++ Needle Drops is now an occasional music column that a number of Neumu writers take turns writing. All columns prior to March 2004 were written by Philip Sherburne.
++ Recently ++
Tuesday, November 29, 2005 = The Stooges Unearthed (Again)
Tuesday, November 8, 2005 = Documenting Beulah And DCFC
Tuesday, November 1, 2005 = Out-Of-Control Rock 'N' Roll Is Alive And Well
Tuesday, October 25, 2005 = Just In Time For Halloween
Monday, October 3, 2005 = The Dandyesque Raunch Of Louis XI
Monday, August 15, 2005 = The Empire Blues
Tuesday, August 9, 2005 = David Howie's Sónar Diary
Monday, July 25, 2005 = Hot Sounds For Summertime
Monday, June 27, 2005 = Overcoming Writer's Block At Sónar 2005
Monday, June 4, 2005 = Cool New Sounds To Download Or Stream
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Monday, June 4, 2005
++ Cool New Sounds To Download Or Stream
By Dave Renard
++ Album reviews can't catch everything, so check this space every few
weeks and refuel your playlists — we'll go track by track with a
survey of MP3s, 12-inch singles and pop-music heat (hello, "1 Thing"),
keeping an eye out for official "sneak preview" tracks and legal
downloads.
++ White Stripes, "Blue Orchid" (V2) — Fire in the disco! Jack
White's guitar tone on this single from the White Stripes' new album,
Get Behind Me Satan, halfway sounds like it was jacked from Daft
Punk's "Robot Rock" — and that's no insult, since "Robot Rock" would
be pretty rad if it were about half as long and had falsetto glam-rock
vox to kill for. Satan could do with fewer oddball xylophone and
marimba arrangements and more of this no-nonsense snort and swagger.
(Stream "Blue Orchid" and tracks by other V2 bands.)
++ New Pornographers, "Twin Cinema" (Matador) — The title track from the New Porns' new one (out August 23) sounds a bit like a
placeholder compared to their previous albums' best singles —
near-perfect power-pop delivery devices like "Letter From an Occupant"
(belt it out, Neko!) or "The Laws Have Changed." I'm not feeling the
purposely out-of-tune guitar solo on "Twin Cinema" at all, and where's
the whirling-dervish Wurlitzer? The overstuffed hooks that give you an
ice cream headache? It's too bad this one's sort of a dud, but the
album holds plenty of other enticements — a sweet duet between Dan
Bejar (Destroyer) and Neko Case, for starters ("Streets of Fire").
(Download
"Twin Cinema.")
++ Missy Elliott, "Lose Control" (Elektra) — This
Timbaland-produced track from Missy's The Cookbook (July 5)
rolls with a virtual entourage of voices — a Vocoder sample to set
things off ("Music make you lose control!"), Ciara crooning the chorus,
a multitracked Missy riding the electro groove, and Fatman Scoop being
Fatman Scoop ("Misdemeanor in the houuuuse! Misdemeanor in the
houuuuse!"). "On and On," this single's double-A-side companion, might
pack the more immediate punch, but a Roxanne Shante flow over
Neptunes-by-numbers sounds "so 2004" next to the retro-futuristic fizz
of "Lose Control." Call-and-response calisthenics and a cascading
Cybotron sample — who says nobody listens to techno?
++ Jonathan Vance, "Sylvia the Eagle (JD Twitch Optimo Mix)" (Run-Roc) — Hard
to
describe what Jonathan Vance is up to based just on this 12-inch —
it's like mid-'80s college rock, atmospheric and a little jangly, with
a sprinkling of the DFA aesthetic and cryptic lyrics ("I said a prayer
to the huntress/ That resides on Olympus/ That she should cast her
light down"). Twitch, half of the musically omnivorous DJ duo Optimo,
reimagines the song as jittery, electrified post-punk with a track that
sounds like James Chance's "Contort Yourself" fed through the Akufen
glitch blender on "lightly puree." The rework brings out a growl in the
vocals that's only hinted at in the more dreamy original. (Download
the original mix. The Optimo mix is not online.)
++ The Hold Steady, "Stevie Nix" (Frenchkiss) — Best Meat Loaf
song ever? This track from the excellent Separation Sunday goes
from kick-in-the-door opening to piano-ballad middle to bittersweet
Thin Lizzy curtain call. The lyrics sketch everyday dissolution like
something out of Denis Johnson ("he came into the E.R. drinking gin
from a jam jar"), and catch the specific moment when someone stares out
through half-closed eyelids and realizes it's not fun anymore (when
"the whispers bit like fangs in the last hour of the party"). There are
even a couple of references for the Lifter Puller heads out there, the
ones charting all of Craig Finn's lyrical connections until it looks
like the hotel-room wall from Memento: "I was half dead, but I
got born again/ I got lost in all the lights, but it was OK in the
end." That's everything I remember ... (The Village Voice has
"Stevie Nix" available for download.)
++ Henrik Schwarz, "Leave My Head Alone Brain" (Sunday-Music) — Cool 12-inch out of Germany starts with the sound palette of dubby Berlin
techno and slows things to a relaxed lope, piling on human elements to
create organic, futuristic afro-funk. Think fusion-era Miles Davis
remixed by Basic Channel and you've got the idea. (Overselling here,
but not by that much.) The beauty is it makes as much sense on a
sunny day in the park as it does in a basement with red light bulbs. The
nine-minute sprawl of the original mix is worth getting lost in, but
"Mix 2" adds a more insistent thump that would work great rubbing up
against a funky house track like Osborne's "Afrika."
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