Music 2014: A decidedly selective survey

MUSIC 2014:  A DECIDEDLY SELECTIVE SURVEY
Steven Greenfield

December 31, 2015

   
    Things got behind this year, way behind.  So far behind that, around Thanksgiving (of 2015, that is), with only a handful of 2014 records reviewed, I had to resign myself to the fact that I was not going to get through all the albums I had accumulated for the year.  I made do as best I could, in a whirlwind December.  But there was no time to review any jazz or classical discs for this survey, alas, and just two “world music” CDs.  Even in the mainstream pop section, I was not able to get to a small pile of CDs that I had on hand for reviewing.  Thus, there will be no review of Cibo Matto’s (disappointing) Hotel Valentine, or Brian Eno and Karl Hyde’s collaboration, High Life, or Parquet Courts’ Sunbathing Animal, among others.  As was the case in 2013, I am not going to take the time to make general comments on the year in popular music or the sad state of the recording industry and market.

    My thanks once more go to Steve Holtje and to my brother, Douglas Greenfield, for their suggestions about what was worth paying attention to in 2014, and to my partner, Melissa, for her moral support, and most of all patience, throughout the time it took to get this survey finished.

    My list of the Top Ten (of the pops) for the year follows:

1. TV on the Radio, Seeds
2. Fennesz, Bécs
3. Aphex Twin, Syro
4. FKA Twigs, LP1
5. The War on Drugs, Lost in the Dream
6. Flight Facilities, Down to Earth
7. A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Sea When Absent
8. Flying Lotus, You’re Dead
9. Goat, Commune
10. Dva, Nipomo

    ROCK/POP ALBUM OF THE YEAR

TV ON THE RADIO, Seeds (Harvest Records)--Sometime shortly after the release of TV on the Radio’s exquisite previous record, Nine Types of Light (see the 2011 music survey), I stopped complaining about how nothing the band has done since 2006’s “I Was a Lover” measures up to that song, in all its tone-warping weirdness, and began simply appreciating a group that is managing to remain at the height of its creative genius.  It has done so in the face of tragedy, the death of its bassist, Gerard Smith, from cancer just after Nine Types of Light came out.  Some have seen Seeds as a reckoning with that premature passing, although it does not strike me as an in memoriam.  If not quite as eclectic as the prior record, it still offers plenty of aural variety, as well as greater consistency.  Seeds is a powerhouse of a rock album, of the sort that has not been witnessed much from a largely African-American band (one member, David Andrew Sitek, is white) since Living Colour (likewise based in Brooklyn, though TV on the Radio has now become bicoastal, with Seeds being recorded in Los Angeles, at Sitek’s home studio) in the 1980s.  It is hard to single out particular tracks for praise, when even those that start by laying down a pedestrian theme seem to morph into something out of the ordinary.  The diversity of its inspirational sources (the band has cited influences ranging from Bad Brains to Serge Gainsbourg) and the avoidance of predictability are among its chief strengths.  Lead singer Tunde Adebimpe has a clarion baritone voice but also eases naturally into a smooth falsetto.  His cry-edged clarity is heard to advantage on the clanging-toned, stately march that opens the record, “Quartz.”  “Careful You” is sinuously romantic and rhythmically chugging but, despite its relaxed posture, musters plenty of charge at its refrain.  “Could You” features a Byrds-like guitar harmonic pattern and brass (trumpet from Todd Simon and trombone from Dave “Smoota” Smith, both guest performers) accents boosting the chorus.  Following the concentrated postpunk guitar work that channels “Happy Idiot,” co-written with the Swedish songwriter Daniel Ledinsky, “Test Pilot” slows down the tempo for a more reflective number that still blossoms into a cool groove of a chorus.  “Ride” is the album’s only track that begins with an extended instrumental, anticipatory in its sustained synth tones backing a sober keyboard theme.  When the lyric starts up, it is set to one of those less imaginative themes, but the “nyeah-nyeah” nature of the chorus is a surprise, and ultimately the music’s tidal sweep overcomes any reservations.  Similarly, the rangy, chameleon chromaticism of the “Right Now” chorus shifts mood and perspective considerably following a mellifluously innocuous verse section.  For the fantastical excursion that is “Lazerray,” the band lets loose in a cannonade of exuberance; the song is so rollicking and loud that one can barely discern the backing vocals of Kelis, of “Milkshake” (2003) fame.  The most breathtaking in-song transformation occurs in “Trouble” (also co-written with Ledinsky), progressing from a nail-chewing, downcast verse to a nervously woozy yet still beatific chorus, in which the singer tries to reassure himself that “everything’s gonna be O.K.” with the Bobby McFerrin refrain of “don’t worry, be happy,” sounding less than convinced but resigned and at peace all the same.  The record’s benediction is its title track, a sedate number with a whirring bass undercurrent and searing overtones, as Adebimpe sings of settling in for the long haul:  “Rain comes down like it always does; this time I’ve got seeds on ground.”  It does seem that, with Nine Types of Light followed by Seeds, TV on the Radio has reaped the rewards of wise planting, leaving its followers eager to sample more.        A

Sample song  “Lazerray”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Frvbp2PC0E


    And the rest . . .

THE ACID, Liminal (Infectious Music/Mute)—I have a couple of major reservations about Liminal, the first album from The Acid, an electronic trio whose members span the globe (Oceania, the United Kingdom, Los Angeles).  The first is that Kiwi/Aussie singer RY X (Ry Cuming) models his vocal style almost slavishly on that of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke.  Yorke’s breathy/quavery, furtive tenor and mumbling, half-chewed consonants cause issues with comprehension on Radiohead’s own records, but we are all accustomed to it by now as one of the band’s signature characteristics.  To hear it mimicked uncannily is both unsettling and irksome.  The other problem, which is somewhat related, is a certain lack of energy that makes one wonder if the entire band (besides RY X, they are British DJ/producer Adam Freeland and L.A. producer/composer Steve Nalepa) were hooked on barbiturates.  The drowsy, enervated quality that permeates the disc makes it seem slow going, even though the tempos, for the most part, are not all that leisurely.  The best track is “Basic Instinct” because, for at least a brief shining moment, in its second half, it breaks through to an unaccustomed level of intensity.  The record has too much going on to be considered minimalist electronica but too little to generate excitement.  This is a shame because the arrangements are frequently interesting, and it is dark and atmospheric throughout.  Yet this, and the wearing of all black clothes in publicity shots, should not be equated with profundity.  “Tumbling Lights” begins with a setting in which throbbing, sustained synth chords are contrasted with a harmonic cycle on xylophone or glockenspiel; the chords become ever louder and more industrial, drowning out the bells.  This, however, leads into a tune that is like denatured Radiohead driven by a robotic bass thrum.  A couple of tracks, “Fame” and “Ghost,” attempt a lighter, bouncier pop sensibility, with more substance in the first, which seems almost a blissful California counterpoint to the sardonic David Bowie hit of the same title (1975), at least in tone, insofar as the lyrics are essentially indecipherable.  The introductory track, “Animal,” is both the most consequential of the slower compositions and the most similar to one of Yorke’s solo efforts, with woozy and fugitive qualities to match.  “Creeper” (recall that Radiohead’s first hit single was called “Creep”), with a clinically steady beat and intermittent, machine-gun-like percussion and a female vocal sampling, is an intriguing if all too brief exploration of sociopathic obsession.  The second and second-to-last tracks, “Veda” and “Clean,” both attempt to break out of their early inertia by putting a rapid pulse underneath, again, with more success in the former.  In fact, the last three tracks, following “Basic Instinct,” are something of a letdown, but since the entire album could have used the million-volt jolt that John Cleese’s character suggested in the famous Monty Python dead parrot sketch, they are a mild letdown at that.  I believe that Liminal contains the seeds of something that could be genuinely thrilling, if only these three guys could summon more vitality.    B+

Sample song  “Basic Instinct”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOucrAFX810

ALCEST, Shelter (Prophecy)—I can truthfully attest that the most entertaining thing about this record is the climactic scene of the video for “Opale” (see the link below), where the young couple involved throw colored powder all over each other.  Musically, it is so much less than it could have been.  Alcest is essentially Neige (Stéphane Paut), with the addition of Winterhalter (from the band Les Discrets, another French shoegazing outfit) on percussion.  Unlike the more interesting shoegaze acts, like Asobi Seksu or Kitchens of Distinction, Alcest’s music does not really go anywhere, leaving the listener starved of fulfillment.  Because Neige used Sigur Rós’s sound engineer, Birgir Jón Birgisson, and studio, Sundlaugin, in Iceland, there are inevitably comparisons to be drawn with the stately tempos and gradual sonic escalations of that Icelandic band.  Still, Shelter is far less profound, less stirring, less dramatic in its sweep, than anything Sigur Rós has done.  It is possible to be subtle and restrained to a fault, I suppose.  Some of the longer pieces, particularly “Voix Sereine” (Serene Voice), do achieve a degree of catalysis through intensification, following a tepid opening.  In the final track, “Délivrance” (the only one with words that are not included in the booklet insert), a modest intensification is all there is—imagine if the Moody Blues, after writing “Nights in White Satin” (1967), had excised all the lyrical passages, leaving only the orchestral atmospherics.  The buildup peters out at about the seventh minute of a ten-minute composition but then receives a second wind.  “L’Éveil des Muses” (Awakening of the Muses) starts off with the U2-esque chiming guitars that are characteristic of many shoegazers.  It sets up a nice chord cycle, but the verse melody it arrays above it is wan and practically monotone—leaving only the percussion to get one’s pulse going.  “Away,” the only track with English-language lyrics, is also the only one in which acoustic guitar is front and center; its gentle, musing nature aligns it with the early work of Brian Eno.  Again, though, it suffers in the comparison, like measuring the homilies of Dr. Phil against the philosophy of John Rawls.  There is a lot of oceanic imagery, and a certain spiritual mysticism (insofar as my imperfect comprehension of the French lyrics can ascertain) that gets my guard up, in the lyrics.  These are not bad songs—Neige clearly knows how to compose for multiple instruments—but Shelter’s stubborn refusal to rise to any genuine resolution earns it an “incomplete.”    B+/B

Sample song  “Opale”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADIEAW65H5o

ALT-J, This Is All Yours (Infectious Music/Atlantic Recording)—In what seems to have been a terrible artistic miscalculation, This Is All Yours was released for public consumption on September 22, 2014.  For a time, I thought that the members of Alt-J, a British band whose debut, An Awesome Wave (2012), I missed out on, were attempting some kind of concept album, in the spirit of the Decemberists’ (similarly misguided) The Hazards of Love (see the 2009 music survey).  Turns out, though, that just three songs—the two just past the Intro and the closer—are considered a song cycle, named after the ancient Japanese city of Nara.  The three do not seem all that tightly related (or related to the city in question), titles apart:  “Arrival in Nara” is a kind of simple troubadour's lay, while “Nara” is more dirge-like (in spite of the anticipatory lyrics about marrying the ideal man—lyrics sung by a man, Joe Newman), with ringing bells and a Doors-quality organ accompaniment.  “Leaving Nara” repeats “Nara”’s incantation of “Bovay, Alabama,” which is certainly cryptic, though many believe the reference is to Alvan Earle Bovay, a founder of the Republican Party, abolitionist, and lifelong Northerner; the connection to Alabama and to antigay politics seems tenuous at best.  In any case, “Leaving Nara” consists of little more than that incantation, this time set against piano, lasting just about two minutes.  The album’s innards are a mish-mosh, much of which is in quasi-country folk vein.  Often, the musical settings and composition are appealing; where the album falters is with Joe Newman’s tenuous, voice-cracking singing and with the lyrics, which, aside from the obscure, you-had-to-be-there references, strive for poetic imagery without really imparting anything meaningful.  “The Gospel of John Hurt” (the actor?) robotically spits out its lyric in the verse portion, while the two chorus sections are separated by a “bridge to nowhere.”  “Hunger of the Pine” contains an uncredited vocal sampling of Miley Cyrus declaring, “I’m a female rebel,” which appears somewhat incongruous in context, except in the context of this record, where everything is disconnected.  Alt-J chose to include the leisurely and ineffectual “Bloodflood Pt. II” but not “Pt. I,” which was released as a single in 2011.  The biggest departure, and probably the best song, is “Left Hand Free,” which leaves behind the troubadouring in favor of smooth funk in the mode of Sly and the Family Stone.  The words are still a bit bizarre, but the song itself has the concision and force of which the rest of the record could use a remedial dose.  “Every Other Freckle” works pretty well as an earthy and frank sexual come-on; it, too, has a vitality missing elsewhere.  In all, the spectral languidness, the wandering focus, and the arcane lyrics smother whatever glints of musical inspiration appear on This Is All Yours.  Most irritatingly of all, “Leaving Nara” is followed by ten minutes of silence, after which the “hidden track“ appears, which turns out to be a cover of Bill Withers’s classic “Lovely Day” (1977).  Withers is terrific and richly deserves his 2015 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Alt-J interpretation is certainly original, but I wonder, What is it doing here?       B-

Sample song  “Left Hand Free”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRWUoDpo2fo

APHEX TWIN, Syro (Warp Records)—Whereas much of what is critically praised in electronica can be noisy or forbiddingly abstract, the surprising thing about Syro, for me, anyway, as a newcomer to Aphex Twin, is how accessible the album is.  Richard James, the Irish-born Brit who records as Aphex Twin, has said that the record is “as poppy as it’s going to get.”  His first studio recording in thirteen years as Aphex Twin, Syro sets the tone right off with “minipops 67 [120.2][source field mix]” (the song titles, which are taken directly from working titles, with details of the recording equipment and beats per minute included, are impossible, as is the irritatingly extensive packaging, which includes minimal credits but, below the track list, a lengthy ledger of supposed expenses involved in the recording process).  This is a pithy little number with a rubbery, essentially undanceable “dance” rhythm sequence that incorporates wordless vocal samplings, possibly from the artist himself, that have the effect of overlaying a sketchy tune atop the repeating harmonic progression, which is not quite tonal but close enough to be genial, as well as modernistic.  Other tracks also feature a vocal dimension, usually wordless, from James or family members, though on “produk 29 [101],”whose melody is expressed by a reasonable electronic facsimile of steel pans, you can actually make out some words.  The two tracks whose titles begin with “CIRCLON,” which are separated by a little fragment called “fz pseudotimestretch+E+3 [138.85],” are not directly related to each other, except insofar as they have active, densely patterned percussion patterns combined with fat, “squidgy” synthesizer ornamentation; the earlier of the two (“CIRCLONT6A [141.98][syrobonkus mix]”) is somewhat brighter in coloration, with no shortage of videogame-style bleeps.  The intervening fragment, less than a minute long, begins with some computer voice babble before unleashing an intriguingly evocative guitar riff that could easily be the lead-in to a Basement Jaxx song.  Among the shorter pieces, “180db_[130]” and “PAPAT4 [155][pineal mix]” offer little variety or development, the former being all about the booming dance beat; the latter at least changes up rhythmically midway through.  The final track, “aisatsana [102],” is a real departure, abandoning electronics in favor of a ruminative, Nordic piano theme, barely elaborated, that is like Sigur Rós in one of its quieter moments.  The most inadvertently amusing thing about the presentation of this album is the artist bio offered on the label’s website, which is delightfully nonsensical in calling James an “influential electronic fartist,” among other things.  Whether sabotaged by an unhappy employee or just a Dadaist spin on credentialing, this bizarro career summary was imported verbatim into Amazon.com’s description of the composer.   James rests comfortably within the traditions of British electronica, from Brian Eno to Autechre, with crisp beats and ethereal sonorities.  The closest spiritual kin among the records I have reviewed are those of Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson) (see the 2008 and 2010 music surveys); indeed, James and Jenkinson have collaborated at times and exchanged musical DNA.  Ambient yet far too kinetic and focused to be wallpaper, tuneful yet too complex and shifting to be a mere ear-caresser, Syro might not be as groundbreaking as Aphex Twin’s earlier work but still hits the various targets it set up for itself.    A

Sample song  “minipops 67 [120.2][source field mix]”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUAJ8KLGqis

ARCA, Xen (Mute Records)—I was not quite as taken with this full-length release from the Venezuelan-born, London-based electronica producer and D.J. Alejandro Ghersi, who records as Arca, as were myriad critics.  But I warmed to it some upon repeated listening.  Arca is not as sophisticated a sound collagist (at least not at this point; he was only 24 when Xen was issued) as, say, Brian Eno, nor is he as single-mindedly serious as Aphex Twin (see above) or Tim Hecker.  Although his intent is to probe the innermost recesses of the psyche and the intimacy of primal feelings—and therefore to traffic in some dark places—the sound quality on Xen is generally bright and metallic, the synth approximation of muted brass, paired with clicks and shrill pips/squeals and crisp English percussion.  Xen is supposed to represent the “feminine spirit” of Ghersi, who is gay, as a way of overturning power relationships and altering our perspectives on sexuality.  The title track certainly veers far from any conventional notion of the feminine:  starting out panting and jittery, with strident, brief outbursts of noise and exhortation throughout, it is a kind of cybernetic dystopian fantasy.  “Sisters,” melodic but in a high-pitched, kabuki-like way, hews closer to at least a caricature of womanly virtues and companionship.  The opening track, “Now You Know,” is the most completely realized composition, on an album where a number of offerings are essentially motifs that are merely tinkered with upon reiteration; here, the bare-bones theme is modulated and cycled through various changes in timbre in a manner that feels expansive and welcoming.  “Failed,” said by the artist to be the only song title with any true meaning (referring to a rough patch in the relationship with his boyfriend), is also the most deeply expressive; its subtle chord changes and penetrating melancholy give it a depth beyond the rest.  Elsewhere, as in “Family Violence” and “Bullet Chained,” Arca tends toward the cinematic and melodramatic, à la Pedro Almodóvar, although for the famed film director, this serves as a vehicle for satire.  “Sad Bitch,” “Wound,” and “Lonely Thugg” strongly signal the rest of the record’s disposition, even if none of them is as depressed as the titles would indicate.  “Wound,” with its massed strings and gently inserted vocoder line, is the most serenely songful of the three; the others are more brittle, volatile, and isolated (and,again, high pitched).  Xen was packaged by the label, Mute, together with a bonus CD that is a reissue of Arca’s 2013 mixtape &&&&&.  Two-thirds as long as the main disc, it is presented as a single track but has numerous discrete subsections.  Like Xen, it presents various motifs and plays around with them, yet, it has a more varied palette (including a bit more in the way of real vocals, or rather hip-hop vocal samplings) and is more kinetic and experimental.  Some of its zoomier segments approach Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson) territory, with the addition of faintly registering rap lyrics.  Strikingly, one section has a piano theme that is banged it out dramatically on the keyboard and distorted slightly in tone before collapsing it on itself.  It will be interesting to see what Arca does with his 2015 release, Mutant; in the meantime, I can recommend Xen, though not unreservedly, to electronica fans.        A-/B+

Sample song  “Now You Know”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIaNV2MsUMA

CHANCHA VIA CIRCUITO, Amansará (Charco/ Wonderwheel Recordings) —The much-anticipated (by me, at least) follow-up to the phenomenal Río Arriba (see the 2010 music survey) proved mildly disappointing, as opposed to sharply disappointing in the case of Calle 13’s Multi Viral (see below, in the Latin section).  Amansará, which is the future tense of the Spanish verb that means “to tame” or “to calm down” an animal, is indeed a quiet and relaxed album.  The sonic settings, beats, and arrangements used by Pedro Canale, who records as Chancha via Circuito, are always fascinating, reflective of a sort of pan-Andean mysticism translated into postdub electronica.  But not much development takes place within these brief tracks, and the individual songs are not themselves sufficiently distinct from each other to prevent a certain degree of monotony.  The liveliest ones are those with vocals.  Chancha via Circuito brings back Miriam García, whose “Pintar el Sol” he sampled (without permission) on Río Arriba.  An older Buenos Aires singer of (judging by her style of dress) Andean background, García delivers an odd vocal chant on “Coplita” (Couplet), perhaps an Amerindian style of singing in which her weatherbeaten voice abruptly breaks into a higher register repeatedly; the pan flutes backing her up add to the song’s exoticism.  More conventionally appealing is the young Afro-Colombian/Canadian singer Lido Pimienta (a.k.a. “Soundsister”), who is suave and sexy in performing “Jardines” (Gardens).  Oddly, given my general dislike of hip-hop, the most comfortable vocal fit is that of Sara Hebe rapping on “Camino de Posguerra” (Postwar Road).  Hebe, a porteña (Buenos Aires resident) of Patagonian origin, recites the beat-heavy, futuristic “Camino de Posguerra” in a way such that one can feel how heavy the steps are as a weary traveler ascends a steep mountain road.  For the song “Sabiamantis,” Chancha via Circuito solicited nonvocal help from Barrio Lindo (Agustín Rivaldo) and SidiRum (Nico Bruschi), fellow D.J.s/producers from Buenos Aires’ “cumbia-dub” scene.  Still, aside from being a touch darker and heavier with the electronic effects, particularly reverb, this collaboration is not so different from the solo ventures on the rest of the record.  The best of the instrumental tracks, apart from “Sabiamantis,” are “Sueño en Paraguay” (Dream in Paraguay), whose lilting harp theme Canale says was inspired by the harp music he heard in Paraguay and whose percussion was created in part by knocking together Paraguayan stones, and “Coroico,” which incorporates jungle sounds from Peru and Bolivia into a piece that combines a bouncy, fairly basic keyboard theme with a slightly more sophisticated harmonic overlay, rendered on a different set of keys, and a big, heavy-footed “jungle” drumbeat.  The record label’s own promotional copy says that “both ‘Tarocchi’ and ‘Guajaca’ ramp things up into deep, electronic dancefloor ... rainforest territory,” which is true, but each of these is too relentless unvarying to be of sustained interest for those more concerned with listening than booty shaking.  The album’s “outro,” “De Tu Mano” (From Your Hand), uses what sounds like a marimba, very low pitched and subdued.  Because Canale is determined that he will from now on use only source material to which he has legal rights (for this reason he got no royalties for the showcasing of his take on José Larralde’s “Quimey Neuquén” in an episode of Breaking Bad), we might never hear the likes of Río Arriba again.  But I am confident that his creativity can still be more fully engaged than it was for the most part on Amansará.        A-/B+

Sample song  “Jardines” (featuring Lido Pimienta):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNIe0WNjbI4

DVA, Nipomo (Label HomeTable /Northern Spy Records)—One of the year’s strangest releases came from a Czech sibling duo (“dva” means two in Czech), Bára Kratochvílová and Jan Kratochvíl, who characterize their music as “pop of non-existent radios.”  They have been at this for around a decade, although the exposure they have received on WFMU brought them to my attention for the first time in 2014.  Kratochvílová, who handles most of the vocals (and all of the lead vocals), sings in a weird Volapük of a made-up language that approaches English pronunciations of words at times.  The lyrics, which are printed on individual sheets, one per song, and tucked into a pair of holders inside the CD digipak, are “translated” into Czech and English.  Quite a few of them concern outer space and cosmic events, robots, and (for some reason) Mexico, but do not expect to gain great understanding of life or our planet from the sparse and droll lines of verse, which can appear in “translation” as if written by someone practicing English for the first time.  At times, particularly in “Mulatu,” “Nunki,” and “Zoppe,” Kratochvílová’s voice turns particularly shrill and grating (like a tribe of baboons in “Nunki”), but it is not otherwise unpleasant and is well suited to the cartoonish nature of the group's sound.  I wonder if “Mulatu” was at all inspired by the Ethiopian great Mulatu Astatke (Kratochvílová’s jazzed-up saxophone in the piece could suggest his “Ethio-jazz”); the lyric to the song has absolutely nothing to do with him, or much of anything.  The funniest lyric is in the banjo-driven (Kratochvíl playing) monster mash-up “Vampira”:  “R2D2 in a vampire disguise/Is still R2D2/ R2D2 cannot die/But R2D2 has a heart, nevertheless.”  “Meteor” (the same in made-up language as in Czech and English) is, in spite of its subject, the gentlest track with the sparest arrangement; just acoustic guitar accompaniment, handclaps, a bit of synth ornamentation, and the sound of waves crashing on the shore.  Similarly spare in its treatment—and reverential— is “Javorníček,” dedicated to a kitten castaway from a spaceship, who spent a day on earth before “continuing its flight to its home planet.”  “Durango” is the pair’s cockamamie idea of a Western theme (“a country shaped like a head in a hat is Durango”).  Likewise, “Surfi” is their warped conception of surf rock.  Despite the obvious silliness of this whole enterprise, there is genuine musical integrity to these little odd tunes as well, and that is why I am a new convert in the temple of Dva.        A-


Sample song  “Nipomo”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P0zDg5MhEs

FENNESZ, Bécs (Editions Mego/Touch Music) —Pronounced “betch,” Bécs is the Hungarian word for Vienna, Christian Fennesz’s home city.  Since the Austrian guitarist/ electronic composer is of Hungarian background, it seems fitting for his first solo studio record in six years.  For an electronica recording, Bécs is surprisingly warm, in no small part because it incorporates “live” instruments, not just Fennesz’s own guitar (on the first three of the seven tracks and the final one), but bass guitar in the opening track, “Static Kings,” and real drummers—a first for the composer—on that track and on “Liminality.”  The title “Static Kings” sets the scene for the record since Fennesz is in love with fuzzed-up tones and distortion.  It is a tribute to his skill in creating sound environments that these songs are freighted with drama to a surprising degree, given how little most of them change from beginning to end.  Each composition evokes a particular mood:  “Static Kings” and “Liminality” have a hazy sunniness to them, the former’s euphoria heightened by some subtly incorporated humming (also a first for Fennesz), the latter’s placidness pierced by periodic great percussion volleys.  “Liminality” is allowed to go on for a minute more than it needs to; its fade is already almost complete by the beginning of the tenth of its ten minutes.  “Liar,” which sits between them on the track list, is by contrast dire in a science fiction sort of way, with its repeating bass tremor a sort of low-pitched klaxon whose intervals regularly punctuate sinister-sounding synth tones.  “Pallas Athene,” the spaciest piece on the disc (think:  planetarium mood music), puts aside the guitar in favor of an ethereal organ chord cycle, silvered and a bit spooky.  The title track, the poppiest of what the composer regards as his most pop-oriented record to date, makes use of sonic manipulation of what already sounded like a very tinny piano.  It is louder than the other selections on the disc, and more assertive.  Although the minor-mode theme plunked on the piano keys is a bit baleful, the synthesizer bath in which it is immersed is so temperate that the whole arrangement might be described as reassuringly cozy if not for the intensity of the static.  The following track, “Sav,” is the opposite, indistinct, containing no convenient pop hook; it is the most experimental, “industrial”-sounding composition, making use of a “modular synthesizer” (played by Cédric Stevens, who co-wrote the piece) and sampled sounds including a buzzing phone ring similar to the one Blondie used at the beginning of “Hanging on the Telephone” (1978).  The final song, “Paroles,” is yet another departure, featuring acoustic guitar sketching a gentle benign melody supported by mellow, reflective washes of synthesizer processed (in the song’s second half) through a pronounced, crackling fuzz.  Although some might complain that the music is too static (in the other sense of the word) in nature, this is an electronic recording that even non-fans of electronica might enjoy.    A

Sample song  “Bécs”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEDD0IaKv0g

FKA TWIGS, LP1 (Young Turks Recordings)—Often when critics unanimously shower praise on a record, I am left scratching my head as to why.  Not so in the case of Tahliah Debrett Barnett, who records as FKA Twigs, on her debut full-length album.  (“FKA” is widely assumed to be “formerly known as,” although the artist denies the letters have any meaning at all.)  A former dancer who appeared in numerous music videos, she is no dilettante, having previously issued two EPs (and subsequently a third in 2015).  The blankly titled LP1 is one of the truly groundbreaking records of the year, drawing on elements of rhythm and blues, electronica, and trip-hop for a synthesis that is distinct.  Because of the trip-hop production effects, notably percussive breaks, naturally the record has drawn comparisons to Tricky and Massive Attack.  Like these performers, FKA Twigs’s music is spectral, dark (the hues of the blues aspect of its R&B range from navy to midnight blue to black), and clinical in the way various parts of the accompaniment are spliced together in isolation from each other.  The chill that this lends is in striking contrast to the white-hot intensity of the passions expressed in the vocal line.  Barnett is hardly melodramatic, but her voice is supple, pliable, and impressive in range, and her concerns are those of an experienced late twenty-something who has perhaps been burned once too often.  The R-rated language and raw frankness of sexual desire expressed, particularly in “Two Weeks” and “Hours” (the other songs are not so salty), I find spellbinding and off-putting both at once.  For the most part, FKA Twigs had assistance in songwriting and producing, from a roster ranging from the producers Paul Epworth, Emile Haynie, and Clams Casino to fellow perfomers like Arca (see above), Sampha (see the SBTRKT review below), and Devonté Hynes (Blood Orange).  The short “Preface” multitracks her voice into a medieval plainchant of sorts (with electronic effects, including a “demon voice” from the teenage Chicago rapper Lucki Eck$).  The same sort of chorale effect, less densely packed, is employed in “Closer,” which is set as a tortoise-paced march of sorts.  “Lights On” has the most openly R&B approach of any song on the disc; here, the singer applies a silvery texture to her vocals.  “Give Up” is more like space-age R&B, and on this track she tries out several different vocal timbres, from grainy to pure.  On an album that admits little light generally, “Hours” and “Video Girl” are especially moody and sepulchral.  The tension between chill and warmth is seen in “Numbers,” in which crossing over to the bridge section is like stepping out of an ice bar into a cozy lounge.  “Pendulum,” with its rattling drum breaks, approaches sheer ecstasy at its climax.  “Kicks,” the final song, co-written with the English R&B/soul singer Joel Compass, begins in sketchy fashion, but each time the chorus comes to fruition (the prolonged delay before this is allowed to take place the second time around is particularly exhilarating), it summons surprising power and a warmth that banishes any thoughts of shivers or stalactites, even as it raises goosebumps.    A

Sample song  “Pendulum”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8yix8PZKlw

FLIGHT FACILITIES, Down to Earth (Future Classic)—Breezy and effervescent as an airline cocktail, Down to Earth, the first full-length record from the Sydney producer duo of Hugo Gruzman and James Lyell (also known as Hugo & Jimmy), collectively Flight Facilities, achieves lift effortlessly and is rarely grounded, the album title notwithstanding.  It is not intended as faint praise to say that this is a well-crafted dance pop album.  It features nine, mostly fellow Australian, invited performers on its fourteen tracks, perhaps the best known of which (although it never truly charted) is “Crave You,” with Giselle (Rosselli).  It is a measure of Gruzman and Lyell’s unfailing pop sensibility that the two outstanding tracks on Down to Earth are quasi-instrumentals, lyric-less if not exactly wordless.  “Waking Bliss” is a cool, serene meditation set to sustained synthesized strings and a comfortably supportive bass groove, with a man’s ruminations running underneath and a female voice (Melbourne’s Owl Eyes, a.k.a. Brooke Addamo) above.  Still better is “Merimbula,” christened for an actual airport in the New South Wales Sapphire Coast beach town of the same name.  An extended drum and bass track with a jungle feel, it samples various voices (a Latin female one diced up to say “Tu tu tu tu” repeatedly adds a dash of exoticism; a grainy male voice singing “Girl, you goin’”), interspersing and layering them deftly and then, following rhythmic breaks, adding synthesizer chords that round out the composition and give it depth and astonishing power.  It is unfortunate only that “Merimbula” leads directly into my least favorite track on the record, which is unsurprisingly the one hip-hop number, “Why Do You Feel,” performed by Bishop Nehru (a.k.a. Markel Scott, of Spring Valley, N.Y.).  As such songs go, it is not really that awful, but I could live without its presence here, particularly on a “flight [that lasts] a little over one hour,” as Andrew Johnston notes in the “Intro.”  The dance pop tunes are more ingratiating than truly memorable.  “Crave You” is the prize pick among them; it actually dates back to 2010 (several of these were released as singles before the album came out).  It is a little weird that Flight Facilities chose to place the “reprise” of this song just before it on the track list, odder still that a different singer is engaged for the a cappella reprise.  Even so, Kylie Minogue’s performance of the reprise, though barely a minute in length, demonstrates the character and crackling sexiness that made her a pop meteor.  The full-length, orchestrated version of the song, a bluesy wet dream of unfulfilled desire, has its own virtues, but Giselle’s voice, lovely as it is, is more or less interchangeable with that of any number of female R&B singers.  Elsewhere, Reggie Watts, who soon after recording this track became the leader of the house band for the Late Late Show with James Corden, delivers a suitably funky, loose-limbed falsetto swinger in “Sunshine.”  The third American guest singer, Christine Hoberg (the pride of Superior, Wisconsin), breathily sings the vocal of “Clair de Lune” with a touch of blue-eyed soul over buzzing synth bass and music-box keyboard arpeggiations in an atmosphere of dreamy arrangements.  “Heart Attack” begins with more of a thudding than a pumping drum machine beat; its yearning, poignant melody is sung with more overt sexiness by Owl Eyes.  Other Aussie chanteuses anchor the suavely seductive “Two Bodies” (Emma Louise) and the more workaday, rhythmically tick-tocking “Stand Still” (Micky Green).  The other compositions that Flight Facilities deemed not worthy of special note for featured artists—the stretchy pop title track, performed by Dennis Dowlut, and the helium balloon of “Apollo” (with Katie Noonan voicing the ethereal soprano vocals)—have merit as well.  Down to Earth grew on me with repeated listening, to the point that its electronic dance beats became quite cozy.    A/A-

Sample song  “Merimbula”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90luQzm_Pdo

FLYING LOTUS, You’re Dead!  (Warp Records)—The album title brings to mind a comic strip, and there is fact a cartoonish aspect to some of the music, particularly those songs animated by “Captain Murphy,” the rapper alter ego of Steven Ellison’s customary alter ego, Flying Lotus.  Death (and coma and madness) is also present in song titles sprinkled throughout, but there is nothing somber about You’re Dead!  In fact, the main departure from earlier Flying Lotus discs is the greater emphasis on something approaching space-age free jazz, which diminishes the primacy of earlier records’ space-age neo-soul, although that is here in spots, particularly in “Coronus, the Terminator.”  Listening to the bass guitar, saxophone, and drums chase each other around phrases, it is more suggestive of a jazz disc from, say Mary Halvorson, than the work of an electronica specialist.  But Halvorson and her ilk are playing in their home idiom and have more interesting musical ideas therein than do Flying Lotus and his collaborators.  True, Ellison does import the jazz keyboard legend Herbie Hancock for a couple of tracks, but Hancock’s signal creations are decades behind him now.  While You’re Dead! is never less than entertaining, I sense that it is a little less cutting-edge than the earlier Flying Lotus efforts that I have heard and praised (see the 2010 and 2012 music surveys).  Ellison is working with the usual suspects, a group of Los Angeles–based colleagues, most notably bassist Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner, also Niki Randa and Laura Darlington (vocals) and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (string arrangements).  But he is also roping in outsiders; in addition to Hancock, there are Kendrick Lamar (the hipsters’ favorite rapper), Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra (for one very tiny instrumental called “Stirring”), Snoop Dogg, and Angel Deradoorian (formerly of Dirty Projectors, now out on her own), together with the fleet-fingered jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington and backed by several different percussionists (Gene Coye, Deantoni Parks, Andrés Rentería).  Lamar’s high tenor rapping may be fleeter-tongued and more perceptive than most I have encountered, but I would not go so far as to say I enjoy his performance on “Never Catch Me”; the best part of that track is the final minute-plus of instrumental, a smooth chorus of high-beam electronic keys from Flying Lotus and Thundercat’s bass, backed by a pumping drumbeat.  The weirdest two tracks are those showcasing Ellison’s Captain Murphy persona.  “Dead Man’s Tetris” is a throbbing, bleeping videogame chiptune, with robotic yet almost drunkenly deep-pitched rapping from Murphy and from “Mr. Dogg,” as the New York Times might refer to him.  “The Boys Who Died in Their Sleep” begins with Murphy multitracking his voice for a falsetto/basso contrast in a bizarre diva’s lament about how “someone has to pay the bills,” followed by a request for pills to “take the edge away.”  The rapping that fills out the rest of the song is largely indecipherable except for the refrain “take another pill.”  Aside from the soulful bathos of “Coronus, the Terminator,” the seventies-retro-soul falsetto “Descent in Madness,” the solemn “Protest,” and “Your Potential/The Beyond” (whose few words are hidden behind a scrim of arrangements), the other songs with vocalists are wordless; Deradoorian, for example, only breathes cycling pitches on the languid “Siren Song,” and this seems to carry over (although there is no credit for it) into “Turtles,” which samples an Ennio Morricone soundtrack, “L’Uccello dalle Piume di Cristallo” (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage).  Hancock’s two contributions, “Tesla” and “Moment of Hesitation,” are similar in nature, both more effervescent than substantive, taken at very fast tempos, with bass guitar against brushed percussion in the first and more of a running than a walking bass, together with Washington’s sax, in the second.  The best of the purely instrumental offerings are the zippy “Cold Dead,” “Turkey Dog Coma,” which alternates punchy outbursts with dreamy stop-time sections, the metronomic “Ready Err Not,” and the sublimely relaxed “Obligatory Cadence” (all right, this one actually does have a trace of backing vocals).  Fun listening, just not as essential listening as in the past.    A-

Sample song  “Coronus, the Terminator”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak4vLEBxIo4

GOAT, Commune (Sub Pop Records)—Imagine a Swedish version of the B-52s, singing in English, minus the humor, plus various influences from around the globe.  Imagine them dressed in animal skins, smoking peyote and dancing around multicolored flames.  This is what Commune conjures.  The second full-length studio release from the masked weirdos who claim to hail from a village in Sweden’s remote far north but are based in Gothenburg may be a notch below the intriguing World Music (see the 2012 music survey) but only just.  I am never truly going to warm to the female lead singer’s (the band keeps members’ identities close to the vest) style—Kate Pierson, if Pierson were to shout her lyrics in a hoarse tone—but I give her credit for at least being on pitch, and for attempting unforgiving vocal lines.  Tribal rituals, spirituality, transcendence, worldly wisdom—these are the themes that animate this short record.  The album’s mysticism is signaled right off by the ringing of a temple bell or gong that begins the first song, “Talk to God,” and also is present at the closing chords of “Gathering of Ancient Tribes,” the final number.  “To Travel the Path Unknown” opens with a maxim, presumably original to the group, about life being meaningful only if one endeavors to be “a positive force in the constant creation of evolution,” while “Goat Slaves” begins with a musing about the spirit world from the late Sioux activist, musician, and actor Floyd Red Crow Westerman.  Musical borrowings draw from Latin America (what sounds like a requinto guitar used in bachata music of the Dominican Republic provides the agile harmonic sequence behind the primary theme of “The Light Within,” and the upper-range percussion of “Goat Slaves” is expressed through the sort of wood blocks used in samba street processions), India (“Hide from the Sun” uses a sitar or related stringed instrument), and Africa.  “Gathering of Ancient Tribes” lifts heavily from the so-called desert blues style of guitar pioneered by northern Mali’s Tinariwen (see below, in the African section) and others.  For all that, the predominant idiom is neo-psychedelia; one hears this, for example, in the buzzy wah-wah-ing bass that eventually pierces the trancelike “Bondye” (named for the voodoo supreme creator).  “Bondye,” one of two instrumentals (the other is the cabalistic “To Travel the Path Unknown”), is actually the dullest composition, notwithstanding its rhythmic changes in midcourse.  The others are mostly short, focused, and forceful.  “Words” has very few words—just a double verse stanza of three lines; it is one of several tunes in which the vocal line gives out early in favor of the guitars and percussion (and whistling, in the case of “Words”).  “The Light Within,” with its various accretions, from Latin rhythms and instrumentation to wailing, psychedelic electric guitars, is closest in spirit to the Caribbean-tinged “Ethio-jazz” of Mulatu Astatke and his Ethiopian quintet.  The most straightforward rocker, “Goatchild,” is, in vocal terms, remarkably evocative of the B-52s, with a dialogue between the lead singer and a male voice that mirrors Fred Schneider’s.  “Talk to God” and “Gathering of Ancient Tribes,” the long-ish songs that bookend the album, both settle into comfortable, powerful rock grooves, but the bone-rattling champion of the disc is “Goat Slaves,” a spellbindingly rambunctious ride from beginning to end.    A-

Sample song  “Hide from the Sun”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnu_O5P8P5I

ROBYN HITCHCOCK, The Man Upstairs (Yep Roc Records)—Prolific to a fault, Robyn Hitchcock has issued twenty or twenty-one albums since going out to headline on his own in 1981, after an early career leading the Soft Boys.  The ten tracks on The Man Upstairs are evenly divided between covers and original songs.  This is Hitchcock unplugged; the only sense one ever gets of production effects is the dual-tracking of his voice on Grant-Lee Phillips’s “Don’t Look Down.”  Hitchcock plays acoustic guitar and, on “Somebody to Break Your Heart,” harmonica, and he is joined for several pieces by cellist Jenny Adejayan and pianist Charlie Francis.  Both instrumentalists are so unobtrusive, one hardly notices their presence:  a tracery of cello sustained tones here, a bit of piano filigree there.  The young Norwegian artist Anne-Lise Frøkedal joins Hitchcock as well in vocal harmonies on several tracks and on guitar in her own song “Ferries” (from her band I Was a King).  Befitting the instrumentation and the subtle arrangements, the vibe on The Man Upstairs is distinctly laid back.  The original compositions are all ruminative ballads, with the exception of the roadhouse-bluesy “Somebody to Break Your Heart,” which is a fairly typical nonsense piece whose lyric combines pop-psychological counseling with fantastical imagery (“skeletons lounge in the zoo”).  The nicest of these, if still fairly insubstantial compared with Hitchcock’s earlier work (although a number of these songs are reported to have been written years ago and did not see the light of day until now), is “San Francisco Patrol,” a relaxed, dreamy love letter, more to the city itself than to any particular person, as the singer wanders the streets (a number of which he names) asking idly, “Who are we staking out?”  “Trouble in Your Blood” also strives to elevate the simple ballad form to something more transcendental, without truly succeeding.  “Recalling the Truth” is less a song than a philosophical musing—musically, it is little more than the sketchiest of folk melodies (with Hitchcock’s voice, sometimes in tune, periodically breaking into falsetto, Slim Whitman–style) adorned by an elemental guitar arpeggio—but even as a parable about different perspectives on reality, it is less penetrating than, say, “I Used to Say I Love You,” from his marvelous 1984 solo album I Often Dream of Trains.  My feelings about the album’s other songs vary according to their source material.  I love the bare-bones opener, “The Ghost in You,” but primarily because the Psychedelic Furs tune (1984) is itself so marvelous.  As far as I can tell, the restless, yearning spirit of the original is well preserved in Hitchcock and Frøkedal’s version of “Ferries” (2012), unsurprising since he has close ties to the Norwegian band.  Hitchcock strips the varnish from the oily/suave Lothario come-on of Roxy Music’s “To Turn You On,” from that band’s big comeback album Avalon (1982), to peculiarly inert effect, perhaps because Bryan Ferry is a much better torch singer.  On the opposite side of the ledger, Hitchcock’s kid-glove treatment of The Doors’ classic “The Crystal Ship” (1967) does away with the creepy tendentiousness that infected just about everything the late rock star Jim Morrison touched.  His rendition of Phillips’s lilting, beatific “Don’t Look Down” (2000) hews fairly close to the original.  I prefer the phantasmagorical Hitchcock to the folk-balladeer Hitchcock, but he is a talented entertainer no matter which format he chooses to work in.        B+

Sample song  “San Francisco Patrol”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpJrw9rZuf8

THE LIMIÑANAS, I’ve Got Trouble in Mind: 7” and Rare Stuff 2009/2014 (Trouble in Mind Records)—Following up their release of Costa Blanca, which won my Album of the Year for 2013 (see the 2013 music survey), the husband-wife duo of Lionel and Marie Limiñana put out this compilation disc of singles and “rare stuff” from the past five years.  The grab bag is more likely to appeal to hard-core fans than to the casual listener.  From what I can judge, the Limiñanas took most of the half-decade or so preceding the release of Costa Blanca developing a singular identity, and the intermediate results often sound like works in progress.  In fact, following a spirited introduction of the band by WFMU’s Evan “Funk” Davies, an early U.S. enthusiast, the first half of the record is decidedly underwhelming.  The jangly guitars of “I’m Dead” sound like a Byrds knock-off, with no more than an embryonic refrain and a verse that is even less—a cipher.  The same characterization applies to the title track.  “Migas 2000” features a repeated motif of buzzy psychedelic reverb accentuating a ho-hum guitar pattern and, like a number of tracks here, features spoken rather than sung vocals, in this case delivered by Muriel Margail (“Mu”).  The first half of the track list includes two adaptations.  “Tu Es à Moi” (You’re Mine) borrows the chord sequence of the Troggs’ “Come Now” (1970), but the initial vocal (Marie Limiñana) is in French, and even the second vocal (Dan Rubio), which renders the English lyrics, sounds sedate, little like the raw lustiness of the original (not that the original was any masterpiece).  “I Know There’s an Answer” reprises a lame Brian Wilson song from the Beach Boys’ overrated Pet Sounds record (1966), sung not particularly well by Nadège Figuerola in English, though it does feature some nice guitar and ukulele (?) work (to replicate Glen Campbell’s banjo solo on the original) from Lionel Limiñana.  The second half of the disc is more promising.  Like the first half, it has two covers.  Jay Reatard’s “An Ugly Death” (2008), perhaps foreshadowing the singer’s own early death at age 29 two years later, seems an odd fit for the Limiñanas, despite their love of garage rock.  The original is all rough, staccato aggression on the part of Reatard and his bandmates; the Limiñanas’ version, with Marie whispering the vocals, buzzes and fuzzes its way through something that comes across as neither ugly nor morbid but rather cooingly melodic and even sensual.  “Christmas,” originally “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” (1963) as sung by Darlene Love (and eventually every year at holiday time on the Late Show with David Letterman), has its virtues as a blues-themed bell ringer, but here it is spoiled by a dreadful, overwrought vocal rendering by Guillaume Picard, who was also the sound engineer for the opening tracks on the disc.  “Liverpool,” a trippy, impressionistic bit of recollected psychedelia, appeared on Costa Blanca as well; the main difference here is that the “vocal” is given (spoken) by Lionel instead of by Margail.  The best original tracks appear in succession:  “La Fille de la Ligne 15” (The Girl from Bus Line 15), as with “Migas 2000,” is dominated by a spoken narrative (Lionel again), accompanied by a repeating guitar riff and sighing backing vocals (an uncredited female voice).  For reasons that are hard to pinpoint, this song just seems more fully formed and has a characteristic nouvelle vague (French new wave)/Gauloise cool to it.  Similarly, “Mobylette,” sung by Figuerola (more in her comfort zone than the Beach Boys cover), is breezy and wistfully poignant, with a soft wail that ends each vocal phrase.  The record ends with “A Dead Swan” (the third track to have “dead” or “death” in the title), a serene, lovely instrumental for a small choir of guitars, all played by Lionel, eventually pierced by the buzzy electric sustained chords he loves so much.    B+/B

Sample song  “La Fille de la Ligne 15”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Osx3C1xKDs

PALLBEARER, Foundations of Burden (Profound Lore Records)—This year’s token metal entrant in the music survey comes from a Little Rock band whose 2012 full-length debut, Sorrow and Extinction, won plaudits in prominent places.  (I cannot attest as to the merit.)  The follow-up, Foundations of Burden, amounts to little more than a pile of sludge.  For so-called doom metal, it is not particularly dark, though it does wax philosophic about the passage of time, decay, and the (im)possibility of redemption or transcendence.  It has all the heavy-metal tropes:  lumbering tempos, big drumbeats, extended instrumental breaks—many of which precede the final verse—and preindustrial lyrics that might well serve as Lord of the Rings fan fiction.  (Are there any metal bands whose lyric writing is relevant to the times we actually live in?)  There is nothing wrong with these elements of fire and power and fantasy, so long as they are serving a larger artistic purpose.  But Pallbearer’s sprawling compositions lead nowhere and generate no sense of climax, resolution, or catharsis; rather, the band is content to chew on its own musings, rather loudly, in grand metal tradition.  One is led to wonder if these dirges would make more sense if sped up mechanically, in the way a humpback whale’s calls can sound like birdsong when accelerated.  The occasional changes in rhythm and texture serve as welcome relief.  The best track is “Ashes”; not coincidentally, it is also by far the shortest, and the softest, making use of the Rhodes keyboard primarily.  Even this one gets a little irritatingly repetitive, though, and its quietude shows up the shortcomings of Brett Campbell’s voice (elsewhere, he struggles to compete against the percussion battery and amplified equipment).  The other five offerings all exceed ten minutes in length, with the exception of the nearly nine-minute “Foundations.”  Of these longer-form excursions, the one that holds together best is “Watcher in the Dark” (J. R. R. Tolkien again comes to mind—the “Watcher in the Water” of The Fellowship of the Ring, not to mention the early Genesis “Watcher of the Skies” from 1972’s Foxtrot), whose long instrumental lead-in sets up a theme that is revisited toward the end.  The closing strains are a surprise—ethereal bells, as if part of some Tibetan ceremony.  Mere length is not the issue with these songs—Yes and other progressive rock bands have undertaken longer compositions than these that managed to be far more dynamic and cogent.  If Campbell had a more charismatic presence at the microphone, or if someone had reined in the indulgences of the plodding guitar chorales and exercises throughout, the results might have been more favorable; instead, this is a record that is hard to sit through.    B-

Sample song  “Watcher in the Dark”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJKOrCAkt1A

LAETITIA SADIER, Something Shines (Drag City)—Some sparks of sonic brilliance do shine through on this, the third solo album from Stereolab’s longtime lead singer, but there is a fair quantity of dross to sort through in order to find those glints.  Meant to be a gentle, mellow-toned record, its general lack of oomph deflates it.  (“Transhumance” and “The Milk of Human Tenderness” are as inert as Jello.)  Sadier was primarily a lyricist (as well as singer and instrumentalist) with Stereolab, and one feels the absence of her customary compositional partner, Tim Gane.  Though some effort at rhythmic variation is made, the default mode is an idly dreamy Lotusland of dotted-note rhythmic strumming.  Moreover, Sadier too frequently cruelly bends verse to the demands of her meter, giving words like “memory” and “determined” an accent on the wrong syllable.  It is not surprising, then, that the most striking thing about Something Shines is its lyrics.  These are pointedly blunt, if I may wax oxymoronic, particularly in the most dorm-room/art gallery ideological of the bunch:  “The Scene of the Lie,” “Oscuridad” (Darkness), and “Life Is Winning.”  All the titles (other than the Spanish “Oscuridad”) are in English, but lyrics in “Quantum Soup,” “Echo Port,” “Life Is Winning,” and part of “The Scene of the Lie” are in Sadier’s native French.  “Quantum Soup,” leading off the record, is a sunny, relaxed quasi-instrumental, with characteristically Stereolab-ish harmonic humming and a pillowy, stretchy stop-time section (one of the most interesting sound assemblages on the disc, during which Sadier almost seems to be humming the melody of Blondie’s “Call Me” [1980]) before the rhythm resumes to introduce the brief Francophone lyric toward the end.  “Then, I Will Love You Again,” intended as a single, is pleasant if unremarkable; it does have a sense of propulsiveness missing from most of the album.  “Butter Side Up” is the most Stereolab-like composition, progressive in its disposition and reach, with subtle harmonic shading and orchestration and distinct subsections marked by sharp changes in rhythm/tempo; the best find on the record.  “The Scene of the Lie” begins with a pumping, bossa nova–like electric keyboard passage (repeated later on) before getting stuck in lyrical amber (those dotted notes again).  These lissome tropical rhythms return to liven up the central portion of “Echo Port,” along with a snippet of vocal harmonization reminiscent of Chicago’s “Wishing You Were Here” (1974).  “Release from the Centre of Your Heart,” the one song here not written by Sadier herself (rather by her synth player Giorgio Tuma and by Alice Rossi), is pure brass-and-Mellotron cotton candy, the most openly melodic, blissful tune imaginable but with negligible nutritive value.  “Oscuridad” is deliberately the starkest song, with minimal instrumental filigree (a bit of strumming, some pedal steel, shimmering organ sustained notes at times) to offset Sadier’s philosophical musings (“Do the rich need the poor to be rich?”  “Is it in the interest of the rich to eradicate poverty?”).  The final number, “Life Is Winning,” is dun-toned, with the exception of a bit of touching harmonic bending to accompany the words “Ce sera long” (“This will be a long time coming”) at its midpoint.  There are elements worth savoring indeed, yet, Something Shines mainly serves to remind that Stereolab’s glory days are now far behind us.    B+/B

Sample song  “Release from the Centre of Your Heart”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkwDyvRFmGY

SBTRKT, Wonder Where We Land (Young Turks Recordings)—Aaron Jerome’s compositional and orchestration skills, which are considerable, largely go to waste on Wonder Where We Land, his second full-length studio album as SBTRKT.  Also frittered are the talents of several impressive vocalists:  Jerome’s alter ego, Sampha (Sampha Sisay), as well as Caroline Polachek and Jessie Ware, though the first two of these are complicit in that they have co-writing credits on the disc.  As such, Wonder Where We Land is somewhat of a comedown from SBTRKT’s modestly engaging self-titled debut (see the 2011 music survey).  It initially shows some promise, with two short instrumentals framing the contemplative title track, sung by Sampha.  SBTRKT’s music plies the border zone between electronica and rhythm and blues, a sort of “alt-R&B,” and Sampha’s questing, throaty tenor fills the bill most sensitively.  “Wonder Where We Land” adds dimension to his singing with buzzy bass tones and claret-hued keyboards below and falsetto cries above.  “Lantern,” the instrumental that follows it, is not much more than reiterations/ornamentations of one particular ascending note sequence, shimmery as a disco ball, with several rhythmic breaks for variety, but it is well done, as far as it goes.  The mood is then spoiled by “Higher,” a robotic rap performed by Raury, a teenage Atlanta hip-hop performer, with an unimaginative sung refrain intended as soulful.  The other track on this disc that is primarily rap, “Voices in My Head,” co-written with the L.A. all-female band Warpaint and featuring A$AP Ferg (Darold Ferguson, Jr.), is similarly off-putting in its coarse language and Tommy-gun, Jamaican toasting-style delivery of the words, yet it is also more intriguing as a portrait of mental instability (the verse “My mind is a Porsche, switching lanes” jumps out at the listener), set to an appropriately dour piano and synthesizer accompaniment for a brooding atmosphere.  Then there is “New Dorp. New York,” which flips the script by having the refrain recited by the backup singers while the verse is sung, in a sort of blues/rockabilly pastiche of Billy Lee Riley’s “Red Hot” (1958) and David Essex’s “Rock On” (1973), by Ezra Koenig, the lead singer of the underwhelming New York band Vampire Weekend.  Paired with a thumping beat, it is perhaps the first song in history to mention one of Staten Island’s typically anonymous neighborhoods in its title.  Sampha’s other numbers (“Temporary View,” “If It Happens,” and “Gon Stay”) do not measure up to the title track, and Ware’s one big (little) R&B song, “Problem (Solved),” has slick production effects and a keyboard riff that establishes a consoling mood, but it really does not stay around long enough to have an emotional impact.  This is preceded by the quasi-instrumental “Everybody Knows,” which is appealing if a little self-conscious in its studious echoing of early 1970s R&B.  The oddest bird on Wonder Where We Land is “Look Away,” starring Polachek, who, like Sampha, worked with Jerome on the debut SBTRKT album, and is the lead singer of an obscure Brooklyn band called Chairlift.  It has the most fascinating coloration of any tune on the disc—Jerome’s arrangement of this song is nothing short of masterly.  Polachek’s vocals are breathy and overwrought, in soap opera manner (if soap operas actually had songs in them), both queerly affecting and tedious (the “look away” of the refrain is repeated ad nauseam at midstream).  “Osea,” named for the English island where it was recorded, serves as a delicate instrumental pendant to “Look Away.”  If one could extract “Wonder Where We Land/Lantern” and “Look Away/Osea” from the rest of this material, listeners would be left with a more impressive EP’s worth of material.    B

Sample song  “New Dorp. New York”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs0xe9DQEPc

SPANISH GOLD, South of Nowhere (Del Mar Records/ BMG)—The intent, as indicated by the album title, is to paint a portrait of life along the U.S.-Mexico border.  Yet there is nothing particularly “Mexican” about Spanish Gold’s music, any more than there is in the mainstream work of Los Lobos, an L.A. band whose 1980s breakout  was much overpraised.  Rather, the sound is blues-inflected rock with a tinge of the Western element of county and Western.  This is not a genre I favor; still, even taking it on its own terms, South of Nowhere strikes me as unimaginative—the main difference between the material offered here and that of your local bar band is primarily that the members of Spanish Gold are fully fledged professionals with lengthy credentials.  Dante Schwebel, the lead guitarist and vocalist, came out of a sort of retro San Antonio band called Hacienda, while Adrian Quesada, the bassist/keyboardist, from Austin, was in another retro outfit (this one mixing cumbia and rock), Grupo Fantasma, and drummer Patrick Hallahan plays with My Morning Jacket (see the 2011 music survey).  The nearest cousin in spirit to this record that I have reviewed would be the Tucson band Calexico.  Although I did not love Algiers (see the 2012 music survey) from Calexico, it still compares favorably with this, as an album of eclectic source material, artistic ambition, and uneven inspiration.  Only on a couple of songs does South of Nowhere lift off the ground, and even then, it never truly soars.  “Don’t Leave Me Dry” summons power from an ensemble sound missing from the rest of the disc, with a gently pummeling bass line.  When the horns (played by guest musicians) come in, along with sustained chords on the keyboard, the song smolders palpably.  “Reach for Me” is lighter in tone and mood than most of the album, a retro-rocker with an engaging chorus.  “Stay with Me” begins with “underwater” bubbly production effects for the vocals, but once these fall away, the pleading ballad is rendered ineffectual by dullness.  “Shangri La” uses reggae rhythms but is otherwise lacking in distinction.  Nearly every line in nearly every song is punctuated by a staccato rhythm guitar chord (viz., the Eagles, “One of These Nights,” from 1975).  This is used to best effect in “Out on the Street,” a tight if not terribly venturesome number that packs in the sort of street-level grit Los Lobos was aiming for back in its heyday.  Oddly, the bass sequence backing “Lonely Ride” just about matches that of Pat Benatar’s smash “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” (1980).  The dire opening guitar chords of “One Track Mind” promise a mystique that the rest of the song utterly fails to live up to.  At its worst, the band comes up with a ditty like “Day Drinkin,” two minutes of lazy, off-the-cuff composition that does little other than occupy space.  Too many predictable melodies and chord sequences, too little real songwriting, and muddy sound engineering sink this debut effort.        B-

Sample song  “Out on the Street”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiJt4XSgMoA

STARS, No One Is Lost (Soft Revolution Records/ATO Records)—As the principals of Stars move into middle age—and begin to look the part as well—they are confronting not just mortality for the first time (specifically, the cancer diagnosis given to the band’s longtime manager, Eoin O’Leary) but also the struggle to remain relevant to a music-buying audience that, in broader terms, never collectively ages.  The formula is starting to seem a bit shopworn; still, it has always been a quietly impressive formula:  Stars makes pop music that is elegant in its restraint, sophisticated, yet often raw in its emotional intensity.  These are the qualities that have won the band a dedicated if select following over the decade or so of its existence, first in New York and then in Montreal.  Torquil Campbell, the band’s lead male singer, has said that the album title is a fantasy—in truth, over time, everyone is lost, and you have to say goodbye along the way.  (The spoken opening of the title track, in French, at the end of the record, concludes with the incantation, “Personne ne reste; personne ne reste,” which literally translates as “no one remains” rather than “no one is lost.”)  So, the music sings out in defiance of loss even while coming to terms with it.  The disc was recorded above a now defunct gay nightclub in Montreal, the Royal Phoenix, and it reflects that venue in being the most dance-oriented and sonically brash Stars record ever produced.  Even the cover art, with its photos of girls at and just outside of a roller skating rink, is garishly bright and suggestive of a determined, if purely vicarious, effort to latch back onto a youth that has fled.  Musically speaking, No One Is Lost is Stars’s slightest effort to date, with a couple of near duds in “No Better Place” (despite the wry lyric from female lead singer Amy Millan, “Let’s pretend this is such a good party; ’cause you can leave over my dead body”) and “Are You OK?”  Even so, it offers no small array of pleasures.  Both the opener, the single “From the Night,” and the closer (the title track) are surprisingly (for this group) gay-discotheque-friendly power pop numbers that demonstrate an affinity for and facility with the form.  Among the more reflective songs, “What Is to Be Done?” is the most affecting, confronting aging and loss head on, with a poignantly blue piano chord cycle harmonizing the sung melody, building to a throbbing beat and sustained string arrangement.  “You Keep Coming Up” and “Trap Door” are each not far off from themes and compositions characteristic of earlier Stars albums, urbane, knowing, sinuous, rhythmically pumping or shuffling.  The former is more furtive and shifty in nature, whereas the latter has an open, singsong chorus.  A wrenching chromatic transition in the refrain and a children’s chorus made up of younger relatives of the band members lift “Turn It Up” out of the ordinary.  The malt-smooth ballad “Look Away,” whose warm chorus rescues an otherwise pedestrian effort, makes use of pedal steel ornamentation, again atypical for the far from country-ish Stars.  “This Is the Last Time,” powered by a brisk, new wave–attitude rhythm guitar, is in the final analysis too breezy to carry much weight.  Stars continues to put forth artful, understated rock, but it is easy for a comfortable groove to become a rut, and the band may need a radical reconceptualization if it wants to recapture the urgency and heft of its “younger” days.        A-/B+

Sample song  “From the Night”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr5VE3ogdl8

A SUNNY DAY IN GLASGOW, Sea When Absent (Lefse Records/Fat Possum Records)—Exuberant and loud, making a joyful noise and doing it convincingly before “running out of puff,” as the Brits say, toward the end, Sea When Absent is a world apart from the last Sunny Day in Glasgow record to appear in the music survey, Ashes Grammar (see the 2009 music survey).  (There has only been one full-length recording in between, in 2010, and that one never made to the CD format.)  That record I described as “wispy, ethereal, and impressionistic.”  This one is much more in shoegaze mode.  If they are louder and fuller in sound now, that is in part because the band is double the size it was in 2009, including two singers, with Jen Goma (who also sings now with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart) joining Annie Frederickson.  Co-founder Ben Daniels is still contributing, but he is mostly doing so remotely, from Sydney, Australia.  (The rest of the band is centered on Philadelphia, with a Brooklyn extension.)  Longtime band member Josh Meakim now leaves the drumming to newcomer Adam Herndon in favor of playing guitars, and Ryan Newmyer is now a core member as bassist.  The most intoxicating songs on the new disc are the initial two:  “Byebye, Big Ocean (The End)” and “In Love with Useless (The Timeless Geometry in the Tradition of Passing).”  The opener starts as if in midstream, a gloriously dense guitar/percussion sludge that still manages to be brightly melodic.  The one drawback of all that sound is that it eclipses the clarity of the vocals, making the words hard to pick out.  The background woo-wooing that kicks off “In Love with Useless” has a Régine Chassagne (of Arcade Fire) quality, but behind the dreamy (though in passages almost screechy) vocal harmonies is pure shoegazing, resonating, pealing guitars and rumbling, muscular drumming.  “MTLOV (Minor Keys),” in a decidedly major key (major fifth intervals in the vocal line), is so affirmative in spirit that it sweeps the listener along even if its principal theme is too innocuously singsong to be truly affecting.  The initial, gritty power guitar chord of “The Things They Do to Me” seems to promise a real rocker, but instead the song becomes a rolling dream pop excursion worthy (if not as clean lined) as School of Seven Bells in their heyday.  “Boys Turn into Girls (Initiation Rites),” a softer midtempo number, is the most sophisticated composition in terms of varying keys, arrangements, and sonic textures, incorporating angel-choir harmonies between the two women, prog-rock synth flourishes, and raucous guitar outbursts.  Following the slower, echoey, plaintive “Never Nothing (It’s Alright [It’s OK])” (there sure are a lot of parenthetical afterthoughts in titles), the remainder of the record is less impressive, in particular the minute-long “Double Dutch,” with a bland theme over frenetic keys, ending in a sequence of squealing laughter (at some guy making stomach noises?  Hard to tell).  Some degree of recovery happens in the final song, “Golden Waves,” with its pseudo-Caribbean opening keyboard chords, its weirdly electronically processed choruses, and its beckoning toward R&B vocals near the end of an extended bridge section.  Hence, the album actually would have been better if the final twelve minutes or so had been lopped off, but even so, it is a strong effort that puts A Sunny Day in Glasgow firmly back on the musical (meteorological) map.    A-

Sample song  “In Love with Useless (The Timeless Geometry in the Tradition of Passing)” (abridged version):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUFoj59A8-8

SYLVAN ESSO, Sylvan Esso (Partisan Records/Knitting Factory Records)—The debut album from a Durham, North Carolina, duo, Amelia Meath (vocals) and Nick Sanborn (production), sets out modest goals and largely achieves them.  Meath, who was previously in an all-female trio called Mountain Man, brings an Appalachian folk sensibility to her lyrics and her approach to singing.  But this is paired with electronic beats and keyboards; there is not a single guitar on the self-titled record, and there might not be a real drum kit, either.  The tuned percussion (or facsimile thereof) used at times reminds me of the bounciness of Matthew Herbert's album Scale (2006), which had a real jazz/pop sensibility.  Meath’s natural expressivity, at times multitracked, is well complemented on these tight, simple pop compositions by the keyboards, drum machines, and other effects Sanborn uses to frame her singing.  (Listen to “H.S.K.T.” for a splendid example of this.)  The one exception, I would say, is “Dress,” a wordy track in which the singer has trouble shoehorning in all the lyrics, even though the arrangement is little more than brief choral outbursts and handclaps.  The most traditional-sounding piece is the opener, “Hey Mami,” with its rhythmically interlocking voices (all Meath, of course) and claps; here (but not always), her voice has an Adele-esque tone, thickness, and character to it.  Similarly traditional but far quieter and soberer is the final piece, “Come Down.”  Meath uses portamento in the opening measures of “Could I Be” to soulful effect; the rest of the song is loose limbed and swingy.  “Play It Right” is a relaxed, undulating, upbeat tune, with a stretchy rhythm pattern.  “Coffee,” with its jingly accompaniment, tenebrous keyboard backing, and piping warm chorus, casts a look back to Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich’s “Hanky Panky” (1962) at one juncture, although I am not entirely sure why.  I do not know how long this duo can sustain interest in this peculiar subgenre of electronic music, but this does represent a promising start.          A-/B+

Sample song  “Coffee”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr5AIKRPIHo

TRIBECASTAN, New Songs from the Old Country (Evergreene Music)—Trying to be all things to all people is generally a poor idea.  The creators of New Songs from the Old Country should get credit for broadening audience horizons, as well as for serving up a collection of songs that is spirited and fun if hardly boundary busting, in spite of the band’s obvious relish in raiding sources/inspirations from around the world.  This is the fourth album by the group, which is led by John Kruth and Jeff Greene, multi-instrumentalists and composers and, in the case of Kruth, a music writer as well.  The primary orientation of the band is Balkan/Eastern European, but there are songs on this album inspired by folk music ranging from Brazil to Africa to India, from Ireland to Japan.  I have looked with skepticism on the trend toward cultural appropriation of Balkan music, particularly by the “band” Beirut (when it was still basically a one-man show by Zach Condon) on Gulag Orkestar (this was in the 2006 music survey, which predates my putting these things on the Internet).  Questions of this type are too philosophical to get into here and are in any case muddied by the presence of actual East European immigrant (I am assuming) musicians as special guests on the record.  Leaving aside the dead-end debate about “authenticity” and “Orientalism,” the sixteen tracks here are almost always entertaining and frequently mix in a dash of levity.  At times, they are a little too eager to please.  “The Road to Koprivnica,” for example, is like something you might get on a Starbucks sampler of Greek rebetiko music, its modal scales and runs too tidily packaged for ready consumption without challenging the listener; “The Blue Sky in Your Eyes,” with its plucky banjo and jaw harp, expanding eventually into a busier shuffle, is the sort of tune you might expect David Byrne—himself a musical omnivore these days—to slip into a record as a casual, country-ish pick-me-up.  “Night Train to the Ukraine” begins promisingly with a foreboding drone, but the formulaic Turkish modal theme that follows quickly drains it of any intrigue.  And any song bearing a title such as “Blame It on the Moon” already has one strike against it; it proceeds to whiff, as the dullest and most mellow track.  There are certain other flaws; for one thing, Kruth and Greene seem incapable of writing strong, well-differentiated bridge sections for their compositions.  Kruth’s playing of Erik Satie’s famous “Gnossienne No. 1” (the one non-original composition) on a traditional wooden flute is marred by tonal lapses and cracking; I know the production budget for studio time was probably low, but, really, they could not find a better take?  The oddest juxtaposition on the album takes place with “Corned Beef and Sake.”  This piece shifts back and forth between what is meant to sound like a cheery Celtic melody and a slinky (jazzy pop, à la Pink Panther theme by Henry Mancini [1963]) ensemble theme.  There is no Japanese aspect at all until it shifts into a surprisingly (given what has come before) subdued wind chorale toward the end, led by a shakuhachi flute.  The final (and longest) composition, “Persian Nightingale,” contains a clunky transition between a traditionally subcontinental snake-charmer-type theme and a much louder, blunter middle section involving the whole band.  The closest  that New Songs from the Old Country comes to brilliance is “Auto Rickshaw,” a song whose moving parts achieve the kind of kinetic syncretism (though the gruff chanting underneath the tune is strange) the rest of the album is aiming for.  “Natal” is a clever facsimile of northeastern Brazilian forró music, with its accordion, mandolin, flute, and frame drum ensemble.  The song that follows it, “Kecapi Rain,” is another nice little selection, dreamy and otherworldly in its employment of some of the instruments used in a gamelan orchestra or in other Sundanese music of Java:  the zither-like kecapi and the suling flute.  “Gordana’s Dream,” named for the guest performer on the cimbalom, Gordana Evačić, is likewise delicate, fanciful, and ethereal.  “Dance of the Terrible Bear” is a boisterous take on klezmer music, led by Matt Darriau’s excellently tone-bending clarinet, with a few decidedly more Western influences thrown in.  “Communist Modern,” another humorous entry, has a sort of breezy, James Bond action theme, and it ultimately gets support from the “TriBeCaStani People’s Choir,” made up of a combination of band members and several invited Eastern European male guests.  “Saloniki Reb” is an interesting hybrid of Turkish/Greek bağlama string music and klezmer-inspired clarinet, whose animated bridge section nonetheless does it no favors.  The pastiche inherent in this wry take on music from the Balkans and elsewhere keeps New Songs from the Old Country from being a great record, but there are plenty of kicks and lots of exotic instrumentation along the way.    B+

Sample song  “Dance of the Terrible Bear”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-eTUu-i5Hs

THE WAR ON DRUGS, Lost in the Dream (Secretly Canadian)—“Under the Pressure” is one of the year’s great songs.  Not gifted with an elaborate or intricate melody, it nonetheless succeeds through the power of its ensemble arrangements, which are strangely aspirational in their defiance of breakdown, in burrowing under the listener’s skin.  It would be a slacker’s anthem if not for the gnawing self-doubt it expresses, delivered by bandleader Adam Granduciel in a voice that consciously echoes Bob Dylan.  (Fortunately, he does not continue in that style throughout the rest of the record.)  It ends with an instrumental extension of languid chords and reverb lasting a good three minutes.  A similar catalysis drives “An Ocean in between the Waves,” which begins fairly formless, apart from its driving drumbeat, but takes on real power through intensification—the guitar embroidery, combined with the rising urgency in Granduciel’s voice, transcend the unadventurous melody.  Critics have noted the kinship of “Burning” with Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” (1984); the chord outlines and tempo/rhythmic patterns are essentially the same, even if the lyrical emphasis is different.  “Burning” does speak of the romantic partner as being “not the demon in the dark,” but the song is more reflective and less high-strung than Springsteen’s.  Much of the other material on the disc seamlessly combines rock with folk/Americana themes, particularly in the slow tunes like “Suffering,” “Disappearing,” and “Lost in the Dream,” with their laid-back manner and touches of pedal steel, harmonica, and limpid piano chords.  The one instrumental, “The Haunting Idle,” is a relatively short, splendid refresher, an exquisite tone poem of overlaid guitar and synth tones, shimmery with reverb, that leads directly into the pulsating opening measures of “Burning.”  A number of these tracks are spun out longer than they need to be; concision does not seem to be Granduciel’s concern, as the main disc runs just past the one-hour mark.  There is a second disc in the package that contains only alternate mixes of “An Ocean in between the Waves” and “Burning” (in each case, I prefer the version that made it to the primary disc).  I am not sure why this was deemed necessary since this material would have fit with the rest on a single CD.  The overall effect is appropriately evocative of a dreamlike state.  This unassuming record is one likely to grow on listeners with repeated listening.  If there is a new generation of the “Philadelphia sound” emerging, it is bound to center on the coterie of Kurt Vile (a sometime collaborator with Granduciel in the War on Drugs, before he went on to do his own projects) and Granduciel’s band.     A/A-

Sample song  “Under the Pressure”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkLOg252KRE


AFRICAN

TINARIWEN, Emmaar (Wedge/Anti-)—There are times on Emmaar (the title refers to heat conveyed on the wind) when I wonder if Tinariwen is recycling older material; certain songs sound a good bit like themes from the Malian group’s next-to-last recording, Imidiwan: Companions (see the 2009 music survey).  Even so, there is enough on here that is different from previous records, with settings ranging from the romantic to the politics of defiance, to reassure the listener that the band is not merely resting on its laurels, or acacia thorns, as it were.  Emmaar finds Tinariwen still in exile from its homeland, which continues to undergo Islamist terrorist spasms, but now much further removed still.  Tassili, the previous record (see the 2011 music survey), was recorded in southern Algeria; the new one was birthed in the deserts of the southwestern United States, around the Joshua Tree National Monument primarily.  The record, like its immediate predecessor, includes some contributions from Western musicians:  Josh Klinghoffer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (guitar), the well-traveled Matt Sweeney (guitar as well), and Nashville’s Fats Kaplin, who plays fiddle on “Imidiwanin Ahi Tifhamam” (Friends, Understand Me) and pedal steel on several other tracks.  But their presence, unlike that of TV on the Radio (see above), Wilco, and Dirty Dozen Brass Band members on Tassili, is subtle enough that you might not even notice unless you scrutinized the liner notes.  The forcible scattering of the band by music-hating Islamist goons, who temporarily took captive Abdallah ag Lamida (who thus does not appear on the current record), might have put Tinariwen in a chastened mood, but Emmaar is not characterized by despair or gloom, even if the pain of banishment and betrayal shows clearly in the more pointed songs like “Toumast Tincha” (The People Have Been Sold Out), “Timadrit in Sahara” (Youth of the Sahara), and “Aghregh Medin” (I Call on Man).  American rapper/performer Saul Williams introduces the opening track, “Toumast Tincha,” with a few spoken lines, the only English one hears.  This song is the album’s prime cut, although it is very much in the same vein as the assouf-style (traditional upper Niger valley Tuareg tunes transposed from flute to electric guitar) tunes that predominate on prior Tinariwen records.  There is a quiet, resolute stateliness about “Toumast Tincha” that compels, even as the lyrics matter-of-factly depict a no-win situation and call for summoning the dignity and character of the ancients in response.  “Arhegh Danagh” (I Want to Tell) is similar in terms of musical character to “Toumast Tincha,” although it is a lovelorn lament instead of a political one.  “Timadrit in Sahara” is a lumbering, ominous composition promising that the people of the desert will catch up in weapons capability with the outsiders that have wreaked chaos on the region.  “Sendad Eghlalan” (This Constant Lethargy) implores countrymen to arise out of the indolence brought on by the seductions of alien cultures, but the song itself is rather lethargic.  Some of the new offerings that seem distinct from what Tinariwen has issued previously consist of lighthearted and fleet-footed numbers in 3/4 or 6/8 time:  “Chaghaybou,” a praise song (close to being a love song) for a close male companion of noble bearing and disposition, and “Imidiwanin Ahi Tifhamam,” about a vanished female target of desire whom the admirer compares to a “partridge, light brown of colour.”  Kaplin’s fiddle combines with the traditional percussion and handclaps in the latter song to produce something spiritually akin to flamenco, West African–style.  I perceive a qualitative dip toward the end of the track list, but it must be pointed out that there are varying editions of this album, some with as many as fourteen songs, whereas the one I have contains only eleven, so there are several bonus tracks that I have never heard.  Exile can produce great art; in this instance, though, the dispersed and disoriented members of Tinariwen are just a little off their usual game.        A-

Sample song  “Toumast Tincha”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFtmB2U3Clo


LATIN

CALLE 13, Multi Viral (El Abismo/Sony Music Entertainment) —Take a forceful creative project and subtract the artistry from it, and you are left with only the vehemence.  This is what has happened to Calle 13 since the success and acclaim (including from yours truly; see the 2010 music survey) of Entren los que Quieran.  René Pérez (“Residente”), the group’s “rappero” vocalist, has gotten a swelled head and has bitten off more than he can comfortably digest.  And because, I suspect, his bandmate half-siblings, Eduardo and Ileana Cabra (with the aliases “Visitante” and “PG-13,” respectively), were either unwilling or unable to push back against Pérez, music is sacrificed on the altar of the lyrics’ stridency.  Whereas on prior recordings, “Residente” was content to focus primarily on problems particular to his native Puerto Rico or to the gritty urban experience, he is now tackling Life, the Universe, and Everything (in the words of the late sci-fi satirist Douglas Adams).  The signature song on Multi Viral is “El Aguante” (Endurance), in which Pérez takes on a host of targets ritually loathed by the left, from Monsanto to Britain’s Falklands War with Argentina to the dropping of the atom bomb to global warming to a rogue’s gallery of dictators and unpopular elected politicians.  The song is a toast to people’s endurance of the various miseries and injustices visited upon them, and, in terms of format, it is closer to Entren los que Quieran than anything else on the disc; in that sense, it succeeds.  But in lashing out at so many hobgoblins, Pérez is merely cataloging rather than saying anything of significance, à la Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (1989).  Musically, I found it curious that the song starts off with an Irish penny whistle, like a medieval lay, when it is destined to devolve quickly into a heavy, foot-stomping “rap sheet” of sorts.  But perhaps it is all not so different from what the Dropkick Murphys do.  Several other “songs” on this record are politically charged rap numbers in which music decidedly takes a back seat:  “Respira el Momento” (Breathe in the Moment), “Adentro” (Inside), and “Gato que Avanza, Perro que Ladra” (Cat that Advances, Dog that Barks).  “Respira el Momento” also manages to evoke the high points of the prior album in that it builds from a reflective poetry session with piano accompaniment to a grand heavenly choir complete with acoustic and electric string accompaniment.  It is both stirring and a bit much to take in its self-importance.  “Adentro” is a species of “humblebrag,” in which Pérez voices contrition for certain things he has said and done previously, but this rings false.  “Gato que Avanza, Perro que Ladra” is lighter, less sanctimonious, and at least has a swingy rhythm and a genuine if brief refrain.  The title track is yet another heavy-handed screed, generating more heat than light, and in its midst, we get Julian Assange pontificating (from his bolthole at the Ecaudorean embassy in London, where he was avoiding possible prosecution on sex crimes in Sweden) about how people’s demand for “the truth” can cut through government propaganda and cover-ups.  (Other than a one-minute John Leguizamo routine about people’s stupefaction, “Stupid Is as Stupid Does,” this is the only English one hears on the record.)  The track also invites in former Rage against the Machine guitarist and activist Tom Morello and Arab-Israeli self-billed “voice of resistance” Kamilya Jubran, who sings.  Several other guests participated in the making of Multi Viral.  It must have been something of a coup to get the renowned Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, a few months before his death, to narrate his own homily about what makes us human, from birth to demise, in the “Intro—El Viaje” (the Voyage).  The year 2014 seems to be one for having native Americans appear on pop records (see the Goat review above); Calle 13 had Klamath-Modoc educator and speaker Vernon Foster sing backup on “Respira el Momento” and chant the brief “Interludio—Un Buen Día para Morir” (A Good Day to Die).  Cuban folk singer and leading light of the nueva trova movement Silvio Rodríguez, one of Pérez’s idols, co-wrote the lyrics to “Ojos Color Sol” (Sun-Colored Eyes), one of the softer, nonpolitical (but insipid) compositions from Eduardo Cabra.  “Perseguido” (Persecuted) features white French reggae and hip-hop artist Biga*Ranx (Gabriel Gault), who co-wrote the reggae-style piece and sings backup to Pérez.  (For the rhythm track, think of Ace of Base’s “All that She Wants” [1992].)  “Los Idiotas” once more pushes aside Eduardo Cabra’s songwriting in favor of Pérez’s words, but it at least allows for some humor and playfulness, following John Leguizamo’s bit about stupefaction, including the payoff line, “An idiot is one who thinks everyone but himself is an idiot.”  Musically speaking, the best tracks are the dance-themed “Cuando los Pies Besan el Piso” (When Your Feet Kiss the Floor), although I dislike the cartoonishly high-pitched setting of the chorus from Ileana Cabra and Diana Fuentes, “Fuera de la Atmósfera del Cráneo” (Beyond the Skull’s Atmosphere), which has a touch of lofty dreaminess in those few sections in which Pérez is not belting out his rap shtick, and “Así de Grandes Son las Ideas” (Ideas Are That Big).  This last song, the album’s final word, starts out weak and awkwardly disjointed, but it eventually develops a really lovely syncopated chorus, finally putting to good use Ileana Cabra’s lovely voice (not to mention her harp playing).  One of the unfortunate aspects of this recording is that Ileana, in spite of her participation on multiple tracks, barely registers as a presence on this mouthy disc, in contrast to Entren los que Quieran.  I had high expectations for Multi Viral, and I have to say that this was one of the year’s major letdowns.  The CD package includes a concert DVD, Sin Mapa (Without a Map), which I have not had the opportunity to view.        B-

Sample song  “El Aguante”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUk73pUe9i4