Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Little Axe - Champagne & Grits

Little Axe
Champagne & Grits
2004 Real World/Narada Records

Produced by Skip McDonald and Adrian Sherwood

Perfomers:
Skip McDonald - everything that isn't by anyone else (but mostly various

guitars, keyboards and vocals).
Keith LeBlanc - drums
Doug Wimbish - bass
Alan Glen, Dave Foster - harmonica
Prithpal Rajput - tabla
with featured vocal performances by Bernard Fowler, Shara Nelson, Chris
Difford, Ghetto Priest and Junior Delgado
various others also provide any number of noisy bits o' fun

When I really began to get into the wealth of industrial-dub and free-form funk escapades of On-U-Sound recordings, their flagship houseband Tack>>Head had appeared to have imploded. I was wrong. They (Skip, Doug and LeBlanc and almost always with Sherwood) had a penchant for reforming with various rotating players in a chain of new projects under different names with different foci.

That is where Little Axe came in. This was (and is) guitarist Skip McDonalds vehicle to use his bandmates and quite a few friends to rework the blues into a truly inventive framework. Unlike many musical cross-breeding projects (think Deep Forest or anything produced by Jonathan Elias) this works upon hearing, even though on paper the idea of old school blues with lots of dub reggae and ethnic flourishes sounds like disaster. From the debut, The Wolf That House Built to their latest, it has been always listenable and good ear food. Where the first three albums had stronger electronic and dub underpinnings, this is a more stripped down affair, and is more rewarding for the departure.

McDonald has now fully stepped into the mantle of "being" LA, even if it still retains the character of the On-U-Sound posse (which would be nigh impossible to ignore given the line up), with some of his most organic and rootsy playing ever. From the spartan and breezy acoustic instrumental Cloud to the backwards Nat-Steel and dobro (at least I think its dobro...there is a lot of processing on some of the tracks so one can only guess what stringed instrument is making the cool noises) on Will I Ever Get Back Home Again, his phrasing is so funky and sweet. Most of the cuts have LeBlanc and Wimbish laying down simple and to the point grooves that are more infectious than Dengue and give the music a heat like a humid summer evening on the gulf coast.

The vocal variety is a bit of a new development and it really works with the different colors of tunes. Bernard Fowler (Tack>>Head, Rolling Stones) works his fiery growl on the opener Grinning in Your Face, Will I Ever Get Back Home Again and on the swaggering Living and Sleeping in a Dangerous Time. Shara Nelson made her name initially as the featured vocalist with Massive Attack, and her contribution to Say My Name harkens back to that period. Her voice still has a crystalline melancholy and subdued anger that works perfectly.

Like Massive Attack, whose regular use of reggae crooner Horace Andy is commendable, LA bring in rising star Ghetto priest as well as one of the last recordings of the late, great Junior Delgado. The latter provides an erie performance on Go Away Devil that just as he sings will make your "blood run cold". The oddest contribution has to be from the unexpected presence of one half of the core writing team from Beatlesesque UK popmasters Squeeze, Chris Difford. His intrinsically British delivery on one of the more musically upbeat selections, All in The Same Boat (whose lyrics reflect Diffords playful and morose absurdism) is a fun detour.

A good rootsy, spaced out trek for the listener.

You might like this if you like:
Massive Attack - Protection
Strange Parcels - Disconnection
Chris Whitley - Rocket House
various dubbish Bill Laswell and Jah Wobble excursions
Sly & Robbie - Stripped to the Bone

Kudu 2 U 2?

Kudu is doing a US tour. Short but sweet.

Go see them. This is non-negotiable.

Monday, January 30, 2006

Live: Wayne Shorter Quartet

Wayne Shorter Quartet
Memorial Hall, Stanford
Wayne Shorter
Danilo Perez
Brian Blade
John Patitucci

There are very few things better than Wayne Shorter musically. This is almost an incontrovertible fact, were it not obviously this writers complete awestruck opinion.

When Miles Davis left this earthly plane, the void left was almost unfathomable. One seriously wondered who would fill that void, if ever. I do not know if it is truly filled by any standard, but I do think if it is, it is not due to some new, unbelieveable talent having arrived like a savior, but rather two of Miles's sidemen have stepped up quietly and effortlessly. They happen to have both served under the Dark Prince at roughly the same stages, and both continue to have a strong working relationship with each other now. One is Herbie Hancock, the other Wayne Shorter. Within that dyadic pair, you have an amassment of jazz knowledge, technical power, compositional breadth, and sheer supernatural presence, it is damn-all staggering. They are both at ages where one could forgive them for being long past their creative prime...yet there is nothing to forgive, seeing as they both seem to be quite on point.

This is my third Wayne Shorter show, and like the other two, not a letdown.* While I am still deeply at odds with his choice of Patitucci as bassist (more on that later), as a whole his working band has stayed together for several years now, and their interaction has continued to improve. While they are still playing out quite a bit --as if Wayne got the free-jazz bug 3 decades late-- it is more focused, more relaxed, less forced than many who practice the genre. Shorter's work is narrative. Stories are told instead of patterns placed in a line and presented to the listener to just passively take in. You have to focus on this stuff. And to do so is almost always rewarding.

The show was well paced, with passages of almost ECM-like chamber jazz shaken up and punctuated by bursts of cacophonic breakdowns and muscular full-steam workouts. Wayne has apparently lost none of his technical prowess, and his tenor is warm; from breathy drones to concussive intervallic runs. If nothing else, I have to thank him for also saving the soprano sax from Kenny G. After a Wayne performance you feel cleansed of that brillo-pad headed soft-jam fascist. His stints during the show with it showed a much more meaty usage. Powerful, meandering melody lines and extended solos that gave the instrument a vibrant, assertive tone. I don't think Shorter is capable of putting on a bum gig. His playing has not lost any passion, and unlike some of his contemporaries (Sonny Rollins comes to mind) he does not appear to be in a holding pattern. His playing seems to reflect the inquisitive character and well-balanced nature of the man one reads about or hears in interviews and documentary segments. He is art imitating life (his own) it would seem.

As for the rest of the players:

Danilo Perez: the most functional and most faceless of the lot. His operating style seems to be totally subservient to laying a great bed of space for Wayne to work in, and that is a commendable acheivement. He is not a Hancock or Tyner, but he has chops and sounded clean and interesting at more than one spot.

Brian Blade: This guy is truly destined for greatness. One day we will be seeing this dude in the same pantheon as Tony and Elvin and Max. He is 100% A-game, all the time. He can be quiet and accompany with minimum fuss, or explode like an octopus on methadrine. His playing is very visual, heterodox, and fun to watch. The guy has rolls that are some of the most crisp and precise anywhere. If anyone could steal a little thunder from the Wayne, it is Blade. In terms of how he fits musically, he is perfect; providing a great engine to all of Shorter's various moods. I can see why he keeps him. Frankly I think it would be interesting to see a Shorter/Blade duet performance, or maybe a trio with someone like Eberhard Weber filing in the space.

John Patittuci: I have had a long love/hate relationship with this lummox of a player. His smooth-jazz fusion early work on GRP (as a solo artist) and with the Chick Corea Elektric band were mostly abyssmal archetypes of what went wrong with fusion (Chick Corea has produced almost nothing of interest to me since his Return to Forever years when Clarke and White were still in that outfit, and since then he has churned out sidemen of technical ability and musical blandness since). He has chops to spare, and can on occasion come up with a cool riff or solo, but often it would be ruined in flatulent production and cheesey arrangements. On acoustic upright, he suffers from a rather dead, spongy tone, a lack of inventiveness, and an overbearing need to assert himself. His solo was a complete dumpster-full of wasted sound. Also, randomly emitting loud outbursts from your yap does not make you seem like Keith Jarrett, it makes you seem like a moron. While his playing has improved since my first experience listening to him, he still has not learned much. Wayne, replace this lumbering clod with a George Mraz or better yet, someone who can really play in the various contexts you are into: Ben Allison.

* The second show was 2004 with the reunion of Shorter and Hancock with another Davis alum, Dave Holland, and with Brian Blade sitting in admirably for the chair that probably would have sat Tony Williams were he alive.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

It's Not Easy, Being...

...Green Gartside.

I had been ecstatic at Scritti Politti's "comeback" album of sorts, Anomie and Bonhomie. But after 11 years of seclusion, it was a brief, underpromoted effort and Green disappeared again with as much stealth as he had reappeared (he may be the world's only Welsh ninja). Outside of a brief appearance on the last Kylie effort, there was nothing of him to be heard or seen anywhere.

Apparently he has a new solo disc (although really, Scritti was essentially him and substantial contribution from David Gamson with a slew of session guests) out this spring. But i will believe such an item exists when I can order it.

But this appearance is a welcome unpredictable move that maybe bodes well.

DVD: Rush - R30: Live in Frankfurt

So I finally received via my home DVD service (which I refuse to name because I dislike their corporation enough to not promote them, but got some free sub for a time and will use it in the interim) the latest Rush live spectacle, R30: Live in Frankfurt.

As general concerts go, it is definately topline. As Rush shows go, they have done better.

The lads are well-preserved after 3 decades admittedly (most likely due to their comparatively clean living. The Stones they ain't, current legal embroglio excluded), and their show is a testament to how you can still rock out and not look decrepit or silly in your 50s.

In keeping with their notoriously off-kilter humor, the opening sequence is an animated montage of their various album cover concepts and into a strange skit with Jerry Stiller, and the intermission visuals feature the trio as a set of Bobble-Heads taking on a dragon in a weird Godzilla-like short. Funny the first time out, but I could people who actually end up buying this disc fast forwarding through those parts real-soon-quick.

As for the look of the show itself, the staging is somewhat more spartan than past tours, but it is still packed with a heavy effects and video panel rig worthy of their reputation. The lighting is really beautiful, saturated colors and change often without being distracting, much like the cinematography.

The camerawork is quite good, with all three guys getting ample time in front of the lens, something that has not always happened, particularly with Neil being somewhat handled badly on the A Show of Hands video release.

The concert is the meat of this, and it is pretty solid as Rush goes. They cover a really wide berth of material, with much of the 70s done in medley format. This is a good thing. While I like a lot of the riffs from that period, most of the songwriting was atrocious, and Geddy still occasionally tries to hit those banshee-register notes that make me want to run outside and fight things. They otherwise play from all periods of their canon, with Pearts kit an ever looming behemoth on the back third of the stage, and Alex switching guitars every couple of songs (a PRS, a Gibson, a Tele and a dual-neck from his robe-wearing days all made prominent appearances). The sound is clean and well-seperated, so you can hear your favorite virtuoso in unmuddied sonic glory.

The major disappointments for me was that they did not play more material from Power Windows and Grace Under Pressure (although the fact that they played what I consider one of the best songs, Between the Wheels, was a real treat), and Neil's solo was a bit of a mess. It would appear that he tried to improvise a bit much; instead of the taut, well-composed percussion fusillades we end up with a series of interesting parts interspersed in between numerous aimless segues. The Ryhthm Method, his ever evolving solo drum piece that showed a consistent level of improvement over decades of incremental development on all their earlier live albums, is replaced by Der Trommler, which keeps a few key bits of TRM and otherwise runs them through a Cuisinart along with some hokey pseudo-jazz noodling that comes off really ill-assembled. Ronald Shannon Jackson he ain't.

The other thing that lost me a bit was the fact that they plopped some covers in there. Four of them. One of them would have been ok (I really dig their version of The Seeker), but four is a waste of space better reserved to your own rather byzantine catalog guys.


Bonus footage is substantial, but much of it is a bit dull. It is interesting to see well established guys like Vernon Reid and Chris Cornell do their brief 15 second fanboy blurbs, and the in-studio version of Closer to the Heart (done for Tsunami Relief) with one of the fellows from Barenaked ladies (and some weird block-jawed and bullit-proof optics wearing dude) is a nice coda to the bonus DVD.

The interview footage is largely fluff, with the exception of their big award recption at the Juno's, where Neil provides a rather poingant and funny acceptance speech with his typically dry delivery. If anything his later interviews are interesting because as rock stars go, he is ridiculously articulate without being an arrogant snot. Actually all three speak well, and it is always great to see celebrities who are capable of gluing subjects and predicates into complete thoughts worth listening to and not stuffed with ummm and uhhh filler.

The 70s and 80s interviews are dull, and clearly for the most hardcore of old-school Rush fans,who still pine for the days when Geddy regualrly sang in a register that would confuse bat sonar and songs were 20 minute long epics inspired by various literary references (JRR Tolkien, Ayn Rand and John Steinbeck all come to mind).

Overall a pretty good deal. i would not receommend it over Rush in Rio or the Grace Under Pressure tour vids, but otherwise is a damn solid testament to their live prowess.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Sao Paulo Declares War...

As someone who appreciates all forms of Lusophonic music, the idea of Kevin Federline even in the periphery of it frightens and angers me to no end. When does Brazil declare a state of open hostilities?

The guy is a moron and musically bereft of funds. This video proves it.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Portugal. The Man

So I heard about a band called Portugal. The Man

This is an odd name, given they are not from Portugal (they are from Alaska), they are more than one man (of which none are apparently Portuguese) , and don't play Fado.

I just found that mildly interesting.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Cameo - Word Up!

Why hasn't this album been reissued with bonus tracks and extensive liner notes? This is one of the most pivotal albums of the 80s, and its effects are still being felt 2 decades later.

The opening 3 tracks alone --Word Up, Candy, Back & Forth-- are a salvo of blemish-free studio wizardry married to the off-kilter and infectious funk vision of Larry Blackmon.

Speaking of Larry, he and the guys need to get a damn website up already.

DVD: Saga - Silhouette

Saga is still on the loose, almost a quarter of a century since they first gained any mass popularity, and went into chart decline. Yet they perservere, as strange neo-prog meets pop-metal mutant. Imagine Winger meets the less wankish side of Dream Theatre, with some Cock Robin and Trevor Rabin (either solo or with Yes) thrown in. It can at times be surprisingly good, and sometimes (especially with their ballads) utter wheels of moldy cheese.

This is a collection of videos, live footage and documentary interview material, and its decent. I actually have a considerable soft spot for much of Saga's back catalog, particularly Heads or Tails, House of Cards, and the suprisingly excellent and almost totally ignored The Beginners Guide to Throwing Shapes.

For the most part, one can either enjoy the low budget nature of most of their 70s and 80s videos, of which Saga's epitomize many of its most cringe-worthy elements. Case in point with the following images, we have: mullets, women in day-glo body paint, big poseur rawk dood stances a la Freddie Mercury (only with better teeth and no extra-large Village People roadie mustache), big blinding wall of stage lights (later reprised by Linkin Park it would seem), schlocky re-enactmenst of album covers as random codas to video segments, and tuxedoed frontmen with their silver Camaros. But much of the videos are still oddly fun. And fun is good, even if its bad-good. The standout would have to be their last chart hit from 1983's Behaviour album, What Do I Know? which stands up well enough as typical of the period, but well done.

As far as the substantial amount of interview footage, some of it even interesting and listenable. Then-drummer Steve Negus is the least engaging of the lot, and comes off about as fun as getting stuck to a naugahyde couch in summer. Keyboardist Jim Gilmour --with a surprisingly raspy speaking voice for someone with an otherwise airy and smooth singing tone-- is probably the most down to earth. Apparently they remain quite large in countries like Germany and Puerto Rico (instead of the requisite final bastion of many washed out bands, Japan)* while largely ignored in their home nation of Canada. They also appear to not take themselves terribly seriously, which may explain why they are willing to keep doing what they do, regardless of being largely out of vogue for over 2 decades. Bully for them. And the do not try to ape popular trends, keeping in line with a style that is oddly their own.


The last video was for the song Money Talks from their next to latest album, and looks like it was a decent enough production, with a lot of tongue-in-cheek cameos by the band in the narrative sequence, and special appearance by a suited version of their long-time "mascot" a humanoid insect like creature. It is better than a lot of the fluff I have seen as of late in that it is simple, well directed, and suits the song.







The part that is really annoying is the gear section, where they basically try to mask the fact that they are doing product endorsements in an almost infomercial like manner.

I was let down that none of the Keith Olsen material was not covered (I would guess because Negus and Gilmour were not involved during that period), since it has some of the very best material they recorded both in terms of production and performance. Oh well.

As an aside, I personally think vocalist Michael Sadler would bethe perfect replacement for James LaBrie in Dream Theater. Actually, a sponge mold would be an improvemnet over LaBrie, but that is another rant.

* long past their prime outfits like Asia and Toto continue to pack houses there.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Random Debris

Well, the classic Springsteen album Nebraska will be getting the tribute treatment, and with a hecll of a lineup: Vernon Reid, Me'Shell, and Lenny Kaye among what looks to be around 60 performers at a festival weekend of sorts.

Speaking of Reid, it looks like Sony/Epic Records is releasing another Living Colour best-of, called Everything is Possible. While it is a nice track listing and the inclusion of Flying from the latest record (on the Sanctuary label) is a nice touch, it does not look as well put together as the previous package, Pride. Pride has the 4 extant tracks from an aborted 4th album with Adrian Sherwood and Keith LeBlanc producing (the same team that worked on NIN's debut), which are all of amazing caliber, as well as a more balanced track list.

Speaking of Sherwood and LeBlanc (part of the On-U-Sound massive crew), it appears Little Annie (who has recorded for OUS and is an NYC based performance artist/writer/singer of sorts, having worked with dub, punk and avant-garde folks of various make and model along the way).

Bill Bruford has a pair of releases coming out next month. Both will most likely end up in my grubby little hands, as Bill really only works on projects worth listening to (at least since he vowed himself off of any future Yes albums).

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Henry Threadgill & Make a Move - Where's Your Cup?

Henry Threadgill is something else. I discovered Henry in a bargain bin, a promo copy of Too Much Sugar For a Dime, as it was on Bill Laswell's Axiom label, always a sign of quality and adventurism.

It messed me up bad. Like King Crimson, it took buying some more releases and several years to "get" HT. I could see the connection between his work and that of Steve Coleman, but my ears didn't bridge the two for a while. Unlike a lot of jazz composers (especially of the avant-garde school), his music is tightly composed and scored. Like Coleman, there is a lot of dense overlapping activities with polyrythms and melodic tracks into some sounding both strictly controlled yet on the verge of entropic disintegration. Unlike Coleman, there is less of a odd funk feel, and more weight given to typically non-jazz instrumentation (at various times he has incorporated two tubas, harmonium, oud, Central and South American ethnic percussion and vocals, violin, and various large brass frontlines).

He utilizes these odd lineups in numerous ensembles --Make a Move, Zooid, and Very Very Circus being the ones I know of-- and he drops all manner of outside musican contexts into his sonic stew. And since he and Make a Move are performing for the spring season of SFJazz, I decided maybe I should dig up one of their releases and refamiliarize myself. I picked Where's Your Cup?. It has a nice lineup; Brandon Ross (DJ Logic, Don Byron, Arrested Development) on guitar, Stomu Takeishi (Wynton Marsalis, Randy Brecker) on fretless bass, Tony Cedras (Cassandra Wilson, Paul Simon, Harry Belafonte) on accordion and harmonium, and JT Lewis (Harriet Tubman, Cassandra Wilson) on drums. Threadgill himself sticks to alto sax and flute this time around and the results are sublime.

The title track bears some almost cinematic Americana guitar plucking, in a manner not unlike a rougher-around the edges Bill Frisell. There is a lot of moments like that on the disc, with space given to make many of the tracks break down into seemingly freeform jams and then coalesce back into cinematic sections and drawn out transitions. Cedras contributes a palette that gives many of the songs weird colors of zydeco, tango and even a little bit of circus music motifs. There are places where this falls down, like it does on The Flew. But on the soft, dry sounding intro to 100 Year Old Game it works well, as well as on And This. JT Lewis plays much as he does in Harriet Tubman, swinging back and forth from chaotic to restrained, and the real MVP is Ross, who is one of the better guitarists out of the NYC underground scene that not enough people seem to know about, even though he plays with a lot of A-List talent. The electric post-bop lines he delivers on Laughing Club is solid.

It is still fairly avant material, and not his best in my opinion, as I really like Too Much Sugar For a Dime and the kind of third stream chamber jazz of Up Popped Two Lips.

Live though, he is supposedly a consistent winner, so i may just have to fork over the sugar to go see for myself.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Dropping mad science...

This strip by Chris Bishop kind of sums up a somewhat trite but oddly true occurrence: the blaxploitation of language without any respect for how that lingo forms, or that sounding "street" in an ironic manner when you are a suburbanite dweeb, especially around other suburbanite dweebs wholly removed from your current trendy afectation makes you all look deeply lame.

And this one is just funny because it takes a stab at another of my annoyances: trite acceptance of 'world music' as a term. The digereeDON'T line I heard before in Cintra Wilson's irst book,and given the weirdness of that strip, would not be surprised if the artist purloined it from there.

Ephraim Lewis - Skin

Ephraim Lewis
Skin
1992 Elektra records

Produced by Bacon and Quarmby

I have been meaning to write a review of this album for quite some time. It is one of those albums that you catch at a pivotal moment in life and sticks with you. Ephraim Lewis was a musical epiphany for me when his debut (and only) album was released. He was the most potentially significant male soul vocalist of the last quarter century, but he passed away controversially before any of that potential could be realized.

My first experience was seeing Ephraim Lewis on an MTV soul show, hosted by fashion designer Karl Kani of all things (which did not last long), and showcasing new talent. That one exposure was enough to sell me on the idea of real soul vocals in a contemporary context.

The most succinct way I can describe him would be to imagine the lovechild of Sade and Maxwell, with Seal and Sarah Webb as the godparents. An impeccable voice that could go from a crisp falsetto (one with a less sharp ring than Prince) to a rich lower register. However, unlike today, where overly melismatic and whistle register vocal gymnastic craft replace actual singing as an expressive performance, Lewis was a scion of restraint and taste.

On It Can't be Forever, he uses his full range in a multitrack of vocal lines to great effect, but never engaging in abusive artifice; using breathy tenor, soaring falsetto and growling half-spoken murmurs to pristine effect. On the only other single release, Drowning in Your Eyes, he uses a kind of downtempo pastoral musical backdrop with Miles Davis like muted trumpet phrases to match his floating vocals, not too far off from something you might hear on a Sweetback album today. The results are exemplary.

While the album is very coherent as a complete work, it is not repetitive. The horn sections used in Mortal Seed, subtle percussion and strings in Summer Lightning, and the punchy guitar and organ riffs in Rule for Life are just some of the various flourishes added to give each song distinct characteristics, along with regular doses of layered, lush keyboards and elastic basslines. Lewis himself treats each song as a contained statement, and he sings each one in a fashion that evokes different eras of soul; hints of Al Green, Marvin Gaye, and even faint hints of Sam Cooke appear. He was a locus for what appeared to be every major style of soul that had come down the pipe to that time, and instead of sounding fractured, he made it all work in a cohesive final delivery that was tough to match. I was quite literally floored that this was done largely by one guy, and a young, otherwise still untested talent at that. Elements of what would become common in the Bristol sound, Acid Jazz and the more intelligent aspects of neo-soul movement are all here in a well-integrated whole, helped along by the topline production team of Kevin Bacon (no, not the actor) and Jonathan Quarmby, who have also worked with Finlay Quaye and Audioweb, as well as recording ambient and dub influenced electronica under the name Manna.

His lyrical content was also not narrow, moving from diffuse musings in a similar vein to Seal at his spaciest, to pithy statements about love and society that seemed deeply informed by the work of Marvin and Stevie.

The album has aged spectacularly well, with the only possible dated element being the drum track from It Can't be Forever, which has been used by literally dozens of dance and soul tracks over the years, most notably with Madonna's Justify My Love. But if that is the worst you can say about something, then you probably aren't doing too badly.

I have seen this album in cut out bins often enough, and I do suggest first looking there, but if you really enjoy soul, either old school or new, there is something here to enjoy.

As for his death, it is shrouded in controversy and loads of conflicting reports involving Los Angeles police, tasers, drugs, and falling off of a multi-story building. There is a rather in depth read about it here.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Cassettes in the Car

So I still have not fixed the CD player in my car and have resorted to digging through my crates of tapes to listen to, occasionally finding interesting stuff along the way.

I saw a video for Tyranny, the title track from the sole release by The Stabilizers; a synth pop/AOR band from Erie of all places. It kind of has that mark of "Go West and Depeche Mode meet Michigan". If anything, the album was a pleasant disappointment. It was not as well crafted and produced as a Go West or having as much depth as Depeche Mode, but it had enough meeting in the middle to make for a good debut worth repeated listens and hope for subsequent efforts.

Alas, no subsequent efforts were to come of them.

They wrote some decent lyrics that in spots appeared to mine territory similar to the Fixx or Simple Minds, with anthemic hooks. The problem was the production was a little flat, making much of the album sound like a-Ha filler tracks; good enough, but a little sterile. They should have gotten someone like Rupert Hine (the Fixx, Saga, Rush) or Walter Becker (Steely Dan) to bring out the full potential of the material...but paying them probably would have killed the recording budget in one fell swoop.

If you find this little guy in a cutout tape bin for 2 quarters as I did, andyou like that mid-80s synth pop sound, pick this up. I literally grabbed it after 10 years of never seeing the album anywhere in shops or even online (although apparently a cd reissue was released in Germany not too long ago) and consider it a useful waste of half a dollar.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Reid Miles and Blue Note

So Blue Note Records is probably my favorite label. Not only did they have (and still have) so many artists that I consider dear to my ears, but for a long time, they had reid Miles, who created a visual tapestry of typography and design brilliance that still resonates today. Like Saul Bass did with Hitchcock posters, he was iconic.

I read this when it was in an issue of Computer Arts, but it is now online, and I think worth a gander.

PiL - The Flowers of Romance

I borrowed this rather unique album from the collection of the Missus a while back and as much of a Public Image Limited fan as I am, I still feel totally different about it each time I listen to it.

For a band that created a string of early albums that were disparate in tone and approach, this one stands apart even from that. It is so stark and almost avant-gard in so many odd spots. Keith Levene, whose guitar mayhem I took a liking to, is almost doing a kind of tribal musique concrete thing over the pounding drums of Martin Atkins. There is some guitar synth bits that swell up and then seem to decay off into nowhere, with a cinematic chaos to all of it. It is post-punk meets Stockhausen. There are areas where you can definitely tell how Levene influenced other players like the Edge and Charlie Burchill with use of space and quirky atmospherics.

Lydon doesn't seem to sing half the time as much as proclaim. OK, he was always somewhat like that, even during his Sex Pistols days, but on this album it is even more prevalent and disjoint. Even the more straightahead cuts, such as Banging the Door are still teeming with an almost martial cadence that threatens your ears with ready-to-disintegrate tension.

PiL were one of the major architects of post-punk, but I would not rely on this album as the intro (go for Metal Box for the early period, 9 for the later material, which is both artier and more accessible).

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Harriet Tubman - Prototype

So I picked up on Harriet Tubman because of first and foremost, Melvin Gibbs (Rollins Band, Arto Lindsay, Defunkt) who I had first really gotten into with his work in Eye and I, via his proxy connection to Vernon Reid (both with Reid guesting on Eye & I's sole release, and in both Gibbs and Reid having concurrent tenures in Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society at its creative peak). But when I first picked up HTs debut, I noticed it had Brandon Ross, whose work I liked with its duality of finesse and avant-fury, evidenced on what I knew then of his work with Cassandra Wilson and Henry Threadgill's Very Very Circus and Make a Move bands.

I figured this would make for some potentially intriguing stuff, but when I first picked it up I was not prepped for that level of freeform improve and deconstructed musical frameworks.

Time and better trained ears do wonders, as does this live album, which is a notable improvement from that debut. Not that the playing has become more traditional, but that the band --filled out by drummer J.T. Lewis-- seems to have found where its grounded and flighty elements can liftoff and land without crashing or flying off into the great beyond without hope of return.

This is a set of live dates and the sound is crisp, cutting, and fills up the space in all kinds of swell ways. I always admired Gibbs for the same reasons I like Doug Wimbish and Tony Levin...they understand intimately what the music needs at any given time, be it a very spacious economy of groove or a dense cacophany of noise. Here this works at least as good as it did with the Power Tools project compositionally, but this is has a bit more punk fire to it. Maybe because they have actually managed to stick around long enough to tour this one and to keep a chemistry builing, maybe because Ross and Lewis are more comfortable in this kind of setting than Bill Frisell. Whatever the reason, it is a great follow up of sorts to that great brief super group.

Ross uses subtle effects to augment his wide variety of phrasings and Lewis dashes from loud crashes of pounding to delicate colors, with Gibbs providing the disjointed funk glue that seems to bind it all together in one barely contained riot of sound. Layers of delay in a manner not too removed from Frippertronics gets belted with Hendrix style wailing. Ornette Coleman tone dialing gives way to big (what I think is) mutron affected bass and odd time tweak out in an organic Squarepusher kind of way. This is wild stuff that builds and collapses in a manner not for the squeamish. But for the truly adventurous this might be worth a slap in the speakerbox.

iPod Playlist: 1.08.06

iPod:

Colin Hay - Looking for Jack & Hold me
UK - their entire live album
Cameo - tracks from Single Life
Wally Badarou - Echoes
Bugz in the Attic - various tracks from their releases
Stereo MC's - Warhead (from their latest)
Paul Rose N4 Mix Podcast
Quincy Essentials Nu Sound Gallery 2 mix (podcast)
Ennio Morricone Remixes (Compost Records)

Monday, January 09, 2006

I Are Teh w1n!

I loved the Ropeadope guys before, and turned in a togue in cheek 'resolution' to a request they sent out to the masses. Apparently it got noticed.

Rock on Andy and Jason.

Monday, Monday...

...nah, nah...nah, nah-nah, nah.....

So I have been looking at what I want to cover in the coming days and weeks, and definitely will look into the two bargain bin cd's I nabbed for a few bucks apiece at Armadillo Records in Davis on the way to the train last week (a classic Japan-only Phil Upchurch reissue and the debut by violinist Claude Chalhoub).

I also have been picking through some old gems I had not listened to in a while; Kool Keith, Harriet Tubman and most recently Goldie's debut Timeless, which I had forgotten was so good. It, along with New Forms by Roni Size and Reprazent, and Progression Sessions with Blame and DRS (which led me down my still unending path of discovery of the brilliance of LTJ Bukems entire family of labels and acts)

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Ray Lema - The Dream of the Gazelle

Ray Lema
The Dream of the Gazelle
1996

I first heard the calm tenor of Ray Lema on the Afro-artrock masterpiece The Rythmatist by ex-Policeman Stewart Copeland, a fact I mention very chance I get (because that album is one of the most underappreciated gems in my collection). His voice still sounds good, but on his solo album The Dream of the Gazelle, its boatanchored with some lame tracks, starting with the opener, M'Lizi. The female vocals sound pained, and his own contributions forced. The weak operatic female vocals in the close of Third Movement is also grating. In general, Lema's vocals sound great, but the supporting female vocals on a few tracks are just distracting and/or serious blammo.

The good news is that there is less grit than gold. N'Totila is a quiet ballad with strings not unlike something you would hear on a Beatles record, but a bit more sparse and sung in Bantu. Twa Taka Nini starts like something Ennio Morricone would write for a spy film, but gets up into something oddly sounding like township meets tango, with a stalking piano vamp. There is actually a sense of Morricone in a few spots here, but more on that later. Circovol is four minutes of --for all intents and purposes -- chamber music, the type you would see on the ECM label. The last half dozen tracks would also fit ECM, except it is a more ambitious suite of pieces that conjoin Avro Part meets Sub-Saharan Africa, with strings and delicate use of piano and percussion of many stripes to fill out the compositions. Fourth Movement is almost back to the Morricone bit, with a Gunsmoke in Brazzaville effect. The closer is a spontaneous sounding solo piano bit called Post-Scriptum that closes things cleanly.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Lament

Robert Fripp is doing some of the sounds for Microsoft's Vista OS release. Watch the video.

That is great for Robert...but the OS will still be a wrteched mess.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Matthieu Michel - Live at Theatre Oriental

Matthieu Michel
Live at Theatre Oriental
2003 Universal Music GmBH, Austria

Matthieu Michel - Trumpet
Martin Reiter - Keyboards, Piano
Ptere Herbert - Double Bass
Alex Deutsch - Drums

w/ Michael Doum Doum Dread, Gail Anderson , Wolfgang Muthspeil, Christoph Varga, and others.

There are not a lot of musicians in jazz or rock from Switzerland that I can think of; Patrick Moraz and Jojo Mayer being the only two really. Now I guess I can add Matthieu Michel.

I picked this thing up on a lark on day at a Rasputin Records (they had a huge new influx of stock to their bargain bins, with a 3.95 each or 5 for 15 bucks), and it was worth it for the most part.

First the bad parts:

1. The french monotonal vocals on the 10 minute Des Jours Meilleurs is really, deeply annoying.
2. Some of a the keyboard patches are a little too close to the smooth jazz vein, but they are few and far apart. I do not like thin Fender Rhodes patches. Either make it sound like the real deal or just get one and use it. No sissy-ninny-boy patch sets damnit.

The good part is that this guy is pretty good on trumpet, with a clean, crisp tone and playing in a style very derivative of Miles Davis in phrasing, particularly evident on the cut Oriental which drifts from sounding like he is copping from Sketches of Spain to copping from Big Fun. Given that, the sound palette he is working from is consonant with the crop of trumpet players that have come into their own in te last decade that are heavily indebted to the late-era and harmon mute using Miles, and to the possibilities of electronics. We are talking folks like Nils Petter Moelvar, Erik Truffaz, Wallace Roney*, Tim Hagans and even Dave Douglas.

It is a mostly mellow album, like Marc Isham's Blue Sun, but lacking some of the compositional range. The standouts are the two bookend cuts, Nag Champa's Flavor and L'Accorde-Oniste. The nu-jazz meets house style of Let it In could easily fit on a Naked Music release (and probably could be a fun remix track for a Miguel Migs or Blue Six), and the vocals sound a little bit like Lisa Shaw in spots. This is a good thing, but probably should have been placed as a bonus track or something, as it sits badly sequenced as the penultimate track.

The standout sideman here is Peter Herbert. With a surprisingly ringing but rubbery upright bass sound, his complex figures in Oriental and Cadillac are ear candy. Even the somewhat conventional pseudo latin buzz in Havanna Club has an elasticity from the bass department that cuts across the cheesy synth and piano riffing (see #2 above). Also of note is Wolfgang Muthspiel, who always has something tasteful to say on guitar.

* Roney is a bit unique in that he has direct connections to Miles, has the most overarching sound that is both derivative of Miles yet distinctly his own animal as well. A truly underrated and inscrutible player and composer.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

A little light music...

"It started with me and Corey jammin' around--I was playin' crazy Yusef Lateef-type Chinese twelve-tone scale stuff! But we all got our little licks in there."
-Doug Wimbish about the track This Little Pig from the Living Colour album, Stain.

Now, I have to give props to anyone who casually jams using "crazy Yusef lateef-type Chinese twelve-tone scale stuff", and this guy is also the man who played on all those early Sugar Hill Rap records, and toured with Carly Simon.

Best...bassist...evar.

Monday, January 02, 2006

iPod Playlist: 1.1.06

This one, to start off the year, is all over the place.

1. Me'Shell Ndegeocello - live tracks from a 2000 tour.
2. Manu Katche - tracks from Neighborhood
3. Salif Keita - Moffou Remixes by Osunlade and the Boldz
4. Living Colour - 17 Days, live (a b-side live track of a previous b-side studio cut cover of a Prince b-side circa the Purple Rain album)
5. Cameo - cuts from the album Single Life, including one of their most funny and bizarre cuts, Urban Warrior.
6. random cuts from several albums on the Naked Music label (Lisa Shaw, Miguel Migs, etc)
7. King's X - most of the new album Ogre Tones
8. Jurassic 5 - two tracks, Hard Times (with the inimitable Pharcyde) and Join the Dots (which is really a duet of Chali Tuna with my favorite UK MC, Roots Manuva)
9. The Police - Tea in the Sahara (live, from a 1983 tour)
10. Jehst - several cuts from Return of the Drifter
11. Ohmega Watts - several cuts from the Find
12. Antipop Consortium - numerous cuts from several releases, but mostly from Shopping carts Crashing.

Drano and Bags and the IRS

So I had picked up my long unlistened-to promo copy of Cold by Frosted, also known as the short band project fronted by ex-Go-Go Jane Weidlen. I was going to write a review (it is a decent collection of pop-punk tunes, and actually is better than much of the pap on TRL/MTV/Clear Channel) and in the process went looking around to see what Jane was up to these days, as the album was a decade old. I had a thing for Jane in the 80s (she was the only attractive girl in the lot, and wrote the only solo Go-Go material I really enjoyed, including the maligned AOR track Rush Hour).

Which led me to a reference to the early L.A. punk scene (of which jane and the future Go-Go's were a part of believe it or not, originally under the name Jane Drano), on Alice Bag's website. If you are interested in a good corpus of material on late 70s Los Angeles punk, her site is a treasure trove, including a recent interview with Jane, and a lot of dirt on the scene, as well as her blog, which provides some novel distraction. There is also a mountain of trivia on Jane here.

Jane herself seems to have kept busy recording more tunes, acting (and I do not just mean in that moronic celebreality show on VH-1), and do the occasional photo shoot with Playmates (Dita Von Teese) . At almost 50, she appears to still be a human dynamo with a tweaked out voice and great knack for a hooky melody. Go Jane.

p.s. Somewhere in all this I also found a page listing her related to the great I.R.S. label (the single greatest record company for post-modern 80s rock in my opinion). I mean, I still remember when MTV showed The Cutting Edge and segments like 120 Minutes were pretty much showcases for I.R.S. acts.