The Gold Experience (Warner Bros./NPG)
I put this record aside several weeks ago thinking that it couldn’t be as good as I thought it was. That was a mistake. Like many of Prince’s projects, it’s conceptually labored and stylistically too diverse for its own good, but I’m not sure that matters much anymore. The Gold Experience presents the purple one as we’ve come to know him—pretentious, inconsistent, musically without peer. And funky.
As the hip-hop beats and slap bass homages to Larry Graham and Bootsy make plain, Prince’s new record is more contemporary and demonstrates a deeper sense of history than his last Clintonian venture, The Black Album. From the Eddie Hazel-meets-Eddie Van Halen guitar of “Endorphinmachine” and “Shhh” to the riotous, Memphis-cum-Horny Horns alchemy of “391” and “Now,” The Gold Experience brings it all back home like nothing so much as Prince’s own Sign “O” the Times. The molten throbbing of “P Control” and funkadelia of “Shy” may tempt you to program around ballads like “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World,” but I don’t recommend it—last year’s radio smash is as transcendently sweet as the records Russell Thompkins and the Stylistics were making back in the early ’70s.
As for sex, The Gold Experience is as salacious as ever but—something of a change for Prince—not as freaky and seldom oppressive. Not without warts—the revenge-desire fantasy of “I Hate U” goes too far for me, and the arena rock of “Gold” is a bit overblown—Prince’s latest offers a fairly breathtaking funk-rock synthesis, approximating the artistic and visionary reach of mid-’70s Funkadelic.
Bloomed (Dejadisc)
“This is where things start going bad/This is where the map gets torn up and tossed,” warns Richard Buckner at a particularly ominous juncture on his starkly romantic debut. On “22,” a fatalistic tale of love that reaches beyond the grave, the emotional and spiritual desolation are so all-consuming that you believe him. Elsewhere, being lost isn’t so threatening and even creates openings for minor epiphanies—a gauzy dress in the sun, the charm of the highway strip, the memory of a former lover’s kiss. Buckner’s ghostly, sensual voice is the perfect vehicle for his bittersweet songs of parting and regret—he often sounds like Dwight Yoakam, only less self-conscious and more literate. The mostly acoustic music on Bloomed was recorded in Lubbock, where producer and multi-instrumentalist Lloyd Maines’ less-is-more approach—with help from Butch Hancock, Ponty Bone and others—brings out the autumnal beauty of Buckner’s austere, blues-tinged melodies. Fans of Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zant should find this seductive and at times depressive record positively narcotic.
Air Miami, Me. Me. Me. (4AD)
Air Miami’s debut is something of a departure from the droning, often frenetic indie rock sounds of Mark Robinson and Bridget Cross’ former band, Unrest. Though just as tuneful and sarcastic as Unrest’s records, Me. Me. Me. is more of a groove album, at once slicker and more ambient than its predecessors. Cross’ “Special Angel” is a worthy successor to Saint Etienne’s gorgeous 1992 single “Hobart Paving,” evoking not only the luminous blankness of Sarah Cracknell’s frothy vocals, but also their strange weightiness. Robinson’s songs convey more sinister emotions, while his edgy dance pop recalls the more textured, atmospheric music of Wire, only less angular and not as abstract. Recorded at Miami’s Criteria Studios, home to some of the ’70s’ most polished rock and disco productions, Me. Me. Me is ultimately the best kind of disposable pop—hooky with a strongly rhythmic undertow; as long as you’re immersed in it, you can’t imagine being anywhere else. The darkness that bubbles below the surface is another matter altogether—it lingers long after the music’s over.
