Various

THE UNACCOMPANIED VOICE: AN A CAPPELLA COMPILATION

(Secretly Canadian)

A number of the post-Palace bedroom folkies who record for Indiana's Secretly Canadian imprint (or for Jagjaguar, its sister label in Virginia) add barely audible accompaniment to their songs on their own releases, so the idea of inviting several bands from the labels' stables (Drunk, Songs: Ohai, the Panoply Glee Club) and others to drop the guitars entirely and sing for their suppers is a natural one. The 24 tracks range from the tossed-off (Appendix Out, singing into a faulty voice-activated microcassette) to the carefully planned (Pedro the Lion's almost choral "Breadwinner You"), but the contributors' most frequent move -- you could also call it the path of least resistance -- is to root around in the public domain for a folk/blues chestnut or two. The results range from David Grubbs's pleasant medley of "The Gypsy Daisy" and "Pinafore Blues" to the usually reliable Richard Buckner's uninspired reading of "Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down."

The voice-as-instrument approach is also well represented: Jarboe (of Swans) does the expected Diamanda Galás impression, Elliott Sharp's "Tzara" owes to fellow dadaist Kurt Schwitters's sound poetry, and Jandek, the Harry Lyme of lo-fi, offers a multi-tracked breathing exercise on "Om." Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar and Margaret Munchheimer split the difference with a lengthy piss-take (okay, a "deconstruction") of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." Elsewhere, the Grifters prove they don't need guitars to make fuzz, Mia Doi Todd sings a straight, sweet "La vie en rose," and Japonize Elephants credibly replicate a street-corner spiritual ("Daniel"). This is a tough one to listen to at a single sitting, with Danielson Familie's Coasters/Shaggs maneuvers and riot gal Nikki McClure's performance poetry being especially skipworthy. But it sounds more varied than it reads, and about half the tracks stand on their own merits, aside from the project's air of indie ethnography.

-- Franklin Bruno