Music Review: Shelly Bhushan, Something Out Of Nothing

By Melissa Bratcher

With a voice as soulful as Shelly Bhushan’s, Something Out Of Nothing could have taken a straight R&B route, and she could have thrown in boatloads of melisma to impress. Instead, she’s turned in an album full of interesting, unexpected arrangements and thoughtful lyrics, and presented them with her gorgeous, versatile voice. Something Out Of Nothing is a stealth charmer.

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Music Review: Love, Poetry and Revolution – A Journey Through The British Psychedelic and Underground Scenes 1966-72

By Melissa Bratcher

In just six short years, British Psychedelic bands went from singing songs about tea to songs about witches. Love, Poetry and Revolution: A Journey Through The British Psychedelic and Underground Scenes 1966-72 is a recent three-disc boxed set that plumbs the depths of the psychedelic revolution and collects these little-heard rarities alongside thoughtful, witty liner notes from compiler David Wells. Forgoing the more easily accessible, overplayed songs, Wells gives the listener gems by bands that never landed a recording contract, or perhaps only put out one album, alongside demos and alternate takes of more familiar artists like The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and The Spencer Davis Group.

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DVD Review: ’83 US Festival, Days 1 – 3

By Melissa Bratcher

In the early 1980s, Steve Wozniak had a dream and a whole lot of money. He wanted to marry music, technology, and community, and so created the US Festival. Showcasing new technology and the best acts in current music, the community created itself in the desert (in ungodly hot conditions, because, well, desert) on Labor Day and Memorial Day weekends in both 1982 and 1983. Now, you can relive those sweaty, dusty days of 1983 in the only DVD release sanctioned by Unuson (an acronym for “Unite Us In Song”).

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Best Of 2013: Melissa Bratcher

I could strictly do a Top Ten list from the albums I’ve reviewed, but surely you’ve read all of those reviews and logged them away in a notebook with “Cool Music—Top Secret” written on the front of it and will later take that notebook to the record store (or computer; that’s okay, too) and buy things and be happy about the choices you’ve made in life.

So instead, I have a different list of things that made me happy to be a human this year, in no actual order.

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Music Review: Various Artists, It’s A Scream How Levine Does The Rhumba: The Latin-Jewish Musical Story 1940s-1980s

By Melissa Bratcher

Ruth Wallis

The Idelsohn Society For Musical Preservation has an important mission: to look at Jewish history and the Jewish experience through recorded sound. Their motto: History sounds different when you know where to start listening. With their two CD set It’s A Scream How Levine Does The Rhumba: The Latin-Jewish Musical Story 1940s-1980s, they have created an important document that explores the connection between Jewish and Latin music. With vast liner notes, essays, archival photos and ephemera, it is a fascinating compilation.

It’s A Scream How Levine Does The Rhumba is surprisingly varied despite its narrow scope. There are Latin artists doing Jewish songs and Jewish artists embracing Latin beats. There are novelty songs from the early 20th century, disco beats, straight-up funk, and blazing salsa tunes.

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Music Review: Cate Le Bon, Mug Museum

By Melissa Bratcher

Cate Le Bon’s newest release, Mug Museum, is like something out of a fever dream. A wild mish mash of instrumental slashes and dips, coupled with Welsh native Le Bon’s unusual, beguiling voice and curious phrasing, Mug Museum is challenging listening.

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Music Review: Buck Owens, Buck ‘Em! The Music of Buck Owens (1955-1967)

By Melissa Bratcher

A sticker on the front of the CD proudly proclaims that Buck ‘Em! The Music of Buck Owens (1955-1967) isn’t your father’s Buck Owens collection, and it certainly isn’t. The hits are here, of course, but so are alternate takes and live tracks, as well as unreleased music. For a completist (like, say, me), it’s a treasure. With voluminous, entertaining liner notes written by Buck Owens himself (culled from his upcoming autobiography, also titled Buck ‘Em) (which is pretty impressive, especially since he passed away in 2006) (which is some Tupac level of productivity right there) it’s a chronological trip through the Buck Owens catalogue, and what a catalogue it is. Buck Owens and his Buckaroos made so many records, with so many catchy songs that it amazes me that they aren’t revered in the same way as Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson.

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Music Review: Wild Child, The Runaround

By Melissa Bratcher

Wild Child’s sophomore effort, The Runaround, is one of those pleasant surprises that make listening to a band I’d never heard of so exciting. It’s a quirky, clever slice of Americana, crisply produced by Ben Kweller, and so eminently listenable, it’s been on constant rotation for a week now.

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Music Review: Perry Como, Just Out Of Reach – Rarities From Nashville Produced By Chet Atkins

By Melissa Bratcher

Some days, Sundays in particular, all I really want is the musical equivalent of a fluffy blanket and a nice cup of tea. Real Gone Music’s new Perry Como release, Just Out Of Reach—Rarities From Nashville Produced By Chet Atkins is a CD full of fluffy blankets and cups of tea: soothing and warm and pleasant.

Perry Como had a musical career for over 50 years. His natural, easy singing style served him well as he performed in a variety of vocal genres. When the British Invasion hit the US shores, though, Como went through a two-year dry period in which he didn’t record. Heads of his label, RCA, concocted a plan to alleviate that and enlisted Chet Atkins to help “smooth the edges of country music” to make it more palatable in the pop world and for Como. The result was the successful The Scene Changes, providing Como with his biggest selling album in years. Not content to rest on their laurels, RCA again joined Atkins and Como together in Nashville for another stab at country/pop crossover glory, and the result of that is Just Out Of Reach.

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DVD Review: Bob And The Monster: The Story Of Bob Forrest

By Melissa Bratcher

How does a man go from being self-described as one of the “biggest assholes ever to live” to being credited with saving numerous lives as a drug counselor? How did he go from leading L.A.’s premier “drunk rock” band to being the subject of a moving, thoughtful documentary in which music’s luminaries eulogize him warmly without him even being dead?

First, Bob Forrest did a lot of drugs. Then, he hit rock bottom. Then, he did some more drugs and had to hit rock bottom again. Eventually, he rebuilt himself into a sometimes respected, sometimes controversial addiction specialist.

Director Keirda Bahruth spent six years making Bob And The Monster, a documentary of Bob Forrest’s journey of addiction and redemption. Told with archival footage, claymation, and animation, as well as new music from Bob Forrest, it’s a touching, sometimes infuriating, and illuminating movie.

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