Shotters Nation
Baby Shambles
There is danger in living your life in the public eye. Get enough press inches and Internet exposure and your art takes a back seat to the expectation of further crazy activities. When you wrench up this exposure to global proportions, how can anything as simple as a CD give the public the same shambolic thrill? 

Pete Doherty’s life certainly reads like a publicists’ dream, benched from his main gig as a member of the band The Libertines a number of times for substance abuse, thrown in the gallows for burgling a former bandmate’s flat and oh yes, engaging in a highly dysfunctional relationship with one of the worlds most photographed models, herself a magnet for drama and chaos.

All those activities may have keep the press busy but what of the music fans whose interests lie in the tunes and not the tribulations? Shotters Nation’s most note worthy feature in that respect is just how traditional it is. Those expecting an album filled with chaotic sounds and over the top lyrical ethos will find little to drive that wacky bandwagon. It reads more pipe and slippers than cocaine and debauchery.

Lyrically self-observing, these songs and their arrangements follow a trajectory of tradition with only the occasional sidestep into drug lore. Taken without any additional information, these tracks form a pleasant diversion and one that grows with each use. Who would have figured?
Rob Hudson 
www.babyshambles.net



Broken Wing
Chet Baker
Chet Baker was born in Yale, Okalahoma in 1929 and died 59 years later in the Dutch city of Amsterdam after mysteriously plunging to his death after a fall from his hotel window. During those 59 years his life was one filled with the highs and lows typical of many of the jazz musicians of that era. The fact he was white and good looking put him in a position of being promoted as the next big thing, a tag he was never comfortable with and one which led him to being exposed to even more excess. He was a fine player with a warm tone and played an instrument than lends itself to minimalist phrasing, the trumpet and flugelhorn. His sparse style was also instrumental in helping the media at the time build this false and misleading competition between the hot players on the East Coast and the cool players on the West Coast, this was as laughable then as it is now but it helped sales and concert receipts.

Broken Wing is a fine reissue from a performance recorded in 1978 in Paris, France. After squandering most of the fifties and sixties with intermittent drug problems, Baker then settled down and became quite the workman and gigged frequently until his death. His back catalogue is huge, although a lot of the titles are now out of print. This gig features his sublime phrasing and he is backed by a professional group of musicians intent on complementing his laid back style. This is quiet dinner music par excellence.
Rob Hudson



The Best Of: A Musical History
The Band
Unfortunately for most, The Band is one of those groups that more people have heard of, than actually heard. Also a lot of that meager musical contact has come about through the group’s songs that were selected to give movie soundtracks that authentic American edge. Their musical style has always been strongly associated with traditional American music art forms, which is quite humorous as a number of the band members (including band leader Robbie Robertson) are actually Canadian.

The band’s instrumentation is eclectic to say the least with violins, mandolins, penny whistles and other country and folk music instruments sitting along side the more traditional rock and roll line up of electric guitar, bass and drums. The band also has an earthy vocal delivery that features an emphasis on harmonies more than individual virtuosity.

This best of collection includes a number of tracks that feature The Band hooking up with a few of their famous friends, the most well known being Bob Dylan (who the band have had a long and fruitful friendship with).  Elsewhere we get tracks from throughout their over forty-year history. The early tracks are very raw and they provide a clear example of how much the band progressed over the years in both song writing and studio craft.

With original songs like The Weight (featured prominently in the film Easy Rider) and Stage Fright and great Dylan covers like Forever Young and I Shall Be Released, even those with no working knowledge of The Band will find both a familiarity and accessibility to the 19 tracks that make up this set.
Rob Hudson



The Orchestral Masterpieces
Bartok
Hungarian composer and pianist Bela Bartok (1881-1945) was considered in his day to be one of the leading figures in the European avant-garde. What does this mean to 21st century listeners playing this two CD compilation? Well, imagine that Hitchcock had made his own film version of Dracula or Frankenstein, and commissioned the most lush, dark, romantic score possible. This is the kind of sound that might have been produced.

Bartok’s music, while having much in common with the rich romanticism of composers like Debussy, has a more discordant sound to it, as well as a slightly eastern exoticism largely derived from his interest and research into Hungarian and Romanian folk music. It is considered by some to be difficult music, but I found it all highly accessible, if at times a little disturbing. In fact I suspect that those who find it ‘difficult’ consider classical music to be little more than elevator sounds or the aural equivalent of a sleeping pill.

This CD contains Bartok’s most celebrated orchestral compositions, conducted by fellow Hungarian George Solti. The various pieces have been arranged on the CD for maximum listening pleasure rather than strict chronological order. In fact the famous Concerto for Orchestra which begins the first CD is actually one of his final masterpieces. The second CD finishes with the rather eerie suite entitled The Miraculous Mandarin, based on a lurid theatrical piece about a prostitute who lures men to her room to be beaten and robbed! In between there are many highlights, including the atmospheric Hungarian sketches.

Goths and Vampire groupies take note: Bela Bartok spent some of his formative years in that part of Hungary better known as Transylvania. He also returned there later in life to do research into the local folk songs.

The music of the children of the night indeed.
Stas’ Wiatrowski



Solid Gold Hits
Beastie Boys
This 15-track greatest hits compilation follows The Sounds Of Science, the 42-track behemoth released in 1999 and provides a clearer snapshot of a band that was a blast to grow up with. Few bands have made a more interesting transformation from Brooklyn boof heads to well, Buddha boof heads than the Beastie Boys.

Who would have thought that the three punks behind the mid-eighties album Licensed to Ill would still be around in the year 2005 and still be relevant? Listening to the tracks here provides a large number of sonic thrills and following the band’s progression from frat-boy white rappers to elder statesmen has been almost as entertaining as their music.

The songs are not in chronological order but the flow is spot-on and the album works well as a stand-alone piece of music. Purists will argue about song omissions, like the complete lack of the instrumental funk breakdowns that they do so well but have already covered in The In Sound From Way Out! compilation. No, this is not a completest set.

What you have here is a relatively short, 52-minute blast of some of the most irreverent white boy rap to ever make it to the spinning disc and a great primer to a band that should have at least a title or two in any self-respecting music fan’s record collection.
Rob Hudson
www.beastieboys.com



The Mix-Up
Beastie Boys
Being a huge fan of the Beastie’s EP, The In Sound From Way Out! meant that the rumours of an upcoming all instrumental album were music to my ears. Now that the long rumoured album is a reality, how does it compare with expectations?

First, it must be said that the 12 tracks that make up The Mix-Up are not so much songs as three to four minute groove workouts. There are no discernable samples and the feel is one of late night studio sessions with the lights down low and the bass amp cranked. These rhythms are infectious and funky and if you ever need a soundtrack to some home made porn, these songs are perfect. I can hear the air conditioning repairman knocking on the door now.

The Beastie Boys’ career can be segmented into distinct chapters and the latter ones are a little more than pretentious, so it’s indeed a good thing to have an album like this to remind one that under all the pretence is a group of lads that can still play real music with nuance and groove.

How this album sells and its reception with critics seems immaterial, this is a work of seasoned pros doing the deed for fun and not necessarily gain.
Rob Hudson
www.beastieboys.com



The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse
The Besnard Lakes
From the first few notes of voice and lone guitar, there is splendor. If this is the new standard of alt beauty, so be it. With influences impeccable and a modern studio at their disposal, husband and wife team of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas invited a few friends over and made a record.

The band’s name and album title reference a lake in Canada and like the beautiful shimmering waters of that lake, this music flows over you with a warm presence and leaves a lovely afterglow. Languorously taking its time to make its point, these songs are more journeys than destinations.

Eight tracks of lusciousness that needs to be consumed, music this fine is a salve for the soul. If you only buy a hand-full of albums this year, make sure that this is one of them.
Rob Hudson
www.thebesnardlakes.com



the bird and the bee
Here are ten details about the bird and the bee that you might not know.
The bird and the bee are a band.
The bird and the bee are Inara George and Greg Kurstin.
Inara is the daughter of Lowell George (one of the founders of seminal seventies band Little Feat).
Greg is a multi-instrumentalist jazz prodigy who has worked with artists as diverse as Beck, Lily Allen and The Flaming Lips.
Together they have created a musical world that’s infectious, inviting and weird.
This music is fun where your parent’s conversation about the birds and the bees was not.
If you try to describe their sound on paper, it would sound daft but listening to it is anything but.
This music fits the term ‘clever turn of phrase’ like a glove.
The song, F*cking Boyfriend is a modern day classic.
This record belongs in most discerning listener’s collection.
Rob Hudson
thebirdandthebee.com



1
The Beatles
This compilation of 27 Number Ones by The Beatles is, naturally, an extraordinary musical experience. Each and every one of these songs is a major statement of 20th century art. Also, the transformation of The Beatles from lovable mop tops to LSD-fuelled experimentalists was a lot more subtle and gradual than people think. There were playful fucking-with-the-formula tricks as far back as the accidental feedback intro of I Feel Fine in 1964, the proto-Byrdsian jangle of Ticket To Ride (from the underrated Help!: as good an album as anything post 1966) and the atonal opening chord to Hard Day's Night.

The earliest songs, She Loves You, I Want To Hold Your Hand etc, resonate with goose bump inducing Beatlemania. Euphoric pop perfection. And, of course, the latter stuff is simply magical: the psychedelic horns and strings in Hello, Goodbye, the swirling anthem All You Need Is Love, the great George ballad Something, the brilliant-beyond-words epic Hey Jude. This is all superb.

The only grumbles: the studio-as-canvas gem Strawberry Fields Forever doesn't appear, even though its double A side counterpart Penny Lane does. There's no Please Please Me and even though the Edward Lear-esque tour-de-force I Am The Walrus was actually the B-side to Hello, Goodbye, it's a towering piece of work and doesn't deserve to be left out, as is the case here. But it's not often you get a CD with 27 masterpieces on it, so rest assured, this is a great, great compilation and essential for anyone with any interest in popular culture.
Matt Thower



The Best Of Black Sabbath
The next time a door to door salesman knocks on your door and tries to sell you an Encyclopedia Britannica tell him to get the fuck out because the only true source of knowledge isn’t to be found in some dry and dusty set of books. No, all the essential information you’ll ever really need to know is contained in the 32 tracks that make up this best of set.

The detuned guitar waves of mortar crumbling power, vocals scary enough to rattle even Satan and lyrics that still scare the shit out of uncool parents decades later. It’s basically the blue print for all the music that came after, the shit that matters at any rate. And in true contrast to most best of sets, this contains only meat and potatoes and absolutely no filler.

Ozzie, Geezer, Tony and Bill give a lesson of life like only Brit punks can and by punk, I don’t mean those wimps and their safety pins, no those rent boys were way too calculated, Black Sabbath was an accident of mammoth proportions and represents an alignment that happens only once in a lifetime. Buy this, learn this and life will never be the same.
Lapdance Larry



Lapalco
Brendan Benson
Maybe you've heard this scenario before, young unknown artist releases album, the critics love it but most of the public never gets to hear it and soon the album and artist fade from view. Year's later, same artist releases new record and gets second chance.

When Brendan Benson released One Mississippi back in 1996, it heralded the arrival of someone special, a popster with all the right influences and the ability to combine those ingredients into something fresh. Unfortunately that album went nowhere and soon Brendan was hibernating. Fast forward six years and Brendan has resurfaced with a new work called Lapalco.

The 12 tracks on Lapalco are a refresher course on how infectious good pop music can be. Yes, Benson wears his influences on his sleeve but it's more for motivation than from lack of ideas. It's reverence not rip off. Fab four bounce dovetails seamlessly with art rock flourishes, layered vocals and studio gloss. Good ideas arrive at regular intervals and almost all of it is damn catchy.

Lapalco has become a regular feature on many 'best of 02' lists but that is not the only reason to pick up a copy. Every record collection needs hidden treasure and this is an album that will play well long into the future.
Rob Hudson
www.brendanbenson.com



Big Day Out 03
Everybody that has ever been to a Big Day Out has memories not soon to be forgotten. Big memories like sets by the Smashing Pumpkins when they were lean and mean, Rage when they still raged, Chili Pepper John Frusciante's return from the abyss and Soundgarden during their death throes. Also personal memories like Sean Lennon's humility during multiple tech problems, Joe Strummer playing London Calling to a half empty tent and seeing friend's bands finally getting a chance to strut their stuff in front of a proper sized crowd. So many memories tucked away from so many good years.

Big Day Out 03 is a great primer for this year's event (including a song from almost every act on this year's bill) and features the eclectic array of artist that have always personified the BDO line-ups throughout the years.

As a stand alone compilation, disc one is sequenced to feature energetic tracks by some of the more well known acts on the bill and include songs by the Foo Fighters, P J Harvey, The Vines, Sparta, Jimmy Eat World and Machine Gun Fellatio. Disc two is of a more diverse nature and features tracks by Underworld, Queens Of The Stone Age, Deftones (pictured), Wilco, Waikiki, Pacifier, The Waifs and Jane's Addiction.

One of music's greatest strengths is its ability to tap into emotions and elicit memories from the past and if this year's event lives up to its potential, Big Day Out 03 will become a wonderful souvenir.
Rob Hudson
www.bigdayout.com



Heathen
David Bowie
While it’s not exactly the career-redefining masterpiece some over-enthusiastic critics have been saying it is, Heathen does find David Bowie in very good form indeed. A lot of people don’t acknowledge this, but after his creative nadir in the mid to late ‘80s, Bowie spent most of the ‘90s rejuvenating himself somewhat with some extremely satisfying, if largely ignored, music.

The best of this included the 1993 BBC soundtrack to Buddha Of Suburbia, in which Bowie re-explored ambient textures and started playing with modern electronica and touches of jazz. Then there was the bonkers concept album Outside (1995), an over-indulgent but uncompromising and daring work, with some powerful moments. In 1997, he released Earthling, a hugely enjoyable marriage of drum ‘n bass, techno and raucous rock ‘n roll. 1999’s …hours saw him in contemplative singer/songwriter mode with some of his most acoustic-flavoured tracks since Hunky Dory, as well as dollops of lush balladry and wiry rock. All these albums were worthwhile listens, and Heathen is better than all of them. And while it doesn’t reach the peaks of ‘70s masterworks like Ziggy Stardust, Station To Station or Low (how could we expect it to?), Heathen is that rare beast: a record by an aging rock star that is actually really good.

Highlights include the Teenage Wildlife-resembling rock ballad Slow Burn, featuring some great guitar work by Pete Townshend. Dave Grohl crops up playing some six-string on the cover of Neil Young’s I’ve Been Waiting For You and Bowie plays drums himself on a spot-on rendition of The Pixies’ Cactus. Everyone Says Hi is Bowie pop at its most lovely, while A Better Future sounds like a marriage of Pet Shop Boys and U2.

Heathen is a brooding album, but not in an overbearing manner. Dark, lushly produced ballads sit happily side by side with thumping rock and crystalline electro pop and like many good records, Heathen takes a couple of listens to sink in. When it does, you find yourself getting caught up in an album that is simultaneously modern and full of stylistic nods to Bowie’s iconic ‘70s work. Fittingly, Heathen also sees the return of his ‘70s producer Tony Visconti. It’s 2002 and David Bowie is still making music that puts most artists half his age to shame. It’s like Tin Machine were just a bad dream.
Matt Thrower
www.davidbowie.com



Hotel Radio
David Bridie
David Bridie makes world music of the most relevant kind. It is not enough for him to just add exotic instrumentation and dip into foreign scales; Bridie instead, embraces the ideals that give almost all art its real significance. The struggle for social justice and the yearning for freedom of expression in the heart and mind are what infuse most cultural art with its real impact. It is also at the root of almost all great story telling.

This is not to say that the music on Hotel Radio is strident and preachy. No, this veteran of bands such as Not Drowning Waving and My Friend The Chocolate Cake understands that wrapping his message in a warm and engaging mix of smooth vocals and sophisticated arrangements will insinuate those ideas into people's minds with far more efficiency than a shrill attack on the senses. It also provides ample rewards on repeated listens.

Hotel Radio is a welcome successor to his excellent previous album, Act Of Free Choice and shows that social conciseness, musical skills and heart can still combine to create music that entertains and enlightens. This is world music for a better world.
Rob Hudson
www.davidbridie.com.au



Pshychic
Buffalo Daughter
Here are the straight facts: Pshychic is five songs spread out over fifty-one minutes and nine seconds and Buffalo Daughter is made up of three Japanese electronic artists by the names of sugar, yumiko and moOog, after these facts, things become a little hazy.

The songs on Pshychic are almost living entities and every time you listen to them they become something different. Most are long and have themes that constantly evolve. Opening track Cyclic is a case in point; it starts with repetitive bleeps that start to get under you skin. Just when it all starts to become a bit much it is given a human touch with analogue guitar belches and human voice lullabies, these recede and the cathedral of zeros and ones return but by this time you are a different listener.

Electronica as a label doesn’t do justice to this album because it contains so many elements both man and machine-made that transcend that limiting description, lets just call it music and leave it as that.

This is a good case study is employing divergent elements to a worldly mix and creating something infectious and unique. Add Pshychic to your library and it will sound like no other record in your collection.
Rob Hudson
official site



Grace (Legacy Edition)
Jeff Buckley
When the world lost Jeff Buckley, he was an artist whose influence was just starting to be felt. The shadow cast by Grace (the only full-length album released while he was alive) has grown year after year and has now become one of the most important and influential albums of the last few decades. This re-release marks a ten-year anniversary and arrives amid the usual controversy regarding posthumous releases.

My take on the controversy is that as a fan, I want to hear the songs from the vault (songs left to fade on deteriorating tape stocks don’t enlarge anyone’s world) and if a release isn’t done respectfully or offer good value, just don’t buy it. Fortunately, there is value in this new release of Grace as it offers a remixed version of the original album that illustrates the audio improvement in digital technology in the last ten years, a bonus disc of unreleased or little heard tracks and a DVD with a new version of the well-seen doco on the making of the album and five music videos.

Hearing Grace for the first time back in 94 was an amazing experience, it was unique for its time and that remains true to this day. Buckley’s wordless flight of voice still raises the hair on the back of the neck and with the residual thoughts of his unfortunate demise; songs take on an overwhelming intensity. Tracks such as the Leonard Cohen cover, Hallelujah become an even more emotionally experience. The new mix sounds great, although the difference only becomes apparent at loud volumes or on really good equipment.

The bonus disc contains a mixed bag of goodies that range from new versions of well known tunes like Dream Brother, famous exclusion from the original release of Grace, Forget Her, fun covers, Alligator Wine, Mama, You Been On My Mind, Parchman Farm Blues & Kick Out The Jams and my favourite new discovery, a rendition of a track made famous by Nina Simone called The Other Woman that is worth the price of admission alone.

The DVD offers a documentary on the making of the Grace album that will be very familiar to fans but this time around includes a small amount of new footage. The disc also includes music videos for the songs; Grace, Last Goodbye, So Real, Eternal Life, Forget Her and a visual discography.

Ten years on and able to create an even more emotional impact, Grace lives up to the description, classic and should be in the collection of any fan of contemporary music.
Rob Hudson
official site



You In Reverse
Built To Spill
Built To Spill as a band has always existed more in the mind of Doug Martsch that in a solidified line-up. Many musical friends have come and gone through the band turnstiles over the years, so it comes as no surprise after listening to the new album, You In Reverse, to find it features as close to a regular line-up as the band has ever enjoyed.

No, the surprise comes when you read the press notes and find the statement “This is the band’s most collaborative effort in its thirteen year history” as these tracks sound anything but a mix of disparate threads stitched together. There is a consistency and excellence amongst the songs that is career defining.

Martsch and his cohorts have always had that rare ability to pen tracks that live in the mind as good friends and like all great pop songs, sound warmly familiar even if you have never heard them before. This album takes that feel to a new extreme and even after more repeated plays than sanity should allow continues to impress.

The songs also revisit some of the band’s finest moments; insightful lyrical observations, sublime vocal harmonies, self-contained guitar heroics and good taste run rampant. This is the album to play when you can’t make up your mind what to listen to or need a set of songs to bridge the gap between different styles. This work is as universally accessible as any release this year, it’s that good.
Rob Hudson
www.builttospill.com




Fall of the Plastic Empire
Burning Bridges
Burning Bridges? The hardcore band from New York? No, this version of Burning Bridges hail from Philly and have a sound no less powerful than those tonsil shredders from the big apple but one that incorporates a more varied approach. They chase their whisky gargle with some of rock's best brews, the amber swill of the MC5, the dark mud sludge of Black Sabbath or the seriously fucked up final fluid of Nirvana. There is a shitload going down here.

Made up of three rock pigs, Dimitri Coats on guitar, Melanie Campbell on bass and Jason Kourkounis on drums, this power trio live up to that name and cram a world of hurt into the 36 minute here. Drop the needle anywhere, the heavy breathing Plank Of Fire, the hectic hoodoo of If I'm A Man, the riff-o-rama of Artic Snow, the sonic punch in the puss of Elevator or the marching orders of Plastic Empire and you find a album that kicks serious ass.

It starts bold, slaps you silly and then leaves you wanting more, what more could you ask for from a rock album?
Lapdance Larry
www.burningbrides.com