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ELECTRONICA FUNKI PORCINI Fast Asleep
(Ninja Tune) mo
The cover shows a woman. curled up on the floor. surrounded by banks upon banks of synths. mixers and speakers. She’s lying on a carpet that looks like a computer chip. Forget surround sound. say Funki Porcini. this shit really is all-encompassing.
Orchestral waves wash right across this mellow debut. which sets itself apart from most chill-out music by employing a range of percussion that ends up being interesting in itself, rather than just being a narcoleptic washing line on which various tunes are hooked. This is great stuff. stoned but self- possessed. like a hippie ballet dancer with a wicked sense of humour and a whole bag of new tricks. (James Smart)
LATIN
VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Very Best of Latin America
(Nascente) coo
You'd expect Jazz Cafe DJ Adrian Gibson. 8 firm favourite at Edinburgh’s own Big Beat club. to put a decent Latin compilation together. And he has; it includes all the sweaty. raunchy classics. from Santana's ‘Oye Como Va' to Sergio Mendes' ‘Mas Que Nada'. with generous asides made to Tito Puente. Ray Barretto and Jose Feliciano. among many others.
But anyone who already knows Latin America exports a lot more than just class A
; (Arista) .
drugs will find nothing
new here. It's a lively
' party mix. featuring your
up-tempo sunrise and your down—tempo
sunset (concept album. ' already!). but really you
ought to get hold of the artist's original recordings.
(Catherine Bromley)
POP
OSTLE BAY Love from . . . (Play) 0...
' Don't be fooled by the
tree—hugging front cover. Ostle Bay couldn't be further from twittering finches and family picnics. This record begs for lights off. late night introspection and Magnetic Fields fans. The woozy swoon of the title track gives way to claustrophobia as ‘The One' closes in, and Peter Rose's deeply tempting timbre part-Cave. Curtis and Walker takes over. Melodies start to droop around the edges and seep into yOur consciousness.
Climaxing with the
shuddering discord rock of ‘Won't You' before
easing out the way they crept in. Love from . . is
a strangely comforting and addictive listen, it broods and soothes and
beckons you in.
(Camilla Pia)
ROCK/POP AVRIL LAVIGNE Let Go
The Alanis Morrissette comparisons are
inevitable. but
seventeen year old Avril Lavigne (great name.
great hair) isn't as irritating as the
Canadian songstress.
. perhaps because she ' isn't ubiquitous yet. If
Let Go is anything to go
by. she could be soon. This is accessible. toe-
tapping rock n' roll
made by a girl who
begins her liner notes
with ‘thank you god' and ends them with ‘rock on.‘ She probably
1 16 THE LIST 22 Aug-5 Sep 2002
has a rider consisting of freshly squeezed fruit juice and thinks that Spinal Tap is a kind of karate chop. but she's got a pretty face and an ear for a tune. so don't be too hard on the girl. (James Smart)
JAZZ
BRAD MEHLDAU Largo
(Warner Bros) 00..
This is a bold departure from pianist Brad Mehldau's acclaimed series of acoustic trio recordings. The overall sound that the pianist and producer Jon Brion have created for the disc is very different from his customary approach. but Mehldau's playing remains immediately recognisable. It features sections with treated piano. electronics. additional wind and brass. and a cast of players mostly drawn from rock rather than jazz. He includes covers of tunes by Radiohead (‘Paranoid Android') and The Beatles (‘Dear Prudence' and ‘Mother Nature's Son‘) alongside his own material. including a couple of edits distilled from improvised studio jams (shades of early 70s Miles Davis).
(Kenny Mathieson)
ELECTRONICA LUCKY PIERRE Hypnogogia (Melodic) 00m
Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat isn't the first person who springs to mind when you think of ambient music. Well. not yet. anyway. But. the Falkirk poet has replaced those musings on sex in the Scottish city with a new kind of existential angst — without any words. Masquerading in solo
mode under the Lucky Pierre guise. Moffat's collage manages to sound at once hopelessly sad and gloriously happy. The finest ambient music usually recalls the
atmospherics and
structures of classical. Moffat simply nicks a
few of its best moments
and regurgitates them with some lackadaisical beats. Great idea: exquisite results. (Andrew Richardson)
ROBOT ROCK QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE Songs for the Deaf (lnterscope) .00.
ll “Hill
This is a complete anomaly of a rock record. For a start. the guitars make a strange burring. growling noise that sounds like a dog barking from inside a fridge.
Secondly. drummer Dave Grohl's influence is considerable. his muscular timekeeping gives QOTSA a beefy third leg to bind up Nick Oliveri's wailing and chundering bass to Josh Homme's crooning and guitar growl.
Thirdly, they have taken America's most powerful musical force. country and western. and reapropriated it for the stoner masses. Their‘s is a twisting spaghetti western of night out and it now has a soundtrack.
There‘s Ted Nugent- style riff-ola and new wave thrash, all doused in the blood. sweat and piss of several weeks of hedonistic indulgence. And let’s not forget the touches of flamenco. psychedelia and jazz stirred in. In shert. OOTSA sound completely different from any other rock band on the planet today.
Was it not for the
failed radio station skits
interspersed between tracks which are just plain irritating. this could
have been perfect.
Very. very. nearly a work of genius. (Mark Robertson)
Singles
The Dillinger Escape Plan
With the festivals fading for another year. we need some serious pick-up pop to distract from the inevitable deep autumnal comedown. Redefine sadly doesn't supply the goods. 'Jennifer Cried' (Sugarshack O ) is angst- filled nu metal guff and a leap onto a bandwagon that's lying in a heap at the bottom of a cliff. Pink‘s 'Just Like a Pill' (BMG
CO ) tries once again to convince us she's a hard-hitting. drug—necking rocker. She fails. with disastrously dull consetmences.
Representing rabid rock come . . . And you will Know Us by the Trail of Dead with ‘Relative Ways' (Polydor COO. ) as dark melodies propelled by tense guitars pick up where post-riot At the Drive-In left off. Politico- Punksters. Miss Black America's self-titled single (Integrity Records 000 ) is edgy. vitriolic and rocks like Chomsky on charlie but the singer sounds like Martin Rossiter. and therein lies the problem.
Oxide and Neutrino reclaim Garage from the rockers with ‘Dem Girlz (I Don't Know Why)’ (EastWest CO ), an infectious slice of laid-back. Jay-Z sampling hip-pop. Shamelessly misogynistic lyrics however. set them back centuries. This week's laughable Latino comes from Benefit’s ‘What‘s it Gonna Be' (Warner ). Their last single. ‘Sex Sells’ was apparently big in the Middle East proving that it inevitably does for talentless no- marks with pretty faces.
Bide your time till Casablancas‘ return with ‘Pool Song' (Eastwest COO. ) by fellow New Yorkers Longwave, as Strokes-esque choruses stretched taut over elastic guitars burst into gloriously scratchy solos. But Appleton's peerless pop packs a mighty punch. as Nic'n'Nat return with a classic comeback to make us blush . . . because it's (frighteningly) rather good. joint Single of the Fortnight, ‘Fantasy' (Polydor 000-00) stands on its own two feel-good feet as the girls reference only themselves with oodles of guitar lickin' attitude and style.
And can there be a more suitable partner for the Appletons in joint SotF than four tracks of controlled. distilled aggression from New Jersey’s the Dilinger Escape Plan? Their EP is titled 'lrony is a Dead Scene‘ (Epitaph .0000) so you know they're not this week's hair metal band trying their luck. Imagine if At the Drive-In had discovered Napalm Death and John Coltrane instead of Fugazi and King Crimson. Scary. but in a good way. And listen out for Mike Patton. former larynx jockey for Faith No More who provides some of his trademark operatic bellows and wails to give TDEP an odd vaudevillian twist to their incessant math rock. Oh. and they cover Aphex Twin's 'Come to Daddy an' all. Complex chaps y'know. (Camilla Pia)