Shop our Big Takeover store for back issues, t-shirts & CDs
Follow The Big Takeover
Halfway Through 2007, part 1
My favorite new releases of the year so far. Next week, reissues/historical releases.
With vintage psychedelia a booming genre lately, and reissue labels looking to more and more obscure scenes for material, the late ‘60s/early ‘70s pop-psych that came out of Cambodia was documented on the compilation Cambodian Rocks (the most famous; there have been others with better documentation) and has found a lot of fans, including a bunch of guys in Los Angeles who formed a band playing that style. When they found an authentic Cambodian pop star living in L.A., Chhom Nimol (who sings mostly in Khmer, though she essays some English on this album), who agreed to be their vocalist, they went from an amusing idea to a thrilling reality. When they moved from all covers to, on this disc, mostly originals (the exception being the Ros Serey Sothea classic “Tip My Canoe”) with Ethiopian music added to the mix here and there, they became not just lovable but admirable, both fun and exciting.
This monumental fifty-minute work (longer than the combined length of this Polish composer’s first two quartets) was written in 1995 but then withheld for a decade. That this masterpiece was finally recorded and released is welcome news. I rhapsodize over it here.
Japan’s finest return with another aural assault, their first album of new material in four years – now with added theremin! My review’s here.
After the spectacular success of Alligator, can The National follow up? You bet. Read all about it here.
There are still plenty of pop hooks on the Shins’ third full-length, but James Mercer continues to mature as a songwriter and expand his production palette. Yes, as usual, we’re given an album of sad songs that jangle happily, but there are more sounds, more sonic variety (is that a banjo on “Australia”?), and more depth too. Read my review here.
Volta is Björk’s most accessible album since Vespertine. The far-out ingredients on Medulla and the Drawing Restraint soundtrack are poured into song structures with beats underneath. It’s the best of both worlds, really. For my complete review, go here.
Tinariwen is a Tuareg group that plays droning Malian blues-rock. The obvious comparison is Ali Farka Toure, and if you like him you’ll probably like these Saharan nomads, but overall the sound is much fuller, and on the more uptempo material they’ve got their own rhythmic sense that sets them apart. Sometimes they emphasize an exultant, communal groove; other times the sound is stripped down to hushed intimacy. This is one of the most amazing releases you can hear this year.
This two-CD set has a slight split personality between the two discs. On disc one, the influence of Brian Eno’s ambient music is especially strong; for instance, “Don’t Bother They’re Here” and “Dopamine Clouds over Craven Cottage” sound like outtakes from Music for Airports in their construction. Disc two, though certainly similar in mood, is more original, practically a sonic demonstration of the acoustic properties of attack and decay as sounds appear, swell, and diminish, with less minimalist repetition in favor of a slow parade of serenely caressed timbres. The duo of Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie is augmented by a whopping eight additional instrumentalists (four string players, four horns) plus a children’s choir, along with four “contributors” presumably helping with the electronic manipulations. The result is mellow voluptuousness if you use these instrumentals as background music, but utterly engrossing if you pay attention.
The headlong momentum of “The Well and the Lighthouse” will sound familiar, as will the ear-grabbingly straining, sincere singing of Win Butler, but there is much here that finds this already ambitious band becoming even more daring. Using pipe organ on “Intervention” and “My Body Is a Cage” epitomizes this band’s willingness to say the hell with indie-rock rules and grab for all the sonic splendor they can. And it’s not just that they’ve (probably) got a bigger production budget this time out; the songwriting’s better, more assured. Yes, better than Funeral, much better.
The members of the original lineup pick up where they left off, gloriously (and noisily) so – but this time around, minus Lou’s crappy lo-fi home taping indulgences.
