Handsome Boy Modeling School So... How's Your Girl

Handsome Boy Modeling School So... How's Your Girl

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The concept behind Handsome Boy Modeling School -- if you separate it from its origins in a Chris Elliott sitcom -- can be taken as a subtle parody of hip-hop's player affectations: two geeky producers masquerading as jet-set male models. Given that framework, and the fact that those two producers are eccentric geniuses Prince Paul and Dan the Automator, you might expect So...How's Your Girl? to be a goof from top to bottom. And that isn't the case. The album ends up as more of a showcase for their eclecticism, tailoring productions to their collaborators and creating a colorful universe where classicist rap, turntablism, trip-hop, and electronica all get along comfortably. Parts of the album are surprisingly atmospheric, and rely more on the texture of the sound than the star power of the guest -- which makes sense for a producer's album. The finished product does lack some of the sheer craziness one might have anticipated, but the meatiness of the best music also keeps the Elliott-centered comedic interludes from turning the project into a mere novelty. The DJ cuts -- the duo's own "Rock n' Roll (Could Never Hip Hop Like This)" and the DJ Shadow/DJ Quest team-up "Holy Calamity (Bear Witness II)" -- are some of the most exciting tracks on the album, and of the rappers, Del tha Funkee Homosapien and Brand Nubian's Grand Puba and Sadat X turn in the most memorable performances. The electronic collaborations range the farthest afield, and provide some of the most intriguing highlights -- especially the bluesy trip-hop of "The Truth," featuring Moloko crooner Roisin Murphy. Meanwhile, Alec Empire and El-P -- each arguably the most abrasive experimentalist in his field -- live up to their billing on the massively distorted "Megaton B-Boy 2000." It's true that a few of the quirkier experiments never quite get off the ground, but by and large, So...How's Your Girl? is packed with imaginative, intriguing music.

Beastie Boys Hello Nasty

Beastie Boys Hello Nasty

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The last of the Beastie Boys albums to receive deluxe reissue treatment, Hello Nasty is nearly doubled in length thanks to a 21-track bonus disc. Although Hello Nasty was released at the height of multi-part CD singles, thereby producing several hits with multiple B-sides, this second disc isn't a clearinghouse of remixes; each of the main singles -- "Intergalactic," "Putting Shame in Your Game," "Body Movin'," "The Negotiation Limerick File" -- is represented by one remix (with the notable exception of "Body Movin'," whose Fatboy Slim remix was in the video and on the radio, so it makes perfect sense that it's repeated here). Otherwise, the notable non-LP B-sides are here -- "Hail Sagan (Special K)," "Peanut Butter & Jelly" -- along with a host of previously unreleased outtakes, including rehearsals and joking around in the studio that maintains the hazy, trippy vibe of the original album.

Various In The Beginning There Was Rhythm

Various In The Beginning There Was Rhythm

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Angular guitars, funk- and disco-influenced rhythms, dabblings with electronic gadgetry, leftist politics, a dash of irony, and vocals that aren't so much yelled or sung as they're chanted or detachedly intoned must mean one thing and one thing only: post-punk. At the time of In the Beginning There Was Rhythm's release, the level of resurgent interest in the style was so high that one might've expected a ten-part documentary series from Ken Burns. In reality, even Burns himself could've told you that there wasn't a need for a "23 Skidoo: Ken Burns Post-Punk" compilation by the end of 2001. (Well, actually, he would've left them out of the series, so the point is probably moot.) After all, that artery was plugging quickly -- even the smallest blips on the U.K. 1978-1982 radar were re-registering with releases that paired small-time pressings of singles with live shows and otherwise abandoned material. Suddenly, aunties and uncles across the United Kingdom were recollecting sparsely attended gigs by Crispy Ambulance, Drinking Electricity, the Stunt Kites, and the Normil Hawaiians. Meanwhile, across the pond, books like Our Band Could Be Your Life were documenting the American side of post-punk (slightly later and rather different) and bands like Mission of Burma re-joined to play old favorites and don new kneepads. But throughout all of this nostalgic hoopla, one piece of the U.K. post-punk puzzle remained missing: a definitive compilation. The legendary Wanna Buy a Bridge? and C81 compilations (both of which had ties to Rough Trade, a label, shop, and distributor that helped birth the scene) were released while the ball was rolling in the early '80s, but they became valuable out-of-print artifacts of the period at some point. Furthermore, the bootlegged labor of love Messthetics series took the hunter-gathering obscurantism of Nuggets a few steps further into the darkness of collector scumdom. So along came the trusted Soul Jazz label to help matters...and the puzzle remains incomplete. However, the intent with 2002's In the Beginning There Was Rhythm wasn't to provide something definitive. Nothing short of an exhaustive multi-disc set could do such a thing with post-punk, as the scene was far too fertile and vast to distill the whole thing down to 11 songs by nine bands. One hope is that this disc will spawn a series similar to Soul Jazz's own Dynamite series of reggae compilations. Despite the drunken record-shop bins, there are many untapped post-punk resources the label could still cover, and much like the Dynamite series, In the Beginning does a spectacular job of combining the known with the not so known. Within its tightly wrapped confines, In the Beginning demonstrates post-punk's breadth, showcasing within the grooves, jabs, and rattling waves of static the style's influences (disco, funk, reggae, Krautrock, electronic experimentation) and the styles that the style influenced (indie rock, post-rock, almost every stripe of dance music that followed) at the same time. The Human League's "Being Boiled" represents synth pop at ground zero and, like absolutely everything else here, continues to sound fresh and eminently exciting. Throbbing Gristle's "20 Jazz Funk Greats," Cabaret Voltaire's "Sluggin fer Jesus," and This Heat's "24 Track Loop" also lean toward the electronic side of the fence, abandoning guitar heroics for tape splicing, samples, and studio-manipulated scrap heaps of gray noise, all the while finding a way to coax out jerky rhythms through rhythm box throbs, handclaps, and non-traditional means (i.e., no discernible bass or drums) via repetition. Songs from Gang of Four (the perfect choice with "To Hell With Poverty," boasting their best groove), the Pop Group, the Slits (the title track), 23 Skidoo, and A Certain Ratio (one of which is a cover of Banbarra's obscuro funk pearl "Shack Up") embrace funk and reggae in varying degrees, keeping the bass and drums as the central (and often only) focus and using guitars in a pointillistic fashion (if at all), all the while distancing themselves from traditional rock & roll methods and attitudes. Topping it off is a thick booklet full of photos and liner notes that cover each band and tie the music in with the social climate they were residing in. And while one might bemoan the exclusion of Public Image Limited, Associates, the Normal, Magazine, or other bands crucial to the ideology, there's no denying that In the Beginning There Was Rhythm is a great gateway into this expansive, fruitful, trailblazing era.

Various Avon Calling The Bristol Compilation

Various Avon Calling The Bristol Compilation

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The post-punk scene of the late '70s and early '80s is to contemporary indie rock fans what the mid-'60s garage rock scene was to the post-punk scene of the late '70s and early '80s: both a source of musical inspiration and a seemingly inexhaustible resource for obscure, often weird, but sometimes magical 45s. One of the golden ages of D.I.Y. indie rock, rare post-punk from this era is still being uncovered over a quarter-century later. The two-disc Avon Calling: The Bristol Compilation has a handful of tracks by bands not entirely unknown -- the Glaxo Babies are represented with six tracks, including their career high point "Christine Keeler," and the Art Objects (later to become Brit-pop stars as the Blue Aeroplanes) have their excellent "Showing Off to Impress the Girls" dusted off -- but nearly all of these bands and songs will be all but unknown to all but the most hardcore collector geeks. What's most illuminating about Avon Calling for those who weren't there the first time around is that it puts the lie to the narrow definition of post-punk that has grown in the popular imagination since the turn of the millennium, when it seems that this era in British pop music consisted solely of bands that sounded sort of like either Joy Division or the Human League. As a matter of fact, there's little Manchester gloom or straight synth pop among these 46 songs. Instead, the Private Dicks' "Green Is in the Red" and the Stingrays' "Sound" are brisk, sunny power pop with tuneful choruses and great guitar riffs. Some songs are simply re-purposed '70s art rock with the proggy noodling and flashy solos cut out; the Europeans' "On the Continent" and Moskow's "Too Much Information" don't really sound all that different from contemporaneous singles by the likes of 10cc or Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Other songs keep the second-wave punk flag flying, the like X-Certs' "Anthem" and the female-fronted Vice Squad's appealingly bratty "Nothing." Other songs come off as weak carbon copies: the mod pop of Vitus Dance's "Down at the Park" is a little too close to the sound of All Mod Cons-era Jam. Ditto the Slits-like dub reggae of Double Vision's "My Dead Mother" and "List 99." On the other hand, the lo-fi D.I.Y. rush of the quirky but accessible "Desire" by Sneak Preview and the Skodas' shrieky minimalism of "Everybody Thinks Everybody Else Is Dead Bad" and "Mouth" does sounds quite a bit like what most people think of when they think of U.K. post-punk these days. Touches like a bit of John Peel introducing the Glaxo Babies' "It's Irrational" and an interesting, scene-setting radio interview by DJ Simon Edwards set the social context. This might seem like the sort of compilation that's mostly for boffins, but there is enough solid material on Avon Calling: The Bristol Compilation to make it worth recommending to even the casual fan of the style.

Turin Brakes Ether Song

Turin Brakes Ether Song

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Since their first release on Anvil Records way back in 1999, Ollie Knights and Gale Paridjanian's Turin Brakes has enjoyed a meteoric rise, making the short list for Best Newcomer at the annual British Music Industry awards before underlining the not inconsiderable sales of their inaugural full-length, The Optimist, with a Mercury nomination shortly afterwards. Notably, they didn't win, but both assisted in building a groundswell of support into a veritable force majeure which resulted in this sophomore follow-up cracking open the U.K. Top Ten on the week of its release. While their aforementioned debut revelled in its low fidelity, the pair chose to draft in Tony Hoffer -- accomplished producer for such notables as Air and Beck -- for Ether Song. The resultant album builds considerable muscle to the skeletal frailty of intricate guitar work while commendably maintaining all that was good from their debut. The opening "Blue Hour" sets the tone for the rest of the album, a sprawling analogue introduction brought into focus through the fret skills of Paridjanian, before Knights' angelic vocal appears like an apparition from the aural fog. Obvious singles "Painkiller" and "Long Distance" echo the singalong sensibilities of previous hits "Emergency 72" and "Underdog," but there is much, much more here -- Hoffer having evidently oiled the screechy little Brakes -- "Panic Attack" conjuring up the paranoiac side of Syd Barrett as "Little Brother" rocks like The Optimist never quite managed to. Despite these diversions however, it is the softly spoken cuts which make for the highlights with "Full of Stars" and the closing "Ether Song," both stunning examples of a band that still have more to offer

Feeder Pushing The Senses

Feeder Pushing The Senses

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Released in the wake of drummer Jon Lee's tragic suicide, Feeder's last release, the unsurprisingly emotionally driven Comfort in Sound, may have alienated their early Kerrang! metalhead audience, but after plugging away on the British pub rock circuit for several years, it pushed them closely toward the kind of arena rock territory occupied by the likes of U2 and Coldplay. After supporting Chris Martin and company on their European tour, the Welsh three-piece's fourth studio album, which features a track with Parachutes producer Ken Nelson at the helm (the melancholic piano-led ballad "Frequency"), shows that the sellout accusations hurled at them since their commercial breakthrough haven't scared them off from attempting to compete with the big boys. But apart from the crunching guitar chorus of lead single "Tumble and Fall" (a ham-fisted pastiche of "The Scientist") and the uplifting "Feeling a Moment," which has since become a ubiquitous football montage soundtrack, Pushing the Senses doesn't appear to be as concerned with anthemic indie as its predecessor. Apparently inspired by the simplicity of John Lennon's piano-based songs, the wistful sweet melodies of "Tender" and the string-soaked "Pain on Pain" could indeed have been lifted from his seminal Imagine album, but elsewhere, Gil Norton's production owes more to the Americana rock of bands like Monster-era R.E.M. (the blistering title track), the Flaming Lips (the swoon-some dream pop closer "Dove Grey Sands"), and Grandaddy (the haunting spacy "Bitter Glass"). The thrashing rock of "Pilgrim Soul" may briefly appease fans of their earlier grungier material, but on the whole, Pushing the Senses is an introspective and understated affair that unashamedly embraces their newfound mature sensibilities.

The Wake Here Comes Everybody

The Wake Here Comes Everybody

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The Wake's second album is so much better than their first, 1982's Harmony, that the earlier album may safely be forgotten, or at least thought of as a painful growing lesson. Here Comes Everybody, which, like the Glasgow quartet's name, is derived from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, is a lost treasure of mid-'80s U.K. indie pop. Bandleader Gerard "Caesar" McInulty's Byrds-via-Bunnymen guitar is pushed more to the forefront than ever before, even as his breathy voice is pushed so far back into the mix that his melancholy lyrics are difficult to distinguish. Steven Allen's drums and Alex MacPherson's bass are equally low-key, finally allowing the band to once and for all escape the Joy Division-wannabe tag that had plagued them ever since their first single, "On Our Honeymoon." Dark-hued but not gloomy, the eight songs on Here Comes Everybody are musically varied enough to keep from sounding too samey. The wistful "Melancholy Man," with its gliding melody, artless vocals, and jangling guitars, sounds like a template for Sarah Records, the influential U.K. indie label the Wake would eventually sign with; the summery, melodica-driven "A World of Her Own" recalls early Prefab Sprout with its rare duet vocal by keyboardist Carolyn Allen. However, it's the closing title track that's a particular standout. A seven-minute epic with a hypnotic guitar riff and an air of quiet menace, "Here Comes Everybody" is a brooding meditation on lost love with a tightly wound, contents-under-pressure edge that threatens to explode but never quite does. It's a most impressive end to a surprisingly excellent album.

Section 25 From The Hip

Section 25 From The Hip

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Having dabbled with synth-driven pop and electro elements for a couple of singles released after Key of Dreams, the Cassidy brothers decided to run further from their past and immerse themselves completely in technology while making a concerted attempt to be less dour. With the smart addition of Larry's wife Jenny Ross on vocals and keyboards (going by Cassidy could have meant confusion with the Partridge Family), the group recorded their third and best album with Bernard Sumner. Packed with a surprising amount of emotional range and sounds into eight songs, From the Hip succeeds in transporting the group out of the endlessly glum corner they had painted themselves into with a mix of the hopeful, the melancholy, the synthetic, and the organic. "Looking from the Hilltop" is the obvious highlight, a moody electro-pop classic sung by Ross that became a favorite at several New York clubs. "Reflection," a proto-twee pop song (also sung by Ross), slackens the tension of "Hilltop" with buoyant synth-percussion and a bright melody. The biggest gulf between songs exists with "Program for Light" and "Desert"; the former is a hyper-speed electro instrumental that races along until being interrupted by a thunderclap that ushers in the latter, which uses little more than echo-heavy piano, acoustic guitar, and hardly-sung vocals. The remaining songs at their worst serve the whole and act as bridges to make the album flow deceptively well. (Some ears may have trouble with Larry Cassidy's adjustment from moaning post-punk vocals to pop vocals -- he's no Martin Fry.) The flow could take several plays to become apparent, but it's time well spent. Les Temps Modernes' 1998 reissue nearly doubles the original version's running time with seven bonus tracks, including two additional mixes each of "Looking from a Hilltop," "Beating Heart," and the zip-bang electro revision of Always Now's "Dirty Disco," along with the 12" version of "Back to Wonder." The mixes of "Hilltop" don't add all that much value. "Beating Heart" (one of the finest New Order songs not written or recorded by New Order) and "Back to Wonder" (fragile, glistening pop) are excellent,