High Bias aural fixations
January 20, 2002

FIVE HORSE JOHNSON
The No. 6 Dance
(Small Stone)
Five Horse Johnson gets lumped in with the stoner rock bands, but the Toledo quartet sounds like they have more albums by John Lee Hooker and Howlin' Wolf in its tour bus boombox than Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin. The No. 6 Dance is the band's fourth album of greasy, stompbox blues, and it's a doozy. Guitarist Brad Coffin reels off high-volume blues licks with just the right balance between traditional riffery and feedback skronk, never soloing beyond the limits of taste, and his high-octane slide riffs sound awesome cranked to 11. The rhythm section of Steve Smith (bass) and Mike Alonso (drums) can swing when they need to, though they're best at a ribcage-rattling crunch. The MVP here, though, is frontman Eric Oblander, who, with his thick-toned harmonica and bourbon-soaked howl, has enough personality for three bands. FHJ is distinctive enough that it could get away with an album of the standard blues covers, but the boys prefer to add their own originals to the blues/boogie rock canon. "Gods of Demolition," "Swallow the World" and "Hollerin'" (probably the closest thing here to a ballad) wail like nobody's bidness, and the high octane bluster of "It Ain't Easy" will make you agree with every assertion of the title. The No. 6 Dance will leave you covered in grime but more than satisfied. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Tenderloin, early ZZ Top, Big Sugar

ROY HAYNES
Birds of a Feather: A Tribute to Charlie Parker
(Dreyfus Jazz)
If anyone has a right to do a Charlie Parker tribute, it's drummer Roy Haynes. After all, Haynes played with Parker in the 40s and was with him as Bird ferociously reinvented jazz, turning swing dance tunes into bebop. Appropriately, then, Birds of a Feather is a straight-up hard bop date, with the veteran skinsman joined by contemporary stars Roy Hargrove (trumpet), Kenny Garrett (saxophone) and Dave Holland (bass), as well has his own stalwart pianist Dave Kikoski. On the one hand, there's nothing here you haven't heard before: Bird classics like the swinging toe-tappers "Barbados" and "Yardbird Suite," sultry ballads like "April in Paris" and "The Gypsy," high-energy workouts like "Rocker" and "Diverse." On the other hand, the band is clearly loving this, relaxing and having a good time, and the joy these musicians feel sampling the catalogue of one of the giants of jazz comes through loud and clear. Parker's no longer around to make new records, so why not let one of his best sidemen and his talented friends do it for him? Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Dizzy Gillespie, early Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon

PAULA KELLEY
Nothing/Everything
(Stop, Pop, and Roll)
A former member of the Drop Nineteens and Boy Wonder, Boston's Paula Kelley knows her way around a pop hook or two. Or three, or four, or four dozen—like the best pop songsmiths, Kelley seems to pull pretty melodies and solid hooks out of the air, so it must be hard to breathe where she lives. On Nothing/Everything, guitars, keyboards, strings and claves (!) come together like eggs, butter and brown sugar in a cookie mix, forming a lush, harmony-rich background for Kelley's cooing vocals and hearty songs. The rhythm section plays it light, but with just enough muscle to keep the tracks getting too featherweight. "You Gonna Make It?" and the heartbreaking "For Someone" use subtle orchestration to great effect, while "All Request Hour" calls to mind Todd Rundgren at his poppiest. "Lucie" kicks up a finger-popping good time with the help of a caffeinated tambourine, while "The Light Under the Door" presents a delightful duet with guitarist Aaron Tap. The lovely "Girl of the Day" wraps all her strengths into one beautifully realized number (plus it namechecks Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees). Nothing/Everything is simply excellent pop music. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Aimee Mann, the Left Banke, the Turtles

HABIB KOITÉ & BAMADA
Baro
(Putumayo)
A descendant of Mali's Khassonké griot tradition, Habib Koité, the "African Clapton," formed his band Bamada when he was thirty, after four years of teaching guitar at a prestigious music university. Like a lot of African pop musicians, Koité adds Western flavors to a traditional base, having grown up listening to soul, rock and pop as well as West African music. On Baro, he folds electric bass, violin, harmonica and a trap set into arrangements built on percussion, balafon (a marimba-like instrument played by Kélétigui Diabaté) and his own soulful vocals and acoustic guitar. The fingerpicking Koité uses tunings that imitate Malian instruments like the n'goni and kamele n'goni to compose sweetly singing melodies that ride the floating rhythmic wave created by the rest of the band. His lyrics reflect life in Mali through social concerns ("Si Djen Djen," "Wari," the anti-smoking "Cigarette Abana"), romance "("Kanawa," "Batoumanbe"), family life ("Sinama Denw," "Baro") and myths and legends ("Tere," "Mali Sadio"). Koité and his band expertly balance melodies that resonate in Western ears with the traditional rhythmic accents of their homeland. The gentle acoustic music and positive messages on Baro make Koité a leading contender for the mantle of next African superstar. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Baaba Maal, Geoffrey Oryema, Touré Kunda

LITTLE GRIZZLY
I'd Be Lying If I said I wasn't scared
(Quality Park)

Ode to Little Grizzly

Your voice a jagged saw
Raking across the barren
North Texas panhandle
Frenzied storm of allusion
Confused and wandering
I take shelter in your bleak emotions
Acrid
Exposing, scathing

This CD combines everything that I love about country music. It has seething lyrics forged in the heat and dust of Denton, Texas. A very deceptive place, Denton; home of Slobberbone and Centro-matic, the clime allows for wide open spaces among musical genres, precisely on what Little Grizzly thrives with I'd Be Lying If I said I wasn't scared. Jangling and sparse, this CD is loose-limbed, cavorting and raucous. Vic Chesnutt, Big Star, the Replacements and Marty Robbins all have a venerated place in the heart of Texan George Neal. "Mockingbird Classes" (the fourth track) has so much going for it, I can't stop humming and tapping my toe. "All that you have are mockingbird classes/Torn waistcoat and glasses and old movie posters"—if you have ever been to North Texas, this resonates like a sonic boom. The tension between the lyrics (literate and inquiring) and the melodies (rousing) keeps you on tenterhooks reliving each story. But don't take it from me, take it from Neal: "The line to getting old ain't straight or clear/Half-life of my heartache forms traces in the air/And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared." Blythe Christopher [buy it]

For fans of: Uncle Tupelo, Whiskeytown, Vic Chesnutt

MORS SYPHILITICA
Feather and Fate
(Projekt)
Mors Syphilitica swirls. The New York-based duo spirals in, around and through its wind-kissed pictures of Gothic romance, as Lisa Hammer's shamanistic vocals slither in and out of her husband Eric's shimmering guitar figures. On the band's third album Feather and Fate, atmosphere is as important as melody, but not more so; Eric's tunesmithery always comes through the black lace and gauzy curtains. "The Hues of Longing" and "Glorious Breath" find darkly romantic hooks in riffs made from starlight and moonbeams, while "Fever Dream" manipulates its lush electric spirits to evoke its title. "Between Feather and Fate" uses a stark mandolin to propel it swiftly through the ether, while the banjo on "My Virgin Widows" calls up the ghost of Dock Boggs to reside in the house of digital delay. Short on earthy sensibility but long on poetic beauty, Feather and Fate is the sound of phantoms making love. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Cocteau Twins, Numeralia, Love Spirals Downwards

OSCURA
Revolution
(Oscura)
New York quartet Oscura obviously takes a lot of inspiration from the 80s wave of English guitar bands, but it somehow avoids blatant derivation. Led by songwriter Andrew Sicco, the band loves its effects-laden guitars, minor-key pop melodies and Sicco's slightly pinched tenor—it's a sound at once familiar and comforting to fans who remember when the phrase "alternative rock" actually had meaning. But Sicco and co. add an American grit and drive to their music on their second release Revolution. "The Clean Cut Kid" and "She's Your Boss" pulse insistently forward, while "A Stronger Man" and "AM, PM" add lovely dollops of noisy guitar to the mix. As with their prior album Oscura, the low-budget production is a bit of a problem; this kind of music should sound huge. But the band easily overcomes such objections with the sheer tunefulness of the material and joyous sincerity in the performances. As a bonus, the six-song EP is augmented by a reprise of "Until Tomorrow," the psychedelic centerpiece of their last album. Good stuff. Michael Toland

For fans of: the Psychedelic Furs, the Chameleons, Auto Interiors

PARANOISE
Ishq
(Ancient)
Connecticut's Paranoise have long specialized in a very distinctive form of politically-charged progressive rock. The quintet draws as much from ideological texts and world music as from rock, and in this regard their fourth album Ishq picks up where 1999's Private Power left off. Paranoise works from the principles that capitalism is, in fact, the enemy of democracy and that those in power had better learn to put the needs of the many over the vices of the few if the human race is to survive its time on earth. Angry tunes by guitarist Jim Matus and singer Thorne Palmer attack corporate propaganda, industrial globilization and government manipulation at every turn while calling for a more spiritual approach to everyday living. Matus' crunching riffs and Palmer's raging wail ride a roiling storm created by bassist Bob Laramie, drummer Geoffrey Brown and violinist Rohan Gregory, who receive aid from a small army of ethnic percussion instruments. While Matus and Palmer's lyrics speak bluntly but intelligently, they receive assistance from sampled speeches from the social intellectuals by whom they're influenced. Thus Palmer "duets" with a speech by Indian science policy theorist Vandana Shiva on "I Own" and with a tract from Terence McKenna in "History's Fractal Mountain." Palmer steps aside completely for "Heliocentric Strum/Helalisa," with vocals by Sudanese oud master Hamza El Din. Often the composers also let the Third World cultures they champion speak for themselves, as the band reworks traditional songs from Kenya, Morocco and Afghanistan, with Matus incorporating the melodies into his own progressive framework. "Overmind Over Matter/Alla Maula Ali Dam Dam" adapts a Qawwali chant from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to rock, while "Mondanabosh/Quacia An-Nabi" intertwines Matus' tune with songs from Morocco and Afghanistan. "Have More/Kayamba Dance/Metahistorical Disquisition" melds Matus' music with a traditional Kenyan tune and a speech by guiding spirit Noam Chomsky for an intense number that sounds like punk rock with ethnic chanting. There's no other band that sounds like Paranoise, and few with the courage to confront the same issues. Long may it rage. Michael Toland

For fans of: King Crimson, Femi Kuti, Henry Kaiser

Copyright © 2002 High Bias