It’s no joke that stand-up comedian Reggie Watts was once the front man to a neo-soul band by the name of Maktub. Somewhere between Hall & Oates and Bush on the musical spectrum, Maktub has a distinctive blend of genres new and old creates a rarified air that is sweet to be amongst. Their sophomore [...]
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Year 3, Day 227: Maktub – Khronos (2002)
Year 3, Day 226: Lana Del Rey – Born to Die (2012)
So, you pick up the Lana Del Rey CD / LP / .mp3 album entitled Born to Die, there’s a picture of a statuesque blonde girl who looks like she’s Bruce Springsteen’s all American daughter—a poster girl. But before this happened, what you knew about Lana Del Rey was a beautiful song she released on [...]
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Year 3, Day 225: Lunice – One Hunned (2011)
One of the most interesting trends in music in recent years has been the instrumental beat scene. Originating in the mid 2000s with acts like Flying Lotus and the Glitch Mob, there’s a new wave of artists taking the sounds of IDM, glitch and bass music and incorporating them into hip hop style instrumentals. And [...]
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Year 3, Day 224: Ray Charles – Genius Loves Company (2004)
Don’t you love the feeling of sitting by the fire, when all ducks are in a row and everything is just as it’s supposed to be? This is exactly how I feel every time I listen to Ray Charles’ Genius Loves Company. And indeed he’s got company that is hard to beat—Norah Jones, Diana Krall, [...]
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Year 3, Day 223: Screaming Females – Ugly (2012)
Whether goth or punk, hippie or metalhead, there’s a specificity to the kind of kid who would take the power away from his or her tormentors: rather than being picked on for having a big nose, say, or the wrong clothes, or a shitty haircut, the tormented kid inevitably adapted a new persona. It was [...]
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Year 3, Day 222: Charles Mingus – Mingus at Antibes (1976)
Mingus at Antibes captures Charles Mingus and one of his numerous bands of the period performing at the 1960 Antibes Jazz Festival (though somehow unreleased until the mid ‘70s), delivering a set which would have many jazz enthusiasts reaching for the wallet with the intention of forking out considerable sums of cash were time travel [...]
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Year 3, Day 221: Lotus Plaza – Spooky Action at a Distance (2012)
By this point, Lockett Pundt has made quite a name for himself. While at first he may have been referred to as “that guitarist from Deerhunter”, he has proven to be a very gifted songwriter. Pundt has always been an important contributor to Deerhunter, and his first solo album The Floodlight Collective wasn’t anything to [...]
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Year 3, Day 220: The Cool Kids – The Bake Sale EP (2008)
“Do the smurf, do the wop, baseball bat… rooftop like we bringing ’88 back,” is the mantra for The Cool Kids’ The Bake Sale EP. This borrowed line fully encapsulates what this 10-track EP is all about, a boom-bap revival. From the look, to the sound, to the swagger the Cool Kids have emulated classic [...]
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Year 3, Day 219: Jack White – Blunderbuss (2012)
I’m a fan of the White Stripes, I have been since White Blood Cells came out when I was 13, so I’m not the best person to review this album. But I will anyway because there has to be somewhere on the Internet a review like mine about Jack White’s debut solo album Blunderbuss. Childish [...]
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Year 3, Day 218: Jay-Z – American Gangster (2007)
The idea that an artist as prominent and over-exposed as Jay-Z could have an album that went under the radar seems inconceivable, but that kind of seems to be what happened with his record American Gangster a few years ago. This concept album, which is inspired by the film of the same name, sees Jay-Z [...]
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Year 3, Day 217: White Zombie – Astro-Creep: 2000 (1995)
Maybe that’s just me, but a great deal of my favorite records has a history accompanying them. Some of them have a longer history, while others have only recently joined the “favorite” list. The fascinating thing about the favorites is that no matter when you come back to them, they still have the potential to [...]
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Year 3, Day 216: The Fox – For Fox Sake (1970)
Obscure psychedelic pop music from the ‘70s is not exactly up my alley. But there is something about The Fox’s For Fox Sake musical atmosphere that envelops me in a fuzzy haze of wonderment. On surface, the tunes seem melancholic and distant, but not inaccessible. In fact, The Fox invites you to join in with [...]
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Year 3, Day 215: Rosetta – The Galilean Satellites (2005)
It is worth noting from the offset that Rosetta’s debut album, The Galilean Satellites, utilizes what is at once a gimmick but also an intriguing idea memorably used, albeit more extravagantly, on The Flaming Lips’ 1999 opus, an “opus” may never have been as appropriate a term, Zaireeka. The gimmick in question is the release [...]
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Year 3, Day 214: Black Dub – Black Dub (2010)
Daniel Lanois is a legend. As a producer and composer, he has been a part of some of the most significant records of the last thirty years, for greats such as Brian Eno, U2, Bob Dylan, and Peter Gabriel. His own solo work is also excellent, ranging from melancholic slide guitar scenes to his own [...]
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Year 3, Day 213: Miike Snow – Happy To You (2012)
If you stick around long enough disappointment will inevitably make a personal visit to your neck of the woods. This misfortune can manifest itself in several negative human emotions from anger to depression and the release for some can be found in music. For one reason or another, these negative emotions seem to translate more [...]
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Year 3, Day 212: Clock Opera – Ways to Forget (2012)
It looks as though we are going through a strange pop resurrection. A quiet revolution, one that’s happening somewhere deep in the worldwide underground. The sort of place where Animal Collective are superstars, The XX are revisiting some very familiar and emotional thematic with great success. These days bands like Django Django are all over [...]
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Year 3, Day 211: Lazerhawk – Visitors (2012)
Goddamn. That’s about all I can say after listening to Lazerhawk’s new album Visitors. I had never heard of this artist until this week and their style is both refreshing and fun. With an emphasis on fun. Lazerhawk is the stage name of producer Garrett Hays, out of Austin TX, and Visitors is his second [...]
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Year 3, Day 209: Ketman – 2005-2011 (2011)
I know, I know: the retrospective is a tired form which adds fuel to the irrelevancy of albums fire. Kids today, blah blah blah, back in my day, yadda yadda. Trust me, I get it. And for the most part I agree with you. Retrospectives are generally about as bankrupt a form as singles collections: [...]
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Year 3, Day 208: Bad Religion – Recipe For Hate (1993)
Recipe For Hate finds Bad Religion, progenitors of late ‘80s punk, in somewhat tricky territory. It observes the footsteps of a band careering into something like mainstream consciousness, as exemplified by rock radio-ready cuts like “Struck a Nerve” and “American Jesus,” and an inevitably ironic chorus of sellout mud-slinging. It is the sort of album, [...]
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Year 3, Day 207: Rx Bandits – …And the Battle Begun (2006)
In the world of progressive rock, there are tons of amazingly technical bands. The songs fly between time signatures and tempos while guitarists chop out over all kinds of ridiculous lines. Amidst the attempts by these heady bands to make quasi-intellectual rock albums, the manic energy of the hands often replaces the honest energy of [...]
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