September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 7/29/8)

Tango is fucked-up dance music. Especially if you’re used to the obvious 4/4 of rock ‘n’ roll, its beats are subtle and syncopated – more stepped around than on. My husband and I took tango lessons in a South Beach bar a few years ago, and they were hard. The rhythms are felt, not pronounced, and the steps complicated. You have to count, but to be good, you have to count subconsciously, so that the moves flow rather than stutter. This is why tango is so fraught and taut: It’s serious, sometimes nerve-wracking movement. The jitterbug it ain’t.

Techno is dance music for fucked-up people. Its beats are mind-numbingly obvious, its movements freeform yet robotic. Techno is all about the symphonic voyage of a track – it’s music for tripping as much as stepping.

Tango and techno would seem to be worlds apart, but in fact, a number of artists have managed to merge the two to compelling effect. The New York-based group of multinationals who call themselves Brazilian Girls find common club ground in multiple beats, including dub, trance, tango, and techno. More to the point, a few years ago Gotan Project and Bajofondo Tango Club both released albums that launched a new wave of tango, one that mixed Buenos Aires’s historic music with modern-day Balearic beats.

After a several-year wait, Bajofondo released Mar Dulce, its second album, July 14. As the Argentinean-Uruguayan group expands its rhythmic repertoire, it has dropped the last two parts of its name. But tango remains the inspiration and heartbeat on such tracks as “Pa Bailar” (which features Mexican alt goddess Julieta Venegas on one of the album versions).

Bajo’s main man is acclaimed producer Gustavo Santaolalla, the music genius who has helmed CDs for groups including Molotov, Juanes, and the Kronos Quartet. He is probably best known for his Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning soundtracks for films, including Babel, Amores Perros, Brokeback Mountain, and The Motorcycle Diaries. But tango is this Argentinean’s passion. His filmic tribute to it, Café de los Maestros, is scheduled to be released later this year. It could do for tango what Buena Vista Social Club did for Cuban son.

Because of his immense industry cred, not to mention how damn good Bajofondo’s music is, Santaolalla was able to land an impressive posse of guest vocalists on Mar Dulce. Elvis Costello shows off his increasing immersion in Latin music on the torch song “Fairly Right,” Soda Stereo’s Gustavo Cerati spans the Argentinean decades on “El Mareo,” and Nelly Furtado croons “Boldozas Majados.”

Fusion tango bridges not just genres but generations; I think my ballroom-dancing mom would love Dulce, but it’s also cool enough for South Beach. It’s the ultimate party music: smart, sophisticated, yet not at all above having a good time on the dancefloor. In fact, heightening the art of cutting the rug is what it’s all about.

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September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/29/8)

“What’cha listening to these days?” It’s the music buff’s conversation opener, a bid to share discoveries, compare notes – maybe show off. So in case you were wondering, here are three discs that recently crossed my CD player – and have stayed there.

Santogold, Santogold (Downtown): There’s something about females singing obliquely over angular, rhythmic tracks that makes me want to jump up and down. The debut album by Brooklyn toaster/singer Santi White (pictured) and songwriter John Hill mixes ’80s empower pop with ’00s dancehall: It’s Missing Persons meets M.I.A., complete with clap tracks and weird synth effects. Media from Rolling Stone to Interview have been salivating over tracks like “LES Artistes” since they first hit the Internet last year. Santogold finally arrives in stores today.

Macaque, Chinatown EP: Another fem-punk New York new wave outfit, Macaque warble like Bjork and cavort like the Brazilian Girls. Evers’s vocals are seemingly cotton-candy light, but pack a not-so-hidden bite, as she taunts a “Big Man:” “I can’t wait to knock you down.” Chris Hart’s beats are deliriously Garageband simple – you’ll wish you’d thought of them first. But Macaque did.

Various artists, Independent Music for Independent Coffee Drinkers (sonaBLAST!): My colleague Wendy Case would probably call this collection of mellow coffeehouse anthems chirp rock. But it’s really good chirp rock. In a compilation of largely unknown folk singers, you’d expect to find several bad beans – but the quality control here is excellent. Mark Geary (who used to be my favorite New York bartender back when I called Irish pub the Scratcher my living room) is at his Nick Drake loveliest on two tracks, “Here’s to You” and “Obi’s Chair.” Charlotte Kendrick is an endearing Luddite on “I Get Stupid.” The oddball winner of the collection is “Violet Morning,” in which Jamie Barnes sings with endearing, over-the-top sincerity and compassion about the day R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry collapsed from a brain aneurysm. I’d say these laidback tunes are more for the herbal tea than the espresso crowd – or maybe they’re for slow-grind aficionados (sorry, can’t stop the coffee puns).

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September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/15/8)

Is the Gossip a dream? Watching the video for “Standing in the Way of Control,” the band’s ’06 club and UK hit that is featured on Gossip – Live in Liverpool, it’s hard to believe that a major label is promoting this concert album and DVD (Columbia’s Music With a Twist imprint releases Liverpool today). Or that the self-defined radical feminist band is playing on Late Show with David Letterman tomorrow night (April 16). And that in the UK, where proudly overweight singer Beth Ditto has been an unlikely, sometimes naked music-tabloid cover girl, the members are already rock stars. Even MTV is in on the action (the band’s part of the network’s “52/52” campaign). Is the revolution being televised?

Like the album, the “Standing” video (you can watch it in the View player) is a resolutely raw-power document. Singing in a throaty blues howl that actually merits the usual Janis Joplin comparisons, Ditto wears a shiny skin-tight minidress; in a recent Bust magazine interview, she talked about how she purposely wears exactly what fat girls are told they’re not supposed to. Token guy Brace Paine manages to play bass, lead, and rhythm guitar on one instrument, while drummer Hannah Blilie is the siren of the snare.

Back in the heyday of what Bikini Kill called Revolution Girl Style, I’d have been moshing with a pack of other tattooed women in some tiny Lower East Side anarchist space to a band like this. That was some 15 years ago, back before Gossip expressly moved from Arkansas to Olympia, Washington, to hook up with Riot Grrrls. Of course, even back then, major labels were dying to sign Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney; corporations like to buy into rebellion. The politicized musicians stuck with indies – and ultimately self-destructed (BK a lot quicker than SK).

It would be ridiculous to call the Gossip a sell-out. The band is scarcely trying to hide who it is; Music With a Twist is a label for gays and lesbians. In press releases, interviews, lyrics, everywhere, the band wears its politics on its sleeves. “This is for the faggots,” Ditto shouts before “Yr Mangled Heart” on Liverpool. (Later, she dedicates her cover of Aaliyah’s ‘98 pop hit “Are You That Somebody” to that tragically short-lived R&B star.)

As much as the Gossip’s success makes me giddy with surprise and delight, it doesn’t mean the revolution is won. In some ways, they make it harder for their kin. Any rock conservative can now counter an argument that so-and-so’s career has been waylaid by homophobia, misogyny, fat prejudice, or the feminist backlash by saying, “Well, that didn’t stop the Gossip!”

But like a precision instrument led by a diamond-hard drill bit, Ditto et al are an unstoppable force. They’re that good. When there’s a band as mediocre as a dozen popular boy bands – or surgically altered pop tarts – and fronted by a big, fat, loud, strident, bull dyke that gets its MTV spotlight, then I’ll believe the revolution has been won.

Until then, somebody pinch me.

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March 26, 2007 by info.

Cole and I went to see Laurie Berkner with a group of dear friends yesterday. It was my first kids’ rock outing, the first time I’ve taken Cole to a show that wasn’t a festival. It was a beautiful day. In fact, without a drummer and enough amplification, Berkner couldn’t compete with the weather, the fun of playing with his friend Eli, and the joys of chasing bubbles. Cole sat with me for maybe two songs. Then I don’t know if he heard a word Laurie sang after that.

Berkner is a smart songwriter: not genius, but melodic and, as Cole would say, engaging. She’s definitely the most accessible of a slew of newish acts that are re-creating children’s music. I was on a panel about this at South by Southwest; I also wrote a story on it for the Herald in December. A couple of parents have been asking me if there’s good kids music out there. Here’s a list of CDs I recommended with that story. I would add to it both albums by Uncle Rock and the Sippycups’ CD (Uncle Rock, aka Robert Burke Warren, and Sippycup Paul were both on the panel).

KIDS’ CDS
* New Orleans Playground (Putumayo Kids): Includes such classic bayou tunes as Ya Ya and Choo Choo Ch’Boogie, for the young at heart.

* They Might Be Giants, Here Come the ABCs (Disney Sound): Educational can be weird.

* Wee Hairy Beasties, Animal Crackers (Bloodshot): Clever, fun, folksy, but not cutesy.

* We Are . . . the Laurie Berkner Band (Razor & Tie): Noggin-watchers’ favorite lady of song.

* Elizabeth Mitchell, You Are My Little Bird (Smithsonian Folkway): Folk, rock and reggae songs by Neil Young, Francosie Hardy, etc., gently and smartly reinterpreted.

* Jack Johnson and Friends, Sing-a-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George (brushfire): For the little jamsters.

* Dan Zanes and Friends, All Around the Kitchen (festival five): The former Boston rocker (Del Fuegos) pioneered the current wave of kid rock; his several CDs mix classics and originals.

* All Together Now: Beatles Stuff for Kids of All Ages (Little Monster/V2): Tasteful, modern renditions of Yellow Submarine, Birthday, etc., packaged with a book of poems and trivia.

* The Backyardigans, Groove to the Music (Nick Records): Some of the best musicians in New York play on these songs. Just beware of the munchkin singers.

* Lil Jams, Vol. 1 (GMG): Hip-hop hits sung by kids in not too cloying a fashion.

* Jack’s Big Music Show, Season One (Nick Records): A decent sampling of Nick Jr.’s favorites, including Berkner, Milkshake, and Sweet Honey in the Rock.

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