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.

Picture by Leo Reynolds

I’ve been listening to Van Morrison for days now. He’s someone I had somehow ignored so far in my 25 years of listening and collecting music. In the 80s, when my listening habits were formed, Van was on a path that wasn’t very likable musically - his voice losing its elasticity, his music harsher and more judgmental of an incomprehending audience than ever before.

Only I didn’t know the ‘before.’ Having no older siblings, Van Morrison wasn’t really someone I knew about or chose to discover for myself.

Now I’m 38 and a conversation related to Kevin Rowland & Dexys Midnight Runners (a band I like very much and who, I realize now, tried to channel Morrison’s 70s blue-eyed soul magic) led me to take another look.

And what a great discovery he is. I’m listening to the first 5 or 6 records, and they’re all great - revelatory, powerful, focused, subtle, elegant and, above all, deeply musical.

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.

Best Music Writing 2008 (Da Capo Best Music Writing)

Nelson George (Editor). Da Capo Press 2008, Paperback, 360 pages, $7.85

Best Music Writing by Da Capo Press has been an excellent series over the years. Each year’s volume covers the best music writing (pop, jazz, not much classical), and for me, it’s proven a very useful compendium as I simply don’t have the time to sleuth out all those sources myself.

Stars

Simply Red. East/West Records 1991, Audio CD, $5.00

British soul pop at its finest. Mick Hucknall came from a reggae and soul perspective, but was really always a crooner first. This is an incredibly strong collection of songs, and it’s still puzzling to me why this never took off more in North America. I loved this when I was 21; it’s still a very, very strong album whose loose, 70s soul stylings and Beatles-esque harmonies have held up well. And it was a record that took the world by storm - at least the UK, Europe, Australia, South Africa… in England, it was the album of the year in 1991 and spent something like 20 weeks at the top of the charts. This incarnation of Simply Red featured Gota on drums - a very talented Japanese jazz/fusion/house drummer and producer who would later released a number of interesting instrumental discs. In a way, this fit well into the developing nexus of sound that was springing up in England around this time… pop musicians were being influenced by the nascent dance scene, and this CD is somewhat of a precursor to Emergency on Planet Earth and The Return of the Space Cowboy by Jamiroquai which came out a few years later - and also had virtually no success at all in North America.

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.