Turquoise - Headdress

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

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

The Groovy Collection - Winston Groovy

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

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

Mr. Hood - KMD

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

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

Group Sounds - Rocket From The Crypt

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

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

Night Of The Mayas - Silvestre Revueltas

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

¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé!

Taxis - Zoos Of Berlin

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

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

Legrand Jazz - Michel Legrand

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

Mon dieu!

Peanut Butter & Jelly Live At The Ginger Minge - Coachwhips

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

Ouch.

German Oak - German Oak

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

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

Kim Kim Kim - Kim Weston

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

I've got soul on fire!

Dubwise - Prince Far I

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

Oh love divine, how sweet thou art.

Cheap Time - Cheap Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.