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            ”Drill a Hole in That Substrate and Tell Me What You See” gets off to a perfect start: “Static on the Radio” slinks in with a dark, buoyant beginning that draws you in to White’s contemplative whisper. By the chorus, however, Aimee Man’s accompaniment brings the song somewhere decidedly different from that initial waft of the mysterious. Wanting, waiting for it to come back, the listener becomes a curious passenger – something that won’t go unrewarded on this album.

            Dark shades are again present on the lumbering, slow, “Bluebird,” an almost elegiac ode to something that seems to have been drawn out and pulled away from the artist, yet completely deserving his attention and respect. Managing to be remarkably soulful at all times, White’s clear voice sings crisply yet hushed, while everything else seems to just hang around it. The funky “Combing My Hair in a Brand New Style” is an unexpected infusion of Southern-style hip-hop; White speaks like an old, soft-spoken guru amidst a background of crooning trumpets and a line of back-up singers, to really give it that Afro-American edge – it recalls the likes of Gil Scot-Heron, but taking the feel of a 70s bohemian soul track and inverting it in tornado-riddled corn fields. Similarly, on “Buzzards of Love,” a soulful, urban feel is once again uprooted and transplanted somewhere else, somewhere lost and disorientated, but where the power and substance retain their worth.

            The weary, melancholic country of “That Girl from Brownsville, Texas” makes it clear that Jim White has no intention of accepting the idea of a clear-cut genre to stick to. At one moment in particular, the music stops and White take his time stringing the words together, as if putting off the waiting music just for fun, or to hold the thought and the moment together that little bit longer. While the smoky, banjo-straddling “Borrowed Wings” will etch itself in your memory as simultaneously haunting and beautiful (and feels a touch like what an encounter between the recent works of Grant Lee Phillips and Tom Waits would sound like if the two ever crossed paths), the quirky “If Jesus Drove a Motorhome” can’t help like sounding like an Eels outing. While the distorted background refrain of “Motorhome, motorhome, motorhome” absolutely makes the song, its eclectic mix of elements is rich food for thought. Unexplainably funky, the song is just another example of how White can reconfigure so many other types of music to his own choosing, and produce successful results every time.

            In “Objects in Motion,” the image of a suitcase of unsigned love letters floating down a river is a terrifyingly profound reminder of life’s inevitability. This song is weighty enough that one might need to go and have a lie down afterward: stripped from it’s heavy, blue restlessness, it carries a beautiful, insightful sentiment. After country blues are rejigged and remixed on “Alabama Crome,” complete with a breakdown for a hick-rap, sounds fade in and out at the beginning of “Phone Booth in Heaven.” Time is being killed as the song begins, an acoustic contemplation follows the sounds of cars zooming past on a wet road, passing God only knows what in the ditch out of their vision. At times, Jim White’s music is the equivalent of unexplainable, extra-terrestrial phenomena (an abduction from a crop-circle somewhere in the South would be apt, perhaps). An extraordinary album by an equalling intriguing figure in music.

Artist / Group:
Jim White
Album:
Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See
Label:
Luaka Bop
Released:
19th April 2004

Popularity: 1% [?]

             There’s more than a touch of modesty at play when Henry Rollins describes the “one time” he was ever funny to a crowd he’s kept in near-hysterics all evening. For even the most masterful jack-of-all-trades, comedy (particularly stand-up) can be no easy thing, so the former Black Flag front-man is nothing if not modest.

             Although anyone present in the crowd who has seen him perform spoken-word in the last year or two might be familiar with some of his stories, Rollins’ wealth of finely-tuned anecdotes recount everything from run-ins with celebrities, his freak encounters on the street, and his experiences meeting U.S troops stationed overseas (and most of them would be just as good hearing them for a second time out, at that).

             It could be argued that poking fun at Bush is like shooting fish in a barrel, but Rollins dissection of Bush-isms is dealt with killer timing and aplomb, and overall, his assembly of neurotic observations and the analysis they breed provide for a great way of laughing at the ever-growing insanity of the world.

Popularity: 1% [?]

           The funky, frisky collection of analog sounds running through The Emperor Machine’s debut album (a side project of Chicken Lips’ Andy Meecham) is just the kind of thing robotic pimps could strut to. If you can imagine Air with a lot more attitude, scoring the soundtrack to a cheap 70’s sci-fi, you might just begin to be on the right track. Though the straight-ahead, feel-good opener to the album, “The TV Extra Band” sounds like a stuttering version of the Dr. Who theme, it’s the perfect warm up for what is about to come: a stream of non-stop head nodding.

            From the glittering, synth-heavy “Linda Looks Good,” laced with flute, to the strobing, sequential title track, Meecham places the listener amidst a lysergic nightlife of cinematic proportions. Thumping rubber bass-lines of just two notes, kitsch phasing and sound-effects, all interact for a definite “cruising at altitude” feel to this album, while bringing a much needed live feel to all things electronica.

            Whether it be the sinister drones of the altogether funky “Front Man” swinging by, the computer game-like “Expanding in Reproduction,” or sounds only fit for an action-packed 1980’s helicopter chase scene (“Brains in a Box”), the simple yet addictive grooves scattered throughout make the bass the real winner here, consistently managing to hold things down under quintessentially kooky goings on. Kraut rock has been re-born by throwing it head-first into an antique vision of the future.

Artist / Group:
The Emperor Machine
Album:
Aimee Tallulah Is Hypnotised
Label:
D.C.
Released:
25th October 2004

Popularity: 1% [?]

            Bursting with colour, The Shins’ “Oh, Inverted World!” is filled with the same kind of mesmerising melodies, harmonies, and arrangements that Brian Wilson attained legendary status with. From the glowing “Caring is Creepy,” where each stretched syllable is a stone to step from, to the reverberating rock of “Girl on the Wing” and “Pressed in a Book,” chirping computer bleeps and transmission warblings infuse this decidedly vibrant effort at updating ’60s pop.

            While “One by One All Day” feels like a veritable tunnel of energy, lit up with xylophones and thumping drums, its real charm lies in its end, when the song really begins to pulsate with life, as if hurtling down from space: this is The Shins’ playground in the stars, and as such, each listen gives you the pleasure of orbiting around it. “Weird Divide,” meanwhile, sounds like the product of a psychedelic barbershop quartet, stoned on a sunny afternoon, singing from the depths of a kaleidoscopic trance. Once the twirling “Know Your Onion!” launches things back into action, “Girl Inform Me” makes one realise that there are melodies to die for at every corner on this album, sung as if emanating from the Beach Boys’ spirits themselves: “But your lips when we speak / Are the valleys and peaks of a mountain range on fire.”

            As the zig-zagging “oohs” of “New Slang” arrive, it becomes clearer still that “Oh, Inverted World!” pulls no punches in firmly establishing itself as an entirely gorgeous unity even by its half-way point. Following the sound of descending steps deep into a dripping cave, past stalagmites and stalactites, one will find the Shins’ next blissful harmony in “Your Algebra,” where a touch of the mystical could easily have you picturing the band members as various underground-dwelling creatures. In the song’s dying seconds, the sound of children giggling and pop-rocks sizzling does something to re-enforce the aforementioned idea of the album as a conceptual playground of sounds. The bohemian chords of the chilled, acoustic “The Past and Pending” sound somewhat reminiscent of “Mellow Gold”-era Beck, confirming, in its own way, that every touch here is a good one, as the album’s closer “sets light to the first fire of autumn.”

            Clocking in at a modest 33 minutes, “Oh, Inverted World!” has a definite pleasing dynamic running through it, though it must be said that the echoing vocals may be left too low in the mix to be to everyone’s liking (the recording process was considerably lo-fi). Nevertheless, that shouldn’t be any reason to miss out on this symphony of digital trickery and streaming harmonies – sheer indie brilliance.

Artist / Group:
The Shins
Album:
Oh, Inverted World!
Label:
Sub-Pop
Released:
2001

Popularity: 1% [?]

           Paul Kimble is, quite possibly, one of my favourite producer. Best known for his work as a member of Shiva Burlesque and Grant Lee Buffalo (plus production credits on Luna’s “Days of Our Nights” and the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack), it was with great interest that I sought out a copy of the multi-instrumentalist’s long overdue solo album.

             “Crawl” begins with the glistening string arrangement of “Mr. DJ,” a tune tied down with the heavy piano sound that one would associate with Grant Lee Buffalo; the track’s Sunday-morning pop is then met with a slightly strained falsetto rap from Kimble (who performs, sings, writes, mixes, and produces a large amount of the album just by himself) before settling into a more catchy (and comfortable) chorus. “Shine,” meanwhile, follows the opener with another pop-fuelled falsetto tune, this time giving you the unmistakable impression that there are more than a few layers at play beneath the track’s surface.

             The title song itself is sublime: lovely, lonesome, but content in the face of things; it’s arguably worth getting the album for this track alone. Here, Kimble’s voice is refreshingly strong behind just an acoustic, the warmth and strength of the message having no delay in reaching the listener. The ghost of George Harrison even makes an appearance for the lead-guitar solo (again played by Kimble himself) for a fitting end (it is of the same calibre as a latter-day Beatles number) to a remarkable song.

             If it wasn’t for the steady drumbeat at the beginning of “Fool,” the soundscape of this song could sound quite spooky. Despite an interesting guitar sound (and a Tom Morello-like spit of a solo), Kimble’s voice again feels like it’s sitting too high, made even more apparent when the line “feel like I’m a fool” gives us a hint of what his natural singing voice sounds like, before the song bubbles into a backward-sounding drone to close out. Similarly, the underwhelming “Halo” feels like it’s missing something – lyrically, it just doesn’t connect with the kind of punches that Kimble’s sound is capable of.

             The misty “I Don’t Feel That Way” starts off with the pairing of a lovely double-bass and a subtle-string arrangement, hammering into a slow, pensive daydream in a smoke-filled, darkened room. It is precisely this gift for production that would have me eager to hear any project with Kimble’s attached. The sun-drenched, drifting sound of “Candy” is another upbeat excursion into fancy-free pop; the melody of the chorus guaranteeing to find its way into your head days later, infectiously burrowing its way deep into your subconscious. The bulging sound of “Lovely Lolita,” on the other hand, featuring a characteristic Paul Kimble bass-line, is illustrative of the overall kind of feel that Kimble seems to be trying to capture on this album: light-hearted, yet often sultry, pop. The overall style of Kimble’s sound, however, when paired with a half-spoken falsetto, is one that manages to sounds not too far away from certain Faith No More tracks in the process.

             Lyrically, the weight and substance of “Crawl” is missed on songs such as “It’s OK” – a tune which gives you the feeling that, by the time it reaches its dipping “Hallelujah,” the heart of this song had the potential to be something greater, but was never quite realised. The rolling “We Never Close” sees the return of Kimble’s bulging sound with a slightly more-sinister take on the previously mentioned sun-drenched pop — a template that has been forged out with mixed results thus far. Rocking from side to side, a melody that could belong to a sedate Frank Zappa is sung with a slight sense of urgency before leading us to the album’s tender final track: “I Know.”

             There’s something strangely familiar, yet hard to place, about this final outing: strengthened with a female harmony, Kimble gives the listener another flash of the kind of quality he’s capable of in sombre fashion with a Neil Young & Crazy Horse-esque tune, before finally bowing out. Overall, having literally waited years to hear this album, perhaps a sense of disappointment was always inevitable given the rather high-standards Kimble’s past work had already firmly established in my mind; or perhaps it is because the feel of this album is decidedly more mainstream and, indeed, a genre apart from those same said works. Regardless, it is clear that, although Kimble has asserted an impressive amount of control to oversee this project, Pistol Star could use the aid of another lyricist (or melody-maker, at least) to work in tandem with its main contributor, if it is to attain the same heights that Paul Kimble is no doubt capable of achieving.

Artist / Group:
Pistol Star
Album:
Crawl
Label:
Wax Orchard
Released:
2004

Popularity: 1% [?]