The TV show ‘How It’s Made’ brings the intricate details of assembly lines to numerous North American living rooms. But if the series were to ever branch into exposing the secrets of music production, Colin Stetson’s ‘New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges’ would make for a mind-bending episode. Anthony Fantano Read Quote
Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar sounds decades older than he is, and it’s not necessarily the wear and tear that comes from a rough life; instead, his world-weariness seems to result from years of soul-searching. Anthony Fantano Read Quote
Ab-Souls Outro’ serves as a jazzy, spoken summation of ‘Section.80’s themes. Guest cohort Ab-Soul opens the song with one urgent verse after another: Flowing freely like the saxophone behind him, his words advocate veering outside life’s most predictable pathways. Anthony Fantano Read Quote
With heavy hitters like ‘Who’s in Control’ and ‘Stunde Null,’ it’s easy to imagine British Sea Power wailing on Flying Vs in front of a packed arena of screaming fans. Anthony Fantano Read Quote
Brand New Wayo: Funk, Fast Times and Nigerian Boogie Badness 1979-1983′ covers a short chunk of time in Nigeria’s musical culture – one that might have lasted longer had the label spearheading the movement at the time, Phonodisk, not been so financially mismanaged. Anthony Fantano Read Quote
Electronics, samples and vocals are all fed into The Log.Os’ music, and a fresh take on soul comes out. The band’s songs splash around in the same gene pool as neo-soul artists like Erykah Badu, but they reach forward to pull ideas from glitch-hop producers such as Flying Lotus and Prefuse 73. Anthony Fantano Read Quote
On ‘Kaputt,’ singer-songwriter Dan Bejar reevaluates his band’s sound and drifts away from the David Bowie comparisons that have plagued even his best albums. Anthony Fantano Read Quote
A Hawk and a Hacksaw may be from America, but the band’s music sure isn’t: Since the beginning, Eastern Europe has been an unwavering source of musical inspiration, not to mention fertile touring ground, for the group. Anthony Fantano Read Quote
On its fifth full-length album, ‘Cervantine,’ A Hawk and a Hacksaw’s love of the Balkans continues unabated, but with new songs and collaborators. In ‘Uskudar,’ the music finds an equal balance of sweet, sour and earthy sounds with nimble string melodies and a grunting tuba. Anthony Fantano Read Quote
