Campbell: Tuned In: Hot Chip, Gabriel Johnson, Le Kat

Hot Chip takes a new ‘Stand’

“ONE LIFE STAND,” Hot Chip (Astralwerks)

Hot Chip has cooled down, emerging from the steamy New-Order-esque underworld of 2008’s “Made in the Dark” for a smoother new “One Life Stand” that finds the band refining its definition of the kind of soul music that high-voiced white British guys have been delivering for decades.

The London-based group is using softer textures to augment the emotions of lead singer Alexis Taylor and secondary vocalist Joe Goddard, though the sound remains dominated by synthesizers and generally danceable, rooted as it is in disco and house.

The method yields sometimes-tantalizing results, as with the wobbly percolating “Thieves in the Night” that feels both energetic and melancholy, and a title track whose thick rhythms tether vocals in a mix of everything from island-breeze nuance to ’80s-videogame sound effects.

“One Life Stand” doesn’t have as much kick as its predecessor, and that’s trouble when Hot Chip ventures into the AutoTune-scarred tragedy of “I Feel Better” and the quirky pop melodrama of the plaintive “Hand Me Down Your Love.”

However, the subtler songs revel in semi-brilliance. The offbeat, waltzing ballad “Slush” incorporates a surprisingly sorrowful steel pan, “Alley Cats” shimmers in kinetic tranquility, and the ecstatic “We Have Love” is enveloped in on-the-go meditation. Also, the tones of the gentler cuts are often more relatable, ranging from the aptly titled “Keep Quiet” that explores the troubling side effects of restraint to the life-affirming “Brothers” that is both sedate and propulsive as it celebrates male bonding.

Just as “One Life Stand” makes its mark with the stirring opener “Thieves in the Night,” it leaves a lasting impression with romantic closer “Take It In,” using a harmonic convergence to deploy gorgeous melody.

As Hot Chip matures, it seems to be more about the mood than the movement.

Rating (five possible): 4

Trumpeter Gabriel Johnson fiddles with fracturing

“FRA_CTURED,” Gabriel Johnson (Electrofone)

When kids play with toys, the toys get broken. And when musicians play with ProTools, it’s the music that gets broken.

Or more appropriately, fractured.

That’s what happens with trumpeter Gabriel Johnson’s samples of his own instrument on “Fra_ctured” — his exploration of “fractured jazz,” a sub-genre that’s akin to free jazz taking a flight through heavy electronica.

Johnson, whose trumpet plays in Clint Eastwood’s “Invictus” and “Changeling,” alternately comes across like a teenager playing with brand-new equipment and an avant-garde musician diving into clever experimentation. How listeners respond will depend on their moods as the songs could either add stress or prompt relaxation.

“Fra_ctured’s” most “conventional” cuts are sprawling and cinematic, including the loopy opener “No Words,” in which each beat sounds like it could be the last, a “V.F.T.O.” that floats on foreboding atmosphere, and the remote “You Get What You Deserve,” an hypnotic number that could be the score for a moment of dark discovery in a mystery film.

Yet Johnson never fully settles into the pseudo-soundtrack realm, and his more innovative cuts are the ones that will determine his audience: “Be Serious” evolves out of a skittish rhythm into distracting spurts of buzzes and hums, and the syncopated beat and apparitional notes of “Charisma Machine” eventually get stuck in an aggressive/abrasive brush of electro-jazz. And for its part, “Confusion” rides an irrational, primal cadence into unnerving horn samples and incongruent static. These songs would be tough to duplicate, and perhaps that’s what makes them appealing ... to some.

Johnson is a trumpeter who marches to the beat of a different drum — a busted up one. The result is a “Fra_ctured” that’s randomly interesting and occasionally irritating and ultimately feels both unparalleled and incomplete.

Rating: 3

Le Kat’s ‘Boudoir’: style over substance

“BOUDOIR ROUGE,” Le Kat (Le Kat Meow)

Not only does Le Kat’s “Boudoir Rouge” offer the kind of music a scantily clad woman might use for a burlesque performance, the singer and her release mirror burlesque as a whole: They tease and tease and ultimately don’t deliver anything.

Le Kat, aka Kathy Lester, achieves the right stylish look for her saucy 1930s-inspired jazz/cabaret nods to Paris and Hollywood. The “Boudoir Rouge” insert features scads of photos of the platinum blond singer in tight dresses squeezing her curvaceous body, accessorized by long gloves, a boa and a little cat cap. The musicians — including those on horn, stand-up bass, mandolin, guitar, keyboards and drums — provide lively support for Le Kat’s wide-ranging and clear voice as she sings about everything from revenge to phone sex.

Unfortunately, while she sashays through this collection of mostly original material, her je ne sais quoi goes missing. Although the playful release provides superficial allure, it never really engages, and Le Kat, who played the mysterious “Lady in Lavendar” in the cult 1979 horror film “Phantasm,” is short on mystique.

Her revamp of two songs is symptomatic of the overall problem. Le Kat covers Eurythmics’ “I Need a Man,” which was originally a sweaty hard-rocker dripping with Annie Lennox’s raw sexuality, and Madonna’s “Hanky Panky,” which was a jaunting and flirty celebration of S&M from Madonna’s “Dick Tracy” days. In both cases, Le Kat declaws the originals, substituting their energy with the equivalent of a broad smile and a wink. Cute, but inadequate.

More clues about Le Kat’s shortcomings can be derived from the lyrics. On “Bigger Than Both of Us,” she sings, “What you see is what you get,” and on “Lady in Lavendar,” she declares, “You think you know me, but you don’t know me.”

Both lines are true, and added together, that equals a problem.

Rating: 3

© 2010, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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