Jan-Feb reviews 2018

These reviews ran in the Waterloo Region Record in January and February 2018.

Rich Aucoin – Fear EP (independent)

Rich Aucoin puts on one of the best live shows in Canada. They’re so good, in fact, that nothing the Halifax performer has ever released comes close to the experience. Which is why you’d be forgiven for wanting to skip his new record and just go see him when he hits your town—except this time that would be a mistake. The Fear EP finds Aucoin toning down his manic energy and making a smooth little pop record. That’s in part because while he was on a surfing trip, he had a laptop stolen that contained what was to be his next record. Starting fresh, Aucoin has come up with the perfect marriage of anthems, subtle electro-funk and R&B songs. Part of me wants to hear a whole record like this immediately; part of me thinks this four-song EP is a perfect distillation. (Feb. 16)

Rich Aucoin plays the Drake Hotel in Toronto tonight, March 1, and the Seahorse in Halifax March 15.

  

Beams – Teach Me To Love (independent)

Isn’t that what we want from most songs? To teach us how to love? For singer/songwriter and banjo player Anna Mernieks, it’s an imperative with added weight, following a crippling depression that led her to cancel a wedding (“The people living in the apartment in my head have got to go”). Mernieks channelled that journey into her art, and so the second album by her band Beams taps into that pain but never wallows in it: this is not a minor-key, downtempo mopefest. Beams makes tasteful indie folk-rock, with vibraphones, violins, mandolins and lap steel, while harmonies from co-lead vocalist Heather Mazhar make the whole affair seem even less lonely. In your darkest days, making music with your friends can be the best therapy. It may even teach you how to love. (Feb. 16)

Beams are touring the U.S. in March and April.

  

Stream: “Berlin, Teach Me to Love,” “Pull of the Night,” “You Are an Ocean”

Hollie Cook – Vessels of Love (Merge)

Hearing a great new reggae album in the middle of a Canadian winter is either a gift or a curse. Either way, it’s an escape. Hollie Cook’s third record—and first to get a proper North American release—is a dreamlike fantasy of a modern roots reggae record, produced by Youth (Paul McCartney, Killing Joke) with lovely melodies, rich female harmonies, full horn section, psychedelic overtones, and a killer dub-heavy rhythm section that features, at times, Jah Wobble of Public Image Limited (that band’s guitarist, Keith Levene, also shows up on one track). Cook has deep roots in Britain’s post-punk scene, being the daughter of a Sex Pistol and a backing singer for Culture Club; she also served time in a reunited Slits. Her music is most definitely a throwback—there’s no trace of dancehall or any trend in reggae of the last 30 years—but her songwriting and the production here ensure this is no mere pastiche. And it will sound even better four months from now. (Feb. 2)

Stream: “Angel Fire,” “Stay Alive,” “Ghostly Fading”

Craig David – The Time is Now (Sony)

Time isn’t usually kind to R&B singers who came up in the ’90s and early 2000s; the number of young challengers seems to rise every year, and the sonic innovation in the genre can easily leave old-timers behind. Then there’s Craig David, who had an improbable but welcome comeback two years ago when he reworked Justin Bieber’s “Where Are Ü Now” into the arguably better song “16,” as well as a collaboration with Montreal producer Kaytranada, which all led to the album Following My Intuition, which was a No. 1 album in David’s native Britain. The Time is Now is the somewhat quick follow-up, the title alluding to the fact that David doesn’t want to waste a moment of his time back in the spotlight. The same formula is in effect: melodically rich R&B with thoroughly modern grooves drawing from just about every radio trend from around the world, including the misnomer Afrobeats. David has better ears for a pop hook than other artists who are infinitely more successful; he deserves to be an international superstar, not just a British one. (Feb. 9)

Craig David plays the Velvet Underground in Toronto on March 14.

Stream: “Magic,” “Somebody Like Me,” “I Know You”

Betty Davis – Nasty Gal (Light in the Attic)

Whoever it was at Light in the Attic records who decided to time this reissue for January deserves a gold star. During the most depressing month of the year (or is that February?), listening to Betty Davis just might be the most ridiculously fun thing you can do with a set of headphones.

Davis was a funk goddess of the 1970s, whose music was driven by lots of wah pedals, clavinets, distorted guitars playing tight funk licks, and a series of incredible musicians—whom Davis insisted perform shirtless and lathered in baby oil. Before Prince took licentiousness to new levels in 1980s pop music, Davis revelled in raunch. Her hyper-sexual singing is filled with shrieks, snarls and moans, making Tina Turner sound like she was sprung from a nunnery. It easily devolves into shtick (“I can’t give it to you more messier than this!” she ad libs on one track), which can mask just what a great singer Davis actually was; when she tones down the dirty funk—as on closing track “The Lone Ranger,” or the ballad “You and I,” orchestrated with the help of her ex-husband, Miles—her true range shines through. But even if it didn’t, Davis is such a delight as a performer that every track here is a total gas.

This 1976 album was Davis’s last before she retired; her earlier records were reissued almost 10 years ago. But it’s never too late to discover Betty Davis, the Nasty Gal that she was—especially when self-identifying “nasty women” are again on the rise. (Jan. 19)

Stream: “Nasty Gal,” “F.U.N.K.,” “The Lone Ranger”

Khruangbin – Con Tudo El Mundo (Dead Oceans)

This Texas trio formed 13 years ago, when they would spend their Saturday evenings listening to ’60s Thai funk music and Iranian pop music, and their Sunday mornings soundtracking a church service. Their formula hasn’t changed much since: their take on meditative and melodic mood music is set to a light but solid groove that’s as sensual as it is spiritual. Laura Lee’s supple bass lines fitting perfectly inside the ginger grooves of drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson, while guitarist Mark Speer demonstrates remarkably fluid dexterity. Speer has the jazz voicings of Gábor Szabó, the R&B finesse of Prince in his quietest moments, and the rock’n’roll style of Brian Connelly from Shadowy Men. Khruangbin excel when they’re at their most languid, but Con Tudo El Mundo shows them playing with some extra fire—“Maria También” is based around the classic hip-hop “Apache” break—that probably comes from their first extended bout of touring following their 2015 debut, The Universe Smiles Upon You.

They play Toronto on April 17 at the Mod Club. (Feb. 23)

Stream: “Lady and Man,” “Maria También,” “Evan Finds the Third Room”

Rhye – Blood (Last Gang)

Rhye is the internationally acclaimed baby-making musical duo featuring Toronto vocalist Mike Milosh, whose cooing is set to cushiony bedroom grooves. It’s shocking their songs weren’t used on any of the Fifty Shades soundtracks, but maybe Milosh has some taste.

Rhye’s 2013 debut, Woman, was lovely but lightweight: there’s a reason they decided to call the follow-up Blood. The grooves have more depth to them, and even if Milosh rarely rises above a whisper, there’s a quiet intensity to the seductive and sparse soft pop underneath him—perhaps a result of Milosh parting ways with founding member Robin Hannibal and working instead with the live band who toured behind Woman. The string arrangements could stand to be more imaginative, and the piano hook on “Feel Your Weight” is a bit too close for comfort to Arcade Fire’s “Reflektor.” But Rhye’s music doesn’t seem designed to stand up to close inspection: it’s mood music by design, meant to leap out of algorithm-designed playlists as somewhat more substantial than the rest of the musical wallpaper that normally defines this genre. Rhye is a high jump over a low bar. (Feb. 9)

Rhye play Massey Hall on Monday, March 5.

Stream: “Taste,” “Count to Five,” “Feel Your Weight”

Superchunk – What a Time to Be Alive (Merge)

The title track to this venerable punk band’s 12^th proper album is not exactly a celebration of life in the modern era. It, and the other songs here, was written between Donald Trump’s election and the period shortly after his inauguration. The chorus hasn’t aged a bit since then: “To see the rot in no disguise / oh, what a time to be alive / the scum, the shame, the fuckin’ lies / oh, what a time to be alive.”

The song works on several levels: it’s a brilliant protest song, in part because it doesn’t single out its target—it’s more than obvious, listening in 2018—and therefore could be applied to several situations. It’s also a rebuke to nostalgia, to which far too many punk bands subscribe. Most important, it’s not defeatist: in fact, almost every song here is a call to action, a rally for the like-minded to rally together and take back their country. Them’s fighting words, literally: “Fight me,” singer Mac McCaughan sings on “All for You.” “I’m not a violent person, but it can’t get any worse.”

Oh, and the band is on fire, playing like they’re raging against the dying of all lights. (Feb. 16)

Stream: “What a Time To Be Alive,” “Erasure,” “Reagan Youth”

Justin Timberlake – Man of the Woods (Sony)

I didn’t watch the SuperBowl. I did not have high expectations for a new Justin Timberlake album; the man’s obviously an exceptionally talented entertainer, but his records are spotty (witness the brilliant first instalment of The 20/20 Experience, and the completely lacklustre second half). By that measure, Man of the Woods is right on point: about half of it not only confirms Timberlake’s best talents, but points to a future where he merges a country influence from his native Tennessee with the once-futuristic funk of Timbaland and the Neptunes—the latter of which is significantly less forward-looking than it was 10 years ago, if only because their sonic footprint is now all over modern pop music. And the other half of Man of the Woods? It’s not terrible—well, lyrically it often is, but musically it’s usually several steps above the filler tracks on any other pop record.

The highlight here is the title track, where twangy guitars and country harmonies ride atop a synth bass and a drum machine—“Americana with 808s” is how the man himself described it. If more of the album sounded like this, Timberlake would have a real cross-genre game-changer on his hands. But it doesn’t. The collaboration with country star Chris Stapleton isn’t as successful, although the duet with Alicia Keys—which Stapleton had a hand in writing—is just fine. “Sauce” finds Timberlake doing a flat-out Pharrell impersonation, a song that sounds like a direct rip of Williams’s “Hunter,” from his 2014 album Girl. That said, despite the hideous lyrics, it’s a half-decent party track. The basslines on “Midnight Summer Jam” and the African-influenced “Living Off the Land” sound like a sampled talking drum pitched to the notes of the riff; that’s only one component that makes the former the most successful dance track here; the single “Filthy,” in comparison, sounds merely like a rocked-up outtake from FutureSex/LoveSounds.

We expect a lot from Justin Timberlake because he’s a big-tent pop star with an ear for musical innovation—as opposed to Bruno Mars, who shamelessly mines the past for new ideas. Nothing Timberlake has ever done or ever will do will be revolutionary or in any way deep—that’s not the point. If all he does is move the needle a bit and point other artists toward possibilities, then that’s all he has to do. That and a few choice dance moves. (Feb. 9)

Stream: “Midnight Summer Jam,” “Man of the Woods,” “Montana”

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April 2016 reviews

The following reviews ran in the Waterloo Record in April. Posting these a bit late.

Highly recommended (both are several months old, just hearing them now): Khruangbin; Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood and the Rajasthan Express

Well worth your while: Colin Stetson, Venetian Snares, Tim Hecker, Danny Michel (one of those is not at all like the others)

Streaming is great for sample purposes, but please support your favourite artists financially.

Jean-Michel Blais – Il (Arts & Crafts)

Montreal guy plays piano in his apartment. That’s pretty much it. (April 7)

Stream: "Dada," “Nostos,” “Budapest”

PJ Harvey – The Hope Six Demolition Project (Island/Universal)

New records by the beloved PJ Harvey are a rarity. So when lead single “The Community of Hope” first appeared online, its approachable guitar pop reminiscent of Harvey’s 2000 commercial breakthrough Stories From the City Stories From the Sea, expectations were high, especially after the difficult listening (though award-winning) Let England Shake in 2011, an album largely about the First World War. Yet all that quickly dissipated after the story behind the single unravelled: the lyrics are taken almost verbatim from a Washington Post reporter who took Harvey on a cab ride around a derelict neighbourhood in his city, and residents were none too happy about the bleak portrait painted by Harvey, who didn’t bother talking to any of them. One early review said, correctly, that the song is “literally poverty tourism.” Closing track “Dollar Dollar” only reinforces that concept, with sounds from a Third World street scene underpinning Harvey’s lyrics about ignoring a street beggar.

The rest of The Hope Six Demolition Project doesn’t fare much better, lyrically. For an artist who once excelled at imagistic poetry, there’s a lot of mundane reportage: “I saw some Arabic graffiti”; “I saw a woman eat something unhealthy” (not actual quotes, but close). One song attempts to spin a chorus out of the endlessly repeated phrase, “Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln.”

It’s distracting. Thankfully, the music fares much better. Harvey is in a buoyant mood, her guitars are front and centre, and she whips out her saxophone whenever she sees fit. The louder the track, the more likely she is to explore her somewhat creepy upper register. Her all-man band provides a backing choir when necessary. Long-time collaborator John Parish is, as always, a key component of the sound.

Were it not for the lyrics, this would easily be the best PJ Harvey record in at least 12 years. (April 21)

Stream: “The Ministry of Defence,” “The Orange Monkey,” “The Ministry of Social Affairs”

Tim Hecker – Love Streams (Paper Bag)

The clouds have parted in Tim Hecker’s sonic world. The Montreal ambient musician has built a career on strangely captivating sound of largely indeterminate origin. Since Ravedeath 1972, five years ago, he’s been playing a pipe organ found in an Icelandic church, and then digitally deconstructing his performance. On Love Streams, he’s back at the church and employing woodwinds and a local choir, with results that sound typically—well, glacial, to use a geographically obvious descriptor for such mysterious, slow-moving music.

Provocatively, Hecker bills this new music as “liturgical aesthetics after Yeezus.” Weird thing is, he’s not entirely off the mark. Tracks like “Voice Crack” and “Black Phase” feature a choir singing what seem like medieval dirges while crackling, distorted sounds seize control of the melody.

Love Streams also finds Hecker making clearer distinctions in his sonic choices, with sounds that obviously stem from somewhat recognizable synth sounds, as opposed to shifting washes of sound. The result is downright lively compared to the bulk of Hecker’s output; it’s certainly the most human. (April 7)

Stream: “Obisidian Counterpoint,” “Music of the Air,” “Voice Crack”

Khruangbin – The Universe Smiles Upon You (Night Time Stories)

This instrumental trio came out of nowhere—specifically Burton, Texas, a one-stoplight town between Austin and Houston—with an intoxicating mix of Motown grooves, jazzy guitar leads and psychedelic textures, with an ear open to Thai, Ethiopian, French and gospel music. Everyone’s playing here is masterful and gorgeous; it might make you feel hazy and lazy, but there’s nothing lazy about the musicianship at work here. The album was recorded in a barn, and you can easily visualize the big Texas skies influencing the vibe—this is music for cloud-gazing and starwatching, or, you know, any other time The Universe Smiles Upon You. (April 7)

Stream: “Mr. White,” “Little Joe & Mary,” “People Everywhere (Still Alive)”

Roxanne Potvin – For Dreaming (independent)

Potvin started her career as a Colin Linden-endorsed guitar slinger with a seriously soulful side. She’s still all those things, of course, but she’s taken a serious left turn on For Dreaming after becoming enchanted with the intimacy and songcraft of Afie Jurvanen’s recordings as Bahamas. That band’s Christine Bougie joins Potvin here, but despite having two guitar wizards in the same room, For Dreaming is very much a subdued folk-pop record, recorded largely in Potvin’s living room, with lovely little moments and subtle touches. Lyrically, Potvin oscillates between outright cheese (“Love makes us want to help each other out!”) and kind of sweet (“You still smile when I kiss you in your sleep”). It’d be nice to hear some of her former fireworks, which are hinted at on “Figuring It Out,” but she sounds more than comfortable in this new skin. (April 21)

Stream: “Figuring It Out,” “Prairie Sunrise,” “I Wouldn’t Tell You That”

Danny Michel – Matadora (Six Shooter)

The last time we heard from Waterloo favourite Danny Michel, on perhaps the most acclaimed album of his career, Black Birds Are Dancing Over Me, he was performing with the percussion-heavy Central American band Garifuna Collective, from Belize. It was his Paul Simon moment, and it worked. Now he’s back recording in Canada on his own, but the sunny ways are still evident in every groove here, on his 10^th album. “I had a dream that I stole the maps / erased the borders and that was that,” he sings on the sure-to-be hippie anthem “Click Click,” which also asks, “Are you too cool for love?” Michel is too old now to care about being cool, and more power to him. Not an ounce of his talent or curiosity or songwriting has faded in the least. “These are the good old days,” he sings. Doesn’t sound like they’re coming to an end any time soon. (April 21)

Stream: “Paris Las Vegas,” “Get Lost,” “Click Click”

Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood and the Rajasthan Express – Junjun (Nonesuch)

Going to take a wild guess here that of the three names to whom this album is credited, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood is the only one that stands out to you. His contribution to this collaboration is the least audible, but, from a marketing standpoint, it’s certainly obvious why he would get equal billing with the Israeli composer and the Indian ensemble who play Sufi devotional music. Tzur has lived in India for years, and writes in Hindi, Urdu and his native Hebrew. The Rajasthan Express is a large band with full brass and percussion. The music on Junjun blurs lines between Indian and Arabic music, between modern and traditional (there’s a heavy Brian Eno influence on many pieces, presumably Greenwood’s doing), between the meditational and the ecstatic (some of the brass and percussion arrangements here wouldn’t sound out of place in New Orleans). There’s an acclaimed, accompanying documentary by P.T. Anderson, for whom Greenwood is the soundtrack composer of choice (The Master, There Will Be Blood), but you don’t need to know the story to be moved by this powerful music. (April 21)

Stream: “Junjun,” “Roked,” “Allah Elohim”

Colin Stetson – Sorrow: A Reimagining of Gorecki’s 3^rd Symphony (52Hz)

How many rock bands set out to cover Dark Side of the Moon? How many jazz artists cover Kind of Blue? That takes a certain amount of chutzpah.

As does this move by Colin Stetson, the superhuman saxophonist of the avant-garde, in which he tackles the only modern classical composition to sell a million copies while its composer was still alive (he died in 2010). Symphony No. 3 was written in 1977 and made famous by a 1992 Nonesuch recording by the London Sinfonietta, ruling the classical charts for years. Hearing it was a revelatory experience for the young Stetson, and after his New History of Warfare trilogy snapped up spots on Polaris Prize shortlists and introduced large audiences to the concept of circular breathing and Philip Glass minimalism applied to solo saxophone performance, he felt he was up for this challenge.

Adapting it to a small ensemble—three winds, three strings (including his partner, Sarah Neufeld), two guitarists, two keyboards, drums and mezzo-soprano (his sister, Megan)—Stetson is faithful to the emotional tenor and tempo of the original, if not the instrumentation. Surely Gorecki never imagined the end of the first movement collapsing into maelstrom of white noise, or crescendo-ing guitars ala Godspeed You Black Emperor accelerating the emotional intensity, or a drummer from a death metal band called Liturgy providing some extra punch. None of this is gimmicky or irreverent; it enhances the original work, just as anything billing itself as a “reimagining” ideally should.

Stetson’s own role appears to be that of arranger; anyone expecting to hear the arpeggios or howling vocalizations that defined the New History trilogy will not find them here. For such a distinctive performer, Stetson is more than happy to surrender to his solo persona to the greater ensemble here.

Colin Stetson has never been an artist to back away from ambition—and to fulfill it. Which is exactly what he’s done here. (April 14)

Venetian Snares – Traditional Synthesizer Music (Planet Mu)

No, the album title is not a new category at the Grammys or the Junos. That’s not to say it couldn’t be some day. Winnipeg’s Aaron Funk, a.k.a. Venetian Snares, has made frenetic electronic music for almost two decades now, but this is the first time he’s made an album entirely with old analog modular synths: instruments that don’t come with preset sounds, instruments that don’t always behave in predictable manners—much like Funk himself. If we believe the man (which we shouldn’t necessarily do; he has a reputation as a prankster), it was all recorded live, complete with shifting tempos that defy the crutch of “quantizing,” the technical trick that imposed rhythmic uniformity on the world in the 1980s. As always with Venetian Snares, the avalanche of ideas can be exhausting, but there’s no denying the man’s genius, and this foray into “traditional” music could serve as a welcome entry point for the uninitiated. I’d also love to hear someone score this for a live band, perhaps the first time I’ve felt that way about a Venetian Snares record. (April 7)

Stream: “Everything About You is Special,” “Magnificent Stumble v2,” “Health Card10”