Today we start off with the new single from Greg Dulli of The Afghan Whigs. We also have new tunes from Jon S. Williams and his City of Cool. Yes, two new releases from Jon. Petra, Rachel and Tanya Haden are also back as The Haden Triplets with their new tunes. Rachel also has a recent record with Anna Waronker as that dog. Randy Newman is involved too. Montreal art group Red Mass is also back with the new release. We also introduce new names for us, Dead Feathers from Chicago and En Attendant Ana from Paris France.
Amon Duul – You Are Not Alone;
Greg Dulli – Pantomima;
Dead Feathers – Darling Sighs;
Bipolaroid – In My Cave;
Jon S Williams – New Games;
City of Cool – Raining outside;
Big Trouble House – Valley Of Rin Tin Tin;
Gun Club – For The Love of Ivy;
Jim Dickinson And The Catmando Quartet – Shake Em All Down;
En Attendant Ana – Not So Hard;
En Attendant Ana – Enter My Body (Lilith);
Red Mass – Howl;
Saba Lou – Telepathetic;
Prank – Brighton Blvd;
The Haden Triplets – Memories Of Will Rogers;
That Dog – Old LP;
Ghost Funk Orchestra – Seven Eight.
Every musical outlet out there has a year-end list. Little Lighthouse is not an exception, although the order should be understood conditionally. It does not rely on objective measurements, it simply compiles feeling towards albums that preoccupied my attention through 2014. Number one is Sweet Apple. Yours truly marginally participated in making of that record, and perhaps there’s a strong bias towards it for me. You would be right about that. But this particular record is a fun collection of songs without much pretension. What more can you ask from an LP? OBN IIIs and Liquor Store are great new bands which made ambitiously sounding records that rock. They even bring out a long forgotten idiom of hard rock, back into the modern rock’n’roll dictionary and it made me realize how much that sound is missed in the music world today. Together with some important reissues, these two albums mark the revival of that lost musical genre. Those two records are so rich with sounds and ideas that live performances of these two bands must be stripped down to a skeleton. Outragous Cherry has an astonishing return, with one of their best records ever. First Base and Strungs go back to the basic three chords and short songs – a formula that oh so often works great. Lydia Lunch calls out the ghost of Jeffrey Lee Pierce like no other artist before. Doug Gillard attempted to make a good easy listening record and ended up with a timeless masterpiece which will be remembered well in his opus. Billy Childs makes a loving tribute to Laura Nyro which borders madness and saccharine. Who’d have thought those two “lands” share a border? Kelley Mickwee and Haden Triplets show interesting ways to keep bluegrass alive and it trips my mind how most folks out there think negatively of this wonderful Haden Triplets record. Bonnie Prince Billy takes some old songs and brings in a new life to them with an incredibly focused interpretation… and so on. All the best in 2015, actually 2014 wasn’t that bad musically as it may appear on the surface.
We end today with the mind-blowing new album for Rachel, Tanya and Petra Haden, The Haden Triplets, produced by Ry Cooder. We start with The Forty Nineteens from LA who just put out excellent new record called simply Spin It. Our recommendation exactly! The we check out Coathangers, a trio of ladies from Atlanta for the first time at the show. Black Lips have a new record and so do John The Conqueror. Swedish punks Bäddat För Trubbel are also back with a new tune.