07
Nov
2006
A beefy stack of new DVDs is my recommendation for wide-eyed fall cocooning, remote and pumpkin pie in hand. I'm mesmerized by the kaleidoscope wallpaper of home movies dipped, crinkled, and dragged through an ocean of colors in Takagi Masakatsu's World Is So Beautiful DVD. The Japanese multimedia artist originally created the 10 pieces for installation in fashion designer Agnes b.'s shops in France, with later presentations at the Museum of Modern Art. Mixing fractured breaths, strolling beats, flittering piano wanderings, and found source material such as laughing children, the effect is simply soul-inspiring. Look for it on the laptop-folk-friendly Carpark Records.
It's too bad that the summer driving season is over, as Shout Factory Records has compiled a third collection of stories from Chicago Public Radio's This American Life, perfect for unwinding on a long night's journey. Due next week, the two-CD Stories of Hope & Fear presents 11 thought-provoking and often very funny interviews and monologues from "normal" everyday citizens and audience favorites David Sedaris and Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman. Peppered with background music by Blonde Redhead, Evan Lurie, Morcheeba, Portastatic, and Calexico, producer Ira Glass's taste is perfectly subtle and mentally seductive.
Love is all around this coming Tuesday, as tribute CDs are falling like autumn's leaves. The Beatles are recipients of two such albums in their honor, one sweet and acoustic, the other snarling and turned up. Compiled and recorded for Mike Harding's BBC radio program in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Rubber Soul, the track-for-track recreation in Rubber Folk is an import-only CD worth looking for. The Gottdisc Records' release is a who's who of British folk artists, with Martin Simpson, Paul Brady, Ralph McTell, and others putting their stamp on each classic song. Haunting in its melodic a cappella glory, June Tabor turns in a solo vocal turn on "In My Life." Other perfect love letters in song include John Tams' ukulele stroll through "Girl" and the piano pop tenderness of Cora Dillion and Sam Lakeman on "Wait."
The Sadies have scored 26 instrumental tracks for the soundtrack to the new indie documentary film Tales of the Rat Fink, the life story of custom-car icon Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. With song titles such as "The Matador" and "The Borderline," the surf's up and the smell of rubber on asphalt is in the air, but it's too bad none of the dialogue from the film was included, as the voices of John Goodman, Jay Leno, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Robin Williams, Ann-Margret, and author Tom Wolfe are featured in the film. Look for the soundtrack next week on the Yep Roc label.
XTC fanatics, get ready to call in for a little of that sick time, as next Tuesday co-founder Andy Partridge releases a stunning nine-CD box set, Fuzzy Warbles Collector's Album, on his own Ape Records imprint. More than 100 songs are spread over the discs, collecting demos, outtakes, and other odd versions of XTC sessions during the band's Virgin Records years. Crafted to replicate the popular postage-stamp-collecting albums of the 1960s, the box contains an oversized booklet featuring his recording philosophy and session memories and a sheet of collectible faux postage stamps that duplicate each CD's design.
Two new albums are due Tuesday from clean cut crooners - one young and one old - and I'm plenty scared that a handful of classic songs are up for sacrifice, or more appropriately, slaughter. Clay Aiken slips a few originals on his new A Thousand Different Ways CD from RCA, but it's the promise of Badfinger's "Without You," Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is," and Mr. Mister's "Broken Wings" that has me feeling itchy. And after going metal for a brief, crazy moment a few years ago, Pat Boone is back for more next week, this time as a righteous soul daddy. Featuring songs by James Brown, Kool & the Gang, Smokey Robinson, and Sister Sledge, R & B Classics: We Are Family can be found on his own Gold Label Records imprint.
Like "Amazing Grace" for hipster Baby Boomers, there's nothing like the lifting strains of Leonard Cohen's poetic "Hallelujah" to make me stop in my tracks and let its words wrap all around me, day or night. A four-star interpretation of this classic opens an amazing new debut, Melody Mountain, from Susanna & the Magical Orchestra, delicately breaking the air like stones tossed upon a still lake. Out this week on the import-only Rune Grammafon Records imprint, the CD is a haunting, candlelit affair - an alternative Norwegian Carpenters of sorts in a slow-motion underwater ballet, perfect for the next David Lynch movie. Vocalist Susanna Karolina Wallumrød and keyboard craftsman Morten Qvenild pitter and patter through 10 perfect - and perfectly incomprehensible - cover selections, including Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence," Prince's "Condition of the Heart," AC/DC's "It's a Long Way to the Top," Sandy Denny's "Fotheringay," and Paul Stanley's "Crazy Crazy Nights" from 1987's Crazy Nights album by KISS.
Avast, maties! Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski and his star, Johnny Depp, have come together to executive-produce a new high-seas project aimed at us music-loving landlubbers. Built around the notion of contemporary interpretations of the classic seafaring song, the pair shanghaied Hal Willner as the captain of this ship, resulting in this week's release of Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, & Chanteys on the Anti Records imprint. Contributions on this two-CD set include Sting, Nick Cave, Byran Ferry, Lou Reed, Bono, Richard Thompson, Loudon Wainwright III, Joseph Arthur, Stan Ridgway, Jolie Holland, Jarvis Cocker, Bill Frisell, Baby Gramps, Lucinda Williams, and - dig this - actor John C. Reilly and gonzo artist Ralph Steadman.
Two long-lost musical entities, bestowed with cult status in their eclectic corners of the rock universe, offer up all-new recordings next week - the first music either has recorded and released in more than 25 years. Australian punks had their earliest heroes in the Radio Birdman, surviving four years together in the late 1970s. After reuniting in 1996 for their homeland's Big Day Out festival, and with SubPop Records' recent "Essential" collection introducing the band to the digital generation, an American tour begins later this month in support of their new Zeno Beach CD on the Yep Roc label.
