Psychedelic Swedish obscurity n' awesomeness from the late '60s and early-to-mid '70s, yeah!! 18 rare tracks from 18 long-forgotten (but oh-so-good) bands are compiled on this, the third volume in a series that has yet to peak. Basically if you like fuzz groovers and wild freakbeat rockers, you've come to the right place. Likewise, from bluesy stomp to folky harmonies, vol. III has it covered. Melancholic psych-pop too -- check out the underground 1969 sounds of "Love Love Love" by a band appropriately named Drugs! Some of the '70s tracks verge on proto-metal, especially Bjorn Famne's "Vampire" (1975) which the liner notes rightly suggest sound like "the missing link between Led Zeppelin and the Jesus And Mary Chain", and Zane's garage-punk Sabbathy "Step Aside" (1976). Others tend towards manic progginess (the Ga Runt Show's big production "Bara Skrot" from '67 for instance). And all are pretty great! Here's the full list of bands, besides the ones mentioned above, for what it's worth: Scorpion, Uppat Vaggarna, Match, Red White & Blues, Fruit, Candle, Harambee, East-West, New Creation, Atlantic Ocean, The Junk's And the Angels, After Life, and Contact.
With interesting liner notes on each track, and cool, old-school collage-style psychedelic graphics incorporating original 45 sleeve artwork, we can only applaud the packaging job that the Dolores label has done on this comp (and previous volumes). Likewise we applaud the selection of music, it's like having an insane Swedish '60s record collector DJ'ing his most valued, mind-blowing, impossible-to-find psych treasures for you for a full hour...which is basically what this is, actually!
Great title, great comp! 21 tracks from 18 Swedish (and some invading British) '60s garage/beat/psych acts you've probably never heard of before, but who all pretty much ruled... Volume I of this (a double disc set featuring both '60s bands and their modern day emulators) was so expensive we never listed it, but Volume II is maybe cheap enough for us to stock a few...even though it really ain't cheap. Then again, try trying to track down the original 7" vinyl versions of all this tuneage! Anyway, this is one of those rare comps without a duff track really, for those into those '60s sounds. If you've got a Nuggets box set ('specially the second, internationally-oriented one) then you are a likely candidate to enjoy this. Bands include: Cheers, The Stringtones, Evil Eyes, Kings, Mascots, Iveys (not the pre-Badfinger Iveys), Vat 66, Les Fleurs, The Best, Bella And Me, The Mixers, Attractions, 14, Darling, Zoom, Ackes, Members Blues Band, and the Flying Dutchmen. Groovily graphically presented, with liner notes by expert Stefan Kery of the Subliminal Sounds label, whose own retro garage band in the '80s -- The Stomachmouths -- were certainly influenced by the some of the bands found here. If this sells, maybe we'll see about getting Vol. I back in stock... Warning for iPod'ers, cd burners and filesharers: this cd is supposedly equipped with some kind of sucky copy control technology thanks to the corporate powers that be at Virgin Sweden. That better mean all these bands are getting paid for this, eh?!
Fifteen exclusive tracks from the hip hop underground from Mos Def & Talib Kweli, Truth Enola & De La Soul, L Swift, Pharaohe Monch, Mr. Complex, J Live, Big Kwam, Invisible Mics, and more!
Two NYC labels - Minimal Wave and Wierd Records - have been at the forefront in energizing a resurgence in minimally sculpted synth pop that harkens back to the late '70s and early '80s of synthpunk, darkwave, and industrial sensibilities. Where Minimal Wave's focus has been on digging up the lost gems from that seminal time period, Wierd actively supports those working in the field today, with a weekly club in New York and with well-curated albums including recent releases from Xeno & Oaklander and Led Er Est. Back in 2006, Wierd released a massive 3lp set, showcasing some of the best and brightest who had passed through their doors. That first set was a magnificent find, filled with misanthropes in black leather making dirge-crusted ambience, grinding dark-disco anthems, and sexy goth electronics sporting uncanny melodies. Unfortunately that set is currently out of print, although we're hoping to secure some copies anyway.
This, the second set, was completed at the end of 2008 and took a slightly different approach than the first, as the curatorial direction was clearly to dovetail Wierd's tastemaking aesthetic of coldwave synth pop with the perpetually moving US underground of noise-induced powerdroning. In many ways, what Wierd was doing in this compilation parallels what Carlos Giffoni has been doing with his No Fun Festivals, but from the other end of the spectrum.
So what you get here is a beautifully packaged collection that brackets a darkly propulsive synth-pop number with an abrasive noise-drone piece, with the linking factor being that all of the sounds have been made on analogue synths. Xeno & Oaklander, Martial Canterel, Three To Forgotten, Tobias Bernstrup, and Epee Du Bois belong to the former camp; and Demons (featuring Nate Young of Wolf Eyes fame), Envenomist, Cadaver In Drag, and even the aforementioned Mr. Giffoni represent the latter. Sleep Museum, Charlie Draheim, and Wave Tank seem to be the artists that do their part to marry the two, especially Draheim's piercing synth Leather Nun-ish anti-tune "Guts On The Dancefloor." Oh yeah, all the tracks here are exclusive to the compilation. Great. Great. Great.
Gonna just quote the press-sheet here: "Off Records and the two creators of Hedwig and the Angry Inch rounded up an ... all-star cast including Yoko Ono with Yo La Tengo, Sleater-Kinney with Fred Schneider, Jonathan Richman, Robyn Hitchcock, Rufus Wainwright, The Breeders and many others, to participate in a Hedwig-themed charity album for the Harvey Milk School in NYC."
The third and final (?) installment of soundtrack music from East Germany's notorious Indianerfilmen. The film genre was popular in the sixties through the seventies and consisted of the basic American Western film turned upside down -- with the Native Americans as the heroes battling the evil colonial Europeans. Great concept, albeit surreal execution since all the actors in these films were German (in dark makeup) and the terrain is all Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland. **As an aside, local AQ customers can now rent these films on video (with subtitles) across the street from us at Lost Weekend Video. Everyone else should bug their local video store to pick them up, if just for kicks.** Musically, "Wigwam, Cowboys, Roter Kreis" is the most successful collection in the series. The bulk of the tracks here are taken from four films, the scores for which are all equally off kilter in their influences. The score for the film Tecumseh sounds akin to Isaac Hayes' Shaft but augmented by faux-native flutes and motifs. Then there's the bizarre Apachen which boldly attempts a "Latin" feel with it's marimba, flute, trumpet trios backed by orchestra, percussion and even wah-wah guitar. The odd jaw-harp percussion duet "Todesrennen" from the film Blutsbruder is without compare. And, of course, no Indianerfilmen collection would be complete without at least one Morricone homage, and included on this disc are a few tracks from the film Severino which lifts the theme to Once Upon A Time In The West with only the slightest in melodic adjustments. As a bonus there are a few vocal songs including an alternate version of "Love Your Brother" (which was featured on the first Wigwam collection) and a couple other Gram Parsons-on-the-Eastern-bloc cuts. Liner notes covering the composers and the film genre in general are included in both German and English.
Wigwam, Weste(r)n, Weisse Wolfe is the second volume of "Indianerfilmen" music from Germany. Those who missed out on the first volume (now out of print?), "Indianerfilmen" is a genre of films that were popular in the East German Republic in the sixties and
Subtitled "Dread Meets Punk Rocker Downtown" this is a brilliant collection of dubbed out and reggaefied punk and new wave b-sides circa '77-'81, demonstrating the Jamaican dub influence on the youth culture of music and rebellion in England and elsewhere, back in the day. The underground dancefloor avantgardists of today can cop these styles, but this is the real deal, with tracks from well-known acts like The Pop Group, Killing Joke, The Slits, PIL, The Clash, Grace Jones and Stiff Little Fingers, plus some more obscure bands as well, like Red Beat, 4 Be 2, and Basement 5. Some cuts are actual echoey dubs, others are more about the Jamaican influence, and the dub concept of studio as instrument. All are pretty cool.
The Ruts' "Jah War" starts things off in deceptively ordinary fashion, pretty much straight up reggae (not a dub), though it does succesfully demonstrate this comp's thesis regarding the influence of reggae on punk (with The Ruts eventually becoming Ruts DC, subject of an anthology on Select Cuts we recommended a while back)... That's followed by Mikey Dread's dub version of The Clash's "Bank Robber" which of course sounds pretty much like The Clash, but dubbier. It's with track three, "Wild Dub" from Generation X, purportedly the first punk dub ever cut, that the punk-dub collision starts to get really interesting. And if Billy Idol's old band's dub attempt is cool, you can only imagine what more some of the more out-there groups came up with. For instance, dig the bizarre sounds of The Slits, whose disjointed dub of "Typical Girls" comes off like Italian 'rock concrete' deconstructionists Starfuckers by way of Jamaica, all cut-up and sparse and loopy. Definitely a highlight. Meanwhile, you've got The Pop Group setting an example for current acts like Out Hud/!!! to emulate, 4 Be 2's weird Irish hoedown skank, the throbbing "Turn To Red" by Killing Joke (from a super-rare 9" record), and Grace Jones' 1980 Chrissie Hynde penned dance classic "Private Life" with bass and drums from Sly & Robbie. And more... Former Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten is a ubiquitous presence, in addition to PIL's quintessential "Death Disco", there's a bunch of other John Lydon productions on here, including a great track from Vivien Goldman ("Private Armies") dubbed up by Lydon and Adrian Sherwood. Goldman, former singer with the Flying Lizards and reggae writer for the punk weekly Sounds, contributes the disc's liner notes, with an enthusiastic, informed, she-was-there-then-and-cares-deeply-about-it-now perspective. So, totally, recommended -- everyone who loved those great Disco Not Disco and/or In The Beginning There Was Rhythm compilations will want to check this out for sure!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The original Wicker Man movie has got to be one of our all time favorite films as well as pretty much one of our all time favorite soundtracks. The movie falls into an elusive subgenre of psych-folk films like The Ballad of Tam-Lin, or Herzog's Heart of Glass, that mix pre-Christian folkloric musical elements and themes with a modern or counter-cultural revivalism often with darkly beautiful and sometimes terrifying results. There is no doubt that the Wicker Man as both a film and soundtrack was a key touchstone in the recent freak-folk movement. That the songs featured on that soundtrack with all their barely concealed bawdyness and lyrical waxing of the cycles of nature, sexuality and death were actually based on traditional British folk music is at this point no surprise either. Finder's Keepers does a lovely job here collecting much of the traditional material that formed the basis for the songs performed in the Wicker Man movie. Although the most remembered song from that movie, "Willow's Song" was not traditionally based, it's the song that let us into the perverse mysticism of the movie's characters and made us pay attention to the duplicitous meanings found in the traditional material. Here, that song is represented by a beautiful instrumental version taken from the original soundtrack recordings but not featured on the actual soundtrack release. The cd also features traditional versions of "Corn Rigs", based on a Robert Burns poem, "Gently, Johnny", the Maypole song "Rattlin' Bog", and "Highland Lament", as well as children's songs and instrumental jigs.
Essentially, "Windswept Trees And Houses" is a Jewelled Antler Collective primer. The Jewelled Antler Collective (Loren Chasse, Glenn Donaldson, Jason Honea, Steven R. Smith and Rob Reger) rotate through a number of wholly unique manifestations of psychedelic improv in Thuja, Blithe Sons, Child Readers, Knit Separates, and The Skygreen Leopards. With all of those outfits present, this album encapsulates the Jewelled Antler ethos in parallel with a handful of like minded artists who share their host's metaphysical glee and earnest investigations into the mysterious. Amongst the guests on "Windswept Trees And Houses" include the amazing film / installation collaboration Silt who has recently been awarded with a showcase at the 2002 Whitney Biennial, offering a very nice piece of ephemeral vocal incantations swathed in Zoviet France delay tricks. There's also New Zealand's Entlang (featuring members of Dress and Garbage From The Flowers) presenting a disjointed track of avant-hillbilly strum. But the highlight of the compilation is The Billy Crosby's whose stunning cover of Current 93's "The Signs Of Emptiness" sublimely matches a warbling Appalachian finger picking with a rough-hewn male / female vocal duet.
While most compilations suffer from poor throw-away tracks, "Windswept Trees And Houses" is a great listen throughout, and certainly gets a strong recommendation as with the rest of the Jewelled Antler releases.
San Francisco comp featuring lots of cool melodic indie rock. One disc is bands doing originals while the other disc has them all covering each other. Features folks like French Miama, The Lovely Public, 60 Watt Kid, Tartufi, Little Teeth, Pidgeon, Excuses For Skipping, and lots more.
This peppy French compilation is so good. So stylistic and classy, people in the store took notice immediatley when I put it on. The songs are fast and a bit psychedelic. There're silly backup vocals and sexy girl voices throughout. The years span 1966-1971,
When seeing this record, most people will assume it's a killer new comp from Mississippi. In fact, it is a killer new comp, only from the Sutro Park label, which gave us those amazing Sandy Bull lp reissues a while back. Wolf's At The Door features 12 field recordings from the late '60s and early '70s, when a 19 year old Swede named Bengt Olsson decided to travel through the depths of the American South in search of the authentic sounds presented here. All of the artists on this record are unknown to us, and as the liner notes point out, Olsson's odyssey was marked by his introduction to many of Memphis' older, more obscure bluesmen, and many of the performers' stories remain unknown. As far as we can tell these recordings were unreleased before this, and the material offers a stark, powerful glimpse into the lives of these performers. The edges are rough and raw, but the fidelity is surprisingly clear. The songs here are even more interesting when you take into account the time in which they were recorded, as they seem completely oblivious to the innovations that had been rapidly shaping the music industry for better and/or worse. What you have here are some real sounds representative of a culture that managed to avoid all that, and the results are quite powerful. Recommended stuff which will no doubt appeal to fans of labels like the aforementioned Mississippi, Monk, and the like.
Curated and published by Ninah Pixie of the Bay Area neo-Dada ensemble Big City Orchestra, Women Take Back The Noise is a triple cd compilation that's long overdue, standing as an almanac for the ladies out there wandering through the nether regions of experimental music. It should be noted that the 'noise' which the title refers to is more of a convenient placeholder for glitchey-droned-electroacoustic-field-recordings-and-a-smattering-of-volcanic-noise, as the compilation has a pretty wide assortment of aesthetics and strategies. The big names include Cosey Fanni Tutti, Fe-Mail, Blevin Blectum, Jessica Rylan, and Maggi Payne; and there are some lesser known women who we here at Aquarius have long been fans of such as Kadet and Cheryl E. Leonard. The three discs revolve around distinct themes, whose orbits often cross and mingle. The first disc leans toward the drone based electronics, highlights including Aedria Hughes' spectral guitar drones and long-stringed scrapes, Kadet's fizzing granular synthesis dappled with viola squiggle, and Maggi Payne's recontextualized household appliances transformed into oblique soundsmears with haunted aspirations. The second disc sports a bit more of a post-industrial agenda, with bouts of looping syncopation, malcontent electronics, and shadowy atmospheres. The highlights on this disc include Analog Tara's droned chorus for vibrating organs, the grey phase pattern shifts of Choronzon, and Cosey's mechanical rhythms and divebomb guitar riffs that harken back more to Throbbing Gristle circa 1978. If any of the three discs on Women Take Back The Noise embody the noise of the title than it's the third disc, with Jessica Rylan's 8-bit tirade of squiggle and bleep, further circuit-bending assaults from CJ Reaven Borosque, and the unholy cacophony of Fe-Mail that obliterates most everything in its path.
The three discs come packaged in an oversized plastic pouch and sports a circuit-bending flower through which anybody -- woman, man, girl, boy, dog, cat -- can make their own damn noise record! There's only a handful of these in stock, and it's hard to say if we'll be able to keep this around for long. So act fast!
This is a nice one. The Locust label has gathered together a quartet of today's notable, underground guitar experimentalists, all of whom are quite fond of the classic Takoma label solo guitar sound -- the "deltadelica" (their word) explored thirty years or more ago by guys like John Fahey, Robbie Basho, and Leo Kottke. Paying tribute to that Eastern-tinged, American-folky tradition, there's Virginia's Jack Rose, whom you might know from drone-psych outfit Pelt and Appalachian folk twangers the Black Twig Pickers; obvious choice Steffen Basho-Junghans of Germany; Japanese "onkyo" guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama; and Sun City Girl Rick Bishop, excuse me, Sir Richard Bishop. During the 70 minutes of "Wooden Guitar" each one of 'em provides a lengthy, hypnotic acoustic guitar performance, totally unaccompanied. Actually Basho-Junghans appears twice, everyone else just once. Let's take a look-see... Rose's "Red Horse II" is a sad and lovely 14+ minutes of vaguely raga-like 12 string strumming n' picking, densely textured yet light and exactingly pretty. That's followed by the first of Mr. Basho-Junghan's two contributions to this compilation, which continues in much the same vein as Rose's -- it's even called "A North Thuringian Raga". The Berliner is a virtuoso and this is a fantastic, meditative track indeed. Next up, Tetuzi Akiyama's piece is a lot sparser and more "abstract" sounding than what's come before, less in the Takoma style (yet still in its spirit, and latter-day Fahey would certainly approve). Appropriately, it's called "Time Between" and is the longest cut on here, at over twenty minutes. It slowly, stumblingly, somberly unfolds. Haunting, raw, and quite beautiful, it's a masterful centerpiece to this collection. Basho-Junghans checks in again with a shorter piece, the five-minute "Smiling Penguins". Repetitive and bright, it sounds like some sort of thumb-piano minimalism. Then, we're into the home stretch with the final piece on "Wooden Guitar" -- Sir Richard Bishop's quarter-hour "Corpuscle" which encompasses dusty spagetti western Morricone, acoustic Jimmy Page, and flamenco flourishes. It's a grand finale for this disc for sure, and this disc itself is grand. Essential to anyone into sheer impassioned, inventive, gosh-darn gorgeous solo acoustic guitar playin'. And it's packaged with an eye to the old Takoma LPs -- this cd comes in a embossed, silkscreened cardboard sleeve, very nicely done.
Another fantastic collection of old timey music from local label Tompkins Square, this one chronicling the life cycle of rural America, in the twenties and thirties, split up over three disc, the first, songs of labor, "John Henry, The Steel Drivin' Man", "The Farmer Is The Man Who Feeds Them All", "When The Roses Bloom Again For The Bootlegger", the second songs of leisure, "Work Don't Bother Me", "The Beer Party", "Corn Shucking Party In Georgia", "Home Brew Rag", an finally, the ultimate reckoning in the form of songs of prayer and worship, "Climbing The Golden Stairs", "I'm S-A-V-E-D", "The Gambler's Dying Words", "When The Moon Drips Away Into The Blood" (!).
Almost as fantastic as the music is the provenance of the records themselves, most of which belonged to a single hillbilly 78 collector named Don Whale, from Louisville Kentucky, who died leaving a hoarder's haul worth of trash and junk and receipts and everything else you'd expect to find, but in addition to the usual detritus of life, was an INCREDIBLE collection of rare 78's most of which had been tossed in the dumpster, and were rescued mere hours before being hauled away to the dump and destroyed!
Most of the tracks here are previously un-reissued, and while a few of the names will be familiar to old timey / blues / bluegrass aficionados, many won't, and the songs themselves are gorgeous, the aforementioned "When The Moon Drips Away Into The Blood", is a surprising jaunty jam, considering the title, while the two part "Flat Wheel Train Blues", is beautifully melodic, with some fantastically melancholic fiddle, intricate finger picking, sans the sung/spoken vocals, it's a stunning slab of dreamy Appalachia, the song replete with simulated trains sounds which only make it that much more evocative. "The Beer Party" begins with a playful conversation/intro before the song launches into a stomping fiddle driven hoedown, "The Preacher Got Drunk And Laid Down His Bible" almost sounds like proto Mountain Goats, urgently strummed guitar, and keening rapid fire vox, and "Beyond The Starry Plane" is a wistful lament, wreathed in tons of hiss and crackle, which only makes it seem that much more ethereal and ephemeral. We could probably go though the whole collection song by song, but you get the drift, all of this stuff is amazing, and as with all Tompkins Square releases, beautifully packaged, here each of the three discs is housed in its own full color sleeve, there's a huge perfect bound booklet, with liner notes and essays, rare photos and more, all housed in a nice heavy box, with full color paste on artwork.
A fabulous tribute compilation to one of the all-time great pop bands! Released back in '94, it features some of the Pacific Northwest's finest (yet many sadly now disbanded) popsters in prime form: Young Fresh Fellows, Zumpano, Fastbacks, Sneetches, Flop, Model Rockets, and Posies.
Sooo gooood!
It's hard to argue with this one. Indeed, we're gonna do quite the opposite and make it a Record Of The Week! This collection, the third in the World Psychedelic Classics series on Luaka Bop (David Byrne's "world music" label), after an Os Mutantes collection and that incredible Shuggie Otis album, is further subtitled: "The Funky, Fuzzy Sounds Of West Africa". Stress on the funk we thinks. Yup, authentic '70s West African funk with a 'delic bent. Really really hard stuff not to like.
The dozen tracks here have got it all: Afro-centric chants, polyrhythmic percussion, James Brown style raspy yelps, wicked organ workouts, and even hard wah-wah acid fuzz jams (Ofo & The Black Company's bad-ass "Allah Wakbarr" is about the last word in that department, though we'd like to hear more). Though some come closer to the compilers' stated concept than others, all the tracks are winners, from the moody, marimba-based soundtrack theme of Manu Dibango's "Ceddo End Title" to the Cuban stylings of No. 1 de No. 1's "Guajira Van" to the percolating political space-funk of William Onyeabor's "Better Change Your Mind". And Alison simply says that "Ifa" by Tunji Oyelana and the Benders is her favorite. Probably because it sets itself apart from the other tracks by utilizing a more scrappy electronic sound to back its stripped-down politically-bent Afro-pop-style lyricism.
All the tracks come from the decade of the '70s, and the bands that recorded them hail from the West African countries of Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, Mali, Gambia, Benin, and Nigeria (but only two tracks overlap with the now-out-of-print 3cd Nigeria 70 compilation). And we think the compliers did a damn fine job, though it seems any survey of West African psych shoulda included a track by Blo, the closest thing to Cream the continent produced as far as we know. Ah well... we can hope for a second volume someday perhaps. Meanwhile, anyone who digs James Brown, Fela, Funkadelic, Orchestra Baobab, or more recent AQ reviewees Konono No. 1 and Black Merda, for instance, will certainly find that love IS a real thing when it comes to how you're gonna feel about this compilation!!
The liner notes go on about the psychedelic aspect of these bands, and while this stuff is definitely far out and groovy it's way more James Brown than brown acid. Mention of Haight-Ashbury seems a stretch, and the music of these bands has got as much or more to do with their motherland than, say, the generally more Western-derived psych we've heard from Thailand, Cambodia, or Turkey on various other comps we've carried. Then again, when you look at rock music influencing African music, you've got a full-circle phenomenon to examine. And when we reviewed the (currently unavailable) Love Peace & Poetry: African Psychedelic Music compiliation some months back, the stuff on this new comp is exactly what we felt was missing and should have been included.
In any case, proper psych or not, and with or without much fuzz, this is definitely FUNKY.
The attractive cd booklet includes notes on each track/artist, complete with color album sleeve art where available. Nicely done. Furthermore, this is an "enhanced cd", allowing those with the appropriate computer technology to witness a video of Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou Dahomey's track "Minsato Le, Mi Dayhome".
Now available on vinyl!! Minus two of the 12 tracks on the cd (they didn't have space for Manu Dibango and Gasper Lawai, unfortunately)...
What we said about the cd, a recent Record Of The Week: It's hard to argue with this one. Indeed, we're gonna do quite the opposite and make it a Record Of The Week! This collection, the third in the World Psychedelic Classics series on Luaka Bop (David Byrne's "world music" label), after an Os Mutantes collection and that incredible Shuggie Otis album, is further subtitled: "The Funky, Fuzzy Sounds Of West Africa". Stress on the funk we thinks. Yup, authentic '70s West African funk with a 'delic bent. Really really hard stuff not to like.
The dozen tracks here have got it all: Afro-centric chants, polyrhythmic percussion, James Brown style raspy yelps, wicked organ workouts, and even hard wah-wah acid fuzz jams (Ofo & The Black Company's bad-ass "Allah Wakbarr" is about the last word in that department, though we'd like to hear more). Though some come closer to the compilers' stated concept than others, all the tracks are winners, from the moody, marimba-based soundtrack theme of Manu Dibango's "Ceddo End Title" to the Cuban stylings of No. 1 de No. 1's "Guajira Van" to the percolating political space-funk of William Onyeabor's "Better Change Your Mind". And Alison simply says that "Ifa" by Tunji Oyelana and the Benders is her favorite. Probably because it sets itself apart from the other tracks by utilizing a more scrappy electronic sound to back its stripped-down politically-bent Afro-pop-style lyricism.
All the tracks come from the decade of the '70s, and the bands that recorded them hail from the West African countries of Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, Mali, Gambia, Benin, and Nigeria (but only two tracks overlap with the now-out-of-print 3cd Nigeria 70 compilation). And we think the compliers did a damn fine job, though it seems any survey of West African psych shoulda included a track by Blo, the closest thing to Cream the continent produced as far as we know. Ah well... we can hope for a second volume someday perhaps. Meanwhile, anyone who digs James Brown, Fela, Funkadelic, Orchestra Baobab, or more recent AQ reviewees Konono No. 1 and Black Merda, for instance, will certainly find that love IS a real thing when it comes to how you're gonna feel about this compilation!!
The liner notes go on about the psychedelic aspect of these bands, and while this stuff is definitely far out and groovy it's way more James Brown than brown acid. Mention of Haight-Ashbury seems a stretch, and the music of these bands has got as much or more to do with their motherland than, say, the generally more Western-derived psych we've heard from Thailand, Cambodia, or Turkey on various other comps we've carried. Then again, when you look at rock music influencing African music, you've got a full-circle phenomenon to examine. And when we reviewed the (currently unavailable) Love Peace & Poetry: African Psychedelic Music compiliation some months back, the stuff on this new comp is exactly what we felt was missing and should have been included.
In any case, proper psych or not, and with or without much fuzz, this is definitely FUNKY.
Budget-priced full length comp from the Bevis Frond's label, with contributions from Bevis, Green Pajamas, TOm Rapp, Country Joe McDonald and more.
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Okay Mississippi Records obsessives, get ready to blow your tops. Besides the amazing Been Here All My Days comp reviewed on the last list (grab one if you haven't yet, it's fantastic!), there are five, count 'em FIVE other new Mississippi titles this time around: I'll Meet You On That Other Shore, I'm Gonna Live Anyhow Until I Die, I'll Be So Glad When The Sun Goes Down, Worried Now, Won't Be Worried Long and Wave The Ocean, Wave The Sea, all culled from a legendary set of Alan Lomax field recordings, collected during his "Southern Journey, a trip he took through the American South, between the years 1959 and 1960, accompanied by British folk singer Shirley Collins, during which he made the first ever stereo recordings of American Traditional music in the field, capturing in stereo for the first time, music from Southern prison farms, the traditional gospel choral folksong of the Sacred Harp, the Southern Fife And Drum Corps, the debut recordings of blues legend Fred McDowell, not to mention an incredibly varied selection of musics from blues to bluegrass to country to gospel, captured on porches, at dairy farms, in churches, at picnics, state fairs, in prisons, in living rooms and in bars, many of the musicians, many of the folks Lomax had recorded before, and was visiting again, years later, while many were new discoveries.
According to the extensive liner notes, Lomax upon returning to the US, after a decade long recording trip in Europe and the UK, was hailed as a hero, responsible for the revival of interest in American folk music, but was quite disappointed by all the young people playing the folk music and traditional American music he helped discover, record and expose to this new audience, an audience that seemed to believe not only were they preserving the music, but also in some strange way "improving" on the originals, which horrified Lomax and spurred him to make the trip that would be later known as his "Southern Journey", not only to capture stereo recordings of all this amazing, still thriving American music, but to also prove those young folks wrong.
The results speak for themselves, 5 lps of gorgeous, unique, heartfelt American music, instrumental and vocal, celebratory and sorrowful, ballads and bluegrass hoedowns, gospel spirituals and military marches, call and response prison songs and back porch blues, and so much more. This is classic, timeless music, sounds imbued with the sweat and blood, the lives and deaths, the loves and losses of the American people, past and present, moving and emotional, and totally fantastic...
As for which one of the five to buy, it's a tough call, they're all fantastic, and the music is varied on each, they're not divided by theme or style, instead, it's more like a sprawling 5 part compilation, each as good as the next, so yeah, obviously if you can, you should buy all 5, but if that's too much, heck, just pick one, maybe with a title that appeals to you, and dig in. Odds are you'll be back for more.
Packed in super heavy jackets, with printed liner notes on the back, each volume containing a big booklet, with photos and more notes on each of the different tracks and all of the various performers.
Yet another killer dubstep comp, this one focusing on the Bristol scene, which may not mean anything to you, until you get a gander of the folks on this comp: Pinch, Peverelist, Appleblim, Joker, Guido, RSD, Headhunter, Gatekeeper, names anyone into dubstep is familiar with, but a whole bunch of lesser knowns like Hyetal, Dubkasm, Gemmy, Jakes, Forsaken, Shortstuff, Wedge, Shadz, Dubboy, Komonazmuk, Atki2 and more.
There are extensive liner notes about the scene, and one of our favorite quotes, courtesy of Pinch,which pretty much sums up what's so awesome about dubstep, the Bristol strain specifically:
"I knew straight away that this was a sound that would fit perfectly in Bristol. There is a lot of tension in the music that carries a satisfactory darkness with it but it's also lazy music. You don't have to dance hard to move with it. It was born with a reefer in its gob."
No need to dance, just sit back, bliss out, and let the music wash over you. And this comp is full of the perfect sounds. Dark and minimal, skeletal and skittery, for dubstep obsessive, you probably already have a handful of these, but there are probably plenty you don't. Moody and mysterious, dark and haunting, some of the tracks are hushed and muted and murky, others are fully dubbed out and drenched in reverb and echo, while still others, our favorites, and thick, and buzzy, with huge warbly bass, and minimal stuttery beats, Headhunter's "7th Curse" is a killer, a sort of grim sci-fi slow motion groove, RSD gets all jungle-y with his "Pretty Bright Light", Smith And Mighty unleash some serious ragga dubstep on "B Line Fi Blo", Joker lays down some synthy buzz and big ass bass warble on "Holly Brook Park" and Hyetal gets all videogame electro, weaving 8bit melodies and swirling synths into a seriously cinematic sprawl of futuristic stutter and pulse, throb and buzz. So good. Pretty much every track here slays, another unanimous AQ fave for sure, getting crazy play in the store...
Noise Museum presents the second "Wreck This Mess" compilation of illbient / digidub grooves from Twilight Circus, Spectre, Systemwide, The Dub Factory, Extremadura, Botom Botom, Holon, Silk Saw, DJ Spooky, Egon Zo vs Digidub, Audio Active, Starfish Pool, and Andrew Lagowski.
Holy crap, another compilation from everybody's favorite electronic superstar Kid 606 and friends. Compiled by Andrew Nosnitsky, the concept behind "Wrong Application" was to create audio tracks resulting from non-audio, pure data information origination.
Their second compilation of rare tracks, remixes, b-sides and collaborative efforts and it's actually pretty great. Lots of tracks let some lower tier Wu Tang-ers get to show their stuff as well as a bunch of strange pairings with folks like Jon Spencer, DJ Spooky, and Gang Starr, Redman, D'Angelo.
The Xart Hybrid documents a series of electronic sound events which took place in an old soybean-oil factory outside of Copenhagen from November 1998 - June 30, 1999. While the compilation moves through the spectrum of contemporary vangarde of electronica, the greatest percentage of the tracks (Pole, Vanqueur and Substance) revolve around the Chain Reaction sound of granular synthesis dub. Others include Mego's Ramon Bauer, Chicks on Speed, Opiate, Goodiepal (V/VM co-chucklers), and more!!!
This is pretty Cool. To celebrate its ten year anniversary the respected label Ninja Tune releases a 3 disc boxset -- 44 of the best tracks from its catalog, and that includes fully 17 overlooked or previously-unreleased pieces, too, so it should be of interest even to those who're familiar with the label. One look at the breadth of the artists represented here and you get an idea of how incredibly influential and important this label has been (and what a sense of humor!) over its career of 85 full lengths and 136 singles: Amon Tobin, Funki Porcini, Coldcut, Luke Vibert, Neotropic, T Love, Kid Koala (his best track ever, Emperor's Main Course), Blackalicious, Infesticons, Quannum MCs, DJ Food, DJ Vadim, Squarepusher, etc. Totally impressive. There's MC-driven hip hop, sampler tricknology, good old drum'n'bass, turntablism, jazzy wailings, and soundtracky electronica. The one-minute cut that starts off the set is a cute intro from Steinski, and contains so many split second samples of stuff from the Ninja Tune catalog that we can't even count'em. See what I mean -- Cool.
Please note that this set also comes on vinyl as a 4-lp set ($29) with all the previously-released tracks, but not the unreleased stuff (yes, there was a 6-lp version with everything on the cd box, but it's already sold out forever.)
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Well, we usually don't stock up on Christmas music very much but every year we highlight one album we especially like (that's not counting the classics: Ella, Fahey, Esquivel, and Charlie Brown). Earlier this year Ryko released an especially appealing compilation of unexpected, but all consistently lovely, versions of holiday classics: Arthur Lyman, eccentric Bahamanian folk singer (and AQ-fave) Joseph Spence, Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses, Marta Sebestyen, and Big Star (doing "Jesus Christ"). Very highly recommended.
Yasijiro Ozu was a Japanese filmmaker (1903-1963) who had emphasized restraint throughout the 54 films of his career, offering emotionally rich, if purposefully understated narratives about the simple pleasures and pains of everyday life. This compilation is a tribute to Ozu's tableaux; and given that Ozu quietly punctuated his tales with shots of clouds, arrangements of bottles, industrial landscapes, and other environments, the tribute features a handful of suitably quiet sound artists who often use field recordings or environmental space within their work. Steve Roden is the perfect artist for such a tribute; and fittingly, he opens this compilation. His circular softness for chimed guitar and tapped drum patterns is a wonderful departure in which Roden pushes his sound design closer to the post-rock elegance of Bark Psychosis. Roden's piece is one of the better tracks on this compilation, with other highlights including Keith Berry's mournful grayscapes of drone and slow-motion crackle, Toshiya Tsunoda's impeccable recording of aerated hiss, a series of lilting lullaby chimes from John Hudak, There's plenty of raw phonography from the likes of Hitoshi Kojo (aka Spiracle), Kiyoshi Mizutani, Michael Shannon, and Ralph Steinbruchel. Taku Sugimoto's piece has to be noted for its sheer blankness except for six piano notes that emphatically emerge after 3 and a half minutes of silence.
This happens to be the second tribute to filmmakers from And/OAR, following the now out-of-print compilation homage to Tarkovsky Another Kind Of Language.
From the same label that released the three volumes (so far) of the wonderful "Love, Peace, & Poetry" international '60s psych compilation series, comes this new collection focusing on, uh, abnormal country music of the psychedelic era? Or as the label
Although we're currently havin' a nice warm, sunny spell here in SF this week, let's not fool ourselves... summer's still months away! But before we bemoan that fact, let's give ourselves a dose of Yellow Pills. It's a pair of cds potent enough to trigger their own summer spell or at least give the gloomy grey days a hearty kick in the pants. This is as 'feel good' as music can get! An over-the-top mix of bubblegum and power pop (with some glam rock thrown in there for good measure) circa '78-'82, deeply influenced by the Beach Boys, the Shoes, the Rasberries, the Beatles, E.L.O., Badfinger, the Nazz, Sweet and all of those other seminal practitioners of power pop. This is totally for you if you dig Redd Kross and Silver Sun (as Cup and Andee do) or if you just love your pop powerful, and your punk poppy. Released on that cool label Numero Group who recently gave us those two brilliant Eccentric Soul compilations. Liner notes by power pop afficianado Jordan Oakes who published the pop fanzine Yellow Pills where this comp got its name (he also chose the bands!!). A totally brilliant collection of perfect power pop, which is definitely saying something as no one here had heard of a single one of these bands!
Now here's a nice idea for a tribute, and so lovingly executed to boot. Berkeley resident Filippo Salvadori so loved the cult film Two Lane Blacktop that he had always searched out the soundtrack to this "definitive road movie", only to find one had never been released. So this man of gumption put together his own, commissioning brand new songs from Sonic Youth (gorgeous, echoey soundscape), Will Oldham & Alan Licht, Calexico, Alvarius B, Steffan Basho Junghans, Mark Eitzel & Marc Capelle (doing a totally outta left field throbbing electronic thing), Giant Sand, Charalambides, Roy Montgomery (avec drum machine!) and more. He also got busy licensing previously released tracks from classic solo guitarist Sandy Bull, Village Voice crit faves Wilco, high lonesome Roscoe Holcomb, Leadbelly, and Cat Power (doing "I Can't Get No Satisfaction").
The only low point is the Oldham / Licht track which is weighed down with a sadly unevocative spoken narrative. But the rest of this comp is quite good -- ranging from dusty instrumentals to walls of gentle noise.
This is a super elaborate tribute to one of our favorite labels, Germany's Hausmusik label. Just have a quick gander at some of the records they've released: Village Of Savoonga, Cakekitchen, Notwist, Lali Puna, Fred Is Dead, Alles We Gross, Calexico, Smog, Palace, and loads more, as well as one of our favorite compilations EVER: The Day My Favorite Insect Died. Always mysterious and amazing. Often in some deluxe sort of packaging. And thus we have "You Can't Always Listen To Hausmusik, But...", a 2lp collection of some of Hausmusik's brightest and best, loveliest and strangest. But there's more to it than that. The massive book includes fourteen writers paired up together to write short stories, each starting with the same sentence, each story started by one writer and finished by another, exquisite corpse style. The music was approcahed the same way, with one band supplying raw material, with another band crafting the material into a song. Pairings include Calexico / Notwist, Console / Loopspool, Sodastream / Ms. John Soda, Villaage Of Savoonga / Jersey, Fonoda / Deaf Center, Squares On Both Sides / Village Of Savoonga, Fred Is Dead / Couch, A Million Mercies / Calexico and a bunch more. Packaged in a thick, gorgeously printed book-like gatefold sleeve, with a huge build in pocket to hold the book, eighty pages, perfect bound, tons of art, some of it full color, unfortunately all the text and stories is in German, but it hardly matters. An amazing tribute to an amazing label. ----* ----* New DVD's : ----*
Do you like the sweet, drowsy pop sounds of groups such as The Pastels? If your answer is an emphatically murmurred "yes", boy, have we got THE compilation for you! Released on Stephen Pastel's own label, it consists completely of very like-minded,
P.S. Buyer beware: You might be tempted to get this only for the Kevin Shields track, his first in umpteen years, but unfrotunately it's not impressive at all, and it's also short. The reason to get this is for all the other artists on this great label.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A pretty outstanding collection of unreleased material showcasing the talents at 555 - included are Third Eye Foundation, Hood (whose previous work did nothing for me, but here have presented a free-floating spaced-out song as good as Crescent or Movietone), The Remote Viewer (delicate IDM melodies and skittering digital beats), Empress (lush beautiful slow-core like Low or Codeine), and more!
Wow! Of all the various releases for today's 'Black Friday Record Store Day', this one might have been the one we were most excited about. A super swank, ultra deluxe, eleven 7" boxset from Lee Hazlewood, or more specifically, as it says on the box, from Lee Hazlewood Industries. Culled from the years 1967-1970, and from Hazlewood's LHI imprint, much like The LHI Years: Singles, Nudes & Backsides release from earlier this year, which was released on Record Store Day proper. But unlike that collection, the tracks here are mostly Lee Hazlewood -productions- instead of performances, featuring Hazlewood produced tracks from Suzi Jane Hokom, Honey LTD., Kitchen Cinq, Ann-Margaret, The Woodchucks and of course Mr. Lee himself, solo on one single, and dueting with Suzi Jane Hokom! We haven't cracked one open yet, and will give this a more extensive review if we can get more of 'em post Black Friday. But figured we might as well list it today so folks who don't want to wait can grab one now.
The packaging is incredible, a custom made, full color, magnetic flip-top box, housing all eleven singles, each with original labels and sleeve art, an ultra rare reproduction of the Woodchucks 45 picture sleeve, a Lee Hazlewood puzzle (!), for, as the sticker on the box suggests, "those lonely nights", a custom LHI 45 adapter, and a download card for all the tracks. LIMITED TO 3000 COPIES!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A very affordable introduction to bands on and related to Load records. The 21 cut compilation features AQ favorites like Brainbombs, Men's Recovery Project and Olneyville Sound System.
Kind of a weird concept for a compilation. Track titles were sent out to a handful of artists who then wrote songs based on or influenced by those titles. One quibble though. A lot of the song titles are really kind of dumb and joke-y: "Tickle Party #2", "Gameshow Contestant Flip-Out", "Not Enough Crayons For Everyone", "Sign Language Tourettes", "Hot Licks For Shredders", etc. Definitely the result of an evening of "You know what would make a funny song title?" and perhaps some serious drinking. That said, there are some pretty cool tracks on here. House Of Low Culture contribute a freaked out drone-y dirge, Mark Arm gives us an ultra lo-fi drum machine metal guitar organ dirge sounding like a teenage Mudhoney practicing in your basement, Godstomper thrash through their 30 second track with a bass that sounds like a washing machine and carboard box drums, and Hella do their hyper spastic cartoon metal blur. The bands that are instrumental fare way better than the rest, since they aren't forced to come up with lyrics for "Dance Of The Drunken Siberian" or "Smut Merchant Of Venice", which in a way is kind of a drag as I think we would have been way more intrigued by artists forced to actually come up with intense serious songs based on concepts not their own, instead of just coming up with noisy funny craziness. But maybe that's for a different compilation. Also features Nels Cline, Bluebird, Twink, Weasel Walter, Bliss Blood, Beehive And The Barracudas and more!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Yes, one dollar and ninety-eight cents, this is a budget priced Digital Hardcore sampler indeedio. It's all previously released stuff, some harder to find tho (like the Christophe de Babalon track from an early, out-of-print DHR 12") but regardless, this is a good DHR sampler that's fast, cheap, and out of control. [/cat/compilationsplit85.html]
A budget-priced cd sampler celebrating the success of the Young God label run by Michael Gira of the Swans. Several tracks each from Ulan Bator, Windsor For The Derby, David Coulter, Flux Information Sciences, Calla, and Michael's own Angels of Light. Nothing here is exclusive to this comp, but some of it is from not-yet-released records. Well worth checking out.
We've been totally digging the always amazing Ethiopiques series, documenting the rich history of Ethiopian music, and it just keeps getting better and better with each volume. You think that would be plenty to keep the folks at Buda Musique busy, but apparently not, as they've gone ahead and launched a new series entitled Zanzibara, chronicling the Swahili popular music of the East African Coast. Future volumes will be more archival, but this first installment celebrates Ikhwani Safaa, Zanzibar's (and most likely Africa's too) oldest music club, which turned 100 in 2005. These recordings, captured in Zanzibar in 2004 and Dubai in 2005, feature some of the region's most revered singers and players, all gathered to play classic songs and celebrate the last 100 years. The music here is dramatically different than anything in the Ethiopiques series, much more moody and hypnotic, less festive and jubilant, but no less captivating. The interesting thing is that the music here sounds unlike any of the African music we are familiar with and instead sounds much more Indian or Arabic. The vocals especially, sound distinctly Indian, as well as the swooning soaring strings. Lush, moody, swirling, slightly saturnine, and absolutely wonderful.
Second installment in this new series from the folks who brought us the absolutely essential and nearly perfect Ethiopiques series. This new series chronicles the Swahili popular music of the East African Coast. The first installment (now back in stock, see elsewhere on this list) celebrated Ikhwani Safaa, Zanzibar's (and most likely Africa's too) oldest music club, which turned 100 in 2005. This second volume is more archival and is drawn from recordings made from 1965-1975. Mombasa Taarab is a dizzying mix of African music with Arabian, Asian and European influences. Which is why this music sounds as Indian or Asian as it does African, in fact much of the time more so. There is a definite Bollywood influence, in fact Bollywood films had become very popular in Mobasa and many singers would take certain elements from those films, voice, melody, instrumentation, and then translate them into Swahili taarab songform. Fans of the Ethiopiques series should definitely be all over this series. As well as fans of Indian film music. We've been listening to this like crazy (and the first volume which we just got back in). We can hardly wait to hear the next one!
Massive booklet, with extensive liner notes, and in-depth notes on each artist.
Okay, it might seem too easy to say with this new volume of the Zanzibara series that if you dug the first and second you're gonna love the third, but it's true. Zanzibara 3 is another terrific compilation from the Buda Musique label (the folks behind the awesome Ethiopiques series). If you're new to the series, we'll let ya know that the spotlight shines a loving glow on the coastal music of Eastern Africa. As the title tells, this time it's from Tanzania in the '60s -- seventeen tracks from Jamhuri Jazz Band, Nuta Jazz Band, Atomic Jazz Band, Morogoro Jazz Band, and Dar Es Salaam Jazz Band! Although the names of the five groups featured here all have the words "Jazz Band" in them, holding them to that genre's commonly thought of parameters is far too limiting. Performed on guitars, horns, percussion, bass, and some amazing voices, these songs also possess a bright brassy shine akin to Caribbean Calypso music and gentle lilting rhythms like those of many Latin American artists of the same period. Wonderful!
Already up to number 5 in the Zanzibara series, obviously modeled after the amazing (and seemingly discontinued) Ethiopiques series, but focusing more on the the Eastern coast of Africa: Mombassa, Tanga, Zanzibar, the Comoros, etc. While in some ways the sounds are similar to the music in Ethiopia, like any region, the sounds of Tanazania, the focus of this volume, have their own distinct vibe and feel. Right off the bat, the sound is way more vocal based, jazzy too, with lots of horns, and very bright shiny melodies, in fact much of this reminds us of mariachi music, the same sort of shuffly rhythms, horn fanfares and vocal harmonies. The high life feel is all over these tracks, festive, celebratory, to these ears, it sounds like party music, dance music, music of love and happiness and sunshine, although like much music, even the happiest sounding on the surface, often carried with it deeper darker emotions. This music was the soundtrack of daily life in Tanzania, playing constantly on the radio, influenced by the West for sure, but so much it's own special and unique sound. Fans of the first few volumes will definitely dig, as might fans of the Ethiopiques releases, but really, anyone into high life and sunshiney African grooves, will no doubt find this collection fantastic.
Includes a big booklet, with incredibly in depth liner notes and tons of amazing vintage photos!
