Songs: Ohia (Secretely Canadian Records)

Shameless Will Oldham rip-off, or brilliantly baroque country-music? That is the question that occupies the mind while listening to this new album by a lo-fi band I know very little about. Ten minutes into the disc and it becomes perfectly clear that it is both, and if you can handle the former, then you get to enjoy the latter. The lead singer's voice is as fragile as Will's, however it rarely breaks, so Songs: Ohia could be accused of peddling a more digestible version of "the real thing." However, the tunes are so evocative, yet distant, that it would be a shame to dismiss them as Palace try-hards. Stand-out tracks include the melancholy "White Sulfur," and the Cormac McCarthyesque "Tenskwatawa." The consistency is impressive, although the album as a whole would have benefitted if they left off a couple of tracks towards the end. The silk-screened covers for both vinyl and cd are a nice touch. As I read in another review, "one of the best albums Palace never made."

The Avalanches - El Producto (Wondergram)

This eagerly awaited e.p. by Melbourne hip-hoppers The Avalanches shows why the hype began in the first place. While their live performances show that they've done their Beastie Boys homework (a little too well, according to many) these five tracks prove they have far more going on than a derivative sound and an excuse to jump up and down. The samples which thread the whole thing together have a predominant fifties beatniky sound, and DJ Dexter loops and scratches like a fiend. The vocals are slurred out at a speedy pace and the whole thing reminds you why eclectic hip-hop is about as good as it gets. Bonus points for the way the keyboard player looks like he's always trying to squeeze in one more note before running for the bus.

Hi Pass Filter - Audio Forensic (HPF001)

This is another Melbourne band with a big following, and this too is their first e.p., even though they've been together for a couple of years now. Fronting the band is the frighteningly talented Ben Green, who sings and scratches on the dex. His unique voice floats over abstract doodles of sound which travel off to parallel dimensions without deviating from the deep pulse. The trombone and the guitar play off each other well, and the rhythm section is the skeleton for excursions in dub. Ideally you would have a spliff and watch them play live for 3 hours straight, but this is the next best thing. Soaked reminds me of a Maggot Brain for the 90s. And incidentally, if you have the chance, check out Ben's other band BJ Petroleum, which sound like Kyuss, meets Mountain, meets Sesame Street.

Bjork - Homogenic (Mother)

Those people who were expecting Post Part Two are in for a surprise (and I must admit I was one of them). Homogenic is a far more minimalistic venture, using her native Iceland as an explicit reference point for her glacial compositions. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and the first few songs convey a haunting and haunted psyche large enough to contain her entire homeland (as the film-clip of Jorga implies). Some of the tracks are so sparse they sound like her traditionalist compatriot Mary Boine Pierson. Unfortunately, the second half of the album seems to run out of inspiration and fails to coalesce into anything its beginnings seem to promise. Unlike Post - which moves effortlessly between moods and melodies - Homogenic has a consistent icy tone which is somewhere between monotonous and monomaniacal. This could have been a blessing, however she leaves too many tracks as oral doodles, failing to make the leap between quirky and engaging. Having said all that, there are some wonderful moments and there is no need to write off Bjork as one of the most unique and exciting talents around. This album is worth buying for the digi- packaging alone, so you shouldn't um-and-ahh about the purchase. It is also worth getting for the single Jorga, which is about as sublime as five minutes can get, especially on the earphones.
Perhaps pre-conceptions are my problem here, however I still feel she has under-reached herself.

DJ Shadow - Entroducing (Mo-Wax)

Plato said something along the lines of "all things in the world are only shadows of ideal forms." Given the fact that he said this two and a half thousand years before Beatrice Dalle, Bruce Lee or the Melbourne University Admin. Building, we can appreciate his point. Believing firmly in the legacy of his name, Californian mixmeister DJ Shadow, has obviously taken Plato's dictum to heart, seeing it as a challenge, rather than a metaphysical rule. Working 100% with samples—and with 10 000 vinyl records in his collection—DJ Shadow has crafted an instant masterpiece, with this his first album on the ultrahip English dance label Mo Wax. Entroducing acts as an antidote to the plethora of mediocre trip-hop and stagnating nostalgic hip-hop acts fighting over their fifteen minutes (indeed one track is actually called "Why Hip Hop sucks in 96").

DJ Shadow takes the pulse of groove and finds it wanting; and over the next 66 minutes gives it an aural enema that reveals different dimensions with every listen (I've heard it over 50 times now and I'm still discovering new levels). To get a little more specific, track 3 sounds like he's compressed the whole of the Beastie Boys' back catalogue into one thumpin' track, just to show he can. Later on he loops an orchestral harp which tinkels angelically before he throws down a thousand b.p.m jungle beat as nonchalantly as James Bond throws the dice at Monaco Casino. Now, if you're still reading this after that last lousy metaphor, then you deserve the knowledge that this release comes very close to an ideal form, and is a must for anyone interested in both the future of music and American aural history.

Radiohead - OK Computer (Capitol)

Yes yes, we've all read the reviews. 10 out of 10. One of the best albums of the 90s. All of it's true. What else is there to say? Not much really, but it is a testament to the power of this record that I feel compelled to add to the hype, mainly because I believe it is strong enough to bear every word. So we've established that this album is flawless and thoroughly deserves its status as an instant classic. But let's try and get beyond that. Why is it so frighteningly sublime? I could get all wanky and wax on about Neitzsche's theories on the Apollonian synthesis of Dionysian flux but I'll try to resist. While getting a name for themselves as a bit of an "intellectual" band (coming from Oxford and all), Radiohead transcend the latter part of their name, aiming straight for the part of the soul that tears rational thought to bloody pieces. The lyrics are a slick pool of oil which have formed over the music, adding to its uncanny menace, but ultimately remaining apart, and just beckoning the narcissistic listener to enter and perhaps never emerge.

With this album Radiohead have - like DJ Shadow - filtered earlier styles of music into something entirely transcendental. (And in fact, these two have teamed up in the studio to produce...what? Either the greatest or most disappointing track of recent years). OK Computer's musical reference point is mid-1970s concept albums, and yet they re-invent the genre with an irony which nips any pretentiousness in the bud. They have essentially resinated every single 1970s Pink Floyd album, minus the self-indulgently pompous monomania, and plus a hell of a lot more. It is Mozart to Billy Corgan's Salieri.

Having explored its roots, OK Computer is definately a creature of the late 1990s and its overt pre-millennial tension. Paranoia, resentment, alien fantasies, plane crashes... it's all here. If someone was making a time-capsule today, they wouldn't need to put anything else in there but a copy of this cd. (Told you I get carried away.)

The enveloping sound is created with the help of an enormous brass plate which reverberates at the same frequency as the heart and the marrow. Just when you thought "electronica" had wiped the guitar off the map, these guys descend in a blaze of glory, ironically producing the definitive comment on technological hyper-alienation in the "modem world." And don't even think about hitting the "random" button - the song structure is as essential as the volume knob. "Creep" is forgiven.

The fact that OK Computer didn't even win album of the year in England shows what a myopic farce that nation is when it comes to understanding their own music. Well at least they didn't give it to the Spice Girls.