Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
everythingthathappens.com
I’ve always been vaguely disappointed by My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the 1981 album by Brian Eno and David Byrne. Sure, it’s an influential landmark album by the producer extraordinaire and the Talking Heads founder and a revolutionary sound collage of unusual vocal samples and world beat rhythms. But it’s a little cerebral, and I’ve always wished that the duo would collaborate on an album of proper pop songs. Well, now, 27 years later, we get Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. It’s currently only available on the website www.everythingthathappens.com but will soon be available at other online sources and on CD. It’s not an instant classic, but the best songs, like “Life is Long,” are positively uplifting. It’s quirky, catchy and sounds nostalgic enough to be appropriately autumnal. CD release: OctoberThe Red Balloon
Dorm Room Music
Possibly one of the strongest writers in independent hip-hop today, local MC/beat maker The Apprentice plans to release his sophomore album, The Red Balloon early this fall. The album, which doesn’t have an exact release date yet, tackles everything from politics to religion to Reno’s hip-hop scene. It’s a more mature follow-up to Apprentice’s well-received debut album Misery Loves an Audience. The new album also boasts an all-star list of featured local musicians, such as Emic, Rameses, Meta and Idol Hands, among others. Songs like “America” and “6:01 a.m.” display Apprentice’s talents as a poet and an intellectual. “Anticipation” and “Bella” present his raw MC side, and tracks like “Jilly Don’t Cry” and “Dance With Me” show that it’s OK to be a hip-hopper in Reno and still have fun. CD release: AutumnThe Living and the Dead
Anti-
Those who love the timeless, warbling, Americana romanticism of Jolie Holland will still find it here, in her upcoming fourth album,The Living and the Dead. She continues to blend country, jazz and folk with a poet’s quirky, haunting sensibility. But this album also shows what happens when she merges those characteristics with reverb, electric guitar and a touch of rock ‘n’ roll. Her Western sense smacks into Brooklyn, where she’s been residing lately. Largely, it’s an album of loss, death and those remaining. Even the purposefully goofy “Enjoy Yourself” track is a light reminder of life’s brevity. Her characters are digging themselves into and out of holes, they’re lost on the streets of New Orleans, murdering their lovers, and wishing they could have been a better friend. M. Ward helped produced and played guitar on two tracks, and co-producer Shahzad Ismaily adds bass, a Moog synthesizer, the pulsating sounds of the shruti box and a duck call to help create a textured, rock and pop quality most Holland fans have yet to hear from her. CD release: Oct. 724 Postcards in Full Colour
FatCat Records
Originally conceived as an interactive art installation, the 24 tracks from this collection are intended to be used as ringtones accompanied by visual images. Despite this intention, the 24 “postcards” stand alone as a very interesting album. Richter proposes that the tracks be listened to in any order to create an infinitely diverse experience. The tracks are varied and brief, many composed of solitary piano, such as the second track “H in New England,” while others, like “Kierling / Doubt,” evoke a glitchy, subdued, electronic feeling. Although Max Richter’s music is a hybrid of classical, electronic and experimental styles, it is melodic and accessible. Like postcards, the tracks function as aural snapshots, fragmentary sketches that evoke a sense of travel and conjure up scenes and memories. They lean toward the melancholy and bittersweet and, although some tracks are deceptively simple on their own, together they create a complex and beautiful whole. CD release: Sept. 23