Tag Archives: Catherine Wheel

The S&R Interview: 22 questions with Danielle Kimak Stauss of Rabbit Velvet

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Lilac, lovelace / remind me of / your true grace

About four years ago I tripped across a band called The Lost Patrol. Since then I’ve noted their work a number of times: they made my best CDs for 2007 and 2008 reviews; their music served as a key element in a piece on the nonlinearity of influence; and they were the subject of a TunesDay post on the band’s “epic retro-futurism.”

Their lead singer when I found them was one Danielle Kimak Stauss, a woman whose hypnotic vocals haunted Steven Masucci’s vast, empty musical landscapes with an ice-cold passion that bordered on the transcendent. After 2007’s superb Launch & Landing Stauss and the band parted ways, and while LP has produced two wonderful CDs in the interim (featuring new singer Mollie Israel), Danielle was nowhere to be heard. Read more

The Best CDs of 2009, pt. 3: the Super-Platinum LPs

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In Part 1 we noted that 2009 had produced some really good music. In Part 2 we explained that the past year had given us some really great music. Today, though, we take an unprecedented step, because a few of the platinum-level releases from 2k9 were simply a cut above the rest, necessitating the creation of a Super-Platinum LP award. But that’s okay – if artists keep cranking out more exceptional music than we have categories to deal with, we’ll keep inventing new ways of honoring their efforts.

IAMX – Kingdom Of Welcome Addiction
Darkness? Yeah, Chris Corner knows a thing or two about darkness, and in Kingdom Of Welcome Addiction he’s kind enough to escort us through a blasted, perversely alluring landscape of addiction, lust, self-loathing, sexual degeneracy, spiritual poverty and alienation that’s about as dark as it gets. And the landscape is distinctly British in a way that recalls perhaps the greatest portrait of England ever painted, TS Eliot’s The Waste Land. Read more

TunesDay: Name those bands – and the winner is….

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bandssamlovesThe results of last week’s Name Those Bands contest are in. In first place we have … a disqualification, sorta. Our friend Ubertramp logged in with an impressive 47 of 53. Seriously, that’s pretty damned good. But he has disqualified himself because I’m the one who turned him onto most of these outstanding artists and he felt like he might as well be cheating under the circumstances.

Wow – sportsmanship. What a concept.

So our next highest scorer, and the official winner, is … Read more

TunesDay: The best CDs of 2008, pt. 3 – the CD of the Year

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To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts….
– Sapphire

On June 9, 1992, Fontana Records released an album called Ferment from a new band called Catherine Wheel. The disc managed to be as noisy and distortion-riddled as Jesus & Mary Chain without sacrificing an ounce in the way of melodicism. It was a sound that had the capacity to compel both popsters and metalheads, and it richly deserved every bit of the four and a half stars it was awarded by the AllMusic Guide, if not more.

The centerpiece of this dynamic new outfit was one Rob Dickinson, whose main claim to fame until then was that his cousin was Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. Read more

TunesDay: The best CDs of 2008, pt. 1 – the Gold LPs

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Most years are pretty good for music if you know where to look, and 2008 was no exception. It’s a shame that you have to search so hard, of course – once upon a time all you needed to keep track of what was good in the world of music was a radio. These days it requires a little effort, though, and while I lost count a long time ago, I probably sampled a few hundred CDs in the last 365. Thank the gods for the Internet and a growing network of friends who make sure to let me know whenever they hear something worthy, huh?

This is part one of three. The Platinum LP Awards will be along soon, and that will be followed by the CD of the Year post. So here we go with last year’s Gold Awards for Very Good CDs. These are in alphabetical order, more or less. Band Web sites link to the band name, and if the CD is available via eMusic, that links to the CD title. If you want to purchase from eMusic, click on the link in the right column for a really good deal (as in lots of free downloads).

The 2008 Gold LPs Read more

The Best CDs of 2008, pt. 3 – the CD of the Year

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To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts….
– Sapphire

On June 9, 1992, Fontana Records released an album called Ferment from a new band called Catherine Wheel. The disc managed to be as noisy and distortion-riddled as Jesus & Mary Chain without sacrificing an ounce in the way of melodicism. It was a sound that had the capacity to compel both popsters and metalheads, and it richly deserved every bit of the four and a half stars it was awarded by the AllMusic Guide, if not more.

The centerpiece of this dynamic new outfit was one Rob Dickinson, whose main claim to fame until then was that his cousin was Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. Read more

TunesDay: The Lost Patrol’s epic retro-futurism

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Here’s how the blurb at CD Baby puts it:

Cinematic ethereal, spaghetti western flavored retro-futuristic music with powerful female vocals. // A sweeping, cinematic, wide-screen journey that combines ethereal sound scapes with surf-tinged guitar. Perfect for those late night rides across the desert with the top down.
…
Uniquely original retro-futurism.

Yeah, that’s fair. But there’s a lot more to say about The Lost Patrol and their new CD, Midnight Matinee, which has quickly vaulted onto my list of likely 2008 platinum awards. Read more

TunesDay: S&Recommends Lucky Soul (and a few others)

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A guy on one of my music lists posted a question this morning: what’s everybody digging from eMusic these days? Wow – it’s like he knew it was TunesDay and wanted to set me up for another round of S&Recommends, huh?

Well, I don’t need a lot of prodding, so here you go. I’ve mentioned a couple of these before, I know, but great music is the sort of thing it’s okay to harp on…

TunesDay: you just gotta smile…

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It’s hard to think of a band that was greater for longer with less payoff than the now-defunct Catherine Wheel. From 1992’s staggering debut, Ferment, through their much (and unfairly) maligned 2000 coda, Wishville, CW gave us three brilliant records, two good ones, and an outtakes/B-sides compilation (Like Cats and Dogs) that was better than most of the best original studio efforts being released today.

Oh yeah, and a lot of insanely great (and obscenely loud) live shows. Read more

The Best CDs of the 1990s

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Below is my Best CDs of the 1990s list. I never kidded myself for a second that I could produce a definitive review – if I can’t even convince myself that the list is as good as I’d like it, I can hardly fault others for disagreeing here and there, can I?

In the end I wound up deciding on a Top 25 list, and I also offered comments on 25 more honorable mentions. The whole thing, top to bottom, is something like 10 pages worth of reviewing, analysis, and self-defense. I even employed multiple methodologies. First, I tried laying it out by a “connoisseurship” model – that is, I made my own estimates based on my own sense of how things qualitatively met the criteria I established for the project. Then I played a little game where I weighted each criterion and then rated each entry mathematically, thereby generating a quantitative estimate. This had the effect of making me seriously reconsider my initial rankings (for instance, it forced me to give Pearl Jam more credit than I really wanted to – see below for more on that).

Then I sent the list to some friends whose opinions I respect and invited criticism (which I got, in spades – thanks, Greg). That forced some more noodling. Then I set about writing and justifying my picks, and that ALSO led to some revision (if I have a hard time justifying its place in the Top 25, that could mean I’m over-relying on my “like” reflex). Read more