65 posts tagged “review”
I caught Meshell for the fourth time last week (and the first at the Independent, a venue where I last was to see Tack>>Head and saw N'Dea Davenport and Kudu back when it was called The Justice League).
As with all the other times, she surprises, and she thrills. The more I see her, the more in awe I am of how much the woman is capable of, and sad that most of the record public doesn't know that. She seems to be following her muse into ever more varied territory, and following a pattern of not having a pattern. Her most visible material has been deeply rooted in funk and soul and hip-hop, but her capacity to morph, absorb and transform everything she touches into something inherently Meshellesque is something to behold. Case in point, her show this time around was almost completely new material from her Article 3 EP, some as-yet unreleased material, a token dip into her own back catalog with the extended take of Free My Heart, and a Joy Division cover that far surpassed the original.
Yes, Meshell Ndegeocello did a Joy Division tune. And did it damn well.
If I had to describe this show, it was Meshell on a serious Post-Punk tip. But she was not just aping stylistic conventions as much as absorbed the general aesthetic and married it to a melodicism and a pastiche of her other musical faces into something that would not be out of place on tour with Bloc Party or Davis Sylvian or Seal.
Breathtaking.
Her band, as with all her bands, was top notch. The only name I was familiar with was her keyboardist Jason Lindner, whose own jazzier solo work is worth seeking out on its own merits. Bassist Mark Kelly (no relation to Marillion keyboardist of the same name that I can tell) was a monster, and his interlocking work with Meshell was a bass-lovers utopia. Meshell has the same bad habit as Prince and Steve Coleman, in that she continues to always have a topline monster in the drum throne. She went from Gene lake (Screaming Headless Torsos, Steve Coleman), to Chris Dave (Pat Metheny, Mint Condition) and now one Charles Haynes, who can pummel, prod and pull the beat in all manner of directions.
Initial Wisdom
2002 Palmetto
I picked this up from a cutout bin for 4.95, and rarely listened to it for a long while. Tonight though, it is a very good listen indeed. I think I finally understand why people dig Bill Stewart's drumming, and Adam Rogers has not sounded this good since his days with Lost Tribe. Ravi Coltrane continues tio impress me, and he does a solid job falling into the mix here. Colley himself has a very dry but full sound, and he does the task of anchorman and leader with an eye towards building a cohesive sound.
This is a tidy, tasty, collection of good tracks (his originals are decent, and his covers of cuts by Miles and Ornette are admirable). It's not groundbreaking, but it is inherently listenable without lacking bite.
Someone gives these guys bigger exposure. Please.
Sage Francis
Sickly Business
While Sage Francis has a considerably better flow than Aesop Rock (and certainly riffs off the roof of anyone on regular radio rotation) but some of the tracks on Sickly Business are lyrically contrived, and suffer from the same kind of pretentious left wing tirades that made Zach DeLa Rocha annoying in RATM. The Masters Are Back is a prime example. Alternatives to College is a close second.
He rises out of that mire on slick quick cuts like Garden Gnomes with Danger Mouse and Tree of Knowledge grooves its deep ostinato bass figure and dirty high hat, and the broken jazz slackout of Doomage (produced by MFDoom...who'dathunkit). Sandpaper Gloves has an organic alterna-funk on a Herbie Mann musical backdrop, which works for reasons I can neither explain nor describe fully. It kind of reminds me of early Divine Styler.
There is some real boredom here. There is also some very sharp material. Overall, jury is still out.
So recently I heard Stone Trek for the first time back on the radio in over a decade (thank you Greg STone for returning to the air). I decided on a whim to switch to the FM dial, as I normally listen to tapes or cds in the car. Oddly enough, he played the first single off the upcoming Snakes and Arrows album, which I look forward to.
That being said, I had to go back and listen to some past material, most notably the 80s album Hold Your Fire (the first Rush album I woned, on vinyl no less, given to me as a gift from my cousin Bubba) and the last studio release, Vapor Trails.
Rush remeians one of those bands that I can't seem to get out of my system, even though I am a bit of a hardcore heretic and prefer the 80s material (especially the Grace Under Pressure and Power Windows releases), but the 90s and current ain't to shabby. Only the early 70s seems to wear thin on me quickly, at leat in its original studio configuration.
I also like reading drummer/lyricits Neil Pearts writing. I thin khis travelogue of sorts, Ghost Rider, about the period after the death of his daughter in a car accident and his wife to cancer was a rather poingant bit of reflective writing.
Parade: Music from the Motion Picture,
Under the Cherry Moon
1986 Paisley Park/Warner Bros.
This is one of those albums that everyone and no one remembers. Everyone remembers the big hit Kiss (and if you are of a certain age, the very amusing video centered on Prince, a very odd female dancer, and Revolution guitarist Wendy Melvoin), but few really remember the album as a whole work. It kind of gets lost in the space between Around the World in a Day and Sign O' The Times.
This is quite unfortunate, as it had a cluster of songs that showcased and ever improving Revolution, especially Melvoin and keyboardist Lisa Coleman, who at this point were deeply involved in the arrangements, and whose impact are generally given short-shrift when one considers they may have been the true secret behind Prince's sprawling evolution in his most fertile musical period.
Apparently Parade was meant to be a double album, just as SoTT was supposed to be a triple album; this was a time when every minute not spent touring, Prince spent recording immense amounts of material. Parade was reduced to a single 41 minute teaser of what might have been. It jumps from from one motif to another, and rolls a certain bright eclecticism into musical proceedings full of psychedelica, pop, spartan funk and even a bit of cabaret.
I will also say that having heard the bands from 1986-1988 who played much of this material live, that it carries over to the stage better than much of his material prior, especially New Position and I Wonder U (was Prince the inventor of text-speak, because his typing habits have bugged me for decades). And while I stated that Kiss gets all the attention, there are a pair of tunes I felt should have been just as likely for big hit status, namely Life Can Be So Nice and Mountains. The former also gets a booby prize for having a lyric that has stuck in my head for years: No one plays the clarinet the way you play my heart (I think its the way Melvoin and Coleman do the accompanying vocals), and the latter has such a great spiralling pulse that it really sounds like it could go merrily on far longer than the 3:58 seconds it gets.
.
The Outer Marker
2002 RGR Music
In yet another of those weird finds from the cutout bin that initially leaves you cold but warms up to you, I bring you Jack Allsopp, aka Just Jack.
The best way to describe him would be a fragment of Guy Chambers-style pop smarts with the delivery somewhere between Rob Birch of Stereo MCs or a less drunk The Streets. It is an album that sounds very London (if that is a sound, really). It is often chilled, but has undertones of tension.
Some songs clicked quicker than others, with the top spots being Paradise (Lost & Found), Heartburn, and Triple Tone Eyes. All have a little bit of inventive twist on the nonplussed cockney monologue approach to vocals. Contradictions has a hint of what I can only describe as early Corduroy (think along the lines of the album their single Mini was from, whose title escapes me right now), and Snowflakes is a depressed Eminem for the Faithless set.
Worth a spin or two every once in a while at the very least.
2002 Fabric Records
The Fabric series is one of those rare class of releases that does not deviate in quality, even when moving widely along the electronic dance music spectrum. 07 marks the first I can recall hearing of Hipp-e & Halo, and I was not, and still am not, disappointed in the slightest.
This is at turns dreamy and driving house, with ample amounts of bounce. Currently, the cuts that keep standing out are Scoper & Bubba's I'm Satisfied and Long Deep Decay by the amusingly monikered Don't Bogart.
H & H do a bang up job of creating a fluid, infectious mix for the series.
Jughead
2002 Inside Out
I purchased this initially, sound unheard when it came out. And while I never disliked it, it took me half a decade to really appreciate the charm and sublime joy in this album. Why so long? I had to get around my expectations of what a band led by Ty Tabor (King's X, Platypus, Jelly Jam) and Derik Sherinian (Dream Theater, Planet X) were going to sound like. I do not know why it took so long, but at this point, its moot.
Jughead does have impeccable musicianship, and thanks to Tabor's songwriting skills, hummable melodies and great multipart harmonies. But it is all subsumed into a rather pithy, solid package of very accessible alt-rock (an oxymoron I know) that instead of strip mining the vogue pop-punk then emerging when it was released, mixes the sound up with Beatle's catchiness, and 70s guitar rock. The result is something that could just as eaily fit on a tour with anyone from Blink 182, Stone Temple Pilots, and Matchbox 20 to King's X, Spock's Beard and and fellow prog-pop supergroup Kino. It's quirky enough to be interesting (especially on the odd and whimsical Paging Willie Mays) but doesn't have a pretentious note in its body.
Apparently this was a simple one off project to let a bunch of guys who normally rip and shred through intricate compositions to just have an easy, lighthearted, fun ride. And it works.It is a terribly catchy track filled album, with the standout cuts being Halfway Home to Elvis, Bullet Train, Yesterday I found Myself, and closer Paging Willie Mays.
A Positive Sweat
1999 RoS
I found Straight From the Fridge (2002), in a cut out bin a few years ago, and was floored at the jazzy cinematic jungle and the almost broken beat soul cuts of James Hardway (aka David Harrow, collaborator with many, including Adrian Sherwood, Depeche Mode, and The Orb). Since then I have been seeking out other material by Mr. Hardway, with this being the only other one I have found.
The consistency of his production quality is well above par, and has an almost dry purity. He assembles organic instrumentation with electronics in a way that makes me think he has listened to a lot of Wayne Shorter and Tim Hagans, as he uses ample amounts of brass in floating clusters, and has a way of making even busy rhythms work with them to create a dense but cleanly separated mix ; just listen to Bossnova or Feriha for immutable truth. All the instrumental tracks flow brilliantly, and I am enamored with his use of acoustic upright bass prominently.
His songs succeed equally well, thanks largely to the slightly husky and very supple vocals of Amanda Ghost. Having heard Amanda on her solo record Ghost Stories and one single by Dark Globe, I am prone to say these are her best recorded performances. High praises to Sleep Tonight, Lament, and the Olive-like Pulling Weeds.
This will go over well for people looking for something between LTJ Bukem/4 hero and the less strident side of Roni Size.
