Forgive me, I'm a few days late in delivering the new release news this week. I've been so tied up with all this Rush-stuff going on - tickets, the album-art controversy, and just general little tidbits going on - that I haven't had a whole lot of time to concentrate on the new stuff out this week. But it's here, and you can start rejoicing . . . now:
Grant-Lee Phillips - Strangelet: I'm not going to say too much because I'm going to review this soon, but it's simple: if you like Grant-Lee in any capacity, be it fronting Grant Lee Buffalo or solo, you'll probably enjoy this. It's just another album of solid songs from Gilmore Girls' crackly voiced town troubador.
Gang Font feat. Interloper: Imagine, if you will, if Fugazi suddenly decided to throw out the vocals and ramp up their musical skills to the level of jazz musicians. That's what Gang Font feat. Interloper sounds like - a punk band gone jazz. And they've got the roots to prove it - Husker Du's (I'll let you put in the umlauts) Greg Norton on bass, taking a break from restaurant duties, with The Bad Plus's drum-basher Dave King, the keyboard oddities of Craig Taborn, and Happy Apples' guitarist Erik Fratzke. Check out Blogcritic Mark Saleski's review of the disc. You'll just have to wait to figure out who or what is "Interloper."
Turtle Island String Quartet - A Love Supreme: The Legacy of John Coltrane: Usually, these "string quartet tributes" elicit groans from me, but in this case, it's worth further investigation. First, this isn't your usual string ensemble - rather than coming from the classical world, these guys are a jazz ensemble of string players, and even a quick listen to clips on their site shows that these guys actually swing.
Not only do they tackle the entirety of Coltrane's classic A Love Supreme, they take on a number of other well-known piece by the giant such as "Naima," "My Favorite Things," and "'Round Midnight." For once, one of these string tributes appears to actually do justice to the source material.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
no umlauts? tsk, tsk.
2 - Tom Johnson
All right, fine, I got lazy. Hüsker Dü. Happy?
3 - Mark Saleski
heh. me & my friends always used to joke that Umlaut would be a great name for a metal band.
4 - Tom Johnson
The umlaut's got to be over an un-umlautable letter, like the M, no - it's got to be over ALL the un-umlautable letters. The M, the L, and the T.
5 - Mark Saleski
that's it. you need to buy some Rainbow cds on the way home today.
6 - Tom Johnson
Rainbow's Live In Munich 1977 bought, consumed, and thoroughly loved - and now Rising and Long Live Rock 'n Roll are on their way to me from Amazon. Can't believe I've overlooked this stuff for so long. Embarassed, I should say!