Arbouretum

There is an ease to Baltimore's Arbouretum that begs you to stick around. The organic nature of the calm and subtle psychedelia breathes with every confident minute of their longer songs. Neil Young's more open-ended neo-Western guitar work isn't too far off. It certainly isn't the most original stuff around, but at its best it's effective at lulling you into an easy place. Music this lazy can collapse in on itself without any talent to drive it; fortunately Arboretum do a good job of serving their material in a way that keeps it vital no matter how laid-back. (John Cramer)

Alela Diane

Mid-twentysomething California-bred folkie Alela Diane is loosely affiliated with the so-called New Weird America movement, mostly because of her long-standing friendship with Joanna Newsom and Mariee Sioux. But there's nothing particularly weird or freaky about strumming simple yet affecting chords on an acoustic guitar; singing about cuckoos, forests, fireplaces and lives that are "buried in snow"; or warbling warmly and wistfully with an assured voice that occasionally recalls Joni Mitchell. So no, you don't have to listen while sitting on horse blankets or bring crystals to this show. Diane's songs are still plenty magical, though, and she can cast musical spells with the best of 'em. (Michael Alan Goldberg)

Juana Molina

Juana Molina has toured the U.S. in the past, but always by herself, relying on her own soft voice, acoustic guitar and a variety of digital aids to get her songs across. This time, however, the Argentinian actress-turned-songwriter brings a full band to help interpret her music. That'll be key as she plays from the densely textured Un Día, out since late 2008 on Domino. The fifth album in 13 years, Día is built on driving rhythms and striking vocal counterpoints. The new material is less like singer-songwriter epiphanies and more like ecstatic, multicultured celebrations--and sure to expand to fill the room. (Jennifer Kelly)

John Hollenbeck

One of jazz's most provocative drummer-composers, John Hollenbeck stormed Philly not long ago with his mind-altering Claudia Quintet and Tony Malaby's Cello Trio. His "Big Ears" residency, an innovative winter series sponsored by the Bride, is about to wrap up, and this week's 19-piece large ensemble gig is part one of the send-off. Marshaling the resources of top New York improvisers, Hollenbeck conjures a world of bustling eclecticism, driving rhythm and tone poetry, captured beautifully on his 2005 OmniTone release A Blessing. On March 6 he returns to lead a handpicked Philly group in "The Philadelphia Compositions," a set of new works inspired by the Big Ears experience. (David R. Adler)

The Homosexuals

It's an old British punk legend backed by a cadre of young, energetic admirers from New York City. But it's no shtick, no Who-style go-around for extra cash or some geezer thinking he's still the shit. Because 58-year-old Bruno Wizard, Homosexual frontman, is. These Homos rock, hard and without abandon. They scream and jump around stage, sweat flying off their faces and hair in a near-cathartic stupor while delivering in-your-face, aggressive and convulsive punk rock with catchy undertones of '70s British pop. (Katherine Silkaitis)

Black Sheep

The early-'90s blending of jazz with thoughtful, intelligent lyrics never got much better than Black Sheep's debut album A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. Gone was the overtly macho seriousness of the gangsta movement, replaced with funky playfulness and a welcome sense of humor, put to good effect in their gangsta parody track "U Mean I'm Not." After their 1994 album Non-Fiction it would be 12 years before they'd release another full-length, and then only on download. In 2008 their hit "The Choice Is Yours" was remixed and rereleased to lend support to the Obama campaign. Easily one of the best, most fun hip-hop acts of any era. (J.C.)

Bang on a Can All-Stars + Glenn Kotche

Bang on a Can strives to push classical music into a modern, interdisciplinary arena, where genre distinctions matter little. The Bang on a Can All-Stars is a subunit, like a shuttle craft, touching off encounters with guest musicians of all types, including jazzers Don Byron and Daniel Kelly. This week they unite with Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche, whose solo projects (including 2006's Mobile) have an abstract, hypnotic, percussive quality reminiscent of Steve Reich. It's not the first such ambitious undertaking for Kotche, whose "Anomaly," commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, premiered in 2007. Like fellow Wilco-ite Nels Cline, he's a rocker and a seeker, with one foot deep in the avant-garde. (D.R.A.)

Singer-guitarist Ben Kweller, now 27, is a music biz veteran, having released albums both with his old band Radish and as a solo artist since he was 13. He's been a punk rocker, indie rocker, power-popster, and balladeer, and for his fourth solo LP, Changing Horses, he dives headfirst into much rootsier fare. We hit an upbeat Kweller up for a session of Review the Reviews, wherein we read excerpts from recent reviews and get the reaction of the reviewed.

"Changing Horses, his self-produced fourth LP, isn't quite the country & western crossover most would have you believe, more like the dirt road connecting his previous paths. (Austin Chronicle)

"Right! I mean, the album's way more Jackson Browne than Merle Haggard. Country music and roots music has always been one of the side roads that I take once in a while, and for this album I wanted to make it the main road."

"He's nodded to his Texas roots before, but on this collection meant to play up his twangy side, he seems scared of edging too far into the darkness of country music's long, rich tradition." (Paste)

"Hmm. Whatever. They don't know me. I mean, I opened the album with a whore and ended it with a junkie. I don't need to explain too much. I don't need to prove anything to anybody."

" ... the best is 'On Her Own,' a number in praise of female self-determination with a precise, pedal-steel-driven chorus that would fit nicely on a Faith Hill or Brad Paisley album." (Rolling Stone)

"That's really cool that they would even reference that shit because it's so far from ... I'm obviously not a Nashville pop-country guy. But the whole thing about this album is that all of a sudden there are people in the country side of the business that are finding out about me for the very first time. So for Rolling Stone to even say something like that, I'm psyched. I'm over the whole indie-hip--I just feel like I paid my dues for so fuckin' long in the indie-rock world that if my stuff took off in country, that'd be really exciting and refreshing."

Two years ago Badmaster proprietor John Emory told this paper he should've gotten his business degree instead of learning to paint. If he had, he might not be "losing money every day" on his label's output. What Emory couldn't have known then is that no business degree could save him or his label. The music biz is dying. Hell, seems like everything is. So it turns out he had the only sustainable business plan you can have in music: Make your work a labor of love.

That's how Emory and Badmaster have reached their fourth year together, releasing small batches of highly collectable vinyl-only art objects that, until now, have focused primarily on West Philly, where Badmaster was founded, but is slowly branching out to national acts and national acclaim. (Badmaster's Tickley Featheris now on Animal Collective's Paw Tracks label.)

Lately Emory's begun to take more of a backseat with Badmaster, handing the art-damaged rock baton to his silent partner over the years Brendan O'Connor, who left a Penn grad program studying dead languages to engage in a more youthful, less profitable pursuit: music. PW caught up with Emory for what might be his last interview as the label's chief talking head.

What made you decide to start a record label in 2005?

[Record labels] have always been a major thing in my life. I've always followed them. Basically, when I realized I wasn't going to get anywhere as a musician I wanted to find a way to still be able to participate, and looking through fan zines and stuff growing up I would always pick a label and buy everything that label put out without even questioning it. And I just fell in love with certain aesthetics certain labels had, and I wanted to build an aesthetic, basically. That's one of the things I'm trying to do with Badmaster.

How would you describe that aesthetic?

Black and white, like an old-school flier sort of way. Punk rock meets comic books. There's a humor to it, but there's also a sense of underground urgency and a very basic no-frills sort of style that would just be burned into one's memory hopefully.

What were some of the labels that made an impression on you when you were growing up?

Discord, Touch and Go, Vermiform--which was Sam McPheeter's label. Great American Steak Religion out of Canada was a label I followed very closely. They had some great Canadian hardcore bands come out of that scene. The Canadian scene at that point was really, really great.

What bands will join the Badmaster family in year four?

One particular artist that is going to happen as soon as we can afford it are My Mind, which are a newer band out of West Philadelphia. They've got a punk rock sound that draws from an early-'60s into a late-'70s style. Their songs are like 30 seconds long each, but after you listen to one song it feels like it's been two minutes 'cause they pack so much into such a short time.

Is it a priority to work with Philly bands?

Yeah. It always has been. It's just kinda where my heart is. That's what gets me excited--championing somebody and trying to break these guys is something that really speaks to me.

Is Badmaster primarily vinyl now?

At this point we are only vinyl. I'm never going back. With [the compilation], I wanted to do a quick, easy catch-all for Philly because I wasn't releasing anything at the moment, so I came up with this idea to do this comp, and then I was like, 'Well, screw it. We're going to just digitally release this and make physical copies for people.' Burn it right off, it's free for everybody that comes to the show. It's great. But as far as, like, putting out a record is concerned, we're never going to do anything aside from vinyl. It's so easy to put an mp3 code in the vinyl now, which we did with our last record and we plan to continue to do. There's no reason to do [CDs]. That's not why I started a record label. I'm into art objects. Anyone who is invested in this thing we call music as much as we are is in it for vinyl, I would hope. And if you're not, you need to buy a turntable.

Which works, because it's become its own niche market. While music sales and CDs go by the wayside, there's still a cult of vinyl that's always remained firm.

Yeah, exactly. And that's what we really want to cater to. We want people who buy records to buy our records, I'm not really trying to reinvent the wheel on that one at all. It's just cause its kind of why I got into it, and I don't see it going away anytime soon. And I just like the idea of this object, you know. Except when I have to move. That's a pain in the ass.

Listen to Beaucoup Blue on our Umm...Drop podcast.

Philadelphia's Beaucoup Blue may be billed as a father- son duo, but they're no Weird Al-style novelty act. "I think when people read that they go, 'Isn't that cute' and 'They must not be that serious.' But the reason we continue to play music together is because we really believe in the music itself," son Adrian Mowry says. "We're both songwriters, and we have different styles from different generations, but we really are knocked out by the music. I would want to do that with anybody, whether it's my father or brother or somebody that's not in the family."

Adrian grew up playing music with his father David from a young age, and the two have been performing together publicly for more than a decade. They've morphed from a full-on electric band to an acoustic act set to release their third album, Free to Fall. The duo continues to combine heartfelt blues with elements of soul, R&B, country and bluegrass. Featuring all original compositions, except one traditional arrangement, Free to Fall showcases not only energetic and spine-tingling vocals and guitars, but creative original songwriting.

"The last two [albums] were kind of vehicles to help us develop a style," David explains. "We did some original songs, but we didn't pay a lot of attention to arranging. This time we decided we would pay more attention to the song and what it seemed to want to do."