Throwing Muses In A Doghouse (4AD) we
This dark dark double album comprises 1986's self-titled debut LP, the following year's 'Chains Changed' EP, the 1985 demo which led to the Muses‘ signing with 4A0 and five very early Hersh songs which the band recorded in 1996. Although they were always rightfully in the shadow of label-mates and fellow Bostonians, The Pixies, the Muses’ intricate gUitar lines and Hersh's spooked bleat make haunting listening. There's something very European about the lyrical neuroses, but the twanging sound is pure America — a COHISIOn between heartland and heartache that would ultimately find its apotheosis in the redneck nihilism of Nirvana. This is a rocking study in demonology. (PR)
Cat Power
Moon Pix (Matador)
Chan Marshall, the woman who made this album along with guitarist Mick Turner and drummer Jim White of the Dirty Three, recently told the NME that Moon Pix was the result of her being chased by demons. Bizarrely, then, it doesn’t sound Violent or terrifying but it is definitely other-worldly. Marshall’s vorce seems to come from some other dimenSion, it hangs and it haunts, inhabiting an oft sparse terrain of faintly country-ish hue. Odd but well worth investigating. The Americans might file it under altfolk. (JT) .
Stereolab
Aluminum Tunes (Duophonic) air: var Aluminum Tunes is the band’s third compilation of rare and unreleased tracks a necessary stop-gap for a group who just can’t stop putting out obsCLire seven inches -- and it's indisputany a Stereolab record This is pop as played by Stephen Hawking marooned in Brian Wilson's sand-pit With only The Communist Manifesto and an old Moog for company, Highlights are the cover of 'Get Carter' and ’How To Play Your International Organs Overnight' - a polished, hypnotic, mechanistic string-adorned thing composed to accompany an art exhibition in New York — but really this
i is just further exploration of the fruitful
formula Tim Ganes' sonic SCIEOIISIS have been exploring for years (PR)
Plush
lvlore You Becomes You (Domino)
= Some years back, a single popped out of
nowhere by what looked like a band called Plush Called 'Three Quarter Blind Eyes' it was rather pleasant, on its 8- side, though, was a miracle called 'Found A Little Baby', a soaring golden
’, birdie of a song, dragging an orchestra
in its tiny talons, like, yes, the Beach BOys collaborating with a Scott Walker who, although far from happy, was at least feeling momentarily content Now, finally, out of iic:\.'.'here comes the album, recorded solo by Plush director Liam Hayes in one sittinrj at a piano, with
- naught but the occaSIonal overdubbed : harmony for company It's a hugely
; delicate affair, but if you listen hard
enough you can hear that orchestra
| being imagined all around the beautiful
bones of this spartan sketch IDLE
Cypress Hill: back to smokin' form, unsurprisingly
DANCE Charles Dockins Presents The Blak
Cubans Chronicles of Love (Slip ’n’ Slide)
"7%" >6: sir
Dockins' debut album keeps things live, fresh and funky throughout, With guest appearances from the likes of Dru Hill drummer Jarod Barnes. Jazz and R&B tracks like 'Great Day' sit comfortably alongside his better- known garage hits 'Traffic Jam’ and 'The Journey'. Standout tracks include the breakbeat 'Bumble Bee' which was a hit at the recent Notting Hill Carnival and flaunts the happy, summer feel of the album, which admittedly most of us may have problems identifying With this yearl Charles Will undoubtedly see his mainstream profile use due to this
- album which falls refreshingly into the
category 'Fugees meet House' instead of 'Now Dance Anthems’ (SG)
Rockers HiFi
Overproof (Different Drummer) ~===r til: -:='<' The Birmingham-based Rockers prowde the latest installment of their journey into beats and bass wrth MC Farda P guiding proceedings The album bUIldS from the basics With baSSy grooves, funky beats and reggae toasting that ignores genre boundaries and throws in elements of trip hop, electro, reggae, house and techno The results an eclectic but potent brew With tracks like '7 Ways' and 'Dis Next Recording' fOr the party and tracks like 'Overproof' for chilling. A strong reggae and dub influence goes through the album but there’s a futuristic iV'JISi that results in a new breed of dancehall for the 21st century. (36)
HlP HOP
Cypress Hill
iv (Columbia) a
It's always good when one of yOLir favourite banch does a shit record and then follows it up with a scorcher which reaffirms your faith in them So wave goodbye to the distinctly limp l// Temp/es Of Boom and say a big, stiff 'Yo' to IV. This album is a distinct return to form: the trademark Cypress Hill bass sound is still there, along With the nasal rapping and the feeling of paranOia which underscores much of
their stuff. But this time, it’s all shot through with a sense of urgency: they sound wired rather than too stoned to stand, as was often the case in the past. The lyrics also have less of a cartoon quality than preVious offerings. Or at least most of them do: it's difficult not to giggle at 'Dr Greenthumb’, the spoof advert for dope-growing paraphernalia. (JT)
JAZZ FUNK
Maceo Parker
Funkoverload (ESC) ~91 'fir a:
Maceo Parker is headed this way later in the year with his fellow ex-JBs Pee Wee Ellis and Fred Wesley, and this latest album gives a taste of what to expect. That does not include any big surprises ~ this is business as usual for the saxophonist, whose style is firmly rooted in the verifies of 60s soul and funk, overlaid With direct, melodic jazz solomo that remains firmly in the pocket The album sends out cautious exploratory tendrils into rap and hip hop as weil, the band is as slick as it gets, and the whole thing Will please Maceo’s big followmg (KM)
COUNTRY Kevm Key Heartbreak and Blue (Alcove Records)
Singer and guitarist Keyin Key chunts bands like The Subs and The Primevals among his former employers, but this debut album under his own name finds him firmly in a straight-ahead, pleasingly authentic country vein His mice is tailor-made for the genre, and the eleven well-Crafted, self-composed songs which make up the album are solid country fare, wrthout slipping into a Nashvrlle-by-numbers predictability (although they come a shade close here and there). The Scottish musicians who make up the band do their stuff in style, and the whole thing adds up to a highly enjoyable traditional country Outing rKM)
FOLK
Various Artists
Heat The Hoose (Tartan Tapes) Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms once echoed to the power of GOW'S how in the great golden age of the Scots fiddle Two centuries later we're gomcj through another passion With the folk vrolin, as feisean, fiddle classes and
record reviews M0310
Dalry's Adult Learning ProjeCt cater f0r the huge demand for classes. The Assembly Rooms is now the venue for an annual November Fiddle Fest, hosted by ALP, and if you didn't make it to last year's major concert (a sell-out anyway) here is the live recording complete with whoops, cheers, yells and the sound of the whole audience vocally droning under Alasdair Fraser’s melodramatic pipish version of ’Lochaber No More'. More stimulating for the senses than the soul, the well- recorded and well-played tracks are more representative of the contemporary vogue for speedy articulation, especrally in reels, than for an exploration of the fiddle's expressiveness. (NC)
SINGLES
Tin Star
Viva (V2) we
Just in case you fail to see this post- modern work of mediocrity for the state-of-the-art composition that it thinks it is, there are several trendy remixes over the course of two CDs. When it comes down to the common or garden version, it's a lumbering electro rocker from the Depeche Mode scrapheap. (FS)
Unfinished Business C’mon The Hoops (Big Cat) :8;
Guess you should judge a terrace chant in the making by slightly less sophisticated criteria than, say, the latest Billie single, but anyone without the prerequisite emotional investment in Celtic FC will completely fail to see the charm of this pedestrian cod B'Witched homage to the Bhoys dreamed up by former Simple Minds drummer Brian McGee and his brother Iolin For those who give a shit -- the team sing backing vocals (FS)
Natalie Imbruglia
Smoke (RCA) is:
It aims for territory similar to Madonna’s ‘Frozen’, but in missing the latent power and spine-shivering atmospherics, ’Smoke’ just 50unds like a cutesy ballad from the lady who is just trying too damn hard to be credible and, y'know, a bit unconventional (FS)
Hefner The Sweetness Lies Within (Too Pure)
Whaddya know? It’s down to the indie losers to proVide the only single of any worth in this god-forsaken column. Starts off in that fidgety Magazine way that bodes well for lovers of angular angst, then stumbles on to a frustrated, aggressive jangle reminiscent of early James and other 80s bands for whom lo-fi meant making the best of limited resources. An itch you've got to scratch, (FS)
REVIEWERS THIS ISSUE
Norman Chalmers, Scott Gallacher, Damien love, Kenny Mathieson, Peter Ross, Fiona Shepherd, Lawrie Thomas, Jonathan Trew, Paul \Vhitelaw
I STAR RATINGS j -. » Unmissable -;~- Very good i '-5-: at a Wonh a shot at» Below average l e.- You've been warned
24 Sep—8 Oct I998 THE “ST 45