Dec. 06--David Bowie, "Blackstar" (ISO/Columbia). We've come to expect curious things from David Bowie. Consider the newest song from the mercurial pop star. Opening with gentle guitar, dissonant strings and a wobbly snare beat, the track runs just shy of 10 minutes and floats through space and time like smoky sulfur from an extinguished match. As its structure wends and curls, Bowie uses his inside voice to utter in high register about a solitary candle on sacred ground, an execution, a possession and a mysterious journey.
The song might be about the Islamic State, or maybe it's about Major Tom-like isolation. Bowie describes being "born upside down" and "born the wrong way around," about a desire for "eagles in my daydreams, diamonds in my eyes." As he explores, the instrumentation stutters and shifts. He and longtime producer Tony Visconti understand how to maintain space. Among the tones are little sonic digital sparks that burst at odd intervals. Midway through, the track dispenses with rhythm for an intermission of pure ambient bliss. As the texture subsides, Bowie moves into a more sturdy structure, catches a groove and the track blossoms anew. It's a gorgeous work and more evidence that Bowie's late-career reinvention continues. "Blackstar" is the first track issued from Bowie's forthcoming album of the same name, to arrive in early 2016.
Autolux, "Soft Scene" (Columbia Records). Since we last heard from the fantastic Los Angeles band Autolux, a style of experimental pop they helped forge has come into vogue. Oblong and ethereal without sacrificing hooks or melody, the group's first single in five years mixes synthetic rhythms with Carla Azar's steady if restrained voice and enough melody to make it sticky.
It's not as if the trio hasn't been busy. Azar, Autolux's percussionist, toured with Jack White's band in support of "Blunderbuss" and "Lazaretto" and has collaborated with PJ Harvey, Wendy Lisa, T Bone Burnett, Vincent Gallo and others. Guitarist Greg Edwards has been working with a reunited Failure, which he co-founded. "Soft Scene," however, is a reminder that amid all that action, the trio -- which also features bassist Eugene Goreshter -- endures for a reason: More often than not their collaboration yields beauty. The group will issue a full-length album in 2016.
Various Artists, "Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll" (Yep Rock). Issued as a companion to the Peter Guralnick book of the same name, this 55-song double disc offers a sonic argument for record-man Sam Phillips' legacy. Best known for founding Sun Records and discovering Elvis Presley, Phillips had as crucial a role as any one person in shaping American popular music in the second half of the 20th century. There was his signing of Presley, yes, but as the tracks here illustrate, Phillips did so much more. He helped deliver to the public dozens of artists including Howlin' Wolf, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ike Turner, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Charlie Feathers.
Based in Memphis, Tenn., Phillips hustled through postwar America one record at a time, barely eking a living while seeking talent up and down the Mississippi River. As Guralnick illustrates throughout his 600-plus page book, Phillips understood that a grand stylistic convergence was bubbling in the South, and these two discs are rich with the proof. Whether Billy Riley's incendiary classic "Flyin' Saucers Rock Roll," Roy Orbison's curio "Ooby Dooby," the driving proto-rockabilly song "Rockin' Chair Daddy" by Harmonica Frank or Presley's definitive version of "Mystery Train," the tracks on this Yep Rock collection come fast and furious.
