Anodyne
Uncle Tupelo

Before Anodyne, Uncle Tupelo already had one masterpiece in 1991's noisy and tense Still Feel Gone, but this album, the band's major-label debut, had even grander ambitions. Replacing the group's grungy guitar with soaring lap and pedal-steel fills, plus fiddle and mandolin breaks both sweet and raucous, Anodyne is overflowing with a spacious grandeur that alludes to, and then makes it own, everything from the Band and the Stones and Neil Young (both as a solo artist and with Crazy Horse) to old Acuff-Rose songs--all of which is just to say that it's among the best roots-rock records ever made.

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Apple Venus Volume One
XTC

Because of record contract litigation, Apple Venus Volume One is XTC's first album of new material in nearly seven years. The now-duo of Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding sure seem to have been using their time off to smell the flowers, as their lyrics are ripe with fruit, nuts, dandelions, orchids, sunflowers, and harvest festivals. Billed as the "orchestral" album that precedes its "rock" bookend, Apple Venus is XTC's most obvious nod to the lush, intricate sounds of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper (those familiar with 1986's Skylarking know that's a bold statement). Cellos, flutes, and other highbrow instruments provide the backdrop for the flowery lyrics. The whimsical "I'd Like That" is the perfectly understated pop song that has always eluded Partridge. The album's lone touch of angst comes courtesy of "Your Dictionary," which is spiked with four-letter words, but Partridge, ever the genteel Englishman, merely spells them out. Essential? No. Innovative? Hardly. But Apple Venus is a solid, cohesive work by one of rock's most artistic artists.

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Avenue B [EXPLICIT LYRICS]
Iggy Pop

This item will be released on September 14, 1999. We will ship it to you when it arrives.

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Black Foliage: Animation Music By The Olivia Tremor Control
The Olivia Tremor Control

Black Foliage: Animation Music by the Olivia Tremor Control is a triumph of an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink production, and by track 14 even the sink is fair game. Like 1996's Dusk at Cubist Castle: Music from the Unrealized Film, Black Foliage merges Beatle-esque melodies, lyrics, and quirky instrumentation, such as odd bleats of trumpet, crazy xylophone tinkling, toy pianos, and anything else within arm's reach. Stretching this sort of trip-out to more than an hour is a bit much--hell, even the Beatles only tried to do that once--but if broken up into smaller bites, Black Foliage has its rewards. On the ether-dizzy "Paranormal Echoes" OTC manages to play with all of their toys at once and yet keep them in line to produce a mind-numbingly beautiful and strange composition. The whole shebang is tied together with aurally disorienting interludes, occasionally disrupting the flow but never for long. In other words: happy songs, crazy arrangements, terrific fun.

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Up
R.E.M.

After R.E.M.'s somewhat ambitious 1996 album, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, failed to ignite Billboard's Hot 100, you might have figured the band would return to the rock-solid bombast of Monster or the consumer-friendly pop of Green. But R.E.M. have enough cash not to worry about commercial failure, and they've already been to the top of the mountain, so for now they'd rather explore its lush valleys and secret caves. Up is an atmospheric journey as impressionistic as Enya and as evocative as John Barry. Some critics have compared it with the band's delicate and emotionally revealing gem Automatic for the People, but Up is more ambitious and creative. Sure, most of the songs are pastoral, but they're undercut with drama and sonic experimentation. The melodies are generally spare, the beats sparse. Guitars flicker in and out, providing tension and dynamics, while quivering strings, layered keyboards, and washes of feedback color the songs like textured lines of paint in an oil portrait. The only blatant pop song is the single "Daysleeper." The rest of the album ebbs and flows, each song a separate component of a complete artistic expression. The sound may be influenced by guitarist Peter Buck's cinematic jazz side project Tuatara or by Michael Stipe's celluloid excursions, but its source doesn't matter. What's important is that more than a decade after their sell-by date, R.E.M. continue to challenge and inspire. Things are definitely looking up.

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Tone Soul Evolution
Apples In Stereo

Part of the Elephant Six collective of psychedelic pop bands (they were high school chums with The Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel in their hometown of Ruston, LA), the now-Denver-based Apples In Stereo run wild with their Beach Boys/Pet Sounds fixation on their splendid second album. Guitarist/vocalist Robert Schneider is the key auteur here, crafting a winning set of strange but melodic tunes. Drummer Hilarie [stet] Sidney also gets props for contributing to the irresistible harmonies. (Witness the big, orchestral/vocal build-up at the end of "Silver Chain.").

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The Soft Bulletin
Flaming Lips

The Flaming Lips' particular and peculiar genius comes to full fruition on the stupendous The Soft Bulletin. Anyone who had the gumption to actually listen to Zaireeka, a song cycle that could only be heard by playing four CDs at the exact same time on different stereos, knows that head Lip Wayne Coyne and his Oklahoma City brethren had it in them. That album, along with the Lips' Parking Lot Experiments, offered proof that Coyne wasn't playing by the same rules as everyone else. He was growing up and away from the splenetic psychedelic freak-outs of earlier albums and emerging as a first-rate composer--perhaps the first alt-rock star to earn such status.
The Soft Bulletin is absolutely colossal, a testament to their position as the vanguard of a movement that includes Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, Mercury Rev's Deserter's Songs, and Olivia Tremor Control's Black Foliage. As with those albums, Bulletin shares a love of cosmic, vaguely psychedelic pop and a closet full of pet sounds. But the Flaming Lips only uses these as a launch pad for rocketing into ethereal sonic space. Although Bulletin steps back from Zaireeka's over-the-top indulgence, it manages to be symphonic, bombastic, outrageous, and damned catchy--while still oozing the band's unique weirdness. The sound is massive and complex; gongs, harps, grand piano, bells, pipe organ, strings, oboes, choral harmonies, and, strangely, very, very little guitar squall all merge into one wall--no, wall of sound doesn't do it justice. It's a cliff of sound, propelled by drummer Steven Drozd's tremendous pounding. On top of it all, Coyne's sweet but ravaged voice yields tender lyrics that tag a catalog of Lips stalwarts, such as insects, spirituality, and superheroes. One imagines Coyne in front of a full orchestra, urging them to keep up as he sings, "Ooh, those bugs / buzzing 'round..." on "Buggin.'" But the Lips orchestrated the entire album in their studio, sometimes manipulating more than 200 separate tracks to achieve Bulletin's vast symphonic excess. Each song is a rare gem. "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton" sounds like a collusion of Bach and Tricky. "The Spark That Bled" infuses a fey, Belle and Sebastian-esque ditty with Led Zeppelin-like funky swagger. "The Spiderbite Song" is a shotgun wedding between a tender piano ballad and the industrial noise of things falling apart. "The Gash" is just too singular to adequately describe.

It'll be interesting to hear what the Lips do next. If The Soft Bulletin is any indication at all, they can do anything they please. And we can't possibly imagine what it will sound like.

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The Dust Blows Forward [BOX SET]
Captain Beefheart

It's tempting to emphasize Captain Beefheart's eccentricities at the expense of his talent. We're talking, after all, of an art prodigy who emerged from the Mojave Desert in the '60s performing an unprecedented strain of Dadaesque blues (fortified with jazz, R&B, and Beat ingredients) and backed by his personally schooled Magic Band. But once you get past the fact that players dubbed Zoot Horn Rollo and the Mascara Snake were backing a headstrong fellow howling with ungodly range songs with names such as "Old Fart at Play," "My Head is My Only House Unless it Rains," and "Nowadays a Woman's Gotta Hit a Man," you're confronted with...well, genius. The man born Don Van Vliet possessed a potent vision and the will to bring it to life on his own terms. This long-overdue two-disc retrospective presents 30 Beefheart tracks cut between 1966 and 1982 (when the Captain stepped away from the music world for the last time), including a smattering of rarities. Consider Dust an apt entree to the extraordinary creations of this outsider.

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The Anthology [BOX SET]
Joe Cocker

This item will be released on September 7, 1999. You may order it now and we will ship it to you when it arrives.

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Blues
Eric Clapton

There's a telling subtext to this retrospective of Eric Clapton blues sides. Culled from recordings cut between 1970 (the Layla sessions) and 1980 (when Clapton cut his final Polydor album, Another Ticket), these sides finds EC exploring his beloved blues while in a fragile state of mind and body. After all, he was on heroin when he concocted Layla, and though he kicked that habit in the early '70s, he continued to test his tolerance for alcohol throughout the decade. When you think of the Clapton of the '60s, you think of the fire and ice of his playing with the Yardbirds, John Mayall, and Cream. When you think of his '70s playing, it's wearier and perhaps more reflective. (It was easy to mistake melancholic for mellow at the time.) The 35 selections included on these two discs find the temporarily deflated rock superstar leaning on the blues for support as he draws on likes of Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and Little Walter for inspiration. Hardcore fans will appreciate previously unreleased versions of Bo Diddley's "Before You Accuse Me," a solo take on the traditional "Alberta," a 1974 cover of Willie Dixon's "Meet Me (Down at the Bottom), and a remixed live 1976 version of "Further on Up the Road" with Freddy King sitting in. Just about anyone, however, will be able to appreciate how this music reflects Clapton's strengths as a musician... and weaknesses as a man.

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Q2K
Queensryche

This item will be released on September 14, 1999. You may order it now and we will ship it to you when it arrives.

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