Cornelius

Point

Matador

The endless bag of tricks that Cornelius (the alias of avant-popster Keigo Oyamada) seems to have at his disposal and his undeniable talent as a sampler make Point, a potentially formulaic album, such a triumph. Cornelius is so good at regulating the give-and-take of his layered compositions that, rather than coming off as stiff and mechanical, they sound alive, constantly in motion. From a simple repeated-riff and sampled voice motif, “Point of View Point” blossoms effortlessly into a sparkling summertime anthem. “Another View Point” is a hypnotic, escalating pattern of electric guitar squeals. “Nowhere,” all weepy horns and crashing waves, is a swirling brew of post-honeymoon nostalgia. But while most studio artists end up overwhelming listeners with impossibly dense sample-scapes (Cornelius’ own Fantasma was one of those everything-and-the-kitchen-sink records, albeit an especially good one), Point is an effortless listen, achieving a flawless balance between noise and space. It is this extra breathing room that shows where Cornelius is coming from: rather than show off the size of his record collection, he is fascinated with the musicality of noise in and of itself. Hence the amazing sensuousness of the swishing water in “Drop” and the long stream of white noise that ends the album ever so gradually. Raucous hardcore punk (“I Hate Hate”) sits comfortably beside twee synth-pop (“Brazil”), proving that all sounds are indeed created equal. Point is as much an earnest exploration of texture and timbre, of music’s capacity to caress and disorientate, as it is a collection of bright melodies and jaunty rhythms.

Point’s greatest accomplishment is that it defies easy categorization. Cornelius’ unaffected approach to his music lets him stand in a privileged position outside genre boundaries, free to grab whatever suits him, looping and tweaking it to fit into his grand framework of sound. The result is catchy yet structureless, informed by decades of pop music but empowered by technology: Post-pop, perhaps? Until his imitators inevitably arrive, Cornelius will remain a fascinating, utterly original figure. Rating: 5/5

—Ryan J. Kuo

Ms. Toi

That Girl

Universal

“I’m going to represent the black women of the world with this,” Ms. Toi announces in her official bio. What this ambitious West Coast hip-hop rookie’s representin’ entails is a take-no-prisoners aggression, unapologetic sexuality and an obstinate independence.

Ms. Toi dubbed her debut That Girl, because after she lent spitfire to Ice Cube and Mack 10’s “You Can Do It” for the Next Friday soundtrack, that became her most common moniker. First she resisted the label; then she embraced it. After the decade of grabbing for MC fame that led Ms. Toi no further than the gender gap, this inspirational exchange, sputtered over an admittedly tight beat, was all it took to get her signed to a major label: “Ms. Toi: You can do it put your back into it / Ice Cube: I can do it put your ass into it.”

Very well. Ms. Toi has no problem with booty per se, and though the dubious plum Russian fur hat and similarly purple vinyl attire she sports on the cover of her album bespeaks bling, she has more to offer. Track after track, she never lets up on the flow—or the venom—though her insistence occasionally gives way to repetition. The best tracks are those in which she forgoes the lackluster, quasi-operatic sampling for the rhymes she does best. Unfortunately, given the as yet unspectacular reception of her November release, the world may not be ready yet. Rating: 4/5

—Irin Carmon

Park Avenue Music

To Take With You

Devil In The Woods/Sugar Free

Trip hop has remained an almost entirely British affair since its inception in the “Bristol sound” pioneered by bands such as Tricky, Massive Attack and Portishead. However, it was probably only a matter of time, particularly given the disappearance of many of the big names, before an American band figured they could mix big chillout beats and electronic burbles with blissed-out vocals. That band is Park Avenue Music. And the result is not half bad: captivating, ethereal vocals that mumble about how “I’ll always be with you,” or some such, over uneven, skittering drum loops.

Unfortunately, that is about as far as it goes, as the band lacks any of the features that made trip hop’s pioneers stand out so much. They cannot match Portishead, the band they most resemble, for eerie gloom and atmospherics, nor Massive Attack for their raps and stylistic breadth, nor Tricky for his sheer, well, trickyness. By about half-way through the album, there is the distinct impression of having heard that particular drum loop somewhere before, and the lyrics certainly aren’t going to save the album: Like Portishead, you’re doing well if you can make out anything of what the lead singer is singing about. The lack of any song with a definite groove begins to irk, and even the songs themselves seem to suffer from a lack of material. Not only is there song called “24 Hours,” but also “73 Hours,” which borrows a chunk of its melody from Enya’s easy-listening library, while much of the rest of the album steers rather close to Björk’s Vespertine. This is a brave attempt to follow in the footsteps of the masters, and although it never ceases to be beautiful, in the end To Take With You falls just on the “elevator” side of the garden of music that is easy to listen to. Rating: 3/5

—Andrew R. Iliff