Record Store Day alert! Here's a 2013 RSD release that we thankfully managed to get enough copies of to list...
Please don't ask us to pronounce Theppabutr, but do ask us why this is so awesome - though the best answer is: just listen to it!
International vinyl diggers, seeking out vintage grooves in far flung parts of the world, have made Molam music from Thailand into something that's now definitely a 'thing' in our world music section - we've had some other great Molam collections on the Sublime Freqencies label, for instance, so of course it's exciting to hear from 'The Man Behind The Molam Sound', Theppabutr Satirodchompu, responsible for the production work on the 17 tracks collected here from a variety of Molam artists. It's Molam of the modern variety (modern circa 1972-1975 that is, in this case), a form of electrified vocal music from Northeast Thailand that combines traditional folk melodies and ethnic instrumentation with electric guitars and electronic keyboards. Great stuff, all of it, lively and rhythmic, emotive and ear-wormy. Even though we don't understand a word, it's still immediately captivating. We love the keening singers and warbly organs, groovy beats and exotic vibes. If you haven't yet given Molam and closely related genre Luk Thung a try, this would be a great place to start. Seventies Molam like this is mighty fine stuff, up there with those 'Ethiopiques' recordings and certain Jamaican reggae of the same vintage, though we'd imagine the vocal stylings here might work for some folks and not so much for others.
This limited vinyl version is a Record Store Day 2013 release - there is also a (presumably less-limited) non-RSD compact disc edition too, that we'll be stocking and will list next time, but we wanted to get this RSD vinyl listed now before they were gone! Especially since the double vinyl includes two bonus tracks not found on the cd version - as well as a 12"x14" poster, and download card for mp3s of all the tracks. Gatefold sleeve in faux woodgrain wrapper, liner notes, foldout poster inside.
Subtitle: Indonesian Hard, Psychedelic, Progressive Rock And Funk: 1970-1978. Maybe that's all the review this needs, it worked for us, but we'll go on...
Damn. Now THIS is what all comps/reissues should be like. Just the physical thing itself, both cd and lp formats, makes us go wow. And then there's the music, amazing stuff by bands we've NEVER ever heard of before, for the most part.... international psych-rock grooviness from the '70s, Indonesian division. Twenty tracks, all killer no filler for damn sure. So, to start with the elaborate, you're-getting-your-money's-worth packaging, packed with content: exhaustive liner notes, vintage photos, colorful album cover graphics, in a 64 page book in the cd version (and it really thick enough to be called a BOOK, not a booklet) or a 16 page (but lp-sized of course) booklet with the massive 3lp set. Both are solid, hefty items indeed. The cd itself comes in a sturdy cardboard mini-lp style sleeve, tucked tightly along with the book inside a wraparound slipcover. The vinyl, in a triple gatefold sleeve about a half inch thick. Impressive presentation, topping even that of another recent anthology of non-Western psych/funk stuff we made a Record Of The Week as well not long ago, the Sa-Re-Ga collection. What that was to India this is to Indonesia.
And Indonesia is definitely full of hidden treasures for us Westerners into exotic "hairy funk" and heavy rock sounds of the past. We knew about a few bands on here, that we'd had reissues by before, the Ariesta Birawa Group, Shark Move, Koes Plus, but that's it - all of those are awesome though, so the fact that we'd never heard of the other 16 acts on here (there's 20 tracks, but one band appears twice) just made us more excited to hear this: Rollies, Super Kid, Freedom Of Rhapsodia, Murry, The Brims, Black Brothers, Ivo's Group, Golden Wing, The Gang Of Harry Roesli, Benny Soebardja and Lizard, Aka, Panbers, Rhythm Kings, Rasela, Terenchem, and Duo Kribo.
The music of these groups ranges from heavy progressive bombast to hippie trippiness to out-and-out groovy dancefloor filling fodder, often all at once, and then some. Eastern-tinged (no surprise) psychedelic Sgt. Pepperisms and stomping acid funk are blended in the very first selection here, "Haai", by a band called Panbers, who once opened for the Bee Gees in Djakarta. Off to a good start! A tough act to follow (we imagine the Bee Gees thought so too), but track two's The Brims manage to hold their own with "Anti Gandja", a song apparently with a message of "just say no", though it sure sounds a lot like they said hell yeah. Then the third cut, "Bad News" by Rollies, suddenly introduces a healthy dose of James Brown worship, the others were funky but this one is straight up FUNK. After that, we're treated to one of the highlights from the Shark Move album, one of the few tracks here we knew, the fuzz-heavy shambolic riff-tumble with prog-classical soloing of "Evil War". Up next, the stoned lope of Golden Wing's love song "Hear Me" is a bit more primitive, akin to Japan's Speed Glue & Shinki, or Juan De La Cruz from the Philippines.
So, that's just the first five tracks, so far they're all smokin', and guess what? It just gets better and better believe it or not. Turn it up, play it loud! We can't go into detail about EVERY track, though they all deserve mention, from the spacey soul of Super Kid to the greasy groove of The Gang Of Harry Roselli, but we should at least let you know that the Koes Plus cut is NOT from the cd of theirs you may already have that Sublime Frequencies put out, it's taken from a latter record, 1976's ln Hard Beat 2, and it's a rad one, with a nice la la la vocal chorus echoed by some much more maniacal LALALA screaming, crazy.
Oh, and we know why they put two tracks from AKA on here, how could they chose between the badass hard rock of "Do What You Like" with its headspining psychedelic breakdowns, and the same group's seriously funky, James Brown inspired "Shake Me", which begins with call-and-response chant, the band saying "No" to grass, morphine, and LSD, but "YEAH" to sex.
Ok, we'll leave it to you get this and experience all the fuzzy, funky riffery here for yourself. Familiar in its '70s vibe - ferinstance Benny Soebardja (ex-Shark Move) and Lizard's "Candlelight" is so '70s, classic radio rock, maybe the Indonesian answer to the Steve Miller Band? - yet fresh, definitely from somewhere and somewhen else!!
Kudos to compiler Jason "Moss" Connoy for tracking down all these gems, and to everyone else involved with putting this package together, doing the research, writing, and graphic documentation... obviously an immense job but well done and well worth it. So, if you've been enjoying Sa-Re-Ga, Thai! Dai!, Sound Of Siam, Psych-Funk 101, The World Ends, or any other disc of crate-digging discoveries from around the world we've recommended lately, this one is definitely for you too! Highest recommendation.
Last year, one of our favorite releases was the always great label Sub Rosa's beautiful assemblage of 1971 recordings from the kingdom of Bhutan entitled Tibetan Buddhist Rites From The Monasteries of Bhutan; and wow, what an intense and powerful collection of recordings it was. Sounds by monks and nuns that pretty much surpassed in sheer intensity and core spirit so much of what we usually drool over in our experimental and metal sections. Now we have the follow up to that which comes from the same recordings by John Levy made in Bhutan from 1971-72. A much different affair, these recordings as made obvious by the title, focus on the actual songs and folk tradition of Bhutan. Featuring skillful and moving instrumentals as well as many songs with vocals that leave us in total awe of their haunting qualities and totally beautiful delivery. You can almost imagine people like Islaja and Will Oldham listening to this with their notebook by their side and their ears wide open hoping to have it all enter their psyche. Parts of the instrumentation no doubt would get members of the No Neck Blues Band standing at attention. So funny how so much of what we know as 'free folk' or "free whatever" can be found in its original incarnation on these recordings. The Bhutanese dramnyen is probably the core and most used instrument on these recordings and wow how much we are in love with its glorious sound: seven strings that are struck with a plectrum and vibrate warmly, instantly washing over you with a darkly gentle vibe of total warmth and surrender. We're so grateful to Sub Rosa for releasing these previously impossible to find recordings. So moving and totally recommended!
Ok, you know how we're always getting giddy about some totally heavy doomy dirgey droney sludgy band, like Boris or SUNNO))) or Earth or Corrupted? Yep, we love that stuff. But let's face it, it's not outside of the realm of possibility that *you too* given the appropriate equipment (guitar, effects, amplification) and the ability to play an open E chord, could come up with something that sounds heavy in *that* way. Maybe. But this double cd is something that we know for sure that we, you, or any of the bands currently cranking up n' out the slow n' low couldn't quite match in sheer heaviness. Not heaviness of the loud and plugged-in variety, of course. A different sort of heaviness, the kind that gets the quotation marks around it, a "heavy" that's timeless, spiritual, feeling, and isn't entirely reliant on volume and bass ('though the droning low-end horns on here sure do provide plenty of both).
'Cause really, a couple of guitars and amps and distortion can't compete with the chanting of dozens of Tibetan monks (and nuns) accompanied by huge long trumpets and rumbling large frame drums and booming gongs and clashing cymbals and chiming bells and the resounding ambience and atmosphere of being recorded in an ancient monastery in the mountains of Bhutan, can they?! No sir, no way. Not if you turn your stereo up while playing this, anyway.
Now, if you're like us you've probably always thought that Tibetan Buddhist monks were cool, and knew they made cool music too. But also if you're like us, it hasn't been entirely clear just which of the many recordings of Tibetan monk music you should invest in, 'cause some just seem too Newagey or likely to also involve some interloper like Mickey Hart. Well, this new release on Sub Rosa -- a reissue of a 4LP set originally released on Lyrichord in 1972 -- is pretty clearly one to get.
These two discs are dense with astonishing, mesmerizing music. From pieces featuring calm, unaccompanied chant to flurries of hypnotically discordant high-end horns that almost sound like electronic feedback to massive Hermann Nitsch style sonic eruptions, the variety and depth here is amazing. 'Twas all recorded on location in the Kingdom of Bhutan in 1971 by legendary, well-travelled British ethnomusicologist and Orientalist John Levy (1910-1976), using a Nagra stereo prototype reel-to-reel recorder that did a wonderous job, as did he. Done in what seems to be the same spirit of exploration that motivates the field recordings found in the AQ fave Sublime Frequencies series, this is well-recorded, yet authentic and raw -- Levy's tapes even captured the flapping and cooing of pidgeons who live in the monastery, heard in the background in the quieter passages!
Disc One has two parts. Firstly, the Rituals of the Drukpa Order from Thimphu and Punakha (nineteen tracks, various invocations and supplications), and secondly, Sacred Dances and Rituals of the Nyingmapa and Drukpa Orders from Nyimalung and Tongsa (five tracks of dances performed in animal masks). Disc Two continues part two from the first cd with another five tracks of prayer, followed by part three: Temple Rituals and Public Ceremonies (fifteen tracks, everything from Milarepa poems and mantras to rituals to subjegate evil spirits). Each cd has its own booklet, full of very detailed notes on the music and the recording thereof. Texts of the various prayers and chants are included in English translation, as well. The reading and listening here will keep you busy for a long time, lots to learn about and enjoy with this for sure.
It's no wonder that when SUNNO))) plays, they dress up like monks...not Tibetan monks necessarily but monks nonetheless. An obvious way to make their music seem more mysterious and massive. So...if you're gonna buy just one Tibetan (or Bhutanese) monk album, this wouldn't be a bad choice at all. And, it's a good deal for two discs too!
Known primarily for their American blues reissues, Monk now joins the ranks of Dust To Digital, Honest Jon's and Mississippi Records in the international field with this amazing vinyl compilation featuring music from Africa and India recorded during the 1940s and '50s. While the title and cover art would suggest this was the work of a singular traveller/collector who either had a portable record cutter or player and recorded or collected recordings of many of the hotel bands on his travels through Africa and India, we could find no such actual accreditation. Instead these tracks seemed to be pulled from the vast EMI archives, mostly from their South Asian bureau.
A little online research tells us that many of the African songs are the work of the Zulu, South Africa's largest ethnic group. The songs tend to incorporate traditional Zulu choral vocals into a sound heavily influenced by the western jazz many Africans were absorbing in the wake of British colonial rule. The songs from India likewise show a cross cultural blend of styles, showing at least one positive thing to come out of the generally brutal nature of imperialism. One of the band leaders, Teddy Weatherford, was a veteran of the Chicago jazz scene in the 1940s, while scores of refugees came over following the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942, so this really is representative of the rapidly changing world of the day. Despite international turmoil, the artists here prove that the transcendent power of music can always shine through no matter where things are going. Bravo.
The Britain-based pan-Asian label Outcaste releases the third in its series documenting Indian film soundtrack songs from the country's incredibly prolific Bollywood industry. (The first two being Bollywood Breaks and Bollywood Funk.) The songs, called "filmi", found here are some of the biggest hits spanning 1969 thru the '90s. As the liner notes point out, that means there's no
Outcaste continues with their impressive Bollywood film music, or "filmi", series with a second volume of songs culled from India's ultra-prolific industry. This collection spans the greatest historical range of the industry yet, including tracks from as early as 1949 and as recent as 2001. Though, on first listen, it seemed a less successful collection than the previous installment -- all the newest songs included at the beginning of the disc -- it really began to grow on me with each listen. The newer tracks, as saturated with factory synth presets as they are, are still amazing arrangements. It's interesting to see how the industry, its composers, arrangers, studio engineers, etc. have developed over the years, continually innovating and throwing in elements from every possible musical genre worldwide. Be it the completely wacked out "Yeh Dosti Hum Nahin" from the film Sholay (1975) with its potpourri of analog synth, banjo-ukulele, harmonica, strings, bolero style horn, fuzzed out guitar and then some. Or how about "Zindagi Ek Safar" from the film Andaz (1971) with its crazy yodelling vocals. All the greatest singers and composers are included here, which leads me to the one small complaint I have about this collection: once again there's a bit of overlap. You'd think that, given the immense number of songs to choose from in such a productive industry, a resourceful label such as Outcaste could find a couple of songs that weren't so recently released on another relatively high profile collection. I speak of two tracks included here by Ahsa Bhosle -- "Chura Liya" and "O Mera Sona" -- that were also on the "Best of Asha Bhosle" anthology released by Manteca last year. For what it's worth, Manteca seemed to get a hold of a cleaner copy of "Chura Liya" for their collection, but I hope this doesn't turn too many people away from this disc.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Collection of recordings of the music of the Ede people from the Dak Lak Plateau in Vietnam. The 30 tracks, organized by type of ensemble and are amazingly varied. A beautiful polyphonic blend of mouth organs and voices with timbres that disguise the origins of the sounds: double reed instruments that sound like voices and voices that sound like double reeds. There are a few tracks on here that sound AMAZINGLY like Reich's Phase Patterns, and that will remind Can fans of the sublime Vietnamese Boat Woman Song from Canaxis. But my personal favorite is track 29 in which the Bro' - a two string zither with gourd resonators - is accompanied, in a sort of call and response, by what sounds remarkably like a rooster.
Let's see if I can do this set the justice it deserves and be as brief as possible. Wayang, or puppet theater, is the premier form of dramatic expression in much of Indonesia and exists in a myriad of forms, often unique to particular regions. It is performed for weddings, graduations, circumcisions and numerous other auspicious occasions and social events. Combining music, song, and story telling it can relate moral, historical, political, and puerile functions using stories taken from familiar classic tales (most often used are the Indian epics Mahabarata and Ramayana.) What's more, puppet theater is an event that combines high and low culture that could, in western terms, only be expressed analogously as a melange (which it is not) say, of Shakespeare meets Bach's "Matthew's Passion" meets Star Wars meets Wagner's "Ring Cycle" meets Bevis & Butthead and then some. As such, it is a dramatic form that can truly be grasped and appreciated by all members of society regardless of age or education.
Though puppet theater, like much performance in Java and Bali, is a synergetic event, it is the dalang, or puppeteer, that is the real star of the show. He must not only have an excellent story telling, comedic and musical ability (with loads of great improvisational skills), but must be able to bring the puppets to life as well -- often manipulating several at once -- and be able to do all this for very long stretches without a single break. A truly great dalang is also an excellent builder of puppets, the more ornate the better. The enclosed booklet details some of the recent developments in puppet technology, including puppets that actually squirt blood, puke noodles and that can be decapitated. The dalang is not only charged with controlling the puppets and the unfurling of the story, but by extension the gamelan and singers as well by giving them cues (often quite brief) to begin and end the musical pieces which frame events in the story or to accompany battle scenes and the like. Though the general framework of a story is fixed, the dalang's art is in his ability to embellish his narration of the tale, contextualizing it to the event at hand, often delivering witty barbs at the wayang's sponsors or members of the gamelan. The political possibilities of such an event are pretty much limitless and dalang often use the performance as a means of criticizing government corruption and oppression, which has even resulted in the persecution and imprisonment of dalang.
What makes this recording uniquely special is that it is the first time an entire live performance of wayang golek has been recorded and released. There have been plenty of cassette and cd issues of abbreviated wayang performances, many being done in a recording studio. But, clocking in at just under 7 hours (squeezed onto 6 cds), it's no wonder performances of wayang golek are not released in their entirety. This recording was made in 1994 and was sponsored by the national telecommunications company PTT Telkom. The dalang for the performance, Asep Sunandar Sunarya Giri Harja III, is considered one of the best living dalang in West Java and is heavily sought after for performances. Born into a family of dalang (not only was his father a famous dalang, but three brothers are also professional dalang) he received first prize in the annual wayang golek competition in 1985.
The performance begins with a 41 minute instrumental suite that serves to both warm up the musicians and draw guests to the performance area and is ended with a brief introductory speech over the P.A. system by the event's sponsors. Once the performance gets under way, the shrewd and minimal recording method reveals itself: with one microphone over the dalang and another 12 feet away, over the singers and musicians, the super-wide spaced stereo pair is able to pick up as much of the performance as directly as possible. This was important because apparently, just beyond the group was an archaic P.A. system through which the dalang (as well as the female singers) was being reinforced to the crowd of several thousand that were seated beyond the invited guests of a hundred or so. The resulting recording has a bizarre quality; combining the acoustic and unamplified instruments of the gamelan with voice of the dalang picked up by the microphone above him along with the delayed echo of the dalang's voice as it bounces back from distant walls like a bullhorn. The performance moves dreamlike between songs, dialog (with the dalang taking on various voices of the characters in the story), and combinations of both where the dalang will interrupt the singers in the middle of a song with humorous quips, generating mirth from the audience. Although a significant portion of the performance is merely dialog (in fact, during the requisite midnight "clown scene" the dalang sounds almost like a stand up comedian doing a routine at a West Java night club) it is in this writer's opinion that the recording still holds a certain fascination in texture alone. But you needn't worry about missing out on the fun here because the producer has painstakingly gone through the trouble of translating the *entire* performance into English and including it as a .pdf document on the sixth disc (it is also available in Sundanese and bahasa Indonesia if those suit better) which you can print out so you can follow along while listening. Along with the 7 hours of the wayang golek performance and the complete text translation, this set also comes with a detailed 44 page booklet. The very detailed and superbly researched notes cover the history of wayang golek, the puppets, music, plus information specific to this performance such as a story synopsis as well as its origin, and information on the performers involved. Andrew Weintraub, a professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Pittsburgh who specializes in the performing arts of West Java, put together the set (recording the performance, translating the dialog and writing the liner notes) and has done a remarkable job. Though some may find this a bit steep of an investment for an introduction to wayang or Sundanese music in general, it is a remarkable and unique production and one that's worth the bite into the old leather bi-fold. And given how cheap this set is, you're hardly paying much per disc. Highly recommended!
Jaipongan and the other styles included on this disc are quite possibly some of the most interesting forms of popular music to develop in Indonesia or the world in recent times. Sunda (not to be confused by the geographically dyslexic with the Sudan) lies in Western Java and, as it seems holds true throughout Indonesia, has its own unique music, dance and dramatic arts exclusive to the relatively small geographic region in which it's contained. The story of Jaipongan's creation is almost as interesting as the music itself. And while it is thoroughly written about in the accompanying liner notes by none other than Philip Yampolsky (the man what brought us the 20 volume "Music of Indonesia" series on Smithsonian Folkways), I'll try to paraphrase as briefly as possible to pique your interest here.
As a catalyst for the creation of Jaipongan, a great deal is owed to Indonesian President Sukarno who, in the early 1960's, impressed upon Indonesians to cherish their traditional arts. In 1974, an inspired rennaissance man of an artist/entrepreneur by the name of Gugum Gumbira Tirasondajaja took Sukarno up on his challenge and put together a new genre of popular music that drew from traditional Sundanese music for its ingredients. What Sukarno probably wasn't looking for was a new popular genre built out of a dance genre in which a professional dancer -- often a prostitute -- invites men to dance with her. Gugum replaced the dance's accompaniment (limited to 3 small gongs) with a stripped down Degung gamelan common to Sunda. But most impressive was his addition to all this an impressive battery of drums played in a suitably flamboyant fashion -- much of the patterns taken from Wayang Golek (shadowless puppet theater which uses 3 dimensional puppets.) When you consider that the drummer in this ensemble, despite the expanded drums at his disposal, is still limited to a handful of two-headed barrel drums, it's enough to make Neil Peart blush at the way he plays them. Using pressure applied by the heel of the foot, or the forearm, the drummer can eke out glissandi or melodic fragments -- and they do so constantly. The ensemble wouldn't be complete, of course, without a singer. And the singer for this ensemble -- Gugum's Jugala Group -- is Idjah Hadidjah, probably the most famous in Sunda. Married to a famous dalang (puppeteer), she became somewhat famous herself singing during his Wayang Golek performances. Her silky and sensuous singing makes the perfect counterpoint to the frenetic drumming and is probably the single biggest reason why this album sold so well. Which reminds me... A lot of you have already probably noticed the nice new cover art these Explorer reissues are getting. As nice as the cover art is, it has already caused a little confusion here at Aquarius with customers who already own the previous CD issues of the discs in the Indonesian part of the series. This album, originally released under Idjah Hadidjah's name as "Tonggeret", was only just fairly recently released for the first time in the west in 1987. So just a warning to check your collections and make sure you don't have "Tonggeret" in there already. Unless, of course, you want this nicely remastered version with the cool Magnum cover photo.
Attention Buddha Machine obsessives, here's another sonic artifact / fetishistic release from Buddha Machine masterminds FM3 to collect and obsess over, and yeah, it is still Buddha Machine related. In fact it's another collection of Buddha Machine derived soundscapes, with FM3 removing the loops from the machine, and passing them around to various contemporary Chinese musicians to remix, rework, reinterpret and re-envision, there are a few names we recognize, like Li Jianhong, but so many that we don't, all offering their own interpretations, and the sonic breadth is fairly stunning.
From haunting folky drifts, to groovy Chinese pop, to gorgeous rhythmic percussive workouts, to crackly Philip Jeck like dronescapes, from haunting field recording flecked, reinterpreted traditional Chinese music, to hushed swirling ambience, from actual recordings of a Buddha Machine being played in a remote village, replete with the sounds of insects and wildlife, to minimal abstract dronemusic, from electronic flecked folk pop, to looped rhythmic post industrial electronic skitter, from mysterious spoken word to strange soundtracky sci-fi ambience, and from traditional sounding fluttery flute to super commercial electro pop, and that's just a sampling. It's a pretty amazing listen, varied to be sure, but it all works pretty well together as a whole, and in many cases, especially for the Buddha Machine obsessed, it becomes a game of spot the Buddha Machine loop, not always an easy feat in many cases.
And then there's the packaging. Totally over the top, and in many ways, subtly beholden to the machine that inspired it. First, everything is houses in a printed metallic oversized gold bag, normally used to hold oolong tea, sealed of course, it has to be torn to get inside, but fear not, there's another bag inside, however, that one is sealed too, so to reuse it, you'll have to tear open that one too. Along with the spare bag, there's the disc itself, which is mounted to a heavy textured board, printed front and back with Chinese characters, with a hole punched out of one corner, in which is mounted a metal coin, bearing an imprint of the Buddha Machine, and the coins were apparently cast in metal from the same factory that makes designer buckles, rings and necklaces, the label pointing out that "Your coin could have been a Gucci!", there's a little sticker, featuring more Chinese characters, and then there are a handful of members only "VIP" cards, which look like blank credit cards, and which are apparently ubiquitous in status-conscious modern China, each on a different color, the colors of the original Buddha Machines of course.
LIMITED TO 2000 COPIES.
Yet another fantastic collection of fascinating sights and sounds from Sublime Frequencies, this time from Southeast Asia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, etc... filmed by Robert Millis, he of Climax Golden Twins, as well as a frequent Sublime Frequencies contributor / collaborator / curator and an avid collector of world music and lost 78s. And like past SF dvds, My Friend Rain is another fantastical journey through the streets of Southeast Asia, a travelogue of street musicians, town squares, temples, forests, people's homes, markets, food stalls, performances are interspersed with more seemingly mundane occurrences, which somehow still seem magical, a priest sweeping out a rainswept temple floor, food being assembled while a band plays wildly in the background, a glorious vocal and drum cacophony, crashing cymbals, and there's also some serious weirdness, a strange selection of statues, some all bloody with their guts pulled out, meat being chopped on a cart, boats being driven through barely enough water to keep them afloat... Like a series of abstract short films woven together into a fantastically impressionistic musical portrait of places and people. One of the coolest moments a guy who plays this incredible circular drum set, all these tiny drums hanging in a row, totally encircling the performer, and he plays them super fast, with his hands, and the sounds are so divine, somewhere between gamelan and steel drums. Would love to get a whole record of just that.
There's so much to see, definitely worth rewatching.
The dvd is also accompanied by a cd, a soundtrack, featuring all the music featured in the film, popular, traditional, culled from live performances, lp archives and old cassettes, including that amazing circular drum piece (the instrument is called a Hsiang Waing), as well as the blind musician who opens and closes the film, playing a strange guitar with a metal bowl affixed to the neck for percussion, there's also a gorgeous song performed with a small leaf held between the musicians fingers and played like a reed, and of course some Asian pop songs, fuzzy, poppy, funky, groovy, such good stuff. Like all Sublime Frequencies release, so very recommended.
Oooh. Nice one, this. If you dig psychedelic dronemusic, heavy on the guitar, that is, 'cause it's the 2nd album on the ever-reliable Utech label from this droney duo from China, one half of which is none other than freeform electric guitarist & sculptor-of-feedback Li Jianhong, whose solo album on Japanese psych label PSF, Classic Of the Mountains And Seas, we made a Record Of The Week a few years back. The other half of the band is laptopper Vavabond, and together they create a dark and disturbing, yet sometimes somewhat soothing symphony of cosmic sci-fi space drone (VagusNerve are kind of big into UFOs and flying saucers), full of strange sounds. Layers of Jianhong's whale call guitar and swarms of other unidentifiable electronic drones (from keening high end to bassy lows) are ofttimes joined by weird wordless vocals, druggy mumbles, the guttural moans of some human creature. This devolved baby-babble is however buried beneath the burbling electronic FX and quasi-melodic guitar wail. What sound like distant air raid sirens rise and fall, as abstract alien transmissions from across the galaxy shower down over the three loooong tracks here, "The Memory Of Light", "The Exiled Life", and "Go Back To The Sirius" - as in, this is sirius tripping balls music!! To be played LOUD, if you dare. These aren't airy ambient drones. It's all quite dense and physical and maybe even frightening, with Jianhong's amp burning blackest on that third track, at times coming close to Keiji Haino in an echoing realm of insane video game zips and zaps.
Recommended drones for sure, a no-brainer if you trust us, or Utech, or are already a VagusNerve and/or Li Jianhong fan. Comes in a nice Utech-designed fold-up sleeve, with cool art appropriate to the dark spacey sounds on the disc.
Man, we have the best customers, they play in kick ass bands, they put out killer zines, they run clubs, and cool bars, and are awesome writers, we're constantly impressed and amazed. One such customer is Jeremy Wallach, who (as it says on the back of his book) is a musician, anthropologist, ethnomusicologist and an assistant professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and who has just published a book on popular music in Indonesia, which seemed like a total aQ appropriate book if there ever was one.
We only just started it, but figured we oughta get it reviewed and listed so some of you folks could get your hands on it sooner rather than later (we're also reading the Anarcho-crust book reviewed elsewhere on this list!). Modern Noise Fluid Genres is a study, as mentioned above, of Indonesian popular music from the years 1997-2001, viewed through the exploration of recording studios, record stores, neighborhoods, universities, clubs and venues, with a focus on how access to global music has been a boon to creative music making, rather than a hindrance. It's definitely academic, plenty of cultural theory, but also plenty of anecdotes and interviews, visits to video shoots and classrooms, malls and campuses, and discussions with students and musicians, all with an eye on the globalization of music, and how specifically Indonesia fits into that trend.
Includes tons of photos, drawings, lyrics, appendices, a glossary, and also a cd, which includes a handful of tracks demonstrating the various types and styles of modern Indonesian music.
We're definitely digging it so far, and it seems like essential reading for folks who have been digging the Sublime Frequencies series, which is likely MOST of you!
A while back we made a record by a Chinese duo called White+ our Record Of The Week. And folks flipped for it. So much so we could barely keep it in stock. A dizzying collection of droned out psychedelic krautrock style grooves and experimental electronic hypnorock. A drummer and a synth player with all kinds of weird FX and noisemakers. Originally described to us as sounding like Neu crossed with Yellow Magic Orchestra, to us it ended up sounding much weirder. Ever since that review, we'd been wanting to list this, an earlier record from these two, but only just now did we manage to get enough. Talking more to our friends in China, we're beginning to think this band is simply called White, and maybe that other record is titled White PLUS. But really, it hardly matters, we'll keep calling them White+, and keep digging their crazy sounds, which are even crazier here, processed vox, churning sheets of synth thrum, clouds of swirling FX, buried pulsations, shimmering strings, minimal percussion, some tracks dense and dizzyingly dark ("Space Decay"), others dreamy and almost raga-like ("Spring House"), some tribal and percussive, angular and abstract ("Conch Crunch"), some like kraut-age electro-pop ("Build A Link"), and some others minimal and rhythmic, rife with junkyard percussion, and mysterious vocals/FX ("Train Song").
Fans of the other White+ will want this for sure, and really, anyone into tripped out electronic minimalism, psychedelic krautrock, experimental ambience, and twisted rhythmic hypnorock, this will definitely be a new fave. We have a bunch, but once we run out, we have to get more from China, which can sometimes take a while, so please get one quick, or be prepared to wait patiently. We also have a few copies in stock if the other White+, you can find it elsewhere on the site, or just ask if you want one of those too...
Recently, through several friends of aQ, we've been introduced to a bunch of really cool indie rock from China, Boyz & Girl (reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), Pairs, Snapline, Mr. Graceless, Carsick Cars, Duck Fight Goose, but the one that really grabbed us the most was this one right here, the oddly monikered White+, which is in fact not really indie rock at all, but is in fact an experimental offshoot of the Chinese indie rock group Carsick Cars. This duo describe themselves as being a "hardware electronica band", although the friend who turned us on to these guys, described them as sounding like Neu! crossed with Yellow Magic Orchestra, which thankfully is pretty dang accurate. Utilizing a set up of customized keyboards, pedals, samplers, loops and live drums (and the occasional bit of spare ethereal vocals), White+ lay down some droned out, super mesmerizing, darkly motorik krautrock influenced electronic hypnorock, that sounds like a weird hybrid of Circle, the Boredoms and Fabulous Diamonds, or something like that, just check out the opening track here. A cascade of skittering programmed beats, looped and layered, chopped and collaged voices, live tribal drums, swirling electronics, dizzying FX, the sounds warped and constantly shifting speed, the vocals processed into strange streaks of psychedelic melody, the various other loops slipping from crunchy chug, to spaced out shimmer, the whole track churning and propulsive and utterly hypnotic. The second track is where the Neu! first pops up and shines through big time, the band locked into a serious psych-kraut groove, a sound that positions these guys squarely in the current movement of kraut-psych space rock revisionists, but their sound is definitely more electronic, and much more beholden to classic krautrock, albeit here wreathed in psychedelic effects and layered with warm washes of keyboard melody, not to mention clouds of swirling FX.
And here's where we'd usually say something like "and that's how it goes from there on out", but these guys aren't so simple to peg. The next track takes seriously driving drums, and adds some electronic bagpipe sounding synths, the result some twisted Amps For Christ / Maserati hybrid, with brief bursts of twisted FX heavy warpage, where the sound slips into near Aphex Twin territory.
From there on out, all bets are off, bloopy and bleepy, skittery and playful one moment, all lilting melodies, and hazy dreamlike kraut-age shimmer, brooding buzz drifting atop wild dense drum damage the next, all supporting soaring echo drenched vocals, the vibe ritualistic and trance-like, definitely a sound that fits perfectly alongside modern day Boredoms. The live drums are really what make the band, even the most ethereal sprawl of soft focus electronic ambience, takes on a whole new vibe when anchored by some pounding rhythms, and the mix of programmed beats and real drums makes for a heady rhythmic concoction, with the surrounding sounds just as compelling, equal parts melodic pulsation, kosmische cascade, and tripped out sonic swirl, some tracks sounding like a full on, heavy as hell hypnorock band, others like ultra abstract avant kraut experiments, the vocals transforming some of the tracks into near popsongs, but more often than not, the vocals splinter and are transformed into something more textural or rhythmic, the song following suit, taking that pop element and wedding it to something much more abstract and psychedelic.
A unanimous new aQ favorite, and literally every time we play this in the store, we sell a copy! We have a whole bunch, but when we sell out, we'll have to get more from China, so might take a couple weeks. Needless to say, grab one NOW! Super deluxe packaging too, sweet design, massive booklet, obi, etc.
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Record number two from these Singaporean grinders, and it's just as fierce and furious as their first. In fact, in some ways it might be even MORE so. Twenty five songs crammed into eighteen minutes, most of the songs between 30 and 45 seconds (a couple 5 seconds or less!), which is plenty of time for these guys to blast out some tangled super frenzied riffing, and some INSANE lightning fast drumming, the vocals a maniacal shriek, and unlike lots of grind, much of the riffing here sounds VERY metal, not so much punk, but actual metal riffery, just sped WAY up, these micro metal epics that SLAY. No wacky covers like the on their first record where they did a Yeah Yeah Yeahs tune, instead, just a relentless blast of grinding metallic fury, with many of the tracks slowing down for some serious chuggery, before exploding in another head shearing blast of blurred brutality. AND unlike a lot of grind, these songs are surprisingly catchy, with some seriously killer riffs, which makes this way more listenable than lots of similar stuff, but somehow, no less heavy and brutal and badass.
Of all the Chinese releases we've reviewed lately, and it's been a LOT, this might be the most over the top, with some of the most fantastic packaging we've ever seen. Xiao He was a new name to us, but apparently he's of the most respected avant garde musicians in China, and the genesis of this record was via an especially wild performance, during which Xiao leapt from the stage and broke both his feet. While stuck at home recuperating, under doctor's orders, Xiao wrote these songs, apparently in the style of many of his records, a lush classic folk, fused to more modern indie balladry, his vocals a warm, emotive croon, simple strummed acoustic guitar, piano, minimal drumming, multi-tracked vocals, lilting and wistful, with some lovely harmonies, the vibe actually sounds almost like African music in places, and we're also reminded of folks like Sufjan Stevens, albeit a bit more mellow and minimal. Really nice stuff for sure, but it's the packaging that really pushes this over the edge. Presented in a massive, full color, hard cover art book, each page adorned with a gorgeous colored pencil drawing of a leaf, leafs that Xiao found on his walks in the countryside during his recovery, the colors warm and autumnal, each page folding out gatefold style revealing lyrics to each song, the whole thing housed in a slipcover, also adorned with a leaf drawing. But there's no cd, or lp, instead, the music is contained on a flash drive, built into the book! Complete with volume controls, on/off switch, buttons to skip tracks, the little player lighting up, glowing white, just plug in headphones (which are also included), find a nice place to sit, open the book, push play and let yourself get lost.
So cool! LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!! We only got a handful!
Note re: the player - FYI, once the battery charge runs out, to recharge the player requires an old school cellphone charger (as in, not the new fangled iPhone style chargers!). ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
Xiao He, aka He Guoheng, is a legendary musician in the Chinese music scene. Not just a musician, he also works in movies, does scoring, performs plays, is an actor, he also runs his own record label that helps support innovative folk and ethnic musicians in China. Xiao He performs a style of music he calls 'free folk' which involves just him and an acoustic guitar, but unlike the usual strum and croon of most folkies, Guoheng's music is much more far out and abstract. Mostly improvised, the guitar playing is impressionistic and flits from blues to folk to totally freeform abstraction and pretty much every stop in between, his vocals are even more far out, a lush, hushed croon one second, a weird Muppet like mewl the next, sometimes his voice is a rumbling Tuvan style throat singing, and suddenly without warning, he'll swoop into a wild dramatic falsetto, and the will begin yodeling wildly, before slipping back into something more traditional. Wild and unpredictable, imagine Bill Orcutt if he was a vocalist and not a guitarist, mix in a little Dan Higgs, some serious cabaret, and somehow make it even more loose and abstract and free and unfettered by any sort of normal musical restrictions. It's super intense and strange, but also liberating and inspiring. Some folks will definitely find it quite difficult listening, but adventurous musical lovers will dig this outsider free folk weirdness, and will marvel that something so strange could be so popular in the mainstream.
We find ourselves confused certainly by the sound, but it's also strangely addictive, and utterly wild and weird and fascinating. Totally inspired, ultra personal sonic expression like nothing you've likely ever heard before.
The second disc here is even weirder and cooler, more avant experimentation, this time Guoheng's vocals a bit more restrained, but accompanied by what sounds like lo-fi synth squelch, and short wave transmissions, strange FX and whirring industrial soundscapes, burbling electronics, with some of the tracks sounding like Bruce Haack mashed up with the Taj Mahal Travellers, meditative, noisy, textural, freaky and far out!
The packaging is incredible - a full color box, featuring a strange looking Xiao He on the front, wearing a hard hat, with a cat on his shoulder, the other side of the box covered with liner notes / stickers, inside, the cds are housed in super fancy printed diecut sleeves, there's also a big sticker of the cover image, as well as a huge fold out full color, multi panel insert!
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From the obi strip: "New Tzadik Oracles series is proud to begin with the unique visions of singer/songwriter Haena Kim. Featuring hypnotic, trippy vocals, nasty electric bass and two driving Korean percussionists, this is a band that opens up an exciting new world of sound. You've never heard anything like Xtatika--a magical blend of alternative rock with Korean traditional music.
The press release for this described Yat-Kha as "Tuvan music -- with a punk rock twist", which doesn't quite get it right so, in an effort to clarify this remark they say elsewhere: "OK it's not the Sex Pistols kind of punk -- think Joy Division", which is
It was tough to not be won over by this one before we even heard it. It's called Damp Circuits, it features a twisted cover with bright Chinese characters over a murky landscape of clouds and lightning, over which an image of a man fiddling with a huge bank of electronics is superimposed, and it's subtitled The Golden Era Of Synthesizers In East Asia, and yeah, it's just as good as all of that had us hoping it would be.
Young was a Hong Kong musician and producer who modernized Chinese folk melodies by performing them on (at the time) state of the art synths, adding fuzzed out wah guitar, groovy basslines and whirring organs, the vibe slips from groovy funkiness to woozy exotica, to fuzzy sixties garage to what sounds like a revved up synthesized traditional folk (replete with weird crowd sounds). Fans of Perry & Kingsley, Dick Hyman, and other synth pioneers will FLIP. Listen to the samples and you'll be smitten, here's hoping there's lots more where this came from! On the Sublime Frequencies offshoot sub-label Sham Palace!
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If you've been diggin' the vintage Turkish psych/pop of the Erkin Koray and Cem Karaca discs we've highlighted recently, here's something else for you, quite similar though it's from a bit further to the East... The title they've chosen for this collection would do as a review of it, in a nutshell: "Hip '70s Afghan Beats!" Indeed. Amhad Zahir was a popular Afghan singer, and these tracks, culled from his prodigious discography, are rife with emotive deep voiced crooning, exotic folk flourishes, and East-meets-West stylings (electric wah wah guitar, and tabla too!).
The liner notes (which could have done with an extra round of copy-editing, we're afraid) provide a brief biography of Zahir, who tragically was assassinated in 1979, at the age of 33, by Afghanistan's communist regime, on account of his political beliefs. Before his death, though, he had become hugely popular, and nowadays is apparently still considered a legend, one of Afghanistan's biggest recording stars. Of course, to us ignorant Westerners, he's quite obscure. We can only trust that the unnamed compiler has indeed chosen the "best of" Zahir's output; these tracks sound good to us, anyway! Infectious, hypnotic, moody, with groovy horns, traditional melodies, and reverb-heavy rhythms, it's all quite enjoyable.
