I just discovered jazz pianist Matthew Shipp. I vaguely remember reading something about him a few months ago, and I think he was playing for a week or two here in San Francisco. But, since I'd written off most modern jazz and boring and tired, I didn't pay any attention. But for some reason, I picked up both Pastorale Composure and New Orbit the other day and to say that I was impressed would be a huge understatement. Shipp's rolling, angry, and often thundering piano anchors the bottom of his compositions like Jon Bonham anchored "When the Levvy Breaks". I'm sure this is advertising my ignorance, but Shipp has to be the most vital and relevant modern jazz musician and composer alive. If I'm missing someone of equal importance, let me know.

There's an older (1999) interview with Shipp here where he talks about the influence of punk rock, Bowie, and Monk, among other things.

Guardian piece on 24 Hour Party People, the new film about Joy Division and the Manchester music scene from 1979 to 1992. Sean Harris, who plays Ian Curtis: "I feel very obligated to doing this well...there's a lot of pressure...I met his daughter the other day. She's an extra on the film. She's about 20 now. She came up to me and said, 'You're playing my dad.' I just apologised. It was the first thing that came into my head. She just stared at me. I just stared at her. What can I do? I ain't going to get it right. I'll get it as right as I can."
I can't imagine there being a huge audience for this film but you never know, it might pull people in who otherwise couldn't give a rat's ass.

Labels: joy division factory records

Review: Red House Painters, Old Ramon
'my friends think you're stupid but I think you're cute'

Quick history lesson: "Old Ramon" was RHP-proper's first album for Island Records offshoot Supreme ("Songs for a Blue Guitar" was recorded by Kozelek with a pick-up band and was to have been credited as a solo album until the last minute). But, just prior to release, Island was purchased by Seagrams' Liquor Conglomerate, and Supreme dissolved into their tumbler with a dozen other labels, and the album and the Painters lingered in contractual limbo for years.

Delayed and unreleased albums always gather a mythos that inflates their reputations beyond that which they deserve. So, just to get it out of the way: "Old Ramon" is not Prince's "Black Album." It's not the de-Spectorized "Let it Be" sessions. It's not even Red House Painters' best album (it would take a lot to beat "Rollercoaster" and "Ocean Beach"). But, it very well could have been their breakthrough album in 1997.

This is the Painters' poppiest and most musically diverse release. Sound-wise, this is a punchier sounding record than the previous albums. Departing guitarist Gordon Mack is replaced by Indian Bingo guitarist Phil Carney whose guitar at times closely approximates Steve Hackett's sound (no, I'm not kidding, and no, I don't think that's a bad thing), notably on the sweeping "Void". "Between Days" is a straightfoward stomper that makes some sense in relation to Kozelek's recent AC/DC fetish. "Michigan" is elevated by slippery pedal steel frippery. "Byrd Joel" bounds along a fuzz bass with sing-song chorus. "Kavita," the album's closer, is a loping, not-entirely serious folky ode to a girl from a guy, oblivious to the assholic things he's saying to her (see the quote at the top of this review). It's probably the sweetest moment on the album.

The three strongest tracks, as may be expected, are the ones that don't deviate too far from the traditional Painters' formula of six-to-seven minute epics of slow, ethereal guitar songs that build to a loud climax. "Void", a calmed down re-interpretation of "Make Like Paper," builds on a chorus chant about traffic lights that effectively reconstructs a long night drive after that one romantic encounter upon which you rest the weight of your future and your hopes and trust in the world. "Smokey" just as effectively details the very moment you realise your loss when such a relationship falls apart: "I can't pretend there's a beginning without an end/it ain't contrived/all the magic in our lives/comes down like a storm/then drizzles/then dies." It scans maudlin, but it sounds resigned to hopefullness in the face of futility. "River" is a dense soup; Kozelek has a manner of turning an awkward lyric into something profoundly terrifying (eg "Medicine Bottle"'s: "and like a medicine bottle/in my hands I will hold you/and swallow you slowly/so as to last me a lifetime"), and "River"'s at first seemingly innocuous picnic scene takes an dire turn into the psychosexual replete with a perhaps-mystically-endowed Siren-figure, masks, and abandonment fears, all layed out atop a squirrly mess of low-volume guitar feedback that sounds like animals on fire.

The only true misstep of the album might be Kozelek's willingness to lay out so transparently a somewhat cavalier and adolescent attitude toward women. "Cruiser" covers some lyrical ground that made me cringe in its obvious crudeness. To the uninformed listener, "Wop-A-Din" might sound like a sweet song with some tossed off lines about spousal abuse, although the song is actually about Kozelek's cat. (A note on this song: the version included on the release of the album is a slower acoustic version. A much faster electric version was recorded and released as a limited edition 7" last year and is so superior that I can't figure out why this version wasn't put on the album, except for the fact that the electric version bears more than a passing similarity musically to Yo La Tengo's "Cherry Chapstick", which, of course, was written and recorded years after "Wop-A-Din." Makes one wonder if Ira Kaplan had a smuggled copy of "Old Ramon" kicking around a year or two ago. Here's hoping the electric version creeps onto a CD single or something).

2000, of course, was the year of the Koz. He popped up almost everywhere, from Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous", to being the subject of a Mojave 3 song, to having "All Mixed Up" on the Gap's Christmas ad campaign, to tossing off two albums of AC/DC covers and odds and ends. It's nice to have "Old Ramon" finally coming to stores, even if the best thing about it is the promise that Red House Painters are once more a viable band, and will be performing and recording (and hopefully releasing) again soon.

Labels: red house painters, reviews

Review: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, No More Shall We Part

There are particular reasons why I'm a Nick Cave fan, and near the top of that list of reasons is his distinctive, soul rattling baritone. . . No affected, Andrew Eldritch posing here: Nick Cave's baritone comes from that same hinterland as Scott Walker's and Leonard Cohen's.

So it's with some sadness that I report that Nick has decided to offer up a most of his new album in a higher register. When I first threw the CD into the player and wandered into the next room, I thought there might have been a screw up, because from what I could hear, it definitely wasn't Nick Cave. Coming back for a closer listen, though, it was pretty clear that Nick had turned crooner, and not in a grizzled, under-the bar, Tom Waits way, but in a Bowie, "I'm going to screw up 'God Only Knows'" way. Musically, it sounded about right, if a bit weak in dynamics: the piano playing that's been omnipresent in Nick ballads since "The Good Son" layered atop new Seed Warren Ellis' (the Dirty Three) stirring violin; but vocally, Nick sounded strained, much like Bowie on Hours, and lyrically, he sounded tapped out. There's a story in "As I Sat Sadly By Her Side," but I can't seem to get past the two or three references to kittens to figure out what it is. I began to have the terrible feeling that I was about to be very, very disappointed in a release by a trusted artist in a way I hadn't felt since Kate Bush laid the egg that was "The Red Shoes."

The good news: that sinking feeling only lasted for the first two tracks. And by the end of the album, it dissipated. "Love Letter", a fan favourite to hate since it's appearance on Nick's spoken word BBC recording "The Secret Life of the Love Song", is a swirling, glorious lost standard in the vein of Sinatra's Nelson Riddle recordings. "Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow" dips into past Bad Seeds themes (if a little more kindly) of death, murder, madness and paranoia. "Oh My Lord", far from being another rumination on theology, starts as a mere lament at being doubted, slyly addressing exactly the criticisms I just levvied at the the album's first two tracks: "they claimed I'd lost the plot/kept saying that I was not/the man I used to be/they claimed that I'd gone soft." The song takes a dip into showboating with it's gospel "How have I offended thee?" chorus, before swerving headlong into the surreal, where we get to envision Nick at the hairdressers, mooned by a guy wearing plastic antlers, and falling to his knees, screaming into a cell phone, accompanied again by Ellis' increasingly manic playing. It's the most adventerous and fun track on the album and the most rockin' thing Nick's done since "Murder Ballads."

If "The Boatman's Call" hinted at an increasing influence of Leonard Cohen on Nick's songwriting and arrangements, this album brings that influence front and centre. "God is in the House" would sit happily on "The Future," and Cave is in fine Cohen form with his clipped, sarcasm-dripping delivery, detailing the religious and political hypocrisy of the new Conservative era with surprising clarity (for Nick), without any obscure Americana folklore references or allusions to multitudes of archangels (there are kittens in this song too, but they work this time).

While this album's "Hallelujah" isn't a cover of the Cohen song, it's likely a nod to it. Opening with a haunting violin that will loop throughout the song, Nick details the existence of an aging, isolated artist, abandoned in his decaying home. The song marks the first appearance of Kate and Anna McGarrigle as back up singers (another Cohen staple), and like Jennifer Warnes on Cohen's 80's albums, the McGarrigle Sisters are bound to invite criticisms of cheesiness from Cave fans. I'm on the fence on their involvement; while I don't have any problems with their minor vocal embellishments on the album and throughout this song (which, let's face it, is about as cornball a lyric as anything Cave has ever written anyway), I think their final repeated chorus at the end of the track pushes it dangerously close to—if not over—the border of Goth Town, where Cave is usually too careful to tread (wait, what was that I said about Andrew Eldritch?).

The last quarter of the album consists of ballads, with heavy lyrical leanings on matrimony and all its consequences. "The Sorrowful Wife" features a beautiful piano melody, easily one of the prettiest pieces of music Nick has written, before exploding into a Bad Seeds miasma. "We Came Along This Road" is another impeccable piano composition. "Gates to the Garden" turns on a simple guitar arpeggio that could play for the full four minutes of the song without my tiring of it, though the song unfortunately covers some tired Cave lyrical cliches to its detriment. "Darker with the Day" closes the album with some heavy McGarrigle Sisters harmonizing, and an observational lyric that comes across as anticlimactic after the fire of some of the earlier tracks.

The Bad Seeds themselves sound a little wasted on this album. Aside from Warren Ellis, who really makes his mark as the Big Bad Seed for the first time, this could almost be any band behind Nick. There's very little of old Blixa to be heard, and Mick Harvey's arrangements sound a tad by-the-numbers, as though he were paying more attention to "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" this year (though this is the stronger album by far).

While not the disaster that had been initially feared by some, "No More Shall We Part" is a bit of a disappointment: a little overly mature, a bit too mannered, as though Cave is a bit too willing to go peacefully into middle age, similar to Elvis Costello's Burt Bacharach collaboration. This is a pivotal period in Cave's career, and there's no doubt that he's handling it with more care and class than many of his contemporaries. It will be interesting to see which way he goes after this.

Labels: nick cave, reviews

Review: Low, Things We Lost In The Fire
I had a minor disagreement with a long-time Low cohort about this album this past week; his first impressions were that they attempted to throw too many sounds into it and consequently the album sounded like a mess. I disagree, although I'm willing to state that in the canon of Low releases, this doesn't rank at the top. "Dinosaur Act," the first song released as a single, grates with an annoyingly nasally chorus and a bad lyric. What's a chorus doing on a Low song anyway?

Never mind, there are some moments of real beauty here and most people familiar with Low will be comforted by Mimi's vocals on "Laser Beam" and "In Metal," another song that exemplifies the impact the birth of a child has had on Mimi and Alan. "Sunflower" is the most dynamic song Low have opened an album with, and the middle of the album features a few songs which introduce vibes, strings, and horns into the mix. "July" and "Embrace" show Low willing to venture into more lush territory with excellent results. The standout track for me is "Whore," a relatively upbeat, slightly psychedlic composition with a buzzing guitar and a swoony chorus. Similarly, "Like a Forest," underpinned by the surging string quartet, is a brief piece of pure pop.

At times the new musical direction (such as it is) recalls Ida (and Ida Pearle, that band's namesake and very occasional guest musician, does feature here) which might make some wonder why Low don't stick with the formula that worked and not step into another band's territory. But unless Warn Defever gets his oven mitts into their studio, they'll continue to retain a strong sense of their own identity.

Labels: low, reviews

Review: Dakota Suite, Signal Hill
The slowcore subgenre has turned out its share of duds over the years, but you don't count Dakota Suite among them. Evolving far beyond their first release "Mood Indigo," (a vague homage to Idaho's "Skyscrape") the Leeds based band featuring Chris Hooson and Spectrum's Richard Formby has developed a uniquely bluesy, horn-tinged sound that sets it apart from its peers.
Album opener "The Cost of Living" glides along atop a bed of trumpets; "you've got to love someone," Hooson's voice croons. Not an exaggerated singer, Hooson's understated vocals never come across as a depressed affectation, but more as though he's paying compliment to the high level of musicianship going on all around him.
"Clean Linen Sheets" is motivated by confident, sustain-elevated guitar flourishes. The horns that decorate the edges of "Close Enough to Tears" balance delicately with the brushed drums. The lap of the (probably cold and miserably English) sea that provides the backdrop of "Riverside" is looped to a perfect rhythm with the short song and seques directly into the almost Sea & Cake-ish instrumental "Raining Somewhere," bouyed by impressive high-hat and snare play.
Lest I mislead you, don't doubt for an instant that this is an album composed in d-minor. The title track revolves around a refrain of "you won't let me drown". If you don't have an outright bias against this stuff, Dakota Suite are a more than worthy addition to your collection. What's most surprising, perhaps, is how surefooted this album is considering that many feel that the time for this style has long passed into the San Francisco fog. London's Dakota Suite make a strong case for the Butterfly Effect in global weather patterns.

Labels: dakota suite, reviews

The past couple of years have respurred my teenage fascination with post-punk and "coldwave," helped a lot by the gorgeous CD reissues of the Factory catalogue as well as the Joy Division box set. Research turns up the Section 25 website, with new mp3s available on a semi-regular basis (of possibly new material, I'm not sure). Frank Brinkhaus's Crepuscle and Factory pages are also filled with articles about A Certain Ratio, the Wake, Crispy Ambulance, and the Durutti Column, and a whole slew of links to related pages about similarly isolating, stark, party-killing, friend-bewildering music.

The Music Genre Generator (via brainwashed).