Alvin Lucier blurs the line between art and science. His seminal work, I Am Sitting In A Room, is the quintessential example of this. Clocking in at over 40 minutes long, you hear the slow transformation of Lucier's voice into an etherial almost-music. Essentially Lucier played a recording of himself speaking into a room of his choosing, recorded it, and then played that recording back into the room while rerecording it. He continued this process over and over until his voice was subsumed by the resonant frequencies of the room itself. The result is unlike anything I have heard before or since. The beauty of it is that anyone can do this with any kind of text in any kind of room. This is one of the works that solidified my own conception of the universality and inescapable nature of music.

This is not music per se (at least in the conventional sense) nor is it something that you can just leave going in the background as ambience. Try out some focused listening; sit down and experience this work of beauty.



""I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now." So begins one of the masterpieces of 20th century music merging processed music, minimalism, and self-reference into an utterly amazing and ultimately beautiful work. The instructions for producing the piece are, in fact, the piece itself. The composer sits and describes what will happen, and then it happens. Lucier tapes these instructions (about 80 seconds worth), tapes it, replays that tape into the room, tapes that, plays the second tape into the room, etc., and so on. Little by little, the "natural resonant frequencies of the room" erode the source material, softening hard edges, blurring boundaries between words. Different rooms will, presumably, give different results depending on their individual architectural properties. After ten or 12 repetitions, the listener already has difficulty distinguishing individual words, though the rhythmic pattern remains. But, and this is one of the cruxes of the work, all is not entropy. As the text becomes indecipherable, elements of undeniably musical tones emerge from nowhere, as though they were embedded in the original speech and only came to light after the surface structure was eliminated. Indeed, small melodies can actually be heard and the effect is absolutely magical. Fifteen minutes into the composition, Lucier's speech has become a hazy cloud of wavering, bell-like tones interrupted by the occasional sibilance, the latter generated by the composer's stutter, which adds an element of poignancy to the piece's conception. Halfway through, no aspect of the speech can be gleaned except a rough cadence; instead, the listener has been transported to a sound world at such a far remove from the initial text as to leave one both baffled and awash in wonder. I Am Sitting in a Room is a unique, extraordinary idea/composition, a landmark among late 20th century avant-garde music and a touchstone for a generation of composer/theoreticians. It's a rare combination of sensual beauty and intellectual rigor, and should be heard by anyone interested in contemporary music."
-Allmusic


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I love gospel music, I really do. If you have some smarts in you, you should too.



"Fire in My Bones is an absolutely magnificent gospel music collection. Not because its quality is consistently high -- it isn't -- but precisely because everything about it is so delightfully all-over-the-place. If your experience with African-American gospel music has been mainly limited to incidental encounters with the Golden Gate Quartet or Mahalia Jackson, then prepare to be startled: on this sprawling three-disc set, which covers more than 60 years of mostly obscure gospel recordings, you'll hear the deeply spooky "Wasn't That a Mystery" (performed by the Madison County Senior Center Singers), the even spookier "Get Back Satan" (by Rev. Roger L. Worthy and his sister Bonnie Woodstock), the heartrendingly beautiful "Does Jesus Care" (by Marie Knight), and the irresistibly funky "Help Me" (by Lula Collins). In a few instances the sound quality is poor enough to be a barrier to enjoyment of the music, but in most cases where the recording is particularly ragged, it only adds to the music's often otherworldly beauty. A few tracks, such as the Rev. Utah Smith's "God's Mighty Hand" and the jaw-dropping "Prayer (Excerpt)/I Love the Lord," blur the distinction between sermon and song -- on the latter track, the congregation's singing rises and falls like an enormous whale coming to the surface. A few of these tracks really are clunkers, but frankly, even those come as something of a relief, giving your ears and heart a moment of rest before being lifted inexorably up again. Fantastic."
-Allmusic


Part I

Part II

Hello, here's some music for you.



"Michael O'Shea was an eccentric, maverick world musician. He was a virtuoso of the Mo Cara, a 17-string instrument he invented and built, on which he created hauntingly melodic works combining elements of Celtic and Asian musics. Although primarily a busker, in the early '80s he enjoyed a brief legitimacy, releasing one album and even opening for Ravi Shankar at London's Royal Festival Hall.

O'Shea was born in Northern Ireland in 1947 but grew up in the Irish Republic. Keen to see the world, he joined the British Army at 17. However, military life didn't suit him; he went AWOL for two years and was court-martialed. On release from jail, he moved to London where he gravitated toward the folk scene, mixing with musicians like Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger.

In the mid-'70s, he went to Bangladesh as a volunteer, returning with dysentery, hepatitis, and a sitar. While convalescing he learned to play the sitar and then busked around Europe and the Middle East. In France he traveled with an Algerian who played an instrument known as the zelochord. O'Shea hit on the idea of building a hybrid of a zelochord, a hammered dulcimer, and a sitar; the result was the Mo Cara (Gaelic for "my friend").

Back in London, O'Shea busked with the Mo Cara, the bizarre sight and sound of the instrument instantly attracting crowds. In early 1980, he was spotted by a talent scout for Ronnie Scott, who was fascinated by the Mo Cara's mix of East Asian, South Asian, and Irish sounds. Scott offered the Irishman a residency in his club's prestigious Downstairs Room and became his agent. This led to his opening for Ravi Shankar at the Royal Festival Hall and he even played on a Rick Wakeman project, although his contribution was subsequently discarded.

Despite encouraging signs, O'Shea's career did not take off and he returned to busking. While playing in Covent Garden, O'Shea was noticed by Tom Johnston, an early member of The The. Johnston introduced O'Shea to Wire's Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis, who asked him to record for their Dome label. Due to his previous disappointments, O'Shea was ambivalent about others' efforts to launch his career and was convinced that his music was best-suited to spontaneous street performance. An invitation to Blackwing Studio was nonetheless extended. A year later, he appeared unannounced, saying his horoscope augured well, and recorded the album.

In 1982, O'Shea worked with Tom Johnston and Matt Johnson on a projected album, but nothing came of it. Later that year, he collaborated on two tracks for John Denver Stanley's Content to Write in I Dine Weathercraft. In 1985, he played on the title track of Larry Cosgrave's Easter Island. (Material from the Stanley and Cosgrave projects appeared on the 2002 CD reissue of O'Shea's self-titled album.)

In the late '80s O'Shea became involved in the burgeoning rave scene and rarely performed. In December 1991, he was struck by a van in London and died two days later."
-allmusic

This stuff is out there in the best of ways. It is both truly different and astoundingly beautiful. Highly recommended.

Here

It fascinates me how 2009 has been a year of extremes for me so far. From January to May I was the happiest I have ever been, doing one of the most adventurous things I've ever done, and generally having an absolutely incredible time. Every day on Semester at Sea was a good day, and every country visited was a wonderful and amazing (and often drunken) experience. I made some fantastic friends and had some absolutely incredible experiences (meeting a tribe of Himba people in northern Namibia, getting a bamboo tap tattoo in Thailand, seeing Angkor Wat at dawn, etc.).
I should have seen it coming that this summer was going to be terrible. Fuck, I did see it coming, just not to this degree. I can quote myself on the MV Explorer hanging out on the smokers deck with my friend rueing the summer to come for inevitably sucking more than sailing around the world is. I had no fucking idea. Oh those halcyon days of ignorance and love. It makes sense though, no one is entitled to having one full truly exceptional year. The bad comes hand in hand with the good. Hatred comes with love, and this has truly been a summer of hatred for me. A summer of shit for many people, but definitely one of hatred for me. Nothing has been a bigger learning experience for me than having the person I loved more than anyone or anything suddenly become the person I hate more than anyone or anything. It's both cathartic and frightening to find out how much hatred I am able to feel within myself. I never knew. I want nothing more than to see her suffer to same degree that she made me suffer in June. I hate that I want that, but I can't help it. Still working on letting the anger go. Hey, you try and deal with your partner of almost three years cheating on you with someone she just met and then leaving you to fuck said person. It isn't easy. With any luck by the time I'm forced to actually see her again back at school, I'll be in a place where I can treat her with total apathy. Right now, definitely not. Life is funny and this whole thing has reaffirmed my desire to see it out to the end, since painful as it might be at times, it's still too damn interesting to quit early. Fuck, at least I know I'm capable of feeling a full range of emotions, and that I'm only human in my desire for revenge of some sort. As much as it makes me despise myself, at least I know that it's only natural.

Here's a song that I've had on repeat for a little while now. Good breakup song, it's given me something to headbang to when I get too hateful. Crazy ass fuzzed out 60's garage rock:

You're Holding Me Down-The Buzz

Hello folks, it's been a while hasn't it? I've been kind of busy the past number of months, circumnavigating the globe and visiting about 13 different countries along the way. I don't really expect to post here very often right now, since I'm kind of preoccupied with a number of things going on in my life. That said, I figured I'd share this:




While I was traveling through Morocco I had the fortune of being in the possession of a high quality audio recording device (an Edirol R-09 for those who might care about such things). I also had the fortune of being able to go hiking through the High Atlas Mountains, staying in tiny Berber villages along the way. The combination of those two things allowed me to make a few hours worth of field recordings from the various villages I stayed in. I distilled the recordings I made down to what I thought were the best ones and compiled them into this album. Most of it consists of a traditional drum performance by the men of the village of Aït Zitoun, a small hamlet nestled in the mountains. The rest of it is of various recordings I made in Aït Zitoun, Aït Ahmed (another tiny village) and hiking between the two. I do hope you enjoy!



Here

So, seeing as I leave for the Bahamas the day after tomorrow, this really is the end of this blog being a music blog (for now). So, as a final farewell (for now), here are two albums for ya.


Credit for this first album goes to Digital Meltd0wn, one of my favorite music blogs. This album is best listened to on headphones, trust me on this. It's hypnotic, entrancing and all kinds of fantastic.



"For the first half of 2005, I lived with my wife Erika in Kirtipur, Nepal. During our days, while she was studying at the Kathmandu Association For The Deaf, I was roaming the streets and villages of the Kathmandu Valley in search of sounds and music. While kickin' round the tourist district of Thamel picking up cassettes, I met a family of snake charmers from Haryana, India. An old man probably in his 70s or 80s, his 2 grandsons, and one of the grandson's sons. They asked if I wanted to see a show....I said hell YES!! They gave me a show...a KILLER show... we're talking 3 fucking king cobras dancing at once, while a giant boa chilled at the side and few other random lil snake dudes are wigglin around here and there. I became obsessed. I had met my new best friends, though the kind of best friends you have to pay to hang out with. They were hustlers, yes.. but that's their job. The money was well worth the shows. I spent about 3-4 days a week for the next 2 months, recording their music and their snake shows on mini-disc and videotape. I drank alot of chiyaa with them, smoked alot of cigarettes and bidis. They taught me how to make reeds out of bamboo, and I traded them some clothes for a snake charming horn. They call them Beens, they are also known as Pungis. These guys were the best. At the end of April they left Kathmandu, heading to Pokhara, after that it was time for them to head back home with their earnings. Man...I missed them. This LP is the best of the best of the recordings I made of them. There are some classic Bollywood sounding tracks, a Nepali folk song, and side 2 is a 19 minute drone journey into the head of the king cobra. The recordings were done in stereo. A been on the left, a been on the right. A premtal (stringed percussion instrument) on the left, a premtal on the right. The stereo recording of the charmers sway creates a very disorienting stereo tremelo effect. It's almost as if you are the snake! These tracks were recorded in an alley. There is the occasional rumble of a car passing by, and the low murmer of the locals checking out the white kid with the fancy gadget hanging with the snake dudes." -Aaron Dilloway"

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Source


This second album is a wonderful little gem. The sound reminds me the most of Music for Egon Schiele by Rachel's. Very delicate, beautiful piano and violin music with a very subtle touch of sound manipulation. Best listened to with your eyes closed.



"The Prepared Piano and Room to Expand summed up their purposes in their titles, with the former demonstrating Hauschka's finesse with the prepared piano (a piano with objects placed between its strings or on its dampers and hammers) and the latter, prepared piano expanded with strings and electronics. In its own way, Ferndorf also conveys its purpose with its title; named after Hauschka (aka Volker Bertelmann)'s hometown, this set of pieces goes beyond the cleverness of his previous albums, digging into childhood nostalgia and other more complex emotions while retaining Hauschka's essentially playful approach. Unlike The Prepared Piano and Room to Expand, only about half of Ferndorf's tracks were improvised -- but even these tracks show how much Hauschka's range has expanded. "Blue Bicycle" is as delicately lovely as anything else in Hauschka's repertoire, but there is a unique urgency in its rippling piano that suggests spinning spokes and rushing air; "Neuschnee," on the other hand, has a languid, end-of-the-day calm. Insa Schirmer and Donsa Djember's cellos add richness to "Morgenrot," a piece inspired by the red dawn peeking through Bertelmann's window when he was a boy, and intertwine lazily on "Alma." As good as the improvised tracks are, the composed tracks make Ferndorf some of Hauschka's most accomplished music. "Rode Null" showcases the album's propulsive, percussive sound with Schirmer's driving playing and Sabine Baron's brisk violin. The prepared piano's sounds come to the fore on "Freibad," its metallic rattling underscoring the chilly quality of the strings and Bernhard Voelz's trombone, and on the excellent "Barfuss Durch Gras," melding its rustling with electronics into a taut, sparkling mesh of sound. "Heimat" and "Eltern"'s hesitant beauty exemplify how happily technique and emotion reside together on this album -- though the influences of Michael Nyman, Philip Glass and Steve Reich still loom large in Hauschka's music, Ferndorf's appeal is closest to the work of Bertelmann's FatCat labelmate Max Richter: Richter and Hauschka both have a remarkable talent for honing in on the sweet spot where classical, avant-garde, electronic and pop music meet."
-Allmusic

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Goodbye and good luck everyone. You will be hearing from me over the course of this coming semester, you can be sure of that.

Otha Turner was one of the best artists I discovered in 2008. When he recorded this album he was already 90 years old and the last living master of the southern fife & drum tradition. This album is essentially Otha Turner on the fife and singing with his family and neighbors playing the drums, guitar, and everything else. It sounds like a home recording and to me that is why it's so wonderful. Give it a listen if you like the blues, african drumming and awesomeness.




Bio:
"Veteran bluesman Othar Turner was the last surviving master of the Mississippi back-country fife-and-drum tradition. He was born in 1908, spending his adult life as a sharecropper in the city of Como, an area several miles northeast of the Delta region which also gave rise to musicians including Fred McDowell, R.L. Burnside, and Junior Kimbrough. Beginning his performing career around 1923, Turner initially played the blues as well before picking up the thread of the fife-and-drum tradition, a primitive take on African-American hymns and songs which dates back to the northern Mississippi hill country culture of the 1800s; mastering the fife (a hollow, flute-like instrument typically manufactured from bamboo cane), he toiled in relative obscurity for six decades while leading the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, a loose confederation of relatives, friends and neighbors which played primarily at picnics on his farm. (For a number of years, the group annually opened the Chicago Blues Festival as well.) With his contempories either deceased or infirmed, by the 1990s Turner was the final surviving link to fife-and-drum's roots; in 1998, his music was finally preserved on the album Everybody Hollerin' Goat, recorded between 1992 and 1997 by producer Luther Dickinson. A follow-up, Senegal to Senatobia, appeared in 2000. Unlike his previous album, Senegal to Senatobia didn't play to rootsy expectations and instead paired the ancient fife player with several other musicians, including producer Dickinson on slide guitar and Senegalese kora player Morikeba Kouyate. It was the last album Turner would complete, he died February 26 2003 at the age of 94. The impact of Turner's brief public revival of the fife and drum style was made apparent in 2002 when his "Shimmy She Wobble" was used in Martin Scorscese's historic epic, Gangs of New York."
-Allmusic

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Sort of rockabilly, sort of garage rock, sort of bluegrass and 100 percent kickass. That is Stinky Lou and the Goonmat feat. Lord Bernardo. They are raucous to the extreme and incredibly fucking catchy. With songs like "Show Me Your Tits" and "Boooooooogie", how can you resist? You can't, that's how. Weirdest thing of all? These hardcore devotees of Americana are fucking French. Crazy. Download this album and prepare to be compelled to dance like you're having epileptic seizures.


"These distinguished gentlemen have a problem:
They can never agree whether to drink their way through the liquour cabinet from right to left...or vice versa.
In between drinking and eying young ladies the way only the French can, STINKY LOU, THE GOON MAT and LORD BERNARDO are the fiercest Boogie 'n' Roots natural catastrophe going on the European continent.
These boys don't open a show and ease into a set, the set the g'damn house on fire the moment they hit the first chord and yell: "Do you want to boogie?"
I advise each and everyone of ye to respond: "Hell yeah!"
What follows are 90 minutes of adrenaline and alcohol fused primal BOOGIE mayhem.
THE GOON MAT is hip to the hypnotic drone that is remiscent of a Junior Kimbrough, STINKY LOU plays the washtub bass not unlike a man whose hair is on fire...and LORD BERNARDO...that boy has lost his mind and plays the most demented and groovin' harp I've heard in years.
Now all the hip blues punk kids talk like they've been to a jukejoint and we all know that they haven't but I'll be damned if these Boogie fiends wouldn't have stood their ground in Chulahoma or Holy Springs alongside the allmighty R.L. Burnside and T- Model Ford and their whisky guzzlin' bloodshot-eyed chums.
Now this ain't cutesy blues...this is testosterone driven, hard hitting drinkin' and dancin' music and it certainly ain't nuthin' for the underaged.
I shit you not...these partisan bluesmen are out to raise Cain..and mothers beware of your daughter 'cause these boys have ideas...and they ain't pure."
-Voodoo Rhythm





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Support insanity: buy the album

So I'm a damned dirty liar, it's true. I have the music sharing monkey on my back and it refuses to get off. I guess losing basically all internet access in a few weeks will help with that. In the meantime though, here is an album for all you little possums. Wunderkammer by The Dead Brothers defies explanation. Nonetheless I will try, and include Allmusic's feeble attempt to define it. What comes to my mind when I hear Wunderkammer is cabaret-dirge-sideshow-gypsy music. My personal favorite songs are Greek Swing, Just A Hole, Am I To Be The One and Marlene. I wish I could do a better job describing it than that, but I really can't. Instead I recommend you just download it and make your own judgement. Enjoy!



"The fourth album by Germany's the Dead Brothers is an eclectic, at times slightly crazed, mash-up of country, psychobilly, blues, fractured art rock, and anything else that seems to come to mind. So in the album's first three songs alone, things veer from the spooky, echoed, funereal slide guitar instrumental "Trust in Me" to an assaultive, bluesy raver that sounds like the Mekons in their country period to a completely unexpected piece of big-band Gypsy jazz that sounds like it came right off the stage of the Hot Club of Paris circa 1930. Then comes the cross-culturally inexplicable "I Can't Get Enough," which sort of sounds like it might be a catchy little country-tinged song, but there's an oompah-band tuba holding down the bass and a jazzy little horn section floating in every so often. "Mustapha" turns vaguely Middle Eastern tropes into a surprisingly Kinks-like piece of character-study pop; "Am I to Be the One" and "Time Has Gone" do the same things with country and Gypsy music, respectively, and "Marlene" is a just plain weird reverie for backwards tapes, accordion, and vocals that comes from the bottom of a well. So Wunderkammer is a sprawling, at times deeply strange record that reaches across several different musical cultures and eras to create an odd but effective crazy quilt of influences. Remarkably, all of this coheres into a solidly enjoyable listen."
-Allmusic


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So I lied. Here is one more great big jab of music for all of you. My friend asked me for some soul and funk albums, so I uploaded a gigabyte or so for him and thought I'd share the link here for anyone interested. Some of the stuff included I've posted here previously, but repeats aren't necessarily bad, are they?

( A list of contents )

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So, because I am leaving for a trip around the world in a couple of weeks, this blogs role as a music blog is coming to an end. It's been fun and I hope y'all have enjoyed the music I've posted. I might return to posting albums when I get back in May, but that's too far in the future for me to say anything definitively. I'll still be posting here periodically, but I think it'll probably be more travel oriented than music. So, as a parting gift for those of you who friended me for my music posts, here is a full list of my entire library. If you see anything you want just let me know and I'll upload it for you.

Have a happy new year everyone, you'll be hearing from me in the coming months.

For those of you who have seen Spaced, I know you will appreciate this album. For those of you who haven't, Spaced is a Britcom by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg (the guys behind Shaun of the Dead & Hot Fuzz), for which they first got famous. It's a fucking hilarious show and one of my favorites. If you like trip-hop, lounge, trance, etc. you'll like this soundtrack. If you like Spaced you'll probably like this soundtrack.


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Not much time to talk, I'm in the middle of writing a 30 page paper on demons. I've gone for too long without posting an album, and so here are two to whet your appetite until I have time and bandwidth to post again.

By request:


Here





"A compilation devoted to vintage psychedelic and progressive rock tunes recorded in Hungary during the height of the communist era might sound like a practical joke even if it wasn't titled Well Hung, and when the album in question opens with a decidedly non-funky drum solo, most listeners would have a right to feel wary about what they've gotten themselves into. But Well Hung is actually good enough to appeal to listeners who aren't necessarily hardcore followers of musical obscurity; give the songs a chance to sink in and the music reveals a genuine charm, not to mention some solid grooves and better instrumental work than you might expect. In the liner notes, musician Sarolta Zalatnay says (with no small pride) of the Hungarian rock scene, "We became the stars of East European countries because we presented the closest sound to the American-English rock music," and though a certain amount got lost in the translation when psychedelic and progressive rock began sneaking into Hungary in the late '60s and early '70s (especially since Hungarian isn't the most graceful language for singing rock & roll), most of these 20 tracks steer clear of the awkward novelty zone where so much Eastern European rock of the period can be found. Tamas Somlo & Omega's "Azt Mondta Az Anyukam" sounds like a garage rock variant on Sly & the Family Stone's "Stand," "Kergeskezu Favagok" from Locomotiv GT is prime-quality Hammond organ-fueled prog stuff with some stinging guitar breaks, Illes (who toured the U.K. to enthusiastic reviews) effectively mutate some funkified blues grooves on "Nekem Oly Mindegy," "Add Mar Uram Az Esot" by Kati Krovacs suggests what would have happened if Janis Joplin got lost behind the Iron Curtain and hooked up with Rare Earth, and the flute player with Corvina appears to have borrowed Rahsaan Roland Kirk's style a couple years before Ian Anderson did the same on the hard-charging "A Tuz." Not everything on here is a gem, most notably Omega's "Kergeskezu Favagok," which wears out its welcome well before its eight-plus minutes are up. But the good stuff on Well Hung outweighs the bad, and the recording and production on these tracks is surprisingly good, with this disc mastered from original studio tapes for enjoyably rich fidelity. This material compares favorably with much similar UK and European rock of the period, which is hardly the case with most Eastern Bloc music from the 1960s and 70s. Points added for Andy Votel's informative liner notes and a "family tree" illustrating the connections between the artists included on the disc."
-Allmusic

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I feel like I witnessed the end of Return of the Jedi last night. It felt like I was on the forest moon of Endor, watching Vader's suit be burned and listening to Ewoks drumming on Stormtrooper helmets in celebration of the destruction of the Empire. It was a mother fucking dance party man.

We were in the lounge watching Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert's coverage when Obama's win was announced. At that moment I heard the collective cheer of the entire Beloit campus waft in through the window. I went outside and it felt like half the school was standing by the wall. There was drumming, screaming, hugs and crying everywhere I looked. Many chants of "U...S...A!! U...S...A!!" as well as some rousing patriotic songs. This is one of the few times in my life that I feel like I just lived through something that will be remembered for hundreds of years into the future. The enthusiasm last night was infectious, which would nicely explain the hangover I am currently nursing. Every liberal across this country, whether they voted for Obama or not, breathed a collective sigh of relief last night.

To any and every conservative reading this, FUCK YOU. We suffered through eight years of your shitty president's bad policies and it's about time for a change. I'm not saying Obama is guaranteed to be perfect, only that what goes around comes around. So to you conservatives who are out there nursing your wounds, suck it up and shut the fuck up. Fuck everyone (liberals and conservatives both) who are so partisan they can't see an opportunity for meaningful change in our nation's flawed political system. Quit decrying Obama's win and join hands with your liberal brothers and sisters and let's try and work together for a change. Wouldn't </i>that</i> be new and different. You know how the old axiom goes: together we stand, divided we fall. Do you, liberals and conservatives both, really want another four or eight years of horribly partisan politics and self-destructive policies? I'm willing to meet you half way, if you are too. I think the past eight years have shown that stubborn independence/cowboy diplomacy will only hurt us in the end, but cooperation and peaceful discourse will be to the benefit of all.

Liberals, don't give your hopes up too much; you will be disappointed. Obama is going to be a centrist out of necessity. Conservatives, Obama is not the anti-christ, or an "A-rab", or a terrorist. He's our President-Elect.

I've been getting a pretty heavy dose of deja vu recently. I feel exactly like I did at this exact time four years ago. Back then, I had just gotten into HMI for the spring and promptly stopped caring about the classes I was in. Subsequently I nearly failed out of high school because I just didn't give a shit.
Now I'm struggling with the exact same thing here. Since I got into Semester at Sea, I've had a really hard time caring about any of the classes I'm in. It's especially easy to do that since none of the classes I'm in this semester are particularly fascinating (save my special project on Demonology, which has been fun but isn't a class per se). I really need to not almost fail out of college, that would be bad. That would be very bad. At least this time I can see the pattern as it's starting and not only when I'm meeting with all my teachers and the whole administration about how much I suck.
My priorities about where I want to go in life are changing. Academia is becoming less and less appealing to me as each day goes by. These days I've been caring much more about WBCR and working in radio in general than my Religious Studies major. I've been spending much more time working on my NPR internship application and forms for Semester at Sea than I have on any homework I've had. I guess all of this is contributing to my general apathy toward school. Apathy is not a healthy state to be in, especially when it's apathy toward school. I need to change my mindset and fast.

God damn it I just want this semester to end already so I can get the fuck out of the US for a while.

Crazy Russian surf rock from a crazy awesome cult movie.



"The Red Elvises, an L.A. group of Russians on guitar, balalaika, bass and drums provide the requisite moods for the soundtrack to this desert-based story. Buddy, a kid with a guitar (or six-string samurai), prowls the plains in an effort to crown himself king of Lost Vegas, an apocalyptic, post-King (i.e. Elvis) universe. The 31-track CD includes score and dialogue, and the Elvises' original music punctuates the spaghetti-Western/Seven Samurai action with appropriate retro flair. "Boogie on the Beach" is a happy ska number; "Love Pipe" is surf, but with a pumping polka backbeat. Ennio Morricone would certainly approve. But one must really ask themselves if they need any more variations in their collections on the forms Morricone and Dick Dale perfected. The film was the hit of the 1998 Slamdance Festival, a guerrilla adjunct to the high-profile Sundance Film Festival."
-Allmusic


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This album is made of awesome. I owe much thanks to Bluestown for originally posting it. Think a perfect mix of Delta Blues and African drumming and you'll be getting warm. Bounce Ball and Glory, Glory Hallelujah are especially fucking outstanding songs. A+



"Mississippi fife legend Turner is joined on this outing by a loose union of players billed as the Afrosippi All Stars. This makeshift band is comprised of members of Turner's family, visiting Senegalese musicians, a university percussion student/organizer, and slide guitarist/producer/North Mississippi All Star Luther Dickinson. Their sympathetic accompaniment on African percussion, kora, and bottleneck guitar give "Shimmy She Wobble," "Station Blues," and Bounce Ball -- reprised from his recording debut, Everybody Hollerin' Goat -- a depth lacking on his earlier versions. Traditional African drums exchange rhythms with marching-band snares and bass drums. Staccato kora melodies complement whining slide guitar riffs. And Turner's shrill, archaic fife floats freely over it all. The title track is the album's most distinctly African number, and probably the only track here easy on the listener's ears. The closing "Sunu" is five minutes of nothing but drums. This is hardly good-time music for casual blues listeners or weekend world music fans, but it's important music all the same, bridging, as it does, great distances between continents and traditions."
-Allmusic


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This is one of the most unique and fascinating albums released this year that I've heard. Very delicate and beautiful, Un Dia still manages to be strangely catchy and a highly addictive listen. Plus, it is entirely in spanish! I highly recommend.




"Juana Molina's sound is so precious and rare that tampering with the formula is akin to tearing down a singular example of great architecture, or witnessing the extinction of a rare and beautiful animal. Fortunately, Un Dia is immediately recognizable as a Juana Molina album. Yes, there are slight differences between this and her previous work, but fortunately, she's still retained most of what made her special in the past. In place are the gentle but propulsive vocal-based rhythms, the airy feel to the proceedings, and the occasional chirping polyharmonies. Also present (and appreciated) is the fine balance between organic instruments (wood, metal) and post-production processing (delays, distortion) that makes her records sound as experimental as Björk's but much more inviting. Differences appear, however, in the hypnotic rhythm that powers several songs with a driving energy. If her breakout albums, 2000's Segundo and 2002's Tres Cosas, were so diaphanous that they threatened to dematerialize altogether, Un Dia makes rhythm a central proposition, sometimes so machine-like that she approaches techno (albeit, techno from the standpoint of an Argentinean obsessed with native instruments)."
-Allmusic


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Taj Mahal is the man, and this is one of his best albums.



"Taj Mahal's second album, recorded in the spring and fall of 1968, opens with more stripped-down Delta-style blues in the manner of his debut, but adds a little more amplification (partly courtesy of Al Kooper on organ) before moving into wholly bigger sound on numbers like "She Caught the Katy and Left Me a Mule to Ride" and "The Cuckoo" -- the latter, in particular, features crunchy electric and acoustic guitars and Gary Gilmore playing his bass almost like a lead instrument, like a bluesman's answer to John Entwistle. Most notable, however, may be the two original closing numbers, "You Don't Miss Your Water ('Til Your Well Runs Dry)" and "Ain't That a Lot of Love," which offer Taj Mahal working in the realm of soul and treading onto Otis Redding territory. This is particularly notable on "You Don't Miss Your Water," which achieves the intensity of a gospel performance and comes complete with a Stax/Volt-style horn arrangement by Jesse Ed Davis that sounds more like the real thing than the real thing. "Ain't That a Lot of Love," by contrast, is driven by a hard electric guitar sound and a relentless bass part that sounds like a more urgent version of the bassline from the Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'." The fall 2000 CD reissue includes a trio of bonus tracks: a faster-paced rendition of "The Cuckoo" with a more prominent lead guitar, the slow electric lament "New Stranger Blues" featuring some good mandolin-style playing on the guitar, and the rocking instrumental "Things Are Gonna Work Out Fine," which is a killer showcase for Davis' lead electric guitar and Taj Mahal's virtuosity on the harmonica."
-Allmusic

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This is the second half of Attack of the One Man Bands. Enjoy.




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This album is pure, awesome insanity. Don't try listening to this when you're going to sleep, that's all I can say. This is the first cd; the second will come tomorrow.



"Attack of the One-Man Bands is exactly that, 58 different one-man bands spread over two discs of raw, crude, and fascinatingly brilliant blasts of sonic madness, most of it so ragged and urgent that it makes vintage punk sound like Air Supply. So unhinged that it's probably a serious health risk, this set delivers cut after cut of glorious bedlam with all the subtlety of an amplified jackhammer set loose in a glass house, and anyone sane should probably hate it, but like a child's tantrum, it's impossible to ignore, and like the child that throws that tantrum, it's impossible not to love. Each of these one-man bands is currently active, and while most are decidedly lo-fi, even the ones who wandered into real studios seem to treat them like giant boom boxes, creating a clatter and din that shoves the needle into the red from note one. While a good deal of what is here is vicious punk rockabilly like Phillip Roebuck's crude, spare, and dangerously kinetic "Jackass Blues" or Pete Yorko & the One Man Music Band's "Like Me" assault, some of it, like Royer's One Man Band's version of the fiddle classic "Train on the Island" or 1Man Banjo's deconstruction of "Mole in the Ground" (simply called "Mole" here), is seriously bent and skewed bluegrass mountain music. Trainwreck Washington's banjo piece called "Walked All Night" sounds like an old wax cylinder field recording, and feels like it was recorded a hundred years ago. Uncle Butcher's "No Judge, No Trial" is as raw and frightening as a running chain saw thrown on a feather bed, chickens flying everywhere, as they say. Then there's the Amazing Elephant Man's primal "Can't Go Outside," which is literally a child's frustrated rant given rhythm and electricity. Scary, unsettling, fascinating, delightful, vital, urgent and insistent, these 58 tracks are somehow -- for all their abrasiveness -- oddly comforting. Just like that one vigilant dog barking away relentlessly down the street late at night, it means someone is watching after all, and they ain't gonna keep quiet about it, even if the rest of the world is trying its best to sleep."
-Allmusic


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This is busker music (and contemporary Blues) at its best. Satan & Adam represent all that is right and good about the Blues. It's a very simple formula: Two guys, a harmonica, a guitar and a deep scratchy voice. Nothing else is needed.




Allmusic's biography:
"The blues duo of guitarist, singer and songwriter Sterling Magee and harmonica player Adam Gussow have paid their dues. They began their career on the street. On the corner of Seventh Avenue and 125th Street, to be exact, and within a matter of weeks, they were drawing crowds to their corner, people pausing on their way home from work to stop and listen. For five years, nearly every afternoon that weather permitted, the pair would meet on the corner and Magee would set up his simple stool, drum kit, guitar and amplifier. Using a combination of foot stomps, tambourines, hi-hat cymbals and his guitar, Magee gives the duo a full sound.

Magee and Gussow specialize in funky, gritty, electric urban blues, and there are few groups or artists anywhere who sound anything remotely like them. Gussow's exquisite harmonica solos complement the driving, open-toned guitar playing of Magee, who prefers to be called Mr. Satan, and who frequently refers to Gussow in live performances as Mr. Gussow. Satan and Adam have redefined and shaped the sound of modern blues so much that their track, "I Want You" from their Harlem Blues debut is included on a Rhino Records release, Modern Blues of the 1990s.

Magee, born May 20, 1936 in Mississippi and raised in Florida, began his career playing piano in churches in both states. Since the early '80s, he's played on Harlem streets, but in the 1960s he was a key session guitarist, playing on recordings by James Brown, King Curtis, George Benson and others. Adam Gussow, born April 3, 1958 and raised in Rockland County, N.Y., was a Princeton-educated harmonica player who had a little uptown apartment, and in passing Magee one day on the street in 1985, he asked if he could sit in on harmonica. That was the start of a musical and social relationship between the two that continues to this day.

The pair have recorded several critically acclaimed albums for the now-defunct Flying Fish label, and they include Harlem Blues (1991) and Mother Mojo (1993). Satan and Adam also performed in U2's Rattle and Hum movie. On their Mother Mojo, the group reinterprets and funkifies well-known songs like Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man" and Joe Turner's "Crawdad Hole." In 1996 the duo released Living on the River (1996) on the New York State-based Rave On Records label. Since then they have not recorded and play together only sporadically as Satan moved out of Harlem to Lynchburg, Virginia. In 1998, Adam Gussow published a memoir, Mister Satan's Apprentice, telling of his years playing with Sterling Magee."


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Oh and one more thing:
( Avoid this if you're easily offended and/or conservative )

This is the kickass soundtrack to a blaxploitation film that never got made. Really heavy on the Soul and Funk. I recommend this album if you feel like jamming out to some good quality funk music.




"Back in 1990, Homer Simpson, fresh off an unsuccessful stint as the assistant mascot for the Capital City Capitals, wondered aloud why people enjoy hearing tales of failure and woe. It's a good question. Is it that we all, on some level, can relate? Does it just make us feel better about our own failures? Whatever the reason, there's no denying that the most compelling stories are often the sad ones, where chances are missed, success is dangled just out of reach, and circumstances conspire to create disappointment. The primary appeal of the Numero Group imprint is the great music it unearths, but there's an underlying draw in the label's focuses on the near- and not-so-near-misses to tell us stories we love to hear and repeat.
The tale of the Final Solution and the would-be soundtrack to Brotherman is a classic story of people suffering failure they didn't deserve, either on a personal level or in terms of the quality of their art. The Final Solution were a Chicago vocal quartet that began life in the early 1960s as the Kaldirons, by all accounts a superb live act but remembered on wax only by a single 45 for Twinight (included on Numero's own Twinight's Lunar Rotation comp). The single was even mis-credited to the Kaldirons. Needing a fresh start in the early 70s, they changed the name to the Final Solution, completely oblivious to the phrase's Nazi implications. The quartet re-united with a friend from high school, guitarist and songwriter Carl Wolfolk, who had penned a few hits, including Tyrone Davis' ephocal Chicago soul classic "Can I Change My Mind".
Their first opportunity to record came from an unexpected source: a group of Chicago advertising men attempting to make their first feature film, a cash-in on the Blaxploitation genre that was popular at the time. The soundtrack had proven an immensely important piece of the Blaxploitation puzzle-- indeed, with only a few exceptions, they are far better remembered and loved today than the films themselves. Fellow Chicagoans the Impressions had just scored with the OST for Three the Hard Way, and the producers of Brotherman figured they'd get the soundtrack out of the way first, bringing in Wolfolk to write and arrange while the Solution sang. The sessions lasted all of 24 hours, and only two instrumentals ever received the intended orchestration, and then, of course, the film itself failed to materialize, leaving the score in limbo until now.
Truthfully, the fact that none of the vocal tunes ever got the string and horn parts intended for them is a blessing. Instead, what we get to hear now are raw, funky soul tracks with a rougher sound than most other products of 1974 recording studios. The harmonies are right up front, with only guitar, bass, and drums to back them. And what guitar parts! Wolfolk played far more elaborately than he might normally have to simulate the anticipated orchestration, and the result is wild. It's somewhat like having a fifth voice in the mix at times, and it lends a very distinctive sound to the album. The title track (not intended to be the main theme) is just thrilling, with Wolfolk's guitar jumping and diving through a chicken-scratch symphony while his cohorts gather round the mic and take his lyrics about the pusher who became a preacher in close harmony. The song has a nervous energy to it, and if the film had ever been made, we might be talking about it in the same breath as "Bucktown" and "Superfly", if not quite "Theme From Shaft" and "Across 110th Street".
Wolfolk was given no lyrical direction, an implicit acknowledgement by the producers that the songs hardly needed a connection to the film, and listening, it really doesn't matter what the movie might have looked like. I'll use myself as an example: I own around 20 soundtracks for films that could be considered part of the Blaxploitation genre, and I've seen only two of the films (Shaft and Black Belt Jones, if you were wondering). This album, now that it's finally out, just skips the hard work of making a forgettable movie and gives you the tunes you would've come for in the first place. Wolfolk and co. cover a lot of ground, leaping from gritty funk tracks to suave balladry, and it's clear from the easy melodicism of the songs, the seamless meld of the voices, and Wolfolk's distinctive guitar, which sometimes sounds almost Spanish or Arabian, that these guys could have been contenders if given a fair shot.
That fair shot never came though, and the story is irresistible today for that fact. The Final Solution didn't last long after the recording sessions, with one member tragically blowing his life away via syringe. Wolfolk spent two years trying to wrangle the tapes back from the failed filmmakers, who never so much as completed a final script. Then those tapes spent 30 years in a closet with little prospect for a public airing. Thanks to a series of serendipitous meetings on the streets of Chicago, though, we can finally hear them, a long-delayed happy ending for a long story of tribulation."
-pitchforkmedia.com



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All I have to say about this album is that it is the kind of blues that completely kicks your ass. Awesome listen, but be prepared for one hell of a ride.



"In another life, Freddie J IV could have been a good ol' fingerpickin', porch-playin' blues guitarist. Basking away in the sun, he could have whiled away his time exploring the many shades of blues, from country hit whittling to Delta swamp wading. But there was fire in his belly and a flame in his soul, and in his hands the blues were transformed into an assault weapon. Bren "Sausage Paw" Beck was perhaps every mother's nightmare, a boy who seemingly just couldn't sit still. In a world pulsing with rhythm -- from the blood pounding through our veins to the cacophony of traffic in our towns -- Beck had to drum back in response at every turn, on anything and everything available. He is a continuous tattoo, battering out the beats of his own internal drums. Fatefully, one day the two met, and so was born Left Lane Cruiser, an astounding two-man blues band. Lo-fi is a totally inadequate term to describe their sound, a sizzling mix of Beck's pusillanimous drums, claps, percussion, and hoots and hollers and Freddie J's blistering guitar and husky vocals. This is the blues in their purest form, rough and ragged, rubbed raw by too much hard living and too many tough breaks. The blues' African-American progenitors could bare the pain in their souls, but dared not express the anger that underlay it. Cruiser, however, are under no such constraints, and on the trio of songs that close the set the music bristles with barely repressed rage that immediately brings the Stooges to mind. In contrast, the exuberant crash and bash of "Wash It," the dizzy stomp of "KFD," and the gleeful hook of "G Bob" all roil with a grand joie de vivre, with the exhilarating "Set Me Down" the perfect band anthem. Then again, every track on Bring Yo' Ass to the Table ripples with energy and an electric charge of creative frisson. Whether celebrating a plate of "Pork n' Beans," "Big Momma"'s delights, or "G Bob"'s steel guitar playing, the Cruisers rumble through the back streets of life, focusing on the small details, although the scathing "Amerika" does look at the bigger picture. A thoroughly unique journey down a well-traveled road; best now to sit yo' ass down a spell and listen to this stunning album."
-Allmusic



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Unfortunately I was a moron and accidentally spilled water on my computer, which is now kaput. As such, I won't be posting any more music until I can get it fixed/get a new one. In the meantime, uh, do a silly dance or something.

Curtis Mayfield is the fucking man.





"The first solo album by the former leader of the Impressions, Curtis represented a musical apotheosis for Curtis Mayfield -- indeed, it was practically the "Sgt. Pepper's" album of '70s soul, helping with its content and its success to open the whole genre to much bigger, richer musical canvases than artists had previously worked with. All of Mayfield's years of experience of life, music, and people were pulled together into a rich, powerful, topical musical statement that reflected not only the most up-to-date soul sounds of its period, finely produced by Mayfield himself, and the immediacy of the times and their political and social concerns, but also embraced the most elegant R&B sounds out of the past. As a producer, Mayfield embraced the most progressive soul sounds of the era, stretching them out compellingly on numbers like "Move on Up," but also drew on orchestral sounds (especially harps), to achieve some striking musical timbres (check out "Wild and Free"), and wove all of these influences, plus the topical nature of the songs, into a neat, amazingly lean whole. There was only one hit single off of this record, "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Down Below We're All Going to Go," which made number three, but the album as a whole was a single entity and really had to be heard that way. In the fall of 2000, Rhino Records reissued Curtis with upgraded sound and nine bonus tracks that extended its running time to over 70 minutes. All but one are demos, including "Miss Black America" and "The Making of You," but mostly consist of tracks that he completed for subsequent albums; they're fascinating to hear, representing very different, much more jagged and stripped-down sounds. The upgraded CD concludes with the single version of "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below We're All Going to Go.""
-Allmusic


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"The choice of Curtis Mayfield to score the blaxploitation film Superfly was an inspired one. No other artist in popular music knew so well, and expressed through his music so naturally, the shades of gray inherent in contemporary inner-city life. His debut solo album, 1970's Curtis, had shown in vivid colors that the '60s optimist (author of the civil-rights anthems "Keep On Pushing" and "People Get Ready") had added a layer of subtlety to his material; appearing on the same LP as the positive and issue-oriented "Move On Up" was an apocalyptic piece of brimstone funk titled "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go." For Superfly, Mayfield wisely avoids celebrating the wheeling-and-dealing themes present in the movie, or exploiting them, instead using each song to focus on a different aspect of what he saw as a plague on America's streets. He also steers away from explicit moralizing; through his songs, Mayfield simply tells it like it is (for the characters in the film as in real life), with any lessons learned the result of his vibrant storytelling and knack of getting inside the heads of the characters. "Freddie's Dead," one of the album's signature pieces, tells the story of one of the film's main casualties, a good-hearted yet weak-willed man caught up in the life of a pusher, and devastatingly portrays the indifference of those who witness or hear about it. "Pusherman" masterfully uses the metaphor of drug dealer as businessman, with the drug game, by extension, just another way to make a living in a tough situation, while the title track equates hustling with gambling ("The game he plays he plays for keeps/hustlin' times and ghetto streets/tryin' ta get over"). Ironically, the sound of Superfly positively overwhelmed its lyrical finesse. A melange of deep, dark grooves, trademarked wah-wah guitar, and stinging brass, Superfly ignited an entire genre of music, the blaxploitation soundtrack, and influenced everyone from soul singers to television-music composers for decades to come. It stands alongside Saturday Night Fever and Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols as one of the most vivid touchstones of '70s pop music."
-Allmusic


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Part children's fable, part Buddhist philosophical discourse, part adventure tale, Journey To The West is awesome. First it was a classic Chinese epic, then it was a plethora of tv specials, movies and ongoing series and now it is a kickass album. From the guys who brought the world Gorillaz (Damon Albarn & Jamie Hewlett), Journey To The West is an album inspired by the multi-media opera they wrote together and performed in London. This album is unlike anything I've heard before, which is probably why I like it as much as I do. Imagine classic chinese music mixed with electronica and rock and you'll get the picture. A seriously awesome and unique listen.


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Espers is probably my favorite modern psych/folk band. Their first two albums are quiet and beautiful, but this album can only be described as apocalyptic. Songs like Cruel Storm and Dead King (my personal favorite) are gorgeous and awesomely heavy. A perfect listen on a rainy day, or when you're in a dark mood. Dead King especially starts of quiet and serene and then explodes into a world of fuzzed out guitar and avant-garde experimentation. Musically it's similar to Pentangle and Comus, among others. Highly recommended if you are a fan of psych/folk.





Allmusic's review:
"Where Espers' self-titled debut album was drenched in sunshine melodies, traditional folk influences, and psychedelic acid-folk sounds ranging from Fairport Convention and Donovan to Six Organs of Admittance and Super Furry Animals, and their creepy, apocalyptic EP -- who else would cover the Durutti Column, Nico, Michael Hurley, and the Blue Öyster Cult on the same record as a reverent version of "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair" -- neither of these offerings truly prepare the listener for II. This Philly sextet fronted by Greg Weeks, Meg Baird, and Brooke Sietinsons have gone over the edge this time while retaining just a modicum of restraint to hold all the pieces together. The proof is in the kool-aid so to speak. The opener is the sharp, gloomy, 17th century-styled Elizabethan folk of "Dead Queen," that feels more like Pentangle, and it's countered in "Widow's Weed," the very next track, by a slew of screeing electric guitars atop a snare-heavy drumkit awash in feedback that never quite lets go of the early 1800s in its melody. Here Eastern modal drone meets trad-Anglo balladry in an opium den of thieves and warriors. "Cruel Storm," uses a sparse wash of modal jazz chords to create an open-tuned dirge that floats on an augmented key elegance; it is adorned by skeletal percussion and whispering feedback in the outer reaches. Its restraint is deceptive as Baird's vocals are a bead hinting that this cruel storm is not a disaster because the disaster has already happened. There are musical hints of a sonic whiplash daring itself to reoccur in the mirror-distorted strings which cut in and out sharply from the margins as Baird sings of something out of reach but whose memory is distinct, horrific, now absent yet full of dread. The drifting psychedelic folk of "Children of Stone," suggests a dark, bleary eyed cousin to It's A Beautiful Day's "White Bird" hippie optimism. This is pushed a step in each direction in "Mansfield and Cyclops," where the repetitive Vini Reilly-styled guitars Weeks plays cancel themselves out as stray bits of 20th century West Coast strummery (think "Suite: Judy Blues Eyes"), and darkly Bert Jansch-resuscitation Steeleye Span's post-Martin Carthy experimentalism. Once more, Baird's voice (in her best Kendra Smith-kisses-Joni Mitchell mindwarp) sets a crumbling, sodden and ancient terrain to anchor to as Möebius strip basses, drums (yes, and those rubbery guitars) emboldened by myriad instruments (dumbecks, cello, an omnichord) vie for the washed-out hazy sun of nether backporch tomorrowland. In "Dead King," hints of Shirley and Dolly Collins -- sung to Helen Adam's weird, late-night gothic poetry -- and David Tibet's post-apocalyptic folkery meet the Velvets' "Venus in Furs" in the Castle Gormenghast hosted by Count Leopold von Sacher-Masoch himself. The final track, "Moon Occults the Sun," finds Weeks slowly sawing cellos, acoustic bright, rounded electrics, and droning single-string modal guitars flowing through Weeks' and Baird's voices, ushering in varying degrees of clouds, darkness, and the spirit of black night itself. Once more, one can hear the Velvets creeping through the underbrush, but they're not the only ones -- here is where Comus and Fresh Maggots offer their blunted blades, black with mud and mercury under a sky where the moon has turned to blood. Dumbek is a Doric transistorized organ, here fuzzed-out over intensifying guitars and doggedly persistent basses carrying forth the banner of a folk music that never existed for any folk at all, but merely as the face of their fears. (If "Cortez the Killer" had been composed by a court minstrel's band instead of a raggedy-ass, wasted Neil Young, it might have sounded like this.) All of these songs are sure to be long-ranging from just over five to nearly nine minutes -- but it's what gives Espers the chance not only to seamlessly blend their many influences -- it isn't their fault all this stuff had been done before -- but to create a kind of ancient-to-modern blend of Anglo song that points to a murky future while erasing an even sketchier past. Espers II is both wondrous and troubling."



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Hello again! Sorry for being away for so long, but I am back to bring you even more good music. August just felt like a vacation month, and then I had to deal with the whole starting up school again thing. But now I have returned to bring you all more nuggets of aural pleasure.

Todays album is:


I think this album has the best name I've seen all year. It is some really loud, really funky afro-beat from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Heavy use of the thumb piano and layering beats. It is the kind of music that makes you want to get up and dance. If you like nice quiet music that sort of floats into your ears instead of assaulting them, avoid this album.

Allmusic's review:
"The third volume in Crammed Disc's excellent Congotronics series is as wild, sophisticated, and truly exotic as its predecessors (the title alone, In the 7th Moon, the Chief Turned Into a Swimming Fish and Ate the Head of His Enemy by Magic, should reflect this). The Kasai Allstars are based in Kinshasa and form a collective of about 25 musicians from five different bands from the region who all represent different ethnic groups. Over time immemorial, some of these intersecting groups have been in conflict with one another as each has its own culture and language. In other words, assembling this supergroup was no easy task, but musicians of all cultures tend to think differently than most people: the expansive spirit of adventure often trumps prejudice. These players include not only instrumentalists, but ten singers and dancers as well. Some of these bands -- Lusombe, Madimba Tandjolo, Dibua, Basokin, and Masanka Sankayi -- have appeared on the two previous Congotronics recordings on their own. The music on this volume is as surprising as it is different from the other Congotronics volumes. These musicians have to adapt instruments, scalar harmonics, singing styles, and even language in order to be able to work together. Add to this the uses of amplification and modern production. That said, they not only invent rhythms and melodies but also play their traditional styles with one another. The players use instruments familiar to all Kasai cultures like the likembe (thumb piano), lokombe, xylophone, and the tandojo as well as the electric guitar (which acted as a substitute for the more traditional lusese tetrachord). The results of this fusion can especially be heard on"Kafuulu Balu," "Mbua-a-matumba," "Analengo," and "Mpombo Yetu." The culture clash that comes across on this glorious volume reflects the strident effort of all of these tribes to maintain their identity against the encroachment of Christianity in the villages that allows these instruments only to be used in the playing of gospel music. The pagan dances, parties, and ceremonies of the tribes have effectively been all but completely stamped out in the remote villages of Kasai. Therefore, this is urban music, from the heart of the city where the influence of the church is far less prominent. The Kasai Allstars, therefore, like the Tinariwen and many other groups, play music of resistance. But never did resistance sound so infectious, joyous, and utterly freewheeling as this does. So far, Crammed's Congotronics series has been virtually unassailable. The sound is terrific, the presentation is handsome, the sound and selection are amazing; and negotiations with musicians are not done on colonial terms. In addition, the wonderfully researched notes by Herbert Mputu and producer Vincent Kenis are indispensable."


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The Ohio Players made some god damned sexy music. Their music isn't the kind of music you want to have sex to, or to make love to. Oh no. Their music is the kind of music you want to fuck to. Not sensitive or caring sex, but hard, dirty and passionate fucking. The first few tracks of this collection epitomize this mentality. Pain, Pleasure, Ecstasy and Climax. Hell, the whole collection is called Orgasm. And check out the cover of this album too, not to mention the album covers for Pain, Pleasure and Ecstasy. Theirs is a hard, deep funk to fuck to. All hail The Ohio Players.





Allmusic's review:
"The majority of music fans are familiar with the legendary Ohio Players through such mid- to late-'70s pop-funk hits as "Love Rollercoaster," "Fire," and "Fopp." What many don't realize is that the band had been around since the '60s, and released a trilogy of hard funk records from 1972-1973 on the Westbound label -- Pain, Pleasure, and Ecstasy -- that were easily comparable to the early-'70s classics by their rival Westbound labelmates, Funkadelic. And since the albums have been out-of-print for some time, the European import Orgasm: The Very Best of the Westbound Years is a solid collection of tracks from this era. Included is the 1972 novelty hit "Funky Worm," as well as all the sizzling title tracks from the three albums. A pair of songs from outside the trilogy is added, "Climax" (one of the collection's best tracks) and a cover of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," both from 1974. A previously unissued track, "Ain't That Lovin' You (For More Reasons Than One)," is tacked on the end, making Orgasm an excellent anthology of the Ohio Players' early years, before they achieved mass mainstream success."
-Allmusic


Here are two preview tracks for your listening pleasure via YouTube:


Funky Worm


Pain




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