Thursday, May 27, 2004

Kings of Convenience - Quiet is the New Loud

Kings of Convenience
Quiet is the New Loud
Mawlaw/Astralwerks 2001

Produced by:

Personnel:
Erland Oye - steel string guitar, electric guitar, piano, harmony vocals, drums, vocals on Failure
Eirik Glambek Boe - vocals, nylon string guitar, piano, electric guitar

Additional Personnel:
Ian Bracken, Matt McGeever - cello
Ben Dumville - trumpet
Tarjei Strom - drum fills

I picked this up for a dollar in a bargain bin; I figured it was on the Astralwerks label, so it couldn't be that bad. It isn't. It just ins't all that great either. It's irony-free indie pop, and therefore lends itself to sounding a bit too self-important. Or at least it would, if it could get past some very simple trappings.

The strong part of this Norwegian duos effort is it's instrumentation. It is spartan but not empty. It has a dreamy and is dominated by a warm acoustic feel that is just one step more complex than say, Simon and Garfunkle. Nice use of cello in I Don't Know What I Can Save You From, and Failure has an almost Beatlesesque feel underneath a dour exterior as well as occasional muted trumpet bits on Singing Softly To Me. There are a few stronger performers musically here, most notably the more upbeat Toxic Girl, the straigh-rip-of-Marc Hollis melanchoic The Girl From Back Then, and the Norway-by-Way-of-Ipanema Leaning Against the Wall.

Lyrically as I said, it's irony free, so it comes off as stodgy and bland quite often; typical Alan Alda toucy feely college angst territory. Fortunately the music makes it still an acceptable listen...especially for a buck.

Saturday, May 22, 2004

Vernon Reid & Masque - Known Unknown

Vernon Reid & Masque
Known Unknown
Favored Nations 2004

Produced by Vernon Reid & Joe Johnson

Personnel:
Vernon Reid - guitars, guitar synth
Leon Gruenbaum - piano, casio, organ, samchillian tip tip tip chee peeeee
Hank Schroy - bass
Marlon Browden - drums
DJ Logic - special guest DJ on Voodoo Pimp Stroll

Vernon Reid is most known for having founded and led the genre-busting Living Colour (recently reformed and tearing shit up again after a too-long hiatus), but his history goes further back and laterally; stints in avant-garde jazz lineups of Ronald Shannon Jacksons Decoding Society, early albums with Defunkt, experimental work with Bill Frisell, founding the Black Rock Coalition (still active), and guest spots on a slew of albums; Public Enemy, Madelaine Peyroux, Geri Allen, the Ramones, Carlos Santana, Jack DeJohnette, and Tracy Chapman to name a few. His work is instantly catchy yet deeply out there. Way out. So far out the shit is back in. Deeply in.

When he released his first solo effort, the dazzling Mistaken Identity in 1996, it was a staggering brainfuck mix of the sacred and profane. Covering more styles than most record stores keep in stock, it was produced by jazz giant Teo Macero (Miles Davis) and Prince Paul (Handsome Boy Modelling School, De La Soul) and was simply so ambitious it went by mostly unnoticed because Sony had no fucking clue how to market it. Not surprising really as most record companies have marketing departments that may as well be run via the Warren Harding School of Clueless Business program. With this album, Vernon has come to a boutique label (Steve Vai's Favored Nations) and takes a more straightforward direction. The results are still well worth listening to.

While Known Unknown lacks the sprawling variance of it's predecessor, it is far from a simple affair. It is all instrumental, and focuses on a brand of jazz and rock fusion that harkens to the best efforts of a Jeff Beck or John McLaughlin, but more edgy and dissonant, and certainly funkier. Most of the tracks are originals, but of note are his two covers, a solid workover of Brilliant Corners by Thelonius Monk which goes for a kind of Monk on speed with heaping distortion and scalar runs like Joe Satriani hooked up to a car battery. The other cover is truly a great interpretation of Lee Morgan's Sidewinder, which keeps the same gritty swing on it, but adds an almost go-go bounce.

The cd opens with the title track, which oddly enough is the weakest composition here. Rapidly however, things pick up. The Slouch is dirty and funky with Gruenbaum providing organ chops to spare and some serious bass work from Schroy (who has been with Vernon since his last solo album and through the live tour of Vernon & DJ Logic's side project, the Yohimbe Brothers). There are little Hendrix-ish bits in Strange Blessing and Outskirts is jazz metal done with a bipolar swerve towards funky and fun segues in various pots. Down and Out in Kigali and Freetown is organic jungle electronica beats and atmospheric breakdowns that evoke almost exactly the image the title suggests. Voodoo Pimp Stroll is what most jam bands wish they could do, with hints of electric sitar, heady fonk (that's an 'o' not a 'u'), and an infectious sense of fun. The closer, X The Unknown is an odd mix of club beats and spacey sustained noise with James Brown cut and run interplay. More mellow material is available as well, such as the introspective Flatbush and Church and the brief -it clocks in at less than 2 minutes- Ebow Underground (Excerpt) which is an evocative solo piece. It's a brilliant marathon from Miles's Bitches Brew to the Pixies Surfer Rosa in terms of sonic offerings.

The whole band here is tight, which is to say they sound more like a complete band rather than accomplices on a solo album (as Schroy, Gruenbaum and DJ Logic were on Mistaken Identity. The whole album has a feel of both spontenaity and natural flow. While this is an instrumental album, it is the kind of thing that fusion and jam band fans can appreciate with equal joy. It has the shifting dissonance and slinky grooves that are hallmarks of Vernons playing, but also showcases a knack for melodic development and rhythmic punch that some might not immediately associate with Reid.

It's like Prince and Lenny Kravitz meet Frank Zappa and decide to jam.

Buy this damn thing and see him live on the short tour he's is doing to support the album.

For more info:
http://www.livingcolournet.com
http://livingcolour.blogspot.com
http://www.vernon-reid.com


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You might like this if you like:

Jeff Beck - You Had it Coming
Carlos Santana - Spirits Dancing in the Flesh
Living Colour - Collide0scope
Oysterhead - The Grand Pecking order
Robert Randolph and the Family Band - Unclassified
Jonas Hellborg - Personae

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Please bow your heads...

On Tuesday, Elvin Jones passed away. The great jazz drummer worked with Miles Davis, Nicolas Payton, Bill Frisell, Duke Ellington, Dave Liebman,and most notably, John Coltrane. His work was marked by an uncanny sense of time that let him wrap himself into a language that incorporated bop and avant-garde into a furious mix. I recommend his work on Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Rahsaan Roland Kirk's Rip, Rig, and Panic and his recent effort with Bill Frisell and Dave Holland.

He was a tough personality and as the above link makes note of, "Elvin Jones had suffered from ill health for several months. He continued to perform until only a few weeks ago, often taking an oxygen tank on to the bandstand." That is someone who lives for living.

Rest in Peace.

Rhian Benson - Gold Coast

Rhian Benson
Gold Coast
Sugarbread/DKG Music 2003

Produced by James Poyser, Bob Power, Rhian Benson and China Danforth

Personnel (selected):
bass - James Genus, Pino Palladino, Alphonso Johnson
drums - Omar Hakim, Ndugu Chancler, Walfredo Reyes Jr.
fender rhodes, hammond b3 - James Poyser
horns - Roy Hargrove
programming - Bob Power
guitars - Bob Power, Lionel Loueke, Joel Whitley

This is executive produced by super studio bassist Pino Palladino (everyone frome D'Angelo to the Who) and his supple grooveplaying is all over this disk. That is about where the best parts begin and end. That is not to say that this debut does not have some warm spots to offer the casual listener, therein lies the problem...it doesn't offer much more than surface.

Rhian Benson is a Ghana-born, but otherwise globetrotting singer who has a voice that definately tries to cover the same spaces a Sade and Sarah Webb, but does not quite come up to it. It lacks the lushness of the former and the grit and funk of the latter. The songs on this album that could use some dirt -Stealing My Piece of Mind and Invincible are good examples- it resorts to a super slickness that puts things as almost elevator fodder. The songs that should have a fuller sound end up sounding pedestrian (i.e. Say How I Feel). For that reason, this album treads a little too much into a space rife with lite-jazz poppishness and neo-soul conventions.

The lyrics are not particularly impressive, but neither do they get in the way...much. Rhian herself, has a damn fine set of pipes, and does not try to do the vocal pyrotechnics so popular with the pop-bimbo set.

The playing on the songs are not lacking in and of themselves; it is hard to go wrong with some of the lineup here. They simply don't go the full distance, and when they do start to turn up the heat, the production washes it out. This is a decent debut, but considering the result, the full potential of Rhian has not been reached. If you find this in a bargain bin and like

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You might like this album if you like:

Sade - Diamond Life
Eric Benet - A Day in the Life
Erykah Badu - Baduizm
Everything But the Girl - The Language of Life

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Marillion - Marbles

Marillion
Marbles
2004 Intact Records

Produced by Dave Meegan & Marillion

Personnel:
h (Steve Hogarth) - vocals, keyboards, additional guitar
Steve Rothery - acoustic and electric guitars
Mark Kelly - Keyboards, synth programming, samples
Pete Trewavas - bass guitar, vocals
Iam Mosley - drums and percussion

Marillion broke big in the middle of the 1980s with its odd brand of very oblique art-rock (read: Prog), then something weird happened -- their iconoclastic vocalist lyricist left to have a solo career (and rumors had it to also further drown himself in booze and other chemicals) at the height of their fame in 1987. Instead of breaking up, they hired another rather impressive vocalist and went into a cult-hero status band ever since. Their newest release, Marbles however, may change that.

At a time when art-rock has made a bit of a comeback in some rather odd places (art-rock fathers King Crimson touring with Tool, Peter Gabriel's rather successful return, and the arrival of bands like Dream Theater, Mars Volta and Coldplay, who all exhibit variations on art-rock themes). When I was told that Radiohead recorded OK Computer under the influence of Marillion's grand-opus Brave I couldn't say I was particularly surprised, as the parallels were uncanny. Now Marillion has returned the favor and done what it has always done; absorb and assimilate current trends into their collective sound without losing sight of what their core sound is. The result is probably the best album in a decade, and one of the best of 2004.

The band has always leaned toward balancing a fine line between ambitious arty pretentions and the sweetly simple pop excursions. In this case, the mix is a fluid trip that has hints of Stingish popcraft (circa The Soul Cages, late period Pink Floyd expanse, inherently quirky wordplay (a la Radiohead or Coldplay), and the lush production dynamics of Peter Gabriel or Massive Attack. The mix of art-rock with folk, jazz, light bits of elecronica and whatever else they deem to fit comes out as a mostly coherent work nonetheless. Songs range from the almost inane pop-ditty of Don't Hurt Yourself, which is really the only throwaway track here, to 10+ minute mini-epics like The Invisible Man and Ocean Cloud, which eschew pretentious instrumental wankery in lieu of actually creating moods and grooves that segue together well and make for a quite pleasant listen. Many of these tracks would make for great remixes in completely different contexts, as the melodies and sounds could easily fit comfortably in other contexts.

This is not to say that Marillion are not players. Rothery has some choice guitar work here, occasionally reminiscent of his earlier work with the band, but not sounding dated or forced. Kelly has never sounded fresher and more contemporary, and the rhythm work is flexible enough to traverse from slinky grooves to odd-time rock on a dime. Hogarth has a respectable range and is expressive, particularly on tracks like The Invisible Man, and The Damage.

All in all a great release. For those who still need some convincing, the single for You're Gone is out, and Marillion.com has a free cd sample offer for those who need to really get their feet wet before taking the plunge. Of note, Marbles is available in 3 versions; a single cd available in most stores, a 2cd special edition available online, as is the extra luxurious 2cd campaign edition which comes with a 128 page hardbound booklet and a dustjacket.

As the band themselves state on their press material, "welcome to a better way of life".

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You might like this album if you like:
Sting - Soul Cages
Pink Floyd - Division Bell
The Dream Academy - Remembrance Days
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Radiohead - OK Computer
Peter Gabriel - Up

Monday, May 03, 2004

WTFF

Starting tomorrow, I will be using this as an exclusive spot to put up music reviews; live shows, albums and anything else similar that comes to mind. My current collection consists of roughly 4000 cd's, 1200 articles of vinyl, 400 cassettes, a dozen 8-tracks (yes, I have a player, if for no other reason than to be aslbe to honestly claim that I do) and hundreds of hours of concert footage and music videos on VHS and DVD.

If you have an album you would like reviewed, feel free to drop me a line at zeuch [at] damagestudios [dot] com