Let’s face it. It is not easy to cover a Bjork song and make it successfully work. Hearing numerous bands try their hands at the mercy of the Icelandic woman’s music, the band usually fails at the fault of their own interpretation; that or try too hard to maintain every ounce of preservation within the song while loosing the identity of the band.

For The Last Domino, John Orr bravely sludged through Bjork’s discography and selected five songs who simply risked it for the admiration to a musician that is dear to his heart.

What transpires is five songs that will surprise you. Maybe that is because Orr knows his limitations, or maybe that he also knows how to focus and has a great ear at piecing together a song that not only gives props to the person he’s covering, but also to his own identity.

Using various instruments, his choices are well worth it. “Who Is It (Carry My Joy On The Left, Carry My Pain On The Right)” begins with a wailing saxophone that builds to the addition of his acoustic guitar strumming away and Orr’s powerful vocal chords breaking any silence between the words. This is a man who is not afraid to be heard.

“Hidden Place” is both creepy and beautiful at the same time, like something you would hear if you did a mash-up of Bauhaus and Martin Denny.  “Hyper Ballad” is a more straight-laced version of the song because Orr trades electronics for looping effects, but he does it so that the song is comforting without lacking anything.

He also takes a hard rock feedback stab at “Army Of Me” that sounds more like early Soundgarden covering this song. Although short-lived, the noisy cover really stands out.

Leading to an a capela rendition of “Unravel,” it’s stunning as to how Orr can warp his vocals into a melodic army and a testament to Orr’s talent.

“Unison” is probably my least favorite of the EP, and “The Anchor Song” is anti-climactic compared to everything else on here. But again, we are talking about someone who can successfully weave a bjork song into his own ideologies.

You can download the EP for free from his website.

Solid Street will be performing this Saturday at Local’s Only with Woah! Tiger, and The Last Domino. Check out their website for further tour dates.

Solid Street
Self-Titled
Self-Released
Rating: 3.2 out of 5

Link: http://www.solidstreet.com/

Fishers, Indiana seems like an unlikely place for a band like this to be cranking out music like that. With the combination of saucy soul and expressive blues, you would imagine a band like this to come from the lifeblood of Downtown Indy.

And it’s that combination of soul and blues where this band shines the most. Take the song “Wallflower.” It’s a marriage of Clapton-esque Layla sessions with James Carr-style lyricism. And even though “Nothin’ Nice To Say” proves that they can jam, it’s the softer touches to this album that find its way into the heart of this band and the ears of the listener.

Guitar-influenced, the Hendrix heavy “Heaven Hold Her” and the road trippin’ “Highway Sign” boasts some sweet guitar solos. They take off with no intention of coming back down, but actually ends up becoming the glue to the song. This is not your Stevie Ray Vaughan, more like guitar roaming with Al Green sincerity. Don’t get me wrong, this is a group of accomplished musicians who know how to manipulate a song into submission. Some of the key changes may catch you off guard, but this is a band with direction whether you listen to it for the music or for the songwriting, something each band member passionately shares.

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Bonnie Prince Billy
Beware (Drag City)
Rating: 3 out of 5

To my recollection, it has been a long time since Will Oldham has been seen on stage in or around Indianapolis. But he returns this weekend to The Vogue to play songs from a life-long richness of material, including his new album Beware (Drag City).

The last time I remember Oldham was not under the name Bonnie “Prince” Billy, but as the band Palace Music. It was that incredibly hot and humid part of summer. Verizon Wireless Music Center was known as Deer Creek and Lollapalooza was known as the biggest traveling alternative music circus in the country.

We had just arrived sometime before Noon and the sun bearing down was enough to begin a perspiring Midwestern sweat as your feet crunched on parched earth. Echoes of Oldham’s desperate voice was heard from the Second Stage, an extremely early time frame to experience Palace Music’s sobering style. But intrigued by the haunting and rather depressingly beautiful songs I heard on the recordings, as well as his mysterious candor, we watched as others began filing around the grassy field.

As I studied his lack of movement, taking in everything Oldham had to give, I noticed a tall guy with long, dark hair standing next to me. His shirt unbuttoned and arms crossed, completely entranced in the music. I had to glance a few times to let it sink in that I was watching this performance right next to Nick Cave. When all I really wanted to do was yell “Oh my God it’s Nice Cave in the flesh!,” as he finally peered over, I muttered a simple “Hello” and “Nice to meet you,” followed by a handshake. We ended up talking mostly about Oldham and the music as I remember a wide-eyed Cave telling me how genuinely impressed he was at Oldham’s creativity and his craftmanship. And by the end of the performance, Cave, along with the rest of us, parted ways, me with a musical imprint that has lasted to this day. It’s an impression that was as prevalent as the black-and-white photo of Slint that he took in a Southern Indiana quarry. The photo that is immortalized on the Spiderland album.

Years later, not much has changed. Oldham’s creativity is still an impressive journey that has spanned a couple more Palace Music albums and ten solo releases since that Lollapalooza stop. He can weave a tale through lyric that richly defines the joys and darkness of the human existence, taking in everything from the drawl of a lazy afternoon on the porch with the dog to the wilted flowers of an ex-lover to sexual demeanor that is woven like an innocent tale of romance instead of a dirty pulp reader. This is your grandfather’s music, and Beware continues that tradition of struggle through the simple life and struggle in its bare bones existence as a human.

With Beware, there is nothing distinctly new or outstanding going on in Billy’s conscious. The highlight of this album is not so much Oldham’s work — although that alone sets the foundation for what he does — it’s the amazing laundry list of guest musicians ranging from Chicago’s Rob Mazurek of the Chicago Underground, Isotope 217, and Exploding Star Orchestra to Leroy Bach, who once played in Wilco, to Jon Langford of The Mekons, and many more who have stepped foot on this release.

With the touches of a backing choir on the opening track to various accentuations from different instruments and more-glossy-than-I-would-have-liked studio techniques, Oldham always works best when it’s stripped down and ruggedly dirty from the angels and devils that crouch down on his shoulders. Singing persistently “I want to be your only friend. Is that scary?” makes you wonder if he sometimes scares his own self as he recites his words. This is a man that is haunted by the toils of human’s dark secrets. It’s a man who has spent a lifetime trying to understand by taunting, accepting, and berating our emotional condition.

His views on sex and religion, mortality and natural law is simple on the surface, but explicitly complex as demonstrated on “Death Final,”  — “God bless us as we cross from green sides into darker. God love us as we lay in puddles of our own.”

It may not be my favorite of Bonnie “Prince” Billy releases — as I would rather revert back to Palace Brother’s Days In The Wake and Billy’s I See A Darkness — but Beware is still an album that provides enough unique satisfaction to enrich the appreciation of Oldham’s artistry and his dust-covered country confessions.

The highly anticipated debut from Indianapolis’ We Are Hex has finally arrived, and the wait is worth it. Gloom Bloom is a powerful ode to sound experimentation by a group of talented musicians that have captured something richly unique and intensely “in the moment.” As each song progresses, you never know what dark alleyway the band will take you down. This is everything you would expect and more: passion and fury, light and darkness, all feeding off of each other that gives these songs a life of its own.

Whether direct or indirect, the band puts themselves in an ideal situation by crawling back in time without trapping themselves in a retro vortex.  When New Order rose from the ashes of Joy Division, they were tapping into disco culture to propel them into a new style of dance music. With the saturation of standard pop and dance elements in today’s indie culture, We Are Hex strips away the ideology, going back to when music was dangerous and the days where The Rezillos wanted to go to Venus, The Adicts were talking about revolution, and Thurston Moore and Lydia Lunch were wigging out in Death Valley, all challenging pop culture one way or another.

Not to say that the band is really any of the aforementioned references but, to an extent, all of them combined. With the band on the move and constantly changing up styles, they escape being pigeonholed into any distinct category, constantly morphing and shape shifting before your ears.

What pleases me the most about this album is its spontaneity. Recorded practically live in their house, the untraditional studio presence works to their advantage. It is mixed and transitioned in a way that puts you on their couch and deep within the output of what the member’s experienced. Songs change from the heavily mixed to dirty and raw to simple found sounds from various outtakes.

“INDPLS” gives you the feeling of celebratory joy, urban power, and dark prowling that only gets accentuated on “Bottom Of My Belly.” Jilly Weiss’ vocal prowess displays a realistic urgency that is pushed forward by a tornadic activity of instruments swirling about, whether it is Trevor Wathen’s growling bass, Brandon Beaver’s rumbling drums, Matt Hagan’s intricate guitar work, the keyboards, the layered vocals, the time signature change up, and so on. And that’s just within one song. Before you know it, you are dragged along through purposefully bastardized early ‘60s-style girl pop  (“Noise Knot”), the taunting roar of “No FM/No AM,” or the hauntingly jagged dance number “Serious Sedatives.”

It seems with each passing listen there is something new to discover within each track. Gloom Bloom has found a way to breathe in the soul of this city and create a metropolitan melting pot of vice and virtue that will wrap around you and not let go, even after the sobering instrumental outro of “French Rough” has long since faded out.

Even though you can stream the entire album at the bands website (http://www.wearehex.com), the CD is well worth the buy for the sound quality, the flawless transitions between songs, and the gorgeous packaging.