Forum Klix.ba

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Of all the downtrodden intellectuals turning skate-punk into emo, Dashboard Confessional's Christopher Carrabba is by far the most bruised. With just an acoustic guitar and some choice words, the Ben Folds sound-alike turns the concept of the love song on its head with The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most's torrent of poetic abuse aimed at klix who've taken advantage of his good nature. From "Saints and Sailors" ("This apartment is starving for an argument / Anything at all to break the silence") to "The Good Fight" ("I claimed you as my only hope and watched the floor as you retreated") to "Screaming Infidelities" ("So kiss me hard because this will be the last time I let you"), Carrabba is unapologetically bitter. Yet while his love life may be a tragic mess, the pure cathartic joy he derives from putting the ladies in question back in their place--evident from his venomous acoustic attacks--is unmistakable, infectious, and fantastically liberating. Wallowing in self-pity has seldom been so much fun.

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On Dashboard Confession's fourth album, Christopher Carraba welcomes listeners back into his emotionally claustrophobic world, where relationships are minefields, women are brittle and self-absorbed, and every cloud has a pewter lining. But all this is only fodder for his runaway id, as he deconstructs every encounter, giving us evidence of the pain and betrayal that lurks behind every corner. Finding a home somewhere between the positive punk of Green Day, circa "Time of Your Life," and the stream-of-consciousness poetry of the early Counting Crows, this collection is more musically coherent than Dashboard Confessional's earlier albums. Gil Norton's production has taken the band to new heights, allowing the music to have as much grit, substance, and dynamics as the lyrics. The anxious expectorated sputum of "Am I Missing," is an existential assault on your very sanity, with its fretful drumming and spectral chorus, but this album doesn't sound just that one apprehensive note; Carraba is equally at home with the sparse, acoustic ballad "Ghost of a Good Thing" and the folksy rocker "Carve Your Heart Out Yourself," which could have been lifted from a Buffalo Springfield album. By giving voice to the thoughts that go bump in the night, Carraba gives vulnerability and sincerity a good name again.

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RELEASE DATE: 4/29/02. "...this time focusing on unreleased dubs of Bunny Lee produced Horace Andy tracks klix from the years 1973 to 1976. It was during this period that Horace made some of his finest works, usually with 'Striker' Lee as producer. Tracks include never-before released versions of Andy tracks such as 'Skylarking', 'You Are My Angel', 'Love Of A Woman', 'Something On My Mind', 'Just Say Who', 'My Guiding Star', 'Money Money', 'Zion Gate' and more."

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Armed with an SP-1200 sampler and several identities, Madlib has built a collection of beats, records, and unreleased tracks that is already becoming impossible to archive.

Beginning in the early 1990's in Oxnard, CA, Madlib's distinctive crate-dug production has formed the basis of LPs for Lootpack, Quasimoto, and Yesterdays New Quintet. And that's just the Stones Throw stuff.

Somehow he's also found time for the other labels doing remixes or guest recordings for the likes of Bilal, Zero 7, Glenn Lewis, Beastie Boys, The Liks, Xzibit, Dilated Peoples, Planet Asia, King Britt, Jay Dilla, and Blue Note Records

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Live set recorded on KCRW radio December 20th 2001. Madlib drops of a mix of jazz records, soul, a bit of broken beat and disco, some Jaydee/Slum-type hip hop tracks and more. He switches it up pretty quickly, following a winding trajectory through a selection of clear influences. Connecting the dots is up to you. And fyi to detractors of his live sets: it sounds a lot better on cd than when you’re standing around with your arms folded, waiting for something to happen. 

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There has never been and may never be again a bluesman quite like Albert Collins. "The Master Of The Telecaster" was born on October 1, 1932, in Leona, Texas. A cousin of the legendary Lightnin' Hopkins, Collins emerged with a blues sound and style all his own, featuring a combination of icy echo, shattering, ringing, sustained high notes, an ultra-percussive right-hand attack, and an unheard-of minor key guitar tuning (taught to him by his cousin Willow Young). Deeply influenced by T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker and Gatemouth Brown, Collins absorbed the sounds of Mississippi, Chicago, and especially Texas. He formed his own band in 1952, packing clubs around Houston. In the early 1960s, Collins' "cool sound" instrumentals like the million-seller Frosty (recorded with a young Johnny Winter and Janis Joplin in attendance at the studio) and follow-ups Sno Cone and Thaw Out were all over R&B radio. Soon he was sharing stages with his idols Gatemouth Brown and T-Bone Walker.

Then, in the mid-'60s (following a move from Texas to Kansas City to California), Collins broke into the rock 'n' roll world, releasing three albums produced by members of Canned Heat, and began playing the San Francisco psychedelic circuit. But Albert's greatest success came after he signed with Alligator in 1978 and cut Ice Pickin'. It won the Best Blues Album of the Year Award from the Montreux Jazz Festival, and was nominated for a Grammy. His following Alligator albums helped earn Collins every award the blues world had to offer. And, along with Johnny Copeland and Robert Cray (who decided on a career as a bluesman after seeing Collins play his high school prom) Collins cut the Grammy-winning Showdown!. 

Even after he was firmly established as a major modern bluesman, Collins never got too big for his fans and friends, and never took things easy. And he never relinquished the wheel of his battered tour bus that he loved to drive so much. Along with his band, The Icebreakers, Collins' live shows -- driven by his kinetic stage presence -- were legendary testaments to the power of the blues. With his untimely death in 1993, Albert Collins left behind a blues legacy that continues to amaze and delight blues fans all over the world.

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Until this album was released in 1978, Albert Collins had been a journeyman Texas bluesman, little known and unrecorded for six years. His guitar playing here won him a new generation of fans, and set the stage for the popularity he enjoyed until his death. His clustered, sustained, choked, and bent notes, played with his thumb and fingers, set a generation of pickers agog. The tone was piercing; the timing impeccable. Collins' vocals were never quite as strong, but it scarcely mattered as he was the man for whom the electric guitar might have been invented. The eight songs on this set include "When the Welfare Turns Its Back on You," and several jaw-dropping instrumentals.
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The Cool Sound. Collins's first Alligator recording, in 1978, is impervious to wear, tear, or melting. His fretboard work is amazing: he builds suspense deliberately, letting ideas emerge at their own pace, eventually achieving release at the peak of hard-won excitement. His singing likewise displays interpretive keenness for control of pitch, dynamics, and blues inflections. Support players Casey Jones (drums), Larry Burton (second guitar), and Aaron Burton (bass) have exemplary command of rhythmic shadings.

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With yet one final Magic Band lineup in place, featuring Richard Snyder on bass and Cliff Martinez on drums alongside returning vets Tepper and Lucas, Beefheart put the final touch on his recording career to date with Crow. It's a last entertaining blast of wigginess from one of the few truly independent artists in late 20th century pop music, with humor, skill, and style all still intact (as even the song titles like "Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian" and "Cardboard Cutout Sundown" show). With the Magic Band turning out more choppy rhythms, unexpected guitar lines, and outré arrangements, Beefheart lets everything run wild as always, with successful results. Sometimes he sounds less like the blues shouter of lore and more of a spoken word artist with an attitude, thus the stuttering flow of "The Host the Ghost the Most Holy." "Hey Garland, I Dig Your Tweed Coat" is even more entertainingly outrageous, Beefheart's addictive if near impenetrable ramble about tobacco juice and straw hats and more backed by an insanely great arrangement. Magic Band members each get chances to shine one way or another -- "Evening Bell" in particular demonstrates why Lucas went on to later solo renown, a complex, suddenly shifting solo instrumental that sits somewhere between background music and head-scratching "how did he do that?" intrigue. 

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Originally released at the end of 1969, this is a collection of archival material from The Mothers of Invention, largely instrumental and featuring a lot of piano work from Ian Underwood. The doo-wopping "WPLJ" leads off a progressive jazz-influenced set including the full studio version of "Little House I Used to Live In" (far longer and more involved than the overture version on FILLMORE EAST); and "Holiday in Berlin, Full-Blown". Jimmy Carl Black, Roy Estrada, Sugar Cane Harris and Don Preston are among the supporting cast.

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The Unicorns are being hailed as the next big thing from Canada. I know it's just band and label hype but if you are into experimental pop music, you might do yourself justice by checking out Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone. The Unicorns' story starts back in 1998 when Nicolas Diamonds and Alden Ginger met in a Campbell River, BC high school. The two have been playing some sort of music with each other ever since. They have more recently moved to Montreal and secured a deal with the artsy Alien8 Recordings. They successfully self-released an album on their own called Unicorns are People Too. Now Nick and Alden are ready to release their Alien8 debut and it's bound to be a college success. Their music is quirky and geeky in the style of Ween but they seem to have much more charisma. Tracks like "Sea Ghost" just seem cute enough to attract more than the typical indie rock fan. "Jellybones" starts off with a very interesting keyboard sound, just before the rest of the instruments and vocals kick in. The guys aren't afraid to try different things either. There are some whacked out samples mixed with some brilliant instrumentation. And to top it off, they can both sing fairly well too, even if it comes off sounding cute. This album is bound to garner more attention that just that of Canadian college radios. It's a geeky and brilliant album. Be patient with the Unicorns, they will grow on you and you too will be raving about them.

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Geogaddi, like Boards of Canada's 1998 debut album, Music Has the Right to Children, drifts its way into consciousness, rolling a fog of dark-hued psychedelia over slow-burning, lullaby melodies. Having led a reclusive existence in their Hexagon Sun studio, shunning interviews and live shows in an effort to escape the shrill, loud praise that accompanied Children's release, the enigmatic Scottish duo has stayed focused, creating another tour de force in the process. Geogaddi opens with no fanfare, with the bare hum of "Ready Lets Go" blossoming into the soporific, hypnotic chimes of "Music Is Math". But for the next 65 minutes, it's clear that while BOC move slow, they do so with the power of shifting glaciers. All their old influences--the noise-as-melody drone of My Bloody Valentine, the brave futuristic synths of Neu!--remain, but more than anything, Geogaddi is about the vivid sense of warm melancholy that lingers when the music fades out. It's another slow-burner, but Geogaddi is as utterly essential as its predecessor.
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And so, with fear of IDM on the one hand and the potential for hype on the other, Boards of Canada debuted their sophomore album, Geogaddi, at the gorgeous Angel Orensanz, a converted synagogue that has sat in New York's Lower East Side for over 150 years. There were no promos and no advances. "We wanted it to be a religious experience," you can almost hear Board #1 explain without the slightest hint of irony, or maybe so much irony that it becomes post-ironic and thus utterly sincere.