Benoit was bitten by the jazz bug after watching a Charlie Brown special on television and listening to the music of Vince Guaraldi in 1965. “I was already a fan of the comic strip,” he says, “but when I heard that jazz piano trio, that was the defining moment when I decided that I wanted to play like Vince Guaraldi.”
Loraine James lets her influences run wild on her third Hyperdub volume, sampling DNTEL, Telefon Tel Aviv and Lusine on tracks that dig into her emotional core. Featuring guest appearances from Marina Herlop, keiyaA, Corey Mastrangelo, Eden Samara, George Riley and Contour.
Countless country artists have borrowed sounds and production tricks from rock music. Brantley Gilbert takes it further, drawing on heavy metal’s menacing guitar riffs, snarling, low-slung vocal delivery, and theatrical sense of danger to amplify the personal and spiritual stakes of his songs. On his fifth album, Fire & Brimstone, he once again plays the part of a small-town ruffian who chases wild times but wrestles with his conscience and surrenders to his tender side.