Oh god, the Arabic Rap comp is the Bodega Pop comp yet - it still could a bit of a trimming, more just because it's unwieldy at 90 minutes than a lack of quality, though the mostly English Arabian Knightz song is a bit of bummer, or at least its guitar solo is, but everything else is class, and there's real variety, too.
The problem with binging on a genre, or group of genres, especially if you know little about their history, is how hard it becomes to describe the albums: this Chaloemphon Malakham album is a perfect example - it's Thai, and it's good, and there's synth? But beyond that I got nothing.
Now here's something I can describe! Ndeye Marie Ndiaye Gawlo's Beeta Fella has synth and both drum machines and traditional percussion and what I hear as gospel influence - the vocals are really impassioned and the songs are catchy as heck! But but but it does dip over into overproduction and too-much-going-on on a few tracks - but pretty much every time the tempo picks up, you're in for a treat.
So Ahouzar Phone Presents Abdelâziz Ahouzar... the sad thing about this album is that the best comparison my brain can muster is to that Mahmoud Awad that become a meme a few years ago, the one that was supposed to be from like 2076 or summat but was basically just a bunch of Arabic pop songs sent through the fx wringer in Audacity? I actually loved that album and I'd say I've been on a search for the music that inspired it ever since, but, nah, I've been listening to tech thrash. Anyway, this comes the closest of any other thing I've heard to sounding like it. To give another hyper-Western super-ignorant example, imagine if I said to combine Nass El Ghiwane and Abdel Halim Hafez. Sound good, right? But imagine that you're perverse enough to think "yeah, that's okay, but what that hybrid really needs is autotune." Boom, this album was born. It's Western, it's very non-Western, it's traditional, it's futuristic, it's pop music but three out of five tracks are ten minutes long and only one is under eight. It's weird, in other words. The album has audience applause scattered throughout, but it's hard to believe it's actually live, because it seems hard to believe this music could actually exist like this in meatspace: it really does sound like music of the future, being piped through speakers in a satellite lightyears away from us. Spread this around, and the vaporwave kids'll replace their appropriated Japanese characters with Tamazight.
The Num Phuthai album I have is apparently entitled Tam Nan Phin Amata, Vol. 5; Bang Fai Saen (Phanom Phrai) Phuthai Ralai Lan (phew!) and, uh, it's basically a guitar solo? There's rhythm in the background, but you basically get two twenty-plus-minute slabs of a dude just playing the same melodies on his guitar over and over - is it Thai minimalism? Is it some sort of religious ritual trance music? According to my source, it's music for, uh, rocket-judging contests? That would explain the firework noises.
I was tricked into hearing Stan Getz' Focus by an avant-garde jazz tag on RYM, but, as inaccurate as that label is, it wasn't a totally lost cause. Just as the word that that Melodia album conjured up was "professional," the keyword for Focus is "tasteful." But wait, that's not an insult! Third stream experiments are rarely as inspired as this, even if the arrangements aren't exactly Penderecki, or even classical at all. Visions of Stan Kenton's City of Glass danced in my head, but they were mere phantoms, as I haven't heard that album in years, and I remember it being much stranger than this. I know that the thought of the guy that did "Girl from Ipanema" covering
a Disney song over pizzicato strings and floppy jazz drumming might not
sound super appealing, but "I'm Late, I'm Late" really is great fun for all eight minutes. And with "Her," those vague Kenton visions were replaced with dreams of dream sequences from MGM musicals - it's very evocative, long-walk-in-the-rain-in-the-big-city-after-your-girlfriend-leaves-you-and-also-you're-wearing-a-trenchcoat-for-some-reason music, not exactly revelatory in a post-Ornette world, but miles better than anything "dark jazz." The rest continues in similar fashion, with only slightly diminished returns, mostly because of faint overtones of the first Moody Blues album, something not helped by the presence of a song called "A Summer Afternoon." I never expected to enjoy Stan Getz with Strings, but, hey, I ain't complaining.
Oh no something is wrong! I'm listening to a soukous album and not enjoying it! Soukous Machine by Tchico Thicaya & Kilimandjaro just feels off somehow. Maybe the problem is with me? I don't know, but I don't think I can finish this right now, or rate it. Maybe I've listened to too much music today?
Whenever I need to cleanse my brain or make it stop for a while, it's always a safe bet that some Peter Cusack will do the trick. It's not music, but it's more primal than that - it's a celebration of the very concept of sound, a panegyric to hearing. Sounds from Dangerous Places is a harrowing listen because it highlights the perils that rampant industrialization and pollution has not on semi-abstract concepts like "the environment" but on actual human beings - not that one need be so anthropocentric, but the sheer toll that these things take on people is often overlooked and even without speaking the language, listening to a Ukrainian woman from a radioactive town sing "Oh My Beloved Village" is heart-wrenching. Perhaps because of this, I can only album listen to the album in 5-7 song chunks.
Oh also I revisited that soukous album, and, yeah, it just sucks. :3
Going from one supposedly surefire hit genre to another, Cumbias Solo Cumbias Vol. 2 actually is a hit! And what a hit it is! I'm especially fond of A. Lenes' "Dos Puntas" but every track owns and if there was any remaining trace of Selena's "Techno Cumbia" in my mouth or mind, it's now been thoroughly flushed out.
Well, Soul Jazz has won me over to their side again - virtually none of the criticisms I had of the first three Dynamite comps applies to their Studio One Groups. It even did the impossible by including a Mob Barley and the Whalers track that I actually enjoyed!
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Lqalb Lmeskun is easily the worst of the three Jil Jilala albums I've sampled lately - it's not terrible, but it's making me realize that gnawa is a genre that can be kinda' boring when it's not gobsmackingly amazing.
Soukous, on the other hand, is pretty much never not amazing, or at least one of the most inherently appealing genres I know of, and Orchestra le Peup's Tia Tibi Tia Yala is no exception: the third track, in particular, has some exquisite horn bits.
About a third of In the Heights gives me that thrill that can only come from a damn good showtune - spliced with hip hop and salsa, to boot. But there's just a few too many, uh, modern-showtune-sounding showtunes - a little too Rent, y'know? But when those aforementioned influences come to the fore, it's fucking ecstatic! The first third in particular is just great, great music. Too bad about the adult contemporary shit.
Returning to Bodega Pop, the Hoàng Oanh comp really hits a sweet spot sometimes - a few tracks go on too long, but I'm coming to realize that I'm nearly as big of a sucker for vocals in Vietnamese as I am for those in Thai, my favorite language to hear people sing in, and honestly they sound very similar to me. The later tracks tend to be my favorite, particularly the ones tinged with psych rock and the tango one.
Remember what I just said about Thai? My reaction to Rock Khong Khoi's Sieow Woi is a perfect example of just how much I love the language and music of that country - it's synth-pop, but it's not really synth-pop, dig? It's pop music that happens to use synths, and fairly cheap sounding ones at that, but the melodies and rhythms seem much older and more traditional than that and it sounds like a picnic on a beautiful spring day with your best friends in the world. There's not a thing I would change and yet it doesn't seem exceptional in any way except quality - it's gorgeous and endlessly listenable.
But hooooooooooooooooooly fuck, if that album is a breezy day in the park, Chinnakon Klong Yao by Chinnakon Krailat starts off like a tornado made of orgasms - it's more traditional in instrumentation, and the Western elements are more, uh, Bing Crosby than Stock, Aitken and Waterman, but when Chinnakon yodels it's like an explosion of rainbows in your very soul. If every track was like the first two, it would be on the shortlist for five stars on a second listen.
But now we're back to the synthetic stuff with a Phimpha Phonsiri album and ugh I'm still just beyond smitten with this entire country's music - well, the "Entro (sic) to Thai Pop" playlist I've been perusing on Spotify shows that there's tons of completely uncharming generic Westernized pop blah coming from the country nowadays, but molam and luk thung are, and this is almost impossible to believe, possibly even more rewarding than Sublime Frequencies comps had led me to believe.
Moving from Thailand to Cote d'Ivoire, Zagazougou's Zagazougou Coup is mostly percussion, vox and accordion, but who needs more than that?
Bozi Boziana & L'Orchestre Anti-Choc use more than that on Bana Saint-Gabriel but it's not nearly as charming - it's thoroughly modern African music in very nearly the most pejorative sense of "modern." There's enough soukous influence on a few tracks that it's not a total wash but s'not for me, let's leave it at that.
On the "and now for something completely different" tip, T.E.F.'s Symptomatic Harbinger is some of the most enjoyable noise I've encountered in a while, though it seems weirdly masochistic to refer to music that gave me a headache and ear pain "enjoyable."
Returning to Africa, the Beat of Smanje Manje comp is some nice mostly instrumental jive from an important South African label, though it does get tiring right before the end. There's also an appearance by Mahlathini, who everyone should know.
Synthesizers in African music aren't always bad news: ask City Boys Band, whose "Obiara te se onoa" opens the Kwae Anoma album with some sweet vintage analog synthwork - too bad that the music is kind of nondescript otherwise, with the keys, be they synth or organ, being the highlight. Highlife, it seems, isn't as sure a thing as soukous.
Back to Zagazougou: le Confirmation is actually more enjoyable than the aforementioned, even if they share different versions of multiple songs.
Sri Krug Brass' Banleng Sri Krung is pretty much kitsch, but it's good kitsch and it's Thai kitsch so it's got some elements that really transcend its kitschiness.
Soukous, on the other hand, is pretty much never not amazing, or at least one of the most inherently appealing genres I know of, and Orchestra le Peup's Tia Tibi Tia Yala is no exception: the third track, in particular, has some exquisite horn bits.
About a third of In the Heights gives me that thrill that can only come from a damn good showtune - spliced with hip hop and salsa, to boot. But there's just a few too many, uh, modern-showtune-sounding showtunes - a little too Rent, y'know? But when those aforementioned influences come to the fore, it's fucking ecstatic! The first third in particular is just great, great music. Too bad about the adult contemporary shit.
Returning to Bodega Pop, the Hoàng Oanh comp really hits a sweet spot sometimes - a few tracks go on too long, but I'm coming to realize that I'm nearly as big of a sucker for vocals in Vietnamese as I am for those in Thai, my favorite language to hear people sing in, and honestly they sound very similar to me. The later tracks tend to be my favorite, particularly the ones tinged with psych rock and the tango one.
Remember what I just said about Thai? My reaction to Rock Khong Khoi's Sieow Woi is a perfect example of just how much I love the language and music of that country - it's synth-pop, but it's not really synth-pop, dig? It's pop music that happens to use synths, and fairly cheap sounding ones at that, but the melodies and rhythms seem much older and more traditional than that and it sounds like a picnic on a beautiful spring day with your best friends in the world. There's not a thing I would change and yet it doesn't seem exceptional in any way except quality - it's gorgeous and endlessly listenable.
But hooooooooooooooooooly fuck, if that album is a breezy day in the park, Chinnakon Klong Yao by Chinnakon Krailat starts off like a tornado made of orgasms - it's more traditional in instrumentation, and the Western elements are more, uh, Bing Crosby than Stock, Aitken and Waterman, but when Chinnakon yodels it's like an explosion of rainbows in your very soul. If every track was like the first two, it would be on the shortlist for five stars on a second listen.
But now we're back to the synthetic stuff with a Phimpha Phonsiri album and ugh I'm still just beyond smitten with this entire country's music - well, the "Entro (sic) to Thai Pop" playlist I've been perusing on Spotify shows that there's tons of completely uncharming generic Westernized pop blah coming from the country nowadays, but molam and luk thung are, and this is almost impossible to believe, possibly even more rewarding than Sublime Frequencies comps had led me to believe.
Moving from Thailand to Cote d'Ivoire, Zagazougou's Zagazougou Coup is mostly percussion, vox and accordion, but who needs more than that?
Bozi Boziana & L'Orchestre Anti-Choc use more than that on Bana Saint-Gabriel but it's not nearly as charming - it's thoroughly modern African music in very nearly the most pejorative sense of "modern." There's enough soukous influence on a few tracks that it's not a total wash but s'not for me, let's leave it at that.
On the "and now for something completely different" tip, T.E.F.'s Symptomatic Harbinger is some of the most enjoyable noise I've encountered in a while, though it seems weirdly masochistic to refer to music that gave me a headache and ear pain "enjoyable."
Returning to Africa, the Beat of Smanje Manje comp is some nice mostly instrumental jive from an important South African label, though it does get tiring right before the end. There's also an appearance by Mahlathini, who everyone should know.
Synthesizers in African music aren't always bad news: ask City Boys Band, whose "Obiara te se onoa" opens the Kwae Anoma album with some sweet vintage analog synthwork - too bad that the music is kind of nondescript otherwise, with the keys, be they synth or organ, being the highlight. Highlife, it seems, isn't as sure a thing as soukous.
Back to Zagazougou: le Confirmation is actually more enjoyable than the aforementioned, even if they share different versions of multiple songs.
Sri Krug Brass' Banleng Sri Krung is pretty much kitsch, but it's good kitsch and it's Thai kitsch so it's got some elements that really transcend its kitschiness.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
I am becoming, or perhaps have already become, a Bodega Pop addict. That blog legitimately has a little bit of everything, from pretty much everywhere. Internet global eclecticcore to a tee, and that's what I strive to be. They even have a twee pop tag, but I'm afraid to look at it for fear of reading about albums I Must Have and encountering dead download link after dead download link. But they also have self-curated exclusive comps, and that's where I've been focusing my attention today.
Albanian Sisters Swim to Freedom starts out fucking ecstatically excellent but I couldn't take over a CD's worth of the stuff (these comps are not beholden to 79: 57.) The coolest bits are the traditional instruments that sound like a cross between a hurdy-gurdy and a zorna. But I guess there's only so much Westernized synth-heavy slick mainstream pop I can take at one time regardless of country of origin.
The Vietrap comp, on the other hand, I enjoyed basically every minute of - this may have something to do with the inherent nature of hip hop (which isn't to say that it's not easily assimilated into flashy pop or can't be treacly) and also my preference of the sound of the Vietnamese language to Albanian. Or it could be the genuine pop skills of Mr. Dee and the Bells, who contribute 6 of the 21 songs. There's even a song that bites "I'll Be Watching/Missing You" and turns it listenable, some, though perhaps not enough, traditional Vietnamese music influence, such as on the 5 Dong Ke track and a lo-fi wonder in "Mot Ngay Khong Co Em" by Vpop.
I was really excited for the Punk Islam comp, because who wouldn't be? But this is the one time that BP comes up tragically and frustratingly short. I've always said that the best punk is made by people who are a.) women, b.) Japanese or c.) queer, or, even better yet, a combination thereof. Wouldn't "Muslim" slot really well in that list? The problem I see with the BP comp is that it's just not punk enough, like at all, honestly. The Diacritical tracks sound like Clearchannel terrestrial radio rock with preachy lyrics and some kind of jazz rock with really really embarrassing rapping, respectively. Al-Thawra's "Gaza" has a bit of a sludge metal thing going for it, and "Hey Hey Hey Guantanamo Bay" by Secret Trial Five, the only track to feature female vocalists, is catchy, but they're sort of the only highlights, and far too much of the rest sounds like System of a Down, who I actually like, yeah yeah I know, but their debut is actually way more hardcore influenced that anything here and that's still not what I want in my Muslim punk comps. A track called "Rumi Was a Homo" should sound like Charming Hostess meets +HIRS+, not, well, SOAD.
Speaking of queers and punk, Fuckin' Dyke Bitches are fun, but not the second coming of Team Dresch by any means. "Boys Will Be Boys" seems to have a pro-trans woman message worded in one of the most cissexist ways possible and a fucking creepy-ass film sample at the end.
Kitten Forever are straight (boo) but they basically are the second coming of Bikini Kill. If you like bratpunk, Pressure will get the taste of last year's the Julie Ruin album out of your mouth and have you dreaming of 'zinier pastures. It's not quite Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah but it's probably legitimately better than Pussywhipped even if some bits sound to me more like Le Tigre with the electronic gimmick removed than BK proper. It's only problem, other than the straight thing, is length: split into two EPs, the first, at least, would easily be 4.5 stars. And the problem with the length is more a universal punk thing than their problem, and 13 tracks 1:30-2:00 tracks isn't a lot to ask, anyway.
I always thought Lunachicks were one of those femme-grunge bands that got lumped in with the good/legitimate riot grrrls, but, nah, at least on their self-titled EP they just add a touch of vintage hard rock to their punk attack, which is something I'm pretty sure only women can get away with - Theo Kogan, their vocalist, does a husky thing that couldn't be more at odds with the cheerleader chants that make up the genre's most memorable feature in popular consciousness. Straight or gay or whatever, they're basically the genre's bull dykes. As someone who always thought Girlschool were a zillion times cooler than Motorhead, I approve. PLUS, their related artists include bands named "Blare Bitch Project" and "Lez Zeppelin" so I mean how can you hate?
Sivuva's Putte & Sivuca pleases me because it features a bunch of samba classics that nobody can really fuck up and also because it's got hella clarinet, which I've never pretended doesn't always get me going.
Albanian Sisters Swim to Freedom starts out fucking ecstatically excellent but I couldn't take over a CD's worth of the stuff (these comps are not beholden to 79: 57.) The coolest bits are the traditional instruments that sound like a cross between a hurdy-gurdy and a zorna. But I guess there's only so much Westernized synth-heavy slick mainstream pop I can take at one time regardless of country of origin.
The Vietrap comp, on the other hand, I enjoyed basically every minute of - this may have something to do with the inherent nature of hip hop (which isn't to say that it's not easily assimilated into flashy pop or can't be treacly) and also my preference of the sound of the Vietnamese language to Albanian. Or it could be the genuine pop skills of Mr. Dee and the Bells, who contribute 6 of the 21 songs. There's even a song that bites "I'll Be Watching/Missing You" and turns it listenable, some, though perhaps not enough, traditional Vietnamese music influence, such as on the 5 Dong Ke track and a lo-fi wonder in "Mot Ngay Khong Co Em" by Vpop.
I was really excited for the Punk Islam comp, because who wouldn't be? But this is the one time that BP comes up tragically and frustratingly short. I've always said that the best punk is made by people who are a.) women, b.) Japanese or c.) queer, or, even better yet, a combination thereof. Wouldn't "Muslim" slot really well in that list? The problem I see with the BP comp is that it's just not punk enough, like at all, honestly. The Diacritical tracks sound like Clearchannel terrestrial radio rock with preachy lyrics and some kind of jazz rock with really really embarrassing rapping, respectively. Al-Thawra's "Gaza" has a bit of a sludge metal thing going for it, and "Hey Hey Hey Guantanamo Bay" by Secret Trial Five, the only track to feature female vocalists, is catchy, but they're sort of the only highlights, and far too much of the rest sounds like System of a Down, who I actually like, yeah yeah I know, but their debut is actually way more hardcore influenced that anything here and that's still not what I want in my Muslim punk comps. A track called "Rumi Was a Homo" should sound like Charming Hostess meets +HIRS+, not, well, SOAD.
Speaking of queers and punk, Fuckin' Dyke Bitches are fun, but not the second coming of Team Dresch by any means. "Boys Will Be Boys" seems to have a pro-trans woman message worded in one of the most cissexist ways possible and a fucking creepy-ass film sample at the end.
Kitten Forever are straight (boo) but they basically are the second coming of Bikini Kill. If you like bratpunk, Pressure will get the taste of last year's the Julie Ruin album out of your mouth and have you dreaming of 'zinier pastures. It's not quite Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah but it's probably legitimately better than Pussywhipped even if some bits sound to me more like Le Tigre with the electronic gimmick removed than BK proper. It's only problem, other than the straight thing, is length: split into two EPs, the first, at least, would easily be 4.5 stars. And the problem with the length is more a universal punk thing than their problem, and 13 tracks 1:30-2:00 tracks isn't a lot to ask, anyway.
I always thought Lunachicks were one of those femme-grunge bands that got lumped in with the good/legitimate riot grrrls, but, nah, at least on their self-titled EP they just add a touch of vintage hard rock to their punk attack, which is something I'm pretty sure only women can get away with - Theo Kogan, their vocalist, does a husky thing that couldn't be more at odds with the cheerleader chants that make up the genre's most memorable feature in popular consciousness. Straight or gay or whatever, they're basically the genre's bull dykes. As someone who always thought Girlschool were a zillion times cooler than Motorhead, I approve. PLUS, their related artists include bands named "Blare Bitch Project" and "Lez Zeppelin" so I mean how can you hate?
Sivuva's Putte & Sivuca pleases me because it features a bunch of samba classics that nobody can really fuck up and also because it's got hella clarinet, which I've never pretended doesn't always get me going.
Hey guess what's happening? I'm listening to an album with some pretty blatant trtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrap percussion and fucking LOVING it - and it's not even cloud rap! AND it has a Kilo Kish guest spot and I'm still digging the fuck out of it. Also, there's only a couple of tracks with that sound but Vince Staples' Shyne Coldchain is maybe one of the best non-Lil B mixtapes I can think of off the top of my head due to street smart and streetwise lyrics and a runtime under thirty minutes, with thirteen tracks! But then it still... does that thing that hip-hop does. That thing that it does that glam metal and post-grunge also do pretty explicity, sure, but who the fuck listens to those? But yeah it does that a lot towards the end and kind of ruins the mood. Actually, I couldn't even finish the last two tracks. Yeah, something about tricking me into thinking that Vince might be an actually nice guy and then... he's a Nice Guy. And now I remember that the reason his name is familiar is because he's an Odd Future collaborator and it all makes sense.
Speaking of albums under thirty minutes: Tony Metom's Bad World is really sweet highlife that warms the tummy of the ear and the soul of the ear and the heart of the ear. I like to imagine that the last song, "Mama Nanjee" is dedicated to his mother, because it just seems like that kind of music.
I really have so much trouble describing salsa albums - it's a genre where it really does all come down to whether I enjoyed it or not on a purely visceral level most of the time without knowledge of the genre's history and artists to help me intelectualify my opinion. But I can assure you that I much enjoyed the Latin Brothers' Suavecito, Apretaito, Yup, that's literally all you're getting from me on this one: "I much enjoyed it." They can't all be Lester Bangs meets Julia Serano.
The second album by Russian folk rock group Pesniary gives off an earthy, agrarian vibe from the song titles on down: we've got "What Is a Vegetable Garden For," "A Hill Here, A Hill There," "A Pussywillow Grows" and "The Lad Plows the Field," for goodness' sake. The music is full of flutes and vocal harmonies but it ultimately lacks any excitement, even when they throw in Free Design la-las over harpsichord.
Not to hyperbolize, but Les Loustics' Les Squelettes is the best album featuring French children singing I've heard since Le Monde Fabuleux Des Yamasuki, though obviously it's not as good as that. And actually I just remembered that Magma album with the children's choir, which is also better than this, so actually this is the worst full album I've ever heard sung by French children so yeah.
Speaking of albums under thirty minutes: Tony Metom's Bad World is really sweet highlife that warms the tummy of the ear and the soul of the ear and the heart of the ear. I like to imagine that the last song, "Mama Nanjee" is dedicated to his mother, because it just seems like that kind of music.
I really have so much trouble describing salsa albums - it's a genre where it really does all come down to whether I enjoyed it or not on a purely visceral level most of the time without knowledge of the genre's history and artists to help me intelectualify my opinion. But I can assure you that I much enjoyed the Latin Brothers' Suavecito, Apretaito, Yup, that's literally all you're getting from me on this one: "I much enjoyed it." They can't all be Lester Bangs meets Julia Serano.
The second album by Russian folk rock group Pesniary gives off an earthy, agrarian vibe from the song titles on down: we've got "What Is a Vegetable Garden For," "A Hill Here, A Hill There," "A Pussywillow Grows" and "The Lad Plows the Field," for goodness' sake. The music is full of flutes and vocal harmonies but it ultimately lacks any excitement, even when they throw in Free Design la-las over harpsichord.
Not to hyperbolize, but Les Loustics' Les Squelettes is the best album featuring French children singing I've heard since Le Monde Fabuleux Des Yamasuki, though obviously it's not as good as that. And actually I just remembered that Magma album with the children's choir, which is also better than this, so actually this is the worst full album I've ever heard sung by French children so yeah.
http://nanagrizol.bandcamp.com/album/nightlights-i-iii-tacoma-center-1600
hey look they're from the cool part of my state and the proceeds go to the Queer Undocumented Immigrants Project, which if you're not aware, is the best thing money could possibly go to and also the coolest combination of words possible and the coolest people possible. I'd prolly share this even if the music sucked but it's actually really nice and fun - there's just enough Elephant 6, indie pop and emo in their indie rock that I don't wanna' gag. Bandcamp is fulla wonder.
hey look they're from the cool part of my state and the proceeds go to the Queer Undocumented Immigrants Project, which if you're not aware, is the best thing money could possibly go to and also the coolest combination of words possible and the coolest people possible. I'd prolly share this even if the music sucked but it's actually really nice and fun - there's just enough Elephant 6, indie pop and emo in their indie rock that I don't wanna' gag. Bandcamp is fulla wonder.
Gloria Gaynor's debut is that rarity of a disco album, or soul album,
in that it has no obvious treacly ballad filler - not even Cheryl
Lynn's first escaped that fate! That's not saying that the b-side
doesn't still come across a bit thin after the smashing a, but it's
still consistent and doesn't come close to wearing out its welcome.
Micky Adisa & His Original Fuji Londoners' Ka Tepa Mose is really lethargic until thirteen minutes into the first track when they get into a cowbell-laden groove and things really pick up. The second track is a little more energetic, but you'd be amazed at how soporific fuji can be.
Hector Lavoe's La Voz has some real filler for such a beloved album and doesn't really have much spark apart from "Rompe Saraguey"
Trae's Restless has one hell of an opening one-two punch but my track seven the production has become generic pre-trap post-90s gangsta shit, shit as a pejorative, and Trae doesn't have too much charisma - he's no Big Moe, that's for sure, or a Bun B on the skills front. But there's some good guest spots, at least, and I never say no to chipmunk soul production.
The Mohamed Adbel Wahab comp simply titled Collection is a perfectly acceptable slice of trad Arabic pop, but I can't help but compare it to the best Abdel Halim Hafez disks I've heard, against which it comes up a touch short, partly because Wahab's voice is a bit less compelling and more reedy/dusky.
Micky Adisa & His Original Fuji Londoners' Ka Tepa Mose is really lethargic until thirteen minutes into the first track when they get into a cowbell-laden groove and things really pick up. The second track is a little more energetic, but you'd be amazed at how soporific fuji can be.
Hector Lavoe's La Voz has some real filler for such a beloved album and doesn't really have much spark apart from "Rompe Saraguey"
Trae's Restless has one hell of an opening one-two punch but my track seven the production has become generic pre-trap post-90s gangsta shit, shit as a pejorative, and Trae doesn't have too much charisma - he's no Big Moe, that's for sure, or a Bun B on the skills front. But there's some good guest spots, at least, and I never say no to chipmunk soul production.
The Mohamed Adbel Wahab comp simply titled Collection is a perfectly acceptable slice of trad Arabic pop, but I can't help but compare it to the best Abdel Halim Hafez disks I've heard, against which it comes up a touch short, partly because Wahab's voice is a bit less compelling and more reedy/dusky.
Friday, May 16, 2014
While their On the Level, You're a Little Devil is a longstanding favorite I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra's instrumental music until I listened to the first volume of Black Manhattan - it's refreshing, sparkling, and full of zest and pep. A little samey, but so what?
Rechenzentrum's Director's Cut nicely straddles the line between regular and ambient techno and, fitting with its title, is pleasantly cinematic without actually sounding like a Hollywood movie or getting obnoxious with it.
It took a while for me to warm up to Rajan Ke Sirtaj by (Pandit) Jasraj, specifically his rather disinterested-sounding vocals. I feared it was one of those rare occasions where herkyjerky led me astray, but then I started nodding off while listening to and it mingled with my dreams and got good! Funny how that happens. But wait, there's more! I put The Meditative Music of Pandit Jasraj on later and it's exquisite - his husky half-croak in front of the tabla and tambura and I'm-not-sure-what-else backdrop, well, at the risk of exoticizing the other, sounds like a dying alien emissary's last transmission from a dusty desert world to his home planet. It is intensely psychedelic. Fuck psych rock, just listen to Hindustani classical - that's where the Beatles stole all their ideas, anyway. Well, it and Zappa and musique concrete.
Jazz and Hot Dance in South Africa 1946-1959 was the very first Western comp to cover the subject and it's a hoot and a half - the vocals are pretty much the only part of the music that doesn't hit my sweet spot hard AND it's jazz clarinet heaven to boot!
Laxmikant–Pyarelal's Jaal opens with Mohd. Rafi's slinky and nocturnal "Akela Joon Mai" and which mixes the comically sinister with the dreamy. Too bad the other three tracks are utterly nondescript.
The Spazz/Charles Bronson split makes it apparent to anyone who wondered just why both bands are so revered in their scene(s): Spazz's side repeatedly throws multiple tempo changes in under 45 seconds while still remaining punk as fuck, perfectly combining the cerebral and the visceral. Plus, "Hard Boiled" has the bangingest drums I've ever heard in hardcore. Charles Bronson are just plain angry, though, and the youthful, squeaky vox compliment the assault miraculously and give the band way more personality than your average fast 'n' loud kids.
Sora No Niwa by Akino Arai saves its best track for last - the acappella lullaby "Little Edie" is beauty and innocence and sweetness - it's too bad that the record that it acts as coda to is massively uneven: too many tracks seem like toothless pop/rock; not egregious but perhaps over-interested in pleasing the wrong kinds of people; but when the flutes and oboes come in, the album goes dream pop or turns blatant Kate Bush homage, then things really cook!
Charanjit Singh's Instrumental Film Tunes is a real corker, but is notable for two things in particular: introducing me to an instrument called the "Transicord" (!!!) and a cover of "Chura Liya Hai Tum Ne," which would be a highlight just due to the song choice, but is elevated further by the choice of instrument, Hawaiian guitar, which gives it a resemblance to the tracks on one of my most cherished Sublime Frequencies comps, Bollywood Steel Guitar.
Rechenzentrum's Director's Cut nicely straddles the line between regular and ambient techno and, fitting with its title, is pleasantly cinematic without actually sounding like a Hollywood movie or getting obnoxious with it.
It took a while for me to warm up to Rajan Ke Sirtaj by (Pandit) Jasraj, specifically his rather disinterested-sounding vocals. I feared it was one of those rare occasions where herkyjerky led me astray, but then I started nodding off while listening to and it mingled with my dreams and got good! Funny how that happens. But wait, there's more! I put The Meditative Music of Pandit Jasraj on later and it's exquisite - his husky half-croak in front of the tabla and tambura and I'm-not-sure-what-else backdrop, well, at the risk of exoticizing the other, sounds like a dying alien emissary's last transmission from a dusty desert world to his home planet. It is intensely psychedelic. Fuck psych rock, just listen to Hindustani classical - that's where the Beatles stole all their ideas, anyway. Well, it and Zappa and musique concrete.
Jazz and Hot Dance in South Africa 1946-1959 was the very first Western comp to cover the subject and it's a hoot and a half - the vocals are pretty much the only part of the music that doesn't hit my sweet spot hard AND it's jazz clarinet heaven to boot!
Laxmikant–Pyarelal's Jaal opens with Mohd. Rafi's slinky and nocturnal "Akela Joon Mai" and which mixes the comically sinister with the dreamy. Too bad the other three tracks are utterly nondescript.
The Spazz/Charles Bronson split makes it apparent to anyone who wondered just why both bands are so revered in their scene(s): Spazz's side repeatedly throws multiple tempo changes in under 45 seconds while still remaining punk as fuck, perfectly combining the cerebral and the visceral. Plus, "Hard Boiled" has the bangingest drums I've ever heard in hardcore. Charles Bronson are just plain angry, though, and the youthful, squeaky vox compliment the assault miraculously and give the band way more personality than your average fast 'n' loud kids.
Sora No Niwa by Akino Arai saves its best track for last - the acappella lullaby "Little Edie" is beauty and innocence and sweetness - it's too bad that the record that it acts as coda to is massively uneven: too many tracks seem like toothless pop/rock; not egregious but perhaps over-interested in pleasing the wrong kinds of people; but when the flutes and oboes come in, the album goes dream pop or turns blatant Kate Bush homage, then things really cook!
Charanjit Singh's Instrumental Film Tunes is a real corker, but is notable for two things in particular: introducing me to an instrument called the "Transicord" (!!!) and a cover of "Chura Liya Hai Tum Ne," which would be a highlight just due to the song choice, but is elevated further by the choice of instrument, Hawaiian guitar, which gives it a resemblance to the tracks on one of my most cherished Sublime Frequencies comps, Bollywood Steel Guitar.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
re: Guilty Connector's Beats, Noise & Life I'd feel as guilty listening to a noise album on Planet Mu as I do listening to footwork on the same, except that it's got 4.5 and 5 star ratings from my main two noise bros - but listening to n00b noise I have a very noise n00b complaint about it: shit sounds like vacuums. No, I'm not saying that all noise sounds like vacuums or that's it not music or takes no skills, none of that: it's just that the actual noise on this particular album happens to sound disconcertingly like the noises I would make as a child by placing my hand over the sucking end of the hose from my mother's vacuum - that's a noise I loved then, but annoys the heck out of me in this context. And, obviously, there's more to the album than that sound, but there's enough that it pretty much ruins it for me.
Controlled Bleeding's Knees and Bones, however, doesn't sound like a vacuum! It sounds damn good, though. It covers the exact correct territory that I want my industrial and related artists to cover: it's surrealist, rather than about... rape and racism, as much influenced by "Poeme Electronique" as "Slogun" or whatevs. And fucking hell it's amazing. Those nonsensical vocal samples are the perfect element to contrast the screeching and there's even a coupla' pretty bits! It's pretty much the most perfectly balanced album of this sort I've ever heard. It might be 4.5 stars, but that seems a little obvious? I hear Trailer Fuck might be even better, and though that's the only other album of theirs I have in my ~possession~ most of their other stuff is on Spotify, so I'm treating myself!
Controlled Bleeding's Knees and Bones, however, doesn't sound like a vacuum! It sounds damn good, though. It covers the exact correct territory that I want my industrial and related artists to cover: it's surrealist, rather than about... rape and racism, as much influenced by "Poeme Electronique" as "Slogun" or whatevs. And fucking hell it's amazing. Those nonsensical vocal samples are the perfect element to contrast the screeching and there's even a coupla' pretty bits! It's pretty much the most perfectly balanced album of this sort I've ever heard. It might be 4.5 stars, but that seems a little obvious? I hear Trailer Fuck might be even better, and though that's the only other album of theirs I have in my ~possession~ most of their other stuff is on Spotify, so I'm treating myself!
I'm not sure I know of a more elegant way to describe the 3MB feat. Magic Juan Atkins EP other than that it sucks, but Eddie 'Flashin' Foulkes' Black Technosoul restored a little bit of my faith in Tresor - it's also the rare album I review here that gets better towards the middle and end - the tracks with repetitive vocal samples get a little tedious unless the sample is rendered unintelligible and then it's ~magickal~
Salil Chowdhury's Do Bigha Zamin isn't quite ~magickal~, but the title music sure is; the flaw is that, at five tracks, it just feels insubstantial, but what's there is good.
Once more, Merzbow's Tauromachine starts off amazing, but it gets tiring pretty soon after, with some of synth noises towards the end of "Soft Water Rhinoceros" reminding me of the sounds that that one Command & Conquer game would make every time one of those weird rolling blobs would get near yr tiberium, or whatever.
in the woods - HEart of the ages - the best way I can describe that it's sort of a "hey you got your space ambient in my symphonic prog!" deal and then a "hey you got your wimpy melodic black metal in our space prog!" and then, finally, "hey you got your moderately respectable actual black metal in our synthprogmetal gunk!" and nobody wants to eat it after that. the first track I can see myself being absolutely enraptured by if my aesthetics were recalibrated slight. there's a lot of whispering and talking here, as much as there is screaming. the actual black metal bits remind me a touch of Sacramentum's Far Away from the Sun but not nearly enough to me, y'know, good.
I think I'm going to give a new name to an old trend: the Concert by the Sea effect - when an artist has an amazingly consistent discography and tons of great albums yet their most famous record (often by far) sucks. It's the opposite of the Trout Mask Replica effect. It's named after the Erroll Garner album because I fucking love everything I've heard from Erroll Garner (Afternoon of an Elf, Errol Garner, Body & Soul and now Contrasts, though that one a smidgen less) except his unquestionably most famous, Concert by the Sea. Funny how that goes.
The Kin-Bantou album highlights the perils of getting all of any genre from randomly selected downloads from blogs that mostly post albums bought, again, almost randomly from various part of the world, even if the genre is as rich as vintage filmi or 70s Congolese music: I'm not going to say that there's much true chaff, and this album is good, but the wheat often varies in quality and sometimes you just keep getting albums that are merely "pretty dang good" when you're really itching for something orgasmic. Oh well.
I wonder why Pakeezah is so famous on RYM, at least compared to so many other filmi works of similar vintage and quality - it's quite good, indeed, but I always get curious when a Bollywood soundtrack has more than, like, four ratings. And there's a Parween Sultana song! My copy is obviously a shitty vinyl rip, but that adds to the charm as much as it distracts: it's still definitely, uh, interesting to hear a blown-out Lata Mangeshkar, lulz.
Chapter 157: Blue 22 is a fairly average screwtape on the whole, with some major highlights: Z-Ro's hypnotic "Freestyle," Screw turning "Hard Knock Life" into a surreal meditation on "take the bass out" and especially the 15-minute pulsating, luminous electro monolith that is his take on Whodini's "Friends."
S. D. Burman's Devdas is so good that a.) I listened to the two-track version with clips from the film thrown in and didn't even wince at the Hindi dialogue and b.) I listened to the whole thing again, sans dialogue, broken into tracks!
Salil Chowdhury's Do Bigha Zamin isn't quite ~magickal~, but the title music sure is; the flaw is that, at five tracks, it just feels insubstantial, but what's there is good.
Once more, Merzbow's Tauromachine starts off amazing, but it gets tiring pretty soon after, with some of synth noises towards the end of "Soft Water Rhinoceros" reminding me of the sounds that that one Command & Conquer game would make every time one of those weird rolling blobs would get near yr tiberium, or whatever.
in the woods - HEart of the ages - the best way I can describe that it's sort of a "hey you got your space ambient in my symphonic prog!" deal and then a "hey you got your wimpy melodic black metal in our space prog!" and then, finally, "hey you got your moderately respectable actual black metal in our synthprogmetal gunk!" and nobody wants to eat it after that. the first track I can see myself being absolutely enraptured by if my aesthetics were recalibrated slight. there's a lot of whispering and talking here, as much as there is screaming. the actual black metal bits remind me a touch of Sacramentum's Far Away from the Sun but not nearly enough to me, y'know, good.
I think I'm going to give a new name to an old trend: the Concert by the Sea effect - when an artist has an amazingly consistent discography and tons of great albums yet their most famous record (often by far) sucks. It's the opposite of the Trout Mask Replica effect. It's named after the Erroll Garner album because I fucking love everything I've heard from Erroll Garner (Afternoon of an Elf, Errol Garner, Body & Soul and now Contrasts, though that one a smidgen less) except his unquestionably most famous, Concert by the Sea. Funny how that goes.
The Kin-Bantou album highlights the perils of getting all of any genre from randomly selected downloads from blogs that mostly post albums bought, again, almost randomly from various part of the world, even if the genre is as rich as vintage filmi or 70s Congolese music: I'm not going to say that there's much true chaff, and this album is good, but the wheat often varies in quality and sometimes you just keep getting albums that are merely "pretty dang good" when you're really itching for something orgasmic. Oh well.
I wonder why Pakeezah is so famous on RYM, at least compared to so many other filmi works of similar vintage and quality - it's quite good, indeed, but I always get curious when a Bollywood soundtrack has more than, like, four ratings. And there's a Parween Sultana song! My copy is obviously a shitty vinyl rip, but that adds to the charm as much as it distracts: it's still definitely, uh, interesting to hear a blown-out Lata Mangeshkar, lulz.
Chapter 157: Blue 22 is a fairly average screwtape on the whole, with some major highlights: Z-Ro's hypnotic "Freestyle," Screw turning "Hard Knock Life" into a surreal meditation on "take the bass out" and especially the 15-minute pulsating, luminous electro monolith that is his take on Whodini's "Friends."
S. D. Burman's Devdas is so good that a.) I listened to the two-track version with clips from the film thrown in and didn't even wince at the Hindi dialogue and b.) I listened to the whole thing again, sans dialogue, broken into tracks!
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Wight Weedy Wight starts off fucking amazing - it's about the only stoner rock I've heard that actually makes me wanna smoke weed and listen to it, probably because it's just as much regular psych as stoner - and then it just becomes regular stoner dullsville complete with pained asshole vocals. so close. :(
Speaking of starting off amazing, I was really ready to lay on the hyperbole after the first three tracks on ...Believes in Patterns by I Would Set Myself on Fire For You - I was going to call it the apotheosis of the eclectic-prog-emo sound peddled by the likes of Gauge Means Nothing and the Brave Little Abacus and compare it to As the Roots Undo and oh it would've been great, but then their arrangements just start getting... awkward. They just sometimes don't seem to know what to do with all of their non-guitar instruments, and sometimes they just blunder on the guitar bits, as well. Maybe I'm thinking this because they're from the ATL, but in places they really sound more like a particularly ambitious local band than an artist with over three-hundred ratings on RYM: the male sung vocals are just amateurish in a way that rarely makes it past the local demo stage, and then there's the drum machine and hand percussion on "#" which they seem to have no idea how to integrate into the overall sound and the latter especially seems to exist simply because they thought having congas or w/e on a track would be cool despite not actually fitting with the rest of the music at all or even sounding good.
Ben Klock's Before One is maybe the minimal techno I've heard that best exhibits the traits of actual good minimalism - everything is constantly in flux, with new elements being added or taken away. It doesn't hurt that it fucking bangs like my god. Perfect EP.
The Hospital records (no not that one) comp Sick Music is, at least in its two-CD form, infinitely too much of a not particularly great thing - drum 'n' bass can be one of the EDM genres that I can listen to tons of without getting fatigued, but it has to be, y'know, good and the liquid funk on this comp gets old after... well, it's old practically by the moment it begins, and it just goes on forever and ever.
the Mandible Rumpus single is great! Synths, female vox, violin... The b is genuinely creepy.
Kalafina's Seventh Heaven just serves as yet more art pop and j-pop where there's not enough "art" or "j" and... well, not too much pop, but the wrong kind of pop. I'ma still listening to their next three albums and FictionJunction, though, 'cuz they've got a lot of talent and elements that could coalesce into something fantastic, even if only for a song or two.
Oh my - you know how prog was basically disco? Turns out Sylvester, Queen of Disco, had an album of long-form compositions up his sleeve, too! Stars has four tracks, ranging in length from just under seven minutes to just over eleven, and it's absolutely divine (or, rather, much, much better than Divine! He had neither soul nor singing voice!) The Aleister Crowley-biting title track is some kind of weird transitory hi-NRG with actual instruments and is about as uplifting as music gets, even if it's also the one song on the album that goes a minute or two overlong and "I (Who Have Nothing)" could fit snuggly on that Walter Gibbons comp we've all gone gaga for. "I Need Somebody to Love Tonight" is a vision, on the cusp of the decade, of the eighties gone horribly PERFECTLY RIGHT. It's a sly, slinky, nocturnal synth funk groove that does the plastification of soul music so fucking marvelously that you'll forgive, well, pretty much all other black music of the eighties (HYPERBOLE ALERT.) And I'm not saying that the repetitive and oddly almost entirely Sylvester-less "Body Strong" ISN'T filler, I'm just saying that it's got a groove more hypnotic than "Halleluwah" could ever dream of being and is catchier than the Vorlevexian hyperflu, which I just made up, but which I assure you is incredibly contagious. Unless I've forgotten the classicness of Step 2, which I really need to relisten to, I can predict this album appearing on a hypothetical future FACT magazine Best Albums of the 70s List, and it'll probably deserve the honor more than 75% of the other choices.
The Jazz Jackrabbit soundtrack is basically like the entire eighties coming in your ears in bit form, and you can decide for yourself if that's something you like to experience.
Anyway I listened to the second Kalafina album and I'ma have to say that will actually be the last of them for me - the opening track gave me flashbacks to my ex making me sit through a Tim Burton marathon; not a good start. The aesthetic plagiarism continues on each of the next few tracks: we get a number that appropriates Bollywood with the same finesse the Beatles appropriated raga, then some lite industrial rock and I can't even remember the rest because they were each terrible and the first two tracks are six minutes each! Which is a long time for this sort of thing. The one thing I do remember is that the melodies and vocals have the consistency of lukewarm porridge. And yet I still listened to FictionJunction! That at least started well, but by the time we came to the beyond excruciating soft rock/adult contemporary track I had to bail, too. Maybe I just don't like Yuki Kajiura - actually I'm certain I don't, which sucks because I was super excited to start Picante Magi Madonna Magical or wtfever.
Luis Gasca's For Those Who Chant is basically what you wanted Santana's fusion phase to sound like when you heard herkyjerky orgasming over it - which makes it both strange and unsurprising that the entirety of Santana are on the album, albeit with their titular wankmeister in a subdued role. Turns out that that salsa piano rhythm sounds pretty cool on guitar. Go for it if you want a south of the border take on early electric Miles.
Mirrors' "Shogeki-X" 7" is probably the best punk-era punk single ever - considering that the only ones that give it a run for its money (Ubu's first, "Little Johnny Jewel," and the grandpappy of them all, "Demolicion") came before the Actual Punk Era - I'll even put it up against Poly 'n' Lora, if only 'cuz it's way cooler to namedrop.
I don't know much about juju, even compared to all the other African genres I know nothing about, but the eponymous album from Thony Adex (which I keep reading Thorny Index or Stony Ajax or Thorin Codex, all of which would be good band names) makes me wanna hear more - it seems to combine the percussive element of fuji with a more """"""traditional"""""" band setup (read: geetars) and the a is a sparkling delight - the b, sadly, is a touch less energetic, but it's still more languid than outright soporific, and still contains plenty of tasty interplay between the musicians.
Speaking of starting off amazing, I was really ready to lay on the hyperbole after the first three tracks on ...Believes in Patterns by I Would Set Myself on Fire For You - I was going to call it the apotheosis of the eclectic-prog-emo sound peddled by the likes of Gauge Means Nothing and the Brave Little Abacus and compare it to As the Roots Undo and oh it would've been great, but then their arrangements just start getting... awkward. They just sometimes don't seem to know what to do with all of their non-guitar instruments, and sometimes they just blunder on the guitar bits, as well. Maybe I'm thinking this because they're from the ATL, but in places they really sound more like a particularly ambitious local band than an artist with over three-hundred ratings on RYM: the male sung vocals are just amateurish in a way that rarely makes it past the local demo stage, and then there's the drum machine and hand percussion on "#" which they seem to have no idea how to integrate into the overall sound and the latter especially seems to exist simply because they thought having congas or w/e on a track would be cool despite not actually fitting with the rest of the music at all or even sounding good.
Ben Klock's Before One is maybe the minimal techno I've heard that best exhibits the traits of actual good minimalism - everything is constantly in flux, with new elements being added or taken away. It doesn't hurt that it fucking bangs like my god. Perfect EP.
The Hospital records (no not that one) comp Sick Music is, at least in its two-CD form, infinitely too much of a not particularly great thing - drum 'n' bass can be one of the EDM genres that I can listen to tons of without getting fatigued, but it has to be, y'know, good and the liquid funk on this comp gets old after... well, it's old practically by the moment it begins, and it just goes on forever and ever.
the Mandible Rumpus single is great! Synths, female vox, violin... The b is genuinely creepy.
Kalafina's Seventh Heaven just serves as yet more art pop and j-pop where there's not enough "art" or "j" and... well, not too much pop, but the wrong kind of pop. I'ma still listening to their next three albums and FictionJunction, though, 'cuz they've got a lot of talent and elements that could coalesce into something fantastic, even if only for a song or two.
Oh my - you know how prog was basically disco? Turns out Sylvester, Queen of Disco, had an album of long-form compositions up his sleeve, too! Stars has four tracks, ranging in length from just under seven minutes to just over eleven, and it's absolutely divine (or, rather, much, much better than Divine! He had neither soul nor singing voice!) The Aleister Crowley-biting title track is some kind of weird transitory hi-NRG with actual instruments and is about as uplifting as music gets, even if it's also the one song on the album that goes a minute or two overlong and "I (Who Have Nothing)" could fit snuggly on that Walter Gibbons comp we've all gone gaga for. "I Need Somebody to Love Tonight" is a vision, on the cusp of the decade, of the eighties gone horribly PERFECTLY RIGHT. It's a sly, slinky, nocturnal synth funk groove that does the plastification of soul music so fucking marvelously that you'll forgive, well, pretty much all other black music of the eighties (HYPERBOLE ALERT.) And I'm not saying that the repetitive and oddly almost entirely Sylvester-less "Body Strong" ISN'T filler, I'm just saying that it's got a groove more hypnotic than "Halleluwah" could ever dream of being and is catchier than the Vorlevexian hyperflu, which I just made up, but which I assure you is incredibly contagious. Unless I've forgotten the classicness of Step 2, which I really need to relisten to, I can predict this album appearing on a hypothetical future FACT magazine Best Albums of the 70s List, and it'll probably deserve the honor more than 75% of the other choices.
The Jazz Jackrabbit soundtrack is basically like the entire eighties coming in your ears in bit form, and you can decide for yourself if that's something you like to experience.
Anyway I listened to the second Kalafina album and I'ma have to say that will actually be the last of them for me - the opening track gave me flashbacks to my ex making me sit through a Tim Burton marathon; not a good start. The aesthetic plagiarism continues on each of the next few tracks: we get a number that appropriates Bollywood with the same finesse the Beatles appropriated raga, then some lite industrial rock and I can't even remember the rest because they were each terrible and the first two tracks are six minutes each! Which is a long time for this sort of thing. The one thing I do remember is that the melodies and vocals have the consistency of lukewarm porridge. And yet I still listened to FictionJunction! That at least started well, but by the time we came to the beyond excruciating soft rock/adult contemporary track I had to bail, too. Maybe I just don't like Yuki Kajiura - actually I'm certain I don't, which sucks because I was super excited to start Picante Magi Madonna Magical or wtfever.
Luis Gasca's For Those Who Chant is basically what you wanted Santana's fusion phase to sound like when you heard herkyjerky orgasming over it - which makes it both strange and unsurprising that the entirety of Santana are on the album, albeit with their titular wankmeister in a subdued role. Turns out that that salsa piano rhythm sounds pretty cool on guitar. Go for it if you want a south of the border take on early electric Miles.
Mirrors' "Shogeki-X" 7" is probably the best punk-era punk single ever - considering that the only ones that give it a run for its money (Ubu's first, "Little Johnny Jewel," and the grandpappy of them all, "Demolicion") came before the Actual Punk Era - I'll even put it up against Poly 'n' Lora, if only 'cuz it's way cooler to namedrop.
I don't know much about juju, even compared to all the other African genres I know nothing about, but the eponymous album from Thony Adex (which I keep reading Thorny Index or Stony Ajax or Thorin Codex, all of which would be good band names) makes me wanna hear more - it seems to combine the percussive element of fuji with a more """"""traditional"""""" band setup (read: geetars) and the a is a sparkling delight - the b, sadly, is a touch less energetic, but it's still more languid than outright soporific, and still contains plenty of tasty interplay between the musicians.
Monday, May 12, 2014
The T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo & Leopold Yehouessi album is basically Fela if Fela was as good as everyone says he is
My first thought upon starting Ehye Wo Bo Dr. Paa Bobo International Band of Ghana was "Hey! Return of the Giant Slits!" There's a rubberiness to the bass here, and a slight dubbiness to the production that makes me think this is what people whose only exposure to African music is post-punk that takes influence from African music think African music might sound like, if not in structure than at least sonically - it's the rare album, and the rare non-soukous African album, that you can both say are produced in typical eighties style, and also brilliantly produced - it's still probably too mellow and too lacking in aggression and/or action to appeal much to said people, but it's still damn fine.
Cease Upon the Capital's first s/t album is an exercise is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and doing a sucky thing and expecting it not suck - getting onto a band with ties to hardcore for being too formulaic is maybe One of Those Things You're Not Supposed To Do if you wanna' be an Eclectic Internet Wannabe Music Critic but the first two songs follow the same structure: bit that sounds like pop punk gone screamo, bit o'guitar that almost shoegazes, then back to a, then riff that bears a resemblance to good old fashioned hard rock. Repeat. Then on the third track they repeat some bits some more and add a lil post-rock flair in the middle and hey guess what that's as far as I got because I don't much like any of those things in my emo, and also it's just not well done at all. So I reviewed an album I hear a third of, so sue me.
Of the highlife albums I listened to yesterday, Fine Woman by Canadoes Super Stars of Ghana was easily the least entertaining, partially because the first track just went on and on, punctuated by vocal chatter and forced laughter in a language I don't speak. But even the grooves seemed stale.
If you thought atmospheric drum & bass was a crock of shit compared to the more bangin' varieties of the genre, then wait until you meet MINIMALIST d'n'b! Technically, DJ Krust's Genetic Manipulation e*coughit'slikefortyminuteslongthat'snotanepcough*p existed before that trend became an official subgenre it's easily the most minimalist piece of edm I think I've ever heard - because absolutely nothing happens and it doesn't. even. bang. If the Mad Professor and Patto Banton album was the poster child for Obscure Albums That FACT Put On a Best of the Decade List That Really Deserve Their Spot, this one is, uh, the same except slip a "don't" before "deserve." Imagine if Bull of Heaven made a d'n'b album. Really.
Hey remember how I hate abstract rap? Well I certainly did while listening to The Sanity Index by Sonic Sum!
The catchily-titled Yere Wo Ato Mu Ate Ebi Awe by Alex Konadu and the not-at-all-nonsensically-named One Man '1000' is just supreme - it's just excellent music: you can hear the bass right up front and clear, actually every instrument sounds great, though the guitars are, in typical highlife fashion, a teensy bit too far back in the mix, especially in relation to the vox - I'm not asking for, y'know, Shieldian swirling walls-of-sound but I'd like to not have to crane my neck slightly and narrow my eyes a touch to really HEAR what the guitarists are playing - but it's honestly almost weird and incredibly exciting to hear music that uses a completely typical Rock Standard 2 guitars/bass/drums/vox line-up to make music that has nothing whatsoever in common with any form of white Western music whatsoever - it shows both how ingenious humans can always be, being able to make such antithetical types of music with the same instruments, and also how terribly uncreative so much white music that relies on gtrdrmbsvx is - I'm not advocating Vamping Weekending but there's really no excuse for people doing new and exciting things even with the most banal and overused instrumentation - and then you think about people playing oboes and oud instead and wow music is infinite, human invention is infinite!
so yeah on that note that makes Spark Master Tape's decision to basically make artsy trap on the SWOUP Serengeti a little bit soul-crushing. But y'all know my ~trapinions~
My first thought upon starting Ehye Wo Bo Dr. Paa Bobo International Band of Ghana was "Hey! Return of the Giant Slits!" There's a rubberiness to the bass here, and a slight dubbiness to the production that makes me think this is what people whose only exposure to African music is post-punk that takes influence from African music think African music might sound like, if not in structure than at least sonically - it's the rare album, and the rare non-soukous African album, that you can both say are produced in typical eighties style, and also brilliantly produced - it's still probably too mellow and too lacking in aggression and/or action to appeal much to said people, but it's still damn fine.
Cease Upon the Capital's first s/t album is an exercise is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and doing a sucky thing and expecting it not suck - getting onto a band with ties to hardcore for being too formulaic is maybe One of Those Things You're Not Supposed To Do if you wanna' be an Eclectic Internet Wannabe Music Critic but the first two songs follow the same structure: bit that sounds like pop punk gone screamo, bit o'guitar that almost shoegazes, then back to a, then riff that bears a resemblance to good old fashioned hard rock. Repeat. Then on the third track they repeat some bits some more and add a lil post-rock flair in the middle and hey guess what that's as far as I got because I don't much like any of those things in my emo, and also it's just not well done at all. So I reviewed an album I hear a third of, so sue me.
Of the highlife albums I listened to yesterday, Fine Woman by Canadoes Super Stars of Ghana was easily the least entertaining, partially because the first track just went on and on, punctuated by vocal chatter and forced laughter in a language I don't speak. But even the grooves seemed stale.
If you thought atmospheric drum & bass was a crock of shit compared to the more bangin' varieties of the genre, then wait until you meet MINIMALIST d'n'b! Technically, DJ Krust's Genetic Manipulation e*coughit'slikefortyminuteslongthat'snotanepcough*p existed before that trend became an official subgenre it's easily the most minimalist piece of edm I think I've ever heard - because absolutely nothing happens and it doesn't. even. bang. If the Mad Professor and Patto Banton album was the poster child for Obscure Albums That FACT Put On a Best of the Decade List That Really Deserve Their Spot, this one is, uh, the same except slip a "don't" before "deserve." Imagine if Bull of Heaven made a d'n'b album. Really.
Hey remember how I hate abstract rap? Well I certainly did while listening to The Sanity Index by Sonic Sum!
The catchily-titled Yere Wo Ato Mu Ate Ebi Awe by Alex Konadu and the not-at-all-nonsensically-named One Man '1000' is just supreme - it's just excellent music: you can hear the bass right up front and clear, actually every instrument sounds great, though the guitars are, in typical highlife fashion, a teensy bit too far back in the mix, especially in relation to the vox - I'm not asking for, y'know, Shieldian swirling walls-of-sound but I'd like to not have to crane my neck slightly and narrow my eyes a touch to really HEAR what the guitarists are playing - but it's honestly almost weird and incredibly exciting to hear music that uses a completely typical Rock Standard 2 guitars/bass/drums/vox line-up to make music that has nothing whatsoever in common with any form of white Western music whatsoever - it shows both how ingenious humans can always be, being able to make such antithetical types of music with the same instruments, and also how terribly uncreative so much white music that relies on gtrdrmbsvx is - I'm not advocating Vamping Weekending but there's really no excuse for people doing new and exciting things even with the most banal and overused instrumentation - and then you think about people playing oboes and oud instead and wow music is infinite, human invention is infinite!
so yeah on that note that makes Spark Master Tape's decision to basically make artsy trap on the SWOUP Serengeti a little bit soul-crushing. But y'all know my ~trapinions~
I've come to realize that, in general, the more I know about a genre, the less I like the Soul Jazz comps that cover it - the big exception is their jazz comps, but it goes like: latin comp = FRIED GOLD; samba comp = GOLD THAT IS LESS FRIED BUT MORE GOLD and I recognize that a lot of these artists are big names but I've never heard the songs before so it's all good; reggae comp = pretty good but also too obvious in places; tropicalia comp - uh wait why'd you put x but not y? still okay I guess; post-punk comp = oh my god this is so banal I knew this shit when I was thirteen uh really? up yr game, poseurs
which makes me think that if I were Jamaican I'd find the reggae comps just as laughable as the post-punk ones, or Brazilian the samba and tropicalia or Chicana the salsa and stuff.
The first Dynamite! comp is probably four stars, the second three but there's still just some stuff that's really gobsmackingly obvious - "Funky Kingston?" "Ring the Alarm?" the latter's among the best things ever, obvs, but who the heck doesn't have those tracks a.) memorized backwards and b.) on like five other comps? Maybe this was groundbreaking in the late-90s but nah, it doesn't cut the mustard today. And then the third one, which I haven't heard yet, has "Sleng Teng," "Bam Bam" and "Uptown Top Ranking" in the first seven tracks! Maybe the rest is obscure and brilliant, but that really puts me off the label on the whole, and they have my favorite v/a comp ever and of all time.
Changing gears, Sven Libaek's Boney is fine 70s soundtrack stuff, really enjoyable, but simultaneously unremarkable.
Duo (London) by Anthony Braxton and Evan Parker is just so fucking boring - except for the one bit where they throw caution to the wind and Parker starts delivering the oscillating circular-breathing neon electric eel wiggles that made Conic Sections the most rewarding solo saxophone album ever and Brax keeps right up and it's orgasmic... and then they go back to being boring. Almost worth the price of admission just for that moment but not quite.
The Welsh Rare Beat comp is a classic example of "you wouldn't be listening to this if this were recorded in English by Americans or the English" and you're right I wouldn't be and actually I don't want to listen to it Welsh, either, to be honest.
Will Guthrie's Rose Coded is definitely not possessed of the same maniacal literally-industrial percussive bent as his me-lauded Sticks, Stones & Breaking Bones - there's a lot of things being hit but it's just clattering and abortively atmospheric rather than heavier than two separate gorillas and on the title track there are even noises other than things being hit or thrown. Actually I shouldn't have said "abortively atmospheric" because the b-side's actually got some real ritual ambient vibes going on, as these solo percussion recitals tend to and those dying kazoo shrieks give it some real dark underbelly - imagine the last parts of "Aumgn" recorded by Han Bennink rather than Jaki Liebezeit. So maybe it's got the atmosphere of the preparations for a magickal abortion, to make sure the spirit of the fetus doesn't take revenge on the non-mother. Yeah, cool. Not that fetuses have spirits, but still. Way cool. If both sides had sounded like the b, this could... wow, sky'd be the limit for a rating.
which makes me think that if I were Jamaican I'd find the reggae comps just as laughable as the post-punk ones, or Brazilian the samba and tropicalia or Chicana the salsa and stuff.
The first Dynamite! comp is probably four stars, the second three but there's still just some stuff that's really gobsmackingly obvious - "Funky Kingston?" "Ring the Alarm?" the latter's among the best things ever, obvs, but who the heck doesn't have those tracks a.) memorized backwards and b.) on like five other comps? Maybe this was groundbreaking in the late-90s but nah, it doesn't cut the mustard today. And then the third one, which I haven't heard yet, has "Sleng Teng," "Bam Bam" and "Uptown Top Ranking" in the first seven tracks! Maybe the rest is obscure and brilliant, but that really puts me off the label on the whole, and they have my favorite v/a comp ever and of all time.
Changing gears, Sven Libaek's Boney is fine 70s soundtrack stuff, really enjoyable, but simultaneously unremarkable.
Duo (London) by Anthony Braxton and Evan Parker is just so fucking boring - except for the one bit where they throw caution to the wind and Parker starts delivering the oscillating circular-breathing neon electric eel wiggles that made Conic Sections the most rewarding solo saxophone album ever and Brax keeps right up and it's orgasmic... and then they go back to being boring. Almost worth the price of admission just for that moment but not quite.
The Welsh Rare Beat comp is a classic example of "you wouldn't be listening to this if this were recorded in English by Americans or the English" and you're right I wouldn't be and actually I don't want to listen to it Welsh, either, to be honest.
Will Guthrie's Rose Coded is definitely not possessed of the same maniacal literally-industrial percussive bent as his me-lauded Sticks, Stones & Breaking Bones - there's a lot of things being hit but it's just clattering and abortively atmospheric rather than heavier than two separate gorillas and on the title track there are even noises other than things being hit or thrown. Actually I shouldn't have said "abortively atmospheric" because the b-side's actually got some real ritual ambient vibes going on, as these solo percussion recitals tend to and those dying kazoo shrieks give it some real dark underbelly - imagine the last parts of "Aumgn" recorded by Han Bennink rather than Jaki Liebezeit. So maybe it's got the atmosphere of the preparations for a magickal abortion, to make sure the spirit of the fetus doesn't take revenge on the non-mother. Yeah, cool. Not that fetuses have spirits, but still. Way cool. If both sides had sounded like the b, this could... wow, sky'd be the limit for a rating.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
World Standard's Country Gazette is currently tagged as progressive country and avant-prog but uh both guesses are misses - it's like... you know how Rogerio Duprat released a chintzy library record that doesn't sound much of anything like his work with the tropicalia vanguard? Country Gazette is what would have happened if Van Dyke Parks had made a chintzy ambient library record, only it does sound sort of like Smile refracted through a prism with doses of everything from bossa nova to exotica, which actually might not be all that far apart, stylistically, and lord knows Stereolab connected them dots - speaking of which, maybe a better metaphor would be a High Llamas record melted down and poured like syrup over pancakes. post-rock pancakes. yeah. actually I've got it - take the Smile Down Upon Us record and strip it of vocals and hooks and then streeeeeetch and mellow it out. maybe? and yet it's still all more country than any of that - it's supposed to be influenced by Fahey but nah, bro, don't hear it. it would almost be a driving record, but it's so sleepy that driving in the same mood the album is in would likely result in somebody's death, so maybe it's an example of the driving record's rare cousin, the riding-in-the-backseat-watching-the-world-go-by-while-you-nod-off-to-sleep-on-a-childhood-vacation record. all that to say that it's actually not very good at all! it's a bit cute but utterly unsubstantial. it also needs more banjo, but then so do most things.
I had started Calexico's the Black Light and was enjoying it vaguely but then got aggravated at myself once the vocals started for listening to ~white people~ playing Mexican-inspired music so I looked up Selena's Amor Prohibido to vindicate myself and I'm kind of aghast at just how like treacly and sugary and just plain sickly and shitty-sounding it is... it's like 2Pac or Whitney Houston all over again - a stark reminder that, yes, very often the Masses that we vacillate between fetishizing and demeaning do happen to have particularly atrocious taste and canonize/lionize musicians that exemplify everything that can go wrong within an era or genre and yes just because said masses are POC doesn't mean they're exempt from it. I guess it's a "you had to be there" sort of deal. Sort of like Morrissey, 'mirite? Or Kurt Cobain, except I was there for that one, sort of, and, yeah, I still get more of a nostalgic thrill from the bassline to "Come As You Are" than I will ever fully admit and at least Selena a.) never raped a developmentally disabled girl, b.) never wrote "Rape Me" and c.) didn't spawn Nickleback. So yay for those things! But let's be honest, this is like listening to a Britney Spears album, except she was a latina who died tragically and therefore I can almost convince myself I get some sort of perverse cred for sitting through it and smiling? This album even manages to make cumbia detestable. How is that even possible?!
okay back to ME MUSICKtm, Merkabah's Moloch is both named after my favorite high school in-joke of a pagan deity and described as "Soft Machine gone horror" and, dipping further back into elementary school slang, tight. It's in that weird zone, though, usually occupied by follow-ups to loved debuts (not that I've heard any Merkabah beforehand, ftr), where I'm both enjoying the hell out of it and also a touch underwhelmed - if it stays at this level it'll be an easy four stars but it feels, somehow, given the ingredients, that it should be more than that. Still they can't all be 4.5 stars and it's not miles away from the jazz-rock revisionism I've been dreaming of creating lately.
M'Lumbo's Sacrifices to the Neon Gods is very Residential - it's dream-logic deconstructions of TV themes with an emphasis on neon exotica and unswung swing - it's not breathtaking and I'm not sure what point is being made, if any, but it's solid entertainment. actually, there's maybe not a point, but there is a concept, which is explicated in the album's full title but it's a little racist and not integral to enjoyment.
I had started Calexico's the Black Light and was enjoying it vaguely but then got aggravated at myself once the vocals started for listening to ~white people~ playing Mexican-inspired music so I looked up Selena's Amor Prohibido to vindicate myself and I'm kind of aghast at just how like treacly and sugary and just plain sickly and shitty-sounding it is... it's like 2Pac or Whitney Houston all over again - a stark reminder that, yes, very often the Masses that we vacillate between fetishizing and demeaning do happen to have particularly atrocious taste and canonize/lionize musicians that exemplify everything that can go wrong within an era or genre and yes just because said masses are POC doesn't mean they're exempt from it. I guess it's a "you had to be there" sort of deal. Sort of like Morrissey, 'mirite? Or Kurt Cobain, except I was there for that one, sort of, and, yeah, I still get more of a nostalgic thrill from the bassline to "Come As You Are" than I will ever fully admit and at least Selena a.) never raped a developmentally disabled girl, b.) never wrote "Rape Me" and c.) didn't spawn Nickleback. So yay for those things! But let's be honest, this is like listening to a Britney Spears album, except she was a latina who died tragically and therefore I can almost convince myself I get some sort of perverse cred for sitting through it and smiling? This album even manages to make cumbia detestable. How is that even possible?!
okay back to ME MUSICKtm, Merkabah's Moloch is both named after my favorite high school in-joke of a pagan deity and described as "Soft Machine gone horror" and, dipping further back into elementary school slang, tight. It's in that weird zone, though, usually occupied by follow-ups to loved debuts (not that I've heard any Merkabah beforehand, ftr), where I'm both enjoying the hell out of it and also a touch underwhelmed - if it stays at this level it'll be an easy four stars but it feels, somehow, given the ingredients, that it should be more than that. Still they can't all be 4.5 stars and it's not miles away from the jazz-rock revisionism I've been dreaming of creating lately.
M'Lumbo's Sacrifices to the Neon Gods is very Residential - it's dream-logic deconstructions of TV themes with an emphasis on neon exotica and unswung swing - it's not breathtaking and I'm not sure what point is being made, if any, but it's solid entertainment. actually, there's maybe not a point, but there is a concept, which is explicated in the album's full title but it's a little racist and not integral to enjoyment.
I never expected to praise Funcrusher...
but this Paradoxical State album is making me do like the "whoah, I better pay attention - this guy's really saying something" double-take for the first time since I first took notice of Billy Woods - Jestoneart drops like straight-up rocket science about innercity life at first, but after a while he starts spitting typical abstract nonsense patter with a side of angst. It's a really big fall from the heights of the first few tracks and it's legitimately kind of depressingly disappointing, plus it does go on, but at least there's a Yabby You sample!
I just started Bottle of Humans and uh see anytime I listen to a white emcee I basically have to ask myself the question "do I enjoy this enough and/or is it ~objectively~ good enough that it makes up for the shame that would come from being approached by a hypothetical Anti-Racist BloggerTM while listening to this and having to half-heartedly defend how much of an evil racist I am for listening to an Evil Devil Cracker Appropriator" and yeah Sole does not fit that bill. He's kind of putrid. Then again Aesop Rock and Invincible are the only two white emcees that I can half-heartedly defend, and maybe Paul Barman if I'm feeling feisty + perverse. I can't even listen to Qwel anymore. And speaking of Aesop Rock, the Cult Favorite album brings Elucid to my attention, and he sounds like a Chopped & Screwed constipated modern Ian Matthias Bavitz with no skills like whatsoever - and wait apparently he actually is black? Coulda' fooled me! Call it early Ugly Mane in reverse. Still pants. What the everliving fuck made me wanna' go through the abstract hip hop chart in the first place? I don't even usually like it when black guys rap shit like "perfunctory uncle factory creates combustible tupperware while we agnostically copy crop circles herky-jerkily" or wtfever, let alone Evil Devil Cracker Appropriators. Blah.
returning to my stomping ground of the previous few days/decades - I get why Potemkine aren't remembered as a first-tier zeuhl band, or fusion band in general, but their first two albums are ultimately perfectly satisfying and all three exist at a different notch on the Fusion-to-Zeuhl scale so there's no real feeling of worn paths, even if obviously they'd never possibly have existed without Mahavishnu and Magma having done so first. I was going to say that their last is their best after the first two tracks, because I've been craving old-school fusion guitar heroics, before that became code for "AGH OH GOD STOP PLEASE PLEASE STOP MY EARS AAAH" or at least avoiding the tastelesshalfmetalhalfsmoothjazzshredwank that was coming to dominate the genre and yet the further on the album goes the more the pleasing fusion bits turn into plain old gross RAWK GEETAR histrionics and nobody wants that ever now do they?
and now I really hate that album anyway because I noticed that the ohsocharmingly named RYMer "GoddamnRapist" put it on a list alongside the likes of Styx, Robin Trower, Tool, Alice in Chains, QOTSA, Mr. Bungle and Joe Satriani, so ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
I just started Bottle of Humans and uh see anytime I listen to a white emcee I basically have to ask myself the question "do I enjoy this enough and/or is it ~objectively~ good enough that it makes up for the shame that would come from being approached by a hypothetical Anti-Racist BloggerTM while listening to this and having to half-heartedly defend how much of an evil racist I am for listening to an Evil Devil Cracker Appropriator" and yeah Sole does not fit that bill. He's kind of putrid. Then again Aesop Rock and Invincible are the only two white emcees that I can half-heartedly defend, and maybe Paul Barman if I'm feeling feisty + perverse. I can't even listen to Qwel anymore. And speaking of Aesop Rock, the Cult Favorite album brings Elucid to my attention, and he sounds like a Chopped & Screwed constipated modern Ian Matthias Bavitz with no skills like whatsoever - and wait apparently he actually is black? Coulda' fooled me! Call it early Ugly Mane in reverse. Still pants. What the everliving fuck made me wanna' go through the abstract hip hop chart in the first place? I don't even usually like it when black guys rap shit like "perfunctory uncle factory creates combustible tupperware while we agnostically copy crop circles herky-jerkily" or wtfever, let alone Evil Devil Cracker Appropriators. Blah.
returning to my stomping ground of the previous few days/decades - I get why Potemkine aren't remembered as a first-tier zeuhl band, or fusion band in general, but their first two albums are ultimately perfectly satisfying and all three exist at a different notch on the Fusion-to-Zeuhl scale so there's no real feeling of worn paths, even if obviously they'd never possibly have existed without Mahavishnu and Magma having done so first. I was going to say that their last is their best after the first two tracks, because I've been craving old-school fusion guitar heroics, before that became code for "AGH OH GOD STOP PLEASE PLEASE STOP MY EARS AAAH" or at least avoiding the tastelesshalfmetalhalfsmoothjazzshredwank that was coming to dominate the genre and yet the further on the album goes the more the pleasing fusion bits turn into plain old gross RAWK GEETAR histrionics and nobody wants that ever now do they?
and now I really hate that album anyway because I noticed that the ohsocharmingly named RYMer "GoddamnRapist" put it on a list alongside the likes of Styx, Robin Trower, Tool, Alice in Chains, QOTSA, Mr. Bungle and Joe Satriani, so ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
so yeah new clipping.'s not quite Midcity but they're about to become the first hip hop outfit I've ever given 4.5 stars to two of their albums, so that's nothing to sneeze at.
Plastic Records knows good library music when they hear it: the Stroboscopica comps are all pretty dang great, as is Phase 6 Super Stereo, excepting, naturally, the "I'm a Man" (Spencer Davis, not Jobriath) cover, because how could that song ever not be execrable?
Ivo Perelman's the Ventriloquist is obviously good but man I listened to it in a funk that practically no music could ever penetrate - for most of its running time I used it simply as a way to block out the noise around me at Moe's and that's not an ideal situation for any album that's not harsh noise, if that.
Disco Discharge: Pink Pounders may have two of my fav singles ever on it but boy howdy hi-NRG can get grating when there's this much that's not that good.
The Chimurenga Renaissance album really does nothing interesting or particularly well - then again, I never truly loved Shabazz Palaces, either. On the other hand, TO: AM - FREE: AM by Obba Supa is weirdly magical - the main hook here, the main thing that sets it apart from virtually all other music with rapping ever, is that emcee hey!zeus very rarely spits rhymes - this adds a hypnotic stream-of-consciousness feel to his verses and perfectly fits the early morning rainy haze vibe of the beats, as hinted at in the album title, and the beats are really really chill - think the Midnight Eez meets Siah & Yeshua DapoED or like cloud rap if cloud rap were jazz rap. The more I listen the more I realize that that hey!zeus keeps saying that I was hoping was "raze" or "raise" or "rage" actually is "rape" so um maybe fuck you?
Plastic Records knows good library music when they hear it: the Stroboscopica comps are all pretty dang great, as is Phase 6 Super Stereo, excepting, naturally, the "I'm a Man" (Spencer Davis, not Jobriath) cover, because how could that song ever not be execrable?
Ivo Perelman's the Ventriloquist is obviously good but man I listened to it in a funk that practically no music could ever penetrate - for most of its running time I used it simply as a way to block out the noise around me at Moe's and that's not an ideal situation for any album that's not harsh noise, if that.
Disco Discharge: Pink Pounders may have two of my fav singles ever on it but boy howdy hi-NRG can get grating when there's this much that's not that good.
The Chimurenga Renaissance album really does nothing interesting or particularly well - then again, I never truly loved Shabazz Palaces, either. On the other hand, TO: AM - FREE: AM by Obba Supa is weirdly magical - the main hook here, the main thing that sets it apart from virtually all other music with rapping ever, is that emcee hey!zeus very rarely spits rhymes - this adds a hypnotic stream-of-consciousness feel to his verses and perfectly fits the early morning rainy haze vibe of the beats, as hinted at in the album title, and the beats are really really chill - think the Midnight Eez meets Siah & Yeshua DapoED or like cloud rap if cloud rap were jazz rap. The more I listen the more I realize that that hey!zeus keeps saying that I was hoping was "raze" or "raise" or "rage" actually is "rape" so um maybe fuck you?
Saturday, May 10, 2014
The main thing I want to emphasize about Лабиринт. Джазовые композиции by Мелодия is that it just seems so professional - and I mean that in a very positive way. It's sort of like brass rock extrapolated into a sophisticated instrumental form that can grapple with actual jazz and chock full of excellent arrangements and soli - including some tasty overdriven fuzz bass!
Honestly, after that one, the Ndikho Xaba & The Natives album seems a little lost - that's blasphemous, of course, Melodia were a bunch of white Commies and Ndikho Xaba and the Natives are... named Ndikho Xaba and the Natives, for chrissakes, but the album's a little long on semi-ambient noodles and short on fire or groove, except for the last track, which really cooks... for three minutes. And the less said about painful vocal number "Freedom" the better.
Recreation's Music or Not Music was tagged avant-prog on RYM, but it doesn't really work that way - it's more like a dissembled and reconstructed prog - everything hangs together and runs together but there's no real logic to the way its assembled - it's not a suite, it's a(n) (instrumental) patchwork quilt with bits of all of the musics that feed into prog - post-bop jazz, western classical, various folk musicks, some blues but not the kind that's blooze - just stitched together haphazardly, with most of the rock removed: imagine that someone mixed a more cohesive and eclectic (and less Canterbury) version of the second Softs album with a much, much less heavy/guitar-oriented take on the second half of Osanna's Palepoli but filtered it through Egg and throw in some bits of Strauss and various national anthems somewhere between Sonny Clark quoting "Pop Goes the Weasel" and a pisstake on Ekseption and ELP doing the "BACH GOES ROCK" thang and you've got it. oh wait there's also a couple of almost proto-emo "wacky inside joke" song titles, too. It's a hodgepodge, but it somehow feels extremely true to the "Prog SpiritTM", except that when you say "Prog SpiritTM" like that, even with scare quotes and a snarky trademark, you still wanna' vom. It seems like the sort of album I would've made in 1972, since that was before the internet was invented and I would've actually had time to practice piano, but it was, however, not before food and masturbation were invented, so I still wouldn't've had that much time to practice.
Area's "Lobotomia" is the "(That Noodly Bit at the End of) Moonchild" of avant-prog - I actually really do consider it the most enjoyable moment in their discography, though revisiting their early works I find I generally prefer Area by a large margin, even if they don't bring the hooks of ITCOTCK or "Lizard." Guess I'm just a sucker for analog-synth-brain-scrub. Now can you imagine if KC had had Demetrio Stratos on lead vox? whoah. Or him just playing the role for a lark like Jon Anderson on "Prince Rupert Awakes?" I'll shut up now before I turn into a balding sixty-something white granddad with a motorcycle. *shudder*
Honestly, after that one, the Ndikho Xaba & The Natives album seems a little lost - that's blasphemous, of course, Melodia were a bunch of white Commies and Ndikho Xaba and the Natives are... named Ndikho Xaba and the Natives, for chrissakes, but the album's a little long on semi-ambient noodles and short on fire or groove, except for the last track, which really cooks... for three minutes. And the less said about painful vocal number "Freedom" the better.
Recreation's Music or Not Music was tagged avant-prog on RYM, but it doesn't really work that way - it's more like a dissembled and reconstructed prog - everything hangs together and runs together but there's no real logic to the way its assembled - it's not a suite, it's a(n) (instrumental) patchwork quilt with bits of all of the musics that feed into prog - post-bop jazz, western classical, various folk musicks, some blues but not the kind that's blooze - just stitched together haphazardly, with most of the rock removed: imagine that someone mixed a more cohesive and eclectic (and less Canterbury) version of the second Softs album with a much, much less heavy/guitar-oriented take on the second half of Osanna's Palepoli but filtered it through Egg and throw in some bits of Strauss and various national anthems somewhere between Sonny Clark quoting "Pop Goes the Weasel" and a pisstake on Ekseption and ELP doing the "BACH GOES ROCK" thang and you've got it. oh wait there's also a couple of almost proto-emo "wacky inside joke" song titles, too. It's a hodgepodge, but it somehow feels extremely true to the "Prog SpiritTM", except that when you say "Prog SpiritTM" like that, even with scare quotes and a snarky trademark, you still wanna' vom. It seems like the sort of album I would've made in 1972, since that was before the internet was invented and I would've actually had time to practice piano, but it was, however, not before food and masturbation were invented, so I still wouldn't've had that much time to practice.
Area's "Lobotomia" is the "(That Noodly Bit at the End of) Moonchild" of avant-prog - I actually really do consider it the most enjoyable moment in their discography, though revisiting their early works I find I generally prefer Area by a large margin, even if they don't bring the hooks of ITCOTCK or "Lizard." Guess I'm just a sucker for analog-synth-brain-scrub. Now can you imagine if KC had had Demetrio Stratos on lead vox? whoah. Or him just playing the role for a lark like Jon Anderson on "Prince Rupert Awakes?" I'll shut up now before I turn into a balding sixty-something white granddad with a motorcycle. *shudder*
Do Romance ao Galope Nordestino by Quinteto Armorial is one of those more-or-less unclassifiable albums that seemed to pop up so often in the seventies - it's some kind of Brazilian folk filtered through a Medieval prism and it's just smashing. It's even danceable in places, without using any kind of percussion! And, again, there's a playlist for the album on YouTube, if'n you wanna' partake.
Vesku Loiri & Rag Paananen's Merirosvokapteeni Ynjevi Lavankopoksahdus is one of those concept albums where something is lost if you don't speak the language - it's a competent and enjoyable blend of jazz-rock and Finnish folk but even without any spoken word, it's apparently so narrative driven that it just doesn't gel when you can't understand the story. It doesn't help that it's graced with a truly deeply goofy cover.
Arik Einstein's מזל גדי is some fluffy light psych - it's the sort of thing that gets touted as breaking down boundaries in conservative countries that now just sounds like fairly conservative take on Western pop themes and you wonder if the folk traditions that they were rebelling against didn't actually make for better music, anyway - I love a lot of global psychedelia, and this is hardly worthless, but, I dunno', it definitely doesn't stack up next to what was going on in Brazil and Turkey at the same time. it - there are a couple of corkers just past half-way through. Eh, though.
With the next album, though, I'm out of my territory - I've heard salsa, yeah, a fair amount, but it's one of the genres I don't even pretend to know shit about because it's just so deep and rich than no white RYMer could ever hope to penetrate its history unless you speak the language - stick to prog, yanqui, y'know? But I googled "greatest salsa albums" 'cuz I'm just a noob like that, and perpetually curious, and one list focusing just on New York's "Golden Era" listed Ernie's Conspiracy by Ernie Agosto as the second greatest album falling under its perimeters - and, uh, it's perfectly very nice, indeed, but if that aforementioned Finnish album didn't reveal all of its wonders due to the language barrier, at least I know what makes prog good or not - maybe I'm overthinking this, but I'm torn between really trying to GET salsa as much as someone entirely removed from its various cultures can be and just admitting that that would be futile as well as maybe (at least) a bit appropriative and face the fact that my ears haven't been calibrated to appreciate salsa the way they have been avant-jazz or twee pop. And maybe that's okay? I really do like the genre! I just can't pretend that it doesn't... sound a lot... alike. The only part of the album that really made my ears prick up and get excited was the Jorge Ben quote on "Se Acaba El Mundo" - samba, now that I know about! Well, a little. I have the taste I do because I'm a bourgie cracker and yet I try to change my taste to something more "global" as a way of changing my status as as middle-class as they get when, uh, that's just stupid as heck, especially since only middle-class white North American people have the time to delve into hundreds of genres just a little bit and make a coat of purloined clashing colors and view it as their identity. Phew. Still, I mean, even I can tell it's obviously a very good album, despite all that.
Vesku Loiri & Rag Paananen's Merirosvokapteeni Ynjevi Lavankopoksahdus is one of those concept albums where something is lost if you don't speak the language - it's a competent and enjoyable blend of jazz-rock and Finnish folk but even without any spoken word, it's apparently so narrative driven that it just doesn't gel when you can't understand the story. It doesn't help that it's graced with a truly deeply goofy cover.
Arik Einstein's מזל גדי is some fluffy light psych - it's the sort of thing that gets touted as breaking down boundaries in conservative countries that now just sounds like fairly conservative take on Western pop themes and you wonder if the folk traditions that they were rebelling against didn't actually make for better music, anyway - I love a lot of global psychedelia, and this is hardly worthless, but, I dunno', it definitely doesn't stack up next to what was going on in Brazil and Turkey at the same time. it - there are a couple of corkers just past half-way through. Eh, though.
With the next album, though, I'm out of my territory - I've heard salsa, yeah, a fair amount, but it's one of the genres I don't even pretend to know shit about because it's just so deep and rich than no white RYMer could ever hope to penetrate its history unless you speak the language - stick to prog, yanqui, y'know? But I googled "greatest salsa albums" 'cuz I'm just a noob like that, and perpetually curious, and one list focusing just on New York's "Golden Era" listed Ernie's Conspiracy by Ernie Agosto as the second greatest album falling under its perimeters - and, uh, it's perfectly very nice, indeed, but if that aforementioned Finnish album didn't reveal all of its wonders due to the language barrier, at least I know what makes prog good or not - maybe I'm overthinking this, but I'm torn between really trying to GET salsa as much as someone entirely removed from its various cultures can be and just admitting that that would be futile as well as maybe (at least) a bit appropriative and face the fact that my ears haven't been calibrated to appreciate salsa the way they have been avant-jazz or twee pop. And maybe that's okay? I really do like the genre! I just can't pretend that it doesn't... sound a lot... alike. The only part of the album that really made my ears prick up and get excited was the Jorge Ben quote on "Se Acaba El Mundo" - samba, now that I know about! Well, a little. I have the taste I do because I'm a bourgie cracker and yet I try to change my taste to something more "global" as a way of changing my status as as middle-class as they get when, uh, that's just stupid as heck, especially since only middle-class white North American people have the time to delve into hundreds of genres just a little bit and make a coat of purloined clashing colors and view it as their identity. Phew. Still, I mean, even I can tell it's obviously a very good album, despite all that.
Friday, May 9, 2014
verdict 1: the Wedding Present's George Best is like a somehow even more shitty and beige and monotonous Smiths if Morrissey had been an MRA douchebag instead of his own special breed of mopey racist, ALFy douchebag.
verdict 2: Sacrilege's Beyond the Realms of Madness is pretty glorious punky thrash, which reminds me of hearing some preacher on BBN years ago say (I don't know what the context was beyond "MUSIC WITH DRUMS EVIL RARRRSGJSFG") something like "they call it thrash punk" and even though this was before I had gotten into metal, I was like "nobody calls anything 'thrash punk.' thrashCORE maybe, or CROSSOVER thrash, both of which denotes hybrids of punk and thrash metal, or they make say that a thrash album is particularly punk-influenced but it's not like there's a scene of genre actually called "thrash punk," to the best of my knowledge" but anyway I think I'd like Sacrilege more if they didn't just seem like a milder precursor to my beloved Nuclear Death - female vocalist, punk/metal fusion, all that. But I'm not one to piss on Illinois Jacquet just because Arthur Doyle exists, y'dig? I can piss on it for overstaying its welcome by ten minutes, despite not even being a half hour long.
verdict 3: I was hoping Xoris Perideraio's Χορός για μουσική would be one of those Other-language lost classics that I'd get all kinds of props for digging up and exposing to the RYMlight (once I get back on there, natch) but then... AntiWarhol happened. Also, the album kind of sucks, it's got that Neil Young's Trans vibe so common on these affairs - yeah, it's got synths and drum machines, but the songs underneath still basically feel like meat'n'taters (M/A)OR rawk songs far too often - and there's nowhere near enough synth. Pass.
verdict 4: winner winner chicken dinner! now here's an AW-tipped synthy '85 Greek affair worth celebrating: Γκάλοπ by Lena Platanos is a bunch of synth-heavy spoken word meditations on... something, in Greek, naturally, with an abstract, fractal geometry/update of German expressionism feel - there's a playlist with videos for each song on YouTube and they all seem as cheesy and lo-budget as any video from 1985 is going to be, but it's DEFO worth hearing across all taste borders.
verdict 2: Sacrilege's Beyond the Realms of Madness is pretty glorious punky thrash, which reminds me of hearing some preacher on BBN years ago say (I don't know what the context was beyond "MUSIC WITH DRUMS EVIL RARRRSGJSFG") something like "they call it thrash punk" and even though this was before I had gotten into metal, I was like "nobody calls anything 'thrash punk.' thrashCORE maybe, or CROSSOVER thrash, both of which denotes hybrids of punk and thrash metal, or they make say that a thrash album is particularly punk-influenced but it's not like there's a scene of genre actually called "thrash punk," to the best of my knowledge" but anyway I think I'd like Sacrilege more if they didn't just seem like a milder precursor to my beloved Nuclear Death - female vocalist, punk/metal fusion, all that. But I'm not one to piss on Illinois Jacquet just because Arthur Doyle exists, y'dig? I can piss on it for overstaying its welcome by ten minutes, despite not even being a half hour long.
verdict 3: I was hoping Xoris Perideraio's Χορός για μουσική would be one of those Other-language lost classics that I'd get all kinds of props for digging up and exposing to the RYMlight (once I get back on there, natch) but then... AntiWarhol happened. Also, the album kind of sucks, it's got that Neil Young's Trans vibe so common on these affairs - yeah, it's got synths and drum machines, but the songs underneath still basically feel like meat'n'taters (M/A)OR rawk songs far too often - and there's nowhere near enough synth. Pass.
verdict 4: winner winner chicken dinner! now here's an AW-tipped synthy '85 Greek affair worth celebrating: Γκάλοπ by Lena Platanos is a bunch of synth-heavy spoken word meditations on... something, in Greek, naturally, with an abstract, fractal geometry/update of German expressionism feel - there's a playlist with videos for each song on YouTube and they all seem as cheesy and lo-budget as any video from 1985 is going to be, but it's DEFO worth hearing across all taste borders.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
okay so I'm on the lookout for dark ambient that's actually creepy and spooky as opposed to creppy and spoopy, or at least just really good: I've got Lustmord's Place Where the Black Stars Hang and Heresy in my car for relistening purposes, hopefully during a sunny day, as the last time I tried to listen to the former while going to sleep I chickened. It's just one of those half-a-hundred genres I'd love to get into beyond the obvious stuff that things like better genres and School and Life keep getting in the way of. Traces of Nothingness by Svartsinn is perfectly listenable, but it inspires neither wonder nor terror, and it could do with sounding more like starships docking in deep space, which is how I've always described TPWTBSH [though its title could double as the name of a popular nightclub in Atlanta... is that racist? :(]
though actually I need to stop listening to music entirely and just because a fucking adult gah
though actually I need to stop listening to music entirely and just because a fucking adult gah
We Are Everything You See by Locomotive opens with a really neat string bit but by the end of the A I'd had it up to here with the VDGG-isms and it started to get emo-sogynistic and I think I'm going to give up on prog for a while.
and Lonnie Smith's Move Your Hand is just another reminder of why soul jazz (genre, not label) is so overlooked - it's 'cuz it basically always sucks.
and Lonnie Smith's Move Your Hand is just another reminder of why soul jazz (genre, not label) is so overlooked - it's 'cuz it basically always sucks.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
okay so Brainchild's Healing of the Lunatic Owl is really scratching my "yes my first favorite album was a Chicago greatest hits comp and, no, I didn't like much of the stuff past their first few records even then" itch, y'know? but then we get to the obligatory "woman, woman, woman" track, which has both a proto-Iggy "feel all-RIGHT" and a bass solo so yeah nah sorry. oh and they just really truly ran through the whole "bad/glad/mad/sad" gamut so that's the end of that.
and now this Warm Dust album I was digging until they ushered in the gotdang most soulless take on the "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting/Better Get Hit in Your Soul" handclap + sax break ever and this is just the first track (and it's a double alben!) but I'll persevere - the vintage jazz-rock crossover battlefield is basically my major stomping grounds right now, from both sides of the divide, though obviously Eddie Henderson and Julian Priester's first non-Mwandishi rekkids mop the floor with whatever chest-singing Soft Machine-digging cracker brass heads were puking up, as much as I dig summa' that vom. (The vocals and lyrics further on in And It Came To Pass just make me wanna' upchuck, though, nyuk nyuk.)
ps I want to go back in time and find the Natalie Rose Kittenplan what thought Colosseum's live album was worth three-point-fucking-five-stars and give her a good talking to. s'bloody bloozey, for chrissakes! 1.5 tops. jeez, the things I've done in the past...
and now this Warm Dust album I was digging until they ushered in the gotdang most soulless take on the "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting/Better Get Hit in Your Soul" handclap + sax break ever and this is just the first track (and it's a double alben!) but I'll persevere - the vintage jazz-rock crossover battlefield is basically my major stomping grounds right now, from both sides of the divide, though obviously Eddie Henderson and Julian Priester's first non-Mwandishi rekkids mop the floor with whatever chest-singing Soft Machine-digging cracker brass heads were puking up, as much as I dig summa' that vom. (The vocals and lyrics further on in And It Came To Pass just make me wanna' upchuck, though, nyuk nyuk.)
ps I want to go back in time and find the Natalie Rose Kittenplan what thought Colosseum's live album was worth three-point-fucking-five-stars and give her a good talking to. s'bloody bloozey, for chrissakes! 1.5 tops. jeez, the things I've done in the past...
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