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Unlikely's Musical Year-End Review
by Eric Smiarowski, December 2008
"It's the year's end and my fiancé and I are on baby watch as the due date is upon us. This is also the most sober I've been while writing a review so please pardon the lack of innuendo and blatant pornography. It's been a pleasure bringing these tiny auditory offerings to you. I like to think of them as suggested listening."
Peter Blood and the Nights of Habit
November 2008
This album is like watching CNN war coverage on one television and S-and-M porn on another while fucking a Bubble-Yum-blowing, pig-tailed, barely-legal blonde, all during a three-day meth bender set off by winning the state education lottery. The beautiful violence described by Peter Blood's empathetic lyrics juxtaposed against the pop instrumental hooks either took vast genius or a great stroke of luck to create.
Belinda Subraman
October 2008
Belinda's own writing has grown to span a vast array of subjects, styles and publications. She has traveled in over twenty countries, lived in Europe for six years and was part of an East Indian family for twenty-two years. These cross-cultural experiences often inform her work, as do her experiences as a Registered Nurse. These days her poetry, stories, and art can be found in hundreds of journals, reviews, anthologies, books and chapbooks.
910 Noise, featuring The Pony Gropers
September 2008
Noise art can be compared to birth. An ugly little thing violently squirming in its own filthy ooze, noise art often emerges as a complex orchestra of aural neurotransmitters, body mass, and bloody tissue. In other words, noise takes on shape. 910 Noise is a collective of artists who sculpt with noise and performance. The use of traditional instruments in radically untraditional ways often produces their unique visions of sight and sound.
Euphoria Ripens by Barry Wallenstein
August 2008
I listened to this record a bunch of times, each time in a different setting. Every time I listened I was transported to an idyllic city where cabs honked trumpets and poetry blended with fun. Barry Wallenstein and his crew put me into a space of meditative contemplation with just enough tragedy to recognize the good times. I couldn't help but write a poem as a review or, as the case may be, my review as a poem.
Doctor Oakroot
July 2008
The good Doctor applies time and craftsmanship to his art. He currently uses the vehicle of traditional blues to deliver his stories but has been known to go punk rock and specialize in the international language known as Esperanto. The music is self-described as "rough edged songs on quirky homemade guitars." This description is accurate enough seeing as the man creates his guitars from cigar boxes.
Al's Place Bluegrass Band
June 2008
So Al's Place is not a hardcore bluegrass band. More of a coastal, easy, harmonic approach which leads me to a big but: all these folks have hard-ass jobs. I tell you, Al's Place is a giant slice of Americana. The way I found them is by hearing some thumping bass every Friday evening while I was trying to put my daughter to sleep. After she was asleep I could go out to my carport for a cig and hear the songs being played. I heard tunes by Johnny Cash, Bill Monroe, Hank Williams, etc.
Ike Snopes
April 2008
Crystal guitar picking and vibrant distortions give this record the dream quality of an Oak tree limb growing into the vista of your cliff-side view of the sunset. The lyrics are coated in liquid bass lines that drip wax sarcasm all over your hippie candle. You will kick your beads and your girlfriend will ask "What's wrong?" and you will rock out because I'm for damn sure your weed is better than mine.
Empire State Troopers
February 2008
Kelly Murphy's lyrics are a fevered search for a trap door in the root cellar of her heart. Digging in the pitch-black dirt of sordid relationships and leaving claw marks on the backs of her captors, she regales us with stories of inner personal battles on the wind of her golden pipes. Accompanied by Thom Hall driving riffs on guitar that, depending on where, can be construed as descending into or climbing out of crescendos...
Gay Tastee
January 2008
Steve Gaylord, better known as Gay Tastee, is a regional folk singer songwriter out of Albany, New York. His songs are steeped in historical references, classic Russian novels, the walls of vandalized churches, and misanthropes drunk on Robitussin. His voice, while unconventional, intonates the sad desperation of the hopeless everyman.
Joseph O'Leary
December 2007
With a stripped-down, folky-punky sort of sound that seems to celebrate the death of rock'n'roll as much as anything it did in life, the solo work of Joseph O'Leary slaps wailing, eerie vocals on surreal and evocative lyrics, then mixes with acoustic and electric instrumentation and ambient effects, for a final product that, for all its ingredients, comes off creepily minimalist.
DEVI
November 2007
Meet DEVI, a little New Jersey slice of pure rock and roll. Wildly praised by a host of diverse magazines such as TrifectaGRAM, New York Cool, Midwest Record, Guitar Gods, Ugly Planet and just about everyone else for an ear for what's happening in original rock, DEVI's been all over clubs in the greater NYC area bringing their blues-tinged party to grateful and jamming audiences.
George Wallace and The Moontones
October 2007
The poems of George Wallace unwind like a flawlessly coiled beatnik, sensuously wafting through themes of loneliness, denial, and all those other traumas we associate with the word "love." In his new spoken word album Sky Is, Wallace is backed by Tony Lamb's band "The Moontones," who bring an ethereal fluidity to Wallace's sharp sense of location.
Two tracks from Pandemonium by Barry Wallenstein
with a review by Kirpal Gordon, June 2007
"No question, the band is fun, nutty, capable, but the first thing a listener is confronted with in Pandemonium, Barry Wallenstein's latest CD from Cadence Records, is the voice of the poet. No stranger to wrapping his well-crafted lyrics around what a little moonlight and a jazz ensemble can do, Wallenstein is a most distinctive word slinger. Play one line of verse from any of the nineteen poems on the CD and you know it's he."
Leigh Herrick
May 2007
"The attacks that occurred in the United States on 9/11/2001 did so just 19 days before my departure to Vermont. This had a grave affect on the course of my work, not altering it, but deepining it, catapulting me into what I believe is a most necessary look at what it meanst ot be living as a citizen of conscience on Earth and in this beautiful country, America."
Serendipity at Midnight
by M. Andre Vancrown, April 2007
At the age of seventeen, Vancrown began work on his first fantasy novel. By twenty, he had two complete novels that he now swears will never see the light of day. In 1994, he started a career as an award-winning Information Technology consultant, specifically as a Technical Writer specializing in Sarbanes-Oxley compliance documentation. Ironically, this career rarely coincides with his goals as a writer.
Suchoon Mo
March 2007
The stripped-down, moody compositions of Suchoon Mo are quiet, reflective excursions into passion, pain, and emotional contemplation, filled with Eastern sentiments expressed with Western musical styles. Infused with a sense of meditation, they use spiraling themes and partial repetitions to transport the listener downward through consciousness.
Steve Dalachinsky and Matthew Shipp
February 2007
This month we present two tracks from the Steve Dalachinsky and Matthew Shipp collaboration, Phenomena of Interference. New York Jazz poet Steve Dalachinsky and free jazz pianist Matthew Shipp have teamed up to produce twenty-three sophisticated and varied tracks, smoothly merged together into a brilliant aural experience.
Song Shapes
by Jim Andrews, January 2007
"No audio. You imagine the music."
On the Barge of the Soud, P piece, Bleak Use, S zon, and Caw Huffer
by The Be Blank Consort, January 2007
"The Be Blank Consort was born in June 2001 at The Atlantic Center for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach, FL) when all of its members were part of a literary residency convened by Richard Kostelanetz. They are all writers, but they all use language in greatly expanded and often completely new ways and contexts. The Consort was formed to perform various kinds of texts, many of them created collaboratively, in ways that would reveal new resonances and possibilities in them."
Green
by Tantra Bensko, January 2007
"Is a prayer that answers itself,
With the hoot of an owl,
The stones that wind follows
All night, as you walk,"
Two excerpts from Cyborg Opera
by Christian Bök, January 2007
"lob a bomb
to bomb
pop-art
gewgaws"
Whatever It Takes, Baby Makes, Adrift, and All the Fuss
by Barbara DeCesare, January 2007
Poems by Barbara DeCesare have appeared previously in Unlikely Stories, as well as Poetry, Alaska Quarterly Review and many others. She is a perennial instructor at the University of Pennsylvania's Writers' Conference, a featured writer at the most recent Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, and a paralegal with a depressing collection of cute pumps and three teenaged kids.
Pinball Graveyard and Fascist Insect
by Dulabomber, January 2007
"Dulabomber is just two guys who kinda live in Milwaukee and can't afford heat..." These tracks are off last year's self titled full length. As of a month ago Ricky and Spider are back in the studio with some very special guests throwing down some wicked vicious soundscapes of gruff-ass down-tempo melodrama. New this year are some con fangled disco weirdo tracks sure to lighten your igloo's mood, even as the ol' hypothermia sets in.
George Wallace and David Amram
December 2006
This month, we're proud to present two tracks from the CD version of Swimming through Water. Swimming through Water contains ten tracks from the book of the same name by George Wallace, the first Poet Laureate of Suffolk County, New York, accompanied by David Amram, beat musician known for his collaborations with Jack Kerouac.
The Steve Elmer Trio
November 2006
"You know, usually I gotta hear one tune over and over when I first play a record. It's only after I have that one song in my skin that I can get to the rest of the music; but not with the Elmer trio. I turn it on and it's sixty minutes of one song suite to me. Sometimes I play it all day long."
The Molotov
October 2006
The recently released CD (demo), Limited Sedition by The Molotov, is an angry, charged, and at times darkly humourous collection of seven songs. The music is a hybrid fusion of industrial, rap, hardcore punk/metal guitar riffs, breakbeat and pumping techno, while the lyrics are explicit, confrontational and pull no punches.
Roger Rosenberg
September 2006
Roger Rosenberg has worked with a stunning list of greats; do the names Tito Puente, Buddy Rich, Chet Baker, Lee Konitz, Janet Lawson, Miles Davis, Quincy Jones, John Scofield, Sarah Vaughn, Gerry Mulligan, Michael Brecker, The New York Philharmonic, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Bob Mintzer, Eddie Palmieri, David Lahm, Tom Scott, T.S. Monk and Steely Dan ring a bell?
The Disclaimers
August 2006
Together since 2001, The Disclaimers have gone from being a bunch of rock nerds playing their favorite Velvet Underground and Turtles songs into a bunch of rock nerds playing their favorite original material, with writing and vocal contributions from all members. But they'll still play Velvet or Turtles if you ask them real nice.
Looking at the Floor
by Spiel and Jack Moss, July 2006
Introducing "Looking at the Floor," a collaboration project between the poet and author Spiel and the musician Jack Moss. This six-minute track of spoken word and music is a precise example of the power that results from two divergent artists sharing the same groove.
Bob Powell
June 2006
We're pleased to put forth an encore presentation of last June's music feature, Bob Powell. Bob Powell has been stuck down the rabbit hole for over twenty five years producing tripped out noises garbled vocal rummagings and serious sweet ballad-like ditties. Hailing from Rochester, Powell's journey has taken him through the navy to art and film college and has seen him working as composer for a theatrical group in Chicago. This traveling troubadour now calls Los Angeles his home and spends his days composing and working on other solo projects.
Vernon Frazer
May 2006
Vernon Frazer's poetry and fiction have appeared in many literary magazines. He has written six books of poetry, and recently introduced his longpoem, IMPROVISATIONS (I-XXIV), at The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in Manhattan. Frazer has produced five recordings of poetry with free jazz accompaniment and appeared on several recordings with the late jazz saxophonist Thomas Chapin, including their duo release, Song of Baobab.
Kenji Siratori
April 2006
Kenji Siratori: a Japanese cyberpunk writer who is currently bombarding the internet with wave upon wave of highly experimental, uncompromising, progressive, intense prose. His is a writing style that not only breaks with tradition, it severs all cords, and can only really be compared to the kind of experimental writing techniques employed by the Surrealists, William Burroughs and Antonin Artaud.
Elya Finn
March 2006
Infused with a romanticism that will chill your mind as it warms your heart, these songs present a balance between unfettered hope and utter cynicism. Cheerful, optimistic lyrics of love are balanced with a voice that speaks of danger, risk, and the ever-present possibility of betrayal. The lyrics, written specifically for Elya's voice by Michael Rothenberg, speak in a perpetual doubletalk that conveys more honest romance than could possibly be communicated with mere sincerity.
Checkpoint 303
February 2006
In an effort to expose the world to the realities of life in the Middle East, Checkpoint 303 (named after an identity checkpoint between Israel and Palestine) has recorded the sounds of bombs, of protest, of guns worldwide, fusing them into a single music which is both disconcerting and supremely important. What they create is wonderful, musically speaking, though the sounds themselves are of course, disturbing.
Stealing the Feeling
by The Hellphones, December 2005
The Hellphones play a startling mix of old school rock 'n roll infused with modern guitar pop and good old fashioned attitude. Most often compared to The Rolling Stones, The Hives, Jack Black, The Kings Of Leon, Thin Lizzy and The Strokes, The Hellphones are in reality just themselves. Fuelled by rock 'n roll and on a mission to convert YOU to their sound.
Mozambique
by Fuzigish, December 2005
Fuzigish throw out the fastest, the slowest, up-beats, down-beats, and just general brilliant phat ska. Originating from Johannesburg, South Africa, Fuzigish started in the beginning of 1997, playing a mix of ska, punk and rockabilly. To date they have toured across South Africa, Europe, UK and Australia.
Feeling the Pressure
The Dirty Skirts, December 2005
One of the foundations of The Dirty Skirts are super-octane live by performances, which they have continued to deliver in and around South Africa for all of 2005, fuelling their reputation as a top live act to follow. Stage magazine dubbed their Independent Armchair Theatre performance as "explosive" and referenced The Cure, Bauhaus and Kraftwerk in the eclectic montage of guitars and beats.
The Marriage of Clowns
by Michael Rothenberg and Alex Walsh, November 2005
The Marriage of Clowns is an eleven-minute spoken word piece, written and performed by Michael Rothenberg and set to the baroque musical subtleties of Alex Walsh. The result is a slow groove through a high-strung wavelength. It's simple storytelling set against the backdrop of psychedelic imagery, as if John Prine was center ring at a Barnum & Bailey finale.
Zach Lost
October 2005
A visual artist who received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Mason Gross school of the arts at Rutgers University in 2003, Zach is a skilled and passionate performer in several genres, as well as an accomplished writer; as recognized by the Academy of American Poets in 2002 and 2003. He has won several slams and has been featured at venues from California to Paris.
