|
This weeks big new releases (10-10-11)
Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire (PAX-AM / Columbia)
CD Description:
Ryan Adams' first solo album to be released on his own PAX-AM label and Sony’s Columbia Records, the album was recorded in LA at Sunset Sound in Hollywood and produced by Glyn Johns, renowned for his work with the likes of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Clash, The Who and The Rolling Stones, and whose son Ethan produced previous Ryan Adams albums Heartbreaker, Gold and 29. Ashes & Fire also features Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers’ organist Benmont Tench as well as Norah Jones who sings backing vocals on several tracks, including the lilting, acoustic overtures of "Come Home", the sumptuous ballad "Save Me" and the heartfelt "Kindness". From the country-rock tinged opener of "Dirty Rain", to the piano-led lament of "I Love You But I Don’t Know What To Say" and the acoustic harmony of "Lucky Now", Ashes & Fire is the most cohesive and luscious album of Ryan’s distinguished, critically-acclaimed career.
Ryan Adams is a multiple-Grammy-nominated singer songwriter from Jacksonville, NC whose critically acclaimed and commercially successful albums both as a solo artist and with the Cardinals have included Heartbreaker (2000), Gold (2001), Love Is Hell (2004), Cold Roses (2005) and Easy Tiger (2007).
Evanescence – S/T (Virgin)
CD Description:
This is Evanescence's third album and first via the new deal between the band's label Wind Up and EMI. The eponymous set was produced by Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters) and recorded in Nashville at the start of the year.
Radiohead - Tkol Rmx 1234567 [Double CD] (Xl Recordings)
It’s fitting that The King of Limbs is the first Radiohead album to receive the full-length remix treatment. It’s their first album since 2000’s Kid A to swing away from traditional rock techniques, seamlessly incorporating electronic music elements at the heart of the songwriting. Where much of Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows seems to have originated on guitar or piano before taking on additional digital light and shade, the loops, samples and textures of The King of Limbs are integral parts of the whole.
It’s also the album that most blatantly foregrounds the extraordinary power and flexibility of Radiohead’s rhythm section, and especially Phil Selway’s virtuoso drumming. So great is the impression it leaves that when Modeselektor roll out a standard thumping kick drum, on Good Evening Mrs Magpie, disappointment inevitably results. Despite some other lacklustre inclusions (SBTRKT’s vocal garage take on Lotus Flower, Pearson Sound’s unremarkable 808 reconfiguration of Morning Mr Magpie) , invention just about has the upper hand on this 19-track double album, which compiles tracks originally released on limited-edition 12-inches between July and September.
Modeselektor – lauded in electronic music circles, perhaps previously unknown to a fair proportion of Radiohead fans – are among the better-known names represented here, many of whom reflect the ear for the electronic underground long displayed by the playlists Thom Yorke posts on the band’s blog, Dead Air Space. Other more widely known names include Four Tet, Caribou and Jamie xx. The first of these, who supplied a superb remix of Atoms for Peace, from Thom Yorke’s solo album The Eraser, invests Separator with a muffled beat that moves at a half-speed lurch, cunningly clumsy and euphoric all at once. Manchester’s Illum Sphere shifts the desolate Codex into a more upbeat register, but transmits melancholy via a ringing, recurrent two-note synth stab. Berlin producer Shed, whose own work shifts skilfully between genres, brings an authentic techno mentality to his remix, stripping down Little by Little to build a grainy rhythmic grid from a handful of its original elements. Less complex but still compelling, Blawan reconfigures Bloom (the most popular track among the remixers, featuring five times here) as a relentless, juddering slab of dubstep-inflected techno, the song boiled down to a series of protracted, growling chords pinned beneath an oppressive beat. Caribou swaps the knotty rattle of Little by Little for an airy harp riff set above a crisp breakbeat and metronomic bass pulse, fragments of Yorke’s treated vocal passing back and forth above the track.
Perhaps best of all is Nathan Fake’s take on Morning Mr Magpie, where mournful pads, organ-like groans of modulated guitar and a rapid-fire percussive shuffle develop into psychedelic grandeur. It highlights what’s most appealing about this remix package: its most successful examples retain some Radiohead DNA, but reconstituted into a new form. That’s fitting testament to a band that remains eager to avoid repeating themselves. - BBC
Peter Gabriel – New Blood (Real World Productions)
CD Description:
New Blood is a continuum of Peter’s previous Scratch My Back album - the song-swap project where he covered the songs of others, all to an orchestral backing. Thanks to the precise arrangements by John Metcalf and Peter, the treatment was so successful that Peter very quickly knew where he wanted to take it next, and work began to apply the same principals to his own songs.
Great care has been taken, and much discussion shared, in deciding what songs were included on New Blood. It wasn’t simply a case of giving the big numbers an orchestral re-rub. Indeed, some of the big hits are missing in favour of lesser-known material. But the intention wasn’t a deliberate obliqueness; it was more a case of finding the songs that would be enhanced by the massed strings, brass, woodwind and percussion.
“The orchestra provides different dimensions to the music that weren’t there initially,” confirms Peter. “Rock artists work slowly in studios, building up layer by layer, and one of the great, powerful advantages of an orchestra is all these musicians playing at one moment with all sorts of colours and personalities.”
And in front of orchestra, taking centre stage when necessary, retreating into the shadows when not, is Peter’s rich voice. Retaining its trademark emotive power, it returns to lyrics written 20 or 30 years ago, reinvesting them with new meaning and heightened poignancy.
Bjork – Biophilia [Collector's Edition, Extra tracks] (One Little Indian)
CD Description:
Biophilia is an interdisciplinary exploration of the universe and its physical forces - particularly those where music, nature, and technology meet - inspired by these relationships between musical structures and natural phenomena, from the atomic to the cosmic. The Independent on Sunday calls it "brilliantly original and ambitious .
This version of the album is housed in a six-panel cardboard package.
Tom Waits – Round Midnight (Left Field Media)
CD Description:
It s no secret that by mid-1975 Tom Waits was drinking far too much and close to exhaustion as a result of the pressures from almost constant touring over the period since he had signed with Asylum in 72. In October of 75 the delightful Nighthawks At The Diner was released as a double album, recorded live in front of a small club audience a few months before, but containing only new songs - alongside introductory banter from Waits of a quite hilarious nature - everyone of which is now regarded as a true Waits classic. In December, Tom entered the studios of KQRS Minneapolis for his first ever FM broadcast, floated across the airwaves by that very station and syndicated by many others nationwide. Now considered the holy grail of Waits broadcasts amongst serious collectors of the great man s work, this performance featuring Tom Waits alone at his piano with just his magnificent voice as accompaniment, the way he should be heard, is nothing short of staggering. This CD contains the full KQRS broadcast in perfect FM stereo quality, during which Tom performs a range of songs taken from his first three records Closing Time, The Heart Of Saturday Night and the aforementioned Nighthawks. Bonus tracks include a further three exceptional TV broadcasts from the early to mid 1980s, and include Mr. Siegal performed on Don Lang’s show in 1981, plus two 1986 Letterman broadcasts in support of his then brand new masterpiece Swordfishtrombones .
|
