Fela covers and Dylan-ish rasp

I've got a couple of reviews up today at Blurt, one of the Fela Kuti-honoring Red Hot & Fela which I found mostly kind of tepid with a couple of really good songs. I wrote, "despite the abundance of good intention, Red Hot & Fela is only intermittently compelling. Listen to any of these cuts against the originals, and they sound chilled, glossed, smoothed and, especially, much abbreviated." There's more here.

Here's video of a concert at Lincoln Center which featured the disc's music...


There's also a new review of Ezra Furman's second Harpoon-less endeavor, The Day of the Dog, which I quite liked. I wrote: "Ezra Furman turns existential angst into roadhouse bravado on this second solo LP, framing burnt black lyrics with vamping sax, rollicking piano and double-time romps. Furman may be “broken, wide-open, bleeding everywhere” (per “The Mall”), but he’s still thrashing around in protest. The protest, in this case, takes the form of rousing, blustery, forget-yourself-in-rock-and-roll arrangements that recall everyone from electric Dylan to classic gospel to Bo Diddley (“At the Bottom of the Ocean”)." There's a bunch more here.



We finally hit Season 3 of The Good Wife last night, which I am enjoying immensely, especially Archie Panjabi and Alan Cumming, but also that the show has guest cameos from so many great theater actors, not to mention a running gig for Julliard-educated Christine Baranski. I'm a little worried about the two-main-characters-finally-having-sex thing, which has ruined so many good shows...I don't want to know anything about what happens, but does it suck from here or not?

Ezra without the Harpoons

I give Ezra Furman's first solo record The Year of No Returning four stars at Blurt today.


The Year of No Returning
Ezra Furman
Bar/None

BY JENNIFER KELLY

All by himself for the first time, songwriter Ezra Furman struck out in a lot of different ways on The Year of No Returning. He made the record shortly after dissolving Ezra and the Harpoons, his band since college, which had hit its critical high water mark with the 2011 release Mysterious Power.


Moving back to Chicago, holing up in an attic studio, working with a revolving crew of local musicians, it all seemed to free him to work in a variety of styles. The record swaggers– and mostly successfully — through garage rock, Dylan-ish rasping acoustic, piano ballads, epic psychedelic and rollicking country rock. Emotions run raw through all these styles – even at his smoothest and most ballad-y, Furman’s voice cracks and hiccups with feeling. Yet there’s a sleekness, a feeling of finish and craftsmanship, in cuts like “Lay in the Sun” and “Down”. Mysterious Power felt like a fast, rattling joyride. Year of No Returning seems more like a Sunday excursion to the local scenic high points.

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