Filthy Friends - Emerald Valley - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Invitation is the debut album by Filthy Friends, the new supergroup from Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney), Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Kurt Bloch (The Fastbacks), Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows, The Minus 5) and Bill Rieflin (King Crimson). The 12-song collection works through a flurry of different moods and styles, genre exercises and joyous experiments. The intricate guitar knots and blasts of bubblegum pop of Buck's beloved Television are all over the herky-jerky InchWindmill.Inch A mashup of '60s downer vibes and rootsy rumblings makes up the marvelous InchSecond LifeInch whereas InchCome Back ShelleyInch is all swagger and glitz in the style of a lost glam rock 45. There ain't nothing this band can't do with the wet clay of rock music and what they sculpt out of it is pure art.

The project is inspired by the moment before the realization of something that drastically changes your life, the moment of just being, existing in the moment. That moment in time is free and full, mindfulness-ish and unaffected by misery, sorrow, regret, shame, anxiety and depression. In my mind it is bright and has a sense of nostalgia. The title also refers to a daily tradition on Icelandic radio Ra´s 1, where a song, last song before the newsInch would be played just before the news hour at noon. The song would typically be an Icelandic one, sometimes a lullaby, a love song or an ode to scary and gorgeous nature. Or an Icelandic traditional, sometimes an Italian canzone or a Scandinavian sorrow. Jo´runn Viðar's piece Icelandic Suite sums up all these elements, a piece written for the 2000 years anniversary of inhabitation in Iceland in 1974. The lightness and the longing are with us throughout the program except in the title piece of mine, Last Song before the News, where apocalyptic visions are awfully obvious and take over early on. The album is dedicated to my father, Sveinbjorn Rafnsson, whose lightness and passion for music, poetry and history along with his sense of humor has been a lifeline to many people.Inch (Una Sveinbjarnardottir)

Boz Scaggs - Hits! [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/03/2006