What it means to be in a rock band, or have a career, seems to have melted and fused into something older and freer for Jon Langford. The Welsh leader of original Leeds punks The Mekons lives in Chicago these days, and plays with The Waco Brothers, The Sadies and The Pine Valley Cosmonauts too.
Whitehouse now comprise just William Bennett and Philip Best, but the title track of what may be their finest record is a harrowing 15-minute cut-up of voices talking emotionally about child abuse, rape and murder with discreet accompaniment, assembled in Chicago by outgoing third member Peter Sotos and guest producer Steve Albini.
Jack Nicholson's second film as director, an anarchic western, with Jack's filthy outlaw saved from hanging, married off to Mary Steenburgen and put to work on her land. It's a shaggy, high plains African Queen, with Nicholson the director simultaneously coarse and tender and allowing Nicholson the actor one of his more raggedly wolfish turns.
First Jesse Malin's solo debut, now Concussion—if anything, this is an even finer record than The Fine Art Of Self Destruction. Steve Earle described Ryan as "one of the best songwriters I've seen come to Nashville", and he's no bullshitter.
Veteran Louisiana-born country-soulster runs the gamut of musical styles and moods on her daring and dazzling follow-up to 2001's critically lauded Essence
