March continues with another quiet week of new releases, but the end of the month is extremely promising. Big highlights this week include Gang of Four’s new box set, which is out digitally and on vinyl today, arrives the same week the band’s second album, the mighty Solid Gold, turned 40. We also got a stunning new track from Lucy Dacus and another new version of Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto,” however this version features Jackson Browne on backing vocals. In perhaps the weirdest news, Mike Patton (lead singer of Faith No More) has provided the vocals to a new rendition of the theme song to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which will be used in an upcoming throwback-style video game staring the iconic ‘80s and ‘90s cartoon heroes. What a sentence.
I’d also be remiss to not mention this week also would’ve marked the 91 birthday of jazz legend, Ornette Coleman. The pioneer of free jazz, his controversial compositions set the jazz world aflame in the late ‘50s with his free-form expression dismissing all the rules and launching jazz into another galaxy. Playing to an inner rhythm and impulse, Coleman let intuition lead his improvisations. A true vanguard that pushed the boundaries of sound. He released Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation, the album that would name the genre, in 1960. Disregarding traditional rhythms, melodies, and structures, he assembled two quintets, one for the left and one for the right channel and with a cover by Jackson Pollock, it truly represented the times. His landmark album The Shape of Jazz to Come was the inspiration for Refused’s 1998 classic The Shape of Punk to Come and, of course, my inspiration for this subscription.
Albums:
Gang of Four | Box Set 77-81
Matt Berninger | Serpentine Prison [Deluxe Edition]
The Horrors | Lout EP
Caribou | Suddenly Remixes
Songs:
Lucy Dacus | “Thumbs”
Phoebe Bridgers | “Kyoto” (ft. Jackson Browne)
The Natvral | “Sun Blisters”
Metz | “Acid” / “Slow Decay”
Alessandro Cortini | “CHIAROSCURO”
Christian Lee Hutson | “Just Like Heaven” (ft. Shamir) [The Cure cover]
Neil Young | “Down by the River” [Live]
Spoon | “Breakdown” [Live - Tom Petty cover]
Mike Patton | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song
If you’re a Spotify user, you can listen to these songs (and more from 2021) here!