***MISSISSIPPI RECORDS!!!***MISSISSIPPI RECORDS!!!***MISSISSIPPI RECORDS!!!***MISSISSIPPI RECORDS!!!***
Like a Pavlovian bell, just the mere utterance of this vinyl-only Portland label gets everyone aflutter, ready to eagerly acquire no matter what the sounds contained inside. We suppose if they put out a record solely of sounds made by cement mixers, back-hoes or traffic noises and packaged it in a sweet homemade album cover with nostalgic photos of antique construction equipment, and called it something like "My Heart Belongs To The Public Works", we'd sell out of them just as fast as their awesome compilations of pre-war blues or their reissues of obscure post-punk groups. As cool as that actually sounds, the not one, but TWO Mississippi releases we have this week are both super stellar and we know everyone is going to want at least one if not both of them.
Oh Graveyard, You Can't Hold Me Always is Mississippi Record's third (and arguably best) compilation of obscure gospel recordings. But instead of focusing on church revival songs featured on Life is a Problem, or the personal redemptive blues of Fight On, Your Time Ain't Long, here we have a compilation of joyous private pressing recordings from the sixties and seventies featuring mostly small family vocal groups and band ensembles, like the Mosby Family singers, Straight Street Holiness Group, Laura Rivers, Rev. Lonnie Farris, Radio Four, Joe Townsend, White Family, Silver Quintette, James Carter & The Mighty Stars, Farris and Williams, Traveling Echoes, Brother Willie Eason, Happy Travelers and an anonymous final track that sounds like either small children or munchkins singing "We Shall Overcome". Often sounding like they were recorded on street corners or in small community halls or city shelters, we can imagine that like the picture on the cover, these songs were recorded with the whole group surrounding one microphone. Although there are a few old school blues moments, there is a greater emphasis here on R&B and soul motifs than on previous gospel comps. Many of the songs feature mostly just guitar and bass, with the guitars playing out chiming circular riffs in an almost Afro-Caribbean vein, suggesting that many of the tracks were recorded far outside American urban centers (there's no liner notes, so we're guessing). One sweet instrumental track features some very nice Hawaiian-style slide guitar. This is a stunning collection of gospel tunes, amazing for its atypicality, showcasing an innocent simplicity and a transcendent independent spirit.
We've been trying to list this for ages now (we listed its predecessor, the Ongaku 70 comp, late last year), but our distributor kept running out, and then eventually it sold out totally and went out of print. Well, it's finally repressed and available again, but who knows for how long, so grab a copy before they're gone, cuz this stuff is so good, and so crazy, some of the coolest and weirdest minimal electronic and no wave music we've ever heard, and most of the groups were totally unknown to us. Sure there's Phew and Riuchi Sakamoto and Tako, but then there's also Daisuck & Prostitute, Gunjogacrayon, Lizard and so many more. For those of you who remember that awesome So Young So Cold compilation of seventies and eighties cold/new wave music from France, well, imagine an even more warped and whatthefuck Japanese version and you've got Ongaku 80.
The sounds here are so varied and so all over the map, there's no way to really describe it as a whole, so might as well go track by track. EP-4 starts things off with "Robothood Process", which is in fact quite robotic, sounding a little like Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" at 16rpm, a funky bassline, little flurries of percussion, a weird machinelike voice, streaks of feedback, tolling bells, all wrapped into ramshackle groove. Sakamoto's "Riot In Lagos" takes the new wavey prog of Yellow Magic Orchestra (Sakamoto's group), and pulls it apart into something more robotic, unwinding long streaks of dubby rhythms, and a stuttery almost hip-hop groove, wreathed in all manner of beeps and bloops and synth blurts. "Modern Beat" by Lizard might be one of our favorites, a militaristic beat, some spidery guitar melodies, buried crooned vocals, lilting melodies, but over the top super loud dubbed out drums and a thick super distorted low end buzz, that erupts every once in a while like a squelchy rib cage rattling pppppthhhh, not to mention some squiggly Bollywood melodies. Portray Heads offer up "Elaborate Dummy", which is a killer slab of futuristic electro-punk with sweet crooned girl vox over the top, pulsing and pulsating synthscapes that should have fans of Zombi, Umberto and all the rest flipping their lids. Gunjogacrayon channel early P.I.L. and the Slits for a noisy chunk of super rhythmic punkfunk, wreathed in all sorts of effects and guitar scrabble and garbled wild vox.
Flip the record over, and things start off with "Urahara" by Phew, a weird bit of stiff robotic funk, with cold sung/spoken female vox over theremin like melodies and an almost Kraftwerk like arrangement. Tako's "Funk Of The Hostage" is indeed funky, bit a sort of sinister soundtracky funk that slithers and swaggers, a creepy bit of stuttery broody psychedelic spacefunk, with processed vocal garble and shards of squealing feedback and fractured melodies, as well as flurries of atonal piano, and bursts of distorted yelps and swirling FX. The awesomely named Daisuck & Prostitute almost sound like they could be some sort of proto-Ruins project, progged out scrabbly lurching grooviness, peppered with horn bleats and strangled guitar squiggles, all beneath dramatic vox, the song slipping from frenetic skitter, to grooving post punk. Shinobu's "Earth" is another track that sounds like a mutated version of HH's "Rockit", this time pelted with all manner of spaced out swirl and stuttering swoosh, a collage of sliced and diced sonic fragments raining down on a mesmerizing sci-fi synth groove, with some bizarre bellowed vox. And finally, PTA's finish things off with their epic "Woo-Guy After Dark", which weds post punk guitar jangle to tribal percussion, swoonsome synth swells to sweetly crooned female vocals, a slow build to something that more resembles a lost Bollywood soundtrack or some strange Southeast Asian cassette reissued on Sublime Frequencies, the song slipping from dense and percussive to swirly and ethereal and back again, all the while super rhythmic and hypnotic.
Phew! So good, and so awesomely crazy and over the top! So totally recommended. We definitely can't say how long these copies will last, or if we can get more once they're gone, so better probably to not risk it. You have been warned!
Out of all of Motown's small subsidiary labels, Mowest may have been the most stylistically diverse. Created as an outlet for Motown's West Coast based artists, its brief existence between 1971-1973 before Motown set up shop in Los Angeles full time, covered a fertile period of music-making that was freed from pre-defined genre constraints. Where else could the soulful exuberance of the Commodores, the slow proto-disco groove of Odyssey and The Sisters Love, the late-period vocal pop of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons and the stoner hippie vibes of Lodi commingle together? As usual, Light In The Attic does a stellar job of highlighting the amazing aspects of this brief label, re-introducing to the world some of its lesser known artists such as The Nu Page, Suzee Ikeda, and G.C. Cameron, while showing the early career promise of Syreeta and Thelma Houston. This is a side of Motown at its most adventurous yet relaxed, letting the sunny soulful vibes wash over us like warm ocean waves. Super Recommended!
What a great comp! Rare but amazing examples of "Black music" (that's the European term) from the '70s, done with a heavy helping of at-the-time cutting edge electronics. Spaced out soul, in other words. Well, obviously it wasn't just cosmic krautrockers and spacey prog bands in the '70s messing around with the latest in synthesizers and other electronic music-making devices. Why wouldn't soul, funk, gospel, and RnB artists also make use of all that newfangled machinery? Of course they would, with folks like Herbie Hancock and Sun Ra leading the way. And they did. Especially those making music at home, without access to big studio budgets. That's the "Personal" part of the title, the songs here pretty much all being solo DIY home-brewed recordings, enabled by the technology... Which, along with the futuristic/sci-fi vibes that go along with the tech, give a lot of this a bit of an additional eccentric "outsider" feel, just check out the artist known as Starship Commander Woo Woo, for instance!
So, the compilers of this collection have dug deep, to find all these fantastic selections of what you could call "electronic soul", that in the mainstream we'd really only previously heard from Shuggie Otis... so if you can imagine Shuggie Otis really way out in spaaaace, you've got an idea of what's happening here.
Fat, buzzing synths. The mechanical tick-tock of primitive drum machines. Spacey FX galore. Mega multitracked masterpieces. Yeah, it'd all be novelty, if these songs weren't good. But, they ARE good. Obscure but definitely grade-A stuff in our book. The sci-fi sounds (which make a lot of this seem simultaneously '70s retro but also very up-to-date electronica-ish) are put to use by artists who come across like mutant Stevie Wonders and Sly Stones. There's 17 tracks here, from names we doubt you've ever heard of before: Jeff Phelps, Guitar Red, Johnnie Walker, U.S. Aries, The Makers, Cotillion, Spontaneous Overthrow, Jerry Green, Johnson, Key & Cleary, The New Year, T. Dyson & Company, Steve Elliot, Deborah Washington, and the aforementioned Starship Commander Woo Woo. Kinda hard to pick faves, some are simply groovy, some super bizarre, many both at once...
The only omission we can think of, is that even though this gets into the '80s, there's nothing from Wicked Witch on here (see our review of EM's reissue of that if you aren't familiar). But what's here is plenty weird & wonderful, from the twangy zipzap of bluesman Guitar Red's "Disco From A Space Show" to the heavily echo-effected "My Bleeding Wound" by The New Year...
Nicely presented, the cd in deluxe hardbound booklike slipcased packaging, complete with liner notes including thumbnail images of each original release. And the vinyl version is a 180 gram double lp, also nicely packaged.
From Mindanao in the South Philippines comes this great collection of recordings of instrumental lute recordings. Two women, Fingguy Flang and Luming Tuan, nationally recognized for their talents on the hegelung perform six tracks each. The hegelung is a long and slender two string lute. The performer using one string to produce a drone while working out a melody on the other. Alternately simple and virtuosic, the melodies of the hegelung are peppered with ornamental hammer-ons and pull-offs like the best heavy metal lead guitarists or 5-string banjo players out there. Awesome.
Ohh La La! This is pretty undeniably AMAZING! A snapshot of 60's French-pop perfection. We dare you to put this on and not start feeling a little more stylish, a little more classy, a little more sassy,
and a whole lot more happy! This is hands down one of the best collections of dance-party inducing French pop to grace our ears in ages. While we loved the Swinging Mademoiselles comp covering the same era, this collection almost makes that record pale in comparison. Pop A Paris is pretty much a who's who of French pop during this golden-era. Serge Gainsbourg, France Gall, Brigitte Bardot, Michel Polnareff, Delphine, Marie Laforet, etc etc! But what makes this comp so incredible are the songs! Not one snoozer in the bunch, every single one bursting with color, spunk and f-u-n-! Cover versions of "These Boots Are Made For Walking", "My Generation", "Paint it Black", and "Happy Together" all somehow manage to make us only want to hear these versions from now on and NEVER the originals. And the non-covers are just as spot-on-perfect.
This has been out for a few years now and had been a kind of secret weapon in DJ sets by Irwin. Can't count the times that putting one of these songs on during a show has resulted in a dancefloor packed with wide smiles and shaking booties. So totally recommended!
Looking at the cover of this comp, what catches our eye? Well, of course the words PSYCH and FUNK in big electric pink letters. Pretty much had us right there, we're easy like that. But then the fine print on the sticker on the front adds an extra tingle of excitement: "None of these tracks have ever been reissued"! So what we have here is a survey course on some obscure shit, an international collection of freaky, fuzzy, funky jams from the golden years, circa 1968-1975 or so, mostly from groups we'd never heard of before. The ones did know were a good sign, being super groovy and decidedly eccentric. (Though we do have to point out that at least a few of the cuts here actually have been reissued before, that's how we knew 'em!). Here's the lineup: Hunsu Ozkartal Orkestrasi (Turkey), Kukumbas (Nigeria), Mulatu Astatke feat. Belaynesh Wubante and Assegedetch Asfaw (Ethiopia), Kim Sun (South Korea), Petalouda (Greece), Mehr Pooya (Iran), Staff Carpenborg and The Electric Corona (West Germany), The Group (Italy), Armando Sciascia (Italy), Wadih Essafi (Lebanon), Omar Khorshid (Egypt), Metin H. Alatli (Turkey), George Garanian with The Melodiya Jazz Ensemble (Russia), and Eskaton (France). 14 tracks in all, all of 'em b to the a to the d to the ass. Get ready for plenty of percolating percussion, infectious bass lines, analog synth buzz, chicken scratch guitar, greasy organ, drugged out FX, and in many cases Middle Eastern or African or other 'exotic' ethnic elements as appropriate to their nation of origin. Highlights are almost impossible to pick. All the African stuff is killer (Ethiopiques fans take note), so are the Turkish tracks (you want weird? check out how the Metin H. Alatli cut somehow segues from Richard Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra 2001: A Space Odyssey monolith music to stoned cocktail bellydance improv!!), so is everything else. We dig how eerieness and jazziness are combined on "The Feed-back" by The Group (aka Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, featuring Ennio Morricone), and also Armando Sciascia's suspenseful "Circuito Chiuso" is pretty eerie too. Both are from Italy, where it seems that it's hard NOT to sound like you're scoring a phantasmagoric horror flick a la Goblin. Also, we love love love the grandiose extended electro-funk from Magmoid progsters Eskaton that closes out the disc. But why keep writing about this, you know you need it - unless your record collection already includes all these rarities, and there's no way it does.
Lovingly compiled with the help of DJs like Cut Chemist and Stone's Throw's Egon, Psych Funk 101 is truly a lesson in, well, a variety of awesome vintage funkiness, in the tradition of other cool comps like Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word, Obsession, Trap Door, and the Afro-centric Love's A Real Thing. Housed in a handsome digipack, it boasts a thick, 36 page booklet featuring a two-page spread on each track, with full color repro of the original LP or 45 sleeve from whence the cut originated, along with a page of text giving more info than you'd expect.
FYI this also came out on vinyl, but was gone so fast, we don't have any to list. However, we are told it is being repressed, soon we hope...
Yet another incredible comp from the fine folks at Dust-To-Digital, after two recent aQ faves, the Luk Thung collection of obscure Thai 78's, and the Kassidat compilation of rare, raw 45's from Morocco. Well if you dug those, you're gonna want this one too, another collection of rare 45's, this time from Yemen, a handful of singles released in the sixties and seventies, documenting a sound and music that has historically remained immune from Western influence, and thus offers a true glimpse into the lives of the Yemeni people, and gives Westerners perhaps one of their first glimpses of Yemeni music. And as you might imagine, it's pretty magical, lots of oud, a buzzing guitar like instrument, that's rich and resonant, accompanied by fantastically expressive and emotional vocals, laid back and weary on some tracks, effusive and wild on others, some call and response, accompanied occasionally by simple percussion, handclaps, one track forsakes the oud completely and instead lays down an amazing percussive backdrop, all clattery and clangy and metallic, a shimmery pulsing field of hypnotic metal, over which some of the most beautiful vocals soar and swirl. The whole collection is stunning, by turns mysterious, intimate, playful, passionate and completely mesmerizing.
As always, the packaging is top notch, tons of photos, and extensive liner notes, on the region, the history, the songs and the musicians.
We know we aren't the only ones crazy for the sounds of Chicha, at least judging by the number of copies we sold of the first Roots Of volume, not to mention the amazing collection of songs by Juaneco Y Su Combo. It's pretty much impossible to be into a wide range of music and not be floored by the rad sounds of Chicha. Fuzzy and psychedelic, washed out and surfy, all wrapped in the sounds of cumbia, carimbo and Peruvian traditional music. Barbes is doing such a great job with this series helping expose the truly amazing music coming from this scene in Peru from 1968-1981. It not only has such a cool sound that tons of bands today wish they could recreate, but the songs also have such a sense of soul that makes this one of those records that gets everyone in the store shaking gently back and forth and tapping their toes and we have lost count with how many times we get asked what is playing when this is on as its a record that appeals to such a wide range of tastes.
It shows how rich this scene was that Juaneco Y Su Columbo aren't even on this volume, yet all the other bands included we would kill to hear more from. We know if this was on Sublime Frequencies we would sell even more of these, so c'mon if you love amazing sounds from different parts of the globe you've got to get on the Chicha train!
While labels like the Numero Group and Soul Jazz have been doing a great job of digging up amazing old soul sounds from the past, this collection of soul and funk from Spain from 1966-1976 popped up out of nowhere and has ended up being maybe one of the best soul collections we've ever heard! It's everything you want soul and funk from that era to be. It's infectious, playful, gritty, groovy and totally addictive. While none of us had too much experience with the soul scene in Spain, this comp proves that it was pretty damn healthy and vibrant. These songs are damn near impossible not to be swept away by. Even Andee who is maybe the least funk-obsessed AQ-er was caught totally digging on these sounds. And then for those of you who are already attracted to great funk sounds of the era, this is like hitting the funkrock jackpot! After getting this the first day it arrived at AQ, I (Irwin) managed to play cuts from it during no less than three different DJ sets in the next 48 hours. And every single time I played a song from it I was immediately met with someone running to the DJ booth (and the phone lighting up when it was during my radio show) with the same excited question...What the heck is this and where can I buy one!!?? What makes this collection so outstanding are the strange splashes of eccentric spirit that keep it from sounding too same-y and keep the disc from ever losing steam, like lots of soul collections tend to do. This is one of those amazing records you can't help but fall in love with! If you have a pulse or a heartbeat or are at all alive, you won't be able to resist!
With the abundance of amazing comps and reissues of lost gems from all over Africa in the 1970s, it can get easy to forget that there is the here and now, and that there is equally damaged, brilliant, fucked up and contagious sounds being made throughout the globe RIGHT NOW! Don't get us wrong we love all the reissues of '70s psych glory that's being dug up and rediscovered all over the world, including so much from Africa, but damn it's so refreshing and invigorating to get a set of brand new sounds from across the globe being created at this very moment that grabs a hold of our imagination in such exciting ways. Shangaan is a new form of dance music coming out of Soweto that merges the sounds of traditional mbira (thumb piano) music with hyperactive synthesizers. It really is like nothing we've heard before. Call and response glory wrapped in 180 bpm craziness!
In some ways this feels like the spazzy cousin to the great Congotronics compilation from a few years ago, as that also showcased a new form of charged and body moving sounds coming out of Africa. But this is even more dance minded. You have to make sure you go online to YouTube and check out the actual dances that are performed to this music, so spirited, full of a new folklore and such a psychedelic aura. The sound of the songs is kind of like some early Nintendo game getting hijacked by Omar Souleyman armed with a karaoke machine and a troupe of boys, girls, men and women all ready to move on their feet as fast and furiously as possible. There are parts of the music that sound like Fever Ray played on the wrong speed, or what we imagine M.I.A. would blast at an afterparty. Forget about the World Cup, this may be the most mind blowing cultural phenomenon going down in South Africa that we are lucky enough to get to hear and appreciate NOW. Beyond recommended!
This is one of those records that reminds us of how totally powerful and intense music can be, affecting people in such deep and meaningful ways. Faced with how the HIV/AIDS crisis has devastated so much of Africa, a movement in Uganda has arisen to use music, dance and performance as a means to address, educate, empower and raise awareness in the community about all aspects of the epidemic. While there are many records made for good causes, and plenty of projects with the best of intentions, this is one with music as raw, true and intense as the cause and the people it serves. The sound is mostly vocal driven a capella numbers accompanied only at times by hand claps, raw percussion, and sounds of nature. So cool. This is not some feel good watered down benefit record, the songs are powerful and have titles that translate to "Death Killed All The People", "The Graveyard Is Our Home", "AIDS Finished Us" and "Is Someone There?". The intensity and raw honesty is felt so directly in the tone and resonance of every one of these songs. Comes with a 36 page booklet filled with information and translation of all the songs, this whole collection is proof that music does have the ability to enlighten, educate and empower.
We were in absolute buzzing raga drone, funk soul heaven when we learned that those amazing and totally fun vinyl-only releases in the Sitar Beat series had now been compiled onto a cd. Most of us were never lucky enough to get the lps but now we can get our sitar funk on all the same! Chances are if you've been in the store in the last couple weeks you've heard us playing this, as this is one of those rare records that every single one of us can't help but be in love with. '60s, '70s and early '80s Bollywood jams and Indian-influenced psych-grooves HEAVY on the sitar. R.D. Burman, Ananada Shankar, Asha Bhosle, Serge Gainsbourg, Klaus Doldinger just to name a few of the responsible parties East and West who will henceforth be making your parties way more fun!!! But be prepared for tons of questions when all your friends start asking you what it is you're playing. We've been fielding those questions for weeks, but we're more then happy to answer with a simple reply: "It's Sitar Beat!..." and before we can even finish our sentence said questioner is on his or her way out the door with a copy. We rest much easier at night knowing that we're doing out small part to spread these amazing soul stirring buzzy freak funk grooves far and wide, filling ears and shaking souls!
No doubt we've loved so much of what Italians Do It Better has released recently, in so many ways they really helped reignite the love of dance music in indie culture. With different shades of smoky, slow burning spaced out disco, techno and house music, their roster really reads like an exciting list of some of our favorite synth heavy late night dance floor favorites. Solid Gold is a collection of tracks from 12" singles IDIB have released over the last few years by folks like Invisible Conga People, T&K, Bottin, Twisted Wires, and even Beyonce's sister Solange. We dig this collection so much because as much as we like so much of the Johnny Jewel fueled sounds that have come from the Italians Do It Better camp (Glass Candy, Chromatics, Desire), it's nice to hear a set of songs that have a bit of a different angle and perspective to dance music, than just one group/guy's vision. From total spaced out ravers to cold and thrilling chillers we've been listening to this loud and nonstop ever since it came in to the shop. We even noticed that folks who are usually a bit dance music shy are getting way into this as there are so many awesome prog and psyched out synth moments on this record.
Much like their last compilation After Dark, Italians Do It Better have once again provided us with a seamless compilation that flows so perfectly from start to finish and is making us move in the most sensual and satisfying ways. So smoking!
This isn't quite what we expected, but it is amazing and beautiful and we can't stop listening to it in the store. So what were we expecting? Well, from the title, we thought this would be a compilation of some Impulse, Actuel, ESP, and Black Jazz label style majestic free jazz, a la John and Alice Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Pharaoh Sanders, Sun Ra, Don Cherry, Philip Cohran etc. And to some extent it is, but looking at the track listings, we hardly recognized any of the people or groups on here, except perhaps for Ronnie Boykins and Salah Ragab & The Cairo Jazz Band. Other folks like Mor Thiam, The Frank Derrick Total Experience, The Lightmen Plus One and Ndikho Xaba & The Natives among many others were completely new to us. And while at times the music here is majestic, it focuses less on the cerebral, higher minded forms of free jazz, and more on the burgeoning post-Coltrane musical underground that fostered from the communal spirit, personal reform and the celebration of African heritage prevalent in the African-American community following the civil-rights era. Culled from rare 45's, private press lps and obscure studio albums, seriously, this is some groovy shit! Sengalese percussionist and bandleader Mor Thiam's infectious "Ayo Ayo Nene (Blessing For The New Born Baby)" is definitely one of our picks for jam of the year! Other highlights include Bay area based, P.E Hewitt Jazz Ensemble (featured on the Record Store Day Comp, This LP Crashes Hard Drives!) and the funk groove of the Ohio Penitentiary 511 Jazz Ensemble, a group comprised of prison inmates. There are a great selection of tracks using unusual Asian and African instrumentation such as Diembe, Santur (a 72 stringed Iranian dulcimer like instrument), something called a Seaweed Horn, and of course mbiras, flutes, congas, vibes and horns aplenty. We've been getting a lot of awesome spiritual free jazz in the store lately from the recently reissued Don Cherry / Latif Khan collaboration (reviewed on this list as well, Record Of The Week in fact) and The Pyramids reissues (two of which are also reviewed elsewhere on this list) and this fits in quite nicely. So good!
Another amazing installment of the Spiritual Jazz series, and after volumes focusing on America, and Europe, and Americans in Europe, this time the series broadens its focus to the rest of the world. No small feat there, since the idioms of how jazz became defined in America and in Europe developed from a multiplicity of cultural musical traditions around the globe. But this volume is not about the ethnic origins of jazz, but how the popularity of jazz reflectively spread its influences back into the ethnic communities from which they originated. Largely culled from major label recordings as well as obscure private releases, this volume travels from remote Africa to Great Britain, Argentina to the Caribbean, and across Russia through Asia to deliver an incredible account of how music gets transformed through regional influences and nuances.
Includes tracks by: Charlie Munro Quartet, Paul Winter Sextet, Fitz Gore, Ahmadu Jarr, Eric Nomvete's Big Five, The Braz Gonsalves 7, Tete Mbambisa, Aquila, The London Experimental Jazz Quartet, Hideo Shiraki, Chivo Borraro, Jazz Semai, Jazz Work Shop, Virgilio Armas Y Su Cuarteto, Louiz Banks, Oladepo Ogomodede, and Jorge Lopez Ruiz.
Every volume has been spectacularly great, and this one is a fine place to start if you haven't heard the others.
Whether from Poland, American, Hungary, the UK, or France, there was a moment in time in the '60s and '70s when everyone making pop music was hoping to have a big hit in Germany. So even if they had NO idea what they were singing, they went into the studio hoping to tap into the lucrative German market and make it big auf Deutsch. Luckily so many of these tracks were also some of the most sophisticated, sassy and snappy pop songs being recorded in any language, or at least that's what this disc makes us think.
This comp brings together some of the totally shining moments in German-language pop from across the globe like France Gall, Barbara, Sandie Shaw, Paul Anka, Antoine, Kati Kovacs, AQ Hungarian favorites Illes, and a bunch more, amazing examples of some of the most fun and infectious pop for which fans of ye-ye delights and those In-Kraut sound collections will fall hard, for sure.
There's a similar compilation we received recently, called Parlez Vous Pop?, that's essentially the French equivalent of this collection. Unfortunately, other than a couple tracks, that comp was much more suited for coffee house background music, but THIS ONE we can enthusiastically recommend!!
Wow, what an amazing artifact! Smithsonian Folkways have just reissued this 1959 release of urban folk song recordings made by six 11 and 12 year-old youths from the Harlem projects. With only bongos and bottles to beat out percussive rhythms, the kids make rhyming songs, chants, and stories that relate to their experiences of rough street life and how they cope with them. An argument can be made that these recordings are the nascent beginnings of what would later become rap, but the song's basic forms sound much more rooted in early blues, call and response rhymes, and tribal African rhythms, in that they still have the feeling of being tied to an older tradition of folk music. That they are being made by kids with such exuberance and charm in the face of real hardship make these recordings truly special.
Soul Jazz has been doing a great job of digging into the studio one vaults, unearthing some amazing, classic reggae and dub sounds but one thing that had been lacking were the ladies! Luckily they had the good sense to do some more exploring and find these 16 tracks by women from Studio One spanning the mid 60's to the beginning of the 80's. It's so nice to hear a feminine touch to the classic studio one sound. Their is a hazy sweetness that drips from this collection. When Dela Humphrey sings of a "Dream Land" you just might find yourself with an outbreak of goose bumps like we did. What's so nice about this collection is how it shows the blend and merging of motown, doo-wop and the classic studio one sound. The Soulettes and Jerry Jones would be just as comfortable in the soul section of AQ as they are in reggae. The Tonettes show off their production chops with a dub track that gets nice and loopy. Jennifer Lara makes the most appearances on the comp (3 times) with a sound that's oh so rich and reminiscent of early Burning Spear. Once again a great job by Soul Jazz, this is another essential collection!
This is the one. If you've never gotten a Studio One compilation or you have, but have been wondering which one to get next, the answer is right here. Soul Jazz pretty has pretty much selected the best, warmest and most memorable cuts by amazing reggae artists from Studio One spanning 1963-1980. We've been playing this almost non-stop in the store, as this really does represent some of the best music ever made. Studio One rivals Motown for being responsible for so much amazing and timeless music. All our favorites are here: Horace Andy, Marcia Griffith, The Heptones, Prince Jazzbo, as well as some stunning tracks by a few folks who had somehow slipped under our radar like Super & Sleepy, Michigan & Smiley, and Doreen Schaffer. It's got everything we love about the Studio One sound, from the super dubbed out, to song sizzling with sensual warmth. Every single track on this kills. This is a no brainer, an absolute must have.
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 "Florida Funk" comp elsewhere on this list but now we're talking about this collection from Luv N' Haight, an essential chapter in the history of California soul from 1966-1982. We've been playing this in the store pretty much every single day since its arrived (along with that Florida Funk), sometimes sneaking it on multiple times cause it just sounds so damn good! Starting off with the Gow Dow Experience's version of the Eugene McDaniel penned "Compared To What" which was first made famous by Roberta Flack on her essential recording First Take. The next fifteen tracks keep the fire alive with the kind of spirited soul that's pretty much impossible to resist. Whether it's the Bay Area's own Darondo turning on the sensual heat with his slow burner "Such A Night" or Spanky Wilson getting all sassy with her take of "Fancy" or Johnny Morisette getting super raw singing about being hungry. The perfect collection to be blasting at all summer bbq's and get togethers. Sounds that are so warm, so bold and still sound so alive today!
Yay, also at last we have a bunch (well, maybe not for long) of this recent Record Of The Week on vinyl!!
Ooooh, so awesome! If you're familiar with Minimal Wave already, or if you're not, this is the thing to get.
The Minimal Wave label and website have been tremendous resources for discovering the hidden gems of synth punk, cold wave, Neue Deutsche Welle, and any of the darker strains of new wave that all blossomed throughout the early to mid '80s. While the label has released full album reissues (vinyl-only) from a number of forgotten men and women of the trade, the two comps that Minimal Wave has issued over the years - the Lost Tapes (documenting European artists) and the Found Tapes (culling from North America) - were absolutely stunning, without a dud amongst the many collected tracks. Unfortunately, those two comps were quite expensive and quite hard to come by. So when Minimal Wave and Stones Throw came together to release this comp, our initial reaction (and that of a few others walking in the shop) was that this compilation fused those Lost & Found Tapes together. Well, we were wrong as this highlights not only some of the best tracks from those compilations, but also the best tracks from the Minimal Wave reissue library, plus a few rare gems not readily available anywhere else.
The Belgian outfit Linear Movement (which later morphed into A Split Second) opens the compilation with a very cold dance number of disaffectedly cold Italo-disco rhythms and female vocals that would fit in with any given Johnny Jewel production for Italians Do It Better (e.g. Chromatics, Glass Candy, Desire, etc.). Crash Course In Science's "Flying Turns" re-emerged first on the Found Tapes and then on the totally awesome Vinyl On Demand anthology; and is an immediately catchy if darkly unique number of dot-dot-dash electro and spiky rhythms closer in spirit to the Units or Nervous Gender. Oppenheimer Analysis reprises a very Gary Numanoid track from their eponymous record which Minimal Wave reissued a while back. The Mark Lane track "Who's Really Listening" is another insistent proto-techno number of synthetic micro-blips driving handclap drum rhythms and Lane's Ultravox-ish vocals. Tara Cross was one of the few women tinkering around with electronics, and produced some beguiling arrhythmic structures with staccato synth punches and her drawn out vocal ambience. Turquoise Days may have been the only New Wave export of the Channel Islands, pulling out some jangling dissonance from their guitars to match the Modern English synth melodies. Minimal Wave reprises the Lost Tapes with a great track from Bene Gesserit, a project of bleakly alienated progressive electronics from Alain Neff who ran the Insane Music label. The Esplendor Geometrico track is curiously playful for a project that centered so much on dangerously mechanoid industrial grinding. Das Ding's "Reassurance Ritual" was designed for the dancefloor with a constant revolution of drum machine programming around tightly wound synth melody repetitions. Cryptic theatrics from the Martin Dupont ensemble appear on "Just Because" sounding a lot like a Fad Gadget B-side. And if the Deux track "Game & Performance" sounds familiar, it's because you've heard it on the BIPPP compilation which Ed Banger re-released a while back. The compilation is fleshed out with the best death disco groove that Das Kabinette ever mustered on their single "The Cabinet" which did come out on a Minimal Wave lp a while back.
Fantastic!!!!!
It's tempting with records like this to just paraphrase the extensive liner notes, which in this case go into crazy details about, as the title suggests, the history of cumbia, and how that history has played out via the advent of the commercial phonograph, not to mention the introduction of new instruments, new genres, and the spread of the sound from its birthplace on the Caribbean coast to more central cities. Which would make sense, cuz to be honest, we knew very little about cumbia, at least in terms of its history and development, but at the same time, a quick Google search, and you'll have a wealth of different sources to learn more about cumbia and its history, and as interesting as that is (and it is, VERY), it's really for us all about the music, and the music here, two and a half hours of it, is so fantastic, and the idea that while sure, folks into Latin music and who already dig cumbia, will of course love this, it's the sort of comp that's perfect to expose this music to a whole new audience, one that might not have any experience with stuff like this at all, and who like us, might just be totally blown away by these sounds, energetic and passionate, melodic and moody, rhythmic and celebratory, the bands so tight, the musicians incredible, the songs very propulsive and percussion driven, the older tracks all about the accordion (more on that in the liner notes), with amazingly funky and soulful horn sections, melding cumbia to a fuller big band jazz sound, the songs groove and shimmy, pound and swing, the vocals too, so dramatic and emotional, all combined to create an incredible and expansive collection of music, which while at one time was a music mostly for the lower classes, eventually became a music for all the peoples of Columbia, and a point of great pride.
This collection was curated by Will Holland, who you may know as Quantic, whose awesome Addis To Axum: Music, Words & Arrangements Of Ethiopia record we reviewed way back in 2010, and who spent years in Columbia, learning the accordion, starting a band, and setting up a record studio, immersing himself in the culture to dig up the recorded history of Columbia and cumbia, via a treasure trove of rare 78's and 45's. We've been listening to this like crazy, and have found ourselves going a little cumbia crazy. Beautifully packaged, includes a massive 40 page booklet with tons of liner notes, and lots of amazing photos and images of old record sleeves.
Last year we freaked out about an awesome reissue of Chicha jams by the legendary Peruvian group Juaneco Y Su Combo. So we were beyond thrilled to discover this collection featuring the best of the sounds of Chicha that came bursting out of Peru from the late '60s to the late '70s. Juaneco Y Su Combo are featured here of course, with a few tracks from that disc we love, but what's amazing is that lots of the other groups are just as good, if not even better, and that's saying a whole lot!
It's such an irresistible sound, infused with elements of Andean melodies, Cuban gujiras and plenty of surfy and psychedelic rock tinges. The songs here are filled with so much mood and spirit and will definitely appeal to such a wide range of music lovers, from those who dig weird and wonderful world music a la Sublime Frequencies, to those who dig the more classic psych pop sounds of the Nuggets compilations. These are songs that sizzle and crackle with so much flavor. We could also see rare groove folks getting super excited about some of these sounds and we wouldn't be surprised if samples of them made their way onto some Madlib record in the future.
This actually came out -before- that great Juaneco Su Combo disc so if you loved that one, you gotta make sure to grab this one too, so you can get turned on to other Chicha greats like Los Mirlos, Las Hijos Del Sol, and Los Destellos (who do a Beethoven track in amazing chicha fashion!).
It's always so awesome to blast this in the store, everyone starts tapping their feet and all frowns turn upside down as it's pretty near impossible to be dour or stoic while these songs are playing, and radiating so much colorful fun. So damn good!
Yay! It's been awhile since we've had a new Finder's Keepers release, and this one is amazing!
By now we're all too familiar with the Eastern cinematic pop splendor and sitar funk of Bollywood. But what about Lollywood? Yes, just to the north in Pakistan, the city of Lahore had their own cottage film industry. Perhaps not as well known outside Pakistan, Lollywood was highly profitable in the seventies and eighties, housing a unique music division with its own equivalent of Bollywood's R.D. Burman and Asha Bhole in M. Ashraf and his female collaborator, Nahid Akhtar. With the help of EMI, Pakistani musicians were able to create ambitious music in a world class studio, using far-out instrumentation like Moogs and other synthesizers, accordions, surf-guitars, and tons of traditional hand percussion instruments instead of a proper drum set. It's definitely a far more electric and electronic pop sound , than what we're used to hearing in classic Bollywood music. Having an almost retro-futurist bent in its explosive collision of Eastern and Western musical touchstones: Freak-Beat and Surf Rock meets Space-Age Moog Pop and Urdu Groove! Originally released on 7" mini-lps (a curious marketing scheme was to release one soundtrack on 3 separate 7"s!), this is the first time these wild and delightful cinematic obscurities have been collected. Let's hope more get discovered. This IS the Sound of Wonder!
Last year, one of our favorite releases was the always great label Sub Rosa's beautiful assemblage of 1971 recordings from the kingdom of Bhutan entitled Tibetan Buddhist Rites From The Monasteries of Bhutan; and wow, what an intense and powerful collection of recordings it was. Sounds by monks and nuns that pretty much surpassed in sheer intensity and core spirit so much of what we usually drool over in our experimental and metal sections. Now we have the follow up to that which comes from the same recordings by John Levy made in Bhutan from 1971-72. A much different affair, these recordings as made obvious by the title, focus on the actual songs and folk tradition of Bhutan. Featuring skillful and moving instrumentals as well as many songs with vocals that leave us in total awe of their haunting qualities and totally beautiful delivery. You can almost imagine people like Islaja and Will Oldham listening to this with their notebook by their side and their ears wide open hoping to have it all enter their psyche. Parts of the instrumentation no doubt would get members of the No Neck Blues Band standing at attention. So funny how so much of what we know as 'free folk' or "free whatever" can be found in its original incarnation on these recordings. The Bhutanese dramnyen is probably the core and most used instrument on these recordings and wow how much we are in love with its glorious sound: seven strings that are struck with a plectrum and vibrate warmly, instantly washing over you with a darkly gentle vibe of total warmth and surrender. We're so grateful to Sub Rosa for releasing these previously impossible to find recordings. So moving and totally recommended!
With 2006 coming to an end, one of the things we are happiest about this year is that now, seven years after his passing, Moondog is finally starting to get some of the recognition, praise, and attention his amazing music deserves. This tribute album put out by the French label, trAce, is one of those rare compilations, which feature mostly artists we had never heard of (we already liked Jean-Jacque Birge and Ilitch, but Groupe d'Essai 3, Konki Duet, Stefan Laktos, Xenia Narati, Dragibus, et.al. are new to us) all of which ended up blowing us away! A lot of Moondog's uniqueness, comes from his highly individual use of percussion, his strong Native American and African influence as well as his deep appreciation of classical music, and the artists on this homage to Moondog totally get it. A wide range of sounds and perspectives capturing the great scope of sound that Moondog employed. Being both challenging and rewarding, experimental yet so totally listenable and pleasing.
Interspersed with short snippets of Moondog speaking, culled from an interview for Radio Triad in 1971, it's so nice to actually feel his presence on this record. Moondog's music has this way of being able to totally entrance, romance, and sweep one off their feet. Creating a world that is playful yet totally intense. We're so happy to report that this tribute to the genius of Moondog reaches that special space. So rare that a tribute album is able to do that, but in this case, this is not merely some people playing someone else's songs, this is the work of people whose souls and way of looking at music have been totally enriched by the magic of Moondog and this record feels like such a perfect way to celebrate his legacy.
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Okay Mississippi Records obsessives, get ready to blow your tops. Besides the amazing Been Here All My Days comp reviewed on the last list (grab one if you haven't yet, it's fantastic!), there are five, count 'em FIVE other new Mississippi titles this time around: I'll Meet You On That Other Shore, I'm Gonna Live Anyhow Until I Die, I'll Be So Glad When The Sun Goes Down, Worried Now, Won't Be Worried Long and Wave The Ocean, Wave The Sea, all culled from a legendary set of Alan Lomax field recordings, collected during his "Southern Journey, a trip he took through the American South, between the years 1959 and 1960, accompanied by British folk singer Shirley Collins, during which he made the first ever stereo recordings of American Traditional music in the field, capturing in stereo for the first time, music from Southern prison farms, the traditional gospel choral folksong of the Sacred Harp, the Southern Fife And Drum Corps, the debut recordings of blues legend Fred McDowell, not to mention an incredibly varied selection of musics from blues to bluegrass to country to gospel, captured on porches, at dairy farms, in churches, at picnics, state fairs, in prisons, in living rooms and in bars, many of the musicians, many of the folks Lomax had recorded before, and was visiting again, years later, while many were new discoveries.
According to the extensive liner notes, Lomax upon returning to the US, after a decade long recording trip in Europe and the UK, was hailed as a hero, responsible for the revival of interest in American folk music, but was quite disappointed by all the young people playing the folk music and traditional American music he helped discover, record and expose to this new audience, an audience that seemed to believe not only were they preserving the music, but also in some strange way "improving" on the originals, which horrified Lomax and spurred him to make the trip that would be later known as his "Southern Journey", not only to capture stereo recordings of all this amazing, still thriving American music, but to also prove those young folks wrong.
The results speak for themselves, 5 lps of gorgeous, unique, heartfelt American music, instrumental and vocal, celebratory and sorrowful, ballads and bluegrass hoedowns, gospel spirituals and military marches, call and response prison songs and back porch blues, and so much more. This is classic, timeless music, sounds imbued with the sweat and blood, the lives and deaths, the loves and losses of the American people, past and present, moving and emotional, and totally fantastic...
As for which one of the five to buy, it's a tough call, they're all fantastic, and the music is varied on each, they're not divided by theme or style, instead, it's more like a sprawling 5 part compilation, each as good as the next, so yeah, obviously if you can, you should buy all 5, but if that's too much, heck, just pick one, maybe with a title that appeals to you, and dig in. Odds are you'll be back for more.
Packed in super heavy jackets, with printed liner notes on the back, each volume containing a big booklet, with photos and more notes on each of the different tracks and all of the various performers.
Yay, this killer comp repressed on vinyl after several years MIA...
From the same great tastemakers who put together the Dirty Space Disco collection that has become an all-time AQ favorite, comes this collection of sultry and sensual French psychedelia. These are the sounds and artists that have influenced folks like Sebastian Tellier, Air, Islaja, Blonde Redhead, Bjork, Broadcast, Komeda, etc.
And while we of course love the peppy sounds of classic French ye-ye pop, it's the more seductive, warped and tripped out sounds from France in the '70s that really gets us going! When we realized that one of our favorite songs of all time, "Il Pleut" by Brigitte Fontaine (complete with arrangements by Jean-Claude Vannier!) was included, we knew there was some mighty fine curatorial work going on here.
But it's not just that one track, not even close, this comp has turned us on to amazing sounds from new-to-us folks like Christophe, Nino Ferrer, Jeanne Marie Sens as well as long beloved AQ faves like Dashiell Hedayat, Ilous & Decuyper, and Francois de Roubaix. While many of their US and UK counterparts were injecting large amounts of blues and hard rock into their psychedelia, the French kept it sensual, steamy and tripped out, realizing an alternate yet completely enticing musical universe. Full on sexy psychedelic seduction! Weirdness too, like the awesome track whose grooves are backed with the sounds of revving race cars.
Last year was a rich one for some amazing Tropicalia reissues and rediscoveries of long lost classics. Whether it was the first five Os Mutantes records or classics by Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso or more obscure gems from Luiz Eca, Som Imaginario, Rubinho E Mauro and maybe our favorite of the bunch the collaboration between Alceu Valenca and Geraldo Azevedo. Valenca's beautiful and mystifying vocal delivery and songwriting had us so hooked as that record became one of our most listened to treasures of last year. So of course we've been doing everything in our power to get our hands on more primo Valenca recordings and this one, recorded in 1974 is definitely another solid gold gem. A little more rocking and charged then the record with Azevedo, Mollhado De Suor shows a more extroverted side to Valenca, but still exploring a nice wide range of sounds, which is one of the things we love so much about Valenca. One song he is rocking and all you want to do is jump around in the grass and follow him wherever he decides to go, while the next song might be dreamier and more pastoral, painting him as an artist as comfortable with introspection as he is with bold and upfront fire. That might sound sort of like a modern day songwriter we love lots as well, Devendra Banhart. In fact last time Devendra was in the store he bought a copy of the Valenca & Azevedo cd and we have a feeling that he's been listening to lots of Alceu's recordings lately as a sneak peak listen to his forthcoming record made abundantly clear.
On Mollhado De Suor, Valenca is backed by some of the greats in the Brazilian scene of that time, Geraldo Azevedo actually appears on this record too, playing craviola and Brazilian acoustic guitar and AQ fave Lula Cortes is also in the mix playing dulcimer on most of the record. Another 70's gem from Brazil that demands your ears' attention!
One of the best reissues we've stumbled across recently, of a record we haad never heard of. Alceu Valenca & Geraldo Azevedo were Brazilian musicians and composers from the Pernambuco region of Brazil who created a distinct style that mixed elements of psychedelic folk/rock with native northeast rhythms of freco, maracatu, xote, etc. There is something so totally sensual and sexy about this record. It's in their voices and playing and the glimmering recording. With mixing and arrangements in the talented hands of Rogerio Duprat (Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes) this has some trademark elements of some of the best and most creative elements of Tropicalia but for sure with their own unique and varied stylings. Totally not a one trick pony at all. What we love so much about this record is that it takes lots of twists and turns but everywhere it goes we more than willingly go right along with it. When it's sweet and sultry it succeeds by not being too polished and by subtly seducing you into its sounds. Almost like what Serge Gainsbourg would sound like at his prime if he was living in Brazil. We also can't stop thinking about how the folks in Blonde Redhead may borrowed a bit from this record as their sensual and compelling melodies seem to have their roots in this recording. Maybe. Just in time for summer, this has proven to be the perfect soundtrack for days filled with sun, romance and adventure. Highly recommended!
Honey Owens sweetly surprises us with a return as Valet, on this beautifully kaleidoscopic record on Kranky. Much has changed in the six years since the nocturnal folk music of Valet's False Flag Society. For starters, Owens increasing attention over the past few years to her live dance music project, Miracles Club, with her partner Rafael Fauria, has given her a broader palette of sound design and a keener focus on production. A recent child had to put that project on hold (cue "babies ruin everything" rant from avid Miracles Club fan and aQ staffer Jill!), so Nature is a way of focussing that conduit of energy from one project to the other with a transition from a solo experimental act to a fully fleshed out band featuring Fauria and others.
Enthralled with the shimmery dream-pop of Cocteau Twins and Lush and the evocative shoegaze of Slowdive and Ride, Valet boosts up the production and songcraft on Nature from previous releases, but uses it to channel some of the internal and organic changes that come with new life and new responsibilities. It's a big change in sound for them, though not entirely new to us, as there seems to be a shoegaze revolution all over again these days with bands like Balms and Chasms, just to mention a couple from here in SF. Yet Valet use it to stunning effect and it's very nice to hear a band comfortable enough to just say fuck it to the complexities of experimentation and just give us a direct gorgeously-realized dream pop record. Kudos!
A few of us were very lucky to catch Jozef Van Wissem's recent AQ instore where he played his new 13 Course Swan Neck Baroque Lute, a super long and intricately exquisite variation of the lute we've never seen before, that he wielded mightily, rocking out heavy metal guitar style, and also played whilst walking around the store like a medieval troubadour (check our blog for pictures!). While unfortunately it wasn't our best attended instore, Van Wissem played like it was, and we were graciously rewarded with an intimate and beautifully hypnotizing performance. NEXT time, don't miss him!
And that is what you will find with his latest (vinyl-only) release on Important, Ex Patris. On vinyl only (for now at least), Ex Patris (The Fathers) gives us four new tracks of gorgeous plucked string majesty. Building upon his repertoire of mirrored palindromic compositions, he focuses this release on layered and repeating melodies rather than sparse reductions of past releases. At times, we wonder if he might be using overdubs, something we haven't noticed before in his recordings or if it is just that his new lute offers more depth and range than the ones he used in the past. Hard to tell, but oh so easy to become seduced by its magnificent spell!
Brigitte Fontaine wasn't the only influential feminine avant-gardist of french chanson. The recently celebrated domestic reissues of Fontaine's first two records have coincided with this incredible reissue of obscure cosmic dream-prog by Jacqueline Thibaullt, better known under her recording pseudonym Laurence Vanay. Vanay, wife of Laurent Thibault, the bassist and guitarist for Magma, recorded Galaxies in 1974, and on it, the classically trained composer, keyboardist and songwriter takes us on a deeply epic trip of dreamy Hammond organ and fender rhodes led spacy jazz-prog that is incredibly beautiful and unique. A mysterious and moving mix of Gong, Alain Goraguer, Igor Wakhevitch, Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes, and even Magma at their most gentle. Yet the music seems to have teleported from some insular private place in a far-off dimension. Its intricate arrangements, and the complex moods they convey seem very otherworldly, like the lonely astral-psych chanson of a remote dying alien race. Listening to a song like "Le Bateau", it's apparent Vanay had as much an influence on bands like Stereolab as Brigitte Fontaine did. Wonderful.
The cd version features 9 bonus tracks.
Finally, a remastered vinyl reissue of the Blade Runner score sees the light of day. It's funny that most people know the music of Chariots Of Fire far more than they know the actual movie, but with Vangelis's other big soundtrack, for an undoubtedly more famous film, the original score has been somewhat difficult to secure. It did not get an official release until 1994, 12 years after the film debuted, and over the years multiple versions have become available that either added to or subtracted from the original material. The movie itself has multiple versions, and with the 1992 Director's Cut arguably becoming the definitive version of the film, the Vangelis score finally became available as well, a version so intertwined with the film that it also includes snippets of dialogue from this futuristic noir masterpiece. The score, a mix of mystical exotica, dark electronic minimalism and sadly romantic themes, is marked by heavy electronic treatments and classical instrumentation evoking a hazy twilight dreaminess and melancholic longing that serves the film exquisitely. Easily a touchstone for a lot of modern day synth-worshippers, get this score on vinyl while you can, as it is already out of print awaiting a repress apparently. Like all limited things, eventually "all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain" (sorry, we had to fit that line in here somewhere!).
The making of this record is almost as fascinating as the record itself. Vantzou, a member of the Dead Texan (along with one of the Stars Of The Lid guys), delivers her second solo record, which was conceived of and composed over a four year period, while she was an SAT exam mathematics tutor. She wrote the whole record using synthesizers and mutated samples, and only then went about notating the music for a proper ensemble, strings, woodwinds, brass, piano, etc. And the results are stunning. The opening track sounds like it could be a Stars Of The Lid track, big swirling clouds of sounds, flecked with starlit piano, lush and lovely and layered, far too short at just two minutes, could easily have listened to a record length version of just this song, but Vantzou and her ensemble have much more to offer, whether it's the haunting, contemplative cinematic drift of track two "Going Backwards To Recover That Which Was Left Behind", a moody balladic dream-dirge, that wreaths pointillist piano in swaths of swoonsome strings and dramatic horns, or the ominously orchestral "Brain Fog" which sounds like Bernard Hermann composing a 20th century classical version of a John Carpenter score, at least until it settles back into something again more Stars Of The Lids-ish. The whole record is darkly dramatic, and VERY soundtracky, alternately achingly lovely, hushed and harrowing, droned out and drowsy, softly psychedelic, with a few tracks introducing a very Arvo Part like choral element, while others sprawl languorously, all dusky and firelit, and a few, get downright epic and bombastic. Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff.
Our definition of pure pop perfection would have to be Scotland's Vaselines! They embody everything a perfect pop band should be. They are charming and clever, dirty and sweet, sensitive and sassy. They have the ability to rock out or get all dreamy with equal potency. Coinciding with their reunion tour that will find them playing San Francisco in just a few days, Sub Pop has compiled pretty much all of their material onto this 2 disc collection. The first disc includes all of their studio recordings (the Son Of A Gun EP, the Dying For It EP, and the full length Dum Dum). The bonus disc includes three demo versions and two live shows from '86 and '88. Fair warning to fans, the first disc is identical to the Vaselines collection that came out a few years back, so if you have that, you'll be getting this for the demos and live stuff on disc two. Or cause you want it on vinyl, if you opt for that format. And if you have no Vaselines, well, needless to say this is ESSENTIAL.
Now that we have all that out of the way we can go back to gushing about why The Vaselines are the perfect pop band and how they pretty much influenced all the rad underground (and overground) pop stuff we've loved in the decades since they first hit the scene. Nirvana, Belle And Sebastian, Yo La Tengo, Hole, Vivian Girls, Beck, Dum Dum Girls, The Breeders and so many more owe so much of their sound, style and aesthetic to the Vaselines and everything they created during their short existence from 1986-1990. They predated the era when indie bands began to experience more widespread success and appreciation, but their songs and style pretty much set the blueprint for the alternative nation that would explode in the years following their breakup.
Listening to these songs is like hearing some crazy greatest hits collection as every single song is so totally classic and memorable, hard to believe that it's actually just their complete discography. Every song was truly unique and so goddamn catchy. Some of their songs were popularized when Kurt Cobain declared his undying love of the Vaselines and had Nirvana cover "Son Of A Gun", "Molly's Lips" and "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam". The Vaselines had a charisma that makes their songs appeal to such a wide cross section of music fans. They are the band K records wish they could have had, and have been trying to sign ever since. The Vaselines had the wit and smarts so many of their Glasgow followers try a little too hard to emulate, but most of all they had SONGS, songs that are so damn endearing and so completely timeless!
Last year was a pretty great year for Tropicalia. With a reunited Os Mutantes touring all over the world, a killer Soul Jazz compilation that helped more ears fall in love with the thrilling sounds coming from Brazil in the oh so turbulent late '60s / early '70s. So it makes so much cosmic sense that one of the founders of Tropicalia, Caetano Veloso, starts off this year releasing one of his best and most rocking records in years. While his last few outings have veered towards the easy listening schmaltz side of the sonic spectrum with far too many ballads, Ce finds him all stripped down and exuding a youthful energy that we haven't seen or heard for years. Such vibrancy and color! It's so hard to believe he's 64 years old, and we'd be hard pressed to think of many other people his age still making music as compelling as the sounds on Ce, as this blows away anything folks like Bowie, McCartney or Young have made in recent years. Worth it alone for the opening track "Outro", a scorching almost indie-rock sounding anthem, which has our vote for one of the best songs of the year. The album as a whole is so solid and listen after listen we keep falling in love again and again with Veloso's song writing prowess. Recommended!
There is John Coltrane's saxophone playing, Miles Davis on the trumpet, Jimi Hendrix on the guitar, Harry Partch's instrumental inventions, Erik Satie's piano compositions, all people who were undoubtedly masters of their craft, and right next to all those geniuses is the voice and songwriting of Caetano Veloso!
Now entering his sixth decade of releasing records and sounding as relevant and remarkable as ever. So crazy to think what a journey through life and music this man has had, being one of the forefathers of the Tropicalia movement in Brazil in the '60s, and then having to flee to London in exile for his heroic and uncompromising political resistance, all the while still finding a way to create such beautiful and meaningful music. We can't really think of anyone else who has made awesome records in every decade from the '60s to the present. Think of his musical peers still around from that era, when's the last time an entire album of new material from folks like Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Donovan or Van Dyke Parks actually blew you away? On the other hand Caetano continues to make music that is as challenging and creative as it is seductive and enchanting. His last album, 2006's Ce was one of the most charged, rocking and colorful records released that year. With Zii E Zie some of that same upbeat and rocking feel is still present, but there is also a lot of the more classic, sensual and hypnotizing side to Veloso's music making, as well of course as that voice, a croon that could melt even the most frozen of hearts.
Some of us had the chance to see him live just a week ago, and on the Ce tour, and they were two of the most sincere, engaging and electric shows we've seen in so long. Just goes to prove that you can age with grace and remain as brilliant and crucial as you were as a teenager, as long as you never lose touch with the spirit that has moved you, ever since the beginning. Thank the stars for souls like Caetano Veloso. He's made another wonderful album and continues to prove that he's an international treasure, using music in every possible way for all the right reasons. Highly recommended!
Now on vinyl! Here's what we said about the cd when we listed it before:
Summer's here and what better way to celebrate than to put on this gorgeous reissue of the very first Tropicalia record, the stunning 1968 debut of Caetano Veloso. As big in Brazil as Sgt. Peppers was in England and America, its fusion of Brazilian popular music with pop, psychedelia and politically pointed lyrics gave birth to the Tropicalia movement and earned Veloso a brief stint in jail for "anti-government activities". Today, even without understanding its political subtext, the celebratory freedom that is conveyed in these vivacious and effervescent songs couldn't resonate more. Leave it to the Brazilians to make the radically political a party as well. Fuck Yeah!
Some 14 years ago Television guitar-god Tom Verlaine released an unexpected low-key beautiful late night guitar instrumental record called Warm & Cool (which was reissued just a year or so ago by Thrill Jockey). Now he's back with what seems to be the follow up to that outing, and what a nice follow up it is. Slow and steady with nothing to prove, Verlaine's playing is so earnest as he makes sounds perfect for long drives on grey days, as rain splashes against the windshield and your eyes get anonymous glimpses of the surroundings. There is a simplicity in delivery and a timeless quality to his playing that could make this the perfect soundtrack for a 1950's black & white film filled with empty highways and of course the flickering neon lights of a Coca Cola sign on the front of an all-night diner. Yet there is something so meditative and assured about the songs on this record that makes it not just an exercise in nostalgia but instead totally great and engaging mood music that sucks you in and allows to wander those same rainy streets. Each time we listen we go somewhere slightly different and equally as satisfying. Highly recommended!
Are not from Vermont. Give it a listen, maybe you'll guess... they're from Cologne, Germany.
And Vermont's debut release comes to us via our fave techno/electronica imprint, Cologne's Kompakt. It's the first collaborative project from experienced producers Marcus Worgull and Danilo Plessow (Motor City Drum Ensemble). This duo has also enlisted some friends to help 'em out - among them, Can's Jaki Liebezeit, who drums on two of the cuts, along with one of Jaki's bandmates in his '80s Phantom Band. So no surprise that this has got a satisfyingly, slightly krautrock-ish vibe, shades of Cluster and Kraftwerk; these moody, melodic instrumentals all arising out of the Vermont duo's relaxed jams on vintage analog synth gear, augmented on a few of the tracks by guest guitar, violin, drums, and theremin. There are 14 varied pieces, with Teutonic names like "Ruckzug" and "Ubersprung" and "Katzenjammer". Self-descriptive names too, like "Dynamik", "Majestat", and "Macchina". Some have atmospheric, "incidental" music feel, others are more active and insidious. All are constructed from a quite pleasant palette of sounds that include sundappled electronic blippery, gently chirping melodies, headnodding beats, and whooshing soothing synth textures. As befits a release on the label that brought us the "Pop Ambient" concept, there's moments here that sound like the mellowest video game theme music you could ever imagine!
It's nice stuff, very nice. We're happily transported by this music to the mountains of an imagined idyllic Vermont (that's somehow right outside of Cologne), the temporal location of which is also oddly imprecise - could be just yesterday, or deep in the '70s.
Vinyl version (tracks spread over an lp and a 7") also includes a cd of the whole album, which is what you get when you get the cd version, obviously.
There is a long tradition of famous offspring failing to achieve the same level of success and/or artistry as their more talented folks (Jacob Dylan, Lisa Marie Presley, Julian Lennon, Ziggy Marley, etc...) So you can understand why we might have had some reservations when we heard that the son of the late great Ali Farka Toure, was coming out with his own album. Those reservations disappeared the second we pressed play. We were immediately swept away by the soulful and richly melodic sounds of Vieux's amazing music. There is no doubt that he was blessed with much of the musical talent his father possessed, and it's obvious that this music needed to be heard. His dad had actually forbidden him to play music when he was growing up as he didn't want him to face the same hardships that he did. Luckily Vieux rebelled, unable to suppress the music that clearly flows through is veins. This debut is so good! There is of course a deep similarity to the sound of his father, but in a way that feels so connected and yet with a soul of its own. Ali Farka actually appears on the record on two tracks, the last recordings he made before his passing last year. Toumani Diabate, the renowned kora master also plays on the record adding a layer of delicate beauty to Vieux's songs. It's funny how Vieux actually means old in French, and in so many ways when you listen to his songs, despite his young age there is a richness and quality and timelessness to his voice and music that has you feeling like you're listening to the music of an old-soul. In many ways this is like a calmer side to the great new Tinariwen record we are still so in love with. A wonderful debut and we can't wait to see what the future holds for Vieux!
Like plenty of other folks, we were all super excited for this new set of songs from beloved Philly troubadour, Kurt Vile. Even before the full length landed, we were already pretty smitten by (and addicted to) the album's first single, "Pretty Pimpin", due in no small part to its awesome body duplicating video.
From our experiences with past Vile albums, we knew to reserve judgment until after multiple listens, as Vile has proven to be a grower, that special sort of songwriter whose songs gradually seep into the listeners subconscious, the songs slowly blossoming, the sound becoming more and more perfect with repeated exposure, eventually revealing all manner of intricacies, subtle melodies and more.
The studio is used to perfection here, with banjos, pianos and various other instruments complimenting Vile's distinctive songwriting, and singular guitar style, so perfectly. Vile is a master of crafting perfect soundtracks for long drives, slow bus rides, and lonely road trips. Like an impossible combination of Neil Young, Willie Nelson, and Thurston Moore, Vile proves once again on B'lieve I'm Goin Down, that he's something special, the rare artist who seems to have made the transition from underground sensation, to proper (almost) mainstream musical voice. And he's made another record that we're already hooked, and one we're likely to throw on for years to come.
Riding high on the success of a string of releases, Kurt Vile seems poised to break into the spotlight with his Matador debut, Childish Prodigy. It's hard to imagine that not happening, because this stuff is just so great, recalling at various times everyone from Neil Young to the Stooges to shoegazing giants like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive. At the end of the day, however, you could say this sounds like, well, Kurt Vile! The guy masterfully breathes life into sounds others have done and overdone by emphasizing what you love about this kind of thing and avoiding the pitfalls of getting lumped into a specific genre. It's pretty rootsy stuff, but everything is strong enough to avoid being pigeonholed, and while certain elements could be categorized as "retro" or "lo-fi", we would prefer to call it "classic" or "timeless". Kurt Vile is clearly someone who understands the importance of production; instead of half assing things on a cassette 8-track, these songs are not only well written, but recorded with a great attention to detail, making them awesome for late night headphone listening. The sounds are hazy and swirling with the perfect amount of grit, and really Childish Prodigy sounds like it could have been recorded any time within the last 30 years or so. But guess what? It's 2009, and Kurt Vile has ARRIVED.
The album begins with a re-recorded version of "Hunchback", lifting elements from the song "Freeway" off Constant Hitmaker, with some slight chord changes. The song flows with a nice lazy groove, like the Stooges after a couple bongloads, adding some distorted vocals to compliment the perfectly dirty analog sound. Kurt's folkier side is demonstrated on the following track, "Dead Alive", with fingerpicked electric guitar and some badass vocals up in the forefront as a fuzzy analog hiss rides steady in the background. "Overnight Religion" is a nice surprise, with an incessant drum machine beat carrying the song forward for over 7 minutes as the instruments lock in perfectly. "Monkey" is a melodic, slow burning rocker that successfully merges upbeat psych pop with a sound that incorporates elements from folk and shoegaze. And yeah, the guitars sound killer. The album flows really well, and certain melodic themes appear and reappear in different songs, helping to tie everything together perfectly.
It's been a great year for Kurt Vile, and one can only imagine that things will get even better for him now. We can't wait to see where this guy heads next!
Latest from this singer / songwriter psych folk troubadour, a seven song ep, originally released as a free download, now available as a super limited 12", and perfectly showcases Vile's sonic breadth, beginning with some stripped down folkiness, rife with Beach Boys melodies, but delivered in a lazy drawl, the whole thing underpinned by some muted synth squiggles and electronic drones. Super catchy, but also raw and rough and intimate. Which sort of describes Vile no matter what sound he's conjuring up. And on it goes from there.
Like on past records, Square Shells blends subtle psychedelia with bedroom folk and jangly indie pop, adding some druggy ambience, swirling spaced out effects, simple minimal drum machines, the result is a little shoegazey, a little twangy, with plenty of buzz and shimmer, and long stretches of instrumental ambient dronescapery, songs like "Losing Momentum (For Jim Jarmusch)" unfurl gorgeous swells of blissed out slowcore, reminding us of Roy Montgomery, or an even more minimal Spacemen 3, or maybe a soporific non propulsive Wooden Shjips, the sounds blurred and smeared into gauzy dreamscapes, all beneath a glimmering crystalline latticework of spidery guitar. "The Finder" is similarly spaced out and prismatic, a muted buzzscape, darkly psychedelic, and sweetly contemplative, hypnotic and mesmerizing, steel string buzz nestled amidst warm organ wheeze. While in between these chunks of gorgeous abstract minimalism Vile offers up some more traditional songcraft, mostly just acoustic guitar and voice, sometimes crooning over reverb drenched Appalachia, other times delivering almost traditional folk songs, finishing off with "Hey, Now I'm Movin", a Dylan-y jam, with stream of consciousness lyrics, simple strumming, even harmonica, and lots of 'yeah yeah yeah's, but Vile sends that 'classic' folk drifting through a hazy cloud of soft focus ambience, giving the whole track a druggy otherworldly feel, the perfect finish to this intimate, dreamlike ep...
American rock troubadour Kurt Vile continues his slow march back in time, as if he wants to actually be playing classic rock, instead of being a modern indie rocker just channeling that classic rock. His sound has always displayed hints of the old classics that came before, the magic being in how masterfully he made them his own, and essentially erased the border, real or imagined between modern indie rock and classic radio rock. Cuz really, if you removed all the non musical signifiers from Kurt Vile, the cool indie label, the punk rock pedigree, the cool underground rock royalty who guest on his records, the various high profile tour mates, the blog hype, the look, the shaggy longhair rock and roller, what you'd be left with, would be JUST the music, and really, it's absolutely the kind of music you could play for your Dad, not to say this is necessarily Dad-rock, but it IS sort of some modern mutant strain of classic rock. Not beholden to punk, or post punk, or new wave or metal, but to classic songsmithery. And it's all on display, the songwriting obviously, but the production too, the arrangements, the sonic palette as a whole. And sure, there are plenty of unlikely, and very UN classic rock moments, but somehow, Vile weaves them into something that DOES really sound classic. Check out the weird skittery programmed sounding beats at the beginning of "Was All Talk", at first it sounds like it's turn into some weird Ariel Pink outsider pop thing, but instead, that skitter is deftly woven into warm guitar strum, swirling synths, and Vile's laid back vox. Speaking of which, it's hard not to hear a little Dinosaur Jr in Vile's music, which makes sense, as Dinosaur's Mascis was an unabashed lover of classic rock, and was often compared to Neil Young himself. But if you can imagine Dinosaur minus all the incendiery guitar heroics, it might not be all that far removed from Kurt Vile.
The nine+ minute opener definitely sets the stage, pastoral and laid back, strummy and summery and breezy, reminded us a bit of the Woods at first, only to late learn that the guy from the Woods guests on this here record. As do folks from Beachwood Sparks, Warpaint, Royal Trux, and others, all of whom to be under Vile's thrall, aiding him in crafting this gorgeous slab of jangle and strum, the sound warm and comfortable, and just a tiny bit raw around the edges. That said, this is most definitely his least 'underground' and 'indie' sounding record. If labels and the radio and MTV still worked the way they used to or in some cases even existed, this is the sort of record that would be bandied about as Vile's 'breakthrough', and who knows, maybe it still will be. And it should be, cuz it's gorgeous. The songs are CRAZY catchy, it's a total top-down, cruising down the coast on a summer afternoon kind of record. The songs already sound timeless. There's no doubt Vile is a songwriter of formidable talent, one who just follows his own muse, and it just so happens that that muse is some strange hybrid of Tom Petty, Neil Young, Jackson Brown, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison, which to most underground music punks might sound horrifying, but the proof is right here in Wakin On A Pretty Daze, which might just be our favorite Vile record yet. Classic indeed!
The cd comes in a full color four panel digipak, with a full color printed inner sleeve, and a booklet with lyrics, but while they last, we have the ULTRA limited, already out of print, super deluxe blue vinyl version, which features the same cover as the cd (and regular lp), with Vile standing in front of a big wall, covered in graffiti, but on the deluxe vinyl version, there is no graffiti, instead, it comes with a special sheet of stickers, with which you can use to apply the graffiti yourself, however you want! How cool is that?
Ever wake up from a late night out on the town with that hazy, fucked up feeling in the head? Of course you have, so imagine that feeling translated into a an album of super damaged, super woozy garage filth. Kurt Vile and his boys the Violators bring us the Hunchback EP, an unholy combination of mid '70s Stones and a more gritty Spacemen 3. And even though the first couple tracks don't veer to far from the new wave of lo-fi garage rock, as the album plays through it dips into more cosmic and spacey realms of dreamy guitar. Makes us think of nighttime alleyways, smokey barroom depression, a drugged-out fried-out bad trip kinda vibe, all nicely put together with catchy riffs and tough guy in a leather jacket at-all-times kind of vocals. Dingy parking lot car show rock n' roll, with a fitting black and white photo of Vile on the cover in some empty lot in Philly (looking quite damaged himself). It's a perfect match for any fan of Thee Oh Sees, Wavves, or Wooden Shjips. Oh and make sure you play this sucker loud, definitely something you'd hear blasting from the rager next door. Recommended.
You know we like repetition here at Aquarius. We like repetition. We like it. Repetition. Whether it's the motorik pulses of Neu! and Circle, or the minimalist throb of Steve Reich and The Necks, or the crackling loops of Philip Jeck and Thomas Brinkmann, or the headnodding riffs of Om and Les Rallizes Denudes, or the blurring buzz of Wigrid and Wold... we like it! Keep it goin' and we'll keep listening. Well of course one of the many musical forms that makes good use of repetition is dance music, and although sometimes we give the impression that techno and house music "isn't our thing" that's definitely not true about all techno music. Not when it's really, really about the mesmeric repetition, and in an interesting way, like the clicks and cuts of Ryoji Ikeda or the "heroin house" of Fluxion. Or the whole Kompakt catalog of pop ambient drone and beats.
Or this new disc by critical darling Ricardo Villalobos! Which is probably getting a lot of attention because of the sheer length of the tracks on it -- there's two of 'em, clocking in at more than a half-an-hour each! The title cut, "Fizheuer Zieheuer" is truly hypnotic, based on endless, slightly altered iterations of the same happy little horn riff (sampled from a Balkan brass band?), expertly joined to echoing four-on-the-floor techno beats, slowly morphing and shifting over time -- 37 minutes! Deceptively simple, but brilliantly crafted. And yes, totally, totally mesmerizing. Allan turned on the "visualizer" function on his iTunes while playing this and we all got totally tranced-out watching the flashing lights...
This album is maybe really sort of an extreme maxi-single, as the 35 and a half minute second track "Fizbeast" is a stripped-down (minus the horns) recap of the first track -- yay, more repetition! But you might also just hit play on track one again, 'cause you're gonna want to hear that infectious Balkan horn part again and again and again. Recommended, recommended, recommended...
FYI this cd is intentionally packaged by Playhouse without a tray card in the jewel case. Either 'cause it's sort-of a single, or 'cause they feel that electronic music is so modern it doesn't need a back cover, we don't know. Just mentioning this fact so that if you mailorder it, you won't think there's something wrong with your copy...
Two awesome non album tracks from the always great Vivian Girls. This slab of wax finds them embracing wall of sound girl group glory in full force. Not the more rocking side that shows up in many of their songs, instead this is the wonderful woozy and warm side of the band. The A-side could be some lost Phil Spector treasure and the B-side might even steal the show. It's a cover of "He's Gone" by '50s girl group The Chantels, which they perform with help from their buddy Kyle Thomas (Happy Birthday, Feathers, Witch, King Tuff) playing guitar, and we gotta say they totally kill it, keeping it as warm and intoxicating as the original. One of those 7"s that really makes you wish you could put a quarter in the jukebox as you sit at the counter of a diner sipping on your milkshake and enjoying the simple pleasures in life. So awesome!
