Artist: Los Campesinos!
Album: No Blues
Los Campesinos!, unlike the majority of the bands I review here, are well-known to, and well-loved by, rock critics and the music blogging community. They sell pretty well too, at least in their native U.K. This makes sense. While a certain percentage of the music I like is outright weird and difficult, I think most of it is blocked from mass popularity by a couple of simple differences between my taste […]
Artist: Lost World Band
Album: Solar Power
Lost World Band are currently a Russian quartet of drums, flute, “keyboards/sound/production”, and one man — Andy Didorenko — on violins, guitars, bass, and sometimes vocals. Solar Power is their fourth album and, of the ones I’ve heard, clearly their most forthright and catchy. It is also weirdly bifurcated. The majority of the tracks, the instrumentals, are fiery rock tracks. They have the fast agile interplay of good jazz, sure; […]
Artist: Bob Wiseman
Album: Giulietta Masina at the Oscars Crying
Bob Wiseman first got my attention in 1993, in the wake of Prince legally changing his name (Prince Rogers Nelson) to a squiggle: Wiseman sent out press releases announcing that henceforth he, Bob Wiseman, would be known as Prince. Former Prince’s lawyers were extremely aggressive in shutting him down, but I was charmed by Wiseman’s nerve, and picked up his compilation album In By Of. I found […]