Music of the Week — December 31, 2006

Roy Buchanan: Sweet Dreams: The Anthology (disc 2)

The second disc of this set may be better than the first, overall. It leans toward live tracks, including a few songs that take a bit of nerve to cover because the originals are so very well known: Neil Young’s “Down By The River,” Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” (yeah, I know, his isn’t the original, but it’s the best known), Booker T. and the MGs’ “Green Onions.” The last of these in particular is about as perfect an example of blues-rock as could be dreamed of—one of the greatest guitarists ever soloing over one of the greatest riffs ever—and even though it’s eight minutes long it doesn’t get boring for me. “Down By The River” doesn’t have the same scruffy melancholy as Young’s version, but, as I would hope Young would be the first to admit, Buchanan is in another class as a guitarist and gives it a different level of musical intensity.

“I’m A Ram” is a tiresome song redeemed by great guitar work. “I’m Evil,” a braggadocio blues, is probably the most unconvincing vocal in a song of this sort that I’ve ever heard, at least from a professional musician: it’s Buchanan himself, whose singing voice is just a semi-spoken monotone. But his playing supplies all the missing authority. I could do without the slightly funkified take on Hendrix’s “If Six Was Nine,” partly because it uses a particular sort of quacky-growly keyboard sound that was popular in the ‘70s and that I always disliked. I’m not sure why “Good God Have Mercy” was included—it isn’t that good a song, and there isn’t that much guitar work on it. But it’s an unhappy look back at growing up poor in the South, and maybe it had personal meaning for Buchanan.

There’s a beautiful and affecting surprise at the end of “Hey Joe.” The twelve-minute apparently improvised guitar solo “Dual Soliloquy” is impressive although not very satisfying, a series of brief workouts in different styles, a tantalizing glimpse of a side of Buchanan not heard much on record: he probably could have made a name for himself as a folky sort of soloist, somewhat in the manner of some of the artists who recorded for Windham Hill in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

I just looked at the reviews of this set on Amazon.com and find opinions all over the place as to which tracks are terrific and which are disposable, but only one or two think it isn’t a great set overall. I find it hard to imagine that anyone who likes electric guitar wouldn’t like at least half or two-thirds of it.

Music of the Week — December 24, 2006

My Favorite Christmas Music

Music of the Week resumes because I can't let Christmas go by without recommending these albums.

Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band: A Tapestry of Carols

For reasons that completely escape me, not everybody loves this album as much as I do. How to describe it? A sort of high-spirited band with winds, fiddles, and percussion, rather medieval-sounding at times, and Maddy Prior out front. She has the most winsome way with an English tune of anyone I know, and the more folky or low-church carols here are deeply delightful. You can hear thirty-second samples at the eMusic page above.

Anuna: Christmas Songs

Not all the way, but definitely toward, the other end of the spectrum: an angelic Irish choir, mostly unaccompanied. Rich and sweetly dignified. Also on eMusic.

R. Carlos Nakai: Winter Dreams for Christmas

Traditional carols (and one original composition) played on Navajo flute and guitar, with occasional embellishments. Except for "Silent Night," this is an instrumental album. I suppose the idea might be considered a little cheesy. I suppose one might say that it sounds a bit New-Agey. I think it's lovely, though. Samples, again, available on eMusic.

And for a totally different sort of atmosphere: Frank Sinatra: A Jolly Christmas From Frank Sinatra (I'll have to let you locate it for yourself). Robert sent me a tape of this five or six years ago (at least). I didn't take to it at first--it's really pretty hard to argue that it isn't cheesy, at least when the '50s hipster Frank is more in evidence, as in "Jingle Bells." Ok, part of its appeal for a fifty-something is nostalgia--it speaks of a time when adults were more adult. But what a great singer he was. The first half of the disk--undoubtedly side 1 of the LP--is secular Christmas songs, the second carols, done richly and respectfully. If you can handle a jazz singer doing Christmas music, I doubt you'd do better than this.

Music of the Week — November 12, 2006

Roy Buchanan: Sweet Dreams: The Anthology (Disc 1)

Like many other guitar heroes, Roy Buchanan never really put the whole musical package together. He was too much of a virtuoso to be a sideman, but he doesn’t seem to have had the broad musical vision, not to mention the singing and songwriting skills, needed to lead and mold a band into a distinctive identity. The lineup on these tracks, mostly recorded in the early and mid-‘70s, shifts constantly. The rhythm sections, while always capable, never seem to have the fire that Buchanan himself does. Without his spectacular guitar work, most of the music here would be lackluster.

But what guitar playing it is. As with Eric Johnson, reviewed here recently, anyone who loves electric guitar should hear Buchanan. His style is bluesy with a country accent, rich, soulful, and not infrequently mind-boggling in its technical skill. If he didn’t invent, he apparently brought to some kind of peak the use of harmonics to get a sudden high, wild leap of pitch and tone. He uses wide bends and some knob twiddling to get a strange crying sound that I’ve never heard from anyone else. My only reservation about his playing in general is that his tone gets kind of squawky and thin when it’s at its loudest, but that’s not most of the time.

This is the first disc of a two-disc set, and includes mostly studio performances. The second disc favors live recordings (review forthcoming in the next week or so). The set includes material from the solo albums he released on Polydor and Atlantic, plus some unreleased material. To my taste the four tracks from the early unreleased album, The Prophet, are not that interesting—Buchanan doesn’t play that much on them, although what he does play is impressive. Although it was to be billed as a Buchanan solo album, it also involves, very heavily, Charlie Daniels, singing, playing guitar, and writing songs. I didn’t know Daniels had a hippie period, but his “Black Autumn” features portentous lyrics along the lines of early Simon and Garfunkle and that fast-echoing fade—I’m sure there’s a name for the effect—on the vocal to make it psychedelic. Or something. You can also hear Daniels sing “Story of Isaac” here, which is interesting.

The fun really starts with track 5, Don Gibson’s “Sweet Dreams.” It’s a sweet distillation of pure American soul, as is the last track on this disk, “Wayfaring Pilgrim.” Both are Buchanan at his absolute best, rich, sweet, soulful, and sometimes fiery. Most everything in between is in the same class, although the hard rocker “My Baby Says She’s Gonna Leave Me” doesn’t do much for me. Most of the others are blues or blues variants, and all have great moments, at least. “The Messiah Will Come Again” in particular, something of a Buchanan signature piece, is a powerful voice of religious yearning.

Most listeners will probably share my opinion that Buchanan overdoes it sometimes, but I find it very forgivable. It often sounds like an understandable result of the skill and emotionality of his playing. Take “Five String Blues,” for instance. The crying thing toward the end is overdone, I admit. But when the entire lyric of a song is as follows:

Oh oh oh Jesus
This is my final plea
You know I’m still begging you
Don’t let the devil get the best of me

some weeping is probably appropriate.

Buchanan died in 1988, in a jail cell, an apparent suicide, after being picked up for DUI. I hope the devil didn’t get the best of him.

Here’s “The Messiah Will Come Again” on YouTube. No pyrotechnics, but what feeling. For fireworks—in fact for a pretty complete technical inventory—try “Roy’s Blues”, part 1 and part 2. Catch the harmonics about thirty seconds into part 2.

Music of the Week — November 5, 2006

Lanterna: Desert Ocean

I have fallen perhaps fatally far behind in this feature. I’m not sure I can keep it up as a weekly—perhaps it will become bi-weekly. I’ll make the reviews, or most of them, briefer, for a while and see if I can maintain that.

The fact that I know this album at all is an example of the benefit of giving away a little music. eMusic offers a free daily download to subscribers, and while many of them aren’t to my taste, some have been great discoveries. I think “Luminous,” the first track here was one, and although I’d never so much as heard the name of the band before, that one track sufficed to make me get the whole album.

This might best be described as ambient rock—all guitar-oriented instrumentals, except for occasional wordless background-style vocals, and much more concerned with mood and atmosphere than making a technical impression. “Luminous” and a couple of the other tracks are more than slightly reminiscent of the guitar sound on U2’s Unforgettable Fire and Joshua Tree—you might think you were listening to U2 minus Bono (which is good, if you ask me). Other tracks remind me faintly of ‘70s country-rock such as Pure Prairie League, maybe Poco, maybe some of Neil Young’s stuff (e.g. Harvest). It’s not a sound I was wild about when it was new, but now, and in this context, it carries a nostalgic tinge that makes it enjoyable. “Surf” is not, as I expected, an exercise in the reverb-heavy surf guitar sound, but rather a building and rolling sound that actually does have some kind of connection with its namesake. “48th and 8th” has a bit of ’50s Santo and Johnny (“Sleepwalk”) or Floyd Cramer (“Last Date”) vibe, a very wistful sad-love-story-soundtrack sort of thing.

Overall there’s an open, faintly mysterious atmosphere, befitting the title. It’s a perfect album to put on when you want something that touches you without making great demands on your attention or emotions. I keep playing it on the way home from work. Unlike the recently reviewed NEU!, for which the claim is sometimes made, it’s great music for driving.

Music of the Week — October 29, 2006

Funkadelic: Maggot Brain

Yeah, I know. I can’t believe I’m writing about an album with such a sickening name, either. Worse, the title song is precisely the one that interested me. The problem was that I had run across several references to its being a killer guitar piece, and, loving that instrument as I do, I had to check it out. Here, for instance, is what the All Music Guide reviewer has to say about it: “George Clinton famously told [guitarist Eddie] Hazel to play ‘like your momma had just died,’ and the resulting evocation of melancholy and sorrow doesn't merely rival Jimi Hendrix’s work, but arguably bests a lot of it.” ( Full review here.)

I don’t know about it being better than Hendrix—I don’t know that the comparison is even particularly relevant—but it really is a great piece of moody, melodic, noisy electric guitar work. Unfortunately, besides the hideous title, it includes a thirty-second spoken intro which is equally disgusting, and I’m going to have to find an mp3 editor that will let me remove that piece without converting to wav and back to mp3, with consequent fidelity loss.

What about the rest of the album? Well, as I guess everybody who’s ever heard the name “Funkadelic” knows, it’s a mixture of early ‘70s funk, “psychedelic” rock (which really just means some heavily distorted and wah-wah-ed guitar), and a certain amount of goofiness. “Can You Get to That” makes me think of Sly and the Family Stone, “Super Stupid” makes me think of Hendrix. Most of it is not really the kind of music I’m generally drawn to, but still, it’s very enjoyable, in fact irresistible, if it hits you when you’re in the right mood—lots of fun if you’re happy, and maybe of some assistance if you’re sad. Recent releases have a couple of extra tracks, including a great short piece called “Whole Lot of BS” which some smart newscaster would do well to license and adopt as an intro to political campaign stories.

Music of the Week — October 22, 2006

Eric Johnson: Live from Austin, Texas

Anyone who has a taste for virtuoso rock guitar should own this album. Eric Johnson is one of the great players, and if my limited acquaintance with his studio albums is an accurate sample, he’s one of those atypical rock musicians whose live recordings are actually superior to his studio work. Reportedly he’s very much a perfectionist, and it may be that he polishes some of the life out of his work in the studio. All I can say for certain is that of the three or four songs here which I’ve also heard in their studio versions, these live performances are definitely superior (with the possible exception of “Zap,” the album version of which sounds like a live-in-the-studio take, as if the three musicians were actually playing together, with little studio tinkering afterward).

This disc is actually a 1988 Austin City Limits appearance, recently issued on New West as part of a series of Austin City Limits concerts by a lot of good people. I heard this or a very similar take of “Cliffs of Dover” years ago in the form of one of those little plastic magazine inserts which served, you might say, as the mp3 samples of the phonograph era. In spite of the poor sound quality I thought it was one of the greatest pieces of electric guitar work I’d ever heard, and put it on a tape which soon got lost or given away or broken. A few years later I heard the studio version, from the Ah Via Musicom album, and it just didn’t seem the same: the fire and the edge weren’t there. That version won a Grammy, so somebody must have liked it a lot. I guess they didn’t know what they were missing.

How to describe Johnson’s playing? Well, of course there’s speed—that’s part of being a guitar wizard—but it’s not mere speed. To my taste his favored tone packs a lot of emotional punch, at least on these live tracks. He has the long singing sustain that you expect from a Stratocaster player, a bit in the mold of Cream-era Clapton, but a little more precise and focused, a little smoother and richer, but definitely not without bite. It’s a very vocal tone, somehow—to my taste he does the guitarist’s trick of turning a singing line into a sudden scream or howl better than anyone. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe his melodic vocabulary; I suppose it’s basically blues-oriented, but there’s all kinds of unexpected stuff in there, unusual leaps that are musically potent. Whatever the musical explanation may be, what comes through is a very positive kind of excitement. He played in this area recently, and in a pre-concert interview with the local paper said something to the effect that he just wanted to get people elated for a while. Yep, “elated” is the right word. (No, to answer the obvious question, I didn’t go—I have tinnitis and am very wary of making it worse by exposure to rock-concert sound levels.)

Of course there’s always the problem of fitting the virtuoso into a group. That difficulty may have something to do with the fact that Eric Johnson is not a household name. His singing and songwriting are nothing to get excited about, but he seems to want to do them. (Maybe he’s like a lot of us, taking for granted the gift he actually has, and wishing for ones that he doesn’t have.) To my taste most of the compositions here serve the purpose of providing frameworks for killer guitar playing, but wouldn’t be of a lot of interest otherwise. “Cliffs of Dover” is an exception—the playing and the composition are an inseparable unit, and in my opinion make for one of the greatest rock instrumentals ever.

Any day now, copyright owners are going to crack down on YouTube, but as of right now you can see and hear this performance of “Cliffs” there. Check it out.

Samples of the other tracks at eMusic.

Music of the Week — October 15, 2006

Cocteau Twins: Heaven Or Las Vegas

We all know about the alienation and inauthenticity of technological civilization, we all wonder if it’s sustainable, etc. But I couldn’t help feeling fortunate to live in this time and place a couple of weeks ago when I found myself driving east across the bay at twilight, with the full moon directly in front of me, listening to Heaven Or Las Vegas. If you know and like the otherworldly, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes wistful sound of the Cocteau Twins, you have an idea of what I mean. Someone once described Treasure, an album considered a masterpiece by most Twins lovers, as sounding like a roomful of angels. I don’t know how accurate that is but it serves well enough as an indicator of the sort of magic the group can work.

I only recently heard this album, having let it slip by for a long time, partly because of the mistaken idea that it came after the group moved from 4AD to Capitol and became more mainstream and, to my taste, less inspired. But it was in fact their last 4AD release, and if Heaven is at all inferior to Treasure, it’s by very little. I’d say at least half the songs here are as good as anything they ever did. And for someone who likes them that’s very, very good. There are a couple of songs where Elisabeth Fraser’s cascading melodies (I’ve always assumed she writes them, as they seem so inseparable from her voice) attain the uncanny ability to make you feel as if your spirit is literally being lifted.

eMusic has it. Go here and listen to the samples if you don’t know the Cocteau Twins. For what I consider their absolute best moment, go here and listen to the sample of “Aikea-Guinea,” which appeared on an EP by the same name and became a collector’s item on vinyl.

Music of the Week — October 8, 2006

Frank Zappa: Hot Rats

In contrast to last week’s album, this was a pleasant surprise. I must say right off that I had never taken very seriously Zappa’s ambition to be taken very seriously as a musician. Maybe “ambition” is the wrong word, since the general air of dadaist clownishness with which he invested his work certainly encouraged one to treat it as a joke. That was my original difficulty. Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were essentially a musical comedy act, and when albums like Lumpy Gravy and Hot Rats came out, people didn’t know what to make of them. I think I heard each of them approximately once. I have a faint memory of hearing them in the company of friends, all of us waiting for the jokes to start, puzzled and bored when they never arrived.

Subsequently I heard Zappa’s music praised often enough, but usually by the sort of people who think songs like “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” are tremendously funny, so that the commendation of the music came across as an unpersuasive afterthought, a bit reminiscent of an old-time Playboy reader praising the magazine’s journalism. Nor did Zappa’s general air of angry cynicism—which seemed, on the basis of occasional media reports, to harden over the years, along with his liking for crudeness and obscenity—suggest that I should reconsider his music. Ryan C., who comments here, was the first to convince me otherwise. He succeeded because he first established that he knows good music from bad.

Even so, I had to play Hot Rats through at least a couple of times before I could stop looking over my shoulder, so to speak, and get the old Zappa associations out of the way enough to hear the music as music. I wasn’t exactly expecting it to break out into satire, but I kept looking for the musical irony, having the expectation that, for instance, the sunny Saturday morning ebullience of “Peaches en Regalia” was not to be taken at face value and would somehow take a pratfall.

But with all that, finally, cleared away, what has emerged is a wonderful album. It’s difficult to categorize or describe. I’ve heard it referred to as fusion (i.e. jazz-rock fusion) and as “fusion for people who hate fusion.” I guess that’s accurate, although I don’t really know that much about fusion. I would describe much of it as a sort of instrumental progressive rock (the only vocals being a few verses of “Willie the Pimp” sung by Captain Beefheart). The description especially fits my favorite tracks, “Peaches” and “Son of Mr. Green Genes,” which seem to be pretty tightly composed and played—that complex doubled flute and guitar line in “Green Genes,” for instance, certainly wasn’t improvised. The six tracks can be grouped into three styles: the aforementioned prog-rock, the blues-rock jams of “Willie the Pimp” and “The Gumbo Variations,” and the most jazzy-sounding tracks, “Little Umbrellas” and “It Must Be a Camel.”

With the one reservation that “The Gumbo Variations” goes on too long (almost seventeen minutes), the album never fails to be interesting. And I don’t mean that it’s cold or empty technique, either; there’s a kind of happy excitement throughout. It’s an odd sensation to have any sort of emotional response to Zappa’s music, and I certainly never thought I’d apply the word “delightful” to any of it. But it comes to mind at many points in this album, especially in “Peaches” and “Green Genes,” which are intricately flowing streams of melody. Ryan C. describes “Peaches” as “joyous,” and although that’s not precisely the word I would choose, it’s not far off. (What is the word? I’m not sure, otherwise I would use it.) And “Willie the Pimp” more than justifies a claim I’ve heard and discounted: that Zappa was a terrific guitarist. Even though it’s time to move on to another album for these weekly reviews, I keep wanting to hear this one again.

Music of the Week — October 1, 2006

NEU!: NEU!

What a disappointment. I’d been wanting for a while to hear this group. They’re often mentioned as one of the stars of the ‘70s German “krautrock” style, and NEU! was an offshoot of one of those bands, Kraftwerk, which I like quite a bit. And another band at least loosely classified as krautrock, Tangerine Dream, made several albums of which I never seem to tire.

One doesn’t expect to agree with reviewers all the time, but I can’t think of an instance when there’s been as great a disparity between my opinion and that of a reviewer as there is between my view of this album and that expressed by Thom Jurek in this All Music Guide review. We’re already off to a bad start with the description in the first paragraph: “a sound that was literally made for cruising in an automobile.” I disagree, or rather would say that it applies only to the first track, the ten-minute “Hallogallo.” I’ve spent a great deal of time over the past twenty years or so listening to music while driving, and I concluded early on that I wanted music with a fairly consistent dynamic level—otherwise I was constantly missing quiet passages, turning up the volume, then getting painfully blasted by a sudden crescendo. (I quickly abandoned listening to any classical music later than Mozart for this reason.) NEU! is far too variable in dynamics to be enjoyable while driving. It’s consistent for a while, then drops off into barely audible miscellaneous sounds, then something like a jackhammer bursts out.

That aside, Jurek finds all kinds of things here to be rapturous about, but I just don’t get it. “Hallogallo” is vaguely similar to Kraftwerk, sort of a guitar-bass-drums version of some of Kraftwerk’s “motorik” synthesizer tunes (everybody who was around in the ‘70s has heard “Autobahn,” I guess). It’s not bad, but it’s not as enjoyable as Kraftwerk, and it’s the best thing on the album. Based on most of the rest, I’d have titled it Hippies at Play in the Studio, ca. 1972. Jurek describes “Sonderangebot” as a “tense ambient soundscape.” I’d call it boring noises—and I like ambient music. “Im Glück” is barely audible voices and watery sounds and bumps that could be someone rowing a boat, joined by drones and noodling wah-wah guitar. And so forth.

The fact that the sound quality is very thin, dry, and distant doesn’t help. All in all, NEU! gets ALT! fairly quickly. Here’s the eMusic link, if you’re interested. I see “Sonderangebot” is missing now. Just as well.

Music of the Week — September 24, 2006

Gentle Giant: In a Glass House

More ‘70s progressive rock. I remember hearing this group’s name back then, but not their music. I doubt I would ever have listened to them but for the respected poster on the eMusic message board who goes by the handle of Music Lover and who calmly and persistently insisted that Gentle Giant was the best prog group ever. Well, he’s got a point, although I’m not ready to agree with him that they were the best.

The music on this album is on at least as high a technical level as that of any other candidates for the prog-rock crown. Yet I can see why they never really caught on commercially. There’s no one element that grabs your attention—no particular charismatic singer or instrumentalist, no radio-friendly songs. You have to give them a little time and attention—I’ve listened to this album three times and don’t feel like I’ve really gotten it yet.

In their basic sound they resemble Yes more than any other famous prog group, and occasionally they make me think of Jethro Tull, especially in some of the folky interludes. I’d have to say at this point that I admire it more than I like it—it hasn’t really touched me emotionally. But I admire it a lot. There’s not a dull moment in its ever-shifting thirty-eight minutes. I think it’s safe to say that anyone who likes Yes and other technically sophisticated rock groups will like In a Glass House. I plan to check out some of their other work.

Here’s the eMusic link. And a Pretty Much Everything You Might Ever Want To Know About Gentle Giant site which is obviously a labor of love.

Music of the Week &mdash September 17, 2006

Blue Sky Frequency: And Then She Smiled

There must be a lot of bands comparable to Blue Sky Frequency: making music that ranges from good to very good but isn’t extremely distinctive, performing locally or regionally while working day jobs, recording on small independent labels with shaky distribution.

The “long tail” of Intenet commerce ought to make it easier for such artists to realize a more useful amount of compensation, and I’m at least one instance of that idea working out in practice. I don’t suppose they made more than a dollar or so when I bought their album from eMusic, but I would almost certainly never have heard of them at all if they hadn’t been there. Googling their name turns up only a few dozen distinct references. They don’t even have an All Music Guide entry.

Yet I’m really pretty fond of this album. No, it’s not great or ground-breaking, but it’s better than a lot of stuff released by artists who attained the status of “legendary” for achievements now thirty or more years in the past and are now coasting on reputation and fan loyalty. (I don’t think I’ll mention any names at the moment.)

If you like the kind of music that gets tagged with labels like “shoegazer” and “dream-pop,” And Then She Smiled is very much worth hearing. It’s slow, dreamy, melodic music that falls somewhere in the stylistic neighborhoods of Slowdive and Mazzy Star—with the exception of one song, it’s not as good as the best of those groups, but is still very enjoyable. The exception is “Until the End,” a beautiful, simple promise of fidelity which is not only similar to but as good as some of Mazzy Star’s best—I think anyone who liked songs like “Fade Into You” would find it worthwhile to get this one track, at least.

Here’s the album’s eMusic link where you can hear samples. You can also buy the cd for all of $5 from the online store of the label, North of January. The web site makes it hard to find, but you can also download an mp3 of one song—not by any means the best, in my opinion, but de gustibus—I can’t link properly to it because it’s in a frame, but you can get to the stripped-out core of it here. To see it in context, with a couple of reviewer comments, look at the cover on the eMusic page, go to the North of January home page, click on the “Releases” link, then locate and click on the cover art, which will take you to the album. Why not at least put the names of the releases on the “Releases” page? Like I said, shaky distribution. (But this is not the only North of January release I’ve greatly enjoyed.)

Music of the Week — September 3, 2006

Gang Gang Dance: God’s Money

It’s appropriate that this review follows that of Hounds of Love, because parts of God’s Money sound like they might have been taken from Kate Bush’s audio sketchpad—quirky (there’s that word again) little ideas and snippets, vocal lines that sound like they could be the seeds of elaborate songs, sung by a voice similar in tone and manner to Bush’s. I downloaded this album from eMusic because of a rave review by eMusic’s Yancey Strickler which appeared on the site’s front page for what seemed like months. The first sentence of the review is “Warning: this record is not for everyone,” which naturally piqued my interest, because my taste definitely leans toward the eccentric, and I finally gave in to Strickler’s sales pitch. Since the review gives a good detailed description of the music, I’ll just give my opinion without making much effort to describe it. You can hear samples along with the review on the eMusic page.

I certainly got as much eccentric as I wanted here. The album is, in fact, downright weird. That’s not a bad thing, but unfortunately a certain amount of it is merely weird. There are some great moments: in particular, the two most fully developed tracks (“songs” is not entirely applicable), “Egowar” and “Before My Voice Fails,” are nothing short of enchanting (although it took several hearings for me to arrive at that opinion). But some of the shorter tracks just don’t make that much of an impression ("Untitled (Piano)," a very beautiful little instrumental, is an exception). Overall, the effect, despite the fact that the album is essentially one long piece, is of a series of sometimes wonderful fragments. It’s not something I’ll listen to very often, but I’m glad to have it. And I won’t be surprised if it continues to grow on me. I haven’t heard it for a week or so now and I have a yen to hear it again.

(I’m abandoning the practice of assigning ratings. It makes me feel like too much of a jerk.)

Here’s that eMusic link again.

Music of the Week — August 27, 2006

Kate Bush: The Hounds of Love

Some years ago (probably closer to twenty than fifteen) a co-worker lent me his copy of a Kate Bush best-of collection called The Whole Story. I liked most of it quite well and have had in mind ever since to hear more of her music, but it wasn’t a high priority, and it was only recently, when I paid a dollar or two for a used cassette of The Hounds of Love, that I finally heard the album from which my favorite songs on The Whole Story were taken.

I haven’t been disappointed. This a brilliant album. Also a very eccentric one—I’m trying not to use the word “quirky,” which has become rather tiresome, but it fits. There are a few odd touches here that don’t work. For instance, a couple of songs are marred by an effect which I suppose seemed provocative at the time but now just sounds like a cd on fast-forward. But overall it’s adventurous without being tiresomely “experimental,” and the quirky touches are more often effective than not, like the melodic barking on the title song, which actually works. Really, it does.

I’ve had the impression of something a little spacey and dizzy about Kate Bush (which made the title of one song, “Hello Earth,” amusing at first glance). But the artist who wrote, sang, and produced this album while still in her mid-twenties is no dummy, and no fragile flower. I’m not sure how one would categorize it. AMG uses “art rock” and “progressive rock,” and those will do. It seems that few are able to discuss her music without using the words “lush” and “romantic,” so keep those in mind, too. Hounds is richly melodic, complex and lavish in production and arrangement, and very feminine in a way that’s both warm and strong, but not hard-edged in the way of too many self-consciously Strong Woman artists. The lyrics, always very important for me, are well-crafted and interesting, and although they’re frequently (well, mostly) somewhat cryptic one feels that they actually have quite specific meanings; it’s just that she doesn’t give us crucial background information. “Cloudbusting,” for instance, is obscure, bordering on nonsensical, unless and until you know it’s about the child of the crank sex-maniac psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich, and then it makes perfect sense.

The final seven tracks (which comprised the second side of the LP release) are a sort of suite which seems to describe some kind of process of awakening, renewal, and engagement. It includes a few missteps: I could do without the mostly spoken and creepy “Waking The Witch,” which seems to involve the trial-by-water of a woman accused of witchcraft. And it includes the songs marred by the aforementioned fast-forward effect. Overall, though, it works, and ends beautifully with this:

Being born again
Into the sweet morning fog…
I’ll kiss the ground.
I’ll tell my mother,
I’ll tell my father,
I’ll tell my loved one,
I’ll tell my brothers
How much I love them.

I’m looking forward to hearing more of Kate Bush’s work, and I’m far from tired of this one.

B+

By the way, I’m going to change this rating system, or do away with it. I intend it to be very much tongue-in-cheek, but I’m not sure other people would get the joke. I keep having this nightmare in which I try to explain to somebody like Kate Bush or Patty Griffin why I gave her album a B+. If you’ll recall, I defined "A" as being a masterpiece, by definition a rarity. A work can be very, very good, like this one, without quite reaching that level.

Music of the Week — August 20, 2006

Yes: The Yes Album

Here’s the latest stop on my continuing tour of ‘70s progressive rock. As I’ve mentioned before, I treated this music with disdain when it was current: I thought of it as a place where grooves went to die, an often empty display of technical brilliance by people with much more talent than artistic judgment. But I began to reconsider it six or seven years ago when I bought a copy of Yes’s Fragile for one of my children, with the idea that it might be less harmful than the dour late grunge she and her friends were listening to—at least its vague mysticism was a more positive thing. She didn’t especially like Fragile, but I did, at least more than I had when “Roundabout” and “Long Distance Runaround” were inescapable.

This one is actually the fourth Yes album that I’ve gotten acquainted with over the past few years. I haven’t approached them in chronological order, and the others all came out after it: Fragile, Close to the Edge, and Tales of Topographic Oceans. So far it looks to me as if Close to the Edge is their masterpiece. The Yes Album is apparently the one where the group’s very distinctive sound came together fully, and it has some great moments. “Seen All Good People” (which includes the section which most people know from the radio edit, “Your Move”) is irresistible—in fact the radio edit was one of the few prog-rock songs that I genuinely liked during the genre’s heyday. This track, and the other two which made up side two of the original LP, seem to me equal to the group’s best work. However, I haven’t been able to get enthusiastic about the first two long tracks, “Yours is No Disgrace” and “Starship Trooper,” which, along with a skillful but undistinctive and very out-of-place folk guitar piece, made up side one. There’s nothing wrong with them, but I just don’t find them very affecting or memorable. In other words, there’s a really fine half-album here.

C+

Music of the Week &mdash August 13, 2006

(yes, I’m skipping a week, having gotten too far behind)

Love: Forever Changes

In Memoriam: Arthur Lee (1945-2006) & Bryan MacLean (1946-1998)

I had a friend in college who was very taken with the first two albums by this mid-‘60s Los Angeles band. When Forever Changes came out, he came over to my apartment with it and put it on without expressing any opinion. When the trumpets kicked in at the instrumental break of “Alone Again Or” he made a face. “Sounds like the Tijuana Brass,” he said with disgust. Since the rest of the album was in much the same vein, he hated it altogether. And I, although not sharing his disappointment because I didn’t share his expectations, did think it sounded pretty slick and sappy: not only brass, but strings, and not just as an accent here and there but as a key element of the sound. And the lead singer sounded a bit familiar, a bit like…Johnny Mathis? Could this be the same voice that sang “Little Red Book”? This wasn’t cool. It wasn’t rock-and-roll. Away with it.

In truth, though, I didn’t really think it was so bad. Yes, it was kind of—I’m not sure what word I would have used then, maybe “commercial”—but it was also kind of interesting, and undeniably melodic. If I remember correctly my disgusted friend left his copy with me. At any rate I acquired it, and listened to it now and then. It was a bit of a guilty pleasure but I had to admit to myself at least that I liked it, and then that I really liked it a good deal. I think I finally recognized how much I liked it one sunny but melancholy afternoon, listening to it alone in my apartment, and finding myself really moved by the last song, “You Set the Scene”:

This is the only thing that I am sure of
And that’s all that lives is gonna die
And there’ll always be some people here to wonder why
And for every happy hello there will be good-bye

As the business of life took most of my time and attention, I didn’t hear it for many years. Sometime in the late ‘80s I listened to it for the first time since perhaps 1970 or so. Yep, it was still good. And sometime after that I became aware that it was considered a classic, turning up frequently on lists of the all-time-best pop albums.

When Arthur Lee, the band’s driving force, died of leukemia a few weeks ago, and eulogies and retrospectives popped up everywhere, I got out my old vinyl copy and listened to it again, just to see if it was really that good (having, once again, gone many years without hearing it). Yes, it is that good. I can’t think of anything else comparable in style from the last few years of the ‘60s that’s as good, and not much that even comes close. Nothing the Beatles did after their last few brilliant singles, the ones collected on Magical Mystery Tour, can touch it. The Byrds? No. Simon and Garfunkle? No. Procol Harum’s A Salty Dog is in the same class but not as consistent and unified. This is one of the few pop albums that really seems to have a coherent and organic flow from beginning to end.

What is the style? I hesitate to describe it, for fear of making it sound bland and soft, but: richly melodic, with a sort of folk-rock base to which are added brilliant string and brass arrangements. Well, let’s not say “added,” because the arrangements are intrinsic and essential, and arranger David Angel ought, as with other great arranger/producers of the time like George Martin and Joe Boyd, to be credited as a group member.

The lyrics are a major strength. You can’t say they’re brilliant, exactly, and they’re often obscure, but somehow they capture the odd mixture of hope and alienation that characterized the late ‘60s.

Maybe it’s not so much that the album speaks to and of its time as to and of youth. I wondered, as I listened to it the other day, if it’s an artifact of its time, and if my liking for it is a result of having been young in that time. But I’ve asked around, and have found among its strongest admirers people who were born long after it was released. That constitutes a classic, at least in the shortened time frame of popular music.

A+

At AMG you can read the sad story of the band, of Arthur Lee, and the not-so-sad story of second guitarist-songwriter Bryan MacLean, who I suspect had a larger-than-recognized role in Forever Changes.

Music of the Week &mdash July 30, 2006

Patty Griffin: 1000 Kisses

Although I can’t claim to have heard all the competition, I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that Patty Griffin has one of the very best voices in pop music. She has prodigous strength and range and tone and control, with a lower register bound to produce odd spinal sensations in any human male who can hear, but unlike some singers with comparable natural gifts, she has taste and intelligence and sensitivity to the song. Moreover, she’s a terrific songwriter herself. All of this is rather unfair to those of us who aren’t so gifted, particularly to songwriters who don’t sing very well and singers who don’t write very well. Our compensation is that we get to listen to her.

Her first album, Living With Ghosts, is only voice and guitar and while it’s an impressive feat it feels stripped down. Her second, Flaming Red, is excellent but goes too far in the other direction: it’s over-produced, with that over-crowded and glossy sound that major studios seem to produce often and which sometimes seems—to me, anyway—to render the music somehow remote and untouchable, like something encased in plexiglass. This one, 1000 Kisses, is just right, production-wise. She’s backed by a small acoustic ensemble that plays subtly and sparsely, giving her voice plenty of room. The sound is big, open, and clear. The material runs the gamut from good to very very good. My particular favorite is a cover of a Bruce Springsteen song, “Stolen Car,” and it’s a testimony to her skill that she’s utterly convincing in it even though the lyric is from a first-person male point of view; in fact I don’t recall, on first listen, even thinking about the disparity until the song was over. I suspect she’d be capable of taking ownership of most any song in that way, if she liked it enough to go the trouble.

The album as a whole doesn’t quite come together in the way that makes a real classic. To my taste the material falls off a bit toward the end, and “Mil Besos,” sung in Spanish and more elaborately arranged than the other songs, seems out of place. But the first two-thirds or so is about as good as this kind of music can ever be.

A-

1000 Kisses is available on eMusic.

Music of the Week &mdash July 23, 2006

(I’m really behind on posting these—hope to catch up over the next four or five days.)

Ishq: Orchid

Ambient music is a guilty pleasure for me. I really can’t approve of the idea of music that isn’t meant to be listened to attentively, music that is, in Brian Eno’s words, “as ignorable as it is interesting” (see here for his original definition and statement of purpose). But I do like the pleasant, relaxed, reflective atmosphere it produces, alleviating boredom without being too distracting. And I like its emphasis on the sheer pleasure of sound. It’s particularly enjoyable and appropriate while driving, at which I spend an hour and a half every day.

Orchid is the best ambient album I’ve ever heard—yes, better than Eno’s work. To give it that distinction almost disqualifies it, because it’s so good that it commands too much attention to be considered ambient. It might be better to say that it creates a particular sort of dreamy atmosphere better than anything else of its type. It starts off (a little misleadingly, in view of where it’s going) with a trip-hop-ish sort of beat, then settles into a series of gentle connected pieces that are sometimes melodic, sometimes droning, and have a sort of low-key wistful emotionality that is not normally found in ambient music. There are synthesized sounds (of course) but also warm female voices, natural instruments and real-world sounds: water, birds, an airliner passing overhead, children playing in a pool or stream. That sort of thing is often used in ambient music, but never so effectively.

In one sentence: it’s a 78-minute vacation in some lush, tranquil place by the water. Or perhaps it might be a little more accurate to say that it makes you nostalgic for the perfect vacation you never had and never will have: an aural visit to the earthly paradise.

Although the genre is inferior to others, the fact that Orchid is the best of it seems to mean it deserves an A.

Orchid is available at eMusic.

Music of the Week &mdash July 16, 2006

I was too busy with a demanding job and a growing family to listen to much pop music during the 1980s. What I did hear usually came from friends who sent me tapes. But somehow or other I did hear The Dream Academy’s debut single, “Life In A Northern Town. ” I seem to remember hearing it from some distance, perhaps from someone else’s car radio (commercial radio in the area was a wasteland into which I didn’t venture very often). Maybe that gave the song’s striking chorus an added hint of wistfulness. At any rate, I’ve always wanted to hear it properly, so when something reminded me of it recently I bought the whole album from over-priced and irritating iTunes.

I’m happy to report that “Life In A Northern Town” is a great song. According to AMG it’s intended to be an elegy for Nick Drake; this knowledge gives the nostalgic atmosphere and the mysterious departure described in the last verse an added tincture of melancholy. However, I’m sorry to report that the rest of the album is a bit of a letdown in comparison. The other songs are good, in a complex and interesting way, but, for me at any rate, they don’t quite connect emotionally. Still, it’s a very fine album, with elaborate arrangements and production that are always throwing something not quite expected at you. The songs would have benefited from a better singer—the one male voice that carries nearly all the load is decent enough but something stronger and richer would have helped the songs. Occasionally the production slips over into the excessively slick and grandiose sound that seemed to be popular through much of the ’70s and ‘80s. But those are minor flaws. All in all, it’s a very fine piece of work. And you probably really need “Life In A Northern Town,” even if you have to buy it from iTunes.

B

Music of the Week—July 9, 2006

American Analog Set: Set Free

I keep getting this band’s name mixed up with that of The Monochrome Set, whom I’ve never heard but whose name seems a good fit for this music. American Analog Set’s approach is in some ways the opposite of Calexico’s (reviewed last week): instead of variety and eclecticism they have chosen to take a very limited set of tools and perfect them: softly strummed low guitar strings, bass, light drums, keyboard or vibes unobtrusively filling out the sound, and whispery (but still precise) vocals, all beautifully produced with great space and clarity. The result is a very warm, full, simple sound, and an emotional tone somewhere between subdued and depressed, maybe hearkening back to the Velvet Underground’s self-titled mostly acoustic album. There are almost no “lead” instrumental passages. I suppose you could call it minimalist. The textures and volume are so consistent throughout that the album can almost become ambient music that you can either listen closely to or leave in the background.

The very appealing but very limited palette puts a pretty heavy burden on the songs, and for the most part they carry it well musically—but not lyrically. If every song were as irresistible as the opener, “Born on the Cusp,” the lyrics wouldn’t matter that much. But most of them aren’t quite that engaging, and they need lyrics that are as sharp and focused as the music: a haiku-like simplicity, or something like those famous imagistic poems of William Carlos Williams like “The Red Wheelbarrow.” Too many of these lyrics are merely vague without suggesting profundity, dull, or even annoying, like those of the disappointing “Cool Kids Keep,” which has one of the catchier tunes on the album but whose lyrics are uninteresting variations on an uninteresting theme. Only a few of the songs, like the nearly perfect “Jr,” have lyrics that rise to the level of the music. Occasional crudities don’t help. I’ve taken to skipping the last song, “F*** This, I’m Leaving,” which is pretty but has a lyric which, taken with the title, seem to be an obnoxious sexual ultimatum.

In spite of the weak lyrics, though, it remains enjoyable after repeated hearings, and so deserves:

B

Music of the Week—July 2, 2006

Calexico: Feast of Wire

I have a serious fascination for the Southwest, partly as a result of a sojourn in Tucson when I was about four: certain images fixed themselves permanently not just in my memory but in my emotions. And maybe the fascination is also partly a result of the Western movies that were popular when I was growing up. At any rate there's a romance that clings to all that imagery, and predisposes me to like Tucson-based Calexico. I first heard them, and of them, when I found mp3s of a couple of their songs somewhere a few years ago (probably at www.epitonic.com). I liked those and filed the name away for future reference. I've actually had this copy of Feast of Wire sitting around unheard for a year or two. Listening to Neko Case's Blacklisted spurred me to bring it to the top of my list.

It's always nice not to be disappointed. This is a wonderful album, constantly interesting in its eclectic variety. A huge array of instruments is involved, many of them played by Joey Burns, who is a major contributor to Blacklisted. I don't know how much sense it really makes to say that the music has a Southwestern atmosphere, but it is certainly very American, with a strong Mexican flavor. There are elements of country (pedal steel), desert-movie atmospheres (deeply reverb-ed guitars), mariachi, electronica, jazz, and even a little dub. The song titles suggest the variety: "Dub Latina," "Attack el Robot! Attack!" "Sunken Waltz." And I don't mean to imply that these are just stunts, or that the album is only a set of effects--it has real emotional power. The only relatively weak spot is the songs, and in particular the lyrics: the songs are certainly not bad, and are better than average for indie rock, but still not quite as good as their settings and performances. With the right set of songs these guys could give us one for the ages (well, okay, the decades): an Astral Weeks or a Revolver. But I'll settle for extremely good.

B+

More info and audio samples can be found at the eMusic page for Feast of Wire.

Music of the Week — June 25, 2006

Joni Mitchell: Blue

This is a great album. So why don't I like it better?

Let's get that question out of the way first. The fundamental problem is that the personality that emerges from Joni Mitchell's recordings is somewhat off-putting to me. She comes across as the sort of sensitive romantic who's very conscious of her own sensitivity and romanticism and wants you to be as taken with it as she is. And then, on the immediate sensory level, there's her voice, which is very versatile and sensitive but just isn't to my taste--it doesn't touch me emotionally, and there's nothing I can do about that.

Nevertheless, setting those personal quirks of taste to one side as far as possible, I very much see why critics use terms like "landmark" and "watershed" to describe Blue. It's just plain brilliant. The flow of inventive melody never stops, and Mitchell's perfectly controlled voice negotiates their range and complexity effortlessly. And while the lyrics are of a confessional nature that's not to my taste (and they lapse into occasional hippie-isms that now sound dated), they're coherent, articulate, and elegantly and seamlessly wedded to the tunes. The spare acoustic arrangements are beautiful, the touches of backup singing always perfectly placed. To reverse Dorothy Parker's famous remark, for those who don't like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they will like anyway. I have to call it a classic in spite of myself, some kind of Platonic ideal of the female singer-songwriter genre.

Even though it's not on my best-loved list, objectively I have to give it A-

Music of the Week &mdash June 11, 2006

Neko Case: Blacklisted

The story goes that Schumann, on first hearing Chopin play, cried out "Hats off, gentlemen—a genius!" I'm slightly embarrassed to say that something of that sort went through my mind after I'd heard this album a few times. No, I don't really think Neko Case is a genius in the sense that Chopin was, and anyway "genius" is a term that should, in my view, be applied to only a rare few people. So let's just say that within the realm of popular music this album stands way above most, and that Neko Case has a formidable degree of talent as both singer and songwriter. As to the former, I can't, from the point of view of personal reaction, put it any more strongly than to say that her voice can move me the way Emmy Lou Harris's does. As to the latter, let's just say that every song on this album is striking and memorable.

The only quibble I'd make about her songwriting is that she's chosen the obscure, elliptical, imagistic path for her lyrics, and while she does this very well, at times brilliantly, I think the songs often end up feeling a little too diffuse and open. Tightening this up some would give them more emotional punch. The two brilliantly-chosen covers here bring this out: their lyrics are less deliberately poetic, but they have a structure and coherence that makes them stand alone as songs in a way that Case's own work does not—I don't think it's very likely that other artists would cover her songs.

So what does it actually sound like? Well, I can't think of a way to describe it that wouldn't make it sound ordinary. Call it folk-rock, alt-country, Americana, or singer-songwriter for a very generic tag, but mainly call it exceptional popular music by an artist who could die proud of her achievement if she never sang another note after this (although on the basis of one sample track I think her new album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, may be at least as good). It has to be pointed out that the producer and supporting musicians, including Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico (a band of which I've heard just enough to make me want to hear a lot more), are major contributors to the magic, providing a Ghost-Riders-in-the-Sky sort of atmosphere.

B+ (maybe turning into an A later—I don't want to be too hasty)

Music of the Week — June 4, 2006

Massive Attack: Mezzanine

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything described as “trip-hop” that I didn’t like at least mildly. It’s a matter of atmosphere, and to me the style seems a bit mis-named. No doubt the name arose because the style apparently began as a variation of hip-hop and “trip-hop” seemed clever, but the general vibe strikes me as far more narcotic than psychedelic. The first thing I ever heard that bore this label was Portishead’s Dummy, which will probably make an appearance here eventually: I instantly loved its romantic late-night melancholy, the nostalgic effect of some of the samples, and the sometimes yearning quality of the vocals and the lyrics. I thought on first listen that Mezzanine was not going to be any threat to Dummy’s position as the best thing I’d heard in this line, but two more listens changed my mind.

This is a very different sort of work from Dummy, much less song-oriented, much more obviously having roots in hip-hop, but equally compelling. I’d be surprised if anyone has ever described it without using the word “dark” at least once: it’s a dim, moody, sensual, almost Baudelarian atmosphere, and, as the AMG review says quite nicely, both earthy and ethereal. The lyrics are pretty negligible, and sometimes more lubricious than I would like, and musically it’s mostly a matter of rhythms and carefully placed instruments and samples, but it will definitely get under your skin. I look forward to listening to it on headphones sometime, as the production is so full of interesting details. Its very best moments may be the tracks on which former Cocteau Twin Elisabeth Fraser contributes vocals and, I’d be willing to bet, the melodies she sings, which have a very distinctly Cocteau Twins character. These seem to yearn upwards rather than to be heading into some sort of pleasant but unhealthy fog. It wouldn’t do as a steady diet, but I’ll allow myself Mezzanine as an occasionally permissible indulgence, like some sort of exotic absinthe-like liqueur .

B+

Music of the Week – May 28, 2006

Jimi Hendrix: First Rays of the New Rising Sun

A couple of years ago something or other sparked me to listen to Jimi Hendrix for the first time in quite a few years, and I realized why guitar players still hold him in something close to awe. Looking a bit further afield than the few studio albums he released during his lifetime, I decided to spring for this posthumous collection, which AMG rates with his completed work. It’s not bad at all, but I have to say it’s something of a disappointment.

There’s plenty of good guitar playing here (how could there not be?), but it seems to me to lack the fire and intensity of his best work. This may be a result of the production, which seems a bit slicker than really suits Hendrix—possibly an unfair criticism, since these tracks were never meant to be released as they are. The bigger problem is that for all his genius as a guitarist Hendrix just wasn’t that great a songwriter, and it really shows here. Too many of these songs consist of a more or less tuneless vocal line over riffs which may be interesting but aren’t as powerful and memorable as his great ones, such as “Purple Haze.” If you ask me, the real treasure chest of posthumous Hendrix is the 1994 release Blues. I wrote something about it here.

Grade: C+

Music of the Week: Galaxie 500 - This is Our Music

This was the first Galaxie 500 album I heard, which was in a way unfortunate, because its opening song, “Fourth of July,” is, to my taste, the best thing they ever did, and also rather different from most of their other work. I was disappointed with the rest of this album, and disappointed with their other two studio albums (not that I didn’t like them, but they were never quite as good as I hoped they would be). Galaxie 500 would have been a much better band if they had bothered to write more interesting and substantial lyrics, not to mention a more varied group of songs. Sometimes you think you’re hearing the same song over and over: it starts with a slowly strummed clean electric guitar, the bass and drums come in, the slightly whiny unhappy-sounding vocal sings sketchy mundane words.

The obvious place to start in describing Galaxie 500’s music is the more sedate and somber side of the Velvet Underground. But in contrast to the VU’s vision of crazed urban degenerates, Galaxie 500 seems to come from a world of dispirited preppies. If you basically like their sound, which I do, you can keep listening and the songs will grow on you. Otherwise, go to your eMusic account (or iTunes if you must), and get “Fourth of July” and the cover of Yoko Ono’s “Listen the Snow is Falling” which is the other high point of this album, and you’ll two killer tracks which are the very best of the group. Or, if you want to be a bit more adventurous, get the best-of compilation The Portable Galaxie 500.

Music of the Week: Mahavishnu Orchestra - The Inner Mounting Flame

This is another album from the ‘70s that I missed at the time. It attracted quite a lot of attention and is now regarded as something of a landmark, which I’d have to say seems justified, although I don’t know a lot about the jazz-rock fusion genre. Landmark or whatever you want to call it, it certainly made John McLaughlin a household name (well, you know what I mean) and it’s an extremely impressive piece of work. For me it’s the sort of thing that produces more amazement at the virtuosity than emotional engagement.. You have five extremely skilled musicians playing with mind-boggling speed and precision, and with a kind of surging energy that makes the title seem appropriate—they often seem to be approaching some sort of ecstacy. “High-energy” was a favored term in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, and as I remember was mostly applied to loud, crude (in every sense), frantic rock bands who were in the end monotonous. But Mahavishnu’s energy is real and focused.

They aren’t always saying a whole lot. McLaughlin in particular sometimes seems to be engaged in speed for the sake of speed, and his playing in the acoustic accompaniment to the one slow lyrical piece, “A Lotus on Irish Streams,” is harsh, bordering on ugly at times. I found myself wishing they had let violinist Jerry Goodman solo more, as his contributions, when not deformed by very ill-advised effects that work well on the electric guitar but sound silly on the violin, provide some of the album’s best moments. Likewise for Jan Hammer’s electric piano—the more he uses effects, especially whatever it is that makes that cartoonish sproingy sound, the more dated and irrelevant he sounds. But these are relatively small flaws in a very rich album.

Sunday Night Journal &mdash May 28, 2006

Speed Bumps and the End of Civilization

There’s a lot one could say about the publication by National Review of a list of what they consider to be the top fifty conservative pop songs. I find this in general to be an odd thing to do, but one thing that struck me as significant was the inclusion of the Sammy Hagar song “I Can’t Drive 55” (lyrics here). I’ve only heard it once or twice but it struck me as not much more than an anthem for louts in cars. I can’t see anything conservative about it at all. If any ideological significance can be extracted from it, surely it’s a fairly pure libertarianism: I see no hint whatsoever in the lyrics that the driver of a car recognizes any obligation to other people, although maybe it’s a concession to civil order on Hagar’s part that he’s willing to surrender his license rather than head for the hills to prepare an armed resistance.

I consider a more conservative view on driving practices to have been captured in a cartoon I saw some time ago—two men are sitting in hell, and one says to the other something like (I’m paraphrasing from memory): “Pulling up behind people and flashing my headlights at them. What about you?”

My local paper regularly publishes letters and phone calls from people who are outraged that speed bumps (or breakers, or lumps, or tables, or traffic circles, as the various obstructions are called) have appeared on a street where they had not previously been. My sympathy is all with the residents of the street, not the drivers. I assume that anyone outraged enough by a speed breaker to complain about it at length to the paper is one of those who caused the obstacle to be needed in the first place. Usually the street involved is a residential one that has gotten adopted as a short cut which avoids bigger and more congested ones. This would be only annoying if the short-cutters were well behaved, but inevitably a number of them believe themselves entitled to drive forty or fifty miles an hour where the posted limit is twenty-five or thirty, and are not shy about showing their impatience and disregard for anything that might slow them down.

So the people who live on the street find their lives and those of their children and pets at risk from the reckless drivers, and they ask the city to put in speed breakers. I figure they have to be pretty concerned and unhappy to ask for something which is, after all, going to be a big inconvenience for them, too.

I suppose it’s possible that the behavior of the drivers hasn’t really changed much in recent years, and it’s just that the residents are pushing back more vigorously. I wonder the same thing about the phenomenon of people running red lights. Every day upon leaving work I have to pull out into a major street from a small side street. There’s a light there, but I know better than to assume that green means, unqualifiedly, “go.” At least once a week someone runs the light, and I don’t mean that the car just slips by as the yellow turns to red, but that it accelerates from a block away at the first sight of yellow and flies through the intersection well after the light has turned green for me. Have people always done this so regularly and with such abandon? I have no statistics upon which to decide the question, but I certainly seem to see it more often.

If they really are increasing, these bad habits are small signs of a bigger decay, of increasing indifference to the rights of others, the common good, and for that matter simple courtesy. So goes the devolution of liberty, as intolerable behavior requires the imposition of more and pettier rules upon matters which used to be managed acceptably by a general presumption of self-restraint.

Music of the Week: The Rule and the Ratings

I started doing this partly as a means of getting a grip on the overwhelming amount of music I've accumulated over the past several years, and partly just because I enjoy it. The accumulation is mainly a result of subscribing to eMusic, also of the wide range of used CDs available in local stores and at SecondSpin.com, and to a lesser degree the sales at BMG. I have literally more music than I can listen to. In the days when eMusic offered unlimited downloads for $10 per month, I grabbed anything that looked interesting, and sometimes hardly listened to it at all.

My newly adopted practice is to take one recording--one album, to use the old term, one LP or CD--per week, and listen to it and write about it. There's one rule: I have to listen to it at least three times. I find that this is enough to give me a pretty good sense of what I really think of it, time for those works that don't have instant appeal to sink in, and for me to see through those whose appeal is only superficial.

And here is my somewhat idiosyncratic rating system. I feel obliged to strike a blow against the terrible phenomenon of ratings inflation. Most people silly enough to do this sort of rating use a system of five stars (or whatever) and hand out the full complement too often. And when they don't like an album very much at all, they assign it only two stars, or in rare cases one. Why should something you don't like get any stars at all? In memory of my school days, and in signification of my earnestness, I use letter grades, of which, as you know, only four indicate any sort of approval.

A: This is a masterpiece, something nearly perfect. The world at large and I in particular would be worse off without it. I don't plan to give many As.

B: This is a very fine work, a favorite to which I will often return.

C: I like this work but not intensely, or it has some significant defect, or it's idiosyncratic in some way (perhaps it's merely interesting)--for any of these reasons, it's not something I will want to hear very often.

D: It was mildly enjoyable, or at least parts of it were, but I may never listen to it again.

F: I don't like it much at all. I may even hate it. I definitely don't want to hear it again.

Music of the Week: King Crimson - Red

I bought this album a year or so ago as a result of having developed an interest in ‘70s progressive rock, a genre which I had disdained when it was current. When I first sampled Red I didn’t think too much of it and thought I would prefer the first two KC albums (this is something like the fifth). But I put it into the cd player in my car at the beginning of the week and didn’t take it out for a full seven days, which is not something I normally do, but this album got under my skin in an unexpected way.

The first song, “Red,” seemed decidedly unimpressive. It’s an instrumental and mainly just a series of angular chugging riffs. I gather it was considered a pretty heavy sound in its day but technology and the quest for sonic-boom-class bottom have allowed the average heavy metal band to far surpass it. The well-I-guess-this-is-okay reaction continued throughout the album. But when it was over I wanted to hear “Red” again. And so it went: a restless and intense mixture of the lyrical and the acerbic, the simple and the avant-garde, and very habit-forming. I probably heard it four or five times through over the course of a week's driving, and I still wasn't tired of it. Again, this is very unusual for me.