Wounded Messenger’s Top 101 Albums of the Decade

I now understand the infatuation that music journalists have with making lists. As pretentious, biased, and personalized as lists are, they’re just as much fun to do. Especially this one, which I won’t purport to be the “best” albums of the decade, only my “favorite” albums of the decade. As for the number, well, I [...]

Album Review: Massive Attack – Splitting the Atom EP

Massive Attack’s new full-length release is coming in a few months, and this EP is the ultimate teaser. Each of the four tracks on Splitting the Atom features unique vocal contributions from the likes of Tunde Adebimpe (TV on the Radio), longtime contributor Horace Andy, Martina Topley Bird (Tricky), and Guy Garvey (Elbow). Two of [...]

Album Review: Volcano Choir – Unmap

Unmap is the rare record that excites by premise alone: pair indie-folk king Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) with the equally esoteric Wisconsin post-rock band Collections of Colonies of Bees, and let Vernon’s arresting voice glide over the band’s mesmerizing, cinematic sound collages. That tantalizing prospect doesn’t even begin to describe the music found on Unmap, [...]

Album Review: SeepeopleS – Apocalypse Cow Vol. 2

During “What’s Missing,” the lush, schizophrenic track that opens Apocalypse Cow Vol. 2, SeepeopleS front man Will Bradford creepily announces, “what’s missing is old fashioned justice.” He’s on about something sinister and corrupt, but he could easily be talking about the puzzling path his band has traveled for the last 7 years. For the third [...]

Five Spot: Five Album Reviews

Once in a while, I’ll be writing short reviews of things on my hard drive that are probably already old but I haven’t gotten around to. They’ll be very informal and less analytical. The music will be chosen at random, too, so complete disorganization is assured.
Archive – Controlling Crowds – This is the first release [...]

News Fragments: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Lineup, Sunny Day Real Estate Reunion, Phish Album Announcement, Virgin FreeFest

-San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival has announced the initial lineup for the free event, which takes place at Golden Gate Park October 2-4, 2009. The first announced acts look just great, and the lineup includes Okkervil River, Del McCoury Band, Robyn Hitchcock, Aimee Mann, Allen Toussaint, Dr. Dog, Neko Case, Booker T. and the [...]

Album Review: Tortoise – Beacons of Ancestorship

Beacons of Ancestorship brings Tortoise’s sound firmly into the future. Once known for their majestic, open-ended post-rock instrumentals, the band have turned engineer John McEntire’s fascination with breakbeats and off-kilter rhythms into an altogether new venture.
The album gives listeners a clear indication of where Tortoise’s sound is probably headed. Change is manifested in dense, [...]

Album Review: Paper Route – Absence

Paper Route draws heavy influence from 1980’s synth-pop, and the Nashville band is benefiting from a resurgence of interest in that style of music. They maximize the technological payload of their songs, setting their vocals against lush backdrops of eclectic instrumentation, electronic percussion, keyboard manipulations, dramatic melodic swells, and mechanized rhythms.
On their debut full-length, [...]

Live: BoomBox and Bitch Please, April 30, 2009, Raleigh, NC

BoomBox and Bitch Please unfurled a nearly nonstop night of music at Raleigh’s Pour House Music Hall on the last day of April. Unrelenting dance beats and lengthy instrumental journeys ruled the night as the pair of duos kept an eager crowd dancing until the last note.
Bitch Please, out of Lexington, Kentucky, kicked the party [...]

Album Review: Prefuse 73 – Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian

Listening to Prefuse 73’s Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian is like putting your brain in a musical room of spinning mirrors. This release takes the listener on a startling trip full of sudden stops and subtle direction changes that somehow still gets you to a destination, albeit an unknown one.
Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian [...]