Issue 2 by HASH Magazine

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

M. Sean Ryan

sean@hashmagazine.com

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Monica So

monica@hashmagazine.com

CONTRIBUTERS: WRITERS: Will Ewing Elisabeth Dawson

PHOTOGRAPHY: Finraz

finraz@gmail.com

Joshua Sarner

www.jsarnerphoto.com

Rachel Ceretto

ILLUSTRATION: Chris Capestany

CONTENTS LETTER FROM THE EDITOR PLUS 1 tUnE-yArDs, Wilco, Jonny Greenwood, Ben Sollee, Thievery Corporation, Raekwon, Timbila

Q&A: Last Night on Earth with Elysian Fields

FEATURE:

4 6 28 33

The Maker’s Gospel: The Roots, Revelation, and Triumph of Willem Maker

NEW ALBUM REVIEWS LOONEY BIN THE HASH

42 43 44

LETTER FROM THE

EDITOR

There are things that I hope will jump to the forefront with the issue of HASH you are holding in your digital mitts. The first is the geographic sweep of musicians filling out these pages. In our last issue we featured several groups and artists local to New York City—The Strokes, Bill Frisell, plus mutual soul-mongers the Budos Band and of course The Stepkids, who just appeared on Gilles Peterson Worldwide. In our second installment you’ll hear and read about music that’s rolled off the proverbial fingertip and lip of artists from Alabama, Chicago, Zimbabwe, New York, DC, Kentucky, Sweden, and London. And with this stretch comes an even better realization of the HASH-priority on producing a musical mix, worthy of our namesake. Another striking detail about the group of musicians and stories in # 2 is a pervading hands-on, do-it-yourself ethic. Our Live Reviews begin with my thoughts on Merrill Garbus, aka Tune-Yards, in many respects a one-woman band. Guest-writer Will Ewing provides an in-depth account of the second Solid Sound in Massachusetts, a three-day festival conceived, orchestrated, and headlined by Wilco. Another first-time contributor to HASH, Elisabeth Dawson launches our Record Reviews with praise for solo-artist Ben Sollee and his second album, Inclusions. Sollee is a cellowielding singer-songwriter who, apart from his powerful voice and fourstring finesse, is known for touring by bicycle rather than a bus or van. Finally, there’s Willem Maker, the subject of our cover story. A multiinstrumentalist based in Ranburne, Alabama, Maker has put forth a stunning and expansive album—and a one-man record at that. Mr. Maker plays everything on it; he also furnishes the fantastically graphic pages of lyrics that he designed and read from while recording, which you can view on his website. I encourage you to go there, explore Willem Maker’s sounds, story, aesthetic, and, as always, to support the artists here whose music you enjoy. Like our first, this issue contains links to official webpages where we hope you’ll buy their music, directly from the artist whenever possible.

WILLEM MAKER IN HIS FOXHOLE STUDIO, IN RANBURNE, AL.

I thank our new and returning contributors for their support and fine work here. If you find yourself reading and at the same time thinking you could help fill out the pages of HASH issues to come, email us at hello@hashmagazine.com. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d love to hear from interested writers, photographers or illustrators!Â Thank you, so much, for your interest in our magazine. Please recommend, follow, or like us on our corresponding social media pages. Like so many of these musicians, our hope and principal aim is to reach more people.

M. SEAN RYAN Editor & Writer in Chief

MERRILL GARBUS OF TUNE-YARDS AT PIER 54 • JULY 14, 2011

A LOOPING WORLD, FULL OF WAILS AND WHOOPS IN NEW YORK, TUNE-YARDS CHURNED ITS AFRICAN-INFLUENCED POLYRHYTHMS INTO A QUIRKY, SURGING, DIY-ROCK EXHIBITION. Photos: Finraz As post-millennial pop has unfolded, the last decade has been increasingly acknowledged as one driven by women—Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, the list goes on. Ignored in that dialogue are the concurrent strides made by women in indie, where do-it-yourself remains a touchstone. Merrill Garbus, who records as Tune-Yards— or tUnE-YarDs, for the consummate professional—simultaneously drums, sings, operates loops pedals—playing ukulele in between. Garbus reigns over her songs. And in an interview shortly before Tune-Yards played Pitchfork’s festival in Chicago last month, she admitted to critics Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis: “To be a woman— doing all this by myself, has been important—in the sense of being able to create this world onstage and also say ‘I produce my own albums.’” The night before, Garbus was in New York with her touring band. Tune-Yards launched the RiverRocks series, playing the first show of the season on the Hudson River on Pier 54. Garbus worked with precision and purpose in the gathering dusk, the skyline of Hoboken, NJ an increasingly incandescent backdrop. Just before the fourth song that evening she sang a quick melody, then a new one in harmony with the first as it began to repeat via a loop-pedal. This continued, vocal lines looping elegantly as they gathered into a choir. Where that chorus resurfaced was a brief yet climactic peak in “Powa,” the heaving tour-de force from the second Tune-Yards fulllength W H O K I L L (4AD). As Garbus swung into the song’s stately apex an unseen tap of a foot-pedal brought on the wall of “ooh”s, but it was plain how carefully constructed that bombardment was.

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DAN BEJAR OF DESTROYER AT WEBSTER HALL • APRIL 3, 2011 PHOTO CREDIT: FINRAZ

W H O K I L L is an album full of such climactic builds. Exultant and shambolic, they lend stamina to the record’s melodies and dimension to its themes. Those are sometimes humorous, and often complex sketches of insecurities and contradictory urges. In “Riotriot” Garbus fantasizes about the cop hauling her brother to jail before shouting, “There is a freedom in violence that I don’t understand, and like I’ve never felt before!” With that, she wills the song from its creeping shuffle into a sax-blasted jamboree. “I wish I could give this experience to each and every one of you,” Garbus said between songs at Pier 54. She was marveling at the sensation as much as her view: a near-full moon, the midtown Manhattan skyline, her audience lining the dock. That enthusiasm was in the music and in gesture throughout the set—Tune-Yards exited to a fireworks display. Earlier, the bandleader spurred the crowd to a synchronized pogo in time to the closing fanfare of “You Yes You.” And all night Garbus easily elicited sung responses from that audience—making good on her wish. www.tune-yards.com

BASSIST NATE BRENNER (TOP LEFT), THE ACTIVE FEET OF MERRILL GARBUS (BELOW)

COLORS, SOUNDS, AND WILCO ‘SOLID’ SECOND YEAR FOR MUSIC AND ART FESTIVAL

In its second year, Solid Sound was again set in North Adams’ Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, aka Mass MoCA. On paper, it might seem a strange venue choice By: Will Ewing, Photos: Rachel Ceretto for the Chicago-based Wilco to hold their fledgling One could hardly be blamed for never visiting summer festival. Bandleader Jeff Tweedy accountNorth Adams, Massachusetts. It is tucked away in ed for the setting at a press conference on the festhe upper-left corner of the eastern state, about tival’s opening day, stating: “We have a tentacle as far from Boston as you could conceivably settle of our global operations planted permanently in and still be within state lines. The area is a back- the Berkshires.” He was referring to the group’s water in a Northeast comprised of forsaken indus- management, based in nearby Northampton, trial towns, quaint hamlets in southern Vermont, as well as dBpm, the new in-house record label. and the small liberal arts colleges that pepper the dBpm will release Wilco’s eighth album, The Whole pastoral landscape. Love, in late September, marking the band’s first Such was the country I drove through one self-release since rounding out their contract with afternoon late in June, following the directions of Nonesuch in 2009, via Wilco (The Album). an over-eager navigation system. I was bound for While this summer’s Solid Sound allowed the Solid Sound Music and Arts Festival, a newly- Tweedy and co. the chance to test some of their launched music, comedy and arts fete headlined new music, sharing the spotlight ended up as and produced by the resolute rock ensemble Wilco. important to its success. Last year’s inaugural

NEIL FINN OF PAJAMA CLUB event showcased a host of side projects and musical friends of the band. This year, the lineup was a bit more ambitious, featuring better-known groups that were sometimes outside the arms of the Wilco clan. Levon Helm, one of the principal members of The Band, headlined Sunday night as the final act. Thurston Moore, the guitarist and sometimes singer of Sonic Youth, showcased music from his acclaimed new album, Demolished Thoughts (Matador). Moore also revisited Pillow Wand, a guitar project with Nels Cline, Wilco’s lead guitarist. On Saturday, veteran soul musician Syl Johnson, who was ostensibly there as a nod to the curators’ Chicago roots, gave a surprisingly enlivened and memorable performance just before Wilco’s second set of the weekend. Outside of these acts, several lesser-known bands of varying genres and tenures played across the festival’s three stages. Still, Friday’s opening rounds of music didn’t portend a dynamic festival. The Pajama Club, a husband and wife duo from New Zealand, played an hour of uninspiring, light rock: bland and forgettable. Singer Neil Finn, once the frontman of Split Enz—the Kiwi group that gave us the eighties synth-pop hit “I’ve Got You”—rejoined Wilco later for a spirited version of his old hit to close out the first night. The most, if only outstanding moment in Pajama Club’s set happened to be a personal one. My photographer made friends with a two year-old and her mother, and, as they talked, a hard-faced man came to me and introduced himself as the child’s grandfather. He looked eighty, and wore a trucker hat without any irony. By his count, he had seen Wilco over 50 times. His daughter originally introduced him to the band; they always attended Wilco concerts together. It would become clear that this family—three generations of fans—was in fact a cross section of the crowd at large. As Wilco’s presence impended on Night One, teens and young adults pushed closer to the stage, stepping on blankets and breaking the imaginary fences built hours earlier by older folks who sat in lawn chairs and peered through the mass of bodies, trying to see the stage. The lights dimmed

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THURSTON MOORE (RIGHT) for the headliner, and the clouds burst with rain. Lightning delayed the performance while comedians John Hodgman and Justin Long did their best to entertain. Hodgman, a correspondent on the Daily Show, was scheduled to emcee the comedy stage the next day, but Long, his counterpart in Apple’s Mac vs. PC commercials, was a surprise. After 30 minutes Wilco took the stage to Burt Bacharach’s, “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” In spite of the conditions, Wilco built a lively, two-hour set of songs spanning all of their studio albums, with several new tracks from The Whole Love. Tweedy kept dialogue to a minimum, emphasizing the concentration and investment necessary to do his songs justice. The audience approved, persisting for the two-hour bout—soaked yet content. There was more to attend on Saturday, with three stages of music in full swing. Unfortunately, the rain had not let up and all afternoon throngs of people moved under tents and overhangs, trying to stay dry while taking in as much of the eclectic music as possible. Here We Go Magic stood out from competing acts, their hazy indie-pop a dreamy soundtrack against the gray sky. Like so many, I gave in to the elements and found refuge in the comedy stage where I caught Wyatt Cenac, one of Hodgman’s colleagues at the Daily Show, who built a hilarious set that thrived on his racial insights. Above the comedy space were the galleries of modern art normally housed by the MoCA museum. This weekend, the permanent installations were supplemented with percussion instruments designed by Wilco drummer Glen Kotche. A dark annex presented an audio-video installation Kotche created by splicing and manipulating a drumbeat he wrote as a child. Apart from this exhibit, a covered walkway stretched between two buildings of the museum, overlooking the festival. There, live music from opposing bands leaked inside from the grounds below; within, children assaulted Kotche’s instruments at the end of the hall, producing sounds rarely heard outside a Wilco record; above, a steady rain pattered on the tin

roof. It was an overwhelming cacophony: Sounds! Colors! And everywhere... Wilco! In Tweedy’s words, Solid Sound is intended as an “antidote to the big rock festivals.” Most major festivals—Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Coachella—typically feature an overwhelming number of mainstream acts: hot up-and-comers and young buzz-wonders du jour, shot into relevance by increasingly potent music-press tastemakers. By those standards, Solid Sound was undeniably lacking in bands that could rival Wilco’s relative prominence. Indeed, this was a world apart from Coachella or Bonnaroo. It was a place to bring your kids–not where your kids go to try acid for the first time. Deeper still, Wilco’s festival is an extension and manifestation of the band’s consciousness—a middle-aged pack with the eclectic palate of a younger artist. Solid Sound is drummer Kotche’s twisted, half-remembered dreams about rhythm. It is Nels Cline’s pillowy sonic experimentations with Thurston Moore. It‘s also comedy, art, and an excuse to spend a weekend in a secret fold of the country. The musicians brought their own families, and created a festival designed to appeal to kids, parents, and generations in-between There were even kitebuilding stations with Tweedy’s likeness for kids to color in). In the press, Wilco’s members usually refer to the group as a family; at Solid Sound, its fans were brought into that circle. During Wilco’s first performance the band paused for a minute between songs. Through the stage lights, Tweedy looked out at his rain-soaked disciples, then past them to the softly illuminated factory buildings of the museum, then to the backlit church spires of North Adams, and finally to the black ridges of the Berkshires, all but invisible against the night sky. “It’s kind of beautiful,” he said, with a rapturous grin. Surrounded by family, Tweedy had every reason to be happy. www.wilcoworld.net www.solidsoundfestival.com

JEFF TWEEDY AND BASSIST JOHN STIRRATT (RIGHT)

THE CONGREGATION OF ROCK AND CLASSICAL, WHERE RULES REMAIN UNSPOKEN

and harmonious: a recurring theme is a canon of rapidly bowed trills, microtones apart and purposefully out of tune, while its resonant halfway point vacillates between a pair of lush chords that simmer in suspension. As a composer, Greenwood’s employ bears semblance to that of Ligeti, who despite years of conceptual tinkering, mostly steeped in electronics, was best known as a favorite of Stanley Kubrick’s and for his scores behind The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey. But of the three pieces highlighted by this program Glass’ “Heroes” plays most like motion picture music, transplanting an overarching progression of chords or occasionally a motif from Bowie’s original tracks as a theme to be redirected. It’s more shaped by reaching strings and longer, grander gestures than it is by the composer’s notoIllustration: Christian Capestany riously shift-shaping rhythms. The Wordless Music Orchestra brought vigor and Jonny Greenwood is the youngest member of Radiohead, the only one without a college degree. warmth in its offering of Glass’ Heroes Symphony. He also happens to be composer-in-residence for The first and fourth movements—“Heroes” and “Sons of the Silent Age”—bristled with volleys of the BBC Concert Orchestra. Since being tapped for that post in 2004, arpeggios, but even these moments were eclipsed Greenwood has in some respects become a certi- by the orchestra’s poised stride throughout “Sense fied torchbearer among modern composers—and of Doubt,” its quiet passages distilled with sensiin the simplest scheme, the narrative of classical tive measure. Conducting throughout the evening music at large. He is the most visible of his peers was Brad Lubman. He teased the prickly harmonics in a practice where Steve Reich and Philip Glass from the faintest sections of Ligeti’s concerto— are relative celebrities, but at least a generation rendered by 13 members of Ensemble Signal, the ranks of which draw from Wordless Music Orchesremoved from the contemporary one. It was appropriate, then, that a sense of legacy tra. The two-night stand was part of The Wordless should underscore the US premiere of Greenwood’s “Doghouse” at the New York Society for Ethical Music Series, founded by concert Ronen Givony Culture Hall May 20th and 21st. The program both in 2006. The series fuses sensibilities from rock evenings also presented Philip Glass’ symphonic and electronica with classical performance, and take on David Bowie’s 1977 album Heroes, as well as has featured the Wordless Music Orchestra as its the avant-garde composer György Ligeti’s “Cham- “house band” since 2008 when they also gave Greenwood’s “Popcorn Superhet Receiver” a similar ber Concerto,” for 13 instrumentalists. Both works and composers share common debut stateside. Greenwood’s footing in the classical world has ground with the Radiohead guitarist and his piece. Tension is a segue within the movements of drawn attention to it in much the same way as Ligeti’s concerto, a creeping exploration of tempo Givony’s series seeks to. In fans of Radiohead or and wispy timbres. Greenwood’s “Doghouse” forges his film scores—the soundtrack to There Will Be a linear path through terrain alternately uneasy Blood remains his best known, and most consis-

THE WORDLESS MUSIC SERIES SHOWCASED WORKS BY JONNY GREENWOOD, GYÖRGY LIGETI AND PHILIP GLASS.

tently enthrallingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Greenwood has brought new ears with nonpareil success. The orientation of those fans was unmistakable during Saturday eveningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s performance. Dubious applause interrupted the silence between movements of the pieces by Glass and Ligeti. The latter began with a false start, halted by Lubman as mounting frustration with those late to return from intermission was tipped by an unfortunate clang of beer bottles in the halls outside. The conductor appeared livid, but dissolved the frustration with witâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;this was the day the world had been purported to end and he wondered aloud whether the rapture was, at last, upon us. With the order classical imposes upon its audience restored, the music proceeded. It was a brief but telling hiccup: As enterprising movements like Wordless Music make a strong case for blurred boundaries between rock and orchestral realms, they underline that, in performance, certain lines remain intact. www.wordlessmusic.org

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BEN SOLLEE AT MUSIC HALL OF WILLIAMSBURG • JUNE 29, 2011 PHOTO CREDIT: FINRAZ

MOVING THE LOUNGE OUTDOORS, AND AROUND THE WORLD THE ELECTRONIC OUTFIT THIEVERY CORPORATION LAUNCHED AN INTERNATIONAL TOUR IN BROOKLYN, CELEBRATING ITS SIXTH ALBUM WITH A MASSIVE PRODUCTION. Photos: Finraz Thievery Corporation, the trip-hop troupe that follows DJ-founders Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, landed on the Williamsburg Waterfront on June 24th. The concert kicked-started the electronic outfit’s current run of shows, which has them on both sides of the Atlantic in support of the recently released Culture of Fear (ESL Music). Since 1995, Thievery Corporation has solidified its status as a mogul of engaging lounge music, but as Culture of Fear only underscores, the group had its best argument with The Mirror Conspiracy in 2000. That LP housed “Lebanese Blonde,” the sitar-based groove that made a case for Indo-hip-hop well before mash-ups hit the web and proceeded to dangle just about anything over a rap beat. Lately, Thievery Corporation has embraced keyboard- and guitar-bred atmosphere—and with it, a more politically subversive bent. 2008’s Radio Retaliation served up some polemics that honed in on the International Money Fund. Culture of Fear touts similar aspirations but with scattered calls to arms that undersell the concepts at work. “Culture of fear is up in your ear, they tellin’ us terrorists about to strike, maybe tonight. Right”, raps Mr. Lif early in the album. Later, singer Ras Puma toasts to brotherhood in his thick, Jamaican cadence: “I don’t care for religion, but you’re still my brother

ERIC HILTON (LEFT) AND ROB GARZA (TOP), THE SONIC ARCHITECTS BEHIND THIEVERY CORPORATION

no matter your decision.” In between comes little to advance the threads that these songs only begin to unspool. During its show in Brooklyn, Thievery Corporation’s politics were similarly squishy. Small cameras were affixed to guitar-heads and around the stage, never explained but presumably a reference to the album’s cover and Big Brother complex. The guesting D.C. pair Organized Chaos polled the audience for its ‘empowered’ members before fizzling altogether in an ill-timed acoustic version of “Free,” off Culture of Fear. There was little offered up by either of the group’s masterminds either: Garza and Hilton remained tucked behind their turntables and keyboards, flanked onstage by two drummers, a guitarist, a bassist and at least one vocalist at any given point. Garza did emerge briefly for some nonessential strumming, but the brunt of the work was left to the vigorous rhythm section and the glut of vocalists that shuffled through the set. The rappers and singers were an interchangeable mouthpiece for the dance-driven undercurrent; it touched the Caribbean, the Middle East, North India, and more of the Caribbean—dancehall and reggae ruled the evening. But those colorations never transcended decoration. While Garza and Hilton retained tight control on the dance pulse, there was always plenty of motion to behold, the bustle of Thievery Corporation’s production reminiscent of a circus—albeit it one without a ringleader. www.thieverycorporation.com Raphael Saadiq played an unlikely opener, and built a sharp set that mostly drew from his exuberant and duly-praised Stone Rollin’. As the centerpiece, Saadiq was an able charmer: gregarious, strutting, and—in “Good Man,” the best song of his set—a stung, double-crossed lover.

BASSIST ASHISH VYAS (LEFT), SISTER PAT (TOP), AND GARZA (BOTTOM).

RAEKWON AT PROSPECT PARK JULY 9, 2011 PHOTO CREDIT: JOSHUA SARNER

IN HARLEM, REVERBERATIONS FROM AFAR RETURNED FROM A FESTIVAL CIRCUIT IN MOROCCO, THE BAND TIMBILA PLAYED WELL-WORN ORIGINALS AND SPIRITED NEW ONES. Photos: William Farrington The group known as Timbila is not as foreign or unusual in theory as it proves to be in sound. Mixing and matching traditional, even ethnic

SINGER AND MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST NORA BALABAN (LEFT) AND BASS PLAYER DIRCK WESTERVELT ABOVE: GUITARIST BANNING EYRE PLAYS FOR LOUISA BRADSHAW instruments, as Timbila does, within a Western rock band fabric has spawned many creative sounds in indie circles of late: Joanna Newsom, Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, Beirut or even Tune-Yards have flung Balkan brass, ukuleles, accordions and harps into the ever-splintering sensibility of popular folk. An Afropop amalgam, Timbila is of a different piece altogether. And its distinguishing features are the ones it gave voice during an evening at Farafina Café in Harlem last June. The band’s identity stems from the timbila, a Mozambican xylophone: It provides the centerpiece of the group’s arrangement onstage and is equally center to the vibrant spirit that pilots the music. Played by Nora Balaban, one of Timbila’s two

singers, the so-named instrument rings heavily and with muddled intonation. If it pitted the group with technical obstacles, they were imperceptible during the five-piece’s two sets at the small world music club. Agile and light in humor, the band’s songs rise and dip in animated tempos and frequently major keys. “The Trader” arrived early, its ebullient guitar frills a backdrop for Balaban and harmonizer Louisa Bradshaw’s vocals. Its lyrics poeticize a laundry list exchanges that, at times, reads heavy—“I sold / My breasts to wild men in Borneo”–though Balaban and Bradshaw’s cheeky delivery at Farafina made other lines like, “I sold my husband to a hand of gin,” appear more the emotional backbone. The timbila was played in half of the band’s songs, which were usually the more invigorated takes. When not singing and playing, Balaban is a sight of absorbed physicality: swaying and walloping her wooden planks, as if to remain audible in the mix—though her instrument had its own microphone. She also played the mbira, a thumbplucked piano on a wooden plank small enough to be handheld. In either case, Balaban’s instruments played the role a rhythm guitar might, chiming arpeggios or blocked chords with a vital mid-range. The group sang most of its songs in English, though some dipped into Shona and

Chopi, languages tied to both southern African instruments and their respective traditions. A troop of Americans, the core of Timbila meshed over ten years ago in Zimbabwe when Balaban, still studying her instruments, met guitarist Banning Eyre and the bassist Dirck Westervelt. Since then, the songs and lineup have undergone expansion and shifts. In its current form Timbila performs with accented crispness, highlighted by the band’s unexpected breaks and hits in forceful numbers like “Remembering the Future.” But the sensation that permeated Timbila’s performance was one of sharing. It was a frequent scene: Balaban playing her mbira while sauntering over to guitarist Eyre during a jubilant solo. A player who appears to enjoy every note he plays—and hears—Eyre created interesting arcs, unfettered by the eighth-note consistency in rhythm that West African style commands. He interlaced syncopated stops and starts in satisfying doses, embodying them with zest. The enjoyment those brought to his band was transparent, and underlined the extent to which nonverbal communication and an interest in the statements of other players shaped the notes themselves. www.reverbnation.com/timbila

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Las Night on Earth wih

he path walked by Jennifer Charles and Oren Bloedow, who together form Elysian Fields, has long been their own.

The duo has had a reliable cradle in New York’s underground scene since the nineties, when it harbored budding notables like Jeff Buckley. In 1995 Elysian Fields released their first studio record, Bleed Your Cedar, on Universal. Delicate in its finest moments and occasionally bracing during spells of swinging rock, it remains a definitive album. More pivotal, perhaps, was Elysian Fields’ follow-up, which didn’t sit well with the major label. Instead of rewriting the songs, Bloedow and Charles moved on, parting with both Universal and the rights to the their own album—it remains unreleased. In the decade that followed the two built a considerable following in France and Europe at large. Throughout this same period, both Charles and Bloedow were given to an abundance of collaborations. Together they cut two albums of Sephardic folk music, invoking Middle Eastern and Northern sects of Jewish diaspora, as La Mar Enfortuna. Charles recorded with French singer-songwriter Jean-Louis Murat and lent her breathy vocal-purr to Lovage, the only album by the trip-hop collective of the same name. Bloedow, meanwhile, remains a sought-after guitarist; his ever-expanding network includes notables like Ed Pastorini, John Medeski, and Meshell Ndegeocello.

Elysian Fields released several records on their self-start Diluvian imprint during the 2000s. These expanded the scope of the duo’s sultry lounge-rock, now as harmonically indebted to jazz as it is to Mediterranean forms. But that development finds new corners and crevices to fill in Last Night On Earth (Ojet), the pair’s latest and grandest statement. Supporting Charles’ surreal romanticism—at its height in the closing title-track—is a variety of arrangements to color her suggestive coo: she’s imposing yet flexible in the free-swinging blues of “Red Riding Hood”; transfixed during the mandolin-driven ballad “Johnny”; curliing around and within the lines of strings and horns that drive “Sweet Condenser” and “Chance.” Last Night On Earth was celebrated with a record release show at the twosome’s favored downtown club, Le Poisson Rouge, on June 14th. It was a massive cast of musical friends that joined Jennifer and Oren, rotating in and out from song to song, each recreating the parts they’d recorded on the album. In the weeks that followed, the auteurs behind Elysian Fields weighed in on the show, their sixth album, and other plans. When we last caught you at Le Poisson Rouge, Last Night on Earth was still being written. And you mentioned you’d been composing in Brooklyn’s Botanical Gardens—which songs? : “Villain On The Run” and “Old Old Wood.” In both cases, Jennifer had part of the vocal before we sat down together. That’s not unusual at all, although our tunes are also born from me playing something she likes on the guitar or piano, and she just starts improvising along. She can get really surprising yardage towards a final draft of a vocal in one unbroken streak; most of “Only For Tonight” (from The Afterlife, 2009) was improvised on the spot. You can hear that kind of flow at the end of ‘Villain’, but most of what happened in the gardens was the careful construction-side of our work. The environment was definitely conducive to the grateful, positive feelings that hopefully come through in each of these tunes.

You spoke during an interview in France about the album’s thematic trajectory, moving from youth through adulthood and relationships. How organic was that?

J: This pattern was only really discovered during the sequencing of the record. When we’re writing songs we’re not trying to make them fit into a specific larger family, we don’t really need to, as they are ours, so they are inherently our family, our children, no matter how individuated one may seem from another. We always kind of let the songs write themselves, patterns are noticed later—like dissecting a flower. “Sleepover” (perhaps the last song written) was written maybe a year after “Red Riding Hood” (one of the first songs). Jennifer, were the lyrics in those opening two songs drawn from personal experiences? Taking the album at once, there’s a progression in characterizations of male figures that shifts from threatening (the man with the razor, the Big Bad Wolf) to more complex relationships, where freedom and love are more an emotional center (“Chandeliers”)?

J: I think as we’re growing up our perspec-

tives can shift and grow. When we’re small, the world is even a more mysterious place than it already naturally is. We have no real scale, so what we can’t measure can scare us as children. “Sleepover” isn’t so much about the world of men being evil; it’s about children, children finding their way, little girls scaring each other at a slumber party, trying on their power. It’s about the first time being separated from our safe home and bed to the outside world and all its potential dangers. As we grow up, we begin to embrace the mystery, and even play with it. “Red Riding Hood”: Is The Wolf tracking Red, or is she hunting him? The later songs express some aspects of deeper and more mature love, and in the last song, “Last Night On Earth,” love may have travelled from beloveds to beyonds, outside of one self—an otherworldly or spiritual love. Perhaps it’s all the same thread.

Oren, you sing as The Wolf in “Red Riding Hood.” During the album release concert you sang it with a bluesy take, as opposed to the grumbling album-version—why?

O: Well, I do get tired of things easily. Jennifer

was originally singing both verses of this song— and more recently I’m thinking we should have stuck with that. Perhaps later performances will have her back in both roles. Nobody can beat her as the Big Bad Wolf. What were the challenges of playing the album live, in sequence? Were you really able to rehearse with all of the musicians that were on that stage before the actual show?

O: Ha! People were so kind and accommodat-

ing. Unfortunately, they are all very, very busy so we didn’t manage to meet up with a good number of them before the sound check. But thanks to the incredible professionalism of AJ, Doug, Katie S, Max, Dana, Thomas, Ed, Jeremy, Rob J, Matt, Parker, Rob DP, Kenneth, Danny, Mattison and JGT, we had a smooth ride. And as usual, I made the lion’s share of mistakes onstage. Oren, you mentioned plans for either a studio or a club when we saw you last fall. What’s the latest with that?

haps there is less income disparity over there and better access to equal education, creating a larger pool of concertgoers. Otherwise it seems like both places have their share of sensitive types and meatheads. Will we hear anything new from La Mar Enfortuna in the near future?

O: I do in fact have a cool idea for the next La

Mar collection. I hope to begin researching it soon. Perhaps “near future” would be a stretch. Jennifer, you’ve sung in an array of languages—Ladino Arabic, Greek, and Spanish among them—how did your multilingual capabilities develop?

J: I have always been drawn to languages, for

language is just music to me. I might say I was fluent in none, but speaking in tongue. I suppose in the scholarly sense I’m fluent in Spanish and English. I studied Latin when I was young. When I am immersed in a culture I will start to pick up the language there; while in Turkey I would speak some Turkish; when in France for a longer stretch, the French starts coming through—especially after a couple glasses of wine. But when I’m away from practicing, it slips. And as you know I like to sing in other languages. I listen to most : In fact, I am still working on getting this records with vocals in other languages than Engplace open. It’s called The Owl and will showcase lish. It’s all sound, inflection… music. members of the greater Elysian Fields family.

What comparisons can you offer up between your French or European audience with the American one?

J: Certainly there are different varieties of

subcultures, but when it comes to Elysian Fields listeners, I see a largely shared sensibility the world over. It’s quite beautiful to witness and experience.

O: I love playing for anyone that’s come with an open mind and heart. The key difference seems to be greater arts subsidization in Europe at the national and local level. Along with that, per-

w w w.elysianmusic.com

For Willem Maker, life”s questions, hells, art forms and ecstasies are all bound to the recording studio. Now that the southern songwriter has completed a trilogy of albums with his finest LP to date, the man The New York Times called ‘the best country rock singer-songwriter from East Alabama whom you have never heard of’ is ready to move on—where to, he can”t say.

Willem Maker bellows this question, half-singing, halfgrowling his way out in front of the evolving symphony of guitars, drums, bass and pianos in “The Freq.” It’s an interesting question for Maker to ask; as a songwriter, dreams are a formative root of his craft. They are also paramount to the album that “The Freq” in many ways initiates. Agapao, Willem Maker’s third solo-album, is one full of belted multilevel questions—exultations too—all of them deriving their impact from Maker’s full-throated conviction. That voice is the most immediately arresting ingredient in his music; it commands your ears more so than it bends them. There’s the register: deep and burly, lending granular heft to the blues within Maker’s stripe of country rock. Then there’s the character he shapes from that low-end, gravelly but never hoarse. It’s in this spirit that Maker distorts his words or leaves them unfinished, with a sense for timing that falls just behind the beat. On his recently released album, Agapao, the instrumentation can grow as husky as Maker’s vocals. He has a

‘ARE YOU A DREAMER?’ 22222222222222222222222

from his porch in the wooded hills near Ranburne Alabama. Maker, 37, confesses that he’d like to leave his solo career behind and return to playing live, as he’s still in the midst of an indefinite break from the stage. “When I was playing out it was solo,” he says, his voice a low, soft rumble. He last hit the road for a proper tour in 2009, driving himself across the country opening shows for fellow bluesman Bob Log III. Handling things on his own has been Maker’s modus operandi for some time now. Since 2003, when Maker began what would become his first album, Stars Fell On (Fat Possum), he’s called his Foxhole studio home. That’s because he built it himself—in his house on Turkey Heaven Mountain. Stars Fell On was a pseudo-solo effort, recorded at the Foxhole with help from an old bandmate and pal Walt Entrekin on drums. And it shows. Stars is homogenous, a powerful but less-refined record of the mystic blues and gospel that swim together in Maker’s more recent compositions, its rugged garage-rock arrangements pulled along by tangled guitars. “It was a jailbreak: it wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done,” he muses.

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I could write the words and a few months later the music for those words could come. That”s happened enough where I don”t think it”s coincidence; they belong together. lot to raise his voice above, and it’s his own doing: Willem Maker recorded and played every instrument on Agapao, a detail that not only enhances its grandeur—sometimes massive and cacophonous, other times serenely powerful—but explains the crossroads at which the creator now finds himself. “I’m kind of burnt out on the studio,” he says with a laugh, reflecting

Maker quickly began work on his second album during 2008. At this time the home-studio was still a work in progress; he recorded a handful of tracks there for the second long-play, New Moon Hand, before heading to Nashville and later Memphis, where Maker completed the majority of the record with the local crop of session musicians in producer Scott Bomar’s

FEATURE

Electraphonic Studio. “A month or two after I got done with New Moon Hand, I would have never said I was going to do a one-man record [laughs], just because of how painful the first one was.” But around the time Maker returned from touring, he completed his Foxhole studio. Walls once stained with animal blood—the house’s prior owner was a trapper, and cleaned hides in the room—were now seated with 150-year-old heart pine. It wasn’t long before the itch returned: “I had everything laying around, and I started thinking about taking the plunge,” he says. By the fall of 2009, Maker began writing and recording what would become his most intricate and ambitious studio record. He kicked into high gear last May after the bottom of the well came into sight, he remembers with a laugh: “I really dove into it in a way I never have before.” That’s not really a cliché, either. To build the denser moments in Agapao, Maker player built his skill to passable on an array of instruments—drums, banjo, the low-murmuring djembe, an African drum. This arsenal fuels the album’s heavy rollers, like “The Freq,” the herky-jerk blues “Revival 6,” or the selfstyled gospel tunes “Yeah,” “On High On” and “Gulf Of Mexico.” Says Maker, “There were all these firsts; I had no idea if it was going to be worth taking to a studio when I was done.” Yet Agapao, as crowded as it can be, never favors texture over the energy teeming the album—what Maker describes as the feel of a performance. The variety in sound is rejuvenating in its loudest moments and harmonious in the soft spots. Maker’s methods were alternate, “I heard harmonica on ‘Holy Spark,’” he claims—so he went out, bought a few, and built the rudimentary chops to give the country-stroll “what it needed.” When not so suddenly inspired, Maker describes finding a “backbone,” be it a melody or bassline, and wandering around his den, experimenting with instruments “until just intuitively something would come out that took the song to a new place.” If there’s one track that charts such a voyage it’s “The Freq.” Building off a sim-

ple guitar-undertow, Maker’s gruff tête-àtête —“Hello, to whom would you like to speak? / Home? Home you say? / Yes, yes, just one moment please”—finds increasing competition, first in plunks of parlor room piano, later in coiling slide guitars and a stubborn organ riff. As absorbing as the instrumental dialogue is the one in the lyrics. “I think it goes both ways,” Maker suggests, not claiming total comprehension, “In the first line, who’s calling who?” As “The Freq” builds in muscle Maker’s howls grows more intense, as do the verses: invoking technicolor rain, warm wood stoves that are guarded by giant fox squirrels, and mirrors that work. Lines like that last one, and the one asking, “Can you find your hands?” are tips Maker culled from his reading about achieving higher consciousness while dreaming. Dreams are a fount for the journalwork that often finds its way into a Willem Maker song. He calls “Holy Spark” a dreamsong, the music formed to its verses. But as formative as dreams were, the majority of Agapao’s lyrics came from concentrated effort—scribbling on sheets that eventually found themselves tacked together. “You try to catch as much of that feeling when it first comes into being,” Maker explains, “You recognize it’s coming in—sometimes it makes the hair stand up on your arm. I could write the words and a few months later the music for those words could come. That’s happened enough where I don’t think it’s coincidence; they belong together. I’ll be playing the music and I can literally see the page where I’ve written that stuff down, and then I go to it and sure enough it’ll fit.” Maker endeavored like this well into the summer of last year, balancing writing with recording still-developing tunes on a daily basis—undeterred, even by the merciless heat of the Deep South. “I couldn’t bring the air conditioner or anything like that in the place,” he says. “It was recording with no clothes on, or… [laughs].” That image of Maker—resolute, grinding, sweaty–becomes increasingly apt as the mastermind goes on to describe the thematic core of Agapao and the larger work it forms.

In his late teens Maker was beset by a succession of illnesses, initiated by chronic mono and culminating in what he terms, a spiritual emergency. “Western doctors would say a psychotic break,” he says with a chuckle. “I was tossed in a hospital for three weeks. It resembled a manic outbreak, but I snapped out of it in a real abnormal way and remembered everything, which went against the grain of a bi-polar or manic-depressive diagnosis.” Two years later, it happened again. Once more, he pulled out of it— again he was given no diagnosis. After moving through a network of chiropractors and holistic doctors, Maker arrived at a therapist he now calls a lifesaver. When yet another fit took place, Willem relates being able to stay grounded with her support. “And it never happened again,” he says, “Whatever was trying to flush out of me those other two times, I couldn’t handle it. It was total chaos.” Like countless others who lived in Carrollton, GA in the seventies, Maker grew up in a toxic environment. He explains how after 1970, Southwire, a massive copper manufacturer, paid the county’s farmers to bury its copper slag in their fields. The backfill created deadly foundations for houses like the one Maker lived in as a teen, its driveway, back porch, and basement—where he spent almost all of his time—lined with the plant’s aftereffects. “I don’t feel like I represent [the story] well enough,” Maker says, keen to include that information on the effect of dioxins—airborne toxins released by smelting refineries like Southwire, who the EPA determined to have an output topping any other manufacturer in the nation—is still coming to light. Understanding how dioxins may have compounded with the metal poisoning is a struggle, Maker explains, with testing expensive and facilities few and far between. “Songwriting is a way to move

FEATURE

past all that. But I think it’s important to the story, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t talk about it at all.” In New Moon Hand, Maker explicitly confronts the poisoning: “There’s copper slag buried in the hallowed ground / By our father’s hand, in our mother’s land,” he sings in the rhythmic and venomous “Lead and Mercury,” later snarling, “Cold blood runs on cash over care”. In “Saints Weep

of the record,” he says smoothly. In deciding how to articulate and express such an enveloping sensation, the answer was unavoidable: “There was no way to really do that in anymore a potent fashion than by myself.” Agapao opens at the point of revelation. “Your time has come,” Maker sings in “The Changelin’,” the first track on the album. From there, the light shines through. In

‘Whenever you dive into any type of passion, you run into obstacles and things that challenge your original intent. That”s what this record became to me: “I don”t have the money to do this. I”m gonna do it all myself.” It”s a representation of what brings me joy more than anything else, my passion.’ Wine,” he’s less vehement: “Leave the fever in the past / Time will bend, love will last.” That last sentiment is something Maker might call the ‘light’ when discussing his music. To Maker, New Moon Hand alternates between light and dark, bracing his past but recognizing the internal strength it fostered. Afterward, he had no desire to delve into both: “I just wanted this to be as much of the good news as possible,” he says about Agapao. “I wanted it to be like a collection of heart songs.” Maker remembers being struck by the idea for Agapao while returning from a set he played for Daytrotter, the upstart music-site showcasing lesser-covered artists and based outside Chicago. “I was driving through Illinois cornfields. I just started thinking about growing up, and the farm and home,” he remembers, the sight conjuring his grandfather’s farm, where Maker spent much of his childhood—on Agape Rd. “That word stuck in my head. When I got home I wrote it out.” Research led to the word that became the title of his third album. Agapao, the verb, is one of several ancient Greek terms for love—its meanings and derivations have only splintered through time. For Maker, agapao’s connotations of love, heart and home were an uncanny fit for the concept he’d begun to formulate. “When that word came in I just knew that was the title

“1001” he wraps blues lore together with the album’s warm embrace, “In muddy waters, and crystal blues / It’s all here for you, I’m here for you.” He hatched “I Was Dead Inside (Aha)” after the tube in his amp blew; Maker replaced it, only to hear a tone more stark and vivid than the day he bought it—he liked the symbolism. Then there’s “Yeah,” a tousled chantey that grows and swells behind Maker’s call to “Rest in peace.” But that’s not intended to strike a morbid chord, Maker clarifies, “I’ve always liked to think of it as good advice for the living as well.” Like its predecessor, Agapao is rounded out by spare balladry that moves and grows with a slow grace. Warm acoustic undulations and sighing slide-twang orbit Maker’s sinewy sermon in “Rosalie,” the final track on New Moon Hand; on Agapao there’s “Sol,” a harmonica-swept poem about time’s passage—but before that comes the glimmering title-track that a peaceful listen, or one with headphones, reveals to include the drone of crickets. “Blessings to the world, and pinecone agapao,” he declares. When prodded about the line’s significance, Maker professes, “I didn’t even care if that word ever popped up.” But it did, spontaneously, sending the writer to the web. A quick search revealed—still does— that pinecones were emblems of eternity in the alchemy of the Middle Ages. “Pinecone,

THE LYRICS TO “SOL,” THE FINAL TRACK ON AGAPAO. “I’M AS OBSESSED WITH THE LOOK OF WORDS AS I AM WITH THE SOUND OF THEM,” MAKER SAYS. THESE PAGES ARE WHAT HE READ FROM WHILE RECORDING, AND ARE AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD ON HIS SITE.

to me, represented an eternal love,” Maker allows, “Which is agapao, really. In some circles, that’s what it represents.” It also forms a point of connection with the nature Maker includes on the titletrack. “That’s what I hear when I walk out my back door,” he says, adding that the closing bars feature the yap of a local woodpecker: “When you’re recording by yourself, there’s bound to be… an invasion [laughs].” That intrusion explains the feathers protruding from Maker’s hands in the meticulously illustrated image on the cover of Agapao. As with his last album, Maker enlisted German artist Christoph Mueller for a wildly ingenious sleeve design, overflowing with signifiers from the music’s verses. “The CD just doesn’t do it justice,” Maker gushes, “I hope one day it’ll come out on vinyl. [Mueller] told me he’s never done that many individual lines on a drawing.” If ever an album were deserving of vinyl pressings, purely for its cover, it’s Agapao.

Currently though, there are only 1000 physical CD-copies of the album. Maker isn’t signed to a label and is instead selling Agapao from his Makerworks webspace—a reminder that no matter the initiative and virtue, a one-man enterprise has its limits. “Whenever you dive into any type of passion, you run into obstacles and things that challenge your original intent,” he says in his Georgia-reared cadence. “That’s what this record became to me: ‘I don’t have the money to do this. I’m gonna do it all myself.’ It’s a representation of what brings me joy more than anything else, my passion.” It also functions as a period to the sentence he’s crafted with his albums. “I’m ready to leave the solo behind,” Maker admits. “It just feels like it’s time for change on all fronts.” When asked what that means, he’s uncertain but suggests immersing himself in a new scene. “I don’t see it happening here,” he replies, bringing up Austin as a favorite city. Taking stock of this period, Maker outlines his records as a trilogy. “There’s a lot of unhappiness. Like, ‘I gotta get out of here,’ wherever here is,” he says of Stars Fell On, “Then the next one is walking through the Valley in the Shadow.” He expounds, calling New Moon Hand a “desert record,” adding, “Whatever you’re walking through—your own valley—that record is reaching for whatever it is that makes you keep walking, even if it’s just this sense that there’s something better over the hill.” For Maker, Agapao is that mountaintop. And with it finished, he details a sense of closure: free of “whatever had gotten inside and was brewing for so long, starting with Stars.” After a thoughtful pause, he continues, “New Moon Hand and the first one were really cathartic. But I didn’t feel like I represented the lighter side of those events—or that part of myself—enough.” That’s the design, the self-portrait, at the heart of Agapao. “It’s not a gospel record in the traditional sense,” he says, “But it’s my kind of gospel record.”

www.makerworks.com

FEATURE

NEW ALBUMS INCLUSIONS Ben Sollee

If Ben Sollee didn’t have a voice, his fingers would do the talking. Inclusions (Thirty Tigers), the follow-up to his jarringly excellent 2008 solo debut Learning to Bend, further proves the point: the robust cast of woodwinds, keys, strings, and percussion is anchored by Sollee’s distinct cello, which moans, jives, soothes, and cries its way into the album’s heart. While he plays several instruments—his credits on Inclusions include robot organ, autoharp, lap steel, and tenor banjo—his cello is his soul’s pipeline. Happily, however, Sollee does have a voice—along with something to say. The rich timbre of his vocals effortlessly complements the warmth of his cello, and together, the two make an exquisite pair, relaying anecdotes and heart-worn empathy with a humanist’s tenderness and an artist’s finesse. “Close to You” sets the album’s

tone. Throughout, dissonant chords mirror the human flaws he’s exposing. But like those chords, there’s something hauntingly beautiful about our underbelly. As Sollee croons, “When am I gonna learn it ain’t about me… / It’s about you,” he captures the hazy hope and frustration of recognizing a solution but knowing it’s still out of reach—perhaps even perpetually so. “Embrace,” a stripped down gem featuring only Sollee and his cello, is gentle self-deprecation—not offered to elicit laughs, but as a raw confessional that’s part prayer, part plea. Throughout Inclusions, selfrighteous finger-pointing is kept at bay. In Sollee’s songs, “I,” “you,” “he,” and “she” each fall short—and we are all implicated. Jangly pop and jazz play give and take as Sollee borrows from gospel, bluegrass and folk to create cohesive palette that is refreshingly and truly sui generis. Duality—and sympathy for the head-scratching it creates— bubbles up again and again throughout Inclusions. “The

Globe” is a reference to Shakespeare’s theatrical home, parlayed into a study on the bipolarity of love: “‘Cause some days it’s a fountain / Or an artisan well / Sometimes it’s a bag of bricks / Or some kind of spell.” In “Captivity” and “I Need,” he explores perspective, pointing out that it empowers the individual even as it impedes our understanding of one another. Inclusions isn’t Sollee’s search for society’s philosophers’ stone. He’s captured the paradox of our contemporary condition, and instead of despairing, he nods to its absurdity and celebrates its splendor—an accomplishment perhaps most fully realized in “Electrified”: “If your heart is unsteady, they can make it beat in time / If your mind is confused, it can be clarified / If you’re old-fashioned, you will be modernized / Everything is electrified.” Awestruck optimism melts into ominous declaration, leaving you transfixed, and ultimately, electrified. By: Elisabeth Dawson

REVELATOR

Tedeschi Trucks Band

An eleven-piece southern jam band certainly verges on the excessive. But for a group founded on principles of improvisation, the massive Tedeschi Trucks Band crafts its music with startling balance and intent. In its brightest segments the troop’s first studio release, Revelator (Sony), can be dizzying one moment and serenely elegant the next, but while soulful rhythm and blues are a cohesive cloth, there’s as much deflated intonation as there is razor-sharp harmony, making Revelator unnecessarily redundant and overlong. The opening track “Come See About Me” is the group at its most lively. An introductory riff spills from acoustic to full-on electricrock swagger, with singer Susan Tedeschi alternating similarly across each verse. In this and her other best, most muscular moments Tedeschi evokes Bonnie Raitt, though nowhere on Rev-

elator does she betray the playful strain rounding out Raitt’s charisma. Yet Tedeschi is never overpowered by her supporting players—they’re too responsive, and she has plenty of resilience to her voice. But there’s a degree of gravity missing from her vocals, which too often struggle to suggest depth. “I know it just ain’t right, holdin’ onto you so tight,” she bellows in “Until You Remember,” not so much desperate as polite. If nothing else, Tedeschi provides a steady anchor for the ensemble. “Midnight in Harlem” is a breezy opus that’s better suited to her gravitas than the similarly hued “Until You Remember.” In the former track the band outfits her vocals with delicate organ warble and lithe interjections from Trucks’ slide-guitar. The result is not only Tedeschi’s best take on the record, but perhaps its finest track. As for the singer’s counterpart, a world-class bluesman as invested in the fretwork of Elmore James as that of Ali Akbar Khan, Derek Trucks has

never struggled in making his voice a distinguished one. Even as Trucks diverts the limelight on this album, his supporting lines are unmissable: tight knots, at once slippery and driving toward a perceptible endpoint. His is a rallying call on the bulky grooves of “Learn How to Love,” the coyly titled “Don’t Let Me Slide,” and the majestic “These Walls.” Rockish leaning of these three and other songs notwithstanding, Revelator showcases a more expansive scope than the last full-length the guitarist made with his own band, Already Free. An assertive, even sanguine statement of swampy folk, gospel and Southern R&B, that album now appears more a steppingstone for the Tedeschi Trucks Band’s immense debut, a thick set that plods between it’s dazzling highpoints.

NEW ALBUM REVIEWS 41

RITUAL UNION Little Dragon

The third album by Little Dragon, Ritual Union (Peacefrog) arrives at a crucial stage of the Swedish quartet’s steady rise. After a two-year stretch of diverse collaborations—from Raphael Saadiq to Maximum Balloon, to pivotal guest spots on Gorillaz’s Plastic Beach and SBTRKT’s rumbling “Wildfire,” appropriated and disseminated anew by hip-hop superstar Drake—Little Dragon is now saddled with its largest audience ever. Ritual Union is the group’s first address to that newfound following, and popularity. In that capacity the album speaks with concentrated creativity. It opens with the rollicking momentum mounted by 2009’s Machine Dreams, yet with a more constrained attack beneath singer Yukimi Nagano. The result of its production, reticent yet dynamic, is an insular dance-mode where Nagano’s svelte croon steers the music as definitively as in Little Dragon’s eponymous debut. The already released singles do

a considerable amount of legwork. “Ritual Union” is a shimmering jog through some of Nagano’s best poetry: “Love is not like they say,” she sings coolly, ruminating on marriage: “I drown my feelings in the sea, then dry out over on the beach.” Flitting modal synths and melodies over a magnetic dance-thud, “Nightlight” is far meatier than anything else here, and conspicuous in a second half that’s more textural than driving pop. That Ritual Union is at times compelling through its back end is testament to Little Dragon’s knack for subtlety: in “Crystalfilm” a simple pulse takes a backseat to the sifting sands of reverb from which Nagano’s lyrics rise and collapse; “Summertearz” embellishes its repetitive refrain with atmosphere reminiscent of Radiohead—and sampled swipes of strings that evoke the pipa, a traditional Chinese lute. But where Little Dragon excels remains in its powerful jockeying of lively, electro-quirk grooves. They coalesce early in Ritual Union: the high-pitched bells and whistles—literally—lacing the off-kilter “Brush The Heat” or the loping rhythm of “Shuffle A Dream,” the album’s best track, initiated by a stunning sequence of tinny arpeggios and a digital stutter that warps Nagano’s entrance. But the jets aren’t ablaze for more than a handful of tracks here, and the ballast only occasionally transcends the alluring idiosyncrasies Little Dragon continues to develop.

STATE OF ART Ben Williams

Ben Williams’ first album as a bandleader is anything but a victory lap. It could have been. There’s a not-so-unspoken consensus that the 27-year old is classed in the elite echelon of modern bass players—that’s been cemented by preferred treatment from Roy Hargrove, Herbie Hancock, and Wynton Marsalis, among others. Williams was also named winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition two years ago, a feat that allowed him the means to this debut on Concord Jazz, which he’s titled State of Art. Throughout, Williams finds support from members of his working quintet, Sound Effect, as well as select guests. They offer a holistic approach and sound, establishing a smooth-jazz palette in the opening tracks. Electric piano and guitar collect in dulcet tones without commanding the direction of any of the first three songs. Alto saxophonist Marcus

Strickland hardly strays from the sweet, middle range of his horn—even while blazing a path apart from the terse melody of opener “Home.” And then there’s “The Lee Morgan Story,” a reprehensible rap-bio of the titular trumpet icon, conceived at least in good intentions; it flops under guest rapper John Robinson’s illconceived couplets: “He lived with passion, his heart pumped music / His father was his first true inspiration to do it.” In execution, that track is an outlier here. It does however tap the revivalism at play throughout State of Art, conjuring the bygone era when jazz intersected with rap for more meaningful results—consult De La Soul, The Pharcyde, or A Tribe Called Quest. Mostly though, it’s timbres like those in “Things Don’t Exist,” originally by soul singer Goapele and reworked here as a sopranosax feature, that underline the agreeable air Williams is after with this record. His arrangement of “Moonlight in Vermont,” the only standard here, is a thin but elegant finale, prodded along by the bassist’s gentle current. Surprisingly, there’s range within such unruffled temperament. Williams pushes an aggressive pace in “November,” “Mr. Dynamite,” and the adaptation of Michael Jackson’s sweeping “Little Susie”. The non-standards are plenty, and they effectively embrace soul and funk. The chemistry in these covers proves as cohesive and sturdy as it is within Williams’ own composi-

tions, making the bassist’s first a patently shushed but consistently plush body of songs. State of Art settles into a nook that’s anything but complacent: warmly nostalgic, yet ripe with creativity.

LOO NEY BIN

You Had Me At: Did I mention Mancini looked like James Bond? Worth Checking: All of them… Side One: Track #2, “Blue Flame” Side Two: Track #7,“The Beat”

HIT, GIT & SPLIT Young Jessie

1982, Kent Records Point of extraction: The ARChive Reason Picked: You can’t beat the title. Sounds Like: • A less-congenial Chuck Berry • Rough and tumble R&B: no crooning, just howling: “Should I hit ‘em in the head with a bottle Henry Mancini of beer? Or should I hit him in his 1960, RCA Records ear so that he can’t hear? • Misogynist blues: Point of extraction: “There used to be a time when a The ARChive of Contemporary woman couldn’t vote / She used to Music, 54 White Street, NY, NY stay at home while her man went Reason Picked: Mancini kind of out to play / She was satisfied had a Sean Connery-thing going with life in any old way / It don’t happen no more / It’s a pitiful for him—who knew? shame how the world has changed Sounds Like: Worth Checking: • Pink Panther blues Side One: Track #1, “Hit, Git & Split” • Gil Evans arrangements circa Side Two: Track #12, “Hot Dog” Birth of The Cool, but with

THE BLUES AND THE BEAT

vibraphone!

NEW ALBUM REVIEWS/LOONEY BIN 43

THE HASH

NEW SONGS CONEY ISLAND Warm Weather

in the precarious art of hushed intimacy. The just-released debut album, One By One (Motion Audio Records), is darker than the glimmer allowed by 2010’s Lament In Manifest. His lyrics in this lead single are veiled ones spilled over a rebounding acoustic guitar line; by the second verse he’s positively humming: “The saints are marching over your innocence” he sings, his voice a murmur in the last phrase. You may not know why, but by the time Reverend sings, “The price you pay is a long way home,” you believe him.

This tender gem by Warm Weather was released before the indie trio’s Dances EP, out since June. Just as sprightly, earnest and nostalgic as anything in that batch, “Coney Island” outshines with its infectious melody. “Well I had her but I let her go,” Ryan Pollie chimes, oozing a syrupy tone that’s notched up by a chorale reminiscent of The Zombies or Beach Boys; “I might forget this part of town,” Pollie goes on to sing, answered by a faint “…and her,” the last word stretched headlong into a wave of harmonies. Their crosshairs locked on the spirit minted by harmonists Michael Kiwanuka of 1960s folk rock, Warm Weather close with a nod more toward AbThe title-track from this soul bey Road than Brooklyn’s storied man’s first EP is an orchestrated park. ode to mid-seventies soul—so much so that the other songs in his introductory set sound hollow by comparison. The strings, horns Grey Reverend and winds are less than ornamental, swinging its dogged verses— Grey Reverend is the most ima two-chord vamp indebted to portant of L.D. Brown’s many Van Morrison’s most popular jazz ventures. Though the singertune—into open, major-key freesongwriter has lent his scorched dom. Here, Kiwanuka extends the baritone to multiple artists—nolineage of cool crystallized by tably The Cinematic Orchestra— fellow British crooner Sade, and Grey Reverend is his current, howls with an even keel redolent burgeoning enterprise as a soloof Bill Withers. Which is noteist. As Grey Reverend, he works worthy, since Kiwanuka is only

TELL ME A TALE

ONE BY ONE

23. “Tell me a story that I can believe,” he roars, not seething or piteous, but aching for more.

WE ALL TRY Frank Ocean

Even when he’s only handed a few bars, Frank Ocean manages to ask the big questions. “What’s a king to a god? What’s a god to a nonbeliever?” he intones on the smoldering opener to Jay Z and Kanye West’s colossal collab. Ocean’s own nostalgia, ULTRA mixtape, currently being compressed into an EP on Def Jam, is an essential set for the newly converted. On it, Ocean probes the state of marriage in America—”They don’t last enough”—over The Eagles’ “Hotel California,” and offers a slice of making it in America as a narcotic-fueled narrative (“Novacane”). He’s at his most efficient in “We All Try” though, accentuating its hypnotic current in the chorus with rhythmic changes so effortless they’re easy to miss.

BUDDY GUY

Action Bronson Queens-bred rapper Action Bronson has, with swift and short stride, crafted a personal mythology of considerable depth.

Through only two mix tapes and a full-length, all of them fantastic, there are the selfreferential nicknames—Bronsolini, Bronsoliño, Action Bernstien or Amuse Bouche; then there are the quirks, his humor a hodgepodge informed by videogames—NBA Jam gets plenty of shout outs—sexual fantasy, and sports fandom. That Bronson favors “basil” when mentioning marijuana is a telling tic: Above all, his rhyme schemes delight in food, from the gourmet to his own comically absurd creations. Those populate Dr. Lecter (selfreleased), although they’re scant here. “Buddy Guy” struts with one of the album’s grittiest samples and Bronson is focused, in competitive mode: “I’m Mickey Mantle while you motherfuckas semi-pro,” he jabs early, building steam till the third verse, where he boasts of his arsenal in triplet figures, the beat dropped to leave no question as to who’s in charge.

with Pharoah Monche, Royce da 5’9 and Talib Kweli—have been available since spring. If there’s a thread in Grae’s verses it’s an untiring drive to assert not just her ability but her priorities in this era of popular rap, one that’s dominated by the comparably perverse Nicki Minaj. “Psychopath, ride a tricycle in a biker’s club,” Grae raps here, traversing from Mike Tyson to anatomy-based threats: “Hey scatterbrain, don’t get your grey matter punched up, till you’re hunched, tucked, talking like you punch drunk.” It’s almost a progression you’d expect of Minaj, whom Grae, a stalwart of underground hip-hop since the nineties, no doubt emboldened with her pathologically and comically highbrow flow.

YOU CAN Body Language

“This lifestyle’s got me on my toes,” sings Angelica Bess in the title track of Body Language’s Social Studies EP (Om/Lavish Habits). Yet the Brooklyn-based Jean Grae f. Talib Kweli quartet could hardly sound more agreeable or at ease, their multi“Shouldn’t a left you / Without a voiced choruses an unintelligible dope beat to step to,” Jean Grae la- haze as they glue to gurgling ments early in her Cookies and Co- synths and Ian Chang’s busywork mas EP snaps a four-year drought, on the electronic drum kit. The though its best songs—co-ops EP’s opener, “You Can,” has them

UH OH

in a relatively stark form, blocking chords to its turgid breakbeat instead of stringing them out into arpeggios. Still, the group is careful not to break a sweat, with lines like “I’ve got time to kill” or “I mill about, like we all do” thrown in for good measure.

THEY COME TO GET US The Death Set Formerly a four-piece, this gaggle of Australian disco-punks lost a key member in co-founder Beau Velasco in 2009. Without replacing him, The Death Set trekked on to blaze a swath of irreverent dance-rock in their third LP, Michel Poicard (Counter/ Ninja Tune). “They Come To Get Us” isn’t in that party of tracks but it balls up all of the fever and frenzy, ramming it into a two-minute blitz. Merging punkthrash with the stormy four-onthe-floor beat perfected by the French, the trio floods these verses with nasal sneer, querying whether a “monster in the dark” is worse than having no girlfriend, or if Twilight-culture is a bigger threat to children than the crack trade.

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THE HASH

OLD SONGS 2012

dies. With “Paralyze,” there is no PS I Love You shortage of layered guitars, vocal Meet Me At The Muster Station 2010 tracks, or even anthemic violins. “I feel my face growing hot like A bruiser of a Canadian duo, PS a film strip, melting, yellowing,” I Love You grinds virtuosic gui- Clifford sings, imbuing the words tar and drum interplay against with softness and the faintest of perverse-pop ambition. Their slurs. Like the remainder of the first LP, Meet Me At The Muster album bearing this track, “ParaStation (Paper Bag Records), is a lyze” is rife with the sugary close-packed and driving burst pathos Clifford cultivated with of gnashing angst. One of its Jump, Little Children—Clifford’s best songs, “2012” gallops and soft-rock outfit in the nineties. growls, the vocals of singer-gui- Like his waggish homepage, tarist Paul Saulnier more texture Clifford’s second record is still in than discernable perspective. development, soliciting fan supHis near-nonsensical shouts are port for funds. an aural fleece, thickened by Benjamin Nelson’s canny cymbal crashes. Nowhere on the record are they sharper than the open- Bent ing measures of this track, Nel- The Everlasting Blink 2003 son allowing the riff to take hold before crowding the space with a One of English duo Bent’s biggest mounting drum pulse that tail- and best singles, “Magic Love” spins in a brilliant flurry; the floats fragments of Captain & ensuing shouts and wreckage Tennille’s “Love On A Shoestring” linger, enduring for two minutes over downtempo disco. It would in verse-chorus mode. be the most improbably satisfying groove of the 2000s if a pair of Italian brothers hadn’t penned a tune that would bring Danger Jay Clifford Mouse, an underground mash-up Driving Blind 2007 hero, together with ex-Goodie Mob rapper and soul-boomer Cee Glaring through the veneer of Lo—that one was crazy. slick production on Jay Clifford’s solo record is the songwriter’s instinct for flowing pop melo-

MAGIC LOVE

PARALYZE

HOME IS WHERE THE HATRED IS

Esther Phillips From A Whisper To A Scream 1972 The late Gil Scott-Heron’s testimony to drug-induced emptiness is still harrowingly poetic. “Home was once an empty vacuum that’s filled now with my silent screams / Home is where the needle marks try to heal my broken heart,” he sang in 1971. A year later, Esther Phillips’ iconic cover of this song returned her to public consciousness after years of drug-addled silence. Phillips had shot to fame with several blues hits in 1950 at the age of fifteen, but quickly succumbed to a sustained period of addiction and obscurity, one that sadly mirrors Scott-Heron’s musical career in the 1980s and ‘90s. Her trill in “Home Is Where The Hatred Is” sets her take in a higher class than the original— even in detailing a “sick soul” turned “inside out,” Phillips’ inflection is a poised, and knowing one.

AND HERE WE TEST OUR ALL OF YOU POWERS OF OBSERVATION Gerald Clayton The Bad Plus Give 2004

Two Shade 2009

The precociously-gifted instruThe triad of dynamos The Bad mentalist is all but a given when Plus has habitually pursued a running a background check on less than orthodox imagination jazz’s pool of professionals—and of jazz’s piano trio format. That’s the son and nephew of reputed due in part to the group’s choice jazz musicians Gerald Clayton is of covers, from Nirvana, to Tears no exception. His piano-bravura For Fears, to the para-human is at its apex in this Cole Porter drumscapes of Aphex Twin. Their song—the high-flying improviprecision in the latter accounts sation even garnered a Grammy for drummer Dave King taking nomination. The first capituthe lead role in this original lation of the melody is plain tune; King’s heady funk-rattle is enough, but the interstitial the axis to which a sparse piano hints of hard-bop finally overmelody is formed. Pianist Ethan take the form, which sizzles at a Iverson chips in with responsive breakneck tempo. The highlight chords, linking to Reid Ander- though: a deft inversion into reson’s meaty bass for the inspired, laxed blues-swing, glinting with galloping riff that repeatedly an- Clayton’s intuitive flips between chors all three players. The end- solo-runs and harmonic escort. ing is a covert one, in lieu of the explosion that seems inevitable: the trio regroups for a faint bout that’s bookended by Reid’s Dorothy Ashby plucked harmonics, feigning a The Rubáiyát of Dorothy Ashby 1970 build but slinking away instead.

visionary reinforcing her avantfunk dogma with staunch conviction—and sophistication. “Myself When Young,” is the first track on the album and, for the most part, an instrumental one. It’s an exemplar of the gamut of styles that ebb and flow throughout the LP, moving from ripples of harp and the Japanese koto to a brief segment of Middle-Eastern melody (Rubáiyát is Arabic for a collection of poetic quatrains), to a richly orchestrated verse reminiscent of George Gershwin’s effortless chord sequences. From there, Ashby’s ring of underappreciated session players cycle through extended 12 bar solos; vamping underneath is a groove that’s part blues, part classical, part jazz—yet loudest of all, you hear the foundations of East Coast hip-hop.

MYSELF WHEN YOUNG

In all likelihood, the legacy of Dorothy Ashby will remain overshadowed by that of Alice Coltrane, the other jazz-harpist. Yet Ashby’s album The Rubáiyát of Dorothy Ashby (Cadet) sets her in a class all her own, as a

OLD SONG REVIEWS