Best remembered for their 1990 hit “Every Beat of the Heart,” the Railway Children also produced two somewhat forgotten and hard-to-find gems of late ’80s indie pop that deserve to be reissued.

Starting out as Factory Records wunderkinds, the Railway Children had little in common with the sound of their labelmates New Order and Happy Mondays when they signed to the iconic label soon after forming in 1984. Fronted by singer/songwriter and matinée-idol looker Gary Newby, the band were less Madchester ravers and more Smiths-influenced indie kids with a bit of a New Romantic flair that was often obscured by an inclination toward thoughtful, melancholic anthems.

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Fredo Viola’s music could be described in a number of ways — delicate, ethereal, soothing, even otherworldly — but “staid” will never make the list. The vocalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist is quickly becoming known not only for his haunting voice, but also for his willingness to play with and explore sounds in much the same way a visual artist works with color and texture.

Born in Europe, Viola and his family moved between England and Rome before settling in the United States. Though he performed music as a child, Viola attended the Tisch School of the Arts and started his professional career as a video editor and animator after studying to be a film director. His experience in these disciplines continues to inform his music not only through his layered sounds and vivid lyrics, but also through the music videos he produces to accompany his pieces. Though his most famous work to date is “The Sad Song” (which attracted the attention of everyone from Massive Attack to fantasy author Neil Gaiman), all of Viola’s music is notable for both its intricacies and whimsy. The Sad Song EP was released on the French label Because Music in February, but if his MySpace page is any indication, he’s far from finished with his musical aspirations. Head there to hear more, or click here to see (and hear) his music video for “Silent Night”.

Fans of Rufus Wainwright, Tom Waits, and Jeff Buckley may want to add Ed Harcourt to their list of hyper-talented singer/songwriters. The former bassist for Snug (a defunct British power-pop act with a healthy Weezer obsession), Harcourt launched his solo career in 2000, combining his multi-instrumental skills with a fondness for layered arrangements and homemade production. Harcourt has since issued seven albums in seven years, with his songs running the gamut from radio-ready Britpop (“Loneliness,” “Born in the ‘70s”) to orchestrated gothic drama (“Rain on the Pretty Ones”) to piano balladry (“You Put A Spell On Me,” “Whistle of a Distant Train”). And while his music hasn’t always been readily available in the States, Harcourt’s recent dismissal from EMI Records turned out to have some positive side effects: he got to join a new label that wasn’t hemorrhaging 260 million pounds a year (the small ‘n’ cozy Dovecote Records), and America finally got a distribution deal for Harcourt’s magnum opus, The Beautiful Lie.

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If you’ve been following underground hip-hop at all these past couple of years, chances are you’ve heard of Black Milk, the Detroit producer/MC who’s been releasing impressively and consistently good material since 2005, when his solo debut, Sound of the City, came out. And if you haven’t been following underground hip-hop, Black is a good reason to get started.

His connection with Slum Village (he’s been producing tracks for them since 2002) and his Motor City roots make him an easy comparison to the late James Yancey, and while there are certainly similarities in their styles, Black Milk is much more than just a Dilla protégé. He’s a smart artist with an ear for melody, as likely to invoke Just Blaze as he is the left coast, which makes him well-suited to work with a number of MCs, the variety in his beats able to match the variety in the others’ flows. His preference is Detroit rappers, and his records are full of collaborations with Phat Kat, SV members, and Guilty Simpson (with whom he’s planning a full-length, alongside Sean Price), but as his recent — and very excellent — mixtape with Bishop Lamont, Caltroit, showed, he’s got the skills to produce for (and spit with) MCs around the country.

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Beginning with 1983’s New York Second Line, trumpeter Terence Blanchard and saxophonist Donald Harrison released a handful of albums that sprung from their time growing up in New Orleans and as members in drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Bringing to mind the iconic pairing of Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter, the Harrison/Blanchard albums — 1983’s New York Second Line, 1984’s Discernment, 1986’s Nascence all on Concord and 1987’s Crystal Stair and 1988’s Black Pearl on Columbia — were a mix of acoustic hard bop, standards and some adventurous post-bop originals that often referenced New Orleans themes and rhythms. In that sense, the duo was sometimes compared, both favorably and unfavorably, to their fellow New Orleanian contemporaries and Messenger-alums Wynton and Branford Marsalis. As such, these recordings are often disregarded as well studied, but ultimately derivative neo-bop albums that aped the Marsalis mold of conservative, cerebral, double-breasted suit wearing modal jazz — which is in itself an oft-stated party line dismissal of Wynton’s music, but that’s an argument for another day.

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In honor of legendary jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard’s 70th birthday, AMG takes a look back at some of his best work on the CTI label in the ’70s. While Hubbard made his name with his now classic Blue Note albums of the ’60s, his soulful, stylistically varied, and often avant-garde jazz-funk/fusion albums of the ’70s are equally compelling. Produced by CTI label owner Creed Taylor before the industry moved toward the more commercially-minded mathematic equation of smooth jazz, these albums showcased Hubbard in his adventurous, musical prime surrounded by such forward-thinking artists as percussionist Airto Moreira, pianist Keith Jarrett, saxophonist Joe Henderson, and drummer Billy Cobham.

An easy nominee for one of the best — if not the best — ’70s jazz funk cut, the title track off Hubbard’s classic 1970 CTI debut, Red Clay, is simply one of the hippest things you’ll ever hear.
 
 
 
 
 

Similary, the title cut off his second CTI album, Straight Life, is a roil of Afro-Latin influences that make for another standout fusion moment.
 
 
 
 
 

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Kids may be too transfixed by Super Smash Bros. Brawl to bother going outside to ding dong ditch a neighbor, and caller ID easily thwarts the idea of ordering 15 pizzas to a stranger’s house, but despite an abundance of laziness and an inherent lack of anonymity in the cyberage, there’s still a good ongoing gag. The “pull my finger” of 2008 is rickrolling. If you’re not familiar — and you’re fortuitous enough to have never been rickroll’d in the past year — essentially, it involves tricking someone to watch the music video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” by claiming that it’s something enticing. (Rocketboom gives the history of rickrolls here.) On this day of false hopes, you need to watch your back more than ever. Next time your pal sends you a link to an interview with Corey Worthington and his famous glasses or concert footage of Amy Winehouse singing jibberish on crazy sauce, you should be prepared for a surprise from a ginger-headed goon doing a terribly stiff dance.

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It’s a big, old, shiny, and gleefully dancetastic world out there and it seems like everywhere you turn there’s a new batch of girl singers getting funky, fresh, and foolish on the dancefloor. Some past favorites around here include Norway’s Annie, the U.K.’s Goldfrapp (in her more frivolous moments, anyway), New Jersey’s own Miss TK of Miss TK & the Revenge and, most recently(ish), Sweden’s Robyn. Her self-titled record that’s been kicking around since 2005 is a kind of landmark achievement in dancefloor brilliance that we can’t get enough of. Still, if you made it this far it’s clear that you’re ready for some new kicks, so let’s take a quick trip around the discoball globe and see what kind of gems we can find.

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