Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Album Review; 13 Ghosts - Cicada


13 Ghosts - Cicada
(2006, Skybucket Records)

13 Ghosts didn't exist in its current form until nearly a decade after its inception under a different name. The members came together in 1990, played around for a couple years and then scattered until the 1998 death of the original bass player. The two remaining members, Brad Armstrong and Buzz Russell, rekindled their musical partnership the day of their friend's funeral in an attempt to exorcise their own grief. The resulting recordings have never been released but Armstrong and Russell went on to make three proper albums and two EP's. Their third album, Cicada, came out a couple years ago with limited distribution. Now Skybucket Records has come along to bring Cicada to the rest of the country.
The thing about Cicada is that it does not sound like a band's third album. It has the kind of go-for-broke-and-throw-every-passing-idea-into-the-mix quality that most bands shed on their first album. Americana, lo-fidelity cut and paste arrangements, laid back pop, old-timey spirituals, the occasional drum machine, pedal hopping indie rock and straightforeward country all come into stylistic play as Cicada meanders through it's 60 odd minutes on your stereo. Disjointed? Yep! Unfocused? You betcha, but something about 13 Ghosts' complete disregard for clarity makes the album all the more worthwhile.
13 Ghosts' genre-hopping never comes off as forced or desperate. The songs sound natural and perfectly fit into the skin of whatever style they happen to be presented in. This bullseye faithfulness to far-flung sensibilities is no doubt a byproduct of the rotating asseblage of 20 or so contributing musicians who appear on the album. Buried in the ranks are quite a few recognizable names including Daniel Johnston and Azure Ray's Maria Taylor.
While Cicada never jells stylisticly, it certainly does so thematically. I believe it's a concept album, but about what I have no idea. I do know that it is broken into two parts and many songs examine life cut short by untimely death or changed in an instant by unforseen events. The songs themselves often cut off suddenly and immediately throwing the listener into new territory with little time to adjust. 13 Ghosts sounds less like a band and more like a friendly neighborhood recording project with too much talent to keep among friends, Armstrong and Russell would be wise to let it remain that way.

Friday, May 26, 2006

DVD Review - The Passenger (1975)


The Passenger
(1975 - Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni)

To call the 1975 masterpiece, The Passenger, an existential thriller is mostly correct. Is it existential? Oh sweet Christmas yes! This is Michelangelo Antonioni after all, the man who made Blow Up, La Notte and L'Aventura. A man whose career-long obsession with identity and alienation produced some of the most enigmatic and discussed films ever made. Then there is the "thriller" part of the moniker.
What elements of a thriller do we have? Do we have a hot young star on the rise? Yes, we have Jack Nicholson at his absolute peak, smack dab between Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. We've also got; international intrigue, potentially fatal mistaken identity and an alluring young woman who may provide some steamy answers. However, this is an Antonioni film, the man never had much interest in telling a conventional story. The Passenger, like most of the director's other films isn't about the plot, it's about something much bigger.
Jack Nicholson plays David Locke, a London-based journalist working North Africa. When a fellow traveller named Robinson dies in the next hotel room over, Locke impulsively switches information with the man he barely knows and assumes his identity. Keeping the appointments in Robinson's notebook, Locke revels in what he thinks is a newfound freedom from the stuffy confines of his old life. What he doesn't know is that Robinson was an arms dealer and there are some mighty dangerous folks looking for him. Soon he meets a beautiful young girl, identified in the credits only as "The Girl", and the two trot the globe attempting to escape themselves and the people chasing them.
For an Antonioni film that's a hell of alot of story, but don't worry it unfolds at a snail's pace. Even the chase scene seems poderous and slow. Then again we don't watch Antonioni for mind blowing action. His films are for the most patient of viewers. The story and the people and the dialogue are merely set-pieces, they are only important in their relationship to the world around them. The Passenger's central theme is the desire to be free of the life you have made. While driving down the road in one scene the girl asks Locke, "What are you running from?" Locke tells her to put her back to the dashboard. She does so and watches the road behind them stretch into the distance.
As in other Antonioni films there are no easy answers. The body of the film is constructed and layered in such a way that the central theme is explored in great depth but the resolution is ultimately up to the viewer to put together. In The Passenger's legendary 7 minute, one shot final scene, everything unfolds silently, beautifully and with the kind of tension and release that only a master like Antonioni could build and control.
This is the very first time The Passenger has been available on DVD or available at all in its original restored length. I really wish Criterion had picked this one up and given it the full treatment. The transer is good but nowhere near the level that a film of such scope and beauty demands. There are some nice extras including a rare commentary by Jack Nicholson himself who, although not what you would call "chatty", is clearly in awe of Antonioni and regards his own appearance in one of the director's masterpieces with much pride.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Hazard County Girls - Divine Armor


Hazard County Girls - Divine Armor
(2006, Rev'd Up Records)

Straight outta bayou country, these three ladies power things up with pounding drums, sultry vocals and gut crunching riffage. After losing their bass player to Nashville Pussy and endless delays resulting from that Katrina storm, Hazard County Girls finally have their second full length release out for people to hear. The result is a mixed bag of fuzz, melody and old fashioned fanny kicking.
Having made the rounds opening for the likes of Hank lll and Rasputina you know to expect an ominous, southern gothic brooding to their sound. Add to that some heavy fuzz with steady mid-tempo riffs and you've got some pulsing black magic melodies to make the stoners happy. Although they seem to be labelled a "female Black Sabbath", Hazard County Girls actually sound more like a doom rock version of Throwing Muses.
Christy Kanes' raspy voice has a darkly coy sensuality and for all the attention paid to pounding drums and chug-a-chugging guitars there is a remarkable amount of melody on Divine Armor. Songs like "Fine Lines" and "Insect" take the band's driving darkness into more restrained and melodic territory with stunning results.
Unfortunately the album does drag occasionally in its second half as some of the more unremarkable tracks go on a couple minutes too long with few dynamic changes. That being said, Divine Armor's high points thankfully overwhelm those few low ones.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Untied States - Retail Detail


Untied States - Retail Detail
(2006, Self Released)

In modern music, nothing should be cherished so much as the unexpected. Surprises are rare things these days musically speaking. Most songs, and in some cases entire albums, can be predicted by the attentive listener after hearing just a couple bars. Fortunately Atlanta's Untied States have successfully incorperated enough imagination on their second full length, Retail Detail, to keep even the most jaded listeners guessing as to what is coming next.
Born of the near life-long friendship of Colin Arnstein and Skip Engelbrecht, Untied States presents an intriguing pastiche of incongruous parts and pieces jammed together to somehow form a satifying disarray. The 12 tracks on Retail Detail are experimental without resorting to drone or feedback, dissonant without sounding atonal and oddly melodic without sounding formulaic.
There IS structure and cohesion here but it's a different kind of structure, one that hinges on agressively shifting time signatures and jarring changes in tone. It's the kind of giddy inventiveness you'd find with Deerhoof, US Maple or early Sonic Youth. The songs themselves rarely sound like one thing through their short lives. Untied States keep things fresh by switching gears often although there are a couple songs such as "My Cause is My Curse" where the deconstruction slows down a bit to allow for a more traditional post-punk experience.
Although theres quite alot of sonic juxtaposition on Retail Detail, things never degenerate into cacauphanic mess of noise without reason. When two conflicting sections are jammed against one another they simply create tension and thankfully not a mess. Even though there are heaping loads of art flying around on this album it's at least been tethered to a very strong leash. Energetic, engaging and hugely satisfying, Untied States haven't come to bury the A,A,B,A song structure, just to rebel against it a little.