Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse - Eugene McDaniels

Well, ladies and gents, I'm sorry to say that I'm going to be taking a break from Solid Gold Easy Action for a while... I've just got too much goddamned shit to do and not nearly enough time to do it. I'll still try and post an album a week or so, and hopefully come back in full force once I get some more free time in my schedule. Anyway, here's an album that oughtta tide you over for a while: Eugene McDaniels's monolithic soul/jazz/funk/folk masterpiece, Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse. From the plunking bass notes and hi-hat clatter that starts the album, it's clear that this a rare-groove long-player to cherish. But the grooviest thing about Headless Heroes isn't its funkiness (it's not exactly a dance album), but its weirdness. Sounding like a collision between the spacey soul-jazz of Herbie Hancock, the folky soul of Terry Callier, and the ornate blaxploitation funk of Isaac Hayes, Headless Heroes is literate and poetic in the way that so few classic R&B albums are. McDaniels sings and emotes with all the improvisational unpredictability of an experienced jazz vocalist (which McDaniels had been for nearly a decade), but his lyrics owe more to America's folk tradition of the 60's than to jazz lyricism. Still, there's some fiery Afrofuturism informing these tight grooves, and manifesto-like tracks like "Freedom Death Dance" are almost psychedelic in their verbal intensity. This album is rightly vaunted as a cratediggers' classic, and it's not hard to see why: every song crackles with righteous energy and soulful pomp. It's not surprising that Headless Heroes was recorded and produced by legendarily ahead-of-his-time jazz maestro Joel Dorn. Even if it's not quite jazz, it's still as groundbreaking and far-reaching as any of Dorn's work with Yusef Lateef or Rahsaan Roland Kirk. I implore to give this album a listen - it is, without a doubt, one of the greatest and most inspiring lost classics of the 70's. The nasty Hendrixian funk of "The Lord is Back" deserves to become part of R&B's canon of classics, while "Supermarket Blues" is a criticism of race relations as witty and sharp as any of the Harlem Renaissance's finest moments.

The Lord is black, his mood is in the rain.

Porcella - The Deadly Snakes

Looking back, the whole “garage rock revival” of the early 2000’s was one of my favorite parts of growing up. Having already been exposed to classic rock, the discovery that an entire rock’n’roll culture had been gestating in my own backyard (Detroit) inspired me to delve into the world of garage rock with the kind of wild-eyed intensity that only 14-year-old boys learning about rock’n’roll for the first time ever get. Back then, I would gush about the raw power and hot guitar riffs of just about any group of shaggy-haired dudes with a “the” at the beginning of their band’s name. Then, gradually, I grew up and realized that 90% of garage rock sounds exactly the same, and now I only listen to the best of the bunch. I didn’t know it back then, but one of the very best garage bands of the last decade was a band that I rejected because they weren’t loud enough: The Deadly Snakes. While I was listening to legions of mediocre “mod” or “blues” bands, The Deadly Snakes were a couple hundred miles north, in Toronto, expanding and experimenting with their garage-y sound, adding elements of old-timey folk, carnivalesque blues, and admirably unique psychedelia. In 2003, the Snakes released Ode To Joy, an album stuffed to the gills with white-hot blues-punk. It wasn’t quite as loud or aggressive as The Dirtbombs or, say, Guitar Wolf, so I ignored it. Then, in 2005, they brought Porcella to the table. Let’s just get this out of the way right now then: Porcella isn’t garage rock by any stretch. It sounds like some awesome combination of the Oblivians and the Decemberists: soul-inflected gutter rock meets literary sophistication. The entire album pretty much sums up what I was trying to get at earlier in this review: garage rock is boring without embellishment. The Deadly Snakes embellish the style in the form of strings, horns, various oddly-tuned keyboards, and rather bizarre lyrics about sinking ships, shooting game birds, and other such pursuits. It’s a real trip, and for those of you who still haven’t forgiven garage rock for the travesties of Jet and their ilk, here might be a good place to fall in love all over again.

On the edge of a knife is a calm simplicity.

Night Life - Ray Price

This is the second day in a row that we’ve had an album from someone named Price, and if yesterday’s Alan Price LP offered an interesting glimpse into the concerns of the British everyman in the early 70’s, this country gem from Ray Price gives us an equally revealing view of the end of the honky tonk era in America in the early 60’s. This is a profoundly intimate country album, and it almost seems to take on a life of its own as it wistfully evokes the end of the era brought about by Hank Williams, with whom Price briefly shared a room in the early 50’s. But it seems pointless to bemoan the death of honky tonk when Night Life foreshadows so much incredible music to come. Night Life is one of country’s first concept albums, and even if Marty Robbins made a more fully-realized concept album a few years earlier with Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, Price’s set of odes to loneliness, lost love, and, sure ‘nuff, the night life itself, is a much more timeless set of tunes. The title track alone is, pardon my excessive enthusiasm, one of the all-time greatest American songs ever written, period. At the juncture of country and jazz (which would be further explored throughout the 60’s and eventually turned into the crystalline twangy pop of the Nashville “countrypolitan” sound), “Night Life” is a beauteous tribute to those shadowy characters that inhabited the musical underworld of the pre-outlaw generation South. Featuring some of the most heartbreaking pedal steel ever put to wax (courtesy of the god-like Buddy Emmons), it was written by Willie Nelson years before his pot-smokin’ hillbilly image would make him a superstar. The rest of the album is almost as stellar, as Price’s semi-legendary backing group, the Cherokee Cowboys, pretty much invent the “Nashville sound” that would characterize country music in the 60’s. This album was not a success for Price upon its initial release. Yet time has been kind to it, and it’s now rightly viewed as one of country music’s greatest moments. Price would go on to become a superstar in his own right with some schlockier, strings-laden material later in the decade, but Night Life is his finest moment. (For some reason, the reissue of this album that I’m working with only includes “Night Life” with a rather tedious spoken introduction, so I’ve included the Columbia single release as well.)

The night life ain’t no good life, but it’s my life.

O Lucky Man! - Alan Price

Alan Price’s soundtrack for Lindsay Anderson’s bizarre 1973 allegorical dark comedy, O Lucky Man!, is a marvelous example of a film that could not exist without its pop music soundtrack. O Lucky Man!’s protagonist, Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell reprising his role from Anderson’s 1968 culture-shocker If…), finds himself in a series of increasingly odd Candide-esque situations that, in supremely dry British fashion, lead the viewer to question one’s place in society like few other movies. Yet it’s Price’s soundtrack that cements the film’s status as a cult classic, and it’s plain to see that Anderson’s eccentric film would not have nearly the impact it does without Price’s contribution. Although Price got his start as organist in the original Animals lineup, there’s not much Eric Burdon-style R&B grit to be heard here. No, the best way I can describe this album is as the greatest album The Kinks never made. “My Home Town” is the best song that wasn’t on The Village Green Preservation Society, and “If knowledge hangs around your neck like pearls instead of chains, you are a lucky man,” is the best line Ray Davies didn’t write. These songs are bound in classic English tradition – music hall pop and skiffle sound as vital as rock ‘n’ roll here, and this is 1973. When The Kinks were reminiscing about the good old days in 1967, the hippies and acid-eaters ignored them. And while Alan Price’s pop ditties in O Lucky Man! didn’t exactly change the way Brits saw society, it certainly sounds in step with the paranoia and uncertainty of the early 70’s. The title track itself is a pop masterpiece, combining ace classic rock and the sharpest, most insightful lyrics this side of Noël Coward. “Poor People” is almost Randy Newman-ish, with its flighty piano and tongue-in-cheek attitude, and “Look Over Your Shoulder” sounds like the kind of heartfelt advice one only gets from one’s elders after a few dark beers. This album has slipped somewhat under the radar as of late(it does sound a bit dated), but Price’s keenness and sophistication sounds just as sharp today as it did three and a half decades ago.

If you’ve found a reason to live on and not to die, you are a lucky man.

Chum Onah: Bx7 Celebrates The Music Of Michael Jackson - Various Artists

Michael Jackson’s death back in June has, for some reason or another, made an impression on basically every single human being alive. I’d rather not mention my thoughts on the entire media circus surrounding the former King of Pop’s demise, but let me just say: if you thought that even the most cynical, chillwave-loving hipsters were immune to the news of MJ’s death, you’d be dead wrong. As proof, I offer Chum Onah: Bx7 Celebrates the Music of Michael Jackson. And sure enough, there’s a fresh-faced young Michael sporting a ridiculous psychedelic afro on the deliberately cheap-looking cover of this bizarre tribute album. Here’s the gist of it: somebody (Butterface, whoever that is) brought together ten buzzy indie/lo-fi/______wave groups to record a set of Michael Jackson covers in their own trendy recorded-in-the-bedroom style. So far this review is making it sound like I don’t dig this album, but that’s not true. I wish I didn’t dig this album, because, frankly, it seems more like a cheap attempt at pointless irony than a legitimate tribute. But the songs themselves are mostly pretty fab, particularly Toro Y Moi’s spacey version of “Human Nature”, which fizzes and crackles with the same groundbreaking energy that made MJ’s original such a revelation (I’ve already professed my love for Toro Y Moi a few days ago… he doesn’t seem to be capable of putting out a bad track). And despite the fact that Hungry, Hungry Ghost describe themselves as the world’s only “post-indie transcendentalist punk band” (gag me), their rendition of “Earth Song” is downright inspiring: it’s melodramatic, corny, and beautiful in all the right ways. Dem Hunger’s bizarre sound collage take on “A Brain Inna River” (is that even a Michael Jackson song?) sounds about as indebted to “Billie Jean” or “Thriller” as does Napalm Death, but it’s a cool track nonetheless. Unfortunately, it’s not all good vibes: Phil & The Osophers’ two tracks are lo-fi to the point of idiocy (you might as well listen to radio static), and Julian Lynch’s two chances to shine are squandered on a couple of hokey “I ♥ the 80’s” jokes. But even with its occasional missteps, Chum Onah is a pretty interesting and, for the most part, entertaining tribute album, and at the very least, it’s something different from the glut of bland MJ tributes that we’ve been enduring for months now.

If they say why, why? Tell ‘em that is human nature.

Album Para La Juventud, Vol. 1 - Juan Ravioli

The fabulously named Juan Ravioli is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Buenos Aires, and, judging from the strength of Album Para La Juventud, Vol. 1, his first album, he's learned from the greats. After the delightful surprise of hearing some non-tango music from Argentina wears off, immerse yourself in the hearteningly accessible sound of Señor Ravioli's supremely well-realized imagination. I don't usually find myself impressed by bands that blatantly rip off classic rock (I'll take The Beatles over any of their millions of imitators, thanks), but Juventud stops just short of outright plagiarism. At times it sounds like the aforementioned Fab Four, at times like Pink Floyd, Tim Buckley, Neil Young, Radiohead (who are basically classic rock already), or, on the magnificent "La Diversidad De Los Rumbos", like Nick Drake gone jazz fusion. It's all en Español, of course, which does a lot in the way of distancing Ravioli from his monolithic influences, but the sweet 'n' sour acoustic laments and pop hooks are pretty darn universal. It's not likely to be the most groundbreaking album you've ever heard (unless your musical tastes are pretty much limited to Oasis), but it's a warm and familiar-sounding album that only the most jaded snob could dislike. Yes, the acoustic guitar melodies all start to blend together after a while, and Ravioli's not the most dynamic vocalist in South America, but when he tosses in a curveball like the previously mentioned and satisfyingly melodramatic "La Diversidad De Los Rumbos", it becomes obvious that there's more to our man in Buenos Aires than simple idol worship. Muy bueno.

Youth has no age.

Candylion - Gruff Rhys

Gruff Rhys might not be a household name (even in indie households, if there exist such things), but as a behind-the-scenes sort of eccentric, his skill for crafting psychedelic pop songs is rivaled only by Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips. As frontman for Wales’s finest band, Super Furry Animals (as well as earlier cult group Ffa Coffi Pawb), Rhys has spent the last two decades making music that can only truly be described as Gruff Rhys music. Combining psychedelia, folk, ambient, trip-hop, soul, and free jazz, Rhys is a bona fide renaissance man of indie music. With a knack for writing snappy pop tunes and a pleasantly husky, heavily Welsh-accented croon for a voice, I can’t imagine anyone hearing Rhys’s music and not enjoying it. Candylion, Rhys’s second solo album, is not so different from Super Furry Animals’ more recent material, except maybe being a little more laid-back. Featuring songs in English, Welsh, and Spanish, Candylion is a cutesy, quaint album that recalls Syd Barrett at his most delightfully whimsical. “Painting People Blue” is a wistful, waltz-like ballad that could sound just as fitting for a picnic in the sunshine or a walk through the snow. The track that best showcases Rhys’s diverse talents, however, is definitely the fourteen-minute prog-rock opus “Skylon!”. Layers of rollicking piano, pastoral folk flute, atonal strings and synthesizers, and fuzzy spoken-word samples build upon an insistent drum pattern that’s almost motorik-like in its consistency. It calls to mind the best British prog of the early 70’s, suggesting that Barclay James Harvest and the Strawbs might be cooler than you thought.

Now we’re in this shit together, let’s let each other live.

The Malcolm X Memorial: A Tribute In Music - Philip Cohran & The Artistic Heritage Ensemble

One of the best things about the late 60’s and early 70’s was the wealth of bizarre concept albums that never really took off. For every Tommy there was a God Bless Tiny Tim, and, in terms of jazz, for every universally applauded masterpiece (like Pharoah Sanders’s Karma or Alice Coltrane’s Journey in Satchidananda) there was some sort of interesting, odd, and woefully anti-commercial project like The Malcolm X Memorial: A Tribute in Music. Philip Cohran made his name as a trumpeter with Sun Ra’s Arkestra (Sun Ra, of course, being the Egyptian god of bizarre concept albums), so it’s almost surprising that the music on Malcolm X is as coherent as it is. The album consists of four tracks, each representing a different stage of the former Malcolm Little’s life. The first track, “Malcolm Little” is a slow-burning blues with some nifty jazz flute, emulating Malcolm’s coming of age as his family moved throughout the Midwest. It’s groovy mood music, though it’s not particularly incendiary, especially in light of the innovation to be heard later in the album. The next track, “Detroit Red”, is a brassy big-band number, reminiscent of Sun Ra’s early Sound of Joy-era material. “Detroit Red” is ace old-school bop, the perfect evocation of Malcolm’s time as a conk-haired Harlem hustler, and, at ten minutes, it’s easy to get lost in the ballsy groove and forget just what this album’s all about. Oddly, the track titled “Malcolm X” is the shortest on the album, but it’s a slab of valiant soul-jazz that draws on the dignity of the Malcolm X legend itself. The final track, “El Hajj Malik El Shabazz”, is the only track here that sounds like an elegy for the late civil rights leader, and, with its layers of syncopation, it’s the song that most closely spiritually approaches Malcolm’s controversial doctrine. All in all, this is a well-done concept album, even if it is a bit dated and uneven in spots. For what it’s worth, however, I feel it to be a fitting tribute to one of the civil rights era’s greatest Americans.

Always talkin’ brotherhood, white man, you just ain’t no good.

You Don't Know: Ninja Cuts - Various Artists

There was a time in the mid/late 90’s when London’s Ninja Tune records virtually ruled the digital underground, with practically everything they released becoming an instant trip-hop/chillout/nu-jazz/ambient/drum & bass classic. Ninja Tune’s greatest achievement was legitimizing “weird” electronic music and introducing it to the dancefloor, and even the radio – it’s easy to forget that 90’s hipsters were dancing to something other than rave and big beat. You Don’t Know is the fifth in the label’s Ninja Cuts compilation series. While Ninja Tune might not command the underground respect it once did, it’s still one of the freshest labels in existence. Far from relying upon its old, outmoded standby genres, label founder Coldcut assembles here an all-star cast of mysterious dancefloor gods for this three-disc voyage through the oceans of “indie” club music. Though everything found here could tangentially be considered “dance” music, the variety of material is simply stellar: Ghislain Poirier, Bonobo, Daedalus, Mike Ladd, King Geedorah, and others bring the abstract hip-hop sound in which Ninja Tune has recently been specializing, The Cinematic Orchestra, The Herbaliser, and Yppah peddle homegrown acid jazz/funk, Roots Manuva and Ty rock over bottomless dub rhythms, and Amon Tobin, Mr. Scruff, and Coldcut himself update the classic Ninja Tune sound for a new generation of listeners. It’s all quality, but the most unusual tracks here are those that warrant repeated listens: Pop Levi’s buzzy electro-glam “Dita Dimoné”, RJD2’s barnstorming percussion-heavy “True Confessions”, and TTC’s over-the-top Francophone hip-hoppy “Travailler” are all marvelous dancefloor fillers, proving that Ninja Tune is even more relevant and impressive now than it was in its heyday over a decade ago.

Une

Deux

Trois

Meets A.S. Dragon - Bertrand Burgalat

Bertrand Burgalat's got style, and lots of it. As a singer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, record label head, and impeccably sharp dresser, he, along with other upstarts like Benjamin Biolay and Vincent Delerm, has been keeping the swinging spirit of 1960's Paris alive since the mid-90's, both musically and sartorially. But unlike Biolay and Delerm, who sound like little more than aurally pleasing Gainsbourg/Dutronc/Polnareff clones, Burgalat does his own thing, blending spacey Stereolab-style electronics, "French touch" dance beats, groovy 60's-derived rock'n'roll, and Radiohead-esque pomposity. This, a live album from 2001, finds Burgalat fronting A.S. Dragon, an ace space rock group assembled to perform as the house band for Burgalat's own Tricatel record label (inspired by Booker T & The MGs' keenly-felt presence at Stax Records, I might add). To be quite honest, A.S. Dragon steal the show with their spectacular brand of mod rock, and it's hard to wonder if this album might not be even better had it been recorded with the group's regular frontwoman, Natacha, an androgynous-looking fashion plate with a penchant for performing au naturel. But let's not bash our man in Paris, Burgalat himself, as his louche crooning proves to be perfectly satisfactory, as he whispers across cosmic numbers like "Follow Me" in an impenetrable Gallic accent. Further cuts like "Gris Metal" and "OK Skorpios" strut with the sophistication of Roxy Music and the raw soul energy of The Small Faces. But the show-stopping highlight has gotta be the last number, a groovy, vintage keyboard-heavy rendition of Smokey Robinson's "Tears Of A Clown". A.S. Dragon stretches a Motown classic into a spectral psychedelic jam that constantly grows in intensity across seven minutes, making this a rare post-millennial live album that manages to sound more urgent and thrilling than a batch of well-considered studio cuts.

Just like Pagliacci did, I try to keep my surface hid.

Silky - Andre Williams

Andre Williams is one of the badassiest badasses in all of badassdom. If you need proof, just read some of the Black Godfather’s song titles: “Pussy Stank”, “Only Black Man in South Dakota”, “Pasties and a G-String”, “Humpin’, Bumpin’, & Thumpin’”, “Bonin’”, and his very own country-western classic, “Pardon Me (But I’ve Got Someone To Kill)”. It seems necessary to point out that Andre Williams is a product of Detroit, MI, and how could he have come from anywhere else? This man is a legend – originally starting out as an old-school R&B singer with Fortune Records in the 1950’s, he returned to recording in the 1990’s as a fiendish, bitter, and downright dangerous “punk-blues” singer, playing with many of Detroit’s local garage rock heroes, including Mick Collins of Gories/Blacktop/Dirtbombs fame. This album is pure garage-punk with a little bit of blues and R&B thrown it. It’s pretty standard gutbucket roots-punk, with the spectacular advantage of Andre’s freewheeling insanity. Here he sounds like R&B’s dirtiest old man, ranting and raving on grinding cuts like “Agile, Mobile, & Hostile”, “Bring Me Back My Car Unstripped”, and the marvelous story-song “Car With The Star”. Elsewhere, he even tackles country music on “Only Black Man in South Dakota” and the oddly touching “Country Western Song”. If you’re tired of hearing skinny white boys tryin’ to play the blues (and who isn’t tired of that, after four decades of listening to it?), maybe it’s time to hear a nasty ol’ black dude trying his hand at punk rock. Fuckin’ killer.

People would come from miles around to see this black boy gettin' down.

Expresso 2222

Even though I love tropicália music, it’s hard to deny that Caetano Veloso is a douchebag. His politics, his egotism, and his sheer obnoxiousness detract, for me, from his (remarkable) music. Yet there’s one point on which Caetano and I agree, and that point is Gilberto Gil. In Veloso’s book, Tropical Truth, he constantly asserts that Gilberto Gil was the greatest musician of the tropicália generation, and I would have to agree. Although I love Os Mutantes to death, and I find Tom Zé to be the most fascinating of the tropicálistas, Gil had the best tunes, the best style, and the best goddamn attitude of them all. While Veloso, the Mutantes, Zé, Costa, and others were all consciously striving to record revolution, Gil was making sublime, timeless music that has aged magnificently regardless of politics. Only Jorge Ben was as sublimely consistent as Gilberto Gil, and if Gil’s records aren’t as groovy and funky as Ben’s, they’re more forward thinking and experimental. This album, Expresso 2222, is the first album Gil recorded in his native Brazil, following two years of political exile, and it’s easily the most joyous and vibrant of Gil’s early work. Drawing on classic samba, psychedelia, and the sort of vivacious funk that Gil had been exposed to in the United States, Expresso 2222 has no need of the wacky arrangements and oddball genre-blending experiments of Gil’s first few albums. “Back In Bahia” is the first classic: a skittering, frantic, soulful blend of Latin percussion, blues guitar, and Gil’s nasal shout. The title track continues in the percussive samba vein, while Gil’s skills as an arranger are apparent on sublime tracks like “O Canto de Ema”. This is the apex of Brazilian music in the early 70’s.

Tanta saudade preservada num velho baú de prata dentro de mim.

On Hearing The First Cuckoo In Spring - Frederick Delius

Frederick Delius is one of those delightful mystery men of classical music – a composer whose works are not generally considered part of the standard classical repertoire, yet remain influential and notable for their unusual structure. Delius’s forte was tone poetry, which was still a somewhat undeveloped area of composition immediately following the romantic era of Wagner and Mahler. Delius’s great strength was his individuality; indeed, few post-romantic composers developed a symphonic identity as distinct and unorthodox as Delius’s. Falling somewhere between the grandiosity of Strauss and the humble impressionism of Ravel, Delius’s works are, simply, some of the most pleasing and agreeable works of the early modern classical canon. His most notable piece, “On Hearing The First Cuckoo In Spring” is a marvel of simplicity and elegance. Wistful and slow moving, it evokes the atmosphere of springtime more charmingly than any piece this side of Grieg’s “Morning Mood”. The nine other tone poems collected here are nearly as delightful, if not so groundbreaking. If you’ve been looking for a semi-obscure composer to namedrop alongside your friends’ declarations of love for Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, Delius might just be the man for you.

“Music is an outburst of the soul.”

Causers Of This - Toro Y Moi

Bloggers far more knowledgeable about the indie world than I have termed Toro Y Moi's mellow electronica-esque music "chillwave", and even though that's a rather moronic tag, it somehow fits the dreamy pop of Causers of This. Toro Y Moi is a project of The Heist & The Accomplice lead singer Chaz Bundick, and, to my ears, it's definitely the best album to have come out of the lo-fi indie/electronica movement that's sweeping America. While most of Toro Y Moi's peers sound a bit too self-consciously amateurish for my tastes (see: Neon Indian, Memory Tapes, Washed Out), Causer of This is a perfectly realized pop masterpiece. Occasionally psychedelic, occasionally dancey, it's a mellow pastiche of 80's pop songcraft and new millennium eclecticism. At various times, influences from Talking Heads, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Prince, and even Hall & Oates can be heard, all underpinned by the sort of ambient hip-hop peddled by Boards of Canada and Bibio. A comment on Toro's last.fm page describes this simply as "J Dilla's Haunted Graffiti", and it'd be difficult for me to come up with a more accurate and succinct description than that. "Blessa" is already an underground hit, with its cool Animal Collective-gone-80's vibes, but for me it's the pure magic of "Imprint After" that steals the show, sounding like Thriller-era Michael Jackson tripping on Ambien. Simply put, this is first real masterpiece of the new decade. (Thanks to my girlfriend, by the way, for turning me on to this gem. Fellas - cool girls love this shit. Play it in your car if you want to impress someone.)

I see the wind blow into my shoes.

Live In London - The O'Jays

It's been a while since I last posted any classic R&B here on Solid Gold Easy Action, so I feel it's about time that The O'Jays made an appearance. Needless to say, The O'Jays were one of the premier vocal group of the first half of the 70's, but their Philadelphia International Records peers such as The Spinners and Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes were known primarily for their lush, string-laden balladry and not their locomotive live performances. At the beginning of the disco era, soul groups were more concerned with crafting studio singles that would translate well to the radio and dancefloor instead of perfecting their live showmanship. But where The O'Jays are concerned, it's the vivacious energy of their performances that define them, and of all the Gamble & Huff-affiliated R&B groups of their era, The O'Jays were by far the most exciting. Though this 1974 release was recorded live in London, it sounds as though it could just as easily be a Wattstax outtake from Philadelphia International's peers and rivals, Stax Records. The energy here is infectious, yet, save for crowd noise, there's not a single note out of place. The O'Jays themselves never sounded so gloriously invigorated as they do here, and the live versions of classic cuts like "Back Stabbers" and "Love Train" hit even harder than do the studio versions. A ten minute version of "Sunshine" is equally majestic, and as it eventually gives way to the dynamite closer of "Love Train", it's clear that The O'Jays were one of the greatest live R&B groups of all time, ranking with the greats like Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, and perhaps even James Brown.

People all over the world, join hands. Start a love train!

Dar & Receber - António Variações

It's odd that among all of Europe's great pop music eccentrics, some garner sizable cult audiences in the US and UK, while others achieve great success in their native countries while passing virtually unnoticed by the American and British pop/rock cognoscenti. Cult legends like Serge Gainsbourg and Jacques Brel remain college radio staples in the English-speaking world, while even less iconoclastic musicians like Goran Bregović, Boris Vian, Lucio Battisti, Selda Bağcan, and Pugh Rogefeldt have small followings outside of their homelands. It's unfortunate then, that António Variações, one of European pop music's great innovators and oddballs, remains woefully obscure even after having achieved great success in his native Portugal, as well as having essentially changed the face of Portuguese pop music in the 80's with his clever mixing of synth-pop and electro-rock styles with more traditional Portuguese forms such as fado. And for anyone who counts his/herself as a member of Sparks' fanbase, Variações will sound like manna from heaven. Ironic, since Sparks, an American group, were abysmally unsuccessful in the US, while racking up many hits in Europe. But truly, this sounds so much like Sparks that it's impossible to ignore: the almost goofy synth-rock beats, the sweet falsetto vocals, and the general flamboyance all call to mind the Mael brothers' best work. But to label Variações as a mere Portuguese imitation of those underground rock pariahs is to miss the glorious individuality of his work. Dar & Receber, the last album he recorded before dying of AIDS-related illness in 1984, is a masterpiece of European pop music. Halfway between new wave and Iberian folk music, it's one of the most underrated classics of the 80's. "Canção de Engate" was the hit, a song that, for many Portuguese, iconicized the civil liberalization that followed the Carnation Revolution of the 70's. The rest of the album is just as iconic, and just as exciting, and if you feel the need to put a face on the man behind the music, google Variações to see one of the most singular styles of the 80's... scissor-shaped glasses ought to have been big.

Tu estás livre e eu estou livre.

Turquoise - Headdress

Among all the bogstandard lo-fi "psychedelic" bands in the world, you'd be hard-pressed to find one more warm, hypnotic, and mysterious than Headdress. Sounding like a much hairier, much Southwest-ier version of Grouper, the two (presumable) dopeheads of Headdress conjure up an aural miasma that encompasses all of the infinite desert expanses, dream-like mountain landscapes, and vivid pink sunsets of Arizona and New Mexico. What's most remarkable about this music is its sparseness: no track contains much more than some guitar drone, some heavily echoplexed vocals, and mebbe an organ or a rainstick. Although I'm reluctant to get personal, I must declare that seeing these guys live is quite an experience. They don't seem to have noticed that any time has passed since about 1975, almost as if they've been lost in a brilliant peyote vision for the last three decades. There's not much else I can say about this wondrous music: interesting people will dig it, boring people won't. And though it's unfair to classify people according to their tastes in music, the sounds contained in these vinyl grooves (or digital encoding, whatever) are as universally beautiful as a sunrise over Taos.

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is - infinite.

The Groovy Collection - Winston Groovy

It's hard for Americans to understand the UK's obsession with reggae, especially since the only authentic Jamaican reggae singer to break through to US audiences was Bob Marley. But Brits have been wrapped up in a passionate love affair with the sunny sounds of Jamaica ever since ska was invented in the late 50's, and the UK-based Trojan Records has enjoyed four decades of dominance in the reggae world. By the late 60's, Great Britain had a solid reggae scene of its own, as islanders made their way to working-class cities like Manchester and Birmingham, as well as London's Brixton and Notting Hill neighborhoods, bringing with them the cool vibrations of their national music. Winston Groovy spent most of the 60's playing in Birmingham as part of The Ebonites, but in 1969 he moved to London and met ska/rocksteady legend Laurel Aitken. Pretty soon Groovy was cutting smooth lovers' rock sides for Trojan and touring the British Isles as one of the most popular reggae singers that side of the Atlantic. Groovy has never gotten as much attention as contemporaries like John Holt and Alton Ellis, primarily because he operated almost solely in England. Groovy's tunes, however, are outta sight, and this 1978 full-length release for Trojan proves it. Syrupy cuts like "I'm A Believer" and a cover of Hank Williams's "Your Cheating Heart" hearken back to the golden days of rocksteady, while tougher cuts like "Oh My My" and "So Easy" cement Groovy's status as one of the kings of UK skinhead reggae. Good vibrations all around.

I like the way you love me when it's love-time.

Mr. Hood - KMD

Believe it or not, there was once a time when MF Doom did not rule the seedy, befuddling world of underground hip-hop. Those were the days when Prince Paul reigned supreme, and his production work with De La Soul inspired beatmakers the world over. MF Doom was still kickin' it back then, though not under the same moniker. Back then, Doom went by Zev Love X and spit rhymes in the long-vanished style of early-90's jazzy rappers like A Tribe Called Quest and The Pharcyde. Doom's crew was called KMD (Kausing Much Damage), and consisted of Zev Love X, Rodan, and DJ Subroc, Doom's younger brother. Not exactly foreshadowing Doom's more recent work, Subroc's production style sounds like a virtual replica of Prince Paul's best shit with De La Soul - snappy, eccentric, built entirely on breaks, a seamless, meticulously-arranged collage of diverse samples. In fact, KMD sounds so much like De La Soul that it's nearly impossible to distinguish them from their more famous "plugs". But hell, that's no complaint - Mr. Hood is a lost classic of the jazz-rap era, and belongs right up there with The Low End Theory and The Jungle Brothers' Done By The Forces Of Nature. Tragically, DJ Subroc was killed in a car accident in 1993 and Zev Love X left music until 1997, when he reinvented himself as MF Doom and changed hip-hop. This might not please lovers of MM... Food or Vaudeville Villain, but it's a totally dope example of old-school turntablism and early socially conscious hip-hop.

Take your choice, but the voice you choose should be more than fat, 'cause the noise is thick.

Group Sounds - Rocket From The Crypt

John "Speedo" Reis is an old-school badass: pompadour'd and usually clad in a leather jacket and Levi's, he has spent the last two decades keeping the rock 'n' roll flame alive and getting very little recognition for his efforts. He's been involved in a number of projects, all of them somewhat punk-ish, but Rocket From The Crypt is by far his best work. Throughout most of the 90's, Rocket From The Crypt loomed like the ghost of Eddie Cochran over America's largely stale punk rock scene, playing at house parties and tiny bars even while releasing increasingly stupendous albums and achieving international recognition from alternative music magazines. 2001's Group Sounds doesn't come from Rocket's classic era (if you're interested in that period, check out Scream, Dracula, Scream! or RFTC), but it plays like the culmination of over a decade of ferocious punk, primal rockabilly, stately soul, and even the occasional Phil Spector-ish flourish. This is tough, anthemic shit. RFTC might have evolved from a gutter punk group into a serious rock 'n' soul revue, but they've lost none of their bite or intensity. Scorchers like "Venom Venom" and "Carne Voodoo" rock with all the jungle wildness of a feral ape, but it's the more restrained and organized tracks, "S.O.S. with its anthemic horns and "Ghost Shark" with its melancholic piano, that show just have far Rocket From The Crypt have come. Group Sounds is quite a culmination of talents for one of the greatest bands of the 90's, bar none.

This is not the call of the wild, from when I laid it down on the line.

Night Of The Mayas - Silvestre Revueltas

Silvestre Revueltas's symphonic tone poems may never be performed by the New York Philharmonic, and classical music snobs may never drop his name they way they might mention Stravinsky or Bartók, yet in my humble (admittedly rather classical music-ignorant) opinion, Revueltas wrote some of the most fascinating modernist music of the twentieth century. His works are masterpieces of atonal rhythms and ethnic folk motifs, and even his most pedestrian works (such as his film scores or popular songs) display a wondrous mastery of the elements of silent spaces and creative dissonance. The older brother of notable revolutionary writer José Revueltas, Silvestre is possibly Mexico's most distinctly Mexican composer. During his short life (he died of pneumonia at forty) he created a nationalistic sonic identity for Mexican modernism, focusing on motifs drawn from northwestern traditions, which were in turn drawn from German polka and waltz traditions, as well as from traditional Mayan and Nahuatl music. To me, Revueltas's music sounds like some otherworldly combination of carnival music, Mexican revolutionary folk songs, Shostakovich, and Carl Stalling's zany Looney Tunes compositions. And that, my friends, is a very good thing. This album brings together some of Silvestre's most important pieces in a very convenient package, as quality recordings of his music are absurdly difficult to get a hold of. His tribute to Lorca, "Homenaje a Federico García Lorca", is perhaps the most well-known cut here, and for good reason: it's a madhouse of a composition, veering chaotically from happy-go-lucky (if aggressively atonal) funhouse music to more sinister Wagnerian tones most unexpectedly. Most of the music here is cast from the same mold, although none of it sounds quite alike. The sawing violins of "Toccata" characterize Revueltas's unique musical vision, while the four-part suite of "Night of the Mayas" perhaps best represents his, and all of Mexico's, idiosyncratic classical identity.

¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé!

Taxis - Zoos Of Berlin

Gosh. It's been a while since I heard an album like this - an album that sounds like it was tailor-made to rock my world. Zoos Of Berlin are a quintet from Detroit that sounds like a conglomeration of influences specifically picked to please even the pickiest record collectors and art-rock snobs. Bits and chunks of Ennio Morricone, Can, Fela Kuti, Stereolab, ESG, and even Silver Apples all contribute to a sound that, despite its obvious debt to a number of sources, still manages to be admirably original. Taxis isn't going to change the face of indie rock (you probably won't even read about it in Spin or Pitchfork), but it certainly has the potential to save art-rock for more than a couple people. If you've grown bored of the seemingly endless hordes of beardy Americana-indie-folk groups that apparently have Urban Outfitters by the nuts, or if you can't warm up to the legions of deliberately amateurish Animal Collective imitators that have recently been popping up across the country, Zoos Of Berlin may be the band for you. What I find so impressive about Taxis is the amount of work that has clearly gone into it: each song is meticulously arranged and produced to amount to that rare beast: an album made up entirely of songs. There's no pointless ennui or self-consciously quirky experimentation to be found here. Trumpets and vintage keyboards sound like more than just tired gimmicks, as on "Juan Matus", in which a peppy Britpoppish sort of tune suddenly gives way to an ocean of feedback and electronic-y tones that sounds like Popol Vuh gone goth. And then it abruptly chills the fuck out, sounding like either Pink Floyd or fusion-era Joe Zawinul, depending on your frame of reference (and this is all just one song). Opener "Century Rail" is a good ol' indie stomper with a delightful trumpet solo, while the closing track "Coliseum" sounds like a heavenly cross between The Smiths and Nino Rota's plaintive film scores. If you thought that indie rock had lost its ability to move you, take a chance on Zoos Of Berlin and allow yourself to be pleasantly surprised.

Time always falls in the second hand, into the sea.

Legrand Jazz - Michel Legrand

No one has really offered a really convincing argument for whether or not the French can rock (for every hot Johnny Hallyday tune there's some Eurovision schlock to counteract it), but the Gauls' ability to swing is beyond question. And if Francophone jazz has ever had a poster boy, it would have to be Michel Legrand. During the 1950's, Legrand rubbed shoulders with American jazz legends as they established a glorious tradition of hard bop and West Coast cool in the City of Love that lingers to this day. While Legrand would blossom later in the 60's as he worked on various soundtracks and more idiosyncratic projects, this is probably his most pleasant outing. And no wonder! A set of marvelous standards recorded with such luminaries as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and Herbie Mann, Legrand Jazz is possibly one of the most accessible jazz albums of all time, but it's deservedly become somewhat legendary simply because of the names involved. Don't let that deter you, though: this is pure joy. All of the greats are represented here in swingin' renditions: Duke Ellington, Django Reinhardt, Jelly Roll Morton, Count Basie, Bix Biederbecke, Thelonious Monk, and others all get the Legrand treatment. It's on the more unorthodox cuts like Reinhardt's "Nuages" that Legrand and his pals really stretch out, while tunes like Monk's "'Round Midnight" are given more faithful renditions. But for anyone interested in building a French jazz collection, there's no better place to start than here. (Interesting tidbit: is the uncle of Victoria Legrand, lead singer of Baltimore dream-poppers Beach House.)

Mon dieu!

Peanut Butter & Jelly Live At The Ginger Minge - Coachwhips

The last track on this album is named "Your Party Will Be A Success". If we (probably wrongly) assume that this track refers to this LP's value as "party music", then we've got to think about who's coming to our party. This ain't music for no goddamn dinner party. But if you're throwin' a booze-soaked birthday bash for G.G. Allin, Son of Sam, or the Devil, this might just be the fiesta soundtrack you've been lookin' for. This is pure savagery - punk slime taken to its logical extreme. Clocking in at about twenty minutes, recorded "live" (no overdubs, all first takes) at the fictional Ginger Minge, Peanut Butter & Jelly sounds like The Sonics fuck'd up on purple drank recording with Kim Fowley in Hell. It's John Dwyer's show from start to finish, as he rips and tears through ten brief excursions into madness. Personally, I prefer Coachwhips to Dwyer's other projects (which include Pink & Brown, Thee Oh Sees, The Hospitals, and Zeigenbock Kopf, among others), simply because Coachwhips are the most primal garage rock band ever put to wax. Hell, this makes The White Stripes' first album sound like Electric Light Orchestra. It's pretty useless to write about individual tracks when they all sound like incoherent howling, but suffice to say that the adroitly named "Did You Cum?" is a highlight. As Tim the Enchanter once said, "If you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth!" Goddamn Coachwhips, mutherfuckers.

Ouch.

German Oak - German Oak

German Oak's 1972 debut has a backstory so odd and compelling that only a solid gold krautrock masterpiece could live up to it. Thankfully, this weird slab of avant-garde skeleton rock delivers the goods. And as for the story: five mysterious Germans created an impromptu studio out of a WWII-era Luftschutzbunker (air raid shelter) and recorded several long, repetitious tracks of noises meant to evoke the experience of living in a bunker during WWII. The bunker studio's off-kilter acoustic properties added an eerie, cavernous element to the band's amateurish psychedelic rock style, turning what might have been ordinary instrumental guitar rock into a mass of echoing, inchoate proto-punk/metal/industrial noise. The original album release only featured four tracks, while seven were actually recorded in the bunker studio("Swastika Rising", "The Third Reich", and "Shadows of War" were all released as bonus tracks in 1990). The band's sampling of one of Hitler's speeches at the beginning of "The Third Reich", along with strong use of Nazi imagery, has led many to believe that German Oak was a Neo-Nazi group. This is not the case. In fact, the original four tracks were intended as a vicious condemnation of the musicians' parents' generation, who had stood idly by or actively participated in the Nazis' rise to power. With that said, let's take a look at the music: this is truly, indisputably something German. Vibrations of what would become punk, black metal, industrial, and even primitive techno music are present here in the harsh, metronomic rhythms, the aimless and winding guitar noise, and the bottomless wells of bass that populate the record. "Down In The Bunker" is the first really monolithic track to which we're introduced, and its bleak empty spaces, labyrinthine guitar patterns, and hollow, random percussion fills sound more akin to the throat singing music of Tibetan monks than any form of rock 'n' roll. Emerging out of the darkness of "Down In The Bunker" is "Raid Over Düsseldorf", one of krautrock's greatest shining moments. Sixteen minutes of savage groove, sounding like Neu!'s first couple of albums gone horrible awry, "Raid Over Düsseldorf" is a monster that demolishes everything in its path. Proving that there's more than a tenuous connection between krautrock and black metal, "Raid" certainly brims with as much aggressive energy as anything Mayhem or Venom ever released. The two short tracks that bookend the original album are more typical for psychedelic rock of the period: poorly-played organ dominates. And then it's on to the bonus tracks and more of the madness and intensity that characterizes "Raid". I don't feel as though there's much more I could write that could do this artifact justice, so I'll wrap things up: this is a conceptual masterpiece, and one of the most unique albums of its era. German Oak will never get the recognition of Can and Kraftwerk (their fascistic affectations certainly ain't helping), but for those elite krautrockists who are ready to take the plunge into the darkest depths of weirdness that 1970's Germany has to offer, this is essential.

"We dedicate this record to our parents which had a bad time in World War II."

Kim Kim Kim - Kim Weston

Kim Weston got a raw deal. One of Motown's finest female vocalists, she was never promoted by the label as enthusiastically as other soul sisters like Diana Ross, Mary Wells, or Brenda Holloway, thus relegating her to "lost classic" status. She even recorded a string of hit singles with Marvin Gaye, yet not even these have remained radio standards, outdone as they are by Gaye's many duets with Tammi Terrell. Weston had, however, one of the purest voices in all of rhythm and blues (still does, in fact), and, personally, I find her performance of "Lift Every Voice & Sing" at Wattstax to be one of 70's soul's most triumphant moments. Kim Kim Kim, comes from Kim's time with Stax/Volt following her departure from Motown. Because Weston was effectively blacklisted in regards to radio after leaving Motown (as was the case with most artists who crossed Berry Gordy in some way), this album received almost no airplay and slipped from the memory of all but the most fanatical R&B collectors. This, I think, is one of the greatest musical travesties of the 70's (and that being the era that foisted "Disco Duck" upon civilization!) This is a wonder of an album - every song ought to be a soul classic. Weston's impassioned interpretation of Sam & Dave's "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby" nearly outdoes the original, while silky ballads like "The Love I've Been Looking For" showcase one of the most haunting voices in soul history. But it's not all ballad-esque schmaltz: "Love Vibrations" and "Soul On Fire" are groovy examples of funk at it's stankiest. But it's the closer, "The Choice Is Up To You (Walk With Me Jesus)" that cements this album's status as one of the most well-done soul albums of the 70's: an old-fashioned gospel scorcher, "The Choice..." is breathtaking. It's damn good, and after listening to it, I can't help but feel pissed off that this album wasn't a success. Damn!

I've got soul on fire!

Dubwise - Prince Far I

Prince Far I is one of those mysterious dub maestros that inspires fanatical devotion in his acolytes, yet leaves others scratching their heads, wondering what they're missing. Dub music in general has always been an "either ya get it or ya don't" genre, and Dubwise, a collection of several Far I singles, dub versions, and the instrumental release Cry Tuff Dub Encounter Chapter 2, is sure to be divisive even among dub fans. To some, this will sound like nothing more than a bunch of aimless clatter, echo, and gutbucket exhortations from the good Prince. Speaking of which, it's Prince Far I's distinctive vocal style that defines him as an artist; at some point I read a piece on him that described his singing as sounding like an "Old Testament prophet", and I'd be hard-pressed to come up with anything more accurate than that. Not quite a singer, per se, nor a toaster exactly, Far I is in a class all his own. Dubwise may not be the greatest place to start a dub collection, but for those already initiated into the dub world order, it's a godsend. Abstract, eccentric, but always tuneful, Far I bolsters his atmospheric edits with brief snatches of melody that hint at, but never quite give way to, full-blown roots orchestration. As far as singles go, "Throw Away Your Gun" sparkles with righteous energy, while on the more laid-back tracks from Cry Tuff Dub Encounter, mysterious and futuristic productions like "Borno Dub" and "Ogun Dub" provide the perfect accompaniment for introspective nights or sunny stoned afternoons.

Oh love divine, how sweet thou art.

Cheap Time - Cheap Time

Well kids, I'm back - back in the frozen Mitten, writing this darn'd blog to keep my fingers warm! And what better to stave off frostbite than a bracing dose of punky power-pop? Thank goodness for Cheap Time. In all the garage-punk universe, there's no band as recklessly and unabashedly fun-lovin' as these merry hooligans. In a scene defined by shtiks - Nobunny with his bunny mask, King Khan and his James Brown affectations, Jay Reatard and his insistence on singing in that irritating cod-British accent - Cheap Time offer nothing but good old-fashioned teenage kicks. Cheap Time is the brainchild of Jeffery Novak (although calling something so instinctively infectious as this the "brainchild" of anything seems rather ridiculous), but this band's style of pinhead rock is doubtlessly a group effort. All sounds - guitar, bass, drums, vox, screech, drone, hum, hiss, warble - all mesh together to form a glammy firecracker of an album that sounds as though it was recorded on a tape recorder in a landfill. But hey, that's no dig - this is dynamite! It's Ramones-y, T.Rex-y, and, true to the name, even a bit Cheap Trick-y. This is power pop, light on the pop, if you please. The sing-song primitivism of "Too Late" only hints at the trashy throwdown to come, "People Talk" is a babbling, Britpunk-evoking thrill, and when the band tosses some hokey synthesizer bloops into the mix on the stomping "Zig-Zag", it only seems fitting for a band that apparently wants nothing more than to start a punky ruckus. They succeed, and gloriously.

Are you blind? Why can't you see? There's nothin' wrong with me!