Laura Stevenson, Wheel

A question lurks in the background of Laura Stevenson’s Wheel like a party guest invited out of obscure but unbreakable obligation: Once you realize you are going to die, what are you supposed to do about the rest of your life?

From a distance, Stevenson’s songs seem to tally up the standard frayed relationships and rocky familyscapes; up close, in flashes of quiet brutality, she makes the stakes clear. “There was a time when we believed that we could measure out a line just how we wanted it, so we could live just as long as anybody ever did/ but I was wrong,” she concedes over the clamorous ballroom swing of “Bells and Whistles.” On “The Hole,” a nuzzling, solo acoustic thing run aground of a campfire hootenanny, “you are the constant in my constant, you are the salty wind in my sail” could be directed at a reliable lover, or at the specter of death itself.

Stevenson, 28, has made two records already — both as Laura Stevenson and The Cans, both lovely but not quite as focused or self-assured as Wheel. Before, her reference points were so obvious as to be nearly suffocating, her raw-throated bellows and ramshackle accompaniment at times sounding like an audition tape for America’s Next Top Mangum. Here, her influences (among them: Crazy Horse, Nirvana, Dolly Parton) seem more fully absorbed and processed, like she’s finally hearing just her own voice in her head.

Rather than make the choice between draping the record in heartstring-plucking orchestral folk or loading it with unstoppered rock ‘n’ roll sass, Stevenson and producer Kevin McMahon (Titus Andronicus, Swans) went with all of the above, and it’s for the best; the songs plot themselves out one by one, each as connected and disconnected from what comes before and what comes next as the endless numbered days they taunt and lament. They bloom unexpectedly, then wither away; they blindside, linger and end before you’re ready.

Wheel is all questions, asked and unasked; there’s no answers, no easy solace, just a lot of ground teeth and gawking voids. Unseen clocks tick, sidewalks swallow pedestrians whole, coastlines crumble into the sea; all the while, love is nurtured, neglected, mourned, and life moves at its own awful, beautiful pace. “The hardest part is getting older,” Stevenson laments, and it’s true, but what choice do we have?

Slava, Raw Solutions

In its serious, almost spiritual commitment to repetition, Slava’s vertiginous dance music takes cues from the Chicago-borne “footwork” sound. Many of the tracks on Raw Solutions, the Moscow-born, Chicago-raised, Brooklyn-based DJ/producer’s debut album, take a snippet of a vocal sample and circle around it until it’s been spied from every conceivable angle. “Girl Like Me” offers an early example, with an R&B-tipped diva voice singing, “No, you never had a girl quite like me” once and, then ad infinitum. It happens to more delirious effect in “Heartbroken,” which revisits the titular word dozens of times, with ethereal electronic processing, until the result turns hallucinatory. The effect is similar to the disassociation you feel when speaking a single word repeatedly (think or say the word “king” 50 times and see if you’re still having visions of royalty after). Apart from his love for spin-cycle sampling, Slava showcases a nimble production style that favors house music-derived rhythmic syncopation and infusions of pan-electronic elements like rave sirens (“Heartbroken”) and quasi-jungle “rinse-outs” (“Girls on Dick”). It’s all clenched and economical and tight, and it never lets up.

Kendrick Scott Oracle, Conviction

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred let us so love; where there is doubt let us so faith; where there is despair let us so hope; where there is darkness let us so light.” So Kendrick Scott prays over “Pendulum,” which starts off his third album Conviction with all the anticipation of an impending thunderstorm, all brisk rhythmic winds and enveloping atmospheres. Here the 32-year-old drummer/composer goes for broad themes, big idealism and a wide musical palette. Like the Bruce Lee sample that graces Scott’s “Be Water,” Conviction flows freely, the music morphing from intimate straight ahead (“I Have A Dream”) to Charles Earland worthy, odd metered cosmic funk (“Cycling Through Reality”) to improvisational R&B (“Too Much”). At its core, the collection reflects Kendrick Scott, the thinker, a musician with a musical vision reflected by a suite-like cohesiveness that mirrors his masterful skills as a drummer (Terence Blanchard, Kenny Garrett, Gretchen Parlato) and his expressiveness as a composer. For its sense of cohesiveness and continuity alone, Conviction is an album in the classic sense of the word. A sprightly, air-filled drum solo opens “Cycling Through Reality,” an odd metered rally through the sweet guitar of Mike Moreno, a soaring solo by saxophonist/bass clarinetist John Ellis, and the empathetic piano of Taylor Eigsti (Scott and Eigsti form a dual rhythmic juggernaut throughout). “Apollo” creates a gentle, Pat Metheny-esque rural vision, “Serenity” an introspective palette of acoustic guitars, sizzling cymbal and pop vocal, “Memory of Enchantment” further moments of piano endowed solace. Next to last, “Be Water” invokes another prayer in the form of a Bruce Lee sample: “Here is natural instinct and here is control. You are to combine the two in harmony. Be water, my friend. Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water.” Scott and Oracle swirl through the song, immersed in improvisation, inspired by Lee’s directive to follow the shape of the music wherever it may lead them with fervor and intensity.

A Beginner’s Guide to Donald Byrd

“I knew damn near everybody,” the late trumpeter and bandleader Donald Byrd joked during a 1987 Pacifica Radio interview, reeling off names like Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis. What’s striking is that, at this point in the interview, he’s still talking about his high school years. When the Detroit-born and bred Byrd passed away in February at the age of 80, it was a reminder that “damn near everybody” was, at some point, touched by the trumpeter, bandleader, producer and teacher. Few artists’ careers so neatly embody the various stylistic turns of postwar music, from jazz to soul to funk to disco and beyond. It’s a tribute to Byrd’s eternally open mind that when the British DJ and jazz hound Gilles Peterson paid tribute to Byrd’s life, he did so with two distinct mixes: “The Acoustic Years” and “The Electric Years.”

And few artists were so comfortable with such constant change — a true rarity in the world of jazz, where form is virtue. While his creativity and dexterity as a trumpeter never quite paralleled the talents of Clifford Brown (who he replaced in Art Blakey’s band) or Miles Davis (a fellow early convert to a more electric, fusion-driven jazz sound), few figures can claim an influence as diverse or longstanding as Byrd’s. He played with Nat King Cole, Eric Dolphy, Monk and Coltrane. He appeared on over a hundred albums as a bandleader and sideman, and his 1973 breakthrough Black Byrd remains one of Blue Note’s all-time best sellers. He was a mentor to Herbie Hancock, giving the young pianist one of his first big breaks, and, as a college professor, his protégés would form bands like Blackbyrds and N.C.C.U. (“Super Trick”). He collaborated with Isaac Hayes on a disco classic (“Love Has Come Around”) and appeared on the first installment of Gang Starr rapper Guru’s Jazzmatazz series.

What follows are some of the defining moments of Byrd’s career, during which he was unafraid to try damn near anything.

A Beginner’s Guide to Donald Byrd

“I knew damn near everybody,” the late trumpeter and bandleader Donald Byrd joked during a 1987 Pacifica Radio interview, reeling off names like Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis. What’s striking is that, at this point in the interview, he’s still talking about his high school years. When the Detroit-born and bred Byrd passed away in February at the age of 80, it was a reminder that “damn near everybody” was, at some point, touched by the trumpeter, bandleader, producer and teacher. Few artists’ careers so neatly embody the various stylistic turns of postwar music, from jazz to soul to funk to disco and beyond. It’s a tribute to Byrd’s eternally open mind that when the British DJ and jazz hound Gilles Peterson paid tribute to Byrd’s life, he did so with two distinct mixes: “The Acoustic Years” and “The Electric Years.”

And few artists were so comfortable with such constant change — a true rarity in the world of jazz, where form is virtue. While his creativity and dexterity as a trumpeter never quite paralleled the talents of Clifford Brown (who he replaced in Art Blakey’s band) or Miles Davis (a fellow early convert to a more electric, fusion-driven jazz sound), few figures can claim an influence as diverse or longstanding as Byrd’s. He played with Nat King Cole, Eric Dolphy, Monk and Coltrane. He appeared on over a hundred albums as a bandleader and sideman, and his 1973 breakthrough Black Byrd remains one of Blue Note’s all-time best sellers. He was a mentor to Herbie Hancock, giving the young pianist one of his first big breaks, and, as a college professor, his protégés would form bands like Blackbyrds and N.C.C.U. (“Super Trick”). He collaborated with Isaac Hayes on a disco classic (“Love Has Come Around”) and appeared on the first installment of Gang Starr rapper Guru’s Jazzmatazz series.

What follows are some of the defining moments of Byrd’s career, during which he was unafraid to try damn near anything.

Interview: Craig Taborn

Craig Taborn is a famously voracious listener, equally at home with 19th-century piano literature and glitchy techno. He’s covered so much ground in 20 years of recording it’s impossible to get a fix on him. He emerged as saxophone hotdog James Carter’s henchman in the ’90s, on albums including Conversin’ with the Elders (Taborn meets swing giants Sweets Edison and Buddy Tate) and In Carterian Fashion (Taborn on organ). In the same period he began a series of collaborations with Art Ensemble of Chicago saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell. Then came noisy stints on electric pianos with Tim Berne and Dave Douglas.

Taborn’s ways of sounding out acoustic and electric keyboards come together on violist Mat Maneri’s Sustain of 2001, and his own Junk Magic with Maneri, Bad Plus drummer Dave King and tenor saxist Aaron Stewart. The synthetic beats dripping onto the molasses-slow ensemble on the title track provide a window into Taborn’s open mind. The Sustain rhythm section — Taborn, longtime drumming buddy Gerald Cleaver and bass powerhouse William Parker — later became the co-op Farmers by Nature. But first the pianist had another trio with Cleaver and bassist Chris Lightcap that made the acclaimed Light Made Lighter. (They did a memorable “I Cover the Waterfront.”) Taborn and Cleaver also make a rhythm trio with bassist Michael Formanek, in his quartet.

For all that inventive work and much, much more, it wasn’t till the 2011 release of the solo Avenging Angel that a wider audience noticed how good Craig Taborn is. The music is at once quiet and thrillingly virtuosic; he plumbs the piano’s depths, coaxing out its pure and impure tones. The follow-up, Chants, is for yet another Taborn-Cleaver trio, this one with bassist Thomas Morgan: rollicking music, involved and evolved.

Speaking with eMusic’s Kevin Whitehead in late March, Taborn touched on arcane composing strategies, the influence of electronica on his acoustic music, Sun Ra, Brian Eno, Morton Feldman, and the piano sound on old Blue Note records.

You recorded many more pieces than are on the album.

Thirty-two, maybe, altogether? It’s possible more will come out. I’ll have to go back and listen. Some pieces go to the same areas; some others I know were pretty cool. Manfred’s been talking to me about another solo project, but I don’t think it’s developed enough since then, yet.

At the beginning of “Forgetful,” you make acoustic piano sound like a Rhodes: a spectral composer’s illusion.

The piano is a pretty subtle instrument. In the right sonic space, and with an instrument that’s willing, you can get that sound. But it’s also about knowing how to record it. Close miking is good for some things. Wide miking reveals others, the overtones reverberating against the body of the instrument itself. The pianoforte was designed as a concert instrument, to project into a room. Miking has a lot to do with how hard you’re hitting the instrument. At this particular volume, 20 feet away may be optimal. You’re also working with the resonance of the room. Manfred knows how to get a good piano sound. He was very hands-on with the miking.

My ideal, when I’m playing straight-ahead jazz, is the Blue Note-in-the-’50s-and-’60s piano. I always liked that sound, but didn’t know why Wynton Kelly, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock, Andrew Hill and Cecil Taylor all had it. It was the piano [at engineer Rudy van Gelder's studio] and the way it was miked: That sound projects an identity as much as the player does. That piano had a certain bounce to it. But they got a new one a while ago. Maybe it was beyond its time. (Pianos are like wine: at a certain temperature, they age really well. Then they peak and go down from there.) I hear it’s still in the building, but outside the studio. I’d like to play that once, just to see what the action was like.

Do you hear a relationship between quiet pieces like “This Voice Says So” and ambient music?

That Brian Eno thing is always operating. For me all improvisation is more about paying attention to sound than generating ideas. Attention and manipulation: ambient is one approach to that. It’s the philosophy of John Cage. He was really talking about a way of tending to sound, and I try to give it that level of attention. Morton Feldman always paid attention to decay, to the entire shape of a note. He composed around the idea of what happens after the initiation of events. That gives a different energy to the music.

Lots of jazz improvisation is about always generating ideas: It’s dealing with attacks, always seeking the initiation of events. When you think about Miles, Wayne Shorter, Roscoe Mitchell in the jazz continuum, these deeper guys pay attention to the entire musical event, to the entire shape and bloom of a note — where it’s going and where it ends. When it ceases to be audible and becomes imaginary. That’s the key to a deeper world of music making. The real masters are aware of that, like Gerald, or Thomas, or Mat Maneri. You can tell immediately how aware of that they are. Some musicians don’t pay such close attention — they’re moving on when things are still unfolding.

At The Drive-In, Relationship Of Command

Before splintering into the Mars Volta and Sparta, At the Drive-In recorded their final album, The Relationship of Command, a fiery finish to an eight-year career that elevated frontmen Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López to near demigod status in the post-hardcore world, their big hair and lanky bodies the flailing mascots of the band's deservedly heralded live shows. "One Armed Scissor" paced Command, earning modern-rock radio airplay with its shouts of, "Get away! Get away!," but it's "Invalid Litter Dept.," an epic indictment of globalism and imperialism ("dancing on the corpse's ashes"), that makes this album great and, from start to finish, their best (their Vaya EP is a close second). These are the guys that took the more traditional emo sound mainstream (My Chemical Romance owe them infinity beers), and with the Mars Volta, Cedric and Omar went on to destroy it. It's a helluva last gasp.

Slava, Raw Solutions

In its serious, almost spiritual commitment to repetition, Slava’s vertiginous dance music takes cues from the Chicago-borne “footwork” sound. Many of the tracks on Raw Solutions, the Moscow-born, Chicago-raised, Brooklyn-based DJ/producer’s debut album, take a snippet of a vocal sample and circle around it until it’s been spied from every conceivable angle. “Girl Like Me” offers an early example, with an R&B-tipped diva voice singing, “No, you never had a girl quite like me” once and, then ad infinitum. It happens to more delirious effect in “Heartbroken,” which revisits the titular word dozens of times, with ethereal electronic processing, until the result turns hallucinatory. The effect is similar to the disassociation you feel when speaking a single word repeatedly (think or say the word “king” 50 times and see if you’re still having visions of royalty after). Apart from his love for spin-cycle sampling, Slava showcases a nimble production style that favors house music-derived rhythmic syncopation and infusions of pan-electronic elements like rave sirens (“Heartbroken”) and quasi-jungle “rinse-outs” (“Girls on Dick”). It’s all clenched and economical and tight, and it never lets up.

Charli XCX, True Romance

Charli XCX (née Charlotte Aitchison) may have staked her initial musical claim on electro-Goth turf, but on her debut full-length, the 20-year-old singer/songwriter heads toward hip-hop pop provocateur territory. True Romance is Aitchison’s tribute to primordial longing for love and the enviable comedown when it’s over. Like genre-gobbling kindred spirit Grimes, Aitchison cherry-picks styles highlighting her journey from angst to elation and back again with Siouxsie Sioux synths, Material Girl hooks, and sing-speech akin to M.I.A. basking in the afterglow. Although aiming for an alternate-dimension mainstream takeover (“Nuclear Seasons” is a kohl-lined cousin to Britney Spears’s “Toxic,”), Aitchison has her art-school dropout priorities in place — never resting on one idea long enough for us to get comfortable. Moving between a seductive rap-whisper to a throaty growl with preternatural ease, she never once gives the idea that she’s ever less than in full control.

Who Are…Golden Grrrls

I interviewed Golden Grrrls before their show with Brilliant Colors in Olympia; they had just flown from London to Seattle to start their first U.S. tour. We ordered pizza and sat on the floor of Bikini Kill Records HQ to get to know one other. I quickly discovered they’re record nerds who prefer nothing more than to geek out about music: Drummer/vocalist Eilidh Rodgers works in a record store owned by Stephen Pastel where my band, Spider and the Webs, hung out for a day when we played Glasgow. We bonded and immediately started arguing about the Beatles.

Guitarists/vocalists Rachel Aggs and Ruari MacLean picked George as their favorite Beatle, which Rodgers thought was a total cop-out. (Aggs was about to write Harrison a fan letter when he died, so she wrote it and then ceremoniously burnt it in memoriam. At this, MacLean changed his mind and chose Paul.) Rodgers confessed that when she was younger she always picked John, but went with Ringo in the end, possibly for comic relief. In a way, their choices make total sense: Golden Grrrls are interested in pop music and experimenting with forms — like Paul — and in musicianship and aesthetics, like both Paul and George. They have a sense of humor (Ringo), and while they want to be taken seriously, they don’t wanna seem “too serious” (John).

After the interview, we headed to the show. Watching them made me remember hearing the Pastels for the first time, and illustrated an unlikely continuum from ’80s underground to today’s DIY, an international network that connects Olympia to Glasgow.

On the ’80s indie-pop aesthetic:

MacLean: It’s easy for people to go “Glasgow, mixed gender…they sound like The Pastels or The Vaselines,” but I don’t have a problem with that.

Aggs: Before I joined the band I really liked Golden Grrrls, but I knew very little about indie pop except for New Zealand stuff. I’d actually never listened to the Pastels before and not really the Vaselines much. So I’ve listened to loads of new music since joining. But I like the band, because it’s really tuneful, fun music and I actually had no reference, which is really nice for me. It’s been fun coming up with guitar parts. What were we listening to? The Byrds and stuff like that.

MacLean: We like a lot of ’60s music, and I’m sure those bands did as well, but I can’t play guitar like [The Byrds'] Roger McGuinn. So maybe if you try and fumble along a little bit, it comes out sounding a little bit like us.

Aggs: When I used to go watch Golden Grrrls, it was really noisy and loud and fun live. I was going to see hardcore punk bands and stuff as well, and it was a similar thing. Me and my friend put them on in his bedroom, in a really small bedroom, and people were moshing and stuff.

Rodgers: There weren’t enough mic stands, so there was a mic attached to a mop or a broom or something.

Aggs: Golden Grrrl’s has a soft side but it has a crazy side too.

On the current DIY scene:

MacLean: The UK scene is looking pretty healthy just now with some cool new spaces and promoters doing shows, like Riots Not Diets in Brighton, Neen Records in Newcastle and the Audacious Art Experiment space in Sheffield. And promoters like Upset the Rhythm in London and Comfortable on a Tightrope in Manchester are amazing.

Rodgers: Before Rachel joined Golden Grrrls she was on tour in Glasgow with her band Trash Kit and Grass Widow, and we played in Glasgow together, and it was really great.

Aggs: Silverfox are one of my favorite bands in the UK at the moment.

MacLean: I think people like us like a broad range of stuff from different years. We toured with Edible Arrangements from Brighton.

Aggs: They’re amazing. They’ve got organ and guitar. They play spooky horror-movie music.

MacLean: We played with another band called Sex Hands, from Manchester. They sound completely different than us and completely different than Edible Arrangements. All the bands are totally different but there’s a love of melody and using that as a basis for making something.

Rodgers: I think it’s more interesting when you play with people who are into different things and you can meet in the middle somewhere.

Aggs: I had to learn to play guitar properly to join Golden Grrrls. Scales!

Rodgers: If you actually know how to play, you’d just play the same as the next guy. But if you’re kind of struggling —

MacLean: I’m constantly struggling.

Rodgers: — It sounds nice.

Mark Gergis, I Remember Syria

The final track on 2004′s I Remember Syria — producer Mark Gergis’s evocative man-to-nation “love letter” consisting of street sounds, political commentary, homosexual confession, random bursts of radio, plus a few actual musical selections — is a conceptual stunner. “The Norias of Hama (Blood Irrigation on the Orontes)” is eight minutes of what sounds like jets but is actually Hama’s famous wooden water wheels, which have been adopted as a symbol of resistance to current president Bashar al-Assadh, son of former president Hafez al-Assad, whose tanks and bombs killed some 30,000 Syrian Sunnis in 1982. I Remember Syria is thus more timely than ever, and its re-release benefits the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (Red Cross).

More than 70,000 Syrians have been killed during the current civil war, while another 2.2 million have either been displaced or fled abroad. I Remember Syria, with one disc dedicated to capitol city Damascus and another to its hinterlands, celebrates an ethnically and culturally diverse country noted for its hospitality and beauty. The religious chants of “Ramadan Radio,” the wonderous chaos of “Dueling Cassette Kiosks,” and Assyrian star Jermaine Tamraz’s lovely “Moumita” offer audio snapshots of the conflict’s catastrophic cultural cost.

Discover: Vampisoul

For Vampisoul founder Iñigo Pastor, it all began as a fanzine that mutated into a label with global aspirations. At age 15, Pastor began publishing La Herencia de los Munster (The Legend of the Munsters) from his home in Spain’s Basque region. Following flexidisks featuring Spanish garage bands, Pastor’s first vinyl release on his Munster label was an EP containing one track by Spacemen 3 and “two Spanish bands nobody outside of Spain knows.” Although it was essentially a label devoted to singles and albums from the fringes of punk, DIY and psych-rock culture, Munster’s most successful release turned out to be what Pastor believes to be the world’s first compilation of tracks by mildly raunchy R&B diva — and short-term Miles spouse — Betty Davis.

By 2002, Iñigo had traveled and listened widely enough to realize the need for a parallel label for his new international enthusiasms. “My musical friends made me listen to stuff and enlarged my spectrum. I got into Latin music, black American music, African music, everywhere’s music.” Assisted by his widening network of contacts, “We built up a nice catalog in a short period of time,” he says. Vampisoul’s first release was Back to Peru, a mixture of underground rock and tropical tracks from the 1960s and ’70s. Vampi slipped under the wire and managed to cut a deal to reissue classic albums by Joe Bataan, Joe Cuba, Pete Rodriguez and Ray Barretto shortly before the legendary Fania salsa label was sold again (and then once again). “It was kind of a dodgy label,” he recalls, “but you could somehow get a license from someone in New York City.” Releases of Nigerian afrobeat and highlife, Italian library music, vintage jazz from the Czech Republic, and Iranian underground rock soon followed.

Hits from the Vampisoul catalog include afrobeat co-founder Tony Allen’s albums with Nigeria ’70 and Latin boogaloo star Joe Bataan’s 2003 comeback, Call My Name. The latter, written and produced by the Phenomenal Handclap Band’s Daniel Collas, was one of the first Daptone studio projects and has the 1967 vibe to prove it. Other reissues include Peruvian cumbia from the Amazon, aka chicha, reconstituted from labels that haven’t existed for more than thirty years (which makes royalty payments difficult). Vampisoul has even spawned its own protégé label, Light in the Attic. Matt Sullivan, its founder, interned with Pastor while studying in Spain. “We became very good friends,” Pastor says. “He took the concept back to the United States, where he has surpassed us in many ways because his releases are so fantastic. Now he handles the Betty Davis stuff.”

Here’s Iñigo Pastor on some of his favorite, and odder, Vampisoul and Munster releases.

Kid Cudi, Indicud

“Niggas thinking I’m living life paranoid,” Kid Cudi says early on his third album, Indicud. He’s done a lot to cultivate this perception: The rapper’s persona — solitary stoner-turned-cocaine-addict-turned-bedroom philosopher — has been delivered to us as one long-form soliloquy to a shrink. But if his 2009 debut, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, and the following year’s equally soul-spilling effort together form one long-winded tale of woe, the singing/rapping emcee’s self-produced new effort, teeming with guests, feels a deliberate attempt to show he’s emerged from the deep unscathed.

There are still classic Cudi confessionals here (“I just experimented and it helped me adjust” he says of his well-publicized drug troubles atop brooding bass on “Burn Baby Burn”), and stabs at musical innovation — see the puzzling four-song, mid-album instrumental interlude. But Indicud thrives when at its most forthright and simplistic: “Just What I Am,” typical weed-praising fare, bangs with Cudi’s best. Dude’s curatorial chops are also top-notch: Kendrick Lamar kills on the staccato-pulsating standout “Solo Dolo Pt. II,” A$AP Rocky and King Chip exchange biting barbs on “Brothers” and the HAIM sisters complement Cudi’s trademark catharsis-inducing moan on “Red Eye.” Kid Cudi remains hip-hop’s resident weirdo, albeit a noticeably more self-assured and socialized one.

Discover: Vampisoul

For Vampisoul founder Iñigo Pastor, it all began as a fanzine that mutated into a label with global aspirations. At age 15, Pastor began publishing La Herencia de los Munster (The Legend of the Munsters) from his home in Spain’s Basque region. Following flexidisks featuring Spanish garage bands, Pastor’s first vinyl release on his Munster label was an EP containing one track by Spacemen 3 and “two Spanish bands nobody outside of Spain knows.” Although it was essentially a label devoted to singles and albums from the fringes of punk, DIY and psych-rock culture, Munster’s most successful release turned out to be what Pastor believes to be the world’s first compilation of tracks by mildly raunchy R&B diva — and short-term Miles spouse — Betty Davis.

By 2002, Iñigo had traveled and listened widely enough to realize the need for a parallel label for his new international enthusiasms. “My musical friends made me listen to stuff and enlarged my spectrum. I got into Latin music, black American music, African music, everywhere’s music.” Assisted by his widening network of contacts, “We built up a nice catalog in a short period of time,” he says. Vampisoul’s first release was Back to Peru, a mixture of underground rock and tropical tracks from the 1960s and ’70s. Vampi slipped under the wire and managed to cut a deal to reissue classic albums by Joe Bataan, Joe Cuba, Pete Rodriguez and Ray Barretto shortly before the legendary Fania salsa label was sold again (and then once again). “It was kind of a dodgy label,” he recalls, “but you could somehow get a license from someone in New York City.” Releases of Nigerian afrobeat and highlife, Italian library music, vintage jazz from the Czech Republic, and Iranian underground rock soon followed.

Hits from the Vampisoul catalog include afrobeat co-founder Tony Allen’s albums with Nigeria ’70 and Latin boogaloo star Joe Bataan’s 2003 comeback, Call My Name. The latter, written and produced by the Phenomenal Handclap Band’s Daniel Collas, was one of the first Daptone studio projects and has the 1967 vibe to prove it. Other reissues include Peruvian cumbia from the Amazon, aka chicha, reconstituted from labels that haven’t existed for more than thirty years (which makes royalty payments difficult). Vampisoul has even spawned its own protégé label, Light in the Attic. Matt Sullivan, its founder, interned with Pastor while studying in Spain. “We became very good friends,” Pastor says. “He took the concept back to the United States, where he has surpassed us in many ways because his releases are so fantastic. Now he handles the Betty Davis stuff.”

Here’s Iñigo Pastor on some of his favorite, and odder, Vampisoul and Munster releases.

Interview: Wax Idols

It would probably aggravate her to know it, but there’s an R.E.M. lyric that reminds me of Hether Fortune: “Not only deadlier — smarter, too.” I first became aware of Hether’s band Wax Idols through the “All Too Human” 7″, which was released on the Chicago label HoZac. Its clanging, apocalyptic guitars and Fortune’s stern, bellowing delivery were instantly arresting — one of the rare times an artist seemed to materialize fully-formed. The more I read about Fortune, the more fascinated I became: She was close friends with Jay Reatard up until his death in 2010. She works as a professional dominatrix. And she was the author of a ruthlessly candid, thought-provoking and acidly hilarious Twitter feed, which she wielded as both a scalpel to dismantle music industry hypocrisy and a dagger to go after those who’d fallen afoul of her.

But unlike most internet provocateurs, Fortune seemed both self-possessed and incredibly smart — the kind of person who pours themselves completely into their work, and who only reacts strongly to criticism because they feel things deeply and passionately. Fortune and I have struck up a loose internet acquaintance over the last few years — we occasionally Tweet at each other or send messages through Facebook — which is how I knew that she had, during the making of her second record, Discipline & Desire, struck up a stormy S&M relationship with Mark Burgess of legendary UK post-punkers the Chameleons and that, after their romance capsized, she’d fallen in love with — and pretty much immediately married — Tim Gick of the band TV Ghost. After several weeks of missed connections, I reached Heather at by phone to talk about true love, global power dynamics and murder/suicides.

There’s also that myth of the tortured artist, where you have to be miserable in order to do good work. Do you worry about that, now that you’re married?

Well, if you’re married to someone who’s boring and stagnant and makes your life comfortable, that might affect you as an artist. But I’m married to someone who’s a fucking nutcase, so — [laughs]. He’s a fantastic person — he’s sweet as hell, he’s wonderful, but he is just as insane as I am and just as twisted as I am. He may be even a bit more so. So being married to him is actually hugely inspiring — it’s opening all kinds of new doors for me. I’m already working on a new Wax Idols record called Loss, so you can tell it’s not exactly a honeymoon record [laughs].

What do you think the biggest misconception about Hether Fortune is?

That I’m mean. I’m really not. I’m mean if you give me reason to be mean, I suppose. But I feel like a lot of people think that I’m this hardened, angry, bitter, mean, selfish asshole and that kind of hurts. Because I’m like, ‘Man, why does it have to be one or the other? Why does being outspoken and being honest and being tough have to automatically equate to my being a bitch?’ Because I’m not. I feel like I’m a total softie in a lot of ways. I’m a very loving person. I’m real sensitive. I cry all the time. I think that’s probably the biggest misconception. I feel like I’m expressing love constantly.

Dave Douglas Quintet, Time Travel

The seven tracks here come from the same April 2012 session as last year’s Be Still, with the same then-new band: tenor saxophonist Jon Irabagon, pianist Matt Mitchell, bassist Linda Oh and drummer Rudy Royston (minus the guest vocalist on Be Still). Unsurprisingly, sometimes the mood and style are similar to that collection: contemplative modal tunes with the sort of elliptical, elusive melodic twists heard in classic Wayne Shorter material, but within a 21st-century milieu wherein gears are switched more often. However, there are a lot more swinging, upbeat compositions: the giddily whimsical “Beware of Doug,” on which Royston’s chops are unleashed with a brief but dazzling solo; “Little Feet” with its wildly off-kilter rhythms; the rocketing “Garden State,” where the band’s ability to coordinate lines shooting off in multiple directions and skewed times is mightily impressive, sounding spontaneous even if much of it probably required advance coordination. It would be fascinating to learn in what order the session’s compositions were laid down: in spite of being recorded at the same time as Be Still, Time Travel seems like a maturation, or an evolution, thanks to its greater diversity.

New This Week: Ian McCulloch, Major Lazer, The Haxan Cloak & More

Ian McCulloch, Holy Ghosts (Live at the Union Chapel / Pro Patria Mori) One half of this double album is a live set of orchestral reworkings of Echo & The Bunnymen classics, recorded at the Union Chapel in London last year. The other is McCulloch’s 2012 album Pro Patria Mori, his first solo release in a decade. Both see the Bunnyman in gloriously heartfelt mode.  

The Haxan Cloak, Excavation For his second album, the London producer Bobby Krlic has produced nine micro-symphonies of stark beauty and extraordinary menace. Sharon O’Connell says:

“There are echoes of Burial’s cavernous dub and Demdike Stare’s haunted techno in Excavation, but its magnificently maleficent, post-dubstep soundscapes have more in common with musique concrete, Expressionist cinema soundtracks and medieval monastic cantos than so-called witch house or drone metal. Whether suggesting the throb of an old nuclear power plant, the spooked echo inside an abandoned iron foundry or the howl of an Arctic wind at a remote scientific station, they evoke a compressed anxiety that seeps into every note.”

Major Lazer, Free the Universe Diplo has long been an innovator in his production work for the likes of Santigold and Azealia Banks, but here he brings a pop sensibility back to his own demented take on dancehall. Bill Brewster says:

“On their debut album, Diplo and Switch took Jamaican dancehall as a starting point and had a blast messing with its DNA. On Free the Universe, something strange has happened. What seemed like an off-the-wall dancehall collaboration in 2009 has turned into something far poppier, featuring an array of guests including Shaggy, Wyclef, Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend and even Bruno Mars. Yet it still has that oddball edge that follows Diplo’s productions around like a lost puppy.”

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, Mind Control Cambridge horror obsessives Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats imagine Queens of the Stone Age covering the White Album, spiking gallons of inky riffs with psychotropic harmonies for an effect that hypnotises like the best black magic. A concept record about a murderous Manson-like cult, Mind Control is both sinister and gripping. Andrew Perry interviews the freshest British guitar band of 2013 here.

The Knife, Shaking the Habitual The Knife craft some of the most forward-thinking electronic music around and this is an exhilarating, if mind-bendingly weird listen. Kevin O’Donnell says:

“It’s definitely their freakiest set yet – maybe the freakiest record this year. Cuts like “Full of Fire” and “Raging Lung” are packed with synth earworms and djembe drums and storm-the-floor electronic beats and flutes and recorders and art-damaged acoustic guitars and feedback drones. And is that the Munckins from the Wizard of Oz shrieking on “Without You My Life Would Be Boring”?”

The Flaming Lips, The Terror While the Oklahoma psych rockers have been moving in a bleaker direction since 2009′s Embryonic, The Terror may be their most disturbing display to date. Dan Hyman writes:

“The post-apocalyptic haze of distortion, martial drum beats and stuttering, Morse-code keyboards that hangs over The Terror was created largely while multi-instrumentalist Stephen Drozd was in the throes of substance withdrawal… It’s a colourful jaunt into the heart of darkness, a distress call from the Big Top.”

OMD, English Eccentric Making a late bid for one of their best albums, this has a thrillingly retro-futurist vibe that will please any fan of the legendary synth-poppers.

Various Artists, Way To Blue: The Songs Of Nick Drake Way To Blue isn’t your typical tribute album, with few well-known acts and plenty of new names. Peter Blackstock says:

“Exquisite arrangements and recording techniques result in a live album that doesn’t sound like a live album; it doesn’t sound like a tribute album either, since the tracks weren’t gathered from disparate studio sessions. It also differs from typical tributes in that the big names aren’t the primary draw. There are a few well-known acts — Lisa Hannigan takes “Black-Eyed Dog” into uncharted territory with eerie harmonium tones, Robyn Hitchcock is well-suited to the lyrically offbeat “Parasite,” and Teddy Thompson approaches the hypnotic lure of Drake’s voice on “River Man” — but newer names make the most memorable impressions.”

Various Artists, Cumbia Beat Volume 2 Vampisoul release a second intoxicating, groove-heavy collection of psychedelic Peruvian cumbia music.

Thee Oh Sees, Floating Coffin The seventh album in six years from John Dwyer’s garage rockers has fuzzy thrills aplenty.

The Thermals, Desperate Ground: The Thermals’ Saddle Creek debut is their most rousing and most animated release yet. Stephen Deusner says:

“This is the sound of a band girding for a hard fight: “The sword at my side will allow me to be the last thing my enemies see,” sings frontman Hutch Harris on the punk-triumphal standout “The Sword at My Side.” The Thermals have strategized and streamlined their attack … but rather than smite their enemies, they rally to remind themselves why they keep waging their own personal battle of the band.”

The Leisure Society, Alone Aboard The Ark

Accolades from the great and the good aren’t everything, but nominations for an Ivor Novello Award are not handed out haphazardly, and Ray Davies and Brian Eno are by reputation not ones to slap just anybody on the back. But The Leisure Society have been in the running twice for the coveted gong, while Davies and Eno have both declared themselves fans. The Kinks mainman — who, in 2011, asked them to collaborate on his new songs — even invited the band to record their third album at his Konk Studios. In British songwriting terms, that’s pretty much a royal warrant of appointment.

Alone Aboard The Ark, then, arrives with some degree of expectation, but Nick Hemming and Christian Hardy, the quintet’s creative core, have managed to pull off another elegant and admirably underplayed orchestral-pop coup, while adding (on the perky “Fight For Everyone”) the synth to their instrumental toolbox. The band’s talent for crafting deceptively simple, hook-studded tunes that run both the stylistic and emotional gamut is again underlined, most strikingly on the segueing of the goodtime, Supergrass-toned “Tearing The Arches Down” into gorgeous, soft grey lament “The Sober Scent Of Paper,” which was partly inspired by Sylvia Plath’s death.

Their appreciation of artists as diverse as The Shins, Calexico, Rufus Wainwright, Chet Baker and, yes, The Kinks serves Hemming and Hardy well, but it’s their arranging skills and ear for complement and contrast that really make their mark. It would be easy for such talented multi-instrumentalists to over-egg their chamber-pop pudding, but there’s no hint of showing off here — just quietly dazzling confidence.

Born Ruffians, Birthmarks

Born Ruffians’ sophomore outing, 2010′s Say It, is an album of rough edges and blurred intentions. But it wasn’t an intentional aesthetic: The Canadian indie-rock trio ran out of funding half-way through the recording process, leaving behind a pile of stark grooves and meandering, half-finished hooks. Birthmarks, the band’s highly crafted follow-up, is an effusive U-turn: radiating confidence and chemistry where Say It so often sagged.

“Needle” opens with a startling statement of purpose: Gleaming choral harmonies give way to a springy bass/kick-drum pulse, as frontman Luke Lalonde wraps his chipper croon over shards of staccato guitar. Instead of relying on clumsy lyrical metaphors, as they often did on Say It (see: the awkward puns of “Sole Brother”), Lalonde’s words now pack an emotional sting: “I am just a no one/ I’m the same as everyone,” he sings, the band charging to a dizzy crescendo, “Spinning underneath the sun, head between my knees.” That mix of sonic quirkiness and lyrical depth is contagious, spreading to the space-funk pulses of “Permanent Hesitation” (a heartbreaking tale of romantic distance) and the glossy “Dancing on the Edge of Our Graves,” which celebrates mortality via soulful pop grandeur. It’s difficult to call Birthmarks the “best” Born Ruffians album — they sound like a brand new band.

Ghost B.C., Infestissumam

As soon as Ghost swarmed out of the depths of Linköping, Sweden, in 2010 with their retro occult album Opus Eponymous, the metal community came running. Not only was the band’s underground blend of Mercyful Fate riffs and Blue Oyster Cult melodies instantly appealing, its evil shtick was too goofy to ignore. Fronted by Papa Emeritus II, a cryptic skull-faced vocalist in a pope costume, and backed by musicians who all went under the moniker “Nameless Ghoul,” Ghost were a Satanic Spinal Tap with crafty, infectious songs they clearly sold their souls for the ability to write unforgettable songs.

Vocal praise from Down’s Phil Anselmo, Metallica’s James Hetfield and Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl followed and Ghost, despite their blatantly Satanic lyrics, were soon in the center of a bidding war. By the end of Walpurgis Night, they were picked up by Universal, who recruited Nick Raskulinecz (Alice In Chains, Deftones, Rush) to produce the band’s second album.

Ghost (who by then had to add “B.C.” to the end of their name to avoid confusion with another Ghost), haven chosen the moment to stretch their musical boundaries far beyond the metal underworld. Despite its bleak atmosphere and epic structures, the album is ultimately more classic rock (think Blue Oyster Cult and Jethro Tull) and proggy pop (early Genesis and Marillion) than metal. There’s no question it’s far more accessible than Opus Eponymous, featuring only a few riffs that could really quality as headbanger-worthy. That said, there’s plenty here that’s thoughtful, provocative and heavy, and the way Ghost B.C. combine influences throughout Infestissumam is uncanny.

The album opens with the title track, which features a harmonized choral arrangement atop pounding drums, sustained organ chords and simple guitar lines that propel the song and suggest from the start that this is going to be an unusual offering. “Perverted are your wishes and dreams/ Tanning in Lucifer’s beams…Oh Satan devour us, hear our desperate call,” Papa Emeritus II sings in “Per Aspera Ad Inferi” in a voice equal parts Moody Blues’ Justin Hayward and Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson. As sinister as Ghost B.C.’s lyrics are, the vocals never rise to the level or rage or even sound particularly evil.

Much of the album sounds both exotic and demented: Calliope keyboards yield to church organ runsm and classic rock riffs melt into pure pop confection. On “Jigolo Har Meggido” the band blends retro harpsichords, glam beats and proggy rhythms with euphoric, jaunty melodies that sound like The Sweet by way of Strawberry Alarm Clock.

But their most alarming and brilliant moment comes in “Ghuleh/Zombie Queen,” a seemingly sincere eight-minute-30-second long love song to the undead. Following a plangent piano intro, the song evolves with a pop melody reminiscent of Air Supply, then zig-zags into a quirky hook redolent of the B-52′s. Before it’s over, the song has ricocheted from Gabriel-era Genesis pomposity to Dick Dale surf guitar twang to Deep Purple euphoria. Wilder still are the lyrics: “Up From the Stinking Dirt/ She rises ghastly pale/ Shapeshifting soon, but now she’s rigid, stiff and stale.” As absurd as Ghost BC can get, their hooks are thoroughly hypnotic and by the end of the song we’ll be damned if you’re not chanting “Zombie Queen, Zombie Queen/ Black, white guides you, Guleh, Guleh!”

Ghost B.C.’s blatantly Satanic content is likely far too extreme for commercial radio and the crowd usually drawn to such content may be dismayed by the band’s departure from their metal roots. But for those who value strong, unique songs regardless of genre or lyrical content, Infestissumam is more illuminating that 100 burning Bibles.