Highly recommended: BadBadNotGood, Culture Reject
Well worth your while: Bry Webb, Naomi Shelton & the Gospel
Queens
Extracurricular activity: I wrote about the Polaris Prize shortlist for Maclean’s here.
The following reviews ran in the Waterloo Record this month.
Badbadnotgood – III (Pirates Blend/Arts and Crafts)
Jazz and hip-hop have a convoluted and one-sided history, mostly
consisting of DJs lifting old jazz records for samples. Most attempts at
hip-hop by live jazz-funk bands are better left unmentioned. Here, however, is
Toronto’s BadBadNotGood, a jazz-trained trio who started out recording covers
of current hip-hop tracks deconstructed as instrumental jazz.
It’s telling that on this, their third album but first of
all-original material, BadBadNotGood has finally found its voice. It sounds
less like hip-hop than the ’70s jazz beloved by crate diggers: Herbie Hancock’s
Headhunters, etc. The difference is that the drums don’t ever swing; Alexander Sowinski’s
metronomic style owes more to the boom-bap of early ’90s hip-hop or, obviously,
the Roots’ Questlove. That means that when the band does leave the steady beats
behind and go on extended jazz excursions, like on the accelerating “Kaleidscopes,”
Sowinski and bassist Chester Hansen push the band in prog rock directions.
Guest saxophonist Leland Whitty helps flesh out the sound on Confessions, while
keyboardist Matthew Tavares switches to guitar for moodier tracks like “Eyes
Closed.”
It’s unlikely any of these tracks will be jacked by MCs looking
for a beat, but that speaks to how far this band has come. Rather than
imitating something else or trying to insert themselves into someone else’s
vision, this is the sound of BadBadNotGood coming into their own. (July 31)
Download: “Can’t Leave the Night,” “Confessions,” “Triangle”
Be Forest – Earthbeat (We Were Never Being Boring)
What if The XX were tapped to score the sequel to Twin Peaks?
Italian band Be Forest wants to answer that question. Hailing from a small town
on the Adriatic Coast, they capture the ennui and beauty and mystery of
small-town life with tasteful reverb, cooed vocals and dreamlike guitars—with a
bit of what sounds like kalimba thrown in just for the hell of it. Vocals are
handled by drummer Erica Terenzi and bassist Costanza
Delle Rose, both of whom share the deadpan delivery of Julee Cruise; meanwhile,
the subtle rumble of a rhythm section and textural guitars recall The Cure’s
Disintegration—basically, Earthbeat is one big flashback to the swooniest side
of 1990, a time just before grunge flatlined the definition of “alternative”
for a full decade.
Oddly enough, Be Forest was
discovered by Japandroids; they covered a song by the Vancouver band known for
rousing rock’n’roll anthems and buzzsaw guitars; that led to an opening slot on
a Japandroids European tour. They’d be a much better fit with a band like
Warpaint. But don’t let the hushed vocals and drifting guitars deceive you;
there’s some serious muscle underneath. (July 3)
Download: “Captured Heart,” “Lost Boy,” “Airwaves”
Culture Reject – Forces (White Whale)
Six long years after its debut EP, Culture Reject coughs up six
new songs. You know what they say about the slow and steady.
Culture Reject’s main man, Michael O’Connell, is one of the most
talented and musically curious men I’ve ever met. Full disclosure: He and I
used to play in a band called Black Cabbage in the mid-’90s; the band broke up
15 years ago. I’d like to think I can be objective at this point. I know his
strengths and his weaknesses intimately—and there’s no evidence of any of the
latter here. It’s easily the best thing he’s ever done.
Forces finds him peeling back the layers that cramped his debut
EP, retaining the tiny touches and tasty bits of percussion, harmonica, trumpet
and backing vocals, but scattering them sparingly across hauntingly beautiful
songs by keyboardist Karri North and bassist Carlie Howell. "Quicksand" features
perhaps the most evocative guitar riff you’ll hear this year. There’s a
skittering, syncopated Brazilian rhythm bubbling underneath "Talking Easy." "Timeless Outrage" has all the makings of a campfire classic, one of the most
unusually straightforward songs in O’Connell’s catalogue. "Avalanche" boasts a
Shuggie Otis strut.
O’Connell’s release schedule doesn’t do his career momentum any
favours. But when he emerges from hibernation with an album like this, that
hardly matters.
Download: “In My Lovin,” “Quicksand,” “Timeless Outrage”
The Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer – A Real Fine Mess (Tonic)
Does the world need another blues duo? Let’s rephrase the
question: does the world need another rock band, folk singer or MC? Just the
blues duo has become a subgenre unto itself in the last 10 years, that doesn’t
mean someone can’t come out of the woods—or, in this case, somewhere between
Victoria and Nanaimo—and breathe new life into the form.
The Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer (named after colloquial
terms for harmonica and guitar) feature Shawn Hall on soulful vocals and
heavily distorted harmonica, and Matthew Rogers on guitar and drums
simultaneously: no loops are involved on stage (or, presumably, on this album).
No doubt it’s a killer live act and festival pleaser, but this, their third
album, also works on its own merits, with huge production that puts them in the
leagues of their most obvious comparison point, the Black Keys, as well as
gospel-tinged female backing vocals and full horn sections. One of the best
songs here is called “They Don’t Make ’Em Like They Used To”—except in the case
of the Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer, I’m not sure they ever did. (July 24)
Download: “Mama’s in the Backseat,” “Don’t Make ’Em Like They
Used To,” “Cry a Little”
Bob Mould – Beauty and Ruin (Merge)
Some old punks get mellow. Some go country. Some go electronic.
Some wind up on weird career detours, writing scripts for professional
wrestling. Bob Mould of Sugar and Husker Du has done all those things, except
the country part. These days he’s back with a power trio, one that includes
Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster, and his amps sound even louder than they did
when he rewrote the rules 30 years ago about how noisy and fast and melodic one
band could be at once. The man is 53 years old, and yet nothing about this
record sounds like he’s trying to force himself to live up to the revered
discography made by his younger self; he does it naturally and practically
effortlessly—which makes the cover image juxtaposing then-and-now photos of
Mould all the more curious. (July 31)
Download: “I Don’t Know Anymore,” “Little Glass Pill,” “Forgiveness”
David O'Meara and Hilotrons – Sing-Song (Independent)
Every poet knows that the way to reach a mass audience is to set
your work to music. Gord Downie, John K. Samson, Leonard Cohen: this is nothing
new. Montreal duo AroarA recently resurrected an old book of poetry by Alice
Notley, In the Pines, and turned it into a Polaris Prize-nominated album (and
my favourite record of 2013).
David O’Meara is an Ottawa poet; Hilotrons is the project of
unsung musical genius (and I don’t use that term lightly) Mike Dubue. Hilotrons
records are rich with the glorious possibilities of pop music, in terms of both
songcraft and instrumental skill. Here, however, Dubue creates a captivating
soundtrack for O’Meara’s urban observations, dancing around his prose with
playful sound effects, snippets of melody and minimal rhythm. Only on two
instrumental tracks, one an intermission and the other the finale, does Dubue
employ a rhythm section. Everything else sounds like a bizarro radio drama, one
whose central character delivers on his promise: “Like Picasso, I’ll happily
rearrange your face.” Or your mind. (July 17)
Download: “So Far So Stupid,” “Somewhere Nowhere,” “Arrest Me”
Michael Rault – Living Daylight (Pirates Blend)
There’s a new Sloan album coming this fall. In the meantime,
evidence of their influence—particularly their 1994 classic Twice Removed—is
abundant in the work of young Michael Rault.
Here’s a guy who loves vintage equipment and fuzz pedals, big
harmonies, late-period Beatles, Big Star, flange pedals and even the occasional
sitar. Even better, Rault’s voice emits the occasional squeal of pleasure in
ways that only Marc Bolan and Prince seem to have ever done effectively; if you
heard it, you’d know what I’m talking about.
Rault was a boy wonder in his native Edmonton, recording his
first album before the age of 20; he later lent a valuable hand on the
arrangements for Couer de Pirate’s album Blonde. Since moving to Toronto, he’s
been gigging constantly and joined the exciting young label Pirates Blend (A
Tribe Called Red, BadBadNotGood, Zaki Ibrahim), which will hopefully prevent
him from getting pigeonholed in a garage rock rut. Living Daylight is a solid
record, but one gets the sense that there’s a lot more inside Michael Rault
that we’ve yet to hear. (July 10)
Download: “All Alone (On My Own),” “Lost Something,” “Real Love
Yeah”
Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens – Cold World
(Daptone/Maple)
Naomi Shelton sounds like she just stepped out from the choir
pews at an Alabama church—which is where she got her start as a teenager in the
late ’50s. She’s been singing ever since, and since she joined the Daptone
roster in the early 2000s, she’s been one of the best-kept secrets on the label;
this, her second album, is the first we’ve heard from her in five years.
Needless to say, her band, comprised of Daptone players (who play in the Budos
Band, Antibalas and the Dap-Kings) deliver all the punch of Muscle Shoals,
while Shelton and the Gospel Queens display the kind of chemistry that’s all
too rare in the age of lead singers multitracking their own vocals. “You’ve got
to feel the spirit down in your bones,” they sing. They don’t have to spell it
out; we feel it, all right. (July 31)
Download: “Heaven is Mine,” “Thank You Lord,” “Bound for the
Promised Land”
Julian Taylor Band – Tech Noir (independent)
You might remember Julian Taylor from his band Staggered
Crossing, who had radio hits in the early 2000s, a major label deal, and a
second album produced by Jay Bennett of Wilco. These days, however, he’s
leading his own quartet, which until very recently featured bassist Ben
Spivak—who recently defected to join surprise hitmakers Magic!. Spivak cowrote
three songs on both the Magic! album (including the smash hit “Rude”) and
Taylor’s Tech Noir.
Of the two albums, however, Tech Noir is infinitely more
enjoyable, warm and welcoming. It also has better songs. Taylor has a sassy,
soulful voice, and his band moves easily between soul, reggae and rock; theirs
is a chemistry clearly forged by many long nights on stage. There are shades of
vintage Van Morrison, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, etc.—all artists that Taylor and
his band no doubt nail when they moonlight as a cover band. Pretty soon they
won’t have to do that, with original material as strong as this.
Taylor doesn’t have anywhere near the money or promotional
muscle that his former band had—or his former bandmate now has—but he’s
undoubtedly making the best music of his career. It’s time he started turning
heads. (July 10)
Download: “No Guns!” “Heatwave,” “Be Good to Your Woman”
Bry Webb – Free Will (Idée Fix)
“Positive people are having children,” sings Bry Webb. “Strength
through boredom / strength through joy. … Are these postures of defeat?” Strong
words and curious questions, coming from a man who led one of the greatest
rock’n’roll bands to ever spring from these parts, the recently reunited
Constantines—who were all about joy, certainly not about boredom—and definitely
never assumed a posture of defeat.
Webb’s first solo album was a hushed ode to his newborn son;
Free Will is no different. Webb may be writing about the fears and joys of
being a middle-aged dad, and the music may be the tempo and volume of
lullabies, yet it would be a mistake to assume this is placid, comforting
music. Throughout, Webb employs not only a lap steel player, but a slide guitar
player—meaning every song sounds twice as woozy and wobbly than you might
expect. There are Velvet Underground-esque squalls of feedback and droning
violin on the hushed “Let’s Get Through Today,” and a dissonant chord sustained
by a string section on “Translator.” None of this is meant to be alienating;
instead, it underscores the uncertain world the narrator is trying to navigate.
“The more fucked up things get / the more I love you,” sings Webb.
Like one of this album’s most obvious influences, Bill Callahan
of Smog, Free Will is meant for casual listening. It’s an album of deep lyrical
and instrumental subtlety, demanding your full attention. (July 24)
Download: “A.M. Blues,” “Positive People,” “Receive Me”
