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Archive for May, 2008May 29
by Peter Margasak at 2:38 p.m.
It's hard to believe it was 20 years ago that Mudhoney released Superfuzz Bigmuff. Grunge was already a going concern by then, as a genre if not a marketing term, and that record lit a fire under it. Sub Pop Records, also celebrating its 20th anniversary, recently gave the six-song EP the deluxe reissue treatment, enhancing it with a bunch of singles and compilation tracks from the same era--including the band's classic debut, "Touch Me I'm Sick"--as well as a disc of live material taped in Berlin and Santa Barbara in the fall of '88. To my ears it holds up pretty well, especially ferocious tracks like "In 'n' Out of Grace" and the cover of the Dicks' "Hate the Police." But Mudhoney would never again equal the quality of that initial outpouring. That said, the band's new studio album, The Lucky Ones, is the best one they've made in more than 15 years. Cut in just under four days, it's simple and direct, playing to Mudhoney's strengths (though it's not like they ever got too elaborate). Mark Arm put down his axe for these sessions, leaving Steve Turner as the only guitarist, which doesn't make much sense to me--it's not like he really needs to forgo slamming away at a guitar in order to get the most out of his nasty sneer of a voice. But the tempos are brisk, the band's massive stomp satisfyingly primal. Mudhoney's debt to the Stooges has never been clearer, both in Arm's wordless grunts and howls and the pounding one-note piano part on the opening track, "I'm Now." Sometimes the band wades into more cosmic territory, like on "And the Shimmering Lights," but never for too long. Mudhoney kick off their U.S. tour on Friday with a gig at Reggie's Rock Club. Today's playlist: May 27
by Peter Margasak at 4:25 p.m.
A few months ago Bay Area violinist, singer, and composer Carla Kihlstedt (best known for her membership in Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Tin Hat) came to the Museum of Contemporary Art with her multimedia extravaganza Necessary Monsters. In my Critic's Choice at the time, I mentioned her superb trio 2 Foot Yard, whose recent second album, Borrowed Arms (Yard Work), is a stunningly diverse assortment of concise, emotionally fraught art-pop songs; on Wednesday that group makes its overdue local debut at Martyrs'. "Borrowed Arms" references sentimental 50s pop balladry, and the next minute the melody of "Hold My Own" hydroplanes over cycling post-Philip Glass riffs. A slew of guests make cameos on the album--including Ben Goldberg, Mark Orton, and Rob Burger, all of whom are or have been in Tin Hat as well--but the core trio of Kihlstedt, cellist Marika Hughes, and drummer-guitarist Shahzad Ismaily covers an impressive range on its own. Most of the tunes were written by Kihlstedt, and her fantastical imagination gives them a distinctive flavor. On "Octopus," for instance, she riffs on the cephalopod's odd internal anatomy--it has one primary heart and two secondary ones--to create a wonderfully warped love song. I've got three hearts, and one's for you Today's playlist: May 23
by Peter Margasak at 4:10 p.m.
I almost didn't hear about this concert in time to share, but Iranian vocalist Mohammad Reza Shajarian, one of the greatest living practitioners of Persian classical music, is making a rare local appearance Saturday night at 8 PM at the Northeastern Illinois University auditorium, 3701 W. Bryn Mawr (click here for more info). He's a dynamic virtuoso who sings with a powerful emotional bravura, embroidering austere instrumental backdrops with his elaborate melodies. He's been performing since 1959 possesses an redoubtable knowledge of Persian musical traditions. A few years ago the World Village label gave a belated stateside release to Shajarian's 1984 masterpiece Bidad, which sets poetry by the Iranian icon Hafez to compositions by Parviz Meshkatian. Persian music has many modes, called dastgahs, which instruct the performer how to modulate and alter the melodic pattern before looping back to its original form. Music governed by dastgahs is essentially monophonic--there don't tend to be chords or harmonies--but on Bidad the players improvise brilliant lattices of contrapuntal lines, fill in spaces with delicate curlicues and trills, and take round-robin solos. Shajarian's tonal elasticity, his seemingly effortless improvisational fluidity, and his gift for lyrical invention turned him into a star in his homeland (he also got a little boost from the emphasis on homegrown traditions after Iran's Islamic revolution). He sang at Symphony Center back in 2005 as part of the Masters of Persian Music, and considering the increasingly frosty relations between the U.S. and Iran it's a pleasant surprise to see him back in Chicago. Still, I wouldn't pass this opportunity up lightly--there's no guarantee our next administration will adopt a homeland-security policy that's any more sensible about foreign artists and musicians. Today's playlist: Richard Crandell, Spring Steel (Tzadik) May 16
by Peter Margasak at 3:34 p.m.
WHPK, the student-run radio station at the University of Chicago, originally started its own modest take on the school's big Summer Breeze concert as an antidote to that end-of-year student bacchanalia. These days the station's own outdoor event is practically part of the official festivities, but its program still stands in stark contrast to the evening lineup, which this year includes Talib Kwele, Cake, Andrew Bird, and the Cool Kids (if you're not a student at U. of C., you can only go with someone who is). Beginning at noon tomorrow with the Smith Westerns, WHPK's show also includes Animal Law, Dead Luke, Wolfden, Bird Names, and the New York duo Talibam! Talibam! could get under the skin of even the biggest fan of abrasive, antisocial music. Drummer Kevin Shea, formerly of Storm & Stress, is dedicated to the art of pushing listeners' buttons--he also plays in the superb freebop combo Mostly Other People Do the Killing and in a strange duo with guitarist Mary Halvorson called People, among other groups. He drums like Animal from the Muppets doing his darnedest to shake his own head off his shoulders, and his sound is like an entire gamelan orchestra falling down a long flight of stairs. Shea's partner in Talibam! is synthesizer player Matt Mottel, who triggers an endless profusion of needling little riffs, occasionally punctured by some free-ish noodling. And on their recent Ordination of the Globetrotting Conscripts (Azul Discografica) they're joined by a full complement of top-shelf guests, including brilliant MOPTDK trumpeter Peter Evans and the rest of that band, plus Cooper-Moore on, among other things, diddley bow. The album veers between post-Flying Luttenbachers chaos, quasi-hillbilly two-stepping, faux-house pounding, and wanky prog rock on the verge of collapse. Talibam! headline WHPK's Summer Breeze, and the weather's supposed to be nice, if a little gusty--but if you don't feel like being in the vicinity of thousands of college students, they also play tonight at Ronny's. Today's playlist: by Peter Margasak at 2:03 a.m.
Although she's best known as a Norwegian folksinger, Unni Løvlid refuses to play to type. Her excellent trio Rusk, with fiddler Vegar Vårdal and accordionist Frode Haltli, has made two albums of more or less traditional music, but I first heard her when she released her 2005 solo album Vita (Heilo), an a cappella recording made inside the Emanuel Vigeland mausoleum on which she artfully employs the eerie acoustics of the space to swathe her ethereal voice in thick, milky reverb. Despite Løvlid's penchant for experimentation, I was surprised by her new solo album, Rite (Grappa), where her original tunes are layered in appealing electronics and subtle orchestrations, creating a sound somewhere between Norwegian folk and hypnotic pop. Among those enlisted to play on the album were Haltli (who's also a serious composer and experimenter), saxophonist Håkon Kornstad (Wibutee), French horn player and noisician Hild Sofie Tafjord (Fe-Mail, Spunk), and electronic soundscaper Helge Sten (Supersilent). This sort of stylistic duality seems widespread in Norway, and I don't think the small size of the country's population can explain it away--these folks have open ears. Løvlid's tender voice is the focal point, but the ingenious and richly varied arrangements help conjure a wide array of moods. The densely braided long tones on cello, accordion, and French horn in "Her Møter Eg Deg" remind me of a beatless Radiohead, but the vocals have such gossamer elegance and depth--Løvlid multitracks several contrapuntal parts--that the end result doesn't sound like anything else out there. Even the textures and ambiences inherent to Norwegian folk styles seem slippery in this context--you can hear them in there, but they don't make the total package any easier to figure out. Rite is a stunning piece of work, and it makes me anticipate Løvlid's next album even more. Today's playlist: Seichi Yamamoto, NOA 2 (Alchemy) May 9
by Peter Margasak at 4:12 p.m.
Earlier today in a record shop I saw a poster for Sunday's show by R & B singer Jaheim. It made me realize that his hip-hop-influenced style, a relatively recent development in the history of the genre, now passes for a new kind of old-school. The show, at UIC's brand-new Forum, is billed as a Mother's Day concert; Joe and Ginuwine open. Not so long ago Jaheim seemed destined to be next in line should one of R. Kelly's frequent stumbles ever actually hurt his popularity. On last year's The Makings of a Man (Atlantic) he's still entrenched in a lothario persona reminiscent of Kelly's, celebrating the loyalty of some of his women and decrying the disloyalty of others, but he also seems to be thinking about the future, when he'll be too old to be a player. He sometimes approximates Kelly's run-on-sentence flow, but more often than not he digs deep into the slow jams while holding on tight to his hip-hop roots. The Makings of a Man is an uneven collection, but once Jaheim gets up in front of thousands of screaming mothers that's not likely to make much difference--what matters is the way he can use his lush vibrato, sensual low-pitched purrs, and soaring falsetto to communicate vulnerability, devotion, and masculinity. Today's playlist: Bastro, Sing the Troubled Beast/Diablo Guapo (Drag City) May 7
by Peter Margasak at 3:47 p.m.
Chicago has just lost perhaps its greatest living link to its earliest jazz history with the death of reedist Franz Jackson, who passed away yesterday at the age of 95. Jackson got his start as a musician back in 1929, playing with the great barrelhouse pianist Albert Ammons, and over the decades he played with Jimmie Noone, Roy Eldridge, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Benny Carter, James P. Johnson, and many others too numerous to mention. His career was nearly 80 years long, but he didn't make many records under his own name in that time--his last, I Is What I Is, was released in 2005 by Pinnacle. Still, thanks to his easy flexibility, which allowed him to bridge the gaps between traditional jazz, swing, and bebop, Jackson was a steady presence on the local scene--particularly at venues like Andy's, Dick's Last Resort, Joe's Be-Bop Cafe, the Green Mill, and Pops for Champagne--and he was reportedly in good form when playing at his 95th birthday celebration last November. Jackson was chosen to receive the 2008 Theodore Thomas History Maker Award for Distinction in Performing Arts from the Chicago History Museum prior to his death, so his daughter Michelle Jewell will accept the award during a May 15 ceremony. A memorial service is planned for Saturday, May 24, from 1-3 PM at the Apostolic Lifehouse Church in Dowagiac, Michigan. Today's playlist: Yoko Ono, Approximately Infinite Universe (Rykodisc) May 5
by Peter Margasak at 7:32 p.m.
I didn't listen to much from young composer and musician Jonathan Chen, who graduated from Northwestern with a master's in violin performance in 1999, until after he left Chicago in 2004. But since then I've been repeatedly impressed by the consistency and rigor of his work. He's occasionally sent me pieces of music from Middletown, Connecticut, from Karlsruhe, Germany, and most recently from Athens, Georgia--all places he's lived since leaving. The recordings usually come in advance of return visits like the one he's making this week, and every time they reveal new facets of his output. Tuesday Chen performs at Elastic and on Wednesday he's at Heaven Gallery. On both nights he'll play solo and with his project Patterns of Affect (pictured; the lineup currently includes Jamie Kempkers, Joe Mills of Haptic, and Peter Rosenbloom of Tiny Hairs). The two pieces that Patterns of Affect will perform at each show push minimalist precepts to the breaking point, avoiding the usual incremental development of such music in favor of rich stasis. The piece that gives the group its name opens with loose banjo arpeggios, spinning and spinning, and then suddenly opens up with the addition of violin, cello, hurdy-gurdy, and electronics, all working over the same simple pattern and creating a luxuriant thicket of harmony. On "To Be Continued" Chen repeats the same series of chords on an acoustic guitar "for as long as he can make them meaningful (to himself)," accompanied by a music box that uses player-piano-like rolls that unspool onto the floor; the melody is never in sync with the guitar, and the slippages create lovely and unexpected juxtapositions. Both nights Chen will also perform "Three Switch-Hitters," a pure electronic piece built from feedback created with a computer program for real-time sound synthesis called Supercollider. I don't know enough about the software to guess how he created this music, but I do enjoy the violent but balletic ebb and flow of its writhing, wriggling sounds. Today's playlist: Information, Biomekano (Rune Grammofon) |
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