TUNE HEAD

Jazz

The Nels Cline Singers
Draw Breath
Cryptogramophone

When Nels Cline is not lead guitarist for Wilco, he returns to his secret lair and joins his experimentalist jazz compadres in the ironically named Nels Cline Singers. This, my friends, is not casual listening music. It’s depart earth at the end of a long day, lying on your back in bed, arms crossed like a mummy music. But there’s a time and place for that too. With bassist Devin Hoff and drummer Scott Amendola, Cline, recently named a “guitar god” by Rolling Stone, could indeed inspire certain subjects to worship him—though they might be the kind that followed Marlon Brando to his encampment in Apocalypse Now. I mean, take a clue from titles like the opener’s—“Caved in Heart Blues.”

I was in an awful but fun band once and our drummer, when we got hopelessly lost in a song, would just go wild, then smile and say, by way of explanation, “It’s a free-form jazz exploration.” Well, there’s a bit too much free-form jazz exploration here for my taste, but I do realize some folks can’t get enough of that. I’m thinking of “Attempted” and “Mixed Message,” which get A’s for effort, if effort means pushing a guitar to 3 G’s without passing out. But to listen to? Not so much.

“Confection,” on the other hand, is fun in a chordally hyperliterate head-banging way. “An Evening at Pops” should not be confused with what you might hear on PBS during a fund drive. It’s more “pops” as in popped blood vessels in a Martian’s brain and he’s slowly getting angry. “Angel of Angels” is a nice, twangy attempt by the earthlings to calm the Martian down and offer him a beer. “Recognize I” and “Recognize II” are what the gang plays while giving the alien a back rub. “Squirrel of God” is a reverbed acoustic séance, as far as I can tell, for our departed backyard friend. (Is that a sawing noise I hear amidst the bowing? Ew!)

When I downloaded this album onto my iTunes software, which usually knows what things are, it called it “Unclassifiable.” Quite so. Thus my listener-response method here. Do listen yourself, if this is your cup of hallucinogenic tea, and let me know what you hear. We can compare notes. You might occasionally be chagrined. You certainly won’t put it on as Sunday brunch music. But nor will you be bored.

Joey Calderazzo
Amanecer
Marsalis Music

You might be bored, however, by some of pianist Joey Calderazzo’s Amanecer. I say this with disappointment, because there’s some intermittent beautiful scaled-down solo work here. But the album lacks commitment. “Midnight Voyage” has swing but not much soul. “Toonay” has neither. Calderazzo interestingly deconstructs Frank Loesser’s “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” only to teach us that this is not a tune that needed interesting deconstruction. His less-cubist version of Bill Evans’s “Waltz for Debby” is more successful but still not what I’d call winning. Maybe I’m an old-fashioned fella when it comes to old-fashioned tunes.

But … the album is almost redeemed by his three duets with singer Claudia Acuna, though even they seem a tad tentative. Those are “Amanecer,” “So Many Moons,” and “Lara,” which include some truly romantic bossa nova. So does “The Lonely Swan,” which features a particularly nice solo by guitarist Romero Lubambo. At his best, Calderazzo gets a beautiful pearl-like tone from the piano and has a delicate and restrained way with melody. But this album feels not quite finished.


David Witham
Spinning the Circle
Cryptogramaphone

I grooved on this disc almost from start to finish. Witham’s ensemble knows how to let the electronic and acoustic universes honor each other. The electronic intro to “Neon” is not just one of those I’m gonna zap you with some electricity to get your attention before lapsing into half-assed acoustics. It’s integrated, as are subsequent high-voltage entries and blends into subsequent tracks. Featured are our old deranged pal Nels Cline on electric guitar, Scott Amendola on drums and effects, Greg Leisz on pedal steel, Jay Anderson on bass, Jon Crosse on winds, and Luis Conte on percussion. Part of the album’s appeal is its fine range of textures and pacing. After the frenetic “Neon,” we’re treated to Mike Miller’s elegiac “Who Knows,” which will drag up every sweet regret from your soul, swish it around your mind, then make you swallow it again with a sad smile. In other words, it’s a great instrumental ballad. “N.O. Rising” is a heartening but not sappy salute to the brave folks still picking up Katrina’s pieces, with especially nice soprano sax work from Crosse, who backs himself cleverly on lower-register dubs, and from Leisz, who gives the number some bluesy bayou tremors.

“Momentum” is my least favorite piece here—a little self-indulgently arty. I have nothing against the accordion, but let’s leave it for the Ratatouille soundtrack this summer, shall we? (Don’t get me going on the Ratatouille soundtrack. I love the Ratatouille soundtrack! Like Claude Bolling redux. Stay focused, Tune Head! Stay focused!) “The Circle” is jaunty and syncopated, “Light and Life” a plausibly meditative consideration of both. “Afrobeat” simmers some cosmic synth happenings in a delicious stew of percussion. And “Con Quien” serenades us home with a rhythmically lopsided tipsy tip of the hat, which, contented, you shall, methinks, offer in kind.

Rock

Calvin Harris
I Created Disco
AlmostGold

The first time I heard this, I hated it. The second, third, and fourth, I came to—well—dislike it. You might feel otherwise if you were a young boomer nostalgic for early minimalist 80s club electronica. But, um, do such people exist?

I confess, this retro-cheesy, hypnotic, stripped-down, Amiga-computer-generated trip to the mirror-ball moon started to turn me into one a couple times—but only started. Many numbers, like “Electro Man” and “Disco Heat” just stink, and yet you have to sort of appreciate their mirror-line endurance and Harris’s lounge-act-in-a-plastic-bubble vocals. But numbers like “Love’s Souvenir,” “Certified,” “Neon Rocks,” and “Merry Making at My Place” have some nifty little cyberlicks. And a few, like “This Is Industry” and “Acceptable in the 80’s” have a minimalistic cynical self-centered wit to them. Still, even in the 80s, I’m not sure this stuff would have been acceptable outside a keyboard wonk’s basement.

The Wildbirds
Golden Daze

While also retro, the Wildbirds’ self-produced debut, on the other hand, is undoctored, unpretentious, and bracingly up front. The L.A. group hunkered down in a northern Wisconsin cabin to record these trickily un-tricked-up tunes.

I have an irrational fear that the wrong bands will use up the wrong female names on underperforming torch songs. But I’m OK with the Plain White T’s “Hey There Delilah.” And I’m pleased with The Wildbirds’ handling here of “Suzanna.” Still, I’m awaiting a really good lighter-waver to someone named, say, Hortense.

“Someday We Can Fly Away” is a tripped-out speed rocker, “Where Has Goodness Gone” an almost flower-childlike shrug of innocent resignation. “All Get Away,” “Way Down Low,” “Hard on Me,” “Shake Shake,” and “421” are cathartic fourth-gear guitar-plastered surges of scratchy-throated tension, while “It’s Alright Now” is a shroomy cross between the Monkees and the Velvet Underground.

It’s a digital world, but the only digits on this album were the ones used to turn the vintage amps to 11. Refreshing.

Biffy Clyro
Puzzle
Roadrunner Records

Twins Ben and James Johnston and their high-school buddy Simon Neil are Biffy Clyro, the Glasgow alternative outfit with ambitious tunes, arrangements, and sonic outlook. The album’s Sisyphean viewpoint is captured by the first track’s name, “Living Is a Problem Because Everything Dies.” It and “9/15ths” have end-of-the-world choir parts, which depending on your mood will either sound very serious or a mite pretentious. I’m thinking serious, though, because this trio has an interesting sound blend, slicker than grunge, grungier than new wave, less cocky than metal, and more metal than your average pub-crawling cadre. They’re baseline is crankin’ tunes like “Saturday Superhouse” and “Who’s Got a Match,” but they break for a few, like “As Dust Dances” and “Love Has a Diameter,” which have an REMish trance feel. “Folding Stars” dips into some almost-pop power chords and should perhaps have been called “Eleanor,” except I’m glad it wasn’t because, well, you know. We need to keep “Eleanor” for future generations.

Foreign Born
On the Wing Now

Another distinctive self-produced squad, Foreign Born, lifts off from L.A. with this energetic, expansive debut LP. They’re Echo & the Bunnymen revisited, which, if you liked the first visit, will both thrill you and freak you out the sound is sometimes so similar. I could have sworn I was in a stuffy dorm room with unwashed futon sofas and the smell of clove ciggies. Somebody wake me! Ah, but then “Into Your Dream” did with a particularly fun guitar hook. Then I realized I was just dancing around the kitchen drying dishes with my daughter looking at me funny.

Five O’Clock Heroes
Bend to the Breaks
High Wire Music

And one final stop on our retro bus. Let’s visit Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson, with a sonic touch of the Romantics thrown in for another debut: The Five O’Clock Heroes’ Bend to the Breaks. British-born frontman Antony Ellis has those predecessors’ weird, twisted combination of earnestness and irony, and tight backing by guitarist Elliot Thomson, bassist Nader Khierbek, and drummer Sam Embery. “Number Again” features the irresistible pickup line, “Give a little respect … I think you ought to know, I’m the only one who wants you, baby.” Charmed, I’m sure.

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