A Shout Over Whispers... Or, New York Times Music Critic Jon Caramanica Is An Ass Hat

Passenger "Whispers" NEW & SEALED vinyl LP record
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Those unfamiliar with Passenger (aka Michael Rosenberg, post 2009) might at first check the setting on their turntable to be sure the LP isn't playing at 45 RPM. Rest assured, though it's only slightly off putting, his voice really does sound a little leprechaun like, but that's fine; get past that and you'll find the craftsmanship of his compositions entirely endearing on Whispers, Passenger's 6th studio album, and fifth as a solo artist. 

Historically, when a founding band member goes solo using his previous band's name, you can expect a number of disappointments, ranging from haphazardness to jarring disparity in continuity. Some would hold that 2007's Wicked Man's Rest was the sole effort released by Passenger as a proper band, and those same would likely discount everything Rosenberg released independent of his former partner Andrew Phillips as "not quite".  The reality of the matter, however, is that Rosenberg continues to mature with each subsequent effort, and the Passenger moniker he continues to carry with him as a solo artist casts no shadow of shame whatsoever on his illustrious early work with Phillips. 

Unfortunately though, Whispers hasn't received the same positive critical support as Wicked Man's Rest did, having been called by one New York Times misguided (and, in my opinion, consistently mentally retarded) critic Jon Caramanica: "limited in its arsenal".  Caramanica goes on to fucking stupidly boldy

state that Rosenberg's writing comes off like, quote "a teenager's scribbled poems", and suggests that Rosenberg's criticism of the popular appeal of Twitter and other social media platforms is ironic, considering the role they played in growing Passenger's success early on. Now, whether or not Caramanica has any familiarity with the "scribblings" of teenagers is in question, alongside just what sort of teenagers he knows?  Teenagers most of us know could never pen, with any experienced intelligence, songs like "27", an upbeat, but at the same time deeply pondering, comparison of personal and social expectations ("The only thing I get told is I got to sell out if I wanna get sold..." and "I write songs that come from the heart, and I don't give a fuck if they chart or not...").  Sure, your average teenager could express the same level of frustration, fuck-all and angst, but what's missing is the qualification, the worldliness.. as in where Rosenberg states in the middle eight: "27 years done, written 600 songs only 12 get sung; 87,000 cigarettes have passed through these lungs, and every single day I wish I'd never smoked one; a week brushing my teeth, a week getting my hair cut, 8 years sleeping and I'm still tired when I wake up..." Your average teenager doesn't have the wherewithal or maturity to make these observations (not to mention your average teenager doesn't clearly state that he's 27). And while it's true social media played an enormous role in catapulting Passenger's success, that doesn't mean the artist has to love it and all it represents. It can be explained in the same way that even though your job pays your bills, you still hate going there every day.  So with this in mind, when New York Times critic Jon Caramanica tries to raise a brow at Rosenberg's criticism of people "slowly dying in front of fucking computers", it doesn't mean they didn't do anything for his career... for you, reader: doesn't the corporate cube farm that you spend 9 hours a day decomposing in pay for your vacation time, your home, your material possessions? See, it's not the ends, it's the sorrow in the means to them. How can a respected music critic be so obtuse? 

Why Whispers hasn't been critically acclaimed is baffling, really. The album runs in the same Irish folk vein as Mumford & Sons, though with a bit more Caribbean flavor here and there - but where Mumford's songs are arguably more or less just a bunch or rhyming words, and their appeal is more about form than content, Passenger meets - and maybe even exceeds - that same now popular form, but with songs that happen to include meaningful, well wrought lyrical refrains as well.  The only real criticism of this album is the occasional over-emphasized message in some of the tracks ("Hearts on Fire" and "Scare Away The Dark"), but all in all, Passenger's whispers here are very much worth listening to.

His Name Is Alive's "Tecuciztecatl": Unspeakable.

His Name Is Alive "Tecuciztecatl" [NEW & SEALED vinyl LP record]
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On their 10th studio album, and first recording of new material in six years (subtracting the sham and scam that was 2010's The Eclipse), His Name Is Alive continue to recover from the identity crisis they inflicted on themselves in the early 00's (reference 2001's Someday My Blues Will Cover The Earth as the pinnacle of this), issuing a collection here not at all dissimilar to the elocutions of 2007's Xmmer and plumbing the same feel (sorta) of 1998's Ft. Lake; though sparing the "Detroit booty rock" electronics of the latter, but harking back to the pronunciational awkwardness of the former (it's phonetically "Teh-zoo-ziz-teh-kattle", said real real fast).  As always, His Name Is Alive continue to be hellbent on making marketing and commercialization very very difficult for themselves and whatever record label might be brave enough to foster their releases. In the case of this one, it's found a home on Seattle based Light In The Attic's new London London imprint - which, if you peruse the rest of their offerings, puts His Name Is Alive in just the right place it seems... if ever there was one. 

The Tecuciztecatl album, unfortunately, seems sort of "been done" by comparison to His Name Is Alive's back catalog.  That's especially disappointing for a band who have been so historically consistent in delivering remarkably interesting, disparately square peg albums.  So with the sort of resume they have, one might have expected this to be another bold and exciting new addition to their wholly pretty damn interesting catalog.  The potential for it is there, the marketing editorials surrounding it certainly make it sound hopeful - what, with terms like "rock opera" and "horror movie soundtrack vibe".  Ultimately, however, Tecuciztecatl falls significantly short of all of that, coming off instead a little fragmented, a tad repetitive.  In His Name Is Alive's younger years, they did quite well creating abstract sound conglomerate albums 

(reference their 1990 debut Livonia), that could be taken ala carte, but were much more properly absorbed in their entirety as textured soundscapes that segued from one song to the next.  They once upon a time did that really, really exceptionally well - but here... here it just comes off a bit tedious, a tad uninspired... and a lot boring. 

Missing seems to be the "found sounds" silent frontman/mastermind/engineer Warren Defever used to imbed into His Name Is Alive's work. The creepy whispers in Livonia, the shrill creature or animal shriek in "There Something Between Us And He's Changing My Words" on Home Is In Your Head, the woman sobbing "they're gonna take me to the insane asylum" inserted at the end of "Jack Rabbits" on Mouth By Mouth - the ticking clocks, the air compressor blasts, the birds chirping, the weird amped out squiggling metal sounds, even the haunted lyricism that speak only and strictly from the disposition of supernatural knowing and presence  - they're all missing here, but they're all so significant to what has become the most beloved elements of the atmosphere His Name Is Alive has proven themselves quite adept at enveloping.  And while it's true the band deviated from these claims to their initial fame long ago, this album seemed to promise a return to that. Everything about it would have been so very conducive to it... "a psychedelic rock opera depicting an epic struggle between identical twins, reflective in nature and mirrored in twin science, secret language and mythology..." Those are the words verbatim from the Tecuciztecatl marking material... so where the fuck is it?

To say His Name Is Alive have gotten lazy would be dismissive. This is by no means a lazy effort. It's clear the band had every expectation this album would have been received much differently, even if their promotional material was, to say the least, over-imaginative.  Tecuciztecatl's shortcomings amount to HNIA simply not living up to the unexpected this time around... or even the expected for that matter, paradoxical as it might sound.  The sum of all these parts, in the end, serve only to leave Tecuciztecatl as frustrating to listen to as it is to pronounce. 

Red Beans And Weiss - Chuck Weiss's House Speciality

Chuck E. Weiss Red Beans And Weiss [NEW & SEALED vinyl LP record]
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A longtime (and, at this point in his storied career, a lifetime) standard name on just about all of Los Angeles's downtown jazz club marquees, Chuck E. Weiss finds himself tucked in with ANTI Records for his fifth studio album Red Beans And Weiss.  No doubt a good word was put in by his associate, one Mr. Tom Waits, who has seen release of his own albums on the label for the last fifteen years. Having made numerous references to Weiss on a number of albums from Small Change to Rain Dogs, anyone aware of Mr. Waits's lineage also likely knows the name Weiss. The two co-inhabited LA's legendary Tropicana Hotel in the 70's, ran amok with the off center Ben Frank's crowd back in the same days (there's a coupon for a free breakfast there in the gatefold of the LP... no expiration on it either. Insert tongue in cheek), and in testament to Chuck's reputation on the scene, the late great Willie Dixon once called this "little jew boy with the big ol' head, the best damn musician in this town - this country even!"

Red Beans sees Weiss sounding significantly more relaxed, musically experimental and lyrically playful  than on his previous efforts - though it's been over half a decade since his last.  One would expect some change between albums for any other musician with that much time in between, but for Weiss, with his penchant for being so insistently insistent on all things nostalgic, it comes as a surprise to hear this album so undocked from its predecessors.  Not that the difference isn't a good one - it's quite good actually, as this effort by and large, contains a collection of Chuck Weiss's most enhancing work.  The rollicking pseudo-Primus sounding "Boston Blackie" is currently the only radio single from RedBeans, though as is often the case, it falls short of representing the album as a whole.  And that's just as well, because truly any song chosen from this, with so much individual character in each of them, just wouldn't do justice to its entirety, or allow the listener any chance at assuming its contents.  From the opening percussion of the cutely repetitive, hilariously titular "Tupelo Joe", on into the the smooth jazz whispered biography of "Shushie" (Weiss's own neighborhood stray cat), Red Beans And Weiss, right from the start, revels in its own idiosyncrasy, and urges a certain curiosity for the artist's characters... as well as for the artist himself. In example, "The Knucklehead Stuff" is a haphazard sung-spoken R&B rap that puts Weiss immediately among the elite who can pull off too cool to be concerned with being cool. This is furthered on the B Side track "Oo Poo Pa Do In The Rebop", an irreverent wink at jazz dance bebop, and in "Willie's In The Pee Pee House", which is about exactly what you'd expect it to be: guy named Willie, aside from being a general miscreant, has a tendency to slip into the women's restroom to get himself off. "Some may call him Herbert, I just call him pervert," Weiss sings in his sloppy Howlin' Wolf meets Beefheart falsetto, "Willie's in the pee pee house again!" 

While Red Beans And Weiss did have a rather long gestation period, the album is a worthwhile addition to not only the artist's chronology, but to the annals of music history in general.  The circumspect might withhold from calling this a future classic, but to name it as one of those Trout Mask Replica type albums that a generationally accruing cult audience would put on their "top x" list of eccentric necessities - yeah, Red Beans And Weiss will undoubtedly be that. 

5 Vinyl Re-Issue We'll Likely Never See (But Really Should)

As the vinyl resurgence continues to take the recorded media market by storm, contradicting all practicality of the modern age, and becoming the single most sought after format available, it goes without saying that re-issues of bygone best sellers and fan favorites will continue to enjoy a second wave of sales volume.  Everything from dusty old Johnny Cash best ofs to Camper Van Beethoven and The Sea And Cake's early releases have all seen rebirth in the vinyl format - many of them for the first time ever!  

A lot of classic albums I recall from my youth - which I was certain would never see a vinyl incarnation - have come to be (Luna's Bewitched and Morphine's Cure For Pain come to mind most immediately), and with that in mind, I collected this index of other great albums that really would do themselves new found justice as vinyl re-issues... however unlikely they are to ever make it out there.

The New Red Moons - Mesmérisme [No Telescope Required]

There is no greater credit that can be given to a band than when there becomes a solid recognition of the uniquity of their sound.  Some bands take two or three or four albums of growth and development to get their formula down, while others hit the nail on the head on their first outing; and maybe they hold it, and maybe they devolve and lose it - personnel, circumstance and talent withstanding. The New Red Moons, on the other hand, staked their claim before they even had an album out to package it in, and on their forthcoming sophomore effort, Mesmérisme, they show no indication of losing any of that pre-emptive integrity, whatsoever.

What's Finally Becoming of Paul Heaton

In what is quite definitely his finest effort since the disbanding of The Beautiful South,  Paul Heaton at long last returns to some semblance of prior form with his newest "solo" release What Have We Become ... alongside none other than ex-Beautiful South female vocalist Jacqueline  Abbott.  

A fine point put there, as note: Heaton has struggled and flailed (though not entirely failed, mind you) on every effort he's made to re-invent his career as a solo artist.  Recall when The Beautiful South took temporary hiatus in 2001, his first attempt at a solo record, the aptly titled Fat Chance, was an utter commercial disappointment - even after a re-release effort was made very shortly after its initial release, aimed solely at trying to spark appeal for it!  Still, Heaton ignored that barometer, if you will, of things to come, shat out another three painfully lackluster Beautiful South albums, and then declared them disbanded - and himself pursuing a solo career.

"Guy Got Kilt"... How Columboid and I Became One.

I've always been one to strongly insist that any album, of any content, is significant if it lends itself to a new personal experience for an individual - or fosters one they may have already had at some time in their lives.  You think about albums that are considered "the best of all time" or simply "the best" by a given artist, and a few things come to mind: (1) If they are heralded as "best of all time", then they were likely best selling records because (a) they appealed to a lot of people on the same level (which is no small task), and/or (b) they were just really well marketed (i.e., any fucking album by the goddamn Beatles). (2) they made an impression on the jadedly unimpressionable (critics) who represent a select fraction of the population that wield the ability to propel them into stardom, or they made a tremendous widespread impact on a larger amount of people who were equally, though maybe less articulately, amazed at what they'd done (think Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot... in both scenarios, come to think of it).  In either case, music is never anything to anyone until it does something for someone. Arguably then, everything ever released meets that criteria for someone; but the true decider of the sides is just how many people were touched.  It's like the analogy that one person praising any single given entity is an unbalanced weirdo... but a bunch of people doing it gives that thing validity and makes the thing Holy - and therefore and therein, all accolades applied to said entity become Gospel.

Purity Ring, Another Latter Day 4AD Impurity

Still trying to build a 2.0 version of the reputation they earned in the mid 80s through mid 90s for nurturing unique and often counter mainstream artists, 4AD records offers us this band - one of their newer acquisitions - Purity Ring.  Their debut release entitled Shrines.

The packaging has all the finesse and intrigue that would normally suggest the creative integrity of a bonfide 4AD act, but that's kind of the one thing the label decided to hold onto when they began the process of surgically altering their once starving artist meets designer brand aesthetic. And it's blatantly obvious that when they signed Purity Ring, someone if not everyone, at the flailing label, had their fingers crossed that this band would be a harbinger for 4AD's reclamation of former glory.

Prairie Shanties of the Landlocked Mariner - Sailing The Seas Of Reid

Summing up the qualities of an artist like singer/songwriter Rob Reid can be a daunting task given that, in this day and age, the most truly brilliant of artists often make it a point to disguise themselves. It's a virtue one wouldn't want to see incarnated any differently, really - there's nothing more satisfying than suspecting the curious and interesting, and seeing your suspicions proven right as rain. 

Let's be frank, though - solo singer/songwriters as a bulk genre, tend to be a dime a dozen. Usually, if not comedic, they're bleeding heart navel gazers with little more to reflect upon than their inner pain, the beauty or misery of life, relationship A or B and/or whatever something or other they deem enchanting today for whatever idle reason.

HighMay - Few Downsides to The Upside

Approving nods tend to seem more deserved  when given in the direction of solo singer/songwriters gone band, more so than in cases of the opposite career order; certainly not always - but in many instances.  HighMay frontman James Atto is one such case in point.  While the work accomplished on his band's debut release The Upside, likely wouldn't have turned out sounding any different if packaged under Atto's name alone, you still tend to like hearing a strong songwriter play well with others.  Atto's fingerprints on Upside may stand out a little clearer than his cohorts' do, but credit remains to the band's ability to wholly manage the careful ebb and flow it takes to sound like a collective with personnel who all have their hearts in it.