Music Reviews

Earth
Phase 3: Thrones and Dominions
Sub Pop

For the past five years, Earth has explored the depths of musical magma bubbling beneath the rocky foundations of heavy-metal guitar. In its past, the band included bassist Joe Preston (once of the Melvins) and Kurt Cobain (until his other band got in the way). On Thrones and Dominions, head Earth-man Dylan Carlson forges ahead (mostly alone) on his quest for electric-sound redemption, accompanying himself with multiple overdubs of droning and crushing guitar, guitar, guitar. He trades heavy metal's bombast for a lumbering reticence, constructing a crawling, impressionistic thunder out of multitracked layers of chords that wander off forever. Oh - and there are even a couple of songs, too.

"Tibetan Quaaludes" makes push-button singsong guitars flow like dribbling metal rivulets: a molten symphony for Glenn Branca to play on the Melvins's Saturday-morning cartoon show. "Lullaby" interpolates riffage from the drunken standard "How Dry

I Am," pushing it to the sky on a pillow of overdriven current. "Phase 3: Agni Detonating over the Thar Desert..." is an entrancing overkill exercise for heavily flanged guitar - a swirling, blustery excess, ultimately pacific in its reliable, swooping caress. "Harvey," the album's lead track, is a three-minute ditty of almost lyrical proportions, yet it, too, is carried by the subtly shifting undercurrents of multiple guitars.

Each song abruptly lurches into being or closes with an end-of-tape clunk - as if it's only a segment of a larger, ongoing rumble. Earth updates 20th-century minimalism and La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music into a sonic system - one that reflects a postindustrial eternity of higher amplitudes at lower frequencies. Yet, amidst the avant-garde guitar-tooling and sonic heave-ho, this is richly textured music as old as polyphony; "thrones and dominions" of an almost sacred quality.

- Patrick Barber

18th Dye
Tribute to A Bus
Matador Records

I'm on my way home, stuffed into an underground Muni train (part of San Francisco's preposterous idea of accommodating municipal transport). And, yes, it's been a lousy day. I plunk Tribute to a Bus into my walkman, push play, and immediately give thanks to a Higher Being. Fuzzy reverb and sonic throes cushion my screeching subway commute, while the minimalist layers, à la Velvet Underground, remind me of a simpler, less cynical period of my life. Plus, I hear this German-Danish trio really rocks live.

- Kristy O'Rell

Bruce Gertz 5et
Third Eye
Ram Records

The free-form element of jazz easily qualifies it as one of the more interactive artistic mediums. Caught direct-to-digital, this live set, led by Boston bassist Bruce Gertz, gives 75 minutes' worth of reasons jazz musicians need an audience to do it right. While Gertz sticks with the upright on all but two cuts, guitarist John Abercrombie adds an electronic edge to what was otherwise a fine night of aggressive acoustic jazz. Emotions run high with Gertz and his band of latter-day minute men.

- James Rozzi

Peter Frohmader
Advanced Alchemy of Music
Nekropolis

Peter Frohmader's music is the aural analog of the nightmarish visions of H. R. Giger (design genius behind the diabolical star of Alien). A mixture of visceral power, slabs of industrial sound, prog rock complexities, and a sense of horror make it potent and unforgettable. Frohmader favors swarthy, distorted electric bass and doomy electronics, exploring the slashing of electric guitars and the chiming of an acoustic 12-string. It ain't easy listening, but it demands attention, and delivers.

- Dean Suzuki

Gene
Olympian
Polydor/A&M

The latest in a seemingly endless string of one-word English pop bands with ambitions of conquering America, Gene wears its heart, and Smiths influences, on its collective sleeve. Fronted by the somewhat narcissistic Martin Rossiter, Gene casts a longing, over-the-shoulder glance at the days when melodies ruled and folks really cared about what poor Morrissey was going through. Gene has an impressive gift for writing catchy, sometimes glorious, pop songs that convey that distinctly English desperation.

- Robert Levine

Wadada Leo Smith
Kulture Jazz
ECM Records

Free jazz trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith is a one-man tour de force and musical boat-rocker. Playing a variety of African and Japanese instruments, in addition to trumpet and flugelhorn, Smith offers piercing homages to jazz greats, family, and friends. His references to Haile Selassie prove that a Rasta can play more than reggae, and Smith's unpolished (but convincing) singing, harmonica, koto, and African thumb piano prove that this world-class musician offers more than jazz when he goes solo.

- Norman Weinstein

Stereolab
Peng
American/Too Pure

Forever in search of an eclectic roster, Rick Rubin's American Recordings presents a domestic re-release of Peng, Stereolab's 1991 début. Using guitars and vintage analog synthesizer equipment (in great demand among electronic musicians), Stereolab weaves a musical tapestry that is at times frenetic and poppy, at other times reminiscent of droning '60s psychedelia. Singer Laetitia Sadier alternates between English and French, languid and lovely in both. An excellent opportunity to catch Stereolab in pure, raw form.

- Tamara Palmer

X-Legged Sally
Eggs and Ashes
Sub Rosa

X-Legged Sally, a Belgian ensemble comprised of a rock rhythm section (guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums) and a wind section of sax, clarinet, and trumpet, churns out a smokin' mix of avant jazz/rock/funk/madness.

The sound melds Frank Zappa, John Zorn, George Clinton, Tower of Power (even Danny Elfman and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra), with such traditional styles as swing, cabaret, and more. X-Legged Sally can groove with the best, careering into left field with aplomb and dramatic verve.

- Dean Suzuki

Alexander Zemlinsky
Lyric Symphony Symphonic Songs
Marc, Hagegard, White, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Riccardo Chailly, conductor

London Records

A friend and teacher of Schoenberg, Zemlinsky followed the post-Romantic trends of Mahler and Strauss, leaving atonality to his famous pupil. The monumental Lyric Symphony, with texts by Bengalese writer Rabindranath Tagore, is a lush, nocturnal evocation of yearning and love. Riccardo Chailly turns in a splendid performance. The Symphonic Songs, a setting of seven African-American poems, round out the disc.

- Bryan Higgins

Microwave o' the Month

Duran Duran
Thank You
Capitol Records

No, no, double-D, thank you.

- Roderick Le Simpson and Eric Taylor Rhodes Cuccurullo Courtemanche

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