Scarlett Johansson: Anywhere I Lay My Head

My instinct was to write off Scarlett Johansson's involvement with this album and credit almost everything to Dave Sitek (of TV on the Radio, who produced/engineered/played a bunch of stuff); but that kind of dismissal is plainly sexist. Is it fair to discount Johansson because she is an actress with a pretty face? Despite having been involved in critically acclaimed films like Lost in Translation and The Man Who Wasn't There and hailing from New York, Johansson is still perceived by some as a Hollywood creation; the virtue/damnation of her blondeness and her portrayal of the sellout character in Ghost World set her up as a personification of Hollywood shallowness; maybe someday she'll shock us all like Charlize Theron but until then people still snicker when she turns up the trailers of Woody Allen films as though she doesn't deserve to be there.

Which is mostly bullshit. Johansson is a mostly drama-free actress who has carefully balanced her acting resume with junk that pays the bills and work that probably fulfills an artistic drive. If she is perceived as a cypher that may be due to her desire for privacy. And when did we so significantly segregate the arts? Certainly every time Madonna or Sting try to act it makes entertainment media grin and shrug, but the reception given to Jennifer Hudson, 8 Mile and Alpha Dog show that these doors are opening again; not every cross-arts excursion needs to be viewed in the context of Jennifer Love Hewitt albums or Glitter.

So, credit to Johansson or to Sitek, either way, this album is really good; on the whole I like it more than TV on the Radio's last release, Return to Cookie Mountain, which seemed too long and dense and too short on melody for me to really grab on to (this is admittedly because I have so little time for new music these days). The melodies here come fully vetted from Tom Waits' head so compositionally, there is nothing to worry about. Presentationally, the songs are painted in deeper colors than Waits' arrangements; where Waits is fiery reds and oranges, this album is a langorous green sea. "I Don't Want to Grow Up" aside, they avoid whatever might pass for a hit and dig deeper into the catalogue: the material covers a wide range of years, going back as far as Small Change's "I Wish I Was In New Orleans" up through "Fannin Street" which appeared on Orphans. Two tracks come from Alice and even the overlooked Real Gone's "Green Grass" get an airing. One original track, "Song for Jo", curls up in the center of the album and matches tonally so well that I figured it must be a cover of a song I didn't recognize at first. My favorite element is the music box treatment given to "New Orleans"; I'm not sure if they had a music box built for the music or treated a keyboard or xylophone but it's lovely, mixed atop each note played in reverse.

Fair enough: Johansson's voice is occasionally bland, and it's subjected to a fair amount of reverb that can strip it of affect; Sitek treats the voice as just another instrument and it isn't the only thing he spent time layering and manipulating (there are parts in "Green Grass" where her vocals almost completely vanish behind massive swaths of reverbed guitar and sound effects; and "Who Are You" is basically a duet with Sitek). But you have to wonder if this approach would be given criticism if this were an unknown vocalist from Brooklyn rather than a known celebrity. Paradoxically it seems we may expect nothing from ScarJo and expect too much. As a first release (maybe an only release; maybe done on a whim; maybe completely driven by Sitek and an anomaly in her creative career, who knows), it's something to be proud of.

Labels: reviews, scarlett johansson, tom waits, tv on the radio

Review: American Music Club, The Golden Age
From 1995 to 2003 the likelihood of a new AMC album seemed slim. When the band returned with Love Songs for Patriots in 2003, the album and the tours behind it were generally well received, but there was a sense of unease abut the whole proceedings. An AMC reunion could not have been staged for the money, because there was none; it had to be about the music. The music was good--great even, at times--but not always as transcendent as it had been in the past. Some of this due to the shine of hype being long past (it seems impossible now to think they were Rolling Stone Magazine's pick for "Hot New Band" in 1992 and had a four page spread), some of it due to the absence of Bruce Kaphan (even the '94 tour behind San Francisco without him had been a mess), some of it probably, frankly, due to the age of the band and it's fans.

So how does American Music Club return? Maybe they don't. Originally intended to be credited to "Macarthur Park Music Club" or "the Lost Anchors of the Pacific" until management and the label told Eitzel that it wouldn't sell under a different name, The Golden Age sees things shaken up. Tim Mooney and Danny Pearson (the only other member outside of Eitzel and Vudi to have been there since the beginning) are out as the rhythm section, replaced by LA musicians Steve Didelot and Sean Hoffman ('04 touring keyboardist Jason Border also played on the album sessions). The album was well-rehearsed and recorded in an LA studio with Dave Trumfio, without too much reliance on overdubs and post-production edits; the result is a professional album that flows more naturally than anything AMC have done since Everclear.

This is a kinder and gentler AMC to be sure. I was initially startled by the straighforward pop arrangements on songs like "Who You Are" and "All the Lost Souls Welcome You to San Francisco" until I remembered "Can You Help Me", "Aspirin", and "I Broke My Promise". It's easy to forget that not every second of AMC music was the howling misery of "Apology for an Accident" and "I've Been A Mess". There aren't really any moments of that kind of self-indulgence on The Golden Age; this is a more emotionally mature work. As expected some fans have revolted at this but Eitzel and Vudi aren't mental puppets for our amusement and I neither expect nor do I want to see Mark cry during a show these days. I've said before that The Invisible Man showed an artist moving out of a dark period and toward the light; The Golden Age shows him living in it.

Eitzel has been introducing the album opener "All My Love" as the most sappy song he's ever written but it's no more sentimental than "Only Love Will Set You Free", and it's a better song, recalling "Fearless". The album features at least two major Vudi sonic guitar assaults on "Windows on the World" and "On My Way". "The Sleeping Beauty" is the arrhythmic heart of the album; rescued from Eitzel's ignored Candy Ass release and rearranged for the band, it's the sighing, resigned descendant of "Western Sky". "Decibles and Little Pills" and "The Stars" are both paint surrealistic scenarios against strong and dark musical compositions. "I Know That's Not Really You" revisits the country stomp oompha of "Gary's Song." The album closes with the acoustic "Grand Dutchess of San Francisco", Eitzel's guitar against Vudi's accordion.

If there is a criticism of the album it's that -- mix and production-wise -- it doesn't take as many risks as it could have. Many of the songs on the album are more character-based than first person; this switch in focus results in an album that seems less immediate and confrontational than past work. But these same characteristics make the album live and breathe more than the claustrophobic Love Songs for Patriots, which sometimes seemed smothered under it's self-imposed expectations of performance. The Golden Age shrugs off whatever is left of expectations of the band and that attitude serves it well in the end.

Labels: american music club, mark eitzel, reviews

Review: Elbow, The Seldom Seen Kid
I have a special fondness for Elbow because, staying at a hotel that reeked of cigarettes in West LA about five years ago, I saw them in the lobby checking in very late, looking exhausted and kind of embarrassed. I picked up Asleep in the Back shortly after that and found a lovely blend of downbeat British indie with slight prog touches, something along the lines of a less-mannered Blue Nile or more subtle Catherine Wheel. Subsequent releases have been a mixed bag for me; I loved some songs, disliked others; "Switching Off" in particular seemed destined for a love scene in a Richard Curtis comedy if a comparable Coldplay song turned out to be too expensive; good, you know, just not very original.

The Seldom Seen Kid is a huge improvement over the last two albums. The songs just stick in memory better. "Mirrorball" rolls on a machinistic steady rhythm and delicate arpeggios. Guy Garvey used to have a slight self-conscious Peter Gabriel affectation to his voice, but it's smoothed out and his enunciation has improved; maybe it's just because they're so far into their career or I've just gotten used to him, but he finally sounds like himself. "The Fix Is In", a duet with Richard Hawley, waltzes onto the album out of some black and white noir-musical. The piano and tambourine riff that opens "Audience With the Pope" and the percussion on "Weather to Fly" recall the subtle touches that latter-era Talk Talk excelled at (Elbow have often garnered Talk Talk comparisons -- to their detriment, I think, because gravelly voice aside, they usually sound nothing alike; but these elements make good on those critically promised similarities).

Some mention has been made that this album was mixed and mastered with particular attention to dynamics in opposition to the loudness war, but the opening scrawl of static seems intended to make you turn your stereo down rather than up. That aside, there is a far amount of variation in volume on this album and it never sounds fatiguing. A song like "Some Riot" was carefully mixed for a nice stereo system or headphone listening, paying particular attention to the soundstage and levels on the instrumentation: muted piano, delicately picked guitar, and a distant, surging cello that rises and falls in volume behind Garvey's voice. "A Friend of Ours", the album's final track, in memory of departed Manchester musician Bryan Glancy, is a tribute of real beauty with a lovely, understated piano riff that takes the album out on a quiet note of restraint.

Labels: elbow, reviews

Review: Rogue Wave, Out of the Shadow.
About a year ago I received a copy of Out of the Shadow in the mail. I randomly put it on the CD player on shuffle with Fleetwood Mac's Tusk; serendipitously, it turns out, as the albums share a home-studio style quirkiness, and singer Zach Rogue's voice occasionally recalls Buckingham's. I was meant, of course, to review the record then, but for whatever reason, I slept on it, though I found myself playing it more and more often. Now that the album has been picked up by Subpop and remastered with (excellent) new cover art, I don't really get to say "I told you that this band was going to be big." But I'll say it anyway. Little touches like the synthesized backward birds on 'Be Kind - Remind' and the phased keys on 'Seasick on Land' make this record a joy to listen to. 'Falcon Settles Me' recalls the kind of easy, simple but excellent songs that filled the Shins' first album (with whom the band is about to embark on a tour; if you're going, get there early). The immediately catchy songs sound floated in from a sun-baked poppy field from some alternate 1974. Doubtlessly one of the most interesting debut albums from an indie band in a while, and recommended without hesitation.

Labels: reviews, rogue wave

Review: Charles Atlas & Various Artists
"Fabricate: remixes of the album 'Worsted Weight'"
The challenge was to approach an instrumental, ambient guitar and keyboard album and not stomp on the beauty of the compositions; the result is an album that flows more as a collaboration between bands than a remix project. Almost all of the 12 mixes match the quality of the original tracks, with the opener, Sybarite's reconstruction of 'Sun With Teeth', bettering the original. With a shared interest in the tension of chiming arpeggios, Sybarite is an obvious choice. As remixes go this is way more interesting than Sybarite's (admittedly rushed) approach to Piano Magic's 'Dutch Housing.' Weaving humming, breathy vocal snippets around the clockwork guitar loop and glockenspiel, he turns the song around with a bass line and a processed trumpet. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it's an IDM Dr. Who theme. Too short by about two minutes, but brevity is the soul of wit, or something. As the lead track, this sets high expectations. The Telescopes construct a noisy soundtrack out of 'Italian Air' by injecting distorted foreign language samples and skittering spidery clicks. Pram's added gentle beats and keyboard lines to 'Strategies for Success Boxes' turn it into a lost track from 'Dark Island.' The return of Casino Vs. Japan to the Charles Atlas fold (Erik was a collaborator on the first CA album, "two more hours") sees him throwing some of his trademark churning bass lines into the space rock drift of 'The Deadest Bar.' Magnetophone's drastic reappraisal of the beautiful 'Antiphon,' previously music-box pretty, is like a Lynch-eye view of a fun fair: wide-angled, taking in the whole, the perimeter slightly out of focus, while the carousel and callipoe spin out of control. Signaldrift and Strategy turn in surprisingly dancey beat mixes of two tracks. For those already familiar with "Worsted Weight," each of these songs is a (good) surprise; for those who haven't heard the original but know the mixers, this is a necessary listen.

("fabricate" will be released to stores on June 29th, 2004 but is now available by mail order from audraglint)

Labels: charles atlas, reviews

Top Ten (plus one) Records from 2003 For Which You Should Pay Money:

1. Kelley Stoltz: Antique Glow. The album begins with a riff from "Here Comes The Sun," then veers immediately into "Venus In Furs" territory, and dips into Meddle-land, all sung through a Beck-infused psychedlic folk sheen. Sorry to drop all the names but Kelley invites it on this record, which manages to be so much more than the sum of its influences. From the Drake-y "Mean Marriane" to the T Rex scuzz "Are You Electric" to the stupid "Underwater" to the touching "Mt. Fuji/My Silverlining," Antique Glow was the album that I played most obsessively this year. Kelley's previous album The Past Was Faster was a lo-fi novelty; Antique Glow is a lo-fi masterpiece, a happy neighbor to Bee Thousand. Outstanding!

2. The Fall: Country On The Click/The Real New Fall LP. It's another Fall record; this one took a long time to show up. It seemed like a bad sign and an inevitability when it was called back to be remixed after review copies were already sent out, but luckily the remix only pumped up the good bits to extreme levels and eradicated the dull bits. Finally, the first Fall album in a few years to be consistently listenable all the way through; I don't think there's a boring track on here, and it has at least three of the best songs MES has written ("Protein Protection," "Sparta FC," and "Mountain Energie").

3. Dizzee Rascal: Boy in da Corner. Is this hip-hop? Is it electronic? It is definitely paranoid, musically offputting, and claustrophobic, and extremeley English. DR's rhymes and stylings are, well, I don't even know what to say about them. This is coming out next year in the US and Matador hopes are high for this to break-through big time, but I think it's too weird for American audiences; one of the most original albums to come out of England in a decade.

4. Radiohead: Hail to the Thief. Hearing guitars on a Radiohead album again was confusing at first but I adjusted. In the end, I find it a stronger record than Amnesiac, and certainly more fun.

5. Nina Nastasia: Run to Ruin. Like a dark night drive down a crappy overgrown road, in the middle of a tense conversation with someone you used to love about something you regret. Jim White's drums provide the migrane.

6. Mogwai, Happy Songs for Happy People. "How many Mogwai records do you need?" You need this one, at least.

7. Colleen: Everyone Alive Wants Answers. Another "pretty" record, signifying that "pretty" ruled the year for me.

8. Lisa Germano: Lullabye For Liquid Pig. Unbelievably overdue. Beautiful.

9. Belle & Sebastian: Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Thank you Trevor Horn, for passing on the latest Seal borefest to make Belle and Sebastian into the best New Wave Band of 1984. This should have been issued on orange vinyl. If the guitar solo in "Stay Loose" doesn''t move you then it would take an earthquake.

10. Piano Magic: The Troubled Sleep of Piano Magic. Released too late in the year for most people to hear. It wouldn't be an Agenbyte year-end list without a PM album. This is their most consistent release after the Bliss Out.

11. Grandaddy: Sumday. The boys from Modesto coat their desert soundscapes with sugar and push the bliss envelope. A record with so many surprisingly pretty moments. If only the rumored double album version had been released.

Other recommendations: Matt Elliott: The Mess We Made; these ghosts hate you. Don't sleep tonight. George: the Magic Lantern; english-post-folk, pretty textures. OutKast: the Love Below/Speakerboxxx; Sylvain Chauveau: Un Autre Decembre; more of the pretty. David Sylvian, Blemish; finally a challenging release from Sylvian. Uncompromising. More in this vein, please. Juana Molina: Segundo; lovely Spanish electro-folk, like a blippy Cat Power. Robert Wyatt: Cuckooland; another solid record, too bad they don't happen more often. Arab Strap: Monday at the Hug and Pint; opens with "The Shy Retirer," my new favorite Strap song, because it bolsters my belief that the english do nothing but sit around pubs, eat pills, and lech on each other; the Mars Volta: De-loused in the Comatorium; this might be a stupid record, the cover art certainly is, but it fulfills some adolescent urge to listen to Rush, so it gets a recommendation. the Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Fever to Tell; the Rapture: Echoes; I like Gang of Four and PIL. The Wrens: Meadowlands; a screamy emo Red House Painters; Sun Kil Moon: Ghosts of the Great Highway; why wasn't this called an RHP album? In a lesser year would have placed higher, for "Duk Koo Kim" alone, probably Kozelek's best song since "Drop".

Labels: 2003, reviews, top ten

Oh and I never talked about the American Music Club reunion after it happened. There was no good reason for me not to; I wanted to put photos from the show up but didn't think they turned out too well (here they are anyway), and I was supposed to write a review of the show for someone else and flaked. In that time AMC have played a bunch more shows, so here are some reflections on the two I've seen:
It isn't quite like they've never been away. Walking into the MOR before the first show was surreal. By the time they took the stage to begin the interminable tuning up, the room was filled beyond capacity, people in the front drenched in sweat from lack of air. Some guys unwisely took their shirts off but put them back on. Vudi had a mess of electro-harmonix effects. There was a piano but no one person to sit behind it. When they opened at the MOR with "Why Won't You Stay" it might have been ironic, or it might have been simply what they remembered how to play. The older songs began roughly, and the new ones were largely unfamiliar, and even the ones that were familar have been changed in significant ways. Where just two years ago the song formerly known as "Freedom" ended with the jibe "You wouldn't know freedom if it shat in your mouth", it's now called "Another Morning" and, with just a few lyrical changes, has become one of Eitzel's more affecting Kathleen tributes to date. At first Bruce's absence was obvious and the tension was palpable, but by the end of their set at du Nord to support Matt Gonzalez' mayoral run, Marc Cappelle was an obvious replacement.
The band is sober and older, but rested and at ease. In beween song banter is kept to a minimum. The new songs, "A Job to Do" and "Lucky" pick up where San Francisco and "All Your Jeans Were Too Tight" left off, wiggly Vudi-isms galore, but with more guile and more determination. Lyrically there is more bile and more hope. "Home" has become a thundering, revving, emotive call. "The Patriot's Heart" has improved with every public performance, the political content in this most political of years is overt and unabashed.
AMC are not a band that want to fuck around with pleasantries any more. They are not overly concerned with making you love them. If you don't feel anything: if you don't smile at the end of "Johnny Mathis' Feet," if you don't want to hit someone after "Bad Liquor," if you don't resent your country during "Team USA", then the hell with you, you're dead. Go home. American Music Club play this Monday and the next at Spaceland in Los Angeles.

Labels: american music club, live shows, mark eitzel, photos, reviews

Review: Piano Magic, "The Troubled Sleep of Piano Magic"
Now mutually divorced from 4AD, Piano Magic's talents haven't suffered a bit, in fact, the seperation has provided the opportunity to focus on what made the band so interesting to begin with.
Back to a band project after all the guests on "Writers Without Homes," "Troubled Sleep" is stylistically a proper follow up to "Artist's Rifles." Opener "Saint Marie" is a more-than-convincing Durutti Column homage which shows Johnson's aptitude with a guitar and an echo delay. Angele David-Guillou handles the french-accented girl vocal duties when needed; there is also a fair amount of acoustic guitar, much of it with a slightly spanish flavour in the picking patterns, making Piano Magic an increasingly European sounding project. "The End of a Dark, Tired Year" is propulsed by positively Factory-esque drumming; it's back to the sea on "The Tollboth Martyrs" featuring another musical variation on "A Trick of the Sea". "Speed the Road" is the same version released earlier as a single and still features some of Johnson's uncharacteristic lyrics ("even bad girls sleep tonight") but aside from that, this is a sombre album with a unique melancholy concentrating on the private tortures the mind can inflict on itself in the depths of sleeplessness. "Comets," which closes the album with David-Guillou's refrain "you should always tell them you love them/in case you never see them again" provides Piano Magic's most affecting moment. In summary: perfectly lovely.
Note: The Japanese version of this album substitutes the less interesting "What Does Not Destroy Me" from the Klima split 7" for the amazing track "I Am the Teacher's Son." I don't know why.

Labels: piano magic, reviews

Review: Colleen, "Everyone Alive Wants Answers"
An almost impossibly beautiful album from Paris musician Cecile Schott and an amazing revelation for anyone who has ever used Acid Loops to make music; never repetative, circling permutations of melody coalesce like drops of mercury on a mirror. The pieces have an antiquated feel thanks to the music-box-like piano and harpsichords and the pronounced sheen of surface noise that dusts each track. Cannot be recommended enough.

Londoners will have the incredible good fortune to see Colleen live at Track and Field on December 17th.

Labels: colleen, reviews

Review: Black Box Recorder, Passionoia
The third record from Luke Haines and Shannon Nixey sounds a lot like the last two records and traverses familiar, particularly British territory; none of this is bad, but it is a wee bit predictable. BBR are the masters of the sarcastic pop ditty but "Andrew Ridgely" seems like an easy target. "The New Diana" investigates the media portrayal of pampered and lazy luxury but in somewhat obvious terms. But, nothing sounds sexier than the way Nixey sings "chocolates" in "British Racing Green," and the production of the album shines.

Labels: black box recorder, reviews

Review: Piano Magic, "Speed the Road, Rush the Lights"
Well, I didn't expect this. Piano Magic convincingly rocks out with their cocks out on the title track and even throw in a little Frippy guitar wank on top of a thick bed of keyboards and the result is something decidedly un-Piano Magic-like. Glen manages to sing well throughout. Resistant fans will hate it beyond words, but if you try to forget that this is Piano Magic, it's really enjoyable. The second track is a piece of instrumental guitar picking, typically pretty. The third track is a bluesy prog pastiche with nods to Dagmar Krause and Van Der Graaf Generator. Compared to their last single, the tepid "I came to your party dressed as a shadow," this is a piece of sonic brilliance. Compared to "Popular Mechanics" and "A Trick of the Sea" it's a totally different band.

Labels: piano magic, reviews

Review: Lisa Germano, "Lullaby for Liquid Pig"
Too many years have gone by without a Lisa Germano album to make me feel better about myself. Admirers of her mid-period albums Geek the Girl and Excerpts from a Love Circus will find themselves in familiar territory; these ten songs are thematically linked with a focus on alcohol abuse and shame and the production thankfully ditches the uncharacteristic sparse mix of Slide in favour of the surreal cloud that enveloped her earlier work. Textures by Neil Finn (who lured Lisa out of premature retirement), Johnny Marr, and Wendy and Lisa give each track a wonderful swaying, woozy wash. Lisa's voice is fairly thrashed at times, but she has rarely sounded as affecting and vulnerable as she does on "Pearls" with its "hate will grow into someone you know/into something like home" refrain, or on the title track, a hymn to resignation that affectively states the truth of need: "If I do stop or if I don't stop/ it doesn't matter, I probably won't stop/without you here, without your love/the world is just there, it doesn't move me."

Too-short tracks times are the only downside; I wanted most of the songs to go on for another few minutes, but by the end of each she sounds spent. This is a beautifully realised album and a hopeful sign that one of the more overlooked talents of the past ten years might still make some impact.

Labels: 4ad, lisa germano, reviews

Review: Mark Eitzel, "The Ugly American"
Following last year's covers album of other people's music, Mark Eitzel has recorded an album of covers of his own songs, this time with a group of classical Greek musicians with largely Greek instrumentaion and arrangements. Probably the weirdest album of his career, The Ugly American is hit and miss: "Take Courage" is robbed of it's gravity and sounds tacked onto too jaunty a tune, and "Here They Roll Down" has all new lyrics and sounds forced ontop of an entirely different song; but versions of "Jenny" and "Anything" rival the previously released takes, and on these songs the bazouki manages to deliver something of the exotic flavor of AMC circa Everclear. Like Music for Courage and Confidence, this isn't a major statement from Mark, but it's an interesting foray into interpretation and his voice has never sounded better. With United Kingdom and California in OOP limbo, this is the only (non-downloadable) way to get ahold of non-live version of songs like "Last Harbour" and "Western Sky" these days.

Labels: american music club, mark eitzel, reviews

Top Ten Albums of the Year in No Particular Order

1. Martin Grech, Open Heart Zoo. Yes, I know, Lexus ad, fast signing to a major label, rather 'produced' album and only 2 people credited and one is the producer, sounds a lot like The Bends...there's a lot here to hate, or at least make one suspicious. But this remains one of the most captivating albums of the year, if you discard the overwrought first track ("Here it Comes") and the somewhat tedious "Dali." On the slower tracks the melodies are exquisite and his voice is magic and less reminiscent of Thom Yorke the more you listen to it.

2. Beth Gibbons/Rustin Man: Out of Season. Portishead vocalist visits the fairy forest with Paul Webb of Talk Talk and makes an excellent British folk album. Gorgeous echoes of Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan, with a hit of latter day Tindersticks soul swagger ("Tom the Model"). Somewhat ironically released in the late autumn, exactly the right season for this album. The only real complaints here are that this will certainly be better than the next Portishead album, and that Rustin' Man is a terrible pseudonym for Mr. Webb.

3. Sybarite: Nonument. Big step forward for Xian Hawkins in production and breadth of tone; opening the album up to more musicians while keeping a tight rein on what makes a Sybarite release just that: unpredictable clicks and gentle beats over swaths of electrowash. It's too bad the exceptional single "Scene of the Crime" wasn't folded into the album. Coupled with my next entry did a lot to revitalize 4AD's credibility.

4. Piano Magic: Writers Without Homes. If Xian showed restraint in the chance to put out a "4AD album," Glen Johnson went all-out, revisting not only sounds of his own band's past but raiding the label's back catalog, pulling in Simon Raymond to recall This Mortal Coil and a smattering of other old 4AD ghosts as well. Some of the choices could have been better ("The Season is Long" cries out for a female vocalist of Paula Frazer's caliber, rather than the Czars frontman John Grant), but this initial shock of this album wore off and I found myself enjoying the nostalgia trip.

5. Charles Atlas: Worsted Weight. Completely biased entry but would have ranked regardless. Contributions by Sean and Denise from San Francisco's Sunshine Club helped make this the electro-post-ambient-shoegaze crossover album of the year (for me at any rate).

6. Thee More Shallows: A History of Sport Fishing. Massive! The most impressive debut from a California band since Grandaddy. The instrumentals are heartbreaking and the vocal songs are to the point.

7. Sierpinski: This Geography of Ours. Took a while to warm up to but I found it in my player more than I'd expected. Ex-Hood drummer and Random Number guy's other band. Imagine an instrumental Hood anchored by piano and there you have it. Absolutely no-one bought this album so you should.

8. Interpol: Turn on the Bright Lights. Guilty pleasure of the year and better than the hype that will sink them. He doesn't sound so much like Ian Curtis to me as he does Richard Butler.

9. The Notwist: Neon Golden. The New Order compliment to Interpol's JD. Better than Get Ready though.

10. Sonic Youth: Murray Street. Who knew that all it took for Sonic Youth to be brilliant again was to add another member and have New York get bombed? Sadly too short, and about four years ago Kim quit singing and started barking bad poetry so the second to last song here keeps the record from Evol status. Kim come back!

Honorable mentions: Mum: Finally We Are No One. I bought the Icelandic version of this so I can't understand a word of it. Beautiful. Casino Vs. Japan: Whole Numbers Play the Basics. Erik Kowalski finally hits a home run with his third albums which merges the wiggliness of his second record with the emotion of the first. Tarwater: Dwellers on the Threshold. Crappy cover art but their best album so far, miles beyond the terrible Animals, Suns, and Atoms. Adding an acoustic guitar here and there helps a lot. The Telescopes: Third Wave. Outstanding return by one of the most important bands of the early 90's. The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. I was kicked dragging and screaming into Flaming Lips fandom with this album which made me go back and revist The Soft Bulletin and realize it wasn't as bad as I'd initially thought. Windsor for the Derby: The Emotional Rescue LP. Holy crap it's another New Order album! The Liars: They Threw Us In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top. Nice synthesis of Wire, Can, and something noisier. Didn't notice the last song was a 15 minute loop until the 14th minute.

Disappointments: Badly Drawn Boy: Have You Fed the Fish? Horrible. If I want to listen to a bad Wings record I'll throw on London Town. Doves: Last Broadcast: other than the rewrite of the King Crimson song, it was pretty dull. Speaking of which: King Crimson: Happy With What You Have to be Happy With. Egads, other than Belew's beautiful acoustic Eyes Wide Open, the worst thing they've ever recorded, and that includes Islands. Coldplay: A Rush of Blood To The Head. Tepid rehash of the first album that not even the phallic title could save. Bright Eyes: Lifted! Good songs, bad recordings or something. I liked all this stuff live. Don't know what happened here.

Labels: 2002, reviews, top ten

Review: Paula Frazer, Indoor Universe
When Paula Frazer ditched her backing band and the Tarnation name after leaving 4AD/Reprise four years ago, it seemed like a bad move careerwise. Tarnation, like any other band that had signed to 4AD, was guaranteed a certain amount of attention simply via their relationship to the label, regardless of their future.

As it turns out, losing the Tarnation name signified more than just the band's departure (after all, a completely different band had recorded the first two Tarnation albums). Most of the songs on Indoor Universe inhabit a very different sonic space than the songs on the Tarnation albums. For the most part, Indoor Universe is a more polished and suave pop experiment. While the opening track, "That You Know," with a samba-tinged rhythm, arpeggiated guitar, and sweeping cello swells, closely recalls the southwestern gothic-country that was Tarnation's hallmark, tracks such as "Like a Song", and the ragtime-piano-laced "Not So Bad, Not So Good" are forays into a 60's pop territory. The pub-rock influenced "Everywhere" should please people who miss Squeeze. "Mean Things", a snazzy, organ-driven R&B number, is the album's stand-out piece and one of the few places where Paula exerts her vocal chops the way she used to.

The album isn't all sunshine: "Deep was the Night" seems written for a black and white noir chase sequence. "Gone" could be a lost Roy Orbison number, and "Stay as You Are" is the kind of dusty ballad Frazer can write in her sleep. "We Met by the Love Lies Bleeding" is a dark tale of love and cremation, more effective than anything on the latest Nick Cave album.

Indoor Universe lacks some of the characteristics that made Tarnation an unique listen; the instrumentation here doesn't stray far from organ, bass, guitar, with touches of strings and the occasional horn; there isn't a track here that matches "The Well" in intensity, and now that the alt-country genre that Tarnation helped foster has reached critical mass, it seems strange that Frazer would abandon the sound she helped make famous, along with that yodel of hers that Neko Case seems to have inherited. But obviously that's the point; in leaving the Tarnation name behind and releasing Indoor Universe under her own handle, Frazer has taken a step toward defining a unique persona, free of the No Depression baggage.

Labels: paula frazer, reviews, tarnation

Top Ten Albums From the Year 2001:

1. The Court And Spark: Bless You. An album that came out of leftfield, considering that the band's first release was fairly standard, Whiskeytown-inspired alt-country. Bless You is a masterpiece of songwriting, playing, and production. Easily ranks with the best of American Music Club.

2. Sparklehorse: It's A Wonderful Life. Mark Linkhouse's most satisfying album yet features a smattering of famous friends and eleven incredible songs.

3. Hood: Cold House. Having done the lo-fi indie pop thing, the swirly shoegaze thing, and the slowcore mopey thing, it was time for Leed's Hood to tackle the electronic thing. Progressing from last year's Home Is Where It Hurts EP, Hood meld programmed drums with guitars and invite members of Oakland's Anticon crew to season the songs with surrealistic raps about fish and thrift store hats. One of the most original indie albums ever, surprising in its sure-footedness, absolutely unexpected and brilliant from beginning to end.

4. Bjork: Vespertine. A gorgeous, crystalline ice sculpture of an album. Chiming music boxes and the best songs she's recorded so far. "Pagan Poetry" is a terrifying portrait of co-dependance and damage and makes the album excell all on its own. Bjork is at the same place in her artistic development that Bowie was when he made Low, and her next step is anyone's guess.

5. Mark Eitzel: The Invisible Man. One of the longest gestations for an album in recent memory, when it finally arrived after three years of delay, it baffled some of the faithful with its full embrace of electronics and the ProTools aesthetic. Close listening reveals this to be Eitzel's most personal and heartfelt solo album with his best material since Mercury.

6. Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Not officially released this year, though it may as well have been, the real mystery is how the label thought an album filled with great pop material like "War on War", "Pot Kettle Black", and "Heavy Metal Drummer" sounded weirder than the cabaret-art-freakout Summerteeth. The real triumphs here are the slow songs, though, such as the aching "Reservations" and the disturbingly precognative "Ashes of American Flags".

7. Charles Atlas : Felt Cover. The perfect mix of the electronic elements of the first CA album and the drifting ambience of their second. Startling in its attention to the most delicate and nuanced sounds, Felt Cover maps the mysterious territory between silence and the sublime.

8. Jim O'Rourke : Insignificance. Owing a debt to (smog) on this one, O'Rourke's talents as a lyricist really shine with acidic and bitter stories of love, abandonment, and disgust, set to deceptively poppy tunes.

9. Tarentel : The Order of Things. One hour of understated, trembling sonic beauty that never overextends its reach; six intertwined pieces–one a Ricki Lee Jones cover–evoking wind, damp, Japanese space stations, closed and humidified sick rooms, haunted libraries, dimpled lake surfaces stressed under storm.

10. Piano Magic: Son De Mar. Partially recycled from A Trick of the Sea, this 40 minute instrumental piece, commissoned as a sountrack, departs from the band's recent song-based direction, for the better. Excellent contributions by and James Topham on viola and Charles Atlas' Charles Wyatt on guitar.

 

Other recommendations: the shins: oh, inverted world!; papa m: whatever, mortal; the angels of light: how i loved you; mogwai: my father, my king; stereolab: sound dust.

Labels: 2001, reviews, top ten