(Ehr Daily (Ear Brrl
Minus Mimics Wilco; Serveert Pure Pop
Minus 5
Down With Wilco
As if becoming the unofficial fourth
member of R.E.M. wasn’t enough.
Seattle’s Scott McCaughey, leader of
the long-running Young Fresh Fellows,
joins the Athens rock godfathers in the
studio and on tour. He also manages to
keep a steady side project, the loose-knit
Minus 5, which teams him with R.E.M.
guitarist Peter Buck and the Posies’ Ken
Stringfellow.
But McCaughey has really robbed the
rock gold mine this time. For his latest
Minus 5 release, McCaughey recruited
alt-rock kings Wilco to sit in and play at
being a backing band. The album, fea
tunng Wilco’sjeff Tweedy and company,
is appropriately titled Down With Wilco.
The situation is amusing, something like
when The Band backed Dylan in the
mid-’6os, but only if Dylan was some
how inferior to his supporters.
Though sharp in spurts and catchy in
a few stretches, Down With Wilco is no
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Not that it aspires to
be, but the participation of the now-gild
ed band attracts greater expectation -
more than the next release of the side
project of an indie-rock elder statesman
should otherwise attract.
Wilco provides superb support, sup
plying everything from bubbly power
pop tc retro-’6os honey-soaked rockers.
There’s a candy playfulness to its back
ing here, trading in its cool art sound for
some of the man-child giddiness of
McCaughey’s cutesy rock experiments.
McCaughey couldn’t ask for a better
backdrop. Conversely, Wilco the back
ing band deserves better songwriting
from its captain. McCaughey’s songs
largely aren’t up to scratch - not even
up to the catchy standards of his two
previous Minus 5 and Young Fresh
Fellows albums. The melodies are con
fused and cluttered, and the lyrics strug
gle for a too-showy, clever hook.
Down With Wilco lacks any real con
sistency. For every excellent “Where
Will You Go?” there’s pitiful filler like
Llinillia
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“Daggers Drawn.” For every glowing
“Retrieval of You,” there’re two point
less and trying numbers like “That’s Not
the Way It’s Done.”
It doesn’t help that McCaughey’s
voice simply isn’t interesting. His flat
Beach Boys croon quickly wears out its
welcome, and its robotic consistency
begins to grate on one’s ears.
Calling this incarnation of the Minus
5 a super-group implies that it’s a col
lection of renowned talent - which it is
-but also that it’s a successful merger -
which it’s not.
McCaughey and Wilco are both
capable of far better.
If Down With Wilco proves anything,
it’s that such strong talents ought to stick
to their own comers. More is less.
By Brian Millikin
Bettie Serveert
Log 22
Holland’s Bettie Serveert first gained
recognition in 1992, when its album
Palomine became an indie rock classic.
That level of success soon disappeared,
and the band settled into the role of cult
artist over the remainder of the decade.
If the group is ever to return to main
stream prominence, its new album
should be the one that does it. It would
certainly be well-deserved.
Log 22 is the best kind of pop record,
one that sounds instandy familiar but
evolves into something more distinctive.
Lead singer and principal songwriter
Carol Van Dyk is the best weapon in the
band’s arsenal. Her vocal delivery recalls
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DIVERSIONS
everybody from Gwen Stefani to Bob
Dylan but is ultimately unique unto itself.
She can utterly hypnotize you with a
ballad like “Captain of Maybe” but can
also tear into such a song as the incisive
“Not Coming Down.”
Aside from Van Dyk, what makes
Bettie Serveert so appealing is how it
manages to create seemingly simple pop
songs that are really expertly crafted.
Listen to how the album’s best track,
“De Diva,” begins gently, adds instru
ments slowly, builds momentum until it
reaches its transcendent chorus then
launches into a stinging guitar solo by
Peter Visser.
At a playing time of over 60 minutes,
it’s close to an embarrassment of riches.
Asa result, the album eventually
loses steam toward the end. This is par
ticularly evident in the 8-minute “White
Dogs,” an apparent homage to the
band’s primary inspiration, The Velvet
Underground, which is even thanked in
the liner notes.
Unfortunately, the song is too mean
dering to justify its length and will likely
lose the listener.
Despite a couple of minor missteps
that better editing could have fixed eas
ily, the band recovers admirably, finish
ing on a high note with the irresistibly
trippy disco of “The Love-In.”
There is an unfortunate stigma
attached to music produced by foreign
based pop bands - that most of it is too
weird and inaccessible to enjoy.
The truth is, Log 22 is some of the best
pop music you’re likely to hear all year.
By Michael Pucci
Experienced Singer/Songwriter
Continues With Discord, Talent
By Michelle Jarboe
Staff Writer
Ani DiFranco seems to have traded
in her romance with liberal thought in
favor of a love affair with dissonance.
Evolve, DiFranco’s 14th LP, overflows
with incongruent tones that paradoxical
ly attract rather than repel the ear. And
,— -^YaiburrY*,
/cey/ews)
Ani DiFranco
Evolve
★★★★☆
these tonalities are
what bind together
elements of funk,
folk, jazz, country
and Latin music
into an eclectic
evolution of style.
The aptly titled album evokes com
parisons to DiFranco’s career, which
began with her 1989 self-titled LP fea
turing her voice and her guitar and has
led to an elaborately produced con
glomeration of instruments and styles.
But the artist who has developed her
compositions dramatically retains the
driving element of all her albums -
powerful poetry.
Over the slighdy jarring chords of
“Serpentine” and “Icarus,” DiFranco’s
voice prevails, dictating the movement
of the music through its rhythm and
diversity. From singing to pseudo-rap
ping, and most often somewhere in
between, DiFranco carries the album
with her words.
And this is nowhere more evident
than on “Serpentine," a 10-minute med
itation on self, country, politics, music
and the media. Instead of becoming a
repetitive tirade, the lengthy song is dis
tinguished by the rhythmic presentation
that highlights each line and drives
every point.
DiFranco uses her voice as an instru
ment to compliment and balance her
music. Guitars,
piano, saxophones,
percussion and other
instruments are allied
into the melodies of
“Promised Land”
and “Slide” as the
vocals travel from
husky to full, from
harsh to soothing.
Laugh-infused
vocal gyrations
make it impossible
to sit silently and lis
ten to the jazzy
y.
SQQBqO
notes of “In the Way” and “Here for
Now.” And DiFranco’s range of abilities
is showcased by the contrast of revealing
tunes such as the building, melancholy
beauty of “Icarus,” one of the album’s
most impressive lyrical and musical
masterpieces.
The notes often don’t instandy fit
together but are resolved into exotic
chords that eventually find segues into
harmony. Similarly, vocal and musical
Thursday, March 6, 2003
contortions are always balanced by sim
pler, calmer moments, few and far
between though they may be.
“Phase” takes a less elaborate approach
than many of the other tracks. Its unpol
ished guitar work is similar to that of Little
Plastic Castl/s “Two Little Girls.”
But the gendest point of DiFranco’s
evolution is the closing “Welcome To:,” a
song previously
released on 2002’s
So Much Shouting, So
Much Laughter. The
musical hills and
valleys of this finale
knit raw emotion
and polish in an
appropriately final
catharsis that leaves
nothing to be
desired.
The path of
Evolve is connected
to DiFranco’s previ-
ous albums yet departs into its own world
of incongruence and rhythm unparal
leled by much of her recent work.
But that’s not surprising coming from
the nonstop singer/songwriter, who suc
cincdy explains herself through the
lyrics of the album’s tide track:
“I’m just trying to evolve.”
The Arts & Entertainment Editor can
be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.
7