Years ago, we were introduced to the genius of the "James Brown of Afrobeat", Fela Ransome Kuti through a massive cd reissue campaign of his '70s albums, many with 2 albums on one cd. While we never managed to review any of them for the website, our three favorites releases he made with his band Africa 70 (Live! With Ginger Baker, from 1971, and Expensive Shit and He Miss Road, both from '75) have just been reissued on lp and they are definitively some of the best and essential Afrobeat we've ever heard.
Expensive Shit and He Miss Road were originally reissued on one cd (still available) collecting the five sprawling tracks of both albums together. But the two tracks from Expensive Shit, in particular, were some of the most politically charged grooves recorded. A little background: Africa 70, a band consisting of two large choruses (male and female) around a core of over a half-dozen musicians on horns, guitars, and percussion from the world over, was formed in the wake of a visit to Los Angeles and Kuti's exposure to the Black Panther movement. Changing his musical focus from love songs to social justice, he returned to Nigeria where he set up a commune like residence where his band could record and play and declared it independent of the Nigerian government. Singing in pidgen English so as to connect with the diverse populations of Africa and practicing Yoruba religion, as his music grew in popularity, he was subject to regular injustices by the government and military including illegal searches and seizures, travel restrictions and beatings.
Expensive Shit refers to a legendary incident where soldiers tried to plant a joint on Kuti, which he managed to eat, prompting the soldiers to take him in custody and wait until he shat out the evidence. Legend has it, he was eventually freed after he was able to swap his feces for another prisoner's and thus the police had nothing on him. But the song and the B side, "Water No Get Enemy" in their epic lengths and ecstatic rhythms also serve as a call and response indictment of authoritative corruption and the counterproductive means in which governments wield power over its citizens.
He Miss Road runs along a more communal trajectory across three tracks, but the sound is moodier and more hypnotic. Produced by Ginger Baker, who contributed and recorded regularly with Kuti throughout the 70's when Baker moved to Nigeria from England after the breakup of Cream and Blind Faith. The grooves are longer, jazzier and at the same time more abstract, punctuated by swelling organ riffs and Tony Allen's full-burn percussive rhythms.
Live! with Ginger Baker is a scorcher of a set with Ginger Baker as guest drummer alongside regular drummer Tony Allen and since it was recorded earlier than the others, it has a tighter feel. You really feel/hear the James Brown comparison on this one. All three pretty damn essential!!
New album from the son of Fela Kuti -- the king himself -- and I'm sure it's just as hard not to draw comparisons to his father as it is for him to live in his shadow, but that's the way it is. Femi's got a big studio budget, uses all the appropriate "world
The story of how this record came to be is almost impossible to believe, yet Michael Gira (Angels of Light / Swans) seems like a reliable enough source that it could in fact be true. Beginning sometime last year, Gira started receiving a series of arcane
The one qualm with the album is on how the record ends. It has been a longstanding belief of mine that Sonic Youth's "Daydream Nation" should have ended with the graceful haze of "Hyperstation" and done away with the unnecessary exclamation of "Eliminator, Jr." Similarly, Larsen ends "Rever" badly, as a beautifully repetitive groove simply cuts out, making you wonder if California is returning to the days of rolling blackouts. If only every record had one thing wrong with it instead of eighty-eleven problems, and in spite of that one misgiving, this is one of the best records we have heard in quite a while.
A double-cd release of The Last Poets' first two albums! Their 1970 self-titled debut broke out and made its own scene, forging a way for hip hop with politically charged, African-American enlightenments in syncopated rhythm. Fans of Sun Ra will notice similarities in vocal stylings, emotion and lyrical content, though in The Last Poets this treatment is much more fierce and raw than mystical and cool. 1971's This Is Madness got them a spot on President Nixon's Counter-Intelligence Programming lists. These street poets' use of graphic language (including the 'N' word used, oh, about five million times) pounds out their frustrations in the racial and social state of the country and at the time helped to extend their messages to a broader audience by way of its pure and utter rawness. Nicely packaged in the albums' original artwork, these albums are fierce documents of the group's seminal contribution to that time and still stir up some of the same emotions today.
Something so nice about the tradition of soul singers covering songs by an impressively wide array of artists, and usually with such strong conviction and charisma. In the '70s Tina Turner had this amazing ability to transform Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin songs and make them her own. Aretha could always breath new life into old songs too. Now, enter the amazing voice of Bettye LaVette. A survivor of the Detroit soul scene of the 1960's, she never really had any huge hits but that never stopped her from carrying on and using her strong powerful voice to make a handful of soulful records over the last several decades. On this outing she tackles songs by the likes of Lucinda Williams, Johnny Cash, Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, etc. In using stripped down instrumentation or even entirely acapella (as on her stunning version of Sinead O'Connor's "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got"), LaVette finds the grit and guts of every song she covers. We love the times when her voice sounds a lot like that other Betty we love so much (Betty Davis!), and just like Davis when words come out of LaVette's mouth they hit you hard, with passion and presence.
An icon of the Northern Soul scene, Bettye Lavette has been making music since she was a teenager in the early '60s. Much like Candi Staton, her career has taken many twists and turns over the decades. Many had thought she had vanished until she hit the scene again a few years back with her debut on Anti, a covers record called I've Got My Own Hell To Raise that most definitely demonstrated her dynamic range and undying musical passion. The Scene of The Crime finds her recruiting gritty Southern rockers the Drive By Truckers as her backup band along with legendary Spooner Oldham on Wurlitzer and piano. It's a bleak and raw outing that's as much blues and gospel as it is soul and country. There's an undercurrent of sorrow and despair much like Staton's most recent album, His Hands. After all these years, Lavette's honest delivery and strong presence are still very much intact.
These mysterious funk nomads are back for round two of collaborations, after last years superb Clutch Of The Tiger. Multi-instrumentalists Shawn Lee (who has lately taken to being photographed wearing a tiger mask) and possibly imaginary character, Clutchy Hopkins, expand on the organic desert funk they are known for, but add a whole lot more to their sonic arsenal, including orchestral elements, strings, Mellotron, vibes, sitars and gongs, sounding often like a thrilling lost seventies soundtrack. Definitely a chill vibe if somewhat darker than their usually sunny jams. The track "Root Trees", features an appearance by UK soul group the Superimposers. If the schtick of their mysterious identities has long worn off, the quality of the music they make is still pretty solid!
Another cryptically groovy release from the mysterious Clutchy Hopkins. This time a long distance tape exchange collaboration between Hopkins and multi-instrumentalist and troubadour Shawn Lee. We're not sure what Lee's input is here, because this sounds just like the other Clutchy releases, with funky cinematic organ and drum breaks augmented by jazz guitars and flutes. Reminds us of Money Marks early releases as well as his work with the Beastie Boys, who funny enough are among the latest folks rumored to be the actual Clutchy Hopkins. Hmmmmmm......
Awesome collection of many of the jams Larry Levan would play (and many he mixed) at the legendary garage in the heyday of the New York disco scene. Everyone from Talking Heads to Gwen Gutrhie, Teen Gardner to Patrice Rushen. Carefree, groovin and so much fun!
Don't know why it should be any different for this genre than for any other, but it strikes us that it's gotta take some major cojones to tackle the badass stylings of Stax! That said, L.L.A.W.M. do so, and they do it admirably well. These folks clearly have a genuine gritty love of old soul music. These days every style of music has made its way into both the indie and mainstream circuits, hasn't it? Guess it was only time before this goldmine was tapped. Good times.
Here comes another one from the vaults displaying Phil Spector's production glory. But before we go giving Spector all the credit, there is no doubt that Darlene Love is one of the greatest singers of all time! Just ask folks like Sam Cooke, Dionne Warwick, Gene Autry, The Beach Boys, and Aretha Franklin who all employed her at one point for her vocal prowess. A founding member of The Blossoms, she would then meet Phil Spector in 1962. He was so in love with her voice that he even released some songs he recorded with her under The Crystals moniker, since he owned the name, even though none of the actual members of The Crystals were on the record. This collection brings remastered versions of seventeen of her classic tracks together on one disc, many of which could only be found on different compilations until now. Spector's wall of sound production only adds to the overall glory and power of Love's voice. Pop perfection!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
For the life of us, we can not understand why this record didn't become a huge hit when it came out originally in 1968. It always seems so arbitrary as far as to which artists or records get hugely popular and which fall through the cracks into obscurity. Luckily, Water knew what was what, and is giving this true soul classic another shot!
Barbara Lynn possessed not only one of those totally melty soulful voices, but she was also quite an accomplished (left-handed) guitar player. Bittersweet and heart wrenching, Lynn's voice just nails every emotion and conveys so much passion and pathos, we're reminded a lot of Irma Thomas, and many of the more uptempo exquisitely crafted tracks here make us think of The Supremes as well. And heck, somewhere between Irma Thomas and The Supremes is a pretty damn great place to be, and Here is Barbara Lynn is a damn great record. Any fan of the golden age of soul absolutely needs this as it's given our ears such a great and lasting ride. Highly recommended!
There is little doubt that the band behind James Brown from the late sixties to the mid seventies was just about the tightest unit around. Of course, Brown's habit of fining his players for missing beats would keep any band in check. But the band wasn't dubbed The JB's until after a legendary moment where most of Brown's band, including key figures Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, and Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis, up and quit on him. Brown, in a pinch, quickly grabbed a young Cincinnati-based backing band, The Pacemakers, which included a young Bootsy Collins before he joined Funkadelic. With a new band, a new decade and a new sound, Brown pretty much singlehandedly created funk music, and the recently defected Wesley, Parker, and Ellis quickly returned to the fold. The JB's went under many different names and line-ups, including Fred Wesley and the JB's, Maceo and The Macks, Fred Wesley and The New JB's. The Last Word, and The First Family, but the core personnel were more or less the same except for the Collins brothers who were only on the first JB's 1970 lp Food For Thought which contained the hits "Pass The Peas" and "Gimme Some More". All of their records up until 1974 are solid funk staples with hits "Doing It To Death", "Same Beat", and "If You Don't Get It Right The First Time, Back It Up and Try It Again, Party" that would be endlessly sampled in hip hop for decades to come. Good to have these on vinyl again! Funk essentials!
Reissue of this classic soul/funk album. Escaping from under the thumb of Soul Brother No. 1, Mr. James Brown (a genius, but a tyrant), tenor saxophonist Maceo Parker formed a new group of equally fed-up ex-James Brown sidemen, including trumpeter Richard
Reissue of this classic soul/funk album. Escaping from under the thumb of Soul Brother No. 1, Mr. James Brown (a genius, but a tyrant), tenor saxophonist Maceo Parker formed a new group of equally fed-up ex-James Brown sidemen, including trumpeter Richard "Kush" Griffith, guitarist Jimmy "Chank" Nolen, and Maceo's drummer brother Melvin Parker. Of course, many of this crew, even Maceo, would be back with Brown within a few years, joining up with his equally incredible new band, The JB's... but briefly, anyway, All The King's Men struck out on their own, debuting with this disc in 1970. It wasn't a commerical success (some say 'cause a revengeful James Brown actually paid disc jockeys NOT to play it), but it is a fine slice of funk by some of the best in the business! Essential for any funkateer's collection.
Listening to all these great mixes Madlib has been self releasing lately is sort of like the audio equivalent of reading Wax Poetics, one of our favorite magazines. You pretty much just get totally schooled in different eras of soul, funk, and jazz. This time out Madlib takes us on an upbeat adventure in the early '80s landscape of post-disco, boogie delights. Sounds that really bridged the gap between the disco era and electro-funk. In fact we could see folks like Dam-Funk and Hot Chip blasting this backstage at their shows and at after-hours parties 'til the break of dawn. All kinds of fun!
Every installment in Luaka Bop's World Psychedelia series has been an across the board aQ favorite. From Os Mutantes, Shuggie Otis, the great African psych compilation, Love's A Real Thing, and now we have this great introduction to the post-Tropicalia funk of the great Tim Maia.
But the music is just one part of the story, the man's life is filled with interesting twists and turns including multiple marriages, prison sentences and an avid role in a UFO-obsessed religious cult, all of which have been the subject of a best-selling biography, tv show and hit musical in Brazil. How could we not love this?!
Combining a unique twist on Brazilian popular music along with copious American soul influences have made Maia's seventies recordings long sought after and excepting a couple of pricey imports, we have never been able to find any substantial release of his early musical output. After a decade of legal wrangling and coinciding with what would have been Maia's seventieth birthday (he died in 1998 of a heart attack while performing onstage), it's great to see this 15 track compilation realized and we're loving it more with each listen.
Mixing the Latino funk of Mexican-American groups like Malo and El Chicano, the cool urban sophistication of Steely Dan (yes, we went there, and we're not apologizing!) and the soulful vocals of Jorge Ben and Gilberto Gil. Maia's music has a fervent infectious energy that is totally engaging and sexy. He's often been compared to Barry White in the fact his music celebrates love over politics, but really Maia's music made the joyous acceptance of love and life a political statement and has long endeared him to legions of fans worldwide.
The cd is housed in a mini-hardbound cd-sized book, the lp in a deluxe full color gatefold, both with extensive notes and details of his extraordinary life. And this compilation comes of course, highly recommended!
This is some major left of center space funk. Mandre had a brief moment on Motown but most of his music was released on his own private press label, which made finding any of his records nearly impossible. Wearing space helmets and adopting a mysterious alter-ego long before folks like Daft Punk, Mandre really was a pioneer of electronic funk. Originally released in 1980, 4 starts off with a couple of the most majestic and shimmering waves of space disco we've ever heard. The second half of the record veers way more into full on funk territory, still keeping a warped vibe but sometimes the vocals make it a bit hokey sounding. We wanted to be totally in love with this, and we do totally dig the first few tracks for sure, but not all of the tracks are as awesome as those two jams. No doubt folks like Dam-Funk have been hip to Mandre for years. Still a total must have for rare groove and electro-funk fiends.
The genius behind Mantronix is back with kick-ass beats and breaks--bringing together the disjointed electro he helped pioneer with the sonds of new school hip-hop and electronica.
Super groovy, raw Afro-funk-fuzz album reissued! The label has applied a lot of hyperbole to this release ("toughest and most sought-after African funk record of them all") but since that label is Academy/Voodoo Funk, responsible for such killer reissues as Ofege and The Psychedelic Aliens, we're inclined to believe 'em... and our ears, which tell us that this IS pretty darn awesome and gritty. Recorded in 1976, and originally released on Ghana's Gapophone Records, This Is Marijata features 4 tracks recorded live in the studio, which must have been a sweaty, sweaty place. The core trio of Kofi "Electric" Addison (drums), Bob Fischian (organ), and Nat Osmanu (guitar), plus additional "hand picked" musicians, play a sort of totally tweaked and frantic take on your basic James Brown/JB's style jams, with horny horns and hoarse, crazed screams. That's three of the tracks, anyway, with one other ("I Walk Alone") being more of a soulful ballad, but a badass one.
Vinyl already sold out at the label. Compact disc issue forthcoming, as is a reissue of Marijata's other album, Pat Thomas Introduces Marijata.
Female Rick James proteges the Mary Jane Girls get the "20th Century Masters The Millenium Collection" best-of treatment with this disc, featuring hits like "In My House", "Candy Man", "All Night Long" and more, all digitally remastered (whatever) long versions. Sure it's super dated mid-'80s disco-funk-pop. But without the Mary Jane Girls, would we have today's girl groups like
We'd never normally accuse the Finders Keepers Label of being slow on the draw, having turned us on to so much stuff we wouldn't know about otherwise. But we thought it a bit odd that they just released this Jean-Pierre Massiera compilation so soon after the Mucho Gusto label released the two incredible Psychoses compilations (Discoids and Freakoids) showcasing the eccentric prog, pop and disco productions of this incredible French mad genius. Yet while there is some crossover (six songs here are also on the Freakoids comp; three are also on Discoids), there is about half of Midnight Massiera that's from other outfits not featured on those two previous comps. Some we've heard of (Les Maledictus Sound, who contribute two tracks), others we've heard of but didn't realize Massiera was involved in their production (Chico Magnetic Band and Chris Gallbert, the same track featured on the awesome earlier Mucho Gusto comp, Total Freak Out!), and finally there are a few groups totally new to us: the spaghetti western Moog weirdness of S.E.M. Studios; the one and only Jesus, who contributes two tracks - one loungey freak beat, the other melancholy folk; a percussive fuzz interlude by Atlantide, and the cinematic psych-folk of Afterlife. Visitors, Hermans Rocket, Human Egg, Basile (with two tracks) Les Chats, Les Monegasques, The Pyranhas, and The Starlights make repeat appearances. Folks who already have the two previous compilations (plus the Les Maledictus Sound, Visitors, and Chico Magnetic Band albums, as well as the Total Freak Out compilation), may not want to shell out more for this. But for a one-stop Massiera compilation, this is very wide ranging and well curated, featuring most of the best of the Mucho Gusto compilations, as well as our favorite tracks from Les Maledictus Sound. If you haven't already purchased any of the previous Massiera related releases available, and need a really good introduction, this one will do quite nicely!
It's not everyday you hear samples of Hitler speeches and Nazi Marches over a pulsating glammy space groove next to an even wackier freaked out French version of Napoleon XIV's "They're Coming To Take Me Away". Throw in some warped 60's beat pop, zany space prog and the weirdest but most sublimely cosmic disco tracks you have never heard, and you are somewhat closer to wrapping your head around the skewed production genius of Jean-Pierre Massiera. Starting his career in the south of France and relocating to Montreal in the seventies, Massiera, best known for Les Maledictus Sound, a holy-grail record for collectors of sixties psyche-exotica freakiness has continued to explore for the past 40 years all manner of spacey and unhinged pop and dance grooves through a myriad of single-based projects, the best of collected on these two volumes. Like a surrealist Serge Gainsbourg mixed with Gong, Cerrone and Zolar X, Massiera never concerned himself with record industry pressures or making fame or fortune off his production efforts but instead used the studio to explore his love of surrealism, off-beat humor and some coke-addled (we presume) cosmic fantasy. Each record comes with a code to download mp3's and a bonus track.
The Discoid volume begins with Sex Conventions' "Toi Qui Reve de Baisers", a funky groover that owes much of its success to Dennis Coffey's "Scorpio" as they share similar riffs and breaks. Native American, and Brazilian rhythms come through on tracks by Herman's Rocket (who were also on the first volume) and Brasa Brasil & Helena. While Human Egg gives us "Onomatopaiea", a hypnotic vocal-only rhythm chant and the cosmic disco epic "Love Like This" that any DJ with a penchant for Italo or electro-funk should get this volume for that track alone! Of course The Starlights "Mao Mao" along with tracks by Mickey and Joyce and Venus Gang also make this essential for crate diggers and beatheads and freaky music collectors of all types. Psychoses Indeed!
Awfully hard to find any information about this unique afro-funk pioneer. The first track on the album "Bananaticoco" we had heard before when we got the popular "Club Africa 2" compilation in a year ago, but a search on google under Max B's (Max Boulois) name
Finally available on vinyl!
Damn. Not only was this here disc cooked up by a badass, totally STONED sounding R&B infused greasy garage rock n' roll band from Deeeetroit, featuring members of heavy hitters like the Black Keys (guitarist Dan Auerbach), Dirtbombs (bassist Troy Gregory), Outrageous Cherry (guitarist Matthew Smith), and the Sights (drummer Dave Shettler) but check the top billing - there's a bona fide, veteran black soul singer fronting this combo, maybe you've heard of him, maybe you haven't, but he was the real deal, Nathaniel Mayer. He had his first hit single, "Village Of Love", in the Top 40 back in 1962. We've had (but haven't yet reviewed) a pretty cool anthology of his '60s stuff, I Want Love And Affection, Not The House Of Correction. But that certainly didn't prepare us for this. Don't call it a comeback, this is something else altogether. Ol' Mayer didn't sound like this back in the sixties. We mean, yeah, this IS retro, but also totally something that could only be made now, the unlikely meeting of a versatile, veteran voice and young 'uns who grew up worshipping the Stoogesy rock action, who bring a fresh dose of fuzz and loose, laidback druggy psych to the proceedings that's pretty special.
Even more special though, is Mayer's marvelously ragged, hoarse voice. Weary and burnished with time - you can hear every one of his 64 years. Yet he's also totally in command of it, butter smooth one moment, croakingly gruff the next, belting out the James Brown style "owwwws!" like he coined the phrase. Yeah, the man can sing. And lyrically, he's all about sex and desire. Beggin' his girl. "Why Don't You Give It To Me?" Sometimes, "Doin' It" (which is a nearly 9-minute, wasted wild wahwah'd jam). In keeping with Mayer's phlegmy voice, the whole album is wrapped in a lo-fi murk, adding to the battered, bluesy, psychedelic mood. One that we might compare to some of the more soulful obscurities on that ol' Chains And Black Exhaust comp. The 1995 solo album by LSD casualty and former Funkadelic, Tawl Ross comes to mind as well.
And we'll remind you ('cause you DO read his site, right?) that this was Julian Cope's Head Heritage Record of the Month back in May.
Sadly, Mayer has passed away since this album first came out (it's a 2007 release, now here on vinyl), but there's a pretty cool posthumous album called Why Won't You Let Me Be Black that's just been released as well that we'll be reviewing soon on an upcoming list.
Damn. Not only was this here disc cooked up by a badass, totally STONED sounding R&B infused greasy garage rock n' roll band from Deeeetroit, featuring members of heavy hitters like the Black Keys (guitarist Dan Auerbach), Dirtbombs (bassist Troy Gregory), Outrageous Cherry (guitarist Matthew Smith), and the Sights (drummer Dave Shettler) but check the top billing - there's a bona fide, veteran black soul singer fronting this combo, maybe you've heard of him, maybe you haven't, but he's the real deal, Nathaniel Mayer. He had his first hit single, "Village Of Love", in the Top 40 back in 1962. We've had (but haven't yet reviewed) a pretty cool anthology of his '60s stuff, I Want Love And Affection, Not The House Of Correction. But we that certainly didn't prepare us for this. Don't call it a comeback, this is something else altogether. Ol' Mayer didn't sound like this back in the sixties. We mean, yeah, this IS retro, but also totally something that could only be made now, the unlikely meeting of a versatile, veteran voice and young 'uns who grew up worshipping the Stoogesy rock action, who bring a fresh dose of fuzz and loose, laidback druggy psych to the proceedings that's pretty special.
Even more special though, is Mayer's marvelously ragged, hoarse voice. Weary and burnished with time - you can hear every one of his 64 years. Yet he's also totally in command of it, butter smooth one moment, croakingly gruff the next, belting out the James Brown style "owwwws!" like he coined the phrase. Yeah, the man can sing. And lyrically, he's all about sex and desire. Beggin' his girl. "Why Don't You Give It To Me?" Sometimes, "Doin' It" (which is a nearly 9-minute, wasted wild wahwah'd jam). In keeping with Mayer's phlegmy voice, the whole album is wrapped in a lo-fi murk, adding to the battered, bluesy, psychedelic mood. One that we might compare to some of the more soulful obscurities on that ol' Chains And Black Exhaust comp. The 1995 solo album by LSD casualty and former Funkadelic, Tawl Ross comes to mind as well.
And we'll remind you ('cause you DO read his site, right?) that this was Julian Cope's Head Heritage Record of the Month back in May. This is actually a 2007 release (hey better to list it now than never) so maybe there'll be another one soon from Mayer and the boys, but we don't really know, since it was reported Mayer suffered a stroke earlier this year. Hope he's doing ok.
A while back, Alive Records released Why Don't You Give It To Me?, a pretty darn badass slab of psychedelic R&B garage funk fronted by Detroit soul singing sixties legend Nathaniel Mayer. It was the man's "comeback album" of sorts, and definitely helped introduce him to a new generation of fans. The combination of his charismatic, age-burnished voice with the super stoned and sometimes Stoogesy jamming of his much younger band (featuring members of such acts as the Black Keys and the Dirtbombs) was pretty darn killer. Sadly, Mayer suffered a stroke last year and eventually passed away at the not so ripe old age of 64. But it's good to know that up until then, he was pretty darn active, doin' his music, touring and recording and finding an eager audience. We're also now glad to learn that a lot more was recorded at the sessions that produced Why Don't You Give It To Me? than could fit on that one record, and now here's a posthumous second volume of modern day shack shaking Nathaniel Mayer soul singing rockin' and rollin' action! If you liked WDYGITM? then you'll also dig WWYLMBB? It consists of eight tracks, six electric numbers from those sessions plus two "unplugged" radio performances full of bluesy strum. The disc starts off surprisingly mellow, with the slow jam "Dreams Come True", Mayer's ragged voice to the fore. A voice that couldn't come from a younger man, that's for sure, but is also still quite supple and expressive. Pretty soon thereafter the fuzz kicks in, this disc featuring its share of thwomping electric muzz, that sort of thing reaching its zenith perhaps on the penultimate track "The Puddle", wherein Mayer sings about just how high he is. Again, we're sad that Mr. Mayer is no longer with us, but happy that these recordings (and maybe more to come) exist to allow us to enjoy his raw soul talent eternally (or, at least for our lifetimes).
If you don't own this, for some crazy reason, hopefully this review will convince you to pick it up RIGHT NOW! This is one of the most amazing, soulful, emotionally rich, politically charged, well crafted and musically dynamic albums of all time! His first solo record after leaving The Impressions, simply titled Curtis, was released in 1970 and it still blows us away and gives us chills all these years later.
Mayfield is a true musical genius, not only blessed with one of the greatest voices of all time but also such an incredible songwriter and arranger. The songs on Curtis are filled with lush instrumentation, swirling strings, soulful horns, and deep hitting percussion. And the songs are bold and brave, inspired by the Civil Rights movement and not afraid to speak out against the injustices (still) plaguing this country. But what makes this album so fucking special is that it managed to be both strong and breezy, charged and mellow, poignant and chilling.
We've been playing this in the store so much lately and everytime, customers always know that it's Curtis Mayfield but they usually assume it's a greatest hits collection and are stunned to find out it's an actual album. It's one of those rare albums packed with songs that could have been the best single ever ("Move On Up", "Give It Up", "We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue" are all on this album!) and what's amazing is that the other songs on the record are just as good and maybe even better! It's not surprising that this record has been sampled by loads of folks including EPMD, NWA, Tupac, and Pete Rock, just to name a few. This Rhino reissue adds nine bonus tracks which are all worth having. This is one of those truly special albums that we could, and have listened to hundreds of times, and yet never get sick of, always feeling something and taking something away from the album with each repeated listen. Music for the spirit and soul. A true masterpiece!
An off-kilter hard-hitting soul masterpiece, Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse was the cap to a strange topsy turvy career. Starting off in the early sixties with suave soul-pop hits like "A Hundred Pounds of Clay" and "Tower of Strength", McDaniels became more successful as a song-writer than a singer, with his songs taking on a more conscious and political vibe. While he did write the RnB hit, "Feel Like Making Love" for Roberta Flack, he also wrote the heavy groover, "Compared To What" for Les McCann and Eddie Harris which became a hit for the black protest movement. Signing to the Atlantic Label in the seventies, McDaniels' recorded two of the perhaps most uncompromising political soul records, Outlaw in 1970 and Headless Heroes in 1971. Of the two, Headless Heroes is the one we keep coming back to, because what makes it most unique is its unusual form. Combining elements of jazz, funk, and rare groove, with some acid-psych and folk thrown into the mix, the result is a heady and allegorical rallying cry against social injustice through a veil of nightmarish imagery and narcotic sounds. While not a hit upon its initial release, it has grown in influence over the years especially in the nineties, when much of this record was sampled in hip-hop circles. Much tougher in form than similarly themed records by Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, McDaniels' records were harder to market because of their rather scathing views of powerless humanity on the brink of depravity. This is really what's going on!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Now back again on Vinyl!
With all the DJs out there diggin' deep, trying to one-up one another with some unknown killer dancefloor fodder, some intriguing discoveries have been made, and as a result we've seen more and more rare funk LPs get reissued for all to enjoy. Such is the case with this record by Ohio-based funksters Machelle McNeal and Wilbur Niles, originally released to general obscurity in 1979. I'm sure it will sell many more copies now than then, with the Chocolate Industries stamp of approval. And such tracks as "Punk Funk" and "Hypertension" sure have a tight, crisp energy that still sounds fresh -- these guys could even teach the likes of The Rapture or Tussle a groove or two. Right out of the gate, we're reminded of something off of that that Shuggie Otis album... It's synthy, Mooged funk with a jazz-fusiony, disco-era gloss. If you like your funk raw, look elsewhere -- this is smoove but so so tight. It's definitely got that cheesy-but-hip TV show soundtrack vibe, you can imagine these tracks accompanying the action on some rad '70s police drama. Done up in nice new packaging (apparently the original private-press LP didn't have much in the way of graphics).
Few records in recent memory have had us so excited in anticipation for their release, but this outsider visionary gem is so unquantifiably unique that it has worked its magical charm on us in such an intense way that we knew we had to make it Record Of The Week. Even before we heard a lick of music, the album cover, title and artist had us asking so many questions. That simple but puzzling orange cover with a vintage stock photo of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, the mysterious and oddly misspelled title, Liter Thru Dorker Vibes, by an even more mysterious and misspelled artist name, Medico Doktor Vibes. Dorker Vibes??? What on earth could this be? Only a small text in the bottom right corner that said, 1979 Compton, CA and the record label Bi-Russell Records offered any clues to its origins. But the music inside, even stranger still is a primitive bedroom concoction of Caribbean-inflected outsider rock made with electric guitar, kalimba, synthesizer and drum machine that is an equally woozy, weird and introspective set of spell-casting witch-doctor psych groove.
Folks who bought Johan Kugelberg's excellent book on Private Press records, Enjoy The Experience, may recognize the cover as it was featured in that book as well as the opening song, "Diska Limba Man" which was included on the companion musical compilation, but its curious lack of back story in the book only give the record a more mysterious aura as if beamed into our world from another dimension. And it's almost like it was, as this record was just discovered at an Oakland Colosseum flea market only a few years back and made its way to the ever-curious vanity record enthusiasts at Companion Records. Companion, who has brought us some incredible private press reissues from Stan Hubbs, Michael Farneti, The New Creation (whose Troubled just got a vinyl release, reviewed elsewhere on this list), Marc Mundy and Luie Luie, did the legwork (with help from Rob Sevier of Numero Group) to track down the artist, who it turns out is a Guyanese man named Bill Russell, and worked with him to see this unique release resurrected. True to Companion's mission, they have reissued the record in the same form as the original with an old style tip-on sleeve, blank back cover and no liner notes, so as to experience the record as it is, unfettered from preconceptions. However, we did press the label for a little context and we'll get into some of the record's back-story a little later.
Each of the seven songs here vary in tone, but they are united by the instrumentation mentioned above in different combinations and Russell's accented softly mumbled delivery, as well as a seemingly urgent determination to get each song recorded as envisioned. As primitive as the recording and performances are, every song seems to have a deliberate focus, with moodier songs on side one and more rocking songs on side two. The record doesn't seem to have been made to promote himself as a professional or as a demo to make better produced recordings. In that, it is a perfect one-off record, its only obvious influential musical touchstones apart from some Caribbean musical rhythms, might be a bit of Santana and Hendrix perhaps (though this doesn't quite reach their heights, quite the opposite), but we're hearing a bit of Chrissy Zebby Tembo, Otis G. Johnson and even some Suicide in there too. It really just sounds like Russell plugged all his instruments directly into a 4-track, hit record and worked around the mistakes, never letting them curtail his vision.
The opener, "Diska Limba Man" sets the tone with an off-kilter synth sequencer and wonky slow-disco rhythm, the tempo slowing down and speeding up in an elliptical groove while an electric guitar and a tinny kalimba add melody and texture respectively. Russell's voice thickly accented but emerging from an introspective murmer sings of a small musical instrument and the man who plays it, embarking on a hypnotic repetition as the song progresses into a sort of subdued dark disco trance. The second track, "Kalimba Tune", is just that, the kalimba alone in a beautifully played magical weaving instrumental that borders on the minimalist composition of Philip Glass. The third track, "Take A Closer Look" ends the first side with a slow looping organ dirge with a loping martial rhythm, inflected with a simmering guitar melody that adds a mystical resonance. The song urging the listener to "take a closer look at the life you are living" points to the lighter ("liter") and darker ("dorker") vibes the album title implies.
Side two has more of a heavier rock feel. "Givers of Affection" opens with a motorcycle blues guitar riff and what sound like harmonica blasts and rudimentary drum machine in a Canned Heat style, Russell's voice double tracked in a driving falsetto. "Lonely No More" has a more laid back sunbaked Zam-rock vibe, with funky Caribbean rhythms and freaked out synth leads, filtered through homegrown distortion and double tracked vocals layered incongruously into a strange psychedelic brew. "Dig This Calypso" is a stoned sunny and breezy take on the origins of the calypso beat, and we're usually not that big on calypso, but as with all the songs on the second side, this one layered with warm distortion and gritty guitar squalls all filtered back in a lo-fi Caribbean funk groove, makes it one of the better calypso inspired songs we've heard. The final track, "Water Late" is an instrumental with a medium-fast shuffled martial rhythm, and some seriously wonky exploratory guitar leads as if Doug Blunt was fronting some primitive cave rock band like Cromagnon. It ends the record on a slightly open ended note as we're left to wonder what in the hell did we just listen to? But that is exactly the kind of naive quality in this record that makes us want to put it back on and listen to it again, figure out the words and try and put together what it all means, and why for all of its outsider artistry, these songs remain so hopelessly and wonderfully implanted in our brains. And most importantly, who or what is Medico Doktor Vibes?
The folks at Companion filled us in a bit. Bill Russell is an immigrant from Guyana who came to the United States and served in the U.S. military in the seventies. He came from a musical family and after serving, settled in the LA suburb of Compton and decided to make a record. He bought the recording equipment and instruments he used on the record all at once and set about making this one and only LP. He chose the cover image carefully by color because he thought it matched the mood of the record and thought it would appeal to people, even though he oddly didn't notice the Golden Gate Bridge, or at least it didn't register any additional symbolic meaning for him and he didn't have any Bay Area connection. The title though intentional is logically vague. The story goes that Russell saw the recording as a bridge between "light" and "dark" people, but felt that just calling it Lighter Through Darker Vibes was too politically charged and so he twisted the words to "Liter" and "Dorker" in avoidance (this must have been before the word "dork" came into a more common parlance). His hopes were that both Light and Dark people would come together and groove out to his music , though it was distributed modestly with only 100 original copies and went absolutely nowhere. Perhaps now with this reissue, Russell's original vision will finally come to pass. We certainly hope so.
Limited to 500 copies! Sorry no download code.
Mellowhype is the latest subversive sonic missive from the uber hyped Odd Future hip hop crew, which finally shines the spotlight on some of the other members after Tyler The Creator and Earl Sweatshirt getting most of the love up until now. But Mellowhype, aka Hodgy Beats and Left Brain, were in fact responsible for much of the production on those records, but unlike the spare sketelal horrorcore creep of Tyler's Goblin, and the stripped down minimal thump of Earl's jams, the sound of Mellowhype is much more lush, but no less twisted, what on the surface sounds like radio ready hip hop, seems to melt before your ears, sounds changing pitch, beats slowing down and speeding up, vocals constantly shifting, the sound peppered with glitches and tape dropouts, the melodies warped and woozy, it's the kind of shit that SHOULD be all over the radio, it's got all the elements required, but fortunately for us, that stuff is filtered through Odd Future's cracked perception of hip hop, and comes out the other end all mangled and fantastically fucked up.
After hearing this we imagine it's only a matter of time before big hip hop names start tapping these guys for remixes, or even just for beats, cuz these guys have crafted a serious slab of WTF here, a dizzying hybrid of purposefully problematic Odd Futurisms melded to surprisingly hooky hip-pop, and irresistible melodies, some killer flows, ominous loops, beats that slip from Southern crunkified skitter, to pounding black rocking crunch, resident Odd Future RnB-er Frank Ocean even drops in for a bit of crooning, and in true OF fashion his swoonsome hook is set amidst a jumble of warbly synths, hiccupping beats, and some damaged confusional lyrics. Awesome stuff. More than lives up to the hype.
