Alain here, with our pick for July 2022. A couple of months ago, my girlfriend seemed to have stumbled onto the band Alice in Chains for the first time, and very quickly began extolling their music, and specifically their album Dirt as being pure genius. High praise from someone who has never really demonstrated much interest in 90s alt rock. So I pretty much HAVE to check it out, right? And why not bring the Sonic Collective family along for the ride!
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I’ve heard the strange legacy of Ian Curtis, who committed suicide in May 1980, mentioned on a number of episodes of The Ongoing History of New Music with Alan Cross and been intrigued. When I started out as a DJ at Lloyd’s Recreation in Calgary as a teenager, Blue Monday and Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order were huge and some of the original 12-inch singles I learned how to beat-mix on. I had no idea that Joy Division was the precursor to New Order back then and it’s time to see where their roots came from.
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For our music review pick for May, 2022, member Darren Scott reveals he recently acquired a large record collection that had been entombed for 40 years. He decided that he would pick one of the albums from this collection to review. Join Darren and listen to all the options he had and how he ended up landing on Harry Nilsson’s Nilsson Schmilsson album.
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We’ve gone pretty far afield starting with a taste of neo soul, sliding into a lounge/chillhop and rounding out with a modern throwback to the roots of the genre. Scott is going to take us back and give us a taste of blue eyed soul with Van Morrison’s 1972 album Saint Dominic’s Review.
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We continue our exploration of soul music with Alain’s pick for March 2022, Dap-Dippin’ with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. This is the group’s debut album, which they self-released after creating their own indie record label to support the funk and soul scene.
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For January 2022 Sonic Collective member Darren Scott decided to explore a genre of soul he always really liked, but never made much time for his choice – Neo Soul.
Darren had some of Erykah Badu’s songs on playlists of his but he really wanted to have a better listen to her music, so he decided to select her iconic first album, Baduizm. Listen to why he chose this artist and be sure to listen along this month to the album. We will then release our full review February 1st, 2022.
Darren
The Sonic Collective
Garbage is Garbage’s debut album, featuring Shirley Manson on vocals and Butch Vig in the band. With a strong history producing for other bands, it will be interesting to see what happens when Butch returns to the other side of the window.
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Our pick for November 2021 is Welcome Reality, the groundbreaking debut album from English Electronic group NERO. The album is conceptual, taking a stab at what civilization might look like in the year 2808.
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Our pick for October 2021 is Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks by Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Roger Eno, which is the ninth solo studio by British Eno and was released in 1983. It was a collaboration with his brother and Canadian Daniel Lanois. Many of the tracks have since appeared on soundtracks such as Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, and Heat, among others.
The album was originally recorded as the soundtrack for a feature-length documentary movie called Apollo, but the film went through several iterations and wasn’t particularly well received. But the music has gone on to make a much deeper impression upon listeners since its release.
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Darren selected the very first album from Public Image, soon to be changed to Public Image Ltd., or PiL as an acronym. This was the project that John Lydon, known as Johnny Rotten of the notorious Sex Pistols started in 1978 directly after the Sex Pistols broke up. Known as one of the strongest Post-Punk bands of all time, it is very interesting to see how John Lydon developed as a writer and a musician.
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