WFHB ADDS FOR 11/22/05
ATE:11/21/05ARTIST:Wilco
TITLE: Kicking Television (Nonesuch)
GENRE: rock/alt
GRADE: A+
REVIEW: A live album is, first and foremost, an album: a simulacrum of reality, not the thing itself. Yes, Virginia, studio enhancements are as old as the form, but the presentation extends to which songs are chosen, which banter snippeted, and indeed, even which phase of a performer's career gets chosen for immortalization. This distinction between art and archive is a crucial one for Wilco, as each of the band's albums has represented a progression, or at least a transition-- a unified statement of the group's identity at the moment that it was recorded. Kicking Television: Live in Chicago, a 2xCD live album recorded last year in the Second City's Vic Theatre, is no exception. In its 10+ years of existence, Jeff Tweedy's post-Tupelo project has cycled through several lineups and styles: alt-country, Beach Boys-splashed Americana, Radioheaded abstraction. Then, after 2002 masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came last year's confusingly lateral move to listener-unfriendly classic-rock, A Ghost Is Born; "I will turn on you," Tweedy sang in "I'm a Wheel". The tables turn again with Kicking Television, which casts its predecessor's songs in hotter light and serves as a coming-out party for Wilco's newest, six-member incarnation: a drinking man's avant-jam band.Where I work, "continuous improvement" is part of the mission statement, and hey it's apparent in Tweedy's guitar soloing, as well. Both he and Nels Cline torture their six-strings as if the Vic were a covert U.S. detainee camp in Eastern Europe: piercing the infernal night in "Hell Is Chrome", cavorting Grateful Deadward on "Handshake Drugs", and sprawling across the dark center of the universe over the Neu!-like drone of "Spiders (Kidsmoke)", which reinvigorates the studio version and is the release's crowning achievement. So this is what A Ghost Is Born is supposed to sound like.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: CD1: 1,5,7,11,12 CD2: 1,2,3,6,8
FCC: CD1 3 (shit)
REVIEWER: excerpt from Mark Hogan's review, pitchforkmedia.com
DATE:11/21/05
ARTIST:Dave's True Story
TITLE: Simple Twist of Fate (Bepop)
GENRE: folk/ss
GRADE: B+
REVIEW: Not the most original idea (covering a batch of Dylan), but a good one in the hands of DTS. Pretty straight-forward in interpretation, this production shows the strong vocal skills of Kelly Flint and strong groove skills of Dave Cantor.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,2,4,5,6 (the “radio edits” save a little time but are not preferred)
REVIEWER: Jim Manion/WFHB
DATE: 11/21/05
ARTIST:Mick Harvey
TITLE: One Man's Treasure (Mute)
GENRE: folk/ss
GRADE: A
REVIEW: It's hard to imagine that One Man's Treasure could be anyone's trash. The first proper solo release from the multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer, best known for his tenure alongside Nick Cave-dating way back to the days of the Birthday Party-is at all times haunting, lovely and lush. The Cave-penned "Come Into My Sleep" (a Boatman's Call B-side) launches the album and Mick Harvey, propelling the obvious talent away from sidekick association into a stratosphere all his own. Melancholy and other characteristics are shared with Harvey's lanky comrade, but OMT crafts a sound entirely its own: a collection of small, personal gems. All but two of the dozen tracks are covers, dotting a familiar path between Lee Hazlewood, Scott Walker and Tim Buckley, and then Harvey does his idols justice with his own songs-soaring, lovely odes to some of the bigger themes, like love and soul searching.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 2,4,5,8,9,11
REVIEWER: Zach Bloom harpmagazine.com
DATE: 11/21/05
ARTIST:Imogen Heap
TITLE: Speak for Yourself (RCA)
GENRE: rock/alt
GRADE: A
REVIEW:Since her stop-in-your-tracks 2002 Frou Frou release, Details, Imogen Heap has been growing on the radar of indie, rock, pop and electronica fans alike. The 2005 release of her long-winded and hard won solo album, Speak For Yourself, sees Heap burgeoning with flavour and inspiration: her baleful single "Let Go" appeared in Zach Braff's critically acclaimed film Garden State, and "Hide and Seek," from Speak For Yourself, was the billowing epitaph to the second season of the musically high-brow TV drama, The OC. Speak For Yourself vanquishes any inkling of doubt in either Heap's music or style. "Headlock" winds Heap's signature croon around a tappy staccato pulse, with some oompa-loompah character burping out background vocals. "Goodnight and Go" and "Loose Ends" are probably the albums poppiest tracks, although these still burst with Heap's mingling layers of electronica. "Have You Got It In You", hearkens back the most to Details, although it simmers in the added edge of Heap's self-production. "I Am In Love With You" is irresistible: deadly simple and surprisingly sophisticated, while "The Moment I Said It" warms slowly and effortlessly. The winner of this album is, of course, "Hide and Seek", a coarse and mirrored a capella proclamation, and a testament to Heap's wide vocal, musical and production abilities. This is the kind of track that you stay in your car to finish, the kind that makes you stop what you're doing and stare into the stereo. What brings Imogen Heap her well-deserved acclaim is an uncompromising style and a unique understanding of sound. Speak For Yourself not only adds repute to an already remarkable discography, but builds into her musical geology, in her own way: layer upon layer of sound.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,2,3,4,5,10,12
REVIEWER: Megan M. Retka londonnet.co.uk
DATE: 11/21/05
ARTIST:Bobby Bare
TITLE: The Moon Was Blue (Dualtone)
GENRE: country
GRADE: A
REVIEW: The Moon Was Blue sounds like a record made by a man who hasn't been absent from the public forum for decades. At 70 years old, Bare discloses an accountable consequence when he sings. His voice is weighted, moves in a predictable gait, fraying and searing on the edges. It's not exactly extraordinary, but, like Johnny Cash's voice in his later years, it's confident and powerful as a mortal instrument. You can hear the tatters of whimsy flutter in his reading of Shel Silverstein's "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan"; his throat's a singed wisp in a rendition of "Everybody's Talkin'". Like Harry Nilsson's version, Bare's seems to be caught off-guard in preoccupied fancy, but his echoes reverberate through time. A lot of the songs here -- "I Am an Island", "Yesterday When I Was Young", "Love Letters in the Sand", "My Heart Cries for You" -- touch on past arrogances and regrets, loves and longings, obscurities made clear with patient perspective. Bare, though not as well-known as either Johnny Cash or Loretta Lynn, delivers his performances as if nothing was riding on them. Producers Nevers and Bare, Jr. drape a weary haze of string gloss over the performances, lulling yet circumspect, offering up an aural connection to country's past; simultaneously, they usher in noise and unorthodox vocal arrangements to anchor the record to a contemporary sensibility.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1,3,4,5,6,7,9
REVIEWER: Zeth Lundy popmatters.com
DATE: 11/21/05
ARTIST:Chris Brokaw
TITLE: Incredible Love (12XU)
GENRE: rock/alt
GRADE: A
REVIEW: Still somewhat “indie”-sounding (mostly due to complex/abstract rhythm section), Incredible Love shows a greater sense of focus in Brokaw's music. His careening guitar instrumentals on 2002's Red Cities have evolved into more grounded song-forms with compelling vocals and lyrics of personal poetry. A recent live guest on WFHB and at The Church, Brokaw continues to grow as a friend of the Bton scene, too.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: FCC 11
REVIEWER: Jim Manion/WFHB
TRACK LIST: 1,2,4,5,7,8,9
1.BLUES FOR THE MOON
2.MOVE
3.THE INFORMATION AGE
4.I REMEMBER
5.X'S FOR EYES
6.WHOSE BLOOD
7.ON A GREAT LAKE
8.CRANBERRIES
9.GRINGA
10.100 FACES
11.MY IDEA
DATE: 11/21/05
ARTIST: MX-80
TITLE: We're An American Band (Family Vineyard)
GENRE: rock/alt/”local”(founded in Bton, although in Bay Area CA since 1978)
GRADE: A
REVIEW: Although they will most-likely never rise above their relative obscurity, MX-80 really doesn't care. They'll keep cranking out the smart, clever, edgy and sometimes darkly funny rock they have been since they got rolling here in 1975. Rich Stim's wry, dry sad-sack vocals contrast with the remarkable guitaring of Bruce Anderson and Dale Sophia's bedrock bass.
Start with the Grand Funk cover and take it from there. A band for Bloomington to still be proud of, and thankful to Eric Weddle for releasing new music and side projects from.
REVIEWER: Jim Manion/WFHB
Also added this week at WFHB:
The Mannish Boys Live and In Demand Delta Groove
Various Artists Sound of the World Wrasse
Ulrich Schnauss Far Away Trains Passing By Domino
posted by WFHB Music @ 9:22:00 AM
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