Re-View: Magic Number

Back in 2007 when Luella Tripp learned that Siano, her last gallery, had to close because the Siano design group was giving up its lease, she immediately began planning an eponymous new space.

LGTripp Gallery is worth the wait. Airy with a vaulted ceiling and large arched windows, it is home to a stable of 14 respected area artists; however, right now the gallery is hosting an invitational summer show (hence the title "RSVP"). The number 14 must have some magic for Tripp — that's how many non-gallery artists she asked to participate in this show.

Painting dominates, but some of the most interesting work in "RSVP" isn't painting. Victoria Pepe describes Infinity Journey Through Infinity as a "virtual video painting." Available only in CD form, it contains programming that causes a picture (in a video or projected format) to continually change colors within a pattern of shapes outlined in black and accompanied by Pep's quiet, chiming analog and digital music. The specifically selected, ever-changing colors in Infinity Journey are not pixilated but, rather, programmed to be the same hue at any size. The combinations are random but, as Pepe says, "not haphazard" and will rarely repeat. The picture itself consists of many quirky geometric shapes ordered around a fat horizontal lightning-bolt shape that unifies the composition. It's as if the center has magnetically pulled all the other shapes to itself and locked them in place. Infinity Journey is easy to appreciate, even companionable. Pepe sees it as potentially meditative.

As a CD it may be perceived as less unique than, say, a print, but it is a limited edition (the artist does not say how many she will make). It would be especially effective if presented in a darkened room — a truly artful night light.

Tripp loves abstraction, seductive surfaces and smoothly resolved compositions. John McDaniel's semi-symmetrical ...

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Reconsider Me: Jewel Schmewel

Say this much for Jewel: She doesn't just stick to the sound that made her rich. In the 15 years since her breakout debut she's dabbled in dance music, Christmas tunes, spoken word and lullabies. With her latest, Sweet and Wild (Valory), Jewel returns to the country-pop well for a second time, following 2008's Perfectly Clear. Call her an opportunist, but with a rodeo-cowboy husband and a Texas ranch, she's living the life she sings about — and it's much more sweet than wild. Tracks like "Stay Here Forever" and "Satisfied" reveal a woman who's got what she wants and is grateful for it — if a bit insecure and unsure about whether it'll last.

That seems like a natural enough progression from the 20-year-old who gave us the insecure, unsure and occasionally brave Pieces of You in 1995. It was a phenomenally successful debut from a previously unknown singer-songwriter, selling upward of 7 million copies on the strength of three ubiquitous singles and the quirky bio of its creator, who — all together now — grew up poor in Alaska, yodeled in bars with her dad, and lived in a VW van. 

If you take her lyrics at face value — and there's really no other way to take them — Jewel must've faced some extraordinarily hostile coffeehouse crowds when she was starting out. She's on her own for most of Pieces of You, strumming her acoustic guitar while singing overly earnest rhymes about rebellion ("Daddy"), criticism ("I'm Sensitive") and prejudice ("Pieces of You").

But she enlisted some interesting guests for the only songs that matter. "Who Will Save Your Soul" and "You Were Meant for Me" feature three of Neil Young's sidemen, including legendary Muscle Shoals organist Spooner Oldham; Charlotte Caffey of the Go-Go's plays piano on "Foolish Games." And ...

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One Track Mind: La Roux

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NOTE: La Roux's show at the Trocadero, originally scheduled for Thu., July 29, has been postponed until Tue., Nov. 29.

La Roux sure do lead a thrilling, treacherous life. Or so the titles of their singles would have you believe: The well-coiffed dance-pop duo debuted with "Quicksand" and assailed the U.K. charts with the ferocious "In for the Kill." Even if it's all metaphorical (yeah, they're pretty much just love songs), there's enough real menace and fierceness in their tracks for the violent conceits to hit home. Nowhere is that more true than on "Bulletproof," their finest achievement and the most urgent, insistent, utterly invincible sliver of synth-pop from the past decade of unabashed retro-wonkery. Call it an '80s-retread if you must; you can't shoot it down. Ben Langmaid's gritty keyboards pierce like tiny neon shards, and Elly Jackson's spitfire vocal delivery (she of the Tilda Swinton-esque androgyny and opinionated, dubiously reasoned public statements) offer nothing but glisteningly sharp edges. That is, until the song's gleaming chorus — the sort that's simply one line repeated four times, because that's all it needs to be. "This time I'll be bulletproof," Jackson wails, betraying the slightest hint of vulnerability. More likely, we're the ones who need protection.

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Music Picks: Robyn/Kelis

pop/dance

Despite some parallels with the Rihanna/Ke$ha tour that'll be passing through town in a few weeks — apart from the corresponding initials and rampant mononymity, both pairings highlight the rapidly crumbling divide between electro-pop and R&B, circa 2010 — this is truly the dance-diva double bill to beat this summer. Two uncommonly well-seasoned pop-world vets, Robyn and Kelis (pictured) both debuted way back in the 1990s. Each can boast at least one bona-fide classic ("Show Me Love"; "Milkshake") and plenty of close contenders; each has seen her share of label woes and fan-base fickleness; each embodies a strong, sexy, funny, distinctly noncomformist persona all her own. And each is currently making arguably the finest work of her career. Robyn's Body Talk, Pt. 1 (Cherry Tree) is a brief but unmitigated, earworm-crammed delight, with more on the way, while Kelis' Flesh Tone (A&M) may be the real stunner: a full-on plunge into hard-edged dance and tribal house, with heart-tugging, inspirational lyrics addressed to her son Knight, who turned 1 last Thursday. Aww.

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