January 11, 1999
CitySearch Music  
by Shan Fowler, Jeremy Reed, and Curtis Waterbury
  Bio Ritmo
"Rumba Baby Rumba!"
(Triloka)

Orchestras are hip in pop music these days. From little big bands swinging through red velvet lounges, to string-accompanied crooners slow-burning for coffee-shop philosophers, to Cuban hornblowers scripting the soundtrack for liquid motion on sweaty summer nights—guitar virtuosos are out; tenth-grade band alumni are in.

Bio Ritmo members were the salsa-club players in high school. You can tell by the frenetic percussion of the dried-squash variety and the horn section that usually sounds like it's all trumpets. But that's where the basics end. By forgoing Spanish vocals on more than half the tracks, Bio Ritmo come off as both more relevant (if you must understand the lyrics) and less interesting (if you believe that part of salsa's charm is relishing the rolling r's and vocal bravado) than many current Latin-tinged acts.

The opening track, "Yo Soy La Rumba," employs Spanish vocals and ecstatic brass to force some rump shakin'. "Ugly" works for the opposite reason: Any American drunkard could sing along to this funny tale of being an unattractive but high-spirited outcast.

Vocals aren't the only elements that veer from Latin roots. The horn parts often have more in common with rolling free-jazz tempos than jumpy Afro-Cuban arrangements. There's even a wink to that other orchestral music: "Night Music" brings Mozart's version to the brink of absurdity (think Walter Murphy's "A Fifth of Beethoven" on the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack), but bumping up against absurd is where Bio Ritmo sound best.—Shan Fowler

 

Bio Ritmo
"Rumba Baby Rumba!"

Various
"Real: The Tom T. Hall Project"

Eels
"Electro-Shock Blues"



past reviews

Various
"Real: The Tom T. Hall Project"
(Sire)

tom t. hall On "Real: The Tom T. Hall Project," former Jayhawk Mark Olson and his wife, Victoria Williams, sing the simple words, "I went back to the room and wrote down this song." It is this basic approach to lyrics written with an eye for the details of life, that is in effect, a tribute to Hall, one of country music's best songwriters. Fellow contributor Joe Henry described Hall's songwriting in the album's liner notes: "It's like a Raymond Carver short story—a bite out of someone's life, beginning abruptly and dangling at the end with a flash of almost unspeakable regret."

The history of Tom T. Hall goes back 30 albums to the hills of Kentucky. He began his career as a bluegrass musician and DJ until he discovered he could write songs—the kind that tell stories. Hall's first big success, and the song he is still probably most remembered for outside of the country world, came in 1968. He was asked to write a song in the vein of Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe." Not only did that particular tune, "Harper Valley PTA" top the music charts with Jeannie C. Riley's record selling a million copies, but it went on to become both a feature film and a television series as well. However, the success of "Harper Valley PTA" does not truly reflect the scope of Hall's talents, talents that current songwriters like Joe Henry, Mary Cutrufello, and others have picked up on for years.

If you have heard the songs of Richard Buckner, you can't help but think that he came across this Hall line, "about as happy as a thinking man can be," years ago, but Buckner makes Hall's "When Love Is Gone" his own. From the rock world, Freedy Johnston turns in one of his best renderings of a country song when he takes on "Coffee, Coffee, Coffee." Ron Sexsmith stays true to himself by making "Ships Go Out" into a pure pop song. Jonny Polonsky's version of "Old Enough to Want to (Fool Enough to Try)" has me begging for a follow-up to his debut album. Calexico, the side project of two members of Giant Sand, bring back the old west with a modern twist on Hall's "Tulsa Telephone Book." And the Mary Janes take you straight back to the days of Patsy Cline with "I'm Not Ready Yet." Another legend who just received his own tribute album, Ralph Stanley, is joined by Ralph Stanley II for "Water Lily."

It is said that Hall has still not received his due in the country world, the recognition that others of his era and caliber (like Cash, Haggard, and Willie Nelson) have gotten. Maybe there is some comfort in knowing that those who are doing it best now remember that he was one of the best doing it then.—Jeremy Reed

 

Eels
"Electro-Shock Blues"
(Dreamworks)

eels E, the singer/songwriter/guitarist for Eels, has had a rough time since releasing the band's last album, "Beautiful Freak," in 1996: He lost several friends and family to suicide, heart attacks, and cancer. E hit rock-bottom, faced his demons, and then poured all his emotions and energy into recording the band's second album, "Electro-Shock Blues." The product of his trauma is an elegantly stripped-down and completely original album.

Lyrics like "Waking up is harder when you want to die" and "You're dead but the world keeps spinning" might tend to bum out a lot of people, but E pulls it off and lightens the mood somewhat with sharp musicianship and one of the best falsetto voices in rock. The songs range from the acoustic, alt-country-sounding "Ant Farm" to the '60s keyboard romp of "Cancer for the Cure" to the mellow backward-tracking of "Efil's Good." And, by adding subtle horn and string accompaniments in all the appropriate places, Eels prove they are much more than a run-of-the-mill alternative band.

With the help of musician friends Grant Lee Phillips (Grant Lee Buffalo), Michael Simpson (Dust Brothers), and Lisa Germano, the band takes the listener for a ride through E's mental landscape—dealing with disease, funerals, psychiatrists, and drugs. But, in the end, E reaches a place within himself where he can be at peace, and decides that "it's time to live." It may have been painful, but E has purged himself and, in the process, kicked any notions of a sophomore slump to the moon.—Curtis Waterbury

 

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