Cornershop

January 18 - 25, 1 9 9 6

***1/2 Cornershop

WOMEN'S GOTTA HAVE IT

(Luaka Bop/Warner Bros.)

Cornershop's mix of English alternative noise, pop, and rock melded with traditional Indian arrangements and scales is more than a gimmick. These mixed-heritage Brits juxtapose their various personal histories, genres, and traditions to create their own politically abrasive identity. Several songs are sung in Cornershop leader Tjinder Singh's native Punjabi, all over a heavy beat. (If that one-chord Indian drone sounds like the Velvet Underground, you know where the Velvets got it.)

"My Dancing Days Are Done" is a conventional pop number that slides into some exotic territory with the alternating male and female leads sung in French, backed by tabla and sitar. "Hong Kong Book of Kung-Fu" has an irresistible blues riff on sitar. The anthemic lyric is worthy of the Archers of Loaf: "Sometimes you lose and sometimes you lose" sung in an impeccable British-accented voice and the smart observation "Embarrassment keeps people in their place/Most of the time, but not always." Lyrics in three languages and a slew of musical elements fuse paradoxically into something exotic, familiar, and -- yes -- alternative.

-- Felix Khalatnikov