|
On top of the stack:
Steely Dan - "Can't Buy a Thrill"
"1940s: Swing Back with Glenn Miller"
Lama Karta - "Tibetan Chants, Buddhist Meditation"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Fever To Tell"
Steely Dan - "Countdown to Ecstasy"
Top picks of 2003:
Donna Summer - "This Needs To Be Your Style"
John Zorn - "Voices in the Wilderness"
Matthew Shipp - "Equilibrium"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Fever To Tell"
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - "Pig Lib"
Cat Power - "You Are Free"
Top picks of 2002:
Bob Drake - "The Skull Mailbox"
Astrobotnia - "Pt. 1"
Sonic Youth - "Murray Street"
Blackalicious - "Blazing Arrow"
Rovo - "Tonic 2001"
Wilco - "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"
Yohimbe Brothers - "Front End Lifter"
Musica Transonic - "Hard Rock Transonic"
Apples in Stereo - "Velocity of Sound"
Anthony Braxton & Taylor Ho Bynum - "Duets (Wesleyan) 2002"
John Zorn - "IAO"
Fenn O'Berg - "The Return of Fenn O'Berg"
|
Sunday, May 18, 2003
Hard Rock Transonic - Musica Transonic
I don't think I mentioned anything about this record when I picked it up last year, although if you scroll your eyes to the left a few centimeters, you will see it in my best of 2002 list. Musica Transonic is a trio of Tatsuya Yoshida (the mad genius behind the Ruins, Zubi Zuva, and many other strange and wonderful bands) on drums, Makoto Kawabata (the acknowledged deity of Acid Mothers Temple) on guitar, and Asahito Nanjo (whom unfortunately I don't know much about) on bass. What they do, at least on this CD, is fairly easy to describe. Each song starts with a great, sleazy, overdriven riff. They pound it out for about a minute or so, and then Kawabata starts soloing like a madman. If you're at all familiar with what it means for Kawabata to solo like a madman, then you've probably already stopped reading this and you're on your way to the nearest record shop that stocks these kinds of goodies. Or do I need to remind you that while this is going down, Yoshida is building futuristic rocket ships out of his snares, toms, and cymbals? And that Nanjo is right there in the pocket laying down a thick and greasy bassline? I imagine this is what Hendrix's Band of Gypsys would have sounded like if they were less interested in free love and more interested in just tearing shit up.
- o. nate
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Here's a review from the Squid's Ear website (a site that I just recently discovered that reviews experimental and improvised music) of the second set of that April 5 Anthony Braxton/Wadada Leo Smith show that I reviewed in my previous post (I only saw the first set).
- o. nate
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Okay, so I let a few weeks... er... months slip by there. Not to worry. Face in the Crowd is now officially back on the air. In the meantime, I've listened to many interesting recordings and even made it to a few good shows. Like a couple of weeks ago, I went to see Anthony Braxton and Wadada Leo Smith play a duet show at Tonic. I respect Smith's work, but unquestionably Braxton was the big draw for me. I've seen one Braxton show before (he doesn't seem to play that often these days - guess he's too busy teaching up at Wesleyan) and that was a show by an orchestra of his students in which he only conducted. To see him actually pick up his axe was a real treat. My favorite moments were his solos. I remember one passage in particular in which Smith and Braxton had been building up this discreet dialogue back and forth between Smith's trumpet and Braxton's sax, trading phrases of a few notes at a time. They had been gaining momentum and energy, and then Smith went silent as Braxton took the last phrase and worked it into a frenzy: twisting it, turning it over and over, exploring its different possibilities, dialoging with himself as he seemed to play in two registers at once - it was really quite breathtaking. Several people in the audience near me burst out laughing: a laugh of sheer exhilaration and pleasure at being offered such an unexpected treat. Anyhow, suffice it to say that those few minutes more than redeemed the ticket price. Speaking of people in the audience, I spotted many downtown musicians in the crowd: Vijay Iyer, Anthony Coleman, and Ted Reichman among them. When the master is in town, it behooves the jazz fan to be in attendance.
- o. nate
Sunday, January 12, 2003
Sometime between my last post and this one, the holiday season came and went. During all the usual holiday madness, I didn't find time to catch any shows, although I did manage to hear a few new things. I mailed my end of the year picks in to the ILX Reader's Poll, and now I guess it's time to get started on the 2003 list. I see that I haven't updated my Last 5 Purchases list in some time either, so I'll need to bring that up to date.
I caught my first show of the new year last night at Tonic. It was Vinicius Cantuaria and his band, doing their bossa nova with a contemporary twist thing. In case you are not overly familiar with Vinicius (pronounced "Vee-nee-see-us"), he is a successful songwriter in Brazil (he's written million-selling songs for the likes of Caetano Veloso) who has been living in New York for the past few years, making connections with a number of "downtown" music scenesters (Laurie Anderson, Arto Lindsay, etc.), and playing great shows like the one I saw him do last night. I love the rhythms of Brazilian music, and there was plenty to go around last night, with three (or four or five, depending on who happened to pick up a tambourine) percussionists to keep the poly-rhythms moving along. I wish I knew Portuguese so I could understand Vinicius's lyrics, although he did generously sing a line in English at one point, something about the river flowing to the sea. He seems to specialize in unusual chords that catch you off guard but then suddenly make total sense. The band sounded great, and as I mentioned, what a way to start the year.
- o. nate
|
Archives
Links:
ILM
Squid's Ear
Freakytrigger
All-Music Guide
Pitchfork
Radio Free Narnia
Freezing to Death in the Nuclear Bunker
NYLPM
Church of Me
Fluxblog
The Minor Fall, The Major Lift
Southside Callbox
In Review
Anthony Is Right
M. Matos
Hipster Detritus
1-0
The Other Side of This Life
Neal Pollack
Bookslut
WFMU
Pitas.com
|