Slipped Discs September 2012
Discs You May Have Missed
by John Noyd
Pomegranates
Initial Thoughts
September looks up this year. Ushering sunny singer-songwriter MICHAEL ANDREWS’ colorful flutterings, “Spilling A Rainbow,” hip, questioning POMEGRANATES’ indie-rock sock-hop, “Heaven,” and mutual maestros THE ORB and LEE SCRATCH PERRY’s chilled collaboration, “The Orbserver in the Star House,” early autumn also drops sublime musical-novelists STARS’ evocative art-rock, “The North,” inventive alt-pop SWEET LIGHTS bright, heartfelt “Sweet Lights” and mega-melodic JAMES IHA’s intricate “Look to the Sky,” Enjoy the view.
Disc Reviews
Cat Power - Sun
Cat Power
Album title: Sun
Record Label: Matador
A beacon of steamy bohemian shuffles and brisk, shimmering opinions splashed over bayou-hungry grooves, “Sun,” plunders ragged scats, cooked hooks and vixen fiction for folk-soul rainbows covered with corrosive notions and stamped in enchanted incantations. Citing frightening modern maladies, CP’s casual valor crackles in warmly familiar misfortunes, whirlwind wisdom and sensitive benevolence braving outraged saviors, prudent suitors and kindred sinners. Cat Power plays Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater on October 29th.
(2512) Page Views
Cat Power online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
Natural Child - Hard in Heaven
Natural Child
Album title: Hard in Heaven
Record Label: Burger Records
Wrangling Chuck Berry benders behind Stooges blues and Stones bonuses, NC’s combination grease-monkey jungle-rockers and ravaged, red-neck boogie-blasters snarl, gargle and slither from rambling honey-suckled ruckus to narcotic garage-rock proselytizing. A tattered baptism of curbside service, “Heaven,” cleanses through hellfire hand-jive doused in rousing country-punk twang spread across limber R&B rhythms, piston-shifting slow-rides cruising through moonlit jams on endless highways
(2742) Page Views
Natural Child online:
• Website • Facebook
Poor Moon - Poor Moon
Poor Moon
Album title: Poor Moon
Record Label: Sub Pop
Slowly coaxing sleepy vocals from strolling ghosts and bearded spirits, “Moon,” grooms skimming hymns, quaint fables and marimba-trimmed whimsy into lofty dream-boat anecdotes, quietly piloting dock-side soul into alt-folk harbors and circus-purchased caravans into syncopated havens. Charmingly tuneful lunatics, PM’s swinging minstrels wrestle generous penance from quasi-tropical fodder and nautical odysseys from restless tempests; radiant melancholy guided by starry-eyed castaways.
(2029) Page Views
Poor Moon online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
• Download Poor Moon from Amazon
• Purchase Poor Moon on Amazon
Minus the Bear - Infinity Overhead
Minus the Bear
Album title: Infinity Overhead
Record Label: Dangerbird
Sculpting flash from bombast dodging fleet-footed push-backs, Minus’ fiery rock applies light-weight precision to hover-crafted harmonies. Scouting muscular struggles, impassioned crashes stitching rich riffs into twisted two-fisted sizzle, “Infinity,” remodels melodic assaults through laser-based prog-pop options where cathartic starts of relentless kinetics spin brazen brain-candy from sparkling guitar, smart synths and swift, pummeling percussion. MtB plays Milwaukee’s Rave September 14th
(2061) Page Views
Minus the Bear online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
• Download Infinity Overhead from Amazon
• Purchase Infinity Overhead on Amazon
Aimee Wilson - Unto Us the Sun
Aimee Wilson
Album title: Unto Us the Sun
Record Label: The Factorye
Stoic harps, nomadic pianos and rumbling tympanis weave tentative sentiments around weathered memories; the dappled, magical, “Sun,” circles and skirts elaborate madrigals, emergent dirges and Saxon ballads exploring flaxen passages beneath macramé mazes. Dramatic chamber-jazz tactics open brooding moods as spiritual pilgrim Wilson surrenders to indigenous mysteries spun from elusive truths hiding intangible challenges for hypnotic frolics and discerning journeys.
(3514) Page Views
Aimee Wilson online:
• Website • Facebook
Richard Hawley - Standing at the Sky’s Edge
Richard Hawley
Album title: Standing at the Sky’s Edge
Record Label: Mute
Stretches of majestic messages wash over solemn longings and humbled profundity while six-string swarms form rip-tide flights; Hawley’s enthralling space-rock palsy rides smoldering overtones under sensual contentions and brimstone moments around reflective blessings. Dignified, primal, intimate and ethereal, “Standing,” faces an unkind cosmos seeking shelter around electric psychedelics and Zen renderings; channeling tranquil folk-rock optimism glazed in blistering, hard-core bliss.
(2101) Page Views
Richard Hawley online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
• Download Standing at the Sky’s Edge from Amazon
• Purchase Standing at the Sky’s Edge on Amazon
Final Thoughts
Visionaries visit September presenting eloquent spectacles from perceptive perspectives, image-addled pageantries translating intriguing scenery into vivid sounds. Eye-openers include bedroom-disco trail-blazer ONUINU’s electro-pop kaleidoscope, “Mirror Gazer,” and grungy expungers of gauzy solaces RAVEONETTE’s tantalizingly lascivious, “Observator.” Watch out for marauding stalkers turned minimalist symphonists SWANS’ churning, slow-burning eleven-track, two-hour opus, “The Seer,” before focusing on multi-tasking imagination manufacturer LEVEK’s languid painted vacations, “Look a Little Closer,” Finally, keep a close watch on translucent dream-pop truants SNOWBLINK”S breezily cerebral, “Inner Classics,” and dashing, alt-rock apostles CALIFORNIA WIVES sharp, air-brushed, “Art History,”