NY Times 1/8 Best Overlooked CD's of 2002

[Tom Roche]

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January 8, 2003

Tributaries to the Musical Mainstream
By NEIL STRAUSS

Last year record labels released about 27,000 CD titles in the United 
States. Though that it is a hefty number, it is actually low for the 
business, which released nearly 39,000 titles just a few years ago. 
Considering that only several hundred of those CD's even make the Top 
40, that leaves thousands upon thousands of CD's that few people ever 
hear. Thus, every year, the pop music critics at The New York Times 
compile a list of the CD's that almost got away the previous year.

The choices here include CD's on small independent labels; groups 
whose music has never been released domestically; acts who work in 
genres that are far too experimental or avant-garde for mainstream 
radio; older legends making a comeback; and younger musicians with 
the potential to become legends.

Many of these CD's may not be available at chain record stores, so 
consider trying an independent record store or a Web site. A few 
suggestions include Other Music in Manhattan and Boston 
(www.othermusic.com); Aquarius Records in San Francisco 
(www.aquariusrecords.org); Luna Music in Indianapolis 
(www.lunamusic.net); and on the Web only (www.dustygroove.com, 
www.tigersushi.com; www.forcedexposure.com); and, for Latin music, 
www.descarga.com.

Jon Pareles


1. Mary Gauthier: "Filth and Fire" (Signature Sounds) With her 
long-suffering voice and her Louisiana drawl, Ms. Gauthier sings 
pithy, rootsy songs full of observations like "Goodbye could have 
been my family name"; she makes Lucinda Williams sound cheerful.

2. Devendra Banhart: "Oh Me Oh My . . . " (Young God) The quaver in 
Mr. Banhart's voice is as shaky as his songs' connection to everyday 
reality. In lo-fi recordings - usually just his guitar and his 
multiplied voice - his songs and fragments ponder animals, 
apparitions, logical leaps and childlike certainties, all with 
credible eccentricity.

3. Solomon Burke: "Don't Give Up On Me" (Fat Possum) One of the great 
soul singers of the 1960's escapes the nostalgia circuit with songs 
written for him by Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello 
and Brian Wilson, and his gospel-charged voice is intact.

4. Super Collider: "Raw Digits" (Rise Robots Rise) Super Collider, 
the collaboration of the producers Jamie Liddell and Cristian Vogel, 
drags the spirit of P-Funk into an electronic swamp, where songs 
throb and blip while singers consider undecipherable messages and 
"radianimations" amid the pulsations.

5. Nina Nastasia: "The Blackened Air" (Touch and Go) Ms. Nastasia's 
songs reach back to the staples of old-time country - waltzes and 
ballads, love and death - for music that verges on parables, set to a 
porchful of unplugged instruments.

6. Deerhoof: "Reveille" (Kill Rock Stars) Beware of whiplash from the 
sudden changes in Deerhoof's songs, which can sound like blithe pop 
one moment and bruising power chords or a tootling accordion or 
staticky electronics the next, all with whimsically assured timing 
and a sly sense of melody.

7. Cyro Baptista: "Beat the Donkey" (Tzadik) The Brazilian 
percussionist Cyro Baptista leads Beat the Donkey, a 12-member 
percussion group that reaches well beyond samba and carnival rhythms. 
With guests including the guitarist Marc Ribot, the songs summon 
gamelans, breakbeats, heavy metal, tap-dancing and funk along with 
tuneful Brazilian pop.

8. (The User): "Symphony No. 2 for Dot Matrix Printers" (Asphodel) 
The whizzes, clicks and whines in this electronic music sound like 
minimal techno, but they came from obsolescent dot-matrix printers 
deployed for texture and syncopation. The music transcends its 
gimmick, and it could make office workers think twice about what they 
hear every day.

9. Hot Hot Heat: "Make Up the Breakdown" (Sub Pop) Hot Hot Heat, a 
Canadian band, revs up skewed, shifty guitar riffs for its tales of 
misguided love and paranoia, in songs that hark back to the 
cleverness of XTC and the frantic confessions of the early Cure.

10. Jaguar Wright: "Denials Delusions and Decisions" (MCA) On an 
album that faded into post-Sept. 11 grief when it was released in 
January 2002, Ms. Wright combines the vocal finesse of soul with the 
bluntness of hip-hop. Her songs concoct a persona that encompasses a 
strong conscience and promises of kinky sex.

Neil Strauss

1. 2 Many DJ's: "As Heard on Radio Soulwax," Parts 1 and 3 (Waxed 
Soul) The official, copyright-cleared album by these two Belgian 
brothers led my regular year-end Top 10. These underground albums, 
culled from this pair's "Hang the DJ" radio show, are equally 
breath-aking. What makes these D.J.'s my favorite act of the year is 
not just the skill with which they superimpose Missy Elliott over 
Elastica, the Beach Boys over Michael Jackson, and, most famously, 
Destiny's Child over Nirvana on these albums, but it's also their 
sheer love of music and the audiophile perfectionism with which they 
tweak each song.

2. Akufen: "My Way" (Force Inc.) This experimental approach to music 
- electronic dance by way of musique concrète - has made for many 
boring albums, but Akufen (Marc Leclair) manages to assemble sounds 
recorded off his radio into sweet, invigorating grooves that bubble 
and drip like honey pouring into hot tea.

3. Benjamin Biolay: "Rose Kennedy" (Virgin France) and Coralie 
Clément: "Salle des Pas Perdus" (Nettwerk) Mr. Biolay, newly married 
to the actress Chiara Mastroianni, comes on like Serge Gainsbourg 
reincarnated, delivering immaculately produced orchestrated 60's-era 
pop delivered in perfectly assonant French. Unlike other Gainsbourg 
devotees, there is not a trace of irony or hipsterism here, and he 
even already has his own equivalent of Jane Birkin, Ms. Clément, 
whose equally precious album he wrote and produced.

4. Bad Astronaut: "Houston: We Have a Drinking Problem" (Honest 
Don's): At its best, this band from Santa Barbara, Calif., brings 
together elements of Grandaddy, Weezer and your favorite emo band. At 
its worst, it is average with the potential to be great.

5. Bon Voyage: "The Right Amount" (Tooth and Nail) After a four-year 
hiatus, the husband-and-wife team of Julie and Jason Martin returns 
with a sweet, beautiful and thoughtfully produced pop album with 
shades of Sixpence None the Richer, the Cardigans, the Cranes and 
Mazzy Star.

6. Deadly Avenger: "Deep Red" (Illicit) Mixing big-beat electronic 
music with the swelling strings and suspenseful sounds of a 
horror-movie soundtrack, Damon Baxter - the D.J., remixer and likely 
fan of the progressive rock group Goblin - surprises with a 
lusciously arranged instrumental dance album that unfolds like a 
Hollywood blockbuster, with even a gratuitous love scene thrown in.

7. The Libertines: "Up the Bracket" (Rough Trade) The Strokes do 
prepunk better than the Libertines, and the Libertines do the British 
Invasion better (being British helps), and both lay down a boogie 
beat with equal finesse. Factor in a strange similarity to the 
Wedding Present and production by the former Clash member Mick Jones, 
and you have a band that is not perfect but may not entirely deserve 
the poseur reputation it has earned overseas, either.

8. Madlib: "Blunted in the Bomb Shelter Mix" (Antidote) Madlib, born 
Otis Jackson Jr., digs through the crates of the Trojan label, mixing 
about 50 dub and reggae tracks (by King Tubby, Mikey Dread, Prince 
Far I and more) into an alternately easygoing, eccentric and, when 
his mixing fingers are too restless, maddening collage.

9. Themselves: "The No Music" (Anticon) Some great albums are 
journeys, moving the listener from the pinnacle of perfect pop to the 
nadir of noise and then back again. This meandering experimental 
hip-hop album from Doseone and Jel of rap's Anticon collective is 
just that, with savvy, swaying beats and candy choruses suddenly 
emerging out of go-nowhere ambient pastiches.

10. Various artists: "All You Mob!" (Shopfront Theatre for Young 
People/Morganics) For several years, the Australian hip-hop artist 
Morganics has been traveling through the outback, holding hip-hop 
workshops for Aboriginal schoolchildren. This eclectic CD serves as a 
field recording of his use of rap as creative catalyst, most 
charmingly on the didgeridoo-backed "Down River," by the Wilcannia 
Mob, a trio of children ages 10 to 13.

Ben Ratliff

1. Miguel Zenón: "Looking Forward" (Fresh Sound) A first album which 
slots in Mr. Zenón, from Puerto Rico, as one of the strongest 
saxophonists in New York. He is also a central figure in the new 
Latin jazz, a music more complex and unified than the term has ever 
implied before.

2. Caetano Veloso and Jorge Mautner: "Eu Não Peço Desculpe" 
(Universal Brazil) Mr. Veloso, a patriarch of Brazilian pop, teams up 
with an old friend from the crazy 60's, the fiction writer, rogue 
philosopher, songwriter and singer Jorge Mautner. They fold in 
thundering Afro-Brazilian percussion, country music, electronics, 
rock, samba, poetry and folklore. It's a wise, eccentric toss-off.

3. Wycliffe Gordon and Eric Reed: "We" (Nagel Heyer) This set of 
parlor duets with Mr. Reed, the pianist, are elegiac and startlingly 
virtuosic. When Mr. Gordon, the trombonist, wants to vocalize, as in 
this album's "Embraceable You," he doesn't deal in half-measures: the 
instrument sounds like a voice.

4. Donald Brown Trio: "Autumn in New York" (Space Time) The pianist 
Donald Brown, one of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers 20 years ago, makes 
lush, personal small-group albums, sweet-smelling with Southern 
manners and full of sprightly original writing; this, with the 
bassist Essiet Essiet and the drummer Billy Kilson, is a honeydripper.

5. Rob Brown Trio: "Round the Bend" (Bleu Regard) An alto 
saxophone-bass-drums trio, and with all its yawning open space, this 
is a record of alert, vivid melodic improvising. But there are also 
practiced sojourns into the hectic outback of New York-style free 
jazz.

6. Von Freeman: "The Improviser" (Premonition) Now 80 this tenor 
saxophonist can still sound fresh and daring It is a good thing that 
in jazz, hard-earned wisdom appreciates with age.

7. Guillermo Klein: "Los Guachos III" (Sunnyside) This Argentinian 
composer, once part of the New York scene and now living in 
Barcelona, has an open palette: in the quest for new large-ensemble 
sounds, he is basically an unrestricted composer whose friends and 
colleagues happen to be jazz musicians.

8. Volovan: "Volovan" (Lakeshore) A new rock band from Monterrey, 
Mexico, has taken up the aesthetic of skinny ties and checkerboard 
gym shoes like so many others. But where most New York revivalists of 
anxious 80's new-wave practice cool ad absurdum, this one takes a 
direct route to your pleasure centers; this band lays sweet teen 
singalongs over the metronomic rhythm.

9. Isis: "Oceanic" (Ipecac) Slow, brilliant, experimental metal; it 
is about three-quarters bottom-end, and diaphanous even with all its 
brute force.

10. Jay-Z: "Unplugged" (Roc-a-Fella) In the short run this CD means 
nothing next to his megagrossing studio albums. In the long run it 
might stand as a remarkably good attempt at hip-hop made with real 
instruments.

Kelefa Sanneh

1. The Used: "The Used" (Reprise) A splendid debut from a Utah-bred 
punk rock band that may soon be ineligible for lists such as this 
one. The music echoes the turmoil in Bert McCracken's lyrics: as he 
gets worked up, plaintive pop-punk bleeds into shrieking noise.
2. Brooks: "You, Me and Us" (Mantis) A British producer reimagines 
disco in his own image. Synthesizers chirp, hands clap, drum machines 
twitch, bleary vocals float across a roomful of high-fidelity haze.

3. Desaparecidos: "Read Music/Speak Spanish" (Saddle Creek) Conor 
Oberst, from Bright Eyes, leads a punk quintet through nine 
white-knuckled songs about cash and compromise. Inevitably, 
indignation gives way to anxiety: "I should talk, I'm just the 
same/You can buy my records down at the corporate chain/I tell myself 
I shouldn't be ashamed/But I am!"

4. AGF: "Head Slash Bauch" (Orthlong Musork) Antye Greie-Fuchs builds 
prickly electronic compositions around fractured snippets of her 
murmurs and whispers. It is intoxicating, even when she's reciting 
computer code.

5. Otep: "Sevas Tra" (Capitol) A wild-eyed heavy-metal band led by 
Otep Shamaya, an extraordinary screamer. It starts quietly: she 
whimpers a story of sexual abuse ("He smelled of sweat and regret, 
and he said, `Shh . . . "). Then a brutal guitar riff hits, and it 
sounds like retribution.

6. Black Chiney: "Black a Chino" (www.blackchiney.com) Never mind the 
mash-ups: reggae D.J.'s have been recombining music and vocals for 
decades. This 81-track mix CD matches reggae stars with a wide 
variety of tracks: Alozade hijacks a hit single by Tweet, and 
Elephant Man has an absurd encounter with "Tainted Love."

7. Ms. Jade: "Girl Interrupted" (Interscope) Ms. Jade's rhymes 
ricochet around Timbaland's tricky beats, which scramble samples from 
around the world. "I write mine, light mine, now I got a spark/All 
bite, no bark, play my damn part," she raps.
8. James Yorkston and the Athletes: "Moving Up Country" (Domino) 
Gentle, casual love songs from Scotland. Accompanied by the 
occasional lap steel or accordion, Mr. Yorkston sings about 
anticipation, disappointment and - not coincidentally - drunkenness.

9. G-Unit: "Automatic Gunfire" (www.nycphatmixtapes.com) 50 Cent, 
hip-hop's most appealing new star, has a mushy voice and lots of 
sharp punch lines; this CD (credited to his group, G-Unit) shows off 
both. It also mocks Ja Rule with a series of phony duets - an 
impersonator growls along to Michelle Branch, Nickelback and Enrique 
Iglesias.

10. Ogurusu Norihide: "Humour (`Study' and `I')" (Carpark) A 
mesmerizing album by an aspiring Shinto priest. The first half 
("Study") joins bucolic piano and acoustic guitar lines to slender 
electronic beats; on the second half ("I"), the electronic effects 
are so subtle you hardly notice them.

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