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Published: January 22, 2009
Updated: 01/21/2009 07:55 pm
Various artists
Love Train: The Sound of Philadelphia
Label: Philadelphia International/Sony Legacy
If you like: Silky soul music
Song to download: "Mighty Love" by The Spinners
The Philadelphia International label, founded by producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, started out making hits by putting gospel-rooted voices atop a hard-charging studio band. Witness Jerry Butler's 1969 single, "Only the Strong Survive," which is included on this four-disc set along with other early Gamble-Huff productions.
But by 1971, when the label started, their ideas were already leading elsewhere.
Gamble, Huff and Thom Bell, their indispensable producer, arranger and songwriter, made Philadelphia International's music a three-layer cake. Below were steadfast beats, suffused with Latin rhythms, which would bridge soul and disco. In the middle were singers who could pour on suavity or exhort like secular preachers, as did the O'Jays on "Love Train."
Up above was the label's signature touch -- lavish orchestral arrangements, with darting, shivering strings and burnished horns.
Of course, Philadelphia International recorded such love songs as "When Will I See You Again," by the Three Degrees. But many of its best-remembered hits voice worries and aspirations -- such songs as Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes' "Bad Luck" and McFadden & Whitehead's timeless "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now."
The label was closed in the 1980s, leaving a catalog that's cheesy pop at its occasional worst and inspirational fusion at its best. Much of the music remains ever-present, and when modern hip-hop producers want a sliver of something deluxe, time and again they sample Philadelphia International.
The Derek Trucks Band
Already Free
Label: Sony
If you like: Duane Allman, Eric Clapton
Song to download: "Get What You Deserve"
The latest album from the young blues guitarist Derek Trucks, Already Free, confirms his considerable prowess on his instrument, but it also befuddles with its pedestrian approach.
As a result, Trucks' unassuming delivery can often render this album, which moves beyond blues expectations, toothless. Much of the blame can be put on soft songwriting and surprisingly sparse solos from Trucks, whose exploratory solos have become a trademark. Up-tempo songs such as "Something to Make You Happy" lay the groundwork for Trucks to soar, but he offers instead a smattering of uncharacteristically uncreative solos.
When the pace slows, as on "Maybe This Time," Trucks smolders when a raging fire of blues riffs seems needed. It's a maddening trait -- he is obviously capable of more than he delivers, and has delivered in the past.
Trucks is revered among guitarists, but what he delivers on Already Free, with few exceptions, is generally complacent proficiency.
Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon/Collector's Edition
Label: Rhino Records
If you like: Smart songwriting with a renegade spirit and a romantic's heart
Song to download: "Desperadoes Under the Eaves"/ "Desperadoes Under the Eaves" Take 2
The late Warren Zevon's debut album -- Warren Zevon (1976) -- is one of but a few near-perfect debut albums of the rock era. The hallmarks of Zevon's work -- the deceptive musical sophistication, the macabre wit, the literary tales of damaged romantics and remorseless renegades -- perfectly encapsulate the excess, dreams and realities of Los Angeles in the 1970s.
The disc, produced by Jackson Browne, was filled with songs, some caresses, some sucker punches, that became hits for others --"Carmelita," "Hasten Down the Wind" and "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me." But it has taken until now, five years since Zevon's death by cancer, to fully appreciate this extraordinary work, now re-released as a two-disc set.
The extra disc of demos and alternate takes is a revelatory delight -- from a solo piano version of the devastating "French Inhaler" to Zevon's Dylan imitation on "Mohammed's Radio" -- and the album proper has grown even more extraordinary with time. Absolutely essential.
Horse Feathers
House With No Name
Label: Kill Rock Stars
If you like: Bon Iver, Sam Beam
Song to download: "Curs in the Weeds"
Horse Feathers is a trio from Oregon that works within the less-is-more dynamic so prevalent in indie-folk. On its second album, House With No Name, the chamber-folk band -- and it truly is just that -- uses musical economy in a manner that is so natural, so seemingly effortless as to free the resulting music from the boundaries of genre.
These songs, sung with naked emotion and startling grace by Justin Ringle, glide from slow-building climax to climax, casting melodies like afternoon shadows. The mood is solemn and reflective, but never overbearingly so, as lyrics slip from the oblique to the blunt.
The arrangements enhance the mood cast by Ringle, never overwhelming or intruding. Siblings Peter and Heather Broderick use judicious string arrangements to build each song from little more than a banjo and/or an acoustic guitar to a delicately ornate work that champions the power of quiet. In a musical world in need of originality, House With No Name more than fills the void. It's not just intriguing -- it's disarmingly enchanting in its honesty and beauty.
Rokia Traore
Tchamantche
Label: Nonesuch Records
If you like: African music
Song to download: "Aimer"
The genius of Tchamantche, a quiet, well-crafted album by Malian singer Rokia Traore, is in the arrangements -- a combination of modern and traditional elements and the intensity of Traore's voice. Part griot and part chanteuse, Traore wields a voice that trembles and whispers among a sparse rhythm section and traditional African instruments.
A circuitous guitar riff; the plucking of a West African lute called an n'goni; brushes on a snare drum --all gently meld into atmospheric grooves. All the tracks are originals except the Gershwin classic, "The Man I Love" -- a treat to hear Traore sing in heavily accented English. Her lyrics are sung mostly in Bambara and French. They draw on the beauty of nature and contain aphorisms about the value of human existence and the fragility of love.
Tchamantche's mix of tender and danceable tunes and African and Western musical sensibilities forge a delicate balance that lures the listener back again and again.
Late of the Pier
Fantasy Black Channel
Label: Astralwerks
If you like: The Rapture, Faint
Song to download: "Random Firl"
Each song on Fantasy Black Channel, the debut album from Late of the Pier, an attention-deficit-disorder-afflicted young British band, contains tightly wound punk, sprawling psychedelia and terse dance-floor rhythms. More often than not, the moments in which one song gives over to the next are not the most jarring musical shifts.
Although this album is herky-jerky, knotty and vigorous, somehow it is also slightly dull.
Too often, Late of the Pier leans on familiar 1980s dance-rock and post-punk styles that were new again seven or eight years ago. For instance, "Space and the Woods" matches Devo-like severity with coiled Gang of Four guitars and tight clusters of drums.
The disc is produced by the highly regarded DJ Erol Alkan, who stitches myriad influences into something approximating seamlessness. But although he keeps the album moving forward, he can't fully tame its splintered instincts.
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