BLO - Chapter And Phases: The Complete Albums 1973-1975

A few years back, you would be forgiven for believing that BLO’s only song worth hearing was “Chant to Mother Earth”, a psychedelic dirge-waltz that, for a while, seemed to be comped every few months. Nothing else was available aside from expensive imports that I avoided because, once again, I thought they were only worth the one song. Far from it. These guys, who once toured with Ginger Baker, synthesized jammy fuzz-rock with their Nigerian roots in a way that few African bands did as well. In this context, it makes sense that Rev-Ola, purveyors of obscure pop and psych from the '60s, would put this out instead of the usual suspects from the super-hot Afro reissue scene. It’s been a long time coming, so get this one while it lasts. 

FAMOUS L. RENFROE AS THE FLYING SWEET ANGEL OF JOY - Children

An enigmatic release from an obscure artist named “Famous”? Well, the oddities don’t end there. Not much is known about Renfroe. We do know, though, that he recorded this record sometime around 1968 and that he self-produced this delicious slab of outsider R&B, playing most of the instruments himself except for drums. Not that this is a Numero-styled lo-fi soul release; no, this is highly esoteric soul, with just enough wrong to make Children a highly compelling listen without going off the deep end of weird and making the black American equivalent of a Shaggs album. Mind you, “His Love” rivals The Prodigals’ “Judy” as one of the most unintentionally out-of-tune basslines in soul history, but listen to that song with the bass turned down low and it’s hard to deny the pure passion in his performance. This is one for fans of late-'50s Specialty Records sides, boogie-woogie and rough guitar-led gospel. 

THEM CROOKED VULTURES - S/T

Two questions: 1. Why do so many rock supergroups suck?

Honestly. After all, from short-lived moments in time like The Quintet at Massey Hall to modern-age combos like John Zorn's Masada, nearly every second great jazz band is a "supergroup" of some kind—a union of highly respected and talented stars thrown together into a band because, well, it seems like a good idea. But jazz is a style of music wherein its best players uniformly require the ability to truly listen to each other and collaborate to be successful. You could argue that in rock n' roll, some of the biggest stars succeed because of an entirely opposite trait—that being a rampaging ego that trumps all others in the room. Take three or four of those personalities and shove them in a room, and the end result is sadly inevitable.

2. Why do Them Crooked Vultures not suck?

The short answer? As much as all the parties involved would balk at the suggestion, this is really just another Queens Of The Stone Age album. It's guitarist/singer Josh Homme's ship to sail or wreck, but that's okay, because the man has made his name on collaboration. And as usual, he has chosen well. Nearly every QOTSA album relies on a heavily rotating lineup of guest musicians orbiting around Homme, and that's not even getting into his highly eclectic Desert Sessions albums. In this case, the unit is tight and perfectly well-balanced. Grohl is hardly a new face, of course, being the man behind the skins on QOTSA's most punishing and satisfying album to date, 2002's Songs For The Deaf—in short, Homme and Grohl have already proved that they click.

That makes some dude named John Paul Jones the only real wild card, and it does take some time to pick up how he fits in here. At first listen, TCV is all Homme and Grohl's show, and they are absolutely locked; it's a visceral thrill to hear these two in a studio again. But Jones was always the least conspicuous member of Led Zeppelin—surrounded by three of rock's most outsized personalities of all time, he understood his role perfectly. And so it is here. Jones' playing is not only the ideal foil to Homme's fiery axework, it's also an understanding companion to his often gentle singing voice.

Them Crooked Vultures have caught a little flak for being unoriginal/sounding too much like QOTSA/underusing Jones, etc. Forget that. These are simply three extremely talented men who enjoy playing hard rock together. And they definitely don't suck at doing it.

TODOR KOBAKOV - Pop Music

You never really know your neighbours, do you? I mean, sure, us Torontonians know that we have a really solid indie scene—one that spans everything from video-game punk to carnival-esque avant-jazz. But how many of you really knew that we had our very own Chopin lurking in our midst? Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that Todor Kobakov's most well-known contributions to our music scene were as one half of the pop duo Major Maker—they're responsible for that uber-catchy Maynard's candy jingle. In other words, it's okay if this one catches you by surprise. Kobakov may appear to be coyly acknowledging this past by calling his debut solo piano effort Pop Music, but it's more than a gag. To start, two indie-pop vocalists in Emily Haines of Metrics and TV On The Radio's Tunde Adebimpe contribute vocals to a pair of tracks. But with or without these vocal turns, he has made a rather populist album. With each track hovering in the three to four minute range, Kobakov makes sure to never overstate his talents or his ambitions, favouring tight, eloquent narratives over bombastic showmanship or drawn-out melancholy. Furthermore, his titles all offer direct windows into the themes of each piece. If it all sounds like I'm suggesting he's recorded a sort of Solo Piano for Dummies, then a thousand apologies, because Pop Music is no such thing. Rather, it's Solo Piano for the People—an album that is as humble and unassuming with its great gifts as it is generous. Simply gorgeous, timeless stuff.

CANAILLE - Potential Things

Released on the same day and label as the previously reviewed (and also excellent) 5 Pieces by Muskox, Potential Things is the debut disc from Canaille, the latest jazz combo to feature the exceptional Jeremy Strachan. Whether tackling a live cover of Coltrane's immense behemoth Ascension, blowing solo improvs based on Pollock-esque paintings, or wailing percussive themes in syncopation with a dude banging buckets, Strachan is an intelligent and ferociously searching talent. For Canaille, he is surrounded by a truly resourceful crew, including saxophonist Colin Fisher and Muskox leader (and Soundscapes staffer—hey, we've got a right to be proud!) Mike Smith on double bass. Compared to the immediately discernible ambition of Strachan's past projects, Potential Things is a bit of a straight-shooter. It seemingly does not bend rules so much as adhere to a well-established template within the world of jazz, but that's what makes this record great—it's steeped in a love, respect, and knowledge of what made so many classic albums work, so much so that an afternoon spent listening to it quickly finds me flipping back and forth between it and Mingus Ah Um, This Is Our Music and Miles Smiles with a feeling of total joy. Like all of those recognized classics, Potential Things is the sound of a group of musicians engaged in spirited but aware dialogue, and listening in to these proceedings is a real privilege.

THE FLAMING LIPS - Embryonic

It was a decade ago that The Soft Bulletin pushed The Flaming Lips from alt-rock one-hit wonders (at least in terms of the general public's view) to full-on contender status. Although things did not really coalesce until 2002's Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and its hit single "Do You Realize", Bulletin matched their trademark sense of bizarre spectacle with newly Herculean production and sweeping melodic gestures. And so the group that once famously festooned venues entirely in such lo-fi props as christmas lights and bubble machines finally gained the clout to turn their live show into a three-ring festival circus. At first, it was truly inspiring to behold—the sight of leader Wayne Coyne climbing over top of the crowd in a giant, clear ball was too insane and joyous to not love completely. But after some seven years of seeing them open every concert with "Race For The Prize"—and an equal amount of time without anything resembling a great record—it felt like the spectacle had consumed the music. What was once one of the most unpredictable and challenging bands in indie rock had become a Cirque du Soleil for hipsters. Thankfully, Embryonic takes the rule book that this band has constructed in recent years and it pretty much sends it to hell. No singles, not anything even approaching a pop song. Instead, a dark cloud of paranoia and groove dominates the album.

As stated by many already, it is indeed a unified recording—all 18 tracks are dedicated to a single message and approach. As a result, The Flaming Lips have truly made an album worth talking about again. Even better, they've done so without simply repeating the tricks that made their albums such a thrill in the '90s. Instead, they've successfully applied the considerable cinematic power of their live show to a purely audio experience—the entire record is not songs so much as colours, textures and resonant tremors. It's their craziest trip of a disc since the 4-CD experiment Zaireeka, and one that you'll find yourself listening to a lot more—and a lot more easily, too.

ERMA FRANKLIN - Piece Of Her Heart: The Epic & Shout Years

While it would be tough to beat the depth of Aretha Franklin’s vocal profundity, her sister Erma scores for the oceanic breadth so few other soul artists of her time were capable of. The late Erma, Aretha’s oldest sister (Carolyn was no slouch, either), is best known for the original and definitive version (sorry Janis, though I love yours, too) of “Another Piece of My Heart”. To deny her further attention would not give justice to this versatile vocalist, who was capable of laying down pure mid-'60s soul music, harder-edged funk, as well as a surprisingly sweet sophistication that both Ettas (James and Jones) also shared. This collection takes a broad survey of a singer who, overshadowed by her insuperable sibling, could not keep the momentum of her one great hit, despite a rich career of excellent vocal performances. 

VA - Fire In My Bones: Raw + Rare + Other-Worldly African-American Gospel 1944-2007

Compared to other forms of music captured in field recordings, there’s something about gospel that needs to be recorded in its natural setting, in God’s home, far away from the sterile confines of recording studios. One could argue that gospel music simply should not be recorded any other way but live, in its natural environment. Anyone who needs further convincing should check The Emotions singing “Peace Be Still” on the classic Wattstax doc, Alan Lomax’s documentation of church services, or better yet, dig into this astounding 3-disc collection of black American gospel before televangelism totally perverted the form. Though not all recorded in the field, the sheer force of these performances make early recordings by Sam Cooke & The Soul Stirrers, and Mahalia Jackson seem a little mild-mannered. In fact, many of these performances are truer to the rock’n’roll spirit than much of the formulaic end of the blues that, so the cliché goes, spawned rock music. I can’t recommend this enough!

VA - Ghana Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Ghanaian Blues 1968-81

In the seven years since Soundway put out their first comp, they've become arguably the finest reissue purveyor of floor-shaking grooves from Nigeria, Panama, Colombia and, most recently, Guadeloupe & Martinique (on last month's sublime Tumbele set). By focusing on hard grooves from the '60s and '70s, they've helped move tastes away from the slick “worldbeat” production values that dominated the market in the '80s and '90s. Ghana Special is a return home of sorts, and a follow-up to the remarkable Ghana Soundz collection from 2002 that started it all for the label. The heavy funk heard on that disc must have made many a DJ in the rare groove scene want to trade in their jazz-funk records for these records that were more than convincingly “funky”, and indeed many did pursue this route. Since then, Soundway boss Miles Cleret has toned down the overt funk influence and has shown that his preferences have matured, though not at the expense of the dancefloor–far from it, in fact. The two discs here show a diversity that the Nigerian deluge of last year, great as it was, could not match. In fact, there are so many fantastic tracks here, I’ll be digging into this for a long time to come. One of the top African collections of 2009.

BROADCAST & THE FOCUS GROUP - Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age

Broadcast keep getting stranger and stranger, ditching all remnants of their '60s British pop leanings and embracing the naïve and chaotic while retaining their soundtrack inclinations, although they tend more toward the avant end of sound library recordings these days (along with harsh electronics, as evidenced during their recent performance here in Toronto). The amorphous processing on display at the show was just a hint of what Trish Keenan and James Cargill have been up to since 2005’s Tender Buttons, although we won’t fully know until they drop their next proper album next year. In the meantime, we have this nearly 50-minute “mini”-album to contend with, the first musical collaboration between Broadcast and The Focus Group (Julian House, co-owner of the Ghost Box label who has also designed most of the sleeve art for Broadcast). Witch Cults flows like a disturbingly surreal dream, with Trish’s increasingly lullabye/nightmare vocals spread out over a handful of the 23 tracks here. The asymmetrical loops and nonsensical treatment of harmony and melody further add to the notion that Broadcast’s creative vision is far from spent. 

WHITE DENIM - Fits

It's not easy to take old tricks and make them fresh and new—in music, you're considered a revivalist if you try to sound like a relic from the past, and, unfortunately, it's always worded with a negative connotation. Austin's White Denim take their inspiration and sounds from high-intensity psych-rock, bluesy British proto-prog and XTC-esque pop hooks, mixing it all together with a reckless abandon that makes the listener want to dance around the room like an excited 5-year-old. Nothing is held back here, but that doesn't mean it's not well-planned. Fits starts out full-tilt; the first few tunes rock hard, but also twist and turn, with gonzo time changes balanced with melodies that don't alienate the ears. By four songs in, you kind of settle into an understanding that this is one challenging party record, but who doesn't like to learn and have fun at the same time? Towards album's end, the trio starts to unleash some well-written pop singles, as well as one jam that can't not have been influenced by fellow Texans ZZ Top (and to top it all off, a bonus disc of the group's previously Europe-only debut Exposion is also enclosed). I've been waiting a long time for a band like White Denim to exist. Thanks, guys!

(White Denim perform at the Horseshoe on Mon. Nov 9.)

J.J. JACKSON - The Great J.J. Jackson

Time to testify to another outstanding lost Sixties soul man who's now been found, or should I say redisc-overed, after having been forgotten by all but those diehard lovers and collectors of the genre. J.J. Jackson and The Greatest Little Soul Band in the Land had one mid-sized hit in 1966, the propulsive dancefloor shaker "But It's Alright". Their sole (no pun intended) album was a match for whatever material legends like Wilson Pickett or Sam and Dave were putting out, but Jackson never achieved the fame or commercial success of these rhythm 'n' bruisers. Pity, 'cause this ravin' reissue contains one humdinger of a number after another: "I Dig Girls", the exciting "Boogaloo Baby", the Robbie Robertson composition "The Stones That I Throw", and "Come See Me", which British proto-punk r'n'b beat group The Pretty Things ferociously amped up on their 1966 cover. The emotion Jackson wrings out of his version of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" is almost as equally heartfelt as the original. Get this and get down!!

MUSKOX - 5 Pieces

Mike Smith's Muskox finally make the leap to full-length (and -sized, as all-out triangle-tesselated packaging deservedly flaunts the fact) status with 5 Pieces, their first for Alex Durlak's Standard Form imprint (also home to Canaille and Feuermusik, among many other interrelated acts) after three consistently impressive 3" CD-Rs self-released over as many years. The ensemble's since likewise grown, now counting cellist Erika Nielsen among its ranks.

Disciplined but lyrical and delicately driving, Smith and company continue to temper tricky rhythms and time changes with lithe melodic lines that brainily intertwine, often returning to state the head motif after an adventurous, involved digression. A truly progressive crossbreed, Muskox straddle genres with the grace of a much less brawny beast.

(Muskox perform at the Music Gallery Thu. Oct 29 with Canaille and Damian Valles. Tickets are $10 at the door, and the show starts at 8:30pm.)

WILD BEASTS - Two Dancers

This art-rock quartet are like a staring contest that you're destined to lose. Wild Beasts pout and preen to such a degree that, upon first listen, you're convinced that it must be some kind of put-on—that all you have to do is wait it out. To their enduring credit, though, that moment never comes, because the group wasn't joking to start with.

Okay, no band that writes the already-immortal couplet of "This is a booty call/My boot, my boot, my boot, my boot up your asshole" can be without a sense of humour, but the music on Two Dancers is definitely serious business: as another line from that same song, "The Fun Powder Plot", intones, it is played "with courage and conviction".

Two Dancers is indeed a very brave record, combining the taut grooves of mid-period Talking Heads and crisp, clarion guitar work with a devotion to falsetto that would've made Jeff Buckley blush. This bravery comes not so much from the mixture of the elements themselves, but from the seething steeliness with which it's delivered. When singer/guitarist Hayden Thorpe wails "Watch me! Watch me!" in "All The King's Men", it's with a bravado rarely attributed to a falsetto vocal. And while second vocalist/bassist Tom Flemming's voice is the soothing, crooning tenor that helps ensure a domesticity in their sound, this band is far from tame. Peculiar and confident, Two Dancers is one of the most inexplicably intoxicating and original records you'll hear all year.

CALIFONE - All My Friends Are Funeral Singers

Tim Rutili may just be one of the most unsung forces in American indie. Diminutive and bespectacled in person, his music has always taken on a similar quality. It sounds shy, intelligent, questioning, and worthy of a good conversation—if you can figure out how to begin one. And that's always been the dividing wall between him and a potentially larger audience. Whether leading Califone, or his old '90s band—the far more rock n' roll Red Red Meat—Rutili makes very few attempts to reach out to his audience. And thank God for that. Placing the onus on listeners to come to him may not have made Rutili a rich man, but the wealth visited upon those people who do make the effort is immeasurable. Having listened to his music for nearly twenty years, the man's output has never wavered in quality or curiosity. Funeral Singers is the latest in a long line of stellar albums which explore the links between archival folk, blues, rock n' roll, avant-garde, gospel, and makeshift electronics. This record is supposedly the soundtrack to a film Rutili directed that will arrive in 2010. What shape that film will take is anyone's guess, but given the cinematic, patient and inquisitive nature of his mind, you can bet it will be worth your attention. Until then, please get this gorgeous record—this band is a real treasure.

THE XX - xx

Everything about this young English quartet is stylized and calibrated to within an inch of its life, especially its romantic attachment to the '80s culture of minimal electro/goth pop. At times, it's a little unnerving—particularly for anyone who lived through it the first time—but that's kind of the point. All in their early twenties, these folks didn't live through it, making drawing upon Soft Cell and Young Marble Giants no different than mining Nick Drake or 13th Floor Elevators or, heck, Robert Johnson. In this light, xx is a total triumph, combining these influences with a touch of hip hop production savvy and low-end to create a unified album that never once breaks its established mood. Austere, cold and clipped, but filled with raw, relatable late-teen confusion and emotion, The xx work because they use only the fewest elements possible to establish each scene. This gives ample space for the dry, up-closeness of Romy Croft and Oliver Sims' vocals to take effect. The result ends up being a lot closer to R&B than anything else—dark, even detached, but still loaded with sex and tension.

SHOTGUN JIMMIE - Still Jimmie

Officially Shotgun Jimmie's third solo album, Still Jimmie marks a return to the grittier sound that defined his first release, 2004's The 6,000 True Stories of Love after his relatively polished sophomore album, 2007's The Onlys. Backed by his tourmates Attack in Black (who themselves cut parts of their latest album at Jimmie's Sackville, NB farm) and hastily recorded in their basement studio on the cusp of a cross-country tour, Still Jimmie benefits from the unrehearsed sound. Jimmie's lyrics have always been playful but the accompanying music has never been as boisterous as it is here. Album highlights include the heartsore duet with $100's Simone Schmidt "Quicksand" and lead-off track "Mind Crumb". Fans of Jimmie will surely fall in love with this album right off the bat, but for those new to his work, Still Jimmie proves to be the perfect place to discover one of Canada's hidden gems.

(Shotgun Jimmie plays an in-store here at Soundscapes on Wed. Oct 28 at 7pm.)

BUILT TO SPILL - There Is No Enemy

It happened so slowly it took a while to notice. At the turn of this century, Built To Spill were a gold standard and just about the only major-label band out there still regularly called "indie". That's because 1997's Perfect From Now On and 1999's Keep It Like A Secret were not only two of the best records released in their respective years, they were also as un-major-label as you could imagine. Winding, meandering songwriting; compellingly tweaked arrangements; and haunted performances that patiently stretched themselves toward ambiguous, yet deeply satisfying resolutions—that was Built To Spill. But what first felt like a victory lap (2000's Live) was actually a premonition of the slump to come. Bloated and played with little regard for the audience or even the songs themselves, Live was a reminder of how even this band could use some limits once and a while. In short, Built To Spill have written some great songs in the 2000s, but never in a way that was sustained enough to produce great albums. There Is No Enemy seeks to rectify that just under the wire. The verdict? While not the equal of either Secret or Perfect, this is a really terrific album. 

With this group, it's all a matter of degrees (i.e. not too jammy/just jammy enough) and like baby bear's porridge, Enemy hits that hallowed middle ground. "Hindsight" and "Good Ol' Boredom" are the kinds of melancholic pop tunes that are BTS' bread and butter, but it's penultimate track "Things Fall Apart" that really shows what makes this band so special—a crawling ode to misfortune that evokes just as much comfort as it does despair, all delivered with the most eloquent of shrugs.

ATLAS SOUND - Logos

When we first encountered Bradford Cox, it was as the then-confrontational frontman of fledgling indie upstarts Deerhunter. After a debut album that featured a naked dude with a deer mask and the word "faggot" in its title, it seemed easy to peg Cox as a musician far more interested in getting a reaction than making terribly compelling music, and so it may have been at the time, but one full-length, two EPs, and an absolutely stellar double album later, Deerhunter has become one of America's best underground bands.

Tellingly, Cox's only "act" today is that of a sort of modern rock anthropologist. Deerhunter's music carefully archives some of the most powerful sounds of underground music—shoegaze, lo-fi, punk, kraut—and recontextualizes them as new songs. So what does all of this have to do with Cox's solo project, Atlas Sound? It, too, takes a very important movement in indie music—bedroom 4-track albums—and projects it through an updated lens. Clearly no one's recording on old cassette tapes anymore, but that ramshackle, accidental spirit lives on here. Logos cozies gauzy loops up against broken down lullabies and suburban skateboarder blues, occasionally allowing moments of giddy joy to burst the album wide open. And even though the record's two most potent moments are its guest appearances (Panda Bear on "Walkabout" and Laetitia Sadier on "Quick Canal"), this is no self-indulgent solo slouch. Cox is steadily proving that it won't be long before he can place his name alongside those musical icons he so clearly reveres.

VA - Dirty French Psychedelics

This is not the 'official' psychedelic sound, but rather a sound that has been overlooked by revivals from the '60s to the '80s, ignored for lacking easy categorization. In 1970s France, moody orchestrations by Jean-Claude Vannier for the epochal Melody Nelson session with Serge Gainsbourg (as well as the less-acknowledged but artistically equal Brigitte Fontaine Est...) combined with the clash of exotic folk and cosmic jazz on the Saravah label to create an atmospheric and far-reaching sound that embraced open-mindedness, come-down grooviness, and the pristine (but definitely not smooth) production techniques of the time. It is a sound that's a purple haze without being “Purple Haze”, if you get my drift. Paris' Dirty Sound System have defined an amorphous genre, a rare thing in the compilations market, and have done it with a flow that betrays some serious mixtape obsession. A creepy and ominous mood is created by soundtrack greats François de Roubaix and Karl Heinz Schäfer, plus freaky pioneers Brigitte Fontaine and Dashiell Hedayat, along with many more.