avant-garde Archive
01 Dec 2016
Hundred-word Reviews for Nov./Dec. 2016, Part 9 of 10
Gary Ritchie – Poptimistic Style: powerpop Melodic, good-natured powerpop is the order of the day on Ritchie’s new album. Musical touchstones include the obvious ones (Beatles, Raspberries, Romantics) and some […]
13 Oct 2016
Album Review: John Cage Meets Sun Ra
A musical summit between avant-garde legends John Cage and Sun Ra is the kind of thing that – had it not actually taken place – history might have had to […]
22 Sep 2016
Hundred-word Reviews for September 2016, Part 4
Five more quick ones. All these albums bear further investigation. Wild Man Fischer – An Evening with Wild Man Fischer Conventional wisdom holds that while Gail Zappa was alive, she […]
19 May 2016
Asheville Electro Music Festival: High Technology, Human Scale
In his influential 1982 book Megatrends, author John Naisbitt observed that “whenever new technology is introduced into society, there must be a counterbalancing human response, or the technology is rejected.” […]
13 May 2016
Roomful of Teeth: Putting Music Where Their Mouths Are
“It’s all about the voice,” says Brad Wells, founder of Grammy Award-winning Roomful of Teeth, a nine-person modern classical vocal ensemble dedicated to “min[ing] the expressive potential of the human […]
26 Apr 2016
Rehabilitating Herbie, Part 2
Continued from Part One… “In the ‘60s, Herbie Mann wanted to appeal to younger audiences,” observes Cary Ginell, author of several books including The Evolution of Mann: Herbie Mann and […]
25 Apr 2016
Rehabilitating Herbie, Part 1
Previously-Unheard 1969 Live Tapes from Jazz Flautist and his Band Nominally a jazz musician, flautist Herbie Mann (1930-2003) enjoyed crossover appeal and success that brought his music to a much […]
06 Apr 2016
Album Mini-review: Matthew Bourne — moogmemory
File next to: Philip Glass, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Brian Eno The Memorymoog was the last synthesizer produced by Moog Music during the original company’s run; while a deeply […]
25 Mar 2016
Album Mini-review: John Cale — M/FANS
File next to: Leonard Cohen, Diamanda Galas, Einstürzende Neubaten John Cale has never been one to trade on his Velvet Underground fame; he’s long since left behind the music of […]
17 Mar 2016
DVD Review: Frank Zappa and the Mothers — The Lost Broadcast
For an artist who seemingly documented nearly every moment of his live and studio performance – and, not unlike John Lennon and Yoko Ono, considered the entirety of it as […]