Caps and Spelling

Chapter Nine

2007-08-17T19:06:00.000-04:00

Complete!

Had he revealed too much of himself in an anxious haste to forge a bond? The loneliness of God is His strength. He had always held that it was unnatural for a man to impart fully his inner monologue, that it was against the fundamental mystique of human nature. But had he not been happy these few days? Was he not happy right now? It was good to have someone. Thoughtful and gregarious, Ava was good for him. She truly listened, and spoke truly, too. He cursed the slowness of time, wishing they were already long-time companions—that the years would erode the superficiality of their furtive glances and a deep, unspoken understanding would take root.

Chapter Eight

2007-07-13T19:05:00.000-04:00

Complete!

They argued often when she was small. She remembered he was tender with her, laughed at her school-girl egotism, kissed the top of her head when things were settled. But it had always been Houari Nourallah, paragon of steady hands and resolute gait, who settled them. Evidently, Ava thought, she had learned her lessons, for she could not recall many such fights since her mother left them. There was the row over her tempestuous flirtation with the restaurant’s saucier (“My daughter will not spend her days with a vulgar miscreant whose sole achievement in life has been to reduce cabernets and combine warm milk with flour!”), the heated debate when she raised the topic of spending a summer with second cousins in Morocco (“A dreadful place. All they eat is couscous and tagine.”), and then, more recently, the distraction about university and the subsequent appearance of the gangly cyclist whose nerves got the better of him at their front door. Though Ava’s tactics had been revised—if not much refined—her father’s were as hard and unforgiving as bare stone.

Chapter Seven

2007-03-06T18:57:00.000-05:00

Complete! (Following another hard slog.)

He noticed her as he reached to open the doors separating the living room and pantry from the rest of the main floor. Ava was not, in fact, sleeping soundly, but rather gliding almost ethereally through the kitchen, opening cupboards without a single squeal from the hinges, placing dishes delicately on the countertop. Her slim figure seemed to emerge from and disappear into the atmosphere at will—her small movements lit only by the muted first rays of the sun, ambient and cool. William watched through the glass. She still wore her denim jeans and t-shirt from the previous day, but they hung more loosely from her indefinite frame, as if the garments had come to mimic the relaxation of their wearer.

Mr. Richard, Our Good Man

2007-01-23T22:27:00.000-05:00

Renowned Polish writer, journalist Kapuscinski dies

This just in...

2007-01-12T19:48:00.000-05:00

Kind of Blue is a masterpiece.

Great Moments in the History of Music Blogging

2007-01-09T19:11:00.000-05:00

Exhibit One, via the occasionally updated blog of Aaron Wherry, formerly of the National Post, now, apparently, of Maclean's:

"For one thing, Milli Vanilli are not the worst thing in the history of popular music. That title obviously belongs to Joanna Newsom."

Zing.

(Bonus points for anyone who writes, records and ultimately sends me a copy of what will surely be pop music's greatest-ever single, "Go Go Gorbachev.")

...

Speaking (writing) of fun quotations, here's one from Richard ("what a dick") Pound, from a recent article in the New York Times Magazine, regarding the alleged doping exploits of the Mennonite Madman, Floyd Landis:

"'I mean, it was 11 to 1!' Pound said, referring to Landis’s reported testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio, a measure used to identify doping. 'You’d think he’d be violating every virgin within 100 miles. How does he even get on his bicycle?'"

20 for 2006. (Also, the 200th post.)

2007-01-01T19:20:00.000-05:00

Much earlier in the year, I ceased the practice of blogging, except to alleviate all the but most intense boredom. This was partly due to the fact that I finally got a full-time job in the media, but more to the point, writing online (and with no compensation and little feedback) about music was becoming a chore; listening to music was becoming a chore. It was (and, I suspect, remains) an endless weekly--even daily--cycle of keeping up with the latest, soon-to-be-defunct trends and tracking down albums by the newest indie-pop darlings, most of whom are either far too serious or utterly, uncomfortably twee. Sometimes it's a challenge to be one's own gatekeeper.

So this half-hearted forum all but closed down for most of the last six months. It's now a boutique establishment for occasional reviews of music, books and film, and has gone from 50 to 75 daily readers (yeah, I know, lah-dee-dah) at its late-2005 peak to approximately four. And really, who cares? The only music writers you really need to read are the ones that are good enough to get paid for it. The Globe and Mail's Carl Wilson comes to mind (though I admit to being baffled more than once by his superior intellect and relentless championing of "bad bands"). And one can always count on Frank over at Chromewaves to deliver some thoughtful "everyman" opinions while remaining true to his distinctive and refined musical sensibilities. The above-mentioned are pretty much the only music blogs I read on a daily basis, and I think I'm healthier for it. By remaining (to some extent) willfully ignorant other what others were listening to, I became far more intrigued by the fewer musicians/bands that I was hearing.

Which brings me to this post's raison d'etre. After the jump you will find my annual year-end favourites list. It's text-heavy and devoid of graphics (I can't be bothered to cut-and-paste 20 album covers and links just to fulfill some notion of visual pizazz). It also has, perhaps, too many "popular" choices, but hopefully fewer of the "buzz" albums you've read about on every other music list published since the beginning of December. That means no Arctic Monkeys! No He Poos Clouds! And I haven't even tried to discover this "Clipse" person/group that all the white middle-aged hip-hop guys are talking about. So if my long-winded ravings haven't made you want to rip out your spine, read on by following the precious little link below.

(And yes, I'm aware of the irony inherent in not caring what other people write about music while simultaneously creating one's own list of recommendations. But I like irony, so there you go.)

20. Tom Waits ~ Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards

I haven't had a lot of time to give Orphans much attention, but Tom Waits and his 56 youngsters sneak into the top 20 on reputation. At three (very loaded) discs, this set is a little unwieldy, and though nobody's officially calling it a b-sides release any longer, it still has a bit of that "compilation feel." In this sense, the concept doesn't always work, but when taken in smaller doses, Waits' indisputable songcraft reveals itself. The "Bastards" disc seems to be both the most interesting and most impenetrable of the package--with its erratic spoken word tracks and bizarre Ukranian kick-line numbers--while "Brawlers" features lots of Bone Machine-style crunchy rock, including "Road to Peace," the best song ever to name-check Mahmoud Abbas. The ballads disc, "Bawlers," will likely prove the lesser of the three sets once time has marched on, but for now, the world can use a handful of whisky-soaked torch songs with which to drown our sorrows.

19. Thom Yorke ~ The Eraser

Neither innovative nor surprising, The Eraser is the album we all should have expected from Thom Yorke, an artist who still undoubtedly spends most of his time working on Radiohead material as opposed to his own songs. Skittering glitch beats abound, and Yorke uses his ethereal homesick-alien whine to good effect, even when his lyrics falter (for example, the egregiously bad "I'm a dog" verse on "Skip Divided"). "Black Swan" is an ominous standout, and the obtusely relevant "Harrowdown Hill" ends with the hard-restraint riffing that's lately become a Radiohead trademark. Sure, The Eraser sounds like something Yorke could've done with a laptop and a few recording consoles in his bedroom (and with Nigel Godrich whispering constantly in his ear), but not everything has to be OK Computer.

18. The Brother Kite ~ Waiting For The Time To Be Right

A surprising pop confection; hi-fi ambitions on a lo-fi budget from this previously anonymous Rhode Island-based band. The soundtrack for a city sunset, Waiting For The Time To Be Right melds the typical elements of shoegaze and dream pop (fuzzy guitars, rudimentary drumming) with expertly crafted melodies and vocal harmonies that pay superb tribute to the Beach Boys. Power-pop songs like "The Coat of Arms," "Out of Sight" and "Get On, Me" are unabashedly broad, but also economical: behind the soaring guitars and anthemic vocals is an elegiac sensibility, a certain sincerity that keeps the album fresh, even if it's all been heard before.

17. The Hold Steady ~ Boys And Girls In America

The Hold Steady can't seem to shake its reputation as "America's best bar band," yet if Boys and Girls In America proves anything, it's that the band's sound is more suited to stadiums than dilapidated beer-swill hovels. From the opening guitar riff of "Stuck Between Stations" to mantra-like chorus to "Southtown Girls" (which just begs for thousands of unison voices), this is music that begs to be pumped through massive stacks at earth-shattering volumes. And with Craig Finn taking more time to sing actual notes, you might actually find yourself reliving the halcyon days when you stood in the front row at Giants Stadium, waving your acid-washed denim jacket with the Stars & Stripes liner in Bruce Springsteen's general direction. As a lyricist, Finn has few peers. The Hold Steady's previous album, Separation Sunday, dealt with big themes and numerous interconnected characters. This time around Finn isn't hampered by concept album conventions, meaning that his stories and characters can now stand alone, and are that much more focused for it. Musically it's all vaguely deconstructed but still sincere hard rock: every moment is bursting with energy; guitarist Tad Kubler shows off a cornucopia of monster licks; and the band incorporates piano into its tunes better than any currently active rock group. "Chips Ahoy" is a far better than such a horribly named song deserves to be, and "First Night" is the kind of anthem that cigarette lighters were made for. If only someone had listened to "Chillout Tent" and told the backup vocalists (Elizabeth Elmore and Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner) that their weirdly incongruous contributions weren't necessary.

16. Pearl Jam ~ Pearl Jam

Let's stay away from anything that states "this is Pearl Jam's best album since Ten." (I'll defend No Code to the grave.) Without making futile attempts to contextualize, the band's self-titled, avocado-covered record is a thrillingly vital work, full of monster riffs and vocal vitriol. Eddie Vedder's rabid dog howl is perfectly matched by the lean, rollicking guitar work of Mike McCready and Stone Gossard, and the political overtones in songs such as "World Wide Suicide" and "Marker in the Sand"are both less obvious and more cutting than on Pearl Jam's previous efforts. One of the year's better pure rock albums, by a band that after 15 years knows exactly what it wants to do, and has the keen sense of purpose necessary to do it. [Read my original review here]

15. Centro-Matic ~ Fort Recovery

Perhaps this latest release from the prolific Texas-based rock veterans was drowned out by the blogger confetti strewn in Band of Horses' general direction, but I find it surprising that Fort Recovery hasn't appeared on more year-end lists. There's enough solid material here to satisfy alt. country and indie rock fans alike for many months. Songs such as "Covered Up In Mines" and "Triggers and Trash Heaps" are, on the surface, workmanlike and uncomplicated, but their consistent musicality and evocative lyrics cut deep. Will Johnson's mealy-mouthed vocals are confident on the mid-tempo rockers and sensitive on pathos-filled tunes like "In Such Crooked Time"--the album's centrepiece and a song that's perfect for morning, noon or night. There's very little here that can be considered "new," no reason for excitement. But in the context of a culture so fixated on the next big thing, the latest innovation, there's something to be admired about a group of musicians who know the value of a constant. [Read my original review here]

14. Grizzly Bear ~ The Yellow House

Like last year's Descended Like Vultures by Rogue Wave, The Yellow House is a full-band expansion on what was previously a solo vehicle, and it's much better for it. An endlessly fascinating--like a constantly changing, multi-faceted diorama--The Yellow House incorporates all of the best tendencies of freak- or psych-folk (lush harmonies, creative orchestration, tasteful use of electronic elements) without ever seeming overindulgent or cutesy. And unlike similar acts Architecture in Helsinki or Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear actually has a passable vocalist in band leader Edward Droste. There's a clear experimental bent on songs such as "Lullabye," "Colorado" and "Knife," yet somehow everything seems timeless, as psychedelic harmonies swirl around folksy acoustic guitars and thunderhead drumming, within arrangements that are often closer to sonato-allegro than typical pop. Intimate, emotionally enveloping music found no grander stage in 2006.

13. Cassandra Wilson ~ Thunderbird

Much more of a roots-influenced pop album that a vocal jazz record, Thunderbird nonetheless holds up with the best in either category this year. Wilson's voice is in fine, expressive form throughout the proceedings--sultry and smooth on the excellently-paced "Closer to You"; defiant against the bluesy stomp of "Easy Rider"; heartbreakingly weary on "Red River Valley"--though the staccato scatting toward the end of "Go to Mexico" borders on cheese. Producer T-Bone Burnett should be credited for many of Thunderbird's most positive aspects, including the recruitment of Jim Keltner, Marc Ribot and Colin Linden to play as backing musicians on a number of tracks. Their marked contributions elevate the record from the level of mixed-bag jazz-pop effort to that of an endlessly listenable collection of music. Soulful, if not entirely spontaneous. [Read my original review here]

12. Various Artists ~ Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound

I tend not to go for compilation CDs and "various artist" type soundtracks all that often. Most fall into one of two categories: either the album features a couple of great tracks jammed in with a bunch of mediocre ones, or it compiles a lot of good songs that, for one reason or another, don't fit together as a musically cohesive package. However, Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound manages to skirt both of these problems. And, wonder of wonders, it wasn't even my favourite compilation to be released this year!

"Tropicalia" refers to a particular style of protest music that came out of Brazil (particularly Sao Paolo and Bahia) in the politically turbulent late 1960s. The music is most easily described as post-Revolver Beatles with a bossa-nova beat, and while the most prominent flavour in the mix is indeed "psychedelia," the sounds are much more complex. Where we might think of Brazilian music as being exclusively of the Antonio Carlos Jobim/Joao Gilberto brand, musicians of the Tropicalia movement such as Caetano Veloso, Tom Ze and Os Mutantes combined psychedelic rock with samba, American funk and soul, and avant garde sound experiments to create an invigorating yet challenging sound all their own. The individual song quality is consistently high, and since most of the twenty included tracks were recorded within a relatively short time period and by musicians that were all in one way or another (however peripherally) associated with each other, the set list has a unified feel and sound--in essence, these songs belong together. A superlative album is made even better by the inclusion of a comprehensive (if not the most eloquently written), 50-page booklet that does wonders to contextualize this "foreign" music, especially for those listeners who a) did not live in Brazil in the late 1960s, and b) do not understand Portuguese.

11. Various Artists ~ Jamaica To Toronto: Soul, Funk & Reggae 1967-1974

Another compilation that succeeds because of its focus on a very specific time and an equally specific style of music and performance. Jamaica To Toronto doesn't offer a "total package" on par with the Tropicalia set, but my musical tastes and geographic circumstances have meant that the former has received much more time blasting through my stereo speakers. The set leads off with "Fugitive Song" by Jo-Jo and the Fugitives, and it's a heavy Wilson Pickett-esque introduction to the Jamaican scene, combining R&B/soul vocals with reggae instrumentation. The Cougars' "I Wish It Would Rain" is far-and-away the best song on the excellent disc, with smooth harmonies that crescendo toward a horn-blast chorus that could make Cannonball Adderley shout for mercy. For an album featuring Jamaican artists, there's actually very little traditional reggae on offer, but that in itself is rather instructive: these artists managed to seamlessly integrate the sounds of Jamaica with the American R&B that was so popular at the time in Toronto, their adopted home.

It's both inspiring and disappointing to know that the city once played host to such a vibrant and eclectic R&B/reggae scene. The infrastructure and audience has always existed to support such "niche" musics, which bodes well for today's crop of specialist musicians, whether they are classified as jazz, funk, underground hip-hop or even part of that currently notable "bad bands" clique. Yet, the disheartening evidence also exists to show us that more often than not, these movements are unsustainable. The Jamaican music scene thrived for seven years before being left to history. How long, for example, can the stagnation of Toronto's jazz scene* persist before it too is forgotten.

*not including the burgeoning concert market for indie improv-based musics, which are not classified as "jazz" in the traditional sense.

10. TV On The Radio ~ Return To Cookie Mountain

It's something of a challenge to precisely how and why this album is so successful, but it's likely due to at least some of the following elements: Tunde Adibempe's unnaturally expressive vocal tone and delivery, which laments love lost over a raging fuzz-box guitar on "I Was a Lover," is eternally hopeful during the melodic chorus of "Province" (with one David Bowie singing over his shoulder) and approximates a rebellious howl on "Wolf Like Me" and "Let the Devil in"; the propulsive rhythmic force (hip-hop meets drum-and-bass meets shoegazer) that drives even the mid-tempo numbers toward catharsis, then pulls back to keep us wanting more. The guitar washes--occasionally edgy, always happily oversaturated; the barbershop quartet harmonies; or perhaps the prescient but suitably vague lyrics. Occasionally one wonders whether this very "of its time" music will be remembered in decades to come. But for now, whatever the formula for TV On The Radio's current success, it's one that few other bands have managed to replicate.

09. Asobi Seksu ~ Citrus

If shoegaze is the new dance-pop, then New York-based Asobi Seksu is the new Franz Ferdinand. Or something. Released early in the year and backed-up by constant touring, the feedback-driven rock on Citrus has inevitably drawn comparisons with My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, along with the works of other dour late-'80s/early-'90s bands like Lush and Curve (plus the irony-laced noisy pop of acts such as Sonic Youth, Cibo Matto and Yo La Tengo). However, outside of the general use of guitar noise and tender-violent timbral shifts across the album, similarities between Asobi Seksu and the original shoegaze scions have been overstated. Citrus is joyously, expertly-arranged pop music that only hints and the insularity of shoegazers past. Lyrically, there's not much happening, but Yuki Chikudate's coy vocals are a delicate counterpoint to the crunching guitars and constantly pounding percussion on tracks such as "Thursday" and "Nefi + Girly," while "Exotic Animal Paradise" highlights a visceral, full-band intensity that's been missing from the indie rock of the last couple of years. [Read my original review here]

08. Rosanne Cash ~ Black Cadillac

Pure organic heartache, preserved forever in the digital domain, Black Cadillac is a true distillation of grief, sorrow and, ultimately, hope, that does Rosanne Cash (and, indeed, her parents) proud. My preferences lean heavily toward the album's mournful ballads, such as "The World Unseen," with its ever-searching lyric, and other less twangy songs like the excellent title track (rumbling bass line, mariachi horns and all), but really, almost every track is a fully realized testament to the singer's emotional nakedness.

07. Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra ~ Boulevard De L'Independance

I suspect most writers' token world music vote this year has gone posthumously to Ali Farka Toure. A deserving choice if ever there was one: Savane, the final album by Mali's answer to John Lee Hooker is full of soulful music that insinuates itself into the heart of the listener, leaving a simple yet indelible mark. However, Boulevard De L'Independance, recorded by Toure's compatriot Toumani Diabate, is 2006's real African jewel. The Malian kora player is in astounding, virtuoso form on each one of the album's nine vibrantly-arranged tracks, and his ensemble provides a balanced, invigorating backdrop. No group recorded material this year with so much infectious rhythm, joy and humanity that Diabate and his Symmetric Orchestra. With dozens of credited musicians, this is a band that puts Broken Social Scene to shame. The liner notes to this Nonesuch release state that, for the last decade, Diabate and his orchestra have played a weekly gig at a club in Bamako. From Canada, one can only speculate as to the amount of energy and spirit that must enliven those performances. Boulevard is the kind of recording that creates world travellers. [Read my original review here]

06. Augie March ~ Moo, You Bloody Choir

Moo, You Bloody Choir has the best name of any album released since Frank Zappa's Sheik Yerbouti. It also starts off with the most perfect trio of consecutive songs recorded all year, by anyone. Opener "One Crowded Hour" is a semi-strophic bar ballad for the literate set. Though lacking a traditional chorus, the song nonetheless harnesses a slow-burning melody and steadily builds to a singularly memorable hook. Once you've started singing along, you won't stop, as what follows is even better. Track two, "Victoria's Secrets," employ a more obvious song structure, but manages to be even more surprising and sublime. Third, "The Cold Acre," is similarly adept, but could stand alone based solely on the poetic lyricism of its chorus: "My heart is a cold acre." The album's subsequent eleven songs don't quite live up to the unbelievably high standard, and by the end of things one really starts to feel the length, but taken individually, each track is never less than above-average—painstakingly arranged, skillfully performed, and containing a elegant lyric thoughtfulness in the best traditions of The Band or Leonard Cohen.

05. Guillemots ~ Through The Windowpane

High-spirited and unceasingly ambitious, the debut full-length from this British quartet is saddled with lofty goals that are consistently and surprisingly achieved. Through the Windowpane is a musical kitchen sink of sonic elements that both complement and contrast: bold, orchestral washes of strings and horns; haltingly unrestrained banshee wailing; production tricks that sound as good as they did on Revolver; glistening guitars, graceful vocal harmonies, occasionally maddening lyric eccentricity ("sometimes I could cry for miles..." What the crap?!), more glockenspiels and vibraphones than Nigel Godrich would care to shake a stick at; the list goes on. Just try not to tap your feet to the effervescent "Trains to Brazil," with its gloriously over-the-top chorus of saxophones and oblique references to the London subway bombings. Then settle in for smaller pleasures of "Redwings" (with its authentically psychedelic coda) and "If the World Ends." Once in a while, band leader Fyfe Dangerfield overstretches--for example, his timorous vocals could use more backing than a simple plucked ukelele (or something) on "Blue Would Still be Blue"--but somehow such missteps only add to the endearing madness of the thing. Logically, it's all summed up in the album's final track, "Sao Paolo," a 12-minute epic that begins as a classicist ballad and ends in a swirl of strings, woodwinds and samba-style drumming and the aforementioned world-ending banshee screams. Elegant, enthusiastic and slightly unhitched, Through the Windowpane is a pop confection that won't soon be forgotten.

04. The Roots ~ Game Theory

Muscular and damned angry, this latest manifesto from The Roots is not to be trifled with. Anchored as always by ?uestlove's inimitable beats and stellar production (and by Hub's serious low end), Game Theory is the group's best record since Things Fall Apart: a no-fat mix of Phrenology's experimental bent and the hookier grooves that were brought out for a not-quite-successful test run on The Tipping Point. While Black Thought's delivery can be criticized as somewhat monotone, his lyrics, at least, aggressively reflect the political and social upheaval of our present times. And really, when tunes like "Don't Feel Right," "Here I Come" and the excellent title track are this funky, who cares about rap skills. Bonus points for a great Radiohead sample on "Atonement."

03. Junior Boys ~ So This Is Goodbye

Slick-as-ice production is warmed significantly by Jeremy Greenspan's breathy vocals on this second album by the Hamilton-based electronic duo. The Junior Boys deliver on the promise of Last Exit in almost every way, turning functional dance tracks into completely memorable songs that are perfect for both the discotheque and the bedroom. "First Time" and "FM" showcase the duo's pulsating down-tempo beats, while the robotic arpeggations and crisp low end of "In the Morning" proves more seductive than the best doe-eyed efforts of any other "boy" band in recent memory. Music rarely sounds this effortless.

02. Shearwater ~ Palo Santo

Intensely understated (or, understatedly intense) Palo Santo is riveting from beginning to end. Like its natural counterpart, Okkervil River, Shearwater traffics in that certain brand of literate country-influenced music that engages on three levels: musical, intellectual and emotional. But where the River's Black Sheep Boy was and is filled with sturm und drang punctuated by moments of glorious clarity and climax, Palo Santo's tension is much more reserved, more focused. Melancholy, inside-looking-out numbers such as "Nobody" and the Talk Talk-esque "La Dame et La Licorne" are models of restraint, and while up-tempo tracks like "Johnny Viola" or "Seventy Four, Seventy Five"--and the expansive "Hail Mary"--mimic aggression, the stress built up in the arrangements stays smartly bottled. We keep coming back to these songs, hoping for a release that never arrives and that, ultimately, we don't want, for that would be too easy. Nothing here is as oppressive to warrant the Elliot Brood-coined "death country" label--in fact, there's quite a lot of crystalline prettiness--but the undercurrent of sadness and oppression is palpable, making it required listening for sad sacks everywhere. [Read my original review here]

01. Cibelle ~ The Shine Of Dried Electric Leaves

It's hard to describe The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves with anything approaching literal accuracy. Monolithic explanation simply does not do this vibrantly eclectic album justice. Part sun-splashed bossa, part glitchy lounge electronica, part shimmery bliss pop and probably a hundred other things to a hundred different listeners, Cibelle, the Brazilian singer and songwriter, has created an album that defies classification, yet nonetheless begs to be heard. Upon first listen I was inclined the opinion that the album, with its multiple producers, lyrics in two languages and myriad tonal moods, was too varied to be wholly satisfying. Yet after a while, every twinkling note, every laid-back groove becomes unforgettable--insidiously infectious. Cibelle's song cycle achieves unity not through technical or stylistic means, but through a simple tastefulness that underscores every element of the production: the madrigal-like vocalese that opens and closes the haunting "Lembra"; the psychedelic break of "London London," a Caetano Veloso cover performed by Cibelle with Devendra Banhart, which harkens back to the great duets of Antonio Carlos Jobim and Elis Regina; the impeccable electronic glitches that pop in and out of "Phoenix"; the way "Flying High" and "City People" both seem to crumble into dust mid-song, only to be born again seconds later as something new and more exciting. Taken individually these elements are endearing enough. Taken together they coalesce into a work of ambitious eccentricity and gentle beauty. Other albums released this year may have had a more immediate and visceral impact, but none, to my mind, displayed so much skill and subtle grace as The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves, a collection of music that has truly left a lasting impression. [Read my original review here]

***

And finally, other 2006 albums worthy of your time: Savane (Ali Farka Toure), Ain't Nobody Worryin' (Anthony Hamilton), The Last Romance (Arab Strap), Brightblack Morning Light (Brightblack Morning Light), Roots & Crowns (Califone), So Gone (Evangelicals), Jarvis (Jarvis Cocker), The Animal Years (Josh Ritter), FutureSex/LoveSounds (Justin Timberlake), Silent Shout (The Knife), Trompe L'Oeil (Malajube), Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (Neko Case), Surprise (Paul Simon), Nashville (Solomon Burke), Harmony In Ultraviolet (Tim Hecker).

Onward Ho!

The "Weekly", Volume Forty-One

2006-11-20T22:21:00.000-05:00

Album:
9 (Damien Rice)

Three years is a long time between albums. Not only does it mean a band or artist is off of the popular radar for a considerable amount of time (regardless of touring schedule, the mainstream press rarely gets excited about anything but a new record from all but the most established acts), but when a new project is finally announced, expectations inevitably run high. Considering the prowess Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice displayed on his 2003 debut, O, one could be forgiven for laying a burden of anticipation on the artist this time around. Unfortunately, the obliquely-titled 9, Rice's latest effort, doesn't live up to its potential.

That's not to say that it's not a good record. The first three tracks are all musically excellent (if somewhat vague and over-earnest in the lyrics department): "9 Crimes" is a brooding piano feature with a pathos-filled vocal from Lisa Hannigan; "The Animals Were Gone" is languid and engaging, concluding with a haunting choral coda; and the furtive plucking on "Elephant" gives way to a stirring final chorus reminiscent (somewhat unsurprisingly) of Sigur Ros's best tendencies. The album's remaining seven songs also exhibit Rice's gift for melody and subtle arrangement, and the notable skill of his backing musicians. The challenge therefore lies not in the quality of the tunes, but rather in the listener's willingness to accept what is essentially more of the same from Rice. In the intervening years between O and 9, the musician seems to have done little to expand upon his talents. Each track on 9 fits squarely in the "lyrical folk with occasional bombast" format that was done better on songs such as "Cold Water" and "I Remember" on his debut. "Elephant," while excellent, could nonetheless be subtitled "The Blower's Daughter, Part 2", and more than one track affects a harder edge that comes far too close to Rice's B-side concert staple "Woman Like a Man" and, in general, sounds rather forced. More egregious, "Coconut Skins" is barely more than a campfire sing-along (akin to the insanely trite Coldplay ditty "Green Eyes"), in which Rice ridiculously croons "we can sit on chimneys, put some fire up your ass." It's a moment that, for some, may be a welcome relief from the album's general solemnity. But I suspect the majority will just think it's craven and stupid. To reiterate, 9 is for the most part quite good in relative terms. The disappointment comes in its most patent familiarity.

Album #2:
Out Louder (Medeski, Scofield, Martin and Wood)

Out Louder, the second album to pair avant-jam-boho-electro-jazz trio Medeski, Martin and Wood with occasionally funky guitarist John Scofield is both enjoyable and somewhat frustrating. Nine years ago, Scofield recorded A Go Go with this band and it was (and remains) one of the best "popular" jazz albums of the past decade, with MMW's innate groove providing solid foundation for Sco's restrained six-string heroics. This time around, the foursome is more of a cohesive band (rather than a solo performer with accomplished backing musicians), but the music still tends toward the guitarist's strengths. Scofield takes the melody and fair amount of the solo time on a majority of Out Louder's 12 tracks, and while his playing is distinctive, his licks have a tendency to run together and become a bit noodly. Strong, memorable melodies (such as A Go Go's "Jeep On 35") are therefore harder to come by. Though John Medeski manages to utilize his organ and keyboard arsenal to positive effect on most of the songs, one gets the feeling that Billy Martin and Chris Wood are somewhat underused. As always, they lay down a supremely funky base, but their skills are far less prominent than on the best Medeski, Martin and Wood albums (such as The Dropper). For much of the album it feels as though the band defers a bit too much to Scofield, the elder (and somewhat over-rated) statesman. To their credit, the trio's restraint is relatively effective and their professionalism is evident. The tunes can meander, but there is never a sense that any one musician is playing for himself. "Little Walter Rides Again" is an ambling early standout; "Testament" and "Cachaca" offer memories of MMW's work with Marc Ribot; "Julia," the album's only true ballad, is quietly revelatory, while "Hanuman" is just a great jazz track through and through. Perhaps Out Louder doesn't have quite the staying power of the first Scofield-MMW collaboration, nor the sense of wild dancefloor-jazz experimentation found on The Dropper and End of the World Party, but this new album's deep grooves offer a glimpse of the possibilities if Medeski, Scofield, Martin and Wood were to share the studio more often.

Chapter Six

2006-10-31T21:05:00.000-05:00

(Finally) complete!

She had caught his eye at a discotheque, politely declining a hand-rolled cigarette being passed amongst her group of friends on the dance floor. Houari Nourallah did not dance. He was hulked over the bar while a drunkard in beside him made ill-advised advances toward anyone who dared pass by, wagging an indelicately manicured finger when they ignored him. An hour later the drunkard left and Sara approached, joking that she had been dared to kiss the most uncomfortable-looking man in the room. She spoke mediocre French and he said very little at all. Their courtship—sipping coffee on open patios, gazing across the Mediterranean as they walked beneath the stars on the Iberian coast—lasted two weeks.

The Weekly, Volume Forty

2006-10-29T10:33:00.000-05:00

I'm out of practice.

Album:
Nashville (Solomon Burke)

While not as consistently good as his 2002 tour de force Don't Give Up On Me, this latest record from Solomon Burke is worth owning not just because it represents the singer's first major foray away from R&B/soul music, but also because it's actually quite good. Alternately melancholy and rollicking, poignant and upbeat, the tunes on Nashville are very traditionally "country," (or, more broadly, "Americana") but Burke puts his stamp on all of them. His distinctive tenor is in fine form from the outset, and is matched well by a sympathetic backing band and, on a number of tracks, a duet partner. Of all people, Dolly Parton guests with Burke on "Tomorrow is Forever," and it's a surprisingly effective pairing: the two strong voices distinct on their own, but never threaten to overpower each other when together. "Valley of Tears" is another laid-back standout, with David Rawlings and Gillian Welch providing vocal support, and "Up to the Mountain" proves particularly heart-rending, as Burke croons over haunting harmonies from Patty Griffin. Depending on one's point of view, Nashville's up-tempo tracks may or may not work as well, for some of the subtleties of Burke's vocal performance become veiled behind busy arrangements: "Seems Like You're Gonna Take Me Back" is the most obvious offender here, and "We're Gonna Hold On" is bogged down by Emmylou Harris, who hasn't really brought anything new to the table for the last ten years or so. Regardless, by the time things conclude with the soulful "Til I Get It Right," you'll be ready to forgive the album's few missteps. This is a crossover album done right: timeless tunes performed by an ageless singer. Another fine edition in Solomon Burke's late-career renaissance.

Album #2:
Boulevard de l'Independance
(Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra)

The Malian musician's first "solo" album on the excellent Nonesuch label, Boulevard features Diabate on the kora (a traditional West African harp) and as bandleader extraordinaire. The album's nine lengthy tracks offer a pastiche of Malian traditional songs and modern compositions that take sonic influence from Ali Farka Toure's stripped-down blues, "stereotypical" chant-type musics and Cuban-Senegales salsa. All of them are excellent. Diabate's Symmetrical Band is heavy on horns, and as such, Western ears may find sonic reference in Paul Simon's Graceland-era work. Obviously, Simon's music was derivative of Diabate's and not the other way around, but things being as they are, it's occasionally difficult to separate the horn shots in songs like "Toumani" and "Ya Fama" (both lively, head-nodding tunes perfect for the open road) from those found in "Late in the Evening" or "You Can Call Me Al." A small gripe, if a gripe at all, for the rest of the music sounds both wholly original and utterly classic: "Mali Sadio," for example, is a slow-burn of Diabate's virtuoso kora playing, long-tone strings and a simple drum pattern, yet no other song released this year by a major label comes close to being as musically inventive or as emotionally stirring. In 2005 Diabate won a Grammy for his collaboration with Ali Farka Toure (In The Heart of the Moon). Thoroughly engrossing and endlessly rewarding, Boulevard de l'Independance should, by all rights, net him another.

Hoo-boy! Original Content for the First Time in Weeks!

2006-09-23T12:01:00.000-04:00

In the spirit of posting some legitimate culturally-relevant content (something that's not been done around these parts for a long time), here's an unpublished book review I wrote about a year-and-a-half ago.

Book Review: The Man In The Flying Lawn Chair, by George Plimpton

Writing about oneself might seem like the easiest thing in the world. And yet, any scribbler worth his or her byline will probably tell you otherwise, that "participatory journalism" is thorny business indeed.

Sure, it's all well and good to find an interesting real-life event or subject about which to discuss, and inserting your own voice into said happening or issue requires little more than a bit of journalistic moxie. But the trick is to retain a certain detachment – to describe the experience for an audience, without personalizing that experience to the point where it loses all significance for said audience.

Failure in this respect makes the final product little more than a personal diary entry. However, when done successfully, this manner of writing bridges the gap between description and interpretation like no other. Those who have done it well now rank among literature's greatest. Kerouac, Hemingway, and (when reasonably sober) Thompson can be said to have succeeded in this variety of non-fiction writing, but the grand master of them all is arguably George Plimpton.

A writer, editor, sporting enthusiast, bit-part actor, and all-around bon vivant, Plimpton passed away in late 2003 after spending more than half a century plying his craft. While books such as Paper Lion and his "oral biography" of Truman Capote made him famous, and The Paris Review will forever be his legacy, The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair, which collects some of Plimpton's final "excursions and observations," is a fitting epitaph for the gangly New Englander who rarely shied away from a new adventure.

The anthology compiles 18 short works of journalism published in various sources between 1991 and 2004, and is by turns compelling, heartfelt, uproariously witty and occasionally contemplative. But the hallmark of Plimpton's writing here is his boundless curiosity, capacity for vivid description, and the swift, elegant prose that brings the author's subjects to life. Whether he is writing about amateur night at the Apollo Theatre, the Playboy mansion, or a pornography convention, Plimpton reveals not only an irresistible vitality, but also his infectious love of the written word.

Although some of the capers depicted in these pieces might seem somewhat less exciting than Plimpton's earlier escapades (for example, playing quarterback for the Detroit Lions, or pitching to Willie Mays) the intriguing trade-off is the wonderful sense of melancholy reminiscence that underlies the best of the articles. These include the poignantly straightforward narration of the story after which this book was named, and an article detailing the exploits of a zoologist and his love for particularly vicious African wildlife.

In a particularly charming piece, the author recalls helping Jackie Kennedy throw a "pirate party" for her children, complete with a longboat and buried treasure: "Her enthusiasm, her childlike delight in all this, was irresistible. She wanted me to write a little story that she could read to the children – a story of how the treasure cam to be buried, and with hints of where the treasure might be found. Would I do this? Of course."

The book's final statement, a 2002 article called "Wish List," similarly evokes wonderful memories of the past, both recent and long ago, as Plimpton recounts some of his athletic aspirations by evoking great people and events.

"I'd like to have a snappy moniker," he writes. "Wolf or Moose, or something as memorable as Joltin' Joe or the Splinter… I'd like to arch into the water without making a splash, the wake of my passage down the lane as I do the butterfly washing over the lip of the pool. 'Is that Mark Spitz?'… And I wish I could throw a knuckleball. I'd like to have it come to me one afternoon, perhaps while I'm throwing the ball to my son, a ball without motion so that it ducks and dances."

This high standard of descriptive writing is maintained throughout The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair, but it is the incredible depth of feeling that Plimpton has for his subjects that sets him apart. A lesser scribe may have indulged an impulse toward the farcically absurd when writing about attending a film premiere with Hunter S. Thompson, or indeed, in depicting the California man who tied weather balloons to a chair so he could find freedom above the clouds.

But Plimpton respects his subjects enough to tell their stories straight (though not without recognizing their inherent humour), and respects his readers enough to trust that we will treat those subjects just as he has done, with curiosity and compassion.

Counterpoint to the (Campagnolo) Chorus

2006-08-16T19:14:00.000-04:00

Well look at this... Some sanity with regard to this whole cycling/doping drama. Sure, it may turn out that Floyd Landis really is one of the most notorious cheaters in the history of international cycling and the Tour de France. But there are so many things wrong with this case that it just boggles the mind as to how he has already been tarred and feathered in the media.

Thus, a link to this level-headed Op-Ed bursts forth from the ether! (Originally from the hallowed electronical pages of the International Herald Tribune).

And just so that we're not accused of playing favourites, here are some choice words from ignominious anti-doping shyster Dick Pound, a man who quite frankly should spend the rest of his days in a courtroom, failing to defend himself against hundreds and hundreds of libel charges. (OK, we played favourites).

Finally, for some appropriately terse Germanic content, I hereby declare myself the founding member of the Jan Ullrich Anti-Defamation League.

"Be sure you want to know what you want to know"

2006-07-27T18:15:00.000-04:00

In recent years, a number of forgotten film genres have been revived for a new generation of filmgoers. The pseudo-snuff horror film and teen sex comedy come to mind as prescient examples. One genre that hasn't really had an audience for a couple of decades is film noir, that classic mix of mystery, sex, thrills and detective work that made Humphrey Bogart into an icon. Sure, Chinatown isn't exactly gathering dust, L.A. Confidential was a very good approximation and Brian De Palma occasionally dabbles in the dark and gritty genre, but really, when it comes to this particular high-minded brand of suspense filmmaking, our cinemas have been found lacking for a long time.

Brick, a film that drew raves at last year's Sundance Festival, is perhaps the closest any 21st century director has come to replicating the particulars of story, dialogue and filmmaking style of film noir, without seeming cliched and utterly anachronistic.

The story is a slightly updated take on the noir-mystery staple: man loves woman, man loses woman, woman unexpectedly calls man for help and dies mysteriously soon after, man broods, man encounters all manner of manipulative rabble in quest to discover truth and return woman's good name. The difference with Brick is that the drama unfolds at a high school in modern-day California.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (formerly the annoying teenager on Third Rock from the Sun) plays the aforementioned brooder, a young man named Brendan who is seemingly in the throes of a messy break-up with Emily, an enigmatic girl played by Emilie de Ravin of Lost fame. Brendan receives a note and then a distressed phone call from his former flame. He seeks her out, only to find the poor girl lying dead in an aqueduct. Obviously there is foul play involved here, and Brendan suspects just about everyone in town, from the school jock to the neighbourhood crack head, and everyone in between. It goes without saying that the lad is soon drawn into a seedy world of violence, drugs, manipulation and various other noirish archetypes.

Interestingly, for all the familiar film noir plotting and characterization, Brick's director, Rian Johnson, shies away from lensing the film in high contrast (or black and white, for that matter), as one might expect from this particular genre. Instead, his depiction of the school environment is more akin to Gus Van Sant's Elephant, with dashes of Chinatown mixed in, along with some more modern contrivances like that weird type of slow-to-fast motion, used here to capture the impact of punches and gun shots. It's not hyper-stylized in terms of composition or editing, but it's not pedestrian either, and, if nothing else, XX's confident direction demonstrates that new filmmakers need not worship at the altar of hyperactive cutting and digital enhancement.

Regardless, Brick is a noir film at heart, and its defining characteristic is the decision to foist upon its actors not only a noir plot and character types, but also the kind of romanticized, hard-boiled dialogue that nobody has ever really spoken―not even in the days of gin joints and tommy guns.

It's fun for a time as characters take to saying things like "coffee and pie, oh my" "I ain't playin' lap dog to no gassed-up cripple," and "I gave you Jer because I wanted to see him eaten, not to see you fed," but the effect is to make the film even more unrealistic than it already is. For the most part, the actors acquit themselves well and take things seriously, but every once in a while they start talking about lockers, home room and lunch money, and things get a little too ironic. One is reminded of the Max Fischer Players in Rushmore: "Look at me! I'm a young kid talking like a grizzled police detective from the movies!" Such brief mentions are seemingly inserted as jokes by the filmmaker, and while a bit of levity is appreciated, it causes the viewer to become attuned to the ridiculousness of the whole situation, exposing the characters as fraudulent. Ultimately, what makes Brick appear superficially creative also limits its appeal as an otherwise respectable and ambitiously well-executed mystery-thriller.

After All These Years

2006-07-12T22:25:00.000-04:00

There's something rather surreal about watching a 300-pound man in a shining, purple-sequined suit as he serenades 50 or so grown adults, all seated like school children with rapt attention before the man andhis massive throne. Yet no amount of disbelief, no amount of dream-state pinching managed to change the scene at Toronto's Massey Hall last Saturday night, for it was all really happening. This was, of course, a Solomon Burke concert.

The 66-year-old R&B veteran was making his first appearance in Toronto in 15 years, riding the wave of a career renaissance ongoing since the 2001 release of his modern masterpiece, Don't Give Up On Me. The long absence might have contributed to the audience's apparent reservation as the singer settled into the first few tunes of his set list, which included the rollicking "I Need Your Love in My Life" and "Diamond in Your Mind," which drew applause upon the mention that it had been written for Burke by Tom Waits. Technical flaws also threatened to mar the performance before it truly got underway. Burke's heavy backing band played with such vigour that the singer's mic—thus turned way up—was hotter than a baked potato and sent a flourish of high-decibel feedback careening off the hall's concrete ceiling. But what might have spelled disaster for a lesser performer seemed to inspire Burke. He settled his band by cooing to them "easy" in his velvety tenor and managed a witty, mid-song rhyming couplet to notify the soundboard of the technical glitches.

From then on Burke had the sizeable crowd eating from his meaty palm. The self-proclaimed king of rock-and-soul focused his energies on the latter genre for much of the night, running through his own classic tunes with musical skill and no small amount of showmanship—a considerable accomplishment considering he spent the entire performance sitting down. By the time Burke and his band began ripping into soul classics by Ben E. King, Otis Redding and Ike & Tina Turner, much of the (middle-aged, white) crowd was on its feet and many women had rushed toward the stage to receive a rose from the charming crooner. Many of these people would end up actually on stage before the end of the show, invited up by the congenial Burke to take pictures, shake hands and dance (or, in some cases, jerk arhythmically) while he continued singer behind them.

After a time, this particular aspect of the love-in became somewhat distracting, but the fact that such a thing occured at all mitigated any ill-will from the spectators who chose to remain in their seats. One gets the feeling that exciting brand of performer-audience interaction was prevalent in the time when singers like Redding, Carla Thomas, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, et al were in the prime of their lives and careers. Few performers, it seems, can weave such an wonderful spell in this day and age. The evening's highlight came, ironically enough, with one of the set's few ballads, "Don't Give Up On Me." And as Burke's voice faded on the last evocative notes of what has become his signature song, one longed for a time that no longer exists, but was glad in the moment all the same.

+10

2006-07-10T23:32:00.000-04:00

Over the course of the recently-concluded World Cup, the International Herald Tribune's Roger Cohen offered insightful footballing commentary on his blog and in the "official edition" of the newspaper. I just thought I'd point a handful of readers to his post-mortem of the championship match between Italy and France. For a sport that inspires so much passion (of both the constructive and destructive varieties) and subsequently, bias, Cohen should be applauded for his even-handed, thoughtful analysis of the game, and indeed, the entire tournament.

On the other side of the coin, I decided to read the "conversation" section appended to this Globe and Mail article, and was dumbfounded by the sheer amount of trigger-happy ranting about how Italy "didn't deserve to win," and "heavens-to-betsy why did it have to be a penalty shootout!?" It's "conversations" like these that make me question the real logic and utility of this form of media interactivity. I understand the intention, but the outcome, for the most part, seems to be worthless grandstanding by people who feel compelled to pronounce their opinions seemingly before putting the bare minimum of thought or research into the enterprise.

(Sharp-witted readers of this barely-viewed blog will likely note that the above paragraph ironically comes off as little more than a "rant" itself. To which I shall offer the simple excuse that I, like the everyone else giving up a little bit of their humanity to exist in cyberspace, am shallow and lazy, and it's past my bedtime).

Related to the notion of penalty kicks being an unfair method by which to decide the World Cup championship, I offer these humble, but I think, well-founded, opinions: Soccer/Football is a game of near-constant motion, and most players are forced to run (or in the least, jog) for a full 90 minutes, with a small number of breaks that are barely seconds long. Before penalties ensue, they play a further half hour. Temperatures in Germany hovered around the 30-degrees celcius mark for much of the tournament. To ask players to compete until they drop, while no doubt spectacular to watch, would simply be an inhuman proposition. (Of course, there is a school of thought that says this could be rectified by allowing more substitutions...).

With regard to the "lottery" aspect of a penalty shootout, I say not nearly. Players practice penalty kicks. It is a specific skill that is required by the game. The best penalty-takers know how to shoot with accuracy and pace, and know how to hide from the goalkeeper any signs that might give away their intent (in terms of shot placement). Certainly it is a difficult task for a goaltender to stop a penalty kick, but the best of them are the keepers that can pick out an opposing player's "tells" and react swiftly and accordingly. It is a cruel fate to lose in a penalty shootout, but hardly an unjust one.

Finally, a word to those who would claim that France deserved to win because they outplayed Italy. I agree that, for much of the second half and extra time, France was the more "attacking" squad. Yet there is a lot to be said for defence, and Italy's was superb. Fabio Cannavaro, as the backbone of the Italian team deserved the golden ball (which he did not win) more than any other player in the tournament. Gennaro Gattuso, despite his swarthy looks, was a brick wall in the middle, and Gianluigi Buffon (or, as I call him "the clown"), is perhaps the best goalkeeper in the world. The Italian style seems to be to defend stoicly, and to explode in quick bursts of offense when necessary, and it worked to a T throughout the tourney. France, on the other hand, really played but one outstanding game (against Brazil) the entire month. Of course it was sad to see Zidane blow up so ignominiously, but his team's overall performance was not of a consistently high standard. Surely, when the emotions have settled, the world will look back on this year's World Cup and conclude that Italy was the rightful victor.

On the public relations catastrophe that is professional cycling...

2006-07-02T10:45:00.000-04:00

A few quick words about the doping allegations (known in Europe as "Operation Puerto") that have recently surfaced across the pond to tarnish one of the most anticipated Tours de France in many years:

Why, in the case of supposed doping offences, are athletes consider guilty until they can prove their innocence? (For example, upon suspending its class rider Jan Ullrich, a T-Mobile team spokesman said to the media "Of course, it's up to them to prove their innocence").

Subsequent to that, why have these riders been put in the stockade based on leaked documents about an ongoing police investigation that appear to contain nothing more than circumstantial evidence? Any doctor could get a hold of bags of blood and right the name "Jan" on them, or "Birillo," the name of CSC rider Ivan Basso's dog (which obviously must implicate Basso himself). And why would a doctor who was allegedly carrying out such a massive organized doping operation be so careless as to keep detailed records of his work lying about his office for anyone to see?

Finally, the media have not, to my knowledge, mentioned the fact that the authorities (WADA, the UCI, the IOC and various countries' anti-doping organizations) have reliable procedures in place to test for all of the illegal doping practices that these riders are alleged to have taken part in. There's a test for EPO, a test for HGH, tests for homologous blood transfusions and all the rest. Riders such as Ullrich and Basso are surely among the most tested athletes in the sport, and yet they have never tested positive for any of these performance-enhancers (well, Ullrich did take Ecstasy at a discotheque a couple of years ago).

Kicking them out of the sport now, based solely on circumstantial evidence linking them to a doctor who may or may not have provided performance-enhancing drugs is the equivalent of finding blueprints of an art gallery in a man's house and on the basis of those blueprints, convicting him of trying to steal the Mona Lisa. Or as a friend said, it's like being convicted of trying to steal the Mona Lisa because someone else had the art gallery blueprints, but wrote the other man's name on them. Haven't any of these Europeans seen Minority Report?

The Caps and Spelling blog (with its tremendous influence on the world of sport) hereby calls for the swift and immediate resignation of World Anti-Doping chairman Dick Pound. May Lance Armstrong ride over his larynx with a bike tire wrapped in barbed wire.

Half Way to Nowhere (Somewhere)

2006-06-30T09:15:00.000-04:00

I had been planning to do a week's worth of album reviews based on last year's "the best so far" format (i.e. Weeklies 7.1 through 7.4), but work and the World Cup and basic laziness prevented me from getting too far in the proceedings this time around. So, representing a classic case of "posting for the sake of posting," here's an entirely text-based list of worthwhile 2006 listening material, with review links where applicable.

Arab Strap - The Last Romance
Asobi Seksu - Citrus
Augie March - Moo, You Bloody Choir
Cassandra Wilson - Thunderbird
Centro-matic - Fort Recovery
Cibelle - The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves
Gomez - How We Operate
Josh Ritter - The Animal Years
Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
Rosanne Cash - Black Cadillac
Shearwater - Palo Santo

And honourable mention for Thom Yorke's The Eraser, which, although it is a completely unsurprising and frustratingly passive album, is still of better quality than most of the dreck that graces our ears these days.

The Weekly, Volume Thirty-Nine

2006-06-27T07:00:00.000-04:00

Album:
Scale (Herbert)

Superficially soulful, yet strangely antiseptic, the latest album from sample-happy producer Matthew Herbert is something of a contradiction in terms. Essentially a functional record, Scale features semi-glitchy house beats that ground layers of string, horn and keyboard samples. It's dance music for the indie-chic urban upper class. Herbert takes his rhythmic cues from American R&B and funk and adapts them to the on-beat Euro-house soundscape. The beats are lithe and lively, and manage to lock in superbly; however, they never quite reach the aggressively euphoric levels achieved by other rhythm-intensive electronic artists such as Four Tet, Caribou or M83. (Obviously, Herbert's music is fundamentally different than the above-mentioned artists, but it's necessary to draw the comparison between rhythm as dance-functional and rhythm as complex near-melodic element, for on Scale, Herbert seems to be intent on skewing the line between the two). Of course, electro rhythms are only one part of the project. Scale's central conceit is the use of string and horn orchestrations straight out of Philadelphia Soul. Sure it's pure gloss, but coupled with syncopated, intricately-harmonized vocals by Dani Siciliano and Herbert himself, things somehow manage to work. Album opener "Something Isn't Right" and "Moving Like a Train" are prime examples of the synthesis Herbert achieves, though the latter also demonstrates what may be the album's main disadvantage: much of the music here treads very close to the line at which slickly-produced, melodic electronica becomes something akin to lite rock. Ultimately, Scale is an intriguing concept and certainly well-executed, but the album's silkiness is occasionally hard to swallow.

Album #2:
In the Heart of the Moon
(Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate)

A gorgeous recording of laid-back "Jurana Kura" music from Mali, pairs two of West Africa's best-loved talents. The music (at least to this white-person-with- a-single-university-level-credit-in-ethnomusicology's ears) is more about atmosphere than formal song structure. Farka Toure and Diabate begin with a basic melodic idea and extrapolate from there. Farka Toure's playing here is surprisingly restrained. He provides the foundation; his shambling guitar picking acts as a bass line of sorts. The nature of their instruments means that Diabate (on the kora, a 21-stringed west African harp) is afforded considerably more opportunity to improvise, and his marriage or technique and taste is simply thrilling. Farka Toure shines as well in his role: his improvisation is less flashy, but is perhaps even more in service of the song: small embellishments that make a great difference. Unfortunately, this instrumental album, which generally features but two instruments, can be a slightly monotonous listen if the mood isn't right. Both players do what they do very well, and as a live recording without edits or overdubbing the album showcases the musicians' fine form in spades, but rarely do Farka Toure and Diabate deviate from their established approach, and the largely modal tunes start to sound a tad "samey" if one is not listening intently. "Debe," the upbeat "Kadi Kadi" and "Gomni," for example, are all wonderful, but they do lapse into repetition once in a while. Regardless, In the Heart of the Moon is an excellent album, and as one of Ali Farka Toure's last official releases, it is a true testament to his subtle and mesmerizing talents.

The (not really) Weekly, Volume Thirty-Eight

2006-06-17T00:48:00.000-04:00

Album:
Thunderbird (Cassandra Wilson)

Cassandra Wilson has spent years defying typical expectations about vocal jazz. Thunderbird is perhaps the least grounded-in-jazz of any of her previous albums, yet it somehow feels the most sincere, the most real. Helmed by T-Bone Burnett, the record's eleven tracks are both stripped-bare and slickly-produced, an incongruous but elegantly successful combination of Chicago-style blues, jazz and modern pop, where slide guitar meets walking bass meets electronic percussion samples. Backed by a veritable menagerie of top-drawer musicians (Jim Keltner and Colin Linden and Marc Ribot among them), Wilson's smoky interpretations of traditional folk/blues tunes, original compositions and even a tune by Jakob Dylan are uniformly excellent: the singer finds a wellspring of emotion in each note, and the surprising arrangements are always in service of her searching, yearning vocals. Blues-influenced tracks "Red River Valley" and "Easy Rider" are highlights, and though occasionally humbled by the overuse of fairly bland drum loops, the "poppier" tunes like "Tarot," "It Would Be So Easy" and "Closer to You" (the aforementioned song by Dylan the younger) are never less than completely engaging.

Album #2:
The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves (Cibelle)

It's hard to describe the Shine of Dried Electric Leaves with anything approaching literal accuracy. Monolithic explanation simply does not do this vibrantly eclectic album justice. Part sun-splashed bossa, part glitchy lounge electronica, part shimmery bliss pop and probably a hundred other things to a hundred different listeners, Cibelle, the Brazilian singer and songwriter, has created something that defies classification, yet nonetheless begs to be heard. The varied approach can make for a slightly frustrating experience if one is inclined toward the album-as-unified-whole theory: apart from the fact that they are all relatively laid-back and understatedly groovy, the songs (mostly originals and a few intriguing covers, recorded by three different producers) have little in common with each other. Some songs even manage to create different tonal moods within themselves, like "Flying High" and "City People," both of which happen to be excellent. Other tracks arrive at the esoteric by different means, but with the same fascinating results. "London London," a Caetano Veloso cover performed by Cibelle with Devendra Banhart, harkens back to the great duets of Antonio Carlos Jobim and Elis Regina, but adds a bit of a modern psych-folk-electronica twist. The plaintive "Train Station" has Cibelle singing multi-part harmony over a simple guitar part that would've sounded great on a Chris Whitley record and the bittersweet "Lembra" incorporates a madrigal-esque vocalese to great effect. Surprisingly, it's "Arrete la, Manina" that turns out to be the record's least engaging cut. Its danceable beat somehow just doesn't jive with the rest of Cibelle's material, and a guest appearance by Seu Jorge is wasted on a few cursory shouts beneath the chorus. Regardless of that misstep (and, admittedly, a few more of the album's 14 tracks aren't completely memorable), the Shine of Dried Electric Leaves is an impeccably tasteful little album that, with any luck, won't be exploited by local coffee merchants looking for the next crossover hit.

They shoot horses, don't they?

2006-06-14T19:23:00.000-04:00

Three things that made last night's Band of Horses show a disappointing affair:

1. All band members save the drummer felt it necessary to tune their instruments between every song.
2. Lacking the material to play for much longer than an hour, commendably affable lead singer Ben Bridwell pulled a classic "Mingus" and launched into a barely re-tooled version of a song the band had already played: the chugging rocker "Wicked Gil" became a minor dirge with a new name, but obviously the same melody and lyrics.
3. The band's unwillingness (or inability) to expand on its songs and do anything but play rote versions of the material on its lone album, Everything All the Time. Tunes such as "A Funeral" and "The Great Salt Lake" could have been monstrous, stretched-out rockers. Instead, while relatively good, they were little more than louder/faster versions of what everyone had already heard dozens of times on their iPods.

Extra demerit: for some reason, Lee's Palace was like a sauna, causing the big lummox beside me to sweat more than a Spaniard at the Tour de France.

The (not really) Weekly, Volume Thirty-Seven

2006-06-14T18:57:00.000-04:00

Album:
Citrus (Asobi Seksu)

As neo-new wave/post-punk/dance rock-whatever it is (as propogated by Franz Ferdinand, the Strokes, etc) seems to be on the downswing, a bevy of forgotten retro genre upgrades continue to jockey for position as the new "cool indie genre" of choice. If recent developments are to be heeded, it would appear that a slightly updated version of Shoegaze has gained considerable momentum and cachet. Yes, self-consciously hushed vocals, droning fuzz-box guitars and outrageously basic drumming have returned from their exile of barely 10 years! What's this? Slowdive catalogue re-issues?! Spiritualized still kicking?! Kevin Shields the new Eno?! Or something!

It's not as though we'll be seeing a Chapterhouse or Curve reunion next week, but a new crop of gazers are hitching a ride on the dream pop rocket to the stars. And with its second album, Brooklyn's Asobi Seksu make a good case to be counted in the Nu-gaze neovolution. Citrus is by no means a great album. It's highly derivative and, even at 50 minutes, probably runs too long. But what the band lacks in innovation, it makes up for with unabashed tunefulness. "Strawberries" and "New Years" kick things off in fine style as vocalist Yuki channels a kind of warped, Blue-era Joni Mitchell, singing in Japanese over swirling over-dubbed guitar harmonics. "Thursday" brings the English lyrics, along with a cavernous coda that over the course of the next handful of tracks shows itself as the band's trademark: if nothing else, Asobi Seksu really knows how to bring a song to an epic conclusion. The music beforehand occasionally feels repetitive and one can get bogged down by the wall of sound, but "Red Sea," "Lions and Tigers," "Nefi + Girlfly" and "Exotic Animal Paradise" all feature enormous, chest-shaking final minutes, which, for my money, are definitely worth waiting for.

Album #2:
Palo Santo (Shearwater)

About as far as one can get from the noisy bliss pop of Asobi Seksu, Palo Santo is the quietly riveting fourth full-length from Jonathan Meiburg (also of Okkervil River) and friends. While the band's previous efforts were dignified affairs showcasing strong musicianship and alt-country songcraft, they sometimes suffered from an abundance of earnestness. Not so for Palo Santo. This album is conceptual and brooding, alternately subdued and rollicking in all the right places. Opening with an intimate urgency rarely heard since Talk Talk disbanded, "La Dame et la Licorne" seems to revel in space with a simple chord progression played on piano and Meiburg's muted trumpet falsetto. The album immediately switches gears with the death-country stomp of "Red Sea, Black Sea" and the "White Waves," a minor-key shuffle that sounds like the Rolling Stones filtered through Radiohead. The remainder of Palo Santo is filled with similarly insular alternative pop, marked by touches of the twangy troubadour sound Meiburg cultivated on his previous outings with Shearwater and Will Robinson Sheff's Okkervil River. Further highlights include the crystalline "Nobody," "Sing Little Birdie" (sounding a bit like something Ry Cooder might write), "Johnny Viola," which actually might be too restrained for its own good, and the expansive "Hail Mary." Really, the whole album's a gem.

Der Kaiser!

2006-05-18T18:14:00.000-04:00

Ullrich wins Giro time trial

Chapter Five

2006-05-15T10:50:00.000-04:00

Complete!

The Motobecane was a relic and for a flash William remembered again the reason he was riding it. He reached the gear shift that was archaically attached to the bicycle’s down tube and pushed it forward slightly. The blackened chain rubbed against metal with an insistent click before finding its place in the teeth of the big cog. The air rushed faster through the vents in his helmet and the hairs on his bare forearms shivered in the cool. He began to pedal harder as his trajectory sloped downward, pushing firmly on his quadriceps and pulling with calves and hamstrings taut. Increasing velocity, spokes whipping, a yellow-green blur in the corner of his eyes. His hands ached absorbing the shock of uneven pavement, clenched as they were around handlebars wrapped not with thick cork, but with a single layer of black and red electrical tape. The hill slackened at the bottom and he adjusted his direction riding out of a curve, as though he were coming off the high side of a bowl. He aimed his nose, shoulder, torso, hips and knees toward the bridge. A quick hop brought him over the front lip of the bridge that protruded above the pavement. Teeth rattling, another hop signalled his safe passage across the boards. He imagined breathing a sigh of relief, but the flow of air into his lungs had in fact remained steady: vigorous panting as the renewed incline begin to nullify his effort.

The Weekly, Volume Thirty-Six

2006-05-10T23:55:00.000-04:00

Album:
Pearl Jam (Pearl Jam)

Please, will somebody explain to me why every review of every Pearl Jam album released since the turn of the century has to make comparisons to Ten and Vs? Grunge has been dead for a decade (if you even considered PJ to be "grunge" in the first place) and the band has never made any effort to recapture the sound of their first two albums that everyone seems so nostalgic for. And have any of these people actually listened to Ten lately? Sure it's good, but it's also very dated. For my money, Pearl Jam's best record is 1996's No Code, featuring the mantra-like "Who You Are," and both the band's best lullaby ("Present Tense") and blues rocker ("Red Mosquitoe"). Sure, their albums since then haven't been quite so cohesive as Vitalogy, but few bands have been as consistently interesting and defiantly individualist as the "mature" incarnation of Seattle's biggest band.

Thus we come to the band's eponymous eighth studio album. For some reason it has a picture of an avocado on the cover. Does that imply that the band has a tasty soft outer layer, but a massive hard core? Maybe, because on this album Pearl Jam have stripped down in almost every sense of the word to reveal the rawness that they have hinted at for so long (Hence, one supposes, the spurious Ten references). Musically and lyrically, Pearl Jam reach at the "contemplative punk rock" aesthetic that is increasingly becoming the band's stock-in-trade. "Life Wasted," "Comatose" and "Big Wave" are rollicking garage rockers, while "World Wide Suicide" and "Unemployable" spew political vitriol in a way that Neil Young can now only dream about. However, the most welcome aspect of this album is the full-fledged return of Mike McCready and Stone Gossard's two-pronged guitar heroics. Both are featured throughout Pearl Jam and they are exciting and riffing and monstrous. Of course, Pearl Jam are not the most original band when it comes to arrangements, and if there is one criticism to be made about Pearl Jam, this is it. In particular, the chorus of "Gone" borrows most of the main lick from U2's "Bad," while "Comatose" and "Come Back" sound like PJ tracks of yore ("Brain of J" and "Red Mosquitoe" respectively). That said, even slightly derivative Pearl Jam is better than most of what passes for rock these days, and with its latest batch of songs, the band sounds vital and hungry enough to continue for decades more.

Album #2:
Ten Silver Drops (Secret Machines)

Where Secret Machines first album was a tremendous thunderclap of hard and occasionally psychedelic music, Ten Silver Drops is the aftershock. It echoes its predecessor, but it nowhere near as memorable. Most notably, the Dallas trio's sophomore album lacks the booming low-end that made songs like "Sad and Lonely" so consuming and powerful. Sure, there is still a sense of propulsion in new tracks like "Lightning Blue Eyes" and "Faded Lines," but that doesn't necessarily translate into any palpable sense of purpose. For the most part on Ten Silver Drops, the songwriting just feels bland and uninspired--an effect that is perhaps enhanced by Brandon Curtis' weak vocals, which are featured far forward in the mix and create an occasionally discomfiting karaoke atmosphere. The best songs are those that unfold slowly and wrap themselves in the anthemic trappings Secret Machines strove for on their previous record. "Alone Jealous and Stoned" sounds like the song Coldplay would write if Chris Martin became a Roger Waters disciple, but it does manage to latch on to a decent arrangement and melody, and is generally performed with conviction. Similar things can be said of album closer "1,000 Seconds," while "I Hate Pretending" is a modern distillation of Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti in just over five minutes. Unfortunately, the album can't rest on the moderate strength of only a few songs. It's not that Ten Silver Drops is a failure, but on the whole the band doesn't seem to know where its strengths lie.

Album #3:
How We Operate (Gomez)

Gomez is a hard band to pin down. Over the course of its four previous albums, the quintet has established a crook-eyed country rock sound, with blues affectations and a subtly experimental bent. A kind of overly-ambitious skiffle band, Gomez has cultivated a modest following seemingly on the strength of their live performances, because it's not as though you'll ever hear them on (North American) radio. That said, How We Operate may be the album that changes things. By far it is the most accessible of Gomez's albums. Over the course of twelve tracks it adheres to a sort of populist version of the sound and mood described above. It's a cohesive whole, but not impenetrably conceptual: any number of songs could be surprise hit singles ("Notice," "See the World" and "Girlshapedlovedrug" come immediately to mind). Though some tracks, namely "Woman! Man!" come off as a little silly, How We Operate is nonetheless focused, textured and endlessly pleasing. The band's best work since its Mercury Prize-winning debut Bring It On.

Taking (film) stock

2006-04-28T14:30:00.000-04:00

Yep, I've been slacking again, and I'll be slacking some more. But for good reason. Next week I'm doing some writing for the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto, which, if I'm not mistaken is now the largest documentary film fest in the world. Pretty much every day from this Friday until May 6th I will have some sort of article up on the Hot Docs web site. Typically, these will be preview pieces about various films, and interviews with filmmakers. Since I'm working for the festival, the articles will likely have a bit of a "promotional" tone, but that's not much different than half the stuff you read in most newspaper arts sections these days anyway.

For those of you who care, I'll update this space with links to the articles as they become available.

And if you're in Toronto, Hot Docs runs from April 28th to May 7th with a really promising schedule of films.

April 28: Interview with Jos de Putter about his film How Many Roads.
April 29: A look at The Dark Side of the White Lady, a film by Montreal-based Patricio Henriquez.
April 30: Bruno Monsaingeon's Glenn Gould Hereafter.
May 1: Interview with Toronto director Greg Hamilton about his [incredible] film Mystic Ball.
May 4: Filmmakers discuss "shaping the story."
May 5: Director Milena Kaneva discusses her film, Total Denial.

Let's Get Shouty!

2006-04-25T11:18:00.000-04:00

Pacino in Ocean's 13!

Post script: Ocean's 12 is cooler than Ted William's severed head.

The Weekly, Volume Thirty-Five

2006-04-14T14:23:00.000-04:00

Making up for lost time...

Album:
The Humbucking Coil (B. Fleischmann)

Like Kraftwerk, Kruder & Dorfmeister and Ulrich Schnauss before him, Bernhard Fleischmann makes ambient techno music that is beguilingly melodic and deceptively simple, yet endlessly rewarding--down tempo electronic music as only the Teutons can (apparently) make. The album begins stirringly with "Broken Mirrors" a song that begins simply with a couple of interwoven synth arpeggios and gains momentum simply by adding more instruments to the mix, until the song reaches an otherworldy climax. "Gain," the album's second song, is equally laudable, with its subdued vocal track wafting over glitchy percussion, ringing vibes and guitar. The remaining six tracks are pretty much variations on these same themes. Relaxed tempos, warm harmonies and buckets of reverb are par for the course. And while this repetitiveness means that the Humbucking Coil doesn't quite match K&D's G-Stoned material or Schnauss' A Strangely Isolated Place, it remains a fine entertainment and should tide indie-electro kids over until the release of the next Air album.

Album #2:
French Cuisine (Alif Tree)

Where B. Fleischmann draws on the melodious sonic embrace of Ulrich Schnauss and Jan Jelinek, Alif Tree is somewhat more difficult to pin down. The group's heavily sampled, symphonic aesthetic is reminiscent of Portishead, and most of the songs on French Cuisine feature the kind of immediately recognizable trip-hop back beat that is forever identified with Beth Gibbons and company, as well as Massive Attack. But there's more: Alif Tree's nocturnal compositions incorporate smoky Nina Simone and Shirley Horn vocal tracks, impressionist-classical piano themes and avant garde experimentalism. Though the album is not as cohesive as, say, Mezzanine or Portishead's self-titled record, many of its individual tracks are better than pretty much any similarly-categorized "acid jazz" down tempo electronic music released this decade. "Deadly Species" (with the aforementioned Nina Simone sample and Erik Satie-eque piano line) is a late night trip, while "My Soul" is an deeply textured track that could be the basis of a soundtrack for some dark, surrealist James Bond adventure. "I Feel Blue" is probably the most traditional song on French Cuisine, but even it manages to work as a nearly-straight jazz track. With a run-time of more than an hour, the music can get a little heavy at times, downtrodden even, but taken in measured doses, French Cuisine is one of the more engrossing electronic albums to be released quite a while.

The Weekly, Volume Thirty-Four

2006-04-11T08:03:00.000-04:00

So now that Wayne Shorter week has passed us here at Caps and Spelling, I thought I might make an effort to return to our normal programming. Don't be so quick to applaud... I doubt I'll be able to keep it up for long...

Album:
Fort Recovery (Centro-Matic)

Fort Recovery is Centro-matic's tenth album in as many years. Of the ten it's the only one I've heard, but if the quality of the songwriting and musicianship here is any indication, the band deserves to be around for many years to come. Centro-matic is from Texas, and as such, their music is steeped in that sort of rough but warm sound. There are elements of what we might call "southern rock," but none of the redneck posturing associated with that genre. Fort Recovery is much more reserved, more introspective. And though the production work is crisp, the band's lo-fi roots are more than evident. You could probably get away with calling it alt. country, but don't mistake it for Uncle Tupelo or Son Volt. Instead, think of this as the more sensitive side of Drive-By Truckers, filtered through Califone's slightly esoteric roots rock.

Album opener "Covered Up In Mines" probably features the record's best melody, as Will Johnson mumbles about "the sanctity of your transmissions to the sea" and "ignoring scrap technologies" over a mournful guitar line. "In Such Crooked Time" is a similarly graceful ballad: wistful and melancholy, with an air of decline. Here the band's standard acoustic/electric roots rock is tastefully augmented by a plaintive violin and rhodes duo. But Fort Recovery is not all sensitive crooning. Medium-tempo rockers "For the New Starts," "Triggers and Trash Heaps" and "Take a Rake" are standouts, splashed as they are with warm harmonies and an appealingly distorted guitar attack. A few elements don't necessarily work--for example, the electronic arpeggio on "The Fugitives Have Won"--but as a whole, Fort Recovery is one of the more satisfying albums to be released this year.

Album #2:
Everything All the Time (Band of Horses)

Like Centro-matic, Band of Horses could probably be called an alt. country band, though the latter's influences are evidently different and more contemporary. Everything All the Time is the first album from the Seattle-based trio (which is rounded into a quartet by a bevy of random drummers), and while the band flirts with the loose, electric sound cultivated by Neil Young at various times in his career, they really have much more in common with My Morning Jacket and even, heaven forbid, Coldplay. Ben Bridwell's off-kilter vocals are, from the get-go, easily comparable to MMJ's Jim James and the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne (who are themselves modelled on some kind of boozy, psychedelic Neil Young ideal). Tracks like "The First Song," "Wicked Gil" and "Weed Party" feature the same reverberating, on-beat guitar choruses that are prevalent on It Still Moves and Z. And while "The Funeral" and "The Great Salt Lake" are similarly predicated on the Jacket's whiskey-soaked sound and slightly unexpected arrangements, the former especially interpolates the shimmering, echo-chamber guitar pop that is Coldplay's stock-in-trade. It's hardly innovative material, but the band manages to play it loose and exciting. Everything All the Time also features a handful of almost purely acoustic ballads that are more twangy than the electric tunes, but don't manage to connect emotionally. "Monsters," the album's penultimate track, manages to build some excitement towards the end of its run-time, but for the most part these acoustic tunes show that the band has some good ideas that are executed admirably, but they have something to learn about originality.

Album #3:
The Animal Years (Josh Ritter)

Known as something of an acoustic troubadour, Josh Ritter has, with his third full-length album, evolved into a full-fledged singer and songwriter. The foundation of his folksy tunes remains the acoustic guitar and Ritter's twangy croon, but on The Animal Years he has added to his repertoire--organs and electric guitars to be precise. Sure it doesn't seem like much, but Ritter's tunes benefit greatly from the extra heft. "Girl in the War" is immediately compelling as music (the tune is structured around an innocent picked guitar line that is drawn out and augmented over subsequent verses) and as an exercise in storytelling, with the singer seeking explanation for conflict from both earthly and ethereal sources. The nearly ten-minute "This Blue Flame" is successful for the same reasons--referencing the exhaltant coda of Death Cab for Cutie's "Transatlanticism"; Springsteen-like in its invocation of a sort of questioning, common-man mythology. Of course, the Animal Years has nine other songs as well. Some, like "Idaho" and "One More Mouth" are achingly spare, while others such as "Monster Ballads" and "Good Man" position Ritter as something of a David Gray for Middle America (minus the electronic elements). And though these songs don't quite reach the giddy heights of the album's two best tracks, they fit quite admirably between the bookends.

Point: Counter Point

2006-04-06T21:01:00.000-04:00

As an addendum to last night's/this morning's Wayne Shorter review, I'm linking to Carl Wilson's response to an article about smooth jazz that appeared in today's Globe and Mail. Wilson's piece is (as always) both thoughful and humorous, and he does a fine job rebuking some of the more spurious comments made by a particular smooth jazz artist interviewed for the Globe's story.

Useless factoid: Wayne Shorter plays the same instrument as Kenny G.

Late night ramblings from the coast of Alegria

2006-04-06T02:55:00.000-04:00

Brad Mehldau opened for the Wayne Shorter Quartet last night. After his second tune, he spoke into a microphone that rested atop his piano. To paraphase: "a request for the lighting crew: choose one set of lights, I don't care what colour, and don't change them." There were no more words spoken in Massey Hall for the remainder of the evening.

Mehldau's playing was, as ever, searching and sensitive. He is a master interpreter of standards, especially ballads. He played two in his six-song set, and they were at once modern and timeless. Of course, Mehldau is more widely known for his Radiohead, Nick Drake, et cetera covers. He played a few of those as well. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" insinuated itself into the pianists ethereal opening number, and "River Man" closed the set, accompanied by a number of appreciative w00ts from the audience. Occasionally, solos seemed to illogically avoid coming to a satisfying climax, but the live setting mitigated any melodic short-comings by giving the audience an up-close view of Mehldau's (almost surprisingly) crisp technique. His playing sounds so effortless that one tends to forget that the guy simply has an incredible amount of chops. A professional set, if a little too subtle at times.

The Wayne Shorter Quarter played five tunes in more than two hours. The first two were probably each half-an-hour long. The music, especially early on, had more in common with Stravinsky than Gershwin, weaving together varied melodic and rhythmic motifs. Third Stream with an unbelievable groove. Yeah, about that: Wayne Shorter easily played the least of any member of his band. Danilo Perez had a few blazing piano solos, but generally his role seemed more toward the decorative end of the spectrum as well. At this performance, drummer Brian Blade was the most insistent creative force. His touch is remarkably supple, allowing for powerful around-the-kit fills, the slightest glitch beat, and everything in between. There is no better drummer working in music today. In any genre. But Blade's excellence was hardly unexpected. What was surprising was the bass playing of John Patitucci. Previously known in these parts (i.e. my mind) as a skilled, but not Dave Holland/Charles Mingus level musician, with the live Shorter Quartet he was a monster. It was hard to focus on anyone else. John Patitucci owned. Toward the end of the show, I discovered that I was literally on the edge of my seat, listening to Patitucci lay it down.

The music this band played was and is almost completely indescribable. It's dependent on Shorter's extreme genius for composition and arrangement, yet huge chunks of each song were no doubt completely indebted to the band's uncanny chemistry and improvisational spirit. After the performance, it was wondered aloud as to how much of the music was composed--or, more likely, loosely arranged--and how much was improvised. A perceptive friend said that it was likely more than we can know of both. I thought, how many of these people realize they just saw the best band in the world?

Adventures aboard the Golden Mean

2006-04-05T11:22:00.000-04:00

Here's a quick nothing post.

Centro-matic are playing at the Horseshoe tonight. The band's latest album, Fort Recovery, is wonderful from beginning to end, and (though I haven't heard much of it), the rest of their catalogue is said to be just as good. Go see them if you can.

Alas, I won't be there. Rather, I'm lucky enough to have a ticket for the Wayne Shorter show at Massey Hall, arguably the biggest jazz show in Toronto since that Hancock/Hargrove/Brecker show in 2002. The Toronto Star has a pretty decent piece about Shorter and his band (Brian Blade, John Patitucci and Danilo Perez) in today's edition, which has a couple of good quotes from jazz's "greatest living composer" and briefly dicussed his use of cinematic imagery in crafting what might reasonably be called sonic tone poems. Not too shabby, considering it wasn't even written by the paper's usual jazz guy (Geoff Chapman).

I might do some type of wee review of the show tomorrow, but in all likelihood it'll just be a random spewing of hyperbole. And I'll probably mention how the world needs another Brian Blade Fellowship album.

And (b)linking, stepped into the sun.

2006-04-03T14:57:00.000-04:00

I've long been interested in the music industry's ever-evolving sentiment toward the full length album versus the single song (the first feature I wrote at j-skool was about that very topic). With the continued popularity of iTunes, cell phone ring tones and the like, it seems as though the proverbial hit single will be the apple of record companies' eyes for years to come, and artists will be increasingly compelled to discard their prosaic notions of long-form unity in favour of the short and snappy 99 cent download. Wham bam thank you ma'am.

And yet, there remain a few tireless individuals who are working to keep the album alive (besides the musicians that still make them, I mean); people who are telling record execs that we just can't get enough of words like "concept" and "ambition" when talking about recorded music's physical form. They are the journalists, commentators and various other in-the-know musicky types who have written (and will write for) Continuum's 33 1/3 series, which features entire book-length books about album-length albums. There's a book about Exile on Main Street, one about Unknown Pleasures... And if I'm not mistaken, a fair number of others have been contracted and are in the future works. Someday when more than 20 people deign to read my work, I'll submit to them a proposal to write about Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, and the world will be torn asunder.

Anyway, the point: PopMatters has a bunch of stuff looking at the 33 1/3 series (and the past-present-future of the album) all this week. Shiny.

Speaking of albums, future 33 1/3 contributor and Caps and Spelling's favourite pop cultural pontificator Carl Wilson has a nice little bit about the wicked-cool Brian Eno-David Byrne collaboration My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Ch-ch-check it out.

The Weekly, Volume Thirty-Three (Literary Edition)

2006-03-30T19:00:00.000-05:00

Novel:
The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)

A novel of deceptive simplicity, The Remains of the Day follows aging butler Stevens as he takes a drive around rural 1950s England and reminisces about the "good old years." Only, they might not have been so good after all. Through his protagonist Ishiguro not only weaves a heart-breaking love story, but also looks to a higher theme, examining the democratic responsibilities of man to himself, his friends and his country. The ideas are straightforward, yet prepared with great subtlety. The book is equally a triumph on a purely literary level: Ishiguro's prose is intricate, his tone remarkably controlled. If there was any sanity in the world, The Remains of the Day would be mandatory reading for English and Political Science students across the Western World.

Novel #2:
The Plot Against America (Philip Roth)

Another fine example of tone, Roth's novel is a tightly-plotted look at the desperation of a simple family faced with the complete overturning of its world. It's also a delightfully imaginative piece of historical fiction and maybe even a veiled condemnation of current US government policy. Many of Roth's previous works (for example, Operation Shylock) have featured characters dealing with the causes and effects of paranoia on a personal and societal level. The Plot Against America employs similar thematic elements in this sense, and Roth's description of a society unglued is vivid indeed, enmeshing the reader and forcing him/her to question the order within which we now live. Though occasionally bogged down by the trappings of its memoir-like structure, the book nonetheless succeeds as a depiction of what might be deemed the nostalgic traditions of American life, and their ultimate undermining by unforeseen external events.

Novel #3:
The Silmarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien)

I've lately been of the opinion that writers should not attempt an "epic novel" until they are well into the autumn of their careers--until they have had many years to acquaint themselves with all manner of philosophical, sociological and religious theories, and have occasion to look back upon their own life and the lives of others with a significant amount of perspective. For truly epic novels encapsulate in parable all of these subjects and more, and their creators must have wisdom indeed. The Silmarillion is forever overshadowed by Tolkien's other masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, but the former is actually a much grander undertaking, setting up as it does the cumulative history of the author's "Middle-Earth" and acting even as a creation myth for our world. The book is biblical in its proportions and prose, overflowing with pathos and stirring metaphor. And though its subject matter is fantastical, it is ever sincere, and its many richly-drawn characters are utterly--heart-breakingly--human.

The Morrissey Cruel and Self-Serving Nations Ranking

2006-03-28T10:45:00.000-05:00

I don't link to stuff very often, and it's basically old news already, but this made me laugh. And that's no small thing.

Who knows, maybe I'll post some actual content of my own this week (it could happen).

Chapter Four

2006-03-22T16:53:00.000-05:00

Complete! (after a long and tedious dry spell).

After an initial respite that convinced him of his unquestionable fitness, the headaches had become worse. Or, if one were to be precise, as far as William could determine he was now suffering from a single continuous headache, gradually tightening its grip on his brain pan, interrupted only by the periodic bouts of sleep he could manage. Although, barring the first night’s unexpectedly sound slumber, even the rejuvenating effects of nightly hibernation were difficult to be had over the five days since he found himself resting in a ditch. The contusions on his shoulders and arms had largely vanished and the wounds covering the majority of his joints continued to heal nicely, but the aches were relentless. Regretting the post-crash bravado that dissuaded him from obtaining proper medical opinion, his worries now focused on internal injuries: ripped or disconnected sinew, various organs sloshing around in their protective sacs a little too willy-nilly, fluids slowly seeping into once forbidden crevices and hollows that hadn't existed before.

"Jesus walked on water when he should've surfed"

2006-03-16T11:17:00.000-05:00

Reason to Mourn?
A review of Ben Harper's Both Sides of the Gun

Ben Harper (with or without the Innocent Criminals) has yet to conceive of an album that has, over the course of an hour or so, managed to wholly attain musical or thematic unity.

His 1994 debut Welcome to the Cruel World approached cohesiveness with a running lyrical thread about dignity and human rights and its largely acoustic production. Since then, Harper has largely been a genre-hopping tunesmith, known more for catchy radio singles (hear, for example, “Steal My Kisses,” from 1999’s Burn to Shine) than his full-length records. Like the recent Diamonds on the Inside, they have been musically excellent, but stylistically schizophrenic—too diverse for their own good.

It therefore gives one pause when considering why the artist felt capable of tackling that most ambitious of musical projects, the double album.

Traditionally, double LPs are the most conceptual of concept albums, produced by those infuriatingly prolific artists who think themselves masters of thematic and stylistic broad strokes. A few of these projects overcome their creators’ zealousness to become pop music’s equivalent of the epic novel: the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is an obvious mid-nineties touchstone, and Wilco’s Being There stands up well as an testament to the band’s early experimentalism.

Most often, however, such albums crumble under the weight of their own ambitions.

What’s most intriguing then about Ben Harper’s Both Sides of the Gun is that, while spanning two discs, it does not give one a feeling of striving ambition and grandeur, nor is it particularly successful in its attempt to remain small and grounded.

The album is loosely organized by the soft/loud principle of song writing. Disc one is the grittier, more amplified Harper, while the second disc focuses on the musician’s folksy charm, with a set of nine tunes that would radio station programmers will likely file as ballads.

The more effective of the two sides, the ballads disc has a handful of intimate and nuanced songs that showcase the singer’s plaintive wail and understated instrumental talent. “Waiting for You” and “Happy Ever After in Your Arms” feature the kind of pastoral string arrangements that Harper began to develop furtively on his previous albums, while “Crying Won’t Help You Now” is one of those touching non-denominational spirituals that have increasingly become the singer’s trademark.

However, the songs are almost uniformly bland. Harper’s lyric writing has always stretched the limits of sentimentality, but with so many similar songs lined up in a row, his saccharine tendencies become rather too obvious. The best songs on the side, “Picture in a Frame” and “Reason to Mourn,” are also the least subtle musically: they cover up overly-earnest lyrics with tight (and edgier) instrumental layers.

With that in mind, one would have hoped for better things from the “rock” disc. But instead of mammoth stadium rockers in the glorious tradition of “Faded,” “Ground on Down” and “Glory and Consequence,” we get an inconsistent collection of country honk and far too many funk shuffles. “Better Way” is an effectively eastern-sounding dirge evoking the same sentiment as Diamonds on the Inside’s “With My Two Hands” and album closer “Serve Your Soul” is a great bit of Zeppelin-esque blues metal. “The Way You Found Me,” which turns a classic Charles Mingus riff inside-out, is also relatively successful with its fusion of traditional jazz and classic rock timbres.

But those are the exceptions. The rest of the “plugged in” set is limp and tedious. “Get It Like You Like It” ridiculously name-checks the Boston Red Sox and sounds like something the Black Crowes could have recorded in their sleep; the title track is only marginally different than “Bring the Funk” (from 2003’s Diamonds); and “Black Rain” is a response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina that lacks the musical urgency to be devastating in its own right.

As a whole, the album follows no truly coherent thematic or musical patterns, and clocks in at just over an hour. Which begs the question, why did Harper split his material across two CDs? A fierce edit of the set list could have yielded a very solid single disc, with ten or so tracks showcasing the singer’s distinctive voice, his exciting electric guitar work and eclectic musical spirit.

It’s not that any of the “bad” songs on either disc are particularly irritating. They’re just completely innocuous—and actually, rather ominous: they demonstrate how close Ben Harper is to becoming little more than the electric version of Jack Johnson.

On the other hand, the “good” tracks are actually quite good. But Both Sides of the Gun, needlessly separated on to two discs, simply doesn’t have enough of these strong moments. Nor does it have the foolhardy ambition—the sheer moxie necessary to attempt a “true” double album—to make up for its musical shortcomings.

Vonal Declosion

2006-03-15T02:21:00.000-05:00

Stereolab's show last night at the Phoenix, in haiku form:

Retro Caine car chase
Bassist: God or longshoreman?
Tight keyboard action

As the wheels turn

2006-03-09T10:56:00.000-05:00

The 2006 'Pro Tour' of European cycling started up the other day, with the Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico week-long stage races.

So break out those Delgados* albums (Kraftwerk is best kept cellared until the Tour) and pray that your favourite spindly-legged rolleur doesn't get caught by the vampires!*Semi-interesting musicky fact: the scottish quartet took their name from the swarthy spanish roadster Pedro Delgado. Their first two albums are appropriately called Domestiques -- the word used to describe the "all work, no glory" members of a cycling team -- and Peloton, which is a large group of riders stampeding down the open road.

Requiem

2006-03-07T11:14:00.000-05:00

Ali Farka Toure: 1939--2006

Kirby Puckett: 1960--2006

The Weekly, Volume Thirty-Two: Reader's Digest Condensed Books Edition

2006-03-06T18:17:00.000-05:00

Album:
Destroyer's Rubies (Destroyer)

I usually can't stand introspective/extroverted psych-folk whatever-it-is. You know: kitchen sink production; off-key vocalists; lyrics that switch between traditional storytelling to impenetrably abstract imagery (the kind of stuff that university students read too much in to). To my ears, it's the sort of music that always ends up sounding like it was made by music theatre students who got tired of spending their free hours participating poetry slams and drum circles.

That said, the much-hyped Destroyer's Rubies is deserving of a spoonful of praise. The lyrics, though challenging, do actually have some insight on offer, and the impact of Dan Bejar's atrociously atonal voice is tempered by generously consonant instrumentation. Unsurprisingly, the sturm und drang arrangements are almost uniformly too busy and too long, but subtlety probably wasn't the intention here (notable exceptions being "Painter in Your Pocket" and the bridge/coda of "Watercolours into the Ocean"). For Bejar, the additional sonic production might be a step up, but it's hardly innovative considering the numerous Canadian musicians and groups currently operating, whose stock-in-trade is the full-bodied pseudo-orchestral (yet endearingly lo-fi) indie pop sound. Then again, who am I to criticize decisions made in the studio. The musical foundation of Destroyer's Rubies is flush with solid songwriting, and ultimately that's what makes it memorable.

Album #2:
The Last Romance (Arab Strap)

Also surprisingly good. Though very British, more sparse, and maybe a little more serious (read: morose) than the above-mentioned Destroyer album. Cracking cover art as well.

The Weekly, Volume Thirty-One

2006-03-03T12:57:00.000-05:00

Album:
It's My Life (Talk Talk)

Talk Talk are just about the 1980s' greatest band. Forget the Smiths, Devo, the Talking Heads, the Cure. None had the musical reach (and consequently, career arc) of Talk Talk. The band's final albums, Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, are correctly regarded as the crown jewels of early post-rock, but Talk Talk began as little more than a studio-assembled cash-in on the new wave trends of the time. The trio's first album, 1982's The Party's Over, is wholly forgettable, but its follow-up, It's My Life sows the seed of the bigger things that awaited the band. "Dum Dum Girl" opens the album with a fairly stereotypical '80s sound, but amidst all the peppy synths and heavily reverberating snare drum there is a thread of sadness that continues over the rest of the record, and indeed, the band's career. "Such a Shame," "The Last Time" and the excellent title track walk the same path even more confidently: though grounded in the prevailing (and somewhat dated) conventions of the decade, the songs showcase Talk Talk's strong sense of melody and nuanced harmonic ideas. But what really marks It's My Life as a harbinger of the band's greater glory are the arrangements of songs like "Renee," "Tomorrow" and "Does Caroline Know." None of these songs are typically pop. They are not 'made' by melody alone. Rather, they succeed on the strength of texture and timbre, and the band's expert use of both. Overall, this is a surprisingly cohesive and rewarding album, and a testament to the progressive sound of one of rock's most underappreciated bands.

Album #2:
Resident Alien (Spacehog)

Over the last few years, pop music has become progressively more unbearably ironic. If musicians (especially those of the "indie" persuasion) aren't forcibly dismantling the sounds that preceded them, they're mimicking those earlier sounds outright, in a seemingly good-natured but ultimately cynical bid at... well, something... humour, maybe? At the moment, there just seems to be a dearth of unrepentently fun, even slightly stupid, rock music. Sure, bands like the New Pornographers are great, but they don't play in that arena-filling guitar-riffing style that made bands like Oasis so memorable in the early '90s. Thus, we look back to 1995, when the BritPop scene was arguably on its last legs, but Spacehog was only just finding its own. The New York-based band of mostly British ex-pats released Resident Alien and became mildly popular on the strength of the rousing single "In the Meantime." The song was an undeniably rousing glam-rock anthem for kids who had never heard of Ziggy Stardust, and while the remaining 12 tracks on Resident Alien don't quite live up to their ballyhooed pedigree, they still sound relatively fresh more than ten years later. The alternately dreamy and direct "Starside" and "Zeroes" combine the best melodic tendencies of vintage Bowie with amp-shaking riffs comparable to current Brit It bands like Kaiser Chiefs. "Space is the Place," "Cruel to be Kind" and "Never Coming Down" also offer supremely hooky pop music (though the latter tune is remarkably dumb), driven by Royston Langdon's expressive vocals and the aforementioned power chords. Though Resident Alien never approaches anything close to subtlety, but it truly sounds like the band is having a great time playing every tune on the album, and that kind of child-who-doesn't-know-better sincerity is ultimately quite endearing.

There goes a well known gun

2006-02-27T11:15:00.000-05:00

(Rant. Rant...)

It's easy to get one's fill of Sir Elton John, Knight of the Realm, self-aggrandizing poobah of pop piano, dandy and notorious bitch. Not that he's at the apex of his popularity. That time past long ago. But every now and then he finds a way to return to the public consciousness, whether by orchestrating the world's most opulent gay marriage ceremony, promoting his AIDS charities, turning up in tabloid stories about his alleged Caligula-like decadence, and even playing a tune once in a while.

My generation (Y?) probably knows him best as the composer of the unscrupulously saccharine "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," or as the bloke who sang "Rocket Man"—the tamer brother of space-themed opuses like David Bowie's "Space Oddity" and "Life On Mars," and "Dark Star" by the Grateful Dead. The most recent crop of cabbage patch kids likely has even less knowledge of the musician, beyond the fact that he's a British guy with gapped teeth and a bowl haircut, who Justin Timberlake impersonated in a music video.

Maybe it's just old age kicking in, but I say we forget Elton John's recent and not-so-recent personal and musical follies (though Songs from the West Coast is actually pretty good). I say it's about time we all rediscover classic Elton John.

Very few musicians have created a rock sound so timeless. The Beatles? They were certainly more innovative, but while their basic songs still hold up, some of their arrangements are now unquestionably dated. And it would be difficult to argue that the band's early bubblegum material ("I Wanna Hold Your Hand" et cetera) remains as relevant to today's youth as it was in the 1950s. What about the Rolling Stones? Again, undeniably great. However, blues-based rock is now largely relegated to the confines of Classic Rock radio, the last fertile pasture for baby boomers. The Stones are certainly consummate professionals, but they're in danger of becoming a parody of themselves: the Michael Jordan of rock and roll, their past glories overshadowed by their steadfast refusal to age gracefully (and privately).Undoubtedly piano man John too is also guilty of the latter, but his music is not so firmly rooted in the rebellious spirit of youth, and therefore sounds less ridiculous when performed by senior citizens.

Thanks in no small part to the lyric contributions of frequent collaborator Bernie Taupin, Elton John’s music is also a fine example of truly sprawling narrative song writing. Both in terms of single songs and across entire albums, few popular musicians have told us so many cohesive and evocative stories. The open range opus Tumbleweed Connection and its younger sibling Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy are obvious conceptual touchstones of in the singer’s catalogue, while hit singles like “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” and “Tiny Dancer” have also provided the annals of American music with some unforgettable imagery.

Though the John/Taupin team were certainly not the only ones working on these terms, unlike contemporaries such as Tom Waits (who is probably a better songwriter), Elton John’s best work evokes enduring images that are not only intriguing, but also have popular appeal. And while popularity is often frowned upon as the equivalent of having forsaken some part of artistry, songs like “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” and “Madman Across the Water” have stood the test of time because they strike a balance between the two conceptual camps.

Sure, someone like Bob Dylan can write circles around the bespectacled Brit in terms of poetic lyricism and concrete—let’s say, political—message, but Dylan is forever handicapped by a performance style that is at best an acquired taste, and by his reputedly truculent personality.

And yet, these performers and others all remain well loved, despite (or maybe because of) their flaws. Elton John on the other hand, has essentially been relegated to the glitzy but decidedly uncool stages of Las Vegas, where he can trade wardrobe tips with Celine Dion, and to filler stories on Entertainment Tonight. Of course, there’s a reason for this: like every other aging musician, he’s just not what he used to be. But damn, if he didn’t play some great music in his prime.

So when the fifteen minutes are up for James Blunt, the Arcade Fire, the Black-Eyed Peas or whomever else iTunes is featuring this month, it might be worth remembering the 1970s and the singular, timeless sound of classic Elton John.

Knockin' on Heaven's Door ("Go away," shouts St. Peter. "It's poker night!")

2006-02-23T10:17:00.000-05:00

Overheard on the set of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid:

Bob Dylan (musician, would-be actor): You know Sam, I was thinking. Instead of my character being named "Charlie," I think I'd like to be called "Alias."
Sam Peckinpah (director): "Alias?" I don't know Bob. That seems awfully non sequitor. And Kristofferson really wanted to be the only one with a cool nickname; you know, "Billy the Kid."
Bob: Come on. It's mysterious! Like Clint Eastwood in those Leone movies.
Sam: I'll think about it.
Bob: Oh! I'd also like to kill a guy by throwing a bowie knife through his neck. That'd be sweet! It'd be really great to be involved in the metaphorical killing of big business.
Sam: More violence eh? I'll see what I can do.
Bob: Huzzah for the rebellious spirit of me and my countercultural brothers!

*****

Sam: So in this scene, James Coburn is gonna tell you to walk over to the bar and read the labels on all the dry goods for some reason. Don't ask why. Neither I, nor Mr. Coburn, have to explain ourselves to you.
Bob: But Sam, I thought you said I was gonna have some real lines in this movie.
Sam: Have you seen the script? You've got dozens of lines. See here: "Beans." That's a line. And then "Corn." There's another one. "Quality goods." Three already!
Bob: I get it! Like poetry! Maybe I'll do a whole Subterranean Homesick Blues sorta thing with it. A cool groove.
Sam: Uh, yeah Bob... That'd sure... Well, that'd sure be something.

...Before it's gone.

2006-02-22T09:15:00.000-05:00

Note:

Those eminent purveyors of pop cultural snark and irony, The Understanding Collective, have decided to shut down today at noon. Go visit before the 404 Error gestapo come a-knockin'. This will be the third time that creator "The Man With No Name" has decided to take off his vintage Air Jordans and retire at the top of his game. He, along with a revolving group of like-minded websmiths (most notably, a man cryptically named "Beer") previously held fort at The Worst Blog in History and The Time Burglar.

Update! Too late.

The Weekly, Volume Thirty

2006-02-20T01:12:00.000-05:00

Album:
Destroy Rock and Roll (Mylo)

For heaven's sake don't listen to this album expecting some kind of Captain Beefheart-esque post-modern demolision of musicality. If anything, there are more consonant harmonies and safe melodic hooks on Destroy Rock and Roll than you're likely to find on half of the rock and pop music being released at the moment. In fact, the only thing separating Mylo from a normal pop act is, well, that the guy writes dance tunes and plays a computer. However, meaningless title aside, Destroy Rock and Roll is actually a satisfying musical effort. Although the beats, 'instrumentation' and programming are all rather obvious, and the artist cribs mercilessly from Daft Punk, the music's dumb exuberance makes it very difficult to dislike. Mylo performs with infectious enthusiasm, like a child who's finally learned his ABCs. "Drop the Pressure" and "In My Arms" are body-movin' standouts.

Album #2:
Love Travels at Illegal Speeds (Graham Coxon)

An album that begins with great promise, repeats said promise a number of times and ultimately becomes rather tedious. Coxon gained a fair amount of praise for his 2004 album Happiness in Magazines, which was a return to straightforward pop music just as the guitarist's former band, Blur, delved even further into art rock with Think Tank. The DIY spirit of Magazines lent that album a simple charm, though anybody who would call it groundbreaking probably thinks that "Moonlight Serenade" is the popular equivalent of a Bach fugue. For his follow-up, Coxon has taken a similar approach, and it works... in a sense. There's nothing particularly wrong with the music, but whereas his rudimentary approach felt like a charming throwback a few years ago, it is now repetitive and ultimately insignificant. The album's opening track, "Standing On My Own Again," features a good hard rock riff and a decent melody, but the tunes are considerably thinner after that. Most of the remaining 12 tracks are founded on homogeneous and unimaginative guitar licks and three- or four-chord harmonic progressions. Apparently aware of the music's simplicity, Coxon tries to make up for his songwriting lapses by whizzing past us with great velocity: the majority of the tunes are performed at a sprinter's pace and last barely three minutes each. Such economy would normally be laudable, but Coxon's verses are often only a few phrases long, meaning that in a three minute song the primary melodic theme repeats five or six times. The worst offenders compound the problem with similarly repetitive lyrics. The words to "Don't Let Your Man Know" and "I Don't Wanna Go Out" are largely comprised of those in their respective titles. Toward the end of the record, Coxon regains some of his composure with "Tell It Like It Is" and the stately ballad "Flights to the Sea," but it's a case of too little, too late. Good intentions or not, the whole effort becomes tiresome well before the tolerable tunes stumble across the finish line.

Album #3:
Hobo Sapiens (John Cale)

The iconoclastic Velvet Underground alumnus' 2003 album is everything you've come to expect, but there's a little red tag attached to it that reads: "Now with Sampling!" That's right, Cale's surprisingly melodic songs are texturally augmented by electronic elements. The 'experiment' is largely successful because it is about creating subtleties (largely rhythmic), as opposed to employing vast washes of synthesizers to bulwark what a less accomplished musician may have felt to be uncomfortably sparse songwriting. The album begins with the meditative "Zen," a top notch, purposefully anti-melodic slow burn akin to David Bowie's "Sunday." Other songs, like "Things" and "Look Horizon" are more energetic and traditionally lyrical, but the music works best when it remains ominously in the shadows. "Magritte" and "Archimedes" are both striking in this sense. It's too bad Cale sings so poorly. His voice carries almost no emotional weight, and that is occasionally a hindrance to the overall impact of the songs. The problem is particularly noticeable on "Things," which might be downright laughable due to of the singer's wooden delivery of some bone-headed lyrics: Cale directly references Charlie Brown and Brian Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain, while the song's chorus actually contains the line "things to do in Denver when you're dead." Fortunately, John Cale records aren't about singing. They're about atmosphere, texture, and taking the listener down unexpected melodic and harmonic paths. To that standard, Hobo Sapiens measures up admirably.

A bit of argument, followed by some criticism.

2006-02-14T10:20:00.000-05:00

The "review proper" begins on the fourth paragraph. Prior to that you can suffer through my rambling entry regarding objectivity and the appearance of bias at your own risk.

Salt Shakers at the Ready: a review of Jay McCarrol's Jay McCarrol.

There’s a problem inherent in writing a critique of (different than criticizing) the artistic endeavours of a person you know. Unless you’re a right bastard about things, you are inevitably going to be biased in favour of the work—if not transparently so, the dictates of neighbourly diplomacy at least make it less likely that the critic will indulge his harshest vice and release the proverbial hounds upon the book, music album, film or painting set before him.

When friends present their art to you, the range of appropriate reactions has already been circumscribed: polite acknowledgement of the artist’s effort is given when you are cool on the work, and unabashed gushing if you sincerely enjoy it. The latter can be an ego boost for both the artist and the good samaritan who gives credit where credit is due.

Of course, one would hope that constructive criticism would also be welcome in such a case, and a deft writer can at least make an attempt to approach objectivity in this sense. The machinations of arts journalism inevitably create situations by which particular artists are favoured or disfavoured by the critic—relationships form, you know how it goes. Preconceptions can exist on any number of levels, from simple genre and stylistic preferences, to the much more complex realm of gender and cultural attitudes. In truth, pure, scientific objectivity applied to the arts is but a pie in the sky, or some such thing. Acknowledging such notions, a sincere assessment of any artistic effort should nonetheless be able to point out both merits and deficiencies, and do so in an even-handed and informative manner.

Which leads us to the point, and here I shall apologize, because it’s surely quite obvious at this juncture. The singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jay McCarrol has been my next door neighbour in Mississauga (that suburb to end all suburbs) for something approaching a decade. His self-released and self-titled album is the product of an inborn, but also well-honed talent of which I have been in awe for a number of years. It is likely the first of many albums to be expected in the future. And for that, we should be thankful, because there’s a lot to like about Jay McCarrol—the artist and the album. Then again, I’m probably biased.

The ten tracks contained on Jay McCarrol are uniformly solid pop-rock rubies, with lots of melodic shimmer and production sheen.

Among McCarrol’s stated influences are myriad pianists and keyboard-inclusive bands such as Ben Folds, Brad Mehldau, Radiohead and the Beach Boys, and the authority of their achievements informs a lot of Jay McCarrol. The majority of the tunes are founded upon keyboard work that displays the artist’s considerable skill on the instrument, as well as his first-class harmonic taste. The melancholy ballad “Jon and Lucy’s Great Escape”—reminiscent of Elton John’s best work—is wonderful in this regard, though up-tempo songs “Idiot Savant” and “The Chef” occasionally feel oppressive due to their robust but slightly irrepressible ‘chordiness.’

While the piano is definitely featured as an instrument, it is McCarrol’s voice that is truly showcased on every song. His tenor is pitch-perfect, and its expressive timbre is well suited to the demands of phrasing the swooning melodies that occur throughout (see “Jon and Lucy,” and the melodically sublime “Gorgeous Fools”). The choral sections speckled across the album, in which McCarrol harmonizes with himself in three or four parts, are also to be commended.

One facet of the song writing process that typically seems to stymie emerging musicians is that of lyric choice. Most younger writers simply don’t have the life experience to draw upon as an older musician might. The outcome is often a significant amount of navel gazing.

Here, McCarrol’s lyrics are maybe not ‘poetic’ in a Leonard Cohen-y sense of the word, or unrepentantly issue-oriented like those of early Bob Dylan. Yet there is a definite sense that the writer considered his words well, and anyone who employs imagery in the way McCarrol does is at least worth a listen. He invokes concrete beings, but situates them within abstract situations (‘Watch as the camels fill up my lungs’ he sings in “Find Me a Cure,” while “Gorgeous Fools” speaks of ‘burning streams that would sear a throat’).

McCarrol's writing consistently manages to strike a mood somewhere between theatrical melancholy and manic paranoia. If the meaning of the words is occasionally obscured, here it matters less, because the sounds of the words are melodically effective, and there's definitely something to be said for atmosphere.

If the album stumbles in any one respect, it may be a product of the studio rather than the music itself. These are fully realized songs, and once in a while, the listener gets the sense that they may be almost too full. There’s a lot going on and it can be fatiguing.

Toward the end of the album, one may become slightly overwhelmed if the mood isn’t right. The coda of penultimate track “Any Road” suffers a bit from soundboard overload, as does the otherwise outstanding “Gorgeous Fools,” which would have benefited from fewer strings. The production is, to borrow a non-musical term, cinematic in its scope. At times, one gets the feeling that parts of the record were dubbed in the Grand Canyon.

But these are minor gripes, and the musician can’t be expected to appeal to every listener’s tastes at every instance on his album—after all, we all have our preconceived notions about the makeup of the perfect song. The vast majority of Jay McCarrol offers stylistic and thematically cohesive pop music of undeniable quality. And that should prove fulfilling to any ear, objective or not.

(hear a few tracks at Jay McCarrol's myspace page).

None shall sleep

2006-02-13T20:10:00.000-05:00

The infernal search for audio/video of Luciano Pavarotti's performance at the Turin Olympics last week has borne no fruit. But I've managed to grab an mp3 of the aria from a 1972 recording of the opera within which it is featured, Puccini's Turandot. Despite the quality of this particular performance and its popular appeal, Pavarotti's rendition is said to pale in comparison to those of his predecesors, Franco Corelli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi. Unfortunately, I don't have access to recordings by these eminent gentlemen.

So here's your Valentine's treat.

Pavarotti - 'Nessun dorma' (1972)

Finally, here's a link to some analytical and historical notes about the aria.

*Yes, I know you have to go through an annoying process of clicking links and subsequent waiting in order to actually download the file, but there's no way I'm paying for one of those "proper" file hosting websites. And the music is worth the trouble.

Giacomo Puccini and the Goblet of Fire

2006-02-12T10:01:00.000-05:00

Just passing through...

Say what you will about opera, but here is one inarguable truth: Luciano Pavarotti was glorious at Friday night's winter olympics opening ceremony. Who knows if he can still hit the high Cs in La Fille du Regiment, but the 70-year-old's "Nessun Dorma" remains breathtaking. Incredible.

(If only I could find a video to link to).

Stop a random on the street, he'll tell you the life story of Carl Sagan in rhyming couplets

2006-02-06T11:14:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's just me, but the Globe and Mail's re-designed website seems to have borrowed at least a few lines of code from the Onion.

I'd post a pictoral comparison, but I don't know how to do screen caps.

Also, check out this tale of derring-do (plus related video) about film director and citizen of Germany, Werner Herzog.

Music content: Jimi Hendrix was spectacular.

Sometimes fiction is stranger, and more hilarious, than truth.

2006-01-31T10:06:00.000-05:00

"One of Truman's early manifestations of his impish side was to leap into the air and cry out, 'I'm beside myself!'"

The Weekly, Volume Twenty Nine

2006-01-30T11:25:00.000-05:00

Album:
Children of Possibility (One Self)

It is more than likely that One Self, an internationally-flavoured hip-hop trio, will never gain mainstream popularity. All the better for vinyl-buying, High Fidelity-watching elitists, because Children of Possibility is a real gem -- an album that combines insightful and rhythmically inventive rap with tasteful and highly musical sampling. The group is fronted by the male/female MC duo of Blu Rum 13 and Swedish-Brazilian Yarah Bravo. Both rappers offer up lyrics that mirror their trio's chosen name, about individuality, liberation, et cetera, and highlight the MCs' rhythmic sensibilities. Bravo's staccato vocal on tracks like "Be Your Own," "Over Expose" and "Bluebird" are like the hip-hop equivalent of a Sonny Rollins solo, complete with variable rhythmic speed, unexpected pauses, and the occasional hummingbird-like vocal trill. Blu Rum's slightly mush-mouthed delivery is comparatively straight, but he makes up for it by utilizing an intriguingly flexible pitch range.

Yet all this would likely be for naught without the obstinately minimalist production work by the Russian-born, England-raised DJ Vadim, whose work is the exact opposite of Jon Brion's collaboration with Kanye West on Late Registration. Vadim's pared-down, dub-influenced sampling is clean and crisp, often featuring no more than three or four layers of sound, and offers the perfect complement to his MCs' vocals. But make no mistake, "pared-down" does not mean flinty and flighty. Vadim's beats are warm, soulful, and in many cases disgustingly fat: album opener "Fear the Labour" combines sticky percussion with a bass riff that's deep as the Sargasso Sea; "Over Expose" features an understated organ part and a very nice flute solo; and the drum and bass sample on "Bluebird" (far and away the album's best track) defies you not to nod your head in groove-induced bliss.

Album #2:
The Brave and the Bold
(Tortoise & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy)

A series of facts and observations:

1) This reviewer does not have any prior experience listening to Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, one of the various incarnations of creepy troubadour Will Oldham.

2) This reviewer is, however, reasonably knowledgeable about the back catalogue of Chicago post-rockers Tortoise. Standards is a particular favourite.

3) This reviewer has a feeling that the Brave and the Bold is erroneously filed as a Tortoise album. Here, they are little more than an all-star backing band, filling in the gaps left by Oldham's endearingly sparse vocals. The band has eschewed its typical esoteric but infectiously propulsive rhythmic trappings for a staid, dirge-like approach. Strangely enough, it mostly works, though fans of the full-bodied, energetic sound cultivated by Tortoise over its previous five albums will likely be disappointed in the rather simplistic harmonies and arrangements on display here.

4) This reviewer has no knowledge of all but three of the songs covered by the musicians on this all-covers album. And it's probably better that way. Yes, "Thunder Road" really is the "Thunder Road" -- Bruce Springsteen's quintessensial coming-of-age tune, heard blaring from untold millions of car radios for more than thirty years now. Depending on your perspective, on the Brave and the Bold, it might be the album's best track or it might be a woeful misstep. No doubt it's an interesting take on the fist-pumping classic: Tortoise and the 'Prince' put it in a minor key and thump away at a funereal pace, replacing the original's excitement and anticipation with nostalgia and regret. The Elton John tune "Daniel" wears its newly dark and ominous clothing with a little more style. Oldham's heavily processed vocal somehow manages to convey heartfelt emotion and he sticks to a sensible melody, turning the song into something of a companion to, say, Mark Lanegan's "Strange Religion." The melody-conscious dirges "The Calvary Cross" and "Pancho" are also surprisingly and subtly beautiful, while Milton Nascimento's "Cravo e Canela," the album's only really high-spirited track, is full and vigorous. On the other hand, the repetitive "Love is Love" and "That's Pep" come off as just that, along with feeling incomplete, unthoughtful and just plain silly.

5) Ultimately, there's more to love than hate on the Brave and the Bold, but for some, the album will be a far cry from the uncompromising, hard-driving, semi-out rock music we've come to expect from, well, at least half of this indie scene collaboration.

Return of the Jedi

2006-01-27T18:05:00.000-05:00

So my two months of tedious employment with Elections Canada has run its course, which means two things. First, I am pathetically unemployed again and for the foreseeable future. Resulting from that comes conclusion number two: I once again have oodles of time to spend using this cookie-cutter online forum to provide rather pedestrian commentary about music, movies and various other media. I think a ticker tape parade is in order.

Anyway, 'The Weekly' shall resume in short order, for those who care. Reviews for the recent Tortoise--Will Oldham collaboration and the upcoming Graham Coxon album may also see the light of day within the next few weeks.

Until then, keep chargin'

Post Script: today is the 250th "birthday" of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And if Milos Forman has taught us anything, it's that old Wolfie would just love to know that you celebrated the day (or night) by indulging in fine wines and canoodling with saucy young ladies of the court.

Post-Post Script: I wonder who would win in a fight: Mozart or Beethoven?

(Answer: The cheeky scamp from Salzburg takes advantage of his opponent's aural deficiencies by sneaking up from behind and catching Beethoven off guard. For his troubles, the German suffers two cracked ribs and deep tissue bruising about the face... However, it should be noted that were this a bout of cinematic fisticuffsmanship, Gary Oldman would stomp all over Tom Hulce).

How do you do?

2006-01-15T19:32:00.000-05:00

Don't ask why I ever decided to give this album a chance, but it seems that on some hazy day in last November I suffered from a momentary lapse in reason and loaded the latest Shakira record on to my mp3 player. More surprisingly, it's still there. Apparently, a few songs have been listened to upwards of 30 times.

And no, you need not mourn the loss of my refined tastes. Well, not yet anyway.

Lose those pounds. Learn about football: a review of Shakira's Oral Fixation, Vol. 2

Here follows an unqualified rave:

With her fifth album – the second in English – nubile Latin pop star Shakira demonstrates the potential to one day conquer the world. At the moment such a statement might sound hyperbolic. Give it time. If the singer continues on her current upward trajectory, she could very well be looking down on us from the stratosphere by the end of the decade. And we will all look back upon Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 as the herald of her meteoric rise.

Shakira is known to most for her 2001 album Laundry Service, its accompanying smash single "Whenever, Wherever" – that of the insufferably feline chorus of banshee wailing – and her wily gyrations on the dance floor. But four years and two original records later, it would be very difficult to dismiss her as another Christina, Jessica or J-Lo.

The second Oral Fixation album (released in November of last year as an English counterpoint to Fijacion Oral, Vol. 1) is a showcase not only for Shakira’s obvious vocal talents, but also for her surprising skills as a songwriter. The Colombian artist is credited as the primary lyricist and co-writer on all of the album’s eleven tracks, and each is praiseworthy for both musical content and message.

Interestingly, Shakira succeeds by taking a page (or two or three) from the playbook of the current "most popular band in the world." Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 positions the singer as the solo female embodiment of all the musical and meta-cultural elements that have made U2 one of the most enduring bands of the past 20 years, and the album plays like a musical, lyrical and attitudinal tribute to the Irish quartet’s catalogue since 1987’s The Joshua Tree. The album's opening track, "How Do You Do," leads off with a bit of hubris only Bono might think to top: that of turning the Lord's Prayer into a modern rock hook. The song, as one may expect, proceeds with a surprisingly meaningful interrogation of God. Our poetically-inclined inquisitor asks "If our fates have all been wrapped around your finger / and if you wrote the script then why the troublemakers?" Sure, it’s a bit melodramatic, but the song’s sentiments never feel false. This, my friends, is far from Britney Spears territory.

Other songs provide similarly engaging social commentary. On "Your Embrace" (which is admittedly an unrelentingly syrupy ballad) and "Animal City," Shakira can be heard lamenting the devilry of media stardom, and the infectious "Timor" is an irony-laced and unexpectedly subversive condemnation of the developed world's preoccupation with itself.

In a November 2005 interview with the New York Times, Shakira said that she was "just a consequence of the great musical momentum and the great changes we are going through in the world." With Oral Fixation, she seems to have embraced those changes for better or worse, and the results – tied as they are to her faintly cockeyed worldview – are at least half-way admirable.

But what, pray tell, is the worth of a few rhyming couplets, if they aren’t backed up by soaring rock guitar and hot pulsating dance club beats?

Well, maybe that’s a question best left unanswered. Suffice to say, even if Shakira can’t completely grab us with her words, the unwavering lyricism of the music is enough to break down the prejudices of even the most cynical pop music fan. In addition to its aforementioned Lord’s Prayer introduction, "How Do You Do" features an obvious but still enormously catchy rock chorus. The album’s lead single, "Don’t Bother" is anchored by a slyly simple bass line and almost modal chord progression, before taking flight with shimmering rock guitar (performed uncannily in the style of The Edge); and "Hey You" operates under the guise of a slinky, sultry, Eastern-inflected stomp. And of course, it also incorporates an undeniably memorable refrain.

Perhaps the album’s best musical moment, however, comes from the beautifully crafted ballad "Illegal," in which our Latin sensation mourns a failed relationship, with only a subtle keyboard line as a safety net and surprisingly non-annoying guitar work from Carlos Santana urging the singer on.

Here, and indeed on every song, Shakira shows us the foundation of her undeniable talent: that uniquely multi-timbral voice, which in the space of a few bars can switch between a full-throated wail (think classic Cher), a slightly affected pop-rock tone (think Alanis Morrisette or the Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan) and a beguilingly coquettish purr.

Yet all of this still represents broad strokes. What really sets Oral Fixation apart from pop tart offerings of the recent past are the subtle touches inserted throughout the production. For example, a trumpet line woven into "Hey You" has a wonderful Victrola-filtered tone. Even more sublime? The hyper-pitched vocable repeated inside the chorus of "How Do You Do," and the similar manner by which the word "east" is processed in "Timor" – with a perfect and wholly indescribable pinging tone. It is these brief instances that suggest something maniacally brilliant about Shakira’s approach to popular songcraft, and something universally appealing about her surprising talent.

Film Studies, 2005

2006-01-07T19:40:00.000-05:00

I'm bored. Here is the product of about 20 minutes of thought with regard to some of last year's better examples of cinema.

Films deserving certain merit

Best film directed by Steven Spielberg in 2005: Munich
Best film directed by Steven Spielberg ever: Munich
Best film featuring a cow trying to ride a horse: The Chronicles of Narnia
Best film representing the stupidity of school "society": Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Best film adaptated from a graphic novel: A History of Violence (close runner-up: Batman Begins)
Best film to be butchered by studio-mandated editing: Kingdom of Heaven
Best film made by a director impersonating Wes Anderson after the death of a partularly loyal and beloved golden retriever: The Squid and the Whale
Best unexpected surprise: Serenity, Millions
Best synergy of music and movie: 2046
The ol' college try award, for best failure: King Kong
The George Orwell award for precise writing: Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana
Special award for Hollywood films that refused to pander to their audiences by simplifying issues of global importance or providing easy answers: Munich, Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, The Constant Gardener, A History of Violence, Brokeback Mountain

Meritous individuals

Best screen antagonists: Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer (Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)
Best on-screen tears: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote)
Best small-to-big screen transition: Matthew MacFadyen (Pride and Prejudice)
Jude Law award for most screen appearances in the year: Ralph Fiennes (The Constant Gardener, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The White Countess, Wallace & Gromit, The Chumscrubber)
Daniel Day Lewis award for the year's most versatile actor: Ralph Fiennes (Constant Gardener, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The White Countess, Wallace & Gromit, The Chumscrubber)
Robert Redford award for most leathery skin in a motion picture: Tommy Lee Jones (Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada)
Best Bill Frisell music not written by Bill Frisell: Gustavo Santaolalla (Brokeback Mountain)
Saddam Hussein crazy facial hair award: Jeff Daniels (The Squid and the Whale), Mel Gibson (real life), Pierce Brosnan (The Matador, real life)
Best performance by a Star Trek alumnus: Alexander Siddig (Syriana)
Liam Neeson award for best performance by Liam Neeson: Liam Neeson (Batman Begins)
Best Friends Forever award: George Clooney and Steven Soderberg ("Section Eight" film producers), Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson (Wedding Crashers)
"Welcome to the big time" award: Naomi Watts (King Kong), Gong Li (Memoirs of a Geisha), Keira Knightley (Domino, Pride and Prejudice), Daniel Craig (Layer Cake, Munich)
Society for the Defamation of Morgan Freeman award, for demonstrating a refusal to be type-cast: Elijah Wood (Sin City, Everything is Illuminated, Green Street Hooligans)

Ten favourite films of 2005

2046, A History of Violence, The Constant Gardener, Good Night and Good Luck, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Munich, The Squid and the Whale, Syriana, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.

Ten films that are likely good, but which have yet to be seen by your faithful writer

Broken Flowers, Jarhead, Hustle and Flow, The Matador, Match Point, The New World, Shopgirl, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Walk the Line, Wallace and Gromit.

And now I shall commit suicide

2006-01-04T18:32:00.000-05:00

This just in:

I am a 23-year-old writer with a journalism degree and a solid two or three years of reporting experience under my belt. I haven't been able to find gainful employment in eight months.

'Daniel Cook' is an eight-year-old who "explores, learns and creates" and likes to wear orange t-shirts. Starting tomorrow, he'll be filing legitimate reportage on the federal election campaign for CTV.

There are no words to describe my bitterness.Addendum, as 'overheard' on the Canadian Assoc. of Journalists list-serv (yes, I still subscribe):

"I don't see what all the fuss is about. I'm sure that an eight year old can read a teleprompter just as well as any adult."

Zing!

Chapter Three

2005-12-30T14:17:00.000-05:00

Complete!

“There’s a dangerous bend at the bottom of the hill,” she said with casual forgiveness. And though she was still unsure of her recollective faculties, she had an image of that tranquil glen firm in her mind’s eye. They drove through it every day. From the west, what had been a broad vista of farmers’ fields and estate houses suddenly became a great swath of forest, and the road began to slope downward. She had always thought that the gradient was steeper than necessary, what with all the options of modern engineering available to shape the land to our preferences. And that turn at the bottom, just before the bridge—a few degrees more and it could have legitimately been called a hairpin. Coming from either direction one was forced to ride the brake, and even then there was no certainty that two vehicles would not meet awkwardly at the base, both drivers embarrassed by their mutual lack of discretion. But her father insisted it was the most direct route to the restaurant, and, Ava Nourallah thought, like a thousand times before, they had plunged this morning into the beautiful green abyss.

Terabytes

2005-12-29T12:07:00.000-05:00

The Globe and Mail's Robert Everett-Green wraps up the year with some musings about music in 2005. It's one of those hodge-podge, catch-all deals that discusses much, and consequently, not much of anything, but his iPod-shaped bookends "inspired" me to shoot off this quick blog post.

While visiting with a friend a couple nights ago, our conversation, as it inevitably does, turned to a chiming-off of the particular music the two of us had been listening to in recent months. For a few awkward moments, I was unable to recall more than three or four bands/musicians that currently had my attention (if you must know, it was a rather pedestrian list including Wolf Parade, My Morning Jacket, Okkervil River and, old reliable himself, Bill Frisell).

Of course, I'll take the blame for possessing an occasionally sub-standard short-term memory, but also, I think, the trouble is partly derived from the iPod culture that allows us to carry "10,000 songs in our pockets" (or whatever the current figure is). Sometimes I feel that collectively, we are a society that is, or soon will be, plagued by information overload, and the problem, while not exactly earth-shattering, is quite acute when talking about popular music. Because we can potentially download, for a pitance, hundreds of songs each day, we no longer take the time necessary to truly absorb the intricacies of said songs, or even to listen to them within the larger context originally intended by the artist (I'm talking about the full-length album here, people). Before mp3 players, we were forced to listen to one album at a time, and we were better off for it. I can still remember almost every word to all eleven tracks on August and Everything After, because it stayed in my CD player for weeks. These days I struggle to remember even the names (let alone the actual melodies) of songs that I loaded on to my mp3 player just a few days ago.

A similar "problem" arises from the fact that accessibility breeds commonality (or some such coupling of terms). Frank at Chromewaves recently lamented the dearth of surprising new finds on the glut of year-end music website/blog lists. For the most part, I agree with him, and the situation arises from the availability and spread of information via the internet. Sure, it's great for bands wishing to become popular, but when everybody knows and loves the same thing, that thing (whatever it is) loses some of its uniqueness and therefore some of its appeal. In my specific case as a person with a "collector's mentality," it has also contributed to a situation where the "need to have" has outranked the interest in quality and appreciation. I've listened to hundreds of different songs this year -- most by bands that had/have momentary currency and hype but in the grand scheme will amount to very little -- and really, I can't see myself listening to 90 per cent of them with the same vigour a year from now.

Now I'm just rambling. And I don't have the energy to finesse my thoughts into a more cohesive piece of opinion journalism. Sorry for that. In any case, the moral of the story is this: there isn't a lot of new and interesting material being released at this time or for the next little while, so I plan to lay low in order to gain some perspective. I just wish the rest of the world would do the same.

Addendum: the Toronto Star (via the Boston Globe) shares this somewhat related article about "on demand" culture and its link to the "end of serendipity."

Stocking Stuffer

2005-12-25T16:13:00.000-05:00

So I took a quick gander at what appears to be Jon Pareles' NY Times year-end album list. Nice to see the Frames getting a bit more mainstream recognition (their latest release, Burn the Maps, was listed at #5). We'll just have to discount the fact that it was released in 2004. And of all the bands to cite as a comparison, Radiohead is probably the laziest and least accurate choice. Or maybe I'm just being a Scrooge.

Christmas. Yeah. Research? Nah.

It's a mad mad mad mad world

2005-12-22T00:13:00.000-05:00

In which Mel Gibson rocks socks. And, apparently, inserts single frames of himself with a crazy beard in the trailer for his new film. It's called Apocalypto, and all the dialogue is in ancient Mayan. Once more, with feeling: Mel Gibson rocks.

So you like the old stuff, eh? You like the new stuff too? What? What Button? Who took my false teeth?

2005-12-20T08:01:00.000-05:00

Bad Makes Good: a review of the Bad Plus' Suspicious Activity

The appropriation and reconstitution of popular melodies by jazz musicians has been an increasingly noteworthy phenomenon over the past decade.

Many top jazz musicians have been augmenting their repertoires with adaptations of pop and rock songs by artists such as Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Björk and Radiohead, apparently driven by the competing urges to be innovative and to attain popular appeal.

It’s hardly a new occurrence: in the pre-Bop era, many of the tunes that are now considered to be jazz “standards” were composed as Tin Pan Alley-style show tunes. But early jazz music was much different than its current incarnation.

Now, jazz is far more complex and employs melodic, harmonic and formal structures that would surely confound a large number of musicians working in the “popular sphere.” Modern jazz is the high-minded PhD of the music world, to pop’s inelegant undergraduate. And just as it’s often difficult for the sage professor to comprehend his students’ base lifestyle of sex, drugs and parties, so it seems to be for many a jazz musician seeking to find meaning in rock and roll.

So while the practice has become more ubiquitous of late, it still causes a stir when a jazz musician or band deigns to come down from the ivory tower to pick up a thing or two from the popular hit list.

The Bad Plus is a band that has found considerable success in covering recent popular music. Since performing jazz versions of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (serviceable) and “Heart of Glass” (stellar) on their 2003 album These Are the Vistas, the piano trio from the Mid-West have gained respect not only amongst their jazz brethren, but also from open-minded rock fans and critics. Good grief! They’ve even been reviewed by Rolling Stone. (Wowee!)

Suspicious Activity is the group’s third major release, and though it certainly has the now requisite “pop moment” (a staggeringly groovy cover of the “Theme from Chariots of Fire”), it is the original numbers, mostly composed by bassist Reid Anderson, that make the album worthwhile.

The songs are catchy and tuneful, but their arrangements remain curiously challenging and allow each player room to manoeuvre. “The Empire Strikes Backwards” is particularly clever in a sort of post-modern way, employing harmonic and rhythmic inventiveness that keeps the listener stimulated, while the heavily arpeggiated melody of album opener “Prehensile Dream” displays a refreshing classicist flair. “Knows the Difference” and “Lost of Love” are also great tracks that show off the band’s impressively synchronous dynamic.

As always, the star of the show is pianist Ethan Iverson, whose playing is extremely muscular, but also demonstrates a spry dexterity akin to that of Bud Powell. Iverson is backed up by a rhythm section that is as much dance floor “drum and bass” as it is traditional jazz accompaniment.

On The Bad Plus' previous albums, all this energy had the potential to become physically tiresome if the listener wasn’t in the proper mood. With Suspicious Activity, the band shows a little more depth than they have in the past, but Iverson’s playing still seems founded upon technical flash, rather than the melodic sensitivity that typifies the playing of contemporaries such as Brad Mehldau, Jason Moran or Esbjörn Svensson.

But if you’re looking for lively and propulsive jazz music that incorporates pop sensibilities in an inventive manner, you could do much worse than The Bad Plus.

Recycle Cycle, how fast do your wheels turn?

2005-12-17T08:54:00.000-05:00

Apologies for the infrequency of posts lately. Working days for Elections Canada is a little draining.

Anyway, to satiate some appetites (and potentially bring up this blog's dismally low recent readership), I'm delving into the archives and bringing forth Caps and Spelling's First Ever Blog Re-Post! Enjoy, if you haven't already.

Great Seconds in Music (originally posted June 7, 2005)

Great songs are great songs. But the best ones occasionally have just a little something extra -- a singer hitting that elusive high note, an unexpected chord change, or even a mistake. However brief, such a moment can make the whole tune.

"Lykief" (Timecode 9:25-9:35)
Branford Marsalis Quartet, Requiem
If there is a more beautiful way to end a piece of music than this, I haven't heard it. Marsalis' final trill melts into a sublime Major 6th from pianist Kenny Kirkland. In my imagination, this was the last song laid-down at the recording sessions for the album, and these were the last notes played by Kirkland before he died.

"Let Somebody Love Me" (Timecode 1:49)
David Ruffin, David: The Unreleased Album
I stand by my oft-stated assertion that David Ruffin is the greatest ever R&B/Soul singer. Hands down, the guy knew how to sell a tune, and this is his shining moment. The second chorus is winding down and the song is headed to the bridge. Basically, this is a man in absolute top form, just fucking going for it. Extra points go to Ruff's unbelievable display of vocal range as he hits the high notes at 2:28 and 3:18. Man oh man, was this guy something special.

"When the Levee Breaks" (Timecode 5:15)
Led Zeppelin, Untitled fourth album
In second year I took a class called "the history of popular music, 1945 to present." When describing in lay-terms some distinguishing traits of early heavy metal, the professor noted something he called "around the kit drumming." If I were asked to identify the archetype by which all other drum rolls were to be measured, John Bonham's simultaneous display of precision and power, as the band enters the final chorus, would be my immediate answer. As a side note, it's unfathomable to me why this song was not included on the live album/dvd released a few years back. Played live, this song must have been an absolute monster.

"Stuck in a Moment..." (Timecode 3:33)
U2, All That You Can't Leave Behind
Arguably one of the all-time great transitions from chorus to coda. A heavenly-pure chord change played so smoothly by The Edge. With good headphones, you can hear all the overtones as he slides up to the change, as if the thought of playing that particular chord just occurred to him that instant. Noel Gallagher once called this song "ace," and this moment is where The Edge played his winning hand.

"The Pioneers" (Timecode 3:16-3:23)
Bill Frisell, Good Dog, Happy Man
Distinguishing oneself as a jazz guitarist may be one of the most difficult things to accomplish as a musician. In a genre where any number of players can display mind boggling technical proficiency, the true greats are prized equally for their tone. The guitar, reliant as it is on non-human factors (amplifiers, etc), hardly lends itself to the easy creation of a distinctive individual timbre, but some performers have indeed managed to find their own voice. Bill Frisell can definitely be counted among this select group, and the descending run he plays he plays here during his solo is the perfect example of this legend's warm tone and wonderfully intuitive phrasing.

Oye Como Va?

2005-12-14T17:36:00.000-05:00

A quick question for all you blogophiles out there...

Is Carlos Santana the most celebrated one-dimensional guitar player in the history of modern pop music?

Certainly the man's reputation precedes him. He still sells millions of records and tickets to his concerts, and apparently lines up guest spot after guest spot on other peoples' albums without having to life a finger. But since the opening notes of his self-titled 1969 debut, all the way to his present appearance on Shakira's "Illegal" (which, by the way, is a damn fine tune where, I'll admit, the guitarist acquits himself quite admirably... more on that in a future memo), Carlos Santana has rarely, if ever, changed his playing style, his tone, anything. Every time it's the same semi-overdrive electric guitar sound, with the same licks on the same high notes. And, it should be pointed out, I have never in my life heard Santana play acoustic guitar.

Yes, there have been a lot of fantastic Santana songs recorded over the years (though not so many in recent memory), and he's surely a fine human being, but damn... Would it kill him to mix things up a bit every once in a while?!

Under normal circumstances I'd try to dole out some proper "evidence" to back up my theory, but I've just spent the whole day phoning people about the useless irrelevant won't solve anything federal election. So forgive me for the terseness of this post... Just wanted to float an idea that's been stewing for a while (i.e. two or three hours).

The Weekly, Volume Twenty Eight

2005-12-13T00:20:00.000-05:00

Album:
Ozona (Goldrush)

The pre-purchase hype behind this band told me that they were heavily influenced by British pastoral shoegaze group Mojave 3. The hype was partly true. If you're first love is Ask Me Tomorrow, then Goldrush might not be "country" enough for your tastes. However, if your favourite M3 tune is "In Love with a View" (from 2000's Excuses for Travellers), then Goldrush could just be your new favourite band. And if you also live and die by the particular sonic stylings of Pearl Jam and Bends-era Radiohead, so much the better. In fact, Goldrush is a band that trumpets its influences for all to hear. For the most part, the music takes melodies that may seem vaguely familiar and gives them a little twist: "Counting Song" mimics the build-up and climatic released of the aforementioned "In Love With a View," "Each Moment in Time" is like a stand-around-the-piano version of "Yellow Ledbetter," mid-tempo rocker "There's a World" feigns at the minor key organ harmonies of the Catherine Wheel's "Phantom of an American Mother" and drops a Mike McCready-esque guitar solo towards its conclusion, and the effects-pedal guitar refrains of the languid "Let You Down" conjure up memories of Radiohead's "The Tourist." Even the tracks that can't be pinned to a particular influence bring with them some familiarity (the album's excellent opener, "Wait for the Wheels," has one of those rolicking bass riffs that just feels like you've been loving it for a thousand years). And maybe that's why Ozona sounds so great. It's a loving distillation of everything that's great about what had become "typical" pop and rock music, given a new life without pretension or expectation. Though the lyrics--given the band's pastoral underpinnings--lean toward mono-syllabic naivety, they're linked to unquestionably singable melodies and cannot deny Ozona's status as a wonderful, late-in-the-year surprise.

Album #2:
Birds Make Good Neighbours (The Rosebuds)

I was turned on to this album just about a week before publishing the year-end roundup brouhaha, and the band made it on to the list of also-rans. If the Rosebuds had sprung forth earlier in the year (even by a couple of weeks), Birds Make Good Neighbours would easily have found itself in a Mike Tyson "Punch Out" for a top-ten placing. This is the second record from the North Carolina trio, and by all accounts it is a much weightier affair. Birds' 11 melancholy tracks are executed with subtlety and poise. The tunes aren't typically hooky; instead they present sustained passages of melodic interest, augmented by astute and often surprising harmonic choices. Some might accuse the band and the album of being too leaden, too morose, but Birds Make Good Neighbours, like the intriguing class of animals of its name, rewards patience*. The slow-fast duo of "Wildcat" and "The Lovers' Rights" is especially tuneful, "Shake Our Tree" is a crunchy two-step with a great sing-along chorus, and the album's centrepiece, "Blue Bird" is a gorgeous exercise in graceful, shimmering song writing. This is one of those rare "four seasons" albums, with music that manages to be right for any time of day, any type of weather and at any time of year. There's sadness, yes, but also joy, redemption and even a hint of easygoing fun. Highly recommended.

* You see, the practice of Ornithology, or "bird watching," rewards the patient viewer with a glimpse of an avian friend that may have a particularly beautiful colour or melodious call. Similarly, Birds Make Good Neighbours brings the patient listener the pleasures of subtle harmonization, surprising melodic invention and thoughtful lyrics.

Six for 2006

2005-12-07T08:01:00.000-05:00

Another list of, well, let's not call them predictions per se, more like semi-educated guesses. The topic? Bands and musicians who will find (or in one case, regain) increased "cultural" relevance and popularity over the course of the new year. Let the punditry begin!

ARCTIC MONKEYS ~ Britain's best band ever for 2006.
These young bucks from Sheffield used the power of the internet to accrue quite a following this year. They signed with hipster label Domino (home of Franz Ferdinand, Four Tet and Test Icicles, to name a few), and the band's peppy, waggish single, "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor," debuted in the top spot on British charts in late October. Of course, popularity in the UK means nothing to the majority of North American listeners, but the Arctic Monkeys seem ready to corner that market as well: a recent jaunt on this side of the Atlantic sold lots of tickets and was well-received by people who write about concerts on websites and in newspapers and such. The band's music does resemble that of their popular Scottish labelmates, but where Franz Ferdinand is typefied by its swagger, Arctic Monkeys go for more of a sting. Look for a full-length album in 2006, followed by an extensive tour of all the "coolest" towns.SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN ~ Eight of ten indie bloggers agree...
... that this ensemble from Springfield, MO makes for great listening while they [indie kids] await the next Shins album. Once again, the internet seems to be almost solely responsible for the hype that has met the cheekily-named band's debut album, Broom (for example, this review almost compares it to The White Album and Pet Sounds, and this popular blog lists it as the best record of 2005). Frankly, as was stated here, Yeltsin is hardly a groundbreaking band, but these days, calling a band 'derivative' just means that critics get to write about all the other cool bands they know about; which is to say, it's a criticism that doesn't usually slow a band's ascent to the upper echelons of insular indie pop notoriety. Look for The O.C. to express its love for Boris Yeltsin sometime in the new year.THE SECRET MACHINES ~ Fulfilling the promise that BRMC squandered (by being boring).
Now Here is Nowhere, the Secret Machines' 2004 full-length debut, was and remains one of the best recent examples of rock music that is artful without being overindulgent; an album that is 'progressive' without sacrificing its melodic sincerity. And, it's one heavy mofo. Put it in your CD player and click over to "Sad and Lonely." Now, watch as your speakers implode with their own embarassment at being unable to do justice to the song's unbelievably deep bass riff (maybe the heaviest since "The Ocean"). Yes, that's right. The Secret Machines have such a huge sound that by simply encountering the band's music, inanimate objects are imbued with human weakness! But your stereo system is a greedy bastard, and what it wants is for you to feed it more heavy fibre courtesy of the Secret Machines. "Speakers be damned," it shouts at you, and commences to spit out your James Blunt CD in disgust. Well, you'll get your chance to love the Secret Machines once more, when they release Ten Silver Drops in March.THE FUGEES ~ Hip-Hop's best-loved supergroup returns
In 1996 The Score sold 18 million copies worldwide. Then Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Prakazrel Michel went their separate ways. The gentlemen have since had modest critical and commercial success (Wyclef, moreso than Pras) with a few albums to each of their names, while Hill's lone 1998 studio album is still held up as one of the greats of that decade. So now we find ourselves almost 10 years removed from the trio's big hit, debating the socio-cultural impact 50 Cent's criminal record and whether or not Kanye's arrogance is just a clever marketing ruse. Can the Fugees climb back on top after such a long layoff, as an album-based group in a market increasingly dominated by singles and ringtones? Probably. They're good. The as-yet-untitled album's first single, "Take It Easy" (not a cover of that horrible fucking Eagles song), is available on iTunes, and wouldn't you know it, according to this, the group kicked off a European tour last week. Addendum: this somewhat dated Rolling Stone article notes that Hill is also at work on a new solo album.THE HIGH DIALS ~ Can-Con!
This blog has been the site of extensive (ok, maybe not extensive) ballyhooing in favour of Montreal's most effectively unaffected band, and the High Dials flag shall continue to wave in this venue for many months to come. It's baffling that they haven't yet achieved an Arcade Fire-level of popularity, since they're just as talented. For now, we'll chalk (chock?) it up to the fact that the High Dials have are pushing a slightly more mainstream sound in a music/fan environment that, for the past year-and-a-bit, has been spasming with glee over the wonder of its own eccentricity. Maybe the tremendous influence wielded by Andrew Loog Oldham will help swing the balance!THE CONCRETES ~ Twee pop anthems for the IKEA set.
So you heard "Say Something New" on a bunch of television adverts and went out to buy that cute little album with the pink cat on the cover. Then your too-cool-for-school indie rock friend was all like "dude, I've totally been listening to that album for like a whole year already. Don't you have the Swedish import version?" And then you were all like, "No. I guess I missed the boat on that one. But I'm considering jumping on the North American bandwagon, cuz the Concretes play the kind of wide-eyed twee pop that people really seem to be into right now. And they're probably gonna release a new album in the spring." Finally, your indie friend said something like "Well, I hope it's not just an American release of Layourbattleaxedown, which came out earlier this year." Unlikely, says this sage blogger, since the aforementioned record was a compilation of previous EPs and stuff. So expect new material next year from the Concretes, who will benefit from continued comparisons to the Velvet Underground and being mentioned in the same breath as similarly heat-seeking SwedePop band Shout Out Louds.

The Weekly, Volume Twenty Seven

2005-12-05T20:48:00.000-05:00

Album:
Punches (World Leader Pretend)

First, the word "ambitious" shall be used to describe the immediate sound of World Leader Pretend's debut album Punches. Next, the band will be compared to R.E.M, for two legitimate reasons. One: the New Orleans-based quartet is named for a song on Green, which makes for a pretty obvious point of entry by which a savvy music critic may write about the band. Second: they basically sound like R.E.M as well; a more anthemic version of R.E.M that decided to incorporate the ambitious sonics of recent British Rock (Coldplay, Doves, et cetera). Actually, that's not entirely true. The first track on Punches, "Bang Theory," though lacking Michael Stipe's mealy-mouthed lyrical delivery, is a dead ringer for any number of R.E.M tunes. The next two or three songs also employ the open, jangly sound and discriminating melodic taste of Athens, Georgia's favourite sons. While these opening songs are quite reasonable, they're a bit obvious. However, World Leader Pretend soon hit their stride, and with this increased confidence it feels like the band starts to let loose a bit more. Tunes like "Tit for Tat," "Into Thin Air" and "A Grammarian Stuck in a Medical Drama" are medium tempo stunners, with soaring melodies, nicely detailed arrangements and impressive performances by singer Keith Ferguson, whose impassioned voice is an appealing combination of hoarse and nasal. Not every song makes good on the band's ambitious intent (the shouted refrain of "BADABOOM" is slightly comical and saved only by a decent countermelody sung underneath by Ferguson, while the album's only typical ballad, "Lovey Dovey," though sweet enough, will hardly be mistaken for "The Scientist" anytime soon), but nothing comes close to being truly cringe-inducing. It might not be groundbreaking, but Punches is wholly worthwhile from beginning to end.

Album #2:
With Love and Squalor (We Are Scientists)

Non sequitor album art notwithstanding, With Love and Squalor is a pretty decent amalgam of all the elements that make/made post-punk, garage rock and dance rock fairly cool. Inevitable comparisons will be made between this band and fellow Brooklynites the Strokes, and while their sounds are similar, We Are Scientists seem to draw from a well that's noticeably deeper. In fact, because of the band's hyperactive but crackingly precise rhythm section, one might say it has more in common with a group like Bloc Party. The lock-step drum-and-bass combo of Michael Tapper and Chris Cane is particularly formidable on the single "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt," while "The Scene is Dead" showcases Keith Murray's manic guitar riffing and songwriting smarts. Not every tune hits as hard as these two, but the music is, on the whole, hooky and well developed -- there are very few semi-aborted ideas hanging about to tarnish the album's thrusty rock out. The power trio's particular brand of vaguely danceable rock seems to be gaining a following in Britain, and apparently they put on a solid live show. Torontonians can judge for themselves when We Are Scientists play the Horseshoe on January 14, 2006.

Album #3:
The Lost Riots (Hope of the States)

Picked this album up a long, long time ago (well, maybe a year-and-a-half), listened to it constantly for a while because of the strength of truly bombastic tracks like "The Black Amnesias," "Enemies/Friends" and "Black Dollar Bills." Then it all became sort of overwhelming. But Harry Potter's into it, so maybe it's worth a 'second spin' (as it were). Young Radcliffe says:

"Like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, this band’s music is like modern classical. I hesitate to use the word ‘epic’ because everybody uses it, but this really is a massive record. Whenever I’m really into an album, I want to learn about the band’s history, and this one is pretty tragic because guitarist James Lawrence committed suicide just before the album was released. I suppose that makes the band more interesting, but it’s really just sad."

The magical little tyke is right about it being a massive record -- so massive that once you've listened to it all the way through, you'll have a new appreciation of Nick Drake. There's just no subtelty to The Lost Riots at all. The music is great, but only when one is in the mood for it.

An album cover for the ages #4

2005-12-02T00:08:00.000-05:00

Serge Gainsbourg ~ Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971)

Arguably the uber-cool Frenchman's finest studio recording, Histoire de Melody Nelson also features one of the more provocative album covers of our time. Histoire was Gainsbourg's second album with Jane Birkin (his muse-for-a-time and eventual (ex-)wife), and yes, that's her standing half-naked on the front of the record sleeve. The image is both seductive and vulgar -- a perfect match for the glorious/lecherous music contained within.

"Go up to Ross Kemp and say, 'I thought you were brilliant in Eastenders, Ultimate Force and Spandau Ballet.'"

2005-12-01T12:52:00.000-05:00

"I can’t imagine Jesus going ‘Oh, I’ve told a few people in Bethlehem I’m the son of God, can I just stay here with Mum and Dad now?’ No. You gotta move on. You gotta spread the word. You gotta go to Nazareth, please."

Indeed, the prodigal son of awkward British comedy is coming to an internet-equipped computer near you.* The Guardian is hosting a weekly podcast by Ricky Gervais, beginning December 5th.

I suppose it could be an quaint little stop-gap to keep us interested while they prepare the second season of Extras, which will likely include guest appearances by Tom Cruise, Daniel Radcliffe, and potentially, David Bowie and Chris Martin.

*which is to say, bollocks to you, users of the Commodore 64.

?uestion:

2005-12-01T10:22:00.000-05:00

What's cool?

Answer:

A 50-minute "sample mix" by a certain Roots drummer.*

Download it here. View the track listing here.

*from this blog, via this other one.

...As if the law was being written as it was spoken

2005-11-30T11:58:00.000-05:00

George Clooney is a man of conviction. We may not agree with his "celebrity politics," but at least he doesn't pull his punches. His recent directorial effort Good Night and Good Luck might play a bit with history, but there's no denying it's a fantastic piece of precision film-making. It's taut. It has a message, and it just feels important. Syriana is Clooney's second message movie released in the past couple of months (his company produced this one), and it's a big budget, multi-faceted doozy.

Although the film begins rather slowly by introducing the characters and situations that make up its four loosely connected plot points, the story being told by director and writer Stephen Gaghan is so prescient that the action on screen never becomes boring.

Essentially, Syriana attempts to examine the oil industry's role in the continued instability of Middle East. The issue is examined from a variety of perspectives, none of which offer a particularly positive assessment of Big Business or the American political right. Luckily the film's case against these powerful interests is more than empty rhetoric, sticking close enough to the "realm of the possible" that its criticisms remain at least halfway plausible and its message ultimately rings true.

The capable Clooney plays a CIA agent tasked with assassinating an reformist Arab prince (Alexander Siddig) who employs Matt Damon's idealist energy analyst after denying an American oil company (headed by Chris Cooper, Tim Blake Nelson and other character actors) drilling rights on his land while said oil company, with the help of its lawyers Jeffrey Wright and Christopher Plummer, finagles with the government to get it to approve an impending merger. Whew! That was an intentionally windy plot synopsis, but don't be put-off by the film's apparent complexity. It's not difficult to follow if you just pay attention (I know you're out of practice: you haven't had to pay attention at the cinema in a long time).

And really, there's more than enough to hold your attention. The dialogue, while occasionally (and I suspect, intentionally) bureaucratic or academic, is crackling on the whole. At least four or five exchanges in the film are just stunning examples of intelligent and incisive screenwriting. For example, a confrontation between the characters played by Clooney and Plummer is better than the Pacino-De Niro face-off in Heat, and Siddig spits out a venomous rebuke of the American oil industry. Gaghan's direction is similarly prodigious. Syriana alternately encompasses scenes of intense claustrophobia and scenes of panoramic majesty, and every shot is framed with depth and precision. Finally, the acting is brilliant across the board (which is really saying something, considering the sheer number of roles in the film). Much has been made of George Clooney's increased heft and his papa bear facial hair, but what is most devastating about his performance comes from his eyes. His weary CIA field agent just seems so abandoned, and it's almost heartbreaking to watch. Jeffrey Wright plays a morally-compromised attorney with great understatement as well, and Alexander Siddig lends more weight to his Arab prince character than is usually the case in these sorts of films. Not a single character in the movie feels like a cliche nor a stereotype (well, maybe a couple minor ones).

There are a few problems with the movie. Its overuse of technical language has been mentioned -- though, as my viewing companion pointed out, if they dumbed-down the language and made the shady dealings of big businesses, politicians, lawyers and the intelligence service completely transparent to any layperson, then it would be laughably unrealistic. Also, moviegoers weaned on the works of, for example, Michael Bay or Nora Ephron, might be disappointed by Syriana's ultimate payoff and its refusal to provide easy answers. It may be posited that the film is this way because of an inability to tie up its myriad strands of plot and action; the film probably could've been a half hour longer in order to flesh out the motivations of a few secondary characters. Certainly, there are a few loose ends, but when a movie is as ambitious and relevant as Syriana, such minor flaws can be forgiven.

The Weekly, Volume Twenty Six

2005-11-29T12:08:00.000-05:00

Late again.

Album:
Broom (Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin)

It's not particularly innovative, but Broom is topped up with finely tuned little gems of indie pop. The band has the sort of acoustic/electric sound and slightly off-key vocals that are common to the "scene" these days and the hallmark of groups like the Shins, but SSLYBY (as they will be acronym-ized from this point on) manage to remain interesting enough so as to not be pigeon-holed, or something. "Pangea" establishes the group's sound and intentions admirably in a three-minute pop ditty that is as catchy as it is pointless. Same goes for "I am Warm and Wonderful" -- another immediately lyrical tune -- and everything else on the album. When you get down to it, Broom is little more than a pop confection, but it's a deliciously well-crafted one, and the flavour should stay on your tongue for a nice, long time.

Album #2:
Soft Dangerous Shores (Chris Whitley)

A gloomy record that is difficult to sit through if one isn’t in the proper mindset, Soft Dangerous Shores is nonetheless a work of subtle beauty. Though the micro house- and IDM-style percussion that anchors a few tracks occasionally feels contrived, the heart of the music always shines through. Whitley’s bluesy steel guitar playing (utilizing extended voicings and dissonance to great effect) and his haunting, gravely falsetto are wholly unique to the popular idiom. A true showcase for a staggeringly underrated artist. (Soft Dangerous Shores was #18 on my list of favourite albums for 2005).

Album #3:
Dreaming Wide Awake (Lizz Wright)

Lizz Wright records for the Verve Music Group, one of the most important names in the jazz recording industry. Her albums are classified as jazz music, for this reason, but also because the people she plays with are predominantly jazz musicians. On her 2003 debut Salt, she was backed by hugely talented players such as Brian Blade and Jon Cowherd (the two of whom also produced the album), along with Chris Potter, Danilo Perez and Sam Yahel. For all its pedigree, the album was a boring approximation of jazz; inconsequential, and too smooth. Dreaming Wide Awake, Wright's 2005 sophomore release, generally ditches the jazz pretentions and instead plays it more along the lines of Norah Jones or Diana Krall (or, maybe the most appropriate comparison, former Arrested Development singer Dionne Farris), eschewing solos and complicated arrangements for the safe and warm confines of pop music. The results, as expected, seem geared toward the adult contemporary side of things, but Wright's voice is sultry and soulful, lending the tunes more emotional heft than they might otherwise have had if sung by a lesser talent. Not everything works (for example, the cover of Neil Young's "Old Man" doesn't bring anything new to the table), but the majority of the music will reward open-minded listeners. "A Taste of Honey" and "Hit the Ground" are especially good, and really, any musician that's smart enough to work with both Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz deserves some credit.

20 for 2005

2005-11-25T00:01:00.000-05:00

Whatever anyone else says, I think lists (assuming they are accompanied by some decent analysis) are great. So I've made my own: my 20 favourite CDs of popular music that was released in 2005. It follows below, and you will note that the list runs in descending order.

Truth be told, it's desperately hard to become immersed in a "scene" or sub-culture when one lives in the unholy suburb of Mississauga (a city with only two worthwhile pasttimes: walking along nice wooded pathways, and watching movies at the googolplex). Thus, some of you might note that the following list of "top albums" is basically a rundown of music that has already achieved popular status and/or critical acclaim. And your observation would be right. Unfortunately I don't have access to hundreds of free promo CDs, or the money to see every indie band that plays a buzz-worthy show at a boutique hotel, community centre or dive bar. So what remains? Luckily, some pretty fine reasons to have loved pop music in 2005. Maybe a little obvious, but great nonetheless. I've written about most of these albums at various points over the past year, so some my commentary might be repetitive...

Anyway, this is going to be a pretty lengthy read, so you can either satisfy yourself with the Top 20 in visual-only format immediately below, or you can CLICK HERE to peruse the entire document.

*****
20 Favourites For 2005

20. Sigur Ros ~ Takk...
In a strange (and almost wholly indescribable) way, I think Takk actually suffers from a lack of ambition. Sigur Ros’ apparent attempt to achieve a bit more “pop” credibility meant that they lost a bit of their icy mystique. Of course, the individual songs are often terrific (“Glosoli,” “Milano,” “Sorglega”), but the album is less cohesive on the whole.

19. M83 ~ Before the Dawn Heals Us
It’s not quite as good as its predecessor, Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts. Overall, the sonic environment created by Anthony Gonzalez is more aggressive and imposing; even a bit colder, like a conversation with a distant cousin. That’s not to say that the album doesn’t contain some transcendent moments: synthesizers splash about to great effect on tracks like “Moonchild” and “Lower Your Headlights to Die with the Sun.” It’s an album that basks in the glow of fluorescent lights turned on in the dark of night. If Michael Mann’s Collateral were an experimental film, Before the Dawn Heals Us would be the perfect soundtrack for it.

18. Chris Whitley ~ Soft Dangerous Shores
A gloomy record that is difficult to sit through if one isn’t in the proper mindset, Soft Dangerous Shores is nonetheless a work of subtle beauty. Though the micro house- and IDM-style percussion that anchors a few tracks occasionally feels contrived, the heart of the music always shines through. Whitley’s bluesy steel guitar playing (utilizing extended voicings and dissonance to great effect) and his haunting, gravely falsetto are wholly unique to the popular idiom. A true showcase for a staggeringly underrated artist.

17. The Devlins ~ Waves
A beautiful album of traditional pop/rock song writing. You won’t find any gimmicks here, just pure songcraft. “Coming Alive” is about as sincere a tune as you’ll ever hear—gradually stirring up a deep well of emotion. Some of the “rockier” tracks leave a bit to be desired (far from cringe-inducing, they’re just a bit obvious), but otherwise Waves is a highly accomplished album.

16. Kanye West ~ Late Registration
This album would have been much higher if West was anything more than an average rapper. The multi-layered, often symphonic production on Late Registration approaches the sublime (hear, for example, the keyboard line and droning bass on “Heard ‘Em Say,” the horns and vocal refrain of “We Major,” and every wonderful element of “Drive Slow”). However, for all his boastfulness, West’s rhymes are merely average when compared to compatriots like Common or Nas—the most obvious example being the dubious political message of “Diamonds of Sierra Leone (remix),” which is otherwise a fine song.

15. The National ~ Alligator
A good mix of confident rock tunes and poetic (though occasionally woolly) balladry. Probably would’ve been higher up on the list, but I listened to it a lot over the summer and have since grown a little weary of it. Otherwise, songs like “Secret Meeting,” “Daughters of the Soho Riots” and “Mr. November” remain great.

14. Elbow ~ Leaders of the Free World
This third album from Guy Garvey and his comrades is arguably their best. Though it peters out towards the end, Leaders is full of intricately produced, textured rock of the melancholy variety.

13. The High Dials ~ War of the Wakening Phantoms
Learning from the mistakes of their overly ambitious debut (A New Devotion) the High Dials are more focused here. Phantoms waves the Mod flag proudly, gleefully combining the more psychedelic elements of the Byrds and the Small Faces, with an indie aesthetic that invokes the spirit of the Action.

12. Four Tet ~ Everything Ecstatic
Frenetic rhythms coupled with Keiran Hebden’s ear for tasteful acoustics make this one of the year’s best examples of musical alchemy. The album’s first three songs (not counting the 23-second “Fuji Check,” which is technically the third track) are a propulsive, post-rock trifecta not heard since Tortoise’s Standards in 2001.

11. Andrew Bird ~ The Mysterious Production of Eggs
Known as much for his virtuosity as a whistler as he is for his song writing abilities, The Mysterious Production of Eggs is Andrew Bird’s magnum opus, showing off all of his musical faculties in equal measure and with effective, if occasionally twee, results. The song arrangements are both surprising and precise, the playing is top notch, the lyrics are graceful and witty, and Bird’s invitingly casual vocal delivery is the cherry on top. In terms of hooks, Mysterious Production is a bit front-loaded (the best tracks, including “Sovay” and “Fake Palindromes,” all appear before the album’s halfway point), but there’s enough strong material here to satisfy all but the most jaded listeners.

10. Seu Jorge ~ Cru
Though Seu Jorge made his name by covering David Bowie songs in a hipster movie (not a difficult task, because Bowie’s stuff is so good that it’s impossible to make it sound bad), his second album of original material doesn’t pander to the masses or attempt to cash in on his new status as a cult icon. Cru means “raw” in Portuguese, and the album is definitely that. Often, Jorge flies solo, accompanying himself on guitar; and even the more fleshed-out tracks rarely feature much more than an extra bit of bass or some tastefully sparse percussion. “Girl from Ipanema” this is not. Jorge’s song writing isn’t quite expert as of yet, but that’s forgivable, considering the high quality of musicianship on display. “Fiore de la Citta,” “Bem Querer” are standouts, but the highlight is the singer’s melancholy take on the Elvis ballad “Don’t.” Just beautiful.

9. Vitalic ~ OK Cowboy
Is this the album that Daft Punk's Human After All should have been? Maybe. I don't know. Nor do I care. The old Parisians can probably coast on the laurels from Homework and Discovery for more years than I care to care about. Anyway, Vitalic is also from France. But it's just one guy instead of two. “Poney Part One” is the second track on OK Cowboy, and it's got that processed bass line thing that Daft Punk (used to?) do. It's a great hard house song, and fairly representative of the album's sonics: hard-driving, chock full of loopy bass lines and arpeggiated melodic themes to keep your pulse racing; and when it's time to kick, hot damn does Vitalic no how to kick! Pretty strong hooks too (check out “Trahison” or “U and I,” the latter of which is somewhat reminiscent of Ulrich Schnauss) You definitely want this record spinning at your next Eurotrash-styled hoe-down.

8. The Crimea ~ Tragedy Rocks [UK version]
Tragedy Rocks might be this year’s pop music equivalent of Shakespeare in Love: a late-year entry that benefits more from its easy recall value (being freshest in one’s mind) than it does from actual merit. But I don’t want to damn this album with faint praise, because really, it’s a very fine example of classicist rock music made relevant for the 21st century, or some such nonsense. Bandleader Davey MacManus has one of those appealingly gruff voices that just seem to make sense on this type of material, and the instrumental performances follow suit with panache. The supremely hooky tunes (such as “Miserablist Tango,” “Lottery Winners on Acid” and “Opposite Ends,” where MacManus channels the Streets’ Mike Skinner) are often founded upon basic, but very strong, guitar riffs, which are subsequently extrapolated upon with semi-sophisticated piano work and the careful use of studio production wizardry.

7. Richard Hawley ~ Coles Corner
Gorgeously sublime, unabashed pop crooning from Britain’s full-voiced, symphonic version of Ron Sexsmith. Richard Hawley’s lilting melodies are coupled with satisfyingly introspective lyrics and schmaltzy (but tastefully so) orchestrations. Add to that his confident, velvety tenor and you’ve got the whole package. But don’t let the notion of a string section and a little reverb throw you. Coles Corner is hardly vacuous Las Vegas fare: songs such as “Wait for Me,” "The Ocean" and the title track are filled with sadness. So curl up in a darkened room and let Richard Hawley sing you a lullaby.

6. British Sea Power ~ Open Season
Subjected to a certain amount of backlash upon its release, Open Season is actually a better album, in terms of song writing, than the band’s well-loved debut, The Decline of British Sea Power. Sonically, the music on Open Season is a little more derivative and definitely less aggressive, but the arrangements are tighter and the hooks are at least as good as the best moments of Decline. Listen again to “It Ended on an Oily Stage,” or “How Will I Ever Find My Way Home.” Better yet, bask in the three minutes of power pop glory that are “Please Stand Up.” There’s not an ounce of fat on this record.

5. Common ~ Be
While Kanye played this year's boastful, hugely popular rap mogul, fellow Chicagoan Common was this year’s humble supporting player, the actor whose quietly devastating work ends up eclipsing that of the powerful star. On a musical level, Be isn’t quite as well-produced as Late Registration (we can’t all have Jon Brion working the soundboards), and arguably, it’s not even Common’s best album. But from the monstrously hip opening one-two punch of “Be” and “The Corner,” there’s a completely infectious groove to the album. And unlike so much hip-hop these days (50 Cent anybody?) the rhymes are witty and thought-provoking, and full of prescient imagery. Bonus points for being the only hip-hop album my girlfriend has ever listened to all the way through.

4. Wolf Parade ~ Apologies to the Queen Mary
The most successful of the wolf-themed bands of the moment, and deservedly so. Though they combine the off-kilter pocket orchestrations of the Arcade Fire and the shouty/stampy aspects of Modest Mouse, Wolf Parade still manage to sound refreshing and original, insistent and provocative for the duration of their debut release. From the cock-eyed catchiness of “Grounds for Divorce” to the thunderous stomp of “Shine a Light,” “Dear Sons and Daughters” and album closer “This Heart’s on Fire,” Apologies to the Queen Mary is a rewarding record from beginning to end.

3. Sam Prekop ~ Who's Your New Professor?
It’s surprising that this album hasn’t received more attention. Who’s Your New Professor is filled with irresistibly melodic tunes, all intricately and gorgeously detailed. The album is uncompromisingly experimental, but it all plays out within tightly constructed musical boundaries, so nothing ever seems out of place or off-putting. In fact, it’s almost a breezy affair: understated, elegant and effortless.

2. My Morning Jacket ~ Z
After a couple of years of trying to get into the Flaming Lips-meets-Neil Young southern rock of My Morning Jacket, this is their first album that truly resonated with me. I’ve enjoyed individual tracks on It Still Moves and At Dawn, but over a full 60-70 minutes, they never failed to exhaust my patience. Z is anything but fatiguing. It’s still southern rock at its heart, but there’s so much more texture; as if Radiohead were based in Louisville or Birmingham and drank whiskey and mint julips all the live-long day. There’s a lot to love here: Jim James’ confident vocal solo at the end of “Wordless Chorus,” the sing-along refrain of “What a Wonderful Man,” the pocketed reggae groove of “Off the Record,” and the monster guitar jams on “Gideon” and “Lay Low.” Z was a wonderful autumn surprise.

1. Okkervil River ~ Black Sheep Boy
I came upon this album way back in the spring, during a time when I was getting very tired of a lot of the music I had been listening to in the months prior (for example, I burnt out on the Arcade Fire big time). Black Sheep Boy, in all its gothic, concept driven glory, brought me out of the musical doldrums and it hasn’t yet lost its charm. In that sense, I suppose this is a biased choice for the top spot, but there were very few albums released this year that can claim to be as fully-realized as this one. Plus, the recently released Black Sheep Boy Appendix EP adds further levels of depth to what was already a top drawer record.

*****
20 Favourites For 2005: Appendix

So here's a quick rundown of another 30 albums that I considered for the big list, but that ultimately didn't make the cut for one reason or another. I guess that makes 50 decent to great releases this year (not counting the veritable cornucopia of music I haven't heard). Not too shabby. The list is alphabetical by album title.

A Certain Trigger (Maximo Park)
Birds Make Good Neighbors (The Rosebuds)
Bright Yellow Flowers on a Dark Double Bed (The Zephyrs)
Broom (Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin)
Clor (Clor)
Descended Like Vultures (Rogue Wave)
Dignity and Shame (Crooked Fingers)
Down in Albion (Babyshambles)
Dreaming Wide Awake (Lizz Wright)
Engineers (Engineers)
Extraordinary Machine (Fiona Apple)
Has a Good Home (Final Fantasy)
Fresh Wine for the Horses (Rob Dickinson)
Full of Light and Full of Fire (The Mendoza Line)
Give Blood (Brakes)
Here Come the Tears (The Tears)
Howl Howl Gaff Gaff (Shout Out Louds)
Let It Die (Fiest)
Life in Slow Motion (David Gray)
No Rest for Ghosts (Minus Story)
Our Thickness (Russian Futurists)
Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 (Shakira)
Paradise Hotel (Eliza Gilkyson)
Plans (Death Cab for Cutie)
Separation Sunday (The Hold Steady)
Silent Alarm (Bloc Party)
Some Cities (Doves)
Strange Geometry (The Clientele)
Twin Cinema (The New Pornographers)
Wearemonstrer (Isolée)
Welcome to Jamrock (Damian 'Jr. Gong' Marley)

And here's five albums that just didn't jive for me this year. Apologies for the horrible rhyme.

Arular (M.I.A.)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah)
Employment (Kaiser Chiefs)
Illinois (Sufjan Stevens)
Live It Out (Metric)

Listy Magoo

2005-11-23T16:50:00.000-05:00

The British, those wonderful islanders of notorious dental hygiene and afternoon tea breaks, have published a list of good 2005 artists (similar to the US and Canadian installments of the last few days). In all honesty, the methodology of this list strikes me as a bit dodgy. Not to say that Radiohead isn't worthy of being named the third best band in any given year, but they haven't done anything to warrant such accolades for 2005. Same goes for Mojave 3. They're a great band, but they haven't put out an album since 2003's reasonable but harldy fantastic Spoon and Rafter, and it's absurd to think they'd still be profiting from its modest success. Otherwise, it's nice to see that Clor and The Boy Least Likely To got a bit of recognition, but a bit surprising that nobody sang the praises of Peter Doherty and his Babyshambles pals. On the flip side of that coin, it's not the least bit shocking that Coldplay didn't make the cut, considering all the mid-summer backlash against X & Y. Overall, an eclectic bunch of picks that, in a way, highlight how very different the musical landscape of the UK is, compared to that of North America.

Addendum: Originally, I didn't see Franz Ferdinand on the list, and subsequently wrote quite a few sentences praising the list-makers for having come to their senses and realizing that the "Archdukes" are not all they're cracked up to be. Then I looked again and found them slotted in comfortably at number 25. Oh well. I guess they're pretty popular.

Slip under the radar

2005-11-23T11:14:00.000-05:00

Chris Whitley died yesterday of lung cancer.

The Texas-based roots rock artist was a maverick who, over a 15-year recording career, gained effusive praise from critics (if not from the masses) for his album work and incendiary live performances. In 2001, I saw him play solo at Lee's Palace for something like 50 people, and it was one of the most thrilling shows I've had the pleasure of attending.

Truly, he was a singular voice.

AUDIO: Chris Whitley ~ "Fireroad"
AUDIO: Chris Whitley ~ "As the Day is Long"
AUDIO: Chris Whitley ~ "Dirt Floor"

Another 'good bands' list...

2005-11-22T11:26:00.000-05:00

... That I wasn't asked to contribute to. It's Canadian artists this time. 33 of them. Here's the link. Ah well. My choices would've been pretty standard anyway (though I might've included Caribou, the High Dials and K'naan; and Oscar Peterson had a pretty big year too, but he's probably not what the list-makers were looking for).

The Weekly, Volume Twenty Five

2005-11-22T01:10:00.000-05:00

Against all odds, 'The Weekly' has reached the quarter-century mark. And lo and behold, this damn blog has actually managed to remain in business for six whole months! Which means I'm still an unemployed freeloader.

To celebrate, we'll take a brief look at three of the greatest live R&B/soul records ever produced. So gobble up some chittlins and grits, get down to the juke joint (unless you prefer to be at church) and dance your ass off. Well, unless you're partial to Nina Simone. She was more a concert theatre-type lady...

Album:
Live at the Harlem Square Club (Sam Cooke)

Sam Cooke is the singer all others should aspire to be. If we hold that statement to be true (which we do, unquestionably), Live at the Harlem Square Club should be required listening for anyone who ever thought they could come within a country mile of creating the kind of sound and energy that "the one and only" Cooke summoned every time he stepped up to the microphone. Unlike the sleek production of Cooke's (numerous) hit singles, the sound here is gritty and unadulterated. From the invigorating opening notes of "Feel It" to the classic, almost pastoral rendition of "Having a Party," every note, every syllable captured in this performance just screams of genuine, spirit-lifting soul. Of course, the real gem here is "Bring It On Home To Me," which is, quite simply, a showstopper -- the definitive interpretation of the song, for all time.
Live at the Harlem Square Club is an unqualified masterpiece.

Addendum: the New York Times had a well-written piece about Cooke in Sunday's edition. Here's the link.

Album #2:
In Person at the Whiskey A Go Go (Otis Redding)

Though nowadays he is known by the masses primarily for "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay," a smooth, Marvin Gaye-esque tune with a catchy, whistled refrain, Otis Redding was, of course, a premier soul shouter and (along with Wilson Pickett) a monumental figure representing the grittier Stax southern soul sound. In Person at the Whiskey A Go Go is one of two important records documenting the singer's famed live performance style. Its predecesor, Live in Europe, features Redding backed up by the monstrously dynamic Booker T & the MGs, but despite its pedigree, the effort is bogged down by its slightly rehearsed quality and -- the last time I heard it -- a truly atrocious recording mix.* On the other hand, In Person is raw and energetic: Otis Redding at his unmitigated best. The singer and his band (not Steve Cropper et al, but instead Redding's regular, if slightly less "skilled," touring band) are locked in for the duration of the performance, creating an hypnotic rhythmic feel that serves to position Redding's music as something of a precursor to funk -- he even performs "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," with as much swagger and intensity as Brown himself could sing it. And unlike Live in Europe, the sound quality is top notch. Even though the set list doesn't include Try a Little Tenderness, this is an absolutely essential album.

*If anyone knows of a good quality version of this concert, I want to hear it!

Album #3:
Black Gold (Nina Simone)

This album is a personal favourite, but apparently not everyone's cup of tea -- if the few short reviews that are circling 'round the intraweb are to be believed. To be sure, the sound isn't great, the documentation accompanying the CD is unbelievably sparse, and in general, it's frustratingly difficult to pick up (I had to go all the way to France to get it, though admittedly, I found it at the Virgin Megastore underneath the Louvre). And even though Nina Simone seems on the brink of exhaustion during parts of the performance, the music captured on Black Gold is first rate. Every note that Simone sings is nuanced and bittersweet, and her band is incredibly sympathetic, alternately muscular and dextrous as their leader requires -- the way the musicians react to Simone's direction to bring down the volume on "The Assignment" is an intimate pleasure. "Black is the Colour of My True Love's Hair" is similarly spellbinding, and it should be difficult for any listener to deny the understated elegance of "Who Knows Where Time Goes," Simone's beautiful cover of the Sandy Denny tune. Black Gold is a testament to the power of one of the great vocalists of the last fifty years, and it's a shame that it seems to be so underappreciated.

Double Happiness

2005-11-20T02:26:00.000-05:00

Earlier in the year, jazz guitarist Bill Frisell released the two-CD live album, East/West. Since I am a sucker for everything and anything he puts out, I purchased the record, and have since listened to his unbelieavably locked-in version of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" more than a trillion times.

Last week, "The Frizz" released a download-only companion album, Further East/Further West. Personally, I feel if you're going to put the effort into creating a whole full-length album, you might as well go all the way and put it on CD. Neurotic collectors like to have the physical entity, and in this particular case, I'm not entirely down with the "music that floats around in the digital ether" phenomenon.

Anyway, on to the point of this post: you can stream a bunch of the tracks from this new selection (including the fantastic "Egg Radio") here.

Ill. Noise?

2005-11-19T00:29:00.000-05:00

Not much of a mind for original content today (spending three days in Peterborough tends to have a dulling effect on the mind). So, like every good media provider, I've had a look at what everyone else is writing about, and will now follow their lead.

It seems a bunch of folks compiled a list with something to do with American (i.e. USA) musicians and bands that were good this year. The majority of selections are pretty unsurprising. I mean, they chose 40 bands: in any given 12-month cycle, there can't be many more acts than that who actually leave an impression with a (reasonably) large group of people (assuming that the most popular of music bloggers are generally representative of their readers' current preferences).

I suppose, then, that one is expected to find points of contention in the ranking order of said musicians... In this case, Sufjan Stevens has found his way to the apex of this particular peak. Personally, he's never done it for me; in the same way I've never really "fell in love" with Stereolab, I think Steven's music is just a little too busy. And rather than sounding "interesting" or "original," the music ends up feeling very calculated. It's not that he's bad or anything, he just isn't the most important musician in America. Also at issue, the inclusion of Kings of Leon (read: average at best), Ryan Adams (far too "hit and miss"), the Fiery Furnaces and Bright Eyes (pretentious).

Now here's the part where I make my own list, because I like lists. Who cares if they're subjective, and ultimately say more about the list-maker(s) than they ever could about the pulse of the nation, or some such nonsense. If we all recognize these caveats, we should be able to enjoy said lists for what they are -- easy-to-read primers for things (in this case, music) that might be worth looking into further.

Whatever. Here's a few from me (plus superfluous keywords), after the fact. Though who's really to say if any of them are truly important.

Okkervil River (gothic poetry)
Common (better than Kanye)
My Morning Jacket (guitar solos!)
The National (cool confidence)
Sam Prekop (tuneful)
Andrew Bird (no longer gimmicky)
Four Tet (beats!)
Fiona Apple (ivory melodrama)
Crooked Fingers (introspective)
Kanye West (ego!)

Album covers for the ages #3

2005-11-15T00:19:00.000-05:00

Miles Davis ~ Bitches Brew (1970)
Santana ~ Abraxas (1970)

For the longest time (at least 10 years) I've wondered about the similarities between the gatefold art for these two classic records. Obviously, the art was the work of the same surrealistic hand, but I always felt that there must be some mystical purpose for their association: why does the Wodaabe tribal dancer appear in each piece? I pondered this for many years, but only this evening did I turn to the wealth of information on the internet, hoping to finally know the secret hidden within these album covers. For at least 30 minutes, it was my own, personal Da Vinci Code.Alas, the usual channels (and even some unusual ones) did not turn up any information that might shed light on the question. Sure, explanations of the individual covers were easily found (though the artist's "Wiki-ography" was a tad light), but apparently, no enterprising intellectual has thought to investigate -- compare and contrast, if you will -- the interrelationship between the two. Oh wondrous internet. How you have failed me!There must be some learned individual who can finally explain this mystery. If there exists a better use for the "comments" button at the bottom of this post, I know it not!

Excelsior!
(which, by the way, also means "wood chippings")

Addendum: artist Mati Klarwein also painted the gatefold art for Miles Davis' live double-album Live-Evil

The Weekly, Volume Twenty Four

2005-11-14T00:25:00.000-05:00

Album:
Down in Albion (Babyshambles)

I had originally planned to write a full review of this bad boy, but this article at PopMatters basically covers most of what I would've said, and with greater insight about the influence of the Clash than I could ever provide (but don't bother with Pitchfork's highly questionable "review", which mistakes wordiness for depth). As was reported here way back when, I'm a relatively new convert to worship of Pete Doherty. Generally, I find his behaviour boorish and unprofessional (or maybe I'm just annoyed by the constant but dubious attention his antics get him in the British press). By all rights, the man should be in prison. But instead, he's out in the world, snorting lines, cancelling tour dates, and recording one of the most triumphantly ramshackle albums of the year. Down in Albion is just a mess of a record. It's the sea of dirty clothing that obscures your bedroom floor. But this time, when you tell your nagging mother "Yeah, but there's an order to it, a system," it somehow rings true. Doherty and his band take us on a rambling gypsy's tour and stop to greet everyone who's ever influenced them along the way (The Clash, the Rolling Stones and early electric-era Bob Dylan, to name a few); and yet, in commemorating a journey already taken, Down in Albion still manages to be a refreshing souvenir. Put simply, it's unpretentious, even sincere music. I guess a "life of ill repute" just suits some people.

Album #2:
Tragedy Rocks (UK Version) (The Crimea)

Like the Babyshambles record, this is fairly straightforward fare. But where Down in Albion is gleefully rough and disorganized, Tragedy Rocks backs up its slightly derivative but very tuneful nature with a lot of precise instrumentation contained within well-considered arrangements. The album's 10 tracks are uniformly tight and offer great mix of twee pop's unabashedly lovelorn lyricism, the subtle musical ironies of modern alternative power pop (think, maybe, Brendan Benson and his ilk) and the memorable riff-based songwriting typical of the best classic rock. The result is a well-produced, rather cinematic rock sound: mainly guitar-driven, but incorporating some nice, delicate touches as well, particularly the contributions of keyboardist Andrew Stafford -- check out "Opposite Ends" and the Morricone-like "Someone's Crying" for evidence. Though some of bandleader Davey MacManus' lyrics might be considered almost laughable (in "Baby Boom," he sings "You can call me Fred Flintstone / Tarzan king of the jungle / I guess I was a little prehistoric / at your place this afternoon"), he sings them with infectious conviction over some downright fantastic melodies. It also helps that MacManus has one of those intriguingly grainy voices that turn standard pop/rock songs into something a little stranger, a little more vulnerable, a little more mysterious. On Tragedy Rocks, he's not a traditionally strong vocalist, but in the same way that Weezer's Rivers Cuomo is a great guitar player in a band that doesn't call for that particular skill, MacManus seems like he could be a fantastic, tuneful singer if he wanted to be. In the case of Tragedy Rocks, that's not what was called for, and his gruff baritone fits the music perfectly.

But isn't he supposed to be in Satan's service?

2005-11-13T17:44:00.000-05:00

Lately there's been a lot of mindless chit-chat in the media about the notion of "intelligent design."

Here is an undated, out-of-context quotation relating to the issue from Gene Simmons, the man who refuses to let KISS succumb to the ravages of time and godawfulness.

"My design, and I suspect all God's designs, start with some engine. A car's engine either has horsepower or not. The design of this particular beast, man, is to expel sperm. Every time we get aroused we expel sperm. If not, the family of man would suffer from extinction." (from Wikipedia)

Ah, extinction. That pesky little malady that threatens to afflict us like an untimely cold sore. Update! I don't know why I posted this. But like a crotchety old farmer who's too stubborn to admit that his homemade scarecrow is nothing more than a few corn cobs jutting from a bale of hay, now that it's up here, I refuse to do anything about it.

November 11

2005-11-11T15:47:00.000-05:00

Interesting little Remembrance Day piece over at the CBC Arts website, detailing some 20th century "war requiems." Worth reading, if for no other reason than it gives one a moment to reflect about the things that matter.

Plus, it's got a nice, poignant illustration attached to it.

Another radio song

2005-11-10T00:01:00.000-05:00

Back with some proper music writing (briefly).

Endnotes and Addenda: a review of Okkervil River's Black Sheep Boy Appendix

It is often a difficult task to evaluate the merit of an EP or mini-album. The slightly odd, misunderstood middle child in the musician’s formal recording catalogue, the so-called “Extended Play” is too long to be a single, too short to qualify as a proper album, and frequently too esoteric or experimental to be of much interest to all but the most fervent fans.

By their very nature, EPs often don’t contain an artist’s best work. Rather, they represent collections of interesting but ultimately aborted ideas and tunes that would otherwise not make it on to full-length releases—glorified B-sides, if you will.

Though Okkervil River’s Black Sheep Boy Appendix has the distinction of being formally linked to one of the year’s best albums (the similarly titled Black Sheep Boy, released in April), fundamentally it isn’t much better than other releases of this type.

That’s not to say that the record isn’t worthwhile. Individually, some of the tracks are very, very good. “No Key No Plan” is a jaunty, roots rock two-step. It’s insistent, vigorous and assured, and a perfect companion piece to the band’s concert staple “Black.” Acting as something of a dual centrepiece for the album, “Black Sheep Boy #4” and “Another Radio Song” both offer strong melodic and lyrical ideas—the former is actually a more fully realized song than its namesake on the full-length LP, combining as it does striking imagery and a sensitive instrumental performance. “A Forest” also offers some interesting insight into the band’s haunting, American Gothic style, what with its sonic mimicry of the experimental tendencies of Califone, Tom Waits and even Wilco.

It’s unfortunate then, that the record as a whole lacks cohesion. The seven songs all share the spirit of their brothers on the original Black Sheep Boy, but none would have fit very comfortably on that excellent album, and Appendix’s shortened track list still feels like a compilation of afterthoughts.

The material is far from regrettable, and fans of Okkervil River should be satisfied. Nevertheless, Black Sheep Boy Appendix doesn’t quite transcend the limitations of its oft-maligned format.

Chapter Two

2005-11-09T01:09:00.000-05:00

Complete!

The charming twinkle of a small bell signalled the opening of the café door. Glynn stepped in and made quite a show of inhaling the aroma of coffee beans as if he had only just discovered the delightful utility of his olfactory glands. Hanging his coat on a hook just off of the entranceway, he tipped an imaginary cap to the proprietor, who took a hand-rolled cigarette away from his mahogany lips and replied with a gentle smile that showed off the prominent lines on his cheeks and forehead. Then with a well rehearsed sashay, Glynn approached the table where William sat mulling over his mental talking points.

In a radio song

2005-11-08T02:51:00.000-05:00

If a person were fortunate enough to purchase a copy of any of Okkervil River's releases on the Jagjaguwar label, he or she would likely find a small promotional booklet therein. Printed on that piece of paper are various interesting words and phrases written by public relations specialists and meant to impress the reader and give information about certain Jagjaguwar recording artists. There is no such advertising copy under the name "Okkervil River." Instead the space is filled with praise from the likes of the New York Times, Pitchfork and Rolling Stone's David Fricke. No small feat, and the band's recent recorded output generally justifies the accolades. But if there was any doubt about how much hyperbole Okkervil River are worth, their live show puts it to rest.

The band played to an appreciative (but not quite full) room at Lee's Palace last night, and proved they have not only musical chops, but also possess the ability to keep an audience in rapt attention. The sextet worked through an energetic setlist comprised of the best tracks from Black Sheep Boy as well as popular tunes from their previous albums with an infectious enthusiasm. The electrifying performance of "Black" was a highlight in this regard, and later in the set, "For Real" upped the ante even higher. Much of the credit goes to bandleader Will Sheff in this regard, as all night he flailed about the stage in something approaching a trance, shredding his acoustic guitar as if it were a flying V, and positively screaming out his lyrics with a confidence not often seen in musicians so young (or, at least, "young-looking." How old is this guy anyway?). In a white collared shirt that he didn't so much wear as allowed to hang off his shoulders, and one of those ironic thin ties, Sheff was like an alt country Henry Rollins. The only complaint one might be tempted to dwell upon is that all the high-decibel singing meant that some of the sensitivity of the lyrics was lost.

Though the show wasn't without its technical glitches (for instance, some apparent keyboard problems marred the encore opener "A Glow"), overall, the sound was surprisingly good; hearing the trumpet, keyboard or mandolin parts was never an issue, and the band was all the better for it.

For $10, one couldn't have asked for a better show.

Update! Chromewaves has more on the show, including some interesting background info and pics.

The Weekly, Volume Twenty Three

2005-11-07T08:18:00.000-05:00

Album:
Down the River of Golden Dreams
(Okkervil River)

Okkervil River received quite a lot of interest this year for their excellent album Black Sheep Boy. What you might not know is that its predecesor is just as good, if not better. Down the River of Golden Dreams is an epic album in almost every sense of the term. The (justifiably) lengthy tunes insinuate themselves into the listener's consciousness with a sincere vulnerability that is all too rare in modern music; but Will Robinson Sheff also knows the value of a good propulsive climax, and songs like "For the Enemy" and "The War Criminal Rises and Speaks" are perfect examples of the lush, confident arrangements that make the album so joyous. Plus, you can't dismiss a record that makes such fantastic use of the Wurlitzer and Fender Rhodes. The band stops tonight in Toronto for a show at Lee's Palace. See you there, buckaroos!

Album #2:
Howl Howl Gaff Gaff (Shout Out Louds)

It seems that the New York Times scooped me on this one, but since this ebullient Swedish quintet is also playing a show in Toronto tonight (at the Mod Club), I thought it would be apropos to give them a little space anyway. Though hampered by the repetitive, single-syllable lyrics common to many "English as a Second Language" bands, Howl Howl Gaff Gaff is an undeniably catchy musical statement that falls stylistically somewhere between the twee pop of The Concretes and the Weezer-esque riffing of Bear Quartet. It's not revolutionary by any means, but tracks like "Very Loud" and "Seagull" are so melodic and hook-laden, they might even help you forget how pedestrian the latest Franz Ferdinand album was.

Album #3:
Back to Bedlam (James Blunt)

I made the mistake of thinking that a musician by the name of 'James Blunt' could play anything but nasty, shouty, electric blues. Memphis Slim, Brownie McGhee, Buddy Guy, James 'Blood' Ulmer: each one an unmistakably bluesy moniker. And if I were a blues guitarist in the 21st Century, I would be proud to have a name like 'James Blunt'. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that this particular gentleman was a youthful British singer-songwriter, who fashions his pop/rock confections in style reminiscent of Elliot Smith, but without the achingly poetic imagery. Back to Bedlam is Blunt's debut album, and while it's a fairly solid effort with serviceable performances and lyrical hooks, the music lacks the 'punch' necessary to make any of it really stick. And, as an aside, it's hard to describe the disappointment I felt at discovering that a cookie-cutter, Rod Stewart-lite style tune that had tormented me for weeks in malls and at the dentist's office was in fact "You're Beautiful," the second track on this very album.

Wake phantoms. Without losing your shirt.

2005-11-04T10:20:00.000-05:00

Random News: Neo-Mod-Psych-Rock guys the High Dials are playing a free show at the Horseshoe Tavern on Tuesday (Nov. 8). 9:30 pm. Go see them and help fulfill my prophecy that they will soon become "the next big thing" (or some such nonsense).

The Weekly, Volume I've Got Nothin'

2005-11-01T10:22:00.000-05:00

Apologies to those who live and die with this space, but there will not be a "weekly" this week, and I don't really plan on posting anything at all for the next bunch of days. This whole "blogging until I can get a job" thing is becoming tiresome, and unlike during the first months of this website, writing here lately does little to asuage the general malaise I feel about still being unemployed.

In other news, "Chapter Two" is near completion. Too bad it sucks.

Here's a picture that came up in Google when I searched for the terms "jazz" and "bad."

Oh say, can you hear (part four)

2005-10-26T23:36:00.000-04:00

Game #4: Adult contemporary continues to be all the rage in Houston, as one-time lite rock radio staple Jon Secada sings the praises of the star spangled banner.

In all truth, I haven't heard the name 'Jon Secada' in something like 10 years, and his performance is surprisingly, not too shabby.

Making a poor first impression, the singer fumbles the opening notes of the anthem, reaching too low for the "say" of "Oh say can you see." However, Secada continues unfazed, and by the time he reaches "Who's brought stripes and bright stars," he's actually managed to build up a little momentum. In these passages, Secada pulls off a few smooth licks with subtle (and playful) inventiveness. Having gained some confidence, the singer rolls into the bridge with vigorous intent, but comes up short on a few notes. Oddly, in all his apparent excitement, Secada starts to lose control of his body: he bends over rather rigidly (like a robot) as he belts out the higher notes, and a camera closeup shows him singing rather awkwardly out of the corner of his mouth, as if he were chomping on an invisible cigar. This particular performance quirk seems to give Secada's vocals something of a twang, which actually adds some character to his sound. Though he appears to be close to a siezure by the end of the song, Secada is still able to will himself up to the final high note (on "free"), and holds on for reasonable effect.

Rating: 7/10. Jon Secada is harldy a vocal powerhouse, but he certainly gave it the old college try this evening. He came out swinging, fanned on the first pitch, but battled hard and came up with a solid, stand up double. Barbara Bush would be proud. Addendum: Lyle Lovett's performance of America the Beautiful for the Seventh Inning Stretch was just pure class. Kudos to him (or whatever).

Achtung. Babies.

2005-10-26T14:34:00.000-04:00

Who are Prussian Blue?

Well, according to this article from ABC News, they're two fun-loving 13-year-olds who like to get up on stage and sing happy little songs... about white supremacy and notorious Nazi Rudolf Hess.

Of course, when something this strange just sort of pops up, one's immediate reaction is to be skeptical. I mean, at first glance, the ABC story seems like something ripped off from The Onion, but they've got their own (poor) website with audio clips, a message board and everything else. And the news article pulls no punches against these teeny-meany-boppers (a quick example: the filename for the picture they've put up is "nazi twins").

This website does a good job at expressing the odd feeling of surreality one gets from the whole notion (check the photo caption)... And it would all be really funny if it wasn't so horrifying.

Oh say, can you hear (part three)

2005-10-25T23:26:00.000-04:00

Game #3: The series shifts to Houston's beautiful but enigmatic Minute Maid Park, where hirsute crooner Michael McDonald takes centre stage.

To begin, a semi-interesting factoid: McDonald, this decade's Michael Bolton, was born in St. Louis, MO, home of the Cardinals, who were of late the Houston Astros' arch-nemesis. In any case, like soul survivor Lou Rawls in game two, McDonald chooses to go for gold and belt out his national anthem without accompaniment. Unfortunately, our friends at the corporation of Major League Baseball neglected to provide a video stream of the performance, so this critique is based on but a single viewing. Luckily, your loyal blogmaster has a good memory.

McDonald's interpretation of the anthem is defined by two characteristics, both of which render the performance spotty. First, on this night, McDonald engages in a troublesome tendency to "swoop" (or "scoop," depending on your preference) up to notes at the top of his vocal range. The American national anthem possesses a fair number of sizeable melodic intervals, and in this sense can be a technically challenging piece for singers. While McDonald's voice is strong throughout (he never moves into a falsetto), his vocal swooping seems to betray a lack of confidence.

The second problem is more serious: McDonald's tone and pitch are simply flat throughout (maybe by a quarter- to a half-tone). Apparently, the singer is popular due to his beefy, expressive baritone, which may or may not translate as a "sense of soul." However, such vocalists must also be on constant guard against sounding flat, as much of their "full" tone comes from singing from their gut and chest (referred to as a "chest voice"). Since the voice is emanating from a lower part of the body, the tendency, if one is not careful, is for that voice to be slightly flat. Or maybe you say that's all codswallop. Either way, the man was flat tonight.

Rating: 5/10. But notable elderly woman Barbara Bush seemed to like it... Hey! Remember that episode of The Simpsons when George and Barbara Bush move in to the mansion across the street? And Homer and George Bush get into a feud because George Bush spanked Bart after the little scamp ruined his memoirs. And they play a prank that ends with George Bush wearing a rainbow-coloured afro. And George Bush calls his wife 'Bar'. That was a good episode.

The Weekly, Volume Twenty Two

2005-10-24T09:32:00.000-04:00

Not much up for it this week. But here's a couple of older records to keep you company.

Album:

I Remember Miles (Shirley Horn)
The jazz singer's 1998 tribute album for the man who discovered her, I Remember Miles has Horn in a relaxed mood at the microphone and the piano. The material covers nine Miles Davis tunes (which is to say, songs made "standard" by Davis' interpretation, not necessarily songs written by the famed trumpeter) and Horn gives a whispery, understated charm to all of them. The arrangements are, for the most part, very sparse, primarily showcasing Horn's trademark vocals and skilled chops at the piano; though the crack team of Roy Hargrove, Ron Carter and Al Foster occasionally get to flex their muscles (subtly) as well. It's definitely an soundtrack for bouts of quiet reflection. With any luck, someone in the world was listening to Horn's version of "Basin Street Blues" when she passed away last Friday.

Album #2:

Horse Stories (Dirty Three)
Of the Australian post-rock trio's seven albums, this 1996 record is probably the most effective distillation of the band's sound. That sound is often tender, occasionally propulsive and always worth listening to. That such music is made only by a gently strummed guitar, seemingly random drum patterns and a single, plaintive violin makes the result all the more impressive and comparatively original. "Sue's Last Ride" is particularly noteworthy, starting as it does with a beautifully realized conception of melancholy, only to progress to a monstrously raucous (and quite joyous) climax. If one were compelled to complain about something, it would be that for some reason, the drum sound throughout the record feels a little stale, a little weak. It's not a knock on the band per se, but against the production -- the percussion sound could've been "grander." Addendum: Dirty Three's meditative 1998 album Ocean Songs is a perfect companion piece and counterpoint to Horse Stories, in case you were interested.

Oh say, can you hear (part two)

2005-10-23T23:25:00.000-04:00

Game #2: Soul man Lou Rawls goes it alone in Chi-town.

The action starts suddenly, as Rawls begins his solo by showing his nerves and rushing the first bar or two. But by the dawn's early light, he's found a groove and sticks to it, embellishing a phrase here-and-there with reasonable panache. Interestingly, he chooses the modern interpretation of the word over, as opposed to the more traditional o'er. Of further note: Rawls displays a strange tendency to furrow his brow quite obviously when reaching for the high notes, though he hits them all out of the park (as it were). Unsurprisingly, Rawls "brings da noize" most effectively as he moves into the bridge and through to the final bars of the anthem, where he slows the pace slightly to accentuate his lusty sustained vibrato. Purists might be off-put by Rawls' coda ("talking 'bout the home of the brave"), but it fits well with his soulful approach.

Rating: 8/10. Rawls is a man perhaps best known for his outstanding duet with Sam Cooke on "Bring It On Home To Me," but the decision to fly solo tonight (which is to say, singing without any accompaniment) was definitely the right one. And, well... Sam Cooke died years ago. Rawls' gritty baritone is the perfect counterpoint to the silky smooth and slightly syrupy performance of young pup Josh Groban from last night.

Oh say, can you hear (part one)

2005-10-22T22:20:00.000-04:00

Wherein your intrepid computer-based "writer" exercises his descriptive and critical faculties by providing insight into the performances of the American national anthem by various popular recording artists, at Baseball's 2005 World Series.

Game #1: "Popera" sensation Josh Groban attempts to overpower his recorded accompaniment, on the mound at Chicago's US Cellular Field.

Things start off reverently, as Groban shows off his sensitive masculine vibrato, singing the anthem's opening lines as a tender synthesized piano threatens to lull the audience to sleep. The television camera's cut to a group of longshoremen (are they still called that?) unfurling a friggin' massive American flag. White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen shows his respect for the country he wasn't born in, by chewing something as if he were a camel.

Entering the bridge (...and the rockets red glare, etc...) with the beginnings of a sure-to-be-bombastic orchestral drum flourish, Groban starts to break out a bit, trying to flex his muscles, so to speak. He manages to hold a few great notes without a hint of pitch fluctuation. But it's all for not, because of a strange decision to lay back on the beat. For the next four or five phrases the melody just feels behind, almost lazy. Then it all comes to the expected climax, and the taped accompaniment kicks into overdrive (or maybe, over-the-top-drive) with some ludicrously fake-sounding horn shots and drums with so much echo, they would put Vangelis to shame. Groban gives it his all with the "land of the free" line, holding on for all he's worth, though he's almost overshadowed by yet another flourish of percussive bombast. The singer finishes off with some atypical modulation on the last note, and while his pitch control is once again quite strong, the effect of these acrobatics is to make him seem like a slightly more subtle Mariah Carey. Of course, the crowd eats it up.

Rating: 6/10. Whether or not you enjoy the schlocky material that Groban releases in his free time, he does have a pretty decent set of pipes. Maybe next time he'll try going a capella. Video of the performance can be found on this page.

"I came back to get some stuff."

2005-10-22T18:55:00.000-04:00

Oh rainy, cold October weather. How I am fairly ambivalent t'ward thee...

Courtesy of the inimitable Rock Snob, Ricky Gervais points his bazooka of hilarity at Coldplay's Chris Martin.

"Can I wear your sunglasses?"

When Irish eyes are playing guitar

2005-10-21T11:30:00.000-04:00

A mind-boggling question for your Friday morning: why in the name of whatever god you prefer (I'm partial to Apollo) are The Frames not more popular here? The Irish five-piece played at the Phoenix last night and it was quite simply one of the most enjoyable concert experiences I've ever had. The show was their third stop in Toronto since opening for Damien Rice back in the spring of 2003 (and achieving the difficult feat of blowing him completely out of the water). The band has been around since the mid-nineties and their (more than) two hour was like a greatest hits package spread over their five album. In a live setting, their arsenal consists of shimmering ballads, slow-burning torch songs and anthems that give U2 a run for their money, and all are played with great intensity and no small amount of technical chops.

But what really sets the band apart (and is a confounding element in my introductory question) is the sheer greatness of lead singer Glen Hansard, whose pipes are as strong and expressive as Van Morrison or Bono on their best days. And in true Irish spirit (or stereotype?), he is also one of the most affable performers one will ever have the pleasure to come across. Throughout the night he readily and easily engaged the large (but not packed) audience with stories and self-effacing humour, all told with a mesmerizing lilt. There was a sincerity to his performance that was just so refreshing. It's a shame more people haven't yet been charmed by Hansard and the rest of The Frames. They're certainly a band to root for. And keep your ears open for the alt. country singer/songwriter stylings of Josh Ritter, who combines the storytelling chops of Leonard Cohen with the fashion sense of Wayne Coyne.

An album cover for the ages #2

2005-10-19T19:04:00.000-04:00

Herbie Hancock ~ Thrust (1974)

When last we ventured into the murky realm of "art criticism," it was discovered that while Chick Corea was/is a pretty awesome jazz pianist, his sense of artistic style was/is often found to be lacking. On the other side of that coin, we have Herbie Hancock, who, like Corea, found himself experimenting with different sounds and forms to create interesting "jazz" in the late 1960s and all through the '70s. However, most unlike his whiter soul brother, Hancock basically oozed style during that period. Presented below, the cover art for his second true "funk" album is the best example of this fact. Notice the careful juxtaposition of opposing shapes: the smooth and spherical shapes of the moon, Hancock's synth-powered space orb, and his monster afro are offset by the jagged mountain peak and it's attendant labyrinth, the former literally "thrusting" out through the clouds. Classic.Also, if I were ever to be cryogenically frozen, the instructions for waking me from my icy slumber would read "Wake me up only at such a time when globular, one-man space crafts are fueled by the magic of funk."

First last looks

2005-10-18T00:22:00.000-04:00

Here begins a lengthy, unedited criticism of Cameron Crowe's new film Elizabethtown, which I saw on the weekend and, after many hours of contemplation, deem to be extremely disappointing.

Some background: the movie, starring Orlando Bloom and the perpetually sleepy-faced Kirsten Dunst received less than stellar reviews from a number of sage critics of the moving picture, who wrote that Elizabethtown's "disaffected youth returns for family funeral" storyline was simply a rehashing of Zach Braff's quaint, but hardly groundbreaking Garden State, and generally maligned Cameron Crowe as the poor man's Billy Wilder. Some of the general criticism that has been levelled at Crowe over the years has been fairly accurate. He certainly walks the thin line between heartfelt emotion and sugary sentimentality. Say Anything, Jerry Maguire and even his one true, bona-fide classic (in my opinion) Almost Famous, can all be grating if the viewer isn't in the right frame of mind.

Elizabethtown, however, is an undeniably annoying film experience no matter how you approach it. Aside from Orlando Bloom, who actually acquits himself reasonably well as the emotionally stunted protagonist, there is very little to recommend about the movie. A rundown:

Plot >> Rushed and disorganized, the events that make up Elizabethtown are unoriginal and uninteresting, and feel as though they have very little effect on the ultimate outcome of the story. The amount of lose ends that Crowe leaves dangling is beyond frustrating; of the at least eight characters who could have had meaningful conclusions to their stories, only the two leads (Bloom and Dunst) get any sort of resolution. That conclusion is actually fairly satisfying, but it comes only in the film's last fifteen minutes, where Crowe grafts on a hurried denouement from what could (should?) have been an entire feature-length road movie. Oh! There's also a wedding subplot that was perhaps one of the most useless subplots in the history of subplotting.

Characters >> Lazy archetypes, one and all. Witness Alec Baldwin as the steely-eyed boss, about to lose his business empire! Gaze at Jessica Biel as she takes a few minutes to portray the former girlfriend who's only concerned with money and success! Gape awkwardly as Susan Sarandon fixes a car and learns to tap dance, as the widow who discovers that life has passed her by! And that's not all... Elizabethtown is also chock full of more Southern-fried, country bumpkin stereotypes than you can shake a leg of Col. Sanders' original recipe at.

Script >> As mentioned above, Cameron Crowe's stock-in-trade is sentimentality, and Elizabethtown has it in spades. But whereas his better films are bolstered by a depth of feeling that somehow makes the semi-sappy dialogue ring true, the writing in Elizabethtown just seems forced. For example, Orlando Bloom's character has an on-going voice over that is just completely vapid, where he describes the difference between "a failure and a fiasco" in terms that a two-year-old could have come up with, and pontificates about the "last looks" people give when they are never going to see a person again.

Finally, there is one more issue that should be brought up when criticizing this film. It seems that Elizabethtown marks the beginning of a somewhat ominous path down which Cameron Crowe now strides. He is now known as much for his vast knowledge of popular music as he is for the films he directs, and with Elizabethtown, the soundtrack has become more important than the story. It's as if he sat down and thought "how can I make a movie that incorporates both my love of Elton John and my new-found interest in German electronic artist Ulrich Schnauss?"

Sure, the soundtrack for Almost Famous was as integral to that film's success as its story, but the movie was about music. Thematically (or even in terms of simple plot), Elizabethtown has, for the most part, little to do with or to say about music, yet the story appears to be so prominently shaped around the use of particular songs. This is problematic in that the songs do not share a common thematic thread, and thus the visual scenes accompanying them also become someone disparate. Taking the idea to the extreme, at a certain point, you're just making a glorified music video. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, basically, there has never been a better advertisement for the Elton John tune "My Father's Gun" than Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown.

The Weekly, Volume Twenty One

2005-10-17T08:38:00.000-04:00

Album:
The End of the Pier (The Workhouse)
Another installment in a long line of records by so-called "guitar effects" bands, End of the Pier falls somewhere between the heavy distortion of My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus & Mary Chain, and the more avant garde offerings of, for example, Godspeed! You Black Emperor. Though their album has lost a (tiny) bit of its initial spark over multiple listenings, The Workhouse have managed to put together a relatively cohesive collection of beefy post-rock. Songs like "Peacon" and "John Noakes" and the apocalyptic title track play like typhoons in your headphones; but the band is also capabale of turning things down a little, as evidenced by the acoustic serenade "Never Kill Your Dreams." All this (and more!) makes for a very worthwhile set of ethereal music.

Album #2:
The Runners Four (Deerhoof)
I can't say I'd ever heard a Deerhoof song in my life until this album, which was released last week to acclaim from the insular indie music press (and this is certainly indie music in aesthetic and actual sound -- not the way Death Cab for Cutie is "indie"). Stylistic cousins of various post-rock/noise-pop outfits including Sonic Youth and Blonde Redhead, on The Runners Four, Deerhoof manage to both retain their experimental "cred" and play some really tuneful, well... tunes. Twanging guitars meld well with a propulsive, Tortoise-esque rhythm section and not an insignificant amount of distortion on footloose and fancy free numbers such as "Spirit Ditties of No Tone," "Running Thoughts," and "Scream Team," none of which lasts long enough to wear out its welcome.

Album #3:
Dark Days Exit (Felix Laband)
Come for the cover art, stay for the languid folktronica. It's a soundtrack for the high brow European latte set, with just enough eccentricity as to be worthwhile for the image-conscious North American music geek! Fans of Four Tet (a slightly better option artist) or Minotaur Shock (slightly worse) should find a lot to like on Dark Days Exit, though I don't really feel like getting any more specific about it. Well, I guess you could say that all the songs feel very "organic," in that they each have something of a main theme, which is expanded upon in small but effective ways until a natural conclusion is reached. (Note: baseball playoffs on the telly distracted me while I wrote this, and I didn't really feel like adding anything before the ultimate posting. So deal).

Excerpt from an interview with John Cage, renowned composer of music in the 20th century.

2005-10-14T17:19:00.000-04:00

Journalist: Mr. Cage, you're best known for your aleatoric works, where certain elements of a piece of music are left to chance. How might this type of music remain relevant in our increasingly regimented and, if I may be so bold, formulaic society?

(Cage, though seemingly quite relaxed, sitting in a rocking chair across from the journalist, makes no effort to respond. The intrepid reporter, well trained in the subtle art of interviewing, waits patiently for an answer, but after more than two minutes, nothing of the sort is forthcoming).

Journalist: Well, er... Moving on then. (He fiddles with his pen, twirling it and clicking the cap on his knee). Perhaps you would like to reminisce about your time under the tutelage of Arnold Schoenberg?

(Cage remains silent).

Journalist: Or maybe we could talk about the prepared piano. Can you recall any of the more outrageous things you would place on the strings?

(Silence).

(The journalist looks at his watch, exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds have passed. He realizes John Cage has been dead for thirteen years. The interview ends with the sound of chair legs being moved across a hardwood floor).

Jazz (We've Got)

2005-10-12T18:43:00.000-04:00

The quarterly visits to humble Mississauga by a gentleman who is potentially the best tenor saxophonist ever produced by our fair 'burb, inevitably lead me to rekindle my love of jazz music. This go 'round brought with it a renewed interest in the massive catalogue of Wayne Shorter. While the man is unquestionably one of the most important horn players of the past fifty years, he was always someone I found difficult to feel passionate about; just another in a long line of Miles Davis collaborators who wrote some classic tunes (e.g. "Night Dreamer," "JuJu"), performed on more five-star records than you can count, and continues playing today, somewhat under the radar of most media.

My perceptive friend specifically introduced me to Footprints Live (2002) and Beyond the Sound Barrier (2005), Shorter's latest live albums with a quartet including Brian Blade, Danilo Perez and John Patitucci, and let me be far from the first to say that these are monstrous recordings from what I will argue is one of the best jazz bands assembled since the varied Davis quintets of the 1950s. As a combination of all the elements that make a great band, from individual skill to unbreakable group tightness, intuitive sensitivity to a fearless experimentalist spirit, the current Wayne Shorter Quartet tops everyone else working today. And yes, I have heard the work of Dave Holland's quintet and big band, Keith Jarrett's standards trio, and even Dave Douglas' Charms of the Night Sky group.

Credit is of course due to Shorter as the band's primary composer/arranger and, well, leader. His tunes are so laden with texture and colour as to become almost cinematic, and his chops remain wickedly sharp. But I think what really sets the group apart is the contribution of Brian Blade, who is easily the most versatile drummer working today (the Jim Keltner of his generation?). Blade's playing on the noted recordings is so good as to be indescribable for a lay-person like myself. At the risk of overutilising the term, his playing is just so intuitive, so atuned to the moment that it becomes more than just percussion. It becomes almost melodic, and is matched perfectly to the very rhythmic comping of pianist Danilo Perez.

Enough gushing. Suffice to say these individuals have transcended the boundaries of their own considerable skills and have become a true personification of gestalt.