New Music

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Ani DiFranco

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ANI DIFRANCO

¿Which Side Are You On? (Righteous Babe)

For her sweet 16th studio album American folk/protest singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco proves yet again that she has a tender way with a melody and a sharp sense of how to get her messages across confidently. The handsomely packaged ¿Which Side Are You On? is protest music wrapped in hip and comprehensible sentiment and there is something remarkable in this music for even the most jaded, politically neutral couch potato to grasp.

DiFranco sings mainly about the palpable disconnect in today's mainstream world and how most of us are happy to trot along, merrily oblivious and sleepily unconscious to what we are being made to consume and think on a daily basis. Her lyrics cascade like a waterfall and her imagery is both sharp and direct, yet as conveyed by DiFranco, sweet and palatable. If Yr Not simply reminds us that "If yr not getting happier as you get older then yr fu**in' up", while the wild, brass-infused title track kicks against the proverbial pricks with cogent lines like "America who are we now our innocence is gone?" and "The road to ruin is paved with patriarchy." If it sounds heavy, it is at times, but DiFranco and her band make everything delicious by playing their butts off.

Her more poetic love songs soften the edges of her diatribes, and Hearse, Mariachi and the interesting Promiscuity will please older fans who enjoy her gentler, acoustic side.

After all these years, DiFranco is still a pretty righteous babe, and with this album she once again confirms her place as an artist willing to take unconventional chances. Four stars

-- Jeff Monk

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HOWLER

America Give Up (Rough Trade)

THE first thing you notice upon opening the debut album from Minneapolis quintet Howler is attention-grabbing song titles like Beach Sluts, Back to the Grave, Too Much Blood and Back of your Neck. Fortunately the band's music is up to the task of keeping you interested by combining reverb-drenched surf, fuzzy garage, lo-fi indie-rock and jangle pop that draws inspiration from the likes of the bubblegum punk of the Ramones and retro-worshipping hipsters the Strokes, a band Howler has been earning the most comparisons too.

Along the way there are handclaps, woo hoo shouts and enough infectious melodies that you won't care that it's not the most original thing you've heard, only that you want to hear it again. Considering group members are only in their early 20s, they have some time to find their own sound. Four stars

-- Rob Williams

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LYRICAL MILITANT

Prelude to Revolution (Independent)

HIS friends know him as Omar Zulfi, but behind the microphone the Winnipeg rapper goes by the name Lyrical Militant with a modus operandi of drawing attention to social ills and global issues. Zulfi issues a call to change the planet and start the healing on the soulful Humanity's Tragedy, delves into pop on the inspirational Never Give Up, draws attention to materialism on Big Dreams and mixes Middle-Eastern melodies with contemporary hip hop on Nach Le.

Over the course of the 16-track album -- the first of a planned trilogy -- Zulfi is joined by a collection of top-notch producers, including DatPaki, Muneshine, Banz and Lomaticc who craft a diverse collection of beats and backing samples while guest vocalists like Flo, Dele O, Jahgo and Kapone provide the hooks on this professional sounding collection that could easily fit in on Top 40 radio and serves notice the revolution is coming. Three and a half stars

-- RW

SNOOP DOGG & WIZ KHALIFA

Mac + Devin Go To High School: Music From and Inspired By The Movie (Atlantic)

UNLESS you have been frozen in a sheet of ice for the last couple of decades you may not be aware that Calvin Broadus a.k.a. Snoop Dogg is a big proponent of marijuana smoking and the attendant lifestyle. "Bigg Snoop" has turned his love of the demon weed into something of a massive cottage industry over the years and this soundtrack album is just another twist to the proverbial Doggy joint.

With his laid-back enunciation, Broadus is somewhat unique, and musically the songs are appealing if completely one-dimensional. Khalifa's vocals aren't anything out of the ordinary, but do offer some respite from Dogg's indistinct, druggy mumble. There are a few interesting guests, mostly from the Dogg stable of friends and relations, and tracks like French Inhale and I Get Lifted stand out. Mostly though, you are subjected to endless descriptions of how big Snoop Dogg rolls his joints and how effective his brand of homegrown "O.G." weed is.

Put it this way-your subwoofer speaker will get no relief here. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. After all, it's only a movie. Two and half stars

-- Monk

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KATHLEEN EDWARDS

Voyageur (MapleMusic/Universal)

OTTAWA native Kathleen Edwards has been dealing with some personal challenges in the last few years, including the demise of her marriage. Along the way, there was a period of creative soul-searching, evidently driven by a desire to break out of the alt-country/roots-rock genre she mined on her first three albums.

To help, she enlisted new boyfriend Justin Vernon, a.k.a singer-songwriter Bon Iver, to serve as co-producer. Vernon's influence marks a significant departure for Edwards, both in lyrical content and production. Instead of the straight-ahead roots-rock narratives that drove her previous album, 2008's Asking for Flowers, Edwards has turned inward to figure out the complicated mess of feelings that accompany divorce with a sound more lush and textured than anything she has ever produced.

There's also a sense of moving forward in the pulsing motif and soaring vocals of Change the Sheets, one of the album's best songs. On Sidecar Edwards reveals her vulnerable side in the lyrics, although it's actually the most upbeat song on the album, capturing the giddy feeling of new love in a mix that echoes the Cranberries or even Metric. Casting torment aside, it's the track that shows she's found the light at the end of the tunnel. Four stars

-- Lynn Saxberg, Postmedia News

ELECTRONIC

STEVE AOKI

Wonderland (Ultra/Dim Mak)

BACK in the early hipster heydays of the mid '00s, LA's Steve Aoki was already developing his hard-edged, hybrid electro-rock sound before it started to spread across North America. The man known as Kid Millionaire has always been more than a DJ, running his influential Dim Mak label, taking excursions into clothing and sunglass design and using his status as a tastemaker to help shape the sound of things to come. It's no surprise then that it took him a while to get into the studio and finish his debut album. It's packed with collaborators that read like a guest list to one of his club nights on Hollywood Boulevard; Rivers Cuomo, Lil' Jon, LMAFO, Travis Barker and Kid Kudi all drop by the studio for a one off session.

Aoki knows how to ignite a dance floor, so he dishes out super-sized synths, buzzing bass lines, video game melodies, huge drops, neon samples, over-caffeinated drums and wide-eyed rave anthems that can blow up a club, but don't really have the same effect anywhere else. While Aoki probably would have been more successful with this album a few years ago -- at times it feels a bit stale (already), but have no fear: the 24-hour party people will flock to Wonderland based on Aoki's reputation and guests alone. Two and a half stars

-- Anthony Augustine

JAZZ

JACK DEJOHNETTE

Sound Travels (eOne)

THIS is a big year for drummer Jack DeJohnette: he turns 70 and was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. What better way to celebrate than with a new, eclectic recording, Sound Travels, with a host of guest musicians such as bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding, singers Bruce Hornsby and Bobby McFerrin, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, guitarist Lionel Loueke, saxophonist Tim Ries, percussionist Luisito Quintero, and pianist Jason Moran on one track.

DeJohnette, who made a name as an A-list jazz drummer with Miles Davis, Charles Lloyd and Keith Jarrett, also plays piano on almost all the tracks. He also composed all the tunes.

DeJohnette crosses styles on this disc, but the overriding theme is good music. Highlights include Sonny Light, a West Indian calypso, in a nod to jazz legend Sonny Rollins; and Dirty Ground with some delta guitar from the Benin native Loueke and some N'Awlins sax sounds from Ries. Three and a half stars

-- Chris Smith

CLASSICAL

ALEXANDRE THARAUD, LES VIOLONS DU ROY, BERNARD LABADIE

J.S. Bach: Keyboard Concertos (Virgin Classics)

It's hard not to think of Glenn Gould here since several of the five keyboard concertos were close to him and 2012 marks both the 80th anniversary of Gould's birth and the 30th of his death. More reminding comes in the form of Tharaud using a modern piano with Quebec's Les Violons du Roy on "modern" instruments, though with baroque bows and a hair-trigger response not usually found in the weightier orchestras on Gould's recordings.

These are exhilarating, deftly articulated readings that enliven everything, though they are a bit shy on poetry in the slow movements which, in themselves, define Bach's romantic side. There's also a setting of the famous Adagio from Marcello's Oboe Concerto, plus a multi-tracked keyboard arrangement Bach made of Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins with all four solo parts played by Tharaud.

There is no end of pleasure here, in both performance and music. Four stars

-- James Manishen

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 21, 2012 G4