21 December 2025

Dubblestandart - Woman in Dub (2013) 320

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Gram Parsons - 2006 - The Complete Reprise Sessions

Gram Parsons - 2006 - The Complete Reprise Sessions @320

I'll start with the obvious reissue questions. First, regarding availability, Gram Parsons' two solo albums, GP (1972) and Grievous Angel (1973), have long been combined on one CD for less than half the price of this 3xCD set. Nevertheless, the upgrade is worthwhile: The songs have been remastered for this reissue, and the packaging is greatly improved, with miniature cardboard LP sleeves for the discs and new liners by Holly George-Warren and Parke Puterbaugh-- although the latter's interpretation of "Return of the Grievous Angel" seems questionable.

Regarding bonus material, The Complete Reprise Sessions includes a wealth of extra tracks, including alternate takes and demos as well as a radio spot advertising GP and several interviews with Parsons. On the one hand, these interviews are excellent complements to the music: hearing him speak, despite his stoned cadence, is much more revealing than reading transcripts in the liners. But for some reason, the producers-- Emmylou Harris and John Austin-- have placed some of these bonus tracks at the end of the two proper albums, where they completely disrupt the flow of the songs and the finality of the records. Grievous Angel ought to fade into meaningful silence after "In My Hour of Darkness", as handsome a eulogy as anyone ever wrote for himself. Instead, that short silence is interrupted by an instrumental version of "Return of the Grievous Angel", which sounds like a karaoke track, followed by an interview clip.

The position of the bonus material is a legitimate complaint, but its bearing on the music ultimately is minimal. It's doubtful that even the most harebrained sequencing could ruin these songs. Drenched in pedal steel, GP reveals its demons gradually, especially on Parsons originals like "Still Feeling Blue" and the elegiac "A Song for You", which exhibit a mastery of melody that few other country rockers can approach. "Kiss the Children" and "How Much I've Lied" are broken-family songs that couldn't sound any more convincing out of George Jones' mouth. As he often did, Parsons romanticizes the country life on songs like "She" and "Streets of Baltimore", but it's touching rather than overly sentimental. He comes across as a confused kid looking for answers in country music's clear-cut morals, in its absolute distinctions between sin and virtue. Biographically and psychologically, country music may have been a substitute for Parsons' own tragic family life. As a result, GP sounds like a heartfelt album that truly fears damnation but locates a precarious redemption in every note.

Grievous Angel might actually be better. That title could be Parsons' CB handle, and the album has the picaresque pace of a travelogue, from the trucker's lament of "Return of the Grievous Angel" to the godspeed prayer of "In My Hour of Darkness". In this context the fake "live" medley of the Louvin Brothers' "Cash on the Barrelhead" and the Byrds' "Hickory Wind" (which Parsons co-wrote) makes perfect sense. By that point, his life was mostly tours and travel, and this transience is reflected in the unsettled lyrics. He dives into autobiography on "Brass Buttons", which Puterbaugh asserts is about Parsons' alcoholic mother, and "$1000 Wedding", about an actual event in his life. "Love Hurts" is a superlative duet with Harris, their voices melding sensuously and dramatically, and "In My Hour of Darkness" drives a big rig off into the sunset, with Parsons lamenting the deaths of three friends and asking the lord for safety and wisdom.

Parsons might just as well be singing about himself on that song. He died of a drug overdose before Grievous Angel was released, so "In My Hour of Darkness" was his final bow. Given all the impenetrable myths that have built up around him, it seems important to emphasize this song as a finale, which is why the tacked-on bonus tracks hurt so much. They would have been less intrusive on the third disc, which is comprised solely of newly unearthed outtakes and a few rare tracks from the 1976 compilation Sleepless Nights. This disc has no flow to interrupt and no cohesion to break, but that doesn't mean these songs aren't worthwhile. In addition to rougher versions of "Return of the Grievous Angel" and "We'll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning" and revved-up takes on "Ooh Las Vegas" and "I Can't Dance", Parsons and the band inject a little boogie into the last bars of "She" and "Still Feeling Blue", without losing any of their gravity. And Parsons' cover of the Louvin Brothers' "The Angels Rejoiced Last Night", in addition to seeming semiautobiographical, would have been perfectly at home on Grievous Angel.

These are ostensibly the last Parsons gems left to unearth. Maybe there are more, but it seems unlikely-- at least of this high quality. So maybe it's best that there are a few flaws in The Complete Reprise Sessions. The placement of these interviews will have to be remedied on another set, and revisiting these songs in the future will certainly be something to look forward to. (Pitchfork)

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Lena Anderssen

Letters From The Faroes

(2012)

320

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The Faroe Boys

(1967)

320

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Eivør

Slør

(2015)

320

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Boys in a Band

Black Diamond Train

(2008)

320

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Faroe 5

(2008)

320

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20 December 2025

Tom Tom Club - The Good The Bad And The Funky (2000) 320

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The Hellacopters

High Visibility

(2000)

320

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Division Of Laura Lee

Black City

(2002)

320

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Backyard Babies

Diesel And Power

(1994)

320

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Smash Into Pieces

Disconnect

(2022)

320

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Blues Pills

Blues Pills [Exclusive edition]

(2014)

320

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Eggstone

Ça Chauffe En Suede

(1999)

320

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19 December 2025

2011 - Fatoumata Diawara - Maliba

2011 - Fatoumata Diawara - Maliba (Flac)

The city of Timbuktu, in northern Mali, is home to a massive collection of manuscripts, some dating back more than 600 years. During the country’s armed rebellion of 2012, members of the militant Islamist group Ansar Dine seized Timbuktu and began destroying the artefacts on the grounds that they were idolatrous. Residents smuggled many of the treasures out of the city so that they could be hidden and dispersed into private hands. Ansar Dine were driven out in 2013, and since then projects to reconstruct the collections have proceeded. Fatoumata Diawara’s digital album Maliba forms the soundtrack to an online presentation of the manuscripts on Google Arts and Culture which tells the story of their preservation.

The Malian singer-songwriter started her solo career in 2011 with the irrepressibly joyous Fatou, and has combined music with acting: in Abderrahmane Sissako’s 2014 film Timbuktu, set during the 2012 occupation, she embodies the spirit of the city.

Her songs ripple outwards from the manuscripts, celebrating the city, education, the role of women, and national and global unity. “One day”, she sings in English before switching to Bambara, “We will realise/That the manuscripts in our possession/Have great significance.” Kamele ngoni prickles around the edge of the wistful crack in her voice; string glissandi swoop and glide unobtrusively in the background. On the title track, to a swaying hand-clapped rhythm and wah-wah guitar, she pleads “let’s help Mali become a developed country”. The rapper Master Soumy (familiar to Western audiences from the film Mali Blues) chimes in: “I owe my humanity and honour to Timbuktu/Mali, Africa, Europe, it belongs to everyone.” Other voices chime in, singing in Tamasheq, the language of the Tuaregs — a musical illustration of Malian unity.

“Kalan”, with a pretty acoustic figure and a deep bassline, defends the importance of education, especially for women. “Let our girls be educated, mother/They may become government ministers/One day they may become doctors . . . One day they may even be presidents.” A light haze of synth lifts the chorus, then a lyrical, contemplative piano solo. “Save It”, with a desert lope that kicks up midway through into a harder, more aggressive groove with curls of strings, deals uncomfortably with the legacy of slavery and questions surrounding which parts of heritage are worth saving. The traditional beat of “Yakandi” is carried on clattering percussion, guitar and basslines woven through polyrhythmically. “I don’t discriminate, we are all the same/The Bambara is black, you are white/Let’s unite and march together.” (Financial Times)

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