Category: 28/30
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the sundays – reading, writing and arithmetic (1990)
The Sundays weren’t doing too much differently. In the previous decade, The Replacements had their edgy jaunt, Rickie Lee Jones had their unashamed sentimentalism, The Smiths had their riffs. At the start of a new age, and a refreshal of the consumer market, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic was equal parts mournful and joyous. Its effect […]
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nina nastasia – riderless horse
TW: this record contains material on suicide and abuse ‘Riderless Horse’ is a lonely album about two people. Like Mount Eerie’s ‘A Crow Looked At Me,’ Nastasia’s first record in twelve years isn’t even an echo: it’s the initial reverberation of real life despair. The jagged candor of her writing is entrusted to expertly patched […]
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black midi – hellfire
I was on a flight when I listened to ‘Hellfire’. I like flying, but I don’t care for turbulence that moves sideways. It started when I played track one, which evidently perturbed the vehicle. The 4-D experience threatened my objective judgement: I wanted to be present, while half-expecting to fly into the side of a […]
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babs gonzales – voila (1958)
Almost every song from Babs Gonzales is a duet with New York. Though ultimately a behind-the-scenes influence, ‘Voila!’ displays Gonzales wielding the squalor and excess of the scene and the city. Most notable is his be-bop style, which helped catapult the theatrics of vocal jazz towards bravado and melodic improvisation. The record reaches further than […]
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erick cosaque – cosaque 1978 (1977)
One of Guadeloupe’s greatest musical exports is Erick Cosaque—an artist without a label who seizes rebellion and joy in equal measure. Gwo Ka, meaning ‘big drum’, was the broad movement to which he belonged: it brought a family of drums together and allowed each component to flourish atop or below the next. The percussive strength […]
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