3/29 new arrivals

Some really, really spectacular stuff today, including an incredible Southern blues album, a horrific electronic record (horrific being a compliment!), Canned Heat, Keith Hudson, Frank Black and a baseball classic just in time for opening day!

Downloaded
Ron Franklin, City Lights: This is a really special record. Ron Franklin is based out of Memphis, but according to a couple of articles I found about him today (read them here and here, both are fascinating), he spent time in New York and Amsterdam while writing really simple and pure Southern blues and rock songs, backed by one of the biggest Southern blues/rock legends of all, Jim Dickinson, on City Lights.

This album, his ninth, but the first on a bona fide label, doesn’t take many chances, and yet that’s somehow to its benefit. His voice is a soft tenor, very straight and plain in a manner that’s entirely to his songs’ benefit. It’s the directness, the lack of decoration, that makes these 12 songs so special — it reminds me a bit of the straighter songs on Wilco’s Being There, tunes that were born when they were written, not in their arrangement or recording. (I’m somewhat underselling the arrangements, as songs like “Lula Wall” are quite intricate.) The gospel reworking of Chuck Berry’s “Thirty Days” is particularly strong — love that organ! — but it’s the title track, so spacious and empty, that really slays me. Franklin’s voice sounds very much like Jeff Tweedy — this could easily have appeared on Uncle Tupelo’s total, utter classic, March 16-20, 1992 — and yet very much his own, too. He doesn’t have a great voice by any stretch, but he knows exactly how to use it. This is worth every download, I promise you. (Just to back this up even more, I called my father today to tell him to go buy this. Family recommended, even! I think the last record I so fervently suggested to him was that most recent Bobby Bare Jr. record, which was a real treat. He loved that one, by the way.)

Ben Frost, Theory of Machines: This record comes highly recommended from our own Todd Burns, who interviewed Frost here for Stylus. On Stylus, Todd calls it, “a record whose horror reveals itself slowly. Like a car approaching a crash site, you can feel the impending terror, but drive directly into it anyway. Recorded at Valgeir Sigurðsson’s Greenhouse studios where Frost works, the album sounds like what might happen if Trent Reznor’s electronics met Mogwai’s song structures. The studio, along with having been home to the recording of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s The Letting Go, and much of Mum’s Finally We Are No One and Björk’s Medulla, serves as the homebase for Bedroom Community.”

Canned Heat, Boogie House Tapes Volume 3: I’ve always had a real soft spot for Canned Heat — a roommate of mine in college was a big fan (his other favorite bands: the Who, Frank Zappa and Moby Grape), and their balance of raucousness and really sweet blues-folk is a pretty compelling concoction. This two-disc set is ridiculously loose and loud, real shambolic and drunk, somewhere between Zeppelin and Beefheart’s Safe As Milk. I recommend starting with the nine-minute jam “So Sad” and spreading out from there. Shit hot!

Keith Hudson, Brand: More classic dub from Hudson, who we previously discussed on 17 Dots. The AMG review: “Only available at outrageous collector’s prices, Brand was finally rescued by producer and dub mastermind Adrian Sherwood for his label Pressure Sounds. Exhilarating and powerful, Brand proves that Pick a Dub was no fluke and that Hudson was simultaneously writing and rewriting the book of dub. Rhythmically dense and intense (thanks to bassist Ranchie and drummer Sly Dunbar), Brand is sinewy instead of slick, powerfully direct instead of playfully obscure. If you’re hep to Hudson’s vibe after listening to Pick a Dub, then you won’t be able to live another day without Brand.”

Recommended
Abbot & Costello, Who’s On First: The comedy classic, just in time for Opening Day! My picks for division winners this year, for you baseball fans: Yankees, Indians, Rangers, Mets, Brewers and Dodgers, with Red Sox and Phillies taking the Wild Card spots. You heard it here!

P.S. For more music and baseball, check out this new Dan Epstein column.

Notable
Frank Black and 3volution, Gimme Danger: So I love Frank Black, of course, and I love the Stooges even more, so what’s not to love? Umm… a lot. This is pretty rough, but I hear that the video game it comes from, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, is supposed to be great. So there’s that at least. See it in action here.