Tough to argue with a compilation called Far Out Spaced Oddyssey, especially with its super stylized witchy, skull-stick-carrying naked woman cover, her hair flung out over a starry backdrop of green and yellow, and the fact that this comp is subtitled: Psychedelic Folk, Electronica, Jazz & Rock From The Out-There Edges Of Brazil, well, that just seals the deal. And while we're often wary of comps like this, that mix vintage classic lost jams with more contemporary tracks, it actually works here, the result is an Andy Votel worthy double disc collection of Brazilian super varied sonic psychedelia. From prog to funk, to psych rock to folk, the amazing thing, is that in many cases, we had trouble telling if something was from the sixties or seventies or NOW. Which again speaks to the bad assness of Far Out Spaced Oddyssey.
The collection opens with Jose Mauro's "Apocalipse", a classic slice of vintage Brazilian psych-prog, soulful vocals, lush strings, groovy percussion, haunting witchy melodies, acoustic guitars, fluttery flutes, very reminiscent of seventies acid folk, but with a distinctly Brazilian vibe, and from there on out, it's a glorious mind expanding musical trip, from groovy flute flecked calypso, to hazy, organ driven soul (peppered with distinctly modern production filligree), from dense tribal electronic spaciness to fuzzy funky seventies jazz prog, from funky Blaxploitation sounding electronica to noisy chaotic psychedelic rock, from spacey new agey tinkle and shimmer to sweet summery Tropicalia, it almost doesn't matter which song is by whom, or what song is from what era, at least until you decide you need to track down more, which is always the sign of a killer mix, and if you're like us, you'll find yourself wanting more of much of this, not to mention playing both discs to death!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Three cd set of the earliest existing recordings of Swedish folk music - primarily solo fiddle, with occasional clarinet and dulcimer - recorded onto wax cylinders between 1913 and 1920. Includes a 39 page booklet with liner notes in Swedish and English along with archival photos.
We're pretty damn excited by Sun City Girls 33.3 percenter Alan Bishop's new Sublime Frequencies label. "Dedicated to acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers" Sublime Frequencies is slipping on the shoes apparently discarded by such pioneering labels as Smithsonian Folkways, Nonesuch Explorer, et al. Unlike previous explorers in such unheard music, Sublime Frequencies is not restricted by academic or commercial purposes. The latter probably deserves a bit more explanation; for where much of the post-Explorer purveyors of "world music" shamelessly produce an endless slough of slick garbage that sounds like the crap you can hear on any U.S. top 40 radio station merely sung in another language (Christ, if I had a wooden nickel for every fuckin' starry eyed NPR music review extoling the uniqueness of some generic world music outfit that combines electronic music with traditional folk, yadda, yadda, yadda the world's forests would be clear cut by now) the recordings you'll hear presented by Sublime Frequencies come from the cracks in the pavement of the culture makers. Through field recordings (many made by Bishop himself in his travels), radio and shortwave broadcasts some of the most fucking great music and audio you've never heard has been culled together. Balls to fidelity, none of the artists here would be allowed within 10 miles of a Putamayo AR executive, this is the punk rock of field recordings!
Assembled from cassettes acquired by Alan Bishop through trade or purchase in 1989 while traveling through Sumatra, "Folk And Pop Sounds" contains some of the most obscure recordings of the three initial CD releases from Subliminal Frequencies. Located on the furthest Western edge of the Indonesian archipelago, Sumatra is big (as big as California) and widely unexplored in the audio realm in comparison with its neighboring islands to the East, Java and Bali. The disc begins with the Haba Haba Group in which a male singer is accompanied by flute, two alternating gongs and percussion and secondly by an unknown Sumatran Dangdut (crazy overdriven pop with a heavy Indian film music influence). The most immediately noticeable difference in these recordings from Sumatra to Bali & Java is the overt Arabic influence on the music. The Dangdut track even sounds similar to the music on a Somalian CD, "Jamiila" which we used to sell here years ago before it went out of print. As if to admonish us against generalizations, another later Dangdut track, with runaway farfisa organ, pleasant arppegiating electric guitar and female vocals sounds not dis-similar to the "keroncong" music of The Steps CD from Java released on Warn Defever's Time Stereo label. While the disc may begin innocently enough, the sequencing of the tracks seduces the listener into the strange world of Sumatran music. The very Arabic sounding Indang Pariaman which features a female singer who's melody line interweaves beautifully with end blown wooden flute and some more incredibly nutty buzzing electric keyboard (one can only imagine that the sound is intended to imitate a double reed instrument of old) is moved along by jovial electric bass and casio-rhythm. The combination of acoustic and archaic electric instruments is shamelessly wonderful. Later an orchestra of sorts, complete with violin, electric organ, bass, drums, female voice leads us down a fragrant path that's oddly reminiscent of a Sun City Girls track. Speaking of which, though this one technically isn't, there are a couple of tracks on here which indeed are songs covered by the Girls, can you figure out which ones? Along with the songs proper included here, there are some great excerpts from dramas. The first instance begins with sweet flute and what's supposed to be a rooster crowing, but emulated by what sounds like an old air raid siren played through a broken megaphone. A melodramatic dialogue ensues between a terribly afflicted female and a stoic male voice. needless to say, this one comes highly recommended!
This second volume of Sumatran music does not disapoint. Not at all. Different than the music of Java and Bali, the Arabic influence on Sumatran music is unmistakable. More than that though, Sumatran music seems to not only include a wide variety of influences from near and far, but seems to wear it on its sleeve. And yet, despite the insane amount of musical diversity, the Arabic thread runs strongly through every single track here. The 17 tracks on this disc feature some eight different genres of music from Sumatra. The Rabab Dangdut cuts tend to be like the country music of Sumatra. At least that's what the scratchy fiddle parts immediately sound like to a western ear. But melodies and the interaction between the vocals and fiddle are slightly reminiscent of Thai Mo Lam. Add on top of this some ska rhythm guitar, electric bass and drums and things start to get a little thick. The other styles are no less odd. The Orkes Gambus are all orchestral numbers with oud, huge sounding violin sections, electric organs and female vocals. In a blind listening test one might guess the origins as Syria or Egypt. The Tari Minang tracks are about as close to Java as you'll get here. Along with a small gamelan ensemble are Arabic double reeds, flutes and female vocals. Like the first volume, there's nary a dud on this one. Highly recommended!
As elemental to psychedelic music of the sixties and seventies as fuzz-fueled freakouts and surreal mystical lyricism, was the dirge! Those slow and heavy head-nodding anthems of bittersweet self-reflection often replete with powerful descending chord progressions and moody and soulful angst-laden vocal crooning.
The amazing folks at the Now-Again label (who usually focus on the funk side of the psychedelic equation) have assembled quite a tour-de-force with these rare heavy-hitters from around the globe, including long-time aQ favorites as well as plenty of new discoveries. Here's the line-up: Top Drawer (Kentucky), Sensational Saints (Cleveland, OH), East of Underground (USA via Germany), D.R. Hooker (New Haven, CT), Shin Jung Hyun & The Men (Korea), T. Zchiew & The Johnny (Thailand), The Strangers (Nigeria), Damon (Los Angeles, CA), Ellison (Montreal), Morly Grey (Cleveland, OH), Shadrack Chameleon (Dakota City, IA), Ofege (Nigeria), Ana Y Jaime (Columbia), Kourosh Yaghmaei (Iran), and Baby Grandmothers (Sweden)! Focusing not only on the rare, but also the rather unconventional modes of the ballad, this compilation doesn't just cover heavy psych territory, but also crosses currents with gospel, soul and downbeat international funk by obscure artists who sought after their own kind of sound. Just in time for those cold winter months, this is perfect fireside listening. In fact, it's the perfect, sad and beautiful companion to the energetic exuberance of that Psych Funk 101 compilation, we raved about a couple of lists ago. Meaning, it's a total must-have!
The cd comes with a beautiful booklet of album covers and notes about each band.
Awesome collection of singles originally released as 12"s in Man Recordings Funk Mundial series. This is chock full of high energy Baile Funk done so totally right! Daniel Haaksman who started this series has a great ear for the best of the bangers, so it's kind of like getting someone to cut the weaker stuff out and hand you sixteen of the most sizzling, grooving thrillers that have come out of the Baile Funk scene over the last few years.
We were only familiar with a few of these artists like Crookers and Chancha Via Circuito but all the new artists to our ears for sure have been making us shake our stuff. Mixing elements of tech, hip-hop, booty bass, rave culture, all with a frenetic energy that's so damn infectious. We love how this scene seems to be mixed equally with fierce females and charismatic males. While still full on crazy fun, these tracks come off a bit more musical and memorable then the tracks on the Rio Baile Funk comps put out by Essay, we still love those comps but right now Funk Mundial is giving us the goods in a way we can't resist!
For all the stereotypes about how serious and rigid German culture is, we love how so many compilations in recent years have revealed just the opposite, revealing how damn fun and playful so much of the music bursting out of Germany during the '60s and '70s really was. We're talking full on go-go kaleidoscopic cocktail party galore! Much in the spirit of like minded compilations like The In-Kraut series and Disco Deutchland, Funky Frauleins puts its fun focus on the colorful groovy, funky, and disco sounds of the beat queens of Germany from 1968-1978. Just as fun, sassy and spirited as their French go-go counterparts but very much in the '70s with instrumentation that would sound right at home on a game show, in a porno, or even especially at a full on dance party. We only knew a few of these ladies: Su Kramer, Hildegard Knef and Caterina Valente, so we were introduced to a bunch of other super fun vixens. The booklet offers up great photos and bios of all the artists. This is one of those turn off your brain and step into a sweet and delicious cocktail haze kind of records. And we love it.
New, nicely packaged compilation of afro-beat from Ghana's golden era. Sound Way boasts that the 14 tracks included here from the 1970's are all extremely rare and previously unreleased outside of Africa. So if the Fela reissues and various Strut collections aren't enough, here's a nice addition to the collection. Includes a 16 page booklet detailing the history of Ghana's music industry.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A second volume of rare afro funk from Ghana, every bit as good as the first. 14 tracks, all from the seventies, highlight Ghana's fertile music scene and the varied influences -- from funk & soul to fusion & jazz, and even rock. Like its predecessor, Ghana Soundz 2 comes well documented with bios on the artists, archival photos and album art repros. Here's to hoping these don't go scarce again so soon.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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We listed this compilation a couple years back, but unfortunately it went out of print, but thankfully Sound Way has just gotten around to reissuing it. Ghana Soundz is an impressive collection of afro-beat from Ghana's golden era. Sound Way boasts that the 14 tracks included here from the 1970's are all extremely rare and previously unreleased outside of Africa. Includes a 16 page booklet detailing the history of Ghana's music industry, bios on the artists included and photos of the original album art.
After wonderfully tackling the amazing sounds of 1970's Nigeria in their stellar Nigeria Special series, the folks at Sound Way now have applied their refined crate digging skills to the sounds of Ghana, assembling an amazing collection of tracks from 1968-1981. It took almost a decade to painstakingly track down the 37 tracks that make up this double disc and damn all that work was so worth it! We have always been huge fans of so many of the sounds that have come out of West Africa, and this comp is only fueling that fire even more. We can honestly say we had not heard of just about any of the artists here but they have all grabbed our attention as every track on this collection has something special going on, whether it's the hypnotic guitar playing, or the unique emotive vocal delivery, we find ourselves madly scrambling to see what track is playing to find out who the artist is so we can try to track down anything else by them. While not quite as outwardly flashy as some of their Nigerian counterparts, the songs on Ghana Special unfold with a distinct richness in songcraft and so many totally beautiful psychedelic and entrancing moments.
Once again Sound Way demonstrate that they not only have impeccable taste but that they also understand how to make compilations that flow, and feel like proper albums from start to finish instead of just a haphazard collection of tracks.
The double-disc cd set also comes with a 44-page booklet of photos and liner notes, including a history of this amazing musical era. School is in session and we're in the front row taking notes cause this shit is just so damn good! FYI there's also vinyl version comes in a monstrous box, the songs spread out over 5lp's, and includes two bonus tracks not available on the cd, but we happen to be out of it today, maybe we'll get a couple more in next week...
School is in session and we're in the front row taking notes cause this shit is just so damn good!
Originally released in 1979, Ancient Ceremonies is a collection of recordings from the country of Ghana. Unlike the High Life And Other Popular Music release which features music from the same country, the recordings on this disc focus on -- as the title suggests -- ancient music, which is completely devoid of any inflluence of Western music (of European or Afro-American.) That said, in the music of Adolphis Micah -- who accompanies himself with a one-stringed bowed lute called a gonje -- one can distinctly hear the roots of blues music. It's actually too bad that more music of Micah wasn't included on this disc, because it's definitely the highlight of the album. Also nice though are the tracks included here of music performed on the dzil and chohun, both xylophones (and ancestors of the marimba) which are played by two people facing one another. Unlike the Europeanized version of the aforementioned marimba, they include a thin membrane of spider web under their resonators which creates a buzzing tone when the keys are struck. The rest of the tracks consist primarily of drum and chant tracks with the occasional flute. Along with the standard liner notes, album editor Stephen Jay has included a glossary of musical instruments heard on the disc.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
For fans of Ultra Chicks and Swinging Mademoiselle comps, wonderful playful french girl pop!
The Honest Jons label has lately been giving Dust to Digital a real run for its money, in terms of releasing those far flung old world global sounds that we have not been able to get enough of. After devouring the Victrola Favorites and Black Mirror comps on D2D, the gorgeous I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore LP on Mississippi records and Honest Jon's last foray into dislocation, Living is Hard, we couldn't help but get excited over Honest Jon's latest release of early twentieth century recordings from Baghdad. Pulled from the same EMI archives as the Living is Hard compilation, Give Me Love: The Brokenhearted of Baghdad gives a keenly focused view of the ethnically diverse musical output of Iraq when it was still a British mandated territory. Arab folk singers backed by Jewish dance bands, solo Kurdish violin excursions, nightclub bands with female singers who doubled as prostitutes, circular zorna improvisations on par with the most out-jazz out there. So unearthly,beautiful and emotionally urgent. For obvious reasons, this release couldn't be more timely, as continued forced occupancy in the region has created such intense division and strife that it's a wonder we'll see such beauty again. Heartbreaking!
This recording may be viewed as either a joyful celebration of the ubiquitous nature of the instrument throughout the world by accordian lovers or an admonishment to those who hate it, to give up now: there is nowhere to hide. Much like the turntable of
Somehow we missed out on the first volume of Peruvian stompers offered up by the always trustworthy Vampisoul label, but we're more then happy to just dive right in with volume two in their series collecting great Bugalu sounds out of Peru from the late '60s. Such a ripe moment in time for the sound of Bugalu to explode in South America and these 28 tracks offer a nonstop foot stomping snapshot of this golden-era of Bugalu fun. Nice vintage packaging with informative liner notes in both English and Spanish makes this a must have for anyone wanting to learn more about the late '60s music scene in Peru. So fun and colorful!
Any pop lover knows that when it comes to suave and sassy pop perfection, you can't beat France in the '60s and early '70s. With this collection the focus is put on the Parisian pop-psych scene, and what's really refreshing about this compilation is that it's not just filled with the usual suspects. So many names we weren't familiar with giving us such irresistible gems, and enough fuzz and weird elements on lots of the tracks to keep things interesting and not just saccharine sweet. Infusing elements of West Coast pop, the mod scene, and funked out burners, these are sounds that are just pretty impossible not to get swept up by. Filled with decadence and charm from folks like Cristal, Elisa, Les Hamsters (best name ever?!), Les Rover, Pax Quartet, and tons more.
No need to stress about what to throw on the next time you have people over for a little party, as all you will have to do is blast this, and watch as feet start tapping, and drinks start spilling, and everyone starts smiling!
Can there ever really be enough Cambodian Rock?
Don't answer that yet. Because while this double lp compilation does feature the stars of the genre featured on other Cambodian rock comps: Sinn Sisamouth, Ros Sereysothea, and Pan Ron, it also has plenty of others including the heavy psych groove of the Thra Kha Band who have two amazing tracks that are totally worth the price of admission. Plus it's a double vinyl gatefold with copious liner notes about the amazing music and tragic legacy of many of the music's star figures. Rarely does music seem so truly hauntological. Sunny, fun, and grooving on the surface, but layered over tragic notions of the political brutality that would come later. We've covered that history in plenty of previous reviews, so we won't go down that rabbit hole here, but this is a worthy selection of psych rock and garage gems, that didn't immediately sound like the others. So if you're new to Cambodian rock from the sixties and seventies, or would like a really well put together compilation on vinyl, now's your chance!
A complete about face for volume 2 in the Folk And Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma) series of discs. Remember that first one? The manic weirdness was unlike anything we'd heard, nor anything we've heard since. So it's striking that volume 2 is a disc we can at least put in terms we know. What's perhaps most ironic is that the recordings on Guitars Of The Golden Triangle come from a territory of Burma that, while roughly the size of New York State, has been almost completely un-explored by outsiders (Burmese or otherwise). The Golden Triangle (its proper name is the Shan State of Burma) is little known outside its own country, but it is the territory of smugglers, seperatist rebels and some extraordinary opium production. Since it is forbidden for foreigners to visit the Shan State, it's no surprise that its flourishing cottage industry of a music scene would be completely unknown to outsiders. How Mr. Bishop got these tracks is anyone's guess, but as we've seen before the Sublime Frequencies folks have their ways with picking up ripe fruit that others walk straight past. The 21 tracks here, recorded during the early seventies, range between heavy fuzzed out psych -- like something much more likely to have come out in the late sixties -- to sugary crooning pop -- much more akin to its decade. Little is known of most of the artists: for instance the most well represented here -- Saing Saing Maw -- is only known to have been a truck driver originally (shades of Elvis anyone?) and after striking his music career apparently returned to truck driving.
When we think of Bollywood, our minds instantly go to the golden era of Indian film music from the '60s and '70s, with classical sitars and tampuras set to thriller and noir themes and exotic pop, often forgetting that Bollywood has of course never stopped making films, and the film music has continually changed with the times. Even with the discovery of other flourishing filmmaking centers such as Lollywood in Pakistan and the Tamil-speaking Kollywood of South India bringing in the influences of synthesizers and eighties pop, we still weren't prepared for the amazing modern sounds of another fertile film and soundtrack music scene, this time located a continent away in Kano, the capital city of Nigeria - thus their thriving movie industry is called Kannywood. This compilation, brought to us by the folks at Sahel Sounds and Mississippi Records who have previously brought us those Music From Saharan Cellphone comps, is a great introduction to the sounds of popular film music made by the dominant Hausa culture of Nigeria from the past few years.
Bollywood music became more popular outside of India as the industry moved from films to television and the music began to be heard on the radio. While the Muslim culture of the Hausa people frowned on Hindi cinema, they began to see the advantages of taking the medium of music and film and crafting their own cultural take on the genre, often lifting the music and plotlines wholesale into their own language and cultural tropes. The music, in the beginning was played with traditional instruments, but the invention of the Yamaha PSR keyboard and the switch from video to digital has increased production into thousands of movies and songs of strangely charming and fluorescent dance pop.
For anyone who loved the strange hybrid of new wave dance pop of that Shangaan Shake compilation, or the Saharan Cellphone comps, this compilation carries the same global hybrid of tradition and new technology with most of the music utilizing digital synthesizers and auto-tuned vocals (mostly to imitate the high pitch of Indian Bollywood singers) that emphasizes the exotic side of global pop but yet remains so insanely catchy and infectious.
By now maybe you have (or like some of us, maybe you haven't) had enough of the South East Asian pop, folk, field recordings from Sublime Frequencies. Courtesy of Robert Millis (Climax Golden Twins cohort and curator of the Leaf Music Drunks Distant Drums cd) Harmika Yab-Yum takes us on an audio journey through underserved territory. Nestled, nay sandwiched between the geographical and cultural giants of China and India, Nepal's greatest fame lies in its hosting the tallest mountain on our fair planet. It's also the only "official Hindu state in the world" according to the CIA Factbook. On Harmika Yab-Yum Millis elegantly weaves together recordings he made (apparently in 1996) of radio broadcasts, street musicians, religious cermonies, and sermons. About half of the tracks in fact are from radio, though no disc jockey banter is included, which -- whether intentional or not -- gives the recordings an even more of a feel of being totally detached from the influence of the occidental world. By and large the greatest influence on the music here is from India. Tabla percussion, flutes, pump organs, sitars, violins and drones, drones, drones make up the bulk of the instrumentation and to the untrained ear, certainly sound like the dulcet tones of Indian music. The disc starts off with a bang with a track taken from the radio which sounds like feral chanting by some crazed lunatic accompanied by drumming. This is followed by an abrupt segue into a street sermon broadcast over a distant sounding bullhorn, flutes and people talking can be heard over the sermon. For the larger part, such abrupt transitions are not the norm on Harmika Yab-Yum and the grainy, modulating songs recorded off of the airwaves blend nicely with the gritty sounds of daily life on the streets from the clanging bells of a pony train passing by to, chanting monks on Krishna day, to a snake charmer with double reed to the crashing of bands, miscellaneous percussion and other noises for a wedding procession. Very nice.
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT****MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT****MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Ethiopiques alert, too! Have yourself a hot sultry soul dance party this weekend, with some of the best vintage Ethio soul from the Golden era of Ethiopian music! Largely culled from the great Ethiopiques series, this vinyl compilation features crucial '70s tracks by Mahmoud Ahmed, Lemma Demissew, Tlahoun Gessesse, Sefu Yohannes, Bahta Gebre Heywet, Teshome Meteku, and Alemeyahu Eshete, all never reissued on vinyl before. All killer, no filler! What more can we say, other than this rules!
Back in 2009 we reviewed a dvd called Palace Of The Winds, which documented Sublime Frequencies' Hisham Mayet as he returned to West Africa, to search for some unknown musicians he had heard on Moroccan radio, this new lp is sort of the audio companion to that, and is a stunner. Much like that dvd, the music on this lp, was captured mostly live, proper performances, intimate home recordings, many replete with the hubbub of daily life, voices and traffic and city noise, there are field recordings too, which capture vendors and stalls as they go about their daily (or actually, nightly) business, music blaring from boomboxes and speakers, it's a fantastic sonic journey.
Included are Mayet's first ever recordings of the aQ beloved Group Doueh (the band Mayet had returned in search of!), and their tracks here are wonderful, the first lo-fi and raw, swirls of intricately picked stringed instruments, wreathed in swirling organs, wild percussion, and some amazing vocals. The second sounding like an African Sunroof! All buzzing psychedelic shimmer, and softly tangled melodies, the sound blearily blown out and smeared into lush chordal clouds of raga-like thrum, beneath more soaring vox. A couple new discoveries that blew us away, were Abdul Rahman Al-Gheid", whose deep raspy voice sounds almost Tuvan, like he could burst into proper throat singing at any time, his Tom Waitsian growl rumbles and soars in equal measure, over a lush, slightly murky sonic swirl. And the Sadoum Ouled Aida track too, a bed of dense intricate melodies unfurling beneath another gorgeous vocal, also rough and raspy, but warm and velvety at the same time, the sound woozy and washed out, peppered with some passionate exaltations in background. Then there's the rollicking dessert blues of the Sadoum Group who wind buzzing strings around propulsive percussion, and some super intense call and response, male/female vocals. There's plenty more too, including the aforementioned field recordings, which are totally chaotic, sonically dense and dizzying, mysterious, noisy, and super exciting. As always, so good!!
And also as always, fantastic packaging, the lp pressed on heavy vinyl, housed in a full color old school tip-on style sleeve, and of course, it's VERY LIMITED!
Similar to the now-impossible-to-get, vinyl-only "Turkish Delights" compilation (but on cd and in stock!) is this great collection of vintage psychedelic rock music from Turkey. With 22 tracks, spanning the years 1966-1975, this collection is a great
I gave up on trying to come up with a more succinct description of these two new cds from Smithsonian Folkways of Cuban music when I discovered they have encapsulated the collections better than I ever could: "Recorded in Havana in 1957, the ritual rhythms and
The Ethiopiques series, begun in 1997 and now running to 28 volumes, is one of the best things ever in the history of compact discs. So much amazing music, mostly from the golden years of the early '70s Ethiopian jazz/funk/groove scene, but also touching upon modern recordings and more traditional Ethiopian sounds too. Mississippi Records has been bringing some of the Ethiopiques material (back) to vinyl, having reissued a few records we first heard as part of these collections, and the Heavenly Sweetness label has done a few too.
But for folks who are new to the wonders of Ethiopian music, and perhaps are daunted by the size of the Ethiopiques series - or who maybe already have a bunch of the cds in the series but want some vinyl to spin too, how about a 'Best Of'? And this 180 gram vinyl double lp is indeed a best of, a best of the best of, really, expertly selected by the guy at France's Buda Musique who put together the series in the first place. It features tracks from such now familiar names (thanks to our exposure to the Ethiopiques series, that is) as Alemayehu Eshete, Mulatu Astatke, Getatchew Mekurya, Mahmoud Ahmed, Talahoun Gessesse, and more. 20 tracks in all, culled from the full wide range of the series pretty much. Volume 1 is heavily represented, as is vol. 24, but vols. 5, 8, 13, 14, and others have tracks on here too, all the way up to vol. 28, which we haven't even gotten in yet on cd!
Whether it's the sultry soulful crooning of Mahmoud Ahmed or the equally tight smoky grooves of Alemayehu Eshete or any of the others here who could lay claim to being 'Ethiopia's James Brown', or the ethnic-folk inflected saxophone instrumental from Getatchew Mekurya, or even the gorgeous piano piece by Ethiopian nun and composer Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou, this is all amazing stuff, such a nice package. But it's just the tip of the Ethiopiques iceberg. Clearly, a Best Of Volume 2 is in order, and then a Volume 3, and then...
We can not tell you how psyched we are to have this back in stock. We've been listening to this like crazy. We had almost forgotten how totally far out and mind blowing this collection was. Since we first carried this years ago, there have been tons of diverse and eclectic collections of musics from all over the world, psych rock compilations (Love, Peace & Poetry, Thai Beat A Go Go, etc.), the Sublime Frequencies series, and loads more, but as good as those are, they can't hold a candle to Ho!: Roady Music From Vietnam! So completely fascinating and fun, wild and so so weird! Everytime this gets played in the store, customers and employees alike have to check to see what the heck it is we're listening to!
Ho! is an amazing collection of pieces from Vietnamese street musicians. The folks that travelled to Vietnam and recorded these pieces gave themselves the tongue-in-cheek name Nuoc Mam Dirndl'n, evidence of their humor in the light of collecting the sort of music they suspect the Vietnamese government would perhaps NOT appreciate as a representation of Vietnam. Ho! ranges from raucous, percussion-heavy funeral songs played at midnight by 'young people provided with drugs' to traditional material played on the one-stringed dan bau to melodramatic love songs favored by the son of the owner of the hotel the folks stayed at. There's even a 'tasteful schmaltzy song' which is what the Vietnamese record-store saleswoman played for them when they asked for some traditional Vietnamese music! Check out the following excerpt from the fascinating liner notes, and, like us, marvel at the freshness inherent in the refusal to adopt the omniscient voice-of-authority tone taken by so many ethno-compilers: "We are stunned by the Vietnamese 'Lebensgefuhl' actually corresponding to our western idea of 'subculture': lively, anarchic, loud, dense, hearty; the people are living working, eating, sleeping, and holding their funeral ceremonies between house and street. We don't know yet if there is any subculture in Vietnam; if there is e.g. (organized) political counterforces to the one-party regime -- nobody talks about politics (with us) -- maybe there is no need for it, because everybody can do whatever he/she wants: though street trading is prohibited everybody does it -- under the hardly vigilant eyes of the law -- raids are very rare, then the stands are carried away quickly and when the mischief is gone it goes on... What matters is that people LOVE TO SING which, like in our part of the world, hide in gloomy basements and play till the ears/souls are ringing: every band in Vietnam needs a license for its existence, for every gig, every song. And because there is no basements in Vietnam, people like to use the karaoke machines in their homes, bars and special karaoke houses. Saigon's street musicians are rather despised by the yuppies of Vietnam: 'shit music.' The yuppies prefer Sting and western style in general." Highly highly highly recommended!
That it's the first double disc in the Sublime Frequencies series says something about I Remember Syria. Recorded by Mark Gergis (Monopause / Neung Phak, Porest) in 1998 and 2000, I Remember Syria is an impressive collection of sounds, interviews and music from a country that's essentially unknown to the western world. Vilified by Bush, Rumsfeld et al. There's really no access to the wonderful culture of Syria. Gergis successfully attempts to alleviate that with the two plus hours presented here. Recorded using a stereo mic. and minidisc recorder, and subsidized with excerpts from television and radio. Disc one focuses on the city of Damascus, while disc two features recordings from throughout Syria. Along with recordings of street musicians, wedding processions, prayers, mosque interiors and open air markets are brief interviews with Syrian citizens reflecting on the US Govt. and the west in general. I Remember Syria is an impressive and unique audio documentary of a country that deserves more positive exposure.
Another amazing document in the Sun City Girls' Sublime Frequencies int'l field recordings series of cds and DVDs. This is the third DVD in the series, this time focusing on Northeast Thailand, known to the Thai as Isan. Beautifully filmed and dizzingly colorful, we are first treated to a festival celebrating the birth of civilization in Isan, featuring lots of pomp and even a little magic, including an intense segment where live rabbits and chickens are hurled into the air and then caught and chased once again. Also there is an amazing segment that looks like it takes place in a school gym, featuring colorful traditional dancers backed up by guitar and xylophone, and later a very sultry performance in a gentleman's club (sonically quite remiscent of the Cambodian Rocks Southeast Asian take on Western pop music). Probably the most amazing segments are the solo performances on the Khaen, which is a set of pipes, two rows set together, with the performer covering and uncovering sound holes and producing some of the most amazing sounds you'll ever hear.
This is a recording of an annual festival held in Bengal and the performances on this recording are mostly of solo voice and male choruses. What's odd is that, though made in May of 1999, the recording sounds as though someone stuck a microphone in a tin can,
The Western obsession with India's prolific film industry, and even more so the musical numbers that drive the narratives forward, has nearly reached its saturation point. The amount of "best of Bollywood" anthologies released to date seems to almost equal India's annual theatrical output. Which all just makes it that much harder for us when we want to tell you that Indiavision is quite assuredly the best collection of Bollywood music we've come accross. See, so much has come before that such a claim will be immediately written off as so much of the usual record reviewer hyperbole. So just hear us out. First of all, what is it that makes Indian film music so great? Well, one of the things most often cited by fans is the over-the-top arrangements on some of the better numbers. The really great film music composers like Kalyanji & Anandji and Laxmikant & Pyarelal are some of the most worldly specialists in all genres of music, integrating the talents of Ennio Morricone's Western period, entire western orchestras, regional Indian classical music, the newest in electronic developments and whatever fad happened to be big in the year which they were composing (Hawaiian slide guitar, psychedelic music, soul, funk, you name it). The greatest film scores manage to somehow meld all that together in a way that just begs for some kind of clever culinary analogy (which we will spare you from in this review).
What else makes a great Bollywood song? The vocalist(s). A good song can survive without a male vocalist; they're only needed in duets with the female lead. The female vocalists in Indian film music are the equivalent of lead guitarists in the golden age of American rock and roll, and their vocal chords have the same dynamics, presence and range as most amplified guitars. Singers like Asha Bhosle (India's shining star of singers), featured heavily on this collection (and all collections) have a way of disembodying their voices from their bodies. When Bhosle sings her voice cuts through the speakers like a scalpel. Half of this phenomenon is due to her amazing lungs, the other to the insane engineering skills of the producers who record these scores who choose to overload the microphone preamps and super-saturate the magnetic tape during the loudest passages resulting in an unholy natural compression of the signal. Second only to the likes of Lee Perry in his Black Ark period of the early seventies or dub master King Tubby, the production values of Indian film music is singularly twisted in their techniques. Like the aforementioned Jamaican demigods of the multi-track, the recordists here have an arsenal of reverb, echo and compression tools that -- while not as new as the gear used in Hollywood's recording studios -- are used to their absolute functional limit. All of those essential elements of Indian film music are represented on each and every song here. But unlike many earlier collections, which focus their range on a particular era, composer, or vocalist, Indiavision draws from a wide range of sources. The tracks included here date from as far back as 1966 on up to 1984, it includes such film score heavyweights as father S.D. and son R.D. Burman, Laxmikant & Pyarelal, Kalyanji & Anandji and Bappi Lahiri. The broad time spanned by the tracks makes this collection as a whole more varied and easy on the ears. There's also quite a good variety of both slow, sultry numbers and completely batty comical ones. Some, like the title music for "The Burning Train" (listed as an instrumental), which features gruff female vocals like those of Yma Sumac, or the "Cabaret Dance Music" from the film "Dharmatma" with its maniacal laughter are completely off the wall. Others, like "Yashomati Maiya Se Bole Nandala" -- a deadly serious romantic number with crooned vocals by Lata Mangeshkar -- and "Come Closer" -- a mellow and sincere funk/soul song sung by Salma Agha -- are beautiful respites from the cornball antics which are more often the songs of choice for Bollywood anthologies. Comes with a 30 page, full color booklet with plentiful liner notes in both French and English. Highly recommended!
Yay, here's the 3rd vinyl release from Sham Palace, the internationally-minded reissues label run by our pal Mark Gergis (Neung Phak, Porest, Mono Pause) as sort of an adjunct to the other "world music" label he's involved with, the celebrated Sublime Frequencies. We're all for it, Sham Palace just makes it like Sublime Frequencies releases are more, uh, frequent. The previous two offerings from Sham Palace were devoted to Middle Eastern "Dabke" music, one a record from aQ fave Omar Souleyman and the other a comp. But for this lp, something different, from a different (but still Islamic) part of the world. Mark has compiled just what the subtitle says: Pan-Indonesian Pop, Folk, Instrumentals & Children's Songs, 1970s-1980s. It's a diverse selection, the dozen tracks here variously representing different genres as well as coming from different islands - Java and Sumatra - in the Indonesian archipelago. But all, to some degree or other, hybridize both traditional Indonesian musics and Western rock/pop styles. There's folk-rock, and funk, and Bollywood inspired pop, and child singers, and plenty of synth. And all the tracks are pretty darn great - which of course is precisely what we'd expect from this label & compiler. So, highly recommended.
Vinyl-only, limited to 1000 copies!
Sometimes, in the midst of all the excitement we feel at the release of a new blippy cutting-edge electronica disc, or the next undiscovered indie-rock pop gem, we lose sight of the fact that much of the best music made has nothing to do with computers or hip scenes. Instead, it's made by musicians you've never heard of who are unlikely to ever grace the cover of The Wire or Magnet. Especially, musicians in the Third World, who have a contemporary, living, often innovative relationship with the musical traditions of their communities. People who do what they do with a great deal of feeli guitar music that we've ever celebrated on this AQ-list. We're all quite taken with it, and thus chose to make it Record of the Month. Indeed, the disc's final track, a song called "Fajar Di Atas Awan" written by Irwansyah Harahap, is assuredly the most gorgeous seven minutes of gentle guitar folk-drone and female vocals that we've been blessed to hear, ever.
The guitar, though rarely mentioned by ethnomusicologists, has been a part of Indonesian music ever since the Portuguese introduced it to the region back in the 16th century. Over the years it has made its way into various musical idioms and been paramount in the formation of others. At times used to imitate traditional instruments such as the Kecapi (a Sundanese zither), or, conversely, to play the bizarre, Indian film music styled electric pop of modern Dangdut (see Volume 2 in this series, "Indonesian Popular Music"), guitars (or "home-made instruments resembling guitars") have had a rich history in Indonesia. Featuring primarily solo guitar and vocal accompaniment from Sumatra, Java, Sumba, Timor and Sulawesi, this cd, with its very informative 32 page (!) booklet, is yet another testament to Yampolsky's dedication to documenting the multi-faceted musical world of Indonesia, in all its riches and wonder.
With twenty volumes in the series, we can't be too sad that this is the last, as it's certain that even picking up only this (a good start) and a few of the others would keep the adventurous music fan thrilled for a long while, and perhaps hook them on a whole new realm of sounds. The other two most recent installments are Volume 18, "Sulawesi: Festivals, Funerals, And Work", ranging from sorrowful flute pieces to drum and vocal based harvest celebrations, and Volume 19, "Music of Maluku: Halmahera, Buru, Kei", a variety of musics from the Molucca Islands, including music from a Sufi-derived ritual that involved men stabbing themselves with iron awls! Like the rest of the series, both too are recommended and are also 15.98 a piece.
Wow, what an amazing compilation! Really, how could it be anything but awesome with a title like International Sad Hits?! We sure do love us some sad songs, the sadder the better. It's always fascinating to observe how different performers and composers around the world turn their sadness into sound. And in turn, how those sounds effect us as listeners.
This collection was assembled by Damon and Naomi -- a duo who certainly know a thing or two about sad songs. It features four artists whom D&N had heard while touring 'round the world. The duo have most certainly stumbled on some seriously lovely sad sounds, and now the rest of us can wallow in them too. Hailing from Turkey, Korea and Japan these artists echo a somber '60s folk aesthetic (a la Tim Buckley or Bob Dylan), or in fact are obscurities from the '60s themselves. Actually the Japanese contingent here (avant-folk veterans Kazuki Tomokawa and Kan Mikami, who also performs in Vajra with Keiji Haino) we at aQ and many of our customers are plenty familiar with and fond of already... Though they and the others (Turkey's Fikret Kizilok and Korea's Kim Doo Soo) may not be household names in the USA, and might only be known to a handful of adventurous music lovers, hopefully this comp will expose their amazing music to at least a few more lovers of melancholy folk!
Totally fascinating liner notes too, by Damon and Naomi as well as Allan Cummings. A gorgeous melancholy collection put together with much thought and love. So great!
At last reissued, which is cool, 'cause we meant to write about this a few years ago but never did. This is a compilation of traditional Greenlandic music, mostly voices and drums. These songs in their multitude are shamanic or sad, heartfelt or humorous, providing an intimate sonic glimpse into a remote culture. Remote not just geographically but temporally as well, as these tracks were collected by ethnomusicologists over the past century, some taken from wax-cylinder recordings made as far back as 1905! Charm-songs, singing games, duel-songs, drum-dancing, and other unique Greenlandic folk forms are documented. At least one song here required the singer to put a stick crosswise in his mouth, to distort both his face and his voice, for play-acting purposes. Strange stuff indeed! Meanwhile, some other tracks with female vocals remind us, bizarrely enough, of indie rock sister act Cocorosie. The wealth of musical material here -- 55 tracks! -- is matched by the detailed 24 page cd booklet.
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
It seems like most Mississippi Records obsessives are also fans of the Sun City Girls' Sublime Frequencies label, which makes perfect sense, they both seem to have a somewhat similar aesthetic, both focus on unheard gems, and curate some of the best compilations we've ever heard. Mississippi tends to focus on blues and country and gospel, while Sublime Frequencies looks further out, focusing on world music from Africa and Asia and beyond, but this record right here, the latest on Mississippi, might be the perfect Sublime Frequencies / Mississippi crossover, in fact, listening to this now, it's hard to believe it's not actually on Sublime Frequencies.
A fantastic collection of recordings of guitar music from West Africa (Senegal and Mali) focusing on various bands who are essentially unknown outside of Africa, but are quite popular in their villages, and are called upon often to play parties, celebrations, political events, their sound most likely immediately recognizable to fans of Group Bombino, Tinariwen and Group Inerane, which we'd imagine most aQ customers are.
That sound is a totally distinctive African folk music, captured live in various settings, houses, backyards, town squares, parties, you can hear people talking, birds chirping, kids laughing, random conversations, it all just adds to the sound, warm and inviting, emotional and so melodic, heavy on the acoustic guitars, lots of handclaps and foot stomps, the guitar playing is quite percussive too, a sort of low slung twang flecked desert blues, alternatingly moody and melancholy, effusive and festive, sometimes the sounds are distinctly Western, other times they're reminiscent of traditional African music, more often they're a hybrid of the two. Most of the groups here are made up of just acoustic guitars and vocals, but the sounds and songs they create are so lush and layered, so fantastically evocative, and just so totally beautiful.
Fans of all things Sublime Frequencies and Mississippi will definitely dig this, and it's absolutely essential listening for folks who love those Sublime Frequencies' Guitars From Agadez records...
The packaging is fantastic, super thick full color jacket, with a massive full color booklet, featuring tons of photos and liner notes, as well as plenty of history of the region and the musicians.
Having travelled to Indonesia in 2008, the sound artist Jesse Paul Miller (who also does time as a member of the Factums and has dabbled on the recordings of A Frames, Climax Golden Twins, and the Sun City Girls) collected a wealth of amazing recordings of the various street musicians throughout Java. Given his proximity to Sublime Frequencies, we can't help wonder why this didn't get released through that increasingly venerable label. No matter, Miller offers a great mix of folk musics that express the vast cultural patchwork of Javanese music beyond the principle exports of gamelan and dangdut. That said, one of the first tracks that Miller presents is from a trio of street musicians on a homemade gamelan offering a spirited rhythmic backdrop for a trained monkey who was delighting a group of squealing children. Another track features a krontjong troupe serenading passengers at the train station with a double timed acoustic guitar strum set to a rather maudlin croon. One of the highlights of the album comes from another island Lompok, which is home to an ensemble called Sakhabad, who present an urgent folk number that could easily be one of those acoustic guitar tracks that the Sun City Girls would have appropriated on 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda. The vocalist even sounds a lot like Alan Bishop crossed with Jello Biafra (this is meant in the best possible way, mind you!). Miller concludes the album with a lengthy series of Islamic calls to worship, one from the break of dawn and another from the end of the day. There's only 50 of these in circulation, and they certainly won't last long.
Another winner for the Nonesuch Explorer Series. Originally released in 1976, this entry focuses on the restrained yet dulcet tones of the shakuhachi, a five holed bamboo flute that has been used as an accompaniment for study and meditation in Japanese culture for well over a millennium. These five live performances by master flautist Kohachiro Miyata of the Ensemble Nipponia display a graceful yet glacial spareness that focus on subtle but revelatory moments of drama and tension rather than lyrical or melodic songforms. Akin to a philosophical reading of time moving through nature, like the sound of wind through reeds, or a ripple across a surface of water, this is music to slow our lives down and be ever blissfully aware of the eternal present moment in front of us.
