Music
New releases: Arctic Monkeys, Jane Bunnett and more
j.d. considine, robert everett-green, elissa poole AND brad wheeler
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published
Last updated
Also: Tedeschi Trucks Band, Mark Fewer and John Novacek
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ROCK
Suck It and See
Arctic Monkeys (Domino)
3 stars
“Run with scissors through a chip pan firefight!” sings Alex Turner, undercutting a sinister-sounding instrumental with a typically larky invitation to kick out the jams. On their well-tooled fourth studio album, the biggest new band of 2006 crush on several kinds of vintage rock, from the ducktail habanera All My Own Stunts, to the junior Zeppelinism of Brick By Brick, a call-and-response grinder that gets even darker in its slow middle section. But the Sheffield quartet has no patience with the posturing that often goes with such manoeuvres. Turner’s clever lyrics so often prick the balloon, that when he does seem to be calling it straight (“she’s what the night does to the day”), it sounds halfhearted. Love Is a Laserquest drapes a tweener title over a song that muses on slippered old age, and sounds like a natural for acoustic arrangement – but that would be naff, so the Monkeys up the metallic resonance of their electric guitars. Better safe than sorry.
Robert Everett-Green
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JAZZ
Cuban Rhapsody
Jane Bunnett & Hilario Duran (Alma)
4 STARS
Some albums are aimed at connoisseurs, with subtleties only an expert could appreciate; others are meant for the masses, with an appeal so obvious anyone with ears can hear it. Cuban Rhapsody is that rare recording that manages to be both. A collection of classic Cuban tunes, it finds pianist Duran and flautist/soprano saxophonist Bunnett performing with the sort of finesse and authority you’d expect from two musicians who’ve spent decades studying Cuba’s musical traditions. But along with that insight comes a joy and vitality that makes the dance element of these songs immediately infectious, and the melodic content utterly irresistible.
J.D. Considine
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SOUL/ROCK
Revelator
Tedeschi Trucks Band (Sony)
3 stars
Halfway through their strong first album together, the married couple Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks might have come to a realization – something like “we never get out and doing anything any more.” The album’s first part is southern rock ’n’ soul, its sound as rich as a bingo-yelling Bill Gates. But it’s a comfort zone for Tedeschi’s honey-and-husk soul voice (of which she has such stunning command) and Truck’s talkative slide guitar. But then they leave the house, and the party becomes much more than two: a harmony vocal is added to the Leslie-speaker-loving Ball and Chain; a sarode introduces These Walls. The 11-piece soul-chestra is employed freakier and funkier, as witnessed by the self-apparent Love Has Something Else to Say. Glad to hear it.
Brad Wheeler
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CLASSICAL
George Antheil: Sonatas for Violin and Piano
Mark Fewer, violin; John Novacek, piano (Azica)
3 stars
George Antheil was the ultimate self-promoter, even planning to stage his own death (eaten by lions!) to garner publicity for a new composition. He called himself music’s “bad boy,” though he was but one of many in 1920s ultramodernist circles, and he was a consummate copycat: Satie, Bartok, Stravinsky, Ives, Cowell, Tin Pan Alley and even Prokofiev and Shostakovich (in a neo-conservative turn in the 1940s) show up here like quick stops on an express train. Strong performances from Mark Fewer and John Novacek encourage us to take Antheil’s self-conscious novelty, nose-thumbing irony, virtuosic effects and whimsy more seriously than we might. Fewer is also the first to record Antheil’s (unfinished) solo violin sonata, which lay forgotten in the papers of its dedicatee, violinist (and Ezra Pound’s mistress) Olga Rudge.
Elissa Poole
