Blaq Poet

Tha Blaqprint

(Year Round; US: 30 Jun 2009; UK: 27 Jul 2009)

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Tha Blaqprint is one of those albums that you really want to love. Blaq Poet, an underground staple to some and a fresh face to others, is an emcee capable of holding your interest even as he spits that grimy street-talk we have all heard before. And complementing Blaq’s tenacity is none other than DJ Premier. Yes, that DJ Premier. On paper and based off his past work, one would think that no one could be better suited for this project than Premo. But on Tha Blaqprint, for which he produced 13 of the 15 tracks, Premo’s production sounds dated and recycled.

It’s a shame, too, because Tha Blaqprint gets off to a promising start with “I-Gititin”, “U Phucc’d Up”, “Ain’t Nuttin Changed”, and “What’s the Deal?”. Across those tracks, Blaq spits grimy street-talk that might not inspire, but it certainly holds your attention. And Premo showcases some of his old tricks, especially on “Ain’t Nuttin Changed”, which offers a blend of a guitar-lick and strings with those signature boom-bap drums and scratched-up hook.

But everything begins to unravel as tracks like “Hood Crazy” and “Sichuwayshunz” play, both decent songs on any other record. On here, though, they are more of the same. And mostly to blame is Premo, whose repetitive and paint-by-numbers beats cause the album to hit a wall of sorts. It’s at this point when the The Blaqprint ends up a lot like listening to a Gang Starr album with all the nostalgia removed. Premier might have been at the top of his game during that era and many of his beats were nothing short of stellar. But Guru, on the other hand, was not always the most competent emcee. And his monotone delivery, though a worthy trademark, made his rhymes tedious on some tracks. This time around, though, it’s the production that fails to grab you. Blaq and Premo could have easily removed three or four tracks from here truly had something special, if not more enjoyable. Instead, you have a record with a strong first-half and a spotty ending.

—Andrew Martin

Snooks Eaglin

Baby, You Can Get Your Gun!

(Hep Cat; US: 21 Apr 2009; UK: 18 May 2009)

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When Snooks Eaglin was led into the Southlake Studios down in Louisiana to cut his first album, 1987’s Baby, You Can Get Your Gun! for Black Top, the blind guitarist, affectionately known as the “Human Jukebox” for his ability to recall a reputed 2,500 songs covering everything from jazz standards to R&B hits instantaneously, was all but retired from the business.  That October ‘86 session, however, the start of a five-album run with the New Orleans label, would resurrect Eaglin’s solo career—a career first documented on tape by folklorist Harry Oster in 1958 when the academic discovered the Crescent City native playing country blues on the streets of the French Quarter for tourists.

Now posthumously reissued by Hep Cat, Baby, You Can Get Your Gun! reminds you just how damn good a guitarist Eaglin was. Backed by a stellar line-up including former B.B. King keyboardist Ron Levy, David Lastie on tenor sax and a rhythm section of Joe “Smokey” Johnson on drums and Erving Charles Jr. on bass, lifted directly from Fats Domino’s orchestra, Eaglin’s Ray Charles-style vocal lilt, explosive snakin’ guitar runs and innovative finger-picking style wander an eclectic path that bops with the blues on “You Give Me Nothing But the Blues”, goes surfing with a flamenco flourish on the Ventures tribute “Profidia” and gets low-down and funky on the James Brown-influenced “Drop the Bomb”. Say hello to a rarely heard classic.

—Alan Brown

Mia Doi Todd (with Andres Renteria)

Morning Music

(City Zen; US: 14 Apr 2009; UK: 13 Apr 2009)

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Mia Doi Todd is known for her quiet, haunting songs, and the most haunting part of these is her voice. On Morning Music, she leaves that element behind as she creates an instrumental ambient experience unlike the rest of her catalog. Morning Music is a lovely and aptly named collection of music to help even the weariest bodies to awaken quietly. Todd’s voice is not as missed as one would think; the music is sheerly hypnotic on its own.

The album’s seven tracks open with “Harmonium”, an unsurprisingly organ-centered affair. The organ carries over into “Arise”, though the piano takes center stage in this song. “Samai’I”, brings the album into full bloom with a more percussive song that also features a reed flute. “Electrafficbirds One” is a slow piano song that could hold its own alongside a solo piano piece by Philip Glass or any other minimalist master. The same is true of “Simple Things,” which brings back the harmonium and features a deliciously watery piano line, blurred ever so slightly for the most relaxing sound. The quiet flute and harp that open “Emotion” are the album’s most New Age-moment, but this song is still pretty and the slightly schmaltzy sound can be forgiven in context of the other tracks which are more original. Finally, the album closes with “Electrafficbirds Two”, still piano-centered but also featuring a reed flute and bird sounds more prominent than elsewhere on the album.

Morning Music is a gorgeous, softly stirring work of art that maximizes its minimal elements. Andres Renteria, the multi-instrumentalist who executes much of this album, deserves special credit for adding a perfectly light touch to the work. It would be right at home among prepared piano auteur Hauschka’s best work, though it’s even more charming to know Mia Doi Todd spearheaded its creation.

—Erin Lyndal Martin

Oddateee

Halfway Homeless

(Deadverse; US: 8 Nov 2008; UK: Import)

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From listening to Halfway Homeless, you would think rapper Oddateee’s homebase of Union City, New Jersey was a city manifested in the spirit of the South Bronx albeit reconfigured to fit some kind of Timothy Leary-esque vision of a hallucinogenic hip-hop utopia. As producer Dalek keeps the pace of the beats at a surreal and trippy pace with fuzzed out riddims and squalls of noise akin to a crunked-out Sonic Youth, Oddateee harbors lofty aspirations of achieving commercial success , as tracks like “Crack Rock” and the electro-fied “Ricans”. This push-pull duality makes for some very interesting moments on Halfway Homeless, which might not offer any direct threats to the Black Eyed Peas’ reign on the charts anytime soon, but can relish in its unique stance amongst the most original recordings hip-hop has seen in recent memory.

—Ron Hart

Andy Milne and Benoît Delbecq

Where Is Pannonica?

(Songlines; US: 9 Jun 2009; UK: Import)

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If you know Andy Milne from his beat-influenced Dapp Theory work, this collaboration with French pianist Benoît Delbecq might come as a bit of a surprise. It shouldn’t. It’s a smart pairing of two friends with complementary ideas on acoustics (especially the physical room), unusual time, and rhythm. The duo takes co-writing credit for only three songs, splitting writing duties on the other eight tracks, but Where Is Pannonica? coheres too fully to be anything more than a full partnership.

The avant garde here blends quick improvisation with extensive forethought. Delbecq’s especially known for his prepared piano, and that’s important here, too (regardless of which one’s piano has the stuff in it). He’s credited with the electronics, which largely add to the spooky atmospherics of the record, utilizing the still moments of the tracks. The time signatures here are demanding; the artists challenging themselves and pushing past my theory limits. It’s an inessential boundary to the listener, though, because what’s most memorable about this disc are its textures, its moods resulting from careful sculpting and precise interaction.

—Justin Cober-Lake

Esther Ofarim

Esther Ofarim in London

(Bureau B; US: 9 Jun 2009; UK: 22 Jun 2009)

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In the February of 1968 the Israeli singer Esther Ofarim and her husband Abi spent three weeks at number one on the UK charts with a cover of a knockabout novelty song called “Cinderella Rockerfella”. Four years later and divorced she released this solo album. Again she was covering songs in English but this time none of them were novelties and there was nothing knockabout in her voice. It comes through the speakers like a silver arrow, like clear water. Several of the songs were the work of Leonard Cohen, one was by John Denver. “Morning has Broken” had been a hit, a year earlier, for Cat Stevens. Roberta Flack was already beginning to construct a career around the foundation stone of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”. Ofarim wasn’t taking a risk with unknown material, but Esther Ofarim in London isn’t about that kind of risk. It’s about the risk a human being takes when she opens her mouth and, out of the usual human mess of her flesh, squashed muscles and mortal bones, puts together a noise that is so clean it’s almost surreal.

—Deanne Sole

WhoMadeWho

The Plot

(Gomma; US: 24 Feb 2009; UK: 23 Mar 2009)

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After the success of “Space to Rent” and their disaffected version of “Satisfaction”, WhoMadeWho have a clear stamp on good-times sophisticated European electro-pop. The sound isn’t new, but this Danish trio does it just as well as fellow-Scandinavians Datarock. But WhoMadeWho are more sonically adventurous, and bring a playful attitude to their music that plays refreshing. On their second full-length album they’re in easy command of the form. WhoMadeWho have a distinctive voice—it’s just that it’s a combination of quite familiar components. There’s the Rapture’s dance-punk, LCD Soundsystem’s deadpan hipsterism, and any mainstream dance pop act’s silk-smooth vocals. More surprising, WhoMadeWho’s use of organic instrumentation—including the stark woodwinds that open “TV Friend”—allows them to branch out into timbres as diverse as pop-rock and Kaada-esque Spaghetti Western. When they venture further into the truly bizarre, as on the clickety-clack fuzz of “I Lost My Voice”, things get exciting. And through the whole thing, you can hear the group winking slyly from behind their fancy skeleton-costumes. Overall, though, The Plot is a surprisingly sedate album. Call it solid electropop for this season—under a dark cloud, they seem to say, we’ll sway but not jump up on our toes.

—Dan Raper

Smoke

Routes

(Echo Beach; US: 3 Mar 2009; UK: Available as import)

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The concept of Italian reggae might seem a little askew, something akin to Scandinavian gangsta rap or Chinese polka. But the members of Smoke have as much ganja in their blood as they do wine and ragu, and have created a faithful love letter to their collective affinity for Jamaican culture on their second full-length, Routes. Some spots might be a little too sweet for the discerning reggae fan who might pass the group’s music off as a little too cruise ship-like for their tastes, most notably “Save All the Kids”, their noble yet corny homage to Ishmael Beah’s book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. However, they are offset by an authenticity that recalls early Horace Andy or Niney The Observer-era Dennis Brown and a political agenda that certainly aims to rattle the cages of the establishment.  If blended into a mix by the right selector, tracks like the pro-Africa “Ken Saro Wiwa” and the China-shaming “Iron Man Wang” would fit perfectly amongst the dirtiest dirt-floor classics rocking the sound systems of Kingston.

—Ron Hart