July Needle

return with their wicked

new album Yellow & Green

AVAILABLE JULY 17TH

ALSO AVAILABLE DYING FETUS Reign Supreme

THE ENGLISH BEAT

Keep The Beat: The Very Best Of The English Beat

ALCHEMIST

SAVING ABEL

Russian Roulette

Bringing Down The Giant

LITA FORD

EVERCLEAR

Living Like a Runaway

Marketed & Distributed in Canada by Entertainment One Canada

Invisible Stars

THE CONTORTIONIST Intrinsic

THE GRATEFUL DEAD The Grateful Dead Movie

“How incredible is she?” – Adele “She’s a magnificent new artist from the UK. We did some writing together for my upcoming record. I just love her style and her flow – super raw. Hearing her voice against a guitar sends you into the mood.” – Alicia Keys “has developed a signature style of her own, one retro-raw with a futuristic shimmer…showcase a mélange of influences from Nina Simone and Tracy Chapman to Portishead and Virginia Woolf” – INTERVIEW

Em Eli SAndé

Ou r VE r S i On Of E V E n t S Featuring the Hits

NEXT TO ME, HEAVEN & DADDY AVAi l A BlE n OW

SHAWN HOOK Cosmonaut and the Girl is an ambitious offering of electrospiked pop – the tone of the album is set immediately with the striking opener ‘Planet Earth’. First single ‘Every Red Light’ is a rousing story of a man racing to get to his lover, while album tracks such as ‘Two Hearts’ and ‘So Close’ show the range of Shawn’s talents as both a writer and performer.

AVAILABLE NOW

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Just Be Liars wish you all the acceptance you deserve The letter combination WIXIW is an abstract palindrome assigned the meaning “wish you” by Aaron Hemphill. To brand Hemphill a guitarist would be reductive, just as it would be narrow to label his bandmates Angus Andrew and Julian Gross a vocalist and a drummer, respectively. It would be like failing to understand that “poet” also means “anarchist,” “activist,” “warrior,” “lover” and, yes, “rock star.” Each member of the band Liars is an experimentalist, technician, confidant, poet and artist. And despite their reputation for being enigmatic—cryptic even—they are inviting us into their process for new album WIXIW (Mute).

“I think instead of it being spelled the way you would normally spell ‘wish you,’ it’s in this very bizarre way with an X, where Xs aren’t normally in many words in the English language,” says Hemphill. “So, it’s kind of off-putting and complex, a complex way to say ‘wish you.’ It’s such an evil request: ‘I wish you would do this,’ ‘I wish you would do that.’ You’re not accepting the person in front of you. You’re yearning for the person you want to see. So that our title is so strangely spelled to present that simple message (represents) how the intent to present a simple message sometimes comes out spelled with Xs.” Don’t feel welcome yet? Just hold on for a minute.

WIXIW is Liars’ sixth album since 2001, when they released a noise-punk LP with the Tom Robbins-esque title They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top. That album might have been difficult to differentiate from other post-punk recordings were it not for the band’s early sense of experimentation—in this case with synth, drums and humorous breaks. Liars dove further into concept on second album They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, which mainstream critics hated. In truth, it’s not very pleasant to listen to, and more importantly, it doesn’t give us much to grasp. But—with hindsight— we can view it as a transitional recording, in which the band pulls back from the unforgiving rhythms of punk, using the beats instead thematically to represent ideas or people. Here also appear the forebears of two more trademark Liars sounds I think of as industrial didgeridoo and sheet-metal-against-concrete.

I got hip to Liars around 2006, when the trio released Drum’s Not Dead, an album best viewed as a single 45-minute song. At the time, I was studying ancient ceremonial poems and other sacred texts as a basis for Romantic-era literature, so I couldn’t help but notice the foreground rhythm of that album, the repetition and primitive chants, which I take to hold both metaphysical and lingocultural implications. Take “A Visit From Drum,” for instance, the third track on the album: the repetition of “When the powers out and it’s dark in the house/I will run,” then the subsequent recurrence of “run,” three times. In other parts of Drum’s Not Dead and on 2010’s Sisterworld, where words or sentences or other vocal vibrations don’t repeat, the compositions still move in circular rhythms, inviting a cyclical physical language.

I don’t know what these lines mean, and Liars them-

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selves haven’t consciously explored the potential of repetition, but they at least bring momentum, a sense that the band is headed somewhere.

“If it’s fluid in every record, then it must be something we’re drawn to,” says Hemphill. “I haven’t really analyzed that; I will now.”

WIXIW seems an amalgam of everywhere the band has been musically, layered with further experimentation brought on by new equipment such as a modular synth and the Reactor software—as well as the lessons learned from 2007’s Liars, which contains independent tracks that don’t necessarily feed into a bigger concept or theme.

Overall, what I hear is more integrative than before, the band using samples of industrial noise, loops and repetition to accentuate or complement the whole composition, rather than impose those sounds on it like the cacophony that bombards passersby on city streets. Parts of WIXIW are even poppy and sing-able, in a Radiohead kind of way, with minor visits from dubstep and house.

Hemphill thinks it’s Liars’ best album so far, and though I’m partial to Drum’s Not Dead because it was my first, I think he might be right.

“It started out a much dancier record, and as time went on, it became somewhat more atmospheric, and we just sort of let it happen that way,” he says. “The process was new, and we were working with new equipment.

And Angus and I were collaborating much earlier.”

For a month, the two locked themselves up in a cabin in Frazier Park, just outside of L.A., to begin writing the album. Then, they moved into a studio in East Hollywood, where they continued writing and recording for the next

photo by Zen Sekizawa

year. Whereas Sisterworld is sort of a response to the varied and peculiar parallel universes within the City of Angels, WIXIW is the product of the process itself, more closed off to the anonymous streets and more accessible between friends.

“It’s much more introspective than trying to catalogue what’s happening in the outside world, mainly because we shut ourselves off in order to make this record,” says Hemphill. “I moved out of my house and moved into the studio and didn’t do anything but work on this record for a year. And neither did Angus. It was our world.”

Coming out into the world, again, is the hard part, like stepping out of a swimming pool, the heaviness of one’s environment returning to him through his own return to mass. The experience, in a word, is doubt. “It’s a manic thing,” says Hemphill. “I go back and forth from, ‘It’s just fine, it’s great,’ to, ‘What did I just make?’ I haven’t seen some of my friends for the entire year we were making this. It’s very bizarre, but the music is the most important thing to us, so it’s kind of the only thing to do.”

Which returns us to the spelling of “wish you” as WIXIW. Hemphill says that that period of doubt arises when the personal enters the universal. He’s conscious, at least subconsciously,

of the sacred potential of words, as well as the denial inherent in phrases beginning with “I wish you.” He’s pulled an album out of a deep internal space, accessed through an extended communion with a longtime collaborator and friend. And it all began with a liberating force he found in the letters W-I-X-I-W. “I was about to begin a song, and you have to name the session in the recording program we use, before you even begin,” says Hemphill. “At the time I was coming up with all these really poetic titles, all these long-winded titles, and my songs weren’t coming out very good. So I just thought I should choose a word that maybe looked good. Not only is it important, the interpretation of the meaning and how you pronounce it, but it’s the look of it. It’s the letters and the word and the certain quality that has, and maybe going so far as to believe that it can put you into a state where you can produce something better than if you titled it something direct.”

In other words, don’t think so hard; just be. There’s your in. —Matthew Irwin

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photo by JIM GOODRICH

Bonfire Escape Beachwood Sparks finally thaw out, embrace the future with new music They burned brightly, but briefly. Now, they have rekindled the flame. For Beachwood Sparks, the metaphor is all too easy and all too apt.

Beachwood Sparks’ discography is succinct: 2000’s self-titled debut and 2001’s Once We Were Trees, plus an EP and a few singles, most released on Sub Pop. There wasn’t much, but there was something indelible about those records. They took the cosmic American music of the Flying Burrito Brothers and Byrds, added the bittersweet sounds of middle-period Beach Boys and Sister Lovers Big Star, then turned them into a sun-dappled, dreamy, psychedelic brand of alt-country.

“There wasn’t a ton of recorded stuff, but I think with the feel of it and the concerts that we did, there was a real vibe that we generated,” says Farmer Dave Scher.

In its brief lifetime, the band became a touchstone in the alt-country landscape, and its last major tour found the band opening for the Black Crowes. But after 2002’s Make The Cowboy Robots Cry EP, Beachwood had run its course, and the group disbanded amicably, five years after it formed.

“It was an organic process; nobody was ever served any papers and no one made any declarations of finality,” says Scher. “I think you’d liken it to a hibernation. I think maybe we just said, ‘Let’s sit the Bush years out.’”

“When I think about it, it didn’t seem super short, but now, 10 years later, it does,” says Chris Gunst.

Guitarists Gunst and Scher formed the band in Los Angeles in 1997 with bassist Brent Rademaker. They had a rotating cast of drummers, with Aaron Sperske the longest-tenured, and that’s the quartet behind The Tarnished Gold, the new Beachwood Sparks album.

When they started, everyone in the band lived near or with one another. The name combined two neighborhood streets (it doesn’t come from “Beechwood Park,” the song from the Zombies’ classic Odessey & Oracle, although that album is another distant ancestor to their style). The band played out constantly, and the concentrated tour/record/tour regime took its toll.

“There’s a stage when you’re a young dude in a band and you do everything together, pretty much,” says Scher. “I think we played that chapter out to the hilt. We’d been around,

we’d been all over, we’d done a whole lot. I think that in time it just sort of played itself out. There was very naturally an ebb. Everyone drifted off; people moved to different cities and states and got into different stuff. It’s a healthy thing. If you’ve got to share a pair of pants with a bunch of people, it’s very hard. It’s easier when you’re young and that is your only focus. But there’s a natural evolution, and if things come back around again, it’s very cool.

The pilot light never went out, apparently.”

Post-Beachwood, Rademaker and his brother Darren formed the Tyde, which initially included Scher and Gunst. Gunst moved to northern California and became a psychotherapist specializing in Buddhist psychology; with his wife Jen Cohen (formerly of the Aislers Set), he released two albums as the Mystic Chords Of Memory, including one with DJ Nobody. Scher was busy: He did a lot of guest pedal- and lap-steel work (for Elvis Costello, Pete Yorn, Gary Louris, Vetiver), formed All Night Radio, helped produce Rilo Kiley’s More Adventurous, became touring keyboard player for Interpol and released a solo album. (When we spoke, Scher had just finished surfing at Venice Beach with A.A. Bondy before they were to play a show at L.A.’s Natural History Museum.) Sperske, who had played in Kurt Heasley’s Lilys, became the drummer for Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti.

In 2008, the band reconvened, sans Scher, who was unavailable at the time, to play Sub Pop’s 20th-anniversary party and followed that with a short tour. That got the conversation started about recording another album. Sub Pop said there was an LP left on the band’s original deal, and there was some money for it. The album took some time to gestate, but once Beachwood got together, with Thom Monahan producing, and pals such as Neal Casal and Ariel Pink helping out, the band found it easy to return to what Gunst calls “the well-oiled machine” of the past.

“All you had to do it take the cover off the car and turn the key,” says Scher. “Since our band is supposed to be like a country band, you’d say, like Gene Clark, ‘Funny how the circle is a wheel.’”

The Tarnished Gold is a logical extension of Beachwood Sparks’ past, which was itself a logical extension of the past of Parsons, Clark and the Laurel Canyon songwriters. It’s full of easygoing harmonies, swoons of pedal steel,

gauzy melodies and plucky guitars.

“The tide rolls in, brings me back together with my friends,” Scher sings, taking a rare lead vocal on what could be the band’s new theme song, “Sparks Fly Again.”

“Past and present become the same thing,” Gunst sings on the ethereal, gently drifting “Leave That Light On,” one of the songs he cites as feeling like a new version of the band’s sound.

The first time around, Beachwood Sparks consciously looked back. Scher jokes about a photo in an old MAGNET piece in which he’s wearing a long dashiki (“They wouldn’t let me wear it in Interpol now,” he laughs), and Gunst says, “In the past, we were definitely into the artistic aesthetic of ’60s California groups.

Sometimes when you look a certain way or you’re into a certain thing, people find it hard to hear the modernity in the music, too. We used a lot of the same instruments and things like that, but I thought we had a modern take on some of it, too.”

The Tarnished Gold actually sounds more modern than the others. It’s calmer, overall, than the first two, but it also may be a stronger set from start to finish, and it would segue easily into a Fleet Foxes, Clientele or Bon Iver album. But those connections are coincidental. Gunst wouldn’t claim that Beachwood was that influential.

“I don’t think we were in the consciousness to influence people all that much,” he says. “I hear some of that music, for sure, but I don’t feel connected to it, like, ‘These are my bros!’”

As far as the future goes, the band is in wait-and-see mode. Beachwood Sparks is definitely back together, although neither Gunst nor Scher wants to return to the grind of the past. They’re hoping that it will be easier for listeners to discover them now than it was a decade ago.

“I remember going someplace and someone saying, ‘We’re going to record you live for a webcast,’ and we were like, ‘What the fuck is that?’” says Gunst.

“Maybe now things are a little different,” says Scher. “It’s not the same as it used to be when MAGNET and Beachwood used to be around. It’s a different culture now. Maybe more people will find out about us, maybe there’ll be things we never got to do before. If nothing else, it’s nice to open up again and be part of the times.” —Steve Klinge

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photos by Carlton Lonergan

Something A Little More Comfortable Versatile Seattle veterans Green Pajamas were never much into flannel “All over Seattle, fans are twisting and squirming in uncontrollable spasms to the sounds of the Green Pajamas! They’re like Gilbert and Sullivan on drugs!” So went a hyperbolic 1984 radio spot created by the permanent core of the band, Jeff Kelly and Joe Ross, for the Green Pajamas’ debut album, Summer Of Lust. Of course, none of it was true.

“We made Summer Of Lust as a cassette—25 copies, I think—and put ’em in some University District record stores,” says Kelly. The “twisting and squirming” wasn’t due for another five years, when grunge would hijack the airwaves. Gilbert and Sullivan would be left to Rufus Wainwright and Antony & The Johnsons, more than a decade later.

Like its Southern California influences in the Paisley Underground (Rain Parade, Three O’Clock), named as an homage to the psychedelic heyday of Jefferson Airplane and Strawberry Alarm Clock, the Green Pajamas must hold the world’s record for most albums (somewhere around 30) recorded by a band with the fewest number of live appearances (somewhere more than 30) over a career that has spanned almost 30 years.

“Even though he has a really good time when he gets there, it’s very hard to get Jeff to play live,” says Pajamas alternate vocalist Laura Weller. The home Kelly shares with his wife Susanne and their two daughters is filled with books, art and classical music. “He should have been a professor of Gothic literature,” says Weller.

When Kelly was a young man, he worked 10-hour days, four days a week, for the Red Dot Corp. in Seattle. “They made parts for the cooling systems of semi-trucks,” says the soft-spoken, bespectacled Kelly. “I did nothing but brazing. I’d sing the Iggy Pop song ‘Mass Production,’ from his album The Idiot, all day. It was eight minutes long, and every time I finished it, I’d think, ‘That’s eight more minutes gone in my day.’ That’s when I figured out I wanted to go back to college.”

After earning his AA in graphic arts, Kelly met Ross at a party. “My girlfriend at the time set that up,” says Kelly. “I’m not very gregarious. Joe and I discovered a mutual adoration for the Beatles song ‘Rain,’ and that we were both ‘musicians.’” They chose one of Kelly’s song titles for a band name. “I wanted us to be the Flying Nuns, but Joe didn’t like that,” says Kelly, the fledgling combo’s vocalist, lead guitar and principal songwriter.

With Ross playing bass, drummer Karl Wilhelm and rhythm guitarist Steve Lawrence filled out the band. Ross would take a oneyear leave of absence in 1985. “I fired him,” says Kelly. “He started seeing my girlfriend behind my back.” Kelly asked Ross to return the following year. “I guess I kinda missed him,” he says. “And besides, things become not such a big deal when your life changes for the better.”

“Better” for Kelly meant meeting Susanne Dailey, then 19, at Soho, a downtown Seattle club, that December. “She looked like a very young Chrissie Hynde in a black beret and black eye makeup,” says Kelly. “I kept looking over at this dark angel and wishing I knew her.” During a break, the mysterious girl walked up to new Pajamas keyboardist Bruce Haedt and gave him a hug. Kelly demanded an introduction. The two have been inseparable ever since, and Susanne’s ethereal paintings have graced many of Green Pajamas’ album covers.

It was Susanne who turned Jeff on to Leonard Cohen. When the grunge landslide began, Kelly swore he was giving up rock music for good. “Leonard Cohen changed everything for me,” he says. “I found this whole new thing: dark beauty, poetry, perfect lyrics, different chord changes. I was overcome.” When Kelly played Cohen’s records for Ross, Joe told him, “You’ve been doing that for a long time already.”

Now heavily into Pre-Raphaelite poetry and Victorian novels, Kelly began tracking almost all the material for GPJ albums himself, in his basement studio. “It’s a matter of convenience,” he says. “If I record everything myself, I don’t have to teach everybody their parts, and I don’t have to pay for studio time.

But I’ve always admired the whole band thing.

I don’t have anything against playing with people. It’s fun.”

Sometimes, though, the easiest way isn’t always the best. Says Kelly, “When Joe came over to put a bass line on ‘Queen Of Sunshine’ from our 1998 album All Clues Lead To Meagan’s Bed, he played something that was more grungy and cool than anything I would have ever come up with.”

Goblin Market is a side project Kelly created with Weller in 2000. “I’ve always dreamed of collaborating with a female singer to record material by Victorian poets set to original music,” he says. “As a major in 19th-century literature, Laura was a perfect fit to do

something more delicate, dreamy and folky.”

The third Goblin Market album, Beneath Far Gondal’s Foreign Sky, along with a reissue of Summer Of Lust and the new Green Pajamas’ long-player, Death By Misadventure, have recently been released by longtime Pajamas label Green Monkey.

The only live performance of Goblin Market took place in 2001, opening for Jonathan Richman at Seattle’s Showbox.

“We had a cello and violin and (Pajamas keyboardist) Eric Lichter played percussion,” says Kelly. “Laura and I sat on chairs with our lyrics on music stands.” The show had only one sour note. “Karl Wilhelm got mad at me afterward because he felt I’d neglected to tell him we were playing.” Wilhelm was permanently replaced on drums

by Weller’s husband, Scott Vanderpool.

The most surprising entry in the GPJ discography is its 2011 album Green Pajama Country, a deeply satisfying blend of Appalachian-style tragedy and honky-tonk tearjerkers. “Jeff is one of those people who soaks up all music that’s good, no matter where it comes from,” says Weller. “If you need any more country cachet, Jeff has always been a cigarette-smoking, beer-drinking kind of guy.”

Kelly fondly remembers listening to his dad play country music on the car radio. “I’d always written country songs,” says Kelly. “One night, with Joe’s country band the Birdwatchers, I played ‘Last Night Was Like The End Of The World,’ a song I meant as a George Jones parody. And the people loved it.”

Kelly’s life is not all backward-guitar psychedelia, backwoods weepers and baroque string quartets, however. Sometimes it’s just background music for a young girl’s birthday party. The daughter of Green Monkey owner Tom Dyer asked to have the Pajamas play for her special day, and Kelly agreed. He’d had a few drinks before leaving for the gig, just down the street, and a few more after arriving.

“I was feeling no pain,” he says, “and I was wearing some comfortable old shoes with the heels worn down in back.”

As he began his guitar solo for the set’s last song, Kelly began to fall backward in slow motion like he was caught in quicksand in a bad dream. “I kept playing, even after I’d fallen,” he says. “Susanne was out in the bar when she heard someone say, ‘Look! That guy just fell over and he’s still playing his guitar!’“ No further identification necessary, she probably reckoned. —Jud Cost

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The Best of Slipknot 1999-2012

Featuring 19 tracks tracing the journey from (sic) to Snuff

See Slipknot Live

Available in a 2 disc set with a bonus live disc featuring the full historic 2009 Download concert Special collector’s bundle with exclusive 3 disc version available at www.slipknot1.com

August 11/12 and

07.24.12

This Summer

Slipknot “Wear The Mask” mobile app available in July

© 2012 Roadrunner Records, Inc.

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Sing ’Em If You Got ’Em Kelly Hogan gets hurt with a little help from her friends Neko Case has called her pal Kelly Hogan “the Zelig of rock ‘n’ roll.” Her name appears in the credits for albums by Mavis Staples, the Mekons, Will Oldham, Matt Pond PA, Amy Ray, Giant Sand, Archer Prewitt, Alejandro Escovedo, Drive-By Truckers, Jakob Dylan, Tortoise and many others, Case included.

“I’m a slut, all right,” cracks Hogan. “I get around.”

No wonder her peers solicit her services as a backup vocalist: Hogan is a truly impressive singer, soulful, sensitive and often sassy. She started in Atlanta in the late ’80s singing in the Jody Grind and Rock*A*Teens before moving to Chicago and entrenching herself in the alt-country universe, releasing three solo albums, 1996’s The Whistle Only Dogs Can Hear, 2000’s Beneath The Country Underdog (backed by the Pine Valley Cosmonauts) and 2001’s Because It Feel Good. Her fourth album has been a long time coming, in part because she’s been busy as a crucial part of Case’s band (anyone who’s seen Case live has witnessed Hogan’s amusing banter), in part because of the nature of the project.

For I Like To Keep Myself In Pain, Hogan sent letters to her songwriter friends, many of whom she’d sung with, asking them if they would send her a song, either one written spe-

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cifically for her or one that “you think I could do right by,” as she said. That process started several years ago, and results yielded songs from a veritable who’s who: Vic Chesnutt, Stephin Merritt, Andrew Bird, Jon Langford, Janet Bean, M. Ward and others.

“I was just surprised anybody wrote me back and sent me songs,” laughs Hogan. “I was going to call the record I’m Not Worthy! I got songs from way many more people than are on the record. People have asked, ‘How did you choose which ones?’ It was hard. It was like going to the pound: The puppies choose you.”

And then Andy Kaulkin, the head of AntiRecords, assembled a dream-team band— organist Booker T. Jones, drummer James Gadson (who’s played with Bill Withers and Beck), bassist Gabe Roth (Dap-Kings) and guitarist Scott Ligon (NRBQ)—and booked them all into the fabled EastWest Studios in Hollywood, where Pet Sounds and other ’60s classics were recorded.

“The whole frightening idea was to walk in on Monday with Booker T. and James Gadson and Gabe Roth and just create the arrangements all together,” she says. “I was driving the ship, but everybody else was on the deck.

You want to hear what Booker T. has to say

about how to arrange a song.”

She ended up channeling Kirsty MacColl and Tracey Ullman on the Motown-influenced “Sleeper Awake” by John Wesley Harding; Gadson helped turn Robyn Hitchcock’s “I Like To Keep Myself In Pain” into a Sons Of The Pioneers-like loping country tune; Robbie Fulks’ “Whenever You’re Out Of My Sight” veers into “gothic, Barbara Mandrell territory.”

The album is remarkably coherent; even knowing the work of the distinct songwriters, it can be hard to guess who wrote which track, whether it’s by Hogan (“Golden,” which is about Neko Case) or M. Ward (“Daddy’s Little Girl,” which is about Frank Sinatra) or the late Chesnutt (“Ways Of This World,” which Hogan says feels like it’s about her).

What it comes down to is Hogan’s care to sell the song in the best way possible.

“The harder the song is, the more I love it because I’m like, ‘I’ll be damned if this song is going to beat me,’” says Hogan. “My first focus is being the best singer I can be. I wake up every day wanting to explore that; I have dreams about it. I just want to bring you the song, because I love songs so much. It’s like going door to door. I’ve said before, I’m like a Mormon for a good song, saying, ‘Check it out!’” —Steve Klinge

photo by Neko Case

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Busy Signalers Mission Of Burma’s latest dispatch isn’t afraid to alienate On break between Alloy Orchestra gigs, Roger Miller is sampling adult beverages in a Seattle eatery. Peter Prescott is unwinding at home in Providence, R.I., half-watching “a ’60s movie, a beach-party thing.” The Mission Of Burma guitarist and drummer, respectively, come across as relaxed and reflective during interviews with MAGNET. This is somewhat surprising, given that Burma—Prescott, Miller, bassist Clint Conley and tape manipulator/ sound engineer Bob Weston—is gearing up to issue the least compromising album of its career’s second act.

Recorded between June 2011 and January 2012, the curmudgeonly Unsound (Fire) came into being when Mission Of Burma was between record labels. What you’ll hear on this record is the chaotic clamor of a band fighting for its very right to exist—even if Miller and Prescott couch the genesis of their fifth album in less desperate terms. Matador, which

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issued 2004’s ONoffON, 2006’s The Obliterati and 2009’s The Sound The Speed The Light, parted ways with the band during sessions for the new album.

“It was mutual, really,” says Miller. “We really enjoyed working with Matador, and they were glad to have us, but it wasn’t really going anywhere. There’s no ill will. We’re still friends with those guys.”

“It’s a bizarre position to be in,” adds Prescott. “We know we’re old; at a certain point it has an obvious expiration date. We’re into it, and it excites us, so that’s a reason to keep it going. I don’t think Matador expected us to keep going, and didn’t know what to do with us. I figured we would stay there until death. When that didn’t happen, it became a question of whether we had enough steam to keep going.”

Keep going they did, and then some. Mission Of Burma is no stranger to astringent

chord structures and bellowed vocals; even as the politically and sonically abrasive shove of the band’s late-’70s/early-’80s period gave way in its ’00s phase to a rangier, ropier sound less indebted to punk and agitprop than ejaculatory rock ‘n’ roll and interpersonal dynamics, a palpable fuck-you edge acts as a bridge between eras. Starched, restless and arguably the most crucial statement Burma’s made this century, Unsound suggests that the band is entering an especially gnarly third act.

On “Dust Devil,” the skeletal, scrapingmetal guitars make a bigger impact than the underlying hooks. “Part The Sea” is fittingly evocative of biblical floodwaters overpowering levees, its surly guitar braces and bully gang vocals barely contained by choruses and vocals. Three songs here (including the crunchy “What They Told Me”) cunningly incorporate trumpets or coronets, something Burma hasn’t attempted since “New Nails” from 1982’s Vs.

photo by Scott Munroe

Pogo-pugilistic and stabbed full of ziggurat riffs, the feisty “7s” offers the sort of mission statement destined to open every indie-rock, geek-curated, make-up mixtape minted this fall: “All we ask is one more shot.”

This plaint echoes through the album in direct and indirect ways alike, from the clenched-teeth “maybe, maybe, maybe this is it” and “all hail the new direction” winks early on to the instrumental muscle-flexing that crops up on almost every song and the spiky, roiling texture of the mix, which suggests a sound quality a few notches above demo-grade.

“I think we’re a very combustible engine,” says Prescott. “When things are a little discordant, we become a better group. When we’re just existing, we can be maybe a little flat.”

“Despite the fact that you read in the press that we supposedly were this huge influence on indie rock, we don’t feel that way,” says Miller. “We feel like outsiders. What we like about Unsound is that we’re claiming our own outsider status. We are who we are, we do what we do, and we don’t give a fuck.”

That adventurous spirit informs songs like “ADD In Unison,” where wah-wah distortion lays waste to a narrative based on eight dreams Miller had in a two-month period before Weston and Miller’s trumpets emerge to save the day. Simultaneously shred-y and psychedelic, “Semi-Pseudo-Sort-Of Plan” is probably the closest Burma will get to a fake Sgt. Pepper moment, and the band gleefully sabotages it with effects-pedal distortion. Then there’s the singularly intriguing “This Is Hi-Fi,” where thin guitar strokes, garbled spoken word and insistent stage whispers gradually wrench into detuned, nattering rupture. To achieve a strangulated, disembodied effect, Miller uttered his vocals (“Tiny eyes, tiny ears, tiny screens, tiny screens, tiny speakers, tiny thoughts”) through his cell phone into Weston’s, which the latter then recorded to a PC. “It’s the contradiction of the digital world we live in, where your whole life is in your goddamn iPhone,” he says. “I wanted the vocals to be squashed and distorted. You sacrifice fidelity for getting everything, but when is the sacrifice too much?”

That last is a question the band asks itself after every album-tour cycle. Mission Of Burma began as a group of Boston-based twentysomethings; today, they’re fiftysomethings with families, children and side projects who practice in Boston despite being scattered between Massachusetts, Chicago and Rhode Island.

“We’ll play this record, then after the tour we always reevaluate,” says Prescott. “It’s a strange thing. Most people when they’re 54 don’t do anything like they did when they were 22. It’s a weird thing to be repeating a social pattern like that. The old songs feel of a piece with the new ones: to us, it’s a big batch of songs. We play a lot; we did some festivals in London and Spain last year. We never stop writing stuff. It’s hard to explain, but there’s really never a plan. You keep going until you stop. When a record grew out of it, we made it. It’s constant motion, but it’s not full-time.”

He describes the album’s title as “a slightly more nihilistic stance than we usually have.

You sort of reach the end of a road. You either stop or you keep going. We went down a new road.” —Raymond Cummings

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static s tat i c

Soul Survivors Thirty years on, Soul Asylum takes stock It’s a damn shame that a large percentage of listeners know Soul Asylum only on the basis of its Grammy-nominated hit (and accompanying video) “Runaway Train” from 1992’s Grave Dancers Union, as the band, along with the likes of the Replacements and Hüsker Dü, created some of its finest work as part the seminal ’80s Minneapolis scene.

Case in point, way back in 1986, this writer was fortunate enough to pick up a slightly warped vinyl copy of Made To Be Broken, Soul Asylum’s second record and my first not involving Richards, Page or Hendrix.

“That’s very, very touching to me, because

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it’s how we all kind of went,” says Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner, calling from his home in New Orleans. “Listening to classic rock, we thought that we needed to break the code, the fuckin’ stodginess and all that shit. To this day, I still talk to people who say, ‘Why don’t you understand Rush?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know, I just don’t understand it.’ We all grew up listening to the same classic-rock station.”

Records like Broken and 1987’s While You Were Out were revolutionary at the time— those caterwauling guitars, Pirner’s ragged yelp and that Midwestern-style punk spirit— but decades later, they “just” sound like great

rock ‘n’ roll records. Which perhaps explains why Soul Asylum’s music has endured for 30plus years after the band formed as Loud Fast Rules in 1981.

“Me and Dan (Murphy, guitarist and a founding member) have a mutual respect that’s pretty astonishing when I think about what we’ve been through together,” says Pirner of the band’s longevity. “I think that’s what will always be our bond. That we’ve persevered through all the bullshit and deaths and crazy situations that we really thought we’d never get through. Looking backwards and looking forwards, and going ... ” He exhales.

photo by Steven Cohen

“It’s been a long … don’t make me quote the Grateful Dead.”

Certainly principal among the band’s travails was the untimely 2005 death of bassist Karl Mueller, who succumbed to throat cancer. “As far as trying to replace Karl, it’s been a very hard thing to do,” says Pirner. “He added a lot to the morale of the band. It’s an element that’s missing, but you can’t recreate somebody that has been through it the same way me and Dan have.”

Ironically, 14 years after the dissolution of the Replacements, Tommy Stinson (also of Guns N’ Roses) signed on as bassist following Mueller’s passing, along with Prince drummer Michael Bland. Bland replaced Sterling Campbell, who in turn replaced original member Grant Young, ousted following Grave Dancers.

Now, following a six-year absence, Soul Asylum is back with the aptly named Delayed Reaction (429), which includes both new songs and a few tracks plucked from the archives.

photo by Benjamin Bronk

The observation that the band has re-recorded some old songs is met with uncharacteristic silence from the garrulous Pirner. “By The Way?” MAGNET prompts, referencing a song on the new record that’s actually a long lost track from the ’93 Runaway Train EP. “Yeah, well, you’re an insider,” Pirner laughs.

Similarly, “Let’s All Kill Each Other” was available for download in ’98, and “I Shoulda Stayed In Bed” was written for a Canadian MTV Unplugged in ’95. “We hired a string section, and I had written that song pretty much for that event,” says Pirner. “We played it once and never played it again.” Oddly enough, they rediscovered the song when Murphy ran across it on YouTube. “That’s the modern world for ya,” Pirner chuckles.

“Cruel Intentions” (which would make a great split single with the Replacements’ “Nightclub Jitters”) has appeared in the live shows over the years and almost made it onto the last record, but Pirner explains that he

couldn’t quite get the vocals right until now.

Meanwhile, newer selections include the jaunty heartland rock of “Into The Light” and “The Streets,” which, in a callback to the old days, hears Pirner pushing his vocals into the red. It’s a likeable collection, but early fans may be more enthused by another project Soul Asylum has in the works.

“We’ve just gone through a bunch of material where my drummer thought it would be fun to find some radical old punk shit,” explains Pirner. “Stuff that Michael’s trying to get me to pull out of the closet. He said, ‘So, what’s really gnarly?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know, how about “Nazi Punks Fuck Off”?’ We just start playing it, and Michael adds an interpretation to it that’s unworldly, and that’s exciting to me. And it’s also digging into my roots and sort of coming to terms with them.”

The band went on to cover tracks from the MC5, Stooges, Sham 69, Clash, Generation X and Suicide Commandos, among others.

“Chris Osgood, who is the guitar player of the Suicide Commandos, really showed me my first Ramones barre chord,” says Pirner. “I’m still in touch with him, and I just did a show in Minneapolis where we played together. As it turns out, someone like Chris is going straight to my punk-rock roots.”

As of this writing, Pirner hasn’t decided by what means these songs will see the light of day. “Different suggestions come up,” he says. “Let’s put out a vinyl LP. Let’s put out one track at a time on the internet. I’m somebody who’s come up with something not being done until it I’m holding a slab of vinyl in my hands. Some of the people at labels who are younger will go, ‘Well, what the fuck do you want that for?’ I’m like, ‘Because that’s what I’m making. I’m making a record.’ It’s so grandpa, but I think the kids who are buying stuff on vinyl are fuckin’ smart. They’re finding out what’s cool about the way it sounds.

You don’t want to call them musos or stereophiles, or whatever that word is, but the quality of the recordings continues to escape as people continue to not pay attention to it, and that’s a sacrifice. The mp3 is bullshit, and it won’t be around forever, that’s for sure.”

As for what’s next, Pirner thinks he has a few records in him yet, but after three decades of ups and downs, he’s taking nothing for granted.

“You see life happening in music, and you become more and more thankful for what you’ve got,” he says. “I did an Alex Chilton tribute at Jazz Fest this year. I’ve always been in the camp that he’s a person that we should always remember and recognize what his contribution was. And now I had the opportunity to go out and play a bunch of his songs, which I never would have expected would’ve happened to me. It’s also a gig that Alex wasn’t getting when he was alive, so you see this deep irony about how people get recognized for their contributions.” —Matt Ryan

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They’re So Vein Bad Veins probably think their songs are about you

With the almost universal acceptance of Bad Veins’ eponymous debut three years ago, the Cincinnati duo easily satisfied the working definition of “overnight sensation,” even though they’d been together for close to three years. Their inaugural single, “Gold And Warm,” enjoyed high-profile placement on several television soundtracks, the blogosphere was buzzing with the kind of positivity that a publicist would shank a goat voodoostyle to create, and the album made a goodly number of best-of-year lists. It was the kind of attention that could have cast a long and obtrusive shadow while planning a sophomore release, but multi-instrumentalist/frontman Benjamin Davis and drummer Sebastien Schultz concentrated on the here and now when they began conceiving their latest, The Mess We’ve Made.

“Going into this album, I didn’t have any sort of outlandish expectations,” says Schultz. “I just enjoyed as much of the moment as I could, and I think it paid off.”

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“You hope you can grab 100 percent of your old fans and add to them, and that may or may not work,” says Davis. “But when you’re sitting with your guitar or piano, you’re just writing about how you feel. It’s impossible to think about anything else. I think the second you start thinking about those people when you’re being creative, you’re probably doomed.”

Doom is clearly not a menu option for Bad Veins on The Mess We’ve Made. Rather than using their successful debut as a blueprint, Davis and Schultz shifted everything without changing anything; they signed with Austin indie Modern Outside, recorded the album in the local comfort of Newport, Ky., hotspot Audiogrotto and buffed their gritty indie noise pop to a cleaner, shinier veneer without sacrificing their edge.

“I think we’ll turn on a lot of new people with the record, but I worry that we might turn off a few people who were into the dirt and distortion of the first record,” says Davis. “I wouldn’t be so bold as to say, ‘This is a new direction

for Bad Veins.’ It could be a tangent. No matter how much we stray or deviate, we’re still going to be who we are. It’s impossible to change our sound too much, but it definitely has a different flavor, and part of that is being reactionary. We knew going in we had a pop record; if you have a big, awesome stereo, you’re going to hear crazy low-end sub bass and really high-end frequency, intricate idiosyncrasies and details that were not on that first record.”

Just as Bad Veins’ early club experience helped frame the songs from the first album, the duo’s extensive roadwork for its debut helped shape The Mess We’ve Made.

“We started performing those songs (from the first record) from day one, and we saw what worked and what didn’t in the live setting,” says Davis. “I don’t know if it was intentional, but I think we steered this record more toward our live shows. It’s a lot of bombastic pop stuff, and maybe it’s because that’s the stuff we’ve found works well live.” —Brian Baker

photo by Keith Klenowski

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Make It Matter Dent May does everything at once

Dent May is a townie. He lives in Oxford, Miss., an area with a population of 30,000 people, half of whom are students at Ole Miss.

He lives with four friends in a converted Boys & Girls Club, christened Cats Purring Dude Ranch, on the outskirts of town. At one point, folks in the neighborhood suspected the occupants of a couple trailers of making meth.

“The cops were there, and (the occupants) don’t live there anymore,” says May, “so I don’t know what’s going on.”

Cats Purring is socially, musically and psychologically the center of May’s universe, as well as the germ of his second album, Do Things (Paw Tracks), beginning with the town. Oxford is home to William Faulkner and Barry Hannah, who May says is a huge influence because “he lived his life to the fullest.”

The ranch house is made of wood with five bedrooms and the main hall, where they host concerts. A wooden deck that surrounds the house gives it that chill Southern vibe. May and his roommates intend to fix the pool “full of toxic green slime,” but the costs of cleaning

photo by Cole Furlow

and maintaining it have deterred them so far.

About twice a month, the Cats Purring residents host a house concert in the ranch’s main hall. Recent guests have included Frankie Rose, Grimes and Lagoon. At a Real Estate show, May realized he knew fewer than a handful of people; the rest came from the university. Still, May eschews the opportunity to perform for the profitable college market.

“It’s uncomfortable for me playing in front of people I see everyday, especially in my own house,” he says. “‘Oh, thank you for coming over to my house. Now, I’m going to play for you.’ I don’t want to be that guy.”

The Cats Purring residents all play in each other’s bands—Bass Drum Of Death and Dead Gaze are two of them—and produce each other’s albums in bedroom studios. A number of other groups use the ranch to practice and record. “It’s a cult, in a way,” says May. “It’s almost like my whole life. It’s everything.”

Everything shook in 2010 when May’s close friend and an active Cats Purring member, Peyton Houchins, died. “It’s important to me

to carry on his spirit with everything I do,” he says. “The album isn’t dedicated to him, but there is a special dedication to him, and he is probably the number one inspiration for me to make music at this point in my life.”

That inspiration is to make his life worth something, to do things. Pulling together all of his musical interests (country, R&B, “ukulele whimsical pop”), Do Things comes out as a post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys recording produced by Ween, minus the coke. Thematically, songs like “Rent Money,” “Tell Her” and “Parents” are mantras to living a life of selfsatisfaction, outside of the practical fears imposed by adults. (May is in his mid-20s.) The whole album can be viewed as a manifesto for eternal youth and friendship.

“I started questioning things,” says May. “I went from my first album (The Good Feeling Music Of Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele), telling goofy, fun little stories, and then I was like, ‘Fuck that. If I’m not going to say something that really matters deep down to me, I’m not going to say anything at all.’” —Matthew Irwin

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A History Of Violence

Filth, squalor and noise-punk chutzpah do a Dope Body good

Blown-out. That’s Dope Body guitarist Zachary Utz’s favorite description of the quartet’s approach on its delightfully art-damaged Natural History (Drag City). Utz perks up a bit when talk turns to Tom Morello, who the group sorta-kinda paid tribute to on “Bangers & Yos” from last year’s Nupping, but he’s otherwise tight-lipped when it comes to revealing influences. Not that he’s being totally evasive.

Aside from Rage Against The Machine (“possibly the common denominator between everybody in the band”), there really aren’t any.

Here’s what we hear: Black Flag, Boredoms and the Jesus Lizard. A lot of those associations come from vocalist Andrew Laumann, who’s the only guy in Dope Body who came from anything resembling the hardcore/punk scene. For the rest of the band, it’s more of a product of industrial environs, cheap living and good old-fashioned artistic recklessness.

“I had never even listened to Black Flag or Minor Threat before we started this band,” chuckles Utz. “Having gotten into that type

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of music after making Dope Body records, I definitely hear all kinds of echoes. Of course, you have to assume that with all of the music that has ever been made, someone has already played something that sounds exactly like you.”

Dope Body’s eerily quick and efficient writing process owes a lot to the depressed conditions of the Copy Cat Building, where all four members of the group lived and worked up until earlier this year. The 40,000-squarefoot warehouse in downtown Baltimore was the former headquarters for Dan Deacon’s Wham City Arts Collective; now, it’s home to dozens of like-minded bands, all subtly egging each other on.

“Of course, it’s a total shithole,” says Utz. “You make certain sacrifices as a human being to live in filth and squalor, but it was a totally amazing experience to be surrounded by artists. I don’t think I ever would’ve been as immersed in visual art or music, or fallen into that scene.”

Anything goes with Natural History, a weird amalgam of downtuned riffs, oddball percussion, octave-pedal effects, glitchy videogame sounds and numbing, narcotic drone.

It’s the group’s third full-length in as many years and, thanks to the “super-organized” approach of producer J Robbins, its most fully-realized effort. According to Utz, there are no bad ideas in the Dope Body camp— just undernourished ones.

“Our writing process usually starts with me coming up with a riff or making something on my loop station,” he says. “Our drummer (David Jacober) will listen to it and figure out some way to complement the groove. Then we’ll ride it out for an hour and not change it at all. Eventually, one of us will introduce a new riff or chord and see how it fits. A lot of times, it doesn’t really work. Then we’ll just start over with something completely different or stop to compare notes.

‘What if we take these two seemingly incongruous ideas and try to mash them together?’ A lot of times, that’s what works.” —Nick Green

photo by Angel Ceballos

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New School Delinquent

Colleen Green grew up to be a debaser, and punk rock doesn’t know what to make of it

Could a 98-pound creampuff in wraparound shades be the future of rock ‘n’ roll?

The shades, the references to Bo Diddley (“4 Loko 2 Kayla”) and the Ramones (“I Wanna Be Degraded”), the fact she writes actual songs (you know, the whole verse/chorus deal) certainly screams “retro.” But there’s also something wonderfully post-millennial about Colleen Green, a kind of raw-and-alive sexuality that summons the Zeitgeist.

The old punk dudes definitely don’t know how to handle it (“I’ve heard the so-bad-it’sgood argument, but … ”). Their world is being threatened by the 98-pound creampuff in a tank top. That’s what rock ‘n’ roll is all about: mainly, sex and breaking down taboos—or breaking town taboos with sex.

“Most of my fans, it seems, are men in the 25-35 age group,” says Green. “Those old punk dudes are probably threatened in a way. I also wonder if ‘I Wanna Be Degraded’ is the only song they’ve heard?”

Ah, yes, the titillation factor behind the aforementioned, S&M-themed opus—per-

photo by Colleen Green

haps her most Ramones-ish number: “My most misinterpreted song,” she says. “People see the title or hear the chorus and go Whhooooaaaaaaatttt?! But it’s not me telling you that I want to be degraded. It’s my boy. It’s my girl. It’s your boy. It’s your girl.

It’s about real love and real trust.”

It sounds like the Ronettes in lo-fi terms, with a similar wall of sound. Green, who grew up on a farm in the indie-rock confines of western Massachusetts, might be the first rock ‘n’ roll artist to learn her art solely on computer-based technology and not sound like an android.

“I’d been recording a little bit in Boston and in Oakland by myself using GarageBand,” she says. “I had a real drum machine, but I couldn’t use it because I didn’t have an amp! When I moved to L.A. in 2009, I suddenly had access to a small amp and an interface, both belonging to my brother, which I could use to learn the drum machine, practice and record real instruments onto my computer.”

Although live she’s mostly gone the onewoman-band route—check her on YouTube if she skips yer burgh—she recently expanded her lineup: “I took my friend Marisa on tour as my bass player—a true experiment as we’d only met once when I invited her to spend an entire month in a station wagon with me— and it was just us with the drum machine.

This summer I am planning on playing shows with a full band.”

With a recording legacy that includes her cassette-only debut Milo Goes To Compton (reissued on Art Fag), the formerly CD-R-only 4 Loko 2 Kayla (also reissued) and an EP, Cujo, she is surely prolific, and a full-length LP on Hardly Art is forthcoming. “After doing three albums the CG way, I am ready to relinquish a little bit of control,” she says. “I think it’ll take a lot of stress out of my brain. Stress is something I don’t deal with very well.”

One last question: What does Green think of Lady Gaga?

“I think she’s a piece of shit.”

—Joe S. Harrington

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JULY 31ST 2012

CELEBRATING 21 YEARS, 20 UK TOP 20 SINGLES, 5 UK NO 1 ALBUMS & OVER 15 MILLION ALBUM SALES

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2CD SPECIAL EDITION BOXES OF ALL 7 STUDIO ALBUMS - Remasters of the first 5 albums overseen by Graham Coxon and Stephen Street - All 7 albums expanded with an entire disc of bonus material - Exclusive Blur artwork postcards - Expanded booklets with unseen photos and a brand new interview with the band

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on the record

a conversation with

Patti Smith On 11th studio album Banga (Columbia), author/singer Patti Smith comes from a place of peace rather than defiance. There is disgust and ire, as always, stemming from authoritarian figures, real and imagined. There are lost souls drifting in and out of her line of fire and desire. More than anything else, though, Smith and her family band (stalwarts from her career’s start as well as her children with the late great Fred Smith) find a sense of solace and joy through Banga’s poetry. Smith phoned from New Mexico, where she’s doing research on a new detective novel. —A.D. Amorosi 26

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How does a Patti Smith album get started at this point in the game? How do you summon up the troops?

We haven’t been the Patti Smith Group since 1979, so the band considers themselves independent. But I have worked with the same drummer, Jay Dee (Daugherty), since 1975.

Of course, there’s Lenny Kaye. And there’s Tony Shanahan, an important component in our present configuration since 1995. We’re always working, so there’s not a specific need to summon everyone; they’re always there.

photo by Steven Sebring

Why does the idea of Pilate’s faithful dog Banga make sense as the title of this particular record? It’s pretty raw.

Yeah, “Banga” is one of the rawest songs on the album and one of few that I wrote completely by myself. The song is an anarchistic anthem, so it represents the whole of the album well. It’s for the people, it’s for my band members, it’s for my crew. It’s about the people who stayed with me. It’s about loyalty. You know, I got Banga from the book The Master And Margarita. That dog was really loyal. He sat on the edge of heaven with Pontius Pilate waiting for Jesus Christ to speak to him. After reading it, I thought that he must be the most loyal dog in literature.

With its Sun Ra samples, “Tarkovsky (The Second Stop Is Jupiter)” shows off a big hint of your Philly and New Jersey background. (Ra and his Arkestra lived in nearby Germantown, Pa.) Was this pure coincidence, or were you looking for some sort of connection between you, Ra and your past?

That’s funny you say that. It wasn’t conscious, but the background in that song isn’t rock or R&B, but the kind of music I was most listening to that point when I lived in Jersey and Philly. That would be Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra. And Oscar Brown Jr.—don’t forget him. I’m talking through that song in a way that reminds me of Oscar’s raps, that kind of improvisation. This song does access that period of my life. In fact, my daughter Jesse plays piano on the track, and she is so McCoy Tyner. So many of the moves that she makes, the way she shifts out and pulls back in at the end, is like what McCoy did with Elvin Jones.

Do you see your daughter veering into jazz as she goes along?

My daughter and my son Jackson are like their father: true musicians. They listen to and play everything. She goes to the opera with me. She’s not locked in one genre. Neither is her brother.

For someone who doesn’t make records too often—this is your first album of original material since 2004—the choice in subject matter is often as interesting as what you’re saying within it.

Thank you.

How did Amerigo Vespucci come up now and why? You’re talking to an Italian gentleman who learned long ago the mapmaker’s value.

It came to me less candidly. When I was studying up for “Constantine’s Dream” (another Banga song), I was thinking about exploration and the New World, so I read further and read more about Vespucci. I didn’t even know that he was where America got its name.

So, I wrote something for him left-handedly.

I think of it as an adventure, an overture, to the rest of the album, an entrée into another new world.

You’ve written often about artists, living and deceased, who have moved you, but two like-subjects on Banga are sort of curiously connected. Firstly, “This Is The Girl” and its subject, Amy Winehouse. Had you met her?

Never, but I was a fan. I was fascinated by her vocals, for such a young girl to have such an authentic voice. There are people with good voices and great voices, but she was on another level, singing songs of jazz and R&B in a manner that my generation had lived in with no sense of retro. I admired her. As someone old enough to be her mother, I was concerned about her. Something about her just elicited that feeling in me. Writing about her came naturally and very organically. I wrote her a poem when she died, and Shanahan wrote a piece of music independently that completely served the song. It’s a nice little tune.

I’d like to extend that same thought to “Maria,” which is about Maria Schneider (Last Tango In Paris). Her image was as formidable and indelibly etched into her moment—the mid-’70s—as Edie Sedgwick was to hers. What made you want to celebrate Schneider’s spirit?

Maria was my generation. I knew her. She used to travel with the band. She loved us and I loved her. She touched me. She used to come to our gigs dressed in white shirts and black skinny ties. She was a mirror. The song is more nostalgic than I usually write, as it’s also about that period in the ’70s. I can see and feel 1975 and 1976 in that song, and my son Jackson really plays the most emotional guitar solo on it.

Let’s discuss the inclusion of the song “Just Kids,” like your book of the same name, for Robert Mapplethorpe. I do not believe that you’d ever want or seek to forget Robert, but do you think with this song and the book that you’re drawing a line between a purging of the past and moving forward into the future?

I don’t think like that, necessarily. I lost so many people that I constantly communicate within my mind—my brother, parents, Robert, my husband—that I don’t differentiate between the pasts, presents or futures. Unless I need to in a classical way. [Laughs] I mean, I understand the difference. Yet in my actual life, I don’t address that. It would be too painful to think of all that happening in the past because I like to keep my husband with me every day. My children remind me of that. I like to keep Robert with me, too. The song was written in a burst of enthusiasm; we were playing at the Bowery Ballroom, and I had just found out how much the book had sold. I’m not about selling, but I never dreamed the book would be so successful. It preoccupied my entire year.

It became such a part of my life. The song is sheer exuberance. I like the song. I guess you can tell that I like my stuff. [Laughs] I love this record. I can’t stand to listen to my own voice, but this record really appeals to me.

Not to blindly compliment you, but your voice sounds different, brighter, and your phrasing softer than in the past—prettier, really. Do you know why? There’s a real radiance here.

That’s so nice. Tony is like my vocal coach.

He is very attentive to the sound of my voice: singing in pitch, that a song fits right for my voice. I never thought about that before. I’m healthier, too. I suffer from bronchial stuff, so I don’t smoke. I don’t drink, save for the occasional glass of wine. I’m proud of my voice now, so thank you. I turned 65, so I’m conscious as to how fragile the human voice is. I’m not abusive or self-destructive, and my voice reflects that. All of the records that came out after the death of my husband deal with the grieving process. There is strength and anger about corporations, and our environment and sadness about missing my husband, but I’m happy and I’m healthy. There is joy here. If you are positive, it emanates from your voice.

The notion of being outside of society has been near and dear to you, yet I’m reminded of something William S. Burroughs said about receiving the Commodore Medal from France. He used to say something about how all those who had spurned him could keep their paltry medals, but when he actually got the accolades, he felt quite comforted. Between the National Book Award, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acclaim, an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Pratt Institute and your own Commodore Medal, do you feel any closer to being inside?

I feel greatly appreciated in some places.

Not always. I measure my appreciation by people walking or driving by me everyday and yelling, “Yo, Patti!” It is a truly beautiful thing. I understood and understand the disenfranchised. As I got older and had children and evolved, I have a different idea of who the outsider is. When I was young, I thought of being outside as the artists I knew or those individuals marginalized by their sexuality. In the present culture, I realize that it is so much bigger, that we are all outsiders, we who are the 99 percent with governments and corporations so big they have no option but to lord over us and our planet. We’re nothing but a means to an end.

We are all potentially marginalized, so I look at things differently now. As far as accolades go, I always liked them. As a kid, I was attracted to medals. I love my French Commodore Medal. Then again, I love the awards I got in high school. [Laughs] When I was young, I used to go to Bill’s house and hold his medal. I just adored it. He’d let me play with it and used to say, “Oh my dear, you’ll get one some day.” When I did get mine, I was so excited. Yet, if I had to choose between that and the ones I got in high school, it’d be a hard choice.

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/music

Waving Hello Again

Far from washed up, Smashing Pumpkins balance past and present flawlessly on Oceania

by Emily trace

To say that

which is disarmingly genuine The Smashing Pumpkins helped and unadorned when contrastdefine an era would not only be an ed with the band’s wrenching understatement, but also incomplete; with the release of grunge-era style. Corgan adtheir game-changing new album, Oceania, it’s very likely mits “it’s really hard to prothat the nineties were only the first era that they’ll help to duce great work if you don’t open up that part of your define. For the first time in a decade, singer/songwriter Billy heart that just doesn’t want to Corgan truly has the floor, but he’s not the man that many be opened. It requires a level may remember; in a recent interview with Johnny FireOceania of honesty and vulnerability is available now cloud for antiquiet.com, he describes himself as a “weirdo that’s just really uncomfortfrom Universal that won’t go away”, and more himself than he’s ever been able, certainly at 45.” But while before. Given The Pumpkin’s massive success almost twenhe says that taking emotional ty years ago, few musicians could have more right to nostalgia than risks for the album was one of the most Corgan, yet not in this album nor in his interviews does he indulge in challenging parts of the process, being conscious and making conscious creative it. His long-term fans might expect a certain amount of disinterested choices sculpted that vulnerability to its vulnerability from the front man they knew, if it were accompanied best advantage. The album may prove to by the corresponding post-punk defensiveness that characterized be a polarizing release among fans for many of The Smashing Pumpkins’ greatest hits. But the Billy we’re this reason; in contacting fans that have about to reconnect with is not only as strident and present as the been on board with The Pumpkins since new songs, but also generously open and unashamed about how his their 1989 inception, I found the diverse reactions in line with the boldness of the life and work have developed in the last decade. After trying on many band’s development. Many are energized conceptual identities in the past, he says of himself, “Now I’m actu- by the accepting, unafraid way that pain, ally strong enough where I don’t need a mask. I’m just myself. I’m love, and isolation are confronted in this fifteen pounds overweight, I’ve got crooked teeth, I’ve got a funny album, while others miss the despair and frustration of the earlier days. But Corgan voice, but I’m f---ing good at what I do.”

Now, in the spirit of journalistic honesty, I must admit what will initially disenchant many readers and dedicated fans: twenty-four hours ago, I didn’t know who Billy Corgan was. I’m not a member of Generation X, but of the less notorious and significantly less popular Generation Y… reluctantly, if that helps. My history with this band began at four a.m. yesterday, when I played Oceania the whole way through without pausing, taking notes the whole time.

And upon reading his interview, I was relieved and delighted to find that his statements about the album were syncing up with my ideas about what I was hearing. And this is perhaps one of the most appealing things about Oceania: it is unrelentingly sincere, so much so that even someone in the most abject ignorance of The Smashing Pumpkins can pick it up, put it on, and ride the ever-cresting wave it initiates.

Equally appealing is the album’s unique emotional content, 28

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doesn’t feel that the presence of hope negates the power of what’s being said; “I was always offended by the idea that I could only write from a dark place or only the darkest stuff was worth listening to.” He suggests that the identity struggle he and the band members went through during the recording process infused the music with recognizable angst and edge, but this time around, “the blues just feel a little bit brighter.” Far from being overwrought, Oceania has too much to say to let decorative sentimentality pull them under; make no mistake, the sentiment is there, but is delivered with a simplicity that soars and an honesty that disarms. It is as if however dissatisfied Corgan may be with the world and the state of today’s music, he is completely comfortable with his own restlessness, with the challenges that accompany an identity perpetually in flux. “I’ve had to take a very long, circuitous route through my talent and my obsessions,” he observes, “to realize that there’s some guy in there who’s trying to

“

I was always offended by the idea that I could only write from a dark place or only the darkest stuff was worth listening to.” —Billy Corgan

get out.” And letting this internal discovery blend with his public persona must have something to do with Corgan’s vivid resolve to exist and create in the moment. Though the album does not, by any means, burn the foundation that The Smashing Pumpkins have invested decades building, it is committed to the present, to the cycle of impulse, reaction and artistic choice as it occurs from breath to breath. Corgan comments on how he and the band are committed to growth, saying that “if we’ve learned anything from playing as an intact unit now for over two years, it’s that unless we create our own sound and our own legacy, it’s a given that people will default to what they know; whether it’s my past or someone else’s.” This is not just crucial to the band’s plans for success, but to their integrity as well, as he goes on to say that they’re “not up there trying to pretend like it’s 1994. 1994 wasn’t that f---ing great either. The world has never been more dangerous than it is right now, and we have a limp, impotent artistic response to the situation.” As a newly made fan, I’m grateful that Corgan decided

to respond as he has; I was engaged by this album’s forward momentum, by the immediacy that pervaded even its most subdued and introspective moments.

It’s too soon for Generation X to be discussed in history classes, and no high school will have a Grunge Day for at least another decade. Even now as the twenty-first century has finally begun to assert its own identity, the dissatisfied dissonance of the nineties refuses to become a nostalgic memory, instead synthesizing its tried and trusted methods with new creative risks. Generation X is the most unknown generation to me because their heyday came and went when the edges of my world ended with school fences and 6 p.m. curfews. While masses of grunged-out teens and twenty-something’s were packed into stadiums for The Smashing Pumpkins, I danced to Aqua at heavily chaperoned school dances.

But Oceania lets me see how others remember the nineties, and understand the decade of my childhood in a way I couldn’t have known it before. The songs are rooted enough in the band’s history to churn with the restlessness of the era, but open enough to interact with in the immediate, passing moment. Without sacrificing either tenderness or momentum, the heartbeat of Oceania is not heard as an echo, but felt as a pulse. “Being in The Pumpkins will always be defined by what we can create from our hands and hearts right now,” says Corgan. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.” needle

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photo by Todd Fedler

Repercussion Southern jangle pioneers the dB’s return with Falling Off The Sky, the quartet’s first album in two decades. story by

michael peulsi photos by

daniel coston

They came from the South. They grew up together in Winston-Salem, N.C. Went to the same grade school. Saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

Fell in love with the one-off regional hits on their local top-40 station.

Started to play instruments and use recording equipment before they were in their teens. ¶ They came from the South, but they were a New York City band. Saw Television, Talking Heads, Patti Smith and others.

Waited tables. Worked in record stores. Pushed their gear on a dolly sometimes 30 blocks to the next gig. Practiced in the Music Building, a rehearsal studio on Eighth Avenue that’s still around today. They were there around the same time as Madonna. One time, Andy Warhol popped his head in and blankly asked them, “So, you rehearse here?”

The dB’s—Chris Stamey, Peter Holsapple, Gene Holder and Will Rigby—formed in the midst of an evolving music scene, as punk and power pop yielded new wave and indie. They had a hand in a number of these developments, creating music that jangled and shimmered, but also pulsed, bleeped and twanged. At the same time, they weathered more than their share of ills: poorly distributed records, bad business deals and an increasingly unsteady lineup.

Even their reunion ran into delays. Stamey, Holsapple, Holder and Rigby first reconvened in 2005 to record some songs and play some shows.

And yet, Falling Off The Sky (Bar/None)—the first full-length from the classic four-man dB’s lineup since 1982—is only now finally seeing light. Good thing it’s really good.

“We’ve been friends for over 45 years,” Holsapple says. He and Rigby became pals in the third grade, in 1964. In the next grade up was

Stamey, along with Mitch Easter, who remains in the dB’s orbit to this day. And Holder was one grade above them.

Holsapple started playing guitar when he was seven. “Even in grade school he was obviously a natural musician,” says Rigby. “I remember him in sixth grade singing and playing ‘Abilene’ on guitar and changing the lyrics to ‘Havoline, Havoline, prettiest motor oil I’ve ever seen.’”

Meanwhile, Stamey, another budding musician, was also exploring the world of recording. “Mitch Easter and I wanted to archive a TV show called The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” he recalls. “There were no home video recorders, but we could use reel-to-reel tape to record the sound of the show. Then we started experimenting with it. We had a tiny radio station in 1965, and would make funny tapes and play it over the AM to the neighbors.”

In the early-to-mid-’70s, they formed into

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bands, different configurations like Rittenhouse Square, Little Diesel, Sneakers and the H-Bombs. It was during this time that they managed to hear the music of a struggling band from Memphis.

Big Star’s first single, “When My Baby’s Beside Me,” got a little bit of play on Winston-Salem top-40 radio. Then in the summer of 1972, Rigby bought a copy of the band’s #1 Record debut while in Raleigh. “We didn’t know much about them, other than that it was the guy (Alex Chilton) who was in the Box Tops,” he says now.

“But we knew that #1 Record had something special about its sound.” “#1 Record just completely changed how we were hearing things,” says Holsapple. “You have to bear in mind, in 1972 we’re deep in the throes of ‘Whipping Post’ and ‘Heard It In A Love Song.’

The Southern rock thing, I’ve grown a lot more charitable about it in my dotage. But it was not really what was happening for me.”

Stamey moved to New York in 1977. He found himself, not a month into his residency, playing bass for Chilton. “I’d loved the three Big Star records,” he says, “but never dreamed I’d ever meet or play with anyone from that crew. And it turned into a mentoring experience for me.

Alex was very patient and generous, and taught me so much. In fact, in a way I’m still taking it in.” (In 2010, Stamey began putting on concert performances of Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers album, with Rigby, Easter and others.)

In 1978, Holsapple, Rigby and Easter made a pilgrimage to Memphis, where they met up with Chilton, who put them in contact with Big Star’s other singer/guitarist, Chris Bell. That same year, Stamey issued, on his small Car label, Bell’s only solo release in his lifetime, the deathlessly sad “I Am The Cosmos”/“You And Your Sister” single.

Also in ’78, Stamey helped Television’s Richard Lloyd record “(I Thought) You Wanted To Know” for Car. When Television’s label Elektra balked, Stamey replaced Lloyd’s lead vocal with his own. He then recorded b-side “If And When” with Holder on bass and Rigby on drums. The single—two frantic, nervy slices of melody— was released under the name Chris Stamey And The dB’s, and the trio began playing shows.

Soon, Holsapple, living and recording in Memphis, caught wind of what was going on and moved to New York City, ostensibly to join Chris Stamey And The dB’s as a keyboard player.

But, Holsapple says, “It became evident that I had been working on a lot of songs.” And so he began singing and playing guitar alongside Stamey as well, and the band was now simply known as the dB’s.

They developed a name for themselves, as well as their own idiosyncratic style. “We loved NRBQ and were free-wheelin’,” says Stamey.

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“We’d do just about anything live, any genre. We played a lot with the Bush Tetras, Lydia Lunch and Arto Lindsay. It was far from a power-pop scene, but we felt radical in our own way because we were trying to stretch and improve our abilities as far as the possibilities of songwriting. I can’t say that we were worried too much about being a tight, professional band. Maybe that was part of Alex’s legacy—an idea that the world had changed and that the old values were boring, something I now do not hold to be true.”

The band began recording a debut album in 1980. However, U.S. labels were not interested.

Eventually, the British-based Albion agreed to release Stands For Decibels in 1981. The album is a fount of melody and possibility, from Holsapple’s chiming “Black And White” and “Big Brown Eyes” to off-kilter Stamey tracks like “Tearjerkin’” and “Cycles Per Second.” The rhythm section of Holder and Rigby is accomplished, unpredictable and, above all else, propulsive. Despite the band’s NYC base, the dB’s were cited as leading lights of a new breed of Southern jangle-pop bands.

“I thought, ‘Wow. This is a really hot band; they kinda sound like the Attractions,’” remembers Easter, who by this time had started his band Let’s Active and also began producing the early works of R.E.M.—two other leaders of the supposed Southern jangle scene. “It just seemed like they had really stepped it up to another degree and made something that other people would actually want to hear.”

1982 follow-up Repercussion showed the band evolving fast, from the eerie vocal harmonies on Stamey’s “From A Window To A Screen” to Holsapple’s finely observed black comedy “Amplifier.” But both albums were still only available in the States as Albion imports. (They wouldn’t receive domestic release until 1989.)

“I worked in a record store in New York and you never knew how much the record was going to be, to put it in the store and price it, because you’d get it from different distributors,” explains Holsapple, who says he’d often tell shoppers, “Well, you know, you could buy my record, but why don’t you buy Drums And Wires

by XTC? That’s just been reissued; it’s $4.99. And if you like this, and you like the Squeeze record I’m gonna sell you, then maybe you’ll trust me enough to come back and buy a dB’s record.”

Later in ’82, Stamey left the band. “There were too many songs,” he says. “Both Peter and I had a backlog, and it seemed like it was only going to get worse.” Holsapple became the band’s sole writer and lead singer. “The hardest thing about that was I wasn’t much of a leader,” he says. “So, I didn’t really lead the dB’s into anything except torpor.”

Now a trio, the band signed with Bearsville Records, owned by former Bob Dylan manager

Albert Grossman and distributed by Warner Bros. With Holder on both bass and lead guitar, 1984’s Like This seemed custom-built for a wider audience. In particular, leadoff track “Love Is For Lovers” even now begs to be heard from a car radio in a convertible on a summer’s day.

“I still think of the 1984 period as being at the peak of our powers,” says Rigby. “We had a pretty tough album come out that topped the college radio charts, toured opening for R.E.M. and in a few towns seemed as popular as them.

The truth, especially in hindsight, is much more complicated and less rosy, but at the time it felt like what we’d been trying to get to.”

Bearsville lost its distribution deal with Warner on the eve of Like This’ release, so the album had little chance of crossing over to the mainstream. And when Grossman died in 1986 without leaving a will, the band was stuck in contractual limbo.

By the time the dust had settled, the dB’s— with New Orleans musician Jeff Beninato on bass—had signed with IRS Records and made

We still speak the same language.

I think one of the concerns was, “What is a dB’s record supposed to sound like at this point, with all this time having passed?” Is it supposed to sound like the next album after Repercussion, had we recorded something in 1983 with Chris? And it ended up being kind of ludicrous to think that way.

Peter Holsapple 1987’s The Sound Of Music. But this fared no better. Holder left once the album was completed to join the Wygals, and the lineup began fluctuating, as a series of replacement musicians came and went.

“Eventually it got to the point where, in 1988, Will was saying, ‘Well, we should just rename the band.’” says Holsapple. “You start grabbing at straws for ideas of how to keep ideas fresh and workable, and keep the enthusiasm. I just made the phone call and said, ‘Let’s put an end to this.’”

After the breakup, the band members worked as solo artists, band members, supporting players and producers. Holsapple played with R.E.M.

during the Green/Out Of Time era and, later, with Hootie And The Blowfish. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Stamey and Holder would both produce Yo La Tengo. “Chris and Gene as producers had greater confidence in what we were doing than we did,” says YLT’s Ira Kaplan. “It really meant a lot to us to have those people who we respected and liked so much to feel that way about us.”

In 1991, Stamey and Holsapple reunited for a well-received duo album, Mavericks. When they began discussing collaborating again in 2005, they both realized some of their new songs called out for the inventive power of the Holder/ Rigby rhythm section. However, with the busy

band members living in different states, the new dB’s album was a long time coming. (In fact, another Stamey/Holsapple album, Here And Now, was released in 2009.)

But Falling Off The Sky is worth the wait. While the nervy energy of the early years may have dissipated some, the album is brimming with hooks and ideas, from the garage-rock snap of Holsapple’s “That Time Is Gone” to Stamey’s soaring epic “Collide-oOo-Scope.”

“We still speak the same language,” says Holsapple. “I think one of the concerns was, ‘What is a dB’s record supposed to sound like at this point, with all this time having passed?’ Is it supposed to sound like the next album after Repercussion, had we recorded something in 1983 with Chris? And it ended up being kind of ludicrous to think that way. We had to listen to the songs carefully and figure it out.”

As for the long gestation of Falling Off The Sky, Stamey is wry, but optimistic. “I’m glad it went so quickly. Hope we can keep up the pace for the next one!” N

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The Boys Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest story by Jonathan Valania photos by gene smirnov

Twelve years after their first and last great album, the Hives cash out of the major-label casino and return to the sound and DIY roots of Veni Vidi Vicious with the new Lex Hives. But first they had to survive milliondollar lawsuits, severe concussions and nearly career-ending knife wounds. magnet

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The NoMad Hotel is one of those swanky

boutique hotels that bejewel the tonier provinces of midtown Manhattan.

It is here, in this New Gilded Age outpost situated in the fragrant heart of the Perfume District, that the Hives have decamped for a four-day charm offensive on Gotham’s media elite, fresh off a triumphant return to stageand-screen with a headlining slot at Coachella and a riotous studio-lot performance for Jimmy Kimmel Live. Inside the library lounge, After forays into Devo-esque cyber-punk suitably bedecked with gorgeously illuminated two-story (2004’s Tyrannosaurus Hives) and hip hop-inflected arena rock (2007’s The Black And White dark-wood bookshelves lined with sumptuously appointed Album), Lex Hives finds the Hives getting back leather-bound tomes of unknown vintage, Hives frontman to where they once belonged and doing what do best: ferocious brick-in-the-face garageHowlin’ Pelle Almqvist and his brother, guitarist Nicholaus they punk-shake-bamalama, bolstered by take-noArson, are holding court. There is nothing particularly punk prisoners live shows, a boatload of charisma balls the size of Oklahoma. Situated halfway rock about staying at the NoMad; however, it is very rock ‘n’ and between the primordial raunch ‘n’ roll of AC/DC roll, and the Hives ceased being a punk band and started and the primeval roar of the Stooges, Lex Hives brings a bazooka to the proverbial knife fight. being a rock ‘n’ roll band a long time ago.

The room is full of stylish, important-looking people nipping fancy beverages, poking at smartphones. The one confirmed celebrity in the room, in addition to the aforementioned Hives frontman, is rapper Mos Def, who gives Almqvist that barely perceptible tip-of-the-hat nod that the famous trade when they spot each other from across a crowded room. It’s been five years since we last heard from Fagersta, Sweden’s finest. A significant amount of drama has unfolded in that time. “There were some problems that pretty much had nothing to do with anything, but something to do with a lot,” says Arson.

First, the Hives parted ways with Universal Music, walking away from the $10 million recording contract that tethered them to Big Music and ushered these punk-rock refugees from a backwater Swedish mining town into the ranks of the upper crust. All told, this parting of the ways is not necessarily a bad thing—but more on that later.

Secondly, Almqvist suffered a rather severe concussion when he tried climbing up a lighting rig during a show in Switzerland and fell nearly 10 feet onto his head. “I then finish the show limping like a three-legged dog and speaking in tongues,” he wrote on the band’s website.

“Turns out I have a concussion and god knows what else. The highly skilled doctors are still trying to find out. X-rays, brain scans and running other tests. I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that, shit, I may even be mortal.”

Before that, he dropped a knife blade on his foot and severed a tendon governing the movement of a big toe that doctors say they have nev-

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er seen on a homo sapien. “Basically, my big toe is biologically constructed like a thumb,” says Almqvist with a shrug. “Probably means that I’m the last step in the evolutionary chain.”

And then there were the lawsuits, which have punctuated just about every period of the band’s career, starting at the beginning when they told Warner Bros., “Fuck you,” and Warner Bros. said, “No, fuck you,” and sued the Hives for, like, a bazillion dollars. After two years of lawyering up, they wound up settling for considerably less. In 2008, a band called the Roofies sued the Hives, claiming that the latter’s “Tick Tick Boom” sounded too much like their song “Why You?” (It quietly went away.) Then, in spring 2011, fellow Swedes the Cardigans threatened to sue the Hives to recover the remaining half of the $6 million they claim to have loaned the Hives that had not been paid back. (This, too, went away quietly.) Concurrently—and, quite possibly, not coincidentally—the Hives sued their money managers, claiming they had helped themselves to a little too much commission. The Hives won.

On the good-news side, everyone in the Hives not named Howlin’ Pelle—Arson, second guitarist Vigilante Carlstroem, bassist Dr. Matt Destruction and drummer Chris Dangerous—had children. Somewhere along the way, the Hives managed to birth a new album, the skull-crushing, butt-kicking Lex Hives, easily their best since 2000’s Veni Vidi Vicious, the record that launched them into global stardom and conferred upon them their status as the New Saviors Of Rock ‘N’ Roll, a distinction they shared with class-of-2000 alums the White Stripes, Strokes and Vines.

Light fuse, run away.

“Basically, we wanted to get back to being the Hives again,” says Arson of the band’s decision to dial back the blockbuster chart expectations, not to mention the high-six-figures recording budget that governed the making of The Black And White Album. Without majorlabel financiers breathing down their neck for new product (Lex Hives is being released on their own Disques Hives imprint), time was on their side, which worked out well given the band’s slow-and-steady-wins-the-race albummaking philosophy.

“We make music piece by piece, and it takes us a long time,” says Almqvist. “There’s a lot of talking and very little playing. We don’t jam. You know, basically it’s like Lego. We come up with one little section here, come up with one little section there, try to put them together, they don’t fit, try to put something else with it, and sometimes we come up with such a good 30 first seconds (and) we can’t come up with the other two and a half minutes for a year and a half. But once we’ve done it, we can play that song for 30 years and still like it.”

Although the bulk of the album was recorded in their homeland, at the newly minted state-ofthe-art recording studio owned by ABBA’s Benny Andersson, drums and vocals were recorded in Berlin at the storied Hansa Studios, where Bowie recorded Low and “Heroes” as well as the dynamic duo of Iggy Pop’s solo career, Lust For Life and The Idiot.

“There’s a big banquet hall under the studio where they recorded drums (for those albums),” says Almqvist. “It’s an old SS banquet hall. The studio looks the same since the ’70s. All the old

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the Hives stuff is there. There’s a blue strip of tape on everything that Iggy and Bowie used, so that’s what we used, too. ‘Here’s the guitar amp Iggy sang through on “The Passenger.”’ OK, I’ll sing through that. Like, why wouldn’t I?”

B

ack in the early ’90s when the Hives were starting out, before they were even called the Hives, when they were all in their mid-teens and banging out the same riffs for hours on end in their parents’ basements, Almqvist sang through a guitar amp, but it was less a matter of aesthetics than necessity. Music gear was hard to come by in Fagersta, especially for a pack of post-pubescents without two kronor to rub together.

“There was a music store, but we just couldn’t afford anything in it,” says Almqvist. “Punk rock in our town was pretty primitive. There was a band that had the cymbals tied in strings from the roof because they couldn’t afford cymbal stands, so they could only use the cymbals once per song, and then the lead singer would have to duck. We used an old lamp for a cymbal stand.

We’d use lids for cymbals. The snare drum had no snares, so we just tuned it really high, threw some screws inside so it would rattle. Whenever somebody would break a string, we’d have to wait until the weekend so somebody’s parents could drive them to the big city and buy strings.”

Fagersta is an industrial town situated two hours north of Stockholm, part of a latitudinal through-line known as the Vodka Meridian that stretches across Russia, Sweden and Scotland and constitutes the Rust Belt of northern Europe. With a doctor father and a teacher mother, the Almqvist boys were the exception to the rule amongst their fellow soon-to-be Hives, whose parents, like most Fagerstanians, worked in the drill-bit factory. Their first taste of demon rock ‘n’ roll was dad’s Chuck Berry and Little Richard records. Their second, when Almqvist was all of six and his brother was seven, came from an older boy down the road who came bearing a cassette dub of AC/DC’s For Those About To Rock.

“It was always somebody’s older brother— that’s how music worked in Fagersta,” says Almqvist. “I think that was the big eureka moment, at least for Nicholaus.”

“He said, ‘This is the coolest band there is,’” says Arson. “And I was like, ‘Yes, of course.’”

A few years later, they would intercept the Misfits and Dead Kennedys albums that were being distributed samizdat-style by youth of Fagersta. “It was always like somebody’s older brother taped something, and you’d hand it down,” says Almqvist. “Big brother to little brother, and little brother’s friends and so forth.

That’s how it worked.”

“The record store in town had a punk and hardcore section, but those records were ex-

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pensive, like $20, which was a lot of money at the time,” says Arson. “But you could get ’50s and ’60s records for five bucks apiece at the bookstore. You could get four for the price of one punk album: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, the Standells, the Sonics and that first Nuggets record. Which is sort of also the reason why we always listened to ’50s and ’60s music: ’cause it was cheap.”

Although hardly a mecca of rock ‘n’ roll, Fagersta did seem to draw just about any touring punk band in search of a secondary concert market after rocking Stockholm, and this too proved inspirational. Arson picked up the guitar, and Almqvist failed upward to frontman status. (“I was the worst at everything else,” he says.)

The rest of the lineup came together shortly thereafter—fleshed out with friends and neighbors—and set about mapping out the middle ground between Little Richard and the Dead Kennedys. They all immediately gave themselves punk-rock stage names: Pelle Almqvist became Howlin’ Pelle, Niklas Almqvist became Nicholaus Arson, Mikael Karlsson became Vigilante Carlstroem, Mattias Bernwall became Dr. Matt Destruction, and Christian Grahn became Chris Danger.

Now all they needed was a name. Danger suggested Hives, not so much in the place-wherebees-live sense, but more in the allergic-reaction-that-causes-alarming-raised-bumps-allover-your-skin meaning of the word.

“He found it in the dictionary, and it said that it was a disease that you could get from eating lobster or strawberries, or something like that,” says Almqvist. “But the thing is that we thought it was a way more lethal disease, for one, and we thought it was way more contagious. So, we figured that we’d spread like a deadly disease across the land. For a while we just called it Hives before we realized that all good band names were plurals. They all had a ‘the’ at the beginning and an ‘s’ at the end: the Sonics, the Ramones, the Remains. It was basically R&D at this point, trying to figure out what made our favorite bands our favorite bands.”

Part of that R&D was figuring out that all their favorite bands wore matching stage clothes. Fancying themselves “punk rock aristocrats,” they started dressing all in black, save for white ties. Their look would evolve through various sartorially smart permutations of the suit-and-tie/black-and-white color scheme, eventually morphing into their current tuxand-top-hat aesthetic. “It’s sort of like Dracula meets the Residents,” says Almqvist of the band’s current look.

Back at the beginning, the unspoken motto was faster is always better. They took a blood oath to make three perfect punk albums, then quit, because to the best of their knowledge no

band ever made more than three good albums.

“So that was our insurance that we would never suck,” says Almqvist. “‘Let’s just make three albums and be done with it.’ But then as time went on, we made our third record and realized that the fourth album of a lot of those bands started to sound good to us. Take the Ramones— now I think their ’80s stuff is better than their ’70s stuff, which I know is blasphemy.”

Burning Heart, Epitaph’s Swedish doppelgänger, liked what it heard and signed the band. In 1998, the Hives released Barely Legal, a buzzsaw blur of hormones, sweat and high voltage.

“I liked that title—I felt ‘barely legal’ at the time,” says Arson, who at the ripe old age of 20 was the elder of the group. It was while touring Barely Legal that their land-speed-record imperative reached critical mass. Although they never thought there would come a day that they would say it out loud, they all quietly agreed that they were actually playing too fast. This would prove to be a career-changing epiphany that would, in its own small way, alter the course of the first decade of the 21st century. Because, mark our words, if the Hives never lightened their foot on the gas pedal and found the sweet spot that was so abundantly on display on their next album, Veni Vidi Vicious, nobody outside of Fagersta would have ever heard of them.

“When we started touring (Barely Legal),” says Arson, “the rule was ‘fast as we can’ because we just figured that you can’t be a lame band if you play as fast as you can, right? So, we started touring that album, and our ‘as fast as we can’ got way too fast. So, then we were at a loss, like, ‘What the fuck do we do now?’ Can you actually be good and play slower than the peak of your abilities? So, that took a lot of R&D before we made the second record.”

This slight dialing back of the tempos would make all the difference in the world. The Hives were now ready for world domination. But first there was a lot of work to do. Literally.

“We would go on tour, come back, find another shitty job, go back on tour, repeat,” says Almqvist. Day jobs held by the Hives included: postman (Almqvist), sixth-grade teacher (Almqvist again), mental-institution orderly (Carlstroem), record-store clerk (Danger), kindergarten teacher (Destruction) and counselor of troubled youth (Arson). But eventually, the touring paid off, the crowds got bigger (as did the paychecks), and being a Hive became a full-time job.

Around this time, Creation Records founder Alan McGee discovered the band on German television, liked what he saw and took the Hives under his wing, offering invaluable advice on how to break big in the U.K. “He was sort of a psychic when it came to the U.K. music industry,” says Almqvist. “He was

“We don’t jam. We come up with one little section here, come up with one little section there, try to put them together, they don’t fit, try to put something else with it, and sometimes we come up with such a good 30 first seconds and can’t come up with the other two and a half minutes for a year and a half. But once we’ve done it, we can play that song for 30 years and still like it.” —Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got you on this TV show—if you do that, you’ll sell 50,000 records by Monday.’ So, we did it, and sure enough, 50,000 records went. ‘Yeah, now we’ve got this new TV show—if you do it, you’ll be at 150,000 by next Friday,’ and he would always be right. It was pretty rad. I guess there’s the thing about the U.K. where they’ve been living on that island for such a long time that they become genetically similar, and therefore they’re easier to pinpoint.”

Almost two years after its release, Veni Vidi Vicious was officially blowing up worldwide.

And so they strapped on their horned helmets, pointed their punk-rock Viking ship with the giant fist on the front toward America and started rowing. Their reputation would precede them. Burning Heart was distributed in the U.S.

by Epitaph. Perhaps sensing big things were in

the offing, Epitaph sold its rights to Veni Vidi Vicious to Warner Bros. without asking the band.

To hear Arson tell it, “They were basically like, ‘We sold you guys to Warners, and it’ll be good.

We got loads of money, but we’re not going to give you any. But you can be happy about maybe selling more records.’”

Not so fast, said the Hives.

“Because we were from a punk background, we figured that if we’re going to be on a major label, it’s our decision and not yours,” says Almqvist. “We signed to an indie label, and if you sell us to a major label—one, it should be our decision; two, we should get money. Therefore, since our record contract was up, they didn’t think it was up, but we decided it was up, and we signed to Interscope, basically.”

For a lot of money. Reportedly, their tworecord deal was worth $10 million.

There were two reasons for the size of this

deal. First, though it’s hard to remember now, back at the turn of the century, the majors suddenly decided that rock was back, baby, and big money was being thrown at the likes of the Strokes, White Stripes and Vines. Secondly, it was personal. According to the band, Interscope chief Jimmy Iovine was having a whosedick-is-bigger contest with Warner Bros. CEO Tom Whalley, who had worked for Iovine prior to taking that job. Which is why, according to Almqvist, Warner Bros. stopped promoting Veni Vidi Vicious the moment the label learned the Hives had signed to Interscope, despite having sold a half million copies in just 10 weeks. Sales went from a gusher to a trickle. For all intents and purposes, Veni Vidi Vicious, arguably one of the greatest garage-punk albums of all time, was dead in the water. Killed out of spite by corporate hissyfittery/douchebaggery.

And then the label sued the Hives for breach

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the Hives

“Punk rock in our town was pretty primitive. We used an old lamp for a cymbal stand. We’d use lids for cymbals. The snare drum had no snares, so we just tuned it really high, threw some screws inside so it would rattle. Whenever somebody would break a string, we’d have to wait until the weekend so somebody’s parents could drive them to the big city and buy strings.” —Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist of contract. “There was a lot of numbers thrown around, and there was a lot of new Nirvana, yada yada yada, so they were suing us for basically what Nirvana made when they put out Nevermind,” says Almqvist. “It was unrealistic. They had no case. We didn’t win, but it was settled for a measly little shit sum.”

Returning to Sweden, they decided to fuck with the recipe. “We were listening to a lot of Kraftwerk and Devo,” says Arson. “Basically we wanted to make an album of punk rock as played by robots. For better or for worse, that’s what we did. The record company was like, ‘This is the record that’s going to save rock ‘n’ roll for eternity.’

And we were like, ‘OK, that’s a lot of pressure.’”

When Tyrannosaurus Hives didn’t become a multi-million-selling blockbuster, the blame game commenced. “They just didn’t come up with the songs,” Iovine told the L.A. Times.

“They thought people were just responding to

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the attitude in their shows, and it was never just that. But I’m not giving up. I’ve already spoken to them, and they know what they need to do.”

“That’s not what he told us when we played him the record,” counters Almqvist. “I still think to this day that there’s some really cool stuff on it. We do sound really frantic, and it was a weird time for us because we had just been through that whole lawsuit thing, and we were pretty paranoid and frantic. I can hear it in the record.”

Be that as it may, the Hives were ready to play ball with the music biz: big-name producers, opening-slot arena tours, shaking hands and kissing babies, whatever it would take. For the follow-up, a much more ambitious album was planned.

“We realized that just being the Hives to the 10th power, just basically taking the Hives as far as it could go on the Tyrannosaurus Hives album—tighter, faster, shorter songs and all of

that sort of thing—was kind of a dead-end street or crawling up your own ass,” says Almqvist. “It gets really tight in there. So, we decided that whatever we could do to break that path would be good. From the time we put out Tyrannosaurus Hives to when we put out The Black And White Album, industry-wide record sales had probably dropped by a third. By the time we release the next record, it’s going to drop by another third, if not more. So, we decided that maybe this is the last big-budget rock record that anybody makes.

We’re also sort of intrigued by rock bands going disco, like ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ by Queen or ‘Miss You’ by the Rolling Stones or “I Was Made For Loving You” by KISS—like these sort of songs that kind of make you cringe a little bit, but you like them if you have three beers.”

Hip-hop producers Timbaland and Pharrell Williams were brought in to work on tracks for the “black” side of the album, but a planned collaboration with Andre 3000, whose “Hey Ya” was reportedly inspired by the Hives, didn’t happen. “He was more into working on his acting career at that point,” says Almqvist. Dennis Herring, who helmed Modest Mouse’s breakout Good News For People Who Love Bad News, was brought in to produce the “white” side of the album. There was some friction between the band members, who were sticklers for being on time, and Herring, who, by his own admission, had a much more casual relationship with the clock.

To make matters worse, Herring’s methods for getting top-notch performances out of bands he works with didn’t much jibe with the Hives.

“I think he was trying to play a lot of psychological games, like producer games with us,” says Almqvist. “It maybe could’ve worked if it wasn’t for the fact that we actually talk to each other. Like he would say one thing to one band member, then a different thing to another. He did that maybe because he thought it was going to psychologically trick us into making a great album, which I guess is a lot of producers’ idea of how to make an album. Basically we’d just switch to Swedish, and he’d have no chance. Like, ‘What are you gonna do now?’”

The resulting The Black And White Album wound up costing $700,000 to make. To promote the LP, the band agreed to take a seemingly implausible opening slot on a Maroon 5 tour— implausible only until Almqvist sells it to you.

“We had a great time,” he says. “We wanted to play to a crowd that wouldn’t know what hit them. On the Tyrannosaurus tour, we were just playing to our own fans; basically, we felt like we walked up onstage and had already won every night. It started to become sort of a problem for us, who were used to being the underdog or feeling like we had to fight for something. A lot of the Maroon 5 crowd was 15-year-old girls and their moms, and convincing them to like badass rock ‘n’ roll seemed like a really great challenge to us, and it was also really exciting because basically they were startled in the first few songs, and then at the end they were really getting into it, which was really cool. We love rock ‘n’ roll so much that we want to give it to everybody.”

Still, even if Maroon 5’s babysitter fanbase

was won over, it didn’t necessarily translate into album sales. Black And White barely broke the 500,000 mark, impressive for indie punk, but a non-starter by major-label standards. Almqvist says, possibly with some exaggeration, that Interscope gave up on the record when it didn’t blow up after two weeks. To counter the label’s lack of promotion, the Hives said yes to something they had always refused to do: allow their music to be used in commercials.

“We had turned down tens of millions of dollars in advertising money,” says Almqvist. “But our manager convinced us that was the only thing we could do in order to keep our record afloat, and it worked really well.”

Good for the Hives, perhaps, who made damn fine money touring the album globally for two years, but not so good for Interscope, which elected not to exercise its option for a third album. The Hives were back where they started, albeit with a large global fanbase: older, wiser, a little broker but somehow even cockier. On the road is where they make their bones, and albums are less a cash cow than a raison d’tour. Rock the planet and get paid handsomely for doing it.

“We love it, and we are fortunate enough to be almost the same level all over the world,” says Arson. “We can go to Australia and play, we can go to Chile and play, we can go to North America and Canada and all of Europe.”

“Last record we went to South America for the first time, and that’s amazing,” says Almqvist. “They’re waiting for us by the hundreds at airports, and there’s thousands of kids

at the shows.”

“The only problem is we can’t do it all at the fucking same time,” says Arson. “I mean, it’s a nice problem to have.”

Arson waves away the suggestion that they borrow a page from Coachella and send hologram Hives around the world: “I still don’t know what I think of hologram Tupac.”

Of course not, nobody does. Now, the machines? They know exactly what they think of it: The beginning is near.

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ater in the evening, the Hives play a “secret show” for press, music-biz types and super fans at the tiny, 500-person capacity Webster Hall Studio. Message: The Hives are back in business—the business, that is, of kicking motherfucking ass. The place is sweaty and packed to the gills, and there is palpable excitement in the room as the Hives take the stage in their top hats and tails and proceed to rip New York City a new one. All wink-and-nudge bluster and faux-egotism, the Hives may not be an arena-rock band, but they sure play one onstage.

“This stage is not big enough for my ego,” says Almqvist, gesturing to the postage-stamp-sized floor before doffing his top hat and jumping into the crowd as one of the greatest live bands on the planet kicks off a sweaty, hour-long set.

Almqvist demands that the audience give as good as it gets. “Silence is not on the guest list,” he deadpans, and judging from the high-decibel cheers and applause that punctuates the end of every song, silence didn’t buy tickets, either. N

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Long influenced by the Chicago blues, the band paid a visit to Muddy Waters’ club the Checkerboard Lounge in Chicago to see the legendary bluesman perform. It didn’t take long before the band were joining him on stage.

Now, restored from the original footage and with sound mixed and mastered by Bob Clearmountain, this amazing blues night is being made available in an official release for the first time.

A rare snowy day in Nashville, Tennessee set the stage for an even rarer event – an intimate concert by rock icon Robert Plant at the War Memorial Auditorium. Performing with his new, Grammy-nominated group aptly titled the Band of Joy – Plant played both Led Zeppelin classics and new songs that continue to have an impact on the music scene today.

AVAILABLE NOW on DVD

AVAILABLE NOW on DVD

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AESOP ROCK p. 46 dirty projectors p. 48 english beat p. 50 gaslight anthem p. 51 glen hansard p. 52

Fiona Apple

Words With Friend Fiona Apple’s stripped-down return was worth the long wait

T

here is thrill enough in just hearing Fiona Apple’s nimble voice

s ony

on tape again; it’s been seven long years since her last album, the odd, beautiful Extraordinary Machine. And it certainly helps that The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver Of The Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do (there goes the word count) is beguiling and brilliant. Apple’s particular brand of musical swagger is one that’s been sorely missed—few can match her heady blend of supreme control and near-feral unpredictability. When her voice jumps and howls, and also when it croons and fades, she wields tremendous power. There is no better example than the opener, “Every Single Night,” a song that oscillates between delicate verses and a whooping, warrior-like chorus. It’s a thrilling opening statement and an immediate reminder of the wily, innate musicality of Apple’s work.

That dynamism is key to the magic of The Idler Wheel.

On songs such as “Regret” and “Daredevil,” Apple quivers with rage before reeling herself back in; on the latter, she wails, “Look at me/I’m all the fishes in the sea.” Her mania is exquisite. Another standout is the bleak, bracing love song “Werewolf,” on which she sings, “We could still sup-

photo by Lionel Deluy

The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver Of The Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do

port each other/All we’ve got to do is avoid each other.”

It’s an ode to the magnetism of bad relationships that closes with the wonderful line, “There’s nothing wrong when a song ends in a minor key.”

Compared to Extraordinary Machine, with its bells, whistles and pop-cabaret quirks, Idler Wheel feels rela-

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reviews tively spare. The vocals, piano and idiosyncratic percussion are presented with minimal adornment. Although many of the frills have the been stripped, that earlier album’s buoyancy and rhythmic zip remain on tracks like “Valentine” and “Anything We Want,” a beautiful palimpsest of percussion and piano.

Despite the production team’s clever thrift (or perhaps because of it), Idler Wheel still feels incredibly rich. Peculiar and pretty and angry and sweet all at once, it’s a moving target that seems to morph anew upon every listen. Of course, that’s mostly thanks to Apple’s stunning contralto, an instrument so singular and expressive that it’s downright rejuvenating. No one else sounds like this.

For an artist notorious for her scattered and erratic public persona, this album serves as a bold reminder that Fiona Apple still matters. It feels like she was born to create her strange, gorgeous songs. And we were made to wait for them.

—Lee Stabert

“Doveman” Bartlett, v (Bond’s preferred pronoun) lays bare selections by Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, Mark Eitzel, Brecht & Weill and others in an unaffected, disarming tenor.

Many of the themes take on love, loss and

identity (two are about prostitutes: the Doors’ “Alabama Song,” Eitzel’s “Patriot’s Heart”).

Bush’s “The Kick Inside” and Mitchell’s “Let The Wind Carry Me” represent the bohemian utopia that people like Bond seek out for redemption, and Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” catalogs

Boban I Marko Markovic Orkestar

Golden Horns Piranha

They’ll toot their own Do you like to party? Fuck yes, you do. Who doesn’t? Well, no one rocks a party harder than a Balkan brass band. For proof, check out the alcohol-drenched, hallucinatory films from famed Serbian director Emir Kusturica. Faceblasting trumpet lines stagger through the rural dirt roads, while belly-bouncing tuba bass lines bump along the road. Musicians tumble to and fro, crashing about in chaos. This is the sound (and sight!) of a hardcore Balkan brass band like Boban I Marko Markovic, which has been featured in Kusturica’s films.

Named for the famous father/son team that led the band, the Markovics are no slaves to tradition, but they are happy to mix it up, bringing hip hop, Euro club beats, Latin soul and some good Old World fun to the table. Golden Horns is a best-of album put together by Balkan beatologist DJ Robert Soko, and it serves as an excellent introduction to the power and eclecticism of this veteran Balkan brass band.

—Devon Leger

Justin Vivian Bond

Silver Wells

Whimsy Music

An album of magical imagination

While pop music often flirts with gender identity, trans performers usually aren’t the ones who get to flirt in public. Gender warrior/writer/ performer Justin Vivian Bond may change all that. Silver Wells, unlike 2011’s Dendrophile, is a collection of covers inspired by Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays. Backed only by pianist Thomas

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Hip Hop Abstract

No bones about it: Aesop Rock still brings the strange

I

an Matthias “Aesop Rock” Bavitz has been

at the forefront of serious underground hip hop and alterna-rap since there was a fore to be fronted. Aesop hung out with brother-in-harm Blockhead at Boston U., was Aesop Rock one of El-P’s original Def Jux signings until the label went Skelethon black in 2010, wound up on Rhymesayers, worked with his more-dastardly doppelgänger Cage and had a very well-docRhymesayers umented nervous breakdown before he came close to hitting 30. That’s underground.

As with its predecessors, Skelethon finds the stealth-drawling rapper swallowing his wise-as-his-namesake words, then spitting out more quixotic phrases and racing, racy syllables that Busta Rhymes might if he was on a hot martini of Red Bull, moonshine and methamphetamine. This time, though, Aesop is responsible for his sixth album’s production, a first for the Rock-er.

With the usual lyrical abstraction as his keys to the kingdom, Aesop curls his forked tongue like a snake and brings forth the fire and brimstone of the upcoming apocalypse on “1,000 O’Clock,” and very possibly the next Armageddon after that on “Zero Dark Thirty.” Aesop finds the company of an equally alternative artisan, weird folk-dozy Kimya Dawson, and uses her as an arch Cher to his histrionic Sonny (the pair has a full album of duets entitled Hokey Fright under collective name the Uncluded due this autumn), as well as teaming with indie art-hop fops Hanni El Khatib, Rob Sonic and the Grimace Federation, making a cheerfully dada-like mess out of the darn-near mainstream ardor of “Racing Stripes.” As if. —A.D. Amorosi

photo by Chrissy Piper

its disappointments. Mitchell’s lyric “She don’t like my kick-pleat skirt/She don’t like my eyelids painted green/She don’t like me staying up late in my high-heeled shoes/Living for that rock ‘n’ roll dancing scene” takes on a deeper meaning when sung by someone in trans America. —Sara Sherr

DIIV

Oshin Captured Tracks

More like vibey sketches than a finished album

It’s easy to fall under the spell of Brooklyn’s DIIV when you’re in the crowd and the band is playing live. Fronted by charismatic Beach Fossils guitarist Z. Cole Smith and rhythmically anchored by powerhouse drummer Colby Hewitt (late of Smith Westerns), the psych foursome storms the stage, tears across an impossibly energetic set and swiftly exits while you’re collecting your breath. Its performances over the past year have generated much anticipation for DIIV’s debut full-length, but Oshin doesn’t connect in the same way.

Take “Human”—it’s a case study in less-isless. Guitar figures reminiscent of New Order’s Movement jangle and jostle, but they never develop, and lyrics remain minimal, bathed in reverb and buried in the mix. This carries across the collection; “Wait” is so repetitive that its relatively short runtime feels like an eternity. The few points where DIIV succeeds in breaking through are when it operates in less streamlined fashion. “Follow” radiates fantastic Radio Dept. vibes, swishing back and forth in dynamic layers of lead guitar, atmospheric accompaniment and an unpredictable structure. This is the path DIIV should chase further.

Otherwise, the quartet will remain the janglepop equivalent of a jam band. —John Vettese

lection with real sonic depth. Writing songs with fellow guitar-slinger/road veteran Chuck Prophet helps keep things grounded and fairly unpretentious, but the real pressure has always remained on Escovedo’s storied ability to entertain and engage. Occasionally clichéd and often anthemic, this is an old-fashioned populist rock record that grows steadily with repeated listening. Go team! —Mitch Myers

Eternal Summers

Correct Behavior Kanine

In search of the perfect wave

This indie-pop panopticon, LP number two for the Virginia trio, grants glimpses at any number of hook-beholden subgenres, from C86 simplicity to shrouds of MBV shoegaze. “Girls In The City” rides its Peter Hook bass line straight into the Loveless crush of “Heaven And Hell.”

The pared-down post-punk of “I Love You” nods to Futureheads and Talulah Gosh, where “It’s Easy” steers toward the shimmering dream pop of 23-era Blonde Redhead.

Mostly, Eternal Summers’ crisp post-punk and hazy noise-pop exist as neighbors, rarely crossing each other’s yards. They make for nice counterparts, too. But on “Millions,” a confident collision of the band’s opposing instincts, a near-motorik beat buttressed by Wire-like riffing and warm feedback swells serves Nicole Yun’s sweet vocal naturally.

When she sings, “I’ve got to shake this shell/ And break it into millions,” it’s the sound of a band coming into its own and making an essential summer jam in the process.

—Bryan C. Reed

Chris Forsyth

Kenzo Deluxe

Northern Spy

Alejandro Escovedo

Big Station Fantasy

The people’s champion

Alejandro Escovedo: dark rock journeyman or the next big thing? From his humble punk beginnings with the Nuns through a solo career that’s spanned 20 years, Escovedo has been grooming himself for a bigger spotlight, which he certainly deserves. Always an emotive singer and often an inspired songwriter, Escovedo hooked up with the Springsteen organization a few years back and has been striving to bring his message to a larger world stage. There’s been an effort to make more mainstream records as a result of his rising profile, but Escovedo’s ongoing decision to work with legendary producer Tony Visconti reveals a true rock ‘n’ roll heart.

Echoes of glam-addled Bowie and other flashbacks of ’70s-rock architecture frame Big Station, resulting in an entertaining col-

Hard knock lifer

Chris Forsyth has taken to heart the advice often given to young authors: writing about what you know. The title and most of the track names on his third album, which he performs completely solo on electric guitar, refer to the Philadelphia neighborhood where he lives. Kensington is the sort of rough-around-the-edges place that inspires a perverse pride amongst its residents, and that spirit shines through in the begrimed lyricism of the reverb-encrusted “Boston Street Lullaby II,” which sounds like one of Roy Montgomery’s epic fantasias refracted through a broken beer bottle.

“The First Ten Minutes Of Cocksucker Blues” is the one tune that takes you farther than a brisk walk from home. Named after Robert Frank’s suppressed documentary of the Rolling Stones’ 1972 tour, its sauntering gate and chewable tonalities will reward repeat visits more richly than the movie’s images of decadent partying. —Bill Meyer

Friends

Manifest!

Fat Possum

The One Where …

You Know

When Brooklyn quintet Friends started putting out tracks last year, even the most carefully worded Google search would inevitably bring up information about L.A. one-hit wonders the Rembrandts. Friends’ full-length debut features the best of those early singles, including the irresistible “I’m His Girl.” The slinky and sassy track is at once playful and mature, though few other songs on Manifest! manage that balance as skillfully.

Singer Samantha Urbani’s tendency to slip into a sub-Lovefoxxx whine (“Sorry”) is the easiest target, but the bigger problem is the faceless nature of most of the LP. Friends lose themselves when they try too hard to sound like the Ting Tings, Cults or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which they do too often here. Manifest! picks up toward the end, with the mid-tempo “Proud/Ashamed” and freak-funk workout “Mind Control,” showing how strong Friends can be when they drop the posing and do their own thing. —Eric Schuman

Golden Retriever

Occupied With The Unspoken Thrill Jockey

A strange puppy, indeed Since you seldom see a duo consisting of synthesizers and bass clarinet, Golden Retriever already has a head start on uniqueness. The fourth release from Jonathan Sielaff (ex-AU) and Matt Carlson (ex-Parenthetical Girls) features four improvised pieces of washedout drum machines, vintage Moogs and fuzzstacked melodies that probably have as much in common with contemporary classical as they do rock or pop.

Opener (and apt self-description) “Serene Velocity” begins with a cluster of looped alarms before unfurling its full-blossomed ambience over the next nine minutes. Carlson’s synth layers create textures, while Sielaff’s electronically altered woodwind hums above. Occupied With The Unspoken plays as a chopped and staggered descendant of Fripp & Eno’s Evening Star, whose beauty is buried beneath a thicket of alien noises and reverb. If anything, Golden Retriever is trying to push the bass clarinet to new places, and for that, it should be applauded. —Bryan Bierman

Hacienda

Shakedown Collective Sounds

Auerbach associates tighten up on LP number three

Hacienda makes it look easy. The Texas band’s third album is an unfussy affair, moving confi-

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reviews dently with the same loose, unfussy professionalism that made stacks of great classicrock LPs, bearing names like the Beatles, Beefheart, Ventures and T.Rex. You can’t fake chemistry, and this quartet of three brothers and a cousin has it in spades. That’s what makes the Bolan boogie of “Let Me Go” as effortless as the R&B groove forming the undercurrent of “You Just Don’t Know.”

Hacienda’s previous album, 2010’s Big Red & Barbacoa, owed heavy debts to Beach Boys pop and Black Keys blues rock. (The latter comparison is particularly fitting, given that Dan Auerbach produced all three Hacienda records, and the San Antonians backed Auerbach’s solo tour.) Here, though, guitarist Dante Schwebel cedes more space to Abraham Villanueva’s dense beds of keys, bringing a fuller, more textured sound that makes big hooks even bigger. —Bryan C. Reed

Susanna Hoffs

Someday

Welk Music Group

Heroine takes a bow

Susanna Hoffs opens this album by channeling her inner George Harrison on the charming “November Sun,” a catchy tune that’s as bright as its title implies, with a nursery-rhyme simplicity that instantly embeds it in your mind. The Beatles influence is also evident on “Picture Me,” a country/pop confection with “Strawberry Fields”-inspired horn fills, and “True,” a ballad as sweet as a McCartney love song, with swooning strings set off by a clanging electric guitar.

Hoffs wrote most of these tunes with Andrew Brassell, a Nashville guitarist who shares her penchant for airy pop melodies. “One Day” sounds like a girl-group hit, but it’s brighter and sunnier, with chiming guitars and a lush melody masking the implied broken heart. Hoffs sings in her usual sweet, understated style, which is perfect for these pop tunes, but the songs would have more emotional impact with a bit of grit to complement the honey. —j. poet

Hot Chip

In Our Heads Domino

The brains and the looks

On their fifth album and first since splitting with longtime home DFA, the British electro-poppers in Hot Chip further indulge their penchant for erudite electro-pop.

Their first record to date cut in a proper studio, In Our Heads sees them take their craft to its most dizzying heights yet, teasing at a reprise of the steel-drum-led euphoria that marked 2010’s One Life Stand on soaring opener “Motion Sickness” before changing gears for a series of inspired, if unexpected, R&B-leaning slow jams.

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A Bountiful Harvest?

A little off the top would’ve served Dirty Projectors’ prolific exploration well

W

hen most bands recount an album’s

creative process, they’ll often talk about how they came out of writing sessions with more Dirty Projectors songs than needed. From there, they’ll explain how they sepaSwing Lo Magellan rated wheat from chaff in selecting the best of the bunch. According to the band’s label, Dirty Projectors main dude David domino Longstreth wrote 70 songs for Swing Lo Magellan. However, with time, space and attention spans being limited, some fattrimming needed to be done. Listening here, however, it seems like Longstreth treated all 70 songs like his proverbial children and decided to keep parts of everything instead of excising most and keeping few.

Each song is its own mixed bag. “Offspring Are Blank” crosses a cotton-plantation hymnal and gritty ’70s stadium rock; “About To Die” possesses a math-y rhythm falling squarely between innovative and bizarre, but the string-driven middle eight sticks out like a bulbous sore thumb; the rickety guitar lines and jingle-esque backing vocals on “Just From Chevron” straddle Maps & Atlases, Minus The Bear remixes and Dutch art rock.

When Dirty Projectors hit the nail on the head, it’s like power-prog indie pop ground up by Oxes, Zappa and Syd Barrett. When they’re off, like on “Dance For You” and “See What She Seeing,” which combines a kitchen sink of styles and sounds that don’t add up, Swing Lo Magellan sounds forced and cluttered. Dirty Projectors’ bouncing between and borrowing from disparate genres may have them as indie/outsider successors to classic Talking Heads and Bowie weirdness, but it also highlights a dearth of skill when it comes to self-editing. —Kevin Stewart-Panko

The quintet’s creative core of Joe Goddard and Alexis Taylor have long won comparisons to the Pet Shop Boys, another pair of markedly British dance-instigators, though they’ve never cut quite as close to Tennant and Lowe as they do here. Leadoff single “Night And Day” and “Flutes,” a pair of back-to-back highlights that

double as In Our Heads’ best tracks, showcase the likeness best, seamlessly blending Hot Chip’s newfound clubby tendencies with its snarkiest songwriting to date (rhyming “I don’t got no ABBA” with “I like Zapp, not Zappa”) and some of the most delightfully cheeky synth lines this side of West End. —Möhammad Choudhery

photo by Jason Frank Rothenberg

Joe Jackson

Michael Kiwanuka

Razor & Tie

Cherrytree

Swinging for the fences

Full of sound and fury …

The Duke

Joe Jackson is no stranger to the foolhardy overreach, career-wise, but this Duke Ellington covers record is actually much closer to the erstwhile punker’s wheelhouse than you might think. For one thing, Jackson takes the opportunity to consolidate many of his last three decades’ stylistic detours: various shades of jazz, but also Latin, world music and serious “classical” composition. Plus, he tipped his swing-era-loving hand way back in 1981 with a prescient Louis Jordan tribute, Jumpin’ Jive.

Like that album, The Duke spotlights Jackson the entertainer; here, he plays ringmaster of an impressively motley circus boasting Regina Carter, Christian McBride, ?uestlove, Steve Vai and Sharon Jones. It’s easy to lose sight of Jackson through the crowd, but his sprightly pianism is on display throughout.

The rather unimaginative song selection is enlivened by inventive medleys (who knew “A Train” could nestle so neatly inside “Beginning To See The Light”?), stylistic reinterpretations (a sambafied, Portuguese “Perdido” morphs into “Satin Doll” à la “Steppin’ Out,” glockenspiel and all) and playfully arranged instrumentals (“The Mooche” goes musette). Capping it all is a lovably knuckleheaded “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”—duetted with Iggy Pop, no less—that splits the difference between Raymond Scott, Cut Chemist and Cozy Cole.

—K. Ross Hoffman

Stevie Jackson

(I Can’t Get No) Stevie Jackson Banchory

Tons of pun Belle & Sebastian fanatics have probably familiarized themselves with (I Can’t Get No) Stevie Jackson by now. The B&S guitarist issued his first solo album online late last year, but it’s only now seeing a physical release.

Plucking ’70s folk and ’60s Britpop, it’s also what you’d exact from a solo LP by the guitarist from Belle & Sebastian, even if it’s not exactly memorable.

Written over the course of several years, the album enlists the help of Jackson’s B&S bandmates and friends (like the ones in the New Pornographers). It’s a lighthearted and breezy collection, with flashes of wit like “Try Me” (“I’ve got pills, and I’m looking for thrills, at the same time I wanna start a family”), and the quasi-rapped, poor man’s Ben Folds act on “Just, Just So To The Point” is the only time Jackson strays from the rest of the album’s likability. But for all the hooks and hummable moments, none of them sticks around after the song is over. —Matt Sullivan

Home Again

As big-voiced singers go, the highest cadre in today’s music world is populated almost entirely by ladies. Personally, I blame Stephen Malkmus and the late Ian Curtis for making deadpan intonations the norm for male vocalists over the past few decades.

U.K. newcomer Michael Kiwanuka’s voice is certainly an arresting one, and it’s the driving force behind his debut album.

Coming on the heels of a handful of 2011 EPs, Home Again features several of those first tracks, offering some familiarity to early adopters. Kiwanuka’s songs, especially “Tell Me A Tale” and “Bones,” play to his soulful pipes, often echoing greats like Otis Redding and Bill Withers. With appropriately retro production from the Bees’ Paul Butler, Home Again is a woodwind- and string-swept delight on the sonic front. Unfortunately, too many of Kiwanuka’s songs veer into a generic “feel-good” (read: Jack Johnson) formula, making Home Again an album with a powerful voice, but little to say. —Eric Schuman

Eleni Mandell

I Can See The Future Yep Roc

Traveling L.A.’s dark highways of love

I Can See The Future will sneak up on you. Given Eleni Mandell’s velvety singing and sophisticated arrangements, it’s easy to be swept away by the sparkling musical tone. Filled with hope and good will by the story of love descending on a couple on “Magic Summertime”? Just listen up and, with barely a minute left, hear Mandell intone, “It was just like a fairy tale/When we were introduced/How our eyes like a flash filled with light/I knew in my heart/We would both avoid the truth.” Or consider the cleverness of “Everything he said, he was wrong/Or else he quoted Bob Dylan” from “Crooked Man.” Both sun and sinister alleys seem to inform this L.A.-based songwriter. As she meanders through disappointment and hope, with pedal steel, accordion and strings focusing emotion, Mandell channels Nilsson and Newman to make a lasting impression. —Jill LaBrack

Múm

Early Birds Morr

Odds and … odds

This collection of rare, forgotten and presumed-lost numbers is a triptych of the precious Icelanders’ journey from downtempo glitchcore kids to the delicate composers of spooky electro-acoustic lullabies we know today. The first half of Early Birds is almost gamelike, as tracks like “Bak Þitt Er Sem Rennibraut” and “Insert Coin” could double as themes to

eight-bit video games, though tracks like “Póst Póstmaður” and “Glerbrot” pack enough clicks and blips to confound even the deftest Morse coder. (To say nothing of the remix of “Bak Þitt” and its mid-song hair-metal guitar breakdown.)

The second half of Early Birds makes its way toward atmospheric, ponderous fare that draws on the same electronic palette, but it derives its intrigue from moodier twists. “Mum Spilar La La La” would be the theme to some as-yet-undeveloped Icelandic interpretation of Twin Peaks, while “0,000Orð” (“0,000 words”) is a quietly ponderous tone poem on the power of stillness.

Disjointed, yes, but Early Birds is a fascinating document all the same. —Brian Howard

Om

Advaitic Songs Drag City

Om goes even farther out

Founded by bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Hakius (both former members of Sleep), Om maintained its austere bass/ drums arsenal for the first three albums, creating uniquely minimalistic, post-Sabbath metal. But on 2009’s God Is Good, drummer Emil Amos (Grails) replaced Hakius, and additional musicians entered the Steve Albini-recorded sessions to play tambura, flute and cello. Om was sonically reborn; Cisneros occasionally slammed his pedals, but the acoustic instruments made Om more tranquil and spiritual, less heavy. (There were even handclaps!)

Advaitic Songs continues this expansion, adding some ominously ecstatic female chants and many Eastern-gazing motifs. But old and new are better integrated here, which is most evident on “State Of Non-Return”; a tambura drone leads to Cisneros’ overblown riff and monochrome vocals, with Amos riding the cymbal. This classic Om sound perfectly segues with the twisting key and string interplay of the song’s last two minutes. Om’s metal militia might be miffed, but Advaitic Songs shows the band musically reaching for extremely mystical heights. —Elliott Sharp

Passion Pit

Gossamer

Columbia

Regression to the tween

“Take A Walk,” Passion Pit’s first single in three years, isn’t likely to move the Boston band’s college-rock base or the buses of fans amassed since 2009 smash Manners who’ve yet to take an entrance exam.

Unrelated to the synth-smeared show closers that laid siege to its last LP, Gossamer’s opener is a clumsy climb through the deadwood of Michael Angelakos’ family tree (dried-up pension funds?), ordered by a hammerhead beat that pounds like a migraine.

On Manners’ twin emotional dynamos, “Moth’s Wings” and “Sleepyhead,” Passion Pit triangulates indie introspection, club-floor ca-

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reviews tharsis and boy-band preciousness like few others, led by a terrified inner child who sings like his hair is on fire. As the squealing promise of songs like “I’ll Be Alright” and “Cry Like A Ghost” keeps getting squelched by blunted, bloated hooks, the problem becomes clear: This wet blanket is a sheer bore. —Noah Bonaparte Pais

Mike Patton & The Ictus

Laborintus II Ipecac

Lunatic fringe Owning your own label has its benefits. For Mike Patton, it means recording whatever the hell you want, mainstream be damned. Sure, he’s occasionally flirted with accessibility since Faith No More, but for every Tomahawk or Peeping Tom record, there’s been his series of experimental, Italian-obsessed solo albums. The latest hears Patton teaming with a Belgian orchestra and a Dutch chamber choir for a three-part recital of Italian composer Luciano Berio’s Laborintus II, which in turn is based on the poetry of Edoardo Sanguineti.

(And if this means anything to you, condolences on your crippling arts-education debt.)

In a nutshell, the choir and orchestra mash up classical, opera, jazz and vocal histrionics, while Patton reads Italian poetry, a listening experience akin to spending a night in an insane asylum. Admittedly, it’s hard not to respect Patton’s creative adventurousness, but sweet Jesus, the gulf between admiration and enjoyment of one of his projects has never been so wide. —Matt Ryan

Peaking Lights

Lucifer

Mexican Summer

Evil is a point of view

Indra Dunis and Aaron Coyes’ third album mostly picks up the threads that last year’s 936 left tied in iridescent bows.

Electronic sounds predominate; one kind of reggae or another informs infrastructure on most tracks; elements of krautrock and psychedelia add color, buoyancy and narrative detail to the rippling dub-pop streams Dunis’ disembodied voice drifts over like smoke.

But Peaking Lights also incorporates new moves—sometimes dramatically, as with the minimalist (think: Steve Reich and Terry Riley) vibe of instrumental opener “Moonrise.” On the longer, poppier selections that form the album’s main body, the duo’s progress is more subtle, but equally pervasive. Although the Ghost of Motown Triumphs Past rarely leaves the scene for long, it hews to the shadows and changes constantly, hitting its apotheosis in a Marvin Gaye mask on “Hi Lo”—both Lucifer’s standout track and the only one to feature their new kid/stated inspiration provider’s accomplished gurgling. —Rod Smith

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The Beat Is On An exhaustive English Beat boxed set reminisces on ska envelope-pushers

I

nitially lost in all the 2 Tone posturing that

accompanied the English Beat’s 1980 debut was how thoroughly I Just Can’t Stop It’s top-flight songwritThe English Beat ing transcended ska’s limited potential. And fittingly, of the The Complete Beat three studio albums that form the essential core of the fiveCD The Complete Beat boxed set, the first benefits the most Shout! Factory from a thoughtful remastering. Its low end is punchier, the lilting vocals of David Wakeling, the velvety-smooth toasting of Ranking Roger and the teasing, rubbery runs of seasoned saxophonist Saxa subtly drawn out of what was once a tight, tinny mix.

If I Just Can’t Stop It was a fully evolved statement, its sleepy 1981 follow-up, Wha’ppen, sounds more like a group jogging in place on tired legs—one in search of inspiration outside ska’s frenzied rimshots and walking bass lines. The Beat found what it was looking for on 1982’s Special Beat Service. A varied and soulful last gasp, it finally got the band on track commercially in the U.S., even as its shrinking U.K. audience balked at the polite pop attitude of tracks like “I Confess” and “Save It For Later.”

Among this set’s wealth of extras, serious fans will appreciate the sessions recorded with John Peel for BBC Radio 1 and the highlights culled from a 1982 performance at Boston’s Opera House. Less interesting are the dated 12-inch dub versions of some of the band’s more popular singles. And for a more casual introduction to the group’s myriad charms, there’s the new Keep The Beat best-of comp. —Hobart Rowland

photo by Adrian Boot

A Place To Bury Strangers

Worship

Dead Oceans

What comes around goes around—I’ll tell you why

Star Turn The pen and the axe are equally mighty on the Gaslight Anthem’s return to form The Gaslight Anthem

Handwritten

O

n 2008’s The ’59 Sound, New Jersey’s Gas-

light Anthem merged Bruce Springsteen’s rock ‘n’ roll romanticism with punk rock’s roughand-tumble velocity. Brian Fallon sang of old cars, of girls named Virginia and Mary, and, blatantly, of Springsteen and Tom Petty songs. It’s a great record, full of open-hearted stories and unabashed love for rock ‘n’ roll’s power to save souls, or at least provide escape from the workaday world. Fallon has the throaty growl of one weathered by experience, but The ’59 Sound was the sound of a young band relishing its influences.

That was Gaslight’s second album, and it made the band legions of fans, including Mr. Springsteen himself. On 2010’s American Slang, the group dialed back the punk rock, and the stories lacked the desperation and joy of its predecessor. Fallon’s subsequent diversion with the Horrible Crowes, last year’s Elsie, was moody and even more sedate.

Which brings us to Handwritten, which is loud and big—stadium big, major-label big—and although it has soft patches, much of it hurtles forward with welcomed urgency.

Credit producer Brendan O’Brien, whose work with both Springsteen and Pearl Jam must have put him at the top of Fallon’s wish list. The Springsteen roots still show in the “sha-la-la”s of “Here Comes My Man” and the “Because The Night”-like guitar solo of “Mulholland Drive,” but there’s a new dose of PJ and Soundgarden in “Keepsake” and “Too Much Blood.”

Handwritten’s songs are less character-driven, but still nostalgic for driving around with the radio on, for playing 45s, for faded jeans and carnival kisses. The ’59 Sound seems destined to be Gaslight’s high-water mark, but there are great songs here—“45,” “Here Comes My Man,” “Howl”—and, if Fallon has his way, they’ll get fists pumping in arenas and stadiums. —Steve Klinge Mercury/Island Def Jam

photo by Danny Clinch

Ah, the ’80s—once so maligned, now so loved by both those who lived it the first time around and those who weren’t even born. While we’re still waiting for Reagan’s economic trickledown theory to trickle down, the age of indulgence is making its mark in today’s music. For New York’s A Place To Bury Strangers and its third full-length, it’s the decade’s more abrasive sounds; imagine the first three Swans albums filtered through the Jesus And Mary Chain and classic Skinny Puppy. Then, there’s “Dissolved,” which borrows massively from Joy Division’s sparseness, reverb, glum vocals, single-note guitar melodies and stiff-upperlip drumming.

Worship makes solid use of driving pop and new-wave inspirations straight out of the sort of black-lit night club that doesn’t open until 2 a.m. and practically serves absinthe on tap. The layers of industrial noise offer scathing respite from the last couple years’ suffocating influx of ’80s-themed, electro-pop indie. —Kevin Stewart-Panko

Portable Sunsets

Mercy

Magical Properties

When the lights go out

Sound designer/installation artist Peter Segerstrom has quietly piled up a pretty extensive CV of events outside of bedroom techno: teaching at RISD, exhibiting at gallery shows with titles like Stuff That Doesn’t Matter But Really Does, that sort of thing. So this should give you an idea of what sorts of subtleties to expect from this LP. Segerstrom has the skills to develop his own software, but he doesn’t clobber people over the head Aphex Twin-style with it. Rather, he prefers to emit a moody haze over his productions, even singing over a handful of tracks (“Vux White Light,” “Clockswind”) and sampling acoustic instruments for added depth (“Guitar Plume”). Yes, Caribou may have beat him to it, but Segerstrom’s ambitions are tuned down somewhat. As long as you’re gliding peacefully on his wistful melodies and crunchy, atmospheric textures, that’s good enough for him, and it should be for modern-day easy IDM listeners as well. —Justin Hampton

Purity Ring

Shrines 4AD

Don’t break the oath

Megan James and Corin Roddick burst out into the world last year as Purity Ring, full-grown and seemingly out of nowhere (that’s no knock on their respective

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reviews hometowns of Montreal and Halifax), armed with a dazzling trio of songs that set the blogosphere alight almost immediately upon their release. The usual flurry of descriptors flew— witch house, trap‘n’B—but one stuck: future pop. Future because this was just the sort of music you’d expect to hear broadcast over the FM airwaves of the future; and pop because, well, they were so damn catchy.

Purity Ring makes good on the promise of those three songs (“Belispeak,” “Lofticries” and “Ungrithed”), all of which appear here in unchanged form. Contrast proves to be Purity Ring’s most winning asset, with the unsettling disparity between James’ delicate voice, her canny songwriting and Roddick’s nimble, meticulous production resulting in some of the album’s best moments on xx-nodding duet “Grandloves” and the spine-chilling “Obedear.” Although they rarely stray far from their now-familiarly icy aesthetic on Shrines, the decidedly captivating manner with which Purity Ring navigates said aesthetic makes for one of the most exciting debuts in recent memory. —Möhammad Choudhery

Laetitia Sadier

Silencio!

Drag City

Hardly bursting to announce itself

The hardest thing to come to grips with about Laetitia Sadier turning singer/songwriter is that she’s an individual. As the center of Stereolab, she upheld its egoless name, another part in a dazzlingly consistent machine. Suspiciously, you’d never know from the music that Silencio! isn’t Stereolab.

“Silent Spot” could be a Dots And Loops outtake, and the soul filigrees of Chemical Chords are echoed in the Vince Guaraldi piano-pounding exit to “The Rule Of The Game.”

But it’s less rigidly synthesized and more organic, breathable. The main difference is that Sadier never grooves nor drones, and her tunes just kind of sit and accumulate texture like dust bunnies—something lots of current singer/songwriters do. She gets away with it because her sound is one of a kind, and she’s mastered it. But contrary to the urgency of the title, Silencio! is more intermission than showstopper. —Dan Weiss

Silver Jews

Early Times Drag City

Protozoan lineup gets spastic with a tape deck

Prior to the arrival of the former Cassie Marrett and way before a pony got depressed, a trio of University of Virginia bros teamed up to marry feedback, velocity and pilsner-diluted bile. This initial iteration of the Silver Jews—Stephen

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Ever In Repose

Workaholic renaissance man Glen Hansard embraces fragility

A

fter 20 years of writing and recording with

wrist-slitting intensity, you’d think Glen Hansard would be ready to call it quits. Instead, he’s just getting his second wind, starting with the Broadway Glen Hansard success of Once, the new Swell Season documentary, two Rhythm And Repose songs on the Hunger Games soundtrack and the release of ANTIthis first solo album.

Rhythm And Repose doesn’t have a rock band, and it doesn’t need one. It’s got Hansard front and center, leading a tiny trio of downtown players who help him slow the beat, explore the full range of his tattered baritone, and cut to the bleeding heart of these 11 songs. The best of them, like “Philander” (anchored by its aching string section), the buoyant “Love Don’t Leave Me Waiting” (with its horn-driven Celtic soul) and “The Storm, It’s Coming” (weighted by a dragging, solitary piano pulse), speak volumes about hope and hopelessness, wishing and knowing, as they veer between rich romanticism and naked minimalism.

It helps that Hansard has been living in New York for the past year and a half, where he’s found the chamber players he’s needed to build this sound. And it helps that the production keeps the focus exactly where it should be: on the longing in his voice and the plainspoken intimacy of his guitar, gently pushing these songs forward one lovingly unloved note at a time. It’s given him a deeper, haunting sense of quiet that strips these melodies to their essential, fragile beauty, delivered with joy, grace and a wounded wisdom. —Kenny Berkowitz

Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich and mainstay David Berman—puked weaving, loose-laced songs into existence. Imperviously arrogant, free-associative and dryly sophomoric all at once, 1990’s “Dime Map Of The Reef” seven-inch and 1993’s The Arizona Record bear little resemblance to the bookish country/western and country rock Berman would later pursue with a passel of lineups.

Uniting these long-out-of-print classics, Early Times is the sound of budding talents com-

ing into their own: the ambling, Iran-obsessed blues of “SVM F.T. TROOPS,” the dragged-shoe dolor of “West S,” the manic tempo switcheroos and bruiser chants that comprise “I Love The Rights.” Evocative bursts of noise and youth abound everywhere, and there’s absolutely no reason not to succumb to them—even when the sentiments on offer are along the lines of “tough luck/can’t fuck.” This was where it all began. —Raymond Cummings

photo by Conor Masterson

Mindy Smith

Mindy Smith

Giant Leap/TVX

Giant leap is right

With a graceful voice, a writer’s eye for detail and a willingness to plumb crises of faith and self-worth, Mindy Smith is a disciple of singer/songwriters like

Rosanne Cash and Shawn Colvin, and of tradition-minded artists like Alison Krauss and Dolly Parton. Her self-titled fourth album (excluding a holiday collection) finds her stretching in new directions; it’s her least sedate, least coherent effort.

It whiplashes among comforting, quiet ruminations (“Everything Here Will Be Fine,” “Cure For Love”), twangy and moody mid-

tempo songs (“Take Me Back,” “Sober”) and unexpectedly aggressive blues-based power ballads (“Don’t Mind Me,” “When You’re Walking On My Grave”). Smith is least persuasive on the latter—her delicate voice sounds strident when fronting heavy electric guitars, and those scattered tracks break the spell that her more restrained songs easily cast.

—Steve Klinge

Way Yes

How Swede It Is

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives bow out at lower volume

T

hese Swedish heavyweights kick off their

sixth LP with the title track, an “I Write The Songs” (Google it, kids) declaration/manifesto—“We are the songs you learn to sing/We are the sound of everything/ The Soundtrack We’re here to make you feel alive/We are the ones who never Of Our Lives die”—that features a nifty, Stones-like grit as it fades. Four Throw It To The songs in, interestingly, they then ask, “Where’s The Rock” Universe (missing question mark aside), and listeners may be repeating Yep Roc that query throughout Throw It To The Universe. But while Universe is a fairly subdued affair, its quiet quality speaks volumes.

No tune stands out as catchy/hit-worthy as “Sister Surround,” from 2002’s Grammynominated Behind The Music, but Universe is a winningly retro trip through the band’s British Invasion/garage/psych influences. The urgent, Moody Blues-y “If Nothing Lasts Forever” and the beautiful jangle of “You Are The Beginning” prove that the band doesn’t have to crank it up to kick ass, and “Busy Land” is a pure, pre-Tommy-era Who treat.

“Faster Than The Speed Of Light” is Universe’s centerpiece; a too-short-at-3:45-butoh-so-sweet blast, its concluding crescendo of soaring riffs and clamorous drums nearsymphonic and completely amazing. Just be warned that you may wear out the repeat function on your music delivery system of choice playing this track as often as it deserves.

Circling back to that opening mission statement, its concluding line, repeated twice, is “We are the soundtrack of your life.” Good thing, as Universe at its finest makes a world without the Soundtrack Of Our Lives seem just a tad less appealing. —Matt Hickey

photo by Fredrik Wennerlund

Walkability Lefse

Catching Fiya

tUnE-yArDs’ self-recorded 2009 debut, Bird-Brains, made waves for several reasons: It’s a peculiar-sounding LP, with aboriginal vocals and an unusual back story.

But it was one song, the throat-opening, album-closing “Fiya,” that portended brilliance from Merrill Garbus. Sometimes one song is all it takes.

This self-recorded second EP from Columbus, Ohio’s Way Yes has its “Fiya” moment early on. The compact, island-hopping title track breezes by quickly, adorable but almost unnoticed. It’s a mere appetizer for “Important,” whose Tarzan drum line demands a double take—orbital and earthbound, reverberating as if out of a jungle on some other planet, then joined by a lonesome chant and multiplying guitar parts, all rotating in sequence like a Rubik’s Cube, folding in on itself until there’s nothing left. Three more charming tracks follow, each eyeing death through a tropical-folk prism, and echoing an arrival.

—Noah Bonaparte Pais

Wintersleep

Hello Hum Roll Call

With their heads back in the clouds

After winning a Juno Award for the atmospheric rock of 2007’s Welcome To The Night Sky, these Nova Scotians took an abrupt detour into stripped-down post-punk for their follow-up, 2010’s New Inheritors. Many fans complained that this new angular sound didn’t play to the band’s strengths; fortunately, Wintersleep came to the same conclusion.

Hello Hum hears the group once again making music that finds its home in the ether, due in no small part to a level of vocal reverb that would make Jim James blush, as well as effervescent, psych-tinged music that makes ample use of percussion and electronic textures.

Sometimes this approach is a bit kitchen-sink, as on the borderline cacophonous “Hum” and “In Came The Flood” (songs that would not sound out of place on a record from the Helio Sequence), but more often the melancholy Hello Hum is as gorgeous and evocative of wide-open spaces as the northern geography Wintersleep calls home. —Matt Ryan

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/movies

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On essay by

Stan Michna

Reservations—lunch or dinner—are man- ists in particular, Jiro Dreams Of Sushi datory, made at least one month in advance. is a proverbial banquet of detail. From No appetizers, no other dishes, just sushi. Jiro’s meticulous assessment of the flaPrices begin at $300.00 (U.S.). vour of o-toro, chu-toro and akami (fatty, If you’re a fast eater—say, 15 minutes— medium and lean tuna, respectively), to the that, according to food writer Masuhiro Ya- precise length of time an octopus must be mamoto in David Gelb’s strangely absorb- massaged for optimal tenderness (40-50 ing documentary, Jiro Dreams Of Sushi, minutes), the most minute detail does would make Jiro Ono’s little sushi joint in not escape his cyclopean eye. His reputaa Ginza subway station in Tokyo the most tion is such that even certain vendors at the famed Tsukiji Fish Market base their expensive restaurant in the world.

Why strangely absorbing? Principally purchases of the daily catch on what Jiro’s because its focal point, 85-year-old master exacting standards of excellence demand sushi shokunin Jiro Ono, is largely an enig- (their mantra: “if-Jiro-wouldn’t-buy-it-I ma (not to mention his creepy rewon’t-sell-it”). Little wonder semblance to Joseph Wiseman’s he’s the oldest restaurateur in titular character in the 1962 history to earn three stars from James Bond film, Dr. No.) He Michelin. is a relentless perfectionist, not While we learn much about so much obsessed with the art Jiro’s operating principles (“You of perfect sushi as possessed by have to fall in love with your it, driven like some cursed Hans work;” “you must dedicate your Christian Andersen character “to life to mastering your skill;” “to be better than last time.” make delicious food you must Dreams Of Most of the film is set in his Jiro eat delicious food”) and his inSushi will be minimalist restaurant, Suki- available on DVD ner taskmaster (apprentices yabashi Jiro, evoking—with its July 24 from train for 10 years; he wouldn’t Entertainment One brightly lit counter lined with 10 allow his two sons to attend unistools, staff clad in immaculate white—not versity but brought them into the business so much a diner as a Men’s Baldness clinic. instead), Jiro the man remains a cipher.

And when Jiro deftly prepares a piece of Through his sons we are privy to a few sushi (always one at a time) and places it on standard-issue family anecdotes, and Jiro the customer’s plate, he watches intently, himself reflects somewhat on his childas if judging not whether the sushi is any hood (he was on his own by age nine). But good, but whether the recipient is worthy what are we to make of that old photograph of consuming his culinary masterpiece. of Jiro in a WWII Japanese army officer’s For foodies in general and sushi fetish- uniform? Or that family photo of his wife, about whom nothing is mentioned?

As the film begins to meander toward the end, the focus drifts to Jiro’s eldest son, Yoshikaza, who for 31 years has toiled in his father’s oppressive shadow, stoically shielding his anxiety about whether he’ll ever measure up to the old man when his time comes to take over the restaurant.

Meantime Jiro, unperturbed, continues to make his art his life, determined to be better than last time.

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NEGLECTED

CRITERION

Harlan County U.S.A. 1976 / Director

Barbara Kopple Why It’s Neglected: Three Kisses of Death: It’s about the working-class poor; coal miners; and unions.

The Theme: Only 35 years later does it emerge, spectral and haunting, as a curse on America’s social, economic and political landscape. What Kopple witnessed then we are witnessing again: union busting; escalating divide between richest and poorest; thirdworld living and working conditions among those who toil extracting natural resources; environmental depredation; and an economic system rigged by colluding legal, political and cultural institutions.

The Story: A chronicle of the brutal1972 strike by coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, against owner Duke Power Company, correspondent with the murderous election campaign for the leadership of the United Mine Workers of America.

Kopple lived for nearly a year among the striking families, recording the abject poverty (company owned housing with no indoor plumbing), dangerous working conditions (black lung disease, in particular), despair and ultimately—when the women join the strike— resilience. Strikers were shot at by company “gun thugs” (one house strafed by machine-gun fire), one murdered (his killer acquitted), others beaten (including Kopple and her crew), others jailed. From scenes of State Troopers smashing strikers’ heads, to the bought-and-paid-for court system, to an unconcerned Duke stockholders meeting in New York, Kopple’s baleful camera captures America’s disgrace in flagrante delicto.

What You Get: Besides Kopple’s unnerving commentary, an interview with John Sayles, a discussion between Roger Ebert and Kopple, and a touching feature with musician Hazel Dickens; one of the five best documentaries ever made in America.

/movies/new_releases JULY 3

1313: Hercules Unbound 25 Hill 7 Adventures of Sinbad Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet: Christmas With the Nelsons Alain Formaggio & Serge Serfati: Krav Maga Hyoshi Alien Origin American Dream America’s Funnymen: 25 Hours Battle Force Best of the Cosby Show 2 Bikini Spring Break Bonanza Vol. 1 Born on the Fourth of July Britten: Death in Venice Carlsbad USGP 1980 Casserole Club Cradle of Filth: PanDaemonaeon Crying Game Dimension Extreme Horror Fest Dino Dan: Where the Dinosaurs Are Dolls of Lisbon Dumber Than Dirt Dynasty: The Sixth Season Elvira’s Movie Macabre: Giant Monsters Entity Firestorm Flirting With Disaster Forger Freddy Frogface Frontline: Money, Power & Wall Street George Gently Series 4 Ghost in the Machine God Bless America Gone: The Disappearance of Aeryn Gillern Grateful Dead Movie Great American Westerns: John Wayne Collection Great Killing Hear No Evil Hetalia: World Series 2 Season 04 Hidamari Sketch xSP: Specials – 2 OVAs Hillsong Live: Cornerstone Corey Holcomb: Your Way Ain’t Working Hollywood Greats: 30 Movies Hood Life 4 Unter I Will Fight No More Forever/ Gone to Texas Inside Nature’s Giants: Camel Inside Nature’s Giants: Giant Squid Jack the Bear Jesus Henry Christ Joe & Belle Joshua Kiss: Live in Las Vegas Laughing Pizza: Live Letter Factory Looney Tunes: Platinum Coll. Vol. 1 Mac & Devin Go to High School Madame Bovary Magnum P.I.: Season 1 Magnum P.I.: Season 2 Man vs. Wild: Season 6 Mannix: The Seventh Season Math Circus Merrel Fankhauser: Tiki Lounge Midsomer Murders Set 20 Monumental: In Search of America’s National Treasure Morning Departure

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My Dinner With Jimi Mysteries at the Museum: Season 2 Naked Truth Needless: Complete Collection NIghtwatch No Holds Barred Nova: Why Ships Sink Numbers Ahoy O.C. The Complete First Season O.C. The Complete Second Season O.C. The Complete Third Season Pirate Movie Planeat Pledge This Pucca; Secret Samurai Santa Quicksilver Highway Rise and Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story Rocko’s Modern Life: Season Three Saturday Night Live: The Women of SNL Scapegoat SCTV: Christmas With SCTV Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister Secrets of Archaeology: Ancient Egypt and Beyond Secrets of Archaeology: Ancient Greece and Beyond Secrets of Archaeology: The Roman Empire and Beyond Sherlock Holmes Collection Six Pack Snow White and Friends Some Guy Who Kills People Stagger Stand for Action Streets of San Francisco: Seasons 1-3 Talking Words Factory Things That Hang From Trees Tough Enough Vanishing Point Whiteboyz Wind Blast Women of Bhakti Word Caper JULY 10

41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It Adventure Time: The Complete First Season Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin All in: The Poker Movie All the Women I’ve Loved Alvin and the Chipmunks: Batmunk Always Goodbye American Reunion Barney: All About Opposites Baroness & The Butler Baseball’s Greatest Games: Santana’s 2012 No Hitter Being Flynn Belly Dance With Veil Best of Black Beauty Best of Caillou: Caillou’s Mysteries and Adventures Best of Ernest Black House Classic Black Limousine Blackmore’s Night: Knight in NY British Cinema Collection: 8 Acclaimed Films British Romance Collection: Becoming Jane/Brideshead Revisited/Jane Eyre Butterfly Sword Career Woman

july 10 The 41-Year-

Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It

The title (which is amazing) says it all. The actual film— a barn door-broad Wayans Bros-style parody of Judd Apatow raunch-coms—says absolutely nothing.

[20th Century Fox]

Cazador De La Bruja: The Complete Series Cherry Bomb Chicken Every Sunday Christian Bale 3-Film Collection: American Psycho/3:10 to Yuma/Velvet Goldmine Claudia Dangerous Years Dark Nemesis Despicable Me Presents: Minion Madness Devil’s Needle & Other Tales of Vice and Redemption Diplomatic Courier Do You Love Me Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks Doctor Who: The Krotons Dragon Crusaders Duran Duran: Diamond in the Mind Earthworm Jim: Complete Series El Mural Empire of Silver Eurythmics: Sweet Dreams Father a Son: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Father Dowling Mysteries: The Second Season Fatso Fightville Flirting Club Flowers of War Foxes of Harrow Fraulein Freak Dance Freakshow Apocalypse Frontier Marshal G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: Series 2, Season 2 Ghost Attack on Sutton Street: Poltergeists and Paranormal Entities Glades: Season 2

Good Morning President Hot Ice Hudson’s Bay I Kissed a Vampire iCarly: The Complete 4th Season Intent to Kill Jem & Holograms: Season 3 Jimi Plays Berkeley Journey to the Center of the Earth Julio Iglesias: Starry Night Jungle Animals Junior Miss Kassim the Dream Kidnapped Kidsongs: Fun With Animals Kidsongs: Get Ready for School Lansky Last Flight to Berlin Life Begins at Eight-Thirty Living Ukulele Love Is News Mahoromatic: Automatic Maiden – I’m Home Mahoromatic: Automatic Maiden – Ultimate Collection Making of Love Live Life Making Plans for Lena Man I Married Man: Live From London – At the Marquee Club Mercury Undercover Mexico: The Royal Tour Miramax British Comedy Collection Vol. 1 Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell Mr. Scoutmaster My Wife’s Best Friend Mysteria Note III: … From the Heart Healer Off Limits: Season 1 On the Ice Outcasts of Poker Flat Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt: Complete Series Paraiso Perfect Snob Quill Riad Ramones: Head Bangers Bring Down the House – Europe Red Eye Classic Rihanna: Good Girl, Bad Girl Rings on Her Fingers Royal Deceit Saphead Secret Agent of Japan Sesame Street: Elmo’s Magic Numbers Slattery’s Hurricane Slave Ship Sophie’s Revenge Spirit Lands: American Desert Odyssey Step Up Love Sotyr Classic Steve Jobs: Visionary Genius Suez Suicide Song Classic Sunday Dinner For a Soldier Sweet Rosie O’Grady Tale of Two Cities: The Circuit City Story They Came to Blow Up America Thomas & Friends: Schoolhouse Delivery Three Brave Men Travel With Kids: San Diego True Story of a Woman in Jail: Continues Twelve Hours to Kill UFO: Misdemeanor Tour Untamed Americas Warehouse 13: Season 3 Way of a Gaucho Wild Kratts: Jungle Animals

july 24 Silent House

Elizabeth Olsen, who ruled in the infuriatingly ignored Martha Marcy May Marlene, is forced to kick-start her career with a gimmicky uninterrupted-shot haunted house flick.

[Universal Studios]

WWE Superstar Coll.: John Cena You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Kills You Zombies vs. Strippers Zoom In: Sex Apartments JULY 17

2012 NBA Championships: Highlights 4:44 Last Day on Earth Ace Drummond Adventures of Smilin’ Jack Afinidades Alphas Season 1 American Masters: Johnny Carson: King of Late Night Andi Almqvist: The Misadventures of Andi Almqvist Assassination Beat Hotel Bill Bellamy: Crazy Sexy Dirty Black Butterflies Block Beataz: The Movie Blood Beast Terror Bonanza: The Official Third Season Value Pack Bonanza: The Official Third Season Vol. 1 Bonanza: The Official Third Season Vol. 2 Book of Bantorra: Collection 2 Brownstones to Red Dirt Burke and Hare Camelot Casting the Runes Chloe’s Closet: Super Best Friends Close to Home: Moyers on Addiction Coming Through Cool Devices: Complete DVD Collection Crosby Stills & Nash: CSN 2012 Crossing the Line Dan Vs.: Season 1 Danko Jones: Bring on the Mountain David Susskind: Mary Tyler Moore Deserter Designing Women: Season 3 Diff’rent Strokes: Season 3 Dirty Pair Flash Collection

Documenting the Grey Man Doomsday Prophecy Elton John: Inside the Music Eureka: Season 5 Extraterrestrial Fairy Fall Into Me Finding Mr. Destiny Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr. First a Girl Fixation Friends With Kids Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood – Collection Two Futurama: Volume 1 Futurama: Volume 2 Futurama: Volume 3 Futurama: Volume 4 Genesis: Gabriel Years – Independent Critical Film Review

Get the Gringo Girls Gone Dead Godfather: The Real Fillmore Slim Documentary Goldberg P.I. Here Hidden Rage High Noon Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Roads – Season 2 Intruders Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) James May’s 20th Century King Crimson: Live in Argentina 1994 King of the Royal Mounted Leverage: The 4th Season Flotsam & Jetsam: Live in Phoenix Lockout Mamitas Matt Braunger: Shovel Fighter Midnight Son Miramax British Cinema Vol. 1 MLK: The Assassination Tapes Never Stand Still: Dancing at Jacob’s Pillow One Direction: Only Way Is Up Ozzy Osbourne: Speak of the Devil Patagonia Rising Patriocracy Pink Floyd: Music Milestones – Ummagumma Psychic Squad: Collection 2 Rank Collection: Carry On Double Feature – Carry On Abroad/ Carry On Dick Rank Collection: Carry On Double Feature – Carry On Behind/ Carry On England Rolling Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Sanctuary: Season 4 Saving Faith Scooby-Doo: Laff-A-Lympics – Spooky Games Season 3: Early Civilizations to Modern Times Shackleton Shark Week: 25th Anniversary Collection Stan Lee’s Superhumans: Season Two Storage Wars Vol. 3 Three Stooges Timmy Time: Happy Birthday Timmy Turin Horse Virgin Alexander Way Ahead Wiggles: Big Birthday Woman Hater WWE: No Way Out 2012

JULY 24

…And Then Came Summer 10000 More Ways to Die: Spaghetti Western Film Coll.

100th Street Haunting 20 Country Legends ‘72 Complete: The Ultimate Collector’s Edition of the 1972 Hockey Summit Series Abduction of Jesse Bookman Adele: 22 – The Movie Age of the Dragons Ai Yori Aoshi: Complete Collection Alice Donut: Freaks in Love Atom Nine Adventures Back From Eternity Band of the Hand Bathory: Countess of Blood Beatles: History Beatles: Their Golden Age Before the Light Berlin Nights: Grand Delusions Better This World Beyond the Steppes Bikini Drive-In Billy the Kid Boss: Season One Brake Bruno Mars: The Other Side – Unauthorized Documentary Budz House Busty Bookworm Babes Butterfly Checkmate Chelsea Handler: Unauthorized Documentary Children’s Hospital: Season 3 Coast Patrol Competition Corridor Crime Does Not Pay: Shorts Cross the Switchblade/Run Baby Run Cuckoo’s Nest: We Were Feared Dalai Lama: Avalokiteshvara Initiation Dalai Lama: Walking … Peace Dark Measures: Gang Warfare Day After Halloween Deadtime Deep Blue Sea Diamond Trap Dougie in Disguise 1 Dougie in Disguise 2 Dracula vs. Frankenstein Dreams From My Real Father Drew Peterson: Untouchable Earth at Risk Escape in the Fog Eyes of Youth Fela Kuti: Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense/Berliner Jazztage ‘78

Fenway Park: The Golden Age Footnote Forgotten Funnymen Vol. 1 Forgotten Funnymen Vol. 2 Genetic Chile Girl From the Naked Eye Golgo 13: The Professional Great Women of Islam Hamlet (1969) Having Our Say Hearse Heartbeat Hey Arnold: Season 2 Part 2 Hidden India: The Kerala Spicelands Hunt I Capture the Castle I Spill Your Guts Immortal Technique: The Revolution of Immortal Technique

Inspector Morse 25th Anniversary Collection Institute Benjamenta or: This Dream People Call Human Life Invisible Ink Iris: The Movie Iron Maiden: The Future Has Come to Pass Jean Gremillon During the Occupation Jiro Dreams of Sushi Johnny Winter Live From Japan Joint Body Journey Jungle Drums of Africa Kunoichi Last of England Law of the Rio Grande Let Us Live Look in Any Window Love de Vice: Silesian Night 11.11.11 Love Guide Mad Magician Marilyn Manson: Fear of a Satanic Planet Masterpiece Mystery: Endeavour Meeting Evil Michael Wood’s Story of England Mick Jagger: It’s Only Rock & Roll – Unauthorized Documentary Monitor Mourning Wood Muhammad Ali: The Man, the Moves, the Mouth My Friend From India My House Is Full of Mirrors My Way National Geographic Classics: Natural Disasters Nature: Cracking the Koala Code NHL Stanley Cup 2011-2012 Champions On the Inside One Night in Spain Origins of the Motion Picture Osada Vida: Where the Devils Live Paul McCartney: Liverpool Legend – Unauthorized Documentary Peter Gabriel: Secret World Live Pink Skies Pippi Longstocking: Best of Pippi Port City Possession Queen & Country Railways of the Seine Raspberry Magic Real McCoys: Season 1 Rebel Queens of History Red Squirrel Robin Harris: Live From the Comedy Act Theater Salman the Persian Shandar: The Shrunken City Shaolin Temple/Four Robbers Silent House Sliders: The First Season Sliders: Season 2 Spokanarchy: Where Were You in ‘82 Superman vs. the Elite Tanya X: Complete Season 1 Tested Theatre of the Deranged They Made Me a Fugitive Titanic: The True Story Todd Barry: Super Crazy Touched by an Angel: Season 5 Treasure Island Ultimate Civil War Series Ultimate Rin Tin Tin Untouchables Season 4 Vol. 1 Untouchables Season 4 Vol. 2 Untouchables: Complete Series Victory Day

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/music/new_releases JULY 3

Abandon All Ships Adrian H & Wounds Asia Astarte Atlantic Avenue A Balladeer Begrime Exemious Doug Benson Bonded by Blood Chris Brown Clint Brown Burning Retna Glen Campbell C-Bo Myesha Chaney The Cheats Christian Death Chrome Waves Heather Clark Colosseum Colosseum Colosseum Cradle of Filth Cradle of Filth Cradle of Filth Cradle of Filth Cradle of Filth Deathspell Omega Delain James L Dickinson & No. Miss.Allstars Dirty Sanchez Dogg Pound Donots DZ Deathrays R Estrin & NIghtcats Jeremy Fisher Flo Rida Forefather Melody Gardot Crystal Gayle Gideon Gold Motel Jason Greeley Merle Haggard Hillsong Live James Horner

Infamous (Debut) XXX Sirens When the Lights Go Down Sorry, Kid Visions of the Scourge Smug Life The Aftermath Fortune Release The Frozen Lies 10 Great Songs Orca Take Him to the World Pussyfootin!

Death Box Chrome Waves Overcome Chapter 1: Delirium Chapter 2: Numquam Chapter 3: Parasomnia Cruelty & The Beast Dusk & Her Embrace From the Cradle to Enslave Lovecraft & Witch Hearts Midian Drought We Are the Others

I’m Just Dead, I’m Not Gone Antonio Says Doggy Bag Wake the Dogs Bloodstreams One Wrong Turn Mint Juleps Wild Ones Last of the Line The Absence (CD/DVD) 10 Great Songs Milestone Gold Motel Jason Greeley 10 Great Songs Cornerstone The Amazing Spider-Man Original Soundtrack Joshua Hyslop Where the Mountain Meets the Valley Icarus Witch Rise Imani Ngoma Troupe Bape Henry Jackman Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Stevie Jackson (I Can’t Get No) Stevie Jackson The Jeffersons Vol. 1 Jellyfish Live at Bogart’s 1991 George Jones 10 Great Songs Kataklysm Iron Will: Twenty Years Determined Lonesome River Band Chronology, Volume Two Marillion Best: Live Million $ Reload A Sinner’s Saint Miseration Tragedy Has Spoken Eddie Money Take Me Home Tonight: The Best Of Mongrels Cross The Sins of Squarius Moon Loop Deeply From the Earth Joe Moses From Nothing Muzikjunki Junkyard Stories N-Coded Music Jazz Party Boxset Neptune Towers Caravans to Empire Algol Nile At the Gate of Sethu Alan O’Day Appetizers Parlovr Kook Soul Periphery Periphery II Petra More Power to Ya: 30th Anniversary Petra This Means War: 25th Anniversary Astor Piazzolla The Last Concert

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Debo Band Deep Time Young People’s Church of the Air Delicate Steve Positive Force Digitalism DJ Kicks Dirty Projectors Swing Lo Magellan Diskonnekted Hotel Existence The Dogs D’Amour A Graveyard of Empty Bottles MMXII The Doors Waiting for the Sun Robbie Dupree Arc of a Romance Duran Duran A Diamond in the Mind Dusted Total Dust Dynahead Youniverse The Early November In Currents Elton John vs. Pnau Good Morning to the Night The English Beat Keep the Beat: The Very Best of the English Beat The English Beat The Complete Beat Essence of Mind Indifference Family of the Year Loma Vista Freakangel Let It All End From Nowhere Agony Jeffrey Gaines Live in Europe Melanie Garside Fossil Robin George & Vix You Gerry & The Pacemakers 20 Years Glass Cloud The Royal Thousand Woody Guthrie Woody at 100 Happy Mondays Hallelujah It’s the Mondays Jimi Hendrix Exp. Live at Berkeley Holograms Holograms House of Heroes Cold Hard Want Whitney Houston X-posed Husky Forever So Impossible Arms Ripped in No Time Jano Ertale Red Jasper A Midsummer Night Jamie Jones Tracks From the Crypt Kingsbury Manx Ascenseur Ouvert Dave Kusworth The Bounty Hunters Lefutray Last Breath Jerry Lee Lewis Sun Recordings: Greatest Hits Annabella Lwin Super Boom Eleni Mandell I Can See the Future Mari Chrome Georgy #11811 Marina & Diamonds Electra Heart Mercury Tide Killing Saw Minerals White Tones Mission of Burma Unsound Monster Truck The Brown EP Mantan Moreland Elsie’s Sportin’ House Mortillery Murder Death Kill Mother’s Finest Live at Rockpalast Mr. Gil I Want You to Get Back Home Noko Noko Ordinary Brainwash Me 2.0 Otros Aires New Sound of Tango P.O.D. Murdered Love Rita Pavone The International Teen-Age Sensation Rabid Whole Refuge Sacred Oath A Crystal Vision Sacred Oath Darkness Visible Sacred Oath Sacred Oath Sacred Oath Till Death Do Us Sacred Oath World on Fire Doug Sahm The San Antonio Hipster Saint Diablo Saint Diablo Schwarzblut Maschinenwesen Jimmy Screamerclauz Planeta Sir Douglas Quintet Texas Gold Soundtrack Ice Age Continental Soundtrack To Rome With Love Dusty Springfield Dusty in Memphis Squackett Chris Squire & Steve Hackett Staind Live From Mohegan Sun J Stalin Hope in Transition Stray Letting go Suicide Inside Homicide B Tanga & Selenites 40 Degrees of Sunshine Tank War Nation Serj Tankian Hara-kiri Theclosing Theclosing Debo Band Deep Time Deleted Scenes

Witchsorrow july 3

God Curse Us The overall vibe of this Sabbathian project is ugly and baleful, but like a good horror flick, there are moments of calm, suspense and, finally, total violence. [Metal Blade] Primate Draw Back a Stump Prodigy of Mobb Deep HNIC 3 Cliff Richard Move It Rise and Fall Faith Rosapaeda Mater Heart Folk Sleepin’ Giantz Sleepin’ Giantz Small Faces Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake Smoke DZA Substance Abuse Solarstone Pure Soundtrack All God’s Creatures Soundtrack Savages Teenage Bottlerocket Freak Out L Turilli’s Rhapsody Ascending to Infinity Ulver Childhood’s End Unto Ashes Burials Foretold Jimmie Van Zant Feels Like Freedom Various Artists American… Top 10 Various Artists Reggae Mix USA Various Artists Rub a Duck Presents Duck Down Dubstep Various Artists The Big Polka Party Album W.O.F. Search the Truth Wally Wally Wigelius Reinventions Keller Williams …

Pick Witchsorrow God Curse Us With the Punches Seams & Stitches Wolves at the Gate Captors The Word Alive Life Cycles The Wretched End Inroads Wyland Blues …

Blues Planet II Young Professionals 9AM to 5 PM Denny Zeitlin Wherever You Are JULY 10

Skelethon Clubbers Die Crawling Pretzelvania Memory Flashes The Archives Beak II Collection 4 (Deluxe) The Lowdown Uncaged Children of the Apocalypse Any Resemblance to Real Persons or Actual Facts Is Purely Coincidental Johnny Cash Sun Recordings: Greatest Hits Chaosweaver Enter the Realm of the Doppelganger Chatham County Line Sight & Sound Chrysalide Don’t Be Scared Clare & Reasons KR-51 Alice Cooper Welcome to My Nightmare Counting Crows The Lowdown David Courtney The Show Must Go on Crosby, Stills & Nash Daylight Ahead Cruxshadows Frozen Embers Cruxshadows Wishfire Dead Rat Orchestra Guga Hunters of Ness Aesop Rock Alien Vampires Americans in France Americans in France Anison The Archives Beak Jeff Beck Beyonce Justin Bieber Zac Brown Band C.O.T.A. Calibro 35

Baroness july 17

Yellow & Green The former sludge metal heroes complete their transformation to crossover rock gods who deal both in anthemry and melancholia on this excellent double album. [Relapse] Thick as Blood Thousand Shades …

Toy Dolls Transportation Traxamillion Twin Shadow Various Artists Various Artists Various Artists Various Artists Various Artists Various Artists Various Artists Various Artists Various Artists Various Artists Various Artists Vibravoid Vintersorg Warchest Waumiss Jack White Wild Wild Geese Hank Williams Jr. Jon Windle Wesley Wolfe Roy Young Timi Yuro

Living Proof Dark The Album After the Last One Amusement Park My Radio Confess 15 Tones Beer & Rock Complex Doctor Who: Blackout & The Art Fangoria’s Dreadtime Stories Future Disco Presents Poolside Sounds House Club Original Vol 1 New Rides of the Furious Swamp No More Tears Rarest Rockabilly Album in the World This Ain’t Chicago Gravity Zero Orkan Aftershock Waumiss The Lowdown Sorry, Earth Old School, New Rules Sober Minds Storage Complete Singles The Complete Liberty Singles

JULY 17

31 Knots 31 Knots 3pillmorning 8ball Afro Latin Orchestra Alberta Cross The Alchemist Aloha Aloha Aloha America And One Andain Animal Kingdom Ann-Marita Atlanta Rhythm Sec. The Band Baroness The Be Good Tanyas Belle Histoire Beneath Bermuda Bestial Holocaust Bjork Bjork Bjork Bjork Bjork

The Curse of the Longest Day Worried Well Black Tie Love Affair Life’s Quest Last Odyssey Songs of Patience Russian Roulette Here Comes Everyone Light Works Sugar Perspective/In Concert S.T.O.P. You Once Told Me The Looking Away Intuition Are You Ready The Band Yellow and Green A Collection Dreamers Enslaved by Fear The Wandering Into the Goat Vulva Biophilia Remix Series 2 Biophilia Remix Series 3 Biophilia Remix Series 4 Biophilia Remix Series 5 Biophilia Remix Series 6

Machination Generator Mek It Run Born to Be Blue Bromberg Plays Hendrix In the Spirit of Jobim The Union of Crowns Queen of Trinidad Flow Motion Unlimited Edition Rhythm N’ Moves One Lovely Day Rebirth The Music Of/Skies of America Contortionist Intrinsic Cosmo Jarvis Think Bigger Crosby, Stills & Nash CSN 2012 Duduka Da Fonseca Samba Jazz Debbie Davies After the Fall Deathronation Exorchrism Joey Defrancesco Wonderful! Wonderful District 97 Trouble With Machines DJ Eclipse Remixed and Reloaded: ‘80s The Drowning Men All of the Unknown Craig Duncan Country Mtn. Tributes Richard Durand In Search of Sunrise 10 “Australia” Duane Eddy Duane Eddy McKenzie Eddy Slow Your Horse Down, Son Enabler All Hail the Void Exotic Animal … Zoo Tree of Tongues The Farm Inc The Farm Inc. The Fixx Beautiful Friction Flatfoot 56 Toil Flying Burrito Bros Close Up the Honky Tonks For the Fallen Dreams Wasted Youth Galahad Battle Scars Gatekeeper Exo Guy Gerber Fabric 64 Milo Greene Milo Greene Donny Hathaway Live & In Performance Headlights The Enemies EP Heartcakeparty Mock Heroic Hellyeah Band of Brothers A Hero a Fake The Future Again Hexen Being and Nothingness Hi Power Ent Pres.

The Notorious Life Missy Higgins Ol’ Razzle Dazzle Susanna Hoffs Someday Hordes … Morning Star Consummatum Est Jordan Hull Who’s Gonna Teach You How to Live Icky Blossoms Icky Blossoms Inanimate Existence Liberation Through Hearing Jeff the Brotherhood Hypnotic Nights Jjamz Suicide Pat Joan of Arc Boo Human Judge Smith The Climber Kansas Freaks of Nature Paul Kelly Comedy Paul Kelly Post Paul Kelly Wanted Man Kidz Bop Kids Kidz Bop 22 Michael Kiwanuka Home Again Lantz Waiting to Die Shawn Lee & The Ping Pong Orchestra Reel to Reel Let Me Run Mad/Sad Russ Losing Drum Music: The Music of Paul Motian Marcy Playground Lunch, Recess & Detention Marksmen Quartet This Is My Crowd Mastamind Last Temptation of Christ Mastamind N-Toxsication Mates of State My Solo Project Matisyahu Spark Seeker Matt Pond PA The Nature of Mpas John Maus A Collection of Rarities McGrath Project Love Is a 4-Letter Word Vol. 1 McGrath Project Love Is a 4-Letter Word Vol. 2 Miaoux Miaoux Light of the North Ministry of Love A Promise for Forever Nas Life Is good Nature Head of Death Blacklodge Blindside Blues Band Dennis Bovell Eugene Bridges Brian Bromberg Brian Bromberg Bury Tomorrow Calypso Rose Can Can Capital Lights Citizen Cope Jimmy Cliff Ornette Coleman

Loren Nerell Slow Dream Now British Now British Michael Occhipinti & … The Universe of John Lennon Sinead O’Connor How About I Be Me (And You Be You) Old Crow Med. Show Carry Me Back DJ Kris O’Neil In Trance We Trust 19 Orphaned Land The Beloved’s Cry: 20th Anniversary Edition The Other The Devils You Know Pinetop Perkins How Long Phillip Phillips American Idol S. 11 Sam Phillips Martinis & Binkinis Piano Overlord Aninha Mission Pierce the Veil Collide With the Sky Poisonous Perdition’s Den Quicksilver Messe… Happy Trails Live 1969 Joel Rafael America Come Home Rainer Maria A Better Version of Me Rainer Maria Ears Ring EP Rainer Maria Look Now Look Again Irene Reid The Queen of the Party Stan Ridgway Mosquitos… plus Robbie Rivera Dance or Die S Roach & D Serries Low Volume Music Stan Rogers Between the Breaks… Live Stan Rogers Turn Around Shintaro Sakamoto How to Live With a Phantom Yossi Sassi Melting Clocks Satanic Bloodspraying At the Mercy of Satan Savall/Johansen Hirundo Maris Saving Abel Bringing Down the Giant Woody Shaw Woody Plays Woody Shoe Suede Blues feat. Peter Tork Hands Down Shuffle Demons Clusterfunk Smashing Pumpkins Pisces Iscariot (CD/DVD) Snowgoons Snowgoons Dynasty Soul Asylum Delayed Reaction Soundtrack Step Up Revolution Stamina Nocebo Angus Stone Broken Brights Hermann Szobel Szobel Chubby Tavares Jealousy Tombstones Year of the Burial The Treatment This Might Hurt Various Artists Black on Blues Various Artists Buttons: From Champaign to Chicago Various Artists Country Mix USA Various Artists Electric Daisy Carnival Vol. 3 Various Artists Grand Ole Opry Live Classics Volume I Various Artists Grand Ole Opry Live Classics Volume II Various Artists Strange Passion Various Artists The ‘60s Music Revolution Various Artists The Roots of Adele Verse Bitter Clarity, Uncommon Grace Very Best MTMTMK Virgin Steele Life Among the Ruins The Wiggles Big Birthday Witchcraft Firewood Witchcraft The Alchemist Woe Is me Number(s) Deluxe Reissue Yellowman Young, Gifted and Yellow Your Memorial Redirect Hans Zimmer The Dark Knight Rises JULY 24

Todd Barry Tyler Bates Blood Red Shoes Bobby V Booker T & The MGs Colossal Gospel Constants Coolly G Julian Cope Damita Dark Time Sunshine Bobby Darrin Teri Desario

Super Crazy Killer Joe In Time to Voices Dusk Till Dawn Green Onions Circles Pasiflora Playin’ me Psychedelic Revolution Anticipation Anx Mack the Knife Caught

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/music/new_releases Family Band Grace & Lies Fang Island Major Fear and the Nervous Fear and the Nervous FM Indiscreet FM Tough It Out Foals Tapes The Gaslight Anthem Handwritten Golden Bomber The Golden Best for the United States of America Golden Retriever Occupied With the Unspoken Grasscut Unearth P Green Splinter Group Blues Don’t Change Guardian Alien See the World Given to a One Love Entity Harlequin One False Move Heavenly Beat Talent The Heptones Good Vibes J. Dilla The Shining Jacka Jacka Presents Jeremiah Jae Raw Money Raps Etta James Live at Montreux Jay Dee Welcome to Detroit Instrumentals Lawrence Arabia The Sparrow Shawn Lee Synthesizers in Space Jerry Lee Lewis The Killer Live Robert Lockwood Jr. Sweet Home Chicago Love and Theft Love and Theft Magic Sam All Your Love Micachu & Shapes Never Monkey House Headquarters Of Mice and Men The Flood: Deluxe Reissue Mike Oldfield Platinum Mike Oldfield QE2 Passion Pit Gossamer Purity Ring Shrines Aldo Ranks Parrandero Rev Horton Heat 25 to Life Rich Boy Rich Boy Rodriguez Searching for Sugarman Soundtrack Saint Saviour Union Neil Sedaka The Show Goes On Slipknot Antennas to Hell Slug Guts Playin’ in Time With the Deadbeat Sofrito International Soundclash Soundtrack The Chorus Sugar Copper Blue/Beaster Sugar File Under: Easy Listening Summer Camp Always EP Three Mile Pilot Maps Nick Urata Ruby Sparks Various Artists Bickershaw Festival Box Set: 40th Anniversary Various Artists Smooth Jazz Hits Young Moon Navigated Like the Swan

JULY 31

20/20 Abercrombie Quartet Afgrund Anchor & Braille Atomic Rooster Attika 7 Benny Benassi Bester Quartet Bjork The Black Swans Blur Blur Blur Blur Blur Blur Blur Blur

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20/20/Look Out Within a Song The Age of Dumb The Quiet Life Performance Blood of My Enemies Presents Cavo Paradiso 12 Metamorphoses Biophilia Remix Series 1 Occasion for Song 13 (Special Edition) Blur (Special Edition) Blur 21 Box Set Leisure (Special Edition) Modern Life Is Rubbish (Special Edition) Parklife (Special Edition) The Great Escape (Special Edition) Think Tank (Special Edition)

Blur july 31 Blur 21

The long-rumored eighth album remains on-again/offagain, but enjoy the first seven in this massive CD, DVD and vinyl box set, not to mention a zillion B-sides. [Virgin]

Symbiosis Live Anthology 1972-2001 The American Dream Playlist: The Very Best of Sins No One Came Momentum Clover/Fourty Niner Pros & Cons Womonnos Nosferatu/Solf Worship New Gods The Principle of Evil Made Flesh Cradle of Filth V Empire or Dark Faerytales R Crawford & J Sample Live Crowbar Obedience Thru Suffering Crucified Barbara The Midnight Chase Rick Derringer Guitars and Women/Face to Face Michael Des Barres Carnaby Street Desalmado Desalmado Devilish Impressions Simulacra Dew-Scented Icarus Neil Diamond Hot August Night (Deluxe) DJ Kemit Everlasting Drone For Torch and Crown Nigel Dupree Up to No Good R Edwards & Hard … Portrait of a Bluegrass Songwriter Damon Elliott Shadow of Reality Everyone Dies in Utah Polarities Fairport Convention Performance Family Performance Firebird Hot Wings Fireman Electric Arguments Flats Better Living Connie Francis Memoris Frankie & Walter One Last Time Gaelic Storm Chicken Boxer Jan Garbarek Dansere Gaza No Absolutes in Human Suffering Gentlemans Pistols Gentlemans Pistols The Germs Media Blitz Jackie Gleason Music for Lovers Only Gloriana A Thousand Miles Left Behind Gong Global Family Live in Brazil Eydie Gorme Don’t Go to Strangers/ Softly as I Leave Grateful Dead Dick’s Picks Vol. 29 Grave Desecrator Deathspells Rising Jimmy Griffin Summer Holiday Happy Mondays Call the Cops Live in New York Jesse Harris Sub Rosa Bullet for Pretty Boy Glen Campbell Marco Capelli: Ital…

M Chapin Carpenter Charm City Devils Shane Chisholm Close to Home Clover The Company Band Conan Hugh Cornwell Coven Cradle of Filth

Beth Hart Beth Hart Nona Hendryx

37 Days My California Mutatis Mutandis

Hey Romeo Twist of Fate High on Fire The Art of Self Defense Hipower Ent Presents Cholo Love Hollywood Burnouts Excess All Areas Hooded Menace Fulfill the Curse Hopper/Klossner Cryptids Horn of the Rhino Grengus Horse Latitudes Awakening Hour of 13 333 Hyro da Hero Birth, School, Work, Death Jackyl Best in Show Leela James Loving You More in the Spirit of Etta James Al Jarreau Heart’s Horizon/The Deluxe Edition Jefferson Airplane Playlist: The Very Best of Jefferson Airplane Joey + Rory His and Hers Mike Jones Greatest Hits & Dirty Dubstep Mixes Mat Kearney Playlist: The Very Best of Mat Kearney Kill It Kid Feet Fall Heavy King of Asgard To North Steve & Eydie The Greatest Hits VOl. 1 Lil C H-Town Chronic 7 The Locust Molecular Genetics From the Gold Standard Louisiana Red Always Played the Blues The Lovin’ Spoonful Playlist: The Very Best of the Lovin’ Spoonful Marillion This Strange Engine Bob Marley & Wailers In Dub Vol. 1 Shannon McArdle Fear the Dream of Axes Charles Mingus The Complete Albums Thelonious Monk The Complete Albums Moonless Calling All Demons Nachtmystium Silencing Machine Nakkach Medicine Melodies Songs the Healers National Health D.A. Al Coda Willie Nelson 10 Great Songs Koo Nimo Highlife Roots Revival Old 97’s Draf It Up Oppenheimer This Racket Takes Its Tol The Other The Devils You Know Perzonal War Captive Breeding Anthony Phillips Radio Clyde A Phillips, H Williams Tarka Phish Phish: Chicago ‘94 Polar Bear Club Live From the Montage Music The Pond The Pond Ponderosa Pool Party Elvis Presley I Am an Elvis Fan P.J. Proby I Am P.J. Proby/P.J. Proby/ In Town Putumayo Presents Arabic Beat Joshua Radin Underwater Reel Big Fish Candy Coated Fury River City Tanlines Coast to Coast Romance … Rocketship Creatures of the Night Rick Ross God Forfive Royal Arch Blaspheme II Terje Rypdal Odyssey: In Studio David Sanborn Then Again: The David Sanborn Anthology Sanford & Townsend Smoke From a Distant Fire Saxon Performance Christian Scott Christian a Tunde Shovels & Rope O Be Joyful Sly & Family Stone Playlist: The Very Best of Sly & The Family Stone Soundtrack Sparkle Southside’s Most W… The Return Billy Squier Enough Is Enough/Hear & Now Status Quo Performance Allen Stone Allen Stone Joss Stone Soul Sessions Vol. 2 Strawbs Of a Time Suicidal Tendencies Playlist: The Very Best of Suicidal Tendencies Tamia Beautiful Surprise Tankard A Girl Called Cerveza Testament Dark Roots of Darth Thenewno2 Thefearofmissingout