Dance Hall Crashers / The Live Record... / Pink & Black This particular record finds the band live and on stage, where their already upbeat songs somehow find additional levels of energy. This group is so much fun, they make topics like poverty ("We Owe") and fist-fights ("Cat Fight") sound like natural subjects for pop numbers. Their exuberance is perhaps best exemplified by "Don't Wanna Behave," a self-explanatory song on which the audience provides gleeful back-up singing. Most of the music keeps up a furious pace, although a couple of tracks provide slower, sweeter moments...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		Datach'i / We Are Always Well Thank You / Caipirinha The first time I put this one on I was buzzing around the living room like mad, sucking in the harsh digital sweetness, the cheezy keyboard melodies, the maladjusted robot with a faulty clock-chip beats, the sheer dopey goodness of it all. It's been getting better with every listen -- details emerging, beats rewiring my little brain, melodies getting lodged in there somewhere too. And with each listen I'm more impressed with the sheer amount of work that seems to have gone into these tracks...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		Gregg Bendian's Interzone / Myriad / Atavistic Gregg Bendian is a wildly talented drummer/percussionist who has played with cats like Cecil Taylor, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Pat Metheny and John Zorn. For Myriad he teams up with Nels Cline on guitar, Alex Cline (who takes over on drums while Bendian shifts to vibes) and Steuart Liebig on bass. The four of them effortlessly spin the most intricate jazz/rock textures, stuff worthy of anything from the great early days of fusion...more»
		Ekova / Soft Breeze and Tsunami Breaks / Six Degrees By taking the organic originals and combining them with electronic tweaks, Ekova thrusts listeners into a realm which combines the distant past and the far future. On the Farmakit-remixed "Temoine", heady rhythms pulse underneath Dubois' chants, evoking images of sweating dancers surrounding a bonfire. The tracks blend and meld with one another, twisting your mind in upon itself until all that's left is the enchanting pulse of the music...more»
		Embellish / Wake Me Up / March Sort of like a Danish version of the Housemartins with a smidgen of Squeeze rolled in, Embellish deliver hummable hooks, plenty of nonsense-choruses ("bump-ba-da-da-bump-ba" and so forth) and lyrical phrase-turns that you'll be humming/muttering to yourself in short order. If I was the sort of person who could get away with blatant acts of unabashed glee, I'd stow Wake Me Up in the discman and go running around in a big, grassy field, singing along to dreamy songs like "You" and simpering like a village idiot...more»
		Headless Household / Mockhausen / Household Ink Slapping genre tags on Headless Household has never worked, and Mockhausen is their least categorizable album to date. Though their music is supported by a framework of traditional rock/jazz instrumentation -- keyboard/piano, guitar, bass and drums -- you're just as likely to encounter turntable manipulation and aggressive trumpet-playing. "Opened House" sets the scene immediately, tossing the listener into a roiling melee of found audio, around which mutated, shambolic jazz and rock progressions flail and stagger...more»
		Her Space Holiday / Home is Where You Hang Yourself / Tiger Style Slow and dreamy, the ten songs on the album's "primary" disc pair the ornately minimal psychedelic daydreams of Syd Barrett and Nick Drake with the drone and drift of late-model shoegazer chic. Rhythms inch slowly forward, familiar (sometimes ploddingly so) yet determined, while Marc Bianchi covers everything in a warm, bioelectronic sheen, layering warm pop melodies and reverb-drenched vocals. Despite the macabre imagery of the album title, you won't find the album overwhelmingly mordant...more»
		Porter Hall / Ten Month Soundtrack / Endearing The ten months signify the stretch of time (October 1998-July 1999) it took for these eight highly emotional songs to germinate, and it shows the young band's philosophy toward their music and art. In the same way as Bruce Springsteen, the band aims to document each chapter of their life in their music. Right now, they seem to be placing greater concentration on the dramas between man and woman, friend and friend, kiss and near-kiss...more»
		Summer Hymns / Voice Brother and Sister / Misra Why when I really stop to think about it, Summer Hymns' music and giraffes have an awful lot in common. Both are rather large and cumbersome: giraffes with their long necks and awkward stride and Summer Hymns with their numerous members and full instrumental arsenal. Both are rather lazy creatures: giraffes putter about all day eating leaves and gallivanting uselessly, and Summer Hymns make hazy countrified pop bursting at the seams with heartfelt melodies and distinctly ragged playing...more»
		Johnny Thunders / In the Flesh / Amsterdamned In the Flesh documents the late guitarist's solo work at a latter day gig at The Roxy in 1987. Thunders energetically cruises through some marvelous and memorable guitar riffs on such timeless tunes as "Personality Crisis," "Too Much Junkie Business" and the classic "Born to Lose" as if he just wrote them that morning. Thunders' guitar has always had a nasty, slightly sloppy sound to it and this unique six-string signature is in true form as it writes out one of his final musical chapters...more»