At best, a good year-end list can feature a few albums that may have gone unnoticed. So let’s take a look at the 10 albums that are worthy of a second glance. Do not pay too close of attention to the order- almost all of these could have fit into the top spot. 1) Pere …
‘Krautrock’ is now the common nomenclature for German avant-garde of the 70s, although that was not always the case- the term was originally used to mock and dismiss the experimental music bursting out of Germany at the time. The German innovators of Kraftwerk, Can, Faust and Neu! were artists who sought a conscious break from …
Ever wonder how a new tradition is born? Certainly not by destroying the past, but by building upon the planks and pillars of those that came before. There needs to be a healthy respect for the past without sinking into the quicksand of past glory. Nostalgia being the certain death of creativity and progress. On …
The Necks‘ 2006 release Chemist is just like every other album the band has done. Then again, it’s completely original. Every release by this band is unmistakably The Necks. Each album completely improvised and organic. It just so happens that Chemist was my introduction and remains a personal favorite. The perfect safe-space to explore this …
He never really felt comfortable anywhere. He never got comfortable with himself. Always worried that it was his role or maybe his destiny to feel alone. Even among friends and those that said they loved him, Daniel was difficult and and he was difficult to understand. For this reason, he seemed to always be on the move. Most of …
Still can’t get his face out of my mind. All these years later. I can still see him there… Daring me to react. It’s personal. Throughout the 1980s and into the 90s you could depend on only two things in the United States: A foreign policy of relentless military intervention into the affairs of sovereign nations across the …
I miss those days when I would walk into a record store and scan the wall of new releases. Sometimes looking for nothing more than a sleeve that grabs my eye. That one cover that jumps at me, with no or limited knowledge of the music or musicians within those grooves. The art of album cover design …
David Thomas and his nourish gang of musical misanthropes have been haunting the edges of the alternative music scene since I first began reading Creem Magazine as a boy. An aspiring delinquent at the time, Thomas’s first band, the proto-punk legends Rocket From The Tombs, seemed like an unholy experiment that crawled out of the …
Let’s just make this clear up-front: ‘I’ll Provide’, the lead-track on the most anticipated new House/Techno release of this summer, Moodymann’s “Sinner”, took me by surprise. As with everything from the mysterious Moodymann (aka Kenny Dixon Jr.), we should expect the unexpected. The slick techno-groove hits hard, with a sound clearly inspired by the Purple …
Rob Chapman, Voyageur Press. 2016 That Old Black Magic AgainThe Barbarians were always more of a myth than an actual band. Rumors and whispers of a Rolling Stone’s tour without their lead vocalist plagued WRIF-FM “Home of Rock’n’Roll” in my hometown of Detroit. The core of the New Barbarians centered around the 70’s tour-alumni of …
