(Originally appeared on my blog at: http://quartertonality.com/2011/02/08/album-review-colin-stetson-new-history-warfare-vol-2-judges/ visit for audio samples)

Colin Stetson is a saxophonist that is clearly out of his mind.

Sax players, in my experience, are a divided lot. They usually either stay on the side of jazz or classical and never the twain shall meet. More accurately, they will stick with party lines and immediately show their loyalty to their chosen side by hating the other group with every ounce of expendable energy that they have. This means that any energy that is left over after obsessive study of all things saxophone is dedicated to speaking…

(Originally appeared on my blog: http://quartertonality.com/2011/02/04/album-review-chikita-violenta-tre3s/)

Chikita Violenta is a Mexican indie rock band that is trying to make waves in a very crowded scene right now. They have the sound and the songs and, mostly, the production backing them up. Unfortunately they are about 6 years behind the times in their efforts making this album sound nearly exactly like what Broken Social Scene was doing back in 2005 with their self-titled release.

It’s not just the sound itself that reminds me of the Broken Social Scene album, or that the same sort of spirit is captured on this album;…

(Originally appeared on my blog at: http://quartertonality.com/2011/02/03/album-review-deerhoof-deerhoof-vs-evil/)

Deerhoof, the ultra-quirky indie math rock/pop/irony heavy band is back with an album cheekily titled “Deerhoof Vs. Evil”.

To me Deerhoof is a band that I am constantly curious about. They seem to be combining things that one wouldn’t necessarily think go together. To me they are a study in opposites. Their singer - a tiny Japanese woman with a super-cute (almost too cute) high pitched vocal style - is backed by an at times very heavy hitting team of guitars and drums that explore disjunct math…

(Originally appeared on my blog: http://quartertonality.com/2011/02/02/album-review-sonic-youth-syr-9-simon-werner-a-disparu/)

I should start this post with a full disclosure: I am just about the biggest fan of Sonic Youth that there can be. This is not to say that I instantly love everything that they do. Even I can admit that NYC Ghosts and Flowers is a god awful album. They have been around long enough that they are allowed to have a few missteps, phases of greatness followed by brief periods of mediocrity. You definitely can’t blame them for it though, they are always willing to try something new and they are always…

(Originally posted on my blog: http://quartertonality.com/2011/02/01/album-review-the-insane-warrior-we-are-the-doorways/)

Music has the ability to take on a character of its own and often the musicians that are creating it feel that they are a different person while in the studio. This much is quite true for hip-hop producer RJD2 whose instrumental album “We Are the Doorways” was released under the moniker The Insane Warrior.

According to an entry on his blog he wants us to think of The Insane Warrior as “a completely different dude”. He even goes as far as imagining that he wanted, at one point, to create different…

(Originally posted to my blog at: http://quartertonality.com/2011/01/17/album-review-white-fence-is-growing-faith/)

For the past few years the retro-60′s sound has been featured very prominently in several albums that have made a lot of music fans stand up and take notice. Take for example Best Coast, Caribou, Deerhunter, MGMT and the list goes on. Well, all of that can stop now because White Fence has given us the peak of perfection when it comes to that retro sound.

Specifically stated White Fence’s album, “Is Growing Faith” is, at first glance, freak folk. The freakiest of freak folk. I…

(Originally appeared on my blog: http://quartertonality.com/2010/12/16/album-review-x-ray-press-uvb-76/)

Prog-rock has been around for quite a long time now. Though its roots can be traced back to jazz fusion many bands eschew those undertones in search of a new sound that still retains the complexities in the music but not so much the jazzer attitude that can come off as overly pretentious. Nobody wants to end up sounding like Yes, or (it pains me to type this…) Emerson, Lake & Palmer after all. X-Ray Press has created one of the more complex albums that holds a firm footing in the prog world,…

(Originally appeared on my blog, here: http://quartertonality.com/2010/11/30/album-review-stereolab-not-music/)

Stereolab is one of those bands where it almost seems pointless to write a review. Their fans are fiercely dedicated and almost unanimously unflagging in their enthusiasm for "The Groop". Certainly Stereolab is in a class of its own. There is no other group, or Groop even, that sounds like they do. With their latest release, "Not Music", they give us a heaping helping of electropop goodness.

http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/1010stereolab.jpg.jpg

The fact that Stereolab is in a class by itself can be seen as both a good and a bad thing. They are instantly recognizable,…

(Originally appeared on my blog, here: http://quartertonality.com/2010/11/19/album-review-pepper-rabbit-beauregard/)

Pepper Rabbit, with their most recent release, "Beauregard", have produced a stripped down, folky version of ethereal dreampop with a bit of honky-tonk barstool blues added to the mix. The music has a familiar sound that is quite inviting, like music that friends would make some evening while sitting in front of a fire. The traditional "rock band" sound has been expanded to include clarinet, trumpet, ukulele, and mandolin, all of which assist in providing the songs with the aforementioned "folk" sound. The creative instrumentation doesn't seem to…

(This post originally appeared on my blog, here: http://quartertonality.com/2010/11/08/album-review-motorifik-secret-things/)

Motorifik seem to be wasting no time with their debut album, “Secret Things”. Normally one would expect it to take a band at least a few albums to develop a unique and well formed sound. This is not the case with Motorifik, though that may be because its two members are already busy musicians. Phil Kay writes songs for and produces Working for a Nuclear Free City and Idrisse Khelifi is an accomplished French songwriter. Their talents work well together on this album which features a direct songwriting…