WK15 - Sa-Ra Creative Partners - Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love (10)

Released - 6/23/09

Label - Ubiquity Records

BLURB - A buffet of sounds, with limitless soul, r&b, jazz, hip-hop and avant garde. This is what has been lacking from music. It's weird and strange, yet simple and to the point. Not since Andre 3000's efforts on, 'The Love Below' have I heard orchestration and composition like this. With two discs, totaling twenty-three tracks there are so many choices, possibilities and options for the listener to tune in to. If you like cookie cutter smooth r&b and typical hip-hop, you'll hate 'Nuclear Evolution.' This record really pushes the limits of so many different genres in such a relaxed motion. I can't put it down.

Rating - 10 out of 10

FULL STORY - For those that don't know, Sa-Ra Creative Partners is a three man songwriting and production posse. They've written with tons of other artists and have flown under the radar appearing mostly on mix tapes. Their work and song construction is very direct and extremely well thought out. It's blatantly obvious that they do not write material for themselves and almost prefer to stay out of the spotlight. Nearly half of this record has female vocals, yet Sa-Ra is three guys. The production of their songs are tailored to be great songs and great music. If they appear on the track, fine, but if they can achieve the sound they are striving to create through other vocalists, musicians or emcees, they acknowledge that, and get themselves out of the way. It's creating the best music they can create, even if it is for another performer. Music for music's sake.

'Spacefruit' opens the album brilliantly. This track wanders through space and open air with an uncharacteristic beat and very few lyrics. I can vision this as the opening to a movie - it works just as well opening the record. 'Spacefruit' takes off somewhere near Mars and ends up in Harlem. The second track, 'Dirty Beauty' is very chill and a great song to ride your beat up old huffy around town to. There is rapping but it is more like slow talking, to a beat. Very relaxed, with no real direction. 'I Swear' is the third track and is brilliant. There are female vocals all over the place, in the foreground, in the background, coming out of left field...all over a foundation of light jazz keyboards. The pace is slow but it works for the song. Think of this as if a producer told Corinne Bailey Rae to just relax and sing whatever came to her over a downbeat, minimal jazz-pop groove.

'Traffika' gets nice and urban for the audience. The song bashes cops constantly, but you'd never know because it's not in your face ala NWA. This is easily the most hip-hop track on the record and discusses drug trafficking and corrupt cops trying take out the new generation of intelligent, soulful urban youths.

"It's the nu-bonic plague, we gotta get away. Crooked ass cops, they comin from the blocks"

The best track to groove to is, 'Bitch Baby.' There is a really nice, old school drum beat which is countered with a very new school synth loop. This is Sa-Ra at their best. Let's take something amazing from past but then add something amazing from the present...and let's make it groove. 'Bitch Baby' is followed up by the vintage-sounding, 'Love Czars.' Another downtempo track that sounds like it is out of a history book and is also great to groove to. Right away I thought of one of my favorite groups growing up...Arrested Development. A guitar riff with the treble way up flows throughout the song, visiting both high and low registers. There aren't many lyrics with this one, but it's still great. Clocking in at nearly eight minutes, you can just hit play, kick your feet up and nod your head to the calming beat.

'Gemini's Rising,' which is more or less the song the group is pushing the most, offers vocals coming from all directions, intermingled with a bunch of futuristic sounds and effects. It's not the best song on the record, but it's easy to like, and once again, laid back. 'The Bone Song' follows this up, and no it's not about tibias and femurs. Plain and simply it's about fucking. The sex is turned on for this r&b track and features a raunchy chorus...

'Is it that I want you? Do I just want to bone you? The little things that you do, just make me wanna bone you. Girl, as long as I've known you, I've been tryin to bone you, so tell me what we gonna do...'

The award for the second coolest dance jam on the album goes to, 'Move Your Ass.' An awe-inspiring funk bass riff soars through the track at a blistering pace, with dashes of keyboards, synth and other effects. No lyrics, no raps, no background vocals...just a great, funky, experimental dance beat done to perfection. But don't worry...there are some great vocals on here too. 'My Star' features some angelic voicing, which sounds eerily similar to Corinne Bailey Rae. That is a huge compliment by the way, and further...now everybody knows my fanaticism with Corinne Bailey Rae.

The end of the record gets very funky and very experimental. 'Spaceways Theme' sounds like a futuristic jazz piano improvisation. There is also an avant guarde feel to this track. There are plenty of dissonant notes that just sound wrong and out of place, but as you listen to the song over and over again, you wouldn't change it. The next song, 'Just Like a Baby' give the audience some blues beats mixed with a very laid back funk vibe. Imagine George Clinton singing the blues in a lounge.

Embracing the auto-tune generation, Sa-Ra belts out the voice modulator for, 'Double Dutch (Co Co Pops).' This song needs to be on the radio and in clubs. It's so catchy and makes up for a lot of the energy that some of the record lacks.

The aforementioned award for coolest dance jam goes to, 'Death of a Superstar (Supernova).' I guarantee after you hear this the first time, it will be stuck in your head for a month. Very old school and disco-esque with tons of synth and great production. This is the best song on the album, and one of the better songs I've heard all year. 'Powder Bump' and 'Hanging By a String' close out the record as they should. These are two great songs that bend genres. Is it techno? Is it jazz? Is it synth-pop? Is it hip hop? Is it r&b? The answer to each question is arguably, yes. The music and production, again, is so incredibly well done that there are no lyrics, but you never even notice. There is so much going on, that with each song you inevitably get lost in them. As should be the overall theme of, 'Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love.'

This is easily the most eclectic, modern, laid back, hip-hop, futuristic, urban, jazz, r&b record I've ever heard. That being said, I've never heard all of those categories brought together as one, before this. It's incredibly new. Get lost in it.

Tracks

1.) Spacefruit

2.) Dirty Beauty

3.) I Swear

4.) Melodee N'mynor

5.) He Say She Say

6.) Traffika

7.) Souls Brother

8.) Bitch Baby

9.) Love Czars

10.) Gemini's Rising

11.) The Bone Song

12.) White Cloud

13.) Move Your Ass

14.) Love Today

15.) Can I Get You Hi

16.) My Star

17.) Cosmic Ball

18.) Spaceways Theme

19.) Just Like a Baby

20.) Double Dutch (Co Co Pops)

21.) Death of a Star (Supernova)

22.) Powder Bump

23.) Hangin' By a String

WK14 - Papercuts - You Can Have What You Want (6.5)

Released - 3/24/09

Label - Gnomosong

BLURB - This dreamy collection of ambient '60's style folk-pop is like tumbleweed blowing by a deserted road. It doesn't move in any particular direction, even though it looks like it's trying to. 'You Can Have What You Want' is incredibly simple, yet doesn't sound as if it is from 2009. I've listened to this record more than I should probably admit, but with the album being so vague, it's hard to recall any specific 'highs' and 'lows.' Wholly, this record is breezy and great background music for some light afternoon reading, it's very unassuming and neutral. Individually, nothing jumps out and it's almost impossible to differentiate between songs and even between what is great and what is terrible.

Rating - 6.5 out of 10

FULL STORY - This is probably the least memorable disc that I've heard this year, yet I listen to it a fair amount. It's incredibly relaxing and full of air. The problem is that after hearing each song, one instantly forgets it, deleting it from their musical memory. The record is filled with organs, strings, pianos, acoustic guitars and tons of background vocals. Production of 'You Can Have What You Want' was obviously done to mimmic the '60's and '70's. This record would have been perfect for the California hippies after a long day of surfing, coming back to their apartment to smoke pot and reflect.

Shifting to the present day, the track that I am most fond of is, 'Dictator's Lament.' For anyone that has seen Napoleon Dynamite, this song sounds like every number that was used as a transition between scenes. There is a very heavy, almost wet-sounding organ that plays throughout the tune. Each track on this album has so much reverb and fuzz, giving depth to alot of the lighter melodies that present themselves.

The best 'Non-Napoleon Dynamite' track is 'Future Primitive,' and definitely reverts back to the '60's with its' lyrical content pertaining to an apathetic soldier who fights in a war, and upon returning can't look at himself in the mirror. Some pretty heavy stuff, actually. The drums are almost done to a melancholy marching pace and one can picture themselves entering a battle in which they don't want to be in. The title track follows up, 'Future Primitive' nicely, painting a canvas of understanding, acceptance and hope:

"You can have what you want and throw the rest away. The things you said you wanted are all left out for you."

This is a nice little reminder to us common-folk, that nothing ever really prevents us from getting what we want or need. This song features some nice background vocals and its' simplicity and broadness provides more meaning than the song should have.

Outside of these three tracks, or should I say with these three tracks, this record sounds like one long song. The only thing that really changes is the instrumentation, with the pace of the record remaining in the slow to very slow range. This is good and bad. It's good because you can just throw this record on, do some thinking, maybe read a book and you can really relax. I listen to this all the time at work when I have something complex to work on and don't want to be distracted. There's no foot tapping or snapping to this record. You don't all of a sudden skip to track eight because it has a great chorus and then back to track four because there is a cool guitar part. It's bad, however, because there is nothing to differentiate between songs. I only mentioned, 'Dictator's Lament,' 'Future Primitive,' and 'You Can Have What You Want' because those are probably the only songs of which I know the names to, and I've had this album for three months.

The Papercuts will ultimately stay in my music rotation but for the wrong reasons. This is what I want to listen to when I don't want to listen to anything in particular. It's easy on the ears and doesn't require your undivided attention. Great coffeehouse music. Unfortunately, this isn't the '60's anymore and 99.99% of the world won't pay attention to The Papercuts, including myself.

Tracks

1.) Once We Walked in the Sunlight

2.) Dictator's Lament

3.) This Machine Will Tell Us So

4.) A Peculiar Hallelujah

5.) Jet Plane

6.) Dead Love

7.) Future Primitive

8.) You Can Have What You Want

9.) The Void

10.) The Wolf

WK13 - The Dead Weather - Horehound (4.5)

Released - 7/14/09
Label - Third Man / Warner Bros.

BLURB - Meh...I'm indifferent on this. But I'll say this...this is what music should be. The Dead Weather formed after an impromptu jam session. The four-some then, without haste, decided to write for three weeks, record the album, and release it. Now that is the good life. The supergroup known as, 'The Dead Weather' brings together members of The White Stripes, Queens of the Stone Age, The Raconteurs and The Kills. It's certainly a different look and feel with the band's most recognizable face, Jack White, positioned squarely behind the drum set. The record is fairly straightforward rock with some indie and more alternative wanderings. I'm sure, just based on the clientele, I should say this is amazing and rock is back, but Kings of Leon already brought rock back. With that being said, this isn't too terrible (but still terrible) and there are some awesome tracks on here, but you're going to have to skip around to find them...

Rating - 4.5 out of 10

FULL STORY - 'I Cut Like a Buffalo' is easily the best song on the record. Massive organs flood the verses and choruses and for some reason it provides me with a sped up rock interpretation of reggae. The organs jab at the beat and offer up a sweet little riff every 20 seconds or so. 'Treat Me Like Your Mother' is another solid track with heavy guitars lines and an outstanding bridge. The whole song is about being manipulated and tricked, as a child would attempt to do to his mother, see also the verse, 'Look me in the eye now, you wanna try to tell a lie? You can't and you know why? I'm just like your mother.' This sounds amazing coming from a fiery Alison Mosshart (The Kills) and I'm convinced to be on my best behavior now. There is so much energy and forward momentum to this song, it's very captivating. After the bridge there is a very brief and simple, yet tantalizing solo that adds another dimension to the song, as short as it may be.

'New Pony' is also fairly noteworthy. It should be known that I regard any song that opens with, 'I had a pony, her name was Lucifer' to be noteworthy. Some vintage fuzz guitars add a 60's vibe to this track and really feels like it could be a Janis Joplin tune. 'Bone House' follows up 'New Pony' and does so nicely. We get our first shot of what sounds like a synthesizer here, along with screeching, high pitched guitars. Mosshart shouting vocals, only makes the song more dynamic and raw.

What's sad is that aside from these four tracks, I find the record unlistenable. There is so much dabbling and experimenting, and there are very few specific instances when you can actually hear the four of them click. I understand that this is pretty much an experimental record to mess around with some friends, but with Jack White I expected a little bit more. Once, '60 Feet Tall' starts it's a pretty good opener to the disc, but it takes forever to get going, and then abruptly loses all of it's steam as it goes into, 'Hang You From the Heavens,' which fails to go anywhere. 'Hang You From the Heavens' is the same two riffs over and over and over again, stretching the definition of redundancy to it's ends. The same can be said about, 'So Far From Your Weapon.' To me, it's just boring. The whole tracks is just drums, with very limited instrumentation, and really prevents the listener from playing the record without skipping forward.

'Rocking Horse' and '3 Birds' continue the monotony with the latter being lyric-less. As the album draws near it's conclusion, the audience will certainly be looking for a closing track that will knock their socks off...we've been waiting long enough. Predictably, this doesn't come. 'Will There Be Enough Water?' finds itself lost in a painfully slow fusion of country, rock and blues. As it approaches the seven minute mark, it seems like the track will never end, but alas it does, when I hit the stop button after four dreadful minutes.

If you have an extra ten bucks laying around I would not recommend buying this record. Get a six pack of Dogfishhead Ale, it's a more sound investment. 'Horehound' will likely get positive reviews for being experimental and having a 'nice' fusion of sounds. Anything that is associated with Jack White will be ripe for critical acclaim, as it should, he's a genius...just not on this record. Definitely check out some of the songs and decide for yourself, but as an avid enthusiast of just about all music genres, I found, 'The Dead Weather's' debut disc to be a tough listen and difficult to get through in it's entirety.

Tracks

1.) 60 Feet Tall

2.) Hang You From the Heavens

3.) I Cut Like a Buffalo

4.) So Far From Your Weapon

5.) Treat Me Like Your Mother

6.) Rocking Horse

7.) New Pony

8.) Bone House

9.) 3 Birds

10.) No Hassle Night

11.) Will There Be Enough Water?

WK12 - Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (9)

Released - 5/12/09

Label - Ghettoblaster S.A.R.L. / Glassnote Entertainment Group LLC

BLURB - Quite the mix here. I hear the Strokes and Coldplay clashing with a dance beat in the background. While some are obviously classifying this as 'dance-rock' I don't think 'Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix' falls into this dangerous label...Phoenix is a rock band with some heavy pop and synth influences. Nobody is doing the jitterbug to this, but they are definitely tapping their foot to the snare hits. This is a good thing. Over the last three years this 'european synth' sound has flooded this side of the Atlantic. Whether originating overseas or not and most of the time these acts are fairly transparent, however, French synth-rockers Phoenix are not trying to force the issue. It could be argued that their sound has taken on aspects from American rock and alternative music, while still maintaining an uptempo European feel. It's a delicate balance, but clearly Phoenix already knows this.

Rating - 9 out of 10

FULL STORY - Phoenix is one of only four acts to have a third song requested by Saturday Night Live, this was back in April. You've probably heard of the other three (Paul McCartney, U2 and Coldplay). It's kind of ironic that America's greatest sketch comedy show of all time has never had an American band back for a third go at it.

Among the several reasons I like Phoenix was the initial similarity that I drew to The Strokes. Outside of one Dileepan Ganesan, or those who pass my cube at Cherry Lane, nobody really knows or understands my affection for The Strokes. I've gone as far as saying that they are the best band of our (the current twenty-somethings) era. There was never anything like them before they shot out of New York City and there hasn't been anything remotely close to them since. No - The Vines, Hives and Mooney Suzuki are not even in the same stratosphere as them. You can tell a great band when, upon their initial success, here comes a slew of imitators claiming they've been around just as long and should be in the conversation. Sorry, but you're not. The first time I heard '1901' by Phoenix, I was like....ok, now they are being copied in France. After really sitting down and listening to 'Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix' I realized they sound nothing like them. All of the signature trademarks of The Strokes (raw vocals, violent guitar riffs and traditional pop songwriting) are vacant in Phoenix. In stark contrast they have polished vocals, clean guitars and experiment with what a song should be. Just take a look at 'Love Like a Sunset, Parts I & II,' hell, there aren't even any vocals on those tracks. Phoenix does everything well that The Strokes never tried, and never tried doing anything that The Strokes did well. And in these two vastly different approaches, both end up sounding hauntingly similar, yet utterly unique.

'Lisztomania' was the first single, and refers to the scene surrounding Franz Liszt, Europe's first flamboyant classical pop sensation. This track has some pounding drums and an assortment of guitars (acoustic, rhythm, clean, electric lead). The bridge throws in some brief, spacious synth, brilliantly contrasting with the song's pace. The tune is extremely catchy and will have you shouting 'Lisztomania,' even if you have no idea what that means. Cue the synth for the second track, '1901.' This is the best song on the album, hands down. The synth is heavy, the guitars are light and the drum beat is fast and slow at all the right times.

'Fences' slows down the record's frenetic pace and feature some nice keyboard and acoustic tones. A very nice song to counter 'Lisztomania' and '1901.' From here this record goes a little haywire. 'Love Like a Sunset Part I' is a slowly building monster. As each minute goes by, more and more elements of chaos and friction are added. As I alluded to earlier, there are no vocals in this track. Halfway through, some african sounding guitar riffs are used to pierce through a wall of sonic synthesizers, only to stop entirely and give way to some kind of distorted video game soundtrack. After this, the song almost turns into a jam song in the style of Lotus. Another cool guitar riff emerges and instrumentation is once again slowly added, pushing the pace and altering the mood. The song then segues into the 'Part II' which blends in some acoustic guitar and ultimately lyrics. The two parts to this song form a journey of sorts and you can't help but think your iTunes suddenly hit shuffle and is now on some experimental, avante garde record. This is confirmed as 'Lasso' is born out of the sunset science project.

'Lasso' takes the listener back to the beginning of this record with more familiar pop stylings, and a return to clean guitars and witty lyrics. The remainder of the album is done in this vein. Well crafted songs with clever content and an underestimated wall of sound. This record is a great buy for anyone that likes The Strokes, Coldplay...even Death Cab for Cutie. There is a very mainstream feel to the album, even though it will never be mainstream. Looking forward to seeing what comes of 'Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix...'

Tracks

1.) Lisztomania

2.) 1901

3.) Fences

4.) Love Like a Sunset Part I

5.) Love Like a Sunset Part II

6.) Lasso

7.) Rome

8.) Countdown

9.) Girlfriend

10.) Armistice