Music Reviews: Vinyl

Monk's Music by the Thelonious Monk Septet was recorded in 1957, simultaneously in mono and stereo. A new mono reissue showcases the importance of microphone placement and recording methodology.

Being a fan of Japanese Sludge/Doom/Stoner/Drone/Psych/Pop-Metal power trio Boris can be exhausting, especially if you’re a record collector. Since forming in 1992 these industry veterans have racked up 29 full-length studio albums alone, not even including their dozen or so collaborative albums and countless extended plays. Having casually heard this band mentioned by friends who were enthusiasts of punk and metal over the years, sometime in 2012 or 2013 I found... Read More

Charles Mingus’ format as a deeply spiritual, playfully inventive and stylistically uninhibited composer, bassist and bandleader is very much in evidence on Changes: The Complete 1970s Atlantic Recordings, an 8 LP (or 7 CD) box set of his late-era recordings for the label. 

Bluegrass is enjoying one of its cyclical surges of artistry and audience, with Molly Tuttle in the vanguard. She and Billy Strings have become the first ascendant acoustic guitar stars in years, while carving out band identities as distinct and transformative as Alison Krauss and Union Station in the 90s or J.D. Crowe and the New South in the 70s. She’s won numerous bluegrass awards and a Grammy before age 30. In a golden time, Tuttle is a golden girl from the Golden State with her second album in 16 months, aptly titled City of Gold. 

Located at 3138 Fillmore Street, The Matrix was the hub of the “San Francisco sound” in the late 1960s. The pizza parlor turned nightclubs was spearheaded by the members of Jefferson Airplane in 1965, who became the default house band. Whether it was Big Brother and the Holding Company, Steve Miller Band, or Quicksilver Messenger Service, spectators that attended shows at the Matrix witnessed Bay Area bands in a loose environment that was a far cry from Bill Graham’s grandiose Fillmore West.

As listeners and reissue labels contextualize new age music in the broader history of ambient music, probably the biggest resurgence has been that of Laraaji, the zither master who’s worked with Brian Eno, Haruomi Hosono, and Bill Laswell, and who also leads laughter meditation workshops. Now, Numero Group presents Segue To Infinity, a recently released 4LP box set encompassing his first LP, 1978’s Celestial Vibration, and three discs of recently discovered recordings from the same time.

(There are two reviews of this record published simultaneously, one by Michael Fremer and one by Malachi Lui, the two working independently, for a young and an "I was around then" perspective).Chris Frantz writes in the updated booklet packaged with this new double LP set of the difficulties involved in mounting the complicated, unique, never before (or since) seen stage show that the late Jonathan Demme so well captured in the film "Stop Making... Read More

Immortalized in Jonathan Demme’s 1984 film Stop Making Sense, Talking Heads’ 1983 tour was the theatrical rock tour that ended all theatrical rock tours before it and raised the standard for those following. Choreographed but natural, theatrical but not outlandish, designed but also not, the newly reissued Stop Making Sense still resonates in its societal commentary and continuing influence.

"Jazz Samba" wasn't the first Bossa Nova record released in The United States, and it wasn't called one, but it was, and upon its release in 1962 it broke open the Brazilian music floodgate. Within months of its release there was Bossa Nova everything. This record was also the first in a popular series of Creed Taylor produced Verve releases featuring on their covers Olga Albizu's abstract art. It was a winning formula.Recorded in a single day... Read More

(This review originally appeared in The Tracking Angle Magazine Issue 7, Spring 1996.)Bryan Ferry covering Gogi Grant’s dramatic “The Wayward Wind” has always been one of my musical dreams, but Neil Young does a more than adequate version to open this long neglected mid-80s Young country album. While he doesn’t bring the kind of “camp” to the tune Ferry could, he’s got the spirit right, with cascading strings (17 count ‘em pieces), Waylon Jennings on guitar, and Bela... Read More

You’ve never seen a cleaner Cadillac in your life. My 1985 Eldorado was triple black and it proudly boasted the “Biarritz” package which upgraded it with a stainless steel roof and extra plush leather seats. Even though it was over a decade old by the time I took ownership of the vehicle, you wouldn’t know it because of how carefully I cleaned and detailed it almost each and every weekend. In the summer evenings, with the Eldorado in showroom condition, a buddy or two... Read More

For Cecil Taylor, the word “jazz” didn’t represent the music’s rich historical and geographical lineage. The further he progressed, the more he distanced himself from such strict definition. And considering his music, why wouldn’t he? A classically-trained pianist who worshipped Ellington but also studied and admired Stockhausen and Xenakis, it took almost a decade before Taylor’s brilliance fully revealed itself in the studio. Yet even on his debut album, the 1956... Read More

On my previous endeavor, June of 2020 writer Jeff Flaim covered, and we discovered avant-garde trumpeter Jaimie Branch and her supercharged, trumpet, drum, bass, cello quartet: Lester St. Louis, cello, voice, flute, marimba, keyboard, Jason Ajemian, double bass, electric bass, voice, marimba, and Chad Taylor, drums, mbira, timpani , bells, marimba. What do you call this? Punk Rock improvisatory jazz? The off the charts energy level of beating drums, bass, churning... Read More

"Don't throw your love away, No, no, no, no, Don't throw your love away, For you might need it someday". Lyrics from a song first recorded by The Orlons but later made popular by The Searchers. Good advice then and now.I'm not exactly "late to the fair" on this classic Coltrane album. I bought it new when it was first released January, 1965. A kid in my Cornell University, University Halls 3 dorm said "just get it" and so I... Read More

Spring, drummer Tony Williams’ 1965 album on Blue Note, his second release as a leader, is a baffling recording. It’s a masterpiece. It reveals new angles, unlocks new mysteries on each listening. But beats me how or why it works.Williams (who, at the time, went by “Anthony Williams”) is credited with composing all five tracks, but except for one of them, “Love Song,” which has the structure and grace of a song, it’s hard to detect just what parts of what we hear were... Read More

Van Morrison grew up listening to American blues and soul music courtesy of his father, a Belfast shipyard worker with excellent musical taste. No surprise that he moved to America and probably not because The Shadows of Knight's version of "Gloria" became a bigger hit in the USA than did his own version with "Them" released by U.K. Decca in 1964 as the "B" side of "Baby Please Don't Go". In 1965 with the American... Read More

Last year, Craft Recordings released Genesis Of Genius, a vinyl or CD box set of Ornette Coleman’s two albums for Contemporary Records. The box is now discounted at multiple outlets and since Craft’s Acoustic Sounds series is reissuing the LPs individually, it’s still worth reviewing.Ornette Coleman, born and raised in Fort Worth, was controversial from the start. A working saxophonist (tenor, then a plastic alto after three men smashed his tenor sax following a show)... Read More

Every few years, it seems, someone discovers another stack of long-lost tapes from a long-forgotten John Coltrane session and puts them out on CD, LP, or both. The resulting albums garner lavish praise and sell very well, but, really, they’re deep disappointments, textbook cases of hype—the allure of the new, the unknown, the never-before-heard-until-now! The first of the recent excavations, in 2018, was Both Directions at Once, a 1963 date at Rudy Van Gelder’s... Read More

After almost a decade under its belt, Bestial Mouths is still a shape-shifting collective. What started as a group with numerous lineup changes became a vehicle for vocalist Lynette Cerezo to express her lyrics of personal trauma and tribulations. Alongside instrumentalists Brant Showers and Matthew Tucker, Bestial Mouths displays a sound that brings together the gothic elements of post-punk giants Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, and Depeche Mode with some... Read More