The Friday Fivehead: Juno Reactor, Vangelis, Laki Mera, Tim O'Reagan, and Thomas Dolby

The Friday Fivehead: Juno Reactor, Vangelis, Laki Mera, Tim O’Reagan, and Thomas Dolby

April 17th, 2008

Jesus F. Chrizzist…it’s Friday again?! I remember back in the day, when I was in highschool, it seemed like the temporal distance from one weekend to the next was something on the order of weeks—but now that I am an “adult” (or at least pretending to be one during the day), a week can vanish in an eyeblink. Contrary to what most physicists believe, I think the Universe is actually shrinking, the speed of light growing faster, and time itself speeding up. It’s either that or I accidentally took too many muscle-relaxers for my messed-up shoulder….

OK, anyway—Friday it is, and that means it’s Friday Fivehead time yet again. Yes, again? Will it ever stop? I don’t know. Turn off the lights, and I glow…I glow with cancer-causing alpha radiation, because this week I’m bringing you a whole host of jams so full of light and power they have to be radioactive. We’ve got Juno Reactor’s latest, an awesome 3-disc reissue of one of Vangelis’ most influential works, some eerie trip-hop from Laki Mera, Tim O’Reagan from the Jayhawks beautiful and sad solo album, and LIVE Thomas Dolby from his recent Soul Inhabitant tour! So, without further ado (that is, any more prefatory bullshit), let’s get to the music:

Juno Reactor is often thought of as a “techno” band—a band that makes electronic dance music. Yes, they certainly do make electronic dance music that is perfect for all manner of club nights…but, much like Banco de Gaia, Juno Reactor makes a lot more than just dance music. In fact, their latest album, Gods & Monsters, has only one single track on it, the opener, “Inca Steppa”, that is clearly aimed at club play. Most of the songs on this album are deep, dubby, downtempo numbers that feature dense mixtures of lovely vocals, electronics, and live percussion. “Tokyo Dub” has one of the most ominous bass lines I’ve ever in any piece of music short of Ennio Morricone’s theme to John Carpenter’s The Thing, and the eerie thereminh-like synths really make this a song suitable for darkened bars in The Sprawl (you Gibson freaks know where I’m coming from). “Mind of the Free” is a lovely ambient piece carried by a delicate-as-aerogel piano line and shivery, subdued percussion—but the album’s most glorious standout tracks are clearly “Immaculate Crucifixion”, with its gorgeous backwards synth-line, ominous strings, and driving live percussion; and “Pretty Girl”, a song featuring such gorgeous deep, soulful vocals that almost sounds like a country song from the 1970s (something by Willie Nelson, perhaps) remixed with a light techno backbeat and some synthpop touches. This is truly a groundbreaking album for a band whose been around for a long time but still shows it has the ability to grow and try out new things.

And now, let me ask you a question? Have you seen Blade Runner? If yes, continue. If not…where the hell have you been living?! Under a mountain? Go RIGHT NOW to the nearest DVD store/Amazon.com/wherever you need to go and watch it—preferably the “Final Version.” In fact, thanks to the release of that “Final Version”, Polydor is finally releasing the complete soundtrack of the film by legendary Greek synthesist/composer Vangelis. This 3-disc
“25 Anniversary” edition contains all of the music Vangelis wrote for the film. The music is very eerie, spare, and yet extremely lush thanks to Vangelis’ use of wordless vocal solos and gentle synth pads that combine to create a surprisingly beautiful soundscape to complement a very dark and moody film. Oh, that darkness and moodiness comes through in certain pieces, such as “Blush Response” and “Tales of the Future (vocoded)”—but for the most part, Vangelis’ soundtrack to Blade Runner is an amazing example of that particular late-’70s/early-’80s “space music” that even today still sound futuristic and progressive. I’ve always found Vangelis’ work to be rather uneven—his famous theme to Chariots of Fire is pure synthy schmaltz—but there is not a single moment, not a single note, on the Blade Runner soundtrack that isn’t entirely brilliant. The assorted samples from Blade Runner that occasionally lace through the music are wonderful too at setting themes and moods. This album is a wonderfully relaxing tour through a future still to come, and if you’re not feeling like a replicant by the end of it, then you might actually be a replicant.

Speaking of dark, moody futures, Laki Mera’s debut album Clutter could very well be the soundtrack to Blade Runner 2. A few weeks ago, I panned Portishead’s “comeback” album Third for being poorly-produced and badly-composed. Just yesterday, in fact, I quoted Salon.com’s equally-bad review of the album—but I strongly disagree with their reviewer on whether or not trip-hop is “dead.” It most certainly is not, and Laki Mera prove that it isn’t. Clutter is what Third should have been: a dark, sexy, slinky collection of tunes defined by groovy drums, dirty basslines, synths like cool waves of silk undulating in a chilly breeze, and airy vocals that glide over the music like dandelion seeds floating through the aether. Ethereal is a very good term to use for Laki Mera’s music. It doesn’t sound like is comes from earth. There’s a deep-sky, alien sort of sound to it, as if a bunch of replicants tired and bitter and exhausted after fighting on the Orion Line have formed a band to give musical expression to their weary, human-like lives. Though vocalist Laura Donnelly sings of earthly matters such as emotional ennui (”Signals”) or angry sadness (”How Dare You”), she sounds as though she’s singing about them having learned them from some lonely human outcast exiled to a deep-space outpost. If you like your music emotional and yet strangely alien at the same time, then dear gods, Laki Mera will be your new favorite band.

Coming back to Earth, Tim O’Reagan from The Jayhawks has released a self-titled solo album that is absolutely brilliant. As much as I love futuristic music made by robots, there’ll always be a huge soft-spot in my all-too-human heart for touching, emotion-laden alt-country/American roots music like The Jayhawks, The Pernice Brothers, and so on. There’s something uniquely beautiful about a sad, soul-searching country song with a dancy ol’ beat, acoustic guitar strumming, and tears-in-your-beer lyrics that speak directly to the part of your soul where all the might-have-beens and relationship disasters have left their keepsakes. O’Reagan’s voice is simply beautiful, and his music, which is so perfectly recorded and mixed you can hear every single syllable clear as crystal as well as every single low and high note on the pianos, every steel guitar twang, and every cymbal stroke. “River Bends” is a heart-wrenching number about—hell, what else?—screwed-up love, and as long as I live it will always be connected to the young lady whom I loved so dearly during my short time at Waynesburg College. (She turned out to be a vengeful, vicious cunt, but hey…when times were good, they were glorious. I don’t think I was ever so happy.) That’s the magic of good, melodic alt-country: it connects with you on an emotional level, and seems uniquely suited to drawing forth the poison from your soul even as it makes you feel that anguish all over again. And I haven’t heard an alt-country album as sweetly cathartic as Tim O’Reagan’s solo debut in ages.

*Le sigh*

And finally, to end on an upbeat note, do I even have to say that Thomas Dolby ROCKS BEYOND BELIEF?! When I was wee, I adored “She Blinded Me With Science” and every single song from his debut album, The Golden Age of Wireless. I honestly never thought I’d get the chance to see Thomas Dolby live, though—but I should’ve known: I’ve seen Gary Numan, Devo, A Flock of Seagulls, Wang Chung…sooner or later it was inevitable that I see Thomas Dolby live. And guess what? Last year, Dolby went on tour solo, performing a nice selection of his work (yes, including “She Blinded Me With Science”) entirely himself. I saw him twice on this tour, and, my gods, it was exquisite. Dolby had reconstructed a number of his tunes as pure synthpop gems that he performed entirely himself, triggering various tracks and instruments LIVE with a Korg MIDI pad, a bank of synthesizers, and even an oldskool analog tone generator that looks like something he’d salvaged from the trash at Bletchley Park circa 1973. At the second show, he had a recording of his solo live act available, and now it’s available on Amazon.com as well! All Dolby fans who unfortunately missed him on tour must go there immediately and buy this album. The new live versions of “One of Our Submarines”, “Flying North”, “Airhead”, and (my personal favorite) “Living in a Suitcase” are honestly superior to their album equivalents. Years of practice and new technology have done wonders for Dolby’s timeless songs, and they sound fresher than ever now. If “Flying North” doesn’t make you want to just transform into an advanced jet fighter and blast off for the stratosphere, then you are clearly not a Transformer. Or something. Just get it—it’s pitch-perfect synthpop, and if you read this blog, you probably like that kind of stuff!

And that’s it for another Friday Fivehead, you friggin’ weirdos. So go forth, get some great music, and rock it out. I’ll catch y’all next week with an even more eclectic sampling of jams, including the new B-52s album! Wonder how Fred Schneider’s intense gayness has held up over the past years….Well, only one way to find out! Stay tuned.

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