Friday, December 12th, 2008 ... noon - 3:00 p.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM

A pop-driven miscellany show, helping to fill air time during the holidays. Normally I like to play lots of everything with these kinds of shows, but I kind of coasted here; most of these sets could easily fit in my regular show.

The Lost Trio -- Plays the Solid Gold Hits! (Evander, 2008)

The Lost Trio, July 2008,
at Bluesix, San Francisco

It's been about 13 years now that The Lost Trio has been playing together, crafting a deceptively accessible sound that leaves plenty of room for jazzy creativity.

The band, with Phillip Greenlief on sax, Dan Seamans on bass, and Tom Hassett on drums, has made unusual covers its trademark. Yes, you get Thelonious Monk songs and other standards, but their sets also include Hank Williams, Radiohead, Bjork, the Grateful Dead, and even the Beatles.

I normally don't like jazz covers of rock songs. It's possible to stay too slavish to the melody, in a way that hits my ears like muzak. I've accused The Bad Plus of this, even with the layers of glorious bluster and chaos they pile on. (Concession: Their cover of "Iron Man" is pretty damn funny.)

The Lost Trio handles melody with more finesse, and with light drum strokes by Hassett, giving most tunes a jazz-standards feel that doesn't scream, "Look! Here's our hip rock cover!" And of course, it's always a pleasure to hear this kind of inside-out jazz, with an accessible front that's woven with adventurous details.

Their newest album, Plays the Solid Gold Hits!, mines pop territory: Radiohead, REM, Joni Mitchell. I'm not familiar with Juana Molina, but here "Misterio Uruguayo" is on here too. (A CD of hers is in rotation at KZSU now: "reminiscent of a low-key, latin Bjork," our reviewer says.)

When I saw The Lost Trio live, they were playing many of these tracks -- including one that Greelief prefaced by saying we'd all heard it, and we should all be able to guess what it was. I'm sorry to say I didn't get it. In the end, when they suddenly switched to a slow, swaying phrase, familiarity clicked in -- but I still couldn't place it as The Beatles' "Glass Onion." One of my favorite tracks off one of my favorite albums. I'm still very disappointed with myself.

Format:
ARTIST -- "TRACK TITLE" -- ALBUM TITLE (LABEL, YEAR)
Horizontal lines denote microphone breaks.

Brand X -- "Church of Hype" -- Trilogy (Buckyball, 2003; orig. released 1992)

* Mogwai -- "The Sun Smells Too Loud" -- The Hawk Is Howling (Matador, 2008)

* Alice Cohen -- "Floating Islands" -- Sky Flowers (Crinoline, 2008)

Previously noted here.

* Buena Vista Social Club -- "Orgullecida" -- At Carnegie Hall (Nonesuch, 2008)

This one's less Latin jazz and more a Hawaiian laid-back guitar song. A cool change of pace. The album is quite rollicking, as you'd imagine, and the Carnegie Hall audience gives the band huge applause for everything.

The Cucumbers -- "When I Think of You" -- Total Vegetility (Home Office, 1999)

An indie rock band that still sounds pretty darn good nine years later. Straightforward rock with signs of intelligence and none of the dated "alternative" sound of the '90s. Kids, wherever you are, you did good.

* Eric Chenaux -- "Love Don't Change" -- Sloppy Ground (Constellation, 2008)

Source: Constellation

Singer/songwriter stuff with some complex touches, like exotic banjos (5-string, electric tenor), a bit of accordiion, violin, and some sound experimentation. This track warbles and weaves at the opening, sounding almost like someone messed with the tapes (or is messing with your turntable, except you remember you aren't playing this on vinyl). Cute stuff.

Yellow Magic Orchestra -- "Day Tripper" -- x ∞ Multiplies (A&M, 1980)

Source: Amazon

I remember, as a kid, seeing this album in a store and being fascinated by it. I had no idea who these guys were or how one would even have heard enough about them to decide to buy the record. (This was long, long before my weird-music and college-radio phase kicked in.) Seeing it on the shelves here at KZSU, I had to finally give it a listen... and yep, it's the synthoid dance/rock madness that you'd expect from a 1979/1980 Ryuichi Sakamoto. There's bouncy synth beats, there's a vocodor vocal on one track -- it's like a tour through the electronic dance music of the day. I should have bought it back then, as an ear-opening experience, but I don't think I'd still be listening to it today.

* Cedric Burnside and Lightnin' Malcolm -- "Fightin'" -- 2 Man Wrecking Crew (Delta Groove, 2008)

In a probable hat-top to 2 Live Crew, the silkscreened CD has these two guys -- one white, one black, looking a bit rapper-like, or at least like wrestling fans. Inside, though, you've got some good hard electric Mississippi blues.

Lucien Dubuis Crossover Jazz -- "323" -- Sumo (Altri Suoni, 2001)

Earlier stuff, and closer to jazz, from the Swiss saxophonist I've been describing as punk/jazz. Still has those elements of funk and hard rhythm that makes Dubuis' stuff so compelling. For more on him, see here.

Gang of Four -- "Something 99" -- Shrink Wrapped (Castle, 1995)

* Carlos Giffoni -- "A Permanent Choice" -- Adult Life (No Fun, 2008)

Analog synth-sounding tricks, from evenhanded drones to slowly up-and-down pitch changes with a retro sci-fi sound.

-- 1:00 p.m. --

* Impiety -- "Introbliteration"/"Slaughterror Superiority" -- Dominator (Pulverized, 2008)

They're 18-year veterans of this thrash/death meatal stuff, and they're damn good at it -- the hammering guitar-and-drums attack is well and precisely executed. Big, scary stuff, but with that same shadow of, well, ridiculousness that follows all metal.

Hour of the Shipwreck -- "The Chandelier Suite" -- The Hour Is Upon Us (self-released, 2008)

Previously noted

here.

15 Degrees Below Zero -- "Catholic Hallway" -- New Travel (Edgetone, 2007)

Previously noted here.

Guillermo Gregorio -- "Coplanar 3" [excerpt] -- Coplanar (New World, 2005)

Modern classical compositions for varying small instrumental groups, from a name I'd been acquainted with as a Euro-jazzer. This one, for piano and strings, is deliciously sparse, but other pieces get more involved. This one didn't get its deserved share of love when it first arrived, and I've always felt I should be making up for that.

* Axton Kincaid -- "Let the World Go By" -- Silver Dollars (Free Dirt, 2008)

Country song with a nice beat and a devil-may-care attitude.

* Corralie Clement -- "C'est la Vie" -- V/A: Francophone Singles: December 2008 (Francophonie Diffusion, 2008)

From the album Toystore, a catchy pop tune in French, from a network that sends us collections of such songs every month.

* Holy Fuck -- "Riton Rerub" -- Lovely Allen (Young Turks, 2008)

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists -- "The High Party" -- Hearts of Oak (Lookout, 2003)

An fave track of mine, because it rocks out so well and because of the irresistable, catchy chorus.

Source: List.co.uk

* John Baker -- "Vendetta: The Ice Cream Man" -- The John Baker Tapes, Volume 1 (Trunk, 2008)

Baker was, apparently, a BBC in-house composer, and this album collects a lot of his incidental music for various TV shows. But it's more than just '60s/'70s cheesiness. This track was a nice find: It starts with ominus bad-guy chords, but later splits open into some crazy, bouncy free-jazz sax that doesn't sound dated at all. And it's only a minute and a half long! If the rest of Baker's work is like that, then no wonder someone wanted to preserve his music on CD.

* Wooden Shjips -- "Death's Not Your Friend" -- Vol. 1 (Holy Mountain, 2008)

Previously noted

here.

* The Lost Trio -- "Glass Onion" -- Plays the Solid Gold Hits! (Evander, 2008)

See above.

Al Stewart -- "The Immelman Turn" -- A Beach Full of Shells (Appleseed, 2005)

Previously noted here.

* Birdsongs of the Mesozoic -- "Brings Underwater" -- Dawn of the Cycads (Cuneiform, 2008; orig. released 1984)

Some old albums from this quasi-prog, quasi-classical group, collected on two CDs. Birdsongs is a good mix of complexity and elegance -- and they throw in a wacky version of the "Theme from Rocky and Bullwinkle" for good measure. That's a classic track, starting out all madcap and then downshifting into a slow-motion pace.

-- 2:00 p.m. --

* Chad Van Gaalen -- "Cries of the Dead" -- Soft Airplane (Sub Pop, 2008)

* Aruna Sairam -- "Tillana" -- Divine Inspiration (World Village, 2008)

Classical Indian music. Sairam is a vocalist with a theatrical flair, spicing up her singing with some swaggery inflections for an almost hip feel. This track, in particular, has a quick, direct beat and includes some cool vocal rhythms in half-spoken tones -- there's a dash of attitude in there that I like. You've also got the droney, 17-minute "Bandanodi," which taps the kind of space normally associated with classical music. There, Sairam gets into a couple of phases of repeated syllables, building hypnotic knots of sound.

* Grindlestone -- "Balsamic Fringe Decoy" -- One (Noh Poetry, 2008)

* B-Cups -- "Hide the Head" -- It Ain't Love (self-released, 2007)

KZSU faves, who played at the station at least once last year and get mentioned quite a bit by the rock DJs. It's an all-girl band that truly does rock out. This is a particularly morbid song about how the singer is going to get away with killing you by hiding your head somewhere. Party!

* Skamper -- "Sugarhate" -- Thunderbeast (Second Floor Noise, 2008)

* Silian Rail -- "Quaking Grass" -- And I To You, To Pieces (Thread, 2008)

* Susan Levine -- "February Rain" -- Atlas (River Wide, 2007)

Previously noted here.

* Phil Markowitz Trio -- "Breach" -- Catalysis (Sunnyside, 2008)

Straight jazz with some likeably twisty rhythms.

Normal Love -- "Ndugo" -- Normal Love (High Two, 2007)

Previously noted here.

Dr. Dog -- "The Dearly Departed" -- The Dearly Departed [7"]

Wow, someone listened to a lot of Beatles growing up. This one's a catchy, bouncy pop tune with Sgt. Pepper flowers all around it. It's got a horn section and everything. I love it!

The B-side, "Is It Worth My Time," is more of a Motown heartbreak song, with screaming passionate vocals and everything. Still very good, but a different kind of retro.

Laurie Anderson -- "One Beautiful Evening" -- Live at Town Hall, NYC, September 19-20, 2001 (Nonesuch, 2002)

An otherwise haunting show was turned even more haunting by its proximity to 9/11, in both time and place. There's a somber hush to a lot of these tracks, understandably so, and some lyrics about "freedom" that are particularly resonant given that, even just days later, it was clear that the Bush administration was seizing the opportunity to redefine the word. This track is more placid, a calm, warm spot.

Source: IcelandMusic.is

Skuli Sverrisson -- "Crash Frozen" -- Sermonie (Extreme, 1997)

Bassist Sverrisson, along with Jim Black, were in Laurie Anderson's band for that Town Hall concert. Separately, I needed some kind of transition to the rock world after the heaviness of the Anderson album. Sverrisson's solo album fit the bill. He plays in a variety of jazzy contexts -- Jim Black's Alas No Axis being a prime example -- but the few solo works I've heard from him have focused on electronics, with floating sounds cloaking a dark landscape. Sermonie is no exception, but it's also got this track, a crunchy, abrasive burst of sound.

Sverisson's thick six-stringed bass sound is a big component of Alas No Axis, and given that band's penchant for blurry guitar and bass sounds that phase together with Chris Speed's clarinet, the sound of Sverrisson's solo work isn't a particular surprise.

Danielle Howle and the Tantrums -- "She Has a Past" -- Do a Two Sable (Daemon, 1997)

* = Item in KZSU rotation
? = Item not in KZSU library

-- Go back to Memory Select playlists.
-- Bay Area free/improv music calendar: http://www.bayimproviser.com.