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Written by Jon Nolan
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Wednesday, 11 October 2006 |
Though you shouldn’t judge a book, or a CD, by its cover, the packaging on the eponymous release from the Allston, Mass., based Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys gives fair warning to those who would enter their musical world. A heavily mascara painted doll head stares out from the CD case. Its face is nearly obscured by a bunch of feathers, a rose, a brass key (glued to its forehead) and most noticeably, a squid. Yikes. Sickert’s maniacal vocals cut through the mayhem of “The Negative Hearts Society,” a song with an almost Middle Eastern or tribal rhythm. “You left my heart in pieces,” Sickert wails on the track. Even the dreamy ambient numbers like “Sacrilege” dip into more nightmarish territory as Sickert’s vocals, which are nearly always distorted, ebb and flow under the beauty. Ham radio static, reverb drenched piano, sinister synth line and Sickert’s sidekick Edrie’s creepy vocals make for a kind of Nine-Inch-Nails-does-Goth folk ride.
Almost Now plays the kind of pop rock with big guitars that ruled the airwaves in the mid 1990s. The smart, economical and punchy arrangements bring to mind Better Than Ezra. Bassist Eric Joniec also plays keyboards and percussion, in addition to having recorded, mixed, mastered and produced the band’s third CD, “The Wreckage.” The record sounds totally professional, and it’s a testament to the new reality for independent musicians—you don’t have to go to a real studio to get your point across. Kudos to Joniec for wearing so many hats well. Bryan Kelly’s guitar churns along with Joniec’s picked bass on “Green Daze” and “Define Me,” two of the album’s harder rocking tunes, but chimes on the album’s one-two lead-off punch of “This Place” and “Sorrow.” Matt Behnken’s drumming is tight and spot-on throughout.
Nicky Click’s recent CD “You’re Already A Member” comes up as “unclassifiable” in the genre field of the iTunes program. Synth beats and claps, dance rhythms, talk-rapping (à la Sheila E. in Krush Groove) and a femme lesbian agenda make for an interesting listen for sure, if unclassifiable. “Are those girls fucking and mating/ or are they two best friends out skating,” she rap/sings on “Femme Girls,” a song suggesting that people reconsider their preconceived notions of what lesbians should look like. Regardless of the political bent, the album is totally fun and clearly doesn’t take itself seriously. Irony abounds, including the hilarious cover art, which features Nicky in a early ’80s style leotard (probably stolen from Jane Fonda). “You Make Me Smile” (featuring ScreamClub) finds Click in more of a classic hip-hop framework with the irony dialed back a bit, but most tracks feature Click rapping, singing and talk/singing about loving gals and wanting to love gals over amusing and groovy Casio tones and old-school dance beats. What a blast.
Horchata’s latest, “Krystalios,” is great headphone music. Mike Palace, the man who is Horchata, creates a gorgeous and lush digital landscape full of interesting and musical beeps, clicks and zaps that zoom back and forth across the headphones like bees in a frenzy. “Hoar” is prime soundtrack fodder. A soft, ghostly bed of synth plays as subtle digital percussion ping pongs across the stereo image before more obvious metallic beats appear and lock the song into a hypnotic pocket. “Fern” continues with the rich ambient soundscapes and stereo image fun. “Sectored” seems like the kind of music that would signal your arrival into a previously undiscovered secret room in a fantasy video game. It’s a tension builder. “Needles” is the least sparse of the four tunes, and it features a more densely packed collage of beeping and clicking digital rhythms. The four songs are reinvented, too, with remixes from Palace on his own, with his 10010010 co-conspirator Rob Braswell and Hibernacula. It’s a dark and beautiful ride.
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