Norah Jones – The Fall

Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures

Ladies and gentlemen, Them Crooked Vultures — the second-best band John Paul Jones has ever been in! The Led Zeppelin guys never made much of a splash in the supergroup scene, unless you’re the kind of die-hard fan who still busts out those old records by the Honeydrippers or the Firm. But when John Paul Jones got the hard-rock supersession itch, he didn’t mess around. For Them Crooked Vultures, he hooks up with Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), two of Zep’s smartest disciples. If these three 800-pound gorillas want to bash out an album as willfully weird and slapdash as Them Crooked Vultures, who can tell them not to? And if they do a song called “Elephants” where they basically crunch every riff on Led Zeppelin II into seven dizzy minutes, why not? (Read The Full Review)

John Mayer – Battle Studies

As Pat Benatar once said, love is a battlefield. That’s the main point John Mayer wants to convey on his fourth studio album. It’s called Battle Studies, and militaristic song titles expand on the theme: “Heartbreak Warfare,” “War of My Life,” “Assassin.” That last one is the set’s most ambitious track — an obsessive groove building louder toward clatter and buzz for five minutes, insulated by Middle Eastern background wails as Mayer likens both parties in an apparent one-night stand to killers performing a night’s mission. But the album’s tone is already set in the first two numbers, both prominently featuring broken hearts; by the third – a duet with Taylor Swift, who enters only briefly, toward the song’s end – his heart has been split in half. (Read The Full Review)

David Rawlings Machine – A Friend of a Friend

For more than 12 years, the Nashville-based musician has toured, written and recorded with Gillian Welch, exploring the well-worn byways of country, bluegrass and stringband music while making the old-timey sound new. As a hired gun, he’s played sideman to artists following in Welch’s wake or creating their own: Sara Watkins, Ryan Adams, Bright Eyes, Guy Clark, Mark Knopfler and Jay Farrar, among others. So his debut as Dave Rawlings Machine is either a case of him stepping up, or everyone else stepping back. Welch herself appears on almost all of these songs, either singing harmony or playing guitar, as do several other musician friends. But Rawlings takes the lead on every track, as a singer and picker.

For nine songs over 40 minutes, Rawlings proves fascinating company — a good man to share a front porch with. As a performer, he makes good use of his distinct, reedy tenor (imagine a twangier Loudon Wainwright). And he has a spry, jumpy guitar style that lends his arrangements some bounce. As a producer, he keeps things loose and lively, mixing covers with originals. A Friend of a Friend plays like a rough, intimate live album instead of a polished studio affair. (Read the Full Review)

LCD Soundsystem – Bye Bye Bayou (12″ Single)

Like a strong, expertly crafted cocktail downed right before what is sure to be one hell of a dinner (new album, hint hint!), LCD Soundsystem’s single “Bye Bye Bayou” (an Alan Vega cover recorded for November’s Record Store Day spinoff Vinyl Saturday) is a slippery buzz-opener that sneaks up on you in the weirdest of ways. While LCD would seem to be unconcerned with racking up any more cool-kid tokens (they have enough by now to cash in for a lifetime supply of plastic spider rings and vampire teeth), “Bayou” simply lifts Vega’s already very cool original out of the swamps, swapping the Cajun paranoia for dead-eyed heavy funk. (Read Full Track Review)

Jerry Garcia – Let It Rock

For Jerry Garcia, 1975 was a seminal year that found him splitting time between recording Blues for Allah with the Dead, directing The Grateful Dead Movie, and forming the Jerry Garcia Band–his long-running side project.

The Jerry Garcia Band — Garcia, his constant collaborator bassist John Kahn and drummer Ron Tutt — played its first show with Nicky Hopkins on piano in August 1975. The ultimate session player, Hopkins’ credits include work with The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and Jefferson Airplane to name a very few. While Hopkins residency was brief with the Jerry Garcia Band, it played an important role in the group’s shift away from big jams toward song-oriented material. (Read the Full Review)

Starline Rhythm Boys – Masquerade for Heartache

Dust off those shitkickers, Burlington. Your blue-collar heroes ride again. Rooted in rockabilly, the Starline Rhythm Boys have been shaking honky-tonks for a decade, evoking an era of checkerboard floors and poodle skirts. Their latest, Masquerade For Heartache, finds the trio plugged into Charlie O’s — that Capital City citadel of sin — where guitarists Al Lemery and Danny Coane lead a jukebox jubilee. All that’s missing is the chicken wire, as the Boys resurrect salty anthems (“Red’s Place”) and 10-gallon covers (“Trucker from Tennessee”) to rowdy effect.

Anchored by Billy Bratcher’s strolling bass, Heartache is a vintage buffet. Western boogie? Check. Hillbilly blues? Yep, it’s all here. And if Coane’s lyrical twang sounds just a bit south of his native Montpelier, blame it on the Narragansett — beer sweetens the masquerade. (Read the Full Review)

Doom – Unexpected Guests

The early news of DOOM compilation Unexpected Guests positioned it as a field report from the indie MC’s late-decade wilderness period, spanning a half-committed star turn (2005′s Danger Doom collaboration with Danger Mouse) to this year’s bullish return to form on Born Like This. And it is… except when it isn’t– “Rock Co.Kane Flow”, taken from De La Soul’s The Grind Date, actually finds DOOM doing something of a victory lap in 2004 after his essential triad of Take Me to Your Leader (released under the name King Geedorah), Vaudeville Villain (Viktor Vaughn), and Madvillainy (Madvillain). “Rock Co.Kane Flow” is a fantastic symbiosis of DOOM’s many playful styles, but the beat itself feels weightier than what we’re used to from De La and the stakes higher (ahem) than what we’re used to from DOOM when he guests on a track. The other high(er)-profile collaborations on Unexpected don’t always fare as well– while “Da Supafriendz” spotlights a nerdy side of Vast Aire that often goes overlooked amidst Cannibal Ox’s doomsayer image, “Fly That Knot” is the second hopelessly corny track DOOM’s done with Talib Kweli (see also: “Old School” from The Mouse and the Mask) and most of the blame lies with Kweli’s increasing ineptitude at hook-writing, it’s clear these two share more camaraderie than chemistry. (Read The Full Review)

About a month ago, we did a toungue-in-cheek article about the future video games featuring five absurd and hypothetical games inspired by the music industry. Well, the new Daniel Johnston iPhone game would not have been out-of-place on that list. Hi, How Are You? is a conventional puzzle-platformer built around the Johnston mythology. It features his music and various characters from his art. In the game, the player must rescue Laurie, a real-life muse of Johnston’s from way back when. It’s totally ridiculous and very very cool.

I’m not really a fan of these kind of iPhone games. Navigating 3D space by tilting your phone or with a touch-controlled virtual joystick (the game gives you both options) is a pain in the ass. Most of the challenge in these games seems to be derived from the sloppiness of their mechanics. That said, this is a very straight-forward and simply designed game. It’s completely worth it just to marvel at the absurdity of a world constructed from Daniel Johnston imagery.

This kind of stuff is great. Let’s hope we keep seeing more of the same. Rod Stewart Pong, anyone?

When Anthology 1 came out in 1995 in a limited vinyl edition, I made a vow to myself that I’d keep buying new Beatles releases only on vinyl. Since then i’d broken that vow twice; first when i had a chance to get a collection of the Beatles Christmas messages on CD (who can afford $200 bucks for the record?), and second, the LOVE project, which isn’t really the Beatles at all but an amazing mashup project.). So why did I buy the remastered Sgt. Pepper compact disc? Maybe I succumbed to that zombie dance at Abbey Road crosswalk that Microsoft created for the Rock band commercial. Or maybe I just plain gave in to the siren song of that word remastered like I’ve always done. Whatever the reason, on Sept 11, I bought the remastered Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. In researching this little rant I found out that the record was released Thursday, June 1, 1967, which means i can say with relative certainty that I bought my first copy of Sgt. Pepper on Saturday June 3, 1967, and probably at Gaynes Shopper’s World in South Burlington for $2.37. Know where Staples Plaza is? Anyway, it was probably a mono copy and I listened to it the way you’re supposed to listen to mono records – on a portable RCA hi-fi with a single 3 inch speaker. Sometime that afternoon I became addicted to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and started sketching backgrounds for a cartoon that i wanted to try and make with my father’s 8mm movie camera. He’d stumbled on the single frame possibilities of the camera and had started animating titles for some of his home movies and shown me the trick. A pretty high concept for a 14 year old who’d just brushed up against psychedelia for the first time. Anyway, back to 2009 and that remastered CD. Entertainment Magazine had warned me about the compression utilized in the remastering processing and there WAS a flatness to the music I heard when I put in the disc the next morning.

But there was also a new clarity and subtlety to those songs I knew so well. Here are some of the notes I scribbled during that first headphone listen: … Listen to the fades and the silences…the echoes…the doubled vocals, those hand claps…the first REAL kick in the head is the clarity of “She’s Leaving Home”…the break on “Within You Without You” (that whispered “da ta da two” lead (George?) at the end of the instrumental break) …even in its crystalline remastered glory “When I’m 64″ is still right there with “Besame Mucho” for ultimate Beatle cheese…The fadeout on “Lovely Rita” might have been Charlie Manson’s head’s up for “Helter Skelter” …”Good Morning” has that patented sax chorus that George Martin found for his Boys …Lennon’s “Bye” at the start and that little organ bit in the fade into “Day In The Life”…and of course the inner groove at the end of the now strangely anti climactic “Day in the Life”…

The next morning brought 2 more listens at home on speakers. The CD went on first and it sounded great. Then I got down my copy of EMI BC 13, the Beatles Collection box that first came out in 1978, pulled out Sgt. Pepper, put it on the turntable and set the needle to the vinyl. And there’s that analog/digital divide which I can’t really tell you about. The vinyl is, as they say, warmer, and to this geezer’s ears, the way the Beatles are supposed to sound. But what about those subtleties? Some of them are there in the room as I listen, but on Listen #4, with the vinyl on headphones, all of those little things I thought I was hearing for the first time Friday morning on the CD come right back out at me from the LP. So what is there to write about now?

A few days later I did another listen with my friend Erik. A couple of cuts in both formats and there’s that omnipresent word warmth again. A few days after that I rediscover my copy of Sgt. Peppeb’s Loney Hearps Club Band, a Chinese knockoff on Liming Records from back in the day that I picked up at a porch sale in Richmond, Virginia, and when I listen to it on headphones, some of those subtleties I heard on the remastered compact disc last week come bubbling out through 30 years worth of surface noise. So I guess I’ll end this with, not the Rockband Beatles which a lot of you love, and not the remastered Beatles catalog on compact disc that will launch akagillion memories, rants and lies, but rather, a Utopian to do list.
First, find a good record player and speakers. Second, track down the cleanest LPs that you can find (at least until they come at us with the limited edition remastered vinyl). Third, plop ‘em on, turn ‘em up, and enjoy some great records by a great band. And that’s not to say you shouldn’t be buying these CD’s, cuz I’m pretty sure that at some point, I’ll be getting the CDs of Abbey Road, The White Album and Past Masters, it’s just that, as they say, nothing is real.

-Michael Breiner

Ambivalence Avenue is the latest offering from British music producer Stephen Wilkinson, the brains and brawn behind Bibio’s unique brand of electronica. While studying “sonic arts” at Middlesex University in London, Wilkinson developed a style of intelligent dance music that weaves found and field recordings with traditional folk influence. This approach creates a softly textured sound that is comforting and yet contemplatively other worldly.

Ambivalence Avenue opens with an ethereal lounge folk number reminiscent of a flower child romp through the countryside. Just when you’ve settled into this comfortable reminder of days past, Bibio reminds you that synthesizers are the instruments of the future, and hey, we’re living three years away from 2012. This IS the future. But this future isn’t exactly the world of pristine, man-made landscapes and ultimate human control that our oh so ambitious forefathers envisioned. The future living in Ambivalence Avenue is one thatt seems to be an intelligent and reflective update on the new horizon.

The skillful recycling of Wilkison’s library of found sound layered with resourceful field sampling and mastery of current synth technology is parallel to the contemporary vision of humans relying on utilizing the mounds of scraps leftover by past cultures to sustain our current society. Because of the variety of scraps Bibio works with, each song retains a coherent individuality. “Haikuesque (When She Laughs)” offers a soothing laid-back intelligent dance sound, while the following song “Sugarette” incorporates bubbly pop. Then, “Lover’s Carvings” pulls you back into the meandering folk influence of the album opening. The rest of the album follows and develops this same formula of ebb and flow between traditional future folk to spaced out dance. The way that Ambivalence Avenue consumes and reconstructs these choice scraps has resulted in a sound that is young and relevant rather than tired and predictable. This album is a welcome and well reasoned step forward in terms of Bibio’s past releases and in the current climate of folk revival in the music market. I’ll be relying on this album to get me through the rough transition to fall ahead of us.

The best of kind of vinyl reissues are of albums that are tricky to come by. I’m always a little perplexed when things like Supertramp’s Breakfast in America or Steve Miller Band’s Greatest Hits get the deluxe reissue treatment, not because they’re poor albums (I quite like the former) but because their presence in the used market is all but ubiquitous. If you haven’t seen a second-hand copy of either, you’ve never been in a used record store.

On the other hand, this week’s release of all four Smiths studio albums is a godsend. In a perfect world, everyone would be able to find copies of The Queen is Dead in their dad’s record collection, because in this hypothetical perfect world everyone bought The Queen is Dead. Alas, that wasn’t the case, and it’s been a bit of a drag tracking their stuff down.

Rhino, the king of the reissue, has drawn the line at studio albums, so fans looking for Hatfull of Hollow or Louder than Bombs are going to have to continue cruising the used market. What we do have are the eponymous debut, Meat is Murder, The Queen is Dead and Strangeways Here We Come. If you only have the cash for one and you don’t know which one to get, the answer is all of them.

People tend to get hyperbolic in either their acclaim for or derision of the Smiths. As much as I like to sing their praises, I’ll attempt not to give into that and merely say The Smiths were an excellent rock n roll band. The availability of their material on vinyl is fantastic news.

Arctic Monkeys – Humbug

Kids grow up so quickly these days. In 2005, Arctic Monkeys were a supernaturally talented teenage quartet from Sheffield, detailing youthful high jinks with a sarcastic wit and cocky insight as tartly evocative of time and place as the Smiths in 80s Manchester or the Jam in 70s Woking. Now, three albums in, they’re sporting long hair and Black Sabbath T-shirts, the interview chat moving from in-jokes to Jimi Hendrix’s impressive musicianship. The pitch for Humbug couldn’t scream “maturity” any more loudly if the record came with free pipe and slippers.

Evolution has been in the air since last year, when singer Alex Turner unveiled his side-project, 60s pastiche the Last Shadow Puppets. Some of its extravagant armoury – strings, galloping rhythms – lingers here, but other changes are more fundamental. With seven of the 10 tracks produced by Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, the transition is from pop to rock, snap and vigour weighed down by a preoccupation with muscle and heft. (Read the Full Review)

Mew -No More Stories

The frenetic percussion and unorthodox time signature of the opening track “Introducing Palace Players” eventually gives way to an upbeat, soaring dance beat and jangly guitars that go on to dominate the rest of the song. The lyrics have an air of optimism to them, which represents a switch from the typically morose vocals Jonas Bjerre usually delivers. As the band is now recording as a three-piece following the departure of bassist Johan Wohlert, and producer Rich Costey is again manning the production on the new album (he also produced the bands breakthrough record Frengers), these new songs manage to maintain the grandiose sound and scope of Mew’s earlier material without ever overreaching. This approach is evident on the propulsive “Repeaterbeater,” which is a driving, seething track that seems to be over far too quickly but oddly ends at just the right time. It is that quirky paradox that not only makes Mew a tough band to classify, but also a tough band to describe. The jarring guitars at the start and finish of “Repeaterbeater” belie the epic, original nature of the track’s other two and a half minutes. And after hearing these two songs, as good as they are, I still have no real idea what the full-length will sound like. (Read the Full Review)

Municipal Waste – Massive Aggressive

Ahhhh yes, more thrash. After more than a week of being laid out from strep throat and ear infections galore, I am now psyched to listen to the new Municipal Waste album, Massive Aggressive (is anyone else totally enamored by the delightful titles this band comes up with for their songs and albums? I almost want to giggle with glee everytime I check out the traklisting of a new album). I can’t tell you how hard it is to be a huge fan of metal and NOT be able to listen to your favorites because your ears can’t handle anything more than repeats of the Cosby Show on TV. I digress though, the new Municipal Waste is one album I have been eagerly anticipating for much of the year. The band’s last two albums have received regular rotation on my playlist, and me being a thrash junkie puts them at a higher standard than perhaps some other forms of metal. With that in mind, I hope I don’t turn you off when I say that Massive Aggressive isn’t what I’d exactly been hoping for. Is it good? Yes, but it’s not the monumental follow up to The Art of Partying I had been anticipating. (Read the Full Review)

Matisyahu – Light

The first thing that ran through my head when I first watched Matisyahu (born Matthew Miller) perform his first single “King Without A Crown” back in 2006, sounded like this: “Hmm…a Hasidic Jew rapping religiously over rock/reggae songs…a quite ingenious gimmick.” In such a random fusion of styles, the unusual frontman delineated messages of peace and faith to everyone in the vicinity. I, personally, kept focused on the thought that he looked very peculiar – so peculiar in fact that naturally, such curiosity caused quite a large deal of people to become fans, and those fans to buy the album that really catapulted Matisyahu into the spotlight, Youth. I learn more and more about Miller and his dirt poor past – how he fell into the label of ‘high school drop-out’. This isn’t such a far cry for artists in any sense, but there was no doubt an exotic twist in this case because that artist happens to be a Judaic hip-hopper on a never-ending quest to find God. Donning a broad-brimmed black hat and throwing a yarmulke over his head, Matisyahu is back after a two year break to uplift the downtrodden with his brigade of inspirational lyrics and head bobbing dancehall breakbeats with his third studio album. (Read the Full Review)

Blur: A Beginners Guide to Blur

This collection is designed to offer a broader spectrum of what made Blur Blur, having already released a Best Of in 2000, which detailed the singles end of the operation. Midlife is designed to showcase some of treasures found amidst their seven albums such as This is a Low, Trimm Trabb, He Thought of Cars and Advert and is closer to what the band and their fans would select as highlights. So basically there’s no sign of Country House, in case you were wondering.

Instead singles such as the sublime Beetlebum, saucy Girls and Boys, Parklife (naturally), modern-day classics such as Out of Time, the Universal and the ever-delectable For Tomorrow figure. And Midlife also offers a rare first-time-on-a-Blur-album sighting of the magnificent ‘lost’ single Popscene. There’s probably one or two missing – one personally hoped Mr Briggs or Young & Lovely might sneak in – but it’s a small nag in the bigger scheme of things. (Read Full Review)

YACHT -See Mystery Lights

See Mystery Lights is a DFA record not just in name, but clearly also in sound and influence. What’s more, despite the fact that YACHT still often sounds like a pastiche of successful modern indie electronica, the songs on See Mystery Lights are a clear step up from Bechtolt’s previous work. In general, YACHT have embraced the mainstream across this album even more than on previous releases, and seem content now to place Evans’s disaffected vocals over simple bass lines that bounce amiably along at mid-tempo. In general, this works well, and in some instances it’s something close to spectacular. “Psychic City” has already been highlighted around the traps, and yes, it’s a perfect celebration. “Come on over, we’re having a party for you”, Evans sings, and it’s the welcoming call that summer’s on its way. Speaking of summer, what begins as homage soon exceeds that limitation, owning its aquatic up-beat and host of computed effects. (Read Full Review)

Owl City – Maybe I’m Dreaming

Owl City is the solo project of a young Christian named Adam Young. Another product of the ever emerging electronic/indie scene, Young’s project is a breath of fresh air for the scene as he takes a much more metaphorical stance towards his music. As Owl City, he has released one EP, 2007′s Of June, and now a full length debut entitled Maybe I’m Dreaming. Additionally, Young has a post-rock venture called Port Blue, and a new side project, started with a close friend, called Swimming with Dolphins.

Maybe I’m Dreaming kicks off in dreamy fashion with “On the Wing” and “Rainbow Veins,” two beautifully flowing efforts which carry the listener away into another world. It’s this peaceful and soothing charm that makes Owl City so likable. Two of the best tracks on the album follow, each standing out in their own mellow style. “The Saltwater Room” resides in the mind with a glorious vocal harmony and a smooth, simple melody. Young’s soft tone is exemplified throughout the album, and in a genre where so many concentrate too hard on auto-tuning their voices, Young’s musical abilities shine throughout Maybe I’m Dreaming. The vocals complement the music’s consistent base, and Young switches between the melancholy sound used repeatedly on Of June, and a new style with powerful, probing aural effects. (Read Full Review)

Funny People Soundtrack

Even with the somewhat morose premise, the enduringly laidback but cheerful vibe that plays throughout the soundtrack gives me assurance that Judd Apatow and company will be keeping up morale and not stray too far from their comedic giftings.  With such big hitters as James Taylor, whose on-camera performance of “Carolina On My Mind” helps start the record,