Forever Yours

Photo by Steve Linsley STEW Guest Host (Telegraph)

I first heard this the way it should be heard — in traffic, pinioned between Hollywood and home during the first week of the MTA strike, with the smog haze and Sunset projected across my windshield. Stew, head of L.A.'s joyfully tuneful the Negro Problem, has used his first solo album to lay a backhanded slap and sloppy kiss on his hometown, and the results are road rage–soothing indeed.

The tone of Stew's tribute is often acerbic, but the man loves the city's catastrophes as much as he does its radiant successes. So off he floats past Fifth and Alvarado, doffing a goofy hat at the Northridge quake, poking fun at Echo Park art (where painting saints "passes for artistic") and the Weekly (natch), thumbing his guitar at the people and places he clearly claims as his own. Melody for melody, Guest Host may be stronger than either TNP album. The mood is more intimate, despite occasional appropriately gaudy orchestration and production flourishes (sampled record crackle, oboes and cellos, etc.). The best jokes are more pointed (try the kiddie-chorus sing-along in "Re-hab"), the tunes warmer and more welcoming. Sometimes, as on the faux-nightclub slink of "Bijou," Stew settles for easy sarcasm rather than satire. Sometimes production details swamp the pleasantly direct pop melodies. Sometimes I wish Stew would back off the clever wordplay long enough to let me love the music rather than be impressed by it.

Yet so specific is Guest Host's imagery, so rich its sense of history and humor, so calamitous its circus-clown grace, it confirms that L.A. might be more than a trick of the Santa Ana winds, a smog-mirage, a movie set. In Stew's hands, it's a bona fide place after all.

WYCLEF JEAN The Ecleftic 2 Sides II: A Book(Columbia)

Listen to Wyclef Jean: Real Audio Format Runaway Wish You Were Here

Download the RealPlayer FREE! "Where Fugees at?" asks Wyclef at the start of his new album, The Ecleftic. Rather than query the whereabouts of his former bandmates, 'Clef is better off asking himself, "Where Wyclef at?" As the master of rock/ragga/rap versatility who helped create two of the most imaginative albums of the '90s (the Fugees' The Score and his own solo debut, The Carnival), Wyclef seems to reinvent himself for the worse on his sophomore effort. In place of his trademark iconoclasm, he delivers some good old-fashioned conformity in a bid to renew his street-credibility card. Getting in touch with his inner thug, Wyclef spits at Lauryn Hill on "Where Fugees At?" then stomps on former protégé Canibus for "However You Want It," and even reminds us on "Low Income" that "I used to work in a fast-food restaurant/working for minimum wage/dreaming I was onstage." Damn, and you thought Puffy was trying hard to keep shit real.

Wyclef can still turn heads with songs like his bizarre pairing between country star Kenny Rogers and underground MC Pharoahe Monch. And it's hard not to like his musical range in goofing on everything from Pink Floyd (on "Wish You Were Here") to Earth, Wind and Fire (on "Runaway"). But if The Carnival was a streetwise art album, 'Clef aims much closer for the lowest common denominator here, whether that means producing a half-baked Southern bounce track ("Thug Angels"), flooding his skits with offensive Asian stereotypes, or spouting a series of "underground" clichés on "Pullin' Me In" and "Hollyhood to Hollywood." For some inexplicable reason, Wyclef falls for the authenticity trap even though he's one of the few hip-hop artists who should have nothing to prove.

Thankfully, 'Clef strikes a balance with some outstanding selections, starting with the acoustically driven ballads "Diallo," "911" (featuring Mary J. Blige) and "Something About Mary" (that'd be Mary Jane, not Blige), which show that Wyclef armed with a guitar is still more powerful than an army of producers strapped with drum machines. Likewise, Wyclef rolls with the verbal punches on "Da Cypha" and "However You Want It." It's enough to make The Ecleftic a good but not grand album, one that finds Wyclef's vision falling short of his abilities. (Oliver Wang)

 

THE HELIO SEQUENCE Com Plex (Cavity Search)

Listen to The Helio Sequence: Real Audio Format Just Mary Jane (Calypso) Transistor Radio

Download the RealPlayer FREE! Making space music is a fine art — not nearly as difficult as it was in the pre-digital age, but an art nonetheless. Atmospherics provide the foundation, but that's the easy part. Without substance or shape, the result is little more than New Age noodling — and that's where most of the young knob-turners screw up. However, a pair of just-graduated teens from the suburbs of Portland, Brandon Summers (vocals, guitar) and Benjamin Weikel (keyboards, drums), have cooked up some heady stuff that proves that decades of experience are not required to qualify as a full-fledged space man.