OUR WEEKLY COLLECTION OF SHORTER REVIEWS | |
The Sharpshooters,
Skratch Trax 2000, Vol. 2,
Blacklight Braille,
Sally Taylor,
Sick of It All,
Laurent Garnier,
Sunshine,
Jliat,
Robbie Williams,
Brian Michael Roff,
The Bellrays,
The Minders,
The Ivory Coast,
Rhythm Fantasy,
Crosstide,
Pushcar,
Juno Reactor,
Bowman,
Zyrah's Orange,
Crazy Mary
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The Sharpshooters / Viva Los Guerillas! / Fastmusic (CD)
There aren't too many singers out there who sound like a mutated cross
between Elvis Costello and Green Day. As a matter of fact, I was just about
to compare The Sharpshooters with another fave of mine, Down By Law, when
I realized that the enigmatic sounding Sharpshooters singer is actually
Mr. Law himself, Dave Smalley! With his patented nasal voice, Smalley
performs appropriate traffic control on each of these pop punk slices,
effortlessly alternating between amusing and inciting. Quite frankly, my
first run through this CD left me unimpressed, but repetitive listens
showcase the depth and delectable delivery that this band can produce. If
listening patience is on your side, you'll eventually embrace Viva Los
Guerillas wholeheartedly, given its mature songwriting and ass kicking
potential. "You Don't Own Me" and "Supersonic" both deliver zealous speed
with a melodic message that speaks to the punk masses -- so it's time to
listen up! -- am
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Various Artists / Skratch Trax 2000, Vol. 2 / Hapi Skratch (CD)
Two years ago, when reacquainting myself with the Blue Ridge Parkway and the
Shenandoah Mountains, I stopped in the beautiful city of Asheville, NC, and
bought a sampler CD of their singer-songwriters. The talent of the acts was
generally modest, but they enjoyed a distinct unity, and you could tell
Asheville would be a nice, friendly city to move to. This Skratch
Trax CD is arranged far less homogeneously than that CD. While
singer-songwriter acts continue to dominate, you also get Heart-inspired
acts (Eve's Drop) followed by "Ralph Macchio" blues (Crypto Star), followed
by guitar pop (an excellent Jay Road), acoustic "Santana" (Danny Beegle),
and even an Irish party band (the Poguesy Lallah Rooke). The result is a
true grab bag that makes Denver seem fantastically diverse, but almost
irritatingly so. While I love "Radio Song" (the Jay Road track), and think
every city should have their own Blind Dog Smokin' ("Who Shot John?"), the
overriding sense I get is that aspiring Denver bands don't like each
other's music, and that there's little evidence on Skratch Trax to
suggest that the bands should. -- td
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Blacklight Braille / The Castle of the Northern Crown /
Razzled Music (CD)
Blacklight Braille is (according to what I've been able to dig up on the
net) a "fringe rock" band with a long history in the Cincinnati
underground music scene. If the "fringe rock" moniker gives you the
heebies, then this is definitely not the band for you. We're talking
full on Celtic-inspired singing and drones, songs with titles like "The
Revolving Castle of Arianrhod" and "The Dark Champion" and an overly
serious approach that almost always seems to doom ambitious projects
like this one...not to mention awkward spoken word passages and lyrics
like "The sea nymphs are singing, away, come away", sung with
complete earnestness. To be fair, I simply don't get into this sort of
dramatic, fanciful music. It reminds me too much of Civil War
re-enactments and men in bad tights. That said, when I put aside my
bias, I can hear that an awful lot of effort went into this release, and
that a large number of people (there are nineteen musicians listed in
the credits, playing about one hundred and seven different instruments)
put a ton of talent and energy into these songs. There's nothing wrong
with that. I'm tempted to recommend this one just because it's so weird.
But unless you're really into very sincere, New Agey Hobbit music,
proceed with caution. --
ib
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Sally Taylor / Apt #6S / Blue Elbow (CD)
I will confess to an utterly irrational bias: I don't like it when
women wear big, flashy,
floppy fedora-style hats. That's one of the main reasons I wasn't
looking forward to
hearing Apt. #6S, as Taylor flaunts a big, tiger-skinned,
wide-brimmed chapeau throughout
the album's art. However, while she certainly spends part of the
album wallowing in territory rendered
banal by Sheryl Crow, Edie Brickell and (insert the name of your
favorite Felicity-friendly
songstress here), Taylor isn't a run of the mill folkie, a wannabe blues
gal or a tired rocker.
"March Like Soldiers" draws some unexpectedly likeable vocal harmonies,
and "Fall 4 Me"
got a smile out of me despite its synthesized horns and irritating
title. More importantly, the
disc gets better the deeper you get. "Without Me" moves the music in
a more maturely folkish direction, and the creepy and brooding
"Immortal", which sounds like a muted
Combustible Edison interpreting P.J. Harvey, is absolutely stunning.
It's hard to tell whether Taylor's
stylistic range comes from skill or a lack of focus, but I was quite a
bit more impressed than I thought
I'd be. -- gz
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Sick Of It All / Yours Truly / Fat Wreck Chords
(CD)
The difficult thing with hardcore is to sound tough without coming off as
punker than thou. Luckily, Sick Of It All are harder than thou.
Featuring crunching guitars, scorched vocals and a disgustingly tight
rhythm section, this quartet's sixth release pummels
the competition on all fronts. A particular treat is the mosh-pit waltz of "Nails", which
swings as it slams. If fault is to be found, it is in the somewhat muddled
mix. While the guitars are full force, the bass and drums get buried in
the background. This robs the music of some of its immediacy, but the
band's sincerity still shines through. -- rd
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Laurent Garnier / Unreasonable Behaviour / Mute
(CD)
What can I say? Unreasonable Behaviour is by Laurent Garnier,
world-class DJ, and it lives up to his reputation for stunning techno/house.
Be prepared, however: you can't dance to it. This thing
should have been the score for After Hours; it's dark, moody and
jazzy. While 30, Garnier's last CD, was much more clubby, he's
going after Detroit techno this time around. The beats are hard and driving; the
percussion comes from a real drum kit, not a machine. "Last Tribute from the
20th Century" is solemn and meditative, with a ticking beat, a melancholy
synth line and an ethereal flute melody; "Greed" is the standout track, with
the bubble-gum pop-sounding drum quickly grabbing your attention. Even if
you can't dance to it, you ought to have it; you can admire this disc for
the artistry alone. -- js
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There's no doubt that Sunshine is on a circa-1990 PIL vibe or that they have
a fine command of their instruments. Guitars crunch where they are supposed
to crunch. Vocalist Kay emotes a fine reproduction of Mr. John Lydon.
Martin's keyboards add a New-Wave element that complements the wall of
guitars. So what's keeping Sunshine from becoming a top-quality
synth-alterna-punk trio? First, Sunshine could benefit from a greater sense
of melody. Instead of searching for bombastic catharsis, they might have
done better to cut back on the guitar attacks. Second, it seems something
is lost in the translation. Sunshine are from the Czech Republic, and you
can tell. The emotion behind the lyrics doesn't always come through. Yes,
Kay seems to be passionate about his vocals, but at times you have to
chuckle as he awkwardly throws "fuck" into as many songs as possible. It's
like listening to a child discover profanity, and it distracts from the
otherwise ominous atmosphere. At one point, he even appears to be doing a
Jon Spencer impression. While such factors are good for a laugh, it is
clear that Sunshine did not intend to make comedic music. Perhaps if
Sunshine stops trying to sound like a band from the US, they will achieve
their apparent goal of becoming PIL-2K, and that's not a bad thing at
all. -- tnd
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JLIAT / Still Life #5: 6 Types of Silence / edition
(CD)
I'm going to go all Monty Python geek on you here. Perhaps you'll
remember the "Scott of the Sahara" sketch -- in particular, the part
where the sand is painted with a revolutionary new substance called
"Wintrex", which looks more like snow than snow. I don't know why, but
6 Types of Silence reminds me of that bit. JLIAT's Still Life
series is an outlet for his more experimental works...and considering
that his most mainstream works are still pretty inaccessible to the
average pop fan, that's saying something. 6 Types of Silence is
precisely what it sounds like: a computer program, writing continuous
binary data values directly to a PCM file, creating something that
sounds almost, but not quite, exactly like nothing at all. Only
occasional pops and clicks reveal the fact that this isn't "real"
silence. Or is it? Obviously, you've got to be a bit of a boffin just
to appreciate this; it's an intriguing idea from an intellectual
standpoint, but in order to really appreciate the concept behind it
you probably have to look at the actual waveform the silence creates.
And having done that, what more can you possibly say about it? In the interest of due
diligence I listened to the disc twice, just in case anything happened in the
middle of any of the tracks. On the
second time through, the disc crashed my computer. Brilliant. -- gz
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Robbie Williams / Sing When You're Winning / Capitol (CD)
Even the Bosnians get high (their girls even more so) off this album's
first single, "Rock DJ", which makes the track's allusion to "Space Oddity"
("Ground control, can you feel me?") seem so perfect. Robbie's songs -- so
dense with personality, throbbing melody, and big-brother advice ("If you
can't get a girl but your best friend can/It's time to move your body") --
occupy a space that towers above his peers' pop songs. Where loads
of acts love, respect, and willfully borrow from past classics (as Robbie
and Guy Chambers do on slow songs reminiscent of early Humble Pie, or of the
Gloria Gaynor sample that puts "Supreme" into overdrive), the album's best
songs build upon past achievements in pop with the sort of larger-than-life spirit
that only comes along once in a blue moon. A
love of Robbie's music is a salute to an individuality so immense only egos
dare enter, and it is a warning to our backstreet eunuch acts that they must
grow balls or perish. His success, so needed Stateside, can open doors within the
commercial market for America's own engaging indie personalities (like Sean
Na Na and the Rondelles), and bring about the same sort of healthy radio
revolution that Nirvana's popularity helped to initiate some ten years before.
Trust me; you'll love this "music for your masses". Williams is a European
sensation who more than matches the hype. -- td
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Brian Michael Roff / The Way Things Work / BMR (CD)
Simple packages don't always mean simple things. This disc's plain brown cover
hides some very good songs. This is mostly acoustic guitar with singing and songwriting
that remains on the mellower side of pop. There are touches of indie
sensibilities -- the infamous Inland Empire comes to mind, with
hints of Simon Joyner bleeding through in the vocals. Roff is definitely not as
spastic as Mr. Joyner, but takes some of the same breaths. There are also hints of Vic
Chesnutt, but maybe that's just me. The lyrics are definitely worth
listening to, and they aren't hidden by the strum of the guitar, though
sometimes they are a bit subdued. There are also occasional
breakouts into rawer emotions. A nice simple keyboard line winds in and
out on "The Mill Street Formal", making me think of Portland's Sunset
Valley, but much mellower. It seems to me that these songs could be very
good to sit and around and drink to -- it's probably something you'd want to do by
yourself, which may make this a bad idea. I feel like heading down to the
bar right now, but there are still five songs left on the disc. -- mf
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The Bellrays / Smash the Hits! / Flappingjet
(8")
Whether Bellrays vocalist Lisa Kekaula wants to admit it or not, she's
every bit of the reason that this Californian four piece stands out from the
masses of trashed out garage rockers and fading '70s revitalizers. Kekaula
and company remind me of my Mom's early soul records as they
battle for listening space with my lo-fi Gories LPs. Confused? Translate
that into an extremely interesting and entertaining blend of musical
exploration that lets thudding bass lines and powerful punk underpinnings
inject a frenzy of Motown-gone-wrong (in all the right ways) manifestos
into the ultimate revivalist recording. "Mind's Eye" is one of the most
hypnotic tunes I've heard in quite some time -- it's a Frankenstein of
musical genres that pushes the bounds, pours out its heart and hisses and
pops a suave identity that is brilliantly unique. This 8" gives every inch
it has, immediately converting me into a frothing Bellrays follower. Yes,
it really is that damn good -- so please, drop your ridiculous BMG "alt-rock"
CD catalog, logon and go get the real deal now. You can thank me, and the
band, later. -- am
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The Minders / Down in Fall EP / spinART (CD)
In addition to being some of the nicest people you could ever meet, The
Minders are one of the most underrated pop groups around. Their perfect
blend of Kinksian drama and Beatlesesque melodies should have, by now,
vaulted them into the upper echelon of indiedom. Alas, The Minders
remain the little Portland band that could. By rights, that should
change with the release of Down in Fall. Marking a bold
step forward in the band’s evolution, Down in Fall replaces the
straightforward guitar-pop of Hooray For Tuesday with bolder and more intricate arrangements. From the piano-driven bar-room drawl of "The Loneliest of Faces" to the cut-and-paste sound
collage "Time Machine", the album is awash in new sounds and indelible
imagery. Long time fans need not worry; Martyn Leaper’s penchant for
sublime hooks and vocal whimsy remains intact, as evidenced by the
swooning "On and On" and the gorgeous final track, "Helen". In addition
to all this stellar musical content, the EP includes a pair of
Quicktime videos ("Golden Street" and "Light in the Morning") for your
viewing pleasure. If the Minders' forthcoming album (due in early 2001) is
anywhere near as good as Down in Fall, expect to see a lot more of the band next year. -- jj
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The Ivory Coast / Lake Placid 1986 b/w
Soledad / Sassy Boy (7")
The Ivory Coast score two for two on Sassy Boy's debut release. "Lake
Placid 1986" sports a punk rock tempo, a healthy dose of pop jangle, a
mess of sculpted feedback and a keyboard that sounds like it's muttering
to itself. The result is quite enjoyable. The slower "Soledad", which
seems to force a slowed-down disco bassline into a
fairly straightforward mid-tempo indie rock number, is greatly enhanced
by guest vocals from Jodi Buonanno. While the song never quite makes
you jump to your feet in shocked disbelief, Buonanno's breathy singing
creates just the right effect. What it lacks in originality it makes up
for in quintessentiality. A great start for a promising label. -- gz
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Rhythm Fantasy / Melody Garden / Vaudeville Park (CD)
If you like Abba's "Thank You for the Music", you should love "Have I Ever
Mentioned?", the opener (and remixed closer) on Rhythm Fantasy's catchy pop
debut. Essentially a letter filled with sweet sentiment ("As an expression
of my gratitude, I sing this song for you"), then packaged into song, it
survives a swarm of gushing thank-yous from singers Marilyn Lo and Reiko
Nishida because the orchestrated melody suits their joy to a tee and
perfectly complements their vocals. The man behind all of Rhythm Fantasy's
music, Tatsuhiko Watanabe, is like a Japanese Todd Rundgren. His playing,
his arrangements and his production show a thoroughly skilled artist who
probably could have excelled in the Brill Building of manufactured pop. The
girls of Rhythm Fantasy seem a good vehicle for him,
since they possess the passion essential to make extremely familiar pop seem
new. "Life=Love is Forever", by far the best song here, begins like a Supremes-style
Motown ballad, then drifts with a light UB40 beat into dizzyingly
happy pop. "Glass Stones in the Magic Moon", the only song sung in Japanese,
opens like "California Girls", then keeps that sexy sand washing up on
listeners' dancing toes, while "Glance Into the Crystal Ball" sways and
sashays like a couple at the prom. This is innocent, tender and sweet,
sweet stuff that will make all lucky listeners assent to Rhythm Fantasy's
vision of a world so good it allows some of us to be pop stars, and the rest
of us to swing beside them. -- td
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Crosstide / Crosstide / Chapel Hill
(CD)
There is something fascinating about earnest arena rock. It's
embarrassingly voyeuristic listen to someone singing his heart out and tearing his shirt open so the people
in the cheap seats can see his honesty. At
the same time, however, this style of music is popular precisely because it
connects on such an emotional level. Oregon's Crosstide uses this
connection to fine effect. Over the course of six songs, the trio lets
loose with convincing tales of love gone awry and nice guy confusion.
Backing up the melodic vocals are several impressive guitar moments which
separate Crosstide from the sea of similar bands. Given the success of
analogous bands who display only half of Crosstide's talent, this is a
group to keep an eye on. -- rd
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Pushcar / Apartment D / Tarantism
(CD)
Apartment D is a really fancy concept album that
fails its grander structure. The theme: the artists record the album for
three months...then one member of the duo, Chris Farrell, backpacks around
the world for thirteen months, sending postcards from every country he
visits to the other musician, Jim Saunders, who is rooted at home, remixing.
When Farrell returns home, the band is stuck in a creative quagmire, uncertain
how to finish the songs. Brainstorm: they use the last lines from Chris'
postcards to end the songs. The plan, as I mentioned, is beautiful, but
unfortunately misses the mark as far as the lyrics are concerned. While the
postcards (reproduced on the cover art) are gorgeous, lyrics like "you're
crusty brown on the edges/with a creamy poison center" are significantly
less so. The attempts at humour in the album fail, too: "Manic Depressive
(without the manic)" is simply annoying -- why not just say depressive? The
guitar and drum playing is simple, and not memorable; this is not the sort
of music you hum hours later, or even five minutes later. Apartment D isn't
bad, but its intriguing concept can't save it from being forgettable. -- js
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Juno Reactor / Pistolero / Metropolis
(CD)
My favorite song from Juno Reactor's Shango -- and one of the
best songs I've heard all year --
gets the full remix treatment. If you haven't heard it, it's brilliant
-- a mixture of
throbbing techno beats and spaghetti western soundtrack, complete with
horns, choral vocals, Spanish
guitar (by Billy Idol compadre Steve Stevens) and gunshot sound
effects. There are seven versions here, including two different radio
mixes. Juno Reactor's own remix adds more western ambience, while
Fluke's
"Hang 'Em High" mix loads on extra bass layers. The "Man with No Name"
and Picture of Man" mixes share
the task of pumping up "Pistolero" for the club crowd, adding throbbing
industrial keyboards and pervasive
techno-industrial beats; both work better than you'd expect. And of
course, every single includes at one
remix where the producer somehow manages to dump everything that makes
the song cool and distinctive,
usually in favor of generic house throbbing. Here, it's Headrillaz'
"Sandinista" mix, which throws too
much bland r&b riffing into the mix, though the Spanish guitar finds its
way back eventually. But what the hell; "Pistolero"'s overall quality
leaves me more than willing to overlook one substandard mix in a crop of
seven. It's well worth your while. -- gz
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Believe is introspective alternative singer/songwriter pop rock. The songs are
solid, and almost have an overproduced sound, but in the end they hold up. There's a basic
formula for most of the songs, with the standard bass/drums/guitar thing going
on, but the most moving songs also include keyboards. The guitar solos can be a bit much at times; it's not that
the talent isn't there, but I can't help and hear just a lot of studio time --
or maybe too much time spent learning. These are songs of lost love and looking for
love and following your dreams. There's a sadness in Believe that
goes above and beyond the music. The disc's last song, "Do What I
Want", has the best hook here -- a great eighties rhythm kicks in,
and I'm happy, 'cause a good ending is hard to find. -- mf
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Zyrah's Orange / Body / Zyrah's Orange (CD)
Is Zyrah's Orange oblivious to contemporary music trends? Is the band
simply an ultra-progressive unit when it comes to modern day songwriting?
Has this power trio from Massachusetts found the ultimate assimilation of
jazz and pop? There's no denying that Zyrah's three members can give Steely
Dan a run for its money, as grooving bass lines, three part harmonies and
funky drumming all create a sound that's quite difficult to categorize.
Zyrah's Orange is too skilled to play simple three-chord pop, instead favoring
an angular approach to songwriting that's heady and at times mind boggling -- but is the band too sophisticated to write songs that the
general populace can appreciate? Contemplate where heavy-duty solos and
catchy choruses land on your own personal musical spectrum and you'll
determine whether this Orange is too sweet or too bitter for your tastes. -- am
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Crazy Mary / She Comes In Waves / Humsting (CD)
Sophia Jackson sounds a little like Sally Timms, so when Crazy Mary slows
things down, as they do on "Consider" and "Paris (1944)", it's "so good it
hurts". The latter, a duet between Richard Morbid and Sophia Jackson, is
fueled by interesting lyrics ("how about a Gershwin tune or a harvest moon
with love from 1944?") that evoke nostalgia for the old David Bowie, amongst
others, and guitars that have enough twang behind them to suggest a little
country in their blood. It's just a very little country, though, as other
songs more closely suggest the Vaselines ("Talking to Wendy") or, as in
"Shot on Bullets" and "Burned", Tom Verlaine as backed by ZZ Top. That
latter blend probably isn't first on anybody's list, but it works better
than you might expect, and the songwriting of Morbid and Charles Kibel stays
strange and fractured enough to keep their bad voices from becoming a
detriment. Crazy Mary, who were formed at a time when the Bronx Zoo only hired
aspiring musicians, do not seem blessed with the natural talent needed
to ascend the bar scene; still, their music confidently evokes that period in
rock when Johnny Thunders tried to rule even his addictions "like a
motherfucker". And since I think that was Crazy Mary's intent, the disc
works. It is a rocking, heartfelt valentine to the streets of New York, and
to all its literal and figurative zoos, as well as to those hurt by the
needle, and those enduring by it. -- td
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gz - george zahora | nw - noah wane | am - andrew magilow | ib - irving bellemead | jj - jason jackowiak
td - theodore defosse | rd - ron davies | js - jenn sikes | rg - rodney gibbs | tnd - tim digravina | mf - marcel feldmar
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