4/18 older arrivals

Some more picks came in that we’d love to share…

Paul’s Pick
Petra Haden and Bill Frisell, Petra Haden and Bill Frisell: Everything I can think of to say about this album falls very short of the experience of listening to it, which to me is a powerful experience. Petra Haden’s voice is strong, sweet and unwavering; Bill Frisell’s textural accompaniment is unlike anything I’ve ever heard come out of a guitar. The material they choose is broad and unique, you don’t often hear Tom Waits, Gershwin and Coldplay sharing the songwriting credits. One of my favorite things about the disc is despite the wide variety of material, in their hands it all sounds as if it were cut from the same cloth.

Yancey’s Additional Picks (What can I say, I’m a Greedy Gus!)
Radio Dept, Pulling Our Weight: Thanks to a recommendation from Joe, I downloaded this EP last week, and I am incredibly happy that I did. The title track is this beautiful, woozy thing based on a sighing bass line (”doo-di-doo-do-do-do-doooo”) that’s straight out of the playbooks of Echo and the Bunnymen and the Cure. It’s the song for when the girl finally falls in love with the boy, the camera panning backbackback to a black-and-white world suddenly bursting in vibrant color. The video:

Cap’n Jazz, Analphabetapolothology: There’s more energy in “Oh Messy Life” than in almost any song I can think of, such a tumbling, bursting toboggan of note shards and seared vocal chords held together by little more than effort and emotion. That this incredible two-disc comp of all of their recorded material has given the Chicago band a second, if posthumous, life is a Christmas Miracle — my 16-year-old brother recently admitted to being a big Cap’n Jazz fan, a fact that blew my mind. Despite their intentional lack of polish, their vigor and conviction make them way more accessible than they should be.

Crosby & Nash, Wind on the Water: This 1975 album from David Crosby and Graham Nash is a genuine treat that ranks well with their more famous CSN&Y work. “Take the Money and Run,” in particular, is really, really damn good, an angular ditty with Nash snarling convincingly in the verses, and Crosby chiming in for those oh-so-familiar harmonies in the choruses. The middle-eight veers into Irish folk with just a touch of psychedelia. It’s a cleaner and folkier version of Neil Young in his On the Beach phase.