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Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, the much-anticipated follow-up to Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Slow Riot, is a double-disc achievement of four works (each with multiple parts): "Storm," "Static," "Sleep," and "Antennas to Heaven." It is a windfall for any fan of ambient pop, orchestral rock, space rock, or simply lush string arrangements who understands how powerful love, melancholy, and frustration can be. The main complaint voiced by critics of Godspeed's music is that their works just repeat the same pattern: start out sparse and slow, build-build-build, crescendo. While there are certainly crescendos, there is no such predictable pattern repeated among the works on Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven -- it's loaded with dynamics, unexpected sections, strong emotions and beauty.

The album opener, "Storm," is a leap for GY!BE that, alone, makes this release worth getting. It's a rapturous work that rises with a potent melancholy, driven by heartrending emotions. "Storm" vents a powerful frustration (each listener can insert their own reasons why) with majestic screams of strings, guitars, and layers, resulting in a climactic and passionate soaring. It eventually winds down into an exhausted aftermath of piano, underlying drones, and frustrated rants. The second piece, "Static," is a wandering, isolationist piece of bleak expanses shaded with darker emotions, but the remaining two works raise the album back up to the impressive standard set by the opening cut, though with less furor and even more loveliness. "Sleep" opens with an elderly gentleman reminiscing about Coney Island, and his frank and amusing narration briefly recalls the recordings of David Greenberger and scenes from the documentary Vernon, FL. This narration is followed by a slow and melodic piece featuring a pseudo-theremin effect amidst all of the other instrumentation. "Antennas to Heaven" opens with someone playing acoustic guitar, singing "What'll We Do with the Baby-O," soon washed over with sound, which then gives way to a brief chorus of glockenspiels, and on.

During most of Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, musical and emotional opposites alternate as regularly, and naturally, as breathing: delicate string work and rock-out guitar and drums, spoken word and walls of sound, gracious and possessed, tip-toes and cliff-diving, dark hallways and blinding sunshine.

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More known for its frequent name-checks than its actual music, Spiderland remains one of the most essential and chilling releases in the mumbling post-rock arena. Even casual listeners will be able to witness an experimental power-base that the American underground has come to treasure. Indeed, the lumbering quiet-loud motif has been lifted by everybody from Lou Barlow to Mogwai, the album's emotional gelidity has done more to move away from prog-rock mistakes than almost any of the band's subsequent disciples, and it's easy to hear how the term "Slint dynamics" has become an indie categorization of its own. Most interestingly, however, is how even a seething angularity to songs like "Nosferatu Man" (disquieting, vampirish stop-starts) or "Good Morning, Captain" (a murmuring nod to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner") certainly signaled the beginning of the end for the band. Recording was intense, traumatic, and one more piece of evidence supporting the theory that band members had to be periodically institutionalized during the completion of the album. Spiderland remains, though, not quite the insurmountable masterpiece its reputation may suggest. Brian McMahan softly speaks/screams his way through the asphyxiated music and too often evokes strangled pity instead of outright empathy. Which probably speaks more about the potential dangers of pretentious post-rock than the frigid musical climate of the album itself. Surely, years later, Spiderland is still a strong, slightly overrated, compelling piece of investigational despair that is a worthy asset to most any experimentalist's record collection.

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Following the tour for Rid of Me, Polly Harvey parted ways with Robert Ellis and Stephen Vaughn, leaving her free to expand her music from the bluesy punk that dominated PJ Harvey's first two albums. It also left her free to experiment with her style of songwriting. Where Dry and Rid of Me seemed brutally honest, To Bring You My Love feels theatrical, with each song representing a grand gesture. Relying heavily on religious metaphors and imagery borrowed from the blues, Harvey has written a set of songs that are lyrically reminiscent of Nick Cave's and Tom Waits' literary excursions into the gothic American heartland. Since she was a product of post-punk, she's nowhere near as literally bluesy as Caveor Waits, preferring to embellish her songs with shards of avant guitar, eerie keyboards, and a dense, detailed production. It's a far cry from the primitive guitars of her first two albums, but Harvey pulls it off with style, since her songwriting is tighter and more melodic than before; the menacing "Down by the Water" has genuine hooks, as does the psycho stomp of "Meet Ze Monsta," the wailing "Long Snake Moan," and the stately "C'Mon Billy." The clear production by Harvey, Flood, and John Parish makes these growths evident, which in turn makes To Bring You My Love her most accessible album, even if the album lacks the indelible force of its predecessors..

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All but one of these 19 tracks were recorded in December, 1964, as Paul Butterfield Blues Band's projected first LP; the results were scrapped and replaced by their official self-titled debut, cut a few months later. With both Michael Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop already in tow, these sessions rank among the earliest blues-rock ever laid down. Extremely similar in feel to the first album, it's perhaps a bit rawer in production and performance, but not appreciably worse or different than what ended up on the actual debut LP. Dedicated primarily to electric Chicago blues standards, Butterfield fans will find this well worth acquiring, as most of the selections were never officially recorded by the first lineup (although different renditions of five tracks showed up on the first album and the What's Shakin' compilation).
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No 1950s blues guitarist even came close to equaling the flamboyant Guitar Slim in the showmanship department. Armed with an estimated 350 feet of cord between his axe and his amp, Slim would confidently stride on-stage wearing a garishly hued suit of red, blue, or green, usually with his hair dyed to match! It's rare to find a blues guitarist hailing from Texas or Louisiana who doesn't cite Slim as one of his principal influences: Buddy Guy, Earl King, Guitar Shorty, Albert Collins, Chick Willis, and plenty more have enthusiastically testified to Slim's enduring sway.

Born Eddie Jones in Mississippi, Slim didn't have long to make such an indelible impression. He turned up in New Orleans in 1950, influenced by the atomic guitar energy of Gatemouth Brown. But Slim's ringing, distorted guitar tone and gospel-enriched vocal style were his alone. He debuted on wax in 1951 with a mediocre session for Imperial that barely hinted at what would soon follow. A 1952 date for Bullet produced the impassioned "Feelin' Sad," later covered by Ray Charles (who would arrange and play piano on Slim's breakthrough hit the next year).

With the emergence of the stunning "The Things That I Used to Do" on Art Rupe's Specialty logo, Slim's star rocketed to blazing ascendancy nationwide. Combining a swampy ambience with a churchy arrangement, the New Orleans-cut track was a monster hit, pacing the R&B charts for an amazing 14 weeks in 1954. Strangely, although he waxed several stunning follow-ups for Specialty in the same tortured vein -- "The Story of My Life," "Something to Remember You By," "Sufferin' Mind" -- as well as the blistering rockers "Well I Done Got Over It," "Letter to My Girlfriend," and "Quicksand," Slim never charted again.

The guitar wizard switched over to Atlantic Records in 1956. Gradually, his waxings became tamer, though "It Hurts to Love Someone" and "If I Should Lose You" summoned up the old fire. But Slim's lifestyle was as wild as his guitar work. Excessive drinking and life in the fast lane took its inevitable toll over the years, and he died in 1959 at age 32. Only in recent years has his monumental influence on the blues lexicon begun to be fully recognized and appreciated. Incidentally, one of his sons bills himself asGuitar Slim, Jr. around the New Orleans circuit, his repertoire heavily peppered with his dad's material.

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2001's Southern Rock Opera catapulted the Drive-By Truckers from their early status as another alt-country band with a joke name into one of the smartest, edgiest, and most talked-about hard rock bands in America, and since then they seem to have taken the thematic consensus of Southern Rock Opera as a lucky piece -- while 2003's Decoration Day and 2004's The Dirty South weren't concept albums like SRO, their tales of hard living and difficult circumstances in the American South gave them a unified feeling that turned the band's fine songs into an even more cohesive whole. With A Blessing and a Curse, the Truckers take a step back from this approach for the first time since their breakthrough -- most of the album's 11 songs were written in the studio during the recording sessions -- and though the sound and the feel of these tunes is consistent with the band's previous body of work, A Blessing and a Curse sounds like a collection of individual pieces rather than a coherent and organic whole. But the pieces sound great -- Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, and Jason Isbell remain a triple-threat team as guitarists, songwriters, and singers, and the tough, funky report of Brad Morgan's drums and Shonna Tucker's bass drives this music with both groove and force. The hard-earned wisdom about matters of the heart related on "Space City," "A World of Hurt," and "Feb. 14" cuts deep down to the bone, as does the day-to-day emotional chaos of "Aftermath U.S.A." and the title cut. the Drive-By Truckers have never sounded better in the studio as they do on "A World of Hurt," Without polishing away their personality, producer David Barbeand mixer John Agnello get the band's three-guitar onslaught on tape with equal shares of muscle and clarity, while the tight interplay between the players suggests the Rolling Stones at their Sticky Fingers/Exile on Main St. peak as much as the DBTs' oft-cited role models Lynyrd Skynyrd. A Blessing and a Curse doesn't try to tell one big story, but 11 small ones that follow a similar trail through 21st century America, and if it isn't as ambitious as the three releases that preceded it, it still confirms that the Drive-By Truckers are still what they were before making this record: the best hard rock band in America today.

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This was the first real indication to the world that Keith Jarrett was an ambitious, multi-talented threat to be reckoned with, an explosion of polystylistic music that sprawled over two LPs (now squeezed onto a single CD). Using his classic quartet (Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian) as a base, Jarrettoccasionally adds the biting rock-edged electric guitar of Sam Brown and always-intriguing percussionistAirto Moreira, and indulges in some pleasant string and brass arrangements of his own, along with some grinding organ smears and acceptable soprano sax. Jarrett again turns his early rampant eclecticism loose -- from earthy gospel-tinged soul-jazz to the freewheeling atonal avant-garde -- yet this time he does it with an exuberance and expansiveness that puts his previous solo work in the shade. "Common Mama," a spicy Latin workout with brass punctuations, "Take Me Back," driving soul jazz with streaks of electric jazz-rock, and the lengthy, nearly free "Nomads" are the most invigorating tracks.

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(From Wikipedia)

Life Between the Exit Signs is a jazz album by pianist Keith Jarrett. It was recorded on May 4, 1967 at Atlantic Recording Studios, in New York City. It was released April 1, 1968, under the record label Vortex, a subsidiary label of Atlantic Records. It features pianist Keith Jarrett, bassistCharlie Haden and established drummer Paul Motian.

The tracks on the album are heavily influenced by Ornette Coleman and Bill Evans, Jarrett having long been an admirer of both, Haden having played with Coleman and Motian having played with Evans.

Contents   [hide]  1 Track listing 2 Personnel 3 Credits 4 References

Track listing [edit]

All songs written by Keith Jarrett, unless otherwise noted.

1. "Lisbon Stomp" - 6:06
2. "Love No. 1" - 6:17
3. "Love No. 2" - 4:32
4. "Everything I Love" (Cole Porter) - 4:33
5. "Margot" - 3:45
6. "Long Time Gone (But Not Withdrawn)" - 4:55
7. "Life Between the Exit Signs" - 6:53
8. "Church Dreams" - 6:17

Personnel [edit]

• Keith Jarrett - piano
• Charlie Haden - double-bass
• Paul Motian - drums

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In 1957, the greatest year for recorded music including modern jazz, Detroit was a hot spot, a centerpiece to many hometown heroes as well as short-term residents like John Coltrane and Miles Davis. It was here that Trane connected with pianist Tommy Flanagan, subsequently headed for the East Coast, and recorded this seminal hard bop album. In tow were fellow Detroiters -- drummer Louis Hayes, bassistDoug Watkins, and guitarist Kenny Burrell, with the fine trumpeter from modern big bands Idrees Sulieman as the sixth wheel. From the opening number, the classic "Minor Mishap," you realize something special is happening. Flanagan is energized, playing bright and joyous melody lines, comping and soloing like the blossoming artist he was. Coltrane is effervescent and inspired, hot off the presses from the Miles Davis Quintet and searching for more expressionism. The other hard bop originals, "Eclypso" and "Solacium," easily burn with a cool flame not readily associated with East Coast jazz.Flanagan himself is the catalyst more than the horns -- dig his soaring, animated solo on "Eclypso" as he quotes "Jeepers Creepers." The near 12-minute blues "Tommy's Tune" is the perfect vehicle for Burrell, a prelude for his classics of the same period "All Day Long" and "All Night Long." The lone trio session, on the standard "How Long Has This Been Going On?," is regarded as quintessential Flanagan, and quite indicative of the Midwestern Motor City flavor Flanagan and his many peers brought into the mainstream jazz of the day and beyond. One yearns for alternate takes of this session. The Cats is a prelude to much more music from all of these masters that would come within a very short time period thereafter, and cannot come more highly recommended. It's a must-buy for the ages.

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1. West Meets East: The Historic Shankar/Menuhin Sessions collects the best from Ravi Shankar andYehudi Menuhin's three West Meets East albums (originally released in 1967, 1968, and 1976). This compilation features "Prabhati" and "Swara-Kakali" from the first album, "Raga Piloo" and "Dhun" from the second, and "Tenderness" and "Twilight Mood" from the third. All of the tracks feature the hypnotic interplay of Menuhin's violin and Shankar's sitar that made the individual albums critically and commercially popular when they were first released.

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By Russell Diederich
 Format:Audio CD

Bring together jazz drummer Ginger Baker, bassist Charlie Haden, and guitarist Bill Frisell you better be prepared for a lot of good music. Don't be scared that this album is all free jazz because Charlie Haden is in the lineup. For the most part the music is understandable and not too difficult to follow. They do cover Ornette Coleman's "Ramblin'" which ventures more into the free jazz venue. Never does it feel like that everyone is playing a different song at the same time. The work by all three artists is outstanding. Frisell really stands out with his simple, yet expression filled playing (for some crazy reason, I think of his guitar sound as Hawaiian). Baker's rhythm is amazing. He's on the local radio station with some frequency, and listening to him talk you would think he'd have trouble finding the door of his home, little alone a rhythm. Haden is nothing less then Haden. This band sounds tight for the ten tracks of the album. Everyone seems to know where the other is going, and they complement each other very well. "East Timor" is probably the hardest hitting song on the album. It starts with Baker ranting about a secret war that occurred on this island, then is followed by some very serious playing (and a different sound from Frisell). Not being a free jazz fan, I have trouble with "Ramblin'" and Haden's "In the Moment". Frisell's two songs "Rambler" and "When We Go" are light and elegant, the latter with the slight twang of country. They do a great cover of Thelonious Monk's "Straight No Chaser". Baker pens three of his own songs here as well. Overall, I feel that this is a pretty good album. These three musicians are great at what they do. If you like jazz, especially with a touch of the free jazz, you'll be impressed with this piece.

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Focus had well proven their ability to write rocking instrumentals by the time of this release. Their catalog, although consisting of four albums, rarely had a dull moment between them. Hamburger Concerto is equally consistent, much of it being prime Focus material. The Akkerman-written "Birth" and "Early Birth" are examples of Focus fully flexing their muscles, featuring superb guitar work and amazing all-round musicianship, as well as sporting some superb riffs. The usual lengthy instrumentals are present also, as well as some manic vocals from the manic but genius Thijs Van Leer. AlthoughHamburger Concerto is not as unerring as Moving Waves or Focus III, anyone who enjoyed the previous releases would undoubtedly find great satisfaction from this album.

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The album that boosted Focus into at least semi-fame outside of continental Europe, Moving Wavesblasts off with their hit single, "Hocus Pocus." Built around a killer guitar hook by Jan Akkerman and a series of solo turns by the band, this instrumental replaced "Wipeout" as a staple of FM radio. The bizarrely hilarious vocal and accordion solos by Thijs van Leer -- one of which absurdly concludes with rousing stadium cheers -- have to be heard to be believed. After this over-the-top performance, the other tracks seem comparatively constrained: the gentle "Le Clochard" features some gorgeous classical guitar over Mellotron strings. The album concludes with "Eruption," which while mimicking the multi-suite nomenclature of Yes and King Crimson, is essentially a side-long jam session. Stop-time Emersonianorgan solos alternate with languid sections of jazzy guitar redolent of Santana, while still other sections are flat-out electric blues-rock stomps. It's impressive playing, though it comes off as a bit meandering after the tightly structured solos that began the album

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Grizzly Bear's debut offers up a lysergic brand of minimalist psychedelic folk perfect for those who findElliott Smith's early work a bit too accessible and upbeat. Largely the home recording project of singer/songwriter Ed Droste, Horn of Plenty was eventually augmented by multi-instrumentalistChristopher Bear. To these ends, the album features a mostly melancholy mix of acoustic guitars, reeds, retro organs, and samples, all drenched in enough acid-washed effects to give Devendra Banhartflashbacks. Droste's weary, somnambulistic vocals work well with the slackadaisical melodies to create an unsettling atmospheric sound full of shimmering shadows. Songs like the opening "Deep Sea Diver" and the mesmerizing "Shift" crawl along at an almost funereal pace, the latter featuring what sounds like a scratchy Gramophone recording of a piano augmented only by echoing whistles, clapping, trippy found sounds, and weirdly hypnotic multi-tracked vocals. As a whole, the album produces a murky sound that unfolds like a narcotic dream you can't quite shake upon waking. This is the kind of album you'll want to listen to late at night, perhaps a few sheets to the wind, with the lights off and headphones on to allow these creepy, quiet little tunes to worm their way into your subconscious

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