instrumentation, Michael Hedges released a string of albums in the early 80s and into the 90s that displayed a fingering style that truly didn't exist before him, but has been found in every coffeehouse since. Often sounding like 3, 4, sometimes 5 guitarists at once, Michael Hedges creates music that is rooted in old-America folk and John Fahey stylings while bringing the otherworldliness factor up by 10. He has often been noted as playing a guitar with two sets of strings, one for bass. He's also known for playing strange instruments no one but elves play. He's also known for braids.

Michael Hedges is a solo act. And what's more is that Michael Hedges is a solo LIVE act. Aerial Boundaries, his second and best album is said to have been recorded live, just Michael in the studio (how much of this I believe is another story). His musicianship is astounding and the hours of preparation that likely went into getting the sound just right for recording is evident. Even on the tracks where Michael has used electronic equipment ("Spare Change"), or has created sounds that aren't guitar (the flute on "Menage a Trois"), everything falls into place the way it was supposed to. It is clear that the album accomplishes the vision that Michael set out with before recording.

I've seen this album considered the best solo acoustic album of all time. Whether or not I agree is irrelevant, the sound is likely the best and the vision is perhaps the clearest. It is new age music. It can serve as audio wallpaper, dentist office music, elevator music. But it can also be a terribly engrossing listen. I've fallen under it's spell 6 times today.

And it's a masterpiece.


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A To Z: Z - Zarthus by Robbie Basho

Ah! The end of the A to Z series! Well it has been a fun way to showcase some excellent albums here, hope those of you who come here (and never comment) enjoyed it. I haven't decided if I should start up a new series theme or just start posting whatever. Something will happen though.

So I probably have somewhere around like 14 Robbie Basho records. If you don't know Robbie Basho...think John Fahey but even more psychedelic. If you don't know John Fahey, well, what gives? It's finger-picked acoustic guitar most of the time. Sort of "western" ragas, but Basho's music is very much influenced by Persia and the east and almost always has been. Basho also has a tendency to throw in drums and piano and even sing on a lot of his records, which all come around on this album from 1974. Many Basho fans regard Zarthus as is his best album, I don't know if I do. It's great, it's crazy, and it features one epic track in the 20-minute "Rhapsody in Druz" but I don't always like when he sings. His voice is real deep and not bad, but his guitar work is so amazing, I would usually just rather he does that. It's a good to great psychedelic record regardless though, so you should probably get it.

Robbie Basho's Zarthus, dating from 1974, is, in his own words, "An album of Persian, Arabic, Westerns Themes (sic), woven together into a single 'Fabric D'Amour' to cover the barren manekin (sic) of modern times." Easily the album that most indulges his obsessions with Eastern modal scales and odd meters, and even Western classical themes. All of it is grounded in Basho's guitar though, and the discs first two tracks, "Zarthus" (dedicated to Meher Baba, Pete Townshend's guru) and "Khoda é Gul é Abe," are driving 12-string numbers, possessed as much by the rhythm of the mridingham as they are by Basho's trademark open tonal wandering up and down the fret board. There is some single string playing in "Zarthus," but both tunes are overdriven from the fluid, liquidy percussive strum and drag of his lightning quick right hand. On "Mehera" and "Khalil Gibran," Basho employs the use of a piano as well as his guitars and his voice. For those who were put off by the singing on Voice of the Eagle, this is easier to handle, melodic and true if oddly constructed. All of it is based on drones and the cascading up and down is limited in range. The poetry in his lyrics is spiritually beautiful. The album's capper is the 19-plus minute "Rhapsody in Druz." The first half is a beautiful love song to a spiritual master, and the last half is an exercise in droning strings, both on the piano and the guitars, rumbling microtonally against one another in tandem and causing overtonal vibrations between them. While this is not Basho's finest recorded moment, it is certainly a very good one, and all fans of the development of his music should take notes of its compositions as well as of his truly innovative piano playing.

-AMG

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A To Z: Y - You Need Pop! by The Speedies

Released in 2005, "You Need Pop!" is the first actual full length release from a band that began playing power pop gigs in New York 25 years prior. This album is a collection of 10 songs: their best from their original singles as well as a reworking of the title track. I don't know that much about the history of the band or the awesome power pop seen of the late 70s in general, but I do know that this is a great compilation. Fast, catchy, and a lot of fun. Definitely a record to listen to if you are already upset about summer being over. The sound changes throughout the record. Some stuff sounds like Cheap Trick (and then subsequent bands like The Exploding Hearts), but some songs almost sound like The Fall and have a much more Post Punk feel. But throughout, the songs remain pop, as obvious from the title of of the compilation (and song). It's a blast.

It all started in Brooklyn in the mid 1970's. Eric Hoffert and Gregory Crewdson met each other for the first time at Brooklyn Friends School, working together to understand global patterns of climate for a homework assignment. At the time they were 11 years old. Around the same timeframe, Allen Hurkin-Torres and Eric Hoffert met each other while studying for their Bar Mitzvahs. Greg and Eric took their next steps by learning to play the guitar and visiting CBGBs at the age of 14 to see the Ramones. Allen picked up the drums quickly and was ready to take the stage. Their lives were now changed forever. One thing Eric, Greg, and Allen all had in common as young kids - a love of fast, pure, and catchy pop songs – but with an edge.

The popular music at the time was heavy metal and disco; but these young budding popsters had something completely different in mind. They called it power pop and they loved it with a passion. Fast forward to 1978 and Eric, Greg, and Allen just had to start the best power pop band imaginable. At the young age of just 16 years, they started practicing in the top floor of the brownstone building in Cobble Hill in Brooklyn where Allen lived with his parents and two sisters. No song could be longer than three minutes, songs had to be fast and catchy and they could only be about school, girls, and pop perfection.

In need of a singer, they went out for a walk around the block a met a fan of the Sex Pistols and David Bowie with a wild haircut – John Marino. John was invited upstairs for an audition and the magic of the band was instantly undeniable. With their first three minute pop song ready to play, the Speedies were born. Their first song was “You Need Pop”. Big things were soon to come, but first a word on musical influences.

The Speedies trace their roots to a number of key inspirations – starting with Saturday morning TV cartoon theme songs, the Jetsons, the Flintstones, and the Banana Splits. From this pure pop culture starting point the band moved on to the pop music of the Monkees, the Who, and the Beatles. The Speedies then jumped into a love for the hard edged bands of the early 70’s that created the best glitter rock that could be heard - David Bowie, Mott the Hoople, T-Rex, The New York Dolls, and the Sweet. Just prior to the birth of the Speedies, the band members were deeply inspired by fast and hard pop from the UK by the Buzzcocks, the Sex Pistols, the Jam, Generation-X, and the Undertones.

In fact it was this last wave of bands that convinced the Speedies that it was time for an International Power Pop Overthrow. But the Speedies were different than any of these bands – they crafted their own sound which combined the best of all of them with a vision that power pop could take over the world. Power pop wasn’t just music; it was a way to look at the world. The Speedies were also celebrating pop culture – including a love for breakfast cereals like Cap’n Crunch and the cool prizes inside.

The Speedies’ first show took place on a cold winter night - December 26, 1978 at Max’s Kansas City. It may have been cold outside, but it sure was hot inside, where the Speedies sold out the show and had more people attend Max’s on a Tuesday night than ever before. The packed crowd went wild and the band had its first glowing and major review in Variety magazine. In addition to ragingly fast pop, the band had boxes of cereal all over the stage which they poured onto their fans when they played “We Wanna Be Your Breakfast Cereal”. And the fans threw cereal back. With the band jumping up and down, people dancing and thrashing around, cereal in the air, and loud pop, it was a scene of beautiful but controlled chaos. NYC would never be the same.

Soon after the bands debut, five of the best Speedies songs were recorded in Toronto, Canada by Paul Hoffert – an award winning composer, producer, and musician with Top 100 pop hits of his own. After playing for awhile to an ever growing base of avid fans, the Speedies realized that in their haste to form the band they had neglected to include a bass player. So they brought in a fifth band member, John Carlucci, a talented and high energy bass player, who at the age of 22 was the elder statesman; John also introduced the band to the practice of wearing spiky toed Beatle Boots. To perfect the band experience everyone changed their name to suitably poppy pseudonyms including Eric Pop, Greg Zap, Allen Zane, Buckwheat, and the new member too – John Carl.

Before long, the Speedies were all of the rage in NYC with long lines around the block for their shows, riots with hundreds of Speedies fans, non-stop demand for more shows at clubs everywhere, and a move to put out the band’s first single “Let Me Take Your Foto”. The single was an instant hit and sold out of its first run almost immediately. Power pop songs like “Math Teacher”, “Urban Mania”, “Ready for the Countdown”, “360 Sound”, and “Fashion Free” became big hits for the Speedies with fans memorizing every word and singing along...

A big event at the time was the Speedies playing at the now historic Bottom Line in Greenwich Village which was also broadcast live on the radio; the Speedies were still so young that the club insisted that their parents supervise them for the evening and no cereal was permitted to be thrown into the audience. Indeed, some of the Speedies could often be seen doing their homework backstage just before the shows.

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A To Z: X - XO by Elliott Smith

It is slim pickins' when you get to album titles that start with "X".

So I thought, well, why the hell not? Sure most people who come to this blog (which is what, 4 people?) have this album or heard it sometime when it was released and disregard it, maybe they love it. Who knows. It is sort of a staple of indie fans in the 90s and early 00's and a definite introduction to everyone who watched the Royal Tenenbaums as a teenager and loved the music.

It's probably my favorite Elliott Smith album and though it is sort of cool to hate on his music now, I won't. He was a great songwriter and I still love most of his songs, even if I don't listen to him nearly as much as 6 or so years ago. So, download it if you have somehow not heard it before or maybe go back through your cds or itunes and relisten to it if it has been awhile. It's a pop record that holds up.

A year before his major-label debut, XO, was released, it seemed unlikely that Elliott Smith would even be on a major, let alone having his record be one of the more anticipated releases of 1998. He had certainly earned a great deal of critical respect with his low-key, acoustic indie records and was emerging as a respected songwriter, but he hadn't made much of an impression outside of journalists, record collectors, and indie rockers. An Oscar nomination can change things, however. "Miss Misery," one of Smith's elegantly elegiac songs for Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting, unexpectedly earned an Academy Award nomination, and he was immediately thrust into the spotlight. He was reluctant to embrace instant celebrity, yet he didn't refuse a contract with DreamWorks, and he didn't shy away from turning XO into a glorious fruition of his talents. Smith's songs remain intensely introspective, yet the lush, Beatlesque production provides a terrifically charming counterpoint. His sweetly dark melodies are vividly brought to life with the detailed arrangements, and they sell Smith's tormented songs -- it's easy to get caught up in the tunes and the sound of the record, then realize later what the songs are actually about. That's a sign of a good craftsman, and XO proves that not only can Elliott Smith craft a song, but he knows how to make an alluring pop record as well.
-Allmusicguide

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A To Z: W - Wanted: Dead Or Alive by Kool G Rap & DJ Polo

This is one of the first "classic" hip hop albums I ever got really into. Something about Kool G Rap's lightning quick delivery has always struck me as awesome, mainly because it just is. One of the best flows in all of hip hop history. And his lyrics are usually pretty classic to. A storyteller, a shit talker and just overall great and painting images. Love this classic east coast shit. If you're not familiar and want to see where some of those modern rappers get their fast raps from, G Rap was one of the first to do it like this.

Marley Marl remained on board, and Large Professor and Eric B. also hopped on to help produce Kool G Rap & DJ Polo's second album. With a wider range of sounds and the expansion of G Rap's lyrical range, Wanted: Dead or Alive is wholly deserving of classic status. The opening "Streets of New York" remains one of the most thrilling and unique rap singles released; the sparse rhythm, adorned with assured piano runs that complement the song to the point of almost making the song, falls somewhere between a gallop and a strut, and G RapKool G Rap's talent as an adept storyteller like nothing before or since. Likewise, "Talk Like Sex" is the nastiest, raunchiest thing he ever recorded, with "I'm pounding you down until your eyeballs pop out" acting as an exemplary claim -- as well as one of the few that is printable -- made in the song. The boasts, as ever, are in no short supply, but "Erase Racism" takes a break from the normal proceedings with guest spots from Big Daddy Kane and Biz Markie. It's both funny and sobering, with Biz Markie's Three Dog Night chorus providing comic relief after each verse. Adding yet another dimension to the album, DJ Polo throws in a hip-house instrumental that avoids coming off like a throwaway. This album is only part of a major swarm of brilliant rap records from 1990, but it will never be lost in it outlines more vivid scenes than one film could possibly contain. The track cemented Kool G Rap & DJ Polo's role as East Coast legends and showed .

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A To Z: V - Vernal Equinox by Jon Hassell

For you meditative dudes out there, here is one of my favorite "out there" albums.

For those who don't know Jon Hassell, he was an avant-garde trumpet player who has played with a lot of people on the forefront of experimental music through the years as well as world music. His whole goal was to basically blend styles until there was no style, he called it "Fourth World"

It's just beautiful, minimal stuff. Here is a piece that Brian Eno wrote about him. Enjoy the download.

I arrived in New York on a beautiful spring day in April 1978. I'd intended to stay for a week but the visit stretched on and on and I ended up staying for about five years.

Those first few months in the city were a formative time for me. I didn't know many people, and I had time on my hands, so I was open to things in a way that I might not have been in a more familiar landscape. I listened to a lot of live music and bought a heap of records. One of the most important was by a musician I'd never heard of - a trumpeter called Jon Hassell. It was called Vernal Equinox.

This record fascinated me. It was a dreamy, strange, meditative music that was inflected by Indian, African and South American music, but also seemed located in the lineage of tonal minimalism. It was a music I felt I'd been waiting for.

I discovered later, after I met and became friends with Jon, that he referred to his invention as Fourth World Music (which became the subtitle of the first album we made together: Possible Musics). I learned subsequently that Jon had studied at Darmstadt with Stockhausen (as indeed had Holger Czukay from Can, another occasional colleague), that he'd played on the first recording of Terry Riley's seminal In C, and that he'd studied with the great Indian singer Pran Nath.

We had a lot to talk about. We had both come through experimental music traditions - the European one, as exemplified by Stockhausen and Cornelius Cardew, and the American one of Cage and Terry Riley and LaMonte Young. At the same time, we were aware of the beauty and sophistication of all the music being made outside our culture - what is now called "world music". And we were both intrigued by the possibilities of new musical technology.

But beyond these issues, there was a deeper idea: that music was a place where you conducted and displayed new social experiments. Jon's experiment was to imagine a "coffee coloured" world - a globalised world constantly integrating and hybridising, where differences were celebrated and dignified - and to try to realise it in music.

His unusual articulacy - and the unexpected scope of his references - inspired me. In general, artists don't talk much about how or why they make their work, especially "why". Jon does. He is a theorist and a practitioner, and his theories are as elegant and as attractive as his music: because in fact his music is the embodiment of those theories.

We spent a lot of time together, time that changed my mind in many ways. We talked about music as embodied philosophy, for every music implies a philosophical position even when its creators aren't conscious of it. And we talked about sex and sensuality, about trying to make a music that embraced the whole being and not just the bit above the neck (or just the bit below it).

It was in these conversations that, among other things, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which I made with David Byrne in 1981, was nurtured. All of us were interested in collage, in making musical particle colliders where we could crash different cultural forms with all their emotional baggage and see what came out of the collisions, what new worlds they suggested.

If I had to name one over-riding principle in Jon's work it would be that of respect. He looks at the world in all its momentary and evanescent moods with respect, and this shows in his music. He sees dignity and beauty in all forms of the dance of life.

I owe a lot to Jon. Actually, a lot of people owe a lot to Jon. He has planted a strong and fertile seed whose fruits are still being gathered.

-Brian Eno

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A To Z: U - Uncle Jam Wants You by Funkadelic

Having every Funkadelic is of course advisable, this one being no exception.

Of course, "(Not Just) Knee Deep" is one of the most known songs in the entire P-Funk catalogue, being that it is one of the most sampled songs for huge rap songs. De La, Dre, Snoop, Tone Loc, Ice Cube, fuck. Song is legendary. Anyway, the album is fun and it is sort of this weird concept album that is like military themed, trying to save "Dance music from the Blahs"

It's funny. Get It.

Almost as if Clinton and company wanted to atone for parts of One Nation Under a Groove, Uncle Jam Wants You takes not merely a more daring musical approach but a more forthright political stance. The cover art alone is brilliant, front and back showing Clinton in Huey P. Newton's famous Black Panther pose. The main goal is the cover subtitle's stated claim to "rescue dance music 'from the blahs,'" and "Uncle Jam" itself does a pretty funny job at doing that, starting out like a parody of patriotic recruitment ads before hitting its full, funky stride. It's still very much a disco effort, but one overtly spiking the brew even more than before with P-Funk's own particular recipe, mock drill instructors calling out dance commands and so forth. The absolute winner and most famous track, without question, is the 15-minute deep groove of "(Not Just) Knee Deep." It'd be legend alone for being the musical basis for De La Soul's astonishing breakthrough a decade later with "Me, Myself and I," but on its own it predates the mutation of disco into electro thanks to the stiff beat and Worrell's crazy keyboards. Elsewhere there are pleasant enough jams like "Field Maneuvers," kicking around some good guitar work amidst the hop-and-skip beat, and the weepy ballad "Holly Wants to Go to California," intentionally undercut by all the cheering and noise deep in the mix. It's not to say that Funkadelic hasn't left the entire world of coke spoons and pointing to the sky behind them, as "Freak of the Week" shows, which isn't entirely far off from the early Sugar Hill
party/zodiac aesthetic. Then again, lines like "disco-sadistic, that one beat up and down, it just won't do" amidst the whistles and screams have their own impact.

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A To Z: T - Texas Cookin' by Guy Clark

This record is basically the result of all the best country singers and writers of the early 70s getting drunk one day, playing some games, eating some food and then going "hey lets make a record"

I love Guy Clark (though I only have 4 of his albums), and though this record isn't quite as good as his first album, it is definitely more country. It's a blast, throwing in more fun songs than most of his other recorded work. His songs are still clever and well written, and the help he receives by people like Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings and Hoyt Axton (to name only a few) is great.

On the new Rodney Crowell album (which is excellent), he sings about his love for Guy Clark, and there is a reason. Guy Clark is an underrated gem of great song writing, one that who will probably NEVER get his due, though will remain respected and revered by the correct circles for years.

Guy Clark's sophomore effort sounds more like a party of friends who got together to pick together on a Saturday night that it does a sensitive singer/songwriter outing. Essentially that's what it is, coming as it did in 1975 at the height of the outlaw movement fever. Recorded at Chips Moman's American Studios in Nash Vegas, there is no producer listed on the set, so you can assume Clark did it himself with the aid of his many compadres here, who include but are not limited to Emmylou Harris, Susanna Clark, Johnny Gimble, Jerry Jeff Walker, Hoyt Axton, Waylon Jennings, Tracy Nelson, Brian Ahern, Mickey Raphael, Rodney Crowell, David Briggs, and Chip Young. Songwise, Clark's on a roll here; first there's the wooly party tune, "Texas Cookin'," that celebrates the Lone Star State's particular ability to make their food taste good with beer, and then there's the stunning "Anyhow I Love You," with Emmylou, Waylon, and Crowell accompanying Clark as a chorus. Jennings' harmony singing here is the best he did in his career. There's the mid-tempo "Good to Love You Lady" with Walker, Axton, Crowell, and Harris singing in a smoky contralto, an honest to goodness country song, baring its fiddles, pedal steel, and a trio of acoustic guitars to carry those rough and sweet voices through the story. And while the up-tempo tunes here are wondrously raucous fare, Clark's strength as a ballad writer is almost unequaled among his peers. Nowhere is this more evident than on "Broken Hearted People" (since retitled for the refrain, "Take Me to a Barroom"). Clark's version of the song lacks any sentimentality. He is one of the tune's subjects; his resignation is to spend his mourning days on a barstool after discovering a lover's faithlessness, but he's already wasted and can't even get there under his own power. His devastation is only eclipsed by his desperation: "Take me to a barroom driver/Set me on a stool/If I can't be her man, I'm damned/If I'll be her fool." In addition, Clark's "The Last Gunfighter Ballad" is a signature song, like his "Randall Knife" or "Desperadoes Waiting for a Train." It's a song; it's a story; it's a movie with acoustic guitars a bass, a cello, finger cymbals, and Waylon. Chilling, stirring, and unforgettable, just like the album itself. - Thom Jurek, Allmusicguide

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A To Z: S - Shleep by Robert Wyatt

I should probably first admit that I don't really know enough about Prog and the Canterbury scene to fully try to digest an artist like Robert Wyatt. No, in fact, it wasn't until last year that I actually delved into a few of Wyatt's solo releases (with the joy that Comicopera was), and I've loved most of the Soft Machine's albums for years.

Shleep is an excellent release in a pretty spotty discography, sounding very akin to a 70s ers Brian Eno record. The title of the record is apt, as it provides a great, hazy, beautiful, dream-like quality and atmosphere that is constructed around what are pretty decent pop songs. This record was not recorded in the 70s (though Eno did help), but it was recorded in 1997.

Anyway, it's a nice listen. Experimental and out there, but not nearly as bracing as much of his other work. It serves as a good introduction to an otherwise hard musician to digest.

Robert Wyatt was the drummer and founding member of the Canterbury, England based Soft Machine, who played arty, psychedelic, Pink Floyd-influenced jazz-rock fusion. Although his output has been spotty and sporadic, he has been revered for escaping the syrupy art-rock pretentiousness that his colleagues drowned in. Like Captain Beefheart, Wyatt has maintained a playfully unselfconscious experimentalism that may make for difficult listening, but is never boring. Shleep is a welcome comeback which, on first listen, reminded me of an old Brian Eno album. Sure enough, the booklet revealed that Eno did indeed arrange the first song, "Heaps of Sheeps." He also plays on two other songs. Wyatt's high, fragile voice is also similar to Eno's. Like this album, Wyatt's mid-70s solo albums, Rock Bottom (1974) and Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard (1975), mined the same cracks found between pop, art-rock and the avant-garde as Eno's post-Roxy Music solo albums of the same era. The main difference on Shleep is that the music is a gentler, prettier version of the old Wyatt, who could at times be abrasive in both sound and his ruthless politics. His lyrics are not all flight and whimsy, however. "Free Will and Testament" and "Blues in Bob minor" show that his politics have only grown more subtle in his old age, making more timelessly powerful songs in the long run.

-A.S. Van Dorsten
-Fast n Bulbous.com

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