Calexico play the Showbox with Mum, Why?, and Miss Ohios at 9 p.m. Fri., July 2. $13 adv./$15.
CAETANO VELOSO
A Foreign Sound
(Nonesuch)
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The covers album is a thoughtful way for an established rock artist to tell their audience, "The muse has deserted me," or, "I'm trying to quickly fulfill a contract," or, "I give up," but Brazilian singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso is too given to critique to make A Foreign Sound into one of those. This collection of standards of "American popular song" slyly implicates them both as agents of American imperialism, underscoring the vexed but fascinated relationship he's always had with the cultural products of the U.S.A. He even adds a few zings for new listeners via uncompromising covers of DNA's no-wave "Detached" and Morris Albert's schlock-horror "Feelings." Which is great, really, but oh gawd, the singing! Compared to Veloso's '60s–'70s heyday, it's grotesquely careful, nasal, and fey, with range and emphasis gone AWOL. Sometimes Veloso's struggle to remain singerly adds emotional ballast where it's needed—the a cappella "Love for Sale" is as sordid as Madame George reciting an aria with clenched fists—but usually he sounds too detached to care much. And though in leaner days he could rock on out with the best of them, Veloso now not only limps all around the eccentric meter of Dylan's "It's All Right, Ma" but blurts out "chocolate chip cookie" in the Talking Heads' "(Nothing but) Flowers" so embarrassingly desperately, he might as well be a Let's Make a Deal contestant calling out for door number three. Stick to the Polydor Brazil compilation A Arte de Caetano Veloso and the 2002 memoir Tropical Truths, now out in paperback, if you're curious about Veloso's considerable gifts. MICHAEL DADDINO
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Suck My Deck: Mixed by Ivan Smagghe
(Bugged Out, U.K.)
If electroclash at its worst looks and sounds like an unnecessary sacrifice of dance music's best qualities for the sake of rock and roll glamour, then Black Strobe's Ivan Smagghe is a bit like a Trojan Horse wheeled inside of rock's city walls. From its naughty title to its cover shot of Ivan the Rock God, Smagghe's latest mix-disc (his third in little over a year) bears all the outward hallmarks of belonging to the current trend of eclectic, songcentric, and rock-friendly DJ mixes: see Playgroup, Ladytron, Erland Oye, etc. Instead, Suck My Deck is Smagghe's most monomaniacally minimal and "tracky" release yet, determinedly charting a narrow course between rigid electro and seething acid house, and avoiding anything quite so garish as vocals almost entirely. This feels like a line in the sand at times: Anyone who doesn't enjoy subjecting their body to the groove is unlikely to respond to this. But it's rigorously abrasive fun, streamlining the "dark side" tendency of any number of scenes, although a mix that takes the camp out of acid house, the reggae out of bleep and bass, the dazzle out of French house, and the rock glamour out of electroclash is vulnerable to charges of excessive furrow-browed seriousness. What renders Suck My Deck compulsive is the palpable sleaziness of its grooves, which oozes out of every selection in spite of its defiant antihumanism. At its propulsive, fidgety best, such as Phonique's glowering "The Red Dress," Smagghe's mix offers up a definition of "plugged in" that's at once kinky and slightly disturbing. TIM FINNEY
VETIVER
Vetiver
(DiCristina)
Considering this San Francisco band's sound, Vetiver—a thin, tall East Indian grass—is an apt name. Their first release gathers disorienting folk songs so wispy they could be crushed by a child's foot or blown away by a slight breeze at any minute. Instead, vocalist Andy Cabic, guitarist/vocalist Devendra Banhart, cellist Alissa Anderson, and violinist Jim Gaylord stay the faltering course and provide for a pleasant, meandering journey along the way. Escape via automobile is a prevalent theme here: "Oh, papa/I'm takin' the car/You won't mind me missin' at all" ("Oh Papa"), and "Without a song I left the city/Borrowed a car with no radio/Gone before the sun had a chance to shine/The freeway weighed on my mind" ("Without a Song"). Similarly, Vetiver seems like a departure from somewhere and an arrival somewhere else, with a lot of stops to pick up temporary passengers: Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval croons hushedly on "Angel's Share," and My Bloody Valentine drummer Colm O'Ciosoig taps "Luna Sea" and lightly thuds the toms on the closer, "On a Nerve." All of it rides spare production (from Thom Monahan and Cabic) that the material fits like a skeleton. GRANT BRISSEY
RAMMELLZEE
Bi-Conicals of the Rammellzee
(Gomma)
Rammellzee is hip-hop's Captain Beefheart. A gruff-voiced old soul who lives in an alternate universe where sound is king and words lose their meaning, he's a progenitor of everything weird in rap music. The MC and graffiti artist spent the early '80s helping to define street culture, working with people like Fab 5 Freddy and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and appearing in the landmark film Wild Style. The Basquiat-produced single, "Beat Bop" (1983), on which Ram and partner K-Rob paraded around a Kool Keith–sized collection of alter egos, stretched the toddler genre to its anything-goes limits. But like Don Van Vliet, Rammellzee retreated into the visual art world, concentrating on paintings, sculptures, and costumes that express his self-created "Gothic Futurist" philosophy. Two decades later, Rammellzee's dark, intense solo debut proves that the man remains a lunatic visionary. Leadoff track "Do We Have to Show a Resume?" is what the Creature from the Black Lagoon's rap record might sound like: muddy bass and frenetic breakbeats punctuated by disembodied screams and cell phone rings, over which Ram spews venom in an echo-laden roar. Throughout the album, he comes across as a time- and space-traveling street-corner crank prophet, his lyrics making little sense on every song save the old-school party jam "Pay the Rent" (produced by Jaws from Quannum's Poets of Rhythm, and featuring Wild Style vet Shockdell). But the force of Rammellzee's menacing growl tells you all you need to know. AMY PHILLIPS
