“Rhapsody Round-Up” is a semi-regular compilation of record reviews I’ve recently penned for the online music service Rhapsody.com.

Anika
Anika
Expertly produced by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, Anika’s debut album is a striking fusion of arty chamber rock and post-punk’s mechanical, reverb-stained dystopianism. You wouldn’t think a dub version of Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War,” one that sounds like vintage A Certain Ratio, would work. Yet it totally does. The same goes for the punchy reworking of The Kinks’ “I Go to Sleep.” Much of this music’s success can be attributed to the way Anika’s voice, leaden and monochromatic, fits snugly inside her backing band’s percussive grooves, which Barrow has soaked in an exquisite decay. Killer stuff.

Van Dyke Parks
Song Cycle
After working with Beach Boy genius Brian Wilson on Smile, the pop masterpiece that never was, Van Dyke Parks set his sights on his solo debut. Released in 1967 on Warner Bros., the lavish Song Cycle is arguably the aesthetic peak of what music critic Paul Williams once tagged the “new wave of psychedelic Tin Pan Alley.” It’s a truly phantasmagoric listening experience, one steeped in American history, geography and mythology. Yet it’s also a deeply personal statement. Woven into the surreal poetics are the pain and anguish the composer was suffering from after the recent death of his brother.

The Beach Boys
The Smile Sessions
The five-disc Smile Sessions works better than any of Brian Wilson’s stabs at finishing this lost masterpiece (particularly the 2004 version). This mainly has to do with how experimental pop unfolded over the past five decades. Though unintentional, the music’s skeletal nature turned out to be wildly prescient in how it predated the psychedelic deconstruction central to modern lo-fi, electronic pop and ambient-based rock. It’s a crazy thought, but had Wilson actually completed Smile in ’67, it might have aged about as well as its counterpart Sgt. Pepper, which sounds awfully dated nowadays.

John Hartford
Aereo-Plain
Few folks outside of the bluegrass scene purchased Aereo-Plain when Warner Bros. released the album in 1971. Those who did were profoundly touched by its homespun warmth, old-timey nostalgia, visionary weirdness and innovative picking (which trickles effortlessly like a mountain stream). Inspired by country-rock, Hartford crafted a sound that reconciled the hippies’ “back to earth” spiritualism and the small-town culture unique to the rural South. It’s no accident such a record appeared when the first communes and collectives began to pop up below the Mason-Dixon Line.

Supreme Dicks
The Emotional Plague
Supreme Dicks’ last album is also their most fully realized. On The Emotional Plague, the group successfully blends all the delicious obscurities of their, up to this point, fractured aesthetic: lo-fi weirdness, Crazy Horse-flavored desolation, Krautrock groovery, rustic folk. Be prepared, because this is one hell of a journey. Individual songs melt effortlessly into one another, creating a kind of cryptic ebb-n-flow. There are moments — especially in and around the song “Adoration de l’Agneau Mystique” — when the listening experience is not unlike following a stranger into a dark alley.

Nico
The Marble Index
In 1969, while Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne strummed their acoustic guitars up in Laurel Canyon, former Velvets chanteuse Nico released an album that dragged the singer-songwriter confessional into the darkest depths of existential despair. A modern form of classical music that’s both a product and rejection of American pop music, The Marble Index is often tagged the birth of goth. It’s more or less true, but this doesn’t nail the album’s scope and intensity. If you can weather the frozen hell from which Nico sings these songs, you’ll eventually marvel at their exquisite construction.

Pink Playground
Destination Ecstasy
Pink Playground isn’t the first band to worship My Bloody Valentine, and they most certainly won’t be the last. That said, Destination Ecstasy (an apt title, no?) proves they just might be the most adroit. The Houston outfit is a recording project first and foremost, a fact that goes a long way to explaining this music’s clever shading, fine textures and uncanny mingling of warm distortion and frigid feedback. It’s all rather exquisite. Moreover, Pink Playground nail the narcotic delirium that made the original shoegazers unique. The best example of this just might be “I Don’t Know You.”

Arthur Russell
World Of Echo
Many of these compositions — “Wax the Van,” “Treehouse” and “Let’s Go Swimming,” to name a few — lived alternate lives as cutting-edge plates for the dancefloor. But for World of Echo, which is a singer-songwriter affair more than anything else, Russell re-imagined them using voice, cello, hand percussion and echo. The end result is an intensely prescient batch of dubby, minimalist electro-pop that sounds like the bridge between One World-era John Martyn and the rise of 1990s electronica and post-rock. Be careful — this sublime record has a way of turning listeners into fanatics.

Supreme Dicks
Workingman’s Dick
First off, what an awesome album title. Hopefully, somebody slipped a copy to Papa Jerry before he departed for the Dark Star. Released in 1994, Workingman’s Dick contains recordings that date from the late ’80s. This is rather astonishing, seeing as how the music — however strange and psychedelic, which it most certainly is — sounds like the birth of slowcore. Just about every stylistic touchstone is present: the creaky mantras, the half-spoken poetics, the somnambulant tempos, the sparsely plucked guitars. No idea if Low actually listened to Supreme Dicks, but it sure sounds like they did.

Pink Floyd
More
Though it’s a soundtrack to an obscure hippie flick, More is the beginning of the post-Syd Barrett era for Pink Floyd. As a result, it’s the sound of a band exploring different sounds and ideas: Byrds-inspired pastoralism (“Crying Song”), psychedelic heavy metal (“The Nile Song”), progressive electronics (“Main Theme”) and even fusion (“Up the Khyber”). The record definitely lacks the thematic unity of later efforts, but just about every track here is awesome. The spacey rocker “Ibiza Bar” just might be pop music’s first tune to acknowledge the island’s then-underground bohemian enclaves.

John Martyn
Inside Out
John Martyn’s two previous releases, Solid Air and Bless the Weather, found the sonic visionary exploring the Echoplex, as well as incorporating rhythmic repetition and delay/reverb into his songwriting process. On Inside Out he ventures even further out, crafting a hyper-modern brand of avant rock, a blend of folkie confessional, roots reggae, raga drone and jazz fusion. Ambitious, even challenging at times, the album ultimately shares more with the electronic funk experiments of Miles Davis and Shuggie Otis than it does with singer-songwriters like Nick Drake and Sandy Denny.

Ritchie Valens
Ritchie Valens
Valens’ meteoric rise and fall is so romantically tragic that the story has long clouded the innovative nature of his music. Along with Buddy Holly, Ricky Nelson and Eddie Cochran, all of whom lived well west of the Mississippi, the precocious Mexican-American teenager helped drag rockabilly out of the South, thus laying the foundation for the music’s transition into rock. What totally stands outs on his self-titled debut — released posthumously, mind you — is his chiming guitar strum. Its influence can be heard in the music of The Kinks, Del Shannon, The Searchers, Tom Petty and more.

Gong
Flying Teapot
Early Gong records are totally weird. We’re talking, like, Syd Barrett and Skip Spence levels of weirdness. That said, once you grow comfortable with the incessant onslaught of brain-rupturing time changes, cosmic goo, jazzy interludes and gnome-inspired poetics, the band’s profound genius really begins to sink in. Originally released in 1973, Flying Teapot contains several of their most impressive long-form pieces. Both the title track and “Zero the Hero and the Witch’s Spell” unfold with all the exotic splendor of a rare tropical flower coming to blossom underneath an eerie morning sun.

Rush
Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland
Time Machine 2011: Live in Cleveland is the companion piece to the DVD of the same title. Recorded in Cleveland, a longtime hub of classic rock fandom going back to the ’70s, Rush is totally on top of their game. As the title suggests, the 26-track set list spans decades, from the neo-Zep onslaught of Rush’s earliest output (“Working Man”) to cuts from the yet to be released Clockwork Angels (“Caravan”). Halfway through the power trio unleashes their 1981 classic Moving Pictures from beginning to end. By concert’s end you’ll feel as pleasantly wiped out as anybody who actually attended.

Bert Jansch
L.A. Turnaround
L.A. Turnaround is the closest Bert Jansch came to playing the country-rock game in the mid-’70s. Produced by Michael Nesmith (who around the same time worked with another Brit-folkie, ex-Fairport Convention singer Iain Matthews), the album is the fullest-sounding in the troubadour’s sprawling discography. Just listen to the way the ex-Monkee captured Jansch’s fingerpicking; it’s warm, spacious and enveloping. As for the songwriting, Jansch was at the top of his game. “Open Up the Watergate (Let the Sunshine In)” — which surely inspired Wilco’s “Kingpin” — is one of the best of his career.

Ritchie Valens
Ritchie
Valens’ career as a rock ‘n’ roller was brief. By Ritchie, his sophomore full-length, which hit the pop market only months after his death in February 1959, manager Bob Keane and the Del-Fi label were already opening up the vaults, so to speak. Nevertheless, there are some great tunes here. “Cry, Cry, Cry” is a killer rave-up, one that must have left deep impressions upon The Beatles, The Kinks and any other young Brit paying attention. At the other end of the pop spectrum sits the home-recorded demo “My Darling Is Gone,” a weepy ballad that’s utterly twee in its naked simplicity.

Jimi Hendrix
Hendrix In The West
Released in 1972, two years after Jimi Hendrix’s death, In the West is a fine collection of live recordings that date from 1969 and ’70. This was a period of personnel transition for the guitarist. The original Experience appears on just three tracks: “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” “Little Wing” and “Red House.” For the rest, his old pal Billy Cox has replaced original bassist Noel Redding. The music is excellent all around, particularly the stretch between “I Don’t Live Today” and “Spanish Castle Magic.” It probably goes without saying, Hendrix totally tears it up on these jams.

Supreme Dicks
The Unexamined Life
If you want to hear what lo-fi sounded like back when it was a living, breathing creature and not a retro-zombie of the 21st century, then you’ll need to explore The Supreme Dicks. These strange dudes (from the same western Massachusetts scene as Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh) were really kind of visionary. On the Dicks’ first full-length, 1993′s The Unexamined Life, their fusion of indie rock, folk music and psychedelia sounds particularly shambolic and disjointed. It’s difficult to formulate references for such cryptic music, but Eusa Kills-era Dead C meets Incredible String Band isn’t far off.

Rush
Moving Pictures: Live 2011
Rush constructed Moving Pictures: Live 2011 by removing tracks from the sprawling Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland. Though the latter is mandatory listening for any serious Rush fan, this abridged document makes for a potent experience in its own right. Unlike so many aging hard rockers from the ’70s, Rush have taken good care of their minds, bodies and spirits through the years. Thus, they still possess the vitality this intricate and intense music requires. The fact that Moving Pictures closes with a track titled “Vital Signs” has turned out to be really quite poignant.

Ritchie Valens
In Concert At Pacoima Jr. High
In Concert At Pacoima Jr. High, released in the wake of Valens’ 1959 death, is a wonderfully odd product of early rock ‘n’ roll frenzy. It opens with an intensely earnest introduction from manager Bob Keane. In addition to thanking fans for their continued loyalty, he explains the mishmash nature of the album: four raw live tracks, recorded at his client’s former junior high no less, plus a smattering of outtakes and alternative versions. The music is, of course, fantastic. Much is made about the mythology surrounding Valens’ demise, but setting that aside, the guy flat-out rocked.

Pink Floyd
Discovery
Discovery is basically Oh, by the Way 2.0: a massive box set that contains all 14 of Pink Floyd’s studio albums. This time around, however, it’s the 2011 remasters that are showcased. These have been released individually as well, but true Pink Floyd fans will want to press play and take the complete journey, during which they’ll witness the radical (and long) evolution of their heroes totally uninterrupted.

Roxy Music
Essential
Essential is a decent introduction for those who have never been exposed to Roxy Music, arguably the greatest art-rock band of all time. The first half of the collection’s 16 tracks was culled from the group’s first four albums; these comprise what is generally considered their golden period. The second half is an overview of the band’s uneven transition into new wave and disco pop. Fans of Roxy’s older music are on the fence about this stuff, yet it possesses its own special charms. To hear just how gloriously frantic these guys were on stage, check out the live version of “Do the Strand.”

Ry Cooder
Jazz
Jazz was very much an outgrowth of the nostalgia American music and cinema in the 1970s experienced for the early 20th century. Though always something of a revivalist, Cooder plays things exceedingly straight for this historical overview of ragtime, Spanish-American music, minstrelsy, blues and parlor music. The record is a pleasant enough listen, yet it definitely lacks the eccentricities that make Cooder’s earlier efforts, such as Into the Purple Valley and his self-titled debut, so striking. Be sure to also check out Van Dyke Park’s Discover America, which makes for a nice companion piece.

Little Feat
The Last Record Album
The Last Record Album is good, excellent at times, but when released in 1975 it was a clear step down from the heights Little Feat reached with the triumvirate Sailin’ Shoes, Dixie Chicken and Feats Don’t Fail Me Now. A lot of this had to do with singer and songwriter Lowell George, who began to withdraw from his bandmates. They in turn grew agitated. As a result, a palpable sense of melancholy hangs over the record’s best tracks, including “Long Distance Love” and “All That You Dream.” The latter really sums up what was going on with the band: “I’ve been down, but not like this before.”

Pink Floyd
A Foot in the Door: The Best Of Pink Floyd
When weirdo psych-pop tunesmith Syd Barrett departed in 1968, the thought of Pink Floyd as a viable singles act pretty much died. Besides “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II),” which topped the charts in 1979, the group sold few copies of the smattering of singles they did release. Then again, chart position is quite misleading when determining the popularity of certain Floyd songs. Classic rock radio has been incessantly spinning “Comfortably Numb,” “Wish You Were Here” and “Have A Cigar” for decades. Surely these have become greatest hits by now, right?

“Rhapsody Round-Up” is a semi-regular compilation of record reviews I’ve recently penned for the online music service Rhapsody.com.

Maria Minerva
Cabaret Cixous
The intriguingly mysterious Maria Minerva hails from Estonia, but her low-tech, avant diva-pop — all dubby, grubby and dreamy — very much mirrors what her Not Not Fun labelmates are up to here in the United States. More than a few tracks on Cabaret Cixous sound as if Minerva took a blowtorch to Phil Collins’ “This Must Be Love,” looped it several times, then added a handful of synth runs and broken beats. To say this music is the sonic equivalent of consuming horse tranquilizer before reclining on a waterbed and gazing into a color wheel for an hour just about nails its overall feel.

Peaking Lights
Imaginary Falcons
Imaginary Falcons, which predates the masterful 936 album by two years, finds Indra Dunis and Aaron Coyes still tinkering with their style. The record is rooted in noise-pop and guitar-soaked drone rather than groovy weirdo dance pop. It’s still trippy and psychedelic, however. The 11-minute “Wedding Song” releases a pungent and thoroughly exotic odor, Turkish opium dens and sinister strangers lurking at your vision’s blurry periphery. “New News” and “Owls Barking” are two more extended cuts, both of which are equally hypnotic. The latter piece is a swim through true cosmic euphoria.

Peaking Lights
936
In a parallel universe, one where dub icon Lee “Scratch” Perry, and not ABBA, dominated the pop charts in the late ’70s, Peaking Lights are the Mr. and Mrs. Lady Gaga of the modern age. If you’re not cranking 936 right this second, then that sounds like nothing but crazy talk. So go ahead and explore this wondrous platter; it’s gooey mutant disco at its most luxuriant and spellbinding. Even when the Wisconsin-based duo ventures far out, as on “Marshmellow Yellow,” your body will still demand a glistening parquet floor and softly strobing light patterns. Oh, and crank the bass, too.

High Wolf
Etoile 3030
The Skaters, particularly cofounder James Ferraro, receive quite a lot of credit for kick-starting the hypnagogic pop movement. And rightfully so. At the same time, the Day-Glo séances of High Wolf (as well as those of fellow Not Not Fun freaks Sun Araw) owe just as much to Jaybird-era Sunburned Hand of the Man. Etoile 3030 picks up where the previously released Ascension left off. This is neo-psychedelia stripped to its shimmering essences: wah-wah, organ, drum and bass. Of course, there exists a significant amount of processing, yet it’s amazing just how elemental this music really is.

LA Vampires Featuring Matrix Metals
So Unreal
At first blush, So Unreal is simply a lo-fi reimagining of new wave. This impression deepens with repeated spins. The beats and synths echo wearily, as if they’re crushed by the weight of their own nostalgia. Amanda Brown, who fronts Pocahaunted as well, sounds genuinely dazed and confused. Her voice floats through that echo but fails to find anything real to cling to. On “How Would U Know,” she dismantles the very notion of self through a repeated perversion of the title: “You could be anyone. How would I know? How would I know? How would I know?”

Robedoor
Too Down To Die
The Spacemen 3-inspired title says it all. This expansive slab of drone is all about downer space-blues drowning in a wall-of-sound ecstasy that’s both titanic and uncontrollable. Unlike previous releases, however, Too Down to Die doesn’t contain a whole lot of murk. It’s gorgeous and sublime in a decidedly streamlined manner. What’s more, the synthesizer and electronic components have been pushed to the fore, as if the band intended for the sphere on the album cover to be mistaken for a disco ball. After the 22-minute opener, the tracks get progressively shorter — but no less psychedelic.

Sex Worker
Waving Goodbye
The Not Not Fun roster can be split into two camps: the psychedelic explorers (Sun Araw, High Wolf, Umberto) and the psych-o-delic crooners (LA Vampires, Maria Minerva). Sex Worker (born Daniel Martin-McCormick) belongs to the latter. The title Waving Goodbye could refer to the departure of his sanity. He sounds like a sexually tormented mental patient who happens to own a cheap Yorx sound system and a karaoke machine loaded with synth pop. It’s all very post-James Ferraro weirdness. Nevertheless, the record is one engaging listen, like a war of attrition you can’t seem to walk away from.

Umberto
Prophecy Of The Black Widow
Nearly everything about Prophecy of the Black Widow, from the campy song titles to the creepy textures, reads like an open love letter to Italian horror from the ’70s. Indeed, an intense Goblin vibe permeates the album. But this isn’t mere nostalgia — more like the delicious confusion of. A good chunk of Prophecy of the Black Widow, including the stuttering drum machines and synth stabs, sounds influenced by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth’s soundtrack work. Then there’s the unmistakable Rockwell vibe in “Night Stalking” and “Everything Is Going to Be OK.” Now that’s really over the top.

Weyes Blood
The Outside Room
The Outside Room is an idiosyncratic album, even for the label that released it, the stridently eccentric Not Not Fun. Weyes Blood (born Natalie Mering) shares with labelmates such as Sun Araw and Peaking Lights a love for analog-rich sounds all decayed and flooded in reverb. Formally, however, she is a genuine progressive-folk singer and songwriter, one whose surging contralto is clearly inspired by Nico and Bridget St. John. Dense and forlorn, this record demands a lot from its listeners, namely copious amounts of time and attention, yet the rewards are many and, most importantly, profound.

Pocahaunted
Island Diamonds
Pocahaunted’s discography is too all over the place stylistically for the group to boast a definitive recording. But if pressed to pick one, Island Diamonds it is. Released in 2008, just as the group was evolving from noise-drone mediums into groovy rhythm merchants, the album contains the best of both incarnations. It’s genuinely liminal in this sense. Standout tracks such as “Follow I” and “Ghetto Ballet” come shrouded in thick ether, yet they never dissolve, thanks to the throbbing bass that holds them together. Coining genres is a silly exercise, yet Gothic dub does make a lot of sense.

The Grateful Dead
Europe ’72 Vol. 2
To say this sequel to Europe ’72, released four decades later, is long overdue is a grand understatement. Though its predecessor is a triple-disc set, Vol. 2 proves the band’s vaults were by no means exhausted. And thanks to producer David Lemieux, the recordings stashed therein now sound excellent. Treats abound, but the standouts on disc one are inspired versions of the Jerry Garcia ballads “Loser” and “Sugaree.” On the second disc, The Dead go deep with an exceptionally focused take on the “Dark Star” to “Drums” to “The Other One” triumvirate. This alone breaks the 50-minute mark!

Funkadelic
Maggot Brain
Maggot Brain is sublime and absurd. It’s also desperate and terrifying. This kaleidoscope of clashing emotions can be attributed to the Funkadelic aesthetic. Take the African American experience as it was in 1971 (all the beauty and joy, pain and strife) and crack open its head with LSD, cosmic mysticism and screaming feedback. This band was not to be messed with; they rocked as hard as Zeppelin, yet swung like Sly & The Family Stone. The anchor, of course, is guitarist Eddie Hazel’s soul-melting title track, but Maggot Brain is a journey from beginning to end. Early exit is not an option.

Fleetwood Mac
Men Of The World: The Early Years
Though this triple-disc set contains a few gaps, it serves as a quality introduction to Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac. In just three short years, from 1967 to ’70, at which time Green called it quits, the band evolved from British blues freaks into pioneers of hard rock. In the process, they laid a foundation upon which more than a few bands, Aerosmith and Judas Priest among them, would build their styles. To hear this incarnation of Fleetwood Mac at its most gnarly, check out “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown)” and the live versions of “Oh Well” and “Rattlesnake Shake.”

Big Brother & The Holding Company
Cheap Thrills
Looking back, Cheap Thrills isn’t quite the masterpiece critics hailed it as when released in the summer of ’68. Nevertheless, it is at times an exhilarating listen. What’s most striking is how on a handful of tracks the band can be heard inventing the template for heavy metal’s throat-shredding singer and hot-licks guitarist tandem. Page-Plant, Tyler-Perry and Osbourne-Iommi all owe a little something to Janis Joplin and James Gurley (who were lovers as well as bandmates). To hear this pair at its hardest rocking, check out “Combination of the Two” and “I Need a Man to Love.”

The Doors
Full Circle
The public’s lukewarm reaction to Other Voices didn’t stop The Doors from dropping a second album in the post-Morrison era. On Full Circle the band accentuates the pub rock and soul-pop vibes found on its predecessor. There are some fun tunes here, stuff that would’ve been better received had a group of young upstarts — minus all the baggage, obviously — recorded it. “4 Billion Souls” is real quirky, zig-zagging psych-pop. Another cool cut is “Verdilac,” an odd hybrid of Hot Rats-style grease funk and fusion jammery. The Doors’ last hit, “The Mosquito,” exudes an intriguing Tropicalia feel.

The Doors
Other Voices
The Doors’ decision to soldier on after their rock-and-roll shaman Jim Morrison advanced to the fourth dimension was both courageous and insane. Not well received when released in 1971, Other Voices has aged modestly well. Vocal duties — split up among Manzarek, Densmore and Krieger — are fulfilled to varying degrees of success. Musically, the trio is still in L.A. Woman mode; they’re funky, groovy and pretty much on the money. “Variety is the Spice of Life” is quality pub rock reminiscent of Eggs Over Easy and Brinsley Schwarz. “Tightrope Ride,” pure biker-rock, is another keeper.

“Rhapsody Round-Up” is a semi-regular compilation of record reviews I’ve recently penned for the online music service Rhapsody.com.

Gene Clark
No Other
Released in 1974, No Other opens like other Gene Clark albums, with a gorgeous cosmic American ballad, one that’s profoundly moving. The album then becomes something entirely different, a sweeping and intense self-examination of personal spirituality, creativity and, ultimately, torment. Every word Clark utters is caked in forlorn wisdom. The stretch containing the title track, “Strength of Strings,” “From a Silver Phial” and “Some Misunderstanding” is particularly harrowing. These just aren’t songs; they are operettas. Their epic qualities have more in common with prog than country-rock.

John and Beverley Martyn
Stormbringer!
For 1970′s Stormbringer!, John and Beverley Martyn made the requisite hippie pilgrimage to Woodstock to record with the Big Pink scene: Levon Helm, Paul Harris, John Simon, et al. Because the Martyns as musicians possessed such powerful personalities, the record doesn’t sound like your typical back-to-country effort from the early ’70s. The bulk of it — including the title track and “The Ocean,” both of which are gorgeous — floats through time cloaked in soft strings and phantom textures. Another keeper is “Traffic-Light Lady,” one of the more touching tunes the duo ever committed to tape.

The London Suede
Dog Man Star
What makes Dog Man Star such a deliciously maddening experience is the way it dances oh so lasciviously across a razor-thin tightrope strung between wild genius and bloated absurdity. Pop stars who could record whatever they wanted by ’94, The London Suede broke the bank and created a sprawling and dense orchestral rock epic that ultimately shares more in common with David Sylvian, Scott Walker and Talk Talk than whatever Fab Four clones the NME was freaking for at the time. It really is an amazing record; one could listen to it a million times and still find new sonic details to explore.

Colin L Orchestra
Infinite Ease / Good God
Colin Langenus, the musician behind the orchestra, is a fantastic songwriter, one with a real talent for sweeping, melodic tunes. With Infinite Ease, the former USA Is A Monster singer and guitarist applies tricks he learned from minimalist guru Rhys Chatham to roots rock. That sounds like a heavy idea, but the record has all the good-times potency of great classic rock. In fact, Langenus refers to his jams as “psychedelic yacht rock.” Good God, tracks 7 thru 16, is an older, previously unreleased collection of rootsy alt-rock that is less epic, way more punchy, off the cuff and feisty.

Suzi Quatro
Suzi Quatro
Three years before The Runaways became the little foxes of hard rock, Suzi Quatro released her debut album, a mind-blowing mix of glam and (proto) punk sass that profoundly influenced Joan, Cherie, Lita, Sandy and Jackie. This record rules. Every tune is a metallic banger, throwing its weight around with all the middle-finger authority of Slade, Sweet and Mud. What ultimately pushes Suzi Quatro over the top is its funkiness. Yes, the riffs are, uh, balls to the wall. But it’s the grooves that will have your rump doing counter-clockwise gyrations that feel good and perverse, simultaneously.

Kaleidoscope
Side Trips
Though Kaleidoscope was never anything more than a cult entity in the mid-’60s, their influence on the development of psychedelic rock and early world music cannot be overestimated. Following up on fellow Angelenos The Byrds’ raga-flavored “Eight Miles High,” Kaleidoscope’s excellent debut album Side Trips, released in 1967, found them diving deep into the blend of global sounds, sonic experimentation and multi-layered harmonies. With their uncanny ability for fusing disparate folk traditions, Kaleidoscope were more or less the American version of the Incredible String Band.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Electric Ladyland
The 20th century produced few double-albums as iconic as Electric Ladyland. It kind of makes sense this was Hendrix’s last album with Noel and Mitch. Where else could the trio take their sound? Transforming the studio into a psychedelic laboratory, they cracked the rock genome and infused it with chromosomes pulled from soul, blues and even folk music. What has been lost to time is just how unique Electric Ladyland sounded in 1968. Other bands had ventured pretty far out (The Yardbirds, 13th Floor Elevators, The Byrds). But none of them rocketed into deep inner space quite like these guys.

Funkadelic
Live: Meadowbrook, Rochester, Michigan 12th September 1971
Funkadelic’s earliest albums are profoundly strange and psychedelic, but amazingly enough their sound was even more out there in the live setting. On this impeccably recorded performance from 1971, individual songs melt into a gooey stew of fuzzy acid-dirges and porno-cosmic incantations. Perversely visionary stuff for sure. George Clinton is a freaky scatological genius. “We might pee on you, but we won’t do you no harm,” he at one point implores. Guitarist Eddie Hazel, meanwhile, is a heavy metal feedback warlord. Would grunge and noise rock even have been born were it not for him?

The Chambers Brothers
The Time Has Come
The Time Has Come might be an uneven listen, but it’s an absolutely necessary (and possibly even initial) bridge between ’60s soul and the psych-funk revolution that exploded the following decade. Because of this, the album is divided between earthbound fare (“People Get Ready,” “In the Midnight Hour”) and serious acid vibes, the most significant of which is the 11-minute “Time Has Come Today.” The importance of this track cannot be overstated; the band released it in 1967, two years before Sly & The Family Stone’s Stand! and three before Funkadelic’s debut. Now that’s prescience, people.

James Brown
Sex Machine
When talking the great live albums in James Brown’s discography, 1970′s Sex Machine ranks right up there with the mighty Live at the Apollo and Love Power Peace. Of course, a decent portion of this set is merely live simulation (overdubbed audience and reverb). Nevertheless, if you want to hear the classic J.B.’s lineup at the very peak of their powers, then this is essential listening. Brown, feeling challenged by the emergence of Sly & The Family Stone and even Funkadelic, pushes his band into some heady spaces: extended rhythmic sequences that feel like byproducts of a genuine hive mind.

Sun Ra
The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volumes One & Two
The Heliocentric Worlds recordings — which over the years have been repackaged to the point of confusion, even for hardcore Ra devotees — are as good a place as any to get a feel for the Arkestra’s drastic evolution during their mid-’60s residency in New York. With the city’s burgeoning free jazz scene exerting its influence, Sun Ra’s music went from quirky and strange to heavy and sublime. Compositions — all twisted, shattered and stretched –now broke the seven-minute mark. Though the playing was still predominantly acoustic, it grew more percussive and abstract, even harsh at times.

Dr. Feelgood
BBC In Concert (4th September 1975)
Dr. Feelgood’s studio albums from the mid-’70s are pretty darn sweet, particularly Malpractice, but their live recordings from the same period are better. As an ensemble hell-bent on creating wiry boogie that sounds like a cross between Captain Beefheart and Stack Waddy, they were straight-up aces. Crank “Roxette” and “I Can Tell,” and you’ll hear this. While you’re at it, be sure to pay special attention to guitarist Wilko Johnson. He is one of the great rhythm players in rock ‘n’ roll history. His slashing, tearing, clawing style influenced many a punk, including Andy Gill of Gang of Four.

Ry Cooder
Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down
Lyrically, Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down is a 21st-century protest album, a cheeky commentary on how money, greed, war and Baby Boomer-bred egocentrism dominate American politics and culture. Musically, the album is a throwback to Cooder’s earliest work, particularly his 1972 ode to the Dust Bowl, Into the Purple Valley. He’s reconnected with what made him such a unique talent to begin with: an uncanny ability to construct quirky pop via the mining of folk traditions as disparate as country-blues and norteño. In this sense he’s more of a modern day Aaron Copland than Woody Guthrie.

Lindsey Buckingham
Seeds We Sow
There’s something timeless about Lindsey Buckingham’s musical vision. Much of this has to do with his finger-picking and voice; neither has aged all that much since he joined Fleetwood Mac back in the mid-’70s. Recorded and released by the man himself, the thoroughly enjoyable Seeds We Sow feels particularly youthful. Numerous tracks, including “That’s the Way Love Goes” and “End of Time,” don’t sound too different from much of what passes for modern indie pop. He closes out the record with a nice rendition of “She Smiled Sweetly,” a deep track from The Rolling Stones’ Between the Buttons.

Blitzen Trapper
American Goldwing
American Goldwing opens with the one-two punch of “Might Find It Cheap” and “Fletcher.” Both tunes embody what has gradually become the Blitzen Trapper sound: a punchy, nasally fusion of power pop and country rock, with a dash of “hick-hop” syncopation thrown in for maximum grooviness. The group, in all honesty, hasn’t really changed their strategy through the years. But that’s OK. Even when the songwriting feels born of habit, American Goldwing sounds fantastic. Every instrument — harmonica, pedal steel, banjo, piano, those soaring harmonies — has been rendered in crystallized vibrancy.

“Rhapsody Round-Up” is a semi-regular compilation of record reviews I’ve recently penned for the online music service Rhapsody.com.

Radio People
Hazel
With each new release, Sam Goldberg’s Radio People project moves from abstract synth-drone to more of a synth-pop aesthetic, one that embraces traditional conceptions of melody, groove and even beauty. As a result, Hazel recalls Jean Michel Jarre more than it does Conrad Schnitzler. As a composer and musician, Goldberg’s timing is impeccable; his architectonic runs — spacey in a gentle way — never unfold too quickly or slowly. The record is instrumental for the most part. However, its final track, “Patience,” contains some wonderfully tranquil vocal patterns that feel inspired by Eno.

White Hills
H-p1
White Hills’ aesthetic is concise and to the point: space-rock head trauma brought on by a dive into a rabbit’s hole of psycho-fuzz, brittle grooves and narcotic vox. As H-p1 can attest, these third-eye warriors spent a lot of time spinning their Hawkwind and Loop albums. This is a good thing, of course. But what distinguishes White Hills from other indie bands exploring similar terrain (like The Black Angels) is their devotion to sonic violence and multi-dimensional ruptures in the soundscape. To appreciate these points, crank “Movement,” which melts into a clanging industrial racket.

Crystal Antlers
Two-Way Mirror
There are aspects to Two-Way Mirror that reflect Crystal Antlers’ love of progressive rock, psychedelia and garage, particularly their use of atmospheric reverb and clever time changes. Ultimately, though, this is a post-hardcore outfit, one whose mix of bruising rhythms and herky-jerky grooves are rooted in The Mars Volta, GoGoGo Airheart and the great Unwound. Overall, the album is significantly less aggro and loud than previous ones — the poppy “Summer Solstice” even boasts tickling ivories and a sweet melody. Another cool song is “Jules’ Story,” which is more of a rocker.

Prurient
Bermuda Drain
In a lot of ways, Bermuda Drain sounds unlike anything else in Prurient’s discography. Yet this doesn’t mean he’s completely ditched his roots in noise — it’s more like a considerable reconfiguration. The album attempts to merge his love of emotionally charged power electronics and the (relatively) melodic synth-pop he makes as a part of Cold Cave. It’s a challenging and often uneven fusion. When it fails (“Palm Tree Corpse”), the music feels pretentious and overwrought; when it succeeds (“There Are Still Secrets”) it sounds like OMD and Ministry collaborating on a black metal album.

Pontiak
Comecrudos
Comecrudos — an expansive foray into dark drone, ambient brain-foam and moody post-folk — is the most experimental release Pontiak has dropped to date. Designed specifically as a soundtrack for the sublime drive between Marathon, Tex., and Big Bend National Park (that’s U.S. Route 385 for all you geography nerds), the album is broken into five movements. “Part II” recalls Slint’s Spiderland, while “Part III” sounds like Giant Sand’s Howe Gelb, the father of desert rock, fronting Obscured by Clouds-era Pink Floyd. Good chances are Comecrudos would sound killer on just about any drive.

Moby Grape
Moby Grape Live
Before the release of Moby Grape Live, the band’s onstage prowess was the stuff of legend only. Though its sound isn’t top-notch, this collection of recordings, captured between 1967 and ’69, is a solid testament to the group’s vision: an airtight, on-the-beat fusion of honky-tonk, Motown soul and British beat music. Moby Grape, unlike most of their Bay Area peers, liked to keep their tunes short and sweet (the reason why punks dig them). That said, the 17-minute “Dark Magic” closing the record proves the group was also adept at extended psychedelic-soaked improvisation and jamming.

The London Suede
Head Music
After the megahit that was 1996′s Coming Up, The London Suede entered the studio with a new producer, Steve Osborne, who had also worked with New Order and The Happy Mondays. Predictably, Head Music is laced with synthesizers and a lot of programmed tricks: samples, vocal effects, dub-inspired oddities, etc. What’s more, it lacks the rich wordplay singer Brett Anderson had become known for (more than a few critics blamed this on his drug use). Overall, the record feels like a reworking of its predecessor, but one geared towards the electronica market.

Paul McCartney
Tug of War
Macca experienced — after slipping into silly-love-song irrelevance by the end of the 1970s — a rebirth at the dawn of the 1980s. First, the tunesmith dropped the synth-flavored McCartney II; he then unveiled Tug of War, his best and most fully realized album since Band on the Run. From punchy new wave to rockabilly to symphonic pop, McCartney covers miles and miles of sonic ground. The ambition fueling the music also powers the ex-Beatle’s lyrics, which are some of his most personal and intimate. A prime example of this is “Here Today,” a touching tribute to his old partner John Lennon.

The War on Drugs
Slave Ambient
Slave Ambient sounds a lot like The War on Drugs’ 2008 debut, Wagonwheel Blues: bouncy roots-rock buttressed by a Krautrock-inspired sense of rhythmic repetition. The Long Ryders playing the Neu! songbook, in other words. It’s a decent enough listen. The only problem is that the record lacks the killer anthems that made its predecessor so fun — then again, that just might be the point. This time around, primary singer and songwriter Adam Granduciel sounds more introspective and reflective; not only that, his vocals are often rendered indecipherable by the echo-soaked din challenging them.

Brand X
Unorthodox Behaviour
In the mid-1970s, Phil Collins played the drums constantly. In addition to his innovative work in Genesis, he lent his skills to the likes of Brian Eno, as well as several other like-minded art-rockers. He also served time in Brand X, a skillful fusion ensemble that fell somewhere between Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra. The group’s debut album, 1976′s Unorthodox Behaviour, is their best by far. One of its highlights is the rhythmic interplay between Collins and bassist Percy Jones, who goes fretless. The pair’s ability to steer melody and groove simultaneously is a joy to soak up.

Buffalo Killers
3
Cincinnati’s Buffalo Killers might hail from the other end of the Buckeye State, but their artistic trajectory (up to the release of 3, that is) mirrors that of Cleveland’s James Gang. Like their heroes, the power trio has tempered their chunky riffage and thunder grooves with country-flavored folk rock that’s heavy on the sweet, high harmonies. In other words, 3 is best listened to not on Saturday night, when the keg flows unimpeded, but rather Sunday morning, when the only thing that can clear that foggy brain is a brisk swim in a cold lake tucked away inside Ohio’s rolling foothills.

The Sheepdogs
Five Easy Pieces
Five Easy Pieces picks up where Saskatoon’s Sheepdogs’ last full-length, 2010′s Learn & Burn, left off. If you freak for Buffalo Killers, Rivals Sons and other modern acts revisiting the classic sound of Southern-fried boogie and country rock, then this nifty little EP is definitely for you. “I Don’t Know” is the track that shines the brightest. It’s a wonderful blend of Skynyrd machismo and the Dead’s pastoral vibes. “The Middle Road” is lots of fun, too, but it’s soft rock reminiscent of Hall & Oates’ 1970s material and Honky Chateau-era Elton John.

Rival Sons
Pressure & Time
Pressure & Time feels slightly less retro than previous Rival Sons releases. The opener, a sassy number equating wild sex with both road-tripping and picnicking, has that choppy oompah-oompah rhythm Jack White also loves to employ. Then again, “Young Love” is pure old school and sounds like it could be a deep cut from the Eric Burdon and The Animals catalog. “White Noise” is the best track, in which the boogie gets thrown over for a romp through hard psychedelia. The underlying rhythm, a hypno-mantra that consumes itself, is reminiscent of The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

Santana
Santana
Nowadays, poor Carlos gets more than a little razzing for his work with pop tarts Rob Thomas and Michelle Branch. But when his band’s debut came out in 1969, the guitarist was not to be messed with. Sure, he would go on to release more fully developed albums — the iconic Santana III is a perfect example — yet Santana is an innovative and fiery blend of acid rock, jazz, funk and Latin music that totally blew away the hippies back in the day. The big hit is the slinky “Evil Ways,” but over time the FM radio staples “Jingo” and the epic “Soul Sacrifice” became classics in their own right.

The London Suede
A New Morning
A New Morning is considered The London Suede album best forgotten. Singer Brett Anderson has said as much in more than one interview. Several songs (“Obsessions” is probably the most egregious example) sound like unenthusiastic rewrites of past hits. But despite its deficiencies, the album contains a decent dose of the typical London Suede magic. Even when the band misfires, their knack for glorious hooks, as well as Anderson’s perverse cry, remain powerful qualities. Chances are you won’t dig A New Morning from beginning to end, but you will find some touching moments to cling to.

CSC Funk Band
Things Are Getting Too Casual
CSC Funk Band is the weirdest of Colin Langenus’ myriad projects, but not because they produce strange sounds. Just the opposite, in fact: Their aesthetic — a fusion of Meters-informed funk and Afrobeat — is overtly conventional. Anybody who has been following Langenus since his days in The USA Is A Monster will be totally surprised by Things Are Getting Too Casual‘s inviting nature. In fact, they just might want to listen to the last cut, “Old Motel,” first. It’s the oddest thing here, a 10-minute foray into motorik propulsion, like Andrew WK conducting the Dub Narcotic Sound System.

“Rhapsody Round-Up” is a semi-regular compilation of record reviews I’ve recently penned for the online music service Rhapsody.com.

Peter Hammill – PH7
For the most part Peter Hammill’s solo work isn’t as widely embraced as that of his band, the amazing Van Der Graaf Generator. Yet an album such as PH7, originally released in 1979, makes the case that Hammill on his own might be an even more potent artistic force. Without VDGG surrounding him, he ditches prog in favor of orchestral-laced confessionals, propulsive rockers and, most impressively, dystopian synth-ragers. The uncompromising “Porton Down” is just vicious and doesn’t sound far removed from the industrial sounds Cabaret Voltaire and D.A.F. were producing around the same time.

Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact
It’s not that Eye Contact can’t be broken down into its constituent parts. It’s just that descriptors like worldbeat, crunk, fusion and dream pop fail to express its collective sound. Gang Gang Dance produce a perceptually challenging racket that’s all about sonic reflection, refraction, decay and shadow play. The constants are crystallized synths, chopped grooves and Liz Bougatsos’ ethereal chirp, yet they’re incessantly dissolving, reforming, then dissolving again. At the midway point, a track emerges from the GGD’s private noosphere titled “Mindkilla.” That’s exactly what Eye Contact is.

The Felice Brothers – Celebration, Florida
All those early comparisons to Basement Tapes-era Bob Dylan and The Band die a violent death by the end of “Fire At the Pageant,” Celebration, Florida‘s opening track. This is, quite obviously, The Felice Brothers’ art-rock album. Their scratchy, circus-flavored Americana and folk is still present, but it’s now submerged in post-modern experimentalism: moody drone, stabbing synths, mysterious sound collage and even a dance beat or two. Though many longtime fans will have a hard time dealing, The Felice Brothers have always been a little too eccentric for ears that crave orthodox roots-rock.

North Mississippi Allstars – Keys to the Kingdom
Keys to the Kingdom is bare-knuckled, eccentric and cracked. They are qualities that make total sense, considering the album is a tribute to Luther and Cody Dickinson’s late father, the legendary Southern eccentric Jim Dickinson. The record kicks off with “This A’Way,” a rocker that sounds like a cross between Exile On Main St.-era Rolling Stones and The Flamin’ Groovies. From there, the album only gets better — and far more self-aware of rock ‘n’ roll history. On “How I Wish My Train Would Come” the Allstars morph into a long-lost relic from the 1970s that bridged Lou Reed and Gary Stewart.

The Takers – Taker Easy
Hailing from Gainesville, Fla., The Takers deal in no-frills country rock lathered in outlaw vibes — equal parts Little Feat, Uncle Tupelo and Waymore. It’s not a unique concoction, but the band, as Taker Easy demonstrates, nails it. Most of the tracks are about raising hell or drinking hard or raising hell while drinking hard. Again, nothing too original, but The Takers possess a kind of honky-tonk duende that allows them to pull it off: “I’m chained to the bar, that’s chained to my seat. And I’d ask her to dance, if I could get to my feet. My boots are too drunk to try and put on a show.”

Rival Sons – Rival Sons
A quick follow-up to Before the Fire, Rival Sons’ debut full-length, this EP is louder, heavier and nastier. The psych-pop touches and harmonies marking its predecessor have been largely discarded in favor of muscular boogie grooves and proto-metal bombast. Rival Sons know how to sound vintage without resorting to slavish mimicry. As usual, guitarist and songwriter Scott Holiday, who often steals the show, unloads a litany of wonderful licks, riffs and tones. Fans of Leaf Hound, Cactus, JPT Scare Band and, yes, Led Zeppelin would be wise to nose-dive into this killer platter ASAP.

Hans Chew – Tennessee & Other Stories…
Rarely does an artist’s debut album feel as fully realized as Hans Chew’s. One could argue the making of Tennessee & Other Stories… began the minute Chew entered this world: crying, bald and naked. The record — incorporating elements of Southern boogie, country rock and bluegrass — is a loose song cycle, one that documents Chew’s stormy life as a Southerner. It’s all here: death, loss, temptation, failure, betrayal and (finally) redemption. Several tracks, including “Queen of the Damned Blues” and a version of Tim Rose’s “Long Time Man,” exude a gothic vibe that’s heavy and powerful.

Patrick Sweany – That Old Southern Drag
Patrick Sweany gets it. The blues-rock bard wails and moans about those folks stalking the fringes of society with an understanding that’s downright uncanny. The character in the opening tune, “Sleeping Bag,” is right out of a Gary Stewart tale. Crashing at his bro’s house for the time being, the poor schlub yearns for shelter and stability: “Tell me, where do I sleep at night?” Yet he just can’t get his life together. Later on, in “Police Car Blues,” the same guy (most definitely) gets all nervous and antsy at the mere sight of the fuzz — must be on probation, right?

Genesis – Duke
In the early ’80s, Genesis would’ve been considered prog-rock sellouts had they lacked a knack for great pop. But hey, they didn’t; the excellent Duke, released in 1980, proved this. Though the album contains complex time signatures and intricate arrangements, what stand out are its hooks. Obviously soaking up all the new wave then conquering the charts, Genesis streamlined their sound, adding heaping doses of synthesizers and punchy sonic tricks in the process. Duke‘s peak comes with “Misunderstanding,” a slice of blue-eyed soul that features a great vocal performance from Phil Collins.

Levon Helm – Rumble At The Ryman
Recorded at the legendary auditorium in Nashville, the thoroughly star-studded Rumble at the Ryman is more than an excellent live album; it’s a sweeping panorama of America’s richly mongrelized musical landscape. This becomes obvious very early on, specifically when Levon Helm’s scratchy Arkansas bark weaves its way through loopy New Orleans brass on The Band classic “Ophelia.” Another highlight is “Baby Scratch My Back,” a horny house-blues groover featuring Little Sammy Davis. The only real misfire is “Evangeline,” on which Sheryl Crow attempts, but fails, to fill Ms. Emmylou’s shoes.

Yes – 90125
Nobody — and we mean nobody — in the early ’80s expected a dinosaur like Yes to release a killer slab of modern MTV pop. Yet that’s exactly what the group accomplished. In terms of British art-rock mingling with new wave, 90125 is very nearly the equal of Queen’s masterful The Game. Every single track, particularly the hook-laced “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” is an intricately constructed collage full of sharp edges, jagged collisions and oddly funky grooves. The X factor is producer Trevor Horn, who expertly applies his knowledge of disco and club music to the proceedings.

Phil Collins – Face Value
Phil Collins opens his solo debut, 1981′s Face Value, with one of the great pop songs of the 20th century: “In the Air Tonight” (its original video is totally avant-garde). The rest of the album, with its emphasis on funk and R&B, isn’t too shabby either. The Genesis drummer turned frontman turned solo star must’ve taken copious notes when working with Brian Eno just a couple years prior; his use of drum machines, synthesizers and ambient textures (John Giblin’s watery bass in particular) is smart and subtle. Face Value‘s other hit is “I Missed Again,” but “I’m Not Moving” is even better.

Rush – Moving Pictures
Rush became an arena-rock staple in the 1970s, but the Canadian power trio reached entirely new commercial heights in the early 1980s when they started tinkering with, ironically enough, ideas nicked from new wave. Apparently, they were grooving hard to The Police before entering the studio and cranking-out Moving Pictures, an album many fans consider their best. The young upstarts’ influence can be felt in Rush’s complex ensemble interplay, which has gone from bombastic and muscular to wiry and tight. The record’s centerpiece is “Tom Sawyer,” of course. But the entire set is straight-up aces.

Queen – Hot Space
This is when a lot of Queen’s American fans, virile hard rockers who openly despised disco and other forms of club music, jumped what they perceived as a sinking ship. On 1982′s Hot Space, the band that proudly dismissed synthesizers just a few years prior was now embracing dance pop and new wave not far removed from The Human League and Gary Numan. Queen experimented with similar ideas on The Game, but here they’re less jagged and slashing, more sexy and slick. The band turns more “rawk” by the record’s second half, but the music still exudes a purely early-’80s vibe: plastic and high energy.

The Ramones – End of the Century
Teaming up with troubled genius Phil Spector, who reportedly drew a gun on the band during recording sessions, The Ramones attempted to make a commercially minded album, one that bridged the gulf between New York punk rock and the classic 1960s pop of their youth. Wildly hyped at the time of its release in 1980, End of the Century is an uneven affair. Not surprisingly, Spector’s wall-of-sound production style lacks focus. That said, on “Do You Remember Rock N’ Roll Radio?”, as well as “The Return of Jackie and Judy” and The Ronettes’ “Baby, I Love You,” the band totally nails the concept.

Queen – Flash Gordon
Released the same year as The Game, 1980, Queen’s score for Dino De Laurentiis’ campy revival of Flash Gordon is magnificent — and really quite bizarro. Free of having to produce hit singles, the band takes their basic aesthetic and cuts it with progressive electronics, kosmische musik and snippets of dialog lifted from the movie. Mostly instrumental, the music is basically The Rocky Horror Picture Show meets Tangerine Dream and Alan Howarth. Flash Gordon might be a soundtrack, but it is a stunning slab of art-rock in its own right. Slip on those puffy headphones and enjoy the journey.

Mink DeVille – Cabretta
Mink DeVille, led by one Willy DeVille, shared stages with many of New York’s first-wave punk acts in the mid-’70s. But as the group’s debut album reveals, their punchy and deliciously street savvy rhythm and blues shares just as much in common with Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny as it does The New York Dolls and Patti Smith. “Little Girl” in particular is vintage Big Apple pop, a ballad of romantic yearning that sounds like a cross between Dion and Lou Reed. In fact, you could say Cabretta is what Reed attempted to create with the decidedly less successful Sally Can’t Dance album.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

A little unfinished business tonight. Last week I interviewed John Fell Ryan of Excepter. We played a stack of jams he selected, but we didn’t get to all of them. Thus, I devote a little time to mop-up operations. These include tracks from Washed Out and Salem.

Outside of that the show is mind-deep in dark (techno) matter : Tropic Of Cancer, Sandwell District, Function and Anworth Kirk’s excellent Avonwaith LP (pictured above). Down with the Modern Love scene, Kirk doesn’t create mutant grooves, more like side-long suites constructed from heavily manipulated library-music samples. They’re dense, subtle, uneasy and at times macabre. I hear echoes of the early Residents, from Meet The Residents to Eskimo zone. But I also detect a kind of electronic Occultism, modern technology running smack dab into homespun, folksy, archaic, rural England. Daphne Oram would be proud for sure.

Nearing the end of tonight’s program I spin a double shot of Sun-Ra: “Legend,” from The Solar-Myth Approach (Vol 1) LP, and “The Antique Blacks (Mike Huckaby Reel-To-Reel Edit).” This latter piece is taken from The Mike Huckaby Reel-To-Reel Edits Vol. 1. This twelve-inch is phenomenal. Rather than radically rework the material, the producer performs some minor nipping and tucking so that the tracks’ natural rhythmic propulsion is allowed to move to the forefront.

Here’s the playlist for 07.18.2011.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

This week’s show is an awesome one. I’m beyond proud to interview John Fell Ryan of the fabulous Excepter. I’ve been a big fan for a long time now. In fact, Ryan himself might even say I was more of an obsessed stalker at one point in my turbulent life. Since coming together in the 2001-02 zone, the group has cut a singular path through a style of free-improv electronics that contains elements of industrial, hip-hop, psychedelia, fusion and electronica. To these ears, a huge bulk of modern underground weirdness — neo-Kosmische musik, chillwave, witch-house, hauntology, et al. — owes it existence to Excepter (as well as its fellow New Yorkers Animal Collective, Sightings, the Black Dice extended family, Gang Gang Dance, No-Neck Blues Band, Telepathe and a few others).

In addition to chatting with Ryan via telephone, I spin a stack of tracks he handpicked. These include several sneak previews of Excepter’s forthcoming album Streams 02, as well as some of his personal faves: The Fall, Lee “Scratch” Perry, C Cat Trance, Chris & Cosey and more.

Here’s the playlist for 07.11.2011.

More on Excepter:

My review of the group’s 2005 album Throne for the SF Weekly.

A sprawling essay I penned for Dusted back in 2004 on the band’s debut album KA.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

Ah, Independence Day. Wave upon wave of fireworks whiz through the nighttime sky as tonight’s installment of QuantumNoise kicks off. Those listeners wondering where the electronic funk has disappeared to over the last few weeks will be happy to know I spin a bunch this evening, including hard tracks from Q.N. faves Delta Funktionen, Mike Dehnert, Cosmin TRG, Rolando and Mark E. If you haven’t heard Mark E’s new full length, Stone Breaker, on Spectral Sound, definitely track down a copy. It’s a lot of fun. The track I play, “Belvide Beat,” has one of the most propulsive basslines of 2011 — very post-punk.

For those of you who have very much enjoyed all the drone, noise and underground rock I’ve been spinning the last few weeks, no worries. I open the program with a wonderful triple shot:

(1) Jean-Luc Ponty’s progressive-electronics classic “Echoes Of The Future.” This song is from the album Upon The Wings Of Music; sadly, nothing else on the record sounds even remotely like it.

(2) A synth-laced prog number from the band (from) the sky, Tom Hohmann’s new project. For the uninitiated, Hohmann was co-founder of the mighty USA Is A Monster. (from) the sky takes The Monster’s later sound and filters it through shamanic New Age weirdness. So cool.

(3) Didier Bonin’s “Son Of The Sun,” a piece that can be found on L’air lumière, an album from the early 1980s I know next-to-nothing about. I also know jack about Bonin save the fact that he’s a talented French musician who was deeply inspired by Popul Vuh. Great track for sure.

I want to mention two other highlights: Dva Damas’ “Time Dilation,” a Goth-stained psychobilly number (sort of) from the group’s killer ten-inch on Downwards; and Vatican Shadow’s “Archbishop 911.” I’ve never been a big Prurient guy, Dominick Fernow’s other project, but I really dig his work under the Vatican Shadow moniker, which specializes in dubby, minimal industro-electronics.

Here’s the playlist for 07.04.2011.

“Rhapsody Round-Up” is a semi-regular compilation of record reviews I’ve recently penned for the online music service Rhapsody.com.

Times New Viking – Dancer Equired
It seems as if every lo-fi band with a few releases under its belt attempts to record an album in “hi-fi.” Of course, fidelity (or the lack thereof) is relative to the group in question. When it comes to Times New Viking, whose earliest records are caked in hiss and static, Dancer Equired is still a fairly raw listen. The ironically titled “Try Harder,” for example, is way more slack and shambolic than anything coming out of the Vivian Girls’ extended family. All in all, there’s some fun stuff to be found on Dancer Equired; fans of early ’90s indie rock would be wise to check it out.

Neil Young / International Harvesters – A Treasure
Neil’s music, going all the way back to the iconic Harvest, had always contained a pungent whiff of country music. But in the mid-1980s he made the conscious effort to morph into a Nashville crooner. In addition to dropping Old Ways, an album featuring both Waylon and Willie, he assembled the International Harvesters, a backing band of Southern session legends, including pianist Spooner Oldham, and toured the nation. A Treasure collects some of the best recordings from these jaunts, and it is a must-hear for any serious fan of Neil Young or the intersection of country and rock ‘n’ roll.

Vetiver - The Errant Charm
Though Vetiver’s dream-folk aesthetic hasn’t undergone any radical transformations through the years, The Errant Charm feels noticeably different from prior albums. It’s still a singer-songwriter affair, with main man Andy Cabic cooing and whispering his inner thoughts, secrets and desires. But on tracks such as “Can’t You Tell” and “Fog Emotion,” Vetiver’s usual acoustic flavors have been replaced with smooth ambient tapestries woven from synthesizers and drum machines. Then there’s stuff like “Ride Ride Ride” and “Wonder Why,” both of which recall The Sneetches’ jangly brand of power-pop.

John Martyn – Grace and Danger
Though John Martyn finished the recording of Grace and Danger in 1979, Island Records head Chris Blackwell delayed its release by a year. He believed the record — a savage chronicling of the singer-songwriter’s divorce from wife and former collaborator Beverly Martyn — to be too depressing. Indeed, Grace and Danger is an intense and often harrowing listening experience, yet it’s a beautiful one as well. Supported by a fabulous rhythm section — bassist John Giblin and Phil Collins behind the kit — Martyn wraps bare-knuckled confessionals in a shimmering veil of fusion, folk-rock and funk.

The London Suede – The Best Of
Considering The London Suede have released just five studio albums in their 20+ year career, a 35-track anthology is going to be quite thorough regardless of the quality of the tracks selected. But since singer Brett Anderson personally oversaw the compiling, you just know The Best Of is killer from beginning to end. The London Suede, as the collection clearly demonstrates, were England’s first truly self-conscious rock band of the post-indie era. They were well-versed in the music that came before them and made an art of its manipulation. Everybody from Oasis to Interpol was taking notes.

Roland White – I Wasn’t Born To Rock ‘n Roll
I Wasn’t Born To Rock ‘n Roll is a gem of an album. Originally released in 1976 — three years after the tragic death of brother, longtime collaborator and country rock pioneer Clarence White — the record finds the fleet-fingered mandolin player and singer exploring a style of bluegrass that’s significantly more traditional and subdued than that of his original band, The Kentucky Colonels. White is backed by what is essentially Country Gazette; together, they create a wonderful, warm and often melancholic sound in the process of collecting a set of real folk chestnuts. Great stuff for sure.

Henry Cow – Leg End
If there is one album that connects the dots between fusion, progressive rock and avant-garde classical more completely than any other, Henry Cow’s debut, 1973′s Leg End, just might be it. This is one dazzling, daring and demanding record. Performing a tenuous balancing act between free improv and compositional complexity, the group unleashes some truly amazing acrobatics when it comes to rhythm and melody. In a lot of ways Henry Cow is the sonic equivalent of a pointillism painter. Each and every instrument is all about sharp pinpricks of sound rather than sinewy sustain and release.

Tedeschi Trucks Band – Revelator
Blues-rock lovebirds Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi have flirted with a large-ensemble sound in the past, but with Revelator, they attempt to make it a full-time occupation. This is one of them big, sprawling albums, one that incorporates numerous facets of deep Southern music. Though both principals know how to really cook, especially in the live setting, they keep the proceedings introspective and muted for the most part; keeping that in mind, Revelator feels like a first meeting, an opportunity for these musicians to establish a foundation upon which they’ll build future temples.

John McLaughlin – Devotion
Between his work with Miles Davis and forming The Mahavishnu Orchestra, John McLaughlin released this muscular foray into the fusion of Jimi Hendrix-inspired acid rock and post-bop. Though the guitarist’s background is in jazz tradition, he unloads serious riffage; Larry Young’s organ grind is equally heavy. “Dragon Song & Devotion” possesses all the power and bombast of Vanilla Fudge and early Black Sabbath. Overall, Devotion is a fantastic record: raw, unbridled and wildly prescient. There are stretches, in fact, that even look to the post-hardcore experiments of In My Head-era Black Flag.

Embryo – Father Son and Holy Ghosts
Germany’s Embryo has garnered more than a few comparisons to Can through the years. They aren’t inaccurate, yet they do tend to overlook Embryo’s love of jazz-informed rhythms. Released in 1972, Father Sons & Holy Ghosts swings with a nervous, up-on-the-beat energy, something Can rarely, if ever, explored. Setting up the rest of the album in fine fashion, the opener “The Special Trip” is edgy and tight. On “Marimbaroos” and “The Sun Song” (the latter of which contains some great horn work by Edgar Hoffman), Embryo embeds their wonderful rhythms in a proto-world fusion sensibility.

Tony Williams Lifetime – Emergency!
When it comes to the development of fusion, Emergency!, released in 1969, ranks right up there with Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew in terms of sheer brilliant innovation. The ensemble, featuring fellow pioneers Larry Young (organ) and John McLaughlin (guitar), swings hard while harnessing a dirty, grungy sound full of squall, feedback and distortion. Moments emerge when its playing is so intense and so furious that whiplash feels like the only possible result. Fusion eventually evolved into cool pop jazz, but at its birth, as Emergency! clearly demonstrates, it was pure hellish fire.

Rival Sons – Before the Fire
It’s tempting to compare Rival Sons, what with their hip-grinding riffage and shrieking vocals, to the mighty Led Zeppelin. But it’s The Jeff Beck Group (which released the amazing album Truth in 1968) that makes for a more accurate comparison. Rather than Zep’s monolithic sense of pop dynamics, Before the Fire is rooted in The J.B.G.’s dirty rhythm and blues and hazy psychedelia. Guitarist Scott Holiday is a shredder, one who cuts across the groove every chance he gets. Bassist Robin Everhart and drummer Mike Miley are equally agile; the pair knows how to balance swing and brute strength.

Herbie Hancock – Mwandishi
Mwandishi is awesome, the perfect soundtrack for a night of meteor showers filling the sky with ephemeral patterns, ghostly streaks and shimmering stains. Stylistically, the record picked up where Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way left off. The electric ensemble Herbie Hancock assembled for these pivotal recordings incorporates elements of rock and funk while exploring a kind of proto-ambient sonic hypnotism. Though this is Hancock’s initial journey into the cosmic sublime as a band leader, his ability to fuse acoustic instrumentation with synthesizer-based sounds is already highly evolved.

Stevie Wonder – Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through “The Secret Life of Plants”
Most critics panned Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through “The Secret Life of Plants” upon its release in 1979. Wanting a follow-up to Songs in the Key of Life that more or less sounded like its predecessor, what they got instead was a sprawling album — a soundtrack to an obscure new age documentary, to be specific — filled with oddball synthesizer drone, skeletal R&B tunes and sweeping classical passages. The record is the strangest in Wonder’s discography, yet what’s interesting is how its futuristic, modern vibe actually presages many of the directions urban pop would take in the 1980s.

Dawes – Nothing Is Wrong
Dawes’ sophomore album opens with “Time Spent in Los Angeles,” a troubadour’s ode to that mythical city. It’s fitting when one considers Nothing Is Wrong is all about archetypal West Coast roots-rock. From Neil Young and The Byrds to The Long Ryders and Tom Petty, Dawes hit all the key notes, so to speak. On the six-minute mini-epic “My Way Back Home,” lead singer and songwriter Taylor Goldsmith even nails that peculiar mix of boyish innocence and well-aged wisdom that Jackson Browne nailed in the mid-1970s. What pushes the record over the top is the warm, vintage production. Very cool.

Joe McPhee – Nation Time
While Nation Time can be tagged fusion, its intense blend of jazz, funk and rock differs significantly from what Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock were cooking up in the early 1970s. This music isn’t spacey or hypnotic; it’s raw hard-bop whose flesh has been torn apart by sharp avant-garde sensibilities. The tag “free funk” is often applied to this record, and it makes a lot of sense. Squealing, screaming and howling, saxophonist Joe McPhee introduces elemental themes that he then pounds into the ground. Meanwhile, pianist Mike Kull and guitar player Dave Jones bash away with ecstatic abandon.

Weather Report – Live in Tokyo
Weather Report is one of the groups blamed for turning fusion into vapid pop jazz. This is true. However, their early output, particularly this stunning live set recorded in January 1972, is anything but pop. The group really, truly smokes, and for extended stretches. Not a single piece falls short of 10 minutes. The longest, the 26-minute “Medley: Vertical Invader / Seventh Arrow / T.H. / Doctor Honoris Causa,” is a juggernaut in harsh textures, fractured grooves and fearless exploration. Folks who are familiar only with the band’s later albums will surely be blown away by this one.

Soft Machine – Third
Released in 1970, Third marks a major turning point in the Soft Machine sound. Gone for the most part are the collage-like art pop compositions, playful surrealism and intricate vocal passages marking their first two full-lengths. The band is now messing around with fusion, atonality, electronic music, musique concrete, minimal drone and repetition. On top of all this, the grooves are heavier and way more severe. By the seven-minute mark of the first piece, “Facelift,” you know you’re in for one hell of a ride; Mike Ratledge’s searing organ and Elton Dean’s sax-skronk are just going at it.

The Hollies – Clarke, Hicks & Nash Years: The Complete Hollies April 1963 – October 1968
Containing in excess of 100 tracks, Clarke, Hicks & Nash Years is too much Hollies for the casual oldies fan looking to groove to “Bus Stop” or “Carrie Anne” on occasion. But for those Anglophiles whose British Invasion craving knows no satiety, this massive six-disc set is a needed slice of cultural fix. The first couple discs, on which the group sound like The Fabs, Jr., are nice, but it is discs five and six, spotlighting The Hollies’ excellent forays into mid-1960s psychedelic pop, that really stand out. “Everything is Sunshine” sounds like 21st-century twee pop.

Jean-Luc Ponty – Upon the Wings of Music
By this point in Jean-Luc Ponty’s career he had already worked with Frank Zappa, The Mahavishnu Orchestra and Stephane Grappelli. The French musician knew the sound he wanted and how to attain it. Significantly more melodic than the anarchic funk-fusion Miles Davis was then dealing in, 1975′s Upon the Wings of Music possesses real kick. Electric pianist Patrice Rushen lays down punchy lines that perfectly underpin Ponty’s lyrical, ever-mutating violin. One of the best tracks is “Echoes of the Future,” which sounds influenced by Tangerine Dream and other Kosmische musik practitioners.

QuantumNoise — on hiatus for the time being — was a web-radio program I hosted every Monday, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (eastern), on killer Asheville Free Media.

Tonight’s show is one of my most succinct and focused in terms of merging two of the bigger loves in my life: industrialized noise-rock and industrialized hard techno. The former includes tracks from Sightings, one of my all-time favorite bands; Sodom, Birthday Party-inspired freaks from Japan; Six Finger Satellite, a group’s that’s as pivotal as Chrome when it comes to the electro-rock interface; and Storm Bugs, a wonderful DIY tape project from the U.K. that I first heard on the massively influential bootleg compilation I Hate The Pop Group.

As for the techno jams, the big standout is Tommy Four Seven’s  “CH4,” off his new album for the CLR imprint, Primate. Although I speak of purity rarely, the German producer’s brand of dark, menacing techno is most certainly as pure as it comes. But it’s also rather subtle in terms of texture, atmosphere and space. As writer James Glazebrook points-out in his review for Resident Advisor, “Primate throws away the traditional techno toolkit, rejecting generic drum sounds like snares and kicks and refusing synthesisers altogether. It relies instead on field recordings of suitably metallic sounds — underground trains rolling over tracks, crunched-up foil — treated beyond recognition. The results are a distorted hybrid of the pummelling schranz of Tommy’s label manager Chris Liebing and the blank minimalism of Richie Hawtin’s Plastikman output.”

Equally intense is “Apparition,” a track from Orphx’s latest twelve-inch, the Traces EP (Sonic Groove). A good portion of the duo’s output falls under what is called rhythmic noise, but hell, it’s all techno to these damaged ears. Orphx, much like Tommy Four Seven, is concerned with using quality sound sources. This helps explain why their dystopian vibes never devolve into rivithead-n-leather silliness.

Here’s the playlist for 06.20.2011.