Grant-Lee Phillips' latest album, Lightning, Show Us Your Stuff, is a turbulent and highly musical rumination that finds the veteran singer-songwriter at his most inspired. His tenth solo release bears the markings of his prolific output, a melodic prowess and an ear for lyric in everyday conversation. The album is grown from the same rich soil that Phillip's long career, from Grant Lee Buffalo to his solo work has sprang from. The result is a beautifully human musical tapestry. The warm, live on the floor, instrumental bed is the perfect support for Phillips' inimitable voice. This spontaneous approach has become a tradition among his solo works. This record is supported by peerless drummer, Jay Bellerose (whose many credits include Raising Sand by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant) and bassist Jennifer Condos (heard on Bruce Springsteen's Ghost of Tom Joad and other classics).
During the mid-1970s, the Grateful Dead saga was unfolding like a Greek classic. The Sisyphean Wall Of Sound had nearly broken the band. From it spawned a Medusa head of countless side projects, all deliciously fruitful but woefully not the same as the whole. The chorus lay in wait, pondering the reemergence of their heroes, and wondering if "THE LAST ONE" had really been it…
Last November, Beck released his 14th studio album, the evocatively-named Hyperspace. Now the veteran songwriter has sought to visualize these songs as actual hyperspaces with help NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The result is Hyperspace: A.I. Exploration, an out-of-this-world collaboration that combines music, data, video, and, of course, artificial intelligence.
Hate For Sale, produced by the revered Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur), is the latest studio album by The Pretenders via BMG. The album features 10 new songs written collaboratively by Chrissie Hynde and the electrifyingly dynamic guitarist James Walbourne, in what is the first Hynde/Walbourne song writing collaboration to date.