Real Gone
TOM WAITS
Anti-/Epitaph
Since the inspired '80s troika of Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs and Frank's Wild Years, Tom Waits has always walked a fine line between innovation and experimentalism gone awry. It's one of the reasons his fans love him so. Real Gone goes 'round the bend more than most, but these moments of chaotic excess can't shroud the disc's passel of fine, listenable, songs. Waits' latest technique is to build percussion tracks with his voice, creating a kind of organic-industrial sound that renders several tunes here — a few of which would hardly qualify as tunes — little more than chomping, frenzied grooves topped with a lot of caterwauling.
But even these seemingly impenetrable songs — the opener "Top of the Hill," "Shake It," "Metropolitan Glide," "Baby Gonna Leave Me" — reveal a certain charm after awhile. It's Waits' more conventional (relatively speaking) songs, though, that are the real winners.
The disc's most poignant number, "Day After Tomorrow," returns to Waits' acoustic troubadour roots. It's a lovely ballad that, in its own gentle way, acts as a powerful anti-war statement. "I just do what I've been told/ We're just the gravel on the road/ And only the lucky ones come home/ On the day after tomorrow," he raspy-croons in a letter home to his wife in Illinois.
Elsewhere, there's the usual mixture of vaguely old-style balladry, some with cagey, poetic narratives ("Sins of my Father," "How's It Gonna End," "Dead and Lovely), some downright lovelorn ("Green Grass," "Trampled Rose"). Perhaps Waits best reconciles his tunesmith and iconoclast sides on "Make it Rain," a tale of romantic woe built around a bluesy strut and his lusty shout.
Waits and co-producer/writer (and wife) Eileen Brennan outfit these songs with bare-bones instrumentation that includes guitars, banjos, acoustic bass and percussion (only three songs feature conventional drums). Marc Ribot, the idiosyncratic guitar ace who added so much to past Waits projects, makes his return, chipping in corrosive licks and greazy chords.
Even the most entrenched Waits fans will likely find some of Real Gone a bit too far gone, but more than most of his efforts, this is one that grows on you. 
1/2
—ERIC SNIDER
HoboSapiens
JOHN CALE
Or Music
Please, will someone give John Cale a break for once? Yes, the words "Velvet Underground" seem to always follow his name in any given discussion, but fer chrissakes, the old guy hasn't played with them in 36 years, and you know, he has produced some albums since (Patti Smith's Horses; The Modern Lovers' and the Stooges' self-titled debuts). Add to that, albeit on a lesser scale, Cale's own HoboSapiens.
This multi-layered marvel is a textbook example of how dissonant samples can have meaning without irony, and of just how creepy pop music can be. The earnest Welshman is in top form here, regaling listeners with atypical tales of art, history and, of course, plenty of his own paranoia. Lyrically, HoboSapiens is an album for literature class, where the stoic Prof. Cale details people ("Archimedes," "Magritte"), places (Denver and Paris in "Things;" Zanzibar, the Alps and Rome in "The Look Horizon"), and things (Zen, cars and girls on a number of tracks).
Cale's arrangements are equally as bold, frequently employing Bjork-like samples while relying on an impressive cast of hired hands for further orchestration. Brian Eno lends not only samples (on "Bicycles") but his own daughters as well, who share backup vocal duties. What results is a crisp, remarkable album of depth and accessibility — one that will, hopefully, remind listeners that life for Cale didn't end back in '68.
—Mark Sanders
Blues Lounge
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Putumayo
One of the more interesting micro-genres of the last decade involves DJ/electronica producers putting their postmodern spin on vintage blues. The first time I heard it was in '94, when guitarist Skip McDonald, once a member of the house band for Sugar Hill Records (home of Sugarhill Gang and other nascent rappers), teamed with producer Adrian Sherwood for a project called Little Axe. (If you run across a copy of The Wolf That House Built, grab it.) Probably the best-known foray into this area was Moby's largely bogus Play album from 1999. The world-music label Putumayo has cobbled together a more than respectable sampling of this hybrid form on Blues Lounge, although it's unlikely that the title will stick as a name for the subgenre.
The best of the 10-song comp are two darkly funky tracks from Little Axe's 2002 disc Hard Grind (Fat Possum): "Midnight Dream" and "Long Way to Go." Close behind is a pair from Tangle Eye – "John Henry's Blues" and "Parchman Blues" — where venerable blues/roots producers Scott Billington and Steve Reynolds take vocals from Alan Lomax field recordings and thicken them with computer grooves, deep bass, keyboards, percussion and other stuff (including a killer solo by trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis) to create a sublime melding of the high-tech and organic. The slightest piece on the collection is the techno-gospel of "Run On," from Moby's Play. Other tracks range from the seductively creepy "Pablo's Blues," from the French act Gare du Nord (which uses Robert Johnson's "Come on in My Kitchen" as a foundation), and the Euro-clubby "Gonna Be" by a German duo known as Mo' Horizons.
In all, the disc is a satisfying overview, a forward-thinking take on the blues that, in most cases, retains the idiom's spirit. (www.putumayo.com) 1/2
—ERIC SNIDER
More Adventurous
RILO KILEY
Brute/Beaute
Jenny Lewis sings the songs of a liberated woman. Armed with a sexy voice, the Rilo Kiley frontwoman represents an honest, rebellious, feminine point of view. The group's newest album is a collection of atypical love songs, but the lyrics also focus on political ideals, sex stories and religious values. Powerful and captivating, Lewis's vocals are perfect for jazzy tunes, folk songs and soft ballads, all of which are represented here. Some of the album's softer songs skew toward the mundane, but add an overall sensuous appeal. The band's musical potential is apparent in "Portions for Foxes" and "Love and War 11/11/46," but the originality of those tracks is countered by the numbness of others like "It Just Is" and "Ripchord." All told, More Adventurous is somewhat more adventurous than the band's previous releases, incorporating harmonicas, violins and synthesizers into an otherwise typical indie rock sound.
—WHITNEY MEERS
This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2004.