Posted on 12/01/2008
Handling personal material can be a difficult ball to juggle. The goal is to tell your story, while not indulging in too much abstract specificity that no one else can relate. Ursula Rucker’s latest strikes a challenging, yet accessible mix of confessional and observational poetry and song, in an enjoyable exercise in historical relevance and personal identification. While proudly asserting her contrasting sides (a poet who doesn’t slam, a Catholic...

Posted on 12/01/2008
Despite the broad net cast by the album’s titular themes, Benet brings it down to the earth with a collection of songs that speak to universal struggles and detailed situations that paint clear, specific pictures of people undergoing turmoil and triumph. The feel-good album is a pleasant reminder of R&B that doesn’t try too hard to convince you of its sincerity or importance. The lucid songwriting and vibrant pictures Benet...

Posted on 12/01/2008
For me, I grew up with parents and relatives with music that was on Capitol, Columbia, and Atlantic, with a little bit of Hula, Poki, and Lehua on the side. As I began to form my own musical habits, I would not only appreciate those labels, but would make Def Jam, Profile, Solesides/Quannum, and Stones Throw personal favorites. But it was a British label with the unusual name...

Posted on 12/01/2008
In the wake of tragedy, some choose to dutifully carry the burden of their loss, clutching that remnant of emotion close to their hearts because the grief is familiar, oddly comforting and more emotionally fulfilling than its absence. Because when you no longer feel the pain of one’s absence, the unfathomable thought is that you possibly never felt the significance of their presence. The mere thought of moving...

Posted on 12/01/2008
To be honest, The Flaming Lips’ soundtrack for their psychadelic film, Christmas On Mars, is weird. Just weird. But hey, it’s The Flaming Lips. They pretty much are the masters of brilliant weird. When I listened to Christmas On Mars, my first thought was, “Clearly, I need to see the movie to understand.” So I did. And the movie was so strange that it made the music kind of cool,...

Posted on 12/01/2008
Restiform Bodies is vocalist David Bryant, percussionist Matt Valerio and synth man George Chadwick. I know, I know. You’re thinking wait a minute; a restiform body is a lateral and larger subdivision of the inferior cerebellar peduncle located on the dorsolateral aspect of the medulla oblongata and composed of a variety of fibers, including, but not limited to, olivo-, reticulo-, cuneo-, trigmeno- and dorsal spinocerebellar! And...