Bonobo, The North Borders

In a contemporary world of electronica seemingly in thrall to the sleek, serrated-edged futurism of Flying Lotus, Bonobo is a welcome anachronism. The UK dance producer born Simon Green specializes in beats that are warm, mellow and swathed in vinyl-style crackles; his deft digitalia sounds sweetly, quaintly analog. The easiest shorthand would be to label his oeuvre as ambient downbeat, or even chillout, but this undersells the ferocious intelligence and meticulous attention to detail that pulses beneath his gentle rhythms. On his fifth studio album, he once more appears intent on capturing and channeling the profound moments of still, intimate reflection that can follow nights of wild hedonistic and/or narcotic abandon. There are shades of James Blake’s spooked, narcoleptic electro-pop on opener “First Fires,” with guest vocals from New York neo-folkie Grey Reverend, while the agitated yet spectral “Transits,” featuring the siren tones of newcomer Szjerdene, recalls the under-celebrated 1990s mistress of drum-and-bass-tinged comedown pop, Nicolette. 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.

Steve Coleman, Functional Arrythmias

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.

Using a stripped-down lineup that brings one of Coleman’s best rhythm sections back into the fold — drummer Sean Rickman and electric bassist Anthony Tidd — Coleman and long-time trumpet foil Jonathan Finlayson shape swerving, slaloming patterns that veer effortlessly in between contrapuntal written themes and flinty, high-level improvisation. The complexity never gets in the way of the music’s inherent sense of movement. Guitarist Miles Okazaki adds equally fractured lines on five of the album’s 14 tracks, and at times his presence suggests a touch of Henry Threadgill’s Zooid. Unusual time signatures, jagged crosscutting bass lines and angular frontline activity marks the entire collection, prodding brains and feet equally. It’s one of Coleman’s most visceral and exciting efforts in a 30-year career filled with such efforts.

Sean Nowell, The Kung-Fu Masters

Sean Nowell has firmly established his credentials as a stolid post-bop saxophonist with a string of discs stretching back to 2006, but he opens The Kung-Fu Masters by covering Jimi Hendrix (a resplendent rendition of the sinuous classic, “Crosstown Traffic”) and devotes the liner notes to a single quote from martial artist Bruce Lee that begins, “There are no limits.” The adjoining photo of Nowell — left leg and hand poised for a karate kick and chop, right hand cradling his tenor sax, sunglasses on, neck muscles tensed, mouth yelling — undercuts his industrial-strength alter ego just a smidge with good humor, and so does the music. The Kung-Fu Masters is named after a septet Nowell has led since 2009, long enough to flex an impressively muscular mix of jazz, funk, rock and electronic, leavened with an appealing dab of carefree fun.

The Hendrix and Bruce Lee references help program the wayback machine to the ’60s and ’70s. Sure, there are some blipping riffs and pronounced effects, especially from Nowell’s longtime cohort (and Posi-Tone label mate), keyboardist Art Hirahara. But the bulk of the tracks on Kung Fu feature three-part horn arrangements (with ace bop trombonist Michael Dease and trumpeter Brad Mason joining Nowell) that are taut like a traveling blues revue or, more often, greasy and groove-oriented like the Crusaders, Bohannon, or the JBs. Throw in Adam Klipple’s fatback organ and the powerhouse funk-rock rhythm section (drummer Marko Djordjevic and bassist Evan Marien) and you’ve got music that spits and sizzles on the grill.

The talented, practiced band and Nowell’s dynamic arrangements rescue The Kung-Fu Masters from retro cliché. Check the way all seven members are deployed on the snaky funk, replete with a four-note vamp played rondo style, on “In the Shikshteesh,” the Shaft-on-the-Autobahn dislocation of “The Outside World,” the slingshot-groove skirmishing between the horns and the keys on “The 55th Chamber,” and the porridge of textures that comprise “Uncrumpable.” On The Kung-Fu Masters, Sean Nowell gets back to his bad self.

The Milk Carton Kids, The Ash & Clay

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.“Snake Eyes” deals with death, “Years Gone By” alienation, and both the title track and the closing one (“Memphis”) mourn a vanishing America. In the latter, they contrast Paul Simon’s view of that town. He sees it as a shrine; they view it as a mausoleum. The difference gives them extra distinction, as does the wandering melody, which has its own quavering beauty.

Wire, Change Becomes Us

Wire has never been keen to dwell on the past: During one mid-period tour, they famously took a tribute band on tour to sate audiences’ desire for the early stuff. So it’s surprising at first that their 10th album — the fourth of their third phase — draws on material written three decades earlier.

The songs on Change Becomes Us date back to 1979 and ’80, when the band was falling apart for the first time. But rather than attempt to recapture their old sound, or whatever the next stage in its evolution might have been, they’ve combined the drifting lyricism of Red Barked Tree with the iron-fisted punch of Send, forging ahead with a creative renaissance as vital, if less concentrated, as their early years.

Between songs they’d played but never recorded and “sketches” in need of modern-day finishing, Change Becomes Us is naturally a patchwork affair: You can hear “I Am the Fly” in the creeping tick-tock of “Doubles & Trebles,” proto-hardcore in “Stealth of a Stork.” (The latter sounds oddly like a reworking of Elastica’s “Connection,” itself litigiously similar to Wire’s “Three Girl Rhumba.” What goes around comes around.)

The massive power chords that kick off “Adore Your Island” sound like Wire’s version of stadium rock, but then the tempo triples and the guitars go nuts, with Colin Newman and new member Matthew Simms scraping at their fretboards as if they’re trying to scramble aboard a life raft. Going back to their notebooks might suggest a failure of ideas, but the upshot is just the opposite: Proof that Wire still has inspiration to spare.

Wavves, Afraid of Heights

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. “Demon to Lean On” is a perfect example; while it’s arguably the most accessible track on the album, its chorus is the uplifting “holding a gun to my head/ so send me an angel/ or bury me deeply instead.” Don’t get caught singing along to that one in your bedroom, kids! Elsewhere, Williams tells us he’s going insane (“Gimme a Knife”), that he’s “fucked and alone” (the title track) and, in “I Can’t Dream,” that he’s in need of a mind eraser like the machine in that one good Jim Carrey movie. Every last mopey moment goes down nice and smooth, however, helped in part by former Jay Reatard bassist Stephen Pope, who’s now a full-time member of Wavves on stage and in the studio. Great stuff, but someone get this guy some Prozac!

Bonobo, The North Borders

In a contemporary world of electronica seemingly in thrall to the sleek, serrated-edged futurism of Flying Lotus, Bonobo is a welcome anachronism. The UK dance producer born Simon Green specializes in beats that are warm, mellow and swathed in vinyl-style crackles; his deft digitalia sounds sweetly, quaintly analog. The easiest shorthand would be to label his oeuvre as ambient downbeat, or even chillout, but this undersells the ferocious intelligence and meticulous attention to detail that pulses beneath his gentle rhythms. On his fifth studio album, he once more appears intent on capturing and channeling the profound moments of still, intimate reflection that can follow nights of wild hedonistic and/or narcotic abandon. There are shades of James Blake’s spooked, narcoleptic electro-pop on opener “First Fires,” with guest vocals from New York neo-folkie Grey Reverend, while the agitated yet spectral “Transits,” featuring the siren tones of newcomer Szjerdene, recalls the under-celebrated 1990s mistress of drum-and-bass-tinged comedown pop, Nicolette. Best of all is the suitably divine “Heaven for the Sinner,” on which Macy Gray 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.

Dido, Girl Who Got Away

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. Having gone from guest spots in her brother Rollo Armstrong’s dance act Faithless to recording a 1999 debut that sold more than 16 million copies after her song “Thank You” got sampled in Eminem’s smash “Stan,” the London singer on Girl sounds more knackered than ever. “I don’t want to be different/ I just want to fit in,” she sighs in “Sitting on the Roof of the World,” a renunciation of not only her sudden success but also any last remnant of coolness. Whereas Christina Aguilera got “Dirrty” and Kelly Clarkson waged war with My December, their label-mate rebels by playing it so safe here that she nearly disappears.

Girl Who Got Away offers Dido’s mellowest material at the outset: Folky opener “No Freedom” almost suggests self-parody and “Let Us Move On” blatantly evokes her star-making hip-hop turn with a typically intricate — yet, in this plainspoken soft-pop context, jarring — cameo from Kendrick Lamar. As the album progresses, though, the frosty synths heat up as the rhythms syncopate, starting with the enticing “End of Night,” and then getting even a little funky on “Love to Blame.” She and her ongoing fraternal collaborator naturally come across most engaged while reinstating their considerable, yet in the context of her solo career, largely abandoned dance music skills. Girl‘s more adventurous second half ultimately suggests Dido yearns to break free from of the obligations dutifully met by its first.

The Strokes, Comedown Machine

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. Although initially hailed as minimalism-savvy saviors anointed to rescue a dying rock scene from the continued injustices of corporate nu-metal, the Strokes have from the start been far too cosmopolitan to be an unqualified back-to-basics band: No act fronted by Switzerland boarding-school swells could pretend they’ve never ventured beyond a suburban garage.

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. There are hooks, snappy arrangements, and louche swaggering aplenty here: The Strokes haven’t stopped being the Strokes.

Yet they also mess with the formula more than they ever have. Although some have already pegged this as a Julian Casablancas solo album in spirit, the singer mostly avoids the vocal ticks for which he’s famous. The curve-throwing falsetto of “Take on Me”-evoking teaser “One Way Trigger” shows up on the New Wave funk of “Tap Out” and reappears in parts of the skittering “Welcome to Japan,”as well as on “Slow Animals,” “Happy Ending” and the queasy balladry of “Call It Fate, Call It Karma.” Aside from the click-clack of low-key Linn drums and a warbling sequencer on “Chances” (yet another falsetto showcase), the synths that defined the singer’s 2009 solo effort Phrazes for the Young are nowhere in sight; in their place are more varied guitar blasts and buzzes than many bands attempt in their careers. Unlike its disjointed 2011 predecessor Angles, Comedown Machine feels more like the product of a unified band, albeit one bent on expansion. The world has always been their oyster: Here they crack it much further open.

Edwyn Collins, Understated

There’s an old pop music dictum that says it’s easier to write a sad song than a happy one. The logic goes that sorrow brings tension and tension makes great art, while happiness brings the threat of platitudes and treacle and the kind of general overstated sweetness that makes eyes roll and teeth ache. Edwyn Collins’s entire career stands in direct opposition to this rule. With Orange Juice, his delightfully ramshackle post-punk group, Collins substituted the moroseness of his peers with dry wit and barbed humor. Even their song of unrequited love, the galloping “Consolation Prize,” culminates in Collins offering to prance around in a dress for the object of his affections.

Other artists would use a near-fatal stroke, like the one that Collins suffered in 2005, as an excuse to write album after album of labored, introspective ballads. Not Collins: 2010 comeback Losing Sleep found him in the throes of a full creative rebirth, barreling up the center of gleefully gamboling Britpop as if he’d not been away at all. Understated — the title is a white lie — continues that trajectory, but nods toward Collins’s beloved Motown and Northern Soul as much as sun-dappled janglepop.

Opening track “Dilemma” sounds like it could have been written in the moments when Collins first emerged from his coma, the lyrics attempting to make sense of a suddenly-puzzling world while a horn chart bleats balefully in the background; “31 Years,” the opening of which is nearly identical to Collins’s 1995 hit “A Girl Like You” begins from the same place of befuddlement but gradually moves toward celebration and determination, Collins taking grateful stock of his “31 years in rock ‘n’ roll,” before concluding, “What the heck? I’m living now.”

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, singing, “I wasn’t there to comfort you/ I wasn’t there to hold your hand.” But — in what is perhaps the ultimate contradiction of the notion that contentment is a risky topic for a pop song — the album’s most moving moment is also its most direct. The slow-building “Forsooth,” the slow thrum of which recalls the Velvet Underground at their most beatific, 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.” Leave it to Edwyn Collins to make being miserable seem like the bigger challenge.

Interview: Marnie Stern

Inspired by Lightning Bolt and Yoko Ono, Marnie Stern is known for unleashing dazzling, finger-tapped guitar melodies — staccato notes rendered to melodic squiggles — like a superpower. But about halfway through “Proof of Life,” the penultimate track off her fourth album The Chronicles of Marnia, she lands on a devastating realization: “I am nothing, I am no one.”

On Marnia, Stern wrote songs about how stress resurfaces and tests her belief in herself — and, as she realizes in “Proof,” how rewarding it feels to ride that stress out (“I am something, I am someone”).

eMusic’s Christina Lee spoke with Stern about Marnia, her latest influences and how her new job as a guitar teacher has shaped her views on modern-day music consumption.

You’ve mentioned not feeling inspired when it came time to write this record. What did you do to overcome that?

Well, it’s an interesting battle, to continue to dig deep inside of yourself, to try to find new places, because you only have so many resources in your arsenal. So I spent a lot of time trying to reference different standpoints, finding new things to write and also looking up other classic artists and [trying to] just move like them. That’s a lot of what I’m still doing. I feel like artists in general find their voice, and then they either keep repeating it or they grow. But it’s different for me, just trying to find different resources and be inspired, and just still loving music so much and finding a connection to it and feeling grateful for it.

What were some of your new sources of inspiration?

Well, it’s more like — the way I used to write songs would be, “OK, I’m going to put this kind of riff here, and then layer some voices here.” This time I really got into sort of the Chuck Berry-vibe riffs — like, ’50s guitar styles. I was more interested in things sounding pretty as opposed to banging you over the head.

Chuck Berry?

I don’t mean Chuck Berry in particular. In the car my mother plays this ’50s SiriusXM radio station, so it was just a lot of hearing that style on the radio and thinking about it, and thinking about how a lot of the Rolling Stones and the rock generation of the ’60s was inspired by those guys, and also just about how young rock ‘n’ roll really is — and just things like that.

I was just trying to invest myself in different ways of playing — different styles, things I had never done before in my life. Like, “OK, let me hear this Jimi Hendrix song,” just to learn different stuff. I ended up stripping down most of the songs, taking away a lot of parts. That’s basically how I approached the record.

Who are some of your other favorite writers?

I’ve listened to a lot of David Bowie. When I was writing these songs, I listened to a lot of things that normally I would not, like Tom Petty. There’s something very poignant and beautiful — and I don’t mean that in a patronizing way — about Tom Petty’s songs. I’ve also been reading a bunch of rock biographies like Slash. It was crazy thinking about [Guns 'N Roses'] time, and how there will never be a time of that — full of money and gluttony. They would have a backstage show after their concert, and it cost $10,000 at least, and they rarely ever went to it. It was just so dumb — so fun to read, but certainly not enviable in any way.

I have a similar relationship to reality shows — just seeing the level of preposterousness there and being amazed that it exists.

The difference is, because of the lack of internet [back then], once [a band became popular] they held on for a lot longer in the consciousness. Now with everything being a quick sound byte, things are just so different. What I mean is, it seems like with young people now, the cool thing is just to like and to know about everything, as opposed to having a few favorites that you really like. That’s very uncool now. But you know — I don’t know. I give guitar lessons and [my students] don’t feel that way.

Maybe it depends on the role that music plays in someone’s life. Maybe the difference with your students is that they’re interested in clicking through YouTube as research.

Which is good. And obviously it’s a good resource. The internet was just coming up when I started to make music, and I remember [before that], you had to dig to find what you were looking for. When you found it, it was so rewarding. That’s kind of gone now. I remember at one of my lessons, this girl was looking for some ’90s seminal band, and she couldn’t find anything. It was driving me crazy, because that never happens.

Even with, like, the [early] Mountain Goats [cassettes] — only [a few] people really had access to them.

And that used to be a normal concept. Now it’s a very strange concept. That’s what so weird – it used to be you would only be exposed to certain stuff, and that was it. It was rare, and that was it, so you had it and you appreciated it. And I guess I haven’t embraced any of the positive parts of all the changes, and I feel like that’s the thing to do, because there’s nothing you can do about it. So I sort of got over my frustrations with that stuff. There’s always been commercial music and less-popular music, and that will just continue to evolve.

[Giving guitar] lessons has been good, because I’ve been meeting real people in their late teens, early 20s, and some a little older. Some of them have a more removed relationship to music. They want to learn to play the guitar, they have a job, but they like music. It’s obvious their relationship is different than someone who’s like, “I want to get a record deal, and I’m working so hard.” [Meeting them has made them] real, as opposed to me thinking, “I wonder what the kids are doing these days. They seem so dumb.”

You’re seeing it for yourself.

And that’s real life – where every teenager is different.And there are some similarities, but it’s not the generalization thing that I was doing before. Each person is different, and each person brings their different experiences to it and that affects how they play, and what they listen to and what they like. And that’s what’s cool about music. There was this thing that was going around the internet and it said that the thing about [when you're] starting out [in the arts], you’re usually not really good at all —

He was talking about the process of being a writer, how he had to increasingly learn to vouch for his good taste.

Right, you have your taste, and it’s good to trust your taste — you like what you like. I think that’s really neat. If you’re not, then no personality comes across in your stuff. I think it’s really all about your taste, and it’s cool to hear people’s taste and [realizing] there’s no right and wrong. I’m always disagreeing with friends. They’ll like something and I can’t stand it, and no one person is right or wrong.

And at times it can be very frustrating, being like, “Ah, I like all of this awesome stuff, I want to make stuff that’s just like this awesome shit,” and then it comes out like garbage. And we were just talking about being uninspired — that [lack of inspiration] is largely my fault, because I don’t search for music actively, just because I feel turned off by everything I click on to listen to. I’m not into it, and I’m just giving up really quickly, and that stinks.

It’s tough. And I think it’s much easier to “move on,” now. Years ago, even if your primary mode of discovery was radio, and even if it was that same Top 40 hit, you had a chance to reconsider it, without ever asking for it — even if it was, like, Britney Spears, because you hate it the first five times they play it but, for whatever reason, the sixth time wins you over.

Absolutely. Where do you live?

I’m in Atlanta.

I’m in New York – I just got here. I was visiting Florida, and I basically flew from 75-degree weather to nine degrees. It’s terrible.

The photo on the album cover — was that taken in Florida?

No, I was on tour at a rest stop. I don’t know where we were, but we were somewhere, and we just got out for some reason and took that picture.

I had a horrible experience in Florida. My mother’s dog bit my dog, and she almost died. Three bites and they pierced her jugular. There was blood everywhere. We rushed to the hospital and it was so horrifying; I’ve never seen anything so violent. I love my dog, and she almost died. I thought it was so crazy that I brought that dog on every tour — she’s been everywhere — then I take her the sanctuary that is my mother’s house, and she almost died.

Her name’s Fig, right? How would you describe her personality?

She’s not spoiled, even though I give her so much attention. That’s why she’s so loveable. She’s the sweetest girl. I’m way too attached to her, but there’s no way to get unattached because you have to love them while they’re here. I’ve got to say that 10 years ago when I got her, I did not expect I was going to be [living] in the same apartment with just her.

As opposed to…?

Getting married, having kids or just even relocating. I remember when I got her I didn’t think that I would get this attached to her. She’s ended up being my whole world. She’s worth it.

Whose idea was the dating contest?

Not mine!

How did that come about?

A friend is friends with my publicist and we were chatting, and my boyfriend had just moved out, so she’s like, “You’re single,” and I was like, “Yeah,” and she came up with this whole thing. And I was so in the throes of all the stress with the dog and all things happening that I said, “Yeah, sure.” I really don’t need anyone, ever, because I’m always such a homebody. But maybe I will. I don’t know. It’s just for fun.

I hope it pans out.

I’m sure it won’t, but I’m sure it will be funny, and that’s worth it. It’s for a fun story, like the kissing booth. There were only five people over the whole tour that I wanted to kiss…

What was on your mind when you wrote “Proof of Life”?

I started that before the third [self-titled] record…I was talking to somebody, and we were talking about apprehension and feeling like I live in a bubble of just me and the dog: “Am I missing out in life, just doing this all the time?” That’s kind of what that song was about, wanting to feel like there’s no right or wrong decision — when you put all of your eggs in one basket and then things aren’t working as well as you’d like. All of my joy comes from when I feel like I’ve written something that I like, and when that’s not happening, there’s not much else going on in my life.

We live in a very immediate, “now” world, so when you’re immersed in one thing, you can’t ever remember a time when life wasn’t like that. When I’m on tour and hanging out with people, I’m like, “This is so fun!” Then two weeks into being back home it’s like, “Oh my god, I’ve always been alone.”

Crime & The City Solution, American Twilight

Singer/songwriter Simon Bonney’s renegade gang have often been unfairly served by chroniclers of post-punk history. The more myopic regard them as little more than an impoverished cousin to The Bad Seeds, but this is due more to shared DNA (the late Rowland S. Howard joined CTCS after he quit The Birthday Party, and former Bad Seed Mick Harvey was a member for five years from 1985) than any direct similarities.

Fifth album American Twilight — their first set of new songs since 1990 — is a darkly compelling listen that marks out their distinctive territory even more clearly. 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), alongside veterans Bonney, violinist Bronwyn Adams and guitarist Alexander Hacke (formerly of Einstürzende Neubauten).

As its title suggests, the album deals with themes of deterioration, diminishment and decay — unsurprisingly perhaps, given that it was written and recorded in Detroit — but Bonney’s lyrical concerns range beyond the socio-economic to power and power relations, both at a state and personal level, most notably in the divinely lachrymose desert blues of “Domina,” the thrillingly gnarly “Riven Man” and “Streets Of West Memphis,” which suggests a post-apocalyptic Springsteen.

Impossibly, this is CTCS’s 36th year in the business of documenting man’s frailties, fuck-ups and faltering faith with visceral poeticism and a fervour that borders on the diabolic. Clearly, their work is far from done.

Rachid Taha, Zoom

Over his 30-year career, Algerian singer-songwriter Rachid Taha has often upset the applecart. He started out by outraging France with a rocked-up version of a patriotic anthem; since then he’s amped up famous Arabic pieces and shown there’s more to Algerian music than the caustic bump of raï. Some of his work has been glorious rock ‘n’ roll; some has been disappointing. With Zoom all the pieces of his past come together in sharp, clear focus, and he invents a whole new genre: desert punk.

Two tracks form the steel backbone of the album. “Khalouni” guns the accelerator before bursting out like Algeria’s answer to “Anarchy in the UK,” North African rhythms fighting with jagged chords as Taha delivers his venomous vocals in a superbly arrogant snarl. “Algerian Tango,” meanwhile, could a distant, slinky cousin to The Clash’s “Straight to Hell” (Taha famously recorded an Arabic cover of “Rock The Casbah”), with Mick Jones singing the menacing chorus: “I don’t forget those who love me/ I don’t forget those who betray me.” Perhaps punk isn’t dead, it’s just wearing a keffiyeh these days.

But Taha does much more than transport the class of ’77 to North Africa. Like a true iconoclast, he also samples Umm Kulthum, Egypt’s most beloved singer, for the roaring “Zoom Sur Oum,” then reinvents Elvis as a Maghrebi idol with a cover of The King’s “It’s Now Or Never.” A reprise of his anti-racist track “Voilà Voilà” boasts the unlikely combination of guests vocalists Agnès B and Eric Cantona. And on “Wesh (N’Amal)” and “Galbi” twanging guitar and oud combine to create what could be the soundtrack a Saharan spaghetti Western. The only thing missing is Clint Eastwood with a poncho and cigar.

Zoom is the sound of Taha firing on all cylinders. Not many musicians create their best work so long after they start out, but Rachid Taha has never been one to do things the ordinary way.

Suuns, Images Du Futur

The knock against Suuns is that they sound too much like Clinic. It’s a charge that gets repeated in nearly everything written about them, to the point that Suuns co-founder Joseph Yarmush lamented it a recent interview with Baeble Music, claiming, “None of us have even heard of these bands or listened to them.” On Suuns’ new album, Images Du Futur, the band attempts to push back the criticism with aggressive Kraut-rock, cosmic psychedelia and post-punk. There’s still no denying the Clinic comparisons, however: Portions of Images are almost eerily similar to the Liverpool band’s most recognizable work, even down to Ben Shemie’s falsetto.

With Images, though, Suuns reach for a darker aesthetic with decent results, drifting into petulant garage-rock anddeep funk outbursts. Images scans as “rock,” but there’s a subtle soul influence present as well, on songs like “Powers of Ten” and “2020.” “Images Du Futur” is floating blend of ominous synths akin to Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine.” Suuns can’t escape the band in their reareview, but Images makes enough impact to stand on its own.

New This Week: Billy Bragg, Low, Phosphorescent & More

Billy Bragg, Tooth & Nail Bragg’s first album in five years was recorded in just five days, and is a reminder that the protest singer can write love songs, too. Andrew Mueller writes:

“Measured against the rest of Bragg’s canon, it is most similar in tone and texture to 1988′s Worker’s Playtime, which contained such love/unlove songs as “She’s Got A New Spell” and “The Price I Pay”. Tooth & Nail contains much that reaches those standards, especially the rueful countryish ballads “Chasing Rainbows” and “Over You”.

Phosphorescent, Muchacho Phosphorescent’s sixth album finds Matthew Houck in a fuzzy, emotional place. While he sings of how sick of love he is on tracks like “Song for Zula”, the music – full of hope and tenderness – betrays him.

Marnie Stern, Chronicles of Marnia Marnie Stern’s deeply personal fourth LP is a breathtaking spiral of sound that fizzes and pops like a pinwheel of fireworks. It’s not only the songwriter/guitarist’s best record, but one of the best of the year to date, due to keen focus, assured melodies and brutal honesty.

Anais Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer, Child Ballads Mitchell is constantly looking for new ways to reinvent folk traditions, and here he modernises seven of the 305 English and Scottish ballads collected by Frances James Child in the late 1800s. Laura Leebove writes:

“Their collection is short, sweet and intimate, with little more than acoustic guitars and vocals telling the tales of an ill-fated sailor, a quick-witted sister, and disapproving parents. Mitchell and Hamer have recorded accessible, American-folk renditions of these centuries-old songs, a fitting addition to the countless modern artists – among them Joan Baez, Nickel Creek, even Fleet Foxes – who have passed them on throughout the years.”

Low, The Invisible Way Low’s measured tempos and fragile harmonies have often concealed turmoil beneath their placid surface. But their 10th album is their most sanguine in more than a decade. Made in producer Jeff Tweedy’s digs, it feels more suited to the inside of a church than those they’ve actually recorded in one.

Nadia Sirota, Baroque Sirota is the violist of choice for the New York contemporary-classical scene and on Baroque she follows her astoundingly assured debut with fresh works from many of the composers who contributed to it, among them Judd Greenstein, Nico Muhly an d Missy Mazzoli. Seth Colter-Walls writes:

“Shara Worden’s “From the Invisible to the Visible” is a brief, attractive offering that introduces keyboards and organs into the mix to considerable effect. While more tricked-out electronically than Sirota’s first offering, Baroque retains her aesthetic imprint.”

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Poison Apple The first track from the Cambridge psychedelic metaller’s hugely anticipated new album Mind Control, out next month. We’re excited. This is why.

Batillus, Concrete Sustain – Doom metal with a groove. Jon Wiederhorn says:

“The 2011 debut full-length from New York’s Batillus, Furnace was crushing, oppressive, bleak and morose, one of the top dark horse doom metal albums of the year. Not content to remain within those parameters, the band has undergone a facelift for its new album Concrete Sustain. In addition to an abundance of trudging, mid-paced riffs played on densely distorted guitar and bass, Batillus have built a framework of counterpoint rhythms that provide tension and contrast: Grinding, whirring industrial samples abound, as do textural washes of feedback that border on the post-rock nihilism of Neurosis.”

Interview: Ben Goldberg

The adventurous, lyrical, soulful San Francisco clarinet improviser Ben Goldberg made his reputation 20 years ago with the New Klezmer Trio. That band played what klezmer might have sounded like if it had kept evolving parallel to jazz. Since then, Goldberg has been involved in diverse bands and recording projects, playing original combo music, reimagined Americana (on the quartet Junk Genius’s 1999 Ghost of Electricity), a tribute to his early hero Steve Lacy (the door, the hat, the chair, the fact), a song cycle for nonet, and much more. For the last few years Goldberg has also played in the song-oriented Bay Area quartet Tin Hat.

Now, he has two matching new records out, for complementary quintets. Both albums feature Goldberg’s writing, improvised counterpoint, tenor saxophone, and drummer Ches Smith, and both begin with a little Bach-inspired chorale. On Subatomic Particle Homesick Blues, recorded in 2008, Goldberg shares the front line with trumpeter Ron Miles and tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman. (Devin Hoff’s on bass; Scott Amendola replaces Smith on “The Because Of” and “Possible.”) The 2012 recording Unfold Ordinary Mind has Wilco’s Nels Cline on guitar, and contrasting tenor players in hard-toned Rob Sudduth and furry-sounding Ellery Eskelin. In that quintet Ben takes the bassist’s role, playing the low contra-alto clarinet.

In between those two, Goldberg recorded Go Home with Miles, Amendola and guitarist Charlie Hunter, which came out in 2009. eMusic’s Kevin Whitehead spoke with Goldberg about Bob Dylan, working with new collaborators, and his new records.

You recently posted an article about the development of the New Klezmer Trio, a band where you took old techniques and came up with new music based on the same principles. Your later Steve Lacy tribute did something like that too: took some of his ideas about instrumentation and cuckoo-clockwork tunes, and made them your own.

We’re all drawn to certain things very strongly; they wake up something in you. Then we try to find out what’s at the heart of it. As much as you’re moving toward something else, you’re also moving toward your own heart. What energizes me is never knowing how it’s all going to turn out. The best we can do is put the best ingredients in, and work with them to create something tasty. For the last eight years, Bach chorales have been a big ingredient.

You’ve said they’re a big influence on Subatomic Particle Homesick Blues, but the counterpoint often smacks of old New Orleans jazz more than Bach.

Yeah, isn’t that funny? It just felt like so much fun to have the three horns going at it like that. The opening piece, “Evolution,” starts with that little hymn, but then where do you go? Did it need a B section? Instead I wrote out a roadmap: saxophone with rhythm, then a clarinet and trumpet duet, everybody plays together then the rhythm section drops out, whatever. Most of the actual content on that one was spontaneous, but “Asterisk” and “Possible” have composed counterpoint. That was the beginning of working with that for me. Now I’m committed to it. My earlier music was more like, play the melody and then blow.

“Who Died and Where I Moved To,” where you solo on contra alto clarinet, has a 1960s boogaloo beat.

I spent a lot of time listening to Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder” at an early age, mostly because of Joe Henderson. Things get in your mind at an early age, and are always sitting there.

Your arrangement of the country/folk tune “Satisfied Mind” sounds almost like a field holler; I don’t recognize the melody.

It’s a transcription of Bob Dylan’s version from Saved. For me, that period gets to the heart of Dylan; it’s so stark. Everything’s so heartfelt and full of yearning.

Did you know Joshua Redman when he was coming up in San Francisco?

No, we only met not long before we recorded. He’d gone to a concert I’d played on, and I heard later that he’d liked it, so I invited him to play a concert together. After that I said, let’s make a record, and he said yes. I met Devin Hoff and Ches Smith through pianist Graham Connah, playing in his sextet. He always had great rhythm sections — like Trevor Dunn and Kenny Wollesen who were in Junk Genius. Graham’s totally nuts, but his big band arrangements are unbelievably great.

Ron Miles I’d only met around 2007, the first time I heard him in person. He’s the world’s greatest melodist: When he plays a melody, it’s always perfect. I can’t get over it, or get enough of it. Sometime after we’d made that quintet record, I was set to record Go Home as a trio with Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola in New York. When we found out Ron was going to be at the Village Vanguard with Bill Frisell that week, we asked him to join us.

Playing with Charlie Hunter made me confront deficiencies in my own playing I needed to work on. He has such a strong groove, especially when playing with Scott; they have a strong hookup. In my clarinet playing, I always wanted to cut across the groove, but in relation to it. I wasn’t sure how strong I was at holding up my own end of the groove itself.

Charlie and I were doing a clinic once, where he told all the guitarists in the room to put down the guitar for a year to play the drums. Then they’d understand the groove as the most important part of guitar playing. After that, I began practicing clarinet while playing drums with my feet. The idea being, the groove comes first. Then when I played clarinet on a gig, it would still be present.

I think of Subatomic Particle and Unfold Ordinary Mind as your before-and-after-Charlie records. On the first you’re in the front line, on the second you’ve switched over to the rhythm section, playing contra-alto clarinet.

That role is still pretty new to me. I knew I wanted to be the bass player in a band, but what did I know about that? I got the contra alto in 1997, and played it right after on one track from the album Twelve Minor, but then it sat in the closet for a long time. Later when I joined Tin Hat, they suggested I play bass on the contra-alto. It took awhile to gain facility on it, but then all of a sudden it opened up, and I fell in love with the sound. Between you and me, it looks hard, but it’s easy to play, the one I have at least.

It is kind of scary, situating myself in the rhythm section between Ches and Nels Cline, two very strong musicians. Now it was sink-or-swim time. When we recorded Unfold Ordinary Mind, we hadn’t played together before, and I wasn’t even sure we were making a record: Let’s just go into the studio and see what happens. Unexpected things started happening, like at the end of “xcpf,” where Nels goes into his looping thing, and Ches and I bring the groove in and out. That wasn’t planned.

Do you ever feel constrained, playing bass parts instead of soaring over the top on clarinet?

Not at all. It’s all I want to do now. Playing the same figure for seven minutes is a different kind of challenge: Am I nailing it, am I putting it in the right place, am I working with Ches? It’s a wonderful opportunity to do my best.

Certain ideas have become attached to improvised music that are a little oppressive: “Don’t ever repeat yourself, or be too melodic.” But think of Louis Armstrong and the old cats. Every time he improvises, he kills me. But he also kills me when he plays a melody he’s played a thousand times.

The quintet’s non-California ringer is New York tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin.

The first time I heard him play one note on record, I thought, “This is someone I have to get close to.” That one note contained everything: the most beautiful and ridiculous thing I ever heard. I think I wrote him a letter after that. We had done a few things over the years — a 1997 quartet record that never came out, and later some Go Home gigs where he replaced Ron. I could hear how Ellery and Rob Sudduth would fit together. They’re both strong and kinda ornery. I knew it wasn’t going to be like, “After you” — “No, after you.”

One more thing: It was only around the time we played some gigs in December that I made a connection to an unbelievably important record for me, Paul Motian’s The Story of Maryam. It has the same lineup but with a different bass instrument: two tenor saxophones sometimes playing at the same time, with guitar and drums. Maybe subconsciously I was moving toward completing a circle, returning to a record that was a model for how I wanted to play.

Ticklah, Ticklah vs. Axelrod

Victor Axelrod can do it all, or at least everything he feels like doing. As a contributing member of Antibalas, the Dap-Kings, Menahan Street Band and Easy-Star All Stars, he has covered Afrobeat, Latin soul, Southern funk, dub reggae, and any genre he feels like adapting into that already-broad scope. But it’s under the roots-reggae identity Ticklah that he originally made his name, and Ticklah vs. Axelrod is a fine amalgamation of all the styles Axelrod’s got stashed under his hat. There’s some deep dub, naturally — the melodica-soaked “Answer Me” and its sparse, ghostly choir are straight from the Augustus Pablo playbook, and the soaring trombone and canyon-echo cymbals of “Descent” have all the resonance of Vin Gordon traversing through King Tubby’s vast sonic landscapes. 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.” And it benefits well from a slate of guests that includes sound bwoy-burying roots singer Mikey General and Native Tongues go-to hip-hop vocalist Vinia Mojica. Less a soundclash than a soundmeld, this is melting-pot eclecticism done right.

Daniel Hope, Spheres

Never mind the “music of the spheres” album concept: These 18 melodic, gently pulsing tracks could find a receptive audience in the easy-listening (excuse me, “chillout”) market. But that doesn’t mean classical buffs should pass it up; there’s no rule against substantial music sounding beautiful, and everything here is beautiful while exhibiting a fair amount of variety and even imagination. The opening track, Baroque composer Johann Paul von Westhoff’s “Imitazione delle campane” (No. 3 of his solo violin sonatas, a short one-movement work arranged for violin and string orchestra by Christian Badzura), is a little surprising for how its restlessness sounds quintessentially modern. Most of the pieces are by living composers (the rest are arranged by modern composers), with many premieres, including Gabriel Prokofiev’s title track, hewing gently towards dissonance.

The performances are mostly for violin and piano; pianist Jacques Ammon never has anything technically challenging to play, so what matters is tone and dynamic control, and his playing is beautiful in those regards. But the textures and forces expand to include violin, string orchestra and chorus (the German Chamber Orchestra of Berlin and members of the Berlin Radio Choir are conducted by Simon Halsey), plus various combinations of violin, strings, and additional featured instruments, which also keeps things from blurring together. Hope is featured on every track, and his sound is wonderfully lustrous.

Simone Dinnerstein & Tift Merritt, Night

Self-taught Americana singer-songwriter Tift Merritt and Julliard-trained classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein would hardly seem likely collaborators, but the rapport and cross-hatching of styles they achieve on Night sure makes it seem like they were destined to work together. The pair met in 2008 when they were brought together for an interview and they discovered mutual interests and approaches to performance. The music on Night was put together for a song cycle commissioned by Duke University and debuted in January 2011. The album’s stark beauty and seamless flow owes part of its success to the decision of Merritt and Dinnerstein to keep the work modest in scale and free of conceptual baggage.

There’s a feel to the collection that harkens back to the sheet music era, when folks entertained themselves in their parlor room and playing songs rather than listening to records or the radio. Together they make transitions between some of Merritt’s most translucent balladry: Billie Holiday’s “Don’t Explain,” Bach’s “Prelude in B minor” and Johnny Nash’s indelible “I Can See Clearly Now” seem not only effortless, but also logical. When Merritt, who’s busted through her gauzy Emmylou Harris model with a more forceful, grainy delivery, sings classical pieces like Henry Purcell’s ubiquitous “Dido’s Lament” or Schubert’s “Night and Dreams,” she doesn’t overreach; she shapes the words exquisitely in her natural North Carolina twang, while Dinnerstein plays with typical refinement, balancing simpatico accompaniment with virtuosity.

Some songs were written specifically for the project, including one by jazz pianist Brad Mehldau (“I Shall Weep at Night”) and another by folk-pop singer Patty Griffin (“Night”), while the composer (and eMusic contributor) Daniel Felsenfeld elaborated on the melody of Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” for “The Cohen Variations,” his instrumental feature for Dinnerstein. Merritt tackles “Wayfaring Stranger” with just voice and acoustic guitar and when Dinnerstein plays sparse figures by plucking the piano strings directly on the traditional song “I Will Give My Love an Apple,” a single, recurring note bleeds directly into “Colors,” the Merritt original that follows, quietly reinforcing the organic flow from one to song to the next. Lots of lip service is paid to musicians who bridge stylistic gaps, but on Night Merritt and Dinnerstein make genre irrelevant.

Batillus, Concrete Sustain

The 2011 debut full-length from New York’s Batillus, Furnace was crushing, oppressive, bleak and morose, one of the top dark horse doom metal albums of the year. Not content to remain within those parameters, the band has undergone a facelift for its new album Concrete Sustain. In addition to an abundance of trudging, mid-paced riffs played on densely distorted guitar and bass, Batillus have built a framework of counterpoint rhythms that provide tension and contrast: Grinding, whirring industrial samples abound, as do textural washes of feedback that border on the post-rock nihilism of Neurosis.

The opening track, “Concrete,” with its monochromatic beat and spare, gut-shaking riffs resembles a more animated Godflesh, while the more complex “Thorns,” driven by ominous, reverberant guitars and melodic vocal chants, sounds like a heavily-sedated Mastodon.Concrete Sustain‘s knock-out punch is Batillus’s ability to retain a head-bobbing groove regardless of the tempo or the atmosphere of the songs. “Rust,” which moves from being down-tuned and menacing to a drifting mid-section full of heavy breathing and dissonant chords, is held together by a subtle but omnipresent pulse that keeps the listener glued. Credit percussionist Geoff Summers, who’s equally adept at maintaining minimal beats with glistening ride cymbal taps and syncopated bass drumming as he is at stuttering snare strikes and rolling drum fills.

While Concrete Sustain might have benefited from a couple of uptempo songs (such as Furnace‘s pace-shifting “Uncreator”) Batillus have effectively proven that they’re capable of way more than the next great doom band.