search
They’re invisible. The person you never see onstage. The essential unseen force that even hardcore music fans have never heard of. In all music, arrangers are the secret weapon who never get the credit they deserve; the difference between material that works and promising ideas that never quite make it. The really good ones have the otherworldly skill of being able to hear music arranged at different tempos, in different keys, with different instrumentation in the heads. Somehow they instinctively know what a certain piece of music would sound like with strings, or horns or background vocals…
I’ve been enjoying Comet Gain’s upcoming album, Howl of the Lonely Crowd, 13 songs and 42 minutes of intelligent, heartfelt, poetic rock and soul—timeless, honest, and inspiring.
The album’s opening track, “Clang of the Concrete Swans,” is like something from Springsteen’s Born to Run, as it urges:
Find the forever in what you’re thinking
Find the forever in who you’re kissing
Escape, escape, escape into your dream
Escape, escape, escape right out of here
Howl of the Lonely Crowd will be available on October 4th from What’s Your…
Fred Mills reviews Beirut’s new record, The Rip Tide, in the November issue of Stereophile, due to hit newsstands on October 18th. The album, released by Zach Condon's Pompeii Records, is in stores now. Here's Sunset Television’s video for the lead track, “Santa Fe.”
(The album sounds great on the hi-fi, too.)
To celebrate today’s release of Girls’ sophomore record, Father, Son, Holy Ghost, the band will make an in-store performance at Grimey’s in Nashville, Tennessee, at 5pm on Friday, September 16. You won’t want to miss this. If you can’t make it to Grimey’s, you can still enjoy the show because this will be the very first nationwide in-store: The performance will be streamed live, one time only, across the websites of our most cherished, influential, and important independent record stores.
All you have to do is visit your favorite record shop’s website or Facebook page at 5pm on…
Girls begin their US tour tonight in Atlanta in support of their sophomore release, Father, Son, Holy Ghost, available now from True Panther.
The band will work their way up the East Coast, making a stop for an in-store performance at Manhattan’s Other Music on Wednesday, September 21st, before playing back-to-back nights at the Bowery Ballroom on the 22nd and 23rd. From there, the band will continue north into Canada, then head west across the States into British Columbia, and conclude their tour at home with two dates at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall on October 8th and 9th…
The 14th Annual Blues Masters at the Crossroads will be held on October 21st and 22nd at Blue Heaven Studios in Salina, Kansas.
Formerly the Salina First Christian Church, Blue Heaven is a Gothic-style structure built of brick, limestone, and wood. Dedicated in 1927, the church was designed to offer clear and natural sound with minimal reinforcement, making it ideal for both live performances and as a recording studio. The well-maintained pews and balcony hold just 450 people, creating a unique and intimate setting. Acoustic Sounds’ Chad Kassem purchased the church in 1996 and soon…
Peachtree Audio has built a reputation for providing good-looking, versatile, high-quality products that fit the needs and lifestyles of the growing group of audiophiles looking to integrate computers and iPods into their home stereos. By manufacturing overseas, the company has managed to do this while keeping most of their products priced well under $2000. Fortunately, I've had the opportunity to meet a few of the people behind the Peachtree brand, and they've proven to be some of the most enthusiastic and passionate in hi-fi. Such enthusiasm is bound to show up in their products, and is…
I’ve been playing games with myself, attempting to set limits and impose rules around my furious, nearly uncontrollable, record-buying spree. I told myself that for every dollar I spent on a record I would deposit a dollar into my savings account. (I tried it for a few days, but became bored. Saving is not nearly as much fun as record-shopping.) Then, a few weeks ago, after dropping a few hundred dollars during binges at Other Music and the Princeton Record Exchange, I told myself that I would impose a strict moratorium: No more records for me until after the New Year. With few exceptions…
Big bands died out back in the 1950s, right? They went away when the jitterbug faded and folks began dancing to music other than swing? And then real jazz fans departed when the bebop soloists came along and made big-band players look clumsy and quaint?
Despite that widely accepted tale, the big band never quite went away. Since the war years, the big bands' indisputably wide palette of instrumental colors and voicings has become an irresistible lure to composers, players, and arrangers as varied as Sun Ra, Gil Evans, and Fela Kuti. One constant voice in the world of big bands is that of…
The second half of Legacy returns to another touchstone in Wilson's life, his long love affair with Chicago. "I lived in Chicago when I was with the Jimmie Lunceford Band. Also I was in the Navy, at Great Lakes [Naval Station]. Being in the [Navy] band, I didn't have to stay on the base. Those of us who could afford it lived in the city—we finished every day at four o'clock. So I know it. I walked the streets. Just like I know New York.
"[In the Legacy suite] I wanted to show what was going in jazz there. Chicago was a mecca for jazz. We know King Oliver came up in 1918 and worked there…