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Random Stabbings 6

  Tobias

The Catz in the Hatz ”Take One” (Catz in the Hatz Records)
Stardust-sprinkled jazz favorites played by genial weekend warriors for the Arthur Murray set.  The marketing sound-bite for this SoCal-based quintet is “Jazz with an attitude” but with such foxtrot favorites as “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “It Was a Very Good Year” and a baritone re-do of Peggy Lee’s “Fever,” the attitude (and sound) is pure Tony Bennett.  Steve Johnson’s (place pleasant adjective here) renderings bottle every puff of smoky piano and expel a record that will please everyone from great-granny to the most recent reality-TV-inspired ballroom converts. Shirley Jones and Dawn Wells of Gilligan’s Island fame are among their converts, for what it’s worth.
http://www.towerrecords.com/product.aspx?pfid=3281428&from1=QUIA

Paul Armfield and the Four Good Reasons “Evermine” (Groove Attack Records)
Sensitive-male torch zydeco understatements slow dripped Cat Stevens style in honor of your local laptop-pecking coffee-bar fixture.  When Armfield stows his chimp-at-the-wheel trilling safely out of earshot his moonlight serenades hit nothing but net (if your idea of mood music is the sort of post-breakup montage backdrop common to Meg Ryan films, that is), although your bohemian-wannabe Paris-trotting aunt will surely be more profoundly affected than anyone else in your immediate circle.  (Order at http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?PAGE=PRODUCT&PROD_ID=1663608&cid=64666&fp=F)

State of Being, “Haywire” (Reverse Image Records)
Cleveland-spawned multi-genre prototype that succeeds in the face of a situation comparable to inviting your strangest bedfellows to the same party.  Mainstream listeners will block out the occasional crackly sample-breaks and hear hard rock or nu-psychedelica depending on the song, but it’s more a stew of both those styles further synth-refined into a concoction deserving of its own slick classification – aggro-indie perhaps (aggro, for all the blessedly unaware non-scenesters, is wonk-English for techno-metal).  A slightly vulnerable production prevents this from being as drunkenly powerful as, say, KMFDM, but makes it CMJ-relevant in the same stroke.  Title track combines ennui-drone vocals with buzzsaw guitar and caustic industrial patterns that peak during its zillion-layer chorus.  Fair comparison here would be Flesh Field, but then there’s the Garbage vs Melvins scuffle in “Overload” with its ear-drilling fuzz-bombs.  There’s talk of big-league interest already, which comes as no surprise.  (Order at http://www.stateofbeing.com/discog.php)

Lynn Julian “Cookie Cutter Girl” (Cookie Cutter Records)
Man oh man, is this chick asking for it – she looks like an SUV-driving mom dressed in a Wonder Woman costume, tiara and all, with a CD insert that’s almost a comic book but not quite, more like a knockoff of Powerpuff Girls with a few ossified grrl-power platitudes.  Fingers poise over keyboards all over reviewer-land, ready to ream her a new one, but the tunes kick in and damn it all, the pummellings are denied as the fingers unclench, howling in frustration like ringwraiths denied a bite out of Frodo:  the Cookie Cutter Girl actually isn’t bad.  A vocal cross between Shania Twain and Natalie Merchant, the songwriting here is pro-level and almost as tight as her spandex nut-outfit.  www.cookiecuttergirl.com

Virtual Embrace “Hellektro (Alfa Matrix Records)
Captivating nu-mod techno that shines brightest when this anti-Chemical Brothers duo’s Buggle-oid genes are freed to wreak havoc, in the squeaky bimborama floor-filler “Welcome to My World” for example, punctuated as it is with Mike Johnson’s space-ghoul mumbling.  “Grief Cry” does a fake-out of kraut-techno before springing some 60s sexiness which will hopefully inspire a wave of Batgirl dress-up among the fetishists.  “I Am” and its Exorcist-riddum tweaks hip-hop’s nose (always a constructive idea), and later mounts a torch-lit Tomb Raider offensive that alludes to far deeper thought processes than what you get from typical genre-clinging convenience.  Not to leave himself outdone by the Bollywood gobbledygook of “Dark Room,” Johnson tosses in an Alzheimer-addled rehash of BOC’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” that amounts to Loreena McKennitt getting a wedgie from a robot-zombie mourning a recent diagnosis of kidneystones. Staticky breakbeats pop up sporadically in whack-a-mole fashion, another value-add worthy of forehead stickers all around.  www.alfa-matrix.com

Indie label releases, spaghetti sauce recipes and silly questions are always welcome.  Email ericsaeger@mindspring.com.