CDSELECTIONS

Johnny Marr & The Healers “Boomslang”

(iMusic/Pias)

For those who play the guitar, Johnny Marr is a rock icon. With The Smiths, he managed to mix intense melancholy, cold irony, ambiguity and exacerbated romantism in his approach to song writing. Almost two decades later and after several collaborative projects (Electronic, Haven etc.), he once again explores his catalog of skills, from gentle melodic pop tunes to frenetic country rock songs. But there’s one small detail someone overlooked — he can’t sing. And this is quite a drawback, because his low, breathy vocals are so behind the melodies, that the result is a flat sound, making the record lose its potential power and delivery. Which is too bad, as there’s so much more to expect from a rock icon like Marr… Out now

Ellen Allien “Berlinette”

(BPitch Control/Pias)

It’s 1989, you’re in Berlin and a wall has just been brought down. The East, populated with dis-used warehouses with no neighbors to complain about noise pollution, is formally presented to techno music. The scene explodes. Germany resonates to the sound of repetitive beats, at around 160 per minute. DJs come and go, clubs open and close. But Pitch Control and its founder Ellen Allien, prove a permanent fixture. The nights attract a loyal following and the followers want a piece of it to take home and listen to. So the Bpitch Control label is born. “Berlinette” — Allien’s second LP — is a funky breakdown of ripped-up techno beats, distorted guitars and fuzzy electronic squiggles. It’s very Berlin. And, it’s very Bpitch. Out April 7

Red Snapper “Red Snapper”

(Lo Recordings/La Baleine)

2000’s “We Aim to Satisfy” should have been Red Snapper’s last LP. Fed up with the album-tour-album routine, guitarist David Ayers, double bassist Ali Friend and drummer Richard Thair decided to go their own ways and bowed out on a high. But although disbanded in terms of studio time, the trio continued to tour and — wouldn’t you know it — couldn’t help doing one more jam session with the tapes rolling. Their feet-friendly, jazz-influenced rhythms with bouncy double bass lines, breakbeat-like patterns and electronic programming would be equally at home in the Blue Note offices in Paris or at the Warp headquarters in Sheffield. “Red Snapper” is more of a reworking of existing material, than an outright new recording. Live versions of “The Tunnel” and “Four Dead Monks” accompany a Sabres of Paradise remix of “Hot Flush,” all of which see a return to a more experimental-based music.

Remixed

Plaid “Parts in the Post”

(Peacefrog/Discograph)

Taking other people’s music, breaking it down, mixing it up or just plain playing around with it, has long been the preoccupation of many a producer, with either a) a work-shy ethic or b) a lot of time on his hands. Releasing an album’s worth of such remixes is, however, genius. Plaid — alias Andy Turner and Ed Handley — have duly spliced, chopped and pasted together a double LP, relying on a a cool roster of songs including Jung Collective, UNKLE, Grandmaster Flash, Dropshadow and Goldfrapp. Björk’s “All Is Full of Love” proves indicative of their sound right from the start. Quirky electronics, and toe-tapping melodies...

Zero dB “Reconstruction”

(Fluid Ounce)

Chris Vogado and Frank de Jojo are the two heads behind Zero dB. Their signature sound of rolling bass-lines and funky beats has been transposed to titles from a largely underground selection of artists. Sun Ra’s “Satellites Are Spinning” is a frenzy of percussion and double bass while Peace Orchestra’s “Henry” is a soothing, organic, brass-led jazz remix. Things get a little darker on tracks by Interfearance and Acme, the digital edge cutting deeper into the music. The highlight though is Suba’s “Samba do Gringo,” a massively progressive Brazilian track with Yoruba slave chants that is, like all of these works, much more than a simple remix (it had to be, as all the parts of the original song were destroyed in the fire that took Suba’s life).

Both out now