Milk Cult / Project M-13 / Milk Cult I must say that it's nice to see a government grant result in something as hip as Project M-13! The disc combines samples from 30 disparate musicians or musical groups, recorded by Milk Cult in isolation from each other. The motley band included Corsican singers, Buddhist chanters, Algerian folk improvisers and a thirty-piece African orchestra, among others. The resulting world-music-cum-lounge-ambiance-collage is fascinating...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		Molasses / You'll Never Be Well No More / Fancy Unlike the post-rock leanings of Godspeed, Molasses favors spartan, semi-improvised arrangements of banjo, guitar, piano and strings, with Scott Chernoff's mournful vocals over the top. Chernoff sings with an unstructured malaise, like he's halfway through the process of dying from an infected stomach wound and is making up these songs as a way to pass his final hours. It's easy to picture him sprawled on a splintery log porch, his Molasses cohorts clustered nearby, their Bibles and bottles of whiskey within easy reach...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		Devil in a Woodpile / Division Street / Bloodshot On Division Street, Devil in a Woodpile is equally comfortable with gospel, swing, the blues and vaudeville. They conjure up the sounds of old-time greats Flatt and Scruggs, Blind Blake, Al Jolson and the Carter Family and reference contemporaries like Tom Waits, the Squirrel Nut Zippers and the Laurel Canyon Ramblers. Although proficient in many musical forms, they're at their best when they stay away from straight-on blues...more»
		Richard Dunlap / Ode to the Sistrum / Household Ink Though they're sufficiently disjointed and dischordant to encourage listeners to toss around the word "experimental", Dunlap's compositions fit fairly comfortably into the "modern orchestral" oeuvre. Dunlap seems to prefer the sensual pleasures of rich, full, bell-like musical tones and altered time signatures over bone-jarring explosions of metallic dischord, long silences punctuated by anonymous tapping, or other similarly audience-unfriendly creative indulgences...more»
		NOFX / Pump Up the Valuum / Epitaph Pump Up the Valuum opens with "And Now For Something Completely Similar" -- and with their catchy anthems, that's just fine. With songs like "My Vagina," which expresses regrets over the consequences of a sex change, and "Theme From a NOFX Album", which contains the mature chorus "Buy me a Beck's Beer/ Or pass me a bong/ Gimme some Bushmills/ I'll sing you this song", the boys are still as stupid and fun-loving as ever...more»
		Pop Canon / d'Art / Pop Canon With D'art, Pop Canon seems to work their literary obsessions more subtly into the mix, as well as displaying a genuine affection for popular music. While they sometimes fall on their faces -- "Arthole" is written in the ironic vein of Randy Newman's "Rednecks", and shows them vastly inferior at satire -- Pop Canon seems to succeed more often than not. And since their ambitions favor rich, Zappa-like productions, their personal successes (like "I've Got a Theory", "CaliMariachi", "Lights Out" and "Hey Hey Hey"), when they happen, are high on the scale of greatness...more»
		Jonathan Segel / Scissors and Paper / Magnetic Scissors and Paper is an erratic work, most enjoyable in its sweet, violin-driven moments and its wandering ballads. When, in "Voices in My Head", Segel finds himself sitting in a cantina "a couple shots of tequila down", the moment feels right and is further fueled by a freaky instrumental break. Half prog rock and half Flying Burrito Brothers, the song showcases what Segel does right. Later arrivals, like "Wonder Woman", are not nearly as strong...more»
		Various Artists / Smokeylung Recordings Compilation: Volume I / Smokeylung Smokeylung is a DIY-flavored record label based in Bloomington, Indiana, USA. They're probably best known for introducing Brando to the world. Compilation: Volume 1 features 12 tunes from bands that have and/or will have records released on Smokeylung in the year 2000. It sounds like a typical label compilation so far, but there's a twist: all of the songs on the album were recorded on 4-track cassette -- the ultimate in low-fidelity, high creativity recording technology...more»
		Various Artists / US / Up/Slabco The new crop of artists representing Up on US shows that this beast is far from dead. In fact, two of the album's most inspired performances come from Up acts: namely the wailing thrash-fest "Amen" by the Sick Bees and the morose guitar howl and cryptic lyrics of Dark Fantastic's "My Wandering Eye"... Slabco, on the other hand, is relatively new on the scene, and they aim to become the preeminent label for lo-fi electronica as well as the burgeoning genre known as Casiocore. From their contributions to this comp, it looks like they're well on their way...more»
		Rocky Votolato / A Brief History / Your Best Guess A Brief History presents Votolato's manifesto via seven understated pop songs tinged with folk-rock confessionalism. He plays and performs with a hushed reverence that creates confessional intimacy; the vocals recall a late-night conversation in the darkened kitchen of a sleeping house, and the muted guitar and accompaniment, even at its most electric, seem to have been recorded with the players clustered tightly together as if attempting to pass unnoticed...more»