Despite what you’re thinking, “Battle in Seattle” isn’t a grunge showdown. The title refers to five days of mayhem and destruction that took place in Seattle in 1999 when thousands of protesters blocked the city in an effort to suspend World Trade Organization talks. A relatively forgotten event, it is nevertheless a gold mine of dramatic potential, and Stuart...
At least three listens are required to understand where Castanets is going with “City of Refuge.” The album starts as a series of electronic beeps and the folky twang of a guitar. They’re unconventional, and definitely not enough to sell you, but the concept is novel enough to merit a further listen, and a few minutes in it is clear that you won’t be...
Experimental rock has never caught on with the general public. Much of it, with its modernist sublimity, its valorization of the ugly and difficult, sought to push the boundaries and shock listeners out of their complacency. But rock music has always had a strong experimental strain. As early as the 1950s, Link Wray was breaking the mold established by Chuck Berry and...
Listening to “Blue Bicycle,” the first song on Hauschka’s fourth album “Ferndorf,” is like jogging through the woods. Grazing elk. Towering trees. Amorphous shadows on a dirt path. A brook that cannot be forded: Water sloshing, fish jumping. Staccato played on the piano. Alternatively, listening to “Blue Bicycle” is like dreaming before waking up to a...
Do you know what duck people look like? / You can notice us because we wear dark hoods.” Who are these people? “Don’t tell us we look like ducks, that’s a stereotype.” A measured insanity pervades the minds of Devendra Banhart and Greg Rogove in Megapuss’s first venture onto the musical scene, “Surfing.” Weird is the only way to describe an album that is...
2008 has been a busy year for Ben Folds. Besides reuniting with his old band, Ben Folds Five, he has released a new solo album, “Way to Normal.” The album combines the quirky playfulness of Folds’ older albums — “Naked Baby Photos,” among others — with the somber, mature overtones of his recent work, especially “Songs for Silverman.” While this...
He has yet to serve his one-year jail sentence, but the prospect of prison seems to have affected T.I. Although his latest release, “Paper Trail,” still contains standard gangsta tracks, the tone and lyrical content of many of his songs have matured in the wake of last October’s conviction. Initially, there is no way of telling that anything in T.I.’s life has...
Pools of liquid sunlight collect under a mauve Volkswagen Beatle. People in earth tones circle about and lie on the grass. The camera pans to a smiling outsider. The director has chosen the music because it glows with youth and kitchen-sink revelations. Ghosts on the album scene since 2003, All Girl Summer Fun Band return with their new album, “Looking Into It.”...
In 1972, as the Vietnam War dragged on and Richard Nixon’s landslide re-election loomed, David Bowie released “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.” That album’s first song, “FiveYears,” imagines the overwhelming chaos of the day that the Earth finds out it is only half a decade away from doom: “A girl my age went off her head, hit...
Jenny Lewis has traded her hot pants for a fedora and sexy pop beats for sultry gospel-country rock rhythm. On her second solo album, “Acid Tongue,” Lewis looks to music reminiscent of decades past to carry her craft forward. Lewis is best known as the redheaded goddess of Rilo Kiley. The twangy soul sound of “Acid Tongue” dramatically strays from the poppy spawn...
