asentimentalsong

DRONE ALONE: The ambient minimalism of Lynchburg's asentimentalsong

By: MATT ASHARE |
Published: May 23, 2012 http://www2.the-burg.com/entertainment/2012/may/23

Who: asentimentalsong, Andrew Weathers Ensemble, Rachel Devorah Trapp

What: "Drones and Tones," featuring the photography of Anthony Krysiewicz

Where: Speakertree Records, 522 5th Street, Lynchburg

When: May 23, 8-11 p.m.

Cover: $3, call (434)485-8262

MINIMAL MAN: Morgan adheres to the less-is-more aesthetic

Dressed in a plain gray t-shirt and jeans, with a ring pierced through his lower left lip, guitarist Joe Morgan looks the part of your typical indie-rocker. But there's nothing particularly typical about Morgan, a 29 year-old Lynchburg native who graduated with a math degree from Liberty before going on to become the local district manager for Papa John’s. And there's certainly nothing typical about the music he creates, both alone, under the moniker asentimentalsong, and with his longtime friend/collaborator Nathan Mcgothlin in the duo the Late Virginia Summers. "Some of it gets pretty out there,” he admits with a shy smile over a late Saturday lunch at Mangia.

       What Morgan — who plays his first solo asentimentalsong show since last October tonight at Speakertree to celebrate the release of a new 10-inch single — means by "out there" isn't easy for to nail down. He likes to sum it up as "dronelife," an evocative if somewhat fuzzy term that aims to capture the minimalist aesthetic of his brand of abstract, instrumental mood music. It's an approach to composition that has its roots in the seminal experimental work of Brian Eno, whose solo recordings and close association with Roxy Music, Talking Heads, U2, and dozens of other artists over the past four decades have left an indelible mark on the sound of modern music and established him as one of the most visionary producers of the postmodern era.

       Eno postulated a style of music that he compared to perfume in its elusive, subtle, yet pervasive effect on sensory experiences. At its best, like the color scheme of a room or the architectural details of a space, it has the power to alter moods subliminally, even while standing up to close scrutiny by those who care to take notice. Morgan's "A Midsummer Night's Gleam," the 15-minute track that occupies one side of the new asentimentalsong 10-inch, is very much in that vein. It begins with what could be the sound of an orchestra tuning, coalescing on one chord that becomes the droning backdrop for quietly shimmering chords and, eventually, slowly moving melodic tones, the recognizable strum of a guitar, and, finally, a rising tide of undulating cross patterns that threaten discord before fading into quietude. There are no drums. And most of the guitars have been electronically treated beyond recognition.

       In the pre-digital era, it would likely have taken a battery of reel-to-reel machines and hours upon hours of cutting and splicing tape to create this sort of soundscape. Now, it can all be done at home on a laptop. And, while indie shops like Speakertree remain a crucial hub for experimental artists, the internet has opened up social — and artistic — networking opportunities for artists like Morgan. Indeed, back in January he toured the west coast with Parties, a group he formed with a friend from Texas (PD Wilder) and the like-minded California-based guitarist Andrew Weathers (who'll be bringing his own ensemble Speakertree).

       Here's some of what Morgan had to say about his ambient awakening, the inspirations for his songs, and the dronelife. . .

So, how does a math major who delivers pizza find his way to some of the more challenging underground music out there?

       My father was a musician, so there was always an acoustic guitar around. We mostly just banged around on it. But, when I was 15, I decided I had to have an electric guitar. I started playing with friends and I did a whole lot of playing and singing in church. I also had a pop-punk band for a little while, which kind of amuses me now. But I had stopped playing before I met Nathan in 2006. By then, a bunch of people had introduced me to music that got away from straight-up songs with vocals, and more into spacey instrumental music — Appleseed Cast, Labradford, Album Leaf. They were bands, but they had a more ambient bent. With a lot of them, the common thread is that you're listening to music that has to stand on its own without words. I mean, when you're listening to a rock song, the music could be so-so, but if you have a good storyline, it draws people in. When you don't have that, you have to be able to write music that is interesting all on its own. It can mean something to you based on whatever's going on in your life at the time, you know, something with a girl or if you're stressed out or whatever. I guess I just liked the idea that that song can be different for every person.

Do you have a narrative in mind when you record a track like "A Midsummer Night's Gleam"?

       I guess. That's hard to say. I don't know if it's so much an event that inspires it or if I want to create a particular mood or feeling with a piece. That track is meant to be bleak with a little bit of hope coming through. I guess it's hard to explain; it's really something you have to listen to and feel what you feel through it.

Then, is there a specific mood you're trying to evoke?

       Probably. But it's kind of up to the listener. If they hear it and they don't feel what I was feeling, then it's cool. That's why I don't want to sit here and define what you're supposed to feel. I mean, I have a song called "Winter" that, to me, felt like a blanket, like a warm place to be when it's cold out. But it's not a particular story that I'm trying to tell; it's just the way the song came together. And maybe it feels like something different to you. Maybe it's not interesting. I try to make it interesting to other people, but I don't know. To me, it's also important that it's slow-building and minimal; you listen to it full on and notice all the subtle shifts, or maybe you just have it on in the background while you're doing something else and it's just a soothing presence. I think Eno said that music should be both enjoyable and ignorable. I don't know if my own music is on that level, but it's something I'm working toward. I like the idea that you can pay as much or as little attention to it as you'd like.

There's something very generous about that. But isn't there also something a little selfish about making music to please yourself, regardless of whether it engages other listeners?

       Interesting question.nI would say at the core of it, it's somewhat selfish in that you're trying to make music that appeals to you. But I want to share it with people. If I don't play anywhere or release anything then what's the point? I want people to hear it, relax to it, feel something because of it. And, I'd like people to be into it and to buy it. You can start to think too much that it's all about the music and it doesn't matter whether anyone else likes it. But you can't do things if you don't make money — you can't travel to shows, you can't even make records. I'm just not sure I'd want to be in a position where I felt I had to do it to survive, rather than just doing it as a hobby. Would I love to be supported by music? Sure. But what would that do as far as the quality of it? I don't know.

LISA MARIE PRESLEY

PERSONAL BEST: Lisa Marie Presley finally finds her voice on Storm & Grace

By: MATT ASHARE |
Published: May 18, 2012 http://www2.the-burg.com

Lisa Marie Presley, Storm & Grace (Universal)

REALITY BITES: Presley mines her checkered past for material

When Lisa Marie Presley made her first stab at solo success, she was essentially famous for being, well, famous. And somewhat infamous, too. To be fair, it couldn't have been easy growing up in the shadow of her father's looming legacy. But it didn't help matters when, in 1992, Elvis' only daughter hooked up with Michael Jackson while he was in the midst of a child molestation scandal. Or, when her marriage to Jackson ended in a predictable, if reportedly amicable, divorce four years later. Or, when she later began a tempestuous tabloid romance with Nicolas Cage that culminated in a marriage that lasted just 108 days. Indeed, by the time she entered the studio to record her slickly produced 2003 debut To Whom It May Concern, the then 35 year-old Presley seemed primed more for a career as a reality TV star than a serious singer-songwriter. There was certainly something uniquely alluring about the sultry, bad-girl image she brought to the post-Alanis women-in-rock party. But it wasn't quite convincing enough to carry an entire album. And you had to wonder whether she'd even have been given the opportunity to record a quick follow-up, 2005's aptly titled Now What, if her name had been Lisa Marie Smith, Lisa Marie Johnson, or just plain Lisa Marie.

       Apparently, Presley was savvy enough to realize that the whole celebrified LA woman thing wasn't really her cup of tea. So she got out of Dodge, so to speak; married guitarist Michael Lockwood (the musical director from her touring band); moved her operation to England; and was so far off the grid when she gave birth to twins in 2010 that it barely made headlines. She also, it would appear, took some time away from music to reassess her career and put some serious thought into the sort of songwriting that might better suit her particular talents. Because, just as her father did with his so-called "’68 Comeback," Lisa Marie has wisely returned to her roots — or, at least to a rootsier, more accommodating place for her coyly sung turbulent ruminations on romantic woes — with her third album, the new Storm & Grace.

       Presley may not be a visionary talent. But she's a charismatic presence who, at 44, has plenty of tales to tell, an abundance of attitude, and a strong sense of self that surfaces in her understated yet gutsy delivery, a vaguely bluesy, knowingly demure croon that smolders cooly throughout Storm & Grace. And, in guitarist T-Bone Burnett, a veteran of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and the brains behind the multiple Grammy-winning soundtrack O Brother Where Art Thou?, she's found a seasoned producer who's rarely lacked for vision and who understands the art of the sublime.

       Backed by a band that includes both Burnett and her husband on guitar, along with a sturdy group of solid session players who have an instinctive feel for organic grooves, Presley eschews the processed alt-rock posturing of her first two albums for the subtler shadings of subdued rockabilly riffs and countrified comforts. A slinky vibrato guitar riff sets the stage for the disc's first single, "You Ain't Seen Nothin’ Yet," a slowly snaking soul-searcher that finds Presley slyly slurring, "I don't belong, I've lost the plot/Not gullible, can't be what I'm not," before biting softly at a defiant chorus:  "You can think that I'm evil and I'm off the rails/You ain't seen nothing yet." A tub-thumping walking bass and twangy guitars shadow Presley in "Over Me," as she takes a pointed stab at a romantic rival ("I've seen her face/It's okay, it's nothing great/Yeah she's cool in a gap toothed hippy chick way") and then admits, "It's hard to see/You're over me/That when she took my place/She saved the day."

       Presley plays to her strengths by culling through her checkered past for the kind of material that once made her an easy mark for the tabloids. She doesn’t name names. But you get the sense that she’s been there and done that when she makes a weary yet sympathetic observation like, “Too dirty to clean your hands/Too weary for sober/I was your prescription then/But the bottle ran out,” in “Weary,” a sadly sung countrified acoustic ballad that concludes on a hopeful note, with Presley’s mantra-like repetition of the line, “You can move on dear.” And, she’s not afraid to be hard on herself, even as she bids farewell to “fair weathered friends” in the quietly surging “So Long.” “Seems that I was so wrong,” she candidly confesses, “Seems I wasn’t that strong/Dead wrong/And now I’m long gone.”

       Just as Burnett’s production is never too heavy handedly retro in its rootsiness, Presley’s soul bearing doesn’t veer into the maudlin. She’s simply too slyly seductive for that; at times even appealingly sinister. As she reflects with a touch of humor and a bit of twang in the sparely swaying “Soften the Blows,” “Hey man what in the hell do we know/We strike out and then we strike gold/Whoever is running the show/There’s something that I need to know/Could you soften the blows?”

DAMON ALBARN

HISTORICAL FRICTION: Damon Albarn looks to the Elizabethan era for inspiration

By: MATT ASHARE |
Published: May 09, 2012 http://www2.the-burg.com

Damon Albarn, Dr Dee (Virgin)

RENASSANCE PLAN: Albarn scores and opera of sorts

At some point — several years, months, or maybe just days from now — people will look back in bemusement on the mid-’90s at an ultimately meaningless battle that broke out in England to see who might be crowned King of the Brit-Pop Hill. In one corner stood Oasis, a ruggedly handsome, dour gang of ruffians who chiseled monolithic melodies out of big hooks cadged from the Beatles catalogue, added a little punk snarl to the mix, and created their own hit parade of fairly meaningless anthems. (Seriously: I'm still not sure whether a wonderwall is that not quite floor-to-ceiling partition you'll find between most respectable bathroom stalls, or some mysterious Stonehenge-like structure erected by ancient astronauts as fodder for a fascinating History Channel special. And I have yet to come across a cocktail menu that lists a beverage called a "Champagne Supernova," although I'm pretty sure it would be awesome.) On the other side of the ring lurked Blur, a cagier bunch of louts who quickly moved on from the druggy Manchester dance grooves of their 1991 debut Leisure to the eccentric social critiques that characterized Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife, a pair of smashing Anglocentric successes that never stood a chance of gaining much traction here in the US.

       In retrospect, the outcome of this particular clash of the titans was fairly predictable. Oasis went on to conquer the greater part of the known world, complained about the rigors of stardom (i.e., drugs and alcohol abuse), and ultimately imploded in painfully public fashion, as singer Liam Gallagher and his brother, guitarist/songwriter Noel, became increasingly annoyed with one another, as siblings in the spotlight are wont to do. Meanwhile, Blur emerged as O Britannia's favorite sons, while garnering little more than critical acclaim on these shores until they accidentally hit something close to paydirt in 1997 with "Song 2," a charmingly churning shout-along that rose to the level of a sports stadium staple and is probably best remembered for its "yoo-hoo" choruses. Although Blur essentially ceased all military operations after guitarist Graham Coxon called it quits and singer Damon Albarn drifted into the virtual world as the de-facto leader of a cartoon splinter group known as Gorillaz, they've remained friendly enough to reunite from time to time, most recently in 2009.

       As for who won the epic showdown, well, let's just say that it remains an open question that's probably not worth debating for more than a few minutes. (It's a little like arguing the relative merits of the Who versus the Stones: Who fans pick the Who; Stones fans pick the Stones; and the rest of us happily don't care one way or the other.) However, in the wake of the Oasis collapse and Blur's slow disintegration, the clear victor and reigning champion has gotta be Albarn, especially now that Liam (with his poorly named band Beady Eye) and Noel (who's now backed by his own High Flying Birds) are currently in the business of trying to recapture past morning glories by out Oasis-ing one another.

       Albarn, on the other hand, has grown into something of a postmodern pop Renaissance man. His Gorillaz, a collaboration with visual artist Jamie Hewlett (the creator of the Tank Girl comic book series), have synthesized brilliantly stylized pan-cultural mash-ups that have drawn on the talents of San Fran turntablist Dan the Automator, Oakland rapper Del Tha Funky Homosapien, Japanese actress Haruka Kuroda, Chicago's Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, former Clash guitarist and bassist Mick Jones and Paul Simenon, soul singer Bobby Womack, and, ah, Lou Reed, to name just a few. The group has won all kinds of awards on both sides of the pond, including a 2006 Grammy. And, at least two of their four albums have been certified platinum in both the UK and the US. Beyond that, under Albarn's stewardship they basically established themselves as one of the most interesting, forward-thinking multi-media musical projects in the galaxy, both online and off. Oh, and Albarn also married African rhythms and dub-style production with Brit-pop hooks on a self-titled, kinda solo album credited to the Good, the Bad & the Queen back in ’07.

       So Albarn has definitely been keeping himself busy. But the story doesn’t end there. With Liam and Noel Gallagher currently doing their honest best to promote the debut albums by their respective bands, Albarn has upped the stakes yet again with Dr Dee, another sorta solo album that’s actually credited to Damon Albarn, although it has its roots in a collaboration with British theater director Rufus Norris.

       Dr Dee may indeed be the first album the elusive Albarn has put his given name to in the two decades since the beginning of Blur, but it is defiantly — perversely, even — not at all what fans might expect from the man behind the Gorillaz mask. The soundtrack to an operatic stage musical based on the life of a rather mysterious magus/mathematician who played a controversial advisory role in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, the disc is a mélange of spare organ drones, pastoral British folk, symphonic arrangements by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and African percussion. And, yes, there’s also an opera singer. To suggest it’s all over the place, or even a bit incomprehensible, would be an understatement.

       Not that there aren’t moments when the pop savvy Albarn emerges with what might best be described as song sketches that might work as b-sides to an actual single. The sadly sung “Apple Carts” works well enough as a folky rumination, replete with fingerpicked acoustic guitar, a flute solo, and a bittersweet melody, as does “Cathedrals.” And, let’s face it, Albarn has done more than most rock dudes to earn the artistic license it takes to go off on an obscure excursion like this. Let’s just hope that Dr Dee makes more sense on a stage than it does as an album, and that Albarn has something a little more accessible in his nifty bag of tricks ready for his next project.

      

      

DAR WILLAMS INTERVIEW

FOLK TALES: Songstress Dar Williams brings In the Time of Gods to Charlottesville

By: MATT ASHARE |
Published: May 9, 2012 http://www2.the-burg.com

FORTUNATE ONE: "If I were a surfer, I was handed the best waves."

When Dar Williams first began testing the waters twenty years ago, there was little doubt where she fit in among her contemporaries. Earnest, confessional, unplugged, and socially conscious, she was the embodiment of the folk artist, a card-carrying singer-songwriter with a style more suited to the coffeehouse than the club scene. It was, after all, the alternative ’90s. And, although the mainstreaming of grunge and punk, along with the proliferation of female-dominated bands like Hole, the Breeders, and L7, the visibility afforded to strong women like Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, and the explosive jolt of riot-grrrl, shook up conventional notions of gender in rock, it didn't appear to have an immediate impact on other genres. Sure, Sarah McLachlan had some success promoting female singer-songwriters with her Lilith Fair, a festival style tour of which Williams was a part. But that merely demonstrated that women outside of alt-rock gene pool were still separate, if somewhat equal.

       Much has changed in the last dozen or so years. Thanks to the steady emergence of non-Nashville Americana coupled with indie-rock's turn toward roots and folk (think the Decemberists), the lines separating the rock and folk underground have been blurred very nearly beyond distinction. And digital downloading has created something resembling a level playing field, where big-budget major-label artists sit side-by-virtual-side with their counterparts in the independent folk, pop, and rock game.

       For Williams, who established herself on the New England folk circuit before moving to upstate New York to raise a family, that's translated to playing clubs like the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville, where she'll headline this Sunday, instead of sticking to "listening rooms" and cafés. And, on her new In the Time of Gods, her ninth studio album and first in four years, it's reflected in the personnel: Producer Kevin Killen has worked most famously with U2, Peter Gabriel, and Elvis Costello; drummer Charley Drayton is a member of Keith Richards' X-Pensive Winos; and the cast of players is rounded out by seasoned sessionmen Gerry Leonard (guitar) and Rob Hyman (keyboards).

       And yet, in many ways, Williams remains very much a reflective yet ardent, sweet-voiced yet strong-willed folkstress, a contemplative songwriter who'd be as much at home in a coffeehouse as a rock club. In the Time of Gods opens with little more than a strummed acoustic supporting her ethereal voice on one of the disc's more passionately affecting tracks, "I Am the One Who Will Remember Everything." As the song builds toward an anthemic climax, with a dark guitar riff hanging over Williams' strained voice, she contrasts the life of a child in a war-torn country like Sudan or Afghanistan with that of an American son, concluding poignantly that, "In a world that's angry, cruel and furious/There's this monkey who's just curious/Floating high above a park with bright balloons."

       Williams touches on familiar subjects – the vagaries of romance, the beauty of nature, and the power of myth – in songs that move easily from acoustic folk to more countrified settings. And she hits her stride on "Summer Child," an upbeat song that's as close to polished pop as she's ever come. I caught up with her as she was leaving Minneapolis for a two-night stand in Evanston, Illinois on a tour that will take her all the way through early November, touching down for a second time in Virginia on October 12 and 13 at the Birchmere in Alexandria.

Given all the issues surrounding religious fundamentalism that we're currently wresting with, not to mention the contentiousness regarding religious freedoms, I'm curious why you chose to call the new album "In the Time of Gods"?

       There's something going on right now between science, with concerns about global warming, and armageddon that has a lot of people feeling that we're at the edge of something, a precipice of some kind. And that could be the case. I think the Bible says that it's your faith in morality that will save the day. But in Greek mythology it's actually your heroism. There's a moral aspect to it, but it's more about standing up and straightening your back in the face of difficult situations. So the title really reflects my belief that there's something about the times we're living in that requires our personal heroism more than our ability to preach. My "In the Time of Gods" is much more about people who take moral action. It's not a reliance on the supernatural; it's the idea that we're the ones with the power to create change.

Does it seem strange to you, after years of being somewhat segregated in the folk world, that you're now playing rock clubs and recording with a guy who's in Keith Richards' band?

       There is a wonderful wayfaring world of musicians out there who just know each other and play on each other's albums. I mean, I was in a band with Steaurt Smith, who's now in the Eagles. I'm just amazed that he chose the Eagles over me, but whatever. . . But, really, I've only been lucky. It's like, if I were a surfer, I was handed the best waves. You know, Lilith Fair came along at just the right time for me. And, the ’90s were a time of gender exploration. And there was a strong network of coffeehouses that were like an organic plant that just kept growing. There was enormous strength there. So, I lucked out as a songwriter. Folk was just a really good place to be. Sometimes I do regret that I didn't find my own Keith Richards, you know, the kind of musician who could create a synergy with my lyrics. Because the Rolling Stones are such a great combination of great vocals and guitar hooks that can stand on their own. But, I was in the right place at the right time for what I was doing. Even the rise of the internet created love for the folk underdog. It cut out the middleman so that you didn't have to go for the "Maxim" cover girl look. So I have nothing to complain about.

In a lot of ways "I Am the One Who Will Remember Everything" is very much in the old protest-song of folk music vein. It's also very personalized. Did you have a particular conflict or person in mind when you wrote it?

       I started writing that song about five years ago. It was a response to the fact that a lot of the Taliban are orphans from their war with Russia. As I saw that through the lens of being a parent who is educating my child about civilization using thousands and thousands of books and stories, I realized that when I handle things badly with my son, I see him handling things badly. And then I don't have a leg to stand on. So one of the answers is that I have finally arrived at a place where I understand how being a parent influences your child. And that song is really about how education is about leading a child out into the world. And when you start to see how your imprint is showing up, it opens up your perspective. So, I would say that I have a very strong sense of what civilization should look like, and it does break down into an elemental, story-by-story, garden-by-garden world view. I live in a town, and I see the way that we build civilization together when we work together, brick-by-brick.

I guess songs can be written that way too. . .

       I've waited a long time for that "aha" songwriting moment. Like "Eve of Destruction" was written in one night, and there are all kinds of examples of that kind of spontaneous songwriting. But I'm not that person. I'm not that kind of songwriter. I've just come to respect that it's okay if it takes a year or more for a song to come together. Because, if you're lucky, you're going to be performing it for another twenty years. . .

Norah Jones & Rufus Wainwright

TWO OF A KIND: Norah Jones and Rufus Wainwright mine the past for new treasures

By: MATT ASHARE |
Published: May 2, 2012  http://www2.the-burg.com 

Rufus Wainwright, Out of the Game (Decca)

Norah Jones, Little Broken Hearts (Blue Note)

Along with ubiquitous internet commerce, coast-to-coast cell service, and the Y2K bug that never was, the 21st century was supposed to usher in a brave new era for music, one in which the cut-and-paste art of sampling and the seemingly endless possibilities of digital recording would forever transform our very notion of songwriting. So it's at least a little amusing, if not telling, that two of the more enduring artists who emerged around the turn of this century — singer/songwriter/pianists Norah Jones and Rufus Wainwright — were both the products of strikingly traditional musical upbringings, each grounded in a certain nostalgia for not just sounds from the past, but a rigorous and very non-digital aesthetic.

COMFORTABLY SUNG: Waiinwright chills to some ’70s-styled pop

       Wainwright, whose seventh album, Out of the Game, arrives this week along with Jones' new Little Broken Hearts, is famously the progeny of the acerbic folk luminary Loudon Wainwright III and the late singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle of McGarrigle Sisters fame. A piano prodigy, Wainwright began performing with his mom's folk group as a young teenager, studied opera, and immersed himself in the highly stylized recordings of the iconic French chanteuse Edith Piaf and her American counterpart Judy Garland. By the time of the release of his 1998 self-titled solo debut, an ambitious amalgam of piano-based cabaret pop, vaguely operatic vocals, and lush orchestrations courtesy of the legendary Van Dyke Parks, Wainwright had already won the equivalent of a Canadian Oscar for best original song and the 1990 Juno for most promising male vocalist of the year.

       A fellow piano prodigy, who garnered three DownBeat awards — two for best jazz vocalist and another for best original composition — in high school, Jones is the daughter of the internationally revered sitar virtuoso and one-time Beatles collaborator Ravi Shankar. After getting her start in New York City as something of a lounge act, and testing the trip-hop waters with the band Wax Poetic, she was signed to the jazz label Blue Note, who paired her with heavyweight producer Arif Martin for her first solo album, the international blockbuster and eight-time Grammy-winner Come Away With Me. That disc introduced Jones as a sultry, jazz-inflected singer/songwriter with sophisticated sensibilities, a quiet force of natural beauty whose healthy regard for the greats (Billie Holliday, Hoagy Carmichael, Hank Williams) is matched by her own well-tuned ear for subtle shifts of mood and artfully affecting melodies.

       A more idiosyncratic talent than Jones, Wainwright didn't come by commercial success so quickly. But, as a perennial critics' darling with a loyal and large cult audience, he's been free to follow his wry muse far and wide, from gaudy pop confessionals to the stripped-down adaptations of several Shakespearean sonnets that adorned 2010's deeply personal All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu; from the straight up Garland tribute of 2007's Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall, to a full-on opera production, Prima Donna, that premiered in 2009. So it’s almost a little shocking to find Wainwright settling comfortably into a fairly familiar role on Out of the Game, a pleasantly accessible, soft-focus foray into the realm of mellowed-out mid-‘70s pop.

       “I’m looking for something that can’t be found on the main drag,” he artlessly croons on the disc’s easy grooving title track, a vintage sounding tune with a sharp guitar hook and the kind of warm analog production that really is getting harder and harder to find on “the main drag.” Produced by Mark Ronson, the mastermind behind Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black and Adele’s 19, Out of the Game pairs Wainwright with his pal Sean Lennon, the NYC retro r&b band the Dap-Kings, and Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, players who all seem quite comfortable revisiting the days when artists like Elton John were blending jazz, country, rock, and even a bit of blues into something seamless that worked as “mainstream pop,” when artists routinely piled on the strings, keyboards, and choruses of background vocalists without sacrificing a certain intimacy or the nearly tangible organic chemistry of “rock band.”

       The over-achieving Wainwright has never seemed quite this laid back, as he incorporates some gospel in the yearning “Jericho,” toys with flittering synths in the melancholy “Barbara,” and takes excursions into country (“Respectable Dive”), a kind of understated funk (“Perfect Man”), and fingerpicked acoustic folk (“Sometimes You Need”). And yet, there’s an undeniable intensity underlying even the most peaceful moments on Out of the Game, a confessional quality that’s most moving when he imagines the child he recently had with Leonard Cohen’s daughter Lorca coming to visit him and his partner in “Montauk,” and when he delivers “Candles,” a Celtic-themed elegy which would seem to be inspired by the passing of his mother.

A TOUCH OF EVIL: Norah Jones finds discovers torch-siinging dark side

On Little Broken Hearts, Norah Jones goes off on a retro excursion of her own, this time with a little help from her friend Brian Burton, the producer who goes by Danger Mouse and who co-wrote the album and adds much of the instrumentation to the tunes. Recasting herself as an alluring torch-singer, wounded in romance and smoldering with a touch of evil, Jones steps out from behind her piano and wrestles vulnerably with her mixed emotions. “Well it ain’t easy to stay in love if you can’t tell lies,” she sings coyly against a high strung bass line, thumping drums, and various vintage keyboards, before concluding, “It ain’t easy to stay in love when you’re telling lies/So I’ll just have to take a bow and say goodbye.”

       Much like Rome, the Danger Mouse-produced spaghetti-western homage Jones guested on last year, Little Broken Hearts plays like a faux film score, the soundtrack to a noir-ish decent into the dark side of love. The broken hearts in the disc’s eerily incandescent title track have come to life as knife-bearing visages intent on hunting down their exes. And in the whispery “Miriam,” Jones’ sweetly sung vocals reveal a sinister plot: “Now I’m not the jealous type, never been the killing kind/But you know I know what you did, so don’t put up a fight. . . You know you done me wrong/I’m gonna take your life.”

       Jones is great in character. She leaves you wanting to see what she might be able to do with this particular alter-ego on screen. But she and Burton have hemmed themselves into an approach that’s so stylized that it sometimes sacrifices substance. Jones has cool detachment down cold. But it’s a relief when she breaks character for a little guitar-driven road-trip romp (“Out on the Road”). And, after a while, you just kinda wanna hear her cut loose on piano, and bring a little Wainwright warmth to the party. In fact, she might want to think about teaming up with Mark Ronson for her next album.

JACK WHITE

Un-Striped: Jack White reemerges as a consummate stylist on Blunderbuss

By: MATT ASHARE |
Published: April 25, 2012 www.the-burg.com

Jack White, Blunderbuss (Third Man)

JACK'S BACK: White trades his reds for blues

It's been almost a full five years since the Detroit-bred blooze-punk duo the White Stripes delivered their last, and apparently final, full-length studio album, 2007's sublimely searing Icky Thump. Since then, the band's frontman, singer/guitarist Jack White has released two discs with the Dead Weather, an alt-rock supergroup of sorts featuring White playing drums behind singer Allison Mosshart of the Kills, Queens of the Stone Age multi-iinstrumentalist Dean Fertita, and bassist Jack Lawrence, who's also part of the Racounteurs, another of White's side-projects. He's also established himself as an in-demand producer in his new home base of Nashville, working with artists as diverse as rockabilly legend Wanda Jackson, the goth-leaning Black Belles, and the goofy horror-rap duo Insane Clown Posse. A White Stripes rockumentary,  Under the Great Northern Lights, premiered in 2009, the same year Jack and drummer Meg White made what turned out to be their swan song performance on the last installment of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. And Jack turned up singing alongside Norah Jones last year on the Danger Mouse-produced faux-movie soundtrack Rome. But mostly there was just a whole load of rumors and speculation about the future of the color-coordinated pair until Jack and Meg, who'd been married when the band first emerged in 1999, finally announced the end of their White Stripes odyssey early last year.

       Jack's a canny character and self-styled eccentric with an appreciation for the power of rock and roll mythologizing and a history of bending the truth. (Most famously, he floated the notion that he and Meg were brother and sister, not husband and wife, when they were busting out of Detroit's lo-fi, garage-rock underground.) But, in the months leading up to this week's release of his first solo album, the typically cryptic Blunderbuss, he's seemed fairly sincere in his insistence that if Meg hadn't quit on him, he'd have happily continued on with the White Stripes indefinitely — that he only reluctantly arrived at the decision to record a solo album when Wu-Tang Clan rapper RZA failed to show for a session at Jack's studio.

       Regardless of the merits of that particular story, Meg appears to have done Jack a solid by setting him loose to follow his muse past the self-imposed limitations of a bass-less duo, to expand his musical vistas beyond the crash-and-thump of her primal drumming paired with churn-and-squeal electro-blues guitar. The White Stripes tried something of the sort on the second-to-last album, 2005's largely acoustic Get Behind Me Satan. And it went on to win the Grammy that year for "Best Alternative Music Album." But, by Icky Thump, Jack had returned to the White Stripes’ real comfort zone — updating old Son House/Blind Willie McTell blues tropes with epic Zeppelinesque riffage that took the grit of the garage to the arena stage. With Meg following his every sinewy move on guitar, and happily playing the straight woman to his unhinged flights of vocal fancy, it just sort of felt like Jack had perhaps gone as far as he could with that particular act.

      Which is not to say that the White Stripes won’t be missed. Because, for the most part, Blunderbuss is a far cry from the raw power Jack and Meg were capable of generating. The disc opens with just the kind of retro sounding electric piano (it’s Fender-Rhodes, to be exact) White covets, propelling a reasonably rocking and rather amusing tale of love gone wrong. “I woke up and my hands were gone, yeah,” Jack sings with false alarm, “I looked down and my legs were long gone/I felt for her with my shoulder/But there was nobody there.” White gets off one of his wild, over-bent guitar solos, but it’s only a quickie that gives way to soulful ’70s electric piano grooving. “Sixteen Salteens,” an amped-up garage rocker replete with a nice, meaty guitar riff and suitably pounding drums, also provides a pleasant echo of White Stripes past, as does the skewed “Freedom at 21,” a tune built around a snaking guitar riff and a whole lotta playfully nonsensical, mad-daddy testifying by White.

       But those tunes (the disc’s first three), as well as a straight-up retro romp through Rudolph Toombs’ feverish r&b novelty number “I’m Shakin’,” are essentially pleasant little blasts from White’s past on an album that moves rather rapidly on to the more refined pleasures of the cocktail piano chordings, strummed acoustic guitar, and swaying beat of “Hypnotic Kiss.” Even the stormy “Weep Themselves to Sleep,” which opens with some fighting words from White (“No one can blow the shows/Or throw the bones that break your nose/Like I can”), largely concedes the foreground to eloquent piano figures rather than the guitar that churns in the backdrop. And the disc’s title track relies on piano and pedal steel to set its undulating, countrified tone.

       If instrumentation is any indication, then White’s deployment of piano and acoustic/stand-up bass throughout Blunderbuss may be a reliable sign of what’s to come. Or, perhaps, like the mariachi horns that turned up on Icky Thump, it’s just another one of White’s fleeting fancies. Either way, Blunderbuss isn’t so much a defining artistic statement as it is a compelling reminder that White is consummate stylist. And, it’s likely to be quite some time before he runs out of new ways to mess with anything resembling an easy definition of artistry.    

SPIRITUALIZED

High notes: Jason Pierce takes Spiritualized on another transcendent melodic mission

By: MATT ASHARE |
Published: April 10, 2012 http://www2.the-burg.com/entertainment/2012/apr/18/jason-pierce-takes-spiritualized-another-transcend-ar-1851151/

Spiritualized, Sweet Heart, Sweet Light (Fat Possum)

HUH?: Spiritualized's fearless leader Jason Pierce

In the two decades Jason Pierce has helmed starship Spiritualized, he's steered a single-minded path toward the outer reaches of space-rock, aiming for the highs of chemical intoxication, hypnotically oscillating strum-and-drone guitar, and, ultimately, a kind of religious transcendence. It's a journey that's taken him to places both strange and strangely familiar, from the very nearly scientific explorations of tonal cycles that characterized the dreamy psychedelia of 1992's aptly titled Laser Guided Melodies and 1995's Pure Phase, to the orchestral overtures and gospel inflections of 1997's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space and 2001's Let It Come Down, to the skewed spirituals of 2003's Amazing Grace. By 2008, after battling back from a near fatal case of double pneumonia, Pierce was dabbling in country/folk music on Songs in A&E, even as his finely tuned walls of guitar continued their intergalactic flights. In the meantime, he'd managed to tour as Neil Young's opening act, and perform with something close to a full orchestra and gospel choir on the live album Royal Albert Hall October 10 1997.

       Pierce's new sonic salvo, Sweet Heart, Sweet Light, brings Spiritualized, which long ago evolved into more of a one-man vehicle than an organic "band," closer than ever before to something resembling near-Earth orbit. The product of three years of work — two spent recording in California, Iceland, and Wales; another dedicated to fine tuning the ten tracks at Pierce's home studio in England — it seems like a fairly straightforward consolidation of all that Spiritualized have been since first emerging as an off-shoot of the seminal, druggy, Velvet Underground-inspired group Spaceman 3 in the early ’90s. In fact, "Hey Jane," the disc's first real song (it follows a minute-long orchestral intro titled "Huh?," which also happens to be the only text that adorns the minimalist cover art), mentions the VU classic "Sweet Jane" by name in the midst of what might best be described as an advanced lesson in building intoxicating layers of melody over one chord strummed almost continuously for nearly nine minutes.

       In other words, Pierce hasn't conceded much, if anything, in the way of artistic license here. Midway through the rush of "Hey Jane," the drums collapse inward on themselves, guitars are sucked into a spinning vortex of discord, and clusters of out-of-tune piano notes emerge as the song comes to false halt before picking right back up where it began. Elsewhere, lacerated feedback and serrated noise guitars come to the fore in "Headin' For the Top Now," while a single piano chord bangs away rhythmically in the background, much like in the Velvets' song "I'm Waiting For the Man." Apparently old habits do indeed die hard: Pierce not only tips his cap to VU-era Lou Reed with the line, "We'll be seeing only white light in our minds/And it's been blinding us for years," but also makes one of the disc's several drug references, artlessly incanting, "I've been shooting up my time/I've been holding down the fear."

       But Pierce has a way of making even these more avant aspects of Sweet Heart, Sweet Light oddly accessible, constructing a beautiful balance between the art of noise and the craft of composition. "Little Girl," for example, is a reflective sing-along replete with surging strings and angelic background vocals, a dream-pop reverie that deals bluntly with mortality. "Hey little girl we're on our own/Here today and then we're gone/Before we ride into the sun/Get it on," Pierce sings in a cracked voice before giving the chorus over to a group of gospel singers who take it straight to the church. And the largely acoustic "Freedom" marks another foray into the realm of country music for Pierce, with its twangy guitar riffs and a swaying, meditative chorus: "Freedom is yours if you want it/But you just don't know what you need/Made up my mind/To leave you behind/Cuz you just don't know what you fear."

       Since as far back as the first Spaceman 3 single, 1986’s hypnotic “Walkin’ With Jesus,” Pierce has been interested in, or at least aware of, the link between the consciousness altering effects of religious transcendence and mind-altering narcotics. On Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, he made this parallel explicit with gospel choirs and a collaboration with New Orleans r&b piano giant Dr. John. Once again, on Sweet Heart, Sweet Light, he hooks up with Dr. John, who gets a co-songwriting credit on the testifying “I Am What I Am,” a track that contrasts buzzsaw guitars with a call-and-response gospel-style chorus that posits a middle ground, if not quite a happy medium, between Pierce’s competing compulsions. But the disc’s final track, “So Long You Pretty Thing,” a lullaby of sorts that features Pierce singing alongside his eleven-year-old daughter, finds something along the lines of peaceful resolution. “Help me lord/Help me father/Cuz I’ve wasted all my time/Help me lord/It’s getting harder/Cuz I made a mess of mine,” Pierce admits. And then there’s the sound of his daughter’s voice, reminding him that it really hasn’t been a waste of time after all. It’s a crushing kind of hopeless hopefulness that Pierce turns into a celebration of life. And of rock and roll.