You can just tell the holiday shopping season is cranking up because you can't move one step in any direction without stumbling over a new "Plays Holiday Favorites" or greatest hits disc. (I should know, they keep showing up in my danged mailbox.) None of this means that there isn't anything good out there, because there almost always is.

The Fat Is Gone - Peter Brötzmann/Mats Gustafsson/Paal Nilssen-Love (Smalltown Supersound)/Frightening Improv

I have to purchase my Brötzmann only very occasionally because it takes a while to get over the blatant intensity. Recorded last year at the Molde International Jazz Festival, this is really what European improvised jazz is all about. Well, maybe not all, but certainly a side of it. You know how some folks will characterize slower music as "like watching paint dry"? This music will sandblast that paint right back off the wall.

Please, adults only. Too intense for young children and pets.

Blues All Ways - Dave Liebman (Omnitone)/Jazz

Liebman never seems to slow down. Rather than mine the past, he continues to push his own envelope. Heck, even when he does look back (Back On The Corner), he comes at it from a different angle. The new record has Liebman and his band (Vic Juris/guitars, Tony Marino/bass, Marko Marcinko/drums) taking a Coltrane-ish pass through the blues.

Live at the Barbican Theatre 2006 - Os Mutantes (Luaka Bop)/Latin something-or-other

I'd heard of this band, but none of the music had made its way to my ear. Good gawd. Imagine progressive rock that leans more toward early psychedelic music...but by way of Brazil. I tell you, some really great and thought-provoking stuff comes out of David Byrne's Luaka Bop label.

Black and White Album - The Hives (Octone)/Rock

Yeah, they wear suits and alla that crazy stuff. They also channel and amplify the spirit of garage rock's past in a way that makes me want to torture my car amplifier.

In Her Own Write - Petula Clark (Sepia)/Rock (I swear, that's what Billboard said)

Wow, it's been a looooonnnng time since "Downtown." Apparently, Petula's been writing all sorts of music across the years. She turns seventy-five in a few days and somehow, I have a strange attraction to this record.

One Man Band - James Taylor (Hear Music)/Rock

I just can't help myself. I love James Taylor. A great singer, songwriter, and fabulous guitar player, I just never tire of him. This set was recorded in his home town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts in a VH-1 Storytellers manner. What's cool is that he deals with both his 'big' songs as well as more recent material. I'm all over it.