Reviews of new releases from Company Segundo, Meg Lee Chin and Jared Louche and the Aliens.   Jared Louche and the Aliens Covergirl (Invisible) Meg Lee Chin Piece and Love (Invisible/Sexy Beat) Of related interest: Pigface, Chemlab, Bjork Jared Louche, Meg Lee Chin Ozone Records, 1036 W Burnside St., 227-1975 4 pm Thursday, Nov. 11, Free Pigface, the ragtag flock of musical mutants marshaled by Invisible Records czar Martin Atkins, has long been collared with the label "industrial supergroup." But as Pigface's roster expanded to include anyone who lit Atkins' misfit fire, some fans lost interest. For such folks, Pigface was about star power more than songs or performances, and without big names like Skinny Puppy's Nivek Ogre or KMFDM's En Esch, a Pigface gig didn't have the same alluring cachet. These albums featuring two current Pigfacers should help change that. Jared Louche's disc is the less impressive of the two, consisting solely of cover tunes. But Louche, whose former band, Chemlab, was the only post-NIN pop-industrial group with a shred of personality, has never hidden his schlocky glam-rocker heart, and Covergirl lets him vamp through 10 tracks of digitally perverted mirth. Among the disc's standouts are the climbing electro crescendos of Roxy Music's "In Every Dreamhome a Heartache," two techno-fuzz tributes to Iggy Pop ("Sister Midnight," "Search and Destroy") and a corny karaoke-jazz version of Chemlab's own "Suicide Jag." Final verdict: a vanity project proving Louche has character, charisma and charm--three things the anemic industrial scene needs like a complete blood change. While Meg Lee Chin is also an energetic performer, Piece and Love is her first chance to step out solo. Apparently she's had a lot of ideas bubbling around in her skull, because Piece and Love refuses to sit in any one idiomatic seat, jumping from dubbed-out detonations ("Heavy Scene") to spoken-word rambles ("Nutopia") and big-beat anthems ("Thing," "Swallowing You," "Deeper"). The album's melodic flow, massive drums and general funkiness give it significant crossover potential--but as they're wont to do, Chin and Atkins rough up the mix with their deconstruction machines, scraping the production raw with a wire brush of white noise and distortion. Mainstream stardom may have to wait. Even if Piece and Love and Covergirl don't catch on with club kids, though, they announce Chin and Louche as talents. So next time Pigface rambles into town, don't bitch about not recognizing the performers' names. John Graham   Compay Segundo Calle Salud (Nonesuch) Of related interest: Ibrahim Ferrer, Rubén González The Ginger Rogers Theater, 23 S Central St., Medford (541) 779-3000 8 pm Sunday, Nov. 14 Sold out Gringo enthusiasm threatened to turn the Buena Vista Social Club, American ethno-hopper Ry Cooder's gathering of superannuated Cuban all-stars, into the world-music equivalent of those uncracked copies of A Brief History of Time that littered coffee tables 10 years ago. Instant cosmo cred, just add $15 payable to a local retailer. Fortunately, though, the harnessed fire of the grizzled son veterans captured on the BVSC disc and accompanying Wim Wenders documentary outshines any gloss Yanqui bandwagoneers could dollop on. Now, as if to ensure an escape from the Buena Vista nursing home, the project's brightest stars have struck out with new solo projects. Crooner Ibrahim Ferrer's silky debut expanded on Buena Vista's most romantic leanings; now irascible guitarist Compay Segundo amps the old ensemble project's hell-raising tendencies. In Wenders' film, Segundo brags of his 80-plus years as a cigar aficionado (he started when he was 5) and his industrious desire to spawn another kid (he's 92). Calle Salud (apt translation: Health Street) rings with that virility and time-honed confidence. Segundo, a flesh-and-blood lifeline to son and salsa's primordial beginnings, amply embodies Cuban music's traditions of craftsmanship and elegance, but he doesn't shy from playing rough. Lacing his expansive group's romps with West African beats and Yoruba lyrics, Segundo hits the voodoo vein buried under the Caribbean pinko state's Latinized veneer. The resulting deluge of sound--Segundo's band often sounds like it's trying to see how much a disc can hold--cleanses and energizes, an aural hormone shot aimed at the seasonal darkness of these wetland climes. And that's something no trend can contain. Zach Dundas - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published November 10, 1999