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Brian Wilson’s “Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin” (2010) – The Weekend Review

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By Chris Moore:

RATING:  3.5 / 5 stars

For songwriters with strong, distinct voices, albums populated by covers are typically stopovers between other, more serious efforts.  For Wilson, it appears that projects such as this are where he looks these days to keep himself occupied while he waits for inspiration to strike.

Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin delivers just about what you’d expect from the former Beach Boy: lush harmonies laid over a bed of smart, tight pop music, albeit the pop music of a bygone era.

Perhaps the slogan for this release should have been, “Brian Wilson updates the music of the Gershwin brothers… to the sixties!”

The greatest criticism I can lob at Reimagines is its apparent contentment to revisit the established.  Wilson was given access to fragments of songs written but never finished by Gershwin that numbered in the triple digits, and yet there are only two new compositions — “The Like in I Love You” and “Nothing But Love” — which provide the bookends for the full-length tracks.

Simply put, this is what prevents Reimagines from reaching the same creative heights as Mermaid Avenue (the original, and Vol. II not so much), a similar project conducted by Wilco and Billy Bragg.  The key difference there, of course, was that they dipped exclusively into unfinished lyrics and wrote the music for them.  The results on Mermaid Avenue should be attributed just as much to Wilco and Bragg as to Guthrie, whereas Reimagines often reads as a collection of Gershwin tracks with the Brian Wilson filter applied.

In other words, Reimagines often plays more as a tribute from Wilson and his band than as a fresh and creative project.

On the other hand, to label Reimagines as a straightforward tribute to the Gershwin brothers would be to unfairly marginalize the creative spirit that Wilson so evidently brought to these recordings, not to mention the crispness and emotion that each of his lead vocals are imbued with.  There can be no question as to his intentions; he clearly threw himself into the project, as supported by reports that he would spend eight hours a day in the studio perfecting his vocals.

Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin (2010)

Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin (2010)

There are many, many positive words to be said about this record.

For starters, even on a project that lends itself to slow paced, old-school compositions — and he does indulge at times — Wilson and his crack band of music makers manage to carve out a record that verges on rock.  As would be expected, there are some beautiful bass lines and some wonderfully fun harmonies that beg to be sung along with.

There are other touches, many of them subtle, that should allow for Reimagines to be accepted among Wilson’s studio discography, as opposed to a one-off side effort.  Paul Von Mertens’ contributions can’t be overstated, serving as a link between the instruments that were employed on many of the original recordings of these songs and Wilson’s more rock/pop-oriented arsenal of drums, guitar, and bass.  Likewise, Probyn Gregory’s acoustic guitars add significantly to many of the tracks, filling in the gaps admirably.  The acoustic guitar is not an instrument one might readily associate with Wilson’s general sound, which makes it all the more notable.

“Rhapsody in Blue,” snippets of which serve as the intro and outro of the record, should be familiar to fans as a song that Wilson has noted in past interviews as one of his influences.  That this is the song he chose to place at the corners is quite fitting, and that he would choose to sing the multiple vocal tracks entirely on his own may, if nothing else, be read as a sign that he is still in command of his music.  Reports of his mental acuity — or lack thereof — may not have been greatly exaggerated, but no one should presume to claim that Wilson is present on his recordings in name only these days.

“Summertime,” the first full-length cover, touches on bits of Billy Stewart’s chart-topping 1989 version in the intro but quickly spreads out into a ballad filled out with horn blasts, twinkling bursts of piano, and strings that loom ominously on the horizon.  This version is a bit slow, but after the recognizable Wilson-esque romp of “The Like in I Love You,” it’s as though he is flexing his classical muscle, as he continues to do on “I Loves You, Porgy.”

Subsequently, the instrumental “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’” sounds like it could have been found on a Pet Sounds outtakes tape, the bass harmonica adding greatly to that feel.  “It Ain’t Necessarily So” is probably the first track on the album that is a fully realized blending of traditional and more modern styles, to the point that the two are difficult to distinguish between.

This is when Reimagines works so well: when Wilson manages to blends a traditional approach toward these songs with his own distinctive sound.  Contrary to some recent criticism, Wilson does not merely reconfigure the words to fit over instrumentals that conjure his previous songs, except perhaps for “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.”  Where it works exceedingly well, by the way.

Where the album does fall short is on tracks like “‘s Wonderful” and “Love is Here to Stay” that fail to transcend lounge music, being little more than standard covers that don’t diverge all that much from the originals.

“I Got a Crush on You” sounds like it was ripped off a best ballads of the fifties disc, and it works surprisingly well.  It is followed by “I Got Rhythm,” which sounds like a cross between SMiLE and surf rock on the intro, before settling down into a groove that sounds like all the best parts of a sixties Beach Boys song.  Then comes the indisputable latter-half gem “Someone to Watch Over Me,” easily one of the most beautiful little tracks Wilson has recorded in years.

The original tracks are the strongest efforts on the album, and it is for this reason that the decision to stick primarily to covers will always baffle and disappoint me.  It is the single strongest justification for why I’ve denied Reimagines a rating of 4 stars: for all the promise of what could have been.  It is still an enjoyable record and I would argue that it has earned its place as a serious effort, in league with Wilson’s recent and quite excellent albums.

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Broken Social Scene’s “Lo-Fi for the Dividing Nights” (2010) – The Weekend Review

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By Chris Moore:

RATING:  3 / 5 stars

Otherworldly and haunting, yet so pretty and longing.

This is the best way I can think of to describe Lo-Fi for the Dividing Nights, the EP that Broken Social Scene tacked onto some editions of this year’s Forgiveness Rock Record.  In keeping with the aesthetics of the tracks, the physical release is plain; if you’ve seen the album cover, you’ve pretty much seen it all, except for a similar back cover and a navy blue disc with white letters.

And yet, there is a simple beauty to the ten brief songs that are appended to the full album.  Forgiveness Rock Record is a solid album, one which I reviewed later that year, and yet it is not as notable as this little, possibly forgettable, largely instrumental ten-track EP.

It is in the concision of its songs that this collection shines.

Unlike its full-length counterpart, which suffers at times from not knowing when to stop, Lo-Fi for the Dividing Nights does not let any one track stretch out for too long.  No single idea, riff, or sound is carried out for more than a minute or two, and this is what propels this album.

Broken Social Scene's "Lo-Fi for the Dividing Nights" (2010)

Broken Social Scene's "Lo-Fi for the Dividing Nights" (2010)

TRACK LISTING:

1)  New Instructions

2)  Sudden Foot Loss

3)  Shabba Lights

4)  Song for Dee

5)  Eling’s Haus

6)  Professor Sambo

7)  Never Felt Alive

8)  Paperweight Room

9)  Turbo Mouse

10) Far Out

“Song for Dee,” in asking, “Good times, where’d you go?,” provides the central motivation for the melancholy that permeates these tracks.  Even the comparably brighter “Eling’s Haus” which follows “Song for Dee” is constrained by the repeated drone that sets the rhythm of the song.

“New Instructions” provides an opening for the EP that sounds vaguely like the acoustic fingerpicking from a Simon and Garfunkel single, but the subsequent layers that are added steers the track in a new direction.  “Sudden Foot Loss” follows; it is also acoustic in nature, but is much more unified in its sound, with one strong guitar up front and center in the mix.  The picking here is very simple and regular, with fleeting yet also regular flourishes between repetitions of the riff.  The background invites the mood of a dream, which is explored further on the track that follows.

“Shabba Lights” hints at human voices in the ah’s and ooh’s that accompany the horns and bells.  This introduces “Song for Dee,” which would be the simplest and unassuming track in any other context; here it is the only song that sounds like, well, a song.

Unlike the others, it has verses and words.

The second half of Lo-Fi for the Dividing Nights drags a bit, with “Professor Sambo” providing ample time and space to consider what else might be said about Dee or other causes of the somber, trance-like tone of this EP.  More vocals arrive on “Never Felt Alive,” but the words are difficult to make out, other than the three that comprise the title.

If regret could be translated into sounds, then it would sound precisely like “Paperweight Room,” a song whose title invites the listener to imagine a space, perhaps composed of memories, characterized by its ability to weigh one down.

The acoustic picking on “Turbo Mouse” is as pretty as the accompanying music is sad and offputting.  It all builds up to the aptly titled final track, “Far Out,” which sounds as though it is set in outer space.

In the end, Lo-Fi for the Dividing Nights doesn’t say much.

Literally.

And yet it is the otherworldly, haunting, and yet beautiful textures that make the EP alluring and compelling.  By saying less, it invites more imagination, and it is unsurprisingly an excellent choice of music to put on after dark.

This Broken Social Scene EP is one of the pleasant surprises of the year.  You won’t hear much about it, but it is one of the most compelling collections of stripped down acoustic instrumentals I’ve heard in a long time — I dare say, perhaps ever.

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Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ “Mojo” (2010) – The Weekend Review

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By Chris Moore:

RATING:  4 / 5 stars (with “Candy” & “Takin’ My Time”);  4.5 / 5 stars (without)

There is simply no mistaking a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song.

When you hear a single like “Refugee” or “Free Fallin’” on the radio, or in shuffle mode, or in a fast food restaurant, or wherever you may be, the band is recognizable.  Even if something more obscure comes on, say a recent track like “You and Me,” there is no need to call up your Shazam app; there is no mistaking Petty’s distinct nasal twang or Mike Campbell’s hook-laced, jangly guitars.  At worst, they sound like a Byrds cover band fronted by a Bob Dylan impersonator.

At best — and, most often — they are one of the greatest American rock bands of all time.

What does all this have to do with Mojo?

Simply put, Mojo represents a purposeful breakdown (pun intended) of the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers formula.  This record finds the band more concerned with experimentation via these blues influenced performances, and as such, the individual members of the band, more than on any other release, serve integral roles in the instrumental soundscapes.  Even on “U.S. 41,” perhaps the most stripped down of tracks, each band member has an interesting, shifting role as the song unfolds.  Campbell’s Kay Jimmy Reed Model guitar joins forces with Scott Thurston’s harmonica to rip schizophrenically through the rhythm section.  Benmont Tench switches temporarily to his Tremolo Steinway, relegating himself largely to the background and yet playing a key role in advancing the serious undertones of the words.

Here, as on all the tracks, Petty’s lead vocal is an instrument unto itself, alternating between creaking and crooning where appropriate.

Later, Campbell’s lead guitar on the standout “Running Man’s Bible” acts more as a backup vocal, answering each of Petty’s lines with a lick here, a riff there.  This is one of their best duets, and their energy on the choruses calls to mind the fact that this pair has been on the proverbial road for what is rapidly approaching four decades.

When I read in one article that Mojo was being recorded with a jam band mentality, I faltered in my enthusiasm.  When another article name-dropped the Allman brothers, I outright grimaced.  The Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers I love have always, regardless of what phase they were in, stood for purposeful rock music.  What I mean by this is that they have consistently eschewed the instrumental self-indulgence that regularly pushes tracks by bands like the Allman brothers into the double digit minute range.  The songs on their debut self-titled release rarely cracked the three minute mark; on the first half, only one track did: “The Wild One, Forever,” clocking in at a whopping 3:01.

In short, I feared that looming self-indulgence, a bug that has bitten many a great band.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' "Mojo" (2010)

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' "Mojo" (2010)

Instead of a collection of lengthy, live band jams, Mojo instead turned out to be a cohesive trek through a myriad of American milieu.  In many ways, this new record has more to do with their first two records than their most recent ones.  This is not at all to say that they’ve regressed to the simpler arrangements of You’re Gonna Get It! that earned them initial success; this is less a return than a romp through stomping grounds as a more mature, honed group of artists.

Certainly, even the most upbeat tracks on Mojo lack that in-your-face, eager-to-impress youthful energy that characterized their early songs, numbers like “When the Time Comes,” “Listen to Her Heart,” and “American Girl.”

Yet, at the same time, those early tracks lacked the electric mayhem of “Good Enough,” the sinister sneers and downbeats of songs like “I Should Have Known It,” and the beautiful nuances of tracks such as “The Trip to Pirate’s Cove.”

The two songs that leave me aweless are “Candy” and “Takin’ My Time,” the former a snoozer of a blues standard and the latter a lyrically boring, tiring exercise in marching across the speakers.  Each exceeds four minutes in length, and my patience in less than half that.  (Now, the iTunes bonus track “Little Girl Blues,” that’s a song I can get behind, perhaps even as an addition to the album proper.)

Nix these two tracks and this becomes a tightly sequenced thirteen track album.

Despite stretching out instrumentally, many tracks hint at riffs in all the right places, as if to remind the listener that this format is a conscious decision, as opposed to a lack of ability to write songs like they once did.  The lyrics certainly don’t suffer in this venture, “The Trip to Pirate’s Cove” being one of the best ballads the band has ever released and “Good Enough” being one of the best vignettes in their catalog, saying so little yet so much.

Thematically, Mojo is a loose but thoughtfully assembled exploration of American society, particularly the ethics and mores that have shaped our nation over the past hundred years.  The concept is not nearly as clearly defined as on The Last DJ, but it is present all the same: in the “mouths to feed” and preferred isolation of “Don’t Pull Me Over,” the “boss man” and the “wages” and the “food on the table” in “U.S. 41”, and, of course, the sin, glory, and freedom in “First Flash of Freedom.”

“Jefferson Jericho Blues” places us at the precipice, in the mind of a man who knows what is right yet “just can’t let go” of what feels better.  This conflict recurs in “High in the Morning,” with a bottle that belongs to the devil and a woman who belongs to the captain.  If these songs can’t be applied as metaphors for individuals in our society, as well as our nation as a whole, then what can?

In these and so many other ways, Mojo is a success.  It may not be comprised of the tightly packaged pop gems we’ve come to expect of the band, but it is still very much a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album, and, after eight long years, a strong addition to their considerable catalog.

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R.E.M.’s “Accelerate” (2008) – The Weekend Review

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By Chris Moore:

RATING:  5 / 5 stars

Raw energy, often the domain of a young band, is that elusive intangible that surges and passes and that, even when it is present, cannot always be tamed.  Sadly, it can be lost in veteran bands, and replaced though it may be with the polished products that come with years of practice, it is a poignant loss.

On Accelerate, R.E.M. recaptures this element for the first time in years with some of the most engaging recordings of their career.  Considering that their discography stretches a quarter of a century across fifteen studio albums, it is significant to claim Accelerate as one of the strongest albums in the R.E.M. catalog.

And it is.

Barely passing a half an hour in length, Accelerate — true to its name — attacks numerous focal points in politics and society with distortion guitars and biting lyricism.  Somehow, the band manages to strike a balance across the eleven tracks, including slower, more introspective tracks like “Until the Day is Done” and “Hollow Man” in what is otherwise a full-on alternative rock assault.

A less seasoned band might have forgotten to take the time to breathe.

The aforementioned tracks are not the standouts, but they are the pillars of the album.  “Until the Day is Done” is a thinly veiled protest song, thumping out the thematic pulse of the album as a whole.  Michael Stipe sings of “an addled republic, a bitter refund” and warns that “the verdict is dire, the country’s in ruins.”

Written near the end of George W. Bush’s time in office, Stipe’s references are crystal clear.  How have we responded to our state of affairs?  “We’ve written our stories to entertain these notions of glory and bull market gain.”  He goes on to conjure an Orwellian society as he sings, “An easyspeak message falls into routine.”

This is a stark vision, punctuated as it is with the self-doubt of questions like “What have I done?” and “Where are we left to carry on until the day is done?”

Lest this album be represented as preachy or whiny, it stands to be noted that there is just as much self-reflection woven into these tracks.  Consider “Hollow Man,” a song which finds Stipe reflecting on “saying things I didn’t mean and don’t believe.”

The voice that Stipe takes on here is one quite familiar to many individuals in a modern age driven by so-called ideals of productivity and consumerism: “I’m overwhelmed, I’m on repeat.  I’m emptied out, I’m incomplete.  You trusted me, I want to show you I don’t want to be the hollow man.”  It might be easy to overlook the reflective aspects in Stipe’s lyrics amidst the more scathing remarks, yet the album’s greatest strength is its balance between pointing out external as well as internal inconsistencies and failings.

Taking this heart on one’s sleeve approach into consideration, these two tracks in particular, may serve to bring the remaining nine tracks even more sharply into focus.

R.E.M.'s "Accelerate" (2008)

R.E.M.'s "Accelerate" (2008)

“Living Well is the Best Revenge” is an excellent opening track; the instrumental components are reason enough to set this song on repeat, driven as it is by Peter Buck’s gritty guitar parts, Mike Mills’ frenetic bass line, and Bill Rieflin’s breakneck pacing on drums.  Stipe’s vocals set the tone for the other songs to come, spewing out lines about poison spinning into “the life you’d hoped to live” and lashing out with epithets like “you weakened shill.”  Likewise, “Living Well is the Best Revenge” serves up the first round of religious allusions, Stipe singing of lambs to slaughter, “sad and lost apostles,” and asking “the gospel according to…who?”

This is followed up by “Man-Sized Wreath,” which boasts lyrics on par with the best Stipe has ever written.  The song opens with a continued reference to the media (think: “camera three” from the previous track, in addition to numerous later lines), “Turn on the TV, what do I see?  A pageantry of empty gestures all lined up for me, wow.”  It would seem from these lines that the “man-sized wreath” is the metaphor for those news anchors and other television personalities who contribute their “empty gestures” to the “pageantry” of the boob tube.

Later, Stipe sings that our “judgement [is] clouded with fearful thoughts,” but by the end of the song, he asserts that “I am not deceived by pomp and odious conceit.”  This song could be a call to buck the system – “Throw it on the fire, throw it in the air; kick it out on the dance floor like you just don’t care” — or a tongue in cheek request to join in the “festivities” that so many seem so comfortable to be a part of — “Give me some…”

Either way, there is something quite sad about the way in which Stipe states, “I’d have thought by now we would be ready to proceed.”

It doesn’t get much darker than three tracks later on “Houston,” as they kick off the song with an opening organ barrage that sounds like a cross between industrial noise and a funeral dirge.  Stipe fires off with “If the storm doesn’t kill me, the government will,” although he quickly adds, “Gotta get that out of my head.”  For all his harsh words, there is still hope and beauty in the places that Stipe sings of — Texan cities: coincidence? — as he clarifies that the “meaning has not been erased.”

By “Mr. Richards,” the frustration lurking underneath “Houston” is directed at one man, to whom Stipe asserts, “You can thump your chest and rattle, stand in front of your piano, but we know what’s going on… we’re the children of the choir.”  This is a shift from the perspective of “Man-Sized Wreath” — whereas before it was Stipe against the world, now it seems that there is a sense of unity with his audience.  Mr. Richard’s “camp moved on” and “the public’s got opinions,” “we’ve begun to bridge the schism.”

Progress is being made.

Stipe is practically cheery by the next track, “Sing for the Submarine,” reassuring that “It’s all a lot less frightening than we would’ve had it be.”  Here, “lift[ing] up your voice” is the way to fight the machine: “we’ll pick it all up and start again.”  Still, the instruments and even Stipe’s vocal delivery belies the hope expressed in his words:  the drums plodding, the bass playing ominous, and the guitar haunting.

In “Horse to Water,” Stipe notes, “I could have kept my head down.  I might have kept my mouth shut…  You lead a horse to water and you watch him drown.”  This firmly establishes “Horse to Water” as a statement on the album as a whole, particularly with Stipe following up in the chorus by singing, “It’s not that easy.  I am not your horse to water.  I hold my breath, I come around, round, round.”

In the special edition lyric booklet, a full two page spread is devoted to the final line of the song: “this run around… IS BOUND TO POUND THE DAYLIGHTS OUT OF YOU.”  Bottom line?  The state of affairs that Stipe and company have cut a path through to expose and expound on are very real.  Earlier, on the title track, Stipe sings, “I’m not alone, a thousand others dropping faster than me,” so Accelerate is clearly an album that calls for community.

It is primarily an album that digs into the uglier aspects of our private lives and the least sunny undercurrents of our society, and yet does so with a sense of unabashed honesty and even, at times, levity.  Take the single “Supernatural Superserious,” which deals with identity via the metaphor of the “humiliation of your teenage station.”  “I’m Gonna DJ” is only the second outstanding end-of-the-world rocker that R.E.M. has cooked up, and it’s perfectly placed as the closing track.

It’s saying something when a song about the end of the world is a welcome, light respite from the topic matter of the first ten tracks.

Throughout, R.E.M. succeeds in handling the topic matter with the perfect sound and a fitting sense of the greater scheme of things.  Even the booklet is branded with the caption “This book will fall apart.”  Aside from the fact that they’re not kidding (seriously: it’s tied together loosely with some thin thread), this is a nuanced manner of adding to the overall theme of decay.

The chorus of the title track, itself situated at the heart of the album, says it best:  “Where is the rip chord, the trap door, the key?  Where is the cartoon escape hatch?  No time to question the choices I make.  I’ve got to fall in another direction.  Accelerate.”  The message seems clear enough, a call for change that is desperately needed.  Read this as you will, either as a personal statement or as an indictment of the nation.  Regardless, the determination to be realistic and forthcoming is a quality we all too often lack when faced when crises come creeping into our lives.

It is human to see “the future turned upside down” and it is oh so very Prufrockian to “hesitate.”

If I read Stipe right, hesitation simply is no longer an option.  The solution seems to be to change direction and… you guessed it: accelerate.

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