The Wood Brothers - Loaded

By Holly Hughes

The Wood Brothers’ Loaded comes off like a shot of old-time religion, and the more I listen, the more I'm ready to testify. It's a tasty stew of bluegrass, folk, gospel, and Southern rock, and the kind of unclassifiable Americana that unfortunately often slips between the cracks -- there's plenty of picking and strumming going on here, but it's dished up with a jazzy, loose-limbed syncopation and an alt-rock sensibility. Sadly, as we all know, in the music industry if folks can't slap a label on you, they're just as likely to pass you over.  

The brothers have added a few fellow musicians since their previous outing, 2005's Ways To Lose (the core act is Oliver on guitar and Chris on acoustic bass), without spoiling the stripped-down simplicity that made that earlier effort so appealing. It's a canny setting for Oliver Wood’s twangy tenor; he plays every creak and wheeze in his voice like an old squeeze box or musical saw.

Yet for all its rootsy geniality, the songs express a modern, complicated take on relationships -- whether with a lover or with God, it’s often hard to tell which. 

There’s the yearning shuffle of “Lovin’ Arms,” the ruefully apologetic “Loaded” (“But sometimes the tip of my tongue / Is the barrel of a gun / And it’s loaded”), the shrug of resignation in “Walk Away,” the wary woundedness of “Don’t Look Back,” the fragile valediction of “Still Close.” Don’t go looking for angst or depression, though – like their colleague Amos Lee (who contributes backing vocals on two tracks), the Wood Brothers'  melodic groove and buoyant rhythm just won’t go very dark, though they can handle brooding melancholy pretty well. 

The album’s leavened with foot-stompers, too, like “Pray Enough,” the snarky “Twisted,” a raucous cover of “Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor,” and the Dylanesque satire “Postcards From Hell” (they also pull out a nifty acoustic cover of Dylan’s “Bucket of Rain”). Their reggae-flavored take on Jimi Hendrix’ “Angel” is a downright revelation.

Loaded dances to its own sweet drumbeat, and it’s a joy from start to finish. In this American Idol-ized era, a low-key, unpretentious album like this comes as a welcome relief.

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Posted by cphillips at 10:31 AM

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Above & Beyond - Anjunabeats 100: From Goa to Rio

By David R. Perry

Anjunabeats 100 is the latest DJ mix offering from trance stalwarts Above & Beyond. Not only is it a highlight of their DJ releases, but a milestone project for their Anjunabeats label. Home to some of the hottest trance tracks in rotation, Anjunabeats has enjoyed a brief but shining career thus far. There have been a few album mixes over the past few years under the Anjunabeats moniker, and Anjunabeats 100 serves as both a best-of for that series, but also commemorates the 100th release for their label.

Because of the nature of the release, I'll refrain from detailing much of the tracklist, as it consists of staple tracks instead of new white labels. It should be viewed more in its retrospective light than as a truly new release for the group. Granted, it is a new mix, but it's comprised of well-traveled material. If you were to literally distill Anjunabeats Vols. 1-5, as well as the Worldwide release, this would be the result. The fact that Above & Beyond are very capable DJs keep this from becoming just another label sampler or cheap best-of.

The style within continues their love and focus on the high euphoric sound of trance. Since this has the benefit of pulling from their entire catalog of titles, they pretty much have the pick of the litter. There really isn't a dud moment within the mix, except that some tunes by now may have suffered from over-exposure. But even then, there is no filler.

One of the main distinctions for this set is that Above & Beyond allow a higher percentage of their own material than in past releases. Between their album tracks, collaborations, as well as several cuts from their Oceanlab project, a full third of the two discs is mined from the group's discography.

The bonus DVD, From Goa to Rio is a nice, if slight, addition to the set.

The bulk of the disc's content comes from a half-hour documentary that follows the members of the group during two gigs in Goa and Rio. Interspersed with live footage from the large beach concerts, interview footage gives some insight into the personalities of the group, as well as their songwriting and label. The documentary is a cut above most "bonus DVD" filler, but is probably still not something that will hold up to much repeated viewing. The other content includes the music video for Oceanlab's hit single "Satellite", as well a humorous, mock promo for the group. It should be noted that if you're not keen on buying the physical multi-disc version of the set, Ultra Records also includes the main documentary video as a file when purchased through their download store.

Overall, Anjunabeats 100 is a worthwhile set for those who might be new to either trance or Above & Beyond. The actual mix is very well put together, and offers cream-of-the-crop tunes. This, in addition to their debut artist album, Tri-State, would make a great introduction to the group. For those who are more familiar with Above & Beyond, and perhaps own some of their Anjunabeats compilations, this will probably feel like more of the same, as it's largely cut from the same material. Although a quality release, it's enjoyment will be up to the familiarity of the listener.

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Posted by cphillips at 10:21 AM

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Willie Nelson - One Hell of a Ride

By El Bicho

That is certainly an apt description for the life of Willie Hugh Nelson, a country music icon of the last half of the twentieth century.

Born in Fort Worth, he eventually made his way to Nashville. He initially got signed as a songwriter, creating hits for artists like Ray Price (“Night Life”), Faron Young (“Hello Walls”), and Patsy Cline (“Crazy”), all of which are included on this album sung by Willie. His success helped earn him a recording contract in 1962. He eventually landed at RCA Records and worked with Chet Atkins who produced him.

On Disc One, the early Willie is on display. It opens with a rarity and one of the first songs he ever recorded. “When I’ve Sang My Last Hillbilly Song” was laid to tape one night in late 1954/early ‘55 at a radio station Willie worked at. The rest of the songs are good and brought Willie moderate success, including “The Party’s Over,” which years later Don Meredith made the unofficial goodnight theme on ABC’s Monday Night Football. The ones that did chart averaged in the twenties on the Billboard Hot Country Singles; however, Atkins’ Nashville Sound made them generic. Willie sounded like everyone else at the time, and this confinement frustrated him.

When his home burned down in 1970, he took the opportunity to head back to Texas. In 1971 he chose to live in Austin where the music scene was progressive. Country and rock, cowboys and hippies were all coming together, specifically at the Armadillo World Headquarters. This invigorated Willie and in 1973 there was a noticeable change. The album cover for Shotgun Willie shows Willie with his hair grown out and sporting a moustache and beard. The title track has a honky-tonk sound. It was the beginnings of the Willie Nelson we’ve all come to know. He then released two concept albums, Phases And Stages and Red Headed Stranger, the latter of which was his first #1 Country album.

Willie along with friend Waylon Jennings became the faces of Outlaw Country, musicians that rejected the sound and look of Nashville. No studio polish or rhinestones on these fellows, yet they still crossed over into the pop charts with their duets “Good Hearted Woman” and “Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.” Remaining true to himself and the outlaw spirit, Willie continued to follow his own path when everyone expected more of the same. He gave them an album of Lefty Frizzell songs as well as Stardust, a collaboration with Booker T. Jones that had Willie covering popular standards that remains his best-selling album, going platinum five times.

Disc Two showcases the rise of Willie but for some reason the disc isn’t organized chronologically, which is too bad. It opens with a mix of his work with Waylon and his Nashville days. Sure, it all sounds good, but the contrast is stark and the listener doesn’t get to hear Willie’s progression as an artist. The remainder of tracks showcases hits like “Bloody Mary Morning,” his first #1 Country single “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” and his rendition of “Georgia On My Mind.”

Into the 1980s, Willie’s crossed over into the mainstream. He appeared in movies like Electric Horseman and Honeysuckle Rose, and scored big on the pop charts with his only top-ten hits, “Always on My Mind” and his duet with Julio Iglesias “To All the Girls I've Loved Before.” Success didn’t go to Willie’s head. He remembered his roots and continued to work with friends, mentors and idols.

Disc Three opens with three tracks from Willie and Family Live. You can hear the electric energy of his band in their prime. Willie performs with Ray Price, Roger Miller, Merle Haggard, and Faron Young. He and Leon Russell cover “Heartbreak Hotel” and later joins Webb Pierce for Jimmie Rodgers’ “In The Jailhouse Now.”

Willie continued with successful collaborations. He had a #1 hit with Ray Charles, “Seven Spanish Angels,” and as a member of the country supergroup The Highwaymen. But like all artists, he could only remain in the spotlight for so long. He continued to put out albums, but went over a decade before returning to the Country charts in 2002 with “Mendocino County Line,” a duet with Lee Ann Womack.

Disc Four reveals what Willie had been up to the last two decades. Working with producer Don Was he delivers two great covers from Across The Borderline, Paul Simon’s “Graceland” and a fantastic rendition, more so because of the evocative music, of Bob Dylan’s “What Was It Wanted.” Daniel Lanois is another producer who knew how to maximize Willie. The two entries from Teatro don’t have a sound you would necessarily associate with Willie’s voice, but they work well. Willie’s version of “The Rainbow Connection” at the request of his daughter is a perfect combination of voice and song.

Some selections didn’t need to be included. Willie’s versions of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” and the standard “What A Wonderful World” are forgettable. The disc closes where it began with Willie 50 years later singing “When I’ve Sang My Last Hillbilly Song.”

One Hell of Ride presents 100 tracks over four CDs in a career that most artists could only imagine. Although there’s not much new material, it’s a great set for those who want a crash course on an American music legend.

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Posted by cphillips at 11:58 PM

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Mariah Carey - E=MC2

By Jordan Richardson

A funny thing happens at the beginning of Mariah Carey’s latest album. Beginning with a freakish shriek, she opens E=MC2 with a run of high notes in an almost self-mocking fashion. To emphasize this caricature, the high notes turn into the backing track for “Migrate” and form a rather accomplished duet with T-Pain.

Such is the method of Mariah’s eleventh studio album. She fundamentally follows up on the pattern of 2005’s The Emancipation of Mimi, but doubles up on the self-awareness to put out a rather capable pop album. She even taps into the text message and YouTube generation with unrepentant joy.

“Touch My Body” is her eighteenth number one single. It’s a sexy and slinky track that has all of the noteworthy Carey-isms, including her ability to nail the higher registry unlike any other. It is her knack for quickly blasting through the higher notes and firing off lines in quick succession during the verses that transforms this potentially weak tune into a catchy single.

Part of the knock on Mariah is the conception that her emotional relationship with the songs is often lacking. This is a fairly solid critique, for the most part, and most of E=MC2 reaches into party-pop territory with no regrets. Like Kylie Minogue, Mariah’s music isn’t so much about emotional connections a la Mary J. Blige.

It's more about the bounce. 

That bounce is immensely present on tunes like “Cruise Control,” where the addition of Damien Marley makes the song a skilled Jamaican jam, and “I’m That Chick,” one of the album’s best tracks. These are precision-tooled songs just begging for night cruising.

As is usually the case, Mariah slows things down and attempts introspection with songs of love lost. “I Stay In Love” is Carey’s bread and butter, a piano-driven ballad with plenty of fluttery vocals. “Love Story” has a similar feel, but is mostly overproduced to bewildering levels.

Joined by Young Jeezy on “Side Effects,” Mariah puts out the most musically-complex track on the album. A string-driven bass bumper with sped-up vocals, it’s a trick-filled jam that should rattle a few speakers.

The pattern for the album is predictable: she starts in the club and winds up on her knees (in church, perverts). Naturally the evolution is palpable from the get-go, but Mariah isn’t known for surprises. “I Wish You Well” finds her accompanied by a piano and ready to save some souls. She reaches her upper registry here superbly, setting just the right tone as it matches with a distant organ.

Overall, E=MC2 is a fitting “sequel” of sorts to her previous album and follows the same pattern through and through. Her voice, overall, is more inhibited and restrained to a smaller scale than some might be used to. It is no less affecting, however, and the album feels a lot less flashy than some of her previous work.

But one almost wishes for more from the 38-year-old bombshell. She’s capable of it, but for now it seems that Mariah’s just doing good being Mimi.

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Posted by cphillips at 11:31 PM

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Steve Winwood – Nine Lives

By Donald Gibson

In 1965, the Spencer Davis Group issued its first single, “I’m A Man,” which introduced the world to a rhythm and blues wunderkind named Steve Winwood. An innately soulful vocalist and musician – particularly on the Hammond organ – Winwood would, over the next four decades, play an eminent role on a range of seminal albums including those made with Blind Faith, Traffic, and under his own name.

When he performed with former Blind Faith comrade Eric Clapton this past February at Madison Square Garden, Winwood fared particularly well with his more diverse Traffic material. In playing songs like the blues-heavy “Pearly Queen,” the cryptic “No Face, No Name, No Number,” and the surrealistic “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” he bore out the spectrum of his versatility.

From that eclectic spirit comes his latest solo album, Nine Lives, which finds Winwood drawing on an amalgam of styles and influences. Loose, spiraling rhythms and percussion give much of the music a fusion sound tinged with jazz and Latin subtleties. “We’re All Looking” and “Dirty City” – the latter featuring a boiling Clapton solo – jangle and surge to kinetic, tumultuous grooves. The presence of flute and saxophone, both beautifully played here by Paul Booth, adorn lilting songs like “Other Shore” and “Fly,” imparting an ambient mood that sprawls across the album.

This music’s unfailing and most rewarding element, as one would hope and expect, is Winwood’s singing as well as his work on the Hammond, both of which resound mightily here. His vocal phrasing and fluidity often turn out lyrics as inflections, as on “Raging Sea” and “Secrets,” evoking something ultimately more affecting than the words themselves. When his voice ascends to reach the organ’s sanctified strains on “At Times We Do Forget,” the synergy is, quite simply, exhilarating.

In ways both appreciable and mystifying, Nine Lives encompasses the breadth and scope of Steve Winwood’s musicality. The songs recall the progressive phases of his late-sixties and seventies endeavors, yet they come across as neither dated nor unoriginal. To the contrary, the music sounds challenging and inspired, making for a solid album that will – forty-three years after his first release – give further credence to Winwood’s longevity.

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Posted by cphillips at 11:04 PM

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R.E.M. - Accelerate

By Mark Saleski

Here's how it might work:

A band shows up at a certain point in your life and you happen to be grabbed by the music. The group and its songs become a part of your life just as surely as the memories of the apartment you lived in, your girlfriend at the time, and anything else that was 'important.'

R.E.M. was like that for me. The darlings of college radio at the time, their Murmur record embossed a permanent logo on the music department of my brain. A lot of things are attached to that mind space — my best friend Gene's cozy living room (where Murmur was given at least two spins per session), the greater Bangor area, and my girlfriend, who went on to become my first wife.

Here's how we'd like it to work:

We do get older, but our relationships stretch to take up the space. Love and friendships don't decay. All along, the music glues everything together. The bands making the music take paths parallel to our own.

What really happens:

Most things don't (and can't) remain the same. We know this. People get hurt. Relationships fall apart. Friends fade from view. We "grow up" (not always a good thing). The inevitability of these changes is something that's accepted, however begrudgingly.

Remember those musicians? The ones we hoped would enjoy lives as blissful as our own? They're not the same either. So why is it that we expect them to be able to avoid time's gravity any better then we can? Why are bands cut no slack in their artistic lives? I'm not heading toward a gift wrapped rationalization of a group's lesser efforts (Hello, Around The Sun). It's just that sometimes it seems that a fan's preconceptions (and wishes) can cloud their listening judgment.

Accelerate is not Monster. It's also not Murmur or Automatic For The People either. It's not trying to be any of those things. What it seems to be is R.E.M. finally artfully negotiating the post-Bill Berry world. It's full of many of the elements that attracted me way back when.

"Living Well Is The Best Revenge" has, on top of Buck's crunchy arpeggios, the truly great tension-producing effect of Mike Mills descending bass run that divebombs toward the first verse. It reminded me of Entwistle's four-string madness on The Who's "The Real Me." "Supernatural Superserious" has a great, chunky guitar riff. The title track makes great use of dissonance, both with the opening four-note suspension and the guitar chords that slash through the chorus.

"Sing For The Submarine" revisits the early Athens sound before laying in some heavy, almost art-rock bombast. "Hollow Man" starts off seeming to be a piano ballad of sorts, with the idea "I've been lost inside my head..." pulling us in — before the anthemic chorus takes hold. "Houston" brings out the traditional R.E.M. fascination with emotional darkness, the protagonist trying to push away the negative thoughts in favor of positive memories.

The loud guitar sounds (Note to the producers of the world: back off on the compression, will ya?!!) might make a person think that Accelerate is Monster, Part II. Not so, because most of the songs lack the glammy attitude of Monster. Sure, some folks are as annoyed with "I'm Gonna DJ" as they were with "What's The Frequency Kenneth?" I can't help that (I also like both songs). Besides, is that song more annoying than Stipe's rhyming of "apostles" with "nostrils" during "Living Well's The Best Revenge"?

Perhaps the most shocking moment on Accelerate occurs during "Until The Day Is Done." Is that a mandolin I hear. I could have sworn I read an article in Spin where Peter Buck said he'd sworn off the instrument. Welcome back!

What has happened:

R.E.M. has proven us all wrong. We were absolutely certain that Around The Sun was the sure fire, Athens, GA death rattle. We were wrong. If you listen closely, Accelerate pulls a musical thread through just about every era of this band. It makes me reminisce for a bit before concluding that all of these decades of change have been worth it.

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Posted by cphillips at 04:31 PM

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Hercules and Love Affair

By Jordan Richardson

New York’s Hercules and Love Affair meshes disco, house, and bold vocals like a dream. Sure, the notion of reviving disco is nothing new. Several bands have tried to do it for years, experimenting with hooks and loops and big vocals to summon up that sound of the 70s. With Hercules and Love Affair, though, it seems less like a refurbishment and more like an establishment of something spanking new for 2008.

It’s really no surprise that this innovation would come out of New York. Take four oddballs steeped in the club scene, mix with disco and house, and out comes Hercules and Love Affair. Led by DJ Andrew Butler, who began his “musical career” at age 15 by working the wheels of steel in a Denver leather bar run by a hostess named Chocolate Thunder Pussy, the collective is audacious and absurdly fun. Antony Hegarty’s (of Antony and the Johnsons) voice fuels the debut self-titled album. Transsexual Nomi and androgynous lesbian Kim Ann Foxmann round out the party people.

Hercules and Love Affair’s debut, released last month, features all of the trappings of excellent disco. Thumping bass lines, ever-present hi-hats, ostentatious yet mysteriously gloomy vocals, and lots of tinkering around. Butler all moves it immaculately, though, creating consistent and accessible music sure to please the East Villagers and basement dwellers alike. It’s good music for us regular folk, too.

The best indicator that Hercules and Love Affair is not simply another disco throwback collective lies in the mournful vocals of Antony Hegarty. He seems fluently tragic, like a sort of anti-hero for the diva movement of the late 70s. The songs have a dim emotion to them as a result, turning full-on dance tracks into affecting pieces of sombre authenticity. Some songs function as a farewell to disco, mourning the end of the free-wheeling days as they gave way to the realities of AIDs and other calamities.

One of the album’s best tracks, “Blind,” is a clear example of this woeful approach. The brew of horns, strings, house beats, and jangling electronics makes it a prototypical musical homage to the nature of disco music. Yet the lyrics and undercurrents of the track propose something more: “Now that I'm older the stars should lie upon my face/And when I find myself alone/I feel like I am blind.”

The brilliant “Hercules Theme” is a superior tune that brims with the lilt of horns and backing vocals (“Yeah, yeah, yeah”) and “Athene” is a beat-happy track ready for dance floors across the world. “This is My Love” is a jazzy beauty and “Raise Me Up” is a club-thumper ready for prime time.

Hercules and Love Affair combines house, disco, and eulogy for the latter so well that it often feels like the New York quartet has invented something new. The heart, soul, and meaning of the disco era seems to have found fresh earth with this album, capturing the dying days of an era with all the melancholy, splendour, allure, and gregariousness required to mine those days of excess.

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Posted by cphillips at 04:25 PM

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The Rolling Stones - Shine a Light Soundtrack (Deluxe Edition)

By Josh Hathaway

It had to happen.  It's more reliable than any other regularly occurring phenomenon we have.  If the Stones tour, there will be a live album to document it.  Sure, they released the Biggest Bang DVD box set through (Satan)Best Buy last year, but that was DVD only.  Thanks to Martin Scorsese's film Shine a Light, we finally have a CD companion to their most recent tour.  The film is in IMAX theaters now and we have to assume it will be made available on DVD in the near future; we can hope it will also come to us on Blu-ray DVD, giving us our first HD Stones tour document.

Even folks like me who are live-album junkies, it can get a bit wearing trying to keep up with all the live releases from this band.  How essential are these anyway?

Aside from there just being too damned many of them, there's something that plagues nearly all LDS live records- that's Latter Day Stones, by the way.  The tempo, pitch, key, and vibe don't have as much variation when this incarnation of the band plays as they do on record.  It's almost possible to tap your foot and sing the lyrics to "Satisfaction" when they're playing "Jumpin' Jack Flash" or "Brown Sugar" when they're playing "Honky Tonk Woman" and sound perfectly attuned to what is happening on the stage.

It's not a fatal flaw because despite that and the occasional fuck up from the band, these guys still bring enough energy and musicianship to drown out every late-night talk-show host who has ever made them a punch line as the poster children for everything past its expiration date.  If David Letterman is reading this and wants some new material, here's an idea:  Mick Jagger is the planet's #1 source of renewable energy, and I'm not just talking about the twelve tribes he's fathered.

I haven't seen Shine a Light yet, but I know how much energy Jagger was emitting on the Bigger Bang tour and this is from that same time frame.  He's still incredible.  As for the Scorsese effect, it doesn't really come across on the soundtrack and I have a sneaking suspicion it won't in the visual presentation of the band, either.  These are the Stones. You can't stop the Stones from being the Stones, you can only hope to contain them - and why would you want to try and contain them anyway?  The best thing Scorsese can do is try to capture them.  I can't wait to see if he did.

While I'm stuck on this subject of the Stones being too old – as if they need defense from me or anyone else – they provided the best defense imaginable in the form of the immortal Buddy Guy who joined them on their ferocious cover of Muddy Waters' "Champagne & Reefer."  Listen to the smoke and fire coming from Guy's impassioned vocals and his pyrotechnic guitar and tell me he's too old to be on stage.  Guy, nearly ten years older than any member of the Stones, still has more piss and swagger than any living artist.  Retire?  These guys?  Never. 

As far as expiration dates go, "Jumping Jack Flash" should be way overdue and has no business still sounding this good this many years later, but even if it has slowed down just a little, these guys still play the hell out of it.  It's the same with all the classics they continue to play, year in and year out.  They make you happy to hear a song you thought you were over.

That may be the greatest trick of their legendary career.  Every time we think we're ready to leave them behind, to relegate them to the back of our minds as great memories, they kick up an unholy noise and remind us they're still here and that they'll be damned if us littles are going to heap a shovelful of dirt on them.  Why fight it?  They're the Rolling Stones and they'll be the Rolling Stones until they say they're not.

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Posted by cphillips at 04:11 PM

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The Wood Brothers - Loaded

The lead singer and guitar player plays in an electric blues band in Atlanta. The bass player is in New York as one third of the premier acid jazz band of the last ten years. You might say that these guys form a musical odd couple. Truth is, The Wood Brothers is a natural combination, and sharing the same momma and daddy might have something to do with that.

Oliver and Chris Wood grew up together in Colorado to parents who were not musicians. But both brothers became that, anyway. Oliver went down to Georgia to seek his fame and fortune, while Chris went up to New York to do the same.

As a member of that innovative jam-band trio Medeski, Martin & Wood, it's safe to state that Chris found a bigger pot of gold at the end of his rainbow. He's unquestionably a major talent at bass, particularly the stand-up kind. Yeah, we've talked about him here a time or two.

It's not like Oliver lacks talent, though. His blues band King Johnson just doesn't seek to set the world on fire like MMW does. There ain't no shame in delivering honest-to-goodness plugged-in blues, though. In fact, that's an honor in my book.

Oliver as a singer wouldn't win many talent shows; his strained voice often crackles and sometimes he doesn't quite hit the notes. But his tone is somewhere in the zip code of Van Morrison and the laid-back sincerity in his delivery brings to mind the strange allure of Wilco's Jeff Tweedy. Most of the time, that's good enough. He's a decent guitar player and his slide work (as in "Twisted") is actually pretty darned good.

Released earlier this week, Loaded is the Wood Brothers follow-up to their celebrated fraternal debut Ways Not To Lose from a couple of years ago. While their brand of countrified folk-blues as well as MMW keyboardist John Medeski as the producer are carried over, Loaded is somewhat more adorned than Ways Not To Lose.

You'll hear Medeski's subdued organ occasionally along with the Brothers -- and on about half the cuts, Kenny Wolleson's drums. There's a small string arrangement here and there. It's still plenty rustic enough though, and that's a welcome relief.

The other big distinction of Loaded is that the majority of the twelve numbers played on this record were co-written by the Brothers. With each living in different parts of the country and heavily involved with their respective bands, composing songs together must have required a big commitment from both.

It's a commitment that has paid off well, though. While Ways got by on charm alone, the Wood and Wood songs on Loaded carry the day this time.

"Postcards From Hell" is memorable for it's Jerry Jeff Walker-esque character sketch of a talented, but struggling troubadour who's got the ability to sing the blues so well because he's "got a soul that I won't sell and I don't read postcards from Hell."

"Pray Enough" is a funky gospel that preaches "if you're going to be the fool then you better be tough." "Loaded" is a slower, cowboy number about saying regrettable things after drinking too much. "Twisted" is almost like a companion to "Loaded," in that the narrator is relating the sorry state he's in, but the song has a much stronger blues element.

Chris makes his debut lead vocal turn on his own composition "Don't Look Back." He's not a terrible singer, but before I checked the credits I thought the brothers brought in a female guest vocalist to sing the part. Perhaps that's another way of saying that one song with a lead vocal is good, but anymore than one would have been too much.

I'm happy to report that his bass playing, all of it acoustic, is as solid as ever. Some listeners may notice that it's a little further up front in the mix than what's normal for simple folk-blues, but it's not too intrusive. You won't hear Chris play many solos or go hot-dogging it; he knows his role on this record and uses it to augment his brother, not upstage him

There's three covers toward the end of the album. "Make Me Down A Pallet On Your Floor" has a distinctive Big Easy beat that only one drummer can play: Chris' other MMW cohort Billy Martin. Bob Dylan's "Buckets Of Rain" is a low-key rendering with only the Brothers performing it live in the studio.

The standout cover is of Jimi Hendrix's sublime ballad "Angel." The glistening guitar chords played at the start seems out of place with the rest of the album, but the song quickly settles into a relaxed reggae groove that's a much better matche for Oliver's warble than if this tune was played straight. Singer-songwriter Amos Lee does a nice job handling the singing on the second verse.

Two brothers from opposite ends of the musical spectrum getting together to play music that's a little different from what either is known for playing could get by one time as a novelty. Chris and Oliver Wood evidently don't see themselves that way, though. Recording their second album in just over two years and revealing some real growth along the way shows that these guys mean business.

A family-run business.

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Posted by cphillips at 04:06 PM

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The Hives - The Black and White Album

By El Bicho

The Hives’ color scheme is black and white, this time around finds them in matching school-boy uniforms, and their music, a hybrid of The Rolling Stones attitude with the energy of The Ramones, has previously been as simple, straightforward, and basic as the terms imply. Being the playful rascals that they are, leave it to them to name their new release The Black and White Album when they experiment and expand their musical palette.

The band opens up full throttle with “Tick Tick Boom,” knocking your socks off right from the start. It is typical Hives in-your-face rock and roll: wild guitars, a driving rhythm section, and Pelle Almqvist earning his nickname by Howlin' out the lyrics, written as always by honorary sixth Hive, the talented Randy Fitzsimmons.

“You Got It All…Wrong” finds the band shifting into fifth gear and doesn't let up. “Well All Right!” barely offers a breather, slightly slower to what came before with a brief respite in the middle before picking up the pace again.

Coming at almost the halfway point, “A Stroll Through Hive Manor Corridors” is a mysterious, unusual song. A spooky organ playing over a drum machine offers an instrumental as an intriguing transition through the looking glass, at times revealing a different band.

“Won’t Be Long” is reminiscent of the recent wave of nu-‘80s music of bands like The Bravery. “T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S.” has a funky bass line and Pelle’s howl becomes a falsetto. No surprise that this is one of the tracks that Pharrell Williams produced.

“Return The Favor” finds the band’s typical sound return, as if someone left a door to the Hive Manor Corridor open and we can hear where the journey began. The door is slammed shut on “Giddy Up!” as drum machines and odd background vocals visit Devo terrain. It’s possible to forget whose album it is, but two classic Hives-sounding songs, “Square One Here I Come” and “You Dress Up For Armageddon,” shake you out what must surely have been a dream. These two no-nonsense tracks get back to basics.

Another turn down the corridor reveals “Puppet on a String.” Weird piano, screwy vocal choices, and all sorts of bizarre background noises make this a really odd selection, more a strange novelty just to be strange. “Bigger Hole To Fill” closes out the album returning to the nu-80s sounds they flirted with earlier.

The Black and White Album finds The Hives moving out of the garage and into the studio. The new sounds don’t always work as well as the rock ones they are known for and excel at, but some certainly do, and artists should always be given room to grow. There’s plenty of what fans like about The Hives on the album, and with 50% more music than on their previous two releases, there’s nothing lost in their trying something different.

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Posted by cphillips at 02:15 PM

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Jason Ringenberg - Best Tracks And Side Tracks: 1979 – 2007

By Bill Sherman

There's something about Southern Illinois (which, as everyone knows, is any place in the state south of Joliet) – its blend of corn-fed conservatism and Bucky Fuller-esque idealism, perhaps – that's made it a fertile region for alt-country troubadours.

Uncle Tupelo (from whence rose Son Volt and Wilco) came from the area as did first of the great cow-punk outfits Jason and Scorchers. Led by yelping Jason Ringenberg, the son of Sheffield, Illinois, hog farmers, the Scorchers provided a stormy mesh of guitar thrash and straight-faced Nashville songwriting that holds up to this day. Their disbanding left a void on the musical scene that in many ways has grown larger with the increased plasticization of commercial country.

Ringenberg has kept a-goin', of course and if his solo material has never quite equaled the punk power of his breakthrough work, there's plenty of strong material to be found in his still-growing catalog. To bring this point home, our man has just put together a two-disc retrospective Best Tracks And Side Tracks (Yep Roc) for our musical education. With 30 cuts to cull through, the set showcases his strengths and weaknesses as a singer/songwriter.

Though the collection is meant to illuminate his work outside the Scorchers, Ringenberg understandably can't resist folding several of the band's more popular songs into the mix. Best Tracks Disc One opens with a fiddle-heavy remake of "Shop It Around" and provides an equally countrified rendition of "Broken Whiskey Glass" as its penultimate track, while the "Side Traces" odds 'n' sods disc gives us a pre-Scorcher rendition of "Help There's A Fire" with comically gawky faux Elvis vocals. If none of these versions make us forget the Scorchers, they still serve to remind us what a sharp songwriter Jason was from the get-go.

Jason is still a strong tunesmith, though there are times when his earnestness intrudes on his songcraft. Best Tracks primarily is devoted to three solo albums (Pocketful of Soul, All Over Creation and Empire Builders), and, of these three, the weaker cuts almost all come from the thematically overburdened Empire. Whether waxing sentimentally about orphan trains and a dying Chief Joseph or over-emphatically recalling the Tuskegee airmen, you can hear the singer struggling to get his ideas across – at the expense of both the ideas and the songs. The only two sampled cuts from Empire that fully work are the ones where he relaxes enough to have some fun: a modernized version of Burl Ives' corn-pone folksiness called "Rainbow Stew" and a galumphing collaboration with Los Straitjackets in tribute to "Link Wray."

Elsewhere the man assays two sweet tributes to his daughters ('Camille" and "Addie Rose"), duets with Steve Earle ("Bible And A Gun") plus offers up a quintet of taut rockers, including the unmatchable "Punk Rock Skunk" from one of his two Farmer Jason children's albums. Of these, a re-recorded "Life of the Party" (redone for the set since contractual craziness kept the original One Foot in the Honky Tonk track from being included) perhaps comes closest to the welcome blasts of the good ol' days, though All Over Creation's sonic collaboration with the Wildhearts, "One Less Heartache," has its own appealing radio friendly bombast.

The Side Tracks set is smaller (ten tracks to the first disc's 20) and definitely more marginal. But it still contains some goodies: an oblique new rocker entitled "The Sailor's Eyes;" an extended remix of a second Farmer Jason track, "Moose on the Loose;" an unjustly rejected track recorded for a Tom T. Hall album, plus a tribute to SIU's favorite son, "Buckminster Fuller We Need You." Though Ringenberg has relocated to the Nashville area, he always remains cognizant of his Midwestern roots. Back on disc one, he even includes a country rocker originally sung for Stace England's Greetings from Cairo, Illinois, lamenting the hard times that have befallen this notorious little lynch burg. Very alt-rootsy, very Southern Illinois . .

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Posted by cphillips at 02:00 PM

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Ray Davies - Working Man’s Café

By Gordon Hauptfleisch

In case there was any doubt, Ray Davies reminds us that “I’m Not Like Anybody Else” by kicking off his loosely confident and crisply executed new album -- a grab-bag collection that encounters some Kinks-chronicled haunts while lighting out for new territory -- with a clear-the-room guitar discharge that evokes brother Dave’s strident chord-blast beginning of that classic and frantic 1966 song.

Not that the first segued-to track of Working Man’s Café, the follow-up to 2006’s solid Other People’s Lives, is anything musically or lyrically Kinks-size. More genially rollicking than desirously raucous, “Vietnam Cowboys” is a new globalization twist on an old Kinks’ finger-pointing put-down penchant, updated and Americanized.

If it seems that Ray has here and there written Preservation: Act 3 -- another song bemoans that “Corporations get the tax breaks / While the city gets the crime” -- rest assured that there is no Mr. Big lurking about, and that Davies is, for the most part, in fine voice metaphorically with his lyric writing as he is in fine voice, literally so: from celebratory feistiness to curmudgeonly snarl, exquisite quaver to boozy carnie barker. On “The Voodoo Walk” Ray delves into a menacing growl that is as effectual as his “Wicked Annabella” is seethingly insidious. And the powerhouse “You‘re Asking Me” has Davies warning those who might want to worship at the feet of the perceived “God of BritPop”: “If you're asking me, don't take my advice.”

Hopefully Davies is more reliable with his songcraft, but in the meantime there's a lot of connect-the-dots guesswork that can be done with this new work. For every inkling you may have that a song such as the lackadaisical “Morphine Song” is a gateway-tune “Alcohol” from 1971’s Muswell Hillbillies, or that “Hymn for a New Age” (“But I believe I need something to look up to / I believe I wanna pray but don't know what to”) is “Big Sky” from different agnostic perspective, there’s a song like Working Man’s Café’s title song that invites direct lyrical comparison to Village Green’s “Do You Remember Walter?” (Or was it just coincidence that we were in for compounded nostalgia and a double dose of deja vu now that we’re online at the internet cafe: “I thought I knew you then but will I know you now?")

More typical, however, is Davies’ sly and subtle approach. In the “be careful what you wish for category” lies “Peace in Our Time,” comprised of an ambivalence that, without mentioning Chamberlain-era wartime appeasement, still could have fit into the 1969 Kink concept classic Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). Similarly, an account of a frustrating parting of the red tape retold in “No One Listen” recalls 1970's Lola vs. the Powerman & the Money-Go-Round, Pt. 1, one of the Kinks most rough-edged and agitation-ridden recordings.

Soothed and smoothed to “Celluloid Heroes” perfection, or perhaps reminiscent of a song from one of the Kink’s ‘70s-era rock operas, the gorgeous “Imaginary Man” suggests some skewed self-identification for an artist perhaps too accustomed to living “other people’s lives”:

Walked down to Preservation Hall
Looking for the old trad band
It was just a momentary glance

I saw my reflection in the glass
Watched as the world went flashing past
I knew the face but could not tell
Why I couldn't recognise myself

I am, I am imaginary
I am, I am imaginary
I'm the imaginary man…

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Posted by cphillips at 01:58 PM

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Jackson Browne – Solo Acoustic, Vol.2

By Donald Gibson

If you’ve taken in one of Jackson Browne’s solo acoustic performances, you’re well aware of the distinct pleasure of that experience. A visceral energy fills the concert hall – an altogether different vibe than that of a show with a full band – where the audience is collectively invested and steeped in each song.

In 2005, Browne released Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1, which brilliantly showcased classics like “Fountain of Sorrow,” “Your Bright Baby Blues,” and “For A Dancer” in the context of these unique events. And now, the legendary singer/songwriter delivers an equally spectacular set of hits and album cuts on Solo Acoustic, Vol. 2.

The live and acoustic setting certainly reflects an intimate feel, yet the warm rapport between artist and audience comes across all the more. Browne’s gracious and often-amusing interaction with the crowd is included between some tracks, adding spontaneity and perspective to songs. Further, he doesn’t rely on a setlist, instead playing what he prefers or – more often than not – taking requests. “Oh, you want to hear that?” he asks before settling into “Somebody’s Baby” on the piano. Sometimes a request is more obscure, like one for “Redneck Friend,” but he obliges with a potent performance.

Alternating between piano and several acoustic guitars, Browne offers absorbing and soulful renditions of some of his finest compositions. On “Sky Blue and Black,” he immerses himself in the song’s sweeping melody, his voice rich with compassion. He plays “Alive In the World” and “In the Shape of a Heart” with similar conviction and conscience, painting both songs with fresh perception.

Four of the twelve tracks originated on Browne’s most recent studio release, The Naked Ride Home. Considering the breadth of his back catalog, that’s a large portion to pull from one album – especially one not considered among his seminal works – but the songs hold up surprisingly well. “The Night Inside Me” and “My Stunning Mystery Companion,” in particular, sound as relevant and touching as almost anything else on this collection.

While Solo Acoustic, Vol. 2 serves as the logical complement to its predecessor, it firmly stands on its own as an outstanding live album. Jackson Browne represents a masterful songwriter delivering one great song after another. Few do it this well and with this much integrity.

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Posted by cphillips at 01:43 PM

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Ted Kooshian's Standard Orbit Quartet

By Mark Saleski

Some people can't handle it when their favorite music is treated "improperly." Me, I love it when music is inverted, deconstructed, glued back together, and pushed in front of the fun-house mirror. That's why I own collections of reggae covers of pop tunes, jazz versions of Rolling Stones and Frank Zappa material, Elvis Presley/Bob Marley twists on Led Zeppelin, and bluegrass covers of AC/DC songs.

In the jazz world, there's the longstanding tradition of using pop tunes and film/drama/television themes as inspiration. Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" and Miles' "My Funny Valentine" come to mind.

Pianist Ted Kooshian has done a little bit of both things here, with his quartet putting a jazz spin on both television theme songs and some classic rock and pop tunes. Given that Kooshian is a member of the Ed Palermo Big Band (specializing in burning renditions of Frank Zappa material), this broad approach is really no surprise.

What I was surprised to hear was the theme from the television show "Top Cat." Wow, I hadn't heard that song in, well... over thirty years. Kooshian's very malleable group makes the song swing like crazy.

The same can be said for the slinky version of Led Zeppelin's classic "Black Dog." What really works well here is that Kooshian takes "jazz advantage" of the signature part of the original tune — in this case, "Black Dog"'s start and stop tension. It's a risky thing sometimes to take a vocal part and replace it with a saxophone. There's a real danger of sliding over the "smooth" line. That's definitely not the case here as both "Message In A Bottle" and "Don't Give Up" give props to both The Police and Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush without lapsing into shmalzt-land.

Other tunes covered here include the theme to Captain Kangaroo (I don't even want to talk about how long its been since I heard that!), "Spider Man" (done in a loping swing), "The Simpsons" (Not quite as good as Danny Gatton's version, but it's close), and a fantastic "Batman."

With it's angular sax lines, I almost didn't recognize the closing track: the theme from the film Bullitt. It's as soulful as much of the film music from that era, maybe missing the wah-wah drenched rhythm guitar. It woulda put a smile on Steve McQueen's face, I'm sure.

This record puts Ted Kooshian's love of this music on display. It is in no way disrespecting the original releases. If you can get beyond that, you're bound have a good time.

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Posted by cphillips at 02:41 PM

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Sean Costello - We Can Get Together

By Pico

When you first hear 28-year-old Sean Costello with his soulful, emotive voice and his tasty guitar licks, it's tempting to compare him to Jonny Lang. Born less than two years apart and both making their proper debut albums at the age of sixteen, the comparisons between the two get even more unavoidable. When you listen closer, though, there's much more to Costello than Lang ever was.

For one, Costello's influences run much more varied and deeper. I often like to describe a musicians sound by listing the musicians who came before him that he sounds like. In Costello's case, the list is mind-boggling in length and diversity. His guitar, to me, conjures up Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Keith Richards, and Freddy King, among others. His gruff, passionate singing really sounds like no other but Johnny Taylor is his favorite singer and he probably draws a lot from him, along with Otis Redding, and Eddie Hinton. His music touches on Redding, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Bob Dylan, ZZ Top, and Fats Domino. I'm sure I just scratched the surfaced, too.

Costello has stated that he "wanted that feeling I get when I listen to my favorite records. I wanted to take a different spin on every song. I was trying to make it all sound fresh." His fresh approach to the old school blues, rock and roll, gospel, and soul makes him a worthy heir to Jimmie Lee Vaughan.

Costello didn't soak up influences just by sitting around listening to records, though. At eighteen he was the lead guitarist on Susan Tedeschi's seminal Just Won't Burn and has played alongside blues luminaries B.B. King, Guy, James Cotton, Pinetop Perkins, and Bo Diddley. Add to that the fact that he's been making his own records for twelve years, now, and you've got a guy who's been around the block quite a few times already.

After refining his sound over four albums, We Can Get Together finds Costello really getting his groove going in every aspect. The guitar playing is concise, the vocals are fervent without being overly so, and the songwriting is mature.

Costello can adjust his approach for whatever the song calls for. He gets gritty singing on "Anytime You Want," with a pretty Bloomfield-like guitar riff and an organ providing just a dash of soul.

"Same Old Game" is a funky rocker early-seventies style replete with a Charlie Watts rhythm. "Can't Let Go" is the melodic highlight of the CD, sounding like Hinton at his best. On it, Costello provides not one, but two short but sizzling solos.

"Hard Luck Woman" is blues-rock take on a prison work song with some stinging Billy Gibbons riffing. "How In The Devil" applies Howlin' Wolf vocal phrasing to no-nonsense hard-hitting electric blues.

"Told Me A Lie" shows off the fruits of working with Levon Helm in the gospel blues scene, utilizing a tuba for a blues dirge in true The Band fashion and employing a country gospel backing chorus on the refrain. Speaking of Helm, like the ol' singing drummer did for his Dirt Farmer CD last year, Costello likewise covers the traditional light waltz "Little Birds." In this rendition, Sean's shimmering guitar and weeping slide colors the song in a way that makes the song sound altogether different.

Costello's affinity for gospel continues on the album's only other traditional cover, a deeply soulful take on "Going Home."

There have been a lot of newcomers to the blues scene over the last ten or fifteen years, but few have given more reason to be excited about the future of the blues than Sean Costello. He's a completely developed package revitalizing the genre using more than a dozen years of experience most blues players don't get in a lifetime. And he's not even thirty yet. If he is this good on We Can Get Together it's scary to think how good he'll be by the time he finally hits that milestone birthday.


Photo by John Morris

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Posted by cphillips at 02:29 PM

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Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree

By The Masked Movie Snobs

Written by Tío Esqueleto

It’s been three years since Goldfrapp, the British duo of vocalist Alison Goldfrapp, and composer Will Gregory, released their third album, Supernature. It sold over a million copies worldwide and catapulted the duo to superstar status in their native England and Europe, as well as here in the states where its undeniable electro-pop seeped into American pop culture via various commercials, network television bumpers, countless music TV promos, as well as on the dance floor. The natural sister piece to 2003’s electro cabaret Black Cherry, Supernature seemed to be everywhere at once and, before too long, teetered on exhaustion for both fans, and unknowing consumers, alike.

With Seventh Tree, the band’s fourth album, gone is the glam electric of those previous two offerings. Instead, they have returned to the lush, cinematic soundscapes of their first endeavor, 2000’s Felt Mountain, the perfect destination after four good years of disco glitz. Where their debut was mondo Morricone, with a nod to Barry’s Bond, here we are treated to a folky, no less lush, but subtly psychedelic, touch of the cinematic with Goldfrapp herself likening its overall feel to the 1973 British cult film, The Wicker Man, directed by Robin Hardy and scored by Paul Giovanni.

Nowhere is this love letter to The Wicker Man more apparent than in the album’s slower songs. The opening track, “Clowns,” is a gorgeous offering that evokes washed-out images of Scottish countryside, lens flares, and the eerie inhabitants of Summerisle. They’ve spared us any reference to “Corn rigs and Barley rigs” (thank God), and have instead stuck with the more Britt Ekland-inspired, Willow’s songs. Traces of Ekland’s memorable turn as the highly erotic Willow can be found scattered throughout the album on tracks such as “Road to Somewhere” and “Some People,” tracks that while lyrically don’t make much of a connection, musically they seem to be directly inspired by the now-infamous bedroom seduction song, while subconsciously conjuring imagery of a voluptuous Ekland dancing naked against the wall.

The psychedelic really comes into play on the more up tempo numbers, “Little Bird” and “Happiness,” the first of which starts slow, but by song’s end, takes a turn towards one of the deeper cuts on The Yellow Submarine. “Happiness” takes Goldfrapp’s signature swing and forgoes the usual hard-edged, chunky synths for softer synths, various horns, and an array of strings and technique that would impress a young Brian Wilson. The same can be said for most of the album’s composition that, for the first time, finds the band enlisting the help of outside musicians, as well as from U2/Nine Inch Nails/Depeche Mode producer extraordinaire, Flood. Much of the arrangement recalls the previous two albums, only this time they are merely played through a variety of different instruments and musicians. This about-face is a means to an end is most apparent in the aforementioned “Happiness,” as well as in the single “A&E.” You can almost hear the good people at Target putting together their spring campaign to one of these two songs. The hooks are certainly still there.

Seventh Tree is a wonderful step sideways for Goldfrapp. They’ve traded pop-glitz and glam for folk-psychedelia and sun. It is still undeniably Goldfrapp, and with a voice like that, how could it not be? Will Gregory, with the aid of Flood, has done some of his finest work to date. For those of you longing for a taste of the “wonderful electric,” there is always the live show. I, for one, cannot wait to see how this album translates to the stage. With a tour currently underway across the pond, my fingers are crossed that it makes its way to the states, animal heads, Maypoles, ribbons, and all.

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Posted by cphillips at 02:27 PM

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Edison Glass - Time is Fiction

By Dusty Somers

Edison Glass derives its name from two pretty inventive guys – Thomas Edison and Philip Glass. That’s setting the bar pretty high for yourself.

In reality, Edison Glass likely isn’t likely to leave an impact on the level of either of one of their namesakes, and in the crowded indie alternative scene, they don’t do enough to stand out.

Time is Fiction, the band’s second full-length release under their current moniker, doesn’t sound much different from their last LP A Burn or a Shiver. Two vocalists and two guitars drive every song, ensuring even the slowest of songs has an undeniable energy. I have little doubt the band puts on a fun live show, but it’s certainly due to their frenetic pace, rather than their musical creativity. Listening to the entire album is a bit exhausting – every song runs together due to the innumerable driving guitar solos and repetitive lyrics.

It doesn’t help matters that Josh Morin’s screechy vocals begin to wear on the ears before the album is half up. Joshua Silverberg provides a voice that’s more conventional, but Morin certainly bears the weight of the singing. Unique vocalists are good, and I’m sure Morin has his share of fans, but he caused me to cringe not a few times throughout the course of the album. (“Without a Sound,” “The Jig is Up”)

It’s clear that theses guys are talented – the musicianship is solid, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being sold short. The repetition, both lyrically and musically, that seems to crop up in every song is tiring. Mix it up a little! The band gets it right on tracks like “See Me Through” by introducing a little piano. It helps create a fuller sound than the two guitars and bass can provide alone.

Time is Fiction warrants several listens, but when it takes a concentrated effort to distinguish one song from the next, the replayability level is in serious danger. For me, Time is Fiction will suffer the same fate as Edison Glass’s last album and get lost amid the rest of the albums in my library I never listen to. It’s a shame – I feel like these guys deserve better, but it’s going to take a more distinct sound that doesn’t get lost in the noise of two electric guitars to set them apart from the rest of the indie alternative crowd.

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Posted by cphillips at 02:05 PM

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Stefan Németh's Film

By Mark Saleski

I'm always more than a little perplexed when a conversation about instrumental music ends up stalling at the "it's very soundtracky" gambit. Soundtracky? What does that mean? I love film music, so the idea of something being "too soundtracky" just doesn't add up in my musical brain parts. I'm drawn to the instrumentals created for moving images because they allow me to imagine the scenes that inspired the music. If that route provides no interesting results, I can always create my own visuals.

Stefan Németh has been creating such music for years. His work has centered around experimental videos, short films, and artist installations. For Film, the idea was to take previously created material and re-purpose it via some structural alterations and sonic additions (synthesizer, guitar, percussion). The result is a collection of electro-acoustic music that keeps the exact mix of organic and artificial a guarded secret.

Oooh, it's so soundtracky.

From the original visual contexts of sound design for an architectural film ("Field") to the soundtrack for Németh's own film about Brazil and utopian ideals ("Via L4-Norte"), we have what to my ears sounds like the ambient noise lurking behind the big, rusted metal door of that abandoned mill building we whistle our way past at night. Electronic (read: "constructed") music often does this to me. Of course, the obvious "industrial" moniker might apply here, but it's more than that. Urban landscapes, large rusted structures, decay...they have always had an odd appeal for me. Where some folks might just see an ugly pile of metal, I see a vibrant past and a spooky, foreboding future. This is exactly why soundtrack music, though meant to support a visual, can (and does!) project its own story.

By way of example, let's consider "Transitions," which begins with two single piano notes that are soon joined by another pair, and then another...and so on. There is a ringing swell that threatens to overtake everything before more notes are dropped in by an attackless guitar. In a circuitous way, some chords are being formed. As we near the end, a fizzy synthesizer glues together all of the shimmering notes. Without researching the track's "true meaning," I hear a number of possibilities including an aural account of the human physical aging process, the trials endured by the immigrant fitting into a new society, or perhaps just plain notes echoing through the interior of an empty factory — slowly being absorbed into the structure's natural resonant frequency.

I don't mean to step directly on the artist's original intent when talking about instrumental music. It just can't be helped. So, the next time you're faced with a soundtrack, remember that there's more than one way to approach it. Don't be surprised if the answers come from inside of you.

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Posted by cphillips at 11:19 AM

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Dolly Parton's Backwoods Barbie

By Donald Gibson

For all her flamboyance and showbiz kitsch, Dolly Parton is, at heart, an exceptional songwriter. Having written country classics like “Coat of Many Colors” and “Jolene” as well as crossover pop hits like “Here You Come Again” and “9 To 5,” Parton stands as one of music’s most inimitable storytellers. On Backwoods Barbie – marketed as her first mainstream country release in 17 years – she contributes 9 original compositions and, in doing so, delivers a rewarding album that plays to her greatest strength as an artist.

Actually, it seems a bit of a slight to pigeonhole this album as strictly country music, as the songs vary in style to include elements of Celtic, pop, and even jazz. The saucy lament, “The Lonesomes,” for instance, sounds like something Norah Jones could sink right into with its piano-bar melancholy. As well, “Only Dreamin’,” in its striking use of a tin whistle and bodhran drum, summons a mystical, almost primeval mood. And though the music never leans drastically toward disparate genres, it doesn’t sound entirely characteristic of the Grand Ole Opry either.

What’s invariable on this album is Dolly Parton’s distinctive ability to tell a story through song. In the poignant ballad, “Cologne,” she assumes the role of the other woman in an extra-marital affair, having to quit wearing perfume so as to not leave a scent on her man when he returns to his wife. Conversely, in “Made Of Stone,” she plays a woman scorned, the one forced to confront her husband’s transparent infidelity. And on “Shinola,” she’s been wronged one too many times as she sings with venom in her voice, “I’m calling you out ‘cause I don’t need this crap/I’m gettin’ myself out of Dodge.” If the latter was inspired by real life events, someone got seriously dissed by Dolly.

Perhaps because she’s a songwriter first and foremost, Parton understands full well how to interpret a song, even ones she hasn’t written. Of the three songs that didn’t originate from her own pen, “Jesus And Gravity” towers above the rest. To call it inspirational would be a vast understatement. The remaining two covers, “Drives Me Crazy” (edited from the Fine Young Cannibals’ original) and Smokey Robinson’s “The Tracks Of My Tears,” have their intrinsic merits, yet they pale in comparison not only to “Jesus And Gravity,” but also to Parton’s original contributions to the album.

So while Dolly Parton’s often-cartoonish image may overshadow it at times, her talent as a musician, but especially as a songwriter, is considerable and evident in this effort. In the self-describing title track, she comes to a similar conclusion, singing, “I’ve always been misunderstood because of how I look/Don’t judge me by the cover ‘cause I’m a real good book.” And Backwoods Barbie is a real good album.

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Posted by cphillips at 11:01 AM

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Albert Collins - Live At Montreux 1992 (CD/DVD)

By The Masked Movie Snobs

Written by Fantasma el Rey

Albert Collins hits the stage not once but twice on this new DVD from the Live At Montreux series. Collins dubbed “The Iceman” shows us why he’s known worldwide as such with every strum, pick, and lick that smokes off his guitar and freezes you in your tracks. Collins and his bands, let loose on eleven cuts presented here, seven songs from the