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Jello Biafra If Evolution Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Evolve (Alternative Tentacles)
Faithless Sunday (Arista/BMG) Faithless, aka Rollo and Sister Bliss, have been at it for a while now, representing the Brighton Massive with their version of Massive Attack-meets-trance, touring Europe and the Middle East, bringing their sound to the people. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if that sound has progressed at all since '95's Reverence LP. I think I even spotted some borrowed material, which makes it a double whammy: unoriginal and boring. 6/10 (Krista) Ninety Nine 767 (Endearing) Laura MacFarlane, aka Ninety Nine, plays the kind of down-strum, indie-guit-pop that was getting people semi-excited just after grunge (oh Velocity Girl, will any used-CD store ever unload you?). But what saves this inauspicious Aussie is a willingness to embrace in-sounds from outside the rock form, like Casio tones and xylophones, and to sing well, on occasion. Her cute indie label, out of Winnipeg, has a modest mail-order list of 7" singles and the like--if you're into that kind of thing. 7/10 (Chris Yurkiw) Bill Laswell/Sacred System Nagual Site (Wicklow/BMG)
Paul Van Dyk Seven Ways (Mute/FusionIII) Germany, the birthplace of Volkswagens, Sven Väth and swirly trance music, has spawned yet another musical mastermind. DJ/producer Van Dyk is set to take America by storm with a bimonthly residence at NYC's Twilo club and a new album--21 tracks of uplifting 4/4 beats all written and produced by him. Imagine the Sasha and John Digweed sound minus the house influence and with sharper edges. Euro-trance extraordinaire. 8/10 (Krista) Skinny Puppy Remix Dystemper (Nettwerk)
The godfathers of industrial (Canadian!) receive much-deserved props, proving that their legacy is indeed far-reaching. This tribute... sorry, remix album has tracks taken from eight different albums spanning Puppy's jagged career. The remixers range from Josh Wink to Guru of Gangstarr (yes, Guru) to Autechre (kinda disappointing, that one) to Neotropic to Deftones. The variety of interpretations doesn't lend much to the fluidity of Dystemper, but offers the listener a new look at old tracks. This is a sweet and sour treat for the fans. 7/10 (Lateef Martin)
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On Biafra's fifth spoken word album, he continues to rail against corporate America, white-collar crimes, the death penalty and, of course, his favourite subject, censorship--which takes up two discs of the three-CD set. Like Michael Moore, his political barbs hit the targets a lot harder thanks to his smarmy sense of humour. His opinions on censorship are good, but much like Lenny Bruce's post-trial standup, they do get a little tiring. If you didn't see him at Concordia a month or so back (this CD is his Montreal performance verbatim) then you must get this. 8/10 (Johnson Cummins)
As always, producer/pla-yer/mad genius Laswell's fevered productivity is in direct conflict with his grand ambitions. This time around he's joined by the usual Axiom crew (Jah Wobble, Bernie Worrell, tabla-tapper Zakir Hussein) as well as Qawwali singer Gulam Mohamed Khan. Using Sufi music as a foundation, Laswell makes schizoid leaps between fairly pure Qawwali (the Pakistani equivalent of gospel) and his own dubbed-out trance-jazz mystery music. When Hurricane Bill can be bothered to focus long enough, we get tracks as good as "X-zibit-i" and the hypnotic "Driftwork." 8/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)