A.C. Newman - The Slow Wonder

A.C. Newman - The Slow Wonder

Labeling musicians as "pop" acts is one of those sick jokes music journalists love to play. "Pop" of course is short for "popular," but the term often carries a sarcastic edge. Sure, the New Pornographers play pop music, but when even chanteuse (and Tucson local) Neko Case is in her mid-30's, the calls from MTV are few and far-between. And VH1 may not be that far in the offing.

Fellow Pornographer Carl (A.C.) Newman falls prey to the same conundrum. Newman writes songs that stay lodged in your aural circuitry for days, but you'll never hear him on any radio station, unless it's one operating out of a van in the middle of the desert. Which is not to say the songs on his solo debut The Slow Wonder have so little in common with anything the kids are listening to these days. The issue is marketability.

Newman's somewhat sub-Kutcher looks aside, a song like album-opener "Miracle Drug" is rife with the kind of hooks that make the New Pornographers unstoppable as a party band that outgrew the party. What separates this album from Newman's work with the New Pornographers is the absence of co-writer Dan Bejar. Bejar's oddness as a songwriter (as evidenced by his "other" band, Destroyer) lent a bizarre, sometimes (dare I say it?) psychedelic tinge.

Without Bejar's influence songs like "On the Table" and "Better Than Most" reveal a certain somber and sober quality to Newman's music. Especially on the latter song, the line "Better than most/I'm feeling your pain" betrays an almost pained side to his vocals.

In fact, it is almost definitely the strange timbre of Newman's voice that lends these songs such a distinctive edge. His singing is unaffected. Even when he shouts angrily, as on "The Town Halo," there is a modicum of calm in his singing. While I'd like to ascribe this pervasive calmness simply to Newman's Canadian upbringing, there is also something darker behind it.

Maybe it's me, but I've always been disturbed by those unperturbable types, the ones who never crack a smile or frown over anything. They remind me of Christopher Walken. As good-natured as Newman seems with the New Pornographers and on-stage and in interviews and in second-hand accounts from pretty much everybody I've ever talked to who has ever met him, I can't help but feel just a little disturbed by his voice. Maybe it's me.

- Mark Sussman

Black Dice - Creature Comforts

Black Dice - Creature Comforts

The new release by Black Dice is a reverse evolutionary coup. Creature Comforts is full of the customary whines, twitters and buzzes made familiar by any number of electro-noise outfits but with an opaque organic component. The critters we descended from have learned how to program.

The synthesized sounds on the record don't conjure up icy soundscapes. Rather, what Black Dice has recorded sounds like a flit through a dank primordial jungle. The sounds are predominantly electronic yet they imitate the far-off howls and snarls of animals in their natural state.

A distant and mournful wail underpins the jittery major-key guitar muddle of "Skeleton" before dissolving into a blissed-out swaddle of notes. The track's movement from eerie animalism to sublime warmth exhibits Black Dice's range. On "Creatures," what sounds like a snorting pig is laid against a foreboding tom-tom rhythm. Creature Comforts is the meeting point of unforgiving animalism and the latest in electronic avant-noise.

- Mark Sussman

!!! - Louden Up Now

!!! -

!!!'s (pronounced "chk, chk, chk") Louden Up Now consists of a bunch of dance numbers that aren't very fun to listen to unless you're dancing, but are too weird to get massive numbers of people dancing at a party.

If you're into dancing at home by yourself, this record may be for you. But you should probably order it online and save the trouble of finding it at the record shop (you'd think it would be before the 'A''s, but it's not).

Riding the success of the single "Me and Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard," !!! came up with ten dance-punk tracks. Unfortunately, none of them are as strong as "Giuliani." The group is lyrically challenged from the first track, quipping, "How's this for opening lines? We'd like to blow your minds" on "(When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get) Karazee."

I'm pretty sure this whole album is supposed to be ironic and quirky, but I find myself asking if it really is or if it's a gimmicky load of crap. If these guys are still big in a year, maybe we'll know the answer.

- Nate Buchik