TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2010 Music QUICKSPINS


Avi Buffalo AVI BUFFALO


In 2010, the tape-deck kids triumphed. The two biggest,Wavves’


Nathan Williams and Avi Buffalo’s teenage frontman Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg, were more alike than different. Both were SoCal misfits and singer- songwriter-stoner types, the products of basement practice rooms and bedroom MacBooks. Their influences were neon


signs: ForWavves, it was the Beach Boys andNo Age. For the somewhat milder Avi Buffalo, it was the Shins, whose influence is felt throughout its self-titled April debut alongside early Built to Spill and Jane’s Addiction, whose “Jane Says” surely provided the blueprint for the band’s first single, the acoustic jangle-pop track “What’s In It For?” “What’s In It For?” is dada-


esque and awkward, moving and strange (“All these things that you learn / I’ve been knowing sincemy childhood / You are tiny / And your lips are like little pieces of bacon”), which is a good enough description of the rest of the album, too, though the proportions vary. “One Last,” a duet with now-


departed keyboardist Rebecca Coleman, has all the hallmarks of a great Avi Buffalo song: the multiple layers of effects, the high vocals, the palpable nostalgia for the late ’60s and the early ’90s. Others (such as “Five Little Sluts,” as unappealing as its title) are yearbook photos Zahner- Isenberg and company will one day wish never existed. —Allison Stewart


Recommended tracks: “What’s In It For?,” “One Last”


RZA in equal measure. The samples are jagged edges of guitar licks, low-toned organ lines and gangster movie monologues. As a rapper Marciano is calm and measured, a classic grinder who won’t overwhelm you with metaphor, but paints a menacing portrait at every turn and toys with syntax in unusual ways. On the standout “Snow,” he raps: “Reaching for toast like TV remotes / spray cans where graffiti is wrote / and where the media promote / so I appear like a genie in smoke / and for me it’s so easy to boast / even when I’mgreasy and broke / in a peacoat / and this beat here is good as meatloaf / better yet, a pot roast.”No flash or whiz-bang. Just a hardworking technician shining in the cold winter. —Sean Fennessey


Recommended tracks: “Snow,” “Raw Deal,” “It’s Crime”


MUSICREVIEW


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THE CLASSICAL BEAT Post critic Anne Midgette offers her take on the classical music world at voices.washingtonpost.com/the-classical-beat.


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CLICK TRACK For more pop music news, reviews and features, visit ClickTrack, The Post’s pop music blog, at blog.washingtonpost.com/clicktrack.


PHOTOS BY EVY MAGES FOR THE WASHINGTON POST PHAIR-MINDED: By its cheers, the audience at Liz Phair’s 9:30 Club set appeared to have forgiven the rocker for going more mainstream. New, old Liz Phair charm 9:30 Club


Rangda FALSE FLAG


If fame is a prerequisite for


being in a supergroup, then labeling Rangda as such would be a stretch. But for fans of experimental, underground music this trio is like Traveling Wilburys multiplied by Them Crooked Vultures. Guitarists Sir Richard Bishop (Sun City Girls) and Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance, Comets on Fire) have teamed with drummer Chris Corsano (collaborator of everyone from Bjork to ThurstonMoore) for an instrumental album of psychedelic bliss that deftly maneuvers from unrelentingly harsh to transcendentally sublime. That the two moods coexist


naturally is a testament to the talents of the musicians, especially considering half of the album’s six tracks are open- ended improvisations. Opener “WaldorfHysteria” is a sprint of shredding— Bishop and Chasny attack their axes, eliciting shrieks and squeals while Corsano matches their intensity with an all-out assault on his kit. It creates the sensation of hearing three lead guitarists. “Fist Family” is similarly scorching, surging for the entirety of its 81/2


minutes.


Roc Marciano MARCBERG


RocMarciano is a survivor of


the roughest neighborhoods of Long Island, of the Busta Rhymes-led crewFlipmode Squad and, most importantly, of the ice-cold tomb once known asNewYork rap. But it has to be this way forMarciano —who is also a former member of the Carson Daly-bankrolled, hard-core hip-hop group the UN—because without the struggle, there’d be no payoff. His proper solo debut, “Marcberg,” issued inMay, is unlike any other rap album released in 2010, mostly because it’s like so many rap albums released in 1996. Entirely self-produced,


Marciano’s long-gestating opus is full of gutty, gritty East Coast formalism, deeply indebted to Rakim,Mobb Deep and the


There are no peaks or valleys, just a continuous thrust of mayhem, but one that never approaches self-indulgence. Those jarring blasts make


the meditative calm of “Sacophagi” seem even more peaceful. Corsano’s burst gives way to gentle brushes; guitars flicker instead of explode and the band exhibits a graceful precision. And even when things get noisy again that elegance remains. “Bull Lore” plays out as a steady march into some sinister unknown but the rumble never devolves into what would have been a well-earned chaotic flourish. For an album so packed with sizzle, the moments of restraint are equally essential. —David Malitz


Recommended tracks: “Bull Lore,” “Waldorf Hysteria”


’90s indie rock icon honors her raw roots while having ‘Funstyle’


Part of Liz Phair’s charm when


she came onto the indie rock scene in the early 1990s was that she couldn’t sing on key and suffered from stage fright. At the 9:30 Club on Friday, she showed she’s long past the stage fright, anyway. And she’s still a charmer. There was no obvious pitch-


correction technology being used or lip-syncing taking place during Phair’s set; if any tape was used, it was the sort that would prevent Phair’s hussified outfit (skimpy skirt and blouse, studded belt, choker necklace, leggings and high heels) from malfunctioning. But from her opening tune, the poptastic rocker “Supernova,” through several rough cuts from her iconic 1993 debut “Exile in Guyville,” to material from her latest release, “Funstyle,” it was about the songs and attitude. Fromits age, the crowdseemed


SAMEOLDLIZ: Phair offset her recent pop sound by including her pointedly radio-unfriendly hits from her album “Exile in Guyville.”


loaded with folks who’ve been with her from the start. But Phair, strumming barre chords on vari- ous low-end Fender electrics,


turned her backing rocker trio most loose when rendering the new “Oh, Bangladesh.” Phair, 43, wasn’t afraid to dust off “Why Can’t I?” and “Extraordinary,” tunes with massive radio-friendly choruses from her 2003 epony- mous record. That’s the project for which she retained the Avril Lavigne/Britney Spears smash- writing team (the Matrix) and thereby lost all her indie cred and a portion of her following of cool kids for the crime of selling out. Whoever wrote ’em, they’re both fun songs, and from the crowd’s kudos after each, it appears that all is forgiven. To balance things out, Phair


performed the most radio-un- friendly tunes from her song- book. For “Flower,” a “Guyville” cut with a giggly supply of bad wordsandgraphic sex references, Phair brought two female mem- bers of the crowd onstage to help her croon vulgarities. The new- comers couldn’t hold a tune ei- ther, but by song’s end, they were warbling along with their hero so shamelessly they might as well have all been in the shower, and everybody in the building was smiling.


—Dave McKenna


SINGLES FILE A weekly playlist for the listener with a one-track mind: Super-special holiday songs edition!


Kanye West featuring Cam’ron, Jim Jones, CyHi Da Prynce, Pusha T, Big Sean, Teyana Taylor and Musiq Soulchild: “Christmas in Harlem” Chaotic, star-studded and utterly fantastic, this exercise in early hip-hop nostalgia is West’s 2010 parting gift.


The Futureheads: “Christmas Was Better in the ’80s” They’re right, you know.


Deer Tick: “Christmas All Summer Long” Deer Tick go punkabilly on this more-amped-than-usual holiday track.


The Killers: “Boots” Brandon Flowers and Co. put their hiatus on hold to record their annual holiday song for Bono’s Red charity. Under the tree this year: bombast, sentiment and awesomeness.


Lady Moet Beast & D.C. Ty the Monster: “Bad Santa” How is Santa like the Jolie-Pitts? According to the District’s finest rapping couple, he rolls with an eight-deep security team in a black Suburban. Except his bodyguards are elves, so it’s probably a little different.


Beach House: “I Do Not Care for the Winter Sun” Because not all holiday songs have to be cheerful.


— Allison Stewart Trinity. All about you forever


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