Orient express

Cornershop take a virtuoso leap

by Franklin Soults

When ethnic Indian Tjinder Singh and his pal Ben Ayers formed Cornershop in their native England nine years ago, their inspiration was more political than musical. They came up with the group name as a way to reclaim the slur that all Indians ever do is run corner stores, and their first public move wasn't a gig but the burning of Morrissey posters for the singer's alleged anti-Asian prejudice. By the time Cornershop learned to play their instruments well enough to get signed by a major US label, however, they had gone beyond just making trouble -- they were remaking the white man's rock and roll in their own image.

Proof of that breakthrough was Woman's Gotta Have It (Luaka Bop/Warner Bros.), an unprepossessing 1995 masterpiece that combined raw, driving drones ˆ la the Velvet Underground, folksy sing-song melodies, and hybrid East-West instrumentation, including sitar, tamboura, and distorted "geetar." From the infectious Punjabi wake-up call "6 A.M. Jullandar Shere" to the joyous punk rave "Call All Destroyer," the mix of influences endowed the band's simple riffs with the same electrifying thrill that has charged great rock and roll since Elvis -- the spectacle of an outsider inventing his own place in the spotlight.

Cornershop's new When I Was Born for the 7th Time (Luaka Bop/Warner Bros.) takes that spotlight and increases the circumference to embrace a huge range of pop possibilities. There's a shot of straight hip-hop and one of warped country, a remake of "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" sung in Punjabi, and several forays into trippy, beatwise instrumentals reminiscent of the Indian pop hybrid known as bhangra. This cornucopia is a virtuoso leap beyond Woman's Gotta Have It, and it's winning these 29-year-olds the kind of stateside media attention they so thoroughly deserve.

True, the wider scope of When I Was Born sacrifices some of the simple and consistent groove of Woman's Gotta Have It in search of novel and varied effects. But that's not to say the group have abandoned straight tunes and riffs. "Sleep on the Left Side" (the album opener) and "Coming Up" (the album's halfway mark) are irresistible numbers that take Cornershop's songcraft to the next level of sophistication. There's a joyous Velvets-style groove about being a fan of Indian pop star Asha Boshle, and a magnificent Mekons-style weeper about chasing your disenchanted lover around the globe. Yet everything's so rich and rapturous, the songs can get by on their lyrical mantras: "It's good to be on the road back home again," "I sleep on the left side," "I'm on fire with the good shit," "I need a brimful of Asha."

As for the album's wide-ranging experiments, they may take longer to sink in, but they satisfy with their filling meanings and their tasty textures. The scratching on "Butter the Soul" may simply show off Singh's DJing skills (bet you've never heard a flute solo break the beat like this), but the goofball herky-jerk of "Funky Days Are Back Again" grows resonant when you realize it's a celebration of the '70s revival. Likewise, the whimsical spoken-word piece "When the Light Appears Boy" seems at first an indulgent doodle but turns out to be a poignant Allen Ginsberg poem about death, read by the author and mixed over what sounds like a traditional Indian funeral procession. And on and on, till the break of dawn.

For all that critics have a tendency to treat extravagant formal experiments as ends in themselves, even an undeniable masterpiece like Beck's Odelay can be unmoored by the slightly empty feeling beneath its postmodern pastiche (curiously enough, this is not a problem on Beck's slightly less masterful Mellow Gold). The edgy vantage point of When I Was Born, on the other hand, feels like a mission statement. It's also further proof that the most important development of the current rock-and-roll era isn't lo-fi or grunge or whatever brand of dance-beat bricolage you or I happen to like, but the way in which all these things have helped give voice to members of marginal and oppressed communities. The change reflects a truth I hold to be self-evident: that all "men" are neither created nor treated as equals, and that the losers in this lousy crap game are thereby endowed with the unalienable right to rock. A brimful of Asha for everyone.

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Talking 'shop

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