Roots Manuva, a.k.a. Rodney Smith, proved with his self-produced debut, 1998's Brand New Second Hand, that UK hip hop can establish its own identity. A south London native, Roots Manuva lets his roots fly proudly on Run Come Save Me by rapping in a thick Jamaican patois, combining homegrown dub and dancehall riddims with occasionally psychedelic Tricky-like sonic flourishes. Hailed in the UK press as a pioneer, Roots isn't the first to mix dub reggae with electronic samples, stripped down funk and 80s-style New York hip hop -- Rhythm And Sound with Tikiman and Dr. Israel have also dipped into the same melting pots. But when it comes to sheer confidence and charisma, Roots Manuva beats them hands down with his witty, energetic style. You'll find no dancehall covers of pop songs here. It's all raw, rough sounding mixes, often with dark themes, such as religious doubt in "Sinny Sin Sins" and the sinister "Evil Rabbit." The catchiest moment is "Witness (1 Hope)," his lyrical Kung Fu spraying words of fury. Tracks like the spacey "Ital Visions," synth-driven "Hol' It Up" are the freshest sounding on either side of the Atlantic, while "Swords In The Dirt" beats Wu Tang at their own game of spooky crime noir rap. His booming baritone occasionally sounds a bit like Shaggy. But while Shaggy sacrificed his music to make money, Roots Manuva sacrificed money to make history. It doesn't have to be that way -- reward originality and give the man your money.
While even the crème de la crème of the mid-90s Britpop scene (mainly Blur) already sounds dated, Pulp always stood slightly apart and above the rest, possibly because they had been around far longer, having lived through the previous British pop invasion of the early 80s. Surviving obscurity and several incarnations since 1978 has added extra layers of depth perception that their peers lacked. 23 years later they have demonstrated the same kind of staying power as their producer Scott Walker, with their seventh and best album. While 1998's This Is Hardcore was a dark, cynical reaction to their experiences with celebrity and decadence (when Pulp's popularity peaked in '95 with Different Class they were celebrated practically as national heroes), We Love Life is a lush romp in the garden. Walker defiantly undermined his massive mainstream popularity in the 60s and early 70s by recording a series of intense, difficult solo albums, culminating in the impenetrable Tilt ('95). Given Pulp's past flirtations with the artier side of Roxy Music and Bowie, it would not have been surprising if they'd taken the same path. We Love Life, however, is surprisingly inviting. The sound is rich and expansive, ambitious yet easy to grasp. This doesn't mean that the album is a placid walk in the park lyrically. Jarvis Cocker still has plenty of bile to serve up with his tossed salad of nature (embattled yet resilient) metaphors. The album opens with a two-song suite, "Weeds" easing gently into a lumbering acoustic number. "Weeds II (The Origin Of The Species)" segues smoothly into psychedelic guitars, building into a symphony of stately vocal choruses. The core of the song addresses, with barely contained rage, the condescending way the music industry treats its product ("C'mon do your funny little dance.") "The Night That Minnie Timperley Died" features power chords reminiscent of Ziggy Stardust, while the melancholic romanticism of "The Trees" is centered around a funereal organ solo. The eight-minute long "Wickerman" revisits Neil Young's tragic themes from "Down By The River," but with Cocker talk-singing in a buttery, sensual croon. After the centerpiece, the album lightens up with few slighter songs, and then picks up with "Bad Cover Version," a brilliantly cheeky comment on decent artists who's work inevitably turns to shit, a dilemma Pulp are probably aware that they've successfully avoided so far. "Sunrise" is the stunning grand finale, with a choral buildup that recalls "You Can't Always Get What You Want," ending with a refreshingly balls-out rocking climax. Too smart and prickly to appeal to the fans of Coldplay and Travis' damp sentimentalism, it's hard to say if We Love Life's uncompromising artistry will be rewarded the same way Radiohead's recent albums have. I hope so, for it would be just desserts for a veteran band just arrived at its peak.
In the nineteen years since The Dream Syndicate's drop-dead classic The Days Of Wine And Roses, Steve Wynn has consistently produced workmanlike music that was not nearly as inspired as his stunning debut, but far from embarrassing. Talk about a comeback, wow. I don't know what they were slipping into the goat meat tacos down there in the Tuscon desert, but Here Come The Miracles nearly rivals The Days…. I only say nearly because The Dream Syndicate's magic in their time and place in musical history is hard to compete with. Miracles is a double album featuring 19 songs, one for each year Wynn had to confront the possibility that he'd never measure up to the benchmark he set first time in the studio. It measures up not only to that, but also to George P. Pelecanos' outrageous claim that this is Wynn's Exile On Main Street, his Zen Arcade, his Physical Graffiti. Pelecanos is a successful crime-fiction writer in the tradition of Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy and Jim Thompson, who's writing has often made references to Wynn's music. Fittingly, the album is an epic series of hard-boiled pulp noir tales. Assisted by a crack band comprised of Chris Cacavas (Green On Red), Chris Brokaw (Come, Pullman), Dave DeCastro, Linda Pitman and producer Craig Schumacher (Calexico, Giant Sand), Wynn paints expressive, expansive grooves loosely based on blues riffs. The raw distorted garage sound owes much to fellow Velvet Underground/Neil Young acolytes Eleventh Dream Day. However, while Eleventh Dream Day's recent albums mix shimmering beauty with oblique experimentalism, Wynn holds things together with timeless hooks and epic lyricism. The album is so consistent, it's hard to pick highlights. It starts with three intensely memorable psychedelic pop songs in "Here Come The Miracles," "Shades Of Blue" and "Sustain," and loosens up on the twisting, rambling "Crawling Misanthropic Blues." The second disc is even more freewheeling, as the peyote, mushrooms or whatever was hidden in the spicy goat meat kicked in. Wynn has not quite reached geezer status, and this album sounds familiar, yet avoids retreads. Instead, it's a fresh, raw, vital shot in the arm, a vaccination against cynicism that rock 'n' roll is dead.
Like The Beachwood Sparks, The Tyde and Beulah, Albuqurque, NM's The Shins is a retro band that offers more than just revivalist garage rock. Like a handful of bands before them, The Shins are a band that starts out paying tribute to the past, but have the songwriting chops to potentially transcend it. On Oh, Inverted World they've started out of the box a stride ahead of the pack by nicely balancing 60s with 90s influences -- psychedelic pop, Love, Moby Grape, Kinks with Guided By Voices, Sunny Day Real Estate and the Elephant 6 stable; British glam and Robyn Hitchcock. The one thing that holds back Jason Mercer's songwriting is the same problem that The New Pornographers suffer from -- dinky sound. Whether it's an aesthetic choice or engineering fuckup, Oh, Inverted World sounds horribly trebly. They don't exactly shred with their live show either. But perhaps it's fitting that the sound matches the fragile beauty of folky songs like "New Slang." "Caring Is Creepy" is full of awkward rhythmic turns and odd shifts in key, but the overall effect eerily gets under your skin and snakes into your head to induce an emotional response whether you want it or not. Creepy indeed. The rest of the album are all about the moments -- subtly breathtaking sound effects here and fractured hooks there, creating a whole greater than the parts -- a supergeek combo with killer chops poised for great things.
When former Clash frontman Joe Strummer made his 1999 comeback with Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, many people paid no mind. After all, it seems every day some washed-up punker or rocker is attempting a comeback from obscurity with yet another hopelessly flaccid attempt to regain lost glories. But hey, this is Joe Strummer we're talking about. His debut with The Mescaleros was spotty, but showed promise. Global A Go-Go fulfills that promise with flying pancultural colors. We're all familiar with the story of how The Clash extended punk's comfy relationship with dub reggae into even more eclectic explorations of funk, dancehall, even hip hop. Their influence is far reaching, and now it's time for Strummer to collect on some of the benefits. Manu Chao, whose band Mano Negra capitalized on The Clash's groundbreaking work, is now an international superstar. Global A Go-Go is a celebration of Chao-style globalista ethnic eclecticism. Standouts include "Bhindi Bhagee," an exuberant mix of Cornershop-like post-Indian pop, and the world-weary "Shaktar Donetsk," a Sandinista-ish chant with African rhythms, horns and a variety of folky ethnic instruments. Much of the mood is subdued, taking a more laid-back approach to the roots music explorations, exemplified on the strolling Cuban ballad "Mondo Bongo" and spacey mambo of "Gamma Ray." More familiar territories are revisited, from American roots rock to Irish folk and reggae, but with the lyrical confidence and conviction of a man who's legendary artistry is back in full force.
Build up for No Doubt's new album has been considerable, with Gwen Stefani's high-profile collaborations with Moby and Eve, and news that the band was hunkering down in Jamaica, getting intimate with dancehall reggae. The resulting glossy pop behemoth is far from the back-to-the-roots affair the press releases hinted at, but it's successful in it's own right. Rock Steady gets off to a shaky start with two over-produced tracks that are tarted up like Vegas lap-dancers, shaking their booties in your face, practically begging for attention. Despite an entertaining mid-song rap by Bounty Killer, the inane and repetitive "Hey Baby" is intensely annoying. A far cry from the subtle maturity of last year's Return Of Saturn. "Hella Good" is a throwaway produced by Nellee Hooper (Soul II Soul, Massive Attack, Björk), who does a much better job with "Detective," featuring a bubbling Blondie bass riff; the prancing and spare "In My Head"; and the lazy lover's rock of "Rock Steady." The famous Jamaican production team and rhythm section Sly & Robbie make up for "Hey Baby" with a lovely reggae-tinged ballad, "Underneath It All." William Orbit took a break from manufacturing Madonna's credibility to produce "Making Out," a catchy pop song that's more fun than anything Madonna's done in years. The Cars' Ric Ocasek produced "Don't Let Me Down" with an early-80s new wave sheen, and "Platinum Blonde Life," where he overdid the multi-tracked chorus, similar to Butch Vig's Garbage sound. Nevertheless, an unshakeable guitar riff makes it hit-worthy. The album peaks with the life-affirming dance song "Start The Fire," produced by young dancehall duo Steely & Clevie. Last but not least is the stunningly original breakbeats of "Waiting Room," (sorry, not a Fugazi cover) co-written and produced by Prince, who also contributes his instantly recognizable voice, playing a teasing tug-of-war with Stefani over the chorus. Rock Steady is a party album with lyrics that are off the cuff compared to earlier efforts, but with more direct emotional impact. It smells like a blockbuster -- nearly every song sounds like it could be big radio hits. Those hoping for punk-ska rockers like their 1995 self-released The Beacon Street Collection will be sorely disappointed. But the important thing is No Doubt have yet to repeat themselves, and have pulled off the rare feat of creating sweet pop music with lasting relevance. If Tragic Kingdom was the catchy appetizer and Return Of Saturn the food-for-the soul main course, think of Rock Steady as the splashy, colorful dessert that you want to dive into first.
While The Czars hail from Denver, Colorado and are often labeled New Americana alongside fellow Denver natives 16 Horsepower, this band is as unique as they come. The country and folk roots are buried within their lush arrangements, and are as difficult to pinpoint as the orchestral soul of Lambchop and Pernice Brothers. Their music has a melancholic, cinematic quality of the Tindersticks, mixed with the mournful atmosphere of Ennio Morricone. They boast an extraordinary singer in John Grant, whose clear, strong multi-octave voice echoes that of Tim Buckley. Not surprisingly, they contributed a stunning cover of "Song To The Siren" to Sing a Song for You: A Tribute to Tim Buckley. And if you're not confused enough, there's also a slight Radiohead vibe (partially due to Thom Yorke's obsession with Jeff Buckley, Tim's equally talented but lesser accomplished son). Like last year's debut Before…But Longer, The Ugly People Vs. The Beautiful People was produced by The Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde and engineer Giles Hall, for their label Bella Union. Like labelmates Lift To Experience, The Czars strive for a sprawling, grandiloquent statement. They succeed swimmingly. Ugly People… flows gorgeously like a giant iceburg, occasionally encountering oceanic storms like the rocking "This" and the dramatic organ-drenched crescendos of "Side Effect." Pianos and acoustic guitars are augmented by trombone, trumpet (Ron Miles contributes an impressive improvisation on "Caterpillar"), pedal steel, violin and occasionally electronics, not unlike recent Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev. The Czars' overall sound, however, is quite simple and uncluttered, everything in its place. "Killjoy" is pure joy, a timeless country-pop melody with a thoroughly modern sound, assisted by Tarnation's Paula Frazer. "Lullaby 6000" is another major highlight, an epic slow-burn ballad that peaks with Frazer and Grant harmonizing beautifully. The rest of the album is less immediate, a sort of decorative psychedelia that hangs nicely in the air like suspended flowers which ultimately enhance the impact of the peaks. Meet The Czars, future rulers of your mash mixes.
In an era when every other British band is shamelessly apeing past incarnations of Radiohead (Coldplay, Travis, Doves), it's refreshing to hear a band actually worth paying attention to. Elbow's Asleep In The Back is the true marriage of Pink Floyd and Joy Division that OK Computer was mistakenly pegged as. While the lyrical themes and tones are downbeat, the sound is not cold and alienating like '97 era Radiohead. Manchester's Elbow is more organic and pleasurable, like later period Talk Talk and recent Beta Band, with Guy Garvey's voice echoing Genesis-era Peter Gabriel more than Jeff Buckley. There's no shortage of demand for this sort of gracefully dark miserablism. It's amazing that this album won't be released in the U.S. until January, when it made a reasonable splash in the UK nearly the whole year. The band is a victim of major label consolidation -- the album was originally slated to come out in 1998 on Island, but was shelved when Universal consumed them. With only five of the original eleven tracks, Asleep In The Back is release 1.5, showing Elbow in considerably sharper form than contemporary newcomers. The instrumentation manages to hold interest when there aren't vocals while avoiding clichéd prog-rock wankery. With subtle use of acoustic guitars, horns and keyboards, the mid-tempo music sparkles rather than drives. There are plenty of sonic surprises, such as the electro-blasts in "Coming Second" that somehow recall the "Oooh-eee-ooohs" of The Wizard Of Oz's Umpaloompas. While not exactly a concept album, it works as a cohesive piece much like, say, Echo & The Bunnymen's Ocean Rain. Any other song order simply wouldn't make as much sense. The centerpiece is the 7:33 "Newborn," Elbow's "The Killing Moon," which builds up into a heart-racing climax that you just don't hear very often these days. Cherry-picking from the past while sounding thoroughly current, Asleep In The Back is an impressive debut from Manchester's most promising band.
While Insignificance is Jim O'Rourke's third full-length album on Drag City, he can be found on seemingly hundreds of albums, from avant-garde musique concrete to collaborations with Sonic Youth, Bobby Conn and Stereolab. Seemingly nothing could surprise followers of O'Rourke, but then he goes and kicks off Insignificance with a Lynyrd Skynyrd-like southern rocker called "All Downhill From Here." Partly responsible for the new sound is his new crack band, with Glenn Kotche and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, and members of The Silver Jews, Dazzling Killman and Smog. Of course O'Rourke is too much a restless spirit not too jump all over the map stylistically. Most noticeable are his vocals, which for the first time are up front and center rather than his intricate finger-picking. O'Rourke has outgrown his affairs with John Fahey and Robert Wyatt, and moved on to Roy Harper, although his voice at times sounds more like James Taylor, but pleasant nonetheless. Consequently, more attention is paid to the lyrics, which are clever, sarcastic, and wistful. As always, there is a fine attention to sonic detail that makes every song worth repeated listenings as you unpeel their colored layers. The locomotive "Therefore, I Am," with its crunching guitars and falsetto harmonies is like a mix between Wilco and Smog. The rest are not so easily pegged, with the majority exceeding six minutes, featuring several parts that mesh together seamlessly, giving the impression that they're merely simple, melodic pop songs. Thus is the trick of this album. By assembling fragments of seemingly minimalist melodies, riffs and choruses, Insignificance has built a work of deceptive complexity and . . . significance.
Until recently, David Pajo has been a shadowy, elusive figure, covertly driving the direction of indie rock with his contributions to Slint and Tortoise, which he quit to focus on his more solo-driven projects M, Aerial M and Papa M. In interviews as recently as a few years ago, he said he was too shy around microphones and cameras, which is why he didn't sing. Surprisingly, out came the Papa M Sings EP. Pajo's increasing confidence in his lyric-writing has come full bloom on Whatever, Mortal, which features an all-star band of Will Oldham, Tara Jane O'Neil (Rodan) and Britt Walford (Slint, Breeders' Pod). While Papa M's modern folk blues owes something to Will Oldham's rustic imagery and partially to Smog's sound, the most remarkable accomplishment is that Pajo outdoes Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave at their own game (see Ten New Songs and No More Shall We Part, both from this year). While Pajo's voice is no match for Cave, his music is much more creative and diverse, with found-sound collages and other instrumental experimentalism that harks back to his post-rock days. This is not, however, an avant-garde album. Whatever, Mortal is a collection of songs that tell compelling and disturbing stories of grieving over a death in the family, overcoming illness for love, romance with a ghost and a killer's lament to a lover. This is the gorgeous, frightening new face of folk.
Fridge is a trio formed in South London in the mid-90s who navigate a never-neverland between post-rock and electronica. On their fourth album Happiness, they combine the best of both worlds, from arty, jazzy use of acoustic instruments, percussion and found sounds like Tortoise, and electronic sounds influenced by Aphex Twin and the like. This sounds like a formula for a frigid affair, but it's not. Despite the fact that the songs lack obvious melodies, and the titles matter-of-factly describe the instrumental arrangements ("Melodica And Trombone," "Drum Machines And Glockenspiels," "Sample And Clicks"), the music is very humanist and emotional. Their music exudes personality, much like the best (and much-overlooked) music of artists like Múm and Leila. The result is an original mix of odd, shambolic rhythms and sounds (accordions and trombones played out of tune, tambourines, cut up piano) that manages to communicate a simple, graceful beauty. Do a good deed and sneak copies into your relatives' Enya and New Age CD cases over the holidays.
The Boredoms have long been granted respect for their artistic audacity and integrity. But for all but a small, dedicated following, their art-damaged dada noise has been anything but listenable. Vision, Creation, Newsun marks the evolution of a new era (or perhaps just a brief stylistic departure) begun on 1998's Super Are in which chaos is still an element, but the free forms are reigned in for a more cohesive listening experience. That is, you won't feel like you've just been pummeled mercilessly by the musical equivalent of 20 different midget clowns on crack. This time the Boredoms owe much to the German spacerock of Can, Amon Duul II, Faust (especially the tape manipulation) and early Tangerine Dream, with added hints of psychedelia, hippie ethnic percussion and even nature sounds. The nine tracks are identified only by symbols, as one song bleeds into the other, linked by cosmic chanting, continual dueling drums and effects-laden guitar freakouts. Aficionados of head-splitting Japanese noise bands may not be happy with this development, but the rest of us can revel in the most blissfully mind-expanding sonic experience of recent years.
Mike Patton is a total nutcase who has injected much needed experimental wackiness into 90s alternative rock, via his contributions to Faith No More, his long-standing band Mr. Bungle, and recent avant solo projects, the more rock-ist, Tomahawk, and Fantomas. Fantomas is Patton, longtime Mr. Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn, Melvin's guitarist Buzz Osbourne, and former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo, whose 30-song debut features every vocal sound imaginable from Patton, without ever being able to make out a word. The Director's Cut continues that pattern, but one can actually recognize some of the songs, which are all covers of film noir and horror theme music, including Henry Mancini's Experiment in Terror, Ennio Morricone's Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspician, The Godfather, Der Golem, Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The album owes much to John Zorn's work in Spillane (1987) and his Naked City projects. Fantomas' explosions into grindcore fury and Patton's Tasmanian Devil spittle-splattering vocals recall Yamasuta Eye's work in Naked City. Elsewhere, however, Patton croons in sweet falsettos, provides spooky atmospheric backgrounds, and disjointed bossa nova rhythms. As a guessing-the-theme grab-bag, this album is both challenging and highly entertaining.
Austin, Texas' Spoon has been a highly regarded indie rock band who suffered from a false start by being signed and then dropped by Elektra without releasing anything. While 1998's A Series Of Sneaks was a fine, noisy, tuneful collection, their third full length, Girls Can Tell, suggests a great leap forward that sure sounds like a major breakthrough. On "Me And The Bean," Britt Daniel's raspy voice sounds disturbingly like the guy from Bush. Overall, the sound is much more spare and clean, focusing on the sharp songwriting and tight playing that somewhat brings to mind Elvis Costello & The Attractions circa '79. Which means it sounds fantastic. The album starts conservatively with the tense "Everything At Once" that does not offer release. By "Me And The Bean," the melodies are released sparingly, as if Spoon is holding onto their cards. "Lines In The Suit" is the first royal flush, an addictive song with harmonies, and a walking piano arrangement. "The Fitted Shirt" is a massively powerful rocker that earns its strength through restraint -- you can sense the energy behind the staccato riffs and slowly pounding Bonham-like drums. They relax during the yearning, nostalgic choruses, and then release the extra energy at the end. "Anything You Want" continues the string of classics with an organ-led snapshot of life's little moments. "Take A Walk" is a basher more typical of Spoon's older Pixies-influenced material. "10:20 AM" is the closest thing to a ballad, with Daniels' harmonized multi-tracked voice delicately recalling The Kinks. "Take The Fifth" is a lean, anthemic, hand-clapping stomper that starts to give a fuller picture of Spoon's new signature style. The album ends with another strength, the haunting "Chicago At Night," featuring Daniels's consistently clever timing and wordplay. It's inexplicable that such a major, accessible talent has such a minor audience. Girls Can Tell should help change that.
It's odd that Beachwood Sparks is getting all the attention, when The Tyde (made up of three members of Beachwood Sparks) is so much better. It depends on where your tastes lie, but with Beachwood Sparks, you either like The Byrds/Buffalo Springfield/Flying Burrito Brothers or you don't. With The Tyde, their palate includes some of the former, but is greatly expanded, encompassing The Band, The Stones, and most notably, British jangle-poppers Felt and Lloyd Cole & The Commotions. More modern comparisons can also be made to bands like Pavement, such as on "Strangers Again" and "The Dawn" where Darren Rademaker's vocal mannerisms are similar to Stephen Malkmus. But even Malkmus has never been able to come up with such refreshingly emotionally direct lyrics and heart-wrenching melodies. "North Country Times" is an addictive, rollicking tune that could have been big in any of the last four decades. The album's opus is the 9:43 closing "Silver's Okay Michelle," about Michelle Kwan, the teenage figure skater who missed out on an Olympic gold medal. The layers of guitars peak in a gorgeous extended moment worthy of current giants Mercury Rev. Along with Beulah, Helio Sequence, Summer Hymns, Kingsbury Manx, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Beachwood Sparks, The Tyde represent a sort of resurgence in pastoral psychedelia that's more than welcome to stay awhile.
After several middling years, Guided By Voices have finally pulled off a consistent album. Back in '94 there was a huge buzz over this band that had recorded hundreds of songs on their basement 4-track. The lo-fi opuses Alien Lanes and Bee Thousand featured several timeless gems influenced by psychedelic and British mod rock, from The Who to The Move. The crap sound got tiresome, and their use of a real studio was highly anticipated. Unfortunately, bandleader Robert Pollard ran out of great tunes. While Guided By Voices will never match some of the highlights from the aforementioned albums, Isolation Drills is overall more satisfying, with each song given sympathetic production, complimenting its specific mood. Previously prone to cryptic, unintelligible lyrics, these songs are Pollard's most direct and honest ever. Sadness pervades the album, giving songs like "Twilight Campfighter" a sharper edge to cut straight to the heart, with a soaring melody offering some optimism ("It's not too late to make us all feel better"). "Want One?" is a glammy bootstomper that throws in folky breaks that make the rocking-out all the more electrifying. "The Enemy" features the same kind of monster stop-start guitar riff that made Spoon's latest album so riveting. "Pivotal Film" also rocks harder than anything from the band's spotty Ric Ocasek-produced Do The Collapse. Pollard's English affectations have all but disappeared as he's finally settled into his own skin. "Chasing Heather Crazy" and "Glad Girls" show off the band's mastery of Cheap Trick-worthy pop songcraft. There are many more gems here, such as "Run Wild," the choruses soaring as if you're in the jet on the album cover. Short of compiling (or better yet, re-recording and remixing) their 90s classics, Do The Collapse is the Guided By Voices album to get.
Throughout the course of his three full-length albums, Bobby Conn has maintained a modest yet rabid fanbase. Given the cult of his many larger-than-life personalities and tall tales, the average rock fan could easily get the uneasy feeling that the joke is on us. Yes, Conn works with Chicago avant-rock cognoscenti Jim O'Rourke, and he very well may be smarter than most of us, but rest assured, there's no con in Conn's music -- he's all about pure entertainment. No one but a pure entertainer would perform shows wearing nothing but Speedo swimtrunks, or arrange a full-blown soul revue to support his Superfly-meets-Jesus Christ Superstar Rise Up! (1998). On The Golden Age, Conn and partner Monica BouBou whip up a slightly less bombastic brew of 70s rock, glam, electro-funk and electronica. Highlights include the eight minute "You've Come A Long Way," which starts with an ominous minor-key piano march, and halfway through tears into a Thin Lizzy type rocker with hot licks galore; "Winners," featuring Prince-falsetto and a horn-laden funk backing; and "The Golden Age," with an intro that mirrors The Small Faces' psychedelic-era "I'm Only Dreaming," but twists into an eerie Suicide electro-ballad; "No Revolution" is pure party music Rick James style. Sometimes you just have to forget about maintaining your cool and let The Golden Age loose on your stereo and watch it dance on your table with polyurethane and spandex.
Memorable, hard-hitting albums by women-led bands are still far enough between that I can rattle off a pretty representative roll-call from the top of my head -- The Slits, X-Ray Spex, The Raincoats, Liliput, Essential Logic, Au Pairs, Crass (when Eve Libertine and Joy De Vivre took the reigns for 1981's Penis Envy), Babes In Toyland, Slant 6, Bikini Kill, Team Dresch, Sleater-Kinney -- all of whom produced groundbreaking albums that mixed personal, sexual and gender politics with varied doses of post-punk outrage and glee. With Le Tigre's latest, it is obvious that they belong in this pantheon. In a time when just about the entire pop landscape is dishearteningly apolitical, and many women absurdly denounce the ideals of feminism, the boldly titled Feminist Sweepstakes proves that Kathleen Hanna is comfortable with her role as the original figurehead of the often maligned Riot Grrrl movement. But rather than indulge in the past, Le Tigre are more interested in paving a road for future musicians inspired by Riot Grrrl and queercore alongside contemporaries The Need, The Butchies, Peaches and Chicks On Speed.
Since their 1999 self-titled debut, JD Samson replaced filmmaker Sadie Benning, and they have dug further into their dance roots. Like 1999 albums by Beck and Clinton (Cornershop's side project), Le Tigre have been inspired by primitive electro-funk. Feminist Sweepstakes mixes the new wave-meets-disco of Blondie's "Heart Of Glass" with the electro-dance mixology of Liquid Liquid, ESG and B-52's, like a rawer Cibo Matto. Le Tigre has achieved the rare feat of making an album that's simultaneously important, and great party music. Boys and girls alike will wanna dance to this revolution rock. "LT Tour Theme" starts things off by asking "the ladies and the fags . . . Won't you dance some more?" "Shred A" features a buzzsaw guitar lead by a guy they randomly pulled from a guitar store, and a thudding drum machine. "Fake French" shimmies and shakes like King Kong (the band) meets "Rapture" and The B-52's, with witty boast rhymes -- "I've got - site specificity . . . plan 'B' ability . . . extensive bibliographies . . . flow disruption . . . wildlife metaphors . . . post-binary gender chores/I've got to move." "F.Y.R." appropriates the phrase "Fifty Years of Ridicule" from 70s feminist Shulasmith Firestone's The Dialectics Of Sex. It's a blast of anger at the lack of progress the world has actually made in giving women due respect ("Ten short years of progressive change/50 fucking years of calling us names). They announce a roll call -- "Feminists we're calling you/Please report to the front desk/Let's name this phenomenon/It's too dumb to bring us down." "On Guard" continues the rage against misogyny as Hanna progressively raises the urgency of her shouted vocals towards men who comment on her body and sexuality. "On the racing "My Art," Hanna unleashes a powerful wail that rivals Poly Styrene during her seminal tenure with X-Ray Spex.
Catchy and poignant, disposable yet classic, too unpolished and truly punk to reach mass acceptance, Le Tigre are destined to be under-appreciated legends. But that doesn't mean they can't have tremendous impact. Like the original Velvet Underground albums that inspired all 500 people who heard them to form bands, Le Tigre just might spark the next post-Riot Grrrl music revolution.
It's been surprising that sampling innovator DJ Shadow has not inspired more imitators than he has. Aside from turntablist/mixologist Kid Koala's Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, there hasn't been a full album's worth of seamless audio collage, until The Avalanches' Since I Left You. Essentially a danceable party album, it's impossible not to enjoy. The idea behind The Avalanches is so obvious, it's amazing no one else had thought of it sooner. While DJ Shadow's source material is rendered completely unidentifiable, The Avalanches are closer to early De La Soul in that many of the samples are pretty obvious hit singles from the past, including Madonna's "Holiday," Kid Creole & The Coconuts' "Stool Pigeon" and even Prince Paul's "More Than U Know" with De La Soul. The boundaries between songs are blurred as elements from the previous song carry into the next, united by an insistent 4/4 disco/house beat. It's not really until the smoky "Tonight" that the pace changes significantly. It's a woozy, jazzy number, based on a sample from Nancy Wilson's 1964 performance of the Johnny Mercer song, "Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life." The piano gives the feeling of sea-sickness as the record is sampled at varied speeds. "Frontier Psychiatrist" is the most memorable track, and most similar to Kid Koala, as it cleverly sets spoken-words to a rhythm, giving the impression that they're rapping to horns and choruses -- "What does it mean?/That boy needs therapy." A minor artistic effort and major fun, this is going to be absorbed by the mainstream in a big way.
Soul Jacker is the fourth set of brilliance by the L.A.-based songwriter known as "E." Previous albums have dealt with harrowing personal tales of angst and grief, set to eccentric yet incredibly infectious hooks. Eels albums have always exuded a British feel in their layered pop fussiness, which is why Soul Jacker was released in the U.K. months previously. Soul Jacker, named after an American serial killer who thought he could steal his victims' souls, has a much different feel than last year's Daisies Of The Galaxy, which was an exercise in lovely, upbeat pop simplicity. Much like Sparklehorse's It's A Wonderful Life, this album explores darker themes with image-rich creativity, while avoiding self-pitying pitfalls of common miserabilists with wry humor. The sound is rawer, crunchier, dirtier, with tattered edges rather than a polished gleam. This sonic change is due in part to production by John Parish (PJ Harvey), and guitar assistance from Joe Gore (Tom Waits). Much like PJ Harvey on To Bring You My Love, they recycle and modernize the blues with "Soul Jacker part I," an update of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love." "Dog Faced Boy" starts out with a low, gravelly guitar that continues the Harvey-circa-'95 influence, mixed with the woozy, low-tuned guitars of an old Nirvana song, "Blew." The derivativeness ends there, as the rest of the album is bracingly original. On "That's Not Really Funny," E berates his lover for making fun of the size of his penis to a schizophrenic mambo and punk background. Hilarious. "Fresh Feeling" hearkens to the positivity of Daisies. It's an affecting love song with a swooning chamber string section, guaranteed to make it onto many a mash mix for 2002. "Woman Driving, Man Sleeping" is a subtly powerful mood piece, with laid back acoustic guitars. "Looking straight ahead into the black…there's no radio to play/sitting with the map/laying crumpled on her lap/looking for the toll money to pay." "Friendly Ghost," "Teenage Witch" and "Bus Stop Boxer" are character studies of misfits, accompanied by fresh, imaginative arrangements. "Jungle Telegraph" pulls off the unlikely synthesis of Tom Waits tin pan alley pastiche with a danceable funk groove. "World Of Shit" ("in this world of shit/baby you are it") is possibly the most deadpan love song ever, in which E proposes ("baby, I confess/I am quite a mess") he and his mate get married and "make some people/more than equal/in this world of shit." Music this brilliantly messed up simply must make the Eels famous. Soul Jacker is not as ambitious as Electro-Shock Blues or as entertaining as Daisies, but it's just as haunting, funny, beautiful and unique.
Who'd have thunk, the new face of political punk would come from Sweden. The (International) Noise Conspiracy, formed in late 1998, set themselves apart from the start by going to the People's Republic of China for their first tour. The singles compiled on The First Conspiracy revealed energetic, but relatively tuneless 60's-inspired garage punk. New Morning, Changing Weather shows a dramatic improvement over the singles, and their debut album Survival Sickness, released merely six months previously. It's more musically diverse, adding some keyboard-driven soul to the mod and garage roots, somewhat like the punk-blues of The Delta 72. These five young Swedes aren't just tossing off empty slogans like The MC5. Their lyrics avoid didactic tedium with humor, and are well thought out, with the lyric sheet listing recommended books after every song, ranging from William Blake to Foucault, Noam Chomsky, Guy Debord and Baudrillard. The lyrics offer post-Marxist commentary on capitalism, urban decay, wage labor and sexuality -- nothing that Gang Of Four haven't covered over 20 years ago, but a refreshing change from the thuggish anti-intellectualism of most American punk nonetheless. This by no means makes them bookish wallflowers. The Conspiracy rocks, driven by booming drums that are brash and nearly always danceable. Like Rocket From the Crypt's Speedo, singer Dennis Lyxzén is effective as a garage shouter, but does not quite step up to the new funk and soul elements in their sound. "Bigger Cages, Longer Chains" and "A Body Treatise" in particular have a clean, spare, funky bass and drum sound that could have benefited from a slightly more flamboyant vocal. His screams and bellow are more than effective, however, on "Born Into A Mess" and "New Empire Blues." With "Capitalism Stole My Virginity" and "Last Century Promise," the Conspiracy truly reveal their potential, coming up with a style that's all their own, which is impressive for a band so young. The latter is a dark, ominous slow-burner, a riveting statement of purpose ("As radical as we want to be no shame or anxiety in our dreams/Playing the part of selling discontent but we are as real as it's going to get." Until the next At The Drive-In, Primal Scream or Asian Dub Foundation, A New Morning, Changing Weather is as real as rebel music is going to get this year.
Fugazi's previous albums, Red Medicine (1995) and End Hits (1998) maintained a sort of holding pattern. While relatively experimental, they were also somewhat predictable. There were the dubby excursions, the quiet art-rock, the tricky rhythms, the obtuse lyrics and the occasional explosive screams and crunching chords. Reviewers didn't have much to say about them other than, this is Fugazi, they're original, and they're good. But it's been a while since they really grabbed you by the heart with the urgency of "The Waiting Room," "Turnover" or "Face Squared." Tortoise-inspired jazzy noodling was refreshing back in '94-'96, but it's still good to be electrified. One would never expect Fugazi's latest, The Argument to be chock full of fist-shaking anthems, but it is certainly their most cohesively satisfying since 1993's In On The Kill Taker. It is also their most lush, exemplified by the airy production, and use of piano and cello on the "Strangelight." Full Disclosure" and "Life And Limb" even feature breathy "oooing" female backing vocals. Not to say Fugazi have gone orchestral pop on us. There are plenty of jagged guitars, both noisy and clean. The chorus with a sing-songy guitar line on "Full Disclosure" is cut short by a shrieking guitar siren that Public Enemy would have swapped their clocks for to sample back in the day. There are also more melodic moments, such as the sing-a-long chorus of "Full Disclosure," and the almost folky refrain at the end of "Epic Problem." "The Bill" is nearly lilting, with a mournful guitar line that recalls a similar moment from Talking Heads' Remain In Light. The result is one of the most hauntingly unique songs in Fugazi's oeuvre. "Strangelight" begins quietly, with Guy Picciotto's vocals soft yet menacing, building into a charging, flaming dragon of a song with spiraling guitars as sharp as scales. On "Ex-Spectator," Ian Mackaye unleashes the fury of his powerful voice in a riveting revisit to the Fugazi sound of twelve years ago. "Nightshop" is another pleasant surprise, with a chorus accompanied by an acoustic guitar that could almost be compared to Led Zeppelin. The album closes with the fascinating "Argument," where Mackaye sings tunefully and restrained to a spare, Slint-like rhythm. The song all-too-briefly segues into a tasty patch of electronica before concluding in crashing chaos. One can't help wanting more, perhaps one last slashing barnburner. That can be found on the simultaneously released EP featuring the blistering "Furniture" that recalls Shellac's early singles; the viciously rocking instrumental "Number 5" and the hardcore fury of "Hello Morning." Fiercely independent, prickly, iconoclastic, Fugazi is not a band that comes off as eager to please. But they never fail to inspire and impress.
The anticipation for the new Dismemberment Plan has been immense, and for good reason. 1999's Emergency & I was a thrilling reinvention of indie rock, incorporating jagged post-punk rhythms, skittering new-wave funk, soaring melodies and smart, moving lyrics. It was difficult to guess which direction they would go, as their potential seemed limitless. Change displays a very self-conscious awareness of a great band's abilities, and a desire to make a major statement. Indeed, the promotional materials boldly evoke career-defining albums as D'Angelo's Voodoo, The Talking Heads' Remain In Light and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. Change falls slightly short of such illustrious company. One problem is Travis Morrison's voice. "There are times when you will not like the sound of my voice," he sings on "The Other Side." On the previous album, the shortcomings of Morrison's odd, weedy voice is more than compensated for with quirky, youthful energy. Now The Dismemberment Plan's mid-tempo songs focus on his voice, which sometimes sounds like Shudder To Think, a fellow DC band that failed to overcome their particular quirks. At its worst, The Plan sounds ordinary, with production so mainstream that certain moments could pass for Dave Matthews Band. Simmering underneath the restrained mix is, along with Fugazi, one of the most agile rhythm sections in rock today. What could have been a complete snore, "Superpowers" is redeemed by an entrancing weave of compellingly complex bass and drums. "Pay For The Piano" recalls The Plan's spikier days, but fails to match anything from Emergency & I. "Come Home" peaks with a nice ringing wall of guitar noise reminiscent of Mission Of Burma. By "Secret Curse," things are really looking up, a hectic, harried paen to anxiety and paranoia, words stumbling over each other to get out as if chased by demons. "Following Through" is pleasantly jangly, as good as anything by The Sea And Cake. But it's the last three songs that finally demonstrate the creative heights The Dismemberment Plan are capable of. "Time Bomb" hits hard with perfectly realized poetic imagery -- "I am a tripwire and I'm stretching across the road you're traveling down tonight/the thinnest twine, waiting to be released right beyond your sight." The dread induced by the minor key is utterly appropriate. "The Other Side" is an incredibly frenetic drum 'n' bass with equally affecting lyrics "Ellen and Ben" resembles the toy video game bleeps-turned-loping-sex-beats of Cornershop's dancey side project Clinton. The song is destined to become a show-closing anthem, with the band surpassing the recorded original with a frenzied beat-crazy climax. The brilliant songs are a stark contrast to the less inspired early half. In the band's eagerness for change, they nearly left behind what made them so great to begin with. Fortunately, half the album proves The Plan are still in an upward swing, assuring that they are unquestionably one of the top current rock bands creating and performing lasting, visionary music today.
Once upon a time, Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Sloan were compared to Radiohead, in that their 1993 hit single "Underwhelmed," and Radiohead's "Creep" had them pegged as alternative one-hit wonders. Eight years and six albums later, they haven't reached the creative or popular heights as Radiohead, but they've gradually cultivated a dedicated following based on hard touring and irresistible power pop and 70s stadium rock, rewriting The Beatles, Badfinger and Cheap Trick songbooks. On Pretty Together, they're tighter than ever, with all four members participating in the songwriting. The result is more cohesive than their last effort, 1999's enjoyable Between The Bridges. That is, with the exception of "Pick It Up And Dial It," a cringe-inducing approximation of Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen. "In The Movies" leads off with a Who-ish guitar, and drumming nearly worthy of Keith Moon. Sloan's live experience shows. While nothing here is catchy as, say, "Deeper Than Beauty," the album is full of nice touches, like the best "ooh ooh" harmonies since The Posies, and folky acoustic touches in songs like the affecting ballad, "The Other Man." The deceptively simple "The Life Of A Working Girl" features some impressive picking, and lyrics nearly worthy of John Lennon. Songs like "Dreaming Of You," "It's In Your Eyes," and "I Love A Long Goodbye" demonstrate what they do best, dreamy love songs. No wonder the most diehard Sloan fans I know are women. They also rock. While Sloan are hardly groundbreaking, they have gelled into a groove that, with all its influences, sounds irrefutably like Sloan. Catch the boys on their next tour and show them your tits.
Word has it that there's a white guy in Atlanta out to destroy hip hop. Scott Herren, known on other projects as Delarosa and Asora, and Svath + Savalas, is certainly a threat to something -- most likely the Hollywood slick 'n' simple bling-bling. With Herren's innovations absorbed into the cultural mix, that shit is going to sound as outdated as El Debarge. Prefuse 73 (code name for jazz fusion pre-1973), stomps all over the sanctity of the rapper by taking the raps of Rec Center and Dose One, systematically destroying them and rebuilding them as staccato frankensteins, skittering about the track like free radicals. The instrumental stuff is treated in a similar way, with beats and samples fuse with static and snippets of the jazz fusion that Herren prefers. The scratching is done electronically rather than with turntables. Traditional MCs might protest, but hey, this is on the Warp label after all. You know, the one responsible for Radiohead abandoning their arena prog. The results are disorientating yet strangely compelling. The tracks are bleed and blend into one another, tied together by constantly evolving rhythms, with ghostly keyboards and vibraphones drifting throughout. A couple tracks offer some surprises. Out of nowhere, on "Last Light," you suddenly hear coherent soul crooning like a mix between Maxwell and Arto Lindsay. It's actually Sam Prekop from The Sea And Cake, of all people. "Blacklist," featuring MF Doom and Aesop Rock, brings you back down to earth for a few minutes with some old-skool style rapping. While the more traditional tracks offer welcome respite from the chaos, the return to the avant-hiptronica sounds sweeter than ever. In breaking down hip hop and building it back up into a shinier beast, Scott Herren has single-handedly played a vital role in rejuvenating hip hop.
Those who were blown away by the lyrical and sonic visionary In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel can satiate their anticipation for the next one (whenever that may be) with former MK Ultra frontman John Vanderslice. His debut with last year's Mass Suicide Occult Figurines was an engaging mess of lo-fi acoustic ballads, power pop, synths and strings. His wailing vocals sound remarkably like Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Magnum and Sunny Day Real Estate's Jeremy Enigk. Like them, he's also lyrically ambitious, ranging from stream-of-consciousness sprawl to Blake-inspired pithiness ("Little Boy Lost" and "If I Live Or If I Die"). Time Travel Is Lonely is a concept album based on letters from a brother stationed in Antarctica, cut off from human contact. It's a tone poem, a meditation on loneliness and remembrance. It's also a document of Vanderslice's love of sound. Whether it's simple acoustic guitars and percussion ("You Were My Fiji", or layered symphonic pop ("Keep The Dream Alive," "If I Live Or If I Die"), it's wonderfully recorded in his own Tiny Telephone analog studio in San Francisco. "Little Boy Lost" features a cheesy organ rhythm track and Moog synthesizer. The fascinating interludes employ classical music, including Bach's "Preludium Fugue #7," on which he layers his own voice into a choir. Vanderslice has an ear for sonic detail that rivals The Flaming Lips. The title track is the most rocking song on the album, with a staccato Television-like guitar line propelling Vanderslice into a rousing power-pop chorus. While multi-instrumentalist Vanderslice handled much of the instrumental duties, members of San Francisco indie rockers Beulah, For Stars and Oranger also contributed subtle performances. Time Travel Is Lonely is an honest, soul-searching album that at times is deeply moving and coldly alienating. Both ways, Vanderslice has pulled off the concept with soaring, prismatic colors.
The Helio Sequence are a Portland, OR duo who's 2000 debut, Com Plex rivaled some of the best trippy space rock coming out of Japan. With a slew of keyboards, the band took the sounds of early Jessamine and Stereolab and elevated them somewhere in the vicinity of Saturn's rings. Young Effectuals makes progress in creating memorable songs with more distinct vocals (though they are still fairly buried in the complex, trebly mix). "Give, Give, Give" is particularly stunning, with a chorus that recalls The Chemical Brothers' "Setting Son," before drowning in a swirling pool of whirring keyboards. "[Square] Bubbles" ups the intensity with the gauzian blur of My Bloody Valentine guitars that soon segue into an electronic jungle of organs and shouted lyrics, like Chrome's Helios Creed fronting a souped-up Hawkwind. Hey, he actually did front a souped-up Hawkwind around '93! And I saw it, woo hoo! Thanks to The Helio Sequence, we get to find out the destination of such a dream team. Nice, noisy psychedelia.
On their debut album last year, Beachwood Sparks recreated an uncanny copy of Gram Parsons' "Cosmic American music" sound, as heard in The Byrds' Sweetheart Of The Radio and The Flying Burrito Brothers' Gilded Palace Of Sin. Aside from Parsons fetishists, this sort of nostalgia seemed particularly useless. But on their second album, Beachwood Sparks have both expanded their scope, and upped the ante on the songwriting. Now they have absorbed not only the rootsy folk of The Band, but also the more psychedelic leanings of Buffalo Springfield and sounds that can only compared to contemporaries like Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Kingsbury Manx. "Old Manatee" in particular recalls Kingsbury Manx, with its woozy sliding guitar scales. My main complaint is the tinny, trebly mix that is obviously meant to approximate the production of the 60s and early 70s. This might sound good on AM radio, but no one is going to be listening to this on AM radio! There's no shame, even in nostalgiasts, in having a full sound. The lyrics are supposedly full of cheerful positivity, though they're inconsequential, as the recording (by J. Mascis) keeps the vocals low in the mix, so it's impossible to make them out. Nevertheless, there are many rewards for those in love with soft harmonies and delicately plucked banjos and jangling Rickenbackers. They even offer surprises, like turning Sade's "By Your Side" into a sloe-eyed "Whiter Shade Of Pale" style space cowboy anthem. The album closes with "Once We Were Trees," which starts as a country-rocker, but eventually takes off for orbit in a noisy feedback-drenched climax that could be mistaken for The Helio Sequence. Worth catching a ride, as long as you know you'll be taken back to familiar territory.
Shannon Wright, like fellow Atlanta, GA native Chan Marshall (a.k.a. Cat Power), began her solo career with relatively modest, stripped-down folk. On 1999's Moon Pix, Marshall transcended her humble beginnings by employing two-thirds of Australia's The Dirty Three to add cinematic sprawl and beauty. Shannon Wright's third album, Dyed In The Wool, is her Moon Pix. On 1999's Flightsafety and 2000's Maps Of Tacit, Wright handle most of the instruments herself. With her experience in the mid-90s band Crowsdell, her first two albums were more accomplished than the average folkie singer-songwriter, especially when she started experimenting with unique arrangements and instrumentation in her emotionally direct southern ballads. On Dyed In The Wool, she enlists assistance from members of Georgia bands The Glands, Rachel's, Rock A Teens and Japancakes, as well as usual drummer Brian Teasley of Man or Astro-Man?. While the sound is only slightly less stark than previous recordings, everything has come together. Steel strings are delicately picked in minor keys as before, but ominous swells of organs, harmoniums and strings rise and fall with the ebb and flow of spiteful accusations, tender elegies and dread. Her sometimes wavery voice is difficult to describe. The closest comparison might be Kristin Hersh, in early Throwing Muses days, mixed with Babes In Toyland's Kat Bjelland in more feral moments. The pounding piano in "Hinterland" concisely stirs up drama to heights worthy of Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, while the chamber cabaret "A Vessel For A Minor Malady" is a perfectly realized one-act passion play. The dark stylings might seem as if Wright is posing as a goth princess, if it weren't for the convincingly heartfelt lyrics. Songs like "Dyed In The Wool" and "Surly Demise" are not about death in the abstract, but rather intensely personal songs about losing a loved one to illness, possibly Lizzie Dye Hyman, whom the album was dedicated to. This is nervy music that more successful singers like Fiona Apple or Ani DiFranco should aspire to when they finish growing up. Dyed In The Wool is a stellar example of a true artist merging musical progression and life experience into a consistent statement.
Thalia Zedek has inspired respect for her early role in NYC noise bands like Uzi and Live Skull, and later Come. Unlike contemporaries like Sonic Youth, Swans and Pussy Galore, her bands failed to ever be enjoyable. Her powerful solo debut, Been Here & Gone has changed that. As ever, Zedek's voice is a strangely sticky, throaty phenomenon. She's the bullfrog little sister of Patti Smith or Nico . . . post-punk godmother to Liz Phair's toady alt-rock princess. No longer obscured by noise and feedback, Zedek's fabulous weirdness ultimately reveals an eerie beauty, much like Tom Waits. Spare arrangements and violin lend a vibe of gloomy romanticism similar to The Dirty Three. The ballad "1926," with the chorus, "your God hates me" is pure Nick Cave. "Excommunications (Everybody Knows)" takes a Leonard Cohen-style prediction of a guaranteed painful end to a relationship, while "Dance Me To The End Of Love" is a Cohen cover done as a cabaret two-step waltz. The centerpiece is "Desanctified (Full Circle)," which starts with an ominous guitar progression that rivals the cream of Sixteen Horsepower's songbook, and charges ahead with an exciting piano-driven arrangement that recalls the Black Heart Procession. Pain and longing are omnipresent, but never self-pity. Redemption is found in "10th Lament," a stunning instrumental that encapsulates all the strengths of her band, climaxing in a sublime reverie of a guitar solo that rivals anything by Television at their peak. Released in the summer, Been Here & Gone is best shelved for a couple months and enjoyed next to a fire with a scotch and a book, as winter creeps upon us with imperceptible inevitability. This goes beyond being Zedek's first truly satisfying album -- it's a spectacular, autumnal classic.
Handsome Family's third album Through The Trees was probably their darkest, coming after a flurry of emotional turmoil and breakdowns. In The Air featured black, Goreyesque humor, while Twilight, Brett and Rennie Sparks' latest, contains romantic yearning for nature. It's not surprising that just after completing the album, Rennie had the disturbing urge to cuddle a gigantic feral rat, causing the couple to flee the urban landscape of Chicago for the stark, desert settings in New Mexico where they are now happily training rattlesnakes to pickpocket. Critters populate the album -- deer, pigeons, birds, beetles, fish, flying buffalo, dogs, rabbits, lizards, more birds -- like woodland creatures surrounding Snow White, except in The Handsome Family's surreal world she's clad in black and combat boots, and she's packin' heat. More hapless deaths occur, such as old ladies freezing to death ("Cold, Cold, Cold"), and a white dog leads one to the afterlife "across the lake of fire to the silver shore." It may not be a happy place, as Brett regretfully imagines that all the animals and bugs he killed as a child are waiting "on the other side" for him to wreak their vengeance ("So Long"). Not all the animals are hostile, however. In "Birds You Cannot See," they save people from electrical fires, steer boats past icebergs and save children stuck in wells. "There Is A Sound" and "No One Fell Asleep Alone" could alternatively be creepy or hopeful. Like the previous albums, Twilight was created on a G3 using Pro Tools, with little variation in Brett's soothing croon or the creeping one-two, one-two rhythms. Certainly it's another handsome addition to the Family cannon, but a new approach to recording, perhaps with a live band, would shake things up and keep them a vital musical force.
What would happen if members of The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, The Voidoids and Television were thrown together in a small room to collaborate? Probably the bloodiest catfight in pre or post-punk history. It would take the youthful exuberance of some early twenty-somethings to approximate the world-devouring lust for life those bands fleetingly had and quickly lost. On the strength of their live show and the fact that the Is This It was released three months previously in the UK, The Strokes' notoriety precedes the release of their US debut. It's tempting to write off the hype, but this time it's totally justified. The rabid passion inspired by those touched by The Strokes is something all too rare in the days of niche marketing and bloodless trends in new metal. The arty intelligence of the band comes across without the usual pretentiousness of other locals. It's a nice surprise, when you expect a band that is high in irony and low in humor, and instead wake up the next morning with liquor-breath, a hickey and a rugburn. The Strokes have dangerously cool record collections, and they're not afraid to use 'em. Anyone who denies this New York band's influences is high. Especially on the tightly-wound Lloyd & Verlaine- guitars on "Barely Legal" and Quine & Julian on "Alone Together" (courtesy of the talented Valensi & Hammond Jr.). "The Modern Age" sounds like a great lost hit single from the formerly lost fourth Velvets album, VU. It's probably the best extrapolation of a New York moment since The Feelies' classic 1980 debut, Crazy Feelings. Elsewhere, the sounds are pure Strokes. "Someday" is the kind of insanely catchy ditty that you haven't heard since the days of, well, insanely catchy ditties ("Walking On Sunshine" anyone?). Not to trivialize it -- "Someday" is probably their greatest song, and just might make The Strokes bigger than Nirvana or, hell, Michael Jackson. While the lyrics aren't genius, they exude the best kind of rock 'n' roll cool while still packing an emotional whallop - "i see alone we stand, together we fall apart/yeah, i think i'll be alright." Just try not to sing along with "Barely Legal" - "i didn't take no shortcuts/i spend the money that i saved up/oh, mama, running out of luck/they like my sister don't give a fuck." The aforementioned songs, plus "Last Nite" and "Hard To Explain" are impossible to get tired of. The remaining six songs are 'merely' great. The vocals of the fabulously named Julian Casablancas are distorted and mixed a bit low, providing one of two things in common with equally celebrated garage rockers The White Stripes (the other being a smidgen of Kinks influence). But all is forgiven when you can't stop pogo-ing, air-guitaring and running red lights. You know it's an instant classic if you try to pick a song to put on a mix tape and want to dub half the damn album. Awesome.
While most Americans have not heard of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, the wild-eyed Welsh band has been kicking around since 1990. Their quirky and sometimes impenetrable blend of sixties psychedelia, seventies prog rock and druidic Welsh-sung folk ballads have kept them under wraps as cult favorites. Their seventh album, How I Long To Fell That Summer In My Heart could, and should, be their breakthrough. The more prickly experiments have been left behind, as they expand upon the pastoral acoustic vibe from their Blue Trees EP. The album arrives at the perfect time to evoke the melancholy one feels when summer is all-too-soon over. Rather than bucolic splendor of sunshine and butterflies, this quiet, folksy music is definitively autumnal. There is a strong country presence that would be surprising if it weren't for the foreshadowing offered by "Faraway Eyes" in 1999's Spanish Dance Troupe. The laid-back "Honeymoon With You" sounds like an outtake of early-70s (ex-Byrd) Gene Clark, accentuated by a Hammond organ and Morgan Childs' fiddling. Richard James' and Euros Childs' feather-light harmonies on "Easy Love" reference The Everly Brothers, while "These Winds Are In My Heart" resembles a celtic-flavored Fairport Convention, with exquisitely mournful cries of slide guitars and squeeze boxes. This is not really a rootsy hoedown, however. The sound retains a subtle post-psychedelic sheen that is more Mercury Rev than Palace Brothers -- sublimely earthy details like Sparklehorse mixed with Kingston Manx and Pinetop Seven's brand of orchestral Americana. "Cân Megan" gets more showy with a swaying horn section. Next to the understated beauty of most of the album, the beguiling "Christina" is practically grandiose, with a full eight piece string section and choir vocals. Among an embarrassment of riches of soft-spoken chamber pop albums this year, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci stand out by offering one indispensable emerald-hewed gem after another.
With all the talk of 100 piece choirs and massive orchestras, one imagines an ambitious opus turned so bloated that it collapses in on itself. At times, Let It Come Down narrowly escapes disaster by the skin of its teeth, making its ultimate success all the more impressive. Sole surviving member Jason Pierce could have relied on the space-rock formula so winningly accomplished in 1997's Ladies And Gentlemen...We Are Floating In Space. Instead, he bravely leaves behind the drones and trippy sounds for new waters, which Pierce tentatively dipped his toes in on Live At Albert Hall. The album kicks off with the surprisingly rocking, swaggering "On Fire," which melds Firewater, The The and a gospel choir. "Out of Sight" continues winningly with a lighthearted melody and a full-blown orchestra lead by an acoustic guitar. Lurking in the background is a reverbed electric guitar, just to remind us that Pierce has not completely forgotten his roots in Spacemen 3. "Do It All Over Again" starts with a vocal showtune melody that gradually flirts with cringe-inducing bombast, climaxing, pulling back, swelling once again like induced nausea, then fading in a sappy epilogue. Like your old copy of Electric Light Orchestra Out Of The Blue (fill in equivalent here), you feel sheepish for it, but you can't help but like it. The transition flows uninterrupted into "Don't Just Do Something," its gentle, sing-song tunefulness interrupted by majestic blasts of an army of trombones, tubas and god knows what else. Again, it barely tips the scales to powerful rather than contrived. "The Twelve Steps" dresses up a riff from "Electricity" in new pimp clothes, complete with Isaac Hayes blaxploitation strings and police sirens. "The Straight And The Narrow" sounds like Camper Van Beethoven leading an orchestral waltz, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It isn't until the eighth track, ironically the album's first single, "Stop Your Cryin'," when Let It Come Down stumbles. Imagine Jesus Christ Superstar III, with an excruciating chorus meant to make your heart swell, with tympanic drums and that damned gospel choir. This is bad, very, very bad. The more subdued and stately "Anything More" recovers, and the epic ten and a half-minute "Won't Get To Heaven (The State I'm In)" redeems, justifies, and testifies. Pierce hardly reached the heights of Duke Ellington or Gil Evans, benchmarks he pretentiously set himself against. He doesn't even manage to equal the efforts of contemporaries who he refuses to pay any mind to, like Mercury Rev and Super Furry Animals. But it beats the hell out of Cats. A guilty pleasure for closet indie-rock showtune lovers.
Following the tradition of Velvet Underground acolytes The Feelies, The Dream Syndicate, Galaxie 500, Luna, and to some extent Yo La Tengo and Eleventh Dream Day, Kingsbury Manx successfully reinvent the feel of the third self-titled Velvet Underground album without being derivative. Of course, soft-spoken Chapel Hill boys are too smart to rely on one influence. On last year's debut, one could hear folk harmonies, The Byrds and Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd. The main difference between that and Let You Down is they have become less showy with billowing psychedelic textures, eased up on the swelling organs and focused on the pastoral songs that are more Fairport Convention than Pink Floyd. The song structures are tighter with less repetition, more changes and hooks packed into concise time frames. The arrangements are pared down and spacious. The details of the sounds are still all important. The album was recorded by Brian Paulson (Slint) to sound like an intimate live performance in a comfortable pub with wooden floors and worn but comfortable chairs, where you can vividly hear the textures of the guitar strings and the brushes scraping on the drum heads. The gentle acoustic beauty of this album make it a perfect companion piece to the recent works by Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and The American Analog Set. Chances are Kingsbury Manx's best music is still to come. Like many indie rock bands, the vocals are unremarkable and hide behind the music without leaving strong memories of the tunes. Every sound is perfectly tasteful, and flawlessly in place, suggesting, in a sense, it's a low-risk affair. To hear this very special band take a leap into the unknown could be either a harrowing freefall or a thrilling flight through the clouds. Either way, an experience not to be missed.
It was disconcerting to hear Jonathon Donahue's voice on Mercury Rev's 1998 comeback, Deserter's Songs. The clear production recalled the weedy voice of Big Bird covering Jiminy Cricket in a Fantasia gone awry. With the eerie sounds of off-kilter flutes and bowed saws, the fantastical child-like dreams revealed phantoms underneath, more like The City of Lost Children. Mercury Rev certainly had their monsters to battle, when fighting and substance abuse pretty much broke up the band in the mid-90s. After breakdowns, a stay in a monastery, and regrouping in the Catskill Mountains, the band was reborn in cinematic splendor. For All Is Dream, they initially hired Jack Nitzsche on the strength of his work with Phil Spector, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young and particularly his soundtrack for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the original inspiration for their use of the bowed saw. Unfortunately Mr. Nitzsche died in August 2000 before production could get started. Once again, Mercury Rev were on their own. Well, not quite -- T. Rex producer Tony Visconti did lend a hand on some arrangements and orchestration. The follow-up to the orchestrated Deserter's Songs could have been over-the-top bombastic. An attempt to employ a gigantic boys choir was a sign of how overblown an affair it could have been. Perhaps in deference to what Nitzsche would have done, Mercury Rev kept things relatively modest, with the bulk of the orchestral blast concentrated on the opening track, "The Dark Is Rising." Donahue sounds more comfortable with his wavery voice, which is higher than ever, complementing the fragile songs with delicate titles like "Tides Of The Moon," "Nite And Fog," "Little Rhymes," and "Spiders and Flies." Not to say these songs are happy, exactly. Most involve yearning for connections they can't have -- "I hope you see your ship come in/May it find you an' never lose it's way/But I would make a poor captain/Nite an' fog are my days." Some reveal something approaching terror -- "Pharoahs an' kings...When they lived they loved complete/But in their tombs, I hear them scream." The nightmarish apex would be "Lincoln's Eyes (A Cruel Black Dragon Lurks)" -- "What appears like an' angel/Stabs like a dagger/Fills you with lite/An' Bleeds you of matter." Even the most innocent child's dreams can sometimes be ghoulish. The dream reaches a well-earned romantic respite with "A Drop In Time" and "You're My Queen." Donahue summons the moonlight to play at his lover's feet "An' softly linger there." He's rewarded in the next song -- "Seven times I kissed you on th' mouth/Every nite I let you conquer me." "Hercules" closes the album, starting with an acoustic guitar, building to a tumultuous guitar-driven peak, and then tapering off with dwindling strings, like a lover's lingering touch -- "Drifting as you go but you row...'til it seems/All is One, All is Mind, all is lost and you find, all is dream." Mercury Rev have consistently striven to achieve a sound that is not of its time, but of all time. While it lacks anything as forcefully engaging as "Opus 40" or "Goddess On A Highway," All Is Dream is half a step closer to timelessness, and is a fine progression for a great American band poised for a long gliding career.
Even if you haven't heard Ryan Adams, you've probably been exposed to the hype. He left Whiskeytown before the release of their "masterpiece," has dated Winona Ryder, hung out with rock stars like Keith Richards, and has been described as a "genius," and the most important figure in alt-country since Gram Parsons. He even claims poets and artists like Poe, Plath, Camus and Pollock as influences. If one thing is clear, it's that Adams is being groomed to be the sort of "rock personality" he dropped out of high school to become. He's certainly prolific. First there was 2000's Heartbreaker. The follow-up is already out, and ten tracks were trimmed off so the 16 remaining tunes would fit on one CD. He has at least two other albums in the can, including a more rock-based project with a band called The Pinkhearts. So how are the songs? Pretty good. They don't pack as much emotional punch as his dark-hued solo debut. Gold is more stylistically diverse, which is supposed to make it a more grandiose statement, I suppose. But it feels like a survey course of Classic Rock 101. There are bluesy rockers, ballsy ballads (or is that vice-versa?), and an incredibly long (9:39) "Nobody Girl" that sounds like a rewrite of something by The Band. "Gonna Make You Love Me" throws together Who power chords and Led Zeppelin licks. The MOR feel of the album is amplified by guest musicians such as Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows and Benmont Tench from Tom Petty. The songs are professionally crafted and played well. They also sound like Adams tossed them off pretty quickly. Judging from his manic schedule, that's probably pretty accurate. Ryan Adams is undoubtedly a prolific songwriter. He may very well be capable of creating a work of staggering genius. But he may need to slow down and smell the roses first.
While talented turntablists like Mixmaster Mike (Invisible Scratch Piklz) and Kid Koala have proven that they are capable musicians, few have stepped up to the challenging task of composing, aside from DJ Shadow and The Automator . . . and DJ Swamp. Cleveland native Swamp has already achieved international attention as the 1996 DMC national champion, and as Beck's touring DJ. It's a pleasant surprise to find on Never Is Now the DJ can also rap, in a style that's a cross between Ice-T and Eminem. Most importantly, DJ Swamp knows how to write songs, or at least scratch-heavy hip-hop tracks that smartly integrate segments of melody and interesting found sounds. Thematically Never Is Now is closer to death-metal than hip-hop, like a sinister demon spawn of Kool Keith's Dr. Dooom persona and The Gravediggaz. "Demons In The Suburbs," "My Peaceful Hell," "He's A Killer" coolly deal with evil without sounding like the many lesser-talented, hysterical bad boy wannabe's. "Worship The Robots" changes pace with a sci-fi Steven Hawking-like processed vocal that's just as good as any old-school electro found on Beck's Midnight Vultures or The Beastie Boys' Hello Nasty. Of course, competition turntable pyrotechnics are also included in instrumental scratch-fury cuts like "Feed The Hand That Bites You." The album's high points occur in the beginning and end, with "Ring Of Fire," a spooky organ-laced battle-cry to competing DJs, and the cinematic gangster-funk epic of "Malakai," telling a tall true-crime tale driven by a relentless bass line. Never Is Now is the most twisted, sick fun since Kool Keith's (with The Automator & DJ Shadow) 1996 Dr. Octagonecologyst.
In a year of grandiose orchestral statements and experimental electro, American Analog Set have stayed true to their name and produced a comfortingly familiar set that reminds me how cool it was in 1995 to hear the whirring vintage Farfisas of Jessamine and pre-Pro Tools Stereolab. Joined by the likes of Kingston Manx, Poem Rocket and Schema, the Texas-based band finds themselves as forbearers of some sort of organic psych-rock community. Like the first three albums, Know By Heart manages to recall The Velvet Underground, German space rock, Galaxie 500 and Spacemen 3, while still sounding futuristic in a brand new century. Yet these songs are less about autobahns and betatrons than matters of the heart, illustrated by the cover art of guitar leads shaped as a heart in front, a noose on the back. The oddly titled "Punk As Fuck" contains lightly brushed drums, a fluid walking bass and Andrew Kenny's nearly whispered vocals which sometimes recall Elliott Smith. "Like Foxes Through Fences" is a Neu-like study in metonymic propulsion. "Million Young" is a perfect balance between Lisa Roschmann's loud organ drones and quiet moments electrified by clenched-teeth anger. "The Only One," "The Kindness Of Strangers," and "Know By Heart" are tales of hope and despair that eschew climaxes while managing to entrance with piles of delicate melodies. The closing track is titled "We're Computerizing And We Just Don't Need You Anymore." American Analog Set need not be concerned. For their booty of indie-pop riches, they will always be needed. Better loving, and self destruction, through analog.
How do you
find a diamond in the snow? Walk barefoot until it cuts you. Retrace the bloodstained
tracks to the source and you might find the subterranean Icelandic pixie-headquarters
where it sounds like Björk has been hibernating and creating (actually San Pedro,
Spain and New York). With Vespertine (which means "of the evening"), Björk
has created a bravely unfashionable nocturnal misfit dream. No dance rhythms,
no bombastic showbiz productions, Vespertine, is profoundly intimate and
personal, with whispered secrets and passionate declarations of devotion. Björk
evokes themes of solitude and isolation ("Threading the glacier head/Looking hard
for moments of shine") while realizing her coziness is best shared ("I thrive
best hermit-style/With a beard and a pipe/And a parrot on each side/Now I can't
do this without you...I never thought I would compromise/Let's unite tonight").
In contrast to the unsettling, dramatic strife of 1997's Homogenic, Vespertine
finds Björk in a much calmer space, a Zen-like reverie. It feels lighter, but
is more concise and focused, much like the e.e. cummings poem used for "Sun In
My Mouth" -- "I will wade out till my thighs/Are steeped in burning flowers/I
will take the sun in my mouth/And leap into the ripe air alive." Clearly influenced
by cummings, her lyrics often distill vivid images of sensuality, like "Swirling
black lillies totally ripe" ("Pagan Poetry") and "I fill my mouth with snow/The
way it melts/I wish to melt before you" ("Aurora"). Björk has words of wisdom
to offer -- "Unthinkable surprises about to happen/But what they are/It's not
up to you/Well it never really was" ("It's Not Up To You") and "It's not meant
to be a strife/It's not meant to be a struggle uphill/You're trying too hard/Surrender/Give
yourself in" ("Undo"). She has proven that it is possible to grow as a mature,
worldly adult, but still retain a childlike wonder. Indeed, her voice varies from
a shy, if sexually charged, girl ("Cocoon") to an ancient, wailing elemental spirit
("Aurora"). The music chimes, clicks, chirps and bleeps like a symphony of serenading
cybertronic bugs in frozen trees. While Radiohead's experiments are exploratory
like finding their way through an unfamiliar home in the dark, Björk struts through
the house of electronica like she's owned it for a decade, as indeed she has.
No single artist has navigated the nexus of accessible songwriting and edgy electronica
with as much authority and consistency as Björk. Part of her success has been the seamless
integration of impeccably chosen collaborators, from Nellee Hooper and Tricky
to Leila and Howie B. This time she enlists Matmos for beat programming duties
("Aurora" and "Unison"). On the latter, she also includes sample of "Aero Deck"
by Germany's Oval. Björk learned how to use Pro Tools and self-produced the album.
The crystalline production is focused and sharp. Vespertine is so beautiful
it hurts.
As I looked at the eleven Stereolab CDs crammed into my overcrowded shelf, I wondered if I really needed yet another one. After all, hasn't every album since Emperor Tomato Ketchup sounded basically the same? Yes and no. The aforementioned album completed Stereolab's transition in 1996 from Velvets and Neu influenced chugging rhythms and distorted organs, to percolating Muzak/exotica/lounge jazz electronica. That also happens to be when the band started doing most of their recording in Chicago with Tortoise's John McEntire. In 1999 they added the production and arrangement wizardry of Jim O'Rourke for Cobra And Phases Play Voltage In The Milky Night. More engaging than Cobra And Phases, Sound-Dust is Stereolab's most sonically rich album. Thanks partially to O'Rourke, none of the electronic gurgles, horns, flutes, bells, pianos and percussion seem superfluous. The album is all about sonic textures. Each detail is modest yet potentially breathtaking, such as the bass on "The Black Arts" that's Bootsy's Rubber Band meets King Tubby. I don't usually like headphones, but this album merits it. Several songs, like "Spacemoth," "Baby Lulu" and "Gus The Mynah Bird" are strongly reminiscent of former Too Pure labelmates Pram -- eerie minor-key lullabies gone wrong. Songs like the disarmingly catchy "Captain EasyChord" keep Stereolab one step ahead of competition of the likes of Broadcast, High Llamas (whose Sean O'Hagen is a regular contributor), The American Analog Set, The Aluminum Group and McEntire's The Sea And Cake. Stereolab is like an ex-lover you can't stop sleeping with. You know it won't lead anywhere you haven't already been. But you also know that each time will always be slightly different . . . and irresistibly yummy.
The name "Sparklehorse" conjured the image of a scruffy, self-deprecating, cutesy indie rock band of little consequence. Due to that error in judgment I missed out on the West Virginia band's first two scintillating, albums of substance and wonder -- 1995's Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot and 1999's Good Morning Spider. It's A Wonderful Life, lighter on catchy hooks, mostly crawls at a snail's pace, like slo-core pioneers Seam and Low, but with an extra dimension in sound due to a greater variety in instruments and arrangements. In its quiet, sincere intensity, it is also the best of the three albums. Linkous' singing is similar to the hushed, pillowy style of Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan. Except that nestled amongst the feathers are rocks, broken sticks, worms and frogs resulting in a rustic beauty exemplified by the likes of The Dirty Three and Tom Waits, who generously offers tools from his musical shed on "Dog Days" -- "pitchfork/crowbar/clawhammer/hot tar!" Polly Jean Harvey contributes vocals to "Piano Fire" and "Eyepennies." But the real stars here are the songs. Even Engineer Dave Fridmann, who's strong-willed influence usually stamps his unmistakable sound on every client, bends to Linkous' own unique vision. "Gold Day" is a sunny declaration of good will that is convincingly earnest -- "hold skinny wolves at bay/ in silver piles of smiles/may all your days be gold my child." The gentle "Sea Of Teeth" is perfectly economical poetry -- "can you feel the wind of venus on your skin?/can you taste the crush of a sunset's dying blush?... can you feel the rings of saturn on your finger?/can you taste the ghosts who shed their creaking hosts?/but seas forever boil, trees will turn to soil." "Apple Bed" is even prettier, but more unsettled, with Linkous wishing he had "a horse's head/a tiger's heart/an apple bed." "King of Nails" adds some well-placed guitar squalls reminiscent of early Flaming Lips. All is not puppies and kittens and sunshine however. The fantastic imagery often borders on morbid, from "the toothless kiss of skeletons" to "circus people with hairy little hands." Dirt, clay, hair, nails and teeth are strewn throughout the lyrics, as if Linkous was wallowing in a ditch, or perhaps scratching his way out of his own grave. Just like how fellow songwriter extraordinaire Mr. E. arrived at an upbeat album with the Eels after recent deaths of loved ones, Mark Linkous' life-affirming outlook is hard earned after his own near-death. Frank Capra eat your heart out.
Preston Klik, the guiding force behind the debut albums of Scarlet Life and Karma Sutra, is a musical veteran with several albums under his belt. He founded Big Hat in the eighties and achieved modest success with My Scarlet Life in the late nineties. One could call those years his apprenticeship, with this year marking a dramatic rebirth, having earned his wizard's hat. Retaining only one-quarter of the previous band, Scarlet Life is completely new animal. Klik has struck gold in recruiting fresh new talent, with singer Chandra Clark, turntablist DJ Skeptik and stand-up bassist Zebulun. The new band takes off from where the previous band left off with sensuous trip-hop, forging into uncharted territories on the strength of a unique combination of talents. Scarlet Life is Clark's debut tenure as a singer, but she performs with forceful, seductive confidence at the level of Tracey Thorn (Everything But The Girl, Massive Attack). DJ Skeptik's scratching and sampling is currently the most seamless integration of a turntablist into any band. The diverse elements, including Klik's ghostly melodica, trumpet, keyboards, programming and sonic textures are tied together by Zebulun's fabulously sleek and slippery acoustic bass. The result is a stretching of horizons between the earthly and the cosmic, or what the band calls "acousto-electronica." While one might expect gooey, spacey mood music, the album features surprisingly memorable pop songs with clever hooks and imaginitive vocal melodies that could prove to be more accessible than the immensely popular Portishead (see "Take Me," "Bored"). The sultry pace is punctuated by the uptempo "Perfect?" that incorporates industrial breaks and a Killing Joke sample. The danceable "Favorite Girl" begs for a 12" remix that could be a big club hit. Throughout the album, Klik weaves in sonic details that blur the lines between the natural and artificial as successfully as anything by Laika. While Scarlet Life so far remains a secret to most of the world, they have already surpassed most trip-pop contemporaries, with the potential to create a league of their own. Their live show is not to be missed, as the band's multiplicity is even more visually striking with charismatic Clark's fabulously colorful glam wardrobe, the eccentric, bearded mod Zebulun in sunglasses, Klik's white ponytails of power and Skeptic's young poker face. Oh yeah, and there's the mind-blowing jazzy cover of The Cars' "Just What I Needed."
Without the restrictions of a full band, Preston Klik has the freedom to loosen the strings of his globe-trotting post-hippy freak flag and revisit the ethnic excursions initiated with Big Hat. But more than anything, the open-ended structures allow singer 22 year-old Mona Jethmalani to truly soar in her astounding debut. Prana is the most diverse fusion of Hindustani and Western culture in recent years, with Western classical-influenced vocals, dance beats, and the gothic mysticism of Dead Can Dance. Former My Scarlet Life percussionist Amy Spina contributes dumbek, djembe and other ethnic instruments. While British-Indian singer Sheila Chandra has backed off from mixing genres into more traditional tonal experiments, Jethmalani takes more risks, singing in both Hindu and English, and at times daring to be boldly erotic. "Prana" starts with a traditional Indian drone, and Jethmalani's siren-like wails. Gradually, tablas, electronic effects, eerie keyboards and chanting create a haunting whole. "Simplicity" tries out Scarlet Life's pop for size, and Neneh Cherry-flavored "Swarg" is downright catchy, with spoken word contributed by Sunny Singh of TS Soundz. "Ocean" sounds like a powerfully atomspheric soundtrack to a movie with blowing sand, epic battles and heartache. "March Together" features a hypnotic rhythm and a wonderful vocal melody that outdoes any recent Massive Attack. The only experiment that doesn't quite pay off is the gauzy poetry of "RobberyOfVibrations." The processed vocals make the whole affair sound more awkward and heavy-handed than the effortless eroticism of cuts like "The Black Oak Tree." With only one less-than stellar track, nothing can hold back the immense force of Mona Jethmalani's rising star.
Given the undeniable beauty of a well-trained female voice singing classical Indian music, it's surprising that there has been no truly record-breaking mainstream star in this arena. Born in London, raised in Australia, with Tamil South Indian roots, Susheela Raman (known previously for her contributions to Joi) is a strong candidate. Indeed, she's well on her way, having already been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, the award for the best British album of the year. Only in her early 20s, Raman's voice, while not as powerful as the equally young but lesser known Mona Jethmalani (Karma Sutra), is mature and lovely. Raman employs a multicultural band (with members from Romania, Greece, Spain and Kenya) that blends signature Indian ragas with a number of styles, from American blues as filtered through Ali Farka Toure, to African polyrhythms, reggae, gypsy flamenco and Sufi rhythms into a seamless whole. While not intentional, the resulting sound veers dangerously close to the kind of generically pleasant world-beat that is easily digested in yuppie cafes. There is also a whiff of deliberate compromise, of label pressure to ease off more challenging material and center the album around eager-to-please covers "Trust In Me" and "Song To The Siren." While the songs are well done and enjoyable, they seem pointless when Siouxsie and the Banshees recorded the definitive version of the Jungle Book song, and This Mortal Coil nailed the latter Tim Buckley song with eerie beauty. However, there are some unexpected twists, like splashes of techno-folk that recalls Beth Orton. Overall, the talent of Raman and her band cannot be denied, and the music gets under your skin. Here's hoping Raman can manage to resist the lure of the mainstream doldrums as she matures, and properly fulfills her potential as an adventurous artist worthy of her training.
There must be something in the water in Wales. Two of the most ambitious, quirky, 21st-century psychedelic bands are Welshmen Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Super Furry Animals. Like Gorky's, SFA have been around for a while -- creating bold psych-pop gems with little notice, at least from North America. 1999's Guerrilla was their OK Computer, experimenting with electronica without the hyperbolic hype. Last year, when third-rate Radiohead copycats Coldplay were celebrated, SFA quietly confounded and charmed the lucky few who heard the lovely Mwng, sung entirely in Welsh. With their fifth album, Rings Around The World, SFA have reached an extravagant peak. The songs are tied together by some vague theme of global communication and information pollution. However, the less-than revelatory lyrics are not the main attraction. It's the wealth of sounds and trippy melodies that make this 2001's update of The Flaming Lip's opus, The Soft Bulletin. The first five songs are minor pop classics, an astounding cornucopia of Beach Boys choruses, killer hooks and studio wizardry. They rush by so quickly that you want to hear them again before carrying on with the rest of the album. The pace slows to the erotically sinister "[A] Touch Sensitive," an instrumental mix of Orbital, Clinton and Gary Numan complete with digitized female panting. "No! Sympathy" begins as a languid, acoustic ballad that could have come from The Small Faces' mod psychedelic opera Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. But after the final kiss-off line, "You deserve to die," the song explodes into the most vicious techno fury heard outside of Alec Empire's brood of Digital Hardcore cronies. The single "Juxtapozed With U" provides light-hearted relief, with Charlie's Angels violins and Peter Frampton-style vocoder. Here Gruff Rhys sounds oddly like Elvis Costello fronting a Vegas showband. "Presidential Suite," gets a little too fluffy, like a Muzak remake of The Style Council. After the album's sole weak track, SFA introduces "Run! Christian, Run!" with a forlorn melodica, with an insistent two-note electronic blurp leading you towards release in a guitar-heavy climax. The album closes with the gentle synthesizer-tinged ballad, "Fragile Happiness." The ride is over, and I never even noticed where the heck heavyweight guests John Cale and Sir Paul McCartney came in, nor do I care. If you have a DVD player, the fun goes on, with twelve film shorts in full surround sound. More accessible than countrymen Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, and heavier than Mercury Rev, Rings Around The World is a perfectly balanced headtrip.
On 23 year-old Ed Harcourt's full-length debut, he outperforms Rufus Wainright, and Jeff Buckley, and uncorks more great songs than Elliott Smith's entire career. Before they've even heard of him, the competition is eating his dust. What sets Harcourt apart is his apparent knack for flawless arrangements worthy of Randy Newman/Van Dyke Parks. No doubt his good taste in choosing control-room assistance from Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev producer Dave Fridmann and Tim Holmes of Death In Vegas didn't hurt. In the face of the new wave of depressingly anemic and conservative troubadours like David Gray, Harcourt breathes life into the maligned singer-songwriter genre with his eccentric melodic style that cannot be pinned down with any specific influence, other than a slight hint of early 70s Bowie. Within just the first three songs, Harcourt covers as much emotional terrain as Van Morrison did between his despairing Astral Weeks and ecstatic Moondance. The opener, "Something In My Eye" begins modestly as a strummed acoustic number, but gradually builds into an inspiring orchestral yearning. "God Protect Your Soul," starts with an ominous growl that bears resemblance to Mark Lanegan. The music is barbed by thorns of slashing guitars and pounding drums. The infectuously poppy "She Fell Into My Arms" is shockingly sunny after the previous song's anger. Summer skips to winter in the funereal "Those Crimson Tears," accented by muted horns like perfect snowflakes. The album peaks with the epic "Beneath The Heart of Darkness" that betrays Fridmann's knob-twiddling. Who else could transform an off-kilter beat inspired by a rattling central heating boiler in Harcourt's house into a masterful opus of claustrophobia that would turn Thom Yorke green with envy? Here Be Monsters suffers from not a single weak song. This is a stunning work of enduring beauty by someone who's too young to remember the early 80s, yet seems to have absorbed more musical wisdom than any of his contemporaries. More please.
Nitin Sawhney's epic fifth album features over 200 musicians, recorded in London, Rio de Janeiro, Chicago, Madrid, Bangalore, Soweto, Ganyangar, Nhulunbuy and elsewhere in India, Australia, and England. With his trademark affection for sumptuous strings and sweet-voiced songbirds, one might expect nothing more than the sort of schlocky mess of a New Age World music compilation stinking of Nagchampa. Indeed, London-based Indian Sawhney mixes Arabic, Brazilian, Spanish, Aborigine and American R&B, sometimes in the same song. Sawhney refuses to adhere to strict ideas of authenticity. Those who expect gritty field recordings of tabla-fury will be sorely disappointed. But open minds will be richly rewarded by Prophesy, which makes recent efforts by London-based Asian Underground artists (Talvin Singh, Joi, Badmarsh & Shri) seem conservative in comparison. The album has a cohesive vision, tying themes of spiritual and material wealth with the dichotomy of the globilization of technology -- bringing the world closer, yet robbing our time with families and neighborhood communities. Several songs have a loose R&B flavor -- "Nothing" begins with an upbeat vibe with vocals by Tina Grace, suggestive of Massive Attack's trippy soul, and "The Preacher" features sermonizing by Chicago soul guru Terry Callier. "Acquired Dreams" places Natacha Atlas' emotive, Arabic vocals in the swirling context of a Bollywood orchestra. "Moonrise" is a brilliant duet between Algerian rai singer Cheb Mami and London-Brazilian Nina Rocha Miranda, embroidered by lovely Flamenco guitar by Jose Miguel Carmona. Words of wisdom are offered by Mandawuy Yunupingu, founder of the Aborigine group Yothu Yindi in "Developed," and snippets of an interview with Nelson Mandela are intertwined with moody strings and Hindustani-style spoken percussion by Trilok Gurtu to mesmerizing effect. Sawhney opens up more personal wounds with the haunting "Cold And Intimate." After such elegiac songs, the funk-metal "Ripping Out Tears" with Ohio rapper Pinky Tuscadero is a bit more jarring than energizing. But the album swings to a dizzying peak with "Prophesy," as the tablas and Sufi chants climb to a frantic crescendo. A landmark release.
When Idaho's Built to Spill released their live album last year it was clear that they were summarizing their career as the penultimate indie-rock guitar jam band, complete with an epic cover of Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer." It was logical that it would be a set-up for a transition. 1999's Keep It Like A Secret perfected their mastery of meandering tunes with majestic solos. On their fifth album, guitarist/songwriter Doug Martsch focuses on the kernals of what had driven them all along -- the melodies. As the album title suggests, if Built To Spill wants to remain relevant in the 21st century, they must evolve. Ancient Melodies comes across shiny and fresh as a newly minted coin. The guitar solos are trimmed to a bare minimum, just enough to get the point across and move on. Rather than relying on eclecticism to give the illusion of being larger than the sum of its parts like Modest Mouse, they have opted to distill their sound to the bare essence. That's not to say the songs are samey, but they are unmistakably Built To Spill's, betraying no discernable influences. Every song follows through on a singular idea rather than jumping around with changes and transitions, not unlike, dare I say it, The Beatles' White Album. "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" is a ridiculously bouncy jaunt. The album wraps up with the love koan of "The Weather" -- "...and the stars gravitate toward you." Pure pop for future hipsters.
It's fitting that the alleged brother-sister duo of Jack and Meg White attracted attention and outrage by allegedly getting married. The pasty-faced Whites are a logical offspring of the incestuous coupling of pasty post-Mod Brits like The Kinks and Led Zeppelin. But like how trash-rock dopplegangers Royal Trux throw some Ornette Coleman in with their Rolling Stones, there are just enough variants in the gene pool to keep The White Stripes sounding fresh. Despite their British influences, they sound distinctly American, like fellow Detroit rockers, the Who-obsessed MC5. The guitar sound is thick and brash. Those expecting the simplicity of similarly sparse outfits like Cash Audio and The Demolition Dolls will be surprised by their full sound, occasionally augmented by piano. Don't be fooled by the way the lyrics and riffs seem tossed off like second thoughts. The arrangements often belie a fussiness that would rival Paul McCartney. White Blood Cells is a carefully conceived album that transcends the more familiar blues 'n' ballads of last year's De Stijl and comes up with their own brand of garage pop. Listen to all three of their albums, and you'll hear the most astounding body of work of any three year-old band currently in existence.
Rock Action is a deliberately ironic title for the Glasgow band's third album. One might say they're breaking the boundaries of rock, but the 38 minutes contained within have less to do with power chords and head-nodding than inner turmoil and contemplation. That's not to say it's all sedate navel-gazing. There's passion in those slow-moving songs. And a fairly radical departure from their first two albums. For one thing, they have introduced vocals with Stuart Braithwaite handling the duties with all the somber ennui of Ian Curtis. On "Dial: Revenge," Super Furry Animals' Gruff Rhys contributes lyrics sung in Welsh. Gone are the Slint and Tortoise influences -- or at least they are receding into the horizon. Part of this is due to Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev/Delgados producer Dave Fridmann. Rock Action serves up more sonic diversity than their previous work, augmenting the dry guitars and brittle drums with strings, horns and, in "O I Sleep," sublime piano by Barry Burns. All is not lush, however. Mogwai keeps you alert by bristling now and then, as on the opening track, "Sine Wave," where a Godspeed You Black Emperor-like grandeur is accented by not-quite excruciating electronic distortion that would fit comfortably on a Kid 606 production. On "2 Rights Make 1 Wrong," the scratchy early-Oval style static can't dispel the reverie cast by the swells and orchestral stretches, tickled by banjo plucks and even a choir. It's as if, after being whisked away by aliens on "Take Me Somewhere Nice," the band are descending back to earth in a post-coital afterglow. Abduction never felt so good.
Considering how hip hop started on the vanguard of electro, sampling Kraftwerk before the majority of mainstream America had ever heard them, it's surprising how slow it's been to incorporate electronica into its palate. While a good number of indie-label rap acts have initiated experiments of sounds pioneered by (Radiohead favorites) Autechre on the Rapid Transit compilation, Harlem-based Cannibal Ox (Vordul Megilah and Vast Aire) have taken the reigns and forged ahead with the full-length Cold Vein, under the guidance of Company Flow's El-P, founder of the fiercely independent Def Jux label. Can Ox takes Dr. Octagon's post-apocalyptic world view and drags it into the sewer ducts with distorted, squalling samples and stuttering beats that sound like jackhammers on dead carcasses. This is not easy listening. It's hip hop noir at its most brutal and dystopic. Yet the rich images conjured by the slashing rhymes and gritty otherworldly samples are inspired. The sonic wreckage and claustrophobia ease up on the last two tracks. "Pigeon" is practically sing-songey in comparison, while the untitled final track features a wavering rhythm that recalls Tricky's Maxingquaye, and an ominous chorus straight out of The Omen. Hear the prophecy at your own risk.
Chocolate Genius, aka Marc Anthony Thompson, is a Brooklyn-based boho-iconoclast who's been around long enough to have released two albums on WB in the eighties. 1998 saw the release of Black Music, his first in a trilogy (or possibly, um, quadogy?) under his new nom de plume. The mostly impenetrable album redefined the meaning of "dark music." Part two is Godmusic, probably just as lyrically downbeat and personal, but with slightly more upbeat, accessible sound. At least after the first few cuts (and "Birth Control"), which are low-key throwaways that recall the similarly unclassifiable Basehead. A grab-bag of styles range from slick soul ("Love") to Isaac Hayes funk ("The Eyes Of The Lord"), and even gruff-voiced folk that is downright Beck-like ("Bossman Piss"). The surprises continue, when "To Serve You" sounds like a lost Peter Gabriel outtake. Godmusic has sincere depth, intensity and occasionally lyrical beauty. Rewards well worth the trip for those who don't get lost in the cluttered maze.
Bilal (Beloved Intelligent Lustful And Livin'-it) Oliver is a talented 22 year-old Philadelphia multi-instrumentalist who is primed to become the next great soul man. And he knows it. In a jubilantly lascivious P-Funk-like intro, Bilal boasts that his debut album will "do to women what most men, most music can't." Unlike just about every modern soul singer aside from D'Angelo, he can back up his claims. 1st Born Second flows like brown sugar dissolved in butter. "I'm like warm lotion on your back, damn!" exclaims Bilal. The sensual grooves are backed up by impressively solid songwriting. At 22, he has matched the craftsmanship Stevie Wonder achieved at the same age with Music of My Mind. It's unlikely he'll manage to pull off a Talking Book, but then again, there's no telling what this talented singer-songwriter is capable of. Falsetto love-man Marvin Gaye-isms, Ohio Players funk, Sly Stone eclectisim and Prince hooks are minced and sprinkled into the mix. The Dr. Dre-produced "Fast Lane" and "Sally" feature helium harmonies and bouncing bottoms reminiscent of George Clinton's Parliament. "For You" furthers the Motheship connection as filtered through Outkast, garnished by somber space-age dub effects. "Reminisce" expresses solidarity with like-minded hip-hop soul brothers, featuring guest rappers Mos Def and Common. Highlighting the center of the album, "All That I Am," "Love It" and the bump 'n' grind single "Soul Sista" demonstrate the infectuous melodicism that makes this album sustain repeated listening and just might allow Bilal to break into the mainstream. The remaining 35 minutes slows the pace and fails to dazzle as brilliantly as the first part of the album. The songs are hardly weak, though. Every cut offers an enjoyable laid-back vibe the will not leave you disappointed. "Home" varies the flavor with traditional reggae, and the album closes with an ambitious, nearly successful jazz fusion that attempts to explore what might have happened had Hendrix and Miles Davis followed through on a collaboration. Bilal's artistry perfectly balances youthful enthusiasm with the light touch of experience and intelligence far beyond his years (and the limited talents of someone like Maxwell). The question is not whether Bilal has arrived -- it's where will he take us next.
In 1997 Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott changed the face of R&B by demonstrating that women don't have to sacrifice dignity and soul and sell their asses to the masses to achieve success. Elliott was sexy without baring flesh, incorporated futuristic beats that bordered on avant-garde, and dared to be weird. After a tepid 1999 follow-up (Da Real World), Elliott and her partner-in-rhythm science Timbaland are back in full force with another cyberfunk classic. Since his success with Supa Dupa Fly and Aaliyah, Timbaland has spread his talents thin. On ...So Addictive, he's refocused and refreshed his bag of rhythm tricks with his original partner. "Get Ur Freak On" is a revelation, with a spastic two-step rendition of Indian tablas. Missy raps in and out and against the stuttering rhythms -- world fusion and spare simplicity -- sounds like a hit to me. "Lick Shots" hits an irresistible dance groove with a minor-key James Brown guitar. "Scream a.k.a. Itchin'" and "4 My People" redefine club music in a unique blend that is not strictly hip-hop nor soul. As inventive as Timbaland's work is, what sets Elliott apart from the pack is her songwriting. After all, she's been making hits for other musicians since the early 90s. The emasculating "One Minute Man" and funky "Old School Joint" weigh in with more lyrical and tuneful substance than any of Elliott's competition and compadres (including guests Ginuwine, Lil' Mo, Jay-Z, Redman, Method Man, Ludacris, Da Brat and Eve) alike. Her ballads ("Take Away," "Step Off") don't quite measure up to those on Supa Dupa Fly. and the flow is interrupted by unwelcome throwaway rants from Busta Rhymes ("Bus-A-Bus Interlude") and . Other songs are charged by infectuous samples of Fela Kuti ("Whtacha Gon' Do") and Parliament ("X-Tasy"). The change from a stoned groove to a scattered frenzy perhaps reflects Elliott's change in her drug of choice. Whether she's paying homage to chemicals or god (in her hidden gospel tracks), Missy Elliott is in full command of the millenium's new mothership.
Lift to Experience, with their ten gallon hats, beards, cowboy shirts and a Denton, Texas home base, look like they would be some sort of alt-country band. That they took their name from a Yoko Ono installation is the first clue that this band is a different sort of bird. A very strange one, at that. With expressionist-feedback My Bloody Valentine guitars and Josh Pearson's Jeff Buckley-inspired vocals, they resemble the British Coldplay more than any American band. Indeed, former Cocteau Twins Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde pitched in mixing assistance, adding an ethereal sheen to the band's concept album -- apocalyptic tales of holy wars and apocalyptic prophecies. The sprawling double CD features lengthy songs averaging about 7 minutes, telling the story "of three Texas boys mindin' their bidness when The Angel Of The Lord appeared unto them . . . " "Down Came The Angels" is quiet, incandescent beauty, while "Falling From Cloud 9," lights up a nuclear blast and exults. Things get utterly disturbing with the darkly prophetic hellfire of "These Are the Days." By "Into the Storm," the ten-minute album closer, you're ready to take cover in a bomb shelter or go hide in French Polynesia, as Pearson proclaims, "When America falls, the world will fall with her." There is much dark beauty to be found in the textures, but the songs could have been more memorable if the band had a more experienced grasp of melody and structure. Overall, a harrowing experience.
It's indicative of the times that the post-Kid A criticisms targeted Radiohead's willful expression of disgust with the status quo by making dark, challenging music. People are surprised when a band doesn't strive to become even more hugely popular by whoring itself to the masses like a slobbering puppy with a wagging tail. In 1981 it was appropriate for bands like The Birthday Party, PiL and The Pop Group to be misanthropic. Now in the vapid sphere of the eager-to-please fellow Brits Doves, Coldplay, Muse and Starsailer, it's unfashionable. It's refreshing to see Radiohead not give the people what they want, but still #1. To me it's way more unprecedented and impressive than Nirvana's radio-friendly ascent ten years ago. Contrary to popular belief, Amnesiac is not an exercise in testing the audience's patience. It's a sincere effort to continue Radiohead's artistic evolution. On initial listens, it does slightly disappoint, sounding like a more disjointed Kid B. But just like its big brother, Amnesiac grows with every listen. The most immediately accessible tracks, "Pyramid Song" and "Life In A Glasshouse" are a continuation of the band's dialogue with the legacy of Charles Mingus, initiated on Kid A's highpoint, "The National Anthem." "Pyramid Song" flows gracefully like primordial mud at the bottom of the Egyptian Nile, while "Life In A Glasshouse" bows out with the cacophony of a New Orleans funeral parade. "I Might Be Wrong" is based on an irresistably propulsive, gutural riff, and "Knives Out" that merited it being released as the second single after "Pyramid Song." The more difficult listening ensues with "Packt Like Sardines In A Crushed Tin Box." Much to some fans' chagrin, Yorke's neo-Jeff Buckley wail has been compressed, morphed, beaten, processed and repackaged into indecipherable utterings and tones. It's obvious that a lot of thought had gone into reconfiguring the voice as an instrument, and the results are really quite impressive. "Morning Bell/Amnesiac," a remake from Kid A, is just as good as the original, conjuring an image of a massive, chiming crystal cathedral. The jazzy "Dollars & Cents" could have been inspired by Naomi Klein's anti-commercialism book No Logo, which was on every bandmember's reading list. Though only fragments of lyrics are decipherable, "You And Whose Army?" is clearly an angry indictment of Tony Blair, challenging him and "your cronies" to "take us on." The diminutiveYorke might just kick his ass through force of will. "Hunting Bears" is the album's only throwaway -- a slight guitar diddle by Johnny Greenwood. One could say Radiohead have done nothing new compared to the artists that inspired them -- Aphex Twin, Autechre and others on the Warp label. But while those artists pioneered certain types of experimental sounds, Radiohead made the innovations work in the context of actual songs. The artistic achievement is increased tenfold by Radiohead simply being Radiohead. A band on the brink of godlike superstardom eschews that path for artistic exploration, prompting controversy and discussion that has revitalized a small, crucial part of mainstream music. And anyone who has seen their recent tour knows that they have turned their cranky little songs into an explosive live show -- an awesome achievement resulting in currently the best performances on the planet.
Of the singers left standing after the fallout of the Seattle sound, all bets were on Chris Cornell, who unfortunately fell flat on his face with his first solo attempt. Screaming Trees' Mark Lanegan, sometimes referred to as the best voice in rock, has been recording solo albums ever since 1990's The Winding Sheet. His persistence and productiveness has rewarded us with Field Songs, Lanegan's fifth and strongest album. The album is nearly entirely folk based, with the exception of "No Easy Action," a dramatic Afghan Whigs-style rocker co