Casual Listening - Corinne Bailey Rae, Four Tet, Eric Bibb

Casual Listening

a review of cool new music

by Jeff Pinzino

January 29, 2010

! Corinne Bailey Ray – The Sea (rock)

Writing a convincing love song is almost as hard as love itself. Corinne Bailey Ray makes it sound impossibly easy. She lends a perfectly bittersweet delivery to this collection of pop-soul beauties. Impressionistic guitars and tasteful use of strings makes this feel already like a classic.

Listen to Corinne Bailey Ray “Are You Here?’”

* Four Tet – There is Love in You (electronic)

This is electronic artistry designed for headphones, not the dance floor. Four Tet employs a warm, clean palate of slowly shifting sounds reminiscent of bells, chimes, cymbals, and voices. Four Tet’s music is utilitarian in the best sense, a slow-turning kaleidoscope that gently agitates your mind.

Listen to Four Tet “Circling”

Eric Bibb – Booker’s Guitar (blues)

For a bluesman, having a chance to touch the strings of the guitar of a musical ancestor like Booker (Bukka) White is a fairy tale come true. Eric Bibb was inspired enough by the experience to write an album’s worth of fables. He channels ancient spirits into new blues, and the emotional power is palpable.

Listen to Eric Bibb “With My Maker I Am One”

Pat Metheny – Orchestrion (jazz)

Metheny ups the instrumental ante in wiring an orchestra like a player piano. His jazz fusion guitar riffs still cascade over the top, but the breadth of sound possibilities available make these recordings stand out.

Listen to Pat Metheny“Orchestrion”

And see the Orchestrion in action here.

Youssou N’Dour – Music From The Motion Picture “I Bring What I Love” (world)

One of the most famous voices in world music finally gets his close-up on the silver screen. The soundtrack puts his Senegalese pop in a more deliberately global setting, which N’Dour takes in stride.

Listen to “Mame Bamba/Touba - Daru Salaam”

Cyrille Aimee & Diego Figueiredo – Smile (jazz)

A reminder of the power of a simple voice and guitar. Aimee has tremendous vocal control, and Figueiredo’s guitar is powerful yet understated. Cabaret, Bossa Nova, and jazz standards all rub elbows comfortably here.

Listen to Cyrille Aimee & Diego Figueiredo “La Vie En Rose”

Citay – Dream Get Together (rock)

I’m risking my critic’s credibility in admitting that I love a good jam band. Citay is one of the best I’ve heard in a long while. Acoustically based with vocal harmonies and a swirl of psychedelic classic rock. This band deserves their own Ben & Jerry’s flavor.

Listen to Citay “Return From Silence”

It’s an amazing week for music, and I’ve just scratched the surface. Great stuff also out by Patty Griffin, Magnetic Fields, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Fredrik, Lady Antebellum, Never Shout Never, Basement Jaxx, Brooklyn Rider, Gorevette.

* highly recommended

! highest recommendation

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Casual Listening - Eels, Makoto Ozone, Sizzla

Casual Listening

a review of cool new music

by Jeff Pinzino

January 15, 2010

! Eels – End Times (rock)

Heaven help us if the end of the world sounds this beautiful. The songwriting sparkles like diamonds intentionally left in the rough. Simple guitar on some tracks, pedal steel and electronics fill in behind the band on others. The apocalyptic theme that runs through this song cycle works to intensify a sense of nostalgia and isolation. Above all, these are songs that will bear a hundred listens without getting old.

Listen to Eels “End Times’”

* Makoto Ozone featuring No Name Horses – Jungle (jazz)

Listening to a great big band is one of the true pleasures of jazz. Ozone’s manages to do it all – heavy swing, sizzling mambo, and several modern compositions that show the potential of the form to cover new ground. Big brass, lots of percussion, and fluid piano work from Ozone.

Listen to Makoto Ozone “Coconuts Meeting”

Sizzla – Crucial Times (reggae)

Sunny Jamaican roots music with a heavy dose of Rastafarian devotion. Electric organ and saxes bounce along with Sizzla’s rubberband voice, along with a couple of tracks with more experimental settings.

Listen to Sizzla “Precious Gift”

Tracy Thornton – Steel Drum Fever (world)

Carnival time is coming, and in Trinidad, that means steel drum bands playing in the streets. This is a representative set of Calypso and other party music that’ll help melt away the snow.

Listen to Tracy Thornton“Bum Shaker”

* highly recommended

! highest recommendation

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Casual Listening - Vampire Weekend, La Otrabanda,

Casual Listening

a review of cool new music

by Jeff Pinzino

January 15, 2010

* Vampire Weekend – Contra (world)

* La Otrabanda – Pueblo Vivo/Vibrant People (world)

Two impressive releases with a cosmopolitan vibe bode well for new directions in global fusion. Vampire Weekend combines pop instincts and bouncy energy with southern African rhythms and guitar styles. La Otrabanda combines Venezuelan, American, and a smattering of other musical traditions to create a sound with mellower, dreamier grooves. Vampire Weekend’s production is expansive, including tasteful electronics alongside xylophones, assorted percussion, occasional strings and a core of guitar/bass/drums. La Ortrabanda isn’t far behind, with a rock band augmented by acoustic guitar, cuatro, percussion, and even bagpipes on one tune. Both of these represent the possibility of adventurous sounds infiltrating unsuspecting American ears.

Listen to Vampire Weekend “White Sky”

Listen to La Otrabanda “Indigenas”

* Ray Wylie Hubbard – A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C) (country)

Hubbard’s is the Americana of fallen angels. He’s drawn to the redemption of old gospel hymns, but is more at home with hard-living blues and honky-tonk. His sound digs deep in the gutbucket with bottleneck slide, blue harmonica, and a voice with edges like a chainsaw. His lyrics reveal a literary mind and a barroom brawler’s fists.

Listen to Ray Wylie Hubbard “Drunken Poet’s Dream”

Sean Corbett – Keep On Walkin’ (R&B)

Louisiana-style keyboard funk that’d give Dr. John himself a mischevious grin. Horns and backup singers build a thick sound over a rhythm section that cooks.

Listen to Sean Corbett “Keep On Walkin’”

T-Model Ford – The Ladies Man (blues)

T-Model is one of the last of the backwoods bluesmen, and on this album delivers a stripped-down acoustic set that’s miles deep. If Lightnin’ Hopkins were still around, he’d be making albums like this one.

Listen to T-Model Ford “Two Trains”

* highly recommended

! highest recommendation

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Casual Listening -- The Real Sound of Chicago, 2009 Playlist

Casual Listening

a review of cool new music

by Jeff Pinzino

January 8, 2010

One new review, and a new year’s treat. The website is almost ready – I’ll let you know when the grand opening is happening.

! The Real Sound of Chicago: Underground Disco From The Windy City (dance)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one…an underground musical movement emerges in the 1970’s in response to the banality of what rock music had become. Kids everywhere responded to the new do-it-yourself ethic by picking up guitars and putting music on wax, if for no one else than their friends and the few die-hard fans who’d show up at a club and listen.

This is disco??? More than you’d imagine, and this collection brings together the best of the forgotten disco bands of one city in that era. Four-on-the-floor beats, slap-and-pop bass, big orchestral arrangements, and a surprising amount of artistry. At its best, disco is the progressive evolution of funk, and this is disco at its best.

Listen to samples from The Real Sound of Chicago here, including “Too Far Gone” and “Open Soul”

Casual Listening 2009 playlist

People will argue whether these songs are the best of the year, but these are the songs that I’ll remember the year by.

Listen to the full playlist on Rhapsody here.

And here’s what’s on it:

2009 Playlist

1. Invisible Cities – NOMO

2. Saudades de Manezinho Araujo – Forro in the Dark

3. Soul do Samba – Marcio Local

4. Sounsouomba – Oumou Sangare

5. Kalemba (Wegue–Wegue) – Buraka Som Sistema

6. Frenzy – Bobby Sanabria

7. Quiet Dog – Mos Def

8. The Spirit vs. the Kick Drum – Derek Webb

9. Give Blood – Rain Machine

10. The Passenger – Art Brut

11. Electric Twist – A Fine Frenzy

12. Mama’s Little Baby – Delbert McClinton

13. Don’t Lie Down – Round Mountain

14. Throw Down Your Heart – Bela Fleck

15. Winnipeg – Chris Pandolfi

16. Williamine – Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbard

17. Such Great Heights – Iron & Wine

18. Goodbye – Tingsek

* highly recommended

! highest recommendation

Check out the blog at http://casuallistening.blogspot.com . Follow me on Lala here

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