These reviews ran in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury in November.
Devendra Banhart – What Will We Be? (Warner)
It’s an old trope to complain about an artist becoming less interesting with a major label leap. And yet in the case of Devendra Banhart—whose sixth album is his first for Warner—he now sounds creatively bankrupt and downright bored.
Banhart is a restless creative soul, whose toss-offs were always at least interesting. He consistently been inconsistent, either falling flat on his face with ridiculous lyrics and goofy hippie-isms, or—as he did on his last album—successfully jumping from Brazilian bossa nova to gospel-infused classic rock jams to doo-wop to reggae to psychedelic folk—all glued together with his wonderfully elastic voice.
Trace elements of those things are heard here, but it sounds like someone put Banhart on meds and inhibited his wilder urges; everything lopes along in a heroin haze, without any of the fantastical imagery or intoxicating melodies that Banhart used to excel at.
“I know I look high, but I’m just free dancing,” he sings, on one of this album’s otherwise passable songs. But rather than sounding unselfconscious, Banhart sounds like he’s being monitored closely in case he waves his freak folk flag too high. (K-W Record, November 12)
Bell Orchestre – Who Designs Nature’s How (Arts and Crafts)
Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Remixes – Various Artists (Merge)
Merge Records celebrated its 20th anniversary with a week-long festival, an oral history book, a subscription series of specially curated compilations, and a disc of cover versions, now caps off its year by surrendering the master tapes of some of its best-loved artists to remixers.
This fares better than the patchy covers comp released in the spring—after all, how badly can you miss the mark when you’re dealing with the original tracks? In some cases here they improve remarkably on the originals: Caribou remixing Polvo, +/- juicing up the Rosebuds, and Four Tet turning the naivete of Guv’ner into a techno chant. John McEntire takes one of the only weak moments from the last 10 years of Spoon’s discography, “The Ghost of You Lingers,” and replaces the insistent piano plunking with a lilting ambient techno breeze.
Others are far more faithful, or attempt to unnecessarily insert their vocals. The only serious disappointment—if only because of the lost potential—is Jason Forrest’s remix of Arcade Fire’s “No Cars Go.” It’s nowhere near as daring as his own work nor the possibilities buried in the dense mix of the original; it also doesn’t help that an early cover of this song by Canadian electronic band Vitamins for You already cast it in a more synth-y arrangement similar to that heard in the first half of this remix; meanwhile, the second half is Forrest’s remix is almost indistinguishable from the original.
Though it’s billed as a remix album, Bell Orchestre’s Who Designs Nature’s How seems more like a compilation of their favourite artists than reconfigurations of the rich source material heard on their 2009 masterpiece As Seen Through Windows.
Therefore Montreal sound sculptor Tim Hecker offers a piece that could well have been culled from his most recent album, An Imaginary Country; likewise, saxophonist Colin Stetson—who joined the band last year—delivers a solo saxophone performance that is as rhythmically repetitive, enchanting and muscular as his normal solo material … which it may well be, as the title of his track doesn’t resemble any Bell Orchestre composition.
U.K. dub master Mad Professor stretches out the title track with hazy textures and electronic effects, although remains largely faithful to the original song’s structure; Montreal’s veteran turntablist Kid Koala and new duo Deadly Stare (one half of which engineered Amon Tobin’s Foley Room, which had contributions from Bell Orchestre members) fare better toying with trace elements of two of Windows’ stronger tracks.
No one touches the original album’s astounding triumph, the track “Elephants”—because why mess with perfection? (K-W Record, November 19)
Blue Rodeo – The Things We Left Behind (Warner)
It’s high time Blue Rodeo kicked its own ass.
While they’ve never suffered as a live band, their studio output of at least the last 10 years has been less than inspiring. On this double album, however, the difference is both cosmetic and concrete: the production is warm, hazy and old school; strings, flutes and tympani make appearances on some of Greg Keelor’s trippier numbers. But more importantly, both Keelor and Jim Cuddy step back up as songwriters worthy of their Hall of Fame status.
Keelor showed considerable strength on his 2006 solo album Aphrodite Rose, so it’s Cuddy who is the surprise here. It can be argued that every ballad he’s ever written is entirely interchangeable, but that certainly can’t be said of this album’s “One Light Left in Heaven”—despite the slightly maudlin title, it’s one of Cuddy’s finest accomplishments in his 25 years as a songwriter. His rockers are no small shakes either; tracks like “One More Night” and “Arizona Dust” show off some swagger.
Though Keelor and Cuddy split the album’s 16 songs evenly, Keelor eats up more running time with long, expansive tracks; “Million Miles” draws on raga rock and the folkier side of Led Zeppelin, while the 10-minute “Venus Rising” is the album’s lone stinker. Both discs open with two of Keelor’s best brooders—the kind that sound like Neil Young produced by the Beatles—where the band’s vocal and instrumental arranging skills come into clear focus.
In between are plenty of songs that do what Blue Rodeo have always done best, and there’s little here that really rocks the boat. But after years of conceding their crown to bands like the Sadies and Cuff the Duke, it sounds like they’re ready to fight for it back. (K-W Record, November 12)
Dead Man’s Bones – s/t (Anti)
The official holiday is over, but every day is Halloween for Dead Man’s Bones. Every song on their debut album sounds like it was recorded in a haunted house, with ghoulish lead vocals, sparse guitars, primitive percussion, and a choir of ghostly children lurking in the background of almost every track. Much of the music is fragile and falling apart, which suits the rickety ride perfectly: if this was the least bit slick, it wouldn’t work at all.
Dead Man’s Bones is the duo of Zach Shields and Ryan Gosling, who play everything on the album whether they know how to or not, which adds an innocent amateurism to the atmosphere. Dead Man’s Bones revel in the naivete of ’50s rock’n’roll and ’90s lo-fi indie rock, with the children’s choir and cartoonish fright-night lyrics (“Werewolf Heart,” “My Body’s a Zombie For You”) adding a suitably bizarre element.
This is the kind of project that mainstream celebrity mags mock as a Hollywood actor (Gosling) slumming as a musician, but it’s unique and strange and beautifully broken in ways that exist outside any proper conceptions of pop culture. And as a weirdo art project that exists in its own world, it works wonderfully well. (K-W Record, November 5)
Fool’s Gold – s/t (Iamsound)
The name may be emblematic of the ersatz nature of this band, but Fool’s Gold doesn’t joke around. Ethiopian melodies, West African rhythms, and lyrics sung in Hebrew all melt together when played by a bunch of Los Angelenos whose only direct link to their influences is the fact that vocalist and bassist Luke Topp was born in Israel, hence the Hebrew. Otherwise everyone comes to the music as an outsider—not that you’d ever know, and not that you should care.
Guitarist Lewis Pesacov excels at clean highlife rhythms, dirty Malian blues, and fading into the background amidst the heavy percussion. He and his bandmates imitate existing African styles with excellence, but how they assemble them is entirely unorthodox. They’re not out to fit everything into a North American context—the way Vampire Weekend marries township jive with Velvet Underground/Violent Femmes innocence—and nor are they trying to pass themselves off as something they’re not. The choral refrain on “The World Is All There Is” could just as well be Aboriginal North American, African, or the Arcade Fire. The syncopated, swaying waltz of “Nadine” is otherworldly unto itself, with or without any specific cultural reference point.
Purists should stay away; everyone else should jump right in. (K-W Record, November 26)
Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport (All Tomorrow’s Parties)
Even at its loudest and most intense, ’90s rave was too pretty, too pristine and not perverse enough to live up to its subversive reputation. That’s where Fuck Buttons come in, using white noise and distorted electronics to create nonetheless beautiful textures and slow-moving, cinematic melodies, set to chopped-up techno beats that certainly don’t guarantee a spot on the dance floor. Even when all hell breaks loose on a completely disorienting track like "Phantom Limb," a majestic mood still prevails.
Part of the credit can go to noted ’90s producer Andrew Weatherall (Two Lone Swordsmen, Sabres of Paradise), who helps beef up the Buttons’ sound considerably. “Olympians” sounds like it could be the theme for a 22nd century Chariots of Fire; closing track “Flight of the Feathered Serpent” breaks down in the middle of its 10-minute stretch into an extended African drum break before the eerie, Moby-meets-Morricone melody creeps back in.
Taken as a whole, however, Tarot Sports can be draining; this is a band best absorbed one epic track at a time. (K-W Record, November 26)
Bebel Gilberto – All in One (Verve)
Bebel Gilberto has erred on the safe side of bossa nova ever since her international debut, 2000’s Tanto Tempo, an album that found her working with interesting beatmakers and electronic musicians. All in One is the first album since to return to that experimentalism, although the slightly more abstract numbers are side by side with very middle-of-the-road, easy-listening route Gilberto has been most comfortable in. The laid back, velvety vocalist allows herself to surrender to groove on tracks like Carmen Miranda’s “Chica Chica Boom Chic,” a cover of Bob Marley’s “Sun is Shining” (produced by Dust Brother John King), and Stevie Wonder’s “The Real Thing,” where she’s backed up by the Dap-Kings. She’s suitably seductive on the sleepy ballads, which stand out when juxtaposed with the meatier tracks. All in One contains the best of what Gilberto can do, although one senses she could still push any one of these directions even further. (K-W Record, November 26)
Norah Jones – The Fall (Blue Note/EMI)
After over 50 albums in the last 30 years, The Fall can always be expected to reinvent themselves, and what better way than to title their new album Norah Jones. Oh wait, the Norah Jones album is called The Fall? Either way, surprises are still afoot.
No matter how huge her earlier successes were, The Fall may just as well be Norah Jones’s first real album. She’s no longer covering standards, her reliance on co-writers has lessened, and she’s left behind explicit nods to the jazz and country music that was such a formative influence; The Fall draws on the likes of Joe Henry, Tom Waits, and the Shins instead. Most importantly, she sounds like she’s developing her own personality—instead of simply making decent music that was easy to ignore. And as always, she melts genre barriers with her velvety voice.
With the help of producer and engineer Jacquire King—whose diverse resumé includes work with Tom Waits, Modest Mouse and Kings of Leon—Jones crafts an atypical backdrop for her languorous voice, one full of rumbling bass, eerie background sounds, and distorted Wurlitzer pianos. There is also far more guitar than can usually be found on a Norah Jones album—much of it she plays herself, occasionally calling in ringers like Marc Ribot and Smokey Hormel to paint with more abstract colours.
Thankfully, the makeover suits her well. And judging by the lyrical content, which is steeped in heartbreak and loss, it sounds like she needed at least a change of sonic scenery. Jones doesn’t wallow in her personal loss, and despite the prevailing melancholy mood, The Fall is not a dark record—instead, it’s colourful and alive with detail. Because Jones has always been a bit of a blank canvas as vocalist, even the most desolate lyric here is rich with empathy and reassurance.
It’s obviously her most personal album, it also wound up being her best. The Fall makes her earlier commercial breakthroughs seem like child’s play; hopefully, this marks the arrival of the real artist. (K-W Record, November 19)
Lyle Lovett – Natural Forces (Universal)
After 23 years of heartbreaking country balladry and rollicking Western swing, Lyle Lovett is ready to rock’n’roll.
At least, that’s what we hear on the closing track of his new album, suitably titled “It’s Rock’n’Roll,” with a finger-tapping guitar riff, big power chords and a boogie-woogie rhythm underneath. Lovett’s trademark deadpan dry delivery suits the material perfectly, and the song itself manages to be much more than just the campy send-up it could have been.
Sadly, that’s the most animated Lovett manages to be on the whole of Natural Forces, which is the latest in a series of merely average albums from this once-great artist; only 2003’s My Baby Don’t Tolerate has managed to break that curse in the last 15 years. His wit, his narrative storytelling, and his sardonic eye for detail all seem to have evaporated; without those, Lovett is still a decent songwriter, but nowhere near the unique, captivating figure he once was.
Perhaps it’s unfair to saddle him with the weight of his past, but when he set the bar so high, so many times, it’s near impossible not to. (K-W Record, November 5)
Pick a Piper – EP (independent)
Brad Weber has been touring the world for the last several years as a drummer with Dundas, Ontario’s Caribou. He is ostensibly the drummer in that band, but many Caribou tracks end up with every musician on stage hammering on a drum kit of their own. It sounds like Weber carries some of that aesthetic over to his new project, Pick a Piper, which is just as equally percussive and melodic, although considerably less intense than the multi-layered density that Caribou aims for. Weber likes to keep things sparse, whether he’s tapping ’60s psychedelia, ’90s lo-fi bedroom rock, or channelling a drum circle to interpret abstract electronica. Whatever the hell it is he’s up to, this is an incredibly promising beginning, and likely a rousing live show as well. (K-W Record, November 26)
Dave Rawlings Machine – A Friend of a Friend (Acony)
It’s a perfect album title for a sideman stepping into the spotlight. Rawlings has written and performed with Ryan Adams, Bright Eyes and Robyn Hitchcock, but is best known as the long-time right-hand-man for Gillian Welch. She’s right by his side here, playing, singing and co-writing on this, his first solo album.
Fans of Welch won’t find anything drastically different here, although Rawlings is very much his own songwriter and less likely to sink into a lethargic lull, as even Welch’s finest albums tend to do. “It’s too easy to feel good,” he sings, over a driving fiddle and upright bass, and for the most part he keeps matters spirited. The exception is a brooding, unnecessary medley of Bright Eyes’ “Method Acting” and Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer,” which share similar chords but couldn’t be further apart lyrically.
Highlights include a resurrection of his co-write “To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, To Be High),” first heard on Ryan Adams’s debut solo album, and the gorgeous closing number “Bells of Harlem,” which could well go on to be a standard.
Along with Buddy and Julie Miller’s excellent Written in Chalk, 2009 has been a good year for the sidemen to step forward. (K-W Record, November 19)
Rupa and the April Fishes – Este Mundo (Cumbancha)
There’s something about this San Francisco band that’s too good to be true for public radio programmers or folk festival bookers: steeped in Parisian hot jazz and reggae, riddled with accordions, trombones, dumbeks and violins, and sung in French and Spanish, the music of Rupa and the April Fishes seems devised to push all the correct “world music” buttons for the café set. Yet they’re exceptionally good at it; bandleader and singer Rupa Marya strikes the right chord between torch song tragedy and hopeful optimism, while her lively band excel at delicate and spritely arrangements that may be musically nomadic, but don’t sound the least bit restless. This is a band who sound right at home in any corner of the world. (K-W Record, November 12)
John Southworth – MamaTevatron (Dead Daisy)
Despite being a huge fan of his first two albums, both released about a decade ago (1998’s Mars, Pennyslvania and 1999’s Sedona, Arizona), I have to confess to having missed almost everything John Southworth has been up to since. I lost track around the time he was reinventing his old songs for a bluegrass band and performing in whiteface; his newer material at the time suggested that the terminal romantic was surrendering to not-so-clever wordplay in place of real emotion.
So having no idea what’s transpired since—other than some co-writing with old chum Hawksley Workman, and having songs covered by Sarah Slean and Jully Black—it’s a joy to hear Southworth in top form on MamaTevatron.
He’s back behind the keyboards—no guitars allowed here—with a distorted Rhodes driving most of the material by pounding out steady eighth notes, while his droll tenor spins sweet and sour and silly tales. Southworth’s sound is still impossible to pin down, other than to say it borrows from various eras from English music hall to ’80s new wave, with a bit of many a pop oddball from history in the mix—including even Prince’s paisley period. “Buffalo City Hall,” “Trust the Voice of Love,” and “I Get It Now” are some of the finest pop songs of the year, and even the weakest tracks here are incredibly catchy and clever.
On the closing track, “Zulou,” he enters enchanted territory, and even if the lyrics about “19th century dwarves” and holding “your egg and spoon as you walk across the moon” seem ridiculous, Southworth’s unexpected delivery pulls it off with aplomb.
Clearly, it’s time to start paying attention again. (K-W Record, November 12)
Joss Stone – Colour Me Free (EMI)
At a ripe old 22, Joss Stone has four albums under her belt, but Colour Me Free is the first time she sounds in full control of her awesome vocal power: she’s not stretching to prove herself and nor is she trying to contain herself into a box. The title sounds like a cliché, but she does sound free here; even when the material is frequently lightweight, Stone owns this material, having matured into the kind of gospel/blues/soul singer that brings class and finesse to anything she touches. When she matches that with a strong original—which she does several times here (“Could’ve Been You,” the Stevie Wonder-ish “Parallel Lines”)—she’s unstoppable.
But if her vocal chops have always been there—emboldened now with years of valuable experience—the success of Colour Me Free is due just as much to her backing band, her collaborators and—most of all—her producers, who craft a sumptuous, swampy sound that gives Stone plenty of space to fill with her voice. The well-arranged, gospel-infused backing vocals sound like a real live trio of women singing in a room, not just clones of the lead; the pianos plink and the organs swirl around the sparse rhythm section; the strings are never syrupy. The cumulative effect goes for that late-’70s New York City soul sound that Alicia Keys frequently aims for but never quite gets. A guest appearance by Nas, on the politically lightweight “Governmentalist,” lends further weight to the album’s funkiest track.
For all its strengths, Stone isn’t quite at the stage where she can get away with a track called “Mr. Wanker Man” (it’s as bad as it sounds); the cover art is equally atrocious. Otherwise, this is the Stone we’ve been waiting for. (K-W Record, November 5)
Them Crooked Vultures – s/t (Universal)
The first thing you hear from this supergroup is a song titled “No One Loves Me, Neither Do I.”
After hearing the rest of the disappointing debut album by Them Crooked Vultures—a band featuring Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones and Nirvana’s Dave Grohl—the self-flagellating song title seems like less of a joke.
How could this possibly fail? Perhaps it has everything to do with singer Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, because no matter how good a band’s rhythm section is, their fate ultimately rests on their singer and songwriter. And instead of rising to the challenge in the presence of greatness, Homme sounds asleep at the wheel, like he’s trudging his way through Alice in Chains b-sides.
There are times when Grohl and Jones break a real sweat (“Reptiles,” “Elephants,” or the Cream-like “Scumbag Blues”), but even if you block Homme from the mix, this is still nowhere near as monstrous as it should be.
Them Crooked Vultures is an incredibly wasted opportunity. One wonders why they didn’t call Jack White—he’s always good for whipping together a side project on a moment’s notice. Too bad he was busy stealing another Queen of the Stone Age (guitarist Dean Fertita) for the debut of his far superior 2009 band The Dead Weather. (K-W Record, November 26)
Showing posts with label Fuck Buttons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fuck Buttons. Show all posts
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, January 04, 2009
'08 on a plate
In alphabetical order, my Top 30 of '08.
The Awkward Stage – Slimming Mirrors, Flattering Lights (Mint).
Vancouver singer/songwriter Shane Nelken writes fantastic classical pop melodies, expands his arrangement skills on this second album, and is the kind of “smart” songwriter that isn’t winking at you in every second phrase or, even worse, flexing his thesaurus for vocab brownie points. He never comes off as smug or showy—not even when writing a jazzy waltz called “True Love on Three With Feeling.” His lyrics here are, for the most part, astounding. Nearly every song either paints a complete narrative portrait or contains plenty of poetic zingers per capita; his turns of phrase and internal rhyme schemes put him up there with Randy Newman; perhaps someday soon even Leonard Cohen, circa I’m Your Man, (although obviously an entirely different tone and a slim fraction of the generational gravitas). Yet for all his wordiness, Nelken never tries to cram more words-per-minute to crowd the melody. And the arrangements are universally excellent: the acoustic songs are lush and lovely, while glammed-up guitars give songs like “Hey Modern School Girl” and the raucous “Anime Eyes” more punch than was ever heard on the band’s debut album two years back. “Mini Skirt of Xmas Lights” covers all the band’s bases in one song. (this was adapted from this earlier post)
Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War (Universal).
In a year when even the most conservative commentators had to acknowledge the decline of the American empire, Erykah Badu was documenting its dissolution and attempting to make sense from the chaos in a way that few soul artists have done ever since Sly Stone disappeared in a drug-induced fit of paranoia. This doesn't have the easy answers of retro soul or lightweight jazzy and modern R&B; in the New Amerykah, Badu's brand of soul music promises, "We take your history and make it a modern mystery."
Calexico – Carried to Dust
(Quarterstick/Touch and Go).
While there's always been a joyous element listening to a band of Calexico's caliber explore various genres and textures—notably Mexican and mariachi elements—Carried to Dust not only displays their prowess as instrumentalists and arrangers, but as songwriters. And by fully exploiting the lower end of his vocal range, Joey Burns is no longer the sideman who stumbled into fronting a band. The Latin influences are integrated here in ways that they’ve been striving for since their inception. Calexico has been searching somewhat restlessly for years; it sounds like they're finally home.
Dungen – 4 (Kemado)
I’ve heard this Swedish band’s other records in passing, and I’ve even seen them live once; nothing left much of an impression until now. I don’t know if they’ve changed or if I have, but from the first snippets I heard online, I found this completely captivating, and not just because they’re the first band with a flute that I’ve enjoyed since early Belle and Sebastian. The fuzzy psychedelic prog numbers are melodic and epic; the jazzy piano interludes are wintry and wonderful; even the two guitar-wank pieces manage to be compelling. For fans of: Black Sabbath, Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Vince Guaraldi.
The D'Urbervilles – We Are the Hunters
(Out of This Spark)
I've spent too many years in shitty bars listening to too many boys play the same chords the same way, but there is no other rock'n'roll band in the land that pulls me to the front of the stage, throws my hands in the air and has me screaming with reckless abandon like an adolescent girl discovering these visceral pleasures for the first time. And the album lives up to every second of the live show--engineer Chris Stringer deserves full marks for combining the sonic pleasures of both AC/DC and Martha and the Muffins. An earlier review is here; interview is here.
Kathleen Edwards – Asking For Flowers (Maple/Universal).
Canadian songwriters used to have a strong storytelling tradition of which there are only traces now: the Weakerthans' John K. Samson, Chad Van Gaalen, and Kathleen Edwards. Edwards hits her stride on this, her third album, where she balances one-liners with fully formed short stories, and is backed up by ace players, including keyboardist Benmont Tench. I’m still not sure why she’s a better singer live than she is in the studio, but the songs are the show-stealers here. More verbiage here.
Fleet Foxes – s/t (Sub Pop/Outside).
Anyone who fell in love with the gorgeous folk pop of Fleet Foxes’ 2008 debut found that it made much more sense knowing that the band is situated in the natural splendour of the Pacific Northwest. The environmental effect is obvious. Canyons of reverbs are applied to the stunning four-part harmonies that weave through every melody here; the music has the majesty of mountains, while every flourish of orchestral percussion sounds like the collapse of an ocean wave. This isn’t merely a case of critical clichés; Pecknold is a writer who explicitly references mountains, “quivering forests,” hills, and meadowlarks, as well as Seattle landmarks. (adapted from this piece in Exclaim magazine’s year-end wrap-up)
Forest City Lovers – Haunting Moon Sinking (Out of This Spark).
Kat Burns kills me. For starters, I’m a sucker for subtle ladies who sing melancholy morning melodies with lots of pianos, strings and clarinets. Burns is an unusual female vocalist: she’s certainly not a rocker, and nor is she showy or cutesy; in fact, she’s often totally deadpan, though never dull. She’s consistently strong, steady and with just a hint of a quaver that betrays a slight vulnerability underneath the calm exterior. Burns is a vivid writer with an eye for the smallest details, as heard on songs like “Orphans” and “Waiting on the Fence,” and can say so much in the offhand way she delivers a line like: “Maybe I’ll never have your baby, if our love runs out of time.” On top of that, her Lovers are fully engaged in making sure every note counts, knowing exactly when to expand and contract, and with enough ego in check to sit out most of any given song entirely, if necessary. Mika Posen’s violin provides not only the expected textures, but a wonderful melodic counterbalance; she also provides some of the slight Eastern European motifs heard here. (originally ran as part of my pre-Polaris posts in September, here)
Forest City Lovers play the Tranzac in Toronto this Saturday, January 10, and the Albion in Guelph on January 16 as part of Out Of This Spark’s anniversary celebrations. They will also be touring with Geoff Berner in February.
Fuck Buttons – Street Horrsing
(All Tomorrow's Parties).
Normally I don’t enjoy anything that would probably cite Skinny Puppy as an influence—never mind something that sounds like my refrigerator is under demonic possession—but these sons of Suicide extract great beauty from abrasive and droning electronics. It helps that the percussion is kept to a minimum and steers away from clichés—it’s more tribal than techno—and the vocals veer between unintelligible distorted screams and what sounds like either bird calls or primate mating rituals. Whatever the reason, this Horrsing around felt cathartic and cleansing.
Larkin Grimm – Parplar (Young God).
Plenty of artists like to identify as outsiders, whether they are or not. And usually it's easy to spot the ones who are putting on some kind of front, trying to out-weird each other to mask insecurities and—more often than not—inadequacies. That's certainly not the case with Larkin Grimm, who was raised in a religious cult in Georgia, studied sculpture at Yale, lived in Alaska for a while, and identifies as transgendered. You don't have to know any of that to appreciate her spellbinding third album, but it goes a long way in explaining what mysterious and miraculous worlds she uncovers on the 15 tracks here. At its heart, Grimm's music owes its largest debt to country, blues and mountain music traditions, with bits of birdsong, brass bands, sinister string sections and hand-crafted instrumentation assisting her in creating some of the freakiest folk around. Grimm's fairy tales are grounded in traditional melodies, tinged with more than a few hints of Eastern psychedelia and featuring fantastical lyrics about bodily parts and fluids, as well as the occasional unicorn. Her own backing vocals at times sounds like a hysterical Joan Baez trying to restrain herself in the middle of a drug trip, while Grimm's lead vocal remains cool, stern and steady. No matter how strange things get, however, Parplar is a beautiful record, and one that deserves to be discovered. (this review ran in the K-W Record, Dec 31)
Hanggai – Introducing Hanggai (Introducing).
My favourite part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC is (of course) the music section, tracing the evolution of various types of instruments. It’s fascinating to me that every culture has its own version of the guitar or lute, its own variety of wind instruments, and its own variation on a linear keyboard. Likewise, listening to a band like Hanggai—comprised of Mongolian singers and string players living in Beijing—it’s intriguing to hear what sound like Irish melodies or Native North American motifs, along with African blues (the latter a connection made a decade ago in the film Genghis Blues). Some indie rock reviewers even claimed to hear the Velvet Underground in the droning violin and precisely plodding percussion; a track like “Wuji” chugs along like a great metal song--complete with guttural vocals—only played on the two-stringed ehru instead of electric guitar. The production is perfect, falling into neither “world music” trap of being either too “authentically” raw nor too Westernized slick. Whatever makes your world go round, Hanggai is like everything and nothing you’ve ever heard before.
Veda Hille – This Riot Life (Ape House).
This veteran Vancouver singer/songwriter sings about how “this spring is the one other seasons aim to be,” and being blessed with “ridiculous abundance.” She may well be singing about her “Lucklucky” eleventh album, which is rich with simple hymnal melodies, raging piano prog-rock and chamber-music arrangements, with dashes of klezmer and Japanese cabaret. And though this makes the disc sounds deadly serious, Hille is full of levity and irreverence towards her spiritual subjects, like those “sacred hearts that bleed all over everywhere” and the “kid of God [who] stays up all night long.” No wonder The Weakerthans slid her some of their Echo songwriting prize money. For fans of: Rheostatics, Kate Bush, Sufjan Stevens, John Zorn's Masada. (originally appeared in Eye Weekly’s year-end wrap-up here.)
Hilotrons – Happymatic (Kelp).
Normally, the musicians of the Hilotrons’ age and experience that I find the most interesting have usually graduated beyond rock music by their mid-30s. And yet here, Ottawa’s finest live band write and perform peppy pop with the energy of a band half their age, but with the smarts and the chops that can only come from seasoned veterans. It’s hard to pick an MVP in this band: drummer Philip Shaw Bova is a strong contender, for driving the beat of “Emergency Street” alone; the push and pull between bassist Damian Sawka and rhythm guitarist Paul Hogan; the squelchy synth blasts coming from keyboardists Mikes Shultz and Dubue; and Dubue’s strangulated pitch-perfect vocals, which embody the inner geek who finally gets to dance and show up the rest of the office at the Christmas party. Are Hot Hot Heat still around? If so, why? Especially when the Hilotrons render them and the vast majority of their ilk entirely irrelevant.
iNSiDEaMiND – Scatterpopia (Public Transit Recordings).
The album by these Toronto turntablists opens with what sounds like a black box recorder, though where exactly their flight path leads is never clear—but this is clearly about the journey not the destination. Scatterpopia is not about dance floor climaxes or macho posturing; instead, iNSiDEaMiND peer into the dark corners of their vinyl collections to create captivating sound art. Abstract turntablism and what was once called “illbient” music seems almost antiquated ten years after its heyday—anyone listened to DJ Spooky lately?—yet iNSiDEaMiND manage to mine new textures and breathe new life into the genre, over successfully stuttering beats that keep the listener on edge while never veering right off the rhythmic cliff ala Autechre. They get help from bass-heavy beatmaster Ghislain Poirier on “Twilight Harvest,” though “Yopo’s Secret Recipe” shows they can bring the bounce on their own when they want to. The occasional vocalist is a pleasant distraction, but this is instrumental music that’s rich with its own narratives.
Kardinal Offishall – Not 4 Sale (Konlive/Universal).
The veteran Toronto producer/MC was hotter than ever in 2008—not just because he was on the Tonight Show and scored a Top 10 hit in America (the Akon duet "Dangerous," just in case you weren't near a radio all summer), but because that track was little more than a gateway drug to the more sublime pleasures and thrills heard on Not For Sale. Kardinal had a solid album's worth of blazing tracks to back it up, with hard rhymes about ghetto resilience, satirical skits that skewer gangsta ignorance, and bountiful bass-heavy beats that draw from ragga, reggae, '80 pop, mainstream R&B and the darker edges of hip-hop.
La India Canela – Merengue Tipico From the Dominican Republic (Smithsonian Folkways).
This Dominican woman plays a fast and furious accordion at neck-jerking tempos, matched note-for-note by her bassist and saxophonist, who are just as melodic and nimble, especially when tumbling triplets interrupt the relentless two-step rhythms. Together, they shred their way through originals and merengue classics with endless adrenaline. No wonder this music is traditionally the soundtrack for cockfighting. (This ran as part of Exclaim's year-end coverage here)
Leila – Blood Looms and Blooms (Warp).
Disappearing for much of the last decade gave Leila the chance to sit back and contextualize trends in electronic music since her first album. As a result, Blood Looms and Blooms draws from early Portishead and Tricky, borrows some of the beats she crafted for Bjork, delves into more distorted territory, moves into druggy dreamscapes ala Boards of Canada, dabbles in sound art and chamber music, reaches back to Tangerine Dream, and relaxes with some Brazilian/Baltimore bounce for good measure.
Magnetic Fields – Distortion (Nonesuch/Warner).
Since hitting the jackpot with 69 Love Songs ten years ago, Stephin Merritt has for the most part spread his best songs over various projects and albums, some more gimmicky—sorry, conceptual—than others. Sometimes he strikes gold, as he did on the underrated Gothic Archies tie-in with the Lemony Snicket series. But the songs on Distortion are united only in their aesthetic, which involves waves of icy, reverbed and tinny guitars framing consistently excellent examples of Merritt’s arch lyrics and superior melodies. 69 Love Songs singer Shirley Simms returns as guest vocalist, and Merritt is as droll as ever; their duet “Please Stop Dancing (In My Head)” underscored the fact that these songs were near-impossible to forget.
Jun Miyake – Stolen From Strangers (Do Right!).
Cultural dislocation sounds positively intoxicating in the hands of Japanese flugelhorn player Jun Miyake, who bounces between Bulgaria, Brazil, New York City, Tokyo, and his adopted hometown of Paris. Bleary-eyed bossa nova for “Le Voyageur Solitaire” predominates, with detours into fractured French chanson and Japanese crooning. I knew nothing about Miyake before the Toronto label Do Right! licensed this album for North America; now I want to dive into his entire discography during a month of Sundays.
Nomo – Ghost Rock (Ubiquity)
Ghost Rock opens with what sounds like a Morse code signal from outer space, before launching a beat that sounds like Tony Allen turned inside out and upside down. The next track kicks in with some Konono-inspired distorted kalimba, and from there on in Nomo take Afrobeat to psychedelic locales that are often promised by anxious Western scribes but rarely materialize in the still-worthy flood of ’70s compilations that continued to emerge throughout 2008. Producer Warren Defever (His Name is Alive) deserves a lot of credit for how amazing this album sounds, though the band has no problem carving out an identity of their own in the increasingly crowded Afrobeat revival.
The last installment of the Top 30 of '08. Apologies for the brevity and the occasional recycling, but as my dear friend James Rocchi likes to say, December and January give every critic a bad case of "Top Ten-donitis." Part one is here; part two is here.
James Pants – Welcome (Stones Throw).
There’s a function on most music software called “quantizing,” which ensures that every element of a track is synched-up rhythmically. It’s ensured that almost all hip-hop and electronic music of the last 20 years never misses a beat—literally. I have no idea whether the man who calls himself James Pants, a bedroom producer from Spokane, Washington, is prone to abusing his “quantizing” function, but I doubt it: his raw, synth-y take on early ’80s electro jams excels with elasticity and loose grooves that sound tangible as opposed to mechanical. Handclaps, cowbells, MPCs and 808s accentuate garage rock drumming, with bubbly bass lines that slip into punk, jazz and funk. Controversy-era Prince and the Beasties’ Check Your Head are obvious influences, but there are more than a few other ants in Mr. Pants to keep us guessing.
Pas Chic Chic – Au Contraire (Semprini).
Montreal’s Pas Chic Chic give Franco pop a swift kick in the derriere, taking the Farfisa organs and song structures and stripping them of any twee leanings. Instead, they install an amplified arsenal of electric guitars that swirl around the pop melodies and threaten to drench them with droning psychedelics, while the rhythm section dallies back and forth between the dance floor and pummelling their point home. Sometimes that happens in the same song, like the album’s aptly-titled centrepiece, “Vous Comprenez Pourquoi?”, where searing, screeching guitars take over a the harrowing mid-section of a dramatic and driving pop song. Imagine Sonic Youth and Black Mountain bum-rushing the stage at a Belle and Sebastian show. Even at its most punishing and sinister, Pas Chic Chic manage to convey sentiments of sweetness and hope, when they’re not delivering menace, mystery and melody in equal doses. (adapted from a review that ran here in April)
Portishead – Third (Universal).
Loneliness never sounds lovelier than in the hands of Beth Gibbons and Geoff Barrow, who return after nine years with an album that is as dark, distorted and disorienting as it is entirely intoxicating and gorgeous. This also vindicates their legacy, which was tarnished by far too many wussy jazz singers setting half-assed torch songs to downtempo hip-hop. Even in its quietest moments, Third is a tough, tenacious and often downright creepy. If they disappear for another decade in order to craft an album as good as this one, it's worth the wait.
Q-Tip – The Renaissance (Motown/Universal).
LL Cool J put out an album this year—did anyone care? Questions about artists’ ability to age well in a hip-hop career continue to be valid, but no one told Q-Tip. Maybe a nine-year absence makes his flow grow fresher, but the Abstract MC hasn't been this on his game since the heyday of his beloved early '90s crew A Tribe Called Quest—and yet this is not a retro rehash. He’s still smooth like butta, baby, though he has yet to cheeze out entirely in his middle-age (the extraneous Norah Jones cameo notwithstanding). When he branches out into discofied funk (“ManWomanBoogie”) or guitar grooves (“Good Thang”), he pulls it off with aplomb. While many of his peers are spinning their wheels, this may well be launch Q-Tip’s own full-blown Renaissance.
The Ruby Suns – Sea Lion (Sub Pop).
Singer/songwriter Ryan McPhun has lived by the ocean all his life: first in California, now in New Zealand. It certainly sounds like he’s spent a lot of time meditating in front of vast expanses of water; not only do many of his songs evoke a lush, warm and tropical ambiance, but you can actually hear the ocean in the background of several tracks here, with either actual birdsongs or instruments that are reverb-ed beyond recognition until they sound like aquatic fauna. There are certainly moments where it sounds like Sigur Ros staging an operetta in a grotto where the piano is slipping into the sea. But this isn’t one of those soothing “sounds of nature” albums for your massage therapist. The beauty of Sea Lion is its ability to create an entirely logical, self-contained environment where Phil Spector produces New Order on a remote African island. An acoustic Brazilian rhythm might be interrupted by an interlude of ukuleles and coconuts, which is then swept away by a loping brass section and Hawaiian guitar before giving way to African guitar lines and a choir singing in Maori. Sure, sometimes it sounds like a lo-fi Fruitopia commercial. More often than not, however, the adventures of McPhun and the Suns add up to a wildly rewarding ride that’s a wonderful left-field surprise. (adapted from the original review that ran here)
Snailhouse – Lies on the Prize
(Unfamiliar/Saved by Vinyl).
Mike Feuerstack has spent his career in the trenches of Canadian indie music, and only now is finally reaching the prime of his career: everything here—his singing, his songwriting and his sense of arrangements—is far and above superior not only to his own discography, but to that of most of his peers in 2008, including his disciples such as The Acorn and Bruce Peninsula. Plenty of his extended family of collaborators chip in here, including old friend/drummer/producer Jeremy Gara (Arcade Fire), Angela Desveaux, and members of The Acorn and Bell Orchestre. Feuerstack’s previous work as Snailhouse had him pegged as a bit of a sad sack; while Lies on the Prize certainly has its melancholy moments, it's also a mature work that successfully balances his earlier prog influences with more straightforward singer/songwriter fare. Feuerstack has the age and experience to write with a mature voice where pessimism and harsh realism never surrender entirely to cynicism; he might live in a world where “they’ll only hear you when you lie,” but still believes that “all in good time you’ll wake up feeling fine.” These lucky 13 tracks comprise the most underrated Canadian album of 2008, which was released last June to little fanfare. With an album this timeless, however, it’s never too late to catch up. (adapted from a review that ran in the K-W Record on December 31)
Tagaq – Auk/Blood (Jericho Beach).
Considering that the origin of Inuit throat singing is a competition between two women, Tagaq plays very well with others on her sophomore album—though not necessarily other vocalists. Duets with Mike Patton and Buck 65 fall a bit flat, compared to the way her (literally) breathtaking vocal textures weave through string arrangements by Jesse Zubot and the Kronos Quartet. Tagaq is a force of nature whose live performances are largely improvisational, but here she inhabits just enough structure to allow others into her world. Her sexuality is visceral and demanding, and on “Hunger” she slows down for a sensual reflection that's spinetingling. There's no one else in Canada—and very few anywhere else in the world—who is taking vocal music to the extremes that Tagaq is.
Vampire Weekend – s/t (XL).
This album has had 12 months to sustain the avalanche of hype—after all, what band lands on the cover of Spin with their debut album? And yet, 10 flavours-of-the-months later, this still sounds refreshing and charming, the sound of an excitable young band throwing everything they have into three-chord pop songs: harpsichords and strings, African guitars, and a love of propulsive '60s pop, never once being more busy than they have to be. Where they go from here doesn't even matter; this is a classic debut in the vein of the Violent Femmes, Jonathan Richman or the Hidden Cameras.
Chad Van Gaalen – Soft Airplane
(Flemish Eye).
This humble Calgarian is a creative hero to many Canadian musicians, and this album provides 13 reasons why (along with the animated videos this multi-disciplinary artist made to accompany them). Van Gaalen makes 21st century folk music with acoustic guitars, harmonicas, video game technology, found objects, banjos and bleeps—all adorning songs suited for campfire ghost stories and layered with equal parts distortion, dissonance and devastating beauty. Van Gaalen's quavering falsetto sings, "Nobody knows where we go when we're dead or when we're dreaming," but judging by the spellbinding sonic landscape he's created here, he knows a thing or two about alternate realities.
John Zorn's Bar Kokhba – Lucifer (Tzadik).
Just look at the line-up here, and you know you can't go wrong: the Masada String Trio (Mark Feldman, Greg Cohen, Erik Friedlander), Cyro Baptista, Marc Ribot, and Joey Baron, playing songs from Zorn's second Masada songbook. This is chamber music jazz with Latin percussion and Jewish melodic motifs played by six of the finest musicians in New York City, who weave in and around each other as soloists, duos and trios all in the same track. It's sumptuous, intoxicating and, despite its superficially polite reserve, has much more bite to it than Zorn's other 2008 foray into easy listening territory, The Dreamers. His Book of Angels series is where he's doing his finest work these days, and this may well be the best installment.
HONORABLE MENTION
Don Brownrigg – Wander Songs (Weewerk)
Cadence Weapon – After Party Babies (Upper Class)
Glen Campbell – Meet (EMI)
Fairmont – Coloured in Memory (Border Community)
Al Green – Lay It Down (Blue Note)
Clutchy Hopkins – Who is Clutchy Hopkins? (Ubiquity)
Human Highway – Moody Motorcycle (Secret City)
Kocani Orkestar – The Ravished Bride (Crammed)
Mt. Eerie and Julie Doiron – Lost Wisdom (K)
Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns (independent)
The Awkward Stage – Slimming Mirrors, Flattering Lights (Mint). Vancouver singer/songwriter Shane Nelken writes fantastic classical pop melodies, expands his arrangement skills on this second album, and is the kind of “smart” songwriter that isn’t winking at you in every second phrase or, even worse, flexing his thesaurus for vocab brownie points. He never comes off as smug or showy—not even when writing a jazzy waltz called “True Love on Three With Feeling.” His lyrics here are, for the most part, astounding. Nearly every song either paints a complete narrative portrait or contains plenty of poetic zingers per capita; his turns of phrase and internal rhyme schemes put him up there with Randy Newman; perhaps someday soon even Leonard Cohen, circa I’m Your Man, (although obviously an entirely different tone and a slim fraction of the generational gravitas). Yet for all his wordiness, Nelken never tries to cram more words-per-minute to crowd the melody. And the arrangements are universally excellent: the acoustic songs are lush and lovely, while glammed-up guitars give songs like “Hey Modern School Girl” and the raucous “Anime Eyes” more punch than was ever heard on the band’s debut album two years back. “Mini Skirt of Xmas Lights” covers all the band’s bases in one song. (this was adapted from this earlier post)
Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War (Universal). In a year when even the most conservative commentators had to acknowledge the decline of the American empire, Erykah Badu was documenting its dissolution and attempting to make sense from the chaos in a way that few soul artists have done ever since Sly Stone disappeared in a drug-induced fit of paranoia. This doesn't have the easy answers of retro soul or lightweight jazzy and modern R&B; in the New Amerykah, Badu's brand of soul music promises, "We take your history and make it a modern mystery."
Calexico – Carried to Dust (Quarterstick/Touch and Go).
While there's always been a joyous element listening to a band of Calexico's caliber explore various genres and textures—notably Mexican and mariachi elements—Carried to Dust not only displays their prowess as instrumentalists and arrangers, but as songwriters. And by fully exploiting the lower end of his vocal range, Joey Burns is no longer the sideman who stumbled into fronting a band. The Latin influences are integrated here in ways that they’ve been striving for since their inception. Calexico has been searching somewhat restlessly for years; it sounds like they're finally home.
Dungen – 4 (Kemado) I’ve heard this Swedish band’s other records in passing, and I’ve even seen them live once; nothing left much of an impression until now. I don’t know if they’ve changed or if I have, but from the first snippets I heard online, I found this completely captivating, and not just because they’re the first band with a flute that I’ve enjoyed since early Belle and Sebastian. The fuzzy psychedelic prog numbers are melodic and epic; the jazzy piano interludes are wintry and wonderful; even the two guitar-wank pieces manage to be compelling. For fans of: Black Sabbath, Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Vince Guaraldi.
The D'Urbervilles – We Are the Hunters(Out of This Spark)
I've spent too many years in shitty bars listening to too many boys play the same chords the same way, but there is no other rock'n'roll band in the land that pulls me to the front of the stage, throws my hands in the air and has me screaming with reckless abandon like an adolescent girl discovering these visceral pleasures for the first time. And the album lives up to every second of the live show--engineer Chris Stringer deserves full marks for combining the sonic pleasures of both AC/DC and Martha and the Muffins. An earlier review is here; interview is here.
Kathleen Edwards – Asking For Flowers (Maple/Universal). Canadian songwriters used to have a strong storytelling tradition of which there are only traces now: the Weakerthans' John K. Samson, Chad Van Gaalen, and Kathleen Edwards. Edwards hits her stride on this, her third album, where she balances one-liners with fully formed short stories, and is backed up by ace players, including keyboardist Benmont Tench. I’m still not sure why she’s a better singer live than she is in the studio, but the songs are the show-stealers here. More verbiage here.
Fleet Foxes – s/t (Sub Pop/Outside).Anyone who fell in love with the gorgeous folk pop of Fleet Foxes’ 2008 debut found that it made much more sense knowing that the band is situated in the natural splendour of the Pacific Northwest. The environmental effect is obvious. Canyons of reverbs are applied to the stunning four-part harmonies that weave through every melody here; the music has the majesty of mountains, while every flourish of orchestral percussion sounds like the collapse of an ocean wave. This isn’t merely a case of critical clichés; Pecknold is a writer who explicitly references mountains, “quivering forests,” hills, and meadowlarks, as well as Seattle landmarks. (adapted from this piece in Exclaim magazine’s year-end wrap-up)
Forest City Lovers – Haunting Moon Sinking (Out of This Spark). Kat Burns kills me. For starters, I’m a sucker for subtle ladies who sing melancholy morning melodies with lots of pianos, strings and clarinets. Burns is an unusual female vocalist: she’s certainly not a rocker, and nor is she showy or cutesy; in fact, she’s often totally deadpan, though never dull. She’s consistently strong, steady and with just a hint of a quaver that betrays a slight vulnerability underneath the calm exterior. Burns is a vivid writer with an eye for the smallest details, as heard on songs like “Orphans” and “Waiting on the Fence,” and can say so much in the offhand way she delivers a line like: “Maybe I’ll never have your baby, if our love runs out of time.” On top of that, her Lovers are fully engaged in making sure every note counts, knowing exactly when to expand and contract, and with enough ego in check to sit out most of any given song entirely, if necessary. Mika Posen’s violin provides not only the expected textures, but a wonderful melodic counterbalance; she also provides some of the slight Eastern European motifs heard here. (originally ran as part of my pre-Polaris posts in September, here)
Forest City Lovers play the Tranzac in Toronto this Saturday, January 10, and the Albion in Guelph on January 16 as part of Out Of This Spark’s anniversary celebrations. They will also be touring with Geoff Berner in February.
Fuck Buttons – Street Horrsing(All Tomorrow's Parties).
Normally I don’t enjoy anything that would probably cite Skinny Puppy as an influence—never mind something that sounds like my refrigerator is under demonic possession—but these sons of Suicide extract great beauty from abrasive and droning electronics. It helps that the percussion is kept to a minimum and steers away from clichés—it’s more tribal than techno—and the vocals veer between unintelligible distorted screams and what sounds like either bird calls or primate mating rituals. Whatever the reason, this Horrsing around felt cathartic and cleansing.
Larkin Grimm – Parplar (Young God). Plenty of artists like to identify as outsiders, whether they are or not. And usually it's easy to spot the ones who are putting on some kind of front, trying to out-weird each other to mask insecurities and—more often than not—inadequacies. That's certainly not the case with Larkin Grimm, who was raised in a religious cult in Georgia, studied sculpture at Yale, lived in Alaska for a while, and identifies as transgendered. You don't have to know any of that to appreciate her spellbinding third album, but it goes a long way in explaining what mysterious and miraculous worlds she uncovers on the 15 tracks here. At its heart, Grimm's music owes its largest debt to country, blues and mountain music traditions, with bits of birdsong, brass bands, sinister string sections and hand-crafted instrumentation assisting her in creating some of the freakiest folk around. Grimm's fairy tales are grounded in traditional melodies, tinged with more than a few hints of Eastern psychedelia and featuring fantastical lyrics about bodily parts and fluids, as well as the occasional unicorn. Her own backing vocals at times sounds like a hysterical Joan Baez trying to restrain herself in the middle of a drug trip, while Grimm's lead vocal remains cool, stern and steady. No matter how strange things get, however, Parplar is a beautiful record, and one that deserves to be discovered. (this review ran in the K-W Record, Dec 31)
Hanggai – Introducing Hanggai (Introducing).
My favourite part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC is (of course) the music section, tracing the evolution of various types of instruments. It’s fascinating to me that every culture has its own version of the guitar or lute, its own variety of wind instruments, and its own variation on a linear keyboard. Likewise, listening to a band like Hanggai—comprised of Mongolian singers and string players living in Beijing—it’s intriguing to hear what sound like Irish melodies or Native North American motifs, along with African blues (the latter a connection made a decade ago in the film Genghis Blues). Some indie rock reviewers even claimed to hear the Velvet Underground in the droning violin and precisely plodding percussion; a track like “Wuji” chugs along like a great metal song--complete with guttural vocals—only played on the two-stringed ehru instead of electric guitar. The production is perfect, falling into neither “world music” trap of being either too “authentically” raw nor too Westernized slick. Whatever makes your world go round, Hanggai is like everything and nothing you’ve ever heard before.
Veda Hille – This Riot Life (Ape House). This veteran Vancouver singer/songwriter sings about how “this spring is the one other seasons aim to be,” and being blessed with “ridiculous abundance.” She may well be singing about her “Lucklucky” eleventh album, which is rich with simple hymnal melodies, raging piano prog-rock and chamber-music arrangements, with dashes of klezmer and Japanese cabaret. And though this makes the disc sounds deadly serious, Hille is full of levity and irreverence towards her spiritual subjects, like those “sacred hearts that bleed all over everywhere” and the “kid of God [who] stays up all night long.” No wonder The Weakerthans slid her some of their Echo songwriting prize money. For fans of: Rheostatics, Kate Bush, Sufjan Stevens, John Zorn's Masada. (originally appeared in Eye Weekly’s year-end wrap-up here.)
Hilotrons – Happymatic (Kelp).Normally, the musicians of the Hilotrons’ age and experience that I find the most interesting have usually graduated beyond rock music by their mid-30s. And yet here, Ottawa’s finest live band write and perform peppy pop with the energy of a band half their age, but with the smarts and the chops that can only come from seasoned veterans. It’s hard to pick an MVP in this band: drummer Philip Shaw Bova is a strong contender, for driving the beat of “Emergency Street” alone; the push and pull between bassist Damian Sawka and rhythm guitarist Paul Hogan; the squelchy synth blasts coming from keyboardists Mikes Shultz and Dubue; and Dubue’s strangulated pitch-perfect vocals, which embody the inner geek who finally gets to dance and show up the rest of the office at the Christmas party. Are Hot Hot Heat still around? If so, why? Especially when the Hilotrons render them and the vast majority of their ilk entirely irrelevant.
iNSiDEaMiND – Scatterpopia (Public Transit Recordings).The album by these Toronto turntablists opens with what sounds like a black box recorder, though where exactly their flight path leads is never clear—but this is clearly about the journey not the destination. Scatterpopia is not about dance floor climaxes or macho posturing; instead, iNSiDEaMiND peer into the dark corners of their vinyl collections to create captivating sound art. Abstract turntablism and what was once called “illbient” music seems almost antiquated ten years after its heyday—anyone listened to DJ Spooky lately?—yet iNSiDEaMiND manage to mine new textures and breathe new life into the genre, over successfully stuttering beats that keep the listener on edge while never veering right off the rhythmic cliff ala Autechre. They get help from bass-heavy beatmaster Ghislain Poirier on “Twilight Harvest,” though “Yopo’s Secret Recipe” shows they can bring the bounce on their own when they want to. The occasional vocalist is a pleasant distraction, but this is instrumental music that’s rich with its own narratives.
Kardinal Offishall – Not 4 Sale (Konlive/Universal). The veteran Toronto producer/MC was hotter than ever in 2008—not just because he was on the Tonight Show and scored a Top 10 hit in America (the Akon duet "Dangerous," just in case you weren't near a radio all summer), but because that track was little more than a gateway drug to the more sublime pleasures and thrills heard on Not For Sale. Kardinal had a solid album's worth of blazing tracks to back it up, with hard rhymes about ghetto resilience, satirical skits that skewer gangsta ignorance, and bountiful bass-heavy beats that draw from ragga, reggae, '80 pop, mainstream R&B and the darker edges of hip-hop.
La India Canela – Merengue Tipico From the Dominican Republic (Smithsonian Folkways).This Dominican woman plays a fast and furious accordion at neck-jerking tempos, matched note-for-note by her bassist and saxophonist, who are just as melodic and nimble, especially when tumbling triplets interrupt the relentless two-step rhythms. Together, they shred their way through originals and merengue classics with endless adrenaline. No wonder this music is traditionally the soundtrack for cockfighting. (This ran as part of Exclaim's year-end coverage here)
Leila – Blood Looms and Blooms (Warp).Disappearing for much of the last decade gave Leila the chance to sit back and contextualize trends in electronic music since her first album. As a result, Blood Looms and Blooms draws from early Portishead and Tricky, borrows some of the beats she crafted for Bjork, delves into more distorted territory, moves into druggy dreamscapes ala Boards of Canada, dabbles in sound art and chamber music, reaches back to Tangerine Dream, and relaxes with some Brazilian/Baltimore bounce for good measure.
Magnetic Fields – Distortion (Nonesuch/Warner).Since hitting the jackpot with 69 Love Songs ten years ago, Stephin Merritt has for the most part spread his best songs over various projects and albums, some more gimmicky—sorry, conceptual—than others. Sometimes he strikes gold, as he did on the underrated Gothic Archies tie-in with the Lemony Snicket series. But the songs on Distortion are united only in their aesthetic, which involves waves of icy, reverbed and tinny guitars framing consistently excellent examples of Merritt’s arch lyrics and superior melodies. 69 Love Songs singer Shirley Simms returns as guest vocalist, and Merritt is as droll as ever; their duet “Please Stop Dancing (In My Head)” underscored the fact that these songs were near-impossible to forget.
Jun Miyake – Stolen From Strangers (Do Right!).Cultural dislocation sounds positively intoxicating in the hands of Japanese flugelhorn player Jun Miyake, who bounces between Bulgaria, Brazil, New York City, Tokyo, and his adopted hometown of Paris. Bleary-eyed bossa nova for “Le Voyageur Solitaire” predominates, with detours into fractured French chanson and Japanese crooning. I knew nothing about Miyake before the Toronto label Do Right! licensed this album for North America; now I want to dive into his entire discography during a month of Sundays.
Nomo – Ghost Rock (Ubiquity)Ghost Rock opens with what sounds like a Morse code signal from outer space, before launching a beat that sounds like Tony Allen turned inside out and upside down. The next track kicks in with some Konono-inspired distorted kalimba, and from there on in Nomo take Afrobeat to psychedelic locales that are often promised by anxious Western scribes but rarely materialize in the still-worthy flood of ’70s compilations that continued to emerge throughout 2008. Producer Warren Defever (His Name is Alive) deserves a lot of credit for how amazing this album sounds, though the band has no problem carving out an identity of their own in the increasingly crowded Afrobeat revival.
The last installment of the Top 30 of '08. Apologies for the brevity and the occasional recycling, but as my dear friend James Rocchi likes to say, December and January give every critic a bad case of "Top Ten-donitis." Part one is here; part two is here.
James Pants – Welcome (Stones Throw). There’s a function on most music software called “quantizing,” which ensures that every element of a track is synched-up rhythmically. It’s ensured that almost all hip-hop and electronic music of the last 20 years never misses a beat—literally. I have no idea whether the man who calls himself James Pants, a bedroom producer from Spokane, Washington, is prone to abusing his “quantizing” function, but I doubt it: his raw, synth-y take on early ’80s electro jams excels with elasticity and loose grooves that sound tangible as opposed to mechanical. Handclaps, cowbells, MPCs and 808s accentuate garage rock drumming, with bubbly bass lines that slip into punk, jazz and funk. Controversy-era Prince and the Beasties’ Check Your Head are obvious influences, but there are more than a few other ants in Mr. Pants to keep us guessing.
Pas Chic Chic – Au Contraire (Semprini). Montreal’s Pas Chic Chic give Franco pop a swift kick in the derriere, taking the Farfisa organs and song structures and stripping them of any twee leanings. Instead, they install an amplified arsenal of electric guitars that swirl around the pop melodies and threaten to drench them with droning psychedelics, while the rhythm section dallies back and forth between the dance floor and pummelling their point home. Sometimes that happens in the same song, like the album’s aptly-titled centrepiece, “Vous Comprenez Pourquoi?”, where searing, screeching guitars take over a the harrowing mid-section of a dramatic and driving pop song. Imagine Sonic Youth and Black Mountain bum-rushing the stage at a Belle and Sebastian show. Even at its most punishing and sinister, Pas Chic Chic manage to convey sentiments of sweetness and hope, when they’re not delivering menace, mystery and melody in equal doses. (adapted from a review that ran here in April)
Portishead – Third (Universal). Loneliness never sounds lovelier than in the hands of Beth Gibbons and Geoff Barrow, who return after nine years with an album that is as dark, distorted and disorienting as it is entirely intoxicating and gorgeous. This also vindicates their legacy, which was tarnished by far too many wussy jazz singers setting half-assed torch songs to downtempo hip-hop. Even in its quietest moments, Third is a tough, tenacious and often downright creepy. If they disappear for another decade in order to craft an album as good as this one, it's worth the wait.
Q-Tip – The Renaissance (Motown/Universal). LL Cool J put out an album this year—did anyone care? Questions about artists’ ability to age well in a hip-hop career continue to be valid, but no one told Q-Tip. Maybe a nine-year absence makes his flow grow fresher, but the Abstract MC hasn't been this on his game since the heyday of his beloved early '90s crew A Tribe Called Quest—and yet this is not a retro rehash. He’s still smooth like butta, baby, though he has yet to cheeze out entirely in his middle-age (the extraneous Norah Jones cameo notwithstanding). When he branches out into discofied funk (“ManWomanBoogie”) or guitar grooves (“Good Thang”), he pulls it off with aplomb. While many of his peers are spinning their wheels, this may well be launch Q-Tip’s own full-blown Renaissance.
The Ruby Suns – Sea Lion (Sub Pop).Singer/songwriter Ryan McPhun has lived by the ocean all his life: first in California, now in New Zealand. It certainly sounds like he’s spent a lot of time meditating in front of vast expanses of water; not only do many of his songs evoke a lush, warm and tropical ambiance, but you can actually hear the ocean in the background of several tracks here, with either actual birdsongs or instruments that are reverb-ed beyond recognition until they sound like aquatic fauna. There are certainly moments where it sounds like Sigur Ros staging an operetta in a grotto where the piano is slipping into the sea. But this isn’t one of those soothing “sounds of nature” albums for your massage therapist. The beauty of Sea Lion is its ability to create an entirely logical, self-contained environment where Phil Spector produces New Order on a remote African island. An acoustic Brazilian rhythm might be interrupted by an interlude of ukuleles and coconuts, which is then swept away by a loping brass section and Hawaiian guitar before giving way to African guitar lines and a choir singing in Maori. Sure, sometimes it sounds like a lo-fi Fruitopia commercial. More often than not, however, the adventures of McPhun and the Suns add up to a wildly rewarding ride that’s a wonderful left-field surprise. (adapted from the original review that ran here)
Snailhouse – Lies on the Prize(Unfamiliar/Saved by Vinyl).
Mike Feuerstack has spent his career in the trenches of Canadian indie music, and only now is finally reaching the prime of his career: everything here—his singing, his songwriting and his sense of arrangements—is far and above superior not only to his own discography, but to that of most of his peers in 2008, including his disciples such as The Acorn and Bruce Peninsula. Plenty of his extended family of collaborators chip in here, including old friend/drummer/producer Jeremy Gara (Arcade Fire), Angela Desveaux, and members of The Acorn and Bell Orchestre. Feuerstack’s previous work as Snailhouse had him pegged as a bit of a sad sack; while Lies on the Prize certainly has its melancholy moments, it's also a mature work that successfully balances his earlier prog influences with more straightforward singer/songwriter fare. Feuerstack has the age and experience to write with a mature voice where pessimism and harsh realism never surrender entirely to cynicism; he might live in a world where “they’ll only hear you when you lie,” but still believes that “all in good time you’ll wake up feeling fine.” These lucky 13 tracks comprise the most underrated Canadian album of 2008, which was released last June to little fanfare. With an album this timeless, however, it’s never too late to catch up. (adapted from a review that ran in the K-W Record on December 31)
Tagaq – Auk/Blood (Jericho Beach).Considering that the origin of Inuit throat singing is a competition between two women, Tagaq plays very well with others on her sophomore album—though not necessarily other vocalists. Duets with Mike Patton and Buck 65 fall a bit flat, compared to the way her (literally) breathtaking vocal textures weave through string arrangements by Jesse Zubot and the Kronos Quartet. Tagaq is a force of nature whose live performances are largely improvisational, but here she inhabits just enough structure to allow others into her world. Her sexuality is visceral and demanding, and on “Hunger” she slows down for a sensual reflection that's spinetingling. There's no one else in Canada—and very few anywhere else in the world—who is taking vocal music to the extremes that Tagaq is.
Vampire Weekend – s/t (XL). This album has had 12 months to sustain the avalanche of hype—after all, what band lands on the cover of Spin with their debut album? And yet, 10 flavours-of-the-months later, this still sounds refreshing and charming, the sound of an excitable young band throwing everything they have into three-chord pop songs: harpsichords and strings, African guitars, and a love of propulsive '60s pop, never once being more busy than they have to be. Where they go from here doesn't even matter; this is a classic debut in the vein of the Violent Femmes, Jonathan Richman or the Hidden Cameras.
Chad Van Gaalen – Soft Airplane(Flemish Eye).
This humble Calgarian is a creative hero to many Canadian musicians, and this album provides 13 reasons why (along with the animated videos this multi-disciplinary artist made to accompany them). Van Gaalen makes 21st century folk music with acoustic guitars, harmonicas, video game technology, found objects, banjos and bleeps—all adorning songs suited for campfire ghost stories and layered with equal parts distortion, dissonance and devastating beauty. Van Gaalen's quavering falsetto sings, "Nobody knows where we go when we're dead or when we're dreaming," but judging by the spellbinding sonic landscape he's created here, he knows a thing or two about alternate realities.
John Zorn's Bar Kokhba – Lucifer (Tzadik).Just look at the line-up here, and you know you can't go wrong: the Masada String Trio (Mark Feldman, Greg Cohen, Erik Friedlander), Cyro Baptista, Marc Ribot, and Joey Baron, playing songs from Zorn's second Masada songbook. This is chamber music jazz with Latin percussion and Jewish melodic motifs played by six of the finest musicians in New York City, who weave in and around each other as soloists, duos and trios all in the same track. It's sumptuous, intoxicating and, despite its superficially polite reserve, has much more bite to it than Zorn's other 2008 foray into easy listening territory, The Dreamers. His Book of Angels series is where he's doing his finest work these days, and this may well be the best installment.
HONORABLE MENTION
Don Brownrigg – Wander Songs (Weewerk)
Cadence Weapon – After Party Babies (Upper Class)
Glen Campbell – Meet (EMI)
Fairmont – Coloured in Memory (Border Community)
Al Green – Lay It Down (Blue Note)
Clutchy Hopkins – Who is Clutchy Hopkins? (Ubiquity)
Human Highway – Moody Motorcycle (Secret City)
Kocani Orkestar – The Ravished Bride (Crammed)
Mt. Eerie and Julie Doiron – Lost Wisdom (K)
Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns (independent)
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