The songs on Little Creatures, most of which were credited to Byrne alone (with the band credited only with arrangements) sounded like they'd been written as songs. Perhaps as one result, the band had been streamlined, with extra musicians used only for specific effects rather than playing along as an ensemble. Byrne, who was singing in his natural range for once, frequently was augmented with backup singers. The overall result: ear candy. Little Creatures was a pop album, and an accomplished one, by a band that knew what it was doing. True, Byrne's lyrics were still intriguingly quirky, but even his subject matter was becoming more mature. "I've seen sex and I think it's okay," he sang on "Creatures of Love," and suddenly the geek had become a man. Where he had once pondered the hopes of boys and girls, he was now making observations about children. And even if his impulses remained strange -- "I wanna ...
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Immortalized forever in Rickie Lee Jones's 1979 hit "Chuck E.'s in Love," Chuck E. Weiss has had his own career playing the drums and singing in a craggly blues voice that recalls his more famous buddy Tom Waits, who provides production, vocal, and songwriting assistance. For years, however, he never made it beyond the confines of Los Angeles nightclubs. Here he's assembled an album of freewheeling bar tunes and jump blues that recall the music of his youth with fresh irreverence. "Devil with Blue Suede Shoes" is ramshackle back-alley Chicago blues. "It Rains on Me" offers Waits and Weiss singing like old drunken buddies after closing time. It's what you'd expect, yet couldn't conceive.
MoreIt's a fairly good bet you won't hear another record like Bahamut any time soon -- because there isn't one. Hazmat Modine tap into the deepest veins of raw, unpolluted prewar blues and ancient jazz, then whip them up in a blender, tossing in strains of Caribbean calypso and ska, Eastern European klezmer and Balkan brass, Middle Eastern mystery, and more than a few unidentifiable elements that just somehow fit. The result is music that sounds at once ageless and primeval, authentically indigenous and inexplicably otherworldly, familiar and unlike anything else. Hazmat Modine revolve around the vision of Wade Schuman, a virtuoso on the diatonic and chromatic harmonicas and a variety of guitars who then mixes and matches his machines to a variety of other instruments till he arrives at that place his head has been visiting. Those instruments include the commonplace (drums, trumpets), the unexpected (Hawaiian steel guitar, lots ...
MoreBlack Birds Are Dancing Over Me is Danny Michel’s 10th album, and first on a label in almost five years. The lyrically poignant, Juno nominated singer-songwriter‟s new album is a gem, and brings Michel and his committed audience to Six Shooter Records. Black Birds Are Dancing Over Me dives into the waves of Belize‟s musical deep, featuring Mayan guitar, turtle shells, donkey jaw-bone and traditional Garifuna segunda and primero drums. Michel cultivates lush rhythms and sounds as the perfect backdrop for his buoyantly eloquent songwriting style. To make the record, Danny relocated from Ontario to the foot of the Xunantunich Mayan ruins in Benque Viejo del Carmen to work with pioneering producer Ivan Duran at Stonetree Records, a label/studio that has been instrumental in bringing the Belizean sound to the world. There he teamed up with members of the Garifuna Collective to form The Benque Players. The album came together unlike any ...
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