Serving up our editors’ eclectic selections from the year’s musical smorgasbord, and looking toward their most anticipated releases for 2019.
Call it a sonic smorgasbord, a recorded cornucopia, a mélange of melody, an aural abbondanza.…
Well, you get the idea. There were a lot of great recordings released in 2018. And while hip-hop and country continued to rule the charts, the electric crackle of creativity came from all corners—including our guitar-centric sector of the musical universe. Veteran artists and relative newcomers rub elbows among our editors’ picks for best albums, from country to metal to skronk to alt-rock to classic reissues to world music to dreamscape portraiture.
What’s interesting—at least to us, and hopefully to you as well—is that there is literally no overlap among our choices. Eight editors, 20 different albums. And sure, while we enjoyed and shared the experience of listening to many of the same recordings, these are the ones that found a genuine place in our hearts. Maybe some of these titles have found or will find their place in yours as well?
So read on, and we look forward to seeing your own picks for 2018, and your wish lists for 2019, in the comments section. Oh yeah … and Happy New Year!
ANDY ELLIS — SENIOR EDITOR
Exit 16
Loud, soulful, funky, hands-down cosmic steel guitar. As a member of the Lee Boys, Collier came up through the sacred steel tradition, so his lines and riffs are deeply rooted in African-American Pentecostal music. Essentially, he’s testifying with his lap and pedal steels. Instead of the clean, often carefully manicured tones favored by traditional country steelers, on this all-instrumental debut Collier uses searing, overdriven sounds to deliver his blistering, yet rhythmically nuanced phrases. Be forewarned: You can’t sit still listening to Exit 16.
Rock Bottom
Landau continues to have a stellar studio and solo career, but it was his bands Burning Water and Raging Honkies that kicked my butt in the ’90s—just when it needed kicking. On Rock Bottom, Landau reunites with Burning Water’s lead singer, David Frazee, and the results are epic. You can sense Hendrix lurking in the shadows, but Landau is always original in his approach to Strat-o-spherical tone. I’ve spent many nights this year in a large open room blasting Rock Bottom through an old-school Pioneer stereo amp and vintage Klipsch Heresy speakers. Sonic nirvana.
Music IS
If we could translate fractal images into solo guitar, I believe it would sound like Music IS. “Infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales.” Check. “Crystal growth, fluid turbulence, and galaxy formation.” Check. Armed with simple tools—a few guitars, a few pedals and amps, and a multi-track recorder—Frisell takes us on an intimate journey through the code that underlies jazz, classical, folk, roots, and rock guitar. Blending impressionistic harmony, gospel progressions, dirty thrumming tones, outer-space beeps and howls, tinkling harmonics, sultry blues licks, bubbling robotic sounds, and—above all—masterful counterpoint, the 67-year-old 6-string sensei reveals what’s right at our fingertips, waiting to be discovered.
Most-anticipated 2019 releases: Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Signs, the next album by oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros, and anything with Ben Harper.
Wish list: Bruce Cockburn, Jeff Beck.
Seasoned and wiser, one of Boston’s finest early indie bands proves it hasn’t lost its step.
Back in the not-so-distant days of the late ’80s and early ’90s, when “indie rock” was called “college rock,” a music revolution was taking place across the U.S. And, arguably, its two main epicenters were on opposite coasts in Seattle and Boston. Staggering is an understatement for the breadth of talent and sheer number of artists breaking new ground with fresh sounds emerging from the two locales.
Formed in 1986, Buffalo Tom was one of the bands to emerge from the Eastern zone. After releasing their self-titled debut in 1988—produced by J Mascis—they went on to put out seven more records, including the critically acclaimed and masterful Let Me Come Over, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year.
Buffalo Tom is back at it with their first album in seven years, Quiet and Peace, which is due out next month on March 2. Spoiler alert: It sounds like a Buffalo Tom record.
The album’s sixth track, “Lonely Fast and Deep,” is an exclusive Premier Guitar sneak peek from Quiet and Peace, and guitarist Bill Janovitz tells us it’s the first song the band wrote for the new release. “Like much of the imagery on the album, this is infused with New England seacoast flavor. I’ve been spending more time on Cape Cod these past few years, so there you go,” he says.
It’s no surprise the track and album retain classic Buffalo Tom flavor given that Janovitz recorded the basic tracks with an early ’70s Gibson SG, his main guitar since 1992. “I played most of the basic tracks on the album through a Marshall JCM800 combo,” Janovitz explains. “Dave Minehan, who recorded us, also had me going through a Vox AC30 and a Fender Vibrolux on different tracks in case he wanted to mix in some different tones on various songs. But the SG through a JCM800 has been the basis of my tone since around 1992, and that’s what’s happening here.”
For the track’s solo, Janovitz recorded it at home on a 1983 Fender Strat—his go-to guitar before the Gibson and subsequent other SGs and humbucker-equipped guitars took its place—to get a nice, different tone to cut through the Gibson sounds. “I cranked up the preamp gain on the JCM800 I have at home, and also ran it through a Klon Centaur,” he says. “Bill Finnegan brought the early model of that to me around the early ’90s. I loved it so much that I ended up with three of them, which represents my retirement savings now that they’ve gone up in value.”
Buffalo Tom is prepping to embark on a spring tour that will hit major cities on both coasts. Dates are listed on the band’s homepage.