DeVotchKa: "100 Other Lovers"

Nick Urata very much is a kid — prone to theatrics, fascinated by time travel, good at nearly everything he does but still humble, as if he doesn’t yet know how to be arrogant. But Urata is increasingly faced with grown-up responsibilities as one of Hollywood's go-to composers and a member of label-defying Denver quartet DeVotchKa.

Fortunately, the frontman is also a seasoned musical veteran. Urata grew up in New York City, part of a Sicilian immigrant family full of musicians. He lived and busked in Cicero, a Chicago village also populated by immigrants, before moving to Denver, where he finally pieced together DeVotchKa. Accompanied by violin and accordion virtuoso Tom Hagerman, bass player and Sousaphonist Jeanie Schroder, and drummer Shawn King, Urata fills in the eclectic mix with guitar, trumpet, piano, and Theremin.

The band found a tipping point with its Oscar-winning soundtrack for Little Miss Sunshine in 2006. Scored by DeVotchKa and Mychael Danna, the film didn’t so much open doors for the band as it opened windows — all of the windows in the house, letting the world hear the wondrously exotic and melancholy sounds that the musicians had been making all along.

Five years later, the band is poised to release its latest album, 100 Lovers, on Anti-, set to drop March 1. In addition, Urata has added a few more films to his repertoire, the most recent of which is I Love You Phillip Morris, the story of a gay con man (Jim Carrey) trying to spring the love of his life (Ewan McGregor) from prison.

For Urata’s childlike soul, though, a growing list of responsibilities can be grueling. “Films are very demanding, and you must write, write, write,” Urata says, admitting that the sheer amount of creativity he burned through while writing under deadline was, in fact, vital for the new record.

“A lot of these songs were things I wrote for films that got rejected,” he says of the tunes on 100 Lovers, “or were born because I was chained to my desk and couldn’t go to the bar. As painful and isolating as it can be, it can result in directions you never would have gone.”

Directions, plural — an accurate assessment of 100 Lovers. Listening through, it’s a bit of a Tilt-A-Whirl: rising, falling, spinning 'round, a new vector every track. Yet you’re not throwing up — a testament to the band’s musical prowess.
 

“A lot of these songs were things I wrote for films that got rejected, or were born because I was chained to my desk and couldn’t go to the bar. As painful and isolating as it can be, it can result in directions you never would have gone.”

DeVotchKa’s penchant for vintage equipment meant that some new directions were unplanned: “We used a lot of old tape delays,” Urata says, “and the fact that they were kind of broken made for some moments we could never duplicate in a million years.”

The always dapper, GQ-meets-Bohemia frontman opts out of “captain” responsibilities when it comes to the band. Urata describes himself instead as a kind of helmsman / lookout, running back and forth from the crow’s nest to the ship’s wheel. “My role has always been to steer the ship — and yell stuff when we’re about run into the rocks,” he says. Of course, it’s also his job to write the words, and though DeVotchKa’s musical philosophy is one of indiscriminate openness, its linguistic approach is fairly restricted, concerned mostly with the subjects of love and loss. Note the album title.

When asked about his writing, Urata, perhaps predictably, says that he reads a lot of poetry. “All the great writers and musicians say their best stuff has been beamed to them from some benevolent keeper of the collective unconscious,” he says. “I’ve had it happen a few times in my humble existence. You never know if it’s going to happen again, but with great poets you can see it happening on the page in front of you, and that’s why your eyes well up.

“I got turned on to Rainer Rilke a couple of years back,” he continues, “and…he’s really comforting, because in the most eloquent way he lays it out: we are all fucking bat-shit crazy, and love makes you even crazier.”

Early detractors said that Urata was crazy. Few in the mid-’90s thought that adding a tuba to a rock-and-roll band was a good idea. It turned out that it was, and now 100 Lovers upholds this adventurous audacity. “You always hope to expand and discover new territory,” Urata says. “There were a few songs that might have gotten thrown out with the bath water because of over-thinking, but we followed our gut and kept digging, and the results were really exciting to work on. At this point, we look at [an album] as a large empty space that we have to fill with something that will entertain the listener. Anything that can fill the void in an interesting way is welcomed with open arms.”

Anything means anything. As a jumping-off point, the new songs use the vibrant array of musical styles on 2007 album A Mad and Faithful Telling. With a less overt gypsy sound — despite a recent tour with Gogol Bordello — the band welcomes new friends into the family. Musically: ’80s new wave, African influences, grungy electric guitar, a children’s choir. And literally: several members of Calexico, as well as Mauro Refosco, who plays regularly with David Byrne and Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace. “We met Mauro when we toured with David Byrne,” Urata recalls. “We were in awe of his playing, and we became friends and always bugged him to play with us. That’s him playing most of the percussion on the record.”

What holds this pastiche together is where DeVotchKa didn’t depart from its charted course. Once again, the band returned to Craig Schumacher at Wavelab Studios in Tucson, Arizona. “The desert is still very exotic to me, a New York kid,” Urata says. “It always brings us back to a very romantic time when our band was taking its first baby steps and a room of ten people was a fucking event.

“Wavelab is in a section of town in a building that is frozen in time,” he continues. “The studio is piled with vintage gear, and there have been a few times when I was alone in there that I really started to feel like I had traveled back in time — it was just a hallucination, but it was so comforting.”

Moments of comfort were to be enjoyed while they lasted. As DeVotchKa endured the tedium necessary to bring the album to fruition, the exhilaration of discovery was tempered by a feeling of loss.

“The thing that sucks about working on albums and films is you spend so much time tinkering with them that you can’t enjoy them as art ever again,” Urata says. “So I suppose for us, the one window is right when you start mixing—the album never sounds that good again.”

The band isn’t back to where it started though. The album is a record of its travels, its discoveries, and, most of all, its perseverance. “We should have called this record ‘Doubt,’” he says. “We had all these songs that we couldn’t finish for like two years. Every time I thought I had a good lyric, the next day it would seem ridiculous. But we pressed on, and all our wheel spinning and false starts actually led to the songs developing into something that would have never happened if things went smoothly.”

Early last decade, iconic vocalist Mike Patton moved to Italy and did his best to blend with the locals. He picked up Italian, fell in love with Bologna, and, at some point, realized that he needed to add something else to his never-ending list of projects.

That addition turned into Mondo Cane, a full-scale orchestral homage to Italian cantautori (singer/songwriter) tunes of the 1960s and '70s.

Originally planned only for live performances, the covered oldies — roughly two dozen — are now being released from carefully assembled pieces of three separate concert recordings. Mondo Cane is the first of two such installments, and it presents mostly faithful recreations — with certain new flavors and tinges — of powerful pop songs.

Cantautori crooners Gino Paoli, Luigi Tenco, and Fred Bongusto are honored with potent and colorful renditions of "Il Cielo in Una Stanza," "Quello Che Conta" and "Ore D'Amore." Film-scoring guru Ennio Morricone is recognized with one of his pop numbers, the theme for Danger Diabolik, which barely edges out "Il Cielo…" as the most stirring of the disc's first half.

Patton's comprehensive range isn't tested too much, but his vocal intensity is on display in "Urlo Negro," a poppy psych-rock track seemingly about a former slave's grief. "L’Uomo Che Non Sapeva Amare," Nico Fidenco's version of the theme to The Carpetbaggers, soon follows, and Patton delivers one of the album's most beautiful covers.

Fans of Patton's wild exploits may be disappointed if they're expecting something akin to the Fantômas Director's Cut album, but lovers of emotion-packed ballads will embrace this disc of orchestral pop.

Mike Patton: "Il Cielo in una Stanza"
Mike Patton: \"Il Cielo in una Stanza\"

Flying Lotus: Cosmogramma (Warp)

Electronic producer Steven Ellison, known as Flying Lotus, made waves two years ago with his Warp debut full-length, Los Angeles, an atmospheric psych-hop affair that was augmented with white noise, blippy sci-fi scales, and a deep bass underpinning.

Its immersive sound was built around endless samples and a love of texture. That MO holds true for Cosmogramma, Ellison's brilliant new collage, but the endowments of Los Angeles have been surpassed by an ever-burgeoning skill for composition.

Beautiful and wild runs of harp, bass, and classical guitar are present from the start, contrasting but not conflicting with cuts of sharply buzzing guitars, train whistles, and deep-space synths. String swells and chopped vocals slide in and out of the mix, layering atop glitch, dance, and drum-and-bass beats; rubbery dance-floor passages disappear into symphonic swaths.

A guest spot by Thom Yorke will garner some appropriate attention, but make no mistake: Cosmogramma marks Ellison's ascension to being one of the top minds in electronic production.

Flying Lotus: "Computer Face / Pure Being"
Flying Lotus: \"Computer Face / Pure Being\"

The Austerity Program: Backsliders and Apostates Will Burn EP (Hydra Head)

Two guys and a drum machine — The Austerity Program proves that it doesn't take more to power out brawny alt-rock with brainy rhythms.

Though the duo has operated under this moniker for more than a decade, it didn't release its first full-length until Black Madonna in 2007. Everything else since that time has appeared on an EP or compilation, generally titled "Song [insert number here]."

Backsliders and Apostates Will Burn follows the same tried-and-true Austerity formula: distorted, down-tuned bass guitar teams with the drum machine's deep kick hits and rapid-fire triplets, forming a muscular frame for guitarist Justin Foley's high-register riffs, feedback squeals, and Steve Albini-esque vocals.

The band's basic premise hasn't changed, but its skills are being honed to realize its full potential. Backsliders… is another firm step in that direction.

The Austerity Program: "Song 26"
The Austerity Program: \"Song 26\"

Rudi Zygadlo: Great Western Laymen (Planet Mu)

One of Planet Mu's latest signings, Rudi Zygadlo is a young Scottish songwriter who fuses electronic music with pop structures and classical aspirations. Raised by artist parents who helped nurture an early interest in music, Zygadlo has created a brilliant debut album that touches, however lightly, on themes of church and religion.

Great Western Laymen takes the mid-tempo lurch and chunky bass lines of dubstep and marries them to glossy, mutating pop songs. Zygadlo sings on almost every track, and his voice, which he claims is "there more for its instrumental value rather than its poetic value," features prominently as a lead instrument.

The vocals are omnipresent, panning everywhere, usually multitracked, pitch-shifted, timestretched, vocoded, and tweaked beyond intelligibility. They fight with wonky basslines for supremacy in a crowded (but never cluttered) midrange. Though many of the tracks would play well in a club setting, Great Western Laymen also makes for excellent headphone dubstep.

Most dubstep albums don't have half as many hooks, and most pop albums don't have this level of head-nodding funk. Zygadlo set forth to combine what he loved about dubstep and IDM with song structures that borrowed from jazz, pop, and classical, and he's succeeded marvelously.

Rudi Zygadlo: "Manuscripts Don't Burn"
Rudi Zygadlo: \"Manuscripts Don\'t Burn\"

Broken Social Scene: Forgiveness Rock Record (Arts & Crafts)

Somewhere over the past decade, Toronto's Broken Social Scene became a shining example of both indie-rock success and excess.

With its diversity of sound and buoyant energy, 2002 album You Forgot It In People was a slow-building breakthrough, and tracks such as "KC Accidental," "Stars and Sons," "Almost Crimes," and "Pacific Theme" have made countless cameos ever since.

But all the band's creative input, whether from its main songwriting sources or from contributors, has led to greater interest in or commercial viability of side projects, and Forgiveness Rock Record is its first album in nearly five years.

Co-produced by Tortoise’s John McEntire at Soma Studios in Chicago, the album is one of the band's most vocally driven recordings. Album opener "World Sick" sounds right at home in the BSS catalog, but the next track, "Chase Scene," expands its reach with a vintage synth sound evocative of Goblin's gentler moments. The song adds a wafting violin line, wah-pedal guitar chords, and a driving high-hat cadence — recalling, fittingly, a chase sequence from an '80s film.

There are plenty of other highlights over 14 tracks, including "Forced to Love" with its churning electric bass, sparkling electronics, and pizzicato and strings, or "All to All" with its mounting effects and vocal harmonies. Fans will have no reason to be disappointed, and even though they may refer the uninitiated to You Forgot It In People, this is a fine introduction to an acclaimed catalog.

Broken Social Scene: "Chase Scene"
Broken Social Scene: \"Chase Scene\"

Honorable Mentions

Ben Goldberg Quartet: Baal: Book of Angels vol. 15 (Tzadik)

Dimlite: Prismic Tops (Now-Again / Stones Throw)

Jason Ajemian’s Daydream Full Lifestyles: Protest Heaven (482 Music)

Marching Band: Pop Cycle (U&L Records)

Minus the Bear: Omni (Dangerbird)

Ufomammut: Eve (Supernatural Cat)

Incorporating elements of traditional Mexican and Spanish music into his expansive repertoire, tireless composer John Zorn bangs out another soundtrack, this time for a documentary about Mexican dictator Plutarco Elias. Another accessible, beautiful release, El General is scored for guitar, marimba, bass, piano, and accordion, with drums and vibraphone showing up in spurts.

Mountains: Choral (Thrill Jockey)

Making its Thrill Jockey debut, this electro-acoustic duo creates acoustic melodies that breathe with the field recordings and electronics that surround them. Tranquil, crackling bits pile on layers of atmosphere; drones circle around extended passages and repetitive themes. The result is a serene album that is as apt for detached meditation as it is for intense musical focus.

Mountains: "Choral"
Mountains: \"Choral\"

Rob Mazurek Quintet: Sound Is (Delmark)

Following a solo release and albums from Sao Paulo Underground and Exploding Star Orchestra, jazz composer/cornetist Rob Mazurek returns with a new quintet. The group features a loaded lineup of Chicago standouts, including drummer John Herndon (Tortoise), vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz (Rolldown), acoustic bassist Josh Abrams (Black Earth Ensemble), and electric bassist Matthew Lux (Isotope 217).

With 14 new compositions, Sound Is sees Mazurek continuing to push the boundaries of modern jazz while using semi-traditional instruments.

Steven Wilson: Insurgentes (Kscope)

The founder of English rock band Porcupine Tree, guitarist/singer Steven Wilson has taken a wandering path throughout his musical career, traveling through metal, pop rock, progressive psychedelia, and atmospheric ballads.

Wilson's solo debut, Insurgentes, shows a similar penchant for diversity. Rock structures overlap with electronic ambiance, moody acoustic guitars, dark synths, and soft vocal harmonies, making a malleable foundation as Wilson channels Thom Yorke in much of his signing.

A bit of the balladry gets too close to Coldplay and other melodramatic radio artists, but most of the album is an interesting exhibition in songwriting.

Steven Wilson: "Harmony Korine"
Steven Wilson: \"Harmony Korine\"