Across the Continent to Benin
April 27, 2011
After a couple of days of Nigerian classics we move to Benin in West Africa with some great groove based funk from T.p. Orchestre Poly-rythmo – a band that ruled the dance floor in Porto-Novo and beyond throughout the 70′s.
T.p. Orchestre rose to prominence during the oppressive Marxist-Leninist regime that ruled the country from ’71-’90 with an iron fist. While no one would consider T.p. Orchestre’s music overtly political - it was rebellious and their music went relatively unnoticed outside of Benin, in great part thanks to the government, until Soundway put out a compilation of their music several years ago. Needless to say the complete LP is well worth your time.
“You are the music while the music lasts”
April 25, 2011
We begin our week of African funk and psychedelia on a sad note – the recent unrest in Nigeria is beginning to “echo” Nigeria’s Civil War era and unfortunately the world is paying scant attention to the rising violence. A few months ago Soundway records released an amazing compilation of Nigerian psychedelia from the early 70′s as the country tried to come to terms with the devastating civil war. The music throughout the discs is equally haunting and beautiful with the compilation’s title track ‘The World Ends’ by the Black Mirrors particularly genius. Very sadly, given the current events in Nigeria ‘The World Ends’, beyond being brilliant, is unfortunately completely apropos.
Space has no Beginning
April 15, 2011
We end a week filled with free jazz and ambient music with one of the most important figures in free jazz – Sun Ra doing some decidedly non avant-garde work on ‘Enlightenment’ the first track on his fantastic Jazz in Silhouette album. Modern listeners tend to focus on Sun Ra’s more exploratory work in the 60′s ignoring Sun Ra’s magical Chicago period entirely in which he recorded some of the best music of the 50′s. Jazz in Silhouette is particularly amazing as it pulls together all of Sun Ra’s skills as a arranger while offering hints of what was to come when Sun Ra moved to New York and pushed jazz toward the psychedelic. For those who have always been interested in Sun Ra but unsure about avant-garde jazz I would suggest dipping into his Chicago work and seeing if you like that before going any further because after about 1961 things get more then a little crazy – and needless to say its not for everyone.
Quiet
April 13, 2011
Moving away from jazz and towards something completely different – electronically charged dark ambient courtesy of Tim Hecker’s latest record Ravedeath, 1972. Ravedeath was recorded in Reykjavik in July 2010 and it shows – no album recorded by an outsider has done a better job of capturing the stark isolation of the Icelandic landscape. There is a haunting Nordic nothingness to this album that harkens back to Hecker’s earliest work. It is dark and unyielding yet accessible for those willing to sit back and let the music wash over them. Highly recommended.
‘Analog Paralysis, 1978′ – Tim Hecker
Ravedeath, 1972 – Tim Hecker (Insound)
Noir
April 6, 2011
‘Song with Orange’ starts off with beautiful piano work before the full band comes in and it turns into a noir pot boiler – by the middle of 1st minute we are into late 60′s/early 70′s LA Detective Drama territory – its not quite Dragnet but its in the Joe Friday universe – overall stunning stuff from Charles Mingus’s Mingus Dynasty LP.
The Beauty
April 5, 2011
Some beautiful solo piano work from the now ultra-underrated Abdullah Ibrahim – his album Fats, Duke & the Monk is a must have and a good way to kick off jazz week which might last a lot longer than a week
Free Music Weekend
March 11, 2011
There is a ton of places on to find Free LEGAL music provided by tons of generous bands for your consumption. Here are four of my favorite places to download music on the web:
FMA (Free Music Archive): An extremely large database of free music that is very easy to navigate and browse – well worth wasting a few hour on the FMA. (Quick tip: Holy Coast’s s/t LP)
Candy Dinner: A wonderful curated digital ‘record label’ – although there isn’t a lot of music there – it features very diverse albums all worth sampling (Quick tip: a good place to start – Tiger Bones ‘Go over here’ ep)
Bandcamp: Over the last few months Band Camp has become my go to site for new music on the web – Band Camp and Tumblr are slowing replacing Myspace as the website every new bands needs. Admittedly most stuff on Bandcamp isn’t free but there are enough free EPs to keep you going for a long time. (Quick tip: verBS ‘Progress EP’ – absurdly good Funk/Hip-Hop)
Archive.org: The old standby – there is so much free stuff on here its impossible to navigate it all. For music fans there are a ton of free EPs and tracks from throughout the 20th & 21st century worth listening to but I tend to spend most of my time on the Live Music Archive which features a tremendous amount of free shows from hundreds of bands. Its hard to go wrong at the archive. (Quick tip: hard to know where to start here: if you like beautiful pop – Elliott Smith 6-2-98, Stockholm fits the bill – if you prefer jam check out Disco Biscuits 12-26-02, Tammany Hall)
There are obviously many other places to find free LEGALLY downloadable music on the internet – but these sites are a good place to start. I hope everyone has a nice weekend.
“…an exchange of ignorance”
February 23, 2011
Baltimore’s Arbouretum released their new album The Gathering this week to most middling reviews. Pitchfork in particular ravaged the record. Now I usually don’t make it to point to call out other much better music sites however this review really irked simply because it was based on a faulty premise – i.e. Arbouretum was once a really great folk rock band that is trying to embrace something they are not – Queens of the Stone Age inspired Desert-Rock.
First of all – I don’t know what the they have been listening to but Arbouretum was never a folk rock band – they have always been a Depression Jam/Post Jam outfit. Their sound is a mixture of the psychedelic dark late 60′s Dead and jammy ‘Everyone know this is no where’ – era Neil Young. Now I admit The Gathering has a significantly darker edge than Song of the Pearl and to be fair Mr. Greene’s main problem with the record seems to be Dave Heumann’s lyrics which I have no issue with – lyrics have never been Arbouretum strong suit. Furthermore, Greene’s assessment that the opener ‘The White Bird’ is the strongest overall strongest song on the record is probably accurate. However, The Gathering is a natural progression from what Arbouretum has been doing for their last few albums – increasingly apocalyptic post jam – to say Arbouretum needs to return to the folk rock roots doesn’t make a lot of sense since they don’t really have folk rock roots. The closest Arbouretum ever got to folk rock was their debut album Long Live the Well-Doer which while deeply rooted in Southern rock is a bit too dischordant to be considered folk. Let’s put it this way there is not a lot of Damien Jurado on that record. Anyway for those who like fuzzy noodlely guitars and dark acid tinged crunch The Gathering is a pretty safe bet – for those repelled by this type of music move on – there is nothing to see here.
‘Sands and Sands’ – Arbouretum (fr. Long Live the Well-Doer 2004)
‘Pale Rider Blues’ – Arbouretum (fr. Rites of Uncovering 2007)
‘False Spring’ – Arbouretum (fr. Song of the Pearl 2009)
‘The White Bird’ – Arbouretum (fr. The Gathering 2011)
Breakfast 4 Track
February 15, 2011
A little Breakfast EP – from your friends at Night in Los Angeles to kick off your Tuesday. Admittedly these four tracks have little in common, in fact one could argue they hold up better on their on:
‘New Nathan Detroits’ because Math pop has never sounded so effortless.
‘You’re A Wolf ‘ has an obnoxiously sinister riff.
‘Ungawa’ is a dumbshit masterpiece.
‘Misty Eyes’ because it’s girlie.
However when listened to as a playlist the songs form a (somewhat?) cohesive musical statement. There is a grimy texture and quiet violence that seems to bind these songs together. So while you can pick and choose the post rock of Braid, the garage pop of Chow Nasty, the dark depression pop of Sea Wolf, or the quiet desperation of Ohbijou at your leisure – if you have 15 minutes its worth listening to them together as a mix at least once.
Dubstep and JCVD together at last
February 8, 2011
How to Dance Dubstep with Jean Claude Van Damme (YT)
You can thank ‘Salad UK’ for this tremendous mash up of traditional dubstep and Kickboxer – Jean Claude was born to teach the world how to dubstep. Unfortunately Salad recently disabled embedding so you will have to watch the video on youtube – believe me its worth your time.
Speaking of Van Damme – if you haven’t seen his uber-modern masterpiece JCVD you owe it to yourself to take two hours out of your week and give it a watch. For all the hype surrounding The Expendables and the various recent movies directed by Dr. Dolph Lundgren – JCVD is the only one that fully delivers on its insane premise. It is really the best film of the recent 80′s action revival. We can only hope Arnie’s return to the silver screen produces such sterling results.
On a completely unrelated note – Akron/Family’s new album is officially released today (although outlets such as emusic have had it for weeks). This new record moves beyond typical Akron/Family depression jam into Acid-fueled dischordant post jam. There are hints of My Morning Jacket influenced pop gems underneath the flood of distortion and fuzz however there is very little commercial about this record when compared to Set ‘em Wild Set ‘em Free. If this is your thing – do yourself and buy the vinyl.
