Luscious Jackson – Magic Hour (City Song Records, 2013)
It’s been fourteen years since the last Luscious Jackson album. In their late-90s heyday, their infectious tunes spanned the divide between the underground and overground, breaking into modern rock radio playlists and appearing in regular rotation on MTV. They featured on the Good Will Hunting soundtrack and appeared in a well-received commercial for The Gap, but they went their separate ways as the millennium turned over, and drifted apart to raise families and pursue other endeavors.
But now they’re back. And unlike many of their reunited peers, they’re not just coasting, appealing to nostalgia and capitalizing on past glories for a jukebox “all the hits” tour. They’ve picked up right where they left off: making loose-limbed tunes that get stuck in your head and imbue your booty with a mind of its own. The drums snap, the voices harmonize, the keyboards swirl, and away we go.
The highlights are many: the all-in-the-pot rhythmic whirlpool of first single “Are You Ready”, the echoing percussion and handclaps of “You And Me”, the classic Hip-Hop breaks of “Show Us What You Got”, the steady build-and-release of “3 Seconds To Cross”. This is an album that’s been assembled like a well-crafted DJ set, with the spotlight swinging through understated rapping, electro FX, handclaps, singalong choruses, a ghostly brass section, call-and-response routines, and a healthy dose of minimal boogie that evokes the bygone NYC underground of Tom Tom Club and ESG. It’s ten tracks of punch-drunk groove, powered by elastic basslines, wobbly-kneed breakdowns, and velvet-flocked vocals; a heaping portion of harmonic hip-shaking for the funky fresh party people.
The Shondes – The Garden (Exotic Fever Records, 2013)
There are a couple different ways to begin a record.
Method one is the slow reveal, trying to draw the listener in by giving just enough away. This can be a brilliant stratagem when properly realized, but needs to be deployed very carefully.
Method two is the all-or-nothing attack, demonstrating right out the gate what’s at stake and what’s being offered. Take it or leave it.
The Shondes go for method number two on their new album, launching forward with fury and focus, flattening all in their path. It’s easy to be be taken aback by the all-or-nothing spirit; in this post-ironic age of hypercriticism, it’s not common to think of rock and roll as a vehicle for rapture and redemption, to feel this sort of open-hearted commitment to the transformative power of music. But these eleven songs each pack some variation on that spirit, from the soaring vocals and anthemic melody of the first track to the siren call guitar and perfectly layered lyrics of “Running In My Sleep”.
Lead singer Louisa Solomon’s voice is nothing short of breathtaking, caressing the notes while sending them forth with a power and force that forms immediate bonds with an audience; her tone and intonation giving the impression that she’s speaking directly to each and every individual listener. Fureigh’s guitar chimes, slashes, and cushions the songs; alternating between frenzied attacks and strutting, perfectly restrained melodic figures. Allison Miller’s drums are propulsive and sympathetic by turns, building a cautious foundation in one song, setting the world on fire in the next. And Elijah Oberman’s violin and vocals are the secret weapons of the group, vibrating in the spaces between the other three band members, jumpstarting the engine and illuminating the angles of the songs, functioning as both fuel and fireworks.
There’s so many other sublime details scattered throughout the album: the carefully deployed melodica on “Nights Like These” adds just the right touch of atmosphere. The strum and twist of “Light Me Up” marries the euphoric rush of classic Springsteen with the attitude of Chrissie Hynde, and wraps it all up in a melody that Brill Building songsmiths would be proud of. “Dr. Manhattan” is a punky blast of broken-hearted catharsis, using the nuclear blue protagonist of Watchmen as a metaphor for a lover kept at arms’ length.
Tony Maimone’s production marries the ringing tones of classic college rock with the attitude and ferocity of Riot Grrl, creating the canvas for the group’s unique blend of personal reflection and social commentary, and allowing their charisma and dedication to shine without interference.
The Shondes have the world in their eyes, and fire in their hearts. Emotionally charged, socially aware, righteous and infectious – they’re a band that can speak their minds, proclaim their feelings, make impossible promises, and keep them all in the space of a three-minute pop song.
Mike Doughty – Circles Super Bon Bon Sleepless… (self-released, 2013)
Mike Doughty’s new record is a revisitation of songs originally recorded by Soul Coughing, the idiosyncratic and uncategorizable band that Doughty fronted and masterminded in the ’90s. Soul Coughing was a volatile and thrilling group, a quartet of mismatched musicians that seemed driven less by innate camaraderie than by a shared creative tension, taking song structures and layering them with samples and instrumentation – sometimes building the tunes into unstoppable forces of groove, sometimes overstuffing them to the point of messy self-destruction.
So this year, having long since established himself as a solo artist and having just penned a memoir of his unhappy time in the band, he launched a campaign on pledgemusic to record an album of Soul Coughing songs, reacquainting himself with the words and music, stripping them to their original essence and rebuilding them with guitar, bass, drum machine (and the occasional electronic flourish).
This disc is what resulted, and while it’s not an essential purchase, it’s certainly a compelling glimpse at an artist looking back and laying claim to his legacy. The songs sound older and wiser, removed from the dissonance and struggle of their creation – and this distance and perspective leads to fascinating, but not always satisfying results. True Dreams Of Wichita, for example, trades the youthful nostalgia of the Soul Coughing recording for a metronomic recounting of memories – it’s a more rhythmic and focused performance, but one that in the end, sounds like someone telling a story rather than living it.
On the other hand, some songs truly shine in this new, sparser setting. Sleepless, Mr. Bitterness, The Idiot Kings: these tracks are built back up on a foundation of word and groove, stripping away the affectations and heading straight for the head and hips, leaving the self-conscious positions in the dark corner and moving onto the dancefloor to shake it out. It’s the abandon that comes with experience, with growing up and realizing that it doesn’t matter who’s watching.
In the end, this sounds self-assured in a way that Soul Coughing never did, as that band’s sound seemed so based on sublimating identity – beneath production, beneath chemicals, beneath noises and samples, beneath the weight of collaboration. Some tunes benefit from the added clarity, some seem less distinct when stripped of atmosphere, but they all make me listen with fresh ears and appreciate their essential constructions of lyric and melody. It’s a welcome wander around some old haunts, a vehicle navigated by instinct and memory, on the way to somewhere both familiar and extraordinary. The mileage may vary, but there’s fuel enough in Doughty’s tank to ensure we enjoy the ride.