If the first thing a movie-goer mentions about a film is the cinematography, it’s an indication that the flick’s story and characters aren’t especially compelling. For CDs, the same concept applies to arrangements. Noticing them before the tunes register is a seldom a good sign, as Don’t Worry About Me…
Retro soul’s got to be damn fine to justify its existence, since the stuff it’s modeled on is readily available for listening pleasure and embarrassing comparisons. Fortunately, the latest from Sharon Jones and Bettye LaVette qualify thanks to vocal authenticity and musical settings that offer inventive takes on the old…
Sometimes the simplest music is the most affecting. And so it goes with PJ Harvey’s new studio album, White Chalk. Absent are the scorched-earth guitars and feral vocals of previous releases; Chalk finds solace and strength in ascetic arrangements. This is largely a piano-and-voice album. Icicles drip from the ivories…
It’s been said that being in a band is a lot like being married. In reality, though, interacting in a group dynamic is often like being in the most volatile romantic relationship imaginable — times a thousand. While the intense closeness forged between bandmates can inspire meaningful art, that same…
Call it smooth, intricate, complex, jazz-influenced, even masterful, but do not call the drum-and-bass of LTJ Bukem “intelligent.” Bukem has rejected the label on the grounds that it implies that other artists aren’t intelligent, which is eminently decent of the guy. The thing is, it is intelligent. Layered and deep,…
Blue States, First Steps Into (Memphis Industries). Blue States has a three-record discography primarily composed of chillout room wallpaper, the kind of music made for boutiques and club-drug comedowns. This return takes a page from M83 and Caribou, working with heavier drums and icy feedback to create something less absent…
Singer-songwriter/keyboardist Steve Bays and the rest of his mates in Canada’s Hot Hot Heat worked for month upon month and spent an unprecedented sum (for them) to make their latest offering, Happiness Ltd. And what did they get as a reward for their efforts? The recording was released on September…
To be a successful critic is to be a contrarian. When you’re handed a story line by a publicist or manager, you’re skeptical, and you immediately look for weaknesses in the story you’re being sold. So it was with the massively hyped September 11 releases of Kanye West’s Graduation and…
There’s something endearing about speaking with Maria Taylor on the phone. After she’s told you in her slight Southern drawl about how she was doing laundry and cleaning her room before heading to Alabama to practice for her next tour, you feel like maybe you’ve met her in a coffee…
Chills. I don’t usually do chills, but the opening pedal-steel notes of the Last Town Chorus’s version of “Modern Love” signaled the impending possibility, and when Megan Hickey’s lonesome, plaintive voice came soaring into the mix, there they were, in full force. The songs on Wire Waltz, the act’s latest…
Most folks familiar with “Darling Clementine” never get to the verse where Clem meets her watery demise. The Cave Singers explore that morbid side of the folk tradition, with a healthy fascination for snake-handling congregations. Well before the breakup of Seattle darlings Pretty Girls Make Graves, bassist Derek Fudesco was…
When Andy Milne began thinking about material for his latest solo album, Dreams and False Alarms, he mined the folk music of his childhood in search of songs with a meaningful, strong melodic anatomy. The Brooklyn-based jazz pianist delved into introspective renderings of tunes by Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joni…
“That’s the Way (My Love Is),” the second video from Zeitgeist, the latest Smashing Pumpkins CD, opens with Billy Corgan sitting alone in a futuristic swivel chair festooned with Minority Report-type video screens that allow him to monitor and manipulate an entire virtual world. He treats today’s Pumpkins, currently touring…
The mere mention of 76-year-old George Jones’s name implies country-music authenticity, which explains why he’s saluted in the lyrics of Alan Jackson’s “Don’t Rock the Jukebox” and at least two Travis Tritt tunes, “Outlaws Like Us” and “Put Some Drive in Your Country.” Not that Jones lacks cross-genre appeal: Elliott…
Steve Bays, Hot Hot Heat’s frontman, had a lot more to say than we could squeeze into Westword’s September 27 profile, as demonstrated by the attached Q&A. At interview time (on September 12, the day after HHH’s latest CD, Happiness Ltd., was released), the band was heading north to Los…
What: Immagine at Cornice. Where: The Tivoli student union building at the Denver Film Society/Starz FilmCenter Theatre (off 9th and Auraria). When: This Wednesday, September 26, at 7 p.m. Cost: FREE! Itching for some free Pearl Jam? Well then be a “Better Man,” get off your “Yellow Ledbetter” and call…
Lee Burridge Balance, Issue N. 12 (EQ Records) Yeah, yeah: Music that’s energizing and exciting on the dance floor often sounds beyond dull on an iHome. Still, the best mixers (and Britisher Lee Burridge, who’s slated to headline at Vinyl on Saturday, October 6, certainly qualifies) are able to find…
Had ax-expert Saul Hudson chosen to perform under his given name, he might never have succeeded in the music business, let alone made it to the cover of the forthcoming video game “Guitar Hero III.” Lucky thing he changed his moniker to Slash. During the Q&A below, which formed the…
Why stop at a Heaven and Hell concert preview item like the one in Westword’s September 20 issue when you’ve got a chance to chat with one of the architects of Black Sabbath? That’s what we asked ourselves — and the conclusion we drew accounts for the following conversation with…
Angels of Light, We Are Him (Young God). Michael Gira’s path from the Swans to Angels of Light is similar to Nick Cave’s journey, but Gira’s focus is on intricacies. The devil is in those details — or, in this case, hiding in the organ, disguised by hymns and parables…
Given the advances in digital studio equipment, cutting an album in analog can be both more difficult and more expensive than using readily available modern gear. Ben Harper, though, wanted the old-school experience, so he and his band laid down Lifeline fast and dirty using a sixteen-track console. The results…
Fronting the now-defunct Ultra Boyz, Milton Melvin Croissant III was a frenetically intense, commanding performer. He brought a dark and mysterious charisma to an outfit that was so often like an amped-up hardcore band from some distant future. With his solo project, he comes off more like Cat Stevens if…
