wavelength


	February 2003
	ATOMIC 7 … Gowns By Edith Head (Mint Records, mintrecs.com) Brian Connelly, in his greatest post-Shadowy Men role to date, still shuns the spotlight by continuing to refuse to put his name on his releases. How is the Academy going to give him the Best Guitarist Ever Oscar if they don’t know who he is? This kind of selfless non-promotion is unheard of in a world where even the geekiest loser can buy a star-making image. All I can say about the Atomics’ debut full-length is that it rocks, rolls, swings, laughs, bewitches, jokes, seduces, and throws snowballs at you while being a compendium of the history of rock’n’roll. True fans will also recognize M. Le Connelly’s graphic design that appears on everything he releases. The question is, how can such a staggering, soaring talent be so modest? And where did he get that hair? The reference to Edith Head (the queen of Classic Hollywood’s on-screen wardrobes) places the tongue firmly in the cheek, adding a healthy dose of camp fun to the disc that finally put the music back into music. NC File next to: Les Paul, Ventures, the Reverend Horton Heat.
	THE BARCELONA PAVILION s/t (independent; www.barcelonapavilion.cjb.net) A very oddly shaped CD (3”x1.5”??) contains two incredibly infectious songs. Mine was obtained at a very reasonable price at their Wavelength performance. The band includes members of The Hidden Cameras, but don’t let that distract you. The computer-assisted drum-machine and live bass-led naïve rock of this band is the kind that makes you want to revisit the songs just to make sure that you really did think they were as good as they were. “The Manganese” starts strong and continues to build intoxicatingly until it explodes into the catchy ending refrain: “To see that thing you’ll have to leave the building, all of those things are in different buildings.” The other offering, entitled “How are you people going to have fun if none of you people ever participate?” not only takes almost as long to read as to listen to, but also provides the basic manifesto of the band. You can debate the manifesto if you wish, but just try to not enjoy the track. PO’D File next to: Short, seemingly unspectacular, but soon frustratingly addictive, pop songs.
	EXPLORER SERIES: AFRICA (Nonesuch reissues, www.nonesuch.com) While I’m not quite qualified to review this entire 13-disc set, having only so far heard one Zimbabwe mbira record, a collection of Ghanaian ceremonial and dance music, and a survey of West African drumming, chants and instrumentals, the consistency of these recordings alone already has me sold and hooked on hearing more. The only drawback to each disc, unsuccessfully offset by a reduced special-import price, is that along with each album’s original liner notes being reprinted within a more streamlined and updated package design (the LP sleeve cover is reproduced on the back of the protective outer cardstock for the curious and/or nostalgic), a faithfulness to the original likewise extends to the discs’ lengths, with no bonus tracks or unearthed rarities padding up time. No matter, though, as there’s more information and inspiration packed into 40-odd minutes here than most modern productions can muster. In fact, what really brings things full circle here are not the ritual-ceremony and drum-group takes, as impressive as many of them may be — it’s the solo performances that really wow, chiefly on lute-based or wind instruments, and often eerily presaging textures now employed in sounds as far afield as extended-technique jazz/improv and Powerbook glitchery, a distant yet oddly appropriate virtuosic ancestry. CFD File next to: Bobbing for water, stacking the global jukebox, mothercorp pet project, pt. 1.
	FLITWICK RECORDS COMPILATION (Flitwick Records, www.flitwick-records.co.uk) The metaphor of something being “worth the price of admission” has always struck me as being somehow misguided. Take this, for example. Flitwick is a mail-order record company from the U.K. that asks only that you visit their website and fill out your name and mail/email addresses to receive free (they even pay postage) 7” singles and CDs. (I just missed out on the exclusive 7” rarity by The Fall.) Their newest release is certainly worth the price of admission. It’s filled with lo-fi pop songs, odd sonic doodles, kraut-inspired jams and electronic meanderings. This is the sort of obscure pop I live for, indie racket that doesn’t pander to anyone. Some standouts: The Beale and Country Teasers for their Fall-like contributions, Barking Spider and Kling Klang for their hypnotic motorik, the electronic scrapings of Scissorkicks , hOST’s scratchy Scars-like punk sound and The Knockouts for their garage-y closer “driving range/the eyes (edit)”. All that and so much more. PO’D File next to: Lo/No-fi, four-tracking without compromise, the true spirit of D.I.Y.
	JONATHAN FRANZEN The Corrections (book, Harper Collins) What the hell has happened to American fiction? Actually I’m just pissed that fellow contributor Buddy of the Pines beat me to it last issue and laid the blame directly on the shoulders of Dave Eggers, who parlayed his parents’ death and his subsequent guardianship of his younger brother into a morally tenuous paean to the ultimate success of slacker living… by becoming a successful publisher with a dubious love for They Might Be Giants. Enough said. Franzen pissed Oprah off for implying that her book club dumbs down literature. A claim that could be laid squarely against this book. You know the plot: crazy older parents torment grown children with their outdated demands and antics. Children can’t even keep their own lives together, and with a healthy mix of drugs, sex and critiques of popular culture, it all comes out in the wash. The emasculated head of the family, the neurotic mother, the irresponsible children… sounds a bit like American Beauty, which sure ain’t no Discreet Charm of The Bourgeoisie. Point being, where the Europeans have a fine and grand tradition of fictionalizing societal and familial alienation, Americans still sound like kids whining ‘cause they didn’t get the Christmas present they wanted. And I liked this book. NC File next to: Aerosol cheese and aerosol candy.
	JIM GUTHRIE Morning Noon Night (Three Gut, www.threegutrecords.com) On this, his sophmore album, Jimmy Three Guts pulls out even more sonic weirdness married to broken folk from his seemingly bottomless bag of tricks. You start out thinking that you’ve been abducted by aliens from planet Aphex quickly to be returned all X-Files-like to your country farmhouse, memory erased. Half of the songs were created using the Playstation MTV Music Generator program and Jim shows that he’s got enough talent and ingenuity to make even the most mundane of electronic sounds bend to his creative will. This album exists, for me, in that same folky/bizarro —yet beautiful — world inhabited by Grandaddy and Sparklehorse. There’s a real twilight presence here as well, mixed with an endearing dream logic that gives you the impression that Jimmy created a lot of the album in his pajamas, way past his bedtime. “Evil Thoughts”, the soaring “1901” and the sad choir musings on “Communication” are definite standouts. SV File next to: Royal City, bedroom Brian Wilsons composing by nite-lite, Mark Linkous meet the laptop.
	HMV SUPERSTORE (store re-design, 333 Yonge) As guilty as I felt about it, many an undergrad afternoon was spent avoiding schoolwork in a pink and purple haze, whether leafing through entire issues of The Wire, abusing the listening bar or even occasionally shamefully succumbing to that ever-pressing urge to get just one stamp closer to a full CD Club card. Returning to the place that might as well have been my student library, though, had me pining for the days when the Superstore was still depressing and evil, but at least navigable with a modicum of creative scavenging. Not only is there no longer any hokey incentive to put up with 25-dollar catalogue-stock prices, but the shelves are barer than ever, strangled by point-of-purchase promo displays and pre-selected themed listening-post pods. I mean, at least Sam’s next door has an excuse to look so cannibalized, having actually gone bankrupt and all — HMV’s only excuse, meanwhile, is being too short-sighted to see any profitability in offering its digital-entertainment drones, er, customers any choice (bemoaning a chronic drop in retail sales all the while, I’m sure). The only thing I found worth paying for was some live Gentle Giant disc. I guess that says it all. CFD File next to: Shopping For Dummies, the deck of the Enterprise as manned by 18-year-olds, Dundas Square = Babylonian wasteland.
	MUSIC FOR ONE Outside In (Makeshift; www.musicforone.com) The idea of “experimental music” is most effective when it conveys the idea of someone actually performing an experiment — and not the sterilized, painstaking efficiency of the scientist, but rather the fevered, secretive dabbling of the alchemist. Sherri Ostapovich (a former Vancouverite now residing in Nottingham, U.K.) is a little too low-key to be mistaken for a modern-day Paracelsus, but her open-ended tinkering with her electric guitar and array of effects pedals seems driven by a quest to turn sound into something… other. The experiments on this disc (a collection of live recordings from six different locales, including a Wavelength set from one year ago) don’t always succeed, however, and many of the results are simply esoteric. But there are moments, like the one when a quote of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” (intentional or not?) suddenly erupts into explosive fuzztone, when you think she, like those old hermit dudes, might be onto something. JD File next to: Keith Rowe, John Fahey, the Corpus Hermeticum.
	THE NOTWIST Neon Golden (City Slang/Domino reissue; www.notwist.de) This is a truly unique album. How do you put your finger on it? It’s not really an electronic album, although there are lots of electronic flourishes. It’s not really chamber music either, although there are solemn strings and piano work present. I guess you could call this stuff “chamber-indie-tronica”, if that makes any sense. The Brothers Acher and company have created a nice little genre here for themselves, it would seem. An amalgam of not only bleeps and static samples, but other things like original percussion, dub echoes, woodwinds and banjo, too. On paper, this must seem like a truly bizarre project, but it all comes together amazingly on record. This “everything-and-the-kitchen-sink” aesthetic just works. I think the key word here is texture. The canvas is quite varied and diverse, and it needs to be to back up Marcus Acher’s sleepy and deadpan singing voice. Several repeated listens are the only way to do this release justice. SV File next to: Tarwater, Lali Puna, The Sea and Cake, New Order’s Technique.
	Reviewed by: Nora Charles (NC), Jonny Dovercourt (JD), Craig Fraid Dunsmuir (CFD), Paddy O'Donnell (PO'D), Doc Pickles (DP), Buddy of the Pines (BP), Steven Venn (SV). Send material for review to: Wavelength, 868 Dovercourt Rd. Toronto ON M6H 2X5, attn: Nora Charles. Please do our planet a favour and keep press clippings, glossy promotional folders, etc., to a minimum. Interested in writing reviews for Wavelength? Contact review editrix Nora Charles.