Page 12-The Michigan Daily/New Student Edition - Thursday, September 10, 1992 BASEHEAD Continued from page 11 that's cool." Play With Toys is more of a freeform dialogue than just words thrown over music. It's peppered with conversations between Ivey and friends on a variety of subjects. They discuss everything from getting dumped by a girlfriend ("Not Over You"), to the state of being Black in America in the 1990s ("Evening News"),to the sincere affections they have for beer ("Ode To My Favorite Beer"). The whole thing is just so personal. Says Ivey, "It's not so much au- tobiographical, so much as the atti- tude I have in certain situations. It's personal in that sense. I really didn't think of it as an exorcism or any- thing." While Ivey tends to downplay his contribution to the language of hip hop, he will concede that it's not like anything else happening today. "I wasn't sure if it was good or not, since I was trying to just do something I liked, and I like various types of music. It came out sounding different because I listen to a lot of different stuff. I didn't have anything to compare it to." Playing live is another factor in the world of Basehead. "It's different in the fact that there's people other than me playing, so they'll put their own personal in- terpretations to it. It isn't quite as laid back as the record, just because of the nature of live performance," he says. This was more than evident when they recently opened for the Beastie Boys. Live, the songs have an almost jazzy feel, with some Hendrix touches courtesy of guitarist Keith Lofton. The show ranged from a sublime rendition of "Play With Toys," to bizarre open-ended jams that were made up on the spot, and christened with titles like "Kiss My Black Ass" and "Do You Wanna Fuck Or What?" Basehead has, definitely made their mark. The overwhelmingly positive critical response to Play With Toys has put Ivey in the cat- bird seat for now. Respected music critic Greil Marcus called the record "One of the most suggestive and al- lusive recordings in all of pop." But Ivey takes it all in stride, in his cus- tomary mellow manner. "I'm looking to improve soni- cally, and to keep it personal. I'm avoiding all of the bullshit of having to find a producer, and making some slick record. I'm trying to stay true to the artistic aspect of my music, whatever that is." Ulu Deee-Lite Infinity Within Elektra I was so ready to hate this record. If one more pretentious, Pucci-clad, pseudo-club kid with a bad haircut snapped their fingers in my face yelling "Deee-groovy!" somebody was gonna die. Granted, Deee-Lite's debut, World Clique, was a genius amalgamation of everything that was good about dance music, the decidedly undeee-licious overkill that followed ripped the groove right outta my heart, and planted it firmly as a pain in my butt. But lo and behold, Infinity Within is nothing less that pure brilliance, surpassing their debut by leaps and bounds. The grooves are deeper, the songwriting tighter, and the already luscious voice of the deee-gorgeous Lady Miss Kier has become what dreams are made of. Best showcased on seductive ballads like "I Won't Give Up" and the spine-tingling "Love Is Everything," Kier's voice is pure aural ecstasy. StUdies Program in Film and Video Studies Available Courses - Fall 1992 Placing more emphasis on social commentary this time out, Infinity Within comes packaged in the spiffy (and waste-free) Econo-Pak, and features the funkiest PSA ever on "Vote, Baby, Vote." Guest appearances by Arrested Development and the Disposable Heroes of Iliphoprisy only sweeten this already deee-perfect record. A club classic. See you on the dance floor. - Scott Sterling POIVO Cor-Crane Secret Merge If Sonic Youth would've come blazing out of the hills of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, instead of the urban jungle of NYC, they might have sounded a whole lot like Polvo. Dissonant guitar gymnastics, crash- ing cymbals everywhere, lurching tempo changes, blurry, fractured vo- cal stylings - In other words, pretty happening stuff. Polvo has a way with noise, twisting and shaping it into eerily catchy near-melodies. "Can I Ride" has that cerebral, scream-along quality of Swervedriver, "In The Hand, In The Sieve" is a paralyzed scorcher, and "Vibracobra" has a fuzzy, psychedelic thing going on. Simultaneously ascending and descending, brimming with dynamic tension and some seriously raw en- ergy, Cor-Crane Secret is yet an- other reason to make that road trip to Chapel Hill. - Scott Sterling BOOKS Continued from page 11 one another. They prove that human beings do not cling to misery, though misery may cling to humans. Do people always do things because they want to do them? Although, the novel may begin on this stubborn and self-interested note, it ultimately sets out to prove it wrong. It seems that there is more to free will than making up ones mind. As the narrator says in the closing pages of the novel, "Something is missing there. Something rogue. Something else you have to figure in before you can figure it out." That something is the past. In some ways Jazz is about not trying to figure it out. It is about re- membering the tragedy of oppres- sion so that we can allow it to pass. And it is about change. Joe and Violet let their bitterness fade and they became happy. But that is only allowed them in old age. The forces which temporarily held Joe and Violet from embracing themselves still prevent the narrator from realiz- ing an individual freedom. The novel ends in the sentence: "Now." With that, Morrison reminds us that these forces are still at work today. As we move through Jazz, we see a recognizable situation made com- plex through an increasingly detailed history. The reader is made to iden- tify with the plight of these charac- ters and is then forced to see beyond the surface and to confront the complexities of the past. But don't let the setting fool you, Jazz is about the present. - Robert Mertz Film\Video 400 Filmmakinq i 16mm film production. Permission of instructor. T/Th 1:00-2:30 pm Instructor: Rayher Film\Video 413 Sec 001 Film Genres (Film Noir) The gender politics of film noir. Lecture: T/Th 12:30-2:00 pm Screening: T 4:00-6:30 pm Instructor: White Film and Video\CAAS 420 Documentary Film Non-fiction film, 1920s-present. 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