How Nat Became King: Hittin’ the Ramp with the King Cole Trio
Before he was “King,” he was Nathaniel Adams Coles. In the 1930, he put together a rowdy jazz trio that was a lot different than the Nat King Cole most people know.
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Noir & B: Slow Grind Fever Vols. 1-4
The Slow Grind Fever series is a fascinating collections of creepy, crawly R&B in a minor key; some songs and artists major hit makers…others mysterious and obscure. It’s proper music for smoky juke joints, rowdy house parties, and dangerous liaisons.
Read moreOn a Sinister Note: Film Noir Jazz
In the 1950s, film began to move away from romantic or bombastic orchestral scores and toward a more varied landscape. One of the styles that started making its mark on cinematic soundtracks during this period was jazz.
Read moreLes Baxter: Music Out of the Moon
A pioneering work of “space age pop,” Music out of the Moon was a collaboration between arranger Les Baxter, composer Harry Revel, and theremin player Samuel Hoffman.
Read moreBoredoms: Soul Discharge
This is no unique story. Soul Discharge was the gateway for a lot of people who, like me, saw it one day and wondered what the hell it was.
Read moreWar of the Welles
In October of 1938, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. Amid this air of paranoia, Orson Welles stepped behind the microphone for another broadcast of a radio drama, CBS’ The Mercury Theatre on the Air.
Read moreExotica Noir: Technicolor Paradise
For every Martin Denny , there were dozens of other, independent musicians plying their trade in exotica, with strange, stunning, and spooky results. It is these musicians that Technicolor Paradise celebrates.
Read moreA Brief History of The Quick
Power pop fans sometimes try to swell the ranks of their chosen obsession by widening their nets to include within it acts that are not necessarily deserving of the label. Take for example, The Quick.
Read moreReparata and the Delrons
Reparata and the Delrons were a girl group that spent a career plumbing the lower echelons of the pop charts. Their early repertoire was heavy on teenage melodrama and heartbreak.
Read moreBurt Bacharach: Casino Royale
Burt Bacharach’s soundtrack is probably the least maligned aspect of producer Charles Feldman’s 1967 film version of Casino Royale. One doesn’t have to love the movie to enjoy the soundtrack.
Read moreFrancoise Hardy: Midnight Blues
Francoise Hardy may have been the most stereotypically French of the Yē-Yē girls: Aloof, sophisticated and beautifully melancholy. Nevertheless, her sound was one that was largely made in England.
Read moreHoney Ltd.: The Complete LHI Recordings
Honey Ltd. got their start at Detroit’s Wayne State University. With a gift for seamless four part harmony, the group’s sound was essentially a timely update of the classic girl group sound of the early 60s
Read moreClothilde: Queen of the French Swinging Mademoiselle
At the height of the Yeh Yeh Girl craze, here were many girls compelled by external forces to seek fame. Yet, as the brief and quite odd career of Clothilde demonstrates, the results were not always bad.
Read moreHaunted by The Sonics
It’s easy to write off the Sonics’ primitivism as the usual combination of lack of proficiency and hormonal enthusiasm. But delving into their history and discography quickly reveals just how conscious it was.
Read moreMusic from Forbidden Kingdoms
This quartet of releases from Sublime Frequencies explores music from countries that have been traditionally off-limits — Myanmar, Shan Province, North Korea —or struggled with decades of oppression and violence—Cambodia.
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