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05/15/21
MIKE GOUDREAU BAND/Isolation Blues: Up for a protean cat you never heard of? Here's a white boy with the blues, up in Canada, that's been providing tons of soundtracks for Hollywood as he's wended his way to releasing his 21st album. Recorded over the last year remotely with long time band mates, this really shows you how he's a cat that can hit the mark with the kind of first take precision Hollywood cheapskates love. He's not making a statement, he's just providing a party soundtrack using something that turns him on and gives him good vibes he wants to share. It's jumps, it jives and it's a real gasser.
(PMG 20)
SATSANG/All. Right. Now.: Insurgent country recorded in Montana that really sounds like it. Inspired by big sky country, this rolls right through the prairies GP envisioned when he was inventing cosmic American music. Delightfully solid.
(Side One Dummy 1675)
GUY DAVIS/Be Ready When I Call You: The scion of Hollywood royalty knows a good thing when he hears it and that's why he's enlisted the stellar roots crew, the Crowmatix, to back him up again and take this authentic roots/blues set one step higher than the last next time Grammy season rolls around. Sounding very much like something all those guys named Mississippi would have made if they had budgets and good recording equipment, this is killer down home acoustic blues. This is the majestic sound of keeping it real.
(MC 88)
LAURA MEADE/Most Dangerous Woman in America: Nu protest music for the distaff side of the woke generation, this feels like an extension of the nu folk music Ani deFranco first launched 30 years ago. A set of messages you don't need Western Union to send.
TOMMY Z/Plug in & Play: Don't you like it when cats have their riffs down so well they could play them in their sleep---but they don't. Buffalo's own white boy with the blues gets down to some solid guitar slinging with Tom Hambridge in the control room and angels on his shoulder. Fun stuff created by and for party people, this is a wild hour of stinging slinging. Let guitar fans rejoice.
(South Blossom 2001)
CURT RAMM/Rogue Island: Considering this horn man is originally from Kansas City and has played with everyone from Springsteen to Chic, he makes some damn convincing yes mon music. Sun dappled and smoke filled, he brings to Jamaica what Rabbit Bundrick brought to the Wailers. If there's a more perfect summer soundtrack, it better show it's face before the solstice.
(Rocktorium 4)
STILL WISH YOU WERE HERE-A TRIBUTE TO PINK FLOYD: A bunch of seminal 70s rockers gather round the fire to pay tribute to a seminal 70s album. What could go wrong? Well, purists could crab it doesn't have any of the original members of Floyd on board but that would explain why the complainers are bed wetters. It's a pretty high bar to reach to improve on the original but this cast brings their own special sauce and uses it liberally while staying true to the original muse. C'mon, what nearly 50 years between friends? It'll do you more good than your statins, grand pa.
(Cleopatra 2309)
PAMELA Z/Secret Code: Did Beaver & Krause really know what they'd be unleashing when they started screwing around with electronics? It won't replace K-Pop in younger hearts and minds but grown ups in touch with the avant garde can listen to this without having to be eggheads first. This gal knows how to use every part of the cow, including the moo, and knows how to rearrange it all into something that's never been this way before. Wild.
(Neuma 143)
SONIDOS CUBANOS 2: A various artists, Cuban music collection that takes you way beyond the Ricky Ricardo pale. Showing the Cuban classical and high brow music can be just as dark and mysterious as anybody else's, these five takes could have a spot in the live sex show in "Godfather II", but that's the closest it'll come to every day usage. This set even includes highlights from the most whacked out modern opera you will ever (?) come across. And all of these pieces are big time award winners for composers of Cuban descent. This sure to expand your horizons.
(Neuma 133)
PHILLIP BLACKBURN/Justinian Intonations: We finally did it. We found the record Sheldon would play for Penny while calling her a dumb slut because she doesn't appreciate Tuvin throat singing. A record made for deprivation tank experiences! Taking found sounds and stretching them out under some scientific conditions, this take sound to a place beyond sound. Don't mistake this for pots and pans music but if this is the new direction in contemporary classical, fans are going to have to do some running to catch up. Now that pot is legal, maybe this should be rebranded as modern head music. Far out man!
(Neuma 127)
DAVID DUNN/Verdant: So titled because it was recorded in his backyard on Easter Sunday during covid shutdown, this cat that makes special mics so he can record bark beetles and ultrasonic communications of bats, offers a layered sound scape that is best enjoyed with headphones while smoking something that should help your glaucoma. A nature record with extra layers that takes things to it's outer most extreme, it makes you wonder where's the Northsound gang when you really need their marketing experience to turn this into an underground hit with bored housewives. The minimalist spiritual scion of Tomita has left his mark.
(Neuma 129)
Volume 45/Number 196
May15, 2021
MIDWEST RECORD
830 W. Route 22 #144
Lake Zurich, IL., 60047
CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher
Copyright 2021 Midwest Record
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