Paste Magazine June/July 2010 : Page 71
BETTYE LAVETTE JASON MORAN AND THE BANDWAGONWOLF PARADE DELOREAN SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS N E W M U S I C BETTYE LAVETTE Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook ANTI-RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW The British Invasion returns to its R&B roots For the last few de-cades, Bettye LaVette has sung with the kind raw force that makes each word sound like a knife’s being pulled from her side. She mostly performs straight-ahead soul, but she’s tackled covers by Willie Nelson and Ray Charles on previous releases, which means Interpretations: The British Rock Song-book is hardly uncharted territory. She doesn’t just cover The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Who, Led Zeppelin and more— she wholly re-imagines the songs. On Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” she summons a kind of defiant nerve that Sir Elton himself could never muster, stripping down the instrumenta-tion and relying instead on her ferocious pipes. And on Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed,” she transforms a sunny, grandiose pop song into a dark and desperate tale of devotion, paring down the sprawling guitar and drawling the main refrain. She occasionally indulges in vocal gymnastics just because she can, but LaVette’s voice revital-izes transcendent lyrics that many of today’s top female singers wouldn’t be able to handle. SARA LIBBY 7.6 JASON MORAN AND THE BANDWAGON TEN BLUE NOTE RELEASE DATE: JUNE 22 Then is now As both a thinker and an entertainer, pianist Jason Moran has enjoyed a high profile as a jazz art-ist in the era critic Gary Giddins once defined as “post-jazz.” The 35-year-old Houston native has expertly fused tradition and experimentation, tying together both ends of the jazz century in lively tunes that deploy stride technique and hip-hop rhythm with a sly sensibility. TEN cel-ebrates Moran’s decade in the major leagues. Fu-eled by the expert bustle of his trio (including bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits), he’s given to expansive, sparkling showpieces; solo, he coaxes the still spaces between the notes into a cadence of their own. Homages to everyone from Theloni-ous Monk to Conlon Nancarrow abound, but the best is paid to Jaki Byard. On his mentor’s “To Bob Vatel of Paris,” Moran cuts loose with a rippling stride display—its sass and wit argue for the form’s vitality, no matter the era. STEVE DOLLAR 8.1 WOLF PARADE Expo 86 SUB POP RELEASE DATE: JUNE 29 Marching on Wolf Parade’s third studio LP attempts to straddle the ghostly and mesmer-izing pop of their stellar debut Apologies to the Queen Mary and the sprawling, fuzzed-out prog of followup At Mount Zoomer. The Montreal quartet is mostly success-ful in this balancing act, delivering a handful of thematically-obtuse pop missiles heavy on reverb and guitar, with trademark synths still lurking low in the mix. There’s plenty of Queen Mary-esque verve and vigor; “Palm Road” is a delightfully skuzzy guitar-rocker buoyed by straight-outta-DEVO Casio lines, and “Pobody’s Nerfect” is Wolf Pa-rade in fighting trim—a cacophony of gritty guitar, Moog, rumbling drums and crashing cymbals. Occasionally things get a little too wacky (“I had a vision of a gorilla / And he was a killer, a killer!” co-frontman Spencer Krug yelps on rollicking closer “Cave-O-Sapien”) but you can hardly fault the band. Their weirdness is eminently infectious and, as always, theirs’ alone. MICHAEL SABA 8.3 DELOREAN Subiza TRUE PANTHER/MATADOR/ MUSHROOM PILLOW RELEASE DATE: JUNE 8 Disappointing dance doldrums The latest offering from Barcelona electro-sunshine quartet Delorean is certainly danceable—house piano, handclaps and a jungle of synths suggest the bliss of the late-night summer parties they could easily soundtrack—but the album's homoge-neous vocals are too often reminiscent of other acts—specifically, Animal Collective's harmonic structure. The mood and tempo don't show much range either. By the time the glowstick-dance jam of third track "Grow" kicks in, the heavily layered synth that permeates Subiza, which at first seemed lush, begins to feel like the sticky, over-saturated air of the tropics after a downpour. The less-embel-lished "Simple Graces" of-fers some relief, but it fails to break the album's well established mid-tempo, mid-range cadence. You could listen to virtually any club-ready dance number and glean everything that Delorean's 42-minute exercise has to offer. RACHEL BAILEY 4.9 SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS Disconnect From Desire VAGRANT RELEASE DATE: JULY 13 Nostalgia done right The only thing more diffi-cult than telling someone you're in love with them is telling someone that you used to be in love with them. On “I L U,” from School of Seven Bells' sophomore LP, the psychedelic trio does just that, employing crystal-line vocals textured with background sighs. The album runs the dream-pop gamut, from dizzyingly energetic to loopy and surreal. Lead track “Wind-storm” kicks the album open, winding into the equally charged “Heart is Strange.” ButDisconnect From Desire's lows are just as addicting as its highs. Synths and bells make slower songs like “Joviann” and closer “The Wait” pulse pleasantly, and re-peated phrases like "I used to love"—a cornerstone of more than one track—amp up the nostalgia. Each track is a dynamic whirl-wind; together, they're captivating. ANI VRABEL 8.2 JUNE | JULY 2010 71 !Jason Moran photo by Clay Patrick McBride
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