Of all the Sublime Frequencies collections, the various 'Radio' compilations are definitely our favorites. But at the same time they are also maybe the most problematic, It seems somehow disingenuous to travel to another country, turn on the radio, record several hours worth of music and sound, come home, put those recordings on a cd and then sell them. Not just disingenuous but quite possibly dishonest. It also seems a little weird to be thrilled by all the 'crazy' sounds we hear on the radio in these various countries. A guilty pleasure, very much that aspect of cultural tourism. "The music there is SO WILD!! And SO WEIRD!!" And it seems inconceivable that someone from some other country would come to the US, and do the same thing, returning to their countries to release discs packed with shock jocks, and crappy pop music, and morning zoo's and dry NPR discussions and modern rock and Loveline. But you never know. Although part of the reason that something like that would probably NOT happen, is that American culture, from the music to the clothes to the television shows, is already so invasive, there's probably not a corner of the world where people aren't discussing Lost or Paris Hilton or Brad and Angelina's baby or rocking out to the new Red Hot Chili Peppers. But the music and culture of these other countries does not have the same sort of universal reach. So it is actually quite a thrill to hear all of this amazing music, all of these voices, ads and commercials and songs. It's absolutely fantastic. It's just worth thinking about all that other stuff once in a while and realizing that in a sense, even just listening to these discs, we are guests, and we are digging the work and art, the livelihood and passion of hundreds of musicians and vocalists and deejays and artists. And we are digging it. A whole lot.
The first few 'Radio' compilations were a little too schizophrenic, only allowing us to hear a few seconds of a song before the dial was spun and we were bombarded by some new burst of musical randomness. It was pretty amazing in a totally overwhelming ADD short attention span sort of way, but they rectified that, realizing it was just as dizzying but way more satisfying if we got to hear whole songs. So here we are.
Radio Algeria. A sampling of wonderful sounds from the Mediterranean coast, all the way to the Saharan desert. According to the liner notes, the music represented here includes sacred Islamic traditional music, Berber folk, Andalusian Orchestral music, Tuareg, modern Arabic pop as well as Guesba, classic early Rai, Khabyle and Saharaui, ummm, sorry to say none of us actually know what any of those in the last batch sound like, but needless to say, like the rest of the 'Radio' series, this is a wild, eye opening ride through the airwaves of Algeria. Compiled from recordings made in 2005 of AM, FM and shortwave broadcasts, this is a heady mix of musics new and old, the sound is definitely Middle Eastern, with plenty of tracks sounding almost Bollywood, and a definite French music influence all over the place, the sounds range from modern sounding hip hop double dutch but with the melody played by a snake charmers flute, cheesy eighties schmaltz, groovy twangy buzzing dreamy psych pop, old timey fuzzed out Eastern jazz (like a Middle Eastern Django Reinhardt), killer sixties sounding fuzz rock, that almost sounds like the Butthole Surfers at points, groovy sing songy folk, MTV style romantic ballads, flamenco guitars, and crooned vocals, keening fiddles, tribal drums, some Middle Eastern sounding blues, with sweeping strings and weeping melodies, wild solo female vocals drenched in reverb and soaring, warm operatic male vocals, glossy melancholic pop, shuffling rhythms, strummed acoustic guitars, murky modern pop rock and militaristic big band marches, all interspersed with different variants of local and regional musics. All totally fascinating and completely overwhelming and one of the most amazing sonic travelogues ever! If only the stereos in our cars could pick up Algerian radio, we'd most likely never listen to anything else ever again!
SO RECOMMENDED!
Another special release for this year's Record Store Day, that we managed to get enough of to list and review for all the aQ peeps who weren't able to visit the shop in person.
By now most regular readers of the aQ list are well aware of just how much we love Andy Votel's B-Music label, the dizzyingly eclectic home of recordings from Jean-Claude Vannier, Selda, Mustafa Ozkent, Sarolta Zalatnay, as well as purveyors of all things Turkish psych, lost disco, weirdo proto metal, lost soundtracks, Pakistani film music, Hungarian psych prog and more more more.
We raved about the Pomegranates comp recently, as well as The BYG Deal collection, also, the Sound Of Wonder, Well Hung, if there's one thing these guys do better than anyone, it's make mixtapes, transformed into head spinning, ear tickling compilations, so it should come as no surprise that their Record Store Day sampler is another killer mix. And instead of just being ONLY a handful of tracks you can get on other releases (although some in fact are), it focuses on harder to find B-Music gems, whether from WAY out of print records, or not yet released jams.
Beginning with a killer chunk of slice and dice space synth disco from weirdo French mad scientist Jean-Pierre Massiera, the record flits from sound to sound, from country to country, from era to era, but somehow still manages to flow. Persian psych pop slips right into some gritty synth funk, which leads right into some woozy, tripped out Asian psych, finishing off with some awesome Italo fuzzfunk, wild and trippy and druggy and awesome.
The flipside begins with some warped easy listening which is transformed into some seriously far out skittery fuzzy outsider funk, followed by some "synth bass stoner funk", then a Curved Air cover, taken from the Absolute Belter comp reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, sequing into some exotic soaring string driven dancefloor Bollywood style groove, before finishing off with a bit of Welsh Rare Beat.
Awesome stuff. An absolutely killer mix, and maybe the ultimate party platter of the year. LIMITED too, we probably won't be able to get more of these, so best to snag one while they last...
The fourth installment of Sublime Frequencies' Radio series of recordings lands us safely in India. We are led, blind folded through a thousand bazaars and fed a steady diet of Indian film. Indian culture has the most advanced knack for absorbing all other musical art forms and completely subverting them to their own purpose. You've undoubtedly heard a myriad of Bollywood soundtracks by now, so you can consider yourself somewhat prepared for this journey. What you will be overwhelmed by is the sheer immensity of the trip's itinerary. Radio India is like a thousand bollywood cassettes crammed together into one. Yes, like Radios Java, Palestine & Morocco, this one's a channel surfer. Fortunately the Bishops have now mastered the attention spans of the average listener and have thus included somewhat longer snippets -- generally -- softly crossfading to the next selection. And to be fair, you get a lot more than the standard fare that you know from all those Bollywood comps. Along with those -- the most frenetic and maniacal samples to be found -- there's a myriad of other bizarre amalgams of traditional Indian music, traditional Indian music fused with electric organ, veena drones harmonizing with the humming and buzzing of short wave radio anomalies along with soothing voice-overs set to gregorian chants and primitive drum machines. Wow.
We're pretty damn excited by Sun City Girls 33.3 percenter Alan Bishop's new Sublime Frequencies label. "Dedicated to acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers" Sublime Frequencies is slipping on the shoes apparently discarded by such pioneering labels as Smithsonian Folkways, Nonesuch Explorer, et al. Unlike previous explorers in such unheard music, Sublime Frequencies is not restricted by academic or commercial purposes. The latter probably deserves a bit more explanation; for where much of the post-Explorer purveyors of "world music" shamelessly produce an endless slough of slick garbage that sounds like the crap you can hear on any U.S. top 40 radio station merely sung in another language (Christ, if I had a wooden nickel for every fuckin' starry eyed NPR music review extoling the uniqueness of some generic world music outfit that combines electronic music with traditional folk, yadda, yadda, yadda the world's forests would be clear cut by now) the recordings you'll hear presented by Sublime Frequencies come from the cracks in the pavement of the culture makers. Through field recordings (many made by Bishop himself in his travels), radio and shortwave broadcasts, some of the most amazing music and audio you've never heard has been assembled. Balls to fidelity, none of the artists here would be allowed within 10 miles of a Putamayo A+R executive, this is the punk rock of field recordings!
Radio Java is volume 2 in Sublime Frequencies' catalog, and is an absolutely amazing collection of tracks recorded off of stations in Jakarta, Surabaya, Yokyakarta and Bandung in 1989 by Alan Bishop and Manford Cain. Along with some familiar tunes, including a wealth of amazing Jaipongan tracks from West Java (See "West Java: Sundanese Jaipong and Other Popular Music" we listed from the Nonesuch Explorer series). But along with the snippets of Kerongcong (a bizarre amalgam that sounds like lopsided Hawaiian music) and Dangdut (an electrified pop music with ties to Indian film music) there are some insane cuts from radio commercials, enthusiastic DJ's,theater excerpts that are just plain remarkable. The disc is cobbled together in a channel surfing collage that continues to catch you off guard. Just when you've been lulled into teary-eyed submission by some sultry Sundanese singing, you're treated to a noise blast that would make Masami Akita blush. Radio announcers growl with their microphone inputs overloading, and crazy slapback echo that's just uncomprehensible, a cookoo clock rings and is followed by a strange ringing tone that sounds like early FM Synthesis experiments, and all this from one visit. You know there's more good to come soon, and that's a heartening thought in a world that's ever succombing to the blanding effects of U.S. commercial culture. Wonderful!!
Recorded by SCG man Alan Bishop during a summer 1983 visit to Morocco. Like Radio Java and palestine discs, the material for this 20 year old collection of recordings is taken straight off the radio. But unlike the Radio Palestine recording Morocco is much less attention deficit disorder ridden. Rather than clipping along in ten second and less sound bites, songs are actually allowed to develop and even finish on many a track. Tucked in alongside news reports, commercials and short snippets of Moroccan Serge Gainsbourg impersonations there are some really amazing Moroccan originals. "Radio Fes" features a live recording of a Moroccan orchestra supercharged with organ and electric guitar -- listen for the howls of joy from the back of the hall during the quiet sections. Other tracks feature traditional musicians cranking their sound out via low wattage transmitters and lo-fi equipment to produce a squashed ethno garage sound. There's a huge variety of stuff here and it all mixes well together without sounding too chaotically eclectic. As a bonus for those die hard SCG fans, there's a couple of classics that you may recognize here in their original form. A few more Sublime Frequencies recordings like this and someone will be able to put together a handsome "Roots of the Sun City Girls" comp.
It's a strange time to be reviewing a disc collecting various Burmese radio broadcasts, considering the recent natural disaster and the extreme and heartbreaking loss of life. But in some ways it's quite timely, as even in the face of nationwide disaster, the Myanmar government continues to be suspicious of outsiders, refusing international aid, and making recovery and rescue even more difficult that it would already be.
This collection addresses a similar situation, the Burmese government's obsession with controlling everything people outside of Myanmar read or hear about the country, to the point of draconian rules and regulations, and near total control of TV and radio. So, like the liner notes say, here is a rare glimpse of real Burmese life, music, news, commercials, all of the sounds one might experience in an urban center in Myanmar, car stereos, shops, street corners, a gloriously varied collection of sounds and music, voices and broadcasts.
It's tough to make peace with these collections. We've written extensively about it in other reviews. On the one hand they are totally fascinating, the sounds are weird and wild and wonderful, but one must be wary to not objectify and exoticize the people and cultures represented. It's definitely a fine line, and this series and others like it constantly toe that line, but it does seem like these are respectfully assembled and they do seem to help bring people together, to help us familiarize ourselves with worlds we would otherwise never experience in our day to day lives.
And from a purely sonic standpoint, these recording are dizzying, fantastic, so varied and wondrous. It sometimes seems depressing to think about US radio, if we're getting a glimpse of real life in Myanmar, what would people think about us? Car commercials, Madonna, sales, shock jocks, hmmm, then again maybe it is an accurate way to get a feel for a place...
Anyway, all of the politics aside, world music obsessives and field recording geeks will have a field day. These Radio comps are definitely an acquired taste as they have a serious short attention span vibe to them, like driving in a car while some little kid in the front seat randomly switched stations. But unlike here, pretty much every stopon the dial reveals something amazing, or at the very least interesting. All kinds of music, classical Burmese, Western style pop songs, schmaltzy ballads, country, surf, fuzzy psychedelia, commercial jingles and every possible stop in between. But it's definitely not just music. Lots of news broadcasts, some in Burmese, lots in English, commercials, what sound like radio dramas or soap operas, and then a whole bunch of sounds and voices where it's difficult to tell what they are. All in all, an absolutely fascinating sonic document, and another excellent Sublime Frequencies release. But if you're still feeling a little bit weird, maybe if you buy one of these, you can also send a little scratch to the Burmese cyclone relief effort. In fact even if you don't buy one of these you still should...
Of all the Sublime Frequencies releases, we'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite. We've made a BUNCH of them our Records Of The Week, and rarely does a couple lists go by without some new fantastic world music obscurity for us to rave about. But if we had to, we'd probably have to go with the series of 'Radio' releases. They're essentially recordings straight off the radio, the Sublime Frequencies guys traveling all over the world, sitting in their hotel room, or at someone's house, and just recording the radio. The results are fantastic and fascinating, and pretty excellent sampling of the culture, not just the music, cuz you get songs and bands and singers of course, but also advertisements, talk shows, politics, DJ's, and often, it's kind of dizzying, almost like someone's just flipping through the stations. But every one so far has been a blast.
For Radio Niger, the pace is not so frenetic, but the sonic breadth is as expansive as ever, with some of the coolest music we've heard, but liberally laced with all manner of diverse sounds and sonics, as the liner notes describe, some of what you hear: shout-outs to girlfriends, drunken storytellers who just wander into the studio, comedy skits, lots of amazing Tuareg desert blues, news snippets in English from the BBC, lo-fi marketplace cassettes, auto-tuned Nigerian pop, DJ's sing along with songs on the air, there are super avant cut up collages, classic African folk...
It's all pretty fantastic, but unlike the other installments in the 'Radio' series, this one is much more musically fleshed out, with almost full songs getting played, and lots of it amazing, from dirgey desert blues to wild psychedelic guitar buzz, cool, groovy new wave pop to wild drum heavy, high life, some minimal vocal/hand drums, and some seriously twisted juxtapositions, a jam that sounds like an African Steve Miller, bumped up next to wild, spastic tribal drumming, and rapid fire vocalizations, or more modern radio pop nestled right next to cool soundtracky, horn flecked funk! Like the other comps, Radio Niger is another fascinating sonic travelogue, and a glorious glimpse into the music, the culture, and the people of Niger.
Includes a booklet with liner notes, and lots of photos! (Oh, and did we mention the awesome song titles? "Sahel Drum-Machine Gun", "Moussa Poussy Galore", etc.)
Another collection of music, commercials, news reports and noise culled from radio broadcasts recorded by Alan Bishop. The tracks here were captured by Mr. Bishop in 1985 in Egypt and Jerusalem. Of the three radio discs released to date by Sublime Frequencies, this one is the most ADD afflicted. The bulk of the sound samples collected here are less than 30 seconds in length, some of them mere seconds, with most of the edits even seemingly to have been done using the radio dial at the time of their being recorded. That said, there's an abundance of odd music and sounds crammed into the 66 minutes of this disc: BBC news, a Soviet-esque female chorus with piano, romantic instrumentals, hammered dulcimer and drone, chipper singers with orchestral accompaniment, psychedelic electric oud solos, commercials, religious broadcasts, radio noise and more. Sit back and let Alan take control of the remote for an hour.
We know you love that Cambodian rock. And you know what? We love it too. Of late there seems to be an obsession with it; between the 4 Cambodian Rocks collections, the Cambodian Cassette Archives and Dengue Fever, we've had a pretty good run of it thus far. But now Sublime Frequencies is upping the ante with a collection unlike all those that preceded it. While the Khmer Rouge did a pretty good job of wiping out all the original performers, along with thousands of other innocent people and displacing the population of Cambodia, it couldn't completely wipe out the music. The original cassettes, still floating around are still being played on the radio to this day. Except that they aren't always played in strictly original form. Most stations, with the exception of the state run AM one, have taken to playing re-mixed versions of the songs with overdubbed instrumentation ranging from guitars and drums to synth keyboards in an attempt to keep the music fresh with the younger generations of listeners. This collection includes both the un-mixed originals taped off of the state run AM station and the re-mixed versions from the FM stations. Those of you already well suited with the previously released Cambodian rock collections will certainly get a kick out of several cuts here (some of which are most certainly completely different recordings from the ground up). Much more even than the Khmer Rocks releases, this collection has a great deal more variety of tunes (not just the garagey numbers), including some that feature traditional instruments, or at least traditional sounding. One tune in particular features just vocals and solo electric guitar which could easily be the Cambodian Lightnin' Hopkins. Additionally, Radio Phnom Penh differs greatly from the other discs in the Radio series on Sublime Frequencies in that not only are the songs allowed to play all the way through, in their entirety for the most part, but there's only very brief station ID's and disk jockey talking included.
Now all Sublime Frequencies needs to release is an Iranian disc and we'll have big W's "axis of evil" covered. But seriously, of all the countries on the globe -- axis or no -- the biggest cultural blackout has to be North Korea. Assembled by Christiaan Virant from a variety of source material: shortwave radio intercepts, field recordings (recorded in stealth mode in North Korea) and CDs produced by the North Korean government. Virant recorded and or collected most of the tracks between 1995 and 1998, though some of the shortwave tracks were recorded in 2005. Listening to Radio Pyongyang it's hard not to imagine North Korea as being a big version of the Small World exibit at Disneyland. The my-way-or-the-highway solipsist cultural imagineering is something uncle Walt could certainly appreciate. As such, this album is stuffed with Soviet style choruses singing victorious sounding patriotic hymns supported by pounding polka-meets-house beats, and cheery children's choruses doing much the same. That shouldn't be much of a surprise, but there will be sudden breaks in the songs with eighties pop-rock power chords, think the Miami Vice theme, and then suddenly take a wide left into pastoral schmalzy pseudo-classical refrains (often with voice-overs extolling the greatness of the North Korean government and Kim Jong Il). We actually really really enjoyed this, but at the same time are glad we don't have to listen to this sort of stuff 24-7 like those poor folks in North Korea!
Upstairs is the cd-r imprint for nostalgic electrons and warped lo-fi esoterica run by Daniel Lapotin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never), and what's a better way to kick-start things than with a comp of the accomplices, malcontents, and hangers-on? There's a handful of artists we're familiar with (Julian Lynch, Pulse Emitter, Africa Germany, Caboladies, and of course Oneohtrix who's covering a Grouper song which sounds as weird and fucking awesome as you could imagine!) but a ton we've not got a clue about. For example, take Autre Ne Veut's '80s pop simulacrum filtered through disposable recording techniques; or the anti-aesthetics, bleepity techno of cheap synthesizers from No Fun Acid; or the suitably kosmiche zone tripping from Stellar Om Source; or the wild and woolly oscillations from Nackt Insecten. Pulse Emitter's jagged electronica maps out lunar rhythms for those smooth surfaces of synthetic melodies he's mastered in recent years. Julian Lynch wistfully taps out softened melodies sort of like an idiot savant rendition of Erik Satie with some squiggly ring modulation tossed in for good measure. Gatekeeper brings the compilation to a conclusion with murky recapitulation of early Chris & Cosey smears of shadowy electronica. There's plenty more between all of these points of interest, making for a pretty great album. It's a shame that there's only 75 copies, and Upstairs has already sold out of all of their copies...
Fuck! What a mess of a weird fucking album! This is the sixth "Radio" release from Sublime Frequencies and quite possibly the best (for those who can appreciate the most damaged aspects of bizzare station ID's and channel surferyness). People in the United States sometimes don't realize just how loud our country is. We inundate the world with our radio, television and movies, but rarely have a clue as to what's happening elsewhere in the world. The rest of the world does have to listen to us, like it or not. We hold the cultural bully pulpit. So it's always nice to hear our own cultural exports turned inwards upon themselves, and the "Radio" series from Sublime Frequencies allows us to hear from around the world. Radio Sumatra begins with a seriously demented melange of eighties guitar rock pre-empted by evil gremlin voiced disc jockeys, like the voices you hear in your head after you eat an entire box of Captain Crunch in one sitting. Later, chipper voice talents intone over the what sounds like Sumatran black metal and phone callers to another station perform live karaoke on the radio. And this is only 15 minutes in. Towards the end the sounds of Islamic hip hop and primitive techno hold sway. We won't kid you though: there's a lot of super saccharine pop sandwiched in here. We're talking top forty radio... even if it is Sumatran. But this collection will slay you despite that. Or maybe because of that!
Of all the Sublime Frequencies collections, the various 'Radio' compilations are definitely our favorites. But at the same time they are also maybe the most problematic, It seems somehow disingenuous to travel to another country, turn on the radio, record several hours worth of music and sound, come home, put those recordings on a cd and then sell them. Not just disingenuous but quite possibly dishonest. It also seems a little weird to be thrilled by all the 'crazy' sounds we hear on the radio in these various countries. A guilty pleasure, very much that aspect of cultural tourism. "The music there is SO WILD!! And SO WEIRD!!" And it seems inconceivable that someone from some other country would come to the US, and do the same thing, returning to their countries to release discs packed with shock jocks, and crappy pop music, and morning zoo's and dry NPR discussions and modern rock and Loveline. But you never know. Although part of the reason that something like that would probably NOT happen, is that American culture, from the music to the clothes to the television shows, is already so invasive, there's probably not a corner of the world where people aren't discussing Lost or Paris Hilton or Brad and Angelina's baby or rocking out to the new Red Hot Chili Peppers. But the music and culture of these other countries does not have the same sort of universal reach. So it is actually quite a thrill to hear all of this amazing music, all of these voices, ads and commercials and songs. It's absolutely fantastic. It's just worth thinking about all that other stuff once in a while and realizing that in a sense, even just listening to these discs, we are guests, and we are digging the work and art, the livelihood and passion of hundreds of musicians and vocalists and deejays and artists. And we are digging it. A whole lot.
The first few 'Radio' compilations were a little too schizophrenic, only allowing us to hear a few seconds of a song before the dial was spun and we were bombarded by some new burst of musical randomness. It was pretty amazing in a totally overwhelming ADD short attention span sort of way, but they rectified that, realizing it was just as dizzying but way more satisfying if we got to hear whole songs. So here we are.
Radio Thailand, two whole discs culled from 15 years of recordings, captured between 1989 and 2004. A wonderfully confusional blur of Thai radio craziness, and crazy it is. A glorious hodge podge of everything under the sun, including cheesy eighties Indian disco, bizarre Thai arena rock, with wailing guitar leads, and murky Casio style rhythms, English language radio announcements, funky hip hop rock with guttural Muppets like vocals and a braying donkey chorus, complete with Knight Rider synths, Thai style Miami bass, with bumping beats and rapid fire rapping, goofy funky ska, groovy late night lounge funk, old soundtrack music, fuzzy, old school soul with big boomy drums and sweet horns, weird American style rapid fire commercials, distorted shortwave transmissions, haunting otherworldly piano, what sounds like Thailand's answer to Humpty Hump, but with wild swaths of LOUD synthesizer, full on sitar jams, Japanese style pop, sixties girl group harmonies, groovy exotica, radio dramas, solo blues vocals, and all sorts of traditional Thai musics mixed in with this dizzying barrage of music and voice and sound.
So totally amazing!
Sublime Frequencies' fantastic 'Radio' series continues. We've loved em all: Radio Palestine, Radio Thailand, Radio India, Radio Pyongyang (!), and all the rest... The series took a hiatus for a few years, but then came back with Radio Niger last year. And now, thanks to the travels of SF stalwart Mark Gergis, we've got Radio Vietnam! For those unfamiliar with the 'Radio' series, it's basically like (in fact, IS) someone in a hotel room someplace in a foreign country, spinning through the radio dial, recording whatever weirdness catches their ear, and putting it together on disc as a sort of sound-collage sampler of the sublime (and otherwise interesting) AM and FM radio frequencies found in whatever locale is the subject. There's a variety of music, of course, and also DJs and ads and talk shows and whatever else is on the radio. Even some static. Always a crazy 'sonic window' into a non-Western culture.
Radio Vietnam finds Gergis recording radio signals in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City over an 11-month period between December 2013 and November 2014. You get the his most interesting and out-there finds, ranging from traditional ethnic music, modern pop, advertising jingles, news broadcasts, exercise programming, and much more. A treat for the armchair traveller in all of us, as always.
Digipack with detailed liner notes by recordist/compiler Mark Gergis.
Yeah, you're right, these aren't new collections. In fact they're over six years old at this point. But imagine our surprise, johnny-come-latelys we are with these comps, when we picked them up for the store and discovered that we were already familiar with one of the tracks from a record of the week pick of a year ago. What I'm speaking of is DJ Rupture's inclusion of the Greensleeves (via Ridley Don) jungle remix of Barrington Levy's "Here I Come" on volume two. While Rupture did in fact add his own treatment to the mix, pitching it down drastically half way through, we were a little miffed that the mix -- which we thought was one of the best parts of the Gold Teeth Thief -- wasn't his own. Like the Trojan Jungle collections the two Ragga Jungle Anthem volumes are merely previously released tracks that have been remixed with breakbeat jungle rhythms, but where as the Trojan collections worked with classic reggae and ska material, the Ragga Jungle Anthem collections are all contemporary dancehall, which lends itself to such remixing. And sure the beats aren't new or groundbreaking, or even that original, but hell, it sounds SOOOOO GOOD. That classic jungle rhythm the got us in so into jungle in the first place. No tech step or hard step or dark core or whatever, just big dumb fun floor shaking wall rattling JUNGLE rhythms under some classic dancehall. You can't go wrong.
Yeah, you're right, these aren't new collections. In fact they're over six years old at this point. But imagine our surprise, johnny-come-latelys we are with these comps, when we picked them up for the store and discovered that we were already familiar with one of the tracks from a record of the week pick of a year ago. What I'm speaking of is DJ Rupture's inclusion of the Greensleeves (via Ridley Don) jungle remix of Barrington Levy's "Here I Come" on volume two. While Rupture did in fact add his own treatment to the mix, pitching it down drastically half way through, we were a little miffed that the mix -- which we thought was one of the best parts of the Gold Teeth Thief -- wasn't his own. Like the Trojan Jungle collections the two Ragga Jungle Anthem volumes are merely previously released tracks that have been remixed with breakbeat jungle rhythms, but where as the Trojan collections worked with classic reggae and ska material, the Ragga Jungle Anthem collections are all contemporary dancehall, which lends itself to such remixing. And sure the beats aren't new or groundbreaking, or even that original, but hell, it sounds SOOOOO GOOD. That classic jungle rhythm the got us in so into jungle in the first place. No tech step or hard step or dark core or whatever. just big dumb fun floor shaking wall rattling JUNGLE rhythms under some classic dancehall. You can't go wrong.
Holy cow! Yet another fantastic Sublime Frequencies release, this one a double lp of Rajasthan street music from Western India, a region plagued by power failures, droughts, dried up rivers, and the ever encroaching deserts, with a history of continuous invasions, epic battles, and brutal slaughters. (Sorta sounds like this is gonna be a metal comp, but no it's not.) The people of the region are resilient, and this history and the surrounding folklore are forever immortalized in music, a sound at once devotional, traditional and celebratory, the songs on this compilation collected over a two year period between 2007 and 2008, recorded live on street corners, and in people's homes, capturing the raw emotion and deep beauty of the music, and all it embodies and represents. The sounds are super varied, from droned out ragas, trancey and hypnotic, with gorgeous lilting vocals and long layered tones, some peppered with wild percussion, and on some tracks, the singer will just break from the song, and talk to someone else in the room before slipping right back into it. Other tracks sound a bit like stripped down Bollywood musicals, soaring female vocals, buzz wreathed rhythms, and still others are groovy, hazy, psychedelic Indian folk music, shimmering strings, stunning vocal melodies. And while there are moments of meditative melancholia, much of the record seems to celebrate life, the music and voices, infused with a vitality and positive energy, that belies the trials and tribulations of the region and its people. Truly gorgeous stuff.
Packaged in a super heavy, full color gatefold jacket, with tons of cool photos, and extensive liner notes, as well as a two sided printed insert, with still more liner notes, on these recordings, the region and its history, as well as notes on each song and performer.
At this point, sixties psych reissues are a dime a dozen. We have a whole section in the store, packed with good ones, and those are only a tiny fraction of what gets released. We've groused about it before, but just cuz it's old and rare, doesn't make it worth reissuing. Though sometimes, wow, is it ever!
The one thing we had never seen though, was a collection of sixties garage and psych from Iran. Then again, we had probably never wondered about the garage psych scene in Iran at all, but Raks Raks Raks has set us straight, and has us wishing we had.
As one might imagine, playing in a psychedelic rock band in the Middle East in the sixties was no cake walk, although according to the liner notes, it was maybe not as bad as we in the West might imagine, but amidst the various restrictions, political and personal, folks were of course still expressing themselves, and making music, and the results speak for themselves. Odds are, like us, you won't recognize a single band here, but it hardly matters, every track here is a winner, from Asian sounding grooves, to Ventures like surfy twang, to distinctly Middle Eastern sounding melodies, to fuzzy fifties-ish vocal doo wop, to twisted Monkees-like catchy pop, to Ethiopiques-ish jazzy funky grooves, to jangly psych folk, to fuzzy organ driven Joe Meek like grooviness, all infused with a distinctly Middle Eastern vibe, not just the language, the sound itself. Lo-fi, but so bursting with life and color and energy, classic sounds but imbued with elements and twists that make the tracks on Raks Raks Raks stand WAY out from the ordinary sixties psych reissue crowd BIG TIME! Expensive maybe, but so so worth it!
Massive booklet with extensive liner notes, as much about the history of the era and the politics of the region as the music and the artists.
Actually this record is a few years old, but on first glance you could see why it got little attention. A rather shitty photoshop montage of the heads of four of the "Allstars" onto a cornball western snapshot as cover art illustrates the problematic artwork. For such reasons, this record has been spotted in the country / western bargain bins at large uninformed record stores.
Anyway, what you get on the disc is spacious hyperminimal electronics that is the result of collaborations between Mika Vainio (Pan Sonic, Philius, etc.), Abe Duque (Kirlian), Suzanne Brokesche (the much unappreciated yet brilliant Sil Electronics), and many other minimal tweakers. Very similiar in scope to the last Plastikman record.
A great collection of soulful '70s reggae tunes centered on producer Clive Chin of the legendary Kingston studio (and retail record mart) Randy's. Highlights include Alton Ellis' "Too Late", Senya's "Roots Man", the Randy's All Stars version of the
Over the last few years, thanks to the enthusiastic efforts of a bunch of excellent globally-focused "research & reissue" labels, the typical AQ customer, as a dedicated sonic adventurer in the pursuit of cool music, has likely amassed quite a collection of vintage international pop, often on the psychedelic side of things, lots of great stuff previously obscure to Western ears. We've been introduced to surf rock from Thailand, funk from India, fuzz rock from Africa, film music from Pakistan, etc., etc. One of our faves has to be B-Music's Pomegranates comp of Persian grooves from the pre-revolutionary era, the '60s and '70s. Now here's a double cd/triple lp collection on Vampisoul deeply mining the same territory. And chances are, you'll recognize some of the names on here, like Googoosh and Kourosh Yaghmaei, from various other reissues/anthologies that have come out recently.
There's 28 tracks/treats dusted off from a scene that "flourished during the 1960s and 1970s before vanishing into exile or oblivion." Sadly, it was the same story elsewhere in the world too - political repression clamping down (with varying degrees of terminal harshness) on the era's vibrant pop music scenes in such far flung locales as Cambodia, Ethiopia, Brazil, and, under consideration here, Iran.
The Shah might have sucked, but as the liner notes here put it, after the Ayatollah took over, "'having fun' was banned entirely"! And what fun this is, the songs selected here chock full of impassioned crooning, lush swirling orchestration, bombastic dance beats, slinky grooves, some doleful acoustic balladry, and of course much in the way of ornate ethnic Eastern motifs... It's like an infectious Iranian blend of 50's exotica, '60s easy listening, '70s disco... with some strong hints of freakier, more psychedelic youth sounds like funk and rock. And most of it would make a great soundtrack if the Love Boat ever took Persian Gulf cruise.
Artists include: Abbas Mehrpouya, Fereidoon Farrokhzad, Neli, Habib, Hamid Shabkhiz, Simin Ghanem, Dariush, Ahmad Zahir (who is from Afghanistan, but presumably had his records released in Iran), Aref, Leila Forouhar, Giti, Hassan Khayatbashi, Googoosh, Shohreh, Afshin Maghaddam, and Kourosh Yaghmaei. The thick cd booklet (or lp sleeve) contains plenty of interesting notes on each of 'em, each artist/track boasting an informative blurb, lyric translations, and full-color photo. There's a comedian with an operatic voice (and unfortunate Hitler mustache), an openly gay poet/TV host/political scientist (assassinated in exile, presumably by agents of the Revolutionary regime), and many attractive songbirds with celebrated hairstyles....
Chocolate Industries compilation, whoo-hoo! Some gems from the output of this excellent hiphop (and jazz) infused electronica label. Push-Button Objects, Ko-Wreck Technique, East Flatbush Project, Funkstorung, While, Sluta Leta (who deliver their dependable headscratching mix of some old 70s jazzrock LP with millenial quality breakbeats...Soooo nice) and others. Some tracks are new, some are classics from the CI back catalog. A good 'un.
Haitian Rara music is the strange street festival music heard in ritual celebrations and processions often during Easter Week, commemorating the African ancestry of Afro-Haitian masses in a celebration that combines elements of Catholicism and Vodou in frenzied, ecstatic and often confrontational musical performances. Instruments are often bamboo trumpets, or metal pipes called vaksen, that are rhythmically struck while being blown into, and drums, metal bells and other percussive elements are combined in a trance inducing call and response of rhythms, horns and voices.
For this release, the folks at Soul Jazz ventured to Port-Au-Prince and recorded roving rara groups during Kanaval. The performers often stop traffic and demand money before moving on. Accumulating more followers as they march along, it's a truly communal experience that anyone can join who has any stick or bucket to bang on. Raw and anarchic, a fury of beautiful noise made by people. No amplification necessary!
We've all been huge fans of Geoff Mullen's for a while now, and were appropriately freaked out by his recent mindblowing Armory Radio double lp reviewed a few lists back.
But in addition to crafting gorgeous and epic buzzing stringscapes, he also started up a label called Rare Youth, to not only release some of his own records, but to help document the vibrant Providence underground rock scene. As if that scene needed ANY more documenting?! Well, in fact if this comp is anything to go by, it most certainly does!
A super bargain priced double cd (not cd-r), collecting nearly 40 tracks from a bevy of random Providence noisemakers. Some you probably know, Furisubi, Area C, Kites, Black Forest / Black Sea, Workdeath, Black Pus (Lightning Bolt sideproject), but most you probably don't: Unicorn Hard-On, Haunted House, Russian Tsarcasm, Teenage Waistband, Petal Boat, Pedestrian Deposit, Feral Children, I Would Eat That Pizza, Siren Cult, Lucky Dragons, God Willing, Total Gym, Red Delicious and tons more!
The record opens with Black Pus' buzzing blown out noisejam freakout, and from there on out, the sound careens wildly from washed out murky dronemusic, to crushing crumbling white noise skree, to super lo-fi drum jams, to murky punk rock pound, to gorgeous rainy day piano, to gentle tangles of fluttery folk, to super dense blackbuzz noiserock, lo-fi, damaged casio electro-core, creepy 8-bit Goblin style soundtrackery, to gorgeous warbly droned out dreamscapes, touching on a million other sounds and styles, most that don't even have names yet, and require super hyphenated and tongue twisty descriptors.
Needless to say, while very few folks will love EVERY single thing here, most of the tracks and the bands offer up some awesomely twisted, noisy, dreamy, damaged, freaked out sonic weirdness, that in most cases definitely left us wanting more. Dying to hear more music from Haunted House and Summer City just to name a couple.
Super deluxe handmade packaging. A thick cardstock gatefold sleeve, with paste on bright orange artwork and tracklistings, inside a fold out Xeroxed mini-poster with band info and cool art.
Pretty great underground CA hiphop collection w/ Rasco, AQ faves Zion I, Cali Agents, Saafir, Planet Asia, and others. The tracks are exclusive to this comp, it seems. A good way to get clued into some current, cutting edge rap artistry.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Mike Ink, Porter Ricks, Biochip C., Kerosene and others contribute tracks to this collection of abstract techno.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
One of 5 singles taken from the Soundbombing II compilation album. This one features Mos Def, Diamond, and the always-interesting Company Flow.
Seven tracks by seven different audio artists all using source material taken from the soundtrack to Martin Arnold's film "Alone, Life Wastes Andy Hardy." Using laptops and lots of software processing, most of the artists here disguise the source material well enough, bringing the film's soundtrack into their own realm and making of it what one might expect from a laptop. There are
Crust, grind, power violence, can you take it? Spazz, Dystopia, Suppression, Man Is The Bastard, Excruciating Terror, Stapled Shut, Capitalist Casualites...
Another compilation (number four, duh) of fast and furious, pummelling fastcore/grindcore/metallic punk rock. Some bands you know: 324 (from their recent split with Corrupted), Ruido, Unruh, Damad, Lack Of Interest as well as a ton of bands you don't: Haymaker, I Found God, Overpowering, Self Inflicted, Progeria, Halo Epidemic, Dudman, Pretty Little Flower, Inspite, Hawgjaw, Low Threat Profile and lots more. If you like this kind of stuff, you probably gotta have this.
I don't have cable, so I don't know if the rumours are true that MTV (or MTV2?) brought the Headbanger's Ball back on the air. But if you have a DVD player you've got your own Headbangers Ball right here, and it's underground stuff that probably wouldn't get played on TV anyway. Relapse is one of the biggest and best metal labels in the country, and from their roster they've selected both new and long-time favorites to appear on this DVD video collection. From stoner metallers High On Fire (whose quite excellent video Andee does report having seen on MTV) to kinetic spazzcore heroes Dillinger Escape Plan, from the streetwise grind of Brutal Truth to the Nordic bombast of Amorphis, this ought to entertain any metal fan. Amidst the variety of metal styles and video budgets displayed here, we especially dug the rap-rock parody piss-take of grindcore outfit Blood Duster, the old-school macabre metal of Deceased, Unsane's classic skater-wipe-out video for "Sick", and Alchemist's industrial, psychedelicized channelling of Voivod. Other heavyweights also appearing: Neurosis (twice), Today Is The Day, Dead World, Benumb, Alabama Thunder Pussy, and Uphill Battle. ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just cut and paste the info into the comments area on the order form, or just email mailorder@aquariusrecords.org. A BAND "s/t" (QBICO) lp 23.00 ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO UFO "The Day Before The Sky Fell In America" (Galactic Zoo Disc / Eclipse Records) lp 14.98 AKIMBO "Elephantine" (Dopamine / Amalagate) cd 12,98 ANGANTYR "Kampen Fortsatter" (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98 ARCTOPCALYPSE NOW "Behold The Arctopus" (Epicene) 3" cd 5.98 ART BEARS "The Art Box" (Rer) 6cd 76.00 ART OF NOISE "Into Battle With The Art Of Noise / 20th Anniversary Edition" (Repertoire) 2cd 17.98 BERNE, TIM "The Sublime And." (Thirsty Ear) cd 16.98 CALLA "s/t" (Arena Rock) cd 12.98 CASH, JOHNNY "Cash Unearthed" (American) 5cd 79.00 CAVO "s/t" (Shit Jam Records) 3"cd 5.98 CHEESEBURGER "s/t" (Aerodrome Records) cd 5.98 CHICAGO UNDERGROUND TRIO "Slon" (Thrill Jockey) cd 15.98 CIRCLE TAKES THE SQUARE "As The Roots Undo" (Robotic Empire) cd 11.98 CONNORS, LOREN & ALAN LICHT "In France" (FBWL) cd 19.98 CORNELIUS "Five Point One" (Matador) dvd + cd 14.98 CRIME IN CHOIR "The Hoop" (Frenetic) cd 13.98 CROWPATH "Old Cuts And Blunt Knives" (Robotic Empire) cd 11.98 CURE, THE "Join The Dots: B-Sides And Rarities 1978>2001 The Fiction Years" (Fiction / Elektra / Rhino) 4cd 82.00 DJ SPOOKY "Rhythm Science" (Sub Rosa) cd 14.98 DMZ "s/t" (Sepia Tone) cd 12.98 END, THE "Within Dividia" (Relapse) cd 12.98 EXMAGMA "s/t & Goldball" (Daily Records) cd 21.00 FANTOMAS "Delerium Cordia" (Ipecac) cd 16.98 FIERY FURNACES, THE "Gallowsbird's Park" (Rough Trade) cd 15.98 FLASKET BRINNER "The Swedish Radio Recordings 1970-1975" (Mellotronen) 4cd 88.00 FLIES INSIDE THE SUN "Burning Glass" (Metonymic) cd 15.98 FURSAXA "Mandrake" (Eclipse) lp 14.98 GANG WIZARD "Jeckyll Loves Hyde" (Ecstatic Peace) lp 13.98 GERRARD, LISA / PATRICK CASSIDY "Immortal Memory" (4AD) cd 14.98 HUMAN TELEVISION "Orange" (Soft Abuse) cd ep 6.98 I.S.O. (Sound Tectonics) cd 22.00 IMAI, SAYAKA "Mahiru-no-yume" (Detector) cd 9.98 JEFFERSON, BLIND LEMON "Long Lonesome Blues: Lemon's Texts Revealed" (World Arbiter) cd 16.98 JOKERS "s/t" (Modern Music (PSF)) cd 21.00 KEITH, RODD "Ecstacy To Frenzy" (Tzadik) cd 16.98 KELIS "Tasty" (Star Trak) cd 16.98 KING OF BLUEGRASS : THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JIMMY MARTIN (Straight Six Films) dvd 23.00 KIRCHIN, BASIL "Abominable Dr. Phibes" (MGM) cd 16.98 KITCHEN CYNICS, THE "Parallel Dog Days" (Secret Eye) cd 12.98 LOVELY MIDGET "North Head" (Family Vineyard) cd 14.98 MOLINA, JASON "Pyramid Electric Co." (Secretly Canadian) lp+cd 13.98 MR. AIRPLANE MAN "C'mon DJ" (Sympathy For The Record Industry) cd 14.98 MY CAT IS AN ALIEN "The Rest Is Silence" (Eclipse) 2lp 17.98 NEGATIVE REACTION / RAMESSES (psycheDOOMelic) cd 13.98 NEUROSIS & JARBOE "s/t" (Neurot) cd 12.98 NEWSOM, JOANNA "Walnut Whales" cd-r 8.98 NEWSOM, JOANNA "Yarn And Glue" cd-r 5.98 NOTWIST, THE "Different Cars And Trains" (Domino) cd ep 10.98 NUMBERS "In My Mind All The Time" (Tigerbeat 6) cd 13.98 OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL "Dusk At Cubist Castle" (Cloud Recordings) cd 14.98 ONEIDA "Secret Wars" (Jagjaguwar) cd 14.98 OPEN CITY "Birth Of Cruel" (Thin Wrist) lp/cd 14.98/14.98 OUR LADY OF THE HIGHWAY "About Leaving" (Fogsnob) cd 9.98 PALAST, GREG "Weapons Of Mass Instruction Live" (Alternative Tentacles) cd 14.98 PAPA M / CHRISTINA ROSENVINGE "Five" (Drag City) cd ep 5.98 PIXEL "Display" (Raster.Post) cd 16.98 QBERT, DJ "DJ Qbert's Complete Do-It Yourself Volume 2: Skratch Sessions" (Thud Rumble) dvd 26.00 RAKU SUGIFATTI "Futatsu" (Improvised Music From Japan) cd 24.00 REYNOLS "The Bolomo Mogal F Hits" cd 22.00 RUSSELL, ARTHUR "The World of Arthur Russell" (Soul Jazz) cd 19.98 SACHIKO M "Derive" (NAIM) cd 16.98 SAJIKI, TENJO "Den'Em Ni" (Swax) cd 38.00 SAJIKI, TENJO "Throw Away" (Swax) cd 34.00 SSIBILANCE "s/t" cd-r 9.98 SONIC FLOWER "Heavy Sonic & Flower Groove" (Leaf Hound) cd 13.98 SOUL POSITION "8 Million Stories" (Fatbeats) cd 16.98 STATISTICS "Leave Your Name" (Jade Tree) cd 14.98 STILLER, BEN "The Ben Stiller Show" 2cd 27.00 SWARM OF THE LOTUS "When White Becomes Black" (At A Loss) cd 12.98 TAPE "Milieu" (Hapna) cd 16.98 TETSUO "Ranshuo" (Shit Jam Records) cd 8.98 THE ONE "Guardian's Inhuman" (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98 THROBBING GRISTLE "TG+" (Mute) 10cd box set 142.00 TIRILL "A Dance With the Shadows" (The Wild Places) cd 15.98 UNIVERSITY OF ERRORS "Uglymusic.4.Monica" cd 12.98 UNPERSONS "III" (At A Loss) cd 12.98 UNSANE "Lambhouse" (Relapse) cd + dvd 14.98 UZ JSME DOMA "Rybi Tuk" (Indies) cd 14.98 VANDERSLICE, JOHN "Cellar Door" (Barsuk) cd 13.98 WALTER, WEASEL / KEVIN DRUMM / FRED LONBERG-HOLM "Eruption" (Grob) cd WEIRD WAR "If You Can't Beat 'Em, Bite 'Em" (Drag City) cd 14.98 YOSHIHIDE, OTOMO / PARK JE CHUN / MI YEON "Loose Community" (Improvised Music From Japan) cd 17.98 _______________________________________________________________________ ABOUT MAILORDER Please place your order via our website. [1] We will contact you to verify your order and let you know when it will be shipped. Please note that occasionally it may take a day or two for us to reply. We are not a faceless bunch of computers replying to your order -- we are human beings! [2] If we are out of some of your items and we think we will get them within the same week, we can wait to ship. Or... If it's going to be more than a few days to complete your order, we will ship what we have and then will contact you as the remainders arrive. [ note ] Due to the everchanging nature of the independent record business, we are not responsible for listed price changes (due to supplier price changes) and often cannot update our site fast enough to reflect these changes, but we will always try to let you know of any differences.
If you were going to teach a class on Dronology (someone must, otherwise where do all the dronologists come from that we cite in our reviews?) you couldn't come up with a much better primer than this compilation put together by the Crucial Blast label. Hit shuffle and close your eyes, imagine sleeping bodies dragged through a meadow of broken reeds and thistles. Rocks crumbling with imperceptable grace. Field recordings from ancient oceans found in a sealed cave. The artists on here are a diverse bunch -- from the Earth/SUNNO))) styled metal-drone of Unearthly Trance to the academic studies in silence of Francisco Lopez to the cloud-formations of Troum. And Jewelled Antler fanatics take note: there's a great, organic epic from Thuja on here. All exclusive tracks as far as we know, also from Ruhr Hunter, Scot Jenerik, Beneath The Lake, Amon, Chaos As Shelter, and House Of Low Culture. Quite a line-up of folks devoted to making the most of drone and crackle! Somehow it really fits that we got a portion of our stock of these from Crucial Blast in trade for a copy of the Conet Project! With gorgeous red/orange/yellow packaging by Aaron Turner (House Of Low Culture, Isis, Hydra Head etc.). Recommended.
Thanks to all the folks who came out for Record Store Day last Saturday. It was a blast, lots of music, familiar faces, not so familiar faces, snacks and beer, and most importantly, tons of hanging out and listening to great music, not to mention a handful of records pressed up specifically for the big day. Lucky for those of you without a local record store, we managed to get extra copies of some of the Record Store Day releases, one of which is this super limited lp from Thrill Jockey, featuring a bunch of bands we love, as well as a cool old school zine, featuring all sorts of folks talking records, and record stores, and waxing poetic on how important record stores have been in all of our lives.
But let's talk about the record itself first. First up, an exclusive track from aQ faves Mountains, more gloriously sun dappled pop ambience, all prismatic and warm, drifty and dreamy and divine. Then a brand new Tortoise track, a sneak peek at the new record, an extended jam that is most definitely surprising, all new wave-y with buzzy synths and skittery beats, a seriously fusiony electro vibe, total late night future funk, that gets super heavy in the second half, very post/kraut rocky like a heavier Stereolab! Cool.
Flipside starts out with Double Dagger, who we had never heard but who definitely kick ass, super distorted, howly, drum heavy, bass heavy post punk, arty, angular, crunchy, almost a bit metal, full length coming out soon (or just out) that we will definitely check into. Then another track from another aQ fave, NY's White Hills, called "Eye To Eye" from an out of print cd-r, and it's just what you'd expect, druggy, tripped out, psychedelic space rock, with plenty of wild guitar freakouts, kick ass drumming and looooong asssss stretches of space-y jamming. Not to mention a second half that gets all wah wah classic rock! Then finally, a new Trans Am jam, featuring the Fucking Champs' Tim Soete on back up vocals and lead (!) guitars, groovy, metallic, post rocky, classic rocky, with some awesomely cheesy deep vocals, call and response of course, ripping leads, the whole thing a serious slab of total car chase old school classic rock jammery.
As if that weren't enough, the packaging is fantastic, gorgeous, ultra thick sleeves, and inside, a mini manifesto, for record store day, and a zine featuring all sorts of folks reminiscing about their favorite records, or first records, or favorite record stores, lots of record store owners, band folks: the guy from Double Dagger, Mike Watt, Julia Cafritz from Pussy Galore, Ron House from Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments (also a record store owner), Nathan Means from Trans Am, Stephen from the Pastels, as well as record store folk from Pier Platters, Dusty Groove, Other Music, Reckless, Permanent as well as our very own Andee (who is both a record store owner and former Thrill Jockey recording artist in his old band A Minor Forest)!!
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. Most of which sold on Record Store Day. We have a bunch, but odds are these will most likely be the only copies we ever have.
This Red Hot compilation (dedicated to fighting AIDS) features a very well-chosen collection of Today's Hot Young Acts covering Brazilian bossa nova classics. All tracks exclusive and new (we think). With Stereolab & Herbie Mann, Money Mark, EBTG, Mad Professor, PM Dawn, etc. Purists may want to get the companion cd which features the same song lineup, but this time it's the ORIGINAL versions as performed by Brazilian musicians, and the money goes to the same place.
Tribute to Nigerian musician Fela Kuti featuring a swarm of artists including Mixmaster Mike, Dead Prez, Talib Kweli, Femi Kuti, Macy Gray, Meshell Ndegeocello, Common, Manu Dibango, Tony Allen, Baaba Maal, Archie Shepp, Sade, Taj Mahal, Antibalas and much more. Though most of the tracks are a brief 4 or 5 minutes (instead of the Fela standard of an album side) they are set up in continuous form so that one guest will toast over a track for a bit, then someone else will pick up the slack where they leave off. So you kind of get the Fela feel in a 2nd millennium party mix sort of way. In fact, many of the tracks use Fela's original music as source material and throughout the collection it is remixed in varying amounts. Net profits from the sale of the album go to support Red Hot's AIDS awareness activites and other AIDS related relief and prevention programs.
Wonderful, educational compilation featuring Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, John Coltrane, and Alice Coltrane (who does an intense version of "A Love Supreme.") Money goes to the Red Hot organization which fights AIDS.
Wwe heard that both volumes of the original LPs of Reggae Goodies sold for $350 each on eBay just recently, if that tells you anything about the collector fanatacism that Wackies merch inspires in folks these days. If you're not a fetishist for the original object, you can get all those tracks -- 20 of them -- for a fraction of the $700 eBay price tag. All the greats are here: The Love Joys, Joe Morgan, Wayne Jarrett, Stranger Cole, The Chosen Brothers and much more.
Remixes of Steve Reich's compositions from across his career. DJ Takemura (soon to release a full length on Thrill Jockey, and also known as Child's View), Andrea Parker, Coldcut and DJ Spooky absolutely rise to the occasion by preserving a bit of what gave Reich his edge, but adding their own voices to the mix creating tracks that are unique in their own right. Also included (rather straight-up remixes where adding beats is the approach) are Howie B, Mantronik, Tranquility Bass, Ken Ishii and others. LP has an extra track.
Those cool kids at Three.One.G (aka the label run by Justin from The Locust!) have delivered another tribute album (you might recall their rad Dynamite With A Laserbeam compilation cd dedicated to Queen). This one celebrates "one of the best bands that has ever existed" (their words, not ours, but some of us here might tend to agree)... The Birthday Party! Nick Cave, Rowland S. Howard and co. were (and continue to be) one of the most influential bands on the angst-ridden SoCal music scene that was spearheaded by this label and their comrades Gold Standard Laboratories. But unlike that of many of the youngsters who've followed in their tracks, there was no question that their pit of torment and despair and blind rage was genuine. That said, the churn and rumble and tortured scowls and yowls emanating from this disc definitely do conjure visions of the bands' members and their instruments being forced through the meat grinder mentioned in the title. Some of the renditions definitely pay much reverence to the fierce originals while others tear 'em to bits, leaving little in the way of resemblance. Such is the spirit of Three.One.G. though, so if you're already a fan of the label you already know exactly what to expect. If you're a stranger to these folks, this might be a bit of a jolt. Some Birthday Party devotee might even find some of it sacrilegious. Here's the list of bristly and black-clad 'Party goers in order of appearance: The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower, Das Oath, T Cells, Cattle Decapitation, Year Future, Ssion, Ex Models, Les Georges Leningrad, Rah Bras, Melt-Banana, Chinese Stars, Celebration, Kill Me Tomorrow, Get Hustle, Numbers, Error, Daughters, and Some Girls.
Here's 32 exclusive tracks of the nastiest noise and experimental ambience from around the world, by the likes of Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, Tactile, Bastard Noise, Tribes of Neurot, Amber Asylum, Masonna, Illusion of Safety, etc. etc. etc.
Fairly caught with our pants down around our ankles we were when Sharpling & Wurster's "Music Scholar" suggested that every self respecting record store would have a large collection of Greek Rembetika music. Checking our inventory we could only attest to
Rembetika music developed early in the 20th century amongst the poor habitants of Greece. Much like the American blues, these marginalized members of Greek society wrote songs about pain, death, prison (many of the rembetika musicians of this time were jailed merely for playing their music), drugs (the word "rembetika" is derived from "tekes", meaning hash den), sorrow, etc. Comparisons have even been drawn to Harlem of the same period. The music is centered around the bouzouki, a home grown lute invented by rembetika musicians, but can include baglama (a smaller bouzouki), santouri (dulcimer), lyra (or violin), guitar, oud, clarinet and vocals of course. One of the things that made their music so rich was the absorption of musical influences from around the Mediterranean. Two tragic events, both in 1922, helped add to this melange: a fire that consumed the island of Smyrna forced the inhabitants to mainland Greece and the Greco-Turkish war, which caused massive shifting of populations. Both events saw a new influx of poor immigrants who added their distinctive styles and melodies to the form. By 1937 the Greek government, viewing the anti-authoritarian and Arab influenced sounds as a cultural and political threat, banned the music from being played on the radio, favoring instead the more mainstream Piraeus style of rembetika. The 45 tracks on this two disc collection capture this brief and musically fertile phenomenon, featuring some of the best of the day, including Markos Vamvakaris, Rita Ambadsi, Evangelos Papazoglu and much more. This fine edition from Trikont comes with two booklets, and though the back cover claims to include an English translation there is in fact only a brief translation of some of the lyrics. All the historical documentation will require an understanding of German.
The second testimonial, following the excellent Braindance Coincidence sampler, to the consistency of quality and occasional goofiness of Richard D. James and Grant Wilson Claridge's visionary Rephlex label. What you get here is a handful of 'hits' from some of electronic music's underground superstars as well as some of the amazing electroacoustic gems you just might have slept on in the recent past. Given the fact that Rephlex is notorious for their unpredictable agenda of keeping the back catalogue in or out of print (the majority of these tracks are from albums currently out of print or very hard to find), here's a good chance to catch up with what possibly flew over your head. Braindance heads will need this for the two exclusives takin' it back to the old school: AFX drops an acid classic while Luke Vibert shows you who's Papa, Amen Andrews style. Neophytes will enjoy previously released cuts from Astrobotnia, Pierre Bastien, Bochum Welt, Cylob, D'Arcangelo, DMX Krew, Ensemble, The Gentle People, Global Goon, JP Buckle, Leila, Like A Tim, Robert Normandeau, Bogdan Raczynski, PP Roy, Slipper and Yee-King.
