Against Me!, the White Stripes and More

By Robert Christgau
Special to MSN Music

November 2007

Long on Afropop (specialty of the house) and repertoire artists (there are more every year), short on hip-hop (seasonal) and female artists (Polly, Debbie, I hardly knew ye), yet fair and balanced of course, seven CDs I recommend more or less unequivocally and many others worthy of note.

Against Me!
"New Wave"
(Warner Bros.)

On his promiscuously praised, seriously strained second album, Tom Gabel mastered song form. Third try he sinks his personal agony into his historical anguish, unalleviated by how well he understands it. Forthright expression can be cathartic, however, and so, with advice from Butch Vig (of Garbage, not Nirvana), Gabel and his cohort power out 10 hard-edged anthems that will piss off the right people -- not the D.C. courtier class, who could care less, but alt types who find the sociopolitical inauthentic, uncool and the rest of that rot. Polysyllabic and self-aware, this is the best political punk in years. Yet the personal's still in it.

Colombiafrica: The Mystic Orchestra
"Voodoo Love Inna Champeta-Land"
(Riverboat)

Centered in the drug entrepôt of Cartagena on Colombia's Caribbean coast, champeta has the regional currency of reggaeton or baile funk. Even at its simplest, though, it's more musicianly, played by live bands and directly influenced by many Afropop styles. This U.S.-released introduction is anything but simple -- it is in fact the rare piece of pan-Africana that doesn't seem designed to soften up millionaires at a UNESCO benefit. The secret is Congo-Parisian guitar etoile Bopol Mansiamina adding idiomatic expertise and handing work off to comrades such as Diblo Dibala and Rigo Star. But what he's adding to also counts: three champeta stars whose own idioms include jerky cumbia and vallenata, boilerplate salsa and squeezeboxes and funny horns never heretofore heard on what is more or less a soukous record -- though more likely to show up on one that also flirts with highlife and Afrobeat. You'll hear some funny voices, too -- funny ha-ha and funny peculiar.

Kenge Kenge
"Introducing Kenge Kenge"
(Riverboat)

Formed in the '90s as the choral auxiliary of Kenya's hotel tax commission, evolved into a bastion of Luo gong and one-stringed violin with modern flute-horn-percussion attached, this is definitely Not a Pop Band. Yet modernity being the force it is, it's got way more presence and drive than the old Nairobi singles on John Storm Roberts's "Before Benga" collections, even the classic grooves on Trevor Horn's "Kenya Dance Mania." Granted, eight tracks averaging eight or nine minutes can get samey. But that doesn't bother admirers of Konono No. 1, who they recall more than a little when that one-string gets going. These guys are more rustic and in tune with the world, and perhaps because they were a choir once, they can sing. But they make rhythmic noises you've never heard before, and they don't let up.

Konono No. 1
"Live at Couleur Cafe"
(Crammed Discs)

Oddly, this Brussels-recorded "mini-album" lasts six minutes longer than 2004's presumably full-length Kinshasa-recorded debut and repeats only two of its songs. Not that songs mean much with such a sound- and rhythm-driven crew -- certainly less than the professionalism they've gained since Vincent Kenis lured them from obscurity or retirement early in the decade. Stepped-up force, drive and pace render it the most intense of the three extant Congosonics showcases -- the one I'll play when I crave their paleo-futurist fusion of village dance-trance and hand-crafted electronic distortion. The limits of that fusion will be tested by the 2008 album for which this is said to be a placeholder. See them live while you can.

The Mekons
"Natural"
(Quarterstick)

This acoustic group-sing had me hedging like a derivatives trader when it came out -- until I observed eight humans called Mekons sit around grousing and banging on tour. Dressed like the wraith of a ska boy and dancing like a drunken undertaker, die-hard Londoner Tom Greenhalgh especially made these death songs come alive -- not just Tom's dismal opener and Jon Langford's can't-come climax and everybody's desert prophecy, but the animal fables, the mystery history, the agricultural workers' carouse, the unplugged teeter-totter for the digital age. If you don't know much about these 30-year veterans except that they're legendary, this probably isn't where to find out why. If you have any idea what I'm talking about, however, partake.

3 Tenors of Soul
"All the Way From Philadelphia"
(Shanachie)

The rare repertoire album with a future, because there's no stink of the canon about it. Russell Thompkins Jr. and Ted Mills are remembered as oddballs if at all -- although you, gentle reader, of course recognize them as the falsetto leads of the Stylistics and Blue Magic. But together, their nearly intact voices -- Thompkins' buttery, Mills' supple -- actualize an out-of-this-world tenderness that's a promise, not an escape, with Delfonic William Hart designated as third wheel. Curated by MFSB guitarist Bobby Eli, the songs are equally pristine -- certified hits by Isley-Jasper-Isley and the Brothers Gibb, AWB and EWF, Dionne Warwick and Hall & Oates, but the average rock history buff will be lucky to recognize them, never mind following through with IDs. Granted, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame could ruin this yet. And I say, let it try.

The White Stripes
"Icky Thump"
(Warner Bros.)

Jumping from defunct quasi-indie V2 to ailing quasi-major Warner Bros., Jack White pretends his neoplasticism (spare industrial angularity theorized as aesthetic mysticism) is constructivism (brawny industrial angularity theorized as people's practicality). The broad strokes and hot mix are a formalist's populist gesture and a fist shaken at downward market trends. But formalism fans shouldn't let that stop them; immigration fans either. Playing at world, at heavy, at soul, he arts it up plenty and protests a little.

More: Honorable Mentions/Choice Cuts | Dud of the Month/More Duds

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