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Beefcake:
Coincidentia Oppositorum
(Hymen/Ant-Zen)
From the schizophrenic leaps made on Coincidentia Oppositorum,
it seems these German lads haven't been taking their Thorazine--the
album hopscotches from ethereal ambient soundtracking to
ever-trendy glitch-based drill'n'bass and even some drifting
New Age trip-hop. At its best, it rivets pointy staccato
breakbeats through undulating sheets of sheer synth straight
outta Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack; at its worst,
the same sheer synths dominate the mix, making it sound
so nice your aunt who gave you that horrible puppy-dog sweater
for Christmas last year would listen to it while sipping
Earl Gray (three sugars, please) during her weekly bridge
tourney with the bluehairs. It's about a 50-50 balance between
these extremes of demanding and daft.
Various:
X-Ray Visions:
Classic Tracks from Portland's Legendary X-Ray Cafe
1990-1994
(Kwali-T/Burnside Distribution Corporation)
How many clubs that went out of business six years ago
have their own compilation, documentary and (sort-of) website
(www.x-raycafe.com) in the year 2000? This has been a true
Jubilee Year, though, for all those who fondly remember
the West Burnside all-ages club of yore--and for those of
us who weren't around to bask in its roughshod glory but
have had to hear about it, damn near ad nauseam,
from those who were. Ben Ellis' film, which debuted last
month at the Clinton Street Theater, served as a magnet
for all them crusty old-timers nostalgic for, yessir by
gum, the early '90s. This soundtrack album distills the
club's rowdy randomness through 17 excellent live tracks,
recorded to varying levels of fidelity but with relentless
enthusiasm. Dead Moon's tomb-raiding creepfest "Walking
On My Grave" is an early highlight; a troupe of by-gone
PDX all-stars rounds out an album that's essentially a batch
of field recordings documenting a particularly weird folk
culture. Hello, Hitting Birth. Come on down, Last Pariahs.
God bless, New Bad Things. For anyone interested in the
Scene 'round here, this is essential.
Cuba L.A.:
Navidad Cubana
(Narada World)
The devolution of the Cuban music chic of the past two
years runs to a grim conclusion on this gutless potboiler.
Genuine gringo astonishment at the brilliance of Forbidden
Island heavies like Ibrahim Ferrer and Los Van Van stirred
up market demand, and now this featherweight seasonal toss-off
cashes in, with plinky son-lite. May go well with
your Riverdance DVD.
Hans Platzgumer:
Datacard
(The Music Cartel)
Hans Platzgumer is the "H.P." from cult art-rockers H.P.
Zinker, but on Datacard he's dropped his guitar in
favor of spastic electrotech manipulations. The resulting
blitz of bits-and-bytes is impressively sharp and well-executed
(especially for an ex-Matador Records indie rocker), with
thumping drum'n'bass numbers such as "Hedonist Nightmare"
and "Terrifier" alternating with sinister, noise-crackling
ambient travels and ambling post-industrial improvisations
of scratchy samples, spitting synths and skittish beats.
Listeners unused to such oblique strategies may think Platzgumer's
gotten lost at times--and indeed, the disc's latter third
does sound a bit distracted--but overall Datacard
is a shrewd treatise on shifty techno.
Various:
Vocal Music in Crete
(Smithsonian Folkways)
The 11th and final volume in a series on traditional music
from around the world co-produced by Folkways and the International
Institute for Traditional Music documents the keening and
spooked singing of Crete. Crete's position at the center
of the eastern Mediterranean has compelled it to be a melting
pot, whether the Cretans liked it or not. While these songs
spring from the island's Hellenic traditions (as the excellent
and typically exhaustive Folkways liner notes make clear),
they also bear the scars of Turkish and Venetian occupation.
This trove of trans-Med culture will be of supreme interest
to ethno-enthusiasts--and those who just like weirdly entrancing
background music, as well.
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