The originators of powwow step, a new genre of music combining indigenous drum group samples with house music, Canadian electronic music group A Tribe Called Red’s two previous albums were both nominated for Canada’s prestigious Polaris Award and there’s no reason to expect anything less come awards season for 2016’s We Are The Halluci Nation. Based in Ottawa, Ontario and consisting of three DJ’s Ian “DJ NDN” Campeau, Tim “2oolman” Hill and Bear Witness, their unique sound is a powerful blend of serious dance music combining traditional First Nations vocal chanting and drumming along with the most modern elements of today’s EDM movement including moombahton, dubstep, instrumental hip hop and reggae. Set against a backdrop of pulsating rhythms and steady back beats courtesy of drum groups Black Bear, Northern Voice and Chippewa Travellers, the album also includes poignant vocal contributions from Jennifer Kreisberg, Maxida Märak, Tanya Tagaq, Saul Williams, Leonard Sumner, Lido Pimienta as well as poetry from the late John Trudell.
Key tracks: We Are The Halluci Nation, The Virus, Sila, Eanan, The Muse
Prince’s penultimate album Hit n Run was first made available to the public on September 7, 2015 through the music streaming service Tidal before being released on CD and download a week later on September 14th. Prince’s final album, his 39th in a recording career spanning an unbelievable five decades, was named after and intended as a continuation of his previous record and released on Tidal for streaming and download on December 12, 2015, four months prior to the singer’s tragic and untimely death at the age of 57 on April 21, 2016 at his Paisley Park home in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Before being given it’s proper worldwide CD release on May 6, 2016 by Universal Music Group, Prince confirmed on his Twitter that a physical CD would be released during a weekend of Paisley Park shows starting Thursday, January 21, 2016. The CD was also given away to attendees of the shows on the Australian and New Zealand leg of what ultimately turned out to be Prince’s final tour, the Piano & A Microphone Tour. Both albums find Prince at the very height of his artistic powers, not only in his dual duties as both composer and chief musician but also in his capacity as arranger and producer. Not since the ’80’s have we heard Prince Rogers Nelson sounding so very refreshed, energized and focused, 3rd eye squarely on the prize.
“This is Prince operating at his highest level, destined to rank with the best work he’s done since his ’80’s creative pinnacle” – Pop Matters
“Prince sings with real spirit, an artist freshly charged up four decades into his career” – Los Angeles Times
“Prince’s best record in a decade or two, and certainly the most confident and agreeable confirmation of his qualities for many a year. The heft and balance of the horn arrangements throughout is remarkable, rich and sonorous in a way rarely encountered in these digital days” – The Independent
“Prince’s most consistently engaging album in years, blending in echoes of the ghosts of Prince past (à la “Sexy MF” and “Come”) while still sounding refreshingly modern” – Rolling Stone
“Undulating, fizzy, and almost light-headed, this is music to induce a euphoria that lifts skirts and spirits” – Paste
Key tracks: 2Y.2D, Look At Me Look At U, Xtralovable, When She Comes
Not only do A3 reference the Stones here (“Everybody knows I killed Brian Jones, ask John ask Paul ask George and Ringo. Go tell Mick, Keith and Charlie the news it was me who put the poison in the swimming pool”) they go one further and top them at their own game with a 2016 blues album of their own. Not unlike the Stones themselves who once so proudly gave rise to the devil incarnate (“Please allow me to introduce myself”) in the guise of their infamous 1968 song of sympathy, A3 give voice to Death himself in Blues opening track “(I’ll Never Be) Satisfied” (“I can’t get, I can’t get me no”. Get it? Satisfaction?) reminding us once and for all that, in a year littered with the corpses of rock n roll royalty, the grim reaper’s song is never completely sung nor is his dirty work ever completely done.
Everybody knows I killed Brian Jones
Ask John ask Paul ask George and Ringo
Go tell Mick, Keith and Charlie the news
It was me who put the poison in the swimming pool
Everybody blames Billie Holiday’s pills
I was holding her hand when she went limp
Poor Amy Winehouse never stood a chance
I switched the Stalley for adulterated under the counter brand
Loaded the bullets of Kurt Cobain’s gun
Made damn sure Jim Morrison’s bath was hot when it ran
In a grand old Opry on that Saturday night
I got Hank Williams high when he took that last last drive of his
I’ll never be satisfied
I can’t get
I can’t get me no
I’ll never be satisfied
I can’t get
I can’t get me no
Met Robert Johnson at the crossroads that night
Did the deal with the devil blamed another man’s wife
Feets where he lay gave Lemmy his one last lamb
Put the pillow on Bowie’s face sayin’ “Rise, Lazarus, rise”
I put a spike into Sid Vicious’ arm
I tied the rope around Ian Curtis I’ve walked on and on
I left the soap on the floor when Whitney Houston slipped in the shower
I’m the mystery man who shot Tupac Shakur
I’ll never be satisfied
I can’t get
I can’t get me no
I’ll never be satisfied
I can’t get
I can’t get me no
I’ll never be satisfied
I can’t get
I can’t get me no
I’ll never be satisfied
I can’t get
I can’t get me no
Everybody knows I killed Brian Jones
Ask John ask Paul as George and Ringo
Go tell Mick, Keith and Charlie the news
It was me who put the poison in the swimming pool
Key tracks: (I’ll Never Be) Satisfied, Nothing To Lose But Your Chains, Forever In Blues
Perhaps more than any singer of his generation, 75 year old Paul Simon’s vocals have withstood the ravages of time. Whereas most singers his age have lost either the power, potency or range of the once mighty singing voices of their youth (most notably Elton John and Paul McCartney) Simon continues to impress and astound in ways Dorian Grey would envy. Exhibiting the vocal prowess of a 20 year old, Simon lays down the sweetest sounding coy phrasings on Stranger To Stranger, all of which would not sound out of place on a Simon & Garfunkel record from 50 years ago. Every bit a continuation of 2011’s So Beautiful Or So What, Simon’s 13th album in a solo career spanning 46 years yields at least two instantly recognizable classics; Wristband and In A Parade. Now, more than ever, in a year that has so often compelled us to acknowledge mortality and loss, it’s important to recognize and embrace one the greatest living giants whose art we have been fortunate enough to be witness to in our own lifetimes. Future generations won’t be so lucky.
Key tracks: Wristband, In A Parade, The Riverbank, Insomniac’s Lullaby
Due to medical reasons the late Leonard Cohen’s final album was recorded in the living room of his home in Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles, California. An injury to the poets back as a result of extensive touring in the last five years of the 82 year old singer’s life (the man literally worked himself to death) necessitated that Cohen’s vocal tracks be recorded at home and emailed to son and producer Adam Cohen. Of the recording process Cohen remarked, “In a certain sense, this particular predicament is filled with many fewer distractions than other times in my life and actually enables me to work with a little more concentration and continuity than when I had duties of making a living, being a husband, being a father”. Cohen died in his sleep as a result of a fall in his home November 7, 2016, three weeks after the release of You Want It Darker. As was his wish, Cohen was laid to rest with a Jewish rite in a simple pine casket in the family plot at Montreal’s Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery.
Key tracks: You Want It Darker, Leaving The Table, Traveling Light
With one notable exception Dylan picks up where he left off with 2015’s “Shadows In The Night” collection of Frank Sinatra recordings. Whereas the previous album of standards steered through a sparse and lonesome American landscape, Fallen Angels has a lighter lilt, swinging from a lighter happier branch of the tree than it’s predecessor. Here Dylan manages to strip the great American songbook down to it’s bare essentials plugging into the universality that is at the very core of all of these songs. He makes them feel more like anonymously written centuries old pieces of orally handed down traditional music as opposed to songs carefully crafted by hit-seeking American tune-smiths composing straight from the fringes of Tin Pan Alley. Recorded in the same Capitol Records Los Angeles studio that Sinatra himself often recorded his own albums, Dylan said of these session, “I don’t see myself as covering these songs in any way. They’ve been covered enough. Buried, as a matter a fact. What me and my band are basically doing is uncovering them. Lifting them out of the grave and bringing them into the light of day”. Spoken like a true Nobel Prize winner.
Key tracks: All Or Nothing At All, Polka Dots And Moonbeams, Skylark, On A Little Street In Singapore, That Old Black Magic
A play on words for the band’s hometown of Portland, Oregon, Seattle’s little boho brah to the south, “Distortland” is the Dandy’s 9th studio album in a recording career spanning 21 years. Distancing themselves from their retro ’80’s Nick Rhodes produced Duran Duran fetish from a few years back singer-guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor & Co seem content to revisit the former glory of their droney electro-raga-junkie-glam-trash past. Although not the classic “Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia” from 16 years ago this brisk 33 minute listen certainly has enough solid hooks, grooves and twists to keep heads bopping, toes tapping and listeners coming back for more.
Key tracks: Search Party, Pope Reverend Jim, STYGGO
Only the 10th studio album from Cult guitarist Billy Duffy and singer Ian Astbury in a long and storied career spanning 30 odd years from 1983 til now. Less than a decade after quitting his boyhood dream job as lead singer of The Doors, 54 year old Astbury’s once quivering alto has now dropped down to a rock steady swampy baritone, effortlessly twisting through 12 tales spanning 4 sides of this sprawling 53 minute double LP.
Key tracks: Dark Energy, In Blood, GOAT, Sound And Fury
Founded in early 2015 by Thibauld Labey in Lyon, France, this is the eponymous first album by English singing French psych-pop outfit Trumpets of Consciousness. Mixed by Labey himself and recorded at Mikrokosm and Cartelier Studios this record is an upbeat celebration of the art of pop music, a vintage journey through colourful landscapes exquisitely illustrated by the cover art work of David Sala. Mastered by Back To Mono Records this record is available as a French import from Le Pop Club Records.
Key tracks: Never Again, The Game, I’m In Love, Fruits In The Sun, Let Down Let Flow
An improvised album of acoustic psychedelia these five instrumental raga jams were captured live off the floor in the studio by Chicago natives Charles Rumback and twenty-something Ryley Walker. Recorded in two short sessions each a month apart with Walker on guitar and Rumback on drums Cannots was released April 16, 2016 as a Record Store Day vinyl exclusive. Recalling the freer more progressively adventurous eras of the late sixties and early 1970’s this album highlights the spontaneous intuitive interaction and undeniable chemistry these two musicians share together.
Song Of The Day Club 