BOBBY CONN - Rise Up!

“Rise Up!” is an album originally released in 1998.

Bobby Conn, controversial avant-garde rocker with shades of the protest singer, born in New York but artistically raised in Chicago, has decided to give the album a second life, sending it back out into the world with the addition of two bonus tracks, two demo versions (excellently recorded, though) of songs already featured on the original tracklist.

“Rise Up!” is without doubt one of the most inspired works of Conn's career, which numbers five albums (the latest dating back to 2007), a live record, an EP and a handful of singles.

“Rise Up!” was the second in the series, the one in which the American artist, caught between apocalypse and antichrists (as if he were some kind of Marilyn Manson of folk-rock), managed to map out his singular pop melting pot of genres and influences.

Crucial in this case was the presence of the genius Jim O'Rourke, unmatched in his ability to turn almost anything he touches into gold, whether it's noise pioneers (Sonic Youth) or alt-country geniuses (Wilco).

With one eye on a skewed kind of vaudeville where Frank Zappa walks arm in arm with Mika (the title track), and the other on the thousand facets of mainstream pop (I'll cite “California” as one of the most brilliant examples), Bobby Conn managed to carve out a niche for himself, establishing himself as a true chameleon of alt-rock.

On “Rise Up!” urban blues, the dirtiest and most nocturnal kind, gets cross-contaminated now with modern soul (“Axis '67 pt. 2”), now with shuffle rhythms (“Passover”, which sounds like a drunken cross between James Brown and John Lee Hooker filtered through a jazzy lens), generating fresh and entertaining results.

They tumble past like a carousel gone haywire: proto-punk flare-ups seasoned with vocalese inserts (“United Nations”), lightning-quick pop ideas (“Baby Man”), hailstorms of glam à la T. Rex (“White Bread”), violin flourishes set to a bossanova beat (“Lullaby”), interstellar drones (“Ominous Drone”), and irresistible experimental funk workouts that veer now toward Prince, now toward Dirtbombs, as in the closing “Rise Up, Now!”. 

This and much more can be found in the well-deserved reissue of an album that would have been unjust to leave forever forgotten. Utterly derivative, yes, but utterly unmissable too. Just try making a record like this yourselves!

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06/12/2010