CDs:
Priscilla Ahn – This Is Where We Are CD (SQE Music)
Like many artists before her, Priscilla Ahn went to the desert seeking transformation. After several albums with a team who’d paired her with co-writers not quite her style, Ahn was free. But after those years of pop contortion, she began to doubt her own ability to express her true self in song. Ahn went to the desert as a dare — to see what songs still lived in her, to prove just what kind of record she could make on her own. She took off from L.A. and holed up in a hotel room outside Palm Springs (a 1920’s getaway for Hollywood stars) to apply herself to her craft. The songs came immediately, sometimes fully formed. Within the week Ahn had an album.
Artgruppe – Objets D’artgruppe CD (Jigsaw)
It’s been nearly a decade since we last heard anything from Roy Thirlwal (who led the excellent Windmills and Melodie Group), but here we have this project, and it’s just as lovely as anything else in his musical oeuvre. If you know his other bands, then you’ll have a good idea of what to expect; if not, then imagine an updated version of East Village or The Orchids.
Greg Ashley – Another Generation Of Slaves CD/LP+MP3 (Trouble In Mind)
Greg Ashley (lysergic psych band The Mirrors and The Gris Gris) is no stranger to recording. If his group output wasn’t enough, Ashley has peppered multiple solo albums in between all of these releases tracing along a path that veers to and fro from heady psychedelic freakouts to sensitive, folky tune-smithing. This is a bold step off that acid-soaked artery, as the nine tunes herein are Ashley’s most directly poetic suite of songs both melodically and lyrically.
Barzin – To Live Alone In That Long Summer CD/LP (Monotreme)
To Live Alone In That Long Summer explores such themes as loneliness, intimacy, and connection between strangers. Modern life provides the backdrop to the narrative that run along these songs. Everywhere you look, the city, with its distractions, is present. Fast cars and cheap thrills make an appearance. Dylan sings on the radio while lovers dream of their great escape. Modern life hurries along taking everyone with it, and the singer/songwriter goes along for the ride, documenting everything along the way.
Beck – Morning Phase CD/LP (Capitol)
Morning Phase is true to its title: the beginning of yet another amazing chapter in Beck’s peerless career and catalogue. Featuring musicians who have backed him on many of his most acclaimed albums, as well as the current live shows widely hailed as the best of his career (Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Joey Waronker, Smokey Hormel, Roger Joseph Manning Jr., and Jason Falkner), Morning Phase harkens back to the stunning harmonies, song craft and staggering emotional impact of Beck’s most classic ballads, all the while surging forward with undeniable optimism. “A tenderly stunning song cycle of languid, prairie-dusted psychedelia that recalls reflective 2002 classic, Sea Change.” — Rolling Stone
Dierks Bentley – Riser CD (Capitol Nashville)
Seventh full-length album for Capitol from the Arizona-born country star follows his 2012 album Home. Features the singles “Bourbon in Kentucky” and “I Hold On.”
Blackstone Rngrs – Descendant CD (Sainte Marie)
Blackstone Rngrs clawed their way through North Texas’s urban mantle, finding the blood connections necessary to drink from their fermenting sonic emotions. The sacred marriage blends affection for modern electronic music with an urgent fetish for classic 4AD dreampop and noise. The orgy happens when swirls of orgasmic synthesizers embrace dripping guitars and tantric rhythms and pulses. Healthy doses of noise are always comforted by soft waterbeds of the ambient and dreamy.
