Stevie Wonder - A Time to Love: 7.5 (high B+)

# [R&B]

The Smile - A Light for Attracting Attention [honorable mention]

:-)

The Morwells - Crab Race

:-| [four listens]

Liquid Liquid - Optimo: 7.5 (high B+)

Way too pricey.

Chicago Farmer - Flyover Country [honorable mention]

:-)

Nico - Chelsea Girl [honorable mention]

:-)

Moor Jewelry - True Opera: 7 (B+)

Digital/vinyl only. [Moor Mother & Mental Jewelry]

Ben Aylon - Xalam: 7 (B+)

# [outsider playing indigenous instruments]

Mazzy Star - Seasons of Your Day

:-|

Sage Francis - Li(f)e [honorable mention]

:-)

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Reunions [honorable mention]

:-)

The Clash - Combat Rock + The People's Hall [honorable mention]

:-) [Hm for second disc – not worth re-buying great album for this. Doesn't hang together or anything.]

The Chills - Scatterbrain: 7 (B+)

Craig Finn - A Legacy of Rentals [honorable mention]

:-)

Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers

:-( [Four listens. At last, a Lamar album that critics don't all fall over themselves trying to make album of the year, so I don't have to justify not buying it.]

Mexstep - Resistir: 9.5 (high A)

Burning Spear - Live [honorable mention]

:-)

Felt - Remaining studio albums - batch review

Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty - 6 tracks, 30 minutes, so really more of an EP. Three listens. Honorable mention.

The Splendour of Fear - largely instrumental based around long guitar passages inspired by classical guitar music, with only tracks 2 and 5 having any lyrics. One or two listens.

Let the Snakes Crinkle Their Heads to Death (a/k/a The Seventeenth Century) - short instrumentals; 19 minutes. One or two listens.

Train Above the City - no Lawrence, all instrumentals in jazz style. One or two listens.

The Pictorial Jackson Review - Eight songs on side one; two Duffy instrumentals on side two. Listened to side one three times at ~20 minutes. "Bitter End" is the only keeper of the eight ("Christopher St" and "Don't Die on My Doorstep" come close). Honorable mention for what is essentially an eight song EP. Listened to side two twice.

Mazzy Star - Still [EP]

:-(

Mazzy Star - Among My Swan [honorable mention]

:-)

Britney Spears - The Singles Collection: 7.5 (high B+)

# [best of]

Various Artists - Crucial Reggae Driven by Sly & Robbie: 7.5 (high B+)

# [multi-artist comp] Plus vinyl is too expensive and CDs are unremastered.

John Coltrane - My Favorite Things: X stars

DJ Maphorisa & Kabza De Small - Scorpion Kings ep [honorable mention]

:-) [An "ep" at 12 tracks and 76:41? Four listens. Cover below to avoid confusion.]

The Blue Nile - Hats: 7 (B+)

Selling only at import prices. Too high for B+.

Placebo - Never Let Me Go [honorable mention]

:-)

Pale Saints - The Comforts of Madness [honorable mention]

:-)

Arbor Labor Union - New Petal Instants [honorable mention]

:-)

Juluka - The Best of Juluka: 7 (B+)

 I don't buy best ofs at this grade.

Juluka - Universal Men [honorable mention]

:-)

Juluka - Ubuhle Bemvelo [honorable mention]

:-)

Juluka - Stand Your Ground [honorable mention]

I'm breaking protocol and posting a cover image for an honorable mention, because I bought this on vinyl when it came out, and it has a complicated background. I remember being hugely excited, because I had loved Scatterlings so much and had listened to it over and over. This one was a big disappointment, but it wasn't terrible. Here's the background, from Wikipedia: "The album debuted four new Juluka songs: "Kilimanjaro", "Look into the Mirror", "Fever", and "Crazy Woman". The six remaining tracks are songs that were previously released on Juluka's 1983 album, Work for All. In South Africa and Zimbabwe, an alternate album was released: The International Tracks (MINC, 1984). This 7-track EP has the same cover art and new songs as Stand Your Ground. The difference is that, instead of the songs from Work for All, The International Tracks has two new remixes and one reissued track: "Umbaqanga Music" from the 1982 album Scatterlings." Got all that?

Bang on a Can - Bang on a Can Meets Kyaw Kyaw Naing: 7 (B+)

# [experimental]

The Front Bottoms - batch review

Albums:

The Front Bottoms (2011)

Talon of the Hawk (2013)

Back on Top (2015)

Going Grey (2017)

EPs:

Rose (2014)

Ann (2018)

I listened to all of these at least three times. I also sank alot of time into wondering what grade to give them all, and which of them to buy, if any. I note that the highest grade Hull gives to any of them is the debut, at straight B+. Christgau would have me buy all of the albums, except possibly for Going Grey, which may be the one I like the best. Very frustrating ouevre to parse. Allmusic is no help.

In the end, I would say that these all hover around 7 (B+) to 7.5 (high B+).

Seigneur Tabu Ley [Rochereau] - Yola: 7.5 (high B+)

Only 32 minutes total, plus track three, called "Africa Now" here, I am certain I have on some other release. The last song is some kind of out-of-character Afrobeat experiment. So, at B+, I'm not buying for two songs totalling about 16 minutes.

Holy Modal Rounders - The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders [honorable mention]

:-)

Holy Modal Rounders - Indian War Whoop

:-( 

Peter Stampfel and the Brooklyn & Lower Manhattan Fiddle/Mandolin Swarm - Holiday for Strings: 8 (A-)

 

Moby - Wait for Me: 8.5 (high A-)

My favorite release of his. Love the cover art too.

Moby - Play: 7 (B+)

Honestly, in a vacuum I may have put this at honorable mention. Not sure what everyone hears in this, but it's not them, it's obviously me. Christgau A+ and Hull A also. Maybe one day I'll learn, although I do note that, despite the A+, the former did not list this on his Top 50 of all time list. I also have to note that it was dropped on the third version of Rolling Stone's 500 greatest albums of all time, after being included in both previous versions. I do think it sounds nice, but it lacks any soul of its own to my ears.

Moby - Move [EP]: 8 (A-)

This is what my copy looks like. Got thrashed one great spring evening. The next day, I was bummed it got beer all over it, but now I love how it looks. My second favorite work of his.

Moby - Everything Is Wrong: 8 (A-)

Moby - 18 [honorable mention]

:-) [Goes on forever, alot of the songs sound the same, sounds alot like Play]

Moby - Animal Rights: 7.5 (high B+)

Normally, I would not shelve this (# [dance/electronica]), but, as this was his punk-ish move, I have it.

Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air: 8 (A-)

Kate NV - Room for the Moon [honorable mention]

:-)

Amyl and the Sniffers - Amyl and the Sniffers [liked]

:-)

Michael Hurley - Blue Navigator [honorable mention]

:-)

Michael Hurley - Watertower [honorable mention]

:-)

Gurf Morlix - The Tightening of the Screws [honorable mention]

:-)

Luke Haines - 9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s & Early '80s

:-|

Terry Riley - In C: 7 (B+)

# [experimental/classical?]

Afghan Whigs - Up In It: 7 (B+)

Very claustrophobic- and/or noisy-sounding mix. If you listen through that, you can catch glimpses of some powerful songs. Probably more of an honorable mention, if that; but I possess it, so I'm erring way on the side of over-rating. Really almost more of a curiosity. Anyway, I guess that makes me a Whigs completist, except for Big Top Halloween, which seems so rare that it's almost non-existent.

Peter Stampfel and Jeffrey Lewis - Come on Board: 8 (A-)

Peter Stampfel - Dook of the Beatniks: 8

Peter Stampfel & the Bottlecaps - The Jig Is Up: 8 (A-)

Holy Modal Rounders - I Make a Wish for a Potato: 9 (A)

Holy Modal Rounders - Too Much Fun: 8 (A-)

Peter Stampfel - You Must Remember This: 8 (A-)

Peter Stampfel and the Bottlecaps - Peter Stampfel and the Bottlecaps: 8 (A-)

Jeffrey Frederick & the Clamtones - Spiders in the Moonlight

Stampfel & Weber: Going Nowhere Fast: 8 (A-)

Michael Hurley - Snockgrass: 8 (A-)

Michael Hurley - Long Journey: 7.5 (high B+)

Pavement - Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal: 8 (A-)

[Have this, and all the other remastered/expanded versions of 5 original studio albums. None of the extras on this one are that notable.]