MUSIC
Section By Jeb D.
NATIONAL RANSOM
Elvis Costello
Costello’s always been one to confound expectations. Given the T-Bone Burnett production and cast of expert acoustic/roots music players, many will be expecting something traditional/bluegrass/country; from the album title and the illustration of a carpetbagging wolf on the cover, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear a rant on scurrilous doings in Whitehall or the halls of Congress. What he provides is neither: this is a fairly “traditional” Elvis Costello album, with witty, twisty, observations on human relations (romantic and otherwise), that just happens to rely more on fiddles and mandolins than farfisa organs and Fender Jazzmasters. While Wall Street does take its lumps on the rather clumsy title track, the album generally slides quickly from the large scale to the intimate, from the devastating portrait of a down-and-out singer in “Jimmie Standing in the Rain” to the delightfully tongue-tripping swain of “Slow Drag With Josephine.” There’s hints of something resembling The Attractions’ sound on “Five Small Words” and “The Spell That You Cast,” and all throughout the album, Costello’s in excellent voice, as though he found the brisk four-week recording process unusually invigorating. And if some of the dark love songs here cover familiar Costello territory, he’s still more than capable of crossing the listener up with the contrast of elegant melody and sour-milk romance on “You Hung The Moon” (“You hung the moon / From a gallows in the sky“) and hitting home with the bleak imagery of All These Strangers: “I saw my baby talking to a man today / Speaking softly in a confidential way / I saw her shadow pull his glove off / Life’s no pleasure when you doubt the one you love.” Less satisfying are the cheeky clichés of “I Lost You” (co-written with Jim Lauderdale) and the rather turgid Leon Russell contribution “My Lovely Jezebel;” but it’s the rare album by the amazingly fecund Costello that doesn’t have the odd clunker. In a career that has ranged at least as widely as that of any pop musician before him (or since), we tend to expect every new Costello album to come with its own “hook” (Elvis and Bacharach, Elvis with string quartet or jazz band, new ballet or song cycle, etc.); as a consequence, an album that would (apart from the instrumentation) fit nicely with Trust or Spike can feel a bit slight. But if you’re willing to settle for a batch of terrific new songs from one of our greatest songwriters, you’ll find it a rewarding listen.
BLACK DUB
Black Dub
His production efforts for folks like U2, Peter Gabriel, and his own albums, suggest that Daniel Lanois does not regard lack of aural focus as a problem; often, it’s pretty much the point. Thus Lanois’ new band: Black Dub, which combines his guitar playing, the drumming of jazz vet Brian Blade, and New Orleans’ Daryl Johnson on bass, into a blend of music that slides through a range of styles, from blues to reggae to jazz to modern radio pop, with an aimlessness that suggests that the band is well-named: it’s like the “dub” version of a more directed funk outfit. What keeps hooking the ear, though, isn’t the slightly meandering songwriting, but the voice putting it across: Trixie Whitley is the 22-year-old daughter of the late Chris Whitley, and the gal has a set of pipes on her. There’s a kind of generic quality to her phrasing, and to her voice itself–it wouldn’t be hard to imagine her belting out the latest “American Idol”-inspired Top 40 pap–but technique can be learned and vocal identity shaped, particularly by someone who starts out with the amazing vocal strength and power that Whitley displays here. She brings the gospel wail on “Last Time” and “Canaan,” shows off her lower range on the bluesy “Surely,” and the variety of her repeated attacks on the phrase “I wanna live where love lives!” from “Love Lives” are veering into Van Morrison territory. The band provides expert backing, with particularly hypnotic work from Lanois on “Slow Baby” and “Sirens.” Black Dub is an enjoyable listening experience in its own right, but I suspect we’ll one day look back on it as just the first stirrings of the career of an amazing young singer.
SMALL CRAFT ON A MILK SEA
Brian Eno
What tends to set Brian Eno apart from a lot of his modern neo-classical compositional peers is his insistence that music has value as artifact, devoid of anything resembling intellectual rigor, emotional expression, or structural purpose. He describes the improvisational music-making here as “not attempts to end up with a song, but rather with a landscape, a feeling of a place and perhaps the suggestion of an event. In a sense they deliberately lack ‘personality’: there is no singer, no narrator, no guide as to what you ought to be feeling.” In typical Eno fashion, his collaborators are almost “found music” themselves: guitarist Leo Abraham first hooked up with Eno when they were both shopping in the same guitar store, and keyboardist Jon Hopkins came to Eno’s attention when he curated the Luminous Festival. The album opens in quiet, familiar Music For Airports-era Eno territory, with “Emerald and Lime” and the title song. But every now and again, Eno and company deliver a strong kick in the pants with stuff like “Horse” and “Two Forms Of Anger,” that call to mind his early post-Roxy recordings. It’s kind of a shame that it’s an all-instrumental album, as many of the pieces here have the same kind of sly melodic invention that we heard on the songs from Another Green World and Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). Even after all these years of Eno’s commitment to “ambient sound,” it’s hard to call something “background music” without sounding as though you’re damning with faint praise, but that seems to be the man’s goal, so who am I to argue? Best movie soundtrack since The Social Network, even if there’s no movie to go with it.
AFROCUBISM
AfroCubism
While 1997’s Buena Vista Social Club remains one of the best-known albums in the “world music” catalogue, less well known is that it was originally to have been a cross-cultural meeting of musicians from Cuba and Mali, mining the rich musical history, shared and apart, of the two cultures. Why the Malians never turned up remains unexplained, but last year, producer Nick Gold managed to finally connect up the two groups of musicians, and the result is a dazzling marriage of musical styles: if you know the original Buena Vista album (or have some familiarity with similar bands like the Gypsy Kings), you’ll have some idea of what’s going on here. Though there are some elegant vocals from Kassé Mady Diabaté, singer-guitarist Eliades Ochoa is the front man, and even if my high school Spanish is only up to getting a general idea of what he’s on about, his mixture of quick patter with elegant melisma conveys the ache of love and loneliness as clearly as Neil Young or Joni Mitchell ever have. What makes the album even more enjoyable than its predecessor, though, is the astounding musical summit going on, spearheaded by multi-instrumentalist Bassekou Kouyate and the extraordinary Rail Band guitarist Djelimady Tounkara. It’s an embarrassment of musical riches, with styles including griot, Tres Cubano, flamenco, bossa nova, and American blues sometimes winding in and around each other on the same track. Tounkara virtually flies on “Djelimady Rumba” and the Cuban favorite “La Culebra,” while the Malian standard “Jarabi” gets a sly, percussive Afro-Cuban twist from the mingling of Kouyate’s kora and n’goni with Ochoa’s guiro. The album is rounded out with kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté joining Bassekou and Ochoa in taking elegant solos to flesh out the Cuban standard “Guantanamera.”
OTHER NOTEWORTHY 11/2 RELEASES
Huey Lewis & The News, Soulsville. Well, better these guys than Phil Collins.
Neil Diamond, Dreams. From “Cherry Cherry” to “You Got To Me” to “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show,” Diamond earned my (sometimes grudging) respect as a sharp writer of terrific pop songs. That did not then, and does not now, extend to his singing of other people’s songs (or even his own).
Brad Paisley, Hits Alive. Bunch of hits on disk one, bunch of live versions of most of the same ones on disk two. Still, it’s priced cheap and even if the dude’s writing or singing isn’t particularly distinctive, on the live disk you get more of his guitar playing… which really isn’t that much more distinctive, but is pretty hot.
Keith Richards, Vintage Vinos. With Keef making the rounds on his book tour, this is obviously the ideal time to release a collection of his best Mick-less music; for better or worse, though, the forgettable nature of most of the tunes and words also demonstrates just how much vision and concept that Jagger brings to their partnership. If the chunky riffs and endearingly cracked voice are enough for you, though, there’s probably stuff on here you don’t already have (including the Katrina benefit single, “Hurricane,” credited to the Stones, though it’s mostly just acoustic Richards).
7 Walkers, 7 Walkers. Deadheads Bill Kreutzmann and Robert Hunter evoke the spirit of Crescent City musical giants from Jelly Roll Morton to Dr. John to Gary U.S. Bonds– who was actually from Florida, demonstrating that a good N’Awlins celebration has room for folks from all over, even a pair of Bay Area hippies. Willie Nelson and legendary bassist George Porter Jr join in a musical celebration of New Orleans that should help tide you over til the next season of Treme.
Various Artists, Mostly Ghostly: More Horror for Halloween. Um… released Stateside the week AFTER Halloween? It’s still worth your money: among its 24 tracks are such rarities as Screaming Lord Such’s “Black and Hairy,” Terry Teen’s “The Hearse,” Morgus & The Three Ghouls’ “Morgus the Magnificent,” Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads’ original version of the Cramps’ classic “Goo Goo Muck,” and a dozen more that you’ll find equally essential.
Neville Brothers, Authorized Bootleg Warfield Theatre San Francisco. Well, you can’t deny the sheer definitiveness of stuff like “Sister Rosa” and “Big Chief,” or the beautiful treatment of Bob Marley’s “One Love.” You can, however, bemoan the pedestrian choices for the oldies covers: “Johnny B. Goode,” “Rip It Up,” “Long Tall Sally,” etc. At $25, the CD is for Neville fanatics only; at $10 the download is sort of not great, not bad.
Weekend, Sports. San Francisco-based noise-poppers who are more expert on the former than the latter.
Good Charlotte, Cardiology. Whether it’s in any way productive to still remember what teenage yearning felt like when you cross the big 3-0, it’s certainly commercial if you’re as musically canny as these fellas.
Paul McCartney & Wings, Band On The Run. It’s a measure of just how starved we were for any leftover scraps of Fab Fourism during the 70’s that this occasionally catchy collection of inoffensive pop was upgraded into an Artistic Statement. Granted, it’s one of the few McCartney solo albums with more than one or two songs that reward careful listening– it actually has, like, three or four. And with your choice of several different reissue packages, you can spend up to a hundred bucks to hear them again.
Weezer, Death To False Metal. Ten songs that weren’t considered good enough to make it onto previous Weezer albums (ponder that for a moment) are spiffed up and recorded-over to produce a “new” album that will allow the Cuomo faithful and lapsarians to resume savaging each other on message boards. I’m neither, actually, but it sounds OK to me.
Matt & Kim, Sidewalks. Smart and smart-ass modern pop, with just enough beats to keep it honest. “Where You’re Coming From” might even be sincere, and it’s catchy enough to make it worth the effort to listen enough times to decide.