The Entroporium

I saw my friend Tom last night for the first time in umpteen years. I always associate him in my mind with The Jayhawks, and with the flurry of news about the band’s impending breakup, I couldn’t help but give them a shout-out today.

The Jayhawks’ last record, Rainy Day Music, has a whole slew of songs that would fit right in on Help! Tasteful production and playing, terrific harmony singing, there’s really nothing to object to here. Some of the songs are a wee tad thin on the content side, but the title says it all; this is comfort music pure and simple, like a stack of mashed potatoes on a windy night.

The really impressive thing to about The Jayhawks is that they are one of a very very few bands that survived the loss of their lead singer while keeping the essence of their sound pretty much intact. (Van Halen?) They also managed to survive some really bad cover art.

Oh, they’re not breaking up? Sheesh.

[Soundtrack]
The Jayhawks – Tampa To Tulsa.mp3

I Am Kloot’s self-titled second album has been out in the UK for something like 18 months already. It’s finally getting US release with a mini-tour to follow, including a stop at SXSW. It’s a nice undemanding record with some heartfelt performances. If you’re a fan of The Smiths, The Decemberists or Joe Pernice, you’ll find something to like on this one.

I first became aware of this band from a track on the excellent Rough Trade 25 Years compilation. It was a real “Wow, what was that!” kind of moment, which is what us music fans live for, right?

There are three tracks of length 2:46 on I Am Kloot. What are the odds of that? There can’t be that many albums with three cuts with the exact same length. Unintentionally. (So The Residents’ Commercial Album doesn’t count)

[Soundtrack]
I Am Kloot – Proof.mp3
More I Am Kloot tracks at Epitonic

First in an occasional series

Raphael Saadiq started out in Oakland’s Tony Toni Tone and went solo after they busted up a few years ago. The break-up was a shame because the band had evolved from Boy2Men-style juvenilia to sophisticated R&B pastiche and was purported to be a terrific live act. House Of Music, which I’ll reserve for a future post, is one of my all-time favorites. When it came on the scene at roughly the same time as D’Angelo, it looked like the annual rumors of ‘The Return of Soul’ might finally come true on the radio. But that’s another story.

Saadiq’s first album under his own name was 2002′s Instant Vintage. It had terrific production, an exciting roster of guest stars (D’Angelo, T-Boz from TLC and Angie Stone among others) and a number of agreeable if slightly samely potential hit singles. Since he is a bass player, I was willing to give him a pass for all the groove-based songs, but he showed a lot of growth as a songwriter and a producer, giving me hope that this would be a guy I could follow for a long time.

A live album followed, accompanied by his 9-piece band, but rumor had it that he’d been dropped by UMG. And when you’re dropped, that means no more band if you can’t pay them. And that means self-production. For some guys, this can work out great (John Cale and Mark Eitzel leap to mind), but for others the lack of creative partnership can be deadly.

It (may) follow then that Saadiq’s new album, As Ray Ray, is a complete production nightmare. It sounds like he’s just learned how to program MIDI. The instrument patches are all wrong, the mixes head-scratching and the beats sound like they’re not even tracked to against the rest of the music. It’s a disaster. (Oddly, As Ray Ray received several good reviews, but this makes me wonder if the critics even opened the CD before they wrote it.)

Worst of all, he seems to have lost his mind too – or at least his songwriting chops. Like Garth Brooks, Saadiq gives himself a false identity from which he can sing his new ‘nastier’ material. It’s a pseudo-blaxploitation gangster fantasy, but it doesn’t have much threat or make much sense. In the end, it’s an excuse to do lazily misogynistic material. And it just doesn’t work.

I’m not just picking on some half-baked track towards the end of the record, either. “This One” (today’s MP3) is the fourth track — but the first fully-realized non-jokey song on the record, in itself a pretty bad sign for a fourth track. The first time I heard this track I thought, Man! something is wrong! Is this a bad file?

Saadiq’s web site promises some good things ahead. I’m rooting for the comeback.

[Soundtrack]
Good Saadiq: Raphael Saadiq – Different Times (w/T-Boz from TLC)
Bad Saadiq: Raphael Saadiq – This One

(Aside for another discussion: Has there ever been another female Top 40 singer who has sold as many records with as little vocal range as T-Boz?)

I was reading on the couch last night with the dog’s head resting on my lap. Ambient music would be nice now, eh? I put on Kompakt’s Pop Ambient 2004 about medium loud.

When we got to this track, Ruby immediately sat up and started staring intently at the speakers. With each ‘wave,’ her ears would perk and then she’d start to relax until the next ‘wave’ came through. By the end of the song she’d adjusted, but it was a tense few moments for her and fascinating to watch. I’ll definitely need to be careful when I play Ruby her first glitch record!

[Soundtrack]
Andrew Thomas – Fearless Jewel (3).mp3 from Pop Ambient 4

It’s been bubbling on the blogosphere for a while, but the Tipping Point turned out to be right here at work. Somebody posted a single album on our iTunes network with the tempting question, “Are you an Anniemal?” A pun that horrid had to be checked out, especially in a place that makes its money off conjuring up intellectual property on a monthly basis.

The single album, of course, is Annie’s Anniemal, recipient of an 8.8 from Pitchfork and the Village Voice Pazz n Jop #31 Single Of The Year, all this despite no US release.

Where’s she from? Norway. Svenska, your time in The Entroporium has passed.

In Norway, apparently, time stopped for pop music right about the moment that Susan from Human League opened her mouth to sing “I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar…” Annie at least had the good sense to keep buying records after that one came out, went down to the record store and picked up Vanity 6‘s “Nasty Girl.”

[Soundtrack]
Annie – Me Plus One.mp3
Annie – Helpless Fool For Love.mp3
Here is a Norwegian Annie site to admire.