Hi Chris, hope all’s well. You called for Jan./Feb. releases, so here’s some, preceded by a couple that are out now, but still under the radar. My criteria include: 1) tracks from albums that are mostly good, so that the odds aren’t against getting mp3 of something worth writing about (unless I’m just really really taken with a certain track, and even then, should be from something with at least 2/3 other good choices); 2) has to sound good the first time I listen, cos I doubt that many people give it a chance to grow on them; 3) has to sound good on crappy little laptop or boombox (tinbox) speakers, minus headphones, to suit the casual/default/lowbudget listener. Of course, you don’t have to pick just one of these, please keep this whole thing for future study:
Out now:
Traffic Sound: Yellow Sea Years 68-71. Another from Anthology. Peruvian band, hung up on Anglo rock of those years, with Latin elements coming in anyway, reminding me that Peter Green wrote "Black Magic Woman" and otherwise influenced Carlos Santana. But this has its own tension, of observant caution and defiant eagerness, frustration and pleasure. Enough practical-minded, cooperative focus on the details that shadowy references seem that much more credible, and might be more from music than words anyway, like sudden guitar incisions, or a key change, in a sunny-day ballad. Some extended tracks, but more rough and ready than prog, like winding mountain bridges and hallways.. "Chicama Way" is a song about surfing, but no twangy tiki riffs, there’s bass undertow, lots of choppy activity, on the beach as well as in the waves. A long, scary day. (Prob pertains with the way the Beach Boys actually lived than their songs did.)
The Wired Ones: I guess this could be called post-neo-post-punk, or some kind electro-rock-dance, with hip hop elements at times, descendants of Too Much Joy, Essential Logic, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, etc., but not retro. And they’ve def been delving in the lab, not rushing the stage too quickly. But they’ve worked it so fine, make it look easy, for the performer, not always the dancer (not too rough, just don’t take ‘em for granted, hold into your hats). Bookended by howlin’ Kevin Blechdom tracks (she the Stampfel of shes?!), with prodigies, new to me anyway, like Chez Debs, Miss LeBomb (running down a vampire on her moped), Dynasty Handbag ("I Can’t Wait" choking with desire, not unlike James Brown’s "Please Please Please" of microhandbaghouse or something) synaesthetic shivers of Monotekktani’s "Heidi And The Mountains Of Hell," lots more. But the one that I’ve always been most struck by is Scream Club’s "Pardon Me," which will def make my 06 ballots, incl. Nashville Scene’s Best of Country. Her vocals are multitracked, but backups are slightly delayed, then slightly speeded up, phased, kind of sloshing back and forth when not accelerating, but the lead track is unfazed by phasing it’s albout how she was an abandoned child, either starve or peddle her ass, so (cheerfully) "Puh-wardon me, ef " she’s actually not starvin’, Warden, or arresting officer, or somebody else giving her a bad look or a time that’s the wrong kind of hard. That electronic warping and testing of "puh-wh-Or-don"(re Mongomery Gentry, bouncing and stomping on the on-the-one/drawl, particle/wave paradox power of "gaw-one?" "gahone" "gawho-onne" at the beginning of the refrain of their masterpiece, "Gone") is the center of it, and not far from what might hear on the street where I live, non-electronically, whether you happen to be wired or not. As with prime Mose Allison, it’s a Southern thing: insolent politeness, what the largely Southern U.S. Army correctly Ids as "insubordination of manner." Although different in approach, it’s thematically related to another Scream Club track on here, "Vomit Cash," (which is like "Push It" era Salt N Pepa, which I thought at the time sounded just like what the Stones shoud have been doing). 16 tracks, almost all of them kill, and "new original and never-before-released" sez on Forced Ex press sheet (Eric’s usually able to get permissions on F.E. stuff, esp when it’s new, so no tracking down who licensed what)
Collector’s Series Pt. 2 Danse, Gravite Zero is a mix by Germany’s DJ Kaos and Liquid Liquid’s Sal P., with at least a couple of amazing tracks (also on 06 ballots): Under the disco moon, Billy Thorpe’s "Stimulation" ("Stim-yew-layyyyy-shuuhhn") is hooked around highflying sandpaper invocations of a peroxide hillbilly muse, previously via Eddie Hinton, Mouse of Mouse And The Traps, Doug Sahm in his less mellow moments, Sam Harris (oh, you remember the Star Search winner, he got a Motown contract), Johnnie Ray, probably even before him. Zazu’s "Captain Starlight" is a space opera that leaves Tenacious D. and their heroes in the dust, and not the fun dust. (Another from F.E.; these are licensed)
Ditto the vintage discoveries of The In-Kraut Vol. 2, but can’t resist mentioning Hidegarde Knef’s protorap rant, "Holiday Time," where she wonders if her funtime’s gonna be spoiled again, like it was the Munich Olympics shootout between Black September kidnapper-terrorists and dickfingered kopz. And the Baader-Meinhoff gang, dammit, and this is somehow kind of sexy, she was a movie star, after all, but I really doubt this got too radio play, either as morgen drive AM or latenicht FM (come to think of it, this might have given Marianne F. the germ of "Broken English," at least thematically). And yeah, it does sound (musical textures as well as words) like what’s become a too-familiar experience, of feeling the change into a previously welcome season, now somewhat spoiled. (If this turned out to be unavailable, there are some other goodies on here, like when easy listening hack James Last bursts into an astonishingly atypical "Soul March")(otherwise, the most uneven of any album in this email, but they seem to be pushing Hildegarde’s track, judging by promo sheet, so might be eager to have us use it)(PS: lots of people trying really, really hard to have a good time on this comp, so Hildegarde seems to be ordering them all to give it up, and admit that everything ist toten hosen)
Eyeless In Gaza: Plague Of Years/Martyn Bates: Your Jewelled Footsteps. Maybe it’s just lowered expectations, since Bates’s voice is the sort of high white British male sound that usually conveys nothing but earnest strain. But his own lungs express, at least, exultation in their own improbable power, distracted on the way to angst or whatever. (Fairly spare, stealthy, sensuous accompaniment; the instrumentals wash around his voice just a bit more than on the non-strumentals).(Not that some insts. aren’t totally, literally instrumentals, centered around Beefhearty or Tibet truckhorn saxes, which, sensibility-wise, sure sound they might be Martyn’s, certainly his kinda proxies.) The solo set is more about putting the words up front, and his seemingly Yeats-influenced lyrics hold their own with Joyce’s poems (sung, not recited). The one on Plague that grabs me most has Martyn running up and down the shuddering spine of a scale, all in a single syllable, with Peter Becker’s deep keys rippling along (and that’s the chorus!). On the solo set, they sound like Soft Cell breaking into a village church, Marc/Martyn strutting the aisles, letting his accent do what it will, while Peter/the other guy in Sof Cell investigates thee ancient organ (musical one, at least). But lots of other goodies on both sets (again, F.E.)
Out Jan. 30:
Sneakers: Nonsequitur of Silence. Stamey, Holsapple, Easter & friends, before (and a few after) dB’s and Let’s Active. Mad science of power pop at its most rocking, can see how these mostly unremixed tracks must have literally struck the fortunate few in ’76, as they leapt out of roomy 12" Eps.like the second coming of Big Star, just as indie rock finally got some momentum as a movement, a trendette, anyway. "Power pop" can seem like arrested development, but this is so masterful, in a concentrated way. Not very chirpy either (Stamey says in notes that they meant to progress, not get retro, though couldn’t part with their Kinks albums, and can be as cheerfully eccentric as Kinks, never deliberately chirpy like Beatles, only by occasional accident). A few later tracks demonstrate why they were prev unreleased, but lots of good prospects. Cary Baker’s the "reissue executive producer and instigator," and he’s always been cool to work with, in my experience.
Out Feb. 6:
Eleni Mandell: Miracle Of Five. Another Cary Baker client. She’s kind of uneven though: her track on New Coat Of Paint is noteworthy even in context of what was already unusually intelligent tribute album (to Tom Waits). But here, the producer’s got her into this less-is-more detachment, which only really works on "Girls," where she announces that she’s your luck, where your fingers touch your dice, and, just as you toss ‘em again, she wonders if you "still think of girls. Girls. Do you still dream of girls." Not trying to get sexy with it, just inserting these little pegs of girly sound, of tiny solid distraction, and thus perhaps revenge, in the gamblin’ fool. Then there’s "The Make Out King," who’s dreaming in her bed, while she’s out working, she’s got him planted, and he’s growing, getting more mature, she assures is, and as she does, reveals herself as the calmly crazy one, in his spell, typing away in her office.
Feb (no date yet given):
Yoko Ono & Various Artists: Yes, I’m A Witch. Original vocals with new music, by, among others, Hank Shocklee, Peaches, Le Tigre, DJ Spooky, The Apples In Stereo (one of the best), The Brother Brothers (ditto, whoever they are!), Antony And The Johnsons, The Flaming Lips, The Sleepy Jackson, Spiritualized ( good, but little to VUishly predictable?). Even Cat Power and Polyphonic Spree do well, mainly cos they’re following the Master. She’s a power figure for sure, dropping wisdom, being mysterious, making pre Net diary entries in the sky: all at the same time, of course. She’s also a much better singer or vocalist than I realized. But my fave, which would so have been no. 1 on my P&J/Jackin’ P Singles if only it had come out this month, is "Death Of Samantha," with Porcupine Tree. Perfect pacing by acoustic guitar, and something, maybe a theramin, is the sound of a frozen tear being shaved forever, ‘til the blade moves back, waiting for another chorus, another breath squeezing through a virtually solid object, something I better figure out how to describe. (This is on Astralweeks, who have been good to work with.)
