Archive for the 'Album Reviews' Category
Monday, June 9, 2008
I'm beginning to think that being stuck in a soul-crushing contract with a major corporate record label was a good thing for Trent Reznor. Sure, his new-found freedom is allowing him to push new boundaries in promotion, product, distribution and sales. But maybe all the frustration and suffering that came with having to deal with "record industry types" was just the fuel he needed to produce ...
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nine inch nails
Monday, May 12, 2008
Jukebox is the second record in Cat Power's career that mostly features her renditions of songs written by "noted elder statesmen" of the pop music pantheon, including Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, and James Brown, among others. Not being all that familiar with large portions of the source material, I can't say how well it compares to the originals, but as a stand-alone ...
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cat power
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
I don't know much about Booka Shade, other than that the duo hails from Frankfurt and that they create electronic music. But I do know that their electronic music is pretty good electronic music. I'm going to be honest though and say that while, overall, it's good, it just can't quite hit the spot.
Movements, the group's second full-length album, was generally well received ...
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booka shade, esem
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Sorry for the relative quiet around here lately. I've been on a bit of a holiday. Here's a review posted from a small island ~10,000 miles from home.
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After nearly six years in the musical wilderness, alt-rock godfathers The Breeders are back with a disc called Mountain Battles. And boy is it a good one, but its quality may not be readily apparent on the first few ...
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breeders, download
Monday, March 24, 2008
Before the beginning of this year, I had barely heard of Kelley Polar or his music. Toward the end of '07, I ran across one of his songs and checked out his debut album, Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens. I was hooked in short order. Color me exultant when I learned a new album would be coming out just as ...
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kelley polar, michael jackson, video
Monday, March 3, 2008
Jump to Review
Halo 26, Ghosts I-IV has just been announced at the nine inch nails website. It's a collection of 36 instrumental tracks created with no clear agenda, with the entire process being driven by impulse and improvisation.
Of it, Trent says:
We began improvising and let the music decide the direction. Eyes were closed, hands played instruments and it began. Within a matter of days ...
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download, nine inch nails, radiohead
Monday, February 11, 2008
Is that not a magnificent album cover? It's almost worth picking up Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens just to have that, especially if were available on vinyl, which sadly it is not. The image is a generally well-regarded photo of the Eagle Nebula, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. It's a striking visual, but more notably, its use here is ...
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kelley polar, michael jackson, the postal service
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Another year come, another year gone.
After spending 2006 evaluating the status of my iTunes library and trimming some fat, I took the opportunity in 2007 to explore a lot of new material. And I must say that overall it was a pretty good year for both my library and for music in general. I had added 1,891 songs to my library by the end of ...
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air [french band], bonobo, download, exotica, les baxter, maserati, nine inch nails, pink floyd, postrock, rilo kiley, susumu yokota, the polish ambassador, the smashing pumpkins
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Richard Dorfmeister of iconic Austrian mix-up outfit Kruder and Dorfmeister, and his partner-in-crime Richard Rupert Huber form a duo they call Tosca, and together they work some of the meanest grooves in my collection. Their 2003 album, Delhi 9, ranks as one of my favorite releases this decade, based on its enslaving basslines and percolated rhythms. It's some of the most forceful downtempo music I've run ...
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kruder and dorfmeister, tosca
