LISTEN
Lemon Jelly 64-95
I was driving around listening to 64-95 when suddenly, I blacked out. The next thing I know I'm in the mall parking lot and there is a voice coming from my stereo telling me to 'go inside or else'.
imagescourtesy www.amazon.com
There's something weird about the music that gets played in those upscale clothing stores — that boring elevatoresque atmospheric shit that fades so easily into the background you almost forget it's there. I guess the idea is to bore you so much with the music that you get an urge to fill that void with irrational purchases of unreasonably expensive chinos and cashmere sweaters.
Fred Deakin and Nick Franglen over at the Lemon Jelly factory must be wearing some fancy threads after this release. Lemon Jelly has made some great music to consume to, and I have a sneaking suspicion that a certain retailer might be behind this whole thing. It's the only logical explanation for such a boring record coming from these guys considering some of the previous Lemon Jelly products.
Supposedly the title of the album denotes the span of years that the Jelly sampled from to manufacture their mundane tunes, which is fascinating and
all, but not really much of a title; though it does give a good indication to the depth of the album. Looped beat, enter sample, throw in a few other clips of layered samples; repeat. And there you have it — Lemon Jelly in all their glossy glory. If you're into boring music that's good to try on stretch slacks to, these guys got you covered, like for reaf. Otherwise, this record is best suited to stay within the confines of corporate shopping establishments.
Grade: F (is for fashion)
—Ryan McBee
Beck Guero
Beck Hanson probably wouldn't care to ever earn a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but if one were to compare him to anyone in it, it would be David Bowie. It's not to say that Beck and Bowie have much to do with each other musically, but both artists have followed the same path of musical reinvention abandoning easy recipes for success in favor for a more creative product making upcoming albums refreshing and intriguing.
At least this was the case for Beck until his latest release, Guero.
Beck originally showed up on the radar with Mellow Gold, featuring its unforgettable "Loser" whose Kurt Cobain-esque refrain of "I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?" resonated with the disaffected early-90s youth. He followed up with an equally successful, if not equally sounding, Odelay! — co-produced with
the prolific Dust Brothers — that was punctuated with a blender of musical styles that morphed into one all Beck's own.
For all of his commercial success at that point, Beck rejected the possibility of grinding his wheels in the poppy formula of his first two albums and went on creative departure with his next three albums, each one unique enough in its composition and dissonance to make them important to only Beck's most devoted fans and not so much to the mainstream culture.
But for whatever reason, Beck reeled in his past musical prescription, as well as the Dust Brothers, for Guero. The result is to be expected: A return to the Odeley/Mellow Gold sound, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if Guero's results weren't so paltry. Aside from the opening "E-Pro" and the closing "Emergency Exit" — whose title sounds like a message of his intentions with the production of this throwback album — there isn't a whole lot to keep fans from reaching for the skip button. A few gems interspersed here and there, such as angelic strains of "Hell Yes" aren't enough to satisfy the devoted Beck groupies who've come to expect the unexpected, or the causal fan seeking the common denominator of an easy-listening pop-production.
Grade: C
Steve Vockrodt
Andrew Bird The Mysterious Production of Eggs
Because it is a commonly held belief that one should be able to encapsulate everything about a particular band, artist or album in 10 words or less, my assessment of Andrew Bird's Mysterious Production of Eggs is as follows: what the Fantasia soundtrack would have sounded like had it a) been composed by Mark Mothersbaugh b) featured vocals and c) employed a head-in-the-clouds English grad student/world whistling champion on said vocals. Clearly, that was not 10 words or less. It was 33. Perhaps more important than my three-fold abuse of the word limit is the fact that I was forced to trifurcate the main point. Even in doing so, my best effort falls well short of describing the
brainy, low-fi pop grandeurof the Mysterious Production of Eggs.
Andrew Bird can do and play anything. Instrumentally, he owns the violin, guitar and glockenspiel, among others. He has the warm coffee shop croon down and he is singularly the greatest whistler I have ever
heard. If meadowlarks were capable of envy, they would envy Bird's virtuoso chirping (additionally, they would be upset that a human had adopted the surname Bird, though clearly not a bird—but who cares what meadowlarks think anyway). Bird also has a librarian's affinity for language and a knack for weaving
tongue-twisting rhyme through many of his songs. Could or would you think to rhyme formaldehyde and fratricide?
I read on Bird's Web site that he was influenced to some degree by the Beatles. I did not need to be told this, as it completely obvious. What the Web site didn't tell
me, what I had to extrapolate for myself, was that Bird was influenced by each individual Beatle — their personal qualities — not of the band as a whole. In essence, Bird is a composite of all four men. Like George, Bird shrugs off thin, punchy guitar riffs ("Banking on a Myth") and has an affinity for world music (the Riverdance
violin stomp of "Fake Palindromes" and the finger picked Mediterranean head rush of "Skin is, My"). Bird, like Paul, seems to have patented the right to make a melody every minute (see: entire album). He apes John's epic weirdness (the album's surrealist children's book insert) while retaining Ringo's quirky playfulness.
In an age of labels and definitions, Bird defies them. Is it jazz, folk, soul, rock, poetry or everything? With every listen of the Mysterious Production of Eggs, there's something new to be heard, some sound you didn't think was there or could even possibly exist. Bird is a visionary, part of a dying breed. We're lucky he can put everything he hears in his head on reel-to-reel tape.
Grade: A
-Dave Ruigh
Aqualung Strange and Beautiful
First of all, Aqualung is not a Jethro Tull tribute band; there aren't even any flute solos. Neither is it an lan Anderson side project. With that out of the way, the new album Strange and Beautiful is actually a compilation of his first two albums, which were previously available only in the U.K., singer songwriter Matt Hales first received
recognition when the title track "Strange and Beautiful (I'll Put a Speil on You)" was the soundtrack for a 2002 car commercial. Strangely enough the "jingle" started a buzz around Aqualung.
Aqualung combines melancholy pianos, airy (almost Radiohead-esque
at times) vocals, saturating string ensembles, and drums to create a strange and beautiful (something to do with the name?...maybe) medley of songs. A rather appropriate listen for driving in the rain after being dumped, or at least for pretending that you are and have been. Hales masterfully combines catchy and absorbing melodies with simple yet complexly layered instrumentals to form a,yet again "strange yet beautiful" sound all its own Hales probably describes it best as "po music with a certain complexity and depth."
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Grade: B+
Jauplay 04.07.05
—Joe Sibinsi