Wednesday, February 11, 1998
Soundbites
MUSIC:
Ani Difranco, "Little Plastic Castle" (Righteous Babe) With
every album release, Ani Difranco garners more and more press and
hype. With 1996’s release of "Dilate," she had become the press’
poster girl for feminist folk-punk. After last year’s "Living In
Clip" double live album, she became even more the accomplished,
cutting-edge indie songwriter and successful businesswoman.
Difranco must be surely excited about such stereotypes.
With the release of "Little Plastic Castle," her 10th studio
album, she reacts to those stereotypes, as well as delving into how
she sees humanity in a pleasantly unabrasive but deeply poetic
album. What’s refreshing about "Little Plastic Castle" is, despite
all her critical acclaim and endless attention, the pretentiousness
and complexity of artists of her caliber is absent. Difranco
doesn’t try to outdo herself or make a splash with some newly
engineered sound.
She does explore different musical avenues with her new album,
without compromising her signature sound. The irresistible title
track and first single adds a brass section to folk-like style,
without resorting to the ska-pop rhythms reigning on the charts
today. "Fuel" combines a tune with spoken word diatribes, as does
the 14-minute album closer, "Pulse." The danceable, enjoyable "Deep
Dish" (recorded in a bathroom) sounds straight from some ’60s
musical, complete with baritone guitar and horn section. And of
course, that familiar Ani sound is also present, preserved in the
lyrically biting "Gravel" (included in "Clip" last year).
Besides her musical talents and charming, earnest vocals,
Difranco shines with her introspective, attention-grabbing lyrics.
With this album though, she doesn’t just sing about troubled
relationships and being "different." She explores the issues of
fame and people pigeonholing her as a certain persona or
spokesperson.
In the title track, she complains that "people talk/ about my
image/ like I come in two dimensions/ like lipstick is a sign of my
declining mind/ like what I happen to be wearing …/ is my new
statement for all of womankind," with such a secure self-awareness
and yet remains somewhat defiant of being the "superwoman" people
want her to be. "Pixie" responds to the angry, punk-chick
stereotype created for her and instead turns it onto the masses who
roam about the streets with a chip on their shoulders ("I’m the
color me happy girl/ miss live and let live/ and when they’re out
for blood/ I always give").
The truth is that we’ll never know Ani Difranco like she knows
herself. With "Plastic Little Castle," she proves to be
knowledgeable and honest on the subject of herself and manages to
do it with pleasing melodies that destroy any preconceived notions
of her being above anyone else. Mike Prevatt A
Various Artists "Zero Effect: Music from the Motion Picture"
(Work/Sony) The consequences of successful soundtracks are the
unfortunate offspring they spawn as a result of company men trying
to make an extra buck. For every Pulp Fiction, there are about 10
"Zero Effects."
Good soundtracks usually allow for each song to feed off of one
another to produce a unifying affect upon the listener. The only
unifying trait that "Zero Effect" dispenses upon the listener is
the image of music supervisors pouring over selections and choosing
the greatest hits from material obtained at the Rhino Records
parking lot sale.
Among the ho-hum selections in "Zero Effect" are Heatmiser’s
"Rest My Head Against the Wall" and Brendan Benson’s "Emma J,"
songs which could cure any number of insomniacs. Even worse is
Esthero’s "Lounge," which sounds like a bad mixture of Gloria
Estefan and Sheryl Crow. In addition to this already mundane album
are three instrumental tracks by the Greyboy Allstars, who also
happened to compose the film’s music. To give you a notion of what
they sound like, just think about the bar band that everyone’s
uncle is involved with.
The few highlights off of "Zero Effect" include the
ever-reliable Nick Cave with his sultry vocals on "Into My Arms,"
the Candy Butchers’ surprisingly catchy "Till You Die" and
alt-rock’s It-Girl of moment, Mary Lou Lord. Her "Some Jingle
Jangle Morning," serves as great infusion of crunchy guitars and
Lord’s wispy voice.
If "Zero Effect" can be applauded for anything, it would be for
its decision to buck the trend of most soundtracks today, which is
to pair a couple of hot electronica acts together with the ska song
of the moment, and include the obligatory Ani Difranco song for the
added hip quotient (Difranco is incidentally listed as producer for
a track by Dan Bern). Other than this, you can basically stick
"Zero Effect" into the ever-growing fraternity of albums being
thrown into the infinite sea of soundtrack nothing. Tristan Thai
D
Air, "Moon Safari" (Source/Caroline) Ever have one of those
rainy-day feelings where all you want to do is veg out on late
night movies, your eyes glued to the gait of a brown, lounge-suit
swathed, side-burn sporting man wearing a pair of gold rimmed
sunglasses? Well, pop in Air’s "Moon Safari" and it might as well
be 1975. Their extensive keyboard jams with sci-fi sound effects
and mellow French accented voices mesh into a giant playground for
mind zoning. Sometimes, like on "Sexy Boy," a dark whirling guitar
drone grounds the astral tune, though most floaty pieces seem to
fly away into the air.
The majority of the songs work well with the contrasting French
and English lyrics to provide a sort of calming effect, working
their way unobtrusively into your psyche. Yet, the lilting melodies
and shifting swirls of multi-instrumentalized pieces seem to go
beyond the world of language all together. Using a mixture of
tools, from the clarinet to the glockenspiel, the spacey band makes
you feel like you just fell into the foreign terrain of the cartoon
wonder, "The Last Unicorn." Even the sappy, all-English love song,
"You Make It Easy," has a strange cosmic aura to it which shifts it
from being a standard soft rock hit into a jarring, off balanced
"Last Tango in Paris" kind of a serenade. The words, "You leave me
laughing without crying / There’s no use denying / For many times
I’ve tried / Love has never felt as good" stick under your skin and
make you think that maybe this Valentine’s Day will hold something
different. Vanessa VanderZanden A