Changing sounds

Coldplay-Viva La Vida
Producer-Brian Eno
Coldplay and experimentation? A band that writes stadium anthems in its sleep would like to experiment? The band that plays lyrically vague mid-tempo ditties like Fix You and Speed of Sound would like to re-invent their sound? Why? Many people asked these questions. After all, Coldplay are the Mini-Me to U2's Dr Evil of the rock world-a multi-million-album-selling behemoth, on who's album revenues depends the financial performance of EMI! Since Coldplay's first album Parachutes became a surprise hit in 1999, the band followed up with two more increasingly grand and piano-plodding albums in A Rush of Blood To The Head and X&Y. Perhaps stung by all the critical disdain, Coldplay decided to cast off the shackles and experiment. For a band of this stature that could only mean that the production duties would be handled by Brian Eno.

Eno is the pop producer nonpareil, having spent much of his forty-year career doing landmark production work, most of the times as an equal collaborator, with the likes of David Bowie in his '70s prime, John Cale, Paul Simon, Talking Heads and U2. On Coldplay's new album, the revolutionary-sounding Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, his touch is evident, not just in the fractured beats and the sonic tweaking that are his signature, but also in the spirit of the songs. While Coldplay's plodding arena-rock anthems remain the same, they get housed in different structures. Thus, on songs like 42 and Strangers in Japan, there's a looseness of playing, a sense of the band trying out various possibilities instead of sticking to a formula. Other standouts include the opener, the Kraftwerk homage Life in Technicolor and the funky Cemeteries of London.
Parlophone, Capitol
Price: Rs 395

Beck-Modern Guilt
Producer-Danger Mouse
When Beck Hansen burst upon the burgeoning Alternative music scene in 1994 with his slacker anthem Loser he was hailed as the new messiah for a generation that had just lost Kurt Cobain. His third album Odelay went double Platinum in 1996, and it wasn't hard to see why critics were calling him the "Gen-X Dylan". A singer-songwriter who was a product of the media age, Beck long perfected the art of injecting post-modern flourishes into a pop song. The startling sounds he created in the Nineties have since become de rigueur. On many of his recent releases, especially his last two albums Guero and The Information, it seemed that Beck was cruising, knocking off "Beck-songs" in his sleep.

Enter Danger Mouse. One of the hippest pop producers in the world today, Danger Mouse is as much of a post-modern prankster as is Beck. He used his love for '60s Soul and Psychedelia to give flavour to hits like Crazy by Gnarls Barkley, or make outrageously brilliant mashups of the Beatles and Jay-Z on The Grey Album. Beck's new album Modern Guilt profits immensely from his aesthetic sense. The songs' contents are dark, as on Gamma Ray, but the two men turn the premise on its head, giving the song a spiffy '60s Surf beat and a retro guitar line. Apart from such idiosyncratic arrangements, Danger Mouse adds a plethora of beats and found-sounds to deepen the sonic palette of the songs. Other tracks like Orphans and Walls succeed both as classic three-minute pop songs that you can dance to as well as dark reflections on life.
Interscope Records
Price: Rs 495

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds-Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
Producer-Nick Launay
In his career spanning over 25 years, Nick Cave has always raised the bar musically. Aided by his superb band The Bad Seeds, Cave had blossomed into a timeless songwriter, in the same bracket as the likes of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits. Some 12 albums into his career, when he released the double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus in 2006, it was hailed as a masterpiece. But many also wondered if they would hear the raw, dangerous Nick Cave ever again. Cave showed that he's ahead of the game with last year's Grinderman, a set of visceral, unhinged garage rock songs which harked back to the early days of his career.

For his latest album Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!, he felt he had to balance the raw abandon of Grinderman with something more understated. And his producer Nick Launay provides that balance. A highly respected producer of Indie /Alternative acts like Supergrass, Arcade Fire and Midnight Oil, Launay certainly knows a thing or two about the right atmosphere for songs. This is showcased to majestic effect on Dig. Cave sounds as dangerous as ever, writing surreal songs about outcasts who might have wandered in from a David Lynch movie. Add to that the superb playing of the Bad Seeds and the subtle, restraining hand of Launay, and you get a great album. On songs like We Call Upon the Author and Midnight Man, Launay provides just the right balance, reining in Cave's penchant for loud noise and helping the tracks sound both melodious and dissonant.
Mute Records
Price: Rs 490