Best of 2007: New Releases, part 3
This contains the final U.S. concert of Ware’s long-running group (only the drum slot was changed during the quartet’s 17½-year existence). That AUM Fidelity was able to capture this powerful group in good sound in the overly reverberant Angel Orensanz Center (a former synagogue) is quite an achievement. Ware is always a powerhouse on tenor sax, but this night he had more of his early fire than usual lately. This is a thrilling final souvenir of Ware’s group with faithful cohorts Matthew Shipp and William Parker, with Guillermo Brown around for the last seven-plus years.
This concert recording captures an all-star quartet with tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts, but even though, as usual, Lovano’s more freewheeling and adventurous as a sideman, there’s no question who’s the biggest star: Tyner, one of the two greatest jazz pianists alive, and a great composer as well.
I don’t know so much about recent electronic music, so I can’t say where this stands in relation to other dubstep. But I like how organic it feels, how asymmetrical its rhythms often are, and how it conjures a soulful, shadowy emotional world.
After the spectacular success of Alligator, could The National follow up? You bet. Read all about it here.
Back down to a power trio again, but not really changing anything, the band with the greatest name ever continues to boil metal down to its essence (skip the vocals, heavy on riffage and guitar parts moving in parallel thirds or sixths, have the drummer accent the riffs, play loudly and brutally but with stunning precision), enlivened with slight prog-rock/math-rock touches. It wouldn’t be a Champs album without a classy cover; this time it’s the hymn “Abide with Me,” long sung to William H. Monk’s “Eventide,” penned in 1861. More of a changeup is “Dolores Park,” with acoustic guitar, piano, synthesizer (with flute and mellotron settings), and no drums. But otherwise it’s about bludgeoning riffs, and these guys do it with a purity and lack of irony that’s practically beyond criticism.
The prolific Adam Kriney journeys back three decades to the days when interstellar explorers traveled on waves of guitar riffs, propelled through space and time by hard-hitting drum juggernauts. He’s got the sonic atmosphere down perfectly; phasing and compression abound. While there’s a free-form aesthetic operating here, this is far from directionless; intricate rhythm shifts, whiplash edits, and complementary layers of guitars (Tyler Nolan, Ninni Morgia). There’s bass (usually upright!) on only three of the five lengthy tracks, but the guitars are so heavy that there’s never a lack of bottom. Any number of krautrock, psychedelic, stoner metal, and prog bands could be name-checked, but La Otracina is a glorious distillation of an era rather than a mundane imitation of specific components.
African soul-funk from Staten Island? You bet your sweet ass – which will be shaking and grinding to their down-and-dirty rhythms. Moving forward while looking back, they’re yet another of the great acts on Dap-Tone, the Brooklyn label dedicated to proving that the multi-faceted glories of ‘70s R&B live on. Budos Band plays horn-heavy instrumentals with a minor tinge – a highlight is the Smokey Robinson-penned Temptations chestnut “My Girl” played in minor and retitled “His Girl.” Keeping this infectious style alive with verve and imagination, Budos Band is thoroughly enjoyable.
Electrelane got fairly radical in its sonic explorations last time out. This album is much more song-oriented. There’s a psychedelic tinge at times, a bit of motorik at others, but sheer beauty of sound comes to the fore, as on the lovely “In Berlin,” complete with ravishing vocal harmonies. That’s not to say that they don’t often achieve an exhilarating momentum. Some instrumentals play up the Krautrock flavor on an album with enough variety to provide a good sense of Electrelane’s range (even if not all the facets of their music can be crammed onto one disc) but also cohere better than some of their past albums.
Every time out, Eluvium has a different sound. On Copia, while the construction of the music pretty much sticks to similar methods, its physical expression varies greatly (though a few tracks seem paired in sound), a break from past Eluvium albums. Mathew Cooper sometimes sounds like he’s using actual orchestral instruments – “Prelude for Time Feelers” specifically recalls Discreet Music (Eno), and there’s definitely a lot of Minimalism here. This makes even the initially unpromising “Requiem on Frankfort Ave.”, at first so basic with its triadic piano arpeggios under a simple melody that it seems mere New Age slush, crescendo into a towering multi-layered edifice of Glassian grandeur (think Koyaanisqatsi), though the following “Radio Ballet” doesn’t build from its solo piano basis and thus goes nowhere. A touch of overlap between lines, with some instruments moving to the next chord/tonality before others, gives some tracks a nicely unsettling tone. Where Cooper used to get by just on mood (quite well, that’s not a complaint!), now he’s aiming higher, and usually hitting, while still establishing engrossing moods.
I&W started out as just singer-songwriter Sam Beam, but he’s fully moved into the band format now. He’s done so without sacrificing the distinctiveness of his sound or the ethereal intimacy of his singing, and his songwriting remains compelling, even without obvious hooks. All the musicians on his 2005 EP Woman King return, as do Lambchop’s Paul Niehaus and Calexico’s Joey Burns from the In the Reins EP. For a guy who started out completely solo, Beam’s certainly showing a talent for colorful and varied arrangements, from the not-so-surprising pedal steel guitar flavored country (that could be Burns’s influence) on several songs to the Afro-pop groove (!) on “House by the Sea” (complete with sax) and the mix of rock, reggae, and funk on “Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog).” It may not be what we expect from Iron and Wine, but given how good the results are, it’s a welcome development.
