Re:Sounds Volume One

Now-Again – Re:Sounds Volume One

Besides being the general manager of hip-hop indie label Stones Throw, Egon (Eothen Alapatt) also runs a side label entitled Now-Again. Its focus is on the forgotten gems of funk and soul that have often been sampled by DJ’s but overlooked by the general public. It was only a matter of time before these two interests converged, like chocolate discovering peanut butter, to deliver a special treat. On Re:Sounds, Egon has collects a slew of funk remixes culled from Now-Again’s back catalog of vinyl-only 7-inches and 12-inch releases, along with a few exclusive tracks to fill out this impressive release. Featuring the nimble hands of J.Rocc, Kenny Dope and Cut Chemist, they re-edit old tracks into new DJ friendly affairs. Aloe Blacc and Guilty Simpson both ride the funky instrumental and gift them with new vocals. But really, the spotlight is on the old masters, whose sound is just as contemporary today, as it was three decades back. An instant classic.

Miss Alex White & The Red Orchestra

Miss Alex White & The Red Orchestra – Space & Time

With a lip snarl that could rival a young Joan Jett, Miss Alex White & The Red Orchestra spit out pure garage rock & roll fuzz. Everything is recorded to the bone: no lavish production values and an album that just barely breaks the thirty-minute mark. Instantly it is something you’d hear on Little Steven Underground Garage, and reckon it was a misplaced 7 inch from the 60’s. Nope. Miss Alex White has been resurrecting the sounds of Velvet Underground, Modern Lovers and hints of the MC5 for some time now, and her new album Space & Time is an equally impressive artifact. From the reverb drenched bubblegum pop of “She Wanna” to the hefty guitar fuzz and drum blitzkrieg of the opening track “In The Snow”, everything has been recorded in the red, and is spiked with enough brash attitude to make you question authority.

Ezra Furman

Ezra Furman & The Harpoons – Banging Down The Doors

“Hello. This song is called Mother’s Day. It’s about a whore that I knew in Chicago.” And thus sparks the vibrant debut and twisted wit of Ezra Furman, a Chicago native who’s been building a repertoire of playfully confrontation songwriting built around an acoustically tough rock and roll style of à la Violent Femmes. With a voice that warbles with the awkwardness of Femmes’ Gordon Gano or yelps in a similar manner of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah frontman Alec Ounsworth, Ezra’s snide tales burst forth with the brashness that emphasis the tongue-in-cheek angst he often sings in machine gun type delivery. The slow shuffle opening of “God Is A Middle-Aged Woman”, an introspective tale of a relationship in question, ends with Ezra exploding with full vocal emotion that would probably have left the microphone dripping in spittle. With production by Brian Deck (Iron & Wine, Califone, Modest Mouse), the urgency is rendered perfectly in acoustic sharpness.

MF Doom

MF Doom – MM…Food

After a self imposed retirement, Daniel Dumile (aka Zev Love X from 90’s hip hop group KMD) re-surfaced with the vigor of a villain who’d been scarred by the evils of the record industry. Masked with metal face mask of Marvel comic book character, Dr. Doom, he equipped himself with numerous personas, though mainly operating under the moniker, MF Doom. On MM…Food, Doom continues to dish up rugged self- produced beats and a butter smooth flow that is riddled with nutty non-sequiturs and deliciously acute metaphors, earning him the adulation of underground hip hop fans. “You telling me/ I try to act broke/ Jealousy the number killer of black folk” Doom quips on "Deep Fried Frenz" a update on Whodini’s infamous tale of backstabbing associates. Stuffed with numerous odd children read-along samples and kooky movie dialogue, Doom’s wild vision flaunts numerous savory bites; don’t expect to pick up on all the different tastes on your first sitting.

Spoon

Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Indie rock partially came about as a response to the overly pompous sound and vision of commercial rock: super sized arena pyrotechnics and albums stuffed with layers upon layers of excessive radio friendly overdubbing. Not to say that Spoon exhibits the lo-fi antithesis of production. In fact, they’ve dappled with far more studio refinement now than previous albums, even calling in the talents of producer and film scorer Jon Brion. However, every song is sprite and lean, like a middleweight fighter, brandishing muscle but only in the right places. In fact, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga will knock you out with the first four songs: the typical Spoon piano pounder “Don’t Make Me A Target, the hollow echoey dub of “The Ghost Of You Lingers”, the northern soul chimes and horns of “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”, and “Don’t You Evah” whose bass line recalls Prince’s Erotic City. Easily one the better albums of the year.

Yesterdays New Quintet

Yesterday’s New Quintet – Yesterday’s Universe

Aliases have grown to be a large part of hip hop culture. Everyone works more often behind a moniker than his own birth right name. Producer extraordinaire Madlib, whose created wonderful musical worlds under the names of Quasimoto, Jaylib and Madvillian, has once again stepped into the his finest tailored duds, and revived his self-created jazz band, Yesterday’s New Quintet. Surrounding himself with an arsenal of instruments and the influence of several decades of jazz, Madlib (Otis
Jackson Jr.) –with special guests including drummer Karriem Riggins and Azymuth precussionist Mamao – connects the dots between the groove oriented fusion of soul-jazz and the headier moments of 70’s avante-garde jazz movement. “Slave Riot” is muscled with an explosion of percussive soloing and a synthesizer meltdown that resembles the wilder compositions of Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi years, and funky drumming of “Street Talkin’” may be a the best Bernard Purdie track the Beastie Boys never stole. If you covet your Impusle and Strata East re-issues, Madlib offers you some additional astral traveling.

M Ward

M. Ward – Duet For Guitars #2

Every town has its musical favorite sons. Imagine the delight of the cluster of REM fans who witness them in beer drenched bars of Athens, Georgia, suddenly see them comet into the international skyline. Similarly, before Matt Ward shared a touring bill with Norah Jones, years back, he played his oversized guitar in local indie-rock trio Rodriguez. With quite a few home recording taking place within backyard chicken sized shacks, it was only a matter of time before he delivered his first album Duet For Guitars # 2, now re-released by his current record label, Merge. The Americana tint and John Fahey-styled rags his future albums now carry is present here, with his breathy, graveled croon embedding warmth in these dreamy narrations of teenage reflections (“Beautiful Car”) lonesome heartache (“Good News”) and emotional redemption (“It Won’t Happen Twice”). A very welcomed re-issue that points to the artistic fullness his currents albums swell with.

St. Vincent

St. Vincent – Marry Me

Besides lending her robed frame and skilled guitar hands to the Polyphonic Spree’s oversized ensemble, Annie Clark more resembles her other touring mate, Sujan Stevens, with her richly orchestrated debut album, recorded under her moniker, St. Vincent. A multi-instrumentalist and equipped with a voice that can sound as warm as Feist or as dangerous as Tori Amos, what she captures on record shifts continually. The French horns on “Human Racing” seduces with AM pop luster, where the brilliant indie-pop opener “Now Now” eventually explodes into a full noise collision of guitar shreds, an orchestration build-up and a kid-like chorus. But this says nothing of her lyrical talent for composing brief poetic visuals that bite with humor or lilt with cryptic sincerity. “With a heart like a socket/that I can plug into at will./And will you guess, when I’ll come around next/I hope your open sign is blinking still,” she flirts on Marry Me, continuing slyly with “let’s do what Mary and Joseph did, without the kid.”

Justice

Justice - † (Cross)

Justice wants to make you dance. These French boys, Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé, owe as much allegiance to the dark, sexy synth sounds of Italian disco as they do to the robotic electro drums of Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” or Cybotron’s “Clear”. But the accomplishment only arrives with the brazen attitude that surrounds the whole affair: the exercise of dicing a track apart, and applying snarling static and overblown guitar distortions as a fixing adhesive, without ever loosing eye contact of what keeps the dance floor flooded. The big beat of “New Jack” is interrupted by a transformer with loose wiring, yet the repairing hand wiggles the defect perfectly in time to the beat. “Genesis” opens with the heavy thud of ominous bass drum, as a warning to villainously fun that lies ahead. The charmer is kid’s choired sing-a-long “D.A.N.C.E.”, friendly enough for grandma, but still enough kick to get tired feet hustling to the middle of the floor.

Von Südenfed

Von Südenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions

With the Fall’s Mark E. Smith incomprehensible talking bark over wild electronic menageries created by Mouse On Mar’s Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner, this side-project may become your atypical dance anthem for the summer. Equally filled with tracks that could easily swell the dance floors at clubs, as well as part them, Von Südenfed is as dynamic in its compositional range as it is jarring to clubbers seeking redundant four-to-the-floor house rhythmic fodder. The album opens impressively with “Fledermaus Can’t Get Enough” that flashes the ID of LCD Soundsystem to get past the velvet ropes, and then follows up two songs later with the UK two-step sound of “Flooded” as Mark E. Smith peppers the track with his atonal delivery of “being the DJ.” Not until the end do they leave the Teutonic techno sound for African influence: “Chicken Yiamas” outfits a Mali blues acoustic guitar with glitchy back beats and “Dearest Friend” will have you thirsting for palm-wine its straightforward Afro-pop a la King Sunny Ade.

Roots Man Dub

Various Artists – Roots Man Dub

Once the foundation of a native music scene began to flourish on Jamaica’s jukeboxes and massive outdoor party sound systems, the knob twisting engineers introduced another element to the B-sides of their vinyl 45’s: dub versions. Originally, these B-sides were just the instrumental tracks of the A-side single, allowing partygoers the chance to lyrically participate as well as DJ’s to improvise with their native patois raps. Studio sharp engineers eventually began experimenting with the different layers of an instrumental track, emphasizing the rhythm and dropping out vocals or adding thick reverb or echo effects to the selected passages then extending the whole mix. Beneath the superstardom of King Tubby and Lee Scratch Perry, the two discs of Roots Man Dub (originally released in 1978) focus solely on the accomplishments of Alvin Ranglin and his G.G. Records Hits label. With a backing of infamous Jamaican musicians like Sly & Robbie, Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace, Ansel Collins, this will soften the blows of the working week and allow mental escape.

Sea And Cake

Sea And Cake – Everybody

If ever indie rock made it into the yoga class, it may very well be Sam Prekop’s relaxed and breezy Sea And Cake outfit that demonstrates the first downward dog. With their recent album, Everybody, this Chicago supergroup – also featuring ex-Coctails Archer Prewitt and Tortoises’s John McEntire – continues to record albums that bubble open with spatial arrangements, and the airy light vocals of Sam Prekop’s wordplay. It’s difficult to pinpoint the source of their easily appealing sonics; its the fusion of pop, jazz, krautrock rhythms with hints of funk, all centrifuged together, and removing any of the jarring seeds. Think of this as homemade ice cream, organically pure and free of mass produced filler, but still a front porch treat.

Nouvelle Vauge Presents New Wave

Nouvelle Vague Presents – New Wave

With a curator’s eye, Nouvelle Vague view the songbook of 80’s post-punk and new wave as Ella Fitzgerald would her Cole Porter musical sheets: as a source of inspiration and as a vehicle for re-interpretation. With two previous albums offering cocktail/bossa nova treatment to such classics as Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, Nouvelle Vague's Marc Collin and DJ Gilles LeGuen now re-position their spotlight onto the bands they love, and select a two disc set of tracks as their new wave heroes delivery their own cover versions, thick in synth pop. Mixing the popular with the head scratching obscure, Devo’s instantly recognizable “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” offsets The Comateens take on “Summer In The City.” With any various artists collection, a few tracks do fall short, and are enjoyable sheerly for their kitsch factor. But those are few amongst the 24 tracks here, and to have the Slit’s bouncy take on Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” and The Original Mirrors new romantic on the Supreme’s “Reflection”, there is enough fun here for past and future generations of youth.

Sir Richard Bishop

Sir Richard Bishop – While My Guitar Violently Bleeds

The investigation of folk music in all its worldly forms didn’t begin with John Fahey, but his guitar workings – rampant with un-Western like chord structures and his intense aural survey of a guitar’s acoustical limits - still find new devotees today. Existing between this departed wizard and the recently emerged freak-folk scene is an equally vivid crew of elder guitar dazzlers: Jack Rose, Stephen Basho-Junghans, and Sir Richard Bishop. As the shortest piece (just under seven minutes) of the trio of tracks, “Zurvan” is a Flamenco influenced by the cinematic theatrics of a spaghetti Western; full of flashy runs and precise fingerpicking, like a skilled gunslinger’s showboating his hip cannons. “Smashana” is vigorously avant-garde. If ever the world heard the recorded exorcism of a be-deviled instrument, here lies its evidence: a darkly arranged composition haunted with stabs of feedback and ghoulish tonal moans. The record closes with a 22 minute Middle Eastern raga, as trance inducing as turkey on a Sunday.

White Stripes

The White Stripes – Icky Thump

After briefly side projecting with Brendan Benson and cohorts in the Raconteurs, Jack White re-unites with his sisterly other-half, Meg White, to outfit themselves in their red, white and black costumery and return to their drum-guitar garage aesthetics. While there is still the blues swagger that enriched much of their early albums, now their sound has become so ferociously thick, Jack’s guitar so dense with distortion, that the pop garage-rock gets swallowed by metal riffs and the enormous cymbal crashes. Not that you’ll ever hear a whole album of redundancy. “Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn” merges a Scottish bagpipes and mandolin with sharp angular guitar shredding as if Riverdance was co-opted by punk rockers. Some tracks are instantly recognizably White Stripes: the Jack’s Thor hammer punch on “Little Cream Soda”, Meg’s tribal drum beat opening “Rag And Bone”. Never as straightforward as their dogmatic approach would imply, the White Stripes continue to have fun with the simplest of tools, to our benefit.

Bonde Do Role

Bonde Do Rolê – With Lasers

DJ’s who crisscross the globe, inevitably open their ears and wallets to the local flavors. On a trip to Brazil, American DJ and producer, Diplo, witnessed and soon championed Brazil’s baile funk scene, which harness its energy as much from Miami bass and funk as its own musical heritage. With backing of his own label, Mad Decent, Diplo has brought teenage youngsters Bonde Do Rolê to a world stage. Delivering a sound that owes as much to early electro Hip Hop as well as hair metal, it’s a weird amalgamation that seems unlikely to be entertaining. But remember the fierceness of early Run DMC? This too is built upon playful rhymes (though mainly undecipherable if English is your only language) about sex, partying, and boredom that builds on call and response lyrics either sung or rapped. The beats that pound out are bass heavy and charged for the dance floor. Every summer needs a dance anthem, and this is primed with club-inducing fun.

Feist

Feist – The Remainder

With inclusion in the art-rock collective Broken Social Scene, and residing and touring with foul-mouth electro-vixen Peaches, you’d imagine Leslie Feist’s recording output to favor the outside boundaries of acceptability. Instead, she aims and hits the bull’s-eye center of elegant pop sentiment. With a rich tenor that can switch from charmingly playful to heart achingly emotive, it’s the slow burning jazz underpinned numbers, where feeling, not power, puts her voice on clear display. “The Water” saunters with brushed drums, soft piano and the deep thump of a slow walking bass line, all minimally arranged so the singing can capture all the attention. But before such mellowness can induce a yawn, out burst numbers like “1234” and “My Man My Moon”, alive with pomp and toe tapping bop. Feist fits somewhere on a line connecting the kooky pop embellishments of Bjork to the sultry jazz vocals of Norah Jones. Not a bad place to be at all.

Elliott Smith

Elliott Smith – New Moon
Post-humous releases always get eyed fishily, as if monied interests rather than artistic gold weight the hook of the vault clearing. Besides, Elliot Smith recorded six gorgeously melancholy albums, withholding from his perfect canon anything resembling second rate. But distrust not, what has been bound together on the two disc of New Moon is twenty four tracks from Elliot’s golden era: the acoustically rich period between 1994-97, before he nervously set foot upon an Academy Award show stage, a time which saw the release of his self-titled album and Either/Or. With little more than a guitar, an 8 track recorder miked closely, and his layered double lead vocals, Elliott composes waltzes (“Going Nowhere”), accusatory admonishments (“Georgia, Georgia”), and a tender re-interpretation of Alex Chilton’s “Thirteen”. There's a torture in New Moon, like the remembrance of your inability to assist a now-deceased friend, a dark brood where the night seems ironically too dark and too short. The beauty is in its sadness, and how much it can sound like yours.

Arthur & Yu

Arthur & Yu - In Camera

So much is owed to the Velvet Underground. In this instance, Arthur & Yu, a boy-girl duo, re-produce the hazy dream pop effort of VU’s “Sunday Morning” across ten tracks. With vocals washed in reverb, as if you’re hearing them by way of a glass positioned to the wall, their sonic arrangement lick the softer side of folk-tinged psychedelia. The weaving of their voices - the hearty, anchoring masculine and wispy, dainty feminine - recalls the efforts of Serge Gainsbourg and Bridgette Bardot, or stateside, Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra, where the interaction hinted at more than the lipped lyrics. However, the sexiness of Arthur (Grant Olsen) & Yu (Sonya Westcott) is limited to mostly charm though the reckless hearts in “Lion’s Mouth” do become flirtatiously naughty: "My fingers in your buttons/are like/ kissing cousins/making fabrics come undone." Signed to Sub Pop’s Jonathan Poneman new Hardly Art label, Arthur & Yu have released a gem of a debut.

Aa

Aa – Gaame

Every genre is an opening for exploration, and if you’ve previously turned your nose at the slightest whiff of a drum circle, consider taking a second sniff. New York’s percussive noise rock quartet Aa (pronounced “Big A Little a”) reformat the wild clamoring of percussive tribalism into an avenue for further experimentation by folding its hypnotic rhythms around an dizzying array of tape loops, synthesizers, and manipulated and modulated vocals. But don’t consider this album a cerebral endeavor; there are enough rhythmic explosions to second as an external defibrillator. Each track quickly bursts out bright and intensely, rarely stumbling out of a three minute range, except for the goliath seven minute closer, “Horse Steak”, where all their knob twisting and voice-as-sound investigations are allowed to run amok. Volitale? Yes. But perfect for dousing your Burning Man float in flames, then stomping it out to the beat. Weak of heart need not apply.