Album review: Ani DiFranco marches forward with ‘¿Which Side Are You On?’

Ani DiFranco
“¿Which Side Are You On?”
Righteous Babe

After four years without releasing a studio album, Ani DiFranco has returned with a matured songwriting craft, audacious lyrics and a challenge for pragmatic political and social change.

Since 1990, DiFranco has independently released over 20 albums and manages to sell out venues across the globe. Her style of music cannot be clearly defined; its borders are blurred somewhere within folk, indie, rock, soul — and specks of everything else. The greatest constant is her unwavering lyrical ability. She neither sugarcoats nor minimizes truths, yet she has a softer, poetic side depicting songs of love, leisure, acceptance and universal equality.

Her latest album, “¿Which Side Are You On?,” is comprised of 12 songs, all written by DiFranco. Her acoustic guitar playing is somewhat less aggressive than it has been previously. The first track, “Life Boat,” primes the audience with a slow, mellow sound. In passing, portions of the album could be described as musically monotonous or repetitive, but a closer look reveals the calmer, relaxed guitar work creates a nice backdrop for well-written, poignant lyrics. Do not be misled: true to Ani DiFranco’s form, other tracks, such as “Promiscuity”, “Splinter,” and “Mariachi” provide striking instrumentation and upbeat melodies. Healthy portions of an electric guitar add edge and mildly abrasive vigor when needed. Also, her life’s added perspectives as a mother and a maturing woman shine through on tracks such as “Albacore,” conveying her individual reality and what she believes the world could evolve to become.

The highlight of this album is the title track, “¿Which Side Are You On?” Originally written by Florence Reece in 1931, this song has been revisited by scores of artists over its 80 year lifetime, and it has resonated among activists for decades. Folk artist Pete Seeger, along with his banjo, performed a well-known version of “Which Side Are You On?” in the ’60s. DiFranco has supplied this tune with new life, reenergizing it with updated lyrics, yet her version holds the song’s soul and history intact by featuring Seeger on the banjo and background vocals.

The percussion ensemble only increases the classic song’s vitality, motivating the message even further. The snare drum in particular correlates with battlefield marches and patriotic references, fitting for this track. DiFranco has transformed this song into a fresh call to action. Her vocals were given a slight echo effect, which provides listeners with a sense they are presently witnessing her leading a crowd, microphone in hand, aimed to motivate the masses for justifiable action and positive change. She addresses the government, average workers, banks, consumers, men, women and voters of all types to reclaim the meaning of citizenship and what it’s worth.

Altogether, “¿Which Side Are You On?” pushes boundaries, accentuates affirmation and entertains musically — a pleasant return by Ani DiFranco.

Ani DiFranco: ¿Which Side Are You On? by ThatEricAlper

Posted by | February 6, 2012 | Album Reviews | Comment 

Album review: Ingrid Michaelson sweeps through heartbreak on ‘Human Again’

Ingrid Michaelson
“Human Again”
Mom+Pop

With her lilting voice and nerdy, girl-next-door looks, Ingrid Michaelson has charmed an audience and built a career around her good-girl appeal.

But that’s not to say there’s no substance behind her style. Michaelson’s career is both an indie success story and a commentary on the current nature of the music business. In an environment where it is easier than ever to make music, where everyone has a website and a YouTube channel, it can be, rather ironically, harder and harder for musicians to get their songs heard. Commercial radio is simply not as much of a factor in introducing new artists, and musicians must pursue other avenues to reach an audience.
 
Michaelson first got attention for song placement in television shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy,” and later by licensing her songs for TV commercials. Once upon a time, an artist that sold a song for commercial use was considered a sellout. (Remember when Neil Young declared that he wasn’t singing for Pepsi or Coke?) Today it’s the opposite. An artist can have a song on TV before a single on the radio. For Michaelson, “selling out” was the stepping stone to the audience she has now. When Old Navy picked up “The Way I Am” (from her 2006 record “Girls and Boys”) it helped pave the way for her career.
 
With her clever, literate lyrics and sometimes quirky, well-crafted pop songs, perhaps Michaelson’s success was inevitable. I never watched “Grey’s Anatomy” or saw those commercials. I came to appreciate her the old-fashioned way: by falling in love with her voice (and, to be honest, her looks). It may have been her persona that first got my attention, but I stayed for her songs.
 
On her new record, “Human Again,” Michaelson delivers more of the deeply textured arrangements and soaring vocals that are her trademark. And while she has always sung about both love and loss, this time around the emphasis centers more squarely upon the loss. “Human Again” is clearly Michaelson’s take on the classic break-up album.

As if there were any question, the record opens with “Fire” as she sings, “Open heart surgery/That is what you do to me.” She then moves right into “This Is War,” another heartbreaker featuring the lines “It’s a wonder at all that I survived the war/Between your heart and mine.” Thankfully, the third track delivers a bit of a respite with the upbeat tune, “Do It Now,” a catchy number and an admonition to seize the day.
 
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Posted by | February 3, 2012 | Album Reviews | Comment 

Album review: Nada Surf’s return to adolescence on ‘The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy’

Nada Surf
“The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy”
Barsuk

Ever the ones to ignore music industry convention, Nada Surf is obviously moving in a different direction with “The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy.” The album, released by Barsuk/City Slang on January 24, is a snappier, more buoyant effort than the softer, ardent sound that has defined much of the better-known indie corners (Death Cab for Cutie, the Shins, Bon Iver) for the past several years. It’s certainly more upbeat than 2003′s earnest “Let Go” or 2005′s mercurial ”The Weight Is a Gift,” and in a way, this makes the album more reminiscent of the band’s angsty-yet-unpretentious 1996 breakout hit, “Popular.”

The tempo of “The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy” rarely relents, though, which lends the feeling of forced amiability. I’m not asking for the perpetual nubbly sweater-wearing whisper of a Death Cab For Cutie record, but a little disaffection wouldn’t kill anyone. Although I kept waiting for a little crunch, itch, or well-deserved lyrical gripe, “The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy” is actually pretty innocuous, the crisp guitars and gentle harmonizing in songs like “Waiting For Something,” “Jules and Jim” and “Looking Through” sounding less like a cohesive release and more like a quietly-marketed Goo Goo Dolls/Gin Blossoms/Third Eye Blind project.

The general lyrical theme suggests a nostalgia for carefree, promise-rich youth. Sometimes this is more subtle, as with the repeating phrase “recursive tulips” in “The Moon Is Calling,” and sometimes so obvious it’s silly, as in “Teenage Dreams” or the line “I can’t believe the future’s happening to me” in “The Future.”

Combined with guitarist and lead vocalist Matthew Caws’ forever-young falsetto, it all suggests the juvenile hopefulness of youth but none of the anxiety. I don’t mean to imply that all good music is borne out of misery, but one of Nada Surf’s songwriting gifts has been an acerbic wit delivered with unapologetic directness. I don’t know if the intention was to return to a simpler way to write songs, but the band is cleverer than this, and has been gutsier in the past.

This is not to say there are no bright points. There are a few instrumental saving graces on this album: the mournful trumpet in the otherwise ordinary breakup song “Let the Fight Do the Fighting,” for instance, or the shimmery strings in “When I Was Young.” The constructed distortion of “Clear Eye Clouded Mind” leads off the album, and the other full song standout, “No Snow On the Mountain,” brings a tinge of the disaffection I so badly wanted. Unfortunately, this Hail Mary of a song comes too late and after too much passionless, textureless soft rock.

The name Nada Surf refers to an existential state of nothingness, or perhaps a Buddhist state of non-attachment. It’s about living in a sea of quiet static, I guess, and although fitting to play in the background somewhere, unfortunately, quiet static is how the album sounds. After a nearly 20-year-long career, “The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy” is less about stars and more about indifference.

Posted by | January 27, 2012 | Album Reviews | Comment 

Album review: ‘A Thurber Carnival’

Original cover art for A Thurber Carnival

Anybody here remember James Thurber? You should. The noted writer and cartoonist was part of that mid 20th century cabal of dry, literate humorists that included Robert Benchley, the incomparable S.J. Perelman and, of course, the various official and unofficial members of the Algonquin Round Table. Thurber brought his wit to the stage in 1960 in the form of a revue with musical interludes titled “A Thurber Carnival”. It opened on February 26, 1960 at the ANTA Playhouse on Broadway and ran for 223 performances, with a break from June 25 to September 5. The show closed on November 26, 1960; not a bad run for such a modest show.

The folks at Masterworks Broadway are now making the original cast recording of “A Thurber Carnival” available for the first time, and it is, to say the least, a welcome release. There is, to begin with, the joy of hearing the voices of familiar actors such as Peggy Cass, Paul Ford, John McGiver, Alice Ghostley at work. Like many of us boomers, I first encountered them on TV, so it’s good to be reminded that they all started out on the stage.

Mostly, though, it’s fun to be reminded of how good humor can be when it doesn’t beat you over the head. “Casuals of the Keys”, for example, derives laughs from the inability of an old beachcomber who dismisses his experiences with the like of a mermaid and a billiard player turned obsessive “goldfish grabber” while constantly quizzing his visitor for news of such wonders as televised Congressional subcommittees. “The Little Girl and the Wolf” (one of Thurber’s “Fables for Our Times”) turns the tables on Red Riding Hood (“Moral: it is not so easy to fool little girls now as it used to be.”). And, of course, the “The Unicorn in the Garden” (probably one of Thurber’s best-known stories) reminds us that the unicorn is, in fact, a mythological beast.

The album also includes some of Thurber’s more serious essays, including the touching “Memorial to a Dog” and “The Last Flower”, an anti-war story which is, sadly, as relevant now as it was fifty years ago. Jazzy interludes by Don Elliott are a nice counterpoint to the sketches.

“A Thurber Carnival” is available through all major digital service providers and as disc-on-demand, with the original cover art and liner notes, via ArkivMusic.com and Amazon.com

Posted by | January 26, 2012 | Album Reviews, Culture, Music | Comment 

Album review: Guided by Voices ramble, stumble and rock through ‘Let’s Go Eat the Factory’

Guided by Voices
“Let’s Go Eat the Factory”
Matador

There’s a fair amount of context to the new Guided by Voices record, “Let’s Go Eat the Factory,” so let’s recap.

Frontman Robert Pollard pulled the plug on Guided by Voices in 2004, ending a 21-year run that included dozens of releases and a staggering number of bandmates come and gone. In 2010 he reunited the band’s “classic lineup” for a one-off gig in Las Vegas. This was the same group of musicians that made up GBV from 1992 to 1996 when the band produced it’s best and most influential records: “Propeller,” “Bee Thousand,” “Alien Lanes” and “Under the Bushes Under the Stars.”

That single show led to a basketful of gigs throughout 2011, including a lengthy tour and spots at the top end of major festival bills. While a reunion of the classic lineup had once seemed incredibly unlikely, another recording from that troupe had always seemed an even longer shot. Alas, that is what we have here.

“Let’s Go Eat the Factory” is not a classic GBV record, though it is certainly a fine collection of music. Hallmarks of the band’s early standout releases are present, to be sure. The first eight tracks (“Laundry and Lasers” through “Who Invented the Sun”) could have been lifted from the middle of any of those records. They carry the same subversive, addictive hooks and fast-paced, shape-shifting melodies.

“Doughnut for a Snowman” and “Spiderfighter” form the nexus of this first third of the record. The former begins seemingly mid-song with the last few words of a verse and a bleating recorder solo, and then proceeds to wash a whimsical childhood portrait across a cozy acoustic arrangement. The brilliantly bipolar “Spiderfighter” gracefully transitions from a grating burner that’s all kerosene and fireworks to a heart-stopping piano ballad, the record’s finest moment.

“Let’s Go Eat the Factory” has moments like these throughout, but it still finds Pollard veering into the ditch on occasion. Oddball cuts like “The Big Hat and Toy Show,” “Go Rolling Home” and “My Eurpoa” are cul-de-sacs, unavoidable and undesirable detours. Similar pieces on the aforementioned GBV records worked because beneath the discordant sludge they held something at least intriguing enough to encourage another listen, which often led to another, and then another. And at worst, they rarely killed the momentum as they do here.

The most noteworthy tracks on “Let’s Go Eat the Factory” are those penned by Pollard’s songwriting foil, Tobin Sprout, the guitarist whose departure from the group in 1996 signaled the end of the classic era. Mostly saccharine and soothing, Sprout’s compositions are the egg and breadcrumbs in the meatloaf, keeping it all together. In addition to “Spiderfighter,” he also offers up the stellar “Who Invented the Sun” and “Waves,” a mildly disorienting spiral of sunburned guitars that is easily the album’s best cut.

Guided by Voices records are very much bric-a-brac. On “Let’s Go Eat the Factory” these trinkets are sometimes brilliant, occasionally forgettable, but most often enjoyable. The record can’t stand next to “Alien Lanes” or “Bee Thousand,” but it’s a nice addition to the band’s discography nonetheless.

Guided By Voices – Doughnut For A Snowman by FIRE RECORDS

Posted by | January 9, 2012 | Album Reviews | Comment 

Album review: The Black Keys push on, full throttle, with ‘El Camino’

The Black Keys
“El Camino”
Nonesuch

In a recent interview with Pitchfork, the Black Keys’ drummer Patrick Carney pissed off half of Canada when he posited that while the band would most certainly want to be remembered as more “awesome” like Led Zeppelin, it was also possible that they were more “annoying” like Rush.

“It’s all relative,” according to Carney, although he conceded that he could be entirely wrong:

“I don’t know — what’s the difference between Rush and Led Zeppelin, other than the fact that one band is awesome and one is really annoying? Maybe we’re like Led Zeppelin — but maybe we’re Rush. Everything is relative. The worst thing that can happen is for you to think that you’re Led Zeppelin, but it turns out you’re Loverboy.”

While I can’t hear any of the feared Loverboy influence in the Black Keys’ new album, “El Camino,” I do hear a hard rock tribute to Zeppelin sprinkled with a few possibly unintentional hints to Canada’s prog rock kings. The album’s leading track, the single “Lonely Boy,” begins with a riff on Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” and swirls into crunchy guitars supplemented by electronic bursts and a female-heavy chorus of “I got a love that keeps me waiting.”

The electro-pop and breathy-sweet female voices are a continuing theme throughout the album and elevate “El Camino” above the Keys’ previous records that, while impressive in their consistency, seemed more drawn from drinking cheap beer in stadium parking lots (Blackmore, Thorogood, Seger) than the more glamorous denizens of rock history (Bolan, Johansen, Reed). This expansion in taste is partly influenced by producer Danger Mouse and makes “El Camino” a sexier and more upbeat album than its predecessors, something Carney and singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach acknowledged during a recent appearance on The Colbert Report. Even the more stripped-down “Little Black Submarines” contributes to this mood, as it not only switches to a grinding clamor midway through the song, but is also preceded by “Gold on the Ceiling,” a sweaty, raunchy, good-time single driven by handclaps and Moog.

That the most listenable tracks on “El Camino” are the result of the band’s maturation is a statement about the steps they’ve taken; however, their growth has not come by leaps and bounds. Other songs, such as “Run Right Back” and “Money Maker” could have appeared on any of the band’s previous albums (though perhaps most fittingly on 2010′s blues-heavy album “Brothers”). The former describes an addictive sort of woman, the veiled misogyny of the lyrics poorly disguised as sincere yearning. The latter features Auerbach’s wail echoing above a scuzzy 4-chord progression and sloppy, cymbal-heavy drums, all of which fade to a psychedelic pedal effect in the bridge. Both are archetypal American rock songs done in the style mastered by the Black Keys early on.

“El Camino” is an either-or album — you can choose the old Black Keys or the new Black Keys, but the few missteps are the result of trying to combine the two. One example of this is “Stop Stop,” an incongruous and misguided mix of Auerbach’s falsetto, Carney’s quick-stutter drums, staid guitar whine, and is that xylophone? It’s confusing, frilly, and I’m not sure if this was an effort to be more ambitious or remain safe, but it feels like a leftover that should have been discarded for a more defined track.

Following and redeeming “Stop Stop” is “Nova Baby,” a shining example of the confidence required to pull off a new and expanded sound. This is what the band should be doing on every track, because it’s where their true strength lies. The Keys are best at building on the new retro sound they helped to create, one that is more strut than swagger, funky blues bursting through the haze of psychedelia and the birth of heavy metal. The Keys have a lot of material from which to draw, and their ability to create from it all on “El Camino” is something they haven’t done so skillfully since 2004′s “Rubber Factory.”

The closing track on “El Camino” is “Mind Eraser,” which concludes with the lyric “Don’t let it be over.” While this brings to mind a clever mixtape artist (although maybe not so much a clever platinum-selling rock band), it’s still an effective farewell shot for what is ultimately a smart record by a band that could have remained among the dying chords of a by-now old-news rock revival, but chose instead to keep listening, keep learning and to build on what made them good while acknowledging that the ones who came before them — and that includes Rush — could have been better.

Posted by | December 30, 2011 | Album Reviews | Comment 

Christmas Crackers

"Mrs. Santa Claus" album coverDoing some last minute shopping for the musical theatre and/or film soundtrack fan on your list? If so, the folks at Columbia Masterworks and BSX have a couple of releases that may be just the thing for theatrical music lover who has everything.

Pride of place goes to the soundtrack of the 1996 TV musical “Mrs. Santa Claus”. Yes, the title sounds lame, but consider the talent. The score is by Jerry Herman, one of Broadway’s great songwriters and the author of three of the Great White Way’s biggest hits: “Mame”, “La Cage Aux Folles”, and “Hello, Dolly”. The cast stars irreplaceable Angela Lansbury and the titular Mrs. Jolly Old Elf and includes musical theatre luminaries Charles Durning, Michael Jeter and Terrence Mann.

The score may not be Herman’s best work, but middling Herman is still better than the best work of lesser lights. And with a cast like this one you can’t really go wrong.

“Mrs. Santa Claus” is available as a digital download on iTunes and from amazon.com. You can find more information at the Masterworks web site.

The second seasonal release also boasts some impressive talent. It’s a new recording of Leslie Bricusse’s score for “Scrooge”, the 1970 musical film adaptation of “A Christmas Carol”. Bricusse, of course, is best known for his collaborations with Anthony Newley (especially “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off”, “The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd”, and Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory”) but he has plenty of impressive credentials of his own, including “Victor/Victoria” and the lyrics for “Jekyll and Hyde”. The original soundtrack is long out of print and, due to what Wikipedia describes as “legal complications”, may never see the light of digital day, so this “reimagined” version by composer Dominik Hauser probably as close as anyone is going to get to hearing the score.

"Scrooge" album coverI don’t, alas, have the original soundtrack LP in my collection, so I can’t say how much Mr. Hauser has changed Mr. Bricusse’s score or Ian Fraser’s original arrangements. PR for the release quotes Mr. Hauser as saying that he “wanted to make it a little more contemporary,” and that he “took that theatrical style and reinterpreted the tunes completely.”

“My goal,” he notes, “was to keep it orchestral and sparkly, and evoking a Christmas spirit.” To my ears, he seems to have succeeded. Sparkly (with liberal use of the instruments in the small orchestra’s upper register) it certainly is, and Mr. Bricusse’s songs still hold up quite well forty years later, in my view.

The film got something of a critical drubbing here in USA the when it came out, as I recall (yes, I saw it in an actual movie theater in 1970; I’ve been around for a while) but I rather enjoyed its rather over the top approach to the story. It copped four Oscar nominations (art direction, costume design, song, and score) and several British film awards, so I felt a bit vindicated. A 1992 stage musical version (starring, inevitably, Anthony Newley) seems to have had some popularity in Britain but never made it across the Atlantic as far as I know.

The original film starred a raft of big-name British film actors. This new recording features Robert Picardo (of “Voyager” fame) in the title role, along with Kate Campbell, Brian Williams, Fletcher Sheridan, and Chase Masterson.

“Scrooge” is available as both a digital download and as an actual CD. You may visit the buysoundtrax (BSX) site for more information.

Posted by | December 23, 2011 | Album Reviews, Music | Comment 

Album review: Noam Pikelny’s ‘Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail’ is beautiful, polished — and funny

Noam Pikelny
“Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail”
Compass

In “Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail,” his latest solo release, Noam Pikelny has created a moving, playful collection that features so much top-flight playing it can make your head spin.

Pikelny’s main gig these days is as banjo player for the Punch Brothers, a band that he co-founded with Chris Thile. It’s a group known for pushing against, whenever not wholly ignoring, the traditions of bluegrass, a musical style from which the group takes its instrumentation. To say that they do it well is an understatement. Since they formed they’ve been at the epicenter of progressive acoustic music, skillfully charting new territory in an old musical world.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy going. Their performance of “Rye Whiskey” on Letterman last year was brash, cocky — and frankly brilliant. Their music is challenging and dense with rich musical ideas. It commands your attention, yet there’s a fair amount of heavy lifting required of the audience.

On “Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail,” Pikelny takes many of the ideas that inform the work of the Punch Brothers and recreates them with a much lighter touch. The two traditional pieces included here — “Bob McKinney” and a clawhammer duet with Steve Martin on “Cluck Old Hen” — are as standard as they come, but they’re played in a wholly modern way. They may have started out as social songs, as indeed the majority of the traditional repertoire did, but here they are presented as clean, beautifully-arranged show pieces.

There’s a good bit of humor on this disc, too. “Bluegrass Diva,” the video created to promote the album, is as good an introduction to Pikelny as any. He’s just really, really funny. But even in this regard, Pikelny has taken a step away from the more rarefied setting of the Punch Brothers. The laughs here are more straight up, rather than ironic, which is kind of nice for a change. It also creates a very personal and personable tone — a tone that carries over even to tracks such as “Day Down” and “The Broken Drought” that are as serious as serious can get.

Pikelny rightly leaves a lot of space for the stellar lineup of musicians that appear here. The album features guest appearances by Steve Martin, Jerry Douglas, Chris Thile and Tim O’Brien. But there are also some great, great players that may not have the same level of public awareness, including David Grier and Bryan Sutton taking turns on guitar, and Mike Compton on mandolin. Fiddler Stuart Duncan at various points comes dangerously close to stealing the show. His fiddling, as on “Fish and Bird” and “My Mother Thinks I’m a Lawyer” stands out to the point of taking your breath away.

In all, there is a lot to love in this collection. It’s clearly a part of an ongoing musical conversation — indeed, the first track “Jim Thompson’s Horse” begins so abruptly it feels a bit like you’ve joined it mid-sentence — and that’s what makes it so very good. It’s music that reaches out to the traditions as well as various communities of musicians, and brings them into an ongoing musical discussion. It is, I suspect, one of those albums that people will be talking about for a long time to come.

Bluegrass Diva with Steve Martin, Ed Helms and Noam Pikelny from Steve Martin
Posted by | December 5, 2011 | Album Reviews | Comment 

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