Music Reviews

Back in September 2002, I interviewed Michael Tilson Thomas about the launch of a bold new project with the San Francisco Symphony: a complete cycle of the Mahler symphonies to be released on hybrid multichannel SACD via the orchestra’s fledgling in-house label, SFS Media. At the time, Thomas already had clearly formed ideas about the sound he wanted:

My current favorite all-format album is the Raveonettes' Raven in the Grave (Vice), which sounds smoky-fab whether I'm listening to it via CD, MP3, or LP. I asked Raveonettes co-founder Sune Rose Wagner, 38, how the band (Wagner and co-conspirator Sharin Foo) corrals the backbeat for its 21st-century-cool Wall of Sound. Read on for his answers (and for a listen to "Forget That You're Young," a track from the new album.)

Battles turned quite a few heads with 2007’s Mirrored. Like Tortoise, the band took experimental prog rock and made it cool for the lo-fi/postpunk set.

Consider the dense, multi-layered, centuries-old, and sometimes impenetrable culture of New Orleans — especially in the months just after Hurricane 

Hard Bargain features the trio of Emmylou Harris, producer Jay Joyce, and multi-instrumentalist Giles Reaves alone in the studio. However, this isn’t a rustic, back-to-basics album. Rather, it has a pleasantly lush sound, made with the complete understanding that people come to hear Harris sing.

How much do I love reissues? Let me count the ways. Well, let me NOT do that, else I’ll never get around to the subject at hand…

Anyway, this is the first in a regular series of postings about cool reissues that are coming down the pike — or ones that have already come down the pike and may have passed you by.

For Richard X. Heyman, a pop savant rooted in the fertile loam of the Sixties, the first disc of his new double album is quite literally a labor of love. He takes pains to note that Tiers isn’t a rock opera, but rather a pop opera — or “popera,” for short.