III'. .ir~hioIII ["}i Jls7- VYaUinacr(1y, IY~dIrII1410. 7J-0 1h c tlrughir"jr - fleiIsoay, aA.,....,k4 4Ct - b V RECORDS Continued from page 8 Various Artists Speed limit 140 BPM Plus Four Speed limit 140 BPM Plus Five Moonshine Records Two more hardcore contributions to the BPM series, Plus Four and Plus Five are up-to -the-minute examples of London Hardcore. Both albums start at atorrid pace and never once even think about slowing down. High adrenaline music for a generation of clubgoers who have been desensitized to the overtly mushy music of past genera- tions. Nothing short of a new musical order, breakbeat and jungle music is the anthem of the frenetic; who cares how you dance to it,just as long as you do. Plus Four leans more towards the breakbeat end of the continuum while Plus Five favors a very raga-influenced strain ofjungle. Both albums have the self-ironic whimsicalities that give these forms of music a dose of real-world humor. Sampling everything from Eric B. to the background music from CapeFear, London hardcore can laugh at itself in a way that would make many Ameri- can musicians very nervous. The mixing and production on both of these albums are immacu- late. Both albums have London Hardcore DJ Darren Jay in the mix, who discombobulates all senses. Jungle music is here to stay, so grab a piece of floor and DANCE!! - Ben Ewy Certain Distant Suns Happy on the Inside Giant The first few seconds of this Chi- cago-based band's debut LP sound alarmingly like a synth-produced techno groove. Don't be fooled (and don't turn it off), because Certain Dis- tant Suns find ways to surprise on each and every "Happy" track. That same cheesy techno groove erupts into the fuzzy, amiable guitar rock of their fine first single, "Bitter." Throughout this effort, a compila- tion of the "Huge" and "Dogrocket" EPs, the Suns successfully marry dis- torted guitars, pop melodies, and dance music sampling, producing an engag- ing, if slightly loopy, record. Lead singer and guitarist Justin Mroz, blessed with a supple, slightly Billy Corganesque voice and endless imagination, leads his band through these 10 songs (one remix) drenched in dance, rock, and techno influences. Diversity reigns supreme in these Suns' system, as the echoing, symphonic "All Green to Me" contrasts sharply with the techno-dance number "Talk" and the bluesy distortion of "Mine All Mine." And while the samples occa- sionally sound like a band member's annoying little brother pirated their Casio, the sampling does lend a certain oddball charm to "Happy." Fun stuff. Dance, you pretentious indie rockers. -JenniferBuckley Wicker Man Wicker Man Imago There's a film company called Troma that is well known for making movies with great titles and no worthy content. "Surf Nazis Must Die" was a terrible movie hiding behind the best taglinein cinematic history. Much like Troma, Wicker Man is a band that spends way too much time coming up with clever song titles and expressing the right attitudes, but having nothing tooffer. , Anybody that tries to combine White Zombie and Motorhead into one big fat wall of sludge should be the coolest band in the known universe. I said should be, not is. Wicker Man has the Zombie-esque song titles ("Pussycat Motorgasm" being the best song title of the year) with the blues- on-speed gruntings of Motorhead, but fails when it comes to the important thing, songs. The Chicago-based band really tries to be aggressive and nasty, but at their worst they come off as a blues metal outfit trying to forget the '80s (some- thing like the recent "alternative" ver- sion of Motley Crue). If you're going to write a song called "Shitkicker" or "Stoned in Car" then you damn well better be able to live up to those titles. Nothingmemorable here, and noth- ing that couldn't be served better by the new Zombie album (coming in April, whee!) or by any much overlooked Motorhead CD. - Kirk Miller Brand Nubian Everything is Everything Elektra In some ways, Brand Nubian will always be a disappointment when they release an album, because each release is areminder of the fact that there once was a group which came out with a classic album, lost a member (Grand Puba), and was never the same again. The group's second release "In God We Trust" was a crashing disappoint- ment, a below-average album with Everytning is everything when you're as cool as Brand Nubian. none of the freshness which made their first release shine. This third release is a couple hun- dred notches above their last. They have established a new niche, with clean and simple loops, slow and funky beats, and rhymes styles which for the most part sound like their old rhyme styles (a good thing). The album is straightforward, fancy production, no ultra-macho gangster stuff and a couple filtered bass lines even remind one of their first release. Still in all, the group seems des- tined to live in the shadow of their first release. Perhaps a rumored reunion with Grand Puba would give back to the group some of the flair of their first album, but for now the shadow of prior accomplishments continues to stretch over them. -Dustin Howes Nicholson Baker The Fermata Vintage Books Paperbacks "Every so often, usually in the fall (perhaps mundanely because my hor- mone flows are at their highest then), I discover that I have the power to drop into the Fold." And so begins, allur- ingly and sexually enough, the autobi- ography of Arno Strine, a man who is endowed with the ability to pause time at the snap of his fingers (or sometimes by more mechanical means) and move about while the rest of the world is frozen. "I don't inquire into origins very often," writes Arno, "fearing that too close ascrutiny will damage whatever interior states have given rise to it, since it is the most important ongoing adventure in my life." It is indeed. A temp by trade, Arno utilizes his innate power not to steal things or alter present events for his own benefit but to appreciate the naked features of attractive women. Noticing an attractivecoworker, Amo mightdrop into the Fold, partially undress her and leave her standing there, paused indefi- nitely, for him to admire. He is a lonely fellow, and though it is partially a means of reducing his initial embarrassment vith members of the opposite sex ("I'm less suave with awoman when I haven't had a preview of her breasts."), Arno's Fold-dropping serves primarily as a *way forhim to feel as though he is a part of a woman's life, if only briefly. Initially he might be drawn to a woman based on a combination of her physical beauty and more subtle per- sonal details. Joyce, a woman whose dictation Arno is transcribing while temping at MassBank, "will occasion- ally use a phrase like 'spruce up' or 'polish off or 'kick in' that you seldom come across in the credit updates of large regional banks." The accumula- tion of little such details reaches a cre- scendo when Joyce wears her hair in a French braid, "in which three sporting dolphins dip smoothly under one an- other and surface in a continuous enter- tainment," and he resolves to halt time and appreciate her and it more fully. "I needed to feel her solid braid, and her head beneath it, in my palm," he writes. Undressing her, Arno finds thatJoyce's pubichair "is akind of cocktail dress... it has that much dignity." This last comment is a telling one, for it reveals, strangely enough, that there is an internal logic to Arno's ways with women, a code of conduct. His own actions within the Fold remain within the realm of asexuality. The thought of rape or the idea that he is, in someway, anecrophiliac, repulses him. There is almost arespect and reverence to his ways within the Fold. And it is made plausible by the writing of Nicholson Baker, who maintains alarger internal logic that governs the book remarkably and humorously well. He brings together deftly drawn elements from physics, human sexual behavior and the world of office supplies with a prose that occasionally dips into enter- Otaining pornography lexicon but which always remains thoughtful and witty. -Matt Benz Brad Gooch City Poet: The Life and Times of MULTIMEDIA Continued from page 8 Emperor and Darth Vader. Like "X-Wing," "Tie Fighter" isn't the typical blow-'em-up game. It takes a significant amount of practice from the flight simulators and other combat preparation chambers to master the maneuvers and directions of the mis- sions. The game actually doesn't treat itself as a game either, but as an actual pilot training for war with the Empire. Combat is difficult though, but the game helps with tracking targets and gives other helpful hints. There are doz- ens of keyboard controls that also make the game challenging at first, but once pilots are familiar with them, it gives them an extra level of control, and al- lows for skillful tactics and maneuvers. "Tie Fighter" takes pilots through multiple missions flying one of five different ships which can be custom- ized with different types of torpedoes and rockets. Missions start off fairly easy, with simple fighting and inspec- tion missions, but lead up to vigorous search and destroy missions where pi- lots are racing against time and the Rebellion to finish the level before it finishes them. Like "X-Wing," "Tie Fighter" com- bines excellent 3-D graphics with a thrilling game, and also enough story and background for any "Star Wars" enthusiast. Its use of special effects and music, as well as digitally mastered sound effects with studio recorded voices gives it a superb replication of the many flight sequences throughout the blockbuster trilogy. Other cinematic sequences through- out the game add to the realism of "Tie Fighter," due to their sharp, 3-D-like graphics and screeching spacecraft sound effects. Between the advanced technology the game sports, and the awesome action and fighting sequences, "Tie Fighter" is a thrilling game for anyone who even remotely enjoyed the legendary "Star Wars" trilogy. - Brian A. Gnatt Dracula Unleashed Viacom New Media Mac/PC CD-Rom "Dracula Unleashed" isn't really a new game. But the fact that it's been released on CD-ROM is new. The game itself is actually a bit annoying. You are Alexander Morris, brother of Quincy Morris, who got killed in the original Dracula novel. You are in London, and your fianc6e's father has just died mys- teriously. You need to maneuver through town to save her and yourself. Surviving is not an easy thing to do. You need to go to places in a specific order holding specific ob- jects so the children of the night don't sink their fangs into your jugular. The problem is, there aren't enough clues to guide you safely through. Success depends upon chance discovery of the proper place to go. Eventually, the game becomes terribly repetitive. The video clips that get shown when- ever you enter a place are generally good. While lacking the touch of an ace director (or actors), the clips certainly give the game an edge over Pac-man; Of course the repetition that comes up when you make a mistake can make the clips tiresome as well. The outside in- terfaces are, of necessity, non-moving. But they are also rather ugly. The game's best point is the video clips, but the rest of it is not the finest game you can get. It's sure better than those videotape games, though. - Ted Watts T h e w o rd's la rg e st st ud en t a nd y outih t r ayelo rg aniz a tion. 800-171-ST112AV biography begins to focus more in- tently on its subject when O' Hara en- ters Harvard in 1946. Finishing there fouryears later, O' Harapursues gradu- ate studies briefly at Michigan and, upon returning East, settles in New York, which served as his base of op- erations until his death in 1966. Sense of place, and New York espe- cially, were very important for O' Hara. Writing to his New York friends from Cambridge in 1955, O' Hara com- plained of the latter, " ... it's not hot enough, there's not enough asphalt, and you can see over buildings too easily." "[I]t was as if he needed to ground himself in particular places in certain poems," writes Gooch of O' Hara, "to be sure he belonged there and could go on writing, like an artist preparing his canvas with gesso." Such was the man- ner in which O' Hara wrote (during lunch breaks from work, at friends' homes in the Hamptons and once dur- ing a commercial break while watch- ing television), as his Muse was arather impetuous one. And yet, to classify O' Hara as a poet would be to overlook his extensive knowledge of classical music and con- temporary art. For much of his life O' Hara's primary source of income was derived from the various positions he held at the Museum of Modern Art- most notably as curator. In this way, a list of O' Hara's friends and acquain- tances reads much like a Who's Who of the progressive New York art and liter- ary world of the 1950s and early '60s. By virtue of this and O' Hara's socially rambunctious nature, there is much to be written. Fortunately for the reader, Gooch allows O' Hara's story to be told by those who knew it and him best. In a sense, then, "City Poet" is a combined effort: Gooch creates the working form, adding touches of in- sight where he sees fit, and lets friends and acquaintances with firsthand O' Hara experience fill in the colors. The resulting portrait proves to be as vari- ously entertaining as its subject ... a most fitting tribute. - Matt Benz Most banks give you a crock. ~', '> We give you two. (With lids.) Are you upset because your boyfriend's parents keep interfering in your relationship? Did cheating cost you your relationship and you want to bey for Open a Totally Free Checking account, and we'll give you a 4-piece Corning Ware casserole set FREE. Totally Free Checking features: No minimum balance requirement* No monthly service charges