Four Of A Kind (Feb 2008)

By Don Allred

Dalek

Thursday @ the Ravari Room

The cliché tag of “underground” rap is right for Dalek’s 

pungent layers of sound, which earned them an album-length

 collaboration with prog pioneers Faust. 

On their first three albums, they pushed the layers up 

into towers of rubble, recycling old wars, civilizations, 

 and other lost causes   On 2007’s  Abandoned Language,  

they scrape away the noise, and direct an “Isolated Stare”

 up at hovering, glittering sounds, through a fractured

 glass ceiling of frustration. But they persist, rapping 

and playing over stoically-to-angrily swinging beats. 

They’re reputedly a formidable live act too. 

The Apes

Saturday @ Bourbon Street

Replacing a co-founding, longtime lead singer

 almost never works, but Breck Brunson fits

 the art-rocking Apes well, judging by their 

new album, Ghost Games. Brunson’s

 got a high, wailing, perfectly poised sound:

 he’s at home up there. But he pushes himself

 to put across complex, vivid imagery, in science-fictional 

extensions of pointed social commentary. 

The Apes are like renegade runaway hybrid children

 of Rush and Yes (cousins to Coheed And Cambria too),

 with solos stomped into muddy, flying emphasis, 

under Brunson’s voice. Even when the songwriting 

doesn’t quite work, the sounds do their damnedest. 

Baby Dee

Thursday @ the Rumba Cafe

 Cleveland-born, New York-based Baby Dee plays the hell

 out of a piano and a giant golden harp, while singing elusive

 lyrics of sly-to-spooky-to-romantic impulse in a high-flying, 

corner-stretching approach, like Pere Ubu’s David Thomas 

when good, more like Tenacious D-mode Jack Black otherwise

This veteran live performer’s debut album, Safe Inside The Day,

 is produced by Will Oldham, who also plays on it, 

along with many other acid-Americana talents. 

The results are more idiosyncratic than eccentric, 

and (often enough) more gratifying than self-indulgent.

Dub Trio

Friday @ the Basement

 On their third album, Another Sound Is Dying, the Dub Trio set

 carefully timed explosions of sustained metal guitar notes;

 stop-start-while-soloing drums; thick, twisting bass lines, 

all disappearing into/pouring from brief intervals of ricochet

 echo and other flying debris. Which can hit like building blocks,

 especially in the Led Zep times Public Image Ltd. convergence

 of “Regression Line.” The only vocal track, “No Flag,”

 features Faith No More/Fantomas/Peeping Tom front man

 Mike Patton, evoking battlefield shadows circling each other, 

 bonding the hard way. Eventually, the album gets predictable,

 but so do landmines. 

Mahjongg

Thursday @ Skully’s Music Diner

Mahjongg first appeared as bored, gifted, class-cutting hipsters, 

goofing on field recordings and “underground” records

 lifted from the University Library and Dad’s van. Their early,

 junktronic Machinegong was sometimes woozily inspired,

 and Kontfab strongly suggests that they’re now even more

 dedicated than jaded, if possible. “Pontiac” swings metallic 

percussion; “Wipe Out” measures buzzing feet;

 “Teardrops” is so sensitive; 

“Tell The Police The Truth” is very wise; so is “Those Birds Are Bats.”

  “Mercury” observes, “What makes you sick can make you well,” 

and Mahjongg’s music is proof of that. 

Six Organs Of Admittance

Friday @ the Ravari Room

 Six Organs Of Admittance comes down to and from 

the guitars and vocals of Ben Chasny, who also ignites Comets On Fire.

 Shelter From The Ash tends toward standard psych-folk-rock moves,

 but Chasny’s standards are high (Six Organs high). 

He knows how to finger-pick his way through waves of

 feedback, and, on the title track,  “Final Wing,” and 

“Goddess Atonement," his sustained, tilting notes

 successfully pan for stars in a blind sky. Still, 

live improvisation often provides thee deeper key

, for this artist and his audience.

Sian Alice Group

Friday @ Café Bourbon Street

Sian Alice Group (no “the,” please) titled their supple,

 soundtrack-like debut album 59.59, because

 that’s exactly how long it is. Such attention to detail

 can get too self-absorbed, but usually adds momentum

 to intimate chamber rock rituals and improvisations, 

infiltrated by the voices of Sian Ahem and violinist-pianist Sasha Vine.

 Phantom feedback and glancing percussion are typical,

 but Spiritualized/Spring Heel Jack guitarist John Coxon and 

Gang Gang Dance keyboardist Brian DeGraw galvanize 

the album’s finale, “Complete Affection,”

 while Jesus And Mary Chain bassist

 Douglas Hart reinforces the touring sextet. 

Tea Leaf Green

Thursday @House of Crave

Tea Leaf Green’s 2005 studio album, Taught To Be Proud,

 is guided by Trevor Garrod’s translucent, slightly surreal vocals

 and keyboards. His carefully spacey songs basically seem

 to be about a kid peering out from the mountains of 

Northern California, where Josh Clark’s guitar 

flickers like heat lightning. Their 2006 live set, Rock ‘N’ Roll Band,

 initially presents them as slamming if conventional jamsters

, but then it opens up their studio approach. 

Finally, the California Kid tunnels out of that sweet home,

 and brings the mountains to us. 

The Jealous Girlfriends

Sunday @ the Basement

The Jealous Girlfriends began in 2004, as singer-guitarist

 Holly Miranda and guitarist-keyboard-player Alex Lipsen,

 who was also producing Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV On The Radio.

 The Girlfriends’ cosmically moody new wave songs infiltrated 

shows like “The L Word” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” and, 

as performed by a disconcertingly versatile quartet, t

heir self-titled album, an April release, moves from

 contemplative to letting it rip, just like they were contemplating.

 Occasionally they disappear into a nebula, but  usually re-emerge,

 like a shredded wedding band playing on a ghost ship.