The Musical Box

Off-hours Derby week listening has included:

The Black Keys: Attack & Release - The psychedelic boogie duo meet the smart grooves of producer/pop stylist Danger Mouse. The result is The Black Keys’ most daring and varied set yet. The fun shifts from the prickly banjo and keyboards that pepper Psychotic Girl to the jagged dance of guitar and flute on Same Old Thing. But the straight up, two-man drive of guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney still fuels I Got Mine. Not raw but definitely not refined, Attack & Release is the sound of The Black Keys approaching color. 

Steve Winwood: Nine Lines - When Winwood turns off the star machine and gets down the more organic guitar/organ fueled rockers of his youth, he sounds positively ageless. While warmer and simpler than recent solo works, Nine Lines is also far meatier than Winwood’s beer commercial music of the late ‘80s. But when Dirty City cranks up the guitar with help from a swelling, percussive melody, the regal ghost of Traffic is stirred. And that, brother, is a mighty sound indeed.

Egberto Gismonti and Academia De Dancas: Sanfona - For this 1980, double-disc opus, Brazilian guitarist/pianist Gismonti drags the Nordic jazz sound of ECM Records south of the equator without sacrificing any of its patented mystery. One disc is a quartet session full of lustrous atmospherics. The other features Gismonti alone with a spacious guitar tone rivaled only the great Ralph Towner for its worldly scope. Don’t let the Brazilian heritage mislead you. Sanfona is grand, global music in every sense of the term.

The Replacements: Let It Be - Part of Rhino Records’ overhaul of the ‘Mats’ Twin/Tone catalog, 1984’s Let It Be presents Paul Westerberg and pals at the crossroads. The band’s punkish beginnings still bristle on We’re Comin’ Out and the hysterical Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out. But I Will Dare and Answering Machine edge the music closer to the pop inclinations that would soon envelope the band. Six bonus tracks, including a boozy, but straightfaced cover of The Grass Roots’ Temptation Eyes round out the ‘Mats’ finest hour. 

Soft Works: Abracadabra - A sumptuous session by four alumni members of the British prog rock/fusion band Soft Machine released in 2004. The music here is far more jazz inclined than the post-psychedelic grinds and fuzzy amplification of the Softs in their prime. But hearing the late saxophonist Elton Dean in an atypically tempered mood as he trades licks with the wiry guitar orchestrations of Allan Holdsworth while bassist Hugh Hopper and drummer John Marshall propel the modest swing makes for a grand listen.