A Lull: Confetti (Mush)

A Lull: "Weapons for War"

Building off its early buzz for the single “Weapons for War,” Chicago quintet A Lull has drawn plenty of early attention for its debut album, Confetti.

Comprised of five multi-instrumentalists who each have a hand in its percussive style, the band unites assorted characteristics of contemporary indie electronica, with textured timbres, humming ambience, and melodic hooks building over pitter-pat beats and thumping toms. The vocals are equally as multi-layered and harmonized, alternating between soft pop refrains and “rat-tat-tats” and other percussive utterances over waves of deep, distorted low end.

Young Widows: In and Out of Youth and Lightness (Temporary Residence)

Young Widows: "In and Out of Lightness"

Now more than a few album cycles removed from its transition from post-hardcore outfit Breather Resist, Louisville's Young Widows continues coming more and more into its own.

The trio's last full-length album, Old Wounds, marked its arrival as post-punk powerhouse.  Its newest, In and Out of Youth and Lightness, displays another progression in the band's songwriting skills while also emphasizing the "quietness" in the genre.

Guitarist/vocalist Evan Patterson's reverberated instrument walks an eerie line between clean and dissonant. The rhythm section favors a ceremonial plod, often accenting select beats instead of playing straight through, but it's more than capable of mixing in urgent rock rhythms.  In between, there's a roomy silence, occasionally breached with a wandering guitar echo or backing vocal.

From the weird twang, Black Heart Procession vibes, and enveloping vocal harmonies of tracks such as "Right in the End" and "Lean on the Ghost," In and out of Youth and Lightness has plenty of new direction for familiar fans, but it's also an excellent jumping-off point for new listeners.

- Text by Scott Gordon. Read the full review here.

Atmosphere: The Family Sign (Rhymesayers)

Atmosphere: "Just for Show"

Back after last fall's double-EP release, Minneapolis hip-hop duo Atmosphere presents an album that is a true family effort.  Though its 2008 album was chock full of guest spots and featured DJ/producer Ant piecing together samples of live instrumentation, The Family Sign was built by a four-piece incarnation of Atmosphere, with previous collaborators Erick Anderson (keyboards) and Nate Collis (guitar).

Collis, in fact, is the surprise MVP of the album, with shimmering slide guitar and murmuring melodies that guide many songs.  Anderson plays nearly as vital a role, with gentle piano lines and chords that fill out what often was occupied by funky bass lines and horn cuts.

There are more singing and spoken-word passages than rap aficionados might like, but The Family Album isn't nearly as sunny or soulful as When Life Gives You Lemons…, and it feels like a much more cohesive and organic record.

Hauschka: Salon des Amateurs (FatCat)

Hauschka: "Radar"

Hauscka is the alias of prolific German composer Volker Bertelmann, who has released eight albums of neoclassical material since 2004 — with the most recent coming just six months ago.

His instrument of choice is the prepared piano, a piano that has objects placed on or between its strings in order to create unique, textured sounds.  Though much of his earlier material was in the John Cage school of prepared minimalism, his last album, Foreign Landscapes, was a more orchestral affair, and his newest, Salon des Amateurs, presents his instrument's version of techno.

This "organic dance" music shares similarities with fellow German outfit Brandt Brauer Frick, a trio that released a promising debut in November.  Bertelmann's range of timbres is narrower, but he achieves a lot via overdubs and guest spots by John Convertino and Joey Burns of Calexico, drummer/sampler Samuli Kosminen of Múm, and violinist Hilary Hahn.  Ultimately, Salon des Amateurs is much closer to Cage than techno, but it's another interesting cross-section that proves the potential of loops and short repetitions.

Garage á Trois: Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil (Royal Potato Family)

Garage á Trois: "Shooting Breaks"

Originally a trio with 8-string guitarist Charlie Hunter, rock/funk/jazz hybrid Garage a Trois has morphed over the past decade to a quartet comprised of saxophonist Skerik and vibraphonist Mike Dillon (both of Critters Buggin, The Dead Kenny Gs, and many Les Claypool incarnations), drummer Stanton Moore (Galactic, Corrosion of Conformity), and keyboardist Marco Benevento (Benevento/Russo Duo).

The group's sounds have undergone just as much transformation, from entirely live improvisation to unified grooves. Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil is the group's second album since the addition of Benevento, and it again takes great advantage of his keyboard melodies.  However, unlike its predecessor, Power Patriot, this album pulls back a bit from the distorted rock grooves.

Nonetheless, the album's musical moods are what fans of Power Patriot might expect: slinky ("Resentment Incubator"), polyrhythmic ("Earl Harvin"), accessible ("Earl Harvin" again), raw ("The Drum Department"), cosmic ("Shooting Breaks"), and ever so eerie ("Swellage").  Recorded by engineer/producer Randall Dunn (Secret Chiefs 3, Sunn O))), Earth), it closes with an unexpected cover of John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13," a rendition that sonically embodies the album's title.

Fredrik: Flora (The Kora)

Fredrik: "Rites of Spring"

Each track on Swedish electro-folk trio Fredrik’s newest album, Flora, is adorned with a menagerie of small details.

On the third song, “Chrome Cavities,” vocalist Fredrik Hultin’s hushed intonations and a delicately clattering xylophone tiptoe over a sinister, tribal drum beat and jingling sleigh bells.  Later, on "The North Greatern," tinkling wind chimes, hypnotizing cowbell, and thundering mallet strikes conjoin over oscillating ambience.

Throughout Flora, a brooding force takes shape, often building to climactic heights similar to those of Sigur Rós. Whether laying on the heavy bounce of new-wave synth or sticking to more classical string-based melodic work (as on “Naruto and the End of the Broken Ear”), Fredrik deftly navigates varied terrain.

Honorable Mentions

Autechre: EPs 1991 – 2002 (Warp)

Between the Buried and Me: The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues (Metal Blade)

Causa Sui: Pewt’r Sessions 1 (El Paraiso)

Classified: Handshakes and Middle Fingers (Halflife / Sony / Decon)

Figurines: s/t (The Control Group)

Howe Gelb & A Band of Gypsies: Alegrías (Fire)

Indian: Guiltless (Relapse)

Kreidler: Tank (Bureau B)

Femi Kuti: Africa for Africa (Knitting Factory)

Last Chance to Reason: Level 2 (Prosthetic)

Little Scream: The Golden Record (Secretly Canadian)

Low: C’mon (Sub Pop)

Agnes Obel: Philharmonics (PIAS)

The One AM Radio: Heaven is Attached by a Slender Thread (Dangerbird)

Panda Bear: Tomboy (Paw Tracks)

Red Fang: Murder the Mountains (Relapse)

Alexander Tucker: Dorwytch (Thrill Jockey)

TV on the Radio: Nine Types of Light (Interscope)

The Waitiki 7: Waitiki in Hi-Fi LP (Pass Out Records)

Zomes: Earth Grid (Thrill Jockey)

The Dead Kenny Gs: Operation Long Leash (The Royal Potato Family, 3/15/11)

The Dead Kenny Gs: "Black Truman (Harry the Hottentot)"

Smooth-jazz lovers beware.  As an antidote to the polished alto saxophones and rarely improvised easy-listening jams of adult contemporary music, eccentric jazz trio The Dead Kenny Gs has released its second album, Operation Long Leash.  Given its play-on-words moniker that simultaneously drives a sock down the mouth of smooth-jazz king Kenny G and recalls the early '80s hardcore-punk band The Dead Kennedys, the powerhouse trio taps into a sound that fuses jazz and punk.  It’s a crazy mix that works surprisingly well, played intensely by a group that has the skill and knowledge to pull it off.

Composed of three of the members of legendary Seattle-based Critters Buggin — bassist Brad Houser, drummer and vibraphonist Mike Dillon, and saxophonist Skerik — the band uses its genre-mashing experience to anchor it all down.  The trio has played in countless projects together, including all three in The Black Frames, and Dillon and Skerik comprise half of Garage a Trois.  Needless to say, the three have run in the same circles for more than two decades, playing hybrid styles that are everything but conservative.

For Operation Long Leash, the trio is hostile and straightforward in fusing elements of free jazz, Afrobeat, punk, metal, and anything else that it feels like throwing in the mix.  Behind the hilarious name and the curly dark wigs, there are some serious chops at work.  Switching between instruments and utilizing a healthy selection of effect pedals, it’s sometimes hard to believe that there are only three musicians — and forget trying to decipher who’s playing what.

Sounding more like a noise-rock record, the 10-song set comes off like a swift punch to the face, making clear the band’s mission of subverting the restraints of the respected genres.  The deeper you get into the record, the more liberated the music becomes, and a sense that anything is possible emerges by the end.

Long-time collaborator and guitar virtuoso Charlie Hunter lends his style on the raw funk tune “Black Truman (Harry the Hottentot).”  The trio has mastered the mixing and matching of different sounds; even on this track alone, there is so much happening with harmony, timbre, and the nuances of melody.  Skerik rocks his saxophone in funky staccato bursts, an attack that sounds as raw as Hunter’s shape-shifting guitar riffs.  A wide variety of percussion instruments keep the rhythm inherently Afrobeat influenced, and some spacey electronic elements propel the band into some George Clinton-tinged P-funk.

“Melvin Jones” has the band bouncing back and forth between thrash, Balkan folk, and Klezmer styles, and switching time signatures between each section.  The effect is jarring, almost resembling a music form from a strange, dystopian future.  Like the cross-section where Black Flag and Albert Ayler would meet, the track is ferocious in sonic exploration, while bringing Eastern European melody lines to the forefront.

Though the tracks are as much informed by Jesus Lizard as they are by Roshaan Roland Kirk, they are entirely distinct to the DKG sound.  Songs have everyone playing frantically, making all kinds of disparate negotiations at once — whether it’s Skerik’s Klezmer sax lines with Dillon’s speed-metal drumming on “Sweatbox,” the mad electronic atmospherics with the gritty piano keys on “Bucky Balls (Spherical Fullerene),” or Dillon’s funk-infused vocal growls on “Black Death.”

Operation Long Leash's producer, Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth), has worked with Houser, Dillon, and Skerik through Critters Buggin in the past, but he’s also worked with some of the heaviest metal bands in the world.  The result is a well-conceived sound that makes the punk-rock and free-jazz connection that people rarely make.  Not for the soft at heart, Operation Long Leash is aggressive, unrelenting, and designed to kill your speakers.

Grails: "I Led Three Lives"

Since its first full-length album in 2003 for Neurot Recordings, Grails has redefined the boundaries of the instrumental-rock record.

Much like its songs, the Portland-based quartet has built a persona around the concept of evolution, releasing album after album that bears few resemblances to its predecessors. A look at Grails’ extensive discography reveals a prismatic display of every genre that the band has contorted with its psychedelic surrealism: post-rock, minimalist kraut rock, Eastern-infused soundscapes, and metal.

Displaying a remarkable knowledge and respect for music and music history, Grails is confident in crossing through genres and sounds that would be estranged in another context. The group's songs build as swiftly as they deconstruct, always with an eclectic catalog of ideas at play.

Deep Politics, the band’s fourth release on Temporary Residence Limited, delves deeper into its countless influences and can be seen as yet another turn in the Grails music catacomb. Released three years after the heavier Doomsdayer’s Holiday, Deep Politics further nurtures Grails’ rapport with fringe culture and the occult history of library music, channeling musical modes that muddle the bizarre and accessible.

“Music history is one way we’ve learned to appreciate other human beings,” says drummer Emil Amos, who also spends time in Om and Holy Sons. “We feel this perennial camaraderie with these weird people – like David Axelrod making funk symphonies out of William Blake poetry. It’s that perversion and ruthless creative imagination that has always been a part of radical record production. We’re paying tribute to that heritage and responding to that dialectic of the century.”

“It’s a way to cast yourself in the grand scheme of things,” guitarist Alex Hall says. “If you’re walking around during the day and having trouble appreciating anyone on the sidewalk, and you put on these records and see a commonality between you and human history – there’s something positive about that. That’s something Grails is trying to shed light on. It’s taught us the value of music.”

Over the course of eight tracks and 45 minutes, Deep Politics stands as an ambitious mix of compelling melodies and lush sounds bridged by new techniques, most notably an increased utilization of a cut-and-paste production style that's commonly used by electronic and hip-hop artists.

“We’re not trying to imitate library music,” Amos says, referring to material that is written for film and media purposes and that often touches a range of emotions. “We’re just trying to break it down. It’s just a way to describe a jumping-off point.”
 

“Music history is one way we’ve learned to appreciate other human beings. We feel this perennial camaraderie with these weird people."

It’s a point that gave rise to eight songs of concentrated inventiveness, informed not only by Ennio Morricone’s prolific Italian-western film scores but the disorienting 1960s psychedelia and heavy atmospherics for which the band, whose other half is composed of William Slater and Wm. Zak Riles, is essentially known.

For Hall, the Italian-western description is just a small glimpse into the record. “To me, honestly, it sounds like a mess,” he says. “But there are usually one or two tracks that have such a strong personality that they cast an umbrella over everything else.” He recalls Burning Off Impurities, an album from 2007 that the band was afraid would be slammed for being too heavily influenced by German rock, but in the end was ultimately labeled as a desert-psych record.

“When we listen to the record, we hear a reflection of our fucked-up psychology — the processing of these toxins we were dealing with at the time,” Amos says. “We definitely don’t hear the story everyone is hearing — the story of a saloon in the desert. Anyone starting with that much of a referential understanding of what they’re trying to make is just basically writing a college thesis.”

He meditates for a second. “It can be frustrating. I think we want to force people to deal with the sound and think for themselves, but unfortunately, sometimes people end up hearing a concept they thought about before, instead of hearing the raw expression. But people can call it homosexual-cowboy trip hop and it wouldn’t matter; we’re just thankful that people are listening to us.”

Perils of an instrumental band? Yes. Though the description “cinematic” is tired and overused, especially in the post-rock game, there is a certain truth about it when talking about Deep Politics. There are grand stretches of music when listeners will almost feel obligated to fill in the anecdotes. Soft instants swell into big moments seamlessly, a tension augmented by an opposing mishmash of acoustic and electric guitar intonations, soulful piano lines, East-meets-West melodies, and lush string accompaniments from the renowned Timba Harris (Estradasphere, Secret Chiefs 3).

From the first moments of opener “Future Primitive,” one gets a sense of the band's signature demonic ambience hovering over the instruments. Suspiria-like layers of psychosis subtly crowd the musical space that is entranced by a heavy guitar riff, giving way to a pure-toned acoustic guitar that exudes the western motif. And while Harris’ presence as lone violinist is established here, so are disparate sounds; pounding drum beats meet heavy distortion and gloomy layers of background pressure.

Describing himself and Hall as the “matrix of post-rock,” Amos discloses their approach to the post-production sessions. “You’re hearing us hear our own boredom,” he says. "We want to live with the song’s creative process as long as possible, and that’s why our songs have so many weird layers. We want to hear something new happen, and we’ve learned to use the computer to excite our own ears.”

“Being an instrumental band, we’re very self-conscious about the danger of our music being boring,” Hall says. “It forces us to pack in the atmosphere and ambience. Though all the chill moments are deliberately there to cure our boredom, they still have to be engaging. We’re not a drone band that feels content with putting out 45 minutes of two notes.”

Grails’ strictly instrumental music gives instant payoffs all over the record. “All The Colors of the Dark” takes its overarching melody from Bruno Nicolai’s work in Sergio Martino’s 1972 giallo film of the same name, though it transforms it into a completely different being. The song’s brooding bit, dominated by a lone piano, traverses into a symphonic guitar assault, all the while keeping the same mood and composure.

Harris' strings lift the whole affair into a standout track that takes on a classical guise. A perfect match in music sensibilities, what begins as a somber piano ballad turns into an endearing string symphony over a hard drum beat. It all begins to amplify a protagonist’s existential crisis in a film plot that ultimately is imaginary. “If you’re trying to create a Hitchcock movie, you have to evoke Bernard Herrmann,” Amos says. “And we were lucky enough to be put in touch with Timba by Randall Dunn.”

Harris, who can also be heard on the grand anti-finale of “Deep Snow,” has a way of creating depth and drama. “He has a lot of interesting ways to evoke full-out symphonies,” Hall says. "He came in at the right time, when we were making something grand and melancholy.”

The band more quietly experiments with the world of samples, employing the aforementioned cut-and-paste approach so cunningly at times that it’s impossible to tell where one source ends and another begins. This technique is readily apparent on “Corridors of Power,” an experimental track that sounds as if “Madlib contributed a song to Deep Politics,” Amos says. “We were trying to reduce our spectrum to drum machine and turntables. It was a way to come from a completely different angle but reach the same mood.”

“Almost Grew My Hair” provides a stark contrast as a powerhouse that begins the record’s grand descent, with three of the last songs averaging eight minutes each. Dense in range and reach, instruments begin to jumble, progressing through movement after movement with little respite. One moment of clarity leads to aggression in the next, heavy bass riffs draw back and forth, and focused guitar melodies spontaneously turn into nightmarish screeches.

“One of our favorite things about people like Morricone,” Amos says, “is that for the first time in the century, a respected master of musicology could employ instruments into his music just to evoke, for example, a schizophrenic killer who talks in a Donald Duck voice. What kind of music comes on the screen when he appears?”

Examining Morricone's creative freedom ultimately sheds light on Grails’ music philosophy. Hall looks to the session players who actually played the music for inspiration. “You have these forms of music that were totally boxed in and completely framed with a context," he says, "where most of the time you had these guys in the studio who just wanted to express themselves.”

Amos agrees, saying, “[These composers' and musicians'] message to us is that there are literally no rules. When you seize that concept — that’s the most powerful moment you have. Most people are using music as though it’s a simple video game; they’re trying to reach an easy objective. But when you hear those masters, you perceive a higher level of freedom. Listening to those composers, you can see where we’re trying to get back to — how they seized those frontiers.”

Grails’ grand narrative, after all, is searching out those new musical frontiers. Deep Politics, yet another compelling synthesis of music past and present, continues the long-running investigation into the unknown.

Black Mountain: Wilderness Heart (Jagjaguwar, 9/14/2010)

Black Mountain: "Wilderness Heart"

Thanks to endless comparisons to bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath, and tagged as a band obsessed with '70s stoner rock, Vancouver-based rock outfit Black Mountain has a lot to live up to.  But beyond the umbrella terminology and exhaustive retro comparisons, the group doesn't receive enough credit for striking a modern chord with mainstream and underground-minded audiences alike.

Now the band is back with its third release, Wilderness Heart, doing what it does best: putting the signature Black Mountain stamp on the fundamentals of rock and roll.

Composed of drummer Josh Wells, keyboardist Jeremy Schmidt, bassist Matt Camirand, vocalist Amber Webber, and guitarist and lead vocalist Stephen McBean, Black Mountain wears its influences on its sleeve, but it's not as self-indulgent as it sounds. Though the band's more nostalgia-driven tunes have come to define its critical success, the overall sound is tastefully stripped down, forgoing crotch rock for a more intelligent sound.

Wilderness Heart is a big step for the band’s direction and sound.  The album is Black Mountain’s first effort with outside producers on board — David Sardy (Zombieland soundtrack) and Randall Dunn (Secret Chiefs 3) — moving it in an unexplored direction.

The result is a set of cleaner and more polished tunes.  Many of the psych- and progressive-rock arrangements are scaled back, and though the record has a slew of heavy hooks, the band's folk sensibilities are taken to a new level. McBean’s voice is as distinct and versatile as ever, capable of reverberating hope on folk ditties like “The Space of Your Mind,” but also able to capture menacing urgency on rockers like “Let Spirits Ride.”

On album opener "The Hair Song," McBean's bluesy vocals showcase a newfound relationship with Webber.  Though Webber has taken a larger vocal stance since the group's self-titled debut in 2005, this riff-raffing between the two is entirely new, giving the group a new folk-pop dimension.  But the song still hits hard; the acoustic and countrified electric-guitar licks may remind listeners of Led Zeppelin III, but it's the rhythm section that really carries the tune along.

Webber has proven herself a timeless rock vocalist on past records and recently with Wells on their more melodic and softer side project Lightning Dust. She owns the album’s title track, “Wilderness Heart,” and fans may hear a faint resemblance to two beloved Black Mountain tracks, “Stormy High” and “Don’t Run Our Hearts Around.”  Her wailing voice is a confident fit to the track’s deep rock foundation in all of its masterful turns and energetic breaks.

Schmidt's keyboards lend a more lush approach than on past records, rounding out rollicking riffs and more effectively holding together the acoustic intermissions.  Tracks like "Roller Coaster," with all of its archetypal metaphors and heavy guitar lines, work because of Schmidt's blues-inflected keys as well as the relationship between Camarind's chunky bass and Wells' epic drumming.

With Wilderness Heart, Black Mountain has shaken up its stoner-rock image, but it continues making thunderous rock music.  And whether it's for the heaviest to lightest of moods, the band produces consistent results.

On their third full-length release, this influential Minneapolis duo continue to push the boundaries of underground hip-hop, utilizing keyboards, electric guitars to create new sonic atmospheres.

Tracks like “Burn Fetish,” and “This Story“ illustrate Eyedea’s (Michael Larsen) MC skills and compelling lyrics.

Talbot Tagora: Lessons in the Woods or a City

With the release of Lessons…, Seattle trio Talbot Tagora (named for a short-lived brand of Chrysler sedan), presents a mix of math rock, art-pop, and electronics with a touch of atonal weirdness.

For example, “Ichthus Hop” sounds like the soundtrack to a 60s mod spy thriller played underwater.  But while Lessons may not be everyone’s cup of tea, any album that makes you question whether or not you are on drugs at that very moment can’t be all bad, right?

Eagle Twin: The Unkindness of Crows (Southern Lord)

Recorded by Randall Dunn (Earth, Kinski), The Unkindness of Crows is the debut album from raspy-throated Gentry Densley (former Iceburn front man) and drummer Tyler Smith blends exploratory punk/metal with some monstrously heavy blues.

Perhaps the poster group for its genre, Sunn has spent the past 10 years experimenting in epic, doomy sound and noise.

Now, with Monoliths & Dimensions, the core duo of Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson teams with guests galore to create, in the words of the group, "the most musical piece we've done."  Guest musicians Eyvind Kang (John Zorn, Bill Frisell), Jessika Kenney (Eyvind Kang, Asva), Oren Ambarchi (Burial Chamber Trio), Dylan Carlson (Earth), Julian Priester (Sun Ra, John Coltrane) and others help make that so, while retaining the creeping, end-of-the-world vibe that persists thoughout Sunn's work.

Khanate: Clean Hands Go Foul (Hydra Head)

As the belated swan song for the super-group collaboration between Stephen O'Malley (Sunn O)))), James Plotkin (Phantomsmasher), Alan Dubin (OLD), and Tim Wyskida (Blind Idiot God), Clean Hands Go Foul is a fitting endgame for Khanate's aural presentation of desolation and despair.  Evil ambience crests and falls, working with ominous chords and soul-shredding screams; naturally, fans of O'Malley's other work will love this.

Khanate: "Wings from Spine" (excerpt)
Khanate: \"Wings from Spine\" (excerpt)

Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest (Warp)

Unconventional indie darlings Grizzly Bear have pushed three years since their last full-length release, and the passage of time hasn't diminished the band's creative stroke.

On Veckatimest, Grizzly Bear's trademark vocal harmonies and layered orchestrations are still present, but the album features a slightly heavier touch of electronics and chamber elements.  By and large, however, this is the same Grizzly Bear, and preexisting fans won't feel alienated by this disc.

Sir Richard Bishop: The Freak of Araby (Drag City)

In his solo creations and many collaborative endeavors, ex-Sun City Girls guitarist Richard Bishop weaves through Arabic, Indian, flamenco, African, and Gypsy influences in both composed and improvised settings.

With his new album, he employs a clean, reverberated electric guitar in place of his usual acoustic sound, and he adds a bit of percussive assistance. For spring and summer tour dates, Bishop will perform with a full ensemble, which should make his ethnic creations even more compelling.

Master Musicians of Bukkake: Totem One (Conspiracy)

Milky and Don McGreevy of Earth, producer extraordinaire Randall Dunn (Secret Chiefs 3, Sunn O)))), Bill Horist of Ghidra, and other noted Northwest musicians comprise this collective that designs psychedelic, ethnically inspired folk freak-outs.

With Totem One, the group begins a musical trilogy while expanding and maturing its expansive sound.  The album's guests include Alan Bishop of Sun City Girls and Timb Harris of Estradasphere and Secret Chiefs 3.

Vieux Farka Touré: Fondo (Six Degrees)

The son of musical Malian icon Ali Farka Touré, guitarist/singer Vieux Farka Touré has garnered international distinction since the release of his self-titled debut album, issued the year after his famous father’s death.

That disc, which was remixed later in the same year, featured kora virtuoso Toumani Diabate on a pair of tracks and combined Mande and Sonrai folk styles with pop and a touch of reggae.  Diabate is back to help with Fondo, which finds Vieux taking more of a distinctive direction while improving his songwriting chops.

One Day as a Lion, the hip-hop/rock duo of Zach de la Rocha and Jon Theodore, has posted a video for its successful single, "Wild International."

The inexhaustible Zach Hill has another new project, this one with Zac Nelson.  The duo's harmonic weirdness is called Chll Pll and will be released this year on Porter Records.

Omar Rodriguez Lopez, a musician as tireless as Zach Hill (and also a collaborator with him), has finished another new album for The Mars Volta.  The album, titled Octahedron, will be released on June 19.

Hardcore punks Trash Talk have a new EP, East of Eden, that can be heard here.  The band recently began a month-long US tour with The Bronx.

Kayo Dot will record a new album this summer with engineer Randall Dunn (Secret Chiefs 3, Grails).  The group will tour in June and July and later release the album on Hydra Head.

On Tuesday in Seattle, as part of Tom Morello's Justice Tour, three-quarters of Soundgarden — Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron, and Ben Shepherd — played three Soundgarden songs with Morello as the second guitarist and Tad Doyle (of TAD) handling the vocals.  The vocals aren't pretty and the footage isn't great…but the whole thing is pretty awesome.

Kid Koala's Slew album is finished and looking at a late summer release.  In the meantime, he's producing an album for songwriter Terence Bernardo.

Tool will tour the US this summer, though dates are unannounced at this point.  Chicago Tribune rock critic Greg Kot has reported rumors of the band headlining Lollapalooza.

Pressing forward for another album with its original lineup, Dinosaur Jr. will release Farm on June 23 via Jagjaguwar.

Yoshida Brothers, a Japanese shamisen duo, will tour the US West Coast for a spell in May before playing a pair of dates in British Columbia.

Busdriver and Tim Fite, both peculiar performers, will perform at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County on April 3.

Looking for constant updates about the Faith No More reunion?  Check out this handy blog.

Greenleaf Music is now streaming its entire front-line catalog at its online store.