Miss Piggy Lunchbox

Intelligent Dance Music, or IDM for short, may be the most pretentious musical genre name ever.  The Wikipedia entry on it, however, describes it in a way that perfectly encapsulates the varied music of IDM practitioner Otto Von Schirach:  “Stylistically, IDM tends to rely upon individualistic experimentation rather than on a particular set of musical characteristics.”

According to Von Schirach’s bio on Ipecac’s website, this album originated as a mix of 38 songs he sent to Ipecac co-founder Mike Patton, who then hand-selected the tracks that make up Maxipad Detention.  Patton’s influence is here, with an emphasis on fuzzy, distorted sounds patched together in musical ways, stuttery vocal samples, and, well, let’s just say that if I had had that original mix and been asked to guess which 18 Patton would have picked, I guarantee I would have known “Submarine Mammal Milk,” which features the incredibly unsettling mix of pornographic loops over babies crying, dogs barking, and cows mooing, would have made the cut.

While this has elements of Patton influence, this is also quite distinct from a Patton project.  Von Schirach tends to keep things moving along a bit more than Patton, there’s less dwelling in deep, meditative non-grooves, and, once your ears get used to the sounds and sound combinations, things almost seem kind of song-like.

In fact, I have the perfect “composer” to compare this music to, but it will mean nothing to any of you and simultaneously seem pretentious.  From time to time I’ll get a bug up my ass that I’m going to start composing again, taking full advantage of synthesizers, sound libraries, and loop technology, because what I hear in my head can’t really be notated, at least not the way it comes to me, and it certainly can’t be played on my piano.  This album contains several songs that sound like the music in my head when I get on one of these kicks.  When I first heard “Rumbling Cork Screw,” I was sure I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t place the artist.  It took me a few minutes to realize that the style therein was first heard by me in my head.

No single track is exemplary of the entire album, especially given its compilation process, but “Alligator Waltz” is the best track and so receives the exemplar treatment.  It begins with a heavy riff that is pretty quickly contrasted by a high-range, melodic, pasted track of female vocal samples, which will eventually become the track’s chorus, for lack of a better word.  The vocals will anchor you when you get disoriented by the rapidly changing rhythms and sound combinations of car horns and muted jackhammers and dentist drills.  It’s a fantastic seduction of the brain, always keeping you on the edge by getting you just comfortable with a riff before taking you in a new direction that’s even better; it’s what Fantomas’ Suspended Animation could have been if they hadn’t just screwed the whole thing up so badly.

The biggest drawback of the album is that it was put together not necessarily as an album but as a collection of styles that Von Schirach could execute on.  As such, there’s no arc here. Furthermore, while some of the tracks are exercises that make for intellectually stimulating material but not necessarily entertaining listening, and while everything is well-executed, there are a few tracks whose aims are flat-out ill-conceived.  As a collection, though, it’s great, from the long-burp vocals of “Frog Gingivitis” to the ominous intro to “Tea Bagging The Dead,” the best-named song of all time, to the Ummagumma trip of “The Seventh Juggler” to the sci-fi soundtrack of “Translator Kuthumi,” there’s something here for everyone.  Well, maybe not everyone, but it sure does provide a lot of descriptive phrases I couldn’t end the review without getting in.

Rating:

Mixers: “Alligator Waltz,” “Frog Gingivitis”
Non-keepers: “Toma Liquido De Ballena,” “Maxipad Vegetation,” “Three Billion Electron Volts,” “Submarine Mammal Milk,” “Translator Kuthumi,” “Swollen Whale Abdomen”
Filed Between: Voivod (Negatron) and Wagner (Der Fliegende Hollander cond. Ferenc Fricsay, orch. RIAS Symphony Orchestra)

Ten Summoner’s Tales is an exemplar of a type of CD that makes me re-evaluate what a CD review means on MPL.  The tradeoff these CDs pose is whether to write from more of an evaluative perspective or a personal one.  Due to the style of the non-CD review content of this blog, I’ve always come down on the personal side, but coming across a well-executed CD that does not grab me always causes a re-assessment.

When I was taking my reviewing class four(!) years ago, my instructor pointed out that you should review something to give others an idea of whether or not they’d like it.  His gig was primarily movies, so his example was, "If you don’t like horror movies, when you review a horror movie you should evaluate it on whether or not somebody who likes horror movies would like it."  I don’t disagree with that approach at all, and use it as one of many guideposts in my reviews, but for a couple of reasons, it’s not really what I do here.

For one, I think it’s a bit of an old media mindset.  I don’t mean that as a pejorative; I just think that in an era when there were fewer sources of information and opinion, this quasi-objectivity made sense.  Now, though, you can get all kinds of opinions on musical artists and their output, and I feel the only reason to be read is to be interesting.

The main reason I tend to give more weight to my reaction, though, is that this blog is about me.  It’s essentially a public journal.  It may seem like I’m writing about a CD or a politician or a baseball game, but I’m really writing about my reaction to that thing.  Offhand I can only think of one regular reader I’ve ever had who didn’t know me personally.  I’m fine with that because, again, what I want to do with MPL is create a record of my life, and a record of how I’ve felt about collections of music serves as a pretty damned good proxy of my life.

So while I could spend time writing about Sting’s intelligently-written music, the proficiency of his supporting musicians, his clever lyrics, or the expertly-engineered sound, none of that captures the fact that these songs just do not grab me.  Where I should hear passion I hear chilliness and distance.  I respect the music, but I can’t love it.

I have always felt this sense of detachment from Sting’s music, and it’s always amazed me how passionate his fans are about his music.  No matter how much I listen, I cannot understand how he affects so many people so deeply.  I imagine that a KEN who loved Sting would be one that would write a review like this for, say, Faith No More’s Angel Dust, praising its execution and brilliance, but left alienated by the overwhelming assault on his ears.

I like plenty of music that might be described as passionless.  In particular, big chunks of the avant-garde music and death metal I praise do not grab me in the same way this doesn’t.  The difference is that those CDs tend to be more cerebral, exciting the puzzle-solving neurons of my brain, which in turn engage me in a sort of passionate way.  Sting’s music is smart, yes, but it’s not quite at that level of stimulation.

So, in the spirit of my reaction to this album, let’s polish this off professionally but dispassionately.  High points are the clever lyrics in "Seven Days," the emotional depth of "Fields Of Gold," and the nearly emotional "It’s Probably Me."  Low points are the ridiculous spoken portion of "St. Augustine In Hell," the ponderous incessance of "Heavy Cloud No Rain," and Sting’s insertion of his opinions of politics, war, and technology into a love song ("If I Ever Lose My Faith In You").

If I were evaluating this album on its terms, for what it intends to be, I would have no problem giving it my highest rating.  For MPL, though, I’ll just shake its hand, thank it for the occasional stimulation, and be on my way.

Rating:
  
Mixers: "Fields Of Gold"
Keepers: “Love Is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven),” “Seven Days,” “It’s Probably Me," "Shape Of My Heart”
Filed Between: The Steve Miller Band (Greatest Hits 1974-78) and Stinkfish (…Does It Again)

The Norwegians don’t come out looking so great on this one, as the Finnish Sibelius’ pieces outshine Greg’s considerably. The Norwegians don’t really have a rivalry with Finland, as Finland’s culture, language, and history are quite distinct from the strict Scandinavia of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Heck, even Iceland has more in common with those countries than Finland. But due to their shared boarder and approximate shapes, people like to lump the two together. Moreover, the point is that if you put Grieg on a CD we don’t appreciate it not being the best thing on said CD.

But who knows if Sibelius’ pieces really are better than Grieg’s. I can tell you that these specific performances are, but for the first time I really feel like a classical music reviewer as I am able to have a strong preference for two different recordings of the same piece. Despite the strengths of his other two pieces and the relative shortcomings of Grieg’s, it’s Sibleius’ “The Swan of Tuonela” that fails so miserably here. I reviewed another CD with a version of the piece on it about a year ago, and though I didn’t comment much on it, it did get kept. Even without that version, I’m not sure the recording here would get kept. Despite having the same conductor and soloist, the versions are markedly different. All the weight and passion are gone, and the English horn doesn’t even sound like an English horn. I’ve always been skeptical up until now about whether all the ink that’s spilled over which version of which pieces are the best is worthwhile, but now that I can contrast these two I believe it. If the same conductor, orchestra, and soloist on the same record label, can make the same piece sound so dramatically different, it’s an entirely new game.

Sibelius’ other two pieces on here shine. “Valse Triste” is a brilliant combination of 20th century compositional techniques overlaid on an 18th century musical form, while Finlandia still rings with a bold nationalism that, for all its pitfalls, still vigorously and animatedly denounces Soviet influence in Finland, presciently summing up a culture’s passion and music’s direction decades after its 1899 date of composition.

Grieg’s macro pieces on this disc are the Peer Gynt and From Holberg’s Time suites. You know Peer Gynt, or at the very least you know “In The Hall Of The Mountain King” and probably “Morning Mood” (listen here and here). Originally written as an accompaniment to Ibsen’s five-act play of the same name, Peer Gynt is now most commonly played in the much smaller format of the two suites presented here. They’re very good, in particular the gorgeously orchestrated build and release of “Aase’s Death” and the dramatic, vivid beginning to “The Abduction Of The Bride.” However, there’s also a little bit of blandness, as in parts of “Arabian Dance” and “Peer Gynt’s Return Home,” though, to be fair, this is likely not as noticeable when performed programmatically with Ibsen’s play. “Morning Mood” is cliché by now, as I’m certain I’m watching a commercial whenever I hear it, but it’s still magnificent and overcomes its modern associations. “In The Hall Of The Mountain King,” unfortunately, does not overcome its omnipresence in modern culture. It doesn’t help that it follows “Anitra’s Dance,” which might have well come straight out of the also overplayed Nutcracker. It gets kept, though, in part to keep the suite together.

From Holberg’s Time is a suite written in 1884 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of a Danish-Norwegian playwright, and, as its title suggests, is a collection of courtly dances. Like Peer Gynt, I find it to be a mixed bag as well. There’s nothing bad in the bunch, but the “Sarabande” and “Gavotte” can’t even really sniff the jock of the magnificent “Praludium” or “Air.”

This is an enjoyable if not entirely remarkable CD pretty much all the way through. I’ll always think of it as something of a disappointment, though, since Deutsche Grammophon, von Karajan, and the Berlin Philharmonic can all do so much better, especially given the material these two composers provide.

Rating:

Mixers: Peer Gynt Suite 1: “Aase’s Death,” From Holberg’s Time: “Praludium”
Non-keepers: From Holberg’s Time: “Sarabande,” “Gavotte;” “The Swan Of Tuonela”
Filed Between: Grieg/Schumann (Grieg: Piano Concerto in A Minor / Schumann: Piano Concerto in A Minor (perf. Leif Ove Andsnes, cond. Mariss Jansons, orch. Berlin Philharmoniker))and Gruntruck (Inside Yours)

I saw Built To Spill do a free outdoors show on campus this spring and, when I heard the band and lead singer Doug Martsch for the first time, I remarked on how similar Martsch sounded to Sunny Day Real Estate’s Jeremy Enigk. As this CD’s tracks have been popping up on my DMP’s shuffle for the last few weeks, I keep having the same thought. I cannot believe those two bands aren’t compared more often, as they have very similar recipes: song structures that don’t go where you expect them to and fragile, plainitive melodies sung by somebody who more whines than sings struggling to get over powerful guitar lines.

This album also, especially with regard to complicated, unconventional song structures, falls right in line with Shudder To Think, a band I’ve always confused with Built To Spill. Where these guys, or really, it’s mostly just Martsch writing these songs, differ is in their (his) penchant for poppy melodies. “Big Dipper” is pretty much start to finish a catchy hook that never gets old, in part due to its amazing, like three-part, guitar solo.

Too often, though, Martsch shuns his melodic gift. Whether he’s mewling out the lyrics to “Car”, whining out the appears-two-too-many-times chorus of “Reasons,” or trying to fit too many genres into a single instant in “Israel’s Song,” Martsch more than rarely is his own worst enemy. This is the same kind of crap Dinosaur, Jr. used to pull: you could tell they knew how to write great songs, but then they went and made it sound awful because it would be, I don’t know, genuine and non-ironic to do otherwise. Modest Mouse is the current leading purveyor of this aesthetic.

Not only does Martsch seem to write melodies with ease, he’s also a master of his guitar. In addition to the aforementioned “Big Dipper” wizardry, he also lays out brilliantly overwhelming walls of sound on “Some” and album-closer “Stab.” The latter song is Martsch’s take on an epic. In order to do the big build thing all epics do, it starts off a bit too slow and uncompelling, but by the time record comes to an end, it’s worth it. If it’s not a great song as is, it would be with a little bit of re-jiggering on the front end. I could have wrote exactly the same description but with degraded adjectives about “Cleo,” which, appearing at the album’s halfway point, I assume ends the first side of the cassette and record. It follows the exact same pattern of being one of the album’s longer songs, starts off boring, builds with a great song-closing solo to almost be worthy of being kept. It’s qualitatively the exact same song except monotically worse. If “Stab” is y=5x + 3, then “Cleo” is y=5x – 2.

This is one of those reviews I got to the end of and realized it sounds worse than I meant it to. I like almost every song on here, and I do like parts of every one (excluding the silly satirical preview of their next album that is the final, unlisted track); it’s just that I have more to say about the things I dislike. Martsch’s songwriting and performance talents are enough to shine through his defeatist attempts to hinder his success. And when he can get out of his own head for a few minutes, the results really are great, as they are on the forceful parts of “Some” and pretty much all of this disc’s best song, “Distopian Dream Girl.” That song alone is probably going to get the band another spin or two on the MPL review cycle.

Rating:

Mixer: “Distopian Dream Girl”
Non-keepers: “Cleo,” [unlisted track]
Filed Between: Jimmy Buffett (Songs You Know By Heart – Jimmy Buffett’s Greatest Hit(s)) and Bulgarian Women’s Choir (Tour ’93 – Melody Rhythm & Harmony)

A Tale Of Three Reviews

The first review lived in my head. It was based on a few listens to this CD and a conversation with My Baby. It told of how, yeah, Sinatra’s fine, but come on, folks…he didn’t even write these songs, Dean Martin’s voice was better, and all these songs really do is evoke a mood, like you should be watching some When Harry Met Sally knock-off romantic comedy, especially the in-love montage where the guy trips and falls in Central Park or they’re window shopping at Christmas and they’re so so ridiculously happy, and you know they are because Sinatra is playing over their silent antics. The real reason Sinatra is Sinatra, the review said, is not the music as much as it is the rock star persona. He had wealth, women, and both legitimate and illegitimate power, setting the archetype for the late 20th-century rock star before we even knew what rock and roll would be. The songs were the dredges of big band music, sucking all the life out of the already quick-to-be-shlocky genre and pandering to the lowest common denominator with cavity-causing string riffs. “And what’s with these liner notes?” the review concluded. “Why is this egghead drowning me in superlatives, trying to convince me that Sinatra had some kind of artistic rigor and aesthetic supremacy my ears tell me is missing?”

The second review was published almost three years ago. It starts a lot like the first review, complete with the Dean Martin comparison and attribution of Sinatra’s stardom to his aura instead of his singing. The review then went on to talk about how some of the songs on that album were pretty good…or at least that many of them had good parts.

Which brings us to the third review…this review. It starts with the first review, then merges into the second review. It doesn’t back away from anything in the first two reviews, it’s just that I’ve already said everything in those two reviews. Except, really? These are the 20 best songs you could get from eight years in the prime of this icon’s career? Gee, overrated much? But anyway, beyond the infectious melody and the Lawrence-Welk-with-good-looks schmaltz, what’s left to discuss?

Well, let’s talk songwriters. Specifically, let’s talk about the Jimmy Van Heusen/Sammy Cahn songwriting team. How in the world are these guys responsible for the two worst songs on this disc as well as two of its three best? “Love And Marriage” plods with its obvious nods to the overzealous, righteous censors and arbiters of Hollywood values of the day as well as its just plain phrasal plodding. “High Hopes” suffers from the saccharine treatment as well…I think the song is a carcinogen. Its only redeeming quality is that it’s not “Love And Marriage.” Meanwhile, “(Love Is) The Tender Trap” survives its pro-marriage cornball lyrics with a grooving sax line that seems to imply you don’t have to give up the single life when you get married (wink wink) and the catchy-as-hell “Come Fly With Me” is only not a mixer because its lyrics are just too cute.

That’s it…that’s all I’ve got that’s new. Maybe in three years I’ll go through the same struggle with Sinatra. Or maybe by then I’ll have some more insight into the multiple personality mystery that is Jimmy VanHeusen. Either way, it’s probably safe for me to now say that, while I still think he’s drastically overrated, I like Sinatra, though this album (the 50’s) helps his case a lot, just by being far superior to the last Sinatra CD I reviewed (the 60’s and 70’s).

Rating:

Mixers: “(Love Is) The Tender Trap,” “Witchcraft”
Keepers: “I’ve Got The World On A String,” “Learning’ The Blues,” “You Make Me Feel So Young,” “The Lady Is A Tramp,” “Come Fly With Me”
Filed Between: The Simpsons – Songs In The Key Of Springfield and the Singles soundtrack

Here’s another Melvins CD paired with a “comic book” (again, I’m sure I’m not supposed to call it that) by their friend Brian Walsby. Instead of pulling out their earliest experiments with a four-track, this time the band stayed on the Melvins vs. Minneapolis path and released portions of two concerts: one from Berkeley in 1989 and another from Boston almost 20 years later in 2008, recorded just a few weeks after I reviewed this Seattle show.

The Berkeley show is filled almost entirely with content from 1989’s Ozma, much of which I like better in this format and some of which, amazingly, actually sounds better than it did on Ozma. The end with a fantastically powerful rendition of “Your Blessened,” one of their best songs and probably the best one from 1991’s Bullhead.

The Boston show, like the show I saw that summer, is primarily filled up with content from A Senile Animal and that summer’s Nude With Boots. In contrast to the Berkeley show, nothing here sounds as good as those albums’ studio versions, but its nice to have live versions of those fantastic songs, even if they’re a bit lacking. The band also reaches back to 1987 and 1991 with “Eye Flys” and “Boris,” respectively. I’ve gained a greater appreciation for Melvins’ early material in the past few years, and hearing them play those old sludgy songs with their modern, razor-sharp virtuosity and musical sensibilities is one of the richer experiences of Melvins fandom. They’re able to bring out aspects of those songs they couldn’t in their earlier days, as if you’re finally hearing the songs they way they heard them in their head when they were written.

Waslby’s Manchlid 4 was not as good as I remember Manchild 3 being, but it was still pretty good. The largest chunk of it is devoted to the history of his membership in bands, which was interesting but also reminiscent of that scene from Crumb where the art in his brother’s “comics” become overwhelmed by the text. The best parts were the excorating dismantling of the requisite and nonsensical conformity of the North Carolina hardcore scene and his tales of dealing with too-passionate Melvins fans from behind the merch table on tour. That one might have even stung a little bit. ;-)

I ended my review of The Making Love Demos/Manchild 3 by telling Melvins that this pairing was unnecessary, that I’d buy anything they put out and it didn’t have to be paired with a friend’s product. I’m not sure I feel that way anymore. These accompanying books have added a new dimension to the band and increased my appreciation of them. I’m an even bigger fan than I was before, but now I know how not to act like a tool, especially if Walsby is behind the table at the next show I go to. Keep it up, guys.

Rating:

Mixers: none
Keepers: “Koolegged,” “Oven,” “Raise A Paw,” “Your Blessened,” “Eye Flys,” “Boris”
Filed Between: Melvins Vs. Minneapolis and Melvins + Lustmord (Pigs Of The Roman Empire)

Recently a friend asked me, when I told him about the misery I had immediately in front of me in my listening queue, “Why do you do that to yourself?” I sighed and admitted my own puzzlement, but now I remember…this is why I do it. Because there are gems out there that time and circumstances have let fall by the wayside…gems that should be discovered and treasured, not forgotten in the dustheap…some of which even sound horrible on their first couple of listens.

That’s the category of this release by Sam Iam, an early 90’s band from Minneapolis. I don’t have any more bio on the band than that, really, but I wanted to make it explicit because you can’t imagine how much effort it took just to learn that. You see, this band is not to be confused with the Berkeley punk band Samiam, who is thanked in these liner notes, nor the rapper Sam I Am. Add those other artists into the mix with the phrase’s ubiquity (as well as that of the album’s title) and Sam Iam’s obscurity and you’ve got a band and album that are pretty well Google-blocked.

Now, this isn’t a discovered gem of the same caliber as Jump, Little Children’s Magazine, which literally put a spring in my step for a few weeks about a year ago. This disc hasn’t changed my life. Still, I’m glad I’ve heard it, especially “Moon And Stars,” “Die Alone,” and “Skin And Bones,” the three best songs here.

Sonically, Sam Iam played pretty straight-forward rock with an emphasis on melodies and some funk and rap elements thrown in. The backbeats hit hard when they want them, too, many lines are more rapped than sung, and much of the guitar work is wah-wah based. This gets overdone at times, like the overt plod of “Drop Your Drawers,” a tale similar to that of “Darling Nikki,” by fellow Minneapolitan Prince, or their medley of Ohio Players’ “Brick House” and Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion,” which is arranged well, but should have been left to be performed by the original artists.

Still, there are plenty of moments where this band finds their space and nails it. “Skin And Bones” is a real nice groove, and “Die Alone” is musically fantastic even if it’s “Ghost Of A Chance”-like (Rush) lyrics veer pretty close to wince-inducing cheese (a problem that also mars “Corporate Couple (Get The Funk),” which features the third-grade phrase “beautiful on the inside”). “Warm Bunny, Soft Blanket” is almost a bit of a joke on death metal, but I love the 45 seconds of noise and the chugging guitar riff. “Tupperware Party” isn’t the greatest song, but its innuendo-filled lyrics about solutions for keeping your lettuce crisper display a wit that absolves the bands of their other lyrical transgressions. I’m even entertained by “Bus,” a tale of the features and travails of the best public transportation Minneapolis had to offer in 1991.

So this is why I listen to so much crap…because it’s a volume game for me. I just listen and listen and listen and sometimes I run into something I never would have found without doing so much listening. Given the new distribution model for music, there’s got to be a better strategy than my five-times-per-CD approach, and I’m definitely moving more in that direction, but still…I never would have found Sam Iam without the all-CDs-welcome methodology I currently employ.

And it’s still a surprise to me how I encountered this. Why did this end up in benefactor J-mez’ collection, who didn’t move to Minneapolis until 1999?

Rating:

Mixers: none
Non-keepers: “Corporate Couple (Get The Funk),” “Drop Your Drawers,” “Windows,” “Sweet Brick House Emotion,” “Tie Dye Tuxedo”
Filed Between: Saint Etienne (Foxbase Alpha) and Samiam (Soar)

U2’s a bit like Phish now. Not in the suck department, because they’re still pumping out good albums, but in the fact that it’s all about the live show. The tracks and theme of an album are all just the means to the end that is the few dozen stadium shows they’ll do around the world. Actually listening to the release (on the plain vanilla jewel case CD when there are no fewer than three different types of limited edition releases no less) is so 20th century. Now it’s more about the event than the content.

The album’s opening track, the title track, opens with a sole held note and, after a few seconds, punches into one of those delay- and reverb-heavy grooves that has typified the last 15 years or so of U2’s output. Bono does his Bono thing (though his voice is the weakest I’ve ever heard it) over a chorus pregnant with anticipation. When the guitar breakdown and additional drum track burst in at 1:15, you know this is the song that’s opening that new stadium show. You can essentially hear the light show that accompanies the multi-media extravaganza the band has planned for your several-hundred dollar evening.

It all adds up to a maddening sense of ambivalence. On the one hand, almost all of these songs are pretty good with a few (“No Line On The Horizon” and the two mixers) coming very close to great. On the other hand, though, there’s no passion in this. I mean, cranking out 55 minutes and eleven tracks of good is like a day at the office for these guys. Give ‘em a strong cup of coffee and let them pound out the grooves.

That’s more than can be said about a lot of bands, but I shouldn’t be dismissive of the band’s work ethic. I’m sure they bust their tails to keep creating catchy, brilliantly produced radio-ready songs. What I’m saying is, in 2009, what is U2’s motivation for creating a CD? They’re bigger than the quarter-square-foot or so of plastic that will sit on my shelf. They’re bigger than the Best Buy ad and the front page of the iTunes Music Store. They’re bigger than the radio towers and more elemental to the fabric of the culture than the broadband that now brings their audio and video to your home entertainment system. The only thing that can properly reflect the aesthetic of U2 is a stadium. And so the only reason they put out a CD is to give people a reason to come hear the new chords echo off a wall a few hundred yards away.

And I’d love to review that for you, but it would require several hundred dollars and a couple of days in Vancouver, and that is just not going to happen. And so even if I listen to this recording at the best possible fidelity, I still feel like I’m missing something, like the actual event is passing by very far away and I haven’t been invited. They’ve loaded up the jets and flown away, and I’m left to mull over something that fell out the back of one of the delivery vans.

Like I said, this is pretty much the definition of a solid release with every track being enjoyable on some level. That’s usually good for four lunchboxes, but there’s something nagging at me. Beyond even the afterthought nature of the format for this band, I’m left flat by the flaws that are also present in most of the songs. “Unknown Caller” starts off weak and never seems to get going, with its hastily pasted together vocal track where it never seems clear which vocalist we’re supposed to be paying attention to or why. “Get On Your Boots” is fun but also way too much like “Wild Wild West” by Escape Club (you know…”living in the 80’s, heading for the 90’s, living in the wild wild west”). “Stand Up Comedy” starts off fantastic but barely maintains its mixer status as the band, which is getting up there, takes a now seemingly mandatory nap time about two-thirds of the way through the song.

I guess they’ve really nailed down this blurriness theme they’ve created in the cover image and title. There isn’t a single song on here I have strong feelings about. And that ambivalence is marring an otherwise very enjoyable experience for me.

Rating:

Mixers: “Stand Up Comedy,” “Breathe”
Non-keepers: “Unknown Caller”
Filed Between: U2’s The Best of 1980 – 1990 and UHF/VHF – The Relapse Records/Nuclear Blast America and Release Entertainment 1995 Promotional Sampler

Do you remember that 1993 Johnny Depp movie Benny & Joon? (By the way, pack it up imdb, you’ve been completely surpassed by Wikipedia.) I was spending the summer in Norway when it came out there. That’s when I saw it, and when we were looking through the paper for movies to see, my friend listed it off, pronouncing it “Benny og Yoon,” because that’s how it would be pronounced in Norwegian. I still find that amusing and actually think of the movie by that title and not by the Anglicized pronunciation.

Anyway, that movie had the 500 miles song (“I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”) from this album on its soundtrack, which explains why I can distinctly remember hearing this song on the radio and wondering what the hell “haver” meant in 1993 despite this album coming out in 1988.

So it seems American radio was a bit late to the party (and this would have fit in great in 1988 alongside UB40’s cover of “Red Red Wine”), and it also seems we left early. I thought The Proclaimers were one-hit wonders, but Wikipedia has them, despite an extended break that saw only one album released between 1988 and 2001, releasing a total of seven albums, with the eighth due in the U.S. next month. I don’t know if any of those other albums are any good, but I’ll put the MPL seal of approval on this one.

The lyrics of these Scottish twins cut a broad swath, ranging from protest of English rule of Scotland (“Cap In Hand’) to a hangover-protest song (“It’s Saturday Night”). Musically their working range is a bit more concentrated. Everything is firmly planted in an American roots tradition with conventional song structures, pentatonic scales, and a palpable backbeat. They even cover Steve Earle’s “My Old Friend The Blues” as they take turns between upbeat and slow.

In a bit of a surprise, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” checks in as only the second best song on the album. The honor of number one goes to “Then I Met You,” which is damn near the Best Song Ever, and was somehow, criminally, not released as one of the three singles this disc produced. It begins with an anthemic, arena-worthy guitar ring that heads into a jangly, hi-hat- and tambourine-backed ass-mover. By the time the second guitar comes in with its persistent, muted, syncopated sixteenth-notes you’ve already been convinced that you yourself waweres the world’s biggest loser until you met the angel you’re currently with. And when the song climaxes and the guitar solo hits, oxygen just tastes better as you can’t stop thanking the spirits for this gift of life. A couple more of these treasures and this would have easily been a four-lunchbox CD.

Rating:

Mixers: “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” “Then I Met You”
Non-keepers: “My Old Friend The Blues,” “Come On Nature,” “What Do You Do”
Filed Between: Prince (Musicology) and Prokofiev (Alexander Nevsky/Scythian Suite)

I don’t know what the saloon is a reference to, but the tango in the band’s name is not rhetorical: this is definitely tango. For the most part, this project of Julian Curwin is traditional tango, including a couple covers of Astor Piazzola tunes, but there are aspects of modernity and experimentation thrown in, like synthesized timbres and complex start-stop song structures.

The biggest problem is that there are too many areas where the music gets bogged down in itself with no passion to pull it up. And tango without passion…well…it’s not really tango. It’s the novel composition that causes the most problems. The worst parts are when the songs either hit some jam-band rut or become too interesting for their own good.

But even when it’s not all that great, you’ve still got that interesting to fall back on, and when the focus is on sound instead of structure, the disc shines. The 70’s sci-fi sounds that pepper “Man With The Bongos” and the last 25% of “Intermission” are reminiscent of Messer Chups, and the mixers are must-hears. Even some of the non-keepers have grown on me in the last few days as our recent heavy cloud cover (honestly, a recent eastern- to western-border drive confirms that clouds in Seattle are simply darker and more depressing than clouds elsewhere) has mellowed me to the point of being more in tune with the pleasant but passionless non-keepers. It’s still not tango without the passion, but whatever it is, those tracks are not a bad accompaniment to a chill mood.

Rating:

Mixers: “Upon A Time,” “La Calle 92”
Non-keepers: “Overture,” “March Of The Big Shoe,” “Carol,” “Intermission,” “The Little Plane That Could”
Filed Between: Talking Heads (Popular Favorites: 1976-1992) and Art Tatum (Piano Starts Here)