…shining a little light on what we’re spinning on the office stereo.

We keep meaning to dig back into our respective libraries and do some record spelunking, but there is so much interesting new stuff coming out these days, like…

Peter Gabriel, Scratch My Back: Barring an intelligent and insightful notice by Mat Snow in Mojo, this thing has been taking a bit of critical dubbing that seems entirely, instantly unfounded upon first listen. It’s sort of an unfortunate intersection of two critical hobgoblins:

1. It’s a Peter Gabriel album. Gabriel’s music has gotten more and more personal of late, to the point where it would take either a dedicated fan or a dedicated listener to really get in tune with the subtleties of texture, dynamics, and lyrics at play. He isn't making immediately accessible pop 45s any more, really. We’re not huge fans, per se, but we do appreciate the man.

2. It’s a covers album. Of course, pre-Beatles, nearly every pop record was a covers album, but somehow a lot of critics seem to interpret the gesture as one made by an artist who has painted him/herself into a corner. It’s hardly the case, of course, but preconceptions being what they are…

This album is really a smart, well-chosen set of interpretations, delivered by a sensitive and powerful vocalist dang near the peak of his powers. Some things work better than others, but the chamber orchestra arrangements (No guitars! No drums!) are very well-crafted and sympathetic, and Gabriel the vocalist rises to the occasion brilliantly. Has he ever sounded this good, really? Very rarely he overdubs a few harmonies and does some doubletracking, which is honestly unnecessary when his instrument is in this good condition. We knew most of these tunes previously, and feel like he really adds something.

Cotton Candy, Top-Notch & First-Rate: We’ll admit to being a bit baffled when first seeing Cotton Candy onstage year or two ago – but said bafflement quickly gave way to wonder and a certain giddiness. A giddiness kinda like a little kid feels when singing back an unusually catch TV jingle. Of course, the Residents posited that jingles are “the music of America” with their 1980 opus The Commercial Album – but that album contained no actual commercials. Onstage, Cotton Candy mix vintage commercial jingles (in all their 6-20 second immediate glory) with new songs and songs from their illustrious catalogs – after all, they are a duo comprised of Evelyn Hurley (of the mighty and missed Blast Off Country Style) and Mark Robinson (Unrest, Air Miami, solo artist and Teenbeat owner/operator). We weren’t sure how it would work on record, but after just one side of this vinyl-only release, we were sold. It’s like some weirdly comforting yet surprising mash-up of golden-era AM radio and left-of-the-dial FM, with jingles (now they throw in some of their own amidst the vintage fare) colliding into hilarious audio collages (musical and spoken) and very, very fine pop-songs built on ingenious drum machine programming and bewitching crystalline guitar. Cool ice-blue vinyl, too. As far as DIY love letters (To what? A bygone era? To each other? To the act of making music, be it jingle or pop song?) go, this one is the best in recent memory…

Passing Strange (DVD): We’re not always one with musical theatre…sure – you can’t deny the absolutely killer songs that it has given us – from Porter, Berlin, Rogers/Hammerstein/Hart, Sondheim, Jerry Herman, etc. But gosh there’s a lot to upset the post-punk mind: the unending pronouncement-driven style (“I’m happy, and I’m going to sing a song about how happy I am!”), the shear needless spectacle, and so on. It’s always interesting when an outsider approaches the great white way: remember how Paul Simon decided he was going to show Broadway how it’s done, then put together the colossally confusing Capeman? (Which actually had a pretty good score, though.) Or when Rosie O’Donnell and Boy George brought forth the baffling almost-there Tabboo? Passing Strange is far more successful than either of those, probably owing to Stew (of the great Negro Problem) not really giving a damn what Broadway thinks – and also to him having workshopped this thing for years up until this point. We had heard the score and were puzzled by it initially, as it wasn’t as subtle or brainy as some of Stew’s other records, but seeing it on stage in this brilliantly-shot Spike Lee film (basically a documentary of the show’s last three performances), it all makes sense. Way too many themes are touched on to talk about here – notions of “passing” for what you’re not, of racial and cultural identity, of home and family, of how the ideals of art wither when exposed to reality – all delivered by a dynamite cast and the music, whose occasional bombast makes a lot more sense with all senses engaged.

Jan and Dean, Carnival of Sound: No less than Brian Wilson sites Jan Berry as an influence, and we should have maybe have heeded that sooner. We always kinda wrote Jan and Dean off as fun early sixties fluff – well arranged and executed, but without the abandon of the best r&b and surf of the era or the harmonic daring of what Mr. Wilson was concocting. This compilation (from the newly revived Rhino Handmade imprint – welcome back!) definitely makes us reconsider, and we have a feeling some of their earlier work will appear on our office system soon. It could be said this is the duo’s last gasp: a set of recordings spanning immediately before and immediately after Jan’s horrific car accident. Jan was, by most accounts, the sonic auteur of the duo, and he struggled through the physical and mental devastation brought about by the accident to finish these tracks, which were largely unreleased. Shame, especially since the post-accident songs are pretty striking psychedelic harmony pop, with the Wrecking Crew produced into a thick slab of sound set off by sitars, soprano snake-charmer saxes, and clever compositions with intricate melodies and some surprising modulations. Jan was incapable of singing due to the brain damage he suffered (he does “la la” his way through one demo, shaky but viable), so a great cast of guest singers (including a young Glen Campbell) pitch in on vocals. It’s no outright classic, mind you, but the potential for greatness had Jan been able to continue is too formidable not to take note of. Great package, with fantastic notes and photos, not to mention the track selection, which consists of mono mixes of the tracks, new stereo mixes (designed to illuminate the complexity of the productions), some demos, and backing tracks.