Little Boots, Nocturnes

A lot happened very quickly for synth-pop chanteuse Little Boots: Her 2009 debut Hands generated hit UK singles, a gold album, worldwide tours and topped the BBC Sound of 2009 poll. What followed in the ensuing four-year gap between albums wasn’t quite silence: Victoria Hesketh filled it by DJing, making mixtapes and working with more club-oriented cohorts, such as Hercules and Love Affair’s Andy Butler and Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford. But like her compatriot in ’80s-derived dance-pop La Roux, Boots has distanced herself from her initial hype simply by dragging her heels.

Nocturnes, the long-simmering sophomore effort, isn’t a total break from her buzzy beginnings. For “Broken Record,” Hesketh writes with veteran songsmith Rick Nowels, spinning the same obsessive love angle as her attention-grabbing first single, “Stuck on Repeat.” But here and elsewhere, she downplays the ’80s vibe in favor of more eclectic synth sounds largely overseen by former Mo’ Wax/DFA honcho Tim Goldsworthy. Album opener “Motorway” steers in the urbane direction of indie-dance pioneers Saint Etienne, gradually building up a mood that’s more wistful than amorous. “Confusion” pairs her with ex-Junior Senior member and “Born This Way” co-creator Jeppe Laursen, who helps Boots write a troubled, simple love song that shines over Goldsworthy’s finespun production.

Nocturnes hits its stride halfway, where she digs deeper both lyrically and groove-wise. “Beat Beat” repeats the octave-jumping bass bumps of ’70s disco funk, while both Butler collaborations, the house-y “Every Night I Say a Prayer” and the slow-grinding ballad “All for You,” reveal a spiritual side to Boots previously hidden behind her glossy pop veneer. She doesn’t have a big or distinctive voice, but she does pick the right henchmen, and here she even bares a soul, an aching one that compliments all that’s tidy and efficient elsewhere.

Public Service Broadcasting, Inform – Educate – Entertain

Bumping the idea of “retro” away from the over-mined ’60s and ’70s, London duo J. Willgoose Esq and Wrigglesworth, the quaintly named men behind Public Service Broadcasting, explore the time frame between the Blitz and the Coronation, evoking a world of ration books, camp coffee and black market silk stockings. Their make-do-and-mend approach to music comes from their victorious digging through the archives, salvaging scraps of public information films, news reel and propaganda and pairing them with some thoroughly modern music. There’s no smirking kitsch, here, however: These songs are fascinated by the human capacity for wonder, endurance and plain decency, the light-headed space-rock of “Everest” paying tribute to the mountain-climbing spirit, the poignant banjo groove of “ROYGBIV” poignantly suffused by the miracles of modern technology: “I believe in this world to come…I think it’s going to be a pretty good world.”

New This Week: Pistol Annies, Talib Kweli, Little Boots & More!

Pistol Annies, Annie Up: The trio of Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley goes from side project from supergroup on their second LP. Stephen Deusner says:

Despite the success of their debut, it’s still a hard-knock life for these Annies, who smartly chronicle the joys and trials of being a woman in the 2010s. On “Being Pretty Ain’t Pretty,” they spend a lot of time and money applying make-up and even more time and money taking it off, but they never play it off as a joke. Instead, they sympathize with the woman in the mirror and their close harmonies invest the song with a deep melancholy. Songs like “Trading One Heartbreak for Another” and “Dear Sobriety” are quietly devastating, but the Annies’ sass and smarts remain.

Talib Kweli, Prisoner of Conscious: On his latest, Talib Kweli sounds liberated and awake. Says Christina Lee:

While 2011′s Gutter Rainbows updated the neo-soul sound of Kweli’s onetime label Rawkus, Prisoner of Conscious reaches back to even older genres. Samba revivalist Seu Jorge adds wistfulness to “Favela Love,” a song about wandering abroad. On “Come Here,” R&B singer Miguel does his best Marvin Gaye while Kweli composes a valentine made of hip-hop references: “We can do it like Common and Mary and ‘Come Closer’/ We can do it like Barack and Michelle, give me a fist bump.”

Patty Griffin, American Kid: The Americana songwriter’s first collection of new songs in six years. Stephen Deusner says:

American Kid is a meditation on wanderlust of all kinds — emotional, physical and musical — and it may be Griffin’s most adventurous and diverse effort yet. Rather than record again in Austin or Nashville, Griffin decamped to Memphis, where she absorbed the Bluff City’s deep, rich history and recruited Luther and Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi All-Stars as her backing band. Fortunately, this is no kneejerk approximation of local blues or soul. No musical tourist, Griffin is not interested in re-creating that Sun or Stax sound; instead, she hits the crossroads and goes in all directions at once.

Still Corners, Strange Pleasures: Still Corners try to rid themselves of the “ethereal” and “dreamy” sound they’re associated with. Alex Naidus says:

Greg Hughes smartly juxtaposes the more traditionally “dreamy” elements of Still Corners’ sound with some crisper textures and more insistent rhythms. His songwriting and production style still skews sweeping and epic: On single “Fireflies,” the synths stack — pillowy pads, twinkling upper-octave melody lines and punchy synth-bass — and are buoyed by Tessa Murray’s vampish vocals. With Strange Pleasures, Hughes has carefully crafted a set with songs that inspire grandeur while remaining taut and gripping — an impressive feat.

Natalie Maines, Mother: Dixie Chick Natalie Maines returns scarred, but smarter, on her first real rock ‘n’ roll record. Stephen Deusner says:

Mother is not merely a shift in musical direction or a crossover attempt; instead, it’s the sound of a woman fighting defiantly to redefine herself with a harder, steelier sound. Fortunately, Maines’s commanding voice remains intact. She nimbly navigates the slow build from soft melody to full gospel finale on “Free Life,” while “Trained” binds a torrid sex metaphor to a rowdy blues-rock groove courtesy of co-producer Ben Harper.

Little Boots, Nocturnes: The long-awaited second LP from synth-pop chanteuse Little Boots. Barry Walters says:

Nocturnes isn’t a total break from her buzzy beginnings. For “Broken Record,” Hesketh writes with veteran songsmith Rick Nowels, spinning the same obsessive love angle as her attention-grabbing first single, “Stuck on Repeat.” But here and elsewhere, she downplays the ’80s vibe in favor of more eclectic synth sounds largely overseen by former Mo’ Wax/DFA honcho Tim Goldsworthy.

Joshua Redman, Walking Shadows: A diverse mix of American songbook standards, pop hits and originals. Says Britt Robson:

Redman plays with gorgeous aplomb on Kern and Hammerstein’s “The Folks Who Live on the Hill” and Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust” (the latter also features Mehldau’s best solo). He teases out the familiar melodies of The Beatles’ “Let It Be” and “Stop That Train” by John Mayer before taking transformative liberties with them via deft improvisations. The most arresting of the originals is Redman’s atmospheric “Final Hour,” in which his tenor has the low-toned plangency of a bass clarinet.

The Child of Lov, S/T – 25-year-old Netherlands musician, with the blessing of Damon Albarn (who guests here), turns out self-produced record that sounds like late-period Outkast in a bonfire, or a robot with a dying battery singing Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.”

Astrid Engberg, Poetry is Gone – This seemed intriguing. Cool, Erykah Badu-ish vocals over smoky exhalations of Dilla-esque dusty loops. “Alright” is a jam.

Bajram Bili, Sequenced Fog – Minimal techno mazes built of tiny synthesizer parts. Rudimentary in an intriguing, mysterious way. Sounded interesting.

Shannon Wright, In Film Sound – Pretty brutal, gunky riffing plus Wright’s sneering voice. Basically sounds like the kind of record Steve Albini would have recorded for Touch & Go in the late ’90s. Take a sample, I think it’s pretty boss.

The Hussy, Pagan Hiss – Tinny garage-rock with some Judas Priest-chug guitars, vocals a thousand miles in the mix. One number also seems to be enhanced with a free-recorder solo. Pretty good, bratty-primitive stuff.

Sam Sanders, Mirror Mirror – Pretty sweet, SUPER rare R&B/Soul/Funk record (apparently, this new cover art had to be created from scratch, the original is that obscure). Kind of a nice, digging-in-the-crates type find.

The Uncluded, Hokey Fright – Not the world’s biggest fan of Kimya Dawson over here, but Aesop Rock is good, and this collaboration, while blood-draining on paper, yields a pleasantly quirky (as opposed to unbearably so), finely observed and pleasant listen. If you are even marginally a fan of either of these guys, I feel pretty comfortable recommending this to you.

James Cotton, Cotton Mouth Man – Latest offering of viscerally traditionalist harmonica blues from modern classic bluesman James Cotton.

Spirit of the Garden – Gorgeous chamber art-folk band led by the adventurous contemporary-classical cellist Jody Redhage. Shades of Dead Can Dance…

Lady Antebellum, Golden – Latest studio LP from the pop-country juggernaut.

Michael Hersch, The Vanishing Pavilions Suite – Shuddering, darkly portentous suite for solo piano by the American composer and pianist Michael Hersch. This was a landmark work in the contemporary classical community when it premiered in 2007, and while casually recommending a recording of this monumental work is a little bit like casually recommending that someone read Proust, I still heartily recommend it. (N.B.: I have never read Proust; I just use him as a handy-dandy reference point for “daunting commitment,” because that is essentially what that row of grey books on my shelf represents to me.)

Original Concept, Straight From the Basement of Kooley High! – I do not know what made this come around the New Arrivals turnpike this morning, but there’s no good reason for a self-respecting hip-hop fan not to have heard it. This is the loose, fun, funny and impressive debut LP from Dr. Dre—Andre Brown, that is, of “Ed Lover and,” not the Good Doctor out West. It came out in the earlier days of the major-labels and hip-hop (this was before Yo! MTV Raps) and didn’t sell much, but it’s stuck around because it’s witty and great.

Rod Stewart, Time – Hoo boy, look at that cover. And when there was only one set of footprints, that is when Rod carried you. Do you want to hear 2013-era Rod Stewart sing a song called “Sexual Religion?” Ask yourself that, preferably while looking into a well-lit mirror, and decide what the answer reveals to you about your soul. (NB: I love the first four Rod Stewart solo LPs almost as much as I love anything.)

Various Artists, Music From The Great Gatsby, OST – Here it is – the very expensive soundtrack to The Thing That Baz Luhrmann did to The Great Gatsby. Curated by Jay-Z; featuring Jay-Z, Lana Del Rey, and others.

Courtney Jaye, Love and Forgiveness – Latest from Nashville country singer/songwriter, whose bell-like voice will have sympathetic vibrations with Neko Case and Jenny Lewis Fans. Real Laurel Canyon, Mellow Gold vibes here. Produced by Mike Wrucke, who is known for his work with Miranda Lambert among others.

Still Corners, Strange Pleasures

When a band makes music that is repeatedly, almost invariably, described as “ethereal” or “dreamy,” it’s fair to worry whether things might fall too far into the soup. Although the signifiers that often provoke these descriptions — heavy reverb; breathy, obscured vocals; layered effects; wading tempos — can produce a soaring, satisfying cumulative effect, the pitfalls are just as clear: Focus too much on piling up and tweaking lush sounds, an album can end up as a sort of unformed mass of pretty stuff.

Greg Hughes, the primary songwriter, producer, instrumentalist and lyricist of Still Corners, is conscious of this tightrope walk. He spoke to Sub Pop, the label releasing Strange Pleasures, about his evolving approach: “I started taking the production more seriously this time; instead of listening to records and going, ‘Oh, that’s cool,’ I actually studied everything: sound absorption, speaker placement, mixing, mastering, microphones…I see it principally as a widescreen pop album, clear, with upfront vocals…There aren’t a ton of layers this time; everything has its place and is focused.” This thoughtful, balanced method shines through on Strange Pleasures.

Hughes smartly juxtaposes the more traditionally “dreamy” elements of Still Corners’ sound with some crisper textures and more insistent rhythms. On album opener “The Trip,” a delay-heavy, snaking, spacey guitar lead and Tessa Murray’s washed-out, wispy vocals are anchored by prominent, raking acoustic guitar and a krautrock-like pulse. “Beginning to Blue” has wonderfully inside-out sounding production with wobbly, reverse-flanged keyboards and backward cymbal crashes, like a loping, screwed “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Hughes’s songwriting and production style still skews sweeping and epic: On single “Fireflies,” the synths stack — pillowy pads, twinkling upper-octave melody lines and punchy synth-bass — and are buoyed by Murray’s vampish vocals. With Strange Pleasures, Hughes has carefully crafted a set with songs that inspire grandeur while remaining taut and gripping — an impressive feat.

Pistol Annies, Annie Up

In his 2012 memoir Waging Heavy Peace, Neil Young gave a rave review to the Pistol Annies, observing that the Nashville trio was “writing their asses off.” It was an unexpected shout-out, to which the women responded via tweet that they nearly peed their pants with excitement. Such praise was warranted. On their 2011 debut, the group — which consists of Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley delivered a batch of sharply observed country tunes that ranged from hilarious to heartbreaking and that appealed even to listeners who profess to love everything but country.

Despite that success, it’s still a hard-knock life for these Annies, who smartly chronicle the joys and trials of being a woman in the 2010s. On “Being Pretty Ain’t Pretty,” they spend a lot of time and money applying make-up and even more time and money taking it off, but they never play it off as a joke. Instead, they sympathize with the woman in the mirror and their close harmonies invest the song with a deep melancholy. Songs like “Trading One Heartbreak for Another” and “Dear Sobriety” are quietly devastating, but the Annies’ sass and smarts remain. First single “Hush Hush,” a kissin’ cousin to Robert Earl Keen’s “Merry Christmas from the Family,” is a devious ode to the open secrets and hidden conflicts that bind a family, even if it sends Monroe out behind the barn to spark one up. The Pistol Annies may have started as a side project for these solo artists, but on Annie Up, they prove themselves as a supergroup.

Natalie Maines, Mother

Still scarred from the backlash she endured for dissing George Bush 10 years ago, Natalie Maines has jettisoned any trace of the twang that survived the Dixie Chicks’ last album, Taking the Long Way, and has made her first real rock ‘n’ roll record. Mother is not merely a shift in musical direction or a crossover attempt; instead, it’s the sound of a woman fighting defiantly to redefine herself with a harder, steelier sound. Fortunately, Maines’s commanding voice remains intact. She nimbly navigates the slow build from soft melody to full gospel finale on “Free Life,” while “Trained” binds a torrid sex metaphor to a rowdy blues-rock groove courtesy of co-producer Ben Harper. Her cover of “Lover Your Should Have come Over” may be too faithful to Jeff Buckley’s original to transcend karaoke, but Maines picks up some intriguing vocal tricks — especially a new way to treat vowels — and applies them throughout Mother. Best of all is the Jayhawks’ “I’d Run Away,” which shows the Dixie Chick at her most unguarded. Despite the tough rock exterior she constructs, the song reveals a bruised self-doubt that haunts the album. Maines might love to run away, but she knows she has to stay and keep fighting.

Patty Griffin, American Kid

Patty Griffin’s seventh album — and her first collection of new songs in six years — opens with “Go Wherever You Wanna Go,” a delicate rural blues number that bristles with slide guitar and promises of travel and escape. That song establishes American Kid as a meditation on wanderlust of all kinds — emotional, physical and musical — and it may be Griffin’s most adventurous and diverse effort yet. Rather than record again in Austin or Nashville, Griffin decamped to Memphis, where she absorbed the Bluff City’s deep, rich history and recruited Luther and Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi All-Stars as her backing band. Fortunately, this is no kneejerk approximation of local blues or soul. No musical tourist, Griffin is not interested in re-creating that Sun or Stax sound; instead, she hits the crossroads and goes in all directions at once.

The songs on American Kid represent points on a map. Griffin pleads for her life on “Don’t Let Me Die in Florida,” whose urgency is sharpened by Luther Dickinson’s gritty guitar work, while “Ohio” (inspired by the Underground Railroad) establishes a rustic folk drone that’s simultaneously lovely and unsettling. Even on the more direct tracks, like the lusty beerhall sing-along “Get Ready Marie” or her tender cover of Lefty Frizzell’s “Mom and Dad’s Waltz,” her exquisite twang gives life to a range of characters: prodigal sons, itinerant laborers, deserting soldiers, horny bridegrooms. Griffin loses herself not only in American musical traditions but also in American history, as though to escape some horrors of the present. As a result, American Kid sounds like her own version of the Great American Novel, expansive in narrative scope and generous in its earthy humanity.

Ghostpoet, Some Say I So I Say Light

With his debut album as Ghostpoet, London MC and producer Obaro Ejimiwe declared his love of not only hip-hop, electronica and trip-hop, but also of blues, jazz, electro and straight-up indie pop. Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam heralded the arrival of a fresh, young voice that chimed well with then current enthusiasm for Jamie Woon and James Blake, but spread itself rather too thinly, its rampant diversity signaling a fuzziness of intent as much as broadmindedness. Nonetheless, it bagged a Mercury nomination. Now, the follow-up.

Some Say I So I Say Light is not only a more focused and purposeful record, but also a braver one, yet t sacrifices none of the strangely sun-dappled anxiety or quotidian, small-hours doubt that is Ghostpoet’s trademark. Leaving his bedroom for a studio has seen his production talents mature, too and he strikes a smart balance between vocal intimacy and textured electronic cool. His voice — equal parts Gil Scott-Heron and Tricky – is the album’s heart. Warmly cracked and with an oddly alluring, catarrhal thickness, his sprechgesang deals with everything from the gradual growing apart in a relationship to spending too much money on Amazon. It’s offset to fine effect on “Dialtones” by Lucy Rose’s distanced cooing and on “Meltdown” by alt.folk singer Woodpecker Wooliams.

Gone are the Beck-ish blues, electro and indie elements of Ghostpoet’s debut; he’s now opted for a far more cohesive and dynamic style of post-everything hip-pop. It’s one that allows for chip-tune freneticism with strings and heavily treated vocal loops (“Comatose”), surging and euphoric Afro-beat (“Plastic Bag Brain,” which features drumming don Tony Allen, and guitarist Dave Okumu of The Invisible) and an adventure in pulsing synth house (“Dorsal Morsel”). All represent the confident and considered pushing of his parameters by a distinctive talent who’s in it for the long haul.

Talib Kweli, Prisoner of Conscious

In 1998, Talib Kweli said, “Every day someone ask me, ‘Where all the real MCs at?’/ They underground.” He was proudly pinpointing a shift in hip-hop’s values, how mainstream rappers wanted to be Hugh Hefner while those primarily concerned with artistry were netting only cult appeal. In subsequent releases however, Kweli endured criticism as he tried catchier hooks and wove pop culture references into his lyrics. He epitomized “conscious rap,” but he also struggled to stay within its confines.

So on his fifth LP, Prisoner of Conscious, Kweli raps to music rooted in the time before all that. While 2011′s Gutter Rainbows updated the neo-soul sound of Kweli’s onetime label Rawkus, Prisoner reaches back to even older genres. Samba revivalist Seu Jorge adds wistfulness to “Favela Love,” a song about wandering abroad. On “Come Here,” R&B singer Miguel does his best Marvin Gaye while Kweli composes a valentine made of hip-hop references: “We can do it like Common and Mary and ‘Come Closer’/ We can do it like Barack and Michelle, give me a fist bump.”

Throughout the album, Kweli raps of his connections to people and music. On album opener “Human Mic,” Kweli scrambles through a few opening lines before landing on a memory of 9/11: “I seen them crossing bridges by the masses, covered in the ashes of both towers.” Over celebratory horns in “High Life,” he and Rubix exchange dizzying verses that simulate the bustle of a block party. “Prisoner of Conscious? Nonsense,” Kweli raps at one point. Rather than feeling hemmed in, Kweli sounds liberated — not “conscious,” just awake.

Joe Lovano’s Top Five Saxophonists

Joe Lovano’s output is voluminous and encompasses an array of jazz styles. He blew an immaculate, straight-ahead tenor saxophone on 52nd Street Themes, honored Charlie Parker on Bird Songs and revisited the ’50s-era school of cool on Streams of Expression. And then there’s his blustery, innovative work as a member of the Paul Motian Trio with the late, master drummer and guitarist Bill Frisell. Throughout, Lovano’s tenor is as flexible as the material he pursues, a burly, angular, shimmering, even romantic instrument that’s grounded in jazz but is ultimately not chained to it.

Perhaps more than with his other groups, Us Five gives Lovano a lab in which to try out new ideas, new configurations, and new sounds. The group’s latest release, Cross Currents (Blue Note), takes the group forward while Lovano looks back. Over the course of its running time, Lovano plays an assortment of horns and percussion, from Hungarian tarogato and Belgian aulochrome to Nigerian log drum and gongs; the group group includes Grammy Award winning bassist Esperanza Spalding and drummers Otis Brown III and Francisco Mela. This amalgam of unusual instruments, and the group’s dual drummer configuration, recalls the boundary-stretching ’60s recordings of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman.

“Some of the instruments I play on the album I have collected through the years,” Lovano says. “They’re ancient sounds, they go back in time in the history of the world of music, from Asia, North Africa, Nigeria. These sounds feel like the earth, like having it come from your soul. It’s not just a technical thing. When you vibrate on the tonalities of these instruments and don’t try to play any specific kind of music, you feel the soul of the music in a different kind of way.”

A similar philosophy extends to the makeup of Lovano’s group. “To have a quintet with double drummers, a lot of points of reference can happen,” he says. “Anything can happen if everyone is paying attention and sharing a space together. That’s the idea. The double drummer configuration was inspired by Art Blakey, Max Roach, Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell with Ornette, and Rashid Ali and Elvin Jones with Coltrane.”

As the masters have influenced Lovano, he has in turn influenced the new guard of younger jazz musicians.

“I realize what a deep relationship I have with all of these cats.” Lovano says. “It’s a beautiful scene today. As a musician, for a long time you’re in people’s audiences. Then all of a sudden, they’re in your audience. I was in Joe Henderson’s audience a lot,” he continues. “And the audiences of Dexter Gordon, George Coleman and Clifford Jordan. Once when I was playing the Berkhausen festival in Germany, Dexter was in the audience. That night I somehow held my notes just a little longer. I got up the next morning and Dexter was just coming in and we hung in the hotel lobby. I got the chills. That happens for all of us and it’s happening for these cats now. It’s a continuum. That’s how these things are handed down: in real time.”

eMusic’s Ken Micallef asked Lovano to listen and comment on new recordings from his favorite current saxophonists.

Har Mar Superstar, Bye Bye 17

More than a decade ago, indie rocker Sean Tillman was reborn as a campy R&B leg-humper keen on tickling your unmentionable zones with his freaky antics. Now Tillman has re-remade himself as a soulfully wronged but never spiteful lover, his vocals filtered for full retro effect, his effortless swoop drawing inspiration not just from Sam Cooke, but from white Cooke heirs like Rod Stewart.

“Please Don’t Make Me Hit You” accentuates that persona shift, as Har Mar resists a lover’s S&M demands (rhythmically indebted to Cooke’s “Cupid”) with a heartfelt “I’m not so into all that kinky stuff.” But it’s the opener, “Lady, You Shot Me,” with its pained virtuoso cry soaring over tricky Stax-via-Daptone horns and a sharp tempo shift, that justifies his newfound fascination with classic soul. And the jaunty “Restless Leg” suggests that Har Mar might fancy himself a haircut, a gym membership, and the right licensing deal away from becoming Bruno Mars. Stranger things have happened.

Sale: Cinco de Mayo

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with albums from Nortec Collective, Kinky and more, on sale for just $4.99 through Monday, May 6, exclusively for eMusic members.

Churchwood: The Beefheart of the Blues

Churchwood is a blues-rock quintet hailing from Austin, Texas; Churchwood 2, their second album, was released in February of this year, and makes them sound both more and less like a blues band than their 2011 debut Churchwood. Austin, at this point, thinks of itself as the blues capital of the world, or at least the white blues capital of the world, but you’ll not be hearing Churchwood among the usual cavalcade of Austin blues bands. This band does not play “tasty” licks in honor of the great blues originals; this band is — or, rather, appears to be — anarchistic, as well as deranged, abrasive, eerie, feral, maniacal and stunningly literate. There’s certainly nothing else like them on that vaunted Austin scene, and very little else like them in the rest of the world. But they are among the most legit blues-rock bands out there. How so? Let us count the ways.

They clearly know the blues masters well, but their most obvious inspiration is the Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band that in 1972 released Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot, the two “accessible” albums that preceded Beefheart’s hapless attempt to “go commercial” with Unconditionally Guaranteed. But despite some of the sprung rhythms, clanking guitar and singer Joe Doerr’s voice, this band doesn’t really sound that much like Beefheart; the biggest thing they took from him is the understanding that the only way most white kids can play blues credibly and keep ‘em sounding fresh is by using blues only as a taking-off point — and that having done that, you’d damn well better have something to say or you’re just wanking in the wind. Doerr was a founding member of Austin’s Leroi Brothers, a harder-than-hard-edged roots band that played every song like it was trying to stay one step ahead of the police. Churchwood has much the same approach: You can practically feel the sweat pouring out of your speakers, except it’s much thicker — swampier — than real sweat. Doerr rides it like some weird water-park attraction. His voice has Beefheart’s power and gruffness, with a little Tom Waits mixed in there too, and when he breaks into one of his versions of Howlin Wolf’s nonverbal semi-yodeling articulations he is without affectation. He sounds really cool.

Alison Moyet, the minutes

How has Alison “Alf” Moyet become one of the UK’s most underappreciated artists? At a time when her spiritual descendant, Adele, dominates global album sales, the former Yazoo vocal powerhouse has struggled to find a record label that doesn’t demand a set of Etta James cover versions for her next album. The ever-likeable and honest Moyet would probably happily take some of the blame for her spell in the cultural wilderness. By her own admission, she has suffered from crippling anxieties and made some questionable creative choices. Her 1985 cover of “That Ole Devil Called Love” may have been her biggest hit, but Moyet isn’t even a jazz fan. Rather unfairly she’s become known as a reliable purveyor of safe, sanitised blue-eyed soul when, in truth, the childhood buddy of most of Depeche Mode and collaborator with Wilko Johnson, is a rather more restless, adventurous soul.

Kudos then to Cooking Vinyl for releasing the minutes, Moyet’s eighth solo album and, by some considerable margin, her best. Key to its success is Moyet’s producer, Guy Sigsworth, who has worked with Bjork and Madonna, and who shares Moyet’s desire to ruffle the hair of orthodox song structures.

Album opener “Horizon Flame” is a gentle signifier of what to expect: The Eastern-flavored intro gives away to delicate, skittish dubstep beat patterns swathed in plump clouds of synthesizer. Lead single “When I Was Your Girl” doesn’t even manage a curt nod in the direction of modernity, with its big, chunky frame and bold ’80s-friendly chorus. But gradually, Moyet and Sigsworth’s pioneering ethos takes hold. “Apple Kisses” is as light and lovely as its title suggests, little flecks of electronica playfully skirting its edges, while “Right as Rain” majors on big, fat squelchy synths. All the while Moyet refuses to give full rein to her mammoth voice, understanding fully that vocal power is more effective when hinted at rather than let loose.

The second half of the minutes is when things get really interesting. “Remind Yourself” is part Massive Attack with a big dollop of Scott Walker; on “All Signs Of Life” sudden squalls of ravey electronica punctuate what might otherwise have been a gentle Moyet ballad. But ‘Filigree’ is the real landmark track. It’s a distant cousin to Yazoo’s “Only You,” a lush cocoon of melody-drenched emotional electronica. It’s the most beauty-laden song on an album slathered in loveliness. Alf is back — and how.

Playlist: Colin Stetson

“People still assume I’m a saxophonist firmly footed in the free-jazz world, and that I suddenly tried to do ‘the rock thing’ with these records,” says Colin Stetson, after being asked about the heavier side of his New History Warfare series. “What [critics] don’t realize is we’re often cranking bands like Liturgy in the back of the bus on Bon Iver tours, or bonding over how we used to listen to [Iron] Maiden when we were in our teens.”

That explains why guest vocalist Justin Vernon ventures down paths both familiar (the harmonies that carry “And in Truth” to such great heights) and freakish (the guttural agony of “Brute,” which could double as a Pig Destroyer scratch track) on the trilogy’s third and final installment, To See More Light. Meanwhile, the record itself revolves around Stetson’s strictly analog — no overdubs, no loop pedals, nothing — approach to attacking his alto sax. In many ways, it’s not all that different from the devotion he had for a year-round sports regiment in high school.

“Wrestling encapsulates most of my physical discipline,” explains Stetson. “Ultimately, I had to quit the sport because it was so destructive — dropping 12 pounds in water weight before you go in and compete, then competing well [Laughs]. It was extreme, but it was one of the things that made me.”

Speaking of extremes, we asked Stetson to discuss some of his favorite metal songs down below. Sure enough, they’re all about as dizzying and dynamic as Stetson’s own records.

Liturgy, “Generation”

You already talked about Liturgy a bit. To someone who’s maybe not so familiar with them and Krallice, what are some main differences between the two?

That’s a good question. Shit. There’s something about the way Hunter [Hunt-Hendrix] sings that is melodic in a similar way as to how I used to relate to Metallica. Something about the color and timbre of his voice puts that Skeletor thing into a place that, for me at least, is filled with such longing and beauty. At the same time, there’s this churning, aggressive, Wagnerian density happening through all the guitars and drums. The key difference between any band and Liturgy is that they don’t have [drummer] Greg Fox in it — and now Liturgy doesn’t either, which is fucking tragic. But yeah, sometimes there’s these key combinations of players and personalities that are maybe fleeting, but when they combine, it’s something intangible that no one can replicate.

You’re someone who actually has a classical background, so when Hunter says he’s inspired by someone like, say, Steve Reich, can you actually hear that in the music?

[Laughs] I wouldn’t be surprised if he said that. So much of that is happening in music and art these days — this grand, obvious swipe back at the hyper-paced life we’re all living. Everything’s back to the earth and out of the city, a return to the contemplative and meditation. So you could find your way to Liturgy through something other than musical means.

Before you go, can you explain the notion of “ambient grindcore” that supposedly inspired one song on your album?

[Laughs] In all honesty, that was Ian over at Constellation [Records]. I won’t take credit for that one. But “Hunted” was my attempt at, after hearing Aesthetica specifically, dealing with things…I remember I wrote the song “The End of Your Suffering” because I was going to cover a song from Aesthetica but realized I wanted to do something that was more of a nod to that and went so much further. I did think about how blast beats and that density would relate to the bass, so basically it is taking those textures and that sentiment and slowing it down, filtering it through this other medium. I probably would have called it something a lot less awesome. But in the end, his description was apt [laughs].

Marcus Ryan, Walk to the Light

Marcus Ryan is a songwriter from Texas who wound up traveling to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Somewhere along the way, he found time to write and record Walk to the Light, an album full of lonely treatises about loss and redemption. The tunes are big in the sense that they are heavily produced, with power guitars, acoustic pianos and processed drums layered over hooky themes. The core of the pieces is the bedrock messages. Ryan leaves a woman in “If I Fly” and tells her, “It’s gonna be alright,” but, despite the soaring guitars, you get the sense that it might not be. “Who would be there for you if nobody knew where you stayed?” Ryan asks on “The Road That Has No End.” The entire album is preoccupied with questions like this: What happens to people who leave their homes, leave those who matter to them and head toward an unknown and solitary future? There’s a sense of inevitability about these departures, a dour fatalism that surfaces in many of the tunes. There’s also a kind of dark honor. In “On My Own,” he tells the woman he’s leaving that it “doesn’t mean I don’t wish I was there,” and it rings true.

There’s a long musical tradition of restless songwriters, lonesome travelers all, who struggle to find solace. Ryan is part of this tradition, and the album plays like a man searching for a way to make peace with himself. That its final track is Walk to the Light, suggests that Ryan’s wanderings might have at last brought him to a place where he can rest for a while.

Blood on the Dancefloor: 10 Essential Avant-Dance Albums

“I don’t think of music as cathartic or a release,” Dominick Fernow once told me in a cover story about his former band Cold Cave. “A release implies that something is leaving you. It’s not that so much as a transformation.”

Whether he’s whipping up whirlpools of noise as Prurient or delving into the darkest corners of dance music as Vatican Shadow, Fernow has always followed that path — music as a purification process, only instead of the poison being drawn out of his productions, it’s harnessed in the form of distorted tape decks, chain-linked synths and rust-encrusted samples.

He’s not alone either; while house producers have been revisiting their rave cave roots as of late, underground techno has turned 50 shades of grey. Literally and figuratively, as melodies get maimed, tempos get turned on, and rhythms embrace the very notion of electronic body music.

In the following guide, eMusic breaks down 10 essential avant-dance albums that will flood your endorphin levels (or plunge you into a pit of despair) faster than a midnight screening of Spring Breakers. Think of it as EDM’s evil twin, music that makes you move without resorting to crowd-pleasing power chords or answering the question that seems to be on everyone’s minds these days: “Where’s the drop?”

And as a bonus, we’ve also included a secondary set of recommendations and a “Panic Room” collection of deviant downtempo tracks…

Churchwood: The Beefheart of the Blues

Churchwood is a blues-rock quintet hailing from Austin, Texas; Churchwood 2, their second album, was released in February of this year, and makes them sound both more and less like a blues band than their 2011 debut Churchwood. Austin, at this point, thinks of itself as the blues capital of the world, or at least the white blues capital of the world, but you’ll not be hearing Churchwood among the usual cavalcade of Austin blues bands. This band does not play “tasty” licks in honor of the great blues originals; this band is — or, rather, appears to be — anarchistic, as well as deranged, abrasive, eerie, feral, maniacal and stunningly literate. There’s certainly nothing else like them on that vaunted Austin scene, and very little else like them in the rest of the world. But they are among the most legit blues-rock bands out there. How so? Let us count the ways.

They clearly know the blues masters well, but their most obvious inspiration is the Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band that in 1972 released Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot, the two “accessible” albums that preceded Beefheart’s hapless attempt to “go commercial” with Unconditionally Guaranteed. But despite some of the sprung rhythms, clanking guitar and singer Joe Doerr’s voice, this band doesn’t really sound that much like Beefheart; the biggest thing they took from him is the understanding that the only way most white kids can play blues credibly and keep ‘em sounding fresh is by using blues only as a taking-off point — and that having done that, you’d damn well better have something to say or you’re just wanking in the wind. Doerr was a founding member of Austin’s Leroi Brothers, a harder-than-hard-edged roots band that played every song like it was trying to stay one step ahead of the police. Churchwood has much the same approach: You can practically feel the sweat pouring out of your speakers, except it’s much thicker — swampier — than real sweat. Doerr rides it like some weird water-park attraction. His voice has Beefheart’s power and gruffness, with a little Tom Waits mixed in there too, and when he breaks into one of his versions of Howlin Wolf’s nonverbal semi-yodeling articulations he is without affectation. He sounds really cool.

Doerr quit music in the ’80s for nearly two decades to go back to college, ultimately winning his doctorate from Notre Dame and then returning to Austin to teach writing and literature at a local private college. The lyrics he writes for Churchwood are a sort of gutter poetry in which French symbolism meets American beats’ free verse, stirred up by a bit of a Screaming Jay Hawkins gross-out. He is not the type who wakes up in the morning and looks around for his shoes because he has those mean ol’ blues. On “Keels Be Damned,” he bellows, “I’m coughing bullshit through my fists/ Crossing fables off my list.” Those lines are more like the bellows of Muddy Waters in “Mannish Boy” and “Seventh Son,” Bo Diddley in “Who Do You Love.” Plus, they’ve got terrific rhythm. Don’t always rhyme, but that’s okay.

Slide guitarist Billysteve Korpi is perhaps better known for his work with the Crack Pipes, arguably Austin’s top garage band. Guitarist Bill Anderson first made his name with the local post-punk roots band Poison 13. There’s no apparent reason why they should sound as stirring as they do, because they don’t really play off each other the way you’d expect; usually it’s more like they’re both soloing at the same time but both soloes work together sublimely. Check out this interplay on the likes of the swampy “Weedeye” or the vehement “Fake This One.”

The other thing the band does to keep things interesting is change tempo several times in one song. The rhythm section doesn’t lay down a blues groove in the conventional sense; they maraud through three or so grooves in one song. That can’t help but keep things from becoming too predictable in that white blooz way. You’re never quite sure what’s coming next, but you know it’s worth sticking around to find out. Until he joined Churchwood, drummer Julien Peterson had been a bass player. But he had the notion that the drummer of this band had to be able to play just behind the behind. Not coincidentally, that’s where you’ll find all the great blues band rhythm sections, and it allows the other players to slide in and out of the groove like Chuck Berry’s cool breeze. In the case of Churchwood, it gives the other players the opening they need to take the sound wherever they wish to while still remaining anchored. And that’s what they do on this album, much more than on their first. This one marks a significant growth over their debut, while leaving plenty of room for further growth on (what will presumably be) Churchwood 3.

Nothing will ever replace the great old bluesmen, and nothing should try. Because this band in fact doesn’t try, it sounds and feels pretty good alongside them. Similar, but different, it occupies its own little niche. Most listeners will describe them as a rock band rather than a blues band, but there’s nothing saying you have to believe that.

The Byron Allen Trio, The Byron Allen Trio

During the 1960s, Bernard Stollman’s ESP label worked a side of the street that was largely left untouched by any other labels. The jazz end of their roster was dedicated almost entirely to obscure (at the time) avant-gardists, and although Stollman claimed to know little about the music he was presenting, his historical track record has turned out to be remarkably good. Some of the musicians represented by ESP have acquired legendary status: among them, Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, Paul Bley, Sunny Murray and Gary Peacock. But even the artists who eventually drifted into obscurity turned in efforts that are worthy of close attention.
Alto saxophonist Byron Allen is one of them. The Byron Allen Trio is a no-frills affair by Allen, bass player Maceo Gilchrist and drummer Ted Robinson. It’s evident that they’re young players, largely still in thrall to the Live at the Golden Circle trio of Ornette Coleman, David Izenson and Charles Moffett. But they’re good students, finding ways to make valuable use of what they’ve been taught. That makes The Byron Allen Trio a fine album on its own terms, although you wonder what the trio might have turned into, given time to develop.

“Time is Past” begins things briskly, with Robinson skillfully pushing an engaged Allen forward. The altoist is by turns bluesy, boppish and free. There are times when his linear playing resembles Jimmy Lyons, but the twisting lines are straight out of Ornette, and they retain the master’s sense of order and logic. Maceo Gilchrist’s role is harder to define. When he’s not using the bow, he tends toward observational commentary. He doesn’t add much to the pulse and he doesn’t engage in dialogue. Still, he’s effective; he knows what to put in and what to leave out. The music needs a third voice as a kind of mediator, and GIlchrist provides one. “Three Steps in the Right Direction” is a blindingly fast piece that features long, articulate lines by the leader. Robinson utilizes some left hand snare figures that come out of Sunny Murray. Although “Decision for the Cole-man” is, like the other tunes, taken at a fast tempo, Gilchrist’s lyricism is on display during large segments of his solo. Dedicated to Ornette, it’s the piece that most strongly pays homage to the Golden Circle trio. There’s enough individuality to keep it from being Coleman-lite though, and the prowess of all three players is easily apparent. “Today’s Blues Tomorrow” is the genuine article — a real blues in spirit, loose and funky and slightly off-kilter in an appealing way. The drums bully the saxophone a little (which works in this context) while Gilchrist holds down the fort with a steady walk. Gradually Allen takes up the challenge of the drums, ratcheting up his playing enough to hold his own, but steadfastly maintaining a heartfelt blues feel. After a thoughtful bass solo, the saxophone returns elegiacally, but again intensifies, moving briefly to a 6/8 semi-flamenco, to take the piece, and the album, out. The Byron Allen Trio is a convincing effort from start to finish, and one of ESP’s lost gems.

Blood on the Dancefloor: 12 Essential Avant-Dance Albums

“I don’t think of music as cathartic or a release,” Dominick Fernow once told me in a cover story about his former band Cold Cave. “A release implies that something is leaving you. It’s not that so much as a transformation.”

Whether he’s whipping up whirlpools of noise as Prurient or delving into the darkest corners of dance music as Vatican Shadow, Fernow has always followed that path — music as a purification process, only instead of the poison being drawn out of his productions, it’s harnessed in the form of distorted tape decks, chain-linked synths and rust-encrusted samples.

He’s not alone either; while house producers have been revisiting their rave cave roots as of late, underground techno has turned 50 shades of grey. Literally and figuratively, as melodies get maimed, tempos get turned on, and rhythms embrace the very notion of electronic body music.

In the following guide, eMusic breaks down 12 essential avant-dance albums that will flood your endorphin levels (or plunge you into a pit of despair) faster than a midnight screening of Spring Breakers. Think of it as EDM’s evil twin, music that makes you move without resorting to crowd-pleasing power chords or answering the question that seems to be on everyone’s minds these days: “Where’s the drop?”

And as a bonus, we’ve also included a secondary set of recommendations and a “Panic Room” collection of deviant downtempo tracks…