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MICHAEL PATRICK BRADY
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Domino (2010)
If you didn’t know any better, you might think that Your Future Our Clutter is a recording of a raving old lunatic heckling a very solid instrumental band.
Bedroom Community
Sam Amidon is fascinated with the songbook of old Americana, and his radical yet tasteful reimaginings of traditional folk ballads and hymns breathe new life into a form often seen as quaint and old-fashioned.
Sargent House (2010)
Post-rock bands are like silent-film actors — bereft of words, they tend to use broad gestures to ensure that you get the point.
Domino (2010)
Hidden is a real UK horror show, mixing grim, industrial beats with mannered, regal horns and a persistent aura of foggy uneasiness. These New Puritans reveal a penchant for æsthetic violence and revolutionary action that, though rarely convincing, matches the uncompromising intensity and martial tenor of the music.
Brassland (2010)
Fusion experimenters Clogs take a modern approach to folk-flavored chamber music.
Thrill Jockey (2010)
Pit Er Pat, the minimalist duo of Fay Davis-Jeffers and the dubiously named Butchy Fuego, have pared down their sound in search of simple beauty, but the result is an icy album utterly lacking in energy.
RJ's Electrical Connections (2010)
RJD2 has fallen prey to self-doubt — having decided, it would seem, that sample-based music lacks authenticity, he's embarked on an ill-advised attempt to become a "performer."
Thrill Jockey
Trans Am are distillers of guilty pleasures, mixing fat AOR riffs with sleazy electronic accents and a propulsive attitude typically reserved for arcade soundtracks. What Day Is It Tonight? covers the DC-area band’s 20-year history with high-quality, high-energy live cuts taken from their many tours.
Temporary Residence (2009)
Formed in sunny San Diego, the Black Heart Procession write the kind of gloomy, downcast dirges you'd expect from less hospitable climates.
Iamsound (2009)
A big band with a big sound, Los Angeles-based Fool’s Gold come off as self-consciously cosmopolitan.
Asthmatic Kitty (2009)
Although based in a rustic, country-western sound, Ray Raposa's Castanets are irreverent, using familiar elements like pedal-steel guitars and gospel choruses in defiant ways.
Domino (2009)
It would be easy to overuse singer Hayden Thorpe's ebullient falsetto and dilute its campy majesty. Wild Beasts, a dreamy English quartet with a penchant for licentious lyrics and showy flourishes, know better.
Matador (2009)
Yo La Tengo are articulate, thoughtful purveyors of highbrow pop.
Guided By Voices Inc. (2009)
Pollard doesn't care whether you listen to his music. The entire world could be rendered deaf and he'd still put out a half-dozen albums a year, driven by a need to express the twisted melodies and schizophasic lyrics that clutter his brain.
Sub Pop (2009)
Billy Joel told us that the future of Allentown was bleak, but he could never have predicted that out of the decaying Pennsylvania steel mills and a crumbling economy, a sound as ugly and exciting as Pissed Jeans would emerge.
Ipecac (2009)
After a quarter-century of punishing, hyper-rhythmic acrobatics, drummer Tatsuya Yoshida has taken a sharp detour.
Hidden Agenda (2009)
Despite a solid roster of Chicago underground vets, the Horse's Ha fail to show signs of life on what proves to be a sleepy album of wispy folk.
Matador (2009)
This is Sonic Youth's first release on Matador Records, a retirement home for long-in-the-tooth indie-rockers, after two decades of major-label albums and one celebrity-curated Starbucks hits compilation.
Dead Oceans (2009)
Known for their anarchic live jams and percussive psych-folk, Akron/Family have shed their burly beats in favor of a more digestible, blissed-out flavor.
Karaoke Kalk (2009)
Takeo Toyama's song experiments here run the gamut from sublime to unsettling. The first half offers mannered, consonant melodies.
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