AllMusic Staff Pick: Dead Famous People Harry
This Auckland group issued just a handful of releases, including an EP for Flying Nun, before disbanding in 1990. Inspired by the #MeToo movement and a resurgence in interest in riot grrrl punk and other feminism-fueled acts, bandleader Dons Savage returned to the studio in 2018 at the prompting of Fire Records’ James Nicholls and quickly emerged with this album. It’s an all-killer, no-filler romp through gems like “Looking at Girls,” a song about a car crash caused by distracted driving. Throughout, lyrics are strangely ageless, with the ingenuousness of teens, wit of middle age, and poignancy of long-held regret.
- Marcy Donelson
AllMusic Staff Pick: Neko Case Middle Cyclone
Even an average Neko Case album is still of a higher caliber than almost every other album by her contemporaries. Lush, menacing and enveloping, “Magpie to the Morning” is an incredible 3 minutes of music, plus she covers a Harry Nilsson tune which hits right in the heartstrings.
- Zac Johnson
AllMusic Staff Pick: Dead Kennedys Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
This musically primitive album spits on the notion of propriety and tradition. Even though the album is over 40 years old, the politically charged subject matter is still relevant, and the appeal of the basic chord progressions and lightning delivery hasn’t died out either.
- Mivick Smith
AllMusic Staff Pick: Christian Scott Christian aTunde Adjuah
On this 23-track double album, New Orleans trumpeter Scott and his seasoned quintet create a seamless, holistic 21st century jazz that confidently points toward new harmonic horizons. They take listeners on an exhaustive, ambitious journey through jazz, employing elements of rock, hip-hop, and even traces of Crescent City R&B. It’s long and diverse, but it’s accessible in its ambitious creativity.
- Thom Jurek
AllMusic Staff Pick: Joe Henderson Joe Henderson in Japan
Live in Japan captures saxophonist Joe Henderson and his quartet at a cramped Tokyo club in 1971. The mood is sweaty and electric as Henderson spits throaty tenor lines into a din of enthusiastic crowd noise.
- Matt Collar
AllMusic Staff Pick: David Virelles Igbó Alákọrin (The Singer’s Grove) Vol. I & II
After three experimental albums for ECM, Virelles turned his attention to the folkloric music of his hometown in Santiago de Cuba. He reinterpreted the works of Santiago composers Electo Rosell Chepin, Mariano Merceron, and Antonio María Romeu.
- Thom Jurek
AllMusic Staff Pick: Roy Ayers Ubiquity Mystic Voyage
Many funk and soul aficionados consider Mystic Voyage a classic, and the album has been sampled extensively by hip-hop and acid jazz artists. Though permeated by a cosmic vibe throughout its tracklist is dominated by vocal-oriented R&B, and gritty funk numbers such as “Funky Motion,” “Evolution,” and “Spirit of Doo Do.” It also includes a fine reading of Ashford & Simpson’s mellow “Take All the Time You Need.”
- Thom Jurek
AllMusic Staff Pick: Matthew Herbert Letsallmakemistakes
In 2000, during a hot August day in London, imperfectionist Herbert mixed this set in a one-shot session at his Swingtime studio. Fourteen years old, its stream of feverishly funky house and techno – including shrewd selections from Isolée, Theo Parrish, Dan Bell, and the early Perlon catalog – remains fresh sounding.
- Andy Kellman
The Annual Reader’s Poll in Melody Maker magazine - January 3, 1998
AllMusic Staff Pick: The Slits Cut Along with more recognized post-punk records like Public Image Limited’s Metal Box, the Pop Group’s Y, and less-recognized fare like the Ruts DC and Mad Professor’s Rhythm Collision Dub, Cut displayed a love affair with the style of reggae that honed in on deep throbs, pulses, and disorienting effects, providing little focus on anything other than that and periodic scrapes from guitarist Viv Albertine. But more importantly, Cut placed the Slits along with the Raincoats and Lydia Lunch as major figureheads of unbridled female expression in the post-punk era.
- Andrew Kellman
There were Brazilian jazz-funk records before Azymuth’s 1975 self-titled offering, but none of them engaged with post-tropicalia, psychedelia, MPB, samba, and disco the way this one does. Even the band referred to their style as “samba doido” (“crazy samba”). Whether it’s the dreamy, trippy, Rhodes-driven ballad "Linha do Horizonte,” the oft-sampled, burning dancefloor funk of Melô Dos Dois Bicudos" and “Estrada Dos Deuses,” or "Morning” (later wonderfully remixed by Peanut Butter Wolf), this is an infectious series of grooves that stand the test of time.
- Thom Jurek
AllMusic Staff Pick: Uncle Tupelo Anodyne
No one knew 1993’s Anodyne was going to be Uncle Tupelo’s breakup album when it first came out, though in retrospect the signs are so clear it’s a wonder no one noticed. It’s the work of two minds going in different directions but circling back to one another just enough to create one last statement, perhaps not harmonious but with a collective purpose that made this band sound heroic even on their last legs.
- Mark Deming
AllMusic Staff Pick: In Tall Buildings Akinetic
The third album from the project of songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Erik Hall delivers further on the allure of his prior releases by offering even richer textures. It’s an immersive sound that brings to mind bands like Talk Talk and the War on Drugs while remaining just as distinct. Throughout, distorted timbres contrast with pure acoustic ones and smoother electronic tones, while tracks juxtapose irregular rhythms and simple, steady ones. It’s all part of a reliably off-balance design, as are wistful melodies and lyrics that seem to long for clarity and connection.
- Marcy Donelson
AllMusic Staff Pick: XTC Drums and Wires
Titled to reflect the big drum sound they developed with producer Steve Lillywhite and engineer Hugh Padgham for the album, as well as the addition of inventive second guitarist Dave Gregory (“the wires”), the band’s third album centers on the tension between the two. The results make for some truly inspired, nervy pop. Colin Moulding also comes into his own here as a songwriter, penning their first substantial hit, the new wave classic “Making Plans for Nigel.”
- Chris Woodstra
AllMusic Staff Pick: Webster Young For Lady
While trumpeter Webster Young pays tribute to Billie Holiday on this, his only studio date as a leader, the set is equally a tribute to Young’s musical role model, Miles Davis. Young has Miles’ soft-focus tone from the early to mid-‘50s and, according to Ira Gitler’s liner notes, he is actually playing Miles’ cornet on the date. The similarities between the two players make this 1957 session a satisfying companion to Miles’ work circa 1951-1953.
- Jim Todd
Like many bands from the early days of West Coast punk, San Francisco’s Avengers never got the chance to cut an album during their 1977-79 lifetime, but they recorded enough material to fill an album, and this posthumous collection reveals why they were so highly regarded among their peers. This is smart, passionate, fearless music, and in Penelope Houston they had a superb frontwoman powered by a bottomless reserve of pure belief.
- Mark Deming
AllMusic Staff Pick: John Coltrane Offering: Live at Temple University
Beginning with an epic version of his classic 1960 composition “Naima,” Coltrane and his group perform with a sustained intensity and creative focus that would soon become a major element of Coltrane lore after his passing. Yet, here they are: the sheets of arpeggiated sound gushing from his saxophone in a burnished oaken moan, the frenetic squelch of Sanders and Coltrane’s dual opening to “Leo,” and the subsequent mid-track “vocalizations” – long debated in almost mythological terms by fans who saw Coltrane live – captured here in all their unnerving, otherworldly glory.
- Matt Collar