I don’t own a single Johnny Cash album, but I have to say I miss him.
When his career got a boost in the early ’90s, I didn’t understand it. The idea of a country singer covering Soundgarden sounded, well, cheesy.
That was before 1995, when Emmylou Harris’ Wrecking Ball formally introduced me to the genre. (Pleased to meet you!)
And it was Cash who inspired Harris to back away from a Nashville label deal, go independent for a few years, then write her own moody material on two albums for the eclectic Nonesuch label.
I’m not sure whether Cash had any bearing on Loretta Lynn’s decision to work with the White Stripes’ Jack White on Van Lear Rose, but it does seem to follow a generational gap.
The artists country radio have long left behind are connecting with audiences country radio wouldn’t bother with.
Cash singing Nine Inch Nails. Harris working with U2 drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. Now Lynn working with Jack White.
It’s producing some of the most rocking country music in recent memory, and it’s leaving the current crop of country charttoppers in the dust.
I mean, really — Kenny Chesney, the crown prince of male country singers, is working with … Uncle Kracker?
By now, a lot of ink has already been spilled about the forceful clarity and sheer bravado of Lynn’s performance on Van Lear Rose.
“Write what you know” may be somewhat disparaged in pockets of the literati, but for some songwriters, they can plumb the depths of personal experience and still have a lot leftover.
The songs on Van Lear Rose follow in Lynn’s style of homespun tales. She not out to make a statement about the criminal justice system on “Women’s Prison”, nor about the sanctity of marriage on “Family Tree”, nor about poverty in “Little Red Shoes”.
She just reports the happenings, thank you, and lets you make up your own mind about them. These aren’t fables.
(She does, however, get preachy on “God Makes no Mistakes”.)
What makes Van Lear Rose different is the performance. White’s raging guitar on “Have Mercy” really brings out a fire in Lynn. “Portland, Oregon” finds White and Lynn trading verses, and yes, it’s something to hear, all right.
“High on the Mountain Top” brings the album back down from its brasher moments, while “Little Red Shoes”, a narrated song, goes for something a bit more experimental.
But all this has been said before.
What’s heartening is the fact two generations at opposite ends — a relunctant star of the underground and a legendary performer of her field — can create work that flies in the face of commercial metrics.
It’s rarely a good idea to crash an album before it has a chance to start.
That’s not to say slow songs can’t be opening tracks on an album, but if they’re going to be slow, they should also be compelling.
Clocking at 7’18”, the title track of soulsberry’s second full-length album, Stone, could try the patience of even the most tolerant listener.
When the guitars go full tilt, it doesn’t feel like the big gesture it’s supposed to be, and when the song ends, it’s a challenge to stay interested in the rest of the album.
The problem with “Stone”, the song, affects pretty much the entire album — unwise use of reverb.
soulsberry’s last album, The end of vacation, was upfront and tight, capturing the essence of the band’s live presence.
Stone, unfortunately, is bogged down in reverb, and the resulting compressed sound undercuts the band’s writing.
A song like “Close”, a mid-tempo number with majestic moments, sounds like it was recorded in an empty warehouse and loses immediacy because of it.
More up-tempo numbers such as “Friendship” and “Goldstar” sound muddy, and singer Ishizuka Tomohiko is buried under all that bleed.
There’s a sense that soulsberry’s writing on Stone is every bit as catchy as its last outing, but the way the album sounds is distracting even on a subconsious level.
“Forgot, Falling Down” has a nice, simple harmonized chorus. “Kaikyoo” has a straight-forward melody and a great driving pulse. The shuffle beat on “Oasis” feels like early Old ’97s, and on “Jet”, Ishizuka’s singing is downright beautiful.
In order to get to these observations, you have to cut through a haze of lousy production. A band that can write as good as soulsberry deserves far better.
Dr.StrangeLove’s 1999 album Twin Suns was a tight, focused album that set up momentum for a follow-up.
A follow-up that wouldn’t arrive for another five years.
Takamune Negishi and Susumu Osada have such a successful side business as producers and session players, the duo’s output is far from prolific.
And rather than pick up where they left off with Twin Suns, the pair pretty much start from another direction, one based on introspection and the blues.
Right from the start, The River of Blue Blood establishes it isn’t going to be a rocking affair.
The sparse, cavernous percussion and lone guitar picks of the opening track, “The Garden”, evoke images of ghost towns. With a few more pedal effects, Dr.StrangeLove could have sounded like Daniel Lanois.
“Midnight Blues” is exactly that — steeped in the blues, thanks to that rough harmonica.
“Kaze -Lun-” almost sounds like an instrumental version of U2’s “So Cruel”, while “The Blue Angel” brings the band back to the indie songwriting of its earlier work.
In fact, the word “blue” figures into the title of five of the album’s 13 tracks — “Midnight Blues”, “The Blue Angel”, “The Sky is Too Blue Without You”, the title track and “Aoi Kawa” (“blue river”).
An indication of the group’s state of mind? Perhaps, if the music is any indication.
“The Sky is Too Blue Without You” is a plaintive piano ballad in the classic broken-hearted vein. A Bo Diddley-rhythm drives “Aoi Kawa -Fly Me to the Sky-” to its cautious peak, and the album’s title track is an exercise in instrumental ambience.
Even the songs in which “blue” doesn’t figure into the title point inward. A minimal guitar riff and a lot of reverb places “Falling Angel” somewhere between Interpol and Mazzy Star, while “The Apple Tree Song” feels vintage.
When Dr.StrangeLove depart from the general mood of The River of Blue Blood, it’s drastic. “Burning Spear” gets noisy with a live drum ‘n’ bass beat and guitar noise more characteristic of mono, while “Escape 2004” is a misplaced jazz excursion.
The River of Blue Blood isn’t as coherent as Twin Suns, and the writing isn’t as hook-conscious.
But the album does excel in sustaining a “blue” mood, as it were, and the strong parts of the album — particularly where Takamune and Osada fall back on their songwriting than on their production — anchor the more ethereal areas.
Just as notable is the packaging — housed in a cardboard pack, the compact disc itself slides into a bay instead of resting on small spindle.
For cardboard packages, it’s a terrific innovation. Unlike regular jewel boxes, a custom-designed cardboard package can’t be replaced if the spindle breaks.
It may have taken Dr.StrangeLove five years to release a follow-up to Twin Suns, and while the band sounds terrific when its rocking out, The River of Blue Blood makes a good case in favor of a more laid back sound.
If “what the fuck” was my reaction to Zazen Boys’ first album, this was my reaction to its follow-up.
Holy shit.
The last time out, I wrote Mukai Shuutoku had a way to go before Zazen Boys possesed a sense of identity. I didn’t think he’d managed to find it in nine months.
With Zazen Boys II, Mukai reclaims the songcraft he eschewed on the band’s self-titled debut. He’s also managed to expand the band’s sound while retaining its distinctiveness, especially compared to his previous work.
Mukai continues to explore the spoken word realm, opting to recite his lengthy verses in his own rhythmic delivery. (He’s smart enough to know he’s not a hip-hop MC.)
The first half of the album is driven by his recitations — “Crazy Days Crazy Feelings”, “No Time”, “Cold Beat”.
He sings a lot more on this album, too, and that’s wonderful — Mukai’s blood-curdling scream and his off-kilter melodies were missed on the last album.
At the same time, he’s incorporated more varied instruments into Zazen Boys’ sound. The “Zazen Bo” interludes are driven not by guitars but by drum machines and synthesizers.
Shiina Ringo’s backing vocals on “Crazy Days Crazy Feelings” and “Amin Bou” offer a welcome contrast to Mukai’s ravings. And the organ on “Amin Bou” is some of the wildest playing on anywhere.
He’s gotten much more sophisticated in his production as well. Drummer Ahito Inazawa towers over “Crazy Days Crazy Feelings” and “Saizensen”, and he positively explodes on “Kuroi Shitagi”, the band’s most frenzied song.
Inazawa’s drumming has become so intrinsic to Mukai’s music, it’s difficult to imagine anyone else powering it. Let’s hope these two stay collaborators for a long time.
Sonic considerations aside, the real selling point for Zazen Boys II is the writing — it’s some of Mukai’s most complex and diverse yet. And amazingly enough, some of his most coherent.
“Cold Beat” is a busy song with a difficult rhythm and a brilliant percussion solo, and it doesn’t sound out of place next to “You Make Me Feel So Bad”, a melodic song on which Mukai brings back his soul man falsetto.
Guitarist Yoshikane Sou goes haywire on “Daigakusei”, and it fits in well with the “delayed brain”-style effects of “Chie Chan’s Landscape”.
“Roppon no Kurutta Hagane no Shindoo” is driven by both a disco beat and some eccentric guitar work, while “My Crazy Feeling” demonstrates Georgia blues can get punk as all get out.
The first Zazen Boys album was a dress rehearsal, a trial run to see how well the band can navigate through Mukai’s evolving songwriting.
Zazen Boys II, though, is the real deal. Mukai has found his footing with this album, staying true to the foundation of his muse while also pushing its limits. Incredible, indeed.
It’s tough not to cast Lisa against her former bandmates in m-flo in an imagined rivalry.
If Taku was the brains of m-flo and Verbal the guts, Lisa was most certainly the heart. And the chemistry those three musicians produced is the exception, not the rule.
At the same time, it’s also clear Lisa, while possessing one of the loveliest voices around, isn’t a writer on the level of her former cohorts.
Her debut album, 2003’s Juicy Music, sported a fine performance, but the material itself didn’t have the fire of her former group.
Lisa’s second album, Gratitude, finds her branching out more.
One thing is apparent — Lisa gave m-flo a lot of soul. Musical soul, that is.
“Get Real” finds the singer backed by an easy groove similar to Utada Hikaru’s early work. “My Dearest” would have sounded like straight-ahead funk if played on live instruments, while the stuttering beats of “So Beautiful” recall m-flo’s “Hands”.
Lisa doesn’t go out on the same kind of limb as m-flo does on Astromantic, but she does open herself up to a broader sonic pallette.
The swaggering beat of “Switch” shows off Lisa’s gritty side, while the stripped-down rock guitars on “Eien” finds her using an avenue other than balladry to get emotional.
“Peace in Love” is a saccharine attempt at reggae that would have sounded phenomenal with juice from expert reggae players. (Paging Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra.)
And “Gracias a Dios” is admirable for the simple fact Lisa gives nods to her part-Latina heritage. She sounds good on this track.
A second disc consisting mostly of covers accompanies the album, but let’s just not go there. (Thank you.)
Gratitude is much stronger outing for Lisa. It’s diverse but focused, performed with strength and grace. On its own, it’s a decent album.
Still, it’s tough not to compare her work with her legacy, and while Lisa can stand on her own as a performer, there’s a sense she can still do much more, while maintaining her autonomy.
No, she shouldn’t get back with m-flo. But it would be nice if she could recapture the magic she shared with them.
The remaining members of m-flo knew singer Lisa was a commodity, and they knew any replacement would have a high bar to surpass.
When Lisa announced her departure from m-flo in 2002, a lot of people — myself included — thought the space-age R&B/hip-hop trio was done. (Because let’s face it — Verbal isn’t that strong of an MC to carry it by himself.)
And instead of rushing in, trying to prove themselves, Verbal and Taku worked on their own things, never ruling out m-flo’s continuation.
The time off did the pair some real good.
m-flo 2004 is now a collaborative unit, allowing guest musicians to build upon the duo’s beat-heavy foundation. Astromantic, the group’s first album without Lisa, is m-flo’s most expansive but most focused work yet.
The album features a who’s who of Japanese pop: Crystal Kay, Chemistry, melody., BoA, Yamamoto Ryouhei. It features some eye brow-raising guests as well: composer Sakamoto Ryuichi, rap-rockers Dragon Ash, Pizzicato Five chanteuse Nomiya Maki.
For the most part, m-flo sticks to the dance floor pop that brought them success. melody. (yes, that period is part of her name) and Yamamoto offer a nice interplay on “miss you”, and both anchor the song when Verbal injects his part.
BoA holds her own on “The love bug”, a track that combines acoustic guitar with a driving beat. Taku does an incredible job manipulating the vocal samples of Chemistry on “Astrosexy”, while Crystal Kay delivers one of the band’s most enduring choruses on “Reeewind!”
“I really, really like it,” Kay sings. Amen.
Astromantic gets really interesting when the non-dance collaborators weigh in. “Way U Move” starts off as the kind of rock ballad Dragon Ash masters, but it then morphs into a four-on-the-floor fantasia.
“Vanessa”, featuring the Bloodest Saxophone, is pure swing — Taku was wise to just get out of the way. Nomiya shines on the lounge number, “Cosmic Night Run”, and even the ska conclusion, “Uchuu no Woah Woah” featuring Boy Ken and Bottom Brass Band, is exuberent.
“Don’t call it a comeback,” Verbal asserts on “Reeewind!”, and it’s a forceful statement. m-flo never considered itself gone when Lisa left, but Verbal and Taku certainly knew they had to prove some assumptions were just plain wrong.
Astromantic is the sound of a band embracing an unknown — and rather daunting — paradigm shift, and it does a superlative job of establishing m-flo as something bigger than its individual members.
Japanese artists attempting to crack the US market have all seemed to run under the assumption their latest work is the one that needs to be performed in English.
The assumption, of course, is the latest work is the most representative. But history is full of such assumptions — Pink Lady, Matsuda Seiko, Nakamori Akina, Dreams Come True — all of which failed.
Creativity, more often than not, follows a wave pattern with crests and troughs, rather than a trajectory. And when it comes to bad timing, these Japanese artists tried to break into the US during a creative trough.
It’s somewhat murky whether Utada Hikaru has followed the same pattern.
One thing is for certain on her English-language debut, Exodus — she and her producer dad have drastically remade her sound.
Exodus is buried under a lot of bizarre synthetic sounds, some complex beats and a really heavy-handed production. And Timbaland shows up on the two most straight-forward tracks on the album!
Exodus is also the most dissonant work Utada has every produced. If some of those synthetic sounds were transcribed to orchestral instruments, it would probably sound like a mistranslation of Bela Bartok or Igor Stravinsky.
“Hotel Lobby” is a case in point. A song about prostitution, the bass line forms a dark interval, and the hesitant beat never quite marks the start of a measure.
A sample of what sounds like wind through a congested tunnel threads itself through “Animato”, while a synthetic chorus spells out a chord progression that sounds almost classical. Maybe some of Shiina Ringo’s Karuki Zaamen Kuri no Hana has rubbed off on Utada?
Check out “About Me” — acoustic guitar accompanies Utada during the verses, but on the chorus, the pop beats come in, only to dissolve.
It’s heartening to see Utada really stretch, but some of those experiments fall a bit flat. That weird sound that punctuates “You Make Me Want to Be a Man” is annoying, and “Kremlin Dusk” seems to take forever before it really develops.
Her single-worthy material, however, is missing in action.
Nothing on Exodus matches “Wait and See ~Risk~” or “Hikari” in terms of hooks. “Devil Inside” comes pretty close, and “Tippy Toe” seems to have a bit of the Utada golden touch on it.
But the rest of the album isn’t her strongest writing, and as such, the heavy production feels like it’s attempting to mask those shortcomings.
Utada is poised for a breakthrough on the level of Absolute ego-era ACO or pre-Tokyo Jihen Shiina Ringo — just not with Exodus.
Let me be upfront about some personal taste — I wasn’t too fond of Nirgilis’ single, “King/Lemon/Ice Skate for Life”.
It’s not that they’re bad songs — I just didn’t think they rose to the level for a single release, especially compared to some of the band’s previous singles.
(Notably, “Vuna”, which didn’t make the album cut. My guess is a licensing issue — it was released on the band’s own Chukuri label before Nirgilis signed to Toy’s Factory.)
“King” and “Ice Skate for Life” anchor the first half of Nirgilis’ second album, New Standard, and for that reason, it was difficult to warm up to it.
Sure, “Byosoku Highway” does a great job of opening the album, while “Eregiba” mixes folk guitar, funky drumming and synthetic textures quite nicely. And “Mayonaka no Schneider” is one fun, quirky tune.
But some bands feel the need to stash singles at the start of the album — which Nirgilis did with its debut album Tennis — and it has a tendency to backfire if the singles aren’t terribly strong.
Then something happens for the second half of New Standard — Nirgilis stretches out.
“Bourgeois Brain” is a dischordant piece with some off-key vocals by singer Iwata Acchu and producer Hoppy Kamiyama. Iwata screeches with total abandon, and it’s grating in a good way.
On “Akai Asayuke”, members of Art-School join Nirgilis in evoking the spirit of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” for the song’s conclusion. It’s a pretty dramatic moment.
For the rest of the album, Nirgilis employs its whimsical mix of programmed beats and post-punk guitar, but this time out, it’s scaled back, perhaps even introspective.
“Subako” employs an acoustic guitar and only a few synthetic flourishes, but the rhythm section provides a sturdy foundation. “Mule” moves at a leisurely pace, building up with a string orchestra toward the end.
New Standard shows Nirgilis maturing with its distinctive sound, but the writing itself doesn’t seem to possess the same kind of wild catchiness of its last album.
Once Nirgilis can build on the ideas of New Standard with the hooks of Tennis, it will yield an incredible work.
It wasn’t just the frog costumes, the space-age theatrics, the angular music or the incredible live shows that made discovering eX-Girl in 1999 a revelatory experience.
It was the palatable chemistry between its members.
Fuzuki with her stand-up drum kit, Chihiro with her expressionistic but stoic playing, Kirilo with her exuberance — the three women created a tangible energy.
And it shows in the trio’s earliest recordings — Kero! Kero! Kero!, Big When Far, Small When Close, Back to the Mono Kero.
Starting in 2001, the band’s line-up went through some major transformations. Chihiro left in 2001, followed by Fuzuki in 2002. Keiko from Super Junky Monkey replaced Chihiro, but before the release of the band’s fifth album, Endangered Species, she moved on in 2003.
Now, bassist Kirilola, as she calls herself now, is joined by drummer Chapple and guitarist Zorek.
And all that upheaval has had affect on eX-Girl’s music.
Endangered Species is the band’s most scattered album to date, which says a lot considering eX-Girl’s music incorporates a myriad of influences.
Save for Chihiro, every one of those members, past and present, plays on the album. On the surface, it sounds like business as usual on Planet Kero, but on an instinctive level, the clarity of the past is missing.
The band has expanded its sound to incorporate more synthetic effects — keyboards and weird noises. But the material seems to range from weirdly complex (“Hettakorii no Ottokoku”) to uncharacteristically simple (“Dodo”).
The opening track, “E-Sa-Ya”, is something of a dud, and “New Pulse” has no substance going for it.
In live shows, Chapple is an incredible performer, able to sing and play a full kit at the same time. Strangely enough, her sound in the studio isn’t as forceful as Fuzuki’s.
The first half of the album possesses all the eclectic energy for which eX-Girl is reknowned — the garage rock spirit of “Pretty You Ugly”, the operatic dissonance of “Pujeva”.
The second half of the album, demarcated by “New Pulse”, seems to peter out. The songs aren’t nearly as complex as the band is capable of.
If anything, Endangered Species sounds like a band working hard to refamiliarize itself. It’s the same eX-Girl we know and love — but it’s an eX-Girl still adjusting to a new set-up.
“Do not play while under extreme emotional disturbance.”
“Do not play during rush hour traffic.”
“May cause increased blood pressure.”
“Do not drink with milk.”
Actually, I’m joking with that milk warning. The rest of them apply.
downy’s fourth untitled album — let’s nickname it Mothership — epitomizes the meaning of the word, “agitated.”
It’s the sound of a nervous breakdown, of loose ends coming apart, of a person’s state of mind just before he goes utterly bugfuck.
It’s also the loudest album downy has yet released.
The band’s previous untitled album — which I nickname Cloudbursting — was meditative by contrast, no less tortured but far more introspective.
Mothership is balls out.
The opening track, “Ishi”, is mixed so loudly, all the instruments bleed into a mess of distortion. It’s “Meitei Freak” jacked up tenfold. The tension doesn’t let up on the robotic rhythm of “Δ” (i.e., “Delta”.)
“Underground” offers the album’s first moment of reprieve, on a song that could qualify as a single, if downy actually released singles.
But no track epitomizes this nervous state of mind than the free jazz of “Fresh”. downy comandeers a Bitches Brew style of be-bop, and man is it nerve-wracking.
The rest of the album plays out in a similar, albeit slightly less frantic feel. “Thank you Raishun” thins out the packed textures on the album, while “Kurayami to Sanka” rivals “Underground” for single-worthy status.
The rhythm section of drummer Akiyama Takahiko and bassist Nakamata Takuhiro really stands out. Throughout, the pair navigate some precarious, syncopated rhythms with laser precision. “Mokuren” is a workout for Nakamata alone.
Mothership breezes by at a brisk 32 minutes, but given the intensity with which downy jams into each track, half an hour is lengthy enough.
Any more, and this album would be a health hazard. As it is, it’s just crazy. Good crazy.