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…
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…
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…
Pi fight! Bill Ward, proprietor of Slim 7 (1443 Larimer Street), has had so much success with that sliver of a sliver of a downstairs bar that last September, he began putting together another underground project for Larimer Square, this one including a 2,100-square-foot club and a 3,800-square-foot place called…
In the liner notes of Scotland Barr and the Slow Drags’ Legionnaire’s Disease, there’s a quote attributed to Charlie Parker: “Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.” Listening to Barr sing about watching his life from…
They Might Be Giants ranks high with the kiddie set, thanks to numerous cartoon soundtracks and videos, but youngsters will not be in attendance in Boulder this Thursday. Instead, those prone to recording songs onto answering machines or wearing oversized fezzes will be lining up in droves to see TMBG’s…
Guitarist Charlie Hunter may be something of a jazz popularizer, but his creative restlessness makes his music interesting as well as accessible, as is clear from a pair of recent recordings. By far the most straightforward is Mistico, a Fantasy Records release credited to the Charlie Hunter Trio that manages…
On his website, Heaven and Hell bassist Geezer Butler teases the group’s tour with Alice Cooper and Queensrÿche by noting that “it’s time to get the hair dye out” — and in a sprawling Backbeat Online Q&A (http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat), he makes it clear that this comment was meant literally. Indeed, he’s…
