New Albums - Page 150

Romanian artist, Bass Battle (also known as one person, Bogdan Diaconeasa), has released an EP’s worth of ambient solo bass songs called Play. Recorded over the course of three years, just for fun, the album features only Diaconeasa’s bass and a looper. “I will say that this album is the declaration of my love for this beautiful instrument – the...

2014 has been a good year for sneak albums, but R&B master D’Angelo may have taken the cake by releasing over the course of a weekend. The album, which is his first in fourteen years, is a tremendous return that pushes his art forward while keeping true to his voice. D’Angelo took a more serious approach for Black Messiah with...

Six-string bass is one of the building blocks of drone artist Whote’s (Thomas Watkiss) latest album, Whote II: Moons. Watkiss is the performer on and producer of the record, creating songs with not only the bass, but also distorted guitar, field recordings, and minimal keyboards. Whote is noted for its experimental music, and Moons continues in this vein, with live...

Six years ago on Halloween, Gov’t Mule dressed up in another band’s music. The jam band/Allman Brothers offshoot, featuring Jorgen Carlsson on bass, performed Pink Floyd covers from albums including Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, The Wall, and Wish You Were Here. The 2008 show at the Orpheum Theatre in Boston, was recorded and is now available on CD...

Like It Is: Yes at the Bristol Hippodrome, a 2 CD/DVD set Blu-ray disc, combines songs from two favorite Yes albums: 1971’s The Yes Album and 1977’s Going for the One, in one live package recorded during the band’s spring 2014 tour. “These are two bodies of music that many of the most devout Yes fans wanted to hear in...

Jazz clarinetist, sax player and composer Ken Thomson has released his second album with the group Slow/Fast, again showing how to combine the worlds of jazz and contemporary classical music. Distortion even appears in the group’s music, indicating rock influences as well. The second album, called , sees Slow/Fast featuring all of its original members, including bassist Adam Armstrong, an...

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen’s 2012/13 Old Ideas World Tour featured what many critics called his best band ever. That band featured bass guitarist/upright bassist Roscoe Beck, who also served as the band’s musical director. The sound the band made with Cohen as he supported his Old Ideas album was captured in film and audio recordings in a performance at Dublin’s...

2014 proved to be a rough year for AC/DC, with illness pulling founding rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young’s out of the stalwart Australian hard rock band as it prepared to release its 15th studio internationally-released album. Legal problems have also left the position of drummer Phil Rudd unclear, heading into a 2015 tour to support the new album, . The music...

When Jack Bruce wanted to celebrate that he had turned 50, he decided to throw a party. A really big musical party. The shows put together by the legendary bassist were held over two days in Cologne, Germany on Nov. 2nd and 3rd, 1993. His former Cream bandmate, Ginger Baker played drums at the show, as did Simon Phillips. Parliament-Funkadelic...

The legendary progressive rock band King Crimson is promoting its The Elements of King Crimson tour with a limited edition two-CD “tour box” set of performances — some previously unreleased on CD — from the entirety of its long, storied career. The performances are culled from a wide variety of sources — everything from alternate takes and extracts to live...

Former Béla Fleck and the Flecktones sax player and current Dave Matthews Band member Jeff Coffin has yet again joined with a group of musicians called The Mu’tet, featuring electric bassist Felix Pastorius (son of Jaco and a Yellowjackets member) for a new album. , is the sixth album from Coffin and the Mu’tet. Gypsy, African, Brazillian and New Orleans...

So, with the Jeff Beck: Live in Tokyo , a viewer not only gets to see the guitarist in action, but also electric bassist Rhonda Smith. Smith, who previously worked with Prince, has released solo albums, and played in a band of her own as well an all-female rock/funk band with percussionist Sheila E., is a musical force in her...