This Week: A slacker goes it alone, a jazz veteran shows his versatility, and a riot grrl screams for Giuliani's head.
Stephen Malkmus
Stephen Malkmus (Matador)
Stephen Malkmus's characteristic flippancy is certainly evident in his description of his aims for his new, sans-Pavement solo project. "My goal: to mix the precision of Saab, Stefan Edberg, and Bergman with the laid back (yet heavy) beats of deepest Trenchtown," he says, immediately qualifying the statement with a dig at the general vapidness of press releases.
Anyone familiar with the quirky, defunct Pavement might readily acknowledge that the wry wordplay here is broadly representative of Malkmus' work to date; and, as an added bonus, it simultaneously serves as an appropriate description of his new, self-titled release. In other words, what we have in his new solo offering is certainly nothing new. Pavement fans can expect the same sort of offbeat, Ashbery-via-Dylan approach to lyric-writing.
Said fans shouldn't expect, however, the organic, rambling song structure for which the band was famous. Free of the constrictions of writing with a band, Malkmus is able to indulge his lyricism. Songs like "The Hook" showcase him at his elegiac, bittersweet best; with characteristically obscure lyrics like "Promise me you will always be/ too awake to be famous, too wide to be safe," he compellingly dances around the outskirts of clarity, creating an oddly comforting whirlpool of near-comprehension.
Unfortunately, the record veers wildly between this sort of near-profundity and downright silliness. While Malkmus's new backing band, tentatively named The Jicks, is proficient, the players fail to give the record the sort of musical coherence that Pavement always seemed to enjoy.
The record's flaws are, ultimately, inoffensive. In short, this is the recorded equivalent to that girl with the "good personality" your buddies keep trying to set you up with: pretty hard to love, but awful easy to like.
—Josh Black
Pat Metheny Trio
Trio Live (Warner Bros.)
Pat Metheny is a guitarist of many guises. From early Pat Metheny Group jazz-rock (American Garage), to explorations of harmolodics (Song X), to inquiries into free jazz (Zero Tolerance for Silence), to sideman outings of exceptionally good taste (Gary Burton's Like Minds), Metheny has cut a broad swath through the jazz domain.
The Pat Metheny Trio is the most recent Metheny manifestation, including Larry Grenadier on acoustic bass and Bill Stewart on drums. And while the first recording of this trio (Pat Metheny Trio 99-00) suggested primarily straight-ahead interests, this two-CD live recording breaks out into all manner of Metheny-land.
The album begins with the title track from Metheny's first recording as a leader, "Bright Size Life" (c. 1975). An uptempo rendering with solos from Metheny and Grenadier, the tune moves conventionally through the head and changes, always confirming Metheny's penchant for catchy melodies of whistle-able character.
But if "Bright Size Life" is straightforward, the same cannot be said for "Question and Answer," the tune following. This, too, is a Metheny original, having a deliciously hummable head, and a beginning similar to the preceding selection. About halfway through the cut's 20-minute duration, however, Metheny switches from electric to synth guitar, commencing a deconstruction at turns electrifying and meditative, wonderfully spiced with Stewart's bomb-dropping drumming.
Also included are reflective moments on solo and acoustic guitar ("Into the Dream," "Night Turns to Day"), a blues ("Soul Cowboy"), a nod to Coltrane ("Giant Steps"), and the Jerome Kern standard "All the Things You Are."
That said, there's a little something for everyone, and any number of ways of entry into this recording's treasures and the musical world of Pat Metheny.
—Jonathan B. Frey
Le Tigre
From the Desk of Mr. Lady (Mr. Lady)
Most artists who try to turn a political message into a melody with clever lyrics fail miserably because they're usually working from an ideology, not experience, and thus lack the key ingredient to any art worth a damn: passion. It's dead before the first chord is strummed, and if any listener is moved by it, it's because they bring their own experiences to it.
Bikini Kill founder Kathleen Hanna has probably never made a song that wasn't political on some level. However, she so often nails her target because she packs bundles of the requisite emotion, addressing only the things that really move her and leaving dogma for the academics. With her new band, Le Tigre, Hanna has not only updated her sound, she's added sardonic wit to balance the anger.
Using samples, keyboards, and drum machines, Le Tigre melds the spirit of riot grrl punk, '60s girl groups and early '80s new wave. It's bouncy, good-spirited music that never loses sight of punk's angry call to arms.
The most commanding track on this seven-song EP is "Bang! Bang!" about the NYPD shooting of Amadou Diallo, which is speckled with screams, air-raid sirens and fake news reports, and ends with the band counting off the 41 bullets officers fired at the unarmed man. When Hanna howls, "Bang bang daddy I want you dead/ Bring me Giuliani's head," there's no doubt she really wants it.
—Joe Tarr
February 8, 2001 * Vol. 11, No. 6
© 2001 Metro Pulse
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