CDs + Vinyl:
10,000 Maniacs – Playing Favorites CD (Omnivore)
Recorded before an adoring crowd in Jamestown, NY, Playing Favorites features live 14 tracks, including hits and fan favorites from the group’s storied and influential career. The six-piece band (Jerome Augustyniak, Dennis Drew, Jeff Erickson, Steven Gustafson, John Lombardo, and Mary Ramsey) is augmented by strings, horns, and backing vocalists. According to Dennis Drew, “We are thrilled to release a recording that represents 10,000 Maniacs’ true live sound. The MTV Unplugged (1993) record was an acoustic record. This is really what we sound like…a rock band. The energy in that room was electric.”
Amber Arcades – Fading Lines CD/LP+MP3 (PIAS America)
Amber Arcades is the moniker of Dutch-born musician Annelotte de Graaf. De Graaf first started writing songs in 2010 while temporarily living in Philadelphia. Back in the Netherlands she put out a first EP in 2012 containing soft-voiced, melancholic folk ballads. Wanting to develop her sound and mature from the safe bedroom folk environment, she got in touch with producer Ben Greenberg (Beach Fossils, The Men, Destruction Unit) to produce a collection of songs she had written over the years. In May 2015, de Graaf flew out to New York to record the songs in the Strange Weather recording studio in Brooklyn, backed by a band consisting of members of Real Estate, Quilt and Kevin Morby. The result is a record that is as dreamy and esoteric as it is gripping, presenting slightly off, floating pop melodies over a mixture of kraut-inspired drums, cutting guitars and fuzzed-out organs.
And The Kids – Friends Share Lovers CD (Signature Sounds)
Friends Share Lovers has a more audacious, ambitious, involuted sound than the band’s 2015 debut, Turn To Each Other, with intertwining lines becoming more complex and artfully crashing against each other. The title track is exemplary of their growth. Intricate rolling drum patterns and transitions, wonderfully balanced guitar and bass, and alluring synths compete and combine and play off each other for infectious rhythms. That is not to overlook their consistently introspective lyrics or Hannah Mohan’s silky delivery. [Vinyl edition due June 24.]
Joseph Arthur – Family CD (True North)
Joseph Arthur is a singer, songwriter, poet and artist from Akron, Ohio, known for his solo material and as a member of RNDM and Fistful Of Mercy. Combining poetic lyrics with a layered sonic palette, Arthur has built his reputation over the years through critically-acclaimed releases, collaborations and constant touring; his unique solo live performances often incorporate the use of a number of distortion and loop pedals, even live painting and a sprinkling of beat-poetry. [Vinyl version due June 24.]
Banta – Dark Charms CD/LP (E1)
Amongst the garage rawk acts and synth-pop duos of Echo Park is a coed collective known as Banta. Led by singer-songwriter Sharaya Mikael, the band channels a vintage soft rock vibe via smooth vocals, acoustic strums, and gentle grooves which often conjure an uncanny Fleetwood Mac likeness.
Bear Tooth – Aggressive CD/LP (Red Bull)
Bear Tooth has as much in common with stomping metalcore as old-school punk, vintage screamo, and harder edged pop punk, with a bit of cinematic extravagance.
William Bell – This Is Where I Live CD/LP (Stax)
This is Where I Live is the legendary Stax artist’s first Stax album in over 40 years. William Bell is probably best known for 1961’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water” (his debut single); 1968’s “Private Number” (a duet with Judy Clay, and a top 10 hit in the UK); and 1976’s “Tryin’ To Love Two,” Bell’s only US top 40 hit, which also hit No. 1 on the R&B charts. As a songwriter, Bell co-authored the Chuck Jackson hit “Any Other Way” (itself a cover, since Bell issued it first, as a follow-up to “You Don’t Miss Your Water”), Billy Idol’s 1986 hit “To Be a Lover” (originally a hit for Bell under its original title “I Forgot to Be Your Lover”), and the blues classic “Born Under A Bad Sign,” popularized by both Albert King and Cream.
Fiona Brice – Postcards From CD/LP+MP3 (Bella Union)
The music world is filled with talented artists whose names are reserved for the liner notes, over-shadowed by the name of the artist on the front cover. One such person is composer, orchestral arranger and violinist Fiona Brice. She is responsible for orchestral arrangements for artists such as John Grant, Anna Calvi, Midlake, Placebo, Vashti Bunyan and Jarvis Cocker, scores for concert performances by Roy Harper as well as countless violin performances for the likes of Kanye West and Robbie Williams.
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band – Got A Mind To Give Up Living: Live 1966 CD (Real Gone Music)
Issued in July 1966, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s East-West took blues-rock to places only free jazz had dared to tread, offering lengthy, modal improvisational passages that sparked the West Coast rock revolution, and, in Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop, fully unleashing the first great guitar tandem in rock history. Recorded live at Boston’s Unicorn Coffee House 50 years ago in May 1966, two months before the release of East-West, Got A Mind To Give Up Living: Live 1966 reaffirms that The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was simply untouchable live, capable of turning on a dime from slow burning blues tunes to up-tempo rave-ups.
