Outsight
Outsight: They Have a Voice and They Sing!
NEWS AND VIEWS *******************
THEY HAVE A VOICE AND THEY SING
A bevy of talented women in the singer-songwriter arena crossed my desk, and I want to share some of them with you. Libby Kirkpatrick has a soulful, crisp vocal delivery full of phrasing changes reminiscent of Rickie Lee Jones on Winged (Heart Music)... Unrepressed joy in the guise of a playful spirit often bursts forth in the jubilant music of Jenny Bird on Joy of It (Earthlight Records). Jerry Marotta (Indigo Girls, Peter Gabriel) ably assists in a number of roles... From Sherby we have a three-song self-titled EP (Lime in the Cocoanut Music). The formal qualities of her excellent keyboard playing is a basis for emphatically delivered songs with a faintly Southern style recalling her North Carolina background... Boasting a long resume that includes Sexfresh, Funkmobile, Southern Frost and Shitty Shitty Band Band, Emily Zuzik now presents a self-titled solo CD (Mothers Discontent Music). She has a deep, soulful groove to her songs in a compelling pop alloy that mixes blues and jazz styles... Lisa Germano continues to explore the gentle effects of a calming, breathy delivery on Lullaby for Liquid Pig (ARTISTdirect). This album combines a juxtaposition of her tranquil music with a revealing and at times jarring analysis of the inward and downward spiral that can lead to self-abuse. Guests on the album include Neil Finn, Wendy Melvoin and REM drummer Joey Waronker, who co-produces... From Ripley Caine comes an exquisitely produced album of songs, Lover (Sweet Pickle Music). This is a tongue-in-cheek take on flirtation and relationships delivered with skill and grace. The foundation of her full, even husky, vocal style recalls Joni Mitchell, giving the singer-guitarist an at once classic feel as she sings her songs from the acoustic guitar with fill band accompaniment... Nina Mankin gives us bright and memorable folk-pop on her self-titled release from Bingo World Records. A warm, family feel is granted by background vocals, some including Jill Sobule. Varied instrumentation from violin to accordion to Hammond B3 Organ adds texture... Edie Carey has a new acoustic live album recorded at various places during 2002 and will resonate with fans of early Ani DiFranco. The album is Come Close and the economic acoustic delivery is an excellent showcase giving ample room for the playful lyric and soulful phrasing of her vocal delivery...
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Listen to or Buy Lover at Amazon.com
HYENA RECORDS
Joel Dorn's new Hyena Records debuted with four live albums. Those that remember the reissues of Dorn's previous 32 Jazz imprint will be familiar Q-Pack packaging and the roster: Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Les McCann, Eddie Harris and Cannonball Adderley. This is a return to his beginnings for Dorn, as these four albums originally came out on his first independent label, Night Records. Uniquely, the albums were recorded live without the artists knowing they were making a live record at the time. The four discs represent four jazz greats in personal communication with the club audience, allowing us to eavesdrop, as it were. The Kirk title is The Man who Cried Fire. Beside ranging in saxophone styles from the straight and inside playing on "Slow Blues" and the stunning "Multi-Horn Variations", this disc also includes Kirk on clarinet ("New Orleans Fantasy") and flute ("A Visit from the Blues"). The Adderley disc Radio Nights collects from two weeks of performances in 1967 and 1968 at New York City's Half Note. Without a set list, Adderley feeds off the audience delivery with his trademark spectrum of style: Charlie Parker in fast tempo, Benny Carter on the ballads, of course tempered by his shaping experience playing with John Coltrane in Miles Davis' ensemble for Milestones and Kind of Blue. A Tale of Two Cities from Eddie Harris is the third and final saxophone installment in the series. Criminally underrated, hopefully this reissue can go some distance to getting Harris the recognition he deserves. The album includes able piano accompaniment from Jack Wilson. Harris pioneered the electric saxophone, and that is showcased on the 14-minute "Illusionary Dream". Les is More is an on-target title for the Les McCann entry. This album exemplifies his understated jazz piano style that recalls Ahmad Jamal. As a bonus, McCann's own personal collection of taped live performances was culled to include tracks of Les with Roberta Flack, Cannonball Adderley and Carmen McCrae.
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REV-ISITED
American Supreme (Blast First/Mute) is only the fifth studio album from New York duo Alan Vega and Martin Rev. Though limited, their discography helped to inspire much of the No Wave and hard electronica (industrial) movements. Having not released an album since 1992's Y B Blue, it seems the pair are now inspired by and incorporating the contemporary DJ club sounds of scratching and sampling along with the pop maturity of New Wave/Euro-disco. It is an interesting juxtaposition to hear these music styles contrasted with the disembodied, nearly spoken lyrics of Alan Vega. ROIR has reissued Martin Rev's 1979 solo debut album, which is self-titled. Away from Suicide, Rev exhibits a warmer, more melodic approach to the keyboard on this reissue, which features five bonus tracks. Three of the bonus tracks were never before released: "5 to 5", "Wes" and "Daydreams". Hearing his keyboard style, brought as it were under a microscope on this solo release, one can see the seminal effect of his work on the New Wave genre that followed and how Suicide still bears comparison to Kraftwerk.
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CAGE PREMIERED
Christina Fong and her ensemble avidly records modern and challenging pieces for violin and viola. Fong has both performed and premiered works of Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, Michael Gordon and more. Among her extensive discography are three premier recordings of works by John Cage. These works are the series of "number pieces" for strings and percussion. Each of these three CDs represents the first recording of the final works for these arrangements. Four4 is a work for percussion and features Fong's usual percussionist Glenn Freeman. The solo piece is episodic. Time brackets give the performer a range of time to both begin and end each chapter of the 72-minute opus. The percussion instrument choice is left to the performer, and Freeman elected to use what sounds like bowed metal or friction bowls, and shaken instruments that recall a rainstick. By using such peculiar idiophones, Freeman invites us into an exotic world where each island of sound floats up and past from a sea of near silence, like features on a slowly traversed landscape. Fong delivers her solo Cage performance on solo recordings of One6 and One10. These minimalist works are marked by long durations of patient, one-note bowing which makes the pieces mildly exotic. Also, the drone of the bowed notes with such absence of change makes the pieces reflective, meditative. Fong and Freeman, with Karen Krummel on cello join together on a third disc, the first recordings of Three2, Twenty-Three, Six and Twenty-Six. These are works for string and percussion ensembles. Fong multi-tracks the violin and viola to round out the "ensemble", but there is nothing busy about these recordings. Freeman chooses percussion instruments of similar timbre for mapping onto Cage's composition, along with chimes. Combined with the long-held lines exhibited on Fong's solo CD, this is a combination and culmination of the vision of travelogue of a sparse landscape and trance-inducing self-hypnosis.
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JUMP, JIVE AND WAIL
Here is a trio of new blues recordings with a swinging beat. If you have a case of the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie-woogie flu, get a dose of Bryan Lee's Six String Therapy (Justin Time). Guitar great Duke Robillard produces along with his band member Sax Gordon. The blind guitarist has previously held a long tenure in front of live audiences in New Orleans... Mark Wenner, leader and founder of The Nighthawks, delivers some blazing harmonica on Mama Tried (Right on Rhythm). Beside the Merle Haggard title track, the album is all covers, save two. As Mark Wenner and The Belairs pay tribute to their early country, folk and blues influences we get blues-rock renditions of "Walkin' After Midnight", Johnny Cash's "Big River", Junior Walker's "Cleo's Mood" and more... Rounding out our hat trick is Double Down from Doug Deming & The Jewel Tones (Mighty Tiger Records/Chase Music Group). This Detroit bluesman continues to lead his group, formerly The Blue Suit Band, through a wide spectrum of electric blues styles. Listen to this tight, focused album and you will see why Deming has been the toast of Motor City and his group a recurring backing band for Alberta Adams, Lazy Lester and the blues greats when they pass through town...
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A WORLD OF MUSIC
Different ethnic styles often define the favored CDs in our collections. Here are some new possibilities to consider. Taking cues from the internationally famous Buena Vista Social Club, the compilation Buena Vista: The Next Generation (Pimienta Records) hopes to introduce us to a new generation of Cuban Latin jazz groups with an assembly of talent from beyond Havana... Omnium celebrates a decade of bringing us Scandinavian sound with the compilation Omnium Omnibus. Featured are Boiled in Lead, Oysterband, Garmarna and more on the 15-track disc... Omnium's sister label invites us to listen to the mysterious sounds of Gjallarhorn on Grimborg (Northside). This pan-Scandinavian Finnish band hails from an area of the country steeped in Swedish culture and here sings primarily of Norse mythology. The acoustic group employs didgeridoo to supply the tone-coloring drone often provided by Swedish bagpipes... A really delightful and tropical excursion is the vintage Caribbean calypso collection Calypso (Putumayo). The songs from many islands date from the late 1950s, a highpoint in international calypso popularity after Harry Belafonte's 1956 album Calypso... Bill Laswell's Sacred System takes us to Ethiopia and beyond on Book of Exit: Dub Chamber 4 (ROIR). On this new installment in the series, Laswell works with Ethiopian singing sensation Ejigayehu "GiGi" Shibabaw. In the sparse ethno-minimalism of Laswell's music, GiGi has much room to express herself and display her exotic vocal style... Listen to Amalia! Old Greek Songs in the New Land 1923-1950 to hear to the singing of Amalia, a singing sensation that warmed the hearts of American immigrants with songs from their native Greece and Turkey. This historic document with a detailed history in its thick booklet is available from Arhoolie... The group El Eco has their debut CD, Two Worlds, on Dreambox Media. Boston's El Eco collects styles from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay for this ensemble jazz CD. Easily accessible to Latin and Brazilian jazz lovers, the music features instrumental passages with vocals from Kim Nazarian...
Listen to or Buy The Next Generation at CDNow
Listen to or Buy Omnium Omnibus at CDNow
Listen to or Buy Calypso at CDNow
Listen to or Buy Book of Exit at CDNow
Listen to or Buy Amalia! at CDNow
Listen to or Buy The Next Generation at Amazon
Listen to or Buy Omnium Omnibus at Amazon
Listen to or Buy Calypso at Amazon
Listen to or Buy Book of Exit at Amazon
Listen to or Buy Amalia! at Amazon
NOCTURAMA
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' new album Nocturama is set to be released February 11, 2003 on Epitaph. This is the group's twelfth studio album and first since No More Shall We Part (2001). Recorded in Australia, the album's lineup is: Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld, Thomas Wydler, Martyn Casey, Conway Savage, Jim Sclavunos and Warren Ellis. The album is produced by Nick Launay (PiL, Talking Heads, Gang Of Four). He first worked with Nick Cave and Mick Harvey in 1981 when he produced The Birthday Party's classic 45 Release The Bats.
BOOK REVIEW ****************************
Christopher S. Hyatt, Ph. D., Editor
Rebels & Devils: The Psychology of Liberation
New Falcon
It is easy to assume from the outside that Satanism is merely ceremonial anti-Christian devil worship, and drug use and homosexuality are something between personal choice recreations and tolerable societal ills. Hyatt combines over 400 pages of articles from William S. Burroughs, Austin Osman Spare, Timothy Leary and more to intellectualize such activities as some of the manifold paths to realizing full human potential. It is in the analysis of the life and motivations of Aleister Crowley and the candid, in-depth interview with Israel Regardie that the savage breaking of taboos is seen as a tool. The interview by Hyatt with Regardie and the following Crowley analysis by psychologist Richard Kaczynski are the core of the book, literally and figuratively. This strips the mystique off occult activity and rebellious behavior and describes them within the confines of a methodology. To quote Kaczynski in "Taboo & Transformation": "The ceremonial magick championed by Crowley...is, in a nutshell, alchemy: The transformation of one's base character into gold. ...If psychological triggers can precipitate spiritual change, then the taboos socially programmed into us can act as triggers for major spiritual transformation." (4)
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DVD REVIEWS ********************
Ron Ford, Producer and Director
Deadly Scavengers
Panda Digital/MVD
This film combines all the elements of a sci-fi action film: guns and explosions, over-skilled anti-heroes, monsters. The story has good content features: sub-plots, complicated love interests and foreshadowing (watch for the close-ups on the dog tag). This tale of man-eating cockroaches escaped from a scientist's lab wants to be a cult classic but it lacks the rampant stylism (Rocky Horror Picture Show) or focused, fast-paced story telling (Evil Dead) that makes for a timeless classic. Still, fans of H.G. Lewis will appreciate the over-the-top garage-made gore and B-movie fans with Joe Bob Briggs' taste will appreciate a titty count greater than the monster count and a very high body count relative to the cast. That is, all but a handful buy the farm during this 88-minute escapade. (2.5)
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Various Artists
Flash Frames
Cult DVD/MVD
This DVD compiles music videos and animation created with Flash. This material is culled from over thirty media artists worldwide like Stan Lee and Joe Cartoon. Because of the Flash technology, all the material can be viewed on a Flash-enabled computer without a DVD decoder. Of course, any DVD player will play all the chapters, too, so this is a very versatile disc. All of the non-video animations include music, so there is a lot of music here. That music leans toward urban sounds ranging from the pop-hop of Supreme Beings of Leisure to rap-like street poetry. However, the videos have no on-screen identification as MYV has taught us to expect. Much of the animation is from commercials and even from a mouse maze game. The disc has video games you can play on your computer, as well as a Stan Lee swimsuit screen saver. The DVD is tied to a book of the same name. (3.5)
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Humphrey Bogart
The Humphrey Bogart Era
Music Video Distributors/Stardust Records
There are three parts to this DVD and CD package. The DVD contains two features. First is the 1953 film Beat the Devil. Featuring Bogie, this is a comedy satire of the type of tough guy mysteries Bogart is famous for. Paired with this is an appearance by the great actor on The Jack Benny Show. Full of laughs as Bogie and Benny continue to attack the stereotype, the Jack Benny portion is marred by bad visual quality due to it apparently being a kinescope. The audio CD contains period music to set the mood. The 20 tracks include recordings by Django Reinhardt, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and more. (3.5)
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The Meteors
Video Nasty + Live at the Hellfire Club
Cherry Red Films/Music Video Distributors
The Meteors created the blueprint for psychobilly and with punk attitude, main Meteor P. Paul Fenech reminds us of that and more as he hosts Video Nasty. This is an assembly of promotional videos shot by the band at various points in their history. This is the first time on DVD for the video collection. Recorded in 1983, Live at the Hellfire Club captures the energetic, seminal band on stage and is an excellent document of the band having been exquisitely re-mastered for superior audio and visual quality. (4)
Stan Getz/Alto Madness
Cool Summer: Stan Getz & Alto Madness
Quantum Leap/Music Video Distributors
Humorously and smoothly hosted by comedic pianist Steve Allen, this edition of the DVD series from the Harvest Jazz Festival at the Paul Masson Vineyards is unique for the contrast it portrays in saxophone approaches. On the one hand we have the cool jazz style of one of the genre's architects, Stan Getz (tenor). The second set is the aggressive, post-bop ensemble Alto Madness formed by Richie Cole (alto). We get a half-dozen songs from Gets and seven from Cole's group. The DVD includes backstage interviews with players along with biographies and discographies. (4)
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Nick Zedd
Geek Maggot Bingo
Eclectic DVD Distribution
This DVD includes four films from Zedd. The title flick is a Z-movie with the apparent production budget and aesthetic goals of a high school play. A mad scientist creates life and that life turns murderous. The hero that saves the day is Richard Hell as a pistol-wielding cowboy. Two additional films react to the new attention to Tolkien's works since the new film versions came out. In Elf Panties we are invited into the bedroom of performance artist Saint Reverend Jen Miller as in this one-act, one-woman play she portrays an elf that entertains herself at home by getting off to reading Tolkien, among other things. Then, she sends her panties through the mail to her customers. The gist of the piece is Miller has to change panties several times. Lord of the Cock Rings takes the entire LOTR story and turns into a sexual farce but it seems only Zedd can take all the satirical possibilities in such a story and still make one short film drag. The final piece is Thus Spake Zarathustra. It places the Nietzschean themes of god-is-dead and the Superman into a silent film with music by Fear of Dolls, Zyklon Beatles, Strangewalls and Amniotic Miasma. (Zedd must have been reading a lot of Nietzsche. The two-headed "monster" in Geek Maggot Bingo is "Homo Superior.") Extra features on the DVD include an animated photo gallery with cheesy music and a group interview with the cast of Geek Maggot Bingo. (Is Brenda Bergman always high?) (3)
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VINYL REVIEWS **************************
The Bad Luck Charms
"Rich Girl" b/w "Ain't Gonna Be"
TKO Records
The sleazy punk rock band The Bad Luck Charms never met a rich girl it didn't like ... that wasn't its type, as proudly proclaimed on the A-Side of this trash-rock 7". The Brooklyn quartet learned much from old New York Dolls albums. This veteran Hanoi Rocks-inspired outfit includes Kerry Martinez (U.S. Bombs, Shattered Faith), Brian Knott (The Nuns) and Brenden Deal (B.A.D.). (3.5)
Tommy and the Terrors
On The Run
TKO Records
This three-song 7" EP comes from Boston Oi band Tommy and the Terrors. The edition is limited to 1,000 and the first 200 are on green vinyl. Melodic, tough and winning, On The Run is a slab o' wax to catch on the clip while you can. (3)
The Stitches
Automatic
TKO Records
This 3-track 45 is the debut for The Stitches on TKO. But it won't be the end of their discography on that label. This is a prelude to their upcoming full-length. The limited edition snotty punk single is coming out in five different colors. T
Outsight is non-mainstream music news and views. The content is wholly based on new releases and a focus on the the eclectic and overlooked.
