Redhead

The Essential Guide to Becoming Your Most Radiant, Redheaded You

With each album since Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons, Blonde Redhead has made huge strides forward with their sound. Misery Is a Butterfly pitted fragile melodies against dark, swirling arrangements, and its tragic glamour turned the album into a cult favorite. On 23, the band trades the cloistered chamber rock of Butterfly for tone-bending dream pop and subtle electronics; while the wide open spaces sound a little bare at first, this streamlined approach ends up making this Blonde Redhead's loveliest and most accessible work yet. The group begins each album with a bold statement of purpose, and 23 is no different.

The six BBC tracks on The Pretty Redhead boast fine sound and were recorded at sessions on March 9, 1971 and October 6, 1982. The tracks present Nucleus at quite different phases of their career. The personnel differ quite a bit on each session, too, though Ian Carr and John Marshall are present on both. The first three tracks are from the 1971 date, and show them as an instrumental jazz fusion band not too far removed in tone from the latter-day Soft Machine – hardly a surprise as Karl Jenkins and John Marshall would both join that band the following year. The influence of early electric Miles Davis is heavily felt as well, in a performance that marked one of guitarist Chris Spedding's last appearances with the outfit. As the sleeve notes point out, the version of "Song from a Bearded Lady," a tune from their second album, differs markedly from the studio arrangement in its introductory portion. Despite the large shuffle in personnel, Nucleus were playing in pretty much the same style, though perhaps a tad more inside, on their 1982 session, which marked their only known recording with the lineup featuring Carr, Marshall, saxophonist Tim Whitehead, guitarist Mark Wood, and bassist Joe Hubbard. It's also notable for the inclusion of the group's only known recording of Carr's composition "The Pretty Redhead," though Carr's brief comment at the top of the liner notes laments his failure to hit a couple of high notes in the intro and coda. ~ Richie Unterberger

It seems like New York trio Blonde Redhead have been dogged with Sonic Youth comparisons since the day they formed years ago, taking their name from an old song by No New York faves DNA. Such yakking only grew louder when the group, then a quartet, signed with Steve Shelley's Smells Like label in 1994 for a pair of LPs, and then let the Sonic Youth drummer produce them. Three years down the road, it's a resemblance still firmly in place on Fake Can Be Just as Good, despite the group employing producer John Goodmanson and switching labels to Chicago's venerable, powerful Touch & Go. But if this stubborn outfit of two handsome Italian-Americans and a pretty Japanese-American doesn't care about being branded copycats, and it seems they don't, then neither should anyone else.

Blonde Redhead return with ‘Sit Down for Dinner,’ their first album in seven years and debut for section1. Its title a nod to the often-sacred communal ritual of sharing a meal with those you love, this immersive, meticulously crafted album appropriately serves an expression of persistent togetherness, a testament to the unique internal logic Blonde Redhead have refined over their three-decade existence. Understated yet visceral melodies charge each song, creating a foil to lyrics about the inescapable struggles of adulthood: communication breakdown in enduring relationships, wondering which way to turn, holding onto your dreams. Ultimately, ‘Sit Down for Dinner’ lands as perhaps the strongest record in a catalog that’s already as illustrious as it is varied.