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OUR WEEKLY COLLECTION OF SHORTER REVIEWS
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Slumber Party,
Rollerball,
The Window Shopper's Nightmare,
King Biscuit Time,
Man or Astroman?,
Phat Sidy Smokehouse,
Hey Mercedes,
Lettuce Prey,
Ultimate Fakebook,
Chubb,
Paris, Texas,
My Favorite,
Lights On A Darkening Shore,
The Imaginary Orchestra,
Old School 101,
Volcano the Bear,
Buffalo Tom,
Twelfth House,
East Timor Benefit Album,
Vinyl Bill
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Slumber Party, an all female band from Detroit, are most aptly named.
"Sooner or Later" is the kind of song my college girlfriends and I would
have listened to at 3:00 a.m. while we were doing laundry; the whole album is a late-night lullaby for
insomniacs. Slumber Party are the Shirelles, inculcated with feminism,
thrown forty years into the present and exposed to the Velvet
Underground, the Cowboy Junkies and the Softies. However, most of Slumber Party's
enervating vocals are happier than the Softies, who can make my
blue mood worse in a few bars. "Strawberry Sunday" is put to a steady beat
and an insistent strumming while all four women harmonize heartbreak lines
like "It's a disease, trying to please/ Everyone". "I Don't Mind", the
standout track, puts me in mind of nothing so much as the Velvet
Underground's "After Hours". If pleasing is a disease, Slumber
Party is sick indeed. -- js
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Rollerball / Bathing Music / Road Cone (CD)
Headphone bands can be your best friends. They allow you to escape your shitty reality when, say,
you're hung-over on a rumbling, noisy subway train, wanting nothing more
than to puke all over the next platform you reach. All you have to do
is pull your phones and Discman from your bag, press play and voila!
You are now miles away from the subway altogether. (Editor's Note: We do not recommend
mixing a hangover with noise. This just works for Jason) In order to truly appreciate Bathing Music's sumptuous, multi-layered sound collages, you
are going to need a pair of headphones. I'm not saying that the album isn't enjoyable
without headphones, because it most certainly is but I found that listening to the album
in a large room on a larger sound system causes it to lose its
sense of urgency. Confined to headphones, you are suddenly
able to hear every miniscule musical nook and cranny of songs like
“Wyoming” or “Wet Food Twice a Day”. Strange noises creep in and out,
samples whiz through your ears, vocals careen off sideways-jazz drumming
and disappear into a thick fog of ominous keyboards and thundering
bass. And that’s all in the first 30 seconds. Further listening
reveals walls of ghoulishly reverberating guitars, while swooning vocals
combine with clarinets, piano, xylophones, trumpets and just about any
other instrument the band could find. Over the course of its 43 minutes,
Bathing Music proves itself to be essential day-after subway listening. About the only thing it can’t fix is the pounding headache
you got from drinking all that cheap vodka. -- jj
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The Window Shopper's Nightmare / Neon Tongue / Soggy
(CASS)
We've had a rash of cassette tapes cross our desks as of late. Could it be
that self-released tapes are returning as the ultra-hip alternative to
CD-R's? Probably not, but this doesn't mean that there isn't some good
stuff being distributed via the faithful magnetic medium. "Jewelry For Your Car" has
Messr. Hadrick dicking around with knobs and keys as he explores space
through a incredible act of stereo transcendence. "Blue" is either an
attempt at, or a great mockery of, garage-styled rock -- but either way it's
the catchiest number here. Hadrick gorges you with depression, haunts you
with quirkiness and keeps everything in check with lo-fidelity stardom,
reminding us not to forget the ol' tape player in today's age of digital
crap. By the way, can someone get this guy a doctor, on the double? -- am
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King Biscuit Time / No Style / Astralwerks (CD)
Yes, this is more solo material from the Beta Band's Stephen Mason -- and
just like previous King Biscuit Time material, it sounds like stripped-down Beta Band...which is fine by me, as I quite like the Beta Band. Showcase track "I Walk the Earth" comes across like a modernized take on early nineties rave-ups by the Soup Dragons and Primal Scream -- good stuff. The brief instrumental "Untitled" is a warm, friendly keyboard piece, equal parts Depeche Mode and µ-ziq. "I Love You" is denser and drowsier, though it retains a deep, pulsing beat, while "Time to Get Up" could slip easily into almost any Church album. In their latest bid to annoy import buyers, Astralwerks has also included the ...sings Nelly Fuggits (sic) Blues in "Me and the Pharoahs" EP here. It's a little more diverse than the new songs, with nods to drum 'n' bass and breakbeat techno, and helps to make No Style a well-rounded purchase. -- gz
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Man or Astroman? / A Spectrum of an Infinite Scale / Touch and
Go (CD)
Opening with a two-ton breakbeat, Man or Astroman? have dreamed up a new
chunk of space-rock for the Silver Surfer. Part beach-blanket bingo, part
mad science experiment, this quartet from beyond the Moon have long been
critical favorites. How could they not be with song titles like "Curious
Constructs of Stem-Like Devices Which Now Prepare Themselves to Be Thought
of as Fingers"? Well, there's that, plus their consistently innovative
approach to instrumental surf-rock. Rather than sticking to mere
human instruments, the band pulls in so many unusual sound sources that you
almost don't recognize that one song is entirely made up of the hypnotic
rhythm of a dot matrix printer. With A Spectrum of an Infinite Scale, the band has
assimilated club culture and subverted it to their purposes. The fat drum
sound propels the band even further on tracks like "Many Pieces of Large
Fuzzy Mammals Gathered Together at a Rave and Schmoozing With a Brick" and
provides moments ready-made for some hardy sampler to take on. Moving
forward in exciting ways, Man or Astroman? are some of the best
extraterrestrials in the music business today. -- rd
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Phat Sidy Smokehouse / Slingin' Hubs / Freedom Zone
(CD)
Funk’s a funny thing these days. It’s hard to hear a lot of contemporary funk without being reminded of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers -- and, consequently, feeling my bile beginning to rise. That’s probably mostly an individual failing; as a white punk chile in the ‘80s, my first exposure to funk was via contemporary, alt-skewed interpreters like the Chilli Peppers and Fishbone. That said, Phat Sidy Smokehouse have moments when they sound like they are reflecting nothing so much as a Chilli Peppers song, and not a particularly good one at that. Songs like “Ahh”, though, bring to mind forebears like Funkadelic. The horns simmer, the beat is rock steady and then a freaky, wild guitar line rips in, ratcheting the song toward Clintonesque insanity. Moments like that mark Phat Sidy Smokehouse as the real deal, and a band worth watching. -- bl
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Hey Mercedes / s/t / Polyvinyl (CD)
Cardigan-wearing children of the world rejoice: Braid is back. Well, an
abbreviated form of Braid. Hey Mercedes has arisen from the still-smoldering ashes of
the seminal Urbana band, and from the sound of
this self-titled debut it's business as usual for Bob, Todd and Damon.
Picking up right where Frame and Canvas left off, this four-song EP finds
the band in the process of refining their performance and songwriting yet
again. “St. James St.” and “The House Shock” employ minimal production
to create a sound that's more streamlined than anything Braid ever
put to tape. “Stay Six” is a full-tilt rocker filled with
crisp, sharp guitars, thick-as-rope bass lines and Bob’s understated
vocals. However, as good as this material is, I can’t help but
feel that these men are capable of more. There are moments when you get
the feeling that they aren’t really trying.
Some minor tweaking of their sound and small doses of experimentation
dropped into the mix could be all that stands between Hey Mercedes and
true greatness. -- jj
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Lettuce Prey / Blood From a Stoner Witch / Best Kept Secret (CASS)
In addition to a wonderful cover of the David Crosby-penned jam "Mind
Garden", Lettuce Prey make great music you can drink and relax to while
coming up with other clever word-play on religious phrases. These guys from
Missoula, Montana have memorable lyrics ("I took a walk into a creek/Just
to see if I could take a pee") and a combo of fine singers who conjure up
memories of the Feelies, Guided by Voices and -- in the beautiful "Canyon
Sunrise" -- Neil Young. "Sargasso Sea" seems like a rawer version
of an Aden song, which leads one to conclude that Lettuce Prey is
practically one-stop shopping. Whatever your mood, Lettuce Prey will find a
way to satisfy; there's certainly something divine about that. Just as "you
can't take blood from a stoner witch unless you tell her that you're gonna
get high", you're gonna have a tough time taking
this tape out of the deck. Lettuce Prey's songs sound too close to what you want from
all pop: timeless melodies and singing, plus guitars that do all the work
you've set aside for the drink or the drugs. This is not a stoner band, but
their music gets you very high. It's sad when the need for sleep comes and
the buzz comes to an end. -- td
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Ultimate Fakebook / This Will Be Laughing Week / 550
(CD)
As I've observed on previous occasions, the average listener
doesn't hear nearly as much music as we critical types do.
It's all very well for us to chuck around adjectives like
"derivative", but if you only buy ten CDs a year you're
probably not going to notice (or care) if a particular
release sounds like a bunch of other records you didn't
buy. Hell, without the proper context even the Beatles
sound derivative. Which brings us to Ultimate Fakebook. I
saw Ultimate Fakebook at SXSW earlier this year and was unmoved
by them. Their album met the same response. I didn't dislike
This Will Be Laughing Week at all -- I
just found myself utterly unfazed by the band's
emo-cum-power-pop sound. I'd probably give the disc a spin
if I found it sitting near my stereo, but I wouldn't need to
hear it more than once a year. If I was a seventeen
year-old kid in clunky glasses and a too-tight ringer
t-shirt, I'd probably love it -- and I probably wouldn't have been
annoyed by the CD booklet's high school yearbook design,
either. As power-pop material goes, this is neither earth-shakingly
bad nor indelibly memorable, though at least the band can sing
on key! -- gz
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Chubb / From Us to You / Pop Culture (CD)
This Canadian trio is trapped somewhere in between tuneful pop-punk and a
more dense and complex math-rock oriented world. The tight musicianship and
ability to explore tempos that aren't simple three chord, 4/4 progressions
is an interesting change from the norm, for sure. Each one of these songs
has obviously not only been well orchestrated, but practiced countless
times, as the faultless quality is unarguable. However, when catchy
melodies are applied to rhythms that take a bit of concentration to digest,
there can be some problems. If you're just dying for another rambunctious
bunch of snappy punk tunes, Chubb's musical intellect will probably drive
you nuts. Likewise, if you're in the mood for some strange rock concoction
of masterful chord progressions and skilled percussion, the punk leanings
and heavy doses of melodic vocals will leave you feeling befuddled. -- am
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Paris, Texas / Brazilliant / Polyvinyl (CD)
It's hard not to wake up when listening to Brazilliant; it's fifteen minutes of punchy post-punk rock to power your morning commute. The Madison, WI band's first three tracks
sound like the emo band they're supposed to be: a bit of Braid and some
Versus whirled together. "Razor New Neighbors" showcases Sam Vinz's
muscular drumming over the squealed lyrics of Scott Sherpe, and is easily the
most energetic song. Fans of FlinFlon would find the fretwork of "400.00"
familiar; the song is an oddly bouncy and touching paean to love and
insomnia: "Every time I try to go to sleep/ I feel your eyes on me/ and I like it".
Fall awake with it while waiting for their next full-length. -- js
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My Favorite / Joan of Arc Awaiting Trial / Double Agent
(CD)
Warning: if pictures of Robert Smith's hair or music from 1980s John
Hughes movies give you painful flashbacks of teenage angst and
immobilizing awkwardness, this is probably not the CD for you.
However, if you have fond (or at least tolerable) memories of that period
in your life, and you even secretly long for those simpler, bouncier
times, then wow, do I have a band for you! Now I'm not saying that My
Favorite is making 1980s music...although I'm not saying they're not
either. I'm just saying. What we're talking about here is brilliant,
evocative, synthy pop/dance music of the highest order. With song titles
like "Homeless Club Kids" and "White Roses for Blue Girls", you know that
we're dealing in some pretty angsty stuff -- but don't worry, this is the
Morrissey version, the one with the clever lyrics and catchy melodies,
the one that makes you want to dance around while moping about how dark
your world is. "Loneliness is pornography to them but to us it is an
art." I hear The Cure with more synths and a girl singer. Silverchair
never existed. Boys wear black mascara, but they don't look like aliens.
College radio is alternative radio. Ah, those were the days. But the
time is now: get to work! -- ib
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Various Artists / Lights On A Darkening Shore: A Shinkansen Compilation /
Shinkansen (CD)
At eight dollars, this Shinkansen sampler is a steal for any Anglophile. It
includes a number of Trembling Blue Stars' best songs (including "Doo Wop
Music", available on CD for the first time), and the best
songs from all bands on their roster. From Harvey Williams' excellent
California, you get "Cindy's Been and Gone" and "Her Boychart", while
"Joined-Up Writing" and "Bradford, Texas" are probably the two best from
Blueboy's Bank of England. Since I own these records, I was mostly
interested in newer acts like Fosca, Tompot Blenny and Monograph. Monograph are
far and away my favorite; their songs are short, emotional, and very
British. They rock, but make you think of rain (I know, that makes me sound
like a twit, but it's true). Tompot Blenny, who've actually been around since 1992, are the least melodic band here, but they have a nice talent for titles ("Green is the Best
Colour"). That's not much, but it's something. As for Fosca, they're the
newest of the Shinkansen bands, and seem like a slowed-down Monograph with
unintentionally whiny vocals. If you're looking for retro stuff, they come
closest to capturing the sixities sound of the Hollies, etc. -- but I must
not have been in a retro mood, as I didn't like Fosca too much. That doesn't keep Lights On a
Darkening Shore from being among my favorite compilation discs this
year, and one that's likely to lead me to invest in more of the label's platters. -- td
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The Imaginary Orchestra / Dot Calm / TIO (CD)
Exotic and new age-y, the music on Dot Calm is
designed to facilitate visual imagery -- in other words,
you're supposed to close your eyes and let your imagination
transport you to mystical lands. The first time I tried
this, things didn't go so well. No sooner had I closed my
eyes than I was forced to open them again and discover that
the Dot Calm CD-R had somehow engineered the total
and spectacular crash of my laptop, which was doubling as a
listening device at the time. I was understandably hesitant
to listen on another computer, but as it's the easiest way
to listen and write simultaneously, I perservered. For nine
tracks, I was entranced by a gorgeous mixture of string, woodwind
and sample orchestrations combined with jazzy female vocals. Upon
reaching track ten, "Frogtime, The Musical", the computer
began behaving in an erratic fashion again, so I stopped the
disc. On a standard CD player, the disc worked fine. I must
stress that the music on Dot Calm is beautiful and
atmospheric, providing a perfect backdrop for mental flights
of fancy. It'll transport you to ancient lands filled with
pagodas and castles and magical creatures. Just don't
listen to it on the CD-ROM drive at work, or your IT
department will want to toss you into their darkest dungeon.
-- gz
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Old School 101 / Pura Vida / Victory (CD)
If you want old school punk rock then this is the place to look -- sort
of... The guys of Old School 101 grew up as part of the New York punk
scene of the '80s. Certain songs, like the opener, "What Tomorrow Brings",
reflect this with a dark, aggressive, almost hardcore sound. Other tracks,
however, seem to embrace the more melodic, whimsical side of punk that has
served California pop-punkers so well. Listen to "Rich Kids" or "Punchline"
without thinking of Blink 182 -- I dare you! And the instrumental "Bien
Venido A Miami" really reminds me of something the Tight Bro's From Way Back
When might churn out. It's sort of big, bottom-heavy ROCK 'n' ROLL. What I
like most about Pura Vida is its diversity. Many punk albums have
songs that are sort of emotionally interchangeable. Each song on this
record has a distinct mood and feel, which is a clear sign of the depth and
maturity of Old School 101. -- nw
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Volcano the Bear / The One Burned Ma / Misra (CD)
Listening to The One Burned Ma is like being trapped beneath a sheet of ice:
numbing yet visceral, leaving you to wonder whether or not you are ever
going to reach the surface. This Leicester four-piece exists in
a shallow musical valley somewhere between the Delgados and Mogwai, striking
a perfect balance between the frighteningly noisy demeanor of the latter and
the gorgeously serene swirl of the former. "The Colour of My Find" is
awash with layers of soothing ambience and eerie atmospherics, while on the
opposite end of the musical spectrum "Ped is Feet" sounds like Godspeed You
Black Emperor! overdosing on amphetamines whilst trying to render a faithful
version of Beethoven's Fifth. "Lily and the Sparrows" is just
plain odd, coupling swaths of sampled sparrows with racing violins and trippy
vocal overdubs to create one scary, fucked-up sound. More alarming still is
"Arc Felt", which sounds like Ennio Morricone re-mixed by Kevin Shields -- Morricone's sweeping cinematic passages de-constructed and reduced to a smouldering heap of white noise, tape hiss and Shields' nuclear guitar blasts. It's morosely beautiful, yet thoroughly frightening and envigorating. -- jj
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Buffalo Tom / Asides from Buffalo Tom / Beggars Banquet
(CD)
For over ten years, Buffalo Tom have played about the edges of alternative
music, and this best-of compilation explains why they should be superstars by
now. Listening to tracks from their entire career highlights the amazing
evolution this trio of songwriters has undergone. In the early days, the
band drew inspiration from Hüsker Dü and Dinosaur Jr. (J Mascis even
produced their earlier albums). Tracks like "Enemy" and "Birdbrain" toyed
with punk rock energy while maintaining a definite pop sheen. From here,
they progressed to alt-country tunes like "Larry" and "Mineral", in which
the distortion was replaced by a more relaxed, acoustic approach. More
recently, they have moved closer to the alt-rock stylings of Counting Crows
and the Goo Goo Dolls with "Summer" and "Going Underground", which adds
keyboards to the guitar-bass-drums format. Since they are
always right on top of the latest trends ("Sodajerk" was even accessible
enough to be used to hawk shoes and cars) why aren't they a household name?
Beats me. Maybe it has something to do with the solid songwriting,
intelligent lyrics, and memorable melodies the band uses. Like Al Gore,
perhaps they are simply too smart to appeal to the common man. Oh well, at
least it keeps their ticket prices down. -- rd
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I don't even know if this band is still around, but this unassuming
cassette release
divulges six fantastic pop tunes fronted by the exceptional
singing of Sally Maish. The opening track, "Looking," is sure to catch you off guard as its
folksy-rock approach
employs some excellent lyrics, immediately consumable by
your pop hungry self. Quite frankly, I’m a bit stunned that music of this magnitude wasn’t
ever released to the masses on a friendlier medium (like CD)! While each song sparkles with
obvious mastery of its genre, you can't help but recall Lisa Germano or even the classic
Wednesday Week from the '80s, as the dominating female-centricity has a moving quietude that may
smile on the outside, but definitely has something brooding on the inside. -- am
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Various Artists / East Timor Benefit Album / Idols of the
Marketplace (CD)
It might seem odd that a tiny Indiana label is doing a
benefit album for an obscure region halfway around the world
-- but at this level of the record label food chain, it
proves that Idols honcho Chris Lawhorn's heart is in the right
place. And to his credit, he has assembled one of the most
interesting compilations I've heard in quite a while. There
are a few names that'll be familiar to you (the Smoking
Popes, Optiganally Yours) and some songs you've heard before
-- Jailbait's off-kilter spin on George Michael's "I Want
Your Sex" should prove suitably entertaining. But the best
songs on this compilation, which teeters gloriously between
sensitive folk tunes and over-the-top hardcore, are from
bands you've never heard of. Uz jsme doma's "Jassica
(live)" is killer, and Idiot Flesh's "Blue Head" ups Queen and Metallica's respective
antes with such ludicrous brilliance that it justifies the
purchase price on its own. -- gz
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Vinyl Bill / What Lo-Fi / Best Kept Secret (CASS)
Shawn Skinner and Neil Scollay are odd blokes. I'm pretty sure this British
duo records directly to a tape machine that's been strategically placed at the edge of the sea.
It results in a new extreme of lo-fi recording, where the keyboards move the
songs around like waves. It takes this tape from quiet Blueboy territory
("Ballad of Bill") to Mekons turf ("Dream Tone", which seems to take
every Johnny Cash lyric as autobiographical truth) and
what-the-flying-Floydian-fuck ("Going Well With You"). Their songs are best
when at their most conventional, but the wild variety in the band's sound --
which appears to be a prerequisite for getting on the Best Kept Secret label --
keeps one from ever questioning or even thinking about the band's musical
abilities. What Lo-Fi is not a masterpiece, and it drags a bit toward
the end, but it's an entertaining showcase for a band going without a
direction. This is not the first album I'll reach for when choosing music,
but it's a whole lot of fun -- and offers the same sort of pleasures you'd get from seeing Captain Sensible perform solo. -- 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 | bl - beth lucht | av - adam voith | rg - rodney gibbs | js - jenn sikes
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