The National, High Violet

High Violet, the new full-length record by the National, is a nervy, melodic, explosive and beautiful set of songs that find the band at the height of their collaborative powers. The music is wide-ranging in its moods, by turns intimate and rough, expansive and spare, full of stark angles and atmosphere. Berninger’s singing—wild, half-broken, sly—evokes a feeling of being haunted, by love, by paranoia, by something just out of reach. High Violet may be The National’s most thematically twisted record to date but it somehow also manages to be their most infectious and immediate.

Setting up their tunes on a creative territory amid American electric rock and indie rock’s mellowest tunes, the National ultimately present melodious and inspiring compositions also enlightened by a set of influences, including country-rock and even British pop/rock. Originally coming from Ohio, the band eventually formed in New York in the late ’90s, with a five-piece lineup, embodied by brothers Scott (guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums), Aaron (bass) and Bryce Dessner (guitar), and by vocalist Matt Berninger. Following a series of live presentations, the group eventually managed to enter the studio to record their first record. The National, their debut and self-titled album, hit the record stores in 2001, achieving considerable acclaim. The Ohio natural crew then continued to play on several live shows, eventually securing a growing fan base. In 2003 the group released Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, a deft blending of alternative country and chamber pop, followed by the EP Cherry Tree in 2004. The following year the band signed with Beggars Banquet and released Alligator. The National returned in 2007 with Boxer, an ambitious effort that featured orchestration by the Clogs’ Padma Newsome and Sufjan Stevens on piano.

Jim Lauderdale, Patchwork River

Patchwork can refer to a collection of incongruous pieces, parts not necessarily united into a whole. But sometimes, in the hands of great craftsmen and women, those parts merge into a thing of beauty and warmth. Patchwork River weaves together the lyrical mastery of Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan) and the songcraft of Grammy Award-winning artist Jim Lauderdale into something greater than the sum of its considerable parts.

“Jim is doing it the slow way. He never got the lucky breaks that shoot one performer to the top while hundreds of equal or greater merit slog around playing bars, releasing streetwise records that provide songs for others to cover. But doing it the hard way is where soul comes from, not the manufactured kind but the real thing. We all know this by heart, we ve seen the movie. Well, Jim is a movie of his own. I m proud to call him a friend and I know what I say is true. This man has what it takes. If you don t like country with a humble jolt of human soul, leave him alone.” – Robert Hunter on Jim Lauderdale   Read more...

The Black Keys, Brothers

The Black Keys have returned to familiar terrain after kicking it hip-hop style as Blakroc. Parts of this one were recorded at historic Muscle Shoals in Alabama, with additional recording in Brooklyn and their Akron hometown. Danger Mouse, the producer that helped make their previous effort, “Attack and Release,” a classic, only worked on one song this time, lead-off single, “Tighten Up.” The album includes their spin on Jerry Butler’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”‘ It earned a four-star rave in Rolling Stone, where David Fricke sized it up as “a thick, dirty racket, overdubbed but never overstuffed.”

Barb Jungr, The Men I Love

A British Edith Piaf is a dead-on description of Barb Jungr. She is more a song stylist than a jazz vocalist but on The Men I Love she mines a new vein of music in the Great American Songbook for alternative interpretation. All the songs, whether originally up-tempo or ballads, are easily spread into a contemporary song cycle of the second half of the 20th century. The tone and mood are accomplished by the spare instrumentation Jungr employs with Frank Schaefer’s sleek cello providing the flowing continuo that unites the collection.   Read more...

Nikki Yanofsky, Nikki

Sixteen-year-old Nikki Yanofsky is poised to break out as one of the year’s most-exciting new artists with her self-titled CD Nikki. The press has hailed Yanofsky as a “young Ella Fitzgerald”–from jazz to originals, she is among the most unique vocalists in recent time. She has been captivating audiences from jazz festivals around the world and most recently appeared at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Her song “I Believe” has sold 4x platinum in Canada, garnering the highest first week of any Canadian artist in Soundscan history. Nikki is produced by 15-time Grammy®-winning producer Phil Ramone and Grammy® winning songwriter / producer Jesse Harris (best known for his work on Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me). “For Another Day” is the focus track and will be worked at AAA radio in the coming months. PBS pledge show Live From Montreal will begin airing in all major markets this month.

Stone Temple Pilots

Everything happens for a reason. The majority of global belief systems have this concept at their core. Notables from actress Marilyn Monroe to the Greek philosopher Leucippus believed in this. Fundamental to the matter at hand, it is a belief held by Scott Weiland, Dean DeLeo, Robert DeLeo and Eric Kretz, the members of Stone Temple Pilots. How else to explain the present beatific state the band currently inhabit than the concept of “divine obstacles” being deliberately placed in front of the band members in order that they fully realized their potential, strength, willpower and creativity. “Stone Temple Pilots,” the groups sixth, eponymously titled album, due out May 25, 2010 via Atlantic Records, is a testament to this concept.   Read more...

Widespread Panic, Dirty Side Down

The recording studio is generally considered anathema to those in the jam band community. But Georgia sextet Widespread Panic has quietly discovered how to make very good albums that carefully balance its chops as both players and songwriters. Its new album, “Dirty Side Down,” plays to all of Widespread Panic’s strengths, from the intricate weaving of John Bell’s and Jimmy Herring’s guitars with John Hermann’s keyboards to a stylistic sweep that spans from the epic, prog-like opening suite “Saint Ex” to breezier fare like the title track and the spritely gallop of “Clinic Cynic.” The band shuffles in a bluesy vein on “Visiting Day” and “Shut Up and Drive,” while dipping into jazz on the short instrumental “St. Louis” and taking an R&B turn with the bouncy “Jaded Tourist.” A rootsy cover of the late Vic Chesnutt’s “This Cruel Thing” and the classic lover’s-on-the-road lament “When You Coming Home” are quieter and more atmospheric, while “North” is grooving guitar rock with a swelling, buoyant chorus. This is an accomplished work from a group that understands itself completely, deftly straddling the line between instinct and craft.

The New Pornographers

For what purpose the popular song? Does the popular song have a purpose? Is it just a sequence of auditory gestures, desperate acts, adrift in the bigger broader silence of an unforgiving cultural landscape? In what follows, we will assume that the purpose of the popular song is to unite warring disputants and to repair the manifold puncture wounds of life, so that life is revealed, again, as less accursed than it appears. And let’s assume that we go on listening to the popular song, which in the vast majority of its iterations is a failure, because we are chronic in our need for this rehabilitation of our puncture-wounded selves. Take any fine example, take “All You Need Is Love,” by the Beatles, or “Walk Away, Renee,” by the Left Banke, or “Tears of a Clown,” by Smokey Robinson. Try listening to these songs. Almost immediately, your suppurations begin to clot.   Read more...

Peter Frampton

Thank You Mr Churchill takes Peter Frampton back to the beginning. Literally. “This album is very autobiographical. It starts with my birth, in which I thank Mr. Churchill for bringing my father back from the Second World War,” says Frampton of his new set. “I woke up one morning and I wondered what would have happened if Winston Churchill hadn’t been at the helm and the British and the Allies had not won. Would my dad have not come back? Would I be here? Probably not.”   Read more...

John Ellis & Double-Wide, Puppet Mischief, The Virginian Pilot

The sophomore release from Brooklyn-based saxophonist/composer John Ellis presents one of the year’s most unique, fresh and satisfying takes on jazz. Here Ellis’s melodic sax work is buoyed and bumped along by his unusual combo, Double-Wide. The group features Hammond B3 player Brian Coogan, Jason Marsalis (of the Marsalis musical family) on drums and Matt Perrine handling the bottom, not on the bass guitar, but the sousaphone. Perrine’s busy, funky, slippery brass lines play off Ellis’ twisting, turning sax and, other times, lock in with Marsalis’ syncopated percussions. Ellis’ lively compositions slip and slide between avant-garde jazz, N’awlins boogaloo, pop cheesiness and Nino Rota film score melodiousness. Each piece, enlivened by the sweet harmonica work of guest Gregoire Maret, sports serious musical execution coupled with whimsy and a sense of adventure. For a breath of fresh air, let John Ellis & Double-Wide march you down the Crescent City’s musical streets and alleyways. – Eric Feber Reprinted courtesy of The Virginian Pilot