Jazz-rock band the Other Planets are among New Orleans’ most capable, heavy musicians. You’re never sure what to expect from the band’s ambitious, multi-instrumental live shows, given the Planets’ penchant—almost fetish—for quick evolution. Even better are the band’s four albums that, starting with Discreet Manipulations, cut away the jamming to concentrate on a group of songs that mean something to each other.
But where the songs on the band’s other records casually take giant leaps from marimba jazz to Ween-esque esoteric rock, to squishy electronica (among other genres), Hello Beams concentrates mostly on a psychedelic pop sound, featuring beautiful horn-section arrangements, and three-part vocal harmonies performed by Planet leader/keyboardist/percussionist Anthony Cuccia, Dr. Jimbo Walsh and Kelly Carlisle.
Where other modern bands would have surely utilized ProTools to make this vocal task easier, the Other Planets took to the woodshed and learned how to perform all the vocals live, together. The result is something like a psychedelic Pfister Sisters, via Frank Zappa (who, despite the Other Planets’ genuine originality, still seems to play heavily into the band’s style). These new vocals are the album’s biggest success, and a relief after the intentionally muffed singing of the band’s last album, Holiday for Vacationers—an interesting artistic decision, but not necessarily a satisfying one.
To that end, the new album kicks off brightly with “High Beams,” which layers “hello”s and “hi”s as Cuccia kicks psychedelic poetry over detailed horn lines like a New Orleans Flaming Lips, but more musical and ambitious. Hello Beams is frontloaded with several similar successfully twisted pop songs, leaving the experiments tucked toward the album’s end for the patient, adventurous listener.
The lyrics on Hello Beams seem more personal and less sarcastic. The 3/4 time and lilting country-ish melodies of “Strawman” feel almost as serious as a song by fellow Bywater group Happy Talk Band, while on “The Date,” Cuccia recalls a girl who told him that “Poetry is masturbatory,” to which he replied that it is also how many men find glory in this world. Somewhere in there, he mentions putting a bullet in his brain, followed by some less sincere carnival-style bop-ba-bop-ba-bop-bop.
The album ends with a suite of songs, each distinctly different from the next: the rocker, “Johnny Guitar”; the gentle dub reggae lilt of “Downstream” (which has great horn solos, some beautiful echoes, and certainly doesn’t embarrass the boys, but doesn’t necessarily disprove the rule that white dudes should avoid reggae); “The Docks,” a very strong, horn-based instrumental; and “Troubled by the Times,” a trippy ’80s disco jam that could soundtrack a montage during the original Miami Vice. The album closer, “Waltz Mart,” rams an oompa-loompa beat up against a light jazz swing break featuring quirky guitar by the album’s producer, Mark Bingham of Piety Street Recording.
While the band’s originality may keep it from ever playing Jazz Fest, the Other Planets’ Hello Beams is mandatory for anyone who considers themselves a fan of monster New Orleans musicians who strive to also write practiced, original songs that stick to your ribs.
