March 18 2003

British artists have been trying to contribute to the American R&B pool since way before jiggy entered the urban vernacular. MC/vocalist Ms. Dynamite is the latest underground hit to be sacrificed to the States' mainstream soul market, but she crosses the pond with much more than good looks and good hooks.

Begging comparisons to Lauryn Hill, Dynamite is a conscious mic controller, able to sing and rap and also flex a double-time rhyme that riffs off the rhythm and style of Jamaican dancehall chat. No matter what pattern she chooses, all of the 18 tracks on A Little Deeper have uplifting messages – antiviolence, antisexist, antiracist – that translate pretty well around the world. "We can all chat 'bout gats, and blacks on blacks / Enforce the hype and all be stereotypes we're used to watchin'," Dyanmite spits on "It Takes More." "That ain't what I'm here for / Show them to think higher and aspire to be more."

If Dynamite's delivery falls flat a few times, it's only because the album's production rarely steps beyond predictable fare. Gone are the club-wise, speaker-popping street beats of her underground U.K. garage dance hits "Booo!" and "Ramp." In their place are a whole lot of swingy slow jams, rife with synthetic hand claps and sexy squelching guitars. That being said, A Little Deeper is full of tiny climaxes, from the surprisingly convincing antidrug "Natural High" to the heartfelt "Brother" to the robot funk of "Krazy Krush." (Vivian Host)

Tobin Sprout
Lost Planets and Phantom Voices (Recordhead/Wigwam)

While arguably preferable to former Matador labelmate Liz Phair's frustrating, multiple-year intervals between releases, Guided By Voices' everything-goes approach to album-making often functions better in theory than in practice. Eliminating the self-editing process from recording probably works wonders for the band's creativity, and releasing every last inch of tape hiss keeps the diehards pleased, but the ridiculously prolific indie icons of GBV (along with their countless side and solo projects) have certainly made listeners search through plenty of shitty, unfinished song fragments and filler to find the keepers over the years.

How pleasantly unexpected, then, that former GBV songwriter-guitarist Tobin Sprout's first solo release since 1999 sounds like a painstakingly created labor of love. More an actual album than the hodgepodge of underdeveloped musical miscellanea ordinarily associated with a GBV refugee, Lost Planets and Phantom Voices finds the Michigan resident retreating to his home studio with the help of friends from the Breeders and Impossible Shapes, among others. The results aren't all that divergent from his previous solo and collaborative work – he still channels Lou Barlow and the Beatles – but this time Sprout's lo-fi pop sounds more fully conceived than ever.

Like fleshed-out extensions of his best, short-but-bittersweet GBV moments (the heart-shattering sketches "Mincer Ray," "Awful Bliss," and "Little Whirl"), Lost Planets is all longing and nostalgia wrapped in memory-burrowing melodies. But while songs like "Catch the Sun" and "Cleansing from the Storm" are perfect mope pop for rainy days and Mondays, Sprout's melancholy never comes off as overly indulgent. So while he confesses on "Courage the Tack" that "I'm just a chorus boy / Lost in my own time," Sprout isn't so far gone that he expects fans to listen to anything but his best. (Jimmy Draper)

Jim Snidero
Strings (Milestone)

Jim Snidero easily ranks among the most formidable straight-ahead alto saxophonists playing jazz today, but the New York-based musician is better known by jazz students for his instruction manuals than by the record-buying public for the outstanding independent albums he's made during the past 15 years.

That could change with the release of Strings, Snidero's debut release for Berkeley's notable Milestone label. It's a masterpiece in a tradition of alto-with-strings discs that began in 1950 with Charlie Parker with Strings and includes such subsequent classics as Lee Konitz's 1958 album An Image and Paul Desmond's 1961 full-length, Desmond Blue. But whereas his predecessors hired arrangers to fashion billowy violins, violas, and cellos to cushion their readings of chestnuts from the Great American Songbook, Snidero wrote most of the tunes and all of the charts himself.

Sensitively supported by pianist Renee Rosnes, bassist Paul Gill, drummer Billy Drummond, and 10 string players, Snidero soars lyrically on alto sax (and occasional flute) with lyrical grace and technical virtuosity into territory somewhere between Parker's passion and Konitz's cool. Snidero's melodies are warm and memorable, and he uses the strings not as a security blanket but as an integral part of his art, at times creating sinewy textures that match the timbre of his horn. There's nothing like a familiar standard to test an improviser's melodic prowess, however, and on "It's the Talk of the Town," the set's one nonoriginal, he rises to the occasion and leaves the listener with something else sublime to talk about. Jim Snidero plays Sat/22 and Sun/23, Jazzschool, Berk. (510) 845-5373. (Lee Hildebrand)

The Venue
Mmhm! (Bella Union)

Judging from the sound, look, and lyrics of the Venue, the latest Swedish Mersey beat-mod revivalists to come down the pike, they're still the ragtag 90-pound weaklings at the garage rock 'n' roll high. Unlike compatriots such as the Division of Laura Lee, Sahara Hotnights, and the Hellacopters, who consistently tap harder-edged sounds, this fivesome throw their love of twang, hand claps, and exuberant Allan Clarke-Graham Nash-style vocal harmonies up front, starting with a goof of a title rave-up, complete with "aaah-ah-ahh-ah" 's and a "yum" sound. Things get sillier on Mmhm!, with the Venue's English-as-second-language, oddball lyrics, on full-frontal display on the Kinks-y rocker "Deep-Fried Sinfulness" and the early Who-like workout "A Deadly Buzz." It's like musical brain surgery: remove the brainy pretensions of Pete Townshend, cauterize the complexity of Ray Davies, insert a mock tribute to an O.D.'d pal ("Sentimental Ode"), boredom ("Digesting Time"), and out-of-hand affection ("Love Monster") – but leave all of the manic fervor intact.