v/a WATCH HOW THE PEOPLE DANCING: Unity Sounds From The London Dancehall, 1986-1989 2xLP / CD
*** BACK IN STOCK! "Staggering, exhilarating Jamaican avant‐gardism, inspired by Jammy's Sleng Teng explosion made by soundmen on a Casio and a drum machine, and facing down techno, hip-hop, breakbeat and rave. A Jamaican secession from London mastered by Moritz von Oswald from Basic Channel." On HONEST JON'S.
ABE VIGODA Crush CD
*** RECOMMENDED "To 'Skeleton''s hot-hot-hot template, Abe Vigoda now add glassy shards of 'cold wave' pop, with synthesisers, sequencers and altogether broodier beats. Scorching temperatures, icy currents - Crush is a thermal column of vertiginous brilliance!"
AH HOLLY FAM'LY Reservoir LP+MP3 / CD
*** "At once fragile and overwhelming, the sophisticated avant folk chamber pop of Ah Holly Fam'ly hearkens back to the rural Appalachian folk of yesterday, and the avant folk experimentalism of today."
BREATHE OWL BREATHE Magic Central CD
*** "Rural Michigan's Breathe Owl Breathe crafted a pop album like no other, a timeless aural cartogram of feeling, soul, skill, and story. You could have found it in the attic. It could have dropped from space."
FISTFUL OF MERCY As I Call You Down LP / CD
*** "The trio of Ben Harper, Dhani Harrison (George's son) & Joseph Arthur play songs complete with soulful harmonies and blues-infused folk guitar seamlessly blended with an indie rock backbone."
GUSTER Easy Wonderful CD
*** Guster's favorite album of their career is 12 "great pop songs."
JOHN LENNON Double Fantasy 2xCD
JOHN LENNON Plastic Ono Band CD
JOHN LENNON Imagine CD
*** "Digitally remastered editions!"
MADLIB Medicine Show No. 8: Advanced Jazz CD
*** "Some of this music to the untrained ear might not seem to be jazz at all. But rest assured this is a jazz mix through and through, as exhilarating a ride as Madlib's Brain Wreck Show and Flight To Brazil."
MAHALA RAI BANDA Mahala Rai Banda CD
*** "This sensational new band from the Gypsy ghetto of Bucharest combines a staple Romanian diet of violins & accordions with a horn section consisting of army brass band veterans, powered by a funky rhythm section." On CRAMMED.
LAETITIA SADIER The Trip CD
*** "STEREOLAB vocalist Laetitia steps out & collaborates w/ Rebecca Gates (Spinanes), Richard Swift and April March for a sparse, gorgeous record."
WOMEN Public Strain CD
*** "Women has honed a sound truthful to reverb drenched noise while allowing pop sensibilities to surface into clear focus, a balance of delicate and dense reflecting the contradiction of the band's environment buried in urban sprawl framed by prairie landscape."