Broken chairs

Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down - R.L. Burnside (2000)

When R.L. Burnside passed away in 2005, the world lost one of the last true bluesmen. His blues is authentic, his moan well-earned, grinding a life of sharecropping, prison and the grisly murders of close family members.

He recorded very little until the 1990s, at which time he was already in his late sixties. His willingness to be both true to the North Mississippi Hill country blues tradition as mentored by Mississippi Fred McDowell, as well as to being an innovator led to as much acclaim as he would receive in his lifetime.

Fat Possum Records wisely signed him up and let him run ragged in the explosive twilight of his life. Burnside set down some truly masterful albums for this label, both acoustic and electric, whether backed only by his guitar, or in collaboration with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

He caught the attention of a modern audience with innovation not usually associated with a conventional form, liberally embellishing his tracks with scratching and sampling. Purists may tremble, but the looplike blues structure actually lends itself quite well to such sonic accoutrements. Make no mistake anyway, when Burnside sits down to groan and wail old school, he delivers with a veracity attainable only under the weight of hard years.

Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down, then, is a nice balance with both sides of a 73-year old Burnside on proficient display. While it certainly lacks the acoustic thoroughness of Too Bad Jim (1992), it doesn't rock as hard as, say, Mr. Wizard (1997), either. Nor does it rely on studio production as exhaustively as Come On In (1998). Wish finds harmony in its broad scope, all the while adding new layers to the Burnside style.

We begin with the molasses moan of "Hard Time Killing Floor", (94/100), as good and gritty an indication of the singer's cred as any. Ostensibly a Skip James cover, Burnside adds the tragic details of his own bio, enlightening his audience as to why his life is always "rougher than ever before". "Two brothers and my father got killed in Chicago," he says matter-of-factly, "that's why I don't like living there." Yeah. No kidding. His vocals plead with the earnest intensity of a fevered warning.

Burnside's slow-burn vocals also highlight "Got Messed Up", (95), (http://www.mediafire.com/?fibv3tg67tk0rat). There is palpable despair in this track, evoked at least in part by its other major player, Johnny Dyer's wicked harmonica. A steady and soothing bassline offsets that with a determined resiliency. The hypnotic atmosphere Burnside creates naturally in his blues is augmented by the production on this track, as well as the entire album. Here we get some wah-tipped guitar, vinyl static and some strange synth thrown in on the bridge.

For an artist with as raucous a reputation as Burnside, this album is surprisingly subdued in its moodiness. "Miss Maybelle", (72), though, feels like the traditional juke joint romp that it is, aside from the spastic scratching, of course. It is followed by the title track, (93), in which Burnside hits his pure roots. The song is unadorned and, as a result, is the most commanding on the album. The woe in this gospel standard is unstated, but the desire for redemption is unmitigated and urgent.

In contrast to the somewhat sombre tone thus far, Burnside's sense of humour is prominently displayed on the next two tracks. Firstly, the rush of the world is mocked in "Too Many Ups", (77), over a bouncy groove with slide guitar, wah, subtle keyboard and even a nice little piano outro. "Nothin' Man", (76), is equally danceable, its satirical bite aimed at the maudlin self-pity that blues degenerates into in its extreme. "I never had a chance ... I wish my mama would have loved me," he deadpans, before Lynwood Slim takes over with some suitably smoking harmonica work.

"See What My Buddy Done", (88), is treated with the respect due a rugged blues warhorse. The guitars are bold and hard, the piano lively and complimentary. The producers prudently leave this one alone. "My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble," (75), amps up the country in country blues. The Hap Walker song, recorded by blues soldiers from Muddy Waters (1955), Big Walter Horton with Carey Bell (1973) to David Wilcox (1983), features a star turn for John Porter's mandolin.

Next, Burnside and crew lay down an unexpected R&B vibe on a cover of his own "Bad Luck City", (92), (http://www.mediafire.com/?u9ce3m9uebn299h). This track is uncharacteristically smooth but builds off the drone rhythms that Burnside is indeed known for. I have never, before or since, heard him sing like he does on the chorus. Affecting his plea with such ardent fervour emphasizes his desperation, yet, to his credit, the man never loses his cool.

He also covers "Chain Of Fools", (73), the Don Covay song made famous by Aretha Franklin on Lady Soul (1968). The vocals are good and gruff, there's more nice harmonica and the guitars are as screechy rocking as they get on Wish. This track suffers a little from overproduction, however, especially at a very distracting 2:46.

Finally, to close, we are treated to "R.L.'s Story", (93), an extrapolation on the events referred to in the album's opening track. We learn that in addition to his father and brothers being brutally murdered after moving to Chicago, the same fate befell two of his uncles as well. Horrifically, all these tragedies occured in the space of one year -- both of his brothers on the same day -- and none of the killers were ever caught. The haunting tale is spun over a sinister background of inconsolable guitar and nightmarish sound effects as thick as a delta flood.

The CD also includes three bonus tracks by labelmates, which feels kind of odd coming after such a piercing closing number as that. Robert Belfour presents "Black Mattie" from What's Wrong With You (2000), Paul Jones "Pucker Up Buttercup", the title track from a 1999 album, and Kenny Brown "Laugh To Keep From Crying", which was rechristened "You Don't Know My Mind" by the time Stingray was released in 2003.

Perhaps we don't get as much of Burnside's signature wild and swinging blues here, but what it lacks in clamour, it makes up for in mood. Anyone can be loud, only a master can be this good.

Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down (album): 84/100.

Atlas shrugged

The Soft Bulletin - The Flaming Lips (1999)

This album is the Amazon rainforest of beautiful sounds. The orchestration is deep, the melodies lush. It's a rich ecosystem of symphony, synths and sound effects, but nothing is overdone.

Thus it is not imposing staring ahead into endless and viny foliage and mud or the possibility of lurking predators. The sense of the unknown gives this album a feeling of fresh excitement and discovery even eleven years later. The warmth of the music somehow defuses its own density, making it not just intriguing, but moreover, inviting.

While not completely abandoning the punk absurdity of previous efforts, the ideas presented by the Lips on Soft are smoother, the lyrics grander in scope. Facing tasks bigger than one's self is a recurring theme on the record, perhaps mirrored by the band's own efforts in creating it.

Like the band, then, the scientists in "Race For The Prize", (87/100), are willing to take risks. They go to great lengths, giving up everything important to them, their families, their lives, to benefit humanity. That they do so even in the face of getting stiffed with the box of Cracker Jacks that comes with no prize inside lends the track its subtitle: "Sacrifice Of The New Scientists". The US version of Soft features a remix of this track, while the original mix which kicks off the UK edition, is included as a bonus track. The remix puts a little more shine on the song, making it a touch more piano-based. It also sadly puts a bit of a mute on the raw power of Steven Drozd's trademark drum sound.

The melodic intro to "A Spoonful Weighs A Ton", (85), belies the bizarre tone that synths announce more clearly at 1:23. In "giving more than they had," the people in this song execute an impossible plan of rescue. They achieve their great accomplishment of "lift(ing) up the sun" with grit and determination as wonderfully strained as Wayne Coyne's voice. Opposition is silenced by love and a peculiar call-and-answer between the synths and guitars at 1:23 and again at 2:22.

"The Spark That Bled", (84), chronicles what happens after being hit by "the softest bullet ever shot". There is a defiant strength in the face of the existential crisis of this song. It actually produces such a triumphant feeling that by the time he sings, "I stood up and I said 'Hey Yeah!'", I totally want to join him. The confident momentum keeps growing, changing the song at 3:52, until of course reality rears its ugly head at the end.

There is more adversity to be overcome in "The Spiderbite Song", (85). Whether threatened by insect poison or horrific car accidents, destruction is only averted through connection with others. The track features drum fills sucked through a black hole, likely the very one that love "leaves in its absence," the greatest tragedy of all. The UK edition trades "Spiderbite" for "Slow Motion", (84), a seemingly lighter track, what with its "drifting" and "floating".

By the time "Buggin'", (98), (http://www.mediafire.com/?196ltmg8m2o9lwb), comes around, this album has really settled in nicely. Simply put, this track is outstanding. "Does love buzz because that's what it does?" Brilliant. Multi-tracked and phased vocal harmonies are just one layer of sonic sugar to feast upon. The version that appears on the US album, and on the UK edition only as a bonus track, is actually another remix. The original mix, equally appealing, though less glossy and with a slightly extended sound effect coda, has the subtitle, "The Buzz Of Love Is Busy Buggin' You".

"What Is The Light?", (95), is asked with the urgency required of the most important inquiry ever. Subtitled "An Untested Hypothesis Suggesting That The Chemical (In Our Brains) By Which We Are Able To Experience The Sensation Of Being In Love Is The Same Chemical That Caused The "Big Bang" That Was The Birth Of The Accelerating Universe", its piano is pensive and haunting. Yet when the drums kick in at :56, the song becomes a celebration of its own potential and the longing for love. "The Observer", (82), extrapolates on it impartially and instrumentally.

When carrying around all that life becomes too overwhelming, we get a song like "Waitin' For A Superman", (95), (http://www.mediafire.com/?8k1987uc0s28p6r), or "Is It Gettin' Heavy?". Paced by Drozd's weighty beat and the intermittent tolling of a bell, the track wonders what burden can be reasonably bared when even a figure like Superman eventually tires out. By the time the trumpets roll at 3:03, the hair on my arms is straight up. Both the US and UK versions also include a bonus remix of this track, which is again more polished. The bassline gets more emphasis, the bell diminished while the trumpets are absent.

The ennui of everyday is placed in context when reminiscing about the past in "Suddenly Everything Has Changed", (80), aptly subtitled "Death Anxiety Caused By Moments Of Boredom". Even change in a modern song like this is temporary: bridges always lead back to repetitive verse and chorus structure. Perhaps routine and ritual are silent culprits behind many problems in a world where history repeats itself and nothing really changes.

While everyone on this planet stands neck deep in the same exhausting war for survival, some might use "The Gash", (97), (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I_4N0fTCSQ), as an excuse to throw in the towel. While some have "lost all the will to battle on", others, bloodied and broken, still find the resolve to continue the fight. The drums drive this call-to-arms juggernaut, subtitled "Battle Hymn For The Wounded Mathematician", maintaining their heavy otherdimensional sound. In its true spirit, the beats on this album always sound on the verge of utter collapse, but of course, never do. Side three of the vinyl presentation of Soft (which includes all the original Lips mixes) concludes with "The Gash". Side four starts up with "Slow Motion".

The CD, however, continues with "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate", (94). Amidst a "brap-bap-bap", it measures the ultimate necessity of love and even death to make life worth living. "Love in our life," it rightly asserts, "is just too valuable to feel for even a second without it." The song itself traverses a dulcet landscape, into which a listener can effortlessly dissolve, before casually coming apart itself.

Finally, "Sleeping On The Roof", (84), or "Excerpt From 'Should We Keep The Severed Head Awake??'", ushers the epic journey to a close. An instrumental that brings to mind the mood of the Roy Harper-narrated hidden track on The Tea Party's The Edges Of Twilight (1995), it is the embrace of a well-deserved rest before one's inevitable return to the trenches of their life.

The Soft Bulletin 5.1 (2006) features the original mixes of the songs and a slightly amended track order, apparently in keeping more with the Lips' original intentions. It, as well a recent vinyl reissue, includes a three-track bonus disc called The Soft Bulletin Outtakes. The songs, "1000 ft. Hand", "The Captain Is A Cold-Hearted And Egotistical Fool" and "Satellite Of You", are all aurally interesting, with "The Captain" being the standout. Dealing with time, labs and love, the songs are not completely thematically incompatible with the album proper, but do work better on their own here.

Those outtakes, along with several other rarities, mixes and live performances, also turn up on The Soft Bulletin - The Companion CD (1999) and The Soft Bulletin Companion 2 (2000) promos.

When I first bought The Soft Bulletin, after seeing the Lips' manic performance at the Toronto Rocks benefit in 2003, the artwork and the presentation of the credits made me wonder if I was buying a soundtrack to some obscure indie film. Indeed, The Soft Bulletin is a widescreen album. It is cinematic music for a mind movie.

The Soft Bulletin (album): 89/100.

Bark at the moon

Unleashed - Leaf Hound (2007)

The core of the band Leaf Hound had already splintered before the release of their lone album in 1971, the powerful Growers Of Mushroom. Lead singer Peter French moved on to vocal duties in several other bands but was convinced some thirty-odd years later that the time was ripe for a Leaf Hound follow-up.

It had all the warning signs of a great disaster. Growers has gained such iconic cult status over the years that a protracted sequel could be seen as pointless at best, blasphemous at worst. That is further exacerbated by the fact that of the original band members, only French would be present. That the new members were all young Leaf Hound fanatics did not allay visions of some cringeworthy tribute band unwittingly making a mockery of that which they profess to love.

Somehow, though, it all worked, and then some. The youth of the new band members cultivated a hungry energy. French himself hadn't lost anything in the intervening three decades. Their resulting collaboration, Unleashed, whether authentically Leaf Hound or not, is an irresistibly rocking album in its own right.

Picking straight up on the rugged blues riffs of its much older brother, this is an album of hard lessons learned. "One Hundred And Five Degrees", (86/100), is a feverish kick-start. French sounds battle-scarred and trench-hardened while the band wastes no time laying down a major-league lick, proving it can rock with the big boys. The band plays tight and hard up and down the length of the album.

Drummer Jimmy Rowland often gets much of the credit for planting the seeds of the renovated and reinvigorated Leaf Hound. Likewise his beat on "Barricades", (87), develops the riff that is the backbone of an amazing song. For his part, French vocally invokes Hendrix.

"The Man With The Moon In Him", (92), relays a bizarre encounter with a solar aficionado, complete with prerequisite interstellar breakdown. The spacey guitar solo builds up to sonic supernova. While the first two songs are in no way lacking, the band really busts loose here and lives up to the album's title.

The slow burner, "Nickels And Dimes", (94), (http://www.mediafire.com/?5vhwnib85e79798), follows. It has an epic acoustic sound to start and plugs in after the first chorus. The guitar solo is suitably sorrowful, the tale a familiar lament over "the one thing my money was never gonna buy." Stripped back down to basic acoustics to conclude, one reverberates in the sad echo of a man in a lonely vacuum.

"Stop, Look And Listen", (86), is some friendly advice that avoids being pedantic. The breezy, melodic verses draw a listener like honey while the riff-heavy chorus still conveys the confidence that it is coming from someone who knows what he's talking about. "Overtime", (80), is a solid rocker, while being the album's shortest tune.

I first heard the next song, my favourite on this album, as a bonus track on a recent reissue of Growers. It was only after hearing "Too Many Rock 'N' Roll Times", (95), (http://www.mediafire.com/?e0m33nuq4wdclah), that much of my trepidation about the upcoming Unleashed abated. This is as smooth as a dirty riff can sound and it is as beautiful a moan to ever rise from the rubble of pretty brown eyes, wild hearts and broken nights.

The opening riff of "Deception", (89), rings faintly of Zeppelin's "Over The Hills And Far Away" (1973). It's a jangly little apology from someone who has lost by his own hand, who has flushed the best things in his life down a pit of lies. Perhaps ironically, this song feels as genuine and heartfelt as any on the record.

"Breakthrough", (92), then closes the album, a cover of a tune French originally performed on 1971's In Hearing Of, during his short stint with Atomic Rooster. This song really showcases the new Leaf Hound: the drumming is outstanding and there is an absolutely smoking guitar solo from 5:45 to 6:30. The vocals yearn for that somehow always elusive freedom and the band dedicates their effort to the song's co-writer, Atomic Rooster/Crazy World Of Arthur Brown keyboardist Vincent Crane, whose tragic life was cut short in 1989.

The re-emergence of old bands with new material definitely doesn't always work out as well as this. As if a nomad returning from a long dark journey, Unleashed has the authenticity of hard-won experience. But it is precisely in its fusion with youthful enthusiasm that the album gains its rare intensity and vitality.

Unleashed (album): 88/100.