DON’T FORGET CHUCK PROPHET is playing at The Handlebar on Weds — AARON BERG & The Heavy Love opens up at 8:30. Stayed tuned here as we are just about to unveil some pretty exciting Record Store Day plans, visiting artists etc.

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Jimi Hendrix combined a jazz musician’s fluidity and inventiveness on his instrument with unparalleled rock flair. That he left behind only three studio albums before he died in 1970 made him even more intriguing to subsequent generations, as if his fans were trying to figure out what might have been had he lived. For four decades, they consumed every musical leftover from his short career, no matter how poorly conceived, recorded or packaged it might’ve been. Indeed, hundreds of posthumous Hendrix recordings have been issued, most of them exploitive scraps.

This combo is represented on the majority of the tracks, and its vitality still vibrates the speakers – never more so than on a definitive live-in-the-studio version of “Here My Train A Comin’,” with Hendrix bending vocal and guitar notes with shamanistic verve. He veers off into his own private galaxy as a guitarist during an instrumental version of “Sunshine of Your Love,” and conjures a new world as a lyricist on the title track. On the latter, Hendrix’s fluid rhythm-guitar work underpins images brimming with Apocalyptic foreboding: “See visions of sleeping peaks erupting/Releasing all hell that/Will shake the Earth from end to end.” Not unlike Hendrix’s music itself. —Greg Kot chicagotribune.com

RECENT STUFF PICK 1 BROKEN BELLS
Who: The Shins’ singer-guitarist James Mercer and producer extraordinaire Danger Mouse (a.k.a. Brian Burton), who’ve taken time off from their usual gigs to team for a new self-titled disc of left-field psych-pop. Sounds Like: Spooky psychedelia with a British Invasion flavor. Burton outfits Mercer’s beautiful melodies and with analog-synth swooshes, slo-mo kick drums and horn breaks. The mellow punch of “Vaporize” features zippy organ and rolling snare, and Mercer goes for a T-Pained falsetto on the catchy, electro-kicky “The Ghost Inside.” read more: —WILL HERMES rollingstone.com

RECENT STUFF PICK 2 PAVEMENT – Quarantine The Past
2010 is the year of the long-awaited PAVEMENT reunion tour, already including 4 sold-out shows in Central Park, headlining major festivals all over the world, and in general underlining the frenzy that awaits the first performances of one of the most important band of the 1990s in a decade. A whole generation of kids who never saw the band now have their chance. This re-mastered mid-priced, 23-track Greatest Hits collection, chosen by the band, ranges from their Top 10 Modern Rock hit “Cut Your Hair” to nearly all their singles, some underrated album tracks, 3 choice pre- Matador cuts and one obscure compilation track singing the praises of REM (?!). Plus new cheap vinyl on all 5 catalogue LPs .”Pavement were one of the most influential and distinctive bands to emerge from the American underground in the ’90s.” —All Music Guide

RECENT STUFF PICK 3 JIMI HENDRIX – VALLEYS OF NEPTUNE
Jimi Hendrix combined a jazz musician’s fluidity and inventiveness on his instrument with unparalleled rock flair. That he left behind only three studio albums before he died in 1970 made him even more intriguing to subsequent generations, as if his fans were trying to figure out what might have been had he lived. For four decades, they consumed every musical leftover from his short career, no matter how poorly conceived, recorded or packaged it might’ve been. Indeed, hundreds of posthumous Hendrix recordings have been issued, most of them exploitive scraps.

But “Valleys of Neptune” (Sony Legacy) is legit – not quite a lost album, but darn near close in that it compiles 12 previously unreleased studio recordings, most from a key 1969 phase in the guitarist’s career. If it doesn’t tell us anything new about Hendrix, it is a sharp snapshot of a musical genius in the studio during a period of transition. Hendrix revisited older material (”Stone Free,” “Fire,” “Red House”), covered favorite artists (Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love,” Elmore James’ “Bleeding Heart”) and finessed newer material (the title song, “Lullaby for the Summer”). With three exceptions, the tracks are blissfully free of the overdubs and other studio manipulations that mar many of his posthumous recordings. Instead, we get a you-are-there document of Hendrix in the last volatile days of his great power trio with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, the Experience.

This combo is represented on the majority of the tracks, and its vitality still vibrates the speakers – never more so than on a definitive live-in-the-studio version of “Here My Train A Comin’,” with Hendrix bending vocal and guitar notes with shamanistic verve. He veers off into his own private galaxy as a guitarist during an instrumental version of “Sunshine of Your Love,” and conjures a new world as a lyricist on the title track. On the latter, Hendrix’s fluid rhythm-guitar work underpins images brimming with Apocalyptic foreboding: “See visions of sleeping peaks erupting/Releasing all hell that/Will shake the Earth from end to end.” Not unlike Hendrix’s music itself. —Greg Kot chicagotribune.com

Part Kanye West, part Brian Eno, producer-musician Brian Burton — a.k.a. Danger Mouse — has defined himself with his excellent taste in brilliant misfits. His biggest smash was Gnarls Barkley, with whom he turned oddball former Dirty South rapper Cee-Lo into a falsetto swinging soulman on the sublime “Crazy,” triggering moving karaoke performances worldwide. He’s helped blues-rock freaks the Black Keys find their groove; helped midcareer weirdo Beck locate his mojo on 2008’s Modern Guilt; even molded his mash-up sensibility to the arty David Lynch soundtrack project Dark Night of the Soul.

His latest one-off, Broken Bells, could be his biggest stretch yet: It pairs him with career introvert James Mercer, the sublimely melodic singer-songwriter of the Shins. The two have a little history — one track together on Dark Night — but Mercer might seem an odd match for the producer whose first big idea was combining the Beatles with Jay-Z, and whose trademark move is melding hip-hop-rooted samples and beats with vintage psychedelia.

It turns out the two pop-science geeks are a perfect match. Danger Mouse pushes Mercer’s gorgeous, existential tunecraft outward with Day-Glo dynamics. “‘Cause they know, and so do I/The high road is hard to find,” Mercer sings on the opening chorus of Bells. The lyrics are about the loneliness of decision-making — they may refer to life in the trenches of normalcy, or, perhaps, to Mercer’s recent professional decisions (he more or less fired two members of the Shins). But what sweeps you up are the sweet, ascending verses, the rolling chorus and the Danger Mouse touches: analog-synth swirls, slo-mo kick drums, a melancholy bass line — hip-hop for turned-on shut-ins.

Cool variations on the Gnarls formula — Danger and a quirkily excellent singer making arty, transcultural pop — run throughout the album. “Vaporize” begins with Mercer’s fey workaday voice and a strummed acoustic, then takes off with smeared snares, bouncy organ and a jaunty Bacharach-David-style horn break. It’s punchier than the Shins, and livelier than you’d expect from a song whose title suggests innovative marijuana consumption — an anthem of solidarity for malcontents, teenage and otherwise, not unlike “Crazy.” The catchy, midtempo “The Ghost Inside” even has Mercer singing in a T-Pained falsetto — it’s not hard to imagine it on the hit parade, along with the soaring, U2-flavored “October.”

Broken Bells isn’t all crossover ambition. Tracks like “Your Head Is on Fire” — a drum-machine space waltz floating between Syd Barrett and something from Brian Eno’s Another Green World — won’t make the short list of Glee covers. But with a new Shins record reportedly brewing, Mercer seems to be following some of the instructions in his own songs: Life is short, brother — go for it. The introverted indie guy isn’t gone, and he’s still not afraid to tell you that we’re ultimately alone on this journey. “If you want to follow me, you should know,” he sings. “I was lost then/And I’m lost now/And I doubt I’ll ever know which way to go.” Maybe. But for the moment, in Danger Mouse, Mercer has found a promising fellow traveler. —WILL HERMES, http://www.rollingstone.com

BROKEN BELLS

Back down here on the ground the new releases include a much anticipated new JOHN HIATT, a long overdue offering from PETER GABRIEL project-land, new inspirations from The HOLMES BROTHERS, raw raucous blues from GUITAR SHORTY, gentle Latin stylings from JOSH ROUSE, and yes much more. Thanks for being a part of the HORIZON RECORDS family adventure. And COME SEE US.

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DON’T FORGET: Wednesday March 10 CHUCK PROPHET one of our favorites plays The HANDLEBAR 8:30pm and AARON BERG & THE HEAVY LOVE another of our favorites opens up.

In unrelated but further music excitements, our WORLD BEAT listening posts from both PUTUMAYO and ROUGH GUIDE CDS are updated and stocked up with amazing music of all styles and genres from every corner of this globe. Stop in, put on the headphones, listen, dig it, and take home some sounds.

Random thought # 1167: JIMI HENDRIX “Band Of Gypsies” absolutely ROCKS. OK, I’m done, as always

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Note to those that live in this general area know as The North End of downtown Greenville: be a part of something! Check out the upcoming events in the STONE AVE MASTER PLAN and VISION process. Mark your calendars.

Out of the same West African ground that spawned the ancient Mali empire, comes Basseko Kouyate and his band armed with their four ngonis. Kouyate’s latest album with his band Ngoni Ba-I Speak Fula, brings eleven warm earth passages prospered by the small stringed ancestor to the banjo. Kouyate was long ago inspired to move the music beyond where his ngoni forefathers had gone, and as result has become a savior for the instrument and a symbol of innovative Malian music. Kouyate’s wife, Sacko is a vocalist on the album, adding yet more complexion to this moving mirror of aural history. –from parasitesandsycophants.com

BASSEKOU KOUYATE & NGONI BA – Speak Fula

JOANNA NEWSOM – Have One On Me