VARIOUS ARTISTS
Cream of the Drop
(zerobpm records)
**

Cream of the Drop is a compilation of local jungle, triphop, hiphop, and house artists whose mood is chilled out, oneiric, and melodic. The CD claims to fall under the genre called downbeat, which is a rather vague and unimportant term. What is important about this CD--aside from the six or so excellent songs it contains--is that it's a sexy CD. Seattle, for the most part, lacks an erotic music (in the same way that it lacks an erotic text--except for its sex entertainment ordinance). When the city was smaller and unambitious, it was impossible for it to be erotic and wasteful, only political and useful. But now that it is growing at a very fast pace the city is sexier simply because there are more people, more bars, more lovers to seduce, more hearts to break. This CD announces, articulates, and indeed celebrates the arrival of the erotic city.

The cover of Cream of the Drop presents a perspiring and ripe woman with a half-consumed cigarette clinging to her full lips; instantly one wonders if she just had sex or just walked off a dance floor, or both. "Sifting Through" by Adapter (who is actually from Portland) can only be described as a kind of Kamasutra of communications devices (a fax fucking a cell phone, a beeper going down on a modem). There is also an exquisite little song by Emory Liu aptly called "Grey"; aptly because grey, like sex, is the area where two distinct identities merge and surrender. The Subdwellers, one of the two hiphop acts represented on the CD, have a song called "Suffocation," which is the sexiest word in the English language.

The sexiest song on the CD is by Swim. The song is called "Silver," and it's charged by an erotic ambition that is empire-like in scope. The dubbed and vertiginous vocals by Michele Meyers, and chunky, cinematic hiphop beats by Jeremy Moss, speak to a city we have not arrived at yet. Sometime in the future the city will look and sound like this: voluptuous, indulgent, and exhausted--in a word, aristocratic. This is the Seattle we are all waiting for; this is the city we want. CHARLES MUDEDE

SARAH DOUGHER
The Walls Ablaze
(Mr. Lady)
****

Sarah Dougher doesn't just blur the line between the emotional and the intellectual-- she sets up camp there, brushes away the dust, and builds a lovely little cottage of perfect pop songs. In refusing to adhere to either extreme, Dougher's second solo LP plants itself in the realist middle-distance that separates resignation and transcendence, where the heart can ease up on the throbbing long enough to finally hear the head's response.

On "The Old Way," a rational declaration about the past, "The questions you can ask are the devils you must face" is followed immediately by the baleful and succinct confession, "and every single day, I still think of you in the old ways." The narrator's longing is tempered by distance and acceptance, but it's no less palpable for its maturity.

Many songs here are sung to a "you," but the "you" is a revolving cast of beloveds, cultural signifiers, and selves, none of whom are spared Dougher's perceptive laser, and none of whom are allowed to wallow in the histrionics that attend the standard lexicon of pop finger-pointing. When Dougher's chesty alto rises over lurching piano to a restrained falsetto on "What She'd Trade," and announces that "the selfish life of the activist can only be understood by the selfishness of the artist," it might not be clear who she's singing to, but there's no mistaking that who she's singing about is us, as we navigate the end of punk rock's emotional adolescence.

The Walls Ablaze isn't the torturous soul-cry written in the immediate aftermath of breakup or disappointment or insult, it's the music that comes two weeks, a month, forever after: an appraisal of what happened and what's left. It's the sweet, smart, sad sound of being a grownup. SEAN NELSON



IN STORES 6/13

by Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

 

Busta Rhymes, Anarchy (Elektra) Big week for Busta. First Shaft, then his new album. That's a big paycheck.

k.d. lang, Invincible Summer (Warner Bros.) This sounds like it should be the soundtrack to the new Karate Kid movie.

Deftones, White Pony (Maverick) They're sticking to pony rides.

Ruff Ryders, Ryde or Die, Volume II (Interscope) Featuring DMX, Eve, the Lox, Drag-on, Dre, Eminem, Snoop, Method Man, Redman, and more!

Next, Welcome to Nextasy (Arista) Nextploitation.

The Doors, Essential Rarities (Elektra) And you thought you were special when you bought the box set last year and got this CD.

58, Diet for a New America (Americoma/Beyond) Nikki Sixx has formed a side project, and there's a song about an online stripper who pays the ultimate price!

Todd Rundgren, One Long Year (Artemis) Grumbling trundle dent long long year.

Ian Astbury, Spirit/Light/Speed (Beggars Banquet) "Fire Woman" over and over and over and....

Christy McWilson, The Lucky One (HighTone) She sings for the Picketts and is friends with R.E.M.

Before Dark, Daydreamin' (MCA) After dark you'd just be plain old dreamin'.

Pole, 3 (Matador) Maypole, pole position, fishin' pole.

Sir Mix-A-Lot, Beepers, Benzos & Booty: The Best of Sir Mix-A-Lot (Rhino) Hell yes.

Sunny Day Real Estate, The Rising Tide (Time Bomb) Listen, let me tell you about this beachfront property I happen to know about in Arizona...