Kent B Poop 2014



Buy Sundy Best - Bring Up the Sun New or Used via Amazon
Sundy Best – Bring Up the Sun
Buy New or Used via Amazon
Rent via iTunes [?]

Buy Fumaça Preta - Fumaça Preta New or Used via Amazon
Fumaça Preta – Fumaça Preta
Buy New or Used via Amazon
Rent via iTunes [?]

Buy Wussy - Attica! New or Used via Amazon
Wussy – Attica!
Buy New or Used via Amazon
Rent via iTunes [?]

Buy Miranda Lambert - Platinum New or Used via Amazon
Miranda Lambert – Platinum
Buy New or Used via Amazon
Rent via iTunes [?]

Buy Doug Seegers - Going Down to the River New or Used via Amazon
Doug Seegers –
Going Down to the River

Buy New or Used via Amazon
Rent via iTunes [?]

Buy Old 97's - Most Messed Up New or Used via Amazon
Old 97’s – Most Messed Up
Buy New or Used via Amazon
Rent via iTunes [?]

Buy Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca - La Rumba SoYo New or Used via Amazon
Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca –
La Rumba SoYo

Buy New or Used via Amazon
Rent via iTunes [?]

Buy V.A - Bring It On Home:  Black America Sings Sam Cooke New or Used via Amazon
V.A – Bring It On Home:
Black America Sings Sam Cooke

Buy New or Used via Amazon

Buy Craig Handy - Craig Handy & 2nd Line Smith New or Used via Amazon
Craig Handy – Craig Handy
& 2nd Line Smith

Buy New or Used via Amazon
Rent via iTunes [?]


(* marks my top ten pick, ** top Twenty)
(Lists in descending order of quality)

Top Ten

*Sundy Best – Bring Up the Sun / *Fumaça Preta – Fumaça Preta / *Wussy – Attica! / *Miranda Lambert – Platinum / **The Strypes – Snapshot /**Tom Petty – Hypnotic Eye / ** Brian Eno & Karl Hyde – High Life / ** Leo Welch – Sabougla Voices / **Vic Godard & Subway Sect – 1979 Now / **Levin Rudess Minnemann – LMR
Sundy Best is a really uncool country duo that could anchor Blake’s team on The Voice. Yes, I am embarrassed how much I enjoy their incredibly catchy and syncopated John Cougar Americana songs about drinking, true love and Kentucky. ~ Fumaca Preta combines garage rock, Latin pyschedlia, fuzzy guitars, reverb, and it’s a trashy blast. ~ Admittedly, I have a hard time defending why the Strypes are different and better than other neo-garage bands (usually from Sweden) that recast old R&B and Blues covers. They have enough passion and fire so it’s no longer retro and reminds you more of the Yardbirds than the Hives. ~ Vic Godard goes back to the Mod days of Northern soul; while 82-year-old Leo Welch’s picks up the pace on some gospel blues that sound like John Lee Hooker jamming with the Blasters. ~ Eno & Hyde’s High Life has a tossed off feel with its Talking Heads’ influences, funky guitars and ambient grooves that go on way too long. They’re having fun and not trying too hard – that’s why it works. ~ LMR are instrumental progressive from alumni of King Crimson and Dream Theater.

Second String (but still game)

**Optimo – Amor de Guerra / Led Bib – The People in Your Neighborhood / Parquet Courts – Sunbathing Animal / Devon Allman – Ragged & Dirty (yes he’s related) / Gary Clark Jr – Live / Protomartyr – Undercolor of Official Right Hookworms – The Hum / Cloud Nothings – Here and Nowhere Else / The Delines – Colfax / Fennescz – Becs / Doug Paisley – Strong Feelings / Lee Ann Womack – The Way I’m Livin’ / Lily Allen- Sheezus

Twins

*Doug Seegers – Going Down to the River / **Sturgill Simpson – Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
Country music has to be real, and Doug Seeger who was a homeless addict in Nashville for two decades is just that. His debut stretches slightly into some other genres, but he hits his stride when his weathered voice settles into Bakersfield Honky Tonk. ~ Simpson is working on an Outlaw Country vibe on what he calls his “hippie love record”.

*Old 97’s – Most Messed Up / *Drive-by-Truckers – English Oceans
Old 97’s latest consists of rowdy tales of their fuck-up life on the road; while the Drive-by Truckers still serve up a kick-ass mix of Neal Young and Lynyrd Skynrd full of southern character studies. Nothing new, but both are loose, loud, and a step above their past few efforts

**Flying Lotus – You’re Dead / D’Angelo – Black Messiah
Break out the headphones and buy these on vinyl.

Africa (and a little Afro/Cuban) Still Rules

*Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca – La Rumba SoYo / Duduvudu – The Gospel According to Dudu Pukwana / Orlando Julius with the Heliocentrics – Jaiyede Afro / Dexter Johnson & Le Super Star de Dakar – Live a L’Etoile / V.A. – The Rough Guide to the Music of Mail (2014 edition)
Ricardo Lemvo is Angolan via Los Angeles and blends rumba, Cuban salsa and some light frothy Zouk. Duduvudu is a tribute album to a South African sax player, but search out the real thing on his ferociously rocking In the Townships from 1973. What, you don’t remember Orlando Julius from his mid-60’s Super Afro Soul when a guy named Fela was in his band? Well, the Nigerian is back with hypnotic grooves and heavy on the reverb.

Stuck in Neutral:

Anathema – Distant Satellites / Opeth – Communion / Spoon – They Want My Soul Meh: Robert Plant & the Sensational Space Shifters – Lullaby and the Ceaseless Roar /The Black Keys – Turn Blue

Recycled Old Stuff

*V.A – Bring It On Home: Black America Sings Sam Cooke / **V.A.- The Soul of Designer Records / **Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – CSNY 1974 / **V.A.- Millions Like Us, The Story of the Mod Revival 1977-1989 / V.A. – NME C86E / V.A. – Haiti Direct: Big Band, Mini Jazz and Twoubadou Sounds / V.A. – Studio One Rocksteady / Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys – Riding Your Way / Johnny Winter – True to the Blues / Fripp & Eno – Live in Paris 1975 /Allman Brothers Band – Live at the Beacon Theatre 1992 / V.A. – Real World 25 / Ronnie Lane and Slim Chance – Ooh La La An Island Harvest / Bob Dylan – The Basement Tapes Complete
“It’s soul without the sex”. The Soul of Designer Records compiles four CD of old 60s and early 70 vinyl from an obscure Memphis Studio which specialized in gospel. But forget that label, this has Stax/Volt intensity from unknowns paying for their recording time along with (my theory) some Steve Cropper type ringer. ~ CSN&Y’s rhythm session gets into an arena-rock R&B groove that makes this much maligned 74 tour shine especially with some obscure Neil Young songs. Warning: stay away from the acoustic sides, harmony was never their strong point live. (Remember Woodstock). ~ Ambient historians take note, Fripp & Eno started playing around with tape loops at this Paris concert. The fans wanted to hear Roxy music and King Crimson and for the first half hour the mood of reflective and sensitive electronica is marred by catcalls and booing from pissed off fans. ~ And just to piss off everyone else, I listed the Basement Tapes last. It wasn’t cheap, and then, possibly because the six cd version wasn’t selling, Amazon cut the price on this “ limited edition”.

All That Jazz

*Craig Handy – Craig Handy & 2nd Line Smith / **Steve Lehman – Mise En Abime / Revolutionary Snake Ensemble – Live Snakes / Farmers by Nature – Love and Ghosts / Enrico Pieranunzi – Play Morricone 1 & 2 / Digital Primitives – Lipsomuch/Soul Searchin’ / Keith Jarrett – Hamburg ’72 /, Joshua Redman – Trios Live / Wadada Leo Smith, Joe Morris – Red Hill / Sonny Simmons, Delphine Latil, Thomas Bellier – Beyond the Planets / The Mark Lomax Trio – Isis & Osiris / Assif Tsahar, Gerry Hemingway & Mark Dresser – Code Re / Chick Corea Trio – Trilogy / Rent Romus – Cimmerian Crossroad / Paul Shapiro – Shofarot Verses / John McLaughlin & the 4th Dimension – The Boston Record
Although much of above is not easy listening, Craig Handy dishes out some tasty Jimmy Smith organ gumbo spiced with some New Orleans brass band funk.

Jazz Quadruplets

*Mike DiRubbo – Threshold / Tommy Smith & Brian Kellock – Whispering of the Stars
Greg Abate Quartet – Motif / Michael Blake – Tiddy Boom

These four sax are mostly unknown who don’t possess incredibly distinctive tones, but they all play straight ahead jazz that is refreshing and lyrical.

Can’t Pin ‘Em Down

Mehliana (Brad Mehldau) – Taming the Dragon / St Vincent – St Vincent
Mehldau is a fairly straight ahead jazz pianist who takes a left turn into 70’s synthesizer fusion, a mix of Hancock’s Head Hunters with Carlos Castaneda raps about aliens and spaceships in the desert. His fans were outraged. ~ St Vincent can do almost anything from Talking Heads jerky funk to creative crooning. I’m not sure it sticks to the ribs, but she gets high marks for lyrics like “I prefer your love to Jesus”. If she had mentioned Allah, I would have kicked it up a notch.

Insufferable – Depending on my mood “These guys are geniuses! No, they are full of shit…..”

Swans – To Be Kind / Ambrose Akinmusire – The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint
Swans are masters of the abrasive drone that never ends. There is a little more variety here, and on one epic Michael Gira spouts some Jim Morrison-like Lizard King bullshit. It’s almost nostalgic. ~ Akinmusire gives us Mile’s moody pristine trumpet, sometimes backed with strings, sometimes with pretentious vocals. On one track a child gives a roll call of young black men killed by police which is very affecting, but is also affected (and I hate myself for thinking that).