Scroll down for the latest release by Elliott Smith, Soulwax, Fatboy Slim, The Charlatans and The Undoing

Elliott Smith
From a Basement On the Hill

(ANTI)

www.anti.com

Autumn, 2004

Posthumously Eloquent, Dignified…Elegant

Elliott Smith’s death, whatever circumstance surrounds it---and I don’t
know but the barest gossip, because I never went back to try and find
out, it seemed so intrusive to wonder about something so much not my
business---has been a tragedy of enormous proportion for many, many
people, least including people like me, who listened to him, and waited.
I was waiting for another album six months after Figure 8 was
released in 2000. His death is a waste to me; a waste of his
tremendous talent, a waste of his life, which always appeared to verge
on falling apart. I thought, and sometimes said, that anyone who
sounded like he did, like an angel, even in the most un-angelic moments
of his music, was not long for this world.

I could be judged a very poor fan advertisement for Smith. His music
snuck up on me, then hit me like a ton of bricks quite suddenly, all at
once, after I’d been vaguely listening to it for months, and probably
not hearing it. After this epiphany, there followed a time when
Either/Or and XO rotated through my CD player on a daily basis for
months.

There was a time when I resigned myself to listen to his Kill Rock Stars
indie debut, and to Roman Candle, and did so---with a scowl on my
face. There was a time when I went to his gigs every time he came
through town, where I lay around on the floor to listen to him, as if I
couldn’t be bothered to give him my attention. Actually, I‘m certain I
paid more attention to his music at his gigs than I did anyone else’s
during their live performances. Once, he actually addressed the
audience and chuckled about something, and I had to get up off a
carpeted area near the back of the Black Cat to look. He performed
“Happiness” later, and it stuck in my head, like a rhyme from childhood,
where it played over and over for a very long time. Smith’s songs were
riveting, even live. When the album bearing it was released, I spent an
entire afternoon running from store to store to store one Tuesday to buy
it.

When Elliott Smith’s most recent, and probably last, record was
released, I didn’t run after it. He’d been dead a year, I couldn’t
bring myself to play my old CDs, and I was fearful, as always, when a
band or artist that I love releases a new record, that I’d be let down.
It was so easy to expect this to be hyped. The cynic in me believed it
would fall far short of anything I’d come to expect myself, or read or
heard from anyone else.

It’s honestly tragic then, to find From a Basement On the Hill to be
the most accomplished , or at least the most eclectic mix of, material
he ever did; his swan song is his White Album. Always and ever
Beatlesesque, this finds him hauntingly, achingly reminiscent of Lennon
and Harrison. And finally, far more introspective than anything he did
before. Occasionally, there’s almost enough emotion in the delivery to
make good on the lyrical content. In hindsight, of course, more musical
display of anger and less self-loathing may have been in order.

The recording itself is half-finished. Some tracks are fleshed out and
polished affairs, like the near-maudlin “Twilight” and “Pretty (Ugly
Before)”, or the accusatory opener, “Coast to Coast”, weirdly punctuated
by someone reading poetry rife with pseudo-religious imagery. As such,
they offer no real surprises except in how candid Smith’s lyrics had
become and as such, the sense that there was a lot more wrong in his
world than he was able or willing to expose previously.

What was likely to shock those fans of Smith who knew and loved his work
via material like that found on XO and Figure 8 are the musical
paths he’d started to wander, evidenced by tracks like “Don’t Go Down”:
no pretty ballad, this. It’s more an electrified tale of reprobation
and salvation with a load of seventies era guitar hijinks thrown on
board to make a point. Like the much-cliché’d “Little Wing” before it,
it’s a story of the (in this case) abused, crazy-girl---“hard and
cracked as the Liberty Bell” to quote Smith’s own lyrics--- turned
angel, bringing redemption to the vilified junkie.

It’d be unfair not to suggest that listening Smith unload his
self-loathing might get boring. If anyone else did the same, it could
be taken as self-indulgent whining. Here, though, it only underlines
his ability to pen often florid, always vivid lyrics showing the
horrible prescience he had about his impending death. Of little
consolation is the soul-baring of “A Fond Farewell”, “A Passing
Feeling”, and particularly of “Strung Out Again” which are honestly
depressing. The latter is truly a vision of emotional squalor. That
these songs are liable to make one think of George Harrison’s guitar
every chorus and bridge doesn’t make them any easier to take. And to
the end, tracks like the closing “A Distorted Reality Has Become a
Necessity to Live”, which seems to be missing a verse or two, reveal his
artistic progression enough to start the “What if?” cycle of wonder.

Discussing the album with another fan of Smith’s, himself a musician, a
friend admitted he was having trouble with the record. He prefers
Elliott Smith albums “all cool and smooth and slick”. *Not*, probably,
the totally off-kilter, wildly screeching goings-on of “Shooting Star”.
Retro, this is for all the world a glammed up anthem of some sort, were
it seen to a well-produced end. It’s also one of those “playing tricks
with my mind” songs, thanks in no small part to the lyrics. For those
of a chaste disposition, it’s probably about a woman. For the knowing
and/or more theatrical/imaginative of us, it’s a first-class drug song.
It even sounds druggy: paranoid, remorseful then remorseless, utterly
confused and confusing. “Shooting Star” rattles on of its own accord,
and at times, sounds like one more hit, one more shot would find the
underlying and barely constructed swagger---hanging on by sheer force of
will---collapse on itself into total cacophony. It’s chaos as narcotic
oblivion, delivered by guitars and drums. Yet another instance of “not
pretty”, it’s also one of the most affecting tracks.

Strangely, or perhaps not, its just the kind of thing on this record
that has made me feel acutely bad, all over again, that Elliott Smith
died. “King’s Crossing”, was the song here that really captured my
attention and alerted me to how different a direction he was going. A
tragi-comic piece about addiction and dying, who or what it was about
will become irrelevant. Filled with swirling keyboards that supply a
carnival-like atmosphere and nearly poetic imagery, it can stand on its
own for what it is: a brilliant piece of musical psychedelia.

Those responsible for compiling the album could have been emotionally
manipulative and placed “The Last Hour” as the final track, but they
didn’t. They didn’t need to.

This album is what it is: amazing, and unfortunately, very sad in an
all too real and tangible way.

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Soulwax
Any Minute Now

PIAS Recordings

www.pias.com

Dance Tunes for Dweebs, and Guitar Pop Lovers

Soulwax’s third album as a rock (RAWK) band finds this Belgian band
sounding very dancey. Indeed, the first song, “E Talking”, has a very
dancey, “Just Say NO” kinda video that is, well, comical. That said,
both it and the title track will appease fans hungry for more of 1999’s
Much Against Everyone’s Advice, but the tracks following are liable,
honestly, to aggravate. Part of this record rocks and rolls. What
doesn’t and is in between, snakes around, grooving over an electronic
beat, bleeps,beeps, zips and zaps. This could ostensibly make it an
easier task to mix the songs for the DeWaele’s (the Soulwax siblings)
side project, TwoManyDJs. It could also make indie or power-pop (ugh!
that term again!) fans have a fit.

Then again…”Compute”, track four, grows spectacularly sing-along, and
has some seriously heavy, crunchin’ guitars to offset that groovy
dance-able beat. It makes me giddy. Following, find “KracK”, a tune
that sounds an awful lot like something that fell off fellow
countrymen/rock star outfit Millionaire’s album from a couple years
back, what with that totally scary, Texas-chainsaw-massacre guitar
noise. This leads to more sugar/testosterone buzzing with the
near-perfect, brilliant “Slowdance”, boasting clever lyrics like “Play
the sequence in your head, embrace the fact you’re someone else”. This
might be about being thrown in the moshpit, but it could be about
playing video games or sex games or not saying no to chemicals. It’s
hard to tell what the hell is happening, what with a girl screaming on
the intro and the break, with them going on about not being able to make
connections. Like the best material from the last album, it’s
atmospheric and grand to the point of distraction, discounting the
freakin’ beat underneath.

True to form, the mid-section of the album is filled out with a couple
of slow numbers, including the sweeping, orchestral grandeur of
“Accidents and Compliments”, very much on par with MAEA’s “Proverbial
Pants” and “The Salty Knowledge of Tears”. It’d be a lie to suggest
that this isn’t a bit deflating after the high of the previous few
tracks’ bent to hyperkinesis. The trade? A person would have to be
illiterate not to love the phrases Soulwax turn then throw around in
their lyrics: “you need truth and aspirin, I need violence” and the
smirking “I need pills and memories, you need an audience”, built up
over the dreamy soundscape, turning it ever so slightly subversive and
toward the nightmarish.

There is, however, no excuse for the annoying, obnoxious “NY Excuse”.
Had it gone on thusly, this would now be a platter for serving cat food.
“Miserable Girl”, built on a keyboard loop, takes off on its own
buzzing guitars and sense of humor before it morphs into the
ultra-glammy “YYY/NNN”, by stealing the beat from “Rock and Roll, part
II”, no less.

Unfortunately, the final track shows off misplaced aspirations at
prog-rock, loses its sense of humor and eventually, the album wafts off
into the thin air with a strange electronic/ambient reprise of
“Slowdance” called “Dance 2 Slow”. They should’ve sent if off with a
big bang of some sort, and kept that rush going. It would have meant
the difference between a good album and a very good one. Tsk.

Available as import.

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Fatboy Slim
Palookaville

Skint Records

www.astralwerks.com

Songs from the Great Radio Graveyard of the Mind
By Shona Winfrey

Though it begins as less than classic, and the start up is somewhat
bumpy, by track three, this becomes recognizable as something of a true
Gold Star, or four, or five, or an A+, depending on where you’re doing
your thinking.

The genius of this album, pure and simple, is that Norman Cook, via his
alter ego, finally managed to do what he set about doing with From the
Gutter to the Stars: he has stuffed the spirit and life force of a
1970s era, American AM car radio onto one single album.

It doesn’t matter one whit that resources and inspirations as disparate
as beatnik poets and Latin dance music are sharing the ride with 80s
house and 90s trip hop, and that his cake has been frosted with an
ongoing computer-enhanced wackiness all around. It matters not that
rappers are in league with pompous, hyperbolic rock lyrics, or that he
tops it off with a cover of Steve Miller’s “The Joker”, sang by funk
bassmeister Bootsy Collins.

I could break this thing apart track by track, but that would be
pointless. Fatboy Slim fans jonesing for more Better Living Through
Chemistry and You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby big-beats techno may be in
for a shocking disappointment. It wasn’t what I expected, and it sure
as hell wasn’t what I wanted when I bought it and brought it home.
It’s driven me crazy, trying to place samples, and creating false
memories from songs I’d never heard before, yet swore I’d known most of
my life. Anyone willing to stick it out with this very eclectic, funny,
brilliant record---anyone with an open mind, anyone who loves music in
all its color and variety---will find it growing on her/him.

Here’s why: there are gems here, like “Put It Back Together” by Cook and
Damon Albarn, delivered in what can only be described as a stoned
demeanor by the latter, able to fool this writer and others with a
decent recall of music and a large library of records to pull from, into
believing we’d known it from the recesses of our collective childhood
minds. Albarn squeals “Put this back together, yeah-yeah-yeah!” in
falsetto on the chorus, backup singer gleefully going one better,
instantly transforming it to a classic Philly soul sound-alike, however
silly.

In “Wonderful Night”, a Brit-centric rap alternates very energetically
about partying, chatting up a girl and what must be “my posse and your
posse”, over an infectious dance beat. No big-beats, just a dance beat.
In “Long Way From Home”, a tinny guitar and over-amped bass vie for
attention with a spoken word monologue about some rather paraonoid guy
getting a ride. The chorus is a rock song, there are snippets of some
acid jazz song *I know from somewhere* holding the mess together. Does
it work? Were there ever inflatable pigs flying at Pink Floyd concerts?
“North West Three”, with an endless loop of “Primrose Hill”; “Push
and Shove” with its mid-70s, hyper-serious, utterly ridiculous lyrics,
broken up by a joke or two. “The Journey”, part cowboy song, part urban
poetry. The utterly trippy-ambient, Latin-flavored “Song for Chesh”…

Eventually, the game of “What’s What and Who’s Who” loses out to plain
old infectiousness. It will remain indescribable. Not a techno record,
not a dance record, just a lasting testament to Norman Cook’s career as
Fatboy Slim, and how he continues to make music, breaking his own rules,
not becoming formulaic.

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The Charlatans
Up At the Lake

Universal-MCA (UK)

www.islandrecords.co.uk

The Undoing

The Charlatans are revered in the UK as being the Manchester band from
that esteemed era of the very late 1980s-very early 1990s who’ve
proven themselves through sheer longevity, if not adaptability. Their
undoing could’ve been the truly untimely death of keyboardist Rob
Collins back in 1995. They stuck it out, though, bringing Tony Rogers
over from Primal Scream, to carry on in Collins’ stead. Collins and his
wailing Hammond organ, really the band’s signature, went sorely missing
though, and things have grown ever-spottier.

One moment, they were Stonesy, at another turn, Who-like. Now,
unfortunately, they appear to be morphing into a band who can’t find
themselves or define their sound. Up At the Lake, starting with its
title track, gets off to a promising lead. Then, the Charlatans go
through paces: a hybrid of their early selves and mid-80s Rolling
Stones to rootsy bar band to maudlin balladeers. And this in the space
of four songs.

It isn’t as if the Charlies are a bad band---oh f—k no. Tight as ever,
over again, they are masterful players, above adequate singers. The
record isn’t even bad or mediocre, but the fire seems to be definitely
out. They are still capable of beating the hell out of most junk found
on US radio, where long strings of anonymous Pearl Jam and Soundgarden
clones play kick the can with the latest crop of Korn or Limp Bizkit
wannabes, when the airwaves aren’t being held hostage by little boy
bands with “bad” attitude like Blink 182 or Good Charlotte. I’d thrill
to find the player-piano, good times are rolling of “Bona Fide Treasure”
or the hooky-chiming guitars of “Blue for You” on the radio.

Nevertheless, with this album, I have to admit I’d kill for the kicks
this band used to provide with songs like “Polar Bear”, or for something
with the the strange, depressed groove of “Can’t Even Be Bothered” in
tandem with the manic “Weirdo”. Going back over their catalog, I find
that even after Collins’ demise and departure from the band, they had
some truly illustrious moments, up to and including some of 2001’s
Wonderland Avenue like the addictive track, “Judas”.

Up At the Lake finds them saddle with ballads and mid-tempo pop
outings, including one co-penned by Linus of Hollywood. I don’t object
to pop songs, but the Charlatans? They were an acid guitar band,
bested, honestly, only by the Stone Roses when they were at their very
best. Now, they’re just like the rest of us: moved to the ‘burbs, got
a house, got in a relationship with a capital R, and literally, sound
like they’ve been trapped by their trappings.

Ever-popular vocalist and frontman Tim Burgess said in an interview that
he moved to LA because he felt his whole life like the sky was on his
head in northern and middle England. I’m beginning to think that the
wide open spaces, fresh air and sunshine have addled his senses.
This may be the Charlatans undoing. It sure sounds like it.

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