Author: ernopepper

737. Ella Fitzgerald

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(August 2026) Episode 737 is ELLA FITZGERALD. On a Mt. Rushmore of American voices, she’s on it. “The First Lady of Song,” perhaps the most famous female jazz vocalist of all time. I appreciate her art, as I do for all the jazz giants she collaborated with: Gillespie, Armstrong, Basie, Peterson. But … I don’t really like this music. I’m just not into the Great American Songbook. And I can’t stand scat singing, perhaps the form Fitzgerald is best known for. All due respect, of course.

Favorite album: Take Love Easy

Favorite song: Dream a Little Dream of Me (with Louis Armstrong)

Most unorthodox song: Sunshine of Your Love (not quite as far out as Dolly Parton’s Stairway to Heaven, but close)

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: I liked best the albums with jazz guitarist Joe Pass, simple affairs stripped of the chrome and glitz of her more iconic big band recordings

736. Grouper

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(August 2026) Episode 736 is GROUPER, the alias of Liz Harris. She makes soundscape recordings categorized as ambient or ‘psychedelic folk.’ She employs field recordings, tape, voice, and soft guitar and piano to create free-flowing atmospheric music unburdened by emotive assertions – meaning, that it doesn’t come off as trying to force the listener to be wistful or anxious or contemplative or spiritual. It just is. The echo-y, distant sound of the guitars and her voice sometimes remind me of some of Yo La Tengo’s songs featuring Georgia Hubley.

Favorite album: Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill

Favorite song: When We Fall

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: If you like genuinely earthy ambient (not the schlocky stuff) please try Grouper out.

735. Wolfmother

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(August 2026) Episode 735 is WOLFMOTHER. At times it’s nutritious to return to the soul food of guitar rock, which 21st Century revivalists Wolfmother provide in abundance. In this they remind me of fellow Australians and contemporaries Jet. Their best feature is the delicious tone of the Kyuss-like fuzz guitar which propels things with kickin’ hooks. The weakest part is Andrew Stockdale’s vocals, a combination of Jack White and Greta Van Fleet’s Josh Kiszka, which grate after a while. You may recognize “Joker and the Thief” from multiple uses in other media.

Favourite album: Wolfmother

Favourite song: Joker and the Thief

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: If you grew up on guitar rock, try this. Each album has its satisfaction; the best is the first and they gradually lose quality after that.

734. Drake

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(July 2024) Episode 734 is DRAKE. Through the depth and breadth of this Project, I strive to appreciate forms of music I don’t like. In the case of Drake, though, I unequivocally HATE this kind of music. Makes my ears bleed. So why did I do this? For one, I was recently in Toronto, and decided to do an artist from that city. Second, Drake is a favorite of my son. I had reviewed my daughters’ then-favorites, Taylor Swift and NCT-127, and it felt only fair that I give him the same consideration. And now I have. And those are multiple hours of my life I will never get back.

Favorite album: none

Favorite song: none

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: none

733. The New Pornographers

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(July 2026) Episode 733 is THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS. I had been meaning to get to them for a while, and took the opportunity when I was recently in Canada (they are from Vancouver). The New Pornographers have been critically acclaimed, so I was hoping to be wowed. But something was off. I discovered what it was when an album I was listening to went into repeat and I had not realized it. It left nothing imprinted my brain to tell me I had just listened to these songs 40 minutes ago. Lacking choruses, hooks and tension-and-release, the songcraft is just words and harmonies laid flat on a piece of paper. Their first couple albums, however, deceive of what comes later by having some catchy components, albeit in its indie-typical tweeness.

Favorite album: Mass Romantic

Favorite song: Mass Romantic

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: The first three albums are ok.

732. War

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(July 2026) Episode 732 is WAR. They had a good run of eclectic funk and R&B recordings in the mid-1970s. The prevalence of Latino rhythms is apparent in their hits “Low Rider” and “The Cisco Kid.” “Why Can’t We Be Friends” was also a hit. War started with Eric Burdon, late of the Animals. He fronted them for a year with a couple disjointed albums (and the song “Spill the Wine”) before they set out on their own.

Favorite album: The World is a Ghetto

Favorite song: The Cisco Kid

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: None of the albums give a wow.  The four albums from 1971-75 are the best.

731. Natural Snow Buildings

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(July 2026) Episode 731 is NATURAL SNOW BUILDNGS. Labeled as “avant-folk,” this French man-woman duo create expansive recordings that generally fall in the ambient and drone genres. But this is not music to meditate or space out to. There’s a darkness to it, but it is not menacing. There are occult themes, but they are not ominous. To me this music is the soundtrack of walking through a dark forest, uncertain but unafraid. There are other elements too, like peculiar psychedelic folk singing and distorted guitar freak-outs. This episode also covered albums each recorded solo under ISENGRIND (more drone) and TWINSISTERMOON (more folky).

Favorite album: Daughter of Darkness

Favorite song: Song for Laurie Bird

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: Worth a try for those who like drone/ambient material, particularly because it does not invoke a customary emotional response. Some of their recordings are up to six hours, providing for extended listening.

730. Godflesh

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(July 2026) Episode 730 of the “opus project” is GODFLESH. Generally classified as industrial metal, theirs is an idiosyncratic approach that brings in electronic elements and sounds, including dub. Godflesh started out, and would return to, using a drum machine to propel the guitar noise to a machine-like quality. It’s a sound that influenced many experimental and extreme metal acts.

Favourite album: Songs of Love and Hate

Favourite song: Post Self

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: I like Songs of Love and Hate as their most traditional metal album, but each album has its own personality, and others prefer the earlier Streetcleaner or the electro-infused Us and Them.

729. Henry Purcell

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(July 7) Episode 729 is HENRY PURCELL. One of the most revered English composers of all time, he composed in the middle Baroque period, a generation before Handel and Bach. He was quite prolific (this was a slog), especially when you consider he died at age 36. A large portion of his compositions are vocal/choral, and if you enjoy late-17th century songs, Purcell is the guy for you. He also wrote a lot of incidental music for plays, including a couple based on versions of Shakespeare’s works. His most recognizable piece, at least to us Americans, may be the Queen Mary Funeral Music for its role in A Clockwork Orange.

Favourite piece: Funeral Sentences and Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary

Master work: Dido and Aeneas

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: It’s fine Baroque music, but my untrained ear has a hard time distinguishing one Baroque composer from another (except for J.S. Bach)

728. Rare Earth

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(June 2026) Episode 728 is RARE EARTH, a band formed in Detroit in the 1960s whose sounds reflected that city’s production lines for hard rock and soul. They were one of the first all-white acts in the Motown organization. Their first couple albums are a period-typical gritty rock sound, with lots of reinterpreted covers. Subsequent albums have more funk elements, like their biggest hit, “I Just Want to Celebrate.”

Favorite album: One World

Favorite song: I Just Want to Celebrate

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Not sure there is enough to fill a greatest hits album. Try One World or Ma.