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Check It Out: March 8, 2013
The Pogues – The Very Best Of the Pogues (Shout! Factory) For young’uns who think the most authentic blending of punk and traditional Celtic music begins and ends with the Dropkick Murphys and its Beantown anthem “Shipping Up to Boston,” they are well advised to drink deeply of The Pogues. Although in the pre-TMZ world this Irish outfit was oftentimes best known for the various degrees of intoxication and/or inappropriate behavior offered up by frontman/founding member Shane MacGowan, as evidenced by this collection of 18 songs, the Pogues can be defined by far more than MacGowan’s antics. The band’s ability to wield instruments normally associated with Irish folk (tin whistle, accordion, bodhrán) while delivering it all with a punk swagger is what’s made them such a beloved group. And it doesn’t matter if it was while covering other people’s songs (Ewan MacColl’s “Dirty Old Town”; The Dubliners’ “The Irish Rover”) or originals like the immigrant anthem “Thousands Are Sailing” and “The Sunnyside of the Street,” a jangly ode to rambunctiousness, the Pogues always delivered music that begged for communal sing-a-longs and the kind of camaraderie you’d find in a pub. Likewise is the case with “Fairytale of New York,” the MacGowan/Jem Finer-penned MacGowan/Kirsty MacColl duet that’s become a much-loved Christmas classic. Suffice it to say, the Pogues are the touchstone with which the Murphys and Flogging Molly should tip a pint to every time they take the stage.
Check It Out: March 1, 2013
Otis Taylor – My World is Gone (Telarc) With a cover shot that could have come from Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown’s seminal 1970 book of Native American history, Otis Taylor’s 13th studio album, not surprisingly, embraces some of the same topics. Aided and inspired by friend and Indigenous frontman Mato Nanji, Taylor applies his unorthodox style of trance blues to stories dealing with the world of hardship found on the rez that’s oblivious to the mainstream world (the organ-kissed “Never Been to the Reservation”) to one of the more shameful incidents in America (a mournful “Sand Creek Massacre Mourning.”) Not unlike the better-known Taj Mahal, Taylor possesses gruff vocals that are a perfect fit for singing blues music. Likewise, his creative approach thankfully skips over trite Southside Chicago posturing and instead leans heavily on repetitive riffing and hypnotic vamping coupled with the use of non-blues instruments like tuba, banjo, cornet and fiddle. It works particularly well on “The Wind Comes In,” a John Lee Hooker-like lament of an alcoholic quitting and trying to woo his true love back as well as “Sit Across Your Table,” a song of domestic bliss full of chugging beats and dancing hooks that would fit perfectly into Gary Clark, Jr’s creative wheelhouse. Otis Taylor’s tinkering with the blues is helping it evolve beyond hidebound approaches that threaten to make it stagnant.
Check It Out: February 22, 2013
Beach House – Bloom (Sub Pop) A constant on many critics’ Best of 2012 lists, the fourth studio album by Beach House is the kind of airy dream pop that begs to be heard through headphones. With the multiple layers that make up each one of these 10 cuts, it’s hard to believe that it’s the work of two people. Victoria LeGrand, (niece of French composer Michel LeGrand), has the kind of airy vocals that fall somewhere between Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval and Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. And despite the kind of rootlessness you might come to expect from this kind of ethereal music, Beach House subtly weaves in hooks and plenty of melody amid the swirling keyboard runs and Alex Scally’s chiming guitars. Melancholy runs deep whether it’s LeGrand singing “So you thought it would happen/…good love/….goodbye” at the onset of the synth swells that buffet “Other People” or when she points out “It’s all in a glance you’ll see/It’s deeper than you and me” in the lush rapture of “The Hours.” A sense of loss is even more apparent amid the loosely chugging rhythms of the otherwise ambient “New Year.” It all winds up being the perfect soundtrack for the isolation felt in the depths of winter.
Check It Out: February 15, 2013
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – This Is 40 (Capitol) Music has always been crucial to filmmaker Judd Apatow’s craft whether it was his gently poking fun of Asia in 2005’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin or spoofing Johnny Cash in 2007’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. So it goes with his latest This Is 40, which is set for DVD release after being in the theaters barely two months ago. This quasi sequel to 2007’s Knocked Up finds Paul Rudd’s Paul as the owner of a struggling record label that’s home to a number of alt-rock artists including Graham Parker, who plays himself.
As such, the soundtrack’s line-up fits the theme. Ryan Adams sounds like Jackson Browne on a live reworked version of his “Lucky Now” and new track “Shining Through the Dark” while a rejuvenated Lindsey Buckingham weighs in with a trio of Jon Brion-produced gems (including the stellar Norah Jones collaboration “Brother & Sister.) Parker also shows up with a twangy Punch Brothers collaboration “What Do You Like?” and his own “Watch the Moon Come Down” while Boomers get to sup on Paul McCartney revisiting Venus and Mars for the instrumental outtake “Lunch Box/Odd Sox.” And while Buckingham’s “Sick of You” carries a patina of cynicism, Wilco enlists Jones and the Punch Brothers for their old-timey “I Got You (End of the Century)” while the Avett Brothers perfectly sum it all up with the winsome and endearing “Live and Die.”
Check It Out: February 8, 2013
Taj Mahal – The Complete Columbia Albums Collection (Columbia/Legacy) Far more than a mere bluesman, Taj Mahal is a musicologist whose gritty vocals and multi-dimensional grasp of genres has found him collaborating with a who’s who of talent including Ali Farka Toure, Bonnie Raittand Captain Beefheart. This versatility is clear throughout the 13 albums that make up this hefty box set.
Starting with the Rising Sons, the obscure mid-’60s supergroup he co-helmed with fellow musical square peg Ry Cooder that only released one official single, Mahal was never content to stay within the narrow confines of one genre. Even though his self-titled 1968 debut found him funneling covers of Sleepy John Estes, Sonny Boy Williamson and Elmore James through a Cream-like sieve with help from Cooder and longtime sideman Jesse Ed Davis, Mahal’s creative wanderlust only expanded going forward.
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