Sing Sing (1984-1994)
Artist: Honeymoon Killers
The Last Place to Go
Artist: Boxhead Ensemble

The Boxhead Ensemble is a collective of ever-changing musicians that provide the soundtrack for the film Dutch Harbor. Featured on this record are Will Oldham, of Palace fame, Edith Frost, Ken Vandermark and a host of others. Last Place to Go was recorded during the European tour of Dutch Harbor. The musicians provided improvised accompaniment... Read More

Moon Pix
Artist: Cat Power
Community Score: 6.83
In a Doghouse
Artist: Throwing Muses
Community Score: 7.00

Throwing Muses' classic first album was never released in the U.S., nor was their follow-up EP, Chains Changed. For well over a decade, the two records were only available as imports through 4AD, which meant that Throwing Muses, one of the most influential and individual albums of late-'80s alternative rock, was very hard for anyone outside of... Read More

What Makes It Go?
Artist: Komeda
Community Score: 10.00

Komeda are a Swedish quartet who give us quirky, danceable ditties with memorable melodies. Funky electronics, basslines, and mesmerizing rhythms roll along by playing off one another. There exists a '60s flair with added horns, analog synths, and acoustic guitars that pound out rhythms. Maybe, a Stereolab reference could by placed with the... Read More

Overcome by Happiness
Artist: The Pernice Brothers

Listeners expecting a continuation of the Scud Mountain Boys' slow, grim alt-country sound will be surprised by the wholesale changes wrought on Overcome by Happiness -- Joe Pernice has gone pop, and the results are quite promising. Recorded in part with a ten-piece orchestra, the record is closer to chamber pop than roots rock, with the bright,... Read More

The Black Light
Artist: Calexico
Community Score: 8.00

Deeper and richer than their debut, Spoke, Calexico's second album expands upon the sun-baked, cinematic sound of before with the addition of Latin jazz rhythms, mariachi trumpets, and pedal steel; in and of themselves, the group's songs are not exactly compelling, but they're produced with such a fine sense of texture and atmosphere that The... Read More

When I Was Born for the 7th Time
Artist: Cornershop
Community Score: 5.67

When I Was Born for the 7th Time is a remarkable leap forward for Cornershop, the place where the group blends all of their diverse influences into a seamless whole. Cornershop uses Indian music as a foundation, finding its droning repetition similar to the trancier elements of electronica, the cut-and-paste collages of hip-hop, and the skeletal... Read More

Spoke
Artist: Calexico
Community Score: 10.00

The back cover photo of Spoke is a furrowing farm machine. When I see such machinery working, clouds of birds follow to eat up the disturbed insects. Calexico snatches up the bits of Americana turned out by a rototilling of the national music psyche. The nineteen resultant tracks can be insect small (0:28 to 3:54) and erratic in flight. The... Read More

Retrospective
Artist: Pin Group

Siltbreeze's Retrospective is a re-issued collection of recordings by New Zealand's seminal Pin Group (fronted by Roy Montgomery) -- the disc includes the "Ambivalence"/"Columbia" 7" (actually the first single issued on the Flying Nun label), the "Coat"/"Jim" 7", the Pin Group Goes to Town EP, a live cover of War's "Low Rider" and two low-fi... Read More

1212
Artist: Barbara Manning

For all of her past recorded output, Barbara Manning has never been the most prolific of composers, her many albums relying instead on her gifts as an interpreter of other writers' songs; the achievement of 1212 isn't simply that it's made up largely of Manning originals, but that chief among them is her most ambitious creation to date, a... Read More

A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular
Artist: Hooverphonic
Community Score: 7.91

The Belgian trio Hooverphonic haphazardly tinkers around with ambient pop on its debut album, A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular. Overall, it's a decent derivation of post-grunge and a healthy sampling of rising trip-hop and ambient electronica during the mid-'90s, so perhaps it's all right for the album itself to experience floppy production.... Read More

Box of Bongwater
Artist: Bongwater

This aptly titled Box of Bongwater consists of four CDs aimed at gathering a majority of the duo's recordings -- many of which had been out of print or at the very least difficult to find for several years. Included in this package are the contents of the Breaking No New Ground EP; the albums Double Bummer, Too Much Sleep, The Power of Pussy,... Read More