CD Review: Luscious Jackson

CD Review: Luscious Jackson singer shows grown-up sound on disc

By JENNIFER CHANCELLOR World Scene Writer
3/17/2007

It seems like forever since anyone's heard a peep from 90s alt-pop-rock-hip hop band Luscious Jackson's lead singer Jill Cunniff. Or from her band.

This year marks not only the release of a greatest hits compilation from LJ, but also a reunion of sorts to finish its yet-untitled children's album, which the band hopes to release this year.

It looks like the bandmates have grown up since their 2000 split, when they parted ways to be with their families.

The proof is in this month's release of Cunniff's first solo album, "City Beach," a mostly self-produced collection meant to "bring the beach to caged-up city dwellers," she said recently.

A dozen summery, breezy tracks jangle and sway to Cunniff's trademark honeyed warble, and songs like "NYC Boy" incorporate the mid-90s-style loops and bouncy hip hop influences that made Cunniff and her all-girl band an influential force in college and underground music scenes.

But there's something else going on here. Cunniff's newest effort is far more than a rehash of loops and lyrical raps.

"Happy Warriors," "Calling Me" and "Lazy Girls" pull threads from LJ's hook-laden tapestry, but weaves in an updated, jazzy hint of 60s-era Tropicalia. The eclectic, laid-back, New York-bohemian-pop sound is a colorful thread that also binds the album together.

And then there's Emmylou Harris, who loans

her hauntingly lonely vocals to the soulful and very grown-up "Disconnection," a song about learning to nurture love. But despite Cunniff's usually sweet and spot-on pop sensibilities, "Exclusive" is cloyingly close to becoming too neuvo-retro with its cheesy, echoey harmonies and trite lyrics, such as, "I'm not gonna wait in line ('Wait in linnnne!')," and "I told you I'm a one-man band ('One man bannnnd!')."

Otherwise, "City Beach" lyrics are what one might expect from a former LJ member who has dedicated her work to her beloved home of New York City. Cunniff sings about popsicles, rain in parks, train yards, five-story walk-ups, subway rides, rooms with views, love, spinning records . . . and throws in plenty of merry yeah-yeah-yeahs and hand claps for good measure.

Overall, Cunniff's sound is brighter and more effervescent than most of her work with band Luscious Jackson, but her distinctive, fuzzily distorted guitar sound, especially on "Love is a Luxury" and "Future Call," blasts listeners back to a time when poppy femme-rockers such as Luscious Jackson, Liz Phair, The Breeders and Veruca Salt did whatever the h-e-double-hockeysticks they felt like doing to the genre, and their fans loved them for it.

This time around, it looks like fans will enjoy the matured counterpart of that era, too.

iPod picks: "NYC Boy" and "Love is a Luxury."

By JENNIFER CHANCELLOR World Scene Writer