{"id":788,"date":"2009-11-29T18:56:43","date_gmt":"2009-11-29T23:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/?p=788"},"modified":"2009-11-29T18:56:43","modified_gmt":"2009-11-29T23:56:43","slug":"music-review-indie-round-up-chris-schutz-easter-monkeys-putumayos-jazz-tom-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/?p=788","title":{"rendered":"Music Review: Indie Round-Up – Chris Schutz, Easter Monkeys, Putumayo’s Jazz<\/i>, Tom White"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Schutz + Tourists<\/a>, Gemini<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

There's a lot more to Chris Schutz's sound than the Radiohead-like thrumming bass and plaintive single-note guitar pinches of "White Lady," the opening track on his debut disc. Schutz's voice comes at you as if from a cave beneath your feet and somehow says "postmodern," but the simple fact that you're hearing a good song keeps you listening. Next comes "Spinning Wheel" with its fast pop pulse and organ-heavy wall of sound, clocking in at under 2 minutes 20 seconds, and the folky, vaguely tropical "Continental Drifter" which reads like a cross between the Drifters (title no accident?) and the Mamas and the Papas.<\/p>\n

Other songwriting styles and beats drift through the rest of the disc: a swirl of reggae-soul, south of the border trumpets, country-western swagger, a Squeeze-like jauntiness. Slightly muted, echoey production sweeps through everything, reflecting Schutz's use of analog equipment and his 60s-influenced aesthetic. The latter is evident in titles like "Tripping the Bit" and "So High" with its not one but two deceptively simple two-chord hooks alternating with chunky, Kinks-like surprise changes and completely unexpected sax solo.<\/p>\n

All tied together by Schutz's honeyed voice and the vintage sounds he and his band prefer, the disc closes with a contemplative acoustic number and a power ballad that sounds like Roy Orbison meeting the Beatles. Like many of the songs, they each bear an unexpected change or two. And that's what this excellent album – definitely one of the top pop debuts of the year – is all about: solid but dreamy pop that does much more than just float by.<\/p>\n

Easter Monkeys<\/a>, Splendor of Sorrow<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Easter Monkeys ravaged Cleveland in the early 1980s with drug-addled, slightly psychedelic punk rock. Their album Splendor of Sorrow<\/i> has been re-released, nicely remastered, and packaged with extras including live tracks and a concert DVD that will definitely please fans. Despite the bleary vocals and anything-goes sensibility, this foursome could play, and this is quite a fun listen if you're in the right mood: loose, goofy, unjaded. It may have helped, in my case, that I never heard of the band before and knew nothing about them except what's in the liner notes, which are themselves thirteen years old.<\/p>\n

I have been to several Cleveland rock clubs, though. Even played in a few. I've seen American Splendor<\/i>. And it does all make a stinky kind of sense. This rocking, jangling, funny music, of a type I don't normally listen to, has grown on me. Like mold in a damp underground club.<\/p>\n

Various Artists, Jazz Around the World<\/i> from Putumayo World Music<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Ahhhh… everything's OK. Feels like it anyway.<\/p>\n

Must be a Putumayo CD in the stereo.<\/p>\n

This time around it's Jazz Around the World<\/i>, featuring artists from all over (but especially Africa and Europe) performing or at least touching on America's classical music: jazz. Appropriately enough it starts out with Montreal's Chantal Chamberland singing "La Mer" in the original French, her husky alto preparing us for a journey through worlds of cool. Flecks of neo-soul dot the almost disturbingly unthreatening vocal and guitar stylings of Cameroon's Blick Bassy. Djelli Moussa Diawara, who hails from Guinea, applies his kora<\/i> skills to a Cuban tune as part of the Kora Jazz Trio. Mexico-based group Sherele jazzes up traditional klezmer. Artists better known in the West are represented too: Hugh Masekela teams with singer Malaika and a South African chorus for "Open the Door," which crosses gospel with Afropop. (It's a bit of a stretch to call this particular number "jazz.") And fusion legend Billy Cobham appears with the Cuban group Asere.<\/p>\n

Putumayo discs are always likable and almost always relaxing; but some of the choices on this one feel, if anything, excessively safe. Nonetheless it's certainly a pleasant listen and would make a fine stocking stuffer for most world music or jazz fans.<\/p>\n

Tom White, Voices from Corn Mountain<\/i> – Instrumental Music Featuring the Hammered Dulcimer<\/b><\/p>\n

While Putumayo travels the world in search of music that's both exotic and pleasant to Western ears, your intrepid reviewer has to drive only a few hours north of New York City to work with producer, recording engineer, and multi-instrumentalist Tom White, who kindly gave me a copy of his recent CD. The disc is loaded with instrumental pieces featuring the hammered dulcimer, one of the many instruments of which he is a master. (Tom also plays guitar, fiddle, mandolin, tin whistle, flutes, two different banjos, concertina, and percussion, and that's just on this one CD.) The tunes are a mix of traditional Celtic dances and originals. Email Tom at wizmak at a-oh-ell dot com for information on ordering a copy of this beautiful and unusual recording.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Schutz’s CD is one of the top pop debuts of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[30,15,31,32,33,34,35],"class_list":["post-788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-dulcimer","tag-folk","tag-hammered-dulcimer","tag-jazz","tag-pop","tag-punk","tag-punk-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=788"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":789,"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}