KWCW

When you go to your local record store, amazon.com, what have you and buy an album do you listen to three songs on repeat and skip the rest or do you listen to the album in its entirety? The beauty of this record is that is satisfies the needs of both groups of listeners: it contains some catchy songs, yet as a whole is a concretely conceptualized masterpiece.

The Impossible shapes make lo-fi folk music that combines elements of rock and psychedelia. Nothing new you say….well yes many groups have done this before, however the shapes hardly rehash old ideas. Dense guitars interplay with intricate lead guitar lines, while dense organ and solid drumming and lots of amp fuzz back it all up. Add the occasional cello arrangement and the amazing vocals of Barth, who’s also known for his solo work under the name NormanOak, and you’ve got an aurally tantalizing album.

Originally 300 copies of this album were released on limited edition vinyl. However, Secretly Canadian records have reissued it on unlimited CD form. Containing 31.2 minutes, 17 tracks, of musical genius this record contains actual songs and musical interludes. Songs like “Florida Silver Springs” and “Pixie Pride” stand out as addictively catchy while the shorter cuts add to the overall cohesiveness of the record. While recorded in one session, tape looping was used to piece the album together and mastering was done to perfect the album that is being released in Compact Disc form.

Knowing that this album was recorded right before the band came to the realization of “man as freedom as seed”, I highly recommend you indulge in whatever you need to grasp that realization and enjoy this obscure gem.

Keith

From the rumbling of train wheels that opens this inventive and fresh new album from Seattle’s Common Market to the final track, the songs are full of raw energy and amazingly orchestrated beats and rhymes. Producer Sabzi (Saba Mohajerjasbi) and emcee RA Scion (Ryan Abeo) met each other only recently through Seattle’s Baha’i community, but their synergy and integrating styles speak to a longer partnership. Their songs are full of joy, exultation and frustration, with Scion’s intricate tangles of words and thought processes layering into Sabzi’s forward-moving beats.

Sabzi, who also produces for the Seattle group Blue Scholars, seems to feel more free with Scion to experiment and improvise with a wider array of drum beats and samples on the Common Market album. While his work with Blue Scholars emphasizes a more introspective, calculated quality, his Common Market tracks blossom into unabashed wide open sound.

For his part, RA Scion serves up interesting and creative rhymes, unhesitant to pose questions or probe issues in religion, politics, or world events. His rhymes and rambles, set to Sabzi’s beats, often feel like intimate conversations, snatches of words continuing to echo after the song has ended. Without an ego to represent or an image to promote, Common Market’s debut album feels endearingly like a raw first step showcasing an enormous amount of potential for the further development of West Coast and Seattle area rap.

- Ariel

“I’m so tight that god bless everything I write” rhymes Aceyalone at the beginning of his new album, “Magnificent City.” Unfortunately, his pretensions of emcee glory are rarely fulfilled by the new album. From the front cover shot of Aceyalone decked out in aviator shades to the presumptuous stream of lyrical flows that leave his mouth, his new collaboration with Rjd2 follows the track of so many so-so hip hop albums: the beats are sweet but the rhymes are lackluster.

As a founder of Los Angeles’ Freestyle Fellowship and Project Blowed, not to mention the man who helped create a definitive sound for West Coast rap, the expectations for Aceyalone’s new album-long collaboration with producer Rjd2 were probably set too high. Rjd2, a producer whose dense beats and introspective production skills have been highlighted in his collaborations with Blueprint and his independent releases, weaves together excellent sounds from diverse samples. But Aceyalone, with several key exceptions, backs up these tracks with rhymes that are slow, plodding, and formulaic.

While some songs are incredibly catchy, including “Fire” and “Disconnected,” others are particularly painful to listen to. On “Caged Bird,” Aceyalone revisits an overused and obsolete metaphor to the jingling of obnoxious Chistmas bells. “Some birds don’t deserve to be caged/” he rhymes, “They gotta fly away and search for the ways/Bein’ locked up is worse than the grave/I live by the words of the page.” On the disappointing “Heaven,” Acey offers us this insight: “Heaven ain’t got no stairway/Heaven ain’t got no ghetto/Heaven ain’t got nothin’ to do with you/Cause you a devil.” Some songs show Aceyalone back in form, offering tight and innovative rhymes that speak to the intellectually rigorous side of hip-hop. In particular, Acey shines during his story-format pieces, including “Solomon Jones” and “Junior.” Still, besides its seamless production by Rjd2, the distance between “Magnificent City” and Aceyalone’s previous releases is tangible.

-Ariel

Most tribute albums are hit or miss affairs, usually filled in mostly equal parts with interesting takes on old standards and boring or even embarrassing filler material. Come Together – A Jazz/Soul Tribute to the Beatles is no different.

In terms of contributing artists, this compilation is miles ahead of most tribute albums, with many of the greatest artists in the history of jazz and soul music present, including Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, and Herbie Mann. But even some of these great artists make missteps in their experimentation (or lack thereof) with the Beatles’ catalogue. In general, the experimental takes work better than the straight covers. Herbie Mann & Tamiko Jones’ version of “Day Tripper” is overly similar to the original, and Jones’ vocals seem flat in the context of the song. Aretha Franklin’s first track on the album, “Let It Be” is also a bit dull in its similarity to the Beatles’ version. The exception to this rule is Little Richard performing “I Saw Her Standing There”, which is great fun, simply as a result of the original being right up Richard’s alley to begin with. Clarence Wheeler & the Enforcers suffer the opposite problem with their jazz exploration of “Hey Jude”: their version doesn’t have enough to do with the original song, seemingly bleating out the “Na-na-na” part every few minutes only out of obligation before diving back into a jazz workout which, while good, feels like a non sequitur.

The songs that do work are superb, however. The Meters and Black Heat transform “Come Together” and “Drive My Car”, respectively, into funk songs, and the results are tremendous. And the instrumental jazz rendition of “Something” by Wade Marcus is simply gorgeous. Aretha Franklin even manages to nearly trump the original “The Long and Winding Road” with her soulful version.

Ultimately, most of the weak tracks on Come Together are in the first half of the album (such as Charles Wright’s truly awful cover of “Here Comes the Sun”) but listeners who make it through the first few rough spots will find a lot of great material on the second half.

-Ben

Banishing the scoffers and nay-sayers who reject the organ trio as a valid traditional jazz format, the musicians of 3ósity (organist Pat Bianchi, guitarist Dave Corbus and drummer Todd Reid) plow through their latest eponymous release and lay that misconception satisfyingly to rest. The opening track is the fiery, “Inception,” written by piano master McCoy Tyner. Tackled with all the gusto an opening track should offer, it gives ample space for Corbus to showcase his flashy guitar technique and Bianchi to demonstrate his finger-flying chops across the organ. The Jimi Hendrix tune, “Wind Cries Mary” is treated with the slow, cool reverence it deserves, with Corbus and Bianchi demonstrating tasteful solos and Reid laying down a solid groove via brushes and easy-does-it cymbal work. Another stand-out track, the Latin-flavored, “Una Mas” shows off the trio in all their upbeat glory and emphasizes their cohesiveness and close communication—the hits are tight and the entrances exact. Organ-trio Latin jazz, you ask? Believe me, it’s good.

But if the other tracks don’t get your foot tapping, then skip right to track nine, “Second String”. If the funkified drumbeat and bass introduction don’t get you, then the shuffling rhythm (thanks to Reid) and syncopated comping will.

-Devin

If you’re like me, you probably hate “World Music” if only because it reminds of your dad’s friend who smells like bad herbal tea, owns every Gipsy Kings record and swears by his Starbucks compilations. However, to confuse Soul Jazz Records’ Tropicalia compilation with that nonsense is to make a grave mistake. Sure, it does look you’re your standard what–indigenous-music-is-hip-this-week fare: it features artists from a specific country (Brazil) at a specific time (1968), and is supposedly representative of a specific genre (Tropicalia). But, whereas most world music (read: shitty world music) purports to be singularly unpolluted by filthy western sonic imperialism, Tropicalia’s most distinguishing feature is its at times dizzying hybridity. It is world music in its true sense, incorporating such disparate elements as British garage and psychedelic rock, Afro-Cuban jazz, Bossa Nova, and American proto-funk.

Some background on Tropicalia as a genre: it lasted roughly a year, and was spearheaded by song-writing partners Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, whose collective contributions form nearly half of Tropicalia’s twenty tracks. Tropicalia’s lyrics are (allegedly, I don’t speak Portuguese) politically charged with rhetoric against the fascist dictatorship then governing Brazil. Stylistically, it’s hard to pin down, but there are some common threads that run throughout the genre: dense and often cluttered instrumentation, unconventional song structures, and up-beat tempos. Tropicalia is, despite its political content, feel-good music for a summer pool party you will never be cool enough to attend.

Among the record’s strongest contributors is Psychedelic Bossa Nova monstrosity Os Mutantes. Lead singer Rita Lee lends the band’s tracks a sense of Nico-esque calm. Meanwhile, the band indulges in Sgt. Pepper studio trickery and guitar solos as face-melting as anything produced north of the Panama canal. The record’s two stand-out tracks, though, come from Caetano Veloso. “Alfômega” is a bass-driven Meters-funk jam superimposed on to a Latin rhythm, and “Tropicalia” is the song you’ll somehow be angry at yourself for not having heard earlier. Other significant contributions include Jorge Ben’s lethally infectious “Take It Easy, My Brother Charles,” Gliberto Gil’s “Procissão” and “Bat Macumba”. The only disappointment, here, is the inclusion of several sub-par Tom Zé tracks. Zé once said, “I don’t make art; I make spoken and sung journliasm,” a statement whose consequences are, unfortunately, quite evident in his contributions to Tropicalia. Perhaps, for linguistic reasons, I just don’t have access to the strength and depth of his lyrics, but I’ve yet to hear lyrics good enough justify the flaccid Ennio Morricone impression he does on “Jimmy, Rend-se”. His contributions, though, are mere blemishes on an otherwise overwhelmingly good record.

If you need an indie-rock credibility-endorsement to embrace this record, you’ve got as many as you want. Tropicalia has been a sort of cause celebre among crate-diggers and hipsters since the mid-eighties, when David Byrne professed to loving Caetano Veloso in interviews. Kurt Cobain once publicly requested that Os Mutantes reunite. Hell, I’m sure some guy from Ya La Tengo likes Gilberto Gil. If you need way to convince yourself that it’s okay to buy a “World Music” compilation, then just remind yourself there’s no way your dad’s Gipsy Kings-loving friend would dig these freaks. And it’s not world music, because world music sucks.

Matt

Take Steve Reid, master jazz percussionist who once played sessions with Miles Davis, and in Kieran Hebden, expert manipulator of tape loops and electronic effects who composes under the name Four Tet, and what do you get? Though the possibilities seem endless, the answer is deceptively simple. You get three tracks, spanning roughly 37 minutes of seamlessly synthesized experimentation. The tracks are complex without being overbearing, structured without being monotonous, and balanced without stifling improvisation. Reid’s drums and Hebden’s computer share the spotlight, alternating focus between the two in a series of solos interspersed within the compositions. Granted, some people will be put off by the periodic moments of grating dissonance, when the duo throw sounds together in such a harsh manner that it almost hurts to listen. But, these stretches are short lived and serve as an essential contrast with the more sonorous portions. Basically transition points, when these “freakouts” are brought back under control, the sound is very similar to that before the spastic session, but slightly different. And it is these slight nuances which power the progression of sound through these dauntingly long tracks, and it is this progression which turns experimental soundscapes into a deftly interwoven masterpieces of free jazz, from two excellent composers.

However, the key to the enjoying this album isn’t actually found in the music itself, but in the way that you hear it. If you let it sink into the background, the rhythm of the percussion settling in the back of your mind, while the electronic loops add slight nuances but still remain an afterthought, then, the music will all blend together, the progression will be lost. And what will you be left with? You will be jolted back into active listenership by the sporadic moments of dissonance, and that will be all that you see in the music. These moments of harsh clashing will be the only aspects which capture your attention, and since these are not beautiful in themselves, you will be left with a bitter taste, never wanting to give this album a listen again. To truly appreciate an album like this, you need to pay attention, keying into the intricacies of Hebden and Reid’s ideas. And if your willing to put the effort in, the album with open up to you and you’ll find yourself wanting to listen to it again once you reach the end of a track, even just to remember the way the sound started, before the evolutionary magic.

-Alan