Matisyahu
Mr. Beast (4 stars)
This being neither the best of times nor the worst of times for hip-hop, it's probably the perfect time for Matisyahu (pronounced Mah-tis-yah-who; real name Matthew Miller, born in West Chester, Pennsylvania and currently living in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn) to release his third and most commercially hyped album.
Cornering the market on novelty, this bespectacled Hasidic Jew yearningly raps about faith and fate over jam-rock beats (think Jamaican reggae/dancehall) that rekindle the Marley spirit. As aspiring and inspiring as several of the songs are—"King Without a Crown," "Jerusalem" and "Late Night in Zion"—unless you subscribe to Matisyahu's strict brand of Jewish orthodoxy, the music often fails to strike that chord.
There's no that-shit-was-dope beat, lyric or song, depriving Youth's 13 supplicating tracks of the resonance that separates the albums you buy and listen to once or twice from the ones that set up shop in your heart. The result isn't soul music in the vein of the best gospel, but music for his soul, not so much a "sound of faith," as his website touts, as his verbal testimony to the Most High.
Still, despite Youth's overhyped religiosity and moralism, this is brave music, packed with enough lyricism, cogent messages and jam-rock rhythms to give Matisyahu a shelf life well beyond the novelty stage.
Steve Khan
The Green Field (4.5 stars)
Steve Khan's sublime guitar playing has snaked in and out of jazz fusion from the mid- to late-'70s and '80s pop standards by Steely Dan, Donald Fagen, James Brown and Chaka Khan, and superb but under-recognized solo albums from the '90s and beyond. With The Green Field, hopefully Khan's name will become more recognizable to all kinds of music lovers, rather than just those jazz and record store snobs who love to scan liner notes.
The Green Field is not only Khan's best record, it's a jazz album that is musically challenging, gorgeously constructed and played, and filled with ambient melody and lyrical guitar lines. Teamed with acoustic bassist John Patitucci, drummer Jack DeJohnette (probably the best drummer in contemporary jazz) and percussionist Manolo Badrena, Khan's guitar leads and weaves through the songs—half covers, half originals—like Wes Montgomery playing in some sort of futuristic Brazilian nightclub. The Khan-composed 18-minute title cut finale is majestic, lovely and mesmerizing. In between DeJohnette's and Badrena's rumbles and rhythmic pops, Khan's guitar offers up shimmering atmospherics and then swings like Kenny Burrell. Jazz or otherwise, there hasn't been a better record released in 2006.
Jessi Colter
Out of the Ashes (3 stars)
On her first album in more than 20 years, Colter makes an understated comeback that rests solidly in the outlaw country tradition she helped pioneer with late husband Waylon Jennings, and pretty much ignores everything that's happened in country music since then. That's far from a bad thing; Colter never sounds out of touch or lost despite her decades away from recording, and she turns in a warm and listenable album that should satisfy longtime fans. Although Colter's songwriting is solid (if a little meandering), the album's highlight is "Out of the Rain," written by Tony Joe White and featuring vocals from White as well as Colter's late husband. Her version of Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" is rather redundant, and some of the more upbeat tunes tend to lose their way around the halfway mark. But "Out of the Rain," as well as the gospel-tinged "The Phoenix Rises" and the breezy "Never Got Over You" are elegant reminders of Colter's underappreciated talent.
DEVO 2.0
DEVO 2.0 (2 stars)
Q: Are they not men? A: No, they are ... children. That's right, the second installment of weirdo New Wave outfit Devo is comprised of five kids, ages 10 to 13. Well, sort of.
Co-founders Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh contribute all the instrumentation on Devo 2.0, a compilation of 10 rerecorded, classic Devo cuts and new tunes "Cyclops" and "The Winner." The youngsters just sing. Well, sort of. The companion DVD's 11 videos depict the kids playing guitar, bass, keyboard and drums, which they'll apparently do for real on an 11-date tour set to hit middle and high schools over the next month.
Confused? So are we, but Devo's never exactly been a conventional band, so nothing the Ohio natives attempt comes as a total shock. Far more surprising is how musically mundane the oddball project actually turned out. Lead vocalist Nicole Stoehr sounds more like an average twentysomething pop singer than a wide-eyed 13-year-old, so Devo 2.0 comes off more as a watered-down, female-fronted cover act than anything kids, or adults, are likely to find revelatory. If nothing else, at least the children's chorus in Yo La Tengo's 2002 version of Sun Ra's "Nuclear War" made you giggle.
On the plus side, the new material—Devo's first in a decade—sounds promising. If only Devo 1.0 wouldn't mind laying down grown-up renditions.
Montreal Departure
Julius Papp (3 stars)
Famed San Francisco house producer and DJ delivers a two-disc set named after the city of his birth. And just as Montreal is divided between English and French, Montreal Departure is split between a 13-track mixed CD with a variety of artists and an "unmixed" CD, 10 tracks of Papp's neo-disco productions and remixes.
If you're confused by the difference between "mixed" and "unmixed" when "unmixed" includes remixes, join the (night)club. No matter. On Disc 1, Papp blends in his love for disco and '80s (such as Robert Palmer's "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On" reimagined by Colette) with a potpourri of jazz, ethnic music and vocals (as with "Raw Artistic Soul," featuring the Zimbabwian lyrics of Laygwan Sharkie).
The second CD features more of the same, with Papp remixing fellow Om Records' recording artist Mark Farina's "Cali Spaces" and his take on Deborah Bond's "This Is Me," last seen on Late Night with Andy Caldwell. But Papp finally shows his colors on the hyper-erotic "Dame Mas," overflowing with guttural moans and sighs, and an instrumental version of "Feel the Rhythm" (from his 2004 Gotta Keep Movin'), with percussive grooves from across the globe. Montreal Departure reaches its goal of providing an overview of Papp's catalog and tastes, and does so with un peu de panache.