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TED DROZDOWSKI

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The Laurie Anderson world view
Laurie Anderson is the world’s pre-eminent performance artist — a musician, writer, and electronics and visual wizard.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | March 24, 2008

Beyond Even (1992-2006) | Opal
This collection of odds and sods isn’t exactly your father’s ambient music, though guitarist Robert Fripp and keyboardist/sonic sculptor Brian Eno are certainly the genre’s papas.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | March 25, 2008

Auktyon

Girls Sing | Geometriya
Maybe next time Auktyon should have a little more Stoli before hitting the “RECORD” button.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | March 18, 2008

David Torn: Prezens

ECM
Guitarist Torn has quietly labored in the jazz and prog-rock trenches for more than 20 years.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | March 12, 2008

Willie Nelson: Moment of Forever

Lost Highway
Nelson turns 75 in April, but this disc sounds fresh and timeless next to other recent albums from Nashville’s Music Row.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | February 26, 2008

When Jacko was king

The 25th anniversary of Thriller
Richard Nixon may be the only figure whose decline in popularity eclipsed Michael Jackson’s.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | February 26, 2008

Bob Mould

District Line | Anti-
No surprise when you consider that Mould, along with Sonic Youth and the Pixies, was among the genre’s most influential architects as the leader of Hüsker Dü.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | February 20, 2008

Levon Helm

Dirt Farmer | Vanguard
If there’s still any debate over who was the soul of the Band, it ends with this album.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | February 12, 2008

Mining the past

The classic sounds of the Mars Volta and Louis XIV
John Coltrane acid blasts rage through the Mars Volta’s new The Bedlam in Goliath.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | February 12, 2008

Blues redux

The music’s other life
Demystifying the origins of the blues has become a cottage publishing industry.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | February 12, 2008

Duke Levine

Beneath the Blues | Loud, Loud Music
It’s an essay in tension and restraint.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | February 05, 2008

Luther Allison

Underground | Ruf
What’s astounding about this eight-song album is that it’s just seeing daylight after 50 years on a shelf in the late blues singer/guitarist’s wife’s home.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | January 28, 2008

North Mississippi Allstars

Hernando | Songs of the South
This time they’ve hit on a more original strain blending the slimy supercharged guitar tones of stoner rock with old-school boogie and roll.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | January 22, 2008

Northeast newgrass

The rootsy routes of Hot Day at the Zoo
Lowell is known for Kerouac, its historic canal system, and the Industrial Revolution, not the “high and lonesome” sound of bluegrass.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | January 22, 2008

Honeydripper

A hot sticky mess
John Sayles’s first clunker is a threadbare yarn about the emergence of rock and roll that substitutes clichés for character development.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | January 16, 2008

Kula Shaker

Strangefolk | Cooking Vinyl
Paisley drips from the notes these British neo-transcendentalists wring from the instruments on their third album, which ends a six-year hiatus.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | January 14, 2008

Guitar leaders

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Ronnie Earl
Boston is known for the ’60s folk boom, the garage-y “Bosstown sound,” and as one of the birthplaces of alternative rock.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | December 31, 2007

Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration

Stax
This year, California’s Concord label took ownership of Memphis’s greatest musical treasure chest, the Stax Records catalogue.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | December 17, 2007

Monster Magnet

4-Way Diablo | SPV
Now straight and sober, 18 years, six albums, and two EPs into his Monster Magnet career, Wyndorf remains that world’s absolute master.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | December 10, 2007

The Blind Boys of Alabama

Down in New Orleans | Time Life
The Blind Boys today are as much an American institution as a singing group, with a history that stretches through the last seven decades and every fabric of 20th-century gospel music.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | December 03, 2007

Marc Ribot

Asmodeus: Book of Angels Volume 7 — Marc Ribot Plays Masada Book Two | Tzadik
If you know Ribot only through his brilliant sidemanning with Burnett and Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, you don’t really know Ribot.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | November 27, 2007

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