From the opening track’s giddy chorus of “Die, Die, Die”—a mix of upbeat Buddy Holly pop charm and progressive Morrissey introspection—The Avett Brothers’ Emotionalism strikes shady deals in personal contradiction, musically, intellectually and most of all emotionally. The album title alone, like the political buzzword “Truthiness,” implies feelings are gray, not black and white, and each offering spins the color wheel on another weighty topic—shame, death, paranoia, deceit; joy, love, compassion—all without a single song sounding drearily depressed or disgustingly happy. Part of it is the music itself, as the Avetts mine the depths of acoustic guitar, banjo and bass to unearth still more philosophical questions: Am I Country? Am I Indie? Am I Folk? (One track goes as far as to blend laidback bluegrass, Latin tango and livid punk, bridged by a dismissive voicemail from a cold ex-love interest.) Meanwhile, the lyrics march down an endless trail of Socratic selfexamination, using symbolism, cynicism and insight to ensure every poetic oxymoron makes perfect sense. (“I like to think I’m faithful, but it may not be true.”) Heavy topics that somehow feel light? Old-school instrumentation that turns suddenly edgy? Is there any way this album deals in absolutes? Just one: it sure sounds good.
With White Moth, Xavier Rudd sought to properly lasso—at long last—the catharsis of his live shows: the sound of his unhinged guitar, thumping stomp boxes and mystically creepy didgeridoos bounding out of the P.A. system. If obtaining an accurate reflection of your live experience is one of the biggest challenges for a genuine stage musician, Rudd pulls it off with White Moth, be it through frayed barn-burners like “Footprint,” light, lovely pop (“Better People”), or such sweet doses of reggae as “Twist.” His fourth record, Moth again pays tribute to the indigenous people of Rudd’s native Australia, and features Aboriginal vocals, and guest spots from members of the Aboriginal musical group Yothu Yindi. If he at times skates across thin ice, recalling dangerous similarities to Ben Harper with his hot-wired Weissenborn, Rudd in the end establishes himself as a blissed-out, concerned hippie who can now rock both live and on disc.
Mago, a duet LP for Medeski, Martin, and Wood’s two Ms on M #2’s Amulet imprint, sounds positively old guard. This is a strange sensation, if only because the trio has spent the past two decades pursuing the genre’s outer edges. Amazingly, though, the mainstream of jazz progressed right along with them. By now, the instinctive meld between Billy Martin’s liquid drumming and John Medeski’s Hammond splatterings no longer pricks antennae like it once did, though it is no less brilliant. On “Crustaceatron,” Medeski paints in sample-like snatches over Martin’s room-filling beats (dubbed helpfully by producer Danny Blume). On the disc-closing “L’Aventura,” the two trade roles like the musical intimates they are, Medeski’s clumped phrasings becoming the track’s rhythmic bedrock while Martin’s propulsive melodic motion motors the jam forward. Elsewhere, such as “Apology,” the playing is sluggishly casual. Even during this most laid-back session, though, there are surprises to be found, like Martin’s wild, distorted jass break in the midst of “Hot Little,” or Blume’s compactly engineered space-out, “Syncretism.” Medeski, Martin, and Wood changed the face of American jazz, though that’s probably not what Martin and Medeski set out to do when they first jammed together in 1989. They probably set out to make Mago.
Perpetual Groove is slowly building toward a bigger, darker, rock sound. Emerging from Savannah, GA, in 2001, the quartet quickly became a staple on the jam circuit, amassing a loyal following based on its captivating live shows. In the studio PGroove found moderate success with its 2003 debut, Sweet Oblivious Antidote, and showed considerable growth with 2004’s All This Everything, which was produced by Grammy winner Robert Hannon (OutKast). The band’s Hannon-helmed third release, LIVELOVEDIE, is its most ambitious record to date.
While there is a heavier tone to much of the material, guitarist/frontman Brock Butler’s vocals retain the emotional quality and warmth that has become a defining factor in the band’s sound. “It Starts Where It Ends,” with the refrain “You live, you love, you die,” is classic PGroove. The song builds off Butler’s simple, reflective lyrics supported by tasteful instrumentation that gives way to a soaring guitar crescendo.
Like Hemingway’s proverbial iceberg, most of Phish lay below the surface, inthe endless rehearsals and soundchecks rarely heard by any audience.There, their dialogue was its purest, unfettered by songs and performance.The “Headphones Jam,” a 48-minute track sold for charity through LivePhish.com, is presumably one of the last such instances. Recorded at the outset of the February 2004 sessions that produced Undermind, the band’s final album, the jam has already revealed its two highlights, Undermind’s“Maggie’s Revenge” and the iTunes-only jam sliver “Tiny.” The rest has the quartet musically shooting the shit at a conversational level many groups would envy. It’s all very casual, not bad, but not remarkably enthralling, at first. Despite keyboardist Page McConnell’s occasional attempts to lead the band into the wild, they groove with almost complete neutrality until drummerJon Fishman wakes up about a half-hour in. From there, they power through a series of ideas, including an ecstatic major key jam, before spiraling into the manic, vintage inter play of “Tiny.” It might be about the journey, but thankfully there’s a destination. Jesse Jarnow
