Structure & Cosmetics
THE BRUNETTES
(Sub Pop)
You could argue that subversive pop music is an oxymoron, but listening to The Brunettes' Structure & Cosmetics just might make you buy that contradictory phrase.
The Brunettes' Wall of Sound bends. We hear a Spectorian colossus of guitar, drums, piano, organ, sax, backing vocals, etc. Then the traditional instrumentation gives way to spacey synth runs that recall 1980s radio songs and fuzzy guitars reminiscent of Velvet Underground. Structure & Cosmetics is by turns pensive and playful. Those turns often take place within the same song.
The Brunettes are Heather Mansfield and Jonathan Bree. The female/male duo from New Zealand share lead vocals and harmonize. They both play scads of instruments. The disc also includes five additional musicians singing and performing everything from trumpet to lap steel. Bree produced the album and wrote the bulk of the songs.
Which brings us back to the whole business of this being a subversive pop record. It's not like there are any dissident sounds here — just slight manipulations of very conventional structures. Bree's lyrics are what make this disc delightfully seditious. Take for instance, the pop ditty "Small Town Crew." It features Mansfield's delicate, lithe pop vocals. But the words are at once vague and penetrating: "You said you liked my songs/ If only I could have you here/ I'd love to smack you around the room/ Noted that they're too self conscious and wordy." 1/2 —Wade Tatangelo
Floratone
FLORATONE
(Blue Note)
This one-off project features the dream tandem of Bill Frisell, the most original guitarist working today, and Matt Chamberlain, a drummer/percussionist whose credits include Tori Amos, the Saturday Night Live band and pre-Ten Pearl Jam. Bassist Victor Krauss, cornetist Ron Miles and violinist Eyvind Kang flesh out the sound, which is at once rootsy and dreamy, heavy on atmosphere, but a little light on the kind of stirring solos that make this sort of genre-less instrumental project really pop. In the last half-decade or so, Frisell has increasingly integrated his watery-toned guitar into the ensemble — to a point that can be almost subliminal. The five tunes with Miles' overdubbed horn fare best, lending a riff or hook to latch onto. Some of the songs really delve into a groove ("Swamped," "Louisiana Lowboat") and build delectable soundscapes. A handful of others — especially "Frontiers," which sounds like a discarded U2 rhythm track — are a little too static to sustain interest. 1/2 —Eric Snider
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
SPOON
(Merge)
Spoon's sixth album is alternately the group's most no-holds-barred attempt at pop and its wildest sonic experiment yet. For evidence of the former, spin "The Underdog," a sunshine-in-a-bottle summer anthem complete with jaunty horns. For proof of the latter, check "The Ghost of You Lingers," an echo-laden drive through near-ambient territory that refuses to ever let its sparse tension explode. These two poles dominate Ga Ga, but it's Spoon's particular genius to play them off one another and to meld them together into an album that sounds effortless and unfussy. Ga Ga is Spoon's fourth straight classic. 1/2 —Cooper Levey-Baker
†
JUSTICE
(Vice)
The most now name on the French dance scene, Justice — the duo of Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé — is also one of the most crossover-friendly techno acts to emerge in some time. The group takes glitzy house beats and mashes them to a pulp with layers of seriously distorted synths and electronic burps and other emissions. On the group's debut album, † (yes, a symbol for a title), the result is a loud, pounding and never-subtle collection of filthy bangers, with enough oomph and pop sense to appeal to those of us outside the club scene. These guys have a chance to break out as a '00s Daft Punk or Chemical Brothers. 1/2 —CLB
This article appears in Aug 15-21, 2007.