Prince Musicology (NPG/Columbia)
Starting somewhere in the early Nineties, he seemed to disappear into his own bizarre obsessions -- the muddled jazz-fusion spirituality of The Rainbow Children (2001) and the instrumental meanderings of N.E.W.S. (2003) being only the most recent excesses. But then, late last year, his election to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame made you remember just how potent, irresistible and groundbreaking a force he once was. Then, his commanding performance with Beyonce to open the Grammys proved that he could still thrill in such a high-pressure spot. And that solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony? Devastating.
Now comes Musicology, as appealing, focused and straight-up satisfying an album as Prince has made since who can remember when. It's open, easygoing and inclusive, the sort of album anyone might like. Most notably, Musicology restores a refreshing sense of songcraft to Prince's writing. Rather than seeming like mere sketches, as so much of his recent work has, each track on the album is distinct, coherent and rigorously uncluttered -- whether it's a bluesy lament such as "On the Couch," a lovelorn meditation like "A Million Days" or a stop-time jam such as "If Eye Was the Man in Ur Life." And the singer makes it clear that he has learned that rigor from the masters. "Wish I had a dollar for every time you say/'Don't you miss the feeling music gave you back in the day?'" he sings over an insinuating bass line on the title track. Then, like Arthur Conley calling out to the R&B pantheon in his 1967 hit "Sweet Soul Music," Prince names names: "'Let's Groove,' 'September' -- Earth, Wind and Fire/'Hot Pants,' by James/Sly's gonna take you higher."
Now forty-five, Prince realizes -- and repeatedly declares -- that his tastes are "old-school." On "Reflection," one of several ballads that float by on a sweet musical breeze reminiscent of Stevie Wonder, memory sweeps Prince away: "Remember all the way back in the day/When we would compare whose Afro was the roundest?" Moments like this rescue Prince from his eccentricities and make him recognizable again. On the sizzling funk track "Life 'O' the Party," he wryly mimics his old rival Michael Jackson ("My voice is getting higher/I ain't never had my nose done"), as if to emphasize his distance from the only pop-culture figure perceived as weirder than he is.
Its relative clarity aside, Musicology is still a Prince album, so it hardly lacks bold ideas. "Cinnamon Girl" borrows a title from Neil Young and a deft hook from the mid-Eighties to explore racial and ethnic differences in a post-9/11 world. Other songs sprinkle offhand references to the Iraq war, the Fourteenth Amendment, the Bible, numerology and the corrupting power of greed. Prince -- who is now a Jehovah's Witness -- has dialed his trademark sexual explicitness way down. But that restraint works, too. With its sinuous grooves and effortless swing -- not to mention Prince's seductive vocals -- Musicology simmers with a submerged erotic tension.
Finally, of all things, the album is a hymn to marriage -- not the frisky fantasy stuff of "Let's Pretend We're Married" but the real domestic deal. "Did we remember to water the plants today?" the singer asks on "Reflection," Musicology's closing song, finding the secret life of love in a quotidian detail. That's an example of how Prince, who claimed that Musicology would take everyone back to school, is really the one who has understood an essential lesson: Less can be so much more. (ANTHONY DECURTIS)
Hanson Underneath (3CG)
The moppet boogie-pop brothers of Hanson are finally old enough for us to have our way with them. They've passed that awkward stage we all go through -- the breaking voice, the zits, the ill-advised bids for blues-rock cred -- and have learned that life isn't just a bowl of "MMMBop." Now they're releasing Underneath on their own microlabel. Singing duties are divided democratically, but the best moments belong to Taylor, the Beyonce of the trio. Taylor showcases his instinctive beat-riding moans, delicious overexertions and pointed trills on the single, a mid-American strummer called "Penny and Me," and also on the ethereal ballad "Underneath" and "Lost Without Each Other," the album's most upbeat track (penned with New Radical Gregg Alexander). Brothers Isaac and Zac contribute zealous vocals, but songs such as Zac's sweetly overwrought piano ballad "Broken Angel" and the would-be single "Deeper" only highlight Taylor's absence. He might want to consider a solo project, but for now the family that plays together stays together. (LAURA SINAGRA)
Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand (Domino)
Franz Ferdinand's first gig was for an all-female art exhibit; the aim of the Glasgow band was to make the patrons dance. That just about sums up this photogenic foursome, whose mix of arch lyrics and catchy but decidedly raw dance rock unites the cerebral with the physical in the English art-school tradition. For once, the inevitable U.K.-press hype is justified: Franz Ferdinand's debut draws from beloved Brit pop and post-punk bands without the usual plagiarism. Favoring sweaty, uncertain rhythms over cold, processed beats, the album remains true to the band's original goal. Singer Alex Kapranos proclaims pithy quips of seduction and abandonment while nervous guitars and loose drums clang and bash. In "Take Me Out," he yearns to be picked up, murdered or both, as the band abruptly shifts from a nervous sprint to a slower, funky lashing. Louche boys with good taste, Franz Ferdinand rock as if their haberdashery depended on it. (BARRY WALTERS)
Jon Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen Pin Your Spin (Basin Street)
Singer-pianist Jon Cleary is English by birth but Dixie by nature, with a low, steamy croon and a pumping-ivory drive as funky as the city he has long called home: New Orleans. Cleary can be an absolute monster on his own; I've seen him pin a full house to the back wall at Tipitina's with an explosive solo charge through Professor Longhair's "Big Chief." But Cleary's full-combo R&B is as broad, deep and roiling as the Mississippi River, the combined swinging product of local keyboard tradition, Cleary's vocal-songwriting flair for moody Seventies soul and the spunky-Meters roll of his Gentlemen. Pin Your Spin is fragrant with the mixed pepper of classic Stevie Wonder, vintage Allen Toussaint, Dr. John's Gris-Gris, the Average White Band's "Pick Up the Pieces" and, in the closing instrumental, "Zulu Strut," the energy and memory of the late piano god James Booker. (DAVID FRICKE)
Matt Sharp Matt Sharp (In Music We Trust)
More than three years after Matt Sharp hunkered down in a rural Tennessee farmhouse to record a country album, the fruits of his labor are finally revealed in this fine eponymous debut. Following up his antics in Weezer and the buoyant pop of Rentals nuggets like "Getting By," Matt Sharp is a radical departure but it's also the sound of a man growing up and looking inward with the help of Mazzy Star's back catalog. Haunting and imaginative, tracks like "All Those Dreams" and "Just Like Movie Stars" meld stark piano fills and weeping slide guitar trails to Sharp's acoustic strums. While Sharp's foggy voice doesn't boast a lot of natural range, he uses it wisely -- veering between sing-speak verses and echo-drenched harmonies on the magical "Goodbye West Coast." With the eight-minute confessional "Somedays," Sharp proves he ain't the life of the party anymore, but he's still a hell of a companion for late, lonely nights. (JOHN D. LUERSSEN)
Tweaker 2 A.M. Wakeup Call (Waxploitation)
2 A.M. Wakeup Call is the second album from producer, remixer, former Nine Inch Nails drummer Chris Vrenna under the name Tweaker. Continuing his fondness for conceptual works, 2 A.M. is a journey through a variety of nocturnal disturbances. Warm tones of piano and acoustic guitar moderate the electronic flourishes, taking the chill off songs exploring insomnia-inducing subjects like deep depression ("Worse Than Yesterday"), the manic mind ("Pure Genius") and somnambulism ("Sleepwalking Away"). 2 A.M. also finds the composer crafting tunes for interpretation by other voices, though Vrenna had guest vocalists (including David Sylvian, Robert Smith and Will Oldham) write their unique lyrical visions for his mini-soundtracks. The results are surprisingly seductive. From the stark "Nights in White Satin" vibe of "Ruby" to Jennifer Charles' opiated, candy floss croon on "Crude Sunlight," Tweaker's disquieting lullabies are uneasy listening at its finest. (GAIL WORLEY)
BT The Technology EP (Nettwerk America)
Electronic music superstar Brian "BT" Transeau's remixes for Madonna and Sarah McLachlan and scores for films like Monster have proven his mainstream multimedia capability, but his most indelible mark has come from his solo output. The Technology EP collects remixes of three tracks from the Emotional Technology album, and though it fails to reach the genre-smashing heights of its parent, its brevity, not quality, is the culprit. JC Chasez's vocals on the epic "Force of Gravity" are filtered into dizzying trance and ass-shaking breakbeat versions by Tiesto and Dylan Rhymes, with the Rose McGowan-fronted "Superfabulous" and the meditative Attention Deficit remix of "The Great Escape" also primed for dance floors. The disc's greatest appeal will be to bedroom DJs; it also includes the individual audio parts to all three songs, so the buyer can generate his or her own emotional technology by creating unique remixes of each song. (PETE GLOWATSKY)
Kate Jacobs You Call That Dark (Bar/None)
Kate Jacobs is quite a complicated woman. One minute, she's a wide-eyed ingenue, the next, a dazzlingly enlightening storyteller -- a combination that works to fine effect on You Call That Dark. Her wisp of a voice -- similar in tenor but less overtly quirky than, Iris DeMent and Victoria Williams -- slips gracefully between the joints of songs that stand weathered and stately. At times, that makes for warmly inviting vibe (like the conspiratorial giggle "Your Big Sister") and at times a dark reminder of bittersweet past memories (as on the melancholy waltz "Lavender Line"). Jacobs is accompanied throughout by multi-instrumentalist Dave Schramm, who shifts the mood from pure country to power-pop with the merest flick of a pick. The specter of loss looms large over You Call That Dark, from the wistfully shuffling failing-farm tale "Pete's Gonna Sell" to the gentle "What a World What a God," which details the waning days of a nursing home resident. While the topics can be heavy, Jacobs relates them with a light and precise hand. (DAVID SPRAGUE)
Mixel Pixel Rainbow Panda (Mental Monkey)
Once a cross-country, home-recording pen-pal collaboration, Mixel Pixel has grown-up into a big city (New York) three-piece band. Primitive drum machine beats dictate much of the nerdy groove that dominates their third, Rainbow Panda. A cute pop meets Casio-clash sensibility rules as excessive electronic touches, undulating keyboard washes and random synths work the songs over to delirious effect. There's a lot of stylistic hopscotch and mood jumping, but it keeps things far from boring, even if wires get crossed. Synth-rocker "Psych Mo-Fo" has a badass vocal that doesn't jive with its polite baroque keyboard center. Moments in "Desert Falcon" strip away beats and the noodling to reveal a Syd Barrett-y solo ditty. A naked, furiously strummed acoustic guitar introduces the Stephen Malkmus-esque, "Holsters," and it's the better for it. "Out of the Woods" has a deeper mood than anything else on "Rainbow Panda," hinting that something less of the moment could be around the corner for this emerging band. (JOHN DUGAN)
Meow Meow Snow Gas Bones (Devil in the Woods)
Former Pink Noise Test guitarist Kirk Hellie composes a feel good dose of California pop harmonies with the experimental art wreck that is Meow Meow. Joining him for debut album, Snow Gas Bones, is Christopher O'Brien (vocals/guitar), Michael Orendy (bass) and ex-Plexi drummer Norm Block, who all add their own frazzled instrumentation. It's a patchwork of melancholy indie rock ("Finis"), chunky bits of radio-friendly modern rock ("Disaffected") and just the right amount of trimmings ("Sick Fixation") to make the collective grin from ear to ear. Meow Meow makes it hard to place them in one genre, and that in itself is a brilliant effort. There's no pretense other than to spark a glorious sonic dream, much like the gossamer haze of "Amplified breathing Apparatus" does. Nuzzle up to the warm buzz. (MACKENZIE WILSON)
(April 19, 2004)