January 13–20, 2000

disc quicks

Housecleaning

So many records. So little time. Every new year, City Paper music staffers take a look at their respective CD stacks from the prior year and mutter, "Damn, I wanted to review that." So each year, as a final gesture of "out with the old," we take a look back at records that slipped through the cracks, ones we liked but never got around to. Bygones. Here are 10 short reviews you should have gotten a chance to read sooner.

 

The Butchies

Population 1975

(Mr. Lady)

On Population 1975, these North Carolina riot grrrls refine their technique without sacrificing their politics. The Butchies’ second album sounds more like a band effort than their 1998 debut, Are We Not Femme? Where Femme felt like an electrified version of frontlady/ex-Team Dresch heartthrob Kaia Wilson’s solo work, the production of Chris Stamey (ex-dBs) gives Population a power-pop punch. Wilson knows when to name names and when to leave out the details, as on the title track, in which an anytown teen leaves home and her girlfriend. Wilson’s wispier tendencies are tempered by bassist Alison Martlew’s expanded vocal role. Martlew’s counterpoint turns the breakup song "It’s Over" into a slow jam, and she sings lead on "Baby DNA," possibly the world’s first lullaby about artificial insemination.

—M.J. Fine

Heather Duby

Post to Wire

(Sub Pop)

In the mid ’80s, a singer with Heather Duby’s leanings might have made a synthesizer-driven record. In the wake of he’s-the-DJ, she’s-the-diva teams like Portishead and Everything But The Girl, Duby pairs up with Steve Fisk (Pigeonhed/Pell Mell) for an album of ether-soaked art-rock/trip-hop. Despite some good effects (like the pin-drop percussion of "Halo Sky"), the formula is stretched thin. The songs blur together, and Duby invariably takes two minutes of interesting material and stretches it into a five-minute song. Like Sarah McLachlan’s debut Touch (to which it bears some resemblance) Post to Wire is promising, but little more than pretty background music.

—M.J.F.

Goodie Mob

World Party

(LaFace Records)

First they seasoned hip-hop with a taste of their Soul Food. Then on Still Standing they protested that "People Don’t Dance No Mo’." Now Goodie Mob is partaking in a World Party — their third full-length effort. Featuring TLC and Outkast’s Big Boi, the album personifies the grease-laden flavor that keeps Atlanta so "dirty": memorable beats and verses delivered in Southern tongue. Most of the record seems geared toward rotation at, well, a party. Fans of their older work may disapprove that they’ve traded in their righteous content for airier themes, like materialistic bragging. Nevertheless, "Just Do It" and "Rebuilding" conjure the ghost of their message-laden past.

—Hamida Kinge

Jef Lee Johnson

The Singularity

(Dreambox Media)

Although it sounds critically noncommittal to say that a CD sounds "weird," the word fits Jef Lee Johnson like Spandex. Close your eyes on "Ain’t Seen Irene" and you’ll swear you’re listening to a Jimi Hendrix blues outtake. Jazzy, funky, rocking, soulful and just plain out there, The Singularity is one of those essentially unmarketable records — there’s no way to describe it in a quick quip. Imagine Stevie Wonder as a Knitting Factory badass instead of an inner visionary, or an R&B crooner who stopped making booty calls and started taking guitar lessons from John McLaughlin, and you’re not even halfway into Johnson’s singular bag.

—Brian Glaser

The Ladybug Transistor

The Albermarle Sound

(Merge)

The baroque, orchestral pop of bands like The Association has always been close to the Brooklyn-based kids of The Ladybug Tranistor. On prior albums, they’ve hinted at the tart, creamy center of that ’60s pop radio sound. On their third LP, they get an A, with lush production, piano, strings, flute, horns and warmer synths. (The album art even mimics that of The Association’s Greatest Hits.) From the "Mr. Kite" calliope feel of "Six Times" to the cheekily appropriated melody of Gary Lewis and The Playboys’ "This Diamond Ring" on "The Swimmer," it’s obvious the band has done its homework. And The Albermarle Sound amounts to much more than a history project.

—Brian Howard

Little Red Car Wreck

Motor Like a Mother

(Yoyo Recordings)

There’s nothing "simple" or "sparse" about this Olympia pop duo. Mary Water lays down guitar melodies that are as strong, sweet and short as she is, and Yoyo honcho Patrick Maley’s peppy stickwork gives the songs grooves and structure over its 30 minutes. But Little Red Car Wreck’s most pleasing moments come from Water’s knack for casual non-sequiturs and lyrical juxtapositions that paste life’s simple pleasures alongside its bigger pains. On "Breaks," she tell us, "The brakes on my heart just got up and walked out of the room, and on my rollerskates I never even had any to start with." It doesn’t make any sense to me, but you can tell it makes sense to her, and that’s important.

—Patrick Rapa

Motor Like a Mother is available from yoyoagogo.com/home.html. Order three CDs and get a little black yo-yo.

Plone

For Beginner Piano

(Warp/Matador)

So many of the earliest synth sounds are recalled on this sweet electronic CD, the mind whirls. For Beginner Piano unfurls with a sense of Pong ’n’ Pac Man that betrays a playful innocence. Tinny strings and bubbly percussion create a childlike wonder that envelops the album. But what Plone does best — with tunes like "On My Bus" and "Top & Low Rent" — is offer up baroque melodies that revel in retro-futuristic orchestration. While a mock theramin screeches, strings and seashell percussion drift like smoke. There are cinematic arrangements not unlike Ryuichi Sakamoto at his most ironically Asian, the bachelor pad of Les Baxter and synthetics reminiscent of Startled Insects. From cosmic vocoder symphonies to toy bossa novas, Plone is a gem worth mining.

—a.d. amorosi

Pole

CD 1 and 2 EP

(Matador)

Things fall apart, and Berliner Stefan Betke’s Pole-Waldorff filter got old. Due to an equipment malfunction, Betke’s music, once ambient electronic dub with phantom melodies and distant beats, has become a sonic divergence. CD 1 is especially heavy on the digital equivalent of frying bacon or making popcorn, but both discs sound like nothing you’ve likely heard before. Imagine or remember (if you can) smoking so much ganja that you pass out in your Rice Krispies. German dub is a long way from the Jamaican variety, but it retains the bouncy, relaxing vibe beneath all the snap, crackle and pop. What rhythmic dancehall static slouches toward America to outsell Oval? Pole, mon, Pole.

—Chris Nosal

The Radiation Kings

Early Years

(Stubborn Records)

This debut album from Connecticut’s The Radiation Kings fuses every type of Jamaican music into one sonorous sub-genre. Their tight rhythm section is comprised of the basic components and augmented with melodica, an organ and bongos. Produced by New York ska guru King Django, Early Years has the gritty roots/rock-steady sound found in most of Django’s projects. Vocalist Lisa White sings with soul. Though most of the time she sticks to a brassy tone, on songs like as "Can’t Find a Way" and "Spending Time" she sings a little more softly, comfortable highlighting the tremendous talent of the rest of the band.

—Hillary Rea

Various Artists

20th Century Time Capsule

(Buddha)

This harmless, inexpensive compilation spans the 1900s, with a top song from each decade (i.e. "Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In" for the 1960s) interspersed with relevant historical sound bites (Lindbergh’s flight, Chernobyl). Some of the musical selections are all too obligatory (the 1930s is represented, as it always is in nostalgia collections, by "We’re in the Money"), while others are dubious choices — does "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" sum up the 1980s as well as, say, "Every Breath You Take"? And will future generations really need "The Macarena" to understand the 1990s? The historical sound bites include several rarities, including Boston Symphony conductor Erich Leinsdorf informing his audience of JFK’s assassination, and Will Rogers’ 1917 suggestion on how to end World War I (by having Germany and Japan trade places). The earliest cuts are the most fun; the first track features what passed for a double entendre in 1909: "You can go as far as you like with me/In my merry Oldsmobile." Calling William Bennett and C. Dolores Tucker.

—Andrew Milner