Reviews of three new releases   Cantores in Ecclesia with Portland Youth Philharmonic, Richard Zeller and Mary Sims Fauré's Messe de Requiem Cantores in Ecclesia Of related Interest: Portland Youth Philharmonic, Richard Zeller on Copland's The Tender Land, The Esoterics This recording of the city's finest young musical explorers taking on one of the treasures of the 19th-century liturgical repertoire is a welcome addition to the growing library of homegrown classical-music discs. Recorded in St. Patrick's Church, Cantores' Northwest Portland home, the disc is a glowing example of what director Dean Applegate has done with this mixed ensemble of boy, girl and adult voices during the past 19 years. Fauré's requiem, written in the two years between his parents' deaths, avoids the hellfire Judgment Day setting his contemporary Verdi preferred. Instead, his setting of the mass revels in the quiet depths of eternal slumber, making it one of the most beautiful and stirring of requiems. Alternating between massed and solo passages, the chorus is vibrant and rich from the opening. Soprano Mary Sims sings with sweet vulnerability, and hearing Richard Zeller's strong baritone in this context highlights why he's one of the finest singers in the Northwest. His strength is palpable but never overpowering. Huw Edwards and PYP play with subtlety and depth, though in the early passages the recording doesn't quite catch the fire of Fauré's later lush highs. Bill Smith     The Makers Rock Star God Sub Pop Of Related Interest: Jesus Christ Superstar, Tommy, the White Album The Makers formed deep in the last decade on the time-warped streets of Spokane, Wash., where whores ply a desperate trade along major avenues and are occasionally picked off by one of America's most elusive serial killers. Not a nice place. The Makers are not a nice band. Ripping off everything the Northwest garage bands of the early '60s forgot to nail down, they scattered tales of outrage and violence around the regional punk circuit--a common enough pursuit. The Makers, though, stood out from the pack with their love of fine threads and their reputation for being honest-to-God badasses in a field thick with fancy boys. After a move to Seattle, 1998's Kinks-ish Psychopathia Sexualis hinted at a transformation. Rock Star God seals the deal. This is the sort of record rock bands don't make anymore: a 55-minute operatic epic that tries to do it all, from tawny pop to Technicolor funk to Dylan-esque melancholia. Behind Mike Makers' inimitable sex-lord vocals, the Makers leave simplistic garage punk in the dust with lush string arrangements and sylvan keyboards. By the time the saga crashes and burns on the forthright rager "Too Many Fuckers (On the Street)," you know that you're in good, if brutal, hands. Zach Dundas   Lee "Scratch" Perry Ultimate Collection Hip-O Records Of related interest: Niney the Observer, Sly & Robbie, Max Romeo Two years ago, I saw Lee "Scratch" Perry in Santa Cruz. The audience was a dead-even mixture of stoned, dreadlocked teenage Phishheads and stoned Abercrombie & Fitch-type frat boys who'd once received Legend as a birthday gift. Amid this bumbling normalcy, my man Scratch, having already captured my lifetime allegiance by playing the strangest and most badass reggae ever, grabbed a bunch of bananas out of nowhere, set them delicately on his head and for the next half-hour spun 'round and 'round, never stumbling, never letting the bananas slip. It's possible that no one else in the audience even saw him do this: His lanky, 64-year-old presence is so strong and his arrangements so cavernous and impossible that he could easily have been projecting specific and unique images to every audience member's frontal lobe. You can find a bunch of the songs Perry played that night on this new collection of the sharpest cuts he ever produced (check out, for instance, the Congos' Scratch-produced "Neckodeemus" or his own "Roast Fish and Corn Bread"). Each track has enough warped beats, animal noises and simple, odd sounds to keep your ears happy forever. Sacha Webley   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published April 5, 2000