OUR WEEKLY COLLECTION OF SHORTER REVIEWS | |
Mishima USA,
David Candy,
Braving the Seabed,
Explosion Robinson,
Portland Mercury Presents...Compact Disc of Sound,
Maggi, Pierce and E.J.,
Lilypoint,
Prince EQ,
Persona,
Six Going on Seven,
Journey to End of Twilight: US Pop Life Volume 8,
North East,
The Summer in Between,
Capsela,
Julio Padron Y Los Amigos De Sta. Amalia,
Heidi Saperstein,
Merrick,
Natalie Wattré,
Safe Home,
Stereobate/The Distance Formula,
Music for a Global Culture,
Lush,
Aram,
Lori Wray,
Jon Auer,
Three Normal Humans,
Hangedup,
DJ Brian,
The Members of Tinnitus,
Picnic Basket: A Shelflife International Pop
Compilation,
Roto |
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Mishima USA / EP / Catapult (CD)
Is it enough for a rock band to be just "good" or "nice" these days?
Boston duo Mishima USA play nice, unpretentious indiepop. Much is
written about their "unconventional line-up" of guitar, voice and
drums, but unlike such contemporary bass-less outfits as Quasi or
Sleater-Kinney, they don't use this to their advantage, and ultimately end
up sounding like a decent pop band without bass. The lyrics stick almost
exclusively to the sensitive relationship-py genre, freely using basic
rhyming patterns without a hint of sarcasm: "I saw you yesterday, walking
down my way. I didn't know what to say. After all I'm asleep, something
really deep. If I wake up there won't be anything to keep." That said, the
songs have an endearing quality -- especially "Stupid Kid", with
its pretty guitars and wholesome chorus just asking to be your friend. The
EP ends sorely with a minimal cover of the Cars' "Just What I Needed".
I've heard that girls never go for the
nice guys, but at least now the nice guys have something good to listen to. -- ea
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David Candy / Playpower / Jetset (CD)
Yes, this is Ian Svenonius...but those of you expecting anything even remotely resembling either The Make Up or Nation of Ulysses should just pack up your shit and leave now.
For Playpower, the ultra-suave, politically-minded Svenonius has
reinvented himself as David Candy, a sort of new-age,
hippie-dippy beatnik demigod for the now generation. Its roots
firmly entrenched in British Invasion-era pop, Playpower flounces
gleefully along a self-indulgent path to absolutely nowhere.
"Incomprehensibly Yours" and "Redfuchsiatamborine&gravel" are complete
and utter wastes of time; both find Svenious rambling semi-coherently
over gleeful organ and sparse guitars, and both become almost completely unbearable after the first thirty seconds. I'm not even going to start talking about the inherent irony of the nineteen-minute "Diary of a Genius". For the life of me I can’t figure out why Svenonius would release
an album like this -- though if I had to venture a guess, I would say that
it's because he can. Playpower provides a timely reminder that the fact that you
can do something doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. -- jj
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Braving the Seabed / Self-Titled / Sun Sea Sky
(CD)
The familiar feel of this Australian quartet's music is both its
blessing and its curse. It's quite easy to slip into numbers like "The
Air Between", which, through their gentle, shimmering melodies, invoke some
of the best dreamy trance-pop indie rock can offer. However, their
approach is so well-worn that it's difficult to distinguish them from
their brethren. Perhaps the most defining feature is the band's tendency to
restrain its songs from exploding into cliched climaxes of distortion.
The music here is good, but lacks an identifiable, individual signature that identifies
it as Braving the Seabed and no one else. -- rd
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Explosion Robinson / The Luxury Leader / Slabco
(CD)
Like other Slabco releases, The Luxury Leader is a
wealth of low-impact instrumental funkiness, mixing hip-hop
and electronica to sublimely cool effect. When Explosion
Robinson is on his game, he crafts truly bad-ass breaks;
witness "Exit Ace" and "Glass Packs" if you're a
non-believer. When the energy level sinks a bit lower,
The Luxury Leader settles into comfortably loose,
rubbery rhythms, spiced with twanky keyboards and a variety
of vocal and instrumental samples. As midtempo material
goes, this is prime; listen to "Gold Chain" in the car, for
instance, and you'll suddenly wish you were driving a
tricked out, cut-down late model Celica instead of that
stupid-ass gas-guzzling SUV. That said, after a few listens you
might find yourself craving something meatier, vocally
speaking, as many of these cuts are crying out for a
suitably skilled vocalist/MC who can add the finishing
touches. -- gz
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Various Artists / Portland Mercury Presents...Compact Disc of Sound / Portland Mercury (CD)
Presented by the city's free weekly,
Compact Disc of Sound corrals 16 of Portland's finest bands into
a surprisingly consistent package. A few tracks venture out-of-genre
(Dino's potty-mouthed hip-hop on "Who's Talkin' Shit Again?", Urban
Legends' very brief Ben Harperesque folk-rock), but many of these bands
are here simply to slap you around with some loud guitars and driving
rhythms. If song titles like "Heidegger's Vacation" (Holy Sons) and
"Orion as Seen From the Trojan Horse" (Steve Kramp) are any indication,
Portland's bands are smart as well as ready to rock. Melody takes a
back seat on about three quarters of this disc, compensated for by forceful
delivery and inventive playing. From the evidence collected here, The
Prids, The Intima, Heart Beats Red and 31 Knots are some Portland bands
you may be hearing from in the future, no matter where you live. -- rt
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Maggi, Pierce and E.J. / For (The Blue Album) / EMP (CD)
I should like For (The Blue Album) more than I do. It's dedicated to Jeff Buckley and opens with a sound that, while not exactly like an Archer Prewitt or a Sam Prekop, is at least a kissing cousin. Still, I can't quite like it, even after giving it a period of time to sink in. Excelling at what I can best describe as study-folk (think college campus with lots of trees, most likely located in someplace like upper New York or Oregon) and occasional forays into slow guitar-rock territory, Maggi, Pierce and E.J. do not want for pleasant melodies or decent arrangements, but something's missing. I could be wrong, but to my ear this album sounds as if was recorded directly to digital equipment and polished in Pro Tools. One of my favorites of last year, the Loki album, was recorded this way, but that record retained a measure of humor and personality. For strives to be touching -- it is a collection of songs about loss, acceptance and the enjoyment of life -- but its sound lacks humanity. I can't get past the calculated approach of some songs, even when I like them. The vocal is a bit removed from the backing tracks, the guitars a little too crisp and the song structure too locked into form -- and as a result, the music is nowhere near as inviting as it clearly wants to be. Perhaps I am being too critical, but I've given For several earnest, open-minded listens, and each time it has passed out of memory shortly after leaving the CD player. -- jb
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I Saw You's sweet melodies and harmonies showcase the vocal skills of singer/songwriter Jeffrey Touzeau, whose well-controlled tenor is limber and smooth. The guitar and drums are tidy, and never raw; even in his silliest songs, Touzeau is the consummate classical musician. His barbershop quartet experience really shines through in "Henry the Hippo" which features Beach Boys-style harmonizing, while his sweet
duet with wife Kim, "Autumn Morning", is not only a sweet idea, but a clear sign that the harmony in their married lives is echoed in their music. However, as good as his instrumentation and vocalization are, Touzeau needs some work in the lyrics department. The album's theme is birth, new beginnings and
creation (the fetus on the cover art is a little clue), and several of the songs are love letters/lullabies for his newborn daughter -- a sweet idea. Regrettably, the lyrics
are too silly to bear. With the exception of "Henry the Hippo", they're not songs for children -- compare them to Greg Brown's album for kids, Bathtub
Blues -- and they're too A.A. Milne for adults. Dorothy Parker's comment in her review of House at Pooh Corner applies here: "Tonstant weader fwowed up." -- js
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Prince EQ / Boss Freakin' / Self-Released (CD)
There's no doubting that Prince EQ can be bundled in with the they-so-horny, 2
Live Crew crowd -- the folks who let rumbling bass and smutty topics dominate their
music. Prince EQ is no Luke, though; he takes the moral hip-hop high road
and merely makes rash references to all those things your parents told you
to avoid. The danceable, booty-bumping "Sexy Thighs" and the almost legal
"17" crank the low end while dishing out PG13 sexual references, never
slipping into overtly distasteful mode. The well-placed beats and grinding grooves here prove that the Prince has the production skills to
rattle your car or knock you out on the dance floor, but this Atlanta native
would have many worshipping at his feet if he jumped off the high board and
put a bit more attitude in his vocal presentation, sending Too Short and
Slick Rick running to the local confessional booth. However, there's
nothing wrong with avoiding hip hop's sleazy clichés, and Prince EQ
does a genuinely good job at time-warping back to the old school days. -- am
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Persona / Uptight /
Simulated
(CD)
Yeah, I know, the drum-and-bass-glitch-techno micro-genre peaked weeks
ago...but this is still some pretty fun stuff. The rhythms are tweaky and
unpredictable enough to keep your ears entertained for hours, which is a
good thing, as there's not much going on here in terms of timbre or
melody. The best tracks come off as clever and catchy rhythmic
studies in which Persona investigates all possible permutations of a
piano smashing into the ground, alternating with a fritz-out industrial
robot stamping out broken radios with a snare drum. There are a few more
ambient pieces that don't really go anywhere, but they're pretty
harmless. This is a humorously spastic, manic CD. -- ib
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Six Going on Seven / American’t (Or Won’t) / Big Wheel Recreation (CD)
It’s about damn time Six Going on Seven signed to Big Wheel Recreation.
Whether or not the band actually wants to admit it, BWR has always
been their spiritual home. While Heartbreak’s Got Backbeat was a great
album, it was strangely out of place on the predominantly hardcore-based
Some Records. Now resident on a label where "everybody knows their
name", the Boston-based trio are ready to unleash American’t (Or Won’t)
upon the brittle-pop-loving world at large. Filled with punchy hooks,
soaring choruses and tricky rhythms, American't... is the kind of
record that Death Cab For Cutie wishes they could make. "Lately"
combines twinkling guitars and crisp melodic sense into a
three-and-a-half minute pop firebomb, while "Television Snow" is a
gleaming, mid-tempo rocker that Alex Chilton would be proud to call his
own. Other standouts include the urgently chugging opener "Readying",
the deceptively simple yet extremely effective "#7" and the elegant and
spirited "A-K-A". If it gets the attention it deserves, American't (Or Won't) could easily become one of the summer's surprise hits. -- jj
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Various Artists / Journey to End of Twilight: US Pop Life Volume 8,
North East / Contact (CD)
Based in Osaka, Japan, Contact has a great perspective on
American pop scenes. While its previous compilations have been devoted to small
areas (Portland/Seattle) or subsets within a scene (psychedelic bands from
Athens), this one tackles the whole Northeast -- Delaware included! As always, one
never gets what one expects from Contact; while it's hard for me to sum up
the Northeast without mention of yesterday's Harriet or today's phenomenal
Double Agent label, Journey To End of Twilight has its focus on the
Rock. It paints the Northeast as an enduring haven for power pop
(Buttercup, Capital City), sixties throwbacks (Lilys) and the best bands emo
has to offer (Rainier Maria's "Artificial Light"). The world of twee gets
only a small nod (Elk City), as does the world of experimental music (Need
New Body), but isn't it cool that anyone could consider Need New Body pop?
Another unexpected "pop" band is Plymouth Rock, who give a little Johhny
Cash swagger to the list, and the Eyesores do a bang-up job of bringing this
Journey to an end. Against a moody, instrumentally eclectic backdrop, their
song informs music lovers from Japan and elsewhere that the common American
youth sentiment is to sympathize with people who steal shopping carts
from the beloved IGA, where produce is always cheap. -- td
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The Summer In Between / Self-Titled EP / Kittridge
(CD)
You've heard sunny, winsome boy/girl vocals before, but The
Summer In Between puts a little muscle behind them. Chunky
drum loops and sinuous shoegazery guitars add some sonic
substance to the standard jangle, resulting in a disc with a
lot more presence than typical indie-pop fare. The guitars
chime, the keyboards drone and the vocals harmonize
prettily, but the self-aware cutesiness factor has been
trimmed back nicely. In other words, this is a disc you can play for
your non-cardigan-wearing friends. You'll be drawn to this
one by the artwork -- some striking Manga-cum-Keane stuff by
Risako Shimai -- but you'll happily stay for the tunes. --
gz
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Capsela / Self-Titled / Self
Released (CD)
Capsela is a Rhode Island three-piece that would fit
well alongside the more pastoral bands on the
Kindercore or March Records roster. The nasally/classically
dreadful vocals on this four song EP make an immediate impact,
reaching a female indie-pop Jonathan
Richman acme on "Kissing the Roses". I've had a hard
time connecting with this CD because it seems so at
odds with itself, identity-wise; the purposely washed vocals,
for instance, stand in sharp contrast to the well-crafted pop melodies.
When the Shaggs, or even Oval-Teen, track their vocals over,
they tend to string an equally
plastered, cacophonous dirge along with them; kitschy
vocals more or less necessitate kitschy melody. You'd figure that
a band named after a space-age toy construction set would know the
difference between fitting pieces together and actually making them work. -- jw
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Julio Padron Y Los Amigos De Sta. Amalia / Descarga Santa /
RealRhythm (CD)
There is a Cuban jazz tradition known as Descargas that values
rhythmic drive and intensity over melodic/harmonic precision. If you buy
into this concept, you'll be able to buy into Descarga Santa, which is
the least "traditional" CD I've heard from RealRhythm. It's really more
contemporary Latin/jazz fusion than salsa or son, and to my ears -- I'm an aficionado of American jazz -- it sounds sloppy. The clear-cut, rhythmic crispness and Latin playfulness is severely hamstrung by verbose, poorly structured and melodically ambiguous solos. For some listeners, these inaccuracies might add to the album's homespun, authentic charm, but
for me they detract heavily. The opening track, "Lady Bird" is a case in
point. The trombone solo goes on far too long, given its generally flat
contour and meandering attitude. The sax solo that follows is jerky, lacks
fluidity and goes on too long, although it does manage a half-hearted climax.
Then comes a harmonically painful piano solo in which the comping in the left
hand never seems to connect with the melodic noodling in the right. After
another extended solo and an inscrutable sort of coda, the song finally ends.
Perhaps this is all part of the Descargas style, in which case
my dissatisfaction with Descarga Santa can be ascribed to cultural differences.
Whatever the case, I'd definitely look before leaping into this one. -- nw
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Heidi Saperstein / The Devil I Once Knew / Kimchee (CD)
At first, I was inclined to dismiss The Devil I Once Knew as some
sort of Ani DiFranco-influenced pastiche (with Edie Brickell-esque vocals, no
less). While there does seem to be a proliferation of DiFranco imitators
cranking out Dilate and Out of Range clones left and right,
Saperstein is not one of them. Songs like "Away" and "Big Mama" stand out as
particularly catchy, but none stayed in my head as well as the title track. I
kid you not -- this song's chorus has been stuck in my head for the past
four days. I really need to learn the rest of the song. I'm beginning to
drive my co-workers crazy by just singing the same lines over and over and over... -- al
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Merrick / An Album for Raymond / Deafinit (CD)
Almost two years ago, after reviewing An Ocean of Doubt: Emo
Diaries Vol. 4, I e-mailed Merrick to see if I could procure one
of their other releases for review. Months and months passed and I
forgot all about the band and my request for their music -- until recently,
when, out of the blue, I received an e-mail saying
that Merrick’s debut full-length was currently on its way to my
doorstep. An Album for Raymond was almost worth the wait...almost. A
year and a half ago I probably would have really loved this album, but
during that time my ears have been punished by one awful emo band after
another, leaving me more than a little soured on the genre. For what it
is (a straightforward emo record), An Album for Raymond is above-average -- filled from start to finish with ferocious guitar rave-ups and yearning vocals. "So Alone" has The Get Up Kids written all over it,
while "Blue Light Night" wraps a crisp melody around an elastic bass line
and swooning guitars. If any of this sounds even the least bit
interesting to you, give Merrick a listen. They stand a good chance of
becoming Drive Thru’s newest heroes -— if they
don’t break up first. -- jj
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Natalie Wattré Band / Break / Swirly Girl
(CD)
As their name suggests, the Natalie Wattré Band exists for the sole
purpose of supporting Natalie Wattré's vocals. While this might
seem demeaning, Wattré's voice is a wonder, making such a task more akin to
stewardship than slavery. Smokey and rich, Wattré‘s vocals recall
the confident bombast of Janis Joplin. Added to Joplin's whisky-scoarched
wail is the velvet pop that Natalie Merchant always sought but only
occasionally found. The sixteen tracks here encase Wattré in bluesy,
acoustic rock; it's not overly memorable, but you won't forget her powerful voice. -- rd
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Safe Home / Travel In Time / Sunday Records (CD)
It’s just so sweet and pretty, and the picture of cardigan-clad children on
the cover perfectly sums up the EP's four tracks. I say all of
this somewhat facetiously, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Safe
Home, featuring former members of The Nightblooms, is a folk-inspired three
piece that plays subdued, girl fronted, delicate pop. Apparently the band
packed up their Marshall stacks and Ampeg bass tower and traded it all in
for a pastoral lifestyle which would allow them to compose a la Belle and
Sebastian meets Joni Mitchell. Not the choice I would have made, but many
of you would probably applaud this decision. Esther, the lead singer,
really does have a lovely, innocent voice, which is best heard in the chorus
of "Dear Dusty". -- az
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Stereobate/The Distance Formula / Self-Titled / Distance Formula (7")
On this thoughtful instrumental, Stereobate combines space rock blasts with an ominous rhythm section. Switching between an unrelenting mover and a contemplative, shoegazing
anthem, "Distress Call..." does
a fine job combining conflicting moods into a cohesive musical element. The
flip side reveals The
Distance Formula applying formulaic, heavy bass rhythms that keep the
band's two tracks on target as
you travel through an apocalyptic, post-hardcore-meets-crotchety-indie-rock
world. The warm vocals on "Brooklyn Celebrity" are almost the opposite of the music, giving the tune
an astonishing vibrance that leaves you yearning for more. The final tune dives into a harsher
instrumental break, plowing through staccato beats and churning guitar lines. Who is this masked man they call The Distance
Formula? And who is his bold sidekick, Stereobate? Stay tuned as news develops. -- am
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Various Artists / Music For A Global Culture / Quango (CD)
After a brief stint in the mid '90s, during which the Quango label benefited
from a deal with Island Records that put their groove-heavy releases into
the mass public's hands, Quango all but disappeared. In the beginning, it was
Los Angeles DJ Bruno Guez and Island Record's founder Chris Blackwell who
teamed up to deliver a variety of releases -- mainly compilations like this
one -- proving that they were hell-bent on saturating the nation with a
combination of funk, jazz, electronica and world music unlike anything we'd
heard before. Well, they've re-emerged, and not much has changed. With the label set to
release six compilations this year alone, Music For A Global Culture
is more of a "whet the public's interest" sampler than a CD they plan to push, but if Music... is any indication of the
direction in which the next batch of releases is headed, they'll be well worth
waiting for. Welcome back Quango! Not quite the same effect as "Kotter", but
it works... -- al
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And the leveraging of the 4AD back-catalogue continues... It
was only a few years ago that Lush finally breathed their
last, having evolved from a shoegazerish outfit into a
breathy power-pop band that, on occasion, resembled a
low-impact Veruca Salt. Over eighteen songs, Ciao...
trips backward through the group's history, beginning with
Lovelife's Britpop airiness ending with such
overtly 4AD-ish tunes as "Nothing Natural" and
"Etheriel". While Lush's sound begins to grate a bit after
seventy minutes, the majority of these tunes are gems; "Ciao", the
kissoff duet with Jarvis Cocker, has aged particularly
well. The moral of the story: Lush are better than you
remember them to have been. If all you remember about the band is
Miki Berenyi's bright red hair, Ciao
offers a perfect opportunity to get re-acquainted. -- gz
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Aram / Ghosts in a Season / Surprise Truck (CD)
With a musical sensibility shaped by the earnest,
purple prose style of '70s singer-songwriter mainstays like James
Taylor, Ghosts in a Season glides from the speakers like a warm
night breeze through a car window. Traveling a peripatetic path down
the backroads of Georgia, California, Alabama, Maine and points unknown,
the album ultimately leads not to a destination, but to the haunted
season of its title. Dwelling almost entirely in an autumn twilight,
these narrators are shaded with longing and a desire to reconnect with
the past. The jangly guitars of "Bigger Highway" add a touch of early
REM to the album, which uses guitar, vocal, drums, and bass as well as
piano and occasional strings. A few tracks sink: the gently
evocative lyric of "I Can't Remember Your Name" ("I can't remember your
name/but I remember you were beautiful") drowns in diabetes-inducing
piano and strings. Aram's lyrics occasionally spill into cliché,
but for the most part touch compelling and emotionally tender spots,
like "November"'s opening line, "I was just thinking of the love/I was
afraid to ask for/And I can hear that fear come/Knockin' down my back
door." To call an album "radio-ready" can in these days of corporate
radio be an outright insult, but an autumn evening, a country road and
Aram's songs on the car radio could keep you driving all night. -- rt
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Lori Wray / Hisstory /
Spitbite (CD)
I like Lori Wray. The veteran singer from Minneapolis has an accomplished
rock voice, sounding a little like Chrissie Hynde or Berlin's Terri Nunn. Hisstory is a collection of miscellaneous tracks recorded
by Ms. Wray between 1987 and 1999. It's a study in stylistic diversity,
tripping from '80s pop to understated '90s folk and including
original material and covers as well as studio and live cuts. The sound
quality throughout the disc is impressive, given that many of these tracks
were rescued from age-ravaged cassette tapes. Wray's sense of humor is
clear, particularly on her cheeky cover "I'm Gettin' Nothin' For Christmas."
Standout tracks include "When I'm Weakening", "True Love in a
Day" and the surprisingly techno-friendly "Eso Vallé." "When I'm
Weakening" is a solid '80s-style pop tune in which Wray's strong, belting tone
deftly compliments the song's driving tempo. "True Love in a Day" is just a
little bit country, with subtle lap steel and a generally
easygoing demeanor. "Eso Vallé" falls into the category of early-'90s
bedroom/house music and is surprisingly satisfying considering what a
departure it is from Wray's regular style. -- nw
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Jon Auer / 6 ½ EP / Pattern 25 (CD)
As half of the songwriting end of legendary power-poppers The Posies,
Jon Auer has penned some gloriously catchy songs ("Solar Sister" and
"Ontario" spring readily to mind). Rather than pull out the old
notebook for this release, Auer has looked to his favorite artists, past and
present -- not only for guidance, but for material. A collection
of oddball covers, 6 ½ shows Auer to be a performer of considerable depth
and range. His version of Swervedriver’s "These Times" is twice as
pretty as the original (which is quite a feat), while his rendition of
Serge Gainsbourg’s "Bonnie & Clyde" takes the whimsical nature of the
original and catapults it even further into wonderland. In Auer’s
capable hands, The Psychedelic Furs’ '80s anthem "Love My Way" is
transformed into a distortion-ravaged nugget of crunchy power-pop. Saving the proverbial best for last, he squeezes out a gorgeous, acoustic-led reading of Madonna’s "Beautiful Stranger".
By stripping away the studio sheen of the original, Auer uses the song's poetic lyrics to expose its broken heart. 6 ½ is a gem of a record, once again proving that Jon Auer is one of the most underrated tunesmiths of his generation. -- jj
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Three Normal Humans / Weekend At Bellevue / Self Released (CD)
Weekend At Bellevue is a ten
song collection of alternative country tunes that
rock harder than the Creed cover band playing next door to
me, who drowned out the Tortoise LP I had been spinning.
There isn't anything noticeably wrong with this
album -- I'd go as far as to say it's the best album
from its respective genre I've reviewed this year, though I've only reviewed four other alt-country
releases. Everything from the twangy guitars to the album's eclectic instrumentation points to the
fact these guys are sound musicians, skilled at constructing
dynamic rock songs. Lyrically, the album is extremely lighter than
other alt-country fare -- you won't find any songs
about lost dogs or drunken housewives, but rather
upbeat and modern odes with borderline-fey tonality. -- jw
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Hangedup / Self-Titled /
Constellation (CD)
This is another great-looking and super sounding disc from Constellation's
ongoing series of mostly-acoustic, largely improvised releases. This
time out it's Gen Heistek on viola and Eric Craven on drums
and percussion. Viola and percussion not getting your blood boiling?
Well shame on you, peasant! This is really tasty stuff, equal parts
scratchy noise-noodling and Branca-esque drones with some almost poppy
("New Blue Monday") viola/drums robot music thrown in for good
measure. Maybe someone forced you to listen to some dreadful new music
noodling when you were a child and you've still got the bitter taste in
your ears now, thirteen years later. Well, this isn't that! This is good. --
ib
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DJ Brian / Psychotrance2002 / Moonshine Music (CD)
DJ Brian's first offering since Hardesertrance 3 is definitely better than Hardesertrance 2 (and I would suspect Three, as well, although I haven't heard it). DJ Brian's first offering since Hardesertrance 3 is definitely an improvement. However, Hardesertrance 3 is mainly useful as a workout CD, because the beats are fast; it's also boring, because the beats
never vary. Psychotrance2002 is much the same; the time is 2/4 for almost the entire disc. Track three, "Blue Vibrations", which DJ Brian wrote as well as mixed, differs slightly in that it is excellent accompaniment for riding a pogo stick -- the up-down rhythm is much the same. There are few vocal samples here, mostly of the wailing female voice variety, but none rise above the ordinary. Most DJs can
count on their audience being biochemically altered while attending a rave, and a fucked-up listener will certainly be supplying sounds of her own that the DJ
never plays. Nevertheless, being fucked up can only add so much to a boring album (Besides, if there were drugs that made boring records sound interesting, Polygram would be putting them in our water supply - Ed). Psychotrance2002 will
definitely bust your buzz -- but on the bright side, it could bore your average E user straight. -- js
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Before you hear 28-33, you know it's some serious
stuff. This Swedish (I think) 7" arrives not in a
conventional sleeve, but bound between two thick slabs of
particle board held together by rubber bands. It's heavy.
So's the music -- six noisy, schizophrenic spazz-outs
that'll appeal to fans of Zulu as Kono and (perhaps) The
Locust. "And I Had Bought a Copy of Death" is the apparent
centerpiece here; it's a loping, confusing instrumental
driven by cyclical guitar sequences. Also intriguing is
"Swing Low 18/32", which marries an old record sample with
some intriguing guitar scales and electronic glitching. The
remaining four tunes are a mixture of weird electronic
stuff, weird vocal stuff, weird guitar stuff and...well, you
get the idea. It works, because you get the feeling that
some planning went into these pieces, as opposed to the
all-too-common "Hey guys, let's make some random noise!"
approach. -- gz
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Various Artists / Picnic Basket: A Shelflife International Pop
Compilation / Shelflife (CD)
Shelflife is an endearing Pop Label sweetheart to its favorite artists; if
they like you, there's no other label that promotes an artist more effectively.
The songs in their Picnic Basket sound, at first listen, more smooth than
passionate and more suave than catchy, but leave the disc in your CD player
for a while and the grooves will whet your appetite for more. It's impossible to deny the seductive guitar pop pleasures of Impossible Tyme, while Kissamatic Lovebubbles are like
the Razorcuts with stylish hair. Pinkie is so good you never once wonder
"Is its leader Alex Sharkey related to Feargal?", and Lenore of the Pearly
Gatecrashers sounds just cute as can be. By the strength of her voice, the
Gatecrashers' "Summer's Here", which celebrates casual drug use, made me
pine for puppets. They are my new band "most likely to provide a faithful
cover of 'Rainbow Connection'". Other wonderful groups, like Shelflife's
very own Maybellines, lead me to wonder if the label is less gifted at hype
than at honest assessment of their team of "pop wonders". -- td
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Roto / The Low Power Hour / Resin (CD)
This unique duo's vocal delivery suggests a young Jello Biafra
warbling through mid-tempo murky rock with a touch of country. Adding a
measure of DC-flavored indie-punk to the mix, Roto's guitar work carefully
steers through intricate notes, creating chunky tunes that turn a simple-sounding band into a power hungry dominator that dishes out burning DIY tracks. As The Low Power Hour progresses, Roto also explores computer sound interjections and manipulations, producing "Wrecking Ball" -- a fantastic anthem that sounds like a cool and collected Minor Threat. More than just another
round of DC-outfitted punk, Roto reassesses traditional tonal damage and serves it up
with the band's own unique perspective on mathy punk rock, glorifying rock's ongoing evolution. -- am
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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
jb - jason broccardo | js - jenn sikes | rt - ryan tranquilla | al - amy leach | jw - john wolfe | az - alex zorn | ea - ed anderson
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