Flagpole Magazine: Colorbearer of Athens, GA Shifting Gears
Mar 2, 2005
Record Reviews
BELLAFEA
Family Tree EP
Pidgeon English
You know, sometimes I find myself looking at a pretty girl, and then I think about it, and realize that she didn't catch my eye, her brightly-colored scarf did. And this admission of my own inner lizard-brain is embarrassing.
Press releases work much the same way. I listen to everything, but the simple fact is, I saw Bellafea compared to PJ Harvey (though Jucifer might be more accurate) and decided to put this on first. Sometimes this happens, and the disc is crap, and I feel like a tool. Not so here.
Family Tree begins with the sound of clapping, which is like scratching the back of my head in a way that makes my foot clump, and then an unaccompanied, rough, alto female voice comes in, singing a gorgeous melody, and it's like mwaaaaaaah. The whole thing is just clapping and stomping and singing and it's fantastic and then - and THEN! - it fades into the next track with the sound of guitar feedback and then it feels like it's going to explode, but IT DOESN'T, and then the chorus comes and it's all RRRRRNNNNGGGGRRR and it's like they made this just for me. I am in total love.
The next three tracks aren't as hot, but it comes back up to speed with the title track, an acoustic slow-burn, menacing and restrainedly psychotic with grief, never releasing but supersaturated with tension; extremely sexy, and the lyrics are fantastic, too. Maybe it's just lizard-brain justification, but I like it.
Michael Barthel
Bellafea is performing at Tight Pockets on Friday, Mar. 18.
DWIGHT MANNING
Oboe Music of the Americas
ACA Digital Recording, Inc.
This is a fine set of distinctly American music performed by University of Georgia music professor Dwight Manning - a frequent Widespread Panic collaborator - with the support of pianist Liana Embovica-Rivkin, the UGA Wind Symphony and conductor Dwight Satterwhite. Opening with the sweeping expanse of Robert Bloom's "Sonatina for Oboe and Piano" we are treated to Copland-esque clarity, performed with an emotional openness befitting its neo-Romantic style. The two movements alternate dreamy quiet and a restrained robust approach, with great emphasis on space and silence throughout. Bloom's decidedly darker "Aria for Oboe and Piano" follows, classical like Billie Holiday is jazz. Beautiful. UGA's own Leonard V. Ball then offers his "Romanza" - originally a solo piano piece - a tranquil love meditation which contrasts nicely with Ball's perhaps more well-known electronic stylings. Manning turns in a lovely upper-register reach towards the end of this short.
"Three Elegies" by Verne Becker Reynolds is a Sunday afternoon avant-garde lullaby, alternating organically familiar melodies and mood with fractured abstractions. Gentle angles abound. Up next is the unaccompanied solo "Upingos" by Mexican composer Carlos Chávez. A single movement with no printed rests, the phrasing determines the flow of the music, a colorful modal framework with a healthy dose of folk melody. "Suite for Oboe and Piano" by Walter Hamor Piston and its five movements are structured like a Baroque dance suite with palette and worldliness informed by 1931, the year in which it was written. "Ponteio e Dança" by José Alberto Kaplan reflects his adopted homeland of Brazil, utilizing cowboy song and approximations of guitar improvisation in a bounding solo exposition.
"Two Pieces for Oboe and Piano" is a slow Intermezzo and lively Scherzando, with pointed interplay between the oboe and piano. Very tight compositionally, and played with expressive authority. "Improviso" by Osvaldo Costa de Lacerda is a complex solo in three-parts with tricky though musically invisible meter changes. "Rhapsody for Oboe and Band" by UGA's William D. Davis is a rousing finale to the set, ranging from full bombast to calmer sections of oboe prominence. The oboe pushes and pulls through virtuosic extremes and swirling extended techniques; Manning never breaks a sweat. A great finish to a wonderful tour of the American musical landscape, as seen through the vastly under-recognized oboe.
Erik Hinds
Dwight Manning is performing at the Sanctuary in Watkinsville on Saturday, March 5.
LOU BARLOW
Emoh
Merge
Looking back over a body of work that spans three decades, Lou Barlow has emerged as a central character in the shaping of indie rock. Rising above the gnarly pre-grunge of the SST '80s with Dinosaur Jr. to define the lo-fi '90s with Sebadoh, Sentirdoh and the Folk Implosion, Barlow has changed with the times and dictated trends with Beatles-like transcendence. With Emoh, his first solo outing, Barlow flips the script on his home-recorded legacy to craft an earnest and impeccable offering that shows him easing his way along the path to maturity as a songwriter. With straightforward structures and balanced production qualities Emoh unfolds with a durability never before felt throughout any of his previous offerings.
"Holding Back the Years" and "The Ballad of Daykitty" bookend the recording with stripped-down and allegorical folksongs that run through tales of everything from darker days gone by, to the adventures of his fury and four-legged domesticated muses. "Home" breaks the sauntering mode evoking the concise pop songs honed on Sebadoh's Bakesale. Likewise, "Caterpillar Girl" blends the urban folk and SoCal smooth vibe of the New Folk Implosion with balmy and spacious resonance. "Mary" is a sacrilegious ditty that calls out the Catholic bluff of immaculate conception, while "Puzzle" and "Legendary" embrace a slightly slow-motion pace, blossoming into a sparse hue of pensive reflection and world-weary mystery.
But perhaps the greatest mystery of the record is a forced rendition of Ratt's 1984 trash metal mantra "Round-and-Round." Whether Barlow is attempting to reinvent the song Johnny Cash v. Nine Inch Nails-style or just making an awkward joke is hard to tell. A younger, more irreverent Lou would have been more discerning with his choice of Ratt covers: "Way Cool Jr." or even "I Want A Woman" wouldn't seem out of place on any Sebadoh record; this, however, is not the aloof Barlow of a decade ago. And by contrast "Confused" materializes as an unwitting sequel to Bakesale's "Rebound." But here the once "heart-broken and attractive" troubadour atones for his earlier apprehensions, and finds stability by taking up residence in his new home.
Chad Radford
Lou Barlow is performing at the Earl in Atlanta on Wednesday, Mar. 9.
DANZIG
Circle of Snakes
Evilive
Though his seminal solo days of crying out for his mommy and pondering "Am I evil?" are long gone, Circle of Snakes (AKA Danzig VIII) proves that Glenn Danzig's songs just keep dwelling on the same subjects. Skulls, snakes, daggers, blood-soaked babes striking serpentine lesbian poses, they're all still there. But they're becoming more and more cartoonish with each successive release. Snakes slithers along the same path Danzig has been treading for years, adopting a more Pantera or Sepultura-like dirge with each God-hating riff and grunt.
"Wotans Procession" unleashes the fury with a ridiculously and (not-so) creepy chant, followed by the equally ridiculous thrash of "Skin Carver," "Hell Mask" and "Night, Besodem," pulling no surprise punches, just evil from a can.
But just when you're ready to laugh off the little devil, "1,000 Devils Reign" kicks in with a classic Danzig-rocker. The simple and straight-ahead rhythm section and primal hollering recall his strongest days, but the rest of the album is a farce that does nothing to rekindle his credibility. Danzig would be much better off if he would bite the bullet and reunite the Misfits, saving the world from his former bandmates who have single-handedly destroyed any and all mystique the group ever possessed. Until that day comes, however, Danzig shows no sign of deviating from his present course into Hell, crafting songs for cheesy bikers and Peachtree City meth heads who wear fake contacts and denim raver pants with frayed cuffs.
Chad Radford
Danzig is performing at the Roxy in Atlanta on Saturday, Mar. 5.
T.I.
Urban Legend
Grand Hustle/ Atlantic
King of the South! Or so I hear; up here in NYC we don't believe in kings, especially when a certain diminutive Southern someone already seems to have that title engraved on his crunk-ass goblet. But as hype, it's all right, especially given the alternatives; in this day and age, monarchism is preferable to sexism. Plus, the best song here (the Swizz Beats-produced "Bring Em Out") samples my own liege lord Jay-Z, so I appreciate the genuflection.
Urban Legend doesn't quite make it to the Platonic ideal of albums where every track is vital, but it's far more consistent than a 17-track hip hop album has any right to be, thanks in part to the decision to save "Bring Em Out" until lucky No. 13. The production cuts a nice line between gleaming commercial beats and the rougher, noisier sounds of crunk, and combined with T.I.'s talent for catchy vocal hooks (which "Bring Em Out" nicely mirrors), this slurrys into a functional, pleasurable pop stew, great in your car at night, great on headphones in the subway, great in your living room during a party, all deep bass, thin snares and midrange yelling.
But the album itself is only just good because of T.I. himself, whose vocal style is stilted, monochromatic. The instincts that make for good hooks (simplicity, directness, repetition) do not make for interesting verses. This is not to un-recommend the album, just to call 75 percent of it background crunk.
Michael Barthel
T.I is playing at Legion Field on Friday, Apr. 8.
WILLIAM ELLIOT WHITMORE
Ashes to Dust
Southern
With a crumbling voice and self-effacing strokes over steel strings, William Elliot Whitmore confronts the emptiness of death with a humble, Midwestern reception. Ashes to Dust, his second full-length, resonates with death-afflicted odes to the end with pastoral country charisma that is at once soothing and distressing. His gravely Iowa accent encapsulates a lifetime of sorrow culminating years before its due, facing the void all alone.
"Midnight" opens Ashes with a jaunt through some mountain music like grandma and grandpa used to play. His poetically forthright moans and groans chafe the landscape like old man winter moving in at night before "The Day the End Finally Came." Here, Whitmore seems most alive as his life's tales cut through a procession of breezy slide guitar and deliberate strumming on an all-knowing banjo. It's this grim celebration of mortal departure that ushers in the most profound moments in songs such as "Diggin' My Grave" and "The Buzzards Won't Cry."
Rather than flog his horse, Whitmore rides on. "When Push Comes to Love" is a spine-chilling, full-bodied and droning ballad. "Lift My Jug (Song for Hub Cale)" is a flippant and inspirational account that looks for sweet relief from life's hardships.
"Porchlight" closes the disc, asking, "Would you leave the porchlight on for me?" Sensibly, Whitmore avoids any direct references to the sweet hereafter, but his one last request sparks hope that if you can make it through the darkness, there might just be a light waiting at the end of the tunnel.
Chad Radford
LOUIS XIV
Illegal Tender EP
Pineapple Recording Group/ Atlantic
San Diego's Louis XIV plays smarmy, '70s-sounding rock that borrows equally from a long list of reckless Brits (the Stones, Elton John, Bryan Ferry, etc.), but, most dominantly, from Iggy Pop. In fact, Illegal Tender's lead track, also titled "Louis XIV," and the current hot single "Finding Out True Love Is Blind" could very well be lost takes from the Iggster's Lust for Life sessions. But they aren't.
Herein lies the true test of a band like Louis XIV. If it sounds like the Stooges, looks like Roxy Music and acts like the Stones, are its tunes even worth hearing in the first place? Well, this EP's five tracks are. Instead of simply regurgitating the jittery riff of "Lust for Life" - as so many are guilty of (Strokes, Jet, etc.) - Louis' full, well-rounded arrangements and vocalist Jason Hill's faux English sneer save the disc from mere tribute status. And speaking of outtakes, the bawdy title track sounds like it fell off the director's cut of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the last minute.
Naughty boys they are. British or Iggy they ain't. Still, Illegal Tender is fine fun of the wink, wink, nudge, nudge variety. And you don't even have to wear a raincoat, mates.
Michael Andrews
ROSCO GORDON
No Dark in America
Dualtone
Who knows how many ska and reggae fans will never hear of Rosco Gordon? A shame, really, because in the American rock/ Jamaican music analogy, Rosco would be the irie equivalent of Bo Diddley. His shuffling piano rhythm (Rosco Rhythm, as it was known) had a profound impact on early ska sides as its hyperactive beat was carried over to guitar with momentous results. Gordon passed away relatively unknown in 2002, but not before he finished laying down his parts for No Dark in America, a long-in-the-works project which was planned as a comeback but ended up a curtain call.
The Rosco Rhythm prevails throughout, though No Dark in America has more in common with American soul and R&B than anything else. "Early In the Morning" grooves like Muddy Waters on good whiskey. "When Baby Come Home" boasts some great swooning sax over Gordon's plaintive moan, and "You Look Bad When You're Naked" is as much fun to listen to as its title is to say.
It's unfortunate that Gordon didn't get a revitalization on the scale of soul men like Solomon Burke or Howard Tate; No Dark in America, however, is a charming and enjoyable coup de grace that will hopefully long survive its creator.
Michael Andrews
FIERY FURNACES
EP
Rough Trade
My esteemed colleague, his theory is that the Fiery Furnaces are creating a cult fanbase, making lots of little things for fans to obsess over and collect. Me, I just think the Furnaces are really, really good at sequencing albums. Regardless, the lazy line of EP being a break from Blueberry Boat's maximalist intricacies is accurate, if only because half the tracks here date from the band's more straightforward first album Gallowsbird's Bark. Whatever the storyline, the point is that there are songs you can headbang to! And then there are pretty, quieter songs! And if you play some of them before British pop songs, they sound the same!
No, wait. The point is that this is neither a "pleasant taste" EP nor a "thrown off placeholder" EP. It's 10 tracks in 40 minutes, thus really an album, and a good one, different from their previous releases mainly in that you can actually get through its entirety on your way to work. All but three tracks here were previously released, but none in easy-to-acquire ways, and the whole thing is just sequenced so well they sound different, and better, in this new context. There's the synth-pop/ hard-rock "Single Again" and the sludgey chorus of "Duffer St. George" before we move into the melodic arrangement shifts of "Smelling Cigarettes" and the swinging piano duet "Cousin Chris." This will be one of three Fiery Furnaces releases this year, so it's no stopgap; rather, it's a wonderful little album. And only $8, too. So why not?
Michael Barthel
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