More on our series on “weird-assed trios”… Tenor saxophonist Jonathan Lindhorst and guitarist Ryan Butler went down to the Village Vanguard in New York five years ago to catch a Paul Motian Trio show, and got to meet with Motian Trio members Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano afterwards. The wholeRead More

While the all-girl Luscious Jackson made all kinds of concessions by including then-hip back beats and low-key rhymes, Manny still aspires to a groovy article of faith. (It’s something they shared with the Beastie Boys, who ran the label this album appeared on.) Even now, there’s an involving adventurousness hereRead More

Being from the town of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Falkner Evans might be a jazz pianist, but he’s travelled through other styles of music before settling there permanently, even served as a member of country swing band Asleep At The Wheel in the early 80’s. Since around the turn of the millennium,Read More

by Tom Johnson If you want to look back and see when metal changed directions, Demanufacture is the album that could easily be the one that did it. With their previous album Soul of a New Machine, Fear Factory did something unusual: They released a remix album helmed by FrontRead More

by Tom Johnson Created as a benefit for Unicef, this is a bit of a unique remix album. Bjork allowed fans, or, well, anybody, to submit their own take on her song, “Army of Me” on her official website. The best results wound up on this album. You might needRead More

by Mark Saleski Ronnie Earl is one of the most soulful blues guitar players out there. Though he’s played with vocalists (Sugar Ray Norcia being my favorite), he specializes in instrumental recordings like the ones found on Hope Radio, a live recording put together at Wellspring Sound in Acton, Massachussetts.Read More

by Mark Saleski To the neophyte, microtonal music can seem less than accessible. Yeah, tones show up that the western ear just isn’t used to. On Stick Man, Haverstick takes microtonality and uses it in many contexts, not just ‘jazz.’ This is important because I’ve heard albums that focus soRead More

Liam Finn’s second solo record is different, something far more conventionally pop-infused than his 2007 debut, a thrilling but almost confusingly complex outburst of creativity called I’ll Be Lightning — and that can, at first, sound like a step backward. It starts with his noticeable drift back into the shadowRead More

by Mark Saleski Blame this one on Irwin Chusid and his book Songs in the Key of Z. His chapter on Jandek drove me to seek out Jandek’s CDs — much to the displeasure of TheWife™. I’ve been hooked ever since. Don’t let the fact that the man can’t eitherRead More

by Tom Johnson Nick Cave seemed to have found his lighter side on this double-release (packaged in the same box), shunning a bit of the dark murder themes he’s been known for. In fact, this is a downright uplifting album, a complete anamoly in his catalog, full of gospel choirsRead More