REVIEWS **********************************

Delerium
Poem
Nettwerk Productions, 1650 W. 2nd Ave, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6J 4R3
http://www.nettwerk.com/
mailto:info@nettwek.com

Delerium is creators of ethnotechno with deep, substantial rhythms. As if the lineup changes were prologues to this release infused an opening dynamism, most of the tracks feature a different guest artist. These include Mediaeval Baebes, Lisa Gerrard, Sixpence None The Richer's Leigh Nash and more. This album is about the female voice and Delerium's techno, the only exception being the effeminate voice of Matthew Sweet on one track. The group's sophisticated world beat is a unique offering in contemporary electronica. (4)

Various Artists
The Duplex Planet Presents Ernie: The Songs of Ernest Noyes Brookings
Gadfly Records, POB 5231, Burlington, VT  05402
http://www.gadflyrecords.com/

An impressive cavalcade of singer-songwriters and indie rock bands come together on this disc celebrating the music of accidental songwriter Ernest Brookings. This is the fifth collection put forward by producer and writer David Greenberger, who discovered Brookings and prompted him to begin, at age 80, to put forth a stream of hundreds of witty, insightful poems to the music community. Highlights of the disc include Dave Alvin of The Blasters taking on a Johnny Cash mien for "November" and Robyn Hitchcock brings his three decades of experience to "Book." (4.5)

Johnny Shines
Too Wet to Plow
Labor Records

John Ned Shines, a.k.a Little Wolf, brought a strong, projecting voice with a rich vibrato to the post-WW II blues scene. His acoustic guitar style and simple beats drew a line straight back to Blind Lemon Jefferson. One has to go back as far as Mance Lipscomb to find a Texas bluesman to boast a comparable talent for the blues. This is a reissue of the 1978 album that is a powerful and personal statement, the thick root common with other subterranean limbs that gave life to Muddy Waters and the rock-n-roll-breeding Chicago blues sound. (4)

The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love
H.O.M.E.S., Volume 1
The Telegraph Company, POB 2553, NYC, NY, 10009
http://www.thetelegraphcompany.com/
http://www.tobasol.com/

The title of this album comes from the acronym mnemonic that schoolchildren of the Great Lakes area employ to remember the names of all those bodies of fresh water. Indeed, this album is the group's homage to the "beautiful peninsula," but you need never have stepped foot in that state to appreciate these excellent arrangements of multiple vocalists, strings, horns and other instrumentation. Spacious, sunny and joyous like a Lake Superior view from an Isle Royale high point, this album is a celebration of history and geography and the poetic interweaving of those features into experience and emotion. H.O.M.E.S., Volume 1 is an intriguing post-folk album of rich arrangements and vocal mosaics that make us hope the group will apply their skills to each of the fifty states. (4.5)

Tara Jane O'Neil
In The Sun Lines
Quarterstick Records, POB 25342, Chicago, IL  60625
mailto:info@tgrec.com

Simply recorded in a Louisville ballroom, In The Sun Lines echoes the understated melancholy that is O'Neil's style and the signature of the Louisville-Chicago mood rockers she springs from: The Sonora Pine, Retsin and Rodan. Various guest artists from that scene were brought without preparation into this personal project of minimalism and melody. (3.5)

Matt Marque
Get There
Truckstop, 2255 S. Michigan Ave., #4W, Chicago, IL  60616
http://www.truckstoprecords.com/
mailto:truckstop@compuserve.com

Matt Marque gives us brief, quirky pop songs with a delicate, homemade quality. This bare production and simple presentation allows the mood of the song to jump right through to the surface. The youth's dry voice mixed with an elder's creaking is a unique, papery sound among singer-songwriters. Guests on the recording include drummer Glenn Kotche (Simon Joyner, Lofty Pillars, Wilco) and Steve Dorocke (Central Station) providing pedal steel. (3.5)

John Morton
Outlier: New Music for Music Boxes
Innova, 332 Minnesota St., St. Paul, MN 55101
http://www.innovarecordings.com/
mailto:Innova@composersforum.org

The innocent music box becomes a source of scintillating beauty in this strangely beautiful recording from John Morton. Morton conjures a wide variety of tones from the unassuming boxes for unexpected, angular melodies. By manipulating the delicate mechanisms both manually and electronically, Morton creates an otherworldly experience that echoes the disembodied, dream-like nature of distant, childhood memories. (4.5)

Ruby
Altered and Proud (The Short-Staffed Remixes)
Thirsty Ear
http://www.thirstyear.com/
http://www.rubymusic.com/

This is an album of track remixes taken from the Short-Staffed at the Gene Pool album. There is a general trip-hop feel to the funky remixes, providing some style consistency among the diverse artists. Easy, chill-out tacks give way to hard funk mixes, but the changes make sense so that the album is not too uneven. Altered and Proud is a worthy apotheosis of this album into modern, hip, midnight beat music by compelling studio wizards like Dot Allison, Eli Janney (Girls Against Boys), Max Tundra, etc. (4)

Scott Tuma
Hardagain
Truckstop, 2255 S. Michigan Ave., #4W, Chicago, IL  60616
http://www.truckstoprecords.com/
mailto:truckstop@compuserve.com

Tuma's tentative, uneven melodies plucked self-consciously from an electric guitar are shy, revealing essays of fragile and honest art. The Souled American guitarist's largely instrumental pieces are of narcotic lethargy; relaxed almost to dissolution. They have tide-like ebb and flow and the echoed melodies bear the whispers of a lullaby. These tranquil tones are mellow moods from Morpheus. (3)

Peter Murphy
aLive JustforLove
Metropolis Records, POB 54307, Philadelphia, PA  19105
http://www.metropolis-records.com/

This is a 2-CD set of music taken from a live, acoustic set recorded November 30, 2000 at El Rey in Los Angeles. Much work went into making this a representative musical experience; perhaps too much work. The audience cut-ins sound exaggerated, planned and repeated as if extracted from a Beatles concert. However, getting past that, one discovers a warm, intimate presentation of Murphy's material. Backed only by Hugh Marsh on electric violin and Peter DiStefano on electric guitars, Murphy plays 12-string on fourteen of his own songs on disc one. Disc two is given to three Bauhaus classics: "Who Killed Mr. Moonlight," "All We Ever Wanted" with a David J appearance and "Hope (Midnight Proposal)." Disc two concludes the package with a cover of Elvis' "Love Me Tender." (4)

Various Artists
A Break From the Norm
Restless
http://www.restless.com/

DJ and producer Norman Cook has spent years crafting hip pieces largely by accreting studio tricks around nuggets from '70's vinyl. This release is simply Cook's celebration of his source material. Rather than transforming anything at all, he presents the entire unaltered tracks he has found so golden. Classic rockers like The James Gang and Colosseum sit next to soul-funk vocalists like Camille Yarbrough and Ellen McIlwaine on this excellent compendium. (4)

Cesaria Evora
Sao Vicente
Windham Hill

Cesaria Evora is the peerless jazz vocalist from Cape Verde. She is an Edith Piaf with African touches. The dialect of Portuguese sung here sounds distinctly French and transports us to a pre-World War II Parisian lounge. Evora chose songs from Mario Lucio, Ti Goy, B. Leza and more to put together a mosaic looking back on tougher days and celebrating a life that sees Evora take her music around the globe. Bonnie Raitt duets with Evora on Crepuscular Solidao and elsewhere Evora shares the vocals with Pedro Guerra, Chucho Valdes, Orquesta Aragon and Caetano Veloso. (5)

Steve Kirk
Pop
Steve Kirk, POB 9727, Berkeley, CA  94709-0727
http://www.stevekirkpop.com/

Steve Kirk is a long-standing Club Foot Orchestra member who also works in creating music for commercial TV. On Pop he combines the refined approach of a pop-rock scientist with the emancipating freedom of an avant-garde artist. His results are never merely quirky, but instead captivating, sophisticated and unexpected. These arrangements of horns and strings with extended instrumental passages make for compelling and unique listening. (4)

Various Artists
Earthear Radio: Summer 2001
EarthEar, 45 Cougar Canyon, Santa Fe, NM  87505
http://www.earthear.com/
mailto:info@EarthEar.com

This is the debut of a serial release due out seasonally; every four months. Thus in tune with the environment, the album surveys the art of aural environmental soundscapes. The selections are largely ambient, impressionistic pieces built around a single motif. Steven Feld focuses on the rhythmic possibilities of cicadas for "Keafo, Morning." Jean Roche offers a chorus of electronic frogs on "Venzuelan Wonderfrogs." (3.5)

Darryl Purpose
A Crooked Line
Tangible Music, POB 340, Merrick, NY  111566-0340
http://www.tangible-music.com/
mailto:info@tangible-music.com
http://www.darrylpurpose.com/

Purpose moved from being a leading professional blackjack player to becoming an activist and founding the band Collective Vision. His solo career began in 1996 and brought him to this exquisite album containing material co-written with Ellis Paul and string arrangements from the Turtle Island String Quartet. We meet many travelers on this crooked, lonely road from president Rutherford Hayes to the imperturbable and alluring landscape crosser "Mary Jane." The excellent songs feature subtle banjo and the backing vocals of Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer. (4.5)

Soundtrack
Apocalypse Now Redux
Nonesuch

The reissue by Miramax of a new, extended version of the film Apocalypse Now necessitated a new soundtrack, and this is it. The film has 53 extra minutes and the soundtrack, available for the first time on a single-CD, features two additional tracks of original music from Carmine Coppola. The stunning effect of this re-mastered music is a better match for the strange trip of the rock-n-roll war that is the film's odyssey. (4)

Tight Bro's From Way Back When

Lend You a Hand

Kill Rock Stars, 120 NE State Ave., PMB 416, Olympia, WA  98501

http://www.killrockstars.com/

Unrestrained, breaking-loose rock-n-roll of brash guitars, short, crisp leads and feedback is what this rawk band is about. They ply their trade when most rock acts express an '80's romanticism, but they drink from the same well as 70's rock acts like Black Oak Arkansas on up to the first shouts at the devil from Motley Crüe. This is the angry assault distilled from the heaviest of '60's electric blues-rock. (3.5)

C.J. Chenier & The Red Hot Louisiana Band
Step it Up!
Alligator Records
http://www.alligator.com/

Step it Up! is another red hot, spicy jambalaya blend of Zydeco, R&B and rock from one of Zydeco's greatest living performers. This is a high-energy album of smoking Louisiana dance music from a Zydeco accordion and powerful lyric shouter. (2.5)

Matt Turner & John Harmon
Outside In
Stellar Sound Productions
http://www.janetplanet.com/

Matt Turner (cello) and John Harmon (piano and keyboards) turn in a wonderful acoustic jazz album of originals and covers by Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and more. Matt Turner alternately attacks the cello with such verve we can hear the rosin dust launch of the strings and then delicately with a high-pitched, elegant violin-like passage. Harmon is reliable and sophisticated throughout with complex and engaging melodies executed flawlessly and evenly. (4.5)

Elza
Elza
Elza, 540 W. Boston Post Rd, Box 198, Mamaroneck, NY  10543
http://www.elzamusic.com/

Elza grew up traveling between a mother in South Carolina doing watercolors and a father in Germany inclined to Classical music. She wound up with songs full of vivid lyrics and tight pop melodies. She briefly went into operatic training before returning to songwriting with greater technical ability.  Her award-winning talents make Elza a superlative album. (3.5)

Ingram Marshall
Kingdom Come
Nonesuch

American composer Ingram Marshall combines original elegiac orchestrations and choral works in music for orchestra and tape on Kingdom Come. The soul of these works, which contain East European influences, is musings upon war-torn Bosnia, and churches in that area were used to record key portions. Kronos Quartet records the third piece on this beautiful, sad triptych, Fog Tropes II, a new version of one of the composer's better-known works. Midway, the composer uses electronics to transmute American hymns into new works on the ethereal Hymnodic Delays. (4.5)

Paved Country
Deconstructing Paradise
Paved Country
http://www.pavedcountry.com/

Paved Country is a song-oriented modern country ensemble led by two female vocalists: Sarah Mendelsohn and Marjie Alonso. They write the songs and alternate between lead and harmony vocals. Their songs on the different aspects of love are beautiful and moving, featuring a wide range of acoustic guitar types and varied instrumentation, including bass saxophone and pedal steel, on every track. (3.5)

Various Artists
Elefant Dosmiluno
Elefant Records, POB 331, Las Rozas, 28230 Madrid, Spain

Elefant Records produces another compilation of charming, light indie Europop taken mostly from Spain. There is something faintly vintage about the groups that Elefant compiles here, as if they are touched slightly by '60's teen rock. This saccharine, DIY bubblegum music is dulcet songs of pure spun joy. (3.5)

Various Artists
Unitone Guitar Series: A Portrait for Strings
Unitone Recordings
http://www.unitonerecordings.com/

On this compilation, Unitone explores the subtle world of instrumental, acoustic guitar pieces. The presence of guitarists like Bruce Gaitsch and Leonardo Amuendo lend a Latin feel to the opening tracks, but it is largely masters from pop and rock that set the tone throughout. Providing music unlike their amplified electric sides, Rik Emmett and Steve Morse feature here. Tommy Emmanuel is also present and Leni Stern lends a jazz touch to this varied collection of ear-opening surprises. (4.5)

Appliance
Imperial Metric
Mute

Appliance excels at drowsy electronic beat music that has much to do with the slo-core inspired by the Velvet Underground. When, on "A Gentle Cycle Revolution" the singer wants to sleep a "thousand years," we instantly think of Velvet Underground's "Venus In Furs." Imperial Metric is an aural-electro-narcotic; an anti-urban balm to massage away cares and worries. (4)

Jann Arden
Blood Red Cherry
Rounder/Zoë
http://www.rounder.com/

Jann Arden is a singing songwriter. She is a true songbird in the classic pop sense. Minimal backing on this album, largely electro-beats, serves to bring her voice and poetry directly to the surface. Listen to the production of Patsy Cline and Anne Murray albums and you will hear that Arden is following a tested formula of past divas. Each Arden pop-rock track aches with real, heartfelt emotion on this petal-delicate release. (3.5)

Alfie
If You Happy With You Need Do Nothing
The Beggars Group/XL Recordings

Alfie is an exquisite indie pop group focusing on superlative songwriting in an era when angst and amplification prevail in the genre. Augmenting their rock combo with a cello gives these hook-laden songs real panache. By putting the guitar back in the arrangement, this group lets tight songwriting come to the front. (3.5)

James Montgomery Bluesband
Bring it on Home
Conqueroot Records
http://www.cq2r.com/
info@cq2r.com

The music of John Lee Hooker, Lowell Fulson, Al Green and more show up on this bold electric blues album from Motor City harp man James Montgomery. James began singing and playing the blues in 1970 and learned to write his own blues tunes as well. About half the album is made up of those. Just as the past masters show up through song, so do contemporary instrument masters show up in the personnel. James Cotton plays harmonica next to James on two tracks that also feature Duke Robillard drummer Marty Richards playing trashcan. Richards goes for a tough, primitive sound on most of the album. The rest of the rhythm section is David Hull (Buddy Miles Express) on bass and Marc Copely proves eminently suitable for guitar duties. (4)

Sons of Otis
Songs of Worship
The Music Cartel, POB 629, Port Washington, NY  11050
http://www.music-cartel.com/
mail@music-cartel.com

Toronto's Sons of Otis are stoner rock gods of a different shade. Eschewing guitar flash, this power trio's vocalist plays just enough six-strong to let you know the instrument is there. His distorted, eerie howling is prominently accompanied by the acoustic sludge of monster fuzz bass and slow-thunder drums. Songs of Worship is the group's third album and heaviest yet. Tony Jacome of Shallow North Dakota takes on drumming duties in the studio for this release. The album features glacial tempos, anvil-heavy sounds and effective, blunt primitiveness. (3.5)

EZ Pour Spout
Don't Shave the Feeling
Love Slave Records
http://www.lvslv.com/

EZ Pour Spout is a group consisting of such mad scientists of modern street jazz as alto saxophonist Briggan Krauss (Sex Mob, DJ Logic), guitarist and trombonist Curtis Hasselbring (Either/Orchestra, Jazz Passengers) and Jamie Saft (John Zorn, Bobby Previte) on guitar and keyboards. EZ Pour Spout offers all rock covers on this album, transforming such pieces as the theme to TV show The A-Team and AC/DC's anthem "Back in Black" into electro-jazz freak-outs. The quintet offers sly wit and potent bombast in interpreting the material. (4.5)

The Del McCoury Band
Del & The Boys
Ceili Music
http://www.ceilimusic.com/
http://www.delmccouryband.com/

With a career that extends through the entire decade, The Del McCoury Band is defining in '90's bluegrass. Their chops and consistent recorded quality kept them at the top of the genre. They continue to make good on that promise here with a country bluegrass sound that was tough enough to merge with Steve Earle on The Mountain and reach back to old-timey and gospel roots. (4)