Sometimes Campfire Songs sounds like they’re just warming up interminably, sometimes it sounds like they’re making it up as they go along, sometimes it sounds like they’re summoning Syd Barrett in a séance of detuned guitars, sometimes it sounds like reverent Quaker hymns, sometimes it sounds like they’ve keyed into the primal core of the [...]
In compiling a list of recommended albums for my recent Gothic-themed music column (LJ 2/1/10, “Unknown Pleasures: Gothic Rock“), one of my personal favorite albums of all time ended up on the cutting-room floor. And what’s this blog good for if not redressing grievances? So it is my pleasure to present to you one of the lost [...]
Mulatu Astatke was every inch the jazz Renaissance man — vibraphone and keyboard player, arranger, bandleader — a pivotal figure in African music and the inventor of his own style of music, ethio jazz. It was a visceral melding of New York cool with African rhythms and melodic structures. His education was at the Trinity [...]