The Year Of the Chanteuse

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The New York Sun

THE CAGEY VETERANS: The first pop gems of 2006 emerged with the spring thaw, as old friends like Mission of Burma and Built To Spill invited the indie-rock schoolkids out to play with richly textured, self-assured new albums.

“The Obliterati” marked just the third album in more than 20 years for Mission of Burma (and the second in three), but where Sonic Youth and Built To Spill betrayed the subtleties that come with age on their new offerings, the Boston foursome proved they had plenty of anger and sweat left to pour into their literate brand of post-hardcore explosions. “1001 Pleasant Dreams,” “Nancy Reagan’s Head,”and “Period”showcased Roger Miller’s ever powerful and precise guitar as well as the thick rhythms of drummer Peter Prescott and bassist Clint Conley, while engineer Bob Weston tossed in some complementary tape loops and sonic manipulations to ice the cake.

Built To Spill waited five years to follow up their fifth studio album, 2001’s solid but unspectacular “Ancient Melodies of the Future,” so when “You in Reverse”hit the airwaves in April, fans were eager to call it a comeback. Happily, they didn’t have to wait long for the payoff, finding an album that boasted the most spine-tingling opening five minutes of any release this year. Doug Martsch and company, never afraid to take a solo or a bridge into the 10-minute range, flipped the formula on “Goin’ Against Your Mind” and uncorked a sprawling yet streamlined springboard into their signature jagged guitars and ringing choruses. From there, the delights kept coming, from the stoney swagger of “Wherever You Go” to the sweet and sour guitar play of “Conventional Wisdom.”

THE FOLK EXPORTERS

The recent resurgence of roots music and Americana delivered a number of acts to college radio and the pop charts this year, notably on stunning efforts from Califone and M. Ward, two somewhat similar acts who made the best albums of their burgeoning careers in 2006.

Since making his debut with 2001’s meditative “Duet for Guitars #2,” Mr. Ward has been left to fly beneath the indie-folk radar erected by such stars as Devandra Banhart and Bonnie “Prince”Billy, but he can conjure a broken-down ride at the state fair or a sundrenched Chevrolet tailfin better than anyone today short of Tom Waits. On this year’s “Post-War,” the Californiabred crooner surrounded his trademark sloppy drawl with sprinkles of violins, cellos, mandolins, and other condiments to concoct a set of full-bodied folk tunes that go down easy. Opener “Poison Cup” reaches melancholic heights on the shoulders of swooning strings; on the pithy “Magic Trick,” which acts as a gateway to the album’s second side, Mr. Ward drones, “She’s got one magic trick / just one and that’s it / she disappears.”

But like Mr. Ward, who staunchly refuses to disappear, Chicago’s Califone followed up their 2004 pinnacle, “Heron King Blues,” with this year’s “Roots and Crowns,” an eclectic assortment of laptop percussions (washboards and computers alike), acoustic guitars, and field recordings that reward loyal listeners with unheard layers upon each subsequent listen. Taking their melodies from the Appalachian folk of Harry Smith and their precise sonic sensibilities from the Pro Tools revolution, Califone is on course to spawn the most delicate musical accomplishments of the young century.

THE BLUES BOYS: Not blues men, mind you, with the exception of the tireless Bob Dylan, who traveled back to the songbook from his Minnesota days to dig up the swaggering “Modern Times.” Mr. Dylan knows that blues music is best left unvarnished, naked as the day it was born, which is why its primary torchbearers are even older than he is.

One of the few bands under 30 to have grasped this concept and wedded it to lights-out playing is Ohio’s Black Keys, whose “Magic Potion” was the best floorstomping, broom-dusting album of the year. Despite a move to the world-music friendly Nonesuch label from blues staple Fat Possum, the Keys, comprised of guitarist/singer Dan Auerbach and drummer/producer Patrick Carney, bolted the door to their basement studio in Akron, cranked the amplifiers, and made the most uncompromising album of their young career. As is the Keys’ custom, heroes like Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside are deftly recalled on swinging, delta hammers like “Just a Little Heat” and “Black Door,” but where Messrs. Auerbach and Carney once leaned on slide solos and sauntering rhythms, here they move more to furious licks and ferocious back beats, à la Led Zeppelin.

THE LYRICAL LADIES: The popular music landscape in 2006 was increasingly dominated by the new folkies, who in recent years have gradually picked up the mantle where new-wave retreads like the Strokes and Interpol left it, which was somewhere around Avenue A. Indie mavens looking for new fertile ground have turned to the big sky in Montana, where the Decemberists’ dusty, gorgeous “The Crane Wife” took flight this fall.

But if any party staged a coup in the houses of pop government this year, it was folk’s women’s liberation movement, which nominated four young singer/songwriters for key leadership roles. Women in folk go back almost to the beginning, when luminaries like Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, and Emmylou Harris trod literate, confessional paths alongside those blazed by Mr. Dylan, Donovan, and Townes Van Zandt.

If those ladies represented folk’s first female revolution, 2006 hosted the rebirth. Taken together, albums from Regina Spektor, Neko Case, Jenny Lewis, and Joanna Newsom marked the most significant music made this year.

The quirky Ms. Spektor released her major label debut, “Begin To Hope,” in June. Fans of New York’s anti-folk scene, where the Russian-born, Bronxraised singer got her start, may have just been hoping Ms. Spektor wouldn’t abandon her twinkling brand of surreal folk, and they weren’t disappointed. The album’s outsized, shiny production and reliance on electronic beats and keyboards nudged Ms. Spektor further into modern radio-ready territory and closer to her forebears, who knew how to reach mass audiences with the popular styles of the day.

For her fifth album, “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood,” neo-country chanteuse Neko Case would have only had to bring her incredible voice to the studio to please her growing legion of fans. But Ms. Case has continued to develop her impeccable songwriting and studio craftsmanship since her spellbinding 1997 debut, “The Virginian,” and all the work has led her to the mountaintop. With help from crack musicians like Howe Gelb of Giant Sand and Garth Hudson of the Band, “Fox Confessor” breathes in the country air and ambles through a set of 12 breathtaking meditations on the pain of love, the sadness of friendship, and the hope that comes with loss.

If that sounds too morbid for you, Jenny Lewis is here to cheer you up. The (former?) lead singer and resident sexpot of L.A. indie-rockers Rilo Kiley leapt assuredly into the spotlight this year with “Rabbit Fur Coat.”Never one to cower behind the boys, Ms. Lewis’s countrified confections flexed her songwriting muscles on swingers like “Rise Up With Fists” and “You Are What You Love,” while Peggy-Lee-inspired ballads like “Happy” and “Born Secular” showcased a delicacy heretofore unknown to Rilo Kiley devotees.

But the album of the year belonged to folk princess Joanna Newsom, whose second album, “Y’s,” combined Van Dyke Parks’s immaculate arrangements and Jim O’Rourke’s thoroughly modern production with Ms. Newsom’s shape-shifting vignettes about fishing holes, skaycapes, and heartbreak. Crisp imagery and lush string sections led some critics to remark that “Y’s” sounded something like a subtle Broadway score, which may have indicated an overbearing nature, especially since the 56-minute running time included just five songs. But Ms. Newsom ably held the center like a pixie with sturdy wings, steering vast arrangements like the 15-minute opener, “Emily,” and the stunning “Only Skin” to safe harbor.

moshinsky@nysun.com


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