The moment I announced I’m taking a break, a whole bunch of new releases appear on the schedule. I’d be remiss not to preview them.
Royal Wood, Ghost Light, Jan. 27
Ghost Light was released in Canada back in April 2016, but an international release had to wait till now. The cover for this edition — Wood in silhouette — matches the title, but I prefer the Canadian cover because Wood looks hotter in a t-shirt.
Sleater-Kinney, Live in Paris, Jan. 27
I’m still kicking myself for missing the band’s three-night run in Seattle.
Onitsuka Chihiro, Syndrome, Feb. 1
I haven’t paid much attention to Onitsuka Chihiro since her lackluster cover album FAMOUS MICROPHONE. So it was a surprise to find out she’s on yet another new label, and she released an independent album with a band in 2014.
Deee-Lite, World Clique (Deluxe Edition), March 3
Yeah, it’s about time this album got the reissue treatment.
George Michael, Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1 (Deluxe Edition), March 3
I’ll deal with George Michael’s untimely death in a future entry. I didn’t pick up this album till after I heard the news, and I can understand both the initial underwhelming reception and its subsequent critical acclaim.
Cocco, 20 Shuunen Request Best + Rare Track, March 21
What? I’ve been listening to Cocco for 20 years now?
Vinyl
The Old 97s, Too Far to Care, Jan. 13
When I first started buying up vinyl in 2013, I considered getting the reissue of Too Far to Care. I decided against it because I wanted to track down titles preceding the CD era first. By the time I was ready to get it, all the copies had been snatched up. I snagged a used copy two weeks before I saw Music on Vinyl would reissue the original album without the bonus tracks. *sigh*
MONO, Under the Pipal Tree, Jan. 20
I don’t think MONO really topped this debut album till Hymn to the Immortal Wind.
Madonna, The Immaculate Collection (Colored Vinyl), Jan. 24
Am I really going to drop cash on a compilation where I have most of the tracks on other vinyl releases? Evidently.
Eurythmics, Greatest Hits, Jan. 27
I still have all the Eurythmics albums I bought back in the ’80s. I only had to flesh out my collection with In the Garden and We Too Are One.
Madonna, Confessions on the Dance Floor, Jan. 31
This album was really welcome after a pair of back-to-back disappointments with Music and American Life.
Eluvium, Copia, Feb. 3
I would be so on board with a reissue of An Accidental Memory in Case of Death.
Duran Duran, The Wedding Album, Feb. 10
Let’s see if this release date sticks. I think it’ll have been nearly a year since this reissue popped up on the schedule.
John Zorn, Spy Vs. Spy: Music of Ornette Coleman, March 3
I found an original Nonesuch pressing of this album many months back, but it’s a definite recommendation for anyone who loves Naked City.
Musicwhore.org is going on a break for the month of January. That is, I’ll take time in January to write new entries that I hadn’t been writing in December. And those new entries won’t show up till February.
What a spiteful year 2016 has turned out to be. I won’t hazard how subsequent years may turn out with the impending leadership change in Washington, D.C., but for now, 2016 has just been a veritable shitstorm.
In terms of music, 2016 has been lackluster. I encountered a lot of albums that were likable but very few I could really love. In a few instances, some of my favorite bands turned out some of their most interesting music in their careers, but I couldn’t muster excitement for them.
Sturgill Simpson, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth: Sturgill Simpson played a two-hour set with no encore at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle in November. He spent the first hour performing songs from his previous album. Then he spent the next hour playing A Sailor’s Guide to Earth from start to finish with a whole lot of room for jamming. That’s something a composer would do.
Henryk Górecki, Symphony No. 4: Insistent.
MONO, Requiem for Hell Of the two albums MONO released in 2014, Rays of Darkness was my favorite. I didn’t imagine the ideas on that album could be exploded.
Solange, A Seat at the Table: Solange not only out-Lemonaded Beyoncé, she also out-Blonded Frank Ocean.
Shaprece, COALS: Björk, if she were black.
Drive By Truckers, American Band: I’ve known about Drive By Truckers for years, but I finally took the plunge with this album. So that’s who took up the Uncle Tupelo mantle.
Cocco, Adan Ballet: This album won’t dislodge Rapunzel or Bougainvillia as a fan favorite, but it’s some of the best work she’s done since Sangrose.
Colvin & Earle, Colvin & Earle: This pairing of Steve Earle and Shawn Colvin looks unlikely on paper, but intuitively, you could tell the universe was ready for it.
Utada Hikaru, Fantôme: I’m beginning to realize Utada Hikaru was PBR&B before Solange started hanging out with Dirty Projectors.
Ty Herndon, House on Fire: It’s tough not to read some autobiography into this album, the first Ty Herndon released after revealing he’s gay. It’s also tough not to get swept up in the confidence and energy pouring out of the speakers.
Other notable albums:
Eluvium, False Readings On
Santigold, 99 Cents
Explosions in the Sky, The Wilderness
Blood Orange, Freetown Sound
AHOHNI, HOPELESSNESS
Pixies, Head Carrier
Colin Stetson, Sorrow: A Reimagining of Gorecki’s Third Symphony
Sturgill Simpson posted a photo of the crowd at his Seattle show on Nov. 11, 2016. I was standing pretty close to the stage, and sure enough, I spotted myself in the pic. His show capped yet another active year of concerts, which included a trip to Portland and two weeks of modern American symphonic music.
Sō Percussion, Jan. 31, 2016
Like Kronos Quartet before it, Sō Percussion commissions original works that often push technological boundaries as much as musical ones. The first time I saw Sō in Austin, the quartet performed Dan Trueman’s neither Anvil nor Pulley, which required performers to use old game console controllers to manipulate a Bach keyboard piece.
For this concert, Bryce Dessner’s Music for Wood and Strings features the Chordstick, a custom instrument that combines a hammered dulcimer with an electric guitar.
Seattle Symphony, [untitled 2], Feb. 5
The big piece performed at this concert of mid-20th Century New York City composers was Rothko Chapel by Morton Feldman. 2016 would eventually find Seattle Symphony programming four Feldman pieces in various concerts. Crowd reaction, of course, ranged from the usual restlessness to outright departure.
Seattle Symphony, Berio: Sinfonia, Feb. 6
I hadn’t planned on attending this concert till my music theory professor devoted an entire class on the piece. The fact Roomful of Teeth performed with the symphony was another incentive.
Kronos Quartet, Feb. 20
Sorry, the live performance of Beyond Zero: 1914-1918 did not convince me to pick up the DVD, but it’s always nice to hear Franghiz Ali-Zade’s Mugam Sayagi.
Ty Herndon, Feb. 25
It was a sparse crowd at El Corazon, and Herndon played a stripped down set of his hits. He also previewed “If You” and mentioned his new album would be out in May. House of Fire arrived in September, albeit with a larger promotional splash.
Jeremy Denk, March 18
The Goldberg Variations and Ligeti Etudes in a single night. Yeah, it was a good concert.
John Adams, Scheherezade.2, March 19
Oh wow, did Leila Josefowicz bring her A-game. I picked up the Nonesuch recording of this work when it was released because it’s an amazing display of athleticism. I think I like this work more than Adams’ first Violin Concerto.
Stephen Sondheim, Assassins, Feb. 26
As much of a Stephen Sondheim fan that I am, I’ve so far only seen two of his works on stage. Honolulu Community Theatre did Sunday in the Park with George back in the early ’90s. ACT Theatre did Assassins. That’s a show that will test your startle response.
Rhye, Apr. 21
Seattle Theatre Group scheduled Rhye and Courtney Barnett for the same night, and I wanted to see both of them equally. I ended up going to Rhye because Barnett’s show sold out. Despite illness, Milosh sounded awesome.
Santigold, May 14
I couldn’t decide who I wanted to see more — Santigold or the SG1 Dancers. It turned out I loved them both.
Seattle Symphony, Beethoven and Gershwin, June 11
A scheduling conflict prevented me from attending the first [untitled] concert of the season, so I traded the ticket for a program of Beethoven and Gershwin works. The evening started with the Seattle premiere of Anna Clyne’s This Midnight Hour, which the crowd seemed surprised to enjoy.
Seattle Symphony, Tuning Up!, June 17-July 2
After years of attending SXSW, I decided I was going to stay away from Bumbershoot. Then Seattle Symphony announced a two-week summer festival of American modern works, and I couldn’t part with my money fast enough. The clerks at David and Co. thought I was a performer because I was there for every concert. George Perle, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe — I was definitely the target market for this festival.
Matt Alber, June 26
A bout of pneumonia prevented me from seeing Matt Alber in 2014, so his show in June was a nice way to participate in at least one gay pride event this year.
Explosions in the Sky, Sept. 2
I thought it was odd Explosions in the Sky announced a whole bunch of Pacific Northwest dates without including Seattle, so I opted to travel down to Portland and catch them at the wonderful Crystal Ballroom. The day after I bought my ticket, the band announced its Bumbershoot date. Bullet dodged.
Sigur Rós, Sept. 20
The last time Sigur Rós performed in Seattle was in 2012, and the show sold out by the time I could access the Seattle Theatre Group site. This time, I got into the pre-sale. The amazing light show was equal parts Einstein on the Beach and TRON.
Seattle Symphony, Prokofiev and Beethoven, Sept. 24
For this concert, the symphony premiered a piece by Gabriel Prokofiev and included The Love of Three Oranges by his grandfather, Sergei. It had been so long since I listened to Three Oranges that I anticipated Peter and the Wolf instead.
Seattle Symphony, [untitled 1], Oct. 28
I’m not as versed in the works of Witold Lutoslawski, but then who is?
Sturgill Simpson, Nov. 11
Sturgill Simpson doesn’t do encores, and why should he when he plays two hours straight? That show pretty much made me wonder why I’m still going to rock concerts in my mid-40s. How could Simpson have the endurance to do those shows for six months, when just watching him exhausted me?
I didn’t know what to make of Pete Burns the first time I encountered him in the video for Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me ‘Round (Like a Record)”.
Boy George and Annie Lennox had already blurred the androgyny lines in the years leading up to Dead or Alive’s debut, but Burns took it a step further. His rough baritone stood in sharp contrast to Boy George’s soulful tenor. He shook his hips and wagged his finger like a woman, but the eye patch and black clothing made you think he could kick your ass in the alley.
If I had been better conditioned to internalize my homophobia, I would have been repulsed by Burns’ feminine wiles. Instead, I would mimic his moves in front of the radio.
He was confusing, and that confusion was fascinating. He was scary and inspiring, no doubt offensive to my Catholic family to whom he would have probably given zero fucks.
I thought about buying Youthquake when it came out, but I wanted to make sure it had at least two other hits before I sank my allowance on it. Dead or Alive would score a second hit in the US with “Brand New Lover” on the following album, Mad, Bad and Dangerous. By then, I had already cycled through urban radio before eventually settling on college rock.
But I made sure to at least own “You Spin Me ‘Round” on 7-inch.
Over the years, I would encounter Pete Burns and shake my head over the transformation in his appearance. In my mind, he was a skilled acrobat on the thin edge of masculine and feminine, but he obviously disagreed.
Despite all the loss in 2016, Burns is the closest to home the Reaper’s scythe had hit. Prince was my brother’s artist, and David Bowie was once-removed in his influence on my life. Burns, however, was one of the first signals that I would not lead the heteronormative life of a first generation Filipino son.
Looking back on it now, he was probably the first public figure to plant the idea in my mind that being queer was not only acceptable but a source of strength. Yeah, you could be a sissy but a sissy who could kick someone’s ass in the alley.
It’s probably way too early to start anticipating 2017 first quarter releases, but I’ve already placed a few orders for next month.
The Flaming Lips, Oczy Mlody, Jan. 13, 2017
I lost track of the Flaming Lips right around 2009’s Embryonic. I don’t even think I checked out The Terror, which would have been an appropriate title for 2016.
Renée Fleming, Distant Light, Jan. 20, 2017
As probably the only indie rock fan who genuinely liked Dark Hope, I’m totally on board with Renée Fleming performing Björk. I’m hoping she uses her alto range.
The Magnetic Fields, 50 Song Memoir, March 3, 2017
Nonesuch has already started posting excerpts from this album, and I keep wondering when someone is going to make a jukebox musical out of Stephin Merritt songs. I don’t think Merritt is necessarily the best interpreter of his songs, but since other singers haven’t yet taken up his music, it’s not a hypothesis I can prove.
Vinyl
Quruli, Sayonara Stranger, Dec. 28, 2016
Quruli, Zukan, Dec. 28, 2016
Quruli, TEAM ROCK, Jan. 25, 2017
Quruli, THE WORLD IS MINE, Jan. 25, 2017
For Quruli’s 20th anniversary, HMV is reissuing the band’s albums on vinyl. I’ve already placed orders for TEAM ROCK and THE WORLD IS MINE. At the time, I gave Antenna a good review, but I’ve changed my mind since then. Zukan and Sayonara Stranger are also important titles to own, but they’re not priorities for me personally.
The Killers, Hot Fuss, Jan. 13, 2017
This reissue has been delayed multiple times since May 2016. What?
Duran Duran, The Wedding Album, Jan. 13, 2017
I’m still skeptical about this reissue, since it too has bounced around the release schedule for nearly a year now.
Rewind takes a look at past Musicwhore.org reviews to see how they hold up today. The albums featured on Rewind were part of my collection, then sold for cash only to be reacquired later.
Back when I first reviewedMurray Street, I was familiar with only three Sonic Youth albums, two of which I owned. I eventually let the album go because it had been played to death during my shifts at Waterloo Records.
I put a lot of pressure on myself to keep producing reviews for this site, and like any imposition, I eventually started making filler. A few tell-tale signs indicate how I struggled to get through that review.
First, I defer to the opinions of other publications. When I do that, I know I don’t have a strong opinion of my own. Second, I openly confess to the limitations of my expertise on the band. Sometimes it works when I’m moved enough to write about a style of music with which I’m not familiar. In this instance, it was a cop-out.
Murray Street found its way back to my collection only after I had developed an appreciation for the early-Steve Shelley era. I actually prefer Sister and EVOL over Murray Street, but I do like it enough to own it on vinyl.
I stand by my description of the album in the review — it’s tuneful and somewhat restrained, compared to the distortion assault of Daydream Nation or the grime of Dirty.
Something not mentioned was the fact I passed over the two albums preceding Murray Street. Waterloo had a policy where you could listen to anything in the store, of which I took advantage in the days before Napster. I heard enough of A Thousand Leaves and NYC Ghosts and Flowers to know I would like neither of them.
I’m part of the last generation that knew what life was like before the Internet. For most people my age, we discovered new music by listening to the radio. If you hated radio — and I did — we found out about music through magazines. More adventurous listeners would seek out zines.
I picked up the self-titled debut of a Boston band named East of Eden because their album was on sale at Tower Records. There might have been a review somewhere. At the time, Boston was home to Throwing Muses and Pixies, so there was a chance some of that rubbed off on East of Eden.
Also, I liked the cover.
The album actually turned out to be pretty decent. It wasn’t Pixies or Throwing Muses by any stretch of the imagination, but it had all the requisite gloss of an ’80s record, and it wasn’t Richard Marx.
The album was released in 1989, a crowded year with a lot of stellar albums by XTC, the Replacements, the B-52’s and 10,000 Maniacs. East of Eden was good, but it didn’t have enough heft to elbow its way into regular rotation on my Walkman.
I bought the album on cassette, and in a crunch for cash, it was an early casualty.
East of Eden shares it name with a number of bands, and the Boston ensemble registers barely a footprint. Information is scarce on Discogs.com, which misattributes them as a Pennsylvania band. Google returns more results for a progressive rock band in the UK. The album itself is nowhere to be found on digital services.
I was surprised to find a copy of the album on CD at the Lifelong AIDS Alliance Thrift Shop. It was evidence I wasn’t the only person to have ever owned the album, nor the only one to surrender it. For $1, I was willing to explore why I let it go in the first place.
Back in 1989, I wanted every album I bought to change my life. East of Eden didn’t, which was pretty unfair to the band. They recorded a good album that was victim to inattention by a major label in a fertile period ripe with great bands doing excellent work.
One of the most influential issues published by Pulse magazine was a supplement covering the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. Those 20-some odd pages was my encyclopedia of the downtown New York scene of the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Of course, I had no means to listen to any of the music described in that guide. Tower Records had a wide-reaching stock, but downtown New York albums just didn’t reach Honolulu unless it was released on a major label, i.e. Nonesuch.
Soldier String Quartet was one of those ensembles mentioned in Pulse, and my burgeoning interest in Kronos Quartet made me curious about Soldier as well. I wouldn’t spot any of their albums in the wild till I lived in New York City from 1992 to 1993. I had to leave them on the shelf because I was living on a student income (read: parents’ money).
I had honestly forgotten about Soldier String Quartet till I was flipping through the stacks of Crossroads Music in Portland, Ore. I spotted Sequence Girls selling for $6, and I had to sate my curiosity once and for all.
Kronos traces its lineage back to Josef Haydn, but Soldier can only draw a tenuous link to that tradition. With bass and drums augmenting the quartet, Sequence Girls is clearly a rock album. The quartet plays with a lot of fire, and David Soldier’s original works can get crunchy.
The album also includes arrangements of delta blues songs from Muddy Waters, Skip James and Charley Patton that don’t attempt to clean up the source material.
In addition to performing Soldier originals, the quartet premiered works by the likes of Elliott Sharp, Zeena Parkins and Fred Frith. Wikipedia mentions Soldier String Quartet served as a training ground for other ensembles, at one time employing Regina Carter, and the’ve appeared on Guided by Voices albums.
It doesn’t look like Sequence Girls was ever reissued on CD, but it is distributed digitally through CD Baby.
I save my concert ticket stubs, but I’ve never taken an inventory of how many I have. So one night, I decided to scan them all. This stub is the oldest I could find.
Monsters of Grace is a multimedia piece by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson, and this staging was part of the SXSW Interactive festival in 1999. It had been two years since I moved from Honolulu, so the idea that I could go to a Philip Glass performance left me awestruck. Better yet, the show was restricted to badge holders, and I had a media badge.
I remember nothing of the music. It’s Philip Glass, so I imagine there were a lot of arpeggios and harmonic motion in thirds to distant keys. Since he was a keynote interview that year, Glass conducted and performed with his ensemble.
I do remember it was 3D, which meant I had to wear glasses, and Wilson’s staging in that regard was quite stunning.
None of my ticket stubs date earlier than 1999 because I had an evil entry-level work schedule at a newspaper. For the first year and a half, I worked nights. Then I was moved to early mornings on a 4-day/10-hour schedule. I wouldn’t have an office-hours schedule till the start of 1999.
That year was the first SXSW festival I attended. Later in the week, I would go to my first Japan Nite.
I saw Philip Glass in person two more times. The first was a year and a half later with Kronos Quartet performing his score to Dracula. The last was in 2012, when he took a bow after a staging of Einstein on the Beach at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, Calif.
![[Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor's Guide to Earth]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/SturgillSimpsonSailorsGu144472NGPT_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Sturgill Simpson, Paramount Theatre, Nov. 11, 2016]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2016-11-12-23.57.54.jpg)
![[Dead or Alive - Youthquake]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DeadorAliveYouthquake19158047_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Renée Fleming - Distant Light]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/renee-fleming-distant-light-300x300.jpg)
![[Sonic Youth - Murray Street]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/SonicYouthMurrayStreet2144605_f-300x298.jpg)
![[East of Eden- East of Eden]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/EastOfEdenEastOfEden-298x300.jpg)
![[Soldier String Quartet - Sequence Girls]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/SoldierStringQuartetSeque153946D59P_f.jpg)
![[Philip Glass - Monsters of Grace]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/1999-03-16-Monsters-of-Grace-300x191.jpg)