OUR WEEKLY COLLECTION OF SHORTER REVIEWS | |
Quintron,
Bis,
Bip-Hop Generation Vol. 3,
Frankie Sparo,
The Push Kings,
Flupejac,
Kill Creek,
Eclipso,
The Apes,
Girlfrendo,
M.A.J.O.R.,
Adam Schmitt,
Nibushi Shang Hong,
Plump DJs,
Sufjan Stevens,
Technicolor,
Tundra Survey,
TJ Rehmi,
Sean Altrui,
Hughes Hall,
Siddeleys,
The Best Friends Group,
Pat Ortman,
Nerves,
Lambchop,
Tino,
EstherLee,
Modest Mouse,
Soulstance,
Barry Harris featuring Pepper Mashay,
Rankin' Scroo and Ginger,
Gustavo Aguilar,
Slipslide,
The Stone Coyotes,
Quetzal,
Anthony Rapp
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Quintron / Drum Buddy / Skin Graft
(CD)
Okay, this is pretty damn kooky -- and pretty damn cool. The Drum Buddy seems
to be an analog synth/drum machine hybrid instrument; it has a bunch
of touch-controlled oscillators, a neat rotating drum/light-controlled
drum machine and lots of groovy looking lights and switches and dials.
And you can actually by one of these things for a mere $999! Okay, so
maybe most of us don't have an extra grand to spend on a wacky new
instrument, but at least we can hear the groovy sounds that come out of
such a thing. This demo CD features a number of tunes created
exclusively with the Drum Buddy, as well as highly amusing
demonstrations of the Drum Buddy's various functions and capabilities.
It also features lots of lines like "The Drum Buddy is a direct link
between the human hand and sheer electronic voltage." And just in case
hearing the Drum Buddy in action isn't enough for you, you can also pick
up a cool looking video on the Drum Buddy website (http://www.drumbuddy.com). This is a really
wonderful and strange project; I know what I want for my next birthday! --
ib
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Bis / Return to Central / spinART (CD)
Every generation has its youth icons -- and eventually they all
mature. The members of Bis, teenagers when the band
exploded onto the scene in the mid-nineties, are now
twenty-somethings. They've been around the block, seen the
world, been praised and panned, parted company with a couple
of record labels -- heck, Manda Rin even got married.
Fortunately, time hasn't stolen their skills; they're still
the best band in the world when it comes to mixing punk rock
with electronic technopop. The good news, then, is that Return
to Central is Bis' most refined effort to date, and
boasts some of the coolest sounds they've ever produced;
particular credit goes to "The End Starts Today", which
shifts from a refined hip-hop vibe to an explosive, heavily
orchestrated intro, over which Manda slides some silky-sexy
vocals. The bad news is that they sometimes seem a little
too polished. Like children in itchy, uncomfortable
formal clothes, the group seems out of place among the
electronic perfection of this music. I've criticized
Manda's more extreme, riot-grrrl-style outbursts in the past --
but when I found myself actually missing them here, I
realized that Return to Central just isn't as punk as
I expect Bis to be; sometimes it sounds more like an
Information Society record. That said, I'll confess that
I've been listening to Return to Central a lot
lately. It's an inconsistent record, but its good bits are
very, very good indeed -- let's call it a tentative step in a very
intriguing direction. I will follow the new, mature Bis
with interest. -- gz
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Various Artists / Bip-Hop Generation Vol. 3 / Bip-Hop (CD)
I had this terrible fear that "bip-hop" was yet another in a long string of sub-genres with which, as a responsible music critic, I was going to have to become
familiar. Imagine my relief, then, when I discovered that it is just the cute French name of the label that released this IDM comp (incidentally, what is it about
"intelligent dance music" that is danceable, precisely?). The six artists featured here hail from all corners of the globe; for the casual electronic
music listener like myself, they represent a nice cross-sampling of what it sounds like when smart, introverted guys and gals all over this big blue marble use lots of
computer equipment and Ecstasy. The idea seems to have been to give everybody equal time, meaning that French artist Zonk't, whose "Artificially Amplified
Raindrop Deepest Thoughts For Sale" clocks in at over fourteen minutes, has to get it all down in one track, while Russian Novel 23 can spread him-or-herself out
over three. This gives the listener more time to get acquainted with each of the featured artists than is afforded by the standard
compilation, and in this case the extra exposure is certainly warranted. All of the artists involved in this undertaking are clearly very talented and exceedingly
creative. A particular tip of the hat, then, to Japan's Atau Tanaka, whose "Bondage_2" and "SV_VS" stand out, even in impressive company, as uniquely melodic
yet thoroughly experimental sound collages. These, and all of the tracks on Vol. 3, are not only interesting sonic artifacts, but as thoroughly engaging (and intelligent) "dance" music. -- bm
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Frankie Sparo / Arena Hostile / Constellation (CD)
Simply speaking, Frankie Sparo is a master of the reverb-drenched guitar
note. Equally as impressive is Sparo's absolute control over your listening
experience, as he experiments with patience through each of these pleasantly
plodding songs. As "Diminish My NYC" relinquishes its reign on your stereo,
you’re left in a cold and deathly musical grip, your lips slightly parted and a look of awe plastered across your face. Sparo’s slow-core violin and
guitar notes and dragging vocals sound something like Vic
Chesnutt stepping up to the microphone after flooding his veins with
depressants, while The Dirty Three play backup like it's their
last ever public display. Arena Hostile may only be four songs long,
but each tune will comfort you with its beauty and emotional explosiveness.
Add in the beautiful packaging that seems to be a mainstay of Constellation
Records and you’re reminded that there still are stellar, unknown artists
associated with good labels out in the cold, corporate music world. -- am
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The Push Kings / Feel No Fade / Le Grand Magistery (CD)
Separating art from commerce can
be difficult in our conglomerated culture -- as can deciding whether that
separation has to be made at all. Combining admirable chops with
radio-ready pop songs, The Push Kings feed the hit machine with an album of
summery tracks aimed at a demographic that's too young to remember the glory
days of Sugar Ray. Wielding the dubious honor of a "Cute Band Alert" from
Teen Magazine ("We're not into angst, but we're not bubblegum,"
singer/guitarist Finn Moore Gerety told the mag) and a mention as the
opening act in a New York Times concert review of like-minded '60s
revivalists the Apples in Stereo, the Kings sport Brit-pop guitar gloss and
a danceable backbeat. They're even the tiniest bit subversive: Feel No
Fade tackles the subject of drugs in a blissful fashion guaranteed to
make most parents of a teenage girl blanch: "Summer is for trippin'" is the
album-opening line ("Summer Trippin'"), followed quickly by the uplifting "I
was born stoned/Stoned is how I want to stay", from the chorus of the second
track, "Born Stoned". (To be fair, most of the tracks are about that other
timeless subject: boy meets girl...) As with the best and the worst pop
music -- both of which are exemplified by the Push Kings -- the choruses are the key:
hummable, fully engaging, but easily forgotten as summer fades into
fall. -- rt
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Flupejac / "Who's Your Daddy?" / Land Speed (CD)
For an album recorded and mixed in merely a week, "Who's Your Daddy?"
sounds amazingly good; it would take a lot of bands that length of time just
to get the drums miked properly. Flupejac have been
compared to a ton of other bands (Sugar, Smashing Pumpkins, STP, Screaming Trees, Nirvana), but I
also hear a strong leaning toward the harder, driving moments of Foo
Fighters, minus Dave Grohl's lyrical irony. Highlights here include
the surprisingly melodic "F*ck 'Em" and the Billy Corgan-like (think
"Bullet With Butterfly Wings") "Shinebox". Flupejac may sound a bit
too much like many of their genre-mates to suit discriminating
listeners, but if that can be considered a flaw, it's their only one. -- al
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Kill Creek / Colors of Home / Second Nature (CD)
Kill Creek are not the usual Second Nature Recordings fare -- there isn't a snarling guitar or thunderous drumbeat to be found on Colors of
Home. When you consider that the band counts Casket Lottery, Euclid and
Waxwing among their labelmates, Kill Creek seem downright tame. But be
warned -- there is a dark heart lurking beneath this disc's seemingly genteel
veneer, due in no small part to the fact that Kill
Creek have been around for the better part of a decade and have survived a
stint in major label (Mammoth) hell. If you're aware of the band's past, the
sullen, disparate tone of "Divorcee" and "Mousetrap" probably will not
come as any real shock. The shock, such as it is, comes from
the ferocious blast of white-hot punk rock that is "Serotonin"; the
band careens off the rails (literally and metaphorically) amid a
squall of overdriven guitars and clenching rhythms. This minor uprising
continues with the jaunty chime-and-strum of "Grandfather’s Left Side"
before coming abruptly to rest in the moody meditations of "Cops"
and "Kathleen". You'll be left feeling weary, but somehow wiser. They
might not be exactly what you’d expect from Second Nature -- assuming you know
anything about the label at all -- but Kill
Creek are definitely a group of survivors, and their tales of the ups and
downs of human existence are well worth hearing. -- jj
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Eclipso / Hero and Villain in One Man / Death Barney (CD)
Hero and Villain in One Man sounds like an offering from a time
capsule unearthed in your backyard. The '60s influence of sunny, trippy
guitar-driven melodies is inescapable. Eclipso (Bruce Gordon) even
does a Brian Wilson cover, which seals the deal. In fact, in addition to his
originals, Eclipso offers a number of covers of sixties -- and sixties-sounding -- material.
"I've Got a Feeling", from Ivy's Apartment
Life, adds a strange new twist to the song that Dominique Durand
couldn't have pulled off; even with his nasal voice, Gordon sounds
exceedingly wistful. His guitar work, although muted, is far less wispy than
Ivy's -- probably because his vocals aren't as easily overpowered as Durand's low-impact singing. "Long After Long" is surf-ish, and catchy, and definitely made
for singing along. "Allegiance" is an ill-timed but thoughtful
examination of patriotism, set to a beautifully harmonized, soaring
chorus. Given the talents on display here, it seems safe to say that the
hero -- whether it's Gordon or Eclipso --has won the battle. -- js
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The Apes / The Fugue In The Fog / French Kiss (CD)
The camouflage-covered, New York-based Apes rely heavily on formula. Their songs are all pretty much the same: drums and distorted bass pound away and the Moog exudes ultra-fat, Beavis and Butthead-friendly riffs, while distortion coats the screaming vocals. Formulaic music isn't necessarily a bad thing, and the Apes' self-referential shtick may be great for irony-loving stoner rockers. My biggest criticism of Fugue In The Fog is that the songwriting just isn't that compelling. Sure it's not meant to be catchy, intricate or emotionally involving, but most of the time it's just monotonous, loud and annoying -- which, to their credit, is exactly what they're trying to be. -- ea
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Girlfrendo / So You are Here Again, Shadow? / Bambini (CD)
It's easy -- but unfair -- to pack Girlfrendo in with all the Joanie Loves Chachie's
Kitty-Pop bands. This Swedish group's cuteness is a genuine thing. It
stems as much from knowing what baffles us ("Another thing I never
understood is/Why he believes coffee and sugar tastes good") and consumes us
("My heart just swoons when he pronounces the letter 'R'/They're the best
ones ever heard") as from their lead singer's voice. Vocalist
Josephine Olausson is Jennifer Tilly as a rock star, and works her magic as well as
Jennifer Tilly, Academy-Award winning actress. Her charming, girlie voice,
often paired with a more traditional male voice, not only expresses the
whole palette of human emotions within the group's varied, richly European
repertoire, but does so with more depth and honesty than a Sarah Cracknell.
Shadow?, the follow-up to 1999's best pop Surprise, is a
rollercoaster of everyday sensations and every-night remembrances, and a
great artistic statement on the essence of huggybearability. -- td
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M.A.J.O.R. / Master and Juggernaut of Rhymes / In Da Lab (CD)
What do I know about rap or hip-hop? Not a goddamn thing! The genre
basically ended for me with KRS and Public Enemy, although I will admit to
owning a couple of Eminem and Busta Rhymes records. Man, those guys are
funny. Therefore, as I’m completely unable to make an informed comparative
assessment of M.A.J.O.R.’s Master and Juggernaut of Rhymes I’ll defer
to the incontrovertible "I like this". This isn’t flashy MTV gangsta rap;
it’s got a decidedly more street feel to it, with greater emphasis on lyrics
and vocal stylings over stolen Top 40 samples. I particularly liked "Bustin’
Loose (Poolwalk)", which begins with (what sounds like) someone’s Mom nagging him, then cops the beat of "What More Can I Say" and borrows the chorus of "Revenue."
To my untrained ear, the album's real strength is its rhymes -- catchy,
direct and memorable. I can already hear myself singing "never
knew/revenue/could ever do/what it did/to me and my guys/when we was
kids..." -- az
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Adam Schmitt / Demolition / Parasol (CD)
More than eight years have passed since Schmitt's last
effort, so one can only imagine the
amount of tinkering that brought Demolition to
fruition. The ten tracks included here demonstrate Schmitt's
attention to detail with a precision rarely found on
standard-fare pop; while the songs occasionally
suffer from bloated, over-emphasized crooning, their tight
structure and powerful guitar melodies should speak to
most fans of power-pop. After the album meanders
through half a disc of sundry rock songs, it finds its
voice with the timely "Alone On A Crashing
Plane" -- a reposed guitar number with a melody that
sticks in your head. Apparently energized by this high
point, Schmitt closes out the package with three more
loose, enjoyable tunes. The listener is left hoping that
Schmitt can get his next opus out the door a little faster -- but
also willing to wait, if he feels like tinkering. -- jw
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Nibushi Shang Hong / Everything You Need to Survive / Hong (CD)
The curse of the band with the funny name seems to be this: you must either be as
ludicrously off-the-hook as possible in an effort to live up to the silly
moniker, or ignore the fact that your band has a totally retarded name,
and sound as normal and middle of the road as possible. For better or for
worse, Nibushi Shang Hong have taken the latter route with their debut EP.
Everything You Need to Survive starts off promisingly with
the minute-long herky-jerky pop of "Leading to Little Street", but
unfortunately, the band can't quite sustain that energy for the remaining three
songs. "Before Tomorrow" is an adequately perky little pop
tune, but like everything else here, it's nothing to write home about. The
band is competent but unimaginative, and the singer has a generic whiney
voice -- part Elvis Costello without the irony, part They Might be Giants
without the wit and part generic Eve 6 alternamuck. Maybe if they got another
guitarist to thicken their sound, and maybe if they stopped writing lyrics
like "yesterday's tomorrows, they don't come", then maybe they'd be on to
something. Maybe. -- j-s
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Plump DJs / A Plump Night Out / Nettwerk
(CD)
As there are no good photos of these guys available -- at
least, not in the CD booklet or on the label's website -- I
can't tell if they're actually plump or not. I'm
guessing they're not, though the mental picture of a couple
of disc jockeys too corpulent to reach their 1200s amused me
for quite a while. Fortunately, the pair's non-obesity is
A Plump Night Out's only real disappointment. This
continuously-mixed collection of their best tracks and
remixes includes throbbing house grooves, pounding
breakbeats, a little Daft Punk-style disco stuff and a whole lotta body-moving grooves;
it takes a little while to really get cooking, but once it
ignites, it builds inexorably to an ass-shaking frenzy.
There's plenty of variation here, but none of the
by-the-numbers gimmickry that haunts Fatboy Slim's laziest
work. If one track hinges on a bass loop, the next will
balance on a catchy drum sample, and the one after that will
employ an understated trance groove. Within the fairly rigid
constraints of dance music, this is surprising stuff. While many of its tracks are on the minimal
side, A Plump Night Out shows its true colors at high
volume; these cuts might not be the flashiest grooves
you'll hear this year, but they'll dominate the dance floor
with ease. -- gz
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Sufjan Stevens / A Sun Came / Asthmatic Kitty (CD)
Clocking in at nearly 73 minutes, A Sun Came gleefully intersperses loud and random modern noise with singer-songwriter simplicity. For this reason, it's almost impossible not to like the simpler songs, like "Rake" and (the first half of) "A Loverless Bed"; they act as breaks from chaotic sessions that would even make the former Olivia Tremor Control squeamish. If I screamed in your ear for a while, would a whisper not sound pleasant? Sufjan Stevens' lyrics can be so simple that it's almost hard to take him seriously. "Jason", a six minute song, repeats "Jason, you're the only one" a ridiculous number of times. Many of the songs feature childishly-structured lyrics in which each line begins with the same few words ("We Are What You Say" and "Super Sexy Woman" come to mind). There are also three short comedic tracks featuring young, robotic voices; these sound like outtakes from an Adam Sandler album. I've always been in favor of experimentation, but A Sun Came can't seem to get beyond weirdness for weirdness' sake. If the fat was trimmed down, leaving maybe 20 minutes of the better material, Stevens would have a respectable EP -- but as it stands, that twenty minutes doesn't justify the other 53. -- jk
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Technicolor / A1C EP / Dogprint (CD)
If Technicolor's Justin Labo were able to create music even half as
colorful and dynamic as his sleeve artwork, we’d most certainly be
staring squarely into the eyes of electronic music’s newest superstar.
Sadly, that is simply not the case. For the majority of the A1C EP,
Labo futzes around with a variety of styles, with minimal success. "Technic(olor)al" is an underachieving attempt to revisit Goldie’s junglist drum 'n bass bombast, while "Burn Rubber" is novice IDM, replete
with tepid programming, bargain basement blips and tired breaks. About the
only pleasure to be had here is "Unixcorns"; even The Chemical
Brothers would be proud to call its slightly
off-kilter psychedelic demeanor and clattering beats their own. While it’s not a total waste of
time, A1C leaves a lot to be desired -- namely, a spirit of adventure, and an accompanying
desire to test the boundaries and expectations of electronic music. -- jj
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Tundra Survey / Cracked Radiator, Bum Transmission / Self-released
(CD)
This observation really has nothing to do with the rest of the album,
but it seems relevant to mention: the first time you hear voices on this
album, six minutes into the first track, it sounds like the faint
stirrings of excited elves -- sort of like when the munchkins are first
introduced in The Wizard of Oz. The rest of the album is a
somber, fairly low-key affair, devoid of similar moments of unexpected eccentricity.
Happy-go-lucky would definitely not be on a list of words describing Tundra Survey's sound; beautiful, rich and textured, however, would be. With
cello, viola, bass, flute and xylophone playing more prominent
roles than guitar, Tundra Survey often sounds more like a chamber
group than a rock band -- but this is hardly a bad thing. Songs like
"Leaning Over Fault Lines" and "Flooded Hours" are a good reminder that
music is an art, capable of conveying complex emotions and ideas without
the need for words. This is music to expand your mind. Even thinking about elves is a good start. -- mp
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TJ Rehmi / Invisible Rain / Shakti Records (CD)
Imagine what would have happened if George Harrison had a drum machine when he was recording "Within You and Without You". The results would have been similar to Invisible Rain's eleven tracks. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Beginning with an airy, Enigmatic backbeat, Rehmi adeptly layers exotic sitars and other mellow synth-noodlings from the "Bamboo and Reed" setting of his keyboard, calling up an existential, global-world-lounge mood. One is quick to imagine a swank bar in which everything is made out of glass and sheet metal, and where blue lighting and well-chilled martinis abound. Many of the tracks range from five to six minutes, giving Rehmi time to play with a farrago of styles. From the techno ululations of "Spiritual Technology" to the Shanghai surprise jazz of "The Alkhemist", Rehmi attempts to turn his every idea into gold -- and nearly succeeds. His worst excesses give Invisible Rain a distinctly new-agey sound -- but while I might jokingly retitle the disc Watery Whale Music From the Rushes of Egypt, there
is a lot more here than initially meets the ear. -- da
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Sean Altrui / The Candle Horn Churchyard / Self-Released
(CD)
A quick crash of drums leads into a serene river of saxophone notes as the
seconds tick into "Sun Devil's Morning Rain". However, there's a definite
sense of immorality lurking on the other side of these tepid sax notes.
Extraordinary low-end vocals send out a flurry of emotion, similar to the
thickly junkied-up Birthday Party-era Nick Cave. Marching drums and booming
bassline keys sprinkle an unnerving sense of doom into the air on the eight
minute epic "The Crossing". Altrui's willingness to reach into your heart
and tear out a piece of ugliness is equal parts painful and therapeutic. Could this be the spectre of Jim Morrison, crossing time's boundaries as he slyly poisons the minds of a new generation? Plop the disc in the player and
prepare to drift off into an eerie world of arty words and trance-like
ambience; it may be the sign of the coming apocalypse, or just one man's
fucked perspective on the world around him. -- am
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Hughes Hall / Pacifica / Self-Released (CD)
Hughes Hall's work has appeared in films like Seven and Dark
City, and his filmic sensibility is readily apparent on this disc of
largely instrumental tunes. Inspired by trips along the California coast,
Pacifica sits firmly in the world of New Age, with a bizarre mixture of '70s
influences and TV-featured motifs. Melodies Mike Oldfield would
kill for jostle with double-tracked guitar riffage straight from mid-period
Pink Floyd albums. "Big Valley" even tips its hat to the keyboard
noodlings of Philip Glass. Eclectic, yes -- but for all this, the disc
never really engages. It seems stuck in Wyndham Hill territory, looking for
drive but never really finding any, save for a couple of moments in the last
track, "Great Escape". Pacifica is a competent and well-recorded album; it's just a pity that it needs to be packaged with footage of a hang-glider and a cop show to gain a sense of
purpose. Obvious instrumental know-how shouldn't need to hide behind bad
acting, but that's what it'll take to get this near my CD player again. -- lm
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Siddeleys / Slum Clearance / Matinee/Clarendon (CD)
The Siddeleys were a great little pop group who kicked around London for a
few years in the late '80s, recorded a few singles, played some gigs and
eventually fell victim to the usual mishaps that cause independent bands to
call it quits -- small labels running out of money, the inability to land the
interest of other labels, the general inability to get shit together. It's a damn
shame, because as Slum Clearance, a compilation of pretty much
everything the band recorded between 1986 and 1989, amply proves,
The Siddeleys were more than the equal of many better-known
jangle-pop bands of the era. The Smiths are an obvious, if shortsighted
comparison -- although guitarist Allan Kingdom apes the patented Marr Jangle
as much as any of his contemporaries, female singer Johnny Johnson has a
much more confident, steely-eyed aura to her pointed social and romantic
observations than Morrissey ever did. It also seems likely that Amelia
Fletcher, ex-Heavenly and current Marine Research frontwoman, has the
original copies of the Siddeleys 45s in a very special place in her record
collection -- some Heavenly songs, such as "Snail Trail" and "Trophy
Girlfriend", seem like they could be direct antecedents to the blueprint
laid down by The Siddeleys. This long-overdue compilation comes highly
recommended to any fan of the aforementioned bands, or to followers of the C-86
scene in general. Kudos to the labels involved for finally giving this
unjustly ignored band their due. -- j-s
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The Best Friends Group / When Everyone's Around / Magic
Marker (CD)
Even grownups like to sit around and fantasize about what it would be
like to form a band with a bunch of buddies. I always volunteer to be
the go-go dancer, but somehow manage to get demoted to backup triangle
player. Such is life. The Best Friends Group decided to live the dream;
When Everyone's Around is a collaboration between Andrew Kaffer
(Kissing Book), Mark Monnone (Lucksmiths), Pete Cohen (Sodastream) and
Kellie Sutherland (Architecture in Helsinki). That's right, it's another
in my growing collection of Indie Supergroup CDs, featuring people in
lots of bands I've never heard of (which says more about me than it does
them...). The result of the collaboration is a batch of eight pleasant,
pretty, mid-tempo songs that feel just right for the kind of melancholy
evenings that autumn seems to inspire. It's one of those CDs in which the
individual songs don't necessarily catch my ear (I've listened to it
gobs of times now, and still don't know the lyrics...). but the album's overall
vibe always manages to put me in a happy, fuzzy mood. Gentle
boy/girl vocals, slightly fuzzy guitars, rich cello-driven bass
lines...this is friendly, accessible music for turbulent times. --
ib
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Pat Ortman / Self-Titled / Empty Street (CD)
Pat Ortman says that his music "kind of sounds a bit like Collective Soul
meeting David Gray at a Dave Matthews Band party where ColdPlay is playing
on the deck out back." (Oh, the things you see when you don't have your gun... -- Ed.) With the exception of Collective Soul similarity (as
on "Alright"), I don't hear any of that -- and I'm not even going to get into
his Radiohead reference for fear that I might bust a vein in my forehead. What I
do hear is a scary resemblance to Jamie Walters (of Beverly Hills,
90210 fame). On a positive note, for an album that was more or less recorded in
Ortman's bathroom, the sound quality is exceptional. Ortman isn't without
talent -- his instrumentation is quite good -- but the lack of originality
here forces me to place this in my "not necessary to listen to
again" pile. -- al
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Nerves / World of Gold / Thrill Jockey (CD)
In "Behind the Trees", "Rhineway", "More You're Scared" and "Catch the
Day", Chicago's Nerves play what I call gutterball Doors material, as they
ride the fringe of Jim Morrison's most torrential storms. Skundrick's bass
anchors them in a swirling pissy mood, and Elliot Dick drums welts into it.
As Rob Datum's guitars create utter confusion, and thrash out questions that fall
toward Camus-like angst (no shit!), his "Psycho Killer" moan spins your head
around; it's odd to spot David Byrne in this beautiful mess, but cool, too.
"Take It" and the first two songs here are Grade-A Stooges imitations -- but
they aren't the blast they should be. Half the fun of Iggy Pop is the myth behind him, and that
skin-and-bones body; to capture the soul of his music is no big deal, if
the personality behind it is not captured, too. Thus, until you see Nerves in
concert, and witness how wild or edgy they, too, might be, it's hard to prefer
their straighter garage rockers over David Bowie's or Thin Lizzy's, or any
group whose singer's voice does not veer between the sublime and the
awful. The one definite exception is "Orange Wine"; its last two minutes
of assaulting guitars injects power not seen in rock since Sonic Youth's
"Teenage Riot". -- td
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Lambchop / Tools in the Dryer / Merge
(CD)
Here's an odd concept: an "oddities" compilation that
doesn't seem like a contractually-obligated afterthought.
Ostensibly a collection of "A-sides, B-sides, live tracks and
remixes", Tools in the Dryer makes you feel like
a fool for not rabidly collecting Lambchop's stuff since day
one. Sure, they've been pigeonholed as an alt-country band,
but in practice -- and particularly here -- they defy
classification. In the space of sixty-eight minutes, you'll
hear funk, punk, lo-fi, vintage R&B and a whole lot of
quirky pop. If there's any method to Lambchop's seductive
madness, it involves mixing stellar musicianship with Kurt
Wagner's often creepy crooning and unsettling lyrics. Other
than that, all bets are off, which enables the band to
produce such disparate wonders as the peculiar "Each With a
Bag of Fries", the understated "Moody Fucker" and the
syrup-drenched "Up With People" (found here in its Zero 7
Reprise remix), which treads the line between irony and schmaltz with
the agility of a ballet dancer. And when you hear the full-on disco
Doppelganger remix of "Give Me Your Love", Tools in the
Dryer will gain access to that special place in your heart reserved
for astoundingly improbably dance mixes. When we review an "oddities" compilation,
we usually suggest that it's not the best place for newbies to
start. That's true here, too -- but frankly, any Lambchop is
worth owning. -- gz
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Tino / Tenderness and Lust / Self-released
(CD)
Badly translating Tino's biography from the French, via
Google, produces a text of unintentional -- although revealing -- pathos:
"Pre-adolescence is a hell, the discovery of sexuality is a hell;
Misunderstood Tino (what generates a tough feeling of melancholy...still
today)." All ends well in this bit of cross-cultural miscommunication
(today at 33, "Tino finally, in own way of identity"), with Tino producing
his second record in less than a year. Keyboards, guitars and heavily
accented English vocals veer between gentle sadness ("Fuck the City") and
industrial noise ("Trauma"); an echoing drum machine introduces "Full of
Darkness", a mostly instrumental slab of goth rock; dark guitars ride a
stuttering beat into the gloom of a smoky French night. The best -- and
most disconcertingly timely -- of the songs here, "The Afghan Exile", finds
Tino dreaming of joining the anti-Taliban resistance, singing, "I want to be
a soldier in Massoud's army/I want to fight for liberty/I want to fight for
democracy...." (The legendary military leader of the rebel Northern
Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was assassinated just two days before the World
Trade Center attack.) A nodding trip-hop beat and drifting keyboards
underscore "The Afghan Exile"'s world-weary vocal, the highlight of a moody,
evocative album that suddenly seems not only good, but relevant. -- rt
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EstherLee / Self-Titled / Sea Level (CD)
Esther Lee, the musical vision of Rob Jansen, reminds me very much of Bright Eyes’ folkier moments. But where Bright Eyes steps it up in the emotional and the rock categories, EstherLee tends to fall back into more traditional folk elements, creating a style that is extremely slow, loose and low-key. While the album starts out with some promising songs, it gradually falls off into a droning clutter of banjos, acoustic guitars, minimal percussion and Jansen’s rough, whispery, quivering and usually indecipherable voice. It sometimes seems as if rhythm and tuning aren’t standards that are held in very high regard in the EstherLee camp. Despite my criticisms, however, I like this album. There are moments of melodic clarity, a great olde-time rave-up "Call to Worship" and an overall feeling of waking up hung-over in a wheat field -- alone and thousands of miles from home. But with that sense of distance and confusion comes the nagging need for clarity and improvement. -- ea
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Modest Mouse / Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks / Epic (CD)
If you're anything like me, you've probably reached the point where you buy
Modest Mouse records more out of sheer habit than genuine excitement (something we've
affectionately termed the "Stereolab Syndrome", though its roots can be traced back to
The Beatles and The Stones). I mean, you more or less know what a Modest Mouse
record is going to
sound like, don't you? But once inside your local record shop, you instinctively
grab for them, then dutifully throw your hard-earned Benjamins on the
counter and head for the door... As you're expecting, Everywhere and
His Nasty Parlour Tricks features the trademarked Modest Mouse sound
you know and love -- but this time around, something
different is hiding beneath its utterly familiar façade. While
Everywhere... is a standard "Attention Maintenance" EP of odds and sods,
the strength of its material certainly suggests
otherwise. Besides the obligatory alternative mix of an album track
("I Came as a Rat (long walk off a short dock)"), the songs chirp and
buzz along at a rather stunning clip. The somber "Willful Suspension of
Disbelief" and the stirring pseudo-ballad "So Much Beauty in Dirt" rank
right up there with the finer moments of the band’s watershed
achievement, The Lonesome Crowded West. The good news, then, is that
whether you buy Everywhere... out
of habit or in a burst of giddy glee, it will remind you of the reason you were drawn to Modest Mouse in the first place. -- jj
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Soulstance / Truth, Simplicity and Love / Shakti (CD)
The flute has to be the most accurately maligned instrument in pop music. Seriously, can you think of a song featuring a flute as the lead instrument
that doesn't seem hopelessly dated and/or camp? Think Jethro Tull. Think every seventies Skinemax movie soundtrack ever released. See what I mean? So when the first two tracks on this album prominently featured this shrillest of woodwinds, I was deeply horrified. I scanned the press material. I was listening to an album of Brazilian lounge jazz by two Italians. I was certain my editor had made me the brunt of some David Byrne world-music Candid Camera routine, but I
persevered. By "Circle", the album's third track, I was starting to get my bearings. The flute disappeared, but a chorus of male and female "la-la-la"s had
replaced it. I found myself wiggling in my work-cubicle to what had become a rather addictive samba beat, which continued into the aptly named "Kickin'
Samba". Soulstance headed into Supafly territory with "Theme from Abbadesse's Street"; I'm not sure who this "Abbadesse" is, but I feel comfortable in saying
he's a bad mutha- (shut your mouth). I didn't even mind that the flute had returned. I was hooked. Soulstance won me over, despite my various anti-hip, anti-flute, anti-world-music prejudices. Gianni and Enzo Lo Greco seem, to my anglo ears, to have made this album as a respectful homage to Brazilian styles, rather than as a tawdry lounge culture cash-in. The music here necessarily sounds nostalgic to those of us who caught the tail end of the US's seventies
fascination with Brazilian pop -- but it's rare that nostalgic music sounds this alive. The album loses a little bit of its shimmer as the running time wanes; the title track
and "Touchstone" provide the most by-the-numbers moments on the album. The final track, "Mainstream", brings back the flute with a vengeance, and was good enough to overcome my prejudices against the damn thing...at least temporarily. -- bm
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Barry Harris featuring Pepper Mashay / I Got My Pride / Tommy Boy Silver Label (CD)
I Got My Pride remixes Pepper Mashay's single, and features five
different takes on the same roaring disco anthem. Mashay sounds like
Martha Wash with a definite gospel slant, or off-the-rack Aretha; she
rips into the song with a full-bodied alto that makes you certain that she'd
never fall victim to Gloria Gaynor's pathetic plight before
Gaynor survived. Harris brings the '70s-flavored disco anthem into
the oughts, his punchy synth lines serving to remind you that this
year, the '80s are the recycle hit. It's a strange melange, but the
components marry well; the only stinker is the "Original Club
Anthem", which devolves into an indulgent spate of Mashay singing
"pride", looped enough times that if it were a ferris wheel, you'd be
throwing up. Play this mix in an actual club and everybody will leave the dance floor to get smart drinks. Skip "Anthem" and you've got a winner for at-home dancing. -- js
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For over fifteen years, Rankin' Scroo and Ginger have crafted a unique mixture
of dancehall reggae and urban hip-hop. This fusion of distinct styles
creates soulful numbers like "Call Me", which grooves to a heady mix of R&B
and hip-hop beats. Shattering glass and bullets pierce your speakers as
"California Gangster" begins; a downbeat riddim and chanting vocals take
over, creating this mysterious mix of Jawaiian music -- a mixture of
Ginger's cool keyboards and Rankin' Scroo's marvelous vocal persona. The
Scroo has apparently endless bursts of creativity, leaving you guessing as
to what the next track will be like. Calling upon the best elements of
several genres, Godfada sifts through beats, heavy dub mixes and
in-your-face vocals to leave you salivating for more. It's too bad, then, that
this CD sampler is riddled with excerpts instead of the genuine articles,
leaving you wondering what's really buried inside the Rankin' Scroo's mind.
Or perhaps that was all part of The Scroo's plan to bury his Jawaiian hook deep
inside your mouth, leaving your eager hands flailing in the air, desperately
grasping for more... -- am
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Gustavo Aguilar / Looking for Aztlan / Pax (CD)
It seems to be a universal constant that a song's percussive element will be passionate, driving the music -- regardless of the genre or nationality of the music in question. Be it tribal, electronica, or rock, the percussion forms the base and emotion of the music. That's why Looking for Aztlan disappoints. After reading a description of Aguilar's music as "fresh" and "passionate", it's something of a let-down to hear pieces like "You Pass Me By", which consists of a minute of silence, or "Like A Zebra Towards The Island of Yesterday", which prominently features gargling, wind chimes and occasional nonsensical rambling. I didn't hear freshness, and I didn't hear passion. Conventional percussion is rare, but when it's used, as in "Us and Them," it's interesting; Aguilar's efforts to combine written and improvised material work best -- or at least are most accessible -- when there's something tangible for the more mainstream listener to latch on to. I don't doubt that Looking for Aztlan is, as its press materials claim, "metaphoric of the journeys experienced by most Mexican-Americans", but its message is so heavily encoded that I suspect most Mexican-Americans would rather Aguilar lay off the mouthwash and play his drums a little more. -- mp
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Slipslide / Four Day Weekend EP / Matinée (CD)
Their name makes them sound like a frat-bar funk band, but
Slipside is actually a London-based pop trio. Their debut
EP is jangly, upbeat pop of the non-ironic variety --
earnest vocals that are occasionally swamped by cheerful,
summery guitar melodies (do I hear a twelve-string in
there?), bolstered by keyboard and organ. While electric
guitars give the music a very mild edge, it seems like the
group would rather head in a mellower direction; "The
Airport Song" in particular borders on folk, though it's
more C86 than Belle and Sebastian. There's an obvious comparison
that keeps eluding me, but until I remember it I'll describe them as a more
masculine version of the Housemartins. Really, though, "friendly,
chiming English pop" is all you need to know. Throughout
the EP, vocalist Graeme Elston comes off as the
quintessential nice guy -- sincere and well spoken, but almost
entirely devoid of sarcasm. For some listeners, that will
be enough; "good-natured", after all, is a step above twee
on most evolutionary ladders. Others will wait in vain for
the self-important sneer that never comes. -- gz
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The Stone Coyotes / Born To Howl / Red Cat (CD)
Lead singer Barbara Keith's rapid-procession
vocals and melodic bursts of guitar place The Stone Coyotes
somewhere between Patti Smith's New York chic and
George Thorogood's slide guitar blues. With an Ira
Kaplan-esque understanding of music history, the band
saturates the disc with nods to those "in the
know": folk numbers ("Detroit or Buffalo") are
interspersed with songs about Joey Ramone ("American
Child"), Motorhead ("The First Lady of Rock") and even a
Dolly Parton cover ("Jolene", long a favorite "unlikely" cover for rock bands).
However, while this sundry genre-meshing makes for interesting anecdotes, it does
little to advance the band's sound; the album
vacillates between aging-hipster ballads and weakly
contrived "rock n roll". While I'd imagine the band
establishing a loyal following of 40-somethings, the
disc offers little, other than its intermittent hooks,
for younger listeners to chew. -- jw
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Quetzal / Dead End Tracks / Conspiracy (CD)
From the look of Dead End Tracks' cover, you’d swear it was just another minimalist
IDM record. I know I sure as hell did. You can imagine my surprise
when "Touch" greeted me with a torturous blast of grizzled guitar and
yelping vocals. While I was a bit taken aback by what had just
happened, I was even more surprised at how little Quetzal's music
managed to distinguish itself. As the record progressed, I kept waiting and waiting for
something exciting or unusual to happen; needless to say, it never did. Their
songs aren’t necessarily bad, but their grunge-evolved, metal-derived screamo sound seems
heavily indebted to the second-string bands that influenced it, and their vocalist sounds like he spent his formative years singing along with Rush and Black Sabbath. To someone who hears a lot of this sort of material on a regular basis, these songs were particularly uneventful, with even the
exciting bits -- like the intriguing rhythm guitar line in "Focused Blindness" -- rapidly subsumed by the prevailing guitar sludge. "Happy Song" and "Ceren" plod along on turgid guitars and unnecessarily
dramatic vocals, sounding like a lo-fi Alice in Chains. In short, no matter how much the disc may look like it contains glitchy electronica, the title speaks the truth: these Dead End Tracks go nowhere. -- jj
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Does anyone remember that kid in Adventures in Babysitting who always wanted the porn mag? This is him. After winning an award for his role in Rent, actor Anthony Rapp is plugged in and ready to dazzle. With carefree song titles like "Just Some Guy", "Room to Breathe" and "Living Alive", Look Around oozes a pop innocence that mostly delights and only occasionally comes off as saccharine. Much to his credit, Rapp has hired some truly excellent bandmates to flesh out his "alternapop" aspirations. I'm not going to lie; I disliked this record the first time I heard it. But it grew on me. I tried to slag it, but I couldn't. Emoting from a make-believe Broadway fire escape (histrionics repeating itself), Rapp croons with assurance on the wistful "Always", and even has some (Jello) Biafran moments on the faux-punk song "Human Tornado". As he alternates between the Brit-pop of Blur and the sybaritic jazziness of Cole Porter, Rapp seems set to shine in this new role. -- da
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gz - george zahora | am - andrew magilow | ib - irving bellemead | jj - jason jackowiak | td - theodore defosse
rd - ron davies | js - jenn sikes | rt - ryan tranquilla | al - amy leach | jw - john wolfe | az - alex zorn | ea - ed anderson
jk - josh kazman | mp - matthew pollesel | bm - brett mccallon | da - daniel arizona | j-s - jeremy schneyer | lm - luke martin
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