The Velvet Underground pictures with tag: fricke's picks

Fricke’s Picks: Classic Oz Rock

Issued in 1986 — at the twin zeniths of the first psychedelic revival and Australia’s post-punk underground — and just reissued in a deluxe two-CD set, Free Dirt (Aztec Music), by the Sydney band Died Pretty, is a classic debut album on both counts. “Just Skin,” “Next to Nothing” and “Through Another Door” are built on late-Sixties templates — the frantic-Bach dynamics of the Doors; the scouring drone of the Velvet Underground; singer Ron Peno’s high, clear belting, like an operatic Iggy Pop — reinvigorated with a jagged modernism and brash, beckoning hooks. Free Dirt was the Died Pretty’s first full-length release after three singles and an EP, and this set wisely brings them all together, including the 10-minute “Mirror Blues,” an obvious homage to the Velvets’ throb epic “Sister Ray” and one of the few equal to the task.

Published: 2009-02-26 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Rock News, Fricke's Picks

Fricke’s Picks: The Garden of Forking Paths

String Theories The Garden of Forking Paths (Important) is a record of converging passions: an overview of the post-John Fahey improvising-folk renaissance through newly commissioned solo pieces for stringed instruments — acoustic guitar, lute, cello and Japanese koto. “The Broken Hourglass,” by the British guitarist James Blackshaw, the album’s curator, shows why he is a rising star himself. His twelve-string arpeggios tumble through cavelike echo with railroad-train force and balletlike finesse. Cellist Helena Espvall’s “Home of Shadows and Whirlwinds” skids from atonal groans to hovering modal runs like John Cale’s viola minus the rest of the Velvet Underground. In “The Mirror of Eternal Light,” the Dutch lutist Jozef van Wissem catches his own reflection in tender, minimalist picking and gold-spray overdubs. Koto player Chieko Mori’s opening and closing pieces are also duets — Mori playing with her virtual twin. But the effect is pure, private prayer.

Published: 2008-03-13 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Rock News, Fricke's Picks

Fricke’s Picks: Spanish Electricity at SXSW

Photo: bcoredisc.com It was only 9 p.m. on opening night when I hit my first pay dirt of this year’s SXSW in Austin: Capsula a kinetic trio from Bilbao, Spain — singer-guitarist Martin Guevara and bassist Coni Duchess, the band’s founding couple, are originally from Argentina — who were supposed to be obsessed with the Velvet Underground (according to a newspaper preview) but were actually a high-velocity union of the Cramps and the Who, coated in corroded glam. Guevara attacked his guitar with

Published: 2009-04-13 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Fricke's Picks