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Booka Shade - Planetary/City Tales

What would you do after recording an album like Movements? How would you top it? Would you even try? After tracks as anthemic as “Mandarine Girl” and “In White Rooms”, anything less uplifting would seem like a come down. So if you’re not gonna top it, what are the other options? Go faux fairy acoustic? Hey, it’s working for Goldfrapp’ kind of. Or maybe you could try becoming the love child of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits. Brinkmann does a pretty good job of it. Receiving the promo copy for Booka Shade’s new EP, this is what I was wondering: where would Booka Shade take their sound? Would they consolidate, make a transition, or try something radically new? The cover suggested concessions to new rave (egad’all those colours), but somehow, I just couldn’t imagine the duo abandoning their signature sound.

The result is something slightly less. The A1, the club mix of “Planetary Tales”, is carried by a melody heavily indebted to 80s synth pop like Yello and Telex hitched to a fun-loving and well-made tech-house structure with lots of dry, ping-pong beats and a heaving synth-bass line ornamented with some squiggles and whistles. It’s nice enough, but nothing special. Unsurprisingly, the dub mix of “Planetary” presents more or less the same arrangement, minus the melodic hooks. It’s a serviceable minimal track. The pick of the three is the b-side, the Neon Dub of “City Tales”. One of the sonic features of the track is a looped hit that sounds a bit like the ring-pull on an aluminium can being plucked?in fact, this is really the only truly memorable thing about the whole EP.

Don’t get me wrong, there?s nothing to dislike about any of the material here, it’s just that after the last note fades there’s just no compulsion to hit repeat, and when you do revisit it, well, if you’re me, you’ll just have this uncanny feeling of being underwhelmed again, at least until you hear that enjoyable ring pull noise. Is this really the same production duo that made mp3 music as hyperdramatic and emotive as “Night Falls” or “Body Language”? I guess the guys are trying to be subtle after the bombastic excesses of Movements, but when the overall effect is ever so “slightly underwhelming”, you start wishing they’d indulged themselves with a regression back into peaktime 2006. Either that, or taken up the ukulele.
Source: residentadvisor.net

Tags: booka shade, city tales
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Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple

When Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo strike a pose together as Gnarls Barkley, they’ll dress up as anything from Star Wars characters to the Dude and Walter from The Big Lebowski. But their greatest costume concept has to be Hunter S. Thompson and his attorney, because that captures the fear and loathing in their mp3 music. “Crazy” seemed jovial on the surface, which is why it became the world’s favorite song in 2006. But the longer you listened, the creepier it felt — especially Cee-Lo’s cackle in the second verse.

The Odd Couple is even doomier — it’s like the laugh from “Crazy” stretched out into a whole album of paranoid bad weed vibes. Thanks to Danger Mouse, the album has the always unpredictable sonic brilliance of their first collaboration, St. Elsewhere, even when the songwriting misses the mark. They don’t try for any crowd-pleasing pop energy — instead, Danger Mouse filters Cee-Lo’s gospel-trained voice through alien studio effects over druggy, distorted funk loops for the kind of sound they called “trip-hop” back in the Nineties. “Charity Case” is Gnarls at their finest, with chain-gang grunts and gasps, tinkling chimes, spy-movie guitar and R&B organ, as Cee-Lo sings, “How are you?/Knock on wood/Well, I’m not doing so good.” No kidding.

Former Neutral Milk Hotel protégé Danger Mouse comes up with some amazing tracks here: “Run” sounds like the go-go-bar scene in a vintage biker flick, chopped up into staccato blasts of funk. “Surprise” is Sixties L.A. sunshine pop gone sour, and the Tricky-style ballad “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” lets Cee-Lo wail about drugs and death. The Odd Couple has painfully dull moments (”Blind Mary,” “Open Book”), and Cee-Lo whines “Whatever” in what sounds like a lame parody of all the mediocre indie bands who spent 2006 doing clueless “Crazy” covers. But that’s the premise of The Odd Couple: This time, Gnarls don’t want anybody to miss how bummed out they are.

Tags: big lebowski, dude, gnarls barkley, the odd couple
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“X” by Kylie Minogue

Kylie Minogue has never commanded the zeitgeist like Madonna or stalked a stage with the queenly cool of Beyoncé or hurtled across octaves like Mariah. But in a two-decade career, the pint-size Aussie has ruled the British and European charts by supplying nonstop fizzy fun — she’s pop divadom’s party planner in chief.

Minogue’s tenth album arrives on the heels of her battle with breast cancer; thankfully, the experience hasn’t made her mp3 music discernibly deeper. X compiles wall-to-wall club thumpers — the clomping electro-pop single “2 Hearts” has been a dance-floor smash for months — and songs about sex, dancing and sexed-up dancing. In “Nu-Di-Ty,” one of two buzzing, percolating tracks by Swedish beat wizards Bloodshy and Avant (Britney Spears, Madonna), Minogue commands her man to perform a striptease: “Just pop that zipper for me/And work that thing out.”

Minogue has a pipsqueak voice to match her diminutive frame, and she wisely cedes the mp3 musical spotlight to her producers, allowing her vocals to be processed and thoroughly T-Pained. But she permits herself the occasional moment of subtle diva hauteur. “Wow” opens with perky house-reminiscent keyboard chords that nod to her big hits of twenty years ago — like Madonna, she has stuck around long enough to revive her own Eighties sound.

Tags: kylie minogue, kylie minogue mp3, kylie minogue music, minogue, x
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George Strait “Troubadour”

Like a bottle of Heinz ketchup on a diner counter, a George Strait album is a reassuring product. At fifty-five, dude’s spent his life making fairly low-bullshit, high-yield mainstream country: Since 1981’s Strait Country, his LPs have gone platinum or better thirty-two times, and the four-CD anthology Strait Out of the Box has shifted 8 million units. That’s a lot of Resistol cowboy hats, pardner (although thanks to his endorsement deal, Strait no doubt gets ‘em free). Troubadour is up to the usual standards, maybe better. There’s witty, swaggering honky-tonk (”Make Her Fall in Love With Me Song”) and the requisite hot-fiddle swing number (”West Texas Town”). “House of Cash” is a rock-edged duet with Patty Loveless about the blaze that leveled Johnny Cash’s family home last year. Moving tribute or pop vampirism? Depends on your taste for sentimentality. Ditto the hit single “I Saw God Today,” which is so disarmingly plain-spoken and deftly universal, only the most hard-boiled atheist could be offended. It’s one example of why folks call Strait “King George” — although this monarch is a uniter, not a divider.

Tags: george strait, troubadour
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Black Keys “Attack and Release”

Last year, Gnarls Barkley’s sound scientist, Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton, asked the Black Keys to write songs for an album by Ike Turner. When Turner died in December, so did the project, but its ideas took root. Burton was drafted to produce the next album by the group from Akron, Ohio, and the result is the Keys’ most multicolored set: A psychedelic hybrid of vintage Southern R&B, brutish British Invasion rock, and country blues that calls to mind race-blurring Seventies badasses like Jim Ford and Tony Joe White. That’s great for the Keys, who are often obscured by the shadow of fellow Midwestern drums-and-guitar duo the White Stripes. Sure, minimalist stompers like “I Got Mine” and “Remember When (Side B),” all raw rock riffs and cymbal sizzles, echo early Jack ‘n’ Meg. But “Psychotic Girl” is something else, with its banjo opening and spook-house choir. Ditto the Memphis soul of “Lies” and “Oceans and Streams,” which show vocalist Dan Auerbach as a first-rate updater of old-school tradition. Note to Amy Winehouse: Book these dudes for a collaboration.
Source: rollingstone.com

Tags: Amy Winehouse, Black Keys, Black Keys mp3, mp3 review
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Move D & Benjamin Brunn – Honey

DJs who make a beeline for the Move D section in record shops are usually deep house heads?his recent 12-inches have ranged from bass-driven and bumpin? (?Got Thing? on Philpot) to austere and bumpin? (?Quit Quttin?? on Uzuri) to sampledelic and bumpin’ (?Track 1? on Workshop). But there are other sides to Move D, many of which show themselves in collaboration. He?s made piles of ambient records with Pete Namlook, he releases jazz records as Conjoint, and this month alone he?s putting out a CD of radio play soundtracks with writer Thomas Meinecke.

This latest Move D record is also a collaboration, this time with ambient techno producer Benjamin Brunn. The pair have made one album before (Let?s Call it a Day, BineMusic, 2006), which I have not heard, but judging by this excellent 12-inch it?s going straight on the list. The key to the sound is the label, Smallville, which like fellow Hamburg imprint Dial, is all about crossing deep house signifiers with lush ambient atmospherics. Reported to be culled from a series of live jams, the 12-inch gets the balance right between Move D?s house impulse and Brunn?s liquid notes on the b-side ?Melons?, one of the more sonically deep tracks of recent times. It?s ten minutes of warm, delicate groove and curling buzzpads that?s so lush and luxuriant it makes the record sound one centimetre thick.

Elsewhere there is a beatless ambient piece, ?After the Rain?, which is also gorgeous but just one minute long, and ?Honey?, which seems heavily indebted to Minilogue?s recent brand of improvised squiggle funk. I?m not so convinced about the direction of the latter, but ?Melons? is worth price of entry alone, hitting a sweet spot that?s both achingly simple and totally necessary at a time when European house music is trumpeting austere emptiness as a virtue. Fill your ears up with this.
Source: residentadvisor.net

Stax Does The Beatles

The interplay of music and race in the Sixties is usually perceived as a one-way street — white musicians drawing on (or, worse, ripping off) the songs and styles of black artists. Stax Does the Beatles demonstrates that the influence occasionally ran in the other direction, to delightful effect.

A hotbed of funk intensity, the Memphis-based Stax label housed a stable of hit-makers who wrote and produced their own material, but were also keen interpreters. In the Beatles, artists like Otis Redding, Booker T. Jones and Isaac Hayes heard terrific songs that they could put their own imprint on. They also heard a route to musical experimentation and a potentially larger audience.

Redding’s combustible version of “Day Tripper” (a 1966 single included here in an alternate version) dispenses with verses and choruses, while supercharging the song’s killer riff. Hayes, meanwhile, transforms George Harrison’s “Something” into an eleven-minute psychedelic extravaganza. Booker T. and the MG’s combine soul and mystery in their instrumental readings of “Eleanor Rigby,” “Lady Madonna” and “Michelle.” MG’s guitarist Steve Cropper takes “With a Little Help From My Friends” as the occasion for both melodic, jazz-style exploration and roaring fuzz-tone leads.

Beatles songs, alas, could also be seen as the route to lucrative supper-club bookings, an ambition evident in Carla Thomas’s overwrought version of “Yesterday.” But Stax Does the Beatles documents the meeting of world-class talents. The whole may not be greater than the sum of its incomparable parts, but it’s certainly worthy of them.
Source: rollingstone.com

Counting Crows

Counting Crows are back. Six years removed from their last studio album Hard Candy, the band has released their fifth studio album, Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings, this week in a return to the radio airwaves. The band that exploded onto the pop scene in 1994 with their hit song, ?Mr. Jones? sounds different. SNaSM is about the untamed sin of Saturday night, and the inevitably following hangover of Sunday morning with the crafty music following suit. The first half of the album, produced by Gil Norton, is a bold electric guitar-heavy set that screams rock and roll. It contains a pair of the best songs Duritz has ever created: ?Los Angeles? (Los An-gel-ees) and ?Cowboys?. Duritz?s captivating voice has never sounded as good as it does on ?Cowboys? in which he imagines being so far removed from the constantly-changing world that he can no longer have any effect on it. ?Come Around? highlights the more pop-friendly half of the record. The Crows proclaim, ?We?ll still come around,? referring to their improbable longevity. This album is a tough listen for the ?Mr. Jones? or ?Accidentally in Love? Counting Crows fans. It?s a heavier album then most are accustomed to from a band with over 20 million albums sold. The song ?1492? is an automatic turnoff to some people because of its screaming guitar and Duritz?s ?tranny whore? lyrics. This album is a great compilation of sounds that capture the wild and crazy expressions of a Saturday Night, and the unavoidable regrets of a Sunday Morning. Duritz and the Crows constantly prove that they will come around, and that they?re not going anywhere. Counting Crows will be touring with Maroon 5 this summer. Catch them on A&E on March 30th for a look at the album?s recording. Download: ?Los Angeles?, ?Cowboys?, ?Come Around?

Mar 23, 2008 22:29:46

Source: rollingstone.com

Kelley Polar - I Need You To Hold On While The Sky Is Falling

If you’ve ever listened to Patrick Wolf, then Kelley Polar’s new album will immediately strike a chord with you. Not only are both musicians intelligent, idiosyncratic, ginger, and very talented, but both have created their own magical fairytale world they want you to get lost in. In Polar’s case we’re talking space, or the ‘deepest part of the ocean’, or an unspecified cosmic location where one can swim in other beings’ atmospheres. On his first album Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens Polar, who used to do the string arrangements for Environ labelmates Metro Area, married this vision with airy grooves that seemed to flutter along on a finger click or single circling hi-hat. Those are still present, but I Need? marks a change of emphasis away from them. This, his second album, is a coming out party, if you will, from the shadow of Metro Area to the music that you can’t help but feel is closer to his heart.

To that end, the recurring feeling on I Need? is exaltation. The second song, ‘Zeno of Elea’ is his first attempt at a beatless arrangement and really sets the tone. It’s about a guy jumping off a bridge thinking he’ll be saved by Zeno’s Paradox, the idea that a person will continually halve the distance between them and an object, and never reach it (remember I said intelligent and idiosyncratic earlier). Sonically, this translates as a cute synth line that gets increasingly complex and filled in whilst angelic vocals and soft tones reach a crescendo around it. It’s about raising you up, making the hairs on your neck stand up and inducing marvel in the listener. Similar tricks are used throughout, notably on ?A Dream in Three Parts (On Themes by Enesco)?. Throughout the album this effect is helped by almost ubiquitous use of the viola and classical nods, which really really do tug on your heart strings.

But despite all this, the odd thing about the album is that it is so pristine. Go to any Gospel church and raising the audience up isn’t a neat process?people sweat, they sing, they shake, they get down to get up. With Polar, while you do definitely feel something, it is muted by a glassy synth pop distance. He has moved away from Metro Area beats, but he retains the same aesthetic of spacious grooves and retro futuristic disco feel. His vocals, meanwhile, feel timid?even when he’s clearly singing as strongly as he can, as if serious emotion is a no-no. Human relations are clinical?at one point Polar talks about hanging out with his ?faceless friends? if somebody makes him wait. This is music less about human interaction than about dreamlike imaginings: Polar seems less concerned with real people than flights of fancy such as exchanging energies or passing through the ether in the sky.

Polar has in the past said that his music is a relationship between his secular upbringing and the religious nature of the classical music he has studied. Without meaning to second guess the artist (but I’ll have a go anyway), perhaps the tension is not so much between the secular and the religious as between the pop and paradise. Kelley Polar can take you there, but on I Need You to Hold on While the Sky Is Falling, ‘there’ isn’t so far from here, even if it is a beautiful, mysterious and enchanting place.
Source: residentadvisor.net

Tags: I Need You To Hold On While The Sky Is Falling, kelley polar, Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens
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“Consolers Of The Lonely” by The Raconteurs

What separates the blues greats from the legends? A good story. And Jack White knows how to tell one. (Did you hear the one about the guitarist who married his sister?) It’s no coincidence that his side band is called the Raconteurs: “When you call yourself a musician,” the White Stripes leader said when he teamed up with singer-songwriter Brendan Benson, bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler in 2005, “you join that family of storytellers.”

He’s found the right clan. Consolers of the Lonely comes together like a blissfully stoned conversation between White and Benson about their favorite bands: Led Zeppelin, the Who, Badfinger. Each of them riffs off the other, trading verses and guitar leads on a host of compelling stories: a classic Western (the Ennio Morricone sendup “The Switch and the Spur”), a feel-good biblical allegory (the folk hymn “These Stones Will Shout”), a revenge saga (the slow-burning epic “Carolina Drama”). White channels Benson when he coos harmonies on the piano-led “Pull This Blanket Off.” Benson channels White when he growls on the gritty, garage-inspired “Salute Your Solution.” And their styles merge completely on “Consolers of the Lonely,” which doles out every possible exclamation point: explosive guitars, abrupt tempo changes, a floorboard-rumbling rhythm section and a climax where the whole band starts laughing. That song’s title (and the album’s) comes from an inscription on a post office building in Washington, D.C.: “Messenger of sympathy and love, servant of parted friends, consoler of the lonely, bond of the scattered family, enlarger of the common life.” If that’s a mailman’s job — to connect people — then that’s what these songs are aiming to do too.

This two-party system of songwriting didn’t work as well on Broken Boy Soldiers. In order not to overshadow Benson, White almost rendered himself anonymous, abandoning his three-chord limit and letting himself get caught up in Benson’s warm, layered melodies. As a result, the Raconteurs became the first side project in history that actually sounded less arty than the main band. But Consolers of the Lonely makes room for White’s big personality. That’s a good thing, because for all of Benson’s strengths (bright guitar melodies, great taste in bandmates), personality is not one of them. The raw guitar ache of “Five on the Five” and the mariachi horns of “The Switch and the Spur” compete with the best of Icky Thump, even though Benson sings the “The Switch.” The swaggering soul of “Many Shades of Black” is pure Benson, but White’s vocals add the edge it needs to keep you from comparing it to Aerosmith’s “Crazy.” Sometimes it’s hard to tell where White’s vocals end and Benson’s begin. They sound more like an old married couple than Jack and Meg do.

Benson shares White’s obsession with freedom and control. No less than three songs — “Hold Up,” “The Switch and the Spur” and “Attention” — mention prison or being under lock and key, and the First Amendment even pops up on “These Stones Will Shout” and the country-folk ditty “Old Enough.” (On the latter, Benson warns, “You don’t speak, so I have to guess you’re not free” — you hear that, Meg?) Strange, because musically they’re running wild. Guitars jerk from stripped-down intros to busting riots, choruses swell with arena-rock bombast, and White’s there yelping happily the whole way through.

That freedom is not always satisfying: Overall, Consolers feels less like a project and more like a jam session. But it’s fun to watch White make things up as he goes along. On the album highlight, “Carolina Drama,” he sings a Dylanesque legend of a boy named Billy, who has a vendetta against his mom’s boyfriend. The music builds from an ominous campfire song to a swirl of strings and ghostly la-la-las as White leads everything to its bloody conclusion: Billy kills the boyfriend with a milk bottle. But nothing is resolved — we finish with a mess of unexplained details (who is that milkman who delivered the bottle?).

Don’t bother complaining — White warns you at the beginning that he’s not going to wrap anything up. “I’m not sure that there’s a point to the story/But I’m going to tell it again,” he sings. “So many other people try to tell the tale/Not one of them knows the end.” Guess the point of the story is the telling.

Source: rollingstone.com