Wilco A Ghost Is Born (Nonesuch)
Hey, what happened to the funny noises? That's bound to be any fan's first reaction to Wilco's latest metamorphosis, yet another sharp turn, in sound and mood, for a band that seems compelled to change with every album. And in its own way, it's as eerie as anything Wilco have recorded yet. Last time around, Wilco were dropped by Reprise Records because songwriter Jeff Tweedy and mixer Jim O'Rourke baked all sorts of buzzes and creaks into the songs on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Wilco put the songs online, and a more sympathetic label, Nonesuch, picked up the album, which debuted at Number Thirteen.
Though O'Rourke returns as co-producer, A Ghost Is Born is no sequel. Where Yankee Hotel Foxtrot sounded dense and surreal, the bulk of Ghost is spare and earthy, with streaks of Crazy Horse, the Band, the Beatles and the Replacements. Where YHF tried to assess America's soul, Ghost looks inward.
For most of the album, Wilco use guitars, bass, drums and keyboards, recorded with distinct realism and often played together live in the studio. Many tunes are slow and desolate, pausing occasionally as if unsure how to go on. While they ruminate, odd things sprout from within: spiraling electric-guitar jams, sustained feedback howls and, in "Less Than You Think," a meditative twelve-minute electronic coda that begins as quietly as an air-conditioner hum and opens out into a forest of sounds. "Spiders" starts out as metronomic one-chord kraut rock, launches Tweedy into spiky, scrabbling electric-guitar leads and, four minutes in, riffs its way into cantankerous rock.
Ghost's lyrics intertwine thoughts about a romance breaking up and a business relationship breaking down. "Company in My Back" could be talking about the record-label follies, but "Wishful Thinking" is more ominous: "The pressure devices/Hell in a nutshell/Is any song worth singing if it doesn't help?"
Yes. Instead of grand solutions, Tweedy offers illuminating curiosity about what can happen in a song. It's not experiment for experiment's sake. There's a sense that every note and sound on Ghost, even the spontaneous ones, have been selected for private but rigorous reasons. A drum tap here, a glimmering hammer dulcimer there, a jab of distorted guitar, an echo suddenly opening new spaces -- on Ghost, they say what words cannot. (JOHN PARELES)
Brian Wilson Gettin' In Over My Head (Rhino)
For the Brian Wilson faithful, the hard part is over when the wizard of SoCal releases an album. For those who need more than cheery, expert melodies and arrangements from on high to be satisfied, for skeptics not satisfied with agreeable guest spots from Eric Clapton, Elton John and Paul McCartney, and for hardheads who need to overcome Wilson's frightening detachment from our moment, there is an answer. Perhaps it's best to think of Gettin' In Over My Head as Wilson's celebrity children's record. "Make a Wish," "Rainbow Eyes" and "Fairy Tale" are right in the pocket already. On a couple of vigorous tracks, such as "Soul Searchin'," which inserts a lead vocal from departed brother Carl and deserves to appear on a future best-of, grown-ups can sneak in their enjoyment sideways. (MILO MILES)
Faze Action Broad Souls (Bar de Lune)
The essential elements perpetually missing from electronic, studio-centered music have been songs first, musicianship second. Brothers Simon and Robin Lee, the masterminds behind Faze Action, started dousing that premise in the mid-Nineties. With their second full-length, Broad Souls, they extinguish it altogether. Known for their deliverance of "nu-disco," the original funk soul brothers enlist the gospel-inspired vocals of Andre Espeut for a truly soulful experience. Almost entirely ignoring the dance floor and focusing on delicately crafted songs in the style of Sixties and Seventies soul sounds, Faze Action pay genuine tribute to what has inspired them. The influence of everyone from Aretha Franklin to Terry Callier, James Brown to Brand New Heavies is apparent. Deep and wide, the orchestration of Broad Souls bypasses the point of being overblown entirely, leaping to the other side of splendid. (LILY MOAYERI)
For Stars . . . It Falls Apart (Future Farmer)
While there's no doubting that For Stars are aiming for the further reaches of the galaxy with their fourth album, they're doing so without losing touch with their earthly roots. For all the glitzy sonic veneer -- echoed vocals, swirling, effect-laden guitars, time-travel keyboards -- the album never sacrifices the heart of the song. Singer Carlos Forster does his gender-bending best, singing with great sensitivity as he reaches the upper limits of his range, clipping the notes of "Calm Down Baby" in stylish remorse. The band provides the necessary support, sporting trumpet for the psychedelically laced "It Doesn't Really Matter" and ambient, underwater Eno-piano and afterlife strings for the mock-operatic "In the End." If this were the early Seventies, For Stars would be rummaging through grandiose ELP concepts. As it's the turn of the century, they content themselves with grafting Radiohead textures ("Shattered Glass") on top of their sincere singer-songwriterly conceits. (ROB O'CONNOR)
Leo Kottke Try And Stop Me (Bluebird/RCA Victor)
As the title would suggest, Leo Kottke's Try And Stop Me is a confident statement from the almost sixty-year-old finger-picking extraordinaire. On the heels of his acclaimed 2002 collaboration with Phish bassist Mike Gordon, Clone, Kottke assembles here another package of mesmerizing guitar work. Stop Me incorporates a tapestry of styles that has come to portray his thirty-five-year career, ranging from exploratory classical emulsions ("Monopoly" and "Mockingbird Hill") to his trademark folk/blues picking gallops ("Bristol Sloth" and "Stolen"). Kottke veers toward a kind of warped jazz with "Jesus Maria," and the record closes with a Los Lobos-featured country stomp, "The Banks of Marble," a tune written in the late Forties (recorded by both the Weavers and Pete Seeger) by a Northeastern farmer, which introduced Kottke to the wonders of the twelve-string guitar. (DOUGLAS WATERMAN)
Buffseeds The Picture Show (Sanctuary/Fantastic Plastic)
Songs on Brit quartet the Buffseeds' debut album The Picture Show range from cerebral pop ("Who Stole the Weekend") to large helpings of majestic melancholy ("Sparkle Me") with an emphasis throughout on subtlety, unforced finesse and poetic poignancy. Occasionally, a little artillery is brought out: The axes rip and roar on cuts like "Riot," but such tempests are generally brief and located for maximum effect. And it doesn't hurt that singer Kieran Scragg has an engagingly androgynous voice that brings to mind a meeting of Perry Farrell, Sheryl Crow and a small dose of valium. Buffseeds are not merely a connoisseur's band. Though their songs do reflect the more literate end of the rock music spectrum, they're also heartfelt and honest. (ADRIAN ZUPP)
Edwin McCain Scream and Whispers(DRT)
His first album after a three-year absence, Edwin McCain's Scream and Whispers arrives both in the wake of his successful attempt to sober up after a struggle with alcohol and, by his account, "while falling in love with music all over again." That life-affirming spirit, is inarguably present on Scream. McCain sings with the fervent, searching conviction of a pardoned man: "Maybe this life is just about love and tenderness/If all we are, are shooting stars." Unfortunately, such conviction is often served up under a thick residue of schmaltz -- the track "Say Anything," bears a disturbing resemblance to Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love" -- that makes it difficult to classify McCain's love affair as one to remember. (REBECCA FLINT MARX)
The One AM Radio A Name Writ in Water (Level Plane)
Recent Yale grad Hrishikesh Hirway enraptures tender late-night moments with handcrafted sounds. Hirway has evolved the art of the DIY recording from scratchy, ear-pinching four-track tapes to sounds cycled through advanced electronic equipment. Along with a tightly knit supporting cast -- violinist Jane Yakowitz, upright bassist Paul Findlen and trumpeter Joseph Grimm -- Hirway's second volume, proves that this newfound technique lends delicacy and affords greater imaginative pursuits like intentional skipping on "Shivers," soft-and-bouncy beats on "Witness" and lush symphonics throughout. All the while, his library-level hushed voice guides us as the clock's hand edges from one second to the next. (KURT ORZECK)