19 - Friday, September 9, 1988 - North Shore News spotlight Retrogressive ||Marcuse band is hot LONDON LAUNCHES a Love band; Tangerine Dream siz- zles with synthesizer sets; The Bears pop off a pack with a punch. The House Of Love — The House Of Love, Mercury/Polygram 1988 This Guy Chadwick person in- dulges in some unsettling stream of consciousness business: “Loneliness is a gun, a buflet floating in outer space, dying to meet you.” The singer-songwriter-guitarist brought the south London group together in 1986 after advertising in Melody Maker for a guitarist who was into ‘60s underground music. He found the guitarist (Terry Bickers) who introduced a friend (bassist Chris Groothuizen). He also found drummer Pete Evans, and in three months they had something. The result is one of the best new Anglo exports to cross the water this year. The sound is a ferment of evocative lullaby lines and ear- cuffing explosions. Resonating reveries are punctuated by liberal! lashings of deranged guitar work of the sort favored by Brian Eno circa Hear Come The Warm Jets. x RC LF | HOUSE of Love builds its first LP on rock solid foundations. It's blatantly retrogressive. If you want to, you'll hear snippets of The Doors, The Byrds, Velvet Un- derground and early Kinks. But the raw, melancholic spirit pulling it all together is refreshingly real. Best cuts on the self-produced LP are the sure-fire alternative music scene hits Christine, Road, and Fisherman’s Tale. The 12-inch single version of Christine is worth having because it is backed by two knockout tunes, The Hilland Loneliness Is A Gun, on the flip side. Tangerine Dream — Optical Race, Private Music, 1988 Although you may never have actually knowingly heard a Tan- gerine Dream disc, if you are moderately attuned to contem- porary music doings, you are con- scious that this outfit is a seminal band for the synthesizer set. The trio, Edgar Froese (the group’s 44-year-old founder) and new recruits Paul Haslinger and Ralph Wadephul, continue to make music aimed to please the aural aesthetes. The insinuative sound is designed to implant itself internally and firmly above the brain stem. The LP bubbles with roundabout melodies. At its best, as is the case with the albuzn opener Marakesh and Cat Scan, the sound is fat, with rhythm enough not to come off as obtrusively mechanical. At its weakest, Tangerine Dream can sound like the soundtrack to bad TV. . MICHAEL BECKER music reviewer This release shows more of the former with bits of the fatter thrown in to keep the more op- tically-inclined coming back for more. The Bears — Rise And Shine, IRS Records/MCA 1988 The LP is packed with 14 whim- sical pop offerings. The group is fronted by ace guitarist Adrian Belew, who in the past has work- ed with King Crimson, Frank Zap- pa, David Bowie, Laurie Anderson and Paul Simon. Mix Belew's berserk guitar chops with a little Squeeze-style harmony and XTC- type songwriting quirkiness and you have an approximation of The Bears. It’s a bright, contagious collection loaded with wry lyrics running the gamut from commentary on the nuclear nightmare (Robobo’s Beef), to a hop through the Playboy mansion (Rabbit Manor.) . The right one to shake away the blues. Repeat plays as necessary. eee Ee POP past and present converges to make for an intriguing concert calendar during the next few weeks. Folk-pop singer Connie Kaldor appears 8 p.m., Sept. 11 at the Vancouver Playhouse. Reggae legends The Wailers hit the stage at 86 Street Music Hall Sept. 15. Zimbabwe Afro-popsters The Bhundu Boys play the Com- modore Sept. 16. African singing legend Miriam Makeba appears with Hugh Masekela Sept. 17 at the Orpheum. Political electro- folky Billy Bragg is at the Com- modore Sept. 23 and 24. Synth wizards Tangerine Dream and ex-Police guitarist Andy Summers breeze into town for a Sept. 28 show at the Orpheum Theatre. junveils REVIEWERS HAVE prais- ed her inventive imagery, emotional drama and entertaining insight. Choreographer Judith Marcuse plans to con- tinue that tradition. Using music that ranges from B.B. King to Jimi Hendrix and the classics, the Marcuse com- pany’s dancing and choreography translate musical energy to the stage in works to be unveiled at performances later this month. “4t's something that begs to he choreographed,” Marcuse says of Hendrix's ‘60s anthem Purple Haze, the song behind a three-minute solo that is one of her latest pieces. ‘4’ve taken from it the sense of being overwhelmed... retaining its passion and its incredible drive.’ Born in Montreal, Marcuse, 41, began her dance training there at the age of three, taught by her aunt and dancing to the piano accompaniment of her mother. In Grade 8 she put together her first public performance, Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury. Twelve years ago — long after that initial effort — she seriously began choreographing. An oversized notebook she carries with her everywhere is filled with notes and sketches — “I just dump everything in- to it: bits of poetry, things | see on the street’ — that appear more like hieroglyphics than the creative basis for a new dance. Many changes later the finished product will emerge, often a distant cousin to the ini- tial thoughts that sparked the piece. NEWS photo Mike Wakefield JUDITH MARCUSE...a staunch defender of dance as a kinetic art. “I'm not part of a cutting edge,”’ she offers as self- description. ‘I’ve always been a staunch defender of dance as a kinetic art.”’ STEPHEN BARRINGTON feature writer Looking deep into the morass of emotions and relationships. Marcuse transforms the abstract to bring audiences delicately crafted looks at humanity and human nature. Among her favorite choreography is the work done in Sting’s We'll be Together video, the early classic Les En- fants du Paradis and any Fred Astaire film. Upcoming for the 10-member company are film and televi- sion projects and the revival of the popular We Can Dance! series bringing the spectrum of dance into schools. For the spring season, the Marcuse company expects to find itself involved in something new that may offend purists — performing in an untraditional venue, backed by music rarely used to accompany contem- porary dance. “You have to be an optimist in some profound way to create art. With that optimism comes a certain delight in risk-taking.” The Judith Marcuse Dance Company performs at the Van- couver Playhouse Sept. 22, 23 and 24 as part of The Dance Centre’s Discover Dance series. included in the program will be the new solo work, a col- faborative work called Three Shades of Red by the three young choreographers and the Mar- cuse repertoire classic Cortege. For ticket details, call VTC/ CBO at 280-4444 or The Dance Centre at 872-0432.