Category: Reviews

Rewind Review: Tinariwen – Emmaar (2014)

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been on a Tinariwen kick this month.

Emmaar is an album they released in 2014 and was recorded in a different desert than they one in which they live and sing about in Algeria. Emmaar was recorded in Joshua Tree, California in the spring of 2013. They were amid cacti, mountain flowers, horses, a different kind of heat, cowboy culture, and probably a bunch of hippy Californians. They were far from their homeland, which might’ve fueled the songs on Emmaar (The Heat on the Breeze) – as they are about the Tuareg people and their struggles and the peace of their home desert. One can’t help but wonder if Tinariwen saw Southwestern Native Americans as their own desert nomads and felt kinship with them.

After all, the opening track is “Toumast Tincha” (“The People Have Been Sold Out”), and the album’s first lyrics translate to “The ideals of the people have been sold out, my friends. Any peace imposed by force is bound to fail and give way to hatred.” Add sizzling guitars to that kind of piercing imagery and you get a powerful track. “Chaghaybou” is a song about a man who reflects the proud spirit of the Tuareg people.

“Arhegh Danagh” (“I Want to Tell”) is a great example of the “desert blues” Tinariwen play so well. It blends haunting guitar sounds and hand percussion with deep Delta blues lyrics like “Today’s love is like a mirage. The closer you get, the further away it goes. It’s been ten years since love left me, since it deserted my soul and no longer crosses my path…” I mean, Howlin’ Wolf sang stuff like that every night. “Timadrit in Sahara” (“Youth in Sahara”) is a call to action of the Tuareg kids to challenge the world. In reverse, “Imidiwan Ahi Sigdim” (“Friends, Hear me”) is a call to the band’s own generation to remember those who sacrificed before them but also to not get trapped in the past and old ways of thinking that destroyed so many.

“Tahalamot” is a beautiful song about a woman so beautiful that the singer puts on his best robes and musk and brings out his best saddle to ride to her like a nobleman. The droning bass and snappy guitar exude the man’s confidence and determination to see her again and win her heart. “Sendad Eghlalan” (“This Constant Lethargy”) is another call for the Tuareg men to snap out of being “engrossed and seduced by a world that’s forever advancing.” It’s interesting to note that women are included in this cry, as they’ve already figured out all this and are able to see through the illusions far easier than us stubborn dudes.

“Imidiwanin Ahi Tifhamam” (“Friends, Understand Me!”) is a song about love that has come and gone, but there are no regrets – only fond memories and lessons taken to heart. “Koud Edhaz Emin” (“Even if I Seem to Smile”) has the singer putting on a brave face as he watches so many of his brothers suffering from oppression, illusions they willfully embrace, and the pursuit of materialistic pleasures while they have far better things like Tuareg songs and music to enjoy. “Emajer” is delightfully playful, and the closer, “Aghregh Medin” (“I Call on Man”), a call for unity, is like a mantra.

It’s another beautiful record by Tinariwen, among their many others, and the blend of African and U.S. desert culture is a powerful incense you’ll want to float around you for a long while.

Keep your mind open.

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Live: Viagra Boys – The Salt Shed – Chicago, IL – Feb. 24, 2023

My friend and I arrived at Chicago’s Salt Shed (the former Morton’s Salt factory) too late to catch The Steens, mainly due to chilly weather and heavy traffic, but we made it in plenty of time to see Viagra Boys. The venue is pretty damn big, and they packed the place in a near sold-out show that lead singer Sebastian Murphy said might’ve been their biggest show in the United States.

They certainly brought the energy to back that claim, opening with a pounding version of “I Ain’t No Thief” that had beer cans and water cups flying everywhere over the large main crowd floor. Following that with “Ain’t Nice” was like pouring gasoline on a fire.

The crowd was jumping, yelling, singing and even sometimes dumbfounded as Viagra Boys ripped through old and new tracks and sometimes wandered into weird psychedelia, including a Captain Beefheart-like saxophone solo by Oscar Carls.

Other highlights included the crowd favorites “Sports” and “Troglodyte” (which had everyone chanting), the graphic deep cut “Liquids” (which Murphy admitted, on stage, is “a song about getting peed on.”), a trippy version of “Creepy Crawlers,” and a long, wild version of “Shrimp Shack” to close out the main set. It was also cool to hear “Worms” during the encore, as it’s a sharp song about impermanence but almost a relaxing tonic before “Research Chemicals” hits you in the face.

They set a high bar for bands the rest of the year. Enjoy the chaos with them if you get a chance.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Tinariwen – Aman Iman: Water Is Life (2022 reissue)

Originally released in 2007, Tinariwen‘s third album, Aman Iman: Water Is Life, is a stunning piece of work that tells stories of rough desert living, friendship, spiritual searches, heartbreak, and blessings.

“Cler Achel” starts off the record with Tinariwen’s characteristic handclaps and Mohammed Ag Itlale‘s snappy, raw, and blues-influenced guitar work. I don’t know how Touareg bands do it, but only they can seem to make guitars sound like this, and Itlale is a master at making a guitar sound like a desert wind one moment and a chattering, happy bird the next.

The vocal trills on “Ahimana” instantly transport you out of your environment and into a desert landscape, and the languid rhythm of “Soixante Trois” curls around you like a warm cat at your feet. “Toumast” (one of multiple calls on the album for Touraeg clans to unite) might be one of the more psychedelic tracks on the album, as the guitar tones on it shift from mesmerizing to almost garage rock sounds.

“Imidiwan Winakalin” rolls along with a danceable beat and fades out like the sun going down behind a tall dune. Other tracks lull you into a sense of being part of something bigger and yet something that can be found in something as small as a sand grain. The closer, “Izarharh Ténéré,” drifts away from you like a warm breeze moving toward a night sky.

It’s another lovely album from them, and a perfect balm for stress.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Sam at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Tinariwen – Imidiwan: Companions (2022 reissue)

Tinariwen‘s fourth album, Imidiwan: Companions sends you into a hypnotic desert landscape from the first notes of the opener, “Imidiwan Afrik Temdam.” The simple, yet haunting guitar, the handclap percussion, and the group vocals during the chorus instantly are uplifting.

The whole album is like that (as is pretty much every Tinariwen record). “Lulla” will get you and everyone around you dancing. The heavy guitar chords of “Tenhert” would make Johnny Cash smile. “Tamodjerazt Assis” has a cool psychedelic rhythm that will make your head sway like its turned into a willow tree in a soft wind.

The chant-like vocals of “Imazeghen N Adagh” are almost as hypnotizing as the dust devil guitar chords and unhurried hand percussion. “Assuf Ag Assuf” moves like smoke. “Ere Tasfata Adouina” is perfect for a ride through the desert with no particular agenda or destination with its dreamy guitar licks and relaxed, but soulful vocals. The album closes with “Desert Wind,” a slightly eerie instrumental of simple guitar and synth loops that creates a mind-warping effect.

Tinariwen were making a lot of international waves when this album originally came out in 2009, and its reissue is a welcome treat for fans of Tuareg music, desert rock, and the band’s early career.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Sam at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Rewind Review: Esquivel – Cabaret Mañana (1995)

Cabaret Mañana is an excellent collection of the space-age composer, maestro, bandleader, musician, and arranger, Juan Garcia Esquivel, who was so cool that he could just go by his last name like Karloff, Lugosi, Bowie, Kubrick, Hitchcock, and Morricone.

The compilation covers tracks from 1958 to 1967 and begins with “Mini Skirt,” which was only released in Mexico and Puerto Rico until this album was released in 1995. It’s a fun track about one of Esquivel’s favorite subjects, women, complete with wolf whistle’s and sexy piano riffs.

“Johnson Rag” blends big brass sections with singers singing “Zu-zu-zu” again and again. Esquivel was known as mixing traditional sounds with plenty of outsider stuff like nonsense lyrics just for the sound of them or putting Chinese bells in Latin music. His arrangement of Cole Porter‘s “Night and Day” sounds like it could be a Bond film theme at one point, and then bachelor pad music in the next. “El Cable” is so happy that it could probably banish rainclouds if you played it loud enough.

“Harlem Nocturne” also sounds like an action film theme, and Esquivel did write a lot of music for action TV shows (Miami Vice, The Six Million Dollar Man, and The A-Team among them). “Mucha Muchacha” is one of two tracks on the compilation, the other being “Estrellita,” that are from his Latin-Esque album. Esquivel was so committed to capturing stereo sound on that album that he divided his orchestra in half and had them play simultaneously in separate studios while he and another conductor worked together via closed-circuit television.

Yeah, that was the kind of work ethic he had.

“Time on My Hands” reminds me of some of Ennio Morricone‘s work with its ticking clock setting a constant beat while a slightly sorrowful trumpet plays in another room. “Malagueña” transports you to an exotic desert land on another planet. His take on “Sentimental Journey” is a blast and loaded with his trademarks of space-pop sound, flirting whistles, and those lovely ladies singing “zu-zu-zu.”

The percussion on “Limehouse Blues” is delightfully weird, especially when you mix it with Tiki bar guitar riffs and synths that sound like they’re drunk on margaritas. “April in Portugal” shows off Esquivel’s piano skills. “Question Mark (Que Vas a Hacer)” sounds like the opening theme of a 1960s European sex comedy. His version of “It Had to Be You” is bawdy and beautiful, suitable for night clubs and strip clubs.

“Yeyo” is snappy and a bit bratty (in a fun way). “Lullaby of Birdland” practically struts its sexy stuff down the boulevard on a hot summer day. “Flower Girl from Bordeaux” is full of bold trumpet work, jazz lounge piano, and exotic vocal sounds that create a luscious cocktail.

It’s a fun, lovely compilation from one of the best composers of the 1960s and should be heard by many.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava

You might expect King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard‘s album Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava to start out with some sort of massive cosmic metal track when you look at the album’s cover, but KGATLW are well-known for doing the unexpected, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the album starts off with a groovy, saxophone-tooting jam track (“Mycelium”) instead.

It’s a big jam album. The whole thing was recorded in a week with almost no planning. The band started each track with a tempo, a title, and a key signature. That’s it. They’d just improvise on those things for a few hours, and then frontman Stuart Mackenzie would later go back and arrange the jams into songs, and the band would write lyrics to fit them. Yeah, it’s nuts, but it’s just the kind of thing KGATLW love to do (and make look easy).

“Ice V” (pronounced “Ice Five”) is one of the best cuts on the record. It’s a snappy psych-funk song about aliens, crop circles, and other cosmic entities that’s helped along by Michael Cavanagh‘s wickedly tight snare hits. The subtle use of Ambrose Kenny-Smith‘s saxophone in the background is another nice touch.

“Magma” dips a bit into the cosmic rock you expect from the album cover, and it also dips into the band’s love of microtonal instrumentation. “Lava”is a psychedelic trip that ripples and flows like its namesake as Mackenzie sings about life and death and what can represent each.

“Hell’s Itch” is the longest track on the album at over thirteen minutes (which can be considered a warm-up for KGATLW by this point in their career). It floats along (and fills your lungs) like a playful butterfly (3000) along some muddy water and each band member gets time to shine. “Iron Lung” sounds like a lost 1970s crime film soundtrack cut with Joey Walker‘s bass work, and then a krautrock jam when the guitar solo blasts through your speakers. “Gilese 710” tackles one of KGATLW’s favorite subjects – the environment (and what we’ve been doing to it for decades). It’s wild, slightly heavy, and seems to be all over the place while actually keeping within a tight structure. Imagine Captain Beefheart started a krautrock band and you’ll get the idea.

It’s an album that shouldn’t work (“Let’s just jam a lot based on a tempo, key, and title, and we’ll figure it out later.”), but it does quite well. The level of talent in KGATLW is baffling, they sell out shows all over the world, and yet so many people say, “Who?” when you mention them. I think they like it that way.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: Ram Dass & Kriece – Cosmix (2008)

What do you get when you mix lectures on Zen, the cosmos, the soul, the Tao, and the journey of the self with wicked bass and beats? If you’re lucky, you get something as cool as Cosmix by philosopher Ram Dass and Australian DJ Kriece.

The album has parts of Dass’ lectures under Kriece’s beats, and neither overwhelms the other. They perfectly blend to promote each other. “Mystic Poetry” has Dass talk about embracing cosmic love while Kriece puts down snappy, toe-tappy beats behind him. “Thousands of thoughts go by, like clouds in the sky,” Dass says on “Thoughts” – a great track about non-attachment to the things that keep us from experiencing the present.

“Mantra” is downright groovy, mixing Dass’ chants and Kriece’s dance beats in perfect unison. This will be stuck in your head for hours, and that’s a good thing. “Stuck” has Dass discussing how he moved away from psychotropic drugs and into deep meditation.

“Breath Inside the Breath” brings the beats to the forefront. “The soul is unique. It has its unique karma,” Dass tells us at the beginning of the beautiful “Dream Dance.” Kriece’s synths shimmer as Dass explains how the soul can liberate itself from attachments through various incarnations. It’s heavy stuff, but heavenly stuff.

“Do you hear that?” Dass asks as rain drops and thunder rolls ahead of Kriece’s synth beats. “That’s peace.” Dass asks us to find peace in the sounds (and silence) around us, and Kriece’s beats (and the spaces between them) nudge us toward it. On “Spacesuit for Earth,” Dass’ words of “When you take an incarnation, it’s like getting into a space suit…” begin the track and soon he’s talking about why we feel separate from each other, from the world around us, and the universe, and Kriece’s hypnotizing synths are soon taking us beyond that universe and Dass is telling us that we’ve been crammed into “a conceptual model since birth…From your point of view, it’s the only reality most of the time.”

“Desire” is both a lecture on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism and an ambient house track. The closer, “Additya Hridayam,” mixes what sounds like ambient crowd noise from a bus station with Dass’ echoing chants and mantras. It reminds us to slow down in the chaos of our daily lives, to step back from the rush to chasing a buck or get to the magical “golden goodie” (as Dass’ contemporary Alan Watts described it) that we think will make us happy.

It’s a neat album that mixes drum and bass and Zen, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy. What’s not to like?

Keep your mind open. This album will help in that regard.

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Rewind Review: Failure – In the Future Your Body Will Be the Furthest Thing from Your Mind (2018)

If Failure‘s 2015 album, The Heart Is a Monster, picked up where 1996’s Fantastic Planet left off, then their 2018 album, In the Future Your Body Will Be the Furthest Thing from Your Mind, doesn’t pick up where THIAM left off. It lifts off the ground and takes the band even further into the cosmos.

“Dark Speed” gets things off to a groovy start with Greg Edwards‘ funky bass line that will have you tapping your fingers on the steering wheel or your hot rod or your space cruiser. The bass gets heavier on “Paralytic Flow,” as do Ken Andrews‘ vocals about lust, desire, and passion. “Pennies” is one of those mellow tracks that Failure does so well: Simple, soft vocals, almost orchestral arrangements, and floating-in-space sound throughout the whole thing.

The album includes three “Segues” (numbers 10, 11, and 12), which begun with Fantastic Planet and have continued onto multiple albums since then. These tracks are all instrumentals either linking one song to the next or standing on their own as meditations. “Segue 10” is one of the meditative tracks, which clears your head before the somewhat menacing “No One Left.” Kellii Scott pounds out a lot of excess energy he had in the studio that day on it.

The drums and bass on “Solar Eyes” come to kick ass and take names. Andrews encourages us all to rest on “What Makes It Easy,” which is almost a soft love song. “Segue 11” sounds like it combines whale song with a thunderstorm. The slow build of “Found a Way” is like the sensation of watching an approaching comet. It’s a song about a break-up (“I finally found a way to release you and I don’t need anything you left me.””) wrapped in a power-rock track.

Scott’s drumming on “Distorted Fields” is wild and full of what almost sound like random drum fills, but then you realize he’s playing in advanced time signatures that will make your head spin. The groove of “Heavy and Blind” is wicked. “Another Post Human Dream” is a ballad for a prom at Phillip K. Dick High School. “Apocalypse Blooms” is the song you play in the car as you’re leaving that prom and heading for the make-out spot overlooking a neon-lit city with the knowledge it might be the last night of planet Earth.

“Come meet me in the silence,” Andrews sings on “Force Fed Rainbow” – a song great for leaving the comfort of a space station for the unknown, endless silence of space. “The Pineal Electorate” (with Edwards on lead vocals) reveals the band’s love of The Beatles‘ psychedelic era.

It’s another solid, cosmic entry in Failure‘s discography, and an album that will thinking of big-picture science and even bigger picture thoughts on humanity, technology, and the relationships between both.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: Failure – Tree of Stars (2014)

Taken from recordings of live shows from their reunion tour around 2014, Failure‘s Tree of Stars is a strong and tight capture of the band flattening crowds in Houston and Phoenix with their wall of cosmic shoegaze sound.

“Let It Drip” is the first track on the EP and the first one recorded in Phoenix. Ken Andrews distorted vocals go well with his roaring guitar, and Kellii Scott pretty much puts on a drumming clinic through the whole track. It’s over before you have time to catch your breath.

Greg Edwards‘ bass on “Frogs” (live from Houston) brings to mind a giant version of the titular creature rumbling under the surface of a dark pond upon which a meteor storm (Scott’s drumming) is reflected. The live version of “Sergeant Politeness” (the second Phoenix track) hits with aggressive thuds and extra vigor in Andrews’ vocals. The second track record in Houston is “Heliotropic,” which always has a roaring guitar solo from Andrews, and this version is no exception.

The download version of Tree of Stars comes with a new 2014 version of “Solaris” that is somehow even more deep-space than the original as a result of a slower beat, reverb-drenched vocals, and guitars that sound like they’re being played in Atlantis. The tour-only version had “Come Crashing” on it, which was Failure’s first new music since 1996’s Fantastic Planet and would end up on their 2015 album The Heart Is a Monster.

It’s a great tease of hopefully a full live album in the future.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: King Buffalo – The Burden of Restlessness (2021)

It’s a bit surprising that I didn’t own a copy of King Buffalo‘s The Burden of Restlessness until now, because they were touring with this album when I first saw them live (playing with Clutch and Stöner) in 2021. I was blown away by their performance and became an immediate fan. I instead bought their first album (and a shirt) at their merchandise table, and this album has somehow eluded me until now.

It’s a shame, because the opening track, “Burning,” alone is a massive slice of cosmic rock that hits as hard as any All Them Witches track but in more of a “Silver Surfer zipping past a collapsing dwarf star” feel than an occult-psychedelic feel. Dan Reynolds bass on “Hebetation” will pick you up, rattle you, and inspire Herculean strength in you for whatever task you’re doing at that moment. The breakdown around the two-minute mark is sublime. Sean McVay sings about contemplating his mortality, but he never sounds frightened by it. He’s too busy shredding his guitar to worry about what comes after death.

McVay’s guitar ripples across “Locusts” like the titular insects bouncing across a wheat field. “Silverfish” is a stand-out on the album with McVay’s guitar sounding like a space probe, Scott Donaldson‘s precision drumming mixed with thunderous fills now and then, and Reynolds bass moving like a cat around the room waiting to either curl up on your lap or attack your ankle. It chooses the latter.

McVay cranks the fuzz on “Grifter,” which might flatten you if you’re not prepared for it. McVay explores depression on “The Knocks” (“Every day I wake up on the floor. Another useless day like every one that’s come before.”). It’s a slow burn to a powerful explosion of sound, like McVay has finally decided to kick open his barricaded door from the inside and woe betide anyone who’s on the other side. “Loam” closes the album with over seven minutes of head-trip rock with McVay says he’s “shedding the burden of restlessness to rise from the loam of the nothingness.” You’ll always get a thumbs-up from me if you close your album with a Zen lesson.

Keep your mind open (This album will help.).

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