Recycled Sounds

Nostalgia is for suckers.  Predilections for the past can be emotionally crippling.  The disorder applies to musical preferences.  I’m inclined to distance myself from people who suggest that the music of today is inferior to the sounds of the past.  Against my nature, I’ve spent recent days begrudgingly appreciating three albums that induce repressed memories.

I cringed when an acquaintance proclaimed the Breeders’ All Nerve as his favorite album of 2018.  The disconcerting confession compelled me to give it a chance.  It’s not bad.  “Wait in the Car” is among the songs that help make All Nerve sound like the eighth-best alternative rock album of 1993.

Progger appeals to my worst musical impulses.  I allowed myself to pine for the mid-’70s days when the big brothers of my pals turned me on to since-forsaken jazz fusion bands like Brand X, Curved Air and Lifetime while listening to “Housewives” on the Austin band’s new album Dystopia.

I documented my single favorite sound in this space last month, so it’s not a surprise that I was eager to sample the expanded edition of the soul revivalists Durand Jones & the Indications’ self-titled album.  The ten live tracks demonstrate that Jones and his band simulate the atmosphere of a 1965 frat party featuring the likes of Joe Tex or Eddie Floyd.

Now excuse me while I go back to obsessing over my presumptive album of the year.


---
I reviewed Pink’s concert at the Sprint Center for The Kansas City Star.

---
I reviewed Everyday, Forever, the latest album by the Project H, at Plastic Sax.

---
I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

---
Matt Dike, a co-founder of Delicious Vinyl, has died.

---
Bill Frisell’s solo album Music Is includes pastoral elegies and big city meltdowns.  Even though I haven’t heard all of the guitarist’s three dozen albums, I'm comfortable with the assertion that Music Is is among his ten most essential recordings. Here’s “Rambler”.

---
The title of the Gumba Fire: Bubblegum Soul & Synth Boogie in 1980s South Africa compilation is perfect.  Hearing the sounds of groups like Shalamar, the Gap Band and the Whispers filtered through a South African sensibility is worlds of fun.  (Tip via Big Steve.)

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)