The Amps

Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass (2006) {Matador OLE 692-2}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 521 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 183 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 33 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2006 Matador Records | OLE 692-2
Rock / Indie Rock / Alternative / Dream Pop

After the elegant, introspective romantic narratives of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out and the beautifully crafted but restrained pop textures of Summer Sun, it was hard not to wonder if Yo La Tengo was ever going to turn up the amps and let Ira Kaplan go nuts on guitar again. For more than a few fans "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind," the opening cut from YLT's 2006 album I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, will feel like the reassuring sound of a homecoming – ten minutes of noisy six-string freak-out, with James McNew's thick, malleable basslines and Georgia Hubley's simple but subtly funky drumming providing a rock-solid framework for Kaplan's enthusiastic fret abuse.

THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX will release its seventh full-length LP, "Force Field", on December 8 via Tee Pee Records.

Man were one of the most promising rock bands to come out of Wales in the early '70s. Along with Brinsley Schwarz, they helped establish the core of the pub rock sound, but they played louder and also had a progressive component to their work that separated them from many of their rivals…

Blues-rock is a tightrope - and Mike Zito has never lost his footing. At times in his storied two-decade career, the Texas bandleader has rolled up the amps and rocked as hard as anyone. Yet his lifelong fascination with the blues has always reeled him back in. And now, having shaken the rafters with 2016's acclaimed Make Blues Not War, First Class Life finds Mike diving deep into the only genre that can do justice to his hard-won true stories of hardship and redemption. "Make Blues was pretty extreme and rocking," he reflects. "This time, I was definitely thinking more blues." First Class Life is a fitting album title from a man who remembers the hard times. "The title track is a nod to where I've come from and where I'm at," explains the songwriter whose promising early career was almost destroyed by addiction. "It's a rags-to-riches story, and it's certainly true. I grew up poor in St. Louis, and now I'm travelling the world to sing my songs. In the world of excess America, I may not look 'rich', but in my world, I most certainly am. I have a beautiful family, I'm clean and sober, and I get to play music."

Mississippi born and raised, Elmore James learned his trade in the Delta in the 1930s, emerging in the early 1950s as the godfather of modern electric guitar, and no guitarist who ever plugged an instrument into an amp is free of his influence. Not only did he create the template for electric slide players everywhere, he also reworked his amps until they delivered a raw, overdriven sound that became endemic in pop and rock music a decade later, and no punk band ever sounded more ragged or passionate than Elmore James in full stride. James recorded for some dozen labels during his short recording career (he died in 1963 of a heart attack at the age of 45), and he is one of those rare artists whose recorded output was seamless from the first to the last…

A live document of the Brian Jones-era Rolling Stones sounds enticing, but the actual product is a letdown, owing to a mixture of factors, some beyond the producers' control and other very much their doing. The sound on the original LP was lousy – which was par for the course on most mid-'60s live rock albums – and the remasterings have only improved it marginally, and for that matter not all of it's live; a couple of old studio R&B covers were augmented by screaming fans that had obviously been overdubbed…

Martin Cilia is an Australian musician. Cilia is best known for his songwriting skills, and his membership in The Atlantics, where he performs on the guitar. "For this latest release I wanted to make an album that reflects the history of electric instrumental guitar – one that resonates from the early 60s instro/surf sound, but with a modern twist. It was all recorded the old way – real guitars, amps, microphones and with minimum digital interference. While putting the album together I came across an old multi track tape of a song that Atlantics drummer extraordinaire, Peter Hood, and myself were working on. I had a listen and decided to finish it off. The drum track was so good and had so much of Peter’s energy. That song is Terminator. You’ll know it when you get to it! Being a fan and growing up with this style of guitar music it was a pleasure to write and record these new songs. Basically I wanted to make an album of great songs with great sounds. I hope I achieved that."

Sun Ra - Somewhere Over The Rainbow (2018) {Sun Ra LLC Official Digital Download}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download (bandcamp.com) -> 275 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 98 Mb | Cover | 5% repair rar
© 2018 Sun Ra LLC
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Jazz Funk / Experimental Big Band / Progressive Jazz

As live, late-1970s Sun Ra albums go, Somewhere Over the Rainbow is a cut above. It's similar to and contemporaneous with The Soul Vibrations of Man and Taking a Chance on Chances, two live sets also issued on Saturn in 1977 (and available in our digitally remastered download catalog). Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Saturn 7877) was also known as We Live to Be: the titles of track one on side A were often handwritten on labels and/or generic sleeves, a common practice in Saturn's DIY packaging process.