Steve Martin & Edie Brickell

ISSUE #27 MMUSICMAG.COM REVIEWS HOLE SNobody’sTEVE MARTIN Daughter & EDIE BRICKELL [Universal] Love Has Come for You [Rounder] The first album released under the Hole moniker since 1998’s Celebrity Skin is really frontwoman Courtney Love’sTwenty-five years ago, the idea of a Steve Martin recording with Edie Brickell second solo album—co-founder,might have seemed like a disaster of New Coke proportions, but Love songwriter and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson isn’t involved,Has Come for You proves them to be a delightful creative duo. The album nor is any other previous Hole member. So it’s Love andcombines three Brickell’s lyrics and smoky soprano with Martin’s intricate and ringers on 11 new songs—10 of which Love wroteevocative with banjo melodies. Though they co-wrote these songs from opposite collaborators like Billy Corgan,coasts, Linda they Perry truly and meet new in the middle, as Brickell’s lyrics paint vivid scenes of guitarist Micko Larkin. (Perry gets full credit on one tune, “Letter to God.”) small-town life and oddball characters. The pair incorporates a wide spectrum Much of the riveting intensity of the group’s 1990s heyday appears to haveof leftsounds along andwith getsher former help fromDaniel Jackson some diverse guest musicians—everyone from bandmates, but there are fl ashes here of the snarling Too often, though, the slower songs trip her up. While once fury Love deployed to suchbluegrass devastating greats effect back the in Steep the day. Canyonthey were Rangers showcases and for harrowing jazz bassist displays Esperanzaof naked emotion, She spits out her vocals Spaldingwith vengeful to disdain a boys’ on “Skinny choir Littleand aLove string sounds quintet. more dispassionateThe result isthese a sophisticated, days. The production Bitch,” overdriven guitars roiling atop an elastic bassline that doesn’t help—the songs have an airless, sanded-down feel that speeds up as the song largelyraces toward acoustic a climatic pop pile-up record at the thatdoesn’t is a fi tjoy with to her hear. visceral Martin persona. and Courtney Brickell Love’s aretumultuous a end. She shifts tempos and attitude on the more contemplative history suggests that she has a compelling story to tell, and “Pacifi c Coast Highway,”uniquely taking stock talented as layers ofteam, acoustic and and given perhaps that she they’ve does. It’s begun just not workingthe one she’s on telling a musical, on Nobody’s electric guitars chug along behind her. Daughter. –Eric R. Danton it seems we haven’t heard the last from them. –Juli Thanki COURT YARD HOUNDS A side project of new offering suggested that its creator was a few strides closer to Dixie Chicks’ Martie crafting something truly monumental in both musical and social terms. Court Yard Hounds Maguire and Emily This cold and private set isn’t it, although that’s probably due more to [Columbia] Robison, Court Yard personal circumstances than anything related to talent. Wainwright Hounds delivers wrote All Days Are Nights while his mother, Kate McGarrigle, was much-anticipated dying of cancer, and there is a quiet, complex sadness even in its insight—both musical and personal—into the sisters who have less autobiographical material. There’s nothing here except piano for so long ceded center stage to Chicks singer Natalie Maines. and vocal, and Wainwright doesn’t project his words in the way Though steeped in familiar instrumentation, the album offers little we’ve come to expect from him. Instead of serenading the person of the barn-burning brashness that made the Chicks famous (save in the farthest corner of a packed theater, he’s singing to himself in perhaps the gutsy “Ain’t No Son”). Instead, its delicate folk-pop an otherwise empty room. –David Styburski prettiness perfectly suits Robison’s more-than-capable voice and the jumble of emotions, sunny and melancholy, that emerge in a song Ozomatli’s music has been called a collision cycle inspired by her 2008 divorce. Maguire’s weeping fi ddle and OZOMATLI of styles, a cultural mash-up, and a 20-car seamless harmonies are welcome as always, and her one turn on pileup of genres. It’s also some of the most lead vocals (“Gracefully”) is so warmly affecting that listeners may joyfully energetic music you’ll ever hear. On ‘Lovewish sheHas stepped Come to the formic more You often. combines Court Yard Hounds Brickell’s ably lyrics and its fi fth album, the L.A.-based band stirs its demonstrates that, whether with their fellow Dixie Chick or without, blend of salsa, ska, samba, funk, and hip-hop smokythese ladies’ soprano talent runs deep.with –Katie Martin’s Dodd intricate and evocative in ways few groups could conceive. Imagine Fire Away tossing the English Beat, Herb Alpert and the For a dozen years, the [Mercer Street/Downtown] Tijuana Brass, Caetano Veloso, and Sly and banjo melodies.RUFUS The resultarrangements is a sophisticated, on Rufus largely the Family Stone into a magical blender and Wainwright’s albums got you get some sense of Ozomatli’s eclectic approach. High points WAINWRIGHT busier and his sometimes on their latest, Fire Away, include “Are You Ready?,” a horn-and- acousticAll Days Are pop Nights: record Songs naughty, that occasionallyis a joy topercussion-driven hear.’ blast of salsa-fl avored ska; “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah,” for Lulu angry declarations of gay an exultant Latin pop anthem fi tted with shrieking sax; and “Gay Vatos [Decca] pride got louder. Each in Love,” a rockabilly-tinged tune with a soaring chorus. Even when 70 MAY 2010 ISSUE #27 M MUSIC & MUSICIANS MAGAZINE M3_v10.indd 70 5/14/10 3:37 AM.

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