Los Hermanos Calatrava :: Space Oddity

David Bowie Los Hermanos CalatravaPosted on

Fictional astronaut blues. Here's a chestnut we've been spinning via satellite for years, a grotesquerie which seems to elicit an equal measure of delight and horror depending on the beholder. Via Barcelona, Los Hermanos Calatrava's wholly bizarre rendition of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" was released in 1974 - five years after the original 7" single. If nothing else, the cover begs the question: is it possible to "unhear" something? Cuidado mis . . .

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Posted on David Bowie Los Hermanos Calatrava

The Staple Singers: Slippery People (Soul Train, 1984)

Talking Heads The Staple SingersPosted on

The "Slippery" cover, featuring David Byrne on guitar, was a minor hit for the Staples -- enough so that it brought the family's 70 year old patriarch out of retirement. Far from their first rodeo, the cover was also responsible for the Singers fifth appearance on the long-running television monolith that was Don Cornelius' Soul Train. As covers go, this one feels like a second skin . . .

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Posted on Talking Heads The Staple Singers

The Lagniappe Sessions :: Boogarins

Boogarins Lagniappe SessionsPosted on

Brazil’s Boogarins recently released their third album, Sombrou Dúvida, a set which finds the group refining their Tropicália influenced, mutant psych-rock into a concentrated, glowing sheen. For this installment of the Lagniappe Sessions, the group lay their influences bare with covers from My Bloody Valentine, the Velvets, and the Kinks . . .

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Sessa :: Grandeza

SessaPosted on

On Grandeza, the debut album from Sao Paolo–born artist Sessa, the eponymous lead track swings casually into the frame with lightly strummed nylon-stringed guitar and sparse hand percussion. Sessa’s deadpan tenor nonchalantly weaves in and out of the accompaniment of his heavenly, all-female chorus; setting the stage for the mesmerizing vocal interplay that highlights the set throughout . . .

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Cy Dune :: Desert

Cy DunePosted on

There is no one single sound of the desert. The desert is a collage: wind rusting creasote, reptiles scraping across, communicating birds overhead. Cy Dune's Desert, the latest dispatch of sun-damaged blues from Seth Olinsky of Akron/Family, reflects the noise of the Sonoran. It serves as an audio companion to the spirit that fueled Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire: "...feel that raw and rugged earth...draw blood! Why not . . .

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Daniel Norgren :: The Flow

Daniel NorgrenPosted on

"The Flow,” which is, frankly, just a mean, lean motherfucker of a song. Norgren keeps the affair ambient and sparse – a languid and nocturnal blues, one that fogs the senses with a hint of inherent yet nebulous danger. Channeling Neil Young lost somewhere in outer space, Norgren is just “bumming around / trying to find the flow.” Sinewy streaks of pedal steel, forlorn saxophone, delicate piano, and blown-out howling electric guitar are his sole company . . .

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Posted on Daniel Norgren

Oh, How She Dances: An Evening With Tav Falco & Panther Burns

Tav Falco Tijuana HerculesPosted on

... I can’t recall if Falco opened that show with “Oh, How She Dances” but it has been his set opener every time I’ve seen him in the intervening decades. The tune is a litany of sideshow freaks, an evocation of forbidden delights, and the de facto theme song of Falco’s 40-years-and-going outfit, the Panther Burns . . .

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Posted on Tav Falco Tijuana Hercules

Death Is So On the Table :: A Conversation with Kevin Morby

Kevin Morby The AD InterviewPosted on

Kevin Morby doesn't feel at home in this world anymore. The songwriter joins Aquarium Drunkard to discuss the holy and profane elements of his latest album, the double lp "Oh My God," detailing how the lens of religion allowed him to "tell a story of humanity . . .

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Freak Kingdom: Remembering Roky, Fresh Lagniappe Sessions + More…

Sidecar: NewsletterPosted on

It’s June. Already. Our weekly Sidecar email newsletter dropped this a.m. / smash that subscribe button and peruse the archives. Always loaded with supplemental reccs + more . . .

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Be And Bring Me Home: Remembering Roky Erickson

Okkervil River Roky EricksonPosted on

In 2010 Roky Erickson released his first album in 14 years, True Love Cast Out All Evil, backed by fellow Texans Okkervil River. Below, Okkervil's Will Sheff reflects on the iconoclast and his time spent backing him . . .

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Posted on Okkervil River Roky Erickson

Tim Maia’s Seroma Years (1972-1977)

Tim MaiaPosted on

... I started to see these two-plus albums (and a posthumous Vol. 3) as the centerpieces of Tim’s most prolific, creative and influential phase, what I’d like to call his “Seroma” phase, named after the rehearsal space and production company of the same name . . .

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Posted on Tim Maia

The Lagniappe Sessions: The Dream Syndicate

Lagniappe Sessions The Dream SyndicatePosted on

For this installment of the Lagniappe Sessions, legendary Paisley Underground band the Dream Syndicate tear into songs by Pere Ubu, John Cale, and the Stylistics . . .

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Posted on Lagniappe Sessions The Dream Syndicate

Andrew Wartts & The Gospel Storytellers

Andrew Wartts & The Gospel StorytellersPosted on

Egon at Now Again hipped us to the Gospel Storytellers at his office, shortly after the label set up shop on York Boulevard in Highland Park. At the time the record was a rarity, and a curious one at that. Drop the needle on the platter cold, and you'd swear you were dipping into gritty vintage from the early-mid 70s. But no, these grooves to the one true lord and savior were laid down by Wartts and his Storytellers in 1982. Gospel-soul, yes, but with a weighty undercurrent of considerable funk . . .

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Posted on Andrew Wartts & The Gospel Storytellers