GOLDFRAPP
Seventh Tree
(Mute)
Some wag at the office recently suggested that if it weren’t for
Alison Goldfrapp’s stunning appearance, Goldfrapp the musical act
wouldn’t have made it past debut Felt Mountain. Granted, the
one-time Orbital vocalist is easy on the eyes, but her most arresting
feature by far is her voice. That powerful instrument swings from
sultry vamps to ethereal sighs with ease, a range that has allowed Ms.
Goldfrapp to cast herself alternately as downtempo chanteuse, electro
diva, and now, with fourth album Seventh Tree, as a kind of
future-folk singer.
It’s not entirely a bad look for the duo, which also includes
producer/multi-instrumentalist Will Gregory. The lilting flute and
shuffling pomp of “Happiness” is classic, candy psych-pop. The
propulsive piano pulse and skyward, sing-along choruses of “Caravan”
are the things that car-
commercial wet dreams are made of (may I
humbly suggest a Dodge Caravan campaign?). “Cologne Cerrone Houdini”
reads like it might combine the famous minimal techno of Kompakt’s
hometown with the organic early Italo of Supernature‘s
namesake, but those influences vanish into an analog chamber pop more
closely informed by French band Air.
Still, it’s a far cry from the high-water marks of either the
psychosexual Black Cherry or the electro glam of
Super-nature. “Clowns” opens the album with wispy acoustic
guitar picking, melodramatic strings, and plaintive vocals. “Little
Bird” oscillates between velvet vocals on the verse, aerial ones on the
outro, all-over backward-slipping strings and muted, Eastern guitar
flanges. The open-sky reverb and banjo on “Road to Somewhere” are
aimless. The restrained breaths and elfin falsettos on “Eat Yourself”
are accompanied by distracting background static—room sounds? a
bad mic?—odd for a band whose every production choice seems so
intentional. Lead single “A&E” is limp coffeehouse balladry
(Goldfrappuccino?) dressed up with some soft synths. Closer “Monster
Love” is pleasant but utterly without their best work’s exhilarating
pressure.
Goldfrapp’s voice is as gorgeous as ever—she could sing the
financial report and sound like an extraterrestrial dream—but
this album’s adventures into electro-
acoustic singer-songwriter
territory too often results in chilled-out, easy-listening moods rather
than memorable songs.
ERIC GRANDY
RE-UP GANG
We Got It for Cheap Vol. 3: Spirit of
Competition
(Re-Up Records)
Did you get the memo? Live nigga rap is back. The first two We
Got It for Cheap mixtapes were manna from heaven, emergency food
drops of more dope-related rhyme from street-hop masters Clipse,
something to tide the fiends over till the feast that would be their
forever-delayed sophomore album, Hell Hath No Fury. That album
finally dropped amid a white flurry of critical snow jobs, but, despite
being a stunning follow-up, it didn’t find sales equal to the
respect.
Which brings us to the third installment, leaked on Super Bowl
Sunday. It’s the first WGIFC mixtape credited to the Re-Up
Gang (Clipsters Pusha T and Malice combined with Philly’s Ab-Liva and
Sandman) rather than just Clipse, and rightfully so. As opposed to the
sheer no-brainer supremacy of the brothers Thornton on previous
installments, here Liva and Sandman easily match hardcore rap’s most
fearlessly lyrical duo at every turn with a startling barrage of
withering wordplay. Clipse deal in their only real subject
matter—cocaine and all its attendant
difficulties/rewards—with language and flow so graceful, vibrant,
and imaginary that it makes rap’s most tired premise sparkle with
originality.
But while WGIFC1 was aiight and WGIFC2 was a stone classic of hyperliterate coke-rhyme, both were the very
definition of “hungry.” The most recent chapter, though, reveals a
certain ennui, a bitterness about the success that’s constantly eluded
them despite no shortage of Arctic Monkeys–type hype. Their
rhymes—particularly Malice’s—have them (temporarily?)
downshifted to glaring from the wings, rather than devouring the set:
“I can’t wait for Skateboard to save me/My house in default, his house
paisley/He’s not at fault, no, not vaguely/He’s on a yacht somewhere
with Jay-Z.”
The fact is, Clipse and company have been consistently spoiling
their fans with the kind of diesel-grade product that few else in this
postskills rap landscape are distributing these days. Even on their
worst day—which WGIFC3 certainly is not—one whiff
of Re-Up’s raw will have your whole face numb. LARRY MIZELL JR.
MAHJONGG
Kontpab
(K Records)
Mahjongg communicate in codes. Their new K Records album,
Kontpab, has no title along the side, only a series of
pictograms. On the front cover, a series of gridded, partially
blacked-out squares alternate with two rows of triangular teeth and
triforce gums. On the back, two vertical strips of dot-matrix-printer
guide holes flank an indecipherable mess of black-and-white static that
looks like it might hide some lost, ’80s-era Magic Eye image. The music
contained herein is only slightly less opaque, a sometimes frustrating
but consistently captivating
transmission of punk-funk rhythms,
appropriated African drumming, menacing
drones, and frequently
impenetrable lyrics.
The album opens with two and a half minutes of layered hand drumming
and Morse-code pulses before “Pontiac” breaks into its thumb-piano and
drum-machine groove. From there, it swerves into the off-kilter new
wave of “Problems” and the monotone rapping and mournful android funk
of “Kottbusser Torr.” The album’s lead single, “Tell the Police the
Truth,” is a collision of hectic laser sirens, loose drum grooves,
strutting bass, and droning, sarcastic vocals about the benefits of
yielding to state authority. “Those Birds Are Bats” is an unexpected
turn of sunny, pogoing pop-punk tape hiss. The latter half of the
record settles back into more familiar territory: stuttering synths,
rough rhythms, and vocals that range from druggy monotone raps to odd
falsetto choruses. “Rise Rice” closes the album with eight and a half
minutes of distorted synth waves, madly polyrhythmic percussion, and
smeared chanting.
The Chicago crypto-punk collective’s live shows are energetic and
just as confusing as anything else about them—on at least one
tour, old TV monitors, computer towers, and militaristic stencils
cluttered the stage while the band beat out their strange racket.
Previous recordings have captured Mahjongg’s scattered, almost
shell-shocked aesthetic, but Kontpab finally nails the
willfully obscure band’s bizarre live intensity. ERIC GRANDY
Mahjongg play Fri Feb 29 at the Vera Project, 7:30 pm, $8, all
ages. With Calvin Johnson, So Many Dynamos.
Watt’s ’65
Brixton ’81
L.A. ’92
Evergreen ’08