Archive for the “Music” category
John Seven • 27th May 2010 • Music • Karen O, Nick Zinner, Unitard, Where the Wild Things Are
Karen O, front woman for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, showed a different side of herself when she penned and performed the soundtrack to the film “Where The Wild Things Are” — now she and bandmate Nick Zinner are taking that sound on the road with a new acoustic show.
The duo will perform at the Colonial Theater on Monday, May 24, at 7:30 p.m.
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs — comprising O, guitarist Nick Zinner and drummer Brian Chase — gained fame and acclaim in 2003 with their debut album, “Fever To Tell.” More recently O’s musical work for “Where The Wild Things Are” garnered more great reviews as it reached beyond the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ sound, and this is a creative development that should be reflected in the show at the Colonial.
“We’re bringing a couple guitars and just a trio– a cello, a viola and violin — and a percussionist, minimal percussion,” O said during an interview this week. “It will probably be mostly Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and when we rehearse we’re going to try out a couple Wild Things songs and see if we can add that to the set as well.”
For some, the idea of O performing an intimate, acoustic show might be a curious thing. Read any article about her, and it will invariably contain the phrases “on-stage antics” and “crazy outfits.” Between spitting grapes and beer at the audience and donning skeleton and silvery astronaut body suits, her performances are highly regarded for being over the top and energetic. So ingrained are they into her public persona and the presence of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs that it’s hard to imagine how that will translate to the quieter setting of an acoustic show.
“I’ll have an outfit, of course — I always have to show up dressed up, but I won’t have any crazy antics or anything like that,” O said. “It doesn’t quite go with the music.” (more…)
John Seven • 6th May 2010 • Music • Codeine Velvet Club, Fishtank Ensemble, Melomane, Pierre de Gaillande, Shakespear's Sister, Sweet Electra, The Fratellis, The Pipettes, Trampled By Turtles
As warm weather nears and inevitable gatherings beg the appropriate soundtrack, there are already plenty of music releases that offer a mix of styles from around the world to fuel your enjoyment of the area just outside your house.
New York City musician and Melomane frontman Pierre de Gaillande will offer a June release for his Georges Brassens collection, “Bad Reputation,” and it’s one to be excited about. Raised in America, de Gaillande pulls from his French roots and the music of his childhood with this release, bringing Brassens’ sounds into a string ragtime setting that offers some whimsy to his tales of the underbelly of life, with a burlesque undertone reminiscent of Tom Waits.
It is entirely unsuitable for the ears of children, but it’s a delightful — and often coarse — slice of French culture through a modern filter, and the guest appearance by French folk chanteuse Keren Ann doesn’t hurt.
Riffing on the Balkans but never becoming smothered in the style over substance, California-based Fishtank Ensemble debut with “Woman In Sin,” in which two Americans, a Parisian and a Serbian unite to turn their group heritage into sound, moving from a rollicking Grappli/Reinhardt romps to exotic Middle Eastern jazz and wild Gypsy rambles. The highlight of the album, though, has to be their rendition of “Fever,” a voice and instrument duet between the extremely versatile vocalist Ursula
Knudson and the cool, upright bass work of Djordje Stijepovic.
Trampled By Turtles spring from Duluth, Minnesota, with some raw bluegrass credibility, but the band’s delivery of the form is anything but standard. On its new album, “Palomino,” TBT choose not just to ape the nostalgic styles of bluegrass festivals across the land, but to keep the form alive by indulging in some first-rate songwriting melded with wild musicianship — think The Pogues hiding out in Kentucky.
Songs such as the exuberant and thrashy “Wait So Long” and “It’s A War” unfold with an urgency that is propelled by the intense styles of the band. These are songs that could find an audience in any genre, not ones that are confined to the musical style of choice. This is a great one for a few beers on the porch late at night — and a band that’s worth keeping an eye on.
On its new “Stop the Music” EP, girl group The Pipettes step away from the retro ‘50s and ‘60s styles that got them attention and into some more modern pop territory, specifically Bananarama, circa the mid ‘80s. There’s a little bit of “Venus” here, a dab of “Cruel Summer” there — and it’s a wildly fun, if admittedly unadventurous, leap that should find a home on radio stations that offer happy sounds.
Speaking of Bananarama, Shakespear’s Sister (that’s the way they spell it) has a new album out after 10 years (the previous one spent six years in legal limbo, but was finally released in 2004). The band made a splash in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s with some inventive pop sounds built around the dueling vocals of Siobhan Fahey and Marcella Detroit. This didn’t last though — one whiff of stardom, and Detroit was in pursuit of her more mainstream goals. The more smoky-voiced Fahey made one other album and then concentrated more on life as a dee-jay.
Fahey returns as a solo act using the band’s name on “Songs From The Red Room,” with improved songwriting injected with the dance beats she’s honed in her second career. This record is a lot of fun and hardly a far cry from the sort of music Fahey was making as an original member of Bananarama, just with a more progressive ear — the new work even features a duet with old cohort and Fun Boy Three and The Specials vocalist Terry Hall.
Spanish duo Sweet Electra touches on electronica with its third album, “When We Abandoned The Earth,” but mostly offers a shiny, pop affair that isn’t too far afield from synth pop acts of the late ‘80s — you can feel the Ultravox ooze out of the songs. That’s a good thing — songs like “A Feeling” or the standout ditty, “Love You More,” are both nostalgic for that uncomplicated summer of ‘86 and entirely modern. It’s a bouncy collection that should find its way to your warm weather iPod mix.
Finishing up the suggestions with a smart melding of past and present, personable Fratellis frontman John Lawler drops heavy, burlesque rock in favor of a more lush version of the same. Lawler teams up with cabaret performer Lou Hickey for Codeine Velvet Club’s debut album, an astonishingly catchy collection of songs that pull their inspiration from the boy/girl duets of the 1960s. What ensues is something in the limbo that exists between Neil Diamond and T. Rex — not to mention disparate swashes of Madness, Dave Clark 5 and John Barry.
From the opening amble of “Hollywood” and the creepy funk of “I Wish My Daddy” to the surf-infused lament of “I Am The Resurrection,” there’s not a loser in this collection. In fact, this is enough to suggest that if Lawler left his other band behind, we’d still have a lot to look forward to.
John Seven • 23rd Apr 2010 • Music • Billy Bragg, Jay Bennett, Jeff Tweedy, Mass MoCA, Solid Sound Festival, Wilco, Woody Guthrie
When it was announced that Wilco would not just headline the Solid Sound Festival in August but literally absorb it — performing as a whole and in smaller, more experimental contingents — the news was greeted with enthusiasm as a real step in the right direction for the city and Mass MoCA by fans and the uninitiated alike.
For Wilco fans, there is little to add — they know what’s in store — but to anyone less familiar with the band, the breadth of its work is not so apparent. Now’s the time to get familiar, though, and prepare for the big event.
What has always differentiated Wilco from the rest is not its propensity to juggle an unexpected and often challenging style of experimentation with sounds that are also pleasing to the ear — other bands do their own versions of the same, though admittedly Wilco is particularly gifted at it.
What makes Wilco stand out is that its core sound is not the kind of rock base that bands like Radiohead spring from, but country and “roots” music, including bluegrass and even straightforward Southern rock. That’s not the usual basis for experimentation, but it’s at the core of Jeff Tweedy’s tastes, it seems, and the affectations of those styles have never left the music, no matter how far out or — sometimes — atonal it might become.
It’s this malleability that has made Wilco endure as a below-the-radar superstar — this band will never be U-2, and we can all be thankful for it. Its mission is not to entertain with bombast, but with contemplation on a serious but pleasing musical journey.
The band debuted with the 1995 album “A.M.,” which is easily its most country-rock release and, in that way, mainstream. It was on the heels of the break-up of the punk band Uncle Tupelo — credited for invented the term “alt. country” that has been attached to so many acts since.
More to the point, co-singer Jay Farrar had left the band to form Son Volt, leaving Jeff Tweedy at the helm, with fellow leftovers bassist John Stirrat, drummer Ken Coomer and multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston. That effort was high on songwriting craftsmanship and sincere musicianship, many songs touching on dysfunction and break-ups, but there was something very unexpected to come.
The band’s 1996 follow-up “Being There” was notable for several reasons, the biggest one being the debut of the late Jay Bennett, the new multi-instrumentalist who would be a major part of Wilco’s sound for the next six years. This was a two-CD opus incorporating multiple musical styles — from power pop to all-acoustic country to more experimental sounds that included some synth work — in a cycle of tales touching on life in a band and achieving fame in the most cryptic possible terms. It was a bold step from the previous album and hints at what the band was capable of.
“Summerteeth,” which followed in 1999, was therefore something of a surprise — a synth-heavy pop album that seemed to be channeling the band’s inner ELO. As with any of the band’s efforts, the musical stylistics are just window dressing to superior songcraft and Tweedy’s personable, down to earth delivery.
Prior to “Summerteeth,” Wilco made a splash with its collaboration with British folksinger Billy Bragg, a two-volume release of forgotten Woody Guthrie lyrics put to new music — a project initiated by Guthrie’s daughter, Nora, with the different discs being released in 1998 and 2000. Even though sharing the limelight with Bragg and a couple other vocalists — Natalie Merchant is on both albums — Wilco stole the show with its ability to play any style required by any particular song, with the roots of any sound in the American repertoire the works portrayed. The first album Is especially tight and affecting and received a Grammy nomination.
It was in 2002 that the band released its creative and — surprisingly — commercial triumph, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” It wasn’t always to be.
Created amidst band tension — Coomer was dismissed prior to recording the album and Bennet afterwards — “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” did not meet the satisfaction of record label Reprise, which refused to release it upon delivery. The band famously fought for the rights to the work, steamed it on its website and eventually released it through a much smaller label. As a result, the album swept through the critics like a fury, being placed on countless best of the year, best of the decade and best of all time lists.
The album itself is an atmospheric work of depth that is portrayed in the soundscapes built around the songs, which was sculpted in collaboration with engineer Jim O’Rourke, who would stick around as an unofficial band member. The lyrics themselves focus on mental displacement and emotional dysfunction, framed by the sounds of the radio as being similar to the waves of depression and paranoia in one’s head. With exemplary songwriting, performances and songwriting, this is one case where the critics got it right.
The album also saw drummer Glenn Kotche join the group, after a side stint with Tweedy and O’Rourke in the more experimental band Loose Fur, as well as new multi-instrumentalist Leroy Bach. The band’s dirty laundry was aired out in the documentary film “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart,” which was beautifully filmed and featured some fascinating studio footage of the creation of the album. It’s not entirely pleasant, however — the behind-the-scenes squabbling and tension involving Bennett can be a bit uncomfortable, if enlightening as to the realities of how bands work. After this project, he had disappeared from the band.
In 2004, the band delivered its long-awaited follow-up, “A Ghost is Born,” which won two Grammies. While it’s not a conceptual whole like “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” the band managed to create an album of great parts. The songs don’t need each other to exist on this album quite in the same way as the previous, but each is a little nugget.
The same year saw the publication “Wilco (The Book),” a combination art book/band profile that also offered a CD of some more experimental efforts from the band that probably wouldn’t have seen the light of day on one of its mainstream releases.
This was followed up with a live album on which Bach was gone, and after that, the studio debut of guitarist Nels Cline and multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone on “Sky Blue Sky.” This album featured more songwriting collaboration from Tweedy than ever before and, as such, takes a little time to sink in — it does sound like a band searching to redefine itself even as it clings to its roots-rock background closer than it had in years.
That album was nominated for a Grammy, as was the most recent follow-up, last year’s “Wilco (The Album)” — a return to self-assurance, with some well-humored and energetic songs that mark a new era for the band after its turmoil earlier in the decade.
Tweedy himself has said that the album is about accepting the uncertainties that life toss your way — surely that’s the unifying theme of Wilco’s entire career.
Wilco is a band that is hard to peg down, and its appearance for an entire weekend at Mass MoCA promises to further that reputation.
John Seven • 21st Apr 2010 • Music • Anne Dudley, Art of Noise, Duck Rock, Madonna, Malcolm McLaren, Paul Simon, punk rock, rap, Sex Pistols, Trevor Horn
When British music industry figure Malcolm McLaren died recently at the age of 64, most of the press coverage focused on his most notorious claim to fame — as manager of the Sex Pistols. This surely is worthy of some space in newspapers. As the man who developed the band in every area from appearance to lyrical themes, McLaren was integral in shaping popular music and fashion as we know it, following 1977, more than anyone else.
McLaren understood the concept of marketing rebellion, of pulling in fringe styles for mass consumption and of using outrage as a selling point for kids. As a pioneer of negative marketing, he drew the line that started in 1977 and has directly moved through the careers of Madonna, Britney Spears, Lady GaGa, you name it.
Also, in a world that was steadily marching in the musical direction of disco and Abba as its center, McLaren offered a high-profile resurgence of raw rock-and-roll sounds and got them onto the pop charts in Britain. It took longer to trickle into America — it was more of a tidal wave in England — but in the end, he saved us all.
Filmmaker Julien Temple rhapsodized in the British paper The Guardian that McLaren was “an incredible catalyst for my generation” and that, “Right across the creative spectrum, Malcolm made young people — artists, designers, writers, film-makers — aware that they had a distinctive voice and encouraged them to use it right there and then.”
McLaren also rocked as a social critic in ways no one else could match. There was one thing he said that has always stuck with me — that if kids really wanted to rebel, they would stop wearing jeans and other bits of the corporate uniform of rebellion and just start making their own clothes. From the Sex Pistols to that statement, McLaren really was all about promoting DIY rebellion — even though he wasn’t ashamed to try and make some money off it, as well.
Like many true geniuses, he was most definitely not pure at heart, and we are probably the better for it.
But that’s all just part of the reason why I loved Malcolm McLaren. I adored him most of all as a musician in his own right and for recording the best album of the 1980s — the one you’ve either never heard of or have long forgotten.
It’s time to rediscover 1983’s “Duck Rock.”
At the time, the music press thought it was a bit of a joke that a behind-the-scenes guy like McLaren — he had also managed the group Bow Wow Wow, among others — would make a solo album. McLaren surprised the naysayers and created another blueprint for music and culture as we experience it now.
What culminated on “Duck Rock” was that McLaren’s effort to fashion a musical collage, using early examples of sampled sounds, music and electronica. He mixed styles and fashioned a pre-digital form of mash-ups that incorporated turntablism and urban hip-hop styles, as well as the world music forms and instruments — especially in the Afro-Cuban realm. All these components are far more common nowadays in mainstream pop and dance music, but back then they were largely unheard of.
Paul Simon wouldn’t put out the supposedly groundbreaking “Graceland” for another three years — and no hurry, since McLaren had already brought the sound of South African musicians to the world on “Duck Rock.”
Anyone 30 and under may not remember a time when rap music — and urban culture in general — was not a major part of the mainstream. With the exception of a song or two from Blondie, it really had little to do with pop culture of the early 1980s.
McLaren’s “Buffalo Gals” was the only other high-profile song to incorporate rap in the same way that Blondie did. Amusingly, he also threw in some square dancing and Appalachian backdrops into the mix.
In McLaren’s view, all cultural affectations, black or white, were on equal ground in this presentation — a bold statement in a world micromanaged by Reagan and Thatcher.
Not that he did so entirely ethically. His method was to record a bunch of musicians from Africa and Cuba and then to gather a team of British engineers and musicians to help him build more music around the recordings.
Then he wooed an American radio/rap duo and procured clips from their freeform radio hip-hop show. And then he attempted to sing over it all to the best of his ability, which admittedly wasn’t great but had its charm. Somewhere in the process he forgot to give the South Africans songwriting credit — conveniently for him.
On the positive side, the musical team he assembled was the first phase of what was to become the Art of Noise — including British music luminaries such as Trevor Horn and Anne Dudley. The Art of Noise is best remembered for a couple of catchy hits with Duane Eddy and Tom Jones, but prior to that they utilized electronic instruments and samplers to take aesthetics and methods usually reserved for the avant garde and apply them to the composition and production of pop music. They were true innovators and inspirations to generations of dance musicians, producers and DJs to follow.
In “Duck Rock,” McLaren set the tone for everything that was to come — cultural mixology has become one of the standard bases of popular music as it exists in the 21st century, with the technological equivalent as its method of creating these sounds.
In a music market that had fixated on Anglo sounds for years, McLaren suggested there was much more in the world for your ears to enjoy.
He would follow up “Duck Rock” with other likable records — and a couple of not very likable ones — but all inventive, tossing opera, waltz, Shakespeare and French pop music into his expanding cultural mix.
He’d also continue to beat major stars to the punch — for instance, he released a single called “Deep In Vogue” a good year before Madonna claimed that dance territory as her own.
I had hoped McLaren would create one more work — there was initially some talk about doing an album centered around the city of Warsaw — but that never came to be. The only work of his that came to light in the last decade was a song on the “Kill Bill” soundtrack. It really doesn’t matter, though — the output he has scattered behind him is filled with a richness that welcomes rediscovery and encourages creativity still.
Maybe in death McLaren will finally get all the credit he deserves. From the accounts in the newspapers worldwide, it does appear the tide is finally turning.
John Seven • 22nd Feb 2010 • Music • Balkans music, Mahala Rai Banda, March Fourth Marching Band, The Spy From Cairo, Tyondai Braxton, Via Tania
Even though 2010 is upon us, there are still a number of 2009 releases worth talking about.
With a wavering musical whine and a creepy music box backdrop, Via Tania’s music shares more with sounds coming out of Scandinavia than anything I can imagine springing from her native Australia. On “Moon Sweet Moon” (Hours Entertainment) the artist — a.k.a. Tania Bowers — delivers some otherworldy melancholy like “The Beginning,” as well as upbeat variations like “Our Wild Flight,” with a consistent ear for a catchy melody regardless of the soundscape. In some songs, like “Fields,” she even manages to evoke Siouxsie and the Banshees on a mellow day.
Tyondai Braxton made a splash with his discombobulated and experimental indie band Battles, but on his solo release “Central Market” (Warp Records) he actually gets to break free of the band confines — who would guess Battles had such a thing. Here Braxton creates some sly and sometimes wacky sounds with the Wordless Music Orchestra — really, think Spike Jones in some sections — that can mean a piano line recalling Thelonious Monk morphing into something that sounds not unlike a pixieland marching band, if you get my meaning. If the barrage of styles and ideas seems scattered, nothing could be further from the truth. Braxton mixes it all up into something that builds on itself and constitutes a cohesive whole that challenges your ear even as it delights it with manic creation — even a brooding mood piece like “Unfurling” manages to pack in energy.
Marching bands often threaten to get funky, but March Fourth Marching Band gets wild. Their album “Rise Up” (MarchFourth Music) opens with the infectious, pounding “Ninth Ward Calling” and doesn’t let up once. The 25 members — their day jobs run the gamut from stonemasons to lawyers — took a DIY attitude to keeping the band together. This means the same attitude that had them customizing their own tour bus and performance costumes finds its way into the actual music. The band moves beyond the classic New Orleans style of their main embrace and incorporate Latin, polka and Balkans into a potent mix.
With “Ghetto Blasters” (Asphalt Tango) talented practitioners of the Gypsy sound, Mahala Rai Banda, push forward in the realm of the kinds of wacky Baltic sounds that have elevated bands like Fanfare Ciocărlia. With a frantic horn section that gives a ska tinge to the energy — as well as swing era, Dixieland and classical refrains lurking in the corners of their arrangements — Mahala Rai Banda offers up catchy and danceable tunes like … into a bombastic affair. The band comes from Bucharest — its name references the Gypsy suburbs of Romania — and considers itself that region’s answer to soul music. It’s definitely a party band that deserves the attention of the world — pulling in such diverse American styles with its international and hometown influences, Mahala Rai Banda’s second album “Ghetto Blasters” is a hot affair that anyone wanting an energetic good time should seek out.
Meanwhile, The Spy From Cairo’s “Secretly Famous” (Wonderwheel) is the effort of well-known musician, dee-jay and producer Moreno Visini, an attempt to tour the world of musical exotica from the Balkans to Jordan to Algeria to Morocco. Taking native sounds and mixing them with beats, Visini creates a soundtrack for the sort of intrigue that the name implies — it’s easy to envision espionage unfolding with these sounds to set the mood. On several songs Visini is joined by the rich-voiced Tunisian singer Ghalia, the combination of which creates some catchy and funky dance pop sounds, as well as the opportunity to hear some smoking hot oud playing.
John Seven • 6th Feb 2010 • Music • Arts and Crafts, Canadian music, Dare to Care Records, French music, Gonzales, Hidden Cameras, Julie Peel, Malajube, Pawa Up First
Canada has proved one of the most delightful music scenes in the world — and far more down to earth than our own in many ways. The sounds run the gamut of pleasingly soft acoustic pop to more jarring and sweeping progressive instrumentals. What it all has in common is the great deal of care and thought going into the sounds that come out, as well as the trust that quality will sell.
With “Origin Orphan” (Arts and Crafts) the Toronto band The Hidden Cameras offers an appealing collection that often dips back into the herky-jerky world of early ’80s new wave. “In the NA” sounds like something straight out of the old USA “Night Flight” show, while “He Falls To Me” makes me think of nothing so much as “Mr. Roboto” — but good. Ditto for “Do I Belong?” and its John Waite-like sequencing and ballad riff.
The band isn’t a one-trick pony, though, and its satirical song arrangements also drift into gentle pop-acoustic mode and even a sweeping, dramatic, string-laden Euro epic called “Walk On.” Surely Andy Partridge must love these guys!
Montreal-based Malajube delivers French-language indie rock by way of grand, arena production, with lofty keyboard and Yes-like chorales and musical refrains on its album “Labyrinthes” (Dare To Care) — but the songwriting and performance is down to earth. This is revealed straight-away on the second song in “Porte Disparu,” an easy-going 1970s styled pop number with a romping Madness piano line driving the pace that flips moments with the band’s prog-rock inclinations. It uses this mix to great effect for the rest of the album, with a few new-wave power-pop anthems thrown in — particularly “333” — that make catchy use of prog refrains and siren calls. It’s this sort of mix of eras that shows the strength of creative retro stylings that blend to create something new rather than slavish. These guys should be superstars outside of Canada, riding on a Radiohead vibe. (more…)
John Seven • 31st Dec 2009 • Film, Music
Recently, pop singing superstar Lily Allen — as Exhibit A in her argument against music file sharing — said the practice cuts into her hope of paying back her advance from the record company. She bragged that she is almost out of debt with her record company.
Lily Allen — who has sold millions of CDs and downloads, who has had her own talk show even — is still in debt to the company that releases her work. In other words, Allen currently makes no money off her work — she works off an advance payment for the work, with no royalties in her pocket until that loan is paid off.
Certainly, that’s reasonable — the record company fronted the money; it should get its investment back. Although I would argue there is a certain creative nobility in investing in talent and not expecting immediate payback, but rather eventual profits from nurturing the act — one thinks of EMI’s handling of Kate Bush in the 1970s.
But this system creates an inflated funhouse version of what should expected from creative profit, as well as perpetuates a reality in which the greatest disparity between classes is in the arts.
It becomes all or nothing, rich or poor, with no perception of a singer being a good middle-class occupation. (more…)
John Seven • 16th Nov 2009 • Music • Bjork
Few performers these days are as confounding as Icelandic singer Bjork - to those who love her work, she is still a bit of conundrum. Those who can’t stand the woman cite anything from her combative and detached nature to her screaming vocal dynamics. Few seem to latch onto her strictly as a songwriter, which is too bad be cause that is one of her greatest strengths, among many.
As a vocal stylist, I think she is the most innovative pop singer around - she puts as much care into what her vocals mean as a sound as any good jazz singer - but her songs are the blueprint for her innovation, and the real question is whether they can also serve as a map for others to bounce brilliance off.
Travis Sullivan puts this question to the test with his assembled group, Bjorkestra and its release “Enjoy.” Consisting of 10 Bjork-penned songs - including hits such as “Human Behavior” and “Army of Me” - Sullivan’s group explores Bjork’s legacy by processing it through a different filter - orchestral jazz.
The singer’s work is known for its flexibility - Bjork herself encourages DJs and fans to remix and remake - and her background in jazz speaks to the process by which her mind lays down the tunes she writes. They are made with the idea that they are part of a language, meant to evolve. Anyone who has heard her energetic earliest album, “Gling Glo,” which she recorded with a jazz trio, or her “Live Box,” which documents the singer’s live experimentation with her own songs, can see the path that Sullivan and company have decided to walk.
The work of Bjorkestra might also succeed as a forceful vehicle for those put off by Bjork as a presence that might appreciate her as a creator of music - it’s a strong work, fun and inventive, and most of all, accessible to anyone willing to lend an ear.
Bouncing back and forth between Bjork’s melodies and jazz improv, Bjorkestra tackles her melodies and puts them in a different context, highlighting what is there in songs such as “Hunter” by transforming it into a bluesy jazz swirl, while also pointing to the extreme possibilities in her work with a version of “Cocoon,” which takes the music into a zone of deconstructed experimentation even as it explores what Bjork laid down.
A strong bonus are the vocals of Becca Stevens, who offers the op posite of the Bjork experience with her clarity - the delivery really redirects and highlights what is special about the lyrics and vocal lines.
The album ends with a peaceful version of one of Bjork’s most delicate compositions - the overture to “Dancer in the Dark” - a lush and powerful lament that winds down the album and pushes you to take it all in again.
John Seven • 15th Nov 2009 • Headline, Music
Medeski, Martin and Wood embrace jazz without become slaves to it. By mixing up styles and genres, they apply the same sensibility to a more varied musical landscape. With John Medeski on keyboards, Billy Martin on drums and percussion and Chris Wood on bass, the band has become renowned for music that is unclassifiable and always pushing the boundaries. .
For its upcoming release “Radiolarians,” the band gathered the results of a year-and-a-half project into a deluxe format featuring three CD volumes of the official project — a rarities disc, a live disc, a remix disc, a DVD and two vinyl LPs. For the project, band members would get together and write music and then take it on the road. They would then hone the compositions live and finally record for release.
“We’re always restless in the way in which we make music and play music. We’re looking at new ways to write music together and keep it fresh,” Martin said in an interview this week. “This is the opposite of what a commercial record label band would do, and it has a lot to do with, when we perform in front of an audience, we always take that approach of playing different variations on our music every night depending on how we feel and depending on the audience, so it makes sense to do it this way, and it was just yet another variation on how to create a new repertoire.” (more…)
