SEPTEMBER 2008 REVIEWS - CDZ BOOKZ AND DVDZ

SEPTEMBER 2008 REVIEWS - CDZ BOOKZ AND DVDZ

SEPTEMBER 2008 REVIEWS - CDZ BOOKZ AND DVDZ

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SOUNDZ

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Sunny Day Sets Fire

Summer Palace

(IAmSound)

The first comparison I came up with was Of Montreal.  And although I like Of Montreal, upon further listen, I realize that this isn't quite accurate.  Sunny Day is actually much more interesting to me. The redundancy that I sometimes feel with Of Montreal is absent in Summer Palace.  I thoroughly enjoyed this album.  It's fun and happy – perfect for the summertime.  I love that this band is composed of members from around the globe.  I think that the blend of different styles, tastes and cultures really brings an interesting twist to the pop they peddle.  I have to say that track 8 ("Siamese") absolutely captivated me.  I think it's a masterpiece.  So haunting.  A total departure from the rest of the album. Onyee's voice proves so pure and creates an enticing sense of longing.

[Jennifer Ross]

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Curumin

JapanPopShow

(Quannum Projects)

Unless you’re from Brazil, you probably don’t know that indigenous Brazilians reserve the moniker “Curumin” for their most precocious children. If you’ve had the privilege of listening to Luciano Nakata Albuquerque’s – a.k.a. “Curumin’s” JapanPopShow, this probably comes as no surprise. Even if you don’t speak Portuguese, the instrumentation – a glorious mixture of mostly analog instruments, Hammond organ, electronic keys, effects and TASTY samples – is refreshingly interesting and intelligent enough to make this an album worth picking up. 

The hiss and crackle of vinyl run throughout the album, a nod to Curumin’s nostalgic love of wax (Compacto). While there are some nostalgic moments on this record, the man uses the past more as a launch pad than a lounge pad. A skilled vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, Curumin grew up listening to traditional and popular Brazilian music, old-skool funk, American rap and pop, you name it. This diversity of skill and influence show up everywhere within and among the tracks. Check out the trip-hoppy Dancando No Escuro and the killer bass tone on the funky Mal Estar Card. Try not to get laid playing the sensual ballad Misterio Stereo, and just try to sit still listening to the title track or Sambito [Totaru Shock]. Curumin has good ears, good taste, respect for quality tone… and he knows how to have fun, even when he’s waxing political with labelmates Gift of Gab and Lateef the Truthspeaker (Kyoto).
[Kimberly Jane]

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Puscifer
"V" Is for Viagra – The Vagina Remixes

(Puscifer Entertainment)

Every once in a while, an album comes along that reminds you why you love music in the first place.  It gets under your skin from the start, like some kind of wild transformation. From the moment you listen to it, it’s becoming part of your very body, and when it finishes you instantly start it over again, and listen to it even louder. 

"V" is for Viagra – The Vagina Remixes is such an awesome event.  It’s fun, sexy music, "industrial lounge" if you will, that tingles your blood like an orgasm.  It’s almost naughty, as in you get the sense that if you play it in mixed company, it could very well turn the party into an orgy. 

Fronted by the legendary Maynard James Keenan (Tool, Perfect Circle, winemaker, etc), Puscifer is more of an evolving collaboration than a proper band.  This time around, Keenan jams with Paul Barker (Ministry), Aaron Turner (Isis), Lustmord, and plenty more. 

Sure, this is a remix album, and it could be argued that Puscifer’s "V" Is for Vagina (released in 2007) had just as much soul and wicked rushes as this record.  Even so, the remix is crazy good, and stands tall on its own. 

"Drunk With Power" ("Hungover and Hostile in Hannover" mix by Joey Jordison of Slipknot) is a haunting cut, as is "Momma Sed" ("Tandimonium" mix by Dave "Rave" Ogilvie and Colin Janz).  Tracks like "Indigo Children" ("JLE Dub" mix by Josh Eustis) and "Queen B." ("Narcovice" mix Michael Patterson) are perfect party tracks, while "Trekka" (both the "Desert Porn" mix by Lustmord and "The Great Unwashed mix by Aaron Turner) is perfect for those weird nights where you’re driving around aimlessly at 3am, wondering what the hell to do next…or just thankful you got out of that apartment before the walls really started caving in on you. 

Not to be taken too seriously, "V" is for Viagra has plenty of funny tracks, particularly "Country Boner" where the line, "I fucked Elvis Pressley in the bathroom where he died" makes you laugh just as much as the beat makes you want to dance. 

Indeed, every single track on this record stands on its own, and as a collection, "V" is for Viagra is the kind of thing that will probably usher in new trends in the years to come. 

Though provocative music is pretty much a given when Keenan is involved, this album actually transcends the mentality of "being important."   It’s just music being creative and fun, and the result is one of the best albums of the year. 

[Tommy Digital]  

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Ocote Soul Sounds & Adrian Quesada

The Alchemist Manifesto

[ESL Music]

A friend of mine once said he never liked an ending to a favorite book because it’s The End. The last few notes on the 11-track, 36-minute Alchemist Manifesto make me feel much the same way – whiny. It’s over way too soon. The mainly instrumental musical lovechild of Antibalas’ Martín Perna (aka Ocote Soul Sounds) and Grupo Fantasma’s Adrian Quesada is a hazy trip around Latin America with regular return visits to NYC. Jazz-, funk- and Latin-inspired percussion provide the foundation while Perna’s signature sax and flute further establish the record’s laid-back “tropical psychedelic” tone. From 2005 – 2007, through various circumstances, the two multi-instrumentalists would meet up, write and produce the album using whatever instruments and recording gear they had at their disposal at any given time:  4-tracks, laptops, gourds, synths. The result is a sonically stimulating record that masters the fine art of being chill without sacrificing passion and intensity.

[Kimberly Jane]

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Raashan Ahmad

The Push

(OM)

If words, by virtue of their intensity, literally had a lot of weight, you’d need a forklift to pick The Push up off the shelf. Within the first two minutes of the album, in “Hello,” Ahmad lets you know he plans to “take a pen, take aim, write away the pain/no rent, no sickness, no rich, no poor, no bitches, no niggers, no cops, no war!” Sure, there are some light-hearted grooves that have you shaking your ass (If I…) or slow-dancing with your crush (Close). Even as you’re compulsively nodding your head to the well-chosen old-skool beats, Ahmad is reminding you of the harsh realities outside your comfy little existence. The former lead M.C. in Mission and present front man of Crown City Rockers calls his first solo album “selfish” – and that’s true. It’s just this kind of honesty and self-awareness that gives this album’s 13 tracks the bravery, soulfulness and substance that make it feel more like an act of generosity. “Give thanks.”

[Kimberly Jane]

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Daedelus

Love To Make Music

(NinjaTune)

Daedelus’s latest release Love to Make Music to on Ninjatune makes me believe in fairy tales all over again. Or at least their soundtracks. Like the original myth of Daedelus, this modern day musical mastermind, rises above the obscurity and repetition which is all too familiar in today’s production scene to give us something to believe in and more importantly, dance to. Love to Make Music to much like its clever title, refuses to be labeled or homogenized, one can only describe this genre blurring music mix of electronica, IDM, hip hop and anti-pop as what happens when everything in a studio experiment goes awry yet horribly right.

This Santa Monica bedroom producing savant marries playful lyrics and flirtatious wordplay along with sometimes nostalgic and always wildly disparate sound sources including: keyboard clacking, sampled strings, nature, '70s sci-fi soundtracks, modem whine, ambient white noise and its broken beats, printer noises, toy pianos, childlike arrangements from the 30s-40s, even Willy Wonka himself. As abstract as his found sound compositions are, his tracks become cohesive to make something almost extinct in our world today: an entire album you can listen to without skipping. And enjoy. Over and over again. Best Tracks: “You’re The One,” “Drummery Jam,” “Touchstone,” and “Twist the Kids” which summarizes Daedelus’s takeover in one simple phrase, “And we run that too.” My iPod lives.

Slick Music Chick Says: In Daedelus We Trust

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J.Rawls and Middle Child

Rawls and Middle

(HBD)

Or perhaps I should say chocolate?! And sometimes that single, sweet scoop in the middle of the afternoon heat is just what you were looking for. Satisfying and just enough. J. Rawls and Middle Child’s Rawls and Middle is like that. Real music for real people. It’s almost like the rebirth of the vintage store in times like these, when we look to tradition after nothing else makes sense (or fashion), clinging to that worn but loved tee shirt that’s seen us through concerts, college breakups, and 9 to 5 woes. Rawls and Middle is the theme song that goes along with that shirt.

J. Rawls is no newcomer to the mic, the underdog of producers, who has worked with musical innovators such as Talib Kweli, Dilla, Mos Def, Tribe, and Common. And Middle Child proves that she’s no Jan Brady as she stakes her claim with strong, solid vocals. A promising collaborative debut, delivers middle of the road, with the promise for much more. Highlight: lyrically responsible tracks that touch on the state of hip hop (Kick In The Door: "Kick in the door wavin the fo'-fo' / Used to rock the dance floor, yes we used to flow / Now all we do is blow dro, what are we here for?" Useless: "If that thing you love you don't respect, you will lose it. You can love shiny rims in the summer time, yeah / But if your muffler is fallin off, dude / Your ride is use-less.")

Neosoul with a soul. Music with a conscious. Listen to it and still live with yourself in harmony. Gotta like it.

Slick Music Chick Says: Plain Vanilla Ice Cream on a Hot Summer Day

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The Walkmen

You & Me

[Gigantic]

You just went through a huge break-up. Your friends demand you join them in Costa Rica for a vacation to “take your mind off things.” You board a plane in the evening and start drinking heavily, arrive at your port close to midnight but would rather find the beach and keep drinking until the sun comes up than go to your hotel. Your friends oblige, so you stumble off to find the ocean even though you’re already submerged under a high tide of whiskey, tequila, probably some gin and beer. While asking locals, “Donde Esta la Playa?” you have just stumbled into “You & Me,” The Walkmen’s fourth release and possibly the best sonic metaphor for a breakup “vacation” this reviewer has ever heard. 

Hung over, you ease gently into the next day (Flamingos). A couple of Bloody Marys or Greyhounds into the afternoon, however, and you’re getting a little saucier (On the Water). Later on, your friends succeed in getting you hammered enough to dance with strangers to the bar band, and you have a good time (Postcards from Tiny Islands) but even during the good times, the memory is there, the ache still present (Canadian Girl, Four Provinces). And you are also left too often alone with brooding thoughts of what you’ve lost, and what might have been (Red Moon, I Lost You). You are circumstantially bipolar, sometimes forcing smiles, feeling genuine alcohol-aided hope (In The New Year, New Country), and then you’re aggressive and angry, or resentful (Blue Route), or just… sad (Long Time Ahead of Us). 

Hamilton Leithauser holds nothing back and makes no apologies for his Dylanesque crooning while drummer Matt Barrick’s versatility shines, the guitar warbles and drives by turns, and the keys/organ provide a sense of spaciousness vast as the ocean in which you find yourself. Yet beneath everything – the muted pulse of the bass reassures you’re still alive and going to live, after all.

On the flight home, in the secure fog of a four-day bender, you come to the transient conclusion that the breakup is really for the best (If Only It Was True). [Kimberly Jane]

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Simon Star

Blue Lights To Saturn

(Simon Star Music)

They say that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. I haven’t explored this concept but I have recently listened to the newly released Blue Lights to Saturn by native Simon Star and I found myself snoozing inside of what I could only make out as the background music on a 70’s elevator ride – to outer space or hell. As soon as the keyboard outline on the side of my face and my naptime tan fade, I’ll wipe the sleep from the corner of my eyes and let you know. The only thing less inventive than the CD cover, which looks like it should be a thumbnail on eHarmony, is the lack of lyrics, and by the fourth track or so – I found myself begging for someone, anyone out there to just say – ANYTHING. Dear Little Man on the Moon…… 

If you are looking for the unpretentious wave of coolness that is the music child of nu jazz and sexy house to sweep over you and touch your soul, then power on the WAVE or KJAZZ. If you are looking for office neutral music that you can discreetly sneak a powernap under your desk, and then pop up with that conveniently missing pen once your boss comes back 10 minutes early from lunch to, then Blue Lights to Saturn might be your thing. Women may be from Venus, Men from Mars but if Simon Star is from Saturn – this reviewer will take her chances on Earth, global warming and all. 

Time to look into a biosphere!

Slick Music Chick Says: Earth to Simon Star, You’ve Put This Reviewer To Sleep

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SuperGiant

Antares

[www.supergiantrock.com]

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WORDZ

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Lala Pipo

by Hideo Okuda

[Vertical]

Award winning Japanese author Hideo Okuda presents us with a very disturbing, yet extremely engrossing, portrayal of seemingly normal everyday human beings under the spell of a Japanese subculture rank with sexual repression. Lala Pipo's characters are very cleverly interwoven in a structure where each chapter focuses solely on one character's point of view as a strategic reference to each preceding and following character. Okuda effectively keeps you guessing on who will be the focus of the next chapter as each player meets and interacts with others through their day to day lives.

Characters range from the popular Japanese writer best known for his erotica who finds himself caught in a web of underage sexual exploits in discreet karaoke clubs to the confused and misled young scout who scours the streets of Tokyo in search of the next cabaret dancer. The nympho-crazed porn star housewife to the obese sex fanatic who gets her thrills by being brutally taken advantage of, both physically and mentally, by the local postman and his comrades.

Spattered with all-engrossing, and admittedly often arousing, graphic tails of sexual exploits throughout, Lala Pipo proves a very dirty, gritty, underground tale of something very very real. So real, in fact, that you begin to empathize with each and every character as each and every chapter unfolds.

[CH]

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Buddha, Volumes 1-8

by Osamu Tazuka

[Vertical]

Just buy these books. Just buy them. 

[WAM]

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LOOKZ

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“Chapter 27”

Directed by J.P. Schaefer

Starring Jared Leto + Lindsay Lohan + Judah Friedlander + Mark Lindsay Chapman

(Peace Arch Entertainment)

This film is an interesting thing to behold for many reasons. One of them pertains to its history. The press was all abuzz about Chapter 27, prior to its release, because they were astounded by Jared Leto’s dramatic weight gain, for the role of Mark David Chapman. The astonishing part is that they seemed to miss the far-more-impressive and intriguing element on display: Leto’s consummate command of Chapman’s soft and feminine so-called Southern accent. 

His haunting speech, especially in rapturous voiceovers, is so effective that it acts as the strongest character in the film and the very vessel through which we are able to understand or try to understand the mind of this homicidal figure who, in the end, is revealed to be more lonely, confused nerd than malicious killer with a vendetta.

The film was virtually overlooked theatrically, despite the weight gain hype, and went to DVD without widespread television advertisement. Shocking considering its tabloid-worthy appeal. Normally the media will plug anything about death to death.

Although far from comprehensive, ‘27’ is, probably, the closest to accurate such a picture has ever come in its representation of Chapman’s time spent in New York, on the three days leading up to John Lennon’s murder. Another impressive fact, considering that it conveyed a sense of real time while also clocking in at a pace and running time that felt far too short.

Leto’s entire act is one of expert execution, from his faraway gazes to his facial tics and sick smiles of revelation. And those expressions of puppy dog excitement give the movie another dimension, ensuring that every facet of Chapman’s personality and mentality is represented. The cutest and sweetest of ironies comes when Chapman is invited to go to the movies by two lovely young girls and he laughs unabashedly before going on a harangue about how actors are phonies who thrust out their chests and make it so obvious that they are acting and that they know they’re so good at it. He might as well have been talking about himself after handing in a performance this good.

Lindsay Lohan is another real surprise, taking an essentially unimportant groupie character and turning her into the vital prognosticator, the sole person who sees Chapman for his weirdness and recognizes him to be more than just a bookish fan-boy. Aside from her strong acting chops overall, another treat is when Chapman (Leto) is talking with her and a paparazzo (Judah Friedlander) and she is caught with her face down, trying to stifle laughter at the paparazzo (Judah Friedlander!)’s remarks.

In a market flooded with gratuity, Chapter 27’s lack of blood or guts is warmly welcomed. Not because I don’t like gore but because it would not have been appropriate here. The mere concept of Lennon as Peace and Chapman as the Malevolent Soul that murdered Peace is carnage enough on a psychological level. And the visuals do not suffer from the absence of graphic imagery. This is a flick with poetic imagery that hypnotizes the viewer, something necessary to the viewing process when it comes to telling the story of the man who murdered Love.

[Bob Freville]