Music

Gutbucket

Guest Spot: Gutbucket explains how to argue about food

GutbucketGutbucket: Flock (Cuneiform, 2/22/11)

Gutbucket: “4 9 8”

[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/03-4-9-8.mp3|titles=Gutbucket: “4 9 8”]

Brooklyn-based jazz-rock quartet Gutbucket released its fifth album, Flock, in February on Cuneiform. The band takes its name from the term “gutbucket,” which means to play jazz in a particularly exuberant or expressive style, and it claims that its unconventional style has been “injecting a shot of glorious spazmitude into the minimalist cool of the New York downtown scene” for the past 10 years.

Gutbucket’s off-the-wall music is the result of its members’ distinct contributions and, inevitably, artistic disagreements and compromises. When it comes to food, Gutbucket engages in a similar, hotly contested discourse. So whet your appetite and embrace the taste-bud-inspired tongue lashings with Gutbucket’s culinary treatise, “How to Argue About Food.”

How to Argue About Food
by Gutbucket

Most bands break up. It’s a fact. Rock bands do this quite a bit, and it’s often not very friendly. Jazz bands might be a bit more civil about it, or perhaps not. If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve been in a band before, so this is not unfamiliar terrain.

Take three or more humans engaged in a creative endeavor, and ideas, visions, aesthetics, and more will clash. So how do you handle this?

Well, Gutbucket has the answer.

Forget about consensus. Don’t pretend you will agree. Embrace the friction, disagreement, discomfort, and argumentative spirit.

But please have other outlets and arenas besides your music in which to behave this way.

That’s why Gutbucket chooses to argue, debate, dissect, and regularly disagree about food. Yes, food. We are a band of music nerds who spend most of our time talking about food instead of music.

Morrow vs. Hajduch

Morrow vs. Hajduch: Austra’s Feel It Break

Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. Each week they debate the merits of a different album.

Austra: Feel It BreakAustra: Feel It Break (Domino, 5/17/11)

Austra: “Beat and the Pulse”

[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Austra_Beat_and_the_Pulse.mp3|titles=Austra: “Beat and the Pulse”]

Morrow: A DIY advocate from the Toronto underground, singer/multi-instrumentalist Katie Stelmanis is the force behind Austra, a new electro-pop trio that incorporates an operatic flare.  Stelmanis grew up learning the viola and piano while also singing in the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus, and that vibrato vocal ability is what carries this Austra debut.

The musical complexity isn’t as pronounced here as it was on Stelmanis’ solo debut, Join Us, which preceded Feel It Break.  But both albums channel a moody yet melodic dance/electronic sound — a style that’s sure to draw comparisons to The Knife.

Alela Diane

Guest Playlist: Alela Diane’s songs to pack a suitcase to

Alela Diane: Wild DivineAlela Diane: Alela Diane & Wild Divine (Rough Trade, 4/5/11)

Alela Diane: “To Begin”

[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/tobegin.mp3|titles=Alela Diane: “To Begin”]

On “Pieces of String,” a track from Alela Diane‘s 2004 record, The Pirate’s Gospel, she sings, “If I had one, I’d play this on piano.” Consider it wishful thinking. Whereas her first few albums, including the self-released Gospel and Forest Parade, are characterized by spare, plucked guitar and airy harmonies about simpler times, Alela Diane‘s newest, Alela Diane & Wild Divine, stretches its legs with a greater sonic palette and higher production value. Despite the warmth and homeliness of her folk tunes, Diane’s a troubadour, and she’s got the playlist to prove it.

Songs to Pack a Suitcase to, with Anticipation for the Highway
by Alela Diane

1.  Fairport Convention: “Farewell, Farewell”

A song of goodbye.

Concert Photos: John Vanderslice / Damien Jurado @ Lincoln Hall (Chicago, IL)

The newest entry into John Vanderslice‘s deep and undeniably remarkable catalog is White Wilderness, and it’s a record like no other he’s made before. It comprises nine new songs captured live over three days in a unique collaboration with the Magik*Magik Orchestra, a collective of classically trained musicians in the Bay Area led by artistic director Minna Choi.  Images below are from Vanderslice’s recent show with Damien Jurado at Lincoln Hall in Chicago. Photography by Jon Shaft.

John Vanderslice

True Soul: Deep Sounds From the Left of Stax Vol. 1

The Groove Seeker: True Soul: Deep Sounds From the Left of Stax, Volume 1

On a biweekly basis, The Groove Seeker goes in search of killer grooves across rock, funk, hip hop, soul, electronic music, jazz, fusion, and more.

True Soul: Deep Sounds From the Left of Stax Vol. 1V/A: True Soul: Deep Sounds From the Left of Stax, Volume 1 (Now-Again, 5/17/11)

The Leaders: “(It’s a) Rat Race”

[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/13-Its-a-Rat-Race.mp3|titles=The Leaders: “(It’s a) Rat Race”]

In the American soul and roots tradition, there are few stories more recognizable than the legend of Stax Records.  From the Staple Singers to Otis Redding and Sam and Dave to Wilson Pickett, and all the artists who pioneered and championed that “Stax” sound, the small Memphis, Tennessee record-shop-turned-record-label introduced the world to the irresistible funkiness of Southern soul music.

But from that golden era of soul and funk, there were and are always hardworking owners, musicians, and even whole scenes that go unnoticed.  This is the story of Mr. Lee Anthony and True Soul Records, the label that he started in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1968.  Waiting to be rediscovered on a new anthology released by Now-Again titled True Soul: Deep Sounds From the Left of Stax, the two-volume CD/DVD set is an enlightening journey offering a 28-track survey of the label’s rarest grooves.

Blue Sky Black Death

Beats & Rhymes: Blue Sky Black Death’s Noir

Each Monday, Beats & Rhymes highlights a new and notable hip-hop, rap, DJ, or electronic record that embraces independent sensibilities.

Blue Sky Black Death: NoirBlue Sky Black Death: Noir (Fake Four Inc., 4/26/11)

Blue Sky Black Death: “And Stars, Ringed”

[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/03-And-Stars-Ringed.mp3|titles=Blue Sky Black Death: “And Stars Ringed”]

When one thinks of West Coast hip-hop production, the mind likely won’t rush to the kind of music made by San Francisco’s Blue Sky Black Death. And yet the duo of Young God (Ian Taggart) and Kingston (Kingston McGuire) has become a sought commodity for its production skills, having worked with members of Hieroglyphics, Non Phixion, Jedi Mind Tricks, and Wu-Tang Clan affiliates Hell Razah and Holocaust.

Though its most controversial release is likely The Evil Jeanius, which reportedly featured vocals from rapper Jean Grae without her knowledge or monetary compensation, the duo’s instrumental records have received tremendous critical accolades. BSBD returned in late April with Noir, an album of hazy instrumental beats that skirt the boundary between hip hop and electronica.

Nearly 80 percent of the record is composed of non-sampled instrumentation that’s largely influenced by shoegaze — an unusual muse for a DJ, to say the least. The tracks certainly show it. Many instrumental hip-hop records, even ones lauded by critics and beloved by fans, feature songs that repeat themselves over and over. This pattern provides a useful verse-chorus-verse structure when a rapper is involved, but when beats are allowed to break free, they can be so much more. BSBD understands this and presents tracks that evolve, build, and change as they go, with intensity rising and falling throughout, keeping the listener on his or her toes.

The Bad Plus

Guest Spots: The Bad Plus’ pinewood derby

The Bad Plus: Never StopThe Bad Plus: Never Stop (E1, 9/14/10)

The Bad Plus: “My Friend Metatron”

[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/The_Bad_Plus_My_Friend_Metatron.mp3|titles=The Bad Plus: “My Friend Metatron”]

Jazz trio The Bad Plus has made a name for itself by reinterpreting popular rock songs and jazz standards in addition to hammering out energetic originals. Unlike its earlier albums, the band’s most recent full-length, Never Stop, consists entirely of Bad Plus compositions. Its unorthodox, avant-garde approach to creative endeavors can be traced back as far as grade school, as this story from drummer Dave King demonstrates.

The Pine Wood Derby
by Dave King of The Bad Plus

In the autumn of 1981, I participated in a Cub Scout event horizon called the Pinewood Derby. Little cars made of pine that had to be assembled from a kit by you alone, not you and your dad.

You were given a block of pine about the size of a walkie-talkie and wheels. You had to carve it in a shape that would allow the car to go fast down a track. You also had to paint it and detail it with racing stripes or personal flair concepts.

I believe there was a manual that was handed out to guide you in the possibly unfamiliar discipline of aerospace engineering. I didn’t read it because I don’t think it actually existed, and my dad refused to help me because he FOLLOWED THE RULES. I pleaded to my parents that I was sure kids were receiving help on the design and carving front because, like any awkward kid, you are aware that your peers that sort of “have it together” are receiving mysterious guidance and LOVE from many sources not as readily available to you. The Cub Scouts is actually an organization wholly devoted to shining a bright light on these deficiencies and dispensing the insecurity thusly.

The Kills

Concert Photos: The Kills @ The Vic (Chicago, IL)

The most recent album from The Kills, a bluesy rock duo composed of vocalist Allison Mossheart and guitarist Jamie Hince, is subject of a glowing Pop Addict review and received a coveted This Week’s Best Albums selection. That album, Blood Pressures, spans from straight-up rock ‘n’ roll riffing to more down-tempo balladry with ease. And now, the duo is on the road, playing its lauded tunes to audiences all across the country. Contributing photographer Lauren Herrmann captured these shots at a recent show at The Vic in Chicago.

The Kills