As the world seemingly draws to a stop, Portner finds himself quarantined at home in Western North Carolina amidst work on Animal Collective’s eleventh studio album, the first album since 2012 to feature all four original band members . . .
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On the apocalyptic Good Souls Better Angels, Lucinda Williams grapples with pain, mortality, and the devil. She joins us to discuss the album's apocalyptic themes, breaking with the familiar, and how she stays in touch with the sense of mystery that has always fueled her work . . .
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Guest contributor David Obuchowski shares the story of Runnin Bare and Lil White Dove, an independent printing house that serviced CB radio enthusiasts. A story of connection, tragedy, and the complicated legacy of skewed Americana . . .
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“Some for Bohannon,” a celebration and glance at the funky creations of Hamilton Bohannon: a drummer, song writer, and record producer who, as Ron Wynn noted, perfected a "formula of heavy, thudding bass accents and aggressive rhythms". He passed away April 24, 2020. Rest in peace . . .
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A digital screening of UFOria, the 1985 science fiction comedy starring Cindy Williams, Fred Ward, and Harry Dean Stanton. At once sweet, earnest, silly, and wry, Jason P. Woodbury and Chad DePasquale suggest it's perfect quarantine viewing. Tune in . . .
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Remember livemusic? Yeah, me too. I managed to catch quite a bit of it back in the Before Times, though, so I’ll at least have my ‘tapes’ to tide me over while we collectively tread water. For this edition of Elevated Rail, we have a highlight reel (loosely in chronological order) of some of the best ChicagoMusics I saw in 2020 before the world imploded . . .
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Memory Pearl’s Music For 7 Paintings is a study in contemplation. Synth arpeggios fade into twinkling pianos, choral voice tones, and scrambled alien broadcasts in a wash of fourth world ambience, like a Klaus Schulze gouache or Oneohtrix Paint Never painting in oil . . .
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The Sun City Girls saga came to a sad end with the death of drummer Charles Gocher in 2007. But the band’s bizarre, inspiring spirit lives on in the recent work of SCG co-founders Rick and Alan Bishop (as well as a recommended live show just unleashed from the vaults . . .
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Just as many of us were folding into our geo-domes for extended isolation in early March, a tweet floated across my transom that asked the reader to “Imagine a world where there were archives of live P-Funk and Fela recordings as extensive and well-curated as those devoted to the Grateful Dead.” To paraphrase a recent viral hit: it’s easy if you try. At least, the imagining is. Just pretend that they’re the Dead . . .
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Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool—now available on Netflix after a brief theatrical run and as an American Masters feature on PBS—is a beautifully directed film by Stanley Nelson, which guides us through the different changes of Miles’ life, smoothly handling the tale of an artist who refused any complacency throughout a long and undeniably brilliant career . . .
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The brilliant debut from the mysterious Sven Wunder came out of nowhere and left all the heads spinnin' and scramblin' to find an LP copy, which are currently few and far between. Eastern Flowers is brimming with gnarly bass and guitars, big drum breaks, and hairy synths, all of which are projected through a kaleidoscopic filter of modern and traditional Eastern sounds. This is one of the best albums you will hear this year . . .
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Whatever happened to the human race? This mix explores the darker sides of the much maligned "AOR" genre, typically associated with 1970's overly-produced pop excess, while embracing it's playful and uplifting side. From Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott's lamenting a "Fatalistic Attitude" to the Monkees' Michael Nesmith's time capsule to "People A Hundred Years From Now", from Emitt Rhodes lamentable solo swan song "Farewell To Paradise" to true FM radio classic jam Starbuck's "Moonlight Feels Right", here The Human Race is represented in all it's conflicted glory . . .
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Toronto percussionist and composer Joshua Van Tassel follows up his 2018 album/novella hybrid Crossworlds with “Their Love Was Alive Before They Were Dead." It's the first music from September’s Dance Music Volume II: More Songs For Slow Motion, a slow-motion dream built around the Ondea, an updated version of the famous French synthesizer the Ondes Martenot . . .
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Just before the lockdown, filmmaker Kelly Reichardt released First Cow, the filmmaker's seventh feature film. A slow and mediative movie, it features sounds by AD compatriot William Tyler, who recorded the soundtrack with Scott Hirsch at Echo Magic Studio. While composing and recording, Tyler and Hirsch put together a "mood board" of sounds they referenced while working. Here, Hirsch shares that mixtape, along with his thoughts about First Cow . . .
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The Chicago-born, nonagenarian American saxophonist and composer Leon “Lee” Konitz, known most notably for his pioneering playing on Miles Davis’ 1950 Birth of the Cool album, passed away on Thursday night from complications with the Covid-19 virus . . .
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