Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities, '78-'01
THE CURE
Rhino
If and when The Cure finally hang up their high-tops, some will remember them solely for the Goth, the poorly applied lipstick and the Phyllis Diller hairdos. They miss the point by half. Like the new breed of bands do when name-checking their sound — The Rapture's Luke Jenner does an uncanny Robert Smith; Canada's The Stills do the danceable noir thing — it's best to focus for inspiration on the first half of The Cure's career. The same can be said for this four-disc, 70-song box.
The first CD of Join the Dots concentrates on The Cure's early, nervous and angular sound. From the opening cut, "10:15 Saturday Night" (B-side to the infamous "Killing An Arab" single), Disc 1 reveals a band that hit the ground running with its nearly yearly releases, from Three Imaginary Boys through 1984's The Top. Best among these rarities are "Just One Kiss" (a slice of vintage '80s Euro-wave and B-side to "Let's Go to Bed"), "The Upstairs Room" (extra B-side to "The Walk") and "The Exploding Boy" (from In Between Days).
Disc 2 covers the band's heyday, 1987-1992, when its shows and records (including career pinnacles Head on the Door and Disintegration) were a schizophrenic mix of dark dirges, bubbly pop hits and all manner of excess. B-sides "Breathe" (from the "Catch" 12-inch), "Snow in Summer" (back side of "Just Like Heaven") and "Babble" ("Lullaby/Fascination Street" single) highlight the strongest of the four discs.
There's not much to recommend the final two discs. Wish, from '92, was The Cure running in place, and it would be four years between each of the last two desultory studio affairs (and now four years since the last). Uneven re-mixes, soundtrack throwaways and tribute covers litter the landscape of the final 30 cuts, a meager handful of these particular dots worth joining. 
—JOHN SCHACT
Hartman for Lovers
JOHNNY HARTMAN
Verve
This disc is part of Verve's series of music to get horizontal by that includes compilations by Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, (somewhat improbably) Louis Armstrong and others. The late Johnny Hartman, the least renowned of the series' artists, definitely belongs in this company. His lush baritone, like fine Cognac stirred with syrup, sensually caressed love ballads. Hartman's best-known recording is his gorgeous 1963 collaboration with John Coltrane's quartet. Hartman for Lovers includes two songs from that disc: "You Are Too Beautiful" and "My One and Only Love" (I would've preferred "Lush Life"). The remaining nine songs, romantic odes all, come from three of Hartman's other '60s albums. The singer fares best when surrounded by sparse instrumentation, most notably on "My Ship" and "I Just Dropped by to Say Hello," which take on a saloon-style intimacy. Three songs — "For the Want of a Kiss," "Unforgettable" and "The Very Thought of You" — showcase Hartman with a large ensemble, the latter two (which include strings) making his voice more echoey and distant. The arrangements force his usually restrained style onto the fringes of belting, which, at shakier moments, call to mind a hack like (archaic cultural reference) Robert Goulet. Hartman's diction, exquisite but never stiff, glorifies the lyrics of these musical treasures, breathing emotional life into them. The main problem with Hartman for Lovers is that, at just under 40 minutes, it's a bit stingy. Nonetheless, most of the music herein is unimpeachable. —ERIC SNIDER
Aw C'mon
No, You C'mon
LAMBCHOP
Merge
"Your drug of choice/ Mix it with a voice/ A voice that's creepy," Kurt Wagner sings on No, You C'mon, the second of two new Lambchop albums released in tandem. That's an apt, if elliptical, description of Lambchop's fan base, one enamored of Wagner's acquired-taste croak and his band's expanding (if not expansive) palette of gauzy, piano-coaxed lounge-pop. Trouble is, as Lambchop has eased over the course of its most recent albums into a phase best described as "Crash Test Dummies' Brad Roberts attempts Leonard Cohen while listening to Dylan's Oh Mercy," it's become exponentially harder for nonacolytes to book passage on Wagner's bandwagon. There's little on Aw C'mon to rectify that situation. Wagner's croon mingles with languorous arrangements on songs like "Women Help to Create the Kind of Men They Despise." He charts new levels of mundane lyricism, and wispy, insubstantial instrumentals such as "Timothy B. Schmidt" don't leaven the encroaching malaise. In concert with its titular response to its sibling, No, You C'mon juices things up considerably. Wagner and company loosen the reins on the fuzz-guitar rocking "Nothing Adventurous Please" and create an amiable noise on the nonsense shuffle "Shang a Dang Dang." The mood here is more elevated throughout, a glimpse of what awaits those newcomers willing to dig through the band's catalog for gems. Had Wagner heeded the cautionary tale of Ryan Adams — being prolific doesn't automatically equal being good — and released one condensed, concise disc, he (and we) would have been better served.
Aw, C'mon
No, You C'mon 1/2—Kevin Forest Moreau
Catalpa
Jolie Holland
Anti-
If American folk music has a haunted house, Jolie Holland is its caretaker. The singer/guitarist/pianist/ accordionist/ukeleleist performs without a roadmap to stardom, which is obvious on her debut, Catalpa. According to Holland, it wasn't even meant to leave her neighborhood, much less be distributed around the world by venerable Epitaph Records subsidiary Anti- (home to Nick Cave, Merle Haggard and Solomon Burke). The songs, recalling Appalachian folk melodies and Delta blues, are sparse; the recordings sound as rustic as the melodies themselves. That's another part of Catalpa's charm: Its like an old record covered in dust; the pops and hisses are intentional. (Much of Catalpa was home-recorded in living rooms.) Holland's voice recalls Billie Holliday, albeit with a rural Texas twang and a few literary witticisms. Where else would you find Syd Barrett's lyrics and W.B. Yeats' poetry on the same album, with nary another song separating them? Holland, who gained a measure of prominence with Vancouver folk outfit the Be Good Tanyas, wrote the other tracks herself, with a rotating cast of backing musicians. The album's instrumentation consists of harmonica, musical saws and banjos, rather than guitar, bass and drums. The hillbilly-orchestra feel serves Catalpa well, complementing Holland's lyrics as she compliments her long list of influences. —MARK SANDERS
This article appears in Mar 11-17, 2004.