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Best of 2007: New Releases, part 1
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.
I was surprised to learn that Sharon Jones was born in 1958 – I’d assumed she was a relic from the ‘70s heyday of soul-funk. That’s how authentic she sounds: Jones honed her style singing gospel and has all the soulful inflections fully ingrained in her style. And her backing band’s got the style down too, on new material rather than bar-band retreads of familiar classics, although sometimes the sources are a bit obvious – the initial horn part on “Humble Me” is pure Otis Redding; the groove on “Keep on Looking” couldn’t be more JB (and why’d they fade the trumpet solo?). I don’t care, though, because this is as good as soul gets nowadays.
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.
The final album in OTR’s Lost Light trilogy once again inspires Captain Beefheart comparisons, but its post-punk vibe is even stronger thanks to the beats of new drummer Germaine Baca, while longtime member Aaron Hartman’s bass lines are particularly direct and throbbing. With saxophonist Ben Hartman taking care of the squealing and squawking, leader Arrington De Dionyso concentrates more on guitar, though his bass clarinet tones glint darkly here and there. The slide guitar on “The Tightest Cage” recalling Pat Place’s work in the Contortions, while “Dark Matter” suggests a sinister permutation of surf guitar. There are lots of bands that have revived post-punk only to make it tame, just dance music with a rough edge. These guys do something original with it, extending the legacy rather than recycling it.
I have been reviewing Shipp’s albums for almost as long as he’s been making them (I haven’t quite reviewed all 27, but I’m close). I am in awe of his continuing artistic development and his ability to avoid repeating himself yet always remain distinctively identifiable. Here he finds new things to say in perhaps the most common of jazz formats, the piano/bass/drums trio (joined by bassist Joe Morris and drummer Whit Dickey), never seeming derivative even as he ties together threads of jazz history ranging from bebop to free playing. Best jazz album of the year.
There have been a lot of post-punk revivalists in the past few years, but too many have smoothed the rough edges off, oversimplified the rhythms, and basically made an edgy, dangerous style sound tame and generic. Not this band, though. Good quirky influences help – witness the Pylon cover on their EP. The dark and cutting sound on this full-length gets it right.
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.
CocoRosie – The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn (Touch and Go)
The most weird and adventurous of Brooklyn’s freak-folkers (and that’s really saying something) take another unexpected step on their third album, incorporating hip-hop beats and rapping on some tracks. They do this with the same musical imagination and magical realism lyrics they’ve always displayed, so the result is as brilliant and compelling as always, a further exploration of their love for sound but catchier and funkier. Nor is it a pervasive change; for instance, “Sunshine” incorporates both reggae and opera. CocoRosie is really an avant-garde duo that deconstructs popular materials, and this time out the range of those materials has shifted a bit. Any fans who reject this album never really understood what they were doing in the first place.
I loved this nostalgic burst of Italo-disco electronica as soon as I heard it (when it finally came out here at the end of October after having appeared in Europe last year with a slightly different track list). Lightweight and ephemeral it may well prove to be, but really that’s just part of the style: have fun in the moment and don’t worry about artistic pretensions. The pseudonymous Shapiro’s voice is high and pretty and very white, floating over producer Johan Agebjörn’s gently percolating tracks. Cotton candy music, but I’ve got a sweet tooth.
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.
