L.A. WeeklyGREG BURK’S EMOTIONAL 10
Tomata du Plenty’s interment (10/8) and wake (11/5). Love.
Charles Lloyd at the Knitting Factory (10/2) and The Water Is Wide (ECM). Peace.
Brad Mehldau, Places (Warner Bros.) and at Homeless Health Care Benefit (6/11). Meditation.
Listen to :
Real Audio Format “Heaven” – Charles Lloyd “Airport Sadness” – Brad Meldhau “Foundation #1” – William Parker Trio “Oceans Once Deserts” – Cline/Gauthier/Stinson “Big Time” – Medeski, Martin & Wood “Screwdriver” – The Bell Rays
William Parker Trio, Painter’s Spring and Matthew Shipp Quartet, Pastoral Composure (Thirsty Ear). Welcome.
Alex Cline, Jeff Gauthier, G.E. Stinson, The Other Shore (Cryptogrammophone). Aspiration.
Carla Bozulich’s Fake Party at Schindler House (8/27). Inspiration.
Medeski Martin and Wood, The Dropper (Blue Note). Elevation.
Halford, Resurrection (Metal Is). Resurrection.
The BellRays, Grand Fury (Vital Gesture/ Upper Cut). Fury.
Zakk Wylde plays “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Dodger Stadium (5/30). Complication.
CARLOS NIÑO’S 10 TO ZEN
1. Wild Flowers: The Hour of the Season, February 19. Lives were changed when Joseph Jarman (woodwinds and movement), Adam Rudolph (hand drums and percussion) and Oguri (butoh) made a true association for the advancement of creative beings.
2. Adam Rudolph’s Moving Pictures, September 29. Hamid Drake took the trap kit, bata and def to the outerspheres. Wow. Ralph Jones (woodwinds), Rudolph (percussion and composition) and Oguri (butoh) made their ascent from the floor of the Electric Lodge in Venice to the skies of mind and spirit.
3. The Unavailable. When they get around to releasing ’em, seek out Tortoise’s Standards (Thrill Jockey), Sonic Sum’s Human’s Here EP (Ozone Music), Tri Pinnacle’s Diagnol Ryme Garganchula EP (Anti Pop), Saul Williams’ Amethyst Rock Star (American), Yesterday’s New Quintet, (no title yet) (Stones Throw).
4. Los Angeles producers. Daedelus is flyin’ high. Damn. (See daedelus@dublab.com.) Dntel has new music forthcoming on Plug Research — electro, acoustical love musics. Adlib is only 22 and he’s already made five records. The Global Phlowtations spearhead is freakin’ the chop something wonderful. Sach has me lookin’ out for more than just mixtapes. John Tejada’s latest, The Matrix of Us (De:Focus), is amazing. Is that really techno? — Languis’ Unithematic (www.simballrec.com); Nobody is the best unsung DJ in L.A.
5. Divine Styler. The lyrical bizarre ain’t back; he’s been here from the beginning, and now you can buy what you slept on two years ago, Word Power 2: Directrix (Mo Wax/Beggars Banquet).
6. Mike Ladd, Welcome to the Afterfuture (Ozone Music).
7. Mice Parade, Collaborations (Bubble Core).
8. Nobukazu Takemura, Sign (Thrill Jockey).
9. Plaid, Trainer (Warp).
10. Yusef Lateef & Adam Rudolph, Beyond the Sky (YAL/Meta).
DAN EPSTEIN’S LIFE-AFFIRMING 13
1. The Delta 72, 000 (Touch & Go). Humble Pie jams with the Stooges at James Brown’s backyard barbecue.
2. Queens of the Stone Age, Rated R (Interscope). High-quality hard rock for folks who don’t wear big shorts or backward baseball caps.
3. James Brown, etc., Funky People, Part 3 (Polydor). Another jaw-dropping compilation of rare grooves from the Godfather’s funkiest period.
4. Blue States, Nothing Changes Under the Sun (Eighteenth Street Lounge). Greco-British DJ Andy Dragazis out-Airs Air; an amazing debut album.
5. Smokey Robinson’s radio show on WCMG-FM 92.3, Monday–Thursday, 8–10 p.m. Four nights a week, soul music’s poet laureate dishes out romantic advice and Motown trivia in a voice that’ll melt your blood into butter cream.
6. David Holmes, Bow Down to the Exit Sign (1500). Memo to Moby: Bow down to David Holmes!
7. Rhapsodies in Black: Music and Words From the Harlem Renaissance (Rhino). A magical four-CD time machine that revisits the East Coast roots of hip-hop and rock & roll.
8. High Llamas, Buzzle Bee (Drag City). Bye-bye Beach Boys, buon giorno Roma!
9. The BellRays, Grand Fury (Vital Gesture/Upper Cut). The flaming middle finger on the front cover says it all.
10. Brian Wilson live at Hollywood Bowl, September 25. Last time I cried at a concert was Kiss in ’96, and for much different reasons.
11. The (International) Noise Conspiracy, Survival Sickness (Burning Heart/Epitaph). Socialist mods from Sweden meet Question Mark & the Mysterians. Yes!
12. Robert Belfour, What’s Wrong With You (Fat Possum/Epitaph). Impossibly deep acoustic blues from another remarkable Fat Possum discovery.
13. The Jupiter Affect, Instructions for the Two Ways of Becoming Alice (Eggbert). Sure, I played on this and co-wrote two of the songs. But the still-potent combination of Michael Quercio and Earle Mankey should be reason enough for you fuckers to buy a copy . . .
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DERRICK MATHIS’ DEN OF 10
1. Bare Essentials, Volume One (Naked Music)
2. David Alvarado, Soundscapes Live From London (Phatt Phunk)
3. Glenn Underground, Lounge Excursions (Guidance)
4. Ian Pooley, Since Then (V2)
5. Bob Sinclar, “Champs Elysées” (Yellow)
6. Masters at Work, The Album (Cutting Records)
7. Dzihan & Kamien, Freaks & Icons (Six Degrees)
8. Marques Wyatt, Sound Design Vol. 1 (Om)
9. Dimitri From Paris, A Night at the Playboy Mansion (Astralwerks)
10. Various Artists, Live @ Melodic: Three-Year Anniversary (mixtape of Melodic’s annual party).
ERIK HIMMELSBACH’S 10 FROM THE PEN
1. Kirsty MacColl, Tropical Brainstorm (V2 import). On what turned out to be her final recording, Britain’s most delightfully biting songstress added some Cuban and Brazilian to her sweet-’n’-sour pop. She will be missed.
2. Beachwood Sparks, Beachwood Sparks (Sub Pop). Cosmic American music lives! Roll a number and kick yer feet up.
3. Rubén González, Chanchullo (Nonesuch). The Buena Vista Social Club is Cuba’s Wu Tang Clan. Only their solo records are a lot better. This time out, pianist González does the cha-cha-cha.
4. Supergrass, Supergrass (Island). The cheeky young’uns of Britpop grow up, but, thankfully, only a little.
5. Eels, Daisies of the Galaxy (DreamWorks). E looks on the bright side, kinda, sorta.
6. Neil Young, Silver & Gold (Reprise). With an acoustic guitar and harp around his neck, Grandpa Neil is like a familiar old shoe, never failing to comfort.
7. Jurassic 5, Quality Control (Interscope). Old-school is in session.
8. Bebel Gilberto, Tanto Tempo (Ziriguiboom/Six Degrees). Joao’s daughter’s debut is a smooth bossa nova cocktail.
9. The Sea and Cake, Oui (Thrill Jockey). Running naked through a forest, in slow motion, with a big smile on your face.
10. Victoria Williams, Water To Drink (Atlantic). Vic gets all warm and fuzzy as a torchy chanteuse.
GLEN HIRSHBERG’S BEST OF 2000
Pop:
Richard Buckner, The Hill (Overcoat/Convent). Misery loves company. Even fictional company.
Eels, Daisies of the Galaxy (DreamWorks). Turns out misery also loves dancing. And not being miserable. And birds.
Billy Bragg & Wilco, Mermaid Avenue Vol. II (Elektra). Reverse alchemy redux — the half-songs turn the students into songwriters.
OutKast, Stankonia (Arista). Only 2000 album enjoyed equally by me, my wife and my 18-month-old.
Laika, Good Looking Blues (Too Pure). Last time, they made electronica poetic. This time, they make it funny. Also poetic.
Marah, Kids in Philly (Artemis). Last rock band out, please lock the door . . .
Stew, Guest Host (The Telegraph Company). Paul Simon’s odes to New York were more affectionate. But then, they were about New York.
Not-Pop:
Cale/Conrad/MacLise/Young/Zazeela, Inside the Dream Syndicate Volume 1: Day of Niagara (1965) (Table of the Elements). Hard to listen to, harder to ignore. Minimalism — that is, music stripped of everything but music.
Ned Rothenberg, Ghost Stories (Tzadik). A slow stroll down a snow-dream, with shakuhachi.
The Caretaker, Selected Memories From the Haunted Ballroom (Offal). A memory carousel on Atlantis, continuing to spin and sing as it sinks . . .
Clint Mansell, Requiem for a Dream original soundtrack (Nonesuch). The movie is the cinematic equivalent of being addicted. The music is a grueling, gorgeous prayer for release.
Live:
Sleater-Kinney at El Rey. Still rock & roll fun, even if the songs aren’t.
Robert Earl Keen (and fans) at the Roxy. Rocky Horror à la Texas, plus song-stories with payoffs and the best Lone Star band since Buddy Holly’s.
Wire at El Rey. Scarier than your dad.
Eels at the Roxy. Carnival with tinfoil turbans and trombones.
Richard Shindell at McCabe’s. So that yuppies-in-traffic song is meant to be funny. Color me relieved.
Chameleons at the Troubadour. Welcome back.
LAS MEJORES DIEZ FAVORITAS DE JOSH KUN
1. Julieta Venegas, “Sería Feliz” CD-single (BMG Latin). The best micro-capsule of new-school Tijuana artistry. Venegas’ smoky electro tango (from her Bueninvento) in two remix alter egos: Madrid composer Nacho Mastretta’s cabaret valentine and Nor-Tec knob-tweaker Bostich’s banda breakbeat cooldown.
2. N’Sync at the MTV Video Music Awards. The hardest-working girl-boys in popville literally dancing with themselves on television. (Runners-up: Britney’s VMA strip, Christina getting in touch with her Ecuadorian roots at the Latin Grammys, Backstreet Boy Howie’s new hair.)
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3. OutKast, “B.O.B.” (Arista). What OutKast does best — smarter-than-thou Ponch-and-Jon dialectics, Atlanta speed-drawling, hard and hot digi-grind funk stink — boiled down to a few minutes and a gospel choir. Cash Money without the guilt.
4. Shelby Lynne, I Am Shelby Lynne (Island). Wherein an alt-country singer wakes up a chiseled and gutsy Northern soul siren and reincarnates Dusty Springfield (especially Memphis Dusty) just when she had the nerve to leave us.
5. Various Artists, La Tejedora de Nubes (Nimboestatic). The latest Ricky Who? artist showoff sampler from Tijuana’s Nimboestatic label. All the Baja boom stalwarts are here — Nona Delichas, Fussible, Irradia, Via Aerea — but it’s the overall onda that gets you. Lush, elegant, electronic clouds stitched together by Ejival’s invisible hand.
6. Travis, “Baby One More Time” (Sony). Besides the pleasure of hearing U.K. gloom having an honest laugh, you get to hear just how good the Britney song really is.
7. Sammy Davis Jr. and Jane and Burt Boyar, Sammy: An Autobiography (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The one-stop Sammy bible is finally here: Yes I Can and Why Me? cobbled together into a black-and-Jewish, cocktails-and-Kennedys version of The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.
8. Nelly, Country Grammar (Universal). Repulsion/desire album of the year. Not since R. Kelly sang “You remind me of my jeep” have I loved something I shouldn’t with such vigor.
9. Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker (Bloodshot). A thing of beauty, if beauty gets drunk, gets angry, sings with Emmylou Harris, steals your records, pays tribute to Morrissey, repents, then does it all over again.
10. Amores Perros (Lions Gate). A generation-defining film with a generation-defining soundtrack: Mexico City’s Rebel Without a Cause/Saturday Night Fever/Boyz N the Hood/Kids for avant-minded rockeros and their disgruntled parents.
OLIVER WANG’S HIGHS N LOWS IN THE 2-0
1. Aimee Mann, Bachelor No. 2 (Super Ego). Mann’s full-length revamping of her former EP was the only album that made it from start to finish without me reaching for the FF button. Plus, homegirl earns bonus points for sampling the drum break from the Afro-Lafayette Band’s “Hihache” on “Red Vines.”
2. Quasimoto, The Unseen (Stones Throw). Seriously hashed-out hip-hop by Oxnard’s Madlib.
3. Ghostface Killah, Supreme Clientele (Epic). His ciphers are deeper than Navajo code, but his sinful soulistics proved salvation for a Wu empire on the brink of irrelevance.
Other highs:
1. D’Angelo in concert. The whole shirt-ripping bit is hokey, but his groove moves so deep that once my ass left the seat, it never touched back down.
2. Nelly’s “Country Grammar” (Universal). Let him in naw.
3. The courtyard clash between Michelle Yeoh vs. Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Like the illest b-boy/MC/DJ battle you ever saw, only with swords.
High & low:
Last year: discovering eBay. This year: mixing Napster and DSL. Even more excuses not to leave bed.
2000 lows:
1. The Eminem love fest. I pray for the day that angry young white men go out of style.
2. The “Funk Blast” interactive ride at the Experience Music Project in Seattle. Gives you that nasty feeling, just not the good kind.
3. (For all my Marxist dogs) The rap industry. Where the lumpenproletariat are the bourgeoisie.
JONNY WHITESIDE’S TOP 10 O’ 2000
1. Merle Haggard, If I Could Only Fly (Anti). Hag’s best since 1979’s Serving 190 Proof makes it quite clear that no one is likely to top him — ever.
2. Tiny Tim, Live! At Royal Albert Hall (Rhino Handmade). Mind-blowing. Sheer genius.
3. Knoxville Girls, In the Woodshed (In The Red). This live set oozes Manhattan rock slop at its most sophisticated. Can’t explain how they pull it off, but these Girls manage very nicely.
4. Keith Whitley, Sad Songs & Waltzes (Rounder). The late boozehound Whitley may have led an ugly, besotted life, but damn could he ever sing.
5. The Treniers, Best of the Treniers (Treniers.com). A lovingly assembled collection of rarities and live performances from the reigning champions of jump R&B.
6. Jimmie Maddin, L.A. History Book (Neighborhood). Classic 1950s R&B/rock & roll played by a mess of hardcore bebop cats. Krazy.
7. George Jones at Cerritos Center. Despite tearing up his liver in that DUI wreck, the 68-year-old Jones roared through an impeccable set that had the mostly senior attendees alternately rocking and weeping. Masterly.
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8. Hank Williams, Alone With His Guitar (Mercury). It’s positively startling to hear an almost all-new set from Hank Sr., and he does not disappoint.
9. Red Simpson at Viva Fresh. The Bard of Bakersfield’s first visit to Los Angeles in almost 10 years proved (again) that he is both one of California’s best songwriters and one of its most extremely stylized guitarists.
10. Hank Penny, Crazy Rhythm: The Standard Transcriptions (Bloodshot). Jazz-bent Alabaman Penny always used a wry and discerning approach, as this set of old faves and off-the-beaten-track cover tunes makes delightfully clear.
ALAN RICH’S 2000 DIVIDED BY 12
Most predictable surprise announcement: Scheduled guest conductor Franz Welser Möst’s annual cancellation of his Philharmonic gig. If he can’t take Los Angeles in December, how’ll he survive Cleveland?
Least predictable surprise announcement: Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron on next season’s L.A. Opera schedule — only a concert perform ance, but you gotta start somewhere.
Happiest disappearance: David Helfgott; ’nuff said.
Happiest first appearance: English tenor Ian Bostridge, in oratorio, chamber music and art song, with the Philharmonic and in Costa Mesa’s lively, adventurous Eclectic Orange Festival.
Favorite color, by the way: (Eclectic) orange.
Most undeserving victim of another color: The Philharmonic’s enterprising Green Umbrella series, cut back from seven to five and moved from Little Tokyo to the new Zipper auditorium, too far removed from all the great sushi, shabu-shabu and soba.
Best new space, otherwise: The Colburn School’s Zipper Concert Hall, the right size for chamber music, acoustically many steps up from the Japan America Theater, but physically many steps up from its designated parking lot a block downhill.
Most convincing proof of the continued value of the recording industry: Olivier Messiaen’s only opera, the powerful St. Francis of Assisi, led (on Deutsche Grammophon) by Kent Nagano, the world’s next great conductor, with José van Dam in the title role he created and now owns.
Continued bravery beyond the call: Michael Milenski’s Long Beach Opera, out to prove that opera and brains can coexist, with a season that offered imaginative mountings of works almost four centuries apart.
Best bang for the buck: The free Sunday-at-6-p.m. concerts at the County Museum, with veteran and upcoming performers in interesting programming.
Worst bang for the buck: The L.A. Opera’s drab revival of the fine Herb Ross production of La Bohème, with nary a tear shed onstage or out front, and priced at a $148 top.
Even sadder bang: On Decca/Philips, a new recording of La Bohème, with Andrea Bocelli as Rodolfo, which could pass for parody if it weren’t so flagrantly misguided. Zubin (“Take the Money and Run”) Mehta conducts.
BRENDAN MULLEN’S TOP TO BOTTOM 7
1. All good hip-hop things: Great shows with the cream of local and visiting undaground DJs and MCs — Root Down, Firecracker, WORDS, Malathion, 33 1/3 and at Fais Do-Do. Bravo, ye soldiers of Vinyl Preservationism. Cool records with a few great tracks — Quasimoto’s The Unseen (Stones Throw), Nobody’s Soulmates (Ubiquity), The Unbound Project Volume 1 (Ground Control), Slum Village, Ugly Duckling, Blood of Abraham (unreleased).
2. Biggest “alternative” teen-market jerk-off: Feeble Rage/NIN-derived “nu-metal” outfits on major labels with butt-ugly creepz in their late 20s/early 30s singing about midteen alienation all dolled-up in goatees, piercings, designer tats and fake braids while their goofy little SoCal punk-pop brothers sing zany ditties in fake English accents about porno and farting.
3. Biggest mainstream PR/mass-marketing bullshit: Madonna wears a rhinestone-cowgrrrl Nashville Pussy hat, the same style bartending stripper gals have worn for years, and is instantly “reinvented” one more time (as what is unclear), while Bono’s wearing of wraparound shades after dark “reinvents” the namby-pamby “spiritual” folk-pop lite of U2.
4. Biggest relief: Billy Corgan finally throws in the S.P. towel. Adding even more layered Mellotrons to variations of the same bad Nirvana songs and re-hiring Jimmy Chamberlin did nothing.
5. Biggest embarrassment: After cynically decrying the proliferation of retro Rocky Horror–era–themed rock clubs for 714/818 weekend dragsters, I get caught red-handed at one myself. I tried not to watch former Runaways Cherie Currie and Sandy West doing a spot at Cherry’s sixth anniversary, but it was too late. I’m riveted, I’m caught, suctioned into guilty nostalgia. They rocked and looked great backed by Jackie Beat’s regular guys doubling as the Make Up house band.
6. Silliest professional whoring DJ experience: Being asked to change what I’m doing to “you know, like ’80s music” as I jam on my big crowd-pandering megamix medley of Prince/Paisley Park classics while the dance floor is bumpin’ full on at a private house party in Bel Air.
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7. Dumbest new fashion: Shoegazers in Isros?
JAY BABCOCK’S LUCKIEST DOZEN
12. Ol’ Dirty Bastard Saga: In just the last two months, ODB did a runner from Impact House’s Pasadena branch, evaded the police to perform onstage in New York with the Wu, and was arrested in a McDonald’s parking lot in South Philadelphia after offering cops his autograph. More rock & roll than Jerry Lee Lewis ever was.
11. Comedy Value Meal: Neil Hamburger, bringing his incompetent-comedian shtick to new lows live somewhere in Echo Park.
10. Chops, mind and soul: King Crimson at the House of Blues; Diamanda Galás at the Knitting Factory; Femi Kuti and Positive Force at the Hollywood Bowl; Royal Trux’s Pound for Pound (Drag City).
9. Back at the Electro College: Pole’s 3 (Matador), Amon Tobin’s Supermodified (Ninja Tune) and kid606’s 2000 output.
8. “You Give Stoner Rock a Good Name”: High on Fire’s massive The Art of Self-Defense (Man’s Ruin). Bow down to the Green Cheer.
7. The Future, Now: Deltron 3030 (75 Ark); Radiohead’s Kid A (Capitol/EMI); Primal Scream’s scabrous XTRMNTR (Astralwerks); Jeff Noon’s novel Needle in the Groove; Lolita Storm’s G-F-S-U (DHR/Fatal); Slipper’s Invisible Movies (Rephlex).
6. Certificate for Lovely Craftsmanship: Damon & Naomi With Ghost (Sub Pop); The Sugarplastic’s Resin; The Delgados’ The Great Eastern (Beggars Banquet); Super Furry Animals’ Mwng (Flydaddy); J Mascis + the Fog’s More Light (Artemis); Flaming Lips’ astounding perforated-heart Palace performance; The Wondermints and Van Dyke Parks assisting Brian Wilson in bringing us heaven on Earth at the Hollywood Bowl.
5. Singer-Songwriter Dept.: Richard Ashcroft’s underrated Alone With Everybody (Virgin), D’Angelo’s magnificent Voodoo (Virgin) and Neil Young’s fireside Silver & Gold (Reprise).
4. Keep It Simple: AC/DC’s Stiff Upper Lip (EastWest America) and The White Stripes’ De Stijl (Sympathy for the Record Industry).
3. Ghostface Killah: His Supreme Clientele (Razor Sharp) may just be the best Wu-Tang Clan solo album ever; his weep-raps on the Wu’s The W (Loud) cemented his standing as the group’s heartbreaker.
2. Sigur Ros: In a category of their own making. Ten-minute dream epics with bowed guitar and othersexed lead vocals. From Iceland, not chilly at all.
1. OutKast gave us the year’s best album (Stankonia), best radio single (“Ms. Jackson”), and best 240 televised seconds (“Bombs Over Baghdad” performed live on the Letterman show with full Parliament getup, choir, dancers and live guitars — stanky!).
FALLING JAMES’ TOP 10 TECTONIC SHIFTS
1. A surprising breakup by Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948. They really coulda been contenders, and now there’s almost no proof they existed. The year’s biggest musical tragedy.
2. Manu Chao & Radio Bemba Sound System at the Palace. All hail the king of bongo.
3. Ex-Girl, Kero! Kero! Kero! (Parandiz). Kicky, kooky, froggy.
4. OutKast’s “B.O.B.” video. A fantastic psychedelic montage, faster than dreaming.
5. Alejandro Escovedo, Bourbonitis Blues (Bloodshot). Highlights: the manic violin feints of “Sacramento & Polk” and a languorous disemboweling of Gun Club’s “Sex Beat.”
6. Wire, The Third Day (www.pinkflag.com). New chunka-chunka directions. A rehearsal CD sold at their El Rey show.
7. The Hangmen, Metallic I.O.U. (Acetate). Bryan Small’s rock & roll redemption.
8. The White Stripes, De Stijl (Sympathy for the Record Industry). Detroit’s new chairman (and -woman) of the bored.
9. RF7, God Forbid (Smoke 7). Awesome return by long-lost O.G. suburban-punk legends.
10. Ferdinand, Demoted to Greeter (Rubber Band Ball). Artful, buoyant pop metaphors.
Cynics who say things like “The scene ain’t as exciting as it used to be back in 1977/1965/1929” weren’t often visible at this year’s plenitude of cool shows by all of the above and: Dead Moon, Julieta Venegas, Daniel Johnston, Patti Smith, Vice Squad, W.A.C.O., Leather Hyman, Eleni Mandell, Tammy Faye Starlite & the Angels of Mercy, Cheap Trick at the County Fair, the Beautys, Cobra Verde, the Real McKenzies, Cecilia Bastida rejoining Tijuana No!, the Short Fuses, Devics, the 440’s, the Chicken Hawks, the Reds, No Means No, the Pinkos and the Pinkz, the Starvations, the Bobbyteens, the Real Kids, Saccharine Trust, the Dagons and the Dragons, Giant Sand, Backbiter, Aztlan Underground, the BellRays, the Skulls, the Dogs, Mike Watt & Pair of Pliers, the Zeros, Project K, the Go-Go’s, B-52’s, Popdefect, the Dictators, the Bangs and the Bangles within weeks of each other at Spaceland, Betty Blowtorch, the Excessories, Calavera, the Vice Principals, the Humpers, Snap-Her, Urinals, the Paper Tulips, Lutefisk, the Pretenders, Neil Young, the Lisa Marr Experiment, and quite a few others. Free Arthur Lee!
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JOHN PAYNE’S 29 TO BEAR IN MIND
Björk, Selmasongs (Elektra)
Alex Cline, Jeff Gauthier, G.E. Stinson, The Other Shore (Cryptogrammophone)
Kevin Coyne, Room Full of Fools (Ruf)
Daily Alfresco, In Good Hands (Onov)
Vladislav Delay, Entain (Mille Plateaux)
Divine Styler, Wordpower2: Directrix (Mo’Wax/Beggars Banquet)
Doves, Lost Souls (Astralwerks)
Electric Company, Exitos (Tigerbeat16)
Diamanda Galás at the Knitting Factory
Goldfrapp, Felt Mountain (Mute)
Lallo Gori, Inginocchiati Straniero/Con Lui Cavalca la Morte original soundtracks (Beat)
Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek, Train of Thought (Rawkus)
Languis, Unithematic (www.simball rec.com)
High Llamas, Buzzle Bee (Drag City)
Mellow Man Ace, From the Darkness Into the Light (X-Ray)
Mouse on Mars, Niun Niggung (Thrill Jockey)
Nobody, Soulmates (Ubiquity)
Oval, Ovalprocess (Thrill Jockey)
Panacea, Brasilia (Caipirinha)
Mstislav Rostropovich, Kancheli: Magnum Ignotum (ECM)
Terje Rypdal, Double Concerto/5th Symphony (ECM)
Raymond Scott, Manhattan Research Inc. (Basta)
Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Kayhan Kalhor, Night Silence Desert (Traditional Crossroads)
Sonic Youth, NYC Ghosts & Flowers (Geffen)
June Tabor, A Quiet Eye (Green Linnet)
Moris Tepper, Moth to Mouth (Candlebone)
Amon Tobin, Supermodified (Ninja Tune)
David Toop, 37th Floor at Sunset (Sub Rosa)
Veljo Tormis, Litany to Thunder (ECM).
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