albums

Rip It Up, Issue 176, 1 March 1992, Page 26

albums

NITZEREBB Ebbhead , ' . (Mute) Death Les Mills! Nitzer Ebb used to be maximum austerity body-fascists, ■ whipping us into shape with grimly minimal beat and bass constructions, but someone must have told them that a mesmerized audience would be more in their power than a merely sweaty one, because this album is, well, mesmerizing. The formula isn't unprecedented: songs structured for hyperbolic emotional effect, slowly building fury, like Foetus minus some of the overt silliness, with the Young Gods' ■ approach to sampling, ie each new . sound from a few more light years ahead of the listener's imagination than the last, histrionic strings juxtaposed with other-worldly . electronics and slabs of metal guitar. There's a precision, a cleaness about the whole thing, though, that means it won't be mistaken for anything other than pop music, albeit of the bloodthirstiest variety. Imagine a truly convincing Nine Indi Nails ora private, neurotic Hoodlum Priest and you won't be a hundreth of the way there. MATTHEW HYLAND JUICE Movie Soundtrack (MCA Records) . This is the latest in the current line of films sharing the Urban Gang Experience with us. Rather impressive, I've heard. This album certainly stacks up as one of the best gang-film soundtracks too. Unlike the others, which were collections of songs put together for a movie, this one benefits from the consistent 'feel' producer Hank Shocklee (The Bomb Squad) brings. ,

Surprisingly, Public Enemy don't appear, but we are treated to new material by EPMD, Big Daddy Kane, and Eric B & Rakim. But its not all old school, new jacks Naughty By Nature and darlings-of-the-moment Cypress Hill also cut in. There are a couple of slow jams thrown in, including the original version of 'ls It Good To You?', which works well as a song rather than the Heavy D rap we're familiar with. Overall, an excellent bleep-free dance I rap album, the only grizzles being that a couple of tracks just fade

out rather strangely at three minutes. (And Salt 'N Pepa's too-obvious attempt to sound tough through the use of the word muthfuka). NICK D'ANGELO THE REVELATORS Amazing Stories (Columbia) DIED PRETTY Doughboy Hollow (Blue Mosque) A couple of fair Aussie one-dayer's starts with the Revelators. A veil for Joe Camilleri's allegience to rootsiness, Amazing Stories is his continued empathy for past genres, but this time , in the form of cover versions of lesser known songs from legendary performers. Slipping into the nuances of the writers he worships, Camilleri does more than justice to Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey' and Dylan's 'Caribbean Wind'. The band positively excels on the great sax lead that carries Jnr" Walker's What Does It Take To Win Your Love' and Muddy Water's 'Louisana Blues' has the riff that toughs it out real According to Camilleri Amazing Stories was the “opportunity to pay homage to some of the great writers of our time*. As enjoyable and well played as this may be, it's about

time that Joe and his various incarnations started plugging their guitars into the 90s, however transient that may seem. Synde/s Died Pretty have been soldiering since the early 80s with an earnest but uninspired output and now with their Hugh Jones' produced fourth album they're poised on the brink of.. . further anonymity? ' Doughboy Hollow actually straddles that middle ground of good songs searching for a band with distinction/identity; a problem faced by most bands whose material bums with perspiration, but lacks the flicker of individuality to separate them from the herd. That said, 'Doused'and 'God Bless' are intense, melodic flurries almost individual enough to forget REM comparisons and the professed Marianne Faithful influences of'Out In The Rain' can't detract from the song's undoubted charm. In The Love Song' and Turn Your Head' you can almost ignore that vocalist Ronald Peno . sounds like lan Curtis and just concentrate on the songs. . Died Pretty are a reviewer's ~ . : nightmare with their uneasy balance of melodic gifts and echoes of textures • • not their own. Do you praise their >. songs or criticise their obvious second-hand derivations? Just for

once, you be the judge. , GEORGE KAY < LOU REED Magic and Loss (Sire) This is a long, sequential concept album, extensively sub titled, chronicling the death friends with song titles like 'Cremation' and 'Harry's Circumcision.'Let's be frank, Magic and Loss would still be a bargepole's length away if it wasn't recorded by Lou Reed. We feel we should grant him the indulgence because of his achievements in the past; a rock'n'roll life spent deliberately translating big and self-possessed subjects into simple words and melodies. He is prolific but . not a best-seller; commands respect rather than awe (though I bet Rolling Stone have commissioned a big pedestal for this one). He has few laurels to rest on because he avoids praise and bombast on the part of himself or his press. In interviews he is reductive, declaring himself an unpretentious 'rock'n'roll person" (a middle-aged backdown from "rock'n'roll animal’) determined to deal in the fundamentum: bass, drums, guitar, some songs. So Magic and Loss earns a look-in, if only to determine

whether or not Unde Lou has gone back on his word —or maybe • returned to the carefree singalong days of Metal Machine Music. ' As an overall package, Magic and Loss is patchy. It groans under the . weight of Reed The Writer's ambitions: the subtitles ('ln A Chapel Bodily Termination') are superfluous and the emphasis on narrative sequence is ' stating the obvious — the album format is one which most people will listen to . from beginning to end anyway. There is dutiful dischord ('Power and Glory II' ; . and'Gassed and Stoked') and the rockier material is showing a paunch. A cosy number like'No Chance' is a little too comfortable. ; - Where Reed comes into his stride is : in the reflective stuff — loose, spoken narratives and chiming choruses — a style predated by the single 'Last Great American Whale.' It's a relief to . hear a dry aside on 'Dreamin' ("I don't know what drugs they had you on") and, yep, 'Harry's Circumcision' is a good song (even if the title does set it up as an alarming sequel to 'Andy's Chest'). Despairing at the family resemblance, Harry takes to himself with a razor: the slashes are a rite of manhood, like the circumcision ritual itself. By turns droll, frightening and kind of stupid, Harry is the sort of guy you'd find in an old VU song. . What's Good' sparks with trademark wordplay ("What good is seeing-eye chocolate... Sanskrit read to a pony... rain that falls up?'). The best type of rock lyrics: clever but dumb, nonsense with meaning. 'Power and Glor/ - compares modem miracle workers with old ("I saw isotopes introduced into his lungs... And it made me think of Leda and the Swan") but 'Sword of Damocles' self-consciously disowns the musing ("I know you hate that mystic shit.") 'Goodby Mass' is a tremendous piece of work: vivid, sad, moving. It's so clear in its intention — and its musical actions — it shows up the weakness of complicating the song's meaning by fitting it within an umbrella concept. Magic and Loss is an album of .t contradictions, not always intentional. "You can't be Shakespeare, you can't be Joyce," Reed notes in the title track. True, but if you have the power to be Lou Reed, why muck about? CHAD TAYLOR WEDDING PRESENT Sea Monsters (First Warning) Currently out of favour with factions of the British music press, David Gedge must be wondering why, as he gets better, the reviews get worse. A case

in point was Bizarro, their obviously monumental second album which was given six out of 1 0 by NME, a reduction of two through editorial policy.' Sea Monsters, another major Wedding Present advancement, fared even worse and here's the American CD release with a few extra tracks confirming its undoubted worth.'Niagra', in keeping with the tone of the album, rises in intensity leaving the boys' own instrumental 'Dan Dare' to release a little tension and 'Fleshworld' as a stuttering last wave. This 1 3-track beast should be owned. GEORGE KAY DIGITAL UNDERGROUND Sons Of The P (Tommy Boy) ■ NAUGHTY BY NATURE (Tommy Boy) ■ A couple of oddities from the Tommy Boy stables. Digital Underground have dedicated themselves to reworking and updating the P-Funk thing, which might not really be necessary, but it is totally O.K. by me. The D.U. squad have got a great feel for a groove in the same way the Clinton mob had, they take a hook and stretch it on out with a nice loping beat and plenty of silly-ass vocals. The concept of updating it all is fine too, as this involves better sounding beats and free form rapping, which sounds great with stuff of this tempo. The D.U. people have even created a whole universe of characters a la P-Funk, so obviously they are taking this a lot more seriously than the rest of us. Never mind, it keeps them off the streets and it's a real funky album, definitely worth the price of admission. On a totally different trip are Naughty by Nature, who are posing - on the cover of the album in a very staunch style complete with machete. Surprisingly, the sounds within aren't sub N.WA kill 'em all, but come from the Native Tongues funky and concerned school. Needless to say, these guys aren't exactly De La Soul as 'O.P.P.' proved, but they do use some pretty jazzy sounds and the lyrics tend to veer towards the peace and love stuff. There are definite moments of nastiness, all of which I strongly like, particularly '1 , 2, 3.', and it's these which lift the album above the usual crop of concerned rap. Obviously Tommy Boy are having no problem finding a little diversity over there in the U.S. of A,, so how come the majors have such a problem? KIRKGEE

FROM SCRATCH Songs For Heroes GITBOX REBELLION Pesky Digits . (Rattle) About the only thing Rattle Records hasn't got right is its choice of title for the genre it seeks to plough. 'New Music' is a ghastly term — it signals very little apart from an absence of roots, it sounds /ar too much like 'New Age' and it's just, well, woolly. Fortunately, all else is well — especially considering these two > ■ releases constitute a launch for the label. Both these CDs — and especially the Gitbox album — come admirably well dressed and the sound from Progressive Studios (Rattle's production base) is pin-sharp and full of presence. . Philip Dadson's From Scratch ensemble has been overturning ' preconceptions about music for 16 years now and in that time they've moved from emotive instrumental music to the aimed and structured. Indeed, Songs For Heroes takes its title as a brief and homes in on it. The heroes are Dadson's, their names tripped off in a kind of syllabic song cycle — from Coltraine to Buddha, Plato to Ghandi. If Dadson has laced in melody here and there, most of the music (including the vocals) carries the From Scratch tradition of making percussion do more than you ever thought it could. The unconventional instruments (yes, the PVC pipes are still in there), the richness of texture and the sense of physicality (live performers are as much dance as anything else) persist. Music from wise heads. Gitbox Rebellion use perhaps the most conventional instrument of all — the steel-string acoustic guitar. Or rather, nine guitars and nothing else. You'll always get more out of recording a bunch of guitar tracks than taking one and doubling if (ask Phil Spector) and when all nine players hit the same chord it fairly leaps out of the ■ speakers. Pesky Digits covers a variety of styles — African hi-life (arguably the most modem of contemporary guitar styles) in Two Iguanas and a sort of Sousa-for-guitars in 'Connecticut

Yankee'. The main title piece takes the old rock lick into a contemporary

classical domain, but you can't help feeling they could borrow and subvert a bit more from the rock tradition, which is, after all the guitar's heartland today. A go at the radical turning-down employed by grindcore guitarists (which creates a blunt but immensley dense and powerful sound) springs to mind. Anyhow, Pesky Digits plinks, chimes, rings and trills very nicely. Nice (meaning good) is the word. Both these records are friendly and life-affirming in a very accomplished way. If Rattle can take a leaf from Sun Ra (who's been making 'new music" forever) and spin a few heads around while affirming life it will be a very important record label. RUSSELL BROWN JULIA FORDHAM Swept (Circa) With her fashion model looks and a voice that sounds classically trained, Julia Fordham launched herself a few years back proclaiming "I'm a woman of the 80s, I'm fit and I'm strong..." So she was and, aside from that poppy single, her first album contained at least one remarkable ballad which has since been covered by other singers. Now, a couple of albums further on, her up-tempo numbers have moved from the dancefloor to the cocktail lounge. But that's OK, in the hands of . rhythm sections including the likes of Pino Palladino, Manu Katche, Vinnie Colaiutu and David Sancious cocktail funk can get pretty appealing at times. Add Fordham's pure, sweetly expressive vocals along with a few good melodic hooks and sections of Swept are decidedly listenable. My doubts arise with some of the slower numbers — and they constitute the majority of the album. Delicately

washed in gentle synth-tones with daubs of soprano sax, piano or vibes, they at times border on the fragile ambience of Enya. 'Rainbow Heart* and the title track have strong tunes but the album's final four tracks strike me as musical therapy for the mushy minded. PETER THOMSON ■ . - ' FROM BENEATH THE EARTH CAME ROCK A History of NZ Music in the 60s Vol. 1: The Groups (Den-Che Records) Now that a whole new generation has gotten hip to how NZ music hasn't ' always been utterly pathetic via John Baker's Wild Things comp, mayhaps you'd care to delve some more. The NZ seengles compilated here'd cost you an arm and a dick if you sought 'em out individually and some of 'em are even worth it, take for inst. the Gremlins' 'Understand Our Age', musically and thematically similar to their better-known 'Coming Generation' or the Minutemen's sub-Kinks 'social comment” routine 'Lament of a Clerical Worker 1 , both, I guess, "genre classics' ... elsewhere a bunch of songs you've probably already got one or two versions of get pounded thru one more time and a couple of these are more than OK too ... the stuff's mostly not badass enough to've been on the aforementioned . Wild Things and not big enough hit-wise to've been on K-Tel's How Was Was The Air..., the cover art is lame, and there are no biog/ discog. notes (maybe on the CD, I don't know), but it's certainly not without its redeeming features. DUANEZARAKOV SUGAR BULLET Refined (Virgin) Nowhere on this album's livery do Sugar Bullet let slip that they're Scottish, but they are. Now there's no reason that the bonny Scots can't turn out dance music as well as anyone else in the world — the great Jesse Rae ? wrote Odyssey's 'lnside Out' and the Shamen have virtually staked themselves out a sub-genre. The opening track here, 'Happy Birthday' sounds like a seriously detoxed version of those same Shamen, but that's as far as the links go. The rest is a nimble but unexceptional mixed bag of contemporary styles; Scots rap on 'Set Me Free', ragga chat on 'World Peace' and electro scratch-up on 'A Nation Under A Dope Mix'. Lead vocalist I. Coonagh (they don't want you knowing their first names either) crops / up all over, but she sounds most comfortable on the obvious standout track, the chunky soul tune 'Dreaming'. There's nothing really wrong with Refined, save that it lacks a little for personality and thus doesn't measure up to its multitude of sources. Sugar Bullet's music is a bit like the modified bar code they use for a logo — nice idea, but it doesn't quite work. RUSSELL BROWN PROCOL HARUM The Prodigal Stranger ' ; (Zoo) ... I guess it made sense for them to reform before some bunch of Aussies put together a tribute band. Actually, aside from lyricist Keith Reid, there's just three of the original playing members left, but it was they who formed the essential Procol Harum sound. Robin Trower's guitar still adds an unpretentious bite to the ecclesiastical redolence of Matthew Fisher's organ and Gary Brooker's piano. The musicianship is as fine as ever and Brooker's voice has lost none of its old English-soul-with-adenoids. Fora band whose last major album success was probably '72's Live With The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, this new set makes a welcome, if

qualified, return to form. Diehard fans will claim that all the material is good although sceptics and neophytes will regard the majority of songs as not much more than perfunctory vehicles

for the Procol Harum sound. Rhythmically, things generally plod along much as they always used to, but after a couple of listens an attractive tune or three becomes distinguishable, repeatable, even memorable. 'Holding On', for example, has a

yearning appeal along with moments of Caribbean flavouring, while 'One More Time' confidently rides the sort of laid-back semi-metal that Joe Walsh

once patented. While there may not be much on Prodigal Stranger to rival such glories of yesteryear as 'Homburg' or 'Conquistador' let alone the monumental Whiter Shade of Pale', at least Keith Reid is unintimidated enough by the past to recycle his famous line, "I wandered through my playing cards". And if what he and the band have dealt us is basically a

slightly shuffled hand from the same old deck, at least they're back in the game. PETER THOMSON CRASH TEST DUMMIES The Ghosts That Never Haunt Me (BMG) With a moniker that evokes a Gary Larson cartoon (Revenge of the...) and an album cover full of morose gothic symbolism, you'd have to admit the marketing strategy for this album is far from the norm. Especially from a Canadian band that sound like the Hothouse Flowers. But to pigeonhole them within the first paragraph would be terrible, so maybe I'll expound on that a little. The Crash Test Dummies are an 'interesting' band with members who have broad influences or, alternately, are very strange indeed. The lead singer sounds similar to Nick Cave (only a lot happier) or Tom Waites (with less concrete in his cups of coffee). Yet this isn't a darkened gothic type of band at all. Their sound is more modem folkish, country influenced, Irish gig on crack. Lyrically the music is very strong, the highlight being 'At My Funeral' which tells an enlightening (or depressing)

story of coming to terms with the afterlife. Throughout the album there are sprinklings of philosophy, social comment and Shakespeare — which strangely enough is good and bad at the same time. The atmoshphere created is very specific, a very late night, background music in a pleasant cafe type of sound. The Ghosts That Never Haunt Me is the type of album that will appeal, yet never surprise. And the Crash Test Dummies are a band who I can see progressing no further.

JOHN TAITE