14 書香人生 B O O K S & R E V I E W S SUNDAY, MAY 9, 2010 • TAIPEI TIMES Hardcover: US CD Reviews Laura Bush zings Pelosi, nudges Cheney, ignores Rumsfeld The former first lady writes vividly of her CRYSTAL CASTLES CARIBOU BROKEN BELLS MEDICATIONS Crystal Castles (II) Swim Broken Bells Completely Removed upbringing in West Texas, but as her life becomes Fiction City Slang/Merge Columbia Dischord Records more public her observations become less keen BY MarGaret Carlson BLOOMBERG anyone can grow up to be president of the US, anyone PUBLICATION NOTES If can be first lady, too. Still, neither George W. Bush nor Laura Welch had much inkling of what they were getting into when they married. Laura was a school librarian and George lived in a world of sterile apartments, alcohol and dead-end jobs. They wanted to jump-start their lives, but unlike the ambitious Clintons, they were hardly aiming for the White House. BY Taylor Briere In her memoir, Spoken From the CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Heart, Laura Bush writes as vividly of her upbringing in the bleak and unforgiving oil-patch towns of West Texas as Buzz Bissinger did in his classic Friday Night Lights. As her SPOKEN FROM THE HEART life becomes more public in the later rystal Castles is an purpose was to produce “dance is quite unlike anything we’ve heard ompletely Removed is the chapters, her observations become BY LAURA BUSH experimental electronica music that sounds like it’s made from either artist before. Mercer long-awaited follow-up to less keen — or perhaps she just 456 PAGES duo composed of producer out of water, rather than made out often eschews the high-pitched Medications’ 2005 math- becomes unwilling to share them. Ethan Kath and vocalist of metallic stuff like most dance emotive crooning that is so typical punk debut record Your The book offers a stark look at SCRIBNER Alice Glass. Oozing indie music.” of The Shins’ releases in favor of a Favorite People All in Bush’s loneliness growing up in a hard- Ccred from every pore, it has enjoyed There is certainly nothing deeper, grittier delivery that is more COne Place, and its second release on scrabble town with more oil rigs than While you will read in vain to find out a great deal of media exposure metallic here. Swim’s rhythms and suited to this project. Burton, in Washington, DC’s famous Dischord trees. The Welch family never struck what kind of guy Dick Cheney really is, since its debut eponymous record melodies are incredibly organic, turn, treats the album in a wholly Records. it rich but her father worked two jobs for those still wondering about Barbara was released in 2008 and garnered and Snaith’s silky smooth vocal different manner from his slicked-up Math rock gets its name from its and they did well enough. Yet there Bush, here’s a small treat: rave reviews for its schizophrenic, delivery feels like a slow ride on production work as Gnarls Barkley rhythmic complexity — the use of was an undertow of sorrow left by the “Bar” is “ferociously tart-tongued” seizure-inducing live shows. a riverboat. But this isn’t happy and with Gorillaz. odd asymmetrical time signatures that loss of three children, two to late-term and has insulted nearly all her friends. Crystal Castles’ second album music, and his lyrics are often quite Musically, the Broken Bells sometimes change multiple times in miscarriages and one who lived only a When people come up to her and say sees the band sailing further into morose, revolving around themes of is a hodge-podge of sounds and the space of a single song. few days. Bush remembers staring at they know her, she snaps back, “No, uncharted electronica territory. broken relationships and loneliness. influences and has an easy but Angular, dissonant melodies and her little brother through the nursery you don’t. You don’t know me.” Fainting Spells, the aptly named Swim is a record that takes itself earnest feel about it. Some songs technical virtuosity are par for the window. Later, at an amusement park Once Bush becomes first lady, opening track, is a three-minute spin quite seriously, even as it pumps out gain their footing with the help of course within the genre, often lending or on a picnic with her loving parents, travelogue and social diary take over into mind-bending noise techno that eminently danceable tunes. an acoustic guitar, others are firmly the music a gritty feel far too edgy to she looked longingly at the families — world leaders seen, countries visited, pummels listeners into submission, The album’s opener, Odessa, relies rooted in synthesizer madness. be considered pop. with all the kids. overnight guests and over-the-top while the album’s second track and on a catchy bassline, while flashes Lyrically, however, the album is On Completely Removed, however, Loneliness made Laura Bush. It gave dinners. There are some revelations: first single, Celestica, is instantly of funky guitar dare you not to bob steeped in melancholia, even during Medications attempt to bridge the birth to her lifelong devotion to reading, Hillary Clinton wondered aloud why likeable. “Follow me into nowhere,” your head in unison. The next track, its most upbeat musical moments. gap between math and pop. In some which became a career and a cause. A they called it Hillarycare when it was Glass sings softly, atop rapturous Sun, employs some fluid synth stabs The track Vaporize marches ways, despite the loss of drummer decorous and organized woman, she her husband’s health care bill and synths driven along by a pulsing and a no-nonsense four-on-the-floor along with a happy chord Andrew Becker, the record isn’t too arranged her shelves by the Dewey Deci- confided that she wished she’d never dance beat. beat along with the repetition of a progression and snappy percussion, great a departure from what we’ve mal System. (Those shelves ran heavily gotten an office in the West Wing. These tracks are a great entry single word, “sun,” over and over but on top of this Mercer delivers heard before from the band, as quirky to books about Nancy Drew, another Glimpses of politicians behaving point to the band’s music, as it is again, and to great effect. The album lines such as, “I was lost then and rhythms and jagged guitars still pepper only child entranced by her father.) badly are scarce and about the other within the balance of two extremes makes frequent use of cliched dance I am lost now/And I doubt I’ll ever its songs. But what stands out is the She talks for the first time about side. Nancy Pelosi said mean things — unflinching noise experimentation production techniques, including know which way to go.” band’s newfound love of infectious a deadly car accident she had as a yet Laura Bush still invited her to a and readily accessible dancefloor sounds processed through high- and On the lovely and lazy Citizen, vocal melodies, and this makes all the teenager. The boy she killed was a state dinner when Queen Elizabeth loveliness — that Crystal Castles low-pass filters to build tension and accompanied by simple percussion difference. friend from school, and it was her visited. Senate Majority Leader Harry spins its charm. Bizarrely addictive the one-by-one addition of percussive and swelling synthesizer pads, Mercer At times, Medications manages to fault for running a stop sign. By Reid said he’d stop calling Bush names soundscapes are created in tracks elements to create a sense of seems to be begging for answers to completely disguise itself as an indie- nature reticent, she could never (“loser” and “liar”) but he didn’t. such as Not in Love, with its movement within a track. But these life’s toughest questions: “From the pop band, as on the track Seasons, bring herself to call upon the grieving Oddly, the one time Bush asserted delicately detuned crystalline synths tricks are here packaged so tastefully moment we’re born/till we’re old and whose verse is held together by a riff parents to acknowledge the awful herself was about a trivial matter. In and heavily processed Alvin-and- they do their job well. tired/do we ever know?” that could easily have found its way hole she opened in their lives. the middle of the night, she called then the-Chipmunks-on-LSD vocals, and Snaith’s elegant craftsmanship and Still, there are moments where onto a Top 40 single. Brasil ’07 is, It’s no surprise that her greatest chief of staff Andy Card to have him Intimate, where a tight dance beat attention to detail have produced a Mercer seems to find a reason to simply put, a lovely tune. Jazzy drums joy was having twin girls after years tell Cheney to quit stonewalling about meets dark bassy synth stabs before special record, the kind that makes keep up the search for greener and chiming bells are paired with of trying. Hers is a traditional home how he shot a friend on a hunting trip. giving way to a bridge of skull- you want to listen to it again as soon pastures, as on the relatively hushed vocals and a subdued brass — the wife immersed in kith and kin, It worked. Cheney started talking. peeling noise. as it ends. minimalistic track Trap Doors, on section, calling to mind the work of the husband in making a living and, Imagine if she’d called about weap- Fans of the band will find this which, backed by synthesized organ Sea and Cake.