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: Civilians
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.
Weekly Burlesque: Interview with Kelly DiNardo
Lili St. Cyr, a pioneering burlesque performer known for on-stage bubble baths, has her life chronicled in the forthcoming biography Gilded Lili: Lili St. Cyr and the Striptease Mystique. Jo Weldon, our resident burlesque expert, spoke with its author, Kelly DiNardo, in anticipation of its release on October 16.
Vic Chesnutt: North Star Deserter
Singer/songwriter Vic Chesnutt, always one to maintain a prodigious release schedule, experiences a rebirth with his eleventh full-length album, North Star Deserter.
Margaret Cho’s Sensuous Woman Joins Estrojam
Margaret Cho’s burlesque variety show “The Sensuous Women” has been added to four nights of the fifth annual Estrojam Music and Cultural Festival in Chicago. The female-oriented festivities will feature fifty acts from September 18-22, closing with a blow-out anniversary celebration at The Metro.
Valgeir Sigurdsson: Ekvilibrium
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.
Oakley Hall: I’ll Follow You
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.
Softies: Simple Instructions for 25 Plush Pals
In an age when the plastic mini-monsters known as Bratz dolls are coveted by little girls everywhere, the softies movement has taken on great significance. Craftsters, once banished to local fairs and yard sales, have now become part of a growing subculture unashamed of its Peter Pan complex and quirky vision.
Botch: We Are the Romans (reissue)
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.
Zoroaster: Dog Magic
The songs on Zoroaster’s excellent new album Dog Magic (Southern Lord Records) are monolithic slabs of stoner doom. They are egregiously long and ridiculously heavy.
Ick: The Game
The premise of Ick: The Game is simple; monsters like repulsive stuff and require their favorite items before moving into a house. Thus players must attain the correct materials — used band-aids, rotten vegetables, toxic sludge, etc. — to pile up monsters and points in broken-down huts of grime.
Qui: Love’s Miracle
So which story do you want to hear? The one in which cult hero David Yow joins Qui, a duo that sounds an awful lot like The Jesus Lizard? Or the one in which a band as powerful and inventive as The Jesus Lizard recruits that group’s singer, David Yow?