Singleversity #17

Audiversity’s weekly column, slightly modified, on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 77.

MA:



While I cannot really claim to be a Film School fan, Nyles Lannon’s solo work as n.Lannon (or n.Ln) has always struck a chord with me… well actually delicately strummed a chord with me. 2004’s Chemical Friends is one of those albums that swirl in your consciousness, much like endearing thoughts of past memories. Drenched in reverb and ambiance, "Spy" captures the best characteristics of Nick Drake, Simon & Garfunkel and Elliott Smith while still sounding idiosyncratic.

PM:



The Tielman Brothers were sons of a Dutch army quartermaster stationed in Surabaya with a gift for music. As you can see from this 1960 TV performance, the talent translated: After leaving for The Netherlands in 1957 following Indonesia‘s independence, The Tielman Brothers came to be one of the cornerstones of Indo-Rock. Loulou the drumming madman, Ponthon’s upright bass flexibility, Andy’s charismatic behind-the-back solos, Reggy‘s stability… Yeah, the White Stripes wish they were this rock n’ roll.

Audiversity's Quarterly Concern

We introduced the idea of a quarterly review in March as a kind of self-indulgent roundtable review of things we had, er, already reviewed. It sort of worked in that you saw where each of us was coming from and where we'd intended to go. Same rules apply here; unfortunately, no alcohol was involved in the making of this entry. Of course, there's plenty of time to tweak the system... But first, the disappointments!

Michael: I try not to listen to disappointing music. Too much good music to listen to something that lets me down. Fridge was kind of disappointing, only because my hopes were way too high. I don't think they could have released anything to reach my mental standards for it. I have found all things NoW hip-hop pretty disappointing. Truth be told though, that Lifesavas record was pretty refreshing. I do honestly want to be into that scene, but nothing has grabbed my attention so far.

Patrick: I think the problem with the NoW stuff is that they all have the same message and it's all supposed to be inspiring and "different." But they're not really that different from themselves. They act as a collective rather than individual groups. A unified voice is nice sometimes, but you don't want to be totally faceless...

Michael: Too much of a scene. Maybe if they just did an album together...

Patrick: Best hip-hop album of the year.

Michael: The first track of that TTC was pretty stupendous, but the rest of the album didn't really hold up... I haven't listened to as much hip-hop as I usually do this quarter. I have been listening to a lot of classic Brand Nubian lately, but that's neither here nor there. You?

Patrick: Phat Kat or Mansbestfriend, probably. Something struck a chord with the Detroit thing earlier this year. The whole post-Dilla movement has been invigorating.

Michael: For sure. Too bad it took his passing to instigate it.

Patrick: Or for the press to instigate any kind of attention on them. I didn't have to deal with many disappointments, though Panthers and Justice stand out as sorely whelming. I cared so little about Black Strobe at the end of that album that my review was littered with factual inaccuracies.

Michael: Hahahaha, you got called a "tard"... I can't get into the whole indie-dancefloor mash-up-everyone-and-their-cousin thing.

Patrick: Sticks and stones and the "mud" that makes them. What do you think your big story was for this quarter? Everybody was talking about the critical mass of blog-house, but you admirably (and ignorantly) blew right by it. That's why people still read us, probably.

Michael: Blog-what now? Chicago musicians keep blowing my mind, so varied and incredible. Fred Anderson & Hamid Drake are at the top, that album was phenomenal. (((Powerhouse Sound))), Lichens, Watchers, Chris Connelly, Zelienople, Chicago Underground Trio, Numero Group, Fred Lonberg-Holm Trio, The Jai-Alai Savant, fucking Bumps. The Narrator certainly had their moments.

Patrick: The Jai-Alai Savant are part of my larger story of artists you might've forgotten about coming back in really excellent ways: Matthew Dear, The Icarus Line, Moonbabies, Hot Cross, Maserati. People floating right below the radar of memory. Well, that and people love links.

Michael: That Matthew Dear was one of the most pleasant surprises... Though he ripped off TV on the Radio pretty badly during the latter half of that album.

Patrick: And Air right at the end, but better them than Hinder.

Michael: A lot of good international stuff. I really dug that MoMo. Michio Kurihara of course. That Ibrahim Ferrer was excellent. World is typically what I listen to when I get the option. Other surprisingly good stuff: Black Moth Super Rainbow, Welcome, Opsvik & Jennings, The North Sea. Von fucking Südenfed.

Patrick: Mikhail, and add Omar Rodriguez-Lopez to that list. Because Se Dice Bisonte, No Bùfalo wasn't Frances the Mute.

Michael: Anything that isn't Frances the Mute is ok in my book.

Patrick: Boris slayed with Michio Kurihara. I think that's going to be one of our collective favorites this year. Though it took us forever, Apparat too. Maybe not this year's Orchestra of Bubbles, but...

Michael: You know, I have never heard that album, hence my lack of comparisons.

Patrick: We're probably the only review that didn't namedrop Ellen Allien.

Michael: Gorgeous artwork. Favorite album covers?

Patrick: Apparat since I first saw it. So vivid and free, really abstract and flowing. I liked the clean lines of Matthew Dear. Savath & Savalas. Babils was faithful to their sound, very disorienting. Von Südenfed was throwback but stylish, all thin fonts and combed haircuts.

Michael: Mine: Apparat's Walls, Savath & Savalas's Golden Pollen, Zelienople's His/Hers, Boris with Michio Kurihara's Rainbow, Efterklang's Under Giant Trees... I'm big into the artwork really matching the sounds within.

Patrick: Which version of the Boris/Kurihara art? The repackaged blue sky or the first-pressing white release?

Michael: The reflected sky with the waves. So simple but so effective. It matched the skewed natural sounds of the music. Some weird morphed reflection of an organic music; yea it's a guitar solo... But that shit was of a wavelength all it's own.

Patrick: The white cover was too Silent Alarm-ish anyway. But what good is the artwork if it doesn't have the album to match. Your top slot?

Michael: Best album of Q2: Fred Anderson & Hamid Drake's From the River to the Ocean. I think the Jai-Alai Savant's Flight of the Bass Delegate was the most overlooked.

Patrick: They're still one of the best reasons to keep up with GSL. And come to think of it, they had a good album cover too.

Michael: Damon Locks is a genius.

Patrick: Naturally, the elephant in the room of this conversation is Battles.

Michael: I considered that a given.

Patrick: "Tonto" is one of my favorite songs this year, right up there with Matthew Dear's "Vine to Vine." So cerebral.

Michael: I really like the last track on the Von Südenfed, "Dearest Friends" I believe.

Patrick: And for all the beat-based stuff we've had this year, Aa definitely. Really left-field, but in a good way.

Michael: When is left-field a bad way?

Patrick: When it's Adam Green.

Michael: Is he the one with the sparkly album covers?

Patrick: You're getting old. Jessica Simpson?

Michael: Didn't she go to jail?

Patrick: That was Paris Hilton. Jessica Simpson's too stupid to go to jail, that's how I remember her.

Michael: I don't think I have ever actually listened to Adam Green, and it looks like I never will now.

Patrick: With so many other things to listen to, Adam Green is about as worth your while as The Stooges. The Weirdness is one of those albums that makes you thankful there was such a thing as "post-rock." So what do we have in store for the future here?

Michael: Improved content? Bigger better interviews? Fans that care?

Patrick: Or fans? Sounds like a dynamite third quarter to me.

Michael: As long as the music can keep up.

Patrick: With us? Funny, cf. 5/13/2007. Very meta.

Michael: :)

Yesterdays Universe - "Prepare for a New Yesterday (Volume One)"

The Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble - Cold Nights and Rainy Days (Stones Throw 2007)

Yesterdays Universe – Prepare for a New Yesterday (Volume One) / Stones Throw

Though it sounds kind of weird saying it, I have grown up on Madlib. Granted I did not hear Lootpack’s Soundpieces: Da Antidote until a good number of years later, but how could anyone possibly ignore Quasimoto’s The Unseen? When it dropped in 1999, I was only 15, so it came quirkily strutting along during my most formidable years. My obsession with the Oxnard, CA producer/rapper/DJ/multi-instrumentalist did not really take a stranglehold until a few years later though, but I would say in the last six years, I have rarely missed a Madlib-affiliated release (and really, anything that sports the Peanut Butter Wolf-approved Stones Throw logo). Like so many other spongy minds out there, my ears are always perked for something exuberantly different that has the ability to lead me in new musical directions I have yet to explore, and each and every Otis Jackson Jr. release has done just that whether he is grooving as Madlib, Quasimoto, Sound Directions, Madvillain, Jaylib, DJ Rels, (enter a dozen other clever monikers here), or my personal favorite: Yesterday’s New Quintet.

For better or worse, I doubt that many people share my viewpoint that YNQ is the premier Otis Jackson Jr. project; and truth be told, I sometimes waver with my affection (since they are all so good). But just as I started getting interested in jazz music and searching for a starting point into its massive realms, along came 2001’s Angles Without Edges. Split into an instrumental quintet of separate personalities (Jackson Jr., Monk Hughes, Ahmad Miller, Joe McDurfey, Malik Flavors), Jackson and his Fender Rhodes slipped into a jazzy parallel universe of break-beats and chamber jazz that sent me immediately fishing for any records highlighting drum breaks, organs and vibraphones. And a few years later, Stevie, Vol. 1 (and yes, we are still patiently waiting for Vol. 2), really open my eyes to the genius of Mr. Wonder, and anyone even remotely around me can attest for my blossomed affinity for the work of Steveland Hardaway Judkins. Though solo twelve-inches have appeared periodically along the way (The Joe McDuphrey Experience EP, Ahmad Miller’s Say Ah!, Monk Hughes & the Outer Realm’s Tribute to Brother Weldon, Malik Flavors’ Ugly Beauty and most recently, The Otis Jackson Trio’s Jewelz), this could be considered the proper full-length album follow-up to Angles Without Edges… if it was a Yesterday’s New Quintet release. Nope, the quintet of imaginary players is as ambitious as Jackson himself and has formed a slew of other groups (all with wonderful names of their own). Though I bet that twelve-inches from each of the off-shoots will see the light of the day eventually, Yesterdays Universe’s Prepare for a New Yesterday (Volume One) gives you a sampling of all of the eight similarly-minded but slightly different new groups, plus unreleased tracks from Yesterday’s New Quintet, Sound Directions, Monk Hughes & the Outer Realm, the Joe McDuphrey Experience, Malik Flavors and Ahmad Miller.

Confused yet? Just remember it’s all Jackson and all excellent.

Jackson once again handles the majority of the instrumentation and production, which is fucking ridiculous and amazing considering the depth of the music involved, but there are actually two other “real” players handling drum duties. Karriem Riggins of the Ray Brown Trio and producer for Slum Village, Common, The Roots and others, and Ivan Conti (aka Mamão) of the Brazilian synth-funk group Azymuth each add their idiosyncratic percussive touches to the myriad of Jackson compositions.

The music itself is very much a descendant of the original Yesterday’s New Quintet sound, but with much more density. Rhodes and stuttering break-beats still make up the foundation, but they are now submerged in a thick atmosphere of fusion, spiritual jazz, Brazilian music of all sorts, funk, hip-hop, post-bop and free jazz. Jackson some how purveys a sound that integrates the influence of perhaps his entire record collection (no matter how ridiculously gigantic it may be) but specifically crossing the paths of the Coltrane’s, Stevie Wonder, Roy Ayers, Lonnie Liston Smith, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Azymuth, Weather Report, Jack McDuff, Donald Byrd, Herbie Hancock, The Blackbyrds, Weldon Irvine, Billy Wooten and dozens of other purveyors of jazz, funk and experimental hybrids. While Angles Without Edges may have been a bit too sparse for some people to really get into, the groups of Yesterdays Universe can completely immerse you within the depths of the songs.

Of all the new incarnations, The Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble wins my vote for best new group, if only because the sound is perfectly described in the name. “Cold Days and Rainy Nights” to me is the centerpiece of the entire album as it mixes the characteristics of Alice Coltrane, Billy Wooten, Elvin Jones and Charlie Haden with touches of ambience care of bird sounds and rain sticks. The thick bass synth barrage of the Otis Jackson Jr. Trio follows with perhaps the second best track of the disc, “Free Son.” Multi-tracked flutes do battle with unyielding synths, electronic flourishes, congas and a metallic drum kit. I am also digging the new soprano sax influence as it appears on a few of the tracks, especially Jackson Conti’s skittering latin-jazz workout “Upa Neguinho” and the sprawling “Vibes from the Tribes Suite” by none other than the Yesterday’s Universe All Stars.

Honestly, I could go on and on and on about how much I love this album, but it’s always good to leave a few surprises for the listener. Yesterdays Universe is absolutely the culmination of a decade’s worth of musical exploration and instrumental refinement for Jackson as he takes his near infinite string of influences and swirls them into a galaxy all their own. It almost seems unfair that not only is he the reigning king of innovative underground hip-hop and DJ rarities, but he is now nearly inventing a completely new genre of jazz-funk fusion. I know you can dissect a good chunk of the influences going into this music, but what else out there truly sounds like this? And on a personal note, I really want to thank Jackson for taking me on this musical journey and opening my eyes to so many amazing artists and styles over the last six years; there are precious few other musicians to grow up on that would expose a fan to so many different sounds.

Odd Nosdam - Level Live Wires

Odd Nosdam - Fat Hooks (Anticon. 2007)

Odd Nosdam - Level Live Wires / Anticon.

If it seems like we're closely watching the Anticon. offices, we apologize: Mansbestfriend's latest just happened to be a really excellent record and, together with Thee More Shallows, our faith in Anticon. had not necessarily been restored but more revitalized. Now we're still a long way off from this one (August 28th is the official release date), so it's likely that someone will call us out for jumping the gun... But we can't help it. As the latest from another core member of the collective, Odd Nosdam's Level Live Wires hit me in just the right way at just the right time. But while Tim Holland explained in our interview with him that he was putting together the sounds that would make a politically charged statement in Poly.sci.187, David Madson has meanwhile been crafting one of the best shoegazer albums of the year. No, really. You're going to want Level Live Wires.

But why, right? If you were in love with hip-hop and came to worship Anticon. because their beatsmiths blew away your speakers, why would you want something that effectively references late My Bloody Valentine or M83 or even Channel One more than anything remotely resembling hip-hop? The answer is that, deep beneath the swirling synthstatic fuzz of "Fat Hooks" or the droning beauty of "Burner," there still lurks the beats that helped unite Anticon. in the first place.

Less a cLOUDDEAD record and more a world that inhabits the pleasant spaces of the subconscious, the optimistic moments in your REM sleep. Interestingly, the thread that ties this record together with 2005's Burner is a track of the same name. Perhaps this track holds the key to the whole album several minutes in: An eight-track recorder and an unsettling high-pitched Ford Explorer horn juxtapose the stuttering horn that evolves into the bass line. "Burner" was one of Madson's most challenging songs, but with some help from Hood-lum Chris Adams (violin and background vocals), the song comes together as one of his greatest successes. You can still hear the Explorer burning at the end as its car alarm goes off, but this kind of subtlety only reaches you after it's all over.

His experience working with Boards of Canada, Thee More Shallows and Serena Maneesh in particular are all at the fore of a track like the effervescent "Kill Tone." If "Burner" is both the dark underside of his past efforts mixing with the driven guitar/synth splendor of Level Live Wires, then "Kill Tone" is firmly in the present. Its harp harmony is so spectacular, in fact, that it returns later in the album accompanied by some spoken-word poetry courtesy Why?'s Yoni Wolf and TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe. To mentally connect another dot, this one has the feeling of a lost Nine Inch Nails song from The Fragile. Maybe it's the piano. Same thing with "Up in Flames." The production didn't cost millions, but it sounds amazing in headphones and speakers alike. It's just got that feeling to it.

"Fat Hooks" is another one looking to the light of heaven for inspiration and finding the blinding rays of Kevin Shields' broken dreams for pop in the 90s instead, but this makes it no less appealing. Odd Nosdam may be the best sound collage artist in the business partly because this album doesn't sound like a sound collage at all. There's so much going on, so many layers of sound, so many of them barely noticeable, that not getting the early pressings of this release that include an EP of the sounds which helped form these songs would be daft. This is a contemporary record full of contemporary thoughts, sounds and ideas that can only be expressed properly through as few words as possible. It is a record that will move you to feel, because that's just what humans do. It's what separates us from dinosaurs and gorillas and Kraftwerk. Level Live Wires is the sound of the human experience, one hazy daydream at a time.

Filmic - "Peacock People: Lectures Laid By Borrowed Branch"

Filmic - Nostromo (Self-released 2007)

Filmic - Peacock People: Lectures Laid By Borrowed Branch / Self-released

Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of motion pictures. A dialogue of sound and image. The intention to create a unique form of sample-based music that extends past traditional stylistic associations. There seem to be a strangely prominent number of New Zealand duos out there right now (Flight of the Conchords and Over the Atlantic are just two examples that spring to this mind), but the definitions that are the foundations of this review can only be attributed to Filmic.

Peacock People: Lectures Laid By Borrowed Branch. Sounds pretentious, doesn't it? Like a grad student thesis or a teenaged post-rock album. But Gareth Fletcher and Richard Sewell knew what they were doing when they put this 16-track, 52-minute experiment to tape. It's been a long time coming: Fletcher used to spin shiny black stuff under the alias of DJ Glyd, going so far as to place in a Heineken-sponsored DJ competition in 2003. As a graduate at Canterbury University in Christchurch, Fletcher made the film "Part and Parcel" which you can check out on both the webpage and the MySpace. Sewell is the classic doppelgänger, slightly less visible but no less important. As a DJ himself for eight years, Sewell has used his classical violin and piano training to get through school to architecture in Wellington, but the constructions and the definitions of composition are what unite the two.

That's where this album comes in. Someday they hope to have Filmic working as a proper collective, but in the meanwhile it's only their own vast knowledge they have to work with. Maybe they won't need the rest after all: If it's not the lush orchestration of "The Effect of Sunlight on Paint," it's 80s cop dramas scored on "Jimmy's Saloon." If it's not the evil kid's cartoon of "Gjinko," it's the jazzy minimalism of "Tumbledown." If it's not the chase scene from a late-70s kung fu movie in "Nostromo," it's the hermetically sealed sounds of "Beyond 2000" on "Gear Shift." The samples are chosen carefully. The 33s and 45s sampled, smeared and restructured for this album are omnipresent. I always wondered how to invade Russia in the winter successfully, and while it doesn't provide any answers, "How to Invade Russia in Winter" provides the backdrop to that brainstorming session. Tense and fraught with concern.

The point is that one song just isn't enough to hear to get an idea of what this album is like. It is everywhere at once, and like its ceaselessly inventive creators, it has the endless opportunity for growth. Somewhere in North America right now, Gareth Fletcher is trekking the continent and collecting the sights, smells and sounds that will ultimately feed the next Filmic album. If it's anything like this, we may be in for a surprise. Can two New Zealanders know America better than it knows itself? Peacock People: Lectures Laid By Borrowed Branch may not hold the answers, but the cards are being played awfully close to the chest.

Kemialliset Ystävät - "Kemialliset Ystävät (Untitled)"

Kemialliset Ystävät - Himmeli Kutsuu Minua (Fonal 2007)

Kemialliset Ystävät - Kemialliset Ystävät (Untitled) / Fonal

There are few things I've heard recently as disorienting and miasmic as Kemialliset Ystävät. There are a hundred other ways to start off a review of this group, and in fact several have already been taken: These "chemical friends" are not total unknowns and have already garnered praise in the past from the likes of Dusted (twice) and Fakejazz. Their latest release - either self-titled or untitled depending on whom you ask - is a continuation in the vein of a deep discography that extends back to 1995. The great thing is that there's no shortage of ideas on this record and the way it's patched together as an aural quilt will have you struggling to count off the different groups you think you're hearing.

First, the facts: The group has been working out of Tampere, Finland for many years now. If Wikipedia is to be believed, the band has no less than 40 collective releases (singles, compilations and splits included). Their relationship with Fonal extends back to 2002 with a compilation called Surrounded By Sun, but their first proper effort was the much lauded Kellari Juniversumi. With an ongoing release schedule, 2004's Alkuhärkä becomes the next point of reference. Matthew Wuethrich called it "rampantly eclectic," and there's little doubt that such a fitting description could be bested. How long could the psych-folk mastermind and [nominal] group director Jan Anderzén, a native of Tampere suburb Nekala, go on?

The answer arrives with their third Fonal full-length, and its blistering beauty is as dramatically ambitious, as ardently creative, as relentlessly shape-shifting as ever. The interesting thing is how Anderzén somehow manages to insert the occasional counterweight in a sound that has such a wildly freeform feel to it. Eclectic sounds thrown in just for the sake of being thrown in can work every now and again, but white noise reincarnated as constructive filler is a rare thing to experience. Anderzén and company achieve it as competently as you're likely ever to hear.

So take the opener "He Tulivat Taivaan Aarista," for example. You think its pulsing analog electronic bipping that introduce the album may turn into some minimalist Bpitch banger, but instead it twists and wraps and drives backward full speed behind into the Candyland-gone-awry world of Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan. Throw in a little Black Dice and a slice of doom-folk for the first track alone. It's busy alright, but it's busy in the best possible way.

"Lentavat Sudet" is more Panda Bearish, but already you can see that Animal Collective is an obvious reference point. Still, the horns lend a jazzy feel to this track, and is that a harp? Bells? A xylophone? Chinese flute? Just two minutes in, you won't care. It's already won you over.

As stated earlier though, it would be a lot harder to take this album in from a neophyte or casual listener's perspective if it weren't for some of the more accessible moments (all things relative, of course). "Superhimmeli" is the mid-album stand-out in this regard, its Red Square drumbeat instantly offset by strummed harp and the lo-fi melodies emerging from the frozen wilderness courtesy Kemialliset Ystävät's many friends and not a few synthesizers. The repeated melody will stick with you for the rest of the album, sort of in an Aa kind of way. Tribal with more monk chants and less shrill cries from the jungle.

Still, the masterstroke of it all is the concluding triumvirate of "Kokki, Leipuri, Kylvettaja Ja Taikuri," "Alyvaahtoa," and "Himmeli Kutsuu Minua." The album is a veritable goldmine of found sounds and mind-altering music up to this point, the way these final three songs come together is unequaled on the album. "Kokki..." explores the more folk-based side of things for the duration of its length, but the haunted-house sirens of "Alyvaahtoa" throw any prior expectations of a "cool-down" out the window. Not unlike an OOIOO track, its burbling underbelly adds an extra layer of sound that still allows room for chilling out. That's where "Himmeli Kutsuu Minua" comes in: As probably the most accessible and traditional song on here, its bass-and-tambourine rocking is augmented by Kemialliset Ystävät's idea of the kitchen sink. The echoing chorus mixes with flittering frozen butterflies and all things Eastern to give an esoteric flavor to what otherwise might just've sat as yet another engaging folk song from one of the world's best.

At the moment it's tough to pin down any one psych-folk group as being the best, because so many psych-folk bands are so good, so on top of their game right now, that classifying or ranking is both unfair and unwarranted. We can just love the music and the brilliance of these artists for who (or what?) they are, and Kemialliset Ystävät is a firm statement for pure appreciation. But if we had to pick only one at gunpoint, er... Just pick this album up and you'll see for yourself.

Radio Show Playlist: 6/27/2007

6a:
1. Cocteau Twins - Blue Bell Knoll - Blue Bell Knoll (4AD 1988)
2. Dommm - With a Statue - Yoloxochitl (Young Cubs 2007)
3. Apparat - Holdon - Wells (Shitkatapult 2007)
4. Lightning Dust - Breathe - Lightning Dust (Jagjaguwar 2007)
5. Brightblack Morning Light - Friend of Time - Brightblack Morning Light (Matador 2006)
6. 90 Day Men - Even Time Ghost Can't Stop Wagner - Panda Park (Southern 2004)
7. Handsome Furs - What We Had - Plague Park (Sub Pop 2007)
8. David Bowie - Look Back in Anger - Lodger (Virgin 1979)
9. Art Brut - People in Love - It's a Bit Complicated (Downtown 2007)
10. The Undertones - Teenage Kicks - The Undertones (Rykodisc 1979)
11. Chow Nasty - Ungawa - Super (Electrical) Recordings (Omega 2007)
12. Cougars - She Can Wear Gold - Nice, Nice (Go Kart 2003)
13. Pelican - Far From Fields - City of Echoes (Hydra Head 2007)

7a:
1. Fridge - Clocks - The Sun (Temporary Residence 2007)
2. Directions in Music - Untitled Track 4 - Directions in Music (Thrill Jockey 1996)
3. Conjoint - Blue & White - A Few Empty Chairs (Buro 2006)
4. Michio Kurihara - Wind Waltzes - Sunset Notes (20-20-20 2007, Pedal 2005)
5. Astrud Gilberto - Bossa Na Praia - Beach Samba (Verve 1967)
6. Antonio Carlos Jobim - Tema Jazz - Tide (Polygram Brazil 1970)
7. Ibrahim Ferrar - Melodia del Rio - Mi Sueno (Nonesuch 2007)
8. Sexteto Habanero - You Are My Harmonious Lyre - The Roots of Salsa, Vol. 2 (Folk Lyric 1994, recorded 192?)
9. A Hawk and a Hacksaw - Serbian Cocek - A Hawk and a Hacksaw and the Han Hangar Ensemble EP (Leaf 2007)

8a:
1. Nomo - New Song - New Tones (Ubiquity 2006)
2. Ebo Taylor - Heaven - Ghana Soundz (Soundway 2002, recorded 1977)
3. The Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz and Percussion Ensemble - Cold Nights and Rainy Days - Yesterday's Universe (Stones Throw 2007)
4. Michael Columbia - Predator - Stay Hard EP (Alabaster/Galapagos4 2006)
5. Alice Coltrane - Spiritual Eternal - Eternity (Warner Bros. 1975)
6. Fred Anderson & Hamid Drake - For Brother Thompson - From the River to the Ocean (Thrill Jockey 2007)
7. The New John Handy Quintet - A Little Quiet - New View (Columbia 1967)
8. Bumps - OK!!! - Bumps (Stones Throw 2007)
9. Herbie Mann - Hold On! I'm Comin' - Hold On! I'm Comin' (Recorded Live at the 1972 New York & Montreaux Jazz Festivals) (Atlantic 1972)

Artanker Convoy - Cozy Endings

Artanker Convoy - Rabbit (Social Registry 2007)

Artanker Convoy – Cozy Ending / The Social Registry

I am a big fan of album artwork. I believe to be a truly stunning release, it needs to be the full package: intriguing music, innovative and apt artwork and creative packaging. It also does wonders for capturing my attention, especially when thrown in amongst a large pile of other CDs all vying for my time. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about the artwork of Artanker Convoy’s sophomore outing, Cozy Endings. Granted the front cover picture of a lady’s well-proportioned fanny Lost in Translation-style is both appealing and in line with the album title, but to be perfectly honest, makes me think that the CD hidden inside is of the cock-rock variety. Thankfully though, it’s not—quite the opposite in fact—but I guess it could make one shake its groove-thing, so perhaps the photo is more appropriate than some Photoshopped post-modern something-or-another depicting the psychedelic swirls held within. Either way, Cozy Endings is an intriguing and worthwhile listen, so we can just debate the artwork later.

Helmed by drummer and percussionist Artanker (no other name included), the Convoy is made up of five other instrumentalists all focused in on finding the pocket and working within its limitations. A somewhat unneeded but still interesting biographical nugget, Artanker along with bassist Joe Florentino got their start on the NJ/NYC scene in the early 90s basement-rock act Jinx Clambake Explosion, which just so happened to be a starting point for an ambitious guitar player by the name of James Murphy (DFA, LCD Soundsystem). While the sloppy stoner-rock may not have much to do with what any of the involved musicians are purveying today, it does certainly make for interesting association. Artanker and Florentino also went on to star in the wily power-pop group Stratotanker while Murphy honed his studio skills. I am not sure where the actual musical evolution for the transition from goofy rock to sophisticated jazz-infused music takes place in the decade interim between the youthful projects and their current bands, but it’s a hell of an interesting starting point.

Most descriptions of the music are pointing to Miles Davis’s fusion experiments in the late 60s/early 70s, especially the oddball out takes of 1969’s Big Fun. I can definitely get down with that comparison; just realize Artanker Convoy would be less Davis, more McLaughlin-DeJohnette-Holland-Grossman-Zawinul. They all shuffle around aptly in the groove without one player truly taking command of the situation. And with all the hazy explorations of echoing electric guitar and krautrock rhythms, I would venture to say Can’s more subdued compositions might be better comparisons for the sound. Elements of psyche, jazz, dub and space-funk all interplay with the fusion and krautrock aspects making for music that simmers and struts and pays so much homage to the varied influences surrounding it, at times it enters a realm all its own.

As far as looseness and equally balancing all of their incoming influences, “Rabbit” takes the spotlight. A deep, spacey bass line leads taut, warmly toned guitar riffs (that are subject to many a guitar pedal as the song progresses), a two-man percussion rhythm, twinkling keyboards and Jake Oas’s patient saxophone, which weaves it’s way in and out of the pocket testing and teasing the throbbing mass of groove. “Black Dauphin” makes for an interesting number because about three-fourths of the way through the swirling psych-funk, Artanker locks himself into a dance rhythm not completely unlike a subdued DFA beat; perhaps Murphy’s influence did rub off a bit. The twelve-minute slow-burning introduction, “Open Up,” also is worth noting as it pairs a sexy space-rock hustle with touches of avant-garde jazz; Don Cherry would be proud.

Cozy Endings may be a bit outside its most befitting era (by a good 30-35 years), but within NYC’s current state of dancefloor redundancy, it is an especially refreshing listen. Artanker does a great job of leading his talented sextet without ever stepping on their toes. And that perhaps may be the most appealing aspect of the Convoy: all the players seem content to lock in with each other to create one infectious rhythmic groove without worrying too much about the spotlight. Now if perhaps we can work on the cover-art just a little to better suit the music… though I have to admit, it is pretty hard to argue with it too much.

37500 Yens - "Astero"

37500 Yens - Chapitres (Distile 2007)

37500 Yens - Astero / Distile

Duos from France is like a punchline you try to avoid. That's mostly because of Justice, but now Chevreuil and Cheval de Frise have their own compatriots to worry about on the instrumental scene: Welcome to the stunningly persistent world of 37500 Yens. Reims natives Jud and Frank are here to burn your eyeballs out with drumming n' strumming not unlike early Hella. If you think you're ready, 37500 Yens are ready for you.

Of course, Astero isn't some far-off foray into the forests of math-rock instrumentals that you've never heard before. It's not Church Gone Wild / Chirpin' Hard. It isn't Mirrored. It is, rather, a reinforcement of already worn ideas. It's not a re-examination at the style, but a fist-pumping reaffirmation that you can still be interesting for a full album without growing too slim on finger-tapping ideas.

"37501" is your ticket in and, though no obvious indications are given as to what the significance of 37,500 is (although it's worth noting that's the equivalent of roughly 33 cents), it won't matter after 27 seconds; from that point on, you are helpless to fight Frank's drumming prowess. It's subtle in this opener, and shades of Russian Circles' excellent Enter from last year linger in the air until a little over halfway through when a guitar onslaught signals that brooding isn't necessarily what this band does best. Rocking out is what they do. Given the eight songs they have here, none could've made acquaintance quite like it.

On songs like both "Chapitres" featured here and the title-track, the early Hella impersonations come full bloom. It's a stripped down approach - How much more reductive can you get than a guitar and a standard drumkit? - but like Hella you'll marvel at how they can produce such ridiculously loud sounds. If there's one twist to this album (aside from the sudden shouting on "The Sullivan's Quartet"), it's on "Canard Boiteux," the song that initially made me fetch this album. In addition to the guitar and drums, a third instrument is introduced: The saxophone. Lending an almost free-jazz style of play, this surprise addition late in the album is both a welcome and rewarding highlight.

Astero plays both smoothly and harshly on your ears as a math-rock refresher course for those of you who might've gotten away from it recently for one reason or another. 37500 Yens is a band that's worth checking out. Like Chevreuil three years ago, you may not be exactly sure what sucks you in so quickly... But you'll find yourself falling prey to the powerful trance of "The Sullivan's Quartet" every time. Why say more?

Slow Learner - "In Their Time They Are Magnificent"

Slow Learner - White Walls (Self-released 2007)

Slow Learner - In Their Time They Are Magnificent / Self-released

If you've been sitting alone in your room rocking back and forth in breathless anticipation for TV on the Radio's deluxe greatest hits package Desperate Youth, Cooke Mountain (with bonus DVD featuring Kyp Malone getting a haircut and an interview with David Bowie's doorman!), now is a good time to emerge from your solitude for a little natural light and the opportunity to hear Tunde Adebimpe's Essential Soul vocals once more. Except, sike: It's not Adebimpe at all. It's the ambitious Michael Napolitano that does all the work on In Their Time They Are Magnificent. The result is a striking, melodic release that's over a year old and is still gaining steam. Let this be Audiversity's coal to keep the locomotive running.

The TV on the Radio comparison was what originally got my attention, because on tracks like the grand opener "Retreasion" and the chummy "Martyr" that follows, you'd swear it was Tunde guesting on vocals. And considering that Napolitano recorded guitars, drums, piano, bass, organ, pump organ, accordion, melodica, harmonica and percussion for these songs, you'd think he wouldn't have time for lyrics and melodies that are begging to be stuck in your head all day. Not so; from the outside, you could say Napolitano's a czar, determined to keep lesser musicians out of the studio. I think it's more that if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. Mulvaney and Blue Man Group member Larry Hienemann stopped in during recording, but otherwise Napolitano took care of things by locking himself in a studio and learning instruments beyond his native drums. It doesn't show. This album is exquisitely presented and brilliantly sequenced.

The most attractive part of the album emerges quickly: Piano. Tinkled ivory is a good way to win over a crowd, but Slow Learner is a band with a sound built on piano. No matter how many other instruments may horn in on something like the gorgeous "White Walls," it's the piano that carries these songs. The art and the balance of this album is that you feel like a fast learner next to Napolitano as he plays the simple half-speed jaunts of "Martyr" or "Look at Your Shoes." These are melodies that sound so simple and basic, and okay, they're no Rachmaninov piece. But the guitars (or the accordion, or the harmonica, or...) bring you in to a song, engage you directly, make you feel like you're at a My Morning Jacket concert or catching an intimate Low Skies show.

This is the other intriguing bit about Slow Learner's approach, the lyrics of love and loss notwithstanding. If you want a really reductive way of describing this band to someone, imagine TV on the Radio gone alt-country in a good way. Another modern reference point is M. Ward, and in fact Napolitano himself has noted Neil Young on occasion. Merge Records. Lucero. Springsteen. Whatever, there are so many reference points that descriptions themselves become redundant. The only solution is actually listening to this album, because it's the only way you'll fully be able to appreciate Napolitano's dedication. Why is this band still unsigned?

Interestingly, while Napolitano has made an album for the post-9/11 world, politics play a secondary role to the greatness of the music. More than anything else, this is an album of catharsis. It doesn't matter what your personal tragedy might be, Slow Learner has made an album for the immediate aftermath. It's dark, but it's also a door brimming with light on the other side. Which side you choose to stay on when it's over is up to you.

Apparat - "Walls"

Apparat - Limelight (Shitkatapult 2007)

Apparat – Walls / Shitkatapult

For better or worse, sometimes albums get lost among the shuffle here at Audiversity HQ. My living room/to-do table is covered in CDs, probably about 60 at the moment, all separated into various, loosely denominative stacks and each in a very weak priority order (75% of which actually need to be listened to). Each week a new slew of albums gets placed on top of the piles, and CDs I have yet to get to sadly get buried further into the clutter. Needless to say, it’s an imperfect system. Well Saturday’s all-out work-a-thon had me digging into the depths of my options and I finally popped the latest Apparat full-length, Walls, into the player for the first time. Released mid-May and probably sitting right in front of me for the last two months, I sorely overlooked Sascha Ring’s fourth official full-length solo outing. A skittering electro-acoustic Technicolor affair, Walls truly lives up to the brilliantly sweeping and wonderfully colorful and chaotic mix-medium art work that graces the cover.

For me personally, I think the freshest aspect of Walls is how much it does not sound like the current Berlin scene (or at least my assumption of it). It’s overtly melodic, emotional and sentimental, three characteristics not typically associated with electronica music, but handled masterfully in the hands of a man who knows his way around a set of knobs. And most importantly, it is a varied affair. Ring approaches his music with characteristics ranging from the twinkling classical minimalism of Reich to the blippy R&B; of Milosh, and presents it in a well-balanced diet of dancefloor bangers, romantic ballads and soundtrack-worthy instrumentals. All the while, a consistent palette of colors is utilized in the tone to create a state of cohesiveness. Obviously, Walls is an album in the best definition of the term: an exploration, statement and story told with synths, drum machines and lush acoustic instrumentation.

Along for the tale are a few of Ring’s more musically talented friends, most notably sultry vocalist Raz Ohara and the similarly-minded Josh Eustis of Telefon Tel Aviv, who is responsible for the tone tweaking and final mixdown of the album. While Ring’s sexy compositions of soft-hued synths and creatively syncopated drum patterns are mostly responsible for Walls’ seductive appeal, Ohara’s Prince-lite vocals certainly help the cause. He is only featured on four of the thirteen tracks, but for more vocal-oriented, classic-song-structure music fans, they are your go-to tracks. “Hailin from the Edge” and “Holdon” push the boundaries of slow-dance techno tracks with near anthemic choruses, while later on “Headup” and “Over and Over” are more in the vein of slow-burning ballads (though the former still has an epic climax).

For my personal tastes, I dig the tracks that mix in his post-techno synthcapades with post-classical chamber music. Album opener, “Not a Number”, teams Reich-like elliptical loops of vibraphone with tinges of white noise, synth tones and strings, while the disc comes to a close with “Like Porcelain,” a mirrored sound utilizing similar electronic tones in place of the vibes. “Birds” successfully pairs sweeping strings and xylophone pings with a skittering drum beat, electronic noodles and Ring’s subdued vocals (which aren’t too unlike Ohara’s). As far as the more traditional Apparat numbers are concerned, “Limelight” takes the medal with its increasingly ecstatic layers of synth melodies and deep thudding drum machine.

Though my knowledge of most Berlinian electronica and the Shitkatapult roster itself is minimal at best, I would venture to say Ring is skittering on a completely different level with Walls than most of his contemporaries. If anything, its appeal to outsiders of the scene like myself is all the proof you need. It does a great job of capturing that wonderful sexy pop appeal of the early 80s electro-pop while keeping the genre wholeheartedly looking forward. There is a reason the Apparat moniker has risen to the top of the cramped, contemporary Berlin scene, and Walls should be all the explanation you need.

Interversity: Zelienople

Chicago psyche-folk outfit Zelienople step up to the mic for this week's Interversity. Their fifth-full length album, His/Hers, was recently released on the always interesting Type label and is the prime musical accompaniment for the both unnerving, magnificent and mysterious appearance of the cicadas this spring. Matt and Mike generously share their love of all things odd, instrumental and Neil Young.



Zelienople - "Parts are Lost" - His/Hers (Type 2007)

1. Personally, I find the most intriguing aspect of Zelieonple is the damp, dank recording quality of your music that only further instills the always-teetering balance between dismal and delicate; is this a conscious decision in recording methods to achieve this sound? Or is it more a welcomed byproduct of home recording?

Matt: I don't know. There are similar comments about the production of our records. For the last 3 or 4 releases, we strived to make the songs sound as live as possible, and one way to do that is just to record live with no "close micing". I'm not saying that we're masters of our instruments, but I think that the balance that you mentioned can be attributed to performance and limiting the use of guitar effects. Reverb plays a big role on every album, but that may change on the next release (I stress "may"). People have complained about our (excessive?) use of reverb, so we can never really give it up. I don't trust those people.

2. Throughout His/Hers there always seem to be very intricate folk foundations beneath the usual barrage of noise, psyche and free jazz, which comes completely to the surface on "Parts are Lost"; which do you consider more the starting point for Zelionple, the more folksy sound or the noisier stuff?

Matt: The songs are usually written with the intention that they're going to be "fucked up" at some point. I try to leave a lot of room for changes when I write something. When we all get together to record a song, we spend a lot time revamping, tightening, and loosening the songs. In this sense, I think that this is where the jazz influence becomes more apparent. Anyway, to answer your question, the songs could either start as a conventional song or noise, and end up being the other. I guess that still doesn't answer the question.

3. On that same note, does the marriage of the opposing genres stem from being particularly influenced by artists from those contrasting fields of music?

Matt: Yes. I love Neil Young and Pharaoh Sanders. And Neil Young has such a broad range spanning folk, rock and noise. I have many other, less cool influences that I won't mention.

Mike: I'm sure it does because our influences draw from such a diverse pool. That being said, I really don't think that we're ever conscious of drawing from a particular influence when were coming up with new material. We may start out with a concept but it usually gets so diluted by the time the piece is complete because I think were reacting to each other instead of one grand design.

4. Type Records seems like an excellent home for you guys as far as fitting snuggly into their roster and sharing the aesthetic they appear to be developing; how did that relationship sprout? How would you consider the fit with your prior labels?

Matt: Mike knows more about how we connected with Type. Mike also knows a lot more about labels and their "sound", so after we finish something he always seems to have an appropriate label in mind. He'll then send them a copy of the record, a blank check, and a fruit basket.

Mike: John Twells, head honcho of Type, wrote an adoring review of our last album, Stone Academy, on the Boomkat site, and I thought that he might be interested in hearing our latest endeavor so I sent him His/Hers. He was totally excited about it so he flew out to meet us which really meant drinking for four days, record shopping, eating Chicago junk food, and more drinking. He's totally immersed in music and nuts about discovering new sounds so it's been great to work with him. His label is top-notch and his own project Xela, coincidently what I'm listening to as I type this, is brilliant work too. That Svarte Greinar album is blowing my mind lately too. All of the labels that we've released music on have been great because they were all really enthusiastic about what we've sent them which is really encouraging. I was a fan of all of the other labels prior to us releasing music on them, that's why I sent demos to them. It would be nice to eventually meet some of these people in person some day.

5. I find your album artwork tremendously befitting of the music held within (both gorgeous in their own right); how do you weigh the artwork in context of the entire release? Do you do it/pick it yourself or frequent a particular artist?

Matt: With the exception of His/Hers, we've done all of the artwork ourselves. Mike has a lot of his own photos to choose from, so when we finish something it's likely that there's a photo in the other room that matches the sound.

Mike: Thanks. We've done all of the covers ourselves using my photographs, with the exception of His/Hers and Ink . Our music is very visual and so it's pretty easy for me to add images that seem to be the visual equivalent of the music. The photography on the His/Hers cover is by one of my favorite photographer's and friend, James Luckett (www.consumptive.org) and Ink was designed by Connie Toebe, another great artist and friend of ours (www.connietoebe.com).

Audiversinquiry (10 questions we ask everyone)

1. What did you specifically remember listening to as a child that triggered a notable response?

*Matt: I like that question. Tangerine Dream and John Carpenter's soundtracks really sparked my interest. Those were the first times that I heard something and it made me think of something other than music or sound. I also remember The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour as being pretty captivating. It's a shame. I don't think that I can recapture that feeling. I overdosed on the Beatles a while back. My mom and one of my uncles exposed me to a lot of cool stuff. My uncle took me to my first concert, which was King Crimson. By that time they were in the "Discipline" and "Beat" period. That probably lead me to Steve Reich later on.

Mike: I grew up in a family with two older brothers and two older sisters in Indiana so needless to say, 70's rock was always being played in the house. A few of the bands that really made an impression on me from this era of pop music were Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd. But it wasn't until I started buying my own records in the 80's, wearing funny clothes and cutting my hair in that asymmetrical way that I was really seeking out new sounds that strayed from what my siblings were into like DePeche Mode, The Cure, New Order, Joy Division, Cocteau Twins, Bauhaus, Love & Rockets, Jesus & Mary Chain, Sonic Youth...pretty much anything dark, gloomy and creepy (at least to my new wave teen ears).

2. Let's say you are heading across town this moment and will have time to listen to one complete album during the trip, what would you listen to?

Matt: Well by default, it would be the new Odawas record because that's what's been in my car cd player for the past week. I don't think that I'm ready to take it out yet.

Mike: That Basic Channel cd compilation of 12" singles always sounds great while driving through the city at night.

3. Are there any other media that you draw inspiration from? Books, authors, painters, actors, movies, celebrities, etc?

Matt: It's going to sound like bullshit, but I've been reading Alan Dershowitz's "American On Trial" for a while now. I just keep reading it over and over. In a strange way, it's reassuring to see that many of our attitudes and ideas haven't changed much since the creation of our government. And since a lot of what I write about is poverty, crime and what society would regard as deviant, I get plenty of ideas from this book. My favorite author would have to be Kurt Vonnegut. I don't think that I have a favorite celebrity, but if I could meet one person... maybe Benjamin Franklin? I've tried to think of a reason to not think that Johnny Depp is great, but I'd have to say that he's my current favorite. I like Chagall (anything he did in blue is good). I'm always ready to watch any of Romero's "living dead" films. I love Jim Jarmusch's "Dead Man" (surprise, surprise). I also have a 1 year old girl, and I know that she's influenced me. I've been trying not to let the obvious themes of that creep into my lyrics for fear of schmaltziness.

Mike: Sure, there are lot's of things that compel me to investigate further into and it's always changing. You caught me on a high-brow cultural kick so at the moment I'm really into German Conceptual Photography from the 60's and 70's like The Becher's, Sigmar Polke, Anselm Kiefer. In my DVD at the moment is Andrey Tarkovsky's "Solaris", which is simply stunning. I often return to T.S. Elliot's, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" for the way he's able to translate the visual to the written form so eloquently. Film Noir has always been an influence on me and Matt has really got me into American Horror Films. Aside from these mediums, nature is always fascinating me as is traveling.

4. Where do you go to discover new music and sounds?

Matt: I go to American Science Surplus here in Chicago. For the last few years, I've been really getting into building instruments, and they often have a few items that will give me ideas. I go to Mike for new music, or rather, he gives it to me. I've become lazy about buying music, and I spend all of my money on gear.

Mike: I try to take advantage of living in Chicago because where I grew up there wasn't things like Free Jazz shows happening every night of the week (there probably has never been one such event that ever occurred in St. John, Indiana). I don't make it out to many rock shows these days but I do get out to see jazz and experimental music a few times a month. I saw William Parker Trio a few days ago and this week I'm planning on seeing Fred Anderson / Hamid Drake duo at The Velvet Lounge.

5. What question do you get most often that you hate answering?

Matt: If someone hasn't heard us, "so, what kind of music do you guys play?". There's no way to answer that without sounding like a pretentious asshole. If someone has heard us live, "why do you change your set every time?" Unless it's with a fan, I try to avoid discussing our music.

Mike: "Zelien-what?" I mean shit, isn't it a household name yet?

6. Favorite instruments or specific sounds?

Matt: I'm always surprised at what an electric guitar can produce. I also love white noise and bells.

Mike: This list could probably go on and on because I'm pretty obsessed with sounds, but a few of my favorites are echoes, all kinds of bells, an orchestra tuning up, the caw of a crow, the wind rustling the tall grasses in a prairie, the 17 year Cicadas that are currently out in my part of the world, the blood curdling mating call of the Red Fox that I hear in my backyard sometimes, the rhythm of a freight train in the distance, creaking of doors and floors, the Mourning Dove's somber song, footsteps in a large and empty cathedral, chants, a drunk tumbling down a staircase, raindrops on a metal roof, etc. etc. As for my favorite instruments, the jazz drum set, bass clarinet, frame drum (the oldest instrument in the world), various organs, stand-up bass, tamboura.

7. The record store is closing in ten minutes and you are hell-bent on buying something before they close, what section do you head immediately towards?

Matt: Used vinyl. I'm a hipster, and that's what we do.

Mike: Used jazz LP bin or the Neil Young section.

8. What is the last notable daydream you had and where did it take place?

Matt: Our power went out in our neighborhood the other night. I sat on the back porch listening to the sounds of people talking and the wind in the tress. I'm convinced that darkness makes it easier to hear, or maybe sound travels better at night when the humidity is lower. Whatever, it was easy to hear things without the noise pollution of air conditioners, TVs and radios. I thought about how nice it would be to have that silence to myself all of the time. Of course this is entirely selfish, because filling that silence would be the first thing that I would do, and I'd have a harder time doing it without electricity. I also realized that I would want my baby, wife and friends there too, and that these people all make noise. This led me to thinking about how man is destined for disappointment and contradiction in almost everything he attempts. I smoked a joint, read some Kafka, and played "Us & Them" on my acoustic guitar.

Mike: Um, you don't wanna know...probably something sexual or perverse while driving through the city.

9. What is the perfect album to you? Are there any? Is it possible?

Matt: Sure. There's a few that I would regard as perfect. Talk Talk's Laughing Stock, My Blood Valentine's Loveless comes very close, a few of Neil Young's do as well. Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians might as well be perfect. There's plenty.

Mike: A few that come to mind... John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Eno's On Land and Another Green World, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, Sun Ra's Magic City, Bachir Attar - The Next Dream, Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, Javanese Court Gamelan, AMM - Newfoundland, the first three Velvet Underground albums, Gnawa Musicians of Morocco - Night Music, and The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour (with the exception of Paul's songs). O.k, one from my high school years that still blows me away...Sonic Youth, Sister. I can go on and on but I decided to narrow it down to the pioneers.

10. Do you keep up with blogs? Which do you read if so?

Matt: No blogs, but I check Craigslist under musical instruments everyday.

Mike: Not really, though I guess you can consider Salon.com's War Room by Tim Grieve a Blog. Also, I subscribe to a slew of the e-mail updates from the environmental magazine Grist.org.

Singleversity #16

Audiversity’s weekly column, slightly modified, on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 111.

MA:



A sometimes-overlooked album in King Tubby’s amazing discography, Dangerous Dub (named after his studio’s perilous location) was proof that the dub innovator still had some tricks up his sleeve in 1981. Recorded with Jamaica’s premier studio band, Roots Radics, as well as help from Jah Screw, Tubby submerged roots reggae in his patented brew of saturated bass lines and rocksteady percussion. "Loud Mouth Rock" in particular features Tubby at a creative high; hollow percussion and tambourine act as perfect counterpoints to the resonating bass groove and studio wizardry. Tubby still had a good eight years before his mysterious murder, but he would rarely reach these artistic heights from here on out.

PM:












It’s unfair (though completely unintentional… and typical) that we don’t feature female artists or female-fronted groups that often here. I don‘t consciously exclude them, but I guess I just don‘t always gravitate that way. Of course, Uffie… But really, here’s one trio I don‘t mind praising: Right about this time last summer Paw Tracks released the first full-length from First Nation, a Brooklyn all-female freak-folk group that didn’t to my recollection receive that much attention. A bloody shame too, because “Swells” is just one of a number of brilliant tracks that sound like a niche fulfilled somewhere in among Animal Collective and Black Dice. Dear females: Trying harder. Thanks: First Nation.

Begushkin - "Nightly Things"

Begushkin - Stroll With Mine (Locust 2007)

Begushkin - Nightly Things / Locust

Yesterday it was death-folk and a kitchen appliance. Today we're declaring the end of post-rock week and capping it off with a little acoustic affection in the form of Brooklyn six-string swooner Dan Smith aka Begushkin. I really don't know how long this review is going to be, but if it winds up particularly short, don't be discouraged. It's just because I cut out the mammoth "Here's the biography and what happened when we last saw Mr. Smith." As you might've discovered for yourself, there's pretty much nothing out there on what Smith has done for most of his life.

This could all be rubbish, but I read somewhere that he was on a sketch comedy show called "Program," which I never saw and can't seem to find anything about... All we know for sure is that the dude works mostly out of Brooklyn and has a ton of friends to help him out with recording and playing. I also get the feeling that he's got a really sardonic sense of humor. Don't hold me to that one, though.

What we know for sure: Nightly Things is a dramatically different take on the whole trad-goth thing that Wolfmangler aptly demonstrated yesterday. Whereas D. Smolken emphasizes the doom and the darkness, Smith's guitar talent and familiar vocal style allow him to bring the traditional folk song sounds forward, not necessarily muddying his voice in the mix or submerging the guitars behind a range of cello-sounding instruments. It's a little more approachable, but it's also a little more comical. "Stroll With Mine," for example, sounds jaunty with its accordion and gypsy-like jive. It's a beautiful song and one of the best on this too-short album, but it sounds so fun to play that Smith's fragile, almost Devendra Banhart-like voice that you hesitate to smile.

Probably the most memorable lyric on the album is "And you can be my monkey girl," which again sounds amusing out of context... But somehow Smith makes "At Night With Me" work as another American Gothic ballad Flannery O'Connor would be proud of. It's the mystical vibe of the fiddle (or maybe the violin?) that's played to balance out the guitars that form the base of every track. A lot of people have been using Will Oldham as a milemarker, but I would rather listen to this. Some of Oldham's albums are just exhausting to listen to... But Nightly Things never threatens to wear out its welcome: At a modest eight songs and 22 minutes, Begushkin's debut instead leaves you begging for just that little bit more.

Because it's so short, every song is vital. A good all-killer-no-filler folk album is hard to come by, but Dan Smith has aimed for the dark forests of the night and hit the ghoulish-looking trees on every shot. Actually, I'm not really sure that means anything... But Begushkin will make you feel like you do. That's power.

Bumps - "Bumps"

Bumps - OK!!! (Stones Throw 2007)

Bumps – Bumps / Stones Throw

So to conclude what has become post-rock week (at least from my side of things) here at Audiversity, we get to spend a little time with the Chicagoans who defined the term in the early/mid-90s, Tortoise. No, they sadly do not have a new album coming out as a cohesive group, but as you surely know by now, side-projects, collaborations and one-offs are abundant within the realms of the shell. This time around, the three most percussive minds in the band, John McEntire, John Herndon and Dan Bitney, head to the west coast and team up with hip-hop innovators Stones Throw Records for a record of drum breaks. Aptly titled Bumps, the rhythmic trio clang, clatter, skitter, rattle, pummel, pound, thump and yes, bump over twenty-three tracks of ridiculously tight break beats.

Not to dissuade you from checking out the album, but be wary, when I say drum breaks record, I absolutely mean it. Bumps is thirty minutes of break beats and that is it; no auxiliary melodic instrumentation save maybe a toned tom or the occasional ring of something-or-other is used whatsoever. I only emphasize this because even though it has not been advertised as anything more, I can easily see someone seeing the names Tortoise and Stones Throw teamed together and think this is some post-hip-hop-rock experiment… which it kind of is, but maybe not in the manner that you might think (by the way, that would be awesome and they totally need to look into that). With twenty-three different approaches to break beats averaging at about a minute-and-a-half a piece, McEntire, Herndon and Bitney are able to solder not only the aforementioned drumming styles of hip-hop and post-rock together, but also elements of funk, Brazilian, Latin, Afrobeat, krautrock, dub and other heavily rhythmic genres into one surprisingly cohesive and enjoyable album.

With the names and establishments involved, you can correctly predict a few characteristics before even pushing play on the album: 1. It is impeccably played, 2. It is crisply produced, 3. It is funky as hell. Now that we have covered those important aspects, for straight-up listening purposes, my personal favorite songs are the tracks that include odd drum set-ups, multiple tunings or extra percussive toys. While tracks like “OK!!!” contain breaks so killer it would make ?uestlove shake his head in awe, for attention purposes, songs like “Tryplmeade Gorsmatch” with it’s twinkling electronics and deep tom ring, “Swingland Hit” with it’s woodblocks and echoing pitches, “A Safe Balm” with it’s auxiliary conga rhythms, and “Dawn at Dawn” with it’s multi-tuned array of drums are your go-to points. For drummers and ears intently attuned to sample-able material, Bumps will keep you nodding your head for a good while; for listeners more interested in the melodic, lyrical or traditionally structured aspect of music, you may want to skip this release.

And being that this is a break beat record, I am curious of how the musicians involved are handling the copyright side of things. I do not see much point of releasing an album like this unless you are inviting other musicians to utilize the incredible breaks for other projects. At the very least, I hope that Stones Throw has a follow-up album close behind with songs built from these rhythmic foundations (and knowing the label, I can’t imagine that it’s not already in the mastering stages). But for the moment, Bumps acts as not only further proof that McEntire, Herndon and Bitney are three of the best rhythmic innovators in the game today, but a great DJ tool primed for killer segues or beat-matching.

Fridge - "The Sun"

Fridge - Oram (Temporary Residence 2007)

Fridge – The Sun / Temporary Residence

I will be honest, this is a tough one for me to review. First of all, most heavy-hitting internet-indie-review hubs have already covered it (Pitchfork and Coke Machine Glow for example), and for the most part, they have pretty much hit the nail on the head with their disappointed sentiments towards the album. And secondly, that disappointed feeling typically sways me from using this pedestal to even talk about the album in question. I am a positive-minded person, so even though the more critical, “I’m assuming this is crap until you prove it’s worth my much coveted time” style of reviewing may be more popular and respectable(?), if I personally give something a chance and can’t get into it, I just move on because there are plenty of other albums out there that do pique my interest (that new Cinematic Orchestra, for example, I find cheesy and severely disappointing, so you won’t find me spending a few hours writing about it here). But this is Fridge we are talking about. This is an album I have been looking forward to for the last six years and I’ll be damned if I am not going to spend a least a little time with it for better or worse.

First of all, if you are not familiar with Fridge, I’ll give you a quick run down (if you are, you can skip to the next paragraph). Fridge is now famous for being the high school outfit for now solo luminaries Kieran Hebden (Four Tet, Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid, Joshua Falken) and Adem Ilhan (Adem). The equally talented drummer Sam Jeffers, who despite his lack of solo career, rounds out the trio and very much holds his own with these other two respected musical innovators. The group gained recognition throughout Britain in the late 90s with their stream of seven-inch and twelve-inch EPs along with a couple full-length albums on Output Records. In my opinion (and from what I have heard over the years, most others), their cerebral, unpredictable post-rock sound culminated with the first and only stateside release (until now), Happiness on Temporary Residence. Made up of hypnotic experimental instrumental innovations, the 2001 album helped create a respected platform for both the Four Tet and Adem solo projects to leap from, which for the most part left the band itself defunct.

About a year and a half ago now, I was enjoying the amazing free jazz of duo Fred Anderson and Hamid Drake, who were opening the Chicago notch of the first stateside Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid tour. Much to my joyous surprise, Hebden was standing right beside me, so I got the chance to talk to him for about half-an-hour before he performed. One of the first questions I asked him (and surprisingly to his excitement) was if there would ever be another Fridge record, and he exuberantly explained how they were in the process of putting the final touches on it and that he was excited to be collaborating with Ilhan and Jeffers again. Though I am somewhat underwhelmed with the fruits of this reunion, The Sun, I cannot completely hate on it because: 1. It is not really bad at all, but in the context of prior Fridge output, somewhat disappointing, 2. I sincerely doubt that the intentions of the trio were to reinvent the post-rock game with this record, but instead to once again enjoy matching the talents of one another.

Where Happiness concentrated more on the minimal tonal interaction of a few precise instruments with each song, The Sun is much less concentrated and much closer to a straight-ahead post-rock album, which is probably the most disappointing aspect with the players involved. Again, where Happiness would utilize odd instrumentation like trombone, melodica, children’s voices and glockenspiels, The Sun sticks almost completely with percussion, guitar, bass and electronics. So you are starting to see a pattern arise. But the musicianship is one aspect that has certainly progressed over the last six years. The trio used to accomplish their sound by immense slicing, replacing and tweaking in the post-production stage, but this album sounds much more live and in the moment. Songs like “Eyelids” and the probably the highlight of the album, “Oram”, sound more energetic than anything that has ever been released by Fridge, which is certainly something to enjoy. Jeffers in particular sounds as if the reigns were unleashed and he is able to explore more bombastic drum patterns to interlope with Hebden and Ilhan’s musical experimentations.

Like I just mentioned, “Oram” is the centerpiece of the album. Building from a barrage of drums and percussion, a loose Tortoise-like groove of guitar, xylophone and skittering kit drums create that hypnotic melodic-percussive mental rift that made post-rock so enchanting in the first place (though that was fifteen years ago now). “Clocks” works in a similar manner, but with a higher degree of instrumental experimentation. Odd hollow clicks line the drum breaks and electric guitar scathes lead into an increasingly climactic array of guitar-bass-electronic interaction. Differing from the typical rock groove of the album, “Comets” excels by sounding completely out-of-place. Wavering analog synth lines tango with acoustic piano and a drum machine while a bass lays down the melody and subtle nuances of glockenspiel and acoustic guitar add further color. And “Lost Time,” nestled near the end of the album, adds soft vocals care of Ilhan to the mix for a humming, enchanting and highly melodic approach to the drum-heavy record.

So as you can see, The Sun is not a completely bad record as some reviews have concluded, but with its relative straight-forwardness coming from such a creative cast of characters and in a genre that sorely needs a shot of adrenaline, it comes off underwhelming. Not to mention having us fans wait in shaking anticipation for six years certainly does not help the cause. But perhaps some good can come out of this; maybe the lukewarm reaction to the album will egg on Hebden, Ilhan and Jeffers to keep the Fridge collaboration alive and producing music on a more regular basis. One can only hope, because we certainly know at this point that when these three creative forces find themselves on an enjoyable and productive plateau, great music will be produced and our ears are the main benefactor.

Wolfmangler - "Cooking With Wolves"

Wolfmangler - Uneasy Autumn Moan (Digitalis Industries 2007)

Wolfmangler - Cooking With Wolves / Digitalis Industries

Are we the last blog on earth to hold out on mentioning wolf bands? Wasn't that whole thing like two years ago? Isn't Panther the new Horse the new Wolf? Well, whatever, consider Audiversity well and truly arrived. We're posting on a Wolf band. There. We did it. It's done. We have it now.

Except this isn't Wolf Parade or Wolf Eyes or We Are Wolves or Wolfmother. In fact, in a circuitous way, we're not really posting about wolves at all here because Wolfmangler is about as anti-wolf as a rabid Frog Eyes fan. D. Smolken is the man behind Wolfmangler, a Polish political immigrant with a knack for avoiding the cello but playing virtually everything that sounds like it. Take a song like "Ol' Man River," for example. The brooding strings you could swear are cello aren't that at all. Instead, Smolken utilizes some pretty rare instruments for not just Cooking With Wolves but also his other releases. Among them: The double bass (with bow included), the cello banjo, the electric bass, and the violin. It seems almost masochistic in a way, creating all of these dark and doomy sounds without the aid of a cello... But who are we to judge. After all, the guy's been around for a few years now and has made some consistently good releases to boot.

What's so good about Wolfmangler as a whole and Cooking With Wolves in particular now is that Smolken's music reaches out to fans of the modern avant-garde orchestral, fans of doom and sludge, and fans of folk. Smolken has cleverly tied these influences together to make a coherent album that you could, I suppose, label doom-folk. Someone has also suggested death-folk, and that's not far off either. Bottom line, it's not music that's meant to lift the spirits. The two-tone colors of his website and most album work also suggest Smolken is working within the framework of a nation that's still striving to modernize its countryside in the face of both the EU to the west and the mutilated beast of Russia's influence to the east. This isn't an overtly political album, but its feel, its intangibles that reach to the listener's mindset, suggests that Smolken's Poland has not escaped the joyless moments of its past. Ironic, then, that the first eight songs were recorded in Texas, Smolken's former residence.

Imagine the Grimm brothers living up to a name without the second 'm' and you're not far off the mark of what Wolfmangler is all about. There's an element of that medieval fairy tale gone awry scattered like ash across the barren, desolate soundscape that Smolken works hard to craft; indeed, both "Czerwony Pas" and "Szwolezerowie" are traditionals. Mission accomplished: It doesn't get much more mangled than this, but the most painful part is how slow it is, how torturously brutal and beautiful songs like "Szwolezerowie" or "Beata Z Albatrosa" are. There's just no escape. Even when Smolken breaks out with clearer, less grumbling vocals on a song like "Uneasy Autumn Moan," it only feels like his pathos is so much the larger. Around him, the instruments struggle onward.

It's a war on the ears for one hour, and at the end of "French Vampire Carol" you never feel like you've won any great battles or been vindicated for surviving. Through his work with Dead Raven Choir and Garlic Yang, Smolken has learned the art of doom and darkness. Cooking With Wolves is yet another stellar example of folk gone ghoulish. The wolf parade ends here on a cold, gray, rainy street. It may not be pretty, but it is worth watching.

Art Brut - "It's a Bit Complicated"

Art Brut - People in Love (Mute 2007)

Art Brut - It's a Bit Complicated - Mute

Though they proclaimed on Bang Bang Rock & Roll that they were only just started, what exactly they were just starting wasn't quite sure. Was Art Brut an elaborate scheme masterminded by Eddie Argos to finally put a band to all those Enrique Gatti songs he wrote without music? Was it merely a 60th anniversary homage to the movement that spawned the name? Was it even more ironic and sharper in critique than LCD Soundsystem? Or was it irony-free and just that base, just that free-spirited, just that fucking fun? The answers were never clear, but the fact remained: Art Brut was a vivacious group with a live reputation to back up their quixotic debut.

Well, they made a sophomore album. And, exactly as you would (or wouldn't) be expecting, it's not complicated at all. In fact, Art Brut is the total, absolute distillation of rock n' roll. There is no excess, the only double meanings are explained as such in the lyrics, the solos come after the choruses if they come at all, the backing vocals swoon on cue. In some ways, Art Brut is actually the antithesis of the movement Jean Dubuffet coined in the 40s. Whereas Dubuffet envisioned a movement by artists who had no predecessors and who inspiration but themselves and their immediate world, Art Brut steal riffs and snatch themes from the great compendium of rock and burn away the mist and the mysticisms to reveal the three-minute pop nuggets which lie beneath.

But as they prove over and over again, there's a reason we fall for them everytime. "Pump Up the Volume" is a perfect opener as Argos rails on in his usual South London slur, but it's the band that you really notice as the riff Ian Catskilkin bangs out sounds cleaner and more efficient than the best of the tracks dominating the attention for Bang Bang Rock & Roll. As "Direct Hit" proves shortly thereafter, it was no mistake. The band is leaner, meaner, hungrier and more streamlined than ever before. It's the sound of a band that knows exactly where it comes from and knows exactly how to pay homage. The payoff is both stupidly obvious and brilliantly rewarding.

Unlike so many other UK sophomore albums that just didn't live up to the admittedly unreasonable expectations of their debuts (The Futureheads, Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, ad infinitum), Art Brut deserve to beat the rap precisely because their strategy is so simplistic, so utterly inane: By debuting with only the wit of Argos and the generic three-chord riffs you know you've heard a million times before, there's really nowhere to go but up from that, isn't there? It's hard to write songs less challenging than "Emily Kane." So Art Brut aren't really taking a step down from their lauded debut, and they're certainly not giving up on their cheeky sense of humor. They are stepping sideways, because they will always be stepping sideways. It's what they deserve to do.

"What else can we do when the kids don't like it?" asks Argos on "St. Pauli." The obvious answer is to start making songs that require some thought beyond the most banal of the listener's understandings... But that would be defeating the point. Art Brut are specifically designed as a band that takes as few chances as possible (some horns on "Late Sunday Evening" aside) and for that they will always succeed simply because it would be tough to fail. Repeating yourself is expected. Any derivation will look good. And while their epiphany-like live shows continue to sound better and better, the albums improve in sound quality, the riffs get more obvious, the vocal melodies continue to elude you... Yet there you are, stupidly nodding along. Laughing and giggling and dancing and pumping your fist. Why? Because Art Brut are rock n' roll. They and the ideal are one in the same. A hard pill to swallow for high-minded music fans maybe, but a joy and a delight to the rest of us that get it because we don't have to get it. Nobody is playing the crowd better than Art Brut. As the impresarios of average, it's possible they may be the last great rock band. Funny or frightening? As ever, the choice is up to your ears.

Cahier (Orchestra) - "Desacreditado"

Cahier (Orchestra) - Degradación de la Madera II (Dustin Must Die 2007)

Cahier (Orchestra) - Desacreditado - Dustin Must Die

For a few weeks here recently I've felt the gravity of big-name releases. It's not something that's happened consciously, but hitting up a Dizzee Rascal record or the latest Simian Mobile Disco does after an extended period of time make me feel a bit average. So maybe I've listened to the new Art Brut and plan on making a case for them... But forgetting the lesser known artists, the guys out there working alone in their bedrooms or their kitchens or with friends on a four-track, would be forgetting why I bothered to start writing here in the first place. Marko Neumann is one such guy, a flood of musical talent unleashed all over his various aliases including Body Odour, Kasvain, Candy Cane and Polka Dot Sunflower Bed Orchestra. In short: Like a lot of other homegrown noiseniks, Neumann doesn't sit idle for long.

Desacreditado, his latest release under the Cahier name, is a perfect example of the Tampere, Finland native's knack for switching up styles just when you think you've had enough of lo-fi freak-fucking out in the violent woods of the way up north. A track like "Luna Llena" gets stuck in a looping melodic rut before abruptly halting in time for the overamped, grunged-out "En Apuros" which clocks in at a mighty 51 seconds. Nothing runs longer than 3 minutes 34 seconds. It's a gloriously short, gloriously vibrant noise record that demands just the slightest bit of attention and duly rewards not long thereafter.

Part of the reason for its brevity is Neumann's background in hardcore and punk bands that he has been involved with since he was in his early teens. That all-or-nothing approach to playing, however badly, has bled on through to his other works and ultimately down to Desacreditado. Originally the product of some downtime while recording Candy Cane's first album, Cahier has come to solidify itself as an organically avant-silence branch of Neumann's personality. Interestingly, though his biggest inspiration is a lack of sound, there is rarely an untouched moment during the album's nine-track runtime. If it isn't the reversed percussion of "Un Traidor" or the guitar fury of "Colcha," it's the looped disorientation of "Degradación de la Madera II" that closes the album in the same way its forerunner opens it.

The tricks veer between Hair Police and Xela, but it's never boring or long-winded. Which, at the end of this album, is its best asset: As opposed to the sometimes excruciating and aimless experiments that marr assorted Wolf Eyes projects, Cahier has focus and a broader appeal. It may not always be easy to swallow, but that's part of the point too. Rarely this year has pure noise sounded better.

Radio Show Playlist: 6/20/07

6a:
1. Can - Splash - Soon Over Babaluma (Spoon 1974)
2. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Please Heat This Eventually - Se Dice Bisonte, No Bufalo (GSL 2007)
3. Neu! - HalloGallo - Neu! (Astralwerks 2001, recorded 1972)
4. Maserati - 12/16 - Inventions for the New Season (Temporary Residence 2007)
5. Shellac - Steady as She Goes - Excellent Italian Greyhound (Touch & Go 2007)
6. Sonic Youth - Death Valley '69 (with Lydia Lunch) - Bad Moon Rising (DGC 1985)
7. Daniel A.I.U. Higgs - Subatomic Yggdrasil Tarot - Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot (Thrill Jockey 2007)
8. Volcano! - Apple or a Gun - Beautiful Seizure (Leaf 2005)

7a:
1. Fridge - Oram - The Sun (Temporary Residence 2007)
2. The World on Higher Downs - Two Aged Window - Land Patterns (Plop 2007)
3. W.W. Lowman - Goodbye Greg - Plain Songs (Arbouse 2007)
4. Savath & Savalas - Estrella de Dos Cara ft Jose Gonzalez - Golden Pollen (Anti- 2007)
5. Karate - The Lived-but-Yet-Named - Unsolved (Southern 2000)
6. Via Tania - In the Distance - Under a Different Sky (Chocolate Industries 2003)
7. Neil Young - Transformer Man - Trans (Geffen 1983)
8. Black Moth Super Rainbow - Forever Heavy - Dandelion Gum (Graveface 2007)
9. Von Sudenfed - Dearest Friends - Tromatic Reflexxions (Domino 2007)

8a:
1. Parts & Labor - Fractured Skies - Mapmaker (Jagjaguwar/Brah 2007)
2. Jai-Alai Savant - The Low Frequent Sea - Flight of the Bass Delegate (GSL 2007)
3. The Eternals - Eternal Nocturne - Where Will We Live Now 12" (Thrill Jockey 1999)
4. King Tubby & Roots Radics - Loud Mouth Rock - Dangerous Dub (Greensleeves 1996, recorded 1981)
5. Lee 'Scratch' Perry & the Upsetters - Bucky Skank - A Live Injection: Anthology 1968-79 (Trojan 2001)
6. Byron Lee & the Dragonaires - Soul Day - Byron Lee & the Dragonaires (JAD 1968)
7. From Leaf to Feather - Night Sun - Artdontsleep Presents From L.A. With Love (Milan 2007)
8. Otis Jackson Jr. Trio - Free Son - Jewelz (Stones Throw 2007)
9. Trans Am - Different Kind of Love (Prefuse 73 Remix) - Extremixx (Thrill Jockey 2002)
10. Eddie Ray - Wait a Minute - Eccentric Soul: The Prix Label (Numero Group 2007, recorded 1971)
11. Betty Davis - Shoo-B-Doop & Cop Him - They Say I'm Different (Light in the Attic 2007, recorded 1974)

Dizzee Rascal - "Maths + English"

Dizzee Rascal - Paranoid (XL 2007)

Dizzee Rascal - Maths + English / XL

From Billboard.com:

London-based rapper Dizzee Rascal will release his next album, "Maths & English," for XL/Beggars Group on June 5 in the U.S. In a first for XL/Beggars Group, Billboard.biz has learned that the album will only be serviced to digital outlets in North America, and the label is not planning on releasing on physical CD outside of the U.K. and Europe. "Maths & English" will, however, be released as a physical product overseas, where Dizzee Rascal has met much more success....

"Maths & English" is Dizzee Rascal's third album, the follow-up to 2004's "Showtime." The sophomore effort has sold 16,000 units to date in the U.S., according to Nielsen Soundscan. The number was a significant dip from the 58,000 copies sold by his 2003 debut, "Boy in da Corner," which arrived Stateside under massive amounts of buzz.

The two varying statistics persuaded XL/Beggars to go the most cost-effective digital route with "Maths & English" in the U.S. "Many of the sales of the first record were a lot of impulse buying," says Beggars Group VP of marketing Matt Harmon. "It was the feeling that people were missing something if they didn't own that record. That didn't mean that everyone was a fan. It just meant we were selling a lot more records. So coming to this album, we're going into it with a readjusted, more realistic view of it."

And so ends the short but furious history of grime in the US. Oh sure, Dylan Mills has been drifting away from the 140 bpm two-step breaks that provide the pillars for guys like Wiley and Skepta since Boy in Da Corner was released in 2003... But as both the most successful and most visible grime personality in the States, Dizzee Rascal has come to symbolize the Great Garage-Rap Onslaught of '03. The problem is that, like M.I.A., people seemed to be buying Boy in Da Corner more to be a part of what was fresh rather than for actually liking the album. Top 20 on both the Heatseekers and the Top Independent Charts, Dizzee was a harsh MC for American ears more used to lazy Southern-fried slurs over boring beats.

While Showtime showcased Rascal's talents yet again, just a year later he was nowhere for most Americans. What sense would it make to bother unleashing yet another brilliant album on a continually unsuspecting and unappreciative audience? Maybe because Maths + English is possibly his most wildly inconsistent, erratically intriguing release yet. The pink-black-white artwork might be painfully ugly, but the musical point is made: You can try and ruin a cut with Lily Allen or bitch on and on about how tough fame is, but at the end of the day the formerly day-glo neon synths that wove a sinewy path through vacant drum blasts are taking a back seat to both the storytelling and the subtler touches of a Big Sound.

Mike Skinner's failed concept album on fame rings true here as Dizzee starts the album off with songs like "Pussyole (Old Skool)" and "Suk My Dick." Pretty clear what's going on here, and that's basking in the fame and attention that being a grime king can merit; alternately, it's what results from hormone overdrive fueled into that two-step template so popular four years ago. Has it really been four years?

Between his internal dialogue dominating a track like "Paranoid" and the party-crashing genius of "Flex," Rascal's multifaceted personality shines through in a way that might've been exemplified just as well in his first two albums but never quite in the same way. This both is and isn't more of the same. It's both a confident swagger and a career retrospective. Maybe there aren't any indications as to what he will do next, but I'm not sure he needs it. Mills is far from being at the bottom of his game and this album is, for at least half the Atlantic, one more reason why. Maybe for that reason alone, it's a shame Americans will have to buy it via import. It would rob record stores of the pleasure of turning around the album to reveal Rascal flipping us off in defiance. The shame instead is that the joke's on him.

The World on Higher Downs - "Land Patterns"

The World on Higher Downs - Alpine Low (Plop 2007)

The World on Higher Downs – Land Patterns / Plop

So after somewhat ranting and raving about yet another product of the experimental and pastoral Chicago post-rock scene yesterday, a Wisconsin quartet one-ups my Windy City example. Granted this is a rarity in the Cheese State (that’s their official nickname right?), The World on Higher Downs would be much more suited in the scene just to the south, but if their debut album proves anything, it’s that they are very much self-sufficient. Hell, they even landed themselves on the wonderful Tokyo label Plop; I for one am impressed.

Made up of four multi-instrumentalists including Troy Schafer, Nathaniel Ritter, Vincent Wachowiak and Eric Bray, The World on Higher Downs craft their sound through patient layering rather than off-the-cuff improvisation. The project that resulted in Land Patterns began in the spring of 2005 by Schafer and Ritter. Initially instigated by innocent bedroom experimentation, the preliminary sketches were just made up of keyboards, effected electric guitar and violin, but strong enough to warrant elaborating on the songs. While I don’t have any indication of what exactly the early demos sounded like, stripping away the auxiliary instrumentation from the final recordings reveal a backdrop of slow-burning synth swells and swirling, staticy ambience; probably in the vein of a rough-hewn Stars of the Lid or Labradford sound.

After a few months of smoothing out the blueprints, Wachowiak and Bray were brought into the mix to further develop the music. Fleshed out with acoustic instrumentation like guitar, bass, xylophone, vibraphone, horns and a variety of hand, pitched and bowed percussion as well as electronic touches, Land Patterns began to truly take shape. Instead of digitally chopping up samples and piecing the album together, the group opted to arrange in large chunks by layering and blending the warm pitches together. There is a definite digital sound to the album, especially with the subtle static undertones and heavy effects lining the entire recording, but the warmness of natural instrumentation and analog recording is not completely lost in the mix. It is more acoustic than a Fennesz recording and more electronic than a Reich.

And speaking of influences, the biggest concern with Land Patterns is how much it imitates (though very well) its influences without completely carving out its own idiosyncratic style. During my initial few spins, I jotted down as I always do a few musical references to help describe the sound while writing my review. My list included Steve Reich (elliptical vibe and xylophone patterns), Labradford (effects-heavy, ambient soundscapes), Stars of the Lid (lush string swells and slowly developing arrangements) and Fridge (inventive rhythms and lyrical melodies), and low-and-behold, their MySpace-listed influences include all four as well as a shoegazers Cocteau Twins and Slowdive, post-rockers Tortoise and Tarentel, and electronic artists Loscil and Matmos. Every one of these references are warranted and very much put The World on Higher Downs in fantastic company, but also proves that the Wisconsin quartet is a bit behind the curve.

So that is pretty much the bottom line, Land Patterns is a fantastic, well-produced album containing the best elements of the last twenty years of acoustic and electronic post-rock, but doesn’t so much push the envelope as settles in comfortably and keeps the tradition alive. Do not get me wrong though, if this is a sound you particularly enjoy, then do yourself a favor and pick up the album because you very much will not be disappointed, but just realize that it is not reinventing the game. Land Patterns is well played and produced and at the very, very least, it should bring your attention to possibly Wisconsin’s most promising post-rock collective in The World on Higher Downs. I will very much be looking forward to their sophomore effort with high expectations.

W.W. Lowman - "Plain Songs"

W.W. Lowman - Goodbye Greg (Arbouse 2007)

W.W. Lowman – Plain Songs / Arbouse

Goddamn am I glad I decided to move to Chicago. Looking to escape the sweltering boondocks of South Carolina, my final two choices came down to New York or Chicago. Thankfully, the right set of events took place that I landed in the latter, because I seriously doubt that I would have fit in amongst the neon cacophony of the Big Apple. The bottom line is I am a mellow guy, and Chicago, more than any place I have experienced to this date, seems to near flawlessly marry the city life with a laid-back, pleasant spirit. It is not a lazy or simple aesthetic by any means though, quite the contrary actually. The city is paved with experimental complexities especially within the arts and architecture, but they are achieved and presented in an unpretentious, warm manner. And most importantly, the Chicago mindset is not to continually attempt to out-do the other guy, but to instead collaborate and share talents for the greater good. All the proof you need is in the city’s post-rock and jazz scenes; both are as vibrant and forward-pushing as ever. And when those two similar-minded collectives intertwine, the results are nearly always stunning. Continuing with this tradition, W.W. Lowman, a supporting member of the region for nearly a decade now, finally gets his chance to take center stage with his solo debut, and you better believe his musically inclined friends are here to support him.

Lowman joined the Chicago team in 1998. Catching the ear of then-Chicagoan Jim O’Rourke while interning at ACME studios with his idiosyncratic style of guitar playing, he quickly networked through the city’s dense musical veins. As the years passed, his talents as a versatile session player were utilized in increasing doses, and he now sports a résumé that lists L’Altra, Smog, the Aluminum Group, Alasdair Roberts, Edith Frost, Bobby Conn, Lindsay Anderson, Rob Mazurek, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Will Oldham as collaborators. Lowman’s only venture as a songwriter though (until now), is as half of the intricate Fahey-inspired acoustic guitar duo Bosco & Jorge with Brad Gallagher. With now ten years of networking and musicianship developing chalked up, it is time to cash in on the experiences, and Plain Songs is very much the work of a matured, Chicago-inspired musician.

With the help of the Aluminum Group’s Frank Navin, Lowman has crafted a highly melodic, lushly meandering post-rock affair in Plain Songs. Though he may be known mostly as a guitarist, this sounds much more like the work of a composer. In fact, his guitar for the most part weaves subtly around the instrumentation rather than completely hogging the spotlight (the latter half of “Please Don’t Think Its Funny” is a great example of this), and I would venture to say without the prior knowledge of his instrument of choice, you would be hard pressed to decipher exactly where his specialty actually lies. Seeing as his inspirations for the album were pop and soundtrack composers Burt Bacharach and Ennio Morricone, this makes even more sense. Lowman apparently placed his ambitions above the sound of one particular instrument and set out to balance the complex formalities of finely arranged mood music with the accessibility and light-spiritedness of a pop song. He excels in this with Plain Songs providing music that is contemplative, accessible and occasionally moving.

Lowman enlists a number of fellow Chicago musicians to help flesh out his ideas. The complementary tones of Fred Lonberg-Holm (Terminal 4, Lightbox Orchestra), Max Crawford (Poi Dog Pondering), Lindsay Anderson (L’Altra), Mark Greenberg (Coctails, Archer Prewitt), Darren Garvey (Andreas Kapsalis Trio), Navin and a few others all coalesce gracefully in a manner that draws as much inspiration from Tortoise as it does Morricone. The music swells and grooves and saunters with arrangements that don’t ever feel overly complex, but are certainly the work of a skilled musician. And best of all, each of the patiently developing songs (only one clocks under the five minute mark) rarely retreads territory. “Tea Til Ten” lightly sways with multi-tracked, wordless vocals, “Batie” simmers with shuffling drums and Michio Kurihara-like electric guitar explorations, “Lee & Me” adds banjo into the mix for ten minutes of bluegrass-inspired post-rock, and “Tennis Socks” experiments with strings, vibes, accordion and guitar interaction.

Plain Songs is a very Chicago album outside of the obvious post-rock references. Lowman is not afraid to experiment with a myriad of instrumentation, tone and genres, but keeps it all encompassed in a down-to-Earth, easily accessible aura, though sometimes to a frustrating degree. It’s melodious and skillfully arranged where the whole is more important than any of the individual musicians, including Lowman himself. There is certainly still room for improvement, but as far as an introduction to arranging, Lowman is well on his way. Hopefully, and most likely with the city’s progressive spirit, he will continue to develop and reward us with a truly spectacular album.

Moonbabies - "Moonbabies at the Ballroom"

Moonbabies - The 9th (Parasol 2007)

Moonbabies - Moonbabies at the Ballroom / Parasol

One of the great things about not being in charge at a university radio station is not knowing everything. Maybe that sounds strange as being a blogger is all about knowing more than every other blogger; hell, music fandom is about knowing more than anyone else sometimes. It's what separates elitists from mere mortal enthusiasts and the especially cringeworthy casual fan. After a certain point of doing this, you start to think you know it all. It's like, not even worth keeping up anymore.

Sometimes I feel like I've hit that wall; shortly before I left for an historic vacation last week, I tried to review a lot; I stopped when I felt I was no longer doing the artists justice. After returning, I started back in with Moonbabies. It was good to be home again. If you've never heard of this band, drop everything you're doing and go find The Orange Billboard. As an undergrad just taking leftovers from the music office that Michael and Jordan ran, Moonbabies slipped into my hands in late 2004 and became a favorite album that year, a shimmering pastiche of Swede-pop smeared together with shoegaze and dream-pop. At that point, Ola Frick and Carina Johansson perfectly encapsulated who I was as a person. It was naive, but it was naive with a self-knowing wink and nudge. The music was shiny enough to be goofy but came off smart enough to know what it was. Self-awareness. Bloggers love that stuff.

The mini-LP War on Sound followed a dramatic excursion to London and when I came back I found that while I had changed quite a bit, Moonbabies hadn't dramatically altered their sound for their third big release (which included curious yet welcome covers of Pink Floyd's "Arnold Layne" and Midnight Oil's "Stars of Warburton"). Sure they still had the white noise wash of My Bloody Valentine and had wisely kept the vocal harmonies of The Beach Boys. But a Midnight Oil cover? Well played. Though it didn't blow anyone into the weeds (except the people in charge of soundtracking "Grey's Anatomy"), War on Sound was a holding pattern for their following release.

So you see that I'm starting to sound like I don't know anything with these trite phrases and nondescript terminology. That's the effect the Swedish duo have on me: I regress into my stupidly happy late '04 phase when things like "white noise wash" passed as acceptable descriptions for distortion, feedback and overmodulation. Moonbabies at the Ballroom is, unsurprisingly, not a whole lot different from its predecessors. So why bother?

It's true that topping The Orange Billboard might well be impossible. But whereas that album was near flawless because its songs were so strong, it was succinct in delivery. Moonbabies at the Ballroom is a different approach and the opening instrumental "21st Century" is the first indication: Whereas a song like "Jets" was a legitimate instrumental in its own right, "21st Century" suggests a more freeform approach, an opening to the album proper but not necessarily a song to be taken on its own. "War on Sound" makes another appearance after having been released as a single over a year ago. Its near militant drums juxtapose Johansson's airy vocal delivery before breaking into the cute indie-pop verse.

One of the things about their songs is that Ola Frick's accent sometimes gets the best of him (pronouncing his Rs quite hard in words like "better," for example). It makes for a vocal tic that you know as unmistakeably Moonbabies, but it comes delivered with a hummable harmony and an irresistible beat you will inadvertantly find yourself tapping your feet to. "Cocobelle" is sort of like this except that its faux orchestration majestically elevates it to become the standout. Crashing cymbals and Frick's swamped vocals only add to the effect and it winds up sounding not unlike The Russian Futurists. The difference is that Moonbabies have the better musical arsenal: Both Frick and Johansson trade vocal duties and both are multi-instrumentalists, so there's never a lack of things going on.

Another example of this and of that expanding sound we were talking about eariler is "Ratatouille," an acoustic interlude that sets up the quintessential Moonbabies track in just four minutes, "Walking on My Feet." Just a touch of tremolo to those guitars adds that My Bloody Valentine nod you thought they'd forgotten. I picked "The 9th" because I thought it was a quirky track, its guitars scratching alongside the burbling synths and then bursting free to reveal an Owen-like beauty in its verses. Though it's nothing like the epic grandeur of "Weekend a Go-Go" or the strummed simplicity of "Ratatouille" on the face of it, the combination of both the epic and the overlooked is part of what makes this song (and this band) so good.

As you can probably tell, Audiversity is not really an indie-pop hub... But we review what we like because we think it's good, and Moonbabies is a band I always wish the best for. It may not necessarily sound like your bag, and to a certain extent I don't want to sound like I know anything here... But they made a believer out of me, and I didn't give a fuck about SMiLE.

Interversity: Bark Bark Bark

Oasis in the Arizona desert (but not in the annoying Gallagher brother kind of way) Jacob Cooper has been kind enough to respond to our Interversity questions this week. The Tucson native proved his mettle with Haunts earlier this year, but as he'll tell you, it was his demo tape that really won over the Retard Disco big cheese.











Bark Bark Bark - Haunts - Haunts (Retard Disco 2007)

1. How did you initially get involved with the folks at Retard Disco?

I met Andy and Alex a few times when I would come through LA on tour, but originally they had requested some work from me to hear. I gave Andy a tape cassette that I had been touring with for some time at one of the shows, and found out later that the tape was completely blank. He totally got Punk'd. It went all uphill from there.

2. I can honestly say only The Format and Authority Zero come to my mind when I think of Arizona and music. How heavily involved with Tucson's scene are you and is there anyone in particular who influenced you from the area?

I'm not really involved with the music scene here in Arizona as much as I used to be. I've kind of learned to appreciate the fact that my music doesn't really go over well here, and most bands that we get put on bills with are sour electro-clash bullshit. I've also managed to piss a lot of people off over the last few years. Tucson is a pretty small community of musicians and artists, so when something happens, it usually flies around fairly quick. I am also pretty opinionated about most bands that play out here, so I expect everyone to be as opinionated about me. I can go on about The Format and Authority Zero but let's just leave it at that.

3. Your likeness is buried beneath the pink lettering on the front cover of Haunts. What was going through your mind when that picture was taken?

"I have no idea what I am doing. I hope I can figure out a cool cover from this picture."

4. You've played with a ton of acts both big and small. What are your favorite and least favorite tour memories?

I have no bad tour memories. It's always fun and no one that travels with me pusses out. I think you have to learn to embrace the idea that shit happens on tour, and you have to let things go. I have gotten in a few verbal fights with some opening bands on tour though. It's usually my fault. We are officially banned from Clovis, New Mexico. Do you know where that is? Good because NO ONE DOES. Now we both officially dont give a fuck.

5. Is there any one physical location that you draw inspiration from the most?

I really like the car, that's usually where I think of a lot of ideas with people I'm driving with.

Audiversinquiry (10 questions we ask everyone)

1. What do you specifically remember listening to as a child that triggered a memorable response you can still recall now?

Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation & The Police - Greatest Hits. I also listened to a lot of the radio, mostly those 90's R & B stations that reminded you of school functions. My dad worked at a record store here called PDQ Records. I would go into his work and he would let me pick out a record at a time. It was always funny that I was just choosing records of cassettes that he already had at home.

2. Hypothetical: You are heading across town right now and will have time to listen to one complete album during the trip, what would you listen to?

My own record or working demos. Honestly, I mix a lot of my stuff by listening to it in cars. I also practice singing. Or maybe I am conceited?

3. Are there any other media that you draw inspiration from? Books, authors, painters, actors, movies, celebrities, etc?

I get pretty bored of paintings and most art. Maybe it's because I have the attention span of a 5 year old. Movies are pretty relevant to my record because I imagine a lot of the tracks on it being used for specific scenes in films. I've always wanted to score a legit film. Honestly, that's really how I started messing with software or anything relatively electronic. My brothers made movies and I would make music for them.

4. Where do you go to discover new music and sounds?

I seem to usually find out about things pretty late. I don't spend a lot of time at American Apparel or read a lot of hip magazines. I'll be at a friends house and they'll be playing something I really am into. I'll ask "What is that?", then they'll say "Uh, dude where have you been?". "Sorry man, I know I'm a complete piece of shit for not being up with Klaxons."

5. What question do you get most often that you hate answering?

"Dude, what do you use to make your beats?" Fuck off, seriously. I don't even know. I think the other question I hate is, "Are you a DJ?"

6. Any favorite instruments or specific "sounds"?

I will always love the drums. It was my first instrument ever learning, and is the backbone to my music. I like anything that hits hard and sounds scary. I am also into the human voice. There's a lot you can do with it; it secretly makes up for sounds I can't afford to create.

7. The record store is closing in ten minutes and you are hell-bent on buying something before they close, what section do you head immediately towards?

Adult. I think my friend answered this when I was away from the computer. It's pretty funny though, so I'm going to leave it because I dont know how else to answer this question.

8. What is the last notable daydream you had and where did it take place?

I was thinking about going ghost hunting this weekend up north with some friends. It took place right here at this very seat. Crazy, right?

9. What is the perfect album to you? Are there any? Is it possible?

I think my perfect album is comprised of a lot of different styles and sounds and its tracks are arranged in a way that can tell a story. I'm really into concept albums because of this.

10. Do you keep up with blogs? Which do you read if so?

I like to 4chan.

Singleversity #15

Audiversity’s weekly column, slightly modified, on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 102.

MA:



I have always liked Jackie DeShannon’s "What the World Needs Now is Love". With its relatively simple and lush arrangement (that melody-echoing trombone is so perfect it’s ridiculous), I always wondered whether the Bacharach/David tune was written as influenced by Brian Wilson or did it act as an inspiration for his similar compositions on Pet Sounds, released a year later. Plus, DeShannon never gets the recognition she deserves. Besides being maybe the first purveyor of folk-rock, she opened for The Beatles on their first U.S. tour, dated Elvis, and penned “Bette Davis Eyes” among so many other pop-chart destroying tunes.

PM:













In January, NPR’s “Weekend America” asked listeners what their favorite song to fall asleep to was. Though it seems like a backhanded compliment, Over the Atlantic’s “Fly to the States” is a song that strikes me in a very special way… So special I wrote up a description and hoped they would include the whole song; a 30-second clip is useless, so here is its full splendor. Though I may not know where I’m going or what I’m doing with my life, the New Zealand duo are quietly backing me up, gently easing me into the white abyss. Malevich would be proud.

Black Strobe - "Burn Your Own Church"

Black Strobe - Lady (Playlouder 2007)

Black Strobe - Burn Your Own Church / Playlouder

"What if" is the biggest question surrounding this French duo. Hearing that phrase, "French duo," probably sets off a bunch of alarms. In the case of Burn Your Own Church, some of them are justified: A decade ago, Arnaud Rebotini and David "Siskid" Shaw set the French club scene ablaze with "Paris Acid City," a 12" single on Source Records that attracted the gaze of Output Records. You know Output's legacy better from Four Tet's early releases, or Fridge's early works, or maybe as the main distributor for the DFA's earliest singles. In short, Output used to matter and Black Strobe were a part of it.

But something happened after a string of early 12s. That something was that they, um, kept releasing singles. EPs and 7s and 12s and EPs and CD singles and on and on it went; they could've made a full-length by the time they got around to trying for Burn Your Own Church, but the anthems just kept coming anyway.

The trick with Black Strobe in their 2007 form is that they're no longer merely another French duo. Joined by Bastien Burger and Benjamin Beaulieu, Black Strobe are now a full-on band, no what ifs, ands or buts about it. The press release for this album talks about how the old French club sensibilities being combined with modern beat-driven rock and Norwegian death-metal; from the off, you can hear that darker side coming out. "Brenn Di Ega Kjerke" has the pulse of a thousand gothic club movie scenes, but its Red October radar wanders in and out of the steadily increasing percussion and electric guitars. If you're going to start off with a bang, this is a pretty good way of doing it.

The vocals enter on second track "Shining Bright Star." They're comically overdone and the music is driven techno-rock from the late 90s. That's a theme for this album, actually. Burn Your Own Church is sort of in the same vein as all those gothic industrial tributes featuring bands like Electric Hellfire Club or Bella Morte with a heavy dosage of Daft Punk thrown in for good measure. The results are both ridiculous and, almost beyond comprehension, ridiculously enjoyable. "Last Club on Earth," for real. Hard not to smile at apocalyptic visions like that, right?

If you don't know whether to love or hate a Nine Inch Nails impression like "Not What I Needed," that's understandable. It's tough to take anything vaguely gothic or industrial seriously these days and I recognize that Black Strobe is going to be a tough sell for someone who outgrew The Downward Spiral ten years ago. If you're wondering what's out there now though that reminds you both of your angst-ridden youth and your current obsession in all that bloghouse rot, this is definitely your album. No what ifs about that, either.

Numero Group's "Eccentric Soul: The Prix Label"

Eddie Ray - Wait a Minute (Numero Group 2007, recorded 1971)

Various Artists – Eccentric Soul: The Prix Label / Numero Group

You have got to be impressed with the production level of Chicago’s Numero Group collective. Rob Sevier, Ken Shipley and Tom Lunt (with the increasing presence of Dante Carfagna) started the reissue imprint back in the waning moments 2003 and in just a short four years have nearly climbed atop the American crate-digging market with their high quality aesthetic and ridiculous level of consistent production. Fifteen releases in three-and-a-half years is pretty impressive when you consider the time it takes to catch wind of unearthed gems, research, establish contacts, travel, dig, dig, dig, dig, wrangle the rights to actually release their finds, remaster, repackage, write extensive liner notes, issue and promote. Perhaps at this point they can devote all their time to their music-rediscovering love, but I am assuming for a good while all of that was scheduled around a forty-hour workweek as well. Damn is right. But the final product absolutely speaks for itself, and each concurrent release flies off the shelves at increasing speeds, so I sincerely doubt that production level is going to slow down any time soon. Well, at least as long as there are overlooked labels still to be rediscovered.

I barely had time to fully digest Numero 014, Grand Bahama Goombay, when a promo for Numero 015 came gleefully rolling into the record store a few weeks back. The eighth installment what has become the bread and butter of the Numero reissues, the Eccentric Soul series, The Prix Label finds the crate-destroying collective-extraordinaire heading back to the site of Numero 001: Columbus, Ohio. Not even the most notable city in Ohio (ahem, Cleveland), the Buckeye state’s capital is not typically a go-to point as a music-breeding metropolis, no matter what the era is in context. Yet the Numero boys have now dug up not one, but two incredible, overlooked labels from the 70s, first the Capsoul label and now the Prix label. Both share a penchant for intertwining the characteristics of Motown and Stax (sitting geographically between the two probably has something to do with that) and producing decisively left-of-center singles, but each definitely exists in a realm all their own with idiosyncratic details to their short-lived sounds.

The Prix label itself was created solely as an imprint to release material from Harmonic Sounds Incorporated. The joint venture between a black defense contractor and a white attorney, the music production company was very much a labor of love with the people involved spending five years of their lives pouring money, time and energy into it, but with only a catalogue containing a handful of 45s to prove that the company even existed. When George Beter headed west seeking better luck as a flailing attorney, his older brother hooked him up with one of his co-workers at the Defense Construction Supply Center right outside of Columbus. The ambitious Clem Price was an electronics enthusiast and had many a connection throughout the central Ohio city. He was able to hook Beter up with a job at the Attorney General’s office, which allowed the financial freedom to open up a studio and start a label to release exclusively the music produced within its walls; The Prix label was born.

Like most burgeoning labels during the early 70s, Harmonic Sounds became the home for a handful of promising young local artists, ambitious jingle writers, displaced careers and studio musicians looking to craft material of their own. Culling nearly the entire officially released back catalogue of Prix (only eleven cuts) as well as eight additional tracks discovered at an estate sale (four of which included in the “extended play” are unfinished demos and in the case of Penny & the Quarters, a group no one seems to recollect), this compilation contains some brilliant deep soul numbers that were sorely passed over in their time. The artists involved are varied, but the talent is undeniably above par across the board.

Singer Eddie Ray has probably both the saddest story and highest level of talent of the bunch. His career began infinitely promising as his first gig was in a Florida night club joined by fellow up-and-comers Same Moore and David Prater—ahem, Sam & Dave. Ray left just before their Atlantic deal and traveled the country with his own band, The Meditations, and later fronted a band run by J.C. Davis, James Brown’s original bandleader. He eventually found his way to Harmonic Sounds where he became the Prix label’s first release in 1970 with “You Got Me” b/w “Glad I Found You,” both of which are included on the disc. His sensational third single, “Wait a Minute,” which opens the disc, was never released after the first 45 flopped and Ray and Price parted ways. His career never took off, and he now resides in Atlanta performing to this day.

Also included on the compilation are two excellent deep funk numbers by the interracial, long-traveled group OFS Unlimited (who also back the thick soul croon of Mitch Mitchell), honey-voiced guitar player Joe King, youthful party-soul quartet Royal Esquires, R&B; saxophonist Chip Willis, multi-instrumentalist and studio innovator Ron Farthing who recorded as the Soul Ensemble (and when paired up with the Royal Esquires as Soul Partners) and socially-conscious mod-blues singer Marion Black. There is a definite shared aesthetic by the artists involved, and it gives the Prix label a very deep, soulful aura. Sadly though, none of the releases distributed by the label ever gained much momentum on even a local scale. After two years of production, the actual Harmonic Sounds studio closed and two years after that the label folded for good. The Prix imprint only lasted from 1969-1973, and Harmonic Sounds Inc partnership quietly disbanded in 1976.

Like every entry and the Eccentric Soul series and really every release by the Numero Group, Numero 015 is of the highest quality in all facets. And in all honesty, of the entire catalogue, Eccentric Soul: The Prix Label ranks among my favorite. Maybe I am just a sucker for deep soul music, but regardless, this release is worth ever penny you may spend for it. Better get it quick too, because I sincerely doubt the Numero boys will be sitting idly for long and we will have a brand new overlooked blip of musical history to finally discover for the first time.

Daniel A.I.U. Higgs - "Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot"

Daniel A.I.U. Higgs - Subatomic Yggdrasil Tarot (Thrill Jockey 2007)

Daniel A.I.U. Higgs – Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot / Thrill Jockey

So, in a convenient manner of accidental Audiversity interconnectivity, we get a chance to look at an album that is very much the polar opposite of yesterday’s Artdontsleep Presents From L.A. With Love. As I stated in my opening paragraph of that review, the most intriguing music typically either comes from wildly productive geographically centered scenes (see here) or completely secluded artists. For the most part, Daniel A.I.U. Higgs very much fits into the latter category, and after listening to his second officially released solo album, Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot, you will fully understand the reason I specifically chose the “intriguing” adjective. For his first release on Thrill Jockey, which happens to be the second installment in their limited edition full color hardcover book + CD series (the first being from Japanese electronic composer Aki Tsuyuko and the third to be from Thomas Campbell), Higgs gets the rare opportunity to match his surrealist Miró-inspired art (think pleasantly simple, colorful and imaginatively geometrical pieces) and his lo-fi, meandering guitar experimentations.

The creepy-like-a-cult-leader looking Higgs is probably best known for fronting the long-lived Dischord punk band Lungfish. As the lyricist and frontman, he established himself as a loony, passionate madman of a performer with a deeply personal (to the extent of being referred to as one of the godfathers of emo), stream-of-conscious-like delivery. Team that with his more recent interest in performance art and eclectic mysticism, and you start to see where the disjointed music of Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot stems from. His first solo album, Ancestral Songs (released in 2006 on Holy Mountain), found Higgs exploring his inner demons through minimal, meditative blues and discomforting lyrics; Tarot digs deeper within slimmer confines.

I have done my best to gather an understanding of the concept behind this album, but truth be told, it relates much more to the book than the music. “Yggdrasil” refers a sort of all-encompassing “world tree” in Norse mythology, which most notably is the tree Odin (an ambivalent Norse deity) self-sacrificingly hung from for nine days and nights in order to learn the wisdom that would give him power to the nine worlds (which has a very loose Jesus parallel in Christianity, though predating it by quite a bit). “Tarot” of course refers to the card game used for divinatory purposes, and I’m guessing “Atomic” signifies modern times. The paintings in the book paired with the spiritual anagrams that lay on the opposite page of each one maybe are something like Higg’s own Tarot deck and his interconnectivity to spiritual enlightenment. Maybe? No, probably not. Dammit, I don’t know, I think I’m digging too deep. Let’s just try and enjoy it for the aesthetic pleasure.

Okay, the music. The music is intriguing like I initially said, but is very much lying in that blurry mid-ground between genius and tomfoolery. It also spurred one of the most entertainingly hilarious reviews from the All Music Guide I have ever seen, including lines like: “Maybe after the right cocktail of psychedelic drugs, this album might take you to a higher plane, or even more likely, it might really freak you out – but it will probably just bother you until you are forced to turn it off.” Higgs, in a totally instrumental outing, utilizes a cheap cassette recorder to capture his raucous experimentations with electric guitar, toy piano, banjo and Jew’s harp. The music is distraught, disjointed and discordant for the most part with periods of hypnotic textural drones and grooves (in the loosest of terms) that is not completely unlistenable, but certainly takes a mind more open to such things. Honestly, the closest reference point I can think of at the moment is perhaps a Sublime Frequencies release. It is certainly exotic, though more in the mind-bending sort of way than the worldly definition of the term.

As I’m sure you have figured out by this point, this music is not for everyone, but I would not go as far as saying its complete self-indulgent malarkey. There are moments where I really dig the circular patterns Higgs taps into especially with his guitar playing. And really, he is just in that genius/insane classification of artist who just exists on a different level of art exploration than the majority of us. If nothing, the accompanying book justifies the cost of the package even if you don’t spend too much time with the music. And as Higgs states in his anagram of “Beatuy”: “Because Everyone Awakens Under The Yoke.” Wait… what?

Radio Show Playlist: 6/13/07

Audiversity would not exist without WLUW-FM Chicago, who is in the midst of it's Spring Pledge Drive. It is a completely independent, listener-supported community radio station whose annual budget is made up of 95% of listener donations. The money will help WLUW continue to develop new and innovative programming (like Audiversity) and will help keep our sound quality state-of-the-art. And most importantly, it keeps WLUW as an independent voice in Chicago. Please call 773-508-7300 or visit wluw.org to donate. Thanks!

6a:
1. The Velvet Underground - Heroin - Live with Lou Reed 1969 Vol. 2 (Mercury 1988)
2. Chris Connelly - The Son of Empty Sam - The Episodes (Durto Jnana 2007)
3. Zelienople - Parts are Lost - His/Hers (Type 2007)
4. Espers - Cruel Storm - II (Drag City 2006)
5. Greg Ashley - Fisher King - Painted Garden (Birdman 2007)
6. Mark Fry - The Witch - Dreaming with Alice (Sunbeam 2006, recorded 1972)
7. Dungen - Familj - Tio Bitar (Kemado 2007)

7a:
1. Savath & Savalas - Apnea Obstructiva - Golden Pollen (Anti- 2007)
2. Fruit Bats - Strange Little Neck of the Woods - Echolation (Perishable 2001)
3. Town & Country - King of Portugal - Up Above (Thrill Jockey 2006)
4. Stanley Cowell Trio - Ibn Mukhtarr Mustapha - Illusion Suite (ECM 1972)
5. Chicago Underground Duo - Exponent Red - Axis & Alignment (Thrill Jockey 2002)
6. Herbie Hancock & Willie Bobo - A Jump Around - Succotash (Pausa 1964)
7. Kahil El'Zabar's Infinity Orchestra - Soul to Groove - Transmigration (Delmark 2007)

8a:
1. Blank Blue - All the Shallow Deep - Artdontsleep Presents From L.A. With Love (Milan 2007)
2. Reminder - On Rooftops - Continuum (Eastern Developments 2006)
3. Peanut Butter Wolf - What About the Beats? - Styles, Crews, Flows, Beats (Stones Throw 1998)
4. Mansbestfriend - Allieverwanted - Poly.sci.187 (Anticon 2007)
5. Daedelus - Scaling Snowdonia - Of Snowdonia (Plug Research 2004)
6. Dosh - Um, Circles and Squares - The Lost Take (Anticon 2006)
7. Curtis Mayfield - Billy Jack - There's No Place Like America Today (Curtom 1975)
8. Marion Black - Listen Black Brother - Eccentric Soul: The Prix Label (Numero Group 2007, recorded 1972)
9. Stevie Wonder - I Was Made to Love Her - I Was Made to Love Her (Tamla 1967)
10. The Jai-Alai Savant - Sugar Free - Flight of the Bass Delegate (GSL 2007)
11. The Eternals - High Anxiety - Rawar Style (Aesthetics 2004)

Various Artists - "Artdontsleep Presents From L.A. With Love"

Adventure Time - This Dome is Our Home (Milan 2007)

Various Artists – Artdontsleep Presents From L.A. With Love / Milan

While the I can easily understand the argument that some of the best music is produced by artists secluded from our continually interconnected web of a world (having no influences sometimes can be the best influence of individuality of all), but as music history has shown us, a geographically-centered collective of similar-minded musicians and artists create some of the most fascinating art of all. From the Delta bluesmen to Detroit’s Motown powerhouse to Memphis’s socially conscious Stax soul to NYC’s underground avant-rock to San Francisco’s flower power jam to São Paulo’s Tropicália to London’s British punk to Seattle’s grunge to Japan’s Shibuya-Kei to Chicago’s post-rock to Baltimore’s bass-heavy club and dozens of others I failed to mention, the right group of creative people all banded together in a constructive catalyst of a city can lead to revolutionary musical movements. Los Angeles has fiddled with a number of such collectives in the last few decades, from gangsta rap to West Coast punk, but they have really yet to establish one particular sound that truly defines the city for the better. Promotion group and party starter Artdontsleep (aka Andrew Lojero) has something to say about that though, and Artdontsleep Presents From L.A. With Love is just the kind of eye-opener to get a scene recognized.

Just when gangsta rap was reaching its popularity peak in the mid-to-late 90s, a new anti-movement began bustling in the west coast metropolis. It brought together the hip-hop underground (and I mean all four aspects of the culture, not just rap) in reaction to the quickly spreading negative stigma associated with gangsta rap and began to create an antithesis to the style. Two particular labels have become very influential over the last decade in promoting and cultivating this underground rap and electronica sound, Stones Throw Records and Plug Research. Together they have presented just how far reaching the creative musical possibilities of hip-hop can be whether its presented in a minimal electronica or gritty rap manner. Highly influential in the cities music scene, artists have been mixing aspects of both label’s idiosyncratic styles and have began to define the L.A. underground with this hybrid. Both this compilation and Lojero’s productive parties display this evolution beautifully by collecting some of the most established and promising artists in the city.

From the Stones Throw side of the spectrum, the one man you are all wondering about, the one and only Madlib, is here in two of his many monikers. The deep funk of Sound Directions and the synth-jazz of Yesterday’s New Quintet both make brief but heartfelt appearances with “Wildflower” and “I Remember John Coltrane” respectively. Two of the label’s up-and-comers also contribute including a soul-resonating snap-and-beatbox number from Nathan Yell aka Aloe Blacc and a subdued thumper from sultry songstress Georgia Anne Muldrow. Plug Research also contributes three artists themselves. The new collaboration between Daedelus and Frosty named Adventure Time drops a sample-heavy, cinematic dublab banger, DJ Nobody’s new project with vocalist Niki Randa called Blank Blue provides a sexy, psyche-hop number, and quickly-rising producer Flying Lotus (who actually just signed to WARP) drops some of his skittering and swirling synthesizer-riddled instrumental hip-hop.

The rest of the compilation features other L.A.-based musicians that are a bit less known but still exploring the same sound with the same potency. Synth-jazz trio From Leaf to Feather open the album with a sound akin to Yesterday’s New Quintet but with a looser Brazilian vibe. Producer Computer Jay and vocalist The Gray Kid team up for a very chill track of blue-eyed soul vocals and flickering electronic flourishes, while hip-hop DJ and producer Exile follows with a laid-back and infectious stutter-hop number. The comp closes a bit more organic with both Isaiah Ikey Owens’s Free Moral Agents and Carlos Niño & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson dropping some skilled musicianship.

Artdontsleep Presents From L.A. With Love is solid from beginning to end and truly does present a scene that is both similar and diverse as far as the music is concerned. There is a definite, distinctive sound yet each artist can move around within its limits to establish their very own fingerprint. And on top of all that, the album comes accompanied with a 28-page booklet featuring the like-minded visual artists tying the scene together. Each exclusive song is treated with its own inspired piece of art, whether it is produced by photograpy, painting, collage or graffiti (typically a combination of all), created specifically for the project from artists like B+, Food One, Augustine Kofie, Dez Einswell and Blaine Fontana among others. The entire package is gorgeously assembled and a perfect visual representation to the music held within. If you live in L.A., there will be an album release party on June 16th at The A+D Museum featuring most of the artists involved that I imagine will be ridiculously amazing, so I hope you make it out to that. For all of us non-Los Angeles residents, the comp is about as close as we can get, so do yourself a favor and get in the know, because there some ridiculously amazing art brewing in City of Angels.

Eats Tapes - "Dos Mutantes"

Eats Tapes - Lemon Drop (Tigerbeat6 2007)

Eats Tapes - Dos Mutantes / Tigerbeat6

And the rhythms just. don't. stop. I don't know what it is but I just can't get away from stuff that makes me feel paranoid. Have you ever seen that part in "Over the Hedge" where the squirrel downs the energy drink and then proceeds to stroll through the whole scene with the bear attacking the people? Well anyway, that's how I feel listening to stuff like Gouseion and Eats Tapes. But Eats Tapes are way more twisted. There's some of that 8-bit goofiness embedded in this project, but when it comes to laptops and technology, you can forget it: The duo formerly known as Boom de la Boom are out to get you dancing without the aid of their Macs. Break out the rolodex and swing to the numbers on your rotary phone: Eats Tapes are out to analogize your headphones.

But why bother when this thing has been out since March 19th? Well, partly because right now the group is doing a brief jaunt through Europe and if you're anywhere near Berlin, Denmark or Glasgow in the next few days, you should check them out. Also, it's whack. In a good way. Marijke Jorritsma and Greg Zifcak (who even without the Eats Tapes title would have pretty awesome names) are all about analog-inflected instrumental techno that demands dancefloors be filled.

It's all so wonderfully ebullient and innocently fun that saying no makes you look like a jerk. "Face Shredder" is a fist-pumping techno anthem interrupted only by noise generators and of course some NES action. It's spazztastic and totally un-hyphy, which is something San Francisco isn't really known for. And when I say "ebullient," I'm specifically thinking of the underwater "Lemon Drop" as Mario holds his breath for an incredible amount of time (Nearly seven minutes in this case) to get through all those submarine levels, yeah, you know the ones. This is the revised soundtrack to all those levels combined. As you can probably tell, it's hard to get enough of it.

And for all the times we brought Matmos up in reviews but only as a reference point (Vladislav Delay being the most recent example), lo and behold, Eats Tapes gives you "I've Become a Cretin" featuring none other than Nate Boyce (Boyce also did the "Tenderizer" video, an added bonus to the already mind-meltingly bright album art). A little guitar squall never hurt anybody out in the clubs even if this particular ten-track club insists on using MIDI sequencers and programmed drum loops.

"Wolf Blitzer" appropriately ends this one on a relentlessly high note. So unlike when Hammy the Squirrel's sugar rush recedes and things resume their normal pace around him, Eats Tapes do not "ease out" of this one. Right to the end, their thumping 8-bit beats jar your eardrums and leave you with a ringing that's louder than any old school rotary phone. You'll be glad you picked it up if you haven't already.

The Jai-Alai Savant - "Flight of the Bass Delegate"

The Jai-Alai Savant - Sugar Free (GSL 2007)

The Jai-Alai Savant – Flight of the Bass Delegate / Gold Standard Laboratories

Just recently, Chicago’s Watchers celebrated their new album release by sharing the stage with The Eternals and The Jai-Alai Savant. It is an interesting trifecta of Chicago acts because they all share a similar ethos yet each concocts a very individual sound. Both the Watchers with their Contortions-meet-Specials avant-funk-punk and The Eternals with their mutated P-Funk Afro-pop crafted with Upsetter-like production have been knocking around the scene for a good while now, but The Jai-Alai Savant are relatively new, especially here in the Second City. Damon Locks of The Eternals has provided artwork for both of the releases for the trifecta’s little brother, so the relationship with the newest act has been established for at least a minute, but I am curious just how far back it reaches. The shared aesthetic is just so strong, its almost as if they bounce ideas off each other; could a super group be in the works? Perhaps, but as for now, let’s place all hypothetical questions aside and just concentrate on the release at hand by putting the spotlight on The Jai-Alai Savant.

Brainchild of guitarist/singer/songwriter Ralph Darden, the trio’s debut EP on Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s Gold Standard Labs imprint, Thunderstatement, was just that: a highly energetic, booming statement of the hybrid reggae-punk-pop The Jai-Alai Savant (pronounced hi-a-lie sa-vant) were to unleash. Rounded out by drummer Michael Bravine, bassist Nash Snyder and dub-beat-concoctor Major Taylor (Darden's DJ alias), the Chicago-by-way-of-Philly group have now let the reigns loose with their debut full-length Flight of the Bass Delegate. Like the EP and their companion bands, it truly defies categorization. Post-punk chugs beneath the dub production, reggae riddims groove with pop-punk energy, krautrock experimentation progresses with power-pop anthems, along with a dozen other odd pairings that make up the album. It’s music that is both infectious and challenging, which is the toughest couple of all to balance.

One major comparison I have been hearing a lot is to The Police, which obviously is not quite up to the wide-reaching descriptions I have been delineating so far. But I can also easily see why it is so often used. Darden sings with a similar high-pitched yelp to Sting, but with much, much more energy and urgency. And the bright marriage of reggae, pop and punk is also similar to the 80s sensation, but the parallel would be much stronger if The Police had evolved in a post-punk realm rather than just pop, pop and more radio-friendly pop. Plus the heavily playful Eternals-like dub production really shatters any such comparison to justify the outside reference.

The band really excels when the anthem-friendly energy is turned all the way up (in a similar manner to Parts & Labor’s recent release, but with less noise-rock). In particular, “Scarlett Johansson Why Don’t You Love Me” (a question every male anywhere very much including myself asks himself every time we watch Ghost World or Lost in Translation; talk about relatability) and “Sugar Free” will have you singing along after the very first chorus. The former boogies along with its stabbing, tinny guitar chops and harmonic group vocals, and the latter with a mellower rocksteady build up and wonderful fireworks-show climax. “The Low Frequent See” on the other hand displays the experimental prowess of the group. At nearly eight minutes long, the song kicks off with a sample-heavy dub riddim before a horn-colored melodic-tinged groove instigates that relaxed rocksteady dance you can’t help but succumb to when listening to that late 60s reggae. Synthesizer effects and urgency layers as the song progresses, and after a climax laced with trumpet and sax, the initial dub riddim re-imagines the theme for a couple of grooving minutes. It is not completely unlike The Clash’s better dub-inflected numbers.

Now that The Jai-Alai Savant is officially established as an act to wrap your ears around, can we now call this new wave of dub-punk a scene? If so, sign me up, because I am digging the hell out of it, and if it produces more albums like Flight of the Bass Delegate, Heavy International and Vampire Driver than let’s all show our love. Hmmm, someone should really start a label to band these similar minds together and further define the musical powerhouse that is Chicago. Anyone out there willing to loan me a couple grand to get it off the ground?

Interversity: Mansbestfriend

Musical mastermind Tim Holland aka Mansbestfriend has taken some time out to answer our Interversity questions this week. The Portland, ME-born MC came into his own as a founding member of the Anticon collective (alongside Pedestrian) in 1998. As Sole, Holland achieved critical success despite his "pop" ambitions; now with his Mansbestfriend moniker, Holland is looking to do some things a little differently. As with Aja West, these answers are thoroughly unedited. Enjoy.









Mansbestfriend - Stuck in My Head Since I Was 12 - Poly.sci.187 (Anticon. 2007)

1. What led you to creating the Mansbestfriend alias?

i suppose, being around musicians all the time i wanted to make my own music. i wasnt working a day job or anything, so in my spare time i wanted to make beats, that didnt have any pre-concieved notions...

2. Before you ever press play for Poly.sci.187, there's the distinctive dinosaur cover-art. What's the story behind that?

hmm. well, i had a line a few years ago about how fossil fuels is actually dead dinosaurs, and thats what we drive our cars on, and thats pretty fascinating to me, and of course, like all good children, i loved dinosaurs. over the years i have drawn that dinosaur, or a mushroom cloud when people ask for autographs. i became quite fond of the dinsaur and wanted him to accompany me on this journey.

3. I think at one point last summer I remember hearing how the air conditioning in your office was broken. How much do temperature and climate affect the way you write or what you write about?

well, thank god, i dont write my songs in a record label office! but temperature has a serious effect. i couldnt write a damn thing in barcelona, it was so hot there you could fry an egg on my back. lately ive enjoyed the seasons here in arizona. i write my best stuff when its a bit brisk, if its too hot i just wanna splash around in some water.

4. At the University of South Carolina, POLI187 would've been a freshman-level course about "controversial world politics." Obviously the "Poly" in the album is a little twist, but why specifically 187?

187 is the police code in california for murder. so, im sure its a play on "revolutionary suicide." basically, what it means, is you can think about this stuff all day, it'll dry you crazy. most people prefer NOT to think about these things, the news is depressing to them, they dont like to talk about things that might make anyone uncomfortable, which is why, as you say, im posing questions on this record, trying to bring it to a personal level, because its killing people everywhere, its not just news you can ignore, it cant be reduced to an artificial debate about troop withdrawal, you curse israel god curses you, or whatever the current hot (non)topic is. we are a stupid stupid stupid peoples and we will reap what we have sewn, in our own lifetime, its just a matter of how much, how fast, and how catastrophic our decline will be.

5. Is there anything you hope to achieve with Mansbestfriend that differs from when you're Sole?

sole wishes to be rich and famous. mansbestfriend truly doesnt't care. mansbestfriend is the raw, unchannel musical impulses of tim holland, and sole is the best attempt tim holland can make at clever "pop" songs. mansbestfriend tim holland is the main producer, for sole tim holland would never dare, and would go crazy to try to produce his own record, thus removing the fun that occurs through collaboration.

Audiversinquiry (10 questions we ask everyone)

1. What did you specifically remember listening to as a child that triggered a notable response?

the first rap i ever heard was some boombox on some 80s movie and the guy said "as im dropping my science in this language called english" and that one line flow made me want to rap. and i basically picked my craft up based around those lines, well, i like to drop science anyway.

2. You are heading across town this moment and will have time to listen to one complete album during the trip. What would you listen to?

silver mount zion "horses in the sky"

3. Are there any other media that you draw inspiration from? Books, authors, painters, actors, movies, celebrities, etc.?

books mainly, i try to rotate it a bit. my absolute favorite writer/thinker is guy debord, he fills all voids for poetry, antagonism, analysis, etc. for poets i like lord byron, villon, greg korso, bob kaufman, then bob dylan, pete seger, woodie guthrie, don delillo, kurt vonnegut, etc. i havent had the patience to read much lately.

4. Where do you go to discover new music and sounds?

web forums i guess. usually i'll just hear about something, and seek it out.

5. What question do you get most often that you hate answering?

any question where i have to simplify a very compilcated idea/process into a 2 sentence blur. questions about anticon, race, america, etc, questions where it seems the person asking doesnt really care about the answer, is just trying to fill up a page, and will just use my quotes to fill their pre-concieved notions.

6. Favorite instruments or specific sounds?

lately i've been into oboes, nice thick distorted. i like goddy pretentiuos sorta walls of noise. i like real good elctro drums. i like very almost invisible crunchy synths. i like strings. i like nice analog dubby sounding delay. i like the way serge gainsburgs records were recorded in the 60s, or really all music in general back then.

7. The record store is closing in ten minutes and you are hell-bent on buying something before they close, what section do you head immediately towards?

probably the rap section. the only time i go to record stores is when im on tour, and when im on the road i need good mainstream rap to keep me going.

8. What is the last notable daydream you had and where did it take place?

my last daydream was about growing soy in my living room on a laddice, and then making my own tofu.

9. What is the perfect album to you? Are there any? Is it possible?

um. the perfect album to me is original, it has incendiary lyrics, it moves me in all ways at once. not much music does this for me, literally, the only new music i really stand behind is silver mount zion.

10. Do you keep up with blogs? Which if so?

not really.... i check out wonkette, i like the way thats written.

Singleversity #14

Audiversity’s weekly column, slightly modified, on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 60.

MA:



I have heard rumblings of a new Black Mountain album, which is exciting since it’s been a good two years since their eponymous debut reminded us that stoner rock doesn’t necessarily mean boring. So in celebration, here is "Voices", an enigmatic number from the Vancouver collective only available on Suicide Squeeze’s Slaying Since 1996 label retrospective. mmmm, sexy and sticky.

PM:













Another file from the bigger-than-it-seems Should’ve Picked This Up Sooner Even Though it Sounds a Lot Like The Jesus Lizard or Fugazi and So On Dept.: STNNNG’s “Grand Island, Neb.” A heartwarming tale of an ancient ship’s crew verbally abused by their commander as narrated from Minneapolis. My favorite quotation from “Ben Hur:” Row well and live. Ramming speed, slave!

Vladislav Delay - "Whistleblower"

Vladislav Delay - Lumi (Huume 2007)

Vladislav Delay - Whistleblower / Huume

Why hasn't this album been given more attention? In a week where I seemingly cannot get away from beats, Vladislav Delay pulls me in and says hey, maybe you need to lay off on beats per se and try on something a little differently. Look at electronic music not from the beat down but from the ambient sounds surrounding it. Worry about rhythms later. Deconstruct the traditions of house and dub and rebuild reconstruct them in your own image. This is what Finnish-born, Berlin-based Sasu Ripatti has been chiseling away at for a decade now on his own Huume Recordings. Whistleblower is merely the latest in a long line of better and better releases.

A genre that was originally birthed inadvertantly by The Orb in the early 90s has since been exploited most successfully by Ripatti, but ambient dub isn't his only trick. As he has made long-since clear, Vladislav Delay is only one in a handful of different monikers that amount to variations on a theme via techno, house and downtempo. Conoco, Luomo (arguably his most successful), Sistol and Uusitalo are all takes on the sounds that have driven him from his time learning jazz as a kid... But we're a long way from Philly Joe Jones. Closer instead to Pan Sonic or even Matmos in found-sound manipulations whistleblown into the chilled mix of keyboards that float through songs like the 12-minute "Wanted to (Kill)" or the uneasy Space Station Mir theme song "Lumi," Ripatti has been digging endlessly to find what else lies in among the sounds of his chosen style.

2005's The Four Quarters was a pretty good album to be used as a natural segue for what was to follow. Whistleblower is it, but the tension apparent not just in the easy-going-at-first-glance synthesizers but also in the percussion (and lack thereof) is an excellent example of Ripatti's current mindset. Luomo, Sistol and the rest just wouldn't have worked for his grander vision on this occasion. It had to be downtempo, and the expectations had to be fucked with.

What's resulted is arguably his best piece of work in the decade that he's been at it under the Delay name. The glory in using dub as a technique is that you can hide sounds and rhythms for ages and then suddenly let them reappear again as if they had been that prominent the whole time. You could listen to this album a dozen times (as I now have) and never hear the same thing twice. That's part of what makes Vladislav Delay so engaging, and mostly what makes his music so enduring.

Savath & Savalas - "Golden Pollen"

Savath & Savalas - Apnea Obstructiva (Anti- 2007)

Savath & Savalas – Golden Pollen / Anti-

Working at both a radio station and a record store, I often get asked, “Who is your favorite artist?” It is a pretty unfair question that is often used to pigeonhole your tastes, but I don’t get mad at the interrogator because it is also works as an excellent icebreaker and an integral conversation-starter in these particular settings. While I typically answer truthfully and give the ol’ “well there are just so many to really pick JUST one,” I will occasionally be more specific with an inquisitor who is obviously looking for a starting point in contemporary music. That particular reaction is almost always Guillermo Scott Herren, because the vastly multi-faceted artist shares my penchant for so many different styles of interest and has created a variety of different über-productive outlets for experimenting with each particular direction. Not to mention, my personal relationship with music mutated from an interest to an obsession corresponding with my discovering his Prefuse 73 moniker in the early 00s. And perhaps the most telling characteristic of all, Herren refuses to sit idly; he lets each consecutive album or project portray his continued development and maturity as an artist and musician.

A man of many faces, Herren has developed a number of different outlets for each of his particular interests. He drops meticulously sliced and sequenced hip-hop as Prefuse 73, paints avant-glitch soundscapes as Delarosa & Asora, concocts ethereal beauty and sonic pleasantness with Claudia Deheza as A Cloud Mireya, tinkers with Rhodes, Wurlitzers and other acoustic keyboards as Piano Overlord and occasionally remixes rebelliously with friend and collaborator DJ Nobody as La Corrección. None of his projects sound alike, but they all secrete a sort of omnipotent vibe that simultaneously embodies musical pioneers of the past while always sturdily looking forward. The most interesting of these monikers in terms of personal development has got to be Savath & Savalas though. More a channel for acoustic-based experiments than anything, the project has evolved from the initial pastoral and glitch-lite post-rock of 2000’s debut, Folk Songs for Trains, Trees and Honey, to utilizing the alias to explore his Spanish roots with Catalan singer/songwriter Eva Puyuelo on 2004’s Apropa’t and Mañana. While each particular album has its own particular sound, they all share a very patient, lush aesthetic and have the innate ability to transport the listener into a state of cathartic bliss.

Now three years since a proper release from the Savath & Savalas moniker, Herren has made the move from electronica pioneers WARP to a label more suited for this particular moniker, Anti-. Their slogan “real artists creating great recordings on their own terms” and an extremely diverse roster that includes everyone from Tom Waits to The Locust to Mavis Staples to The Coup could not suit Herren better. Golden Pollen also features the multi-instrumentalist and producer acting almost as a singer/songwriter for this first time in his decade-long career, though as always, he has plenty of talented friends to help round out the sound. All housed in Chicago’s Soma Studios, engineer and Tortoise drummer John McEntire, sound experimenter and Battles member Tyondai Braxton, Swedish singer/songwriter José González, vocalist Mia Doi Todd, Triosk percussionist Laurence Pike, jazz bassist Josh Abrams aka Reminder, AACM flutist Nicole Mitchell, and A Cloud Mireya collaborator Claudia Deheza each add their idiosyncratic colors to the lush, plaintive, swirling painting that is Golden Pollen. With Herren acting as the conductor, this mini-orchestra of diverse talent creates an album that marries the earnest, exotic vibe of Luiz Bonfa with the post-modern expressions of the Leaf label.

Like the previous Savath & Savalas albums, Herren reaches back to his Spanish roots for the basis of his sound. By utilizing Latin stringed instrumentation like the Venezuelan cuatros, Cuban tres and flamenco guitars with other warm, melodic sounds like that of concertinas, vibes and woodwinds, Golden Pollen literally emits romantic sentimentality. But this is Guillermo Scott Herren we are talking about, so that is only the starting point. Along with a variety of percussion and drums, he stirs in Moog synthesizers, harmoniums, concert strings with processed sounds and his trademark skittering production. Though the mood may be placid, each moment of this album is chock full of swimming frequencies creating a river of constantly stirring sounds. Herren also takes the first crack at being the featured vocalist for the first time in his career; his yielding Spanish coo rarely acts as an actual focal point, especially for us non-Spanish speakers, but integrates itself seamlessly with the rest of the mellow musicianship surrounding it. Golden Pollen swishes and swoons, ebbs and flows, and effervesces lushly for 50+ minutes of exotic pleasantries.

Like the album’s artwork, Golden Pollen is an intriguing collage of both organic and synthetic material warmly hued and blended caringly to a minute degree. There are many moments of eyebrow raising exquisiteness when the lush instrumentation, creative producing and sentimentality hit just the right balance, but at sixteen tracks, I’d venture to say it drifts on just a bit too long. Shave off ten minutes of material (as painfully as I’d imagine it would be for Herren) or better yet, break it down into two albums of Mañana length, and I think it would be a bit more easily digestible. It is certainly not that the music is below insatiable at any point during the album, but for such a mellow, meandering vibe, less-is-more is the name of the game as far as attention spans are concerned. Personally though, I merrily soak up any Savath & Savalas material that comes my way and Golden Pollen elegantly continues the fascinating development of Guillermo Scott Herren and his nearly unparalleled artistic vision and high level of production.

Michio Kurihara - "Sunset Notes"

Michio Kurihara - Pendulum on a G-String: The Last Cicada (20-20-20 2007, Pedal 2005)

Michio Kurihara – Sunset Notes / 20-20-20, originally Pedal 2005

Let’s all face it, Boris with Michio Kurihara’s Rainbow is a phenomenal record that will be making a hell of an argument come December when those omniscient year-end lists start stirring. Not only did it prove how multi-dimensional ear-damaging Japanese trio Boris truly is as they seemingly reach their full potential, but also acted as an American coming out party for guitarist Michio Kurihara, who blew our collective minds with each sun-drenched, patiently powerful solo. I say “American coming out party” though because he actually released a solo album in Japan back in 2005, which truly displayed the subdued virtuosity hidden behind Masaki Batoh in the folksy psych-rock outfit Ghost. Sunset Notes proved Kurihara had come into his own a year prior to the first official Rainbow release, and (probably) thanks to the latter’s immediate success, we behind-the-curve Americans are finally getting our first taste of his blossoming as a solo artist.

I actually feel bad saying that it took till 2005 for Kurihara to truly emerge as a force all his own, because he has been proving his talented musicianship for nearly twenty years now. Raised on classical music, the Tokyo-born guitarist caught his first break when he was invited in 1986 by his soon-to-be-long-time collaborator You Ishihara to join White Heaven, one of Japan’s most highly revered psychedelic rock bands who were instrumental in reviving that scene in the late 80s. Establishing a penchant for wailing riffs and crunchy lyricism, Kurihara spent five years learning the ropes and unconsciously gearing up for his next highly regarded band Ghost. Headed by one of Japans most talented guitarists, Masaki Batoh, Kurihara first collaborated with the psyche-rock commune in 1991 before officially becoming a member three years later where he remains today. In 1999, he also hooked back up with his former White Heaven bandmates Ishihara and Chiyo Kamekawa to form a sort of second-wave Japanese-psyche super-group in The Stars which took on a protean metal-blues sound taking a page from Led Zeppelin and then writing a multi-genre opus around it. So after nearly twenty years of kicking around Japan’s most talked-about psyche-rock outfits, Kurihara finally took a step in the one direction he had somehow failed to attempt all this time: a solo career.

I think the most appealing and respectful characteristic of Sunset Notes is how restrained it feels. Don’t get me wrong though, there are moments when the wailing, soaring guitar virtuosity in all its feedbacking glory cannot be denied, but we have heard all of that from Kurihara before. The most telling aspect of this solo album his how he can strip down those moments to their bare essentials and conjure emotions with his lyrical guitar lines that never once step into over-indulgence or gimmickry. Absolutely every note sounds agonized over so that there is not one sliver of fat on this lean, hearty specimen of a guitar album.

While the concept of the record is rather loose and very impressionistic, it is telling of the many shades of color utilized in these nine songs. Drawing inspiration from nine different sunsets on periodic points of the calendar, Kurihara, with the help of Ishihara, Ichiro Shibata and White Heaven’s Soichirou Nakamura, conjures nine diverse audible replications of these majestic displays of nature with precise execution and gorgeous arrangements. While the album gracefully hits both sides of the dynamic spectrum, when he marries the two is when Sunset Notes really excels. “Pendulum on a G-String: The Last Cicada” has got to be the centerpiece; with Kurihara managing all three layers of the electric guitar cascade and accompanied only by an almost Brazilian triangle beat, the song absolutely does justice to the multi-hued fall sunset it sets out to mimic. With varying levels of feedback, each guitar line weaves in and out of the others never overlapping frequencies but certainly intertwining them. “A Boat of Courage” is along the same lines, but with a much more slowly developing and melodramatic climax. Like its inspiring June sunset, the atmosphere is a bit warmer, the colors are a bit more subdued and an overall sense of relief is undeniable as it closes out the album.

Don’t fret too much though if you more of a fan of Kurihara’s noisy side, “Canon in ‘C’ (C is for Cicada)” is two minutes of Branca-like all-encompassing feedback and “Twilight Mystery of a Russian Cowboy” soars along with a firebird of a guitar sound and a romping, stomping beat. And on the complete opposite side of things, Pedal’s female pop star, Ai Aso, provides her hushed female coo to two numbers. “Wind Waltzes” breezes on a simple synth skip and delicate brushes of Kurihara’s guitar, while “The Wind’s Twelve Quarters” is a bit more slow-burning with meandering electric guitar strums and organ flourishes (honestly, it reminds me of Broadcast without the blips and bloops).

As you can see, Sunset Notes is an album in the best definition possible: it is a multi-dimensional collection of songs that remains cohesive and tells a story without ever re-treading territory. Kurihara’s guitar work is less mind-blowing virtuosity and more consciously and deceptively simple framework that undeniably proves his talent as a songwriter. If mind-bending is what you are out for, head straight for Rainbow, but if it’s something more laidback and intimate you’re craving, look no further than Sunset Notes.

Gouseion - "Puisne"

Gouseion - Barclay (Run Riot 2007)

Gouseion - Puisne / Run Riot

I've been sitting on Gouseion for quite some time now, trying to decide exactly how much I like this album and why it seems so innocuous the first time you play it through, so harmless, so incidental. It hit me somewhere through the third or fourth play through: This is childlike music in the same way that Modeselektor or, more relevantly, Tepr are childlike: You may have the uneasy air of "Teledate" whispering through, but it's the 8-bit Nintendo themes that dominate these songs. It may not be as carefree or immediately joyous as its French contemporaries or even some on the American scene, but Puisne is definitely an album gamers will grab on to with gusto.

That said, a brief biography is in order: Despite all evidence thus far to the contrary, Cassidy DeMarco is actually not French at all. Rather, DeMarco calls Portland home. There he made a name for himself doing pretty much everything. The proof: Monodec was his abstract IDM alias in the late 90s, which predated slowcore outfit C++ (inspired, he explains, by Jameson Irish whiskey... which is as good a muse as I've ever heard). DeMarco is also involved with Disscompany Records after founding it in 2003 and releasing hip-hop material as Brokaw in addition to his breakcore moniker Minijack, suggesting a return to his electronic beginnings.

But that wasn't enough, oh no. In 2005 he revived Monodec and subsequently recorded two EPs and an LP which, up to now, hasn't been released. So maybe we should be thankful that DeMarco actually did go ahead with releasing Puisne, though this suggests all of his influences over the years rather than any one specific genre. You can hear the NES and SNES systems fighting for control of songs with hip-hop beats and moody passages on tracks like "Turing Test." By the way, he's got two mixtapes out. More are coming.

In other words, 28-year-old DeMarco is a maniac, incredibly restless, and no one style suits him because he can never focus on it for too long. Understandable. I like the idea of DeMarco as a "digital gangsta," as he prefers. More than any other label, that one seems to suit him best. Dude's just a straight-up badass, but putting that in more eloquent terms would necessitate describing his entire back catalog. For your sake and mine, we'll save it for another day. Just know that "Stagger" is an excellent song and peaks as the second-half on an album full of golden electro nuggets, the blocks rounded off by wavering synth trickery you've heard and sort of paid attention to a thousand times before.

"Barclay" is a personal favorite of mine, not because it's the first track and thus one I remember easier. Instead, I find the melody of "Barclay" to suit the opening of this album well and though it could be buried deep in the middle like "Stunt Lounge" or something, I'm pleased that DeMarco went with it as the opener. It is infectious, virtually irresistible, and flows almost unnoticeably into "Study23." At first it seems like cheesy breakcore or something, but it comes around soon enough. Just 38 seconds is all it took to get me hooked. Hopefully the same reaction will happen for you.

I don't know what DeMarco's next plan is - maybe reggae or tech-metal or, better yet, a folk album about all 50 states I bet he could beat Sufjan Stevens to in finishing - but for now, Gouseion's Puisne satisfies as a sublime 8-bit IDM record that deserves more than merely flying below the radar. Soon enough, the kids will be calling out for "Pirony" if there's any, um, justice in this world. Bad wording, but you get the idea.

History Invades - "In Vision Vanish Invisible"

History Invades - Post-Modernist Trap: The Stalker's Guide to the Universe (Lujo / Pish Posh of North America 2007)

History Invades - In Vision Vanish Invisible / Lujo / Pish Posh of North America

On a different point of the space-time continuum, Delusions of Adequacy introduced me to History Invades. "We Ran Out of Bridges So We Burned Down Our Houses" is a song title I'm still not sure is correct even now, but it singlehandedly led me like a horse to water to the band's album The Structure of a Precise Fashion. I'm not sure what it was (although the name always struck me as being pretty awesome, the result of some history grad's grand band plan), but the disco-meets-noise aesthetic was something I hadn't realized was missing from my musical diet; with the "Make room for computer know-how" refrain, I had also simultaneously discovered the band's modus operandi.

While other releases swamped me unexpectedly this past month, History Invades somehow slipped by. I say that because, as you can see above, the cover art is virtually impossible to miss. Thank the artistic brilliance both literal and figurative of Nigel Dennis for that: Also known for his work for Cherry Coke, XLR8R, and Nylon, Dennis has accurately captured the form and function of what the San Francisco-based group are all about: Ones and zeros. But on In Vision Vanish Invisible, the guys have taken what they've learned from Gang of Four and Autechre and applied it to what they've discovered from Boards of Canada. It's no longer just about blasts of noise emanating from an Italians Do it Better beat, but instead mood and ambient passages are constructed and deconstructed in a smoother fashion than on The Structure of a Precise, er, Fashion. Yeah.

So take for example one of the best tracks on the album and maybe my favorite, "I Speak in Imperatives: I Feel on Impulse." The vocals veer between chord-shredding vocals, just on the safe side of singing, and the wonderfully spacey sounds of the synths that generate a disorienting speaker sound. It's not the most instantly accessible (That award goes to first single "Intensity in Ten Cities") but it does capture how History Invades have changed. Instead of throwing every possible sound into the blender, the band is now experimenting with how to use all those tricks they had at their disposal the first time through the whole album thing. They're definitely a little smarter this time around, even if their song titles still border on the Red Sparowes A-list of annoying. Whatever, guys. The music is too good not to like.

Case in point: "Skies of the Times, Colonnades of The Modem: A Vanishing Synapses" is the concluding track, slightly more downbeat than the rest and thankfully tucked away as the concluding track. Indeed, while the titles may be frustrating to remember and the albums tongue-twistingly deranged, the music remains the strongest asset of the band. Don't let, say, "Of Transparency in Disposition; The Fear of Dilution Upon Reflective Eyes" get in between you and your love for In Vision Vanish Invisible. This band is still young enough to get so much better... But that they've already bested many bands on supposedly equal footing is testament enough. For all their faults, History Invades is still ascending to the top of their game. Don't let their third album creep up on you like their second crept up on me.

Radio Show Playlist, 6/06/07

Audiversity would not exist without WLUW-FM Chicago, who is in the midst of it's Spring Pledge Drive. It is a completely independent, listener-supported community radio station whose annual budget is made up of 95% of listener donations. The money will help WLUW continue to develop new and innovative programming (like Audiversity) and will help keep our sound quality state-of-the-art. And most importantly, it keeps WLUW as an independent voice in Chicago. Please call 773-508-7300 or visit wluw.org to donate. Thanks!

6a:
1. Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out - Dig Me Out (Kill Rock Stars 1997)
2. Bikini Kill - Rebel Girl - Pussy Whipped (Kill Rock Stars 1994)
3. Part Chimp - New Cross - Cup (Monitor 2007)
4. Effigies - Scarecrow - Reside (Criminal IQ 2007)
5. Poster Children - If You See Kay - Daisychain Reaction (Twin/Tone / Sire 1991)
6. Watchers - Crumbs ft. James Chance - Vampire Driver (Gern Blandsten 2007)
7. Contortions - Contort Yourself - Buy (ZE 1979)
8. Sarolta Zalatnay - Itt a Nyar - Sarolta Zalatnay (Finders Keepers/B-Music 2007)
9. Battles - Tonto - Mirrored (WARP 2007)
10. Don Caballero - Haven't Lived Afro Pop - American Don (Touch & Go 2000)

7a:
1. Fred Lonberg-Holm Trio - Three Note Song - Terminal Valentine (Atavistic 2007)
2. Philip Cohran & the Artistic Heritage Ensemble - Unity - On the Beach (Aestuarium 2001, recorded 1967)
3. Michio Kurihara - Pendulum on a G-String-The Last Cicada - Sunset Notes (20-20-20 2007, Pedal 2005)
4. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Boiling Death Request a Body to Rest Its Head On - Se Dice Bisonte, No Bufalo (GSL 2007)
5. Boris with Michio Kurihara - Sweet No. 1 - Rainbow (Drag City 2007)
6. Tortoise - Monica - Standards (Thrill Jockey 2001)
7. John McEntire - Set Up for Bed - Split 7in. with Sea & Cake (Hefty 1999)

8a:
1. Chris Connelly - Mirror Lips - The Episodes (Durto Jnana 2007)
2. Meg Baird - Riverhouse in Tinicum - Dear Companion (Drag City 2007)
3. MoMo - Tempstede - A Estetica do Rabiscio (Dubas Musica 2007)
4. Gilberto Gil - Cerebro Electronico - Gil Luminoso (Biscoito Fino 2006, recorded 1999)
5. The Temptations - Psychedelic Shack (extended version) - Psychedelic Soul (Motown 2003, recorded 1969)
6. La Sonora de Lucho Macedo - Guayaba - Gozalo! Bugalu Tropical (Vampi Soul 2007, recorded 1967)
7. Grupo Monumental - Si, Para Usted - Si, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba (Waxing Deep 2006, recorded 19??)
8. Jean-Michel Tim et Forty - Funky Bafoussam - Afrojazzfunk (Super Classe 200?, recorded 197?)
9. Ananda Shankar - Jumpin' Jack Flash - What It Is! (Rhino 2007, recorded 1970)

Blue Scholars - "Bayani"

Blue Scholars - The Distance (Mass Line Media 2007)

Blue Scholars - Bayani / Mass Line Media

It's likely that you've seen the artwork and the advertisements for Seattle's Blue Scholars making their rounds on various websites and publications for the past month, but the saturation in pre-album publicity was well deserved. There's your spoiler. Blue Scholars are arguably Seattle's finest hip-hop group (with apologies to Common Market, of course) and certainly among the pantheon of the most respected to come from the Emerald City. But what separates it from the rest of the "conscious" hip-hoppers out there?

Okay, starting off with "Baha'i Healing Prayer" is a radically different approach to the recent hip-hop fascination with Middle Eastern sounds (50 Cent's "Candy Shop" being the most immediate example I can think of). By that I mean, it's an actual taste of the Middle East as opposed to just appearing that way. Naturally, the more subtle tone is that this is going to be a political album with some seriously heavy content. Sure enough, Geologic and his cohort DJ Sabzi take their second-generation immigrant voices and undertake the most ambitious kind of album: That which deals with the politics and the people on both a local level and a global one.

The reason I say it succeeds is because, for me, Geologic's delivery may not be the most aurally engaging (especially for 15 songs clocking in at just under an hour) and Sabzi's rich musical background may not always shine through on his easy-going beats, but at the end of the day hip-hop is not necessarily about the method. It's about the message, and these guys have nabbed theirs down solidly. There's no question where they stand on Iraq ("Back Home"), the World Trade Organization ("50 Thousand Deep"), and immigration ("Xenophobia"). And what's best is that, while I've never been to Seattle, I can easily get a feel or at least a mental map of the city through the references that they weave in and out of their Big Picture flow. What's even better is that Sabzi's beats start off slow, but the middle of this album is so strong that I was astonished how well he came around. Changed my whole opinion of Geologic's delivery indirectly, because up to that point I had been on the fence about how strong this album really was all together rather than just as halves of the whole.

That may be the best part about this album, in fact. All the horns and snapping fingers and added vinyl hissing in the world can't mask a weak album lyrically, but Geologic has come through with arguably his best performance yet and certainly one of the better full-album deliveries of the year. In Geologic's ethnic background of Filipinio, Bayani refers to "heroes of the people." In Sabzi's Iranian background, Bayani means "the divine word." On their second album here, Blue Scholars have arguably achieved both not just for a generation of Seattle hip-hop heads but also for kids out there looking for inspiration in positive hip-hop. If Rhymesayers just isn't enough anymore, Blue Scholars and the Mass Line crowd are your answer.

The title-track Geologic rhymes that it's "gonna take more than just rain to change us." The truth of that is, they've already been changed. Two university students with a debut and an EP were hungry, but battle-tested and people-approved, Both Geologic and Sabzi have re-emerged to deliver the most consistent album to come out of Seattle maybe since their debut. Whatever the case, don't make the mistake of not picking this up just because of some negative press. If talking about the war or squalor in Seattle isn't your bag, stay the hell away. You probably shouldn't be listening to hip-hop in the first place. Club anthems are your bag, kid. This is why Blue Scholars are hot. Stooping to that level doesn't win plaudits, it wins cheap videos and cheaper hoes. In times such as ours, there's only so much of that a listening audience should be able to take. For one more album at least, we have something to keep our minds off the mindlessness of the clubs. I'll raise some Crown to that.

Theodore and Hamblin - "The Scientific Contrast"

Theodore and Hamblin - Pewn (Moteer 2007)

Theodore and Hamblin – The Scientific Contrast / Moteer

Damn the rain. The most revitalizing period of my week is the hour-long bike ride through the side streets and momentary neighborhoods of Chicago I get to enjoy every Monday while heading to my office on the North side. The sporadic rain showers outside my window are trying to prevent my coveted mental and physical sigh of relief this week, and taking the bus-to-often-delayed-train route is just not that appealing. But even though it is causing a little annoyance and procrastination, I cannot completely hate on the rain. It in itself is a periodic revitalization for both the Earth and my mind. There is just something immensely soothing about the slightly melodic patter of rain that helps wash away any lingering stress; so much so that my windows typically go up when the clouds start bellowing down. No, I do not want it to rain more than it sunshines, but goddamn do I love that periodic refreshment when it comes in small doses. Conveniently, these are very similar feelings I have for IDM, and more specifically the melodic minimum electronica that ran rampant in the late 90s. It is a genre that he somewhat fell out of style, so when an album’s worth of quality material drops in my lap, I pay attention… and listen… and feel refreshed.

As we heard with the recently discussed Fisk Industries compilation here on Audiversity, the IDM label is still far from being completely archaic. Subtlety, patience and pattering are just not the “in” sounds these days. That does not mean they are completely defunct though, you just have to dig a little deeper to find the crews still purveying that sound. Well look no further than the UK’s Moteer label where curators Craig Tattersall and Andrew Johnson are finding a comfortable stride with their blossoming imprint. They are already finding acclaim with warming electronica releases from artists like Clickits, Minimum Chips, Aus and my personal favorite, The Boats. For an overarching label listen, head straight for the Moteer::Sampler, but for now, we are going to concentrate on their latest release by Theodore and Hamblin, The Scientific Contrast.

A German duo very much indebted to early Morr Music releases (especially by Isan), Kibbee Theodore and Bernd Hamblin are much more about crafting a humble sound than worrying about any sort of style or outward appearance. In fact, they choose to remain as nondescript as possible and refuse to even be photographed or reveal much personal information. Their MySpace profile pretty much sums up their mindset with fragmented personal descriptions like: “We are private people, who live rather mundane lives.” / “We live in Germany, in apartments which are rather similar. In a small town near Bonn.” / “We like science and typography” / “We record by pressing the red button” / “We find it difficult to talk about ourselves.” With the melancholic, unassuming music involved on their debut release, I cannot say such biographical nuggets are surprising, and in fact, like their music, I find it somewhat refreshing.

Two of the brief descriptions I left off were that the pair met at a university while studying furniture design and that they have a wide array of electronic toys. There is no doubt both interests collide on The Scientific Contrast, and the architectural blueprints of these twelve songs stem from their profession of choice. Utilizing mostly nostalgic and innocent melodies and strategically subtle electronic noises, Theodore and Hamblin craft something plaintively beautiful. The music rarely reaches over a hum and the rhythms scarcely register on the audible charts, but when paired together, they form something truly engaging and peaceful. “Balmpe” and “Pewn” are the highlights of this combination. Each track begins very softly with just delicate, rhythmic electronic swells undercut by slightly skittering clicks. But as each song reaches the top of their easy-going climaxes, lush analog melodies form out of a multitude of untraceable electronic gadgets; every sound purrs and chimes and patters with care. It is not all sighs and hums though, songs like “Pelume” build off nearly abrasive high frequencies and “Hernd” rocks a four-on-the-floor dance rhythm however subdued it may be. There are a good variety of approaches to Theodore and Hamblin’s sound, but the album remains wholly cohesive.

I really could do some hefty name-dropping for comparisons, but really they would just be your typical IDM references anyways, so I will refrain from doing so. And anyways, Theodore and Hamblin’s approach is more to strip away all the typical defining aspects of the genre and utilize just the undertones to craft their music. If you listen to The Scientific Contrast all the way through, there is no doubt that you will come out the other side relaxed and refreshed (that’s like the fourth time I’ve used the verb "refresh" so take note). It is not necessarily music to fall asleep to, but more to calm your nerves and patiently contemplate a sticky situation. It is introspective, fragile and thanks to the artists’ taste for privacy, innately mysterious. Oh! And the rain stopped. I am not saying that Theodore and Hamblin necessarily had anything to do with it, but it certainly makes for a nice metaphor as their album comes to a close.

Chris Connelly - "The Episodes"

Chris Connelly - The Son of Empty Sam (Durtro Jnana 2007)

Chris Connelly – The Episodes / Durtro Jnana

Even today, more than fifteen years since he stepped out from the menacing shadows of the industrial scene he was so deftly intertwined within (Ministry, KMFDM, Pigface, Revolting Cocks, Murder, Inc.), dread-locked, leather-clad fans still show up to Chris Connelly’s solo shows hoping to hear that sinister scream. The realistic probability is that since they have clung on this long, there is no hope in evolving their tastes; but hopefully, these diehard fans will be turned on to the musically matured Connelly, the singer/songwriter with aged poetic lyricism and the insatiable craving to experiment. Sorry, the roaring heavy metal guitar riffs and pounding aggression are all but dissolved, but the passion and urgency is still easily heard, even though it may now be channeled through acoustic guitar strums and lyrical tropes. Connelly’s solo outings have been gaining momentum since the melodic Whiplash Boychild confused industrialites everywhere in the wake of Pigface's debut album in 1991. 2004’s highly acclaimed Night of Your Life on Invisible Records seemed like an apex for the Chicago-based Scot, but that was before the Everyoned project conjured a musical relationship with fellow Windy City innovators Tim Kinsella (Joan of Arc, Cap’n Jazz, Make Believe, Owls) and Ben Vida (Town and Country, Pillow, Terminal 4, Bird Show). There are still sonic experiments to be had and Connelly has reinvented his sound once again with his latest release, The Episodes.

The most striking aspect of The Episodes is its incredibly acoustic and dense atmosphere. Connelly and his talented cast of supporting characters fill each track to the brim with consciously monochromatic yet sprawling arrangements and opt for patiently developing, wholly organic songs. On paper, it is an odd collection of characteristics: Connelly’s creaking, Bowie-like croon emoting over an almost tribal circle of plodding toms, single-chord acoustic guitar strums, twinkling vibraphones, Vida’s teasing electric guitar noodles, occasional synth base lines, free jazz-leaning drum kits, sparse electronic tinges and even a mandolin (to name just a few). Yes, when they play it is chaotic, but in the strategically sloppy manner Kinsella has been perfecting for years and under Connelly’s elegant direction. All of the manic instrumentation combines into one throbbing, hypnotic background with the passionate narratives leading the way. It’s urgent, enigmatic and intense music that takes multiple spins to even begin to unveil.

The Episodes clocks in at just less than one hour, but there are only seven tracks involved. Ignoring the poignant two-minute coda, each track spans uncompromisingly with “Henry Vs Miller” being the spry, jazzy eleven-and-a-half minute centerpiece. If Scott Walker had hooked up with Soft Machine, it may have sounded somewhat similar. “Son of Empty Sam” may be the integral track of the album though as Connelly narrates a haunting tale of conceding to insanity as the music follows suit. Building from simple acoustic guitar strums, the song escalates for five minutes before threshold is broken and just ranting, pansophical voices are left. In simple terms, the protagonist has lost it. The second half picks up where the first section left off, but seemingly in a much more visceral manner. “The Ghost has an Orchestra” does nothing to dispose of the omniscient Bowie comparisons, but I seriously doubt Ziggy has ever been so hypnotic and tribal. And album opener “Mirror Lips” excels wonderfully with Connelly’s endearing tale being sung over a backdrop of shimmering acoustics and multi-layered hand percussion.

“Soul Boys/Hard Legends” is of special note because it was field recorded in a secluded forest of Wisconsin (conveniently pictured under the disc trey). If you thought the other songs were innately tribal, this completely solidifies the feeling. A loose, spooky piece, it does not quite live up to its accompanying album tracks, but certainly an interesting interlude following the epic “Henry Vs Miller.”

With such a diverse and unpredictable history already in place, it is really not that much of a surprise to hear Connelly reinvent himself once again on The Episodes, but certainly a much welcomed notch in his already world-worn belt. The album really burrows into your consciousness. On first listen, I was impressed but not hooked, but with each consecutive spin both music and lyrics unveiled another layer of depth. And it plods hypnotically, not really relying on one individual’s over-indulgent musicianship, but letting each player contribute just enough to affect the whole with an idiosyncratic charm. It is very like a Jackson Pollock painting where his spattering, seemingly random assortment of color and technique would dry into a brilliant, moving and undeniably preconceived piece of art.

Simian Mobile Disco - "Attack Decay Sustain Release"

Simian Mobile Disco - Sleep Deprivation (Wichita 2007; removed by request)

Simian Mobile Disco - Attack Decay Sustain Release / Wichita

Oh right, Simian Mobile Disco. What's that about Justice dominating dancefloors lately? I guess James Ellis Ford and James Anthony Shaw will have a little something to say about that when this summer's finished; after all, it was they who formed the other half of the glorious single "We Are Your Friends" (nee "Never Be Alone") that got Kanye West all worked up. Appropriately (and expectedly) then, there is already a fan-brewing rivalry between † and Attack Decay Sustain Release. Either way you go, there's loaded symbolism in the title alone. Encrypted come-hithers or merely the technical terms for how sound works? Hearing the record won't help, I can tell you that much.

And whatever "blog-house" is, I guess this qualifies. Digression: One of the many reasons I've avoided bringing that phrase up is because it's almost completely illegitimate. If Justice is blog-house and Simian Mobile Disco is blog-house, you might as well classify VHS or Beta and The Juan Maclean and The Rapture and every other dance band from the last five years as blog-house. The DFA is blog-house. Talk about recontextualizing the last half-decade. Maybe bloggers just call it that because their memories are so short they can't even remember what they reviewed last week. Isn't that sad? Less is more, kids. You don't get anywhere posting advance tracks from Oink with no frame of reference other than what you read on all your friends' blogs. By the way, remember when this would've been New Rave a few months ago? Or is that punchline too soon?

Point is, Simian Mobile Disco are futuristic acid-house, straight up. "Sleep Deprivation," pure acid revivalism my friend. Sounds like it came straight out of the glory days of '90 or '91 when the stuff couldn't kill you but drinking too much water in the club could. Did they even have Thermionic Culture Vulture Distortion Units in those days? All credit to the two Jameses behind this piece of work, because they've somehow managed to not trick listeners into buying different versions of their early Kitsune singles and multitude of remixes. Nevermind Brianstorm, did you hear the sirens on Klaxons' quasi-legendary "Atlantis to Interzone"? Remember how that vaguely reminded people of The Prodigy? Well, here we are folks: "Tits & Acid" brings them back with glorious glitchery clouding what stands as one of their better jigs. And then comes "I Believe." Sounds like it came straight from FutureSex/LoveSounds, I swear... Not that it's a bad thing. I mean, as a responsible blogger, I'm supposed to say how much I respect Justin Timberlake now and how affecting I thought "My Love" was.

Here's the thing, though: I've injected a lot of how I feel about the reactions to this record rather than the record itself. The official Audiversity stance is: Yeah, it's better than Justice's LP and it's a brilliant dance record besides. Part of the reason is because Justice veers dangerously close to self-parody on more than one occasion during the course of its full-length, which is great if you want more of what you expected. But Simian Mobile Disco are different because they understand perhaps better than their French counterparts that one-upping Daft Punk every track for an entire album gets old for bloggers, er, normal listeners. So they mix it up a bit, throwing in the aforementioned acid-house with their own take on Frelectro, punk-funk, minimalist tech, futuristic pop and Italdisco to create a seamless blend of all the above. It sounds like it would be a sleek, beat-driven mess. Maybe it would be boringly beat-driven if it weren't for the vocal tracks, but Ford and Shaw are clever. They balance one out with the other.

This is part of why Attack Decay Sustain Release works. "It's the Beat" is the first single and with all its sass seems perfect for dancefloors, but that one's obvious. "I Believe" is the cooldown mid-album and could not have been more perfectly placed. It really is the "My Love" of SMD's debut, but it's both glorious and gloriously cheesy in its own way. Namely: It doesn't have T.I., but it does have that uneasy early-90s disposable dance-pop feel to it (Be on the lookout for this one in July when underrated remixer Switch and Prins Thomas get their hands on it). Sensibly, the duo change pace so you don't spend too much time mulling it over. "Hotdog" kicks it back up, but the vocals play the same role they do in so many other songs here in the sense that they're so ridiculous you can't help but ignore them for the dance. It's better that way, though I wouldn't be surprised to see "Put 'em all together and what do you get? Ding-dong" on more than a few MySpace profiles by the end of the month. To follow that up with mostly instrumental "Wooden" is necessary as we start to reach the end of the journey. It feels well-placed. Everything here does.

From the Korg MS-20s to the Boss PC-2 synths that attack and sustain throughout the course of the album, it's Ford and Shaw's experience with their old group Simian that allows Attack Decay Sustain Release to linger long after you've turned it off. The beats are great, the electronic gimmickry expected, but the innate melodies of the songs, the hooks that bait you right from the off and don't let go until it's over - those are what put this duo ahead of all their peers. Justice may have its illuminated cross hypnotizing the masses, but Simian Mobile Disco are doing it the old-fashioned way with a few key tools and a knack for hooks; the real test will come when this one's only a distant memory of weighty expectations and breathless anticipation. Simian Mobile Disco have survived it all with one of the best dance records in a year of great dance records. For now, the easy part is over.

Interversity: Aja West

I am pleased to introduce the first installment of a new column entitled Interversity. As it suggests, each Sunday [that we're not in the mood for a Used-Bin Bargain] we'll feature an interview with one of our covered artists including five specific questions and an Audiversinquiry (Yes, we're aware of our obsession), a set of ten questions we ask everyone. Since this is an audioblog, an mp3 will naturally be included for your listening pleasure.

For our introductory Interversity, I am proud to present the funky mind of Aja West. A founder and CEO of the wonderful Mackrosoft label, which specializes in connecting the dots between funk, fusion, soul, jazz and electronic music, West has produced three solo albums (including The Olympian and Total Recall 2012) as well as collaborating with friends and family under the colorful guises of The Mackrosoft and The Cheebacabra. He took a break from his busy schedule of funkifying synthesizers, cooking home-grown meals and stretching his cerebral cortex to answer some questions for the Audiversity crew.



Aja West - "Penny in a Fountain" - Total Recall 2012 (Mackrosoft 2007)

1. In my review for 2007's Total Recall 2012, I pegged you for elaborating on the mid-70s pre-Prince funk sound (more synthesized than the butter-funk era, but less streamlined than urban R&B;); was this a conscious decision or did it just arise in the writing process?

“Peg it will come back to you.” – Steely Dan 1976
You pegged the great mid-70’s funk situation as my central influence correctly. Weather Report, Steely Dan, Parliament, Hancock, Sly and of course Mr. Brown are all central loves of my life. With time, I’ve come to hear that period of creativity as a prevailing wind in every record I’ve done under every guise I’ve used except for maybe when I’ve produced other people’s projects. In truth, every punk band, trustafarian, and real MC I every produced as a youth left the studio with more funk than they wished!

The first half of Total Recall 2012 is really a document of a long time collaboration between Reggie Watts and myself. I cold called him in High School when I heard the first Maktub record. Being an open cat Reggie was down to check out what I was doing. Flash to now.

We co-wrote that first slew of 2012 tracks featuring vocals together. Me laying all the drums and some basics then Reggie coming in and freaking Moog Voyager and vocals. The Honorable Watts brought a whole other set of unique musical experiences and judgments to the table. Listening to my catalog I can hear an obvious soul pop influence on the first half of the 2012 record that only shows up in slivers throughout the rest of my work. The micro-macro collaborative nature of this album for me resides in two memories:

1) Reggie was playing one night only at the Knitting Factory in LA then moving swiftly “Jason and the Argonauts” style the next morning. I wanted to record him and he’s a legendary trooper so I picked him up after the gig at around 3:00 AM and he was obviously exhausted from performing a hundred percent show. By the time we got food, caught up and pulled to the studio he was for good reason, asleep. So I geared up the track and played it into his headphones. Every time when his cue for lyrics came, he’d wake and sing or in a few cases mutter. I’m perpetually caught in the dream time/space between waking and sleeping so this was great for me to witness and a testament to the enormous talent of Reggie Watts. When all was said and done, in consensus reality, his glossolalia made it onto the record as an excellent lead vocal.

2) Almost every session began with us watching a VHS of the liberty chopper fly “Halls and Oates” to the Statue of Liberty for their great “Liberty Concert” to raise money to restore the old lady. That’s one way to get Lou Ferrigno before a musical workout.

2. How does the Aja West sound in particular differentiate from the rest of the Mackrosoft crew? Do you make it a point to not retread on the sound of other projects associated with the label?

Over time it’s natural order has emerged as this: If it’s instrumental funk with Aja West at the helm it’s “The Mackrosoft”. If it’s instrumental funk with Cheeba at the helm it’s “The Cheebacabra”. If it contains vocals, it’s “Aja West”. I can’t let the massive amount of talented musicians who have invested time, energy, and trust in “The Mackrosoft”, endure the scrutiny of the Aja West projects. These land squarely on my back.

I’ll retread in the sense of “variations on a theme” until I get it right. The “Mackrosoft Trilogy” as I experienced it was a slow process of shaping a series of jagged rocks into jewels that are somewhat self-similar. I can hear that rumble again with another trilogy of instrumental records by “The Mackrosoft” I’m completing this year. I think this has more to do with my clinging to the stability and assurance of quality by sticking with a fantastic group of funky players. Most of those musicians are lions and command their own projects while I’m interested in cats. As the Mackrosoft is evolving I’m making like “To Catch a Predator” and trying to rotate in new younger talent.

3. How did you hook up with former J.B.'s musical director Fred Wesley for Total Recall 2012? How much of an impact did he have on the recording sessions?

I was lucky enough to hook up with Fred Wesley and the Headhunters for 1st Mack to the Moon, 2012 and Antonio’s Giraffe. I think I owe those relationships partially to the respect those gentlemen have for the younger panthers that I’d been working with on prior Mackrosoft albums’. Magic sax man, Skerik has been a real advocate through his exceptional playing on the second more instrumental half of 2012, Antonio’s and Aja Aquarius. When the baddest of the funk-fusion octopus need a sax man many of them extend their tentacles to Skerik.

Impact wise, Fred was there strictly to play solo trombone. We ended up recording some jams with him playing against the rhythm section of Paul Jackson and Mike Clark from Herbie Hancock and The Headhunters. I’d rather record that than anything of mine so we ended up co-writing about four songs that appear on 1st Mack to the Moon. Fred’s playing was classic burley trombone and one day I’d love to have him write arrangements or record again. That was a gratuitous grace, working with the men that inspired me to make music and finding them to be beautiful novel individuals.

4. For real, how many synthesizers do you own? And is there a secret to harnessing the sexy groove you seem to milk out of each one?

There’s a great Steely Dan DVD where Donald Fagen and Walter Becker interview the great bassist Tom Barney about his large collection of basses as security blankets. I collect synthesizers, records, and other people’s trophies. While I may not have the best of each item in the collections, I have a lot of them and what palettes of color I don’t have; brother Cheeba’s on top of, synthesizers, not the trophies. We each have sets of the essential keyboards for our work, the Rhodes and Wurlitzer but the analog keyboards we don’t double up on, letting us multiple our collective options.

Musical secrets usually remain somewhat secret or whispered to me but here are my best clues on sexy grooves. Lay electric keys on a rhythm bed of drums and bass then sprinkle pedals of picked minimalist guitar. Wheel in the analog cannons, plug em’ in, smoke green and summon a quiet storm on top of the groove.

5. I love the artwork for all the Mackrosoft releases; do you have one person in particular who is in charge of that aspect? And how much energy do you put in to finding just the right visual accompaniment for your releases?

Thanks for asking because the visual art has always been a crucial element to the Mackrosoft aesthetic. Tom “Manningfest” Manning has been my most consistent comrade on the album art and covers. Artistically, we’ve worked together on numerous projects "The Mackrosoft Trilogy”, The Olympian, 2012, the mackrosoft.com web site... Tom Manning-festation has also appeared as a vocalist on my Trauma… Life in the E.R. album.

Eagle Rock - Los Angeles – Deep Nineties. I dated one of his college housemates and was constantly sneaking into the Pasadena Art Center to design and use their scanners. I’d forced Manning to take absurd phone messages for my lady friend and I’d seen him diligently working on weekend nights which has always been my thing. I quickly determined “The Manningfest” actually went to the art school, was an Ice T and House of Pain fan, and could negotiate my wildest visions. Tom and I continue to collaborate and outside of his Mackrosoft loyalties, he currently slaves over his own excellent quantum minded series of graphic novels “Run Off”.

“If you didn’t know before, now you do”– DJ Hurricane

When it comes to The Cheebacabra aesthetic, it leans much closer to psychedelic fine art. David Levitan’s 1970’s painting “The Perception Epic” graces the cover of Metamorphosis. We had been long time fans of the paintings he’d done for jazz-fusion violist Jon Luc-Ponty so to drink from the same well was a real treat. The Cheebacaba follow up Exile in the Woods features the work of one of histories greatest Zoologists, Desmond Morris AKA “The Secret Surrealist”.

As for the future, I’ll be unveiling my own take on perturbed illustrations and art on the next couple releases for better or worse.

Audiversinquiry (10 questions we ask everyone)

1. What did you specifically remember listening to as a child that triggered a notable response?

I’m lucky my parent’s took some pictures of me at the turntable at an extremely young age, so I can validate the LP’s I remember listening to. I came from white folks who enjoyed black music about 1 tier deep. Both my parental guardians were academics of sorts and were more observers of novelty than participants in the dominant culture movements. I sexualized the LP at a very young age as the fist still image of a woman’s breast I remember seeing was contained within the inner montage of Jimmy Cliff’s The Harder They Come. I remember my parental guidance first stab at explaining homosexuality being within the of The Village People LPs. My parent’s first date was blind and my father wooed my mother with the exciting and new sounds of Henry Mancini’s “Pink Panther Tour”. Their second date was to see Miles Davis during his “chaotic” period as it was explained to me. After fifteen minutes of Mile’s trumpet juju and him keeping to a corner, back to the crowd, they walked out. I’m sure this was all very formative in my musical birth!

As an Indigo child or simply a human with spastic biochemistry my female guardian would use The Pointer Sister’s “Salt Peanuts” and “Bangin’ On the Pipes/Steam Heat” like catnip forcing me to fling myself against mattress covered walls and dance until I’d run myself out of energy. Other early artists and LP’s I can photographically prove I spun were the Car Wash soundtrack, Curtis Mayfield, Issac Hayes, The Moody Blues, Bread, Jim Croce, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Saturday Night Fever. Love to all those artists and to the many passed, I hope you’re finding rest in your peace.

TV themes marked me early and I’ve never tried to shake that branding. The musical openings to Swat, CHIPs, Barney Miller, Wonder Woman, People’s Court, Knight Rider, The A-team, etc. were all rooted in the funk arena.

When I was old enough to join my mother in aerobics I was introduced to the Jane Fonda Workout LP. As I remember it, the album not only contains some of the smoother funky tracks of the eighties like the Brother’s Johnson’s “Stomp!” and some Jackson Five but the cool down was Jimmy Buffett’s Changes in Attitudes, Changes in Latitudes.

2. Let's say you are heading across town this moment and will have time to listen to one complete album during the trip, what would you listen to?

I’d listen to a CD-R of one of my albums in progress and make mental changes on the mixes and track relationships.

3. Are there any other media that you draw inspiration from? Books, authors, painters, actors, movies, celebrities, etc?

Cooking: The green, smooth texture and general vibe I achieve using home grown basil to make Pesto reminds me of my best tracks. Greek and Vegetarian soul food keep my dietary pyramid on point.

Authors: The collected works of Terrence McKenna, Dr. John C. Lilly, Phil Dick, Desmond Morris, and all the branches you find sprouting from them.

Movies: DVD’s from George Duke in Japan to Weather Report in France keep me enthused about the projects I’m working on. The infomercial series, “Midnight Special” can be dope. Non musical DVD’s like American Movie, Space is the Place and Le Planet Savage also can help me into the right mind of frame! Honestly this category is numerous in its inspirations. Parallel to my musical career has been my work as a writer/director, which has helped finance the music bit.

Art: Record cover art of all genres.

Plants: Cannabis and Mushrooms.

4. Where do you go to discover new music and sounds?

I follow the edict, “Pay Attention”. Look in weird and unique places for the weird and unique music. Infomercials, I-tunes, friend’s recommendations, my brother’s computer, dusty groove, and mainly the 99cent vinyl bins across the globe. I’ll often read reviews and recommendations by writers or interviewers’ who enjoy or have takes on my music I jive with.

5. What question do you get most often that you hate answering?

As of this writing, none. It’s infrequent people come to me for answers.

6. Favorite instruments or specific sounds?

Jon Hassel’s synth-trumpet played over African drums… James Brown grunting… Bernie Worrell soloing with Parliament… Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s incredible picking… the bated breath of a female during orgasm… Heart murmurs…

7. The record store is closing in ten minutes and you are hell-bent on buying something before they close, what section do you head immediately towards?

CD wise:
My answer completely depends on the store’s return policy but I’m gonna say used urban/soul. With a super market sweep of ten minutes I’m most likely to find something I haven’t heard by looking for a funk or soul compilation that features some tracks I may not have heard or just slept on recently.

LP wise:
Used Funk-Jazz Fusion or whatever these records are cataloged under. I have a good eye for players when flipping through records backwards so that’s where I usually take it when I have the need for speed.

8. What is the last notable daydream you had and where did it take place?

Since I work nights and log dreams, my last daydream of note was while I was asleep in my bed during the day. A woman came to me with milky white skin and a round attractive face. I believe she was a composite of a number of mundane female characters including a recognizable reality TV participant I’d seen shortly before going to bed. It’s very rare for me to have dreams with erotic content and her character played a unique and interesting archetypal role. Her dime dancing was through.

On another note, the song “Life Imitates Clouds” and album of the same name are my ode to the daydream.

9. What is the perfect album to you? Are there any? Is it possible?

Mort Garson’s Plantasia is perfect for anything of green organic medium and a mycologist’s best friend.

Currently I have no perfect albums but throughout my life there have been some that were perfect until I wore them out through obsessive compulsive listening. A couple different Steely Dan and Weather Report LPs hit me as very close to perfect. Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, Thrust, and Sunlight were all perfect at one point in my reality matrix.

As a hip-hop fan, when they first came out, I really felt the production on Paul’s Boutique, Three Feet High and Rising and It Takes a Nation of Millions.

With Rhythm and Blues, I’d vote for Johnny “Guitar” Watson or D’Angelo.

On the metal/rock tip the first Rage Against the Machine turned me out. Perfect for driving. Van Halen came close.

I’m putting myself out there on this one, but when it comes to Canadian pop, Gino Vanelli’s Brother to Brother is damn near perfect for a Gino V. album.

However it sounds; both Mackrosoft albums Journey to Vaginus and Antonio’s Giraffe felt at one point as near close to perfect to/for my earwax.

I have certainly made perfect compilation albums, CDs, cassettes, mixes, etc. using my record collection.

10. Do you keep up with blogs? Which do you read if so?

Any blog that mentions “Aja West” or “The Mackrosoft” I usually get up on! Lately, I’ve been actively trying to play a bigger part in the blog and podcast world. I do regularly listen to “The Podfather” matrix master Lorenzo Hagerty’s “Psychedelic Salon” podcast with an ear to Terence McKenna’s “In the Valley of Novelty” series and “The Trialogues”. It’s an excellent source for stretching your cerebral cortex and grey matter. I’d read this interview if I found it online, so thanks for asking such interesting questions. Best regards. Keep it funky.

Singleversity #13

Audiversity’s weekly column on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 127.

MA:



There is something I have always loved about Eastern Sounds; it just swings so softly with organic elegance and laid-back confidence. Recorded in 1961, Yusef Lateef was a couple years ahead of the Eastern-influence curve in jazz music that would culminate in the late 60s and utilized exotic scales for shrouding his restrained musicianship with a very spiritual guise. I was torn between posting "The Plum Blossom" or “Blue from the Orient,” where Lateef sprouts an amazing oboe solo, but I went with the former because it really displays his ability to conjure passion out of such minimal instrumentation. Lateef’s xun, a Chinese globular flute, hums softly over a restrained piano and soft, rhythmic Rabaab patters. It makes for music that is completely unassuming and wonderfully spellbinding.

PM:













My love-hate relationship with Brooklyn’s infamous noisescape ex-terrorists Black Dice takes another firm step in the “love” direction with their latest Paw Tracks 12” featuring “Roll Up” on the a-side and “Drool” on the dark side. “Drool” for some reason strikes me as the more intriguing of the two, starting out with a high-pitched analog cicada chirp you only hear once every 17 years clicking its way through a seven-minute jungle of burbling merry-go-round carnival synth action that sounds like the solo journey to “Roll Up’s” group tour of the Amazon. Alongside this is another Catsup Plate 12” due soon, a tour, and the best part: All of these are likely to find their way on a new Dice album due in the fall. Meanwhile: Get this.

Ibrahim Ferrar - "Mi Sueño"

Ibrahim Ferrar - Melodía del Río (Nonesuch 2007)

Ibrahim Ferrar - Mi Sueño / Nonesuch

The whole Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon was a pretty intriguing story if you paid attention. I do have a pretty idea good of our audience though, and I kind of doubt that it was quite as significant to the music fans we share most interests with than those of the mainstream. You could say it had more of an appeal to the American crowd that still considers the Grammy’s a meaningful award. But the fact of the matter is that Buena Vista Social Club is a phenomenal album documenting twilight-aged Cuban musicians performing the music they lived to play, classic son and lite Afro-Cuban jazz. It also brought international attention to Cuban music, which is obviously a good thing, but in the same hesitating manner that Paul Simon brought attention to South African music in the 80s: very concentrated and not really giving complete respect to the history of the long-lived music styles involved. Being familiar with the Buena Vista Social Club does not necessarily make you familiar with Cuban music just like being familiar with Ladysmith Black Mambazo does not make you familiar with South African music, but it’s a very accessible starting point and should be treated as such. In fact the majority of the members in the BVSC collective were brought out of retirement, which itself was already twenty years deep and ticking, so it does not even correspond to modern Cuban music. It was an album highlighting the sultry sounds of pre-Castro Havana featuring struggling musicians that were living in bleak poverty until that album spurred thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Americans to support the incredibly talented performers. I am not trying to be pessimistic about the album, in fact I am a very big fan of it and it’s surrounding projects, but it’s always good to be as realistic as possible.

The BVSC member that benefited the most from the wildly and unpredictably successful project (besides Ry Cooder of course) was the face and voice, Ibrahim Ferrar. 69-years-old when the album was recorded, it completely changed his life for the better. He was literally living off a meager state pension that was only augmented by shining shoes for tips, and was relatively obscure talent-wise even in his own country until pianist Rubén González suggested to Cooder that he utilize him in the recordings. With such a personable and kind demeanor lime-lighted by the accompanying documentary, Ferrar became the accidental star, which spurred an additional Cooder-produced solo album (also worth your time by the way) that sold almost two million copies itself. Ferrar spent his entire life performing the music of the BVSC, but only gained recognition in the waning years of his life. It’s both a heart-warming and truly sad story, which only gets more poignant with Mi Sueño.

While Ferrar was an ambidextrous singer when it came to the many sub-styles of Cuban music, apparently his niche of choice was bolero. At its very basic level a Spanish torch song, bolero was a slow dance that emerged in Spain in the late 18th century out of a combination of contradanza and sevillana dance styles. The genre made its way to Cuba in the early 19th century and enjoyed its highest popularity in the 1950s with heartfelt stories of travel and sentimental, unrequited love. So really, there is no surprise bolero had such a significant impact on Ferrar being that it was at the peak of its popularity when the Cuban singer was in his early 20s. The style eventually waned though and it just didn’t make financial sense to make recordings in that mode, so Ferrar never got to make an album of his beloved bolero—that is until he had the support of the entire music industry post-Buena Vista Social Club.

So in 2005, Ferrar finally got to make the album he so desperately wanted to all his life at the age of 78. With financial backing and an able band featuring pianist Roberto Fonseca, guitarist Manuel Galbon and bassist Cachito Lopez, the sessions for Mi Sueño commenced in the summer of 2005 in the wake of a European tour. After just the first vocal demos were laid to tape, Ferrar became ill and was condemned to his bed. With just three weeks to go before the final vocal sessions, the Cuban singer passed away from multiple organ failure in his home in Havana. Though enjoying immense unforeseen success in the twilight of his life, it appeared as if Ferrar would never get to make that bolero album he had always dreamed of, which was only further instilled when the session tapes were lost immediately following his death.

Thankfully though, the vocal demos Ferrar left behind were found a year later and they were of high enough quality that they could be utilized to still complete the album, which now exists as his swan song, Mi Sueño. In the traditional bolero setting, Ferrar’s aged and honey-soaked voice croons romantically over pleasantly sparse and subtle arrangements that vastly excel in their non-intrusiveness. The passionate, intimate and love-worn songs paired with the delicate instrumentation makes for some vastly easy listening, of which sidesteps anything resembling challenging music, but nonetheless hypnotizing and worth your time. “Uno” swings with stiff, subtle guitar chops, tiptoeing acoustic piano and swooning clarinets, while later “Copla Guajira” utilizes the same instrumentation but spins it into an infectious, foot-tapping cumbia song. And one of the great gems is “Melodía del Río,” an outtake from a Cooder session back in 1998 composed by and featuring the great, late pianist Rubén González. With a Southwestern-influence electric guitar solo, González’s patient, Monk-gone-Latin piano style and Ferrar’s romantic purring, no lady could resist such musical charm.

Like last week’s Friday night Audiversity festivity with Kahil El’Zabar’s French orchestra, Ibrahim Ferrar once again transports our work-week-worn minds to a much more pleasant state. Mi Sueño is romantic, refined, intimate, earnest and elegant and an absolute pleasure to listen to no matter the occasion. In this case, it’s not about challenging the world’s ears, but it’s instead about sharing one man’s life-long dream come to life in the form of an album. Sadly with Ferrar’s passing in August of 2005, he never got to see the final product of his efforts, but there is no doubt by listening to Mi Sueño that they were not in vain. And at the very, very least, it’s good to know that such a beautiful personality and talent was not completely lost to obscurity, though it’s certainly a shame we only got to enjoy the waning moments of Ferrar’s life.

Channel One - "Permissions" EP

Channel One - These Roads (Sound Foundation 2007)

Channel One - Permissions EP / Sound Foundation

I spent a lot of this past weekend immersed in M83's Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts. I don't know what it was that set me off on it - maybe I was in the mood for something dramatic or maybe I wanted to revisit one of my favorite albums or maybe I was trying to erase the memory of that new Smashing Pumpkins track "Tarantula" - but I listened over and over before I went to bed. It was refreshing to revisit.

There are a lot of times that I miss shoegaze, bluntly. So much gets talked about Ride or Loveless or Slowdive as influences that it's increasingly rare to find someone who's actually taken the time to listen to Moose or who knows which band produced Blood Music (Answer: Chapterhouse). The truth is, a decent quantity of those albums from Glider to Pygmalion were pretty mediocre. Still we talk of that period in the superlative... And yet, here we are in 2007 with one of the best years for shoegaze and all things related: Cyann & Ben, A Sunny Day in Glasgow, The Twilight Sad if you want to count them... And joining the fray is a little group from Dublin, Ireland known as Channel One. This EP is just their first release, but already they've skipped the whole Isn't Anything stage of Valentine obsession and gone right to the end of Loveless when critics and fans alike were left wondering where the hell you could go after perfection.

Dance music has been one suggestion propagated by critics fascinated by the trance that tracks like "To Here Knows When" or "Soon" suggested. Granted, that's a product of time and place; after all, Brits were just emerging from their late-80s rave hangovers and it wouldn't be long before The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers would be everywhere... But Channel One seem to have heard the same strand of musical DNA as the critics. Now they're walking onto the world stage with it, having recently opened up for CSS on a few UK dates. In contrast to Anthony Gonzalez's all-synth approach (which substitutes them for guitars rather than just beats), Channel One uses guitars but limits the electronics to tastefully intruding loops pre-programmed for maximum pleasure.

"Rhythm and Purpose" doesn't start off with wicked guitar white-noise. Instead, it starts off with subdued keys that then kick in full blast with the band using a 0111010110 skittering synth suggesting malfunction with the melody. Of course, it's repeated throughout the song as guitars rush in and out and the band does its best to make the vocals as indistinguishable from every other shoegaze ripoff out there. Too bad their natural knack for songwriting and the power of the music is just too strong.

The more I listen to this, the more I'm reminded of M83 meeting the Junior Boys. In a way, that's how I'd describe their sound best (though "These Roads" starts out like a Talking Heads b-side). The vocals are breathy and light while the music occasionally has a flair for the dramatic: "Beneath a Field of Steel" is a good example of this, but all four songs have both technological touches and emotional flair that would do well both in a club and in your headphones.

This EP has been highly touted in Ireland for awhile and the release actually came out in late March, but with just nine songs officially to their credit in three releases, Channel One is already drawing some steady support and a decent following. Help them out, because with the promise they've shown in a couple of early singles and now this solid (but too short) EP, there's plenty of potential for this to be the Emerald Isle's best band. And anyway, I'd rather hear Channel One than Damien Rice any day.