01.03.2008
Spins: Wu Tang Clan, Jesca Hoop, Davie Bowie
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Wu-Tang Clan
8 Diagrams
Label: Motown/Universal
If you like: Wu-Tang Clan
Song to download: “The Heart Gently Weeps” featuring Erykah Badu, Dhani Harrison and John Frusciante
3 stars (out of four)
The spirit of rapper Old Dirty Bastard is strongly felt throughout Wu-Tang Clan’s latest release, 8 Diagrams. Even the title is a reference to the group’s loss, now that the nine-member group is cut to eight after Old Dirty Bastard died of a drug overdose in 2004.
As a result, grief envelops almost every track.
But Wu-Tang Clan never set out to make happy music. Ever since its 1993 debut, Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers, the hip-hop group has flitted between the concrete-bound hell of its surroundings and the transcendent mysticism of Eastern religion. And in the process, the group forever changed the sound of hip-hop, walking the thin line between righteousness and thuggery, ministers of its own sometimes obscure brand of gospel.
The RZA brings his trademark somber tracks full of hard beats and trippy orchestrations mixed in with snippets of old kung-fu movies. Sometimes, the concoction works beautifully, as on the haunting “The Heart Gently Weeps,” a hypnotic track marked by the sweet strumming of guitars on top of a slow beat. The standout verse belongs to Ghostface Killah, who weaves a tale sad and funny, all at the same time.
Gerald Alston’s old-school sounding voice carries “Stick Me For My Riches,” an almost bluesy number that only the Wu-Tang Clan could do. And the final cut, “Life Changes,” is a poignant tribute to Old Dirty Bastard, with members offering poetic toasts to their comrade.
When the concoction doesn’t work, songs rush into one another, few distinctive enough to remember. The sound teeters on the edge of monotony, pulled from the brink only by the members’ irresistible thirst to tell their stories - and you can’t help but listen.
Jesca Hoop
Kismet
Label: Columbia/3 Entertainment/Red Ink
If you like: Sam Phillips, Fiona Apple
Song to download: “Money”
3 1/2 stars
Singer and songwriter Jesca Hoop once said that her musical goal was to “maximize (her) idiosyncrasies,” something she has done to bewitching effect on Kismet, her unusual but intoxicating debut album.
Hoop, who is from North California, worked for a time as a nanny for the children of Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan - a couple whose musical and theatrical sensibilities inform, to some degree, the oddly sonorous Kismet, with its plethora of unusual noises and abstract lyrics worth the challenge.
Hoop’s distinctive voice, often stacked into choirs, casts spells and is the centerpiece around which the instruments revolve. It transforms a musical ideology that incorporates everything from pop to gospel to old jazz into a tactile body of work in which each song is distinct, but somehow creates a magical whole that twirls around the senses like a whirligig.
The best part of this evocative musical circus is that it all sounds naturally unconventional, with nothing coming across as contrived - just a fresh smooch of eccentricity that turns individuality into hum-along magic.
David Bowie
David Bowie Box
Label: Sony
If you like: Musical chameleons
Song to download: Five discs of extras and remixes
2 1/2 stars
David Bowie’s 40-year career has been one of dazzlingly inventive peaks and failed experiments, all part of his chameleonic creative persona (or personas).
But periods of dizzying highs have often left entire periods of work underappreciated, as is the case with the five albums of relatively recent vintage - Excerpts From The Outside, Earthling, Heathen, Hours and Reality - now repackaged as the David Bowie Box. The albums marked a return to creative form after a shallow stretch. The music, which is good, moves from club fare to rock songs, but nothing is shackled to trend or fashion. Each album is accompanied by a second disc of demos and remixes of songs from each album. Completists will own these “rarities,” but it’s nice to have the flotsam and jetsam collected in mass. Still, the packaging is uninspired; the exclusion of the superb The Buddah Of Suburbia is a mystery, and the often tedious strings of remixes bring little to the plate of consequence for all but the most devout.
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