Ashen & Walker Common Ground (Methane)

Trevor Walker and Rise Ashen are two of the preeminent talents our nation’s capital has to offer. Here, they team up for some savvy, globalist, downtempo dub-house activity. Common Ground is tasteful, meticulously crafted and rife with worldwide reference points—what they call “life sounds”—but comes off as far more than a vacuous, upscale sonic travelogue. It’s got a rare depth and thoughtfulness to it. Could be the plethora of original ideas and elements, or maybe the creative manner in which more familiar touches are made new again. Whatever the case, it’s no surprise that they’re chatting with our own Bombay boys, fellow travellers in the battle against empty, mindless house music. Yes, there is still room for refined yet substantial club grooves, and this is the proof. 9/10 (Rupert Bottenberg) At Jingxi on Wed., Feb. 6

Rhume
Jeu de puissance (Kelp/Lumber Jacques)
From the same people who brought you the genius behind Greenfield Main (an entire CD dedicated to songs about hunting). This time around, Ottawa blockhead Jon Bartlett tackles chants en français. Judging by the poutine a-plenty and Nordiques jersey, you might assume this is just a pisstake, but with instruments including tympanis, brass and mellotron and rock songs full of crafty little twists and turns, Bartlett uses every crayon in the box. If you liked the orch pop of the New Pornographers and Ray Wonder then this is the next step. 8/10 (Johnson Cummins)

The Stratford 4
The Revolt Against Tired Noises (Jetset)
Setting the stakes high with a mission statement as an album title, this San Francisco quartet gets off to a rough start with an a-melodic mess of an opener, but what follows largely makes up for the misstep. Upbeat pop tunes and moody meditations alike feature layered guitars and deadbeat, indie-guy vocals (with female harmony at times), a sound that incorporates the perennial Velvets influence along with touches of dense shoegazer-isms and desert psychedelia. This is an impressive debut, possibly the root of something great, as the beautiful, epic closing track implies. 7.5/10 (Lorraine Carpenter)

The Lowest of the Low
Nothing Short of a Bullet
(Yes Boy/Universal)
I always assumed that these guys sucked by just taking a gander at their fan base, and after one listen of this live two-CD set (well, the second CD is three studio tracks), they fail to blow holes in my fan/band theory. Although most songs are as safe as an episode of Bob and Margaret, some Costello-isms occasionally shine through, like in “Eternal Fatalist” and “City of Cowards.” It’s the R.E.M feel in “Kinda the Lonely One,” though, which shows these Ontarians hitting a new shade of beige. If you already love these guys, it isn’t going to matter what I say. But for those of you that find Will and Grace hilarious, Pamela Anderson and Patrick Swayze sexy and drive-thru fast food to be “the pope’s tits,” come and get it, cause this shit is served up pipin’ hot. 4/10 (Johnson “Mr. Grumpypants” Cummins)

Anita Lane
Sex O’Clock
(Mute/Fusion III)
In a sentence: playful, half-spoken, sex kitten vocals over a funk-light backdrop of intricate strings (arranged by Bertrand Burgalat!), tinny keys and the occasional guitar lick. And it almost works, but the white-washed sound becomes strained and thin before too long, while some lyrics flirt with unforgivable cheesiness (“Do the Kamasutra” is the worst offender). Produced by Nick Cave collaborator Mick Harvey—Lane herself co-wrote a handful of early Birthday Party and Bad Seeds songs—the album certainly has its shining moments in the latter-day Gainsbourg tradition, and two acoustic torch songs bring the disc to a smooth close. 6.5/10 (Lorraine Carpenter)

Nine Inch Nails
And All That Could Have Been
(Nothing)
Taken from their 2000 Fragility Tour, Nine Inch Nails execute flawless performances from all over their career but mostly from their The Fragile. It’s disc two that really shines. Trent goes all Tori Amos on us with decidedly toned-down and intimate piano versions of “Something I Can Never Have” and “The Fragile,” and a disturbingly video-gamey reworking of “The Becoming,” from The Downward Spiral. There are also glimpses of a quiet restlessness underneath the rage and blood found in new works “Adrift and at Peace,” “The Persistence of Loss” and “Leaving Hope,” epic in its minimalism. Like Tool, NIN seem to have transcended the hyper-vexed, young ’n’ hungry phase and have matured into a sort of delicate and subtle old ’n’ fed-up mould. 8.5/10 (Lateef Martin)

DJ Logic
The Anomaly
(Rope-a-Dope/Outside)
Bronx native DJ Logic is an anomaly, as he’s better established in jam-band circles than in hip hop—immediate association with Medeski Martin & Wood sees to that. This disc won’t further his rep in any one corner, but that’s not for lack of skill or inspiration. Leaping from jazz-hop to house, drum & bass to flat-out, deckwrecking party jam, there is an odd logic to Logic’s leaps. Contributions from John Medeski, Mino Cinelu, Living Color’s Vernon Reid and Soulive’s Eric Krasno, as well as his own Project Logic band, feed the fascinating tangents Logic follows. The tempo may rise and fall, but a steady energy carries the album through its twists and turns, full of satisfying surprises and neat, psychedelic detailing. 8.5/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)

Various Grazing in the Trash Vol. 2 (Soul Fire)
This is exactly the kind of music that would support a midsummer’s dip into a rotten dumpster down some godforsaken alley. Like half a mickey of Thunderbird and a 50-cent shoeshine, this shit will get you through the afternoon, but it doesn’t end there. With joints from Bama & the Family, the Detroit Sex Machines, good ol’ Lee Fields and Neil Sugarman in the raw, it could be a while before your CD player sees another disc. If you’ve got a soft spot for the rough stuff, you’re tired of gettin’ the hi-hat and can relate to songs like “The Bastard,” “Get Up in Your Hot Pants,” and “Don’t Think... Do,” then this comp could funk you up real good. 9/10 (Scott C)

Vikter Duplaix DJ Kicks
(K7/Fusion III)
As the new sound of Philadelphia takes no shorts while establishing itself as the heart of truly soulful music in the U.S., multi-talented artists like Vikter Duplaix are finally getting the chance to show the rest of the world what Philly has in store. This is a fairly sexy mix, running from rhythmic upheaval to downtempo vibes, with heavy doses of broken-beat buttas. Obviously somebody who’s into many styles, Duplaix manages to maintain a common thread while the music takes you from Herbert to De La Soul to New Sector Movements. Duplaix’s own creation “Sensuality” is an instant classic. Although many of the mixes here are masked by a computer-generated voice between songs, the selection is good enough to let that fact slide. 8/10 (Scott C)

Tim Hecker
Haunt me, haunt me, do it again
(subtractif)
The soundscape has traditionally been the acoustic domain of the artist who attempts to reflect the depth of natural landscapes using either captured sound, or created sound intended to force association with “real” sound. Here Hecker (aka Jetone) offers a rare revision of the genre: this album creates an acoustic landscape of the interior, the unreal, the electric, the synthetic. The fiery wire crackles, the polymorphic bass pulses, the wheezing melodies and performed guitar are all equivocal in depth and dynamics to naturally occurring sounds, yet remain distinctly artificial. It is precisely this artificiality that gives Hecker enough control of his sounds to create a melodic, sometimes brooding but always inviting sonic landscape. 9/10 (Boss Sambosa)

DJ Enrie
Welcome to the Mixshow (Moonshine)
Enrie, who has been compared to Richard “Humpty” Vision, is a fast riser in the L.A. hardhouse/techno scene. As such, Welcome... is nothing so much as an elaborate calling card. One gets get the feeling of a jam session among household appliances after the real music was forced to vacate. The dour onslaught of beats, effects and samples, with nothing slower than 125 bpm, never lets up during its 69-minute tenure. Mix comps like these may have reached their saturation point, but this one says, “for hardcore ravers, take it or leave it.” 7/10 (Peter Lightburn)

Suzuki Kid
2002 AC/DC CD (Total Zero)
You may know Suzuki Kid as the beat machinist for freakocious locals the Unireverse. This solo effort marries two very abrasive musical camps. There’s the digital hardcore of Atari Teenage Riot, minus the corny anarcho-pinko politics (and compromising major-label contract). Then there’s the first-strike, misanthropic bluster of hardcore hip hop à la Geto Boys, minus the scary little dwarf (and the coke stipend). A suitably lo-fi, handmade nailbomb of drill-press beats and potty-mouthed egotism, as envigorating as it is obnoxiously funny. 8/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)

Bell Biv Devoe
BBD (Universal)
Ronnie, Ricky and Mike return with a disc designed to transform them from bubblegum idols to hardcore R&B thugs. Against a backdrop of phat beats, BBD show how jaded they’ve become. The “Candy Girl” that New Edition sang about is all grown up, and a stripper, no less (“Dance Bitch”), with a penchant for the finer things in life (“Scandalous”). Seems she’s also quite handy in the bedroom, where the guys instruct her to “Spread those wings so I can eat it like a dyke”(“Shorty Gone Get It”). Aww, gee. Who says romance is dead? Bell 1/10, Biv 1/10, Devoe 1/10 (Gerard Dee)

Tom Van Seters Narrative (VSM)
For a large man the pianist leader here has kept a rather low profile musically on the local scene. That fact makes this debut outing even more of a wonderful surprise. Joined by two of Montreal’s better rhythm men, Fraser Hollins and Dave Laing, and two high-profile jazzmen from the Toronto area, Mike Murley and Kevin Turcotte, Van Seters’ quintet has been beautifully captured here by engineer Andre White, an excellent musician in his own right. All eight tracks contain top drawer writing and playing. Try Tom’s “Pass on the Right” for starters. Jazz Festival material! 9/10 (Len Dobbin)