Last year was an exciting one for Sleater Kinney fans, as three members reemerged in new projects. Corin Tucker on her own, and Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weis together in the super group Wild Flag. While the Wild Flag record was pretty great, as was Tucker's solo debut, neither managed to reach the level of total exuberance that Sleater Kinney created back in the day. But Kill My Blues is a whole 'nother story, as Tucker's sophomore full length is brimming with the sort of passion, guts, sweat, smarts, and energy that made Sleater Kinney so special.
On Kill My Blues, we discover that despite her friend and ex-bandmate Carrie Brownstein's new found fame from her hit show Portlandia and her more visible role in Wild Flag, it is indeed Tucker who holds the keys to the musical magic that made so many of us fall in love with SK in the first place. Sure Brownstein always looked more cool, and stole the spotlight on stage with her awesome moves, but it's the guttural howl of Tucker's voice, the wail of her guitar, and her intense delivery in general that really provides the knockout punch.
Kill My Blues is as focused as any record that SK made. Tucker sounds impassioned and confident, her songs exploding with sparkling velocity, punk energy, and crazy catchy melodies. Highly recommended!
The last record from Alexander Turnquist, the lovely and exquisite As The Twilight Crane Dreams In Color, was a fantastic surprise from this fairly new to us (but quite prolific) composer/guitarist. That record was a lush landscape of glimmering harmonics, and crystalline ambience, all woven around Turnquist's strange and inventive guitar playing. This new record seems to follow suit, with Turnquist again setting the foundation with impossibly dense little soft squalls of steel string tangle, lush with overtones and unlikely harmonics, it's like some avant Appalachia, a sound we wish would go on much longer than its way too brief 2 minutes. But then that feeling is washed away by the equally lovely title track which follows, a swirling, sweetly melodic guitarscape, again, a looped set of steel string tangles providing the anchor, creating a billowing cloud of washed out melody, not unlike pianist Lubomyr Melnyk, a rapid succession of notes somehow transformed into something tranquil and serene, the tangled melodies further tangled by vibes and violin, those two elements providing the melodic counterpoint, and some extra sonic pathos, adding a dark bit of tension, and a sweet melancholia. The sound is dense, while remaining ethereal and dreamlike, the repetition adding a drone element, that makes everything hypnotic and totally mesmerizing.
On "Spherical Aberrations" the trio apply the same methodology to chamber music, the vibes almost jazzy, the violin achingly melodic, all the while the guitar spinning impossible webs of melody and texture underneath.
The record's centerpiece would have to be the sprawling "Waiting At The Departure Gate", which take Turnquist's Reich/Riley compositional style and lets it spread out into a gorgeous layered epic, the guitars impossibly intricate and dense, eventually sounding nothing like guitars at all, instead like some sort of sound generator, while the vibes and violin weave magical melodies over the top, the sound stately and darkly romantic, Turnquist's guitarscapes constantly slipping from background texture to main melody and back again, before finishing off with a bit of minimal Appalachian folk drift. The record is bookended with another brief bit of harmonics heavy steel string tangle, that sounds like a way more avant experimental Michael Hedges. So fantastic. Turnquist is fast becoming one of our favorite modern composers/guitarists!
Tussle have always been the musical version of the party you wish existed and would go on forever and ever. The one where everyone is having fun and has great taste in tunes. Sadly for some reason that sort of party is a real rarity. Most parties are filled with people screaming and -trying- to have a good time but not really doing anything fun or interesting. And the rooms filled with folks with "good taste" can get pretty dang stuffy, weighed down and boring.
Rare is the party packed with people who want to go wild, but want to do it to the best tunes imaginable, who realize how amazing and important it is to move your body and have a good time. Luckily for our ears Tussle are that rare band, whose music is the perfect soundtrack to THAT kind of party. Great taste and fun spirit wrapped in one. With Telescope Mind they have once again come up with the perfect formula. The one where Can is jamming with Liquid Liquid and ESG is in the living room unfurling with beats your body can't deny. Crafted with much care, Tussle have truly created an album that works from beginning to end. A perfect balance of experimentation and percussion fueled ecstasy. Since the recording of this album the band has gone through some major lineup changes, with co-founding member Alexis Georgopoulos leaving the band and super talented SF scene fixture Tomo joining the group. We're excited to hear what Alexis cooks up in the future as his writing and aesthetic were a huge part of this record and Tussle's sound in general, as well as where the new lineup of Tussle will travel. Until then we'll just follow the instructions in the liner notes and enjoy Telescope Mind at MAXIMUM VOLUME because this is an album that will be moving our bodies and pleasing our ears for a long time to come!
The shiny happy side of Finland's Fonal roster. If we didn't know better we would probably believe it if someone said that they were from Japan or France because they kick out that totally bubbly, playful and addictive flavor of pop that totally brings to mind the best moments of Cibo Matto, Pizzicato Five, Stereo Total (yeah we know they are from Germany but you get what we're saying), Buffalo Daughter, etc. This time out we also hear some nice fuzzy USA influence with some Beach Boys moments and an overall feel that reminds us a lot of Mates Of State. What's so great about TV-Resistori is how they keep their sound so warm, punchy and catchy without resorting to all out quirkiness or kitsch. Too many bands trying to pull of this style suffer at the hand of over the top and glossy production that in the end kind of erases all the charm that might be within the songs. TV-Resistori do it right and keep their sound rich and dense with an analog warmth and a tender touch on the control boards which so nicely compliments their songs, and makes for one of the better pop albums of the year.
Wow, this swooning, rich pop record has been seeping into our souls in such satisfying ways. The debut full length from Twin Shadow is one of the most emotionally brooding and satisfying albums we've heard in a long time. Makes perfect sense that Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear not only produced it, but also released it on his own label, Terrible. You can tell how Taylor would find a kindred spirit in the kind of music Twin Shadow makes, as it has the warmth and emotional richness that Grizzly Bear have become famous for. But Twin Shadow's music owes much more to the new romantics of the '80s, as it has us recalling folks like Talk Talk, The Smiths, Duran Duran, Japan, and later era OMD. George Lewis, Jr, who is the man behind Twin Shadow has such a memorable and seductive voice. While many of his peers have been tapping into the colder or kooky side of the '80s, he is able to get to the more fragile and heart stirring side of that decade's pop music. Some songs on the album even remind us of Richard Youngs' great pop outing, Beyond The Valley Of The Ultrahits. We have yet to play this once without someone in the store needing to know what they were hearing. It's that immediate and evocative and so damn good!
Chances are lots of us here at AQ are like you in that we can get a bit overly obsessed when we fall in love with something. Case in point: this mind melting electro-disco compilation from the new Troubleman Unlimited offshoot label Italians Do It Better. There are thousands of amazing records here in the store to listen to everyday yet we can't stop putting this on. Day after day and often multiple times during the day this always seems to find its way back to the cd player, making us feel like we're dancing on clouds, floating high in the sky, never to come down. Influenced by the best moments of early disco, Giorgio Moroder and the whole Italo-disco scene (of which the label name is a tip o' the hat to) this comp is a collection of tracks from 12"s, LP's and demos that have been pretty impossible to come by in these parts. Folks like Glass Candy, Chromatics, Mirage, Professor Genius, and more have channeled their inner Moroder and captured that perfect late night dancing on air sensation after a long night of consumption and exertion, dancing your ass off, dressed to the nines and never wanting the party to end. Whether they're covering Kraftwerk or R.L. Crutchfield's Dark Day (a legendary and sadly obscure project by DNA co-founder!) or creating their own songs that fit perfectly into this after dark wonderland, all these artists have totally dialed into a sound and style that we find so irresistible. Where electro-clash was cold and calculated, these sounds channeling a heartfelt love of vintage disco have a seductive and sensual quality that's been making lots of us swoon. So highly recommended!
No doubt about it, the legacy and inspiration of Fela Kuti's music ranks right up their with The Beatles and James Brown in terms of how much of an impact and lasting impression it has left on music of future generations. Without Fela there wouldn't have been Afro-beat as we know it. And luckily so many of the musicians he has influenced produce sounds with the same kind of fire, intensity and rhythm that he laid the blueprints for. This awesome compilation brings together the best of Fela's disciples from many areas on the globe including Nigeria, Columbia, Ghana, Trinidad, New York, and more.
This is exactly how we like our Afro-beat, raw, super charged and full of uncompromising power. It's impossible not to move to these rich groove filled burners. What's extra awesome and exciting is that most of these artists are new to our ears, besides Daktaris, the Whitefield Brothers,and Bola Johnson we really hadn't heard of many of these folks and damn they are all blowing us away! Lever Brothers, Gay Flamingoes, Lisandro Meza, Segun Bucknoh, Phirpo Y Sus Caribes....now we want to get our hands on all of their stuff! Most of the tracks on here are previously unreleased and while the cd is packaged lovingly in a small hardcover book with photos and liner notes, the vinyl is packaged in a totally amazing over the top box set with the music divvied up over four 10" records with a 24 page book packed with the same amazing photos and liner notes. So on fire and so highly recommended!
Arab-American violin; Thai Buddhist ritual performance; One of the first commercial recordings of Bali Gamelan; Northumbrian bagpipes; a Hindu Tamil Wedding song; a French Cameroun Rhumba; a scene from a Chinese Opera; a Turkish folk-dance song; Hutzl wedding music from the Ukraine; An unearthly theme from a supernatural Indian soundtrack; a ten-year-old Swedish girl singing with a zither...
What do these and many other far-flung sounds on this compilation have to do with each other? Are they the results of meticulous years of travel, recording, and collecting in the field? Well, no. Were they extracted from some archivist's well-researched collection of indigenous music? Um, not exactly. What these sounds do have in common is they are all culled from 78 rpm recordings made between 1918-1955; feature artists and ensembles from all over the world, mostly Europe, Asia and the Middle East (though some tracks were recorded in America); and come from the collection of one person, Ian Nagoski, who admittedly made no special efforts to find them. Instead the music found him. Never traveling more than 30 minutes from his home in the US, never buying through mail and not spending very much money, Nagoski has been able to amass an incredible collection of global treasures, finding gems through diligence, patience and perseverance that most antique record collectors wouldn't have the stamina to suffer through. Looking at some of the reproductions of the labels, some with only hand-written words, we can only imagine at how many hours of guesswork, collecting and concentrated listening Nagoski must have endured to filter the wheat from the chaff. Well-researched liner notes give clues to the origins of these 24 tracks, and Dust-to-Digital have done a fine job of cleaning up the sound (some might say a little too well -- there's nothing wrong with a little vinyl crackle here and there!). But what's really nice is to listen to a collection of songs that are not thematically arranged or compiled within a specifically defined ethno-musical context. Just these strange and beautiful documents of lost worlds colliding together discovered through the displaced happenstance of chance. Giving us hope that there are still undiscovered musical gold within our grasp. Highly recommended!
Oh, and we wanted to mention one song in particular, which everytime it's played in the store has customers and employees alike perking up their ears at its strange almost creepy beauty. It's music from a Japanese Kabuki, called "Songs In Grief", performed by Sinkou Son & Kouran Kin, and it's perhaps the most haunting beautiful thing we've ever heard. Mysterious little vocal trills, strange chanting, a bit like Elizabeth Clare Prophet, but so much more haunting and enchanting. It gives us chills everytime we hear it, and even if the rest of the comp wasn't so absolutely amazing, would be worth the price of admission alone!
Bob Blank is one of the most unsung heroes in the history of the vibrant New York music scene of the '70s and '80s. He had such a wide ranging, amazing and colorful sound, and a massive (if under appreciated) influence like so many of the best musical minds of that era (Larry Levan, Arthur Russell, August Darnell). While his roots were for sure deep in the disco scene he had the kind of left of center disposition that allowed him to work on so many different kind of projects and with so many different, and often unexpected artists. Strut has put together a really loving collection of many of the great songs Blank helped bring to life by everyone from Lydia Lunch to Sun Ra, Lola (Arthur Russell) to Gladys Knight and more. While there is an undeniable level of funk and freespirit running through all these songs, they do all demonstrate the breadth of sound Blank was able to bring to records recorded in his legendary Blank Tapes studio located in the heart of Chelsea. Surely essential for folks who loved the recent Ze: 30 collection or the Mutant Disco and Disco Not Disco comps from the past few years. We're beyond stoked that Strut has put this collection together, not only to bring light to the amazing work that Blank created but simply as compilation, this record is just jam packed with so many super pleasing songs.
Yes, we can dig it! Soul Jazz hits the jackpot once again with this completely amazing collection of songs from Blaxploitation films during the golden era of 1968-1975. There are a million reasons why this collection is so fucking great. But one critical way, in which this comp has become a defining collection of the sound and culture, is that most collections of Blaxploitation music up to this point only really focused on the camp and kitsch aspects of the movement, when really it was about so much more: true independence, total empowerment, bold political statements, reclamation of culture, off the hook fashion, and music with such real and deep soul, which provided the perfect soundtrack to these revolutionary films.
Can You Dig It? does a great job of mixing many amazing ultra obscure tracks some more well known jams, balancing the joy of discovery with the stone cold fact that no matter how many times you hear something from Curtis Mayfield's Superfly it always sounds so damn good. But of course this being Soul Jazz, they dig WAAAAAAY deeper, giving us truly stunning and burning tracks from the likes of Willie Hutch, Martha Reeves, Dennis Coffey, Solomon Burke & Gene Page, Don Julian, Johnny Pate, as well as tracks that somehow slipped under the radar from bigger name folks like James Brown, Marvin Gaye and Isaac Hayes.
The sequencing and variety and richness in sound is so compelling and wonderfully varied. So often when this is playing for a while in the store people will ask "Is this still that comp?" and when we say yes they shake their heads in astonishment and usually have to get one right away. In fact right after the amazing Yo La Tengo instore performance last weekend, we put this on and all three members of the band at different times came up to us needing to know what it was and of course they bought one right away. Finally someone has done justice to the music of this movement and era, and our ears are in total heaven!
The double-cd version comes with an out-of-control informative and visually pleasing 100 page book as well as awesome postcards and stickers. The vinyl versions are split into two volumes and while it's awesome to have these songs on vinyl, the bummer is that the vinyl format doesn't come with the amazing 100 page booklet...
By the looks of the first two compilations that Chapter Music has released documenting the Australian post-punk scene, we (and probably a lot of other folks) could use a series history lessons into the finer points of Antipodean punk. Having unearthed two incendiary Primitive Calculators collections from that same time period, Chapter again strikes gold with a stunning collection of terminally obscure bands who were much more talented and intriguing than their lack of recognition might reflect. The only two bands that have even come across our radar are Severed Heads (but here with an incredibly primitive electronic sound and a female singer) and Microfilm (the amazing, Wire-esque dour post punk band fronted by Lisa Gerrand who later went on to form Dead Can Dance); but for everybody else, it's anybody's guess as to whatever became of them. Nonetheless, this comp confirms that the Australian take on post-punk agitation, no-wave convolutions and contortions, and new wave bleakness was as vibrant as what more well know scenes (i.e. New York, Berlin, London) had managed. As on the first comp (which featured a band called the Slugfuckers), volume 2 also sports a band with an incredible name: The Goat That Went "Om." Highly recommended
Once again Soundway continues to unearth amazing tracks from yet another overlooked international scene. This collection digs into the cumbia and descarga sounds out of Columbia in the '60s to early '70s that were being released on the Discos Fuentes label. Jose Maria 'Curro' Fuentes ran the label which would become Columbia's largest. In many ways he was like the Berry Gordy of Columbia, using his immaculate taste to curate an amazing roster of musicians. Sadly most of these artists never had their music heard or even released in other parts of the globe, so this release marks the first time most of these nineteen tracks have been released anywhere outside of Columbia. The raw recordings really serve the music so well as these aren't the kind of tracks you would want overproduced or with a shiny slick veneer. Instead the infectious rhythms within the songs emerge organically with such rich and warm grooves. With sunshine time hitting us in a big way the past week, this is becoming the perfect soundtrack to outdoor get togethers and rooftop afternoons. No denying how damn hot this is!
FINALLY AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!
Here's our review from way back in 2005, when the cd version was first released...
Just when you thought you'd heard everything, in comes Sublime Frequencies to fill in the gaps you never thought existed. How many cds of Iraqi pop do you have in your collection? Until now we certainly didn't have any, let alone anything remotely traditional from Iraq. For a country that's so important to our war mongering presidential administration it's perhaps a little surprising that more interest hasn't been piqued about the culture of Iraq. But then again, everyone but W seems to understand that the real reasons for plundering this nation wasn't to "liberate" anyone. In fact, W would probably rather that no one even pay attention to any of this music, which has the awkward fortune to have been produced almost entirely (with the exception of three early 70's tracks) during the reign of Saddam Hussein and his Baathist regime ( tracks here range from 1980 on up to 2002!). In spite of his - well deserved - reputation as a cruel dictator, he was also an avid supporter of both education and the arts - such are the complexities of life W would rather not acknowledge - and for better or worse, kept the fabricated nation state as stable as it has ever been. Hussein promoted secular arts and music, starting cultural centers for both, and even dubbed singers the "eighth division" of the armed forces (his nation had seven military divisions) - not to paint too rosy a picture of Donald Rumsfeld's former pal and business partner, who was also a sadistic tyrant after all. Compiled by Mark Gergis (I Remember Syria, Molam, Cambodian Cassette Archives), Choubi Choubi is a collection years in the making. Gergis scoured the earth for the source material on this disc, travelling through Syria, Europe and the Iraqi neighborhoods of Detroit, Michigan. The anthology starts off with a folk rock track from '70s Socialist singer Ja'afar Hassan, a song that could easily compete with the best psych tracks on Hava Narghile or Turkish Delights for the crown of Middle Eastern psych champ. But if you're expecting another psych compilation, you're going to be disappointed as Choubi Choubi is much more than that, way more. Most of the recordings on the album have no western instruments on them, nor hardly any western influence. These tracks rock out much harder with no electric instruments, but with huge string sections, pounding drums, and monstrous oud playing. Maybe it's also the super bluesy sounding (to the western ear) melodies, it's no wonder that it sounds so fresh and familiar to us. It really is weird, when we first listened to this record we could have sworn there were more songs with electric guitars on it, but there aren't that many at all. It just sounds so fucking heavy, and rocks so hard that we remembered it as being a "rock" record. Really, really, really fucking great!
Originally released way back in 2005, the first volume of Choubi Choubi, a collection of folk and pop music from Iraq, remains one of everybody's favorite Sublime Frequencies releases. And for good reason, besides the political implications of the music, made almost entirely during the reign of Saddam Hussein, which might have you envisioning the typical Middle Eastern story, of people forced to make music in secret, fearing for their lives, their livelihoods, but strangely, as we mentioned in our review of the first Choubi Choubi release, Hussein was in fact an avid supporter of the arts, and started cultural centers for both art and music throughout Iraq. Sadly, performers, artists and musicians who were not commercially successful, were deemed to be of a lower class, and the idea of Choubi, an Iraqi style of music that features rapid fire beats, buzzing oud melodies and wild fiddle playing, was considered by most to be a province of the seedier side of Iraq, dingy nightclubs, prostitutes, criminals, etc. In fact many female performers would wear masks to hide their identities. And while the music was encouraged by the government, music by its very nature is rebellious, so this music of the people had a power that made Choubi essentially the 'national dance of Iraq', and as the liner notes explain, even with Choubi's stigma and reputation, and parties and weddings, Choubi is the music of choice, with people whipping out their best Choubi moves.
The first Choubi Choubi comp has been out of print for a while now, so it's super exciting to have another volume to dig into. With the songs culled from the same era and time period, sonically, it's more of what we loved about the first one, wild, chaotic beats, flurries of percussion, super passionate vocals, dramatic and intense, lots of strings, the oud playing distorted and truly psychedelic, the recordings far out and lo-fi, in-the-red, the drums and rhythms slathered in cool primitive FX, reverb and delay, some of the tracks freaked out and energetic, others moody and minor key, some have an almost Bollywood vibe, others, are totally far out drum driven weirdness that reminds us of the twisted Indian soundtracks of Vijaya Anand, and still others sound almost liturgical, while others are distorted and buzzy and hypnotic, but really all of the tracks here incredible!
The story of the music and the musicians in Iraq at the time is super fascinating, and is gone into in more detail in the liner notes by Sublime Frequencies' Mark Gergis. As is the roots of Choubi, and what's gone on post Hussein, and post war in Iraq. Those extensive liner notes are accompanied by tons of awesome photos, as well as notes on each track, all on a super heavy full color gatefold sleeve.
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A fantastic compilation of amazing French cosmic prog-tronic jams that is blowing our minds! An incredible survey of experimentation and rhythm that shows us that while the French may not have invented prog or disco, they certainly had the most fun taking those genres to their outer limits in exciting combination. Practically everyone is represented, including cinematic gems by Jean-Michel Jarre, Alain Goraguer (La Planet Sauvage composer!), Patrick Juvet and Serge Gainsbourg; Moog workouts by Jean-Jaques Perrey, Quartz and Pierre Bachelet; and cosmic disco reveries by Bernard Fevre, Space, Droids, Space Art and Cerrone. But there are also plenty of rarities from groups we know less about: Atomic Crocus, Rene Roussel, and Universal Energy amongst many others. Dig the Mobius-style cover art too. So Killer!
We've been waiting for this one with all kinds of excitement and anticipation. The always eclectic and forward minded folks at Tigersushi have compiled one of the more intriguing and rewarding comps of recent times. Digging deep into the vaults of the slow and drugged out side of disco's past they have miraculously connected dots that we always dreamed would finally be joined together. Dirty Space Disco brings together folks from the more avant and krautrock worlds like Roedelius (of Cluster), Conrad Schnitzler, and Clara Mondshine, setting their tracks up alongside disco luminaries and obscure dance floor burners from Sylvester, Fern Kinney, Odyssey, Undisputed Truth and more. This is all about the moody, seductive and way late night side of disco.
We've been big fans of the current movement of artists tapping into this seductive sound (Lindstrom, Chromatics, Prins Thomas, etc.) but we're so happy to have the blueprints and origins of those sounds all on one disc. Though he's not included in this collection we know Arthur Russell would be so happy to see this disco / avant-garde match up finally happen. We're in love with so much of this comp but it's pretty much worth it alone for Sylvester's "I Need Somebody To Love Tonight" one of the greatest spaced out disco gems of all time, from his amazing Stars LP which came out in 1979 and features the innovative production of Patrick Cowley, one of the unsung heroes and pioneers of the San Francisco electronic/dance scene.
Luckily just about every other track is just as fantastic. This collection has been at the top of the charts on KUSF (our local college radio station, where both Irwin and Andee have shows) ever since it went into rotation and it's no surprise because it's the kind of collection that easily wins over folks who thought they just weren't into disco just as much as it pleases those of us who are huge disco freaks!! Highly recommended!
Oh how we've adored the Germans' take on various musical styles over the years, and we're not just talking about their obvious kosmiche krautrock brilliance. No, it's German musicmakers' handling of the more unexpected genres that have deepened our love affair tenfold. The hip '60s kitten heeled go-go pop of the In-Kraut compilations? The spaghetti (er, sauerkraut?) westerns of the Wig Wam Weste(r)n Weisse Wolfe collections? Yes and yes! Those two genres are unquestionably more commonly associated with French chanteuses and American cowboys, so the unmistakable German inflections that surface always make for a delightful twist on the familiar.
Now Marina Records, who brought us those In-Kraut comps, takes it (or is it retakes it?) to the dancefloor with this compilation of German disco and funk music circa 1975 thru 1980. They're not messin' around. This is straight-up boogie wonderland business. Awesome.
Some highlights include the 8+ minute Supermax track, a lowdown I'm so sexy unstoppable groover... the Giorgio Moroder studio band Munich Machine's classic "Get On The Funk Train"... and a disco-era hit from In-Kraut alumnus Peter Thomas and his Sound Orchestra... among 15 other mainly killer, glitterball dazzlers. Now, if the weird thing is, this isn't really that weird. Heck disco's even back "in" now. Don't go expecting krautrocky craziness, instead just get yer dancing shoes on and yer ass in gear. Seriously, this has been getting spun in the store by AQ staffers just as much or more than anything else lately, and when it's on we've been getting our work done with just a little more groove.
Includes a 14-page booklet of informative liner notes, with such interestin' tidbits as that Berry Lipman's track "Sex World" was used as the theme song for an American porno film, but originated as an instrumental from the German sci-fi TV series Star Maidens...
The Numero Group goes digging deep once again and come up for air with some mighty fine disco and proto-hip-hop jams from the super obscure vaults of an early '80s NY label called Tap. From start to finish this lavishly packaged collection offers up helping after helping of killer grooves and funky jams, from that magical era where funk and disco were the seeds that would blossom into the hip-hop scene that would soon blow up bigtime.
While names like Jackie Stoudemire, Magnetism, Arnie Love & The Lovettes and Fabulous 3 MC's might not have become household names, after listening to their tracks on this comp you will be wishing you could get your hands on more of their goods. Every time we put this on we start to have fantasies about being in NY during this era and blasting these songs on a playground while we do some double dutch and then catch ESG playing a show in the Bronx, and afterwards heading to the Paradise Garage where we dance the night away with Larry Levan.
This is going to go right up their with The Third Unheard, Big Apple Rappin and the new Funky Nassau collection as one of our favorite party perfect comps of all time. And of course there's a massive booklet with liner notes detailing the full of the story of the Tap label and all the trouble and adventures it took to actually get these amazing sounds into the world. We are so glad they did!
This time out the mighty Eccentric Soul series focuses on the dingy and delightful venue Smart's Palace, located in Witchita, Kansas which during the years of 1963-1975 was ground zero for all the best sweaty, sensual and romping soul being played around that town. While the club did get a few big names in their time, both James Brown and Aretha Franklin once played there, its bread and butter were the nationally unknown but completely talented soul artists located in the tragically underrated scene going on down in Kansas.
The man behind Smart's Palace was Dick Smart who not only ran the club but also played music himself, promoted most of the shows AND ran his own label. In true DIY fashion he helped cultivate one of the richest soul scenes around, totally overflowing with true but untapped talent. This has got to be the sexiest, sweatiest, most romantic, sultry and sexual set of songs that has come out of the Eccentric Soul series yet. So many amazing voices on here, some as smooth as butter, others as commanding as a drill sergeant of love. Fans of folks like Eddie Kendricks, Al Green, and Curtis Mayfield will find so much to dig as as the new to us artists here like Baby Neal, Fred Williams and Kenneth Car offer up songs that we could listen to over and over and still get down and dirty with their raw yet flawless true soul grooves.
At this point the Numero Group's Eccentric Soul series is no longer any sort of secret. The world couldn't help but take notice of the amazing job the label has done at digging deep into uncharted and forgotten regional labels and scenes from the heyday of soul and funk. So now, we usually don't have to turn people on to the series but instead we're often asked -which- of the Eccentric Soul comps is our favorite. A very tough question as they have yet to release a dud. But there are two of the releases so far that are a step or two above the rest in their golden soul perfection. The collection from The Big Mack label out of Detroit and Florida's Deep City label, a collection that we still listen to all the time.
So we were quite excited when we found out that Numero was going to mine even further into the Deep City vaults with a follow up collection from the amazing Florida label. Apparently Numero Group got their hands on a box of lost Deep City master tapes so seven of those tracks are on here as well as killer tracks from some of the other Miami labels putting out sizzling soul 45's back in the day. Every song we've ever heard from Helene Smith fills us with chills of excitement and she has two more on this collection, alongside amazing songs from a young Betty Wright, Lynn Willliams, Clarence Reid, The Rollers, etc. Anyone who has been taken by the spell of Miami soul needs to get this immediately and in fact this could very well become our new favorite of all the amazing Eccentric Soul releases. So damn pleasing!
By the late 1960's East St Louis, Illinois had seen better days. Hit hard by poverty, crime, drug addiction and gang activity, it was really important for teens to have a safe place to hang out, and a positive outlet for creativity. No one understood this better then Allen Murray, a seasoned musician from the area who was semi-famous for his past work with the likes of Ray Charles and Ike Turner. He started a really inventive program at The Southside Community Center, where youth could come and sing and play music in his program called The Young Disciples.
With an amazing stable of musicians and fresh new voices on the mic, most for the first time, he really created an amazing musical world while also offering salvation to so many teens in East St Louis. What's even more remarkable is how damn good the music they made was. This was not some sort of amateur hour soul, in fact before we even knew the whole back story to this record we just thought it was another amazing lost soul label getting the primetime Eccentric Soul series attention it deserved. These songs are just dripping with warmth, soul and unfiltered funk. Another total winner from the Numero Group and such a cool program that Murray developed, we only wish it was being used as a template in cities across the country today!
There hasn't been a dud yet in the Numero Group's superb and ever ongoing Eccentric Soul series and this latest two disc offering is no exception, in fact it might find itself a special spot near the Big Mack and Deep City collections as one of our favorites so far!
This time out they dig up gems from two woefully obscure labels out of Atlanta in the late '60s. While there are some uptempo shakers sprinkled amongst the tracks on these two discs, what's swept us off our feet is the totally devastating heart broken soul that just drips with honesty and warmth. We just can't get enough of it. And it's the ladies who really shine the brightest on this collection, we now want to get our hands on everything and anything that Eula Cooper, Franciene Thomas and Sonia Ross have ever released. The kind of richly orchestrated soul that sounds so perfect when you're alone in your living room with the lights dimmed, a cocktail to lessen the pain of a broken heart and these songs to let you wallow with class, yet still enough uptempo tracks to let you cut a rug when your tears take a break. So great!
The Numero Group has helped spawn a much needed revival and rediscovery of lost soul from the 60's and 70's, showing the world that there was much more amazing music beyond the Motown monopoly. Amazing soul records were being released everywhere by all sorts of small independent labels. We'll never ever tire of really good soul done juuuuust right and once again the Numero Group has hit the bulls eye. This collection focuses on the Chicago label Twinight. The label began with the name Twilight but soon found out another label with the same name existed so they changed one letter and thus became Twinight which would prove to be an appropriate moniker for the label, as most of the records they released were only played during the wee hours of broadcasting day often referred to as the twinight hours. The label was known primarily for its one star Syl Johnson but this collection digs even deeper and exposes the music and the artists who never had big hits but who produced some classic soul burners.
This collection isn't as flashy or outright catchy as some of the past Eccentric Soul collections but it's that great kind of tasty soul that heats up nice and slow and keeps you coming back for more.
Another fantastic collection of lost soul treasures!
There has not been a shortage of amazing soul reissues recently and we sure as heck aren't complaining. But we gotta say that the two new comps of golden era soul and funk we're listing this time out are two absolute must haves for vintage soul and funk lovers! You'll hear about the great "Super Cool California Soul 2" comp elsewhere on this list but right now let's focus on this hot collection of deep hitting, soul wrenching, body moving, Florida fried funk! An amazing collection of songs pulled from rare and mostly impossible to find 45's from funk artists all across Florida during the prime-time funk years of 1968-1975. While lots of soul comps throw around the word Funk with careless abandon we find many of them to be way more old school soul and even doo-wop sounding where this is for sure some 100 percent fortified FUNK! Fuzzy guitars, breakbeats that would make any hip-hop producer drool and all sorts of in your face attitude! Everytime we play this (which has pretty much been daily since we've gotten it in) someone in the store comes to check out what we're playing and says something along the lines of "Damn, this is good!" and we couldn't agree more!
Holy shit, this is what we've been waiting for! Soul Jazz comes correct with an essential collection of the fierce and fired up sounds of the early queens of hip-hop. This is basically everything we love about hip-hop, captured in one monstrous collection, perfectly reflecting out love of both old school hip hop and more specifically female MC's, proving one again that the ladies knew how to do it best!
Filled with sass, strength, humor and charged sexuality, these ladies weren't just trailblazers, they made songs that still sound so damn catchy and irresistible all these years later.
While a big shift happened for sure it's important to remember that hip-hop's origins were strongly connected to strong females and even queer spirit. Coming out of the disco and funk scenes of late '70s New York there was a whole generation of girls who grew up empowered to take the mic and take no prisoners as they did so. So many of those amazing women are on this collection. Roxanne Shante, Sweet Tee, Sequence, Cookie Crew, JJ Fad, Queen Latifah (yes, she once was way fierce!), MC Lyte, Dimples D, Missy Elliott, and way more. There are those of us who remember these tracks from back in the day and we're equally excited for a whole new generation to get blown away by the colorful energy in these sounds, kids who have grown up on MIA, Lil' Kim, Fannypack, and Yo Majesty will get to hear just where those sounds came from! While the early '80s was the heyday for these sounds, what makes Fly Girls such a cool collection is that it's a three decade retrospective which brings the best of the female MCs from the late '70s all the way to the early '90s. These tracks make us wanna dust off our old sneakers and head to the playground with nothing but a boombox, a piece of cardboard and some friends 'cause with these songs blasting that's all you need for an instant party!
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.
Another incredible collection from Soul Jazz, this one focusing on jazz from the sixties, seventies and early eighties and how that music, and the lives of the performers intersected with the civil rights movement.
As jazz developed and radicalized in the sixties, African American artists began to rebel against the stereotypical image and role of the jazz musician, reimagining their music, the sounds, looking to Africa for inspiration, turning their back in the mainstream, and approaching their music more as art than entertainment, resulting in some of the most revolutionary music made in America, and producing all manner of musical hybrids as well as all sorts of musical and cultural organizations. The booklet is super informative, and will most likely have you wanting to read and learn more. And the music here perfectly captures all the energy, confusion, turmoil, pain, suffering, anger, despair, sadness, hopefulness and joy of the era. Lots of familiar faces: Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Joe McPhee, Gato Barbieri, Philip Cohran, Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Joe Henderson, but also tons of amazing groups we'd never heard before. And the sounds are all over the map, straight up post bop jazz, wild skronky free jazz, groovy Shaft style jazz funk jams, wah wah guitars, soulful vox, intense tribal drum workouts, smokey late night grooves, some spoken word, some jazz almost verging on dub, lots of African influences for sure, in the instrumentation, the chant like vocals, the arrangements, some amazing flute action, some seriously intense and unique sounds and songs, and we're now on the hunt for records by most of the artists we heard here for the first time, which is always the sign of a great compilation, and this is most certainly a great compilation.
Gorgeous packaging, with a massive booklet packed with tons of photos and extensive liner notes... a great companion to the rad coffee table book of album cover art Soul Jazz also released under this title, reviewed last list.
We're so thrilled that the Strut label seems to have come out of hiding recently with not only another great Disco Not Disco comp but now this highly essential collection of jammers from The Compass Point studios in the Bahamas as well. Compass Point was where Chris Blackwell of Island Records fame held court with a house band and production team spearheaded by Sly & Robbie. This collection brings some of the tightest and catchiest jams recorded at Compass Point from 1980-86. Whether it's Grace Jones, Talking Heads, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Gwen Guthrie (mixed by Larry Levan!), Ian Durry or Chaz Jankel, they were all reaching a creative and grooving peak during this magical era inside Compass Point. While Sly & Robbie have lent their skills to thousands of songs this batch really demonstrates that when they were at their best, those guys helped cultivate a whole new sound and feeling that brought elements of dub and Jamaician roots into disco, soul, funk and new wave.
We can't get enough Funky Nassau, just about every single day since this has arrived whoever's been working up front has been blasting this like crazy (if you've been in lately and now have the lines "I'm Spasticus! Autisticus!" stuck in your head, that's why!) and we're pretty sure this will start getting some heavy rotation on your stereo as well. So damn good!
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!
With the Bay Area Funk comps that Luv N Haight put out in the last few years we were reminded of what a lot of spirited funk and soul was busting out of the Bay Area during those golden years. Golden State Funk digs even deeper as it mines the dancefloor burners and gritty shakers that were recorded inside Leo Kulka's Golden State Recorders studio here in San Francisco in the late '60s and early '70s.
Many of the twenty tracks on this all hits and no-misses collection were never released before. It's making us want to try to get our hands on anything and everything by the likes of Jeanette Jones, 87th Off Broadway, The San Francisco TKOS, Ramona King, and loads more. These are songs that could hold their weight right next to more well known hits by big names like Ike & Tina, Sly & The Family Stone and Curtis Mayfield. So cool that a recording studio operated by a Czech native which started in LA recording folks like Frank Sinatra and Little Richard really came into its own when it moved to San Francisco in 1965 on Harrison Street and found magic in the soul and funk scene that was about to explode here in the Bay Area. Packed with really interesting and informative liner notes. This is not just an amazing historical document but a record filled with super tasty grooves and deep hitting funk!
We've been saying this for a while now but; wow, watch out Soul Jazz! 'Cuz Numero Group is quickly catching up. No other label has managed the quality, aesthetics or the consistency of the many killer Numero Group reissues from the last few years. This time out -- instead of unearthing the work of a long gone and forgotten regional soul label like they have in their "Eccentric Soul" series -- they turn their attention to a greater power if you will...the sounds of raw, catchy, wild gospel funk hymnals. While the two volumes of the Soul Gospel series on Soul Jazz taught us about the unique power and energy of '60s and '70s soul gospel sounds, this collection takes us even higher. Thumping bass, blistering percussion, and vocals sung with so much conviction you can't help but be moved. Gospel Comforters, Universal Jubileers, Apostles of Music, Masonic Wonders - with names like that you know these bands have serious soul power up their sleeves. All 18 tracks on this collection are beyond top notch... giving soul lovers something to drool about once again. Are you a believer? After listening to this it's pretty damn hard not to be!
You know music is beyond powerful and soulful when it can be all about faith in something you don't personally believe in, yet you can't stop listening to it! The sentiment, passion and energy put into the music transcends any one specific belief and becomes more about the music and its ability to truly tap into raw spirit and deep conviction.
Such is the case for the amazing gospel jams compiled once again by the always dependable Numero Group, in their second volume of gospel burners that we think might even outshine their first installment from a few years back. These are the reeeeal deal, unfiltered sounds that were blasting in black churches in the 1960's. Informed by the soul and deep funk of popular secular music, folks took that inspiration into their churches to create sweaty, impassioned deep grooved fiery and catchy songs that spoke of their deep running spirituality and beliefs. And it's just impossible not to get swept up in the spirit of these songs. Musically it's just some of the most solid, groove filled and exquisitely performed soul music we've ever heard. The equivalent of getting to hear Aretha Franklin or James Brown let it all hang out in the house of the Lord. Most of the tracks here come from Chicago, whose long history of spiritual soul is reaffirmed once again.
While most of us here are everything from Atheists to Buddhists to Jewish to Quaker to Agnostic to worshipers of nature and sometimes even Satan (got to represent out black metal tendencies) we all can't help but testify to the righteous sounds in this collection. For the duration of the eighteen songs on Good God! Born Again Funk, we are all devout believers! Vinyl version coming in a few weeks, by the way...
Oh man is this making us drool! Take two of the things we love most in the world: old school soul and little kids making their own music and bring them together and you have one of our new favorite compilations! The latest from the always righteous Numero Group is a collection of obscure kid groups from the early '70s who were whipping up some amazing soul and proving that there were way more new kids on the block belting out infectious songs then just the Jackson 5.
The Numero Group has done their homework with this one, digging through a forgotten history so rich and plentiful and just waiting for it's moment in the spotlight. Besides Jr & His Soulettes, the great Oklahoma brother and sister outfit we gushed about a few lists back, most of these kids of the '70s were completely unknown to us. Names like Patrizia & Jimmy, Otis The 3rd, or Cindy & The Playmates were never household names beyond their parents' house but damn did the kids on this compilation have some talent and crazy charm. The packaging and captivating liner notes accompany priceless photos of many of these kids in super soul action. Of course there is something novel, endearing and super cute about little kids making their own music but what makes this comp so great is that it all sounds so good! Vintage soul in lots of shapes and sizes from rambunctious stompers to silky serenades, these kids were dialed into the spirit of soul in a way that still sounds so pleasing to our ears.
With the amazing resurgence and appreciation of the Disco era in the last several years this collection really serves as a kind of holy grail of the true sounds and soul of disco's heydey, as curated and mixed by one of the best disco minded DJ Collectives around, Horse Meat Disco out of the UK. They host legendary parties that channel that original free spirit of old school queer disco parties while manning the decks with some of the best and often most obscure disco gems from the golden era. Luckily Horse Meat Disco has made its way into the states and even to San Francisco, playing at parties with local kindred spirits Honey Sound System.
This two disc set is pretty much essential disco listening, having true disco diggers do the hard work for you and then you just get to sit back (or better yet shake your thang!) to the great jams they have unearthed. The first disc is a continuous mix which gives you a pretty good idea of what going to a Horse Meat Disco party would feel like, then the second disc gives you the songs in their original incarnation. There are some folks we know and love on here as well as many that are totally new to us. And even of the folks we DID know , most of the tracks aren't the total obvious ones we had heard before. Karen Young, Larry Levan, Tamiko Jones, Gino Soccio, Fern Kinney, etc. The impassioned liner notes (including a great piece written by Daniel Wang), give further proof to the lasting legacy and inspiration in these soulful disco sounds.
Horse Meat Disco have proven to be not only some of the best dance / disco DJ's on the planet but also such awesome ambassadors of preserving and celebrating the spirit and soul of classic disco for a whole new generation. Their compilation and mix from last year was one of our favorite collections of dance jams we'd heard in ages and with this second volume they continue to show that there is an endless vault of rare disco gems to be excavated and revisited, and we're so stoked they are putting their love and appreciation of that time, and sound, and making these awesome compilations.
This time out it's a collection of tracks by so many folks that have slipped under even the most disco loving of the AQ staff's radar as well as a few people we know and love (Stephanie Mills, Madleen Kane, Scherrie Payne). But damn what a rad schooling in so many unsung heroes of disco past as we've been moving with big wide smiles on our face to tracks by folks like First Love, Bravo, Electra, Nightfall, etc. If luck had been a little different for some of those artist's their names and songs would be as well known as folks like Gloria Gaynor, Thelma Houston, Gwen Guthrie, Donna Summer, Evelyn "Champagne" King, Labelle, Anita Ward, etc. Horse Meat Disco understands that true disco spirit is so much about the pure emotional energy that was bringing people together on dance floors in total bliss and unity, and it translates in the awesome parties they throw in the UK and with these compilations they have put together. Everytime we play this in the store it's awesome to see how everyone shopping immediately starts tapping their feet and getting in such a good mood. This is impossible music to feel dour while listening to, and as much as we love bleak and brooding sounds around here, we also know that it's important to also have the good stuff to go to when you want to get in a fun, physical dance state of mind, and when you do, it don't get much better then this. So awesome!
Paying tribute to one of the greatest musical beings of our lifetime is a pretty hefty challenge but luckily M. Ward, who put together this comp, did a really nice job of bringing together artists who have been greatly influenced by Fahey's guitar playing and legacy. You can hear in the these covers how deeply felt Fahey's music has been to the next generation of musicians who use guitar as their tool of expression. This is one of those rare tributes that doesn't feel like a haphazard hack job. Fahey's music is so spiritual and pure that there is no doubt everyone on here was honored to pay their respects and came through with excellent versions of Fahey originals. With people like Devendra Banhart, Lee Ranaldo, Howe Gelb, Sufjan Stevens, Calexico, Pelt, Cul De Sac, Currituck Co. and more all contributing covers, it's so nice to hear how they each came to a Fahey song with their own aesthetic at hand. Released on Vanguard who put out many of Fahey's classic albums, the packaging is really nice with each artist contributing a blurb about their relationship with Fahey's music. Tribute records aren't usually this thoughtful and well executed and we're so glad that for John Fahey it was done right because he deserves nothing less then excellence in his honor!
Electronic soul music pretty much begins with Sly Stone. In a year-long period of introspective but intensely prolific productivity that would ultimately transform his main band, The Family Stone, from upbeat soul poppers to deep socially-conscious funk groovers, Stone took a break from his main squeeze and had his hands in many pockets. Holed up in the studio with a a newly required Maestro Rhythm King drum machine and his trademarked wah'wah'd electronic organ in low key tempos, Stone not only recorded solo demos for what would become the most influential Family Stone record, There's A Riot Going On, but he also started a label, Stone Flower as well as a production team and released 4 singles. Two of them from Little Sister, which was a vocal group led by Stone's little sister Vaetta Stewart, one from soul singer Joe Hicks, and one from a funk group called 6IX, all of which featured Stone' organ and drum machine combo as well as production.
On the surface, 4 singles doesn't sound like very much for a label, but their sound transformed soul and funk music into something more deeper and minimal, influencing not only more well known performers such as Timmy Thomas and Shuggie Otis, all the way up to Prince, but also lots of private press artists as well, who did not have the resources to hire full bands and recording studios to create their music. One of our very favorite compilations from the past few years, Personal Space, documents this trend in private press electronic soul from the seventies, and fans of that comp will find tons to love here.
There have been previous comps of the Stone Flower output, but Light In The Attic dug a lot deeper (as they always do!) and included not only some of Sly Stone's demos, but plenty of unreleased material and alternative versions of the singles as well. The low key gospel spook of Little Sister's "Somebody's Watching You" has been a favorite song of ours for a long time, but it's also cool to hear the full band version where we can decipher the lyrics a lot more clearly: "Shady as a lady with a mustache", or "The nicer the nice/ the higher the price". I'm Just Like You is a fantastic intermediary look into the world of Sly Stone during a transformative period which also includes lots of photos and liner notes as well as a recent interview with the reclusive genius himself. Highly recommended!
Wow! When we think of great soul funk and reggae we have to say that Canada isn't usually the first place that comes to mind -- but we also weren't so aware of the huge migration of Jamaican musicians to Toronto that took place in the late '60s/early '70s. Which explains a lot. How lucky Toronto was to have these infectious sounds to call their own during this special era. This ranks as one of the best soul/funk/reggae collections we've had in a long while. And it really is equal parts reggae, funk and soul with that original reggae sound that many of these artists adopted after leaning way more towards a more soul sound for many years. Recent comps we've been loving like Studio One Women showed how much of the vintage reggae sounds were so influenced by doo-wop and the heyday of American soul music. Jamaica to Toronto is filled with that same kind of raw catchy soul we just can't get enough of. If you've fallen for the Eccentric Soul series that we've also been digging, then this is for you. Killer songs and elaborate 36-page booklet included. Highly recommended!
Another fantastic compilation from the Dust-To-Digital label, this one focusing on the golden age of the Moroccan record industry, curated and produced by David Murray, who also put together the incredible Luk Thung collection (reviewed here recently), which gathered up rare 78s from Thailand. Kassidat chronicles a period in the sixties that found labels in Casablanca flourishing, releasing thousands of 45s, at the time, a new and inexpensive format, which created an incredible document of Moroccan music at the time. The booklet is massive, and offers a super well researched and in-depth history of Moroccan music, this era in particular, as well as the provenance of these songs and the various artists.
Instead of summarizing all that info though, as interesting as it is, in this case it might be better for us to just describe the music, cuz even with all the weird new world music labels popping up, and the hundreds (maybe thousands) of reissues, the music here is incredible, and incredibly unique. Our favorite track has to be "Kassidat El Hakka (The Poem of the Truth)" by Abdellah El Magana, which is super rhythmic, darkly hypnotic, the song drifting from tranced out tribal drumming and snake charmer flute, to chanted, almost rapped vocals, in fact, it almost sounds like some mysterious strain of Moroccan rap, if there even is such a thing, it's so good, one of those tracks we found ourselves listening to so much, it took all we had to move on to the rest of the comp. But as you might imagine, there's plenty more to dig here, soaring dramatic vocals, wildly melodic fiddles, complex harmonies, intricate melodic counterpoint, the sound raw and intimate, the recordings super live and intense, with the vocals often peaking, creating a cool sort of distortion, hand claps and groovy rhythms, call and response vox, strummed and plucked strings, the vibe on a lot of these tracks very reminiscent of Klezmer music, slithery woodwinds, echoey percussion, some tracks with cool natural reverb, rhythmic and hypnotic and so totally mesmerizing. Incredible stuff. And really, anyone who's been digging the various releases on labels like Sublime Frequencies, Teranga Beat, Sahel Sounds, Sham Palace, etc. will dig this like crazy, and should probably prepare themselves to track down everything on Dust-To-Digital. SO GREAT!
What better way to celebrate the birth of our country (we're writing this on July 4th) than with this fantastic compilation of spiritual jazz, civil rights anthems and protest speeches from Bob Thiele's independent jazz label, Flying Dutchman. Spanning the years 1969-1974, Thiele began the Flying Dutchman label after years running ABC's modern jazz imprint Impulse records, where he produced John Coltrane and introduced free jazz to a wider audience. After a petty dispute with that label involving Thiele's choice to produce and release Louis Armstrong's last big hit, "What A Wonderful World" (which Thiele co-wrote under a pseudonym), Thiele made the move to be independent of big record labels in order to be able to release records he thought needed to be heard. His biggest star on Flying Dutchman was Gil Scott-Heron, whose "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" sets the tone for this release. Marked by black power anthems, cosmic spirituality and spoken word pieces by Angela Davis, H. Rap Brown, and Carl B. Stokes, the first elected black mayor of a large American city (Cleveland), Liberation Music speaks truth to power in incredible focus of one of the more exciting jazz labels of the sixties and seventies. For anyone who dug the Spiritual Jazz comps, this is essential!
Originally released on vinyl, now available on cd, here's our review from when we reviewed the lp version back in 2011:
We recently went a little crazy for a compilation on Finders Keepers called Thai Dai, which was, more specifically, a collection of tracks from "The Heavier Side Of The Luk Thung Underground", Luk Thung being the 'country music' of Thailand, a form of pop song that is the voice of the rural community, of the disenfranchised, and thus is a powerful and important part of Thai culture, past and present. Unlike the Thai Dai collection, which explored the sound of Luk Thung tethered to heavier fuzzier rock, and a more Western sound, even going so far as to reinterpret songs by Chicago and Black Sabbath, the songs here are gathered up from obscure 78s, all from the sixties, none of them EVER available outside of Thailand before, offering a fantastic overview of the sound and the songs of the time. Sublime Frequencies and Mississippi records obsessives, anyone who loved the Molam: Thai Country Groove From Isan compilation (sadly now out of print), folks who dug the Excavated Shellac comp (also on Parlortone) odds are this is gonna hit the spot too, the sounds are lush and lovely, the vocals so emotional and distinctive, warm wheezing accordions, traditional hand drums, Latin style horns, the melodies so intoxicating, so distinctly Thai, Gamelan like rhythms, the sound percussive, and propulsive, groovy and funky, the arrangements intricate and complex complex, but still immediate, and intimate and heartfelt and joyous, even when singing about loss and struggle, the sounds seem infused with hope, joyful and exuberant.
Packaged in a gorgeous eye popping full color digipak, with an thick booklet, with photos, reproductions of 78 labels, a history of Thailand, and the music and musicians featured on the compilation. So great!!
What an awesomely punny title, Messthetics Greatest Hiss. Meaning, these are all tracks (circa 1979-'82), representing from the DIY cassette culture only, not taken from vinyl singles and 12" comps, as underground as they may be. Which means the stuff here is maybe even more "outsidery" than the usual run of Messthetics treats, as DIY got -really- DIY when the cassette culture thing took off. So, you can expect lots of fantastic -and- really weird tracks here, possibly more so than usual with a Messthetics comp. And the timing of this release is perfect too, as funnily enough cassettes have been making a bit of comeback. Maybe it's that kids today find 'em to be more of novelty than cds and cd-rs, or it's part of an analog backlash against digital, we've certainly been selling limited run cassette tapes like crazy here at AQ lately. Cassette tape, the new (old) cd-r!
Listening to this, you'll definitely have a flashback to your own home taping experiences. The clicks of the cassette deck starting and stopping as edits are made - such as at the start of Funhouse's track "Teenage Bedrooms", which begins with someone yelling "Roight! Enough of this pratting about [click], this song's called 'Teenage Bedrooms'"... and then what follows almost could be the Frogs.
The clicks, the whir, the (yes) hiss. Of course, production values vary from half-decent to practically non-existent. But that lo-fi-ness is all part of the charm. As is the creative, anything goes aesthetic of these bands and "bands". Some "well-known" names (relatively speaking) here and some less-so, from this most underground of underground scenes. Some of 'em quite "pop", others more experimental/industrial/electronic, many combining both.
Thee artists: The Jelly Babies, Danny & the Dressmakers, Storm Bugs, Colin Potter, Event Group, The Get, Instant Automatons, Missing Persons, Gravity Craze, Farming Jim & his Hepcat Groovstas, 391, The Chromosomes, Mike Jones, The Living Dead no. 5, Digital Dinosaurs, The Twizlers, Aconite, Casual Labourers, Midnight Circus, Milkshake Melon, Funhouse, Cultural Amnesia, Stripey Zebras, Chimp Eats Bananas (pre-Chumbawamba we're told), and Dean Johnson.
Everything from crunching electronic distortion to percussive jams (The Event Group) to sub-sub-sub New Wave. Talk about "noise pop", try Cultural Amnesia's track on for size! So much great stuff.
As usual, bursting with value. 25 songs on the cd, plus five more mp3 bonus tracks! A thick, info-packed 24 page cd booklet! And of course it's but volume 1. Bring on volumes 2, 3, 4, etc. we say!
How could anyone not be obsessed with this? We originally thought the title was just a catchy turn of phrase whipped up by MISSISSIPPI RECORDS, who originally put this out on cassette, but as we did some digging, we discovered that the title was in fact literal, this is indeed a collection of songs found on cellphone memory cards in the Saharan desert. It's not nearly as strange as it sounds once you realize that in Africa, much like in the US, people use cellphones for everything, including of course collecting and trading music, often swapping songs person to person via bluetooth. So here is a sort of best of, a collection of tracks which were super popular in the African mp3/cellphone network, but have essentially never been released commercially or really heard at all outside of these mp3 traders until now.
Obviously, anyone who's a fan of Sublime Frequencies, or Mississippi records is gonna go nuts for this stuff. The sound, besides reflecting a sort of African underground, also chronicles a new era of personal music production, with many of these tracks recorded in people's homes, on computers, using commercial software, synths, autotune and other things previously unavailable outside a proper studio. The sound is super varied: many tracks are classic sounding African music, with some of that desert blues vibe found on a lot of Sublime Frequencies releases, call and response vocals, warm buzzing melodies, simple skeletal rhythms, very hypnotic and mesmerizing, while others are far out takes on commercial pop, or Afro-hiphop, or African electro, all seemingly underpinned by classic African rhythms, but with way more modern elements woven in, some with super autotuned vocals, creating a strange soulful autotuned afro-pop hybrid that is pretty amazing, the record continues to slip back and forth from those classic sounds, to more modern takes on African music, some lush and layered, others super lo-fi, some obviously loose street jams (occasionally peppered with weird recording/cellphone storage/transfer glitches, which only adds to the sound), others are obviously meticulously composed and arranged, and those crazy autotuned vox continue to pop up throughout (obviously very popular with the mp3/cellphone music traders), and are definitely the strangest element.
And according to the label, since the original cassette release, most of the previously mysterious artists (the original tape featured very little in the way of artists and titles) have been tracked down and now get a majority of the royalties.
So totally recommended!
From the same with-it collector-folks who brought us those Gentle Sounds For Gentle People '60s soft-rock comps not so long ago, comes this new compilation unearthing the tunes of 23 "tripped-out troubadours from 1965-1970". These so-called "Mystic Males" are long-haired, bearded (or at least mustachioed) mellow crooners, hailing from places like LA's Sunset Strip and New York's Greenwich Village. Professional and otherwise singer/songwriters getting into (for real or for, they might be hoping, the bucks) the Hippy vibe. Mostly, they sing about Girls. And Nature. And Love. And Girls. (At least five of the song titles here are simply girls' names.) Suiting such subject matter, these tracks tend towards gentle vocals, gentle vocals, heartfelt lyrics, and drifting folky melodies -- often times backed by lush orchestration and groovy beats. Some are twee, some are swingin'. Hadn't heard of any of these dudes before, except Dino Valente, but maybe you have -- here's a few, with song titles too: Chip Taylor "You Should Be From Monterey", Tommy Roe "Paisley Dreams", Teddy Neeley "Autumn Afternoon", Kenny O'Dell "Flower Girl", Thomas Hill "Glider Pilot", Bill & Howdy "Misty Morning Confrontation"... no, don't know 'em? Well those song titles ought to give you some idea of what they sound like, and also the liner notes give plenty of obscure details about each obscure track. And some of 'em are gems. We like these Mystic Males.
As the title indicates, this is the 2nd installment in Pet's Mystic Males series of comps, itself a subset of their Soft Sounds For Gentle People series, devoted to mellow, mystical '60s men doing flower power pop psych and folk tunes.
Lovely stuff, all about girls and flowers and daydreaming and suchlike. Sample song titles: "Lady Of The Burning Green Jade", "I'm A Deeper Blue", and "Four Robins Singing". The songs live up to the titles!
13 tracks in all, circa 1966-69, featuring the following obscure "tripped-out troubadours" we hadn't heard of before: Tyree Forest, Darrius, John Dunn, Gerry Pond, Shalynn, Ed Power, Dick St. John, Paul Stoop, Richard Coronado, Stephen Hartley, Malcolm Mitchell, Art Gee, and Jeff Monn.
The streets of New York in the '60s and '70s were brimming with a melting-pot of musicians.
Puerto-Rican, Latino and African-Americans, all bringing together their musical histories and legacies to create all new sounds like booglaoo, latin jazz, salsa, and a brand of disco that just can't be denied. This Soul Jazz collection brings together some of the biggest names in Latin music (Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Candido, Ray Baretto) along with some more obscure folks (Ismael Quinones Nature Zone, Johnny Zamot) all of whom know lots about creating songs that splash with color and vivacious energy. As always the Soul Jazz packaging is top-notch with informative and well written liner notes and some pretty amazing photos. Every time we need a lift in our spirits we've been blasting this really loud and the next thing we know we're moving just a little bit faster and cracking big ol' smiles! New York Latin Hustle does the trick every single time. Forget about St. Johns Wart this is our sure way to get in a better mood. So great!
Soundway has been building quite the amazing catalog with their brilliant Nigeria Special series. A collection of sounds that truly demonstrates that there is an endless wealth of amazing music made in Nigeria during the 1970's. This is volume two in the Modern Highlife, Afro Sounds & Nigerian Blues series and somehow it manages to meet or even beat the excellence of the first outing. What makes the collection so cool is how while still sharing a similar sound and pedigree, there is so much diversity in the sounds and instrumentation. Worth it all alone is the mind blowing track by Twins Seven, complete with otherworldly vibraphones and entrancing call and response vocals. We love how these comps turn us on to specific artists that then send us off on crazy hunts to try to find more songs and records by those artists. But then, that's exactly what a great mix is meant to do.
As a whole, Nigeria Special: Volume 2 has such a perfect sunshiny, laid back yet triumphant spirit. It's been our go-to record on Sunday afternoons when people are relaxing on a beautiful day, visiting the store, carefree after a leisurely stroll though the Mission, and the second we throw this on, we always see people casually swaying and tapping their feet as they make their away around the store, and they inevitably ask what's playing so they can grab a copy and hold on to that unbeatable feeling for the rest of the day, and for every weekend to come...
Along with Funky Frauleins and the French Sixties Girls compilations, how could we resist the allure of Nippon Girls, a swinging mod-tastic compilation of hip-swaying and frug-dancing femme-fronted big beat gems from sixties Japan? We couldn't, and you probably can't either. The cd came out a few years ago, but the vinyl version only just got released so we thought we should finally review this especially after the success of another Big Beat disc, Nippon Guitars, we reviewed a few lists ago. Feeling the influence of Western pop music in the sixties (including Bossa Nova from Brazil and Ye Ye from France), Japanese musicians capitalized on the new sound often by lifting popular songs wholesale and rewriting the lyrics. But the enthusiasm with which these sexy and soulful songs are performed and arranged make them pretty outstanding in their own right. Acid-y guitars, cinematic orchestral flourishes, and sharp and dynamic arrangements are just too infectious to be ignored, especially by beautiful women who look and sound this fantastically fierce. It's party time!
Note: the cd version contains the full 25 tracks while the lp version only covers the first 12 tracks from 1967-1969. We assume there will be a follow-up volume 2 vinyl comp with the other tracks.
Along with Funky Frauleins and the French Sixties Girls compilations, how could we resist the allure of Nippon Girls, a swinging mod-tastic compilation of hip-swaying and frug-dancing femme-fronted big beat gems from sixties Japan? We couldn't, and you probably can't either. The cd came out a few years ago, but the vinyl version only just got released so we thought we should finally review this especially after the success of another Big Beat disc, Nippon Guitars, we reviewed a few lists ago. Feeling the influence of Western pop music in the sixties (including Bossa Nova from Brazil and Ye Ye from France), Japanese musicians capitalized on the new sound often by lifting popular songs wholesale and rewriting the lyrics. But the enthusiasm with which these sexy and soulful songs are performed and arranged make them pretty outstanding in their own right. Acid-y guitars, cinematic orchestral flourishes, and sharp and dynamic arrangements are just too infectious to be ignored, especially by beautiful women who look and sound this fantastically fierce. It's party time!
Note: the cd version contains the full 25 tracks while the lp version only covers the first 12 tracks from 1967-1969. We assume there will be a follow-up volume 2 vinyl comp with the other tracks.
