Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio - "Close But No Cigar" Got an early release copy from the guys at my LRS - Plaid Room Records. They also run the record label - Colemine Records who are releasing this record from Delvon Lamarr. Check out this set from KEXP. Awesome stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNO71hgto7c |
Dukes of the Orient - another offshot of ex-Asia John Payne, kind of continuation of GPS project. Both music and recording quality (surprising for this type of music nowadays) is absolutely outstanding, and IMHO much better effort then GPS " Window to the Soul".
I am not huge fan of Asia,but this recording is superb.
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Brandi Carlile "by the way, I forgive you". Her latest and it is outstanding! She really has matured as an artist. |
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Haven't heard it yet but betting the new Decemberist lp is a winner. |
slaw, The Decemberists are my new hometown's (Portland, Oregon, though I'm actually across the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington) local heroes. I remember hearing of them in the late 90's, iirc, but never got around to checking them out. Guess I now have to! |
Another +vote for Brandi Carlile. We are almost half way through 2018. Still plenty of new music / releases to discover.
Happy Listening!
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Bobo Stenson, "Contra la Indecision" - ECM;
Van Morrison, "You're Driving Me Crazy" - Sony/Legacy;
John Surman, "Invisible Threads" - ECM.
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Death Cab For Cutie "Thank You For Today" |
Between Two Shores by Glen Hansard is definitely my favorite for this year. But By The Way, I forgive you by Brandy Carlile is very good too! As someone mentioned here, she's really matured as an artist!
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Gillian Welch "Soul Journey" /first time on lp!!! |
Gregory Alan Isakov "Evening Machines"
Valley Maker "Rhododendron"
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Amy Helm "This Too Shall Light" |
I am very pleased to say that the new Phosphorescent album called C'est La Vie is outstanding!! I thought it was going to be very difficult to follow up their last effort.
If you like Alt Country - Americana you should really check out this band!
Don't miss their last album from five years ago called Muchacho which is a masterpiece!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The song writing and melodies are so mature and fully formed on these two albums.
If you have never heard this band and like this style of music , you will NOT be disappointed !! |
The Struts- If you think rock is dead check out this band. Guitar heavy glam pop with a lead man with real personality and charisma. Everybody Wants has been out for a year or so. Young and Dangerous comes out next week and I heard most of it at their show last week. It sounds like a winner and a step up.....which very few bands accomplish with a second album. They are so refreshing. Probably the best show I’ve seen. So cool to see a real front man in the mold of Jagger and Mercury. I’m 55 and very reserved and I was jumping up and down, singing all the lyrics out loud and waving my hands for 2 solid hours.
I'm a certified Struts fanboy now. Almost bought a T-shirt. ;-) Haven't felt this way about a band since the early days of R.E.M.
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Son Kil Moon "Ghosts of the Great Highway" |
Two recent releases
The Teskey Brothers "Half mile harvest" - retro soul, R&B - outstanding voice, nice guitar, perfect SQ
Rosanne Cash "She remembers everything" - as good as always. |
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Digging the Teskey Brothers. Where did you find them? |
Just ordered the CD. Seriously good stuff. |
LOW / Double Negative
They departed a bit from there norm with this one, but great nonetheless. |
When Levon Helm toured after his throat surgery (he was a heavy smoker), he was temporarily unable to sing. He brought daughter Amy along to sing, and she was swell (I saw them at The House Of Blues in L.A.). Her mother is Libby Titus, who was a well known singer in the 70’s. I gotta get Amy’s new album. |
@n80
Glad you liked the Teskey. They seem to be from australia and did this record themselves (also the recording). A good strategy probably to have a great sound. That you can play as loud as you wish.
Leon Bridges - Good thing.
Mostly the same. His second much better than the first. Thought Teskey was the same musicians first under another name...Leon doesn't have the recorded noice as Teskey!
My strategy for finding music is:
1. Go through new releases on Tidal each week. A quick listen to all that looks interesting
2. Randomly go through an artists whole catalogue. Any artist has a wide spectrum of good and bad music and recording quality. Tidal is a perfect tool for this. Some artists of course are more reliable than other (or unreliable). Joe Henry produced Amy Helm above. He e.g. is a sure name for good quality. Joe Henrys own first solo record is super. Unfortunately not on Tidal.
3. Reading speaker reviews. You can't really trust what they say about the speakers in question but often you get at least one good music tip from each review.
Two years ago i started this HiFi hobby again after a long tim just watching movies with the kids. Have found a lot of good music, both new and old, and speakers(!) since then. Not that much into the other stuff as amps, dacs, cables etc. Of course I have a basic good quality, but for me the speakers are what matters. And the music. Sorry if this was a bit outside the thread. Soon back with other tips from 2018.
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My wife loved the Teskey brothers. Can't wait for the CD.
I find some new music cruising Apple Music but I'm also finding a good bit just going through these "what are you listening to?" threads. Good resource. |
@gosta and @n80 - Thanks for the shout out for The Teskey Brothers. I had never heard of them, but went looking for a listen after reading your post. I checked out their album on Bandcamp and it was great. Heck, I just steamed it via bluetooth from my laptop and it sounded incredibly good. I can't wait to hear it on the vinyl LP I immediately purchased after hearing the bandcamp stream.
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Thanks @gosta & @n80,
Just ordered "Half Mile Harvest" & "I Get Up" lps |
I sent an email to their manager to find out when they would be coming to the US and he said Summer 2019. |
I got the CD today. Like most new stuff on CD it is a little too loud but overall not bad SQ. |
Happy to see that you liked the Teskeys! Just want to make sure you havn’t missed the great blues/soul singer Terry Evans. He’s made some stellar recordings in the past. "Blues for tonight" and "Live like a hurricane" are good starters but any will do. Audiophile quality. Really. Ry Cooder is playing his best guitar on most of Evans albums.
Buddy Guy - "The blues is alive and well" from 2018. James Bay has the hounour to sing on one of the tracks. You can check him out on a You tube concert. Not too bad. His cd’s unfortunately has the modern (unlistenable ) sound.
@n80 Just qurious. When you say too loud. What are you reffering to? Too me the Tidal quality is perfect because I can play the album as loud as it gets with no fatigue. Do you mean not enough DR? I’m too lazy to play cd or vinyl anymore, Unless they are not to find on Tidal. Just zapping around too much...Last cd I bought this year was the only from David Forman and BBA - Live in Japan and the Alessi Brothers first. |
Thanks for the tip on Terry Evans. Will check that out. I'm fairly familiar with most of the older traditional blues guys...including Buddy Guy, but have not kept up with the newer artists. I'm pretty picky. I feel like a lot has to go into a blues song to make it feel genuine and authentic. It is very easy to get blues technically right but without 'soul' for a lack of a better word.
Yes, by loud I mean compressed DR. The Teskey CD has not been tested on the DR database. Compared to the range of my few reference CDs (DR of 12-16) and a few of my newer, quite awful CDs (DR of 5-6) I'm guessing the Teskey CD is somewhere in the middle. Tedeschi Trucks first CD is in this range and I'd describe it and the Teskey CD as very listenable...but could be better. Both Tedeschi Trucks and the Teskey Brothers have their own studios so I would kind of expect better. Tidal's offerings of new music vary in regard to DR. Some are better than the CDs but most are exactly the same.
I've probably become too sensitive to this issue. And some of it might just be in my head....like a lot of things in audio.
Anyway, I'm perfectly happy with the Teskey's CD. There is one song, I don't remember which, that causes a little ear fatigue. My wife, daughter and her husband (all three of whom like the CD ) commented all at the same time and they are not audiophiles. It seemed louder than the other tracks volume wise. The rest sound good even at higher volumes. |
@gosta,
I have Terry Evans "Puttin' It Down" on Audioquest vinyl. Great artist and excellent SQ. All of the Audioquest lps have Ex SQ! I saw Buddy Guy years ago at a local auditorium. Really enjoyed that show. He's an excellent entertainer as well as a great musician.
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Will study Teskey more ambitious soon and compare it to Tedeschi. Thanks. Of the Terry Evans albums in think "Blues for tonight" stands out. Best songs, most heavy sound (not without ballads) and best recording (or at least most loud :-)). The live album is very live - though havn’t listened to that one as much as "Blues for tonight" - a reference recording for me since the middle of the 90’s. Also need to recommend Aaron Neville - "Warm your heart".
Listening to Destroyer now - great band (guy). Studio live on You tube. Varying but lots of fine material on cd.
I agree, finding a very dynamic cd is great fun. Or at least some tracks on a cd. But most important for me is no distortion and other artefacts that gives me headache (I mostly listen loud). I also appreciate very clear recordings with lots of details and separation between the soundsources. And you wouldn't want to listen to live drums 10 feets away from you for a longer time - would you? |
@n80 & @gosta,
I just finished my first listen to "Half Mile Harvest". Extremely enjoyable, very good at first and gets better as the (lp) goes along. Not one dud. AsI said, (my first listen), I thought side one was half notch below side two in SQ but will listen again.
They seem to be one of the many bands of this type music that have been making a resurgence in the last few years.....St Paul & the Broken Bones, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, and The Marcus King Band to name a few. Love it!
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MIckey Katz live at the Fillmore!i |
Jon Batiste
Hollywood Africans |
Some 2018 favorites in random order (I always have too many): 1) Last Night All My Dreams Came True - Wild Beasts, 2) What A Time To Be Alive - Superchunk, 3) Record - Tracey Thorn, 4) America Utopia - David Byrne, 5) I'll Be Your Girl - The Decemberists, 6) The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs - Wye Oak, 7) 7 - Beach House, 8) Part Of The Light - Ray LaMontagne, 9) Call The Comet - Johnny Marr, 10) Hope Downs - Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, 11) Tell Me How You Really Feel - Courtney Burnett, 12) Lamp Lit Prose - Dirty Projectors, 13) Living In Extraordinary Times - James, 14) As I Fell - Curse Of Lono, 15) Negro Swan - Blood Orange
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Thanks for contributing oldbear! |
oldbear
nice list! We still have a few days to go prior to closing out 2018.
Happy Listening! |
The new Perfect Circle offering Eat the Elephant is quite good. Most reviews on Amazon by fans said it gets better with each listen but I liked it right away. Perfect Circle is finally finding their own sound after being in the shadow of Tool. |
Jim Lauderdale "Time Flies"
Sarah Shook & The Disarmers "Years"
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Alejandro Escovedo "The Crossing"! |
I only knew of Alejandro Escovedo by his song Castanets. Awesome song. And to be honest, when I heard how bad his health was years ago I assumed he had passed away. Thanks for the reference. I'll spend some time with some of his newer stuff. |
@n80,
Actually his debut "Gravity" is one hell of a record that you shouldn't pass over.
…………………………………………………..
Jeremy Messersmith "Late Stage Capitalism". I don't recall anyone but me ever mentioning this artist. I'm making a new classification for him...alternative pop. The record is extremely well recorded. Give it a chance.
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Johnathan Wilson "Rare Birds" |
slaw
it has been another wonderful year for excellent releases. Here's to winding out 2018, looking forward to 2019.
Happy Listening! |
Myles Kennedy “Year of the Tiger” |
Judas Priest - Firepower ( a strong effort from these Metal veterans).
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@jafant,
IMO, this has been the best year overall for music in recent memory.
I'm looking for great things in 2019.
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slawThank You! for running such an excellent thread. 2018 has been another banner year for new releases and re-issues. I am ready for 2019 as well.
Happy New Year's Eve.
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@slaw and @jafant, SO agree! I haven’t heard a word about it, but I sure hope 2019 sees Capitol Records doing the same for The Bands’ 1969 2nd album (the "brown") as they did in ’18 for their 1968 Music from Big Pink debut---a deluxe boxset reissue. My two favorite albums! |
