The In Sound from Way Out: Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion

By Brian Castleberry
January 12th, 2009

With Merriweather Post Pavilion, all of a sudden, the ferment and experimentation that has typified indie rock in the last few years has its historical marker: an eclectic masterpiece that gathers its myriad influences together and pushes them all in a new direction.

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The Daily Deep Cut

Marshall Crenshaw “Lesson Number One”

By Douglas Newman
January 12th, 2009

Taken from his slick album Downtown, “Lesson Number One” is a gentle ’50’s style ballad with jangly guitars, soaring harmonies, and some sinewy guitar lines snaking underneath the layers of instrumentation.

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Vinyl Vault

Alt-Country Swan Song:
Uncle Tupelo’s Anodyne

By JBev
January 9th, 2009

It was supposed to be their breakthrough, but instead 1993’s Anodyne was the swan song for the alt-country torch-bearers Uncle Tupelo. So was that final album a fitting goodbye for such an influential band? Only a song-by-song review can answer that question.

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The Daily Deep Cut

Prince “Hello”

By Douglas Newman
January 9th, 2009

This is a B-side you can really sink your teeth into. With its insane bass lines and keyboards that pop out of the speakers, “Hello” is anything but subtle, a dancefloor burner featuring killer vocal contributions from Jill Jones and dripping with enough 80’s pop-funk sheen to straighten your jhery curls.

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Brass Trax

Krautrock!

By Rick Sawyer
January 8th, 2009

Krautrock is a useful fiction. The term is used to lump together a handful of German rock bands from the late sixties and early seventies that fused the long-form compositions of progressive rock with practices from avant garde music like free jazz, minimalism, and electronic music.

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The Daily Deep Cut

Beau Brummels “Cherokee Girl”

By Douglas Newman
January 8th, 2009

Cut from the same cloth as The Byrd’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo and Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, the Beau Brummel’s 1968 watermark, Bradley’s Barn, is one of the first, and finest, forays into country-rock ever pressed to wax.

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Artist Spotlight

Dearly Departed Stooge:
Ron Asheton 1948-2009

By Rick Sawyer
January 7th, 2009

Ron Asheton, the founding guitarist for the Stooges, was found dead in his Ann Arbor apartment yesterday of natural causes. He was 60 years old.

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Brass Trax

Jazz Legend Lost:
Freddie Hubbard 1938-2008

By Rick Sawyer
January 7th, 2009

Jazz legend Freddie Hubbard passed away at age 70. Brass Trax wanted to take a moment to remember Hubbard through the music that he made so meticulously.

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