June 2016 reviews

Highly recommended this month: Un Blonde, Fanfare Ciocarlia

Highly recommended, reviewed earlier: Tragically Hip, Allen Toussaint, Paul Simon

Well worth your while: Brandy Clark, Doomsquad

As always, these reviews ran in the Waterloo Record.

Streaming is great for sample purposes, but please find a way to support your favourite artists financially.

Un Blonde – Good Will Come to You (Egg Paper)

Perhaps the most obscure artist to vault onto this year’s Polaris Music Prize long list, Jean-Sebastien Audet spent his teenage years in Calgary with a variety of musical projects, which is probably why the latest album by this 19-year-old and recent Montreal transplant sounds so accomplished, even though it’s incredibly bare, featuring little more than acoustic guitar and layers of Audet’s gospel-tinged harmonies. (For anyone, like me, who’s been seeking out Prince demos online since that legend’s death, Un Blonde has further resonance.) One song is called “I Felt the Evening Come Through the Window,” and indeed, Audet retains the sound of falling rain outside his apartment, along with seagulls and other ambient noise. Audet isn’t just a singer-songwriter fond of sparse arrangements; on instrumental tracks like “Exercise A,” he also explores ambient textures (with what’s either a melodica, accordion or harmonium—hard to tell). Good Will Come to You features 21 songs in 46 minutes; tiny perfect sketches that speak volumes about the man’s talent. (June 9)

Stream: “Celebration,” “Brand New,” “Staying in Line”

case/lang/veirs – s/t (Anti)

The first time I ever heard Neko Case, I hadn’t been that electrified by a North American woman’s singing voice since k.d. lang. Twenty years later, the two women have formed a trio with Oregon singer/songwriter Laura Veirs. It sounds amazing—on paper. 

Both lang and Case are powerhouse vocalists who can leave listeners—at least this one—in a weepy mess. Veirs—well, frankly, it’s a bit of a mystery what she’s doing here. (I’m sure she’s a lovely person.) She doesn’t distract from the potential in this recording—she’s certainly a decent singer—but it’s not clear that she adds anything, either.

It starts out with a promise: opening track “Atomic Number” finds all three women trading off lines. That promise quickly evaporates: most tracks are solo turns, with the other two providing backing vocals, the likes of which could really have been performed by any studio professionals (admittedly, a rare occurrence in the age of solo artists multi-tracking their own backups). We’re denied the sublime pleasure of Case and lang exchanging lines, or even singing a lead in two-part harmony.

Much of the collaboration here took place in the songwriting process, which might be the problem: for the last 20 years, k.d. lang has been a masterful interpreter but a middling songwriter; Veirs is perfunctory, but not capable of writing material for a project like this; Case, the strongest songwriter of the three, has an idiosyncratic flair that may not lend itself to surrender. Veirs’s husband, producer/engineer Tucker Martine, dresses up the material in impeccably bland arrangements, with strings and woodwinds and vibraphones that merely clutter up the sonic space that should be left wide open for these voices to roam.

Naturally, there are sublime moments, starting with lang’s

“Honey and Smoke,” which ranks as one of her finest torch songs in the Roy Orbison mode. Case’s “Delirium”—written by all three, an apparently the song with the longest gestation—is the highlight here. Neither are enough, however, to compensate for the squandered potential here. Let’s hope the tour brings out the best in them. (June 23)

Case/lang/veirs play Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall on Aug. 16.

Stream: “Atomic Number,” “Delirium,” “Honey and Smoke”

Brandy Clark – Big Day in a Small Town (Warner)

Still have tears in your beer since ABC cancelled Nashville? Well, cheer up, because there’s a new Brandy Clark album. The 40-year-old songwriter, who’d penned hits for or with Miranda Lambert, Reba McEntire and Kacey Musgraves, was thrust into the spotlight with 2013’s 12 Stories, the kind of album songwriters of every genre study carefully, full of both killer one-liners, developed narratives and astute character sketches.

Here, Clark steps up into the big time, with a major label and a producer, Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Carrie Underwood) who beefs up her (previously predominantly acoustic) sound for radio play. Thankfully, it’s not an unrecognizable makeover: the core of Clark’s charm and songcraft remain. She can be incredibly poignant, as on the examination of faded youth on “Homecoming Queen,” or laugh-out-loud funny, on “Broke”: “Ain’t enough apples for our apple pie / if we had a penny not sure we could spare it / we’re sitting on the porch drinking generic  / Coke / we’re broke.” And she’s got sass to spare, as on the first single, in which she taunts, “If you want the girl next door, go next door.” (June 9)

Stream: “Girl Next Door,” “Broke,” “Homecoming Queen”

Doomsquad – Total Time (Hand Drawn Dracula)

Granted, there are moments here that sound like the soundtrack to a ritual sacrifice at a rave somewhere north of Sudbury. But when it comes to spookier-than-thou psychedelic trance music, it doesn’t get much better than these three Toronto siblings, who recruited Mary Margaret O’Hara to sing backups for them, and whom Wolf Parade picked to open their sold-out reunion shows in New York City. There are elements of dub reggae, hippie jams, plenty of goth angst, and you can practically smell the incense coming out your speakers. It’s certainly divisive, but to these ears, it’s just perfect for summer nights in subversive times. (June 2)

Stream: “Who Owns Noon in Sandusky,” “Pyramids on Mars,” “Farmer’s Almanac”

Fanfare Ciocarlia – Onwards to Mars! (Asphalt Tango)

Did you know one of the best bands in the world is playing the Italian Canadian Centre in Guelph this week? And Maxwell’s in Waterloo shortly after that? (And the major jazz festivals in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City as well.)

Fanfare Ciocarlia are a Balkan brass band from a remote Romanian village, celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year. In 2014 they recorded an album with Guelph guitarist Adrian Raso, owner of the Little Shop of Guitars on Quebec Street. They’ve already toured in Europe; now they’re finally bringing it to major jazz festivals in Canada—and a local wedding hall in Guelph.

Here they’re on their own, doing what they do best: incredibly fast and brash brass lines, frenetic rhythm driven by sousaphones and two percussionists, and occasional vocal forays sung in their Roma language. It’s physically impossible not to dance to this music, the dizzying horn and clarinet lines adding to the euphoria.

The band’s style has evolved over the years, and not just through their work with Raso. Here, the oddball pop entry is a cover of the 1950s slow-grinding classic “I Put a Spell on You,” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Here it’s sung by Iulian Canaf, a comically histrionic soulman who attained notoriety as a contestant on the Romanian version of TV’s The Voice. It has to be heard to be believed—though, truth be told, the original is just as much of an oddball, (literally) snortin’ good time. (June 23)

Fanfare Ciocarlia and Adrian Raso are playing Toronto with the Lemon Bucket Orchestra on June 29 at the Opera House, the Guelph Italian Canadian Club on July 2, and at Maxwell's in Waterloo on July 5.

Stream: “Crayfish Hora,” “Out to Lounge,” “Mista Lobaloba”

The Kills – Ash and Ice (Domino/Outside)

The Kills are a bluesy guitar duo who’ve survived and thrived almost 15 years after forming, with much credit going to attention magnet Alison Mosshart—who also fronts perhaps the finest of all Jack White projects, the Dead Weather. Mosshart and guitarist Jamie Hince claim they wanted to flip the script on this, their fifth album, and even cited hip-hop master Pusha T as a big influence. Which is an interesting ploy to convince people that Ash and Ice is some radical reinvention, when in fact it’s just another Kills record, no better or worse, with slightly more interesting drum programming. It may not be fair to compare, but Mosshart is much better utilized in the Dead Weather, where her howls and snarls and sexual energy is completely captivating; in the Kills, one always gets the sense she’s underplaying her power. That does allow her to sink her teeth into some of the slower material, exploring the torch singer into which she’ll inevitably evolve some day. (June 9)

Stream: “Doing It to Death,” “Hard Habit to Break,” “Days of Why and How”

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Nonagon Infinity (ATO)

A nonagon, for the geometrically challenged among us (I looked it up), is a nine-sided figure. This is the eighth album by this seven-piece Australian band in the last four years. All those numbers add up to: infinity?

That’s the intention behind these nine rollicking psychedelic rock songs, which not only flow seamlessly into each other like a 42-minute suite, but the last track also flows back into the first if you (are weird enough to) leave your player on “repeat.” That journey often travels at a breakneck speed, with influences from Led Zeppelin’s “Communication Breakdown” through Deep Purple and Can and Iron Maiden and Stereolab—basically, any band that’s ever strapped themselves to a runaway train. Nonagon Infinity is more than just a thrill ride, however, with a keen sense of dynamics, spacey keyboards and guitar textures balancing the hard-driving riffs and rhythms. (June 9)

Stream: “Evil Death Roll,” “Road Train,” “Robot Stop”

Pantha du Prince – The Triad (Rough Trade)

I played this record in a cabin in the woods one morning, surrounded by a symphony of birds—who fit in seamlessly with the stuttering bells and chimes that have become the trademark sound for this German producer. His rhythms have much more swing in them than you’d expect from minimal techno, and he’s more prone to using major chords than most of his peers. This time out there are more vocalists employed, though not to particularly great effect; his keyboard leads are still the main melodic driver.

The producer has mused that he’ll bury the name after this album, having achieved everything he wants to with this aesthetic. The Triad isn’t as strong as its predecessor, Black Noise—he’s starting to sound like a one-trick pony—so perhaps that decision is wise. In the meantime, the birds in my neighbourhood are more than happy to sing along. (June 2)

Stream: “The Winter Hymn” feat. Queens, “Frau im mond, Sterne laufen,” “Dream Yourself Awake”

Samaris – Black Lights (One Little Indian)

Of Monsters and Men have shifted our perceptions of Icelandic music away from esoteric electronica, avant-garde pop stars and whatever it is Sigur Ros happens to be, and toward catchy yet bland radio rock. Which is why it’s refreshing to encounter Samaris, a Reykjavik trio that draws from ’90s trip hop, dubby electronica and the (relatively) more recent sounds coming from London’s Hyperdub label, including Hamilton’s Jessy Lanza. Breathy female vocals and strong, skittering beats—even at slower tempos—are adorned with equally dreamy and disquieting synths, making for languid, late-night vibes. (June 30)

Stream: “Wanted 2 Say,” “Black Lights,” “3y3”

Sate – Red Black and Blue (independent)

Canada has no shortage of rock bands. What this country is lacking, however, is fantastic rock singers: people who can grab a song by the throat, who can be heard above electric guitars even without a microphone. More howlers, fewer growlers, please.

Enter Sate, a.k.a. Saidah Baba Talibah—daughter of Salome Bey, one of this country’s greatest R&B/jazz voices in the ’70s and ’80s—reinventing herself as a rocker here, after starting her career in a bluesier vein. The blues is still present here, but on opening track “Warrior” she goes for the jugular in ways the Toronto scene probably hasn’t seen since Danko Jones. “You’re gonna know my name / from the Mississippi to the Rhine,” she boasts—and by the end of the track you’re more than inclined to agree. As strong as that song is, in the context of the album it seems like a gimmick to get you to pay attention. Once she’s got you hooked, Sate starts to get serious: right away she delves into the blues of “What Did I Do,” and “Mama Talk to Me” is a poignant, emotional rocker about Bey’s struggles with dementia. For all her fiery delivery, the upbeat tracks here suffer in comparison with the slower numbers, especially the gorgeous, gospel-tinged closer, “Peace.” Red Black and Blue is an uneven record by an artist searching for her sound, but there’s no denying that Sate is a force to be reckoned with. Her talent is too enormous to be denied. (June 30)

Stream: “Warrior,” “Mama Talk to Me,” “Peace”

Andy Shauf – The Party (Arts and Crafts)

One of the most anticipated Canadian albums of the year is by this mild-mannered Regina singer/songwriter, who steps into the big time by signing with Arts and Crafts in Canada and Anti in the U.S., the label that is also home to the new album by k.d. lang, Neko Case and Laura Veirs, with whom Shauf will be touring this summer. Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy is a huge fan, as is novelist Nick Hornby. The hype seems strange for songs of such subtle pleasures; Shauf is on the same wavelength as Beck’s acoustic moods, or Elliott Smith, an early influence. And he’s chosen as his coming-out party a concept album of sorts, connected songs set at a house party, a series of character sketches that highlight Shauf’s eye for nuance. The playing and production are impeccable—all Shauf solo, except for the strings—though Shauf’s sedated vocals drag some of the material down; The Party in question is more than a bit of a bummer. No matter. This record puts plenty of wind in his sails; the after-party promises to be a lot more exciting. (June 2)

Stream: “The Magician,” “To You,” “Martha Sways”

Tegan and Sara – Love You to Death (Universal)

It’s heartening that an act like Tegan and Sara get bigger and bigger with each album—rare in the chart-pop sphere they no longer aspire to, but to which these 36-year-old sisters rightfully belong. Working again with producer Greg Kurstin (Adele), who helmed 2013’s Heartbeat, Tegan and Sara aim for stadiums and come up with a gold rush of hooks and radio-ready melodies—granted, few with the undeniable punch of Hearbeat’s “Closer” or “I Was a Fool,” which would be hard to top. “Boyfriend,” however, is unusually lyrically rich bubblegum, a lesbian love song that will forever erase the memory of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl.” (June 9)

Stream: “Boyfriend,” “Dying to Know,” “100x”

April '11 reviews

These reviews ran in the K-W Record and Guelph Mercury this month.

Chancha Via Circuito – Rio Arriba (ZZK)

ZZK is a club and label in Buenos Aires that specializes in a digital take on South American cumbia music. Pedro Canale started out as the merch guy at the back of the club, but with his second album as Chancha Via Circuito, he finds himself at the forefront of the movement. That’s because there’s nothing gimmicky about what he does: he’s not simply playing cumbia rhythms that he’s spliced together on his laptop. His tempos get pitched around at will, making him sound more like an avant-garde turntablist at times, and yet he also brings in a breadth of traditional acoustic sounds that give his project much more warmth than his entirely digitally dependent peers. Guitars, cellos, percussion that sounds like pebbles, marimbas and pan flutes abound. Most of Rio Arriba is comprised of his original tracks, but his remixes for other artists contained here are just as revealing, especially his work with Miriam Garcia and Alicia Solans, who are obviously South American but sound Balkan—proof once again that cultural cross-pollination comes alive on the digital dance floor. (Apr 14)

Download: Jose Arride – “Quimey Neuquen Remix,” Miriam Garcia and Alicia Solans – “Pintar el Sol Remix,” “Puente”

Galaxie – Tigre et diesel (C4)

Anyone who finds Malajube too odd, who finds Karkwa too bland, or in general has yet to hear any francophone Quebecois music that kicks their ass, then this record by Galaxie should not be so far, far away.

If Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar wrote songs with Beck for Black Mountain to perform with Stereolab—in French, no less—then you’d have the third album by this Quebecois band (who unfortunately used to have “500” affixed to their name, causing much confusion with the influential cult band Galaxie 500). Fuzzy, somewhat blusey guitar riffs are given a lo-fi glam treatment with fluttering synthesizers in the background, all of which demands to be played at maximum volume, ideally with a bottle of Maudite in hand.

Galaxie love their ’70s sounds, but don’t get lost in retro reverence. Olivier Langevin is the rare guitarist who noodles effectively, and his band, which includes acclaimed solo artist Fred Fortin on bass and two members each on female vocals and keyboards (not all the equipment are 30 years old—there are some definite modern electro moments here) sound massive with merely the simplest arrangements. Unlike most franco rock bands, there’s nothing clunky about the cadence here; Langevin knows how to write a hook in the universal language. And on “Jusqu’a la fin,” he writes a perfect cliché acoustic ballad that hits all the right chords, readymade for campfires and high school slow dances everywhere.

Other Quebecois bands will get more hype in the anglo press, but this is the one that the rest of Canada—especially our rock radio stations—really needs to hear. (Apr 28)

Download: “Camouflar,” “Jusqu’a la fin,” “Diesel 2”

Jim Guthrie - Sword and Sworcery EP (Dark Flute)

If you’re an avid Twitter user, you may have noticed the hashtag #sworcery pop up in your feed, especially if you have particularly geeky gaming friends. It refers to a new video game by a Toronto design team that’s climbing the iPad app sales charts—almost overcoming the ubiquitous Angry Birds. Guelph’s Jim Guthrie has been an integral part of the game’s development since the beginning.

If this video game’s upward ascension continues—and it’s only been out for a couple of weeks—Sword and Sworcery may soon become the main calling card of Guthrie’s prolific career, which includes a stint with Royal City (who got a shout-out from Arcade Fire on the Junos), acclaimd solo albums, film soundtracks and ubiquitous ad jingles. And because video games—even nerdfests like this one—reach an infinitely larger audience than oddball Canadian indie records, it’s likely to be the most lucrative as well.

Like any video game music, Guthrie wrote this with loops in mind—how long the player stays in a certain mode determines how long they hear a particular passage of music. And yet for the album versions, he’s edited them into cinematic songs that have elements of ’70s horror films, ’80s Asian action movies, and fantasy narrative video games of the ’90s. It’s easily the most ambitious thing he’s attempted, and Guthrie is more than up to the challenge, producing an album that succeeds entirely independently of the game it was commissioned for.

Guthrie has a “normal” album due later this year, but anyone who’s been waiting for him to follow up 2003’s Juno-nominated Now More Than Ever shouldn’t hesitate to get their game on with Sword and Sworcery. (Apr 7)

Download: “Lone Star,” “The Ballad of the Space Babies,” “Bones McCoy”

Hauschka – Salon des Amateurs (Fat Cat)

The concept of “prepared piano”—which means inserting various objects between the strings of the piano, creating percussive sounds—is rarely employed outside avant-garde music circles. And that’s a realm where German pianist Hauschka, aka Volker Bertelmann, is certainly comfortable, as his sublime 2005 album simply called The Prepared Piano illustrated. Since then he’s made some records that are poppier than others, exploring orchestration and electronics along the way. Here, however, he returns to the prepared piano and applies it to pulsing rhythms—courtesy of guest musicians Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico and drummer Samuli Kosminem of Mum—that employ the repetition, build-up and release of techno music without ever using four-on-the-floor drums that would make the link all too explicit. Instead, Salon des Amateurs is a delicately orchestrated, peppy and percussive piano suite that serves as a perfect summation of this prolific composer’s oeuvre to date. Granted, there is not much variation to be found here, and after a while all the plinkety-plink sounds like a soundtrack for a clockmakers documentary or a Jean-Pierre Jeunet film—if you’re into that kind of thing. (Apr 28)

Download: “TwoAM,” “Girls,” “Subconscious”

Johnny – s/t (Merge)

Not many people know that Norman Blake, of ’90s Glaswegian rock band Teenage Fanclub, has been residing here in Waterloo for the past several years. That in part explains why that band has only put out two albums in the past 10 years, but it doesn’t explain how Blake continues his transatlantic connections with this new project, a collaboration with Welsh weirdo Euros Childs, of the offbeat psychedelic band Gorky’s Zygotic Minci.

Fans of both bands will not be surprised: Childs’s playful sense of pop meets Blake’s more muscular arrangements in the middle, and the result is rich with sunny harmonies, piano pop, country leanings, and odes to, um, bread. Everything is economical and under three minutes, except “Cave Dance,” which starts out as a goofy two-minute dance song before beginning eight minutes of droning space rock. No matter—the indulgence is perfectly excusable, given the pure pleasure that colours every other corner of this debut from two veterans who don’t feel like they have any time to mess around. (Apr 14)

Download: “You Was Me,” “Bread,” “I’ll Make Her My Best Friend”

k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang – Sing It Loud (Nonesuch)

The cover image is promising: k.d. lang, one of the greatest singers of the last half-century, beaming and holding a megaphone. The name of her backing band is also promising: for the first time since disbanding her country outfit the Reclines over 20 years ago, lang is collaborating with a real band, one whose moniker hints at swing and sass and verve. Perhaps lang will finally have an album of original material that matches her unearthly talent, yes?

No. Not since 1992’s Ingenue has lang managed to pen material that suggested she was doing so as anything more than an exercise. Sing It Loud is the closest she’s come to that transformative time, but it pales in comparison. The title track is the nadir; ironically, absolutely nothing about it makes you want to sing it loud. The lone cover here is of the Talking Heads’ song “Heaven”: “Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens,” a sentiment that sums up the approach to songwriting here.

Of course, lang is in fine voice—when is she not?—but the band, while capable of dreamy torch-song textures, don’t have much personality of their own; they certainly can’t breathe life into the material. Despite the cover art, there is very little bounce to lang’s step here. We know we’ll never again hear the irreverent cowpunk of her youth, but still, one longs to hear her belt out something other than a mid-tempo ballad.

On “Inglewood,” she sings: “Take me to a place where music sounds good again / the place where I could’ve been / the place where I should’ve been.” Hear, hear. (Apr 14)

Download: “I Confess,” “Asleep With No Dreams,” “Heaven”

Malajube – La Caverne (Dare to Care)

Despite their many strengths, Malajube always seemed to be hiding behind something. (For most anglophones, that would start with their French lyrics, but if that’s a stumbling block for you, then you can’t be helped anyway.) The band’s 2006 breakthrough Trompe l’oeil buried their pop hooks under layers of grunge; the 2009 follow-up Labyrinthes found them taking some fascinating prog-rock turns, as, of course, Quebecois bands are prone to do. La Caverne, on the other hand, aims for the gut on the opening track and first single “Synesthesie,” which captures all their strengths in under three minutes, stuffed full of melodic guitar rock over a disco beat. (It’s a formula they repeat on another Caverne cut, “Le Blizzard.”)

From there, Malajube continue to strip away the layers and focus on spacious, atmospheric rock that is equal parts Modest Mouse and Pink Floyd (“Mon Oeil” sounds suspiciously like Pink Floyd’s “Us and Them”). Their sense of arrangement, which they pushed to the limit of Labyrinthes, is much more focused on brevity and clarity throughout La Caverne—which, building on their previous successes, will undoubtedly continue their winning streak as the international torchbearers of Quebec’s criminally neglected francophone rock scene. (Apr 28)

Download: “Synesthesie,” “Sangsues,” “Le Blizzard”

Miracle Fortress – Was I The Wave? (Secret City)

This dreamy one-man band’s debut album, Five Roses, combined Beach Boys pop, ’80s new wave and ’90s psychedelic shoegaze music in a way that sounded entirely fresh, despite the obvious touchstones. This time out, Miracle Fortress main man Graham Van Pelt is stuck primarily in the ’80s, with this album’s best tracks sounding like a subdued take on New Order or even Men Without Hats. There’s less to distinguish Miracle Fortress from dozens of similar acts on the scene.

What’s more—or, more accurately, what’s less—is that of the 10 tracks here, four are short instrumentals. That leaves about three songs for Van Pelt to prove himself—which he does, thankfully. The once-hyped, now-forgotten Junior Boys, for example, would kill to write songs like “Spectre,” “Everything Works” and “Miscalculations.”

The Fortress has been breached, but there is still some treasure hidden inside. (Apr 28)

Download: “Spectre,” “Everything Works,” “Miscalculations”

Robbie Robertson – How to Become Clairvoyant (Fontana North)

The older he gets, the more apparent it is that Robbie Robertson is a musical sponge. He may have written the classic songs by The Band (though drummer Levon Helm has a thing or two to say about that), but without his Band-mates Robertson has often sounded lost—with the sole exception of his 1988 solo debut, which was more of a Daniel Lanois album with a lot of helpful guests.

Here, Robertson invites Trent Reznor, Robert Randolph, Tom Morello and other people who are more talented than he is these days, as well as Eric Clapton—and yet he still comes up short with a boring boomer record in which he sits around and reminisces about more creative times. Granted, it may be the first time he’s written so autobiographically—but who cares? I’d rather read his upcoming book.

It’s telling that one of the best tracks here, “Madame X,” sounds like telephone hold music with a melody cribbed from a Big Chill favourite, Smokey Robinson’s “Tracks of My Tears.” (Apr 7)

Download: “He Don’t Live Here No More,” “Madame X,” “Fear of Falling”

Paul Simon – So Beautiful or So What? (Concord)

Veteran performers are either ignored as irrelevant or lauded for being on the comeback trail; there doesn’t seem to be any in-between for an artist like Paul Simon. His last album, the excellent 2006 Surprise, produced by Brian Eno, was his most impressive collection of songs—as well as his most fascinating production job—since 1990’s Rhythm of the Saints, and yet it vanished without a trace. Now, everyone is tripping over themselves to praise this new album, which offers mixed results at best.

Simon is at his best when he’s crossing cultures, like the West African guitar atop tabla in “Dazzling Blue,” or the Malian kora that dances around the fine folkie fingerpicking of “Rewrite.” “Love is Eternal Sacred Light” is a blues stomp, which is crying out for someone less polite that Simon to do a rip-roarin’ version.

Perhaps not coincidentally, those tracks also inspire the better lyrics on this release: the tepid, straightforward acoustic ballad “Love & Hard Times,” on the other hand, inexplicably shifts from a tale about God and Jesus visiting Earth to a story of a long-time romance (did he get distracted halfway through writing it?). The title track tries to use his recipe for chicken gumbo as a metaphor for a “life’s what you make of it” lesson—needless to say, to no avail.

Simon does deserve credit for not standing still, however. Much of his discography bears little sonic resemblance to each other, even if lyrically he consistently plays the part of the slightly bumbling and bewildered philosophical fuddy-duddy astutely observing the modern world that’s leaving him behind. As on Surprise, there are themes of mortality and spirituality—particularly on "Afterlife," which envisions heaven as just another bureaucracy to endure. But mostly, unlike the music, his lyrics sound like a caricature of himself—which, as the self-deprecating title hints, he may well be aware. (Apr 21)

Download: “Dazzling Blue,” “Rewrite,” “Love is Eternal Sacred Light”

Timber Timbre – Creep On Creepin’ On (Arts and Crafts)

The album title, while funny and appropriate for the spooky sounds of Timber Timbre, is undeniably campy—and, unfortunately, so is some of this third album by Toronto’s Taylor Kirk, augmented here by a new band that includes quivering saxophones, droning violins and plinking piano.

The band’s 2009 self-titled sophomore record was a masterpiece of mood, of tiny terrors and tension; here, those eighth-note piano pulses and Kirk’s Elvis impersonation start to sound like crutches, even if the arrangements are otherwise inspired, the work of violinist Mika Posen in particular adding equally eerie and lovely textures.

Of the 10 songs here, three are incidental instrumentals, experimental pieces that offset the album’s more conventional creep and provide welcome left turns. The result is an album that puts Timber Timbre in the paradoxically purgatorial situation of both spinning its wheels and stretching its legs; its brevity suggests that Kirk himself is unsure which direction he wants to be pulled. (Apr 7)

Download: “Bad Ritual,” “Woman,” “Too Old To Die Young”

TuneYards – Whokill (4AD/Beggars)

In a release week where Paul Simon sounds old and tired and TV on the Radio are stuck in a rut, along comes a new TuneYards album that makes both of those artists sound like conservative fogeys.

TuneYards is Merrill Garber, a Vermont native who started her musical career in Montreal and now lives in Oakland, California. Previously a solo performer who made lo-fi bedroom recordings, she now collaborates with bassist Nate Brenner, invited other guests and takes advantage of the possibilities in a real studio. While she used to come across as a ukulele player that sounded like Joni Mitchell immersed in post-punk dance music and African rhythms, now she explores all those sides at once, creating a unique fusion that makes this one of the most fascinating albums this year.

Whokill is as dense as an early Public Enemy album, as joyous and melodic as a Vampire Weekend record, as natural as birdsong and as wonderfully weird as Mary Margaret O’Hara or Kate Bush all at once. Though those may be comparison points, her music doesn’t actually sound like any of these people at all, yet it effortlessly evokes their adventurous spirit.

She front-loads the album with the most in-your-face aspects of her performance: full-throated hollers, pounding drums, distorted sounds, syncopated rhythms. But there’s a lovely and tender side to her as well, and when she doesn’t feel like throwing everything at the wall at once—though she’s one of the few artists than can do so effectively without looking like a show-off—she can be delicate and haunting.

Whereas her contemporaries like Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors wear their weirdness with a sense of self-conscious pride, TuneYards puts on no airs at all: as oddball as she is, Garber is entirely intuitive, earthy and visceral. This music comes from her gut, and it’s sure to hit you in yours. (Apr 21)

Download: “My Country,” “Bizness,” “Doorstep”

TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light (Universal)

You can take the band out of New York City, but you can’t… oh wait, maybe you can take the New York City out of the band. Since their inception a decade ago, TV on the Radio have captured the sound of post-9/11 New York, with all its beauty and paranoia, isolation and hopefulness all wrapped up in gospel-tinged vocals on top of one of the few rock bands whose use of electronics weren’t rooted in retro ’80s trappings, marking them as one of the most original bands of the new century.

Here, after their triumphant 2008 album Dear Science and pursuing side projects, they decamped to L.A., and appear to have been sapped of any and all inspiration. There’s no drastic change in sound, just 13 largely flat tracks that sound like they’re punching the clock—something one would never before accuse this band of doing. A song with the chorus, “My repetition, my repetition is this” may pay homage to Toronto’s Dream Warriors and their “My Definition” single, but it wears out its welcome rather quickly. “Caffeinated Consciousness” bears an odd and uncanny resemblance to INXS’s lugheaded “Guns in the Sky”—which, if you’re going to pick an INXS song to rip off, that should be last on your list.

Despite the material, vocalist Tunde Adebimpe remains compelling, pulling off some convincing Al Green turns here. The rhythm section—featuring bassist Gerard Smith, who passed away from lung cancer shortly after the album’s release—is inventive and unpredictable, never settling into a straightforward rock or funk groove, which works both for and against them. David Sitek is a guitar hero ala The Edge, less about showy technique than he is about texture. TV on the Radio are no less a great band than they were before, and so while the sound of them sleepwalking is less than commendable, it’s still better than most groups’ A-game. (Apr 21)

Download: “Killer Crane,” “Forgotten,” “Second Song”