Scanned Document

which revel the raw beauty of All-Stars, creates a vibe reminiscent of Ambroglio’s Beth Orton-esque 1976’s classic The Wild Tchoupitoulas phrasing and the exquisite dexterity of album. Big Chief Monk Boudreaux Chasny’s six-string supremacy, that kicks off this highly collaborative truly showcase this project’s folky recording with the autobiographical pulchritude. Ron Hart “Monk’s Mardi Gras,” a slab of low- slung funk fueled by Orgone’s rhythm Silvertone section, with Dr. John on piano. New York City SELF-RELEASED Boudreaux also specializes in loose There is a refreshing and bluesy groove tunes, like modern flair to the “Footsteps,” an ode to NOLA cooking country rock and the African-tinted “Education,” atmosphere that both hinting at Olu Dara. He rides permeates Silvertone’s Orgone’s reggae riddims on the fiddle- debut release. Fronted by songwriter injected “Don’t Take My Flag Down,” Eric Silverman, and featuring Adam and brings the skronk on “Lightning Reich on guitar and background and Thunder,” abetted by son Joseph, vocals, the band infuses its Nashville, Jr.’s rapping. The New Orleans fonk, Tenn.-tinged tunes with an overtone as Dr. John pronounces it, is writ of big city sharpness. Silverman, a large. Philip Booth newcomer to the scene, has done his homework while honing his honeyhoney artistic chops. He enlisted two Billy Jack LOST HIGHWAY Nashville veterans, keyboardist On the alt-side of Hargus “Pig” Robbins, who country, you’ll often collaborated with Bob Dylan, and find male singers steel guitarist Lloyd Green, who playing the role of the played with The Byrds, to color some tough and world-weary rather engaging pieces. From the front man. The immediate appeal of contemplative (“Trouble”) to the honeyhoney is in the sultry, full- cautionary (“Fireflies”) to the bodied vocals that the Los Angeles compassionate (“I’ve Been duo’s fiddle-playing frontwoman Dreaming”) to the cracks within Suzanne Santo drapes over their (“Where Has All the Love Gone”), windswept, East Coast sound. You Silvertone creates an album that will can tell from the way she bends a take them far beyond their New York syllable or stretches a note that she’s City stomping grounds. Randy Ray taken in some torchy jazz and neo-soul. Billy Jack—honeyhoney’s People of the North second full-length—opens with Steep Formations JAGJAGUWAR Santo playing the sort of sinister, The casual psychedelic unremorseful characters that usually grandeur of People of receive masculine treatment, before the North’s new double- moving on to other territory. LP Steep Formations is a Throughout the album, Ben Jaffe— winning quality. With the duo’s guitarist and heavy lifter nary a single musician credit on the when it comes to songwriting— set, the band—most of Oneida in one tackles relational themes with of their drone-bliss guises—lay out a youthful directness and gives Santo simple yet endlessly complex free appealing melodies to work with. improv session featuring two And it works. Jewly Hight extended pieces—one 40 minutes, one 30—each comprising a single Paul Weller record. While drummer Kid Millions Sonik Kicks YEP ROC begins the first extended cut, “Border Former Jam singer Paul Waves,” at full force, he is quickly Weller takes a creative immersed into waves of shifting leftturn on his organ melodies and wind-whipped adventurous eleventh synths by bandmates Bobby Matador, solo outing. Enlisting Barry London and Shahin Motia. the help of such prolific pals as ex- There are no solos, just contributions Oasis axe Noel Gallagher, Blur to the silver swirl, a structure of guitarist Graham Coxon and Sean musical submission that mirrors its O’Hagan of The High Llamas, Sonik intended listening, prone and open to Kicks is a 14-track jaunt through the the cosmos. Jesse Jarnow more experimental ends of his record collection. “Kling I Klang” is Big Chief Monk Krautrock rewired for German beer Boudreaux garden sing-alongs. “Study in Blue,” a Won’t Bow Down F.BOO duet with wife Hannah, recalls The deep-voiced leader Weller’s ‘80s group The Style of the Golden Eagle Council—albeit with King Tubby at Mardi Gras Tribe, the controls. “When Your Garden’s recently heard with Overgrown” evokes Syd Barrett if he Anders Osborne, followed David Bowie’s career Galactic and the Voice of the Wetlands trajectory. Though not as directly APRIL_MAY | RELIX | 67.

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