Dirty Dozen Brass Band

Funeral For A Friend

(Ropeadope)

One does not so much review the Dirty Dozen’s music as cry its wares. The venerable New Orleans band (not Eminem’s) has been making rootsy brass music for over 25 years now, guesting as the brass section for just about anyone in need one to tear the roof off, most recently on Dave Matthews solo effort Some Devil. On their latest release, Funeral For A Friend, the eight members have compiled as juicy a set of songs as one could hope for.

The song titles are strongly Jesus-oriented, but the Band eschews vocals on all but “Jesus On The Mainline,” a stomping hoe-down to the tune of “This Little Light.” Despite the band’s roots in the New Orleans funeral tradition, the album is relentlessly upbeat. The sole exception is the one-minute excerpt of “Amazing Grace,” the low-point of sobriety and conformism that concludes the album.

“Please Let Me Stay A Little Longer,” which opens with a nimble acoustic guitar riff courtesy of Jamie Maclean, showcases Kirk Joseph’s sousaphone as it rebounds off the bass drum crump of Terence Higgins. The menacing muted trumpet of “John The Revelator” carves a scowling path through the refried swagger of the massed horns. The Dirty Dozen has volume to spare, and at times the real challenge of the album is how to step away from the band’s masterful all out boogie and find a more thoughtful sound. When the band tries this, they run the risk of sounding disconcertingly tired and outmoded, as happens midway through “What A Friend We Have In Jesus.” Still, the Dirty Dozen sounds fresh enough to put to shame acts less then half their age.

—Andrew R. Illiff

DJ Kicks: Erlend Oye

The Singing DJ

(Studio K7)

Like playing the recorder, DJing has long been one of those things that anyone can do (badly), and in the MP3 age, its gotten even easier to do (and, logic dictates, worse-sounding): pimply techheads everywhere are filling the internet with cryable cross-genre “mash-ups” of old and new pop songs (cf. Jay Z’s lyrics on top of Pavement, Weezer, Sgt. Pepper). Erstwhile DJ, dork-stud and half of the folksy Kings of Convenience Erlend Oye doesn’t need to prove his musical chops, and as the DJ Kicks logo indicates, he’s no “Rad DJ” Adrien Brody. For this umpteeth compilation of the famed series, Erlend reaches past the Ecstatic tubthumpers so beloved on Ibiza to dig out clap-happy, intelligent jams more suitable for drunken dance parties where the glowstick is not a substitute for the phallus.

If his refreshing rawness isn’t clear from his eclectic (and brilliant) picks—Avenue D‘s salacious “2D2F” finds room next to Jurgen Pappe’s twinkly “Se Weit Wie Noch Nie,” for instance—it’s clear in the cutesy, awe-struck tenor he throws on top of most of the tracks. “It seems I have insulted you/ You’re dancing with your back against me,” his refrain over Morgan Geist’s “Lullaby,” might be directed at purists, but here and elsewhere the outcome is better than the original. When he sings along to The Rapture, he does so unobtrusively, and demonstrates good use of quotation: The Smiths’ lyrics to “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” get reignited by way of Royksopp’s hypnotic “Poor Leno.” Like his collaborative electronic album from last year, Unrest, this record isn’t perfect, but it’s a revelrous education in 21st century dance music, capable of getting even the less coordinated of us to put it to good use.

—Alex L. Pasternack

Leftover Salmon

Leftover Salmon

(Compendia)