more abuse of nonexistent word limits... selected "day job" output circa june-july 2008. some swedish stuff [currentish, poppish]; some soulful stuff [future/retro], and...here's the shocka: some honest-to-goodness (vintage) swedish soul. who knew? i can barely contain myself (but i did.) oh yeah, and a mediocre dancelectrockpop record (did i ever decide what to call that?) from canada. as always, you can click through to [slightly longer, usually] full version of the reviews in situ. 
Advance hype fueled by the Little Bit EP had Lykke Li pegged as the next in a growing string of cool-kid-approved perfect-pop fixes to leak out from Sweden's endless supply, but Youth Novels doesn't entirely play out as expected, with neither Robyn's electronic dance-pop precision nor the affable strumming of Jens Lekman or Peter Björn and John (whose Björn Yttling handles production duties here and co-wrote every track). Although it does bear some traces of these approaches, as well as El Perro Del Mar's earnest melancholia, it's decidedly odder and harder to pin down, proffering an idiosyncratic, stripped-down vision of pop that foregrounds repetition and simplicity over familiarity or even melody (though rest assured, there is ample catchiness to be had here). The graceful symphonic layering of the beat-less, spoken-word opener "Melodies and Desires" starts things off on a deceptively lush note, but much of the album is about as instrumentally sparse as pop can get, often sounding as though it were cobbled together from a scrap yard of barely functioning instruments and non-instruments. The painfully introverted hip-shaker of "Dance Dance Dance" ("my hips they lie/cause in reality I'm shy shy shy") lilts atop an aptly minimalist groove consisting of nothing but two insistently bowed bass notes, some found-sounding percussion, and a brief sax solo, while even the assertive standout "I'm Good, I'm Gone" gets by on little more than hand claps, driving drums, a bit of vibraphone doubling, and a simple bass line pounded out on a piano's lower register. These and the similarly skeletal arrangements that make up much of the album are deployed inventively enough that they rarely feel incomplete, but they're effective mainly because they keep the focus squarely on Lykke Li's understated yet captivating vocals. It's a daringly direct approach that emphasizes Li's marked emotionality (which runs the range from tenderness to bitterness), and allows songs to succeed -- or, rarely, flounder -- on their merits. Brimming with ideas but understated, even tentative in executing them, and big on hooks but nervously intimate in presentation, Youth Novels is a curious, decidedly unorthodox but endearing record. Both novel and youthful -- Li was twenty-one upon its release, which may explain both her occasional goofy vocal affectations and the hesitant freshness of her sound -- it's hard to pigeonhole but refreshingly easy to enjoy.
Cloetta Paris is easy enough to lump in with the Italo-Disco revival of the mid-late 2000s, and she certainly shares many of the relevant '80s-dance reference points, but her sweet, lovingly crafted ten-song debut also functions as a reminder that - hipster-historical trendspotting notwithstanding - sentimental synthesizer pop hasn't exactly gone anywhere in the last 25 years. From always-reliable originators the Pet Shop Boys - still going strong - to indie pop pioneers St. Etienne, Momus and Stephin Merrit (in his various guises), underground torchbearers like I Am The World Trade Center, Baxendale and Soviet, and high-profile resurgents like the Postal Service and Ladytron, people never really stopped making music that sounds like this, especially in Scandinavia (the home of Europop from Abba to Ace of Base to Annie.) Secret Eyes fits right in with both the overtly dancy and the more song-oriented strains of this tradition, boasting prominent beats and synth hooks as well as a readily evident, quintessentially twee-pop heart - no surprise considering that Roger Gunnarsson, who wrote and produced the album under the pseudonym Clive Reynolds, has long been an active figure on Sweden's indie-pop scene, but also due in equal measure to Cloetta's fragile, winsome vocals, delivered with just a dash of classically indie detachment. All that said, there's no point pretending that Cloetta Paris is doing anything breathtakingly original here - still, this kind of music always has a certain freshness when it's done really well, and Secret Eyes has enough creativity, charm, and good old-fashioned catchiness to capture that spirit common to all the best synth-pop, regardless of era. Manna for mixtapes and dancefloors alike.
"Evading the structures, waiting to fall but not quite yet"
- so read the liner notes to the second EP from Air France, which arrived a year and a half after their slight but celebrated debut release, On Trade Winds. Partially excerpted from "No Excuses," the EP's most lyrically and rhythmically prominent cut, it's an apt epigraph for the duo's music, which seems to evade conventional structures both compositional and taxonomic, while evoking the sense of openness, endless possibility, and detachment from reality that can come in moments of transition and in-betweenness. Evocation is more or less Air France's primary mode of functioning - their defining characteristic is how much more difficult (and, seemingly, less relevant) it is to describe what they actually sound like than to list the images they so dreamily conjure up: beach parties, sea foam, airiness, swaying palm trees, endless summer, indescribable bliss... At twenty-three minutes, No Way Down comes close to doubling its length of its predecessor (at this rate, the group should have a full album's worth of material by at least 2010), but its contents follow similar, utterly distinctive paths of lush, hazy, atmospheric pop/techno/faux-worldbeat-psychedelia. "Maundy Thursday" and "Windmill Wedding" are the cinematic, near-ambient book-ending tracks - one stately and enigmatic, the other gracefully meandering - while the four pieces which form the EP's core are slightly longer groove-based excursions that feel simultaneously exultant and wistful. Sonically, almost nothing is off-limits so long as it's swathed in a sufficient amount of reverb - "June Evenings" alone encompasses birdsongs and basslines, trumpets, strings, and marimbas (real or synthesized), countless layers of synths and breathy, indecipherable vocals, off-tuned guitar strums, and sampled shouts of "bombaclat!" Expanding and improving upon their already striking debut, No Way Down) is a stunning accomplishment on so many levels: the amount of care and attention to detail that so clearly went into its creation; its stylistic uniqueness (The Avalanches' Since I Left You is a ready and resonant point of comparison in spirit and tone, but you'd be hard pressed to find much out there that truly sounds like this); and sheer, subjective beauty. Clearly aware of their own strengths, they're somehow too earnest and endearing even to come off as cocky for alluding to them, as they do, subtly, in a dialogue snippet looped intermittently throughout "Collapsing at Your Doorstep", which more or less sums it all up: "Sorta like a dream, isn't it?" "No: better."
A vintage pop oddity of sorts, but one that's worthwhile for its musical content at least as much as its curiosity value, the lone LP by Swedish chanteuse Doris (née Svensson) is an accomplished and somewhat offbeat collection of lush pop, soul and light funk. Cut in 1970 with a handful of veteran Swedish jazz and rock musicians who sound completely at home playing in a variety of primarily American idioms, Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby? reveals Doris to be a singer of considerable range and plenty of personality. She's a throaty belter on the funky, country-inflected "Waiting at the Station," the Northern Soul-styled groovers "Don't" and "Beatmaker" and the brassy pop-soul title tune (even coming off a bit worryingly unhinged as she exhorts "you've got to love the one you love/and the whole darn world as well") - but she scales back the fireworks for sweet, if somewhat fey, ballads like "Grey Rain of Sweden" and "Daisies," which call to mind the sophisticated songwriter pop of fellow lost gem Margo Guryan. There's also a heartfelt, tastefully orchestrated rendition of the Band's "Whispering Pines," and - easily the album's most unusual moment - the bizarre, unsettling jazz-psychedelia of "You Never Come Close," which sounds like nothing you'd expect to hear on an ostensibly pop record from any era (it evokes something similar to Portishead's enigmatic melancholy, or Candie Payne's tormented retro-pop noir, several decades down the line.) Add in a smattering of upbeat big-band swing tunes - "I'm Pushing You Out" and the organ-led shuffle "I Wish I Knew" - the goofy, vaudeville-ish "Won't You Take Me To The Theatre," and a jaunty cover of Harry Nilsson's "Bath", and you've got a true smörgåsbord - a little something for everybody, although it's all still quite listenable as a single entity. The world may not have given Doris much love in her day, but she's certainly comparable in terms of raw vocal ability to would-be peers like Lulu and Petula Clark - or, as the liner notes suggest, Melanie - arguably outstripping them in the adventurousness of her musical range (in a single album, no less), and is outfitted here with perfectly decent if not necessarily exceptional material. Worth rediscovering, particularly since several CD reissues have made it readily available.
To judge strictly from the album artwork, living with Philip Owusu and Robin Hannibal (who, if you want to get technical, actually live across the street from one another, in Copenhagen's poly-ethnic Nørrebro neighborhood) would involve a lot of lounging around, eating spaghetti in front of the TV in an apartment cluttered with dirty clothes, blank CDs, musical instruments, and greasy pizza boxes. The music on Living With... isn't anywhere near that slovenly -- in fact, it's quite meticulous; artfully arranged and layered with crisp, inventive production -- but it would be ideally suited to such a laid-back, lazily indulgent lifestyle. The tempo rarely rises above a genial amble as electronically tweaked R&B grooves, twitchy but languorous, stretch on into the five- to six-minute range, and even those that don't seem like they should (indeed, the album feels longer than its relatively concise one-hour length). It's good stuff, inspired even, as urban-inflected downtempo music goes -- certainly several notches hipper than your average mass-market chillout release -- but the first half of the album, in particular, tends to drag on one's attention, in spite of unconventional production touches, Owusu's capable neo-soul vocal stylings (he recalls a less strained Jamie Lidell), and intriguingly oblique lyrics if you can be bothered to pay attention (an exception, and a highlight, is the would-be baby-making slow jam "A Million Babies," with the admission "I'm really too drunk tonight to try"). Half an hour in, however, Owusu & Hannibal reveal that they've got more up their sleeves than a somewhat tepid 21st century updating of quiet storm's relentless vibe: "What It's About," an abrupt about-face from nearly everything else on the album, is a practically perfect, if decidedly eccentric, pop song, strikingly reminiscent of soulful sophisti-pop greats Scritti Politti. Consisting of very little other than doubled falsetto vocals, luscious backing "oohs," and a syncopated, Bo Diddley-esque drumbeat, with some occasional electronic embellishments (those 808 cowbells), it has the infectious simplicity and flirtatious nonchalance of a naughty schoolyard ditty, with surreal, hilariously confused pubescent sex fantasy lyrics to match. Laid-back but utterly funky, it's an unexpected standout that isn't really followed up on anywhere else on the disc, although the lovely, lilting "Watch" (which seems to be about either voyeurism or watching TV on the couch, or both) is nearly as appealing in its way (and features a quirky, FutureSex/LoveSounds-styled extended coda). Otherwise, the album's second half does have more of interest to offer than the first, including the digital electro grooves of "Upstairs Downstairs" and "Another Mile" and a touching cover of the Beach Boys classic "Caroline No."
A solid serving of contemporary funk at its finest, Breakestra's first outing for Ubiquity moves beyond the classic funk covers of their Live Mix series for a set of all original material, and the results are consistently impressive. Mind, the songs - roughly half of them instrumental, the rest mostly party-minded jams sung with ample soul chops by Mix Master Wolf and Breakestra ringleader "Music Man" Miles Tackett - aren't necessarily going to stick in your head for days, nor are they even all that easy distinguish one from another (the soulful, mid-tempo "Hiding" and the street-racing story-rap "Hit Tha Flo!" are among the more distinctive.) But they sound great while they're playing, and most importantly they never get in the way of the relentlessly funky grooves and top-notch ensemble playing which are this record's unambiguous raison d'être. As contemporary interest in vintage funk and soul continues to develop - by the mid-2000s, the music was becoming more prominent in the American popular consciousness than it had been since its heyday in the '60s and '70s - it remains to be seen whether its current practitioners will find a way past the nostalgic lens that necessarily accompanies their chosen style (by which standard the highest possible compliment would be "Hey, this sounds like it was recorded in 1972!") For their part Breakestra seem content simply to channel the spirit of the classic funk bands - the JB's, the Meters, Tower of Power, etc. - something they do exceedingly well - with neither the self-consciously retro trappings of their East Coast counterparts the Dap-Kings nor any apparent compulsion to innovate, although they do highlight their hip-hop roots with the stand-out posse cut "Family Rap," featuring members of Jurassic 5 and People Under The Stairs. No more or less than flawlessly executed stylistic revivalism, Hit the Floor is highly recommended to anybody who enjoys a good groove.
As stated right there on its garish, rather incongruous fuchsia cover, Because You're Funky is a compilation of rare funk 45s - more specifically, it's an incredibly solid compilation of twenty-four ultra-rare, never-before-[and-scarcely-since]-compiled instrumental funk and soul 45s dating from the mid-'60s through the early '70s, culled from the crates of veteran British DJ/collector The Rustler (aka Russ Smith, formerly a guitarist with A.R. Kane.) If anything is known about the colorfully-named outfits responsible for these scorching sides, you're not going to find it here - a far cry from the lovingly-annotated likes of, for instance, The Numero Group's Eccentric Soul series, although the music is every bit as worthy of such treatment, the information contained in the liners is limited to songwriting credits and occasionally a producer, presumably transcribed off the 45s themselves. In that respect the set fails as history lesson, although the very obscurity and anonymity of so many eminently enjoyable, if admittedly generic, recordings may suggest some history in itself, an evocation of the grassroots energy, seemingly endless wealth of talent, and lack of critical regard that accompanied funk music in its original flourishing as vernacular form. In any case, the volume of scraggly guitar licks, hip-hugging basslines, ragged but righteous horn sections, reedy organs, and hard-hitting drum breaks amassed here is just staggering. It nearly risks being too much of a good thing, unless of course you're a true funk fiend, but there's just enough subtle variety in sound and feel to keep casual more listeners grooving. And yes - it barely requires mentioning - this is a dynamite party record.
Toronto's Woodhands mine similarly vigorous, often abrasive, electronic dance-punk territory to the likes of Austin's Ghostland Observatory and England's Does It Offend You, Yeah? (those are just among the more recently notable of an extensive, overcrowded lineage). Their main point of distinction being that they do it all non-digitally, with real drums, analog synths, keytars, and so forth, and reportedly recreate it all live (an impressive feat given that they're just a duo). You might not think that such a commitment to (frankly, pretty flimsy) 'authenticity' would count for very much when translated to disc, but Heart Attack does maintain a sort of unrelenting grubbiness (despite some very sharp, precise playing) which helps to evoke the breathless energy of a sweaty, uninhibited dance party. Plus, it's just relentless: save for the brief ambient break "Monsterdinosaur" (a waste of a decent title) and the halfway credible, if ironic, slow jam "Straighten the Curtain," the beats barely let up for an instant, even between songs, though they do grow somewhat more nuanced as the album progresses. The jokey "Dancer" will grab attention with its insistent crunch and the absurd interplay between guest vocalist Maylee Todd's cooed verses and Dan Werb's manic, aggressive ranting (the hook, in case you can't decipher it: "You're a very good dancer!/What is your name?/What is your name?"), while "I Can't See Straight" is deliciously menacing with its strobed synths and stuttered breakdowns, but the really good stuff comes through in individual moments more than entire songs. Though there are synth riffs and processed vocal hooks sprinkled liberally throughout, the ride is mostly worth it for the unexpected groove shifts and jammed variations that come toward the close of most tracks. As party music -- and there's little pretense that this is anything else -- it's perfectly serviceable stuff, and more inspired than plenty of the recent output in this vein.
04 August 2008
AMG review round-up, volume VI
03 August 2008
[oh] waitin' for the hits to hit
something is missing from 2008 so far. not great music - there seems to be plenty of that around, and seemingly even more around every corner you look [whoa!] - but there is a conspicuous dearth of POP AWESOMENESS.
i went out dancing last night, and i recognized nearly every song the djs played. that's not the problem... well, i guess it's a different problem. this problem is what became evident when they played a very large majority of the amazingly excellent mainstream pop/dance hits of the last ten-plus years (and also a bunch from the '80s, the early-mid-'90s, and the jackson five), and... i believe, exactly three songs that were released this year.
i have been feeling a little out of it lately, to be sure, as far as pop POP pop music goes. [been traveling, and finding myself unable to successfully download anything, and focusing my deep-listening attention mostly on un-famous local folk singers and (this week anyway) minor swedish indie-pop albums from 2003-5, you know the drill.] but i'm sneaking to suspect that there just hasn't been much worth keeping-up about anyway, notwithstanding the essential underlying maxim [which i...more or less believe] that there's always an equal amount of equally amazing music out there at any given time, it may just take greater or lesser amount of effort to discover it.
hm. but even that's a little beside the point, because there's something specific about pop music that really is popular; that doesn't require energy to discover; especially if it's not just popular but massive, so much so that the proverbial everybody can't help but be aware of it. that's the kind of thing they were playing last night [and, yknow, every saturday nite, which is why i don't really like to go to those kind of places more than, well, actually about as often as i can get a group to go with me anyway]: "crazy in love" [omg!], "since you been gone" [omg!], "gimme more" [omg!], "work it" [omg!], "got yr money" [odb!], "don't you want me"/"wannabe"/"kiss" [er...yeah!], and no less than three songs by mr. west mr. west [omfj!...i just actually bought graduation, for $5.99, almost worth it for the artwork and cultural sig factor but, jeez... it is such a not-that-good album. i just do not get how ppl see this as primary evidence of hip-hop's vitality...ok whatevs.]
rite. now, there is a sort of standard trope around this time of year (or usually a bit earlier, when more organized folks do the half-year list thing) bemoaning the lack of good music/albumz, until there's an onslaught of high-pro releases (or, more likely, ppl discovering things they'd passed over earlier) and the rush of year-end list thinging and everybody's ready to declare it the best year since whenever. i'm not feeling that now, actually. there have been a dang bunch of good albums that i've already been rocking [see best of 2008 sidebar], and more that i'm sure are good but haven't quite gotten my head around yet... and even a decent number of pretty excellent dance jams [short list: "far away," "ready for the floor," kelley polar's "entropy reigns in the celestial city," ashlee's "boys," juvelen's multiple bangers, most of the hercules album...] [then, complicating things a bit, there's also a number of great things that hit at the end of '07, which might make sense to include in this year's reckoning - including "is it you?," "see you again," sophie ellis-bex and amy diamond's albums, jordin sparks and kylie's x, all of which have continued to improve in my estimation well into this year]
long-rant-reduced, haven't been feeling very poptimistic of late (whaddaya call pop pessimism?), which is i guess why i am relieved, if not actually that surprised, to see that the folks that make it their business to follow this stuff (and whose ranks i would probably join if days [and/or nights] were 48 hours long) more or less agree with me. that thread lays out essentially my thesis above, albeit more with an eye to critics' polls than clubland funtime (also, i am just starting to wonder a little about what will happen to my new years eve dance mix this year - the last two felt so overflowing with pop goodness that they practically made themselves...) they have more candidates/near-misses discussion fodder than me (gotta play me some catchup), so let's take a look at some of that:
curiously, in the roughly 40 tracks they've brought up in the comments thread, they neglected two of the decidedly prominent songs i heard at the club last nite: "i kissed a girl" (which i've actually only heard a couple times, but have been pre-emptively brainwashed into indignantly dismissing by mr. bedbugs, and yeah, whatever, is clearly not in the same league as "girlfriend" or whatever would be comparable, though it's not un-catchy - max/luke pedigree obv. counts for something) and "low" (which, empirically, seems like easily the biggest song of the year so far - i like it only middling - maybe a 6/10 - but i don't mind dancing to it, and i have been enjoying the gradual realization that the artist is not named "florida", nor is he named "flo rida" like "flo'" like as in "hitting tha flo" [like in the lyrics, = floor], but rather "flo rida," as in flow rider. oh yeah, duh. and why didn't somebody think of that before?)
they also neglected probably my personal favorite big pop song of the year, "senxsual sedrupction" [omg it definitely needs to be referred to thus], which i really hope didn't hit too early for people to remember it. [esp. rmx ft. robyn. speaking of, did she strike pop bronze even in the u.s.? guess not?] oh, and they snubbed "in this club", which i at first thought was just preposterously derivative and faceless, and - actually, i still think that, but i now kind of love it, perhaps for those exact qualities. hearing it blasting out of one of the beachfront mall stores in eilat this june, when i was wandering alone and wading into the starlit water, was definitely a turning point in my relationship with it. they also did not mention madonna. i haven't given up on her yet, but i guess they're probably right.
they did mention the third '08 jam that was pumped at silk city last night [twice, i believe]: "american boy", which i would probably like a lot more if it didn't always every time make me think of the will.i.am track from last year on which it is baldfacedly based, and which i apparently think is far superior (hm, i guess i do.) which so far has prevented me from really engaging with it. too bad. i loved estelle's "1980" a few years back, not that anybody heard it in this country.
other things they mentioned to which i say "well yes, there is that...":
"shawty get loose"
"wearing my rolex"
"time to pretend" [i guess...]
things i had not properly heard/processed, but must investigate further:
solange knowles - "sandcastle disco" [heard her other one that sounds like the supremes, and i liked it a good bit. this one jacks the beat from "young folks." so basically she's doing the '60s/motown revivalism, but in a way that sounds surprisingly fresh so far.]
rihanna - "disturbia" [sounded meh at first, especially from the queen of late-'00s summer monster-jams, but we'll see]
missy - "best best" [ditto. what about the other missys though, from step up 2 - i liked them jawns]
ciara - "high price"
mystery jets [liked the sound of this one]
"the rolex sweep" [oh, my goodness... - scroll ahead for the actual dance instructions]
bassline [the genre - i love the name of it but it doesn't seem to be a very apt description of the sound, which is too bad...]
what-else?
i remain, thus far, pretty much underwhelmed by ms. santogold. have not really given ms. duffy a proper but she doesn't seem terribly exciting either. i like "early winter" but wasn't that like two years ago? and i think i like alphabeat, but not sure yet. apparently sway's got a hot new one? ["f ur x" - it's on the mix he gave me at sxsw!] looking forward for cassie and annie and i guess ryan leslie [and beyonce? now that would probably about clinch it.]
and then there's mr. wayne. oh dear. basically, i am [still?] not [particularly?] a [very big?] lil wayne fan. which makes me feel more out of it than anything. but, really, is he even a pop artist? is his medium "songs"? i can't sing you a single hook of his. "a milli" is what they're liking these days? three listens so far, and not sold... but i guess we'll see there too.
[eta: future research avenues may include checking in on the 2008 output of production heavyweights -
the clutch
bloodshy and avant
timbo/danja
max/luke
stargate
who else?]
29 July 2008
i'm goin' where there's no digression
in the spirit of blogging in the moment... some quick jots on tonight's show at the world cafe with jimmy dale gilmore, once described, as he proudly related to us, as "a man who never met a digression he didn't like." an alleged undersung granddaddy of alt-country (as a member of the semi-mythical trio the flatlanders), a silver-haired folk-blueser more hippy than hillbilly, best known among many (including matt, who got me the comp) as smoky the pacifist bowler from the big lebowski, with an understated, mildly pinched but resonant warbly voice, in moments recalling the grandeur of (fellow lubbock-ite) roy orbison.
also, jenny scheinman, who has a slightly harsh look about her, and sang newly-minted folk-style songs with a soft, hypnotic calm, about pine and cedar boxes and hallelujah and other things too fleeting to latch onto. (later on, during the main set, she took the mike again for jelly roll morton's "whinin' boy," which was considerably more direct and dynamic than anything in her set proper.)
she - a violinist well-known in instrumental ("jazz" - she said the word almost with disdain) circles, but here a fiddler true and blue - and the two guitarists who backed her also formed gilmore's backing trio. there was a slightly awkward onstage dynamic marked by a certain amount of hesitancy from adam levy, of norah jones' band, who'd just joined the lineup a matter of days ago, and the subtle efforts by robbie gjersoe, a longtime gilmore sideman, to keep the group on track, while jimmy himself rambled genially and aimlessly ("what if i actually said something important?... what would that be like?") not that the performance was sloppy - it wasn't; these guys are pros, and scheinman and gjersoe's playing in particular was rife with tasty licks and chops - but it was easy to imagine how much more compelling a set like this could have been with a truly tight and seasoned band.
the show got a good deal more engaging and varied, and looser, about a third of the way through jdg's set, when he began playing others' tunes (among them butch hancock, lefty frizell,
and harlan howard) instead of his own, which he described as not as good, but "just good enough." jenny, politicly, begged to differ on that point (he later described hers as "strange", with melodies always going in places his mind couldn't quite understand)...but i'd have to agree with him on that assessment, as well as on his trumpeting of his own excellent taste. the show itself, and the impression of gilmore's artistry that i gleaned from it, runs roughly along those lines: not necessarily brilliant or exceptional - though this is not to discount his entirely endearing onstage personality; he himself is certainly something to cherish (his rambling ways make one wonder what he was like in younger days) - but plenty good enough, for sure, for a good enough time.
22 July 2008
summer stock 08
been doing a lot of traveling (hence all the not-posting, not to mention the not-making-mixes, etc.) and actually none of it has been music tourism (although i was sorely tempted by the pitchfork fest lineup this year... too bad i can only think of 1 friend who likes in chicago, and planes are so spenny, and i was away every other weekend)... but even so i have managed to see a few shows here and there.
tonight, for instance, i was at the mann center to hear the philly orchestra play carmina burana. righteous good fun, and appropriately accompanied with beer, bread and cheese. just like the middle ages. that makes three free mann shows out of three, with last year's decemberists + orchestra and, a couple weeks back,
ani difranco and regina spektor @ the mann music center
great. i'd been thinking about going, but wouldn't have except matt called me up an hour before show time with an offer of two comps... complete with after-show passes which enabled us to, er, stand around in the grass for awhile and chat with matt's client [difranco bassist todd sickafoose.] ah well.
regina was adorable and definitely kookier than i remembered to expect - she has almost a nellie mckay vibe, though slightly more of-this-century - and her vocal ability is frequently stunning. she played basically all the songs from that album [begin to hope, all i know of her...for now], at least all the ones i could think of, and some others that were just as enjoyable. mostly just solo piano (2-chord guitar on "that time" and another one), though for her last number she had a beatboxer accompany her on the "orca whales and owls" song (which is so poppy - could totally be a big radio hit with the right production.) (you see how i'm being too lazy to look things up? that's good - it makes the blogprocess go much faster and increases the chances that i'll actually finish this and post it.) i couldn't believe she screwed up and stopped and false-restarted in the middle of "fidelity." that was pretty hilarious...
i don't understand the song "samson" (which was easily the most-requested, and was her penultimate selection) - is she supposed to be delilah or a previous lover? if its the former, why does she say the bible doesn't mention them? maybe i don't know the story well enough.
finally, the second half of the second verse of "on the radio" is so beautiful (from memory, so maybe a bit off): no this is how it works/you peer inside yourself/you take the things you like/and try to love the things you took/then you take the love you made/and stick it into some/one else's heart/pumping someone else's blood/and walking arm in arm/you hope it don't get hard/but even if it does/you start it all again. those are some great lyrics.
ani ani ani. wow, i saw her 10 years ago. nine maybe? (it was pre-up up up up up up, i remember, so yeah) have barely paid attention to anything she's done since the first track on the album after that...i wonder what percentage of her audience is, like me, essentially nostalgia fans, not an "active" following. anyway, she played enough new and old songs to please everyone as far as i could tell, me definitely included. "you had time" and "untouchable" and closing dance-number "shameless" and three from [her best alb] little plastic castle including [her best song] "as is" [maybe??] the new ones were plenty good too if characteristically a bit preachy - hey, it's a good thing! - strawberries in super supermarkets and the intelligent design manifested in the atom (i thought there was a line about "the science of boom" but actually it's "doom," a less good phrase, and she was lazy in the factchecking on "i bet there were no women in the room...) oh yeah, she's still a sick sick guitarist...
what else? finally started acting like the west philly folks musicky scener i'm a wannabe, saw
birdie busch, emily bate, a brief view of the hudson @ the green line,
mannerwhich was my first shermanarts/greenline show, and my first time hearing birdie and really my first time seeing em, except that one time with her rock band in a basement and also rehearsing on her roof. she and her music continue to be a total joy - she just gave me her last alb which i am just digging into (somewhat more generic and gestatory, you can tell, also feistier - still well creamy) - and her overall enthusiasm as a human being is only amplified in her on-stage manner (i keep thinking that ani line about a "chipper cheerful free-for-all") new roomie/2nd gtr/banjo(!) buddy zach(k?) is a poker-faced foil. that works out pretty well.
hell, she didn't play every song on fever in the feast.... i'm just gonna have to go see her again sometime and get my "greyhound"/"limos"/"mlle labelle" fix [the all-important midsection]. actually come to think of it she only did five out of ten. loved mouthing along to "warning." loved the gossipy new song with some of her snappiest lyrics (a kiss in the park/a shot in the dark... i've got to hear them again), about easy/difficult nights with difficult/easy women (so typical how she shirks the question of how it will work the third time by...not having a third verse, just ending with a bridge drifting into wordless vowel abruption. "girls with my same name" is still an all-killing #1 [w/ a bullet] in rossland...
hum yeah. also really really liked birdie busch. i think, as a person first, b/c that's how it works with folk, sometimes. it's, there's nothing especially outstanding about her playing or her singing or her songwriting, even, and that's almost exactly it, her charm is all about understated, down-to-earth, genuine normalness (seems normal if you know people like i know people), and that's captivating. b/c it's relatable. and don't we all want some more normalness in our lives (in certain ways, that is.) i mean, the flowery summer-dress is good too. and, especially, her homespun phillyphilia - "i really love it here... i love you guys" she said in reference to having had a sour time in brooklyn the night before, but in the kind of way that means a lot more from five feet away in the local neighborhood coffeeshop even than it would oh twenty feet away in the local districthood public-radio-run 'dedicated music venue.' do you know? we can feel good about being just us, and getting each other.
i bought both birdie's albs for about $2.49 plus shipping online (i figure i'll just slip her a tenner next time i see her around the hood, which i feel like i have twice since the show, though maybe i'm making it up.) so we'll see if that song about the boyfriend giving her an old lp of "songs he thought would last" lives up to the neatness of the concept i thought i heard in it, and if the huff singers song has as much replay value as it has goodhearted plain-spoken earnestness, and so on. as engaging as she was, with simple but sturdy structures to her citysongs, i still found my mind wandering mid-lyric when i thought i was right with her. no matter. i know she don't mind no.
oh yeah - openers brief view of the hudson were also really nice - boy-girl folk-blues hearty-harmonists, emphasis on the latter half of each phrase there - though the most striking thing might have been how uncannily more intoxicating it was when their voices blended on a single line than when they sang separately, even overlapping lines. and how many '00s-era 'mericans have written songs about katrina invoking the primal water/flood/deep-south imagery? that's a good one.
how about besides lady songwriters? saw
juvelen @ the annex on the lower east side.
i told y'all about juvelen right? right. just happened to notice on his myspace that he'd be in new york for three shows the week after i wrote the album review. three shows in somewhat random venues at random times - apparently they were put together with the help of matt from it's a trap, my fellow scandinavian music enthusiast and webcritic, who also reviewed the album, and whom i met at the show. wasn't hard to spot him, as apart from my tiny posse of ben and nan (whom we coaxed along after randomly spotting her umbrella-shopping at uniqlo) and juvelen/jonas's girlfriend, he was evidently the only other person there who was aware in the slightest of the immense and potentially explosive poptalent we were there to witness.
it went something like this:
7:20- roll into the joint and wander up to the balcony to keep an eye on the late-HS/early-college somethings who are onstage diligently delivering their overwrought one-gimmick prog-indie rock'n'rote with a somewhat Arcade-Fiery scope and sobriety. (at least until the keyboardist slams a little too hard on his instrument with his foot and it crashes onto the floor.)
8:00- head back downstage as jonas the 31-year-old one-man boy-band takes the stage and suffuses the largely empty bar with several bursts of synthtastic sentimental dance-pop euphoria, giving it a considerable amount of guts and gusto considering the near-absence of any attention he was receiving. ben and i stand tentatively toward the wall halfway back in the empty "audience" area, tapping our feet and reservedly wiggling in place.
8:10- we fully loosen our ties and wtfs and give it a bit of the ol' h-c-g-d-a, crunkadelic-style for a few songs; juvelen seems appreciative.
8:15- set's over. j packs up his stuff and goes to chat with matt and his gf at the bar; we go say hi and talk a bit too (tho i wasn't there when j sheepishly admitted to ben, by way of explaining his recent transformation to solo pop-god that he "was late to pick up on prince" or something like that) until the next band starts and it's too noisy to continue.
oh man he better blow up. he just better.
one more, which may take so much explaining to begin with that i'm not sure i'll have the energy left to add my own comments...
damon albarn presents the honest jons revue @ lincoln center
as pictured above. i'd just link you to the press release, but it's weirdly hard to track down. screw it. so damon albarn (maybe the biggest-name/lowest-pretension/highest success-rate recent rockstar-turned-freelance-collaborator/label-head/project-whore/general musical shepherd, though frankly i'd be just as happy if he ever allowed blur to really become a going concern again...) rounded up tony allen, candi staton, a bunch of malian musicians, many of whom he'd worked with on mali music, an underheralded, unassuming personal favorite of mine, a 6-or-7-or-8-piece jazz-funk brass band of brothers who usually play in union square subway, and a couple of singer-songwriters, and stuck them all on stage together.
a tight two-hour show in the swanky-stuffy avery fisher hall, i was worried it was either going to drag and be drab or else feel not nearly long enough to take in all the talent on hand. actually it was just about right lengthwise, and about as satisfactory as i could have realistically imagined. there was some amount of cross-pollination, as allen and the hypnotic brass acted more or less as the house band for anybody who needed it (albarn's right-hand guitarist simon tong was also on hand, and maybe a bassist or two, though damon himself did little more that add a bit of harmonium and melodica color here and there which you could barely even hear.) but for most of the show it was just one thing after another, rapid-fire, blues to brass to folk to soul and back to africana, one song apiece for kokanko sata, who is unmistakably virtuosic on her deceptively dinky-looking 3-string harp, traditionally a male-only instrument; victoria williams, southern folkslinger whom the program described as "notably eccentric" [how do you think that makes her feel, guys?]; candi staton [omg candi staton...more on that in a second...]; the aptly-named hypnotics, whose opening selection was a good deal subtler and less blazingly groovy than i'd have guessed, though they did that too; 'desert blues' demigod afel boucom; cutesy simple-song folker simone white (liked her a lot - a bunny in a bunny suit/tiger in a tiger mask...) and yeah.
ok, all so good, musical talent, yes yes, multicultural swath, very impressive. hands-down, though, the most stirring and memorable parts for me were the considerable number of songs i actually knew [thanks i guess to my hj's via astralwerks hookup back in college paper days]... most of them from mali music, a surprise since it's six years old now, but not, since many of these were the guys who played on it originally and (i sometimes forget), "world musicians" will more or less draw from a finite compositional repertoire just like western pop artists do. so yes, there were a handful of pieces i smilingly recognized from that album, including the (by-then obvious) show-closer "sunset coming on," damon's one moment behind the mic and stage-center (much as it is on the album), and an absolutely lovely song that sounded just great in that setting with accompaniment from the full assemblage, especially as it spilled beyond its sweeping contemplative balladry into a danceable (but too short) groovy jam section.
ok, but one more thing. candi staton was there, and she sang "i'm just a prisoner (of your good loving.)" [insert many exclamation points!!!!!] i have to think about this...would i have paid $50 (plus fees) just to see that alone? um um, i'm not sure, but actually part of the brilliance was i really wasn't expecting it, so it was a special extra bonus treat. look, it's one of my official favorite songs ever. [see, it's on the mix!] and it was recorded in...1968? 1969? and i just heard her sing it. minor internal freakout. so what if she later revealed herself to be a rather soft-headed and dippy stage presence, and somehow managed to make her soulful comeback-album standout "i'll sing a love song to you" seem saccharine and almost dull (i think it had something to do with her introducing it as a love song that she was going to sing to us), and preciously persisted in clapping on the one along with many of the later groovy african jawns... that was just so cool. ok, geekin' over and out.
on the radar comin' up maybe bon iver if i decide i actually like him and liz phair playing all of exile omg omg omg and maybe...maybe radiohead? and oh man totally joan as police woman at the tin angel...! if i'm not out of town that weekend. well we'll well.
09 July 2008
AMG review round-up, volume V
at long last... this installment contains, essentially, the remainder of my output from april and may, before i went away for a month and abandoned you all (and also a couple few pieces i wrote since returning.) it's all either disco, or pop, or (more often) some combination of the two, and a good portion of it is Scandinavian...! interspersed throughout are various nuggets of genre theory, historiography, and general pontificating that you'd otherwise be getting from me here unfiltered. before moving on to some of my very fave recent releases (though not cloetta paris, who i'm just reviewing now, and who certainly belongs here), gonna kick it off with three different sortsa compilations from three of the best best scandi artists there are:
"It's a Feedelity Affair, the debut solo album from Hans-Peter Lindstrøm, is the soundtrack to an unrealized mystical science fiction/action epic directed by Wong Kar-Wai. Handily, it also functions as a greatest-hits compilation for the celebrated Norwegian dance producer, collecting most of the sides from his single releases on his own Feedelity Recordings imprint between 2003 and 2006. Arranged roughly chronologically in the order of their release, these productions run the gamut from the brisk, cheerful robotic disco of aptly named early single "Fast and Delirious" to the slinky, vaguely sinister disco strut of "Limitations" to the meandering, tripped-out cosmic disco of "Further Into the Future" (a Prins Thomas co-production) to the balmy, downtempo equatorial disco of "Arp She Said." Yep, it's all disco in some way or another, including more or less any way you can imagine as long as it's instrumental and least vaguely electronic (actually not everything here is instrumental: the supremely dubbed-out "Music [In My Mind]," Lindstrøm's first Feedelity single, boasts some druggy, disorienting spoken/sung vocals courtesy of Christabelle, aka Isabelle Sandoo.) Otherwise, these tracks are united by a sense of adventurous musicality and a pervasive playfulness that is rarely so pronounced in electronic dance music -- dig the myriad extended noodley keyboard solos, the dizzying sequence of chord changes toward the end of "Fast and Delirious," or the endless restless mutations that compose the stately, epic-length "There's a Drink in My Bedroom and I Need a Hot Lady." The compilation's undeniable peak and centerpiece is also Lindstrøm's signature tune, the epochal "I Feel Space," which nods to Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's Italo disco blueprint "I Feel Love" in its title and agitated, arpeggiated bassline, but looks toward the cosmos with its mesmerizing, gracefully yearning portamento synthesizer melody."
A shamelessly misleading and essentially worthless release that seems misguided even as a straight-up cash-grab attempt (because where was Robyn's audience in 2004?), this is not so much a "compilation" as a repackaging of Robyn's 1997 debut album -- minus three tracks. Those three -- curiously, the only three that the then-teenaged Swedish singer wrote herself (though she has at least a co-credit on every track) -- are not even the weakest cuts on Robyn Is Here, although like the bulk of the album they are relatively slight, generic pop-R&B. Indeed, the only conceivable advantage of this release is that it front-loads all three of the album's strongest tracks: the three singles. But what makes Robyn's Best actively insulting instead of just obnoxiously harmless is that at the time of its release -- although she had yet to embark on the full-scale artistic and commercial renaissance that would begin the following year with the Swedish release of Robyn -- she already had two more excellent, Europe-only full-lengths under her belt that this compilation pointedly ignores.
"One of Norway's most popular artists - predictably, unjustly, obscure in the rest of the world - Bertine Zetlitz gets a well-deserved career retrospective in this consistently excellent collection that compiles all of her singles to date. In My Mind, which arrived during a performing hiatus following the birth of her first child, is somewhat inexplicably titled after a good but unexceptional ballad from her debut, which is not included here - a more appropriate title might have been "Twisted Little Star," which apart from being possibly the most gorgeous song she's ever written is also an apt description of her perverse, cryptic lyrical tendencies.... Her 1998 debut Morbid Latenight Show (the only of her five albums to be released in the U.S., under the far less distinctive name Bertine) is well represented by four tracks of jazzy lounge-pop, which have aged reasonably well, while the more complex, decidedly darker albums Beautiful So Far and Sweet Injections yield three cuts apiece - several trip-hop-inflected gems and twisted dance-pop nuggets, and the lovely ballad "Fate" (presented in the fuller, more radio-friendly Disclab version.) If there's any quibble to had with the selection, it's that the two fantastic albums Zetlitz made with Fred Ball (a.k.a. Pleasure), 2004's Rollerskating and 2006's My Italian Greyhound, are shortchanged, with only two tracks apiece.... Zetlitz was on a tremendous roll in the years leading up to this compilation, and that's reflected in two new songs (perhaps modestly slotted at the end of the track list) which, in contradistinction to typical wisdom about these things, are as strong as anything else on the disc: the unsettling, melodically ethereal "Ashamed," which sets the fears and anxieties of motherhood to a slinky electro groove, and the artlessly bittersweet, resigned ballad "Bubble Bursts." Unlike fellow Scandinavians pop trailblazers Robyn and Annie, who have at least made some inroads towards international awareness, Bertine remains a virtual unknown outside of Europe, but her work is every bit as inventive, idiosyncratic, personable, accomplished and worth seeking out.
"...of course, "respectable" doesn't necessarily count for much in pop terms, although Ellis-Bextor has mastered a knack for exuding sophistication without being off-putting and stuffy -- she's so posh (viz. her unmistakable accent) that the slickness of the production complements her personality rather than diluting it. Still, the songs have to be there, and the songs on Shoot From The Hip rarely rise above the merely pleasant..."
"A welcome return from one of the most sophisticated and distinctive voices in British dance-pop, Trip The Light Fantastic is easily Sophie Ellis-Bextor's most dynamic album to date. Markedly more consistent than its enjoyable-but-spotty predecessors, but also -- more importantly -- far more gutsy, varied and vital, its many strong points are the most exciting of her career. It had been four years since her previous album -- a considerable span in pop terms -- but Ellis-Bextor's music has always hearkened to smartly classicist, new wave-informed synth-disco, even in the days when the Pet Shop Boys were practically the sole remaining practitioners of the style, so it didn't require much alteration for her to sound right in step with eighties-resuscitation that was in full swing by 2007. Even so, she sounds dramatically reinvigorated here, with a notable infusion of rock guitars and often a forceful, even menacing, electro edge to the productions, both evident right out the gate in the strident, barnstorming first single "Catch You." The highlights follow fast and furious: the immaculate disco glide of "Me And My Imagination" (whose canny lyrics advise an overeager suitor to play harder to get), the robotic, strobing "New York City Lights," the Xenomania-esque, Emma Goldman-quoting stomp of "If I Can't Dance" (the actual Xenomania contribution, "If You Go," is nearly as good), and the lovely pop ballad "Today The Sun's On Us," Ellis-Bextor's entrant in the late-2000s "Time After Time"-homage sweepstakes. Amazingly, despite that practically flawless opening sequence, the latter half of the album is nearly as strong, boasting the bouncy, fun-loving pop of "Love Is Here" and the twitchy electro of "China Heart," while the brashly optimistic disco-schmaltz apotheosis "Only One" stands as the album's most triumphantly over-the-top, life-affirming moment. In a banner year for British, female-fronted electronic chart pop, which saw excellent albums by Sugababes, Girls Aloud, Roisin Murphy, Siobhan Donaghy, Tracey Thorn and Kylie Minogue among others, Ellis-Bextor more than held her own with a classy, romantic, and, above all, tremendously enjoyable record which stands as a shining example of the state of the art."
"Amy Diamond's third album in just over three years isn't dramatically different from her first two, but as its title suggests - in direct distinction to its place-holding predecessor - it does show definite signs of forward momentum. Still barely into her teens (fifteen to be precise), she's already beginning to drop the kiddie trappings that have marked her work to date - nobody's going to mistake her for an "adult" artist just yet, but as she starts to make that always-awkward transition (which she'll probably complete in about another year, the way pop works these days) she's already a force to be reckoned with. Growing pains are already evident in the album's musical lopsidedness, stretched as it is between sleekly modern dance/R&B ("Domino," "Speed of Light," the cheekily Cyndi-Lauper-ish "So 16") and dimpled schmaltz like "We Could Learn a Lot" (which is about aliens), "Sleepy Sunday" (unusually peppy for a song about laziness), and the over-orchestrated playground retort "Takes One To Know One." Both tendencies have always been present in Diamond's music, but they seem especially polarized and disparate here, though her always-potent pipes and general perkiness keep things from feeling too incongruous. The by-now obligatory lite-ska grooves turn up on the impressively slinky "Looks Like We Made It" - which slathers on the reverb and actual horns before changing gears midcourse with a double-time pep-pop chorus - as well as the enjoyably frothy lead single "Is It Love?," a slight slice of blippy electro-pop. Better is second single "Stay My Baby," a chunky, funky collaboration with Max Martin that sounds nostalgic for the sort of teen-pop he pioneered ten years earlier with Britney and the Backstreet Boys; better still is "Thank You," Diamond's entry in the 2008 Melodifestivalen contest (it won her 8th place), which cribs the electro schaffel glide most often associated with Goldfrapp. Added to the album upon its early 2008 re-release, "Thank You" is classic Diamond in the over-the-top giddiness and subtle snarkiness of its lyrical kiss-off ("Thank you for all that you've done for me/Now I know what real love is supposed to be" - too bad she doesn't sing "done to me" like it says on the lyric sheet) - and arguably her finest single to date. And pretty soon it will even be age-appropriate!
"From the opening seconds of "Don't Mess" - two crisp snare hits and a sudden blast of syncopated, celebratory synth-funk - it's clear that Juvelen is aiming for pop's big leagues. Crucially - because modern popstardom is nothing if not a self-fulfilling prophecy - Jonas Pettersson has the cocksure, charismatic swagger, and the songs (also important), to make you think he's already there. Look no further than the banal but still perhaps slyly boastful title of the suave Swede's first full-length. 1's stunning kick-off track "Don't Mess" has all the excitement of a vintage Michael Jackson floor-filler (think "Wanna Be Starting Something"), while "Hanna," among others, channels classic Prince in its terse funk-pop, histrionic falsetto and pure-heart/dirty-mind confessional lyrics. Sidestepping the inevitable anxiety of obvious influence, Juvelen's work here could be described simply as "traditionalist" electronic dance-pop, but he has enough personality to make it both impressively fresh and surprisingly heartfelt. His unfiltered sentimentality and infectious positivity shine through on additional party-time contenders like the easy-going disco charmer "Facts of Life" and especially the propulsive "Money Don't Talk," which contains the defining couplet "I never made any money/always preferred to make love." The album's several quieter moments - not quite ballads, they're more like slow jams - are somewhat less musically distinctive, though often touching (notably the lush "A Dream"), the striking exception being the understated, gorgeously lovelorn minimalism of "Watch Your Step," reprised from Juvelen's debut EP. Apart from a few slightly less memorable cuts (and what would a great pop album be without its filler?) the only real potential sticking point to enjoyment here is Pettersson's voice, which shifts ably enough between song, speak-singing, whisper and falsetto, but frequently strays into an oddly strained, throaty timbre that can come off as forced and insincere (a serious problem for such a soulful singer), and which some listeners may well find inescapably grating. For the most part though, it's easy enough to acclimate to this vocal quirk in view of the record's other merits, and well worth it; it's the lone notable flaw in a nearly impeccable pop debut."
"The cover photo for the North American edition of Sally Shapiro's Disco Romance depicts the Swedish singer in winter, her cheeks rosy, her blond hair and eyebrows dusted with snowflakes, smiling to herself in spite of the chill. It's a fitting image for this undeniably wintry album, conjuring not just the glacial sweep and frosty twinkle of producer Johan Agebjörn's synthesizer fantasias, but also the faint but glowing presence in the heart of the blizzard: Shapiro's soft, fragile voice, which is so thin and devoid of inflection that it ought to be impenetrably icy, but is somehow instead as warm and enticing as a cozy fire in the dead of February. A closer examination of that cover image reveals that what look like snowflakes are in fact tiny stars, computer-generated pentagrams (though they almost look hand-drawn) that could be read as a subtle reminder that the intimacy and poignant sincerity of these songs came about, in a sense, only through layers of artifice. For one thing, Shapiro herself -- or more precisely, the anonymous singer behind that alias -- remains something of a cipher. Who can say for sure whether her oft-discussed shyness (she has yet to perform live or offer an in-person interview, and reportedly she will only record vocals when alone in the room) is completely genuine or a clever piece of image manipulation. If it's the latter, that might in a roundabout way to lend some authenticity to the project. As the playfully retro, knowingly garish design of the original European cover for the album makes clear, Disco Romance is a conscious effort to recall -- indeed, to reproduce -- the sound and style of 1980s Italo disco, a genre built on cheap synthesizers, recyclable dance grooves, and interchangeable faceless vocalists reciting inane or even nonsensical lyrics. Which isn't to suggest that it wasn't great music. And this album pulls out all the right tricks to faithfully evoke Italo at its best -- vocoded vocals, spacey synth washes, squelchy electronic squiggles, octave-jumping ostinato basslines -- while also incorporating just enough variety in tempo and rhythm to avoid the genre's propensity for monotonous excess. But it also transcends mere genre exercise -- for all its facelessness and artificiality, Disco Romance is unabashedly a product of love, and it contains unexpected beauty and a depth of humanity that should appeal not only to nostalgic Italo fans, although it is undeniably suffused with nostalgia in a broader sense. Crucially, the songwriting, though essentially simple, is vivid and often penetrating in its evocations of love (sought; found; lost; unrequited). The clearest standouts on that count are the couple of numbers borrowed from Swedish indie pop one-man band Nixon (notably "Anorak Christmas," an adorable tale of new love with an indelible synth hook to match), but Agebjörn's originals are nearly as potent, particularly the warmly reassurance of "I'll Be by Your Side" -- the would-be one-off single that started it all -- and the tortured ambivalence of "I Know," whose run-on sentence of a chorus veers from hope to despair with each protracted turn of phrase ("I know you're my love/Even though/Sometimes/I believe/I will wake up from this dream...").
On the less electronic side of things, Canadians Woodhands, Holy Fuck, and the Cansecos each add some amount of live instrumentation, edging Shapiro's electro closer to danceable indie pop territory; the best of these might be the Cansecos' percussion-heavy reading of "Hold Me So Tight," which is strikingly reminiscent of Annie's "Heartbeat." The only real wild card is Jon Brooks' (of Advisory Circle and King of Woolworths) stately, Air-ish reworking of "Skating in the Moonshine," which eschews percussion and all but the most atmospheric electronics in favor of understated electric piano, acoustic guitar, and mournful, oddly archaic-sounding flutes. It would probably flow more naturally if Shapiro had re-recorded her vocals with this stripped-down approach in mind, but it's still an effective reminder of how much strong songwriting contributed to the original album's success. Needless to say, Remix Romance lacks the coherence and conceptual singularity of Disco Romance, but for a remix album it delivers impressively, both in terms of track-for-track hit rate and overall listenability. Considering its welcome but not gratuitously overabundant variety, it's just possible that some listeners will find themselves preferring this version of Romance.
Like Ghostly International's groundbreaking Tangent 2002: Disco Nouveau compilation five years earlier, London-based Lo Recordings offers an excellent survey of recent trends in disco-based electronica on the intriguingly titled Milky Disco. Compiler and label head Jon Tye (who appears here as part of Black Mustang) records under the alias Milky Globe, but "milky" is also an apt, if ambiguous, description of the luscious music contained here, which might be more straightforwardly labeled "space disco." The underlying, unifying concept of electronic disco grooves overlaid with dubby, psychedelic, and otherwise "cosmic" elements may not be anything particularly new - the disc opens with a blithe, genteelly floating track by Daniel Wang (who, curiously enough, also kicked off the Disco Nouveau comp) which dates back to 2001 and sounds like it could have appeared two decades earlier - but by the late 2000s it was coalescing in a burgeoning international movement. Certainly, there is a sense that many of these artists are working with an awareness of each other (a number of the included cuts are collaborations or remixes), as well as a shared appreciation for the (suddenly, it seems) venerable tradition of electronic disco, and in particular the recently celebrated Italo-disco of the late '70s and early '80s which, though not an exact template for the tracks contained here, is nonetheless a palpable influence. The compilation does contain at least one direct link to the music of that era in the form of a dense, dubby remix of up-and-comers In Flagranti by mythic French producer Bernard Fevre, a.k.a. Black Devil Disco Club. Otherwise, the track list is deceptively unassuming.
Milky Disco features an impressive array of artists from various sectors of electronica working under unfamiliar, in some cases one-off aliases. Luke Vibert appears as Kerrier District, Metro Area's Morgan Geist gets bongo-happy under the cheeky moniker Jersey Devil Social Club, and Jon Brooks (King of Woolworths, Advisory Circle) offers some spirited orchestral thumping disguised as Georges Vert. There's also a disparate trio of cuts licensed from London's DC Records (including a moody, minimal piece by Quiet Village, a duo including Matt Edwards, a.k.a Radio Slave), and three selections from noted Swedish acts: Johan Agebjörn, best known as the producer for Sally Shapiro -- she sings on "Spacer Woman from Mars" -- contributes the most explicitly space-themed inclusion, though it's also notably faster and poppier than anything else here, while Studio and Hans Peter Lindstrøm (the scene's putative figurehead, if it has one), along with San Francisco's Sorcerer (represented by his debut 12" "Surfing at Midnight"), hold down the disc's blissfully airy and relaxed final section, the former with the epic "Life's a Beach," a defining release of the 2007 Balearic trend; the latter, under the odd pseudonym Six Cups of Rebel, with the short, uncharacteristically near-ambient swooner "Dubbe Ditten." Tracing a loose trajectory from the just-barely-earthbound confines of the dancefloor to expansively cosmic, nearly beatless reverie (from the disco towards the milky end of the spectrum), Milky Disco covers considerable stylistic range within its broadly delimited purview while offering a handful of rare or exclusive cuts and maintaining an impressively high level of quality, with plenty to interest both attuned collectors and curious new listeners.
A limited-edition CD-R that functioned as both an introductory label sampler and a roundup of the first several 12" releases on the fledgling Italians Do It Better imprint, After Dark presents a sleekly sinister style of synthetic dance music that recalls the decadent overtones of early-2000s electroclash but finds a more direct stylistic referent in vintage electronic disco from around 25 years prior. The name of the New Jersey-based label (run by Mike Simonetti of Troubleman Unlimited) suggests a link with Italo disco, a genre that was very much coming into vogue when these sides were released in 2007, but despite a preponderance of relentless robotic synthesizers, the music here is a far cry from the giddy sentimentality and synth pop melodicism often associated with that style (and as heard, for instance, in the classicist Italo revivalism of Sally Shapiro, among others). The tracks collected here turn instead on haunted minor-key vamps, torpid tempos, cheap-sounding synths, and stripped-down, almost rudimentary percussion, creating a consistent, rather dour atmosphere that feels anachronistically musty but not quite retro. This sharply defined aesthetic must be credited in large part to producer Johnny Jewel, who has a hand in the music of three of the five artists represented here. He's a member of both Glass Candy and Chromatics (each of which had existed as post-punk-styled rock bands before effecting this transformation into what could be tagged post-disco), and he also produces here for Farah, a Plano, TX-based vocalist/lyricist who doesn't sing so much as intone, in both English and Farsi, with a devastating dispassion. Her "Law of Life," a dead-eyed, post-apocalyptic sermon declaimed over Jewel's spare, unrelenting jittery thud, is the compilation's most bleakly nihilistic moment, though it has some competition from Chromatics' standout "In the City," a dreamier but no less creepy track whose soporifically dripping synths, muted guitar glimmers, and fluid string lines induce a sweet-but-deadly hypnosis beneath singer Ruth Radelet's bleary croons of "shining violence." Glass Candy's kickoff, "Rolling Down the Hills," is a crackly, horn-fueled strut that could pass for straight-up old-school disco, at least if it were sped up a few notches, while the contributions by Professor Genius and Mirage skew closest to classic Italo -- the former offering up a pair of Moroder-esque synthesizer workouts; the latter gilding their midtempo keyboard fantasias with menacingly alien vocoders. Mirage also turn in an excellent, understated, robotified rework of Indeep's classic "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life," which, alongside a generous selection of covers (three of them by Glass Candy, including a beguiling take on Kraftwerk's "Computer Love"), helps to establish a strong sense of reverence for and continuity with dance music's disco and not-quite-disco past. Boasting a strong sense of cohesion but a decent amount of variety, and plenty of highlights, After Dark amply demonstrates that electronic disco is alive and flourishing in the late 2000s, and that Italians -- at least these wanna-be Italians -- do it very well.
"Nearly unrecognizable as the work of the one-time punk rock outfit, Night Drive is effectively Chromatics third debut album in a row, following a wholesale transformation in sound and style and yet another lineup change: Adam Miller is again the sole constant member; vocalist Ruth Radelet is a new addition even since the 2006 teaser Nite, replacing Lena Okazaki, while Glass Candy's Johnny Jewel, who produced that single, is now a full-fledged member. Actually, this seems to be Jewel's record more than anyone's - in the silver-screen conceit of the liner notes he's listed as director to Miller's screenwriter, though he also has a writing credit on all the record's originals, only four of which (the vocal songs) Miller co-wrote - indeed, Jewel is emerging as the primary musical force behind much of the Italians Do It Better label. Among that camp of synthesizer-disco revivalists, Chromatics stand out as the most lush and cinematic, drawing on the more languorous, atmospheric aspects of 1980s electronica to fashion a hazy imaginary soundtrack to a stylish, decadent noir film (as the album's visual presentation suggests) or just a lonely late night drive (as per the opening "Telephone Call.") (One is reminded that Giorgio Moroder is almost as celebrated for his film work as his dancefloor material.) Sounding somehow stark and sensuous at the same time, the album evokes widescreen opulence with a sonic palette that extends beyond the bedrock of synths, guitars and drum machines to include touches of organ, strings, flutes and so on, but it's always used sparingly, rarely outstepping the group's meticulously minimal, carefully-controlled arrangements.... Jewel's compositions and production are certainly effective, and the arrangements, whether his or the band's, are undeniably tasteful, but Night Drive could have been a much more offputting, lonelier affair - not that that would necessarily be a bad thing - if it weren't for Radelet, whom liners rightly list as the album's star. She's not exactly overtly emotive, but there's enough warmth in her breathy voice to create a sense of palpable, relatable humanity, just enough to distinguish her from the glassy-eyed alienation of so many dark post-disco vocalists (Glass Candy's Ida No, for one.) That's crucial, especially, on the stirring Kate Bush cover "Running Up That Hill" - chalk it up to the unassailable songwriting, if you like, but it just might be the finest moment on a consistently engrossing record that, if it can't quite claim the title, is as distinctive and striking as a great debut."
"A freewheeling electronic pop album that's goofy and glamorous in roughly equal measure, B/E/A/T/B/O/X is Glass Candy's first full-length as a duo, following an electro-disco makeover that has effectively cut the rock out of the group's dancepunk/no-wave equation, and their first album for the disco-revivalist label Italians Do It Better. Markedly lighter and more colorful than the label's prevailing aesthetic as presented on the widely-championed After Dark compilation, it plays to some extent like the daylit flipside of Chromatics' dark, atmospheric Night Drive, which was released around the same time and likewise produced by shared member (and Italians driving force) Johnny Jewel. Though it still projects a strong sense of decadence and a distinct air of the unattainable, B/E/A/T/B/O/X is earthier and more inviting than most of the label's output to date - significantly, this is unquestionably music for dancing, as opposed to dance music that's probably a bit too cool to actually dance to. Kicking off with an aerobics instructor's spoken invocation to the DJ and "the heavenly beat," just about every track here is aimed squarely at the dancefloor (save for the brooding, beatless instrumental "Last Nite I Met a Costume," which would have sounded more at home on Night Drive.) The duo's so-retro-it's-modern sound points, no surprises here, straight back to the early '80s, recalling not so much the robotic Italo disco with which the label is often linked (though there are traces of it, particularly on the cosmic strut "Life After Sundown") as plain-old regular disco, the kind that at some point evolved out of funk (check out those full-blooded horn parts, synthesized though they may be, on "Candy Castle" and the punchy "Rolling Down The Hills"), and went on to inspire the new wave art-punk likes of Blondie and Tom Tom Club (both palpable influences here: Debbie Harry, and perhaps "Rapture" in particular, are unmistakable in Ida No's slightly kooky, slightly chilly delivery.) But that's not to suggest that this is straightforward stylistic revivalism - for one thing, although 4/4 thumps carry them through a sizable chunk of the album, the duo also venture freely beyond the well-established neo-disco template, on the weird, stuttering "Etheric Device," scintillating, silky-smooth Kraftwerk cover "Computer Love" (a clear highlight) and the sparse, throbbing, nearly industrial closer "Digital Versicolor." There's nothing here that feels like a mere genre exercise, and for all its readily evident signifiers there's ultimately not much to which it can sustain particularly close comparisons. B/E/A/T/B/O/X may be unabashedly a triumph of style over substance, but Glass Candy have at least managed to concoct a familiar-seeming, versatile, and enjoyable style, or set of styles, that's more or less all their own."
In Ghost Colours announces itself, calmly but majestically, with a wash of hazy voices and fluttering keyboards giving way to crystal-clear acoustic strums, languid indie pop vocals, a sturdy dance-rock groove, pulsating electro-disco synths, swirling Caribou-style psychedelics, and an ethereal, vocoded chorus melody. Squeezing all of that into one song -- the effervescent "Feel the Love" -- is an ambitious move: in most hands it would come out sounding like a bewildering mess, or at least a hammy, hyperactive pastiche, but Cut Copy manage to keep it light, breezy, and utterly ebullient. Even more impressive is that they're able to replicate the trick repeatedly across this remarkably assured sophomore album. Colours boasts at least a half-dozen potential summer anthems for dancefloors and headphones alike, seamlessly strung together with subdued interstitial mood pieces that help make it more of a nuanced work than a straightforward collection of relentlessly upbeat dance jams. Undeniably, though, the dance jams are at the throbbing heart of the album, from the unstoppably glittery opening trio (leading up to the anthemic slow-burn disco of single "Lights and Music") to the rough-edged rock drive of "So Haunted" to the pure synth pop bliss of "Far Away." Indeed, this is in many ways a perfect summation of the dynamic, multifaceted, hipster-associated independent dance music of the 2000s, a motley interweaving of pop, rock, and electronic dance elements into a kaleidoscopic array of interconnected styles, some strands of which have been summarily, imprecisely tagged ("disco-punk," "electro-house," "new rave,") but which as a whole remain resolutely, gloriously nebulous and undefined. (Though nevertheless undeniably prevalent, and never more so than in 2008, following triumphant runs by LCD Soundsystem, Justice, and Simian Mobile Disco; the months just preceding In Ghost Colours' release saw eminently enjoyable new albums by Hot Chip, Hercules and Love Affair, Neon Neon, and Does It Offend You, Yeah?, to name a few.)
Cut Copy's music bears all the prominent hallmarks of its era: giddily omnivorous stylistic appropriation, a sensuous, sybaritic (though not, in their case, seedy) demeanor, and the distinct evocation of bygone decades, most palpably the ubiquitous post-punk/post-disco '80s, without succumbing to the pitfalls of overzealous eclecticism, empty hedonism, sugary glut, and blatant derivativeness. Or rather, they do show traces of all of these things, but they play each one off as a strength, always in moderation, and never to the detriment of the music. The eclecticism is there but it's fluid and cohesive rather than distractingly showy; their influence-dogging plays like affectionate homage rather than pointless mimicry; there's an abundance of gleaming, even gaudy surfaces, but they're just too rapturously enticing to entertain qualms about superficiality. It surely helps that they have one of the primary architects of this sprawling scene, the DFA's Tim Goldsworthy, on board as a producer and mixer. More importantly though, beneath its perfectly formed surfaces this is truly an album of songs -- a surprisingly rare thing in this milieu -- with simple but resonant melodies, carried by Dan Whitford's appealingly casual delivery, which help alleviate a slight tendency toward sonic sameness. This is evident not only on the gentler guitar-based numbers, like the loping "Unforgettable Season" and the oddly country-inflected "Strangers in the Wind," which temporarily scale back the dancefloor euphorics, but the out-and-out burners as well, combining with the peppy basslines and nagging chorus hooks to create something all the more transcendent. To be sure, In Ghost Colours is a triumph of craftsmanship rather than vision -- a synthesis and refinement of existing sounds rather than anything dramatically new and original -- but it is an unalloyed triumph nonetheless, and one of the finest albums of its kind.
"A light and breezy trifle of a debut album, Explode from the Center belies its swollen, attention-grabbing guest list -- including members of Kings of Convenience, the Concretes, and (most notably) Feist, among a couple dozen others -- with a consistently relaxed, unassuming vibe. Rubies enlist most of those folks to sing and/or play guitar, and there is certainly plenty of pretty singing and guitar playing on this record, though few listeners will be bothered to figure out exactly who's doing what. Core members Simone Rubi and Terri Loewenthal are fine singers themselves, but their mellifluous voices do work especially well blended together and with others, as amply demonstrated in their days with Call & Response, a sort of latter-day Mamas & the Papas for the indie pop set. Explode makes a lot of sense, as they mine the same vein of sophisticated, folky pop with which does a good job of carrying forward that band's late-'60s, late summer, California aesthetic (never mind that most of the album was recorded in Scandinavia), adding occasional electronic flourishes, although the gentler, folkier numbers tend to come off better than the would-be dance jams. "I Feel Electric," the Feist-featuring lead single, is actually one of the least successful moments on the album, its insistently bouncy sore-thumb synth/disco sounding stilted and overdetermined by comparison to the surrounding material, although mediocre lyrics and a negligible chorus hook don't help matters, either. The less blatantly dance-oriented "Stand in a Line," with a twitchy low synth part and scratchy guitar work courtesy of ex-bandmate Dan "Sorceror" Judd, fares a bit better, as does the chunky pop of "Diamonds on Fire," but the most satisfying grooves here are those mellow enough to feel like organic frameworks over which the songs are lazily, casually draped.... Rubies' friendship with Leslie Feist makes a lot of sense, as they mine the same vein of sophisticated, folky pop with which Feist struck gold on -- in particular -- The Reminder (whose cover, incidentally, was designed by Rubi) -- and Feist fans will find a lot to enjoy here, although Rubies' actual songs make less of an impression than their overall sound. There's nothing especially wrong with that -- it just means this is an album better suited for soundtracking laid-back summer afternoons than for focused, introspective close listening."
Bloodshy and Avant: bio
(well, you can read it if you like, though it's mostly just a list of tracks and collaborators, and the text is messed up at the end. i mostly just wanted to post this picture of b+a with britney spears...[source: wikipedia])
