INDIE JONES (two reviews)

IBO
Love is Where We’re Going
(Sean Power)

RATING: three and a half


RAYYN
Rayyn
(Three Fates, N/A)

RATING: three and a half


Something’s very wrong with music today, ladies and gentlemen, and the problem can be summed up in two words: record companies.

Major record labels are not evil in themselves, of course—nine out of ten albums that you buy probably come courtesy of one of them, and for that service we should be grateful. But all over the world the big players in the music industry are facing an increasingly competitive global market, and in order to keep themselves intact, they’ve begun to hold sacred The Bottom Line. It’s understandable—the music industry is still industry, after all, and they need to make a profit. But this is also an artistic industry, and when the art itself begins to come in second to fiscal concerns, then that is trouble.

You’ll have felt the effects yourself, even if you don’t know it. Ever wonder why there are fewer new acts today? Or why all those up-and-comers from a few years ago have suddenly vanished? It’s a direct consequence of the pursuit of the bottom line. As the labels face more pressure to make sales, they’ve cut their rosters drastically over the past few years, cutting out nearly everyone who wasn’t a big-name star, and giving new artists a short deadline to meet sales quotas. And, in order to improve their chances at mainstream success, the labels mostly sign up artists in the Flavor of the Month, keeping out the groundbreakers, keeping the scene stagnant.

I realize that this is oversimplifying the matter. The music industry, both locally and internationally, have a plethora of issues they need to address to make the scene as vibrant and exciting as it was 20, 30 years ago. But the major labels’ overdomination of the industry is one of the key problems, and one that is only becoming worse as the smaller labels are bought out and companies merge.
Artists have begun to realize that resisting the major labels’ wooing and going at it independently—not only do they get a higher percentage of the profits this way, but they are also given free rein over their own music. While indie artists used to be looked down upon as second-string musicians not talented enough to snag a recording contract with a respectable country, this is no longer true, especially as some of the world’s most talented, most innovative musicians are releasing their albums on indie labels.

The iBo project is indie at its purest. iBo’s first CD, Love is Where We’re Going was written, recorded, and distributed by Sean Power, an Englishman connected with the British Council. “The album is totally self-financed, as I wanted to maintain as much artistic independence as possible,” Power explains.

His efforts are in themselves impressive, but listeners will be glad to find out that Love is Where We’re Going is also an impressive album. The CD offers 10 radio-friendly jazz-funk tracks, written and produced in collaboration with a number of local musicians, most notably Victor Oria from the show band Parliament Syndicate.

Power proves himself an inventive songwriter, lacing the easy jazz tracks with electronic flourishes, and coating the whole thing in pop friendliness. Two of its tracks—the bouncy “A Matter of Fact” and the laid-back “Sing with Your Body”—have been getting radio airplay, but the listener will find that the CD offers a more diverse range of listening options, as well as a few more standout tracks. “20/3/24” is a pop ballad that showcases the talents of contributing vocalist Judith Alagarbes. The Latin beat of “About to Happen” provides a nice change of pace, and Maria Cielo del Carmen’s vocals here are also a good surprise.

In all, Love is Where We’re Going is an album of refreshingly clean, surprisingly likeable pop jazz pieces that go easy on the ears, but which also pulls off the big trick of being memorable without being banal. The CD peaked at #23 on Tower Records’ sales charts—“not bad for a band coming out of nowhere, with little or no promotion,” Sean notes. With sales fueled by radio airplay and by word-of-mouth, the reception has been encouraging enough for iBo to start work on a second CD—definitely something to watch out for.

In the meantime, N/A Records has been around for a year now, and in the space of those 12 or so months, it has made itself the leading indie label in the country today. Folk rock queen Cynthia Alexander is the label’s biggest name, but their roster includes a number of up-and-comers all set to breakthrough to the mainstream soon: folkies Noel Cabangon and the Makiling Ensemble have each gained a cult following, and their recent albums have sold well.

In the meantime, among the most promising of N/A’s new artists is Rayyn, whose self-titled CD is set to be released this month. The N/A artist with the most mainstream potential, his debut is a gentle pop/ alternative rock album strongly reminiscent of the music of Jars of Clay or Creed, full of sensitive-male songs with serene melodies and poetic lyrics dealing with emotional issues and matters of faith and belief.

Rayyn is perhaps one of the most fully-formed young musicians to emerge into the music scene in the past few years—though he’s a new name, his songs display a surprising fullness that is usually found in artists who’ve had more public exposure than he. The multi-instrumentalist Rayyn is a deft songwriter: his holistic approach to composition is evident in the way his songs come out—the instruments meld together seamlessly, resulting in compact, solid pieces that sound deceptively effortless.

“Solitary” is a standout track: Starting out with a quiet piano, the track quickly unfolds as one of the album’s faster tracks, though its theme—unrequited love, of course—would probably call for lugubrious, mournful melodies in less imaginative hands.

“Follow You” is another strong track, with its catchy refrain and uplifting theme eventually overcoming a slow start. It’s “Hold On” that’s the album’s first single (with “Solitary” set to come after), but “Follow You” is the one that stuck in my head after the CD played out.

Rayyn is likely to catch up with Barbie Almabis as the country’s most talented singer-songwriters, though in the meantime he needs to refine the quality of his lyrics a bit more, since its quality varies from the poetic and evocative (“mother may I break the window/ and leave the pieces on the floor/ I send a silent prayer to still my hesitation and walk out through the door”) to the just plain hokey (“as I travel down this road of blind uncertainty/ scared of what the future holds, while you watched over me”); and do something about his overly breathy, truncated vocal style, which makes it hard to listen to him for long periods of time. But these are problems are dwarfed by his sheer potential.

Given time and luck, iBo and Rayyn might have found a place in the stables of a record company, but the leeway afforded by independent recordings can’t be matched by the labels. That’s good news for the artist—and good news for you and me. —Kristine Fonacier

LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER

Music from the Motion Picture
(Elektra)

RATING: three

Tomb Raider the movie was such a hit because Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft was an engaging character—an action hero that was, as all action heroes are supposed to be, tough as nails, impossibly cool, and supernaturally proficient. But Jolie’s Lady Lara also hinted at hidden currents of mischief and grief; she was, at the end of the day, also just a little girl (notwithstanding the decidedly ungirlish C-cups that were in themselves also minor action heroes). Jolie’s portrayal gave the character a depth that the attention deficit-disordered direction and lame script were not able to take away.

And so, in that scene where Lara rips out a killer robot’s memory chip and replaces it with “Lara’s Party Mix,” I found myself wondering, What would a lady like Lara Croft put in a mix tape?
Tomb Raider the soundtrack is, like its fictional heroine, a fast-moving creature with a varied set of talents and tastes, a roguish glint in the eye, and plenty of attitude.

The CD kicks off, of course, with U2’s remix of their single “Elevation,” which, as soundtrack kick-start choices go, is not bad in itself. I’d like to think, however, that Lara wouldn’t put something so—well, so obvious into the mix. Rightly so, the technofied U2 track doesn’t really appear as musical backdrop in any of the scenes: it’s superimposed over the end credits. It really is music for movie marketing, not the character.

I’d like to think that Lara would know something about the element of surprise. “Deep,” an implausible contribution from Nine Inch Nails, is more like it. It’s not as dark as most of NIN’s other work, but it’s easy to picture Lara kicking butt to the tune of Trent Reznor’s screaming vocals and industrial sounds. And what about our heroine’s heady motorcycle rides? Outkast’s “Speedballin’,” is every bit as breakneck as its title suggests. Less predictably, there’s Basement Jaxx, with “Where’s Your Head At,” whose fist-waving chorus will definitely get you riled up.

An even better surprise is Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On.” The rap queen pairs up with genre bender Nelly Furtado, and the result is a cheeky number that oozes attitude and a roguish, girlish joy. It’s arguably the best track on the album, if only for sheer surprise.

Unfortunately, the rest of the album is disappointingly predictable. She’s a videogame character, so she must listen to electronic music, right? Well, if only it were inventive, exciting electronic music, maybe. As it is, the choices range from puzzling to just plain boring. Sure, there are a handful of really big names called in, but their contributions just don’t feel right: the Chemical Brothers’ “Galaxy Bounce” and Moby’s “Ain’t Never Learned” are both rather limp-wristed, with neither heft nor punch; Bosco’s “Satellite,” “In Control” from Die Toten Hosen, and “Illuminati” from Fatboy Slim just sound idiotic. I suppose Delerium’s “Terra Firma (Lara’s Mix),” with its Gregorian-chant vocals, sounded like a good idea when they were thinking about it, but in practice it falls flat.

There are a few exceptions, notably “Edge Hill,” from Groove Armada, which is an intelligent, reflective trip-hop piece. It’s not butt-kicking music, but it has its place. Fluke’s “Absurd (Whitewash Edit)” is more up to speed, as is “The Revolution” from BT.

Fortunately, while it’s the unintelligent, predictable tracks that make up the bulk of the album, it’s the surprising, spirited cuts that set the pace. Tomb Raider the soundtrack doesn’t play much like what I imagine Lara Croft’s choices would be, but it is unembarrassing for an action hero, at least. Can you imagine what it would be like if they slipped in an N’Sync ballad?—Kristine Fonacier

A WHOLE NEW YOU

Shawn Colvin
(Columbia/ Sony)

RATING: three


Shawn Colvin was, for me, one of those great surprise discoveries, a heretofore-unheard-of artist whose 1996 CD A Few Small Repairs was given to me and ignored for a whole month before I finally got around to listening to it. When I did, I couldn’t believe my ears: just when the world was reaching saturation point with all these “female singer-songwriters,” here comes another one who had the absolute gall to junk all the Natalie Imbruglia pretensions and just go with good old-fashioned songwriting. And she was great at it.

A Few Small Repairs eventually won Colvin three Grammy nominations that year, and I became a full-blown fan, digging into her back catalogue to find the other sweetly sad gems that Colvin had churned out in previous years without my knowing.

According to Sigmund Freud, people only really need two things to be happy: work and love. Presumably, Shawn Colvin didn’t have much of either when she churned out A Few Small Repairs (or, for that matter, any of her previous albums), in which her songs about loneliness and career disillusionment resonated most. Now, four years, a happy marriage, and a baby later, Colvin is back with A Whole New You
.
The title is plenty apt, as the album quickly reveals the changes of existential magnitude that Colvin’s gone through. Once the master of dark, poetic songs that sounded like letters from the brink of suicide, Colvin no longer traffics in melancholy. Instead, A Whole New You is filled with songs of love fulfilled and returned.

Take for example the title track, a song of self-affirmation in which Colvin advises, “You have the right to shake the loneliness and shine the light/ Take all your tears and save ‘em for a rainy night/ Shake your head in wonder when it’s all too good to be true/ Like a whole new you.” It’s a far cry from her old songs, where she sang lines like, “I lost the thread/ I lost the map/ it’s not a feeling/ it’s a fact.”

Colvin’s old rhythms are intact, her bluegrass-influenced folk melodies still quietly impressive, her lyrics still lush and evocative. It’s easy to recognize Colvin’s mark on the album’s 11 songs, though most of them are written from a happy place the polar opposite from her old songs.
And Colvin knows it, too, and it amazes her as well. “All of my old world and all the things in it are hard to find/ Everything changed in a matter of minutes/ and nothing was saved in time,” she sings in “A Matter of Minutes”; on “Bound to You,” she enthuses, “I feel alive like I never have”; and on “One Small Year,” she acknowledges the cathartic passage of time, “One small year/ it’s been an eternity/ It’s taken all of me to get here/ to get through this one small year.”

Most of the other songs are straightforward love songs, delighting in the long-term love that she’s found. On “Nothing Like You,” Colvin wraps her mouth around some pretty awkward rhymes (“I have seen the top of Mt. Ventoux/ I have seen a miracle or two/ But they’re nothing like you”) but somehow makes it work with a light touch. “Anywhere You Go” celebrates the long haul, while acknowledging that relationships are often complicated and confusing. Still, the melody is uplifting, and the song is largely an affirmation of marriage.

But for truly standout tracks, one has to look at the exceptions. All the tracks are written by Colvin and old songwriting cohort John Leventhal, except for “Roger Wilco,” co-written by the much-missed Edie Brickell, who brings her talent for narrative lyrics to good use for this anti-war song. And then there’s “Another Plane Went Down,” a richly detailed dream sequence whose sheer weirdness and disconcerting imagery hypnotizes the listener. The CD ends with a melancholy acoustic track “I’m Sorry Now,” a surprising conclusion to the album’s theme of fulfillment, but its stark emotion catches the heart.

By and large, however, even the best in A Whole New You plays like the throwaway tracks from A Few Small Repairs. What does it say the standout tracks are also the darkest? We’re happy she’s happy, and in fact A Whole New You could still rank among Colvin’s career best. But, perhaps it’s because contentment and happiness is still new themes for her to explore, A Whole New You isn’t able to reach as deep into listeners’ hearts, feeling just a little bit superficial. Not that we’re wishing for a return to depression, but fans will have to wait for Colvin to settle into the groove of being a whole new her before they can expect that same old connection.—Kristine Fonacier

DUSTY TRAILS

Dusty Trails
(Atlantic, Warner)

RATING: three

When I heard that Josephine Wiggs, the hard-rockin’ drummer from The Breeders, and Luscious Jackson keyboardist Vivian Trimble had come together for a side project, I couldn’t wait to hear what I was sure would be a high-energy album of alternative rock. And so, when I found Dusty Trails’s eponymous debut album buried in the shelves, I snapped it up and hurried home to listen to it.
Three seconds later, I stopped the CD player and popped out the tray to check that I hadn’t mistakenly cued in another album altogether. Nope, no mistake. When you put together members from two of the late 90s’ best alternative rock groups, what you get is…well, lounge music.

Dusty Trails promised from the outset that it would be like nothing I expected, and indeed it wasn’t. Producing what they describe accurately on the back cover as “mellow sounds and minor chords, a synthesis of elegance and groove,” Wiggs and Trimble’s combined sound is nothing like what they used to make with their other groups. Although Trimble’s Luscious Jackson bandmates Jill Cunniff and Kate Schellenbach lend their talents to a couple of tracks, it’s thoroughly clear that Dusty Trails have their own musical agenda.

The music could be grouped under that all-too-large heading of “chill-out,” but the duo’s myriad influences bubble up once in a while to tug at the borders of that definition. The sound is built on a Latin foundation, but Wiggs and Trimble bring in elements of electronica, jazz, and even country to the mix.

The results are impressive, if not immediately, then on closer listen. The standout instrumental “Spy in the Lounge,” for example, opens with subtle synths, before opening up with a trombone and revealing the Dave Grusin and Stephen Sills samples. “St. Tropez,” another prize instrumental in the collection, might sound like straightforward mellow-listening, but it deftly hides some modern touches that give it a quiet sense of distinction.

If “Roll the Dice” sounds a little bit familiar, it’s because the one of the vocalists is Jill Cunniff, who also co-wrote the lyrics. For that reason, the track plays like a Luscious Jackson b-side—a little odd within the album, but not unwelcome. A little odder still, and just as welcome, is Emmylou Harris’ guest appearance on “Order Coffee.” The third of a trio of country-tinged tuned in the middle of the album (the others are “They May Call Me a Dreamer” and “Fool for a Country Tune”), “Order Coffee” is a spare track: Harris’ stark vocals are laid over delicate instrumentalizations. The subtlety of its complications make it almost reminiscent of Joni Mitchell.

Surprise works on the side of Dusty Trails, offering up a number of unanticipated sparklers in the 14-track collection. A lot of other albums in the genre fall into monotony too quickly, mistaking the “chill-out” label as an excuse for cranking out tedious, uninventive sets. Dusty Trails bravely resist the routine, and, thank God, succeed.—Kristine Fonacier

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS

Music from the Motion Picture
(Playtone/Riverdale/Epic/Sony)


RATING: three and a half

“Even if we’re playing in our garage/ soon we’ll have a massive entourage/ Goin’ triple-platinum/ You’ll just see us climbing up the Billboard charts/ Breaking records, breaking hearts,” sings the band in the updated version of the Josie and the Pussycats theme song. While the boast proved prophetic for the fictional teen band in the new Josie and the Pussycats movie, it didn’t really come true for Letters to Cleo, one of my favorite bands from the late 90s. Despite earning some measure of success with their three albums and a star turn appearing in 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You, the band has reportedly broken up, without ever seeing what it was like to be major rock stars.

I mention Letters to Cleo because the soundtrack to Josie and the Pussycats plays like a radio-friendly LtC concept album. And, in a way, it really is. Though the songs are credited to “Josie and the Pussycats,” with the vocals presumably belonging to Josie (played by Rachel Leigh Cook), the winsomely edgy voice is instantly recognizable to fans as belonging to Kay Hanley, the erstwhile Letters to Cleo lead singer.

While none of the other LtC members appear on the album credits, a closer look will reveal Hanley is not the only star working behind the scenes to lend claws to Josie. Babyface, who is also the album’s executive producer, produces a number of the tracks, while Jane Wiedlin and the Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz’s names appear in the songwriting credits. The songs’ star-studded team of songwriters have somehow managed to recreate the high-energy staccato punk/rock/pop that used to be Letters to Cleo’s trademark sound. And, oh, how I miss that sound.

The CD opens with “3 Small Words,” the single released in advance of the movie. With a drum roll and crunchy guitars kick-starting the track, the song wastes no time in laying out its charms. It rocks out so wonderfully that you’d hardly believe that you’re listening to the soundtrack for a teen flick; when you get the refrain, a delightfully pun-laden countdown (“It took six short hours/ and five long days/ for all your lies to come undone/ And those three small words/ were way too late/ ‘cause you can’t see that I’m the one”), you’re irretrievably hooked.

Amazingly, the high energy levels are maintained all throughout the album, with Hanley ripping through the equally energetic and charming “Pretend to be Nice,” “Spin Around,” You’re a Star,” and “Shapeshifter”—this last one being especially close to Hanley, who shares songwriting credits on the track. “Come On” deserves special mention for its edgy verve, and while “I Wish You Well” is a tad bit slower than the rest, it loses none of its punky appeal in the slight change in speed.

There is, of course, one ballad—this is essentially a girl movie, after all—but even the drippy acoustic number “You Don’t See Me,” is surprisingly likable, even mature for the genre. Rounding out the collection are punked-up covers of the rock n’ roll classic “Real Wild Child (Wild One)” and the Motown standard “Money (That’s What I Want).”

This being a teen movie, you can imagine how things could have easily gone the other, cliché-ridden way, with inane pop and boy bands setting the tone. There are, in fact, two songs by the similarly fictional pop/R&B boy band DuJour (with real-life vocals provided by John Stephan and J’son Thomas) included in the album, but while the songs are not staggeringly incompetent, it surely says something that they’re the bad guys in the movie. Anyone familiar with the old Josie and the Pussycats cartoons and comic books know that the band were always a couple of degrees cooler than the other guys in the Riverdale universe, but this 21st century remake is still a greatly pleasant surprise. Thanks to some smart choices in musical direction, these hot, sweet, supercool kitties rule.—Kristine Fonacier