More housecleaning. These are July reviews from the K-W Record in alphabetical order; more to come tomorrow.
The Abrams Brothers – Blue On Brown (theabramsbrothers.ca)
Not many teenagers know the songbooks of Bob Dylan and Arlo Guthrie with any degree of intimacy; fewer still are capable of playing and singing them in high lonesome harmonies and with serious skills as bluegrass instrumentalists. And yet the Abrams Brothers appear to have emerged from the woods near Kingston, Ontario as freeze-dried artifacts from an earlier time; I’m guessing that they probably don't spend their spare time playing Grand Theft Auto on the tour bus. Instead, there will always be new licks to learn, old songs to soak up—and probably a bit of homework to tend to as well, seeing how the oldest of the two brothers (and one cousin) is 18.
For their debut album, the Brothers formed a fortuitous relationship with keyboardist/producer Chris Brown—whose extensive rolodex helps him call in favours from both sides of the border: Canadian icons like Bruce Cockburn, Sarah Harmer, Colin Linden and Amy Millan (Stars), as well as all-star American session musicians like Tony Scherr (Bill Frisell, Norah Jones) and Mickey Raphael (Willie Nelson).
As tasteful a tribute as Blue on Brown is, however, one has to wonder why—on their debut album—they tackle the songs of one of the most-covered songwriters of the latter 20th century; hearing “Mr. Tambourine Man” or “The Times They Are A-Changin'” for the umpteenth time doesn't do much to establish the identity of such a young act. Thankfully, the material by Guthrie—both Woody and Arlo—helps break it up, as does a version of Steve Goodman's “City of New Orleans.” But they'd be much better off steering clear of obvious iconography and casting their net much wider for source material. (K-W Record, July 24)
Note: They announced during their rousing Hillside Festival set that they are, in fact, working on a new album of original material.
Broken Social Scene Presents: Brendan Canning – Something For All of Us (Arts and Crafts/EMI)
There are about a dozen acts that comprise Broken Social Scene (Feist, Stars, Jason Collett, etc.), but only two members at the core. Kevin Drew released his underrated solo album last fall, full of fragments and anthems that encapsulated the dichotomy that has always been the band's strength. By not putting it out directly under the name Broken Social Scene, he successfully sidestepped expectations for the band to make another epic like the 2003 classic You Forgot It In People, leaving him to be as wonderfully weird as he wants to be.
Thank god for lowered expectations, because his cohort Brendan Canning’s similarly billed album offers even less immediate thrills than Drew’s creatively confounding solo effort—and arguably contains no thrills at all.
Something For All of Us ironically contains very little for anyone: the attempts at rousing rockers are mostly muted, while the quieter pieces don’t relish in the abstractions that defined the early, nebulous and ambient stage of the band’s existence. Canning is the least charismatic vocalist in the Scene, and the songs meant to showcase female compatriots Liz Powell and Lisa Lobsinger don’t give them much to play with.
Other than first single “Hit the Wall,” the only time Canning hits a clear target here is on “Love Is Now,” which owes a large debt to the Talking Heads’ mid-period, when they were at their funkiest. The track is entirely incongruous in the context of this album, which otherwise opts for different shades of grey in lieu of painting with stark colours. Canning’s talent is better served mediating the mountains and valleys of a creative mind like Drew. Now that the solo records are out of the way, it’s time to see what they can accomplish together. (K-W Record, July 24)
Note: Kevin Drew teased me mercilessly about this review all weekend at the Hillside Festival, pointing out that—among other things—it’s divisive and a cheap shot to compare the two solo albums. Which it is. But I’d argue that most people who aren’t critics for a living are going to do exactly that, much in the same way they will evaluate the Wolf Parade album (see below). Does that excuse lazy writing? No. But personal relations and a mutual extended circle of friends aside, the fact is that--sadly--this album left me cold.
The Dutchess & the Duke – s/t (Hardly Art/Outside)
Twenty-five years after punk rockers discovered the virtues of roots music, the genre of alt-country is more than played out at this stage of its history. Any sense of subversion has long since been neutered into clichéd arrangements that are indistinguishable from your average rock band. Which is why The Dutchess & the Duke sound so refreshingly raw. Male vocalist Jesse Lortz has a satisfying snarl that lies somewhere between Iggy Pop and Lee Hazlewood, while his female foil Kimberly Morrison counterbalances with haunting harmonies worthy of any psychedelic 60s chanteuse. Flutes, fuzzy electric leads, maracas and tambourines dance around big bare-bones acoustic guitar chords that all sound like they were recorded in one take in a living room. Aesthetics aren't everything, of course; the songwriting is simple, straightforward and made for profane campfire singalongs. With ten songs in half an hour, this is a lean operation that spares nary a note nor a minute. All skills, no frills. (K-W Record, July 31)
Alejandro Escovedo – Real Animal (Blue Note/EMI)
Bouncing back from a near-fatal bout with Hepatitis C, this is the sound of Escovedo's life flashing before his eyes. The renowned Texan songwriter dips deep into the varied stages of his discography for inspiration, starting with his punk years in New York and San Francisco through to his rootsier melancholy material. These two worlds sit comfortably side to side on these largely autobiographical songs, united by some of Escovedo's most soulful vocal performances to date, as well as sympathetic production by Tony Visconti—the man responsible for some of David Bowie and Lou Reed's greatest 70s albums, sonic traces of which can be heard here. Escovedo seamlessly incorporates the string section he's been working with for the past decade into the raw punk songs, which—despite the cheezy cover image—don't feel in the least like an old man trying to fit into old clothes. The size and scope of Escovedo's discography has always seemed daunting for newcomers hungry to learn more about this rock'n'roll legend; Real Animal is the ideal place to start. (K-W Record, July 31)
Fleet Foxes – s/t (Sub Pop/Outside)
When an album opens with four men singing harmony at the top of their register, a debt to the Beach Boys is obvious—and it’s not one that Fleet Foxes singer/songwriter Robin Peckingold shies away from in the liner notes of the band’s debut album. And because they hail from Seattle, it’s also easy to imagine this as a perfect soundtrack to drive through the Pacific Northwest down to California: it’s lush, spacious music drawing from 60s psychedelic pop and more modern takes on acoustic folk music, including a notable resemblance to early My Morning Jacket albums, before that band dropped their quiet intimacies for the temptations of stadium rock.
Despite these easy references, Fleet Foxes have mysteries of their own that are a delight to discover. The vocals all sound like they were recorded in an empty church, haunted by ghostly reverb; the finger-picked guitars and often orchestral percussion provide further warmth to the sound. But what really sets Fleet Foxes apart is that they’re not just about aesthetics: every song here is the work of a seasoned band who don’t feel trapped in verse/chorus structures, yet they always deliver masterful melodicism that puts them in the same league as their heroes. (K-W Record, July 10)
Feuermusik – No Contest (Standard Form/Outside)
Most jazz albums are about capturing a live performance—after all, what kind of a jazz player are you if you aren't in the moment? In the case of Toronto duo Feuermusik, the recording studio is a composition tool where elaborate harmonies are constructed to accomplish what one lone saxophone and Gus Weinkauf's set of percussive paint buckets cannot. Wind player Jeremy Strachan constructs layers of sax, flute and guitars into increasingly elaborate arrangements, compared to the more straightforward melodic compositions heard on Feuermusik's acclaimed 2006 album Goodbye, Lucille, a debut which vaulted this obscure group outside of both jazz circles and the Toronto experimental rock underground where they were born. No Contest is a more abstract work, focusing more on long tones and less frantic melody lines—though still with ample room for improvisation. How they present this material as a duo on stage will be the greatest challenge. (K-W Record, July 17)
Seun Kuti + Fela's Egypt 80 – s/t (Mr. Bongo/Fusion III)
When Fela Kuti passed away in 1997, two sons were poised to carry on his legacy. The eldest, Femi, formed his own band and updated Fela's pioneering Afrobeat sound by working with European and North American collaborators including The Roots. Femi didn't stray too far from his father's formula of politically charged and jazz-infused Afrobeat. Ironically, it's Fela's youngest son, Seun, who has debuted with a more traditional sounding album that is firmly rooted in vintage sounds, due in large part by powerful performances by the veteran players from his father's second band, Egypt 80.
Seun—who started playing with Egpyt 80 when he was 9, and is now a mere 25—is brimming with political piss and vinegar, decrying "all the shitty shit" that plagues Africa: corruption, murder, environmental exploitation and disease. Surrounded by injustice, there's little time for poetry; at times he resorts to simply shouting "bad, bad, bad, bad, bad." No matter, because his political fire feeds into the urgency of the music, especially on the malaria-themed “Mosquito Song,” where the piercing sounds of squealing trumpets soar over the most relentless rhythm on the album.
While Seun is a compelling performer and capable singer, it's Egpyt 80 that is the real star here, with their bold brass section and interlocking polyrhythmic guitar and drum patterns that never wear thin over eight-minute grooves. Time has not diluted their power in the least; these veterans still have plenty of lessons to teach, as does the relative youngster who now leads them. (K-W Record, July 31)
My Brightest Diamond – A Thousand Shark's Teeth (Asthmatic Kitty/Sonic Unyon)
Operatic ladies who mix their classical influences with rock instrumentation don't usually walk away from the clash with their dignity intact. Shara Worden is not one of those ladies. That she has the operatic chops is unquestionable; she has a degree in classical vocal performance, and it's the crystal purity of her voice that sells almost every moment on this, her second album as My Brightest Diamond. Compared to her 2006 debut, she's left much of her earlier bombast behind and brought out the bassoons, bowed percussion, harps, marimbas and carefully arranged string sections. In doing so, she shares some minor similarities with her sometimes-employer Sufjan Stevens, but Worden strays far from the straightforward and the folkie at every given opportunity. She might be channeling vintage Kate Bush at her most wonderfully whacked, or crooning atop chilled out jazzy beats, or sounding like a windswept chanteuse locked in a Scandanavian lighthouse with violins and some percussion. The songwriting takes a bit of a backseat to the overall aesthetic, but with such a compelling personality and voice as Worden's, there's little to gripe about. This diamond may well be your new best friend. (K-W Record, July 3)
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
June reviews 08
So much housecleaning to be done, and apologies for the delay. Much of July for me has been a build-up to the Hillside Festival last weekend--about which I'll have plenty to say very shortly--and only now does my schedule seem like it's returning to a semblance of normality.
In the meantime, I've been meaning to post these June reviews for... oh, about a month now--aka five years in the blogosphere. For whatever reason, June was fogey month... in a good way.
Don Brownrigg – Wander Songs (Weewerk/Outside)
More than any other provincial Canadian population, Newfoundlanders can be found in every corner of the country; they know what it means to leave home, they know what it means to have your life packed in a suitcase, and they know the pull that the motherland has on their cultural consciousness.
This Newfoundland songwriter opens his astounding debut album by advising the listener: “Don’t be afraid of the world if you ain’t out there in it.” Halfway through, he covers a song written by two of his uncles, who impart similar worldly wisdom: "Remember, fights and people's wives are to be left alone/ and if all else should fail you/ please remember home." Throughout Wander Songs, Brownrigg sings about leaving home for a transient life of “bags and boxes.” He does so in an old soul’s voice that’s perfectly suited for what he calls “these A.M. times.”
Befitting a child of such a strong oral culture, Brownrigg writes melodies that barely need any ornamentation at all—and yet the expert production work of mandolin player Donald McKay allows space for subtle shadings of banjo, lap steel, spoken word interludes, guest guitar from Jim Bryson and backing vocals by Jenn Grant. Between McKay’s sonic touches and Brownrigg’s haunting voice, there’s an enchanting sense of mystery heard on every one of these 11 songs, which fall somewhere between the sparse atmospheric beauty of Daniel Lanois and the masterful storytelling of Newfoundland songwriting legend Ron Hynes.
Wander Songs was released quietly in Brownrigg’s adopted hometown of Halifax late last year; it’s now being brought to wider attention by Weewerk, the label converted the world to the Great Lake Swimmers—whose fans will find plenty to love here. (K-W Record, June 26)
Solomon Burke – Like a Fire (Shout Factory/Warner)
On his last album, the soul survivor Solomon Burke headed to Nashville, where his towering voice was welcomed by a group of players more rustic than R&B. The experience wasn’t a one-off, it seems, as Burke is still carrying a bit of a twangover— a strong country influence can be heard loud and clear on Like A Fire, along with the blues, gospel and soul that have been his trademarks for the last 40 years. Producer/drummer Steve Jordan hooks him up with Eric Clapton, Keb’ Mo’, Jesse Harris and other guests who provide material worthy of Burke’s booming vocals, though none of them are as excellent a match as Ben Harper’s song "A Minute To Rest And A Second To Pray"; Harper’s own backing vocals and dobro playing are the one time any of the studio musicians here dare to compete with Burke’s presence. Even when Burke decamps to the hotel bar to croon "If I Gave My Heart to You," he maintains the dignity and class that he exudes in every other setting. Like a Fire is another worthy chapter in his productive comeback. (K-W Record, June 26)
Elvis Costello and the Imposters – Momofuku (Lost Highway/Universal)
So far 2008 has been a good year for the fogies, not just Al Green. Witness R.E.M.’s miraculous resurrection to relevance, the bold comebacks from Erykah Badu and Portishead, and decent albums by James, Joe Jackson, Sheryl Crow—hell, these days even Def Leppard sound better than they have in decades.
When word got out that the ultra prolific Elvis Costello was recording a stripped-down album in six days, there were hopes that a sense of immediacy might override his tendency to overwrite and overcook, which usually leaves listeners feeling more exhausted than entertained or enriched. Sadly, that’s exactly what happens here yet again.
For a guy who normally spends too much time on his band arrangements, here he doesn’t spend enough. If he was writing three-chord rock’n’roll songs, this approach would be fine, but simplicity doesn’t come easy to Elvis. These are songs that need more than a couple of takes for even the finest studio musicians to wrap their heads around. Many of them would be better served by stripping down them even more, like the Loretta Lynn co-write "Pardon Me Adam, My Name is Eve."
Elements of Costello’s finest work are in place—namely the keyboards of Steve Nieve and Costello’s own vocals, which retain their gritty edge when he’s fronting a rock band. He’s also bolstered by female vocal harmonies courtesy of Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis. The occasional song stands a slim chance of holding its own against his best work ("Drum & Bone," "Turpentine"). But for an artist of Costello’s calibre, this just doesn’t cut the mustard. (K-W Record, June 5)
Al Green – Lay It Down (Blue Note/EMI)
Five years ago, soul fans were ecstatic to learn that the Rev. Al Green had reunited with Willie Mitchell, the producer and architect of Green’s early 70s work. And yet the two albums that resulted from that reunion (2003’s I Can’t Stop and 2005’s Everything’s OK) were little more than aesthetic pleasures: Mitchell didn’t have the material—or the willpower, it seems—to push Green to the kind of powerhouse performances he’s capable of.
Enter the new school: drummer/producer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson of the Roots and keyboardist/producer James Poyser were put in charge of Green’s latest project, and it turns out that the young musicians who were probably conceived to Green’s music know him better than his old bandmates do.
Lay It Down stands as a high point in Green’s entire discography, full of the lush strings, smooth guitar licks and deep grooves that cushion his buttery bedroom vocals, which haven’t aged an iota. It opens with the slow and stately title track, but soon kicks into high gear with "You’ve Got the Love I Need," where Philly soul singer Anthony Hamilton and the Dap Kings Horns (Sharon Jones, Amy Winehouse) provide the punch that helps propel Green to one of his greatest vocal performances since "Let’s Stay Together."
Despite Thompson’s hip-hop background and Poyser’s career building the neo-soul movement through his work with Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill and Common, they don’t attempt to modernize Green or pair him up with incongruous duet partners (although the Corinne Bailey Rae track is suitably sleepy). They do, however, provide him with more of a backbeat than even most of his vintage work had, as the big funk drums on "I’m Wild About You" illustrate. They’re also responsible for the strength of the material: they and the rest of the backing band co-write every song here with Green. (K-W Record, June 5)
Emmylou Harris – All I Intended To Be (Nonesuch/Warner)
The album title suggests autobiography, as if this was a work of a veteran artist reflecting on her life. Quite the contrary—throughout her storied career, Emmylou Harris has been a conduit for other people’s stories, acting best as an interpreter of other songwriters and as a harmony vocalist and duet partner. Until recent years, her own songwriting has taken a back seat; this album, however, is the first where her own compositions stand tall beside the work of masters such as Tracy Chapman, Billie Joe Shaver, Merle Haggard, and the McGarrigle sisters (she co-writes several songs with the latter).
All I Intended To Be is a classic storyteller’s album, filled with rich character narratives of love, loss, resilience and disappointment. As always, Harris’s warm vocals bring her characters to vivid life, but such is the songwriting standard here that she barely has to—even an atonal mumbler could communicate the crushing heartbreak heard in her song "Gold." In Harris’s hands, however—along with Dolly Parton and Vince Gill on backing vocals—the effect is devastating.
Musically, Harris strikes a balance between the Daniel Lanois-influenced work of her past decade and her more traditional country roots, making the aptly titled All I Intended To Be a summation of everything she’s accomplished in the past 40 years. (K-W Record, June 19)
The Notwist – The Devil, You And Me (Domino/Outside)
This German pop group made a minor North American splash in 2002 with an understated gem called Neon Golden, wherein they merged the icy world of digital bleeps and blurps with bluesy electric guitars and melancholy pop. Part of its artistic success was the fact that The Notwist never sounded like they were trying to prove anything—unlike more ambitious albums by the likes of Radiohead and others. If anything, The Notwist were too subtle for their own good, starting with the narcoleptic vocals of singer Markus Acher.
Acher still sings like he’s sleepwalking, but that’s part of his charm—especially when delivering defeatist witticisms like, “Remember, the good lies win.” Here, over harsh guitars that sound like sirens and an avalanche of tumbling drums, Acher promises, “I won’t sing you algebra.” And yet The Devil, You And Me finds The Notwist becoming considerably more complex.
They improve considerably on Neon Golden’s template, upping the abstract beats that populated their side project 13 And God, relying less on the once-novel juxtaposition of acoustic guitars and electronic percussion, and becoming simultaneously more traditional and more experimental—maintaining the kind of admirable consistency at the core that few other acts can accomplish.
Songs like the title track and "Gone Gone Gone" are one step away from straightforward Coldplay balladry, though elsewhere they toy with textures and rhythms that draw from dreampop spawned in bedroom electronics; "On Planet Off" harkens back to the dubbed-out dropped beats of late 90s trip-hop, without sounding dated in the least.
The Notwist will never be a band that makes a huge first impression; their pleasures are best discovered slowly, if not secretly—and six years after Neon Golden, it sounds like they wouldn’t want it any other way. (K-W Record, June 26)
James Pants – Welcome (Stones Throw/Koch)
When a man called Mr. Pants welcomes you to his party, you have every right to be suspicious. But this debut album delivers a non-stop thrill ride of electro funk that touches on hip-hop, garage rock, disco and all stops in between, with live drums and subsonic bass synthesizers giving it a low-down, raw and dirty feel that guarantees a full dance floor.
Mr. Pants keeps the vocals to a minimum, but he doesn’t need vocal hooks to keep your interest. He pulls off some impressive jazz keyboard noodling and funky drumming throughout, boasting some serious chops, the kind not normally found from basement dabblers—from Spokane, Washington, no less.
If Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters backed up Kraftwerk, it might sound something like this, although this isn’t entirely a retro ride; Pants has also clearly studied the slice-and-dice approach to electronics spawned in the last decade. And for someone who’s obviously a huge music geek and record collector, none of this sounds studied or self-conscious, no matter how much stylistic ground he covers. There’s a party in these Pants; consider yourself invited. (K-W Record, June 5)
The Wet Secrets – Rock Fantasy (Rodeo Peanut/ Six Shooter)
Plenty of artists have proved that you do not need electric guitars to be a great rock band; few do it as well as The Wet Secrets. Singer Lyle Bell boasts a meaty bass guitar, fuzzed out to the maximum, and he's bolstered by tubas and trombones to boost the bottom end. This is the third ongoing project for this prolific Edmontonian: he also fronts the dense rock duo Whitey Houston, and is part of the Shout Out Out Out Out electro-dance army. The Wet Secrets take lessons that he learned in both bands and amps them up into a fist-pumping fury of ecstatic profanity packed into pop songs with kiss-off titles like "Get Your Own Apartment" and "Grown Your F---ing Moustache, A---hole." With their marching band uniforms and background in burlesque troupes, it's not surprising that the lyrics are little more than juvenile jokes—but that doesn't distract from the powerful arrangements, the huge hooks or the way that engineer Diego Medina brings it all to vivid life. This was released locally in Alberta a while back; the national re-release features remixes from Cadence Weapon and Nik Kozub from the Shout Outs. The Wet Secrets don’t just dream about a Rock Fantasy; they’re ready to start living it. (K-W Record, June 12)
Note: They were also the best thing I saw at this year's NXNE festival, where Bell's vocals proved to be even stronger than on the album and superceded the schtick of the outfits.
In the meantime, I've been meaning to post these June reviews for... oh, about a month now--aka five years in the blogosphere. For whatever reason, June was fogey month... in a good way.
Don Brownrigg – Wander Songs (Weewerk/Outside)
More than any other provincial Canadian population, Newfoundlanders can be found in every corner of the country; they know what it means to leave home, they know what it means to have your life packed in a suitcase, and they know the pull that the motherland has on their cultural consciousness.
This Newfoundland songwriter opens his astounding debut album by advising the listener: “Don’t be afraid of the world if you ain’t out there in it.” Halfway through, he covers a song written by two of his uncles, who impart similar worldly wisdom: "Remember, fights and people's wives are to be left alone/ and if all else should fail you/ please remember home." Throughout Wander Songs, Brownrigg sings about leaving home for a transient life of “bags and boxes.” He does so in an old soul’s voice that’s perfectly suited for what he calls “these A.M. times.”
Befitting a child of such a strong oral culture, Brownrigg writes melodies that barely need any ornamentation at all—and yet the expert production work of mandolin player Donald McKay allows space for subtle shadings of banjo, lap steel, spoken word interludes, guest guitar from Jim Bryson and backing vocals by Jenn Grant. Between McKay’s sonic touches and Brownrigg’s haunting voice, there’s an enchanting sense of mystery heard on every one of these 11 songs, which fall somewhere between the sparse atmospheric beauty of Daniel Lanois and the masterful storytelling of Newfoundland songwriting legend Ron Hynes.
Wander Songs was released quietly in Brownrigg’s adopted hometown of Halifax late last year; it’s now being brought to wider attention by Weewerk, the label converted the world to the Great Lake Swimmers—whose fans will find plenty to love here. (K-W Record, June 26)
Solomon Burke – Like a Fire (Shout Factory/Warner)
On his last album, the soul survivor Solomon Burke headed to Nashville, where his towering voice was welcomed by a group of players more rustic than R&B. The experience wasn’t a one-off, it seems, as Burke is still carrying a bit of a twangover— a strong country influence can be heard loud and clear on Like A Fire, along with the blues, gospel and soul that have been his trademarks for the last 40 years. Producer/drummer Steve Jordan hooks him up with Eric Clapton, Keb’ Mo’, Jesse Harris and other guests who provide material worthy of Burke’s booming vocals, though none of them are as excellent a match as Ben Harper’s song "A Minute To Rest And A Second To Pray"; Harper’s own backing vocals and dobro playing are the one time any of the studio musicians here dare to compete with Burke’s presence. Even when Burke decamps to the hotel bar to croon "If I Gave My Heart to You," he maintains the dignity and class that he exudes in every other setting. Like a Fire is another worthy chapter in his productive comeback. (K-W Record, June 26)
Elvis Costello and the Imposters – Momofuku (Lost Highway/Universal)
So far 2008 has been a good year for the fogies, not just Al Green. Witness R.E.M.’s miraculous resurrection to relevance, the bold comebacks from Erykah Badu and Portishead, and decent albums by James, Joe Jackson, Sheryl Crow—hell, these days even Def Leppard sound better than they have in decades.
When word got out that the ultra prolific Elvis Costello was recording a stripped-down album in six days, there were hopes that a sense of immediacy might override his tendency to overwrite and overcook, which usually leaves listeners feeling more exhausted than entertained or enriched. Sadly, that’s exactly what happens here yet again.
For a guy who normally spends too much time on his band arrangements, here he doesn’t spend enough. If he was writing three-chord rock’n’roll songs, this approach would be fine, but simplicity doesn’t come easy to Elvis. These are songs that need more than a couple of takes for even the finest studio musicians to wrap their heads around. Many of them would be better served by stripping down them even more, like the Loretta Lynn co-write "Pardon Me Adam, My Name is Eve."
Elements of Costello’s finest work are in place—namely the keyboards of Steve Nieve and Costello’s own vocals, which retain their gritty edge when he’s fronting a rock band. He’s also bolstered by female vocal harmonies courtesy of Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis. The occasional song stands a slim chance of holding its own against his best work ("Drum & Bone," "Turpentine"). But for an artist of Costello’s calibre, this just doesn’t cut the mustard. (K-W Record, June 5)
Al Green – Lay It Down (Blue Note/EMI)
Five years ago, soul fans were ecstatic to learn that the Rev. Al Green had reunited with Willie Mitchell, the producer and architect of Green’s early 70s work. And yet the two albums that resulted from that reunion (2003’s I Can’t Stop and 2005’s Everything’s OK) were little more than aesthetic pleasures: Mitchell didn’t have the material—or the willpower, it seems—to push Green to the kind of powerhouse performances he’s capable of.
Enter the new school: drummer/producer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson of the Roots and keyboardist/producer James Poyser were put in charge of Green’s latest project, and it turns out that the young musicians who were probably conceived to Green’s music know him better than his old bandmates do.
Lay It Down stands as a high point in Green’s entire discography, full of the lush strings, smooth guitar licks and deep grooves that cushion his buttery bedroom vocals, which haven’t aged an iota. It opens with the slow and stately title track, but soon kicks into high gear with "You’ve Got the Love I Need," where Philly soul singer Anthony Hamilton and the Dap Kings Horns (Sharon Jones, Amy Winehouse) provide the punch that helps propel Green to one of his greatest vocal performances since "Let’s Stay Together."
Despite Thompson’s hip-hop background and Poyser’s career building the neo-soul movement through his work with Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill and Common, they don’t attempt to modernize Green or pair him up with incongruous duet partners (although the Corinne Bailey Rae track is suitably sleepy). They do, however, provide him with more of a backbeat than even most of his vintage work had, as the big funk drums on "I’m Wild About You" illustrate. They’re also responsible for the strength of the material: they and the rest of the backing band co-write every song here with Green. (K-W Record, June 5)
Emmylou Harris – All I Intended To Be (Nonesuch/Warner)
The album title suggests autobiography, as if this was a work of a veteran artist reflecting on her life. Quite the contrary—throughout her storied career, Emmylou Harris has been a conduit for other people’s stories, acting best as an interpreter of other songwriters and as a harmony vocalist and duet partner. Until recent years, her own songwriting has taken a back seat; this album, however, is the first where her own compositions stand tall beside the work of masters such as Tracy Chapman, Billie Joe Shaver, Merle Haggard, and the McGarrigle sisters (she co-writes several songs with the latter).
All I Intended To Be is a classic storyteller’s album, filled with rich character narratives of love, loss, resilience and disappointment. As always, Harris’s warm vocals bring her characters to vivid life, but such is the songwriting standard here that she barely has to—even an atonal mumbler could communicate the crushing heartbreak heard in her song "Gold." In Harris’s hands, however—along with Dolly Parton and Vince Gill on backing vocals—the effect is devastating.
Musically, Harris strikes a balance between the Daniel Lanois-influenced work of her past decade and her more traditional country roots, making the aptly titled All I Intended To Be a summation of everything she’s accomplished in the past 40 years. (K-W Record, June 19)
The Notwist – The Devil, You And Me (Domino/Outside)
This German pop group made a minor North American splash in 2002 with an understated gem called Neon Golden, wherein they merged the icy world of digital bleeps and blurps with bluesy electric guitars and melancholy pop. Part of its artistic success was the fact that The Notwist never sounded like they were trying to prove anything—unlike more ambitious albums by the likes of Radiohead and others. If anything, The Notwist were too subtle for their own good, starting with the narcoleptic vocals of singer Markus Acher.
Acher still sings like he’s sleepwalking, but that’s part of his charm—especially when delivering defeatist witticisms like, “Remember, the good lies win.” Here, over harsh guitars that sound like sirens and an avalanche of tumbling drums, Acher promises, “I won’t sing you algebra.” And yet The Devil, You And Me finds The Notwist becoming considerably more complex.
They improve considerably on Neon Golden’s template, upping the abstract beats that populated their side project 13 And God, relying less on the once-novel juxtaposition of acoustic guitars and electronic percussion, and becoming simultaneously more traditional and more experimental—maintaining the kind of admirable consistency at the core that few other acts can accomplish.
Songs like the title track and "Gone Gone Gone" are one step away from straightforward Coldplay balladry, though elsewhere they toy with textures and rhythms that draw from dreampop spawned in bedroom electronics; "On Planet Off" harkens back to the dubbed-out dropped beats of late 90s trip-hop, without sounding dated in the least.
The Notwist will never be a band that makes a huge first impression; their pleasures are best discovered slowly, if not secretly—and six years after Neon Golden, it sounds like they wouldn’t want it any other way. (K-W Record, June 26)
James Pants – Welcome (Stones Throw/Koch)
When a man called Mr. Pants welcomes you to his party, you have every right to be suspicious. But this debut album delivers a non-stop thrill ride of electro funk that touches on hip-hop, garage rock, disco and all stops in between, with live drums and subsonic bass synthesizers giving it a low-down, raw and dirty feel that guarantees a full dance floor.
Mr. Pants keeps the vocals to a minimum, but he doesn’t need vocal hooks to keep your interest. He pulls off some impressive jazz keyboard noodling and funky drumming throughout, boasting some serious chops, the kind not normally found from basement dabblers—from Spokane, Washington, no less.
If Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters backed up Kraftwerk, it might sound something like this, although this isn’t entirely a retro ride; Pants has also clearly studied the slice-and-dice approach to electronics spawned in the last decade. And for someone who’s obviously a huge music geek and record collector, none of this sounds studied or self-conscious, no matter how much stylistic ground he covers. There’s a party in these Pants; consider yourself invited. (K-W Record, June 5)
The Wet Secrets – Rock Fantasy (Rodeo Peanut/ Six Shooter)
Plenty of artists have proved that you do not need electric guitars to be a great rock band; few do it as well as The Wet Secrets. Singer Lyle Bell boasts a meaty bass guitar, fuzzed out to the maximum, and he's bolstered by tubas and trombones to boost the bottom end. This is the third ongoing project for this prolific Edmontonian: he also fronts the dense rock duo Whitey Houston, and is part of the Shout Out Out Out Out electro-dance army. The Wet Secrets take lessons that he learned in both bands and amps them up into a fist-pumping fury of ecstatic profanity packed into pop songs with kiss-off titles like "Get Your Own Apartment" and "Grown Your F---ing Moustache, A---hole." With their marching band uniforms and background in burlesque troupes, it's not surprising that the lyrics are little more than juvenile jokes—but that doesn't distract from the powerful arrangements, the huge hooks or the way that engineer Diego Medina brings it all to vivid life. This was released locally in Alberta a while back; the national re-release features remixes from Cadence Weapon and Nik Kozub from the Shout Outs. The Wet Secrets don’t just dream about a Rock Fantasy; they’re ready to start living it. (K-W Record, June 12)
Note: They were also the best thing I saw at this year's NXNE festival, where Bell's vocals proved to be even stronger than on the album and superceded the schtick of the outfits.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
April/May 08 reviews pt 2
More remnants of spring cleaning today... some of these seem ancient already, despite the fact they're less than two months old.
In further reading, I have a live review of Blue Peter at Lee's Palace last Friday on the Eye Weekly site here. It was my first time seeing one of my favourite Toronto bands of all time; while a fine show, I think I was foolishly expecting so much more. Similarly, Toronto music historians should take note of this show as part of this weekend's Luminato festival: Parachute Club, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Mojah, Lillian Allen, Johnny and the G-Rays and the B-Girls. Congrats to whomever curated this wonderful walk down the Queen Street of 25 years ago, and here's hoping the rain holds out.
Pas Chic Chic – Au Contraire (Semprini)
French pop gets a bad rap, and often rightfully so. Ever since the glory days of 60s yéyé, it’s been populated with chipper melodies, cooing femme fatales and dated electronics that will never come back in style anywhere else in the world. It’s always held a certain appeal for elements of the rock underground, however, either simply because of Europhilic exoticism or for the way it offers a refracted reflection of English pop music.
Montreal’s Pas Chic Chic give the entire genre a swift kick in the derriere, taking Franco pop’s 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.
The members of Pas Chic Chic all hail from noisy backgrounds: founder/guitarist/singer Roger Tellier-Craig caused eardrums to bleed in the abrasive Fly Pan Am and was also in an early version of Godspeed You Black Emperor; guitarist Radwan Moumneh was in hardcore band Cursed. Yet they have no problem creating convincing pop, and their aggression is tempered by keyboardist/vocalist Marie-Douce St. Jacques, whose synthetic strings cast an air of romance over everything.
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. (K-W Record, April 17)
Portishead – Third (Universal)
Portishead is not the band you thought they were, and probably never were. And because it's been 11 years since their last album, this is not the time for preconceptions in the first place.
Just because they were the first band to be labeled "trip-hop" doesn't mean that, since the release of their 1994 debut Dummy, Portishead should take the rap for unleashing over a decade of imitators dealing out unadventurous easy listening that's soundtracked every luxury lifestyle ad and lame seduction attempt you've been subjected to ever since.
Portishead was never meant to make you feel comfortable. On the surface, singer Beth Gibbons has a classically beautiful voice, saddled as it is with tragedy. No matter how acute her sense of pain, she is anything but fragile: Gibbons commands a powerful strength, even when it sounds like she's at an emotional breaking point, which is almost always.
Third delves deeper into the increasingly dark territory the band entered on their underrated second album. The soulful underpinnings remain, but much of the hip-hop influence has disappeared—including the trademark turntablism—making room for some of the folkie textures that Gibbons explored in her solo career, as well as the addition of vintage Kraftwerkian synthesizers and dirty drum machines that never fall into cheap electro clichés.
The band themselves seem so eager to kickstart this next phase of their career that they cut off the opening track in mid-phrase, sounding less like a mistake than as if they just want to get on with the rest of the new material, and show off what else they have in store.
What's most remarkable about Third is how this iconic band maintains their signature sound while not repeating themselves in the least. At one point, Gibbons strips everything down to just herself, a mandolin and some doo-wop backing vocals; at another, a Spanish-sounding folk song gives way to pulsating organ drones. Accordions and hurdy-gurdys are just as otherworldly and alien as some of the synths and Theremins; the album closes with wonky cello bends and swooping detuned guitars that sound like lowing cows.
Despite the embarrassment of riches on hand, bandleader Geoff Barrow leaves plenty of sonic space around each element. Even if Gibbons wasn't so compelling, and even if the new songs weren't as strong—if not better—than their best work, this would still be an album you'd want to buy on vinyl and listen to repeatedly with headphones; once through is never enough. (K-W Record, May 8)
Proof of Ghosts – s/t (Weewerk/Outside)
The suburbs are a lonely place. Just ask singer/songwriter Steve Heyerdahl, who sounds like he strolls endless cul-de-sacs with his banjo in hand, singing laments to lost women and odes to the joys of hanging out by the Slurpee machine on a summer Saturday night.
He does so with haunting vocals that owe a large debt to another singer who pointed out that Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, but more specifically, Heyerdahl falls under the spell of more modern kindred spirits: both his new labelmates the Great Lake Swimmers and his former Oshawa neighbours in Cuff the Duke—opening track “I’m Coming Home” in particular could be an outtake from the latter’s classic album Life Stories for the Minimum Wage.
Oshawa weighs heavy on Heyerdahl throughout this song cycle, not just because he names two songs after the town, but because his brooding country-in-the-city aesthetic suits Durham County to a T: a declining manufacturing town surrounded by a Great Lake and lush farmland. In this setting, Heyerdahl figures that there’s no greater crime than wasting time, and hence “Summer’s Wasted on the Young,” “Time is a Tyrant” and—to cap it off—“Time Takes Its Time.”
Proof of Ghosts is nothing if not consistent: it nails a feeling of torrential ennui that can be crushing and claustrophobic when the album stretches to almost an hour. This recording is mostly a one-man band; no doubt Heyerdahl will make a few more friends and broaden his horizons by the time he heads back into the studio. (K-W Record, April 24)
R.E.M. – Accelerate (Warner)
A mid-life crisis doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It’s easy to dissect this new R.E.M. album, coming it does after the 25th anniversary of their first EP, a year after they were inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame, and about ten years after they made an album worth listening to. Last year’s live album found them trying to remember what it was to be a rock band—and clearly, lessons have been learned in the time being.
Now, gone are the lush yet bland Beach Boy-wannabe ballads that they’ve been wallowing in lately. Every song here draws upon the guitar tones that Peter Buck staked his career on in the mid-80s—a signature sound that R.E.M. somehow lost along the way. Also back are the unmistakable backing vocals of bassist Mike Mills, brought to the forefront in ways not heard since 1987’s Life’s Rich Pageant. Singer Michael Stipe has finally got his balls back, both on the fiery rockers and the slower, politically charged tracks; he’s got some grit, and even the most ridiculous lyrics here—found on the apocalyptic party rocker “I’m Gonna DJ”—are considerably more palatable than the parade of shiny happy goof-offs that have snuck on to every R.E.M. album since Green.
It’s hard to say whether our lowered expectations of new R.E.M. material makes Accelerate such an ultimately satisfying listen. While their vintage guitar sound makes a big difference, it’s not necessary—there was plenty of great material dominated by drum machines and keyboards on the underrated 1998 album Up. Back then, losing founding member Bill Berry made them question their future; nowadays, it’s the shadow of irrelevance that has them running scared, in this case back to their roots rather than forging a future. Regardless, it sounds like something is actually at stake for these veterans, and it’s lit a fire behind them to make an album that won’t be littering the second hand store racks a month after its release.
Maybe that Hall of Fame ceremony reminded them that they were always first and foremost a rock band, but when a new R.E.M. record sounds as good as this one it’s best to simply reach for the volume knob and not ponder the reasons why. (K-W Record, April 3)
Sam Roberts – Love at the End of the World (Maple/Universal)
As you can discern from the title, Sam Roberts’ contribution to your long hot summer soundtrack is a feel-good record about the apocalypse. He claims he’s been “too afraid to read a newspaper,” but clearly the man has a lot on his mind. “There’s blood on these hands” and “the heat is rising,” sings Roberts, on titles like “Stripmall Religion” and “End of the Empire,” not to mention the title track. Yet he’s an optimist at heart, or at least he wants to be: “Life is for the taking,” he insists, adding later, “Just give me a reason for carrying on.”
If he’s feeling the weight of the world, Roberts doesn’t let it bring his music down. Love At the End of the World shows off what years of touring have done for his band, who are moving well beyond their pedestrian beginnings to give Roberts’ songs the colours and dynamics they deserve—to a point, as their aspirations are no more artsy than to be Canada’s finest bar band, which they may well be by now. There’s plenty of the seemingly effortless melodic rock’n’roll that Roberts perfected on his debut EP, without any of the meandering monotonous guitar jams that he sometimes slips into to pad out his lesser songs.
The first single is a bemusing barnburner about how “the kids don’t know how to dance to rock’n’roll,” which manages to be more than just a grumpy old man song; Roberts actually broadens the topic to ask larger questions about the role of artists in general, all set to a boogie-woogie backbeat. Elsewhere, he brings in some subtly psychedelic guitar textures, some stripped down country songs and plenty of rich vocal harmonies to flesh out what is already his strongest set of songs to date.
After all, if the good times are coming to an end, there’s no point settling for less. (K-W Record, May 29)
She & Him – Volume One (Merge)
Actress Zooey Deschanel is the She in question; renowned guitarist and singer/songwriter M. Ward is the Him. Yet despite his larger profile as a musician, Ward is on hand only to lend instrumental support and arrange Deschanel’s country-tinged songs into 70s pop symphonies worthy of Carly Simon or Carole King. Cast outside of his own hushed folkie material, Ward proves adept at painting with all sorts of sonic colours for these catchy songs. Who knows how long Deschanel has been secretly writing, but she has nine classics here that have a better shot a sliding onto oldies radio than any modern playlist.
The only serious fault here is her voice, which, though pretty enough, is more often than not sounds totally disinterested and devoid of personality—shocking, really, considering her day job in drama. If she’s both actress and screenwriter here, Ward proves to be a great cinematographer; maybe he should be more of a director next time. (K-W Record, April 10)
In further reading, I have a live review of Blue Peter at Lee's Palace last Friday on the Eye Weekly site here. It was my first time seeing one of my favourite Toronto bands of all time; while a fine show, I think I was foolishly expecting so much more. Similarly, Toronto music historians should take note of this show as part of this weekend's Luminato festival: Parachute Club, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Mojah, Lillian Allen, Johnny and the G-Rays and the B-Girls. Congrats to whomever curated this wonderful walk down the Queen Street of 25 years ago, and here's hoping the rain holds out.
Pas Chic Chic – Au Contraire (Semprini)French pop gets a bad rap, and often rightfully so. Ever since the glory days of 60s yéyé, it’s been populated with chipper melodies, cooing femme fatales and dated electronics that will never come back in style anywhere else in the world. It’s always held a certain appeal for elements of the rock underground, however, either simply because of Europhilic exoticism or for the way it offers a refracted reflection of English pop music.
Montreal’s Pas Chic Chic give the entire genre a swift kick in the derriere, taking Franco pop’s 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.
The members of Pas Chic Chic all hail from noisy backgrounds: founder/guitarist/singer Roger Tellier-Craig caused eardrums to bleed in the abrasive Fly Pan Am and was also in an early version of Godspeed You Black Emperor; guitarist Radwan Moumneh was in hardcore band Cursed. Yet they have no problem creating convincing pop, and their aggression is tempered by keyboardist/vocalist Marie-Douce St. Jacques, whose synthetic strings cast an air of romance over everything.
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. (K-W Record, April 17)
Portishead – Third (Universal)Portishead is not the band you thought they were, and probably never were. And because it's been 11 years since their last album, this is not the time for preconceptions in the first place.
Just because they were the first band to be labeled "trip-hop" doesn't mean that, since the release of their 1994 debut Dummy, Portishead should take the rap for unleashing over a decade of imitators dealing out unadventurous easy listening that's soundtracked every luxury lifestyle ad and lame seduction attempt you've been subjected to ever since.
Portishead was never meant to make you feel comfortable. On the surface, singer Beth Gibbons has a classically beautiful voice, saddled as it is with tragedy. No matter how acute her sense of pain, she is anything but fragile: Gibbons commands a powerful strength, even when it sounds like she's at an emotional breaking point, which is almost always.
Third delves deeper into the increasingly dark territory the band entered on their underrated second album. The soulful underpinnings remain, but much of the hip-hop influence has disappeared—including the trademark turntablism—making room for some of the folkie textures that Gibbons explored in her solo career, as well as the addition of vintage Kraftwerkian synthesizers and dirty drum machines that never fall into cheap electro clichés.
The band themselves seem so eager to kickstart this next phase of their career that they cut off the opening track in mid-phrase, sounding less like a mistake than as if they just want to get on with the rest of the new material, and show off what else they have in store.
What's most remarkable about Third is how this iconic band maintains their signature sound while not repeating themselves in the least. At one point, Gibbons strips everything down to just herself, a mandolin and some doo-wop backing vocals; at another, a Spanish-sounding folk song gives way to pulsating organ drones. Accordions and hurdy-gurdys are just as otherworldly and alien as some of the synths and Theremins; the album closes with wonky cello bends and swooping detuned guitars that sound like lowing cows.
Despite the embarrassment of riches on hand, bandleader Geoff Barrow leaves plenty of sonic space around each element. Even if Gibbons wasn't so compelling, and even if the new songs weren't as strong—if not better—than their best work, this would still be an album you'd want to buy on vinyl and listen to repeatedly with headphones; once through is never enough. (K-W Record, May 8)
Proof of Ghosts – s/t (Weewerk/Outside)The suburbs are a lonely place. Just ask singer/songwriter Steve Heyerdahl, who sounds like he strolls endless cul-de-sacs with his banjo in hand, singing laments to lost women and odes to the joys of hanging out by the Slurpee machine on a summer Saturday night.
He does so with haunting vocals that owe a large debt to another singer who pointed out that Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, but more specifically, Heyerdahl falls under the spell of more modern kindred spirits: both his new labelmates the Great Lake Swimmers and his former Oshawa neighbours in Cuff the Duke—opening track “I’m Coming Home” in particular could be an outtake from the latter’s classic album Life Stories for the Minimum Wage.
Oshawa weighs heavy on Heyerdahl throughout this song cycle, not just because he names two songs after the town, but because his brooding country-in-the-city aesthetic suits Durham County to a T: a declining manufacturing town surrounded by a Great Lake and lush farmland. In this setting, Heyerdahl figures that there’s no greater crime than wasting time, and hence “Summer’s Wasted on the Young,” “Time is a Tyrant” and—to cap it off—“Time Takes Its Time.”
Proof of Ghosts is nothing if not consistent: it nails a feeling of torrential ennui that can be crushing and claustrophobic when the album stretches to almost an hour. This recording is mostly a one-man band; no doubt Heyerdahl will make a few more friends and broaden his horizons by the time he heads back into the studio. (K-W Record, April 24)
R.E.M. – Accelerate (Warner)A mid-life crisis doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It’s easy to dissect this new R.E.M. album, coming it does after the 25th anniversary of their first EP, a year after they were inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame, and about ten years after they made an album worth listening to. Last year’s live album found them trying to remember what it was to be a rock band—and clearly, lessons have been learned in the time being.
Now, gone are the lush yet bland Beach Boy-wannabe ballads that they’ve been wallowing in lately. Every song here draws upon the guitar tones that Peter Buck staked his career on in the mid-80s—a signature sound that R.E.M. somehow lost along the way. Also back are the unmistakable backing vocals of bassist Mike Mills, brought to the forefront in ways not heard since 1987’s Life’s Rich Pageant. Singer Michael Stipe has finally got his balls back, both on the fiery rockers and the slower, politically charged tracks; he’s got some grit, and even the most ridiculous lyrics here—found on the apocalyptic party rocker “I’m Gonna DJ”—are considerably more palatable than the parade of shiny happy goof-offs that have snuck on to every R.E.M. album since Green.
It’s hard to say whether our lowered expectations of new R.E.M. material makes Accelerate such an ultimately satisfying listen. While their vintage guitar sound makes a big difference, it’s not necessary—there was plenty of great material dominated by drum machines and keyboards on the underrated 1998 album Up. Back then, losing founding member Bill Berry made them question their future; nowadays, it’s the shadow of irrelevance that has them running scared, in this case back to their roots rather than forging a future. Regardless, it sounds like something is actually at stake for these veterans, and it’s lit a fire behind them to make an album that won’t be littering the second hand store racks a month after its release.
Maybe that Hall of Fame ceremony reminded them that they were always first and foremost a rock band, but when a new R.E.M. record sounds as good as this one it’s best to simply reach for the volume knob and not ponder the reasons why. (K-W Record, April 3)
Sam Roberts – Love at the End of the World (Maple/Universal)As you can discern from the title, Sam Roberts’ contribution to your long hot summer soundtrack is a feel-good record about the apocalypse. He claims he’s been “too afraid to read a newspaper,” but clearly the man has a lot on his mind. “There’s blood on these hands” and “the heat is rising,” sings Roberts, on titles like “Stripmall Religion” and “End of the Empire,” not to mention the title track. Yet he’s an optimist at heart, or at least he wants to be: “Life is for the taking,” he insists, adding later, “Just give me a reason for carrying on.”
If he’s feeling the weight of the world, Roberts doesn’t let it bring his music down. Love At the End of the World shows off what years of touring have done for his band, who are moving well beyond their pedestrian beginnings to give Roberts’ songs the colours and dynamics they deserve—to a point, as their aspirations are no more artsy than to be Canada’s finest bar band, which they may well be by now. There’s plenty of the seemingly effortless melodic rock’n’roll that Roberts perfected on his debut EP, without any of the meandering monotonous guitar jams that he sometimes slips into to pad out his lesser songs.
The first single is a bemusing barnburner about how “the kids don’t know how to dance to rock’n’roll,” which manages to be more than just a grumpy old man song; Roberts actually broadens the topic to ask larger questions about the role of artists in general, all set to a boogie-woogie backbeat. Elsewhere, he brings in some subtly psychedelic guitar textures, some stripped down country songs and plenty of rich vocal harmonies to flesh out what is already his strongest set of songs to date.
After all, if the good times are coming to an end, there’s no point settling for less. (K-W Record, May 29)
She & Him – Volume One (Merge)Actress Zooey Deschanel is the She in question; renowned guitarist and singer/songwriter M. Ward is the Him. Yet despite his larger profile as a musician, Ward is on hand only to lend instrumental support and arrange Deschanel’s country-tinged songs into 70s pop symphonies worthy of Carly Simon or Carole King. Cast outside of his own hushed folkie material, Ward proves adept at painting with all sorts of sonic colours for these catchy songs. Who knows how long Deschanel has been secretly writing, but she has nine classics here that have a better shot a sliding onto oldies radio than any modern playlist.
The only serious fault here is her voice, which, though pretty enough, is more often than not sounds totally disinterested and devoid of personality—shocking, really, considering her day job in drama. If she’s both actress and screenwriter here, Ward proves to be a great cinematographer; maybe he should be more of a director next time. (K-W Record, April 10)
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
April/May 08 reviews
This and the next post will wrap up reviews penned for the Kitchener-Waterloo Record/Guelph Mercury in the past two months. Please take discouraging note of my increasing tendency to use song titles as a substitute for actual critical observation. Also, I wasn't really this grumpy all spring; tomorrow's post will have much more positive reviews!
The Breeders – Mountain Battles (4AD/Beggars Banquet)
Kim Deal might have gone for the cash grab when her old band the Pixies reunited, but there’s nothing on her latest album as The Breeders’ bandleader to suggest that she’s looking for easy ways out.
Deal has had a rough time, musically, since The Breeders soundtracked the summer of 1993 with their landmark single “Cannonball.” That song’s success overshadowed the fact that Deal was a wonderfully weird songwriter even when she wasn’t going for big pop hooks. Unlike her Pixie bandmate Frank Black, Deal decided to stick with the strange and unconventional, a decision that has led to spotty material in the last decade but serves her well in spades here.
Mountain Battles is that rare record where an indie icon manages to tap the anything-goes amateurish approach of their earlier career, long before patterns get codified cliché, before maturity sets in and commercial pressures mount. “I can feel it!” are the only words Deal sings in the opening track, “Overglazed,” and in her voice you can hear her shaking the shackles of addiction that plagued her (and her twin sister Kelley, who shares guitar/vocal duties) for much of her career.
In picking her Battles here, Deal delivers one or two bouncy pop songs, more than a few mournful waltzes and country-tinged diversions, one song sung in Spanish, and a rhythm section that sounds as deceptively lazy as the haunting harmonies between Deal and her twin sister Kelley, which remain as compelling here as they were 15 years ago.
Mountain Battles isn’t out to recreate past glories or do anything, really, other than amuse the Deal sisters and those who remember them fondly. While the same could be said of everything Deal has done outside the Pixies, the difference is that this time she no longer sounds stuck in a rut: her musical interests continue to expand while retaining the unrefined, almost naive quality that always made her unique in the first place. (K-W Record, April 17)
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Dig, Lazarus Dig!!! (Anti)
The worst thing you could ever say about Nick Cave is to accuse him of being innocuous, and yet 14 albums deep into his discography with the Bad Seeds, Dig Lazarus Dig!!! is Cave-by-numbers. The album opens with a fiery title track about resurrection, and closes with Cave lamenting his own obsolescence on an eight-minute Velvet Underground blues riff called “More News From Nowhere.”
Coming off an artistic renaissance of late—with the expansive, gospel-fuelled 2004 double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus and 2007's howling garage punk Grinderman project—Cave crawls back to his old bag of tricks, which makes it somewhat ironic when he sings: "People often talk about being scared of change/ me, I'm scared of things staying the same/ because the game is never won by standing in any one place too long."
If Cave seems on autopilot, his Bad Seeds are in as fine form as always, with relatively new keyboardist James Johnston stepping to the forefront with organ flourishes that define many of the album's best moments.
At this point in their evolution, it would be far more interesting to hear the Bad Seeds backing up someone else while Cave takes some well-deserved time off from writing. (K-W Record, April 10)
Constantines – Kensington Heights (Arts and Crafts/EMI)
“Some people’s love is not strong enough,” sings Bry Webb on the opening track of the Constantines’ fourth album. His own love is not in question, however—even if it’s put to the test repeatedly over the course of these dozen songs, where he witnesses friends and family falling on hard times, leaving the harsh environs of the city, hitting the highway or raising children. The Constantines are lifers, and this is their statement of intent: “Kith and kin, when the ice gets thin.”
The last three years have been somewhat tough for this band. After passionate reactions to their first two albums, 2005’s Tournament of Hearts garnered a comparatively tepid response, and the band is now split between Montreal and Toronto. It’s no surprise, then, that resilience is the theme of this record: “Brother Run Them Down,” “Life or Death,” “Do What You Can Do,” “Time Can Be Overcome.”
It’s too bad, then, that they spend much of their stay in Kensington Heights stuck in a murky middle ground between their primary strengths: the fist-pumping rockers (“Hard Feelings,” “Credit River,” “Trans Canada”) and the slow-burning, slightly countrified songs that show a softer side (“New King,” “I Will Not Sing a Hateful Song”). The rhythm section seems to have taken a back seat this time out; keyboardist Will Kidman adds more traditional organ textures to the mix while both Webb and Steve Lambke are experimenting with their approach to guitars.
The kind of tension and release that characterizes their best work is largely absent. This should have been a major transitional record for the Constantines; as it is, it will inject some new life into their legendary live show, but the recording errs on the safe side. They’re ready for bolder moves than this. (K-W Record, May 1)
Hilotrons – Happymatic (Kelp/Outside)
Don’t pay any mind to the terrible album title, especially when you find out that Ottawa’s Hilotrons deliver herky-jerky new wave pop music. Yet thankfully, Happymatic is not a non-stop perky party, and are happy to shake up some vintage soul, some 80s pop, some science fiction and trace elements of African and Asian pop just to keep things interesting. They’re also one of the only bands who know how to use a vocoder judiciously and not just as a cheap prop (Shout Out Out Out Out, take note). For every fist-punching glory like the Ottawa anthem “Emergency Street,” the Hilotrons also know enough about dynamics that they can slow things down to a crawl and a hush, as they do on “I’m a Parade,” with its funereal brass section and Martin Tielli-esque vocals. (K-W Record, April 3)
Islands – Arm’s Way (Anti)
Hey Rosetta! – Into Your Lungs (Sonic/Warner)
Both of these Canadian bands have orchestral instruments as integral elements of the band, not a casual add-on in a bid for respect and maturity. In both cases, the thoughtful arrangements elevate them above the din, but in at least one of these two cases, it’s not enough to save the album in question.
Montreal's Islands have not only had a string section and a bass clarinetist on board since day one, but their songwriting on this, their second album, increasingly resembles a rock opera where verses and choruses take a back seat to longer, linear compositions—which would be fine if they were able to pull it off. The strings themselves boast much more colourful arrangements than heard on Islands' debut, but the similar-sounding songs themselves aren't strong enough to sustain interest.
Some of this is due to songwriter Nick Thorburn's limitations as a singer, but this also marks the first time that he's worked without a strong foil and/or editor: in his past life in The Unicorns, he had an often tumultuous relationship with that band's co-founder; in the first incarnation of Islands, he was collaborating with inventive Guelph drummer Jamie Thompson, who helped steer the ship through some of Thorburn's thornier twists and turns.
Now that Thompson is gone, the current line-up of Islands break up their more plodding numbers by embarking on extremely awkward Motown/Latin/calypso breakdowns—something that Thompson could segue together seamlessly—and seem to be building towards a dynamic release that never happens. By the time Thorburn starts singing about shitting in swimming pools, it seems like an apt metaphor for the entire album.
Real-life islanders, Hey Rosetta! are Newfoundland newcomers who fare far better on their first widely-distributed album. There are no shortage of orchestral flourish for vocalist Tim Baker to howl over, usually set to driving, propulsive rhythms that sound like more muscular version of Hidden Cameras—or, for those who remember, the 80s Irish group Hothouse Flowers.
It's not surprising at all to see that Into Your Lungs is produced by Hawksley Workman; both artists share a love of grandiose stadium-size gestures, and the emotive Baker shares more than a few Workman-like operatic vocal tics, though none of his sense of economy—Into Your Lungs wears out its warm welcome well before its 60 minutes are up.
Even though Workman gives Hey Rosetta! a larger-than-life radio sound, this is a band that undoubtedly sounds much more invigorating live, where their more bombastic side would truly come alive. (K-W Record, May 29)
Jamie Lidell – Jim (Warp/ Fusion 3)
Some artists go further out on a limb as they get older; some discover the joys of simple pleasures. Jamie Lidell started out in the abstract techno world before attempting a Timberlake-style millennial soul makeover on 2005’s Multiply. The transformation is now fully complete, with Lidell reaching even further back to mid-60s Stevie Wonder for inspiration.
Thankfully, Lidell comes to his new state of Wonder-ment with an undeniable set of pipes that don’t sound the least bit the product of studio trickery, which is even more obvious with his new stripped-down sound. Lidell is one of the few British soul singers whose whoops and hollers are convincing enough that he’d feel entirely natural leading a Southern gospel choir. With the help of some of Feist’s key collaborators—Gonzales, Mocky and Renaud Letang—Lidell is never short of finger snappin’, piano rockin’ soulful pop to wrap his voice around.
As good as he is, there are few instances here where one wouldn’t rather pull out some dusty vinyl from his source material and listen to that instead—especially when one song is a direct lift of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.”
Jim is the beginning of Lidell’s reinvention; next time he’ll likely dive in even deeper. (K-W Record, May 8)
Matmos – Supreme Balloon (Matador)
Matmos are, and always have been, scientists. Often dressed in lab coats on stage, their studio albums create music from found sounds in the unlikeliest sources: shuffling decks of cards, snails and lasers, spanking bottoms—even liposuction. Each album by these Bjork collaborators is tied to a specific concept, wherein the source material for their instrumental compositions is directly linked to the intended musical narrative.
This time out, however, Matmos are one step removed from the lab, and more like soundtrack artists for a 70s sci-fi film—or even an educational filmstrip, which children of that decade will remember fondly. Matmos boast that “no microphones were used on this album,” instead turning to a series of analog modular synthesizers to create what could be early synth pioneer Wendy Carlos romping through a Nintendo-generated fantasy world. If nothing else, Supreme Balloon will certainly conjure memories of that first school trip to the Ontario Science Centre.
Because they’re so associated with conceptual art, this is the first Matmos album that must be approached entirely on its own musical merits. Their playful spirit prevails, on the glitchy blips and bossa nova beat of “Rainbow Flag” or the non-sequitur quote from O Canada that appears in the middle of “Exciter Lamp And The Variable Band.” But they pop their own balloon and set themselves adrift on the 24-minute title track, which sounds like a plodding outtake from Kraftwerk’s more psychedelic period, where nothing develops over the course of its epic length to justify it taking up almost half the album’s running time. (K-W Record, May 15)
Ocote Soul Sounds and Adrian Quesada – The Alchemist Manifesto (ESL/Select)
Adrian Quesada and Martin Perna are the two men responsible for this chilled-out, trippy Latin groove album—which is not what you would expect considering their day jobs in two of the hottest live bands in the U.S.: the Latino powerhouse funk band Grupo Fantasma and the neo-Afrobeat Antibalas, respectively. But playing in those acts must be exhausting, which is why they probably start making music like this back at the hotel room in the wee hours of the morning. Some stronger grooves prevail, but this is definitely post-party music, the kind where renowned horn player Perna breaks out his alto flute far more often than his baritone saxophone. It’s also several steps above the usually tepid downtempo modern muzak that this will invariably get lumped in with; Quesada and Perna deserve much better than that. (K-W Record, May 29)
The Breeders – Mountain Battles (4AD/Beggars Banquet)Kim Deal might have gone for the cash grab when her old band the Pixies reunited, but there’s nothing on her latest album as The Breeders’ bandleader to suggest that she’s looking for easy ways out.
Deal has had a rough time, musically, since The Breeders soundtracked the summer of 1993 with their landmark single “Cannonball.” That song’s success overshadowed the fact that Deal was a wonderfully weird songwriter even when she wasn’t going for big pop hooks. Unlike her Pixie bandmate Frank Black, Deal decided to stick with the strange and unconventional, a decision that has led to spotty material in the last decade but serves her well in spades here.
Mountain Battles is that rare record where an indie icon manages to tap the anything-goes amateurish approach of their earlier career, long before patterns get codified cliché, before maturity sets in and commercial pressures mount. “I can feel it!” are the only words Deal sings in the opening track, “Overglazed,” and in her voice you can hear her shaking the shackles of addiction that plagued her (and her twin sister Kelley, who shares guitar/vocal duties) for much of her career.
In picking her Battles here, Deal delivers one or two bouncy pop songs, more than a few mournful waltzes and country-tinged diversions, one song sung in Spanish, and a rhythm section that sounds as deceptively lazy as the haunting harmonies between Deal and her twin sister Kelley, which remain as compelling here as they were 15 years ago.
Mountain Battles isn’t out to recreate past glories or do anything, really, other than amuse the Deal sisters and those who remember them fondly. While the same could be said of everything Deal has done outside the Pixies, the difference is that this time she no longer sounds stuck in a rut: her musical interests continue to expand while retaining the unrefined, almost naive quality that always made her unique in the first place. (K-W Record, April 17)
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Dig, Lazarus Dig!!! (Anti)The worst thing you could ever say about Nick Cave is to accuse him of being innocuous, and yet 14 albums deep into his discography with the Bad Seeds, Dig Lazarus Dig!!! is Cave-by-numbers. The album opens with a fiery title track about resurrection, and closes with Cave lamenting his own obsolescence on an eight-minute Velvet Underground blues riff called “More News From Nowhere.”
Coming off an artistic renaissance of late—with the expansive, gospel-fuelled 2004 double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus and 2007's howling garage punk Grinderman project—Cave crawls back to his old bag of tricks, which makes it somewhat ironic when he sings: "People often talk about being scared of change/ me, I'm scared of things staying the same/ because the game is never won by standing in any one place too long."
If Cave seems on autopilot, his Bad Seeds are in as fine form as always, with relatively new keyboardist James Johnston stepping to the forefront with organ flourishes that define many of the album's best moments.
At this point in their evolution, it would be far more interesting to hear the Bad Seeds backing up someone else while Cave takes some well-deserved time off from writing. (K-W Record, April 10)
Constantines – Kensington Heights (Arts and Crafts/EMI)“Some people’s love is not strong enough,” sings Bry Webb on the opening track of the Constantines’ fourth album. His own love is not in question, however—even if it’s put to the test repeatedly over the course of these dozen songs, where he witnesses friends and family falling on hard times, leaving the harsh environs of the city, hitting the highway or raising children. The Constantines are lifers, and this is their statement of intent: “Kith and kin, when the ice gets thin.”
The last three years have been somewhat tough for this band. After passionate reactions to their first two albums, 2005’s Tournament of Hearts garnered a comparatively tepid response, and the band is now split between Montreal and Toronto. It’s no surprise, then, that resilience is the theme of this record: “Brother Run Them Down,” “Life or Death,” “Do What You Can Do,” “Time Can Be Overcome.”
It’s too bad, then, that they spend much of their stay in Kensington Heights stuck in a murky middle ground between their primary strengths: the fist-pumping rockers (“Hard Feelings,” “Credit River,” “Trans Canada”) and the slow-burning, slightly countrified songs that show a softer side (“New King,” “I Will Not Sing a Hateful Song”). The rhythm section seems to have taken a back seat this time out; keyboardist Will Kidman adds more traditional organ textures to the mix while both Webb and Steve Lambke are experimenting with their approach to guitars.
The kind of tension and release that characterizes their best work is largely absent. This should have been a major transitional record for the Constantines; as it is, it will inject some new life into their legendary live show, but the recording errs on the safe side. They’re ready for bolder moves than this. (K-W Record, May 1)
Hilotrons – Happymatic (Kelp/Outside) Don’t pay any mind to the terrible album title, especially when you find out that Ottawa’s Hilotrons deliver herky-jerky new wave pop music. Yet thankfully, Happymatic is not a non-stop perky party, and are happy to shake up some vintage soul, some 80s pop, some science fiction and trace elements of African and Asian pop just to keep things interesting. They’re also one of the only bands who know how to use a vocoder judiciously and not just as a cheap prop (Shout Out Out Out Out, take note). For every fist-punching glory like the Ottawa anthem “Emergency Street,” the Hilotrons also know enough about dynamics that they can slow things down to a crawl and a hush, as they do on “I’m a Parade,” with its funereal brass section and Martin Tielli-esque vocals. (K-W Record, April 3)
Islands – Arm’s Way (Anti) Hey Rosetta! – Into Your Lungs (Sonic/Warner)
Both of these Canadian bands have orchestral instruments as integral elements of the band, not a casual add-on in a bid for respect and maturity. In both cases, the thoughtful arrangements elevate them above the din, but in at least one of these two cases, it’s not enough to save the album in question.
Montreal's Islands have not only had a string section and a bass clarinetist on board since day one, but their songwriting on this, their second album, increasingly resembles a rock opera where verses and choruses take a back seat to longer, linear compositions—which would be fine if they were able to pull it off. The strings themselves boast much more colourful arrangements than heard on Islands' debut, but the similar-sounding songs themselves aren't strong enough to sustain interest.
Some of this is due to songwriter Nick Thorburn's limitations as a singer, but this also marks the first time that he's worked without a strong foil and/or editor: in his past life in The Unicorns, he had an often tumultuous relationship with that band's co-founder; in the first incarnation of Islands, he was collaborating with inventive Guelph drummer Jamie Thompson, who helped steer the ship through some of Thorburn's thornier twists and turns.
Now that Thompson is gone, the current line-up of Islands break up their more plodding numbers by embarking on extremely awkward Motown/Latin/calypso breakdowns—something that Thompson could segue together seamlessly—and seem to be building towards a dynamic release that never happens. By the time Thorburn starts singing about shitting in swimming pools, it seems like an apt metaphor for the entire album.
Real-life islanders, Hey Rosetta! are Newfoundland newcomers who fare far better on their first widely-distributed album. There are no shortage of orchestral flourish for vocalist Tim Baker to howl over, usually set to driving, propulsive rhythms that sound like more muscular version of Hidden Cameras—or, for those who remember, the 80s Irish group Hothouse Flowers.It's not surprising at all to see that Into Your Lungs is produced by Hawksley Workman; both artists share a love of grandiose stadium-size gestures, and the emotive Baker shares more than a few Workman-like operatic vocal tics, though none of his sense of economy—Into Your Lungs wears out its warm welcome well before its 60 minutes are up.
Even though Workman gives Hey Rosetta! a larger-than-life radio sound, this is a band that undoubtedly sounds much more invigorating live, where their more bombastic side would truly come alive. (K-W Record, May 29)
Jamie Lidell – Jim (Warp/ Fusion 3)Some artists go further out on a limb as they get older; some discover the joys of simple pleasures. Jamie Lidell started out in the abstract techno world before attempting a Timberlake-style millennial soul makeover on 2005’s Multiply. The transformation is now fully complete, with Lidell reaching even further back to mid-60s Stevie Wonder for inspiration.
Thankfully, Lidell comes to his new state of Wonder-ment with an undeniable set of pipes that don’t sound the least bit the product of studio trickery, which is even more obvious with his new stripped-down sound. Lidell is one of the few British soul singers whose whoops and hollers are convincing enough that he’d feel entirely natural leading a Southern gospel choir. With the help of some of Feist’s key collaborators—Gonzales, Mocky and Renaud Letang—Lidell is never short of finger snappin’, piano rockin’ soulful pop to wrap his voice around.
As good as he is, there are few instances here where one wouldn’t rather pull out some dusty vinyl from his source material and listen to that instead—especially when one song is a direct lift of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.”
Jim is the beginning of Lidell’s reinvention; next time he’ll likely dive in even deeper. (K-W Record, May 8)
Matmos – Supreme Balloon (Matador)Matmos are, and always have been, scientists. Often dressed in lab coats on stage, their studio albums create music from found sounds in the unlikeliest sources: shuffling decks of cards, snails and lasers, spanking bottoms—even liposuction. Each album by these Bjork collaborators is tied to a specific concept, wherein the source material for their instrumental compositions is directly linked to the intended musical narrative.
This time out, however, Matmos are one step removed from the lab, and more like soundtrack artists for a 70s sci-fi film—or even an educational filmstrip, which children of that decade will remember fondly. Matmos boast that “no microphones were used on this album,” instead turning to a series of analog modular synthesizers to create what could be early synth pioneer Wendy Carlos romping through a Nintendo-generated fantasy world. If nothing else, Supreme Balloon will certainly conjure memories of that first school trip to the Ontario Science Centre.
Because they’re so associated with conceptual art, this is the first Matmos album that must be approached entirely on its own musical merits. Their playful spirit prevails, on the glitchy blips and bossa nova beat of “Rainbow Flag” or the non-sequitur quote from O Canada that appears in the middle of “Exciter Lamp And The Variable Band.” But they pop their own balloon and set themselves adrift on the 24-minute title track, which sounds like a plodding outtake from Kraftwerk’s more psychedelic period, where nothing develops over the course of its epic length to justify it taking up almost half the album’s running time. (K-W Record, May 15)
Ocote Soul Sounds and Adrian Quesada – The Alchemist Manifesto (ESL/Select)Adrian Quesada and Martin Perna are the two men responsible for this chilled-out, trippy Latin groove album—which is not what you would expect considering their day jobs in two of the hottest live bands in the U.S.: the Latino powerhouse funk band Grupo Fantasma and the neo-Afrobeat Antibalas, respectively. But playing in those acts must be exhausting, which is why they probably start making music like this back at the hotel room in the wee hours of the morning. Some stronger grooves prevail, but this is definitely post-party music, the kind where renowned horn player Perna breaks out his alto flute far more often than his baritone saxophone. It’s also several steps above the usually tepid downtempo modern muzak that this will invariably get lumped in with; Quesada and Perna deserve much better than that. (K-W Record, May 29)
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Gonzales
Gonzales is the most self-deprecating egomaniac you’re ever likely to meet. Part of him must be thrilled beyond belief that he’s been able to apply his self-described musical genius to a million-selling album (Feist’s The Reminder, which he co-produced, co-wrote and plays on); the other part is insanely envious, wishing that he had the same kind of critical and commercial clout when it comes to his solo work.
But as he himself will admit, he needs villains and enemies in order to survive. He needs to subvert audience expectations at every turn: whether it’s the “potty-mouthed pranksta rapper” who turns into a serious composer of solo piano instrumentals in the middle of a set, or the producer who works with French music icons of decidedly different eras, from the classy Jane Birkin (Gainsbourg’s muse) to the cartoonish Teki Latex (of franco-hip-hop group TTC).
The first time I heard Gonzales was when a friend of a friend slipped me a cassette sometime in the early 90s, made by some guy he knew at McGill named Jason Beck. Beck went on to make a one-man demo album called Thriller, credited to Son, which was picked up by Warner Canada and landed a radio hit. The follow-up Son album, Wolfstein, died a stillbirth (for reasons explained in this interview), which caused Beck to flee the country for Berlin and reinvent himself as Gonzales, just as his friend Peaches was taking off with her equally reductionist and raunchy electro pop.
His first album as Gonzales, 2000's Uber Alles, was an uncharacteristically low-key, often pretty album featuring torch songs, traces of trip-hop and pieces for solo Rhodes piano, with a few subtle nods to the hip-hop direction he would soon embark on. The next few albums took his new “supervillain” character over the top, yielding a small handful of memorable but frivolous songs (“Take Me to Broadway”) that are really only worth revisiting to view the character arc of his career.
During the first part of this decade, he returned to Canada only for the holidays. Canada had already had its chance to love him; spurned, he had decided that Europe was it. “I don’t want to be a slave to the power of unrequited love,” he sings on his new album, Soft Power, a line that could well be about his conflicted feelings about his native country.
I ended up having dinner with him and some mutual friends one Toronto evening in December, 2004; he had just released the Solo Piano album in France, which would soon go on to be a smash success there—a record of silent film soundtracks and Satie-rical interludes that was considered so Parisian that a track from it opens the film Je T’Aime Paris. He came to Pop Montreal in October 2005 at the invitation of SoCalled, to share a bill with octogenarian “bongos and bagels” pianist Irving Fields. As a homecoming performance, it was stunning. Here’s my capsule review that ran in Exclaim:
I ended up seeing the Solo Piano tour the next three times it came to Toronto or Montreal, including an ill-fated attempt to adapt the performance to pipe organ for Pop Montreal performance. But each of the other two occasions found him wowing audiences who really had no idea what to expect; if they didn’t know him personally, most people were there either because it was free (the Harbourfront show) or because he was opening for Feist (Massey Hall, where he got a standing ovation).
For this new album, Gonzales has assembled a band for the first time, and the set encompasses every stage of his career (excepting the Son years). He’s a complete and utter ham on stage, whether he’s attacking a Casio keyboard with a microphone for a percussive solo, crawling over the heads of audience members and haranguing them for not knowing his “hit” songs, or belting out a spot-on cover of the Phil Collins/Phillip Bailey 80s chestnut “Easy Lover” with his backing vocalist, Matthew Flowers. Gonzales doesn’t just play a set of songs and call it a concert; this is a Show, this is Entertainment, this is using artifice to simultaneously send-up and celebrate each of his musical strengths and personal weaknesses.
It gave us lots to talk about a couple of days later, for this article in the new issue of Exclaim.
Gonzales
May 12, 2008
Locale: Arts and Crafts corporate headquarters, Toronto
Soft Power: could you possibly pick a more Canadian title? Who are you, Lloyd Axworthy?
(laughs) I never thought of that. How is it Canadian? Other than that’s how Canadia sees itself?
Canadia??!! Wow, been a while, has it?
(laughs) That’s what Germans say. ‘You going to Canadia now?’
Lloyd Axworthy was Foreign Affairs Minister under Chretien, and his whole modus operandi was for Canada to be a soft power in the world. We don’t have the big guns to throw our weight around, so we have to be a soft power and use diplomacy to exert our influence.
You know who gets credited with the phrase ‘soft power,’ is Joseph Nye, who is a Harvard political science professor who wrote a book.
Yes, but most Canadians—if they know it at all—probably associate it with Axworthy.
The political angle of soft power, in a way, mirrors what I’ve gone through, which is being in a purely oppositional mode when I started, very much the ‘with-us-or-against-us’ mentality that George Bush espoused in 2000—the year of the first Gonzales album [Uber Alles]. Then I gradually realized that it might be better to co-opt people that you perceive as enemies, be more inclusive so that you can have more lasting influences. This I learned from being forced to work in a team on various projects, and see that the reward over the long-term outweighs the pain of suppressing your ego in the short term.
All joking aside, it’s something I didn’t learn profoundly until I was in the studio working with someone like Jane Birkin, who has a big entourage, and how they split up the work. This [album] was the first time I let someone into the process. I let Renaud Letang, who is my producer and partner, become the whole production team and I just became the artist. Normally we’re together on the other side of the window from the artist. That was already a big step for me, letting someone else in on the process. To a lesser extent, it was about putting together a group of other solo artists and literally dramatizing what’s in the lyrics, about the difficulty of having equality in those situations.
Early Gonzales is very much about the id, the ego, and release. It’s about casting off shame of different levels. I didn’t understand that completely at the time; I really enjoyed Uber Alles, but couldn’t get into the subsequent albums. Now they seem like part of an obvious arc, and they also make a lot of sense coming out the context of a very earnest and conservative Canadian musical scene of the mid-90s. Gonzales makes so much more sense as a reactionary in that context.
I think that’s the case. My experiences in Canada, my feelings of rejection, my wanting to prove something and deciding that what I thought held me back here would propel me forward over there. I felt I didn’t fit in back then. Indie rock rejected the idea of being masterful at music, first of all, and my ideas about entertainment and spectacle that were forming seemed to be taboo in that indie rock world.
And it was that [indie rock] world that dictated the predominant cultural conversation at the time.
Exactly. When I went over to Europe, it was with a sense of vengeance. That’s why I started to openly declare my musical genius. In some ways, it was done to shock, because it’s rare for someone to come out and say that. So part of it was shock value, but it was coming from a very sincere place. I do view music as something to be mastered, as something that has science and mathematical secrets to be learned that create emotions. The world I came from did not appreciate those. Luckily, the world I went to did.
And yet the first incarnation of Gonzales was very reductionist. It was very much about breaking things down to basic elements of groove and I don’t hear virtuosity in those early records, whereas I do in Solo Piano.
Yeah, but the melodies of Solo Piano are not that far off from the melodies on Uber Alles. First of all, there are three songs on Rhodes piano on Uber Alles; there are two songs sung by Sticky that are proper old-school torch songs. There’s really only two or three songs that have beats, but they seem to overshadow the rest.
Sure, but the next several albums are certainly reductionist.
Okay, so then in The Entertainist the virtuosity is in the rhymes, in the wordplay. They’re more like patter songs from The Music Man than they are a real rap song.
Feist once told me about the electro/hip-hop tour you did with her, where there would be a grand piano on stage covered with a sheet and various props, and that at one point in the show you would clear everything off it and sit down and play Solo Piano. Why did you want to flex that virtuosity again? What was the reaction?
It’s a question of surprise, definitely. It’s the same reason that, during a Solo Piano show, I break it down and read these fake reviews that touch on all kind of taboos like anti-Semitism, sexism and Canadian self-defeatism, coming from a supposedly good student of music with ‘good taste.’ That comes as a shock to some people, as does being a potty-mouth prankster rapper who demonstrates old-fashioned piano virtuosity.
It helps to entertain people. Surprise is a big element. You have to keep people in a sense of being shocked once in a while; it’s one of the many tricks of being an entertainer. As much as you have to please people, you also have to shock them and once in a while make them hate you and then earn back their respect. It’s something politicians do all the time. They calibrate according to the over-stepping and then ask for forgiveness, and it works to their advantage.
They become a hero for creating a compromise.
Exactly. That’s an old trick for any kind of mass communication. That’s just there to have those layers and be able to transgress and be redeemed.
I saw the Solo Piano show in three different incarnations on four different occasions. I saw the first Pop Montreal show, which was a revelation because I had no idea what you were going to do…
Right, where I lied and said I asked that they bring in the piano from my childhood home.
Right, and you told the same story at Massey Hall, if I recall. Then I saw the pipe organ show at Pop Montreal…
The unanimous failure, yes.
…the Harbourfront show, and then Massey Hall. And each time, most of the people there had no idea what to expect. Which was fascinating to me, after having seen it once and having some idea what was coming, to observe what people respond to the most and when they laugh—especially when they laugh at things that aren’t even jokes. What struck me was that I could probably count on one hand the number of people in those audiences who had ever been to a solo piano performance of any kind. Obviously there are hammy jokes and clear jokes, but there was also that weird thing when people laugh because they’re uncomfortable with beauty and the virtuosity when you’re playing it straight. Why is that funny? Can you sense that when you’re on stage?
Sure, I’m used to it. And it happens in a broader sense in between albums. The interesting reaction between Solo Piano and Soft Power is that so many people who felt that they could finally permit themselves to finally musically respect me are now completely threatened by the idea that I’ve gone back to some kind of bad taste or kitsch. It’s intentional: for me, Erik Satie is the same as Billy Joel. I have sincere musical respect for both. Just like when I would play “Maniac” in my Solo Piano show, for the first minute people wouldn’t know what song it was. They knew that they knew it and that it was a beautiful song, but all of the sudden they realized it was “Maniac” and they start to laugh.“Oh, now I understand—this is a joke!” But for that minute, they didn’t know it was a joke because they were just hearing what a great song it was. At that moment, I manage to equate Maurice Ravel and Michael Sembello.
But flipping the script, do they not then also laugh at some of the more straight material from Solo Piano?
Yeah. Uh-huh.
See, that’s what saddens me. Is that they can’t wrap their head around two levels; not everything is a joke, not everything has to be serious; the two can co-exist, and one often draws you in closer so you can appreciate the other. But what if this guy is just a joke and that’s all there is to it?
That’s the challenge. Humour, to me, in the Jewish sense—as opposed to parody, which is just ha-ha, look at that idiot—Jewish humour is about look at THIS idiot [points to himself]. I’m the idiot. I’m the one who needs to protect myself also from being considered just a straight-ahead musician. Maybe that’s my flaw, that I need to create this distance by putting in a joke where it doesn’t need to be. And maybe people are laughing at my flaws. When I go out into the audience and tell someone, ‘Fuck you, you don’t know my hit song,’ that’s not just a joke—that’s a part of me and my frustration, that I’m not as well known as I think I should be. That’s why they’re laughing—because it’s true. (laughs)
You have a habit of reading fabricated nasty reviews on stage.
Yes, which you revealed in your review of the Massey Hall show! [for Eye Weekly, when he opened for Feist in the spring of 07; the review is now lost on the website’s redesign] I was very upset!
Granted. But I want to read you a real one, which was written about one of the greatest performers of the 20th century. It’s from the New York Times.
That was written about Liberace at Carnegie Hall in 1957.
Oh, I would just be so flattered if they wrote that about me. Really, that’s a wonderful compliment.
I was thinking today about other showmen who had little respect, who were mocked to a ridiculous degree, and tried to marry respectable music with showbiz. Do you think people would be attracted to something like Solo Piano if it wasn’t delivered with a wink and a nod?
I really doubt it.
Because there isn’t that side of it to the record itself—that’s very straight-up.
Maybe I’m underestimating what an audience can handle or not. It’s a good question. What if I started with a solo piano album after moving to Europe? I met a lot of classical musicians and jazz musicians who are really struggling. But when I hear their music, it isn’t very accessible. It goes hand in hand. The wink and the nod also enables me to write piano songs that are constructed like simple pop songs: they’re two minutes long with clear verses and choruses. Because my ego is so linked with what the public thinks of me, I cut out the part that only pleases myself. Other jazz and classical musicians rarely do that; they’re so concerned with proving their musicianship to themselves; they take long solos or develop a melody over a 10-minute improvisation piece, and it’s too challenging. Most people can’t witness that kind of masturbation and enjoy it. The idea that I just want to please the audience means that I write these simple songs, but it also means that I have to serve it with a side dish of entertainment.
The way you defined part of that entertainment before is that the joke is on you, but it is being about an expression of your frustrations: ‘Why doesn’t everyone know my hit song?’ If anyone did that on stage and played it straight, people would be totally turned off. The character you have on stage, everyone understands what’s happening.
I would rather put those flaws on display in the service of entertainment, put them out there first before someone can sense it. I find it awful when I’m watching a performance and someone is pretending to be such a humble guy, when you can tell that this guy is a shark. I’d rather say that first: I’m full of myself; I’m frustrated; I’m incapable of just living in a world where the music should do all the work for me. That way, no can say that about me first. It’s pre-emptive.
It’s the insincerity of sincerity.
Sure. In that superficial forum, you reveal so much more about yourself than when you’re supposedly being authentic.
Something struck me the other night about you singing a song with the chorus “you snooze you lose” at your first proper pop concert in Toronto in over ten years.
I wrote that song for Mocky at a time when he was wallowing in self-pity. He was very frustrated and blaming being misunderstood for his frustration with his success. I wrote that chorus: “do what you can to fight the blues” in a whatever-gets-you-through-the-night style. But in the end, as time passes, it’s about stepping up; it’s very parental advice, really. So you thought the song could be about, ‘Canada, you slept on me?’
The whole night I was wondering what that show must have been like…
Well, also think about what it was like after a show in Montreal, where there was a massive crowd of 800 people and an incredible media reaction, and then come to Toronto and have a half-filled Jane Mallett Theatre. I thought it would have been too much of a triumph. When I say that I court failure and learn from when it doesn’t work, that’s how it’s always been for me. It wouldn’t have been right to finish off the tour on such a high note in Montreal. I think I needed to be brought back down. I really appreciated that. It was painful, at that moment when I walked out in the audience and hung out in the 50 empty seats. I thought, this is what being Gonzales is all about. Feist, god bless her, has been such a unanimous slow burn to huge mainstream success, that I don’t learn much from watching it. There is no failure involved in that story…
No failure… yet!
(laughs) But in a way, it’s less interesting in the sense of how I approach my own career. For her, it’s very linear and it’s been remarkably slow so she can adjust to each step. For where she comes from, that’s the perfect trajectory for her. But for me, I think I would just find ways to twist that around and I would inherently build in bumps on the road.
You would sabotage it?
I wouldn’t say that. It’s more about learning, a long-term investment in being able to feel like what I’ve put out there is really my personality. For a lot of people, that’s a contradiction because they think Gonzales is just a character. But actually, I’m trying to steer it toward the truest expression of my contradictory, flawed personality. That’s why I would have trouble accepting accolades all the time. These transgressions, these redemptions are built into the story. Like the [pipe] organ show [in Montreal] or these other he-can’t-do-that moments. I need that. I need to feel like a tiger in a paper bag.
That’s why I didn’t make a second Solo Piano record, which could have been so seductive. Touring that project is such a joy. To come from a position of musical respect, in a way it would make my whole project more successful and solve so many problems for me. But the lesson of Solo Piano isn’t that I’ve found my formula; the lesson is that I should keep taking risks. So here I go into uncharted territory, the riskiest thing I can think of, which is singing—after working with Jamie Lidell and Feist and Jane Birkin. Now I’m going to get behind the mic? Well, yeah. I wrote a bunch of songs, but picked six that you can’t imagine anyone else singing.
Was a standing ovation at Massey Hall any kind of vindication for you?
I’ve only ever had one true, real standing ovation in my life. It was in Paris. Massey Hall was not a true standing ovation.
Why not? People didn’t know who you were. They weren’t expecting anything. They had no obligation to give you one.
A true standing ovation is when 100 per cent of the audience involuntarily has to jump to their feet. Not when two thirds do that.
So that just didn’t cut the mustard for you.
Those shows were incredibly vindicating for me, yes, in one way. But to be honest with you, I was opening for Feist.
And being introduced by Feist.
Sure. There’s a lot going on there that precludes it from being a true standing ovation. But of course those were really amazing shows, and I was genuinely moved to be coming home to the scene of the crime that spat me out. In a way, the origin of the supervillain Gonzales takes place in Toronto, where lightning hits the laboratory.
[I pull out of copy of Son’s Wolfstein album]. Is this the reason you left Canada?
(laughs) Yes, I was just too embarrassed by that terrible photo of me as a wolf.
What do you think of this record now? When was the last time you listened to it?
I played it for some people a few months ago. [opens it up, examines artwork] I, uh, I like it! It’s not quite Gonzales yet. But it was…
Part of the journey.
Yes, and it was a choice to make to handle the disappointment of being on this major label and the way I dealt with it was to court a certain kind of failure. Realizing that it made me stronger in the long run was one of the reasons that, when I got to Europe, I felt confident making ballsy moves once in a while. I had this great example of doing that and it being painful in the short term but positive in the long term. I had the label tell me they didn’t want to release the album. I insisted that they do, because the letter of the contract said they had to. They were like, ‘Why would you do that? You’re knowingly forcing us to do something we don’t want to do.’ ‘Well, this is what I need to do.’ The other choice would have been to make a different record, to be their bitch.
Is it true that you played Purple Rain in its entirety for the CD release for Thriller at the Rivoli?
Yeah! With different guest singers for each song. I was thinking about doing a recording project like that the other day—but whatever, that was before my morning coffee.
Is this really your first tour with a full band? [featuring SoCalled, Katie Moore, Matthew Flowers and Mocky]
I was on tour with various sources of playback, or I had a foil for part of the show—most notably Feist, for two years. Then I was doing the piano show. Once for our DVD we had a little pick-up band with Feist, Jamie [Lidell] and Mocky, but no real drummer. This is the first time, and I love it. Now I’m like, why didn’t I do this sooner?
I love how the stage show is tailored to the songs, that there’s a dramatic arc to the set. Songs like “Apology” and “Working Together” seem to be written for the show. Now I hear about a French TV show for Canal Plus. What’s going on?
I’m trying to diversify. The idea of doing something in the TV world is a way to get back to the idea of not knowing the rules of the game I’m playing.
Because you’ve obviously mastered this music shit.
I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered it, but it’s not like it was in the beginning when I didn’t know how the business worked. I’m inherently a truly conservative person in the sense that, when I know the rules of something, I will follow them. I’m not a rebellious personality. But in the absence of knowing the rules, I will try and do things my own way and find some cool shortcuts that work out for me. That’s what happened in music.
I started my whole music career with this short, sudden burst of major label experience with Son, and very quickly went over to Europe and tried to treat that like it was a bad dream I could wake up from. In the process, I ended up creating the rules to my own game. Now, six albums later and with all the production work, I don’t think there’s anything lost—I’ve gained so much. But also in a way, if something has been lost, it’s the sense of being in a fog of not knowing where things are. Doing the TV show brings me back to that.
Is it a talk show? A Muppet show?
No, it’s a fictional show that I’m writing and acting in with Teki Latex, who is the other main star, and Phillipe Katerine, another French guy.
Are you all in character as Gonzales, etc.?
No, we’re all fictional characters. It’s a real TV show. In July I’m shooting 12 eight-minute episodes for the Canal Plus website, and we’ll get on the air—or not—depending on the reaction to that.
-end-
But as he himself will admit, he needs villains and enemies in order to survive. He needs to subvert audience expectations at every turn: whether it’s the “potty-mouthed pranksta rapper” who turns into a serious composer of solo piano instrumentals in the middle of a set, or the producer who works with French music icons of decidedly different eras, from the classy Jane Birkin (Gainsbourg’s muse) to the cartoonish Teki Latex (of franco-hip-hop group TTC).
The first time I heard Gonzales was when a friend of a friend slipped me a cassette sometime in the early 90s, made by some guy he knew at McGill named Jason Beck. Beck went on to make a one-man demo album called Thriller, credited to Son, which was picked up by Warner Canada and landed a radio hit. The follow-up Son album, Wolfstein, died a stillbirth (for reasons explained in this interview), which caused Beck to flee the country for Berlin and reinvent himself as Gonzales, just as his friend Peaches was taking off with her equally reductionist and raunchy electro pop.
His first album as Gonzales, 2000's Uber Alles, was an uncharacteristically low-key, often pretty album featuring torch songs, traces of trip-hop and pieces for solo Rhodes piano, with a few subtle nods to the hip-hop direction he would soon embark on. The next few albums took his new “supervillain” character over the top, yielding a small handful of memorable but frivolous songs (“Take Me to Broadway”) that are really only worth revisiting to view the character arc of his career.
During the first part of this decade, he returned to Canada only for the holidays. Canada had already had its chance to love him; spurned, he had decided that Europe was it. “I don’t want to be a slave to the power of unrequited love,” he sings on his new album, Soft Power, a line that could well be about his conflicted feelings about his native country.
I ended up having dinner with him and some mutual friends one Toronto evening in December, 2004; he had just released the Solo Piano album in France, which would soon go on to be a smash success there—a record of silent film soundtracks and Satie-rical interludes that was considered so Parisian that a track from it opens the film Je T’Aime Paris. He came to Pop Montreal in October 2005 at the invitation of SoCalled, to share a bill with octogenarian “bongos and bagels” pianist Irving Fields. As a homecoming performance, it was stunning. Here’s my capsule review that ran in Exclaim:
Okay, really, tell us again why Gonzales wasted his time with that
cock-and-pussy show in Berlin for the last five years? Oh yeah, it got him famous. Because otherwise, a bunch of hipsters wouldn't be in a beautiful old theatre in his hometown of Montreal listening to him play solo piano for an hour. Few knew exactly what to expect, but Gonzales proved to be nothing short of an astounding pianist in every sense: composition, dynamics and dexterity. Playing off audience accompaniment, conversing easily in French and English, and encoring with a medley of the entire set amounted to a consummate performance. The Entertainist, indeed.
I ended up seeing the Solo Piano tour the next three times it came to Toronto or Montreal, including an ill-fated attempt to adapt the performance to pipe organ for Pop Montreal performance. But each of the other two occasions found him wowing audiences who really had no idea what to expect; if they didn’t know him personally, most people were there either because it was free (the Harbourfront show) or because he was opening for Feist (Massey Hall, where he got a standing ovation).
For this new album, Gonzales has assembled a band for the first time, and the set encompasses every stage of his career (excepting the Son years). He’s a complete and utter ham on stage, whether he’s attacking a Casio keyboard with a microphone for a percussive solo, crawling over the heads of audience members and haranguing them for not knowing his “hit” songs, or belting out a spot-on cover of the Phil Collins/Phillip Bailey 80s chestnut “Easy Lover” with his backing vocalist, Matthew Flowers. Gonzales doesn’t just play a set of songs and call it a concert; this is a Show, this is Entertainment, this is using artifice to simultaneously send-up and celebrate each of his musical strengths and personal weaknesses.
It gave us lots to talk about a couple of days later, for this article in the new issue of Exclaim.
Gonzales
May 12, 2008
Locale: Arts and Crafts corporate headquarters, Toronto
Soft Power: could you possibly pick a more Canadian title? Who are you, Lloyd Axworthy?
(laughs) I never thought of that. How is it Canadian? Other than that’s how Canadia sees itself?
Canadia??!! Wow, been a while, has it?
(laughs) That’s what Germans say. ‘You going to Canadia now?’
Lloyd Axworthy was Foreign Affairs Minister under Chretien, and his whole modus operandi was for Canada to be a soft power in the world. We don’t have the big guns to throw our weight around, so we have to be a soft power and use diplomacy to exert our influence.
You know who gets credited with the phrase ‘soft power,’ is Joseph Nye, who is a Harvard political science professor who wrote a book.
Yes, but most Canadians—if they know it at all—probably associate it with Axworthy.
The political angle of soft power, in a way, mirrors what I’ve gone through, which is being in a purely oppositional mode when I started, very much the ‘with-us-or-against-us’ mentality that George Bush espoused in 2000—the year of the first Gonzales album [Uber Alles]. Then I gradually realized that it might be better to co-opt people that you perceive as enemies, be more inclusive so that you can have more lasting influences. This I learned from being forced to work in a team on various projects, and see that the reward over the long-term outweighs the pain of suppressing your ego in the short term.
All joking aside, it’s something I didn’t learn profoundly until I was in the studio working with someone like Jane Birkin, who has a big entourage, and how they split up the work. This [album] was the first time I let someone into the process. I let Renaud Letang, who is my producer and partner, become the whole production team and I just became the artist. Normally we’re together on the other side of the window from the artist. That was already a big step for me, letting someone else in on the process. To a lesser extent, it was about putting together a group of other solo artists and literally dramatizing what’s in the lyrics, about the difficulty of having equality in those situations.
Early Gonzales is very much about the id, the ego, and release. It’s about casting off shame of different levels. I didn’t understand that completely at the time; I really enjoyed Uber Alles, but couldn’t get into the subsequent albums. Now they seem like part of an obvious arc, and they also make a lot of sense coming out the context of a very earnest and conservative Canadian musical scene of the mid-90s. Gonzales makes so much more sense as a reactionary in that context.
I think that’s the case. My experiences in Canada, my feelings of rejection, my wanting to prove something and deciding that what I thought held me back here would propel me forward over there. I felt I didn’t fit in back then. Indie rock rejected the idea of being masterful at music, first of all, and my ideas about entertainment and spectacle that were forming seemed to be taboo in that indie rock world.
And it was that [indie rock] world that dictated the predominant cultural conversation at the time.
Exactly. When I went over to Europe, it was with a sense of vengeance. That’s why I started to openly declare my musical genius. In some ways, it was done to shock, because it’s rare for someone to come out and say that. So part of it was shock value, but it was coming from a very sincere place. I do view music as something to be mastered, as something that has science and mathematical secrets to be learned that create emotions. The world I came from did not appreciate those. Luckily, the world I went to did.
And yet the first incarnation of Gonzales was very reductionist. It was very much about breaking things down to basic elements of groove and I don’t hear virtuosity in those early records, whereas I do in Solo Piano.
Yeah, but the melodies of Solo Piano are not that far off from the melodies on Uber Alles. First of all, there are three songs on Rhodes piano on Uber Alles; there are two songs sung by Sticky that are proper old-school torch songs. There’s really only two or three songs that have beats, but they seem to overshadow the rest.
Sure, but the next several albums are certainly reductionist.
Okay, so then in The Entertainist the virtuosity is in the rhymes, in the wordplay. They’re more like patter songs from The Music Man than they are a real rap song.
Feist once told me about the electro/hip-hop tour you did with her, where there would be a grand piano on stage covered with a sheet and various props, and that at one point in the show you would clear everything off it and sit down and play Solo Piano. Why did you want to flex that virtuosity again? What was the reaction?
It’s a question of surprise, definitely. It’s the same reason that, during a Solo Piano show, I break it down and read these fake reviews that touch on all kind of taboos like anti-Semitism, sexism and Canadian self-defeatism, coming from a supposedly good student of music with ‘good taste.’ That comes as a shock to some people, as does being a potty-mouth prankster rapper who demonstrates old-fashioned piano virtuosity.
It helps to entertain people. Surprise is a big element. You have to keep people in a sense of being shocked once in a while; it’s one of the many tricks of being an entertainer. As much as you have to please people, you also have to shock them and once in a while make them hate you and then earn back their respect. It’s something politicians do all the time. They calibrate according to the over-stepping and then ask for forgiveness, and it works to their advantage.
They become a hero for creating a compromise.
Exactly. That’s an old trick for any kind of mass communication. That’s just there to have those layers and be able to transgress and be redeemed.
I saw the Solo Piano show in three different incarnations on four different occasions. I saw the first Pop Montreal show, which was a revelation because I had no idea what you were going to do…
Right, where I lied and said I asked that they bring in the piano from my childhood home.
Right, and you told the same story at Massey Hall, if I recall. Then I saw the pipe organ show at Pop Montreal…
The unanimous failure, yes.
…the Harbourfront show, and then Massey Hall. And each time, most of the people there had no idea what to expect. Which was fascinating to me, after having seen it once and having some idea what was coming, to observe what people respond to the most and when they laugh—especially when they laugh at things that aren’t even jokes. What struck me was that I could probably count on one hand the number of people in those audiences who had ever been to a solo piano performance of any kind. Obviously there are hammy jokes and clear jokes, but there was also that weird thing when people laugh because they’re uncomfortable with beauty and the virtuosity when you’re playing it straight. Why is that funny? Can you sense that when you’re on stage?
Sure, I’m used to it. And it happens in a broader sense in between albums. The interesting reaction between Solo Piano and Soft Power is that so many people who felt that they could finally permit themselves to finally musically respect me are now completely threatened by the idea that I’ve gone back to some kind of bad taste or kitsch. It’s intentional: for me, Erik Satie is the same as Billy Joel. I have sincere musical respect for both. Just like when I would play “Maniac” in my Solo Piano show, for the first minute people wouldn’t know what song it was. They knew that they knew it and that it was a beautiful song, but all of the sudden they realized it was “Maniac” and they start to laugh.“Oh, now I understand—this is a joke!” But for that minute, they didn’t know it was a joke because they were just hearing what a great song it was. At that moment, I manage to equate Maurice Ravel and Michael Sembello.
But flipping the script, do they not then also laugh at some of the more straight material from Solo Piano?
Yeah. Uh-huh.
See, that’s what saddens me. Is that they can’t wrap their head around two levels; not everything is a joke, not everything has to be serious; the two can co-exist, and one often draws you in closer so you can appreciate the other. But what if this guy is just a joke and that’s all there is to it?
That’s the challenge. Humour, to me, in the Jewish sense—as opposed to parody, which is just ha-ha, look at that idiot—Jewish humour is about look at THIS idiot [points to himself]. I’m the idiot. I’m the one who needs to protect myself also from being considered just a straight-ahead musician. Maybe that’s my flaw, that I need to create this distance by putting in a joke where it doesn’t need to be. And maybe people are laughing at my flaws. When I go out into the audience and tell someone, ‘Fuck you, you don’t know my hit song,’ that’s not just a joke—that’s a part of me and my frustration, that I’m not as well known as I think I should be. That’s why they’re laughing—because it’s true. (laughs)
You have a habit of reading fabricated nasty reviews on stage.
Yes, which you revealed in your review of the Massey Hall show! [for Eye Weekly, when he opened for Feist in the spring of 07; the review is now lost on the website’s redesign] I was very upset!
Granted. But I want to read you a real one, which was written about one of the greatest performers of the 20th century. It’s from the New York Times.
His music “must be served with all the available tricks, as loud as possible, as soft as possible, and as sentimental as possible. It’s almost all showmanship topped by whipped cream and cherries. When it is too difficult, he simplifies it. When it is too simple, he complicates it.” His sloppy technique included “slackness of rhythms, wrong tempos, distorted phrasing, an excess of prettification and sentimentality, a failure to stick to what the composer has written”.
That was written about Liberace at Carnegie Hall in 1957.
Oh, I would just be so flattered if they wrote that about me. Really, that’s a wonderful compliment.
I was thinking today about other showmen who had little respect, who were mocked to a ridiculous degree, and tried to marry respectable music with showbiz. Do you think people would be attracted to something like Solo Piano if it wasn’t delivered with a wink and a nod?
I really doubt it.
Because there isn’t that side of it to the record itself—that’s very straight-up.
Maybe I’m underestimating what an audience can handle or not. It’s a good question. What if I started with a solo piano album after moving to Europe? I met a lot of classical musicians and jazz musicians who are really struggling. But when I hear their music, it isn’t very accessible. It goes hand in hand. The wink and the nod also enables me to write piano songs that are constructed like simple pop songs: they’re two minutes long with clear verses and choruses. Because my ego is so linked with what the public thinks of me, I cut out the part that only pleases myself. Other jazz and classical musicians rarely do that; they’re so concerned with proving their musicianship to themselves; they take long solos or develop a melody over a 10-minute improvisation piece, and it’s too challenging. Most people can’t witness that kind of masturbation and enjoy it. The idea that I just want to please the audience means that I write these simple songs, but it also means that I have to serve it with a side dish of entertainment.
The way you defined part of that entertainment before is that the joke is on you, but it is being about an expression of your frustrations: ‘Why doesn’t everyone know my hit song?’ If anyone did that on stage and played it straight, people would be totally turned off. The character you have on stage, everyone understands what’s happening.
I would rather put those flaws on display in the service of entertainment, put them out there first before someone can sense it. I find it awful when I’m watching a performance and someone is pretending to be such a humble guy, when you can tell that this guy is a shark. I’d rather say that first: I’m full of myself; I’m frustrated; I’m incapable of just living in a world where the music should do all the work for me. That way, no can say that about me first. It’s pre-emptive.
It’s the insincerity of sincerity.
Sure. In that superficial forum, you reveal so much more about yourself than when you’re supposedly being authentic.
Something struck me the other night about you singing a song with the chorus “you snooze you lose” at your first proper pop concert in Toronto in over ten years.
I wrote that song for Mocky at a time when he was wallowing in self-pity. He was very frustrated and blaming being misunderstood for his frustration with his success. I wrote that chorus: “do what you can to fight the blues” in a whatever-gets-you-through-the-night style. But in the end, as time passes, it’s about stepping up; it’s very parental advice, really. So you thought the song could be about, ‘Canada, you slept on me?’
The whole night I was wondering what that show must have been like…
Well, also think about what it was like after a show in Montreal, where there was a massive crowd of 800 people and an incredible media reaction, and then come to Toronto and have a half-filled Jane Mallett Theatre. I thought it would have been too much of a triumph. When I say that I court failure and learn from when it doesn’t work, that’s how it’s always been for me. It wouldn’t have been right to finish off the tour on such a high note in Montreal. I think I needed to be brought back down. I really appreciated that. It was painful, at that moment when I walked out in the audience and hung out in the 50 empty seats. I thought, this is what being Gonzales is all about. Feist, god bless her, has been such a unanimous slow burn to huge mainstream success, that I don’t learn much from watching it. There is no failure involved in that story…
No failure… yet!
(laughs) But in a way, it’s less interesting in the sense of how I approach my own career. For her, it’s very linear and it’s been remarkably slow so she can adjust to each step. For where she comes from, that’s the perfect trajectory for her. But for me, I think I would just find ways to twist that around and I would inherently build in bumps on the road.
You would sabotage it?
I wouldn’t say that. It’s more about learning, a long-term investment in being able to feel like what I’ve put out there is really my personality. For a lot of people, that’s a contradiction because they think Gonzales is just a character. But actually, I’m trying to steer it toward the truest expression of my contradictory, flawed personality. That’s why I would have trouble accepting accolades all the time. These transgressions, these redemptions are built into the story. Like the [pipe] organ show [in Montreal] or these other he-can’t-do-that moments. I need that. I need to feel like a tiger in a paper bag.
That’s why I didn’t make a second Solo Piano record, which could have been so seductive. Touring that project is such a joy. To come from a position of musical respect, in a way it would make my whole project more successful and solve so many problems for me. But the lesson of Solo Piano isn’t that I’ve found my formula; the lesson is that I should keep taking risks. So here I go into uncharted territory, the riskiest thing I can think of, which is singing—after working with Jamie Lidell and Feist and Jane Birkin. Now I’m going to get behind the mic? Well, yeah. I wrote a bunch of songs, but picked six that you can’t imagine anyone else singing.
Was a standing ovation at Massey Hall any kind of vindication for you?
I’ve only ever had one true, real standing ovation in my life. It was in Paris. Massey Hall was not a true standing ovation.
Why not? People didn’t know who you were. They weren’t expecting anything. They had no obligation to give you one.
A true standing ovation is when 100 per cent of the audience involuntarily has to jump to their feet. Not when two thirds do that.
So that just didn’t cut the mustard for you.
Those shows were incredibly vindicating for me, yes, in one way. But to be honest with you, I was opening for Feist.
And being introduced by Feist.
Sure. There’s a lot going on there that precludes it from being a true standing ovation. But of course those were really amazing shows, and I was genuinely moved to be coming home to the scene of the crime that spat me out. In a way, the origin of the supervillain Gonzales takes place in Toronto, where lightning hits the laboratory.
[I pull out of copy of Son’s Wolfstein album]. Is this the reason you left Canada?
(laughs) Yes, I was just too embarrassed by that terrible photo of me as a wolf.
What do you think of this record now? When was the last time you listened to it?
I played it for some people a few months ago. [opens it up, examines artwork] I, uh, I like it! It’s not quite Gonzales yet. But it was…
Part of the journey.
Yes, and it was a choice to make to handle the disappointment of being on this major label and the way I dealt with it was to court a certain kind of failure. Realizing that it made me stronger in the long run was one of the reasons that, when I got to Europe, I felt confident making ballsy moves once in a while. I had this great example of doing that and it being painful in the short term but positive in the long term. I had the label tell me they didn’t want to release the album. I insisted that they do, because the letter of the contract said they had to. They were like, ‘Why would you do that? You’re knowingly forcing us to do something we don’t want to do.’ ‘Well, this is what I need to do.’ The other choice would have been to make a different record, to be their bitch.
Is it true that you played Purple Rain in its entirety for the CD release for Thriller at the Rivoli?
Yeah! With different guest singers for each song. I was thinking about doing a recording project like that the other day—but whatever, that was before my morning coffee.
Is this really your first tour with a full band? [featuring SoCalled, Katie Moore, Matthew Flowers and Mocky]
I was on tour with various sources of playback, or I had a foil for part of the show—most notably Feist, for two years. Then I was doing the piano show. Once for our DVD we had a little pick-up band with Feist, Jamie [Lidell] and Mocky, but no real drummer. This is the first time, and I love it. Now I’m like, why didn’t I do this sooner?
I love how the stage show is tailored to the songs, that there’s a dramatic arc to the set. Songs like “Apology” and “Working Together” seem to be written for the show. Now I hear about a French TV show for Canal Plus. What’s going on?
I’m trying to diversify. The idea of doing something in the TV world is a way to get back to the idea of not knowing the rules of the game I’m playing.
Because you’ve obviously mastered this music shit.
I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered it, but it’s not like it was in the beginning when I didn’t know how the business worked. I’m inherently a truly conservative person in the sense that, when I know the rules of something, I will follow them. I’m not a rebellious personality. But in the absence of knowing the rules, I will try and do things my own way and find some cool shortcuts that work out for me. That’s what happened in music.
I started my whole music career with this short, sudden burst of major label experience with Son, and very quickly went over to Europe and tried to treat that like it was a bad dream I could wake up from. In the process, I ended up creating the rules to my own game. Now, six albums later and with all the production work, I don’t think there’s anything lost—I’ve gained so much. But also in a way, if something has been lost, it’s the sense of being in a fog of not knowing where things are. Doing the TV show brings me back to that.
Is it a talk show? A Muppet show?
No, it’s a fictional show that I’m writing and acting in with Teki Latex, who is the other main star, and Phillipe Katerine, another French guy.
Are you all in character as Gonzales, etc.?
No, we’re all fictional characters. It’s a real TV show. In July I’m shooting 12 eight-minute episodes for the Canal Plus website, and we’ll get on the air—or not—depending on the reaction to that.
-end-
Thursday, May 15, 2008
May 08 live reviews
Saturday, May 3
Pas Chic Chic, Elfin Saddle @ Whippersnapper Gallery
An Albatross, Aa at Sneaky Dee’s
With even a small festival that’s as well curated as Eric Warner's Over the Top, some acts are bound to be lost in the shuffle.
Sadly, that was the case for Montreal’s Pas Chic Chic, who played to less than a dozen people in a spacious art gallery where the acoustics did the band no favours. Their 2008 album Au Contraire is a captivating mix of French pop and psychedelics, though how it would come off live was a mystery—especially considering that it’s a band fronted by Roger Tellier-Craig of Fly Pan Am, perhaps the most abrasive and alienating acts to emerge on Montreal’s Constellation Records. I do remember a DJ mix he did for Brave New Waves of French pop oddities, so I knew there was another side of him.
Live, Tellier-Craig turns out to be a completely engaging front man, dancing up a storm, singing directly to the audience and rarely stopping to approach his keyboard. The rest of the band are a visual treat as well, dressed exactly like you would expect for a Montreal rock band—if they were playing on a Radio-Canada after-school dance party TV show in 1972. The muddy acoustics dulled some of their impact, but the band themselves lost the plot during the one jamming interlude near the end of the set. But who can blame them? Try as they did to make the most out of this gig, they can be forgiven for not being inspired to higher flights of fancy. This band needs a bigger stage and a bigger sound; someone please bring them back to Toronto immediately—if they’ll come back.
Opening act Elfin Saddle reside in Montreal, but they very much look like they emerged from a cabin in the woods somewhere on their native Vancouver Island, dragging with them their instrumental detritus: accordions sawed in half, toy drum kits, ukuleles and saws. They sing in two styles: the cracked holler of a mountain man and that of a quirky Japanese girl, reaching improbable harmonies between those two poles. Their instrumental inventiveness drives the live show, especially the way they play off each other rhythmically on makeshift drum kits. They're already scheduled back in Toronto, as part of Pop Montreal's Pop Off show at NXNE: June 14 at the Silver Dollar with Slim Twig and Caroline Keating.
Over at Sneaky Dee’s, a capacity crowd was there to see a new incarnation of Toronto favourites The Creeping Nobodies, as well as the all-out assault of headliners An Albatross. I missed the Nobodies, but had to suffer through Aa (pronounced “big A little A”) who weren’t much more imaginative than their name. With three drummers and electronics, they promised a huge, punishing sound and delivered—but didn’t do anything with it, rhythmically or otherwise. If you’ve always wanted to hear Henry Rollins front a drum circle, this is your band.
An Albatross, on the other hand, deliver a manic rock’n’roll show to end all manic rock’n’roll shows. Like Fantomas sent back to the garage, their spastic speed metal contorts itself relentlessly but miraculously always ends up back on its feet—as does singer Ed Gieda, who looks like a Robert Crumb drawing of a young Steven Tyler. I seem to remember some more dynamics in their set when I last saw them in NYC about three years ago, but no one should ever go to An Albatross show expecting subtlety. Their debut album title said it all: Eat Lightning, Shit Thunder.
Just before they took the stage, a couple in their late 50s entered Sneaky Dee’s, meaning that I was instantly no longer the oldest person in the room. I assumed they were merely curious barhoppers, and so I expected them to leave once An Albatross began. Surprisingly, they didn’t. Even more surprisingly, they made their way to the front, where I recognized the lady as one of my favourite artists of all time: Mary Margaret O’Hara. Her date was snapping pics of the band through their whole set, including when Gieda climbed on top of the window ledge next to O’Hara, lay down and started grinding the bar shelf, much to her delight and amusement. O’Hara is an enigmatic figure in this town, but certainly not a recluse; nevertheless, this was the last gig where I’d expect to see her. A Mike Patton project, maybe, but perhaps the legend of An Albatross is spreading beyond the abrasive art-punk-prog scene.
Tuesday, May 13
Le Mystere de Voix Bulgares @ St. Andrew's Church
It was only two years ago that Eastern European music was the Unexpected International Influence surfacing in various incarnations: the "gypsy punk" of Gogol Bordello; the romantic brass of Beirut; Geoff Berner's exploration of the political and social roots of Roma and klezmer music; the dancefloor recontextualization of Shantel and the Electric Gypsyland compilations; the cultural mash-up of Balkan Beat Box; and on a smaller scale, greater awareness of groups like Kocani Orkestar and Taraf de Haidouks.
And yet for all the excitement of the new school, it's worth remembering one of the first sensations to emerge from behind the Iron Curtain back in the 80s: Le Mystere de Voix Bulgares, aka The Bulgarian State Female Radio and Television Choir (several of those adjectives were dropped gradually during the group's 50-year existence). Their haunting harmonics are a strange amalgam of Roma, Arabic, Turkish and Hebrew, and utterly alien to much of what we associate with choral music—most of which I would never consider going to see in performance, unless my own flesh and blood was involved (which, for the record, he is—my brother's ensemble backed up Kenny Rogers once, true story).
But Les Voix Bulgares are something else entirely, which is why they've survived the fickle flavour-of-the-month approach to trends in world music—this Toronto performance was near-capacity, filled with enthusiastic fans of all ages. And their sound is such a singular, unique and technically accomplished entity that they're unlikely to be assimilated into some basement indie rocker's exotic sonic daydreaming. Balkan Beat Box's track "Bulgarian Chicks" is the lone exception; but hearing two or three Bulgarian voices doesn't compare to the rich experience of hearing the full choir.
While witnessing the glory of their live sound, I remembered enough from my university theory courses to know that part of the choir's appeal lies in their use of harmonic seconds and ninths, but a bit of basic research told me that there are also a lot of parallel fourths and fifths—two things which are absolutely taboo in formal Western European theory. (They're also part of the reason I failed Tonal Harmony at a formative time when I was discovering Sonic Youth and Thelonious Monk, two artists who changed any notions of harmony—conscious or subconscious—that I may have had up to that point.) Being absorbed in the magical dissonance of the Voix Bulgares makes it downright shocking when at one point they constructed a traditional triad, Twist-and-Shout style, throwing everyone for a loop and reminding us what we think choral music should sound like—and how boring it is in comparison.
Even more fascinating is the rhythmic complexity. You can't splice this stuff easily into a remix, because there never appears to be a consistent meter no matter how many times you count to 5, 7, 11, or 13. That makes the role of classy conductor Dora Hristova even more impressive, when she's ensuring that five or six seemingly incongruous rhythmic patterns interlock and end up on the same page.
This is all egghead talk compared to the visceral pleasures of the Voix—not just the beautifully sonorous shapes of their harmonies, but the way they incorporate yelps, ticks and chatter into the pieces (which is not uncommon in much Eastern European vocal music, as Iva Bittova fans will tell you). And then there's their physical presence: the first set featured their traditional dress; the second more modern formal gowns. Each set also featured a variety of featured soloists, duos, quartets and sextets—including the surprise appearance of two token dudes—giving the set more range than initially expected.
Still mysterious after all these years, the Voix Bulgares are still a unique and powerful live experience. Their current North American tour dates can be found here, including two dates in Vancouver and one each in Edmonton and Nanaimo.
The presenters of the event, Small World Music, always have a variety of worth events going on in Toronto. Their next event is Japan's Yoshida Brothers on May 25; the Costa Rican/Iranian guitar duo Strunz and Farah are on June 1; both events are at Harbourfront's Enwave Theatre. Small World also has two high-profile Iranian acts coming up: singer Shajarian and the Ava Ensemble at Roy Thomson Hall on June 6, and Zarbang, a Persian Qawwali percussion ensemble, at the Ontario Science Centre on June 1.
And on the Eastern European tip, David Buchbinder presents his Odessa/Havana project at the Lula Lounge on June 11.
Pas Chic Chic, Elfin Saddle @ Whippersnapper Gallery
An Albatross, Aa at Sneaky Dee’s
With even a small festival that’s as well curated as Eric Warner's Over the Top, some acts are bound to be lost in the shuffle.
Sadly, that was the case for Montreal’s Pas Chic Chic, who played to less than a dozen people in a spacious art gallery where the acoustics did the band no favours. Their 2008 album Au Contraire is a captivating mix of French pop and psychedelics, though how it would come off live was a mystery—especially considering that it’s a band fronted by Roger Tellier-Craig of Fly Pan Am, perhaps the most abrasive and alienating acts to emerge on Montreal’s Constellation Records. I do remember a DJ mix he did for Brave New Waves of French pop oddities, so I knew there was another side of him.
Live, Tellier-Craig turns out to be a completely engaging front man, dancing up a storm, singing directly to the audience and rarely stopping to approach his keyboard. The rest of the band are a visual treat as well, dressed exactly like you would expect for a Montreal rock band—if they were playing on a Radio-Canada after-school dance party TV show in 1972. The muddy acoustics dulled some of their impact, but the band themselves lost the plot during the one jamming interlude near the end of the set. But who can blame them? Try as they did to make the most out of this gig, they can be forgiven for not being inspired to higher flights of fancy. This band needs a bigger stage and a bigger sound; someone please bring them back to Toronto immediately—if they’ll come back.
Opening act Elfin Saddle reside in Montreal, but they very much look like they emerged from a cabin in the woods somewhere on their native Vancouver Island, dragging with them their instrumental detritus: accordions sawed in half, toy drum kits, ukuleles and saws. They sing in two styles: the cracked holler of a mountain man and that of a quirky Japanese girl, reaching improbable harmonies between those two poles. Their instrumental inventiveness drives the live show, especially the way they play off each other rhythmically on makeshift drum kits. They're already scheduled back in Toronto, as part of Pop Montreal's Pop Off show at NXNE: June 14 at the Silver Dollar with Slim Twig and Caroline Keating.
Over at Sneaky Dee’s, a capacity crowd was there to see a new incarnation of Toronto favourites The Creeping Nobodies, as well as the all-out assault of headliners An Albatross. I missed the Nobodies, but had to suffer through Aa (pronounced “big A little A”) who weren’t much more imaginative than their name. With three drummers and electronics, they promised a huge, punishing sound and delivered—but didn’t do anything with it, rhythmically or otherwise. If you’ve always wanted to hear Henry Rollins front a drum circle, this is your band.
An Albatross, on the other hand, deliver a manic rock’n’roll show to end all manic rock’n’roll shows. Like Fantomas sent back to the garage, their spastic speed metal contorts itself relentlessly but miraculously always ends up back on its feet—as does singer Ed Gieda, who looks like a Robert Crumb drawing of a young Steven Tyler. I seem to remember some more dynamics in their set when I last saw them in NYC about three years ago, but no one should ever go to An Albatross show expecting subtlety. Their debut album title said it all: Eat Lightning, Shit Thunder.
Just before they took the stage, a couple in their late 50s entered Sneaky Dee’s, meaning that I was instantly no longer the oldest person in the room. I assumed they were merely curious barhoppers, and so I expected them to leave once An Albatross began. Surprisingly, they didn’t. Even more surprisingly, they made their way to the front, where I recognized the lady as one of my favourite artists of all time: Mary Margaret O’Hara. Her date was snapping pics of the band through their whole set, including when Gieda climbed on top of the window ledge next to O’Hara, lay down and started grinding the bar shelf, much to her delight and amusement. O’Hara is an enigmatic figure in this town, but certainly not a recluse; nevertheless, this was the last gig where I’d expect to see her. A Mike Patton project, maybe, but perhaps the legend of An Albatross is spreading beyond the abrasive art-punk-prog scene.
Tuesday, May 13
Le Mystere de Voix Bulgares @ St. Andrew's Church
It was only two years ago that Eastern European music was the Unexpected International Influence surfacing in various incarnations: the "gypsy punk" of Gogol Bordello; the romantic brass of Beirut; Geoff Berner's exploration of the political and social roots of Roma and klezmer music; the dancefloor recontextualization of Shantel and the Electric Gypsyland compilations; the cultural mash-up of Balkan Beat Box; and on a smaller scale, greater awareness of groups like Kocani Orkestar and Taraf de Haidouks.
And yet for all the excitement of the new school, it's worth remembering one of the first sensations to emerge from behind the Iron Curtain back in the 80s: Le Mystere de Voix Bulgares, aka The Bulgarian State Female Radio and Television Choir (several of those adjectives were dropped gradually during the group's 50-year existence). Their haunting harmonics are a strange amalgam of Roma, Arabic, Turkish and Hebrew, and utterly alien to much of what we associate with choral music—most of which I would never consider going to see in performance, unless my own flesh and blood was involved (which, for the record, he is—my brother's ensemble backed up Kenny Rogers once, true story).
But Les Voix Bulgares are something else entirely, which is why they've survived the fickle flavour-of-the-month approach to trends in world music—this Toronto performance was near-capacity, filled with enthusiastic fans of all ages. And their sound is such a singular, unique and technically accomplished entity that they're unlikely to be assimilated into some basement indie rocker's exotic sonic daydreaming. Balkan Beat Box's track "Bulgarian Chicks" is the lone exception; but hearing two or three Bulgarian voices doesn't compare to the rich experience of hearing the full choir.
While witnessing the glory of their live sound, I remembered enough from my university theory courses to know that part of the choir's appeal lies in their use of harmonic seconds and ninths, but a bit of basic research told me that there are also a lot of parallel fourths and fifths—two things which are absolutely taboo in formal Western European theory. (They're also part of the reason I failed Tonal Harmony at a formative time when I was discovering Sonic Youth and Thelonious Monk, two artists who changed any notions of harmony—conscious or subconscious—that I may have had up to that point.) Being absorbed in the magical dissonance of the Voix Bulgares makes it downright shocking when at one point they constructed a traditional triad, Twist-and-Shout style, throwing everyone for a loop and reminding us what we think choral music should sound like—and how boring it is in comparison.
Even more fascinating is the rhythmic complexity. You can't splice this stuff easily into a remix, because there never appears to be a consistent meter no matter how many times you count to 5, 7, 11, or 13. That makes the role of classy conductor Dora Hristova even more impressive, when she's ensuring that five or six seemingly incongruous rhythmic patterns interlock and end up on the same page.
This is all egghead talk compared to the visceral pleasures of the Voix—not just the beautifully sonorous shapes of their harmonies, but the way they incorporate yelps, ticks and chatter into the pieces (which is not uncommon in much Eastern European vocal music, as Iva Bittova fans will tell you). And then there's their physical presence: the first set featured their traditional dress; the second more modern formal gowns. Each set also featured a variety of featured soloists, duos, quartets and sextets—including the surprise appearance of two token dudes—giving the set more range than initially expected.
Still mysterious after all these years, the Voix Bulgares are still a unique and powerful live experience. Their current North American tour dates can be found here, including two dates in Vancouver and one each in Edmonton and Nanaimo.
The presenters of the event, Small World Music, always have a variety of worth events going on in Toronto. Their next event is Japan's Yoshida Brothers on May 25; the Costa Rican/Iranian guitar duo Strunz and Farah are on June 1; both events are at Harbourfront's Enwave Theatre. Small World also has two high-profile Iranian acts coming up: singer Shajarian and the Ava Ensemble at Roy Thomson Hall on June 6, and Zarbang, a Persian Qawwali percussion ensemble, at the Ontario Science Centre on June 1.
And on the Eastern European tip, David Buchbinder presents his Odessa/Havana project at the Lula Lounge on June 11.
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