The Tris McCall Report
British Inversion, July 15, 1999
Kula Shaker -- Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts
This isn't anywhere near as bad as you've probably heard it is -- and if you dug K, and you haven't become completely sick of late sixties-early seventies revival acts, you probably owe it to yourself to ignore the dreadful reviews and check this joint out. No longer fascinated with George Harrison, Crispian Mills has welded himself on to an altogether weirder object of retro obsession: Deep Purple. Trouble is, Mills is still very much the slick, ornate guitar-effect junkie who brought you "Tattva", and his attempts to toughen up his stance are about as successful as PM Dawn's; much of this record sound like a strange hybrid of Hawkwind and the Rent soundtrack. But, hey, in a year when the new Backstreet Boys single features a harmony break that wouldn't sound out of place on Close to the Edge, Kula Shaker probably deserves a little slack for theatrical prog-rock indulgence -- and after the initial time-warp shock wears off, "Mystical Machinegun" and "S.O.S." just feel like great sing-along summer songs. Less successful are the new Indian chants ("Radhe Radhe", "Namani Nanda"), which seem out of place in this harder-rocking context, and never approach the psychedelic, mind-blowing heights of "Govinda". Mills' appropriation of eastern musical elements never seemed exactly natural, and in the wake of Cornershop, you might now want to call him a bit of an ethnopirate, no matter how sincere his Hare Krishna beliefs might be.
A far more successful attempt at integrating Indian and eastern traditional music within the framework of western pop musical forms, Singh's OK regularly achieves a balance and synthesis that makes both Cornershop and Crispian Mills seem like crude collage artists in comparison. A classically-trained tabla player and self-confessed club kid; Singh's remarkable beat programming seamlessly synchronizes Indian percussion with electronic drums, and the results are often breathtakingly beautiful. But I am an old philistine who throws stones at abstract art, and to me, Singh's approach, and technical proficiency, constructs soundscapes that feel altogether too refined -- better suited for automobile commercials that dance floors. If Talvin Singh's instrument -- the tablatronic, a tabla that triggers effects and electronic drums when played -- functions as a metaphor for cultural interaction, it seems strange to me that Singh would choose not to represent any interference, or friction. That's probably not his project, and that's certainly okay; I'm sure that a musician of his intelligence and sophistication would have a perfectly valid, theorized reason for placing Eastern musical signifiers in such perfect, almost interchangeable harmony with Western ones. Nevertheless, it's instances like this when a good, visionary musical composition could benefit from the kind of clarification, coherence and direction that only words can provide. That's why God invented lyrics, and I do wish that more of the new music artists could remember that, and find a place for a genuinely consistent lyrical approach in their body of work.
Shantel -- Higher Than The Funk
All grumpy old gripes aside, Talvin Singh is a master at what he does; he's a brilliant producer and a champion fabricator of soundscapes -- he aims for a kind of pristine perfection, and he's able to attain that. Trip-hop auteur Stefan Hantel, or Shantel, has similar aspirations, but only a fraction of the vision. But it's the vision which distinguishes one electronica record from another, after all; computer technology being what it is, any anal-retentive beat fascist can program their album to be perfectly tight, rhythmically precise, and conforming to mind-warping time. Somebody needs to tell these guys that in order to make a good album, a tiny bit of recklessness is necessary -- and a few humanizing mistakes wouldn't hurt, either. Vocalist Liane Sommers, has a kind of sleepy charm to her delivery, but compared to the much-maligned Ruth-Ann of Olive -- another singer engaged in the onerous process of trying to sound vaguely soulful or approachable amidst synthetic fireworks -- she hasn't enough character to adequately distinguish the tracks she highlights. The commercial hook here is a "cover", or electronica reimagining of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" from My Fair Lady, but since new music artists are congenitally incapable of changing chords, the melody is re-cast as a bluesy drone. You don't have to be a Beatles-obsessed melodic fetishist to realize that what's lost here substantially outweighs what's gained.
Kid Silver -- Dead City Sunbeams
Cultural dilettantes, including many who write for hip city newspapers, want to imagine that the coming of figures like Hantel and Singh, coupled with the rise of limitless computer technology and sampladelia, renders standard rock song experimentation quaint and anachronistic. In 1999, poppy guitar guys are supposed to put away their phasers, and psychedelic ambitions, and go off to a mountain somewhere and make Wilco records. But if that were really the case, music like Dead City Sunbeams wouldn't even get recorded, let alone released. Kid Silver formed after the shakeout of Roller Skate Skinny, and like that act, they offer tightly-constructed, tripped out pop ruminations that wouldn't sound out of place on a Robyn Hitchcock solo joint (both Kid Silver's "67 Cities Of Light" and "Devils" are extremely reminiscent of "Grooving on an Inner Plane", and I mean that as quite a compliment). Principal songwriter and philosophical generalist Ken Griffin desperately needs to develop his lyrical sensibility past pleas for transcendence and self-expression, but he frequently manages a genuinely memorable, bright line or two per track. A striking vocal resemblance -- particularly in his low register -- to Bono doesn't help much, but Griffin does manage to invest most of these tracks with distinctive character. Kid Silver wins points for some daring and beautiful synth programming, and a commitment to a grand, unsettling sound that's orchestral in its implications, but which leaves plenty of room for the listener. And when this project coheres, as it does on "Breadcrumbs" and the wonderful "Chasing Daylight", the musical results prove simultaneously eerie and exhiliarating.
The very opposite of the well-manicured synthscape is the savage brutality of a slightly out-of-time acoustic guitar: the most violent sound in rock and roll, according to Ben Lee in a recent MTV interview, and the sound which excites him most. It's ironic, then, that Breathing Tornados feels so tame -- so beholden to the basic, sanitized FM radio conventions of rhythm guitar playing. I'm sure that Lee wants a hit song as much as anybody else, and he's smart enough to realize that the early Ani DiFranco approach is a damn good way to avoid heavy rotation; nevertheless, he also ought to realize that his own musical ambitions have been crippled by his sonic choices. His fans are as hard-core as anybody's, but those of us still wondering why Lee has merited so much more attention than, say, Old Skull aren't going to find anything here to increase our admiration of his project or understanding of his cult following. Lee possesses a sweet, sub-Andy Bell vocal style, and he gets enough grit in it to deliver some big, heartbroken sentiments; in fact, much of Breathing Tornados resembles Oasis -- if they had been produced by Shawn Colvin. But besides the crystal-clear production approach, the difference -- and this is oh so crucial -- is that you'd never catch Noel Gallagher saying something as lunkheaded as "there's an ocean between us just like me, deep and blue". There's a fine line between moving lyrics and mawkish cheese, and dopey stuff like that will capsize grandiose ambitions every time. Marginally better to hear on the radio than Matchbox 20.
Now, in Andy Partridge, we have a guy who's made a career out of handling acoustic guitars, and acoustic instruments, in the most thuggish, threatening manner possible, and no matter how strenuously he has attemped to ape the lovely textures of Sgt. Pepper, the herky-jerky maniac who brought you "Rocket From A Bottle" won't sit still. That's a good thing, by the way, and it's also helps salvage Apple Venus -- an album which could easily have been a precious, pastoral mess, but is instead remarkably obnoxious and edgy for a joint recorded by a bunch of older dudes with stringed instrument fetishes. Partridge, never one to settle for C major when Csus maj 7 + A flat would do, brings his highly characteristic harmonic sensibility to this batch of chamber pop songs, but what makes Apple Venus more memorable than 1992's Nonsuch (gosh, was it really that long ago?) is the antsiness of these performances: horny as a dirty old flasher on "I'd Like That", vaguely threatening on "Easter Theatre", wonderfully repugnant on "Your Dictionary". He'll probably never lose his penchant for delivering his more mundane or awkward phrases like he expects to win Pulitzers with them, but he's a didactic coot, an acquired taste, and if you don't love him a little by now, well, you probably haven't been paying too much attention to pop music during the past twenty years. Accomplished bassist Colin Moulding contributes his usual two clunkers, including the unspeakably horrid "Frivolous Tonight", but, boy, is he great on them unexpected vocal harmonies, all of them pure XTC.
Partridge, even at his most vitriolic, is a sentimentalist; an overgrown, hyperactive child expressing friendship and enmity, gain and loss, with equal impatience and urgency. Ian Dench plays his acoustic guitar with a commensurate brutality, yet while Partridge generates warmth, Dench radiates distance, antipathy, and even horror. The acoustic guitar is unparalleled as a transmitter of personality: no two accomplished instrumentalists sound remotely alike, and Dench has perfected a malevolent, sardonic tone. In vocalist Kerry Shaw, he's found a perfect collaborator -- a vocal dead ringer for Sarah Blackwood, substituting a pristine, fine-line hostility for reserve and longing. Shaw sings lyrics of menace and hatred in her prettiest voice, and the spare accompaniment (rarely much more than guitar, viola, and drums) supports her with a strange, hypnotic iciness. There's something almost inhuman about Whistler -- Shaw's ability to deliver some of the most scathing put-down and break-up songs in recent memory in no way precludes her character from sympathy, but her uncanny reserve and perpetual distance dares the listener to succumb to identification with, or desire for, her. "I always thought I'd like to see some tears from you", she offers, with plainspoken malice, to an ex-lover, "that's one last pleasure that I've been denied". A thousand times more dangerous than Marilyn Manson, badder than DMX, and one of the year's most remarkable records. It is in no way instructive or pertinent to point out to you that Ian Dench, in what seems like a genuine past life, wrote "Unbelievable" and "Lies" for EMF, but ten years from now, when Britney Spears comes out with a record of devastating social satire, remember that it's never wise to count out pop stars -- eventually, when they get to where they're going, they'll shout you out.
Travis Cut -- Seventh Inning Stretch
Enjoyable, aggressive London punks, commendable for their appreciation of the best things in American cuture: baseball, and loud rock music. No, seriously, this is a fine, if rather unremarkable set of immediate, personal punk rock songs. Travis Cut compensates for their lack of originality by generating a surplus of raw energy (they even yell "oi oi oi"), and that's an exchange that more groups should be willing to make. The lead vocalist, identified only as Chris, has the balls to write some amazingly forthright and flatfooted lyrics, including the self-explanatory "Another Dumb Punk Rock Song About A Girl". Here's the limitation inherent in this approach: when songs are so transparently accessible, they can be synthesized and understood too quickly -- the absence of sonic or lyrical ambiguity or nuance obviates the need to spin an album like Seventh Inning Stretch more than a handful of times. Travis Cut takes Chuck D's "don't rhyme for the sake of riddling" axiom to its logical extreme -- a song like "My Idea Of Fun" is a three-minute blast of straightforward vitriol, perfectly digestible and understandable upon first listen. "Not trying to bait you/It's just I fucking hate you" -- that's a great punchline, but ultimately, it's little more than that. I appreciate Travis Cut's commitment to clarity and intelligibility, but when subsequent listens fail to add anything to the experience of a piece of pop music, it's probably imperative for a group's long-term prospects to develop some additional dimensions.
Most Americans are unfamiliar with Mansun, but in the United Kingdom, they've already accumulated the kind of mythic lore that generally accrues to a rock group only after decades of drug overdoses, custody battles, and split-ups and re-formations. Because of this, much of the British critical reaction to Mansun can seem a little bit…um, hysterical?, to those uninitiated to the saga surrounding the Chester quartet and their semi-legendary frontman Paul Draper. "The only precedent for Six is the Holy Bible" : NME. "Britpop's own Sgt. Pepper": Melody Maker. Alright, hold up, wait a minute. Judged objectively by impartial American ears, Six feels moderately ambitious, but changing tempos, adding sound effects, and quoting liberally from Tchaikovsky does not a prog-rock epic make; as a matter of fact, these days, innovations like this are customary, as is a certain ironic pretentiousness. Draper wears his pomposity with panache and mannish charm, but so did Simon le Bon, and Six, steeped in Eighties musical tropes, sounds to me like the album Duran Duran should have released in the place of Seven And The Ragged Tiger, or perhaps the record Tears For Fears meant to make instead of Sowing The Seeds Of Love, or maybe even a drugged-out extrapolation from George Michael's "mature", post-Faith solo projects. Mansun deserves props for releasing the difficult "Being A Girl" as the first single, and for maintaining a certain iconoclastic yet high-minded and straight-faced lyrical tone ("I'm emotionally raped by Jesus/But I'm still here" goes a pretty representative verse), but when Draper cuts in with his showy falsetto, the result is pure boy band cotton candy. As a matter of fact, Six may be the first album in rock history to feature eight minute songs which name-drop Marx and the Marquis de Sade and yet still feel like they could easily be accompanied by the Solid Gold Dancers. And that could be the real achievement here -- providing helium balloon epics for the teenybopper set, raised on interminable electronica albums, without any consciousness of the Ramones, and knowing no better or no worse. So long live the pop epic; may it be stigmatized no further by a wiser generation of headphone citizens.
God, what a mess. Here we have Sir Damon Albarn telling the British press that he doesn't think of himself as a songwriter anymore; rather, he's now more of a composer. Mate Graham Coxon, always the first in line to knock anything with a crowd-pleasing chorus, claims that once you've left pop behind, it's next to impossible to go back. Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, those of us who were absent from class on the day when Blur mastered pop songwriting are left to struggle though 13 , one of the most onerous and taxing albums in recent memory, and almost without question their poorest one. With the help of William Orbit (last seen recycling Big Audio Dynamite riffs for Madonna), Blur has manufactured a two-dimensional food-processor wall of sound that they don't present to the listener as much as they inflict it, rendering "Bugman" positively painful and "Swamp Song" laughably unlistenable. Only one song here -- the stomper "Trimm Trabb" -- is good enough to stand with Blur's best originals, and while tantalizing snatches of quality material occasionally flash through the din, they're inevitably submerged. Buried beneath the monotony and sonic overkill are Albarn's most personal set of lyrics, but at closer inspection, that turns out to be a gruesome tease too -- Albarn is simply not the sort of guy you'd ever want to catch in a confessional mode. He's built his reputation on aristocratic arrogance and occasional ballistic moralizing - he's always been the ace, the scornful cultural critic, and above all, the Topman, "shooting guns on the high street of love", right? For him to shift gears this late in his career and go trolling for sympathy... well, that might even be funny if he wasn't so inept at it: "I lost my girl to the Rolling Stones" is about the best he can manage. Like most of us, Blur seems to have been moved by Spiritualized's magnificent Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (and yes, Jason Pierce fans, that is the London Community Gospel Choir you hear on the first track of 13) but they've taken all the wrong lessons from it -- so instead of heartbreaking sentiment followed by even more gutwrenching instrumental sections, 13 leads with the dissonance and noise, and leaves it up to you to ferret out the meaning. Long-time fans (like me) will do the necessary work, of course, but this time out, the meager rewards hardly justify the effort.
Prolapse -- Ghosts Of Dead Airplanes
Here's a group which has made a considerable stir on both sides of the Atlantic, and if you haven't heard them yet, chances are you'll be pretty familiar with their music before the year is out. Ghosts Of Dead Airplanes lacks some of the brutal firepower of The Italian Flag, its immediate predecessor, but it has the sound and supple assurance of a record which is destined to make its presence felt. Prolapse's most apparent influence is the Fall, and parts of Ghosts Of Dead Airplanes (and, to be fair, most of The Italian Flag) bears a considerable sonic resemblance to the best cuts on Sonic Youth's Evol. But textural explorers Seely are also a good point of comparison -- Prolapse boasts a dynamite dub rhythm section, and at least on this joint, the bass guitar is mixed for maximum precision and clarity, and it drives the songs with power and steady articulation. Twin singers Linda Steelyard and Mick Derrick repeat their occasionally frightening act of vocal symbiosis, yet it's Derrick who really steals this album - first on the menacing "Cylinders V12 Beats Cylinders 8" with an unintelligible (yet oddly fascinating) tag line, and then again on the album's climax, the straightforward rocker "Government Of Spain". Here, while Steelyard coolly intones over an electric groove, Derrick coaxes every ounce of outrage and desperation from his cracking voice. A group to watch, without a doubt.
Feel heavy metal? On pins and on needles? Well, I lie and I'm easy.