3 New Albums: Portishead, Guillermo Klein, Immortal Technique

Portishead: Third

After an eleven year hiatus, nobody knew quite what to expect from one of Britain's founding trip-hop groups, the reclusive and highly influential Portishead. Third, while not as deeply groovy and immediate as 1994's debut smash Dummy, nor as richly textured and harmonically labyrinthine as 1997's self-titled record, is still a force to be reckoned with. The Bristol, UK, trio of Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons, and Adrian Utley have emerged from their creative coccoon (I would say "womb," but tact tells me not to put it in the same sentence as "Bristol" this week), reborn with vitality, freshness, and even a few of the old tricks. (Go here for samples - iTunes DRM files won't let me preview them here.)

While the first two records created a sonic environment akin to listening to your grandpa's scratchy, low key jazz records in a creepy basement, drawing heavily from hip-hop beat craft, Third is much more influenced by Radiohead and all the other electronic rock outfits of the intervening decade. Part of the band's new sound is reactionary: upset that their down-tempo grooves of the 90s have been co-opted into hipster-lounge chic for affluent urbanites, the new record tries to shake things up with startling electronic bleeps and blurps and Sonic Youthian noise. The opening cut, "Silence," with a harmonic form based entirely on minor thirds, is identifiably Portishead; but it's guitar driven, heavy, and actually fast. Gibbon's ghoulish voice lets the listener know that Portishead is to be taken seriously, thank you. Her melodies are bizarre, snaky, deceptive, unpredictable, totally unlike anything else in pop, and amazingly effective. But they are uncompromising and definitely not for the fans of the hipster rip-off legions. The song ends suddenly, without reason - I actually checked my iPod on first listen, thinking it had run out of batteries. No. "Silence" is an aggressive reclaiming of the ground that Portishead originally broke.

The band's blend of electronic manipulation, live drums and guitar, samples, and vulnerable, dessicated female vocals is a potent mix. "The Rip," one of Portishead's most lyrical little gems, is a great example of the band's new sound. It starts with acoustic guitar arpeggiations, naked voice, a gentle synth drone and a bassoon (!). Portishead's harmonies often move chromatically, and listening to it here makes you realize how rare this sort of thing is in pop, and how ravishing it can be to the ear (is Mr.Barrow a Wagner fan, I wonder?). About half-way through the song, the stripped down, bare, and human sound world gives way to the realm of machines, as a brassy analog synth takes over the guitar arpeggios and the drum groove enters. Landing on a long note, Gibbon's voice is electronically manipulated to hold as a drone over the groove, essentially becoming another electronic instrument in the mix. Portishead's cyborg soul is on full display.

Guillermo Klein and Los Guachos: Filtros

Quite possibly the most exciting new jazz release I've heard this summer, Argentine pianist-singer Guillermo Klein teams up with his 11-piece band (too big for a combo jazz sound, too small for a big band effect) for a collection of stunningly original music. Unlike many successful modern jazz groups that draw extensively from the energy and directness of rock, Los Guachos performs a fastidiously composed, intricate type of improvisational music that gives a nod to the world of classical music. Like his countryman Osvaldo Golijov, Klein is a chameleon that refuses to see boundaries and borders, preferring to view all music on a level field (there's a Pampas reference in there somewhere but it's not coming to me).

From the first second of the record, "Va Roman," we are hit with Klein's casual, amateurish voice (an acquired taste) over tidally pulsating piano chords. The groove, when it comes in (the masterful Jeff Ballard on drums is amazingly subtle here), is gentle, graceful, but deceptively complex as well (a large 12/4). A skilled orchestrator, Klein uses the ensemble to paint delicate colors behind the soloists; his sense as a writer for large ensemble is influenced by the superbly talented NY bandleader Maria Schneider (and indeed many bandmembers are the same here), but his periodic structures are simpler and more steady. His harmonic palette is positively dazzling; on "Yeso," later in the album, the listener is struck by what might be an Unpluggled Radiohead B-side.

The classical influence can be found in the forms and techniques underlying this superb collection. On "Miula," for instance, Klein uses an effect derived from the string quartets of mid-century American iconoclast Elliott Carter, "metric modulation." Simply put, this technique transforms a subdivision in one tempo (say, triplets) into the pulsation of a new independent tempo. When coordinated well, a groove can transform instantaneously into another seemingly unrelated tempo at the drop of a hat - it's jarring and seriously spicy (and underused, for that matter). In addition to classical techniques, Filtros takes on some beautiful 2oth century compositions (György Ligeti's "Hungarian Rock" and Olivier Messiaen's "Louange a l'eternite de Jesus"), adding the expressive freedom of jazz to an unexpected context. Pulling the European avant-garde, American jazz, and South American folk songs into his eclectic mix, Klein is truly a jazzer for the 21st century. I can't recommend this album strongly enough.

Immortal Technique: The 3rd World

For those of you who think that hip-hop has lost its will to speak truth to power in forceful and urgent terms, listen to Harlem-based MC Immortal Technique. I've followed the career of this underground rapper for a few years now, starting with the furious Revolutionary: Vol. 1 (2001), and I can say with all seriousness that his talent is unmatched in all of hip-hop. He is simply a phenomenon with no peer. The third volume of his "Revolutionary" series, The 3rd World, like its predecessors, is intense, thought-provoking, and will have you running to the computer to look up references with every other verse. This is pure Edu-tainment, as KRS-One formulated the idea: political, hard-hitting, muscular, but also fun.

Like Guillermo Klein, Immortal Technique is a product of different continents. Born in Peru but raised in Harlem, this half-black half-Hispanic rapper has a unique perspective in the traditionally binary world of hip-hop (black and white). He raps in English and Spanish, and his lyrics tend towards the far left: he takes on the topics of American economic imperialism in Latin America, the Iraq War, media failures, the Washington Consensus, CIA complicity in the international drug trade, and the War on Terrorism, all with remarkable humor, lacerating vitriol, and a refreshing clarity and coherence of ideas (this is no Rage Against the Machine!). To understand Immortal Technique's persona, imagine if Noam Chomsky grew up on the mean streets. Yet, while few teenagers would delve into leftist politics and contemporary events with much zeal if forced to read about it in the library, the format of hip-hop - true to its mid-80s, Public Enemy form - makes some pressing political commentary accessible to all who revel in phat beat-craft.

The producer here, DJ Green Lantern, is more slick and produced than his previous collaborators (vol.1, while brilliant, is low-fi and indie to the extreme). This has earned the album some criticism from hard-core, keep-it-to-the-streets type fans; personally, I could take it or leave it. It's not really the point anyway. To me, the real attraction of IT is his brilliant word-play and sense of social justice. In this sense, he is unmatched, although the new album falls short of the first two Revolutionary volumes in the number of epiphanic verbal fireworks. If it were produced by any other MC, I'd say the album was amazing; from IT, it is so-so. Moreover, this album loses its focus frequently, veering off into senseless cant and silly communist agitprop. It's an inconsistent collection, so I'd recommend Vol.1 to the IT newcomer.

Nonetheless, this is an artist to watch. If Immortal Technique ever gets as popular as Jay-Z (an impossibility), you can bet that the younger generation would be out there on the streets chanting down Babylon.