Acme - Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (The)

Additional notes

Album Notes: Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: Jon Spencer (vocals, guitar); Judah Bauer (bass); Russell Simins (drums).
Additional personnel: Greg Talenfeld (harmonica, background vocals); Brass Monkey (horns); Jeremy Jacobson (piano, organ); Nick Sansano, Greg Foreman (piano); Chris Shaw (organ, synthesizer); Brian Weber, Joel Diamond (organ); Dan The Automator (scratches); Rick Lee (sound effects); Jill Cunniff, Dexter Conyers, Lee "Scout" Ford, Jerome "Rome" Cohen, Jason Powell, Christina Martinez, Hollis Queens, Audrey Rose (background vocals); Othar Turner.
Producers: Steve Albini, Dan "The Automator", Calvin Johnson.
Engineers include: Calvin Johnson, Steve Albini, Suz Dyer.
ACME, JSBX's sixth full-length album, is an urban juke-joint rabble-rouser for the end of the century, a summation of the band's journeys up various tributaries of chaos and tradition, a final bedding of EXILE ON MAIN STREET and hip-hop. Of course to be all these things, it has to be a kick-ass rock and roll album--and, of course, it is. Russell Simins and producers Dan "The Automator" and Calvin Johnson create the sleekest groove machine to date for Spencer's promotional-slogans-as-rock-chants, or else Steve Albini strips away all sonic accessories to leave them in their primordial rock-trio skivvies.
On songs like like "Bernie" and "High Gear," the Blues Explosion's rock power is positively Zep-esque. Yet they balance their grinding, blues-riff rides with leveling reflections--of groove as a downbeat reprieve ("Calvin"), of song as a melancholy love call ("Magical Colors," which sounds like it fell off EXILE's sublime fourth side). Of course, sometimes they sound like misplaced white boys who reek of North Mississippi gin, and sometimes like poseurs riding a wave of Lower-East-Side-via-Berlin noise, screaming "Blues Explosion, attack!" But on ACME, the JSBX never forgets that it's a "rawk" band first and post-modern art project somewhere down the list.

Album Reviews: Rolling Stone (11/12/98, p.116) - "...filters guitar-drums mayhem through a post-modern Cuisinart of studio effects....It's the blues in the land of the break beat, and it sounds real, real gone."
Q (12/99, p.132) - 3 Stars (out of 5) - "...Not a 'slap-on, wig-out' kind of record, but one which rewards the dedicated enthusiast. JSBX...are propagators of fully authentic rock music: slaves to no one style but commited to doing everything with style..."
Entertainment Weekly (10/23/98, pp.76-77) - "...This is the Blues Explosion's most adventurous work: A wide range of knob-twirling producers...sprinkle the songs with scratching, church-style soul organs, fire-alarm wails, and guest harmonies....The focus never leaves Spencer, but the production gimmicks add color to his black-and-white world..." - Rating: B+
Mojo (1/99, p.99) - "...a gang of name producers...have helped package the band's chaotic expolosion of energy into something stripped down and minimal--and all the more powerful for it..."

Titles on disc 1

1.: Calvin

2.: Magical Colours

3.: Do You Wanna Get Heavy

4.: High Gear

5.: Talk About The Blues

6.: I Wanna Make It Alright

7.: Lovin' Machine

8.: Bernie

9.: Blue Green Olga

10.: Give Me A Chance

11.: Desperate

12.: Torture

13.: Attack

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Listed on Ciao since : 24/07/2000