January 1- 7, 2004

music

Top Local CDs 2003

In no order, because we love them all the same.

Bitter, Bitter Weeks

Bitter, Bitter Weeks

(My Pal God)

Producer Brian McTear emerged from behind the sound board to release a collection of stripped-down stirrers for his solo debut. McTear's is the type of fragile, singular voice that breathes a sort of trembling soul into songs built of little more than acoustic guitar and tough experience. From the somber reminiscing of "Tn" to the swelling "You Paralyze My Heart," Bitter, Bitter Weeks is a feat of songwriting, and a marvel of genuine feeling. --Brian Howard

The Dixie Hummingbirds

Diamond Jubilation

(Rounder)

In a year that saw a tribute to Bob Dylan's gospel songs, members of Dylan's past and present bands returned the favor by backing this Philadelphia gospel quintet on their 75th anniversary recording. The subtly updated tracks (which at times recall the apocalyptic shuffle of Tom Waits' recent albums) establish the ground over which the Hummingbirds' voices soar. --Sam Adams

Laguardia

Welcome to the Middle

(Universal/Republic)

The major-label gamble paid off for Laguardia. With a bigger budget and Brad Wood at the boards, the foursome's music is finally given the polished production their vision seemed to demand. More potent though is the reinvention of many songs they've played in concert for over two years; in "Butterfly," the keyboard opening is slowed to a waltz and given an eerie carnival-organ ambience. The cut fades flawlessly into "Sensation," which is vastly improved from earlier demo takes just by adding more presence to the drums, and then into the anthemic "Duct Tape," making for a magnificent mid-record trifecta. Well done, fellas. --John Vettese

The Snow Fairies

Feel You Up

(Red Square)

Sitting on top of sweet melodies and peppy beats, Rose Bochansky's sky-scraping voice is the mint on the pillow. This band -- from its blissfully stylish lyrics to its catchy, groovy hooks -- is undeniably attractive to that part of your brain that just wants a tall soda, a first kiss and the simple life. You know, nobody else sounds like The Snow Fairies. Not in this town, anyway. I'm not saying everybody else in Philly should throw out their distortion pedals, but when you're in a certain mood, Feel You Up feels like an oasis. --Patrick Rapa

The Vexers

The Vexers

(Ace Fu)

This L.A.-to-Philly quartet's debut album is a sizzling collection of high-speed, low-class gems, with singer Jennifer Taylor oozing bad-girl charm while the band falls into lockstep behind her. A drab follow-up EP siphoned off the longer, less prepossessing tunes, leaving an album without an ounce of fat. --S.A.

Atom and His Package

Attention! Blah Blah Blah

(Hopeless)

Adam Goren called it quits with his one-man band this year, just when he got his music down to a science. While previous Atom and His Package records strung together standout songs with lesser throwaways, the great thing about Attention! Blah Blah Blah -- aside from it being hands down one of the funnest records of the year -- is there's none of that. Sure, the minute-long closer "Matt Werth Speaks" isn't entirely necessary (though at least it delivers what it promises), but every other cut is classic and touches on Goren's many faces. You got political Atom ("The Palestinians Are Not the Same Thing as the Rebel Alliance, Jackass"), rambunctious Atom ("I Am Downright Amazed at What I Can Destroy with Just a Hammer") and even romantic Atom ("Does Anyone Else in This Room Want to Marry His or Her Own Grandmother?"), all to the familiar and lively QY700 and guitar grind. With his last-ever show a sweaty First Unitarian memory and a newborn daughter with wife Jen, the future of Atom is uncertain. But if this is indeed the end of his musical road, Goren couldn't have picked a better note to close on. --J.V.

Kindred the Family Soul

Surrender to Love

(Hidden Beach)

It took long enough, but Kindred's debut is worth the wait. Two years in the making, Surrender to Love gets everything right. Aja Graydon and Fatin Dantzler sing from the heart, and putting their family first makes every little moment ring true. Graydon's silky smooth and soulful on "Stars" and "If I"; Dantzler gets sweaty on "Don't Wanna Suffer (Carbon Copy)." The lovefest lasts for 70 unassailable minutes. Surrender, indeed. --M.J. Fine

Bardo Pond

On the Ellipse

(All Tomorrow's Parties)

By their ninth album, we pretty much know what to expect from Bardo Pond: bowel-shaking distortion, piercing feedback, lethargic tempos and ethereal vocals by Isobel Sollenberger. Nevertheless, the Psychadelph foursome makes its signature sound gripping with On the Ellipse. Amidst the calamity of overdriven amps and E-Bows, one can easily discern plucked acoustic guitars and brushstroke beats, bringing Sollenberger's voice more to the front than ever before. --J.V.

The Trolleyvox

Leap of Folly

(Groove Disques)

By the time any given song on The Trolleyvox's second album reaches its chorus, Beth Filla's voice becomes a clarion call, only muted to soften the blows of the not-always-cheerful words coming out of her mouth. Her bright, clear vocals weave themselves in and out of Andrew Chalfen's carefully crafted compositions with ease. Chalfen, a meticulous songwriter/multi-instrumentalist, has made an album to start -- or end -- a love affair by ("It's a three-by-five of the state I'm in/ Taken of you when you weren't looking"). With clear-as-a-bell production that does everything to flatter it, Leap of Folly is a fine musical companion for the broken- and mending- hearted. --Lori Hill

The Trouble With Sweeney

I Know You Destroy

(Burnt Toast Vinyl)

On his second album with The Trouble, raconteur Joey Sweeney hones his wry pop sensibilities. A series of portraits in song populated by urbanites whose nuances and neuroses Sweeney draws out with vocabulary rich and evocative, I Know You Destroy cements TTWS' rep for highly literate songcraft. As a bonus, album-opener "The Break Up" happens to be one of the more gut-wrenching songs written about relationships in demise. --B.H.

P!nk

Try This

(Arista)

Regardless of her haircut and Philly roots, P!nk is the most fascinating singer/songwriting-collaborator to come out of the 2000s -- a husky, emotive vocalist with wrenching stories set to limitlessly diverse pop. With a sound as angsty as its words, Try This teams the new-wave soulster Linda Perry with Tim Armstrong's pickled punk, informing rugged rock and elegant balladry with P!nk's chesty, funky sensibilities. Forget Madonna and her followers; P!nk's shifting stylistic gears are more radical than her clothing choices. --A.D. Amorosi

The Capitol Years

Pussyfootin

(Full Frame)

Having previously revealed hook-laden, lo-fi fixations on their favorite old sounds -- the Stones' blues bluster, XTC's harmony-filled art-pop and the squalid garage primitivism of The Velvets -- nasal singer/songwriter Shai Halperin and the rest of the Cap Years unleashed the "60s-So-Cal-psy-C&W-sounding Pussyfootin. It'd be easy to say the CD, recorded in 2000 and "01, simply reveals a softer side, what with its loose-structured tunes filled with slide guitars, swirling acoustics and cooing harmonies. But the ragged grunginess of its production and intent keeps Pussyfootin's most beautiful melodies hard and stark. --A.D.A.

Lefty's Deceiver

Cheats

(My Pal God)

This record reveals itself a little bit at a time. When it was released in May, it was easy to grab hold of the chipper pop-rock hooks of "East Coast Traffic" and "The Riot Acts" and let that energy carry the entire album. But spending time with it uncovers the strength of its non-pop moments, like the vocal cries and dense lyrics of "Iselin" or the askew melodies and pattering drums of the opening "Years and Years Ago." Seven months later, Cheats sounds more exciting than ever. --J.V.

Baby Blak

Once You Go Blak

(BBE)

Championed by the media from here to Tokyo, West Philly's Baby Blak delivered a new species of hip-hop baby with his solo debut. His butter linguistics take the listener through the streets, down into the underground and up into the commercial hip-hop world. With a rare honesty and sharp insight, the multidimensional MC delivers a dash of politics plus a hint of XXX, poverty and even family strife. He has arrived. --Ainé Ardron-Doley

Eltro

Past and Present Futurists

(Absolutely Kosher)

The more elusive Eltro as an entity becomes, it seems, the more alluring the music. On Past and Present Futurists, organic instruments and voices assume hypnotic, repetitive cadences as easily as the electronics indicate warmth and melody, and vice versa. Such is the group's alchemic wizardry that the diverse elements blend into each other so effortlessly without letting the music totally recede into some ethereal background. Put simply, Futurists is not to be ignored. --Michael Pelusi

Stiffed

Sex Sells

(Cool Hunter)

Santi White's gonna knock you out. Her voice -- half hiccup, half Gwen Stefani purr -- is the siren call that's demanded attention from Punk Planet and Vanity Fair. From the jittery "What You Gon' Do?" to the flirty "Stay," Sex Sells distills Stiffed's new-wave, hardcore and reggae roots into 19 minutes of cocky pop that asks you to dance and won't take no for an answer. --M.J.F.

Denison Witmer

Recovered

(Fugitive)

CDs like this one -- wherein an artist covers his/her most intimate influences -- are often applauded for ambition but disregarded for schmaltz. But there's no such complaint to be made here. Denison Witmer puts his earnest voice and soft acoustic guitar to Fleetwood Mac, Carole King, Leonard Cohen and Jackson Browne with grace and skill. It's reverent, but not distractingly so. The arrangements -- with drums, strings and backing vocals -- are the most ambitious and satisfying in this singer/songwriter's career so far. Can't wait for his next original CD to see how he'll apply what he learned from making Recovered. --P.R.

Collette Carter

The Information and the Last Nite

(TBTMO)

If Rod Sledge and Wilynda's first CD, The New Stroboscopic, was an electro-percussive space symphony to a love supreme since their teens, The Information and the Last Nite is its married, mature kissing cousin -- a fuzzier, "80s-new-wave-inspired bit o' pretty twitchiness. Backed by quietly buzzing guitars, metronomic pulses, starry piano and bloopy loops, Wilynda's breathy, high-altitude vocals slide, slip and clip their way through impressionistic lyrics about characters less happy/more disconnected than she. Plus, they cover Flock of Seagulls! --A.D.A.

The Twin Atlas

Inside the Skate Scandal

(North of January)

Bring Along the Weather

(Tappersize)

A busy year for The Twin Atlas' Sean Byrne and Lucas Zaleski saw the release of two albums of shimmering, homespun, dreamy guitar pop. With songs crafted from improvised bits and then layered with vocals and supporting parts, The Twin Atlas is a blend of spontaneous combustion and fastidious attention to detail. Lush but organic, the songs on Weather and Skate Scandal do more than capture moments in time; they recreate them. --B.H.

Larry Gold

Presents Don Cello and Friends

(BBE)

After string-arranging, producing and playing for every Philly disco-soul-hop act that ever walked the walk, past and present (along with J. Lo, Jay-Z and the hundreds of others at his Studio), Gold brings classically inspired largesse and funky leanings to his debut collection. Rather than a cold "producer's" album, Don Cello is open, warm and storming -- reminiscent of old hits and friends (McFadden & Whitehead, Bunny Sigler) without resorting to plush retro-ism when it comes to new pals and collaborators Black Thought and Kindred. This is yummy stuff. --A.D.A.

Kitty Kat Dirt Nap

Kitty Kat Dirt Nap

(self-released)

Keyboard-driven indie bands are supposed to be fluffy and cute, right? Not with a name like Kitty Kat Dirt Nap. On its debut four-song EP, this Philly-via-Bucks County quintet starts out charmingly enough on "Getting Caught Enjoying Phil Collins" with Adam Eckhoff's jangly guitar, Robyn Montella's airy Moog and trade-off vocals between the two. But once the distortion pedal gets hit, the energy carries through to the closing "Theme." It's synthpop with teeth. --J.V.