Chelsea Wolfe, “Apocalyptica” (PenduSound, 2012)
Kooky freak-folk stuff by a singer with a strong voice, mastery of a range of tripped-out personas, and a sporadic rock edge that keeps the weirdness-in-the-woods mood from turning too morbid.
Try 4, 5
7/12/12
Cherry Vanilla, “Bad Girl” (RCA, 1977)
Cherry Vanilla was a Warhol scenester in the late ‘60s, had some sort of involvement with Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie, and stuck around Max’s Kansas City long enough to be in on the first wave of punk rock in NYC. This is her first album, and it’s got hints of Little Richard, the Shangri-Las, Sticky-Fingers-era Stones, but all very stark and urban. Picture Patti Smith if she leaned more toward the New York Dolls than toward Television. But Patti Smith never rocked quite as hard as 2 or 4, fast ones with frantic, monotone piano, snarling guitars and Ms. Vanilla’s kooky-tough-gal vocals. The slower, vampire stuff is awesome too, particularly 1 and 8
Carter Tutti Void, “Transverse” (Mute, 2012)
Don’t know Mr. Void, but “Carter” and “Tutti” are Chris and Cosey, founding members of Throbbing Gristle, and this is definitely in the vein of that group’s pulsing, tribal-brutal power electronics, though tinted with the cold elegance of C & C’s later, synthier work . . .With sporadic jets of scree snaking through the subtly pummeling hypno-drone, this is sensual and addictive in a way you wouldn’t expect.
Try 2, 4
4/3/13
Corin Tucker Band, “Kill My Blues” (Kill Rock Stars, 2012). Second solo album from the ex-Sleater Kinney-ite is as excellent as the first. It’s a return to the more hard-rocking side of S-K’s distinctively angular-yet-melodic band of punk-inflected indie rock. Try 1, 3, 4, 6.
11/12/12
Corin Tucker Band, “1000 Years” (Kill Rock Stars, 2010)
Best known as the one in Sleater-Kinney with That Voice, this is Tucker’s first solo album. S-K’s run from Call The Doctor to Dig Me Out to Hot Rock is up there with the very, very greatest rock and roll of the whole post-Pistols era, so it was inevitable that their subsequent work, excellent though it was, paled by comparison. Freed of that burden, Tucker sounds more comfortable here than she has since the ‘90s, cutting loose with a fine batch of songs that swing loose and powerful. And while she’s more relaxed (than with S-K), her music still burns as hot as ever at its heart.
Highlights: 2 (angular and spacy but hard-driving), 6 (slow and gorgeous), and especially 7, a passionate rock and roll blaster with what might be Tucker’s warmest, most resonant vocal pyrotechnics yet.
Carmen Maki Blues Creation “Carmen Maki Blues Creation” (Phoenix, 2011; original recording 1971)
Heavy/droney Japanese blues-psych from the early ‘70s, with a distinctive twist: the singer is a Joplinesque female shouter who can also float down into ethereal trad-Japanese-folk territory.
Try A/3, B/3
2/28/12
Carrie Lucas, “Portrait of Carrie” (Solar, 1980).
On Shalamaar’s label, this sparkling, kinetic record showcases Lucas’s fine vocals on music that owes equal amounts to disco and Funk.
Try 1/3, 2/3.
11/12/12.
Carole King, “Tapestry” (Ode, 1971)
Deservedly beloved early solo album from the woman who wrote a lot of the classic early-‘60s girl-group hits. This unites the sparkling pop perfection of that stuff with the compositional and personal opening-out of the singer-songwriter era she (and this album) helped inaugurate.
Try 1, 3, 4.
2/18/13
Cymbals, “Sideways, Sometimes” ([?], 2012)
Okay dancey/electronic post-punkish rock. The stark angularity is cool, the new-romantic songwriting works sometimes, but the singer does kind of sound like a twerp, though he grows on you.
Try 4
8/23/12
Curtis Mayfield, “Super Fly” (Buddah, 1972)
The most unassumingly luminous and blissed-out of the soul greats shoulders the social burden of harsh urban reality for music with the emotional sweet of his earlier classic work but a new snap of impact, a looming dynamism and cinematic fluidity that make this one of the all-time great soundtracks.
Try 1/ 1, 1/3, 2/ 5
7/6/18