Anthony Coleman: Lapidation
Blair Sanderson

At first blush, this CD appears to feature some kind of sparse avant-garde or ambient music, judged solely by the simple abstract art on the cover. There’s a subdued, minimalist feeling to the washed-out colors and roughly repetitive shapes, and the spiral — do you go clockwise or widdershins? — connotes an introspective approach in the music, perhaps of a meditative bent. Does a Japanese rock garden spring to mind? A Zen koan, anyone? Without knowing the work of this composer or how lapidation (i.e., the stoning of a person to death) figures into the musical style, method, or structure, one might guess that the music has some connection to pitched percussion or tuned stoneware, and hopefully not smashed crockery.

Read the review here

Philip Glass: Animals in Love [Original Film Score]
Allen Schrott

Animals in Love, with its pair of smooching marsupials on the cover, initially looks like the cloying apotheosis of marketing gags — the musical equivalent of puppies photographed through a fish-eye lens. All together now: “awwwwwww!” But this is actually Philip Glass’ original score for a documentary of the same name by director Laurent Charbonnier, and once the kangaroo-induced disorientation wears off (”I….get a kick…out of you”), the possibilities are intriguing. Film has often brought the best and most adaptable efforts out of America’s most easily parodied minimalist, and this could turn out to be a modern Carnival of the Animals or Peter and the Wolf. Hearing Glass discover the distinct physicality of various animals within the boundaries of his limited palette would be fascinating. The back cover, (cozy dolphins awash in deep-sea blue this time) with track titles like “Ballet of the Birds” and “The Orangutans and the Small Ducks” (we hope in separate scenes!), seems to support that possibility. But then again, the score could just as well start out with the stale pulsing arpeggios and chords that mark Glass at his least creative — the musical cubicle farm — and stay there for a maddening hour.

Read the review here
 

Alcvin Takegawa Ramos: Zen Shakuhachi 1
Stephen Eddins

The subtitle of this CD, “Japanese Traditional Flute Music for Meditation,” establishes an expectation of functional music — an aid for creating a mood of stillness and receptivity. One would expect the sound to be quiet, slow moving, and free of disruptions or surprises that could interrupt one’s inward thoughts (or lack thereof.) The graphics of the cover completely confirm this mood of mellow relaxation. The background is a soothing, dappled, earth-toned burgundy. The writing on the cover is in a discreetly small font, with the title in a westernized approximation of Japanese calligraphy and three pale gold Japanese characters at the middle. This centered, symmetrical presentation creates an expectation of balanced regularity, order and predictability, and the background silhouette of a branch with leaves and flowers perfectly conveys the serenity that the title promises. In all the elements of its presentation, the cover creates the anticipation of an hour of restful, lulling music, ideal for assuming the lotus position, or simply lying back and drifting off to sleep.

Read the review here

Christine Schäfer: Apparition
Patsy Morita

Apparition comes in a translucent slipcover over the digipak case with the disc in it. To get the real impact of the photos on the package, you have to remove the slipcover. It’s almost like those signs that start out with some prominent shocking word or picture, followed by “now that I have your attention….”

There is Christine Schäfer, in her white gown, standing in the midst of a dinosaur skeleton. On the back of the package is a full, face-on picture of a dinosaur skeleton with scads of others behind it. As the slipcover fits over this photo, a red heart outlines the skeleton’s nasal cavity. What is this? What relevance is there to the composers Henry Purcell and George Crumb, already an unexpected combination? The first reaction is, what a bizarre idea, posing among skeletons at a museum. It’s not that they’re creepy, although some people may think so; it just seems a completely strange thing to do. And it turns out that what she’s wearing is a Christian Dior wedding gown. Won’t it get dirty? It really is a striking cover and you can’t help but wonder what’s going on, what was she thinking (other than that she needed to grab your attention), and how in the world it relates to the music. Are the bones meant to represent the 300+ year-old Purcell, implying that his music is ancient, dry, or hard, while the dress means Crumb’s music is brighter and softer? In most people’s mind, the tuneful, tonal music of Purcell would probably be characterized as more easily grasped than Crumb’s, which usually is experienced more intuitively. Maybe it’s the other way around: the bones are a reference to the way Crumb often mixes the ancient and the modern musical ideas or the way he tries to use music to re-create natural sounds; and the wedding gown is the traditional, Western classical music of Purcell. Either way, the album is bound to be interesting. (Inside are more skeleton photos. My favorite is the giant turtle on its back, with its claws turned upward as if to say “Why me?” or “What the…?”)

Read the review here

Les Sacqueboutiers: El Fuego
Uncle Dave Lewis

Les Sacqueboutiers literally translates as “The Sackbutters.” The sackbut was a predecessor to the trombone, and it looks like a little trombone, cute in a way that would suit a child’s toy chest. But the instrument has a more conical bore and smaller bell than a standard trombone, and its sound is considerably more cramped and nasal in comparison. Listening to Renaissance brass instruments for an hour can lead to “cornetti syndrome” — an aural ennui that results from the monochromatic, piercing sound of the instruments. The front cover image, a painting by the 16th-century eccentric Giuseppe Arcimboldo, shows a human torch who almost looks like a Renaissance wicker man. Imagine: more than an hour of burning, blazing sackbut music…please lead me to the fire exit….

Read the review here

Some years back, Rea, who has had enough health problems and surgeries to fill a lifetime, and as a result knows there’s no time to be fooling with the nonsense of record companies, told his major label to shove it. He released a record called Dancing Down the Stony Road that they didn’t want in a beautiful package, and scored big time in Europe and Asia. Then came an epiphany. Rea suddenly understood something about making and presenting music in the digital age: that you had to really give something to the listener for them to seek you out in the mass media swamp, provide an object that could be collected and treasured — it’s kinda hard to do on an iPod — something tangible to hold on to and refer to in the way many of us did in the vinyl age. He started his own label called Jazzee Blue, issued an 11-CD/single-DVD set called Blue Guitars, packaged together with a huge hardbound book, that included his reproductions of his paintings, and music that covered every kind of blues Rea and his band could play. Priced very reasonably, it sold 160,00 units. He assembled a compilation in the form of a standard double disc called The Blue Jukebox; it too sold well.

Rea’s new project takes the cake, however: The Return of the Fabulous Hofner Bluenotes is an exercise in myth and music making and a wonder of modern packaging. Rea has created the account of two mythical bands: the Delmonts, an instrumental guitar band from the late ’50s and early ’60s that played all manner of surf, dance, and easy listening instrumental library music; and the Fabulous Hofner Bluenotes, a vocal blues group who evolved out of the Delmonts into something more long-lasting, gritty, and sophisticated. The package contains two 10-inch LPs by the Delmonts, a CD of their work for the modern listener, and a pair of discs by the Bluenotes. The book, some 80 pages and chock full of vintage photos of guitars from Hofner, Northern English working class life, lyrics, a phony bio-essay that is quite convincing, and some of Rea’s paintings. It is contained in an LP-sized hardbound book that looks seasoned by age and, to make it even more authentic, it SMELLS like it’s been sitting in a basement for 40 years!!! This is enough for most folks — me included — but the music is something else again; the Bluenotes material, while primarily blues-based, contains some of Rea’s strongest songs, from ballads to snarlers and raucous, gritty, 12-bar blues grooves. The Delmonts material, while recorded beautifully, is a solid album of wildly faring instrumental guitar madness that blends everything from the Ventures, Alan Hawkshaw, and Alan Parker to late ’50s orchestral jazz, spy, and teensploitation faux-soundtrack music. Add to this a very reasonable price — even though it’s an import, some of the bigger online retailers sell it for as little as $50 — and it becomes a stunning document not only for the sake of having something heavy and rather precious in your hands, but as a visual landscape for the killer tracks within it.

The Delmonts
008 Jimmy Bond
Big Storm Coming
Theme for a Pink Guitar

The Fabulous Hofner Bluenotes
Renaissance Blues
Because It’s You
The Shadow of a Fool
Blues for Janice
Yes I Do

Outside the Midwest, the vast majority of those who know about Esham have Eminem to blame. Eminem acknowledged the Unholy as an influence and even feuded with him at one point. Otherwise, Esham is unknown, though those who know Kool Keith’s Spankmaster from front to back would disagree. Regardless, maybe it’s only a matter of time before some mainstream beatmakers pick up on other rap relics from Detroit, like Kaos & Mystro’s Outcast, Vol. 1 or Detroit’s Most Wanted’s Tricks of the Trades, Vol. 2.

We don’t have a snippet of “The Day” at the ready, but you can check the Esham track and imagine Beanie relating a rather Esham-like disturbed fever dream (hmm). We also have some Ice-T and Black Sabbath:

• Esham - Judgement Day
• Ice-T - Rhyme Pays
• Black Sabbath - War Pigs

And there is some peculiar likeness between the artwork for The Solution and that of Esham’s 1991 EP Erotic Poetry. Again, hmm:

1. Various Artists, Brain in a Box: The Science Fiction Collection. Decorated to look like a metal aquarium contraption with a hologram on three sides that gives the appearance of a floating brain inside. (Out of print)
 
 
 
 
 

2. Various Artists, The Heavy Metal Box. Shaped like an old Marshall amplifier head with the words “Heavy Metal” in white cursive on front, above a metal volume knob that turns to infinity.
 
 
 
 
 
 

3. Various Artists, One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost & Found. Inside a hat box are compact cosmetic/CD cases with mirror surfaces, perfect for adjusting makeup. Compact discs, get it?
 
 
 
 
 
 

4. Ray Charles, Pure Genius: The Complete Atlantic Recordings (1952-1959). Looks like a vintage portable record player, complete with a fake turntable the size of the CDs inside.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

5. Tori Amos, A Piano: The Collection. Plastic piano keys are attached to the top of the box. Of course, the obvious question is, “Does it play?” No. But it looks like it could, and that’s pretty darn cool in itself.
 
 
 
 
 

The cover of Wozzeck is an example of Olbinski’s skill at capturing an opera’s essence in a profound way — the more you consider the details, the creepier it gets.
 
 
 
 

Olbinski frequently uses faces as a design element, like the Wozzeck cover. Sometimes the facial image has an immediately obvious symbolism, as in his cover for Samson et Dalila, where Dalila’s pale image comes between Samson and his hair.
 
 
 
 

 
Others, like Die Frau ohne Schatten, use imagery that’s more obscure, and more psychologically unsettling, particularly in the connection it makes between weeping and fertility. The complexity of its symbolism reflects the complexity of the characters’ relationships, and it ultimately offers some profound insights into the meaning of the opera.
 
 
 
 

Similarly, the cover for Don Carlo is larded with layers of significance that open up on closer inspection, and reveal genuine truths about the opera.
 
 
 
 
 

Some of the covers are more light-hearted, like Der Freischütz above, and La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West). The cowboy boot with a daisy for a spur is a terrific visual analog for Minnie, the heroine of the title. The petals lying on the ground suggest the game of “He loves me, he loves me not…,” a nod to the sentimentality and sweetness that ultimately characterize the opera.
 
 

Other covers are just plain strange. It’s hard to reconcile the image for Der Rosenkavalier with the stylishness and sophistication of the opera and its characters. While Olbinski may not have a lot of technical sophistication as an artist, he does sometimes create a truly probing image that gets at the core of an opera’s meaning in a visually astonishing way.
 
 

Sabu’s Jazz Espagnole is the classic Latin jazz date led by the great percussionist Sabu Martinez in 1961. A furiously intense and thoroughly musical date, it is both a proper introduction to Latin jazz and a fitting summation on the genre for the 1950s, yet points in the direction it would move toward in the ’60s. Check this sample of Horace Silver’s “Nica’s Dream” as re-tooled by Sabu and company.

Motown session guitarist and all around funkmeister Dennis Coffey issued this killer slice of licorice pizza after the success of the musical Hair in the early 1970s. There are a couple of covers of the more famous tunes on the soundtrack from — “Let the Sunshine In,” “Aquarius” — but they’ve been literally transformed into funky psychedelicized screamers. Recorded in 1968 and originally issued on the Maverick label (no relation to the imprint Madonna once owned), it features his hometown mainman Lyman Woodard on organ and his regular unit knocking down additional covers of “Hey Jude” and “It’s Your Thing” (issued as a single and retitled “It’s Your Thang”), and a slew of other “thang”-related orignals — “Iceberg’s Thang,” “Electric Thang,” etc. It’s a killer set of all-killer, no-filler grooviness with screaming fuzz guitar, popping drum breaks, and an all-around vibe that shines with greasy groove throughout.

Lou Reed’s mighty Transformer needs little introduction as a true rock classic. With it’s signature “Walk on the Wild Side” and the truly beautiful “Satellite of Love,” an unrecognized anthem for the glam era, and the lilting “Perfect Day,” it went miles beyond his self-titled — but still great — debut; it pushed the boundaries of his time with the Velvet Underground toward something idiosyncratically iconoclastic and would establish him firmly as a solo performer.

Thinking of Home was tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley’s final album for Blue Note Records. It features a compelling and unusual band for the leader, with Woody Shaw on trumpet, pianist Cedar Walton, guitarist Eddie Diehl, Leroy Williams on drums, Mickey Bass on bass, and Leroy Williams on drums. The music here takes a different path than the reliably hip, soulful hard-bop dates Mobley recorded from the 1950s on. The album features two really extended tracks, such as the ten-minute-plus opener “Suite” that brings in his deep soul cry but is also modally adventurous with some spiritual soul jazz overtones. The same goes for the 13-minute “Justine.” (Here’s a sample.)There are some tough groove moments here as well. This record isn’t talked about much, but it deserves a new hearing.

That Enter the Dragon was the original big-daddy kung-fu flick is not debatable. Bruce Lee’s almost supernatural moves and gravity-defying kicks are still truly amazing to watch in the 21st century. Fewer people, however, talk about this phenomenal score composed by Lalo Schifrin. Taking what he understood to be Chinese folk themes, and inserting them into tough, lean, and mean bass-and-drum grooves, spacey wah-wah’d electric guitars; and, of course, punchy, blasting, funky horn charts with strings. (Check this sample of “The Big Battle.”) It not only accompanied the film but moved its narrative along at a breathtaking pace and stands alone as a piece of music.

But don’t get lulled into a complacent sense of accomplishment: your journey has just begun. The program notes (in three languages, in seven colors of ink, some on a white background, and some on black, some text right side up, some upside down) are arrayed across the panels in what’s clearly a logical order, but it’s an order that requires you to keep flipping the whole assemblage over repeatedly to follow the text sequentially. This is a procedure that can be executed with about as much grace and ease as turning over a groggy seagull -– once you start lifting, all the folds start flapping and flailing and closing and opening –- and you start to panic Oh my God I’m going to destroy the case for this expensive imported CD that’s an artwork in itself -– and you gingerly let go and it drifts down on its opposite side, requiring just a few pats and adjustments to make it flat and readable. Warning: Do not attempt to read the program notes while listening to the CD –- you’ll be too busy to pay any attention to the music. Recommendation: Listen to the CD first, and after hearing Sula, Tulve’s monumental depiction of the breaking up of a glacier, you’ll be fully motivated to read everything about it that you can. After that, listen to the CD again.