KATE BUSH - “AERIAL”

Friday, February 02, 2007

“AERIAL”â€"KATE BUSH

Rock, $22.98 (list price), Columbia

BASIC STORY: Bush’s first album in 12 years is a grand double disc that matches her previous high standards.

SAMPLE: “Who knows who wrote that song of summer/That blackbirds sing at dusk/This is a song of colour/Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust/Then climb into bed and turn to dust.”

Review: After a prolonged absence, Bush, the role model for Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, and countless other female singer-songwriters, returns and favors us with two discs containing her usual bewitching tales of nature, family, and history, and Elvis and mathematics, too. With the occasional modern production touches, the songs continue to follow her idiosyncratic path of calm tones framed by unsettling and/or mysterious images and melodies. The second disc is more tranquil than the first, but both discs should provide much joy to her fans and provide succor to lovers of great songwriting and artistic ambition.

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SUN KIL MOON - “Tiny Cities”

Friday, February 02, 2007

CD: “TINY CITIES”â€"SUN KIL MOON

Rock, $16.98 (list price), Caldo Verde

BASIC STORY: Former Red House Painter leader Mark Kozelek releases his 2^nd (brilliant) solo album under his Sun Kil Moon moniker.

SAMPLE: “Just got a message, said, yeah, hell is freezing over/Got a phone call from the lord saying, “Boy, go get a sweater, right now”.

Review: Like on his first Sun Kil Moon album, Mark Kozelek fills Tiny Cities with beautifully wrought languid melodies and melancholy-soaked music of the highest order. Unlike that first album, however, Tiny Cities consists of entirely of eleven covers of songs by Isaac Brock, leader of Modest Mouse. Pulling off a tour-de-force of taking the poetic, introspective lyrics of one band and completely re-fashioning them into the form of another, Kozelek creates a stunning tribute to Brock’s word-play while continuing his endeavors as the finest purveyor of melancholy rock (think Elliot Smith) working today.

A superb album from beginning to end.

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JONATHAN KANE - “February”

Friday, February 02, 2007

CD: “FEBRUARY”â€"JONATHAN KANE

Rock, Blues $16.98 (list price), Table of the Elements

BASIC STORY: Downtown NYC drumming legend puts out an instrumental opus of rock/blues inventiveness.

SAMPLE: All instrumental.

Review: Jonathan Kane co-founded heavy rockers the Swans and has played with the cream of the NYC avant-rock crop. However, with this, his first solo album, Kane brings back memories of those great sixties rock albums which were soaked in the blues. Sometimes very minimalist, sometimes dizzyingly grand, each extended foray (the shortest piece is just under 7 minutes) sees Kane locking into a solid beat-driven groove and then letting the guitars alternately riff and wail, but without going off into self-indulgent soloing. Kane puts the delta into the middle of present-day NYC, and comes up with a solo album that grabs you and doesn’t let go.

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EL PERRO DEL MAR - “EL PERRO DEL MAR”

Friday, February 02, 2007

CD: EL PERRO DEL MAR - "EL PERRO DEL MAR"

Review: El Perro Del Mar is Scandanavian singer and musician Sarah Assbring, The key element that makes this album truly affecting is its joining together of disparate elements. The primary musical focus is on sounds, such as 60’s girl-group harmonies, chiming bells, and beautiful melodic hooks, all usually associated and paired with lyrics of uplift and joy. While the subjects of the songs, concerning such things as parties, candy, and puppy dogs, at first seem to match up appropriately with these sounds, one is quickly aware that, however sweetly the words may be sung (and they are sung very sweetly, indeed), they focus largely on feelings of pain, loneliness, and melancholy. In addition, the production adds its own disparities, as each song is full of echo and multi-layered vocals, but the instrumentation is almost always extremely spare, usually consisting only of light percussion and keyboards. It is as if El Perro Del Mar takes the 60s girl-group “mini-symphony” template and turns it instead into a ”minimalist symphony”. In sum, the union of musical and lyrical approaches seemingly at odds with one another works brilliantly here, making this album a unique and compelling listen.

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