Specs & Pricing

Music
Rock etc.
from underground sensation—thanks to
impressive performances on mixtapes,
Kanye West’s “Touch The Sky,” and other
material—to a quasi hip-hop savior, an artist
who can bring balance back to the genre.
Fiasco’s debut, the uneven Food & Liquor,
halfway lives up to its expectations. Brassy
single “Kick, Push” tells the tale of young,
ostracized skateboarders in love, while the
gripping “He Say She Say” is a touching
reach from a mother and her child to the
son’s absentee father. The wide-ranging,
strangely catchy “American Terrorist”
bashes everything from the treatment of
American Indians and blacks to American
imperialism. All demonstrate Fiasco’s talent
in taking uncomfortable issues and making
them into enjoyable songs.
Unfortunately, there are several stumbling
blocks that keep the record from reaching
its promise. The album’s “Intro” starts off
strong with a vivid, minute-long spokenword
piece about Chicago ghettos by an
unidentified female poet. But when Fiasco
pipes in with a rambling talk that vaguely
outlines his album’s objectives, it’s hardly
enticing. Similarly, “Outro,” which uses the
same synthetic orchestral beat as that of
Fiasco’s portion of “Intro,” is more than 12
minutes of the artist reciting the names of
various friends and music-industry people
who helped make Food & Liquor possible.
For those not mentioned in an extensive
laundry list, it’s an unlistenable experience
in frivolity.
In addition, much of the singing that
accompanies the sharp raps—as well as
the underdeveloped production, which
sounds amateurish and lacks force and
genuine soulful punch—seems stilted and
beneath someone of such lyrical potential.
The drawbacks result in an uneven effort
that simultaneously hints at Fiasco’s artistic
gifts and highlight his musical deficiencies.
Soren Baker
Further Listening: The Roots: The
Tipping Point; Mos Def: Black On
Both Sides
Tortoise: A Lazarus
Taxon.
Brendan Canty, producer. Thrill
Jockey 152 (three CDs, one DVD).
The term “post-rock” might not have been
invented to explain Tortoise, but no band
better epitomizes that ambiguous category
158 December 2006 The Absolute Sound
than said group, which gets the remix-heavy
treatment with this budget-priced, three-
CD/one-DVD retrospective. A post-grunge
band that non-dogmatic jazzers can love,
Tortoise leads the motley post-rock pack
by virtue of its longevity, sundry references,
and instrumental acuity. An aficionado can
identify a Tortoise number by the left-field
feel that erases borders between lounge,
jazz, electronica, dub, and hip-hop.
But a Tortoise project rarely boasts the
kind of consistency found in Godspeed
You Black Emperor!, the Dirty Three,
or Sigur Ros. That goes triple here. This
box eschews chronological and thematic
organization until you get to disc three,
which resurrects 1995’s out-of-print album
Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters (plus a long-
M.I.A. Mike Watt remix), and is unified only
by the remix concept, executed by Steve
Albini, Brad Wood, Jim O’Rourke, Bundy K.
Brown, and others. A five-star commodity
for diehards who haven’t scoured record
stores and on-line auctions for its bounty of
rare singles, tour-EP and compilation tracks,
and video and TV segments—all augmented
by previously unavailable vault material—A
Lazarus Taxon (“a species that disappears,
then reappears in the fossil record”) is not
the best place to make first acquaintance
with Tortoise. For that, try 1996’s Millions
Now Living Will Never Die or 2001’s
Standards.
Still, all of the collective’s signature
elements are present, including the trendresetting
vibraphones, fashionable but not
slavish drum’n’bass spasms, savvy post-Reich
pulsations and post-Buchla electronics, jazzrock
guitars and basses, dizzying sound/
dreamscapes, and nonchalantly virtuosic
turns by past (Bundy K. Brown, David
Pajo) and present (Dan Bitney, Douglas
McCombs, John McEntire, John Herndon,
and Jeff Parker) members as well as the ittakes-a-village
ethos that unites Chicago’s
cross-pollinating experimental rock and jazz
scenes.
Sonics range from claustrophobically
compressed and murky, to generously
expansive and pointillistically detailed.
Though inconsistent, the mixes underscore
the compatibility of the brainy deliberation
and raw spontaneity that define Tortoise.
Derk Richardson
Further Listening: Gastr del Sol:
Camoufluer; Jaga Jazzist: The Stix
Buddy Guy: Can’t
Quit the Blues. Jerry
Rappaport, producer. Silvertone/
Legacy 81967 (three CDs, one DVD).
With a career that spans five decades,
multiple record labels, and dozens of
albums, Buddy Guy is tailor-made for
and well-deserving of a box set. Despite
limitless potential, Can’t Quit the Blues falls
short of providing a definitive overview
and showcasing Guy’s best work. Doing
the opposite of what it should, the
majority of the chronologically ordered
triple-disc compilation is devoted to the
guitarist’s late-period work and, ironically,
serves as a condensed history of the
blues’ decline into what’s mostly become
an outmoded genre.
The last surviving big-name
representative of post-World War II
blues, Guy began his run at Cobra before
heading to the same Chess Studios at
which many other fellow Chicago legends
cut their famous sides. Guy arrived later in
the game, but in time to be part of an era
when electrified volts of gritty rhythms,
cried vocals, and mussed-around backbeats
poured out of urban apartment windows
and dingy, street-level clubs. Guy’s torrid
solos and scorching licks are present
on cuts such as the iconic “First Time
I Met the Blues” as well as subsequent
Vanguard songs, i.e. 1968’s “One Room
Country Shack.” Inexplicably, such
material is colossally shortthrifted here,
likely because of licensing issues. Guy’s
depreciated work for JSP Records appears
at the end of disc one, his sentimentally
titled “DJ Play My Blues” indicative of
the artist’s increasing desperation.
The remaining bulk of the compilation
spotlights selections from Guy’s comeback