Back in 2008, Neon Neon (the collaboration between Boom Bip and Gruff Rhys from Super Furry Animals ) released a brilliant LP called Stainless Style - a concept album about the American engineer and famous automobile industry executive, John DeLorean . It was one of my favourite albums that year and had critics slathering praise upon it. Now (seemingly out of nowhere - either [...]
A week next Monday, Ghostface Killah releases his latest album, 12 Reasons to Die . The LP is a collaboration with composer and producer Adrian Younge and is billed as "a daring, full-length crime / horror concept album". Younge produced the score for 2009 blaxplotation spoof, Black Dynamite and his work feeds off a love of late 1960s and early 1970s psychedelic soul. Which seems an ideal fit. [...]
Here's one I can't believe I haven't heard before. For a record with such a commanding presence, excellent would-be classic tunes, and an ahead of its time Nirvanesque sound it's a shock I can find too scant mention of it around these parts or elsewhere. In reality, it's my shame I haven't run across the Groundhogs before now, as their legendary run through most of the 60s' British blues scene and subsequent forays in hard jam-rock are not to be overlooked. Not at all "blues" and too cool for the prog tag, Split is [...]
"It's a hideous record", Rivers Cuomo said about Pinkerton , probably one of the most famous rags to riches concept album stories in recent history, even the album's creator couldn't stomach it! Named after the character from Puccini's 1904 opera Madame Butterfly it was a commercial, critical and personal disaster for the band, who at the time were riding on the back of the commercial accessibility of The Blue Album . BF Pinkerton was in Weezer main main Cuomo's mind "an asshole American sailor similar to a touring rock star" and so was "the [...]
Technically speaking, Bo Hansson's Ur Trollkarlens Hatt (on English editions: Magician's Hat ) comes from the same Swedish music scene as the International Harvester record covered a few weeks back. Around the time that Bo Anders Persson was breaking down artistic and political barriers with said troupe of psychedelic renegades, Hansson was serving as one half of the musical duo Hansson and Karlsson, dropping heavy waves into the European music scene and eventually collaborating with Jimi Hendrix (who would go on to record a version of their song “Tax Free,” released on his posthumous record [...]
Icarus: Conan The Barbarian [Purchase] 40 years before Disney bought Marvel for $4 Billion, a British prog rock band called Icarus released a tribute album to the great superheroes of Marvel Comics. So you have songs called "Spiderman", "Thor", "Captain America" and "Conan The Barbarian". The lyrics are a bit over the top for the most part --though I like "Hulk"'s chorus: Hulk is on the rampage/ [...]
Speaking to HipHopSite.com recently, Prince Paul described his latest concept album/project Negroes On Ice thusly, "The concept is kinda like a day in the life of my son - obviously it’s highly exaggerated, it’s more or less like a story that builds into music and goes into the story - almost like A Prince Among Thieves but this is more like a one man show type of thing where he kinda gets up and just tells everything about what [...]
The name David Wiffen may or may not ring a bell, but to anyone with an interest in 1970s folk rock I can promise that at least one of his songs will. His material has seen quite a bit of mileage in other performers' repertoires, and through them a small handful have even filtered up into popular consciousness. Tom Rush and The Byrds both threw their individual spins on “Driving Wheel,” Eric Andersen recorded “More Often Than Not” on his doomed-romantic classic Blue River , and calypso crooner Harry Belafonte rather unexpectedly included both “One Step” and the self-referential “Mister Wiffen” on his 1973 record [...]
I'm a bit late on keeping you updated with Icons of Andria 's latest addition to their ongoing story of the android. The latest entry to the sci-fi concept series is Land of Relics. The new song seems to take place far into the future, with Andria looking back upon long ago memories of her and the boy from the previous installments. Has the entire tale turned out to be a flashback all along? This story keeps getting more intriguing and mysterious with each new release. To catch up on the previous songs that make up the story of [...]
Modern progressive rock band Coheed and Cambria ’s upcoming sixth studio album will be a double concept album entitled The Afterman , which will be released in two separate full-length volumes. The band made the announcement today via a cinematic video trailer on their official website. Watch the trailer here: The first volume, The Afterman: Ascension , will be available on both physical and digital platforms October 8, [...]
Once upon a time, I said " half of the time, I'd rather be posting about Peter Gabriel instead of some of the features that I throw up on here." Well, if there's no new Peter Gabriel, the next best thing is featuring someone who appreciates his music as much as I do. I've wondered for the longest time, how come you never hear of any bands sourcing Peter Gabriel as a major inspiration? The man influenced so many different styles of music, I find it hard to believe that nobody ever [...]
Masta Ace - Acknowledge from Disposable Arts Masta Ace hails from Brooooooooooooklyn and has been killing it for decades. His 2001 album Disposable Arts is a concept album, which chronicles Ace’s flight from the hood to the Institute of Disposable Arts in Up-State New York and the "regular" developments back home. It is one of my favorite albums of all time because of the nearly seamless narrative about life in the hood while satirizing higher education in America. The album is packed [...]
Following on from the brilliant local release show in Phoenix, Hidden Shoal is excited to announce CD pre-orders and digital downloads are now available for Will The Soft Curse Plague On? , the Scott Solter produced debut album by Arizona's sonic adventurers Wizards Of Time . Wizards Of Time deftly unleash technicolour art-rock like lightning bolts from their nimble fingers. Progressive without being prog and pop without being pap, the Wizards’ debut release Will The Soft Curse Plague On? is a staggering and unique concept album that weaves a universe-enveloping [...]
Ok. Here's a pretty awesome project that everybody can get excited about. Icons of Andria is the collaboration of musicians Rodney Sellars, Ken Negrete, and Fabiola Sanchez creating a sci-fi, concept album. As each song is completed, it is uploaded to Soundcloud with its own custom artwork that starts off as a line drawing, and after a certain amount of plays, gets a colorized treatment. Icons of Andria's music consists of great storytelling, essential to a concept album, that is made even better thanks to some gorgeous vocals. The best recommendation that I can give is to just listen to [...]
I spent two whole days listening to MewithoutYou’s latest record. It’s not that I loved the album. It’s just what I do when I’m reviewing a record. I’ll hit play and listen intently. I’ll replay it in the background while I clean the house. I’ll listen to it through my headphones while I walk to the bodega or the post office. Usually, I’ll go through their older albums once or twice to put it in perspective. It’s all part of my process. And after all that, I’ll write the review. So here we are, about 48 [...]
It wasn’t strictly necessary to be a musician to be a member of Hawkwind, the proto-punk space-rock commune from Notting Hill; longtime associate Stacia’s contribution consisted of stripping nude, painting herself blue and gyrating energetically to the rhythms. Robert Calvert’s efforts were a little more artistically substantial: he was an established poet and playwright who featured at intervals during the 1970s as the band’s lyricist and singer. His first “solo” album was originally conceived as a stage play, but in the pilled-out experimental spirit of the times, and with the willing assistance of most of Hawkwind’s musicians and some suitably [...]
Described in the CD liner notes as “a psychedelic concept album based around JM Barrie’s famous tale Peter Pan ”, but in reality equal parts toytown-psych confection, twisted sunshine-pop song suite and wannabe stage musical, this curiosity from 1969 fails to convince as any one of these whilst exuding a homespun and totally unique charm that works if you don’t take it too seriously. Certainly I’ve found nothing else like it, apart perhaps from Mark Wirtz’s unfinished and unreleased Teenage Opera from three years previously which shares its guileless naivité. The blurb goes [...]
Bill Fay's is a name that has crept back into the underground consciousness in recent years due to some unexpected word-of-mouth publicity which has culminated in a series of commendable reissues of the artist's work. Going into Time of the Last Persecution , however, I was unaware of such recent windfalls and totally unprepared for what I was delving into save for having read a record store tag-line which compared him to Ray Davies and Bob Dylan, or something along those lines. Sounded like hype of the highest order, but I was willing to take a chance; it was [...]
NPR First Listen: The Roots' "undun" : Attention readers! The legendary Roots crew have returned with their new concept album undun , streaming over on NPR.org and out in stores on December 6th. From the small clips they’ve posted so far as well as the full version of “Make My” with Big K.R.I.T. , I have a hunch that this one is going to knock it out of the park…..although they almost always do that anyways. If you’re a fan of Black Star ( who also have [...]
Last month, found-sound experimentalist, Matthew Herbert recorded a concept album called One Pig . The album spliced together audio snippets from a single pig's life, from birth to the butcher - and as you can imagine it's a very peculiar listen (to say the least). August 2010 , is one of the more sombre songs from the album and its opening moments are those of pork in pan, and then the sounds of the pork being eaten. [...]
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