Ancient Astronauts – The Orion Nebula Remixes (ESL)
Click to download – DIGITAL ONLY
Listen Now: “Peace In The East (Kabanjak Remix)”
GOING FOR RPM ADDS
Kabanjak and Dogu, aka Ancient Astronauts, hailing from Cologne/Germany are back with a heavy load of remixes on The Orion Nebula Remixes, out on April 10, 2012. After the release of internationally critically acclaimed album Into Bass And Time (their second album for ESL Music) they joined forces with some of their favorite producers and remixers, which resulted in a roster full of quality remixes.
The selection of fine reinterpretations starts with a funked up boom bap remix of “Oblivion feat. Azeem & DJ Zeph” by Chicago based producer Maker (from the group Qwel & Maker), which is full of Indian influences and features fat rocking drums.
This is followed up by Kabanjak himself doing an epic drum heavy version of “Peace In The East,” which leaves a lot of room for beautiful strings performed by UK string duo, Entropik.
Then comes a remix by Emch from Subatomic Sound System in New York City who will blow your speakers with its big bass. This remix is an up-tempo version of “Give It To You feat. Monsoon.”
And while speaking of bass we present you DC residents Second Sky & Thomas Blondet who give “Calvert Street Rock” a fresh new Dub outfit that puts the Melodica in the spotlight of this song. The original version is a homage to ESL Music & Thievery Corporation headquarters (located on Calvert Street in Washington DC) and to Augustus Pablo (who brought the Melodica to the attention of Reggae lovers worldwide).
Kabanjak´s more Afro and Latin dedicated project Deela (on Switchstance Recordings) comes up next with a more up-tempo broken beat remix of “Anti Pop Song,” bringing you a contagious bass-heavy groove for the dancefloor.
Next up is longtime friend and collaborator DJ Brace, who is one of Canada´s finest scratchers and producers who did all the cuts on the Ancient Astronauts album Into Bass And Time, on Kabanjak´s solo album Tree Of Mystery and he remixed “Classic feat. The Pharcyde” from AA´s debut album We Are To Answer. His remix of “Still A Soldier” shows of his fine skills as a producer and DJ with his trademark style of warm and tight beats combined with killer scratches. To round up this remix and give it a real organic feel Brace invited some friends to his studio to add Kora (Zal Sissokho) and Darbuka (Guillaume Fouquet). The result is full of beautiful harmonies with forward rocking beats and scratches.
Bay Area resident and eclectic beats & grooves maestro J-Boogie is the next in line. J chose to remix the song “Last Night feat. Akua Naru” and added some lush Latin flavor and deep bass, which give room for Akua´s lyrics to flower out through this beautiful song.
To round up this release and pay dues to all the beat-addicted Hip Hop and Funk heads in the world we added the instrumental version of the Maker Remix for “Oblivion.”
Focus Tracks: 2, 3, 5, 6, 8
FCC: 1
Beware Of Darkness – “Howl” (Bright Antenna)
GOING FOR MODERN ROCK SPECIALTY ADDS
Beware of Darkness is a bold, new power-trio of old souls, pissed at life in a modern age. They are ready to frighten your children, sleep with your daughters, and make you shake, scream, and contort like it’s a Depression-Era Southern exorcism. They play fast moving rock songs with exploding key and rhythms changes mid-song. They also play slow-cooked, sexed-up bluesy things. Imagine Bowie’s “Hunky Dory” with low, detuned, primal Zeppelin-esqe guitar riffs.
Their live shows have the emotional climaxes of a church revival; a fitting description as chief songwriter and guitarist, Kyle Nicolaides has, on multiple occasions, brought a gospel church of 200+ to their feet in standing ovation.
The rhythm section consists of Tony Cupito (drums) and Daniel Curcio (bass), who share a mutual respect and admiration for Blues, Gospel, and Motown music. They all met in LA, where Nicolaides moved to escape the Santa Barbara doldrums, and Curcio (a New Jersey native) was visiting after discovering he had a long lost half brother. The three came together to form Beware of Darkness, taking the name from a George Harrison song, and signed to Bright Antenna in late 2011.
Lyrically, Nicolaides cites literary influences, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickenson, and David Foster Wallace. He delivers scathing lyrical content in a snarling howl tackling subject matters of depression, chaste women, pedophilic priests, and post-modern paranoia. Incredibly potent and precise, these are lyrics meant to evoke reactions. They are here to divide, conquer and seduce, and are moving awfully quick. Beware of Darkness is here. Catch them if you can.
Focus Tracks: 1
FCC: None
Cold Specks – I Predict A Graceful Expulsion (Mute)
Listen Now: “Winter Solstice”
GOING FOR TOP 200 ADDS
Listen to I Predict A Graceful Expulsion, the debut album by Cold Specks and you’re transported to the Deep South, to the Ozarks and Appalachians, to the stirring songs of chain gangs, the religious proto-rock of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and to Harlem at the very point where blues met soul. It’s the sound of struggle and strife, brought up to date yet packing all the power and potency of a voice that seems to stop time. But this music comes from a place that’s a long way from the Deep South, geographically and spiritually. Cold Specks is 24 year-old Canadian Al Spx, which is not her real name, but it’s as real a name as she’s prepared to offer. Her songs were written over many years in the wardrobe of her teenage bedroom in the Toronto suburb, Etobicoke.
“I never wanted to be a singer – I wanted to be a guitarist in a rock band,” she says. Natural talent took her in a different direction. When Spx sat down to write her first song, aged 15, an early version of Graceful Expulsion’s desolate, climactic track, “Lay Me Down,” was born. Rock ‘n’ roll thrills were not to be found. “Teenagers all have morbid periods. I had a pretty long one. I went to four different high schools in four years. I didn’t get the chance to develop social skills. I kept to myself.” She smiles: “I do alright now though.”
After writing a handful of songs as a teenager, she recorded a number under the name The Hotel Ghost. “It was me being a horribly sad teenager with a keyboard,” she laughs. “I didn’t even know how to play chords and stuff. I’m really embarrassed by the whole thing.” Setting music aside for a couple of years, she eventually felt the pull of the nylon guitar hiding in the wardrobe. When she picked it up again, she wrote more of the songs that would eventually form the basis of I Predict A Graceful Expulsion.
Spx was coy with her music, posting a series of EPs online then changing her mind and asking the website to remove all traces. Eventually, she gathered the tracks together and burned a handful of 12-track CDs, which she gave only to friends. This is how she met producer Jim Anderson. “My little brother, who was spending his summers with our mother in Toronto, had always told me of this girl he was friends with that had this amazing voice,” recalls Jim. “As a producer I’d heard that so often that I didn’t take too much notice. Then I came in one night to find him and a few friends drinking in the flat and playing a CD of her demos. I was completely transfixed and just kept pressing repeat. I knew I had to work with her.”
Together Anderson and Spx transformed her raw, potent songs into polished entities, recruiting long-time PJ Harvey collaborator Rob Ellis in the process. Having never played with another musician, Spx assembled a band to bring these new, lush arrangements to life. While recording the album in 2011, Spx finally made her proper debut on the internet, setting up a Facebook page at Anderson’s house in a boozy evening that bore both her pseudonym and the perfect description of her sound: doom soul. “Doom soul is how I describe my music to people,” she says. “It seems to make sense to them.”
Cold Specks’ “doom soul” is the stuff of deep emotional connection. I Predict A Graceful Expulsion is intimate and closed-in at times, large and lush at others, and always affecting. Its lyrics tell of struggles with growing up, with religion and with the big things that shake young lives. “I guess it’s a dark album,” muses Spx. “It was always going to be that way.”
Focus Tracks: 2, 3, 5, 7, 10
FCC: 6, 9 (both flagged for “goddamn”)
Niyaz – Sumud (Six Degrees)
Listen Now: “Parishaan”
GOING FOR WORLD ADDS
“Niyaz is the closest to organic digitalism imaginable: you never know where the mouse pad ends and the animal skin begins… devotional by nature, weaving deft poetics about being consumed by divine flames into patient textures of dhol, tholak, darbuka, and synthesizers. When the trio attacks the dancefloor fully with the 110-bpm “Dilruba,” ancient Persia finds a new home in stacks of subwoofers.” – XLR8R
Struggle as a metaphor is something every human can relate to. One of the most prolific and challenging forms of struggle in the world today is the plight of ethnic and religious minorities, which is the topic of Niyaz’s third album, Sumud (pronounced soomood) forthcoming on Six Degrees Records. Translating from Arabic as “steadfastness,” lead singer Azam Ali chose this philosophical term as a symbolic reminder that, as she explains, “every human being should inherit the right to live with dignity and freedom upon the land on which they are born.”
Niyaz, which means “yearning” in Persian and Urdu, was formed in 2005 by Ali, multi-instrumentalist Loga Ramin Torkian and two-time Grammy nominated producer and electronic musician Carmen Rizzo. The band borrows from an historic lineage of Middle Eastern poets setting verse to music, perhaps most famously known today through the work of the 13th century Persian poet Rumi.
In its short history, Niyaz has garnered an incredible amount of media attention, including features on NPR and PRI, with the Huffington Post declaring the band to be “an evolutionary force in contemporary Middle Eastern music.” Their second album, Nine Heavens, topped both the iTunes World and CMJ World Music charts, while a number of songs from the two-disc set found their way onto television and the big screen. Tireless performers, Niyaz continues to tour internationally, while each member has released at least one solo album since Nine Heavens’ 2008 release.
All of the album’s ten tracks feature a punchy low end and a strong emphasis on percussion. Electronic elements abound on Sumud. At the beginning of the process of recording, a collective decision was made to give the kick drum more kick after the acoustic-minded Nine Heavens. It also marks the first time that the band recorded the majority of the album together, starting in Montreal and putting the final touches on in Los Angeles.
Rizzo says, “The new show is going to have a lot more electronic elements and textures, and be a lot more beat-driven. The songs are going to be arranged and performed a lot differently than the record.”
For Torkian, the approach involved less multi-layering and more effects on his instruments, predominantly the Middle Eastern stringed instruments kamaan and robab. The effect is hypnotic, with melodic waves erupting between the precise stabs of Rizzo’s cutting-edge production aesthetic.
As with any Niyaz record, however, Ali remains the central focus, with her love for Middle Eastern poetry and her dynamic vocal performance; she has been featured in a number of movies, including Matrix Revolutions and Prince of Persia. Sumud features new creations of Turkish, Afghan, Palestinian, Kurdish and, of course, Persian folk songs.
In an age where conflicts are tearing up areas of the Middle East, and completely fracturing the understanding of Arabic culture in America, Niyaz is presenting a groundbreaking marriage of ancient, ecstatic verse with 21st-century dancefloor kinetics.
Focus Tracks: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6
FCC: None
PUJOL – UNITED STATES OF BEING (Saddle Creek)
Listen Now: “DIY2K”
GOING FOR TOP 200 ADDS
Namesake frontman Daniel Pujol lives in a strange world, all the time. Whether in college, on tour, in between jobs, or writing a record, he is getting by and getting weird in Nashville, Tennessee.
PUJOL arose from the ashes of MEEMAW in 2009 to carry on the Nashvillian ideals of DIY and self construction through adeptly crafted songs based firmly in meaningful lyrical content. It’s these motives and songs that have taken PUJOL from the basements of Middle Tennessee to stages across the country and have garnered notice from more than just those with their ear to the ground.
Releasing a plethora of singles and cassettes over the past two years on Jack White’s Third Man Records, Nashville’s Infinity Cat Recordings and Turbo Time Records among others, PUJOL has now partnered with Omaha’s Saddle Creek. Following the critically praised Nasty, Brutish, and Short EP from last year, PUJOL finally has an official debut full-length ready for unveiling. UNITED STATES OF BEING continues on with PUJOL’s doctrine of trying hard everyday and ventures lyrically to a place that most contemporaries fail to reach. Addressing the current status of twenty-somethings in America’s present and capturing their shared dispositions, the album throws the brakes on “catharsis,” and begs the listener to decide for themselves how to answer the robot’s last question, “What is love?” With riff-oriented guitar playing reminiscent of greats like The Replacements and Beetlejuice-esque earworms, PUJOL now sits atop the fringes of the rock and roll and DIY vernacular.
Whether this strange world chooses to embrace PUJOL is of no matter, as the prolific frontman will continue to carry on as always – Taking Care of Business 24/7.
Focus Tracks: 1 (edit), 3, 4, 5, 7, 9
FCC: 1 (grab clean version here)
Soulsavers – “The Longest Day” (Mute)
Listen Now: “The Longest Day”
GOING FOR TOP 200 ADDS
Soulsavers will release their new album The Light The Dead See through Mute (US/Canada) on May 22nd. Featuring vocals and lyrics by Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode), the record is the follow-up to 2009’s critically acclaimed album Broken.
“There was no real script,” says the laconic Rich Machin of the extraordinary fourth album The Light The Dead See, a set of songs of majesty and momentum. “It just rolled and rolled; it was effortless.” Yet the writing was on the wall from the moment Dave Gahan stepped in to tackle vocal duties that this was going to be something very special. “We realized we were coming from the same place in so many ways,” adds Machin. “He’s really laid himself bare on this record, his performances are astonishing: he really is a terrific singer.” Says Gahan, “Everything about it was relatively unplanned, surprising: a magical thing. We were a perfect match and I’m very, very excited about this record.”
Soulsavers – the music and production team of Rich Machin and Ian Glover – have been a growing force since 2003’s debut Tough Guys Don’t Dance. 2007’s It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s The Way You Land brought their dark flair to a wider audience. The inimitable Mark Lanegan served as primary singer, though there were also vocal contributions from Will Oldham and Jimi Goodwin. In 2009, third album Broken confirmed that Soulsavers were moving away from early electronica to earthier guitars, use of space and what Machin described as “a soulful twist”. Lanegan again led the vocals on standouts such as “You Will Miss Me When I Burn’”and “All The Way Down”, with other guest vocalists including Oldham again, Jason Pierce, Richard Hawley, Mike Patton and Gibby Haynes. Clearly, there was no shortage of acclaimed singers ready to lend their lungs to Soulsavers’ stirring, seductive, soothing or startling creations.
Venturing out from the studio to the road, Soulsavers were invited to support Depeche Mode on the European leg of their vast and eventful 2009-10 Tour Of The Universe, during which tour Dave Gahan bounced back from more than his fair share of illness and injury. Here, the seeds of The Light The Dead See were sewn.
“We got to know each other,” says Machin. “I really warmed to him, thought he was a particularly nice guy. Dave said he was a fan of our previous albums, and watched us almost every night, and, as you do, we said: Hey, we should work on something, at some point in time…”
“The tour together was great,” recalls Gahan enthusiastically. “I love Soulsavers and I’ve also been a Lanegan junkie for years. Rich mentioned doing some writing, and I told him to send over any pieces he liked, however minimal. What Rich does – big grinding bluesy organs, gospel choirs – somehow that touches something in me.”
Gahan’s lyrics and melodies came to him with spontaneity and passion. “About five songs in, I realized I was writing outside myself. I was having a go at myself, to be honest: my questions around faith, and God, or the lack thereof at any given moment. Sometimes I’m full of faith, but there are always questions. And I struggle with letting go of control of what’s going on around me. This album became very therapeutic. No restrictions. Coming out of getting sick myself, I found I HAD to get this stuff out of me. This music gave me the perfect palate to play with the BIG questions that we all ask when life becomes less about what can we GET, than: what can we DO? I’ve been very fortunate, and I’m privileged in my life, so I want to do things I feel really connected to now, otherwise there’s no point … It was a wonderful experience.”
Focus Track: 1
FCC: None
ADDS for 5.15.2012
Fixers – Pop Meat / Your Corruptor (Dolphin Love)
Listen Now: “Another Lost Apache”
GOING FOR TOP 200 ADDS
Summer has come early in the form of Fixers’ forthcoming EP, Pop Meat/Your Corruptor, which was released on April 24th on Dolphin Love Records. The Oxford-based psychedelic pop quintet shared the track “Another Lost Apache” as a free MP3 to give everyone a taste of the EP. With an aesthetic that blooms from Beach Boys-era harmonies and surf samples, Fixers assert themselves as a band to watch, with endless hooks and a love for experimentation.
Pop Meat/Your Corruptor opener, “Another Lost Apache,” builds on an acappella harmony and turns it into a fuzzed out adventure. The anthemic “Crystals” will have you singing along on the first listen as its slow rolling speeds up to ecstatic peaks. The monumental sound of “Passages / Love In Action underscores it’s question of where did the world go before coming back down amidst chants: “We are the sun / We are the moon / We’re coming down / We’re coming down.” EP closer “Pink Light” has a propelling rhythm that will take you from a sunny afternoon into a late hours dancing frenzy.
On Pop Meat/Your Corruptor, Fixers are hinting at what’s to come. They never sacrifice the big melodies or the experimentation and the result is a sun-drenched, fuzzed out, joyride that will make your 2012 better. Don’t miss them live in NYC!
Focus Tracks: 1, 2, 5
FCC: None
Jesca Hoop – The House That Jack Built (Bella Union)
Listen Now: “Born To”
GOING FOR AAA ADDS
Following her east coast tour, in support of The Punch Brothers, Jesca Hoop returns with her third album The House That Jack Built on Bella Union on June 26th 2012.
The House That Jack Built deftly showcases Jesca Hoop’s unflinching tendency to pull focus from widescreen to close-up. Part siren song, part grim warning, it achieves a perspective-warping balance between the haunting intimacy of Hoop’s delivery and an unconfined air of horizon-scanning grandeur from the outset – tempestuous, moodily melodic opener “Born To” shares this striking duality with later highlights “When I’m Asleep”, “Peacemaker” and “Deeper Devastation.”
The follow up to 2009’s universally critically acclaimed Hunting My Dress, the new self released recording is a co-production between Hoop and three producers – “a drop of blood in the can from each of us rendered a more radical sound” says Hoop – and this visceral album will open a whole new world of listeners to Jesca’s music.
“Born To” – the first single from the album – asks a question we’ve all asked ourselves “how is it that I was born into the circumstances I was born into. How is it some of us are born into famine and others into unimaginable wealth”. In “Hospital (Win Your Love)” she tackles “a human quality that causes us to crave injury” recalling childhood memories and on “Deeper Devastation” – her favorite song on the record – a fear of infidelity, this song Hoop says “is about accepting nature and learning to trust”.
Elsewhere, “Pack Animal” and “Dig This Record” find Hoop spinning very different threads to equally hypnotic effect. Throughout Hoop’s stone-turning observations remain mired in the equal beauty and violence of nature, hers is a nature red in tooth and claw.
Since self-releasing Hunting My Dress, Jesca Hoop has continued her knack for collecting fans in high places. Having been endorsed by Elbow’s Guy Garvey – she presented his 6music show on BBC Radio on March 25th – she’s joined Eels on their US and European tour in 2011 and was invited by Peter Gabriel to sing backing vocals for his David Letterman and Jools Holland TV performances, and support and duet with him on his South American tour last year. With the release of The House That Jack Built, Jesca is set to pick up a host of new fans, high profile or not.
Focus Track: 1
FCC: 3
Slowdance – “Boyfriend” b/w “Airports” (White Iris)
Listen Now: “Boyfriend”
GOING FOR TOP 200 ADDS
Slowdance began as a band of friends who wanted to create the music they wanted to hear. Starting in 2009 with Thomas Quigley playing bass guitar, Luke Fox playing keyboards, Kyle McKeveny on guitar, and Quay Quinn-Settel as lead singer, the band was rounded out in 2010 with the addition of friend and drummer Sam Koppelman.
Slowdance draws influences from such disparate acts as New Order, Francoise Hardy, The Beach Boys, and Crystal Stilts. Quay sets the tone at their live shows with a voice best described as winsomely melancholic, a French disco songstress with a heavy heart. Thomas, Luke, Kyle and Sam steadily build a wall of sound that slowly breaks down within each song: guitars, drums, and keyboard playing off each other with the assurance of a band that knows itself well. Drawing upon elements of shoegaze, indie pop, disco, and even surf rock, it’s only in listening to them that you can truly understand the band’s unique approach to the pop vernacular.
There’s a keen sense of romance to the band’s music, a sense that you could listen to them in Bushwick or in Lyons and still think “Hey, life is good, isn’t it?” Slowdance is a band to watch.
“Slowdance bring keyboard and guitar and a rhythm section that can flip from a new wave throb to a spaghetti western rumble as easily as it delivers punch indie-pop, all anchored by vocalist Quay Quinn-Settel’s demure cheek and soprano dramatics” – Stereogum (Band To Watch)
“Their hooks are redolent of sun-dappled Go-Gos-informed new wave, their beats are informed by nervy British post-punk …” – SPIN (30 Can’t Miss Acts at CMJ 2011)
“Frontwoman Quay Quinn-Settel leads the way, armed with a commanding voice, simultaneously beautiful and adamantly disengaged. It’s a neat little trick that feels timelessly cool, especially with the perfectly balanced mix of guitars and synths sparring so elegantly and infectiously in the background” – The L Magazine
Focus Track: 1
FCC: None
The Spy From Cairo – Arabadub (Wonderwheel)
Listen Now: “Alladin Dub”
GOING FOR WORLD ADDS
One of the amazing things about the deeply Jamaican music called Dub is its ability to act as a conduit. From its early days as stripped down versioning of popular Reggae tunes to its indoctrination into late 80 / early 90s UK Soundsystem & Dance Music culture, to its current massive mutation (with the “Step” planted firmly in its behind); Dub has shown itself to be not only a musical art form that stands strongly on its own, but also a vehicle of sorts that can transport and connect disparate musical universes. And it’s at the unique nexus of Dub and Arabic music that the Spy From Cairo sits the most comfortably.
The Spy From Cairo aka Zeb is the kind of musician that fits perfectly in with the downtown NYC music scene – Italian by birth, Gypsy by heritage, and Brooklynite by residence. He has been closely associated with the Turntables on the Hudson scene for close to 12 years – producing dozens of albums as Zeb, the Spy From Cairo and the Organic Grooves project, as well as remixing for everyone from Baba Maal to Tosca to Billie Holliday to Novalima, steadily garnering a worldwide collective of fans and followers.
The Spy’s new album, Arabadub is perhaps his most realized vision of deep Middle Eastern and Jamaican sounds coalescing into something that sounds right and natural – because it was conceived and produced in just that natural way. There are no samples used on the album, and Zeb has programmed everything, as well as playing traditional Middle Eastern stringed instruments called the Oud, Chifteli and the Saz himself. Check the opener “Alladin Dub”, with its echoed out skanks, pulsing bassline, and majestic strings – and the deepness that is “Taksim Square”, complete with swirling, psychedelic accordion. Other highlights include the tense four-to-the-floor stomper “Desert Tears”, the rolling dub of “Sons of Hannibal” with it’s beautiful Middle Eastern vocal chants, the nostalgic “Egyptian Pulse” with its Steppers sound and melancholy vibes, and the dancehall vibes of “Prince Ahmed” – sounding like 3AM Kingston wrapped in a Bedouin Tent!
Focus Tracks: 1, 2, 4, 6, 9
FCC: None
ADDS for 5.8.2012
Alejandro Escovedo – Big Station (Fantasy/Concord)
Listen Now: “Man of the World”
GOING FOR TOP 200 ADDS
Alejandro Escovedo will release his 11th solo album Big Station, June 5th, 2012 on Fantasy Records/Concord Music Group. Produced by Tony Visconti, Big Station finds the ever-evolving Texas rocker highly-charged with spirit and purpose. The album’s hard snap and sharp arrangements recall much of the great music Escvovedo absorbed as it blasted out of AM and FM radios throughout the 60′s and 70′s. Largely co-written with frequent collaborator Chuck Prophet, the album’s 12 songs bristle with tension and hope as Escovedo fights to keep faith in a changing world and hold onto love.
Big Station follows Escovedo’s critically lauded 2010 album Street Songs of Love, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and earned rave reviews from Rolling Stone, The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, and many more. Earlier this month, Escovedo took SXSW by storm with a slew of stellar performances including two appearances with Bruce Springsteen.
Escovedo, undeniably on the short list of celebrated Texas songsmiths, brings the entirety of his hard-won poetic gift to Big Station‘s 12 songs. He artfully chronicles his hometown and own personal decline in “Bottom of the World,” saying “Austin’s changed, it’s true/Show me what hasn’t” as he watches “the cities of the world reduced to ashes” on television. Similarly, on the ultra danceable pop number “Party People” he intones, “One time I knew just how to get around knew all the secrets in this dirty town.”
The evocative “Sally Was a Cop,” vividly wound together by a single muted trumpet, paints a grim portrait of Mexico’s violent drug wars and political corruption. “Seems like everybody’s trying to sell me something I don’t need,” Escovedo sings on the whole-hearted, exquisitely melodic “San Antonio Rain,” adding “But the last thing I need is something that’ll dull my pain.” The super-punchy “Common Mistake” primed with crackling horns and Joe Jackson-like staccato is existential new wave fun of the highest order.
Salvation is found in Escovedo’s wide and deep roots. He looks to the sacrifice of his parents for strength on “Can’t Make Me Run,” and he closes the album with his first ever recording in Spanish: “Sabor a Mi.” Written by the late Mexican composer Alvaro Carrillo in 1959, the song’s title translates as “Be True To Me.”
Focus Track: 1
FCC: None
Scott Lucas & The Married Men – Blood Half Moon (The End)
Listen Now: “Blood Half Moons”
GOING FOR TOP 200, AAA & MODERN ROCK SPECIALTY ADDS
Scott Lucas is best known as the singer/guitarist for the two-man, Chicago rock band Local H. But recently, he has broadened his musical scope and greatly expanded his lineup, pulling together a collective of musicians — the Married Men –that currently numbers seven and includes violin, accordion and organ. The result is quite different than Local H and a perfect fit for Lucas’ more personal, introspective songs. Reviewers have compared the band to American Music Club, the Waterboys and Lambchop. Lucas calls the group’s evolving sound “country-ish, alt-rock for people who like metal.”
Blood Half Moon (The End Records – June 2012), is distinctively darker, yet ultimately more optimistic than Scott Lucas & the Married Men’s previous records, which were often described as quiet and sad. ”For ‘Blood Half Moons’ – which is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a beautiful piece of music – I drove around in the desert for a couple of days and came back with lyrics full of blood, crows, and whiskey. And that dichotomy – the light of the music vs. the darkness of the lyrics – only serves to reinforce each other. It makes the songs seem MORE hopeful than if it was all flowers and babies. At least, to me.”
“In addition to his ability to craft indelible melodies, even when they’re delivered amid a wall of fuzz and thundering drums, one of Lucas’ strengths as a songwriter always has been a razor-sharp wit as a lyricist, coupled with a novelist’s eye for telling details. The Married Men showcase the latter in a different setting, amid sawing violins, sweeping piano lines, wheezing accordion and organ, and seductive acoustic guitar that welcome comparisons to the likes of American Music Club and Tindersticks.” — Jim DeRogatis, Pop N Stuff
Focus Track: 2
FCC: 5
Various Artists – Exit Bratislava: Near Dark And Beyond Vol. 1 (Electrofone)
Listen Now: Dead Janitor “Deal”
GOING FOR RPM ADDS
Discover Slovakia’s (former Czechoslovakia) capital city’s dark & emerging electronic music scene. These hand picked songs from Los Angeles based electronic artist/producer Carmen Rizzo, in partnership with his Electrofone Music, Bratislava based Exitab Records & Prague’s Brain Zone International delivers a wide range of the new & upcoming artist from the region. This new wave of undiscovered talent from Central & Eastern Europe is yet another example of hard to define genre fusions, to post dubstep, to recent club cross over success. Artists featured include Tea Pot, Dead Janitor, Pjoni, Stroon, Aches, Ink Midget, The Uniques & Gwerkova. Exit Bratislava: Near Dark and Beyond Volume 1 gives the listening a mesmerizing journey beneath the medieval city. Brussels and the Englishman in Bogota), make for an ideal collaboration between musicians and producer.
“There’s a lot going on in this hot-blooded mess… Restless, arresting, addictive” (Monocle, UK)
“One of the best antidepressants of this autumn” (Vibrations, FR)
Focus Tracks: 1, 3, 8
FCC: None
