albums

Rip It Up, Issue 202, 1 June 1994, Page 33

albums

I HOLE Live Through This (BMG) In ‘Doll Parts’ Courtney coos: “I want to be the girl with the most cake/1 love him so much it just turns to hate/l fake it so real I am beyond fake/ some day you will ache like I ache.” These words must seem more than ironically painful to her now in light of recent events. Kurt’s death couldn’t have come at a worse time for Courtney and Hole, she probably couldn’t care less about the album now but she’s been trying to prove herself for years. Hole’s last album, Pretty on the Inside, was less than impressive but this album is really really good. The band, consisting of guitarist Eric Eriandson, Patty Schmel on drums and Kirsten Pfaff on bass, are a tight, competent unit. They provide a continuously interesting backdrop for Courtney’s voice which is the main focus of Hole. Their music defies genre, they’re from Seattle but are certainly not grunge. All the songs have a heavy, acousticy/clean feel with drumming focused on timing and feel rather than loads of drum rolls and showing off. Hole would probably sound ordinary if they didn’t have a little bitta fire in them, the fire being Courtney Love. The thing that makes this album interesting is getting glimpses into Courtney’s brain. She may appear to be annoying at times but she’s totally onto it. Throughout the songs Courtney makes a parody of herself, she knows she’s fucked up a few times but she can admit it and make it kinda funny. On ‘Plump’ she states ‘‘l don’t do the dishes/l throw them in the crib", maybe as a reaction to reports that she’s a naughty, unconventional mother.

Although most of this album is gloriously floating with Courtney’s demons and gripes it does have some comic moments like ‘Miss World’ in which Courtney whines, Miss World style, “Ahhm Miss Wurld, somebody kill me” and the last song, ‘Rock Star’, which appears to be about how all the kids think there’s lotsa rock stars in Olympia (near Seattle). Courtney urges us to see that rock stars are real and they “walk the same/talk the same/fuck the same ... make us reeeaaal!”.The song winds down with Courtney saying “Do it for the kids . . . yeah."

You know how sometimes you have to wait ages for a really cool album that you can identify with and blah, blah, blah. Well this is the

one I’ve been waiting for. It’s not fantastic musically but it feels good, not to mention naughty. SHIRLEY-ANNE CHARLES I BAILTER SPACE Vortura (Flying Nun) Vortura, apparently, is Bailter-speak for ‘vortex’ and ‘future’, a perfect title fortheir immaculate fourth album. Perfect because all 11 songs are engulfing, entrancing and mesmerising, drawing you into their epicentre. Perfect also because Bai Iter Space continue to take the trad gat-bass-drums format into hitherto uncharted territory, supplemented by sprinkled samples. The end product is a hugely enveloping series of songs. Throughout Vortura, Alister Parker and John Halvorsen’s vocals barely rise above a whisper, the sound alone is enough to convey Bailter Space’s unique hypnotic vision. It’s one that comprises repetition, dense sound and visceral rhythms, with variations thereof on specific songs. Here they let technology enhance rather than dominate the songs. And anyone who says Bailter Space lack a sense of melody has failed to hear the illuminating ‘X’ or the slow rumbles of ‘Galaxy’ or ‘Voices’. Vortura is a convincing, all-powerful wholly original work by an inspired unit. Listening to it may leave you drained but also thankful that it rises above the otherwise numb stodge on offer. GRANT MCDOUGALL I THE AUTEURS Now I’m A Cowboy (Hut) Auteur is French for author and it’s also used to describe the type of new wave European film director that emerged in the 60s. These two definitions are the ideal introduction to the Auteurs and their ambitions through Luke Haines’ songwriting. Last year their debut, New Wave, ushered him in as a petulant, attention grabbing opportunist capable of grabbing the best from the Bolan/ Bowie catalogue and turning it to his best advantage. Haines is too sure of himself to have the dreaded second album blues and there’s no sign of the Auteurs choking on Now I’m A Cowboy which is even better than its predecessor. Whereas New Wave sagged a bit in the middle, Cowboy sustains the aggression and the pressure through key songs like the personal parody of ‘The French Girlfriend’ and the anti-Greenwich folkie ‘Chinese Bakery’. The album opens mightily with the fifth and final version of ‘Lenny Valentino’ and yes it is better than the single because it’s a bit slower and Haines’ guitar hacks away under

Nick Cave A

the final chorus. And if ‘Lenny’ has an acoustic/orchestral cousin then it’s the staccato, brilliantly visual ‘Underground Movies’. From beginning to end, it’s obvious that Haines’ scathing wit has created an album that’s bound to be amongst the year’s best. GEORGE KAY I BEASTIE BOYS 111 Communication (EMI) For a supposed bunch of no-talents destined to vanish real fast, the Beastie Boys have done pretty well for themselves. They’ve brought out three albums that have all been great and a step or two out from what everyone else in the rap world was doing. Now they have a little empire set up, stores, their own label (responsible for the brilliant Lucious Jackson album) and a magazine. They’ve also found time to put together yet another great album and this one’s called /// Communication. In a very un-Beasties move, it’s actually a relatively logical progression from the last album. The raps are still slightly dope-addled and free form, the beats are still pretty damn powerful and there’s still a strong jazzfunk feel to the album. The opening track ‘Sure Shot’ is a good example of this, driving along with a solid beat while the Boys twist rhymes all around it. The ‘actual real instrument’ thing is still a big attraction here, with some very nice 60s sounding organ based instrumentals cropping up. There’s also moments where the songs wander off down some strange doped out jazzy path, sort of psychedelic funk, but hard. I tend to be suspicious of song titles like ‘Bodhisativa Vow’ although I must admit the Beastie Boys do carry this off nicely. ‘Dark Magus’ era Miles it ain’t but the feel is pretty genuine. These guys know their funk and can play it with the right attitude. Then, just to be contrary, there’s the punk bits. Unfortunately the Beasties really aren’t a very good punk band, they sound like a smartass New York version of Minor Threat without the anger. The mosh-out excursions aren’t bad, they just aren’t all that good, with one notable exception, ‘Sabotage’. Here the Beasties throw what they’ve learnt from rap in with the rock and you end up with a punk song that boasts some mighty funky drums and little turntable flourishes in amongst the buzzsaw guitars. It’s strange but it works, and that pretty much sums up this whole album. KIRK GEE I NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS Let Love In (Mute) Without a doubt the most miserable of all the miserable sights on recent television was the video for insignificant Australian bar band the Screaming Jets’ wretchedly club-footed version of the Boys Next Door’s ‘Shivers’, the song that established Nick Cave as a ruined cabaret artiste even before he made a name for himself as a goat-kissing, self-immolating little insect. I’ve no good reason for making this observation except that parts of the new Cave album vaguely recall that song, inasmuch as they're sweet, sad and less bombastic than certain later recordings, with a production that’s lush but somehow muted, as far from the dry strumming of Henry's Dream as it is from the Screaming Jets’ expensive, “sincere” roughness. The best things of this sort, and probably the best bits of the album, are the countryish ‘Nobody’s Baby Now’ and ‘Lay Me Low', a convincing Cohen impersonation in which our hero makes a few good dead rock star jokes. Elsewhere the band locks into a dirty Waitstype shuffle for several songs and lurches through some drunken rock numbers, all decorated with stylish piano and organ figures and shimmery 50s guitar details. The words are generally funny and reflexive (the title track refers to “love’s ugly little twins” and ‘Jangling Jack’ is about a naive antipodean being humiliated by the world at large) with fewer embarrassing”my horse died on the second day” passages than one might expect. There isn’t that much more to say, really; it’s another Nick Cave album, it just happens to be the best produced and most consistently well written since Your Funeral ... My Trial. Buy it if you like this sort of thing, have a good excuse if you don’t. MATTHEW HYLAND I JIMI HENDRIX Blues (Polydor) The Jimi Hendrix guide to beautiful guitar: 1) Beat properly: The blues was at the root of Hendrix’s guitar playing, and whilst his vision took him far beyond them, he’d return and play them as deep as anyone. Much of Hendrix’s best guitar playing is his blues playing (including cosmic blues like ‘Little Wing’) and, it follows, Hendrix's blues playing is much of the best blues playing. 2) Be careful: Almost 25 years dead and

still releasing new albums, the ethics of Jimi’s vault controllers are a question I’ll ignore — I’m just glad to hear his stuff. Any posthumous studio tampering is not notated (but the guitar tone on ‘Mannish Boy’ at 3:43 seems odd). The cover graphic is inspired, the back of the liner booklet would be a fantastic poster. The liner notes are micro-detailed, if a tad disjointed, or a toke jointed. 3) Condition seriously: 72 minutes from just 11 tracks, Hendrix does a lot of “stretching out.” Most of the material has surfaced in some form on bootlegs, though the acoustic ‘Hear My Train A Comin” is on CD for the first time. There’s outtakes (an incredible first take of ‘Jam 292,’ retitled here as ‘Jelly 292’), studio revisits of earlier songs (an ‘Electric Church Red House’ with organ), and miscellaneous mutations (‘Voodoo Chile’ licks show up eve-

rywhere). 4) Do rely on celebrity endorsements: Hendrix said it best himself; "When music goes too far out and is in danger of becoming a technique, people always come back to basic honesty. That’s why the blues and country and western are at the foundations of our popular music.” And; “Dig the sound, it’s all freedom.”

5) Return to the blues lagoon: Full track listing is ‘Hear My Train A Comin” (acoustic), ‘Born Under A Bad Sign,’ ‘Red House,’ ‘Catfish Blues,’ ‘Voodoo

Chile Blues,’ ‘Mannish Boy,’ ‘Once I Had A Woman,’ ‘Bleeding Heart,’ ‘Jelly 292,’ ‘Electric Church Red House,’ ‘Hear My Train A Comin” (electric). The sound is superb, the guitar tone’s exemplary, the hair’s cooler than Brooke’s, too. ANDREW PALMER ISONIC YOUTH Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (Geffen) “Maybe I should give up on trying to like arty white guitar rock, but arty white guitar rock is kind of my roots, so I keep beating my head on the wall” — Chuck Eddy on Pavement (Where's the Snake? #ls). Sonic Youth is kind of my roots, so I keep getting their records (and going to their concerts), even though arty white guitar rock has meant very little to me for several years. Hearing ‘Death Valley ‘69’ and ‘She’s In A Bad Mood’ was an awakening experience in the mid-80s. And Evol in 1986, a record which hit the English music press with all the fervour of a young reviewer discovering his first thesaurus, pretty much parted the clouds. Whether peerless or just unlike their peers, Sonic Youth’s guitar textures harnessed beauty and chaos, spooky and loopy, in ways no one had. The spoken/sung moans of Kim Gordon introduced a weird, unsettling sexuality, seldom chartered on record before, where one-dimensional goofing is the usual way. At their height, songs like ‘Shadow Of A Doubt’ and ‘ln The Kingdom #l9’ were transportational - music that stands as a great achievement in the rock. A new Sonic Youth album in 1994 is a prospect I can’t separate from a new Pink Floyd album in 1994 — fine if you’re a fan, but unlikely to convert or transport. There are no new cards to play, Jet Set is as good as Sonic Youth’s standard, and that’s exceptional, but, to revisit the earlier metaphor, the clouds are back. It’s not raining, just overcast, perhaps a slight drizzle. Maybe a chance to ponder why TVNZ would get a new weather presenter who has a speech impediment. Improving on Goo, the songs are shorter. Differing from Dirty, there’s less noise, or at least more quieter passages substituting for sheets of feedback (though nothing’s compromised). ‘Starfield Road’ reminds me of some Chrome albums I sold a few years ago, ‘Doctor’s Orders’ has a classic rock riff lurking within, single ‘Bull In the Heather’ is ‘loo%’ part two. It’s a fine album, but at this stage Sonic Youth are a band I’ll like more than I actually listen to. ANDREW PALMER I JOHNNY CASH American Recordings (American) Johnny Cash meets Rick Rubin. Certainly an odd scenario but one that you, gentle music lover, can be thankful for. Factor in the songwriting assistance of folks like Tom Waits and Glenn Danzig and it goes beyond odd into the downright weird. What counts

however is the end result, and in this case it’s an album which is probably the best thing Johnny Cash has done since his glory days in the 60s. American Recordings is a real stripped down deal, just Johnny and a guitar with a bunch of songs, some old and some fresh out of the box. It’s all very simple and hinges on the fact that Johnny Cash can take just about any song and make it speak volumes. His own material works best, although Nick Lowe’s ‘The Beast In Me’ is a valiant attempt at writing a Johnny style song. (The Dark Lord Jnr himself, Danzig, also weighs in with ‘Thirteen’ which is even more overwrought than the stuff Johnny himself wrote during the pills and booze stage). There’s tracks like ‘Delia’s Gone’ and ‘Drive On’ which are just pure poetry; Johnny can somehow tap into that mainline of songwriting perfection and in about three minutes nail you to the floor. Cash manages to make just about anything his own. He lays down a very faithful version of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Bird On A Wire’ and sways beautifully through ‘Down There By the Train’ by another master of the songwriting art, Tom Waits. The best, of course, is saved for last. Last track on the album in this case and it’s a live recording of ‘The Man Who Couldn’t Cry’ written by Loudon Wainwright 111. This is the sort of thing that made Johnny’s name, a slightly twisted and bittersweet talking blues thing that he can really go to

Sonic Youth

work on. For an old guy with a guitar, Cash can really work some magic. American Recordings may not be the sort of album that everyone is going to jump on but that doesn’t stop it from being damn near a masterpiece. KIRK GEE I ROB WASSERMAN Trios (MCA/GRP) First there was the Solo album then Duets and now Wasserman has recorded his bass in a series of trio settings with a whole bunch of famous friends. Great idea but, given the diversity of those featuring and the fact that Wasserman isn’t always the dominating force in the sessions, the album as a whole is bound to lack coherence. It’s also uneven. Collaborators include Brian and Carnie Wilson, Elvis Costello and Mark Ribot (in acoustic mode), Bruce Hornsby and Branford Marsalis, Willie Dixon and Al Duncan, Chris Whitley and Les Claypool. Their tracks are all much to the standard one would expect. Then again some offerings — Edie Brickell and Jerry Garcia, Bob Weird and Neil Young — disappoint. Wasserman’s own ‘Bass Trilogies’ are pleasant enough but the nicest surprise is the two ‘Gypsy’ workouts with the cellists from the Kronos Quartet.

PETER THOMSON