BY ROSS HOFFMAN

In print | April 29, 2004

The last Phoenix issue of the spring semester comes at a funny time for a wrapping-up a music column. There are all kinds of interesting records coming out these days, and even I can’t listen fast enough to keep pace as the industry gears up for a season of heavy touring and massive festivals in outdoor stadiums and public parks.

Music is probably more closely connected to the experience of summer than any other season apart from Christmas and in a far more personal way. Each year sees a few more additions to the summer-music canon. For me last year, it was Yo La Tengo’s subtle no-brainer “Summer Sun” and the New Pornographers’ “Electric Version,” although it’s hard to predict at the outset what they will be.

In any case, rather than the obvious tearful-senior move of presenting you with a breathless rundown of my all-time essential albums, I thought I’d just tell you about some of the records that I’m sure are going to be soundtracking a good portion of my summer. (My hands-down number-one record, by the way, is Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense,” which I only mention because I’ll probably be screening the accompanying film sometime soon for old time’s sake. Anybody know a good place to have a movie showing and dance party simultaneously?)

Speaking of the T-Heads, their erstwhile frontman (and my close personal friend) David Byrne has recently released his something-like-eighth album, which is yet further demonstration that folks really ought to stop describing him as the onetime frontman of the Talking Heads. “Grown Backwards,” Byrne’s first release for Nonesuch, is too easily tagged as “mature,” particularly in the sense that it’s the work of a quinquagenarian. It is, of course, and even notably so in its complexity and artistry, musically as well as lyrically mature. It merely retains the “mature” playfulness that has marked Byrne’s work at least since the mid-period Heads albums. The balancing act between irony and sincerity - between detached observer of the oddball everyday and the thinking, feeling human - is much of what makes him such a compelling figure. Not many writers could pen a line like “beautiful angels appear at my side/and corporate sponsors will act as my guide” or “I’m glad when I get my girlfriends’ names confused.”

Even for Byrne, of whom it might be argued that he hasn’t released a straightforward stylistically unified record since 1989’s masterful Latin exploration, Rei Momo, it marks a new pinnacle for eclecticism. It bridges funk, pop-rap, belters, worldy grooves, house (a great reworking of the X-Press 2 collaboration “Lazy,” which adds an involved string arrangement but thankfully loses none of the original’s sophisti-clubby energy) and, most buzzably, opera. (Rufus Wainwright duets on a rendition of Bizet’s “Au Fond du Temple Saint” that succeeds far more than it should at being both preposterous and genuinely powerful.) What this range means for the album as an artistic statement, let alone a “mature” one, is perhaps an open question, but even as a collection of songs it’s an impressive achievement. And it does have a haphazard sonic unity, beyond Byrne’s inimitable swooping vocalese, through the agency of the Tosca string ensemble that graces nine of 15 tracks.

On a more expressly summery note, San Francisco’s Call and Response have returned with their eagerly awaited (by me and probably nobody else) sophomore record. Their eponymous debut, on the now sadly defunct Kindercore, was my quintessential summer album from 2001. Never mind that I didn’t hear it until its inexplicable re-release in autumn of that year: impossibly sunny, breezy, California pop with intoxicating harmonies and fittingly throwaway lyrics about roller skating and bubble blowing.

This eventual follow-up is something else indeed. On first listen disenchantingly pedestrian, with layers of textural guitar and strings that threaten to deflate the giddiness of the debut, “Winds Take No Shape” subtly reveals itself to be a magical beast in its own right, if certainly more subdued. Full of high, cooed vocals reminiscent of lightweight AM pop of decades past, perhaps recalling the gentle utopias dreamed up by the Association or the Free Design, or more recently the gossamer sirenic pop of Broadcast, “Winds” is every bit the summer classic its predecessor was, but with an impressively smooth, deliberate rescripting of its atmospheric emphasis. Like the gently radiant warmth that uncannily hangs on into the darkness of a summer evening, this is the languorous, moonlit ride home from the beach party of the debut.

In the space remaining, I want to tell about what may be the best record I’ve heard yet this year. I’ve been putting off reviewing it all semester, as I’m afraid I shan’t do justice to its intricacies and subtle pleasures. The producer known as Daedelus (who also hails from San Francisco) is one of the most interesting and genuinely innovative practitioners in the somewhat directionless field of IDM. Even more whimsical than 2001’s charming “Invention,” Daedelus’ “Of Snowdonia” incorporates a handful of vaguely Swingle-esque vocal samples of unknown origin into his smorgasbord of synths, strings, clarinets, harps, pianos and scattershot percussion for an unpredictable but somehow comfortingly nostalgic listen.

Evoking everything from classic-era Hollywood score excerpts, tin pan alley melodicism and post-modern funk, with snatches of bossa nova, choral interludes and electro breakdowns, Daedelus’ productions may sound ambitious and grandiose, but he pulls it all off with remarkable grace and simplicity. The effect, while undeniably dreamlike, is not so much of phantasmagoria as the fantastic imaginings of a precocious child.

Ross Hoffman is a senior. You can reach him at khoffma1@swarthmore.edu.

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