14 書香人生 B O O K S & R E V I E W S SUNDAY, APRIL 11, 2010 • TAIPEI TIMES Hardcover: US CD Reviews Baracking our world ‘The Bridge’ digs deep into the experiences that shaped Barack Obama before he became the first black president of the US BY JEFFrey BurKE BLOOMBERG Erykah Badu Beach House The Moving Dawn Orchestra Bonobo ome have seen Barack Obama New Amerykah Part Two Teen Dream Dials EP Black Sands S as shape-shifter, world-class PUBLICATION NOTES (Return of the Ankh) Sub Pop Fluid Audio Ninja Tune networker, memoirist, savior or putz. Universal Motown In The Bridge, David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker magazine and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lenin’s Tomb, examines Obama’s life before the presidency “and some of the currents that helped to form him.” For Obama, born on Aug. 4, 1961, to a black exchange student from Kenya and a white Kansas woman living in Hawaii, the currents are many. Remnick traces the political rise and fall of Obama’s father in Kenya after he abandoned his wife Beach House’s music is often and child, the few years Obama lived described as “dream pop,” a genre in Indonesia with his mother and her that began in the 1980s as an On its Web site (www. second husband, and the boy’s return intermingling of ambient post-rock movingdawnorchestra.com), Guy to Hawaii to live with his Kansas sound textures and bittersweet Andrews’ new project The Moving grandparents after fourth grade. THE BRIDGE pop-hooks, but any genre label falls Dawn Orchestra describes its His education came at elite schools, BY DAVID REMNICK short of fully capturing the forces sound as “contemporary classical including Columbia University and at work on the band’s third album, and electro-acoustic folk music” Harvard Law School, where he was the 672 PAGES Teen Dream. — a mouthful to be sure, but the first black president of the Law Review. KNOPF It’s easy to get lost in the music is not half as convoluted Yet Obama avoided the enriching meandering chord progression of as the description suggests. The legal and financial stewardships the opening track Zebra, which Moving Dawn Orchestra’s sound popular in the late 1980s. He went gifts, hard work and lucky breaks BY TaylOR Briere trots along for a full two minutes is created by laying down acoustic to Chicago’s gritty South Side after as he does from the missteps and CONTRIBUTING REPORTER with only a metronomic kick-drum instruments such as strings, guitars Columbia and began honing his misfortunes of adversaries. According to Erykah Badu, New and shaker before the snap of the and pianos alongside synthesized networking skills as a street-level Obama gained most, perhaps, Amerykah Part One (4th World drum machine’s snare propels and digitally manipulated sounds. The buzz surrounding Bonobo’s community organizer. After Harvard from the extent to which the country War) was a left brain record, dealing it into a second round of verse As the songs work their way 2000 debut record Animal Magic he began the memoir Dreams From had grown desperate for a glimpse primarily with themes affecting and chorus, this time digging its through different musical motifs, had Simon Green pegged as one My Father, and married Michelle. of eloquence, intelligence and clarity society at large, such as drug heels in, with vocalist Victoria they often build and release of the rising stars of trip-hop and In the spring of 1992, he led a highly after years of former US president addiction, racism and urban decay, Legrand proclaiming, “Anywhere tension by adding or removing earned him a spot on the respected successful voter-registration drive in George W. Bush — whom Remnick while New Amerykah Part Two you run, you run before us” atop layers of sound. Although this Ninja Tune label’s roster. Black Chicago that brought him connections delights in denigrating as “a national (Return of the Ankh), her latest triumphant, crashing cymbals. may sound far out, the music isn’t Sands is his third LP for the label, with wealthy Lakefront Liberals, and personal embarrassment — an release, represents the right side of Nine more songs follow, each particularly experimental and and a worthy effort from a man important fund-raising sources. incurious, rash, flippant, pampered, her brain, the loving, emotional side. gushing emotion without ever for the most part the sounds are who’s been perfecting his craft for He won a seat in the state senate dishonest leader.” That split extends deeper than sounding affected. Crystalline carefully crafted and arranged to over a decade now. and lost badly in a congressional race. Remnick’s epilogue lyrical content. The production on chord arpeggios and soaring synths be beautiful, not difficult. The album begins with a prelude: He was a lousy speaker: “stentorian, acknowledges that after a year of Part One was all digital slickness, drive 10 Mile Stereo to a stunning The Dials EP, The Moving a Chinese bowed instrument professorial, self-serious — a cake the Obama presidency, “the sense of cold and calculating. Part Two is climax on what is Legrand’s most Dawn Orchestra’s first release, playing a somber melody that with no leavening,” Remnick writes. dissatisfaction ran deep” for many all analog warmth, blanketed with impressive vocal performance, consists of a suite of four songs, leads seamlessly into the rich He got better. His dazzling oratorical Americans. For some, so did the sense funky bass lines, angelic harps and stretching all the right notes as she each running around eight minutes atmospherics, synthesized bass performance at the Democratic of absurdity, stirred not only by the the crackle and pop of sampled announces with absolute certainty and representing one of the four stabs and compressed beat of the convention in 2004, along with national amnesia about how much of a vinyl. Even the theremins add to the that “The heart is a stone and this seasons. The EP explores themes next track, Kiara. It’s an elegant imploding rivals, eased Obama’s way mess Bush bequeathed his successor, sense of intimacy, here sounding is a stone that we throw.” Yet just of warmth and cold, comfort and beginning, and sets the tone for a into a Senate seat. There he was bored. but by such moments as Obama being like bubbles of soothing noise. as a teenager’s poetry can only isolation. Spring: Hymn/Hymn record that is nothing if not tasteful. “The job was too small for him,” awarded the Nobel Peace Prize not The video for Window Seat take wings in the heart of its acned opens with a sad slow descending Lush beats, smooth production and explains a helpful aide quoted by long after committing 30,000 new sees Badu stripping off her clothes author, the lyrics here are often piano melody that calls to mind diverse instrumentation create a Remnick. troops to Afghanistan. piece by piece while walking in impenetrable on paper. “Seven winter’s chill, accompanied by sound that is appealing across the The book’s title refers to a 1965 What Remnick brings to a complex Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, site of figures leap the hungry maws/The pleasantly chiming bells anticipating board. The most instantly likeable confrontation on the Edmund Pettus story are the tools of an exceptional John F. Kennedy’s assassination in beast he comes to you,” she croons spring’s arrival. Fittingly, Summer: track on the album may be El Toro, Bridge in Selma, Alabama, between reporter: persistence, curiosity, insight. 1963, before herself being gunned atop a bed of eerie watery guitar Keep Still gives us the warmest whose energetic breakbeats, regal civil-rights demonstrators and state He weaves in hours of on-the-record down by an unknown assassin. It on Norway. moment on the record: a folky strings and brass accents call to troopers that turned violent and interviews with schoolmates, teachers, is a visual representation of the Considering the emotional guitar picking out a happy melody mind DJ Shadow’s early work. The became known as “Bloody Sunday.” mentors, advisers and scholars. record’s greatest strength and the breadth of the record, which accompanied by breathy vocals three tracks on which Andreya It also alludes to Obama’s role as a In one, Obama’s University of reason why it succeeds: Badu’s runs the gamut from detuned pleading, “Please don’t stop this Triana is a guest vocalist are some link between the generation of Martin Chicago Law School colleague Geoffrey swagger. Throughout Part Two, psychedelia to unbridled pop summer to be.” In Autumn: of the album’s best, adding some Luther King Jr that fought the race wars Stone, out of frustration, calls Obama her voice oozes confidence, even (sometimes within the space of Between Hands, the promise of soul to the chilled-out ambiance in the 1960s and the present, when the a “putz” for choosing politics over a as she bares all to the listener with a single track), the elements of summer’s sunny days fades into a Bonobo creates. Of particular note is president stands as perhaps the greatest career as a law professor. “‘What a lines such as, “I’m a recovering each song remain remarkably melancholy autumn’s falling leaves the song Eyes Down, which buries beneficiary of the struggle. waste,’” Remnick quotes him saying. undercover over-lover/Recovering consistent: reverb-drenched vocals, and encroaching cold. And as you Triana’s subtle, sexy vocals between The book makes the point visually The Bridge is rich in such from a love I can’t get over.” relatively clean guitars, haunting would expect, the album’s most robotic synths and a warbling drum with front endpapers showing a photo reflections and refractions, as well as The Dallas police took notice synths and simple drum machine desolate and dissonant moments are ’n’ bass style bassline.