Few people have heard of Fat Freddy’s Drop, more people would enjoy life if they had.

You’ll get a chance with the Sept. 28 release (on their own “The Drop” label) of their live show at the 5,000 capacity Roundhouse in London. They’ll also tour next year, including rare stops in the United States.

FFD songs are stretchy and never more then when played live. They wander in the way an organic jam band veers from one thought to the other; one beat launches from a half-formed idea, does a back flip and alights on a floating trumpet note. Lyrics aren’t prominent, they merely fold inside the aural envelope. Layers of horns make this changeling music.

It’s music that no doubt would enhance any drugs already leisurely infusing your body but it’s also mood-changing all by itself. With “Live At the Roundhouse” you get the live full effect of this traveling from Point A to Point B, via D, X, N, and Z – across trance, jazz, soul, new age, 70s porn soundtrack ecstatic moments and 80s electronica echo. Six tracks make up the 80 minutes of this album: “The Camel”, “The Raft”, “Flashback”, “Pull The Catch”, “The Nod” and “Shiverman.”

The songs spans the seven-member band’s existence – to this point they’ve played together 11 years, only releasing a first album after six years of playing. “Roundhouse” is their third since then, following 2005′s Based On A True Story and Dr Boondigga and The Big BW released in 2009. Knowing where in that existence the song pulls from only adds a slight depth; it’s not completely necessary..

“One of the upsides of being far away from the action and not having to deal with the weight of a strong musical history is that we don’t feel we have to stick to one particular style or approach,” said on-stage music conductor DJ Fitchie, in a news release.

Check in at about the 6:50 mark of “Pull The Catch” where a new sound rips into the air. It’s Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue” previously unparalleled bassline on steroids. The crunch come as a crest to what’s gone before because by that point, the drums, trombone and trumpet-filled landscape has been as gently rolling as the green hills of New Zealand’s North island.

“Shiverman” has the best vocal imagery of the album. Bringing up different calming images – the sea, empty space, it encourages listeners to “shake that Shiverman loose” before running at uncontrolled, leg- and arm-wheeling speed into a wall of sound. It also wouldn’t be out of place at any high profile nightclub – boys in duotone Polos, girls in shiny short skirts.

“Flashback” is the most laid back soulful number on an ocean of an album that moves from hurricane force whitecaps to the trickle of water falling back into the next slow wave (often both in the space of 30 seconds). Dallas Tamaira’s voice washes over the 12-minute version of this love song that still seems as if it has more to say: “There’s something natural in the way you touch me. It’s a feeling that I can’t describe. There’s something mystic in the soul connection, something magic in your misty eyes.”

Breathe easy, music lovers. Breathe easy.

The Band
DJ Fitchie aka Chris Faiumu – Music Production Center
Joe Dukie aka Dallas Tamaira – Vocals and lyrics
Do bie Blaze aka Iain Gordon – Keys and Synth
Jetlag Johnson aka Tehimana Kerr – Guitar
Tony Chang aka Toby Laing – Trumpet
Hopepa aka Joe Lindsay – Trombone and Tuba,
Chopper Reedz aka Scott Towers – Saxophone

Don’t know if I was in the perfect mood to listen to this or whether it’s just really that good, but Asylum is a progression for these guys and damn it’s good to hear from ‘em.

With a bloodied grip, “Remnants” leads listeners down a steep path, with (shorter) ghosts of Metallica’s “Orion” or “To Live is To Die.” Bass heavy, slow, mood-setting. As an instrumental it brings you into the album, into the Disturbed environment. The title track (some consider it Part 2 of “Remnants”) punches hard and the dreamscape gets darker and darker.

Every song on “Asylum” pounds home another nail in the buried foundation of a testament to the way the world is in the late summer of 2010. It’s what the band has always been self-tasked with, yet they’ve become more focused and emotionally unrelenting with this their fifth full-length release. Political meanings catch your ears, like spiders grab flies. The band is desperately seeking meaning and even hope, where every direction seems a dead end. It’s a fight against a fatalistic vision many people have as they cling to ropes dangling, breaking strand by strand over the chasm of their lives.

Perhaps, the most personal song on the CD is “The Infected” as it hints of issues you can encounter just sitting at home – or in the asylum. Some clearly magnified by isolation and repetition because they bounce back off the only four walls you see. It’s start also happens to have the quickest speed of the album – I was imagining head > wall, head > wall, over and over.

With its vision of an inability to protect the helpless humans you pledged to protect, “My Child” is the most depressing song here. In the face of perceived or actual judgments from the world, parents sacrifice themselves to keep their children alive, but “every day brings on a hundred ways to fight” to remind the sincere that their efforts aren’t welcome by the masses.

While many will see “Warriors” as a big fuck you from America to the world, it’s also a big fuck you to any forces holding any individual back from what they want to achieve. It’s one of the best on the album. The beginning of “Another Way To Die” unfortunately slows down the momentum that’s built up until it charges ahead again, harder and deeper. The offhand delivery comes from the viewpoint of someone who, far from having lost desire, has too much bubbling inside. It’s a warning to pay attention to the natural forces alive in the world that will kill you before we kill them.

“Sacrifice” and “Innocence” hurt every organ of your body (in a good way, if you know what I mean). “Never Again” adds nothing to the album. Like a bridge between desired destinations, it’s full of musical cliché and rambles even though it’s a short song. And “ISHFWILF,” was a surprise but wasn’t a pleasant one, though I usually drool at the idea of cover songs. While the title is meaningful in context, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” seems most like five and half minutes of throwaway to an otherwise momentous milestone for the disturbed.

NOTE: Didn’t watch the Decade of Disturbed documentary that comes with hard copy editions of the CD, so can’t say anything about it except to say “Asylum” showcases why these guys stay beloved and new fans keep on finding them. However, it can also be seen and downloaded in multiple formats at the band’s Web site for a limited time (Scroll to the bottom of the linked page.)

Out-of-place PS – Don’t know if it matters for the experience but, for reference, Social Media people at SoundLust are on Macs.

And we’ve been on Twitter and Facebook for awhile so connect, query and cheer for the music:

Twitter – @soundlustmusic
Facebook – /SoundLustMusic (which requires a sort of real sounding name not a company so, naturally, we’re Lusty VonMusic)

So follow, say hi in your best sexy and talk, ya sweet lovely, men and women.

UPDATE: And we’re at like.fm, too

E-mail temple @ soundlust.com if you know someone or are that someone. Part-time pay per article can be negotiated, though as we’re in beta-phase, with no advertising, it will be small to start with.

This was my third CRF, and my second spending the full weekend under canvas.

I travelled up with a fellow Mostly Autumn and Breathing Space fan, and we soon met up with more fellow-fans on the camp site. Of course, we were to meet many, many more old friends over the course of the weekend.

For the early part of Thursday evening we decided to avoid the tribute bands on the main stage and check out some of the young bands on the second stage, such as Rowse, JoanovArc, The Treatment and The Virginmarys, before heading for the main stage for the headliners, Danny Vaughn’s, The 80s Rocked. They were billed as “an all-star band playing classic 80s rock hits”, and more or less did what they said on the tin, as cheesy as a very cheesy thing, but thoroughly entertaining nevertheless. Name an 80s rock hit, and they probably played it. Eye of the Tiger? You Give Love a Bad Name? The Final Countdown? Of course!

The Classic Rock Society sponsored the second stage on Friday, with a bill made up of prog and metal. So we decided to stay in the smaller tent for most of the day then move to the main stage for the last 2-3 acts. The CRS stage opened with the acoustic four-piece Flaming June, whose red-headed singer reminded me more than a bit of a female version of York singer-songwriter Chris Johnson both in style and lyrics. Best bands on the CRS stage were Winter In Eden, a British take on the European female-fronted symphonic metal genre, and Crimson Sky, who play female-fronted prog but with a quite punky/new wave style singer that sets them apart from other bands in the genre. Final Conflict and The Dreaming Tree also played some entertaining progressive rock.

I didn’t see much of the main stage in the early part of the day, although I did catch some of UXL and Newman during intervals on the CRS stage, the latter of whom I heard described worryingly accurately as sounding “like filler tracks on Journey albums.” At the end of The Dreaming Tree’s set I headed over to the main stage and caught the bulk of Danny Bryant’s Redeye Band, the excellent blues power trio who’d played the exact same slot the previous year.

Deborah Bonham, the late John Bonham’s younger sister, took Friday’s special guest spot, and even though I knew none of the songs, she was probably the best artist of the day. She played a set of raw and rootsy blues-rock with more than a hint of Led Zeppelin about it. Certainly she can reach the sort of high notes that Robert Plant can’t get to any more. After her set came The Tygers of Pan Tang, who I thought were a bit out of their depth as headliners, and suffered from an appalling sound mix that rendered the vocals all but inaudible in the early part of the set. Still I enjoyed their set quite a bit, and I seemed to get shown on the big screen rather a lot. This is what happens when you’re with mates who drag you to the front row!

I spent most of Saturday in the main tent, kicking off with some no-nonsense rock’n'roll from Wolf Law, which was just the sort of thing we needed to wake us up first thing in the morning. The real sensation of the day was second on the bill, the young blues guitarist Chantal McGregor, who simply blew us all away. How on earth does someone that young get to play guitar like that?

After that it was over to the smaller tent to catch Emerald Sky’s set. Perhaps because I’d mentally confused them with Crimson Sky. I was expecting a prog band, but they turned out to be an all-female metal power trio. After that I spent the rest of the day back in the mainstage tent. Stray were as entertaining as they were last year, but another high spot was blues guitarist Larry Miller. He had been due to play on the main stage last year, but, along with Karnataka, got bounced from the main stage due to the terrible PA snafu that festival. On the strength of his performance on Saturday I think I’d have preferred those two to last year’s Focus and Asia! His solo on the slow number (don’t remember the title) was utterly brain-melting.

Saturday’s special guests were the Oliver Dawson Saxon, who turned out to be the only real disappointment of the whole festival. They’re basically trading as a Saxon tribute band in competition with Biff Byford’s official Saxon, yet they played a whole load of mediocre new songs instead of many of the hits. And their singer was awful. Every festival must have it’s dud (it’s a rule, it seems), and they were that dud.

Saturday’s headliners were the Monsters of British Rock, originally billed as The Moody Murray Whitesnake until the intervention of David Coverdale’s lawyers forced a change of name. As well as Micky Moody and Neil Murray from the original British incarnation of Whitesnake the band also included Laurie Wisefield of Wishbone Ash fame as the second guitarist, and Harry James of Thunder and Magnum fame on drums. While they weren’t perfect, they could have done with a better singer, and a bit more keys in the mix, I still enjoyed their set a lot. Part of that was down to the company I was with (what’s better than listening to whole load of Whitesnake songs in the company of three extremely beautiful women?), and part of it was because the pre-hair metal Whitesnake songbook is absolutely full of classic tunes. My one quibble is that it’s “Hobo”, not “Drifter”. Band and audience sang the wrong version!

On to Sunday, the day I was looking forward to the most, with Mostly Autumn, Panic Room and Breathing Space on the bill.

Opener IO Earth divided opinions; some loved their genre-bending mix of female-fronted prog, jazz, dance and Joe Satriani-style guitar pyrotechnics, while they left others scratching their heads. While their guitarist was very good indeed, they came over to me as something of a work in progress, just too many differing styles to sit comfortably in one band. We’ll have to see how they develop.

Next up, Panic Room, who played an absolute blinder of a set. I’ve seen them a lot of times over the past couple of years, and that was at least as good a performance I’ve ever seen them do. Their alchemical mix of prog, pop, hard rock and jazz results in a sound that’s far more than the sum of the parts, great songwriting married to rich multilayered arrangements. They’ve phased out the sprawling epics from their debut album in favour of set made up from shorter, punchier songs. Indeed, apart from the surprise cover of ELP’s “Bitches Crystal” the whole set came from their second album, “Satellite.” They ended with a soaring rendition of the title track, showing just how fantastic a vocalist Anne-Marie Helder can be. And hats off too to new bass player Yatim Halini, playing his first ever gig with the band; this is a band for whom the bass is as much a lead instrument as the guitar, and he acquitted himself very well indeed. Just a pity they were on so early that many people missed them; on the strength of that set, if they come back they’ll be much higher up the bill.

I’d seen Kyrbgrinder last year on the smaller Radio Caroline stage, this year they returned on the main stage. Certainly the most in-your-face metal band of the whole festival, with echoes of Slayer and even Rage Against The Machine. Like last year, frontman drummer Joannes James is still very much the visual focus of the band. I’ve never seen anyone else play drums as a lead instrument and sing lead at the same time. But this year we also had some amazing guitar shredding from their new guitarist Tom Caris. This is a band to watch in the future.

I’ve been a fan of Breathing Space for several years. With their progressive-tinged mix of hard rockers and big soaring ballads they’d slowly built up a steady and loyal following. Earlier this year their original singer, Olivia Sparnenn, left the band to become the new vocalist for Mostly Autumn, and there were fears for the band’s future. But what we witnessed here was a rebirth, as the new-look Breathing Space took the stage with new members Heidi Widdop on lead vocals and Adam Dawson on guitar. It’s never easy for a new singer to sing often quite personal material written by the previous singer, but Heidi took songs like “Searching For My Shadow” and made them hers. She has a rawer, bluesier vocal style compared with Olivia, which completely transforms the sound of the band. You’d never have known that she’s suffered from throat problems that forced the cancellation of a warm-up gig a couple of days earlier. Adam Dawson also impressed, completely nailing the solos. This is a band who have landed on their feet after some enforced changes, and the two news songs premièred, especially “My Lips Are Too Dry”, penned by bassist Paul Teasdale, promise some exciting times ahead.

For the first half of Aireya 51′s set they came over as one of the weakest band on Sunday’s bill; we’d seen a lot of people doing the singer-guitarist thing over the weekend and doing it far better. That was up to the point where Don Airey joined his brother and sister on stage on Hammond organ and showed us the difference between an anonymous session muso and a Rock Star. That last twenty minutes was awesome, and more than made up for the rest of the set.

Praying Mantis were another of the revelations of the festival. I’d seen them at one of the early 80s Reading Festivals, and they’d seemed one of the also-rans of the NWOBHM scene. Fast-forward 30 years and what we have now is an absolutely superb melodic rock band, awesomely tight, great vocals and some wonderful twin-guitar harmonies.

Hazel O’Connor and the Subterraneans seemed a bit out of place on the bill; an 80s new-wave pop act in a sea of classic rock and prog. But the enthusiasm of her performance soon won over the crowd, aided by a tight band featuring some superb sax playing from Claire Hurst. After a weekend of axe heroes seeing a band where the lead instrument isn’t a guitar made a welcome change. Apart from the big hit “Eighth Day” and a cover of The Stranglers’ “Hanging Around” I didn’t know any of the songs, but it didn’t matter. And I wasn’t the only person to note the Irish-themed song played as an encore bore more than a passing resemblance to Mostly Autumn’s “Out of the Inn.”

Prog veterans The Enid took the special guest spot. I know a few people I spoke to afterwards just didn’t get what they do, but down the front it was a different matter and their unique brand of largely-instrumental symphonic rock had the audience absolutely mesmerised, the festival crowd stunned into silence. While I didn’t recognise everything they played, the set included faves like “In the Region of the Summer Stars,” a big chunk of the new album, finished with a spellbinding “Dark Hydraulic.”

After that, only my favourite band, Mostly Autumn, could possibly end things, and they didn’t disappoint in the slightest. This seven-piece band from York have established a strong reputation with their 70s-style classic rock sound tinged with progressive and celtic elements, and they’ve bounced back very strongly following the departure of original lead singer Heather Findlay.

Olivia Sparnenn may only have been fronting the band for four months, but with one tour under her belt it now seems to me as if she’s been lead singer for far longer than that. Their 80-minute set might not quite have been up to the standard of their very best performances on the spring tour, but given the constraints of a festival it was still a very good performance, far, far better than the gremlin-plagued set from last year’s festival. No surprises in the setlist, but given the fact they band have been busy in studio writing and recording the new album we didn’t really expect any. Highlights were a superb “The Last Bright Light”, a song that hasn’t always worked for me live, Olivia’s soaring ballad “Questioning Eyes”, a song originally performed with Breathing Space, and a great version of what had originally been one of Heather’s signature songs, “Evergreen”, a song that’s been likened to a “Freebird” or a “Stairway to Heaven” for the 21st century. They encored with an emotionally powerful rendition of “Heroes Never Die”, made more poignant by the presentation just before to Ben Parkinson, a soldier critically wounded in Afghanistan.

While this year’s festival may have lacked any of the sort of bigger name headliners who’ve played in previous years, it nevertheless gave us four days of excellent music, some spellbinding performances, some great company, and last but not least, some great beer. (If you find a pub selling Leo Zodiac, buy a pint or two, it’s excellent!). And for classic rock festival, there were a tremendous number of women on the bill. The whole thing had such a wonderful vibe that I was still on a high more than a week later. Great credit to the organisers, and to the stage and PA crews who made the whole thing run as smoothly as it didn’t last year. Overall I found I enjoyed it far more than the far bigger High Voltage festival in London too weeks earlier.

Forget “check out,” TATE’s music at its best hovers over you, giving butterfly kisses to your ears and enveloping you in a warmth for which people spend their whole lives searching. “Half…” is no exception, with violin at its most mournful, single-note piano fading in and then Mikel Jolett’s great modulated voice peeks its head around the door, sheepish smile fixed and waves a silent hello.

Apparently it plays over the closing credits of the film as everyone troops out. The song’s sadness seems to indicate there’s going to be emotional strings heartily pulled throughout the Drew Barrymore-fronted movie.

“Going The Distance” releases Sept. 3. Hard to believe it’s going to be a box office smash with Justin Long – Apple vs. Mac short-statured, metrosexual – in a starring romantic comedy role. It might be a case of more thought being put into the soundtrack than the story of the film.

With a couple of exceptions, the tracks, generally, have a slow-tempo indie spirit. The Boxer Rebellion leads the way, offering new (“If You Run” – jangly, muted, no new TBR ground broken) and old (Evacutate and Spitting Fire off 2009′s Union). They also show up playing in the movie.

Lead-off track “Either Way” from The Generationals is a 50s-tinged infectious tune, wolf whistles, car metaphors and male-female harmonizing included. It’s debut-new to the world on this soundtrack. An added synth zest gives it an 80s revival feel that The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” echoes three songs later (pre-echoes?). On the strength of this song alone – if you haven’t already heard “When They Fight They Fight” – these New Orleans guys are worth finding out more about. Helpfully, you can stream their new album, Con Law.

The soundtrack is a mixture of sadness (“Cold Fame” by Band of Skulls, “Here Comes A Regular” by The Replacements) and pep (“The Reeling” the best song off Passion Pit’s Manners, the humorously sung “Hey Na Na” by Katie Herzig). In fact, a lot of the bands here are quirky and hard to pigeonhole. It may be a stretch but that definition also applies to the movie’s star, Drew Barrymore. Coincidentally perhaps, “Learnalilgivinanlovin” was also on the soundtrack to the Barrymore-produced Roller-derby romantic comedy / female empowering, “Whip It.”

It’s always fascinating to listen to a soundtrack both before and after seeing a movie. True because some songs may appear for 20 seconds, and the song order doesn’t correspond to when they are heard in the movie. This soundtrack, with bonus tracks, clocks in at 80 minutes, just slightly less than the 97-minute movie, which isn’t a musical but might be better if it was by all accounts. As you can with a carefully crafted trailer, you can get a totally wrong impression yet you cannot stop putting together the missing pieces.

Song List

Either Way – The Generationals (new track)
Places – Georgie James
Hey, Na Na – Katie Herzig
In Transit – Albert Hammond Jr.
Just Like Heaven -The Cure
Don’t Get Me Wrong – The Pretenders
Spitting Fire – The Boxer Rebellion
Could We – Cat Power
Cold Fame – Band of Skulls
Prizefighter – Eels
The Reeling (Groove Police Remix) – The Passion Pit
Harold T. Wilkens, or How to Wait for a Very Long Time – Fanfarlo
Here Comes A Regular – The Replacements
Learnalilgivinanlovin – Gotye
Half of Something Else – The Airborne Toxic Event (New track)
Hot Child In the City – Nick Gilder
If You Run – The Boxer Rebellion (New track)
40 Day Dream – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes
Miss Me – Joe Purdy
Evacuate – The Boxer Rebellion

Opetaia Foa’i led Te Vaka through an almost
2-hour performance Saturday night at Mesquite High School
Photos by Temple A. Stark/Soundlust.com

Their type of performance you usually only see surrounded by commercial tourist trappings or resorts. And what that does it seems to me is to emphasis that these are costumes rather than real history and real people behind it. That it turn, denudes the idea that there’s anything worth paying attention to beyond mere entertainment. Saying all that, when the curtains parted and revealed a huge rock and roll drum set, anyone who was paying attention knew it was going to be different. This dance, drum and song performance held in Gilbert, near Phoenix was at a high school, with an audience of appreciative men, women (and kids) starved for the authenticity that a group like Te Vaka brings.

With a couple of low-impact, local acts leading off the event, and one rugby team pouring out the aggression (though perhaps less so if it makes you giggle at times) the evening started slow, but relaxing. Two woman and girl groups of dancers from a local dance school brought the hip-check and rhythm one might expect. And a 14-year old boy (who’s name I missed) crooned out Corinne Bailey Rae and Sade numbers.

Then the curtains parted, smoke filled the air and contrasting lighting set the stage for an evening that more and more as it went along began to develop meaning for the crowd. “To the Future” really made the room come alive. It may have been one of their hits; a song about all that mothers teach, and particularly what the mother of lead songwriter and founding member, Opetaia Foa’i, taught him.

Foa’i told Soundlust before the show that celebration is a major part of the band but education about disappearing environmental beauty and cultures has to get out, “To highlight issues of concern in the South Pacific is an important part of Te Vaka. Respect for the past and right up to the present time.”

He said one of the most important issues for him is keeping the history of discovery alive for the generations; like “the original pioneers that sailed the Pacific Ocean conquered it with the simple canoe and left their mark on the unique cultures of each Island.”

The band is 15 years old and in teenagehood the band continues to explore its surroundings, but can now ask the right questions.

“It’s way more satisfying now that’s for sure,” Foa’i says. “Arriving at this point where my culture is highlighted on stage is all that I ever wanted to do with music, even if I didn’t know it back then when I first started out.”

I haven’t watched many bands using languages other than English, so explanation was welcome and needed. Foa’i did most of the talking. But with traditional drums (pate), flute, guitar and the drums, dancers in grass skirts (men and woman) and tribal tattoos (just the men) he was never the entire focus.

At one point, with so much going on, I wished I could see the group perform without amplification, without microphones or anything else on stage but the dancers, their movements and their play. It just seems they can carry off an “acoustic set” with aplomb and great solo sounds from the tribal drums, flute and guitars.

“If you see our show you will understand that positive force,” Foa’i says. “For example the group is involved in programs to get kids off street drugs. This is contrary to many other Pacific groups who promote the opposite.”

Tonight they’re in Denver, Colorado at the Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom. Saturday catch them at the Irvine Barclay Theatre in Irvine, CA and Sunday they wrap up their short American tour at the World Beat Center in San Diego, CA.

…

There are some songs such as “Careless Whisper”, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” Pearl Jam’s “Immortality” which, for me, have the base strength to carry any style from any artist who cover them, whether religiously or with a profound sense of attempted blasphemy.

Puttin’ On The Ritz by Antonia Bennett

Love Is A Battlefield by Antonia Bennett

“Ritz” and “Battlefield” fall into that category. Class or clash, their original styles differ radically. Yet, they’re always treats and no less so in the voice of Antonia Bennett, who gives them a light, piano-heavy, jazz interpretation. Both are on her six-song debut jazz EP, Natural released yesterday alongside standards, “Soon” “The Thrill is Gone” “I Wish I Were In Love Again” and “I Fall To Pieces.”

You get a sense of some of Bennett’s connections within the music business knowing that this cover of “…Battlefield” is arranged by Holly Knight, who, along with Mike Chapman, originally wrote the song for Pat Benatar.

And yes, her father is Tony Bennett, who has brought his rich smooth cords to so much of America’s soundtrack -and still hasn’t worn out his welcome.

Both have been and continue to tour this year, with Antonia as the opening act.

There’s a certain minimalist sparsity to the songs on Natural, with a too delicate touch on the piano. Ms. Bennett is new to me, but this lightness is clear when contrasted to other songs you can hear from her forthcoming, self-described, pop CD. She comes alive and so do the new, original tunes.

It helps when one of the songs, “Pill” is downright evil, twisting the knife into the spent charcoal stump of a former relationship or a paramour, multiply spurned:

“f I could grab your hair and know you wouldn’t care. If I could pull that stick from out your derriere. If I could turn this into a love song … you know that I would.”

“We all want music that really grabs us and is meaningful,” says Antonia, in a news release. “I have opened up in a big way. This upcoming album contains an empowering message for for both men and women.”

There’s no date set for that release but if you’re looking for the ole’ Bennett range, as well as more sass and sexiness, it’ll be more satisfying to a broader audience.

South Pacific music, traditional and contemporary fused, comes alive in the hands and voices of the eight-member group. With roots in Tokela, Tuvalu and New Zealand, their dancing – power, ams, hips and midriffs – comes naturally, for a complete sound and visual experience.

Led by the songwriting and voice of Opetaia Foa’i, the group has several CDs and DVDs, including their second album which reached number one on several World Music / Global Rhythm charts.

The final leg of a short North American tour is underway this coming week for Te Vaka. It’s their first for the globe-trotting group that’s existed since 1995.

The remaining dates include:

• PHOENIX/GILBERT – Mesquite High School, this Sat. Aug. 21, at 7pm. Call the school at 602-448-0260 for more information.
• DENVER — Cerventes Masterpiece Ballroom, Wed, Aug 25, at 10pm.
• IRVINE — Orange County Great Park, Sat. Aug. 28, at 8 pm.

Group’s website, Ta Veka

Take a listen:

(video uploaded by seiloa)

And then quicken your heart again. This Can’t Be My Life (Wrong Records) is a slice through someone’s body, looking at hidden beauties amid the mess.

Ruth Gerson’s series of stories pull at your conscience – like trials and unsettling events always do for the introspective.

She fell in the river before she could cry. The spring tide pulled her under. I jumped into save her, the waves came like fire. They pushed me aside as they flung her. Her neck snapped like a branch as her head hit the banks and the rocks ripped her blue dress right from her.”

From “Black Water”, those words happened to be the first I heard from Gerson’s new CD. Whispered, torn from her lips as if telling someone what she just saw, still standing out in the cold crying. A story that seems to be of untimely, violent, drowning death, through the voice of the murder. Yet it has a 1,000 interpretations and new ones come at each listen. The perfect picture of atmosphere and scene the words created made me turn my head sideways, quizzically, ready to believe there was something worth paying attention to.

“Take It Slow”, the last song on the just released …My Life similarly has character, more than just evoked feelings. A journey through a back road – literal or of the mind – everything at first a blur, rather than distinct. It’s an admonishment to herself to look at details and draw from them rather than not having any idea where she’s going so quickly.

So many of Gerson’s songs on this latest release – recorded and mixed by Nic Hard (The Bravery) and Daniel Wise (Scissor Sisters) make you want to find out more about what’s happening and what will happen next; the lyrics pushed to the fore, with simple vocal and guitar or vocal and piano arrangements. In a way it’s ironic because life – and wanting to raise new life – pushed the release of this album back three years. So the life written about then is different now, and now is a better place, she says.

Gerson’s arrangements tell complex stories in uncomplicated ways. Yet underdone can be overdone. The simplicity doesn’t show or save “Does You Heart Weep” and “Hazel.” Both drown in tears and earnest catatonia; good for people in similar misery, yet not quite telling their tale of woe in a way that brings empathy or even sympathy. Rather than the other tales told with the intent share, with these two songs Gerson seems to be talking only to herself.

Then “You Lie” comes dancing along after them as mental relief. There’s a quicker, pushing, foot-tapping, hip-grinding beat that somehow, because of the pace and despite the lyrics, manages to give back the hope that the two songs before it tried to bloodily rip away.

Throughout the album, there’s an anger, threaded gently and running deep, relentless and ceaseless — shared with the likes of Fiona, Ani, Kitten, Alanis, Liz or Tori, the edge of Sheryl, without sounding quite like any of them. This vocal coach has a rich voice that holds onto words, pulling every possible expression out, exposed.

For better or worse, “Stay With Me” is the most Tori-like. Layered self-referential, somewhat under-enunciated lyrics that, despite the apparent clarity of the title, still leave a great deal open to interpretation. You also hear melody strains in the background of Nirvana’s, “Heart-Shaped Box” which if not accidental is pure genius.

It’s beautiful.

Some music out there edges your eyes closed until you sleep. You can close your eyes to Ruth Gerson, but she’ll keep your brain active, restless, as, laying next to her, you look for life’s many meanings.

Ruth Gerson – http://ruthgerson.com