Archive for the What We’re Into – Recent Interest Category

If a brain in a jar could observe the world, make sense of it and churn it into a batch of songs, it would make the album American Utopia. This brilliantly analytical album is from David Byrne — an American treasure, an artistic thinker and creator responsible, in part, for the some of the most memorable and distinctive music of the past 40 years.

Those looking for a sizzling new platter to raise the roof at their next party can stop their searching; Barrence Whitfield has you covered. The Boston based R&B wild man has been cranking out his raw power brand of high octane grungy garage soul since the mid-80s. He took a 15 year sabbatical after 1995’s Ritual of the Savages,

It may feel like we’ve known about supergroup I’m With Her for some years now because of their spontaneous performances at music festivals like Newport Folk and Telluride Bluegrass, and then, last year, an EP release and short tour with Punch Brothers. Not to mention, all three members are accomplished, well-respected artists whose work is already so familiar to us.

On her Bloodshot Records debut, Ruby Boots continues to map out a polished-yet-fearless, bare-knuckled self, previously hinted at on her last album, Solitude. The album rips right open with “It’s So Cruel,” strutting through the door with dual harmonic, bawdy, fuzzed-out guitars, reminiscent of a glammy, ‘70s southern-rock-soaked Queens of the Stone Age. It all captures the meteoric emotional flares of an adulterous relationship destined to fail.

Acts that feature brothers in singer-songwriter rolls range from the generally harmonious (the Avetts, the Allmans pre-Duane’s passing) to the radically dysfunctional (the Kinks’ Davies brothers and Oasis’ Gallagher siblings) and somewhere in-between (Jesus and Mary Chain’s Reid’s on again/off again relationship). The Wood Brothers seem to fall into the first category as they release album number six

The ninth studio album from Calexico, The Thread That Keeps Us is a timely snapshot of the Arizona-bred band: a family portrait capturing their stylistic variety and unpredictability while still finding solace in limitless creativity. In bringing the album to life, vocalist/guitarist Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino found a spiritual home in unusual surroundings—not in Arizona, but on the Northern California coast

After 10 years producing and recording albums for Brooklyn Rider and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble, Johnny Gandelsman releases a debut solo album. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo are a magnificent repertoire for Gandelsman’s interpretations, which draw on his experiences with Silkroad, Brooklyn Rider, dance and non-classical musicians to add rich layers to Bach’s music. It’s an epic feat to attempt, but Gandelsman has created a mesmerizing, memorable marathon here, brimming with genial freshness and unaffected sincerity.

Winning Hand, the new album from Tinsley Ellis on Alligator Records, is the veteran bluesman at his finest as a songwriter and guitarist. The epic six-minute slow blues “Gamblin’ Man” is alone worth the price, but the album is packed with hard-hitting, groove-driven electric blues. In the very first track an unexpected key change introduces a wailing guitar solo that brings Jimi Hendrix to mind, and throughout the album Ellis’s titanic, elemental solos cut like a leopard’s fangs.

A timeless yet specific reflection on empathy and loss, Sufjan Stevens’ 2015 album Carrie & Lowell stripped away many of the singer’s flourishes to reveal something barren and reverent, compassionate and utterly human. Writing in the wake of his mother’s death, Stevens used Carrie & Lowell to grapple with their fraught and often absent relationship, only to locate pathways to empathy and forgiving kindness.