Matthew Mole
- Albums Reviews, Music, Review
- September 20, 2013
Jack White makes heavy, turbulent modern-blues records the same way he pursues his other passion, furniture restoration: with a decisive attention to contour, colour scheme and cagey, durable detail. “Three Women,” the opening rumble on Lazaretto, is based (with a co-writing credit) on Blind Willie McTell’s 1928 recording “Three Women Blues.” But White’s spin on McTell’s
READ MORETransplant a group of veteran Saharan guitar slingers to a different desert (SoCal’s Mojave, specifically the indie depot of Joshua Tree) and add some American guests – rock guitarists Josh Klinghoffer and Matt Sweeney, poet-MC Saul Williams and more. What do you get? Impressively, an undiluted Tinariwen LP that’s all circular Afro-Berber riffs, hypnotic hand
READ MOREAndrea Iacopini, a.k.a. ClassyMenace, has always had impeccable taste. Armed with a London audio degree and a worldliness stemming from his Italian heritage, he started making waves on the S.A. remix scene back in 2011 with a trio of choice Goldfish remixes – “Crunchy Joe”, “Humbug” and “Woman’s A Devil” – that turned him into
READ MOREGuesting on a Yoko Ono LP has become like getting cast in a Woody Allen film: an artistic validation and New York City-branded rite of passage. It’s also clearly a hoot: see “Bad Dancer”, a giddy club anthem for the proudly graceless, with surviving Beastie Boys Mike D and Ad-Rock (who also appear alongside Questlove
READ MOREKidofdoom have already run with the whole plugged-in, spaced-out instrumental alt-pop dreamscapery – does South Africa need another such album? Well… Awash with synths, phosphorescent with reverb-free electric guitar and coolly lit with occasional moon-on-water lapsteel reflections, this album gives the hip Doomers a run for their New Wave influences. Having no lyrics invites the
READ MOREWhen did derivation come to be equated with inferiority? In some music cultures, being able to reproduce Old Masters of the art brings legitimacy. Not so in the West, where copyright coins cash. In this context, Shakedown is not so much a shakedown of the genre as the evolution of a covers band that hasn’t fully exhaled
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