| IF YOU GO: more than personal
Slip on The Sun Awakens, the new recording by the indie folk-rock thrill seekers known as Six Organs of Admittance, and you may be as puzzled as anyone in describing what you hear. Despite its name, the album-opening Torn by Wolves seems inviting enough, with strains of sunny melodies and folkish rhythms. But by Bless Your Blood, the storm clouds gather and electric guitar, no pun intended, bleeds into the soundscape. By the time the 24-minute River of Transfiguration closes the record, you feel you're at a sance with a minimalist drone and distant choral passages as your primary guides. All of which might suggest that Ben Chasny -- or "Mr. Six Organs," as his record label calls him -- is one moody fellow. But in conversation, Chasny is as animated and quick-witted as his music is meditative -- that is, until you ask him to put a label on his music.
CD review: Julie Roberts
HARD COUNTRY: On her second album, South Carolina's Julie Roberts sinks her bluesy twang into a batch of stone-country songs about cheating, drinking, loving, Mama and even some girl-next-door jealousy. Mandolin, fiddle, steel guitar and dobro give the CD a homespun yet hard-edged vibe. You could as easily hear these songs at the local honky-tonk as you could enjoy them while sitting on your front porch. SAD COUNTRY: But be prepared to shed a tear in your beer or iced tea. Ms. Roberts' model good looks and deceptively photogenic image belie her artistic strengths. She's no chirpy pop singer disguised as country à la current genre princesses Faith Hill, Sara Evans and Carrie Underwood. This sculpted blonde has depth and power, particularly during "Paint and Pillows," a piercing tale of adultery; "Men & Mascara," a sad story about heartbreaking mistakes; and "A Bridge That's Burning," a cautionary confession of temptation.
Great Big Sea sets rollicking tone at massive opening night
Never underestimate the appetite for Great Big Sea in Ottawa. Although the Newfoundland band played here just a couple of months ago, that minor detail had little, if any, effect on either attendance or enthusiasm at Bluesfest last night. With the crowd at Festival Plaza unofficially estimated at more than 20,000 people -- approximately 10 times the size of the crowd at the band's recent appearance at the National Arts Centre -- it looked like one of the biggest opening nights in Bluesfest history. On a perfect summer night, thousands more checked out Canadian indie rockers Broken Social Scene and Malajube at the new MBNA Stage, a nice grassy area a stone's throw away at Lisgar Collegiate. Still more crammed into the Black Sheep zone for Calexico and Seu Jorge. Between those two stages, the Blues Til Dusk stage featured bluesman Otis Taylor, a jam with Ottawa guitar hero Tony D and Cuban dance band Maraca.
Live Review: CSNY in Ottawa
OTTAWA - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young have been singing songs that tell American presidents to stop the war for close to 40 years. Back in the late 1960s, it was about getting out of Vietnam. Four decades later, the U.S. is once again in a controversial war, this time in Iraq, and support for the peaceniks is swelling. With all this renewed hippie-friendly sentiment fomenting, and pop music looking backwards anyways, it was a largely fascinating exercise in wishful thinking as the veteran supergroup stirred up outrage and affection in the 12,000 fans attending their Freedom of Speech '06 tour at Scotiabank Place last night. Proof that if you stick with something long enough, eventually it will come back into fashion. On the first tour since 2002, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young first joined forces in 1969 when a memorable performance at Woodstock gave the giant music festival and the youth movement of the 1960s an articulate and optimistic voice.
Body Politics
Perhaps it's unfair to begrudge Mr. Lif the right to record a stinky-booty song. Every hardworking MC is entitled to a little alleged comic relief, and hip-hop has long shown an affinity for the mundane facets and pitfalls of sex. But Lif's not every MC, and his previous record, 2002's I Phantom, wasn't just any rap album. It began with Lif asking a friend for a handgun and ended with a cataclysmic landscape of fire and ash. In between, it examined the cause and effect of urban economics, from corporate-sanctioned drudgery to the realities of growing up with absentee, work-three-jobs parents. It was heady stuff, rapped with sass and confidence. Mo' Mega, by contrast, is thematically scattershot and packed with easy targets. Lif's talent with bitter-tongued lyrics and acid-poet imagery hasn't weakened, but somewhere along the way, he failed to recognize that the fullness of his previous disc's worldview elevated him above all the ego-tripping hacks who blend self-serving, undergrad-level political protest into the eternal quest for hip-hop lucre.
CAMBODIAN POP GOES FAR
The Cambodian pop music of the 1960s seems like an unlikely template for an American rock 'n' roll band, but that's the sound that captivated Dengue Fever keyboard player Ethan Holtzman during an especially perilous trip through the Cambodian countryside in 1997. "I was up in Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat (the ancient temple complex built by Khmer kings between the seventh and 13th centuries) with a friend," Holtzman says. "We got a ride back to Phnom Penh in a small pickup truck. My friend was coming down with dengue fever, getting delirious, and the driver was blasting Cambodian pop music from the late '60s on his tape player. The truck stopped in every town to pick up more riders, and with the heat, the overcrowding and my friend's fever, it became surrealistic. I always have my ears open for things that sound good, and that music really made an impression." Before he flew back to Los Angeles, Holtzman picked up every cassette of Cambodian pop from the '60s he could find.
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