Vampyros Lesbos - The Vampires' Sound Incorporation

Here you have it, folks: the Holy Grail of European porno soundtracks, guaranteed to give your Halloween party the erotic edge you've been seeking. Organs overdriven into groovy oblivion, guitars fuzzed-out beyond even the realms that 60's psych dared to explore, and a tight-as-hell rhythm section vying for supremacy with some very horny horns... this is one of the most fab records ever to come out of Germany. Jess Franco's 1970 sexploitation farce Vampyros Lesbos has rightfully gained quite a cult following for Soledad Miranda's frankly ridiculous performance as, you guessed it, a lesbian vampire. But the real selling point of this antiquated slice of European art-porn is its swingin' soundtrack, which sounds like The Mar-Keys joined by Lord Sitar and a crew of German ghouls groaning up a storm for the full Halloween effect. This album combines two soundtracks performed by The Vampires' Sound Incorporation, led by easy listening maestros Manfred Hübler and Siegfried Schwab: several tracks are taken from Jess Franco's titular schlock-fest and a few more from the only slightly less preposterous She Killed In Ecstasy. "The Lions & The Cucumber" hits like a funk bullet, while the blatant Rolling Stones ripoff "There's No Satisfaction" pleasantly recalls the days of zodiac medallions, crushed velvet bellbottoms, and low-budget porno flicks passed off as high art. "We Don't Care" is a monster of a jam, while "The Message", for better or worse, sounds like nothing else in the world of movie soundtracks. Get together some friends who can appreciate the finer things in life and get your Halloween party in gear with this whacked-out, acid-fried art-porn pseudo-masterpiece.

You know what I mean? ...Yeah, you know what I mean.

Dracula Boots - Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds

Just in time for Halloween, here's a magical gift for all you jivers, shuckers, run-a-muckers, and forlorn punkabillies wondering what happened to the Halloween you once knew in the halcyon heyday of The Cramps, Gun Club, and The Birthday Party: it's el hombre mysterioso himself, Kid Congo Powers, and he's back from the grave with a couple of rootin'-tootin' funk zombies to remind you why you went over to the dark side in the first place. The Kid has been a member of The Cramps, Gun Club, and Nice Cave & The Bad Seeds, so it only stands to reason that this album would be the best thing to happen to psychobilly since Lux Interior, rest his soul, first discovered Elvis. But here's the thing: this ain't psychobilly. It's psycho, that's for sure... bizarre and eerie covers of Bo Diddley's lost gem "Funky Fly" and the "Found A Peanut" song that they teach you in Cub Scouts attest to that. But Kid Congo's abandoned Carl Perkins and Gene Vincent for a sort of clattery funk that sounds more like a goofy Halloween-themed version of Can than it does "Human Fly". Oddly enough, there's two, uh, "Christmas" songs here: the filthy voodoo funk of "Kris Kringle Ju Ju" and the macabre Count-Five-in-hell dirge of "Black Santa". The most thrilling tracks, though, are the ones on which Kid Congo really gets weird, spooky, and fun in the most harebrained way imaginable: "Rare As The Yeti", for example, is three sublime minutes of all that's great about rock-and-fuckin'-roll. I hafta say it: this is my favorite album of 2009. Happy Halloween, all you turkeynecks, and stay tuned for more Halloween-y filth tomorrow!

You're rare as the yeti... not quite as pretty.

Mal Hombre - Lydia Mendoza

Lydia Mendoza wasn't popularly known as "la alondra de la frontera" ("the lark of the border") for nothing. Her guitar-picking and sonorous voice carried generations of traditional Mexican border music boldly into the recording era, establishing Tejano music as northern Mexico's most beloved music. Mendoza's story has particular significance today, as the cultural border of Mexico and the United States becomes increasingly blurred, as Mendoza was in fact born in Houston, and a significant part of her fan base consisted of Mexican-Americans living in Texas. It matters little that Mendoza recorded for Okeh in San Antonio, Texas, as her canciones are subtly gorgeous odes to the Chicana experience. Blues ballads like "Los Besos de mi Negra" and "Palida Luna" are plaintive, eerie evocations of amor en la frontera, while more upbeat and polished productions such as "Delgadina" bespeak a ranchera influence that colors Mendoza's soaring voice brilliantly.

La reina de la música Tejano.

The Magic of Ju-Ju - Archie Shepp

Archie Shepp is jazz's favorite cantankerous firebrand - a rebel with a very noble cause, willing to preach to anyone who will listen. Shepp's battle against racial injustice has taken the form of several radicals brands of jazz music, all of them equally intense and personal. The Magic of Ju-Ju, one of Shepp's most treasured entries into the free jazz canon is exactly what the title evokes: music as fearsome ritual, albeit a ritual that's as fun as it is fearsome. The real magic here, almost needless to say, lies within the nearly nineteen minute title track, a righteous voodoo ceremony of sax skronk and relentless African percussion; it's soul jazz at its most gloriously soulful. Shepp is at the top of his game here: not content to simply groove in tune with the rhythm, he shrieks and stabs like the chief houngan in this primitive ritual. And while the rest of the album doesn't quite match the power of the title track, the unconventional waltz of "You're What This Day Is All About" is a brief pleasure, "Shazam" careens back and forth across frantic and desperate drumming from Norman Connors, and "Sorry 'Bout That" revisits the Afrocentric pulse of the title track. This remarkable album is Shepp at his most playful and original. Have a listen.

Nothing is sacred.

Äänityksiä 1963-1973 - Erkki Kurenniemi

When it comes to avant-garde minimalist electronic composition, one must either live in awe of it or completely fail to understand it. Most people fall into the latter category, and there's probably a good reason why: the uncompromising noise of Karlheinz Stockhausen or Olivier Messiaen hardly sound as good as The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin when you're crusin' for chicks. It's easy to miss the genius of the avant-gardists. Finnish nutcase Erkki Kurenniemi, however, belongs to a category somewhat removed from those anti-classicist pariahs. While Iannis Xenakis and György Ligeti spent their careers battling common notions of what comprises "music", Kurenniemi was screwin' around at the University of Helsinki, looking boldly into the future like a musical mad scientist. Kurenniemi could not be satisfied with simple sound textures (which renders this compilation somewhat less fascinating than video evidence of his work). He was busying himself with inventing synthesizers that responded to movements sensed by a video camera, another that generated sounds through skin contact, based on a participant's emotions, developing the first commercial microcomputer, and collaborating with progressive rock band Wigwam. This collection consists of some of his primitive synthesizer experiments from the 1960's, and while it might not be much good as party music, for those interested in the pure science of sound, it's indispensable.

The future is not what it used to be.

FabricLive.27 - DJ Format

The Fabric nightclub's ever-expanding series of DJ mix albums released under the names of Fabric and FabricLive focus primarily on IDM, trance, electro, and a number of other electronic dance music permutations, which is perhaps why DJ Format's entry into the FabricLive canon feels simultaneously like a fly in the electro-oriented ointment and a welcome departure from programmed dance beats. DJ Format, you see, does not spin electro. His gift to the Fabric community is a saucy platter of finger-lickin' R&B - rhythm and blues in many incarnations. The first half of this house-rockin' compilation is comprised primarily of the funkiest hip-hop this side of the "Funky Drummer" break - Ugly Duckling, Lyrics Born, Cut Chemist, Coldcut and DJ Format himself all make appearances. Dropping two of his own tracks might seem a bit indulgent if Format didn't coast on such an ace groove from start to finish; in fact, his collaboration with Abdominal, "3 Ft. Deep" is an unmatched highlight. But it's not the hip-hop side of this platter that contains FabricLive.27's chief appeal. From Ella Fitzgerald's dynamite cover of "Sunshine Of Your Love" onward, it's pure soul fire. Nina Simone and Julie Driscoll tear the roof off with their respective monster dancers, and eccentric slide-guitarist Ellen McIlwaine steals the show with a barnstorming rendition of "Toe Hold". Elsewhere, retro-funk revivalists Karachi Prison Band conjure up a tempest of percussion on "Put Some Grit In It" and Cleo Laine just about wraps everything up with the Northern soul nectar of "Night Owl" leaving our old friend Edan to bring this party to a close with a magnificent finale on "Rock and Roll".

We're ready to begin so grab your spot on the floor.

Knef - Hildegard Knef

German glamour queen Hildegard Knef is one of those European household names that inspires reverence and adulation at home but seems hopelessly corny to American ears. Knef was always more of an actress than a chanteuse, and most of her early 60's recordings are rather tedious exercises in Europop. Yet here we have one of those late 60's oddball one-offs that flourished in Europe under the influence of Burt Bacharach and his lush pop orchestration. Naturally, Knef is pretty damn corny, and Hildegard's supremely Teutonic intonation might alienate most American listeners. But for those open to a little bit of continental kitsch, Knef might provide the perfect tonic for ears tired from "serious" German music. Hildegard could easily pass for one of Serge Gainsbourg's yé-yé protégés (think France Gall, Anna Karina, especially Brigitte Bardot), with baroque-psych-funk jams such as "Wieviel Menschen waren glücklich, dass du gelebt", melodramatic classical-inspired arias like "Friedenskampf und Schadenfreude", and tender acoustic ballads like the elegaic closer, "Eisblumen".

Nichts geht verloren, kein Traum und kein Wunsch.

Primary Colours - The Horrors

You've really got to hand it to The Horrors. It seemed that their gimmicky goodness had worn itself out almost before it had even had a chance to develop back in 2006. A bunch of London youngsters playing vintage zombie rock via The Stranglers and dressing up like characters from an Edward Gorey comic come to life... sounds promising, right? Ah, yes. But then NME came along with their patented "British Music 'Zine Touch of Death" technique and slapped the boys on the cover of their joke of a magazine before they'd even finished recording their debut EP. Let's face it: bands with a tunnel-vision approach to making music rarely survive past their first big break, and it seemed that The Horrors would be no exception: their debut full-length Strange House was all style and very little substance. But now they've returned in 2009 with a proper follow-up, and damned if it isn't a wonder of an album. Oceans of synth have replaced the cheesy Screaming Lord Sutch-style organ vamps of Strange House, and odd and awkward little ditties about drawing Japan, counting in fives, or what-the-fuck-ever have been replaced by pocket symphonies drawn from the playbooks of Joy Division, The Jesus & Mary Chain, and Suicide. "Mirror's Image" and "Who Can Say" are glorious odes to misery, while "I Can't Control Myself" burbles and shakes with barely-controlled energy.

And though it's hard for me to say, I know you're better off this way.

A Világösztön Kiugrasztása - Vágtázó Halottkémek

Well holy sheeeeit. Now this is something special. From the magical land of Hungary, we have Vágtázó Halottkémek, one of the most bizarre and terrifying metal bands of all time. The band, who also go by the English and German translations of their name ("Galloping Coroners" and "Rasende Leichenbeschauer", respectively) have been channeling the spirit of Attila the Hun since 1975 and perfecting their own brand of ass-kicking, ancient-Magyar-gods-invoking, Rome-sacking extreme punk/metal. The band has a veritable cult of followers back in their homeland of Magyarország, and I use cult in the most freakish sense of the word. It's not hard to see why, however: the Galloping Coroners' ferocious tribal metal could make a fiendish barbarian out of a nun. The band cites the culture of the ancient Magyars as its inspiration, and gee, what a surprise! Half of the songs on 1990's A Világösztön Kiugrasztása ("Jumping Out The World-Instinct") sound more like the Butthole Surfers attempting a demonic invocation than contemporary metal bands like Van Halen (but that's certainly not a bad thing). Opener "Halló, Mindenség!" comes roaring out of the gate like a wild boar with a red mist in its eyes and quickly establishes itself as one of the most awesome punk/metal songs of all time! After that, it's total fucking insanity.

Not for the faint of heart.

The Mack - Willie Hutch

Blaxploitation cinema never exactly lived up to its full potential. Shaft and Superfly are kinda-sorta household names, but it's really more for Isaac Hayes's "can ya dig it?" on "Theme From Shaft" and Curtis Mayfield's float-like-a-butterfly, sting-like-a-bee croonin' on "Pusherman" that these two films remain in moviegoers' memories to this day. Likewise with The Mack. Not many people seem to give a damn for Michael Campus's 1973 "social commentary", but Willie Hutch's accompanying soundtrack is firmly entrenched in the collections of soul/funk enthusiasts the world over. And it's no wonder, as this blaxploitation gem is positively brimming with cool ghetto vibes. Willie Hutch had worked through the 60's as a songwriter and producer for The Jackson 5, The Miracles, and Marvin Gaye, but this is where the Hutch legend really begins to take flight: 9 tracks of archetypal blaxploitation funk, without the gimmickry or Shaft or Superfly... just oceans of wah-wah guitar, earth-shaking bass, and hi-hat clatter. "Vampin'" sets the soundtrack off at a frantic pace, while "Mack Man (Got To Get Over)" drags satisfyingly along over an unstoppable slinky groove. Can ya dig it?

Now how you gonna get it together, bein' against one another?

In The Flat Field - Bauhaus

Goth rock never got any better than Bauhaus. Creeping out of the shadows in 1979 with "Bela Lugosi's Dead", one of the most gloriously macabre pop singles ever released, Bauhaus defined the sound of gothic post-punk: crawling, shuddering, lurching; glam rock with a death trip. The band's first album, In The Flat Field is a real symphonie des Grauens, an apocalyptic festival of shadowy textures and fractured, jagged melodies. Like Bowie in the depths of some nightmarish opium binge, lead ghoul Peter Murphy whoops and howls like a banshee, switching between sickly grin and horrific grimace. The rest of the band is equally dynamic, conjuring a fever dream of a sonic landscape, the likes of which had never been heard in pop music. The title track and opener, "Double Dare", are ferocious and immediate; relentless in their assault on punk's increasing creative lethargy. While there's nothing here quite as monolithic as "Bela Lugosi's Dead", the seven-minute closer "Nerves" comes close, an eerie dirge that alternately oozes and rages: German Expressionism for the 1980's.

Nerves like nylon, nerves like steel.

Root Down - Jimmy Smith

According to music lore, there exists a race of people who call themselves "jazz purists" (I've read about these people in many music magazines, though I have yet to meet one in person). Anyway, the belief central to jazz purist culture is that change is inherently bad, and adherence to a strict musical formula takes precedence over innovation and creativity. These jazz purists have never been able to dig James Oscar Smith or the superfly sound of his cool-jerkin', soul-shufflin' Hammond B-3 organ. The purists always wanted Jimmy to stick to tried and true jazz snobbery - Dixieland vamps and pre-bop swing - but Jimmy, man... Jimmy Smith cannot be contained. Having virtually invented soul-jazz, that misunderstood jive-talkin' cousin of hard bop and funk fusion, Jimmy was unstoppable from the time he recorded his first album in 1956, purists be damned. Here we find Jimmy at the top of his game: 1972, with a decade and a half's worth of searing R&B-flavored jazz ecstasy behind him, Jimmy rocks a live set of the hottest soul-jazz ever recorded: "Sagg Shootin' His Arrow" crackles with righteous energy, "After Hours" burns slowly, augmented by the electrifying guitar work of Arthur Adams, and the stone-cold, solid-cold classic "Root Down (And Get It)" brings down the muthafuckin' house.

I kick my root down, I put my root down!

Baader Meinhof - Baader Meinhof

Luke Haines is one of those pop pariahs that almost seems destined to fail before the public eye. Pop music and megalomania are uneasy bedfellows, and no one seems quite so determined to marry them as Haines. Best known for his cerebral roles with The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder, Haines is a perfectionist with a fractured sense of beauty and harmony. His timeless Britpop recordings with The Auteurs on albums such as New Wave hinted at an uncomfortable cynical melancholy, but this is where Haines lets his witty dissatisfaction bubble to the surface. Loosely based around the story of the German Red Army Faction, an extreme-left quasi-terrorist group from the 1970's, Baader Meinhof is naïve socialist propaganda viewed posthumously with an invigorating dose of funk. Haines abandons the pop classicism of his earlier work for a sparse, Stevie Wonder-meets-Karl Marx platter of fractured dance music. Funky clavinets, Arabesque strings, and fuzzy guitars soundtrack a manifesto of daring, incendiary propaganda as Haines embodies the PLO-backed amateur revolutionaries of the Baader-Meinhof group on buzzy death disco groovers like "There's Gonna Be An Accident", "Mogadishu", and "...It's A Moral Issue". In all honesty, revolution has sounded more fun than this, but Baader Meinhof is a funky and fascinating interpretation of one of the most bizarre manifestations of counterculture of the early 70's, eyed by the most crotchety tunesmith of the 90's.

You're goin' home in a fuckin' ambulance.

Hot Women: Women Singers From The Torrid Regions Of The World - Various Artists

A love of crackly old 78's has always been a recurring theme in R. Crumb's iconic underground comics, but, to my knowledge, this is the first album to be compiled and packaged by Crumb himself. Crumb idealizes women (dig his eccentric portraits of his favorite plus-sized beauties and art-damaged runaways), so this compilation seems like a logical extension of his love for world music from the good ol' days and the tough old gals who made their voices heard. The depth of this compilation is astounding: twenty-four tracks of lovely ladies belting out traditional classics from their homelands, places as exotic as Cuba, Brazil, Chile, Sicily, Hawaii, Madagascar, Turkey, Algeria, and Greece*. My personal favorites are old-timey Cajun singer Cleoma Falcon's "Blues Negres", Tejano border queen Lydia Mendoza's "Mexico En Una Laguna", and rebellious Greek rembetika singer Rita Abadzi's "Mime Stelis Mana Anastin Ameriki", but the amazing diversity of this collection makes naming highlights rather difficult. These recordings are mastered from 78's from the 20's, 30's, and 40's, so, naturally, many of these foreign folk tunes may sound "difficult" to some ears. Nevertheless, it's a helluva collection, and, at the very least, a warm and fuzzy gift from underground comics' most fascinating personage.

What does it all mean, Mr. Natural?

*For the discerning ethnomusicologist, here follows a list of recording years and locations:

1. "Blues Negres" - Cleoma Breaux Falcon (Lousiana Cajun, 1934)

2. "Mexico en Una Laguna" - Lidya Mendoza y Familia (Mexican, mid-1930s)
3. "El Cacahuatero" - Tona la Negre (Mexican, early 1930s)
4. "Tambor de la Alegria" - Grupo de la Alegria (Cuban, 1928)
5. "Liva" - Leona Gabriel-Soime with A. Kindou Orchestra (French Caribbean, 1932)
6. "Quero Sossego" - Araci Cortes with Brunswick Orcherstra (Brazilian, 1931)
7. "Papa Araucana" - Las Cuatro Huasas (Chilean, early 1930s)
8. "Sevillanas No. 2" - La Nina de Los Peines acomp. by Nino Ricardo (Spanish, 1927)
9. "Lu Fistinu Di Palermo" - Rosina Trubia Gioiosa (Sicilian, 1927)
10. "Mime Stelis Mana Anastin Ameriki" - Rita Abadzi (Greek, mid-1930s)
11. "Arostisa Manoula Mou" - Maria Vasileiathou (Greek, late 1930s)
12. "Guenene Tini" - Cheikha Tetma (Algerian, 1930)
13. "Khraïfi" - Aicha Relizania (Algerian, 1936)
14. "Yama N'Chauf Haja Tegennen" - Julie Marsellaise (Tunisian, 1929)
15. "Neva Hicaz Gazel" - Ayda Sonmez (Turkish, 1946)
16. "Ballali Madja" - Hamsa Khalafe and Alia Atia (African, circa 1950)
17. "Bina Adamu" - Hadija Binti Abdulla (East African/Swahili, early 1930s)
18. "Chant d'Invitation a la Dance" - Badolo, Maboudana (Middle Congo, 1933)
19. "Miverena Rahavana" - Hirain-Drazaivelo, Noforonin-Dratsiambakaina, Christine Zanany (Madagascar, 1931)
20. "Title in Hindustani" - Miss Nilam Bai (Hindustani Indian, 1928)
21. "Title in Burmese" - Yadana Myit (Burmese, early 1930s)
22. "Hat Du" - Co Ba-Thinh, Kham-Thien (Vietnamese, 1930)
23. "Lei E" - Emma Bush with Johnny Noble and his Hawaiian Music (Hawaiian, late 1920s)
24. "Chant D'Amour" - Chants Populaires Tahitens (Tahitians, 1931)

Summer Of Hate - Crocodiles

There's a certain dimension of Crocodiles' sound that's been handed down through generations of buzzworthy indie bands, underground legends, art-rock pariahs, and cult idols: it's the sound of pop music gone awry, and it's informed the music of, at various times, The Velvet Underground, Television, Pixies, The White Stripes, and, most recently, Crocodiles. You may have noticed that the common denominator for all of these trailblazers is their American nationality, which, naturally, places Crocodiles as heir apparent to the throne of infectious American indie rock. Hyperbole? Yeah, probably. After all, crush-worthy indie bands come and go like the seasons. But there's something undeniably familiar about Crocodiles, which is all the more puzzling since it sounds so refreshing. Punk it ain't, nor is it garage rock, 60's retro-pop, new wave, or any other cultish subgenre you might come up with. Rather, it sounds like a conglomerate of all of the aforementioned, all filtered through a post-millennial prism: 50's teen balladry shacks up with post-rock sonic textures on "Here Comes The Sky", anthemic Ramones-style punk boogies with 80's synth-pop on "I Wanna Kill", and fuzzy electronica warmly burbles with vintage psychedelic goodness on the appropriately titled "Young Drugs". American art-rock legends in the making, or just the most promising new band of 2009?

All the kids sing along with me.

Murs 3:16: The 9th Edition - Murs

It's hard to know where to begin with Murs; he doesn't fit nicely with the pop/party-rap crowd, nor is he an indie backpacker or a "socially-conscious" b-boy. Murs is, however, a wicked storyteller - possibly the best in hip-hop today. Murs has been knocking out record after record, both solo and with crews such as 3 Melancholy Gypsys and Living Legends, since 1996, but he has yet to taste the sweet nectar of mainstream success; a bit surprising, since Murs has an indisputable knack for creating nifty sing-a-long choruses and unforgettable narrative verses. 3:16 wasn't intended as much more as a one-off project with producer 9th Wonder in between tours, but it's ended up the most popular release in this enigmatic character's entire catalogue, and it's not hard to see why: running only 35 minutes, 3:16 is totally devoid of shitty gimmicks, irritating guest appearances, idiotic skits, and any other sort of lazy filler material typical of popular rap albums. Each of 3:16's tracks is razor-sharp, from the fat dub riddim and sweet 'n' sour wordplay of "Bad Man!", the sad-eyed "The Pain", on which Murs claims that he's "more Coldplay than Ice-T", the hilarious and humble story-songs "Trevor an' Them" and "H-U-S-T-L-E", the heartbreakingly tragic and touching "Walk Like A Man", and the outrageously raunchy "Freak These Tales". Murs is that rarest of beasts: the humble MC with more talent in one dreadlock than most of the party rappers have in their entire bodies.

These niggas need Jesus, fuck it, these niggas need Oprah!

Mexican R'n'B - The Stairs

The entire Britpop movement of the 90's was just one big ass-kissing party, with bands like Oasis, Blur, and Pulp just lining right up to bow right down before previous Brit masters such as The Kinks, Roxy Music, The Jam, and The Smiths. Like most other Britpop bands, The Stairs were largely content to simply tread the same ground as their vaunted forefathers had in decades prior - unlike their NME-beloved contemporaries, The Stairs didn't sell any damn records. The trio came tumbling out of Liverpool in a cloud of cannabis smoke, released one album in 1992, Mexican R'n'B, and returned to the earth, never to be heard from again. The band's sole offering doesn't sound remotely Mexican, nor does it sound like R&B (unless, of course, we're talking R&B of The Pretty Things' "Rosalyn" variety). It does, however, sound brassier and ballsier than all of The Stairs' soon-to-be-stars Britpop compadres. Edgar Summertyme groans and growls like The Pretty Things' Phil May (seriously, The Pretty Things' influence is all over this album) over a band trying desperately to play 60's psych through their stoned stupor. This is classic stoner rock: "Mary Joanna" and The Who pastiche of "Weed Bus" are as blatant as ganja jams get. Elsewhere, the band gets scuzzy with "Woman Gone & Say Goodbye" and just plain weird on "Russian R'n'B (The World Shall Not Be Saved)". Clearly this is not groundbreaking stuff, but it's way more fuckin' fun than Oasis.

Gotta get on that ol' weed bus!

Black Christ Of The Andes - Mary Lou Williams

Jazz and spirituality have, at times, gone together like peanut butter and jelly, but certain jazz sectors have sought to distance faith and piety from the secular swing of black America's national music. There have always been, of course, jazz musicians willing to flip detractors the bird and forge ahead in creating intensely personal spiritual statements; Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, and Sun Ra all developed distinctive voices through their integration of "church" music. However, a statement on the level of Black Christ Of The Andes from an artist like Mary Lou Williams was almost guaranteed to stir controversy. Williams had been making her name as the top woman composer in jazz since the late 20's, but no one really expected her to come up with anything like this in 1963: an eerie combination of a capella hymns performed like The Swingle Singers on a serious death trip and snappy piano runs complimented by a bold rhythm section. "St. Martin De Porres" comes up first: a dirge-y spiritual with a series of vocal whoops and harmonies eventually giving way to the sly bop of "It Ain't Necessarily So". Williams caresses her ivories most satisfyingly on innovative numbers like "A Fungus A Mungus" and "Forty-Five Degree Angle" until the fractured gospel-soul-jazz of "Praise The Lord" comes along and steals the show at disc's end. Artists such as Sun Ra and Albert Ayler always attracted controversy for their avant-garde tendencies, but only Mary Lou Williams, 53 years old at the time of this album's recording, could have created an album so eerie and uncompromising that it simultaneously delights and perplexes forty-six years later.

Praise the Lord from Heaven.

Dixie Chicken - Little Feat

In the swampy, largely mediocre quagmire of 70's Southern rock bands, only two can really claim to be musical innovators on a level that still garners critical respect three decades after everything's all said and done: the Allman Brothers Band and Little Feat. Sure, you've got your Lynyrd Skynyrds, your .38 Specials, your Doobie Brothers... but comparing these trailer park neer-do-wells to the Southern-fried Beethovens (Duane Allman) and Mozarts (Lowell George) of the Allmans and Little Feat is like comparing an eight-piece KFC box to a real Dixie feast complete with fried chicken, black-eyed peas and sweet tea. It almost goes without saying that the Allmans and company were one of the 70's most dynamic jam bands, but Little Feat often gets forgotten in the "Sweet Home Alabama" shuffle. Lowell George and his band of merry men in Little Feat recorded a solid decade's worth of nearly perfect music, from the band's formation in '69 until Lowell George's premature death in '79. Dixie Chicken, however, is their ultimate statement: a groovy manifesto of laid-back country funk, slack blues, and good ol' rock 'n' roll. George's newfound love of New Orleans R&B is all over this album, from the swaggering title track to the stanky Allen Toussaint cover, "On Your Way Down". Elsewhere, "Juliette" shimmers with fusion-inspired brilliance, and "Walkin' All Night" is country blues at its loose 'n' juiciest. Dixie Chicken captures the sound of Southern comfort better than even the Allmans ever could have, and it just proves what Southern rock forgot sometime around 1975: you can't commoditize Dixie.

I'll be your Tennessee man.

Was Ist Musik? - Justus Köhncke

The cover of German beat maestro Justus Köhncke's second full-length album depicts a bunch of scribbles written sloppily on a sheet of graph paper; oddly fitting for an album that thrives on tweaking a minimalist techno formula so exhaustingly observed by an ever-increasing cadre of bedroom composers throughout the world. Köhncke has consistently proved himself to be one of the most interesting acts in the Kompakt label's stable of pop-inspired avant-gardists, and it's here that he really gets to work and tosses all perceptions of cold, impersonal German tech-house right out the window. Was Ist Musik? only hints at minimalism ("Der Augenblick", "2After909"), and more often strives for pure pop-house perfection. And perfection it achieves - opener "Lucienne" rides a funky old-school groove all the way into a paradisiacal Alpine sunset, giving way to the canny disco of "Was Ist Musik?" The entire album is that rare mythical beast: a techno album served with a smile, lacking all pretense and poise. Justus leaves us with his best track to date: "So Weit Wie Noch Nie", a life-affirming house classic that sounds as good in bed as it does on the dancefloor.

Wir hören ein Singen im Raum...

...For The Whole World To See - Death

It pretty much goes without saying that any band who think to call themselves Death are going to sound pretty ferocious. It also must be mentioned that a far more famous band marauding as Death are regarded as one of the forefathers of (you guessed it) death metal... different strokes for different folks, I suppose. Our Death (the first to call themselves Death, I should stress), consisted of three dope-smokin', two-fisted brothers outta Detroit, Michigan. The Hackney brothers recorded seven tracks of fierce, brittle proto-punk in 1974 and vanished into Detroit's garage rock ether until a few months ago in 2009 when Drag City Records reissued the band's entire seven track catalogue as ...For The Whole World To See. Legend has it that Columbia Records mogul Clive Davis heard something special in Death and persuaded them to change their name. The Hackneys refused. Listening now, the idea of Clive Davis hearing anything remotely commercial in Death seems pretty mystifying: "Keep On Knocking" is Grand Funk Railroad smokin' laced blunts, while "Rock 'n' Roll Victim" manages to make Bad Brains sound like lightweight AM pop. "Let The World Turn" shows a little more finesse than the pummeling garage-punk that the Hackneys played so damn well, and "Politicians In My Eyes" is one of those kooky naïve political rants that died with the stoned 70's. Reissue of the year, and I dare you to try and argue about it.

I'm a rock 'n' roll victim too!

Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth - 24-Carat Black

Anyone with a little bit of schoolin' in pop music and a pair of feet for dancing knows that Stax put out some funky, get-down shit in its time as a functioning record label. But Stax was always more than just horny horns and groovy grooves. Following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis in 1968, Stax positioned itself as America's premier exponent of black popular music. Sweet Sweetback, Wattstax, and Shaft were soon to follow, all three films releasing soundtracks on Stax. Equally cinematic and far, far more trippy, however, is this nasty funk nugget from 1973: a ghetto Oedipus Rex-sized epic for the black power movement. It's all about sorrow and anguish and the most distorted soul this side of "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)". Opening track "Brown-Baggin'" is slick and laid-back, but it's the ghetto symphony of "Poverty's Paradise" that's really guaranteed to freak yer brainz.

Somewhere on this raggedy earth, somebody said something once about some kind of paradise...

Beauty & The Beat - Edan

Edan Portnoy is a skinny white boy with a mop of curly hair and a mouth full of brass tacks. Beauty & The Beat is his second proper album (not including a handful of mixtapes), and he quickly makes good on the promise he showed on Primitive Plus. "Funky Voltron" is a cut-and-paste sockhop jam for skinny-jeans b-boys with the shiny sneakers, and from here on out it's pure psychedelic witchcraft, climaxing with the stoned freak-out pastiche of "Rock and Roll" and coming down gently with the scratchy samba of "Promised Land".

Is it hip-hop? Sure it is. Psychedelic-samba-funk-soul addled by synths and some outrageous boasts ("Somebody throws a baby! Oh shit! Do a spinning move and catch it and the crowd goes crazy!") The production is slinky and stanky and guaranteed to give stingy audiophiles arrhythmia, and the rhymes are so maddening and eccentric it's equally likely to make De La Soul or William Blake sound pedantic. Dig this funky shit.

I thought of freedom and I jetted to the promised land.

It's Great To Be Here

Hipsters, flipsters, finger-poppin' daddies:

It's time to peruse yet another music blog, this one by the name of Solid Gold Easy Action.

I'll try to post an album or two every day, to keep you undernourished musical gourmandizers rabidly salivating at my metaphorical door.

Cool vibes, brother, real cool vibes.