Billy Bragg & Joe Henry - Shine A Light: Field Recordings From The Great American Railroad
In March 2016 Billy Bragg and Joe Henry, guitars in hand, boarded a Los Angeles-bound train at Chicago’s Union Station looking to reconnect with the culture of American railroad travel and the music it inspired. Winding along 2,728 miles of track over four days, the pair recorded classic railroad songs in waiting rooms and at trackside while the train paused to pick up passengers. Great idea and this pair are as comfortable playing together as a bashed up pair of slippers.
Billy Bragg, Joe Henry - The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore
Devandra Banhart - Ape In Pink Apple
Ape in Pink Marble, Devendra Banhart’s ninth album, was recorded with his longtime collaborators Noah Georgeson and Josiah Steinbrick, both of whom also worked on Banhart’s most recent album, Mala. The songs and Banhart's voice are muted and distant in a good way and embellished with wonky keyboards on Saturday Night
Devendra Banhart - Saturday Night
David Bowie - Who Can I Be Now?
The second in the series of box sets picks up after Pin-Ups and covers a period where Bowie was focusing on American influences. The principal interest for Bowie fans will be The Gouster, a previously unreleased album which was recorded in Philadelphia in 1974. The album (which contains three previously unreleased mixes of Right, Can You Hear Me and Somebody Up There Likes Me) was mixed and mastered before David decamped to New York to work with John Lennon and Harry Maslin on what became the Young Americans album. 12-disc CD and 13-disc LP versions come with a lavishly illustrated book. Not cheap but a nice thing.
David Bowie - Who Can I Be Now?
Warpaint - Heads Up
Heads Up was recorded after the band spent 2015 apart working on solo projects. The lead single New Song exhibited a bit of sonic experimentation with a decidedly commercial discopop slant but will this heavily produced sound alienate fans of the first two albums?
Warpaint - New Song
Vangelis - Rosetta
Is this the final frontier? Not quite. But it is the last of this week's selection and the composer of the Chariots of Fire and Bladerunner themes returns with another album inspired by space, this one dedicated to the Rosetta space probe mission, following a video call with ESA astronaut André Kuipers on the International Space Stattion. Expect big orchestral builds, strong keyboard themes, and profound passages that evoke the dawning of the universe, that sort of thing.
Vangelis - Rosetta
This week's selection is by Michael Moloney, aka llamalpaca from the vinyl-only record and design store, Chameleon, with additions by The Landlord.
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