The Last Goodnight: Poison Kiss

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Personnel: John Kurtis, lead singer, piano, guitar; Michael Nadeau, guitar; Anton Yurack, guitar, vocals; Ely Rise, keyboards, vocals; Leif Christensen, bass.
Contents: Poison kiss — Back where we belong — Pictures of you — Stay beautiful — This is the sound — One trust — Return to me — Good love — If I talk to God — Push me away — In your arms — Incomplete.
Eric R. Danton wrote in his Hartford Courant blog Sound Check: "John Mayer has been Connecticut's entree to the pop charts in recent years, until now. Enfield band the Last Goodnight, formerly called Renata, has landed its song 'Pictures of You' on Billboard's Hot AC/Adult Top 40 chart. The tune, entering at No. 40, is the first single from 'Poison Kiss,' the band's major-label debut. … WNKS-FM in Charlotte played the song 27 times this week, with an audience of 169,000. WEZB-FM in New Orleans was the second biggest supporter with 25 spins and an audience of 129,000. Come on, Connecticut radio, where's the love?"

M.I.A.: Kala

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Contents: Bamboo banga — Bird flu — Boyz — Jimmy — Hussel (ft. Afrikan Boy) — Mango pickle down river (ft. Wil C Annia Mob) — 20 dollar — World town — The turn — XR2 — Paper planes — Come around (ft. Timbaland).
Chuck Arnold wrote in People: "'I said M.I.A. is coming back with power power!' So declares this Sri Lankan-British rapper-singer on 'Bamboo Banga,' the hypnotic, chant-like opener of her new CD. And there is no denying the propulsive — and progressive — force of this exhilarating follow-up to 2005's critically acclaimed Arular. You won't find a more sonically stimulating disc around in 2007. 'BirdFlu' merges squawking sounds with tribal drums … 'Boyz' makes you feel as if you're trapped inside of a pinball machine with a marching band. M.I.A., whose lyrics address Third World issues, employs Nigerian rapper Afrikan Boy on 'Hussel' and incorporates Indian influences elsewhere. But the most thrilling track of all is 'XR2,' with its dizzying rush of electronica beats" ("Music," 9/10/07, p. 53).

Gretchen Wilson: One of the Boys

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Contents: Girl I am (Wilson/ Hall) — Come to bed (McGehee/ Rich) — One of the boys (Wilson/ Rutherford/ Teren) — You don't have to go home (Wilson/ McGehee/ Rich) — Heaven help me (Wilson/ Rutherford/ Teren) — There's a place in the whiskey (Gray/ Lawson/ Taylor) — If you want a mother (Wilson/ Rutherford/ Teren) — Pain killer (Wilson/ Hall)— There goes the neighborhood (Wilson/ McGehee/ Rich) — Good ole boy (Wilson/ McGehee/ Rich) — To tell you the truth (Wilson/ Hall).
Chuck Arnold wrote in People: "On her third album, tough-talking country star Gretchen Wilson tries a little tenderness. 'I know I don't act much like a lady/ But I still need to be somebody's baby,' she admits on the affectingly personal title tune. Wilson reveals more of her vulnerable side on 'Pain Killer,' a classic heartbreak ballad on which she seeks temporary emotional relief from a one-night stand. But Wilson is still a redneck woman through and through, as she boasts on honky-tonkers like 'There Goes the Neighborhood'" ("Music: Country," 5/21/07, p. 49).

Animal Collective: Strawberry Jam

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Contents: Peacebone — Unsolved mysteries — Chores — For Reverend Green — Fireworks — #1 — Winter wonderland — Cuckoo cuckoo — Derek. "Recorded at Wavelab Studio in Tucson AZ by Scott Colburn, additional tracking and mixing done by Nicolas Vernhes at Rare Book Room in Brooklyn" (container).
Personnel: "Strawberry Band is AveyTare, Panda Bear, Geologist, Deacon" (container.) According to Wikipedia, they are also known as David Portner, Noah Lennox, Josh Dibb, and Brian Weitz and are "a New York City-based group of experimental musicians from Baltimore."
Artist website: http://www.myanimalhome.net/
"Collected Animals" message board: http://rerz.net/ac/messages/
Jake Swearingen wrote in Wired: "The psycho-folk outfit delivers its eighth — and best — album in seven years. It's an erratic, ecstatic crush of strobing guitars, tribal drums, and keening lyrics — sans self-indulgent noodling."

Architecture in Helsinki: Places Like This

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Contents: Red turned white — Heart it races — Hold music — Feather in a baseball cap — Underwater — Like it or not — Debbie — Lazy (lazy) — Nothing's wrong — Same old innocence.
Esquire wrote in "The Leisure Meter: How to Allocate Your Free Time This Month": "Listening to Places Like This, a new album from Architecture in Helsinki, an Australian electric-pop outfit that sounds like the B-52's if they got hold of a brass band, steel drums, and some talent.* 1 hour" (8/07, p. 24).
*Note: In this blog's humble opinion, the B-52's already have some talent, just like Architecture in Helsinki does. We are sure Esquire was just being mischievous here.

Bill McHenry: Roses

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Martin Johnson wrote in New York: "[T]he best new players are now assiduously trained in the full lineage of jazz history. … As a result, their style is a good deal gentler and more democratic than the Coltrane generation’s. Nowhere is this more evident than on the new discs by saxophonists Chris Byars, Ned Goold, Joel Frahm, and Bill McHenry. … The best and most distinctive among them is McHenry. … A native of Maine, he arrived in New York in 1992 to find a fairly enervated and unwelcoming scene. He did a tour of duty playing for lousy tips in East Village bars but couldn’t gain traction in the more serious local clubs. 'I was just weirding out in people’s basements,' McHenry says of his playing then. So he decamped to Barcelona for a year, where he found a more nurturing environment. By the late nineties he had hooked up with guitarist Ben Monder and bassist Reid Anderson (of the Bad Plus), who, along with drummer Paul Motian, now make up his quartet. Their years of playing together have given them that kind of telepathy that turns solos into duos and trios, and then takes entirely unexpected turns" (8/20/07).

Dave Matthews Band: Remember Two Things

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Kristi Randmetz wrote in The Resident (Pawcatuck): "There is no better way to spend a warm August night, than to be watching the Dave Matthews Band rock a full house at the Meadows Music Theater in Hartford. The screaming fans could be heard for miles, as the Dave Matthews Band opened with a classic tune, Seek Up, a hit off of their album entitled Remember Two Things. Dave Matthews has continued to sell out venues since the release of their first RCA record, Under the Table and Dreaming, in 1994. Following the opening song, DMB played a classic, Satellite. Fans cheered loudly at the opening chords, and continued singing along … 'Satellite in my eyes, like a diamond in the sky. …" Some other classics included 'Too Much,' The Maker,' 'Warehouse,' 'Dancing Nancies,' 'So Much to Say,' 'Everyday,' and 'Ants Marching.' Dave Matthews Band continues to innovate their classics with jam sessions mid song. Fans love when Dave just 'rolls' with a song. He has a unique and always entertaining dancing style as well. Dave Matthews, and Boyd Tinsley, the violinist, often go back and forth between violin and guitar" (8/22-9/4/07).

Nielsen: String Quartets, Vol. 1

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Anthony Tommasini wrote in the New York Times: "These are youthful and energetic performances. And the maturity and authority of the playing suggest that national identity matters. These young Danes seem to have genuine insight into the music of their country's best-known composer. Nielsen, who died in 1931 at 66, is generally consigned to those turn-of-the-century composers who resisted the radical upheavals epitomized by Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Actually, in his way Nielsen was a free spirit who protested against what he called the 'Danish smoothing over' in style. He introduced spiky harmony, roaming tonality and unhinged rhythms into his strongly personal and often searching works. Even in the early Neo-Classical Quartet in G minor the music has an obsessive streak, especially in the restless scherzo. The Quartet in F, composed in 1906 and revised in 1919, while also essentially Neo-Classical, abounds with intriguing oddities: passages of aimless yet haunting harmony and outbursts of splattering counterpoint" ("Classical Recordings," 8/5/07).

Tori Amos: American Doll Posse

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Gillian G. Gaar wrote in She's a Rebel: "Tori Amos presented a sensual image not only in her music but also in the provocative way she played the piano. 'Through Tori, the piano has become the weapon of power and passion that the electric guitar was for a previous generation, said Kalen Rogers in Amos's authorized biography. Amos herself said playing the piano was one of few ways she could express 'passion without guilt.' Amos was born Myra Ellen Amos in North Carolina in 1963 and was raised in Maryland, the daughter of a Methodist minister. Her musical development was extremely precocious: she began playing piano at two and a half, was composing her own pieces by four, and at five won a scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory, part of Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University. But she also had an independent streak. … Amos's U.S. breakthrough would not come until the release of Under the Pink in 1994. … Boys for Pele, released in 1996, stripped away much of the orchestral backing on her previous records, with Amos playing harpsichord on a number of tracks; it became her highest charting album. …" (pp. 403-406).

Swamp Dogg: Resurrection

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Ben Greenman wrote in the New Yorker: "'Resurrection' [is] a rousing return to form by one of soul music’s greatest cult artists. The album opens with swirling percussion, stabbing horns, and a passionate series of questions: 'In time of war, who wins? / When you choose sides, how do you distinguish your friends?' The song goes on to mention blood, burials, and body bags before chucking the whole nasty business and appealing heavenward with repeated cries of 'Help us, Lord.' It’s an exhilarating and exhausting experience, and it’s only the first of many. 'America Is Bleeding' takes on abortion, immigration, poverty, and more in a decidedly untidy four minutes. And the twelve-minute title track is even more expository, with a long spoken-word section that excoriates Congress over the legislative (as opposed to Constitutional) handling of voting rights. All of this would be overwhelming were it not for Swamp Dogg’s mastery of the soul form. 'They Crowned an Idiot King' has a lovely and haunting melody and a churchy organ solo. … It's good to have Swamp Dogg back, even if there's no telling how long he'll stick around" (5/28/07).

Ben + Vesper: All This Could Kill You

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Brian LaRue wrote in the New Haven Advocate: "Ben + Vesper … often sing together, the same notes a couple octaves apart, but they don't sing to each other or about each other. It's not the romance that gets 'em down, it's the lack of romance in the day-to-day outside world. On Ben + Vesper's terms, modern life is a giant bummer, and … if you are inclined to agree, there's something edifying, haunting and familiar in their songs and delivery. … Ben sings in an understated, if expressive, baritone, Vesper in an airy soprano. The songs are on the quiet side, the tempos unrushed, the strumming fairly gentle; the intervals of the vocal harmonies create a strange sense of space, and the melodies are fluid and rich, but subtle and slippery. There's a weird, dreamy haze cast over All This Could Kill You, like the kind that settles in on a midsummer day and slows everything down, and it softens the album's impact without quite muddying it. The hooks don't leap out, but they somehow have a way of lingering in one's head hours after listening. And there's a certain tenacity in their voices" ("Live Music: Vesper Scooting," 6/21/07).

Tomahawk: Anonymous

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Personnel: Duane Denison, guitars, bass guitars; John Stanier, drums, percussion; Mike Patton, vocals, keyboards, electronics, percussion.
Artist website: http://www.ipecac.com/bio.php?id=9
Contents: War song — Mescal rite 1 — Ghost dance — Red fox — Cradle song — Antelope ceremony — Song of victory — Omaha dance — Sun dance — Mescal rite 2 — Totem — Crow dance — Long, long weary day. "All tunes are original arrangements inspired by Native American material from the late 19th century"(according to the container). "[E]xplores and reinterprets the darker, more recessed ancestral music created by North America’s indigenous people" (website).
Wired wrote: "This trio of alt-metal all-stars, fronted by chronic polybandist Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Peeping Tom, Fantômas), uses early-20th-century Native American chants as inspiration for its signature psychedelia. Kinda weird. Totally worth it" ("Playlist: What's Wired This Month," 8/07, p. 62).

Golden Smog: Blood on the Slacks

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Eric R. Danton wrote in his Hartford Courant blog Sound Check: "Some 40 years after releasing his first album, David Bowie is still everywhere. Maybe not always in person, but the Thin White Duke remains a pervasive musical force. He jams with the Arcade Fire, records with TV on the Radio and brings the Polyphonic Spree along on tours. Other artists frequently cover his songs, whether it be Nirvana … Tina Turner … or minimalist composer Philip Glass. … Add Golden Smog to the list. The indie-rock supergroup, comprising former Jayhawks Gary Louris and Marc Perlman, along with Soul Asylum's Dan Murphy and, occasionally, Jeff Tweedy, takes on 'Starman' on its forthcoming mini-album, 'Blood on the Slacks.' (There's also a cover of 'Tarpit' by Dinosaur Jr. …) Instead of hewing to the glammy sound of Bowie's version from the 1972 album 'Ziggy Stardust' or updating the song the way Mates of States did [i.e., Mates of State], Golden Smog puts a country-rock spin on the tune that gives it the feel of vintage psychedelia, like a collaboration in 1968 between hippie cowboy Doug Sahm and T. Rex" (3/30/07).