Sanctuary Records Week @ Music Spectrum:Todd Rundgren & Adrian Belew

SANCTUARY RECORDS WEEK CD GIVEAWAYS! Win a prize package of CDs from Sanctuary Records. Details below.


Jazz-influenced Rock: Todd Rundgren’s Liars
Having always loved Todd Rundgren’s production work on XTC’s Skylarking, I find “Truth,” the first track of Rundgren’s 2004 album, Liars, to be off-putting. 80’s-styled disco synths greet you along with vocals like the filler tracks on some Howard Jones EP. While Rundgren’s liner notes are waxing poetic, I think the quote applies to my reaction to the music as well, “The fact is, we are terrified of the truth.” If we’re speaking of the song “Truth,” then, yeah, Todd, I’m terrified.

The key, though, to understanding Rundgren’s 2004 project was in seeing that he is touring with Joe Jackson. Liars has a lot of similarities to Jackson’s genre-defying, jazz-synth pop, which takes on elements of Top 40 radio only to twist ti back on itself. Rundgren sings with great passion, and yet, as the keyboard bounces along in its Casio samba mode, there’s got to be a tongue in a cheek somewhere here.

After getting off to a shaky start, this albums finds its stride for the fourth through sixth tracks, three songs which segue into one another. “Soulbrother” is an R&B night club track, the strongest of many R&B hints in the album, paying tribute to the genre and asking, “Can I get a witness?” The song features a terrific wind solo from Garn Ian Thomasson, one of the few elements not played, sung, or produced by Rundgren himself. Perhaps this songs jumps out because the synth heavy sounds take a backseat for a Hammond B3 organ setting.

“Soulbrother” vamps right into the tentative keyboard questions that open “Stoodup.” As it emerges with chime-like background, doubled- and tripled-voices, and a little more jungle rhythm, “Stoodup” sounds like an outtake from XTC’s Oranges and Lemons, their album to follow the Rundgren-produced Skylarking. Recalling Rundgren’s association with XTC certainly helps to makes this track so appealing.

As soon as the last line, “I stood up too fast,” fades, there’s this big, layered keyboard and percussion orchestra effect, like the auditorium booming on the “War of 1812 Overture.” This is the prog rock “Mammon.” The waves of keys could be from Yes, but Rundgren’s deep vocals are opposite Jon Anderson’s falsetto. The song preaches like a poetic prophet, expounding on these words of Jesus, “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [money]" (Luke 16:13).

Many of the songs explore spiritual issues or questions that run parallel to questions asked within the Church. That takes us back to the off-putting opener, “Truth.” For an album called Liars, there’s a lot of truth-seeking. With the same contrast, there’s all of these synth sounds which seem artificial and having a paucity of depth, but there’s a lot of songcraft here. This album is more than a guy doodling on a keyboard. The instrumentation belies the veracity of the song crafting a question out of the deepest silences we’d rather present.

Rundgren offer a thesis in the liner notes: “All of these songs are about a paucity of truth.” I’d offer the following as a biblical text as the basis for the question of truth:

Then Pilate said to [Jesus], "So you are a king?"

Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world— to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice."

Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" (John 18:37-38)

Pilate casts aside the question of truth, “terrified of the truth,” meanwhile ignoring the need to sing along with Rundgren’s cheesy keyboard, “Sweet bird of truth, come to me.”

Thank you to Todd Rundgren and the Sanctuary Records Group for the review copy.


College Rock: Adrian Belew’s Side One
Back in the mid-80’s I became increasingly interested in the indie rock scene, when alternative really meant alternative. However, I didn’t have the helpful knowledge of an older sibling. I lived outside the broadcast range of college radio. It was the era of Columbia House deals of 12 cassettes for the price of 1, bargain music which really didn’t showcase anything but the majors—but hey, it was cheap. Not knowing there were other music sources out there, I did the only thing I knew to do: scoured the reviews in Rolling Stone for any artists that the local Top 40 stations didn’t play and that my friends didn’t know about. That became my definition of alternative, and sometimes it led to some tremendous music. Like Adrian Belew.

1989’s Mr. Music Head was a musical education for me. Belew brings an art rockwer’s eclecticism along with his amazing guitar skills. Belew played guitar for Frank Zappa, David Bowie, and became part of King Crimson. What I heard on Mr. Music Head was not a straight-forward Guitar Rock album. Rather, Belew’s guitar is the theme in a series of art rock tunes, each taking on a different style.

Belew returned in 2005 with the first of three solo releases. Side One continues the eclecticism that has long been Belew’s territory. The album opens with “Ampersand,” having more elements of a traditional structured song than other tracks, but then there’s Belew’s odd lyrics about dreams and communicating using alliteration and ampersands. This song, along with “Writing on the Wall” and “Matchless Man,” have great muscle as Belew invited Les Claypool (bass) and David Carey (drums) to help make him into a power trio. (Claypool and Carey will return on the forthcoming Side Three).

“Madness” may well drive you mad as there’s a very quiet introduction from Katchaturian’s “Gayne Ballet Suite,” almost too quiet for nearly a minute before Belew launches into an atonal harmonic dark jam with a digital glitch thrown in midway just to make you think your CD player is busted.

“Walk Around the World” features a raindrop guitar, a picked electric guitar that emulates the scatter pattern made in a puddle by a heavy downpour. A Beatlesque pop melody for the lyric is laid over this like lacquer applied to a rough piece of wood. When the drum set enters, though, you realize that the guitar had been following a snare drum pattern. The tensions of rhythm tend to even further create aural pictures even as the drums pull together the different strains of the song.

Like the music, Belew’s lyrics are never quite linear. However, his lyrics can inspire writers to play more with word association, sounds, and imagery. When Belew says, “I can build a garden in your” (“Walk Around The World”), you know that he can dig, sow, and reap in the unlikeliest places. When he sings, “Here I am a matchless man/Trying to set your heart on fire” (“Matchless Man”), you know the futility of desire coming up against a poverty of resources. Belew doesn’t have to say much, doesn’yt have to spell it out clearly, but you still feel as if he’s just taught you to re-recognize your world.

Thank you to Adrian Belew and the Sanctuary Records Group for the review copy.


Sanctuary Records Week CD Giveaways!
From April 22-27, there will be chances to win Prize Packs courtesy of Sanctuary Records Group and Music Spectrum.

Today’s Prize Packs:
Prize Pack #1: Adrian Belew’s Side One and an autographed Buddahead poster
Prize Pack #2: Wu-Tang Clan and Eek-a-Mouse
Both packs will include a Music Spectrum bumper sticker.

To win, Bob of New York and Daniel of London went to the Sanctuary Records Website, and then emailed me with the names of 3 Sanctuary artists not mentioned in this posting. Congrats to Bob & Daniel!

Thank you to the Sanctuary Records Group, Gigante Media, and Special Ops Media for the review copies and giveaway CDs with Sanctuary Records Week.