Slipped Discs - July 2009
Discs You May Have Missed
by John Noyd
Eyedea and the Abilities - photo by Darien Chin
Initial Thoughts
As America celebrates 233 years of a more perfect union, Slipped celebrates bands united by the all-powerful and. What is music if not the joining of one together? Summer hosts smashing musical hook-ups from Minnesota’s graphic mix-masters EYEDEA AND ABILITIES, the hickory-flavored posse of GREG KOONS AND THE MISBEGOTTEN plus heavy metalists MAYLENE AND THE SONS OF DISASTERS. Once and for all it’s all for one and one for all.
Disc Reviews
Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros - Up From Below
Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros
Album title: Up From Below
Record Label: Community Music/Fairfax Recordings
IMA ROBOT’s Alex Ebert’s alter-ego gathered dozens of friends to help form a perfect storm of high brow hoedowns where solemn bursts into sunny and grand-standing kinderpop whose momentum turns monumental. A massive hippie happening, “Up,” offers effervescent testaments and smarmy camaraderie bundled together in a traveling rock-minstrel circus.
(3088) Page Views
Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros online:
• Website
• Purchase Up From Below on Amazon
Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey - hERE and nOW
Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey
Album title: hERE and nOW
Record Label: Bar/None
Eighteen years since their debut and decades since they co-founded indie-icons THE DB’S, H & S gently jangle hearts and minds, churning chiming Everly Bros. shindigs laced with Marsalis sax. Wholesome and upbeat, the duo’s lifetime hindsight serves up soaring choruses and sighing sentiment, fortified memories seasoned with sympathetic regret.
(3102) Page Views
Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey online:
• Website
• Download hERE and nOW from Amazon
• Purchase hERE and nOW on Amazon
Hoots And Hellmouth - The Holy Open Secret
Hoots And Hellmouth
Album title: The Holy Open Secret
Record Label: Mad Dragon Records
Delivering rollicking honky-tonk, twisted mountain music jive and sweetly impassioned ballads, Hoots’ tight, bluegrass flashes and funky country-gospel revivalism weave traditional pickin’ through omnipresent social issues to produce relevant, toe-tapping Americana. “Holy,” rolls foot stompin’ razzamatazz around ironclad narratives shouting out injustices, suspended by suspicions and slathered in talented fretwork.
(3106) Page Views
Hoots And Hellmouth
online:
• Website
• Download The Holy Open Secret from Amazon
• Purchase The Holy Open Secret on Amazon
Fritz Helder And The Phantoms - Greatest Hits: Platinum Edition
Fritz Helder And The Phantoms
Album title: Greatest Hits: Platinum Edition
Record Label: Last Gang Records
Pimping PRINCE, PARLIMENT and PET SHOP BOYS, Fritz’s self-effacing Phantoms’s Euro-tooled glitteraria produces superior haute couture. Ripping shiny robo-disco, “Hits,” parties into mirror-ball mania par excellence, groovin’ to DJ voyeurism, synthetic sexuality complete with answering machine interludes; Fritz’s rapid-fire fun works the runway insidiously replicating a club-crazy night out.
(4119) Page Views
Fritz Helder And The Phantoms online:
• Website
• Download Greatest Hits: Platinum Edition from Amazon
• Purchase Greatest Hits: Platinum Edition on Amazon
Elizabeth And The Catapult - Taller Children
Elizabeth And The Catapult
Album title: Taller Children
Record Label: Verve Forecast
Anchored by cozy vocalist-songwriter Elizabeth Ziman, EATC navigates breezy jazz, ska and country hybrids - gliding past a catalogue of lilting pop concoctions. Snappy, savvy craft turns the beautifully boppy, “Taller,” into smart, sharp ear-candy coated in sultry cynicism, balancing edgy and amiable admirably; its kittenish bitterness sophisticated, charming and buoyant.
(3356) Page Views
Elizabeth And The Catapult online:
• Website
• Download Taller Children from Amazon
• Purchase Taller Children on Amazon
Builders And The Butchers - Salvation is a Deep Dark Well
Builders And The Butchers
Album title: Salvation is a Deep Dark Well
Record Label: Gigantic Music
Seductively sinister, TBAB’s hangman’s requiems creep and crawl then pounce and preach for exhilarating alt-folk accusations. Sawing fiddles, flaming brass accents and brittle banjos expose twisted desert confessions of demonic dirges and eloquent exorcisms as, “Salvation,” indicts, smites and incites through ruthless acoustics and menacing melodies.
(3103) Page Views
The Builders And The Butchers online:
• Website
• Download Salvation is a Deep Dark Well from Amazon
• Purchase Salvation is a Deep Dark Well on Amazon
Final Thoughts
From bands united by ampersands to discs that stand apart from the crowd. JON BALKE’s moody and majestic, “Siwan,” projects haunting Moroccan holograms serenely feeding galactic jazz symphonies. Long hairs get a buzz cut in PORTLAND CELLO PROJECT’s, “The Thao and Justin Powers Sessions,” where strings cascade, tango and fume. In TRIBECASTAN’s “Strange Cousins,” wood, metal, bone, shells and skin come alive, inspiring enthno-exercises which conga down and gypsy up.