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Album Reviews

The Rig Rundown Crew's Favorite Albums of 2023
The Best Music of 2023 & Our Wishes for 2024 Albums

John Bohlinger, Perry Bean, and Chris Kies have a conversation about the music that made them move 'n' groove in 2023—including fresh cuts from Willie Nelson, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Isbell, Queens of the Stone Age, Sleep Token—and share their anticipation of new releases in 2024.

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Steve Albini in the control room at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago.

Photo by Kevin Tiongson

Words of wisdom from the legendary engineer, proprietor of Chicago’s Electrical Audio, World Series of Poker champion, and, in the band Shellac, the compass for brutal guitar aesthetics.

“All day every day, we’re grinding it out,” says engineer Steve Albini of his team at Electrical Audio, the Chicago studio he built and has run since 1997. “We’re constantly in session, constantly under fire.”

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The envelope-pushing former Captain Beefheart and Jeff Buckley collaborator chooses his finest performances on this kaleidoscopic 40-year retrospective.

Gary Lucas

The Essential Gary Lucas

To paraphrase Casey Kasem, Gary Lucas keeps his feet on the ground and reaches for the stars. Since emerging as part of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band in 1980, he’s honored the blues, folk, and world traditions as well as leapt into the stratosphere of jazz, art-rock, experimental, soundtrack, classical, and textural music. He’s recorded close to 50 albums as a leader or collaborator, and his instrumentals “Rise Up to Be” and “And You Will” were foundations for co-writing “Grace” and “Mojo Pin” with Jeff Buckley, when the latter was in Lucas’ band, Gods & Monsters.

Disc one features that longtime psychedelic rock outfit. The second spotlights rarities, solo performances, and songs with Beefheart, Nona Hendryx, Los Van Van, and others. The star is Lucas’ cosmic virtuosity, ripping raw down the rural backroads of acoustic 6-string or transforming Abdullah Ibrahim’s “Bra Joe From Kilimanjaro” into poetry that illuminates the entire emotional and sonic spectrum of electric guitar.

Must-hear tracks: All 36 of them

At L.A.’s Grammy Museum in 2011, Gary Lucas’ highly personal musical vision takes Abdullah Ibrahim’s “Bra Joe From Kilimanjaro” on an unpredictable sonic journey, ranging from delicate texturing to hard-edged shred. On another night, it might sound wildly different.

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Art-rockers Conrad Keely and Jason Reece make whopping orchestral waves on their 10th studio album, X: The Godless Void and Other Stories.

…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead

X: The Godless Void and Other Stories

Trail of Dead formed in 1994. I’d heard the name often but never heard them. Now that I have, there’s a lot to unpack about this epic, symphonic art-rock and its progressive accessibility. Godless Void combines post-punk angst and remarkable musicality akin to T.o.D’s own influences, Rush and Sonic Youth, and matches it with spirited urgency.

Conrad Keely and Jason Reece alternate on vocals, drums, and guitar, resulting in captivating mood changes and fascinating breakdowns. In “All Who Wander,” massive percussive tsunamis rip into wailing, down-tuned guitar arpeggios. Emotional, anthemic vocals call Morrissey to mind, and even the band’s use of synths is choice. On “Gone,” piano and cascades of guitar delay blossom over ominous industrial beats.

Speaking of crescendos, “The Opening Crescendo,” starts the journey and sets the pace for pummeling buildups and melodic reprises. Keely says the album was built around the cyclic manipulation of one musical motif. It sounds incredible.

Must-hear tracks: “All Who Wander,” “Who Haunts the Haunter”

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A gentle giant of guitar enlists Petra Haden and others to raise the standard for standards.

Bill Frisell

Harmony

When I first heard Harmony, I’d hit a rough patch and my normal diet of grooving music wasn’t cutting it. From the opening strains of the first track, “Everywhere,” I felt as if I’d stepped through the looking glass into an alternative sonic universe, one both melancholic and divine. Ah—just what I needed.

At the center of this strange brew is Petra Haden, whose beautiful, sometimes ethereal voice casts a spell across the entire album, which consists of Frisell originals, standards, and folk songs. Whether it’s Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” or “On the Street Where You Live” by Lerner and Loewe, the quartet—which includes cellist Hank Roberts and guitarist Luke Bergman, both of whom also sing—puts a fresh twist on jazz-leaning vocal ensembles. And were he still alive, I can imagine Pete Seeger wiping away a tear after hearing his “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” rendered so poignantly. Throughout Harmony, Frisell’s guitar rings like a bell, and his rich voicings recall jazz piano genius Bill Evans. Moody sounds for tumultuous times. —Andy Ellis

Must-hear tracks: “God’s Wing’d Horse,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

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