A 35-minute drive from the bustling tour bus and backpacker hub of Queenstown, Blanket Bay is nearly the last point of habitation one passes before entering the Fiordland wilderness, known for its glacier-carved valleys and rugged sounds.
Rap musicians, lacking incentives to appropriate other sounds, began to stress regional differences instead: in Atlanta, the rugged, spare sound of crunk; in the Bay Area, the whizzing, burping, synthesizer-dominated sound of the hyphy movement.
The months leading up to that album's release included the dissolution of Cockburn's 10-year marriage, leading him to switch from country to city life, and he adopted a more rugged, urban sound characterized by more politicized lyrics with a greater emphasis on the electric guitar.
More commonly, the minor masters smooth out what may sound rugged, bold or odd in the music of their great precursors.
"Bundas Bom" is a pretty good Portuguese-Spanish joke, and "Dancing Disco 101" an exercise in absurdist Giorgio Moroder grandiosity, but the best of them is "No More Blues": boiled-down funk, a rugged, ropy bass sound, and a lyric of pure optimism.
Montana certainly sounds rugged.
"People Say" and "Just Kissed My Baby" sounded rugged and sharp, and "Cissy Strut" was nearly a showstopper.
Mr. Weston's African Rhythms Trio, which also includes the percussionist Neil Clarke, sounded rugged and vital on a Bobby Benson tune descriptively titled "Niger Mambo".
Perhaps the chief impediment to greater popularity is the very quality that centers his achievement: the raw, rugged, vocalized, weirdly pitched sound of his alto saxophone.
Likewise what came from the guitar of Adam Wentworth and the bass of Matt Woods: big, rugged, articulated and stylized sound, suggesting different sources every 30 seconds or so.
