Category: Music

Everyone’s favorite men’s renaissance a cappella group, the Suspicious Cheese Lords, will be on Washington DC classical station WETA on Sunday night, doing the “Millennium of Music” program hosted by Robert Aubry Davis. The station has a streaming audio feed (Real or Windows Media Player only, unfortunately) so you can preview parts of their amazing new disc of previously unrecorded works of Ludwig Senfl. Set your tuners for 10 PM; it should be a really good show.

Low’s music has always rewarded careful listening, and its tempos have famously permitted it. Having been lumped in with the slowcore movement for their beautiful and glacial music, the band’s name conjures memories of songs that move with geological speed. But it’s reductionist to think of them as slowcore; the other ingredients in their musical mix—including memorable melodic lines, a sure sense of timbre and atmosphere, drones, the haunting vocal harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, the anchoring bass of Zak Sally, and an underappreciated sense of humor that has led them to cover songs by the Misfits and Journey (as documented on last year’s b-sides compilation, A Lifetime of Temporary Relief)—are the real musical arrows in Low’s quiver. And, with the tempos positively frantic by the standards of past performances on Long Division, those arrows find their mark in The Great Destroyer.

The album merits a song-by-song review, if only because the band’s musical experimentation causes them to stretch in many different directions at once. The album opener (“Monkey”) starts with a wave of fuzzed out bass, and the bass and guitar stay snarling at the front of the mix throughout. “California” is, by contrast, a slice of sunny pop with memorable harmonies and an oddly hooky chorus (“You had to sell the farm/And go to California where it’s warm”). The song falters a bit as it pulls the energy back in the last bridge, turning what would otherwise be a perfect single into just a great song. The same style plus a dash of guitar line a la U2’s the Edge, informs “Just Stand Back” a little later in the album, and is deconstructed with distorted vocals, odd stereo placements, hand claps, and crunching guitar lines on “Step.”

“Everybody’s Song” is menacing, embracing an abrasive guitar riff (oddly reminiscent of the one from Sun Kil Moon’s “Lily and Parrots”) and angry minor-third vocal harmonies over some seriously pounding bass drums. By contrast, “Silver Rider” sounds like old Low circa Things We Lost in the Fire—pleasant and maybe necessary after the preceding three tracks.

Then there’s “On the Edge Of.” The song sounds like the band was listening to a bunch of old Neil Young records—it has that same crazed/pining dichotomy to its structure and to the sound, and the lead guitar hook paired to Sparhawk’s high thin tenor conjure visions of Freedom. The same contrast informs “Pissing,” “Broadway (So Many People),“ and “When I Go Deaf,” which sounds less like a melding of “Low’s varied styles together into a single song” (as Sub Pop writes in the promotional blurb for the album) than a manifesto that declares that beautiful delicate vocal lines and aggressive guitar solos needn’t live in separate worlds. The closer, “Walk into the Sea,” explores the same territory by foregrounding Mimi Parker’s drumming against the delicate melody line.

The album isn’t as much of a departure for the group as it is a needed evolution. Their last album, Trust, sounded constrained by their slow-drone formula and laid bare a few too many of their influences. The Great Destroyer opens up some promising new directions for the band. It also promises that they will follow more than a few of them in albums to come, which is the best news of all.

Originally posted at Blogcritics.

New York Times: Smithsonian’s Song Catalog Is Available for Sale Online. Unfortunately, it’s at MSN Music, not the iTunes Music Store. Interesting choice, given the percentage of the Mac market who would be interested in Folkways recordings who are now locked out of purchasing them online (at least through September). Since the other major library of American and world field recordings, the Alan Lomax collection, is only available on iTunes, I guess this is really going to turn into a DRM technology battle.

It is hard to remember sometimes, from the perspective of early 2005, that many choral masterworks whose existence we take for granted are relatively new to the recorded repertoire. Bach’s B Minor Mass and Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem were first recorded in their entirety by Robert Shaw for RCA Victor in 1947, nearly a full half-century after sound recordings became commercially available, and works like Berlioz’s Messe Solenelle were available only as imported recordings until the Washington Cathedral Choral Society’s North American premiere recording of the work in the early 1990s. But many more composers are mostly or entirely unrecorded, particularly the numerous choral composers of the Renaissance.

This rich unrecorded choral world is rapidly becoming the specialty of Washington, DC’s resident male early music a cappella group, the Suspicious Cheese Lords. Following their first CD, which featured unrecorded works of Elzear Genet (aka Carpentras), the Cheese Lords return with Missa L’homme armé, an ambitious program of premiere recordings from the works of Ludwig Senfl (whose name means mustard in German).

Senfl, who was a musical contemporary of Carpentras, Juan del Encina, and other better known Renaissance composers, was the court composer for Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, but faded into relative obscurity following Maximilian’s death, and remained in the employ of Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria until his own death in 1543. He left behind an enormous amount of music, including over 100 mass settings. For this recording, the Cheese Lords selected Senfl’s parody mass on the popular tune L’homme armé, several motets, and Senfl’s vast (and incomplete) Te Deum, which Cheese Lord collaborator and Library of Congress researcher Michael Donaldson completed by adding an altus line in accordance with known performance practices of the time.

The performances this time around are stellar. The ensemble has grown in sonority and maturity since their debut release, and the blend and solo lines are superb. This is a highly recommended recording from an even more highly recommended live ensemble.

(And it’s been almost five years since I sang with them, so you can take that as a reasonably objective opinion.)

DCist: WHFS, R.I.P.. Infinity Broadcasting changed the format of the venerable “alternative rock” station (which had in recent years largely shifted focus, to what DCist appropriately calls “aggro rock”) to a Spanish language station. This leaves the DC area with no alternative rock stations at all.

I should be surprised but I’m not. First they came for the classical stations, then the jazz stations, then for the college indie stations…

New mix posted: i’d be an unmade bed. Also available at the iTunes Music Store. I tried to go uptempo with this one, and the only problem was that I had too many tunes and too few threads pulling them together. Hopefully the final version overcame at least the second challenge.

I’m not sure I feel moved to write my own Best of the Year list as I did last year… but when looking at these two lists by cartoonists whose musical tastes I respect, I know that there will at least be a lasting guide to what’s good from the year. The more complete of the two so far is Jeph Jacques’ top 10 list at Questionable Content, on which I’ve listened to exactly one and a half discs; good shopping list.

Another indie-focused list, in words and pictures, comes from Scary Go Round’s John Allison, who has his character Shelley Winters (no relation) reviewing his top 20 selections (link goes to the first five; looks like he’ll be doing them as a week of comics). The coverage is hilariously honest: regarding Air’s Talkie Walkie, she notes, “This record is nice when you are listening to it but you forget it the second you turn it off,” and she zings Franz Ferdinand with “their songs are about being an androgynous pixie-boy who dances on the dance floor with anything in trousers or a skirt.”

There’s also a meta-post at Blogcritics collecting “best of” lists, and KEXP has posted their collection of DJ Best Of lists—the Top 90.3 won’t be posted until Friday.

MetaFilter: Play a Harry Partch Instrument.. The late great weird composer’s custom “Just Intonated” instruments can now be “played” via interactive Flash on the American Mavericks web site. I think I’ll have to try out the percussion instrument called “The Spoils of War,” just as soon as I find some headphones…

The Suspicious Cheese Lords got some props recently from the Washington Post (many thanks to Greg for pointing out the article, which I missed). Quoth the Post’s reviewer, “The Suspicious Cheese Lords are a men’s chamber chorus founded in 1996 that’s beginning to make a name for itself in this area — for its singing as much as its odd appellation. And in a well-researched concert of mostly Renaissance music at the Franciscan Monastery in Northeast Washington on Sunday, they showed off the sort of blend accomplished only by careful listening.”

She also called the group’s name a “clever bastardization,” which is perhaps the most apt description of the group that I’ve heard yet.

Alas, I’m still waiting on the new CDs. I’m beginning to think that they’ll have to be Epiphany presents rather than being under the tree on the 25th…

After the reception at the Hong Kong, I made my way to Club Passim in time to catch Justin Rosolino’s debut there. This wasn’t a solo show for Justin—he was sharing the stage with three other talented singer/songwriter guys—but it was the first time I had a chance to see him play his own material (leaving out the shows he played at both my reunions to date, which while good were kind of hard to hear over the roar of the crowd and also were far heavier on covers).

Justin was amazing. He managed four songs in the first half of the show (the format was round-robin), including “To Say Goodbye,” “29” (the instrumental that closes out Wonderlust), “Legacy,” and a deeply soulful version of “O Holy Night.” I was impressed by the other artists, Brian Webb, Rod Picott, and Steve Delopoulos, but even accounting for my bias I think Justin stole the show with his musicianship (he did improvised guitar parts to everyone else’s songs, even some really high-speed picking numbers) and humor.

At Art of the Mix: once I was dug up, I was sinking. Also at the iTunes store with the usual caveats about missing tracks. This was going to be the third mix to follow the ones I made this summer before and during the move, but I have one more to come that might close on a more positive note. At least the mix ends on a hopeful note with the Richard Buckner song (which also gives it its title): “once I was dug up, I was sinking/I was longing to be saved.”

BBC: James Brown has prostate cancer. That really sucks. He’ll recover, more than likely, but I guess the days of his doing splits on stage are definitely over.

For every jazzman who has a long, illustrious career (think Dexter Gordon), or who blazes bright only to burn out too quickly (Charlie Parker or John Coltrane), there is a Bobby Timmons—an artist with a few frustrating flashes of brilliance followed by a long descent into alcoholism. By the time This Here is Bobby Timmons, Timmons’ first record as a leader, was recorded in 1960, he had already written three seminal original tunes while working with Art Blakey and Cannonball Adderly: “Moanin’,” “This Here,” and “Dat Dere.” 1960 was the peak year in Timmons’ career; he appeared or led on over 20 recordings with Blakey, both Adderly brothers, Lee Morgan, and Buddy Rich, among others. Thereafter his output as a performer and composer diminished until at the end of the decade he was appearing on only one or two sessions a year, and those live rather than studio appearances.

What happened to Timmons? Ironically, his very success may have been his undoing. Some writers have suggested that he was stereotyped as a simple soul player after his originals, which were very much in the “soul jazz” tradition of the early sixties and incorporated simple soul, blues and gospel licks into jazz’s compositional repertoire, became big hits. In fact, some writers go so far as to credit “Moanin’” and “This Here” with making Art Blakey and Cannonball Adderly (respectively) commercial successes.

That Timmons had higher ambitions than the soul-jazz crown can be glimpsed from the set list of this release, which tackles such classics of the repertoire as Ellington’s “Prelude to a Kiss,” “My Funny Valentine,” and Strayhorn’s “Lush Life”—the last as a solo number. The arrangements of all of these numbers are as straightforward jazz covers with little of the stride or gospel influences that Timmons was more famous for. Unfortunately, these numbers occasionally fall flat as a result. It’s on Timmons’ originals that the set really comes alive—though his “Lush Life” hints at the possibility of some deeper artistry, the other cuts either stay resolutely in the same soul-jazz groove or become facile and timid.

This reissue from Fantasy is part of a new line of SACD rereleases of seminal Riverside, Prestige and Contemporary recordings. The sound on the standard CD layer of the hybrid disc is clean and balanced, with the low end gamely holding its own against the cymbal-heavy sound of Jimmy Cobb’s drums—in fact, in a few places the bass seems a little too much in the mix, for instance on the second chorus of “Dat Dere” and on “My Funny Valentine.” A tape wobble partway through “The Party’s Over,” apparently present in the original master, slightly mars the sound, but otherwise the recording is clean and transparent, allowing the listener to hear Timmons’ grunts (like a quieter Keith Jarrett) as well as the music.

Ultimately, This Here is Bobby Timmons is a document from one of the major jazz movements of the fifties and sixties, and should be appreciated in that spirit. This release provides the most transparent glimpse yet into Timmons’ soulful playing and his studio sessions. Also recommended for a fuller vision of Timmons as a performer are his key sessions with Cannonball and with the Jazz Messengers. As a sideman, he was hard to beat; as a composer, he added new sounds and rhythms to the rich griot of jazz; as a leader, his tragically short career denied him the time to grow and mature.

Originally published on BlogCritics.

So last night was THE concert: Pixies with Mission of Burma at the Tsongas Arena in Lowell. Prior to the show, I kept looking for information about the Pixies’ concerts and was disappointed in the quality of the writing that I found. After last night, I understand; the show was so INDESCRIBABLY WONDERFUL that any attempt to describe it would be FUTILE. But I’ll try anyway, fanboy slobbering aside.

The crowd at last night’s show was an odd mix. Lots of college kids, a bunch of people my age or so, a few gray heads and more than a few high school kids. But all of us seemed united in one thing—none of us seemed like we were typical concert goers; all of us seemed in disbelief that the show was really about to happen. “If they just play ‘Dig for Fire,’ I’ll be happy,” said one fan behind me on the floor. His friend replied, “I’ll settle for ‘Bone Machine.’” His friend said, “Actually, I’d settle for ‘Crackity Jones’…”.

The warm-up act, the Bennies, elicited some surprised laughter when they wheeled out on stage. Yes, wheeled; the Bennies’ lead singer, Jeremy Dubs, is a little person who’s confined to a wheelchair. But he rocked hard when they came out of the gate, at one point headbanging so hard that his glasses flew off. The group played a tight set of mostly short songs, many of which betrayed the Pixies’ influence through frequent meter and tempo changes (though lyrically the group was a lot less surreal than their ticketmates). I’ll look forward to finding their album when it’s released.

Then Mission of Burma took the stage. They started hard, with “The Setup” from their new album, ONoffON, and didn’t let up throughout a hard-edged set that alternated new tunes like “Falling” (which was spectacular live) with influential early material like “Peking Spring,” “Academy Fight Song,” “Fame and Fortune,” “This Is Not a Photograph,” “Dumbells,” “Red,” and of course “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver.”

As I listened to the band, several contradictory thoughts were going through my mind at once. First, few crowd members seemed familiar with the band’s work, which is unfortunate; if Mission of Burma couldn’t get a mosh pit or even a little pogoing started with “Academy Fight Song” less than an hour from their own home town, what the hell was wrong with the world? Second, Roger Miller is an amazingly inventive guitarist, and I wish I had seen his performance with Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo at Irving Plaza two years ago. I wasn’t aware of this date last night, but remember thinking distinctly that with Mission of Burma’s songwriting skills and Sonic Youth’s inventive guitar onslaught, you could have a really amazing supergroup…

Third, Clint Conley. For a guy who until 2002 was comfortably retired, living the suburban life (coincidentally, right next door to my B-school stats professor), and working in staid local television, he rocked harder and more passionately than just about anyone I’ve seen recently, hitting the high notes in “Revolver” and “Academy Fight Song” and playing his bass, as a guy on the floor next to me said, “more like a guitar” and with more virtuosity than I’ve heard in a long time. He was briefly on stage before the set started, waving to someone in the crowd, and I saw him shaking hands in the bleachers afterwards. He seemed genuinely thrilled to be back, and he gave me hope. If he could rock that hard being almost 15 years older than me, surely I can afford a little passion of my own at 32.

Finally, the Pixies. Damn. Opening with “Bone Machine,” the band romped through a set that was heavy on early material from Surfer Rosa and Come On Pilgrim (while Doolittle was performed almost in its entirety, they only included one track, “U-Mass,” which was actually one of their earliest songs, from their final album Trompe Le Monde). The band seemed to be relishing the spotlight, drawing energy from the crowd—which was finally pogoing, moshing, and “passing the guy”—and turning it around and channelling it into fiercer and fiercer performances, really almost daring the crowd, saying, “We can outlast you.” And they did—this is the first show where I’ve seen multiple people carried out of the crowd after having fainted or otherwise been overwhelmed.

Mostly the songs were as they had been originally recorded, though they showed no signs of rust for their faithfulness to the original conception. A major exception was “Mr. Grieves,” “Nimrod’s Son,” in which “Frank Black/Black Francis/Charles Thompson” slowed down the second verse to half tempo, to totally devastating impact, and “Vamos,” during which Joey Santiago set up a wall of feedback, set his guitar on a stand, caught a drumstick tossed by David Lovering, and proceeded to play the feedback like a theremin with his hands, the stick, and even his amp cord.

As for setlist, I can only give a rough report as my brain exploded partway through the show, but other songs played included “Velouria” (which was far rockinger than the recorded version), “Is She Weird,” “Wave of Mutilation” (fast version), “Debaser,” “Tame,” “I Bleed,” “Here Comes Your Man,” “Dead,” “Monkey Gone to Heaven,” “Mr. Grieves,” “Crackity Jones” (yes indeedy), “No. 13 Baby,” “Hey,” “Gouge Away,” “Gigantic,” “Where Is My Mind?,” “Broken Face,” “Break My Body,” “Something Against You,” “Cactus,” “The Holiday Song,” “In Heaven,” and “Caribou.”

The onstage chemistry was interesting, with Kim, with a grin that I’ve seen described as “beatific” but I would have to characterize as “shit-eating,” mostly hanging out back at the drum kit with David Lovering, leaving Charles and Joey Santiago covering vast isolated territories up front. But there were some good moments as well, such as Charles busting Kim’s chops for blowing the surprise intro to “In Heaven,” and the Waltons-style “Goodnight Charles…goodnight Joey…goodnight Kim…goodnight David” that lasted for about two minutes in various combinations and repetitions.

The Pixies still have a few shows left on this tour. I don’t care who you have to kill to get a ticket if you haven’t seen them yet. Go have your mind blown.

It’s always fun to check in with my colleagues in the Suspicious Cheese Lords, the male a cappella ensemble (specializing in Renaissance music) of which I was a member. I just received a postcard advertising Gaudete, their second annual Christmas concert, at the Franciscan Monastery in Washington DC this Saturday at 7:30 pm. If you’re in the greater DC area, you should definitely check out the show.

This month will also see the release of the Cheeselords’ second CD, Missa L’homme armé: Sacred Music of Ludwig Senfl. I’ll update this post with a link as soon as the disc becomes available. Their previous recording, the sublime Maestro di Capella: Music of Elzear Genet, is available used from Amazon or on back order from CD Baby, and should be at their gig as well.