Music Reviews

As we’re counting down to the relaunch of the Enterprise on the big screen, I thought this would be an opportune time to check the back catalogue of the latest celebrated composer to put his stamp on the final frontier: Michael Giacchino. After laboring away in the often-anonymous field of video game music, Giacchino began making his name known as a potential A-list composer with J.J. Abrams’ Alias. I wasn’t a huge fan of Alias, but in listening to the two volumes of soundtracks released from the show, I have become a huge fan of its music.

The ironic thing is that, in its more introspective, moody moments, Alias leaned on orchestral music that’s nearly indistinguishable from the music for an episode of Lost (also produced by Abrams and scored by Giacchino). But much of Alias’ music leans in a completely different direction: upbeat, techno-beat-drenched pieces that seem to pay homage to, in equal parts, John Barry’s balls-to-the-wall brassy James Bond scores and the ethnic-location-of-the-week music from Mission: Impossible’s original TV run. Since these scenes almost always accompanied the sight of Jennifer Garner strutting her stuff or kicking butt (and, more often than not, doing both simultaneously), the beat seldom lets up.

The orchestra gets plenty to do in the action scenes, too, but in this case it sounds very little like Lost. One track in particular, though – “On To Paris” – spends a little bit of time combining the techno beats with the kind of low, snarling brass Giacchino frequently uses on Lost, and the effect is quite interesting – the addition of a simple drum beat completely changes the character and mood. One gets the impression very quickly that Alias is what landed Giacchino the scoring assignment for The Incredibles, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, and that’s led to nearly everything since, ranging from Ratatoullie to Star Trek. As calling cards go, you can’t do much better than the music from Alias: its ever-changing settings made for plenty of opportunities for musical variety, and Giacchino didn’t squander that opportunity by phoning in generic music.

So, should the beat-heavy Alias point the way for Giacchino’s Star Trek score? I’m going to hazard a guess that it probably won’t, but if it did…why not? The new movie is an exercise in trying to push classic Trek into a new style for a new audience. Michael Giacchino is one of a wave of incredibly talented young composers who are currently rewriting the books: not everything has to be in a European romantic style. Why not punch up the music and make it more modern? Alias proved that Giacchino was adept at splitting the difference between both styles.

1. Alias (0:27)
2. Dissolved (2:07)
3. Red Hair Is Better (2:31)
4. Spanish Heist (4:31)
5. Double Life (1:54)
6. Tunisia (4:14)
7. In The Garden (2:32)
8. Looking For A Man (3:54)
9. Anna Shows Up (3:33)
10. Home Movies (0:42)
11. On To Paris (1:51)
12. Page 47 (1:55)
13. The Prophecy (2:11)
14. Badenweiler (5:11)
15. Arvin At The Poles (1:38)
16. Sleeping Beauty (3:11)
17. Blow’d Up (2:28)
18. It’s Not The CIA (1:41)
19. Oh My God!!! (3:19)
20. The Tooth Doctor (2:01)
21. It Was Anna (0:56)
22. Wet Suits (2:40)
23. Ball Buster (1:42)
24. The End (0:58)
25. Bristow & Bristow (3:31)
26. SD-6 Dance Party (3:18)

Released by: Varese Sarabande
Release date: 2003
Total running time: 64:56

Since making a splash in the film music scene with his distinctive music for the new Battlestar Galactica, Bear McCreary has earned not only acclaim, but a very busy schedule on the scoring stage. In addition to direct-to-DVD horror movies like the Rest Stop series, McCreary has also taken over the musical duties on Sci-Fi’s Eureka, and in each case, he’s done so in such a way that the results don’t scream “This is the guy who does the music for Battlestar Galactica” – and really, that’s a good thing. That’s the sort of diverse talent that keeps composers employed.

For those wishing that there was more music in the same vein as Galactica’s percussive moodiness, though, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles fits the bill. The series itself kicked off with the same kind of world-weary hope-in-the-face-of-a-fatalistic-future tone that Galactica has carried throughout its run, but let’s face it, it’s almost certain that Galactica’s wall-of-percussion action scenes are what landed McCreary this job. The Sarah Connor Chronicles utilizes plenty of metallic percussion, though often sampled and processed heavily – appropriate for a show that deals with robotic assassins from the future.

Galactica fans will also find this show’s use of a small string ensemble familiar, appearing at several points in the soundtrack to deliver low-key, almost mournful moments in stark contrast to the pounding percussion. Both elements come together in the show’s end title theme, with an effect that’s equal parts apocalyptic and Celtic. Unlike the main title theme, which is heavy on percussion and light on melody, the end titles are based on “Sarah Connor’s Theme” (heard in full on track 3).

On the opposite end of the spectrum from that theme, there’s the busy, almost Art Of Noise-like “Motorcycle Robot Chase”, loaded with scraping metal percussion, stuttering electronic sting notes, and just plain noise. Needless to say, this track goes nuts in a way that wouldn’t fit on Galactica – it’s uniquely Sarah Connor Chronicles, and easily the busiest track on the entire album by miles.

Two songs are included, “Samson And Delilah” (performed by Shirley Manson of Garbage, who joined the cast as part of a rethink of the show’s format in season two), and the raucous “Ain’t We Famous”, performed by Brendan McCreary and his band (also responsible for some of Galactica’s more mainstream musical moments, such as “All Along The Watchtower”). “Samson And Delilah” didn’t really strike me as radically different from anything I’ve heard from Ms. Manson before, but “Ain’t We Famous” is a fun, rockin’ number that stands up to repeat listening better. An homage to Carl Stalling – about the last thing I expected to hear here – is included as well (“Atomic Al’s Merry Melody”).

I’m going to fess up that I’m not a huge fan of the show itself, but its music is certainly worthy of attention. Fans of Battlestar Galactica’s music will enjoy this one, whether they’ve followed the series or not, because it’s on very familiar ground (and yet slightly different) musically. This’ll tide you over until the next Galactica soundtrack quite nicely.

1. Samson And Delilah (4:58)
2. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Main Titles (0:45)
3. Sarah Connor’s Theme (3:17)
4. Cromartie In The Hospital (1:10)
5. Andy Goode’s Turk (3:11)
6. Central America (1:34)
7. John And Riley (2:27)
8. Derek Reese (2:53)
9. Ain’t We Famous (3:36)
10. Motorcycle Robot Chase (2:50)
11. The Hand Of God (3:10)
12. Prisoners Of War (6:26)
13. Miles Dyson’s Grave (2:43)
14. Atomic Al’s Merry Melody (1:23)
15. The Reese Boys (1:41)
16. Removing Cameron’s Chip (3:15)
17. Ellison Spared (2:23)
18. I Love You (2:30)
19. Catherine Weaver (2:05)
20. Derek’s Mission (1:47)
21. There’s A Storm Coming (3:02)
22. Highway Battle (3:58)
23. Perfect Creatures (2:15)
24. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles End Titles (0:35)

Released by: La-La Land Records
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 63:54

Jellyfish is a star that burned brightly but too briefly in the power pop firmament, blasting itself to bits in a kind of dull supernova of creative differences after only two albums. To say that those two albums have attracted a following would be something of a massive understatement: there’s actually a tribute album out, and even brief association with Jellyfish has made cult rock heroes out of musicians like Jason Falkner, Roger Manning and Tim Smith. For music fans who missed the pop revolution of the 1970s, Jellyfish rolled almost all of that experience into those two albums, spruced up for the early ’90s. For a band with a legacy of two albums and a handful of B-sides, Jellyfish is cited as a seminal influence by an alarming number of artists these days.

In 2002, Not Lame Records assembled this box set – with label founder Bruce Brodeen putting his home on the line to pay for the licensing and duplication – featuring demos, rare tracks, and even live appearances. In the grand scheme of things, there’s precious little in the way of new music – in this context, meaning completely new songs – that fans haven’t heard before, but there’s still enough here to cover four discs.

The Bellybutton demos feature several songs that I hadn’t heard before, which simply didn’t make the cut for the band’s first album. While they’re not bad songs, they’re just not quite on the same level as “The King Is Half-Undressed” or “The Man I Used To Be”, including a very early version of “Bye Bye Bye” (which ended up on Spilt Milk) and a cover of Donovan’s “Season Of The Witch”, among other things.

Jumping ahead to the disc of Spilt Milk demos and outtakes, and other songs from the same era, it’s easy to tell that even the demos were so intricate and polished that they would’ve done many an artist proud as final mixes. Not so for Jellyfish, though – and one wonders if that quest for perfection (and the inevitable headaches that result from that quest) isn’t what drowned Jellyfish once and for all. There are numerous new songs on this disc as well, including a cluster of demos recorded of songs that Manning and Andy Sturmer penned for potential inclusion on a Ringo Starr solo album. They’re all good stuff, very well pitched to Ringo’s strengths and the styles he and his listeners are accustomed to, but they wouldn’t have been bad Jellyfish songs in their own right either – that, perhaps, being the no-lose propostion in cooking up a bunch of Ringo-esque/borderline-Beatlesque songs: whatever Ringo didn’t want was probably a likely candidate for the third album that never happened. The only song that seems like the odd man out from the “Ringo demos” is “Watchin’ The Rain”, a song which just never quite seems like something that either Ringo or Jellyfish would’ve done – a kind of nondescript ’80s-style ballad. On the opposite end of that spectrum is the dead-center perfect tribute to the Beatles that is “I Don’t Believe You”. If you didn’t know it was Jellyfish, you’d probably swear that it was some previously undiscovered tune by the Fab Four themselves.

B-sides as well as one-off soundtrack and compilation singles that were released between Bellybutton and Spilt Milk land on this disc as well, including the infamous Super Mario Bros.-themed “Ignorance Is Bliss”, originally released on 1991’s all-star Nintendo White-Knuckle Scorin’! album, back from the days when Nintendo was nearly eclipsing just about everything else on the pop culture scene. Unlike most artists who contibuted a single to that compilation, Jellyfish actually did their homework and delivered a song that’s literally about Super Mario – from King Koopa’s perspective! It’s destined to go down as a disposable novelty single, but it’s worth at least a couple of listens for the sheer musicality of it. Disposable novelty song or not, the group poured a lot of effort into it.

The live discs are a revelation, showing the sheer determination of the group to replicate their complex sound on stage. That they actually pull it off, more often than not, without significantly dumbing down the arrangements of either their own densely-orchestrated pieces or any number of cheekily chosen covers, is just this side of a miracle, again a testament to the combined musical skill of Jellyfish. The Spilt Milk live disc really shines, including a couple of demonstrations of an addition that the group made to the set list just for concerts in Japan. (It’s probably no surprise that Andy Sturmer, post-Jellyfish, went on to produce Puffy Amiyumi, and most of the former Jellyfishers’ solo and side projects have far, far less difficulty finding a label home in Japan than they do anywhere in the English-speaking world. Obviously they made their impact in Japan.) The last track on the last CD is the Jellyfish cover of “Think About Your Troubles”, the group’s 1994 contribution to a posthumous Harry Nilsson tribute album, and the last thing they recorded.

So what’s the sum total of these four discs of on-stage antics and in-studio rarities? If the two studio albums alone didn’t do it for you, Fan Club will finish the job of filling your ears with glee and filling your heart with melancholy that Jellyfish, as an entity whose whole was at least as great as the sum of its very talented parts, didn’t continue. The demos and B-sides and other tracks, stuff that the band felt was not album material or single material, are – for the most part – better than a lot of stuff that other groups feel is album material or single material. Jellyfish wasn’t a band that could do no wrong, but in the space of two albums and at least any many years’ worth of touring, Jellyfish also hadn’t dropped anything lamentably bad in our ears. This was a group that burned bright and burned out fast, the only consolation being that its various members are still active turning out their own stellar pop music.

Disc One: The Bellybutton Demos, 1988-89
1. The Man I Used To Be (4:23)
2. Bedspring Kiss (4:45)
3. Deliver (3:07)
4. Now She Knows She’s Wrong (2:15)
5. Queen Of The USA (5:13)
6. Always Be My Girl (3:36)
7. I Wanna Stay Home (4:10)
8. Let This Dream Never End (3:59)
9. Season Of The Witch (4:22)
10. That Girl’s A Man (3:42)
11. Calling Sarah (4:48)
12. All I Want Is Everything (3:12)
13. Bye Bye Bye (3:48)
14. She Still Loves Him (4:27)
15. Baby’s Coming Back (2:53)
16. The King Is Half-Undressed (3:40)

Disc Two: The Bellybutton Tour, 1990-91
1. MTV Top Of The Hour (0:20)
2. Much Music, Canada (0:30)
3. The King Is Half-Undressed (3:49)
4. Sugar And Spice (2:14)
5. 91X, San Diego (0:19)
6. Two All-Beef Patties (0:15)
7. Mr. Late (3:38)
8. No Matter What (2:43)
9. All I Want Is Everything (4:25)
10. Much Music, Canada (1:07)
11. Hold Your Head Up / Hello (5:24)
12. Calling Sarah (4:06)
13. She Still Loves Him (4:08)
14. Will You Marry Me (6:41)
15. Baby Come Back / Baby’s Coming Back (4:25)
16. Now She Knows She’s Wrong (2:50)
17. Let ‘Em In / That Is Why (5:12)
18. Jet (3:18)
19. Much Music, Canada (0:37)
20. The King Is Half-Undressed (3:38)
21. Baby’s Coming Back (2:57)
22. I Wanna Stay Home (4:05)
23. She Still Loves Him (3:51)
24. All I Want Is Everything (4:24)

Disc Three: The Spilt Milk Demos, 1991-92
1. World Cafe (0:40)
2. Spilt Milk Intro (0:44)
3. Hush (1:18)
4. Joining A Fan Club (3:45)
5. Sabrina, Paste And Plato (2:11)
6. New Mistake (4:05)
7. Glutton Of Sympathy (4:02)
8. The Ghost At Number One (3:25)
9. All Is Forgiven (4:09)
10. Russian Hill (4:43)
11. He’s My Best Friend (3:42)
12. Family Tree (4:00)
13. Spilt Milk Outro (1:14)
14. Ignorance Is Bliss (3:55)
15. Worthless Heart (3:06)
16. Watchin’ The Rain (4:11)
17. I Need Love (3:09)
18. I Don’t Believe You (3:21)
19. Long Time Ago (3:47)
20. Runnin’ For Our Lives (3:40)
21. Fan Club message (6:02)

Disc Four: The Spilt Milk Tour, 1993
1. Glutton Of Sympathy (4:58)
2. Baby’s Coming Back (3:01)
3. That Is Why (3:30)
4. The Ghost At Number One (3:29)
5. Joining A Fan Club (2:51)
6. World Cafe (1:09)
7. I Can Hear The Grass Grow (3:26)
8. New Mistake (4:03)
9. Eleanor Rigby (1:35)
10. S.O.S. (1:14)
11. S.O.S. (2:08)
12. All Is Forgiven (4:12)
13. Sabrina, Paste And Plato (2:25)
14. Joining A Fan Club (4:35)
15. The Ghost At Number One (3:49)
16. The Man I Used To Be (4:48)
17. Glutton Of Sympathy (4:04)
18. New Mistake (4:43)
19. Think About Your Troubles / hidden track: The King Is Half-Undressed (11:00)

Released by: Not Lame Records
Release date: 2002
Disc one total running time: 62:20
Disc two total running time: 74:56
Disc three total running time: 69:09
Disc four total running time: 71:00

For much of of 1978, Split Enz seemed to have reached the end of the road. Having lost their label contract, their management, and almost all of their live work, the band was stranded in England with only a grant from the Queen Elizabeth Arts Council in their native New Zealand to sustain them through the lean times. At this point, lead singer/songwriter Tim Finn’s younger brother, Neil, had been with the band for less than a year. With no concerts to play, the emphasis was on writing and rehearsing (and, when they could afford it, recording) new material, and with Phil Judd having come and gone again, Neil had his first chance to try to add his own songwriting touch to the band’s sound. In June and July of 1978, the Enz converged on a studio in Luton to record their new material, with songs written by both of the Finns. And the irony of it is that only a few of those recordings have been heard until now.

Approximately half of the songs recorded at Luton were honed further and re-recorded from scratch as the group’s 1979 album Frenzy. The other half were occasionally dusted off (and sometimes re-recorded) as B-sides for singles (this being back in the days when there were still physical singles, and when those singles still had B-sides), while others never saw the light of day. Poised precariously between the original Split Enz remit of arty, complicated rock with ambitious arrangements and challenging tempo changes, and the group’s more sharply-focused ’80s pop-going-on-new-wave sound, these are the Luton sessions, revealed at last after 30 years to satisfy relentless pressure from the group’s loyal fans down through the years.

Is there a reason these recordings weren’t issued at some point back then? Well…yeah. They’re definitely diamonds in the rough, and there’s almost zero stylistic unity in the material. With nothing to lose (how much lower could they go from being unemployed in another country, with no recording contract and no promotion?), the band can clearly be heard revisiting its old sound, taking various approaches to revamping it, and even trying on and discarding whole new styles as they saw fit. The bulk of the songs are still Tim’s, though the tunes written by Neil are a revelation. Some of the songs represent his earliest songwriting efforts, as well as some of his earliest outings as a professional musician. His singing voice is, to be charitable, unrefined in places, but the pure catchiness of his songwriting offsets that. “Carried Away” and “Holy Smoke” originated here, as did “Late In Rome”, better known as “Serge”.

Tim’s contributions aren’t anything to sneeze at, however – “Semi-Detached” (one of my favorite songs that the man’s ever written), “Hypnotized”, “Next Exit” and “Remember When” originate from the Luton sessions, among many others. It’s with Tim’s songs that one can hear the most stylistic experimentation; “Hypnotized” is performed almost in the style of ’50s blues-rock, with a typically Enz twist, and some of Tim’s other tunes are similarly poised between the Enz’ early ’70s music-hall-inspired sound and more instantly accessible styles.

There are other landmarks to be heard here, especially if one has the two-disc version that was made available only to the Frenz Of The Enz fan club. That second disc, not available at retail, consists primarily of early mixes of the songs from Frenzy. Some of them, such as “Frenzy” itself, is in a decidedly unfinished form. But that disc also contains other tunes as well – Phil Judd’s last two contributions to the Enz as songwriter, “I’m So Up” and “So This Is Love”, are on the fan-club-only disc, as is “Livin’ It Up”, a song by relatively new recruit Nigel Griggs, which sees the Enz belly up to the edge of punk…and apparently back away slowly again. Judd’s two songs are a sharp reminder that, as much as some listeners regard him as the architect of the Enz’s weirder excesses, he was as capable of coming up with catchy, three-or-four-minute gems just as the Finn brothers were.

Other unusual writing credits appear; the first disc features a Griggs/Tim Finn collaboration, “Creature Comforts”, “Straight Talk” (co-written by the elder Finn and former Enz sax/horn player Robert Gillies, who had departed the band by this point and embarked on an art career that would later see him serving as, of all things, production designer for Xena: Warrior Princess), and an atmospheric-but-rather-strange song called “Animal Lover” by Eddie Rayner. These songs likely emerged from group jams – it was about as close as the Enz would ever get to an all-hands-pitch-in kind of band. The rest of the time, barring a few Eddie Rayner instrumentals, it seems that the band’s music came from the minds of Judd and/or one Finn or the other. It’s an interesting peek into avenues left unexplored. The first-ever songwriting collaboration between the Finn brothers, “Best Friend”, can also be heard, though it’s not something you’d probably be expecting if your indoctrination into the Finns’ duets was Woodface or the Finn Brothers albums.

It’s worth noting that purists might object to one thing: Rayner remixed many of the recordings, though not all. The two Judd songs originate from an appearance on the BBC’s Dave Lee Travis show, and some were left alone or had been mixed down and couldn’t be remixed. “Semi-Detached” is one such example of a song left untouched, and it certainly didn’t need any revising. But to be honest, purist or no, I’ve never heard the Luton tapes in their original state – and I doubt too many can say that they have either – so it’s not as if I have something to compare this release to so I can hear what’s changed. I also appreciate that the bulk of the Frenzy material is on the second disc only; as Frenzy is still available commercially, these alternate takes amount to music deleted scenes and outtakes (though the band is said to prefer the raw passion of the original recordings). Those who only want to hear stuff they’ve never heard before can do just fine with the single-disc version.

Ultimately, this collection, in either single or double disc form, may really be for-fans’-ears-only material. These aren’t new Split Enz songs (nor are there likely to be any), but the vast majority of the songs on the first disc, and a fair few on the second disc, will be new to most fans’ ears, and I’m not one to pass up on the chance to hear something new – or even just new-to-me – from either Finn. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the group’s “year from hell,” in an English summer three decades ago.

Disc one
1. Miss Haps (4:08)
2. Home Comforts (4:13)
3. Animal Lover (3:16)
4. Carried Away (4:37)
5. Semi-Detached (5:03)
6. Holy Smoke (3:21)
7. Message Boy (3:47)
8. Hypnotised (3:41)
9. Late In Rome (3:25)
10. Straight Talk (3:23)
11. Hollow Victory (3:23)
12. Evelyn (3:16)
13. Best Friend (3:04)
14. Creature Comforts (2:52)
15. Remember When (3:56)

Disc two – Frenz of the Enz version only

1. Hermit McDermitt (5:02)
2. Betty (6:13)
3. I See Red (3:15)
4. Mind Over Matter (3:09)
5. Next Exit (3:54)
6. She Got Body She Got Soul (2:57)
7. So This Is Love (4:14)
8. Abu Dhabi (4:53)
9. Famous People (4:02)
10. I’m So Up (2:58)
11. Marooned (2:27)
12. Livin’ It Up (1:17)
13. Frenzy (3:07)

Released by: Rhino
Release date: 2007
Disc one total running time: 55:25
Disc two total running time: 47:28

Ben Folds’ first entire album of new material since 2005’s Songs For Silverman (Supersunnyspeedgraphic really just being a compilation of material that had been tried out on limited-run EPs first), Way To Normal heralds Folds’ return to the U.S. (accompanied by the almost prerequisite seismic changes in his personal life), and as a result, the musical tone shifts wildly from song to song.

There are songs that are immediately accessible (the duet “You Don’t Know Me”, set to a drum machine beat with sampled strings, and “Cologne” and “Kylie From Connecticut”, both reminiscent of Folds’ best ballads), and some that may take a bit of time to grow accustomed to. “The Frown Song” is a nifty little number whose mosquito-like synths may be off-putting at first, and “Brainwashed” with its overpowering drum beat instantly brought New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” to mind. “Errant Dog” and “Bitch Went Nuts” will appeal to fans of quirky Ben Folds Five numbers like “Song For The Dumped”. I can’t quite get my head around “Free Coffee”, but that’s simply because of the production choices made and not the song itself – there’s a very hissy, high-frequency sound running through most of the song that I just find irritating. As a fan of production-driven orchestrated rock, I’m all for trying out daring things at the mixing board, but if it drives the listener away, what’s the point?

The usual caveats apply to Folds’ music – no-holds-barred language (it definitely earns its dreaded “parental advisory” sticker on the cover) being chief among them – but long-term Folds fans will probably be (mostly) pleased. It’s just that there are a couple of tracks here that might throw even the devout followers; the album title itself seems to hint that Folds is trying to find his way back to normal (no, it’s not a text-message-speak-era typo of “way too normal”)…and maybe the next album will be a four-star offering once he gets there and life settles down a bit for him.

1. Hiroshima (B-B-B-Benny Hit His Head) (3:37)
2. Dr. Yang (2:30)
3. The Frown Song (3:37)
4. You Don’t Know Me featuring Regina Spektor (3:11)
5. Before Cologne (0:53)
6. Cologne (5:02)
7. Errant Dog (2:24)
8. Free Coffee (4:01)
9. Bitch Went Nuts (3:06)
10. Brainwascht (3:48)
11. Effington (3:32)
12. Kylie From Connecticut (4:44)

Released by: Sony
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 40:25

After an extremely acrimonious split with Virgin Records in the early 1990s, multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield was already venturing out of Tubular Bells territory throughout the 1980s, dabbling in pop songs (a cover of one of his tunes, “Family Man”, became a hit for Hall & Oates) and mixing music of wildly differing styles and ethnic origins. Virgin mogul Richard Branson was reportedly demanding a Tubular Bells II from Oldfield, who refused to do any such thing, and then released precisely that after switching to Warner Bros. just to give Branson the finger, but a funny thing happened while Oldfield and Branson were battling it out. Other acts started to claim for themselves the instrumental ground which Oldfield had pioneered: Enigma, to name just one example, came to prominence in the early ’90s, and by the time Oldfield got around to releasing this album – which is indeed based on the novel of the same name by the late Arthur C. Clarke – he was having to push his way through a now-crowded musical field.

Inspired by Clarke’s mention of a musical celebration at the end of “The Songs Of Distant Earth”, Oldfield added “spacey” synths and production textures to his usual structure. Despite boasting a track list which divides things up into shorter, discrete tracks, The Songs Of Distant Earth is classic Oldfield, with lengthy development of a central theme introduced early on, and the introduction and development of secondary themes coming later in the album. It may not sound like Hergest Ridge or Ommadawn, but in fact, Songs shares a very similar structure. Like those albums/pieces (in Oldfield’s case, he composes long pieces with minimal breaks, so these terms are almost interchangeable), there’s almost no interruption from one portion of the music to the next, and Oldfield’s soaring guitar work is an obvious sonic trademark. Now, as someone who climbed onto the Oldfield train by way of his early ’70s work, I’m a little disappointed to hear that his guitar takes a back seat, at times, to synths, various kinds of percussion, ethnic vocals and so on, but one can’t stick to the same formula forever. By that same token, there are spoken word samples of everything from a man counting down, to chants, to the crew of Apollo 8 reading from the book of Genesis, woven into the music; interestingly, depending on what mood I’m in, I’ve found these soundbytes either interesting and relaxing or irritating.

Songs Of Distant Earth is an interesting experiment in linking music to literature, sort of a soundtrack that bypasses the hurdle of a movie deciding what everything should look/sound like, and it signals a major reinvention on Oldfield’s part. There’s a part of me that loves his older, guitar-heavy work, and finds Songs lacking, but to a more mainstream audience this isn’t a bad place to get your first Oldfield exposure.

1. In The Beginning (1:24)
2. Let There Be Light (4:57)
3. Supernova (3:23)
4. Magellan (4:40)
5. First Landing (1:16)
6. Oceania (3:19)
7. Only Time Will Tell (4:26)
8. Prayer For The Earth (2:09)
9. Lament For Atlantis (2:43)
10. The Chamber (1:48)
11. Hibernaculum (3:32)
12. Tubular World (3:22)
13. The Shining Ones (2:59)
14. Crystal Clear (5:42)
15. The Sunken Forest (2:37)
16. Ascension (5:49)
17. A New Beginning (1:37)

Released by: Reprise
Release date: 1994
Total running time: 55:43

Arriving as a bit of a surprise in between albums of sublime original material, Jason Falkner’s original Bedtime With The Beatles had a curious mandate of its own: recasting Lennon-McCartney classics as lullabyes for little Beatle-fans-to-be. And so help me, it worked – I always thought it was an incredibly relaxing album, but I didn’t realize the true power of it until years later when my own first child came along. Bedtime With The Beatles was a godsend. The arrival of this second volume of Falkner’s lullabye arrangements came out of nowhere too; maybe it’s because I don’t keep up with very many artists via fansites or MySpace or what have you, but I didn’t know it was in the works, and eagerly picked it up, because now I knew how handy it could be. It wasn’t just a matter of my personal tastes for enjoyment – I had a kid who desperately needed some new sleepytime material.

The problem there, however, is that Falkner’s arrangements on this second volume are much more “involved.” Great from an active listening standpoint, but there’s simply too much going on for it to reach quite the same level of relaxation as the first volume. In places – I’m looking at you, “Penny Lane” – Bedtime Part Two almost ceases to by lullabye music and slides its toes adventurously over the line into downtempo lounge arrangements of the Beatles.

That’s not to say that nothing here lives up to the sleepytime potential of the first volume. “She’s Leaving Home” – which was very nearly a lullabye to begin with in its original form – is positively inspired, with “Here Comes The Sun” coming in a close second as my favorite. “Hey Jude” has low-key vocals-as-instruments that really straddle the line between relaxing and active enough that they demand attention. Some songs, such as “Norwegian Wood”, “Something” and “I Will” try very hard to reach for the sound of the original recordings, with more elaborate guitar work or production, and as such they become “active listening” material. With its back-tracked keyboards and chiming guitar chords, I can’t really imagine anyone drifting off to Falkner’s cover of “Norwegian Wood”.

And what does the little E think? Maybe it was just because it was new music to his ears, combined with his general tendency toward trying to avoid sleep at all costs, but my attempt to introduce him to Bedtime With The Beatles Part Two confirmed my suspicions: he got too involved with listening to it to really relax. But in the end, soft-pedaling my one-year-old into his indoctrination as a potential Beatles listener can’t be all bad – but it’s not all meant for bed either.

1. Norwegian Wood (3:28)
2. Something (3:37)
3. She’s Leaving Home (4:33)
4. Penny Lane (4:27)
5. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (4:38)
6. Here Comes The Sun (3:33)
7. I Will (2:07)
8. Hey Jude (5:08)
9. Yesterday (2:36)
10. Good Night (4:54)

Released by: Adrenaline
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 39:01

A fascinating peek into the early archives of Art Of Noise, this four-disc box set chronicles not only the process by which the group’s seminal debut album was shaped, but it also shows the group struggling to define precisely what their sound would be, with numerous dead-end turns, cul-de-sacs and non-sequiturs along the way before they arrived at an answer which would almost single-handedly define an entire genre of music.

The only problem with this fascinating study of that first album is this: And What Have You Done With My Body, God? presents slight variations, retakes, outtakes and rejects of the same handful of songs…over and over again. If there was ever a collection for which the phrase “for the die-hard fans only” was coined, this would be it. In particular, you’d better like “Close (To The Edge)” and “Beatbox (Diversion One)”. A lot. Because you’ll be hearing them…a lot. And I’m not exaggerating there, really – the entirety of this four-disc set is devoted to the making of the first album. I could see, perhaps, four discs devoted to outtakes, rejects and rarities from the band’s entire career, but no – this is all about the first album.

That’s not to say that it isn’t fascinating stuff, provided that you’re well acquainted with that album. I was quite intrigued with all of the alleyways that “Close (To The Edit)” nearly got lost in on its way to becoming a defining musical moment of the 1980s. Bland synth pads, different samples and even bits and pieces that became attached to other Art Of Noise songs later on were tried on and discarded. A few neat ideas were too, but for the most part, one quickly gains an understanding of why these versions didn’t make the final cut. “Beatbox (Diversion One)” goes through a similar evolution, though for most of its development it bears a slightly stronger resemblance to its final version.

There are other songs here that simply didn’t make it to the first album; some of them – like “Bright Noise”, “Flesh In Armour” and the brilliant but short piece “Comes And Goes” – would surface early in the band’s career on EPs and as B-sides, but others were left by the side of the road, sometimes with good reason. There are several attempts at a song built around a sample of a man singing “ain’t no goodbye” over and over again; not only is the song itself maddening, but one increasingly gets a whiff of the frustration that must have been felt by the group: this just isn’t working.

For the uninitiated listener who doesn’t have Who’s Afraid Of? (The Art Of Noise) memorized front to back, however, this box set may seem unfocused, repetitive and confusing at best. Those looking to get into Art Of Noise would do better to pick up the actual album whose making this set covers, and then come back to this box set at a later date. The sticker on the front promises that this set is “The ZTT Years” – the label on which AON started out – and my only advice is that, should a second set follow, it should spread its wings a bit and perhaps cover the remainder of the group’s output for the 1980s in one go, because even for a fan, this set’s narrow focus on one album can get a bit wearing.

Disc One: The Very Start Of Noise
1. Beat Box (One Made Earlier) (2:19)
2. Once Upon A Lime (3:21)
3. War (Demo 2) (1:27)
4. Close To The Edge (2:19)
5. Confession (1:02)
6. Moments In Love (7:52)
7. Sign On Relief (1:28)
8. Who’s Afraid Of Scale? (4:36)
9. So What Happens Now (Take 2) (4:23)
10. The Subject Has Moved Left (1:44)
11. It’s Not Fair (4:28)
12. Close To The Edge (Ruff Mix) (5:54)
13. A Time For Fear (Who’s Afraid) (4:33)
14. Moments In Bed (6:12)
15. Hidden Track (0:55)

Disc Two: Found Sounds and Field Trips
1. Moments In Love (12″ B-Side Idea) (3:10)
2. Tears Out Of A Stone (2:56)
3. Samba #2 (0:39)
4. The Chain Of Chance (4:36)
5. Fairlight-In-The-Being (4:37)
6. Diversions 3 (3:53)
7. Close (To Being Compiled) (3:47)
8. Diversions 5 (3:46)
9. Damn It All (1:42)
10. Structure (1:13)
11. The Angel Reel: Hymn 1 (Take 2) (0:36)
12. The Angel Reel: Hymn 3 (1:20)
13. The Angel Reel: Fairground (0:43)
14. And What Have You Done With My Body, God? (4:40)
15. Klimax (1:48)
16. Who Knew? (2:36)

Disc Three: Who’s Afraid Of Goodbye?
1. War (Demo) (4:39)
2. The Focus Of Satisfaction (11:02)
3. Moments In Love (rejected 7″) (3:44)
4. It Stopped (4:27)
5. The Uncertainty Of Syrup (1:21)
6. The Long Hello (4:34)
7. The Vacuum Divine (0:47)
8. The Ambassadors Reel: Beat Box (3:54)
9. The Ambassadors Reel: Medley (10:56)
10. The Ambassadors Reel: Oobly (1:21)
11. Goodbye Art Of Noise (0:37)
12. Hidden Track (1:06)

Disc Four: Extended Play
1. Battle (0:27)
2. Beat Box (4:49)
3. The Army Now (2:03)
4. Donna (1:45)
5. Moments In Love (5:11)
6. Bright Noise (0:05)
7. Flesh In Armour (1:24)
8. Comes And Goes (1:19)
9. Moment In Love (1:27)
10. That Was Close (20:44)
11. Moments In Love (from Battle to Beaten) (14:28)
12. In Case We Sneezed (0:31)
13. A Time To Hear (Who’s Listening) (3:32)
14. Do Donna Do (3:12)
15. Hidden Track (0:25)

Released by: ZTT
Release date: 2006
Disc one total running time: 52:33
Disc two total running time: 42:02
Disc three total running time: 48:27
Disc four total running time: 61:22

Released hot on the heels of the direct-to-DVD movie, Joel Goldsmith’s epic score from Stargate: Continuum is, not unlike the movie it accompanies, even bigger and better than Ark Of Truth. Continuum is a story painted on a broader canvas, and the music follows suit – in places, it’s positively epic stuff, in the tradition of John Williams and, yes, a certain other film composer named Goldsmith.

The score opens with a spacious new rendition of David Arnold’s Stargate theme (hearkening back to the original movie) and then segues into a jaunty, lighthearted piece as the team assembles for their next mission. We’re then treated to the choral dirge heard as the list of Ba’al’s crimes is read prior to his execution; while the choir was heard in the Ark Of Truth soundtrack, it’s used more, and to better effect, here. “The Last Of The System Lords” is the first of several bold action cues that almost feel as much like Star Wars as they do Stargate – it’s big, widescreen music.

Even in its more contemplative moments – such as the very relaxing “Endless Horizons” and “Breaking The Ice” – the music is panoramic. The Arctic Circle footage is lovely, yes, but Goldsmith’s music really helps to sell the setting, especially as a pretty good chunk of that part of the movie is dialogue-free. “Endless Horizons” is a nice accompaniment to that rather bleak travelogue.

With the recent announcement that the faltering spinoff series Stargate Atlantis is moving out of weekly production and into movies like the SG-1 direct-to-DVD adventures, I’m actually somewhat pleased…because maybe Joel Goldsmith will get to make more music like this, and more CDs to go along with it. As a fan of his music for this particular franchise, that suits me just fine.

1. A Day At SGC (3:41)
2. The List (1:19)
3. Murder Of Untold Millions (1:46)
4. The Achilles Commandeered (1:21)
5. The Last Of The System Lords (6:29)
6. For The Good Of Others (0:47)
7. The Sinking Of The Achilles (0:44)
8. Endless Horizons (2:06)
9. Breaking The Ice (2:11)
10. New Identities (2:27)
11. Ba’al Divided (0:54)
12. Bring A God To Tears (1:20)
13. Daniel’s Book (1:31)
14. Al’Kesh Invasion (0:54)
15. Photograph (0:50)
16. Apophis (3:43)
17. The Armada (1:24)
18. Quetesh Takes Over (3:07)
19. Battle Over The Ocean (2:19)
20. The Machine (1:51)
21. Fall Of The Heroes (2:35)
22. End Of The Reign (2:25)
23. The Extraction (2:06)
24. O’Neill Buys Lunch / End Title (4:46)

Released by: Free Clyde Music
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 52:36

Another EP-sized collection of tunes from indie singer/songwriter Daniel Gannaway, Joined Like Notes brings us a few numbers that either came after his last releases, Summer Storm and Heading For Country, or didn’t quite meet those two collections’ stylistic parameters. With no such limits placed on it (i.e. a “country” feel or every song involving ukelele), Joined Like Notes is a bit more free-form.

Songs such as “Mail Order Catalogue” and “A Babe In My Mama’s Arms” hearken back to his earlier works – sparse and yet atmospheric and moody – while “Hurricane Proof (Katrina)” and “Save Trestles (Sediment Flow)” take the opportunity to get topical. “Save Trestles” graced the artist’s MySpace page for quite a while before finally getting this release, and it’s aways been a catchy, toe-tapping number; getting the opportunity to hear it more clearly reveals it to be this CD’s standout. “A Slip In The Grey” and the title track are also stripped-down marvels of mood, with the former sporting some really interesting vocal work in the chorus. “Joined Like Notes” is more uplifting and mesmerizing in its own way.

Despite a thematic or stylistic angle to the songs on Joined Like Notes, it’s a nice breath of fresh air and a relaxing listen – even with the slightly soft-pedaled protest songs in (though they join a long tradition of folk protest songs in that regard). Highly recommended.

1. A Babe In My Mama’s Arms (3:08)
2. Hurricane Proof (Katrina) (4:09)
3. Save Trestles (Sediment Flow) (3:09)
4. Mail Order Catalogue (3:57)
5. A Sip In The Grey (4:08)
6. Joined Like Notes (4:09)

Released by: Daniel Gannaway
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 22:40

It wasn’t a concept album, although it just as well could’ve been. 11 songs about the dark, seedy underbelly of Los Angeles and its inhabitants make up this eponymous album by Warren Zevon, his first release for a major label (although he released his first album, 1969’s Wanted Dead Or Alive prior to this). Not only does the album recall California lyrically, but the sidemen and guest vocalists read like a who’s who of the music scene in that area: Jackson Browne, Lindsey Buckingham, Don Henley and Glenn Frey, Bonnie Raitt and Carl Wilson just to name a few.

The album starts off with “Frank And Jesse James”, a song about the various exploits the two brothers ran into and setting up the scene for the rest of the album. “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” notes on Zevon’s wild lifestyle with a keen sense of irony. “The French Inhaler” tells the tale of a woman down on her luck while waiting for that one big break in Hollywood. “Mohammed’s Radio” talks about the impact music can have when there’s nothing else to turn to, with lyrics that eerily hit home even today (“You work all day/you still can’t pay/the price of gasoline and meat/alas, their lives are incomplete”).

The album closes with “Desperados Under The Eaves”, a stark look at the hopelessness that pervaded throughout the rest of the album. Here, Zevon delivers his immortal refrain: “And if California slides into the ocean/like the mystics and statistics say it will/then I predict this motel will be standing/until I pay my bill”. But while multiple harmonies sing “Look away down Gower Avenue…”, one feels that there may be a glimmer of hope, no matter how small, still left to discover in this forlorn urban landscape.

Although not well received upon release (it barely scratched the Top 200), Warren Zevon has since become known as one of Zevon’s finest outings as a songwriter. All the songs here are tightly written with nary a clunker or throwaway, containing copious amounts of Zevon’s trademark wit and humor. It remains catchy without being “radio-friendly”, and set the stage for his career as one of the best songwriters of his day. This album should not be missed.

1. Frank And Jesse James (4:33)
2. Mama Couldn’t Be Persuaded (2:53)
3. Backs Turned Looking Down The Path (2:27)
4. Hasten Down The Wind (2:58)
5. Poor Poor Pitiful Me (3:04)
6. The French Inhaler (3:44)
7. Mohammed’s Radio (3:40)
8. I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2:56)
9. Carmelita (3:32)
10. Join Me In L.A. (3:13)
11. Desperados Under The Eaves (4:45)

Released by: Asylum
Release date: 1976
Total running time: 37:45

Inspiration is a tricky thing. It can show up in all possible ways and when you very least expect it. Jeff Mangum, the lead singer of Neutral Milk Hotel, wrote and composed most of In The Aeroplane Over The Sea after being inspired by reading The Diary Of Anne Frank, coupled with dreams he had about the girl and a Jewish family. Although the album isn’t explicitly about Frank, her presence lingers, either through the lyrics (“Anna’s ghost all around/hear her voice as it’s rolling and ringing through me”) or song titles (“Holland, 1945”). Like his inspiration, Mangum’s musical world is dreamlike, but also by turns jarring, soft, boisterous and confusing.

The album starts off with the song “The King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. One”, in which the narrator describes having an intimate relationship with an unnamed person (“The King Of Carrot Flowers” (?) ) while living under a dysfunctional family (“And your mom would drink until she was no longer speaking/and dad would dream of all the different ways to die/each one a little more than he could dare to try”). By contrast, the next track, “The King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. Two” has Jeff Mangum yelling loudly, “Jesus Christ, I love you!” If you were looking for any clear interpretations, you won’t find them in this album.

In the title track, acoustic guitars are backed by horns and a musical saw, giving it that “barely waking” feel. “Holland, 1945”, arguably the album’s catchiest track and also the album’s “single” (if you can call it that), starts with Mangum counting in the song before fuzzed out guitars explode with a driving drum beat while Mangum’s obscure lyricism continues: “The only girl I’ve ever loved/was born with roses in her eyes…Now she’s a little boy in Spain/playing pianos filled with flames”. “Untitled” has been described by some as “psychedelic bagpipes” and that’s not too far off from the truth.

I’ve heard reports that upon first listening to this album, some people have broken down and cried. Although I cannot admit to such happenings, it doesn’t surprise me at all. I have never more raw emotion packed into a single album before In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, and I’ll doubt if I’ll hear it again. After the release of In The Aeroplane… Mangum broke up Neutral Milk Hotel and disappeared from the public eye. Released ten years ago, it still sounds as fresh and bold as the day it was written. This album will stay with you.

1. The King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. One (2:00)
2. The King Of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two & Three (3:06)
3. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (3:22)
4. Two-Headed Boy (4:26)
5. The Fool (1:53)
6. Holland, 1945 (3:12)
7. Communist Daughter (1:57)
8. Oh Comely (8:18)
9. Ghost (4:08)
10. (2:16)
11. Two-Headed Boy Pt. Two (5:13)

Released by: Merge
Release date: 1998
Total running time: 39:51

Culled from the open recording days held at Peter Gabriel’s RealWorld Studios in the early to mid 1990s, Big Blue Ball isn’t really necessarily a Peter Gabriel album. Considering how frustrated some of his fans are with the lengthy wait between albums (and I’ll admit that I probably belong in that impatient category), Big Blue Ball may, as such, come off as a disappointment to some listeners. Gabriel doesn’t even perform on every track, even as an instrumentalist – in fact, over 50% of the album is Gabriel-free. So what’s in it for you, the listener? Why bother with Big Blue Ball?

Because even if he doesn’t play on a given track, there’s sort of an unspoken, unwritten stamp of approval that goes with the fact that Gabriel let these folks into the studio, period. Now, I will admit to a certain bias here: the material on which Gabriel does play/sing is the best stuff on Big Blue Ball by a long shot. But this doesn’t make the seven out of eleven songs where he doesn’t appear instant skip material. Gabriel’s penchant for encouraging ethnic fusion artists and trying to break various styles of world music out into wide exposure means that there’s actually more cohesion among the tracks than you might think.

And some of the artists heard here are legends in their own parts of the world. One can hear, in the hypnotically relaxing “Altus Silva”, the genesis of a sound that some of its musicians would later make their own under the name of Afro-Celt Sound System. I was pleasantly surprised to see former World Party one-man-band Karl Wallinger all over this album. Long, long ago, I remember reading in Rolling Stone that Tim Finn – circa his “ALT” collaboration with Liam O’Maonlai and Andy White – had participated in some sessions with Gabriel, and when Tim’s name didn’t surface anywhere on Up, I guessed that whatever he had worked on had been buried. But one of those recordings is the first track on here, and it’s a winner. Other standouts – with out without Gabriel – include, at long last, a definitive (and somewhat tweaked) release of the single “Burn You Up, Burn You Down” (which dates back to Up‘s release and really should have not only been on that album, but should’ve also been its lead single), as well as a song called “Exit Through You” whose percussion toward the end completely fascinates me. “Forest” and “Habibe” are engrossing world music tracks. In fact, the only track I consistently skip is “Jijy” – there’s nothing wrong with the song, but I have to be in a certain mood for rap, let alone rap in another language. But it’s still pretty catchy.

So while some fans expecting a full-on Gabriel album might be disappointed, there’s plenty of music to enjoy on Big Blue Ball. I get cranky about the huge gaps between albums in Gabriel’s repertoire, but this whole thing – with or without his direct influence – feels authentically Peter Gabriel enough that I’m happy with this until the next one comes along (and if that’s not enough, he also has a couple of songs on the Wall-E soundtrack album that aren’t on Big Blue Ball.) It’s a solid collection that’ll tide fans of Gabriel and world music in general over for a while – if you give it time to grow on you.

1. Whole Thing (5:29)
   featuring Francis Bebey, Alex Faku, Tim Finn, Peter Gabriel, Karl Walllinger, Andy White
2. Habibe (7:14)
   featuring Natacha Atlas, Hossam Ramzy, Neil Sparkes
3. Shadow (4:29)
   featuring Juan Cañizares, Papa Wemba
4. Altus Silva (6:09)
   featuring Joseph Arthur, Ronan Browne, Deep Forest, James McNally, Iarla O’Lionáird, Vernon Reid
5. Exit Through You (5:54)
   featuring Joseph Arthur, Peter Gabriel, Karl Wallinger
6. Everything Comes From You (4:44)
   featuring Richard Evans, Joji Hirota, Sevara Nazarkhan, Sinead O’Connor, Guo Yue
7. Burn You Up, Burn You Down (4:32)
   featuring Billy Cobham, Peter Gabriel, The Holmes Brothers, Wendy Melvoin, Arona N’Diaye, Jah Wobble
8. Forest (6:18)
   featuring Levon Minassian, Arona N Diaye, Vernon Reid, Hukwe Zawose
9. Rivers (5:46)
   featuring Vernon Reid, Marta Sebestyen, Karl Wallinger
10. Jijy (4:01)
    Arona N’Diaye, Rossy, Jah Wobble
11. Big Blue Ball (4:52)
    Peter Gabriel, Manu Katché, Karl Wallinger

Released by: RealWorld
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 59:28

When I listened to former Jellyfish frontman Roger Manning’s debut solo album, Land Of Pure Imagination, a couple of years ago, I was impressed with his amazing studio technique, his harmonies and performances, but not so much with the songs. I’d almost swear the man read my mind, because his new album puts those worries to rest with a solid string of songs that are just freaking fantastic. Fans of melodic, hooky ’70s power pop with great harmony will find this album’s title incredibly appropriate. To narrow it down a bit – if you like Cheap Trick, you’re going to love this.

The album opens up with “The Quickening”, an anthemic ’70s style rocker with a foot-stomping Gary Glitter-style beat. As cheerful as it is musically, its lyrics bemoan the impatience of youth and the unstoppable, unslowable roller coaster ride of growing older. The vocal harmonies are an awesome wall of sound here, and those who like this song will also get a kick out of “Down In Front” a couple of tracks later. In between is the deceptively cheerful “Love’s Never Half As Good”, a pleasant song that calls to mind a certain breed of well-written, workmanlike ’70s ballad. The description might also apply to “My Girl”, though I find myself liking “Love’s Never Half As Good” much better.

“Imaginary Friend” gets things back onto a rockier course, with a great sonic throwback to the late ’60s/early ’70s rhythm-section-plus-electric-organ sound. “Haunted Henry” is a bit of a ghost of the Jellyfish sound, a catchy story song with a macabre twist – along with Land Of Pure Imagination‘s “Too Late For Us Now”, this is probably the most Jellyfish-esque thing Manning has done since Jellyfish. “Tinseltown” is a nice story song which cautions against seeking fame and fortune at too high a price. As the lyrics chronicle the small-town beginnings of its cast of characters, some very nice pedal steel guitar work starts to creep in, giving the song a vaguely country flavor, though not so much as to completely distract.

“The Turnstile At Heaven’s Gate” features another solid wall of vocal harmony, as well as a brief break for marching band to keep things lively. “Survival Machine” is an epic, nearly eight minutes in length, which is really two songs in one; it’s the kind of anti-war piece that wasn’t at all uncommon in the late 1960s and early ’70s, but seems to be in surprisingly short supply today. The first half of the song is heavy on heavy apocalyptic organ riffs, while the second half gives way to a more bittersweet tone. “Living In End Times” is a sharp-tongued, fast-rocking commentary on folks whose fascination with the Bible seems to begin and end with Revelations. Name-checking everything from “The Late, Great Planet Earth” to “Left Behind”, this is easily the heaviest song – instrumentally speaking – on the whole album, in service of a message that I really wish more people would pick up on.

“Drive Thru Girl” starts out with a mock “live show” intro, and, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, proceeds to turn an amazing number of fast food sales slogans into double entendres set to a cheesy music hall-style accompaniment. This song may not sit well with those who are still waiting for some or all of the former members of Jellyfish to revisit the sound of that group’s glory days, but I found it amusing enough. The album closes with “American Affluenza”, a token anti-consumerist song whose only real disappointment is that the lyrics don’t have much to say. (By contrast, Ben Folds’ “All U Can Eat” is a much more interesting experience lyrically; I also admit to certain built-in skepticism about a song extolling the foibles of American consumer culture when that song has been earmarked as a Japan-exclusive track.)

Catnip Dynamite is a great bunch of songs, but in places it lets go of enough of its energy that it’s hard to get through in a single sitting. Still, for anyone who, like myself, grew up with the ’70s sound reverberating from their radios (back when it was the ’70s and people actually listened to radio because decent songs could be found there), this album more than lives up to its name.

1. The Quickening (5:06)
2. Love’s Never Half As Good (5:36)
3. Down In Front (5:23)
4. My Girl (4:09)
5. Imaginary Friend (5:07)
6. Haunted Henry (4:49)
7. Tinsel Town (5:23)
8. The Turnstile At Heaven’s Gate (4:40)
9. Survival Machine (7:54)
10. Living In End Times (5:09)
11. Drive Thru Girl (5:15)
12. American Affluenza (3:30)

Released by: Phantom
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 62:01

There are three different types of people who will listen to this album. The first person will plug their ears after 10 seconds and turn it off. The second person will continue listening, not out of the respect to the music, but out of morbid curiosity: “Is this a joke? When does the music start?” The third person will listen to the album, listen to it again, and keep on listening. Digging deeper with every nuance of Brötzmann’s music, the listener will find himself faced with the unknown derived from familiarity. It is harsh, brutal and unforgiving — but also captivating and mesmerizing.

As the story goes, three things in particular make this album unique. First, Brötzmann employs an octet for the recording of this album. While octets in jazz are not new, they are uncommon (7 years later, Ornette Coleman used an octet for the recording of his album Free Jazz, but he split it up into two quartets who played simultaneously rather than eight musicians playing all at once). The second thing is that they recorded the album not in a studio but rather at a nightclub in Germany, which provided poor acoustics. This worked in Brötzmann’s favor, however, as it added to the “dense”-ness of the album. The third thing that is unique about the record is the music itself.

Yes, it is chaoctic. Brötzmann and Co. play their instruments to the breaking point, with blasts of drums piercing the wails of saxophones and basses. Yes, it is dissonant. There seems to be no trace of melody. In fact, the only time a semblance of song structure creeps in is about 15 minutes into the title track, but the walls of noise soon overtake it. Nevertheless, this is not music that is made simply to be listened to a couple times. It’s something to reflect; examine. It is music that has to be felt.

This new 2007 remaster by Atavistic includes the original LP, and adds two more alternate takes from the same session. There is also a live version of the title track performed two months prior to the studio sessions at the Frankfurt Jazz Festival in 1968. The original LP tracks are great by themselves, but the added material really adds more to the album. The live version in particular is sensational.

Overall, it is a simply astounding piece of work, and one that has few peers in the music archives.

1. Machine Gun (17:19)
2. Responsible/For Jan Van De Ven (8:20)
3. Music for Han Bennink (11:29)
4. Machine Gun (Second Take) (15:01)
5. Responsible/For Jan Van De Ven (First Take) (10:08)
6. Machine Gun (Live) (17:40)

Released by: Atavistic
Release date: 1968 (re-released 2007)
Total running time: 79:53

The Stargate television franchise has used a full orchestra on precisely two occasion: the 1997 pilot episode of SG-1. and the 2004 pilot movie of Stargate Atlantis. Everything that has come since has been the product of synthesizers, and in the early years of Stargate SG-1 there was even quite a diverse mix of composers whose work – dating back to the first season – was mixed-and-matched as needed, like the original Star Trek’s library approach to its music. So it’s quite a shock to the system to suddenly return to a real orchestra and a real choir with Ark Of Truth, the first of two post-cancellation direct-to-DVD movie projects for the cast and crew of SG-1.

Resident Stargate maestro Joel Goldsmith is naturally at the helm here, and as usual, he has no trouble switching from synthesized/sampled orchestral music to the real deal. The soundtrack opens with a restatement of the Stargate theme we’ve heard for years – itself adapted from David Arnold’s music from the 1994 movie – but with a different emphasis and tempo than the SG-1 main titles, letting us know immediately that things are a little bit different. (I could stop here and point out that, despite the grandiosity of the music, things aren’t that different and Ark feel like two episodes jammed together that, give or take the large scale of a couple of its setpieces, could’ve easily been done on TV, but maybe I’d better just stick to the music.)

Themes are quickly established for the multiple angles of attack of the story: the Tomin/Vala angle gets its own motif, the SG-1 team gets its own noble sound, and the Ori get to sound like big, dark trouble, which is somehow appropriate. Later in the proceedings some ominous rumbling kicks in, which then turns into something more percussive for the somewhat surprising return of the Replicators. There are also themes for the Ancients and – to a certain extent – the Ark itself . However conceptually modest Ark‘s story may have been, the music is Widescreen with a capital W. It’s the same guy writing and arranging the music, but it probably doesn’t need to be said that Goldsmith goes to town with the opportunity to have real players, real instruments and real voices playing his material. To say that there’s a generous quantity of music here is an understatement – you get pretty much the entire score here, an hour of big orchestral/choral music for a direct-to-DVD movie with a running time of under two hours.

For a tiny label release, Ark Of Truth gets relatively lavish packaging too, with a booklet that extensively discusses the movie’s genesis, the team who produced it, and the long-standing relationship between the producers and Goldsmith, all lavishly illustrated. This material might not be here making for such a thick booklet, except that this was obviously a release catered to the fanbase of the show. 100 copies were autographed for those who ordered early from Goldsmith’s website, a window of opportunity which seemed to vanish like a closing wormhole, but faster.

Ark Of Truth has some great music, with something interesting always afoot even if it’s not thundering along on the musical equivalent of a war footing. One has to appreciate Joel Goldsmith taking the chance to not do this as a “composer promo,” which usually sees the studio quietly grumbling and looking the other way as a composer quietly releases a CD which serves as a resume piece (and, in more recent years, usually earns back its own production costs as it slips out into the hands of diehard fans). Instead, Goldsmith went to MGM and licensed it for a full release through his own label, with studio-sanctioned artwork and all – basically, putting whatever money he’d made from doing the music back into the studio’s coffers and taking a gamble that he’d make it back by putting the CD on the market. Hopefully – despite this being the age of Downloading Absolutely Everything Whether You’re Supposed To Or Not – the loyal fans make sure that gamble pays off, because I’m much more interested in the second SG-1 DVD movie, Continuum, and I’m eager to hear its soundtrack as well.

1. The Decision (Main Title) (3:53)
2. Dakara Discovery (2:06)
3. Tomin (3:06)
4. The Wrong Ark (3:36)
5. My Notebook (1:55)
6. Our Mission Begins (1:25)
7. The Supergate (2:19)
8. Meeting The Resistance (2:25)
9. Sabotage (2:19)
10. Replicator! (2:05)
11. Merlin (2:07)
12. Ori Fleet (3:39)
13. The Doci (1:57)
14. Journey To Celestis (2:09)
15. The Battle Begins (2:34)
16. Maternal Moment (2:20)
17. The Healing (1:24)
18. Morgan Le Fay (3:45)
19. Marrick’s Demise (3:05)
20. The Ark Of Truth (6:04)
21. See The Light (0:54)
22. Carter’s Cookies (2:19)
23. A New Adventure (0:47)

Released by: Free Clyde Music
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 58:13