Merge Records: the past five years

Merge Records celebrates its 25th anniversary next week in its hometown of Chapel Hill/Carrboro, N.C. The tiny label that could long ago outgrew its association with its founding band, Superchunk: first it was as the label that brought Neutral Milk Hotel and Magnetic Fields into the world, then it helped alter the landscape of independent music in the last 10 years with the 2004 release of Arcade Fire’s Funeral.

On a road trip to Merge’s 15^th anniversary celebrations, I fell for the lady I’m still with, and with whom we have a three-year-old son. I have numerous sentimental reasons to head south for their 25^th, as well as the fact that Neutral Milk Hotel, Superchunk, Destroyer, Caribou, Teenage Fanclub, Bob Mould, Wye Oak, Telekinesis, the Mountain Goats, Mikal Cronin, Mary Timony’s new band Ex Hex, and many more also happen to be there.

My review of the 20^th anniversary week is here.

At least half the records Merge puts out these days are either new albums by lifers who refuse to give up, or reissues of a current artist’s past catalog: Merge rescues early work by Destroyer or Mountain Goats or Bob Mould’s albums with Sugar from obscurity; they’ve brought back the Archers of Loaf and kept the career of Richard Buckner alive, etc. Sure, the average age of a Merge artist is probably well into the mid-40s (like the label owners themselves). That doesn’t mean it’s resting on its laurels. Many other articles about this anniversary will retell the tales of the label’s flagship acts and landmark albums; many of those tales are captured in John Cook’s excellent oral history of the label (Torontonians, take note: if name Cook’s sounds familiar, it’s because he’s also the former Gawker journalist who, along with the Toronto Star’s Robyn Doolittle and Kevin Donovan, broke the Rob Ford crack tape story to the world.)

Here, however, are 10 highly underrated albums from the five years of Merge’s history, since the last party. We all know about the essential recent records by Spoon (debuted in Billboard's Top 5), M. Ward, Caribou (Polaris shortlist), Destroyer (Polaris shortlist), the Mountain Goats and Superchunk—or that She and Him exists—and oh yeah, there's the minor matter that Arcade Fire's The Suburbs won a freaking Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Put that in your pipe. Here, however, are some less obvious titles that make the label much more than a nostalgia trip.

The Clientele – Bonfires on the Heath (October 2009)

My original review:

How much you like The Clientele depends entirely on how much you can stand wispy British men singing autumnal odes over languid dream-pop with sparkling guitars, tinkly keyboards, brushed drums, and a melodic bass player who ties it all together. If that works for you, then Bonfires on the Heath will sweep the clouds away from your rainiest days.

Most of the references here date back to ’60s British folk-pop; at times it sounds like Nick Drake fronting The Velvet Underground; there are shades of the Zombies and hints of Pink Floyd (especially the Dark Side-ish pedal steel on the title track). The sunny optimism of their game-changing 2006 album God Save the Clientele surfaces only on a couple of tracks; here, they’re back to being their mopey selves, only now they sound a lot more muscular doing it, and relatively recent fourth member Mel Draisey fleshes out the arrangements beautifully with violin and a variety of keyboards.

Singer/guitarist Alisdair MacLean has threatened that this will be The Clientele’s final album. And after the excellence of both this and the previous album, he might just be spinning his wheels from now on anyway—it’s hard to imagine The Clientele capturing their essence any better than this.

Tracey Thorn – Love and its Opposite (May 2010)

I put this album on this week for the first time in years—and remembered why it had been so long, despite its brilliance. This album kicks me in the gut, such is the efficacy of Thorn’s portrait of the uncertainties of middle age. It’s so good that it can never possibly be background music.

My original review:

Tracy Thorn, of Everything But the Girl, is definitely not making music for girls (or boys) anymore: this, her second album, is for mature audiences only. And by mature, I mean anyone with enough life experience to be in a long-term relationship that either fractures after years of slowly developing cracks, or somehow survives despite years of disappointments. Mature in a way that will no longer accept a tired cliché like “I miss you like deserts miss the rain.”

Thorn let’s you know exactly what you’re in for right off the top: “Oh! The Divorces” is a devastating song about watching friends fall apart, lost idealism, the fallacy of romantic pop songwriting, and the fall from passionate beginnings to mundane custody obligations—the latter is done during the song’s bridge in a mere 11 words: “the honeymoon/ the wedding rings/ the afternoon handovers by the swings.” Ominously, the song both opens and closes with the question: “Who’s next?”

Love and its Opposites is not a breakup album—after all, Thorn is still married to her former EBTG bandmate and father of her children, Ben Watt. Rather, it’s full of well-crafted observations of middle age in general: parenting teenagers (“you worry about growing up/ I worry about letting go”), singles bars (“Can you tell how long I’ve been here? / Can you smell the fear?”) and family ghosts in the old hometown.

The lyrics are the real selling point; on first listen, the music is merely pleasant and, well, adult. Thorn’s melancholy, empathetic voice is nothing if not subtle, but understatement serves her well; the arrangements here are often sparse, but always spot-on, and there are enough colours and tempos to rescue it from being a middle-aged mope. Much like the quiet, unseen daily dramas that she documents, there is far more going on here than first meets the eye. (June 10)

Wye Oak – Civilian (March 2011)

My original review:

Wye Oak don’t sound like a rock band, certainly not a rock band from a city like Baltimore. They sound like a force of nature: a rushing river, a towering mountain range, an expansive Montana plain. Not that they sound natural: there’s nothing acoustic about Civilian, their third album, which is full of raging electric guitars and distorted sounds. But the way this duo conjure the elements at their disposal is magical, the way a sonic gust suddenly slaps you like a galeforce wind, the way Andy Stack’s drums gallop and lurch, following the push and pull of Jenn Wasner’s guitars, the way Wasner’s calm and understated vocals anchor everything like the eye of a hurricane.

It’s a massive sound for a duo—Stack juggles keyboards while drumming—but imagining the challenge of reproducing this live shouldn’t distract you from this incredibly vivid recording. Themes of regret and loss dominate—the opening lyric is “Two small deaths happened today”—but Civilian is powerful and uplifting, despite being a bit a downer on the surface.

Their lineage is obvious—Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Dinosaur Jr., Yo La Tengo—but they take the best of all those acts and reinvent them for a new decade. With each album, Wye Oak has improved exponentially, and Civilian is no exception. It’s their first full-blown classic, and likely the first of many.

Wild Flag – s/t (September 2011)

Hey, remember when Carrie Brownstein was a musician? Many know that she was part of Sleater-Kinney, but this punk rock dream project with Mary Timony seems to have been shoved under the rug in many a lengthy profile of the Portlandia star. The geographically dispersed band decided this would be their one and only album; a shame—not just because of the talent involved, but because this felt like they were on the verge of totally blowing our minds. No doubt Timony will step up to the plate with her new band, Ex Hex, whose debut is due this fall, but already I can’t help but wonder what it would sound like to hear her bouncing off Brownstein again.

Crooked Fingers – Breaks in the Armor (October 2011)

I know I have a thing for underdogs, but I frankly cannot believe that Eric Bachmann is not more beloved than he is. There’s never been a bad Crooked Fingers album, and he keeps getting better. He’s been spending the last year as part of Neko Case’s band; at her Massey Hall show in May, she let him open the encore with his song "Sleep All Summer" (from 2005’s Dignity and Shame), which instantly brought tears to eyes of this enormous fan (and my lady, the ubersuperfan). Anyway, yadda yadda, 2011’s Breaks in the Armor, another amazing Crooked Fingers record. Ho-fucking-hum.

My original review:

Over 20 years and 12 albums, Crooked Fingers’ Eric Bachmann has nothing left to prove to anyone: especially after his slick 2008 masterpiece Forfeit/Fortune (a perfect album that’s easily one of the most underrated albums of the last five years) and this year’s triumphant reunion of his ’90s indie rock band Archers of Loaf, the legacy of which overshadowed his singer/songwriter work as Crooked Fingers for far too long.

So rather than return to past glories, Breaks in the Armor sounds like Bachmann starting fresh, alone in the studio (except for female vocal harmonies by longtime bandmate Liz Durrett) and feeling his way around a drum kit with a primal pounding that brings a refreshingly raw amateur feel to otherwise carefully constructed and arranged songs. Despite its solitary nature, Breaks in the Armor is not a quiet affair; Bachmann belts it out throughout, even when tempos dip. He plays with your expectations; the catchiest rock song on the album (“The Counterfeiters”) is played mostly on just bass and drums.

Bachmann has a rich and deep discography; newcomers will be surprised to learn that Breaks in the Armor is just the tip of the iceberg.

Divine Fits – A Thing Called Divine Fits (August 2012)

Everyone loves Spoon. Lots of people loved Wolf Parade, and there was plenty of love for Handsome Furs as well. So how come people didn’t shit themselves for this collab between Britt Daniel and Dan Boeckner? Beats me. This is ripe for rediscovery.

My original review:

Between them, Spoon’s Britt Daniel and Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade and Handsome Furs have made at least four of the best rock records of the last decade. It should shock no one, then, that when they teamed up as Divine Fits that they should make one of the greatest albums of 2012. Eleven songs in under 45 minutes: these men know how to write great pop hooks, rock riffs, leave room for experimentation and get it all over with before anyone has any time to get bored.

Spoon records are beloved in part because of their minimalism, their distillation of every production trick in the book into bare necessities—that is just as true here as on any Spoon record. Which makes one of the most interesting things about Divine Fits—where the vocals are shared equally between Daniel and Boeckner—the power dynamic: Boeckner clearly loves synths more than Daniel does (the last Handsome Furs album featured barely any guitar at all), but there’s very little else that distinguishes this from a great Spoon album, a natural follow-up to that band’s 2001 breakthrough Kill the Moonlight.

Even though both men have hardly been slouching lately—the final Handsome Furs album is a posthumous contender for the Polaris Prize—Divine Fits sounds like a creative rebirth, the sound of songwriters and studio geeks rediscovering the joy in their craft. With the dissolution of Handsome Furs, Boeckner is now a free agent, and who knows what state Spoon is in, but Divine Fits is far too good to be a temporary side project.

Daphni – Jiaolong (October 2012)

Pilfered from my original review and this Maclean’s article:

Dan Snaith of Dundas, Ontario, has made dance music for the last decade as Caribou: sometimes of the bedroom, minimalist variety; sometimes as psychedelic rock; sometimes as astounding, vivid and fully realized as he did on 2010’s Swim. For the past year, Snaith has been quietly releasing 12” singles under the name Daphni, hastily assembled tracks using samples and an analog synthesizer. This is material distinctly designed for dance floors; Snaith hesitated to assemble it on an album at all. Many Caribou fans might find it too repetitive and not as delicately layered as Snaith’s main project, but there’s no mistaking that it’s the product of the same creative mind. The bass lines are nimble, the synth squiggles are melodic and endearing, and the drum programming dances around the four-on-the-floor pulse. On “Jiao,” he takes a synth solo that sounds like a nod to Charanjit Singh’s recently reissued Moog classic Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat.

Key to Daphni’s strength, however, is that it also sounds tactile: this isn’t electronic music created in its own vacuum, where the listener has no idea where the sounds came from or why they’re all colliding at any given moment. Listening to Jiaolong, you can picture Snaith manually adding and subtracting various layers: from ostinato synth patterns to long-lost African soul music samples to Indian raga motifs to—I could swear this is on the Daphni track Pairs—Sophie the Giraffe, that ubiquitous baby squeak toy. That guarantees a good time right there.

Telekinesis – Dormarion (April 2013)

Do you like good songs? Do you like rock music? Hell, doesn’t everyone? And yet here’s another guy who’s insanely talented, and yet languishes in total obscurity, even among people who claim to like these sorts of things. Seattle’s Michael Lerner is a drummer who loves New Pornographic power pop, and made this, his third album, with Spoon’s Jim Eno producing. Eno dialled down the guitars a bit and brought more synths to the fore, but ultimately the sonics are secondary to the riffs and hooks Lerner packs in here—and he gets exponentially better each time. Dormarion’s songs are seriously stadium-sized—even the one with just Lerner on solo acoustic guitar.

So c’mon, the likes of Foo Fighters, Weezer and U2  continue to phone in snoozerific new material and the far infinitely superior records of Telekinesis can’t catch a break? Listen, I’m old enough that it’s rare for me to fall in love with new rock’n’roll music (but not new music, obviously). I learned long ago that many artists I like fall outside the mainstream for a reason. The only time I get remotely irked is when someone like Lerner has all the goods and no one seems to care.

Okay, grandpa out.

Mikal Cronin – MC II (June 2013)

My original review:

A garage rocker from San Francisco with a taste for psychedelia and a B.F.A. degree in music, Mikal Cronin is much more than another shaggy-haired guy with a distortion pedal, power-pop melodies and a love of folk-rock harmonies—though he’s all that too, like a next-generation J Mascis. Cronin is a much better songwriter than most of his contemporaries—including Kurt Vile and Ty Segall, two peers he’s often compared to (he also plays in Segall’s band)—and switches easily from wistful country rock to summer anthems to acoustic ballads to heavy shredding, and leaves room for the occasional violin solo. Though the recording is raw and live, there’s nothing remotely sloppy about this; Cronin proves to be a master craftsman in every aspect. Anyone looking for the great guitar rock album of summer 2013 should pay close attention. 

Reigning Sound – Shattered (July 2014)

Instant classic! Reviewed last week, here.

September '11 reviews

The following reviews ran in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury during the month of September.

Active Child – You Are All I See (Vagrant)

What happens when a Philadelphia choir boy who plays the harp makes music that sounds a lost ’80s new wave classic mixed with modern dubstep like The Weeknd and James Blake?

That’s not a question anyone would ever have thought to ask, but Pat Grossi of Active Child is happy to provide the answer. In one of the most inventive debut albums of the year, Grossi drapes his Sigur Ros-esque falsetto over fluttering harp, pillowy synths, and carefully conducted electronic beats, creating songs that—were they not primarily about heartbreak—sound spiritual and devotional, despite, or perhaps because of, the otherworldly artifice of the instrumentation. Like Bon Iver’s new album, there are some decidedly unfashionable ’80s production touches, but there’s nothing in Grossi’s self-contained sonic atmosphere to suggest that he’s trying to follow any trend at all. (Sept. 1)

Download: “Hanging On,” “You Are All I See,” “High Priestess”

Atropolis – s/t (Dutty Artz)

Adam Partridge grew up in the New York City borough of Queens, but he’s been spending a lot of time in South America in the past few years, journeys that pay off on his debut as Atropolis, on the record label run by DJ Rupture, one of the leading cross-cultural curators in the U.S. Partridge recorded in Colombia with several vocalists, cumbia musicians, and local accordion legend Hugo Carlos Granados. Other tracks draw from modern Brazilian digital rhythms, not unlike Portugese/Angolan group Buraka Som Sistema, and there are trace elements of Argentinean tango as well. Though traditional elements are always in the mix, Partridge plays with them all in a decidedly 21st-century context. (Sept. 29)

Download: “Che Bo,” “Som Sista,” “NY Chero”

Blitzen Trapper - American Goldwing (Sub Pop)

The cover art looks like an 8-track tape you’d find in a truck stop in Montana. And it’s not a joke, nor is the inside photo showing the band in tattered jean jackets, trucker hats, plaid shirts and clutching cans of beer. Blitzen Trapper don’t sound a day older than 1975, playing boogie rock somewhere in that not-so-vast distance between Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Doobie Brothers. Harmonized guitar leads, slide guitars, roadhouse piano, touches of mandolin, the occasional conga: these guys have probably played more than a few cabin keg parties in their time. By their own admission, it’s music that will “make you want to shotgun a beer in the shower while listening to the Stones or Joe Walsh,” according to the self-penned bio by frontman Eric Earley.

There’s no shortage of retro ’70s bands, and excellent ones at that, such as Toronto’s Zeus, but few feel as fossilized as Blitzen Trapper. You could easily knock them for that, or you could respect how incredibly good they are at it. This is not a fashion for these guys; they wouldn’t have nailed every minor detail and vocal harmony if they were merely auditioning for a sequel to Almost Famous (a part they would get in a Hollywood minute). (Sept. 22)

Download: “Might Find It Cheap,” “The Way You Walk Away,” “Your Crying Eyes”

Ry Cooder – Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (Nonesuch)

It’s hard not to respect Ry Cooder as a guitarist, especially the albums where he’s acted as a Western conduit to Cuban music (Buena Vista Social Club), Mali desert blues (Ali Farka Toure) and Mexican-American culture (Chavez Ravine). Considering that he’s a vocalist of limited means, however, you have to be a big fan to sit through one of his singer/songwriter albums. Except this one.

Like many Americans, Cooder is angry. This is his State of the Union address, written as Woody Guthrie might have done and set to a backdrop of blues, reggae, gospel, TexMex, Cajun and country songs. Bankers, warmongers, racists, environmental pillagers, politicians of all stripes, religious fundamentalists—they all get an earful from Cooder, who delivers his tirades in folksy songs that are welcoming rather than alienating.

The only odd thing about this album is that it seemingly stands alone: considering the populist anger from every corner of the political spectrum in the last five years, and now that the “Occupy Wall Street” movement is gaining momentum, why isn’t more music as direct and fiery as this? It’s not like Cooder is writing from the headlines, either; a song like “No Banker Left Behind” has nothing at all to do with the 2008 crash and bailout, although it certainly carries plenty of resonance.

It’s easy to be cynical about the decline of America; it’s a skill to channel that and turn it into art filled with joy and beauty along with the bile. (Sept. 8)

Download: “No Banker Left Behind,” “Christmas Time This Year,” “Lord Tell Me Why”

Grace Jones - Hurricane (Pias)

“Who can define infinity?” Grace Jones asks on “Love You to Life.”

The answer is easy: her North American fans, who are only getting to hear Hurricane now, an interminable three years after its U.K. release. That’s an entirely inexplicable and inexcusable delay in this digital age, especially considering renewed interest in not only her legacy as a style icon (her image suddenly started appearing on t-shirts and buttons again), but also her classic early ’80s albums, which fused reggae, new wave and R&B in progressive ways rarely heard since.

Not only is Hurricane Jones’s first album of original material in 19 years (well, 22, for this continent), but it’s also one of her best. She’s once again working with the Compass Point All-Stars, the ace studio musicians assembled in Nassau, Bahamas, for her early records (as well as for Black Uhuru, Robert Palmer, and Tom Tom Club), a group that includes the legendary rhythm section of Sly & Robbie, keyboardist Wally Badarou and guitarist Barry Reynolds.

As one can imagine, Grace Jones has a lot to say now that she’s back. The first words you hear are: “This is my voice, my weapon of choice.” On the title track, co-written with and featuring Tricky, she boasts, “I can be cool, soft as a breeze / and I’ll be a hurricane, ripping up trees.” This album originally came out a mere month after the financial collapse, but she has a piercing song called “Corporate Cannibal” (“legalized criminal!”), where she snarls, “I’ll consume my consumers with no sense of humour” (there’s also an amazing video for this song, naturally).

Hurricane is also one of her most personal statements. There are several songs here with autobiographical overtones, but none more so than “Williams’ Blood,” co-written with Wendy & Lisa (of Prince and the Revolution), which tells the tale of her mother, a Jamaican girl who married a preacher at age 17, and moved the family to Syracuse, New York, when Jones was a teenager.

Musically and lyrically, this is everything Jones has ever done well. She no longer sounds cutting edge—the most modern tracks here sound like ’90s trip-hop, which is not surprising considering that Massive Attack invited her to play a festival of theirs right before she made this record, and Tricky is a guest—but she’s embraced gospel choirs and large string sections that enhance her already rich sound, making this perhaps the most lush album in her discography. Her powerful voice hasn’t diminished a bit, and for every darker trip-hop turn such as the title track or “Corporate Cannibal,” there’s a gospel-tinged pop-reggae song like “Love You to Life” or “Well Well Well.”

It only makes sense that when such an icon has been silent for so long, she should come roaring back with a comeback as successful as this one. This is one Hurricane that North Americans should welcome ashore. (Sept. 22)

Download: “Williams’ Blood,” “Love You to Life,” “This Is”

Nick Lowe - The Old Magic (Yep Roc)

When a beloved 62-year-old songwriter puts out an album called The Old Magic, fans of his early work might anticipate a return to his late ’70s power pop sound.

Instead, however, the title is more literal: it’s a magical record by an old guy who’s acting his age. Whether he’s musing about his “Checkout Time,” boasting about how well-read he is (“I read a lot / and not just magazines”), getting a new start on life (“House for Sale,” “Restless Feeling”), or reading too much into flowers (“Stoplight Roses,” “The Poisoned Rose”), Nick Lowe does it over classy, ’50s-tinged lounge arrangements that allow his well-matured voice to luxuriate over every note. Sometimes he dips into a country shuffle, sometimes a reggae backbeat, but mostly The Old Magic is rich with lush balladry that calls out for candles, a fine red wine and dark chocolate.

Every track here makes a case for Lowe getting even better with age. Score another one for the geezer. (Sept. 15)

Download: “Checkout Time,” “Shame on the Rain,” “You Don’t Know Me At All”

Mister Heavenly - Out of Love (Sub Pop)

Mister Heavenly owes a debt to ’50s pop music, filtered as it is through three guys—Nick Thorburn of Islands, Ryan Kattner of Man Man, and Modest Mouse drummer Joe Plummer—who built their careers on herky-jerky, off-kilter indie rock. It’s inventive, catchy and occasionally cartoonishly creepy; they call it “doom wop.” Mostly, it’s just a lot of fun.

Thorburn knows how to bring out the best in people with slower creative processes than himself; likewise, they’re responsible for his best albums with the Unicorns (with Alden Penner), Human Highway (with Jim Guthrie) and now this. In each of these projects there’s a tossed-off, carefree air to the recordings that keeps the songs simple, the harmonies clear, the arrangements uncluttered. There’s nothing lazy about it, however: Mister Heavenly doesn’t sound like a half-baked side project, but a fully realized unit unto itself, one that can even get away with ridiculous songs that have choruses like “cut me off a slice of reggae pie.”

The album ends on a suspended note; hopefully this is not the last we hear of Mister Heavenly. (Sept. 8)

Download: “I Am a Hologram,” “Mister Heavenly,” “Charlyne”

The Pack A.D. - Unpersons (Mint)

When you’re a young, two-piece garage band who put out four albums in four years and tour your asses off around the world, it’s a matter of time before you either a) burn out or b) make your masterpiece. And so if previous albums by this Vancouver group have been somewhat underwhelming, Unpersons finds them firing on all cylinders, crafting one of the most exciting rock records of the year.

They play with the intensity of a band determined to make the most out of every second on stage, no matter the venue, no matter the audience. And with the help of Detroit’s finest garage rock producer Jim Diamond (Dirtbombs, White Stripes), and recorded in Vancouver’s finest studio, The Hive (Black Mountain, Destroyer), The Pack A.D. are snarling, spitting and ready to knock you on your feet. Guitarist/vocalist Becky Black sings like a woman done wrong, who’s ready to exorcise any and all demons in song.

The sound is heavy, the performances are raw, and they’ve honed their songwriting for maximum riffs, hooks, and melody. What more do you want in a rock’n’roll record? (Sept. 15)

Download: “Sirens,” “Seasick,” “8”

Red Hot + Rio 2 – Various Artists (E1)

When the first Red Hot + Rio compilation came out 15 years ago, Brazilian music’s proximity to the mainstream seemed distant, notwithstanding flirtations from David Byrne and Paul Simon (the albums Rei Momo and Rhythm of the Saints, respectively). That first album, which featured Everything But the Girl, Stereolab, Maxwell, Sting, and PM Dawn, focused mainly on the bossa nova era of Brazilian music, playing into the easy listening revival of the time.

Today, Brazilian music of every stripe has taken off, whether it’s the smooth stylings of Bebel Gilberto or the aggressive favela booty bass that drives bands like Bondo do Role, and Brazilian rhythms can be heard on any number of mainstream pop singles. And so Red Hot + Rio 2 boasts 33 tracks, over two hours of music, and a lineup that includes Beirut, Devendra Banhart, Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello, John Legend, Madlib, and dozens more. Money Mark (best known as the Beastie Boys’ keyboardist) and Marisa Monte are the only repeat performers.

Many tracks are covers of songs from the tropicalia era of late ’60s and early ’70s Brazilian music, a psychedelic pop movement that was considered politically subversive by the country’s military regime at the time. Therefore tropicalia pioneers Os Mutantes are paired up with like-minded contemporaries Of Montreal for an inspired romp through their original “Bat Macumba,” while soul singers Alice Smith and Aloe Blacc breathe new life into “Baby,” a Caetano Veloso song of which Os Mutantes did the most recognizable cover. Brooklyn weirdo dance-pop duo Javelin team up with tropicalia’s most delightful and inventive oddball, Tom Zé, on “Ogodô Ano 2000.” And new-school Brazilian singer Seu Jorge duets with Beck on a cover of the latter’s song “Tropicalia,” which helped rekindle interest in the movement when it came out 13 years ago on Beck’s Mutations.

This is not all tropicalia all the time, however. Marina Gasolina and Secousse bring some modern favela funk to “Freak le Boom Boom,” while Los Van Van and Carlinhos Brown bring a big brass sound to more traditional rhythms. And it makes perfect sense that the group Brazilian Girls show up here, with Angelique Kidjo and Forro in the Dark in tow. Indeed, the only downfall of this compilation is that it’s exhausting: there’s too much of a good thing.

As always, this Red Hot album is a benefit for AIDS charities; the Red Hot organization was founded 22 years ago and has been responsible for 15 compilations in various genres, although there have only been three in the last decade (all of them are wonderful: the other two are 2003’s Red Hot and Riot, a tribute to Fela Kuti, and 2009’s Dark Was the Night, which was curated by The National). With the 30th anniversary of AIDS being marked this year (note the excellent cover story in the September issue of The Walrus), the disease is still the subject of misunderstandings and problematic solutions, despite the fact that being HIV-positive is no longer a death sentence. Cheers to the Red Hot folks for effectively enhancing their activism with excellent music. (Sept. 1)

Download: “Tropical Affair” – Money Mark, Thalma De Freitas & João Parahyba; “Um Girassol Da Cor Do Seu Cabelo” – Mia Doi Todd and José González; “Boa Reza” – Vanessa Da Mata, Seu Jorge & Almaz

Tasseomancy - Ulalume (Out of This Spark)

Something wicca this way comes.

Formerly known as Ghost Bees, Tasseomancy—the name refers to the art of reading tea leaves—are twin sisters from Halifax who currently tour the world as backup singers with Austra, though they sound like they ran away from a Renaissance Fair and wrote a few songs while boiling bats and casting spells. Sample chorus: “Who’s at my altar? For these beasts are not lambs for the slaughter…” You get the idea.

How out there is this duo? Their official bio compares them to Comus, a psychedelic British folk group from the ’60s—who are kind of an obscurists’ trump card, really—that sounded like your most terrifying hippie nightmare come true, chanting in the woods with hand drums, flutes and demonic lyrics. Tasseomancy do not, thankfully, sound like Comus (there can and should be only one Comus), but there is plenty of autoharp and arch vocals and an obvious influence from the darker corners of British folk.

To help them make their debut as Tasseomancy—the name Ulalume comes from an Edgar Allan Poe poem—they turned to Taylor Kirk of Timber Timbre, a guy who knows a thing or two about creeping ’round back stairs. He even takes lead vocals on a track called, of course, “The Darkness of Things.” Kirk doesn’t try to guide them into any sense of normalcy or pop tradition, like his own band. He’s happy to follow them down whatever rabbit hole they take him; his job is to make sure their dream world is as brightly lit and colourful as possible.

Hallowe’en is just around the corner, kids. Here’s your haunted house soundtrack. (Sept. 29)

Download: “Heavy Sleep,” “Diana,” “Up You Go Little Smoke”

Tinariwen – Tassili (Anti)

This band of blues musicians from the Sahara Desert formed in refugee camps 30 years ago, from which Moammar Gadhafi recruited mercenaries in exchange for promises of independence for the Tuareg tribe (needless to say, he didn’t deliver). Decades ago they put down their guns in exchange for guitars, and listening to their latest album in the wake of the overthrow of Gadhafi, it sounds like music for the morning after a revolution.

Their 2007 North American breakthrough, Aman Iman, was fiery and electric and full of call-and-response choruses and joyous ululating; it made an easy crossover to rock audiences. Its follow-up was recorded partially in the desert where the band was born, using generators to record their electric guitars around the campfire. This time out they tone things down, making a reflective and primarily acoustic album. After the gunfire—both hostile and celebratory—this sounds like a people pondering possibilities and next steps, as well as mourning the losses that brought them here.

Tassili is also the first Tinariwen album to feature Western guests, although in each case there’s no awkward culture collision; everyone fits seamlessly into the background. Wilco guitarist Nels Cline creates atmospheres behind the opening track “Imidiwan Ma Tennam,” while TV on the Radio vocalists Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe weave themselves into “Tenere Taqhim Tossam” so effectively that you barely notice someone has started singing in English.

Though Tinariwen’s popularity has ushered in many other desert blues purveyors, Tassili displays plenty of intangible, magic moments that illustrate why this group was the first to make an international breakthrough. (Sept. 1)

Download: “Imidiwan Ma Tennam,” “Tenere Taqhim Tossam,” “Walla Illa”

The Weeknd - Thursday (independent)

It’s an axiom that you have your whole life to write your first album, and a few months to write your second. In the age of instant Internet availability, that time has been ostensibly been whittled down to a few weeks.

The Weeknd released their debut, House of Balloons, as a free download in March; word of mouth spread quickly, helped in part by mystique that kept any details about the dark, mysterious R&B project top secret, except for the name of the singer, 21-year-old Torontonian Abel Tesfaye. Fast forward mere months later, and that album has snuck on to the Polaris Prize shortlist and The Weeknd’s debut live show in Toronto was one of the biggest international music stories to come out of that city this year.

With good reason: House of Balloons sounded like a game-changer in modern R&B, a goth-y update on ’90s trip-hop like Tricky, filtered through production advances in hip-hop and electronic music of the last 10 years, both mainstream and underground, with Tesfaye’s smooth vocals and lurid, Lothario persona tying it all together.

Now comes Thursday, another free download album, and concerns about a sophomore slump are inevitable—and valid. The Weeknd sounds—weakened, you could say.

It’s not just that the mystique has been lifted somewhat and therefore the music sounds less opaque. Thursday is like an awkward second date with a guy that seemed so intriguing and charming, albeit a bit weird, the first time out. Now his flaws are magnified and his come-ons less alluring (especially the one—as always, delivered in a smooth, sensitive croon—about how he closes his eyes and imagines making love to someone else when he’s with you).

There is still that voice, an angelic, slippery instrument that can do almost anything—including the use of AutoTune for effect, not necessity, and bridging the natural and digital divide with uncanny ease. But, as with House of Balloons, he’s more often than not applying it to cringe-worth lyrics; in somehow keeping with the “theme” of the album title, the way he keeps rattling off the days of the week sounds like a certain SCTV soap opera parody sketch.

When Tesfaye made his live debut, he had a rock band behind him with electric guitars adding extra crunch; they appear here to pull his forward-thinking hip-hop back to forgettable rock/industrial acts of the ’90s, making much of Thursday sound dated rather than next level. He flirts with reggae on “Life of the Party” and “Heaven or Las Vegas” (not a Cocteau Twins cover—though I wouldn’t put that past him), although in each case it sounds like something Trent Reznor would do with reggae, rather than an Ethiopian-Canadian R&B singer from Toronto.

Tesfaye hasn’t entirely shit the bed, of course; high expectations shouldn’t diminish the gems that appear here. Individual tracks usually rotate around a single sound: the martial drums on “The Birds Part 1,” the acoustic guitar that provides the sole backdrop to "Rolling Stone," the rubbery dub and disembodied R&B of “The Zone.”

This is one of three Weeknd albums of 2011; the third is expected shortly. “Why you rushing me, baby? It’s only us alone,” he sings. But he’s the one who sounds in a hurry here; maybe if he slows down and takes his time, he’ll once again knock our socks off—and a few other items of clothing, by the sounds of it. (Sept. 8)

Download: the entire album is available for free at the-weeknd.com

Wilco – The Whole Love (dBpm/Anti)

If Wilco fans were wondering when relatively new guitarist Nels Cline was finally going to be allowed to shed, you get your answer five minutes into the title track that opens this album. There, the veteran guitar slinger—who joined Wilco just in time for the band to make two of their more subdued, conservative albums in years—lets loose a torrent of noodly pyrotechnics over a song that could otherwise be a Radiohead outtake.

That doesn’t mean the rest of the album follows suit, however. The only thing anyone can expect from Wilco is that they’re going to do whatever they want, and The Whole Love finds them touching on every stage of their career: concise pop songs, heartbreaking acoustic country ballads, weirdo art rock, and some glockenspiels and bird whistling just for the hell of it.

“The night’s so young,” sings Jeff Tweedy, “but I still say we’re too old for clichés.” Now that they’re finally putting out their own records, on their own label, there’s even less expectation for them to bend to anyone’s will. Listening to The Whole Love, you can almost hear them breathing sighs of relief.

Unfortunately, what you don’t hear is them breaking a sweat. While this is a good record by a great band—and better than, say, 2004’s A Ghost is Born or 2007’s Sky Blue Sky—it’s not a particularly satisfying one. Its charms are subtle—in both the uptempo rockers and the spacey, sparse ballads—but unlikely to engage anyone who isn’t already a big fan. Perhaps that’s all we should expect from such a well-oiled machine at this stage of their career.

But if the rest of the album is merely good enough, it’s the closing track, “One Sunday Morning,” that’s the most compelling track here. Tweedy starts it off singing, “This is how I tell him / oh, how it’s long,” and from there embarks on a 12-minute, intensely personal meditation about his deceased father and their torrid relationship, set to little more than three chords and a mid-tempo, subdued acoustic backing. That the band can provide ever-evolving shades and textures to sustain the minimal narrative over such a long period of time is a testament to their many strengths. (Sept. 29)

Download: “I Might,” “Open Mind,” “One Sunday Morning”

Wild Flag – s/t (Merge)

“I’m a race horse / you put your money on me,” sings Carrie Brownstein. With good reason: though Wild Flag are a new band and this their debut album, they have a pedigree that has already got the indie rock geek squad frothing at the mouth.

Brownstein and drummer Janet Weiss are reuniting for the first time since their band Sleater-Kinney—perhaps the most powerful and successful band to emerge from the riot grrrl scene of the early ’90s—announced a hiatus in 2006. (In the meantime, Brownstein became an NPR arts journalist and starred in the comedy series Portlandia; Weiss backed up Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus.) Here they’re joined by the always intriguing Mary Timony, who performed solo and fronted the band Helium, which means two of the finest guitarists of the ’90s American underground are now in the same band together. (Rebecca Cole of the Minders rounds out the lineup on bass and keyboards.)

Though they are all veterans, they play with the enthusiasm of a new band, combining huge classic rock riffs with arty twists and turns, and songs that break down to exuberant handclaps and chanted vocals. Like any young band, several songs are about the love of music itself; the joy of writing and performing is not something these ladies take for granted. “Sound is the blood between me and you,” they sing on opening track “Romance,” and that’s obvious not only in their years of experience, but in their years of friendship together. (Brownstein and Timony actually had a short-lived side project in the ’90s called the Spells, an underwhelming distraction that didn’t prepare their fans for the rock onslaught of Wild Flag.)

And yet though Brownstein and Timony clearly work well together, they don’t yet share the same intuitive and explosive chemistry Brownstein shared with Sleater-Kinney’s other singer/guitarist, Corin Tucker (who released her own low-key solo project earlier this year). And so while Wild Flag’s main selling point to Sleater-Kinney fans may be the return of Brownstein and Weiss, what this band really signals is a creative return for Timony, whose last couple of records dulled the edges off the unique sound she crafted in Helium and her first two solo albums; here, her recognizable guitar tone, particular scales and approach to melody contrast is coaxed into new territory by Brownstein.

All of that nitpicking is really only relevant to those who grew up worshipping these women; any and all newcomers are likely to wave the Wild Flag loud and proud right from the opening notes. They play Lee’s Palace in Toronto on October 11. (Sept. 15)

Download: “Romance,” “Glass Tambourine,” “Electric Band”