Alison Wedding, This Dance

Alison Wedding is a rather remarkable singer-songwriter with a strong jazz inflection. Her new one, This Dance (Ground Up 2012), puts her in a select league of great voices who write musically rich, very personal songs.

Michael League of Snarky Puppy produced and arranged the date and that worked out very well--especially for the full-fledged arrangements that retain the soul and drive of Alison's music but also give the songs a pleasing tapestry of sound colors.

This is a theme album, centering around love lost, heartbreak, disconnect. It is movingly direct in that sense, yet very melodically and harmonically alive, advanced, memorable.

Alison's voice is bell clear, warm and spot on, yet also has something very identifiable about it.

Alison has all the talent for success. I hope she achieves it! This album is a high note on the way to what I hope is a long and fruitful career.

Bruce Kaphan Quartet

Something a little different today: a CD from pedal steel guitarist Bruce Kaphan and his quartet. The album is self-titled (Wiggling Air Records 40060).

Bruce was initially captivated with the San Francisco proto-jamband style he heard growing up, has done countless sessions, and returns for a second album effort that shows him off nicely in a rock-jazz fuzoid jamband-ish setting. The quartet has good players but it's especially Bruce's time to shine, and he does so with a mix of originals, plus interesting versions of "Birdland", the Weather Report number, and "Jessica", the Allman Brothers perennial.

Here's a good player showing the versatility and beauty of the pedal steel. Hey, sounds good.

Brian Wilson, Songwriter 1969-1982, DVD

Brian Wilson is a complex character. He is not easily pigeonholed. Beach Boy leader, writer and producer of go-go teenage surf, sun, car and angst songs, art song composer-arranger of Pet Sounds and Smile, troubled soul...Brian Wilson: Songwriter 1969-82 (Sexy Intellectual SIDVD 574) documents the volatile period in Brian's career when after abandoning the album Smile uncompleted, Brian has a breakdown of sorts and draws within himself, then makes a series of comebacks and recording ventures with mixed success.

There are various forces at work, as the documentary shows rather clearly. Mike Love and the record label want more happy, breezy, early style hits and/or the endless re-presentation of past successes, the WIlson brothers are generally for broadening horizons and new creativity, and Brian himself bounces between the need to continue to innovate as an artist, total withdrawal and resigned moments where he reverts to old Beach Boy ways.

It's not an especially happy story in those years. He creates a few classic tracks that perhaps make up for it all but generally this is not his finest hour.

Nonetheless the documentary does a decent job juggling the various influences on his life and looks at his erratic output with critical honesty.

Recommended for all Brian Wilson fans.

Sound Liberation, "Need" and "Breath" from the Album "Days"

When a composer gets into R&B/Rock/Pop you expect something interesting. And with Gene Pritsker's Sound Liberation you get it. The singles "Need" and "Breath" from the upcoming album Days (Composer's Concordance) give you something of substance. Chanda Rule has a very appealing and original voice and she is out front on both songs. The songs in turn have nice twists and turns you'd expect from Gene. And the arrangements have grit and musicality, with some especially good cello writing.

So what else to say except this is nice music that you should give a listen to. I wish Sound Liberation all success on this one!

Alan Silva, Keiko Higuchi, Sabu Toyozumi, Takuo Tanikawa, "Crimson Lip"

I posted on this album last March 15th in relation to the snippets that were available as a free download. All I said there is true of the full version (Improvising Beings ib08) which the label was kind enough to send my way.

Keiko Higuchi convinces and plays an important role as freewheeling vocalist. Alan sounds great on bass and adds plenty of texture and ambiance with the synths. Takuo's guitar and Sabu's drums fill out the ensemble in key ways.

This excels as ensemble freedom--it's the sum of all parts that come together at any given moment. And that sum is an original mix of electric and acoustic, iconic and iconoclastic, exploratory and directionally driven.

The full version maps out its own free musical territory and it does it consistently and with originality.

It gets better with every listen, too. That is a sign of what this is--deep, worthwhile music!

Many Arms, Exemplary Thrash Metal on Tzadik

Guitarist Nick Millevoi, electric bassist John DeBlase, and drummer Ricardo Lagomasino comprise the super-power trio Many Arms. Their self-titled, latest release came out on Tzadik this past spring and it really jumps out at you!

Much of the music involves breakneck, asymmetically endless rifflines that fracture, circle back, fracture again and go on from there in a remarkably driving, heavy way. It's high energy non-stop virtuoso thrash that will certainly get your attention.

The middle cut, "In Dealing with the Laws of Physics on Planet Earth" breaks the mood with a series of sustained, slow melodic arpeggios on guitar that the whole band eventually takes up. It's a haunting piece.

All-in-all this is scorching and substantial power trio art. Anyone with voltometer ears must hear this! Then track down the earlier ones if you flip on this one.

Bob Dylan and the Band, Down in the Flood, DVD

The story of the intersection of the Band and Bob Dylan is an interesting one. It is told in some detail on the documentary DVD Down in the Flood (Sexy Intellectual 571).

It all more or less starts with semi-obscure rockabilly artist Ronnie Hawkins and his migration to Canada for a long series of gigs. His backup band, the Hawks, includes drummer Levon Helm and, eventually, is replenished with the Canadian musicians who were to be known as the Band. Meanwhile Bob Dylan makes a decision to go electric and eventually hires the Band (sans Helm) for a grueling European-Australian tour that was exhausting and not always well-received (there were those who thought his electrification was a sellout).

The DVD covers all that with good documentary footage, interviews, etc., and then goes on to tell of the important aftermath, where Dylan and the Band settle in Woodstock, the Band install themselves in the "Big Pink" basement studio and go on to do an experimental series of roots-and-beyond music tapes with Dylan and, eventually, to begin working on their own music.

There is a kind of cultural break that occurs with Dylan as it did with the Dead after Altamont--and others as well. There is a reaction, a satiation with throbbing rock electricity, with the excesses of psychedelic-Dionysian communal ecstasy and a look backwards to more acoustic fundamentals and down-to-earth whole-grain-brain alternatives. The DVD covers that break for Dylan and the Band, as well as the creative aftermath.

In a DVD that runs nearly two hours we go away with a nice encapsulation of the scene as Dylan and the Band experienced and shaped it. It's an important piece of rock music history. They do a good job with it. A must for Dylan/Band fans. Interesting even if you are not that.