teabowl

The Idan Raichel Project

Idan Raichel. Cumbancha 2006, Audio CD, $10.17

Am I dating myself (38) by talking about world music? Does anyone other than 35 plus year olds with a liberal bent still listen to world music? These days, I mostly encounter it in my artsier friends, or in people who aren’t really music listeners or buyers and for whom it validates a certain set of lifestyle choices, such as vegetarianism or organic food. Such pursuits, it seems, makes them more open to world music, which comes as part of a package deal: be vegan, use locally grown organic products, wear clothes made from hemp and shoes made from recycled car tires - and listen to music from South Africa or Bangladesh. (It’s always interesting to me to observe how people who don’t habitually listen to or buy music, listen to music. Hootie & the Blowfish sold most of their records to people like that.)

But world music, if you know where to look, is a vital, important ‘genre’ - it’s tricky to call it a genre because it’s only a genre in the context of the music industry and the perplexities of CD distribution in the developed world. Here, it’s a genre. In its place of origin, it’s just music.

Idan Raichel is an Israeli singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He’s produced two very successful ‘fusion’ style world music albums and has just released a third (2008) which I have on order and I’m hoping will arrive soon. I first encountered him through the above-referenced compilation (a concatenation of his first two albums for the international market, released in 2006).

This is interesting and lovely music that’s both entirely foreign and completely familiar at the same time. Raichel presents a smorgasbord of musics from the Jewish diaspora that’s returned ‘home’ to Israel: music from Ethiopia, music from various Arabic countries, music from Eastern Europe. It’s a linguistic hodgepodge, just as one imagines Israel to be: many songs are sung in Hewbrew, many in Amharic, some in Arabic, some in Hindi, some in yemenite Hebrew, and there are a few English passages as well.

The music itself has a strong folk song bent, underscored by solid electronics, a reggae/dancehall backbeat, and some lovely Israeli ‘europop’ sheen (but not too much, which is a good thing). You can tell that Raichel is both a consummate musician who loves to collaborate and explore what happens when you work directly with other musicians, and a dedicated studio tinkerer who can spend all day bending a sample into the right shape - so that it sounds just so.

Above all, this music is cool in the way that most Putumayo compilations sold at Whole Foods Market are not. It’s a complete artist statement, a tricky thing coming from a country where every artist statement is meaningful in ways quite outside its artistic merit. Israeli music that attempts a bridging of cultures, an integration of the differences between people, could be explosive or just plain bad, saccharine or preachy.

It’s testament to Raichel’s skill that this isn’t that. This is powerful, danceable, joyful, sad, touching and, above all, fulfilling in the same way that, say Linton Kwesi Johnson’s music was at his peak: you didn’t know where to look and listen first - great words, deep, rumbling, funky, jazzy reggae, great live show. Idan Raichel’s Project knows that music needs to work as music first and foremost, and that - if it does - integration and transcendence will be achieved as a matter of course.

If you, like me, would prefer to get the original Israeli albums rather than the ‘westernized’ compilation, you can order them from Israel Music, an online store. Mine came quickly and without fuss. Deciphering the Hebrew letters on the covers and translating them into English for ripping purposes can be done - painstakingly and using a multitude of equally hard-to-read websites. But that’s all part of the fun of discovering something truly unique.

One Night Stand! Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963

Sam Cooke. RCA 2005, Audio CD, $9.19

Sam Cooke is commonly thought of as one of the originators of soul music and also gets frequent mention as a role model for black entrepreneurs in the entertainment industry. A very gifted singer, he ‘broke free’ from singing gospel with the Soul Stirrers and had a short but important secular solo career which ended abruptly when he was murdered in 1964 at age 33.

One Night Stand! is incredible in many ways: as a document of an actual live performance, it removes the manicured studio sheen and presents Cooke at the peak of his vocal power - raw, a little rough around the edges, but spot-on and beautifully contoured throughout. He sings perfectly pitched - and, as an early soul singer, has a knack for presenting the ‘true meaning’ of saccharine pop songs with his voice alone. Many of the tunes here were written with a (white) radio audience in mind, and Cooke did have some crossover success. This nascent musical style, finding its way at the edge of R&B and ‘white’ crooner pop, establishes one of the core tenets of rock ‘n roll and soul music: the song’s not really about what the song claims to be about. Where the lyrics can’t express ’sex’ and hard living, the tone of the voice can. And Sam Cooke is brilliant at this, preserving the song’s radio potential while everyone at the live show knows - wink wink - what we’re really talking about.

I think that everyone from Aretha Franklin to Marvin Gaye, Van Morrison to Rob Stewart has tried to channel Sam Cooke. His few available recordings belie his importance as inspiration for much of rock ‘n soul. Artful rough edges, vocalizations without lyrics, just the right amount of audience involvement… it’s all here for the first time. (Well, it’s also in James Brown live albums of roughly the same time, to be fair, and in Ray Charles.)

One Night Stand! is certainly not a perfect record. The band - though powerful and (in the remastered version here) great-sounding - feels a little lost at times. Cooke will start off a tune, and you can hear the rhythm guitarist trying to find his way for a bar or two. I’m not sure if this was the Harlem Square Club’s house band, but they sound a little ‘under-rehearsed’ here. It’s testament to Sam Cooke’s powerful singing that this doesn’t distract at all from the music.

Violator (Deluxe Edition CD+DVD)

Depeche Mode. Rhino / Wea 2006, Audio CD, $18.31

It’s hard to remember, from today’s perspective, just how powerful Depeche Mode’s Violator was when it came out in 1990. It neatly, elegantly bridged the gap between punk and mainstream pop while at the same time articulating an aesthetic that somehow convincingly melded the blues to the band’s meticulously programmed synthpop. For the first time on a DM record, guitars occupy a somewhat equal space with sequencers and synthesizers. There isn’t a weak track here, and some are true masterpieces of the genre: “Personal Jesus,” “Sweetest Perfection,” “Waiting for the Night,” “Policy of Truth,” “World in my Eyes.” These are beacons of songcraft and electronic production: Alan Wilder’s production is tight, focused and imaginative - much of Depeche Mode’s ‘classic’ sound, from Some Great Reward to Songs of Faith and Devotion, is due to Wilder’s clever instrumentation and arrangements, and DM have never quite sounded the same since he left in 1995. Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant has said that they were deeply envious of DM’s sound on Violator.

There’s still a freshness to this record’s sound, especially in the remastered CD/DVD version, that can make you want to dance. In big goth boots, maybe. Eyeliner and Martin Gore boa optional.

Heathen [Limited Edition w/Bonus Disc]

David Bowie. Sony 2002, Audio CD, $9.70

Released in 2002, this is - for me - Bowie’s most satisfying record of the 2000s so far. It demonstrates what rock can sound like today - well-produced, full, dense, interesting, full of aural appeal, mystery, layers, greys and autumn colours. Bowie’s legacy, of course, is an impossibility to comment on in its entirety; this CD shows Bowie taking a look at it and creating un-ironic new music that’s both modern and conscious of many aspects of classic Bowie. Still one of rock’s most evocative lyricists, Bowie’s art is often in the way he leaves things unsaid - “5:15 The Angels Have Gone” is an ode to public transit as much as a love song and metaphysical reflection:

5:15 | Train overdue. | Angels have gone. | No ticket. | I’m jumping tracks. | I’m changing towns. | We never talk anymore. | Forever I will adore you.

If you thought Bowie’s run ended with Scary Monsters, think again. There’s a slew of newer records that are very good. While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Earthling and Outside as (much) more than uneven oddities with really great bits, Hours, Heathen and Reality are all great, satisfying, ‘mature’ (in the best way) Bowie records.

Carried to Dust

Calexico. Quarterstick 2008, Audio CD, $10.59

And while I’m busy clearing the backlog of “CDs I must mention on my blog,” here’s a definite contender for 2008 Record of the Year. Calexico is an Arizona-based outfit that makes an interesting blend of indie pop and Mariachi/Rock en Espanol, full of deep rumbling basses, accordions and nimble, brushed drums. For me, this music evokes the desert somehow. (I can say this with slightly more legitimacy than someone who’s just seen too many spaghetti westerns because I actually grew up in a desert country. But that’s not strictly relevant.) I can imagine driving on a night-time desert highway and be carried by these sounds. They have a certain intimacy that makes you want to focus entirely on the music. Another observation - for me at least - is how similar parts of Carried to Dust are to some of Chris Isaak’s post-surf rock, music that should be talked about much more than it is (sadly).

There’s been much to love in Calexico’s music for many years. I’m especially fond of the Mexican influences - Calexico’s embrance of another culture’s music is a much-needed widening of indie’s prevailing young-white-man aesthetic (these days, the young men don’t even seem particularly angry). At times, Calexico sound delightfully like a less rocky Los Lobos. Is this as ‘authentic’ as Los Lobos, who have an impeccable East LA pedigree? When you listen to Calexico’s incredibly funky electronica/ranchero “Inspiración,” does it matter?

There’s a theme in Calexico of embracing other cultures and actively adding to the ‘Americana’ song book. Joey Burns, one half of Calexico, has recently produced L’Entredeux by Marianne Dissard, a French singer-songwriter based in Tucson. Unlike anything I’ve heard come out of Quebec (which, you’d think, would produce all kinds of North-American-cool pop music sung in French, but doesn’t, presumably because it’s trying to be Frencher than anyone in France), this is an excellent blend of French chanson with Americana, conveying the sort of low-key sophistication that makes it perfect for a dinner party with smart people who’d like some continental flavour but don’t want to risk the new album by Carla Bruni.

I think Calexico is one excellent way for indie to stop gazing at its own shoes and start to take notice of what else there is in the world. Joey Burns and John Convertino discovered that the world is right on their doorstep. 66 miles due South, to be exact.

On an irrelevant but related side note, Ready Made magazine’s October/November 2008 has a whole page about how Calexico made its own drum brushes out of bamboo. Unfortunately, the piece doesn’t seem to be online. The magazine’s not worth buying, but the article is worth checking out as an example of truly superb spin doctoring. Getting your act’s do-it-yourself project mentioned in a do-it-yourselfer magazine to coincide with your record release is completely awesome.

Oh (Ohio)

Lambchop. Merge Records 2008, Audio CD, $10.59

Despite the recording industry’s continuing contraction (not unlike the financial system’s), the world is full of beautiful music that’s worth hearing. One result of the long tail economy has been that there’s so much more music being released independently but not necessarily distributed or marketed. It’s a lot of work reading all the relevant magazines and sites to get ideas and stay on top of things. All of this as a preamble to establish some sort of reasonable way for me to say that I hadn’t ever heard Lambchop before today. I had read about them and they were on my must-check-them-out radar for a while. Now, though, there’s a new album, and New Release Tuesday put it in front of me so that I couldn’t ignore it any longer. In a handy listening post, no less.

This is spectacularly beautiful music. It’s immediately engaging and fits right into the Americana-country-folk-jazz gumbo I’ve been listening to lately. It’s a sort of downtempo alt-country (but alt-country not in a twangy way - more in a “what if Elvis had lived and regressed back to his glam country roots” kind of way), sung by singer-songwriter Kurt Wagner in a dispassionate, minimalist, low voice while an eleven-piece band plays some of the biggest quiet music you can imagine.

Some of it sounds a little like a loungy, countrified, downtempo, ever-so-slightly electronic version of Marvin Gaye’s late period slow burners. Then, there are pieces that somehow marry Neil Diamond and REM (if that makes any sense). Despite being very different vocalists, Kurt Wagner also has something of Bryan Ferry’s theatricality.

This is a very ‘technicolor’ record - incredibly big and very focused and economical at the same time. The quality of the recorded sound is beautiful throughout: a ramarkably sparse ‘widescreen’ experience where power comes from practicing restraint. This is quite a different band from, say, the Arcade Fire - there, more musicians means more sound, more space of the spectrum taken up by noise. Here, it’s the opposite: it’s a fun guessing game to see if you can spot what instrument/musician might have produced the barely audible murmur in the background.

Another good game would be to come up with theories as to why Kurt Wagner needs eleven musicians at all. Not that I’m complaining. I would highly recommend this, and I’ll be exploring more Lambchop.

Lifeline

Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals. Virgin Records Us 2007, Audio CD, $8.29

Ben Harper plays a stylish blend of rock, reggae and old-style r’n'b, like a subtler, less flashy version of Lenny Kravitz. These are well-crafted, well-rehearsed songs, recorded in just seven days in a studio in Paris, directly to 16-track without using any digital tools. The CD sounds open, airy and spacious. It’s sort of like Ben Harper’s ‘unplugged’ album. I’ve been a Ben Harper follower for a long time; in fact, it’s a little hard for me to pick just one Ben Harper record for the desert island batch. So I’ll pick this one because I’m enjoying it right now. There’s a certain honesty in Ben Harper’s music - a lack of irony, a deep understanding of, and reflection on, the history of popular music. I think this is becoming a bit of a theme for me: high quality music, a bit ‘retro,’ that avoids irony… anyway, this is a great record that you should listen to if you can.

Daily Lama

De-Phazz. Universal Int’l 2002, Audio CD, $9.80

De-Phazz is a revolving cast of singers and performers around German jazz/electronica producer Pit Baumgartner. For more than 10 years, De-Phazz has released an interesting and unique blend of jazz, German cabaret music, electronica, hip hop, reggae/dancehall and r’n'b. Baumgartner changes his lineup between albums, and there are very few singers who stay for more than a record or two. The music is sung mostly in English, but there are songs in German and French, too. Everything has a delightfully old-school, continental European touch: a 40s-style cabaret tune here, a 50s Brazilian-inflected German Schlager there. But there’s also some seriously funky, and not-German-at-all soul here: a track like ‘True North’ shows off Baumgartner’s production chops - chops that could grace any contemporary ‘big’ r’n'b artist’s album. The path he chooses, though, is quirkier than that. And it’s a very likable quirkiness, one I find myself returning to time and again. The sound is cultured and aware of the world’s musics in a way that British or American electronica isn’t. And that makes this first-grade pop music that doesn’t become dated.

The Trouble With Humans

Chip Taylor. Megaforce 2006, Audio CD, $10.73

Staying with the theme of how country music could be, here’s a favourite record by Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez. Taylor is a singer-songwriter who emerged as a writer of hit songs in the 60s (’Angel of the Morning’ and ‘Wild Thing,’ for example). Although he was born and grew up in New York, he had a strong predilection for country music from an early age, and that’s where he has now returned. Taylor met Carrie Rodriguez, an Oberlin and Berklee College of Music trained singer/songwriter/fiddler, during an in-store performance she gave at the South by Southwest Music Festival in 2001. The two now perform as a duo. Four albums and an EP into their journey together, their music is a low-key, intelligent kind of country/folk - not entirely dissimilar to, say, the Texas singer/songwriter Townes van Zandt. Anchored by Taylor’s strong rhythm guitar and harmonica and Rodriguez’ fiddle, the songs feature insightful lyrics and a kind of “old time country” feel. They also couldn’t be further removed from the Carrie Underwoods and Jessica Simpsons that seem to pass for country music today. Taylor and Rodriguez have perfectly matching voices - hers a strong cowgirl soprano with a Texas drawl, his a refined baritone with occasional carelessly slurred syllables and frequent moments where he speaks more than he sings. The lyrics are precise and emotionally spot-on throughout - this is material that’s carefully thought out, written to be performed by these two performers, meant to showcase their unique abilities. The Trouble With Humans is a beautiful record about grown-up relationships whose words often manage to encapsulate a core truth in the simplest way possible, yet in a way that we’ve never heard before. ‘Curves and Things’ and the title track should be prescribed material in English class, they’re so good.

Wrecking Ball

Emmylou Harris. Asylum Records 1995, Audio CD, $7.50

A towering achievement and also an immensely likeable record. Emmylou Harris, after spending the first half of the 90s playing and recording solid if traditionally-oriented country albums, in 1995 teams up with Daniel Lanois and engineer Malcolm Burn to make a surprisingly experimental, electronica-influenced, slow-burning gem of a modern country record that sounds nothing - absolutely nothing - like country music sounds in 1995 (or since, for that matter). She forges a completely unique path here, presenting material in a way that boldly proposes an alternate universe: one where country music does not sound like 80s mainstream rock (or bluegrass nostalgia). Instead of commercial sheen, the music here has grit, tape hiss, low and odd keyboard pads, loops and samples… and yet, there’s Emmylou Harris’ voice, invoking a true country idiom with every line she sings. There’s much pain and sadness on this record, all of it worth hearing any number of times. A true artist statement, even though she only co-wrote one of the songs (”Waltz Across Texas Tonight,” with Rodney Crowell), Wrecking Ball is a must-have, even if you don’t like country as a rule. (As someone who was always a performer and never a writer, this album also marks the beginning of Emmylou Harris’ journey into songwriting, culminating in later records that have a similar sound but songs mostly penned by her, which are also worth listening to.)