Solid Gold Easy Action

Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse - Eugene McDaniels

2010-02-15T18:14:00.004-05:00

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

2010-02-11T09:56:00.003-05:00

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

2010-02-10T10:05:00.003-05:00

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

2010-02-09T09:48:00.002-05:00

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

2010-02-08T09:08:00.003-05:00

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

2010-02-05T19:42:00.002-05:00

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

2010-02-04T10:09:00.001-05:00

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

2010-02-03T09:55:00.003-05:00

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

2010-02-02T09:28:00.002-05:00

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

2010-02-01T14:35:00.002-05:00

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

2010-01-29T09:48:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-28T11:34:00.004-05:00

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

2010-01-27T09:53:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-26T13:13:00.006-05:00

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

2010-01-25T12:49:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-22T12:53:00.004-05:00

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

2010-01-21T18:36:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-20T13:37:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-19T14:16:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-18T11:34:00.004-05:00

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

2010-01-15T18:19:00.005-05:00

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

2010-01-14T17:19:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-13T13:18:00.006-05:00

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

2010-01-12T13:23:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-11T13:38:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-08T16:08:00.002-05:00

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

2010-01-07T12:31:00.004-05:00

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

2010-01-06T22:06:00.003-05:00

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!

In The Christmas Spirit - Booker T & The MG's

2009-12-18T12:27:00.003-05:00

Well, ladies and gents, I'm going to be taking a break from Solid Gold Easy Action for a couple weeks, occupied as I am with doing last minute Christmas shopping, eating obscene amounts of home cookin', and driving across America in my noble and never-ending quest for a good time. But just to tide you cats and dogs over until I return, here's a little Christmas present from the inimitable Booker T & The MG's, Stax Records' house band and without a doubt the greatest instrumental soul combo of all time. There ain't much I can write about this album: it's twelve southern-fried Christmas carols, given a soul makeover by Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Al Jackson Jr., and Donald "Duck" Dunn. At the very least, it ought to make those of you in the frozen North feel a bit warmer, and it's a hell of a lot better than a Wyndham Hill Christmas sampler, I can tell you that. See y'all in 2010!

Merry Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/etc!

En' A-Free-Ka - Shafiq Husayn

2009-12-17T17:03:00.006-05:00

The development of musical Afrofuturism since the 1950's has seen many trends come and go. Sun Ra created the template with his divisive cosmic jazz experiments. Soul jazz iconoclasts like Alice Coltrane and Archie Shepp kept the spirit alive through the 60's, while George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic injected the -ism with a nasty dose of funk in the 70's. The 80's saw the rise of Juan Atkins and his many pseudonyms, which expressed Afrofuturist ideals through the sound of Detroit techno. Meanwhile, in New York City, Afrika Bambaataa pioneered a far-out sound that would influence 90's hip-hop heads like Del Tha Funky Homosapien and DJ Spooky to funkitize sonic galaxies in the spirit of Afrofuturism. Nowadays, we're lucky to be witnessing a new generation of Afrofuturists; a generation that has learned from and drawn from the generations of pioneers that came before them. Producers like Dâm-Funk, Ras G, and Sa-Ra Creative Partners have all created masterpieces that combine aspects of all of their predecessors, from Sun Ra to DJ Spooky. In 2009, Shafiq Husayn, one third of Sa-Ra, has created the ultimate expression of cosmic black consciousness. En' A-Free-Ka is a psychedelic voyage through jazz, soul, funk, techno, hip-hop, science fiction, and mythic poetry. The cover portrays Husayn in a state of serene self-consciousness, sitting like a majestic Ethiopian negus amidst a collection of African objets d'art. The sounds contained within these grooves are no less striking: Husayn is always at the center of his sound, presiding over the rhythm and poetry with effortless grace. Whether he's surrounded himself with blaring saxophones, chirping synthesizers, or clattering tribal percussion, he steers the course of the music with astronomical precision. "Nirvana" glides along over distorted chunks of soul jazz, while "No Moor" hustles over a nursery rhyme-like pattern that barely hides Husayn's righteous anger beneath its shimmery surface. Groovy. I suppose there's not much more I can say to promote this album, except that it feels somehow... triumphant. Yeah, triumphant.

If you knew better, you'd do better... take it from me.

I Can't Stand The Rain - Ann Peebles

2009-12-16T18:23:00.005-05:00

It's going to be hard to write a lucid and well thought-out review of this album because, quite frankly, I think it's absolutely perfect. 70's soul never got more grandiose, sultry, or gloriously left-of-center than it did here, thanks in no small part to Willie Mitchell's tight production work. He and his vaunted Hi rhythm section are on top form here: Al Jackson (the greatest drummer of all time, if you ask me) and his deliciously metronomic drumming takes the rhythm into another dimension, while Mitchell's highly unorthodox studio flourishes create a sonic atmosphere that's alternately tense, joyous, threatening, and sweet. And then, of course, there's Ms. Ann Peebles. Ann was never as saleable a talent as Carla Thomas or Jean Knight, and her creaky, mournful voice was ill-suited to showboaty R&B radio hits. But her work here is nothing short of spectacular. "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down" was a minor radio hit and continues to be a popular sample source, due in no small part to Ann's fierce vocal performance. "Run, Run, Run" is another up-tempo hit that recalls Willie Mitchell's deliriously awesome work with Al Green. But wait just a second, folks. Allow me to take a deep breath before I try and extol the virtues of this album's title track, one of the greatest conglomerations of sounds ever put to wax, and one of the greatest soulful and artistic expressions ever seen by mankind. Hyperbole? Fuck that. I could listen to this song thirty times a day for the rest of my life and still feel somethin' way down deep in my soul with every damn listen. It's eccentric, majestic, and downright beautiful, from the unsettling string-plucking that introduces the song, to the brilliant and moving instrumental bridge. Goddamn this is a helluva song. Even if you hate R&B music and everything it stands for, do your soul a favor and give Ms. Ann a listen.

I know you've got some sweet memories, but like a window, you ain't got nothin' to say.

Friday At The Hideout: Boss Detroit Garage 1964-67 - Various Artists

2009-12-15T14:41:00.003-05:00

They don't call Detroit "Rock City" for nuthin'. Back in the mid 60's, when, for a few brief minutes, the world's eyes turned to Detroit during Motown's heyday, a homegrown garage rock/maximum R&B scene was just beginning to take form. This scene would eventually see the rise of proto-punk legends The Stooges and The MC5, who in turn would watch acts like Bob Seger, Grand Funk Railroad, and Ted Nugent rise to superstardom in the 70's. But before the long, greasy hair, endless riffage, and drunken ribaldry of "Detroit rock", Hideout Records and its accordingly named dance club provided an outlet for southeast Michigan's hep teens to shimmy and shake every weekend. Dave Leone's small garage rock imprint was just one of literally hundreds of its type across the nation, but it's notable for two reasons: the future stars that got started there, and the pure quality of the music released. Unfortunately, none of the tracks cut by Bob Seger for Hideout were included on this compilation due to some legal mumbo-jumbo, but his brand of workin' man's blues is well-represented nonetheless. This comp offers up some serious frat-rock breakdowns from Doug Brown & The Omens, some Kinks-y groovers from The Underdogs, and some poppier psych gems from Four Of Us and The Mushrooms (both featuring a teenage Glen Frey). But the real gems here are the two cuts from The Pleasure Seekers, an all-girl housewreckin' combo starring a sweet young Suzi Quatro. "Never Thought You'd Leave Me" sounds like a girly version of The Dovers, full of plunky bass, jazzy Fender Rhodes piano, and the kind of "California Sun" guitar riff that 60's garage bands just couldn't get enough of. And then there's "What A Way To Die", yet another song to add to the list of tunes that should've made it onto Nuggets but somehow didn't. Sounding like a deranged gutbucket punk version of The Tammys' girl-group classic "Egyptian Shumba", "What A Way To Die" goes straight for the jugular, making Suzi's later glam rock stuff sound tame and bland by comparison. For anyone interested in Detroit's thriving garage rock history, this comp is a killer.

Well I may not live past twenty-one, but what a way to die!

Mazurkas - Alexander Scriabin

2009-12-14T19:32:00.004-05:00

Alexander Scriabin is not usually spoken of with the kind of reverence reserved for the other great Russian composers (Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Mussorgsky), yet he certainly did as much, if not more, than his influences and protégés in expanding the sonic vocabulary of classical music. Scriabin was idiosyncratic to the core. An avowed mystic, he sought to ascend, through music, the spiritual hierarchy described by Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophists, and also composed many works inspired by Nietzsche's theories on the übermensch. Scriabin's most influential works were early experiments in atonality - increasingly eccentric experiments that were met with increasing critical ambivalence as Scriabin became ever more concerned with phenomenal conceptions of reality. His radical penultimate project, appropriately titled Mysterium, was intended to be "a grandiose religious synthesis of all arts which would herald the birth of a new world." Though it remained unfinished at the time of Scriabin's death, he believed that, when completed, Mysterium would bring about Armageddon. Yet for all of his notable wackiness, Scriabin was also a highly gifted lyrical composer. In fact, my personal favorite works of Scriabin's are among his most traditional: his études and mazurkas borrowed heavily from the mellifluous Romanticism of Chopin. This collection brings together all of Scriabin's mazurkas, composed in the early part of his career in the 1880's and 90's. This was the era of Scriabin's greatest critical acclaim; his variations on the mazurka, a form of Polish folk music, are innovative but not radical. However, they certainly do suggest the atonality that would color Scriabin's most incendiary works. I've decided to post Mazurkas because, well, they just sound so damn good. If Scriabin doesn't get the critical props afforded Rachmaninoff or Prokofiev, then perhaps it's time to reexamine our attitudes towards the Russian masters.

A sincere expression of genius.

Calle 13 - Calle 13

2009-12-10T20:16:00.004-05:00

Calle 13 is notable for being pretty much the only reggaetón act to get any sort of critical respect, and if the reggaetón tag itself turns you off, have no fear: Calle 13 don't like it either, and in truth, it falls woefully short in describing the diversified brand of hip-hop that Residente and Visitante peddle. That's not to say that Calle 13 doesn't share any common ground with Daddy Yankee, Wisin y Yandel, or any other reggaetón chartbuster; there are plenty of comparable traits shared by Calle 13 and the rest of the reggaetón herd. Cheap, canny (and inexplicably infectious) digital beats, loping, dubby basslines, and rapid-fire rapping en español all contribute to the urban flava of these Puerto Rican step-brothers' debut album, but there's much more to be discovered here than stereotypical ghetto bombast. Unfortunately, I can't say anything about Residente's lyrics - my Spanish is essentially limited to "donde esta la zapateria?" - but if his gift for gab matches Visitante's gift for creating razor-sharp productions out of deceptively simple digital snippets of Latin music, then he's definitely an MC to be reckoned with. Needless to say, Visitante's production really makes this album for me: he lays out a virtual smörgåsbord of each and every type of Latin dance music, all conveniently assembled into one concise package. Cumbia, salsa, bossa nova, Latin jazz, bomba, and tango are all grist to the musical mill for Calle 13 (not to mention reggae, which forms the basis of all reggaetón). And most importantly, the album maintains a freewheeling sense of fun throughout, a vivacious positive energy that's missing from acts like, say, Don Omar. Unorthodox dance tracks like "Atrévete-Te-Te" and "La Hormiga Brava" colorfully display exactly what sets Calle 13 apart from their peers, while hits like "Suave" serve as a funky reminder that Residente and Visitante are always aiming squarely at the dancefloor.

Vamos a mover el cuello a 90°.

African Jazz 'n' Jive - Various Artists

2009-12-09T14:45:00.003-05:00

Aside from the occasional "world music" crossover act, African music gets very little attention here in the States. That's not entirely surprising, as African music seldom contains the sort of glossy pop appeal that makes for hit records in the US of A. But what most American consumers don't realize is that since the 1920's, African musical trends have been inextricably bound with those of the United States, particularly the black population. Beginning with the early days of jazz, when Dixieland reverberations were felt around the world, African urban centers, particularly those in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Ghana, responded with their own energetic adaptations of black American music. As time went on, West African musicians began to develop their own permutations of American music that was, in turn, born of traditional African music. The first really noteworthy movement of this type was the "township" jazz craze that dominated radio airwaves from the late 40's to the early 60's and paved the way for the popular "highlife" and Afrobeat styles that became world-famous through the work of Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade, and others. This compilation focuses on the later days of township jazz, once it was firmly established as Africa's hippest musical force. The casual listener might be surprised at how stylistic close this is to classic American swing and bop. Indeed, only the occasional non-English lyric distinguishes it from early Charlie Parker orlate Duke Ellington. But inventive tracks like Kippie Moeketsi's "Clarinet Kwela" sound wholly unique, while Lemmy "Special" Mabase's "Kwela Blues" has a folksy, amateurish charm that's rare in American jazz from the 50's. Sure, this isn't as dynamic as Fela's Afrobeat or the percussive sounds of jùjú, but for jazz aficionados, it's a pleasant and interesting look at jazz from the heart of the groove.

Something new in Africa!

Music Of El Topo - Shades Of Joy

2009-12-08T19:01:00.003-05:00

Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo is one of cinema's most delightfully baffling head trips. Half spaghetti western, half delirious peyote-frenzied spirit vision, it truly defies classification. Jodorowsky himself composed the soundtrack, a subtly psychedelic (and surprisingly pleasant) combination of Mexican folk motifs and restrained atonal textures. John Lennon once stated that El Topo was his favorite movie; he enjoyed it so much, in fact, that he released its soundtrack on his own Apple imprint. What we have here is not the soundtrack itself, rather, its an artifact direct from 1970's burgeoning counterculture that somehow manages to make El Topo and its legacy even stranger. Shades Of Joy, a California-based psychedelic rock/jazz group tangentially connected to Jerry Garcia, recorded Music Of El Topo in 1970 as a sort of tribute to the film that doubtlessly provided them with many nights of stoned entertainment. What's puzzling about this album is how unnecessary it seems - a jazz/funk/fusion remake of a soundtrack in which the most prominent instrument is a wooden folk flute? Think I'll pass, thanks. But it's truly to Shades of Joy's credit that this album has held up so well over almost four decades. Quite frankly, it still sounds fuckin' spectacular! Shades Of Joy, led by the multi-talented Martin Fierro, weave around tunes and musical signals and motifs from the film, interspersing the flutes and acoustic guitars of the original soundtrack with furious bouts of jazz-fusion improvisation. The two most dynamic pieces here are also the most satisfying: "The Desert is a Circle" and "Flute in a Quarry" are jazz-funk monsters. "The Desert is a Circle" in particular is a dynamite masterpiece: sample-worthy breakbeats abound, and the band stretches out to its limits, all the while retaining the same pastoral Mexican-esque feel of the film's original tune. "El Topo's Dream" is another hot one, and though it doesn't have the groovy frenetic pulse of the two aforementioned tracks, it turns a simple folksy melody into a heroic march that's psychedelic in its scope. The rest of the tracks are more laid-back, settling into the kind of easygoing funk that was a staple of underground films in this era. For a virtually unknown band to rework such a singular piece of musical art in such an unexpected and colossal way is, to my mind, one of the most underrated accomplishments of the early '70's.

Too much perfection is a mistake.

Orgasm - Cromagnon

2009-12-07T15:58:00.002-05:00

Here's a special treat for those of you thoroughly irritated by the whole "new weird America" thing that's goin' on out there in the big ol' world of music. College kids dressing up in crazee clothes and making noise in the name of "freak folk" or whatever is not a new concept, and it seems to me that most of the new crop of freaky bands sound much more restrained than the original LSD/mescaline-tormented masters they wish to emulate. Cromagnon, ladies and gents, is as weird as it ever got. Cromagnon took the inanity of 60's psychedelia to practically unthinkable extremes, and when they were done, simply packed up and went home (The Residents took over soon afterward and kept the freak flame a-burnin'). The roots of Cromagnon lie in bubblegum pop songwriters Austin Grasmere and Brian Elliot's desire to create a truly "psychedelic" album, something that would combine the American acid rock of the era with primitive folk and what they called "cave rock", which essentially amounted to clattering on rocks with sticks. The resulting album is possibly the zaniest freak-out album of all time. Julian Cope wrote of the album, "now, when you stick the needle into the groove that is opener, 'Caledonia', you'll immediately think you're listening to Einstürzende Neubauten gone black metal, then you'll realize you're WRONG and that there was no reference points such as that available in 1968," but Julian Cope is a pretentious loser, and in this case, he appears to be just namedropping. Nah, "Caledonia" doesn't sound like Einstürzende Neubauten or black metal. It sure sounds great though; something like an ancient Scottish funeral march, complete with bagpipes and occult whisperings. It's easily the best and most accessible track to be found here, which speaks volumes about how fucking crazy this album really is. "Ritual Feast of the Libido" sounds like a caveman being tortured, "Organic Sundown" retains all the percussive clatter of a voodoo ritual, "Fantasy" sounds like musique concrète in Hell, and "Crow of the Black Tree" sounds like the kind of underworldly folk that Devendra Banhart wishes we was creative enough to dream up. This is old weird America, and it never got weirder.

Cave rock.

1999 - Cassius

2009-12-05T11:18:00.003-05:00

Take yourself back to the tail end of the 1990's, that magical time when a significant portion of the population was convinced that the global infrastructure would collapse come Y2K, and another sizable group was starting to feel the effects of an entire decade's worth of non-stop raving. The naïve futurism of the 90's had reached its fever pitch. Retro style was irritatingly en vogue, but pop culture in general seemed to be pointing towards some vague spacey future. It would only be logical for a decade like the 2000's to follow: a decade in which each successive short-lived cultural trend would hearken back to a dead era. Electronic music's advent in the 90's was one of the most noticeable aspects of a popular culture obsessed with the new, the unknown, the extraterrestrial. Ecstasy-fueled rave and big beat claimed most of the hype, but lurking in the shadows of the dancefloor, waiting for its moment, was "French touch" house music. Nowadays everybody's familiar with French touch: Daft Punk and Justice are the most recognizable names in dance music, while Euro-house megastars like David Guetta and Bob Sinclar have adapted the sound to fit their own populist idiom. But back in 1999, French touch wasn't purely synonymous with everyone's favorite house-wreckin' robots. Two of the pioneers of the sound, Zdar and Boombass, had already been killing crowds with their repetitive, sugary beats for nearly a decade. But when they teamed up to form Cassius, the French touch sound made a conscious transition to the retro-ism of the new millennium. Daft Punk's debut, Homework, referenced acid house and disco with a sly smirk, but the robotic appeal of Guy Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter were always more concerned with invention than adaptation. Cassius, on the other hand, were content to simply rework euphoric underground disco and early electro to charm the late 90's club scene. In this way, they actually suggested dance music's future far more accurately than Daft Punk (Daft Punk themselves would adopt a decidedly retro disco style on all of their following albums). Cassius's 1999 sounds like Studio 54's cocaine glamour transposed to the neon-colored ecstasy chic of the end of the millennium: non-stop four-to-the-floor kick drums, congas, primitive drum machines, and fractured diva-esque vocals abound. It's a real head trip, as none of the tracks here are designed for radio appeal, but rather recall an era that ended around 1978 when dance tracks were designed with only the dancefloor in mind. But dayummm, this record is easily as impressive as Daft Punk, though not quite as immediately appealing. "Foxxy" is a definite highlight, colored with a deliciously wah-wah'ed out guitar lick and the kind of percussion that would make David Mancuso swoon. "Planetz" and "Nulife" are both ace disco-house hits, while an urban electro influence is apparent on the eerie "Crazy Legs", which owes as much to Detroit techno pioneers like Juan Atkins as it does to Giorgio Moroder. Electronic music in the 90's ended with this record.

Cassius in tha house!

Il Grande Silenzio - Ennio Morricone

2009-12-03T16:37:00.003-05:00

There's nothing typical about Ennio Morricone. As a composer, he is one of the 20th century's foremost talents. As a film maestro, he's fucking untouchable. Only Bernard Hermann can be said to have had the same degree of influence on film music, and not even he can compete with Ennio Morricone's track record: Maestro Morricone has written and recorded soundtracks for over 500 movies. He is, of course, best known for his work in the "spaghetti western" genre (a genre he bloody well invented, I might add), though only forty of his movies were westerns. The achingly expressive soundtracks accompanying The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly and Once Upon A Time In The West remain cornerstones of 20th century inventiveness, but it's Il Grande Silenzio that, in my opinion, stands up as Morricone's most magnificent spaghetti western recording. Sergio Corbucci's uncompromising film is about as atypical within the western genre as Morricone's work is within his chosen field: French dramatic actor Jean-Louis Trintignant stars, although he does not speak a single line throughout the entire movie. Meanwhile, a ferocious Klaus Kinski wreaks havoc on a small town in Utah during a cataclysmic blizzard. The film's finale is about as harrowing as anything in cinematic history, due in no small part to Morricone's tense, atmospheric score. What makes the maestro's recordings for Il Grande Silenzio so much more powerful than, say, The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly, is its avoidance of spaghetti western clichés (clichés Morricone admittedly invented). There aren't any cod-Native American chants here, no down-tuned Spanish guitars, and no ominous whistling. Instead, a sparse orchestra of bells, acoustic guitars, and cellos evoke the film's melancholic, wintry landscape. "Il Grande Silenzio (Restless)" is one of the finest songs in Morricone's entire canon, as much folk rock as it is grand symphonic poetry. "Prima Che Volino I Corvi" and "Immobile" are both eerie and tense as hell, providing the perfect stylistic foil to Klaus Kinski's (as always) deranged performance. And if you're looking for that vintage Morricone sound, "Voci Nel Deserto" ought to do it for you: the maestro's inimitable muse Edda Dell'Orso provides yet another magnificent wordless vocal performance that's church-like in its beauty. Unbelievably well-done.

The Old West is finished.

The Black Gladiator - Bo Diddley

2009-12-02T13:53:00.002-05:00

One has to wonder what was going through Bo Diddley's head in the late 60's, when he took it upon himself to reinvent the "Bo Diddley beat" for an audience of white hippies. Bo wasn't the only one, however; Muddy Waters went "psychedelic" for his Electric Mud and After The Rain albums, and Howlin' Wolf's This Is Howlin' Wolf's New Album ("He doesn't like it. He didn't like his electric guitar at first either.") sounded like a faceless white acid rock group trying to groom the blues' biggest personality for a crowd of fairweather freaks. These albums, along with Bo's The Black Gladiator, are almost universally regarded as heinous travesties, and considered by many critics to be among the worst albums ever made. Here is where I have to step in and ask you whether you really give two shits about a critic's opinion anyway, because fuck, man, these albums are 100% killer, and Bo's is the best of the bunch. I suppose The Black Gladiator does sound like shit if you approach it from a blues purist's standpoint, which I most certainly don't. Think of this as the marvelous missing link between funky soul and garage rock: it ain't quite James Brown, Stax-Volt, The Rolling Stones, or Quicksilver Messenger Service (although it sounds a little bit like all of those), and it sho' ain't vintage Ellas Otha Bates (there's barely an echo of "Who Do You Love" to be heard here). But it jives, shucks, grooves, and ultimately rocks much harder than most of the "heavy" blues bands that had started popping up around the time the album was recorded. Nothing here deserves to be spoken about with the same reverence as "I'm a Man" or "Mona", but "Black Soul" and "Funky Fly" vamp on into funky eternity, "I Don't Like You" crackles and burns like a deranged, acid-fried version of Lowell Fulson's "Tramp", and "You, Bo Diddley" successfully updates the timeless "shave and a haircut, two bits" pattern that made Bo's career for the peace/love/dope generation. Hot buttered blues, indeed.

I got a new thang, they call black soul!

Agilok & Blubbo - The Inner Space

2009-12-01T17:24:00.005-05:00

The German krautrock group Can is one of the greatest musical ensembles to grace our planet with its presence (forgive me for gushing), and though they reached the summit of rhythmic psychedelic awesomeness in the early 70's, their embryonic mid to late 60's releases are full of the type of acid-fried Teutonic rock craziness that made bands like Amon Düül II and Guru Guru such anarchic thrills in their times. Can devotees will already be well aware of Czukay, Karoli, Schmidt, and Liebezeit's early work with Malcolm Mooney on Monster Movie and Soundtracks (one of the most underrated platters of the 60's, in my opinion), and have probably even heard the unearthed treasures of Delay 68, issued as a compilation in 1981. However, only seriously hardcore krautrock acolytes will be aware of the existence of "Kamera Song", a trippy pop ditty auf deutsch released as a single under the moniker The Inner Space. The Inner Space was comprised of Can's core group (prior to both the Mooney and Damo Suzuki eras) and sounded exactly like what it was: a primitive, tense incarnation of what would later become one of the most innovative groups of all time. "Kamera Song", featuring vocals from actress Rosemarie Heinikel, was one of only two single releases from The Inner Space's soundtrack recordings for Agilok & Blubbo, a whacked-out pseudo-revolutionary political satire that barely saw the light of day in conservative late 60's West Germany. The rest of the soundtrack is as eccentric and groovy as "Kamera Song", though it lacks the twitchy funk that made Can such an art-rock powerhouse in the 70's. The title track is, along with "Kamera Song", an obvious highlight, hinting at a form of spacey jazz-pop that Can would not dabble in for nearly another decade. Jawohl!

Komm hier, komm ganz nah, komm hier, Kamera.

Cabretta - Mink DeVille

2009-11-30T15:13:00.003-05:00

While the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, and Television are rightly heralded as the most earth-shaking bands to come out of New York's late 70's CBGB scene, it's easy to forget that Hilly Kristal's paradisiac punk rock dive bar saw the flowering genius of many other bands that have, to some degree, fallen through the cracks of new wave history. Richard Hell & The Voidoids, The Dictators, and The Dead Boys can all boast substantial cult followings, but they, like their more famous CBGB counterparts, all worked under the new wave/punk rock tag that they helped to establish. With the punk community's creative and iconic stranglehold on the Bowery, there seemed to be little room for Mink DeVille's red-hot romance rock. Willy DeVille and his backing group served as CBGB's house band from 1975 to 1977, serving up a timeless blend of classic rock, blues, R&B, doo-wop, salsa, and the occasional odd zydeco tune. DeVille's skills as a pop songwriter are beyond reproach, but it ain't hard to see how his old-school approach to penning tunes might not have gelled with punk rock's "blank generation". Let's call Mink DeVille a classic case of wrong-place, right-time. After all, the mix of rock heaviness and R&B finesse that Willy was offering up would have fit in perfectly with the punkabilly reverberations of bands like X and The Gun Club in Los Angeles. Willy DeVille's death earlier this year has led to a new awareness of his work, and a well-need reevaluation of Mink DeVille's importance in the canon of 70's rock. The verdict? Classic and killer. Cabretta is slick, sweet, and downright lovable. The cod-Spanish gospel rock of "Spanish Stroll" remains Mink DeVille's best-known track, and its smiley rhythms and saucy come-ons still sound fresh and bold after three decades. "Venus Of Avenue D" is fierce and stylish, like some wondrous combination of Otis Redding and Roxy Music, while "Gunslinger" comes surprisingly close to the punk rock sound that Willy must've been exposed to on a daily basis. The saccharine sweetness of "Little Girl", on the other hand, sounds like the sort of love song that Joey Ramone must have loved to death.

She's my inspiration dressed in red! Spinnin' all my friends' heads!

Fantasia Flamenca - Paco De Lucía

2009-11-25T11:45:00.005-05:00

It's admittedly tough to write a well-informed review of a Paco De Lucía album, firstly because I know very little about Spanish flamenco music, and secondly, because everything here sounds so sublime that it's difficult to describe this album any way other than "Fuck yeah, this is awesome!!" With that said, this is one of Paco's early albums, from a time before he grew his hair long and started to look more and more like David Carradine in Kill Bill with each passing day. This is Paco solo, just a man and his guitar, as he had not yet started recording with gypsy vocalist Camarón de la Isla. As I've said, my knowledge of Spanish music is pretty slim, but it ought to be obvious to even the most uncultured ears that this man is a bona fide master of his craft. Melodies weave around melodies weaving around even more melodies, all conjured out of one six-string guitar. But what sets Paco apart from other flamenco guitarists, at least in my mind, is not his virtuosity or his mind-blowing speed, but his ability to adapt any melody to his personal, highly-developed style. There's not a single forgettable tune here, and none of them feel like indulgent skill showcases. Each song manages to evoke its own distinct vibe: "Mantilla de Feria" is alternately festive and plaintive, "Panderos Flamencos" is stately and noble, and "Lamento Minero" is heartbreaking in its minor-key beauty. Hear a master at work.

The hand finds a way to do what the heart wants to say.

Roots - Sepultura

2009-11-24T21:16:00.003-05:00

Because I thought the Vágtázó Halottkémek album I posted about a month ago might be getting a bit lonely, I am proud to post another ethno-metal classic. Replace VHK's Hungarian folk motifs and screeching heavy psych approach with clattery Brazilian percussion and pummeling thrash metal, and you've pretty much got Sepultura. Granted, metal fans won't need any introduction to Sepultura or this album, but it's no secret that soul/funk/jazz/psych fans and punk/metal fans don't usually swap tunes. Anyway, Roots ain't your typical metal album. It hits as hard as anything Metallica has ever recorded, and its sparse yet brutal approach to thrash at times even recalls Korn (which I suppose isn't necessarily a bad thing), but Sepultura also brings a well-thought out element of finesse to the extreme violence of their sonic palette. Many of the tunes here are almost dirge-like, abandoning the ferocious speed of Sepultura's earlier stuff for sludgy, heavier-than-heavy bombast. Max Cavalera's inquiry on "Attitude" ("Can you take it, can you take it, can you take it, can you take it??") is pretty valid in the face of such intense stuff, but when you, our cerebral musical taste-tester, hear the berimbau and tribal percussion of "Attitude" and the magnificent "Ratamahatta" (truly one of the best metal tunes of the 90's), you might start to wonder if maybe there isn't a seed of impressive eclecticism behind Sepultura's wall of uncompromising noise. Sure enough, Roots brings exactly what its title promises: an intense, personal, and totally hardcore interpretation of Brazil's native music. I'm not expecting that everyone's going to dig this, but give Roots a good listen and I'm sure you'll find that there are some excellently artistic gears grinding behind Sepultura's collective scowl.

No one cares if you live or die.

Tradition In Transition - Quantic

2009-11-23T17:44:00.003-05:00

Regardless of how you feel about Quantic's heavily derivative work as a producer or leader of The Quantic Soul Orchestra, you've got to admit that the artist formerly known as Will Holland has created a pretty impressive career out of slavish reproductions of recycled genres of music. It hasn't always been thrilling, and, personally, Quantic's ersatz funk has always felt to me like a "why don't I just listen to the original thing?" situation. Tradition In Transition, however, sounds like the work of a real pro. It plays somewhat like a Quantic "greatest hits" package, as Will Holland and his cheekily named Combo Barbaro play through virtually every genre of music at which the man has ever tried his hand. There's soul, funk, salsa, jazz, samba, bossa nova, and even David Axelrod-style orchestral pop. Sure, Tradition is entirely derivative of the styles just named (every track feels like a conscious attempt to record in a particular idiom), but the overall effect of the album is marvelously pleasant, yielding more intricacies and standout moments with each successive listen. There's nothing here that's going to replace Al Green, Jorge Ben, or Mongo Santamaría for any lover of the groove, but it's a fine complement to any soul or Latin-centric collection. The emphasis here seems to be on salsa-inspired tunes like the sublime "Linda Morena", but Quantic's talents with other brands of music are immediately apparent, as on the almost trip-hop-esque opener, "The Dreaming Mind, Part 1". Quantic is an artist with a purpose: he strives to keep the flame of the pan-African groove alive, and while some may question if anyone really needs a white Englishman to provide this service, it's undeniable that this producer wunderkind can craft some very fine tunes.

How can they treat you so bad when you're lookin' so good?

Midnight At The Movies - Justin Townes Earle

2009-11-20T15:13:00.003-05:00

Country music is in a weird state nowadays. It shed its associations with blues, folk, and jazz long ago and has made a pretty solid bid for mainstream pop/rock appeal since the 1970's. In the new millennium, America's heartland music seemingly only offers two possible career paths: that of the pop star cowboy/girl or that of the self-consciously old-fashioned "alt-country" singer. Sure, every now and then you get a Brad Paisley, who turns the notion of the CMT-bred country superstar on its head with his clever songwriting and guitar-slinging, but what antidote do we have against the seemingly endless stream of phony purveyors of long-vanished Americana? Enter Justin Townes Earle. Son of Steve Earle of Guitar Town fame, Justin is a tattooed Woody Guthrie for the iPod age. He's already proven himself in performances at both the Grand Ole Opry and indie rock clubs across the country. What makes his tunes so damn good, however, is his lyrical talent, a real treasure in the increasingly homogenized world of country. You won't find any redneck or hillbilly clichés here, nor will you find the sort of ersatz front-porch folk you're likely to hear from, say, Ryan Adams. Instead, Justin establishes himself as the latest in an illustrious line of classically modern country singers. He is, like Gram Parsons and his namesake Townes Van Zandt before him, a country songwriter gloriously out of step with contemporary trends, yet more evocative of what it means to be an American in the modern age than any of the hickish superstars you're like to hear on the radio. "They Killed John Henry" is old-timey storytelling at its finest, while "Mama's Eyes" and "Midnight At The Movies" are wistful and touching odes to Justin's mama and the Greenwich Village scene of the early 1960's, respectively. Have yerself a listen.

I am my father's son, I've never known when to shut up.

Zorba The Greek - Mikis Theodorakis

2009-11-19T21:30:00.003-05:00

Firstly, a brief word on film: Michael Cacoyannis's exuberant adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis's magnificently life-affirming novel Zorba The Greek is one of the great unheralded film classics of the 1960's. Anthony Quinn (an underrated star of the silver screen if there ever was one) is marvelous in his Oscar-nominated performance as the titular protagonist, and Walter Lassally's spacious cinematography is beautiful to behold. At the front and center of this movie, however, is one of its most important aspects: Mikis Theodorakis's bold and brassy score; hundreds of years of Greek folklore condensed into a bare twenty-seven minutes of music. Awash in joyous strings - guitars, zithers, and bouzoukis all vie for supremacy - Zorba The Greek is the sound of a supremely talented modernist composer indulging his love of both folk and pop music forms. Consistent with Theodorakis's illustrious record as a freedom fighter, rebetiko, the "Greek blues" of the 1930's, is well-represented here, providing the perfect accompaniment to Zorba's lustrous adventures. However, this isn't pure Greek folk music; aspects of Hollywood-esque film score production are apparent, particularly in melodramatic tracks like "The Fire Inside" and "Clever People & Grocers", and even vaguely exotica-esque pop textures pop up, as on "Theme From Zorba The Greek", which Herb Alpert would later cover for a huge instrumental hit, effectively proving that in 1965 American audiences had not yet tired of ethnic-ish instrumental pop music. Yet Theodorakis's remains the superior version, a definite highlight in this brief but beautifully effusive soundtrack album.

"Me, I got up and I danced. They said, 'Zorba is mad!'"

Gather Round - DJ Design

2009-11-18T12:22:00.004-05:00

Sample-based turntablist hip-hop can essentially be divided into two camps: the arty, futurist camp populated by perfectionist beat maestros like DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, and Flying Lotus, and the minimalist, out-for-a-good-time group made up of chilled-out productions from the likes of J Dilla, MF Doom (in his instrumental jams on the Special Herbs series), and Madlib. DJ Design, a turntable wizard from the same stomping grounds in San Francisco as Peanut Butter Wolf, indisputably belongs to the latter camp. While Shadow, Chemist, et al craft sampledelic symphonies out of tiny tidbits of music, DJ Design relies on simple, friendly soul samples to build up his groove. If Endtroducing..... is the perfect accompaniment for a late-night toke, then Gather Round must be the equally appropriate companion for a spontaneous late-night dance party. There's nothing dark or mysterious about this music; it sounds like a crafty edit of all your favorite R&B tracks of the 60's, 70's, and 80'. Perhaps it's not as creative as, say, RJD2 (who relies heavily on similar sample material), but it's just as groovy and danceable, perhaps even more so. Unfortunately, Gather Round will never be looked upon with the same reverence as Dilla or Doom, but the twitchy funk of "Hey Man" and the warm, scratchy vibes of "Rum & Coke Life" stand up on their own, while the stuttering breaks of "Puma Vs. Adidas" and "Fudge" certainly warrant repeated listening. Plus the old-school album art is totally dope.

I demand you do something about these creatures outside my house!

Blossom Dearie - Blossom Dearie

2009-11-17T21:29:00.006-05:00

A quick glance at the cover of this light-hearted 1959 Verve release depicts Blossom Dearie with her trademark pageboy haircut and horn-rim glasses, looking more like a typical 50's housewife than a sophisticated jazz swinger. And if, based on Ms. Dearie's appearance, you were to think that this sweet lil' thing couldn't possibly match the almighty blues-soaked majesty of Ella, Billie, Dinah, or Anita, you'd be right. But comparing Blossom Dearie to the First Lady of Song or any of the others mentioned above would be missing the point. Ms. Dearie's death earlier this year reawakened the jazz community to what ought to be obvious: Blossom Dearie is one of the finest female jazz vocalists of all time. Sure, she couldn't belt out the blues like Billie, but the warmth and character with which she imbued her renditions of standards is delightful to hear. Think of her as the Vince Guaraldi of lady jazz singers: never era-defining or iconoclastic, but pure, sweet, and nearly flawless. This, her self-titled 1959 album for Verve, is her finest moment. For those innocent souls who can still appreciate a fine jazz album with their dinner and wine, this is a godsend. Ms. Dearie's lilting, girlish voice and spacious, gentle arrangements are pure ear candy, from the West Coast-inspired reinvention of vaudeville standard "'Deed I Do", to the laid-back loveliness of "It Might As Well Be Spring", in which Blossom reinterprets a Rodgers and Hammerstein showtune as a French torch ballad. And at the end, we get the delight that is "Blossom's Blues", a spry vamp that betrays Dearie's sassy side.

My name is Blossom, I was raised in a lion's den.

Fire Of Love - The Gun Club

2009-11-16T20:17:00.004-05:00

Distorted, savage blues have long been a cherished American institution, from the satanic verses of Robert Johnson through the whacked-out mumbo jumbo of Captain Beefheart to the high-voltage punk blues of the early White Stripes. And in the annals of frenzied, voodoo-addled blues legend, Jeffrey Lee Pierce and The Gun Club stand alone as the undisputed kings of swamp punk: blues twisted into a barely recognizable form by drugs, black magic, and white kids barely learning to play their instruments. Fire Of Love dropped in 1981 and almost immediately changed the face of American roots music. While similar roots-punk groups like X were indulging their artier inclinations through poetic punk, and The Cramps were hamming it up and inventing "psychobilly", The Gun Club went straight for the jugular, hammering out eleven tracks of fiendish death rock that pulled together the most macabre aspects of blues, country, and primitive rock 'n' roll to create something altogether new and shocking. Jeffrey Lee Pierce's primal howl and descriptions of "huntin' for niggers down in the dark" and "fuck[ing] you 'til you die" still manage to sound both haunting and exhilariting, while the band creates a tense, sparse atmosphere of bottomless bass and slide guitar to back up his fearsome ranting. The band's frantic rendition of Robert Johnson's "Preachin' The Blues" teems with cathartic energy, while the reckless insanity of "For The Love Of Ivy" remains an unparalleled peak in roots rock nearly three decades after its recording. Elsewhere, "Ghost On The Highway" and "Fire Spirit" brim with horrific imagery and punk vigor, cementing Fire Of Love's reputation as a stone-cold classic from start to finish.

You look just like an Elvis from Hell.

Las Mañanitas - Pedro Infante

2009-11-15T16:23:00.005-05:00

Cementing my reputation as the only white guy in the world who really digs ranchera music, I present to you the inimitable Pedro Infante. As a member of the trio of actors/musicians commonly referred to as "los Tres Gallos Mexicanos", Infante, along with other "Mexican roosters" Javier Solís and Jorge Negrete, basically defined ranchero style for the 40's and 50's, developing an on-screen persona as a resilient, romantic man of the people, a role that won him legions of followers. His music, like that of other ranchera singers of the time, is grandiose but never bombastic. While Jorge Negrete was known for his pitch-perfect, operatic tone, and Javier Solís for his rough-hewn, robust delivery, Infante was a singer of shades; alternating between a convivial tenor on tuneful mariachi-oriented rancheras and a sweet, tender croon on gentle boleros and waltzes. Infante's voice, in my humble yet accurate opinion, ranks right up there with enchiladas, el Día de los Muertos, and tequila as one of Mexico's greatest treasures. In fact, many Mexicans are inclined to agree, as evidenced by the thousands of devoted fans that flock to Infante's shrine in Mexico City each year. This album collects several of Infante's most beloved tunes, including the classic title track and the marvelous "En Tu Día". My only complaint, however, is that my personal favorite of Infante's numerous gems is absent from this collection. "Cien Años" is perhaps the loveliest canción ever to come out of la tierra Azteca, and I highly encourage you to seek it out.

En día en que tú naciste, nacieron todas las flores.

BIPPP: French Synth Wave 1979-85 - Various Artists

2009-11-13T17:53:00.003-05:00

The jury's still out on whether or not the French can rock, but when it comes to robotic jerking and convulsing, the French are kings. France's disco history has been well-documented thanks to big names like Daft Punk and Justice, but their history of robot rock is much more obscure. The French have always displayed a penchant for dabbling in the latest musical electronics, from the tape collage experiments of Pierre Schaeffer, to the hokey Moog rock of Jean-Jacques Perry and Pierre Henry, through the brief "space disco" craze of the late 70's, and living on in various incarnations through Air, the Ed Banger crew, and of course, Daft Punk. But what happens when the Gauls think to combine the computer sounds they love so very much with the tension and aggression of punk? (It may come as a surprise to some to learn that there is French punk other than "Ça Plane Pour Moi") The result is something like Suicide transposed from CBGB to Studio 54, en Français. Most of this collection comes from the post-disco era, however, so that's not quite an accurate summation of this sound. Honestly, it sounds like most early 80's "death disco" or early electro pop, but it contains rather unique strands that are difficult to classify. Some of this might alienate all but hardcore Francophiles (A Trois Dans Les WC's "Contagion", for instance), while more dance-oriented tracks like "Je T'ecris D'un Pays" from Les Visiteurs Du Soir and Act's "Ping Pong" would probably sound perfectly-suited to your local indie dance club. Enjoy it for what it is: French synth-punk. After all, did you even know that such a thing existed up until now?

It's a pretty day to die, my blue eyes and your black eyes.

If Man But Knew - The Habibiyya

2009-11-12T20:09:00.002-05:00

Allow me to begin by stating that I know virtually nothing about either Middle Eastern or traditional Islamic music. I have been known to get down to some Omar Souleyman and I certainly dig the sound of the oud, but my knowledge of Middle Eastern culture in general doesn't stretch much farther than knowing the difference between fattoush and tabbouleh. However, I do know quite a lot about 60's mod and psych, so I do know, for example, that high octane mod group The Action (an amazing Brit R&B group, in case you're interested) broke up sometime around 1968 and formed heavy psych band Mighty Baby, releasing two albums of rather bog standard proggy rock before - get this - three members of the band took a trip (double entendre alert) to Morocco, converted to Islam, and abandoned rock 'n' roll for good. Mighty Baby disbanded, and the new Sufi converts forged ahead as an authentic Islamic spiritual group called The Habibiyya. Here, unfortunately, is where I'm bound to fail as a trustworthy reviewer of this album: I think it's great, but for all I know, it could sound to Arabic music enthusiasts like Vanilla Ice sounds to hip-hop heads. Whatever. This sound is so completely removed from that of The Action and Mighty Baby that it's really quite remarkable that the band was able to reinvent themselves so thoroughly over the course of only two years. Needless to say, this ain't psychedelic rock, but it certainly is psychedelic in that it truly challenges and excites the senses. Drones, chants, and rhythms all meld together to create a marvelous head trip of an album. If Man But Knew sounds, to my ears, quite authentic as a piece of traditional Sufi music, but it also manages to retain some degree of eclecticism, particularly in the way it employs traditional Japanese instrumentation like the koto and shakuhachi. Overall, this is a wonder and a joy of an album, and one of the most fascinating products of the newly worldly and culturally aware musical community of the early 1970's.

"A science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God."

Apresentamos Nosso Cassiano - Cassiano

2009-11-11T12:22:00.005-05:00

Brazilian soul has never really gotten its due outside of Brazil, and quite frankly it's hard to see why (other than the obvious language barrier that basically insulates most American/British listeners from most of the world's music). Tim Maia, rest his soul, is viewed as one of Brazilian music's most benevolent gods, despite the fact that he basically repackaged American rhythm and blues for a Portuguese-speaking audience, while Hyldon ruled the Brazilian charts during the 70's with his sensuous soul-inspired croon. Here we must introduce the third figure in our triumvirate of Brazilian soul, Cassiano. Cassiano is certainly the least well-known of the three Brazilian soul godfathers, despite his run of hits in the early 70's. Apresentamos Nosso Cassiano, however, stands its own against even the finest American smooth soul albums of the era. There are echoes here of everything from What's Going On to Philadelphia International Records, with a healthy smattering of Al Green's boss make-out jams. But Cassiano's real strength lies in his synthesis skills; everything here sounds distinctly Brazilian. There are aspects of Wilson Simonal's smooth samba and Jorge Ben's Afro-Brazilian funk fusion, but tracks like "Castical" are grandiose experiments in pop that would do David Axelrod (or Brazilian counterpart Arthur Verocai) very proud. "O Vale", a syrupy ballad draped over layers of mesmerizing electric keyboards, is perhaps the album's foremost highlight, but the laid-back funk of "Calçada", with its Stevie Wonder-esque frills, and "Me Chame Atenção", with production that sounds like a wonderful collaboration between Isaac Hayes and Willie Mitchell, are both timeless examples of Brazilian soul at its most thrilling and unique.

Impressionante!

Hello Mom! - Modeselektor

2009-11-10T16:20:00.002-05:00

Think of Modeselektor as an electronic dance music primer: once you've boogied with Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary, you've boogied to acid house, IDM, electro, Eurodisco, hip-hop, ambient techno, and just about any other beat-based strain you might care to mention. Modeselektor have recorded since 2000 with Ellen Allien's generally IDM-oriented BPitch Control record label, but Modeselektor stands out from labelmates like Apparat and Sascha Funke like a sore thumb. The genius in Hello Mom! isn't in its diversity, although there's plenty of that. Rather, Bronsert and Szary manage to twist and mold every style they can get their grubby mitts on into a friendly, unpretentious collection of pop tunes with little regard for guidelines or precedents. The glitchy, dancehall reggae-flavored "Dancingbox", which features a guest spot from Parisian b-boy crew TTC, sounds like the consummate European dance track: a cathartic party-starter that has floor-filling potential in both techno and hip-hop clubs. "The Rapanthem", as its name suggests, also draws on hip-hop, but it's equally informed by the ambient sounds of Aphex Twin and even the eerie progressive rock of Goblin. "Kill Bill Vol. 4" is pure acid, sounding like a 90's raver reengineered for the ADD 2000's. On the other hand, "Hasir", with its Asiatic strings and netherwordly synths, is nearly trip-hop in tone. It's a brief, pleasant departure from the relentlessly party-oriented tracks that fill most of the album. Hello Mom! doesn't exactly sound like the work of bona fide musical mavericks, but that's no dig. Modeselektor are established pros at manipulating styles and trends, and Hello Mom! is the marvelously danceable realization of an ethos that's rather unique in electronic music.

They've got surround sound, a Rottweiler hound, and they don't want the euro replacing the pound.

Colombia! The Golden Age Of Discos Fuentes - Various Artists

2009-11-09T18:02:00.003-05:00

When talking Colombian music, or Latin music in general, it doesn't get much better than Discos Fuentes. Antonio Fuentes Estrada's labor of love became the first Colombian-owned record label when it opened for business in the 30's and continues today as one of the world's foremost exponents of greasy, ass-shaking Latin grooves. Although marvelously consistent, Discos Fuentes experienced its greatest successes in the 60's and 70's as it strove to legitimize the African rhythms of cumbia and the pan-Latin soul of salsa for a global record-buying public. This collection of swaggering cumbia dancefloor fillers and sly nightclub vamps focuses on the years 1960 to 1976; the years in which American record buyers hungry for a new craze were eager to snap up anything tangibly similar to the Latin music popularized by Afro-Cuban jazz, Tito Puente, and Fania Records. The tracks contained herein, however, still sound gloriously unbound by American dancefloor trends: this is pure Colombian cumbia. Fruko & Sus Tesos and Michi Sarmiento are the most well-represented artists here, with three tracks apiece, and together they manage to steal the entire show. Fruko and his compadres were houserockin' innovators, integrating aspects of tribal folk music and pop harmonies into their spicy salsa, while Sarmiento and his band specialized in a more traditional and laid-back brand of cumbia, stretching out brilliantly on paradisiac cuts like "La Primavera". The most stunning track here, however, belongs to Los Corraleros De Majagual. "El Mondongo" is a ten minute-plus epic of jazzy piano frills, insistent percussion, and spectacular trumpet solos. If you can't get down to this, you had better get your hips checked.

Qué soda!

Klaatu - Klaatu

2009-11-06T18:54:00.004-05:00

The story of Klaatu is one of those bizarre musical happenings that could have only come about in the 70's. This Canadian progressive rock band released their first album in 1976 without including any biographical information. The mysterious, mildly avant-garde pop sounds contained therein sounds a wee bit like Paul McCartney on a serious sci-fi trip, leading to a large-scale rumor that Klaatu were, in fact, The Beatles masquerading as this wacky prog band to avoid the pressures of publicity. This rumor obviously deflates after a cursory listen to this album, as Klaatu is not even close to The Beatles' level of quality and consistency. Furthermore, this curio of an album really sounds nothing like The Beatles ("Sub-Rosa Subway" excepted). Be that as it may, Klaatu's debut is an odd, gentle trip that avoids most of prog-rock's irritating clichés in favor of a wholly unique brand of mid-70's pop. The aforementioned "Sub-Rosa Subway", which does indeed smack of McCartneyist songcraft, is prog at its most pleasingly anthemic. The extended jam of "Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft" (later covered by The Carpenters) is delightfully eccentric and evokes 10cc in their more subversive moments, while "Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III" plays like a disorienting composite of Captain Beefheart and The Bonzo Dog Band. Klaatu could hardly sell a record after folks discovered that they were not, in fact, The Beatles, but this strange, sweet artifact proves that the band had something going for it apart from big-name comparisons.

Meet my computer, he's a friendly son-of-a-gun.

Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited - Various Artists

2009-11-05T13:05:00.004-05:00

Tribute albums are always a dodgy idea. Few manage to truly evoke the spirit of the artist in tribute, while many are built on gimmicks designed to rope in unsuspecting fans of said artist (another Gainsbourg tribute, I ♥ Serge: Electronica Gainsbourg unfortunately falls into this latter category). When dealing with a real maverick like France's legendary "dirty old man of rock & roll", it only stands to reason that a tribute album would sound just as peculiar and diverse as Serge's own recordings. And therein is where this album both succeeds and fails (luckily, the successes are rather spectacular and significantly outnumber the failures). Most of the artists compiled here have already publicly, or at least through their music, expressed their devotion to this self-proclaimed "cabbage-headed sex maniac", and here they finally get their chance to gush over Gainsbourg's iconic compositions. As far as first tracks go, Franz Ferdinand and Jane Birkin's explosive "A Song For Sorry Angel" sets the bar extremely high, remaining faithful in spirit to Serge's synth-y original without obviously copping Serge's 60's clichés, a vice to which many of the performers here fall victim. Portishead's "Requiem For Anna" is atmospheric and moody, and sounds more like a magnificent collaboration between Beth Gibbons and Gainsbourg's ghost, rather than a student paying tribute to the master. The Rakes' nervy take on "Les Poinçonneurs des Lilas", translated here as "Just A Man With A Job", plays like a conventional though thrilling punk cover, and Jarvis Cocker's syrupy reading of "Je Suis Venu Te Dire Que Je M'en Vais" ("I Just Came To Tell You I'm Going") sounds just about like the Gainsbourg original, but that's no dig at Cocker; if anyone's spent his career campaigning for broader recognition of Serge's musical gifts to mankind, it's him. The most depressing duds here are Cat Power and, oddly enough, Jack White's wife Karen Elson's bland trawl through Serge's only international hit, "Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus", which aims for that vintage French erotica that everybody seems to love and misses the mark completely. Likewise, James Iha and Kazu Makino's dreary and melodramatic translation of "Bonnie et Clyde" is almost instantly irritating, sufficient proof that some things just sound better en Français. But these are small complaints, and as far as tribute albums go, this one is quite a thrill.

Counting lights, every night, every kind of light.

Wa-Do-Dem - Eek-A-Mouse

2009-11-04T19:33:00.004-05:00

Let's start with the disclaimer: Eek-A-Mouse will sound to some like a breath of Jamaican fresh air. To others he will sound irritating, juvenile, and downright bizarre. Even hard-boiled reggae fans may balk at his unorthodox delivery, incoherent babbling, and cartoon character vocals. With that said, this record is darn cool. Sounding like Mickey Mouse smoking a huge spliff, Eek-A-Mouse, for better or worse, did much to chart the course of reggae in the 80's as the first dancehall toaster of his type: a babbling, eccentric hooligan with a pocketful of nonsensical rhymes and a penchant for odd, synthesized riddims... no wonder all of my stoner friends love him. Sure, there's plenty of dub fire here (dub magnate Linval Thompson produced some of Eek's early singles), but the focus is most definitely not on thunderous bass riffs or brain-nuzzling echo effects. It's all about Eek-A-Mouse, one of the most singular reggae vocalists of all time. He's not quite a singer (he certainly has no talent for rocksteady or lover's rock), but he's not quite a DJ in the manner of Big Youth or Dennis Alcapone either. Think of him instead as the prototypical dancehall DJ: a pioneer from an innocent period in dancehall history when a loose-limbed kid like Eek could virtually scat over a tinny, cheap beat and craft a helluva good song out of it. The slippery title track saunters over a charming dub-lite beat, while "Operation Eradication" gets dirtier with a slinky organ-based roots groove, and "War Don't Pay" harnesses a fab percussive dub track for Eek's loose crooning.

Dun' dere in the ghetto I go, where tribulation I once know, ey.

Tramp - Lowell Fulson

2009-11-03T20:20:00.002-05:00

Is it possible to find a record more houserockin' than this one? Straight-up barnstormin' blues, that's what this is. Lowell Fulson's hootenanny holler and chicken stratch guitar-pickin' put lesser R&B up-and-comers to shame in 1966 with the electrified stomp of the title track (covered later by artists as diverse as Otis Redding and Carla Thomas, ZZ Top, and Salt 'n' Pepa). In fact, "Tramp" puts 99% of R&B to shame; this classic is blues at its most loose and jerky, and the rest of the album follows in the same vein. Fulson's country blues past behind him, he hunkers down and churns out a sweaty Southern soul groove through swaggering cuts like "Get Your Game Up Tight" and "Back Door Key". Fulson's voice is majestic; warm and booming like Howlin' Wolf's kid brother, and his guitar-pickin' is purely sublime, never falling into the more predictable patterns sometimes trawled by other "cosmopolitan" blues twangers of the same era. "Two Way Wishing" cuts like a knife, sounding for all the world like what The Rolling Stones aspired to but could never quite reach, while "Year of 29" is so hot that it's likely to leave your speakers smellin' like burnin' rubber. (Note: Fulson is billed as "Lowell Fulsom" on this record sleeve, which is a name he sometimes recorded under for reasons unbeknownst to me. Generally people now refer to him as "Fulson".)

Call me country, right from the woods!

Les Gants Blancs Du Diable - Karl Heinz Schäfer

2009-11-02T17:43:00.003-05:00

Direct from the Gallic underground, we have here a sly and sexy film score that only the French could have turned out. Like Michel Magne, Francis Lai, or any number of pitiably obscure French soundtrack composers of the late 60's and early 70's, Karl Heinz Schäfer worked from a jazz background, and this soundtrack is fully of busy bop drumming and sweet West Coast cool-inspired flourishes: vibes and electric keyboards abound. However, pure Francophone jazz this ain't: wicked funk grooves color the more upbeat tracks throughout the album, while the recurring motifs from this score float around with the same sort of general eeriness as can be found on Serge Gainsbourg's albums from this period (particularly his Cannabis soundtrack) and Alain Gorageur's landmark soundtrack to the bizarre sci-fi cartoon La Planète Sauvage. Gorageur's soundtrack, in fact, may be the closest reference point for this album: both are wondrously inventive composites of popular styles of the era (soul jazz, psychedelic pop, and lite funk are all well-represented, even a sitar makes an appearance), and both sound distinctly French, evoking an atmosphere of macabre whimsy, the likes of which would go virtually unheard in popular music until Air dug out their Gainsbourg, Gorageur, and Schäfer records and recorded their own score for The Virgin Suicides in 2000. Les Gants Blancs Du Diable's obvious highlight is "La Victime", a sensuous jam built around a wicked break and tense strings, but other highlights include the sublimely bottom-heavy funk of "Kidnapping" and the dense ambient balladry of "Couleurs". Notice that I've said nothing about this soundtrack's accompanying film; apparently Schäfer's soundtrack so completely outshines the movie that it has been out of print since its original release in 1973.

"An enigmatic man, blind in one eye at first and later blind in both, is the hit man in this French thriller."

Howlin' At The Moon - Don Cooper

2009-11-01T17:20:00.003-05:00

Don Cooper, like his recently rediscovered folkie counterpart Sixto Rodriguez, is a clear cut casualty of the folk-rock boom of the early 70's. While the Carole Kings, James Taylors, and Joni Mitchells of the world were out in the public spotlight collecting gold records like Pogs, Cooper was languishing in utter obscurity and desperately churning out pitch-perfect folk-psych jams in a fruitless quest for a hit. Unlike Rodriguez, who has experienced an enthusiastic revival of interest in recent years (due in part to the cult status of his Dennis Coffey-produced 1970 album Cold Fact), Cooper's legacy has largely been left to crate-digging sample-seekers like Andy Votel and the crew at Cherry Red Records. It's truly a shame, as Cooper packed as much lyrical punch as any early-70's folkie, and the loose funk rhythms that populate his recordings are prime sampling material. This best-of compilation functions as a definitive overview of a flower power byproduct left in the cold by a supersaturated folk-rock market with little time or cash for eccentrics like Cooper. Don't let his lack of success deter you though, these tracks are total ear candy. "Blueberry Pickin'" sounds like the Fab Four with more folk and more funk, "Captain Spangles Crystal Song" is the sound of Southern soul perverted by a few golden years of peace, love, and dope, and "Howlin' At The Moon" is a straight-up groover of impressive magnitude.

Seems I never call the sun down, I'm just howlin' at the moon!

Vampyros Lesbos - The Vampires' Sound Incorporation

2009-10-31T18:30:00.002-04:00

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

2009-10-30T19:16:00.004-04:00

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

2009-10-29T20:21:00.004-04:00

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

2009-10-28T18:59:00.005-04:00

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

2009-10-27T20:59:00.004-04:00

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

2009-10-25T20:13:00.009-04:00

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

2009-10-24T12:18:00.004-04:00

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

2009-10-23T12:47:00.005-04:00

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

2009-10-22T20:31:00.006-04:00

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

2009-10-21T16:58:00.005-04:00

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

2009-10-20T11:07:00.005-04:00

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

2009-10-19T11:38:00.002-04:00

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

2009-10-18T18:45:00.003-04:00

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

2009-10-17T11:49:00.005-04:00

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

2009-10-15T20:20:00.003-04:00

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

2009-10-14T15:24:00.001-04:00

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

2009-10-13T20:37:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-12T17:41:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-11T13:13:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-10T16:09:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-09T15:18:00.001-04:00

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

2009-10-08T09:52:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-07T12:39:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-07T12:21:00.000-04:00

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.