Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

In August 2000, Be released their alternative guitar rock debut, Avalanche, and the recording barely made the radar screen. So, these Arkansas rockers moved to Dallas, Texas to complete work on Thisstupidream, and self-produced a moody and hazy Brit-Pop inflected collection of lushly plied rhythms and dreamy sonicscapes, similar to ...

What is "New Math"? Let's take an example: Ben Folds Five minus two equals Ben Folds. Make sense? It will when you listen to the new Ben Folds album "Rockin the Suburbs." (Don't like math? Neither do I.) For those who haven't heard Ben Folds before, he is one hell ...

Although Beulah has a horn section, the band is no Blues Brothers. Nor are they No Doubt. It's rather difficult to pin down their sound. Beulah creates a unique Beach Boys meets 90's indie mix without the sloppiness sometimes inherent in the genre. These arrangements are tight and thoughtful, and ...

Bongo Poets are a duo, from Massachusetts as near as I can tell (their website tells precious little about them), consisting of Jeff Root and Kim Miller. Miller handles the percussive end, while Root handles everything else, including the quirky compositions. Their music reflects a hodgepodge of influences spanning 40 ...

When Was/NotWas was releasing CDs with some semblance of regularity I used to get really cheesed off about the fact that they could put out great, fat funky tracks and then follow them up with musical armpit farts, stupid juvenility that would bring whatever groove and momentum they had established ...

In the Album "Wonderland," The Charlatans UK have developed a new sound out of a dead style. They began as an uncelebrated addition to the Madchester genre but now have become the only surviving members. Madchester was a dominant British rock style in the late 80's and early 90's distinguished ...

This is...well, it's a bit of a curiosity piece. I'm gonna recommend it, but keep in mind that this isn't even your standard world music. It makes demands. I'm not the world's biggest fan of klezmer, or jewish folk music. But this CD is worth a listen on at ...

There are producers, mixers, DJs, all over the diddle-damn place. I can't keep up with it. Can anybody keep up with it? My 23 year old son has people handing him CDs they made when he's riding the bus. I mean, it's all over the place. And the funny thing ...

New York DJ Louie DeVito is to the current state of disc jockey entrepreneurs what John "JellyBean" Benitez was back in the early 80's. JellyBean took a young Madonna and soaked her with material with streetwise lyrics, laced with a kind of hip-hop pulsation (e.g. "Sidewalk Talk"). As JellyBean really ...

Having a famous father is a pain in the ass. Every time you do something, someone brings up your old man. I'm gonna do that here, but I'll jump off of it quick, so bear with me. Part of the problem is that I'm a freak for Don Cherry, a ...

Hailing from Lousiville, KY, Flaw is a no-nonsense band who knows exactly what they want. After several years of lineup switches, the current lineup has come together to create their latest release, "Through the Eyes." The heartfelt songs on this album are sure to move its listeners. Dynamic songs exhibit ...

"Regular rock made by regular guys." That's the main impression coming from Ginger Moon's "Celebrity Volunteers" album. In the liner notes, there's a quote from one of the band members about how there's "One tune in here for everybody's tastes," and that pretty much sums up the album. The band ...

I've never really followed the Gipsy Kings, but I was at least peripherally aware that they had been m.i.a. Since 1997's COMPAS. They are back now with a new label (the always brilliant Nonesuch), and a new CD, SOMOS GITANOS, but I don't see any immediate plans to tour. In ...

In the end, the best way for guitarist Warren Hayes and drummer Matt Abts to respect and remember their late friend, bassist Allen Woody, was to head back into the studio. This time with a bunch of fellow players and just let the music flow, serving as closure to their ...

There are some record labels that have identity. This is not a new thing. Sun Records had a personality, as did Okeh, and Atlantic at one time. Most of the current labels with identity are independents. Vanguard, Rounder, and Arhoolie are examples. In world music, Putumayo is developing a ...

If funkiness is a word Jamiroquai knows how to spell it. "A Funk Odyssey," the fifth album from singer Jay Kay and his British cohorts, is a tour-de-force of the boys' musical abilities, and the result is a retro-fied album that thumps and bumps its way through the ears from ...

Listening to "Feeding the Wheel" is a bit like being on one of those pendulum-style fairground rides, constantly swinging back and forth. Unlike the ride, where one extreme is pretty much the same as the other, except for the view, the fourth solo album from Jordan Rudess careens back and ...

"For Water," yeah right, better titled "For Sex!" This dark and naughty second album by Morgan's Canon talks of death, sad smiles, sexual servility, and raunchy love.You could say that it was perverted… I think I will. Whatever it is, it is still a well-orchestrated industrial album. The heavily distorted ...

Syd Barrett-era "Pink Floyd" is trippy enough with the added confusion of leading straight into the hyper-modern Floyd heard on their last studio album, "The Division Bell." Yet, that's exactly what happens on "Echoes," the new 26-track "definitive" best of collection from the band that brought us "Wish You Were ...

Why does "Burning the Process" seem like something I've heard before? Maybe because I have. It seems that MTV has laid claim to its very own style of music; Processed rap metal flowing forth from suburbanite college kids with either spiked or shaven hair. There are two differences between Pressure ...

Ever since her sensual, ethereal voice prompted the Eastern intrigue of Monsoon's "Ever So Lonely" while she was a teen in the early '80s, Chandra's singing has focused mostly on traditional Indian themes and lucrative ventures into Enya-like ambient-pop. "Sentence" is unlike any project the energetic singer has ever attempted. ...

At least the major label kiss-off allows Pumpkin honcho Billy Corgan to include a bonus disc (mockingly subtitled "Judas O") of unreleased and impossible-to-chase-down pearls along with the compulsory hits comp. So alongside the carefully plucked "Siva," the rambunctious "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," and half-conscious "Landslide," are all of the ...

Politics flowing from the left side of the spectrum nearly drown you before you even get past the liner notes. And then vocalist Curtis Skelton and guitarist Lisardo Rios both do short imitations of their counterparts in "Rage Against the Machine" in the very first song? Fortunately for "Speak No ...

Bob Wratten's broken heart started all of this, a remorseful outlet to work again with ex-throb and former TBS vocalist Annemari Davies. As things happen, the Stars started to shine at a time when his indie pop songsmithing for The Field Mice (his former band) began to dwindle. Over the ...

Considering the inspirational source material, maybe it's for the best that this collection of energetic indies have the last word on Big Star's tainted legacy. In a series of dominoes-falling circumstances that always seemed to find Alex Chilton and allies hampered by one creative distraction and business struggle after the ...