CD Reviews

ARTHUR RUSSELL
Calling Out of Context
(Audika)

The words typically used to describe the late disco don and avant-bubblegum artist Arthur Russell—beatific, diffident, difficult—draw a picture of a man slightly out of step. The man himself spells it out on "Arm Around You": "I need to be told what to do/I'm in a world of my own." Calling Out of Context, recorded in the mid-to-late '80s but until now unreleased, plots the first dot in a quavering line that drifts from AR Kane's 1989 i all the way to Junior Boys' 2004 Last Exit. As with those albums, there was a vague context for Russell's work of the time—the beats of Davy DMX, the melancholy of the Jesus & Mary Chain, the Neu!-meets-James-Taylor lope of late-period Talking Heads (a band Russell almost joined in the '70s)—but nothing else really like it. Russell could write "proper" songs, like the updated Beach Boys of "That's Us/Wild Combination," detailing a simple litany of simpler pleasures (walking, swimming, kissing, surfing). But Russell's songs often seem nearly autistic, deep in private conversation, like the songs children make up to entertain themselves. Occasionally his fatigued voice will flare up into an awkward sharp above his register or drop to a cartoonish frog croak. The beat will burble endlessly, funk bass popping, while his distorted, overdriven cello drones and squeals. A beautiful melody will disappear at the flick of a switch for a reverb-soaked percussion break. Lyrical profundities will sit next to utter banalities, which might sound like wordless scat anyway. Or as Russell himself says, "Calling all kids/Adults are crazy"—to say nothing of beautiful, weird, heartrending, funny. JESS HARVELL

THE BLACK HEART PROCESSION + SOLBAKKEN
In the Fishtank 11
(Konkurrent)

First, the concept: Dutch record label Konkurrent invites a touring band to pick a partner and spend two days in the studio throwing tracks together ad hoc. Some of the participants thus far: NoMeansNo, Tortoise, Dirty Three, Sonic Youth, and poli-sci punks the Ex. This year's experiment: San Diego's darkly seductive orchestral indie rockers the Black Heart Procession mix it up with Dutch prog rockers Solbakken. The resulting sound: not unlike Nick Cave practicing long division—but you knew that was coming. Cave is often cited as a touchstone for the Black Heart Procession's sound, and In the Fishtank 11 insists that his, and their, epic darkness is indelible; no matter what you add to the BHP, they will sound like a carnival of longing and regret. The rolling, Britpoppy "A Taste of You and Me" and the deep, heavy, 10-minute "Things Go On With Mistakes" are the disc's most mathy and Solbakken-like tracks. The first's florid piano melody competes with the shuffling, building, combative drumbeat like two kids solving equations on a blackboard, while the latter's insistent bass notes are an infinity theorem set in stone against reverberating vocals and an escalating beat. Guest vocalist Rachael Rose, singing in breathy French, lends a lush dynamic to the BHP's Paulo Zappoli's solid, Bono-like timbre on lead track "Voiture en Rouge," and the closer, "Your Cave," serves to punctuate the disc with a stick-to-your-ribs souvenir of bad seeds and the people who sow them. Throughout, BHP pianist Tobias Nathaniel tethers imagery, stutter-step percussion, and strange melodies with his gorgeous, resonant playing. LAURA CASSIDY

VARIOUS ARTISTS/MIXED BY THE OUTERNATIONALISTS
The Outernationalists Present Ethnomixology
(Six Degrees)

The line between world music and plain old music gets thinner every year. Cheap air travel, immigration, and the Internet are making obsolete notions of "the exotic," and modern pop consistently reeks of global influences. There's no such thing as a local music scene anymore: Some of the best Jamaican dancehall comes from New York and Toronto; East Asian bhangra-rap star Panjabi MC lives in England; Seattle's best electronic musicians have their strongest fan base in Germany, a country whose homegrown producers make excellent Detroit techno; and you can buy it all on Amazon.com. DJ culture's constant sampling, relentless turnover, and no-boundaries attitude ensure this week's hottest dance records will draw from influences far and wide—Fela's Afro-funk, Eastern European folk music, '80s Europop, Bollywood film scores, Midwestern butt-rock. Ethnomixology, selected by Afro Celt Sound System's Simon Emmerson and music journalist Phil Meadley, offers a snapshot of an omni-genre at the top of its game, combining and recombining influences so stealthily that you'd have a hard time picking out what comes from where. The liner notes can fill you in on which Londoner sampled what Indian record over whose Motown beat, but after a few minutes you won't care about that, because the Outer­nationalists make "world music" into a playground, not a museum. MATT CORWINE

FRANZ FERDINAND
Franz Ferdinand
(Domino)

Franz Ferdinand's brand of stylish, jaunty rock is well into its "Zone of Fruitless Intensification"—a term coined by critic Simon Reynolds to describe music that's lost the ability it once had to be exciting and vital. If you read the British pop weekly NME (don't worry; no one else does, either), these Scottish rockers will "change your life." They've already stormed the U.K. charts (roughly the equivalent of storming Massachusetts) with the smart, sexy stomper "Take Me Out." Like N.Y.C. mope-rockers Interpol, Franz Ferdinand push all the right latent-Anglophile buttons—you know, that part of you that digs Joy Division and dressed like Morrissey in high school. Franz Ferdinand are much more fun than Interpol, which isn't difficult, and when their rhythm engine kicks into high gear and nattily dressed lead singer Alex Kapranos moans like Pulp's Jarvis Cocker at the top of his game, you'd swear you were listening to . . . well . . . Pulp. Part of the band's instant appeal is that it sounds like all of your favorite bands. But where retro lovers like the Strokes sound like everyone at once but no one in particular, Franz Ferdinand wear their influences like a series of corsages. Does part of you just want to dance around to Pulp's "Common People" in your bedroom? Then Franz Ferdinand are your band—and they make the world a (slightly) better place for it. GEETA DAYAL