NOW PLAYING IN THE SAVAGE JUKEBOX NOVEMBER 2016

"ONE CHORD TO ANOTHER"
SLOAN
Released June 12, 1996

"1984-FOR THE LOVE OF BIG BROTHER"
EURYTHMICS
Released November 12, 1984

"ROMANCE 1600"
SHELIA E.
Released 1985

"ETERNALLY EVEN"
JIM JAMES
Released November 4, 2016
NEW 2016 MUSIC: As I think about this second solo release from My Morning Jacket's Jim James, a lyric from Planet P. Project comes to mind, which is as follows: "It's a sugar coated pill but it's bitter inside."

It's strange just how prescient Jim James' "Eternally Even," happens to be. Written, recorded, produced and even released before the November Presidential election, the album feels as if it is the sober, somber soundtrack to the aftermath and the profoundly changed world we are now all existing inside of.

Under James' watchful, empathetic musical eyes, the album's nine songs function as sort of a sermonized song cycle, a veritable stoned soul picnic. With keyboard drenched and intoxicating woozy slow funk rhythms, songs like "Hide In Plain Sight," the brilliant "Same Old Lie" and the two part "We Ain't Getting Any Younger," all feel to have been cleaved from the same musical bedrock yet thematically cover subjects like terrorism, voter apathy, hate crimes, impending mortality and the necessity of holding onto hope and love even while in the darkness. "True Nature" extols a "to thine own self be true" narrative, "Here In Spirit" proclaims solidarity in place of silent suffering, "In This Moment" reflects a calmness of spirit and the album's title track serves as benediction, all of which presents Jim James, who takes on the lion's share of the album's instrumentation, as somewhat of a George Harrison figure, an approachable mystic who walks with us but somehow has the perspective to see further and beyond that the very fabric of what is needed for the species to persevere.

A stoned soul picnic indeed.

"NAVY BLUES"
SLOAN
Released May 26, 1998

"4 NIGHTS AT THE PALAIS ROYALE"
SLOAN
Released April 20, 1999

"COMMONWEALTH"
SLOAN
Released September 9, 2014

"NEVER HEAR THE END OF IT"
SLOAN
Released January 9, 2007 (U.S.)

"THE LOVE MOVEMENT"
A TRIBE CALLED QUEST
Released September 29, 1998

"THE GOLDEN AGE OF WIRELESS"
THOMAS DOLBY
Released March 1982

"CARNEY"
LEON RUSSELL
Released June 26, 1972

"HAXAN"
DUNGEN
Released November 25, 2016
NEW 2016 MUSIC: For the year's second Record Store Day, I quickly ventured out to Mad City Music Exchange to pick up a copy of "Haxan," the eighth release from the Swedish band that specializes in a wondrous psychedelia that often recalls works from the late 1960's and early 1970's, all the while updating the sound just enough to serve fully at 21st century music.

For this album, the band's first entirely instrumental release, Dungen has turned their collective attention towards creating an original score to Lotte Reiniger's "The Adventures Of Prince Achmed" (1926), thought to be the world's oldest animated film. Inspired by the film's cast of characters, most notably a witch, Dungen has created a strong, unifying work that conjures up quite a dark, Brothers Grimm suggested sonic landscape filled with moody, brooding prog rock textures that often recall early Pink Floyd or even The Flaming Lips caught within a more disturbing mood.