New Music: Adult., Dan Deacon

Adult. - I Feel Worse When I'm With You (Thrill Jockey 2007)

Adult. - Why Bother? / Thrill Jockey

So its Easter Sunday and I'm sitting here at the computer stuck in an internet-induced malaise, my stomach devoid of the wonderful down-home cooking my folks are dishing out just down the road. I won't be starving for long, just until I can finish this review for Adult's newest. This temporary hunger strike is supposed to get me into a certain mindframe conducive to fully experiencing Adult., I really wanna get up against their brand of blackened electro-punk and exchange knowing glances. I wanna dance because I have to, because the music demands it, overriding any reservations I have about throwing a fit in a public place.

I've been with Adult. with a minute now, first running across Anxiety Always as a wide-eyed freshman thumbing thru the WUSC music library, that album along with the Vanishing's Still Life's Are Falling soundtracking an especially awesome Halloween where I dressed up like a straightedger and made people really uneasy. Having released their first 12" in 1998, Adult. has been at it for a while, always existing smartly at the moment when punk splintered. Post-punk? Check. Industrial? Yeah. Goth? Kind of. These are a few of my favorite things when done right and Adult. manages to be all at once. But don't knitpick, over-intellectualizing sub-genres is sooo 2004. Adult. is a tight package navigating a black sea of now quite divisive musical cliques, they're capable of being loved equally by fans across the spectrum, from Nine Inch Nails to Prurient, Adult. will elbow, kick, and stomp a hole thru your playlists.

Adult. has always specialized in making black hearts beat. Alot of criticism splits hairs about the group's shifting sound but Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus have been stomping down the same twisted metal highway the entire time. Sam Consiglio or not, things aren't much different. Adult. has a fierce dedication to its craft; whether the record is debated as more electronic or less electronic, the duo has always aimed to make you move with panic attack fervor; the end result is similar whether its four-on-the-floor drum machine beatsss or an emphasis on scuzzy bass guitar thudding.

Why Bother? is yet another nod towards the shadows. Check their myspace for visual queues and clues about the outlook of the album. Its all playful doom and gloom. Sure its dark and moody and all but its really self-aware too. Not to say thats a fault, if they were this purely vitriolic it'd be too good to be true. Motivations aside, Adult. can still kick you square in the crotch. "I Feel Worse (When I'm With You)" is like throwing knives at your S.O. because he left the toilet seat down again and totally missed the target. Thats it, the final straw. Check the cheeky vid for this song on the Youtube front. I'm on this audio/visual tangent because how the song is presented visually can't help but shape criticism, these songs with vids as kind of focal point for us long-winded but short on inspiration blogosphere critics. "The Importance of Being Folk" is a suite of three ambient soundscaping type tracks, short and horizontal, broken up throughout the album, but presented visually to tell a creepy backwoods story with cryptic supernatural happenings. Overall, Why Bother? boasts the band's most acrid electro work to date, whether in grating synth stabs or noisy driving machine beats. Miller's basswork is also stellar, sounding like how a concrete block feels, heavy and something you don't want connecting with your head. And of course, Nicola Kuperus is in fine howling form, crying bloody murder over spilt milk and certainly being the opposite of a cliche. Punks, goths, rivetheads, noise nerds, electro enthusiasts, they all bow down to worship at Kuperus' shitkicking boots.

By now you should know Adult. Take away with you this nugget of wisdom: Adult. is gonna be that band in like ten years (if we're all still here) that people will look back on as being essential. All the microtrends invented by people on message boards will be eaten alive by even more bullshit ephemeral scenes of people pretending that wearing their underwear on their head is the cool thing to do. And it may seem like the thing to do but only for a minute. You'll wake up with your briefs on your head and be a total outcast. Adult. is a band built on strong foundations, embodying many good things like all the bastard children of punk, evolved and fully realized by the duo of Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus. This is one for the time capsule.





Dan Deacon - The Crystal Cat (Carpark 2007)

Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the Rings / Carpark

I can't get enough Dan Deacon. Dan Deacon. Dan Deacon. Dan Deacon. See? Say that over and over again. Its fun! Thats life thru Dan Deacon's duct-taped glasses, little pixie sticks of fun grow everywhere. Pick them and eat them and get at it. You're only as young as you feel and thanx to Mr. Dan Deacon I'm feeling like eight years old right now. Its Friday night, I got new comix and Dad brought home pizza, things in my simple little world are a-okay. This burst of childhood exhuberance comes courtesy of Dan Deacon's new record, Spiderman of the Rings, out on Carpark May 8th. Its all suicide snowcones and monster trucks, a record of electronic whimsy, sugar-rush giddiness straight to the dome. I just snagged this yesterday and I can't stop bouncing off the walls. If only I had one of those toy basketball hoops in my bedroom. I'd be tearing that shit up right now.

Its impossible not to associate Deacon's music with a feel good childhood vibe. Dude has put out a record called Porky Pig. There you go. Deacon also counts Spiderman as a main influence, not only for the cartoony garishness but especially for Spidey's famous maxim: "With great power comes great responsibility". Kinda gets you all sniffly huh? I think Deacon's music is a large laser machette fighting against a mostly dour culture that tells people to grow up too fast. And somehow its caught up in this potential movement or maybe just coincidence of bands being tagged as "future shock", in reference to Alvin Toffler's 1970 cult sociology hit that warned of the ever-increasing grip technology has on our lives and how the constant accelerating speed of life will lead to total information overload, causing "shattering stress and disorientation" in much of society. I'm not sure its a cure, but Deacon's music is a well-intentioned treatment of pure lasertag love, surely meant to make us jump up and down like kids at play, kool-aid moustaches and all.

See also: Ecstatic Sunshine, Ponytail, DAT Politics, o.lamm, and Grabba Grabba Tape for more pure feeling generators, functioning in the same manner as Mr. Deacon with hopped-up geeked-out rainbow brite jams.

Deacon went to grad school at Purchase College where he was all about electro-acoustic and computer music studies, and Spiderman of the Rings is an exercise in academic electro tomfoolery. Academic as in your wacky English TA that wore goofy glasses and awful sweaters, eyes glazed, living in the wonderful postponed adolescence of academia. In other words, this is all about ideals and being, yes, idealistic about the kind of music that can change someone's general outlook, especially in the live-setting where Deacon's performances are legendarily sweaty and spontaneously combustible. Every show wants to become a huge "Funzone", which from what I've heard about Wham City, the live-in residence throwing shows, art bashes, etc. in Baltimore, the Funzone ideal was actually realized, putting theory to practice (as much as anyone can).

The twelve-minute track, "Wham City", is a sonic mission statement with huge gang vocals like a chorus of teddy bears chanting about this magical glowing castle with a fountain of gold and the sickest cartoon family band of all-time, the Gummi Bears, the Smurfs, motherfucking Shirttails, all jamming out. "Woody Woodpecker" also contributes to the Saturday Morning feel, with, you guessed it, a song based on that laugh, underlined by casio beats and blissful sinewaves. "The Crystal Cat" is my favorite track, hop along to the sound of Surf Cats, a powerhouse song featuring Deacon's talent for vocal processing, sounding like the most rock-n-roll chipmunk ever. "Okie Dokie" and "Trippy Green Skull" sound like futuristic hokey pokey throwdowns, you and your friends wylin' out in somebody's impossibly sweet treehouse. "Snake Mistakes" features a bouncey bassline and "I know, I know, I know" vocal stickiness, catching in your ear like moments of Beck's finer work, definitely leaning towards that easy-going Mellowgold vibe.

Do you still have an imagination? For real, Dan Deacon is like a Peter Pan for our generation. Let it all loose, guilt-free from looking like a spazz because here cool is measured in how much you boogie oogie. Its not overstatement to say Spiderman of the Rings is like going to Showbiz once a year, it carries an electric excitement and the need to just let it all go and hop around like a goofy toddler. Its smart, its fun, its a faceplant into your birthday cake. Dan Deacon, totally bringing the birthday party to full effect.

New Music: (((Powerhouse Sound))), Bill Callahan

(((Powerhouse Sound))) - Old Dictionary (for Bernie Worrell) (Atavistic 2007)

(((Powerhouse Sound))) – Oslo/Chicago: (((Breaks))) / Atavistic

By this point, I’ve written about jazz a good number of times, but every now and again while doing my initial research on an album, I come across a review written by a true jazz critic that makes me hesitate to write anything at all. This is the problem I came across while preparing my critical improv for Ken Vandermark’s latest group (((Powerhouse Sound))), which is actually two collectives of musicians separated by the Atlantic Ocean approaching the same set of compositions. Well Allmusic’s review of the double-disc is amazing; it’s clearly the work of a person who is either a knowledgeable jazz player in his/her own right, or has spent a good chunk of time concentrating on the ins and outs of jazz music. I, on the other hand, rarely write two reviews in a row that are even in the same sonic worlds of each other, so it’s been an inch at a time progression for my critiques on each particular style of music. So while I’m not going to be able to drop such awe-inspiring lines of critique like: “Vandermark finds a natural tension between the constancy of circular rhythm broken by a meta-textual musico-linguistic syntax of individual statements made from the conception of groove that moves out toward something else and finds itself home again in the primary communication at its center,” I’ll do my best to share some knowledge with you.

Ken Vandermark is among the top contemporary jazz musicians who still explore the same spiritual sonic space as the great players of the late 60s/early 70s underground jazz scene. Through his infinitely expressive work with the tenor sax and bass clarinet, he’s one of the few remaining direct links to the groundbreaking work of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Joe McPhee, Ornette Coleman and Fred Anderson. But being exposed to the modern music scene, Vandermark has had the privilege to see the evolution of post-bop, modern creative, avant-garde and free jazz and link the past and present together into one fiery, cerebral brand of his own music. Leading and contributing to such bands as The Vandermark 5, The Flying Luttenbachers, Spaceways Incorporated, Exploding Star Orchestra, Crisis Ensemble and the NRG Ensemble, to name just a few, more than warrants his controversial reception at just 35 of the MacArthur Fellowship aka the “genius grant” in 1999, an award typically only given to “near-legendary” figures of any age in any field who "show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work" like past music-based winners Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton. During the last 18 years, Vandermark has helped to sustain the incredibly heady underground Chicago jazz scene and he looks to continue the tradition with his latest concoction (((Powerhouse Sound))), which bridges the Windy City to Oslo, Norway.

The original line-up of (((Powerhouse Sound))) was actually based in Oslo, not Chicago. In the summer of 2005, Vandermark teamed up with electronic manipulator Lasse Marhaug, drummer Paal Nilssen-Love (of Atomic and a regular contributor to Vandermark’s School Days) and bassist Ingebrigt Håker (of Atomic, School Days and Element), while also bringing along Vandermark 5 bassist Nate McBride (Spaceways Incorporated, Joe Morris Trio/Quartet). There is a definite Orentte Coleman influence within this group, not only in the incorporation of two basses as heard on Coleman’s recent Sound Grammar, but also as we’ll see in a few minutes, a relative homage to In All Languages which is a double album featuring two different groups (an acoustic and electronic) attacking the same compositions. The Norwegian ensemble set out to approach songwriting in the opposite manner of the conventional “from the top down.” Instead, they put a heavy emphasis on the rhythm section, building their ideas for the low end up, which certainly explains the double electric bass line-up. As with most Vandermark 5 albums, he showcases his influences right in the song title and this album is no different. Looking to the dubbed out rhythms of Jamaica, especially the wily compositions of King Tubby, Lee Perry, Coxsonne Dodd and Burning Spear, as well as the collaging techniques of Hank Shocklee of Public Enemy and the ferocious rhythm section of The Stooges, (((Powerhouse Sound))) is a free jazz band built on a thunderous foundation of genres dependent on rhythmic inventiveness like funk, reggae, dub and the original spit-in-your-face ideal of rock ‘n’ roll. This is further symbolized in the album title (((Breaks))), and believe you me, there are some vicious, unruly breakdowns to contend with on this album, especially when looking at the first disc, Oslo.

This first disc with the Norwegian line-up consist of basically three different modes for the band, the heavily rhythmic double-bass breakdowns, the noise disintegration when Marhaug gets the go-ahead to explore his sonic palette, and the culmination of both ideals with Vandermark weaving effortlessly in between with his growling tenor sax. “Shocklee (for Hank Shocklee)” displays this perfectly: the 12-minute song opens slowly with dirty electronic snarls before the rhythm section comes grooving in. One bass lays down your traditional beat while the other circles around menacingly, daring any intruder to attack at will. That intruder just happens to be Vandermark, who comes stabbing in just before the halfway mark, never overshadowing the rhythm section but adding augmenting swabs of melody and harmony. The song comes full circle, first breaking down into the kind of daring, aggressive low-end that made Public Enemy so volatile and progressing to crumble right back into Marhaug’s collaging electronics. “King to Crown (for King Tubby)” flips this structure by book ending the song with the entire group jamming off the booming low end and leaving the electronic improvisations for the creamy center. “Coxsonne (for Coxsonne Dodd),” “Acid Scratch (for Lee Perry)” and “Exit-Salida (for Burning Spear)” all groove on similar patterns, opening with a light bass, drum and sax rhythm that echoes the early days of reggae through a jazz state of mind. Each song also succumbs to noisy outbreaks about three-fourths way though with the latter two highlighting Vandermark’s squealing sax solos. “2-1-75 (for Miles Davis)” (perhaps paying homage to Davis’s two consecutive concerts in Osaka, Japan in February of 1975 released as Agharta and Pangea on Columbia) and “New Dirt (for The Stooges)” both feature scathing tape manipulation strung throughout and the latter adds an inverting effect to one of the basses causing it to bellow and bloat from underneath the rhythm.

The second disc finds Vandermark and McBride returning to their home Chicago scene and teaming up with drummer John Herndon (Tortoise, Isotope 217, Exploding Star Orchestra) and guitarist Jeff Parker (Tortoise, Isotope 217, Chicago Underground). This ensemble takes on the same songs as the Oslo crew, but with a different sonic approach and sometimes in different arrangements of the same compositions; for example “Acid Scratch pt. 2 / Shocklee / Exit-Salida” which obviously combines three of the songs from the previous disc. The only completely new tune on this disc, “Old Dictionary (for Bernie Worrell),” an ode to the one time keyboardist for Funkadelic and Parliament, opens the second half and showcases the similarities between the two groups. Herndon and McBride lock together seamlessly while Parker at many times takes the place of the scratching electronics and Vandermark jumps back and forth from his harmonic stance to acting in the same manner as Håker did as the second bassist. I am a bit partial to this second ensemble partly because it’s considerably more accessible and partly because the groove quotient is upped considerably, and I’m a sucker for a good groove. It should be noted that we are not dealing with Tortoise 2.0 though, songs like “King to Crown pt. 1 / Acid Scratch pt. 2” are comfortably in the free jazz spectrum with the rhythm section providing the thematic chunky chorus while Vandermark and Parker take turns soloing with minute dexterity and sheer technical prowess. “Coxsonne” truly pays homage to the Studio One producer with it’s calm, echoing opening groove and laid-back riddim, even though the eventual blasting breakout sounds more on the Stooges side of things. And that very same exuberance is what makes the real Stooges influence on “New Dirt / King to Crown pt. 2” so invigorating, Parker’s wily electric guitar punch and Vandermark’s raucous yet inherently smooth outbreaks teamed with Tubby-like grooves.

Oslo/Chicago: (((Breaks))) is one hell of an album. Two opposing discs bent on outdoing the other but with the same exact frame of mind. Two opposing cultures sharing the same love of artistic influence and means of expressing it but with radically different results. Two ensembles both highly experienced and instrumentally proficient looking to pay homage to their shared heroes and create something truly individual, hypnotizing and invigorating in its own right. It is an album built from the ground up, low end to high, rhythm to melody, and influence to individual. It is an album that bridges continents, cultures, styles and feelings, and succeeds wildly.







Bill Callahan - Sycamore (Drag City 2007)

Bill Callahan – Woke on a Whaleheart / Drag City

New Weird America allows a myriad of outside genre influences to seep into the psychedelic folk foundation. Swashes of free jazz, metal, noise, tropicália, electronica and other seemingly alien styles have regularly been incorporated within the very loose boundaries of the genre, and its a musical movement that has come to dominate the independent scene in the last five years. Bill Callahan predated this latest trend by a good fifteen years, building a solid following under his Smog and (smog) aliases by a slew of cassette only releases in the late 80s and early 90s before signing to Drag City around 1992 and continually experimenting with his odd, lo-fi singer/songwriter status. From his early days as a Jandek-influenced free-folk purveyor to his more recent albums that explored more melodic and lush arrangements to his continually evocative narratives, Callahan, like John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, seems to live outside of the New Weird quirk collective simply because they have been plugging along and living in their own insular worlds for so long. It would be a mistake to group them with any trend even if they share similar characteristics... well, except perhaps with each other. But as we have seen before, their influence certainly does not go unnoticed, and with his first official full-length released under his proper name, I hope all the New Weirdos are paying attention to Bill Callahan because his gospel-folk maybe the latest hybrid genre to arise within their stylistic confines.

The first four songs of Woke on a Whaleheart are phenomenal. Easing his way into this new musical approach, “From the Rivers to the Ocean” slowly laps and layers forward; first the melancholy piano, then the reverberant snare and finally Callahan’s croaking baritone opens the song into an almost Cash-like ballad. Leaves of electric guitar and lap steel gently float by and about halfway through the song climaxes with these ghostly gospel echoes care of Olivet Baptist Church’s Deani Pugh-Flemming and a sashaying country-folk violin provided by Elizabeth Warren. It’s six-and-a-half minutes of riverside balladry and it just soothes the soul. “Footprints” is a bit more aggressive with its foot-stomping beat and playful spirit. Both Pugh-Flemming and a raw electric guitar have increased roles, the former providing colorful embellishments to Callahan’s more charismatic lines and the latter adding a crunchy layer to the otherwise pie-like material. The first single from the album which was previewed on the previously released EP of the same name, “Diamond Dancer” features a great vocal hook from Callahan which acts as a reassuring spirit to the otherwise tension-filled track. Then we get to my favorite, “Sycamore,” five-and-a-half minutes of spine tingling, ping-ponging guitars and Callahan’s soothing, sap-filled baritone. He even gets a bit sassy with the much-needed help of Pugh-Flemming for a great bridge of lyrical sincerity. Everything sounds so unforced and natural, and the free spirit is downright infectious.

Not that the second half is a stark contrast from the first four songs, but I do believe it’s a step down from the first half of the album. The highlight is definitely “Day,” which motors around on an M. Ward like piano roll while Callahan’s patiently paced lyrics awkwardly counteract the rollicking music. And that opposition of what you expect from Callahan and the actual music presented here really is the majority of the appeal in this album. Though it has definitely been a slow progression, comparing Callahan’s early recordings to Woke on a Whaleheart is near impossible. His earliest 4-track recordings creaked of alienation and insecurity, while on this album he sounds confident, assured and pretty damn playful. And as I said before, the spirit is fucking infectious. I mean hell, I spent the majority of last week repeatedly singing “Like Sycamoreeeeeeeeees.” It seeps into your brain and the hook just sits on repeat, which would be annoying if it wasn’t so damn sincere. These wonderful vocal hooks are scattered throughout Woke on a Whalehorse, and different one seems to take the spotlight with each concurrent listen. For a man who built his foundation on lyrical prowess and not really catchy but mesmerizing with a voyeuristic-like quality, that’s worth mentioning. It’s a wonderful thing to listen to Callahan’s progression from Jandek comparisons to Nilsson parallels, and it’s been a maturing process captured on tape. It is a nearly 20-year tale of self-discovery with a wonderful accompanying discography.

Used-Bin Bargains: Dr. Alimantado - Best Dressed Chicken in Town

Dr. Alimantado - Best Dressed Chicken in Town (Greensleeves 1977, recorded 1974)

Dr. Alimantado - I Am the Greatest Says Muhammed Ali (Greensleeves 1977, recorded 1973)

Dr. Alimantado – Best Dressed Chicken in Town / Greensleeves

So I’m slightly cheating with this week’s entry; I did not cop this from the used bin this particular week as the mission statement for this column suggests. I actually came across it a number of years back, not too long after it’s 2001 re-release date, and way before I was able to put it in any sort of context within the my musical knowledge. Over the years I’ve picked up bits and pieces of information on Dr. Alimantado, one of the most interesting figures in popular reggae music from the 60s and 70s, sometimes even rivaling the insane biography of the unparalleled Lee “Scratch” Perry, a close compatriot and collaborator. A recent interview in Wax Poetics along with a growing internet interest in the Jamaican toaster and a soapbox to now stand and shout upon has led me to finally tackling one of the most prized used bin finds of my early college years, Dr. Alimantado’s Best Dressed Chicken in Town. Not extensively rare by any means but very much under the radar, the quirky, jerky toasting of James Winston Thompson over eclectic backing tracks provided by some of the most renown Jamaican producers including Lee Perry, King Tubby and Scientist adds up to one of the most idiosyncratic and unique voices in reggae history, and it is certainly worth our time to do a little exploring within the legend.

James Winston Thompson aka Dr. Alimantado aka Youth Winston aka Winston Cool aka Ital Surgeon aka Prince Winston aka Ras Tado aka probably a dozen other monikers I’ve missed was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1952 and grew up in one of the most notorious ghettos of the city’s west side. A wily youth raised by his mother in the typical Jamaican fashion, Thompson bounced around the Caribbean island exploring his roots and working countless odd jobs, not to mention a healthy dose of rambunctiousness and youthful tyranny. A distant relative of the great Marcus Garvey (cousin of his mother’s grandmother), a symbol of self-determination who started Universal Negro Improvement Association, Thompson was the son of a well-off Jamaican woman of African and Trinidadian descent and a half-Ghanaian, half-Jamaican Rastaman. His paternal grandfather was a doctor in Ghana before moving to Jamaica at the request of his wife, a man Thompson would idolize with his most renowned moniker, Dr. Alimantado.

Like most Jamaican legends, the actual story is a bit… well hazy. Different biographies reveal sometimes-conflicting stories, and Thompson’s entry into the world of music is no different. One interview reveals that he was lured to the dancehall scene as early as three or four, though I find that a little hard to believe, but either way, Thompson was interested in the world of music at a young age. After a chance meeting with his father, he gradually gravitated toward the Rastafarian religion and spent much of his childhood rebelling from his Christian-oriented grandmother by growing dreads (and then repeatedly getting them chopped off in punishment) and running away from home. By the early 60s, Thompson was basically a street urchin, finding work when he could, stealing when he couldn’t and attending dances in the meantime. A chance encounter with legendary toaster King Stitt who deejayed for Sir Coxsone’s Downbeat led to Thompson’s first stage performance when he chatted Psalms 1 and 2 over ska sides. Inspired by the crowd reaction, he became a freelance deejay being schooled by legends like U-Roy and eventually becoming a star himself heralded by Jack Ruby, the producer not the assassin, among others and working with some of Jamaica’s top-ranking sound systems.

Though recording sporadically in the 60s, Thompson would not establish himself as an artist in his own right until hooking up with the legendary Lee “Scratch” Perry in the late 60s. Their first sessions together proved promising as they recut Junior Byles’ “Place Called Africa” into “Chapter 3 of Africa,” one of Thompson’s first island-wide hits. Other significant releases from this era include his contribution to Byles’ other smash hit “Beat Down Babylon,” collaborating with Perry and Hortense Ellis (then known as Mahalia Saunders) on “Piece of My Heart,” and one of the first deejay records released in praise of the Rastafari faith, “Maccabee The Third,” recorded over Max Romeo’s “Maccabee Version” rhythm. By the early 70s, Thompson had fully converted to both the Rastafarian religion and the Dr. Alimantado moniker and sought out full control of his own work. He formed two labels, Ital and Vital Foods, and began to barter for choice cuts of rhythms from other producers, including spending an increasing amount of time at Perry’s Black Ark studios where the two infinitely creative minds started to produce songs together.

This brings us to the era that the relative greatest hits compilation, Best Dressed Chicken in Town, stems from to showcase Thompson’s most fruitful years. Officially released in 1977 as Greensleeves 001, the album pulls tracks from 1973 to 1977 stopping just before his international hit, “Born for a Purpose,” which we’ll get to a little later. The centerpiece of this cult classic is obviously the opening title track from 1974, in which Thompson utilized a continuous, triple-tracked stream of multi-toasting over Perry’s heavily dubbed-out rhythm track of Horace Andy’s “Ain’t No Sunshine.” Inspired by a well-known radio poultry advertisement, Thompson and Perry crafted one of the most individual and quirky pieces of reggae mania that would stand as a testament to both men’s shared mad scientist-like creativity. Only three other of the included tracks on this compilation were born in the Black Ark studio, 1973’s “I Am the Greatest Say Muhammad Ali” and “Ride On” and 1974’s “Can’t Conquer Natty Dreadlocks.” Both of the 1973 tracks stem from the same piece of amazing dubbed out funk provided by Perry himself. “Ride On” features Alimantado’s smooth singjaying (sing-toasting) with Jah Woosh and Jimmy Radwell providing backup vocals. It’s a laid-back track expressing a love of unity, but given free reign of the track, Perry reimagined it into something truly amazing. “I Am the Greatest Says Muhammad Ali” is one of those Perry dubs you have to hear to believe, a bone crunching guiro forefronts the psychedelic funk ebbing in the background; wah-wah guitars, muted brass and bites of organ all take momentary turns in the spotlight further cementing Lee Perry’s unparalleled studio magic. 1974’s “Can’t Conquer Natty Dreadlocks” was more a product of Thompson’s creativity than Perry’s though as he spins Delroy Wilson’s “Trying to Conquer Me” into a soulful pronouncement of his Rastafarianism.

The earliest of the tracks culled on Best Dressed Chicken in Town were actually recorded at King Tubby’s, mostly from 1972 and 73, right before his relationship with Perry bloomed. The earliest available here is the vibrant self-produced “Ital Galore” that was no doubt a dancehall favorite, in which Thompson’s off-tune croon swirls around echoing horn riffs and up-beat keyboard chops. Tubby engineers some more magic on 1973’s “Plead I Cause,” which once again utilizes Andy’s “Ain’t No Sunshine” rhythm into a strikingly religious testament that asks Jah to actually intercede all that oppose him. 1975 proved to be another productive year for Thompson in Tubby’s studio where he self-produced three of his most notable concoctions, “Poison Flour,” “I Killed the Barber” and “Johnny Was a Baker.” Riding the riddim of the 1968 hit “The Man Next Door” by The Paragons, Alimantado dubbed Horace Andy for the hook and worked with Tubby protégé “Prince” Phillip Smart to piece together a hypnotizing, bubbling call-out to his fellow Rastafarians to not fear the attacks on their people because Jah would protect them. Engineered by Buddy Lee at Tubby’s, “I Killed the Barber” continues Thompson’s heavily Rastafarian outlook. Utilizing Jackie Edwards’ “Ali Baba” for the hook and riddim, he explains that though he sees nothing wrong with the death of the local barber (a position disapproved of by the Rastafarians who look upon their hair as faithful symbolism), it was actually the baldhead Tom who killed him. A confusing story yes, but catchy as hell, and it notably uses clanging sheet metal to ape the sound of gunshots, which is a technique that would be used often for years to come.

There are few later tracks also included that were neither recoded at Perry’s or Tubby’s, like 1976’s “Gimme Mi Gun,” built from Gregory Isaacs’ “Thief a Man” at Channel One, and “Unitone Skank,” which found Isaacs and Thompson working together on an original tune. The compilation closes with 1977’s “Tribute to the Duke,” an A-side dub featuring the Channel One studio band, The Revolutionaries, helmed by Alimantado. But beyond this comp, 1977 was a tumultuous year for Thompson as he was nearly paralyzed but used the experience to produce his only international hit, “Born for a Purpose.” On the day he was slated to rehearse for his first show at Jamaica’s main theater, the Carib, he not only was resuscitated after nearly drowning in the early morning, but was struck down and dragged behind a bus while walking home; according to his Wax Poetics interview, he believes it was because he was flying his dreads while walking in the streets, a statement not too popular at the time. The song came to him while he was recovering and legend has it that he had to drag himself across his house, due to the ineffectiveness of his crippled legs, to find a pad and pencil to write it down. Recorded at Channel One during a free session (basically out of charity and respect), the song, which proudly explains “if you feel that you have no reason for living, don’t determine my life,” captured the ideals of the burgeoning UK punk scene and took off in the British Isles. Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten further spread the word when he named it among his all-time favorites during a radio interview, and The Clash even mentioned him in the song “Rudie Can’t Fail” with the line: “Like the doctor who was born for a purpose.”

Thompson’s recorded output significantly slows starting in the late 70s. He relocated to Lodon in 1978 and started his ISDA label, which is also about the time he hooked up with Greensleeves (who he signed with because they gave him the most freedom though he was at the same time being courted by major labels like Virgin, Island and EMI) and released Best Dressed Chicken in Town as their first official discography entry. During the 80s, he spent most of his time in Britain, released the In the Mix dub series and worked with lesser known DJs and toasters like Clint Eastwood, Jah Stone and Trinity. As the years passed, the musical output slowed and Thompson traveled in increasing spurts exploring most of Europe and North Africa. Though we have yet to see any actual new music, he is apparently setting up a new studio to cultivate new talent and record more of his wholly individual sound. One can only hope that an immensely creative mind like that of Dr. Alimantado will once again grace us with his quirky, rambunctious and infectious musical stylings.

For more information please visit:
www.doctoralimantado.com
www.greensleeves.net
Wax Poetics #19, “Medicine Man” by David Katz
www.waxpoetics.com

Threeversity #5

Audiversity’s weekly column on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 96.

(Ed. - Originally this was called Threeversity, but in the spirit of simplicity we've decided to retroactively relabel all of these posts. The content remains unchanged.)

MA:
(#96 of a random playlist generated from my ever-changing database of 12,500+ songs)



Jorge Dalto - I've Got You on My Mind - Chevere (United Artists 1976)

While I had no intentions of spinning this into an ad for WLUW’s Record Fair next weekend, this song just sets it up so perfectly. I copped this LP at a record fair put on by my previous station’s (WUSC) purge of their library, and it was definitely the diamond in the rough sack of records I left with. A tasty bite of Latin jazz-fusion, Argentine-born keyboardist Jorge Dalto joins Bernard Purdie and Ronnie Foster for some swirling synthesizer soundscapes. Funky like a Sonic theme song, it’s a testament to what wonderful surprises crate-digging can unearth.

PM:

Jon Brion, a guy probably best known these days for his work with Fiona Apple Kanye West, once helped make a movie score I consider one of the finest in the last decade: 1999’s “Magnolia” was a beautiful, bizarre and oft-maligned film that never gets old. Part of the reason is Brion’s score, always bubbling beneath the surface of sounds to add that extra bit of tension without distracting the viewer. “So Now Then” is featured toward the finale, but its job is the opposite: Explain, comfort, resolve. Few instrumental pieces have touched me as immediately.

JR:

So like all us Audiversitarians, Jordan is a workaholic. We all work multiple jobs to pay the bills and write in the meantime, so on occasion the music slips our mind like it did today for Jordan’s entry. It’s 33 degrees here in Chicago and my ass is obviously planted on the couch, so I’ll just toss another random mp3 at you in his place. This time around we get The Chosen Few’s way too edited-down cover of the Shaft theme song found on the cramped Blunted in the Bomb Shelter compilation culled by Madlib. Enjoy.

New Music: Dntel, The Skull Effect

Dntel - Natural Resources (Sub Pop 2007)

Dntel - Dumb Luck / Sub Pop

Life is Full of Possibilities. "(This is) The Dream of Evan & Chan." The Postal Service. Give Up. Wouldn't it be great if every review said this in the first line for Jimmy Tamborello's latest Dntel release and then didn't mention it again? Is there anyone who isn't tired of hearing how the monumental success of Give Up (second only to Bleach in Sub Pop's discography!) has made Tamborello one of indie's biggest names? Dntel just seems like a machine pitch for reviewers because, what the hell, everything has to measure up to Give Up now. If it's not as instantly brilliant as "Brand New Colony" or whatever then it must mean he's "trying something different." So there it was: Every review you'll ever read for Dntel in about five sentences.

Unfortunately, Dntel and The Postal Service (and Figurine, and James Figurine) are all inextricably linked by Tamborello's boardwalking. The guy has always been a meticulous producer dating back to his earliest work under the moniker as a kid fresh out of high school in the mid-90s. Dntel (or "don't tell," or nothing since Tamborello initially meant it to mean as much) is his oldest alias, and though it's no longer his most famous, there's no doubt he has to take a certain amount of pride in the limited body of musical magic he's managed to get out for it: 1999's Early Works for Me if it Works for You, Life is Full of Possibilities, two EPs, two singles. But those were all done in the days when glitch was still a relatively new idea that hadn't quite infiltrated the pop spectrum. Electronica was still mutating, still coming along. Pro Tools software cost $795. Different days, my man. Different days.

Six years on from his groundbreaking sophomore album comes Dumb Luck. You can do your own speculating on what the title means, but know this: The songs he's put together here (albeit with the help of a host of friends) are beautiful and elegant and there's no dumb luck in that. Tamborello was as careful with the details as he's ever been for this album, and it sounds as good as anything else he's put out. You may have already heard the title-track; that's just the first in a series of atmospheric songs that occasionally change pace but most often have at their core a steady beat that lets the melody swirl around it instead. Pure hypnosis.

"Rock My Boat" is an interesting example featuring Mia Doi Todd. The slowest song on the album (but also one of its shortest), "Rock My Boat" sounds exactly like its title, easing gently in and out of the troughs of white noise waves as the breeze blows back your hair and the clouds float by. Part of Tamborello's appeal for me is how he doesn't have to trick out a song with microtechnics to make it engrossing. Sometimes all it takes is a little vinyl hiss to make what would otherwise be a curious, horn-driven ballad like "Natural Resources" feel warm and approachable. For a guy who's built a reputation on the subtle (Mistake Mistake Mistake Mistake is such a Berlin-based album that you sometimes hardly notice it's on), it's these basic touches that keep the listener focused through the slower first half before the expected beats and beeps kick in for the finale.

As I mentioned, it's not all Tamborello. Of course, it never is: From Mia Doi Todd to Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste to Mystic Chords of Memory to Conor Oberst to, yes, Jenny Lewis, this album is awash in guest appearances and friends in high places to drop a vocal or two. But as it's always been with Dntel, nobody's overpowering the music; this was especially a shock with Oberst, who I thought for sure would flip out with another one of his "heart-wrenching" moments, but even Conor knows what restraint means, and the metronome-like "Breakfast in Bed" is all the better as a result. This whole album is better as a result. Maybe he'll finally get the critical shaft for that second Postal Service LP due later this year, but that would be dumb luck of a different kind. Tamborello's a solid producer and his faultless attention to detail sustains itself for at least one more album. There's no reason to think that, nearly 20 years on from his first informal musical forays, he will suddenly catch himself out with The Postal Service. If Life is Full of Possibilities is anything like Dumb Luck, 2007 is going to be a big year for Tamborello. Go get 'em, Jim.












The Skull Defekts - Sex Fracture (Release the Bats 2007)

The Skull Defekts - Skkull / Release the Bats

The Skull Defekts are a different story. Göteborg, Sweden isn't anything like LA, and Skkull probably captures this difference as dramatically as anything else. Hell, it's still winter out there... And though this weekend promises a white mix of its own Stateside, the effect won't be quite the same. Unless you live in Minnesota.

Now The Skull Defekts aren't entire unknowns. The core quartet (Coretet? Somebody take that for a hardcore cover band in love with Kieran Hebden) of Henrik Rylander, Joachim Nordwall, Jean-Louis Huhta, and Daniel Fagerstroem (who technically wasn't on Skkull but who is counted as a member) have been in a multitude of acts in and around the Göteborg scene for quite some time. Kid Commando, Union Carbide, Cortex, Trapdoor Fucking Exit, on and on it goes. They've been out and about too, assisting Damo Suzuki live and aiding Norway's "jazz and beyond" guy Lasse Marhaug on occasion. With a few releases behind them and enough live experience to warrant a change in formula, it was time to step in a new direction. Skull finds it.

Whereas Dntel uses glitch and warm electronic windshield wipers to glaze over the dirt of every day creating an idyllic world of either crisp mountain air or blissful summer sunsets, The Skull Effect's glitch is a grinding, tortuous walk through the Amazon. The beads of sweat pour down and the claustrophobia of the jungle takes its hold right from the outset of "Sex Fracture." You just don't get any breathing room and, in the best traditions of Wolf Eyes or a more bitter Black Dice, you never feel comfortable in the realm of the Skkull. No coincidence that they share common ground with Ann Arbor's finest, either: They actually did a split LP together last year. The Fang Bomb release might've done something to them: This is a much more minimalist approach than in past releases and the drone of each of these four songs, switched up only once for the broken toybox experimentation of "Breathing Your Face," is relentless. But relentless in a good way, because this stuff is still as heavy as ever and at the end of the day that's what you should want from a Skull Defekts album.

Though it came out in February, Skkull still has a hold on me even now. The buzzing cicadas of "Six Six for Eyes" and the low-end wavelengths that dominate this album are just what you need to frighten the fuck out of your neighbors and get the parents off your case about "what you're going to do now that you're graduating." Or maybe that's just me. Either way, The Skull Defekts are a proven method for warding off the weak and making the Cheshire cat grin that accompanies a Dntel album disappear almost instantly. Yin and yang, that's all it is. A question of balance, an answer of skulls. You can't fracture what's already broken.

New Music: Cornelius, Silmaril

Cornelius - Music (Everloving 2007)

Cornelius – Sensuous / Everloving

Oh the cut-and-paste pop song; it very well may be the most pleasant product of the last twenty years of music making. As technology advanced, artists were not only able to refine their compositions after converting it to 0s and 1s, they were able to completely deconstruct every element of the song. Today's musician is far from finished after recording; days, weeks, months and sometimes years are spent rearranging, reimagining, restructuring and recontextualizing those snippets of wavelengths, and very often the final product is a far cry from the initial idea. And with any new approach to recording music, new schools of post-production techniques have surfaced, from the minute, magnifying glass editing of your Matmoses to the heavily layered abrasions of your Kid606es and everywhere in between. Post-pop is a force to be reckoned with and it opens entire new worlds of architectural possibilities for the technological savvy musician. Japanese cut-and-paste pop aficionado Cornelius has been purveying such aural possibilities since 1993 and his kaleidoscoping compositions have been schooling fans and aspiring producers ever since.

Raised just outside of Tokyo, Keigo Oyamada is very much a product of the Shibuya-Kei Japanese pop phenomenon. Like his contemporaries the Pizzicato Five and Cibo Matto, Oyamada was heavily influenced by the colorful, collaging influences of lounge-pop and urban electronica, mashing together the sweet melodies into refracting, complex arrangements that could only be drawn back to the Japanese imagination. He broke stateside with 1997's Beck-ish Fantasma via Matador and solidified his place among pops most impressive post-producers with 2002's excellent Point, which found the quirky musician significantly mellowing out and exploring especially Brazilian melodies and ambient noise. Sensuous continues down this trail, finding Cornelius's arrangements as pristine as ever and proceeding down the path of patience only accessible with age and experience. I don't want to say he's reached the peak of his potential, but this is the twiddling, exotic, playful and organic album we've been patiently waiting from Oyamada all these years.

The CD comes embedded with a music video of the first single, "Fit Song," a skeletal funk-pop piece with swashes of 80s synthesizer. The visual interpretation consists mostly of stop animation using household items ranging from sugar cubes to toothbrushes to reanimated rhino beetles that had no doubt already succumbed to the insect collectors' killing jar. But the sheer fluidity of the video is unbelievable; if it was actually made using the stop animation technique and not a digital editor (though I seriously doubt it), someone spent many an hour agonizing over each frame, which conveniently makes a good parallel to Cornelius's use of samples. When sampling his own instrumental prowess, Oyamada appears to clip every loop just short of its natural decay. The phrase is pristinely rounded off and the originating source is easily decipherable, but his partial selection technique keeps the music innately obtuse and unconventional. So when he approaches a song like "Music," which is a pretty straight-forward tune of mellow Brazilian pop strung through Japanese ideals, all of the lush acoustic guitar strums, synthetic pads and vocal harmonies are clipped strategically and pieced backed together in a collage-like manner to create a delicately jerking pop song. He frequents the laid-back pop-funk apparent in "Fit Song" on a number of occasions, especially effective on onomatopoeic "Beep It." The aptly titled "Breezin'" drifts along with choicely manipulated cheesy-80s-synth-pop source material while Oyamada coos along sounding mostly like Caetano Veloso singing in Japanese, and "Wataridori" could double as animatronic porn music. Album capper "Sleep Warm" is also noteworthy as Oyamada reimagines the 1958 Rat Pack classic of the same name. Utilizing a faux-orchestral arrangement and a healthy amount of Vocoder, Oyamada creates a lullaby for robotic Japanese toys everywhere.

Cornelius cleverly toes the line of cheesy synth-pop and intriguing post-pop with Senuous, and I'd venture to say it's his most realized production to date. He very much taps the curiously engaging synthetic bossa nova coming out of Brazil in the late 80s, but updates it for the new millennium and douses it with a paint bucket full of Shibuya-Kei. It's both organic and electronic, jerky and buoyant, and million other seemingly opposite characteristic pairs made possible through modern recording techniques. It is whole-heartily the work of a sound designer rather than just a musician.






Silmaril - Plymouth Bay (Locust 2007, originally 1973)

Silmaril – The Voyage of Icarus / Locust

So while I'm a pretty big geek about a lot of things, my level of Tolkien geekery is not nearly high enough to give you a proper summation of the exact story of the Silmarils and their relationship to the ridiculously popular Lord of the Rings series. I read The Hobbit years ago and I've seen all three of the movie renditions of the lengthy sequel, but a comfortable understanding of Tolkien's epic legendarium is still a very far cry from my knowledge. But thanks to my mad Wikipedia skills, I have been able to dig up at least a vague description of where we are coming from with an obscure Milwaukee psychedelic folk band and the relationship to their chosen band name.

According to the Wikipedia skills for Silmaril, "[they] are three fictional sacred objects in the form of brilliant star-like jewels which contained the unmarred light of the Two Trees." Two Trees? Yeah, I have no idea either, but continued research reveals they reside in a common mythological element signifying a connection between heaven and earth, bringing order and the divine to terrestrial earth and must be protected at all cost. Okay, so that makes these Silmarils pretty important, but wait! Two of the three were destroyed, so now we are in a bit of a potential apocalyptic pickle. And if I understand this correctly, which I must admit I'm not too confident about, the third and now very important Silmaril was forged into a certain ring you may be familiar with if you've seen the movies/read the books.

Alright, so this collective of musically inclined Milwaukeeans are some serious fantasy geeks, that's not that exciting since Tolkien geekery may be at an all time high these days. Yes, but this Midwest band is also made up of devout Catholics and a lead singer who is torn between his innate homosexuality and his overtly conservative ideas. So now the plot thickens, this legend becomes significantly more interesting and the music that strings it all together begins to come into play. Inspired by the Incredible String Band and the Grateful Dead, Silmaril crafts coffeehouse psychedelic folk with Christian, medieval and operatic influences, not to mention a love for exotic instrumentation and a desire to experiment with musical elements and themes. Culled from the band's sole self-released album, Given Time or the Several Roads in 1973, and the unreleased follow-up No Mirrored Temple, Locust's The Voyage of Icarus will be the first real exposure for the short-lived spiritually confused band, but as they say, better late than never.

Far from the epicenter of acoustic-tinged psychedelic rock in the early 70s, NYC's Lower East Side and San Francisco's Haight Street, frontman Matthew Peregrine (born Jim Boulet), Tom Tews and Michael SanFilippo met in their youthful days spent at Catholic youth retreats. While honing their skills by aping Incredibly String Band songs, multi-instrumentalist William Pint and Mary Ann Filo joined the group under the moniker, Dark Star (yes, after the Grateful Dead song). Filo was quickly ousted by Tews’ girlfriend Sharon Larke (this is shaping up to be some serious Behind the Music drama), the classically trained Mike Krukowski also jumped on board and they thankfully adopted the Silmaril alias. Jamming together with such varying degrees of musicianship and instrumentation, which included a myriad of strings like moon guitars, banjos, fiddles and sitars along with light wind instruments like recorders and kazoos and even on occasions a light-flashing synthesizer or a pump organ, their haunting, trickling, spiritual psychedelic folk came to be.

Bitten by the fantasy bug, the band mixed mystical fairy tales with Christian undertones creating an odd, deeply religious but thoroughly confused ideal within their music. As they began to record Given Time or the Several Roads, frontman Peregrine became involved with Catholic Pentecostalism, a growing charismatic and outlandish branch of Christianity whose stage show heavily influenced Peregrine’s thinking. He also married a close friend because “God instructed him to” further suppressing his homosexuality. Inward tension within the group and the confused inner demons of each of its individual members made for strikingly emotional recordings, and further emphasized by using hauntingly sparse instrumentation. Tracks like “Living Stone,” no doubt referencing both their namesake and Jesus, consisting of no more than delicately plucked acoustic guitar, renaissance-y organ and a vocal duet between Peregrine’s low-key tenor and Larke’s operatic voice. The concentrated banjo twang of “Harrow Hill” is almost Fahey-like before a recorder comes swooping in transforming the tune into some late-night Shire music. Then there are the more exotic songs, like the title track’s mix of droning sitar and Peter, Paul and Mary folk or “Plymouth Bay,” which mixes European string influences with psychedelia.

The latter half of the album features an increasingly growing Christian rock and medieval influence usurping the fantasy stronghold. After recording their unreleased sophomore effort, Peregrine’s marriage broke up, and the group appropriately joined a traveling Renaissance Faire. By the end of the 70s, Silmaril disbanded and Peregrine ended up in Houston finally fully embracing his homosexuality and joining the leather community of the city. He continued his artistic endeavors and eventually ended up in DC where he succumbed to an AIDS-related illness in the mid-90s. The rest of the group continues to make music in varying genres and situations.

With the current climate of New Weird America who share similarly mix thematic influences like Christianity, the Renaissance and fantasy worlds of all kinds, I can easily see the warrant in a re-release like this. Silmaril also share musical elements with this recent movement: psychedelic folk, hymnal emotion, and exotic ventures into European and Indian styles. If you are a fan of acts like Joanna Newsom, Fursaxa, Devendra Banhart and the long list of other freak folkers who I am not familiar with, this is definitely worth your time as a starting point for the genre they’ve since swirled into something truly epic. Silmaril’s back story is as enticing and hypnotic as their dark, delicate music and unless you are up for some serious digging to try and surface an original wax copy of their sole self-released LP, I’d pick up this disc.

New Music: Hot Cross, The Bummer Road

Hot Cross - Silence is Failure (Hope Division 2007)

Hot Cross - Risk Revival / Hope Division

I think one of the reasons I love writing for this blog so much is because I get the opportunity to write about whatever I want however I want to write about it. We don't have ads, we're not here to be a part of the blog culture just 'cause we're bandwagoneers, we're not looking to give you the very first heads-up on the latest n' greatest (or hatest, as it were). We write because we love this music and, that failing, we are so baffled by its success that we feel obliged to comment on the reactions. For me (and maybe me alone), Hot Cross falls unabashedly in the former.

In some respects, I suppose, it is more noble or "in better taste" to have the latest Ed Banger release or an extended digression on a recent Vice signing. Don't get me wrong: I love both of those labels to death. But I don't want you to expect the expected. Hot Cross for me is a band that deserves mention partly because they are so far removed from this whole blogosphere thing. This is a band that has guys who have been around in assorted East Coast scenes for years (most notably as members of Saetia, Off Minor and, er, Interpol). Occasionally dismissed by elitists as an inferior Drive Like Jehu or a third-wave Fugazi, Hot Cross continue to earn the respect of people who still think punk has a soul.

I don't want to make assumptions about your taste as a reader because I think that's part of why "blogs" are looked upon with such disdain. But sometimes as a reader you just have to stand back from a review and ask yourself, "Is this guy full of it?" Though the answer is often blurred here at Audiversity as it is in life, let me be clear: Featuring Hot Cross is not a move of desperation. This is an album I am genuinely enamored with partly because it represents a refreshing change of pace (Ergo, not 4/4) and, man, is it nice to hear some guitars again.

Risk Revival is their second album, a mere four years after Cryonics. Translation: It's been too long. So what's changed? Well, in either a brilliant move or a horrible one, only the production has been touched up a tad. I'm ignoring the split 7s and the Fair Trades & Farewells EP which always felt like stop-gaps. This is still a tight-as-hell release and one listen to the militant "Rejoinder" will confirm that. But after so many years with only a few interim releases on Level Plane and now the always-curious Equal Vision (Hope Division is just an offshoot), you'd think they would've traveled the way of These Arms Are Snakes or even a Pretty Girls Make Graves, fed up with the usual scene fare to the point that they retreat to textures and, heaven forbid, lite ballads.

Not a chance. There's still all the fury of their early releases in tracks like the "fuck off"-driven "Fatefully," but despite the stumbling of the early songs which feel nothing less than completely hackneyed, there's enough going on with this record to feel like it's not a total stumbling block. There's something about "Silence is Failure" here that cannot be ignored in its Jehu-like guitar onslaught. City of Caterpillar would be proud, anyway. Those first swells carry on for the entire song, and even though Billy Werner's vocals are more distinct than they ever were in Saetia (which can be either pleasure or pain depending on how much you can stomach), he does the smart thing here by stepping aside and letting Casey Boland's guitars do the carrying. At just 2m43s, this isn't a song that should feel epic - but it does.

That's credit to the band, who might be smarter now if not more ambitious. Werner may want to be a pop idol here, but Risk Revival is too strong not to sell the kids with their arms still folded. Earth to hairXcore: Grow up and get down. Hot Cross is here to help.












The Bummer Road - We Bark Cos We're Carrying Weight (Child of Microtones / Time-Lag 2006)

The Bummer RoadDeep Space Circuit / Child of Microtones/Time-Lag

Growing up and getting down, yes. That's what expanding the mind and letting the creative juices flow is all about, isn't it. Nobody knows this as well as The Bummer Road: Better known as Matt Valentine and Erika Elder's backing band from earlier this year on Green Blues off Ecstatic Peace, The Bummer Road made a name for themselves on the road last summer when they were touring with the aforementioned couple. It truly was the summer of the Bummer. Don't forget to tip your waitresses.

Green Blues was my first experience with this group, all backwoods New England acid-folk and none of the artificially enhanced digitized landscaping so common to psychedelia these days. I mean, there's a time and a place for Spiritualized... But The Bummer Road just seem to settle in the ears so much better, don't they? Give "We Bark Cos We're Carrying Weight" a listen, for example. This was recorded live and yet you can still hear the ethereality of Elder's voice... Or wait, is that a slide guitar? That's definitely a harmonica. Okay, reverby guitars. Tambourine? The call of some far-off animal or the cavalier roaming of an electric guitar? In the murky world of a Bummer Road live show, the difference is either nonexistent or so marginal it's irrelevant. The point is, you're there with them in the depths. And the only way out is through two CDs of beautiful folk backdrops. The scenery never looked so good.

Deep Space Circuit is actually two discs split evenly between nine songs that reach every corner of the music-as-experience globe. "We Bark Cos We're Carrying Weight" (which is alternately titled "We Bark Cos We're Carryin' Weight" on Kennedy Wings, the Buffalo, NY CD-R just two releases after this one) is modest at just under eight minutes; for a real representation of what The Bummer Road can do given a little lee-way with their live shows, "Who Do You Love Too Much" clocks in at a modest 35 minutes. But it never gets old! I could listen to this stuff all day if I wasn't cursed by fate to love other music as well. Does it sound aimless? Did that noise pedal that just kicked in bother you? Forget it. Just sit back and relax. Enjoy life a little bit. Pet a dog, plant some flowers, take a jog in the park. Just forget it! There's so much to envision and think about and contemplate and ease into when you're listening to Deep Space Circuit, and for once I don't have to use obscure cosmonauts to describe the situation.

There's an otherworldliness about this album and this band, sure, but that's not why I fell into the trap. Sometimes I just want to know what the hell they've got cooking deep in the forests of Maine, beyond the college folk of Orono, beyond the hackneyed images of sea-ravaged lighthouses and lobsters along the coast, beyond the very idea of what it means to be New England acid-folk (Why does the location have to mean anything?). If you can get your hands on anything these people have put out, get it. The releases are almost always rare (Green Blues is the exception) and the quality is almost always better than you'll need. I'm not even taking drugs when I listen to this, that's a true story and maybe the best one I have to tell. I just love the feeling of the open 'Road. Hopefully you will too.

Radio Show Playlist 4/04

6a:
1. My Bloody Valentine - Soon - Loveless (Sire 1991)
2. The Twilight Sad - Cold Days from the Birdhouse - Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters (Fat Cat 2007)
3. Deerhunter - Flourescent Grey - Flourescent Grey EP (Kranky 2007)
4. Thee More Shallows - Oh Yes, Another Mother - Book of Bad Breaks (Anticon 2007)
5. Mahjongg - The Stubborn Horse - Raydoncong (Cold Crush 2005)
6. The Chrome Cranks - Safe from the Blade - Diabolical Boogie (Atavistic 2007)
7. Make Believe - Each Day is Different - The Pink 7" (Flameshovel 2006)
8. Dumbwaiters - Repeats/Version - Musick (Fiani 2004)
9. CocoRosie - Japan - The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn (Touch and Go 2007)
10. The Dirty Projectors - I Will Truck - The Getty Address (Western Vinyl 2004)

7a:
1. Junior Boys - Double Shadow (Kode9 Remix ft. The Spaceape) - The Dead Horse EP (Domino 2007)
2. Slicker - Knock Me Down Girl - Hefty 10 Digest (Hefty 2006, originally 2004)
3. Fennesz - Caecilia - Endless Summer (Mego 2001, rereleased Fat Cat 2006)
4. El-P - Run the Numbers ft. Aesop Rock - I'll Sleep When You're Dead (Def Jux 2007)
5. Aesop Rock - Number Nine - Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives EP (Def Jux 2004)
6. J Dilla - Make'em NV - Ruff Draft (Mummy 2003, rereleased Stones Throw 2007)
7. Cadence Weapon - Black Hand - Breaking Kayfabe (Upper Class 2005, rereleased Epitaph 2007)
8. Roots Manuva - Movements - Brand New Second Hand (Big Dada 1999)
9. Darc Mind - Seize the Phenomenon - Symptomatic of a Greater Ill (Anticon 2006, originally 1997)
10. Nas - It Ain't Hard to Tell - Illmatic (Columbia 1994)
11. Desmond Dekker and the Aces - Keep a Cool Head - Rockin Steady: The Best of Desmond Dekker (Rhino 1992, recorded late 60s)
12. Love Trio - Rock the Rhythm ft. U-Roy - Love Trio in Dub (Nublu 2007)
13. Delroy Wilson - This Life Makes Me Wonder - Jonny Greenwood is the Controller (Trojan 2007, recorded early 70s)

New Music: Ellen Allien, Ghislain Poirier

Ellen Allien - The Other Side: Berlin / Deaf, Dumb, & Blind (2007)

Ricardo Villalobos - Ichso / Cadenza (2005)

Gotta thank Timeout for educating my dumb hick ass about faraway places. Working with Deaf, Dumb + Blind Recordings, the international "go here, and do this" city guide has been bundling info packs of local culture and secret hotspots. Each CD/DVD combo includes an in-depth local tourism guide and a mix put together by an artist representing their city. Past installments have featured Fischerspooner, Black Strobe, and Damian Lazarus repping NYC, Paris, and London, respectively. Now we turn our sights to Berlin, a place I may never see in my life but now I've got this little nugget of culture to pique my interest and soon I will commence searching for impossibly cheap plane tix.

This edition of The Other Side is mixed by Berlin's own stadtkind, Ellen Allien. I've always been interested in how her sound walks a delicate line between packing clubs and invading bedrooms. Sometimes she's more dance-minded and at others interested in creating intimate, reflective electro pop. The only downfall of that is people expecting either end of the spectrum are often disappointed. Whether its the dark, churning style of Thrills or the twinkling, horizontal masterpieces on Orchestra Of Bubbles, you've got to be ready to just go with it. In her music and particularly her mixes, Ellen Allien occupies a unique place in the electronic music spectrum, reimagining club space as something more than simply a place to go dance.

Appropriately enough, EA chooses to begin her mix with David Bowie's "Heroes" sung in passionate German. Its a nice way to put a uniquely German spin on things and set the tone for everything that follows. Its a classy touch to include many artists currently operating out of Berlin, that means more recent ascendents like Booka Shade and Ricardo Villalobos in addition to some old-school gods such as Plastikman and Monolake. All these guys together in a set seems a bit too obvious for most in the know but a real-life pairing all these big names together could happen on any given night in Berlin, such is the wealth of options open to electronica fans in the city. I've gotta really applaud the inclusion of Monolake's "Invisible", a playlist favorite of mine for a minute now. This track is all cold metal, giving off creepy dystopian vibes; it'd be a proper soundtrack for a remake of Logan's Run. Villalobos's "Ichso" is another older track culled from Achso, released on Cadenza in 2005. Smartly placed near the end of the mix, its nine minutes of amazing track-building skills, further proof that Villalobos is some higher form of being.

This is another solid release from Ellen Allien. Her aural tour of Berlin is darkly serene kinda like the waining moments before a solar eclipse, beautiful to behold but foreboding all the same. The track selection is choice, pushing the fact that Berlin is the current heartbeat of electronic music. Listen. Start saving now. Or if you're near to Berlin, just go. This "soundtrack to a city" coupled with the included DVD showing these awe-inspiring temples of electronica worship, it all looks like a killer time so everyone please remember that you gotta give it up if you wanna live it up. Get out there and get at it.





Ghislian Poirier - What It Look Like (Ghislain Poirier remix) (self-released 2007)

Ghislain Poirier - Bounce Le Remix 2 / self-released

I first ran across Ghislain Poirier about two years ago, around the time he released the criminally slept-on Breakupdown. I was heavy into The Fader and Turntable Lab, annoying all my friends by bumping TTC or Young Jeezy everytime we hung out. I've stopped wearing bandanas and for the record I never spent $150 on a single atrocious streetwear hoodie, but unlike some stuff from that era Mr. Poirier has retained a place in my heart.

Falling somewhere between Prefuse 73 and Diplo, Poirier has stamped his name in diamond-plated chrome all over the Montreal scene with the legendary Bounce Le Gros monthly, a night fusing rap, ragga, grime, and other diasporic musical styles. But far from some Hollertronix-influence ripoff, Poirier's solo work gives a nod towards skeletal instrumental hiphop, the kinda beats that don't sound like being rhymed over until someone like Omnikrom or Mr. Lee G spits hot fire all over the track.

So here we have Bounce Le Remix 2 and its vintage Poirier, right out of the box smelling like a pair of new sneaks. Theres a definite clash of "high" and "low" culture here, so if you can't stomach Ciara because its "commercial" then I suggest you turn back now. But I have faith in you, loyal Audiversity reader, and your spirit of adventure, otherwise you wouldn't be here right? So, yeah, Ciara sings her smash hit "Oh" over the tightest leadpipe beat ever, and Poirier decided to keep Luda's verse because if you wanna go platinum you know who to g-g-g-get with. Clipse is parachuted into the world's largest lazertag arena, making for some unstoppable headnod medicine. Busta Rhymes's banger, "Touch It", gets similar treatment with menacing synth spliced with the original's untouchable drums of death. Spank Rock gets two remixes, both of which are the strongest tracks here, totally disproving my usual maxim about mash-ups that two rights always make a wrong. "What It Look Like" gets laid over Daft Punk's "Da Funk" resulting in an electro-rap burner sure to kill any sweaty house party, and "Bump" hops on a bouyant ESG bassline making for a real fun ride.

This collection of remixes is all about Poirier flexing his theoretical music, showing how to properly crash thru different barriers, how to create a passage for seemingly opposing forces like mainstream v. commercial, hiphop v. electro can grasp hands in brotherhood. Or better yet, they've always existed as paper constructs, silent weapons employed by the man just to keep a good thing down.

Audiversity's Quarterly Concern

Michael: We here at Audiversity have been toying with the idea of a quarterly review highlighting some of our favorites from the first three months of 2007. The biggest problem with this idea: All we do is champion our favorite records, so what the hell would be the point of doing this? The point is… well there is no point to be completely honest, but points are overrated and you know it. What's the point of year-end lists? To showcase your heartfelt opinions obviously and concurrently open them up to your peers' often-harsh criticism. And what the fuck is up with some of that?

Recently a good friend and colleague of mine had a video of her browsing Reckless Records and talking about her DJing displayed on the front page of YouTube, and some of the comments left were just straight appalling. The shroud of anonymity is both exhilarating and dreadful in our current interwebbed world. I'm glad she has a strong personality because I would have suffered an anxiety attack if I were in her place (and nearly did when we were featured in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks back).

Jordan: This quarter's been about finding my feet as a reviewer. It's hard finding words in the heavy air of the blogosphere, and it can become a race to beat the other guy to the critical punch, but that would be losing the plot. You blog because its fun and it doesn't feel like homework. I think we Audiversitarians try our best not to deliver proclamations from on high. We're just trying our best to keep afloat in the massive flow of information; fiercely curious dudes who like music and feel the need to write about it. Triangles are a perfect shape as evidenced by soccer, and our three-cornered assault will hopefully continue for a long time to come.

Patrick: And quarterly reviews aren't just about thinking of the past. If we summed it all up by saying how much of a failure LCD Soundsystem's #46 chart position in the opening week on the Billboard charts was for the elitist indie underground, we wouldn't be telling you anything you already knew. In the media world, they call the phenomenon of foresight "spinning it forward:" How do we take the big stories of the first three months of the year and transform it into something useful for you for the future? How does our bloated sense of self-worth relate to you?

We try hard to make music you might not ordinarily hear as humane and as mundane as possible. That sounds like a slight, but it's not: By disguising the far-out sounds of Andrew Douglas Rothbard or subtractiveLAD and by recontextualizing (a favorite word of mine) Frank Turner or The (International) Noise Conspiracy, we hope we can at least convince you to reconsider what you thought you already knew.

Michael: But we confusingly digress; this is supposed to be about music. Looking back at the albums presented on Audiversity in the last three months, it's hard to pick one favorite. My recent obsession of everything West African is all too obvious, both the wonderful Western Saharan blues of Tinariwen and the bubbling, exotic electric guitar of Group Doueh had a big impact on me. Not to mention that great Golden Afrique box set, but that was actually southern African music.

I've also been very moved by some of the great ambient music being produced lately, especially the gorgeous swells of Stars of the Lid and Ethan Rose's excellent Ceiling Songs.

The hype proved true on a few occasions, especially Marnie Stern's shredding In Advance of the Broken Arm, Deerhunter's swirling Cryptograms, Panda Bear's hazy Person Pitch and The Twilight Sad's epic Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters.

Then there are the dependables like the excellent new albums from El-P, Low and most everything Thrill Jockey has put out recently, especially Bobby Conn, Arbouretum and the Exploding Star Orchestra's "Cosmic Tomes Part 2", which gets my vote for best song of 07's first quarter. That just leaves us with the surprises, which I'll have to reward to Kode9 & the Spaceape's menacing Memories of the Future, Woods' folksy At Rear House and Baja's laptop psyche Maps/Systemalheur.

Jordan: After spending a year or two out in the wilderness, its fun being an information cowboy once again. Checking all the Boomkat and Forced Exposure update emails, digging deep into Oink! for that cassette only release of some impossible to obtain Jeweled Antler material. This first quarter is sprinting off with strong "its my noise" releases from Not Not Fun, Night People and the ever steady Important Records. Over in the electro world old players are still making powermoves. BPitch Control, Kompakt, and the "upstart" Ed Banger churning out tons of great music. Did I mention Kavinsky's "Dead Cruiser"? Well, Kavinsky's "Dead Cruiser." And !!!.

Patrick: I spent last quarter immersing myself heavily in the business side, but it was always the personal spin that got the better of my supposed journalistic integrity: I went to CMJ, but instead of seeing Justice and Digitalism at Studio B in Brooklyn at 1.30 in the morning, I got lost in Queens when I missed a train and then wandered around thinking I could walk my way to Williamsburg. What a fool.

This quarter was different: I've been doing a lot of school and caring less and less about music. No endless SXSW reviews, no barrage of half-assed live shots, no gushing "shoulda been theres" to speak of… Other than Battles in Chapel Hill, but anytime Battles plays and you're not there, you shoulda been.

What hit me musically hit me harder, in other words. And that's kind of how this blog has evolved beyond Chicago, beyond Columbia, beyond The Wall Street Journal: We only do reviews because we want you to feel the full impact, the brute force of something like Gallows or Deerhunter. Sometimes, the most powerful music in words hits the ears most delicately. Sitting in bed during one of my few moments of respite this year, a playlist including LCD's "Get Innocuous," 8yone's "Glacial Sunburn" and something from Soft Circle, I don't remember what… This is what hits me hardest nowadays.

Jordan: I would like to think we make good meat&potatoes, solid reviewing on a daily basis, working out a smart one touch style of blogging. Sure, we could be more intensive, but we all have lives to lead. Not to mention that we'd have to cut back on all those raucous bar convos where the night ends with a knife stabbed into the table. Always value the necessity of intoxicated discussion and the resulting half-cocked ideas for revolution.

Michael: Not bad at all for just three months worth of music.

Used-Bin Bargains: Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers - Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers - Miguel's Party (Polygram 1960)

Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers – Les Liaisons Dangereuses / Polygram

Tweaking the idea of our weekly Essential Classics column, we have decided to keep the premise of concentrating on need-to-hear albums from yesteryear, but shrugging off the “classic” tag since it is so relative. Instead, we are going to keep our nose deeply buried in the used section of our local record stores and highlight our favorite bargain of the week. This first week was tough, because as at every record store that has a used section, you have that one guy who periodically brings in a box of brand new, still shrink-wrapped albums that you know he lifted from somewhere, but you don’t really care because: 1) it’s not your problem; 2) you get choice pick at drastically price-reduced CDs. From this last visit from our mystery deviant, I was able to score John Coltrane’s Kulu Sé Mama, Alice Coltrane’s Eternity, a Soul Jazz compilation called Studio One Selector and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers’ soundtrack to the 1959 French film Les Liaisons Dangereuses. It was basically a toss up on which one I should write about, but I opted for the latter of the group because writing about John Coltrane intimidates the fuck out of me, I’ve already written about Alice Coltrane a lot as she is one of my favorite artists ever, and I’ve been itching to write about Art Blakey for a good while now; not to mention it’s a relatively obscure album in the sense that not many people seek it out. So, with the first installment of our newly dubbed column, Audiversity’s Weekly Used-Bin Bargains (Patrick had to talk me out of both Used-Bin Bonanza and Used-Bin Humdinger… damn his cool-headiness), we dive into the hard-boppin’ world of Art Blakey.

I have always liked Art Blakey, if only because you can just about blindly pull any album out of his 50+, 40-years long discography and be presented with a solid, if not extraordinary record of pure hard-bop. But while such longevity and consistency must be rightfully respected, it also means that Blakey purveyed only the single style for his entire career, leading the way in it’s original rise to popularity in the 50s and it’s resurgence in the 80s. Because of this hard-headiness and refusal to experiment or thoroughly explore an unfamiliar niche, Blakey is sometimes left out of the jazz geniuses conversation, which is a shame because he could certainly hold his own against such luminaries as Max Roach, Chick Webb or Gene Krupa. The band he adopted from Horace Silver, the Jazz Messengers, also acted as practically a breeding ground for young jazz talent; basically, once you could hang with Art, you were ready to venture out on your own. During the 30+ years the Messengers were under Blakey’s guidance, he unleashed a laundry list of prominent names in jazz including but no where near limited to: Lee Morgan, Jackie McLean, Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Donald Byrd, Chuck Mangione, Keith Jarrett, Johnny Griffin, and Wynton and Branford Marsalis. Maybe he was simply a good mentor, maybe he was a one-of-a-kind motivator or maybe it just took a particularly high degree of talent to keep up with his unrelentingly driving drum style, but any way you want to define it, Blakey’s influence as a bandleader is near unparalleled. Personally, I lean towards the latter, because his percussive concentration was always on momentum and rhythm; he left all melody and tone in the hands of his accompaniment, further pushing them to be on top of their game. His drumming style was somewhat the antithesis of his contemporary, Max Roach. Where Roach would wholly concentrate on the precise tone and timbre of his drums, Blakey’s heartbeat was all rhythm. He’ll never be known as an innovator, but there will never be a name so synonymous and genuinely important to the genre of hard-bop jazz as Art Blakey.

The Pittsburgh native was born in 1919 and was somewhat of a child prodigy. Playing piano professionally and leading his own commercial band by the seventh grade, Blakey was usurped by the equally prolific Erroll Garner in the club they were both gigging at and was forced to switch to the drums. Heavily influenced by the unrelenting competitiveness and thundering energy of percussionist and bandleader Chick Webb, Blakey developed his own style in the late 30s and early 40s while playing with pianist Mary Lou Williams and Fletcher Henderson. During the mid-40s, he joined Billy Eckstine’s big band, which placed him in the heart of the burgeoning bebop scene and gigging with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and a young Miles Davis. Very curiously, Blakey claimed that in the late 40s he visited West Africa where he discovered both polyrhythmic drumming and Islam; even going to the point in taking the name Abudullah Ibn Buhaina, which led to his nickname “Bu.” No one truly knows if this trip actually took place because some dispute that he was never absent from America during the time period that he claimed to be visiting. Either way, this is the period that Blakey’s reputation as an acclaimed drummer was quickly spreading and the first rendition of the Jazz Messengers appeared as a 17-piece rehearsal ensemble called the Seventeen Messengers; he as well was regularly backing the likes of Davis, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, who interestingly enough, utilized Blakey on both his very first recording session as a leader in 1947 and his very last in 1971. The official Jazz Messengers was established in a 1954 recording co-founded by both Blakey and Horace Silver, who was actually the first official leader of the group. That ensemble, which also featured Hank Mobley and Kenny Dorham, was essential in the development of the hard-bop movement in reaction to the West Coast cool jazz scene. Officially known as Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers by 1956, the collective heavily pushed a soulful gospel influence into bop, freeing up the rhythm section to explore much looser and more bluesy feelings. Highlights from this era include 1956’s Hard Bop and Hard Drive, 1957’s Reflections on Buhania and 1958’s Moanin’.

This brings us to the album at hand, 1960’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses on Polygram. The French cinematic New Wave scene, or la Nouvelle Vague, was in full bloom by 1959 with François Truffant, Jean-Luc Godard and Éric Rohmer cultivating the idea of the auteur director. Much like Roger Vadim’s modern rendition of the scandalous 1782 French novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, these New Wave films would feature experimental soundtracks, many utilizing the American jazz music they heard in the clubs at night. The second of the Vadim films to feature such a soundtrack (the first being 1957’s Sait-on Jamais, which was scored by the Modern Jazz Quartet), it was supposed to be a project recorded by Thelonious Monk, whose only session was used in the film, but never released on it’s own. Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers were called in for the two-days following that initial session and those recordings is what you hear on this album. Featuring Blakey on drums, Lee Morgan on trumpet, Duke Jordan and Bobby Timmons on piano, Jimmy Merritt on double bass and Barney Wilson, who was only in the band very shortly between Benny Golson and Wayne Shorter, on soprano and tenor sax, the ensemble got to jam out a bit on rare material conjuring a boisterous, freewheeling and sophisticated soundtrack to the seductive film. Interestingly enough, the liner notes go on about how the French reedman Wilson had only moved over to soprano a few months prior, and that his unique style on the instrument predated both Coltrane’s same move to the higher-pitched sax a year later and Steve Lacy’s popular career. In the actual film, you see a quintet featuring Kenny Dorham, Duke Jordan and Barney Wilson onscreen, but Dorham wasn’t even a part of the recordings you hear. The album features multiple versions of “No Problem,” “No Hay Problema” and “Volmontana,” but my personal favorite is “Miguel’s Party” which highlight’s Morgan’s passionate trumpet at length.

As I went into earlier at length, Blakey’s career post-50s rarely abandoned his love for all things hard-bop. He recorded heavily in the 60s with a rotating cast of talented supporting players; exceptional albums include 1961’s The Freedom Rider, 1962’s Live Messengers and Caravan (a personal favorite), and 1964’s Indestructible. Along with touring heavily in Europe and Northern Africa, the Messengers also became the first American jazz band to play in Japan in 1960; they were received whole-heartily, even being greeted by hundreds of fans just in the airport. By the 70s, when jazz was being explored through the avant-garde and fusion, Blakey chugged right along with his hard-bop. Though recordings slimmed considerably throughout that decade, the late 70s and early 80s proved Blakey’s determination to be fruitful as the advent of neotraditionalist jazz took over the mainstream jazz audience. With trumpeter Wynton Marsalis acting as musical director, the band was once again selling out venues night after night. Blakey continued to incubate young careers throughout the 80s, and at the time of his death in 1990, the Jazz Messenger aesthetic dominated mainstream jazz. Art Blakey may never be grouped in with the great innovators of jazz, but he will forever be known for his skilled, fiery drum playing, confident band leading and rousing spiritual guidance.