The Bubblegum Cage

SARAH DOUGHER The Walls Ablaze (Mr Lady)
The increasing ease with which a person can record and release an LP is undeniably a good thing. Unfortunately, the consequent increase in the quantity of music being released has, in some senses, led to a decrease in quality. More crappy stuff gets released, CDs become clogged up with sub-standard tracks and talented artists - like Sarah Dougher - spread themselves too thin.

So, hot on the heels of the new EP from Cadallaca - one of Dougher's various projects - comes the follow-up to her last solo LP, Day One which appeared on K Records. The Walls Ablaze continues the indie-torch singer approach of that recording. This time around, though, Dougher has a sturdier rock backing and develops a style that tends towards standard indie-rock, with jangling guitars to the fore.

It's a pleasant sound but it hardly stands out in the increasingly crowded marketplace. There's nothing here as haunting or poignant as the best songs on her last LP, she's not on such powerful vocal form this time around and the whole thing is marred by a rather weedy production job. Dougher, like a lot of today's musicians seems to lack focus and the faculty for self-criticism. A considerable talent is going to waste here.

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PATTI SMITH Gung Ho (Arista)

It was strange and wonderful to see legendary punk poet Patti Smith performing on a generic US chat show. The band's over-driven art rock and her ragged testifying sounded truly insurrectionary in this banal context. A performance full of force and joy, to be sure.

So why does so much of Gung Ho fall flat? Because Smith's unique delivery is stifled by the standard rock format most of this material uses. Add to that some pointless celebrity cameos (Michael Stipe, Tom Verlaine), clumsy polemic and cheesy guitar solos and things aren't sounding good.

But when the band loosens up a bit and the voice starts to go wayward, a force of formidable primal intensity is unleashed. Witness the caustic funk of "New Party" which recalls the spirit of that other punk poet Mark E Smith (of The Fall) and the title track, which is a stealthily epic meditation on the life of Ho Chi Mihn (boo-ya!).

"Gone Pie" sums up all that is good and bad about the album. It builds up steam with a death-disco groove worthy of prime PiL but then drops into a rather flagging chorus. Overall though, Gung Ho is more enjoyable than it is disappointing. It probably doesn't come close to her best work but there's more than enough evidence here to suggest that Patti Smith could still kick the lame asses of those braindead whingers that pass for punk rockers nowadays. e

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TRANS AM You Can Always Get What You Want (Thrill Jockey)

Trans Am are one of the first wave of US post-rock groups that followed in the wake of the original early-'90s UK scene. Although post-rock has become synonimous with lame post-Slint guitar instrumentals, Trans Am are closer to the "true" spirit of the genre. That is to say, they use rock means for non-rock ends and vise-versa. This creates a dynamic tension all the more powerful because Trans Am put the two elements (rock and non-rock) in such radical opposition. You Can... highlights and celebrates the differences between musical styles, creating a genre-bending friction that sends sparks a-flying.

The two main elements at play here are '70s-style headbanging rock and nu skool breakdancing electro. When the two are brought together the effect is pretty phenomenal. Unfortunately, much of this album is made up of tracks which highlight only one or other of the elements. This is, perhaps, a function of the disc's format - basically a compilation of rare, previously released material. In this context, the moody electro stuff fares better than the rather pointless rockier tracks. What this reveals is that if Trans Am's (mostly instrumental) music has meaning and emotional content, it comes from the same sense of haunted alienation that gives Detroit techno its depth.

Still, in all their abstraction, Trans Am are a beguiling and forceful band. And, in its raggedness, this album acts as an excellent introduction to their range and raw power.

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WEEN White Pepper (Elekta)

"Back to Basom" from Gene and Dean Ween's seventh studio LP sounds like a contemporary attempt to simulate a fictional mid-'70s collaboration between ELO, Wings and Mike Oldfield. Meanwhile "Bananas and Blow" is an out-and-out homage to Jimmy Buffet and "Pandy Fackler" is a love song for a destitute prostitute. These should not be good things. But Ween have always been driven by their malevolent deity Boognish, who commands them to make the unthinkably distasteful strangely appealling.

White Pepper is the by-now-familiar mixture of satirical-but-loving pastiche and perception-altering psychoactive abstraction. Sadly some of what made earlier efforts, like their magnum opus Pure Guava, so wonderful and unique is absent. The boys have moved toward a more homogenized psychedelic soft rock sound and ditched a lot of the lo-fi waywardness that gave the early works their unconventional edge. The fact that the lyrics aren't as appallingly offensive this time around is probably no great loss, though.

More to the point, this album is packed to the pips with grade A Ween moments: the analogue wooshes on "Exactly Where I'm At"; the caustic sitars on "Flutes of Chi"; the hilarious-yet-touching lyrics to "Even if You Don't" and "Falling Out"; the very metal onslaught of "Stroker Ace"; the drunk-ass elevator music of "Ice Castles"; the atonal electric piano solo on "Pandy Fackler"...

People often look agahst in horror when they find out I love Ween. "Why?" they beg, slack-jawed. Well, all the answers are on White Pepper. This band's imagination, daring and craftsmanship put the rest of the indie rock scene to shame. Next to Gene and Dean, just about anyone looks like a bore, a snob or a downright incompetent. Hail Boognish!