I nearly fell out of my chair when I first heard the news Dave Fridmann would be producing a Sleater-Kinney album.
Fridmann’s most famous works are the lush productions he coaxes from the Flaming Lips and his own band, Mercury Rev.
But as his work with Number Girl can attest, Fridmann can make a loud band sound explosive. In fact, Number Girl fans may find The Woods, Sleater-Kinney’s sixth album, very comforting.
From the opening squeal of “The Fox”, Sleater-Kinney comes out swinging with its fierest sound. 2000’s All Hands on the Bad One may have skewed to tunefulness, while 2002’s One Beat flaunted passion.
The Woods, however, is a jackhammer.
It’s impossible to think two guitars and no bass could produce as massive a sound that can be found on “The Fox”. Drummer Janet Weiss could give Ahito Inazawa and Jimmy Chamberlain lessons with this track.
“What’s Mine Is Yours” is the kind of stuff Josh Homme should have written for Lullabys to Paralyze, especially that growling, low middle section where the band goes bugfuck.
And it’s hard not to think of Gang of Four’s Entertainment! when listening to Sleater-Kinney’s “Entertain”, even though musically they share little in common. (Entertainment! is practically slim next to the big sound on The Woods)
But thematically, the biting allusion to reality TV would have been perfect fodder for the early ’80s UK punk group.
Sleater-Kinney gets ambitious with the final two tracks of the album — the 11-minute “Let’s Call It Love” segues with “Night Light”, making for 15 minutes of continuous music. (That’s about 1/3 of the album’s length.)
By then, the album has so pummelled listeners, they may as well fuck the fatigue and go for broke.
Fridmann loves to push the digital clipping envelope, and on more than one occassion, The Woods hisses with ugly sound of loud music surpassing the acceptable limits of digital audio.
For tracks such as “Steep Air” or “Entertain”, it’s almost unnoticeable (but barely). For a track as mellow as “Modern Girl”, which concludes drowned in a fuzzy sound, it’s incredibly distracting.
Although 2002’s One Beat was lauded for its post-9/11 ferociousness, The Woods pushes even further. Put this album on when you want music that punches you in the chest.
How many albums written in the style of children’s music require Parental Advisory stickers? From my first-hand knowledge, only one.
It’s far too simple to call Avenue Q a send-up of Sesame Street. Sure, Avenue Q has puppets singing in an inner-city neighborhood, teaching audience members valuable lessons about life.
But the lessons taught in Avenue Q? Some of them aren’t for children. Not yet, at least.
Adults, however, need the wisdom Avenue Q offers. When debating the issues of the day, it’s far too easy to take the stance, “Nobody’s perfect, so let’s just get along.”
Avenue Q fully acknowledges the first half of that statement — no, no one is perfect — but it encourages listeners to take responsibility for their imperfections.
And the best part? The show uses humor to make its point.
“Eveyone’s a little bit racist, sometimes,” Princeton and Kate Monster sing, “Doesn’t mean we go around committing hate crimes.”
About people who make judgments on race, Princeton explains, “No, not big judgements like who to hire or who to buy your newspaper from … Just little judgments like thinking Mexican busboys should learn to speak goddamn English!”
You know, sometimes I wish some white people around these parts would learn to speak goddamn English, too. Ooops, was that just a little racist?
Gary Coleman (Yes, that Gary Coleman, played by Natalie Venetia Belcon) says so: “Bigotry has never been exclusively white.”
Kate gets a rude awakening from Trekkie Monster about the Internet (“The Internet Is For Porn”, a song that makes good use of the “in bed” suffix appended to fortune cookie readings.)
Kate: “I’m glad we have this new technology”
Trekkie: “For porn”
Kate: “I got a fast connection so I don’t have to wait”
Treekie: “For porn”
And in “If You Were Gay”, Nicky (modeled after Ernie) attempts to reassure Rod (modeled after Bert) he’d be all right having a gay friend.
“If you were queer/I’d still be here/Year after year/Because you’re dear/To me”. That’s kind of rhyming seems modeled after Stephen Sondheim.
And on “Schadenfreude”, Gary Coleman explains to a homeless Nicky in Act Two that it’s human nature to feel good about the misfortune of others. Gary sings, “‘Cause when people see us/They don’t want to be us/And that makes them feel great.”
Avenue Q can get a bit raunchy too.
“You Can Be Loud as the Hell you Want (When You’re Making Love)” starts out with some loud love-making from Kate and Princeton.
Princeton: “Don’t put your finger there!” Beat. “Put your finger there!”
And on “Special”, Lucy the Slut “can tell just by looking that you are especially hard for me!”
Comedy and music is a hard balance to achieve, especially since music often suffers at the expense of the laugh.
Avenue Q strikes the right balance by setting biting, sobering humor with the easiest melodies to sing.
After you hear Trekkie Monster chime “Why you think the Net was born? Porn! Porn! Porn!” it’s hard to forget.
At the same time, it’s also easy to relate the show’s songs to real-life scenarios.
In Austin, Texas, there are homeless people who panhandle by freeway intersections. That’s schadenfreude right there.
And once I met someone who got squicked by homosexuals, and he didn’t turn out to be a dumb bully — he was a well-educated dweeb whose ass even I could pound.
That’s not quite the lesson Avenue Q expounds, but hey, recognition is the first part addressing a problem. And this show shines a warm, bright light on a number of social ills.
Tommy heavenly6 will release a new single titled “Ready?” on July 20. It’s been more than a year since the brilliant green singer debuted her second alter ego, and the new single continues the punk sound of her previous release. Tommy heavenly6 also contributed a track to the tribute album, Love for Nana ~Only 1 Tribute~, based on the anime Nana. The tribute album was released in March 2005.
Bonnie Pink will release a new single on Aug. 3. It’s been a year and four months since Pink released new material, and once again, she enlists producer Tore Johannsen, who worked on the 2003 single “Tonight, the Night” and the 2004 album Even So. Bonnie Pink will also perform a one-woman live show on Sept. 21 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of her debut. Details for the show have yet to be announced.
Remioromen will release a live DVD titled Sangatsu Kokonoka Budokan Live on June 29. The DVD documents the trio’s March 9 live show at the Budokan Hall. A limited edition pressing includes a 20-page photo book housed in a bookcase. Remioromen scored a hit earlier in 2005 with the single “Minamikaze” and its second album, ether.
Stephen Sondheim wrote A Little Night Music around the time I was born, so “Send in the Clowns” had been around for about 7 years when I first heard it.
My siblings and I reached a rare consensus — this song mentions clowns, and clowns are creepy. We didn’t like it.
It wasn’t until 1990 that I would face my learned fear of the song. By then, I had discovered Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods and found out Sondheim was the man responsible for “Send in the Clowns”.
A New York City Opera production of A Little Night Music, broadcast on public television, put the song in context.
The creepiness my 7-year-old brain perceived was actually bittersweetness — a haunting recognition of opportunity passed.
“Send in the Clowns” is Sondheim’s biggest hit, a tune so part of the pop culture lexicon, it may even overshadow its own author. (Nine years passed after I first encountered the song when I learned it was written by Sondheim.)
And it is a very good song — concise but evocative, unsettling but appealing.
But according to various accounts of its origin, “Send in the Clowns” was a last-minute addition. Sondheim wrote it in a single night after a run-through of the show, in which a gesture by one of the lead characters clarified the essence of the scene.
Compared to the rest of the score, “Send in the Clowns” does feel like a rush job.
A Little Night Music is probably the most amiable of Sondheim’s works. It’s no less impressive than Sweeney Todd or Sunday in the Park with George — and no less technically demanding either — but it’s a score with an appeal that’s immediate.
(That’s a roundabout way of saying you don’t need a college degree to like it.)
Sondheim’s wit is in incredible form on this work. “Remember” strings a number of suggestive reminiscenes, leaving more than enough room for the listener’s imagination to fill in. “What we did with your perfume/Remember? Remember/The condition of the room/When we were through”.
“It Would Have Been Wonderful” humorously posits what would have happened if the lead character Desiree hadn’t charmed the two men vying for her affection. “If she’d been all a-twitter/Or elusively cold/If she’d only been bitter/Or better looked passively old/If she’d been covered with gltter/Or even covered with mold/It would have been wonderful”.
Even “The Miller’s Son”, a song sung by a side character (Petra, the maid), displays a painstakingly crafted architecture. “It’s a very short road from the pinch and the punch/To the paunch and the pouch and the pension/It’s a very short road to the 10,000th lunch/And the belch and the grunt and the sigh”.
“Send in the Clowns” is no less a powerful song, but it doesn’t display the same kind of mastery. It still works, though, for the fact that it does capture the plot.
It’s a conundrum — musically, it sticks out, but dramatically, it fits right in.
The original 1973 cast recording was remastered back in 1998, and the sound quality does the score justice.
The role of Desiree Armfeldt was originally supposed to be a non-singing part, but the untrained reedy vocals of Glynis Johns conveyed a glamour that Sondheim and director Harold Prince couldn’t pass up.
All that to say her reading of A Little Night Music’s signature song may not be polished, but it’s far and away more affecting than performances by Judy Collins, Barbara Streisand or Frank Sinatra.
A reworking of “The Glamorous Life”, taken from the film version of the show, is an interesting bonus track but doesn’t work. What was once a whimsical scene turns into a nervous solliloquy.
A Little Night Music is as old as I am — which is a disturbing sentence to write — but it’s a score that resonates even today. Sondheim would go on to write incredibly challenging works, but this one shows he can handle that precarious balance between intellectual artistry and human drama.
There’s no turning back when an artist samples Krzysztof Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima in the first few seconds of a song.
Out of context, the screeching, amplified violins that open Penderecki’s most recognizable piece sound like the metallic scream of a train car applying its brakes.
Fifteen seconds of Penderecki’s Threnody also open up “Tasogare”, the seventh of eight tracks on UA’s sixth studio album, Breathe. By that point, UA has made it perfectly clear pop has little sway on her music nowadays.
But for the Threnody to wash over the minimal robotic beats of the song’s introduction signals UA’s full embrace of the avant-garde.
In the past, she pushed against pop’s boundaries. Now, she’s breaking through them.
UA collaborates on this album with Uchihashi Kazuhisa, a guitarist who’s worked with Elliott Sharp and Otomo Yoshihide. As with her last two studio works, Doroboo and Sun, the music is mostly introspective, freely rhythmic and timbrally adventurous.
But while the general mood of Breathe isn’t far removed from its predecessors, it still possesses its own identity.
Uchihashi and UA go for a more synthetic sound, samples and rhythm machines replacing the live dynamics of a house band.
“The Color of Empty Sky” starts of with a wheezy accompaniment, only to give way to lush strings for the chorus.
Odd samples propel “Moss Stares”, which could have been an outtake from Björk’s Vespertine. (What if UA went completely a capella for her next album, ala Medulla? Something to consider.)
Takuji Aoyogi provides a nice contrast on the duet, “Beacon”, while the repeated motifs of “Mori” feel almost minimalist.
Unlike her last two albums, Breathe clocks in at 39 minutes, which is still somewhat long for eight songs. But even though she remains as experimental as ever, she’s reigned in the expanse of her previous outings.
It’s heartening to witness UA continually challenge herself and her listeners. After unshackling her rock ‘n’ roll potential with AJICO five years ago, she’s become fearless in pursuing new creative outlets.
But it’s hard not to miss the tuneful UA, who brought the world “Kanashimi Johnny”, “Rhythm” and even “Senkoo”.
Aside from a melodic chorus here and there, the songs on Breathe don’t offer anything resembling a single, a point not lost on UA’s label — Speedstar didn’t even precede the album’s release with one.
Breathe is a fascinating, demanding album. But like Sun before it, enjoying it depends on how much you want to work for it.
However much he tried to spread the wealth, Prince could not help but suck the oxygen out of any recording studio he was in.
Being a Prince “protegé” in the 1980s instantly relegated you to “also-ran”. He may have intended well trying to launch the careers of Sheila E., Apollonia 6 and even Carmen Electra.
But he’s far too eccentric a figure for anyone to escape his shadow. When Sinéad O’Connor scored a hit with “Nothing Compares 2 U” in 1990, it was called a “Prince song”, not a “song recorded by The Family”.
All that to say Wendy and Lisa had the cards stacked against them after Prince dissolved the Revolution in 1987.
The two women of Prince’s seminal backing band were its most visible members, being placed prominently in videos and on stage.
And while all the members of the Revolution released records in the wake of its dissolution, Wendy and Lisa, by comparrison, had the longest stretch, recording three albums from 1987-1990, and another in 1998.
At first, critics dismissed Wendy and Lisa for sounding too much like Prince, which rings hollow since their playing style had as much to do with Prince’s sound as his mercurial writing.
In hindsight, Wendy and Lisa were more akin to that era’s “serious” women rockers — O’Connor, Tracy Chapman, Kate Bush, Natalie Merchant — than with their former boss.
The title of the duo’s third album, Eroica, was meant to be a confident gesture. Because, really — it takes balls to name your album after a Beethoven masterpiece.
On the surface, the funk that marked their immediate post-Revolution work permeates the 11 tracks on the album. But lurking beneath was an early alternative rock sensibility.
If anything, “Mother of Pearl” is downright blatant about being rock. A singer-songwriter ballad co-written with Michael Penn, the track features cryptic lyrics uncharacteristic of the more mainstream pop of the time.
“Cool day for a tidal wave/Drowned impressions falsely made/Cold stare makes light of this/Size me up make sure that it fits,” Wendy sings. It’s a couplet that sounds more New Romantic than Purple Rain.
The Middle Eastern-style guitar riff and thump-whack beat of “Strung Out” would never have fit next to Paula Abdul or Milli Vanili on a radio playlist.
And the grimy, wah-wah guitars of “Why Wait for Heaven” anticipated the advent of grunge’s crossover. (Back then, Nirvana and Soundgarden were still a regional phenomenom.)
But there are a lot of complex, funky rhythms on Eroica as well — “Skeleton Key” owes a lot to James Brown, while “Don’t Try to Tell Me” indulges in some heavy gospel influences.
But even a seemingly funky track such as “Cracks in the Pavement” has a rock grit — Wendy’s distorted voice in the chorus sounds like something an indie band would do today.
For all the maturity Eroica possessed — in a way, living up to its title — it lacked any real hooks. “Strung Out” and “Rainbow Lake” come close to the tunefulness found on the pair’s self-titled debut, but a song such as “Staring at the Sun” is more remarkable for its mix of influences than for its catchiness.
Eroica was definitely ahead of its time. Before the likes of Res, Eryka Badu and India.Arie blurred the lines between literate rock songwriting and R&B pop, Wendy and Lisa were already exploring the singer-songwriter potential of funk.
Eroica is out of print in the United States but may still be available as a European import.
Zazen Boys will release a new single titled “Himitsu Girl’s Top Secret” on July 16. The release marks the debut of the band’s new drummer Matsushita Atsushi. Zazen Boys will also embark on a tour which includes stops at Shibuya Ax and Hibiya Noon. Zazen Boys has also made available its May 10 show at Osaka’s Club Quattro as a free download on its official site.
If there were a drawback to Konishi Yasuhara’s sample-crazy approach, it would be the claustrophobia of his thick arrangements. Pizzicato Five would oftentimes come across as manic — Nomiya Maki’s smooth voice the only element to reign in the chaos.
Comparing i-dep to Pizzicato Five is superficial at best, but Nakamura Hiroshi shares with Konishi a keen ability to cut up timbres and snippets of motifs, then piece them back together into a pleasing whole.
But where P5 was kitsch and excess, i-dep, Nakamura’s jazz-techo ensemble, is all about cool delivery and exotic climes.
Meeting Point, i-dep’s debut mini-album, combines deep rhythms, creative samples and live instruments into a seamless blend of dance floor beats and human warmth.
This album isn’t a robotic four-on-the-floor exercise, nor is it a slavish replica of bossa nova, a genre curiously popular in Japan. Rather, Meeting Point brings the best of both genres together.
Guitarist Imura Tatsuya does an incredible job of plucking out complex melodies and keeping up with the drum machines and synthesizers. On “Good Water”, he’s placed subtly in the mix, but the virtuosity of his playing drives the song.
On “Tell Me More” and “Rustlica”, his presence adds a bit of humanity to the subtle but complex layers of samples.
But the real stars of the album are the band’s skillful arrangements. The 7-minute “Rustlica” has enough going on to keep a listener engaged for a long duration.
“Two (M.P. version)” is a fantasia of hooks, wonderfully orchestrated and danceable without sacrificing substance for rhythm. The album ends with “Amore”, featuring g-ton from nobodyknows+, a charming romp over Latin rhythms.
Although the album itself is primarily a studio vehicle, the music translate incredibly well live, as i-dep’s showcase at SXSW 2005 clearly demonstrates. It would be wrong not to acknowledge Takai Ryoji’s grounding bass work, or George Kano’s precise drumming.
Meeting Point is, simply put, enjoyable. i-dep isn’t alone in mixing bossa nova with techno beats, but the band makes the kind of music appealing to even listeners ambivalent to those genres.