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 Because
By
John Brodeur
Various
Artists
Dark
Was the Night
Twenty
years ago, a wicked array of the day’s talent came together
for Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute to Cole Porter, a music
and video project benefiting the Red Hot Organization. The
widely championed project was one of the first large-scale
pop-culture efforts to raise money and awareness for HIV and
AIDS, and it became the cornerstone of a series that would
produce like-minded compilations in a number of themes—Latin,
country, Afrobeat, Gershwin—over the ensuing dozen-or-so years,
raising about 7 million dollars for AIDS research and relief
along the way.
Serving as an unofficial celebration of the project’s 20th
year and a reminder that AIDS is still a major concern, Dark
Was the Night picks up, more or less, where 1993’s No
Alternative left off. It’s a comprehensive cross-section
of the indie-music scene, circa 2009. Curated and produced
by members of the National, the project includes exclusive
contributions from the likes of the Decemberists, Arcade Fire,
Sufjan Stevens, Spoon, My Morning Jacket—if it’s Pitchfork-approved,
it’s here.
Dark
Was the Night is surprisingly cohesive for a two-disc,
multi-artist set. It’s well worth picking up for its several
inspired collaborations (Dirty Projectors team up with Red
Hot + Blue vet David Byrne for set-opener “Knotty Pine,”
which plays like something from one of Byrne’s ’90s solo records;
Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and the National’s Aaron Dessner
offer the bone-chilling “Big Red Machine”) and smart updates
(North Adams, Mass., duo the Books deliver a reverent modernization
of Nick Drake’s “Cello Song”; Cat Power continues her recent
blues-infused renaissance with a woozy rendition of “Amazing
Grace”).
More than anything, this is a celebration of voices. The “alternative”
music community represented here has some exceptional ones:
Vernon, Andrew Bird, Grizzly Bear’s Edward Droste, Iron and
Wine’s Sam Beam, Antony Hegarty (Antony and the Johnsons).
And the ladies, though few in number, make their contributions
count: Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond stole the recent
Decemberists LP out from under them, and her band’s swinging,
swaggering “Feeling Good” has the same effect here. Then there’s
the aforementioned Cat Power track, and Feist (teamed separately
with Grizzly Bear and Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard), and Sharon
Jones. Sharon Freaking Jones! Worthy cause? Yup. Good value-cost
ratio? Damn right. Now go get it.
 SeÑor
Coconut
Around
the World
SeÑor Coconut is the brainchild of Uwe Schmidt, aka Atom.
Based in Chile, he unveiled this ensemble with the 2000 album
El Baile Aleman, which was a full set of Latin-configured
and electronically filigreed music by Kraftwerk. This was
no mere stunt; the German-born producer and DJ was deeply
influenced by those ’70s electronica pioneers. This time out
he covers songs by, among others, Eurythmics (“Sweet Dreams”),
Trio (“Da Da Da”), Prince (“Kiss”), Antonio Carlos Jobim (“Corcovado”),
Perez Prado (“Que Rico El Mambo”), and Daft Punk (the title
track). Fueled by the dance rhythms of rumbas, cha-chas, mambos
and merengues, this is vibrant music, with his choice of material,
arrangements and production allowing the strength of the compositions
to be celebrated. The only flat spot is the first of the two
disc-closing bonus tracks, “Dreams Are My Reality.” On this
one vocalist Louie Austen’s Vegas-isms tip the balance into
parody. Happily, the closer is another departure, Atom’s full-throttle
remix of Les Baxter’s “Voodoo Dreams.” Blast off!
—David
Greenberger
Tortoise
Beacons
of Ancestorship
Seminal
post-rock band Tortoise have long been a case study for the
petty infight between rival camps of improvisational rock.
With the exception of an occasional European tour or a curatorial
gig at the All Tomorrows Parties festival, the band stay cloistered
in their incredibly fertile Chicago art-rock circle and so,
for the most part can shirk any association with acts that
might otherwise get labeled “jam.” But, if you handed Beacons
of Ancestorship—their sixth full-length studio album (due
out in June) in a career that stretches nearly 20 years—to
anyone loyal to the Pitchfork set and had them listen to it
blind, I’d be surprised if they didn’t attribute a few of
the tracks to STS9 or Lotus.
This might sound like blasphemy to some, but all it really
means is that artful rock compositions and deep groove- orientation
are fundamentally compatible. Opener “High Class Slim Came
Floatin’ In” is an eight-minute treatise that introduces the
record in the manner that “Djed” did for the band’s classic
Millions Now Living Will Never Die. The most noticeable
difference is the song’s spacey breaks and architectural dub.
Without ever shedding rock-band instrumentation entirely,
the disc is the band’s most electronic yet, but its great
strength is its almost autistic precision. “Penumbra” has
a glitchy syncopation that calls to mind certain Madlib tracks,
while the light industrial stomp of “Monument Six One Thousand”
sounds like a leftover track from Thom York’s The Eraser.
The x-factor in all of this is guitarist Jeff Parker, whose
playing has a quirky, identifiable quality not unlike fellow
Chicagoan Nels Cline. He casts plenty of Robert Fripp-style
lines on “Prepare Your Coffin,” but his most brilliant work
is compositional. “Yinxianghechengqi” is an egg-headed, math-rock
ode to Bad Brains, and “The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One”
sounds a bit like Ry Cooder in its dry-throated crossing of
spaghetti Western and spy movie themes.
The scope of this band’s influence has always exceeded the
range of their touring, and as post-rock becomes increasingly
dilute the more prime-time dramas it shows up in, it’s unlikely
that this disc will get the fanfare it deserves. The band
members are pushing middle age these days, so they’ll probably
content themselves with a cursory European tour—but here’s
hoping that EMPAC can persuade them otherwise. Hint hint.
—Josh
Potter
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