CD reviews

The Wooden Birds

Magnolia
(Barsuk)
7.5
Goes well with: Neil Young, American Analog Set, home recordings

While Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam isn’t widely regarded as an influential musician, he’s the inspiration behind one of the decade’s more bemusing trends. Following Beam’s ascent, a mass of sensitive, oft-bearded Caucasians developed a predilection for whispery vocals over gently strummed guitars, taking to open-mic nights, front porches and shirt-optional YouTube videos to disseminate their gooey sensitivity. Many of these men are refugees from louder genres—punk, hardcore, emo—and have taken the decrease in volume as a sign of maturity instead of banality. To borrow a 14-year-old’s parlance, most of these guys suck. The Wooden Birds is the rare inclusion of this whisper-over-soft-strums trend to offer the courtesy of not sucking.

Magnolia is the album Andrew Kenny started after closing shop with American Analog Set and finished following a stint playing bass with Broken Social Scene. It bears hints of both projects—the lyrical scene-setting and melodic ease of AAS and the steady but shifty low-end presence employed by BSS. Though modest in ambition, Magnolia is full of small charms, from the chummy crackle and hiss of its home-recorded fidelity to the rollicking outdoor scenery it conjures. Kenney is a songwriter who has always gotten short shrift. The release of Magnolia will hopefully change that.

The Wooden Birds play Friday, May 29, at Bar Pink.

The Long and Short of It

Caw!: An Unkindness of Ravens
(Black Rabbit Rebellion)
8.2

Goes well with: The Jesus Lizard, Bad Brains, Dungeons & Dragons

I could spend this whole review discussing the balls-out awesomeness of “Last Transmission of Ghostship Raven,” the five-minute opening track on these local metallurgists’ new album. It’s a stifling blend of metal and hardcore, punctuated by Ben Johnson’s ungodly wail and guitarist Matt Strachota’s distorted riffage. If I were a UFC fighter and needed to get hyped-up to beat the shit outta some sucka, this would be the song I would listen to. Just ask my wall.
But there are moments on Caw! that could certainly appeal to those outside of heavy-rock circles. Sure, it’s as hard as anything out there, but where most bands of their ilk stick to a formula passed down since the early ’80s, The LASOI drop the posturing and us-against-them pretense to tackle everything from pop culture (“A Brief Dissertation on Entertainment Law”), the apocalypse (“Turtle Island 2012”) and, naturally, werewolves and wormholes (“All That Shit’s Real”). And they do it all with surprisingly catchy results.

Truth is, LASOI’s fan base probably won’t expand beyond their core demographic. But make no mistake—they’ve made a small genre masterpiece that people outside of San Diego need to hear. “Is this thing on? / Are you receiving me?” Johnson screams on “Last Transmission.” Loud and clear, buddy.

The Long and Short of It play Saturday, June 6, at Soda Bar.

Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics

Inspiration Information V.3
(Strut)
9.5

Goes well with: Turntables, CD players, iPods

What do you get when you cross a classically trained, 66-year-old Ethiopian jazz musician with a drummer-led, U.K. collective that’s as much Sun Ra as James Brown? Probably the best record of 2009, that’s what. It might only be May, but it’s hard to imagine anything else coming close.

Astatke has been making music for decades, but he was recently re-introduced to a new audience by way of Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers. It’s Astatke’s horn and vibraphone-infused funk on the CD Bill Murray plays in the car during his “quest.” Meanwhile, Stones Throw Records nine-piece The Heliocentrics backed DJ Shadow on his Private Press tour and showed up on his album The Outsider. Their bandleader, Malcolm Catto, has played drums for everyone from Madlib to Quantic.

So often with a pairing like this, it ends up feeling strained and unnecessary. Not here.

Unlike so many collaborations between classic and new artists, it’s not so easy to discern who contributed what on these 14 tracks. The two blend together so perfectly that, many times, it just sounds like one big band. The homogeneous mix is equal parts head-nod and sophisticated cool. No matter the occasion, Inspiration is the perfect soundtrack to just about anything.