Slipped Discs March 2017
Discs You May Have Missed
by John Noyd
Lydia Ainsworth
Initial Thoughts
March marches out crowd-pleasers aplenty to deploy or destroy. Be it serene subterranean screamers BRITISH SEA POWER’s iridescent descent, “Let The Dancers Inherit The Party,” or thunder-crunching COUNTERFEIT’s ferocious, “Together We Are Stronger,” movements tune into exemplary assemblies with jazz-folk dream-weaver LAURA MARLING’s steamy, scheming, “Semper Femina.” prodigious studio-wiz HAUSCHKA’s prickly player-piano samples dancing around, “What If?” and trip-hop pop-fusionist LYDIA AINSWORTH’s R&B glitter-bombs, “Darling of the Afterglow.” Parade away.
Disc Reviews
Chaz Bundicks Meets the Mattson 2 - Star Stuff
Chaz Bundicks Meets the Mattson 2
Album title: Star Stuff
Record Label: Company Records
The ever-inquisitive Toro Y Moi unites with the telekinetic Mattson Twins for a flashy astral-jacked collaboration whipped in old-school jazz-funk blow-outs and cosmic conquistador-rock symphonies. A feel-good goulash whose heady segues cite chain-lightning psychedelics while quoting Motown, “Star,” jams in flammable high-five space-jive, fusing weepy wah-wah, nimble rhythms and pliable bass into swinging bell-bottom epiphanies perfect for super-charged intergalactic get-downs.
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Chaz Bundicks Meets the Mattson 2 online:
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Shelby Earl - The Man Who Made Himself A Name
Shelby Earl
Album title: The Man Who Made Himself A Name
Record Label: Nine Mile Records
Coming at you like a rodeo queen’s rockin’ stepdaughter, Earl’s swirling torch-singer swagger corrals fiery hearts raging in free-range bangers packed with outspoken anecdotes and solace-seeking pleads heated in glib sympathy. Dynamic commandments undercut blues-infused memoirs while, “Name,” campaigns in untamed mind-games stuffing the ballot-box with leather and lace prayers and lobbing tumbleweed valentines over honky-tonk sonnets riding roadside gospel.
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Shelby Earl online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
• Download The Man Who Made Himself A Name from Amazon
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J. E. Sunde - Now I Feel Adored
J. E. Sunde
Album title: Now I Feel Adored
Record Label: Cartouche
A palatable gallery framing prim prismatic anachronisms in golden melodic afterglows, “Adored,” explores hand-crafted baroque-pop with quaint restraint, studious ingenuity and transporting choruses. A Minneapolis folk artisan whose poised and polished causes deliver melancholy allegories in bittersweet suites and steadfast narratives, Sunde’s idealist’s appeals, thoughtful offers and sun-drenched sentiments prove nimble fodder for land-locked chanteys, modern-day madrigals and gallant ballads.
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J. E. Sunde online:
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• Purchase Now I Feel Adored on Amazon
Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble - Find Me Finding You
Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble
Album title: Find Me Finding You
Record Label: Drag City
Former Stereolab chanteuse Sadier’s savvy ensemble dispenses ultra-smooth Afro-Cuban grooves amid graceful Cubist coos, baking tasty space-age pastries drizzled in paisley daydreams and blissful sophistication. Purring prog-pop narcotics administered with casually accurate precision, “Find,” seeks half-whispered secrets revealing quenchable sensual pleasures in plush, palpitating escapes; captivating couture happenings set free among retro-metropolitan salons, sleek catsuit cafes and chic beatnik playgrounds.
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Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble online:
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• Download Find Me Finding You from Amazon
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New Street Adventure - Stubborn Sons
New Street Adventure
Album title: Stubborn Sons
Record Label: PIAS
Posh caramel-coated soul folded into upfront street-punk funk, “Sons,” run silver-tongued urban-jungle rumbles lathered in heart-throb bravado and midnight-player panache. Tough, but supple anguish enriched in champagne refrains, NSA layers bluesy doo-wop harmonics over sharp sparse rhythms and voluptuous bass, chasing wavering faith with dockside struts erupting in openly romantic tantrums painted with hard, lean facts and hungry, plundered truths.
(2488) Page Views
New Street Adventure online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
• Download Stubborn Sons from Amazon
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Blanck Mass - World Eater
Blanck Mass
Album title: World Eater
Record Label: Sacred Bones Records
Adamant patterns saddling digi-shifted rapture capture shadowy carousels unraveling in harrowing goth-rocked proms; “Eater,” feasts on gnarly card-punched conundrums soaked in primordial ooze and plastered in redacted catastrophe. Cut-and-paste taste-tester Blanck Mass’ manipulated impatience distorts engorged discourse contorting dense agitated electronics into burning firmaments forming formidable sound-on-sound stampedes from ash-filled heavens as Jericho free-falls storm ghost-rattled gates in crushing vapor-waves.
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Blanck Mass online:
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• Download World Eater from Amazon
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Final Thoughts
March albums also focus on foregone conclusions; whether psychotropic pop-rockers TEMPLES’ intoxicating rainbow explosion, “Volcano,” radiant pranksters GRANDADDY’s anointed synth-folk poignancy, “Last Place,” or scruffy Margot and the Nuclear So & Sos acolyte RICHARD EDWARDS’ melancholy longing and taxing basement-rock nostalgia, “Lemon Cotton Candy Sunset.” Foreshadowing abounds in Pavement co-founder SPIRAL STAIRS’ delicious pulp-fiction smack-downs, “Doris & The Daggers,” perceptive folk-pop adventuress SAMANTHA CRAIN’s, head-spinning, “You Had Me At Goodbye,” jazz empaths JULIA HULSMANN TRIO’s beautifully intuitive, “Sooner and Later,” and indie-rock singer-songwriter TIM KASHER’s intricate cinematic narratives, “No Resolution.”