Music Writing by Carson Arnold

 


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ALBUM REVIEWS FROM THE OCEAN AND SANDPIT

There was a week in October where I kept receiving letters from people asking if I had gotten their albums and what I had thought. So, I decided I'd throw them all in front of me and review a few of the good ones that caught my ear, almost as if I was sending out a package to someone, or talking to myself. Of course, there's a few notes about some things that obviously haven't been sent to me, but nevertheless, it's all in the same boat. That's right, your album is here! And send more, the doors are open, from the sandpit to the ocean:

 

Although I don't get a dumptruck full (but enough), I would easily start with a few promos-- a bit of the tired underdog. This might coincide with Essra Mohawk's latest album off the Evidence label called You're Not Alone (guest appearances include Keb Mo' and Steve Cropper). Since I hadn't heard Essra's voice on anything since 1974, I was partially surprised that the 'ol helium-daisy of her past harmonies were gone, snuffed with more poppy tones beneath sporadic, boogie music of intertwining love. But that's always been Essra's quality-- a type of indivisible entertainment somewhat methodical dating back to her ultra cool Primordial Lovers album, the umbilical cord to psychedelics (which I've worn down playing). Point being, even though the music is produced for surgeons on a kinky Saturday night on call, You're Not Alone is good-- Essra's lyrics, as always, plum the rum together. The music is happily gowned. I have no doubt in my mind you won't find some solace within this gang-plank to rough beauty. (www.EssraMohawk.com)

 

But that would depend how much you listen or know about Tool-- by far the best thing rippin' through the shell out there in rockzikal land, though I agree with my friend when he adds, "But their music on the last album is so dense, it's like it's in a box." Which is true-- you have nowhere to run in the music, which causes for an interesting effect when strapped in a very fast car. For some reason during an earlier youth two years prior, I had sold all their albums when collapsing through a "rock depression" (reasons which can be found in my autobiography in forty years, A Life In Lawnmowing), and so recently asked my friend in Maine to tape me their first album, Undertow. Now, why I would invite anyone to something like this, is basically to enthrall in the fresh, volatile sounds of the early nineties (Lallapalooza), which as the years progressed on, became less and less vibrant and more and more self-conscious (Ozzfest). Soon it was an obstacle, where the results now leave a lotta bands like Tool still scratching their heads of what-do-we-do-now? The lyrics have always been weak and thin-- no one knows what they mean-- no one cares either-- but at least we know here they're about jail-sex or alcoholism, as told by a cranked guitar monster, whatever his name is. Into the grinder, out with a feather.

 

I originally read about Josh Crane in a New England mag called Northeast Performer, and so began hollering until I received a copy of his Barebones album; a rough pad of raw ballads that surround the pins of love and emptiness through the voice of a gutter...and such. Though he admits the album was recorded digitally, you can hear an essential substance of dirt-yard songwriting that link to the yowls of Steve Earle and John Prine. I later called him up where we talked about Eugene O'Neil, discovered we were both the same age, and that he worked in a local folk club as a dishwasher, trying to get known (which ain't easy), and goes insane when people compare him to Tom Waits. Much of the album is a fragile saga of young journeys within the trial of seasons, soul carved in Josh's husky vocals, that whether exaggerated or real, is unlike anything heard in the steeple of music. Some are visionaries and some are visions. (www.joshcrane.com)

 

New York is so full of electronic music I'm surprised its power unit hasn't exploded yet...Oh wait, it has. Funny, these days, serene atmosphere costs a wad of goop, technology, and a pound of flesh to chime, whereas songwriters are still scratching their heads how to keep four people in their audience. Well, that's fine, 'cuz it'd be worth it to hear Phillip Eno's dreamy polliwog in Argento one more time; just to crank the volume dial yet again and sink into the murmuring soundscape. I just received their promo a few days ago, reportedly privy as a soundtrack, and an EP advertising their up-coming swan-of-sound album in a few months. I love it. It feels right. The project is duo swooned by Lito Vales and his wife Nerissa, taking a side-view from their previous astral-rock band, Uncletoe's Portasound. You might hear a bit more about them later from me 'cuz there's a lotta endearing Yo La Tengo shoreline to them, but until now, you can rest on the shoulder of these tracks like tomorrow only brings rain, so huddle close and hum the voices inside your head. Similar to the goth-electronia of mid-eighties college radio, Nerissa sings a whispering lullaby throughout the ambient goose of the record, catering a glittering frost of sound twinkles and melodic wine. 'Nuff said, it is the blush of beautiful feelings and the smile of knowing you can indeed feel. (www.uncletoe.net)

 

Oh and hey, you ain't heard nuthin' until ya hear Elya Finn's Ship Of Fate! But what is she? Russian techno, diva of dance-hall poetry? Who can know but the beat-box cacophony beneath Elya's chipper, jolly voice-- choruses, a colorful earthquake that remind me of the forgotten Cardigans. But seriously, this is weird stuff-- it's like Maria Mulduar's theremin voice on a pogo-stick in downtown Tokyo. With Elya's fun club-music, it concurs an image of mousse food-- night life! Bone appetite... (www.elyafinn.com)

 

Here's another Performer mag story...which is basically I got four cds from the editor Jeff Breeze, saying, "These might inspire some words". Two of 'em went on to dry 600 words in the same magazine, but the other one was a cd from a band called Lonesome Red. I guess this is only a single, "I'm Not Fallin' Off The Wagon", but whatever it is, they're almost like one of these joke-bands from the Ween lockers that act as if Gram Parsons kids (if he had any) got together under a sink and played Buck Owens covers before their mom found out. But in a way, that's the magical mystery tour de force of this band's one lone song. I like it like that. One track. Nothing else. Put it on repeat and fly. That is, unless you got Performer mag's very own compilation The Best Of The U.S. spanning the cross-country music from years of editorial coverage and hard-knock. This is genuine stuff-- coasting punk, rap, rock, and new-wave bands from shadowed cities like Tacoma, Portland, and Boston with distantly vague groups such as the Ponys, Loopdrop, and Lo Fine. Don't tell me you haven't seen these names spread across a thousand bulletin boards in a million towns! The record is a tribute to salvage the last of the American underground plain, and what's amazing, is when listening, you can't help but fantasize how many Salvation Army's and tag-sales it took to shape the scrape of each instrument heard. My personal fav. belongs to the harmonious rock-belly of the Paper Lions from Athens, Georgia, and the woodsy jig of the Can Kickers from New London, Connecticut. These are foaming tunes, and as we speak, two of my friends just knocked on the door and immediately began grooving their feet to the Paper Lions as I swung it open. All four records came with ink on their fingers-- all perfect-- all swinging. I'm glad I was born. (www.milkweedmusic.com)

 

Ladies and gents, I give you the entire year of 2001. Oh, wait, no actually I give the entire year of 1999. What I mean is: white trash. A statement. Take a look-- over night it seemed as though when us kids were getting, dare I say, liberated by a more diverse market of race and bound, boom: Kid Rock, Eminem, Spears. They smothered it like cement on a hot day, just as they did with Elvis and Vanilla Ice, and it all derived from a dumb-ass trailer, the lowest denominator, the ugliest pit of being white and poor, the worst side of the Allman Brothers. A clever move. We can't get much worse, nor backwards, but then again it's simple to ignore. Woodstock '99. Kewl. And may I'll win the lottery someday, too.

 

I've known who Jeremy Pisani is since I was young kid buying modern-rock albums from him at a record store (with whatever lawn-mowing money I earned that week), and never thought he played music until we recently began talking. This was a month ago, I was in a rush, in town to cover a heavy-metal show, and only had time to run down the stairs, grab the disc from him, and say thanks, replying "we'll talk by phone later." We did. I had since spent a week mesmerized by the album, divided between garage-band fuzz that concluded with four of his own solo tracks, which have now found a home within my bridge to lush. Lasting no more than fifteen minutes, they are acoustic brushings of beautiful psychedelic rhapsody, hushing vocals, and swimming sound orchard, that never veer into space-folk noodling, but instead, build a nest of its own heaven. His touch reminds me of Fahey's last recording and the singing swamp of the ESP label with the Yodeling Astrologer, or where I would've loved Pearls Before Swine to venture. Keep it innocent. (please contact me, I'll route you to Jeremy)

 

The Fever are a band that pray for almighty disaster. I dunno, they aren't quite like all the new rock music of today that fool around like they got tinker-toys for bones-- close-- but smarter. A friend gave me their 2002 EP a few months ago; a live show of four songs; saying that he knew one of the members somehow. This is always the best way to score things, someone who had a roommate, cell-mate, or co-worker who happened to play music. Ten years later, the two cross paths, they go out to lunch, one says: "You know anyone who might dig our stuff?" He does. Soon, the album's mailed to you outta of both personal regard and some distant favor you'll never know, but vaguely realize. Anyway, The Fever are an intersection of punk-slap and accordion instrumentation, the members-- Pony, Sanchez, Achilles, and Gereny-- dancing around the Iggy-reverb of garage hound. Yeah, it rocks, don't worry, almost New York Dolls style, but not as surprising nor sexy-- but certainly plenty of bang-a-wamma is promised. Come around my area, we need you. (www.thefeveronline.com)

 

I own about thirty-five songs of Reinaldo Garcia's and they're all pretty weird. Madly produced, and as usual in most cases, his rough demos are the best slice into his talent. This all extend from two albums, Dogs of the Moon, an ode to California viewings, and The Bright Twist Of My Soul, a soundtrack to Reinaldo's screenplay about legal disputes and neighborhood blacklisting (I like this). But in the actual music? To hell if I know what's going on-- it's very much like a B-film-- which can be a good thing, cult-wise-- but usually entirely forgettable. He scopes each track with a theme, sometimes perverse, sometimes tender-- like Zappa's distant cousin-- but never really does roost to the disheveled edge of casual insanity, lingering back in songwriting fritz...or sleuth. I'll have to listen more. (www.reinaldogarcia.com)

 

Ahh, Felix Leclerc, the French's answer to Leonard Cohen. Who is he? I dunno, I just found him yesterday for a buck, but judging by his face and the old photographs on the back of La Vie-- in his log cabin and a saw-buck-- the man and his soft, fertile guitar are sincere notes (I later discovered he's Canadian, his cabin since preserved as a park). You can hear the traces of French majesty during its nouveau sixties in the record; Francoise Hardy; Felix behind a slowly exploring orchestra; everything so patient and sparkling. The cover of La Vie-- his startling face-- is a sure attraction to anybody lost in the upheaval of a dollar bin, and for that matter, the transaction of life. It sorta sings to you, and when it does, lasts no more than two minutes of complete reckoning joy.

 

You don't what the fun you're missing if you ain't checked out all the junk that Shimmy-Disc puts out, produced and plotted by Kramer, the ghoul of doper art-punk. I know I've already told y'all about Lida Husik, but I find these albums for prices that even Willie Nelson with-the-IRS-on-his-ass could afford. Bands of a dammed worship like Jellyfish Kiss and the Walkingseeds, all burnt to-the-filter with sound demagogue and impressionism that were of no ordinary cross to the ear. Damn, they could do anything, and as long as the rhythm kept pace somewhere in the wild echo, it was amazing. Basically this stuff was all your older brother's sucky group upstairs turned over within the galleries of a studio. Mayhem. To me, the label has always been an irreversible experiment through the mind of a guitar...just dying for your sins.

 

...That would converge well with the next chop for this package, which is a "scene", or movement, or whip, that penetrates among various ferret recordings out of and beyond Columbus, Ohio, but most notable, or should I say blasted, is from a band called Root Cellar. First off, I just get this image of someone performing a sadistic act on Leonard Bernstein by playing him their raunchy Civil War album for six hours, totally shrieked by Charles Cicirella's piranha voice and Dave Immel's battalion of guitars. Now, I'll admit, Charles is a close friend of mine, and together we have exchanged the most intense correspondence that could be documented as an archivist crossfire, clogging my river road mailbox (and his unknown addresses) full of Dylan bootlegs, underground recordings, and literary warfare. That said, Root Cellar reminds me of a lot of stuff during the Seattle grunge invasion that never had a chance to invade the rest of the country, and instead, stayed behind in small town attics and cut music-videos of exploding baby-dolls; picturesque to their grizzly songs that would be adapted well by the camera-crew who would stroll in six years later, narrating: "Where the bands you love came from!" And there's Root Cellar, going at it in the loudest, dirtiest key in the core, paint chips flying. But there's more. The lyrics are incredibly vicious and real, the music, hacking a distorted death-waltz of 2/4 scream. I overall don't see the difference between these guys and the rusty kitchen cans off Mississippi's blues label, Fat Possum, or even John Spencer attempting to cover Skip James. Which is weird...if these guys were black, maybe they'd be heroes?? This is the blues-- in the garage, on the roof, in the basement-- those who don't dig it is probably 'cuz it's one of the few rare sounds to keep a steady rhythm without any affectation. A few days ago Charles mailed me a video of their show at Little Bros. (Columbus, Ohio) and it's fun. No, wait, it's eye-fetching. The scene is gruesome and dark, and it's not clear how many people are in the audience as the camera follows Charles rolling on the floor after a series of chants-- Dave swerving his hand up the fret-board in slide-guitar rodeo-- immediately reminding me of Nick Cave in the film Wings Of Desire, but instead of a club, performing in a bomb shelter. The music gangs up on you, sometimes dragging in a different RPM-- Civil War? Custer's last stand (Betty Davis style). Anyway, that's only one iceberg. Charles, Al Martin and Dave cut this other sonic tomahawk under the project Robot Wars (that I voted one of my top 15 albums of this year), that never for a second restrained them from responding sounds back and forth to one another by computer. They overdubbed by mail, creating a transparent sculpture of spontaneity and hi-art into the gallows of a smoking hard-drive. The results are almost more literary than musical; if I Assassin had a soundtrack this would be it; and no kidding, it works, as though evaluating each second before you arrive at it. It is good, surprising and shocking what vintage material arises out of this Jekyll experiment. Your ears become rubber after listening to it. Tones, voices, warps, things we all hear on a regular day bleed through the floor-to-roof vibrations...never mind that it's just a lovely idea. I can go on forever about this, but no farther told than Dave Immel's own solo album (sung into a tape-recorder I believe), Hippy Tunes. Now, a lot of this material can potentially meander into the bite of Charles Manson's tunes, which from there stumbles into Jandek and a ka-zillion other obscurities, but this is different, and warm. You know Dave cares. Comparisons? I can't think of any. Maybe when you once tried to play guitar. These guys have created their own unsolicited persona that you either can or can't live without, but will find yourself begging for it somewhere down the road. The album journeys back into that whole white-persons-blues thing I was talking about a minute ago-- Hippy Tunes-- a songwriting asthma. I'll be back for more, I just need me 'ol inhaler. And yes, gang, you can be sure there's more gasps of this stuff on the way... ([email protected])

 

You know those albums you're not really connecting with but you nevertheless still bounce between the tracks, revisiting songs that WON'T GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD? Well, this act from Frisco, Flying Venus, led by the high elegant voice of Jean Mazzei, is one of those things that's wheeling me to my wits end. "I call my music attitude pop," she explained, "a fun and quirky retro sound, reminiscent of the 80's with an updated twist." This was all in a letter enclosed with some nice temporary tattoos and her record, Wild Heart Girl (playing now), which as she described, is indeed a cross-breed of the Go-Go's, Deborah Harry, and the escalator to (or off) womanhood. The album is solid, a friend, unsteady at times, but honest enough to make me play it twice in a row. Fiery organs, sugary rhythm, distorted layers, searching for the "dare"-- I suppose it all depends where ya stand...I'm more a Patti Smith person. Though unlike that rigid bunch, Jean is free and wandering-- you can hear this-- yet there's a whole lotta product-placing lyric that distracts the rest of the breezing music-- mild references to coffee, phones, and shopping carts and things. This isn't always irritating, 'cuz when you escape into the moments of "Objects In The Mirror", there's a waterfall of an unforeseen chorus waiting on the other side, illuminating Jean's place as a sensitive but striking singer. (www.jeanmazzei.com)

 

All of you, including you, shan't be without Oliver Lake's Ntu: Point From Which Creation Begins. It quietly opens, marimbas and conga pizzicato hummings, shake and pluck until the horns slip into the melody of what becomes a jungle and the earth, you feel, is truly beginning for the first and last time 'cuz-- damn-- jazz never sounded better. By far one of the more beloved shores into Africa, Lake knew the score, where to run, his sax always screaming deeper and deeper inside the bag as others were punching out, for a way out, if any, was in this record; capable of loving.

 

Can I review anymore? Ahh, save it for another time. There's plenty. Time to ride home on a rocking-horse.

 

--Carson Arnold December 7th, 2003

copyright 2003 Carson Arnold


 

H(ear) is an online music column consisting of interviews, articles, and investigations written by Carson Arnold. As a freelance writer for various magazines and liner notes, living in the woods of Vermont with his family, Carson widely encourages one to submit their art, writing or any interesting piece of material that you would like to share. H(ear) is accepting both promos and demos for review or any other valuable music-related subjects. If you wish to make a comment or would like to receive H(ear) weekly by email please contact Carson at [email protected]

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