Joseph's Picks Of The Week 5/11/12- The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Lee Hazlewood

Led as always by Anton Newcombe, The Brian Jonestown Massacre has returned with its twelfth studio album, Aufheben. While not a complete washout, in the end it does little to displace the notion that the man’s best artistic days are far behind him.

Back in the ‘80s is when I first heard The Chesterfield Kings, a garage band with a definite ‘60s bent. Taking the genre’s limitations in mind, they were rather good. They also had a pronounced love of The Rolling Stones. One interesting thing about the Kings; while they certainly had a strong fan base and were bolder in conception than most other ‘80s garage acts, they were still somewhat hindered by the nagging viewpoint of many who considered their music to be decidedly retrograde.

Spacemen 3 and Flaming Lips were just two examples of late-‘80s bands with a detectable ‘60s focus that managed to dodge the retro tag, with both bands at different stages of their existence considered to be groundbreakers. The Kings on the other hand were dogged with the retro stigma, often by those who liked them even. If they made a very good record, it was ultimately very good from within the confines of a limited context, a bit like setting a home-run mark for a single-A farm club; it’s an admirable achievement, sure, but it still pales next to the more grandly scaled activity of the big boys.

I think of The Chesterfield Kings and The Brian Jonestown Massacre together for a couple of reasons. First is their rather obvious shared love of the Stones. The other concerns the differences in reception these bands received for doing something roughly comparable. Yes, BJM first made their mark with a spin on the sound of shoegaze, but they quickly shifted into the role of a retro-inclined band that wore their Stonesian inspiration proudly and defiantly.

The difference between The Chesterfield Kings and The Brian Jonestown Massacre is generally one of scale magnified by differing musical landscapes. By the second half of the ‘90s many listeners were feeling fatigued by an endless procession of “new”, “next” and “latest” things, so the time was ripe for a few bands that were far more about attitude and an unconflicted approach to influence holding no pretense to originality.

Now, anybody truly moved to make music so indebted to the image of The Rolling Stones is bound to exhibit a certain swagger in execution, the kind of in your face attitudinal motion that causes lots of listeners to pile on the disdain. This is to say that if many people unabashedly loved BJM, just as many loved to hate them. Keeping in mind that the history of art isn’t to be confused with the history of nice people, I never really had any problem with the band in terms of image (while acknowledging that said image eventually steamrolled into something comparable to a train wreck), but I also can’t deny having a rather shoulder-shrugging reaction to them overall.

My ambivalence was probably due to their status as a band du jour while other far more interesting acts (from the garage sphere in particular) were getting slighted or ignored completely. By contrast, I was very much in The Chesterfield Kings’ camp back in the day simply because they had the cards of esteem so strongly stacked against them; in the end, they were a band I couldn’t help rooting for. To be frank, The Brian Jonestown Massacre needed none of my goodwill.

And again, plenty of folks wore their fandom of BJM as a badge of cool and just as many used their dislike of the band as a way to define what rock music shouldn’t be; there wasn’t much in the way of middle ground. Well, except that the middle ground is pretty much where I put them. It’s now a given that the name Brian Jonestown Massacre is essentially synonymous with founder Anton Newcombe, and it hasn’t been really accurate in quite a long time to call them a band. But in their early incarnation a band is very much what they were, holding a solid lineup and releasing some solid music upon which their reputation is based.

If I’m foreshadowing the direction of this review by saying that I don’t think The Brian Jonestown Massacre ever made a great record, I’ll add that in the ‘90s anyway, they also displayed a fair amount of promise. But as time marched forward and the situation shaped up more and more as a Newcombe-led project with a frequently revolving door, the whole endeavor became a case of highly dysfunctional diminishing returns, and I started paying less attention.

If I haven’t been fond of any of the BJM records to see release in the 21st Century, I’ve come to at least respect Newcombe as a survivor and an artist of deeper dedication than I suspected he had in him. Yes, the heyday of the Massacre is long gone and it’s highly doubtful it’s ever coming back, and yet here Newcome is with another record. If Aufheben does little to change my perception of his recent output, it does feel like the man’s best release in quite some time. With this said, the bad and indifferent moments far outweigh the good, and it’s become even more likely that Newcombe’s most productive days are vanishing in the rearview mirror.

It’s important to not fall into generalizations when describing the problems with any record; I was initially tempted to say that Aufheben is hindered by too many songs in need of inspiration, but that’s not a particularly productive avenue. That the record is lacking in creative spark is perhaps the better way of putting it. After a strong opener (“Panic and Babylon”) and a not bad follow up (“Viholliseni Maalla”), Aufheben begins to bog down with flat tunes (“Gaz Hilarant”, “I Want to Hold Your Other Hand”) and miscalculations (the unfortunate flute on “Illuminomi” and “Face Down on the Moon”, the dance-inclined repetitiveness of closer “Blue Order/New Monday”). “The Clouds Are Lies” and “Stairway to the Best Party” raise the quality back up, but the five and a half minutes of “Seven Kings of Wonderful” goes on for far too long, as does the length of “Waking Up to Hand Grenades”.

If Newcombe had managed to release Aufheben’s four strong songs as an EP, it would’ve caused me to seriously rethink my assessment of his recent output. But these tracks are included on a record that’s sunk by faults seemingly ingrained in its creator’s musical personality. The biggest problem appears to be the sacrifice of dynamics and intensity and a dependence upon repetition that far too frequently results in dead ends.

If The Brian Jonestown Massacre makes an interesting contrast with The Chesterfield Kings, maybe the most revealing comparison, at least in terms of this record, is with Jack White. The White Stripes were a similar sort of band to BJM in how they could divide listeners into pro and anti camps, especially as their popularity grew, in part due to White’s personality but also because their sound was so blatantly in thrall of the music that shaped it.

Listening to White’s Blunderbuss reveals it to also be an LP with quite a few flews, but it’s still a valuable statement with much to offer creatively. What it’s got is, in a word, verve. It’s important to never count any artist out, and Aufheben holds enough quality to reinforce that maxim. But as Newcombe continually staggers to his feet and gets saved by the bell on record after record, it’s starting to feel like he’s taken a few blows too many.

If Lee Hazlewood lingers in the contemporary cultural memory, it’s easily due to his work with Nancy Sinatra. On The LHI Years: Nudes, Singles and Backsides (1968-1971), the Light in the Attic label collects a bunch of his post-Nancy collaborations and a welcome helping of his solo shots, and the results are highly recommended not just for Hazlewood’s fans but for anyone with an inclination for well-crafted oddball pop.

Though his music never wavered from its thoroughly commercial designs, Lee Hazelwood was still a truly strange duck. And the undeniable datedness of his work can really add to the overall weirdness factor, though that’s in no way a bad thing; if often possessing production values and orchestrations that are accurately assessed as “middle of the road” (not the same as “mainstream”), his songs almost always avoid falling into simple kitsch.

But Hazlewood was more than just a bizarro/sophisto cowboy that blended Vegas-inclined pop with a country-inflected folksiness both on his own and in a collaboration with Sinatra that still comes off like a Swingin’ ‘60’s reaction to Dolly and Porter. Indeed, while loads of folks are familiar with the string of late-‘50s hits that he produced and co-wrote with Duane Eddy, it’s also true that most of those listeners aren’t cognizant of Hazlewood’s actual involvement with those songs, a short flowering of creativity that stands amongst the finest instrumental rock music ever recorded.

He was also the impresario of Lee Hazlewood Industries, a fleeting subsidiary label of ABC Records. Naturally, a fair portion of LHI’s relatively slim discography is dedicated to its namesake; both his solo album Forty and The Cowboy and the Lady, credited to the duo of Hazlewood and actress Ann-Margret were released in 1969, and Cowboy in Sweden came out the following year. Back around 1999 or so, Steve Shelley’s Smells Like Records began admirably reissuing some of Hazlewood’s harder to find stuff on compact disc. This program included both the Ann-Margret collab and Cowboy in Sweden, but plenty of worthy bits and pieces slipped through the cracks.

As its title makes plain, this 2LP corrals a bunch of those bits and pieces with the supposed intention of further volumes to come, and the sustained level of quality across these four sides of vinyl really makes one hope that Light in the Attic comes through on their objective to excavate the LHI archives.  It opens with “Califia (Stone Rider)”, a duet with girlfriend Suzi Jane Hokom that mines familiar territory to impressive success; that combination of unabashed lushness and faux-earthy twang, the echo on Hazlewood’s booming, edgy baritone and the way he smartly blended his voice with the softer, more welcoming elements of a female counterpart.

Things hardly look down from there, with the music making clear that Hazlewood had no problem playing to his strengths. To elaborate, seven of the record’s seventeen tracks are duets with female counterparts, all obviously inspired by the fruitfulness of his artistic union with Nancy Sin, and while none of them charted in the US/UK that’s not for lack of value. Another track with Hokom, three with Ann-Margret and two with Swedish singer Nina Lizell find him cultivating the contrast between tough and sweet with much success.

This blend of the masculine and feminine has become a big factor in Hazlewood’s work, even when he’s behind the chair. His was the pen responsible for “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”, after all. In fact, his status as a collaborator has sorta come to dominate his legacy; while his ‘60’s solo albums sold well enough to keep him in demand, it’s also true that Hazlewood never had a hit single under his name alone, and some people view the guy’s solo output as substantially lesser to his work with Nancy and the gals.

To put it mildly, this is a gross miscalculation. Just for starters, I’ve never been able to decide between pre-LHI solo slabs Lee Hazlewoodism – It’s Cause and Cure (for MGM) or Love and Other Crimes (for Reprise) as a personal favorite. Both are world class collections of strong song from a truly unique voice, and The LHI Years includes more of the same top flight material. “The Bed” squarely hits the middle ground between honky-tonk and high gloss that found him in the producer’s chair for Singer of Sad Songs, one of Waylon Jennings’ finest pre-Outlaw LPs.

But when the music called for it he could also show admirable restraint, as the spare, hung-over “If It’s Monday Morning” and the driving “Bye Babe” both display. “No Train to Stockholm” feels like a legit slice of flower power-era pop, and it matches up well with the Jesus as proto-hippie storytelling of “Trouble Maker”. These tracks can serve as a satisfactory corrective, for Hazlewood is sometimes erroneously tagged as a wannabe hipster, or categorized by more polite denigrators as a kooky and aged interloper upon the grassy knolls and bubbling fjords of the late-‘60s youth movement’s supposed exalted purity.

This is another way of saying that some crabby sticklers persist in viewing “Some Velvet Morning” as “fake” psychedelia, but the people holding this odious opinion probably don’t like Eric Burdon’s “Sky Pilot” either. What a bunch of killjoys. In reality, Lee Hazlewood is one of American music’s true eccentrics, and as the cover of The LHI Years plainly shows, he was part playboy and part sage prankster, halfway between the establishment and the margins with nary a trace of conflict between the two.

Of the duet tracks, those with Ann-Margret stand up strongest, particularly the gleefully over the top festival of corn vs. schmaltz that is “Sleep in the Grass”, though the fairly laid-back country-folk-pop of “Victims of the Night” is also quite appealing. “Nobody Like You” with Hokom is one idea stretched a little beyond its limit, though it’s not unpleasant for all that. And both tracks with Lizell acquit themselves with purpose, though “Hey Cowboy” really tackles the era’s Bacharach-esque MOR tendencies with vigor.      

At this point the LHI label is still mostly remembered for Hazlewood’s releases, though the company also issued Safe at Home, the only LP from Gram Parsons’ first group The International Submarine Band. But the imprint also put out some highly regarded and quite hard to find work from artists like The Kitchen Cinq, Arthur and the Aggregation, Honey Ltd., The Surprise Package and Sanford Clark, whose 1956 hit “The Fool” happened to be written by Hazlewood.

It’s unclear how much if any of this material will surface in Light in the Attic’s LHI reissue plans, but here’s hoping at least some of it makes it onto disc, for it’ll only serve to deepen the already rich legacy of an absolutely one of a kind artist. The LHI Years: Nudes, Singles and Backsides (1968-1971) is a trove of Hazlewood’s brilliant work. Not every song is perfect, but every song is essential. It’s a beautifully done package from one of our best reissue labels.



Joseph's Picks Of The Week 5/4/12- Death Grips and Ty Segall/White Fence

With The Money Store, Sacramento CA trio Death Grips cross-pollinates hip-hop with the tactics of noise and drenches it all in a seething, apocalyptic outlook. Certainly not for everyone, it is however a surprisingly successful document, displaying high standards of variation throughout its onslaught of vitriolic ferocity.

To begin with The Money Store, there’s the major label aspect. This is frankly the most unlikely release to get corporate backing in quite a long time, but it’s important to remember that this sort of thing happens in cycles, and the way some people are reacting, you’d think Epic signed Borbetomagus or Masonna to a contract. The Money Store is indeed a crazy and uncompromising release, but it’s not completely off the map; as abstract and scorching as the record gets it retains a close enough relationship to previous models (mostly through the employment of rhythm) that its integration into the Sony Music Entertainment empire doesn’t so much inspire head scratching but instead feels like the latest example of a company feeling secure enough in its bottom line to attempt stepping out as the coolest bunch of executives on the block.

If that’s cynical, so be it. Epic may very well believe very strongly in what Death Grips offer on this quite impressive if undeniably divisive record, but that remains to be seen. Just because the musical landscape is different now than in any time since people realized a nice profit could be made by mass producing records doesn’t mean that the behavior of big money is somehow in need of reappraisal. The ‘90s major label feeding frenzy of indie and u-ground acts also resulted in some hard to rationalize signings, e.g. Boredoms’ Pop Tatari. The main difference here is the lack of an overflowing floodgate of sudden (and temporarily) hot properties ready for the pickings; digital avenues have greatly leveled the playing field against big label tomfoolery and anybody with internet access and speakers can discover new bands and test drive the records they want to buy (this directly led to an indie band winning a Grammy for Album of the Year). Yes Death Grips stick out like bloody appendages on the Epic Records roster, but in the end that’s not really anything new under the sun.

But far more importantly, if not quite as extreme as some have claimed, The Money Store is a riveting and somewhat groundbreaking listen. In combining the aesthetics of hip-hop, electronics, and noise into a bleak, at times unsettling landscape of shattered imagery, they feel like a new (if by no means wholly original) development. Comparisons have been made to Odd Future, but the edginess (or of you prefer, offensiveness) of that group registers differently from Death Grips. Odd Future often feels like just the latest extension of hip-hop’s transgressive possibilities. The Money Store comes off like a mixture of u-ground hip-hop, the far-out electronica of Kid606 and a despairing worldview that’s somewhat comparable to early industrialists like Throbbing Gristle.

And the specifics of Death Grips’ discomfiting vision are by design not easy to discern. The vocals of Stefan Burnett (aka MC Ride) are mixed throughout the album in a manner that resists any kind of narrative hold. Words, phrases and occasionally whole lines do jump out, but struggling to decipher the fabric of what’s being said is ultimately against the grain of The Money Store’s goals. Death Grips don’t want to tell an unpleasant but easily grasped story but instead desire to craft the equivalent to the often inexplicable imagery of a fevered nightmare.

This unholy trio of Burnett, producer Andy Morin and drummer Zack Hill (a name some may recognize from Hella and numerous other projects) released the Exmilitary mixtape last year. Flipping the script somewhat, their debut is less caustic than their major label coming out party. A big reason is The Money Store’s lack of samples. Exmilitary featured clips and loops lifted from sources as disparate as Black Flag, Pet Shop Boys, The Castaways’ “Liar Liar”, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Pink Floyd and that unrelenting motor-mouth of lingering societal discomfort Charles Manson, and the use of these collected reference points fashioned their initial effort as being much closer to the norms (if you will) of experimental hip-hop, though it was an immediately darker experience that didn’t necessarily fall in line with the genre’s expressions of intellectual complexity.

But a large segment of the planet’s population will derisively sum up The Money Store as “noise”. And it’s also true that aficionados of various noise sub-genres will possibly be quite taken with the contents of this LP. But Death Grips’ cacophonous blitzkrieg wields its effectiveness through precision, relying far more on force and velocity than on the elements of abstraction that lead many observers to erroneously label noise music as so much screwing around. However, it’s highly unlikely that people will volley the insult “my five-year old can do that” in this particular album’s direction.

And that reliance on power and momentum is in execution if not in sound very reminiscent of vintage hardcore punk’s primal fury, with Exmilitary’s Black Flag sample holding much more significance than being just a crafty loop. And the cover art only amplifies this connection, looking like a cross between prime Raymond Pettibon and a page ripped out of some S&M troll’s leather-bound sketchbook.

But The Money Store isn’t just one big bum’s rush of methodical if calculatedly submerged aggression. “I’ve Seen Footage”, “Hustle Bones” and the closing track “Hackers” introduce periods of relative respite from the maelstrom. In fact, the appropriating and reconfiguring of the beat from Salt-n-Pepa’s “Push It” makes “I’ve Seen Footage” feel like this record’s “single”. While a perfectly fine song taken in isolation, I’m a bit conflicted over its presence here, as hearing it in sequence highly normalizes The Money Store; while reportedly left to their own devices, Death Grips still managed to come up with a record that the suits at Epic could identify with strategically; amidst the hammer blows of third-degree negativity, this album holds in its nihilistic mid-section something resembling a party jam.

Conversely, tracks like “Lost Boys” “Blackjack” “System Blower” and “Punk Weight” turn up the abrasive heat, and it’s in these excursions that Death Grips come closest to realizing the potential of hip-hop for Merzbow-loving Wolf Eyes fans. This means that The Money Store’s hip-hop legitimacy is roughly comparable to Last Exit’s relationship to jazz or Jandek’s general proximity to folk or rock. This record is certainly “there” in hip-hop terms, but its status as an idiosyncratic hybrid with likely garner some purist hostility.

Ultimately, “I’ve Seen Footage” might bode well for Death Grips’ future. Bands specializing in music of this extremity often have short qualitative life spans, either flaming out before they start to suck or unfortunately besmirching the vitality of their initial work with inferior product. I’ll still be surprised if these three are still together and cranking out top-notch material in two years’ time, but there is a chance that Death Grips will exceed expectations and wind down later rather than sooner.

With another album scheduled for the fall, it’s going to be interesting to hear Death Grips’ progress. Whether they’re destined for brevity or built to last, The Money Store is a major statement. It might be far from pretty, but it’s surely effective in its caustic vision.

As its trippy cover image indicates, the collaborative effort of Ty Segall and White Fence’s Tim Presley conjures up a natty batch of tough-minded psychedelia. While not a life-altering affair, Hair confidently succeeds in its ambitions and stands as far more than just a one-off curiosity.

While Ty Segall is still most accurately identified as a garage-rock guy, it’s also true that he’s been showing some significant growth spurts of late. His record of last year Goodbye Bread made great strides in both the level of his songwriting and the scope of his presentation, all while remaining true to Segall’s organic, non-flash aesthetic. And while he was never really a stone-faced garage purist, his development remains worthy of commendation; ‘tis true that no one will ever fill the gap left by the far too soon departure of Jay Reatard, but Segall probably comes closest through the prolific and unfussy nature of his progressions.

Tim Presley is the man behind White Fence, a quietly impressive bedroom psyche solo project that also happens to flaunt a high level of productivity; four albums, a live cassette and a 7-inch in a two year period, all released while remaining a member of the bands Darker My Love and The Strange Boys. If his approach in White Fence looks backward to such fine antecedents as Syd Barrett, Love, The Move, Donovan and the anemic glory of toy-town psyche, hearing just a small portion of his solo output makes it plain that he’s very much an artist of the moment. Presley’s not deliberately up-to-date, but his work still feels contemporary in its overall thrust.

With all this said, I frankly couldn’t help but feel a tad bit nervous after being tipped off to the imminent release of a joint venture between Segall and Presley. Collaborations between established artists have a tendency to either be a bit underwhelming (Broken Bells, for instance) or highly disappointing (not to flog a gift horse in the mouth, but how’s Lulu treating you lately?), and in this case I was unsure of how two musicians who’d so successfully forged a creative identity out of going it alone would reconcile with the give and take inherent to the exercise of artistic partnership, though the basis of my concern resided more with Segall than with Presley. It’s true that Ty has also spent time in full-fledged bands (five of them in fact; The Epsilons, The Traditional Fools, Sic Alps, Party Fowl and Perverts), but he’s also been effectively solo since 2008, and that’s where his reputation is rightly based.

But I was also intrigued. The pairing of Segall and Presley was somewhat surprising since their styles aren’t a natural fit, but at the same time they were far from theoretically irreconcilable. In fact, I quite like it when the garage-born mindset nuzzles up against a psyche state of mind, finding it a case of two great sounds that sound great together. But I kept having this nagging suspicion that the duo would just jump into the studio with a combined head full of shared steam (or some other substance or two) and proceed to throw down a batch of songs that felt glorious as it happened but would unfortunately linger after the fact as something far less than earth-shattering. It’s the recurring sensation of All-Star Jam-itis Super-Sessioning its way into the depths of the record collection, taking up space and looking very necessary as it’s being passed over once again for some other less-grandiose selection, rarely if ever getting pulled out for a spin.

After ample time spent with Hair, I’m happy to report that my fears were misplaced. While not a masterpiece, this tidy if expansive eight-song collection leaves a lasting positive impression mainly because it doesn’t attempt to present an overt equality between the participants. Presley sings the majority of Hair’s songs and the album’s overall thrust is much closer to White Fence than to Segall’s extant work. This shouldn’t be read as Segall not asserting himself; to the contrary, he picks his spots exceptionally well, and his presence is certainly felt throughout the album. It just becomes apparent that he’s disinterested in matching Presley song for song in some spurious desire for creative democracy. Instead of the schizophrenia that might’ve resulted from that situation, Hair really breathes, its tunes calling out for repeated spins, the product of the two’s shared desire to simply make the best album possible.

Opener “Time” sets the scene exceptionally well. It begins with some faux-psyche garage action, then shifts into a strummy, mildly George Harrison-like mid-section and tacks on a distorted coda that feels a little bit like the young Times New Viking shooting for the sweet thunder of prime Crazy Horse. Quite a trip! The next track “I Am Not a Game” feels a bit like a combo of Thee Oh Sees, White Fence’s sunshine-psyche vibe and the sort of rhythmic drive that’s been Segall’s specialty over the last few years, and it all concludes with an ace rave-up.

I can’t help but hear Robert Schneider in Presley’s vocals, and this only abets “Easy Ryder” in sounding like something the Elephant 6 ringleader might’ve come up with had he been more inclined toward the grittier side of the ‘60s psychedelic experience; it shares a similar melodic approach, but is ultimately punchier and more stripped-down in delivery, more Nuggets and less Pet Sounds. The first part of “The Black Glove/Rag” alters this mode slightly, sounding a bit like Schneider shooting for the folkier side of Donovan. But the track’s second half gravitates away from this sensibility toward a fine survey of gradually mounting guitar scrawl, drum pound and vocal swagger.

Side two commences with the brief, echo-laden stomp of “Crybaby”, sounding like The Sonics in full-tilt glory, which means we’re solidly if momentarily on Segall’s turf. But “(I Can’t) Get Around You” tilts the proceedings back into Presley’s favor, and with gusto; the song is essentially a tug-of-war between Anglo derived pop-psyche (replete with nasal-blockage vocals) and some exquisite amp-fuzz circa ’66 Los Angeles. From there the loopy rocking of “Scissor People” and closing sing-along strum and bop of “Tongues” are just gravy.

After some consideration, it seems that Segall’s strongest overall contribution to Hair lies in how he tempts Presley’s approach out of the bedroom and onto a larger, bolder stage. Certainly there is nothing inferior or less-admirable about the oft-twisted intimacy that hovers around the existing White Fence material like an enveloping and intoxicating florescent cloud, and indeed Presley has already exerted flashes of a more extroverted nature. For example, there is “Harness” from last years’ Is Growing Faith, and the stellar Brit-DIY nod of “Baxter Corner” from his 2010 self-titled solo debut. But on Hair a vigorous quality of conception pulses throughout and it draws largely from Presley’s creative wheelhouse; much like Segall’s work on his lonesome, it’s not polished or pro, but it oozes with the same confident, punk-derived attitude.

Apparently, there is more in the can from this match-up, so it remains to be seen if Presley’s impact on Hair is representative of the whole, or if this album was sequenced to sit in contrast to an additional volume where Segall will assert the fiery potency of which he’s most capable. Either possibility would be equally welcome.



Joseph's Picks Of The Week 4/27/12- Bola and Allo Darlin'

While the heyday of world music on LP may be long past, there have been enough recent appearances of new global sounds on vinyl to make one hope they represent the beginnings of a sustained trend. One such record is by the Ghanaian kologo player and vocalist known as Bola; his Volume 7 is a forceful and organic blend of the traditional and the contemporary.

Of course it needs to be said that the digital age has swung the doors wide open on a massive outpouring of previously unavailable music from all over the world, giving the casual listener access to a disparate selection of sounds that in prior eras would’ve only been heard by pure accident, if at all. The proliferation of blogs hosting MP3s is viewed by many with jaundiced eyes, but if done conscientiously these websites can exist not as an exercise in freeloading but instead as an educational resource, a platform for communication and most importantly as an instigator of further possibilities.

One such is example is Brian Shimkovitz’s Awesome Tapes from Africa. Way back in 2006, his website began exposing listeners to a steady stream of mostly cassette sourced obscurities obtained largely through his travels to the African continent. By this point, it would take even the most determined listener many months to appropriately absorb the content on his site, but it doesn’t seem to be Shimkovitz’s intention that his visitors hear everything; instead, hopefully a visitor will be captivated by just one discovery from an array of choices that would’ve not crossed their path otherwise. And as testament to those further possibilities mentioned above, Awesome Tapes has begun releasing records, the first being La Grande Cantatrice Malienne Vol. 3 by Malian musician Nâ Hawa Doumbia, and the second being the subject of this review.

Bola Anafo is from the Upper East Region of Ghana and his instrument the kologo is a two stringed lute with a calabash gourd resonator. It’s been likened to the banjo, an instrument which came to America (and the Caribbean) from Africa. But Bola is also a vocalist of potent intensity as well as a musician unconcerned with (or perhaps oblivious to) the often persnickety Western standards of tradition. To specify, in addition to his the omnipresent kologo, Volume 7 also features the use of drum machine, keyboard and synthesizer, and if this fact inspires encroaching dread in the reader, it shouldn’t. It’s immediately clear that the inclusion of programmed rhythms and synthetic additives hasn’t been thrust upon Bola by an outside producer working in the interest of increased record sales.

Instead, the use of recent (if appealingly “inexpensive” sounding) tech quickly situates that listeners desiring an antiquated expression of “tradition” should look elsewhere, for while Volume 7 indeed features a deep connection to Ghanaian culture through the employment of the kologo, it’s far from a museum piece. In a sense, Bola is comparable to the wild junkyard aesthetic of Congolese group Konono Nº 1, in that they share a willingness to incorporate whatever’s necessary to advance the music they play. It’s just that Bola is less eccentric in his developments and more “pop”; one of his biggest influences is King Ayisoba, a fellow kologo player who worked with musicians from the hiplife style, a form that combined hip hop with the longstanding genre of Ghanaian highlife.

The music on Volume 7 is hard-driving dance music that’s matched by the impressive power of Bola’s voice. Singing in the Frafra tongue, his ability as an explosive shouter is only amplified by the difference in language, bringing the sheer passion of his vocals to the forefront and (in my case, anyway) greatly relieving the desire to know the exact meaning of his words. Bola’s singing could accurately be said to lack variation, but that’s surely by intention, matching up well with the qualities of the kologo.

As an instrument with only two strings, the kologo doesn’t possess the wide expressive range of its descendant the banjo, but with one string tuned to bass and the other to treble, it easily possesses enough tonal variance to get the job done. And what’s immediately apparent is that Bola’s playing of the instrument is assured and methodical, the result of long study and dedication. If the eight songs on Volume 7 are initially quite different in sound from the norms of Western music, they are no less complex in conception or precise in their delivery.

And that lack of variation could be a stumbling block in appreciation for some listeners, though I think there is enough overall depth (and a few curve balls, like the brief bit of auto-tuned vocal at the beginning of “Tigantabame”) to keep well-disciplined ears from getting too restless; circular patterns of electronic keyboard that grow in infectiousness, an insistent rigidity in the low-tech drum machines that also establishes a momentum of tight grooves, and the rich mixture of melody and rhythm from the kologo. Again, these songs are plainly conceived as dance music (though quite different in execution from the tight elasticity of American funk); every track on the record save for the last is over six minutes long, and what the raw drive of Volume 7 lacks in variety it makes up for with verve and finesse. This is repetition by design, and the more time spent with it the more it grows.

And there are some very pleasant extra-musical vibes going on with Volume 7, starting with the very title of the record, which underscores that what’s on display is a straight reissue of one of Bola’s numerous cassette releases. That may not seem like a big deal, but from my perspective it indicates a level of sincere respect for this musician and his work. Bola has at least six previous tapes under his belt and very likely has additional subsequent volumes. From these sources, Shimkovitz could have easily assembled a compilation with the intention of spotlighting growth and an artificial (or at least misleading) sense of variation. Though not being privy to his other recordings, it’s certainly possible that Bola burst onto the Ghanaian tape scene fully formed, with each release exploring a unwavering sonic terrain, a hypothetical possibility that I actually find quite attractive.

But if this were the case, I’d likely be reviewing Volume 1. No, Shimkovitz obviously felt there was something special about this particular cassette, and by making it available on LP/CD/download for curious consumers outside the sphere of the musician’s homeland, the integrity of Bola’s art is retained without any needless tampering. And perhaps it’s not a big deal, but when coupled with the fact that Bola is getting fairly compensated in this agreement, the whole endeavor feels like a relationship between equals. After expenses, it’s a 50/50 split between artist and label. Nowhere to be found is that all too familiar aftertaste of the First World capitalizing on the Third.

Along with recent issues of new and old sounds by Sidi Touré (two albums on Thrill Jockey), El Rego (via Daptone), the aforementioned Nâ Hawa Doumbia release on Awesome Tapes and numerous records on labels like Soundway and Strut, Volume 7 makes a strong case for lending an ear to the diverse sounds of Africa.

Thirty years ago, the imperative of world music was shared between major labels, smaller companies (often with government or philanthropic connections, e.g. Ocora from France), and extremely cool indies like John Storm Roberts’ Original Music imprint. Flash forward to right now and the independents are just about all we have left. That might seem worrisome, but with guys like Brian Shimkovitz on the case bringing the music of Bola and others into sharp global focus, it appears that we’ll be just fine.

The finest examples of indie-pop manage to feel deliciously out of step with current trends, leaving their mark by confidently being themselves in a sea of records spinning variations on the latest thing. London’s Allo Darlin’ has a secure handle on this tradition, and their second long player Europe is not only a well-done expression of what makes the genre so appealing, but also bodes well for the band’s future.

In a manner not unlike how zydeco is identified with Louisiana or no-wave is described as a style of New York development, indie-pop is essentially thought of as a form born from the United Kingdom, for that is where its generally acknowledged roots (the melodically inclined punk of The Buzzcocks, pop-savvy post-punkers such as Television Personalities, Josef K and Orange Juice) are all located, and it’s also the locale that really kick started the whole movement in earnest (think The Smiths, C86, and both Sarah and Creation Records).

Sure, there were certainly a few likeminded groups across the globe (say Beat Happening in Olympia, Washington, The Cannanes in Sydney, Australia and Shonen Knife in Osaka, Japan) but these outliers weren’t really integrated into the scheme of things until indie-pop spilled out into a global movement in reaction to the post-grunge ‘90s (one instance of a parallel scene, New Zealand’s proliferation of small bands centered largely around the Flying Nun label, rests almost entirely on its own merits and should be looked upon as a scene unto itself).

So it makes sense that Elizabeth Morris, a native of Australia, would end up making records as a London migrant. Allo Darlin’ is led by Morris, and from the quiet beginnings of a few self-released EPs while also serving as a member of Tender Trap (a band with a solid indie-pop pedigree, featuring three members of Marine Research, most notably Amelia Fletcher, also formerly Heavenly and ‘80s legends Talulah Gosh), she and her group have grown in confidence and scope to be one of the better examples of indie-pop currently operating.

And the connection to Tender Trap is a significant one, for along with a similarity in sound, Morris’ singing and songwriting displays the same sort of confidence and smarts that Fletcher has exhibited in both her fledgling and mature work. Curiously, when first noticing the title of Europe’s standout track “Tallulah”, my kneejerk reaction was that it was in reference to Fletcher’s first band. But no; there is indeed an extra letter l in the name, and the track instead refers to the fifth album by that most excellent Australian band The Go-Betweens, who in a manner similar to Morris spent a fair amount of time in Great Britain in the earlier stages of their career.

Nostalgia is a big part of the indie-pop trip, in particular the pining for or the idealizing of a time and place from before you were born. For instance, the use of old photographs was a recurring motif on indie-pop album covers like Television Personalities …And Don’t the Kids Just Love It and needless to say, pretty much the whole run of Smiths’ records. This has resulted in some observers painting over indie-pop with a brush soaked in conservatism, but that line of thinking usually has some sort of agenda, most frequently either rockist (i.e. they don’t have the “right” attitude) or in service of a constant flow of innovation (they’re not playing music the “right” way). There’s a reason why Orange Juice, those Smiths, C86 and Beat Happening all inspired sizable waves of often mean-spirited detractors, and it’s why when Nirvana openly expressed admiration of The Vaselines through covers of “Molly’s Lips” and “Son of a Gun”, so many Black Sabbath-loving observers very openly couldn’t deal.

Europe absolutely possesses this by now well established inclination to look back, but like the best of the prior work in the style that embodies this outlook, it’s far more than just an exercise in yearning. The biggest quality in Morris and company’s favor is that she’s not operating from a sense of simple nostalgia; rather, her songs depict an often bittersweet recollection of the past and how those memories interact with the present. Marcel Proust may not have loved Europe (had he somehow lived to hear is charms), but he would’ve certainly understood it.

While their self-titled debut from 2010 was a pleasant affair that set the context for Allo Darlin’ rather nicely, Europe is a big step up in both songwriting quality and in the assurance of delivery. Opener “Neil Armstrong” not only shows off the bands’ strides extremely well, but it will also establish to newbies exactly what Allo Darlin’ are about; it’s the kind of song that can easily tempt a listener into donning a moth-eaten cardigan while puffing on a clove cigarette and gazing at a black and white photograph of Tom Courtenay. How fragile, and yes, how winsome. And the track that follows it, “Capricornia”, begins with some almost requisite achy strum before kicking into a crisp up-tempo slice of indie-pop that’ll likely charm the trousers right off longstanding fans of The Wedding Present.

From there the album just rolls. The title cut really drives home how the majority of Europe’s tracks exist essentially as audio letters or confessions to characters (either real or fictive, setting up a sweet ambiguity) that Morris  as narrator holds close. Plus, its use of strings is quite tasteful, complimenting the songs’ pleasant rainy day jangle, never overwhelming it. This is followed with “Some People Say”, which features the terrific ukulele strumming of Morris, this element helping to define Allo Darlin’ as something much more than just a standard bunch of indie-pop idolaters.

And the uke is employed to magnificent effect on “Tallulah”, again Europe’s standout cut. In both its melodic simplicity and the open vulnerability of its storytelling it can feel like a readymade for some aspiring filmmaker with a digital camera, a handful of eager if outwardly blasé cast members and a trust-fund just waiting to be whittled down to nothing. And this is cool, except for one thing; the movie has already been made by Elizabeth Morris. All that’s required to watch is the closing of the eyelids.

A song like “Tallulah” requires a certain level of bravery to pull off, for if it fails its much worse than a misstep. It’ll be downright embarrassing. And while this song succeeds wholeheartedly, it’s also quite nude in its emotionalism, and listening to it can feel a bit like eavesdropping. Of course, this is absurd. It is a record, after all. But that’s the power of music for you.

If “Tallulah” is Europe’s best moment, it’s also an album with no bum tracks. Penultimate cut “Still Young” is the closest the disc comes to straightforward rocking, and it can’t help reminding me of what Velocity Girl might’ve sounded like if they’d resided closer to the River Thames than the River Potomac. Another similarity throughout the record (especially on “Some People Say”) is Glaswegians Camera Obscura, though Allo Darlin’ are just a wee bit more spritely. For fans of indie-pop, Europe will be a welcome addition to the library, and it just might tear the wig off newcomers to the style.

I can easily envision some of those listeners glancing to the bottom of this review and wondering why Europe didn’t receive a higher grade. And in a sense, they’d have a point, since the text above is loaded with praise and lacking in faults. To elaborate, this is indeed an LP without any glaring flaws, but it is also a record that’s very much “in the tradition”. Allo Darlin’ fit into the Slumberland roster like long, thin torso snuggly hugging a thrift store sweater, and their sophomore record is one of the best femme-fronted indie-pop slabs to grace my ears in quite a while.

And if it were readily apparent that Allo Darlin’ had outdone themselves and hit a qualitative ceiling in the making of Europe, a higher grade might have been called for. But in this case, it’s obvious that Elizabeth Morris and her cohorts are capable of far more than just putting their own superb spin on a fine genre; if they keep at it, they could very likely play a role in defining the indie-pop sound for a whole new generation. With this possibility in mind, my highest marks are being saved for if and when.