Nina Hynes is one of those SXSW accidents — you show up not knowing anything about who’s performing and you leave a fan.
Hynes evokes comparrisons to Björk and Harriet Wheeler of the Sundays, and the mix of rock and electronics in her music certainly calls to mind Post-era Guðmundsdóttir.
My first bout of fascination with Japanese rock music happened in the early ’90s as a result of watching a lot of anime. I still have all eight volumes of Bubblegum Crisis soundtracks.
Around that time, I was just buying random discs, hoping to scratch the itch caused by putting Iijima Mari’s "Ai, Oboete Imasu ka?", Miyasato Kumi’s "Himitsu Ku-da-sa-i" and Oomori Kuniko’s "Konya wa Hurricane" on repeat.
One such disc was Tomorrow by Hamada Mari.
When I was working at a record store in 2002, one question that popped up from time to time was in regard to an NPR report about an opera singer who recorded an album of lullabies.
That opera singer is Montserrat Figueras, and the album is Ninna Nanna.
Since SLOTH LOVE CHUNKS tops my preliminary list of 2006 favorites, why not give ’em a listen?
I’ve already reviewed Shikakui Vision, and I’ve given a quick comparative analysis between SLOTH LOVE CHUNKS and other post-Number Girl projects.
Every few years, there’s some big world music hit that manages to make a blip with non-world music listeners. Usually, Ry Cooder is involved, and invetiably, it gets released on Nonesuch.
In the late ’90s, it was the Buena Vista Social Club. In the late ’80s, it was Le Mystère de Voix Bulgares.
ZTT Records recently released a boxed set of early Art of Noise rare tracks titled And What Have You Done with My Body, God?
I was only recently acquainted with the charms of the band’s first full-length album, (Who’s Afraid Of …?) The Art of Noise!, but I’ve been familiar with its work since I was in the eighth grade. That was 1986, and "Legs" was a radio hit in America.
I bought In Visible Silence and proceeded the play that record to death, much to the annoyance of my siblings.
I was late to the first-run of Duran Duran’s global success. I think it was late 1983 when I jumped in, by which time, the momentum of their career was starting to show signs of slowing down.
By 1985, the skids hit, and by 1986, Janet Jackson and Madonna ruled the MTV roost. In 1987, I was starting to branch into the college rock of the day (even though I was still in high school) and eventually moved onto classical and avant-garde. But I remained a Duran Duran fan even after their star faded.
Dylan Rice’s 2004 debut Wandering Eyes is one of the best albums I’ve run across this year, but I think I’m saying that partly (mostly?) because I think Rice is hot.
And he’s gay, so I have a better chance at a groupie fantasy than I would with, say, Roger Taylor of Duran Duran, ca. 1983.
Now that I think about it, I haven’t given much thought to the power of sexual attraction on good musicianship. Part of my Duran Duran fandom was borne of the fact I was becoming aware of my sexual orientation around the same time I was discovering the draw of music.
This entry involves a bit of nepotism. I met Jason Groteleuschen back in 1997 at the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Internship training seminar. We’ve stayed in touch over the years because we’re both music nuts.
I’ve even reviewed his old band, the Prarie Cats, a number of times in the past.
Before the Prarie Cats, Jason had a band in college named China Digs. He handed me one of their CDs, and I listened to it. I liked it, but I was particular enamoured of a hidden track at the end of the album.
(I’ll make a few of these post this week to get things rolling, then proceed to neglect them with my usual level of attention.)
The major labels really didn’t know what to do with Mandy Barnett.
She got development deals with Music Row before she graduated from high school, but nothing came of them. After she was cast as Patsy Cline in the stage play Always … Patsy Cline, she recorded two albums with two different labels, neither of which reached Kenny Chesney levels of success.