ALBUM PREVIEW: LISTEN TO DAVID BYRNE & FATBOY SLIM, “HERE LIES LOVE”

Part art project, part all-star indie gathering, “Here Lies Love” is David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s unusual collaborative song cycle about the life of Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines. With a lineup of guests including Florence & the Machine’s Florence Welch, Tori Amos, Steve Earle and Santigold, the 22-track tribute features a diverse mix of thoughtful ballads and disco-influenced dance numbers. Cyndi Lauper’s giddy vocals on “Eleven Days” and Róisín Murphy’s horn-driven “Don’t You Agree?” offer the most lasting thrills on the album. And winning duets include Candie Payne and St. Vincent on the breezy “Every Drop of Rain” and Byrne’s emotional collaboration with My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden on “Seven Years.” At times, “Here Lies Love” wobbles as a concept album, and listeners unfamiliar with Marcos’ story may not initially understand the lyrical conceits. But it contains enough solid material to justify repeated listens. BOX SET COMING TO BIRDLAND APRIL, 6.   Read more...

Disco Biscuits, Planet Anthem

Philadelphia electro jam band Disco Biscuits has been rolling out its fifth studio album for months, starting last fall with the EPs “On Time” and “Widgets,” for the professed reason, among others, of taking a fan-friendly approach to unveiling its ever-evolving sound. And “Planet Anthem” certainly doesn’t fit any predictable jam mold–the album’s tight, diverse offerings stand to attract audiences outside of the group’s faithful live scene. The single “On Time” is a technology-themed, high-energy dancefloor track that has been remixed by and serviced to club DJs, while “You and I” is a crunchy, disco-driven rocker that could hold its own against any licensable indie single on the air. The song “Widgets” represents the more classic, guitar-driven jam contingent; “Rain Song” brings in female vocals and avant-garde synth effects; and “Fish Out of Water” shows the Biscuits’ upbeat, lovesick power-pop chops.

Justin Kauflin, The Virginian Pilot

Musically speaking, 20-something jazz pianist Justin Kauflin is an old soul. Talented beyond his years, the blind wunderkind has been channeling the muses of established jazz artists as well as his personal ones for some time. Now Kauflin, a graduate of Salem High School in Virginia Beach who has amazed audiences in Hampton Roads and elsewhere, has released his first CD. It’s a fine showcase of Kauflin’s impressive musicianship in a variety of styles, and testimony to his composing and producing talents. He wears all three hats on this nine-track CD, recorded last year in New Jersey and mastered at Master Sound Studios in Virginia Beach. The music – from boppish to contemporary jazz to hymns – shifts effortlessly between a trio format – with Kauflin, drummer Billy Williams and bassist Phil Kuehn – and quartet formats – with either drummer Etan Haziza or saxophonist Tim Green added. Read full review

Lawrence Arabia, Pitchfork

There’s something almost charmingly old-fashioned about James Milne’s U.S. debut as Lawrence Arabia. There’s of course that cinematic pseudonym, alluding to a Hollywood epic almost half a century old. There’s also his unyielding devotion to 1960s pop music, which treats the Beatles catalog as untrod territory. But mostly it’s the New Zealander’s steadfast refusal to join any current pop trend, indie or otherwise, which seems a bit surprising given that Milne has played with the Ruby Suns, the Brunettes, and Okkervil River. He distances himself so far from the present that he actually sounds somewhat distinctive. Pop history, however, is littered with those who have taken up the Fab mantle to high praise, from Jim Noir all the way back to Todd Rundgren and beyond. Read full review

Alberta Cross, Broken Side of Time

British transplant Alberta Cross‘ full-length debut, “Broken Side of Time,” is a step forward in cementing the Brooklyn-based band’s place in American blues-rock. Taking cues from the folk and alternative music scenes of the ’90s, with undertones of American roots and a British blues infusion, singer Petter Ericson Stakee’s expressiveness lends a spectral quality to the group’s brooding alt-rock sound. With the quivering emotion of Neil Young in the strangled tenor of Jim James, Stakee laments on “Song Three Blues,” “I just wanna live is that a cry.” A fuming reinvention of Alberta Cross’ folky roots (as heard on its 2007 EP “The Thief & the Heartbreaker”), “ATX” features slide guitar over heavy instrumentation. And the title track’s wistful chorus breaks from distorted chaos, as if manifesting from the eye of a storm. Tempering heavier blues-alternative influences with a softer folk-rock feel, “Broken Side of Time” leaves an unmistakable mark.

Nick Moss, The Virginian Pilot

Muddy Waters once sang, “The blues had a baby and they named it rock ’n’ roll.” That iconic lyric rings true on Chicago-based blues belter/guitar slinger Nick Moss’ latest opus. Rather than showcase the usual raw, rustic Chi-Town electric blues with his road-tested Flip Tops, he now plays blues daddy as he births his “new child”: unabashed blues-rock.

Here, the bandleader and producer takes off the blues training wheels and roars in with a two-ton rock truck. With the Flip Tops now as session guys, Moss plies his versatile visceral guitar styles and soulful vocal growls through originals that could hold their own alongside ZZ Top, Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd material. The title cut recalls Little Feat, the acoustic slide rave-up of “Georgia Redsnake” is a North Mississippi hill-country stomp, and Sonny Boy Williamson’s “She’s So Fine” sounds lifted from the Electric Flag playbook.   Read more...

T.A.M.I. Show, NY Times

EVEN Michael Jackson couldn’t find a copy. In an interview just before “Thriller” was released in 1982 Mr. Jackson begged a reporter to help him locate a rare videotape of a 1964 James Brown performance because, as Mr. Jackson said, “he got so out of himself.” Years later the producer Rick Rubin would describe this same appearance as possibly “the single greatest rock ’n’ roll performance ever captured on film.”

In the footage Brown delivers an 18-minute barrage of splits, twists and spins. He hits his knees, drops into a push-up and glides halfway across the stage on one foot. During an epic, gravity-defying version of “Night Train,” he teases the audience into hysteria with multiple fake exits.

But due to a strange, tangled web of ownership, this legendary set, from a concert film called “The T.A.M.I. Show,” hasn’t been officially available for more than four decades. The film has been celebrated in song lyrics, enjoyed an afterlife on the bootleg market and occasionally surfaced on the film festival and museum circuit. But on Tuesday it will be released on DVD for the first time. The chance to see Brown’s breathtaking routine is cause enough for celebration, but the rest of the lineup is comparably memorable. Read full review

She & Him

She & Him make music for an eternal springtime, when the temperature is warm enough to go riding with the top (or at least the windows) rolled down and the radio turned up. They occupy an alternate universe where the saddest of songs feel as warm as sun showers; the rain may be coming down, but somewhere nearby, everything looks bright. What began as a fascinating, no-strings attached collaboration on 2008’s Volume One has evolved into a bona fide, touring band, and She & Him are here to stay. Zooey Deschanel and Matt Ward are as comfortable and complementary a musical pair as Les Paul and Mary Ford; hearing them again on Volume Two feels like getting together with two old friends. This time, the harmonies have grown more angelically layered, the string arrangements more dramatic, the songwriting even sharper and more confident. But, as with Volume One, the prevailing mood is bittersweet, dreamy, and romantic.   Read more...

NIGHTHAWKS ROCK BIRDLAND

Last Saturday, March 27, the Nighthawks rocked the house when they played a min-concert at Birdland Music. Not only was the store packed with fans, but we sold out of the new Nighthawks CD, “Last Train to Bluesville”. But don’t worry–we have reordered and now have plenty in stock. Craig was smart enough to grab some video so we thought that we’d give you a little taste of what you missed.

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Mose Allison, The Way Of The World

At age 82, Mose Allison is not about to change. He’s still an unclassifiable classicist who would find a single musical genre as confining as being limited to one octave on his piano.

And so he bridges the divides between the blues, pop and jazz on “The Way Of The World,” his first studio album in 12 years. The common denominator on the 12 cuts is the joy with which Allison tackles the task, humming like a child when not singing like a sage. And he has never played better.   Read more...