September 2007

For neatness's sake, I'd hoped to tie up the new New Pornographers by deadline time, only to be stymied once again by a faulure to locate the there there. Next month, I promise. This time, lots of Islamo-Christian fusion, the gift and secret of great Gypsy music.

Bright Eyes
"Cassadaga"
(Saddle Creek)

In a banner year for indie semistars such as the Shins, Spoon, the New Pornographers and their major-matriculated kin, Conor Oberst's emotional directness stands out. He's verbose and sometimes addled. But he's not ironic -- only Arcade Fire go for the gut with such gusto. From numerous contenders, my favorite song months after they arrived begs for a John Legend or Taylor Hicks cover: "Make a Plan to Love Me," which could have been written on his Blackberry and sent instantly to the career woman of his dreams -- in about 20 pieces.

Listen to "Cassadaga" | Review it | Discuss it

Common
"Finding Forever"
(Geffen)

Beat scholars call this producer Kanye West's J. Dilla tribute, but us hip-hop GED's wonder when the late legend ever put his hand to R&B so smart and smooth. R&B rather than hip-hop is how it signifies. From "Windmills of Your Mind" to "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," the samples subtler and more surprising than last time, and let me also mention the Ethiopian jazz and the Animals' Nina Simone cover in between. In fact, the best music here is so deep it's more powerful than the rhymes. These are strongest at their most forgiving -- "The People," "Misunderstood," "U, Black Maybe" -- and most R&B in their articulations of what a dog he still is. Which are we to believe, the romantic "I Want You" or the postromantic "Break My Heart" -- or the carnal D'Angelo collab "So Far to Go"?

Listen to "Finding Forever" sampler | Review it | Discuss it

Fanfare Ciocarlia
"Queens and Kings"
(Asphalt Tango)

A Gypsy brass band created by a German record man in a Romanian village, the hectically virtuosic, unabashedly ambitious Ciocarlia have always been a little too fast and furious on record. But they're the glue of the inspired tour doc "Gypsy Caravan," and this all-star CD fuses the film's ecumenicism with their lust for fame. Based on a Bucharest memorial concert for Ciocarlia's clarinetist leader, it varies their nonstop attack with singers from all over the borderless Roma community. Foremost are icons Esma Redzepova and Saban Bajramovic, whose two songs apiece could send a person surfing after "Songs of a Macedonian Gypsy" and "A Gypsy Legend," respectively. But from godfather Dan Armeanca, whose "Kan Marau La (I Will Beat Her)" is recommended to gangsta scholars, to the climactic "Born to Be Wild," composer credit to Mars, Bonfire, this is as impressive a tour of Gypsy pop as any German record man (or woman) could hope. Special respect to guest trumpeter Pancirel Constandache, a refugee from Ciocarlia's tour grind, and either Mitsou or Florentina Sandu for the midget vocal on "Duj Duj," though the other lady is peachy too.

Fountains of Wayne
"Traffic and Weather"
(Virgin)

If Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger were mere satirists, they would be They Might Be Giants. Instead they're lyric poets of what a more naive era called yuppieness, only now we know things aren't so simple -- even middle-class people who just want to make some dough are in trouble if they were born after, say, 1965. The title newspeople, the lawyer and the photo assistant who beats him for a cab? They're doing OK. But the guy who's accessorizing his "'92 Subaru"? Much less so. "Strapped for Cash"'s gambler anonymous? Not at all. And it's to the band's credit that they want us to know that. But when they home in on the economic, they tend to be satirists only, so it's crucial that as pop adepts who know what closes on Saturday night, they also traffic in romance -- and weather it. Sometimes they're hopeless at love, like the lonely antagonists in that cab drama called "Someone to Love"; sometimes, as in the DMV fantasy "Yolanda Hayes," they're delusional in a nice way; sometimes, as in "I-95" and "Fire in the Canyon," they're troubled. So they all need "Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim," where love triumphs over the geographical displacements that skew so many of these songs. They all also need tunes you'll hum, and get them.

Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar
"Obecanje: The Promise -- Balkan Mix"
(Piranha)

Reviewing 2005's "The Promise," I surmised that the Markovics' British producer had neatened music better left a mess. But when flugelhorn maestro Boban Markovic and Serbian bassist Nicola Pejovic went so far as to remix the thing, they made it clearer and more "commercial." Clarity includes extra percussion and more breaks for trumpet prodigy Marko. Commerce requires cross-cultural gestures and lyrics, some in English ("When the music hit the beat, feel the magic, a-ha"). There's also a lively new vocal feature and a full reordering that turns the new finale as woozy as the end of a long night. All in all, an improvement I couldn't have imagined and the only version you need own.

Public Enemy
"How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul???"
(Slamjamz)

Not only are their albums still good, they're getting better. Beats keep changing, too. Most of these are by the kind of heavy guitar-bass-drums unit Chuck D has coveted since Anthrax-the-band was bigger than anthrax-the-disease, and intermittently there are also uncredited horns, keyb effects, scratching and backup singers, like the child chorus who recites the message of "Sex, Drugs and Violence": "We like those gangsta rhymes/Just make sure they don't corrupt our minds/These rappers kill and thieve/A lot of times it's only make believe." Flav remains a knave on TV and the king's fool in PE. And though the title's moral braggadocio has been one of Chuck's more pigheaded tropes since he was dissing soaps, the Don Imus flap has imparted to him an aura of contemporaneity that comes none too soon.

Spoon
"Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"
(Merge)

A trifle brighter, quicker and fuller than "Gimme Fiction," with "Don't Make Me a Target" targeting the executive branch more explicitly than is Britt Daniel's general practice -- "nuclear dicks and their dialect drawl," eh? No one in indie is longer on craft or form, contained feeling or quiet desperation. James Mercer is an expressionist kid by comparison, Glenn Mercer a minimalist amateur. But boy -- what a tight-ass.

Loudon Wainwright III
"Strange Weirdos"
(Concord)

The "soundtrack" to the gloriously funny "Knocked Up" slips in two Joe Henry instrumentals and a remake of Wainwright's 1973 "Lullaby" that's more passionate than the love song he goes out on, which is called "Passion Play." But parenthood has always been one of his great themes, L.A. life is turning into another, and as for love, give him this: He has long shown a knack for pretending that he's getting the idea.

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