Soundgarden announces summer tour, Forum date in July

Grunge-era titans Soundgarden announced the first dates of a summer tour Wednesday evening, and with them an appearance at the Forum in Inglewood on July 22 (a fan-club presale starts Monday). Though the band's reunion was recently described by guitarist Kim Thayil as the result of a Twitter-based misunderstanding, Soundgarden's appearance at Lollapalooza last year was well-received, and the group has been in the studio recently with plans to record.

While results can -- to put it charitably -- vary in these kinds of reunions, one has to give the band credit for at least giving a new album a shot. Recent tours by the Pixies and Pavement amounted to little more than well-earned victory laps, and Soundgarden has the potential to pick up where it left off with a heavy yet intricate sound that holds up better than most of its '90s contemporaries. The band's recently released "Live on I-5" was a reminder of the power Soundgarden could summon onstage, and footage from last year's Lollapalooza finds the group sounding almost shockingly none the worse for wear.

Video after the jump.

Album review: TV on the Radio's 'Nine Types of Light'

For a group that first established itself with arresting albums coated in murky atmosphere and deep organic shadows, TV on the Radio sure seems to be in a good mood lately. After 2006’s “Return to Cookie Mountain” earned raves for building a sonic world soaked in the weary outrage of post-Katrina America, the follow-up, “Dear Science,” was the sound of a band stepping out of the darkness, merging its dense, lattice-work song craft with its most immediate melodies yet.

But any TVOTR fans hoping for a return to the band’s heavier early days might have trouble with “Nine Types of Light,” an album full of such a brilliant clarity that the title could be referencing its track listing (a 10th song, “Caffeinated Consciousness,” maybe qualifies as the exception with its swaggering guitar churn, but even that comes off like a populist anthem). Nimble vocalists Tunde Adepimbe and Kyp Malone have plenty of room to navigate the album’s wide open spaces, such as the seesawing horns and chewy synths of opener “Second Song,” which sounds like something from the most R&B-dusted corners of Peter Gabriel’s catalog. “Keep Your Heart” and “You” function like lovesick bookends with chugging beats balanced with plucked guitar and piano.

More driving moments, such as the snide dance-rock of “No Future Shock” and the militaristic punch of “Repetition,” show that the band still has an eye toward the larger world, but these are exceptions on an album concerned with examining more intimate connections, not the least of which is an ever-growing one between a group and its listeners.

TV on the Radio
“Nine Types of Light”
(Interscope)
Three and a half stars (Out of four)

ALSO:

Album review: Panda Bear's 'Tomboy' 

Album review: k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang's 'Sing It Loud'

Iggy Pop on 'American Idol': Still magnetic, still disturbing the American populace with 'Real Wild Child'

— Chris Barton

 

Album review: Vijay Iyer, Prasanna and Nitin Mitta's 'Tirtha'

Incorporating elements from Indian music into jazz hasn’t been a particularly new idea for decades, but leave it to celebrated Indian-American pianist Vijay Iyer to take the long-running tradition a step further.

No stranger to incorporating elements of the Indian music into his compositions through much of his career, Iyer enlisted South Indian-born musicians Prasanna on guitar and tabla player Nitin Mitta for his first attempt at a full-length hybrid. Though somewhat similar in spirit to the cross-cultural exchange of the 2008 compilation “Miles From India,” the music here is far less familiar than inside-out Miles Davis covers.

Though the album is highlighted by free-flowing collaboration, Iyer frequently rises to the foreground while churning between a flutter of tablas in songs such as the shimmering “Abundance” or the contemplative flow of “Falsehood.” Beautifully rising and falling with Iyer’s melodies, the album’s co-writer Prasanna also shines with a slippery, stinging tone that occasionally recalls John Abercrombie’s Eastern-tinged excursions.

Occupying some unknown yet fertile crossroads between Indian and contemporary classical music spiked with Iyer’s borderless take on jazz and even the occasional flash of rock, “Tirtha” is a tough album to define, which makes it all the more bewitching. Fans who look to Iyer solely for high-flying piano jazz might struggle to find familiar footing as the album’s intricate sonic interplay takes some time to unpack. But Iyer’s willingness to take listeners to places they’ve never heard remains something to behold.

-- Chris Barton

Vijay Iyer, Prasanna and Nitin Mitta
“Tirtha”
ACT Music
Three stars

Listen, L.A.: Carla Bozulich will not be ignored

At this point anticipation is building among certain hardy-spirited listeners for the return of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, a mysterious and powerfully evocative instrumental ensemble from Montreal. The band's sound is built on churning guitars and strings, and one could envision the act scoring the end of the world beautifully -- should Darren Aronofsky be given enough notice to film it.

They'll be at the Music Box on Wednesday, but not to be lost in that appearance is opening band Evangelista, the dark and relatively new project of Carla Bozulich. L.A. fans might remember Bozulich from the days of the industrial band Ethyl Meatplow, the skewed alt-country of the Geraldine Fibbers or maybe the many bracing shows with guitarist Nels Cline as Scarnella at the Smell. But in advance of this show and an upcoming fourth album with Evangelista for Constellation Records, the important thing for Bozulich is that she's remembered in her hometown, period.

In a long and heartfelt e-mail addressed to the Times music staff, Bozulich listed her sterling credentials from life "in the van," her love for her home city and frustration at her place in its musical fabric.

"I am a woman who has been shaped and raised by my hometown of Los Angeles," she writes. "And to have erased me from the history of your town is really odd and sort of endorses a stereotype I despise of our city."

72 Hours: The Autumn Defense, forgetters and more lead this weekend's gig lineup

Pop & Hiss points you to the best shows of the weekend. Attend at your own risk. Pop & Hiss is not responsible for a bad time, lost shoes, a stolen wallet and/or any fights with your significant other.

 
THURSDAY

War Tapes @ Silver Lake Lounge. Yes, the recooked Afternoons (Shadow Shadow Shade) kick off their residency tonight at the Satellite, but one will have a few more weeks to see them, and they're not the only locals who have retooled a bit. Written off by many as purveyors of the post-Joy Division gloom-and-doom rock that was so recently in vogue, War Tapes have gotten a little softer, a little sunnier and a little more dreamy. They're starting to sound like a band less interested in conquering KROQ than just having fun. Silver Lake Lounge, 2906 W. Sunset Blvd. Admission is $8. 

MEN @ Fingerprints. Late notice, but here's a chance to catch the disco-pop creation from Le Tigre’s JD Samson in a more stripped-down setting. For those who missed the act Wednesday night, a trip to Fingerprints' new digs may be worth the drive, as MEN are the rare crew that can bring politics to the dance floor. Pop & Hiss has had extensive coverage of MEN thus far. Here's a review, and a short feature. Fingerprints, 1420 E. 4th St. Long Beach. The free in-store is expected to start around 7 p.m.

George Herms: 'The Artist's Life' @ REDCAT. An influential California sculptor steeped in the spirit of Beat poetry, Herms will fuse his found object-oriented art with the free-wheeling sound of the Bobby Bradford Mo'tet and other jazz heavyweights for "The Artist's Life." A category-defying autobiographical piece billed as a "free-jazz opera," the evening's mix of percussive exploration on Herms' unique sculptures along with a live, improvised jazz score should further illuminate the artist's vivid body of work. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles. 8:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, $20 ($25 for Saturday). 

Album review: Iron & Wine's 'Kiss Each Other Clean'

There’s a graduate thesis waiting to happen in exploring the strangely beatific air that surrounds the music of Sam Beam’s Iron & Wine. With poetic songs that unspool like oblique parables and a lush beard that would make naturalist John Muir proud, Sam Beam’s early recordings felt almost startlingly intimate behind whispered words and guitar that seemed near-monastic in their raw simplicity.

Now with his fifth album, Beam may not have abandoned his roots, but he’s certainly stretched far beyond them. With a band stocked with veterans of Chicago’s experimental music scene that include members of Califone and the Chicago Underground Duo’s Chad Taylor, Beam’s evocative folk has evolved into incorporating dips into soul, woozy R&B and loose-limbed ‘70s rock. Behind a buttery electric keyboard and cooing backing vocals, “Tree by the River” sounds like a new classic of the AM Gold era, while the percolating world percussion and swells of noise in “Monkeys Uptown” and the dark travelogue “Rabbit Will Run” form vivid counterpoints for Beam’s urgent melodies.

Other welcome touches include drunken New Orleans horns on “Big Burned Hand” (spiked by a rare bit of profanity from Beam that feels weirdly jarring, like some breach of ecclesiastic etiquette) and the driving funk of “Yr City Is a Sucker,” which features high-pitched choruses and jazzy brass reminiscent of early Chicago that builds to Beam ranting like an end times prophet who can see the walls crumbling. It’s not always the stuff of angels, but it’s something far richer.

—Chris Barton

Iron & Wine
“Kiss Each Other Clean”
Warner Bros.
Three and a half stars (Out of four)

72 Hours: Doomtree, Tim Kasher, Salesman, Procol Harum, Garfunkel & Oates and more lead this weekend's gig lineup

With Best Coast's Saturday and Sunday gigs loooong sold-out, Pop & Hiss looks at some of this weekend's other top shows.

Thursday

Tim Kasher @ the Bootleg Theater. Perhaps it was the pained vocals, or the deliberately choppy collision of guitars, but Tim Kasher's Cursive was often the Saddle Creek act that received second billing to the label's emo hero of Bright Eyes. A shame, as Cursive albums such as "Happy Hollow" turned a sharp and caustic eye toward suburban life, and did so with increasingly complex and ornate orchestrations. On his own with "The Game of Monogamy," the concept has turned to a shredding of societal's view of relationships. The worldview is smaller, but the sound is bigger, as Kasher slows things down to give his pop ambitions time to breathe. The Bootleg Theater, 2220 Beverly Blvd. Tickets are $15. 

Programming note: Who moved my jazz?

Greetings, gentle Pop & Hiss-ians. We interrupt your conspicuous consumption of music coverage with the following announcement.

If you're a jazz fan or even someone with omnivorous tastes, you're going to want to adjust your sights (and your browsers) to the L.A. Times terrific arts news and reviews shop, Culture Monster. Starting Friday I'll be over there as part of what promises to be an expanded take on jazz coverage in L.A. and beyond, while also rubbing elbows with the latest word on theater, dance, art, architecture and classical. It's a fine, classy bunch, but we promise not to change just because we're running with a new crowd. 

Come along, won't you? Today I've got the rundown of last night's show with terrific young trumpeter (and recent Blue Note signee) Ambrose Akinmusire at the cozy Cafe Metropol downtown. A great young crowd packed the place, and it was a beautiful night -- the kind of night filled with such energy and imagination that it makes you want to take anyone who thinks the music is dying and slap them about the head and shoulders. (We all know better.)

Read all about it here. I'll still be dropping in here from time to time, and you can also follow me on Twitter @chrisbarton. See you on the other side.

-- Chris Barton

Photo: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times

Album review: The Bad Plus' 'Never Stop'

In 10 years of recording, pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King have practically become figureheads for a genre-blind mini-movement in jazz, earning perhaps as much attention for their skewed takes on such modern rock figures as Nirvana and Aphex Twin as they have for their deadly cohesive, virtuosic interplay.

Yet for all the trio’s fondness for giddily unpredictable reinterpretations (culminating with last year’s impressive, all-covers collaboration with vocalist Wendy Lewis, “For All I Care”), its members’ eclectic songwriting styles seemed in danger of being overshadowed. Enter “Never Stop,” the Bad Plus’ eighth album and its first dedicated to all-original compositions. The shift in focus suits them.

King’s martial stomp anchors a spring-loaded piano melody indelible enough for the pop songbook on the title track, while “2 p.m.”  and “You Are” show the trio can still twist through an adventurous workout. But the album’s more spacious excursions such as “People Like You” and “Snowball” may offer the greatest treats, with Iverson and Anderson weaving around King’s feathered percussion for some of the trio’s warmest, most delicate moments yet. There may not be a familiar hook for rock fans to lean on, but odds are they won’t need one, either.

--Chris Barton

The Bad Plus
“Never Stop”
Three and a half stars
E1 Entertainment

Live review: Herbie Hancock's 'Seven Decades - The Birthday Celebration' at the Hollywood Bowl

There’s a modification of an old joke that came to mind on Wednesday night. “What does a 70-year-old jazz legend get to play on his birthday at the Hollywood Bowl?” The answer for the great Herbie Hancock is, of course, anything he wants.

Not that this would be anything new for Hancock, who has always gone his own way. Starting his career at only 21, the pianist has zigzagged through an array of musical high points that have included eye-opening bandleader, sideman to Miles Davis in a historic jazz combo and innovative cross-pollinator, first with the raucous jazz-funk fusion of the Headhunters and later helping launch both the hip-hop and music-video eras with 1983’s “Rockit.” And that doesn’t even cover an album of the year Grammy in 2008 for “River.”

Billed as “Seven Decades — The Birthday Celebration,” the L.A. Philharmonic realistically needed two or three nights to adequately capture Hancock, who is in his first year as its Creative Chair for Jazz. In a lineup full of high-wattage guests, the program was split into two parts, the first consisting of Hancock’s groundbreaking, mostly acoustic ’60s work and the latter dedicated to Hancock’s equally influential electric period and his new album, “The Imagine Project.”

Though most of the near-capacity crowd knew to arrive early, it was easy to pity the few stragglers hustling to their seats through Hancock’s first set. Opening with a weaving, breezy take on Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage,” the wealth of experience onstage was awe-inspiring as the pianist was joined by longtime collaborator Wayne Shorter on saxophone, Jack DeJohnette on drums, trumpeter Terence Blanchard and, briefly, electric bassist Nathan East.