Chattanooga Pulse

The Clean
Mister Pop
(Merge)

I have a theory that applies to several bands, including the beloved New Zealand trio The Clean.  The theory posits that it is possible to have a “best of” compilation that is too good, and that listeners might not delve further into a band’s catalog because they are afraid of diminishing returns.  When it comes to certain single-oriented bands, indeed, the albums can prove to be disappointing.  The Clean has definitely made some killer pop singles, including their very first one, the endlessly replayable “Tally Ho” from 1981, with giant, irresistible hooks, beats, and melodies, and their two main collections, Compilation and Anthology, are incredibly solid—but not definitive.  In the case of The Clean, listeners who go beyond the compilations are rewarded handsomely, and this is certainly the story with the group’s latest full-length studio album and the first one in eight years, entitled Mister Pop.

The members—brothers David and Hamish Kilgour and Robert Scott—have other fruitful musical outlets (most notably, David’s solo career and Robert Scott’s pure pop band The Bats), but there’s a certain, unmistakable spark that shows up when they all get together.  “Are You Really on Drugs?” is an odd patchwork of a pop song, blending musical oil and water together and making it work; a subtle, lo-fi rhythm loop is enhanced with a huge tambourine/drum beat, and chiming Byrds-esque guitar lines are punctured with psychedelic guitar outbursts.  The instrumental “Moonjumper” has a keyboard drone (think Yo La Tengo, which actually owes more than a few nods to The Clean) and a joyful, propulsive spirit; strings wander in and out of the picture, and its peculiar textures conjure up a Krautrock concoction that’s strangely both folky and modern.

A cursory listen to “Tensile” might present it as a fairly straightforward, driving rock number, but the sound envelopes put it in another category, not to mention the treated vocals that emerge.   “All Those Notes” floats along in a somber mood with quivering keyboards, and its atmosphere and bass notes provide a similarity to the Twin Peaks theme.  Mister Pop is as satisfying as any other Clean release, revealing a band that brings enthusiasm and pleasure to its song and sound creations, maintaining an identity yet not being stuck in a rut after three decades of existence.

Dean & Britta
13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests
(Plexifilm)

Pop artist Andy Warhol filmed hundreds of “screen tests,” which were four-minute silent portraits of both stars and unknowns, and for this first DVD collection of 13 cherry-picked selections, Dean & Britta were commissioned to create original accompanying soundtracks.  Pairing Warhol with the duo makes enough sense, since Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips were formerly in Luna, a band that took inspiration from the Warhol-linked group the Velvet Underground.  (One might guess that Warhol, who appropriated cartoons for his work, would also be tickled by the fact that in the ’80s, Britta was the singing voice of Jem, the cartoon pop star.)

The most logical music decision was to use a Velvet Underground cover to accompany the Lou Reed screen test, but the song selection itself wasn’t so obvious: it’s the little-heard “I’m Not a Young Man Anymore” (which was recently unearthed on a bootleg called Live at the Gymnasium).  Dean & Britta’s version has a good momentum and a tasteful twang, but it never quite breaks its shackles and rocks out that way that the song should.  There’s plenty more VU-love here, including the calm, dreamy “International Velvet Theme” with tremolo synth tones and malleted drums and cymbals, somewhat reminiscent of Moe Tucker on “All Tomorrow’s Parties.”  The minimal riffs and vibe of “Incandescent Innocent” bring to mind the restrained, mounting passages of “Heroin,” and a re-working of the Luna track “The Enabler,” re-titled here as “Herringbone Tweed” (to describe Dennis Hopper’s onscreen suit), is channeling the VU in smoldering, slow-jam mode.

Another logical choice was to cover the Bob Dylan-penned “I’ll Keep It With Mine,” sung by Nico on her 1967 Chelsea Girl album, for the Nico screen test.  It’s polite and reverent, but a bit slight; Britta sings with a blank, sedate style and actually borrows more from the Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs (who stunningly covered the song with David Roback’s Rainy Day in 1984) than from the German, husky-voiced Nico herself.  There are no musical offenses here, but the tracks that distinguish themselves are easily the best ones, like the rockabilly duet “Eyes in My Smoke,” the cover of “It Don’t Rain in Beverly Hills” with Kraftwerk-esque electronics, and “Teenage Lightning (and Lonely Highways)” with ear-catching lines about hypnotizing pancakes and levitating the Pope.