Repair, Eric Downer, JAP @ Drake Underground

This whole evening served to remind me of the greatness (and timelessness) of records like G-Man's "Avanti", Deadbeat's "Cesium Beam", and Basic Channel's "Octagon". Although they strayed from the smooth tech-house upon which they built their reputation, Repair were every bit as funky and infectious as I've come to expect from them. In their more stripped down moments, they successfully reached for the greatness of the aforementioned godlike records. The small but active crowd at the Underground even saved a bit of energy for Eric Downer. His dark funk laced a Nathan Fake-ish mixture of beats and noise, providing a virtually ideal soundtrack for last call.

American Idol Season Five -- The Final Six

This is the strongest top six they've ever had. More or less, the voters have gotten it right every week and haven't been stringing along talentless embarassments for weeks longer than they deserve to be there. Classic songs week is normally a disaster (the music being so far outside of the finalists' comfort zone) but last week's show turned out to be the best of the season by far, and maybe the best in the history of the series. Even the terminally crappy Ace didn't suck.

It was obvious (at least to me) once the top twelve was set that these six were the strongest. All of them are fulfilling their potential, none of them have seen their breakout ability marred by ugly inconsistency (see: George Huff in Season Three). Only Taylor and Kellie have avoided the bottom three thus far, but I still have no idea who will (or should) win. Let's see how they fare with Love Songs Week.

Katharine. I'm always criticising wannabe Idols for trying their hand at legendary singers singing legendary songs. Every season, some erstwhile soul diva feels the need to sing "Respect", apparently oblivious to the fact that the last you want to do in a singing competition is force people to compare you to Aretha Franklin. Usually they're dumb enough to sing something by Whitney or Mariah in the early stages of the season, when they should be focusing on picking good songs that play to their strengths. But eventually, it becomes a worthwhile risk for a singer on a hot streak to stare down Whitney Houston. High risk, high reward -- if you pull it off, the momentum can carry you far (at least in theory ... last season, Constantine was eliminated the week after his legendary performance of "Bohemian Rhapsody").

So Katharine made a smart choice by singing Whitney's "I Have Nothing". As it turned out, she was very good, but not as good as Whitney. This happened to her once before, when she sang "The Voice Within" and it couldn't measure up to Xtina Aguilera's version. Paula gave her most on-point advice of the season by noting that Katharine gets a bit sloppy when she pushes her voice too much, something which never happens when she sings torch songs (her true forte, at least at the moment).

I thought the judges were too hard on her, but they were probably told to be very critical to balance out the praise from last week. And Seacrest needs to stop commenting on how Katharine's lady lumps hang together in her dresses. He's the host, she's a Jesus freak, it's creepy. We're all allowed to drool over her at home though.

Elliot. He stepped it up bigtime. He seemed to run out of steam by the end, but otherwise this was awesome stuff. Kudos to him for building up impossibly high expectations (by introducing Donny Hathaway's daughter singing backup and flatly stating that he'd waited his entire life to sing this song on such a big stage) and delivering on them. He's a devoted student of classic soul and R&B, but he's also a dorky Jewish kid with funny looking ears and that's why he's been close to going home on a couple of occasions (I picked him to go home last week because of pretty boy Ace's shockingly not awful performance last week). After tonight, I hope he bought himself a trip to the final four.

Kellie. She can't sing as well as the other five. Everybody agrees on that. But she's been almost bulletproof. She's never been in the bottom three and there's no reason to suspect that she's even been close to it. This was a bad time for her worst performance but there's no way in hell she goes home tomorrow (we'll be hearing three more singers tonight but I'm still confident in saying that). I think she's been withering under the increased pressure of the final stretch, but it'll take more than one disaster week to sink this ship.

The country softrock arrangement of "Unchained Melody" sucked too.

Paris. The band slotted her into a standard soul/R&B arrangement, the hair and makeup crew dressed her up as Mary J. Blige. Why? Last week she proved how diverse she was -- I have no doubt that she could have done Streisand straight up, with cinematic strings and a more scaled-back vocal. I found this performance forgettable.

Taylor. Randy is right, there's something nasty in the water tonight. Everyone with the exception of Elliot has been off. This is what I expected from last week's theme. Taylor has no clue what to do with himself on stage when he forces himself to stand still and just sing. And where art thou, James Ingram? Taylor should be singing Sam Cooke, Michael McDonald, and Joe Cocker every week. Reread what I wrote about Katharine and consider this: why didn't he sing "You Are So Beautiful"? This was the time. Or maybe he figures that he hasn't been in the bottom three yet and can afford to hold off on the Joe Cocker until the final three or four.

Chris. Ladies and gentlemen, the perfect song choice. Bryan Adams gives Chris the ideal love song for his voice, he can grunt along and turn "Have You Every Really Loved a Woman?" into mopey angst rock just like he does with everything else.

This was a bland evening. I'm practically falling asleep as they run the highlights (one lazy ballad after another) and phone numbers at the end of the show. As great as she is (but everybody is great at this stage so what can ya do?) I think Paris is done. She's been in the bottom three a couple of times before and didn't really distinguish herself tonight. Elliot was tops tonight, Kellie stunk it up, and I'm rooting for a Taylor/Katharine final.

Sonic Youth, "Rather Ripped"

It's 2006, and Sonic Youth are entering their poppiest phase ever. This is the band whose 1998 "we don't know nuthin' about no shoegaze" album "A Thousand Leaves" was named after the band's humourously serious desire to make a thousand albums together. Bands who know that their fans will sustain them from now until eternity don't give themselves cause to worry when they make statements like that. Those same fans will support them through their Greatful Dead phase ("Murray Street"), their mid-90's avant-wank phase (uh, the SYR releases, "NYC G&F" and a bunch of other stuff I'm probably forgetting) and just about anything else that is thrown at them.

So, Sonic Youth can pretty much do whatever they want. Kelly Clarkson wouldn't sound out of place contributing guest vocals on many of these songs (OK, I'm exaggerating there, but hey, let's see what Kelly sounds like in two album's time). It's a pretty album, which puts in its own category of Sonic Youth albums, along with "Sister". There isn't a single strained vocal that makes me cringe (SY albums usually have two or three of these) -- not even on the Kim Gordon tracks! It's full of 3-4 minute breezy tunes that would sound brilliant on the radio with the convertible top down in the sunshine, which is why (call me crazy) this should have been the follow-up to "Daydream Nation". If SY wanted to jump to a major label, make a splash, and get their songs on the radio in an era when alt-rock was starting to take off, they needed "Rather Ripped", not "Goo", in order to do it.

But it doesn't sound like a wild departure -- the echimings of their oddly-tuned guitars make "Rather Ripped" instantly recognizable as a SY album. And don't let this post fool you into thinking that this isn't a noisy album. There are plenty of noisy moments, but they're static Branca-esque riffage rather than epic solos fuzzily plucked over the course of seven minutes. Oddly enough, I was listening to the Theoretical Girls album only yesterday -- what's old is new again!

A Short Review of Pulp

Pulp were around for roughly thirteen years before finally breaking through. It's been roughly thirteen years since they broke through. Amazing how time flies. I mean shit, "Disco 2000" was about making plans for the year 2000 -- which always seemed to be a million years in the future -- and more time has elapsed between 2000 and today than between that song being recorded and the year 2000.

The first Pulp album I heard was "His N Hers", and in the beginning, it felt like pure cabaret. Tales of street thugs, illicit/disallowed affairs and pervy/desperate longing gave me visions of a 1994 version of West Side Story. I wasn't sure what to make of such theatrical storytelling. At first, it was a distraction that prevented me from getting into the music, but eventually I found it to be the most alluring thing about Pulp. Eventually I could almost picture the choreography while listening to the album. The stakes were raised with "Different Class" because the band were finally making an album that they knew, or expected, could be a big hit. Everything sounded bigger, brasher, livelier. Nothing on "His N Hers" exploded from the speakers like "Underwear" or "Common People" did. Ed Buller's more lo-fi production was fantastic, but likely not suitable for a pop breakthrough record. It was as if Trevor Horn had dropped in to push Pulp's sound over the edge, but in fact the man behind the console was Chris Thomas, who had produced Roxy Music, Sex Pistols, and Elton John among a host of others.

"Different Class" was also cabaret in its sound, but not as much in its subject matter. It's extremely glossy. Thomas also produced the follow-up, "This Is Hardcore", which is a much more sombre record but now sounds a bit too glossy to my ears. I peaked with this album around 1999-2000 and barely held back from calling it the best Pulp record ever. Now I'm glad I restrained myself because this album deserved to sound more maudlin. If the same band had made this album in 2001 or 1986, it probably would have. But not in 1998, coming off the heels of worldwide success. It's also worth remembering that Jarvis Cocker was one of Britain's biggest tabloid stars of the mid-90's, both in music mags and general celebrity mags. I tried to keep up with what he was doing from across the ocean. By 1998, the guy whose lifelong dream was to become a pop star had burned himself out on drugs and partying. Now all he wanted to do was stay at home and do the dishes (or so he claimed on "Dishes"). Coming straight off the heels of a whirlwind four years of fame, that was a very poignant reprioritization of his life's goals. Eight years later, now that he has dutifully worked hard to remove himself almost completely from the public eye, the "beware the price of fame" message of "This Is Hardcore" feels distant and quaint. I could never understand why bands would bother with those kinds of albums because the last thing we ordinary people want to hear is un-ordinary people complaining about their sensationally un-ordinary lives. I used to think that "This Is Hardcore" had avoided that trap, but now, I'm not as sure.

"Freaks", despite having distinct hot and cold patches (Verve release, hello) has always been a pet favourite album of mine. To this day, it's probably the only Pulp album that I listen to even if I'm not specifically in the mood to listen to Pulp (does that make sense? Perhaps not). Famously recorded for about 600 pounds, this is the dingy, sloppy, unsettling, and frequently spooky album that "This Is Hardcore" should have been. In sound, that is. Essentially, "Freaks" wouldn't be a great album if it had been recorded for 60K pounds instead of 600, and "This Is Hardcore" could have benefited from a 10X reduction in recording expenses. Pulp were clinging to goth aspirations (Jarvis' voice carries a remarkable resemblance to Peter Murphy's in 1985-6), as shown on their fascination for gruesome imagery ("Fairground", "Anorexic Beauty") and stalker epics ("Being Followed Home"). At the same time, they flirted with wistful pop and sincere romanticism ("Don't You Know", "Life Could Be So Wonderful"), holding true to the the album's somewhat schizophrenic mission statement/subtitle ("Ten Stories About Power, Claustrophobia, Suffocation and Holding Hands"). "I Want You" examines the transition from ordinary obsessions to sick obsessions (if I can't have you then nobody will, etc.) and as great as it is, it pales next to the twisted bluster of sugar daddy/statutory rape/sex slave fantasy "Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)". Released as a non-album single the previous year, it manages to be both chilling and catchy at the same time, and is probably the finest Pulp song of the 1980's.

As a band, Pulp evolved tangentially to Britpop (if that) -- Britpop would have happened with or without "Different Class". In that sense, it's not so surprising that it has aged better than any other peak-period Britpop album. With its recurring themes of class warfare, Pulp gave a new context to their tales of awkward teenage crushes and extramarital affairs. Most of "Different Class" retains that cabaret feel, and in conjunction with its aforementioned glossiness, it's easy to mistake it for an album filled with nothing but chartbusting fun and games. With hindsight, tracks like "Misshapes" and "Sorted For E's and Wizz" can appear overly showy, even comical. But more than ten years on, "Common People" stands out as the most determined and passionate track on the record. Sure, everything else on the record could be sly, pervy, and theatrical, but this was the time to get serious. And it gets better -- "Disco 2000" was the superior single back then and remains so today, featuring the best use of repeated "baby"s in the history of song and a desperately sung final choral coda that makes me unsure of whether to scream along or get teary-eyed instead. And in a decade characterized by alternative/grunge and filled with bitter or ironic love songs, "Something Changed" was completely genuine. Whitney Houston and Bryan Adams proclaimed their chart-topping love through hyperbole and screaming. Pulp told a simple story about the basic beauty of fate and ended up with one of the best love songs of the 90's. Moreso than any other song in Pulp's career, it requires absolutely no context. Hit album, comeback album, struggling indie band album, band members in love, out of love, none of it matters here. Long after the musical and political context of "Different Class" has been forgotten, playing "Something Changed" should remain compulsory at every wedding reception.

Much Music VJ Search (Finale) AKA "Anybody Except Sean"

They gave me a scare, but sanity prevailed in the end. Not much to say except congrats to Tim, and I'm sure the other three won't have much trouble finding another job in television now.

Frank and Erik - the hug seen round the world. Aw.

Bellevue, In Support of Living, ____ Project?, Neu+ral Lounge

Unexpected support acts ... name temporarily lost in the bowels of memory ... playing a cross between the white blues from Moby's "Play" and Beef Terminal's layered sampling and overall sense of urban decay. Repetitive but pleasant. Summary: easy life!

Apparently, ISOL alter their sound with the changing seasons, but that's to be expected from such a large, varied collective. No longer a proggier version of Slowdive, they've moved past "Souvlaki" and have latched onto the "In Mind" EP instead, foregoing epic jams for more concise slices of gazetronica. Except they haven't gone all Morr Music on us because most of the beats and melodies are canned (via laptop), freeing up the band members to place layers of semi-improvised drone on top. Summary: just fascination!

Bellevue now have the unfortunate task of playing to a very empty room late on a Thursday night. They're a polished bunch with a few cracking tunes, but it's tough to follow ISOL with fairly ordinary indie rock. Summary: crackdown!

New Stuff!

Herbert's newest, "Scale", will continue to earn praise from the sorts of people who rep unreservedly for every Luomo release. It's whimsical melodies, purring vocals, and bumping grooves make it a very difficult album to hate, but it's coffee shop appeal and lightweight tone make it even more difficult to love. Herbert has never found a way to translate the sweaty intensity of his live shows onto record, particularly when vocals are involved. I also don't understand how he can preach the "bring down the American empire" rhetoric on the back of a record this complacent. Sure, I can appreciate the anarchic spirit involved in destroying Big Macs, but am I supposed to be lulled into revolution by plaintive female voices lecturing me about feelings?

The sales blurbs for Luciano's 2002 remix of Salif Keita's "Yamore" claim that it was years ahead of its time, and I wholeheartedly agree. It's been rereleased on Luciano's own Cadenza label and it's only fitting that it follows Villalobos' "Achso" on the label's release schedule because it blends perfectly with the style of that EP. The frittering background percussion and hazy ping-pong melodies effortlessly and faithfully emulate "Ichso" (or rather, the other way around), and that's before the stomping minimal beats slam in. As is the case for virtually all Luciano remixes, this one is about three or four minutes too long, but that's easily forgiven when the rest of it is this solid.

Finally, I've been getting my doom/drone/metal fix from Darsombra's "Ecdysis". It's the solo brainchild of Brian Daniloski from the Baltimore metal band Meatjack, and as its opening notes slowly build from a death drone into a screaming, wailing wall of guitars, you know you're in for an intense 35 minutes. I love it when you're two minutes into an album and are already blown away by its greatness.

Much Music VJ Search (Episode 10)

This was more or less a filler episode -- they knew everyone would watch to see who the fourth finalist would be (was there any doubt? No, but you still gotta watch to be absolutely sure) and filled up the remaining time with fluffy interviews and trivia contests.

OK, there was a bit more to it than that. Doing a show in front of a live audience was a naturalization procedure, allowing us to judge the VJ's in their natural habitat. As expected, Sean looked very comfortable, Nikki looked very hot, Tim excelled in the role of a laid back rocker dude, and Erik looked like somebody's older brother trying desperately to fit in. I still believe he's the smartest and most competent finalist, but if you look like an outsider in the Much environment surrounded by two hundred teens then you're not suited for the job, sorry.

The judges' fascination with Sean over the past two weeks continues to baffle me. Only Kardi, who endorsed Nikki, has been rubbing all his brain cells together each and every week. Robin is back on my shitlist for hyping the ever-useless Sean, and Traci is letting her wet panties do the thinking for her yet again, as she abandons the sinking ship SS Erik in favour of Tim, the long-standing fave of horny young girls across Canada.

As for my pick, I've been predicting Tim for weeks and I'm sticking with my horse, although I'd much rather see Nikki on my TV if given my choice (then again, I am male, and as she pointed out, she is the only female left in the competition).