Fault From No.21

Livin' on the Fault Line fell between two of the Doobie Brothers' biggest-selling records. The album had no hit singles, and one-time leader Tom Johnston kept a markedly low profile (this would be his last record with the group, not including a later reunion). Despite this, Livin' on the Fault Line contains some of the most challenging and well-developed music of the band's career, with Patrick Simmons and Michael McDonald really stepping to the fore…

Livin' on the Fault Line fell between two of the Doobie Brothers' biggest-selling records. The album had no hit singles, and one-time leader Tom Johnston kept a markedly low profile (this would be his last record with the group, not including a later reunion). Despite this, Livin' on the Fault Line contains some of the most challenging and well-developed music of the band's career, with Patrick Simmons and Michael McDonald really stepping to the fore. There's a vague mood of melancholia running through the songs, as well as a definite jazz influence. This is most obvious on the title track, which has several instrumental passages that showcase the guitar abilities of Simmons and Jeff Baxter.

This 52-disc (no, that is not a typo) comp, ABC of the Blues: The Ultimate Collection from the Delta to the Big Cities, may just indeed live up to its name. There are 98 artists represented , performing 1,040 tracks. The music begins at the beginning (though the set is not sequenced chronologically) with Charlie Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson, and moves all the way through the vintage Chicago years of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, with stops along the way in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, New York, and all points in between. Certainly, some of these artists are considered more rhythm & blues than purely blues artists: the inclusion of music by Johnny Otis, Wynonie Harris, Bo Diddley, and others makes that clear…

With their 2010 debut Crooks & Lovers being a near perfect, small wonder of post-dubstep bliss, British electronic music duo Mount Kimbie tackle the difficult sophomore release with the usually dire move of "add more vocals," but the results aren't dire at all. Quite the contrary, the opening "Home Recording" is the wonderfully foggy, yet somehow crisp, experience offered on their debut with far-off vocals coming from Kimbie member Kai Campos, whose style here is somewhere between James Blake and Ben Gibbard without aping either. The lyrics are a bit more free-form than traditional singer/songwriter material, and when a horn section break in the middle offers a prickly and rewarding bridge, it's like a transmission from the Portishead side of trip-hop where modern composition, The Wire magazine, and all things artistic are held dear…