A clip of Janet Jackson’s offending “malfunction.”
By Laura Mojonnier
Associated Press reported today that a US federal appeals court dismissed a $550,000 indecency fine issued to CBS after Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” during the 2004 Superbowl halftime show.
According to the AP, the three-judge panel ruled earlier today that the Federal Communications Commission “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” when issuing the fine, as “CBS’s broadcast of a nine-sixteenths of one second glimpse of a bare female breast” did not meet the commission’s long held standards for “actionable indecency.”
JOAN AS POLICEWOMAN
To Survive
(Cheap Lullaby/ Reveal)
By Todd Lavoie
Joan Wasser, the heartstring-hitting sharpshooter behind the Joan as Policewoman tag, has offered a simple but irrefutable platform for the elegant, emotionally direct songwriting, one that made her 2006 debut, Real Life (Reveal), such a blindsiding experience: “Beauty is the new punk rock.”
It’s an ear-tugging slogan, to be sure, but the album’s ravishing arrangements and carefully nuanced confessionals offered the goods to back up her capital-lettered claim. Whirling bits of soul music, punk and post-punk attitude, and AM-radio singer-songwriter pop into shimmering string-and-piano-centered structures that felt comfortingly familiar and yet still difficult to compare, Wasser easily won over seekers of challenging, interactive pop music with swooners such as “Feed The Light” and “We Don’t Own It.”
With relatively few contemporaries guided by a similar aesthetic, the easiest point of comparison might be Antony and the Johnsons. In fact, the aforementioned’s Antony Hegarty even joined Wasser on what could arguably be Real Life’s most riveting highlight, the fiery duet “I Defy.” Otherwise, the list of artists who could truly be considered kindred spirits is a mighty short one; fittingly enough, two of them, fellow sensitive souls Rufus Wainwright and David Sylvian, both appear on To Survive, the latest Joan as Policewoman venture.
Scribbling scion Erykah Badu. Photo by Marc Baptiste.
By Jamilah King
Miss Erykah Badu recently wrote those fabulously succinct words to anyone who had the nerve to question the honor of her motherhood. Amid rumors that she’s pregnant for a third time, this time by Jay Electronica, (Andre 3000 and DOC were the fathers of her first two), some folks threw criticism her way for having a third child “out of wedlock.” (What the fuck does this mean, anyway?)
“HOW DARE YOU DISRESPECT THE QUEENDOM…AND MY CHILDREN AND MY INTELLIGENCE. What is Marriage? Who Is The Judge? i am an excellent mother and resent all of the negative comments and insults on my character. I AM COMPLETE WITH OR WITHOUT A PARTNER AND WILL ALWAYS BE …I PUT MUCH TIME AND THOUGHT INTO HAVING AND RAISING MY CHILDREN. IVE HAD THE HONORS OF HAVING 2 HOME BIRTHS AND 2 WONDERFUL PARTNERS BY MY SIDE… F*CK OFF… WHO NEEDS YOU ….CERTAINLY NOT ME … KICK ROCKS … CALL TYRONE … PACK LIGHT …. BITE ME…and if this post is not clear, kiss my placenta”
Read the entire response here. It doesn’t surprise me at all that one of the most innovative mainstream musicians of our time – who happens to have dated and/or had children with similarly skilled artists – gets attacked because she’s a black woman who dates black men and creates hip-hop. She has two kids who are never paraded around in the media, a relatively quiet private life and continues to make dope ass music. Funny how white celebrities like Angelina Jolie can adopt brown babies from orphanages around the world, move to so-called exotic countries to give birth to biological kids, put out a slew of lackluster films, and be heralded as Wonder Mom.
GRUPO FANTASMA
Sonidos Gold
(Aire Sol/ High Wire Music)
By Todd Lavoie
Freshly sparkled with Prince’s glittering purple seal of approval, Austin’s tireless Latin funk orchestra Grupo Fantasma pushes onward with their crowd-amassing trajectory on Sonidos Gold, a floor-burning 12-track collection of hip-shakers and provocative grooves.
Having recently enjoyed a much-deserved surge of international exposure – thanks largely to Prince’s ringing endorsement and the high-profile supporting-band gigs that followed – the 10-member soul machine arrives more confident than ever on this, their fourth album. The disc might also be the most faithful in capturing the joyous, body-liberating ebullience of the band’s live performances. (And while we’re on the subject of their shows: You must see them, case closed. I caught Grupo with a former Austinite friend at Slim’s here back in February, and they were complete and utter sweat-soaking bliss.)
Sonidos Gold exudes plenty of room-filling warmth, and guitarist Adrian Quesada’s production plunks the listener directly on the dancefloor, right in the sweet spot between the hot-pepper horn section and the mighty rumble of congas and timbales. While I’m sure these folks picked up some tricks from Prince on the road, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe the Purple One himself might be taking a few notes as well…
What to do, when not sailing down a Mission Creek or taking a shine to Diamond Days? A few more shows for you…
The Buckets
‘Member alt-country? Well, it remembers you. And one of SF’s ’90s-era main proponents the Buckets returns with a double CD to celebrate. With the Great Auk and Sister Exister. Thurs/17, 8:30 p.m., $10. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market St., SF. (415) 861-5016.
The Long Winters
The new Putting the Days to Bed (Barsuk) dares to reach for the epic amid country-rock guitars. Thurs/17, 9 p.m., $15. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1422.
Joseph Arthur
Author, Arthur! You can’t stop the music: the singer-songwriter has unleashed four EPs leading up to the forthcoming album, Temporary People (Lonely Astronaut). Fri/18, 9 p.m., $20. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750.
Heeb mag’s Diamond Days – just what brings it to the Bay from Brooklyn? There’s no denying that the lineup is doozy, including Audacity, Fences, Glitter Wizard, Thee Makeout Party, Tiny Vipers, Ellen Mary McGee, and Young Animals, as well as a slew of local talents. I traded e-mails with Heeb magazine publisher Josh Neuman and associate editor Amy Westervelt to find out more.
SFBG: How did Diamond Days originate?
Amy Westervelt: It started last year in Brooklyn as sort of a throw-back to music shows you and your friends might have put together in high school or college. One of Heeb‘s contributing editors, Jay Diamond, grew up in the ‘burbs of Chicago playing in bands and putting together shows and he wanted to recreate that fun, but focus it on really great local bands in Brooklyn. After the first fest, we really wanted to recreate it in different parts of the country.
Josh Neuman: The fest is partially named in honor of Jay, and partially an homage to a Vashti Bunyan song, which is everything a summer song should be.
SFBG: Why did it move from Brooklyn to Oakland this year?
Aarggh, I can’t stand phony happy-smiley types, either, Aimee. This isn’t to say I’m in a constant state of mopeyness – perish the thought! – but I don’t exactly see the point in refusing to acknowledge a little melancholia when it sets in from time to time. Why deny it if I’m feeling it? I used to work with someone who would carp and crow away – practically shouting up into the sound system overhead – in response to every song which failed to blow rainbow-pony kisses for its entire three-minute duration. Upon hearing even the faintest allusion to sadness or anger or frustration, away she’d go with cries of, “Oh, why can’t you just be happy!” See, it’s as simple as that: paint on a smile and greet the world grinning from ear to ear. Flick of the switch. Life as one endless loop of Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine.”
Mann’s new album, @#%&*! Smilers, probably won’t win the heart of my former co-worker – wherever she may be, blinders on and her frown firmly fixed upside down – but it probably will do all sorts of fiendishly wonderful things to the hearts of those who aren’t afraid to recognize the scrapes, stumbles, and scabby knees of life. The title alone should be a tip-off – a snide, willfully rude poke with a sharp stick into the eyes of ever-cheerful folks who insist upon everyone smiling along with them, it practically revels in antagonizing the superficial shiny-happy pop song.
A little context before launching into a rush of superlatives over Emmylou Harris‘ new stunner, All I Intended to Be: back in 1995, Harris made an abrupt – and enormously successful – career turn with the release of her classic Wrecking Ball (Elektra), a haunting, endlessly layered collection of shimmers and swirls deeply steeped in atmosphere by producer Daniel Lanois. Largely gone was the country traditionalism associated with her most well-known work, and instead she’d offered up one of the decade’s boldest, most compellingly adventurous torch-carriers for the “cosmic American music” tag coined by former collaborator Gram Parsons several decades before.
While obviously drawing heavily from folk and country, Wrecking Ball could never fit the purist’s definition of either. Rather, this was something truly deserving of the label “visionary,” having re-positioned roots music out of the farms and the forests and into the heavens. Nothing else sounded quite like it, and the album not only solidified Harris’ standing as a peerless interpreter – refer to her covers of Jimi Hendrix’s “May This Be Love” and the Neil Young-penned title track if you need reminding – but it also marked the start of a tremendous creative burst for the artist, both as a songwriter and as a collaborator.
The albums that followed – 2000’s Red Dirt Girl and 2003’s Stumble Into Grace (both Nonesuch) – showed no let-up in Harris’ inspired momentum, serving up considerably fewer cover songs in favor of adventurous, highly personal songwriting. (One obvious highlight: Red Dirt Girl‘s “Bang The Drum Slowly,” a grand, ethereal weeper written for her father, who had passed away around the time of Wrecking Ball.) Teaming up with Luscious Jackson’s Jill Cunniff proved to be a particular left-field triumph, as evidenced by the hypnotic groove of 2000’s “J’Ai Fait Tout.” Meanwhile, both albums carried on with a refined vision of Wrecking Ball‘s lush whirl-and-eddy aesthetic, with producer Malcolm Burn inserting the occasional drum loop and world-music element into the mix to tremendous effect. In short, the past decade-plus of Harris’ career should be considered nothing less than a renaissance – quite wowing, considering the breadth of her catalog, but entirely true. If anything, the vocalist is enjoying a higher profile now than she ever has before.
“Taylor Hollingsworth, sideman for Maria Taylor, had some of his and Maria’s gear stolen on Thursday, July 10, on tour promoting Maria’s newest EP, Savanna Drive. The band were tucked in for the night in San Francisco when some folks busted out the back window of Maria’s van and stole six guitars, two suitcases, two pedals, and some boxes filled with copies of Maria’s newest EP. Luckily, the band recovered one of the bass guitars at a local pawnshop. Here is a list of all the stolen goods:
– Left-handed Red Gretsch Tennessee Rose Guitar.
– Left-handed Martin Acoustic Guitar.
– Right-handed Purple Fender Jazz Bass guitar.
– Right-handed 1976 Black Les Paul Deluxe.
– Right-handed Alvarez acoustic guitar (Hand painted white w/ black swirls. Guitar strap is nailed on.)
– Boss Tuner Pedal.
– Boss Distortion Pedal.
“If you have any information regarding the items listed above, please contact info@saddle-creek.com, jeff@saddle-creek.com, or publicity@teamclermont.com. In the meantime, Maria plans to finish up the last two dates of her tour; one show in LA and one in Sonoma.”
Excitable: Matmos’ “Exciter Lamp and the Variable Band” from their new album, Supreme Balloon (Matador).
While you were dozing, the rabidly talented Matmos quietly slipped out of town, relocating to Baltimore, MD., from their longtime home in San Francisco’s Mission District. I recently caught up with MC (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel as they drove through the Northwest on their current US tour, which stops in SF on July 12 at Great American Music Hall.
SFBG: I’ve been enjoying the record – it has this great Wendy Carlos/Switched on Bach quality to it, which is a departure, no?
Martin Schmidt: We take turns being in charge of the record – and this was my turn. I wanted to go away from our shtick – like we’re the goofy sound band – and I thought a simple short cut to that would be to make the rule that we would use no microphones. It quickly turned into a synthesizer record from there. We love, love, love, love Wendy Carlos, and I don’t mean just Switched on Bach, we love her compositions as well, like Sonic Seasonings and the Clockwork Orange stuff and so on, so we figured we couldn’t do this without a nod to her.
SFBG: So the Carlos influence was very conscious…?
MS: We’re not DFA but I must admit I think a lot of our music is the result of wearing our record collections on our sleeve. I don’t mean DFA, I mean that guy in LCD Soundysystem. He’s the most, “I took all my records and boiled them down…” I think we’re a little like that, too. Guilty, guilty…
Matmos perform “Rainbow Flag” from Supreme Balloon in Baltimore on Feb. 9.
Don’t you worry ’bout a thing: Stevie Wonder, circa the ’70s.
By Joshua Rotter
When two travel four hours to see one of their all-time favorite artists, Stevie Wonder, perform at a venue that should have been a 40-minute drive away – the usual journey from San Francisco – a simple outing becomes a vision quest.
En route to Wonder’s Sleep Train Pavilion show in Concord on Tuesday, July 8, amid triple digit temperature, and dehydrated and dampened by sweat in my friend’s passenger seat, I was convinced that we would never see the legendary R&B performer. Car accidents and heat-induced area power outages seemed to conspire against us. San Francisco may have been as hot as July elsewhere in the county, but Concord was hotter than hell. We inched closer and closer, but the venue, obscured by rolling hills, wasn’t even in eye shot, much less the eighth Wonder of the world.
Whether it was the excess of heat, the lack of liquids and nicotine, or being hopped up on myriad packs of sugary gum, an image of the vocalist suddenly appeared in my mind’s eye, and I was set adrift on memory’s bliss, imagining much of his career, from the innocent tracks of his early Motown period – “Uptight (Everything’s Alright),” “My Cherie Amour,” “For Once in My Life” – to his ’70s consciousness-spreading classics “Superstition,” “Living for the City,” and “Higher Ground,” through the Stevie of my youth – “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” “Part Time Lover,” and “That’s What Friends Are For,” as well as his guest-starring role on The Cosby Show, in which he invites the Huxtables to join him in the studio after his driver hits two in a fender bender. But traffic was too stalled at this point for any such luck to befall me.
Too much time on your hands? Guitar Hero III and Gossip Girl not doing it for you? Have I got some high-quality musical fun for you.
Maria Taylor
The Omaha, Neb., songstress strips it all down for her latest release, the digital EP Savannah Drive, while teaming with Now It’s Overhead’s Andy LeMaster. Wed/9, 9 p.m., $12-$14. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.
Sun City Girls and Charles Gocher Tribute
Alan and Richard Bishop keep picking up kudos for their acoustic performances – Will Oldham recently praised their recent Slim’s show. This time around they present a 40-minute film of Charles Gocher’s videos, The Handsome Stranger. Thurs/10, 9:30 p.m., $13-$15. Maxwell’s, 341 13th St., Oakl. www.maxwellslounge.com
Hey, Tilly, whatcha listening to? Oh, right, I mean, Neely Jenkins, one of Tilly and the Wall’s vocalists. What do the energizer kids of TATW listen to on their off-hours? Read the first part of Jenkins’ interview here.
FIVE IN TILLY AND THE WALL’S NEELY JENKINS’ CAR
• Sparks
• “A compilation my friend made of reggae music, which I didn’t used to be able to stand, but as of recently, I’m really starting to enjoy.”
• Sigur Rós
• Cyndi Lauper. “We played a festival in Japan, and she was playing the same stage. She brought me to tears with ‘Time after Time.’ It was so insanely good. During the last song she said, ‘I’m going to need some help from the ladies,’ and she pulled us onstage for ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun.’ I had tears of joy pouring down my face.”
• The Smiths. “That’s always a constant in my life. They always make me super-happy.”
What’s the deal with the West Coast and the vast dichotomy that divides the north and south? I think that the Bay Area has become increasingly unaware of it because we rest so literally in the middle of it all – nestled in, far away from Los Angeles and Seattle. It’s like we get the best of both worlds. Down south, the arts are a real industry: movies, photography, and music are more synonymous with Hollywood, Cobrasnake, and MTV, while the cities to the north of California are considerably quieter about their feats. And while LA often pumps out artists and movies that only stay hot for as long as SF’s summer, I find you get more for your buck when you actually get to see a band from our boreal brothers. That said, the Fast Computers, hailing from Portland, Ore., really knocked me out Sunday, June 29, at Kimo’s Penthouse Lounge.
Every other Sunday Kimo’s presents Club Unsolved Melody, which, every time I’ve attended, has been really excellent and not nearly as populated as it should be. I’ve seen book readings there, comedy nights, acoustic shows, and even a gypsy klezmer band, and every time I went home happy. This night was no different.
The Fast Computers, who I’ve seen in SF at Hemlock Tavern, played to an intimate and enchanted group of viewers who seemed more like friends of the other bands or promoters than showgoers. However, even though the FC name was unfamiliar and the end of Pride weekend was heavy on the crowds’ shoulders, more than one person got up to dance.
Alejandro Escovedo recently performed “Always a Friend” with Bruce Springsteen.
By Todd Lavoie
How about some good news for a change? Alejandro Escovedo’s comeback keeps getting stronger.
When the singer-songwriter collapsed post-show back in 2003 after contracting Hepatitis C, the outlook was pretty grim – as it turned out, he had had the disease for several years, and his body was in greatly compromised condition. Consequently, his musical career had to be back-burnered for a few years, to allow time for recovery – surely a painful option for the musician, who had more or less been playing nonstop ever since forming San Francisco punk legends the Nuns back in the mid-’70s.
His return to recording, 2006’s The Boxing Mirror (Back Porch), was a triumphant, frequently touching announcement of recuperation, but the just-released Real Animal (Back Porch/ Manhattan/Blue Note Label Group) resolves any fleeting doubts about the state of Escovedo’s health after his brush with death.
Continuing to glide through artistic media, the Mission’s new Iceberger gallery opened its fifth show, Richard T. Walker’s video installation, “sometimes i like you more than othertimes,” with a bang on June 14.
Walker, a British artist currently at the Headlands Center for the Arts and formerly at Berkeley’s Kala Art Institute, is drawn to our often self-interested but always interesting interactions with the natural world. In this case, two videos playing simultaneously on color flat screens face each other in the small, pristine gallery space. They showcase Walker traipsing around the golden California hills with a microphone and small amplifier, delivering a speech in different locales while looking away from the viewer. At the same time, he literally plays with himself – on guitar, vocals and drums – also looking away from the viewer, as if talking to himself all the way around the world.
The most impressive thing at Iceberger’s fifth opening wasn’t the free beer – or free pizza – but the fact that most folks stayed to watch the entire video, often following along with the conversational, poetic text, which was available as program notes. Though spoken in address alternately to “all of the grass I have ever encountered” and to “a medium-sized mountain that will stay in my thoughts forever,” the words sound like a Tarot reading from a good, if ruthlessly honest, friend, speaking directly to the viewer, such as this:
Wondering what to do this week? Fleeing from visiting relatives – or simply want to lose them in the crowd? Listen closely…
THE JET AGE
Poppy rock powered by Who-like feistiness? Wed/2, 9:30 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.
Sex Vid, anyone? Courtesy of Dusted.
SEX VID
Bristly, gristly hardcore for possessed vegans? Thurs/3, 9:30 p.m., $7. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.
Yes, you’re Still Flyin’.
STILL FLYIN’, COTILLION, AND CONSPIRACY OF VENUS
Indie rock party jams meet a Bright Eyes-Passionista supergroup meets Conspiracy of Beards’ female counterpart devoted to Joni Mitchell and other ladies of the canyon? Thurs/3, 9 p.m., $10. Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016.
The landmark release of Gas’ four-CD Nah und Fern (Kompakt) might well narrate a secret märchen that begins in the lowlands of the Black Forest, climaxes upon a Harz mountainside and ends in the enchanted mixing board of a Cologne studio.
One of many noms de guerre of Kompakt founder Wolfgang Voigt, Gas represented the extremes of the techno/ambient hybrid pioneered in small continental studios throughout the ’90s and released on hip electronic labels like Mego, Raster-Noton, and Mille Plateaux – Gas’ original record company. The new box set encompasses Gas’ four releases – 1996’s self-titled debut, 1997’s Zauberberg, 1999’s Königsforst and 2000’s Pop – whose sylvan intricacies appreciate from album to album in a spiritual tour of German romanticism and its putative antipode, techne.
But Voigt endeavors to merge these inconsistent paradigms head-on, finding the majority of musical sources for Gas in his collection of classical German genres, including Wagnerian opera, Webernian serialism, and alpine oompah bands, then mutating them through obsessive looping, stretching, and the ever-present bass drum. What is produced is an incredible acoustic environment overflowing with epic grandeur and religious hymnal. “Gas is Hansel and Gretel on acid,” Voigt has said. “…A seemingly endless march through the under woods – and into the discotheque – of an imaginary, nebulous forest.”
Fiddling around: Jenny Scheinman. Photo by Wendy Andringa.
By Todd Lavoie
Jenny Scheinman can do it all. The Humboldt County-bred Brooklynite has already worn plenty of hats – violinist, composer, bandleader, session musician, collaborator – but with her recently released eponymous disc on Koch Records, she’s donned perhaps her most impressive chapeau of them all: vocalist. While hardly a newbie to recording – having recorded a handful of avant-garde jazz albums over the years, including a couple for the venerable Tzadik label – Scheinman’s vocal debut swings with honestly blindsiding levels of “whoa, where did this come from?!”
The biggest surprise? Jenny Scheinman isn’t jazz at all, but rather a rustic collection of old-timey country, rambling blues, and rockabilly swagger. Yes, there is an improvisational spirit to these recordings – thus revealing her deep-rooted jazz connections – but overall the focus is on gorgeously twanged-out vocals and faithful evocations of the old south. It’s a mighty auspicious first step to the mic, bursting with the confidence of someone who has been singing all her life, of someone who lives and breathes every word that leaves her lips. As far as first introductions go, it’s just as quietly revelatory as Gillian Welch’s Revival (Almo Sounds/Acony).
I should also mention here that Scheinman actually has just released two albums at once – the other, Crossing the Field (also Koch) is a purely instrumental affair, which I haven’t heard yet. I’m sure it’s wonderful, but for now I’ll stick to discussing the self-titled record. And since it’s getting touted in some circles as her “vocals album,” I might as well get right to it and heap gushing praise upon her comfortingly familiar but still uniquely expressive voice.
Stefan Grant and bassist Martin Morales rock the Devil at SFTV Unplugged.
By Kat Renz
A year ago, local guitarist Stefan Grant wasn’t sure how he’d continue playing live shows. The drummer of his alternative/metal band, Kinetic Chain, moved to Chicago, and the tribe was further split after he and the lead guitarist suffered a falling out.
And then, as so often happens in those bummer times, epiphany struck: what if they took a different direction from the guitar riff-driven, crashing drum sound they were so used to and went acoustic instead? “Let’s strip it down to what it is,” Grant said, adding that he wanted to create an opportunity to play and see live music that’s easy on the ears but still rock, as opposed to jazz or pop – a sweet space he considers relatively rare in the city. Thus was born SFTV Unplugged.
It’s not a novel approach – remember how killer those episodes of MTV Unplugged were back in the ’90s? “I think there are a lot of 30-plus people who liked Unplugged a lot,” Grant said, as we proceeded to rail off a list of our favorite performances. Alice in Chains. The Cure. That legendary Nirvana performance with Kurt Cobain sarcastically commenting on everything from harp-tuning to Leadbelly’s for-sale guitar amid a stage buried in star-gazer lilies.
This just in for Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello‘s people:
“Tom Morello’s solo project and alter ego, the Nightwatchman, will play a San Francisco benefit for anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, best known for her extended demonstration at a camp outside President George W. Bush’s Texas ranch. Sheehan’s son, Casey was killed during his service in the Iraq War on April 4, 2004.
“Says Morello, ‘I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate until now. It is an honor to perform at Cindy Sheehan’s fundraising event because I strongly believe she is the kind of uncompromising righteous voice for justice that this country so desperately needs. Her unwavering commitment to peace and human rights as well as her intelligence and fortitude are inspiring and stand in dramatic contrast to the lame parade of mealy-mouthed sell-outs and red state war-mongers we are normally forced to choose between.’
“Morello will headline the fundraising show for Sheehan at San Francisco’s Fat City on Saturday, June 28, alongside Malcontent, an acoustic performance by Travis Bilenski, and a reading by Eric Victorino.
Charlemagne Palestine
From Etudes to Cataclysms
(Sub Rosa)
By Erik Morse
Charlemagne Palestine (real name: Chaim Moshe Tzadik Palestine) has long been an unrecognized co-star in the avant-celebrity tradition of minimalism. Born in Brooklyn and working alongside his more famous brethren for decades, Palestine blends entrancing keyboard intervals with stylized performance and mythmaking. In his newest two-CD collection of compositions, From Etudes to Cataclysms, the musician gets second billing to the unique piano he plays.
Christened the Borgato by its eponymous inventor, a musician from Padua, the instrument consists of two grand piano bodies, constructed vertically, with the first containing all 88 keys and sitting at normal playing height while the second contains only the lower 37 notes and rests near the feet. Having previously learned to perform on the carillon, a medieval bell instrument played with the fists and feet, Palestine was reportedly eager to test his dexterity on the mutant machine. Recorded over three days at the Church of Saint Apollinare Monticello in Lonigo, Italy, the end product is a 140 minute tour de force of mindful possibilities and mindless boredom.
The first disc (“Etudes”) consists almost entirely of Palestine’s exercises with repetition and formality as he builds enormous ghostly overtones from long periods of high- and low-end trilling. From the opening “super high tones” to the closing “tritone octave ½”, there is an ongoing struggle, in both performance and perception, between obscure mathematical process and arcane artistic license. The tension builds further and further as the individual notes blur into less delineated “clusters” of sound without harmonic resolution. Drones, secreted beneath the surface sounds, phase in and out with a spectral menace.
As with most extended minimalist compositions, there are various levels of intention and thus appreciation simultaneously at work. While the abstractionist and musicologist might luxuriate in so-called “microtonal” resonances spiriting between the Western intervals of the piano, casual listeners may simply gape at Palestine’s superhuman playing endurance. Regardless, the listener hangs on to this sonic maelstrom half in suspense and half in stupor. The hypnotic effect is not very different from that produced by LaMonte Young’s The Well Tuned Piano (Gramavision, 1988) or the film soundtracks of Ligeti or Donaggio. And most of the pieces do have a strong kinaesthetic component to them, eschewing the aural for a chimerical cinematography.
The second disc exudes similar hypnomonotony but the pianist’s trills reside more on the lower end as he seems to take full advantage of the “bass” piano at his feet. In “Cataclisma 2” and “Cataclisma 3,” the use of tension and resolution is particularly effective, again invoking the nocturnal soundtrack moods of Eyes Wide Shut or any of a dozen “metaphysical” crime films. By “Cataclisma 4,” a behemoth piece clocking in at nearly 20 minutes, the divisions between tracks seem arbitrary or beyond a dilettante’s comprehension. Unfortunately, the recording fails to present the overall image of a Charlemagne Palestine recital, where the performer in question often surrounds himself with stuffed teddy bears, books, and aged cognac. Such knick-knacks probably connote a humor and playfulness that is sorely missing in the heavy intellectual conceits of From Etudes to Cataclysms. Nonetheless, for followers of the current avant-garde, the work of this renegade pianist has few equals.
Ah, Sloan, you’re killing me with your songwriting wizardry! The Canadian power-pop quartet had lain down quite the serious gauntlet to all the other three-chord bashers last year with their sprawling 30-track masterwork Never Hear the End of It (Yep Roc), and here they come once again with another batch of instant anthems to show ’em what’s what.
The just-released Parallel Play (also Yep Roc) might not boast the same sense of hugeness as its predecessor – only 13 songs this go-round – but it’s just as knee-tappingly, head-bobbingly dynamic, having channeled all of the previous disc’s restless energy and fierce ambition into something a bit more compact. Better still, it seems that the guys must have gotten a massive creative boost after last year’s bold undertaking. Parallel Play presents Sloan sounding even more energized than before, and certainly more focused. As admirable and breathtaking as 2007’s offering was, the new disc is probably ultimately easier to get one’s grip around. Me, I’m in love with it already.
Time to put that psychology degree to good use and make mama proud: the term “parallel play” comes from child psychology, referring to behavior in which little tykes enjoy playing independently of each other while sharing the same space – you know, as in “Ashley stacks wooden blocks while Kelsey scribbles all over the coffee table with a new box of crayons.” You get the idea. While this term might not resonate nearly as much with other bands – I couldn’t see it connecting as much with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, for example, wherein everybody locks together in the pursuit of a tight groove – it definitely makes sense in the context of Sloan.
THE LAST SHADOW PUPPETS
The Age of the Understatement
(Domino)
By Todd Lavoie
Side projects tend to be met upon arrival with more than a bit of held-breath trepidation and Doubting Thomas cynicism. So it’s always nice when one shows up that not only turns out to be a rousing success, but also ends up raising the bar for the artists concerned in the process. Such is the case with the recent Last of the Shadow Puppets collaboration between the Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner and the Rascals’ Miles Kane. Their opening introduction, The Age of the Understatement, should come as a great big “who knew?’ to those who have followed the pair’s respective day jobs thus far.
Specifically I am speaking of Turner; while Kane’s Rascals hold plenty of promise, they have thus far only released an EP, with an album expected this summer. As for Turner, however – well, who would have expected that the charming leader of the exuberant pop-punkers Arctic Monkeys would follow up two such gloriously careening albums of post-Buzzcocks delights (2006’s Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not and last year’s Favourite Worst Nightmare, both Domino) with a collection of lushly orchestrated ’60s pop? And that it would be so successful in paying homage to that era, for that matter?
The album should be considered a turning point for the vocalist. As effective as the Arctic Monkeys’ pint-raising anthems have been in getting bodies in motion, here we are seeing a whole new depth to his songwriting. Not only did he and Kane – the two share songwriting credits – fully embrace and absorb the string-laden pop of the likes of Scott Walker, but they’ve penned a whole new set of riveting melodramas which surpass rote re-creation and mere mimicry and instead strive for achieving similar heights. Overall, they succeed enormously, which leaves me quite anxious to hear the Rascals’ forthcoming debut, to be sure, and feverishly praying away that the next Monkeys disc can’t be much further around the bend.
