RECOMMENDED

If you’re between the ages of thirty and forty, you may have been conceived while your parents were listening to Canton, Ohio’s the O’Jays. Well, the O’Jays circa 1974. While the vocal troupe has recorded consistently since its inception during the waning moments of the sixties, last year releasing a Christmas-themed album, it was the disco age and efforts like the funk-cum-smoothed-out-dance-music on “Family Reunion” that marked the end of the group’s heyday. Surely, international touring helps keep up the band’s popularity. But if the O’Jays classic work is discussed, it’s the early seventies that are referenced. Read the rest of this entry »

Aram Shelton

Top 5 Chicago Albums
Aram Shelton’s Arrive, “There Was…” (Clean Feed)
CAVE, “Neverendless” (Drag City)
Disappears, “LUX” (Kranky)
Bongripper, “Sex Tape” b/w “Snuff Film” (Great Barrier Records)
The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, “Kryptonite” (My Publishing Group)
—Dave Cantor

Top 5 Recordings
Bill Orcutt, “How the Thing Sings” (Editions Mego)
Puffy Areolas, “Gentleman’s Grip” (HoZac)
Ras G “Down 2 Earth” (Ramp Recordings)
Shlohmo, “Bad Vibes” (Friends of Friends)
Void, “Sessions 1981-83” (Dischord)
—Dave Cantor

Top 5 Holiday Albums
Carole King, “A Christmas Carole”
“A Christmas Story: The Musical” Original Cast Album
Paul Hillier, Theatre of Voices, Ars Nova Copenhagen, “A Christmas Story”
Marcus Roberts Trio, “Celebrating Christmas”
Chicago XXXIII, “O Christmas Tree”
—Dennis Polkow Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

The hallmark of a good band is its ability to perform in any setting at any time. Gigging at a local Occupy, the Chicago Afrobeat Project played to a sympathetic crowd, one almost expected to take in the confluence of funk, jazz and afro-stylings as the norm. If no one said anything about a post-racial America, they were thinking about it. Several months earlier, though, CAbP did a spot at the Beachland Park, a private beach club in Cleveland. Private might be too strong a word. There’s no gate, but there are fees for residents who use the park on a regular basis. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

In three years Disappears has gone from a random assemblage of dudes who once performed with other bands to a group dispensing its own particular mélange of psych and pop run through garage’s sonic lens. Issuing two singles and a pair of full-lengths, the quartet hasn’t been developing at a rapid pace, but it still turns in concise rock songs, sporadically opting for fifteen-minute explorations of just a few notes. Adding in Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley behind the drum kit hasn’t hurt the band. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

The Spits’ decade-old career based on the angriest pop melodies possible is a remarkable thing. Throwing out three-chords in endless succession with only the slightest variation sounds, in theory, like a very troubling thing. But with the Wood brothers snarling hate-fuck lyrics, each song takes on a visceral nastiness absent from just about every other punk band kicking around on the planet. Issuing its fifth self-titled long-player this year, also referred to as “V,” the band seems to retain its ability to gussy up simplicity and truck it out simply for the fun of dispensing downer rock tracks—“My Life Sucks” is followed quickly by a track called “I’m Scum.” Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

During Moon Ska Records’ final few years, Chris Murray remained one of the few acts issuing music through the New York-based imprint who retained a unique musical identity. Amid the ska-cum-rock-oriented fare, Murray’s work was anachronistic—predating all the lo-fi nonsense the music press caught onto a few years back. But by the early aughties, the L.A.-based singer and songwriter had so well defined his sound that not having a label signed up to issue his work on a regular basis wasn’t really a problem. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Four full-length albums into its career, Athens, Ohio’s Skeletonwitch can’t have too much new musical landscape to traverse after plundering metal’s previous eras pretty thoroughly. Of course, hailing from a town where it’s just as likely to be heckled by a yokel while walking down the street as it is to see a hilljack buy dope off a college hippie should provide at least a bit of inspiration. Skeletonwitch’s purview, though, isn’t the earthly realm; it’s some evil cartoon hellscape littered with doomed souls, misbehaving heathens and people being put upon by evil. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Landing a deal with Virgin Records for its first long-playing album, the 1976 “Right Time,” was obviously a boon to the Mighty Diamonds and their career. But just as fortuitous as that initial record deal was, so was landing Ernest and Joseph Hoo Kim behind the boards for the vocal trio’s sessions. Along for the endeavor was ex-Skatalite Tommy McCook and a cast of players heard on work from the Marley oeuvre as well as “The Harder They Come.” But the Diamonds were then, as now, an entity unto themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Where’s Big Pooh at? It’s a fair question considering two-thirds of North Carolina’s Little Brother are slated for an appearance this Saturday. Since its inception during the late nineties, the trio seemed like a vehicle determined to expose its principal players to a national audience in order for each then to flourish independently. That’s happened. Kinda. Little Brother always dealt in productions weighted down with soul crooners on the hook. It was a practice that served the group well and set up 9th Wonder for collaborations with everyone from Jay-Z to Destiny’s Child and MURS. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

There’s no way to extricate Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead’s legacy. He was one of a pair of drummers—the other half was Bill Kreutzmann—making instrumental excess so easy for the ensemble. With Jerry Garcia’s penchant for Americana made evident through countless recordings on albums with folks like mandolin player David Grisman, Hart’s interests outside the Dead focused on roots music of another kind. Exploring a history of percussion reaching back much further than recorded sound, Hart set about not just incorporating those styles into his own work as portions of the 1972 “Rolling Thunder” express, but by performing compositions worked up in association with performers like Zakir Hussain. Read the rest of this entry »