I was smoking an expensive cigar in my high-rise corner office, sifting through the piles of letters that accumulate on my desk. I came upon one asking for some advice. As you may remember, giving advice is only a part of what we do here at Long Industries. (The rest is sort of an import/export operation.)

Corinne Bailey Rae’s sophomore album is just what its title implies. It’s softer and smoother, and like most second albums, it explores a more emotional and deeper level of the artist.

For an artist that’s seemingly been featured on every hip-hop track since 2007, Lil’ Wayne is surprisingly able to make progressively worse and worse music. With his generic auto-tune vocals and poorly thought out raps, this cross-over rock-rap album belongs less on someone’s iPod and more in Sparta’s pit of death.

Bernard Farley, better known as Outputmessage, has been making his name in the DC music scene for the past few years. After being featured on Idol Tryouts: Ghostly International Vol. 1 (2003) and Vol. 2 (2006), Farley became heavily involved in various new projects including two DJ nights called Marquis and Flat Out!, a collaboration with electronic pop group New Models and a disco-house outfit, Dmerit, consisting of Micah Vellian and himself. URB Magazine also described him as “the good parts from Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin and New Order” in their Next 100 Top Artists list in 2006.

If some musician’s music can be classified as a self-portrait, The Album Leaf’s music is a beautiful landscape painting. If not edgy, Album Leaf’s songs are soft and soothing. They don’t strive to make you dance, nor do they incite mosh pits. Rather, the cathartic instrumentals are the defining ingredient of their music. From start to finish, the song names read like chapters in a book that portray man’s path through life using the metaphor of naturalistic forces. The album’s first chapter begins with “Blank Pages,” and ends with “Tied Knots” – an appropriate way to end the album, because it is simultaneously melancholic and hopeful.

After putting off expansion late last year on claims of an ailing economy, Capay Valley’s Cache Creek Casino Resort announced a new plan two weeks ago.

MUSIC

TODAY