Campbell: Tuned In: The Most Serene Republic, Josh Mease, Jamie Jones

The Most Serene Republic’s ‘Universe’ goes on erratic orbit

“... AND THE EVER EXPANDING UNIVERSE,” The Most Serene Republic (Arts & Crafts)

Everyone from the Dalai Lama to RuPaul has taken a turn at the adage about loving yourself so you can love others. But there’s a footnote: If you love yourself too much, others may find it hard to love you.

That’s undoubtedly a problem for the self-absorbed indie-pop/rock band the Most Serene Republic, a septet from Ontario following up its pretentious “Population” with the pretentious “ ... And the Ever Expanding Universe.” The group’s music must be more fun to make than to hear as random fits of anything-goes instrumentation provide a festering sideshow to the often-indecipherable stream-of-consciousness of singer Adrian Jewett.

The act’s immature tactics are particularly frustrating because the band mates clearly know how to perform: They have unconventional themes, imaginative music, gripping rhythms, catchy melodies. And although Jewett isn’t much of a singer, Emma Ditchburn is a solid secondary vocalist.

Yet the one near-certainty of “Universe” is that if anything is going right, the Most Serene Republic will find a way to destroy it. When the heated arrangement of “Heavens to Purgatory” congeals into cohesive cadence, for example, the band blows it up with gratuitously cacophonous choruses. Meanwhile, the synthetic glow of “The Old Forever New Things” and gentility of “Four Humours” go downhill in a hurry when then band piles on the muck. And the self-important thrashing of opener “Bubble Reputation” and closer “No One Likes a Nihilist” overrides the satisfaction of the clever song titles.

Perhaps by happenstance, the frenetic “Don’t Hold Back, Feel a Little Longer” hangs together throughout its propulsive ride and thus becomes the most enjoyable track in the bunch. The runner-up is the palate-clearing “Patternicity,” the lone instrumental cut on the release.

Regardless of the band’s talent, however, the overall process of listening to the group members amuse themselves offers little reward.

Rating (five possible): 2-1/2

Josh Mease’s ‘Wilderness’ grows ever more wild

“WILDERNESS,” Josh Mease (Frog Stand)

If John Mease had a house in your neighborhood, it might look normal at first glance and go unnoticed. Closer inspection could reveal something unusual, like an overabundance of unobtrusive lawn decorations or a garden of carnivorous plants. And the farther in you go, the more bizarre it might be: Imagine out-of-focus photos on DayGlo walls, a carpet of Astro Turf under painted-black Styrofoam furniture.

On the surface, Mease seems like a typical singer-songwriter — a little bent, maybe, though not extraordinarily different from other indie folk-pop performers. Yet the farther you wander into his new “Wilderness,” the more it feels like you’re leaving behind the known world and moving into some surreal facsimile of it.

The droning underscore and glowing vibe of opening cut “You Found Me” sets off Mease’s oddly blissful vocals just a tad. On the subsequent “Days Like This,” he playfully flounces about a little more outside the norm. By third cut “Neon Ghost,” Mease engulfs his audience in a delightfully weird mode of aural transportation — a slow parade of animated keyboards blended with untethered and breathy vocals. And he never stops tripping.

The Brooklyn-based performer has a peculiar vocal style — an affected, jazzy delivery that sounds endlessly strained in an uncomfortably high range. Meanwhile, the calm and methodical arrangements create an ambience that might be described as electro-folk, though the track “Mirrors” seems more like Burt Bacharach meets Stereolab. Even the electric guitars of “On and On” are absorbed into the narcotic atmosphere.

There’s also an unsettling darkness in the seduction, which comes to the surface on “Eleanor” as a bed of backing coos supports Mease singing, “Eleanor, you know I love you more than I could ever say/Please never go away — my life would spin out of control again.” Seems poor Eleanor is being subjected to emotional blackmail by an unstable guy, all under the guise of romance.

Creepy. And absorbing.

Rating: 4

Jamie Jones’ ambitions aren’t quite realized

“CELEBRITY MUSIC,” Jamie Jones (X-Posure)

Jamie Jones gets the irony of the title of her new “Celebrity Music.” The singer is no celebrity and in a faux-interview skit on her release, she says the title represents, “the excitement that I have for my music and the future that I believe it will create for me.”

As Jones herself says on the opening song, “Whatever.”

The 21-year-old American might have better titled her release “Celebrity Knockoff Music,” which isn’t as bad as it may seem. On the rousing “Whatever,” she sounds like a feral would-be Pussycat Doll, strutting and swaggering to a modern hip-hop/dance context as she embraces her multi-racial background and shrugs off questions of her capabilities.

Her adaptability comes in to play as she moves on to the Beyonce-flavored “Ayo” (produced by Swizz Beatz) and then to the synthetic overload of Lady Gaga-styled Eurodance with both “U B the Blame” and “Pin Up Girl.” Jones references others as she goes — Black Eyed Peas, Kylie Minogue, Nikka Costa and more — but she runs out of momentum midway and never fully regains it.

Jones does score with a humble bit of timeless pop buried in the electronica of “U Know (U Had Me for Sure),” and an inspiring twist on the Stylistics “You Make Me Feel Brand New” gives her an upturn at the end with her closing cut, “Brand New.” However most of the meat of “Celebrity Music” is cheap filler cuts — songs that either aren’t well thought out or fail to reflect imagination. And their inadequacy is compounded by their numbers: For no good reason, “Celebrity Music” trudges through 16 tracks.

Had Jones excised the worst six songs, she would have had a solid and fairly tight collection.

But she didn’t. So, whatever.

Rating: 2-1/2

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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