Music Review: The Creation, Action Painting

By Melissa Bratcher

How is it that we don’t speak of The Creation in the same reverent tones as The Kinks, The Stones, and The Who? They made seemingly commercial, well-written songs with appealing melodies, and  they were produced by Shel Talmy, who produced and arranged tracks by The Kinks and The Who. Guitarist Eddie Phillips ostensibly created guitar bowing (playing guitar with a violin bow), but Jimmy Page isn’t sending him royalty checks. They had a stage show that would incite fervor; they had the right look; they had the crunchy, chunky sounds that epitomized a very specific era of British rock. And yet, and yet, they’re maybe a footnote in rock history.
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Music Review: Various Artists, Afterschool Special: The 123s Of Kid Soul

By Melissa Bratcher

Have you ever listened to an album that is so charming that you just can’t bear it? I have. The fine folks at Numero Group have added to their considerable catalogue of genius compilations with Afterschool Special: The 123s of Kid Soul. Think: bubblegum pop + funk = sheer delight. Think: the Jackson 5. Think: infectious beats, voices so sweet you just want to curl into a ball and giggle, and true love. It’s hard for me to be objective; it’s so darling.
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Music Review: Wayfaring Strangers: Cosmic American Music

By Melissa Bratcher

You can always rely on Numero Group to unearth incredible, forgotten music. You know that music: the kind of stuff you pick up in a flea market because it costs a quarter and has a cover with a lady sporting huge hair and a necklace made of spoons. The kind of albums that were perhaps self-released or on the tiniest label. Hidden gems, for sure.

Numero’s newest compilation, Wayfaring Strangers: Cosmic American Music is a trip through the cut-out bins. Here are tracks that, despite not being breakthroughs for the artists, still have merit. It’s Americana, and it’s indie as anything. Maybe the artists weren’t signed to a big label. Maybe they made the record in one of those booths at a fair. Maybe they had a song that they really needed to record for serious reasons.

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Music Review: The Edge of Daybreak, Eyes of Love

By Tyler Hodg

The apocryphal story of The Edge of Daybreak’s 1979 album, Eyes of Love, is one worth telling. Recorded in a Virginia penitentiary, the band was comprised of inmates—who committed crimes ranging from assault to armed robbery—all with a common love for soul music. The tapes were shipped out to a local record company who released the music to those on the outside. Eyes of Love wasn’t a massive success by any means, but its mythological presence is intriguing nonetheless. Thanks to a re-release, The Edge of Daybreak’s music lives on.

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Music Review: Royal Jesters: English Oldies

By Melissa Bratcher

Chicago-based Numero Group wants to fill your summer with eclectic songs you’ve never heard: songs to watch submarine races by, songs to fill your tear ducts, songs to catch that first kiss on the dance floor, songs that make you need to get up and shake that thing. Their latest carefully curated reissue is a 28-track collection by San Antonio’s the Royal Jesters. Active in the 1960s and ‘70s, the Royal Jesters never had that big breakthrough hit, but their marriage of doo wop harmonies and mariachi horn sensibilities, as well as some fine, sometimes wildly experimental organ playing makes this compilation, Royal Jesters: English Oldies, well worth a listen.

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Music Review: Various Artists, Ork: Box

By Less Lee Moore

Rock and roll is nothing if not incestuous. Everyone likes to talk about who stole from whom (or if you’re less curmudgeonly, who influenced whom), but when music scenes are small, close-knit, and under the radar, such through lines are nearly impossible to pinpoint.

And so it is with the Ork Records Ork: Box, out on Record Store Day 2015, from the always-impressive Numero Records. You might wonder how bands as seemingly disparate as The dB’s, Television, Mick Farren, Link Cromwell (a.k.a. Lenny Kaye), and Cheetah Chrome would nestle so snugly together, but one listen to this dazzling collection of singles will dissuade any doubt. What’s even more remarkable is that the tracks are arranged in chronological order but play like the most cohesive mix tape ever.

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Music Review: Lows In The Mid Sixties, Volume 54: Kosmic City Part 2

By Melissa Bratcher

Who doesn’t love Record Store Day? Piles of picture discs, odd singles, repressings of things you’ve always wanted but couldn’t shell out the car payment-prices for on Ebay. Numbero (an offshoot label of the amazing Numero Group) is releasing Lows In The Mid Sixties, Volume 54: Kosmic City Part 2, on vinyl for Record Store Day 2015, and it is . . . odd.

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Music Review: Various Artists, South Side Story Vol. 23

By Less Lee Moore

It’s always a challenge to step out of your comfort zone.

Although I certainly enjoy my share of R&B and Soul music, I would never claim to be an expert. This made Numero Group’s soul compilation South Side Story Vol. 23 all the more interesting, especially with the release’s lack of liner notes. A PR rep referred to it as a “cool mix tape,” and that’s an apt description. Mix tapes were always a labor of love, with homemade artwork and only the band names and song titles included. South Side Story is definitely a labor of love for the Chicago-based label who included relative unknowns in the soul genre, at least unknown to those outside of the Chicago area. This required a lot of digging on the Internet, and unsurprisingly, there was not a wealth of information found, although thanks to soul fanatics and collectors, I managed to find some information on each performer included.

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Music Review: Unwound, Rat Conspiracy (box set)

By Pres. Bystander

Unwound’s output from 1993 and 1994 is built on contradiction. Hyperactivity and hyperfocus in equal measure. It is the sound of deeply ADHD kids who alternately forgot to take their pills, took too big a dose, or self-medicated themselves into a stupor. This is the sound of blast-off, free fall, weightlessness, and submersion. Tension colors every corner, as does suffocation and kicking against the heavy blanket that covers.

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Music Review: Various Artists, Warfaring Strangers: Darkscorch Canticles

By Jeffery X Martin

The earth is scorched and jagged, and at night the wolves come. The Christian gods have come to battle the Elder gods for supremacy, but that war has yet to be won. Every move could be your last, for the land is beset with traps. This is a land of magick and superstition. This is where the arcane is commonplace. This is a land filled with thieves and sorcerers, warriors and demons. This is the 1970s.

This is the strange world of Warfaring Strangers: Darkscorch Canticles, a collection of 16 rock and roll songs, plucked from the dank dungeons of obscurity by record label Numero Group. Every song is based in a quasi-Tolkienesque fantasy world, easily recognizable to anyone familiar with Dungeons & Dragons or other such tabletop games. In fact, the double vinyl edition comes with its own RPG called “Cities of Darkscorch.”

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