As I mentioned last week, I couldn’t fit everything in my annual column of gift ideas that I thought was worthwhile. On Friday I wrote about a couple terrific music-related photography books, and today I’m highlighting some additional box sets.
From the vantage point of 2017, it can seem as though Seattle’s underground rock scene didn’t exist before Sub Pop Records and grunge, but an unexpected little box set simply titled U-Men offers a small but important corrective. The U-Men themselves existed only from 1983 till 1989, but that was an era when America’s posthardcore punk landscape (into which the band fit nicely) was evolving rapidly and producing a disproportionate number of influential sounds and artists. The U-Men curdled old-school rock ‘n’ roll, creating a harrowing new sound that pushed a ghoulish Cramps-like aesthetic (especially audible in the maniacal, wildly hiccuping style of singer John Bigley) toward the discomfiting antisocial howling of the Birthday Party.
Wadada Leo Smith, Najwa (TUM)
Wadada Leo Smith, Solo: Reflections and Meditations on Monk (TUM)
Cat Hope, Ephemeral Rivers: Chamber Works (Hat Art)
Stan Getz, Focus (Verve)
Phonophani, Animal Imagination (Hubro)
