The list of “bitchin’” things in music is select: Camaros, summers, pretty lives. Meditative, drone-filled music built on synths, drum machines, and woodwinds usually does not fit the bill. Yet the Chicago trio Bitchin Bajas (possibly named after the late, lamented Subaru coupé utility vehicle) makes a strong case for the bitchin-ness of their aggressively […]
Bleeds, the fifth salvo from this Dead Oceans-signed, Asheville, N.C.-based indie outfit, is truly the best album of 1994. Who thought it would be so compelling to graft country rock idioms to the relentless decibels of British shoegaze and American grunge and then have the whole cyclone spin around a slacker vocalist? Then again, mediocrity […]
Roxy Music released its final album, Avalon, in 1982, capping off a decade that saw the group morph from the shimmering art rock of its debut to something more majestic but wearier. Seven years had passed since the group’s last masterpiece (Siren). The uneven Manifesto (1979) and Flesh + Blood (1980) felt like a group […]
As a member of the hardcore outfit the Armed and the atmospheric jazz collective Fuubutsushi, Patrick Shiroishi has proven that he can handle both aggressive thrash and evocative ambience with finesse. For his latest solo project, he balances both, and creates something fraught and angry, yet strangely serene. Forgetting Is Violent begins with a voice […]
For one cruel moment it felt like we had David Bowie back. He went silent for nearly a decade after suffering a heart attack during a performance in Prague in 2004, resurfacing in 2013 with The Next Day, a strong collection of songs that felt like a comfortable, but not revelatory, coda to a multi-decade-long […]
From 1969 to 1979, a series of field recordings appeared on the Atlantic label under the title Environments. Song titles included “The Psychologically Ultimate Seashore” and “Dawn in New Hope, Pennsylvania” (which would have made a dynamite title for a Ween album), presenting painstakingly recorded sonic representations of places and the sound-worlds they produce. The […]
Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and has a handful of public screenings through Sept. 14, needs a subtitle, like “Why Elvis Was The King?”. The Elvis busts, Elvis impersonators, velvet Elvis, Elvis weddings, gaudy Graceland interior décor, later-life health struggles, pill dependency, […]
When electronic-ambient-new age pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre was working on 1976’s Oxygene, in his makeshift home studio, he often had to tape down two preset buttons of his Korg drum machine to achieve the effect he wanted. Thanks to the breakout success of that record and its winning blend of bright keyboard melodies and warped analog […]
“Sorry, I was thinking about something else.” These are the first words you hear on the Beths’ latest, Straight Line Was A Lie, apologizing for the opening track’s false start. At first, it feels like a cute, self-deprecating peek behind the curtain from the celebrated New Zealand band, but upon reflection, it’s actually a fitting […]
“‘Dark Star’ is always playing somewhere. All we do is tap into it,” Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh supposedly said. Grayfolded, John Oswald’s epic collage of the Dead’s hallmark longform jam, assembled from fragments of more than 100 different performances spanning the band’s 30-year career, could be seen as an attempt to simultaneously channel every […]