New and recent releases, two concert highlights, and old favorites revisited.
Lucinda Williams continues her great run with a beautiful, almost meditative album featuring the production talents of Hal Willner. The musicians are a stellar crew, featuring Bill Frisell on guitars and violinist Jenny Scheinman, who provides string arrangements. But, of course, the focus is firmly on Williams’s ultra-realist lyrics and whiskey-cured vocals. For all the traumas she sings about, though, there’s an unshakeable undercurrent of hope that buoys listeners’ spirits, and as much as the music seems low-key on the surface (though there are some burning guitar solos!), palpable intensity roils underneath. All Lucinda fans will love this record.
Jain is currently a New Yorker, but comes by the British folk feel of her music naturally as a native Londoner. Multi-tracking gorgeous vocal harmonies over sparely layered instrumental tracks that can be as starkly beautiful as droning cello and viola (think John Cale’s arrangements for Nico), she’s a musical descendent of Vashti Bunyan (with a hint of Sandy Denny on the many piano-based songs); the best current comparison would be Cat Power in her quietest moments. Thanks to my pal Stu for the suggested comparisons.
Kele Okerere’s lyrics have reached a depth of emotional evocation rarely equaled in mainstream rock nowadays. It would be a shame if indie fans let the increasing polish of Bloc Party’s music turn them off to such excellent songs. This band had already demonstrated its eclecticness on its debut album; this time out the various styles are developed further. Fortunately the great momentum of their post-punk influences is not sacrificed; even in quieter moments the underlying propulsion is palpable, and quick switches from majestic brooding to energetic explosions are often heard. In the space of a few EPs and two albums, Bloc Party has vaulted from showing promise to being one of the best new British bands around.
Never mind crate digging, the new thing is archive digging, and soul is proving to be especially rewarding territory. These 1973 tracks, most previously unreleased, offer yet another sterling example. Amnesty was an Indianapolis band combining the vocal talents of The Embers and the instrumental skills of The Crimson Tide. Their mix of harmony-vocal soul with deep funk will please P-Funk fans, while occasional traces of Afrobeat recall Osibisa and Mandrill. There’s nothing about the thoroughly enjoyable music here that explains why it wasn’t released at the time, until the bit in the booklet notes that says the Lamp label for which they recorded specialized in rock. The 1970s’ loss is our gain now that this killer album has finally appeared.
Yoko’s influence on succeeding generations of musicians has turned ideas that seemed strange 35 years ago into indie norms. Now some of the influenced have retooled her music. Ono’s original vocals are used on each song, and sometimes parts of original instrumental tracks are incorporated as well. Like Ono’s own discography, the results are highly varied and uneven. But though Yes, I’m a Witch is no substitute for owning Plastic Ono Band, Fly, and Season of Glass, it achieves its aim of placing Ono into current musical contexts ranging from hip-hop to electronica to rock. Collaborators on the 17 tracks include Hank Shocklee (Public Enemy’s producer), Peaches, DJ Spooky, Cat Power, Polyphonic Spree, Flaming Lips, Shitake Monkey, Blow Up, Le Tigre, Porcupine Tree, The Apples in Stereo, Jason Pierce (Spiritualized), Craig Armstrong, Antony with Hahn Rowe (Hugo Largo), and The Sleepy Jackson.
The first of two brilliantly reimagined covers from a show at The GlassLands this past Thursday night (2/15). Mathew Houck started his set solo with a cracked, pleading rendition of a Smiths favorite that stripped away all polish and glamour to turn it into the howl of a beaten man.
And here’s the other one. As The Friends Band wrapped up with the first of two farewell shows, they mostly played original material, but this traditional folk song got a psychy workout. Jesse Ainslie has one of the most powerful voices on the NY scene, but reined it in for an appropriately forlorn delivery (though conveying that this wayfarer might be one tough dude) while guitarist Dan Weber freaked out around him and bassist Jeff Bailey nailed it all down (along with a drummer whose name I don’t know).
Written to accompany Al Reinert’s Apollo moon missions documentary For All Mankind, which used film shot in space by the astronauts themselves, this is hands-down Eno’s most sonically gorgeous album. It’s built around electric piano and synthesizers, with pedal steel guitar, the simplest bass lines, and backwards electric guitar added for spice at various points, all swathed in billowing reverb. Sometimes there are floating melodies (the sustained tones of “An Ending (Ascent)” have a noble, poised elegance); often there are a much sparer arrangements full of space (no pun intended).
Waits’s first Island release, this 1983 release ditched the winking lounge music for alienated, bluesy, production full of unexpected angles. The opening track, “Underground,” throws down the gauntlet immediately with clucking electric guitar by Fred Tackett that sounds assembled from jagged metal shards. Later, “16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six” finds Victor Feldman playing brake drum. On “Shore Leave,” when he’s not reciting dark poetry, Waits howls and groans with new abandon and imagination. Three instrumentals starring Waits’ woozy solos on organ, harmonium, and piano respectively add to the atmosphere. Even when he essays sentimental ballads, the sound is stripped down and wistful. Swordfishtrombones boldly proclaimed a new Tom Waits.
The erhu, which dates back over 2000 years, is a two-stringed bowed instrument with a small resonation cavity at its base, roughly comparable in its basic principles to the violin. It is accompanied here by the yang-qin, a multi-stringed plucked instrument which sounds like a zither. The scales Chinese music is based on are pentatonic, with five notes. There is a premium on expressive and melodic playing, with a wide range of timbres and little or no harmonic content (no chords). This ancient music has a true living tradition, and it’s hard for the non-expert listener to distinguish between the 20th century melodies here and the folk tunes.
Gung Hay Fat Choy! (Happy New Year!)
