June 16-22, 2005

music

Disctopia!

We reviewed so many CDs!

rock/pop/folk/covers
Variouos Artists
The Believer Music Issue (McSweeney's)
This is a concept comp (indie artists covering their peers), and it was put together by a hip little litmag, but it's not some intellectual exercise or insider winkfest. As you may expect when songwriters pay homage to other songwriters, the lyrics are the stars. Which means you catch every word when The Mountain Goats strip down Silver Jews and The Decemberists uproot Joanna Newsom. Cynthia G. Mason does a perfectly ghostly reduction of a Richard Buckner tune, while fellow Philadelphians Espers re-imagine a Fursaxa song as an ethereal travelogue. Also paying tribute are CocoRosie, Spoon, The Constantines, Josephine Foster, Devendra Banhart and Ida, among others. Of course there are a few duds, and damn if that ubiquitous Shins-covering-Postal Service song isn't repackaged here, but those are just intermissions. Flip through the magazine while you wait.
—Patrick Rapa

rock
Sleater-Kinney
The Woods (Sub Pop)
In the lengthy, often egocentric interview Eddie Vedder conducts with Sleater-Kinney in the April/May issue of Magnet, drummer Janet Weiss says The Woods is one of the band's most collaborative efforts: "Who does what, who plays what — you just can't tell anymore. It's bigger than that now. It's beyond that." This united front, while it may not have fended off Vedder's self-righteousness, certainly shines on The Woods, one of their best albums. When a band can pull off a catchy riff and sweet oo-oo-oohs and ah-ah-ahhs on one song and be as dark as doomsday on the next, there's no higher ground. Corin Tucker's voice hasn't sounded so fresh and unfettered in years, and this liberation makes you want to stand on your sofa and wail right along with her, the way you did when you first heard Call the Doctor. Carrie Brownstein and Weiss are no shrinking violets, either. Their playing is murky, dark and beautiful with an aggression to match Tucker's signature siren call — and Brownstein, as usual, contributes her own irresistibly snotty, early-punk vocals. The result? The deceptively singsong, past-tense desolation of "Modern Girl" ("my whole life looked like a picture of a sunny day") bumps up against the anger of the anti-retro "Entertain" ("you come around looking 1984/ you're such a bore, 1984"). From its raw punk start to the two-song suite finale that was improvised in the studio, The Woods is sometimes quiet, sometimes scary, but definitely someplace to get lost.
—Lori Hill
Sleater-Kinney plays Fri., June 24, 8 p.m., $15, with Dead Meadow, The Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-LIVE, www.thetroc.com.

classical
Dallapiccola
BBC Philharmonic, Yuri Torchinsky, leader, Tartiniana, Due Pezzi, Piccola Musica Notturna, Fragments from the ballet "Marsia," Variazioni per Orchestra (Chandos)
Does all 12-tone music sound alike? Does all baroque music sound alike? Both stupid questions. Exhibit A for the first query, the work of Luigi Dallapiccola, who was converted to serialism after exposure to the music of Anton Webern in the 1930s. Dallapiccola is credited with giving the generally severe sound of Germanic serialism the kiss of Italian lyricism. That truism is certainly represented in this always delightful and often beautiful cross section of the music of an under-heralded 20th-century master. This is a potpourri of Dallapiccola works, mainly for small orchestra. The five works on this CD were written in a 12-year span, from 1942 to 1954, although he lived to 1975. In a time when it is sport to dismiss the whole concept of atonal music, it is refreshing to be reminded that it is the artist, not the medium, that really counts.
—Peter Burwasser

rock/punk
Various Artists
Get Outta Philly (Tick Tick Tick)
This city's got some ferocious rock bands, but the lineup on this sweet little comp could hardly be called the usual suspects. For the most part, these are Philly music's wicked stepchildren, the loud, gutsy bands you don't know you like till they upstage the headliners. Punk sisters Thee Minks lead the charge with scratchy, bratty call-and-response anthem "151 Girl," then come back for more on track 10. A couple other bands (many of them led by powderkeg female vocalists) also make good on their double shots, including passionate rawkers Bad Penny, screamy undergirls The Bad News Bats and synthy artfreaks Econocaste. The Blow Goes, led by comp creator Dave Palumbo, delivers straight up punk while The Chance contributes a big, horny funk song and Toothless George chugs out twisted rockabilly. Get Outta Philly could have been a train wreck of undisciplined bands and unrelated styles, but the bands' brash DIY attitudes make it feel like there's this, you know, scene out there. Can you imagine such a thing?
—Patrick Rapa

soundtrack
Original Cast Recording
Monty Python's Spamalot (Universal Classics)
Most contemporary Broadway musicals get so weighed down in romance or tragedy that old-fashioned Marx Brothers silliness gets shunted aside. While the Tony-winning Spamalot will never erase memories of its inspiration, the movie classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there's something revolutionary in seeing a big-name cast happily making fools of themselves.

The music by John Du Prez and lyrics by Python Eric Idle target conventional Broadway. "The Song That Goes Like This" spoofs the syrupy power ballads in Euro-musicals like Les Miz and Phantom ("A sentimental song that casts a magic spell/ They all will hum along/ We'll overact like hell"). "I'm All Alone" has King Arthur (Tim Curry) soliloquize on loneliness — with a giant chorus behind him.

Spamalot retains and occasionally expands upon Holy Grail's original songs; "The Knights of the Round Table" is now a full-fledged production number ("We do routines and gory scenes/ That are too hot for cable!") climaxing in a Steve-&-Eydie scat arrangement. Other old Python material is interpolated, most notably "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from the Python's Life of Brian; taken out of its original crucifixion context, however, it sounds awfully generic.

The cast is in good form, with Curry's King Arthur equal to Graham Chapman's film performance. Hank Azaria (Moe and Apu on The Simpsons) is in solid voice as Sir Lancelot who eventually finds his inner Peter Allen ("His Name Is Lancelot") and Frasier's David Hyde Pierce is funny as the wimpy Sir Robin. In the thankless role of the token actual woman in a Python project, Sara Ramirez (as The Lady of The Lake, complete with Laker Girls) is first-rate.

The cast and creative team have Broadway pretentiousness in their sights, and with Spamalot they've bagged it and mounted it on the wall like a moose's head. Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti
—Andrew Milner

country/cliche
Robbie Fulks
Georgia Hard (Yep Roc)
Robbie Fulks' first album of new material in four years can't help but be something of a disappointment, if not in its songwriting (which is as strong and witty as ever), then in its narrow scope. 2001's Couples In Trouble found Fulks at his most ambitious, experimenting with rock and pop forms on a dozen love songs which, while uniformly bleak, largely eschewed his tongue-in-cheek snark for intricate storytelling. Georgia Hard marks a return to straight-ahead country, and while these tunes are full of well-defined characters and clever turns of phrase there are times when the punning titles and two-timin' hicks start to feel a little like bitterness towards a country audience that didn't take too kindly to those deviations. That becomes explicit on "Countrier Than Thou," a companion snipe to "Roots Rock Weirdos" which targets the down-home pretensions of both blue state No Depression-ers and a certain red state president.
—Shaun Brady

rock/pop
Smog
A River Ain't Too Much to Love (Drag City)
Sad bastards unite! It's loathing time and no one captures the agony of the human experience like one-man mourning machine Bill Callahan. On Smog's 12th album, A River Ain't Too Much to Love, it's back to four-track basics: acoustic guitar, a touch of fiddle, coyote-lonely whistling and Callahan's sing/speak baritone delivering wry witticisms ("There is no love/ Where there is no obstacle") and alliterative tongue twisters ("Did that rapper rape her?") with all the emotionalism of a plaster bust. The great exception is "The Well," an almost-jolly tune that could be mistaken for a John Denver outtake. Anemic, pill-popping fanboys needn't get distraught over this stylistic departure, though; Callahan's saving the spandex leotards for the live show.
—Ashlea Halpern

brazilian
Luciana Souza
Duos II (Sunnyside)
Looking for the kind of Brazilian music packaged especially for that elusive crossover into the gringo market, full of saccharine pop effects, layers of synths and backup singers obscuring the melody and beat? Luciana Souza can't help you; she's beyond all that. Born in Brazil, she was a child prodigy in pop/jingle recordings. As a young adult she chose Berklee and then the New England Conservatory to master jazz. These days her arrestingly expressive voice is sometimes used in contemporary classical performances. All these qualities arise in a lively tumble on Duos II. Sometimes she scats in rapid call-and-response with one of the four guitar geniuses in her circle; other times she shoots for slow and dreamy. Souza gives us an assortment of sambas, without a single drum, yet each track is packed with complex rhythms and inventive melodies.
—Mary Armstrong

bedroom pop/punk
Milky Wimpshake
Popshaped (Bitter Like The Bean / Fortuna Pop)
Milky Wimpshake isn't nearly as wussy as its moniker suggests. In fact, making music that sounds so stupid-easy on the surface and yet is so shamelessly heartfelt at its core takes balls. Pete Dale, the onetime Slampt record label chap, is the lanky, leftist vegetarian not-poet at the helm of these twee anthems. More than a decade into their this-isn't-work, it's-cherry-water-ice career, he and the Wimps keep churning out love songs for punk rockers. These 18 tracks are split between new tunes and reprised hits from deleted singles and demo tapes. The lyrics aren't deep ("I've got no money, but at least I've got love," "I love you Spider-Man, for always"), but you'll want to Sharpie them on a T-shirt anyway. Philly DIY imprint Bitter Like the Bean issued this on the tried- and-true LP format. It's worth the trouble of dusting off the record player.
—Neal Ramirez

rock/pomp
Oasis
Don't Believe the Truth (Big Brother)
Gone are the days of spitting at the press, canceling blockbuster tours and calling Damon Albarn a "cuntfuck." Now six albums deep, more than a decade old and sick of its perpetual footnote status this side of the Atlantic, Oasis is relinquishing its title as rock's greatest debauchers. It took two tries to get Truth right (the original Death In Vegas sessions were ditched, thankfully), but the results are nothing short of astounding. "Love Like A Bomb" is eerily Def Leppard-ish in its monster balladism, and Coldplay fans will be ringing radio stations left and right to request the Lennon-esque "Let There Be Love." Liam Gallagher's silken, bell-like voice is the perfect complement to brother Noel's cigarette-rot croak, and the two even trade verses in — get this, Oasis-haters — perfect harmony. Is Oasis back? Definitely. Are they better than ever? Maybe.
—Ashlea Halpern

monster of pop
Scout Niblett
Kidnapped By Neptune (Too Pure)
British singer-songwriter Emma Niblett can do the minimalist Cat Power moan and the plinky Mirah guitar hook, but that's just the clouds gathering. When the mood strikes, she unleashes a feral riff and a windy howl that pushes her pop sound into the booming rock wilderness. And the lyrics give chase: "And they say she is scorched/ and dented with longing/ and she sings back to life/ and it's louder than the kick drum/ and it's louder than the snare." Then as everything seems to be rushing toward a crash, she may deliver a melodic respite, a period of calm, a moment to contemplate. Then the drums pound again and it's back to the fray. Release the Kraken! Summon Godzilla!
—Patrick Rapa

jazz
Jack DeJohnette & Foday Musa Suso
Music from the Hearts of the Masters (Golden Beams)
If you're in the mood to feel inadequate, just list your achievements next to those of Jack DeJohnette. Now the drummer (in itself an inadequate word to describe what the man does) adds label head to his resume with the two inaugural releases from his new Golden Beams Productions imprint. The other, Music In the Key of OM, is a droney new age meditation disc, and as utilitarian as that description implies. But this duet disc with African kora master Foday Musa Suso is a different type of meditation entirely, spiritual in the sense that any deeply felt communication is. DeJohnette's melodic percussion style combines with Suso's shimmering lyricism to hypnotic effect, and their delicate, repetitive melodies swirl in intricate patterns like an aural spider's web. Of course, in the time it took you to read this review, DeJohnette likely recorded three records spanning half a dozen genres. Slacker.
—Shaun Brady

rock/pop
Mary Timony
Ex Hex (Lookout)
The magic is gone. The peacocks, the demons and the goblins — gone, gone, gone. Those who thought Mary Timony lost her way in some enchanted forest will hail Ex Hex as a kind of resurrection. Musically, it's not airy like her first two post-Helium albums; she and Devin Ocampo can make quite a racket with guitar, bass, drums and a few leftover keyboards. But the lyrics are a trickier transformation. 2002's The Golden Dove was so regal in its Renaissance finery that its relatively few modern images shocked with thrilling crudeness. There's precious little allegory here, and no shock at all. Just a lot of earthbound beefs. Any 21st-century indie chick could throw barbs like "Hard Times Are Hard!" and "On the Floor" at loser friends. But only Timony can cast a spell with both Jesus and The Fat Boys, as she does on "In the Grass." Ex Hex could use more of that idiosyncratic spirit.
—M.J. Fine
Wed., June 22, 7:30 p.m., $12-$14, with Ted Leo + Pharmacists and Radio 4, The Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-LIVE, www.thetroc.com.

WDRE Nostalgia trip
Billy Corgan
The Future Embrace (Warner)
Foo Fighters
In Your Honor (RCA)
There are artists who never stop evolving and pushing the bounds of their craft, and then there are the ones who throw in the towel. About two-thirds of the way through The Future Embrace, Billy Corgan plainly states, "Whoever I was going to be, I already am." It's an admission that this former enfant terrible of the '90s alternative rock landscape has grown up, plateaued and is starting to look inward. Not a new step for him. As a solo album, Future Embrace relies on synthesizers and electronic beats (it seems you can only fire Jimmy Chamberlain so many times) and contains some of Corgan's most personal lyrics, which can be analyzed till the cows come home without unearthing any definitive answers.

On their latest, the Foo Fighters serve up a double-disc set neatly divided into a Saturday night/Sunday morning electric/acoustic split. The raucous first disc continues the band's quiet-to-loud dynamic and begins with Dave Grohl shouting, "Can you hear me, hear me screaming?" If you miss the scream on the leadoff track, there's plenty more waiting on the subsequent ones. As a double album, In Your Honor isn't as ambitious as Use Your Illusion or Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, but it's just as indulgent. The second disc is sensitive acoustic strumming without a catchy single, and the whole album finds Grohl in a fatalistic mood, laying things to rest and moving on, truly ready to embrace the future.
—Jesse Delaney
Billy Corgan plays with Doris Henson and Crimea, Sat., June 25, 8:30 p.m., $35-$37, Electric Factory, Seventh and Willow sts., 215-336-2000.

rock/pop
Dressy Bessy
Electrified (Transdreamer)
If shit rolls downhill, Dressy Bessy must've pitched its tent in the lowest valley of indie rock. First, the drummer quit. Then the record label folded. But the Denver-based quartet, featuring go-go vixen Tammy Ealom and Apples In Stereo guitarist John Hill, weathered the uproar with panache and did for Electrified what it does best: out-of-place, out-of-time and now out-of-mind. The band's fascination with all things Carnaby Street blows up at breakneck speed, but sadly, the double-espresso buzz that fuels the first five tracks rubs off faster than lipstick on a White House intern. It's hard to shake the feeling that all these gooey pop confections melt into one indigestible mass, each new song sounding more like its predecessor. (Superchunk, we're looking at you.) Bottom line: It's bubblegum pop that never quite sticks.
—Ashlea Halpern

freak-folktronica
Four Tet
Everything Ecstatic (Domino)
Sure, he looks like a sensitive laptop technician, but the Four Tet of today is a little less cuddly and curly, a little more snippy and snide. Anyone who's seen a recent performance of his can attest to that, as Kieran Hebden has taken to dismembering and cremating his back catalog despite the dissonant results. Not that this record is his Metal Machine Music moment. Rather, Hebden has found a way to contrast his supposed folktronica past with breaks that shift like tectonic plates and synth progressions that engulf the senses like Kraftwerk or Can. The eight-minute "Sleep, Eat Food, Have Visions" stands as the centerpiece of it all, as Hebden's flips through his collection of ambient, electro and psychedelic rock platters like a friend would while waiting for dinner. Forget giving this guy a hug. Kick him in the shins the next time he's in town and clutching a mouse. We like him better angry.
—Andrew Parks

jazz
The Frank & Joe Show
66 2/3 (Hyena)
Guitarist Frank Vignola and percussionist Joe Ascione team up for a Latin-tinged exercise in Djangology, bouncing between standards, original numbers and classical pieces while making it all sound easy. The pair are in a laid-back mood on this outing, lead track "It Might As Well Be Spring" summing up the attitude quite nicely, the joy in playing extending to the goofball liner notes. Ascione especially kicks back, contenting himself with dancing his rhythms around Vignola's silky guitar, letting his partner take care of most of the burning. But the percussionist is constantly embellishing, his rhythms building and evolving in deceptively unassuming fashion. The album swings start to finish, though the vocal tracks are skippable if you're in a hurry.
—Shaun Brady

rock/pop
The Feverfew
Apparitions (Eyeball)
Bethany Spiers strums softly and sings just above a whisper, and she's compelling enough to make listeners work harder. Her lyrics are wordier than poetry, more elliptical than prose. The Feverfew's only full-time member is her own worst critic: "My words are not urgent, my melody plain/ And all my epiphanies still sound the same," she confides in "A Song, a Story." There's some truth to that, but it doesn't really matter; slow, sad songs will soothe broken and empty hearts as long as lovers are leaving each other. Apparitions' best moments are the ones where Spiers isn't so alone: Jonathon Linaberry's disharmony gives "Descending" an edge, and Josh Nichols' piano picks up "A Song, a Story" at just the right time. Still, there's plenty of solitary comfort to be found in the unadorned melodies of one whispery woman.
—M.J. Fine
Thu., June 16, 6 p.m., $7, all ages, with David Shultz, The Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298, www.iourecords.com/thefire.

rock/pop
The White Stripes
Get Behind Me Satan (V2)
If you're the type to read into things, you might guess that Renée Zellweger's bloodless fingers left a mark on Jack White's music, most obviously "The Nurse" — Nurse Betty, could be — a crashing, atonal rant about salted wounds. It's true, there's some bitter, scorned stuff on Get Behind Me Satan. But you don't have to dig quite so deep to find what hanging out with Loretta Lynn has done for the guy who used to hide his pleasant croon behind huge blues riffs. Now, he's doing piano rock on "The Denial Twist," a clever, catchy number that finds eight different ways of saying love is real. Or he's actually sounding like Lynn, as on the sublime Appalachian/sci-fi ditty "Little Ghost" ("When I held her I was really holding air"). As ever, Meg White rides the cymbals, doesn't get too fancy and waits for the opportunity to pound out something primal. Those moments are becoming less frequent, but when they come, they're as fierce and freaky as ever.
—Patrick Rapa

Hip-hop
Peedi Crakk
Prince of the ROC 2 (Roc-A-Fella)
How this criminally unrec'd State Prop b-side managed to get Swizz Beatz for his leadoff track, "Let's Go," doesn't really matter — Dame Dash is good for something shockah and Crakk is back, repping North Philly with bugged out sex thrills and cooked pony. Back at the ranch, Beanie's finding good and sinsurr camaraderie with Houston's Finest, expanding La Famiglia by plum drank proxy. Peedi's skeptical, though. Instead he keeps local, ear to the street, fighting off Nore and jumping off the reggaeton cruise ship 2K5 before it's even set sail. (Getting fat too, so I hear.) But that's ROC's baby for you. Still in the nest, he's working his Prince tapes, getting his weight up with choice spots only as necessary and — hopefully — planning an official release (as opposed to this DJ E. Nyce mix)? Maybe that's foot-shooting, but better that than another Will Smith.
—Nick Sylvester

classical
Shostakovich
Jerusalem Quartet, String Quartets Nos. 1, 4, 9 (Harmonia Mundi)
A critic for The New York Times recently described the posthumous reputation of Shostakovich as a sort of ongoing festival. There's a good reason for this. The music of Shostakovich, especially his symphonies and string quartets, is some of the most invigorating and moving of the recent past. His string quartets may well be his greatest legacy, among the finest of the 20th century and comfortably in the league of Mozart and Beethoven in terms of the ingenuity of the writing and their expressive power. The music seems especially attractive to younger ensembles, with new recordings coming out on a regular basis. This newest one features a foursome named after their hometown. The Jerusalem Quartet sounds at once lush and incisive, and is treated to a colorful and realistic recorded sound.
—Peter Burwasser

bedroom pop
Tullycraft
Disenchanted Hearts Unite (Magic Marker)
Every few years, Sean Tollefson dusts off Tullycraft to see if the world is finally ready to embrace his nasal, half-power pop songs to hold hands to. The answer is still no, but cult status is a comfortable place for an indie guy who plays shout-outs to his indie peers, who writes nostalgic those-were-the-days odes to bands who broke up five years ago. Tullycraft is the shy male counterpart to the All Girl Summer Fun Band; there are sing-along choruses, cooing backup vocals, head-bobbing synths and un-flashy hooks on every track. And, most notably, the headphone hits on Disenchanted Hearts Unite sound like anything else from Tullycraft's 10-year history, so determined is this band in its sound and Wonder Years worldview. On "Every Little Thing," Tollefson ponders the fickleness of young love and fleeting fame in the little indie-pop scene. "Who's gonna document these days?" he asks over marching keyboards. It's all you, man.
—Patrick Rapa

experimental spacemonkey
Gorillaz
Demon Days (Virgin)
Turning a keen eye on the vicious and visceral may be pop's purpose, but when that eye is bloodshot, jaded and, most importantly, cartooned, you're left with a strange filter for realism. Drawn, eyeballs and all, by Jamie Hewlett, the primate-scream uber-egos of Damon Albarn, Chris Frantz and Miho Hatori regroup (minus Dan The Automator but joined by Danger Mouse) to embark on a return trip to planet apeshit. Violence is still greeted with workaday boredom — "Kids with Guns" masterfully apes hip-hop's uncritical recitations of societal blight — so the album's gaze feels distant, regarding humanity's bombed-out messes from afar. But the chill of its blasé beeps, scratches and shugga-shuggas warms up as they use their zoom function — best of all on the Pied Piper-esque "Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head." And this time around, the gang is less about getting down in the wreckage. Indeed, as Hewlett's illustrations bear out, they find there's no one left to dance with: "Every planet we reach is dead."
—Juliet Fletcher

Indie folk
Iron & Wine
Woman King (Sub Pop)
What did Sam Beam just say? Because it sounded a lot like, "We were born to fuck each other one way or another." Not to worry, Iron & Wine fans: The Floridian folkie hasn't started working blue. But the six-song Woman King stakes out new territory, or at least a lot adjacent to Beam's manicured half-acre of carefully harmonized tristesse. Opening with rhythmic clatter, fuzz guitar and a two-note melody that looks forward to the coming of a pissed-off matriarch, the EP works its way back to the garden of Eden, where Adam's first wife Lilith calls out in defiant sorrow. Woman King's female archetypes don't quite jell into a conceptual mini-album, which is probably all for the best. Bad enough he makes everyone else look insensitive without making them look sloppy, too.
—Sam Adams
Sun., June 19, 7 p.m., $16.50, with Band of Horses, The Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-LIVE, www.thetroc.com.

grime
Bruza
Shockin' Mixtape Vol. 1 (ukrecordshop.co.uk)
Apparently grime's getting sick of being irrelevant and obnoxiously insider, cuz this tape's actually fun in spots (despite no known track listing, since, you know, we're supposed to know who all these clowns are). Most of this is two-bit sandpaper, frooty loops, hate-it-or-love-it grime, but at least check out (or download) the track about downloading: Sway's yelling at everyone for ripping his shit before the album's hit the streets ("I need to get to the bottom of this/ Whoever's at the bottom's at the top of my list"), then he's on some Lord of the Flies beast hunt, stalking internet cafes in search of "some bloke called Kazaa." Grime's got humor down better than we do — at least the cheeky kind. So when Sway confesses, "Keep it on the down low, I download too/ I'm a big hypocrite," then adds, "I'll download you," I sorta want to give him a big hug, then a grundle punch.
—Nick Sylvester

classical
Grieg
Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Peer Gynt Incidental Music (Virgin Classics)
This is some of the most familiar music in the classical canon, heard in concerts, cartoon soundtracks and elevators around the world. But beyond the 10 minutes that everyone knows there is an hour of superbly crafted and evocative material, inspired by the Ibsen play of the same name. Peer Gynt is most often presented in an abbreviated suite of the music, but there is not a stagnant note in this performance of the complete score. Grieg employs choirs and singing parts for the three main characters of the story, and in live performance, there is also ballet. It is baffling that this highly affecting work is rarely presented in a full-blown production. Conductor Paavo J…rvi and his forces give us a bright, alert performance.
—Peter Burwasser

raunch/pop
Fannypack
See You Next Tuesday (Tommyboy)
When novelty becomes more than novelty, people get hurt and minds get fucked. In 2003 we were fortunate enough to have Fannypack's "Cameltoe," an ode to the infamous vag wedgie. (There's talk of dude cameltoe but guys, girls: let's keep things simple and call that frog eyes, OK?) Cute, but See You Next Tuesday's got a bigger fish to fry. (Terrible.) Here gender-fucking's so routine it's sensical, so shtick it's clean. Girls boss boys into terrordome reverse lap dancing; jump-rope rhymes toast reggae and dancehall and hip-hop; spent rubberlove poses serious danger for suburban stereotypes and mallrat misconceptions about what female artists can and should be doing, pop-artistically. And you can dance to it! (Fuck off.)
—Nick Sylvester

classical
Mahler
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Symphony No. 8. (EMI Classics)
One of the extraordinary qualities of Mahler's grandiose works is the way that they also operate on an intimate level. He doesn't get any grander than in this work, known as the Symphony of a Thousand, so called because of the massive forces required to perform it. And yet it is filled with countless moments of delicacy. Mahler wanted to express the vastness of the human spirit in his music, and these huge dynamic contrasts are one of his most effective devices in his pursuit of this goal. The closing pages, set to the words of Goethe, are some of the composer's finest: massive, mysterious, magnificent. Sir Simon Rattle, a would-be conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, is absolutely at his best in large-scale works. Elsewhere, his concentration is not always consistent, but his ability to maintain texture and clarity in a huge soundscape is extraordinary, and makes this a notable new recording of this unwieldy beast of a symphony.
—Peter Burwasser

Rock/pop
The Shout Out Louds
Howl Howl Gaff Gaff (Capitol)
Is there some factory in Sweden churning out garage rock bands? The latest product is a retro-rock/quasi-emo quintet, the Shout Out Louds, currently registering high on the media hype scale. Their U.S. debut is basically a compilation of their Scandinavian hits and several new mixes. And it's catchy as hell, primarily because these four guys and a girl create songs that bristle with the kind of youthful energy that usually translates a lot better onstage than on vinyl. With a fondness for infectious drumbeats, jingle-jangle guitars and urgent synthesizers, the Shout Out Louds manage to have a both an early '60s feel and a modern indie sound. Despite ripping off everyone from Modest Mouse to The Strokes to Weezer, they still sound distinctive, as their songs veer from frantic emo-pop to country-eseque ballads. Somehow, it all works.
—Nicole Pensiero

Folk/traditional
Old Blind Dogs
Play Live (Green Linnet)
"Is it Memorex?" Old Blind Dogs boldly note on which studio CD each track was originally released, hoping you'll compare these live renderings head-to-head. Nothing beats a live band loving their job. In this case the job is traditional Scottish music with a sense of connection to the modern world, live but far from old field recordings. Pipes and whistles and fiddles are generously featured, as is a broad Scots dialect (lyrics enclosed, thank the heavens), which is applied most often to traditional songs, teaching a bit of history. A driving beat urges the music along — a mixture of rock, traditional and the African/world beat which Fraser Stone, OBD's Highlands-raised drummer, has taken to heart.
—Mary Armstrong

Soul/funkathon
Nikka Costa
can'tneverdidnothin' (Virgin)
So maybe Nikka Costa's badass soul diva shtick is a tad contrived. But the girl certainly can belt it out. With this, her second CD, Costa actually rises above the pseudo-soul pack and makes a sweaty musical funkathon. Thanks to her potent pipes, a powerful horn section, chunky basslines and suggestive bump 'n' grind lyrics, can'tneverdidnothin' bears the fingerprints of her buddies Lenny Kravitz (who plays drums on three tracks) and Prince. In fact, there are several Dirty Mind-esque songs here, complete with lines like "Swing it around and put it in here/ Blow my mind and I'll bend right over." Costa is especially inspired on the up-tempo, groove-heavy stuff, making Tina Turner's "Funkier Than a Mosquito's Tweeter" her own, yet shows surprising (and appropriate) mellowness on the album's two tender closing ballads.
—Nicole Pensiero

anti-pop ambient
Jane
Berserker (Paw Tracks)
The kids sure love that there Animal Collective and their jovial take on whatever the "freak-folk" genre is supposed to entail. Which is a nice kick in the Levi's for the future of indie rock and potentially bad for side projects such as this, since the devoted will rush to the record store even if it's as insufferable as one of Wolf Eyes' myriad limited (read: we didn't want to piss off more than 200 people) releases. Ah, but this collaboration between Panda Bear and DJ Scott Mou is a fine listen. Shit, it's not even that avant-garde. See Avey Tare's Terrestrial Tones project with Black Dice's Eric Copeland for that. What we get instead are four droning dance tracks, spliced with Lennox's ghostly wails — basically a digital ice bath to dunk yourself in. Some grooves will, yes, make you move, but mostly you'll sit in front of speakers stunned by the hypnosis at hand.
—Andrew Parks

classical
Adès/Schubert
Arditti Quartet, Belcea Quartet, Thomas Adès, piano Piano Quintet, "The Trout" (EMI Classics)
Thomas Adès, the young British composer, has the reputation of an enfant terrible, on the basis of stage works that often sound like organized theatrical hysteria. This 2000 composition is of a different order, being very inward, almost contemplative and comprised of subtle inflections. The pairing with Schubert's "Trout," perhaps the most popular work of chamber music in the world, is hardly accidental. Adès is the pianist in both of these performances, and he presents these pieces as fun-house mirror reflections of one another. This is a remarkable dialogue, and not the first time that Schubert has served as the inspiration for contemporary composers. Adès does not respond directly to the thematic material of the Schubert, instead riffing on the style and shape of the music, producing ghostly echoes of riveting beauty. I'm pretty sure that Adès would not disagree that in the end, it is Schubert who is most honored, as an ineffable, endlessly enchanting voice. A fascinating release.
—Peter Burwasser

indie dance
Dave P + Adam Sparkles
Nike iD Promotional (Nike iD)
Sorta hilarious that this disc even exists: hot indie-dance jams mixed and promo'd (as a reward maybe?) for people who will spend hours on this new Nike iD site pseudo-individualizing overpriced sweatshop footbags they can wear to the movies or the hoagie house. Presumably actual athletes know better, but who knows: I still wear Vans and just started going to the gym again myself. Regardless this has to be the best sneaker mix ever made: LCD Soundsystem, Daft Punk, Annie, the only decent Tom Vek song and even the Superpitcher remix of M83's "Don't Save Us From The Flames," which is without a doubt the best remix of the year, maybe even song of the year. (It's better than "Hate it or Love it.") Someone told me Adidas has Karen O. Whatever.
—Nick Sylvester

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