From Kickstarter to turntable, a bumpy ride — “I am nobody!” This is what the cartoon man on the cover of De La Soul’s And the Anonymous Nobody (A.O.I./Kobalt, 2016) says as he faces an angry crowd. I’ve always taken this to be a nod to the fans who contributed to the album’s Kickstarter campaign, even though that…

Getting to the bottom of a mysterious record sleeve — “Why is she bathing?” asks text on the front cover of an old single by Tuxedomoon. The single is “Ninotchka” (Les Disques du Crépuscule, 1982) and the answer to the question is on the back: “Because she’s just danced a ballet scored by Maurice Béjart.” In case that doesn’t explain…

A British band harnesses the soul’s movement — According to Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “evocative” derives from the Latin ex (“out”) and vox (“voice”). What evokes has a voice that calls forth emotion, itself a combination of ex and movere (“to move”). This is what James’s fifth album Laid (Fontana, 1993) does to listeners. James uses instrumentation…

A full range of sensory experience in sound — In Listening, French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy says that timber, unlike other aspects of sound (pitch, intensity, duration), can’t be measured, thereby lending itself to metaphor. Thus, Arts the Beatdoctor can deploy sound bites describing music as having color and temperature in “Blending Quality,” the intro to his only full-length studio…

Heavy metal goes tomtits up — Every high school has a place for the outsiders. Maybe it’s under the stairs just inside the side entrance. They wear black clothes and long coats and dye their hair and harm themselves for reasons their own. They’re into alternative religions, they’re on the spectrum, and they stick together because…

BEWARE OF CATWOMAN — SHE WILL BITE Batman beefcakes, Supes studs… There’ve been some duds, but Catwoman has never suffered from bad casting. One of the notables to play the slinky cat burglar was Eartha Kitt in the Batman TV series in 1967. By then, she already had over a…

Sometimes flipping the bird is the only decent thing to do — Sum-41 got me into skateboarding, until I busted my head and needed it glued shut. That was years ago when pop punk was doing crail grabs over other genres, but the band has remained active. Underclass Hero (Island, 2007) has the hooks and melodies, energy and emotion that made classics…

Heavy metal goes tomtits up — Speaking of the music of the future, cybercore is another stab in that direction. The genre, also known as electronicore and trancecore, has arisen this side of Y2K, blending electronic noise with heavy metal noise. Japanese band Sever Black Paranoia has been active in the genre since 2009. The CD…

When you need mo’ -mo, there’s screamo — According to Saosin’s profile on AllMusic, the band’s name comes from the Chinese word for caution. The characters are 小心 and mean small of heart, which the band most definitely is not. The emotion packed into every acclaimed riff, every infectious chorus, every frenetic drum fill on the band’s self-titled…