CHOICE CUTS JULY 2003
The Latest & Greatest in Indie Music & Beyond
ALBUM OF THE MONTH
Artist: COWBOYS INTERNATIONAL
Album: Revisited
The Scoop: I was all of one year old when Cowboys International released Original Sin in 1979, so I can be forgiven for letting the album slip past me into obscurity. What's your excuse? The album-newly reissued by singer/songwriter Ken Lockie, boosted with bonus tracks and given the proper title Revisited-is a smorgasboard of the sounds of the late 70's and early 80's. Prepare to gorge! There are a few songs that sound their age, but mostly Revisited is an amazingly fresh collection that is on par with the "Greatest Hits" of any but the very top tier of club-friendly bands from the era. And, indeed, at one point it seemed like Cowboys International would perhaps join that tier-Original Sin was #11 on Melody Maker's list of 1979's best albums (alongside, oh, London Calling and Fear of Music, among others). Lockie's vocal malleability and Byrne-esque charisma allows his band to hit multiple genre bullseyes. The marriages of the organic with the electronic and accessible pop with the avant-garde continue to fascinate today's torch carriers (Radiohead, Beck, etc.). Few albums are better examples of how that crossroads sounded 25 years ago, but the real triumph of Revisited is that it transcends historical context to stand as a "great album" without need of any further modifiers.Highlight Tracks: "M(emorie)62" and "Hands"
For More Info: Visit http://www.cowboysinternational.com
Artist: THE ARROGANTS
Album: Nobody's Cool
The Scoop: Startlingly sunny and devoid of any trace of excess or pretension, Nobody's Cool sounds like summer ought to sound. This is an EP for those days when a few good friends are chosen over the house party, when backyard volleyball is chosen over an Extreme Sport. The fusion of sweetly high-pitched female vocals (Jana Heller's, in this case) and jangly guitars isn't exactly a scientific breakthrough, but when it works, it's damn hard to resist. And Nobody's Cool works, moving between rainy-day mope-ballads to the brilliant pair of jaunty unlisted tracks that close the album. The first one, consisting of nothing beyond Guitar 101 strumming and Heller's voice, is a manifesto about hipsters and scenesters and, in a more general sense, taking ourselves too seriously. "The only thing I've seen that's cool in my life is a mom who loves her child and a man who loves his wife," Heller then sings on the album's closing track. What would register as unbearable corniness or forced empathy from most bands is here rendered with childlike sincerity and absorbing simplicity.
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