Dub is clearly on the rise in the US, as Babylon Is Ours quickly shows. Check the differing use of frequency range, mixing techniques and instrumentation, as each artist’s vision of dub covers quite a broad spectrum. King Tubby’s raw production influence is pervasive, yet each of the 12 artists brings different source material-including hip-hop (Tino), downtempo (Ben Wa) and drum & bass (Otaku). Other highlights include Portland’s Systemwide (featuring Dr. Israel and DJ Collage), Santa Cruz’s Dub Congress and DC’s Avatars of Dub, who nicely reference the sounds of Black Uhuru and Augustus Pablo with a bit of uptempo mash-up. A stateside tribute to classic dub that doesn’t lack for groundbreaking experimentation.
Watchers To the Rooftops
This is some seriously dramatic art-funk that channels what was most interesting about the Talking Heads’ canonical Remain in Light. Hey, it may be a PR selling point, but you’ll shiver when you realize how much vocalist Michael Guarrine sounds like Byrne on the edgy, cutting “Our Exchange” (which itself ambles forward like “Born Under Punches”) or “Gold Standard.” Truth is, Watchers have more musical skill than the Heads, less self-conscious theater than the early Devo sound (check Rooftops’ “Two Worlds” for more on that), and chops equal to the similarly flavored Sweep the Leg Johnny or Minus the Bear. In other words, the Talking Heads comparison is neither a knock nor a PR pipe dream-it’s a compliment. By the time you get to the laidback hooks of “The Dirty Sponsor,” you’ll be sucked in and pushed forward, having forgotten about the value of comparisons altogether.
Ghost Cauldron Invent Modest Fires
Why front on an album that invokes David Lynch’s Twin Peaks on its first song? Berlin’s Ghost Cauldron might offer a blender full of beats, but its sweep is nevertheless similar to cinema. “Fire Walk With Me,” laden with cutting strings, measured piano and a plodding beat, feels like a soundtrack to the latest Ridley Scott blockbuster, while “Only at Night” samples Brando’s canonical “horror” speech from Apocalypse Now (as well as its helicopter rotor noise). Any questions? With guest turns from cats like Priest and Anti-Pop Consortium, Invent Modest Fires feels like a sequel to John Carpenter’s Halloween, but plays like the kind of Gothic pop that could use a little more time out of the studio. Thing get interesting when the eerie guitar and Nick Talyor’s vocals kick in on “See What I’ve Become,” but move to nostalgic when the Jan Hammer-like riffs on “Look Back See Forward” channel Miami Vice. All in all, an ambitious pomo homage to widescreens everywhere.
Sterling S/t
Screw Detroit-Chicago is the place to be if you’re an indie music lover. Now File Thirteen Records has thrown its hat into the hype ring with the self-titled offering from Sterling, and the fit is formidable. Sterling’s style sticks faithfully to the angular post-rock path taken by Godspeed You Black Emperor! (without the pious bombast) or Mogwai (without the distortion)-sometimes with, strangely enough, a little pre-synth Mermen thrown into the mix-making for potent night’s worth of math-rock introspection. The piano evens out the addictive guitar nuances on some tracks, but Sterling’s strong suit is its determined hypnotic progressions: they simply float like butterflies and sting like bees. A solid, emotional entry into a sometimes alienating genre. Grab this shit and spin it.
Mockey In Mesopotamia (J.D. Slazenger’s edition)
Before they ran away to start their own dirty electro circus in Berlin, Peaches and Chilly Gonzales were in a punk band called The Shit, of which Dominic Salole, a.k.a. Mocky, was the drummer. Now an ex-pat in Holland, Mocky, too, makes freaky lo-fi ‘lectro kitsch on In Mesopotamia, but it’s the added hip-hop value that sets him apart. His Snoop-style MCing is notably pimp on the more straightforward beats of single “Sweet Music.” Elsewhere, Mocky’s abstract initiatives juxtapose spastic samples with mellow bourgeois ballads. As he raps on “Munky ‘C’ Munky Do,” it’s somewhat “…like Neanderthals breedin’ with Europeans.
Various Artists The Rough Guide to the Asian Underground
One glance at the tracklisting and you might think, “Where the hell is Talvin Singh?” But after reading seven pages of liner notes, you learn that he’s Mahatma T, whose tablatronic “Jihad” is included. The disc opens with the late Ananda Shankar’s “Streets of Calcutta,” a precursor to later Bollywood crossovers, while Asian Dub Foundation, TJ Rehmi and Mo Magic stand out by repping the d&b camp solidly. If a bit unfocused, the disc is a good primer, but probably not the best bet for those who remember when these beats were still hot from the tandoori oven.
I-Wolf Soul Strata
Sofa Surfer Wolfgang Schl?gl has been gettin’ up off the couch to make Stateside trips in pursuit of his LA girlfriend. His resultant solo album has an American rocksoulfunk layer that departs from the Surfers’ Viennese dub stylee. As I-Wolf, Schl?gl wallows in the misgivings of a lovestruck soul. Guitar, bass, drum breaks, and slippery horns churn drunkenly behind rock and r&b vocals by the likes of Ken Cesar and Damon Aaron, plus a ragga chant by DJ Collage. See Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s 1971 Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata for more on the context of I-Wolf’s passionate, successful debut.
Various Artists Teutonik Disaster
There’s only so many times you can walk into a Lower East Side bar full of patrons clothed in jackets coated in one-inch badges, posturing in deftly worn Levi’s, cheesecloth-thin vintage RUN-DMC tees, and perfectly askew trucker cap, waving to Casey Spooner, sipping Red Stripes and doing PCP with Ryan McGinley, and then knowingly call out each endlessly re-issued post-punk classic. Yes, we’ve all heard Yello, Laidback and Alexander Robotnik’s classics played repeatedly. But what, you may ask, were the Germans up to during those important years of 1977-1983? Well, Deutsch duo Munk definitively answer that question here by overseeing this engaging compilation on their label of endlessly issued perfection, Gomma. While doubters may giggle at the sounds of the German language getting funky over some of the synth-heavy rhythm tracks, true believers in true good music will recognize this eye-opening vault for the goldmine it is.
Worm is Green Automagic
Well, Dntel fever is evidently sweeping the world, not even leaving the windswept artic tundras of Iceland untouched. After bringing the electro-enhanced slowcore jams of M?m, TMT records introduces Worm is Green, which steps up the global glitch-pop explosion with prominent female and sometimes male vocals, a bassist, a drummer and an avalanche of nocturnal synthesized solitude. If this sounds like your bag, relish in the swirling growl of synthesizers, laptop-affected drums, and immediate vocals. If it doesn’t, it’s because the album is based too much in a traditional song structure and doesn’t leave enough room for abstraction.
Ruxpin Magrathea
Jonas Thor Gudmundsson may not be friends with Bj?rk, but I have to write this fact anyway, as all journalists are bound by a secret sect of government-sponsored Icelandic elves to reference her at every possible corollary. Undaunted, Ruxpin starts out like any number of incestuously similar Elektro/Mikrolux releases, offering muscle-relaxing synths and clickity percussion, before “Magrathea” erupts into a luculent world of deep bass and perspicaciously layered microscopic aural details, trailblazed by complex rhythmic expeditions. Ruxpin manages to filter myriad genre formalities-4/4 house-isms, electro thwacks, etc.-through his distinct musical vision, all without a guest appearance from Bj?rk.
