The Joy of Joi
Music review roundup, 3/17/99
JOI
One And One Is One
(Realworld/Caroline) ***
In the past, I’ve expressed displeasure with the western-world record companies that curate Third World musics for passive consumption by Birkenstock-wearing WASPs. So why should I approve of a western-world record company curating Third World musics for passive-aggressive consumption by Urban Decay-wearing WASPs? Maybe because I happen to personally like this hi-NRG dance tuneage better than Paul Simonized wine-party music. Or maybe because the source material commercial east-Indian pop, is already a highly commercialized, high-camp-value genre that is in no way ruined by its use as inspiration for this Asian-British crew’s original (apparently sample-less) dance-beat pastiches. Or maybe because it’s just such infectuous fun.
3-MILE PILOT
Songs From An Old Town We Once Knew
(Headhunter/Cargo) **
Compilations of old 7-inches and outtake tracks aren’t supposed to work this well as one piece. Actually it’s two pieces; one CD full of slow songs and a second disc with some louder songs. The songs themselves are mostly post-Silkworm, guitar-distortion sludge ‘n’ drone (with piano); fine enough for ambient listening but not quite foreground material.
DAVID BAERWALD
Hurlyburly soundtrack
(Will) **
In case you’ve forgotten, soundtrack albums all used to be like this: An original suite of instrumentals composed to complement the on-screen action, instead of a promotional tie-in hodgepodge. And it’s good stuff: Lounge-y, poppy, but never-kitschy jazz bubbling smoothly along. It’d rate a third star if not for the pedestrian, studio-singer vocal on the central track, “Black Mamba Kiss.”
BEN FOLDS
Fear of Pop Vol. 1
(550/Sony) **
The Ben Folds Five ringmaster gets to ditch the discipline of composing for a touring band and instead play in the studio. A lot of go-nowhere-amicably noodling results, plus one twisted masterpiece: “In Love,” a spoken-word essay of your archtypical Guy Who Will Not Commit, delivered by William Shatner in the manner of his old bombastic anticlassic The Transformed Man. I can’t ask you to pay the full-album price for one great track, but I can ask you to check it out if you can find a used or otherwise discounted copy.
