Tag Archives: Record Review

Sidi Touré & Friends, Sahel Folk (Thrill Jockey)

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This week’s LEO Weekly includes my review of the new Sidi Touré album Sahel Folk:

Although Sahel Folk is Sidi Touré’s debut for Chicago-based Thrill Jockey records, the Mali-born singer and guitarist is no stranger to the international music scene. In 1976, a young Touré joined the Songhai Stars, one of Mali’s famed “regional orchestras” that frequently toured the western Sahel (the transitional zone between the Sahara Desert and the sub-Saharan savannas of Africa). On Sahel Folk, Touré addresses issues concerning his countrymen on songs like “Adema” (about his country’s continuing modernization), while his guitar playing retains a loose, casual yet melodic feel enhanced by the album’s you-are-there approach — apparently it was recorded in the living room of his sister’s house, over cups of tea, with a maximum of only two takes per song. Sahel Folk’s beautifully hypnotic melodies should provide fans of Ali Farka Touré and Bassekou Kouyate plenty of reasons to love Sidi Touré.

Buy it from Thrill Jockey here.

The Phantom Family Halo, Music from Italian T.V. (Sophomore Lounge)

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Today’s edition of LEO Weekly contains my review of the new Phantom Family Halo record, Music from Italian T.V.:

Over the past year, The Phantom Family Halo released its Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die double-album and subsequently played a number of epic shows in town. Music from Italian TV continues with a pleasantly confusing blend of styles in a more concise format. Staples of their live show, like “It’s OK About the War (Gettysburg Jam)” and “Bringing Back the Dead” get a more polished, sublime treatment, while longer tracks like opener “I Believe In Everything” and “Overkirsh” present yet more experimentation, the former resembling a jam off Amon Duul’s 1969 classic Psychedelic Underground played backward and superimposed with television dialogue. There are a number of good bands in Louisville these days, but there’s not another band here, much less the rest of the nation, as inventive as The Phantom Family Halo.

Buy it from Sophomore Lounge Records.

The Phantom Family Halo performs in Louisville this Friday, Nov. 12, at 7 PM as part of Art After Dark at the J.B. Speed Museum ($5 for museum members, U of L and Bellarmine students, $15 for non-members). More information here: http://www.speedmuseum.org/calendar/Brown-Forman_Art_After_Dark.

Endless Boogie, Full House Head (No Quarter)

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My review of Endless Boogie‘s new album appeared in today’s edition of LEO Weekly. Read it here:

It’s no minor achievement that Endless Boogie’s new album, Full House Head, appears only two years after their official debut. Uninterested in the careerism of the rest of the indie music community, Endless Boogie had been jamming in their Lower East Side practice space for years before they were persuaded almost a decade ago to play their first show. Their patience pays off in the cohesiveness of Full House Head. Their sophomore effort shows no signs of slumping, as these tunes are even sharper than those on Focus Level. That said, there’s still plenty of sprawling heavy guitar rock, with solos aplenty, recorded in beautifully crisp high fidelity. The lone exception being the wonderfully messy “A Life Worth Leaving,” a 22-minute side-long closer culled from a practice tape.

Buy it direct from No Quarter.

V/A, Reportage: Spela Själv (Unknown Label)

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My review of the Reportage: Spela Själv bootleg LP ran in this week’s LEO Weekly:

Among many forgotten musical innovations of the 1960s, perhaps the most obscure was that of audience-driven free improvisation. Groups such as Musica Elettronica Viva (consisting of American expatriate composers living in Italy) encouraged attendees at their gigs to become part of the performance, and more “out-there” psychedelic rock groups such as The Red Krayola and Cro-Magnon invited non-musicians to join in. Some of this music is only successful as an experiment in democratization, yet some can be fun to listen to. Reportage: Spela Själv (which translates to “reportage: play yourself”) is such an album. Edited and compiled by Swedish composers Bo Anders Persson (who also played in Trad Gras och Stenar and Parson Sound) and Solvieg Bark, the album consists of many outdoor jams, akin to a rural, Swedish-folk influenced Amon Duul, interspersed with the sounds of children.

Buy it from Fusetron here: http://www.fusetronsound.com/index.php?whomlab=Unknown.

Download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ytmmwjgmyv0.

The Endtables, s/t (Drag City/Alien Intelligences)

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LEO Weekly ran my review of the new retrospective of Louisville’s own Endtables today:

I thought we were modern, sings Steve Rigot at the beginning of “Trick or Treat” by the Endtables, a perfect statement on life in Louisville circa 1979. Arguably the first punk band in town, their music utterly reflects the anxiety of growing up “punk,” modern, in a thoroughly unmodern place. Songs such as “They’re Guilty,” “The Defectors” and “White Glove Test” exude a nervous energy that’s hard to match. But after self-releasing one four-song single, the band broke up, with their music known to only a handful. This long-overdue collection corrects the historical record by presenting the six songs they recorded while active (on the new 12-inch EP), along with an unedited take of “Process of Elimination,” as well as six live songs — five of which were never recorded, and three video clips of the band in action (on the CD only).

Buy it from Drag City here: http://www.dragcity.com/products/the-endtables.

Rusted Shut, Dead (Load)

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LEO Weekly ran my review of Rusted Shut‘s latest album, Dead, on the excellent Load Records label:

You’d be excused for wondering whether the Houston-based Rusted Shut were much of a band, considering over the course of what couldn’t even arguably be called a “career” beginning way back in 1986, they’ve only released a small handful of titles. That is, before this year’s release Dead on Load, Rusted Shut had only released one LP, one CD (compiling the LP and some extra tracks) and one 12” EP (last year’s excellent Hot Sex on Dull Knife). And as true, punk-rock lifers, Rusted Shut apparently could not care less for such niceties as melodies or high production values. While their sludge-and-scream aesthetic may be off-putting to most, courageous listeners who like Flipper, Chrome or Brainbombs should revel that Rusted Shut aren’t quite dead just yet.

Buy it directly from Load here: http://www.loadrecords.com/bands/rustedshut.html.

Nothing People, Late Night (S-S)

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My review of Late Night, the newest album by Nothing People, appears in this week’s LEO Weekly:

As far as careerist schemes go, naming your band Nothing People and titling your first album Anonymous has to be pretty high up on the list of bad ideas. Yet California’s Nothing People’s lack of such ambitions is refreshing in an age where seemingly every band has a marketing plan. Thankfully their music is unique enough for them to be noticed. Whereas their debut mined proto-punk in the vein of Chrome or Public Image Limited, Late Night presents a bleaker, lonelier vibe (hence its title). Some of its simpler songs don’t even seem to feature the entire band but still reveal an emotional complexity lurking beneath the surface. While Nothing People are seemingly hard to know, so far it’s been worth the effort.

Buy it from S-S here.

Ofege, Try and Love (Academy)

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The following review ran in today’s LEO Weekly:

Continuing the current explosion of excellent 1970s African music being reissued in the West for the first time, Brooklyn’s Academy Records (a reissue label started by quite possibly the best vinyl store in the country) has reissued Try and Love, the 1973 debut album by Nigeria’s Ofege.

Whereas Nigeria’s most well-known superstar, Fela Kuti, might be superficially comparable to our James Brown, Ofege could also be considered the continent’s Jackson 5. Consisting of five unrelated teenagers, Ofege took their country by storm but missed greater opportunities because their parents didn’t allow them to quit school. However, unlike the J5, Try and Love’s music has a conspicuous maturity that surprises. But the album doesn’t forget to rock, complete with super-psychedelic, post-Hendrix guitar over African polyrhythms.

You can buy this excellent record from Academy here.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Primary Colours (Goner)

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Last but not least, from Swingset:

Despite a small population consisting mainly of descendents of England’s cast-offs, Australia has graced the rest of the English-speaking world with many excellent rock bands. AC/DC, the Saints, Coloured Balls, Radio Birdman, and the Birthday Party are just a few of the many Australian bands worthy of any rock fanatic’s collection. And now, with their second full-length album, Eddy Current Suppression Ring makes a play for inclusion in the annals of antipodean rock accomplishment. While the production value of Primary Colours is slightly more polished than their debut, the album kicks out the jams quite thoroughly, with a taut minimalist kick reminiscent of Wire or the Buzzcocks, albeit with an even goofier accent.

Buy it from Goner.

Harry Pussy, You’ll Never Play This Town Again (Load)

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Review number two at Swingset (and boy does it stink!) — Harry Pussy’s You’ll Never Play This Town Again retrospective on Load:

It’s difficult to describe just how great a band Harry Pussy was, or how thoroughly the Miami-based trio demolished the line between provocation and confrontation, without noting that their least offensive aspect was their name. During their brief mid-1990s “career” they managed to utterly obliterate audience expectations, even when those expectations were at best marginal. The one time I was lucky enough to see ‘em, at a show I booked during their farewell tour, they even managed to bum out a small crowd of otherwise open-minded, drugged-out hippie college students in ways I didn’t dream possible. For posterity’s sake, a number of their long out-of-print recordings are now available on You’ll Never Play This Town Again. For those of us lucky to have been there, and for those few willing to check out a crazed piece of noise past, this release is everything you’d need to know.

Buy it here from Load.