albums

Rip It Up, Issue 204, 1 August 1994, Page 31

albums

MARVIN GAYE The Very Best Of Marvin Gaye (Motown)

Motown last released a Marvin Gaye greatest hits album in 1992, part of a series that also included Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. But it was inevitable that during 1994, the 10th anniversary of Marvin’s death, another would surface. Marvin Gaye was the smoothest operator ever and the owner of the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard.

He signed to Tamla/Motown in 1961 and had a string of hits including ‘Can I Get A Witness’ and ‘How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You’). During this period he also recorded many duets. His favourite singing partner was fellow Motown artist Tammi Terrell with whom he recorded the Ashford & Simpson penned tracks ‘You’re All I Need To Get By’, ‘Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing’, ‘The Onion Song’ and ‘You Ain’t Livin’ Till You’re Lovin.’ Occasionally the material released by Marvin in the 60s was nothing more than filler (‘Wherever I Lay My Hat’ and ‘lt Takes Two’, the latter a duet with Kim Weston) demanded of him by the label, but by 1970 he was a huge star thanks to the success of ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine.’ His personal life though wasn’t so rosy. Marvin’s marriage to Anna Gordy (sister of Motown boss Berry Gordy) was almost over, Tammi Terrell collapsed in his arms while on stage and later died of a brain tumour, and his use of drugs moved from recreational to excessive. The resulting album was What’s Going On, a

documentary of sorts, detailing Marvin’s hopes for the future of America. The title track became a leading anti-Vietnam war anthem and the album itself signalled Marvin’s move into writing songs that were more reflective of his own life. In 1973 he released the album Let's Get It On, the title song will always be one of the greatest things ever written. This album was fueled by Marvin’s break-up with Anna and his new relationship with 16 year old Janis Hunter. It was a strikingly personal record of loss and lust and it would’ve been a good idea to include in this package the tracks ‘Please Don’t Stay’ and ‘Come Get To This.’ During the remainder of the 70s Marvin released / Want You (‘76), an album devoted entirely to Janis (whom he later married) and later the stunningly vitriolic Here, My Dear. Prior to its creation an LA judge ordered Marvin to hand over all profit from his next album to his ex-wife. Marvin went away and returned with an album that delves painfully deeply into the breakdown of the relationship. From this came the song ‘When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You.’ Ironically, by the time Here, My Dear was released Marvin’s second marriage had collapsed and his career was heading quickly in the same direction.

He made a triumphant comeback in 1982 with the worldwide smash ‘Sexual Healing’, but it was shortlived.

The last year of Marvin’s life was spent at home with his mother in Los Angeles where he lived in a cocaine-induced state of paranoia and fear. On

April 11984 after a dispute with his father, Marvin Gaye Snr shot his son to death with a gun Marvin had given him four months previous. And a decade later it’s still very sad. JOHN RUSSELL I SUPERGROOVE Traction (BMG) Already this is one of New Zealand’s most successful selling local releases but numbers do not guarantee quality (e.g. Ace Of Base), so if you’re one of the few not to own Traction yet then you’d want to know if they’re going to be a flash-in-the-pan bunch of overnighters or the next scene defining Enz /Exponents /Fits before you part with your moola.

The answer is scene defining. In their own words from last month’s Rip It Up: “What is down on tape stands up by itself”. The complete lack of filler tracks has been critical to making Traction work, especially now that the singles ‘Can’t Get Enough’, ‘You Gotta Know’ and ‘Scorpio Girls’ have reached puke-if-l-hear-it-one-more-time status.

The remaining seven tracks are indicative of Supergroove coming of age with lyrics reflecting a band old enough to have done something, have girlfriends, get fired, get drunk. Like they say, gotta live the blues to sing the blues and the upgrade in Che Ness’ delivery on the slower bluesy ‘lnside My Head’ (next single) and ‘Only the Rain’ is a spine tingling success. Gone is the tweaky element, amen, and in its place is Fishbone/Specials/James Brown grooving. Supergroove’s reputation for a great live show will be enhanced by this album proving they can come up with the goods in the studio as well. My only criticism is the omission of the ‘Sister Sister’ track found on the CD single ‘Can’t Get Enough’ and that the matching clothes thing reeks of a Monkees co-ordinated marketing strategy, but hey, even Jesus wore sandals. HANS HOEFLICH I DEAD FLOWERS Sweetfish (Wildside) Since the release of their debut record Skin of a Stone, Dead Flowers have taken some giant leaps and bounds — lyrically and musically. The result is an LP that makes you wonder if you should listen to it in another room so your enjoyment will at least have some boundary. Sweetfish has ‘classic’ stamped all over it.

Lead singer Bryan Bell knows there’s more to writing a song than just emptying the tip of his tongue. Sweetfish is packed with tales of lust, love lost badly and semi-vague references to childhood traumas.

The strength of Sweetfish lies in the multitude of melodies created by Bell and guitarist Riqi Hadfield. ‘Same Same’ sucks you in immediately with a delicate piano hook and the dreamy ‘Spaceboy’ has the same effect. But it’s not all sweetness — songs such as ‘Gothic’ and the singles ‘Watch Her Play’ and ‘Home’ sound huge without being stadium rockers. Midway through the record a one and a half minute blast of bratty punk rock (‘What Do You Take Me For’) penned by Damon Newton will blast you out of any stupor. Three of Sweetfish’s proudest moments follow on. ‘Shades’ rides on a sublime wave of soaring chords and vocals, ‘Some Brain Ride’ alternates between a heavy monotonal riff and a crashing anthemic chorus and the rocking ‘Not Ready’ contains the most instantly memorable chorus since Carter wrote ‘She Speeds.’ Dead Flowers current live set features two brilliant new songs not on Sweetfish so you know there’s more to come, but for now this album is positive proof Dead Flowers are the new breed of New Zealand’s great guitar hopes. JOHN RUSSELL IBBM Around the Next Dream (Virgin) Cream reborn minus Eric Clapton — a bit like reforming the Jimi Hendrix Experience minus Jimi Hendrix — but, as they say, nevermind. Gary Moore lends his sur-initial to Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker for BBM. This conjures nasty visions of BBA — Beck, Bogert and Appice — the legendary (as in “legendarily awful”) Vanilla Fudge/Jeff Beck conglomerate. The only question is: can the virtuoso musicality be sufficiently constrained and placed in forward-moving songs, to avoid what we’ll call “the stodge." Apparently yes. The opening epic bluster of ‘Waiting In the Wings’ rewrites ‘White Room,’ complete with the same devastating wah licks and soaring-almost-out-of-tune Jack Bruce vocal. It’s a very exciting song. Then the stodge sets in for just about the rest of the album. It sounds alright, some of it very good, but stodge is stodge is stodge is stodge, and this is stodge. No question. The songs don't lead anywhere, other than into the next song. That’s adequate, but I was hoping for a whole album that would hoot like that first holler. ANDREW PALMER j KYUSS (Warners) There are two sides to Kyuss. They do zonked out, heavily distorted guitar and bass with stag-

gering (as in walking unevenly) rhythms — songs in which to barrel! down the highway to hell in your V 8 valient, dogs barking at the wind, beer bottles clanking in the back seat. They’re also quite good at quiet, spaced out, guitar-as-sitar, sometimes all in the same song. All the while singer John Garcia spins his metaphysical bullshit lyrics in songs called ‘Asteroid’, ‘Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop’, ‘Space Cadet' and ‘Conan Troutman’, to name the bulk. This music sounds like where it was made, out there in the middle of nowhere (the desert, Palm Springs, California) with the aid of too much beer and drugs — the way rock music should be made. Alright! You can just see John Garcia out there bellowing at the stars and I bet the guitarist felt the way his guitar sounds — concussed, occasionally chipping off weird sonic doodles that spin out into the stratosphere. They’re not trying to move you or make you feel their pain or tell you anything they think you should know, they’re just letting off. Particularly in that last 40 second song where John adopts a finger-clicking fake-Sinatra style and sings “You know you can and you do lick my doo-wop”. As Kyuss said in the title of their last song on their last album, ‘yeah’. DONNA YUZWALK I RICK JAMES Bustin’ Out — The Best of (Motown) An aptly titled release since James is chillin’ inside after dabbling with coke and forcing a woman to have sex with his girlfriend. James Ambrose Johnson was signed to Motown in 1978 and throughout the next decade gained a reputation as the label’s most controversial and outrageous star. Not only for the lyrical content of his songs but also for his outspoken views on drugs and sex, the two topics that seemed to inspire him most.

Bustin’ Out opens with ‘You And I’, the first single from his debut Motown album Come Get It and closes with a medley of seven of his biggest hits. The territory in between has no boundaries as James’ eclectic personality meant he could jump from hardcore butt shakin’ funk to laidback, sleazy

lust songs. It was the 1981 album Street Songs that pushed James into the realm of megastardom and it’s that album and the 1982 follow up Throwin’ Down that deliver this compilation’s best moments. Street Songs spawned the smooth slinky funk of ‘Ghetto Life’, a duet with Motown writer/singer/producer Teena Marie entitled ‘Fire And Desire’ and the classic funk anthem ‘Super Freak.’ James believed himself to be a bonafide love machine so consequently was at his best when trying to seduce. Songs such as ‘Give It To Me Baby’ and ‘Hard To Get’ are classic examples of funk for the bedroom. And special mention must be given to ‘l7’, an almost comical track taken from 1984’s Reflections album about James’ relationship with a 17 year old model. This two CD 27-track album is as good as any retrospective release can get. It features extensive and informative liner notes written by author David Ritz and plenty of photographs from the Motown archives and James’ own collection. But most of all it perfectly covers the many moods of the man who kept punk funk alive during the 80s. JOHN RUSSELL SEAL (ZTT) VIOLENT FEMMES New Times (Elektra) Two acts linked by the fact that their newest creative by-products don’t deserve separate or special consideration. Seal has taken it upon him-

self to be a new age guru and in the inner sleeve he profoundly observes that we (that’s you and I oh humble readers) are “at the dawning of a new spiritual age of awareness”. It takes the album to prove the wetness of that statement and although he stumbles across some lushly arranged good tunes, his misguided sincerity and desire to emulate the more maudlin aspects of Marvin Gaye’s What's Going On rule out his better judgement. The Violent Femmes album isn’t any less affected, it just sounds like it is. Gordon Gano’s jumpy, minimalist and whimsical rock and r’n’b’ish perspective owe more to the throwaway seriousness of a Jonathan Richman than to his obvious hero, Lou Reed. Gano has managed to keep the kids on a hook with short, snappy low-concentration but credible insights like ‘Machine’, ‘Four Seasons’ and ‘This Island Life’. It helps if you can sound bohemian. GEORGE KAY I HELMET Betty (Interscope) In Spinal Tap terms, the Amphetamine Reptile label was the “one louder” than Sub Pop outfit in the very late 80s, its reputation mostly hinging on some great Halo Of Flies singles. Helmet emerged on that label at this decade’s dawn, defined the Amßep sound, then escaped to potential big-time success — notably with the crunching ‘Unsung’ in 1992. A nine-spot guide to the Helmet sound: They are (1) uncompromisingly heavy, (2) music-as-machin-ery, (3) Steve Albini-endorsed, (4) popular with cyborgs, (5) an MX-80 Sound for the 90s, (6) audi-ence-detached, (7) special friends of Dr. Spock, (8) “cerebral,” (9) sort of a Matthew Hyland aesthetic, though probably not inventive enough or “too rock,” but maybe the lousy vocalist would qualify them. The best thing about Helmet is that their “impersonality” is so extreme, and almost original, that by comparison they make noted social losers the Jesus & Mary Chain seem like Ted “tonight’s-the-night-all-right-out-of-sight-baby-hold-tight” Nugent. The funniest thing about Helmet has been their leader Page Hamilton earnestly explaining how he isn’t a metalhead but in fact John Coltrane reborn on guitar when his playing contains nothing to distinguish him from the heroes in Slayer. There’s fourteen songs onßetty, three less than Samantha Fox’s Greatest Hits album. There are two songs that I have use for on Betty, three less than Sam’s disc. That gives Fox a winning 29.4% success rate over Helmet’sl4.3%. Remember, in Ice T parlance: stats don’t lie, they multiply. ANDREW PALMER

I THE EAGLES The Very Best Of (Elektra) Following on from the Best Of of a few years back, here we have almost everything else a fan needs: ‘Take It Easy’, ‘Witchy Woman’, ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’, ‘Tequila Sunrise’, ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ and of course ‘Hotel California’, perhaps the spookiest ever evocation of the deathly spirit of 70s decadence — a masterpiece, far superior in lyrical content, arrangement and melodic impact to anything you’ll hear on the radio today. Alas, the Eagles Tribute album version of ‘Tequila Sunrise’ sounds more artful than the original here. What we’re missing here is ‘Victim of Love and ‘ which combines acute social prophecy with some of the lovliest music ever committed to rock n’roll vinyl, just one of the many mystical sleight of hands the Eagles were capable of at their best (and when weren’t they?). See you at the show in November. DONNA YUZWALK I VARIOUS ARTISTS Kiss My Ass (Mercury), A number of squares have chirped about the well-past-a-good-idea redundancy of tribute albums, and that may be “true,” but what’s to take seriously? These records are fun. At their best they’re crass, stupid and fun. Same thing holds true for the rock behemoth known as Kiss. Therefore, the same thing holds doubly true for their tribute album. Herewith, the good: 1) Lenny Kravitz injects his designer drug haze into ‘Deuce’ with Stevie Wonder honking on harp. The best Kiss songs ripped off sunshine sources — The ‘Deuce’ riff is the Stones’ ‘Bitch’ with the key changed by Gene Simmons, testament to his happy hunter instincts. 2) ‘Hard Luck Woman’ was a thin rewrite of ‘Maggie May,’ and it’s a smiling thing to hear Garth Brooks sing it like he was Rockin’ Chair Rod himself. In her country article Donna dismissed Brooks outright as a shmoo, oblivious that his ‘The Thunder Rolls’ is basically Skid Row’s ‘lB And Life’ — both textbook lessons in Kiss/Lou Reed melodrama. 3) The most unexpected and certainly best cut is ‘Black Diamond’ by Yoshiki. Complimenting the Replacements’ ragged cover of the same song on Let It Be, a classical orchestra performs the piece. 4) Die Arzte apply a heavy Kraut crunch to ‘Unholy’ before seguing into a disco break with ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You,’ complete with castrato vocals — something we don’t hear anywhere near enough of, castrato vocalists sadly having been ridiculed out of commission. People, the rest: 5) The Mighty Mighty Bosstones pound through

‘Detroit Rock City,’ my second favourite Kiss song, and do it thuggishly proud. Toad The Wet Sprocket get bonus invention points for slowing ‘Rock And Roll All Nite’ into their usual wistful sensitive-young-boy-with-his-hand-in-his-pants ballad. It also gets them the too-bad-it’s-not-a-good-idea award. Everyone else is boring. Hence, the stats: Out of twelve tracks, four are cool, one is moderate, nine are forgettable. A formula which equals a standard Kiss album. ANDREW PALMER VARIOUS The Best of Totally Wired (Acid Jazz) FUNDAMENTAL Seize The Time (Nation/Beggar’s Banquet) STRANGE PARCELS Disconnection (On U Sound) The quality material released on Acid Jazz & Talkin’ Loud has been slim pickings recently, having been overshadowed by recent issues/reissues on labels such as Luv n Haight, Mo’Wax and even Blue Note, making the Petersen labels look like they’ve run out of momentum. The Best of Totally Wired has familiar faces Brand New Heavies with a whole raft of bands whose albums haven’t been locally released combining funk, jazz & soul for a compilation which seems to focus as inspiration on only one period in the history of those traditions with a very 70s sound. Tracks that make the grade as far as the

groove factor goes are ‘Soul Sacrifice’ (a Santana cover) by Mother Earth with a Hammond-guitar fusion over percussion madness and the Ulf Sandberg Quartet which is a little more trad jazz but still with the funk sensibility. At times the album strays into the crap light vocal soul sound but that shouldn’t bother anyone with a remote control.

The Fun-Da-Mental album has been long awaited by anyone with any kind of Nation records leaning and I can quite safely say now if you dug the other Fundamental shit you’ve heard then buy this now — it’s more of the same but better.

The rapping on the album has improved immensely due to the departure of Goldfinger whose rapping on the earlier single ‘Countryman/Tribal Revolution’ had them pegged in a few minds as a band whose instrumentals were better than the LP cuts — never fear, they

now have competent and authoritative rapping to accompany their lethal cocktail of Traditional Indian instruments, Black civil rights speeches, religious posing and serious beats. More of a hiphop album than old stablemates Trans Global Underground. From the new school to the old — the Strange Parcels (Tackhead without Sherwood) are back to lay some more scuzzy distorto pop on y’all with typical OnU efficiency. The album has two tracks

which have been on Pay It All Back three and four (one each), reworkings of ‘Disconnection’ and ‘Danger’ which both sound kinda looser than the originals, a trend throughout the whole album. This album confirms that OnU have a spiritual home in the massive dysfunctional family that is the Strange Parcels carrying the torch of bass heavy, fuzzy guitar, growled choruses (which are a testament to the herb), weird samples etc. No, they ain’t lost it. JUBTAVERY I THE WHO Thirty Years of Maximum R&B (Polydor) The latest in the current fad of deluxe multiple CD packages is a long and deserving look at the Who — four discs and a seventy page booklet spanning the chequered career of Townshend and company right from their early Shepherd’s Bush mod days as the High Numbers through to their failed attempt at recovering lost vitality in the early 80s. Right from Townshend’s furious rant at the 1971 Long Beach Arena (“This is a fuckin’ rock and roll concert not a fuckin’ tea party”) Thirty Years captures the ups and downs of a band that should have left more great albums in their wake. Arranged in roughly chronological order the first disc deals with the early explosive Who singles written by a young Townshend smarting over the fact that he had a nose like a trowel and a reali-

sation that rock n’roll was his generation’s best medium for expressing his fury. ‘My Generation’ (the single and the album), ‘Substitute’, ‘Pictures of Lily’ et al sound fresher than ever in their remastered form but it wasn’t long before Townshend got sidetracked by the idea that rock was serious art — his early mini-opera ‘A Quick One’ gets an unreleased live display here. The soaring ‘I Can See For Miles’ opens the second disc which is largely devoted to the best songs from Tommy, the full blown and erratic rock opera that led to a far worse album in the mod fable Quadrophenia. This disc is largley devoted to songs from Who’s Next, their best and most fully realised album released in 1971, the middle of their best period.

Yet it was as a live band that the Who made their greatest impact. Their’s was a cartoon lineup with Daltrey, the archetypal frontman,Townshend the mad windmilling guitar destroyer, Entwhistle the ox and Moon the manic street clown. They held the title as the world’s greatest live rock n’roll band well into the 70s and proof of that is scattered through Thirty Years in tracks from the monumental Live At Leeds and in previously unreleased material. The very patchy final disc is evidence of the band in serious decline without Moon. Townshend realised that punk had well and truly wrested away any anger and energy he had left in advancing years. Still, rock and roll would have been inestimably poorer without the Who — the American hard rock scene that emerged in the early 70s, London bands from the Jam to Blur, the status of rock as a vital “art form” and more importantly as the chief mouthpiece for successive youth cultures all owe heaps to the Who. Their influence far outweighed the sum of their impressive but erratic output. GEORGE KAY

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS (Warner Bros)

Butt for brains concept here: an eight song, 38 minute disc of out-takes and take-outs coupled with the Blood Sugar Sex Magik album in its original form. The extra songs are strictly “fans only" (that’s being generous) and all fans who’d want them will already have the Blood Sugar album — so to get the new stuff they have to buy the album twice. Who thought that one up? Congratulations on a solid winner idea. The new stuff might entice fence sitters who couldn’t decide whether to get Sugar Sex, but that album came out three years ago, and that’s a long time to sit on a fence (unless you really, really like the fence). The two extra tracks worth hearing are ‘Sikiamikanico,’ a stop-start funk-thrash muscle flex, and the well known ‘Soul To Squeeze’, a breezy tune with understated guitar which, following the excellent ‘Breaking the Girl’ and ‘Under the Bridge’ shows that this band’s strength is In its ballads — something contrary to expectation. The Sex Magik album is well enough known to need only brief mention here. It’s effortlessly superior to similarly sprawling epics Use Your Illusion I and 11, and one of the 90s best and most significant albums — something else contrary to expectation. ; . ANDREW PALMER I DRIVE LIKE JEHU Yank Crime (Interscope) As this is a major label debut, I feel justified doing some historical here. Jehu are a San Diego fixture (and San Diego is the new Seattle, or at least one of them) who spun off into Rocket From the Crypt. Basically the same core of guys doing two bands and drawing a ton of attention from assorted majors. Eventually they wound up in the

arms of Interscope, and Rocket released a disappointing album. Noise and attitude abounded but without any real direction. It was a generic loud mishmash and thus I faced this album with a jaundiced ear. Luckily, Yank Crime sticks with the tried and true Jehu formula and is all the better for it. The boys just shoot at that big dynamic rock sound: distorted guitars hard up front, howled vocals and a frenetic pace. At times this just succeeds in sounding like Fugazi by numbers , but when Jehu find their feet it’s a fine and wonderful thing with the rule of thumb seeming to be ‘longer is better’. A few tracks, most notably ‘Luau!’ and ‘Sinews’ delve into nine minute territory, and this seems to give Jehu room to loosen up and concentrate on the business at hand. Rather than fool around with limp psychedelic doodling a la S. Pumpkins, Jehu set up big riff fests and let the guitars work off of one another while still having room to fool around with tempos and not have the whole thing sound like four minutes of John Zorn. It’s all harmless fun really but Yank Crime is a fine sounding album that tries to give you a little kick for your dollar and more often than not it succeeds. KIRK GEE I VARIOUS ARTISTS Insanity (Columbia) A few weeks ago I caught myself humming along to ‘Alive’ and thinking “You know, Pearl Jam aren’t that bad a band.” I got home and cued up the Sonics’ ‘Psycho’ and ‘Strychnine.’ Needless

to say, sense was soon restored. Pearl Jam are an abomination, dyed in the wool. The music they play, is void of the rock. Jit’s not grunge, it’s, as Theodore Dreiser would say, an American tragedy. Pearl Jam are not on Insanity, but they could have improved it, perish the thought. It compiles fifteen cuts from the alternative . mainstream bands ostensibly spawned from hardcore punk yet owing nothing to Husker Du or the Angry Samoans or anyone good. The lowest denominator rules — songs with no melody, just dunderhead riffs. There are some exceptions, I won’t name them, but these bands — Infectious Grooves, Tad, Urge Overkill, Living Colour, White Zombie, Suicidal Tendencies, Fishbone, Rage Against the Machine, Naked Truth, Prong — they all sound like Genesis to me, and they all suck. A rhetorical question: at precisely five days older than Shannen Doherty, am I so out of touch with the music of . "the kids” that I shouldn’t be doing this review — but should . pass it on to someone getting excited over a first ear piercing or condom purchase? If so, how does that reconcile with the hot new bands on Insanity who started in the 70s, whose members are pushing forty, let alone thirty? It doesn’t. To paraphrase Pete “the Nose” Townshend, the kids are not alright — verily, they are fucked. ’ . ~ .. This music is bad for the soul, for it has none. I can live with that. What I can’t live with is that it is totally, inexcusably, dick-shrinkingly boring. ANDREW PALMER CHRIS BAILEY 54 Days at Sea (Mushroom) x DAVE GRANEY WITH THE CORAL SNAKES You Wanna Be There But You Don’t Wanna Travel (Phonogram) ■ THE CHURCH Sometime, Anywhere (Mushroom) VIKA AND LINDA (Mushroom) This month’s Aussies are led out by Bailey’s new album which , is an attempt by our favourite wastrel to haul himself from the clutches of the damned into a world of doubt, betrayal and the occasional gleam of hope. When we last saw him in the boozy, decadent Savage Entertainment two years ago he was singing about a world gone mad and now after a purgatory of riding bikes in Scandanavia and discovering the rocking Salazar brothers in Sweden he metaphorically takes to the sea. And this is a healthier sounding Bailey with the opening ‘Fountain of Life’ gleaming with an optimism that just survives the beautiful bitterness and pan flutes of ‘Lazarus’ and the aching pop of ‘Nothing’s As It Seems’ and Beatles-ish ‘Drowned by the Sound’. Drinks at Lucifer’s are behind him blit.Bailey still serves up a good song

in his ascent to a world slightly less mad. Dave Graney has been teetering on legendary status for a couple of years now with his unfrilled bohemian style that spans the difference between the Cruel Sea and the likes of the Go-Betweens. On his new album he takes a fairly wordy look at Australiana and his own personal life abetted by the Coral Snakes who’re subtle but insistent and colourful behind Graney’s pervasive, unaffected vocal presence. He makes his prime moves on off-beat but elemental r&b songs like ‘Won’t You Ride With Me’ and ‘The Stars Baby, the Stars’ and on up-beat but harnessed stuff like ‘There Was A Time’. Yet these are only indicative of an album that’s impressively consistent and one that deserves to lift Graney from private legend to public property. From organic to cerebral and yeah, it’s the Church trying to recover from the embarrassingly insubstantial and ostentatious Priest-Aura of two years ago. Time recovers most of their lost solidity with the opener ‘Day of the Dead’ showing a few teeth and elsewhere ‘The Maven’ and ‘My Little Problem’ have enough tuneful backbone to counteract the conservative experimentalism that Kilbey and Willson-Piper and their apologists fancifully believe explore new veins in rock n’rolL Let’s just accept a Church album that has a few good songs, some good playing and isn’t totally naff. Last and probably least it’s Vika and Linda, a female duo who’ve sung background vocals for various bands. Here they’re helped out by friends who just happen to be a list of minor Aussie superstars whose albums they’ve graced. So Paul Kelly produces, plays and writes five songs ranging from lightweight reggae to pleasant country, Mark Seymour contributes a strident rocker and Nick Barker and Joe Camilleri also pitch in. It takes the idea of help from your friends to amiable extreme. GEORGE KAY CRUNT (Shagpile/Flying In) Crunt are a band who obviously couldn’t be called what they wanted to be called, so they placed an ‘r’ in it and are now socially acceptable. Crunt are a three piece made up of Kat BjellandGray (Babes, in Toyland), and husband Stuart Gray aka Stu Spasm (ex Lubricated Goat) and I forget the drummer’s name. Stu plays guitar and sings and Kat plays bass and sings on one song ‘Unglued’ which is the best song on the album. Kat sings in her usual demented style, with grunts of ‘hoor’ and ‘yeah’, Kat screeching that she’s cornin’ to get us and the song rolls along, bulldozing its way all over the other tracks. There’s a strong Stooges-ish feel throughout, with Stu sounding a little bit Iggy-like vocally, live sounding drums and sleazy, smoking guitar riffs throughout. ‘Punishment’ is probably the worst

track, being all over the place and not coming together as well as the plain rockin’ ‘Spam’ and ‘Elephant’. All the songs have quirky overriding guitar melodies laced across the top of the main riff in a similar vein to bands like Scratch Acid and Jesus Lizard but the Crunt sound is a tad rawer and not as polished. Crunt sings songs of America’s bad culture, and their music smells of bad stuff leaking out of bars in sleazy little towns. When you listen to this you can leave this country without ever having to physically go to theirs, but you can feel what it’s like to be there ... if you know what I mean. SHIRLEY-ANNE CHARLES I STONE TEMPLE PILOTS Purple (Atlantic) The Stone Temple Pilots follow their bulk unit shifting debut Core with their second offering, Purple. The “elegant bachelors” derided in Pavement’s song ‘Range Life’ offer an album of not too heavy, not too light rock. The tracks cover a wide variety of genres — Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Jane’s Addiction etc. The end result is an album that should please the cash strapped grunge initiate. Sorta like The Trip but with only one artist credited. Purple resembles a Reader’s Digest approach to 90s rock. The plot is there but the end result is a less than satisfying whole. Certain tracks show promise, in ‘Kitchenware’ and ‘Candybars’ STP show a nice line in melancholic songwriting as well as coming closest to achieving their own sound. For the casual browser Purple may suffice but for the dedicated researcher Mother Love Bone and Green River offer more challenging fare. KEVIN LIST PATIENCE DABANY SUPER GUITAR SOUKOUS REGGAE AFRICA ELECTRIC AND ACOUSTIC MALI Hemisphere Compilations (emi) The success of Peter Gabriel’s Realworld label has obviously encouraged EMI to market a selection of its extensive African catalogue on this new label. Packaged in a style not unlike that pioneered by Realworld these albums survey three of the dominant styles in contemporary African music. The Patience Dabany compilation showcases the recordings of a previously little known singer/percussionist from the Central African Republic. The beats range from Zairian Soukous to those derived from the rhythms of her own country. The album closes with a funky Afro hiphop number, ‘Fly Girl’, which should have even Queen Latifah envious. EMI are obviously strong on Soukous with numbers by many of the rumba

based style’s current stars featured on the Super Guitar Soukous compilation. Like the rest of the series the compilation exhibits considerable diversity even within the one style of music. At the same time the songs are clearly linked by a focus on the ‘super’ guitar skills employed by Soukous proponents. Reggae has made huge inroads into African music over the last ten years spearheaded by Alpha Blondy of Cote D’lvoire. The Reggae Africa set concentrates on music from the two strongholds of African reggae in Cote D’lvoire and South Africa. African reggae has gone back to its roots which makes this compilation a real gem for the reggae fan pining for the good old days of roots rock. Harley and the Rasta Family’s ‘Sweet Reggae Music' could well be destined for a place up there with anthems by the late great Bob Marley. At the state sponsored competitions Mali has been churning out artists and recordings faster than anyone knows what to do with. Consequently only a fraction of the output sees release in the rest of the world. Electric and Acoustic Mali is as good a selection of Mali music as you’ll find anywhere. You might as well get the real thing rather than wait for some deep-trance merchant to dish up the watered down version for white folks. NICKY JONES

I THE ORB Pomme Fritz (Island) Sub-titled The Orb’s “little album” means it’s less than a day long and since it clocks in at around 40 minutes, means that it was originally designed to be a single. Pomme Fritz is the first new studio material from the kings of ambience since UFOrb defined the present aural extremities of inner and outer space. Pretentious? Yep. But rib-nudgingly humorous is also a characteristic that could be levelled at this over-grown single which stretches from the expected tranquil cascading mind massages of the title track and ‘Alles Ist Schoen’ to the disfunctional samples, atmospherics and hypnotic repetitions of ‘More Gills Less Fishcakes’ and ‘We’re Pastie to Be Grill You’. As captivating as this Pomme Fritz entree undoubtedly is, the Orb can’t afford to rest on their cosmic cornflakes, especially when Orbital and the Future Sound of London have captured the techno/ambient initiative in the last two years. A main course urgently needed. GEORGE KAY I THE CHURCH Sometime Anywhere (White) Call me nostalgic, but I fondly remember when the Church used to write jangly pop anthems like ‘An Unguarded Moment’. I’d be the last to suggest they should be preaching the same gospel a decade later and indeed on Sometime Anywhere Steve Kilbey and Marty Wilson-Piper prove to be that rare thing — a church that moves with the times. The songs on this latest album (and bonus 7-track CD Somewhere Else) are heavy on the ambient/groove/trance thang, a facet of their sound that has always existed, but here rises to the surface in convincing style. So the slightly one dimensional jingle-jangle morning of the early days has all but disappeared, replaced by something of far greater scope. There’s a veritable melting pot of influences on Sometime Anywhere from the Latin American flourishes of ‘Day of the Dead’ to the Eastern vibe of (surprise) ‘Eastern’. Combined with a large smattering of hip-hop loops and rhythms the resulting sound is bang up to date yet essentially timeless in feel. Some tracks are shorn of these immodest trappings and display values more traditionally associated with the Church. The wonderful acoustic strum of ‘Business Woman’, the soaring chorus of ‘The Myths You Make’ or the ferocious guitar work out of ‘The Maven’, whose vocal “yeahl’s” are delivered with the enthusiasm of someone who’s recently swallowed a bottle of cough mixture. It’s typically Church and the resulting magic suggests that even if the band has one eye fixed on the heavens the other remains gazing

over their shoulders to the past. MARTIN BELL IL7 Hungry For Stink (Slash) With their second major label LP L 7 demonstrate what happens to a band with maybe one great EP in them when they get contracted to spew out album after album. They started off with half a dozen good ideas, all of which were used up on that excellent first EP Smell the Magic. L 7 should have stopped there, with maybe a quick world tour to cash in on their appeal. But of course they got signed to a major after the EP, which is like locking the gate after the horse has bolted. So by now, two albums on, we’re getting a tired retread of ideas which were thin (although fun) in the first place : the freaky cartoon song titles, the leering harmonies, the simple-minded trashy approach to playing rock music, the spectacle of four messy looking chicks making a racket on stage. But by now, instead of coming over like some kind of loud, obnoxious cartoon rock band L 7 just sound lazy, messy and kind of sour. DONNA YUZWALK I THE UNDERTONES The Undertones Hypnotised Positive Touch The Sin of Pride (Rykodisc) American imports of the Undertones four albums (with a few added tracks) allows a return visit to the genius of the O’Neills, Damian and John. Hurtling from Derry, Ireland in 1979 just after punk had all but fizzled out, the band released the instantly classic pop of the Teenage Kicks EP and they carried that form into a first album that still oozes adrenalin and perfection with the vulnerable warble of a young Sharkey up front. From there Hypnotised tried to be more of the same but the band were rushed into it and even though it has its fair share of gems (‘My Perfect Cousin’, ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ and ‘Tearproof’) the album didn’t quite have the unity, charm and momentum of the first. With Positive Touch they abandoned kinetic pop for something more melancholy and ambitious but success was mixed. ‘Julie Ocean’ still sends shivers, the vaguely political ‘lt’s Going To Happen’ with its prodding bass is still exhilerating, and ‘Life’s Too Easy’ made a memorable point. But in retrospect the album lacked power and cohesion, probably because the band’s broader psychedelic horizons were too stylised by producer Roger Bechirian. So for their final album they tried a new producer and another style deciding to opt for melodic r&b and soul laced with horns and carefully

arranged instrumentation. The result, although flawed, showed that the O’Neills were masterful songwriters in things like ‘Valentine’s Treatment’ and ‘Bye Bye Baby Blue’ and that Sharkey had developed into something of a singer as he proved tackling Smokey Robinson’s ‘Save Me’. But the band had reached the end of its creative life and with the commercial death of The Sin of Pride the inevitable split happened leaving this legacy of some of the most sparkling pop to come from post-punk Britain. GEORGE KAY I SUPERCONDUCTOR Hit Songs for Girls (Boner) And now folks, it’s time to talk about rock, real rock. In these fallow times, America is all about sensitive flannel angst or geeks arguing over who’s the most alternative while the best England can manage is Primal Scream and their Boy George fronting T-Rex impersonation. Thus we turn to Canada, home of Bachman Turner Overdrive, Michael J Fox and Superconductor. It’s the latter we are concerned with as they’re overflowing with the rock. First up, there’s about six guitarists in this band so right there you’re off to a fine start. Factor in some nifty pop writing along with a good sense of how to manipulate the noise and Hit Songs For Girls is looking like the proverbial business. Superconductor just jump right out of the box and go at your jugular with ‘Scootin’, a nice chunky powerhouse of a song, and the pace doesn’t let up for a second. The multiple guitar thing may not be cut out for subtlety but it gives Superconductor a lot of room to set up some impressive dynamics within the songs and they maintain control the whole way. There's no point where this album is reduced to a bunch of mooks trying to play over each other and thus creating more noise than tune (except for the last track ‘Feedbackin” but it seems to be a concept piece involving 20 plus minutes of samples, strange tapes of strange folks and a white noise version of ‘Helter Skelter’. The best thing about such concepts is listening to them once then ignoring them). Possibly the only weakness here is the pace of Hit Songs, which is pretty unrelenting the whole way through. It’s a lot of sound for our brains addled by all that milk-toast grunge yet it’s worth the effort. This record, strangely enough, reminds me of great early Rn’B — it’s simply a celebration of being alive enough to make this much noise and being able to have this much fun while still writing some good songs. Hit Songs For Girls is probably not going to score any major label deals for Superconductor but it’s made me love 'em. This is a rare and genuine stroke of musical genius. Go and buy it now.

KIRK GEE