LOW - The Invisible Way

With piano playing a bigger role in most of these songs and Mimi Parker taking the lead on more tracks than is typical for the band, Jeff Tweedy's guiding hand as producer for these sessions proves to have been the perfect choice.

"There’s a neat loop formed by The Invisible Way. While calling back to the group's roots as slowcore pioneers, the disc is mostly an unplugged affair. And where recent albums dabbled in distortion and synthesizers, Invisible is all about acoustic guitar and piano. It’s also about that singular, heart-stopping Low hush. 'Amethyst' converts piano chords into soft, wet snowfalls, even as it lets single notes poke out like naked twigs. Wilco's Jeff Tweedy produces Low for the first time here, and it can’t be a coincidence that there’s a marked, if stark, country-rock tint to Invisible. On 'Holy Ghost,' Parker comes on like Emmylou Harris at her most wounded; 'Clarence White' nostalgically pays homage to the late member of The Byrds (along with, weirdly, Charlton Heston). 'Four Score' weaves a symphony out of whispers, while 'Mother' twangs plainly and poignantly." - A.V. Club

"The Invisible Way is very good—and not just 'good for a band that's 20 years old.' In fact, if you compare it to, say, U2’s Pop, the Rolling Stones' Undercover, or R.E.M.'s Reveal (all albums made around their makers' respective 20th year together), it's pretty clear that Low haven't succumbed to a lot of the weaknesses and flaws that tend to crop up in long-running acts; maybe that's one of the silver linings of never becoming world-conquering and mega-rich? The Invisible Way foregrounds piano and acoustic guitar, not instruments Low have traditionally relied on, and the result builds on 2011's tender C'mon. Where Low was once mostly spare, severe, and forbidding even when harmonizing beautifully, now they are warmly idiosyncratic songwriters that can still stun with slow-motion spellbinders like 'Amethyst' as well as the faster-paced but equally charming likes of 'Mother' and 'To Our Knees.'" - Popmatters

MY BLOODY VALENTINE - m b v

It's been well worth the waits (both that little twenty-two-year-long one, as well as the initial short-lived limbo regarding whether or not retailers would even be able to stock this, or if it would just be a direct-mailorder-only item), as m b v delivers not only initially, but even more upon further listens, opening itself up to reveal as many details as one could have hoped for the more often one dives in.

"The nine songs divide neatly into three mini-albums. The first three explore the feedback drone of Loveless and Glider. The next three are the pop tunes; the final three go for aggro punk. Any 20-second stretch would be identifiable as My Bloody Valentine, yet every track holds surprises – the pulsing guitar strobes of 'In Another Way,' the way oceanic guitar waves suck your body into the speakers on 'Wonder 2.'" - Rolling Stone

"After an absence of more than 20 years, it's the most aggressively amniotic stuff going. Lead track 'She Found Now' picks up more or less where Loveless left off, with Valentine-in-chief Kevin Shields crooning, guitars flanging, and an urgent aortic throb underpinning all the gauziness. You can imagine fans punching the air at this point, in the blessed relief that this long, long, long-awaited album doesn't induce a desire to kick the cat in disappointment." - The Guardian

DANIEL HOPE - Spheres

Violinist Daniel Hope follows his brilliant appearance as soloist on Max Richter's Recomposed: Vivaldi's Four Seasons (a turn impressive enough to have made our Staff Best Of 2012 list) with this program centred around the concept of planetary movement, the 'music of the spheres,' featuring pieces by Richter himself as well as Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman and Gabriel Prokofiev, among others. (Listen to Hope's own commentary, along with selections from Spheres, at Deutsche Grammophon's SoundCloud page.)

"The idea that the universe can aspire to elegance, harmony and symmetry has long been an irresistible concept for artists, musicians and even some scientists. It’s a controversial notion, of course, to suggest that subjective aesthetics can be applied to inherently objective disciplines.

But flip the concept around, and you get projects like Spheres, the thought-provoking album by the British violinist Daniel Hope. The collection is based on the 'music of the spheres,' the philosophical idea that the proportions of the movements of celestial bodies (the sun, moon and planets) can be viewed in the form of music, inaudible but perfectly harmonious.

Hope has assembled a collection of 18 pieces whose repetitions evoke the recurrent orbits of astral bodies. As bookends are two Baroque works: Imitazione delle campane by Bach predecessor Johann Paul von Westhoff, and a string trio arrangement of Bach’s own Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1. In between are minimalist works by Philip Glass and Arvo Pärt, a film music selection by Michael Nyman, and ear-massaging new pieces by Ludovico Enaudi, Alex Baranowski, Max Richter and others." - WQXR

VA - Pied Piper Presents A New Concept In Detroit Soul

Any fans of the Motown era and 'four-on-top'/uptempo '60s soul are urged to lend their ears to this compilation of newly-unearthed material from the archives of Motor City producers Shelley Haims, Jack Ashford and Mike Terry, full of fantastic arrangements, moving vocal performances, and tastefully-placed tambourines galore! 

"This CD heralds the biggest unearthing of Detroit and Northern Soul masters in decades. It is as important and thrilling as the Scepter, Wand and Musicor cache, the Dave Hamilton tapes, or the unissued RCA treasure of the '80s and '90s.

On this volume, there are previously unheard gems from the Cavaliers, September Jones, Lorraine Chandler, Nancy Wilcox and Willie Kendrick (not forgetting two great instrumentals from the Pied Piper musicians). There are also the original Giant label releases issued in 1966 on Tony Hester, The Sandpipers and Mike & Ray, and the first Pied Piper productions for indie labels.

Working with the master tapes was a pleasure, and to hear these wonderfully produced Detroit masterpieces as they were laid down has been a revelation." - Ady Croasdell, Ace Records

VA - Change The Beat: The Celluloid Records Story 1980-1987

As recounted in this promotional short video, it could be argued that Celluloid's unique cross-Atlantic aesthetic was born the moment that French impresario/BYG Actuel co-founder Jean Karakos chanced upon NYC bassist/producer/multi-scene Zelig figure Bill Laswell; Change The Beat is a long-overdue look at one of the few early-'80s labels able to successfully unite the then-burgeoning B-boy movement with both the U.S./Euro no/new waves as well as that era's African diaspora. 

"With a selection that jumped from early hip-hop to deconstructed European disco, and from downtown NYC experimental head-trips to early fusions of world music with funk, jazz and art-damaged punk, Celluloid was truly a harbinger of things to come.

Winding your way through so much unbridled creativity is like stumbling into an avant-garde toy box filled with outrageous oddities, many of them sprouting dangerous, sharp edges. Having bought every Celluloid record I found for decades, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the label's catalogue, but there's an impressive amount of stuff here I've never heard or heard of.

Blessed by being in the right place(s) at the right time, and having the smarts to take advantage of the considerable opportunities that came their way, Celluloid Records sits comfortably in the file of independent labels that got it right from start to finish." - Blurt

ALEX CALDER - Time

Yes, Alex Calder's debut EP for Captured Tracks may sound near-identical to the music of his ex-bandmate Mac DeMarco, but Time's twenty minutes' worth of tracks are well-executed enough that listeners into this very particular (and peculiar) vein of chiming, jangly guitar pop are not likely to hold that against him in the least.

"If you think that the thin riff on Alex Calder's 'Suki and Me' sounds similar to Mac DeMarco, you've got a good ear. Calder drummed for DeMarco's defunct project Makeout Videotape, and both artists have a way of making everything sound just slightly off, like you're uncovering a home recording from the 1970s that's been eroding in an attic for too long." - Pitchfork

FALTY DL - Hardcourage

NYC's Drew Lustman crafts his third full-length (and first for Ninja Tune) with a sensibility heavily influenced by UK future-garage (using vocal samples in a manner similar enough to Joy Orbison, Mount Kimbie, and early/instrumental James Blake), but with an additional hyper-contemporary edge all his own.

"With new album Hardcourage, Lustman's called it again. It maps his journey from uncertainty to confidence, toward music that reaches outward rather than inward; those two words pushed together as if to boldly ring the fact that facing your fears is no walk in the park. On Hardcourage, it appears he's worked hard to loosen his thrall to jazz-like introspection-- something that often eclipsed his earlier work-- in favor of a newfound openness. And what's come with that hard-won courage is a sense of fun." - Pitchfork

MILES DAVIS - Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2

The second volume of Columbia's Bootleg Series focuses on a rare transition period between Miles Davis' great second quintet and his full-on embrace of electric music, presenting the Bitches Brew repertoire that would provide the core of his forthcoming live performances in its nascent form.

"Recorded as little as two weeks before and as much as four months after Bitches Brew Live's July 5, 1969 Newport Jazz Festival date, some within days of the 1969 Copenhagen DVD, and between four and eight months prior to the Live at The Fillmore East show, much of this music—three CDs, plus one DVD with a 45-minute, full-color performance of the quintet in Berlin on November 7, 1969—has been circulating in bootleg versions for years, but rarely in such sonically (and, in the case of the DVD, visually) cleaned-up form. The Bootleg Series Vol. 2 captures this quintet at two significant junctures: first, in July 1969, a few weeks before entering the studio (albeit with a much larger cast) to record Davis' seminal Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970); and second, in November 1969, less than two weeks before once again returning to the studio to continue recording music that was ultimately collected on The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions (Columbia/Legacy, 1998).

This group was the first to introduce electric instruments to Davis' music in a live context—only one, actually: [Chick] Corea's Rhodes, which he employs almost exclusively throughout the four discs. Still, this is a far cry from the more rock-inflected music that was soon to come; if anything, the music on Live in Europe 1969 is some of the flat-out freest improvisational music released by the Davis estate to date. Of course, the second quintet—where saxophonist Wayne Shorter (here, that group's only remnant) was joined by pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and Williams—regularly stretched the boundaries of its compositions, heard with crystal clarity on Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 (Columbia/Legacy, 2011); but this new quintet of Davis, Shorter, Corea, Holland and DeJohnette took the music to even more far-flung places—a function, most likely, of DeJohnette's formative years in Chicago and Holland's work in England, before Davis called upon him to relocated to the United States." - All About Jazz

ICEAGE - You're Nothing

Storming out of the gate with blown-out disco-beat barnburner "Ecstacy," You're Nothing is the sort of sophomore effort that will surely both gain Iceage plenty of new fans as well as easily appease those who've been waiting for a follow-up from these brooding Danes ever since promising 2011 debut New Brigade. 

"Yes, the angsty lyrics are occasionally comprehensible and the songs, which sometimes push past the three-minute mark, have slightly more breathing room, but the chilly, irritated scrape is just as potent. They may have found some success, but Iceage haven’t ditched the envelope-pushing teenage petulance that brought them there." - NOW Magazine

"Over its 12 tenaciously gritty tracks, You're Nothing reveals itself as an album that operates in contrasts. Amidst a sonic atmosphere of clenched-fist roughness, one can find stark beauty and honest emotional value in the lyrics of lead singer Elias Bender Rønnenfelt." - Exclaim!

"[Rønnenfelt's] presence is in part what makes Iceage so compelling. Fresh-faced, his thick voice always feels like a taunt. "Where are your morals?," he asks at one point, caught somewhere on the threshold between manhood and adolescence. It helps that he has an equally smart band behind him. The drum fills (the drumming here is something else, like an angry speed-driven typewriter) and tightly wired guitar lines alternate and duet, with a trebly discord ringing out across nearly all the tracks." - The Quietus

MARCOS VALLE - Marcos Valle/Garra/Vento Sul/Previsão do Tempo

From 1970 to 1973, Marcos Valle released these four classic but long-unavailable albums—while we were previously most familiar with the last record in the sequence, Previsão Do Tempo (where session participation by Azymuth lends the proceedings a slightly synthed-out feel at times), we're looking forward to better acquainting ourselves with each of these early '70s singer-songwriter snapshots!

"Evolving from samba's percussive pulse in the late 1950s, bossa nova (literal translation: new trend) was Brazil's internationally accepted gift to the global melting pot of music. Initially brought to prominence by the likes of Antônio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, and João Donato, by the mid-1960s, there was an emerging pool of youthful talent ready to make their voices heard. Marcos Valle and his lyricist brother Paulo Sergio were no exception. By the dawn of the 1970s, the multi-talented Valle was entering a new era, ready to test the government censors and express a socially aware stance and a playful hodge-podge of musical styles including samba, bossa nova, baião, black American music, and rock." - Light In The Attic

DANIEL ROMANO - Come Cry With Me

On this, his third solo outing, Welland, Ontario's Daniel Romano finally fully embraces his love of classic country music in the vein of George Jones, Hank Williams, and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Signed on with a new record label, Normaltown Records (a subsidary of New West), it's his most accomplished release to date, sure to satisfy his fans and make him plenty of new ones.

"In tracing the evolution of former Attack in Black singer Daniel Romano as a classic country songwriter, one can hear the steady formation of a distinct sonic landscape pulsing hard and true through the veins of that heart wrenching, '70's-era honky tonk sound. Building from his solo debut, Workin' for the Music Man (2010), to Sleep Beneath the Willow (2011), this landscape has become so vivid, so exquisitely entrenched in bygone lyricism and traditional arrangements that with a title like Come Cry with Me, listeners know exactly where Romano is taking them." - Exclaim

"Daniel Romano, hailing not from the south but the great white north—Ontario, to be exact—may not have been raised in the Tennessee countryside or Texas plains, but his knack for broken-hearted trad-county songs that pay tribute to Gram Parsons and Hank Williams is fairly uncanny for someone surrounded more by ice hockey than honky-tonks. Coming from a thin, 27-year-old Canadian whose only connection to the genre is from his grandparents (big country radio fans), and who used to play in an indie punk-band, this could all come off as a little eyeroll-inducing if it weren’t so well executed. It’s a fine line between revival and parody, and he walks it well, cowboy boots and all." - American Songwriter

DEL SHANNON - Home & Away

Del Shannon was the hardest-rocking teen idol of the early '60s, but had no trouble updating his style as the decade wore on. By 1967, he found himself in England recording this orchestrated pop-rock gem, produced by Andrew Loog Oldham.

"[D]espite its lofty ambitions of being a British answer to Pet Sounds, this LP didn't see release as scheduled in 1967. It took more than a decade for Home & Away to surface, and it’s recently been reissued as a remastered CD from Now Sounds.

Though the new Home & Away is a most welcome release, the oft-quoted Pet Sounds analogy isn’t quite appropriate.  Though Home & Away and the Beach Boys' classic are both orchestrated pop albums, Pet Sounds was an intensely personal vision both musically and lyrically–that of Brian Wilson and his chief lyrical collaborator, Tony Asher. Home & Away was the work of numerous pop songwriting teams from Oldham’s Immediate Records stable. Not that there’s anything shameful about an immaculately crafted collection of largely original pop songs, which is what Home & Away is; the high quality of these tracks, sung passionately by Shannon and arranged pristinely by Arthur Greenslade, will make you wah-wah-wonder why the album was initially shelved in the first place." - The Second Disc

PUCHO & THE LATIN SOUL BROTHERS - Saffron and Soul/Shuckin' and Jivin'

A great jazzy Latin set from BGP comparable in many ways to the label's late 2011 reissue of Cal Tjader's Latin jazz outlier Agua Dulce, another staff favourite which received plenty of plays upon its release; where that record's highlight was a cover of "Gimme Shelter," this two-fer's standout (to these ears so far) is a smoothly discordant revoicing of "Reach Out, I'll Be There" fully deserving of a listen!

"Pucho and the band were not yet reflecting the music that was taking off in the Latin clubs of New York; they were a more staid outfit with one foot in the jazz past. This was emphasised by their second album, Saffron and Soul...[T]he material mixed originals with jazz standards and current pop hits such as the Four Tops' 'Reach Out, I’ll Be There.' The originals varied from the soul jazz grooves of 'What A Piece' to intense Latin numbers showing the power of the multi-layered percussion. For their follow-up Shuckin’ and Jivin', vocalist Jackie Soul joined the line-up, immediately taking the record into Latin soul territory." - BGP/Ace

TOWNES VAN ZANDT - Sunshine Boy: The Unheard Studio Sessions & Demos

From the ever-intriguing desk of Omnivore Recordings (who also brought us such recent archival finds as Darondo's Listen To My Song, Two Things In One's Together Forever and Alex Chilton's Free Again: The "1970" Sessions, with a Gene Clark White Light demos set soon to follow in late March) comes this trove of alternate versions, mixes and demos, with astute liners by Hank Williams biographer and roots music authority Colin Escott.

"Sunshine Boy will only burnish Van Zandt’s legend. Even those who think they know him will find stark new insights into his doomed genius. Unlike your typical star, shooting or otherwise, Van Zandt’s most important music, his best stuff, didn’t happen right away. Instead, it was on 1971's High, Low and In Between and 1972's The Late Great, now a bitterly ironic title. Songs from those projects (his fifth and sixth, respectively) make up the bulk of Sunshine Boy, and the bulk of the project's new revelations, as well. "Pancho and Lefty," for instance, is presented without strings or horns. His Dylan-esque pretensions are made clear during this raw take on “Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold.” “To Live Is To Fly” takes on an even greater, devastating beauty. Maybe more interesting, however, are the stripped-down versions of earlier songs that producer Cowboy Jack Clements had dimmed with of-the-moment, overly pretty Nashville production—de rigueur at the turn of the 1970s, but hopelessly dated today. The four demos here from 1970's eponymous release and 1971's Delta Momma Blues may be the most revealing of all." - Something Else!

UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA - II

Ruban Nielson's follow-up recordings as UMO do not disappoint, similarly sequenced to his debut with a mix of bouncy breakbeat funk-pop and psych/garage detours (with the latter approach nearing Chrome-finished menace both tonally and lyrically on surfy sci-fi chugger "No Need For A Leader"), strong vocal performances (especially, for this writer, on his most soulful take to date, second advance single "So Good At Being In Trouble"), and inventive guitar playing with a near-classical intervallic flair that befits the last part of that goofy band name surprisingly well.

"...[T]here’s the rickety strut of lead single 'Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark),' with its gentle wish to 'swim and sleep like a shark does,' a line whose childish syntax neatly decorates Neilson’s yen for emotional lobotomy. For a New Zealander who crossed the Pacific to prosper in Portland, Neilson has a remarkable grasp on the nature of stasis. All this is delivered, refreshingly, without irony or self-awareness: UMO opt for nifty and direct lyrics that charm with morbid honesty while eschewing self-loathing. Beneath the isolation blues, II is buoyant and visceral enough to suffuse its existential cloud with a redemptive joie de vivre by way of the playful talent inherent in its creation." - Drowned In Sound

"...II feels more complete in its ambition; it's a warmer record that, instrumentally at least, heads more in the direction of The Beatles ('The Opposite Of Afternoon') than the mind-expanding riffs that their debut was slathered in... Unknown Mortal Orchestra's focus on a lazier psychedelia ('So Good at Being in Trouble') that better suits Nielson's androgynous voice is what allows this record to stand out in what is fast becoming a crowded field." - Altsounds

CHRIS DARROW - Artist Proof

Thankfully, the well of fantastic reissue finds is unlikely to dry up anytime soon; while we were somewhat familiar with the name Chris Darrow (if mainly through having once stocked Everlasting's 2009 deluxe LP boxset compiling his 1973 self-titled album and '74's Under My Own Disguise), this Drag City release of 1972's Artist Proof is a worthy official (and far less limited) introduction to the man's work—we're glad to have finally fully made its/his acquaintance!

"The history of rock and roll in the 1960s is filled with side trips and familiar names mixed together with more trips involving even more names, sometimes less known. One of those names still owed a piece of your mind is California picker, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Chris Darrow. Already a veteran of several bands and scenes on the L.A. landscape, Chris was a founding member of the west coast Kaleidoscope. He went his own way after the recording of their second album A Beacon From Mars to pursue music on his own terms...Chris' solo debut is a rich and powerful dose of California country rock, written almost entirely by Chris and played with grit and precision by a cast of great players." - Groove Attack Records

"Artist Proof is a coming together of young people testing their formative influences in the light of a new day, creating something different in the process, which is likely why the album feels so fresh! Back in print for the first time in 40 years and finally ushered into the digital realm, Artist Proof's debossed LP jacket has been carefully reproduced along with photos from Chris Darrow's archive, bringing back the time of a new feeling in American music in all its melodic, singular glory." - Drag City

FOXYGEN - We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic

Not to be overly reductive about this, but anyone into the likes of MGMT (their main contemporary/fellow rearview-glancing American rascal-pop competition, it would seem) and/or Richard Swift (entrusted here with production duties on this official first full-length, following the duo's debut 12", Take The Kids Off Broadway) is urged to give these guys a listen pronto.

"The sooner you fumble your way through the unruly title of Foxygen’s latest LP, We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic, the sooner you can get to the music, which is quite the opposite—immediately familiar and relatively easy to navigate. That’s not to say Foxygen’s generous winks and nods to The Beatles and The Zombies and Bob Dylan and Lou Reed and David Bowie (… and I can go on) don’t make for an engaging spin on the past. Members Jonathan Rado and Sam France do so with the necessary confidence and personality, and the right amount of TLC. They’re not far off from artists like Thee Oh Sees and Ariel Pink, who wear their influences like a red cape flapping in the wind without simply aping them." - Paste

"No one will accuse Foxygen’s We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic of being a concept album. It’s as stylistically diverse, maddening and confident as the Take The Kids Off Broadway EP, yet feels ready to enter the primetime—a band confident that their set of skills will be accepted, or at least tolerated. This is in part thanks to the deft production of Richard Swift, whose hand truly feels like a contribution rather than a contraption. Sonically, the music is still confounding, still prone to fits of vibing followed by un-fettered freakouts. And with Foxygen there always seems to be a nod and a wink with every riff and turn." - Aquarium Drunkard

TORO Y MOI - Anything In Return

On Anything In Return, Chaz Bundick brushes aside the Stereolab- and Caribou-like qualities of Underneath The Pine, upping the boyish R&B-pop pastiche element that's been audible in his songs (if occasionally previously couched in compression/filtering) ever since his 2010 debut, Causers Of This.

"In the first three tracks alone, you can find hints of trance and house, R&B and funk, pop and rock. Later, "Studies" mixes a rhythm straight out of '90s-era hip-hop with a melodic structure that recalls pre-Hissing Fauna of Montreal. And "Grown Up Calls" is a fractured pop gem that recalls both Kanye West and WHY?. Bundick is an artist of synthesis, and his music operates best when the stitches don’t show, like on the sub-zero groove of "Say That" or sub-frequency flow of the appropriately liquid "Cola." It’s moments like these that are the most enjoyable, because they’re the songs that fully demonstrate Bundick’s complete skill set." - Consequence of Sound

"I promise not to keep bringing up Pharrell, but the way Bundick's built these elaborate tracks around his own decidedly unspectacular voice reminds me of the way Skateboard P interrupted Jay-Z's godly party-flow on "I Just Wanna Love U" so that he could bust out his terrible Curtis Mayfield impression and somehow sound badass doing it. (Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor is also a good comparison point here; there’s a level of suave/dweeby intersection at work that we mere mortals will probably never figure out.) Bundick’s voice shouldn’t work for these expertly-assembled pleasure-machine tracks, but it does, and the ballsiness of putting that voice front and center only makes the entire thing cooler." - Stereogum

MOUNTAINS - Centralia

Brooklyn duo Mountains earn their name once again with this set of unmoving beauties. Seven slo-fi improvisations stretch over a luxurious 67 minutes populated by Mountains' characteristic blend of acoustic and electronic sounds perfect for the long-haul listener.

"If the likes of Pontiak and Barn Owl conjure scorched plains and endless prairies then labelmates Mountains—the chillaxed twosome of Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg—are charting boundless ocean depths. Centralia, their third full-length for Thrill Jockey, could easily soundtrack a deepwater Herzog-ian journey in some sort of chuntering submersible. The voyager will be greeted by shoals of goggle-eyed fish, waving fronds, elegant fan-like structures that breathe and eat through tubes and strange, lonely creatures clad in shimmering bioluminescence." - BBC

"Ears still virgin to the inspiring neo-psychedelia of Mountains will find a perfect place to begin exploring their discography with Centralia. While so much ambient- and drone-based experimental music is essentially meaningless, forgettable work that roughly replicates the same sonic recipe popularized by Brian Eno in the '70s, the distinctive melodies and forward-thinking-yet-beautiful experimentalism heard in Mountains' music put them in a league of their own." - Exclaim!

ALASDAIR ROBERTS & FRIENDS - A Wonder Working Stone

A Wonder Working Stone marks Alasdair Roberts' first full-length of original tunes since 2009's brilliant Spoils, and carries well the influence of his two albums of traditional music made along the way. A generous helping of borrowed melodies find his charmingly morbid songs in more varied settings than ever before, albeit still anchored by Roberts' unique fingerpicking and a sympathetic band.

"Alasdair Roberts' musical foundations extend deep into the bedrock of the traditional folk of Scotland and the British Isles. Fuelled by restless curiosity and a scholar's attention to detail, Roberts has long split his attentions between interpretations of traditional material and his own original songs, while often leaving blurry the distinction between the two. On A Wonder Working Stone, his first collection of all original material since 2009's Spoils, the line separating the traditional from the personal is purposefully left fuzzier than ever. Stray bits and pieces from old fiddle tunes and Scottish bagpipe marches are woven tightly with Roberts' thorny lyrics to create elaborate, raucous medleys that can seem almost like a tin-can-and-string phone connection between the past and the present." - Pitchfork

"A master of mesmeric laments, Roberts can conjure dusky cemetery air in a twitching of his fingers or sombre exhalation, yet A Wonder Working Stone offers high spirits in the gloaming as well as low. I suspect only he could rhyme abracadabra with 'intact cadaver'—but embracing life and the living requires toleration of misdeed and acceptance of mortality, appreciation that love survives time. All days will end, and it must be hoped they’ll end in joy." - The Line of Best Fit