CDs of the week

22.05.09

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Pop

Iggy Pop
Préliminaires (EMI)
***

Welcome to the new dawn of Iggy Pop, where the sun is rising on a world of mellow musings on such topics as the way life always seems to end in death, and the ineluctable goodness of dogs.

It has been revealed that Iggy's musical volte face was triggered by reading a novel by Michel Houellebecq, the French author who deals in sex and death. Iggy has thus turned away from “idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music” and relocated his muse in New Orleans and French bars, where sex and death famously achieved musical consummation.

You can almost smell the Gitanes as Iggy gamely tackles the old Gallic standard Les Feuilles Mort — which begins and ends the album — in the low growl that he considers appropriate for maudlin ballads. He returns to this formula on How Insensitive, another standard with bossa nova implications that takes perverse pleasure in the misery of the human condition. Elsewhere, though, the old beast is not in such deep disguise. Nice to Be Dead is classic Iggy, wrecked and feisty, while Party Time revisits familiar territory with its droll acknowledgment of a life ill-spent.

King of the Dogs and A Machine for Loving are the dog songs, the first a New Orleans romp, the second a spoken-word meditation on one man's love of canines even though they keep dying on him. Préliminaires (French, daringly enough, for foreplay) is a noble attempt at reinvention, but one gets the impression that when Iggy gets around to full intercourse, the idiot thugs will come out to play once again.
Pete Clark

Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (V2)
****

French band Phoenix have never matched the popularity of their pals Air and Daft Punk despite three fine albums of melodic guitar pop to date. Their fourth zooms out of the speakers with a confidence that belies their lack of status, opening with a hat-trick of perfect summer sundaes in Lisztomania, Fences and buzzy synthpop standout 1901. Then they lose it somewhat in an attempt to prove they've got more to offer than catchiness, with dull two-parter Love Like a Sunset. But that's followed by five more marvellous tunes, light of touch and fast to the finish. Probably their strongest collection to date, star status could be theirs yet.
David Smyth

Gary Go
Gary Go (Decca)
***

Gary Baker's silly nom-de-disque seems in danger of derailing his career before it's left the station. However, the Wembley-born son of a Muppets producer begins his debut album with the question “Whatever happened to truth?” and takes himself more seriously from there. He specialises in grandstanding soul-baring, song-titles such as Honest and Speak and Wonderful, and such massive, luxurious, kitchen-sink productions that you suspect nobody's told him about the recession, let alone that the music industry might be having one. Engines and Black and White Days show he's not afraid of a pop hook but by the end you just wish he'd lighten up a little.
John Aizlewood

Grizzly Bear
Veckatimest (Warp)
****

Grizzly Bear are one of those bands much beloved of music journalists. The Brooklyn quartet have an enigmatic quality — the LP's title is the name of an uninhabited island off Cape Cod — and deal in the kind of dreamy pop music that is evidently brainy in its arrangements, earnest, slightly off-kilter, and not about to sell itself cheaply. Having said that, Veckatimest is well worth an investment of your time. Without wishing to demean them with influences, there is much here in the vocal department which is reminiscent of the Beach Boys, while the tone is not dissimilar to the Fleet Foxes. But Grizzly Bear are their own creature and their songs' haunting beauty will make you lovesick.
Pete Clark

Dub Pistols
Rum & Coke (Sunday Best)
****

After supporting their distant predecessors The Specials on their comeback shows, west London group Dub Pistols are ending the month with the release of their most commercial album to date. Their fourth offering includes a musical cameo from reggae legend Gregory Isaacs, whose tender vocal on Six Months provides one of the album's highlights. Others include the horn-led reggae of Revitalise, salsa-charged groove of She Moves and gritty urban commentary of Peace of Mind. The strong smell of marijuana wafts through several of the album's tracks — and not just the one entitled Ganja — but it's the sun-kissed soul of closer Song for Summer that really leaves you on a high.
Rick Pearson

Jazz

Joe Lovano
Folk Art (Blue Note)
****

Distinctive among major saxophonists, Joe Lovano has a furry, welcoming sound and an almost conversational way of swinging. His ideas can sting, but mostly they float like a butterfly, Muhammad Ali-like, while the rhythm section powers along beneath. His latest effort features dream-like ballads and such tuneful originals as the title track, a transposing seven-note line, and Dibango, a tribute to Cameroon's sax master, Manu. Switching occasionally from tenor to alto, sax or clarinet, Lovano uses two percussionists, Otis Brown and Francisco Mela, plus pianist James Weidman and new double-bass dazzler, Esperanza Spalding. Senorita S doesn't sing here, but might do when the group hits Ronnie Scott's.
Jack Massarik

World

Kronos Quartet
Floodplain (Nonesuch)
*****

Kronos might be a classical string quartet, but there are few bands so in tune with the sounds of the world. This album is a response, from the San Francisco-based musicians, to eight years of George W Bush. The music is mainly from the Middle East and the title of the Iraqi love song, Oh Mother the Handsome Man Tortures Me, is clearly ambiguous. More important, the music is vivid and powerful. It opens with an Egyptian tango and ranges through music from Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and beyond. The centrepiece is a live recording from a Ramadan Nights concert at the Barbican of a transcendental song with the great Azeri singer Alim Qasimov. It's music that grabs by the throat and doesn't let go.
Simon Broughton

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