John Diliberto’s Top 10 CDs 2013

This was one of the hardest lists ever to compile.  It’s different from 25 Essential Echoes CDs of 2013, which is our picks of the best music played on Echoes.  And it’s also different from The Best of Echoes 2013 Listener Poll results.   These are my picks from all the music I heard in what turned out to be an epic year for new music.  And in an epic year, these are the albums that rose to the top of the top for me.

1- Pat Metheny – Tap: John Zorn’s The Book of Angels, Vol. 20
Metheny takes fragmentary themes from composer John Zorn’s “Book of Angels” series and orchestrates them into expansive, electro-symphonic works.  The fact that it features some of Metheny’s most unbridled and psychedelic guitar playing in years is just a bonus.

2- Rhian Sheehan –  Stories from Elsewhere
On his 7^th album, Stories from Elsewhere,  Rhian Sheehan created one of the most sublime shadings of ambient chamber music since Harold Budd’s Pavillion of Dreams.  It’s a magical CD of soaring strings, surging rhythms, childlike music boxes and ambient expanses that sounds both familiar and timeless. It was a CD of the Month in May.

3 – Olivier Libaux – Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age
I don’t know if I could’ve gotten behind an album more than I did Olivier Libaux’s sublime covers of music by alt-metal band Queen’s of the Stone Age.  Part of the New Wave/Punk cover band Nouvelle Vague.  Libaux stepped out on his own to record the albums with singers including Emilianna Torinni and Inara George. He accomplished a melancholy re-imagining of this alt-metal band’s music. It was a CD of the Month in July.

4 – Ludovico Einaudi –  In a Time Lapse
In a Time Lapse is a defining album on which pianist/composer Ludovico Einaudi pulled out all the stops, synthesizing a 21^st century classicism that is all-embracing in its musical influences, and all-enveloping in its emotional sweep. It was Echoes CD of the Month in March,

5 – Moby   Innocents
Moby completes a trilogy of atmospheric, introspective songs that began with Wait for Me and Destroyed.  A CD of the Month in November,  Innocents is the most soothing melancholy.

6 – Ólafur Arnalds   For Now I Am Winter
Both sophisticated and edgy, Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds inhabits his own sonic universe, balancing emotions and mood on a laser’s edge of strings echoing out of frozen skies and electronics trawling the substrata.  For Now I Am Winter is his most mature work to date and a CD of the Month in April.

7 – Ulrich Schnauss A Long Way To Fall
A wonderfully melodic, groove driven album of synthesizer wonder as Ulrich Schnauss explores childhood memories with electronic dreams.  The title track will leave you breathless.  It was an Echoes CD of the Month in February.

8 – Mree   Winterwell
Serene dream pop from a 19 year old musician who comes from a singer-songwriter tradition but creates Enya like choirs with her voice on this lush and powerful album.

9 – Bleeding Rainbow   Yeah, Right
This Philadelphia based band created a garage-rock psychedelic ecstacy that often attained the epic mixing shoegaze guitars with motoric grooves and heroic girl-group choruses from singer Sarah Everton.  I’m still trying to figure out why Savages got so much hipster attention and this album slipped away.  Play it loud and you’ll wonder why as well.

10- Sigur Ros  Kveikur
Sigur Ros kick out the jams on this album of delirious, roiling textures and Jonsi’s falsetto melodies of prayer.  This is one of the Icelandic groups more aggressive outings which is saying a lot for a band that has no restraints in their electric storm.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

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Echoes Top 25 for December 2013

Here’s the last Top 25 list for 2013.  And like our 25 Essential Echoes CDs and The Best of Echoes Listener Poll, it reveals just what a great year 2013 was.  There are seven Echoes CD of the Month picks on it including December’s selection, David Helpling & Jon Jenkins’ Found.  That’s unusual, but that’s because of the Best of show and the 12 CDs of the Month for 2013 show.  But there’s a couple of CDs there that easily could’ve been CDs of the month, notably, Jeff Johnson, Brian Dunnings & Wendy Goodwin’s Winterfold, a wonderful album of atmospheric winter pastorals, Bombay Dub Orchestra’s Tales from the Grand Bazaar, a CD that get’s into a serene, ambient chamber music sound but with eastern edges and subtle dub grooves, and Azam Ali & Loga Ramin Torkian’s Lamentation of Swans, a deep dive into Persian atmospheres with a lush merging of extoci strings, throbbing percussion and synthesizer atmosphere’s all topped by the sensual wordless vocals of Azam Ali.  And next Month’s CD of teh Month is here as well, Hammock’s Oblivion Hymns. Here‘s the list.

ECHOES TOP 25 FOR DECEMBER 2013

1. David Helpling & Jon Jenkins – Found (Spotted Peccary)
2. Moby – Innocents (Mute)
3. Jeff Johnson Brian Dunning & Wendy Goodwin – Winterfold (Ark Records)
4. Olivier Libaux – Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age (Music for Music Lovers)
5. Tonight Sky – Tonight Sky (Tonight Sky)
6. Moya Brennan – An Irish Christmas (BFO Records)
7. Ólafur Arnalds – For Now I Am Winter (Mercury Classics)
8. Tom Griesgraber and Bert Lams – Unnamed Lands (Inner Knot)
9. Divine Matrix – Hydrosphere (AD Music)
10. Akara – The World Beyond (Merkaba Music)
11. Euphoria – E4 (Instrumental) (Euphoria)
12. Hammock – Oblivion Hymns (Hammock Music)
13. Bombay Dub Orchestra – Tales from the Grand Bazaar (Six Degrees)
14. Ulrich Schnauss – A Long Way to Fall (Ulrich Schnauss)
15. Brad Hoyt – Far Away from Every Day (Harp Guitar Music)
16. Juliette Commagere – Human (Aeronaut Records)
17. Ludovico Einaudi – In a Time Lapse (Ponderosa Music & Art)
18. Azam Ali and Loga R Torkian – Lamentation of Swans (Terrestrial Lane Productions)
19. Mary Fahl – Love & Gravity (Mary Fahl)
20. Eklipse – Electric Air (The End)
21. Frankie Rose – Herein Wild (Fat Possum Records)
22. Lotte Kestner – The Bluebird of Happiness (Saint Marie)
23. The Piano Guys – A Family Christmas (Portrait)
24. Courtney Barnett – A Sea of Split Peas (House Anxiety)
25. Grails – Black Tar Prophecies Vols 4-6 (Temporary Residence)

See 25 Essential Echoes CDs and The Best of Echoes Listener Poll

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

GIVE THE GIFT OF THE ECHOES CD OF THE MONTH CLUB

Join the Echoes CD of the Month Club now and you can put David Helping and Jon Jenkins’ Found under somebodies Christmas tree.  It’s our December  CD of the Month.  You’ll get great CDs and help support Echoes at the same time.   You can do it all right here.

OR

GIVE THEM THE GIFT OF TRANSMISSIONS:
THE ECHOES LIVING ROOM CONCERTS VOLUME 19

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Olivier Libaux’s Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age Live on Echoes

Hear Olivier Libaux Bring his Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age to Echoes live tonight

Olivier Libaux’s UNQOTSA live on Echoes

Olivier Libaux is a co-founder of Nouvelle Vague, a French project that records lounge versions of Punk and New Wave songs. Libaux steps out on his own with the CD titled Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age, reinventing songs by that hard rock band. He turns them into introspective dreampop with a host of guest singers.  He comes to Echoes with two other wonderful vocalists, Charlotte Savary and Nathalie Réaux.  They give an enchanting performance of music from the most underrated album of 2013, including a new cover.

Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age was the Echoes CD of the Month for July. Read the Echoes review and hear more trax from this beautiful album.

Below, watch a live performance of  “3’s and 7’s” from Libaux’s 2013 album, Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Join the Echoes CD of the Month Club.  Erik Wøllo’s Timelines is our February CD of the Month.  You’ll get great CDs and help support Echoes at the same time.   You can do it all right here.

OR

Pick Up  TRANSMISSIONS:
THE ECHOES LIVING ROOM CONCERTS VOLUME 19

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12 Echoes CDs of the Month Tonight

WE LOOK BACK AT ECHOES CD OF THE MONTH PICKS FROM 2013

November: Moby – Innocents

Every month on Echoes we pick out the CD of the Month. It’s the album we think best represents the sound of Echoes and simply, the best album in that sound.  This year has been a great one for CD of the Month  selections, so I thought we’d do an entire show looking back at those albums. We’ll be going from our current December pick, David Helpling & Jon Jenkins’ Found, all the way back to our January pick, The Ambient Zone-Just Music Café Volume 4.

January: The Ambient Zone – Just Music Cafe Volume 4

They aren’t necessarily the best albums of the year, but they were all the best album of their respective months and I would be surprised if they all weren’t in our year end top 25.  It can be hard picking the albums. The selections are either slim or abundant.  This year fell on the abundant side as we had our best stretch of Echoes CD of the Month picks in a while.  As we head toward the end of the year and best of lists, I thought I’d look back at our twelve picks.  Maybe these are albums you voted for in the Best of Echoes 2013 poll going on right now at echoes.org.

Prepare for the show with reviews and tracks from all the CDs

March: Ludovico Einaudi – In A Time Lapse

January: The Ambient Zone – Just Music Café Volume 4
February: Ulrich Schnauss – A Long Way to Fall
March: Ludovico Einaudi – In A Time Lapse
April: Òlafur Arnalds – For Now I Am Winter
May: Rhian Sheehan – Stories from Elsewhere
June: Rachel Zeffira – The Deserters
July: Olivier Libaux – Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age
August: Melorman – Waves
September: Darshan Ambient – Little Things
October: Akara – The World Beyond
November: Moby – Innocents
December: David Helpling & Jon Jenkins – Found

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

GIVE THE GIFT OF THE ECHOES CD OF THE MONTH CLUB

Join the Echoes CD of the Month Club now and you can put David Helping and Jon Jenkins’ Found under somebodies Christmas tree.  It’s our December  CD of the Month.  You’ll get great CDs and help support Echoes at the same time.   You can do it all right here.

OR

GIVE THEM THE GIFT OF TRANSMISSIONS:
THE ECHOES LIVING ROOM CONCERTS VOLUME 19

Join us on Facebook where you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind when Dead Can Dance appear on the show, Tangerine Dream tours or Brian Eno drops a new iPad album. Or Follow us on Twitter@echoesradio.

Now you can go Mobile with Echoes On-Line. Find out how you can listen to Echoes 24/7 wherever you are on your iPhone, iPad or Droid.

Greatest Songs of the 21st Century… So Far: An Idiosyncratic List.

The thirteenth year of the 21^st century doesn’t seem to be the right time to look back on the best of the millennium.  Those lists usually come on the decade and quarter century marks.  But I was asked to compile another Top Ten list for Echoes affiliate, WXPN in Philadelphia.  This time, the impossible assignment was picking the Top Ten Greatest Songs of the New Millennium for their 885 Greatest Songs of the New Millennium Countdown.  This is never an easy task but it made me think of the songs I keep coming back to, the songs that haven’t left my iPhone where music is constantly being cycled off to make room for new material.

One thing I like about this list is it takes classic rock, new wave, progressive rock and just about everything else I grew up with out of the equation.  In my 885 Best Rock Songs list I picked The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” as number one and wrote that “I think any of 10 tunes by The Rolling Stones could be on this list.”  On this  list, there aren’t any great new Rolling Stones tunes in this century.  Nor are there any great new Pink Floyd, The Who or Hendrix tunes to be found.   Six of my ten songs are from artists who began recording in the 2000’s

Because it is greatest “songs,” I left out instrumentals, except for one, which, in an admittedly idiosyncratic move, I made number 1.  For some reason, several of the tracks are from 2008.  It’s not much like the lists of other XPN hosts, and will certainly be nothing like the list that comes from their 885 Greatest Songs of the New Millennium Poll with listeners, but it’s my list.  Follow the link to vote for your own.  Voting ends September 16. At the bottom, I’ve got a Spotify Playlist of John Diliberto’s Top Ten Songs of the New Millennium, So Far.

JOHN DILIBERTO’S GREATEST TEN SONGS OF THE NEW MILLENIUM

1 Ulrich Schnauss “Clear Day”
What a great way to start this list, a wash of white noise obliterating all that came before, then slowly a syncopated 4/4 snare groove rolls in, droning synth chords, a chilling melody and one of those classic Ulrich Schnauss choruses that hooks you on a train ride to ecstasy.  This is one of several tracks from Schnauss’ 2003 CD A Strangely Isolated Place that I could’ve picked. (See Five Best Ulrich Schnauss CDs).  Somebody should write lyrics for this. It’s waiting to be a hit.

2 Moby – Wait for Me
In my review of this Echoes CD of the Month in July 2009 I wrote: “The title track is another song that seems to contemplate eternity of a lost soul.  It’s sung by Kelli Scarr, who has a fragility that breaks over the waves of Moby’s ghost rhythms, minimalist piano figure and sonic scrims.  She sings “I’m gonna ask you to look away, I lost my hands and it hurts to pray” like a half-remembered nursery rhyme, a paean to lost youth, a contemplation of the end.

It’s a heartbreaking song from an album that makes heartbreak beautiful and noble. (See Five Best Moby CDS) The video doesn’t quite fit the song, so just listen, or just watch.

3 Black Angels, “Yellow Elevator #2”
This is a song I often hit repeat on with my iPhone.  In fact, I just did again. Quoting the “Twilight Zone” theme and Pink Floyd’s “Lucifer Sam,” with Question Mark & the Mysterian’s organ, The Black Angels paint a psychedelic landscape of oblivion this song from their album, Phosphene Dream.  I usually don’t like codas, but the coda for “Yellow Elevator #2” is the most poignant theme this band has recorded.  It was great this year to hear them return it to their live performances after excising it the previous couple of tours.  Excuse me while I kiss these guys. (Review of Album & performance: http://wp.me/pgATL-14j)

4 Loner – “Already Numb” Is heartbreak a theme of this list?  It doesn’t get more forlorn than Loner’s song of lost innocence sung in a beautiful alto over a spare, Satie-like piano theme backed by organ.  The line that gets me every time is

“Album covers, I don’t know how.  Could move me once, but cannot now.”

It’s from his album, Western Sci-Fi which is full of beautiful chamber pop.

5 Olivier Libaux “Go With the Flow” After that heartbreak, I need some joy.  “Go with the Flow” is easily one the most jubilant tracks on Olivier Libaux’s album Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age the Echoes CD of the Month in July 2013. It’s a rollicking party played over a bouncing groove, with vocals provided by Iceland’s Emiliana Torrini.  The sound effects of a cheering audience are used as a musical element that amps-up the elation in QOTSA writer Josh Homme’s story about trying for love despite it all.

6 Alu – “Circus Cosmos”
Alu paints a soundtrack from Mr. Dark’s Pandemonium Carnival (“Something Wicked This Way Comes”).  It’s a three-ring psychosis with calliope organ spinning a tale of delirious love.  Rather than go gothic in tone, Alu’s is euphoric.  It also has an unforgettable chorus:

You are the photograph that I’ve never seen
You are my phantom, the fountain of dreams.
I’ve been living in a mortuary, my whole life long.

There’s more imagery in that one chorus than most musicians conjure for an entire CD and it’s delivered by Alu’s keening soprano with such aching and despair that I know there’s more behind this tune than Alu let on. It’s one of several great tunes from her underrated album, Lobotomy Sessions.

7 Agnes Obel – Riverside
The Danish born singer recorded a heartbreaking song about the ebb, flow and emotional turmoil of life’s currents. Obel brings her lilting, slightly slurred soprano to bear on lyrics of memory and loss.  Singing over a spare cyclical piano riff, she deftly layers her voice into plaintive harmonies that will have you swimming in her bittersweet stream.  Her debut, Philharmonics,  was the Echoes CD of the Month in January of 2012.

8 Gnarls Barkley “Going On”
This may be the most anomalous track on this list. Gnarls Barkley made some crazed R&B that was retro-soul in its melodies, sung by Cee Lo Green, and futuristic in its arrangements from Danger Mouse.  “Crazy” is their massive hit, but I always loved this hyper-kinetic leaving song from The Odd Couple album with Cee Lo’s manic rap-inflected melody, the stop time rhythm and the gothic freak-out at the end.

9 Dandy Warhols – “The Legend of the Last of the Outlaw Truckers A.K.A. the Ballad of Sheriff Shorty”
This is a hyped-up mix of Country-Jitterbug-New Orleans Voodoo psychedelia from Earth to Dandy Warhols. Courtney Taylor-Taylor rips it up in this hipster-jiving ode to speed and trucking, “jacked up on java and nicotine.”  I can’t get it out of my head. Check out this great video and it will be embedded in your head as well.

10 Beck – “Chemtrails”
Beck’s “Chemtrails” from his 2008 album Modern Guilt has one of those Pachelbel-style hooks that could go on forever. The song starts as a lament and turns in to an anthem of deep despair for humanity, while still somehow maintaining hope using chemtrail conspiracy theories as a metaphor.  I saw him do a great version of it with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra at the Bowl that year and it stayed in my head thereafter despite the assholes sitting behind me. Even the pointless coda doesn’t ruin it.

John Diliberto’s 10 Best Songs of the New Millennium Spotify Playlist

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

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Olivier Libaux Transforms QOTSA in Echoes Podcast

Hear an interview with Olivier Libaux tonight on the Echoes Podcast

Olivier Libaux is a co-founder of Nouvelle Vague, a French project that records lounge versions of Punk and New Wave songs. Libaux steps out on his own with the CD titled Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age, reinventing songs by that hard rock band. He turns them into introspective dreampop with a host of guest singers including Inara George from The Bird and the Bee, Katharine Whalen from Squirrel Nut Zippers, Clare Manchon from Clare and the Reasons and Skye from Morcheeba. Libaux talks about his Echoes CD of the Month for July. Read the Echoes review and hear more trax from this beautiful album.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On why this isn’t a Nouvelle Vague record:

Actually my partner (Marc Collin) was not into it, so I made it by myself.  I was the rock-n-roll fan in Nouvelle Vague.  If Nouvelle Vague was covering The Undertones, the Sisters of Mercy, the Dead Kennedys, XTC, things like that, that was because of me because I grew up with these bands.  I believe he’s not a great fan of Queens of the Stone Age.

You can hear Olivier Libaux’s interview in the Echoes Podcast.
John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Find your local Echoes station or streaming options here.

Support Echoes by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.

Think of the great artists you love on Echoes. Think of the informative interviews and exclusive live performances. Then, think of a world without Echoes. You can make sure that never happens by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.

Echoes is a non-profit 501(c3) organization just like your local public radio station. And all donations are tax deductible. You can support Echoes with a monthly donation that will barely disturb your credit card.

Join the Echoes Sound Circle and keep the soundscapes of Echoes flowing!

Echoes Top 25 for July 2013.

Queens of the Stone Age, reinvented, Leads Echoes Top 25

… Like Clockwork by Queens of the Stone Age made Number One on the Billboard Top 200, but Olivier Libaux‘s Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age was Number One on Echoes.  Libaux’s UNQOTSA ,  in which he creates intimate, melancholic versions of tunes from this raging heavy metal band, is one of the surprise albums of 2013.  With an incredible cast of singers, including Inara George, Susan Dillane and Clare Manhchon, Libaux has made this music his own.  It shouldn’t be too much of surprise though.  Libaux is co-founder of the French cover band, Nouvelle Vague which has been turning punk and new wave tunes into Bossa Nova, lounge and folk songs for years.  It was the Echoes July CD of the Month.  You can read a review and listen to complete tracks here.

Coming behind Libaux is the unexpected collaboration between Jah Wobble, former bassist with Public Image Limited, and the ambient band, Marconi Union.  They created a great CD of space dub music called Anomic.  Give a listen to their Echoes Interview.  Wobble is a riot.

Interestingly, eleven of the Top 25 artists have never made this list before.  Here’s the complete list.

ECHOES TOP 25 FOR JULY

1. Olivier Libaux – Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age (Music for Music Lovers)
2. Jah Wobble & Marconi Union – Anomic (30 Hertz)
3. Tricky – False Idols (False Idols)
4. Signal Hill – Chase the Ghost (Sun Sea Sky Productions)
5. Richard Bone – Images from a Parallel World (AD Music)
6. Azam Ali and Loga R Torkian – Lamentation of Swans (Terrestrial Lane Productions)
7. Still Corners – Strange Pleasures (Sub Pop)
8. Northcape – Exploration and Ascent (SunSeaSky)
9. Tom Caufield – Nature and the Constant Illusion (Bohemian Embassy)
10. Roger Eno/Plumbline – Endless City/Concrete Garden (Hydrogen Dukebox)
11. Lightning Dust – Fantasy (Jagjaguwar)
12. Laki Mera – Turn all Memory to White Noise (Just Music)
13. Brian Keane – Copper (OST) (Valley Entertainment)
14. The National – Trouble Will Find Me (4AD Records)
15. Three Fields – Sky (EP) (Installed Worlds)
16. William Tyler – Impossible Truth (Merge Records)
17. Bill Frisell – Big Sur (Sony Masterworks)
18. Melorman – Waves (Sun Sea Sky Productions)
19. Mree – Winterwell (Mree Music)
20. Jeff Greinke – Scenes From A Train (Infectious Music)
21. Seven Saturdays – Seven Saturdays (Lunada)
22. Rachel Zeffira – The Deserters (Paper Bag)
23. Arborea – Fortress of the Sun (Esp Disk Ltd)
24. Sigur Ros – Kveikur (XL Recordings)
25. Hooverphonic – The Night Before (Columbia Europe)

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Sign up for Echoes CD of the Month Club. With the Echoes CD of the Month Club, you get great CDs like Olivier Libauxs Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age. Follow the link to the Echoes CD of the Month Club and see what you’ve been missing.

Support Echoes by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.

Think of the great artists you love on Echoes. Think of the informative interviews and exclusive live performances. Then, think of a world without Echoes. You can make sure that never happens by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.

Echoes is a non-profit 501(c3) organization just like your local public radio station. And all donations are tax deductible. You can support Echoes with a monthly donation that will barely disturb your credit card.

Join the Echoes Sound Circle and keep the soundscapes of Echoes flowing!

Interview: Olivier Libaux

Hear an interview with Olivier Libaux tonight on Echoes

Olivier Libaux is a co-founder of Nouvelle Vague, a French project that records lounge versions of Punk and New Wave songs. Libaux steps out on his own with the CD titled Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age, reinventing songs by that hard rock band. He turns them into introspective dreampop with a host of guest singers including Inara George from The Bird and the Bee, Katharine Whalen from Squirrel Nut Zippers, Clare Manchon from Clare and the Reasons and Skye from Morcheeba. Libaux talks about his Echoes CD of the Month for July. Read the Echoes review and hear more trax from this beautiful album.

Below, watch a live performance of  “3’s and 7’s” from Libaux’s 2013 album, Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age.

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

Find your local Echoes station or streaming options here.

Support Echoes by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.

Think of the great artists you love on Echoes. Think of the informative interviews and exclusive live performances. Then, think of a world without Echoes. You can make sure that never happens by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.

Echoes is a non-profit 501(c3) organization just like your local public radio station. And all donations are tax deductible. You can support Echoes with a monthly donation that will barely disturb your credit card.

Join the Echoes Sound Circle and keep the soundscapes of Echoes flowing!

Queens of the Stone Age Reinvented

NOUVELLE VAGUE CO-FOUNDER RE-IMAGINES
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE
On UNCOVERED QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE

Hear Olivier Libaux’s Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age tonight on Echoes.

I initially heard Olivier Libaux’s CD Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age without knowing the source material.  In fact, I didn’t know there was source material.  I just instantly fell in love with these haunting, languid songs that sounded like refrains from the last call at the bar.

Then I discovered that all the songs were covers of tunes by Queens of the Stone Age.  This hard-rocking alternative band has a sound that borders on Heavy Metal. Their latest CD …Like Clockwork was a number one album in early June.

You may not know Olivier Libaux.  He’s one of the two men behind Nouvelle Vague, the French project specializing in covering punk and new wave songs in a style that hovers between bossa nova and lounge music.  They get seductive dream pop singers, often female, to transport these songs into a dark room of recessed lighting and shadows.

For his new solo album, Libaux leaves most of the Bossa behind and focuses on a single band.  Queens of the Stone Age may appear to be an unlikely source, but no more surprising than his previous choices of songs by The Saints, New Order and The Sex Pistols.  You may love the source material or hate it, but however you feel about the originals, leave those opinions at the door.  Olivier Libaux accomplishes a sublime re-imagining of this alt-metal band’s music on this new CD.

If you don’t know Queens of the Stone Age, just assume that all the originals sound like Rush on a bender with Black Sabbath.  The tunes come from albums titled Era Vulgaris, Songs for the Deaf and Lullabies to Paralyze.

Olivier Libaux

Libaux’s gift for finding the melodic nuance underneath the guitar aggression is evident on the first song, “River in the Road” sung by Rosemary Standley from a band called Moriarty.  Backed by a  portentous eight-chord piano sequence of doom coupled with a delayed single hit on a tambourine, Standley sings it like a wise woman who has seen too much of the world, sacrificing herself in your protection.

“Burn the Witch” is a gorgeous tune that belies its title with Libaux’s finger style guitar and gentle shakers underpinning Clare Manchon’s (from Clare & the Reasons) recasting of QOTSA’s song of hidden lies and coercion. Instead, she turns into a plea for help in troubled world.  Likewise, Libaux turns “I Never Came” from a vicious song of rejection to a torch song of doom sung by Alela Diane.

There are two songs that keep me coming back.  The first is “In My Head, sung by Susan Dillane. A story of unbridled love, she sings over a hallucinatory soundscape of electronic effects, tremulous stings and finger-style guitar, in a delirious love dream.

The other song is “Go with the Flow.” Easily one the most jubilant tracks on the album, it’s a rollicking circus of sound played over a bouncing groove, with vocals provided by Iceland’s Emiliana Torrini.  The sound effects of a cheering audience are used as a musical element that amps-up the elation. A similar mood can be found in the deceptively happy “Medication,” a song about drugs that sounds more satisfied than it should be with its “Woo-hoo” chorus sung by Katherine Whalen.

Olivier Libaux

For those who loved the Bossa Nova style of Nouvelle Vague, it shows up on “No One Knows” with vocals by one of the queens of cool singing, Inara George, from the band The Bird and the Bee.   With a Brazilian groove draped in strings, it’s more “Girl from Ipanema” than “Iron Man.” George also returns in the more classically tinged “Hangin’ Tree.”

Cover tunes abound these days and entire cover albums aren’t unusual, but Olivier Libaux raises the bar with sensitive, largely introspective, and wholly seductive reinventions of Uncovered Queens of the Stone Age.

(Go to John Diliberto’s Spotify account for a playlist with all the original Queens of the Stone Age songs).

John Diliberto (((echoes)))

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