THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Originally released in 1968, this disc brings together pieces composed during the first decade of the reknowned BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a groundbreaking sound laboratory that provided British radio listeners and TV viewers with avant-garde musique concrete interludes and wacky sound effects -- Dr. Who being their most well-known client. There's no Who here, but a broad range of other stuff, including music from a War of the Worlds dramatization, experimental radio plays, documentary soundtracks, and signature tunes for local radio stations. Back before computers and sampling, these recordings represent many hours of painstaking, clever work: 33 tracks composed by Workshop electronic music pioneers Delia Derbyshire, John Baker, and David Cain. Their heroic efforts are historically interesting, and a good listen to boot, which was always the intent. The cd booklet contains extensive liner notes and evocative photos of Workshop staffers amid their tape reels and sundry noise-making objects. The Workshop's second decade saw the introduction of synths, output explored on this disc's companion reissue, 1975's "The Radiophonic Workshop", reviewed elsewhere on this site/list.
Super limited quadruple 10" set that compiles tracks from both the BBC Radiophonic Workshop records, up until now only available on cd. All the artists get one side, except Delia Derbyshire who gets a whole record to herself. Here's what we had to say about the cd versions:
"BBC Radiophonic Music"
Originally released in 1968, this compilation brings together pieces composed during the first decade of the reknowned BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a groundbreaking sound laboratory that provided British radio listeners and TV viewers with avant-garde musique concrete interludes and wacky sound effects -- Dr. Who being their most well-known client. There's no Who here, but a broad range of other stuff, including music from a War of the Worlds dramatization, experimental radio plays, documentary soundtracks, and signature tunes for local radio stations. Back before computers and sampling, these recordings represent many hours of painstaking, clever work: 33 tracks composed by Workshop electronic music pioneers Delia Derbyshire, John Baker, and David Cain. Their heroic efforts are historically interesting, and a good listen to boot, which was always the intent.
"The Radiophonic Workshop"
The classic 1975 album reissued, chock full o' quirky and/or moody cutting-edge compositions from the the madmen (and women) who inhabited the legendary BBC Radio Radiophonic Workshop in its heyday -- you know, the folks responsible for all the electronic music on the Dr. Who TV show. So, you get all the mysterious whooshes and percolating scifi bleepage you'd expect. Sound effects and music converge here, utilizing the most advanced synth technology of the day (such as the EMS Synthi 100 'Delaware' machine, described as "massive"), and a lot of imagination. Combining electronically-generated sounds with tape loops and live instruments, tracks here range from spritely, happy video arcade pop toons to spooky, creepy soundcapes (or the disturbing gastrointestinal ambience of "Major Bloodnok's Stomach", track 8). Clever montage, music box melodies, and assorted mad-computer sounds abound. Pretty neat.
Another glorious glimpse back at the long lost art of the Funerary Violin. A genre all but forgotten and lost, some say quashed by the Catholic Church, a gorgeous mournful body of work, solo violin pieces to be performed at funerals, sad and sorrowful, minor key and miserable, dense with dark emotions, perfectly transporting the listener back to an nineteenth century funeral, the procession, the mourners clad in black... Very beautiful and evocative. But it's not just the music, it's the tangled history of the players and the personalities, the musicians and the composers and the patrons responsible for much of the music. Oh, and the fact that it's all made up.
That's right, these amazing scratchy wax cylinder recordings of simple melancholy violin pieces, and the text accompanying them have all been fabricated. Although sometimes it's tough to tell when hearing the genuinely creepy, crackly and realistically old timey sounding music, and reading the extensive tales of the composers and their tragic lives. Maybe it is all real? Who are we to say? Just because there is only one person in the entire world who knows everything, anything actually, about the mysterious Guild Of Funerary Violinists. And the fact that none of the performers or composers are mentioned anywhere, recorded, written, anecdotal, except within the pages of the book, the liner notes and the website of the genre's discoverer (perhaps creator).
But like we mentioned in a past review of another Funerary disc, who cares? The music is dark and mysterious, emotional and creepy, and the text is fascinating, impossibly well researched considering none of it is real, and totally fun to read.
This disc (supposedly) collects the work of three of the most important figures in the English School Of Funerary Violin. Babcotte, Sudbury and Eaton. All of these recording recovered from the extensive collection of Funerary relics kept by Gunter II, Prince of Schwatzburg-Sonderhausen, who in addition to the wax cylinders heard here, also counted among his prized possessions, the coffins of Goethe and Heine, as well as the death mask of Beethoven. The first Babcotte track here is thought to be performed by Gunter, himself an accomplished violinist, however the rest, the legendary "Funerary Suite # 4", due to their sound and performance are considered to be the work of Wilhelm Kleinbach (whose disc we reviewed a list or two back). The Eaton piece, a slow mournful, sometimes atonal dirge, is performed by the composer himself, captured on wax cylinder in 1913. And the final piece, "The Erroneous Dirge Of George Babcotte is performed and recorded by Maria Rotaru in 1975, a young Romanian violinist who tried to pass the work off as her own composition. When the truth came out, Rotaru disappeared mysteriously, and it was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union that this piece resurfaced. Or so we're told...
Even without the fantastical backstory, the music is worth the price of admission. Each piece is wonderfully crafted and beautifully performed, all solo violin, keening mournfully, minor key melodies drifting dreamily in some, the scrape and sawing of the bow constructing miserablist dirges in others, all except the more recent bathed in a thick cloak of crackle and static, giving it that Jeck / Hecker fuzzy-blurry-dreamy vibe we can never seem to get enough of. The fact that this music is set amidst such a dense and complex, passionate world of intrigue and mystery, love and death, only makes it that much more exciting. And the fact that every single bit of it is made up, well, as far as we're concerned that just seals the deal.
Recommended!
It may not be Spring, but love is in the air. Or if it's not in the air, it's most definitely sealed up in these three discs, collecting some of the all time classic love songs, from the golden age of the love song, the '20s and '30s.
A collection of blues, country, bluegrass, big band, jazz and old timey numbers, chronicling the eternal quest for love, and sex, and intimacy, as well as the sometimes equally neverending quest of avoiding parties which one perhaps does not wish to share any of those things. Cleverly separated into three volumes, love, lust and contempt. Very few names we recognize, but a selection of song titles might convince you what a great, fun, and funny collection this really is: "It's Shame To Whip Your Wife On Sunday", "Wimmin-Aaah!", "He Went In Like A Lion (But Came Out Like A Lamb)", "I'm Wearin' The Britches Now", "You Gonna Look Like A Monkey When You Get Old", "She Ain't Built That Way", "I'm Gonna Kill Myself", "The Gal That Got Stuck On Everything She Seen", "Minnie The Mermaid (A Love Song In Fish Time)", "Pussy", "Let Me Play With It" and on and on and on.
There are horns, banjos, yodeling, scatting, fiddles, barrelhouse piano, ukuleles, all manner of voices, rough and raw, sweet croons, male, female, and the lyrics... from honest and heartfelt, to saucy and bawdy, to downright nasty, another winner from Dust-To-Digital, definitely one of our new favorite old timey reissues, and as with all D2D releases, gorgeous packaging, a full color 8 panel digipak, with tons of photos and paintings, and really funny liner notes by Nick Tosches.
First it was O Brother Where Art Thou, and now it's Cold Mountain. Everyone's gone nuts for American roots music. Ever on the lookout to educate and titilate (and I'm sure capitilizing on the moment to make a little dough recycling their vast vault of recordings) when some blockbuster movie comes out and gets a hair in everyone's butt, Smithsonian Folkways has done their best to put out this collection of classic Appalachian music by the very folks who are descended from those that fought and died in the Civil War playing the very songs that have been passed down from generation to generation. And there's a few generations of music on here, the individual tracks coming from as far back as 1927 and as recently as 2002. There's a lot of familiar names on here like Roscoe Holcomb, the Sacred Harp Singers, Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers and Doc Watson as well as plenty of lesser known artists. There's a lot here: Hollers, fife & drum tunes, church choirs and gospels, old time tunes, bluegrass, blues and more. Along with five previously unreleased tracks (including a great holler from T.J. Chesser) Smithsonian Folkways has included the requisite fat book of liner notes and biographical information. Nice.
You may or may not have already been graced by Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" yet. If not, may we recommend you run out and buy it immediately (from AQ, even!) Tis a truly beautiful collection of songs penned and recorded by Springsteen in 1981, literally in his bedroom with an acoustic guitar and a four track. Replete with stark songs sketching out unforgettable characters filled with despair, loneliness, and an aching to do the right thing. It's fucking amazing, despite whether or not you like, say, all that "Born in the USA" business that came later, you simply cannot remain unmoved by "Nebraska". Utterly classic and essential.
Now, if I had never heard Nebraska before, I'da prob'ly regarded this here tribute record as a decent collection of impeccably-written songs performed by folks who obviously have total reverence for the material. But, since I've loved Springsteen's "Nebraska" for years, it's a little hard for any of these versions to live up to the originals. A couple of the renditions are even a bit horrifying, especially Hank Williams III's honky tonkin' take on "Atlantic City", a song Springsteen performed to perfection and which REALLY shouldn't be messed with. Nonetheless, most of the performances on Badlands are purty all right, including those by Ani diFranco, Aimee Mann, Son Volt, Dar Williams, Chrissie Hynde, Johnny Cash, and Damien Jurado.
This disc, originally released in 1989, is sort of a sequel to the "Golden Rain" title we listed last time. This one, also recorded by David Lewiston, was made on his first return to Bali in over 20 years. The changes that the island had undergone since his previous visit were somewhat of a shock (rampant tourism, noisy motorbikes everywhere, urban chaos) to Lewiston, who had previously been able to set up and record without so much as a thought to extraneous noise. This time round Lewiston rented out a local friend's art gallery and adjoining badminton court for most of these sessions in order to overcome the noise issue. And, for better or worse, he even went so far as to have the musicians rearrange their instruments in order to get a better stereo recording. What is really nice about this recording, hi-fidelity aside, is that it is a nice broad overview of some of the gamelan styles (and non-gamelan to boot) in Bali. The first track is a 12 minute recording of the opening parade of the Bali Arts Festival in 1987. Everyone loves a parade, and this one is no exception. You get to hear six different ensembles as they march past the recordist. This is followed by another recording of Gong Kebyar (that's the recording that required all the rearranging of the instruments), a recording of Balinese jew's-harp, and a really bizarre recording played on reedy instruments made from palm bark accompanied by percussion. Also included is a recording of gamelan salunding, which is an ancient Balinese gamelan made of iron. It sounds completely different than any other Balinese gamelan (almost like an ill-tuned gamelan), partly due to its being made of iron, but it's also a rather small ensemble with some of the most beautiful melodies in Balinese gamelan. The award for most eerie track has to go to Sadh Budaya Gamelan Gong Suling performing a piece for Semar Pegulingan entirely on flutes (with the addition of a few rhythmic instruments for structural purposes.) There's also an excerpt of Gender Wayang, which is the musical accompaniment to shadow play in Bali (see also the full disc also just reissued of this.) Plus another brief excerpt of Kecak and closed with one more Kebyar track. All on one disc!
Gamelan Semar Pegulingan is one of the many now rare gamelan of the island of Bali; displaced by the fall of the Balinese court and the subsequent explosion of gong kebyar. The repertoire of this gamelan, which is named after the god of love (Semar Pegulingan), was specific to two distinct occasions. The most common time in which Semar Pegulingan was used was outside the King's bed chamber in the evenings, but it also played the musical accompaniment for the Legong dance which was performed exclusively by pre-pubescent girls. The set on which the material on this CD was performed was one which had been spared the crucible through the efforts of the Canadian composer/ethnomusicologist Colin McPhee in the 1930's who commissioned a group of musicians to continue the gamelan's repertoire. These recordings were made in 1972 by Robert Brown after the gamelan had been carefully restored to its original condition (it had come into disarray after McPhee's departure from the island and had been decomposing for some 30 years.) It is a particularly beautiful gamelan and hearing it can give on a bit more perspective on the popular gong kebyar. Because of its relatively slower pace, it's much easier to grasp how the instruments interlock within the gamelan.
We just got the first batch of the Indonesia / South Pacific installment of Nonesuch's Explorer reissues, which total 12 in number. Ten of the discs are from either Java or Bali and just about each one features an entirely different form of gamelan. A Gamelan, as a cursory way of introduction, is an orchestra of primarily bronze (though bamboo gamelan are also common) percussion instruments -- metallophones, gongs, gong-chimes -- and drums. Quite often a gamelan will have a specific repertoire that it is exclusively built for the performance of, and certain ceremonial gamelan are limited to the performance of a single piece. On top of this, throughout Java and Bali there is an ever changing world of both village and court traditions which continue to defy definitions. These discs just in from Bali and Central & Western Java just scratch the surface of gamelan throughout Indonesia, but they're a fine introduction anyway.
Back in 1967 when this record hit the shelves it blew people's minds, and even today it remains one of the most unique and amazing things you're likely to hear. "Golden Rain" is the historic recording that started it all. Recorded by David Lewiston in 1966, Golden Rain was not only the first recording to be released in the Explorer series, but is touted as the first commercial release of "International" music (a claim that some might argue with.)
The first two tracks are recordings of Gamelan Gong Kebyar. The 20-minute third track is Lewiston's recording of kecak, the almost universally loved monkey chant. Kecak has an interesting history in that its creation in the 1930s is due at least in part to German artist Walter Spies, a cultural outsider. The performance is entirely a cappella, with a male chorus of 60+ men chanting in an interlocking fashion derived from gamelan composition. The origins of the chant come from a ritual exorcism dance that's centuries old. The thing about Balinese performance, at least up until later this century, is that it was all inseparably tied to ritual, be it a wedding ceremony, funerals, and other various life cycle ceremonies. Bali's increasing popularity as a tourist destination for middle class and wealthy Europeans in this century was coupled with these same tourists wanting to be entertained by their exotic hosts. Unfortunately for them, there was not only no concept of performance merely for entertainment's sake and not being Balinese, their presence at any such ritual event was violation of its sacrosanctity. Spies' work in encouraging his Balinese friends to create a completely new performance from older traditions, whatever his intentions may have been, allowed for the Balinese to keep the purity of their rituals intact and for the occidentals to get their kicks.
This recording, made by Robert E. Brown in 1970, is a condensed version of the music (gender wayang) that usually accompanies Balinese shadow play (wayang kulit) performances. Normally lasting four hours (instead of the Javanese marathon of nine) the music here is some of that which one would most commonly hear during the unfolding of a play. Aside from the time differences between Javanese and Balinese shadow play, the next most striking difference is that the Balinese variant uses only four instruments (a few gongs and drums, which accentuate fight scenes, etc. are not included on this recording) instead of the complement of a full gamelan. The instruments are two pairs of gender (pronounced with a hard, not a soft "g"), one pair tuned an octave higher than the other. The gender has ten thin bronze keys suspended by strings over bamboo resonating tubes. Additionally, each pair of gender is tuned a small interval apart such that the same note played on both instruments simultaneously will produce a shimmering tone much like in Balinese gamelan. Each musician uses two wooded mallets in playing the gender, the part played in the right hand usually being the kotekan (intricate interlocking melodic part) and the left hand generally playing a slower, supportive role. Gender wayang is generally recognized as Balinese music at its most advanced and refined. Pioneering ethnomusicologist and Balinese music enthusiast Colin McPhee referred to gender wayang as the "perfect expression" of Balinese music. Along with the difficult kotekan parts, the players must also manage to dampen the keys of the instrument with the pads of their hands as they play the following note so the notes don't blend into one another. The timbre of the instruments is a bit like an unholy tack piano. The polyphony is quite remarkable to behold, and on this recording is quite distinctly captured, with one pair of gender to your left and one pair to your right.
Like the "Gamelan & Kecak" and "Golden Rain" recordings in this series, the tracks on "Music From the Morning of the World" were recorded by David Lewiston. As with "Golden Rain" they were made during his first trip to Bali in 1966. And like the later recording, the tracks here are a broad collection of genres from the island which serve to demonstrate the variety of musical forms that exist there. Along with the requisite kebyar tracks (two here: one from the baris dance and the other from the Barong dance) is a medley of recordings of a genggong ensemble (small ensemble of jew's harp, flute, drums and cymbals) a recording of gambuh, an a cappella lullaby, gamelan anklung, another excerpt of both kecak and a gender wayang ensemble.
MPEG Download: SEKEHE GAMBUH "Sekar Leret" [/audio/sekehegambuhleret.mp3]
MPEG Stream: SEKEHE GAMBUH "Sekar Leret" [/audio/sekehegambuhleret.m3u]
MPEG Download: RANI "Lullaby" [/audio/ranilullaby.mp3]
Originally conceived in Paris in 1924, George Antheil's ideal instrumentation for Ballet Mechanique called for 16 synchronized player pianos, in addition to two human-played pianos, percussion, electric bells, a siren and three airplane propellers. Despite his close relationship with a Parisian manufacturer of player pianos who had in fact patented a way to synchorize the "pianolas," the piece has never been possible to fully realize and has been played only in scaled-back versions until last year when the piano parts were sequenced for MIDI. The result is a 30 minute rampage of frantic, beautiful, insane brilliance. Just fucking incredible. Seeing it at SF's Davies Hall a couple months ago, the cute little-old symphony-subscriber-lady next to me alternately had her hands over her ears, jerked back and forth to the rhythm and yelled at me over the cacophony, "Can you believe you're seeing this!?" It's that great! Oh yeah, there are also six other pieces on this disc by John Cage and Lou Harrison, Richard Grayson, Amadeo Roldan and Mendelssohn.
Analog Africa strikes gold once again! Just when we thought we might need a little break from '70s African psych/funk reissues, we're reminded again just how much amazing music was recorded without seeing wide release, sounds that so deserves to be heard and blasted loud and proud! This time out Analog Africa put their crate digging skills to work on the raw beginnings of the Burkina Faso sounds recorded between 1974-1979. With its geographical roots running through the Sahel, these sounds incorporate Afro-funk, Islamic rhythms, and Malian guitar sounds. It might sound cliche, but there is really no other way to describe the songs on this collection without using words like smoking, blazing, raw, and on fire. Not a record you want to listen to softly, these are songs you want to blast as even the slow burners on here cut right to the core. We had never heard any of these sixteen tracks before, and with the awesome 44 page booklet that accompanies this release we now get to not only listen but learn about amazing music we had very little knowledge of beforehand. Isn't that what being a music lover is all about, so damn rewarding!
Excellent collection of recordings documenting the varied musics of the Kmhmu people, and recorded from 1982 to 1996 in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Suburban California. As the title implies, much of the instruments found herein are assembled primarily from bamboo, a versatile grass: jew's harps, blow tubes, mouth organs, etc. But also included are plenty of vocals and even the occasional gong ensemble. Lots of beautiful, nasal tones that make one's sinuses tickle, and leaping melodic lines (Andee irreverently refers to the music on this CD as emulating "armpit farts" - to each his own opinion) make for some stunning songs. Especially interesting to note are the serenades in which young lovers sing to one another through a blow tube or jew's harp in order to disguise their vows from their parents.
Avid readers of the aQ list have no doubt noticed out new found obsession with 'jukin' and 'footwork', and the music that is the soundtrack to this new style of dance battling. We reviewed collections by DJ Nate and DJ Roc, both big names in a scene that most folks had never even heard of until recently, and masters of a sound that is equal parts twisted genius, and maddeningly repetitive insanity. It's easy to imagine this being the perfect music to get out there and dance your ass off, the manic music matching the speed of the frantically moving bodies, or vice versa, but removed from the dancefloor or street corner, the sound takes on a life of its own and has proven to very divisive. Most of us can't get enough, the looped repetition, the ridiculously relentless skitter and stutter, but some folks are driven totally batty after a matter of minute. But frankly, we just don't know what the heck is wrong with those folks. This stuff is totally brilliant, baffling, confusional, and weirdly funky and freaky and WAY far out.
This collection gathers up jams from the better known names in Footwork music, DJ Roc and Nate are both represented, but so are a whole legion of others, who take the sound of dance music and twist it all up, the formula being super intricate 808 beats, chopped and spliced and layered, into intricate mathy patterns, while snippets of soul songs are sped up and repeated over and over and over, bits of rapping, or fragments of a vocal line are also lifted, chopped and then looped, a variant of ghetto tech, the sound is so intense, and groovy, and funky, and in its own way psychedelic too.
From the weird low end synth stutter of DJ Rashad's "Teknitian", with its warbly sci-fi melodies and skeletal skitter, to Tha Pope's "Jungle Juke", which takes "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and speeds it up, loops it, and transforms it into a hiccupping avant soul groove, to DJ Spinn's "2020", which does sound strangely futuristic, and to these ears approximates Majeure or Zombi making Footwork music, to DJ Yung Tellum's creepy soundtracky "Freddy Vs. Jason", all the songs here rule, and are totally mesmerizing, and hypnotic, and weirdly impossibly addictive, and odds are you won't be able to resist either.
Here's the second volume in Planet Mu's Bangs & Works series of compilations focusing on Jukin' and footwork and the infuriatingly genius music that serves as the soundtrack to those new strains of dance battling. As we mentioned in the first volume, this stuff is maddeningly repetitive, so much so that when we play it in the store, it's usually another employee that ends up taking it off, but somehow, it always gets played, cuz most of us can't get enough.
The sound is loosely hip hop, but imagine hip hop if the initial loop was just repeated endlessly, the melody constantly recycling, all over a jittery skittery rhythm, while some snippet, sung, spoken or sampled, is also repeated, it's mesmerizing and trancelike, and its easy to just get lost and zone out completely, that is if you're not one of the people pulling their hair out.
But odds are if you're anything like (some of) us, this might just hit the spot, super minimal, hyper cyclical, circular electronica, that is dubby and housey, skittery and stuttery, groovy and funky, and yeah, crazily OCD. Check out the opener RP, Boo's "Heavy Heat", which takes the loop from Pharoahe Monch's "Simon Says"(which was sampled from Akira Ifukube's "Godzilla's Resurrection"), clips it and loops it and sets it on endless repeat. Under that loop there's a skeletal skitter, there's a weird samples bit of soundtrack, a soul vocal loop, and a couple other vocal snippets, but it's that awesomely maddening main loop that will get lodged in your brain FOREVER. Check out the sample, all it will take is a minute or two to figure out if it's your cup of maniacally repetitive tea or not. It's most definitely ours!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Believe it or not, there's now a tiny pub somewhere in Osaka where you can enjoy a beer and listen to nothing but noise music. They even have live shows every Sunday (when the neighboring establishments are closed). This cd collects a bunch of those performances for those of us who can afford a beer but not the flight to Osaka. It's mostly young, unknown (yet) noise artists, who have yet to make the pages of "Bananafish", such as New Mexico, Mutant, and Anglers - although the more notorious Solmania closes the disc with a fine, twelve minute guitar feedback contribution, and also Kevin Sharp of New York's Brutal Truth stops in for some screaming...
Continuing in Lo's series of today's electronic artist's selections of "classic" unheard music (the first being Luke Vibert's Nuggets), Add N to (X)'s Barry 7 scours the libraries of Chappell, Southern and PIL for some rare gems screaming to be heard. For
For those who devoured the first delightful volume of Barry 7's Connectors: Rare Italian Library Tracks, here's an entire second volume! A cornucopia of sonic frolics very much in the same spirit as Luke Vibert's Nuggets and many of the Crippled Dick Hot Wax compilations. Unfamiliar with any of those? Well then, strap on your seatbelt 'cause you're in for a treat! Over the top Euro kitsch, melodrama and campiness! So perfect if you're on the lookout for a diverse array of rather flamboyant theatrical music 'cause these tracks - originally catalogued for '60s and '70s television and radio production backing use - are overflowing with bontempi-esque organs, analog synthesizers, choral singers, and flutes! And four of them come from a gent named Ennio Morricone (very much of the delirously wonderful Danger Diabolik period). Curious who this Mr. Barry 7 is who wants you to hear the unheard music? Why, he's one third of that analog synth jammin' UK group Add N To (X) who clearly have drawn much inspiration from these works. Splendid!
For those who devoured the first delightful volume of Barry 7's Connectors: Rare Italian Library Tracks, here's an entire second volume! A cornucopia of sonic frolics very much in the same spirit as Luke Vibert's Nuggets and many of the Crippled Dick Hot Wax compilations. Unfamiliar with any of those? Well then, strap on your seatbelt 'cause you're in for a treat! Over the top Euro kitsch, melodrama and campiness! So perfect if you're on the lookout for a diverse array of rather flamboyant theatrical music 'cause these tracks - originally catalogued for '60s and '70s television and radio production backing use - are overflowing with bontempi-esque organs, analog synthesizers, choral singers, and flutes! And four of them come from a gent named Ennio Morricone (very much of the delirously wonderful Danger Diabolik period). Curious who this Mr. Barry 7 is who wants you to hear the unheard music? Why, he's one third of that analog synth jammin' UK group Add N To (X) who clearly have drawn much inspiration from these works. Splendid!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is a Brazilian garage comp of 1960's 45's. It has covers of the classics that we know so well, if not a bit too well (My Generation, Paint It Black, Time wont let me, Daytripper, I Cant Get No Satisfaction), for the most part sung in Portuguese. In addition to the well known garage/rock n' roll hits, there are some songs I've never heard that were great. I liked them best. Brazilian garage, how rad is that. Oh and the boys on the back cover are foxes.
Basic Channel had a short existence, but was incredibly influential on the future of techno. Between 1993 and 1995, Basic Channel released 9 singles that infused the jack hammering acid tracks of Detroit Techno with the ghostly hiss that accumulated on Lee Perry's dub productions in the '70s. However, this was not the electronic dub of Pole or Kit Clayton, although both were obviously huge fans of Basic Channel. Rather, Basic Channel offered an hyper-abstract vision of techno that never sacrificed the integrity of the rhythm. Amidst the aersolized sounds, gray modulations, and purposefully murky timbres, the Basic Channel producers Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus (who would later go on to form Rhythm And Sound) always centered their work along the skeleton of a propulsive techno beat.
This Basic Channel compilation is now in its third pressing; the original came out in 1995 in a fittingly non-descript cardboard sleeve and later in the metal tin designs that were used for their later Chain Reaction series. This compiled the more ambient and abstract cuts on those singles. If you're looking for the heavier tracks from Chain Reaction on cd, the mix found on "Scion Arrange and Process Basic Channel Tracks" is unrelentingly good, but if you just want to bliss out and drift off and be narcoticized by throbbing pulses and fuzzy grit, you can't do much better than this.
Basic Channel began in 1993 and produced nine 12" singles of hyperminimal techno, with very little information on the labels, very little of what information there was being easily legible, and no real marketing campaign to speak of. If anything, the Basic Channel duo of Mark Ernestus and Moritz Von Oswald seemed to propagate the mystery of anonymity behind their project, aggravating rumors that Basic Channel productions were based out of Detroit (and possibly by Mad Mike of Underground Resistance) rather than their native Berlin. By 1993, both Berlin and Detroit had formed an unusual axis through their mutual appreciation for the other's techno sound, so such a claim wasn't impossible; but over time, Ernestus and Von Oswald had to fess up to authoring these singles. Between then and now, Basic Channel (the label) re-emerged as Chain Reaction which released works outside of the Ernestus / Von Oswald collaboration; and Basic Channel (the ensemble) transformed into Rhythm & Sound for an equally hypnotic form of hyper-minimal dub. As such, Basic Channel became something of a godhead with the techno mythology. They promoted an aesthetic that always worked on the dancefloor but never dated, and always sounded adventurous without being too weird. In other words, Basic Channel made perfect techno.
In 1995, the duo released their first cd, consisting of exclusive edits and remixes from a handful of those 12" singles, mostly highlighting their abstracted ambience highjacking the 808 rhythmic underpinnings. Some 13 years later, Basic Channel has finally unleashed a collection of complete tracks from those nine singles! Despite the full 80 minutes of music you get on this disc, there are only 6 tracks (each track well over 10 minutes); hopefully leaving the door open for future compendiums. But the chosen tracks are all corkers. Throbbing techno 4/4 beats cut through the clouds of accumulated metallic hiss, reverb, and delay which have all been processed in accordance with the percolated patterns of acid house electricity. Often times, Ernestus and Von Oswald set their electronics in cruise control, just letting a small squiggling refrain and walloping beat run before they tweak their arsenal of filter banks or slide in a high-hat in the mix. It's breathtakingly hypnotic and endlessly propulsive.
Along with the Gas 4cd box, this Basic Channel compilation is an absolutely essential techno album.
Oooh. A great dub/reggae comp always brightens our day. This one had us smiling all week. As the title indicates, it comes to us from Basic Replay, the reggae reissue subsidiary of Germany's Basic Channel techno label (shared with another great imprint, Honest Jon's of the UK), who are dedicated to bringing back crucial Jamaican jams (both hits and obscurities) that align with Basic Channel's dubby aesthetic, whether in the raw dub or digital dancehall genres... Over the past few years, they've brought out a bunch of great recordings from the '70s, '80s and '90s, and this is essentially an essential sampler of the label's releases, featuring 16 killer tracks from 13 artists, all of it (except for the White Mice and Keith Hudson cuts) on compact disc for the first time, as most of Basic Replay's releases have been 12" vinyl only. So now the turntable-impaired can get in on the action - or those who simply missed the 12"s. We should have been listing them all along, but didn't, though we have stocked a few in the store. This cd provides a convenient way to get with the program.
Straight out the gate, Basic Replay proves how fierce this can get with the machine gun mayhem of Ackie's catchy "Call Me Rambo". Tough indeed. The rest of the disc's sixteen tracks are put on notice, and rise to the occasion. It's all such solid stuff, ranging from uptempo bangers like Professor Grizzly's even catchier "Fight The Professor", to mellowed out, slinky soulful cuts like Ijahman Levi's "I Am A Levi" (parts 1 and 2)... There's laidback instrumentals with echoing percussive dub effects exploding like depth-charge distortion detonations (Tenastelin's "Burial Tonight Version") and blissed-out Spaghetti Western stylings with melodious vocals (keyboard king Jackie Mittoo's "Ayatollah") and tick-tock electronic Geiger counter beatscapes (Prince Jazzbo's "Replay Version") and all sorts of other treats that fans of dub and reggae (and probably dubstep too, even though that's not what's on here) ought to swoon over.
The other names on the comp we haven't yet mentioned: Chuck Turner, King Culture, Courtney Melody, Gregory Isaacs, Andrew Bees. We're not expert enough to explain how and why all these artists fit together historically and/or stylistically, maybe they don't, but the selections on this cd flow so nicely together. Superb, recommended!
Another new collection on the Latitude label (Locust's new international sublabel) takes us this time to the Chiapas region of Mexico. The tracks here were recorded between 1971 and 1974 by Richard Alderson (legendary sound engineer involved in recording Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, et al in the late sixties). Alderson, who had emigrated to Mexico, devoted his time to documenting the music of the Indians in the region. Along with beautiful trios of harp, guitar and violin there are intense, dare I say, rocking numbers with drums are horns, exploding fireworks (that sound like canons being fired) and some truly bizarre acappella vocal counterpoint. The guitars and harps here are particularly cool sounding. Most of them produce strange overtones such that they almost sound like electric instruments and on some songs, when there's an orchestra of the things playing at once, it's like as impressive as any wall of sound. The tunes here will have you alternately weeping in their beauty and gritting your teeth with their intensity. Originally released by Smithsonian Folkways in the seventies, all the tracks here have here been restored and digitally remastered by Alderson. Highly recommended!
Oh yeah! With so many great collections of golden-era soul/funk coming out in the last couple years chronicling the wonderful sounds that came out of scenes in different parts of the country and abroad it makes perfect sense that there should be some collections detailing the amazing soul & funk that came out of our very own backyard, right here in San Francisco and throughout the bay-area during the '60s and '70s. Like their great collection of soul & funk from Michigan on the Searching For Soul comp, Luv N' Haight have once again hit solid gold with a totally stellar collection of should have been big time hits that mostly slipped under the radar on a more national scale. From the heartbroken soul of Mary Love, the always reliable Sugar Pie DeSanto, the tripped out funk of San Francisco T.K.O.'s, the charismatic hip shaking sounds of Little Denise Stevenson and the gut wrenchingly gritty funk of Primevil, this collection is pretty much super solid from start to finish. We can't get enough of the raw good stuff, from a time when Soul & Funk was done so totally right. Fans of the Eccentric Soul series and of all vintage soul & funk, this is a definite must have!
It's not that much of a surprise that Graham Nash's first solo record Songs For Beginners is one of the influential touchstones on much of the latter day indie-folk scene. We said as much in our lengthy review of the original album a few years back, one of our favorite politically conscious folk-pop records from back when (it came out in '71). Recorded after the Hollies called it a day and CSN&Y were on hiatus, it's a perfect blend of soulsearching songwriting and brilliant pop songcraft while lashing out at the frustrating state of then current events, a state that sadly mirrors our own current political situation.
This tribute spearheaded by Graham Nash's daughter, Nile (who btw, also co-runs a cool shop called Gravel & Gold just around the corner from us), and the (((folkYEAH!))) folks who book all the cool shows and festivals in Big Sur, is a nice and loving gesture to the man's music, but doesn't move too far outside of the box in terms of stylistic interpretation or political urgency. Filled with interpretations by all the usual suspects of today's folk-pop scene: Papercuts, Vetiver, Alela Diane, Mariee Sioux, and The Moore Brothers among a few others, the biggest wildcards stylistically are Bonnie "Prince" Billy's Spanish take on "Simple Man" and Sleepy Sun's slightly heavier take on "Chicago". But it will take more than just a thoughtful tribute, no matter how well-intentioned, to equivocate a modern call to individual action against the powers of authority that the original record represented, and we need that more than ever right now.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The Beta Bodega collective has issued this confusingly entitled compilation, officially called "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare" but our daft policy of qualifying titles as the biggest words on a cover will call this "Beans & Rice." Confusing titles and political agendas aside, this experimental electronica compilation features Jake Mandell, Takeshi Muto (Schematic), Datathief (Skam, V/VM), Goem, :leekon (Musik Aus Strom), and more taking on Cristian Vogel / Supercollider stylings of mutant house, dark UR / Skam electro grooviness, and microsonic squiggly laptoppery.
Latest musician curated compilation on Arthur Magazine's Bastet imprint. Curated this time around by Ethan Miller of Comets on Fire, it of course features songs from both CoF and Comets off-shoots Colossal Yes, Six Organs of Admittance, and August Born. But there is also lots of other new and old noisy and folky weirdness from Albert Ayler, 7 Year Rabbit Cycle, Michael Yonkers, Ghost, and Brother JT among others. One of the most interesting tracks is by the mysterious Shit Spangled Banner, a band we couldn't find much information on because the page in the booklet is oddly missing (although a few AQ'ers have some old SSB tapes!). Beard, Bread & Bear's Prayers is of course equal parts noisy and folky, soft and harsh, given the penchants of Miller's musical dichotomy with Comet's noisy psych and seventies west coast rock. Sweet!
Like the freak circus entertainments of a bygone era, so too does this new B-Music compilation mine the fringe of far-flung female folk from the recent past and immediate present. Starting where the Folk Is A Four Letter Word comps left off, Bearded Ladies features many of the same B-music 'vixens' such as Wendy and Bonnie, Turid, Susan Christie, Selda, Heather Jones and Brigitte Fontaine joined by their more contemporary equivalents, Speck Mountain, Misty Dixon (Jane Weaver), Lights, Lispector, Emma Tricca, and Magpahi amongst others. Not as "Old Tymey" as the cover would suggest, Bearded Ladies excavates the rare individual artistry from pigeon-holed genre conventions as the contemporary artists are just as unfettered and original as the older artists, and not merely new retreads of folk motifs made popular in the last few years by Joanna Newsom and Cat Power. Another winner for B-Music. Ladyfolk lives!
Achtung! Remember a little while ago we were digging a various artists collection entitled Funky Frauleins? Which showcased the swinging female pop stars of Germany (East and West) circa 1968-1978, a super delightful go-go disco dance party platter auf Deutsch all right. Now, here's the sequel - or rather, the prequel, 'cause while Funky Frauleins contained a lot of '70s kitsch, this one goes back to the mid '60s, "when pop culture entered the innocent world of German popular chart music", giving this its "Beat meets Schlager!" tagline. 19 tracks dating from 1964-'68, by an assortment of artists that haven't been part of our education previously, including Brigitt, Joy and the Hit Kids, Marion, Inga, Dorthe, Conny Froboess, Pitty und ihre Beatchicks, and a dozen more.
They do dreamy orchestral pop, teenybop anthems, garagey groove, popsyke, and soul. There's a few German-language covers of familiar hits, including a wonderful interpretation of The Hollies' "Bus Stop", done here as "Er sah mich im Regen" by Monique and the Lions. Meanwhile the Jacob Sisters' "Was hab ich dir getan" you'll recognize as a Teutonic take on "Stop In the Name Of Love" by the Supremes!
Super fun stuff, that's been getting a lot of play here at AQ ever since it showed up. In the compilations competition, this one proves that while France had their "ye-ye girls", and Spain their "chicas", Germany's "beat frauleins" were also pretty darn groovy. But, being German, even at their most hip shaking, these ladies can still somehow sound kinda stern, which only adds to our enjoyment...
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
One of two amazing new compilations from Mississippi, along with the Sticks Over My Shoulder blues com found elsewhere on this week's list, there's Bed Of Pain, an amazing collection of Rembetika and Greek folk music, all culled from 78's (and never reissued on lp before) and representing a broad swath of Greek music, including tunes from before and after the 'golden age' of music making in Greece, as well as a handful of tracks from the Greek diaspora in the U.S., all linked by common themes, of hardship, escape and the quest for a better life.
It's hard to know how exactly to describe this stuff, other than to say we love it. Gorgeous male and female vocals, acoustic guitars and buzzing bouzouki melodies, bluesy ballads and wild gypsy folk jams, dances and marches, some mournful and moving, others dramatic and moody, and still others wild and celebratory. Even for folks not that well versed in Greek music, this is a treat, and will no doubt have you hunting for more.
Housed in a thick old school style tip on sleeve, with a printed set of liner notes inside, written by Ian Nagoski, who has curated some of our favorite comps: Black Mirror, Brass Pins & Match Heads, String Of Pearls, among others.
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Been Here All My Days, the latest in Mississippi's incredible series of compilations, another blues comp, but in the hands of the curators at Mississippi, this is anything BUT just another blues comp.
We sometimes joke, that running a record store, and doing our weekly New Arrivals list is a lot like making mixtapes for a living, digging up cool sounds, and compiling them and then sharing them. We like to think we're pretty dang good at it by now, but the guys at Mississippi, they actually DO make mixtapes for a living, the only difference is that they dig through blues archives and old 78's, and then press their mixtape onto vinyl, much to our delight, and the delight of pretty much everyone we know. Which makes sense considering how great these mixes/compilations are. The perfect mix of long time favorites and total unknowns, of classic tracks and utter obscurities, but beyond that, Mississippi comps flow, one song into the next, whole sides, in some ways, after a few listens, it's hard to imagine these tracks came from other records, they sound so organic and perfect nestled there on that slab of wax.
As we mentioned above, Been Here All My Days is a compilation of old timey blues, and features a whole bunch of names you'll no doubt find familiar: Fred McDowell, Robert Johnson, Furry Lewis, Jesse Mae Hemphill, but a bunch you probably don't, Green Paschal, Precious Bryant, John Lee Ziegler...
All culled from an incredible collection of field recordings compiled by George Mitchell, a fan and field recordist, who travelled throughout the rural South, just like the Lomax's and a bevy of others, meeting folks, buying records, recording musicians on their porches, in their parlors, and as is stated in the liner notes. for Mitchell, it was all about the love of the music, not an expert in any way, his recordings are rough and raw, made on inferior equipment sure, but infused with warmth and life and vitality, due in no small part to the fact that Mitchell was a regular guy, and ended up befriending folks as much as chronicling their lives and sounds.
The basic sound here will no doubt be familiar to blues fans, but as always, it's the nuances and the characters that make the music here special, especially some of the lesser knowns, who totally impress and like with all great mix tapes, whose songs will have you hankering for and hunting down more more more.
The one thing we've noticed with the recent spate of Mississippi releases, is that finally they've seemed to abandon their mysterious barebones approach. Older releases had little in the way of liner notes, just a track listing and nothing else, but on Been Here All My Days, there are multiple inserts, a huge essay on George Martin, his life and history, as well as pages of notes on each of the tracks, and the artists, featuring notes from both the compilers and Mitchell himself. Fantastic stuff. And as always, WAY recommended!
This actually came out a few months ago, but the majority of the pressing was defective, so we've been waiting for the repressed vinyl to show up, and now it finally has!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
At "Beer Frame" editor Paul Lukas' behest, five indie-rock bands celebrate the wonders of the products near and dear to them...Men & Volts get to sing about the Brannock Device, Vehicle Flips provides an ode to the Honeywell Round Thermostat, and Nothing Painted Blue gives Miracle Thaw its musical due. Also, tracks by The Mountain Goats and The Scene Is Now...
Another fantastically curated collection of magical and mysterious and mostly unheard songs from Honest Jon's, these vintage recordings from East Africa, recorded between the years 1938 and 1957, and categorized as 'native records', in that this was music that was intended for sale to native Africans, not the white colonialists or various traders or laborers, and these recordings helped capture and preserve popular music, the various styles popular before the influence of imported sounds from abroad and various immigrants. These sounds were specific to various villages and represented many different languages and styles. The other cool thing about these performances, is that they were specifically by non professionals, since earning a living making music was nearly impossible, instead these were regular folks, who were often called upon to entertain, at weddings or parties, at markets or for various rituals. The liner notes, like all Honest Jon's liner notes, go into incredible detail, about the various styles of music, the difficulties in translating the languages, the musicians, the performances, the recording processes, it reads like a primer on East African music, and like it should be part of a college course, in fact, we often think smart schools would be snapping these guys up to teach courses in world music, but beyond the background, it's the sounds that count, and the sounds here are incredible, so strange and lovely and mysterious and at once warm and intimate and emotional and totally alien and fantastical.
The first track is the perfect example, a super hypnotic stretch of relentless vocalizing over a barely audible string melody, the sound distorted, the vocals more like testifying, it's not until the very end of the track where the vocals drop out that you can hear how strangely frantic the string playing really is. And from there on out, there's never a moment that's less that totally wonderfully lovely, whether the sound is super melodic and folky, or minimal and rhythmic, buzzy and droney, moody and emotional, we lack the vocabulary to truly describe these sounds, other to say that they move us, and that they're so absolutely beautiful, sometimes haunting and mournful, other times effusive and celebratory, always breathtaking.
The cd comes in a beautiful hardcover style book, with a massive booklet inside, filled with extensive liner notes and vintage photos. The vinyl version is spread out over two double lps, the first with the same title as the double cd contains all the music from the first disc, while the second, containing the music from the second disc, is titled Bellyachers, Listen!
Collection of dub tracks originally released on the Wordsound label. Those who are already familiar with Wordsound and the "Crooklyn" dub sound probably have most of the tracks found here, but this make an excellent introduction to the unique world of Wordsound. Includes tracks from Spectre, Slotek, The Weakener (Mick Harris), Bill Laswell, Dubadelic and much more.
The Tompkins Square Label focuses its spotlight locally on the next generation of Northern California acoustic guitarists -- Sean Smith, Matt Baldwin and Adam Snider. Hailing from Berkeley, where John Fahey's label Takoma was (as well as where Windham Hill first began to blossom), these three young and very talented players have been playing in local clubs and cafes for a few years now. Sean Smith, whose stunning debut on Isota we reviewed a few list back and was also featured on the second Imaginational Anthem compilation, is the "elder" of the group, while Baldwin and Snider have their recording debuts here. Lovely and melancholy with beautiful cover art by John Baizley of Baroness (which looks remarkably Pushead-like), this is a great introduction to the local acoustic guitar scene.
A few weeks back, we listed the CD & DVD set of Berlin Super 80 with the caveat that the set was strictly limited, with a second edition of the DVD to be made available shortly. Well, now there's a double LP set, which will be the only way to get the musical program from that aforementioned CD & DVD set. Of course vinyl goes out of print pretty quickly too... Here's what we wrote earlier:
In the late '70s and early '80s, Berlin developed a caustic community of avant-punk musicians, filmmakers, artists, and hangers-on, whose aesthetics of alienation, angst, bewildered ecstacy, terminal revulsion, etc. were certainly impacted by the wall that seperated their city. Einsturzende Neubauten is clearly the most respected export from this community; but it could be argued that Neubauten (or any of the original members from that once close-knit community, for that matter) haven't quite the compulsion to make the magnificently explosive music as they did when the Berlin Wall was still standing. While likeminded bands such as Malaria!, Die Todliche Doris, and Sprung Aus Den Wolken have been served well by recent reissues of their work from that time period, much of the accompanying visual ephemera (film, performance, painting, photography, etc.) has rarely been seen outside of its original context, barring a few exhibitions in art-spaces and festivals.
Fortunately, Berlin Super 80 offers an extraordinary glimpse into the community of existential expressionists who erupted in Berlin during the late '70s and early '80s. Neubauten, Doris, Malaria, and Sprung Aus Den Wolken offer some of their quintessentially great pieces. YThe discovery of previously unknown (although not unreleased) tracks from Mona Mur, Mono/45 UPM, Kosmonautentraum, and Flucht nach Vorn with their propulsive death-disco grooves and skeletal synthesizes make Berlin Super 80 well worth the price of admission.
Be warned, the 2LP is LIMITED to only 1000 copies!
In the late '70s and early '80s, Berlin developed a caustic community of avant-punk musicians, filmmakers, artists, and hangers-on, whose aesthetics of alienation, angst, bewildered ecstacy, terminal revulsion, etc. were certainly impacted by the wall that seperated their city. Einsturzende Neubauten is clearly the most respected export from this community; but it could be argued that Neubauten (or any of the original members from that once close-knit community, for that matter) haven't quite the compulsion to make the magnificently explosive music as they did when the Berlin Wall was still standing. While likeminded bands such as Malaria!, Die Todliche Doris, and Sprung Aus Den Wolken have been served well by recent reissues of their work from that time period, much of the accompanying visual ephemera (film, performance, painting, photography, etc.) has rarely been seen outside of its original context, barring a few exhibitions in art-spaces and festivals.
Fortunately, the Berlin Super 80 DVD & CD set offers an extraordinary glimpse into the community of existential expressionists who erupted in Berlin during the late '70s and early '80s. While many of the same themes work themselves out in both the films and music of Berlin Super 80, there is a greater emphasis on absurdist play and humor in the flickering Super 8 films than in the bleak screams against the sky of Blixa Bargeld and Gudrun Gut. George Marioth's un-planned set of accidents and anti-craftsmans approach to editting is amazingly clever, while Jorg Buttkereit (who later went on to infamy with his Nekromantic series of necrophliac splatter films) offers a sinister biopic of his father. Other film gems include Christoph Doring's cinema verite of his job as taxi driver in Berlin, Wolkenstein & Markgraf's hilarious jumping video, and the casutic montages from Notorische Reflexe.
As for the musical program, Neubauten, Doris, Malaria, and Sprung Aus Den Wolken offer some of their quintessentially great pieces. Yet like the DVD, the discovery of previously unknown (although not unreleased) tracks from Mona Mur, Mono/45 UPM, Kosmonautentraum, and Flucht nach Vorn with their propulsive death-disco grooves and skeletal synthesizes make Berlin Super 80 well worth the price tag.
Be warned, this version is LIMITED, as only the first batch comes with the book and the cd, the second edition is DVD only!
It's crass and laughably simple; but when done well, it's damn good. This is, of course, the current 'bootleg' phenomenon of plunderphonics which drops a hip-hop / top-40 club a capella track on top of a vastly different (but instantly recognizable) instrumental track, all the while perfectly matching both tracks' rhythms and sometimes harmonies. The origin of these culture jamming pisstakes can be traced back to the Evolutionary Control Committee's infamous "Whipped Cream Mixes" in which the a capella tracks from Public Enemy merge perfectly with the swingin' horn-y grooves of Herb Albert. The success of the ECC (aka Mark Gunderson) was principally based upon the lack of hi-tech gear, just two turntables and a mixer.
This import compilation - released on the anonymous No Label - features the current onslaught from likeminded DJs and MP3 wranglers lacing the vocals of one track with the instrumentals of another. While not all of the tracks on "The Best Bootlegs In The World Ever" live up to the compilation's name, about half of them do. The tracks that work best are the ones that manage to not only have the same rhythm, but also match chord progressions. The aforementioned ECC "Whipped Cream Mix" that spots PE's "Rebel Without A Pause" with the Tijuana Brass Band is simply perfect and is prominently featured on "The Best Bootlegs." Other gems include the Christina Aguilera / Strokes mix by Freelance Hellraiser, the Dead Kennedys / Destiny's Child mix by DJ French Bloke, the Girls On Top mix of TLC and Human League, the amazing fusion between The Cure's "Lovecats" and Missy Elliott's "One Minute Man" by Kurtis Rush, and the Sigur Ros / Celine Dion mix that justifies Aquarius' belief that Sigur Ros is nothing but Muzak fodder. Aside from a few duds and a couple more "Funk Soul Brothers" than were ever needed to sampled, this record is brilliant.
These have been really hard for us to track down, due to its odd popularity and its willfully underground distribution. So, when we run out of this... please don't be mad, we'll try to get more.
Smooth and mellow, crowd-pleasing electronica on Howie B's label.
