|
 Just
Keeps Gettin’ Better
M.
Ward
Transfiguration
of Vincent (Merge)
M. Ward is as subtly idio-syncratic as his decision to forego
a complete first name in favor of an initial. Tin-pan alley
songcraft and friendliness run through Transfiguration
of Vincent, the third release by this Portland, Ore.-based
musician, though in guises alternating from front-porch casual
to ice-cream-social festive. Reference points would be Closing
Time-era Tom Waits or many of the free-ranging excursions
of Giant Sand frontman Howe Gelb (who contributed a song to
this set, and who also released Ward’s debut on his own Ow
Om label), though Ward’s lyrical sensibilities favor a different
sort of poetic metaphor.
The songs are primarily built around an acoustic guitar, yet
they are as removed from folk music (and its implications
of belonging to a certain tradition, carried forward by, well,
folks) as was Skip Spence’s Oar. However, where Spence’s
personally fragmented songs tended to the oblique, Ward’s
are downright catchy. Harmonica, scattered percussives and
occasional piano all are tossed into the mix with surefooted
believability—every bit of musical filigree comes off as wholly
essential to the final character of the song. A cover of David
Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” is reworked with a slowly swirling rhythm,
the song’s romantic overture redirected into a quiet invitation.
The album then closes with a brief and haunting piano instrumental.
With each new playing, this album has continued to yield new
pleasures.
—David
Greenberger
EDO
Alien
Death Taxi (Permanent Records)
This 2002 release is getting close to being too long in the
tooth to be reviewed in these timely, topical pages—but it’s
too good of a record to let it be the one that got away from
us. It also helps that EDO have deep roots in the Capital
Region: Vocalist Eliot Duhan is a Chatham native, and primordial
versions of EDO did their thing with verve, vigor and frightening
regularity at the Palais Royale in Albany (among other local
venues) back in the early ’90s.
These days, EDO are a Philadelphia-based live monster who
mine a musical vein somewhere between the Captain Beefheart
and Roky Erickson lodes, scary-funny-cerebral lyrics bouncing
off of mutant blooze, creating sparks and smoke and screaming
in the process. Duhan is a classic over-the-top shouter who
mixes things up on this, the group’s second full-length CD,
with cool spoken-word rants about all sorts of exciting topics:
corneal grafts, ice ages, pedophile priests, herb jones(ing),
pets on drugs, scary suburbs and the titular alien death taxi.
Duhan has his own Zoot Horn Rollo/Rockette Morton string-bending
axis, too, with Pete “the Fishman” Wilder (guitar) and John
Thomas (bass) making some exceptional jazz-rock-blues based
noises; Andy “Screech” McConnell rounds out the record with
punchy drums and the occasional foray into guitar and keyboard
world. Their instrumental prowess is a key part of what makes
this record so successful: Duhan’s diatribes would sound good
on top of most anything, but they come off phenomenally well
when chained to such a muscular musical beast as the one created
by his bandmates.
All told, a great record to get mugged by in a dark alley
behind Frank Zappa’s house, while Ween snort glue, giggle
and point.
—J.
Eric Smith
  Crawdad
The
Rock Album (Kranepool)
Crawdad’s The Rock Album deserves to be played ridiculously
loud. A truly American guitar-fueled study, it just makes
a guy simply want to get tattoos and drive inappropriate distances
into the wilderness, maybe even make a fruit drink with grain
alcohol. Yet, there’s nothing pawn-shop about it, and man,
is it ever a gentleman steam-rock giant: precise, deliberate
and full on open-ended immaculate reception, almost to the
threshold but sidetracked by a cool stream and nicotine addiction.
I’m pretty sure the axes were recorded at serious volumes,
because they have that bold-but-vulnerable feel, a hot thrum
of feedback waiting when hands come off the neck. There’s
nothing better. Not all-day crock-pot chicken, not unprotected
sex, nothing, I tell you.
If Malcolm Young joined Wilco and stole the Beatles 1969 sensibilities
back from that freak Michael Jackson, that’s Crawdad. Indeed,
the boys from ’cross the river pluck a feather from the caps
of many a classic and latter-day rump-shaker (the Stones,
Guided by Voices and the Replacements also come to mind),
but such pedagogical deities are not starkly obvious in the
actual Crawdad sound—instead, they inevitably arise in the
ethic, the hops, the actual attention to structure upon which
their working-man anthems are built. It’s all pretty much
no-filler, but make special note of “The Glorious Game” and
the promiscuous “Combination,” both of which give you overwhelming
bass, Joe Crawley’s snare-flam thunderclaps and, of course,
the guitars, which make the fear of God seem only like so
much inclement weather.
—Bill
Ketzer
Abdullah
Ibrahim
African
Magic (Enja/Justin Time)
Recording for more than 40 years, South African-born pianist
and composer Abdullah Ibrahim has been creating a vast catalog
of staggering beauty. African Magic, a live trio set
recorded in Germany two years ago, celebrates his primary
interests, mixing impressionistic interpretations of his homeland
traditions with modern European classicism and American jazz.
Then named Dollar Brand, Ibrahim left South Africa in 1962
for Switzerland, coming to the attention of Duke Ellington,
who presented him on record and utilized him occasionally
in his own orchestra. Ellington’s music was an important early
influence, and Ibrahim has explored his writing regularly
over the decades, with this set including two pieces. However,
the defining character of this 24-song album is Ibrahim’s
own writing. “Blue Bolero,” which appears as four separate
fragments over the course of the performance, is at once cinematic,
folklike, spiritually resonant and liltingly relentless.
Since the beginning of the ’90s, Abdullah Ibrahim has returned
to his birthplace (dividing his time between there and New
York City), though it’s never been very far away from his
art, informing his music with a potent sense of place. African
Magic is a perfect entry point for the unfamiliar, and
a stirring new work for the already familiar.
—D.G.
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