This CD is a recent release by a wild and crazy Montreal-based folk punk group, that I learned about from our local musical-literary-theatrical-comedic-social justice guru Geoff Berner. Their music harkens back to the underground cultures of Eastern Europe between WW1 and WW2 and mixes Klezmer, Rebetika, Romani, and other folk dance music traditions. Their main power comes from a dynamic [...]

Chicago has been the birthplace of so much crucial music that it deserves to be treated with the same respect we give to New Orleans, as a wellspring of those diverse unique voices that could only be American. I now realize that the ranks of people quintessential to this music includes (multi-instrumentalist, composer, actor, tap dancer, director, etc !!!) Idris [...]

In what we hope will be the first of many posthumous releases from the Prince estate, “Prince - Piano & A Microphone 1983” gives us a stripped-down stark window into the artist's monumental talent and imagination. Recorded between his 5th album “1999” and his breakthrough 6th “Purple Rain” this intimate set brings the listener into a studio, where it is [...]

Jazz Iconoclast and guitar hero Marc Ribot’s new record (Songs of Resistance 1942 - 2018) is simultaneously one of the most culturally diverse, yet powerfully focussed, collections of music you will ever find. The cultural diversity is represented by the presence of artists such as Tom Waits, Steve Earle, Meshell Ndegeocello, Tift Merritt, Syd Straw, Ohene Corneliuo, and Domenica Fossati. [...]

Peggy Lee and her ten piece band of Vancouver instrumental stalwarts have made a record for the ages. Walking the same inspiring path as Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, this band has found the beautiful spaces between jazz, folk and soundtrack music. Amongst the soaring saxophones, trumpet, violin, and pedal steel - and of course the leader's soulful cello - [...]