PopMatters Music Short Takes

The Radishes, Strychnine (Standoffish Productions)

The Radishes feature Wayne Kramer on a song here. It’s always a good thing to have a member of the MC5 around if you want to consider yourself a true rock and roll band. But The Radishes don’t just rely on Kramer’s cameo chops on this four-song EP. Oh no. The group’s title track is a brawny, ballsy and brazing rock tune that sounds like it came from the streets of New York, namely the same streets The New York Dolls once roamed. On the other hand, The Radishes ramble through the boogie-filled and groovy “Astronaut Love Triangle” which is a slow burning kind of track thanks to the vocals and guitar work of Paul Stinson (no relation to Tommy or Bob that we know of). At four songs, there’s not a lot to get overly excited about, but they make each moment count, whether it’s on the garage-y “Nowhere/Somewhere” or when they make a bold statement and cover the John Lennon tune “I Found Out”. And they do the song justice thankfully by putting their own subtle spin on the great original. [Amazon]

Alan Licht & Aki Onda, Everydays (Family Vineyard)

The spatial dynamics on Everydays by sound sculptor Alan Licht and laptop composer/cassette manipulator Aki Onda’s are not unlike those Sun Ra home recordings in that they sound like they could have been recorded in a vacated studio apartment or an art gallery. But Everydays is a fantastically deliberate and textural album, one that makes magic out of murky mixing boards. 

Collaborations in the noise and experimental community are dime-a-dozen (throw a stick and you’ll likely hit one), but rarely do you find one as satiating as this one. Onda and Licht play to each other’s strengths with finely honed ears. Licht, often known for his sparse minimalist aesthetic, brings himself to the fore to handle the organics (moody and tempered Derek Bailey style guitars) while Onda handles the processed noises like tape loops, gradated drones, insectual squeaks, and sandpaper static. At times the two styles coalesce, trading places or engaging in some kind of frictional transference, but most moments find some kind of wonderfully symbiotic parallax. It’s a euphonic cacophony, a yin and yang type of thing, a full realization of what it means to duet. 

Actually, the opener “Tick Tock” is the work of a trio, crediting the third player as Manolo Martinez, who judging by his vocals and keyboard style couldn’t be a day over 12. I’m sure many critics of freeform music like this would love to interpret Martinez’s role on the album as proof of the genre’s juvenilia posing as academia. But if you can’t find the music, mystery, or beauty in an adolescent pounding on a keyboard as a peer to the sound of two atonal master maestros jamming harmoniously atop it, perhaps this is not the album for you. [Amazon]

TimLee3, Good2b3 (The Paisley Pop Label)

A veteran of Windbreaker, a mid-1980s jangle garage band, Tim Lee has been seeking out the juncture where psychedelic pop and roots rock meet for decades. Here with his first band as a trio (himself, his wife Susan on bass and drummer Rodney Cash), he finds the same hard-kicking, country-tinged grooves as Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3. That works pretty well in the guitar chiming, bass-driven chug of “Saving Gracie”, with Tim Lee trading off vocals with Susan, and room for a big side-winding guitar solo mid-cut. It’s even more successful in trippy, surfy “Chuck Berry in Space”, wrapped in the echo and ardor of a True West song. There’s even a nice haze of nostalgia to “Mile Long Midway”, about the small town ritual of summer fairs ("Corn dogs and a Kiss tee-shirt / Girls so pretty that they make you hurt."). Still Good2b3 feels overlong, even at 48 minutes. Towards the end, you feel like you’ve been standing at the bar for few too many hours, trying to groove to the too-forced boogie of “End of the Road”, swaying blearily through “Just One More (for Larry Brown)”, and tapping feebly to the undercooked mayhem of “I Like It Like That”. It’s not bad, but not nearly as good as the bands it reminds you of. [Amazon]

Kaskade, Strobelite Seduction (Ultra)

For the most part, Ryan Raddon’s second album for the Ultra label keeps to what the San Fransisco-based producer/DJ does best. That means smooth, dreamy, song-based trance. Suitably ethereal, siren-like vocals are provided by regular collaborators Becky Jean Williams (Late Night Alumni) and Haley Gibby (Summer of Space) along with British dance artist Tamra Keenan. Mainstay producer/musician Finn Bjarnson is on board as well. This all adds up to a familiar yet welcome sound, one that’s enhanced by some new collaborators. Deadmau5 helps lend standouts “Move For Me” and “I Remember” a floaty, effortless feel that makes for simultaneous dreaming and dancing. “Back on You”, a hookup with London-based duo Count de Money, yields danceable pop with an undeniable hook. And the Raddon/Bjarson axis is on point with the sassy “Angel on My Shoulder”, which plays like a lost mid-’80s Stevie Nicks smash. The handful of undistinguished ballads get lost in the shuffle, but that doesn’t stop Strobelite Seduction from moving Kaskade up another rung on the ladder of trance greats. [Amazon]

Pink Skull, Zeppelin 3 (Free News Projects)

Born in a sea of heavy hallucinogens and laser beams, the debut full-length from Julian Grefe and Justin Geller is bound to simultaneously send trucker hat hipsters and candy ravers for a loop. Funky beats, congas, glitch, acid synths, and bizarre vocals tweaks coalesce into various incarnations of house, techno, breaks, indie rock, and noise as if the DFA were producing a Royal Trux and Mouse on Mars collaboration. Saying this sampledelic electronic album is not a mere collection of singles is an understatement. I have not heard this many influences channeled through such an exciting full-length experience since UNKLE’s Psyence Fiction. Zeppelin 3 is the album to make everyone lose their shit at your next house party or outdoor festival. Forget the Klaxons, rave-punk is reborn anew. [Amazon]

Kenny Wheeler, Other People (CAM Jazz)

One could be forgiven for thinking that jazz horn maven Kenny Wheeler’s latest disc belongs to the classical genre. Wheeler employs the Hugo String Quartet to create an elegant, chamber music sound. And Wheeler doesn’t even play his trumpet or flugelhorn on two of the eight self-penned compositions here, “Nita” and String Quintet n.1”. But it really doesn’t matter how one categorizes this disc. The music and the playing are graceful and glorious. Wheeler, who is 78 years old now, was 75 when he recorded this, and the record captures the elegiac beauty born of experience. He’s joined by pianist John Taylor on several tracks and the two men combine to create a wondrous tone that evokes the still small voice that exists within all of us. One doesn’t have to be spiritual to appreciate Wheeler’s talents. Listening attentively to his music will bring out those latent feelings, even from the most cynical human beings. [Amazon]

Bell, EP (self-released)

Later on in 2008, Bell will be a much more recognizable name. If she’s not, then there really is no logic to who gets recognized in the music world. Music this good deserves any recognition it gets. These six songs are, at heart, energetic and emotive piano pop. And if that were all they were, they’d still be excellent. Instead, Olga Bell builds deconstructionist squalls around them, and isn’t afraid to show you the seams. The EP starts with a crowd cheering, implying a live quality to the music that is coming, an immediacy. But, just a few seconds in, Bell brilliantly cuts up the crowd noise and uses it in spurts as the backbeat to “Echinacea”, the first track. There is a confidence in the way Bell gives her process away, in how she lets us the see the songs piece by piece. It makes the thick compositions all the more inviting, and allows us closer to her hard-felt bellow of a voice, backed by piano and guitar nearly as percussive as the album’s fantastic drumming.

On top of these beautiful sounds are lyrics that strike you just as strangely. “I try to run, and look to the sun, but it just makes me sneeze, and no one will bless me,” she sings at one point. And, were it not for her striking vocals, the words might be too goofy to pull off. But they work, and sound fresh every time she sings them. Bell’s real strength is that she crafts songs that are super-melodic but also meandering. The tunes never give into their structures, pulling from them at every turn And Bell pulls with them, giving a performance on each track that is both charming and surprising, full-force but with just the right amount of restraint. Bell must have a full-length somewhere up her sleeve. And even if it only equals this EP, it’ll be a hell of a record. [Amazon]

Various Artists, Ten Out of Tenn Volume 2 (Ready Set)

If it’s a special thing to witness an artist on the edge of stardom, seeing it times ten is all the more electrifying. This is the second in the Ten Out of Tenn series (the first was pressed in 2005), the compilation is designed to spotlight “Nashville artists who haven’t waited around for the world to hear about them.” In fact, each of these young performers has achieved some measure of success, having songs placed in a variety of TV shows and sharing stages with the likes of R.E.M., Sarah McLachlan, Ray Lamontagne and Joseph Arthur.

And with the offerings on this album, each artist proves they’re capable of at least another moment of stardom, every track ready for bright lights and applause. The artists display enough professional polish to appeal to pop fans yet enough gritty determination and street cred to engage the indie rock audience. While the album doesn’t suffer a bad track, the best moments are worth noting. Griffin House’s “The Guy That Says Goodbye” is a sweet folk song that suggests a sensitive and talented songwriter. Both K.S. Rhoads’ “Dark Hotel” and Tyler James’ “Down to the Garden” are just edgy enough to be interesting but not experimental enough to dampen the incredible hooks they offer. The first includes exotic violin and a carefully measured vocal delivery while the latter builds to a beautiful climax colored by vibrant horns. Cuts by Katie Herzig, Butterfly Boucher and Jeremy Lister also especially shine though each performer displays a definite measure of skill and vibrancy that makes each of the ten tracks a worthwhile listen. [Amazon]