Music Library - The Casting Couch, Cat Power, Catherine Marchese/Emile Naoumoff/Erik Satie, Cave Singers, Cecil Taylor, Centro-Matic

Blah, been sick all week. Anyway, here's some music reviews for your pleasure.

The Casting Couch - Row Your Boat and Live Tracks from the Flaming Lips Hoot Night. Much-lamented (from me, at least) local band that played alt-country with Elephant Six-ish psychedelic flourishes. Great stuff!

Cat Power - Moon Pix, You Are Free, The Greatest. Three vastly different albums from Chan Marshall that all sound like each other without sounding alike at all. On Moon Pix, she's backed by 2/3 of The Dirty Three, and the album is suitably abstract. You Are Free is a more rocking affair, and The Greatest has Memphis soul slathered across it. I was rather indifferent to Ms. Marhall the first few times I heard her, but she has grown on me over time.

Catherine Marchese / Emile Naoumoff - "La Balançoire" (Erik Satie, Composer). This is "The See-Saw," the short track that Richard Thompson plays at the end of "The Great Valerio." I have more Satie, but I think it's filed under his own name.

The Cave Singers - "Seeds Of Night." Pleasant alt-country track that eMusic offered for free a while back. I usually delete those, but not this one. It's pretty good.

Cecil Taylor - Looking Ahead, Air, Student Studies, Unit Structures, Indent, and "In Florescence." Taylor is one of the parents of free-jazz, and it's interesting to hear how his ideas progressed from the 1958 Looking Ahead through the 1961 Air to the wild sounds of the late 60s (Student Studies, Unit Structures), early 70s (Indent), and into the 80s ("In Florescence").

Centro-Matic - The Static vs. The Strings Vol. 1, All The Falsest Hearts Can Try, South San Gabriel Songs/Music, Love You Just the Same, Flashes and Cables EP. The first albums are like the Flaming Lips with a more pronounced folk bent. At South San Gabriel Songs/Music, the band peels off the folk into the side project South San Gabriel, which, like Califone, mixes Americana with electronics. The latter albums are more rocking, but I've never managed the enthusiasm to pick up any further Centro-Matic (I think there's only two later albums and two earlier ones).