Back toRealityBeans, End ItAll, An-ticonTight as a rat's rectum.-- "Glass Coffins"The fourth solo joint from Anti-Pop Consortium member Beansdoesn't get off to an auspicious start, but stick with it, and the re-cord builds in momentum. He may not be most expressive em-cee, but he compensates with clever wordplay and multi-textur-al beats (I particularly like the way he "rocks to the PM Dawn").His roster of producers include Nobody, Four Tet, Tobacco, andInterpol's Sam Fog. At times, the instrumental backdrops comeclose to experimental/musique concrète territory, but he alwaysbrings things back to reality before the number is through.Click here to watc

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Tear theClub UpDirtbombs, Party Store, In the Red"[A] sci-fi dork in a leather jacket." --Fred Thomas on Mick CollinsIt took awhile to get ahold of this CD, which everyone has heardby now--at least everyone who was dying to hear Motor City ti-tans the Dirtbombs put their stamp on Detroit techno. As I sus-pected (and fervently hoped): Party Store was worth the wait.For anyone who thinks it's an about-face, it isn't. Detroit native Mick Collins has been talking up techno for awhile now (when Iinterviewed him for Tablet in 2005, Collins said, "I have a technorecord coming out later this year"). Further, he hints at things tocome on 2008's We Have You Sur

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Dreamyand DirectKurt Vile, SmokeRing forMy Halo,Matador[3/8/11]Now that Jay Reatard is no longer with us, I proclaim Philadel-phia's Kurt Vile the independent recording artist with the besthair. Not that the two sound alike, because they don't (except,perhaps, on "Puppet to a Man"). Throughout his fourth album,Vile gives his folk-oriented songs a subtle psychedelic twist, re-sulting in an LP that feels dreamy and direct at the same time.Click here for "Jesus Fever"At its worst, it's a little samey, but I like the indirectness ofhis vocals, which has more to do with the way he records thanthe way he sings, as if his mic were wrapped in layers of gauze.

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Not Too SoonAloeBlacc, GoodThings,StonesThrowIs it too soon to declare Good Things a soul classic? After all, StonesThrow only released it five months ago. Classics usually takea few years to germinate, but I'm gonna go ahead and call it.Decades from now, will people speak about his LP with the samedegree of esteem we now accord Shuggie Otis's Inspiration Infor-mation? I hope so, because it shares the same eclectic charm.There are those who believe that qualifiers diminish the object inquestion, and they have a point. If I describe Good Things asneo-soul, like many have, I'm suggesting that it would be folly tocompare Blacc to, say, Stevie Wonder. Bet

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Movie ofthe Month:Part 25I recentlyreviewedthe follow-ing DVD forVideo Lib-rarian, and thought the results were worth sharing.STILL BILL [***1/2](Damani Baker and Alex Vlack, 2009, US, 78 mins.)Documentaries about R&B stars often end in death, obscurity, orsustained stardom. Co-directors Damani Baker and Alex Vlack re-count a different story, since Bill Withers was in his 30s whenhe entered show business, only to walk away from it in the '80s.In the film, he speaks about his past and his present, while archivalfootage fills in for days gone by. He also travels back to his home-town of Slab Fork, WV and to New York City for a tribute concert.His la

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Charmed, I'm SureLa Sera, self-titled,Hardly Art [2/15/11]Brooklyn singer/bassplayer "Kickball" KatyGoodman (Vivian Girls), AKA La Sera, strikesout on her own for thisSeattle-recorded debut.I was charmed by thefirst single, "NeverCome Around," and hadhigh hopes for the restof the record. I wasn'tdisappointed, though it isn't quite as immediate as the debuts from the Vivian Girls or the Dum Dum Girls. (Comparisons are inevitable, so it seems better to embrace than to resist them.)Instead, La Sera reminds me more of Frankie Rose and theOuts (Rose has played with the Vivian Girls and the Dum DumGirls). In other words, it's more of a grower, but Goodman a

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Make a Smile for Me: Part TwoClick here for part oneShortly after I posted a few Bill Withers covers in honor of Still Bill, which premiered on Showtime yesterday, February4th, crate digger extraordinaire Larry Webber suggested sever-al more. Here are the four I like the best. The reggae interpre-tations are great, but I prefer the funkiest of the funk jams.In the All Music Guide, Jason Ankeny describes Eddy Senay's HotThang (1972/Sussex) as "a virtual primer in psychedelic funk." The AMG classifies vibraphonist Roy Ayers as "one of the prophetsof acid jazz," but that doesn't mean he couldn't funk it up, too (see al-so his score for 1973 blaxploitati

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February ReviewsThese are the reviewsand other pieces I'mworking on this month.Amazon DVDs: The Doub-le Life of Véronique - The Cri-terion Collection [Blu-ray]The Norman Conquests [three-disc set], All AboutEve [Blu-ray] (special fea-tures), Nuremberg - Its Lessons for Today, and Weeds - Season Six [three-disc set].Amazon Theatricals: Tom Shadyac's I Am, Ni-colas Philibert's Nénette, and The Oscar Nominat-ed Short Films 2011 - Animation and Live Action.Still playing: Blue Valentine, The Company Men, Country Strong,The Fighter, How Do You Know, Inside Job, The King's Speech, Loveand Other Drugs, Somewhere, The Town, and Waiting for Superman.Siffblog: G

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