Dave Specter "Blues From The Inside Out (Delmark)"
From Delmark:
Blues From The Inside Out is the most expressive project of Dave Specter’s 35-year career. Featuring his debut as a vocalist, the album is an exciting and timely celebration of blues, soul, jazz, funk and gospel. These are fine times to hear Specter, an evolving artist who embraces growth and discovery. Blues From The Inside Out includes a guest appearance on guitar by Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna fame, who also co-wrote one of the album’s 12 original tunes. Specter wrote the uplifting soul anthem for change “March Through the Darkness,” he takes a deep dive into Meters-Neville Brothers inspired rhythms with the instrumental “Sanctifunkious” and sings on the blues shuffle title track. Besides Kaukonen, Specter recruited the Chicago-based Liquid Soul horns and Latin-percussion ace Ruben Alvarez, each playing on three tracks.
Check out the aforementioned “Sanctifunkious.”
Breezy Rodio "If It Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix It (Delmark)"
From Billy Branch’s liner notes for Breezy Radio’s If It Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix It
The latest project by Breezy Rodio, If It Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix It, presents vibrant, new, quality original material. Rodio has pro- duced a veritable smorgasbord of tasty songs. With the use of A-list musicians, dynamic horn arrangements and inventive original lyrics, Breezy has managed to produce a recording full of musical delights.
Check out the blues-y gospel vibes of “Led To A Better Light.”
The Building "Petra (Concord Records)"
Multi-instrumentalist Anthony LaMarca, best known as the guitarist for The War On Drugs, has returned with another album as The Building-his main solo project. Though the recording of this album was not ideal (it was during the sessions that his Multiple Myeloma returned) Petra is, in fact, an ideal record. Stunningly beautiful songs with autumnal arrangements are the name of the game here. Like the frame of a building (Pulitzer please), The Building’s music is fragile like acoustic Neil Young and Bill Callahan. Recorded in his hometown of Youngstown, OH and bonus points for the album being named for his dog, Petra (the album) as pretty as music can get. Check out “Life Half Lived.”
Emptyset "Blossoms (Thrill Jockey)"
Blossoms (Thrill Jockey), the latest release from Emptyset, is a tough one to describe. Thankfully, someone with far more intimate knowledge has already done the heavy lifting:
Blossoms was generated entirely from the output of a neural network based artificial intelligence system. Developed over eighteen months through conversations with an international network of programmers working at the cutting edge of sound synthesis, Emptyset arrived at a system powerful and intelligent enough to create original complex structures of audio. Blossoms explores the dissonance between organic processes and machine learning principles, creating unsettling and uncanny sonics that give voice to non-human intelligence. Taking inspiration from cybernetics and literature, the album allowed Emptyset to further their explorations into generative composition and elemental aspects of sound, creating a system that was both inspiring and disconcerting in its behavior and results – opening up vast new possibilities and sonic worlds whilst simultaneously collapsing their previous methods of production.
See! I wasn’t fooling around! Check out “Blade” and see what I… er… Thrill Jockey means!