CD reviews
Trae, What Made Milwaukee Famous, Money Waters, Final Fantasy
The people are (finally) getting restless
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Monday, August 14, 2006
Trae
'Restless'
(Asylum)
This increasingly legendary H-town MC already dropped the best Texas single of 2006 with the loping trunk banger "Swang." With funereal keyboards that sound even grimmer with the murder earlier this year of guest rapper Hawk, "Swang" triangulated summer cruising, thuggish peril and the mourning that comes with being caught up in the life.
It's a highlight of "Restless," Trae's long-rumored major-label debut. Keeping the scary "(Expletive) By Nature" persona that's sustained him over half a dozen indie albums and featuring beats that appear and disappear like felony witnesses, "Restless" is the perfect introduction to Trae's singular menace. The lyrics fly by on "Real Talk," ghetto drama over a panicky beat. Yung Joc hollas on "In the Hood." "Screw Done Already Warned Me" pays tribute to the late DJ Screw's power. Per rap tradition, the old-school bongos and soul samples on the title track signify memories of hoods gone by and where a thug goes from here. It's trunk-popping time, people.
What Made Milwaukee Famous
'Trying to Never Catch Up'
(Barsuk)
This is a semi-reissue of the Austin indie-rock sensation's 2004 debut, and collectors will want both versions, as this one has sharp remastering and four new songs but is missing three others. Goodbye "Next to Him," "Around the Gills" and "Short on Shields." Hello "Sweet Lady," "Hopelist," "Judas" and "The Jeopardy of Contentment."
Anyway, it's been an eventful two years for the quartet, whose guitar pop moves from orthodox (the title track, "Curtains!") to Kinks-like swagger ("Sweet Lady"). The band is managed now by Fourth Floor, the management arm of the Charles Attal Presents/Capital Sports and Entertainment empire, it played on "Austin City Limits" and now is signed to Barsuk, the Seattle label that made Death Cab for Cutie the "The O.C."-generation legend it is today. The holdovers remain the carefully crafted pop gems you remember — really good zircons if not quite diamonds. The new tracks find the band honing a songcraft sensibility that should have fictional Orange County residents dropping its name any day now.
— J.G.
Money Waters
'Swalhaggin'
(Noir Sounds)
This Dallas MC's 2003 debut, "The Porch," will one day stand among the great regional debuts, a startlingly funny mix of full-band soul, cheap beats and Money's Big D drawl, the sound of boredom turned into rhyme.
The sequel seemed to take him forever to complete, but man, is it worth it. A far cry from the interchangeable blinging thud of too much Southern hip-hop, Money always sounds broke and barely keeping it together, the sort of everyman mope who falls in love with strippers. He cooks up crack over soulful guitar-wah on "Noid" and acts the thug on "Monsta," but never makes it sound cool, just clock-punching.
This is Money's gift: He can rap, "That's why I roll with a pistol on me/ 'cause (beep) see you different on an empty stomach" and it comes off as a fact, not a worldview. Also, "Swalhaggin" might be the first hip-hop album in history with 100 percent funny skits, which alone qualifies it for some sort of rap Nobel Prize. Cop this now so you can say you knew him back in the proverbial day.
— J.G.
Final Fantasy
'He Poos Clouds'
(Tomlab)
When we last heard from Owen Pallett, a k a Final Fantasy, he was looping his violin to create strange, shimmering, one-man indie-rock fugues. This time out, he has a full band, the better to translate his clipped melodies into the moody orchestral pop of his dreams. Pallett mumbles (and occasionally shouts, to odd effect) his way through surreal little tunelets full of jutting violins, piano, harpsichord and discreetly employed percussion — "Clouds" songs feel more like movements than tunes, parts of a full-CD work of modern composition. Unlike such chamber-rock acts as Rachel's or Godspeed You Black Emperor, this is not grandiose music. It's "chamber music" in the most literal sense — small sounds, medium ambition. But given the way "This Lamb Sells Condos" turns into a weird little operetta, one can easily imagine Pallett staging a grand production someday.
(Final Fantasy plays Friday at the Parish with Bob Wiseman and Curtains.)
— J.G.
