With a hazy and powerful sound, Cleveland duo Mr. Gnome issues a pair of B-sides to its well-received sophomore LP.
A group of Wodaabe and Tuareg people from Niger, Etran Finatawa, explores tribal music as channeled through electric guitar and a blues sensibility, and an acoustic guitarist with a rich, diverse catalog (Ralph Towner) drops a disc of duets with an Italian/Sardinian trumpeter (Paolo Fresu). (more…)
The strangely grooving maelstrom that is Daughters unveils its best album this week — a combination of behemoth low end, gnarly rock riffs, and guitar leads that sound like tornado sirens.
Germany’s Imperium Dekadenz delivers “intelligent black metal” with a set of epic arrangements and acoustic passages. Adventurous art-rock trio Liars issues another bold album that defies convention, and Aloha — “that indie-rock band with the marimba” — expands its sound a bit for another solid outing. (more…)
Delivering what should be one of the year’s best hip-hop albums, rapper B. Dolan teams with Alias for a sociopolitical disc that stays fresh from track to track.
As Mortemia, Norwegian one-man band Morten Veland issues an epic fusion of black metal and classical, with vocals that alternate between growls and grandiose choirs.
And German electro artist Architect drops hard-hitting breakbeats and synthesized industrial with plenty of dance and groove elements. (more…)
After a five-year absence, Norway’s Jaga Jazzist releases the symphonic prog rock of One-Armed Bandit, which immediately has become the group’s best album.
Turntablist Rob Swift, formerly of the X-ecutioners, takes a foray into the classical world with The Architect, a dynamic DJ disc; stoner-metal trio High on Fire picks up its pace and crafts an album that isn’t as outstretched.
Malian sensations Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté present another beautiful set of duets that sees a posthumous release after the passing of Farka Touré in 2006.
Icelandic producer Valgeir Sigurðsson establishes a name for himself as a composer with the gentle, mini-orchestral soundtrack to Dreamland, and Greek black-metal quartet Rotting Christ puts out another striking, original album that fuses its dark style to the ethnic sounds of its ancestors. (more…)
Electro-doom specialists The Bastard Noise hearken back to their ties to Man is the Bastard this week in a progressive noise-sludge split with The Endless Blockade.
Freeway & Jake One offer a funky, malleable hip-hop disc that leans on Freeway’s fiery delivery; The Souljazz Orchestra twirl through funk, Latin, African, down-tempo jazz, and big-band bits.
Meanwhile, Chicago trio Mako Sica reflects a Native American influence via a brooding combination of jangly guitars, reverberated vociferation, and instrumental dynamics, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops blur new and old while beholden to the traditions of Americana and early African-American folk. (more…)
An iconic poet/musician whose soulful spoken-word style helped give rise to rapping, Gil Scott-Heron presents his second “comeback” album this week — an atmospheric, down-tempo disc of diversity that is produced by XL owner Richard Russell.
Crafting powerful folk abstractions and interwoven, trance-inducing vocal dynamics, Pillars and Tongues issues a new LP and download; metal behemoths Arsis boast more tireless harmonized shredding; dance-pop quintet Hot Chip shines with a diversity of synth sounds; and internationally beloved electronic producers Massive Attack end a seven-year album drought. (more…)
Norway, Iceland, and Italy: it’s an all-international edition of This Week’s Best Albums.
Having transitioned from acoustic jazz to a prog-jazz-fusion outfit, Shining now delivers a gargantuan rock release, capturing a progressive industrial sound unlike anything else.
Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason presents a debut that is sorrowful, forceful, harmonic, and delicate — an album that undoubtedly will make year-end lists in classical circles.
Lastly, Italian cutup artist Økapi pays homage to a potentially fake Krygyz composer with a soothing glitch-lounge effort. (more…)
Guzheng virtuoso Bei Bei and prolific producer Shawn Lee team up to deliver what will be one of the year’s finest albums, a tour through funky down-tempo jams and Kung-Fu flavor that is driven by the tactile beauty of an ancient Chinese instrument.
With its third album, Algernon places greater emphasis on synthesizers and sprawling song structures, but at its core is the combination of accessibility and technicality that has defined bandleader Dave Miller’s style.
And in a great week for releases, the Chicago Underground Duo releases another dichotomy of avant-garde jazz, grooves, and programming, while electronic composer Noah Creshevsky crafts musical patchworks from samples of orchestras, vocalists, pop music, and much more. (more…)
On Scenes From Hell, Japanese quintet Sigh delivers symphonic, epic metal that calls upon classical instrumentation to accent sinister melodies with fanciful themes.
Ambient improvisational duo Colorlist texturalizes sound by utilizing delayed, echoing loops, mounting tension, harmonic and dissonant layers, and germane percussion.
And producer RJD2 returns with something of a split release — a disc with more soulful jams as well as some pointed, inventive instrumentals. (more…)
With just his fourth full solo album, hip-hop producer Anthony “Blockhead” Simon documents his keen ear for melody, dynamics, and stylistic convergence.
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis get together for another beautiful, melancholic, and tense film score centered on violin and piano, and the Rempis/Rosaly Duo drops a dose of alternately blistering and subdued free jazz that pays off with synchronizations that follows minutes of tension. (more…)
Sludgy alt-metal with free-jazz freakouts. Egyptian, Indian, and Arabic styles in Western structures. Absurdist progressive neoclassical. Playful orchestrations with big-band swing and foreboding soundtrack cues. Blood-curdling horror scores and reflective, introspective rhymes.
ALARM leaves no genre unloved in our round-up of 50 albums that didn’t receive enough attention in 2009. (more…)
Tom Waits’ former nanny Jesca Hoop leads another sparse December week with an enchanting album of harmonized overdubs and liberated folk production.
Meanwhile, experimental-folk darlings Animal Collective remain productive with another EP that doesn’t skimp on repetitious layers of vocals, electronics, and effect-heavy guitars that are doled out in differing time signatures. (more…)
In a slow month for new releases, adventurous rock cellist Alison Chesley comprises our only entry with her second solo release as Helen Money.
Containing a darker vibe, In Tune is a collection of minimalist, a-percussive creations that excel through overdubbed harmonies, dirty rock effects, and brooding melodies. (more…)
Kid Koala and Dynomite D build a band, dubbed The Slew, with the ex-Wolfmother rhythm section to dice psychedelic-blues riffs for a defunct documentary.
Jaga Jazzist foreshadows a great progressive album with a single that evokes sounds of Frank Zappa and Norwegian countryman Jono El Grande.
Diverse producer David Sardy creates a percussive score for Zombieland that oscillates between brooding minimalism, blood-curdling neo-classicalism, and horror-infused rock and roll. (more…)
MURS and Slug release their third installment of Felt, a side project now produced by Aesop Rock that contends with many of their other releases and stands on its own as an A-list attraction.
Portishead’s Geoff Barrow has has own side project — Beak>, an atmospheric, minimalist live-band effort that takes the multi-instrumentalist producer out of his over-dubbing element. (more…)
