CD Reviews

Mael Functional The brothers Mael are back with their 21st album and it's hard to believe that after a 37 year career they could still sound fresh, relevant and as genuine as ever but their new album 'Exotic Creatures of the Deep' is another in a long line of SPARKeling gems. Their last two albums (2002's LiL Beethoven and 2006's Hello Young Lovers) dabbled in the quasi-operatic sounds which reignited their careers and were their best efforts since the magnificent string of albums in the 70s. 'Exotic Creatures of the Deep' moves slightly away from the classical style and becomes a little more electronic, but unlike a few of their dire 19haties albums this time they get it right.

Only available on the internets

Ending the cryptic rumours and buzz on the NIN website about the possible release of their new album via digital download, Trent Reznor has released Ghosts I-IV without fanfare, a brass band or a record company dictating its usual bullshit.

Unlike the prophetic concept album Year Zero that was released in 2007 and was set in about 15 years into the future creating a dystopian world based on the U.S. government's current policies, Ghosts I-IV is a "soundtrack for daydreams." Daydreaming to the themes and songs Year Zero are the kind that lead to nightmares of biological and nuclear warfare, the Patriot Act being used to its fullest extent and the subsequent fallout of having Bush Jnr in charge. Vote 1 for John McCain. Why not bomb Iran?

Cat Power: In triplicate.

(Matador)

Covers are tricky. Duplicating an original song is pointless, but so is making it unrecognisable. Some artists walk this tightrope better than others, able to add their own spin without violating the original’s virtues. Sometimes on Jukebox, her second covers album, Cat Power, aka Chan Marshall, walks this tightrope fearlessly; sometimes she falls.

The disc starts with a retread of the Minnelli/Sinatra standard New York. Introduced via an unexpectedly slinky beat, it takes a couple of lines before your slightly disoriented mind works out exactly what you’re listening to. It’s a bold move – pity it doesn’t work better. Once the incongruity fades, the song seems brief and slight, almost like Marshall isn’t committed to her own reworking.

Coming off the acclaimed, but disappointing, 2006 release, The Greatest, Jukebox sees Marshall with a different backing band, Dirty Delta Blues, which consists of Dirty Three’s Jim White, Delta 72’s Gregg Foreman, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s Judah Bauer and Lizard Music’s Erik Papparozzi. This band seems more in sync with Marshall’s sensibility than her band on The Greatest, which at times seemed offputtingly jaunty for Marshall’s fragile, introspective songs.

If I were a religious man, I'd clasp my hands, get on my knees and thank God. But I'm not, so I'll just stick to playing it 24/7.

(Popfrenzy)

The self-titled debut album of Canadian five-piece Black Mountain was one of 2005’s neglected gems. Their follow-up, the diamond-sharp supermodel-beautiful In the Future, marks them as one of the best bands on this ball of rock and thawing ice, and marks frontman and songwriter Stephen McBean as a god among men.

For those who care about this sort of thing, you could play Spot The Influence, identifying echoes of Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and who-knows-what-else on In the Future. Of course, you could just forget that stuff and treat your ears to the first masterpiece of 2008. It’s that good.

Black Mountain’s songs remain as unpredictable and interesting as ever. Just like Don’t Run Our Hearts Around on their debut, the best Black Mountain songs on In the Future are big, baggy monsters bursting with more ideas than most bands fit onto an entire record. In particular, the 17-minute Bright Lights and the eight-minute Tyrants are multipart epics soaked with ambition and talent.

Free is goodEven though there have been many arguments about Bono on BNU the fact is U2 were a great band. Bono pretty much fucked up any cred they had left when he tried to give his service station sunnies to the Pope. But that is only this observers opinion.

Sunday Bloody Sunday is a fucking great anthem that contains the feelings of a nation behind it. Awesome lyrics, a great arrangement and so on...

Trent Reznor has just produced Saul Williams' new album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!. Aside from tracks that combine an unconventional rap style with music similar to Year Zero by NIN; this combo explodes with a rap/industrial experiment that works like it was meant to be two peas in an (i)pod.

Saul Williams does a cover version Sunday Bloody Sunday and he and Trent take it into a futuristic realm.

The album can be downloaded here for free or a higher quality version can be downloaded for the princely sum of $5.

To hear Sunday Bloody Sunday click here.

Apart from the title the whole album blew my little mind. Saul's style is hot. Maybe there is a future for digital downloads.

La Cucaracha

It's been awhile since I've written anything here so let’s make it something worthwhile! I've just gotten my hot little hands on a copy of the new Ween album -- La Cucaracha -- courtesy of the internet (to you "every time you download a song God kills a kitten" people, I have already preordered my copy).

I have had the damn thing on rotation for the better part of the day, and I'm trying to decide whether it's extremely awesome or slightly disappointing. Let me explain.

Unkle Ho – Circus Maximus(Elefant Traks/ Inertia)

I was quite taken aback by Unkle Ho’s Circus Maximus. I’d had a particularly bad day, and my brain wasn’t handling music that was familiar to me. So I was surprised to hear this album, a cruisy harmonic cacophony of genres.

It’s quite difficult to aptly describe Circus Maximus, which when you find out more about the musician himself makes a little sense. The album, in the best way I can gather, sounds like something that you would hear on a strangely coloured Eastern European bus – modern world music painstakingly recreated by a gypsy band in polka and jazz.

But the fact is that Unkle Ho, a Sydney native, has produced a record that contains sweet traditional rhythms, backed by instruments such as double bass, clarinets, harps and violin, all of which are spliced with unassuming samples that, rather than being the focus, are subtly melded into the melodies of each song.

Uncle Ho is probably best known for his work as producer and founding member of Aussie hip hop highwaymen, The Herd, but has also had a successful solo release under his belt leading up to Circus Maximus (Roads to Roma, 2005).

(Stomp Entertainment)

As a general rule I’m not a huge fan of psy-trance, and it would seem to me that Israeli duo Infected Mushroom has cornered the market in this genre. Years ago I had a friend try and tell me Classical Mushroom (2000) was the record that would get me into psy-trance, but my music taste at the time didn’t allow me to delve into it.

From what I hear Infected Mushroom evolved from pure psy-trance in the late 90s into more accessible trance and electronica post the 2003 album Converting the Vegetarians.

And now here I am faced with the prospect of reviewing Infected Mushroom’s latest album, Vicious Delicious, with a fresh, non-biased ear – and I have to tell you it really impressed me.

After having a few of the party faithful quickly poo poo this album as being commercial trance and uninspiring, I was taken aback by the use of some alluring Middle Eastern flavours mixed with metal riffs and driving beats (Heavyweight), and by some even heavier tunes (Eat it Raw).

In fact, I was supremely surprised at the amount of metal riffs that Vicious Delicious contained… which leads me to believe that Infected Mushroom are indeed trying to attract a different audience to the loyal band of acid hippies and hardcore trancers.

A friend's a friend who knows what being a friend is

My Copy of Ween's The Friends EP just arrived yesterday, an appetizer to their soon to be released full length album. At only 5 tracks long and 19 minutes in length there isn't much to be said about it, yet so much to say. It's hard to pick which direction Ween is set to take with their new album, this could be a sign of things to come or could be a complete curve ball and the album is something else entirely.

The Friends EP, simply put, is a bit of feel good fun with some funky beats. Each track is very different whilst all leaning towards a more electronic/funk backbone. The title track Friends sounds like something you would hear in a dance club back in 1995. To put it bluntly this song is gay, really gay, but Ween still pull it off in true brown form. I mean the chorus is simply "A friend's a friend who knows what being a friend is, as friends we were so close, friend's in life are special, do you want me as your special friend, because you're the friend I've been searching for".