ShareThisBy CHUCK CAMPBELL
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
"The Information," Beck (Interscope)
For some of us, red flags were flying and alarms were going off at word that Nigel Godrich was producing the new Beck release. Although many of his fans pretty much accept whatever Beck does as genius, Godrich had a hand in his two most iffy releases, 1998's "Mutations" and 2002's "Sea Change" _ both of which proved redundantly pouty.
Godrich has done much better, as he did on Radiohead's seminal releases "OK Computer" and "Kid A." And virtually everything else Beck has done going back to 1994's "Mellow Gold" has been better than "Mutations" and "Sea Change," including last year's Dust Brothers-produced "Guero."
But Beck and Godrich get it right for "The Information."
The release is embarrassingly rich in consistent atmosphere, anchored to some of the most irresistible grooves Beck has ever created. The energy might be too flat for those in need of diverse stimulation, but "The Information's" electro-funk ambience wouldn't work if it were trumped up (as demonstrated by the aberrational track "1000 BPM," a clanging freak-out).
Beck maintains his usual cosmic swagger, casually strolling through the dark themes that he offsets with quirky humor ("Lord please don't forsake me in my Mercedes Benz" he howls on "Strange Apparition," while he cautiously offers, "I think I'm in love, but it makes me kind of nervous to say so," on "Think I'm in Love"). He's even singing better these days: Check out his rollicking soul on "Nausea" and his addictive, nursery-rhyme melodies on a "New Round" supported by intoxicating backing vocals.
Godrich keeps Beck in the appropriate context, a trippy haze built on organic beats, electronic washes, unconventional percussion and strings. The psychedelia he unsuccessfully inflicted on "Mutations" and "Sea Change" fits here, even when the songs seem temporarily adrift in ethereal swirls.
Meanwhile, "The Information" includes artsy stickers for fans to create their own CD insert, and there's also a DVD of surprisingly clever "homemade" videos for all the tracks.
This time Beck and Godrich have created the total package.
Rating (five possible): 4
"NOSTALGIA FOR THE FUTURE," Dark Globe (Global Underground)
Like some kind of sci-fi fantasy, Dark Globe's "Nostalgia for the Future" appears to be a manipulation of both space and time.
The tricks of time aren't so surprising for the breakbeat-pioneering duo of Pete Diggens and Matt Frost; it's only natural the pair would tamper with skittering rhythms to create illusions of slow motion and hyper speed.
The seeming distortion of space is a more impressive feat as the duo tinkers with layers of electronic noise to create sounds that alternate with compression and spaciousness, projecting surreal impressions of both claustrophobic surroundings and expansive nothingness.
The air on the title track of "Nostalgia for the Future" seems turned inside-out, a vortex of vibrations and hums choking off the oxygen as synth effects obliviously sprawl over the agitation. By contrast, the meditative atmosphere of the New Age-y "Fever Electric" is underpinned with a discreet, yet propulsive, dance rhythm.
Also, before each cut veers off into cinematic sparseness, "Speak in Colours" is a vivid blend of beats, bass and keyboards, and "Stray Birds" features plunky keyboards mashing into a viscous rhythm.
Diggens and Frost easily could have crafted "Nostalgia for the Future" as an otherworldly instrumental album, but instead they complicate matters by throwing attention on an array of guest vocalists.
Amanda Ghost proves to be an asset on a couple of songs, injecting soulful personality into the mysterious swells and jazzy chords of "Break My World" and holding steady against the stirring reverberations and booms of "Feed." Yet others don't offer such worthy contributions: Silja delivers a mundane pop vocal on "Futures Coming" that Dark Globe decorates with flips, swoons and whirs; Julie Thompson chips in a trace of moodiness to the rather nondescript "For Raymond," and Boy George is distracting with his decrepit sounding drama on "Atoms."
Ghost fits in well enough, but the other vocalists pull focus from the drive of the music, blurring Dark Globe's mission.
Rating: 3-1/2
"EL MAS CHINGON," George Lopez (Oglio Comedy)
For every comedian who makes an easy segue from a stand-up persona to a sitcom persona, there are loads more who don't make the transition.
Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen DeGeneres beat the odds by basically being the same people on stage as they are on screen. More typical are Margaret Cho's catastrophically unfunny turn on the 1994 ABC sitcom "All-American Girl" and Louis C.K.'s clumsy effort on his recent HBO sitcom, "Lucky Louie."
George Lopez falls closer to Seinfeld and DeGeneres than the others: His self-titled ABC show hasn't been groundbreaking, but it's been good enough to still be on the air since its 2002 debut. And his new "El Mas Chingon" proves that even if he's not a particularly innovative comic, he's in his natural element doing somewhat prickly routines.
Sticking to a well-worn framework of cultural commentary, Lopez skewers both sides of the Mexican-American/white-American divide with a parallel stream of bits based more on economic differences than ethnic chasms.
His audience hoots and hollers with adoration as Lopez talks of gunfire at parties (noting that Chicanos "can't have fun and not drink"), a racist grandmother who got her just desserts late in life (in the form of black nurses whose skin tones are so dark they're almost purple) and living in a white neighborhood ("Sometimes I make chorizo just for the smell").
Lopez's timing is excellent _ though in a couple of cases his routines are too visual to translate on an audio recording _ and he fires through his bits with quick precision, banging through assertions like Chicanos don't look at owners' manuals and don't have dimmer switches in their homes, and Mexicans don't participate in the Winter Olympics because their bodies look bad in skintight uniforms. He also quips about how modern children are pampered, fat women wear belly rings and people manage to get hit by trains.
He works in some f-words along the way, too, but "El Mas Chingon" is mostly inoffensive and harmlessly engaging.
Potential listeners should consider whether they have an hour to spare listening to Lopez trot out stereotypes for laughs.
Those who spend a half hour a week watching "George Lopez" probably do.
Rating: 3
