Interview: Charles Bradley

Emerging from nowhere to deliver his 2011 debut at the ripe age of 62, Charles Bradley has quickly become one of the most talked about and beloved artists of the decade. With a rich, raspy voice fit to compare with the greats of the golden era in the 1960s and early ’70s, Bradley, almost overnight, has become soul’s leading ambassador in the new millennium.

His live performances routinely unfold as touchy-feely love-ins between artist and audience. Behind this in-the-now euphoria is a life story of deprivation, itinerancy and bitter failure. As illustrated in a new documentary about him called Soul Of America, Bradley, like the subject of a Curtis Mayfield song, has lived most of his life beneath the poverty line, relying on charity from soup kitchens, sleeping rough, with no fixed abode.

After settling in Brooklyn, he plied a meager trade for many years as a James Brown impersonator in the Black Velvet revue. His fortunes only began to reverse when he hooked up with Gabe Roth from New York’s R&B imprint, Daptone, who in turn introduced him to aspiring band leader, producer and songwriter, Thomas Brenneck. From unsteady, no-budget beginnings, the duo worked at realizing Bradley’s higher talent.

Backed by Brenneck’s Menahan Street Band, Bradley released “No Time for Dreaming,” about his own private hardships, to huge global acclaim. He duly wowed the world on tour, and now returns with Victim Of Love — a record of exquisite joy, hope and gratitude, which pushes at the boundaries of conventional R&B like some lost treasure of early-’70s psychedelic soul. When eMusic hooks up with him and Brenneck on their latest ambassadorial London visit, Bradley’s voice is hoarse from so much testifying and giving. But now, at last, is the time for dreaming.

Yours is an incredible story, Charles: all that power to move people has been bottled up inside you all these years. Did you always know it was in there?

Charles Bradley: True artists, that sing from their soul and heart — nobody knows the depths they go under for a length of time trying to hold onto the honesty and decency and respect inside them. A person don’t get that easy. They work their asses off. I’m saying if you wanna be a career singer, you gotta take that hurt with ya.

But it was all this guy [pointing at Brenneck], helping me get heard. I say this to all my interviews — he’s gonna get tired of me thanking him. Then I’ll say, he might as well get used to it, because I can’t tell him enough where I would’ve been at right now — calling people and getting nowhere, doing my James Brown show still, keeping alive the dream, hoping it’s not too late.

Did you ever audition for TV talent contests, hoping to become a Susan Boyle-style “senior” success?

Bradley: I tried to get on all those things. Then I saw Jennifer Hudson [low-ranking finalist on the third season of American Idol, who went onto recording and acting mega-success] — I was angry at her! How did she get the chance? Overnight she just flew up, and I’ve been trying to get there for years? I was having doubts about everything. But my time came, in its own way.

The first album, No Time For Dreaming, documents the pain and hardship of your life, in a gritty funk style. Was it a kind of exorcism for you?

Bradley: I say, what is soul? Soul don’t have no creed or color. It’s what you been through, your hardship deep in your soul. You gotta reach down there where people’s never been half as deep, and pull it out. So the more I’m going deep into myself — that’s what soul’s about. Me and Tommy, we didn’t let go, we kept digging at one another, and that turned into that first record.

Was it a DIY effort, between the two of you?

Thomas Brenneck: 100 percent. I wrote all the songs with Charles, produced it, recorded it in my bedroom at the time — our humble beginnings. Gabe actually bought me a half-inch 8-track machine, which I kept right next to my bed, with a little stereo and a piano, and I chipped away, played stuff for Charles, and he loved it.

The years have been nice and we’ve got a recording studio now. We toured the first record, wrote a bunch of other songs, then went to the studio and recorded them with a much bigger sonic palette to choose from.

Did you know Daptone’s stuff before that, Charles?

Bradley: I knew Tom going on a lotta years.

Brenneck: We had recorded two singles, prior to the first album, with a different group. We first got introduced by Gabe from Daptone. I had an instrumental group called Dirt Rifle & The Funky Bullets, based on The Meters, James Brown, Dyke & The Blazers and such. Charles had knocked on Gabe’s door, saying, Hi, I’m a singer, you make records — are you looking for singers?

So Gabe introduced us, and we recorded two singles for Daptone that Gabe produced, as Charles Bradley & The Poets. The two singles were extremely derivative. It took five years after that, I’d say, of growth for myself, maturing in taste of music, for me to record some Menahan Street Band stuff that was much deeper music, it wasn’t just funky on the surface. It was slower and much deeper.

When Charles heard that music, he got inspired, and I think all his inspiration was really coming from all his trials and tribulations, and from living a life of struggle and poverty, and moving around, and not really having a home, and so that first album is really just Charles singing about the darkness, about the world from his perspective.

So that was Ground Zero?

Brenneck: Yeah, exactly, and now he’s felt warmth from people all around the world, and it’s because of those stories that people can relate to Charles — they’re drawn to him, and they love him, and he’s not just an entertainer up there that’s singing somebody else’s songs.

We write these songs together, they come from a really deep place, and now his inspiration is being drawn from some of these positive things that have happened in his life, and it still lends itself to be beautiful, soulful songs. They don’t just have to be tough, gritty and raw, they can be beautiful and psychedelic and soulful at the same time.

Some of your live shows have become the stuff of legend. One that often gets mentioned was at an outdoor festival in Utopia, Texas, where the heavens opened for a biblical downpour, and you went out and hugged crowd members in the rain…

Bradley: Yeah, that was a show! There’s nothing on earth like being on stage. To me, stage is home. If I see the people standing outside in the rain, getting wet, to watch me perform — I said, “Naaah, that not fair!” I had to jump off the stage and get out in the mud and get wet with ‘em! That’s when everybody went crazy. I said, “You gettin’ wet out there watchin’ me perform — can I come out, too?” Yeeah! It was a tear-dropper. There was warmth, kindness, hurt, love, and, in the midst of it, it was beautiful.

Does it feel massively different to you, doing your own show, with your own music, compared to doing your old James Brown show?

Bradley: I think they’re loving me more because I’m singing my song, and I’m singing from the heart, rather than doing James Brown and trying to manifest on his style.

Victim Of Love feels like a watershed record for Daptone. People were sometimes sniffy about it at first, like it was pointless and copyist. Has it all been a process of winning people over?

Brenneck: Yeah, to modern soulful music. With this album, I was really trying to push outside of the boundaries of the normal Daptone production by adding elements that you wouldn’t hear on Sharon Jones records and such. We’re trying to make soul music in 2013, and embrace all our influences that are outside of just directly James Brown or Otis Redding or any Motown Detroit artist. But once he sings on it, it’s impossible to call it anything but a soul record.

Bradley: Tommy said, “You wanna move on from James Brown?” And he’s doing it by putting in that music that I like. Once my spirit gets into the depths of the music when I hear it, it all happens. I don’t wanna do James Brown no more, because I’m feeling that feeling I’ve been wanting for a long time, and the more you put it on me, and when I get into it when you give it to me, the more I want it. That’s just the bottom line.

Now we’re doing funk and rock. We’re gonna find a new mixture. We’re heading into a mixture that nobody’s doin’, our own creation.

Brenneck: It’s not gonna be fresh by doing a hip-hop song. It’s gonna be by him doing his own song, that embraces all that and lots else beside. Bradley could take a Black Sabbath song and turn it into a soul song.

You might go heavy metal next time? Like with Jimmy Page guitar?

Brenneck: Jimmy Page is cool, but that’s not heavy metal, it’s rock ‘n’ roll, and that’s where we’re going. Bradley can do a good Robert Plant impersonation, and he doesn’t even know it!

Bradley: Yeah, and one song we play is Neil Young’s “Heart Of Gold.” I lu-u-urve doing that song. It feels good, it fits right in.

How has your life changed since your upturn in fortunes, Charles? Do you have a decent lifestyle now?

Bradley: Not totally. I’m working on it.

Do you have a family, with kids to provide for?

Bradley: I made a vow to myself when I was 14 years old, and I lived that commitment from that date right up to today: No child of mine is comin’ into this world. I’m gonna keep seeking, but right now at my age, 64, it’s too late for me to have kids.

But surely your story proves that it’s never too late for anything?

Bradley: No, man, it’s best to have kids at Tommy’s age. He can grow up with his kids, be young with ‘em, play with ‘em. My playin’ — I wanna do it onstage. I’m gonna be godfather to a lotta kids [gesturing out into imaginary audience, smiling], and I’m gonna teach them to the best of my ability. Same thing with Oprah [Winfrey]: She never had no kids, but she’s like the motherhood of all kids. So I’m gonna be a godfather!

And you’re going to be a movie star, too, with your own documentary…

Brenneck: That’s not gonna make Bradley a movie star, that’s just gonna make him a topic of conversation. It’s more about his life than his music. Where it ends, another documentary could start, because the last few years have been crazy, successful, amazing — but with that success, after 60 years of being down in the dumps, your shit doesn’t change overnight, even if the money starts coming your way. It’s still hard to change what you’re used to, psychologically, even if physically it’s easier to get material things.

There’s a lot of people around Charles trying to help him out, and Charles is trying to steer on the right path, not listen to people around him who’re trying to just leech onto him. It’s hard.

Bradley: One thing my mother taught me, I won’t forget: Go out and make money, but never let money make you. And I won’t. The only thing material things can do for me, is buy things I don’t have, and get me outta that level that I’m live in.

But this new record is about documenting the changes that are underway, and expressing your hope, love and gratitude?

Bradley: This new record is coming out of the darkness into the light, and meeting new peoples. I’ve been meeting lots of positive people, and they’ve been making me more sure of myself. [smiles] It’s a beautiful thing.

A Hawk & A Hacksaw, You Have Already Gone To The Other World

Over the past decade, the New Mexican duo of Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost, aka A Hawk & A Hacksaw, have taken a fascinating journey through the music of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Turkey and beyond. They also have a long-standing connection with cinema: Their first release was the soundtrack to a documentary about Slovenian thinker Slavoj Žižek. This album, their sixth, is loosely based on a score written to accompany Sergei Parajanov’s 1965 documentary film Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors, about the Slavic Hutsul people in the Carpathian mountains that run through Central and Easter Europe. Clearly, there’s magic in those hills, and it’s richly mined here, as the pair put some fierce twists on the music of the Ukraine, Hungary and Romania. There’s an otherworldly atmosphere to “Where No Horse Neighs, And No Crow Flies,” where high tumbling notes give way to a sinister drone and rattling bells. On “Ivan And Marichka/The Sorcerer,” the drama is even more pronounced: It starts as a cheerful, skittish fiddle piece before becoming a terrifying tumult of drums and noise. The title track features more echoing, rattling rhythms and a gripping finale — it’s as if Liars had been transported via time-machine to an ancient pagan ritual on some dark mountainside. A Hawk & A Hacksaw’s music is a fusion of folk music styles that feels unforced, thoughtful and celebratory, and You Have Already Gone To The Other World is their finest work yet.

Herman Koch, The Dinner

Don’t read this review before listening to Herman Koch’s novel, The Dinner. Instead, try to imagine the love child of Hitchcock’s single-take thriller Rope, a New York Times Magazine cover story on the evils of helicopter parenting, and the prissily detailed menu from the latest farm-to-table eatery. OK, have you got the picture? No? Well then read on, but beware of spoilers.

Though it’s actually set in the Netherlands, Koch’s home country, the story could just as easily take place in Brooklyn or Berkeley. Two couples, of youngish middle age, meet for dinner at a well-regarded restaurant. The narrator, Paul, seems resentful of the evening ahead; the husband of the other couple, Serge, is a flashy guy of some celebrity (we soon discover he is Paul’s brother and the leading candidate for Prime Minister). Paul is annoyed by Serge’s need to show off and the fact that he can’t just enjoy a quiet night at a local café with his wife, Claire. At first it seems The Dinner will be a comedy of manners: Serge shows off his wine knowledge by gargling his first sip, and the restaurant’s host points a pinky finger at every carefully sourced item on their plates.

But some details are sinister: Babette, Serge’s wife, arrives with sunglasses covering red-rimmed, puffy eyes; Paul is preoccupied by an incident with his son Michel. Earlier that afternoon, he snooped on Michel’s phone, and whatever he saw there haunts him. Claire doesn’t know — or does she? And Serge and Babette’s own children may be involved as well. Especially suspicious to Paul is his sibling’s adopted son from Burkina Faso, Beau. It is Paul’s lack of empathy toward Beau’s very existence in his family — he refers to the adoption as a “rent-to-own agreement” — that tips the reader off. Something is very wrong here, though Paul may not be a reliable narrator. The evening darkens, the courses come and go, and the true moral vacuity of The Dinner’s diners becomes as obvious as the warm goat cheese appetizer.

The Dinner has been a bestseller in Europe for several years already. However, the issues it raises — social responsibility, class conflicts, racism, violence, and the use of new technology — feel universal, as do Paul, Serge, Claire and Babette’s ultimately selfish and self-protective form of parenting.

Cold War Kids, Dear Miss Lonelyhearts

The Cold War Kids want respect. Over their career, they have seemingly taken to heart every middling review they’ve ever received, pouncing on flourishing trends and adapting their sound with each new album, from the gritty soul of 2006′s Robbers & Cowards to the murky experimentation of 2008′s Loyalty to Loyalty to the arena-tailored reverb-rock of 2010′s Mine is Yours. But instead of sounding eclectic, they’ve mostly sounded confused.

The band’s fourth album, Dear Miss Lonelyhearts, is another stylistic shake-up. With new recruit Dann Gallucci (formerly of Modest Mouse) replacing longtime guitarist Johnnie Russell, Cold War Kids have shed the expansive, twin-guitar approach of Mine is Yours in favor of a quirkier, sparser, synth-driven sound. It’s another bold move — one that puts more emphasis on frontman Nathan Willett’s blaring, soulful voice. Lead single “Miracle Mile” is the most hard-hitting track they’ve ever penned, Willett warbling over a surge of bar-room piano and Matt Aveiro’s primal pound. It’s the sole moment of familiarity on an album of colorful new twists: The creeping “Lost that Easy” buzzes with electronic hi-hats and new-wave synth-bass; “Bottled Affection” marries hip-hop programming to drizzled guitar noise and a monster chorus falsetto; the closing “Bitter Poem” is a slow-building ballad, laced with melancholy keys and grizzled sax. But Cold War Kids sound at ease in the messiness, rejuvenated by the sprawl — as if they’ve finally learned to write for themselves, regardless of who else may be listening.

Manil Suri, The City of Devi

Manil Suri’s enormous, hysterical opus tells two seemingly disconnected stories: a plausible apocalypse and a broken marriage. It’s the near future, terrorists are exploding dirty bombs, the globe is descending into chaos, and India and Pakistan are on the brink of nuclear war. What worse time for Sarita’s husband, Karun, to run off without a word? And why is a gay Muslim named Jaz following her? Might it have something to do with Sarita and Karun’s two years of unconsummated marriage?

Suri has wisely set this larger-than-life, Bollywood-esque tale in the megacity Mumbai, the vastness of which makes it an utterly insane place for a vulnerable woman to go off in search of a man in the midst of total chaos. It’s the perfect locale for Suri to unfurl his expansive canvas, from blockbuster movies that incite nationalist fervor to a Hindu shrine to a child born with extra arms, plus a hair’s-breadth escape made on elephants — The City of Devi does not skimp on action. Yet the core of this book are Sarita, Karun and Jaz, all flawed, interesting and quite human enough to carry Suri’s oversized tale. In the end it becomes evident that this is a love story for our times, blending nationalities, religions, sexualities (yes, reader, there are three-way sex scenes here), all set amidst a manic frenzy whose energy is equal to our world’s.

Tyler, The Creator, Wolf

In the past, Tyler, the Creator has made it clear that his favorite album by Eminem, the man he once referred to as his atheist God, is Relapse, the dark, dense comeback record that preceded the chart-topping Recovery. Wolf, the producer/rapper/clothing designer/cockroach-munching troublemaker’s third full-length, inherits the Shady influence that marked its predecessors, but it also looks back past Relapse to earlier entries in the older rapper’s discography, The Marshall Mathers LP in particular: Just as “Domo23″ takes superfluous shots at the pop stars of the moment (“purchasing weapons, naming them and aiming them in One Direction”), “IFHY” relates a “Kim”-style love/hate relationship, its title abbreviating a hook that the New York Times would be forced to describe as unprintable. “Colossus” even narrates a fan’s encounter with his 22-year-old role model, his desperate monologue inspiring in Tyler the same mixture of honor and disgust that Stan’s letters once inspired in Eminem.

Behind the boards for all 17 the album tracks, Tyler continues to prefer minor chords sustained over boom-bap beats. Posse banger “Trashwang” stands out for its double-time use of guns-as-drums (“I want the black kids to like me for this one,” he says on the intro) and “Tamale” pairs a syncopated beat with yelps from Tallulah Belle (previously best known for dating OF-affiliate Lucas Vercetti 18 years after emerging from the womb of Demi Moore), but the record’s most ambitious track might be the seven-minute “PartyIsntOver/Campfire/Bimmer,” which attempts to graft three song fragments (the second featuring Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, the third Frank Ocean) into a unified whole. The pieces never quite come together, but if there’s anything to learn from those early Eminem records, it’s that they usually don’t.

Rilo Kiley, rkives

Rilo Kiley had a Hollywood sort of beginning: Two ex-child actors somehow found each other in the smog and smarm of Los Angeles. Jenny Lewis, the charmingly idiosyncratic songwriter with a country-strong voice, and Blake Sennett, the blue-collar guitarist who cuts his pop hooks with noise and swagger, started a rock band. And the music they made together was pretty, and pretty weird, for a rock band.

But after a decade of musical bliss, they robbed us of the happily ever after by breaking up in 2010. In one interview, Sennett cited disloyalty and greed as the causes. In another he compared Rilo Kiley to a corpse in a morgue. “Now, I see movies where the dead get up and walk. And when they do that, rarely do good things happen.”

rkives — the Rilo Kiley estate’s new odds ‘n’ sods collection — is hardly a full on Walking Dead situation, but it is proof that this zombie will still hunt. Mostly unreleased or barely released, these tracks span the band’s career to create a lovely and peculiar listening experience. The antsy, lo-fi demo of the Sennett-sung “Rest of My Life” from 2001′s Take Offs and Landings can’t be from the same planet as this clubby remix of the Lewis-sung “Dejalo” from 2007′s Under the Blacklight — and, hey, Too $hort just popped up for a verse about tapping asses, just in case you weren’t confused. Good old “Frug,” meanwhile, a favorite from Rilo Kiley’s earliest self-releases, returns sweet and untouched, a marvel of meet-cute pop from the pre-ass-tapping era. “Emotional” roars with thick, blunt bravado.

rkives‘ most stunning standout is a road-tested favorite finally getting the studio treatment. Once known as “I Love L.A.” (suck it, Randy Newman), “Let Me Back In” is Lewis’ sweet and sour torch song for her hometown. Basically, she’s Jenny and Los Angeles is Forrest Gump: “When the palm trees bow their heads/ no matter how cruel I’ve been/ L.A., you always let me back in.” Kinda-sorta hopeful. Maybe we’ll get our happily ever after, after all.

Interview: Leon Russell

[Charles Bradley turned heads and broke hearts with his 2011 triumph No Time for Dreaming. On the advent of his second masterpiece, the scorching, searing, Victim of Love, we invited Bradley and his bandleader and co-writer, Tom Brenneck, to take over eMusic's editorial section. In our interview with Bradley and Brenneck, they discuss the whirlwind that was the last two years of their lives. Below, read our interview with legendary songwriter Leon Russell, commissioned at Bradley and Brenneck's request. — Ed.]

Rock and pop typically divides along the means of production: Rock is largely made whole cloth by self-sufficient bands, whereas pop is usually crafted by hired songwriters and players. Leon Russell is a renegade in that regard. The 71-year-old Lawton, Oklahoma-born pianist launched his career as a session musician the week of his 21st birthday, then won acclaim in the rock world by writing, co-producing and playing on Joe Cocker’s successful second and third albums of the late ’60s and early ’70s.

After starting up his own label, Shelter Records, in 1969, Russell morphed into a solo act, releasing albums that were beloved by rock radio while also crossing him back over into pop, both as a singer (“Tight Rope,” “Lady Blue”) and a songwriter (“This Masquerade,” famously covered by George Benson). “Superstar,” one of his earlier compositions with Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, was both a pop smash for the Carpenters in 1971, and a 1984 R&B hit for Luther Vandross. Russell’s other well-known tune, “A Song for You,” never performed particularly well on any chart, but has been interpreted by everyone from Donny Hathaway to Willie Nelson. Russell’s fame faded when the ’80s arrived, but in 2010, Elton John enlisted him for a collaborative album, The Union.

At the behest of Daptone soul superstar Charles Bradley, eMusic’s Barry Walters spoke with Russell, who put his astonishing career in characteristically humble perspective.

How did your career as a session musician in Los Angeles take off the way it did?

I played with bands starting when I was 14, and went out there [on my own] when I was 17, but I couldn’t play in nightclubs in California because I wasn’t 21; they didn’t have much sense of humor about that. My first adventure in recording was playing on demo sessions for Jackie DeShannon and Sharon Sheeley [her songwriting partner] at Metric Music, which was a division of Liberty. She met Jack Nitzsche and introduced me to him. I started out playing on all of his record dates, one the first week and two the second week and four the third week and exponentially up from there. I never did play any clubs again until later.

At a certain point, you and several other L.A. session musicians became known as “the Wrecking Crew.” Was that something you called yourself, or did that name come much later?

That came out when [session drummer] Hal Blaine and whoever his ghostwriter was wrote his book made that up. I never heard it in my life until his book. [Session bassist] Carol Kaye said the same thing. It’s actually the title of a Dean Martin movie that perhaps they played on; I didn’t. I always thought it was not particularly a good name for a rhythm section.

Were you typically told what to play, or did you come up with your parts yourself, or a combination of the two?

I suppose it was a combination. Most of the writers who hired me, they hired me because they didn’t want to write the piano part, Don Costa [the late guitarist/arranger/producer/songwriter father of singer Nikka Costa] in particular. He would write a melody line and chord changes, and he’d say, “Play blues here, play classical here” and he didn’t have to write the piano part; he actually told me that’s why he hired me. It’s complicated to actually write those parts. Even more complicated than that is to find somebody who can actually read ‘em. The guy who read that stuff, his name is Lincoln Mayorga; he can read and play anything. But myself, I’m not much of a reader.

Was it important to think fast in those situations?

I had a birth injury that caused me to be slightly paralyzed on the right side of my body. I took piano lessons for 10 years, and I didn’t seem to be getting any better. I was better off figuring out stuff that I could play, so that’s what I did primarily — figure out something that could give the illusion that I was a piano player. I’m primarily left-handed, so with my right hand I had to be careful. I was always thinking a bar ahead about what I could play and analyzing whether or not I was going to be able to play it. I’ve had to do that most of my life.

Where there times when you knew a song could be better than it was, but you just had to go ahead with what you were told to play?

A lot of times we would get our music, or chord sheets or whatever, and we’d rehearse the track 15 or 20 times before the singer even started singing the song. And just out of boredom, I would sometimes write melodies and words to those tracks as were rehearsing ‘em, and when the real song came on, I sometimes didn’t like it as well as the one I’d written in my mind. But I don’t want to give the impression that I know what I’m doing all the time.

Did you ever bring these alternate versions to the table, or did you need to keep them to yourself?

Unless I was working for a very good friend, I would never say anything about the records at all. Herb Alpert called me up one day, he was a good friend of mine, and said, “I want you to help me. I’m cutting this country singer from Phoenix and I want you to help me with the rhythm section.” I went down there and said, “I think it would be better if you’d do this with the drums and the bass.” And he didn’t use that idea, and I told him a couple more ideas, and he didn’t use those. Herb is a genius. He’s made millions of dollars making beautiful records, and I can understand: He likes to do it the way he likes to do it. I’ve learned a lot from him, but after I made two or three suggestions, I didn’t make anymore because I could see he was gonna do whatever he was wanted to do. That guy from Phoenix, his name is Waylon Jennings. [Jennings originally hails from Texas, but had moved from Phoenix to L.A. to work with Alpert. — Ed.]

How did your experiences as a session musician help create opportunities as a songwriter?

I was partners with a guy [Thomas Leslie]. With him I wrote for Gary Lewis [comedian Jerry Lewis's son, who had a teen-pop group Gary Lewis & the Playboys; Russell co-wrote their Top 10 1965 hits "Everybody Loves a Clown" and "She's Just My Style"]. That was not really my kinda music. But my partner who I formed Shelter Records with [Denny Cordell], he had some hits over in England, and came over to make a distribution deal with A&M. He hired me to play on some Joe Cocker records. I figured as long as I was doing that, I would try to write some songs for Joe. When I was in a session, I always had a very sort of quiet demeanor. I didn’t want to get in the way. So we did the session and after the session I played these songs for Denny and he was kinda floored. I wasn’t aware that I turned into a rock ‘n’ roll maniac, but that’s what he said.

How did you come to write “A Song for You”?

I was in a relationship at one time, and the need for that song came up. I wrote it so I could sing it at the time.

Did you have the sense that you’d written a standard?

When I wrote “This Masquerade” and “A Song for You” and maybe a couple more, I was trying to write standards. “This Masquerade” had been cut over 40 times before George Benson [who had the biggest hit with it] ever cut it. And “A Song for You” has been cut over 125 times. I’m not sure if it was ever a hit exactly, but a lot of people cut it, and that’s what my goal was; I was trying to write songs that a lot of people would cut.

Was there an “a-ha” moment when you realized you’d cracked the code to writing a classic song?

No, there wasn’t. “A Song for You” I wrote in 10 minutes, and the same thing for “This Masquerade.” I don’t know anything about “a-ha.” These songs, some of them seem to have a life of their own, but I don’t have the ability to spot that.

When you did get your solo career going, was it what you expected?

I didn’t have any expectations at all about that, because I didn’t think I was good enough. My first show was at Anaheim Stadium with the Who. I was the opening band and they were selling out the stadiums pretty regularly. I don’t remember much about it except that I went up on stage, sang the songs, and came off the stage. I was pretty rattled the whole time.

Did you ever think, “I don’t have the kind of voice to have a solo career”?

There you go. That’s exactly what I thought. I still don’t understand it. [Laughs.] I sounded a bit like Moms Mabley, no reflection on Moms. [Mabley was a pioneering African-American comedian. — Ed.]

You had a very successful run in the ’70s. How did you deal with it winding down in the following decades?

The venues got smaller and the crowds got smaller. Like I told you, I didn’t have any expectation from the top. I thought I was extremely lucky to get where I got, so I avoided the press and did all the stuff that was wrong and kind of walked away from it.

So what was it like joining up with Elton John and playing to big crowds again?

Elton did a great deal for me. He spent a lot of money on me, on PR. A lot of people don’t know about stuff until somebody who they admire and trust comes up and says, “This is great” He did that for me, and I’m very grateful for it. When I was doing the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour [with Joe Cocker], I knew the audience didn’t know who some of these other singers on stage were, so I had all these girls with empty cameras pretend to take photographs so the audience would get the impression they were somebody worth photographing. People listen with their eyes, the main audience, so they have to be guided in some ways. [One then-unknown singer on the tour was Rita Coolidge, the inspiration for "Delta Lady," Russell's song for Joe Cocker. — Ed.]

What kind of advice would you give to musicians who want to make records like yours?

Once again, you’re under the impression that I know what I’m doing, and that’s not really the case. I do what I do and I’ve had studios in my houses for the last 40 years ’cause I like to make records. But as far as telling you the secret to them, I’m not sure that I know that. If I did, I’d have more houses. [Laughs.]

What are you doing these days?

I was writing some lyrics to some tracks that a friend of mine from California sent me. He’s trying to make an album for me, and I was trying to write some lyrics for the songs I’d be singing. I’m having a little bit of difficulty with my bipolar disorder today and the last few days and I haven’t been able to really do anything, but some days are better than others, you know?

Milk Music, Cruise Your Illusion

On Cruise Your Illusion, the first proper full-length from Olympia, Washington’s Milk Music, the quartet wedges itself somewhere within the SST Records-Neil Young-Wipers universe, pitting sweat-stained, heavy hardcore punk against indelible melodies and endless sincerity. Since their early output, a 2009 demo cassette and a 12-inch in 2010, the band has turned their DIY determination into full-fledged ambition, and the songs on Cruise are as honest and spiritual as they are messy and loud. On “Lacey’s Secret,” Alex Coxen’s shouting, imperfect voice cuts through the instrumental heap with lines that that scan endearingly like poetry in a rest-stop bathroom: “You got to get all you can here/ when you’re burning every night”.

The songs on Cruise Your Illusion bask in youthful charm. “…And although the sun sets heavy on the dreamer/ You can feed your pain to the song,” Coxens sings on “No, Nothing, My Shelter” as the band rips into the overdriven wail of “Coyote Road” before running amok on “I’ve Got A Wild Feeling,” a populist manifesto that might as well be the band’s anthem. When Milk Music started out, their songs were loud, fast and full of Big Muff. And while the sound is still bruising on their debut, they’ve found a larger scope and a deeper message. On “Cruising With God” Coxen invites the listener into the band’s inner sanctum: “They all love our songs/ But even with the music on/ Baby you’ve got it all wrong/ You haven’t danced in so long.”

Mudhoney, Vanishing Point

The members of Mudhoney might be closing in on (or eclipsing) the half-century mark, but being eligible for AARP membership hasn’t done much to make them soft. If anything, the so-over-it cynicism and exhaustion that’s been the group’s m.o. all these years is a much better look on them as distinguished gentlemen. Granted, it’s hard to imagine a younger Mark Arm taking the time to write a song about white wine. But the 96-second scorched-earth screed that is “Chardonnay” shows that no subject is safe from Mudhoney’s indomitable anger and ennui. Elsewhere on Vanishing Point, Mudhoney’s ninth album, the group plays more to type, making with the knowing one-liners and boundless lack of tolerance — please note the rewrite of “Purple Haze”‘s most famous lyric as, “Excuse me while I fill this shopping cart,” (on “I Don’t Remember You”) and the song self-evidently titled “Douchebags on Parade.” Regardless of what’s being sung, it’s set to the kind of propulsive sludgy punk-powered music that sounds as good now as it did when back when grunge was the Next Big Thing. There’s no rose-colored nostalgia trip happening here, though: As Mudhoney enters their 25th year, still wrestling with whatever crawled up their backside and died way back then, they’re arguably at the height of their powers.

Generationals, Heza

Generationals’ first two albums were unabashedly, painfully indie-rock. Jangly guitars, the sporadic new-wave synth, the bleary-eyed melodies of Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer: They were so ingrained in the tools and tones of their own musical culture, they tended to get lost in the shuffle — sturdy songwriting ultimately rendered anonymous.

Heza, the band’s vibrant third release, doesn’t suffer that same fate. The New Orleans duo have completely expanded their sonic palette, branching into some fascinating new directions: “Say When,” with its tongue-tied percussion and sputtering sequenced synths, sounds like New Order on a beach vacation; “Put a Light On” is adult-contemporary funk, bolstered by electronic loops and digital handclaps; “Kemal” is the biggest head-scratcher (and maybe their best song ever) — a barrage of stabbing reggae guitar, sweaty hand drums, and twinkling glockenspiel. Even when Generationals settle for safe, predictable indie-rock tropes (the surf-rock wash of opener “Spinoza,” the crunchy chug of “I Used to Let You Get to Me”), they’re finally doing it on their own terms — with quirk and personality.

Depeche Mode, Delta Machine (Deluxe Version)

More than any of the other popular synth acts of the late ’80s and early ’90s, Depeche Mode helped make rock more electronic. Much of that has to do with the simple fact that Depeche is the synth act most like a rock band: During the peak of their popularity, these Brits put on a show arguably far more rock-like than the American grunge bands with whom they shared alt-rock radio playlists. But the influence has been mutual: Over the course of their 33 years, the Modesters have employed more and more rock guitars, riffs, tonalities and performance styles to the point where on Delta Machine, their 13th album, it’s nearly impossible to distinguish between their harshly distorted synths and their effects-driven guitars. Just when their indie brethren have embraced EDM, Depeche Mode have created an emphatically classic rock album.

As suggested by the lurching first single “Heaven,” the dance tempos and rhythms that define dozens of Depeche hits have been largely replaced by ballads and roots-y variations on their “Personal Jesus” boogie. The hooks paramount to the band’s enduring international success are also in shorter supply. Martin Gore remains a crafty and incisive songwriter, but the arrangements no longer maximize his catchiness. Instead, they showcase the moodiness of Dave Gahan’s matured vocals. One might think Gahan’s substance abuse might’ve done irrevocable damage to his vocal chords, but recovery has clearly paid off, as he’s arguably more expressive than ever on slow jams like “Welcome to My World,” “Goodbye” and, fittingly, “Slow.”

The ultimate key to Depeche’s universality, one that rarely gets explored, is the way their greatest songs comment on the human condition. Delivered as a sermon to a sinner who refuses salvation, “Alone” is the standout: It’s the kind of tear-soaked, dark disco anthem that Robyn and other Depeche students have mastered in recent years, but with the disco elements here entirely removed, waiting to be reinstated by willing remixers. “I couldn’t save your soul/ I couldn’t even take you home,” Gahan — a man well acquainted with despair — belts over muted beats and nocturnal noises. After all these years, few sing of strange love more knowingly than Depeche Mode.

15 Best Late-Career Bowie Songs

The history of rock music is full of artists with catalogs so vast and sprawling it can be difficult to know where to start. David Bowie is not one of those artists. Repeat after me: Ziggy, Berlin Trilogy, half of Let’s Dance, pause, repeat. What you don’t often hear about are the many high points that arrived later in Bowie’s career. After the travesty that was 1987′s Never Let Me Down — a record Bowie has mostly disowned — and his weird dalliance with the hard-rock group Tin Machine, Bowie began an on-again/off-again relationship with his muse, one that yielded a healthy number of high points that are routinely, unjustly overlooked.

Wax Idols, Discipline & Desire

Hether Fortune is the leading force behind the post-punk group Wax Idols. Hether Fortune is also a dominatrix, a gender theorist, and a maintainer of one of the most berserker-entertaining feeds on Twitter. She is an uncontrolled, unpredictably sparking live wire, in other words, and on her second record Discipline & Desire, that same crackling intellectual heat and primal energy graces a batch of sarcophagus-cold post-punk.

Fortune’s deep, throaty voice is a powerful instrument, one that generates melodrama all by itself. On “Stare Back” and “When It Happens,” she bounces it off of vicious meat-hook guitar leads and blankly pistoning drums that recall Pornography-era Cure. She paints her lyrics in open-palm smears of devotion and subjection: “I love him twisted in hideous places/ I love him dead most of all,” she moans on “Stare Back.” But the album is not some grand guignol exercise; on “Stay In,” Fortune goes airy and wistful. “You said you’d always love me/ But I don’t feel it/ You said you’d always love me/ I wanna feel it,” she sings longingly. On “AD RE: IAN,” she sings with mournful empathy about Ian Curtis’s suicide, from the perspective of Adrian Borland of The Sound. “Can you see it in the mirror? Do you feel it in the streets? Have the architects of failure got you down upon your knees?” she wonders, as the band dissolves into silvery mist behind her. Discipline & Desire is a rich experience this way, whirling between emotional extremes. Like Fortune herself, it contains multitudes.

New This Week: Bonobo, Edwyn Collins, Wire & More

Bonobo, The North Borders We love this. With its warm beats and vinyl crackles, Simon Green’s fifth album is in welcome contrast to the sleek, serrated-edge futurism of much contemporary electronica. Ian Gittins writes:

“There are shades of James Blake’s spooked, narcoleptic electro-pop on “First Fires”… Best of all is the suitably divine “Heaven For The Sinner”, on which Erykah Badu ladles her preternaturally honeyed tones over quick-stepping beats like a hypnotically alluring ghost in the machine. This is rarefied headphones music to be played loud, and often.”

Edwyn Collins, Understated The title is a misnomer: this wonderful, uplifting album shows Collins still in the throes of his creative rebirth and truly thrilled to be alive.  J. Edward Keyes writes:

“In the stomping soul-derived “Too Bad (That’s Sad)” he kisses off a sourpuss whose poisonous outlook is bringing him down and in the heartbreaking “Down The Line” he apologizes to his wife Grace for what he put her through while he was hospitalized. The slow-building “Forsooth” opens with Collins loafing around the house on a Sunday morning before arriving at its simple, beautiful chorus: “I’m so happy to be alive, I’m so happy to be alive.”

Wire, Change Becomes Us The legendary post-punkers return with an album that resurrects never-before-heard songs and is as absorbing, and obtuse, as anything they’ve done. Sam Adams says this:

“Rather than attempt to recapture their old sound, they’ve forged ahead with a creative renaissance as vital, if less concentrated, as their early years.”

Rachid Taha, Zoom Algeria’s foremost rock’n'roll agitator returns with special guests Mick Jones and Brian Eno. Chris Nickson writes:

“Khalouni” bursts out like Algeria’s answer to “Anarchy in the UK”, while “Algerian Tango” could be a distant, slinky cousin to The Clash’s “Straight To Hell”, with Mick Jones singing the menacing chorus. Perhaps punk isn’t dead, it’s just wearing a keffiyeh these days.”

Lapalux, Nostalchic Twenty-five-year old Essex boy Stuart Howard delivers a debut of sublime, CD-skipping sounds on Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder imprint.

Portico Quartet, Live / Remix The first half of this double album captures the Mercury Prize nominees on pin-sharp live form in 2012; the second features mixes by Will Ward, SBTRKT, Luke Abbott, Komx-om-Pax and Scratcha DVA.

At The Drive-In, Acrobatic Tenement This reissue of the post-hardcore legends’ 1996 debut will be followed by Relationship of Command on April 22 – the album that helped define rock’n'roll for the new millennium.

Crime & The City Solution, American Twilight The Australian renegade rockers led by Simon Bonney return with their first set of new songs since 1990. Sharon O’Connell writes:

“It’s a dramatic and richly imagistic blend of gothic alt-blues, widescreen soundtracks, noirish art rock, gospel, cabaret, jazz and Americana that sees their line-up reconfigured to include such alt-rock luminaries as drummer Jim White (of The Dirty Three) and guitarist David Eugene Edwards (Wovenhand, 16 Horsepower).  This is CTCS’s 36^th year in the business of documenting man’s frailties, fuck-ups and faltering faith… Clearly, their work is far from done.”

Ticklah, Ticklah vs. Axelrod As a contributing member of Antibalas, The Dap-Kings, Menehan Street Band and Easy-Star All Stars, Victor Axelrod has covered Afrobeat, Latin soul, Southern funk and dub reggae. This album amalgamates all of those styles. Nate Patrin reviews:

“There’s some deep dub, naturally – the melodic-soaked “Answer Me” and its sparse, ghostly choir are straight from the Augustus Pablo playbook. But there are also some fitting integrations of dub-compatible sounds, from the sunny ’60s ska-meets-boogaloo vibe of “Mi Sonsito” to the soul-jazz-tinged “Deception”. This is melting-pot eclecticism done right.”

Elephant, Skyscraper After a lengthy sabbatical caused by guitarist Christian Pinchbeck breaking his wrist, Elephant are back to fulfill their early promise with this sumptuous slice of Fifties-style pop. The duo will release their debut album on Memphis Industries later in the year.

Milk Carton Kids, The Ash & Clay Softly quavering, sweet indie-folk, reviewed by Jim Farber:

“You can’t get far into writing a review of The Milk Carton Kids without mentioning Simon & Garfunkel. (I managed to make it just 14 words). Like S&G, they’re an acoustic duo who sing pristine ballads in tightly entwined voices of velvet and lace. But so facile a comparison sells these “Kids” short: Kenneth Pettengale and Joey Ryan have delicate, distinctive timbres, and the lyrics on this California duo’s second studio CD aren’t nearly as effete as they first seem.”

Julian Lynch, Lines More rickety, soundtracky type stuff from Lynch, with layered, helium-filled vocals, plinking nylon-stringed guitars and wheezing mellotrons. The kind of music you can get lost inside.

Steve Coleman & Five Elements, Functional Arrhythmias Jazz that draws equally on funk and friction. Peter Margasak writes:

“The veteran innovator and alto saxophonist draws inspiration from overlapping rhythmic patterns found in the human body: nervous, respiratory and circulatory systems… But for most listeners digging all of the conceptual underpinnings isn’t necessary to enjoy the propulsive, funky sounds.”

New This Week: The Strokes, Wavves, Wax Idols & More

There are a handful of titles — Depeche Mode among them — that are slightly delayed due to technical issues. We hope to have them on the site tomorrow. In the meantime, we’ve got plenty of other options to keep you occupied…

The Strokes, Comedown Machine – The former avatars of NYC-rock cool dig deeper into their synth gew-gaws and endearingly geeky starched-stiff Cars imitations. Who would have thought these guys would hang around long enough to feel like America’s answer to Sloan? Not me, that is for damn sure. Barry Walters had this to say:
The world — the indie rock one, at least — divides into two camps; those who believe the Strokes should stick to infinitesimal variations on Is This It, and those who’d rather have them do anything other than that. Comedown Machine has the goods to satisfy — and piss off — both camps, and that’s exactly as it should be. As suggested by the album’s pre-release tracks “All the Time” and “One Way Trigger,” the quintet’s fifth album is both classic Strokes and the furthest thing from it yet. “50/50″ offers a heavier variant on the distorted vocals and nervous guitars that drove the kids crazy on “Last Night,” while “Partners in Crime” borrows that song’s caffeinated Motown beat even if it sneaks in a crazed, nearly Van Halen-esque guitar solo at the end.
Wax Idols, Discipline and Desire – Dramatic, menacing post-punk exploring the darker side of devotion. Hether Fortune, the leading force behind the group Wax Idols, has one of the world’s most berserker-entertaining Twitter feeds, and in general seems to be a kind of impossibly charismatic person; on this record, some of that primal intellectual and physical heat translates directly into her music.

Wavves, Afraid of Heights – Nathan starts to gesture winsomely at entertaining the possibility of starting to consider the possible ramifications of maybe thinking about growing up. Eventually. Andrew Parks has the review:
The self-proclaimed “king of the beach” doesn’t relinquish his crown on Afraid of Heights, but he does seem in serious danger of losing his mind. Not that you’d notice immediately, what with the way Nathan Williams masks his melancholy with sunstroked hooks and hummable melodies. It’s when you listen to what he’s saying that dude’s dark side emerges. We’re not talking simple woe-is-me love songs, either. More like an unhealthy obsession with death and demons — personal and otherwise — coupled with bummertown references to just how hopeless the Wavves generation is
Kleenex Girl Wonder, Migration Scripts: If Kleenex Girl Wonder had put out Ponyoak like 5 years ago, they would have been adored, Best New Music-receiving indiepop darlings. It’s the perfect realization of a very particular aesthetic, nestling sugary hooks inside no-fi production. Unfortunately, KGW was way ahead of the curve, and released the album in 1999 instead. Let It Buffer should be their move to reclaim the grubby crown that’s theirs, but on this one they’ve cleaned up and are playing nice, writing polite power-pop that blows the dust from the corners but still focuses on catchy refrains.

Milk Carton Kids, The Ash & Clay – Softly quavering and sweet indie-folk. Jim Farber reviewed it for us, saying this:
You can’t get far into writing a review of The Milk Carton Kids without mentioning Simon & Garfunkel. (I managed to make it just 14 words). Like S&G, they’re an acoustic duo that sings pristine ballads in tightly entwined voices of velvet and lace. But so facile a comparison sells these “Kids” short: Kenneth Pettengale and Joey Ryan have delicate, distinctive timbres, and the lyrics on this California duo’s second studio CD aren’t nearly as effete as they first seem.
Georgiana Starlington, Paper Moon: Hip-Hip-Hooray for HoZac Records! Georgiana Starlington are Jack and Julie Hines from the K-Holes, but this doesn’t sound anything like the snarling, menacing music they cook up in that group. This is spooky and dusty and sinister — kinda maybe like the HoZac version of Neko Case? Some twang, some sway, some Mazzy Star-ish crooning and, like everything HoZac does, it’s Recommended.

Black Bug, Reflecting the Light: What’s that you say? You want more HoZac? FEAR NOT. This is another new one — it’s nastier that Georgiana, with a sort of primitive-industrial grind. Lots of synths and static, doomy, droney vocals and danse macabre rhythms for you to twitch and shake to.

Julian Lynch, Lines: Umpteenth new one from Julian Lynch, which sounds like a dis, but the music here is so lovely and engaging that it’s, in fact, a blessing. This is more rickety soundtracky type stuff; to call it art rock played on children’s instruments doesn’t really get at it. There’s some lovely, layered, helium-filled vocals, plinking nylon-stringed guitars, wheezing mellotrons… This is the kind of music you get lost inside.

Steve Coleman & Five Elements, Functional Arrhythmias – Jazz that draws funk and friction from the competing pulses in our bodies. Peter Margasak writes:
On his latest effort with his ever-shifting, adaptable Five Elements, veteran innovator and alto saxophonist Steve Coleman draws inspiration from overlapping rhythmic patterns found in the human body: nervous, respiratory, and circulatory systems. In the liner notes he credits the drummer Milford Graves, who’s devoted himself to studying those internal human rhythms, and Coleman’s latest batch of compositions were created by superimposing these various pulses on top of one another. Still, for most listeners digging all of the conceptual underpinnings isn’t necessary to enjoy the propulsive, funky sounds.
Kvelertak, Meir: Kvelertak are a Norweigian band who pull off a pretty unlikely hybrid, counteracting throat-shredding vocals with sweet-as-candy choruses for a final product that’s visceral and irresistible. It doesn’t seem like it should work, but man, does it ever. It’s like if Skeletonwitch had Andrew WK’s choruses or something. Kinda motorcycle rocky, but way more hardcore than that. Recommended

Dido, Girl Who Got Away – The former superstar gracefully retreats. Barry Walters writes:
As suggested by its title, Dido’s fourth album is almost entirely about escape — from bad relationships, the pressure of fame, back-stabbing business associates, even quotidian responsibilities. Like Madonna at her world-weariest, it’s the kind of album that only someone who experienced unexpected monumental popularity could make.
Papoose, The Nacirema Dream: This album was supposed to come out forever ago! When I first moved back to NYC 9 years ago, they were talking about it then. That’s when Papoose was supposed to save NY hip-hop. That didn’t really happen! So here’s The Nacirema Dream. Papoose has a tough flow vaguely reminiscent of Golden Age hip-hop, and the production mostly aims to replicate the same. I have a theory that I cannot prove and is based on no fact that says that this has been held up for so long that they lost the rights to the actual original production tracks so they had to replace them with facsimiles. Again, I have no facts to support that assertion. It’s just one of my weird theories.

CHVRCHES, Recover: First EP from one of the buzziest bands at SXSW. This is spooky electropop, with pouty, dramatic vocals and billowing sheets of electronics. Imagine a poppier version of The Knife, maybe, or a spookier Robyn and you’re on the right track. For those of you keeping track: this band is probably going to be a thing.

The Black Lillies, Runaway Freeway Blues: Splitting the difference between the old-timey music that’s been en vogue (for better and for worse) lately and contemporary country, Black Lillies kick up a rollicking ruckus, delivering stomping country built to move boots.

Little Green Cars, Absolute Zero: This is really lovely, sunny, guitar-based indie pop with a few moments of epic grandeur thrown in for good measure. Slightly timid vocals counteract any bravado that generally accompanies that.

Jessica Pratt, Jessica Pratt

Jessica Pratt’s self-titled debut is the kind of record that tends to incite music writers to say certain things: It’s “timeless”; she’s an “old soul”; or to speculate that perhaps it wasn’t recorded in current-day [London/Brooklyn/Omaha/Portland/etc.] but rather a lost folk revival gem dug out of some old vinyl hound’s back crates. This often serves as a euphemism for “did not brush his/her hair in his/her black-and-white press photo, is wearing some sort of vest, and does not use synthesizers.” But more than any other recent so-called “old soul,” the 25-year-old Pratt seems to have earned the distinction.

In these songs (recorded in San Francisco, 2007-12, for what it’s worth) she appears as an ageless figure, a willowy Highlander of sorts, burdened with the memories of a hundred friends and lovers lost to the ravages of time. There’s a wavery, gently warped quality to the songs, as if they were left out in the rain or transmitted through some ectoplasmic haze; most feature the sparse pairing of Pratt’s tremulous voice (here a flash of Stevie Nicks, there a waft of Dolly Parton) and her nodding finger-picked guitar, except when her voice is doubled, a funhouse refraction of an already barely corporeal being. The songs’ lyrical specificity is often muddled by her wry, ruminative enunciation, but when decipherable bits surface from the whorls of her creaky, curling voice they’re gnarled, fractured poetry, borderline hallucinatory — transient spirits, baby’s bones, ghost skins, curves in the road shaped like a toucan’s nose. Whatever is here is not enough. Thank god she’s still so very young.

Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators, Tortured Soul

Imagine if Curtis Mayfield were still alive and making music as he did in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Now factor in the devout feeling of Paul Weller’s Mayfield-loving records of the ’80s with the Style Council. That’s the sound and spirit of Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators, an unlikely but inspired combination of a Brooklyn-born, Helsinki-based singer and a Finnish band. It’s righteous, reverent old-school soul filtered through the retro/revisionist sensibilities and playing skills of New Wave and acid-jazz.

You’ve heard it before, yet not quite: Opening salvo “Light Years Ahead” is virtually a rewrite of Mayfield’s “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go,” featuring blaxploitation strings suggesting the tension of a pressure cooker ready to blow, as well as an enraged wah-wah solo more James White & the Blacks than Dennis Coffey. The fuzz-crazed riff burning in and out of “Time to Get the Business Straight” pushes into Nuggets‘ garage rock territory, even if a smooth subsequent vibraphone pulls the track right back to soul. Some songs are twice as long as they’d have been back in the day, as if the band kept jamming long after the engineer faded the cut, and that’s OK: These Investigators aren’t super-tight, but they’re enthusiastic and Willis grounds their nostalgia with genuine heart, particularly on the wistful “Best Days of Our Lives.”

The House Of Love, She Paints Words In Red

The reunification of House of Love’s Guy Chadwick and Terry Bickers for 2005′s Days Run Away was an unlikely development from the unlikeliest partnership in first-wave shoegaze/indie.

Formed in 1987 in low-rent Camberwell, South London, two or three years after The Jesus & Mary Chain had electrified the city with feedback and leather-trousered cool, their band marked a return to the JAMC’s narcotically enhanced, Velvet Underground-inspired art-rock perspective, after two years of dainty C86 combos. Though much fêted in the UK music press, they, like the Velvets, didn’t quite make the grade commercially, only later to be cherished as a bridging influence on My Bloody Valentine, Ride and all their lesser noise-pop successors.

Chadwick and Bickers parted company after just one tempestuous, self-titled album. Bookish Chadwick soldiered on with more neo-classical art-rock HoL line-ups, while space-cadet Bickers drifted off into the ether with his Levitation.

That this self-defeating chalk-and-cheese duo should now strike back with their second reunion effort, albeit eight years on from the last, but with original production foil Pat Collier in tow, is a dream come true for disciples and nu-gazers alike. Listening to “PKR” — aka “Purple Killer Rose,” an old Chadwick/Vickers gem which slipped between the cracks in their partnership back in the day — it’s like being transported to House Of Love’s late-’80s majesty, as Bickers’s lyrical, FX-drenched guitar strains at the leash of Chadwick’s compositional control. Other tracks like the opening, exquisitely starlit “A Baby Got Back On Its Feet” thrillingly reignite the tension between singer/guitarist Chadwick’s simmering poetry and Bickers’ fluid virtuosity.

With the wisdom of their mature years, though, it’s clear that the ever-volatile duo have come to appreciate and accommodate each other’s respective talents. Where Bickers’s rampant amp abuse used to threaten to eclipse Chadwick’s more formal songwriterliness, here, as per album title, he’s far more sympathetic in splashing colors in between Chadwick’s intense lyrics.

Often, their music has an uncharacteristically rootsy quality: “Lost in the Blues” actually hints more towards precise Nashville country, while the harmonies and finger-picking on “Low Black Clouds” have an almost baroque folky splendor. “Never Again,” by contrast, verges on skiffle. Elsewhere, the title track’s jangling arpeggios are pure Byrdsian folk-rock, and “Hemingway” — the boozy man of letters is a quintessential Chadwick hero — showcases the kind of literary-minded songcraft which fired early Belle & Sebastian. With all its references ancient and modern, She Paints Words In Red signals a bold new evolution in a truly singular alt-rock coupling.

Thalia Zedek Band, Via

Thalia Zedek has pared away her sound since the heyday of Come, whose primal squall will be getting a brief workout when she reunites with Chris Brokaw for a brief tour in honor of Eleven:Eleven‘s 20th. But Zedek has a way of making a piano and violin drone sound as heavy as half a dozen distorted guitars, especially when it’s accompanied by her own shattered wail. Via, her first album in five years, is a touch more plugged-in than 2008′s Liars and Prayers: “Walk Away” starts the album in the hushed vein of the Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning,” but “Lucky One” builds to an guitar coda as ecstatic and meticulous as Television’s “Venus.”

The steady thump of “Winning Hand” puts Zedek on familiar ground, but her lyrics have grown more transparent over the years, or at least translucent: She’s hardly a confessional songwriter, but the emotions shine through, refracted but recognizable. Listening to Via is like hearing someone pour their heart out in a language you don’t speak, one that becomes clearer each time through.