Gothic Archies - Tragic Treasury: Songs From A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Magnetic Fields mastermind Stephin Merritt dons his Gothic Archies guise for the second time (the first being 1997's The New Despair EP) on this 2006 collection of wonderfully woeful songs, which serves as a companion piece to the witty and morose 13-book Series Of Unfortunate Events by author Lemony Snicket (a.k.a. Daniel Handler, who plays accordion here). With the exception of two bonus tracks, each tune focuses on a specific installment of the tale, beginning with the delightfully downbeat "Scream & Run Away," in which the deep-voiced Merritt introduces the villainous Count Olaf character. For fans of both Merritt's inventive indie-pop and the Snicket books, The Tragic Treasury will be a welcome dose of musical misery.

Japan - Adolescent Sex

In 1977, the German label Hansa held a contest that elicited entries from over 1000 bands. The eight winners, including Japan (and an unknown group called the Easy Cure who later became the Cure) received recording contracts and, a year later, Adolescent Sex hit the shops. Perhaps because of its glamrock-esque cover art (this at the height of the first wave of English punk rock), it was largely ignored.

The band's vocalist David Sylvian is legendarily unhappy with the record, and it is possible to guess why: it contains some fairly misguided lyrics--especially on "Wish You Were Black." The album probably seemed pretty edgy and hip at the time, however, complete with its truly odd version of a Barbara Streisand standard, "Don't Rain on My Parade," complete with "ooo-eee-ooo" backing vocals. The record does contain at least two lasting classics: the title track, with its growling "Just keep on dancing" lyric, brittle guitar shards, and punchy rhythm section, and "Communist China," featuring several of Sylvian's early vocal experiments. However, as with all of Japan's albums, the unsung star is Mick Karn's stunningly versatile bass playing, and that is more than enough reason to disagree with Sylvian.

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DJ Shadow - Endtroducing

Though the sleeve notes of DJ Shadow's exhilarating long-playing debut speak of his devotion to "vinyl culture" and "sample-based music" (a guide of which is contained within), it's all just double-speak for hip-hop. Undoubtedly, this is the musical culture that lit up the life of young Cali-boy Josh Davis, inspiring him to construct these vocal-less, found-sound collages. Not the hip-hop that a dime-a-dozen MCs have turned into a cartoonish, excess-filled formula, but the hip-hop of such sonic anarchist producers as Afrika Bambaataa and The Bomb Squad. To put it mildly, DJ Shadow sides with the dope beats, not the bland blah-blah-blah.

Shadow's skills with a drum machine power Endtroducing... as much as his innovative def-ness with a sampler--which says a lot for someone who's been called the Jimi Hendrix of sampling. The songs shift tempos in a blink, incorporating multiple time-signatures, and it's to Shadow's credit that he's as comfortable hinting at Elvin Jones' or Dave Grohl's rhythmic attacks as he is citing old faithfuls like Clyde Stubblefield. His wide array of samples color the album's beat-heavy text. Ethereal horns, ambient keyboards, orchestral strings, vocoder vocals, whole film scenes--each is made a part of the sweeping focus, part of a grand postmodern design.

Brian Wilson - Smile

Between 1967 and 2004, the Smiles essions were pretty much the Dead Sea Scrolls of pop music. Well documented as head Beach Boy Brian Wilson's answer to the Beatles' masterpiece Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (which was itself largely an answer to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds), the tracks laid down in '67 for the projected SMILE album were the furthest afield anyone nominally operating under the pop/rock umbrella had ever ventured. Notoriously, intraband conflict (Mike Love, in particular, found the Wilson/Van Dyke Parks-penned conceptual work too far out) kept the record from being released. With several oceans' worth of water under the bridge, Wilson finally decided to finish the aborted project three-and-a-half decades later, adhering closely to the original blueprints. The results are as timelessly breathtaking as the original version must have been to the lucky few who first heard the initial tapes.

With sterling support from his backing band the Wondermints, Wilson meticulously pieced together the conceptual, orchestral puzzle of Smile into a rewarding, cohesive whole. Even decades down the line, it still sounds miles away from anything else in the world of popular music. A series of extended vignettes tied together with seamlessly arranged melodic latticework, Smile is a masterpiece that incorporates the influences of gospel, ancient hymns, Charles Ives-style avant-garde experimentalism, barbershop-quartet harmony, Stephen Foster, and more, in a churning cauldron of lush Americana. Strings, harpsichord, and a wide palette of orchestral percussion are just as important as drums and guitars, though traces of the PET SOUNDS sonic stew can be heard here as well. A triumph of the will for Wilson and a victory for art and humanity, Smile bears--among many other things--an extremely appropriate title.

Klaus Nomi - Simple Man

Coming off such a left-field debut, it was up in the air as to what Klaus Nomi would do for a follow-up. That second album was Simple Man, and if listeners were unsure if the first album was a put-on, this one certainly didn't do much to clear things up. While the album starts out promisingly with an atmospheric fade-in followed by a hard dance number with the occasional Birthday Party-style guitar thrown in, the rest of the album did its damnedest to move the album's overall tone to one of self-parody. Could one really think any differently listening to the hyper-sugary cover of "Just One Look," the faux-country disco number "Rubberband Lazer," or the version of "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead"? As with the debut album, Nomi's true capabilities are shown off by his versions of classical works -- in this case, "Death" (taken from Henry Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas") and "Return" (which is based on a choral number by John Dowland). The thing is, those pieces are right at the end of the album and the listeners who would enjoy them the most will probably already have been long shaken off by all of the kitsch leading up to it.

Gene - Olympian

Kicking off with the sprightly "Haunted by You," Olympian immediately conjures images of the Smiths, particularly "This Charming Man." Martin Rossiter's voice also sways like Morrissey, yet his band plays their songs as if they were hard rockers, bringing a desperate edge to their best material. Most of Olympian's finest moments were singles -- aside from "Haunted by You," the epic sweep of "Sleep Well Tonight" and the gentle urgency of the title track form the heart of the album; two other singles were added to the American version, including the stellar "Be My Light, Be My Guide." While Gene manages to carve out an identity indebted to the Smiths but not dominated by them, they also fail to produce an album of consistently compelling material -- considering that it's a debut album, that's not a fatal flaw. And Gene's best material shows they are capable of transcending their influences.

Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary

Produced primarily by Isaac Brock, Wolf Parade's full-length Sub Pop debut, Apologies To The Queen Mary, initially garnered attention because of the Canadian quartet's associations with Brock's revered group, Modest Mouse. However, given the potent indie-rock punch that this 2005 outing packs, Wolf Parade easily stands on its own merits, particularly since the band benefits from two gifted singer/songwriters, Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug. On these 12 tracks, Boeckner and Krug's ragged, plaintive vocals careen over fierce guitar riffs, rambunctious rhythms, and buzzing keyboard lines, as some songs bristle with restless energy and others slip into hauntingly melancholy moments. Accolades for Apologies started flying around months before the record's release, and Wolf Parade's bold, inventive performances here reveal exactly why the album warrants so much praise.

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