Music

Paul Motian, born in 1931, has been a professional jazz drummer for over fifty years. Beginning his career with a stint in the Bill Evans Trio from ‘59-’64, Motian has played with a veritable who’s who of jazz, including Thelonious Monk, Charlie Haden, Don Cherry, Paul Bley, and Keith Jarrett.

Brooklyn’s Akron/Family have been releasing albums steadily and frequently since their debut in 2005, with their last full-length being the diverse, polarized art rock album Meek Warrior. On that release, they partially abandoned their tribal folk rock sound for a head-spinning trip through Krautrock, psych rock, and pure noise over the course of only seven tracks.

Chicago’s Mannequin Men have been spitting out snarling rock ‘n’ roll since 2003. The guitar-driven quartet has followed-up its self-released debut album, Showbiz Witch, with a more focused release.

Halfway through writing his new record, Matthew Houck, the mastermind behind the indie folk project Phosphorescent, left his hometown of Athens, Georgia to see what New York had to offer. As it turns out, the move offered the musician isolation, and Pride, out October 23 on Dead Oceans, is the first Phosphorescent album with Houck on every instrument.

For the last few years, pop experimentalists Animal Collective have straddled the line between the cerebral and the base. At a mostly successful performance at Chicago’s Vic Theatre earlier this week, Animal Collective veered towards the former.

Joe Henry has collaborated with or produced some of the most significant songwriters of our time (Louden Wainwright III, Elvis Costello, Aimee Mann, and Ani DiFranco). His own profound songwriting skills are splayed out across the tracks of Civilians, which get some assistance from guitarist Bill Frisell, organist Patrick Warren, and drummer Jay Bellerose.

Singer/songwriter Vic Chesnutt, always one to maintain a prodigious release schedule, experiences a rebirth with his eleventh full-length album, North Star Deserter.

Long known for his prodigious skill as a producer and having worked hand in hand with Bjork to create the gloriously ornate textures of her Vespertine and Medulla albums, Valgeir Sigurdsson has surprisingly just now gotten around to making his first solo disc.

Last year, Oakley Hall released two full-lengths within mere months of each other, and apparently both were necessary; Second Guessing and Gypsum Strings both found their way onto critics’ top ten lists and, even better, featured splendid male/female harmonies and transcendent electric country anthems that were both immediately gratifying and intricate.

Botch’s We Are the Romans was originally released in 2000, and it stands out today as one of Hydra Head Records’ greatest releases. Hydra Head had staked out an image as the source for smart, arty hardcore, and Botch were a perfect fit for the label.