Dot Hacker

Inhibition

ORG Records

A very mellow experimental rock band from Los Angeles, Dot Hacker is made up of Josh Klinghoffer, Clint Walsh, Eric Gardner and Jonathan Hischke. Klinghoffer plays guitar for the Red Hot Chilli peppers, and the rest of the band have played with people ranging from Beck to Gnarls Barkley.

But within the enjoyably mellow, somewhat danceable music are edgy lyrics about alienation, confusion, weariness, depression, and sadness, all sung with out any self-pity, whining, or anti-social content. These are great lyrics. Dark themes are dealt with smartly in the right ways.

This full-length debut is a follow up to an EP out earlier this year, and both are extremely good. May many more albums follow from this band. [www.orgmusic.com/artists/dot-hacker/]

Andrea Weiss

Portland Cello Project

Homage

Self Released

This is a really cute idea. Take classical music, a mini orchestra composed mainly of cellos, and have it cover hip-hop. While the idea does work, as this is good music that is fun to listen to, the joke can make one wince. Not because it’s a good joke on classical music, but because it covers up the non-stop homophobia and sexism of hip-hop.

While I am absolutely sure that the PCP is not homophobic and sexist, nor is its music, when so many suffer from the effects of homophobia and sexism, reducing the original hip-hop songs this orchestra covers to an ironic joke is bad irony and an unfunny joke. Why? Because it still is a cover up, and a cover up G/L/B/T/Q people and their straight allies don’t need. As a lesbian, I was not amused. In the end, caveat emptor. [http://www.facebook.com/portlandcelloproject]

Andrea Weiss

Andre Williams and the Sadies

Night and Day

Yep Roc Records

All-star albums like this one aren’t supposed to work. Too many moving parts, and nothing meshes. Or it works for a song or two, and the rest is dross.

Night and Day is one of the rare albums of this type that does work from start to finish. The sessions for this album began in 2008, when Williams was 70 and still addicted to drugs and drink, but clean by the time the sessions were finished. The result is a great album, an album that Williams and producer Jon Spencer worked hard to get everything to mesh, and it’s to their credit that they formed a good team and synced everything up just right.

Williams does have a lot to say: everything from, “Jail ain’t no fun,” to, “stay out of Mississippi,” to his dark take on being poor in America, and thanking God that he’s still alive (Williams is Jewish.) His tender side is shown in his duet with Sally Timms on “That’s My Desire,” and his giving the woman he dated and took good care of back to her boyfriend after he gets out of jail on “Your Old Lady.” There is also the romance of “Hey Baby.”

Musically, punky blues and country. The Sadies are wonderful throughout. Timms and Kelly Hogan’s sublime backing vocals on “I Got to Get Shorty Out of Jail,” and choice cameos from the likes of Jon Langford, the Gories, Matt Verta-Ray of Heavy Trash, and Danny Kroha. Put them all together and this is an album that rolls adroitly and sprightly rocks hotly and nimbly. It will be out May 15^th. www.thesadies.com

http://www.yeproc.com/artists/the-sadies

http://www.facebook.com/TheSadies

https://twitter.com/#!/thesadies

Andrea Weiss

Willis Earl Beal

Acousmatic Sorcery

Hot Charity/XL Recordings

Lo-Fi folk, blues and rap. Lo-Fi not by using vintage equipment, but because found instruments, a $20 microphone, and a cheap karaoke machine recorder was all he could afford, working as a night porter in a motel in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

These songs are very compelling. He makes more music, more good sound from found objects and a roughly recorded guitar than a whole band could do in a million-dollar studio. And while the lyrics speak of bad times, down times, boredom and listlessness, the music, and his singing, is so strong that a cloudy day becomes a whole world, with all a world like that has to offer.

Tom Waits, a favorite of Beal, sometimes did music like this, although a bit more produced. So did Taj Mahal, and while there is a lot of Waits here, there is also a lot of Mahal’s warm, rounded sound, too. That Beal could be placed in their context says a lot about how good he is, how talented he is, and why this album is absolutely perfect for quiet and late nights. [http://www.willisearlbeal.com/]

Andrea Weiss

Club Sounds: An Interview with Slick Shoota:

I don’t go to clubs often, so I am not as fluent in club music as I could be. But I do know good club music when I hear it. Slick Shoota is one of the good ones. His music jumped out at me the first time I heard his EP, and gives me a charge every time I hear it. He is a producer from Trondheim, Norway, and this is his debut EP. He was also kind enough to answer a few of my questions, and I thank him for that.

Andrea Weiss

Andrea Weiss: What do you want your songs to mean to people?

Slick Shoota: I just want people to enjoy the tracks basically, the meaning of the tracks will vary from person to person i guess, that's what's beautiful about music isn't it, you make your own soundtrack to life with the tracks you feel fit to any given situation. If it's in the club though, I want people to feel like they can't resist dancing and brocking out. I mean, i can make deep tunes that's not really dancefloor destroyers but my main aim is to create a vibe that makes people want to have a good time.

AW: Do you start with a rhythm or melody when writing songs?

SS: Most of the time it's the drums, cause that's the basics of the tune and if you have a solid drum groove i find it's easier to build around that. I don't have any "rules" as to how i approach a tune though. I can sit and just browse my sample library for ages and if i find a sample that has potential, I can work with chopping that up first, for a good while, try different variations and then build the rest of the tune around that.

AW: You use vocals so well, who are the vocalists, and how did they contribute to the writing of the lyrics?

SS: It's mostly just samples chopped up to the unrecognizable to be honest, unless it's remixes where the original has great vocals like the Murder Mark - Bad Bitches Drop It Low remix I did. I definitely want to work with real vocalists on my own original tracks in the future though!

AW: How did you get started in music?

SS: I was a big jungle and drum n bass head from an early age, so it was from getting into that scene that I wanted to learn production as well. So I just started trying out software and stuff like that you know. After a while i took a years music production course and learned producing more professionally. I've always had school and jobs and stuff taking up alot of time though, so it's first like in the last three years or so i feel like I've created my own sound that I'm comfortable with.

AW: You mix styles very well, does that help you open up a song, and play around with it?

SS: Thank you. It's not something I think about when starting a track. I just find a vibe and go with the flow. A while back I found myself a bit tied up in "the rules" of genres and how other peoples production sounded. I think I've managed to get away from that though. Now I just make a tracks, no matter the vibe or style, in my own way.

AW: I hear jazz and 70s R&B in the mix. Are they two types of music you’ve been influenced by?

SS: I don't listen to it that much, but yeah I'm definitely influenced by it through sample culture and that. I'm a bit all over the place that way i guess, I just love blending all different styles and make club music you know!

Slick Shoota

8 Bit Beauty EP

Loose Squares

The voices pop out of the mix, joyfully and excitedly, singing Slick’s name, and other things like “I love you”. The music flows alongside, nimbly, like a ball in a pinball machine, and just as much fun. Slick Shoota, a club artist from Norway, made his first EP for Loose Squares a dandy, fun to dance to, and also fun doing anything involving motion. A great debut all around.

Andrea Weiss

Lee Ranaldo

Between the Times and the Tides

Matador

Sometimes simple is the most complex of all. Sometimes straightforward can wind down many paths. What Ranaldo has done here is release a verse-chorus-verse album, in other words a conventional adult rock album. But it’s great. It has a lot to say about life and love, and all it’s complexities. It’s set against a wall of guitars, with almost every sound and noise imaginable that can be fit into a standard rock format.

Everyone knows how Lee plays wonderfully, and he lets his guitars do the talking, along with a band that is Nels Cline, Alan Licht and John Medeski, with Irwin Menken on bass, Steve Shelley on drums, with appearances by Jim O’Rourke and Bob Bert. Which also makes this something of an extension of a Sonic Youth album, but the songs here are also a logical progression from Lee’s songs on SY’s The Eternal. While the overall sound is not a din of noise, the guitars and the rest of the instruments sound is heavenly, a sprawling, yet organized heaven, fierce yet controlled.

But the lyrics are gentle, like on “Fire Island (Phases)” a meditation on the place, and “Lost,” which is also about being found as well. And while these lyrics also contain some darkness, it’s the contrast between shadow and light that also move the album just like the music. If SY is indeed over, and this album marks the start of a permanent solo career, it couldn’t be any better than this. http://www.sonicyouth.com/symu/lee/

Andrea Weiss

Starving Weirdoes

Land Lines

Amish Records

An experimental music band from northern California, Starving Weirdoes play music, mostly instrumental, that is sometimes harsh, and at other times oddly soothing. It’s kind of ambient, kind of prog, but always with a good sense of melody, dynamics, tone, and scope.

Aimee Hennessey provides some spoken words, mostly one or two lines, and her pronouncements add even more content than there was already by defining what the music is trying to convey. An interesting project in the main, and very good: good for writing to, good for anything that requires deep thought, and good for winding down after a hard day. http://www.amishrecords.com/

Andrea Weiss