L.A. producer-octopus Boom Bip has a nice ear for sound, basically, and of course beats and best of all these musical points
in-between, usually just smart enough and always reeking of distinctive style. You maybe first heard him collab'ing w/ Dose One on Circle
for Mush Records, then on a raft of solo discs like Seed to Sun on Lex in 2002, a remix album called Corymd (2004), Blue Eyed in the Red Room (2005),
and most of all his partnering with Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals as
Neon Neon, whose 2008 Stainless Steel album famously paid back-handed tribute to disgraced automaker/conman John DeLorean.
Okay, so Lex Records will release Boom Bip誷 Zig Zaj September 29. Zig Zaj features guest spots from Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, Money Mark, Luke Steele (Empire of the Sun, Sleepy Jackson), singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon, Mikey Noyce (Bon Iver, Gayngs), L.A. post-punk nabobs Warpaint and
members of the Boom Bip live band including Josh Klinghoffer (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Eric Gardner (Gnarls Barkley, Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Josiah Steinbrick.
His new The Less You Know The Better album comes 9/5 on Verve Records, something to look forward to, 'cause somehow it feels like the master has been hiding himself away too long...getting his trip together out in the country, maybe...Shadow's new single, "I Am Excited," is out now and available for purchase.
Brooklyn rap trio Das Racist have just dropped "Michael Jackson," and it drips w/ irony and
edgy wit and etc., true, but it's also powerful in a way too complicated to explain. It's the
first single from their debut long player, Relax, out September 13 on Greedhead Music.
Grace Jones is U.S.-releasing her latest album Hurricane on
September 6 via [PIAS] America. Actually, it's been out in Europe and the UK since '09, presumably
America has now been deemed to be "ready" for it....Now, much of this disc is a real corker, and a
big plus is that the U.S. release will include a bonus disc dub version of the entire album. How old is
Grace Jones, anyway?
L.A. people need to check out Ethiopian-American singer-songwriter Meklit Hadero, who has two local dates coming up:
Grand Performances on Friday, July 22 @ 12 p.m., and Amoeba Music on Saturday, July 23 @ 2 p.m.
The Ethopian-born, American-raised Hadero is a simply fantastic singer, a caressing soul styler drawing off a wide palette of
jazz, hip-hop, art-rock and folk traditions from Latin America and of course the country of her birth. Which is cool, but really
it's the way she's melting it all down into something uniquely her own that does it for us. You often can't tell where exactly
Meklit Hadero is coming from 行 and, trust us, this is a trademark of quality.
Chicago MC Serengeti's Family and Friends record hits "the streets" July 19. It's on the Anticon label, which basically means you can trust that it will most likely, er, smoke; labelmate Yoni Wolf of Why? and Advance Base (Casiotone for the Painfully alone) help out on Family and Friends, and that's good, real good, because: Serengeti's a real different typa proposition rap & noizewise, as you surely will realize when you grok these samples of the man's art & kraft:
Saxophonist Gilad Atzmon recently released The Tide Has Changed on World Village.
Recorded with the Orient House Ensemble, it combines Atzmon's lyrically Coltrane-ish horn lines
with sinewy Middle-Eastern strands and darkly airy string shadings. The Israel-born Englishman
Atzmon is also a widely published essayist who can and often does make defiantly political music,
but then again he's recorded with Paul McCartney and Sinead O'Connor, and contributed
immeasurably to Robert Wyatt's last couple of albums; best of all, he was once a member of
Ian Dury's Blockheads. With regard to his "jazz," which is jazz but is better heard as the sound
of a world in revolt, or a time and place seeking peace, he has said, "Beauty is the way forward...art is the true means of transformation. Spirit and energy are bricks and mortar. Shapes and colors are hammers and chisels."
Just out on Imagine Music, Sachal Jazz: Interpretations of Jazz Standards & Bossa Nova is a blast.
Recorded at Sachal Studios Lahore, Pakistan
and Abbey Road Studios, it's an exhilaratingly, well, different cooking job on the revered "modern"
jazz thing along with the traditional classical music of Pakistan and India. Hear ace interps. of
Dave Brubeck, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Burt Bacharach and Dave Grusin redefined and stratified!
Enjoy:
Johnny's an actor / writer / radio personality of long standing in L.A., and an ace guitarist/singer
who used to front a badass punk band called the Thrills out of Boston way back in the day.
Nowadays Johnny's found a new respect for country music, like a lotta these old punks seem to
do, and he's got a buncha his mates together to play and sing some of it; they are known as
The Wasted Knights. Now, you tell me, is this the nu country? Because I have no idea. I do know I
just like the way it sounds, because it's kinda old 'n' trad and simultaneously something expansively
new -- they even jazz it up a bit, 'cause why not? And wouldn't Joe Strummer be doing something
like this if he'd made it this far? I told Johnny that, and he was chuffed. Well, check out
this track
and see f'yourself:
Hrishikesh Hirway is The One AM Radio, a musical space where a lovely folk
sensibility melts and morphs into electronic realms, where of course many beats bring it down to
Earth and myriad melliflous melodies massage the mind...and heart. Please grok this
remix by
Prefuse 73 of "Sunlight" from the new album Heaven Is Attached by a Slender Thread
(Dangerbird).
Just out is Finlay Morton's Harvest the Wind.
Finlay might be from Aberdeen, Scotland, but he sings and plays in a real down-home
American rootsy style, bringing heapin' helpin's of folk/blues/gospel/country old-tymey
classic-rock with a type of feel and attitude that flourished in the early '70s, say. His songs
are about life and its ups and downs, as most songs are, yet Finlay pushes things forward
with a gritty, dark humor and what sounds like a true love for his treasure trove of sources.
UTILITARIAN THRILLS: LIBRARY MUSIC NOW! ...AND THEN
Traversing past dusty decades in the history of film and television soundtracks, we zero in on a phenomenon that found fullest flower in the '60s and '70s, that presently curiously
stimulating though never-given-a-thought-about-at-the-time "genre" called Library Music, which was sort of generic music kustom-krafted by often anonymous session composers/arrangers/players to
suit any mood, theme, place, time, circumstance, clothing style and cocktail mix that might be in need of enhancing in all those exciting loads of cop shows / mystery-intrigues / sexy secret liaisons / glamorous
airport departures and arrivals and etc., etc., sometimes featuring men in tan polyester suits and neatly trimmed fu manchu moustaches. Well, recently the Asthmatic Kitty label has revivified the "aesthetic" with
a series of newly done albums of said Library Music that are as generically satisfying as they are fascinating examples of a new, non-genre instrumental music that can be listened to closely, frugged to and/or
completely ignored as you do the dishes after dinner.
Check out Asthmatic's
Library Music series.
SF-based space-rock quintet Lumerians have a quite intriguing new album just out, it's called
Transmalinnia and it's on the Knitting Factory label. Witness "Gaussian Castle" at Vimeo.
Portland's folk rock aficianados AgesandAges' new Alright You Restless (Knitting Factory) features seven singers
who can actually sing. Moving tales of life in the big, bad but beautiful outdoors, and the indoors we carry with us
like so much heavy, heavy baggage.
Danish trio Tomas Barfod, Tomas H縡fding and Jeppe Kjellberg also known as WhoMadeWho have this hot new little item out on Kompakt entitled Knee Deep.
It was produced by the redoubtable Michael Mayer, and the CD included with this vinyl mini-album includes five bonus tracks including remixes by Mayer, Tomboy, Spleen United and Renaissance Man.
The Wexford, Ireland trio does radical things to all things rock and electronic and warp your "math-rock" and "whatsit" genres and categories into total oblvion.
Their loads-of-prizes-winning This Is the Second Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank (Sargent House) has just been released in the States.
You need to hear it, 'cause it's a real mess, and that is good.
The Cologne scene continues to thrive, and here we have Ancient Astronauts' new album Into Bass and Time (ESL) to bring us up to speed. It's a hip-hoppy-funky- ragga-turntablist kinda thing,
and, as you will see, with their own partic. twists & turns bringing something's extra on it.
Alexander Tucker reveals his Dorwytch (Thrill Jockey), an album of experimental pop epicry, very well done, and the times they do seem to call for it.
A track to take you back, and forward:
Directed by Marianne Dissard, here is the video for the collection's "The One and Only," taken from her own new album
L'Abandon (www.mariannedissard.com).
Be Brave, says Auditorium, a.k.a. singer-songwriter-musician Spencer Berger. His melodically mighty mound of
acousta-glam gentle-gems he recorded, performed and mixed all by himself, with spareness and taste. The 30-minute
album feels good listened to in a bunch; it's got that '70s album-rock aesthetic hovering over it. On a not entirely unrelated note,
Berger also starred in and wrote the screenplay for the 2007 indie film Skills Like This, which won loads of prizes and critical praise here,
there and most everywhere. Now hear/see 襎he Enforcer":
A very big sound indeed is Adventure's new Lesser Known set on the excellent Carpark label. He brings an exceptionally
spacious feel to his synth-blazing, pulsing sort of retro-future type schtick, which could even make one consider actually
recalling the 1980s with fondness...well, check it out:
Epigene誷 A Wall Street Odyssey (Amammi Music) is a double-CD/illustrated booklike rock opera that tells the timely story of
financial-sector slogger Yossarian's descent into drug addiction, rebirth in a country commune and ultimate liberation in the
land of the loving and living. The music's a smart 'n' snappy hash of proggy-poppy electro-folkie strains, a taste of which you
can experience right here:
L.A.-area readers should grab the nearest metro rail over to Keyboard Concepts on Sunday, May 22 for a performance by the Colin Vallon Trio. French-born pianist Vallon is joined by
Samuel Rohrer on drums and Patrice Moret on double-bass; together they play jazz-aligned instrumental pieces inspired by songs and singers (they "cover" Björk and the Cranberries, take inspiration from Radiohead) and by the music of the Caucasus region. Created and arranged collectively, and quite spontaneously, the group's sound is a fantastic melting-down of its wildly varied source inspirations, played with a keenly intelligent spareness and, when the time is right, explosive intensity. Seek out the band's recent ECM release Rruga (meaning path, road or journey in Albanian).
The 80-year-old Russian composer makes a very rare U.S. appearance in a series of performances spread over three nights.
The programs include an animated film scored by Gubaidulina, The Cat Who Walked by Herself, a concerto for bassoon and
low strings, the concertos Introitus for piano and chamber orchestra and Detto II for cello and chamber ensemble, and several
other pieces that showcase her tough-minded, often very percussive sound and uniquely colored melodic/harmonic language.
The intensity (to understate it) and high idiosyncracy of these compositions, often based on traditional musical forms, is remarkable,
but their greatest achievement might be their ability to plunge one into relatively unknown emotional states. Soloists are Erika
Duke-Kirkpatrick, cello; Julie Feves, bassoon; Mark Menzies, violin; and Richard Valitutto, piano.
Ace player, producer and songwriter Gurf Morlix has been doing the American roots thing for
many a year, solo and helping out the likes of Lucinda Williams, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Slaid
Cleaves, Buddy and Julie Miller, and Mary Gauthier. Well, Gurf used to hang with Austin songwriter
Blaze Foley, too. Blaze was a supremely gifted songwriter, instrumentalist and arranger 行 and, it
is said, a real character; he was murdered in 1989 at the age of 39. Now Gurf's on the road
performing songs from his new record Blaze Foley's 113th Wet Dream, a tribute to his
buddy and inspiration. The shows include a screening of director Kevin Triplett's documentary
Blaze Foley 行 The Duct Tape Messiah.
If you're in the L.A. area tonight, Friday, May 6, you can experience this beautiful friendship 行
and a lot of great music 行 at McCabe's, 3101 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica. Info: 310-828-4497.
Composer/sound designer Markus Reuter has released the first performance of his contemporary classical piece Todmorden 513.
An algorithmic composition for live instruments and electronics, the piece is, says Reuter, "an hourlong composition based on a cycle of 513
evenly spaced chords that were strictly derived from systematic combinations of pitches and recursive definition (i.e. the repeated application of a set of rules)."
This recording of the piece is available for digital download and on CD at markusreuter.com.
Thee essential Now-Again Records now gifts us with the Natural Yogurt Band's Tuck in With, which...well, you just have to love any band who'd give themselves
such a healthful and tasty name. They're funny, in other words, and the music's ace (the best combination). This one brings more of that Brit-psych 襪usic library vibe from
'60s and '70s we've grown to know and love, plus an extra-nutritious dollop of "international sounds."
's forthcoming album includes his version of the classic Egyptian civil rights song 褹heb Aisht Al Huriya
(襂 Love The Life of Freedom). Words by Egyptian poet-laureate Ahmed Shawki, first put to music in the 1930s by Egyptian composer Mohamed Abdel Wahab; produced by Hal Willner.
creates nice big blasts of instrumental stuff that's moody and eerie,
except when he's in the mood to party-hearty. "Genre defying" is what he likes to call it, and yeah... Void Pedal recently toured the U.S. with
Pigeon John, DJ Abilities and Dark Time Sunshine in support of his debut release, The Void Pedal EP (Fieldwerk), available as a free download at
Fieldwerk.com.
VP will be on tour with the Busdriver/Dark Time Sunshine crews in a town nearest you this week and next.
The Dirtbombs' new Party Store elpee is a big bag of live band interps. of classic Detroit techno
of the '80s and early '90s. The band pulled a card from Eno's Oblique Strategies during the recordings;
it said: "Humanize something that is without error."
Three Connecticut lads are the future in their tasty puree of electro-folk-soul-contemp. classical-jazz-punk-African-psychedelia and etc. etc., all beautifully
smeared on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Stones Throw is putting out their full-length somewhere further down the road in 2011.
Antonionian is Oakland's Jordan Dalrymple, multi-instrumentalist, Subtle sound artiste, General Elektriks and 13 & God
tone wizard. On his own, he makes electro-acoustic fantasms of uncommon beauty & wisdom, even. Savor "Into the Night"
from his new self-titled set on Anticon.
Mia Doi Todd's "Open Your Heart" was directed by Michel
The Green Hornet Gondry, produced and arranged by Jon Brion and features the Riverside
Community College Marching Band.
The song is included on Mia's new album Cosmic Ocean Ship, due in May on her
City Zen label.
After suffering an aneurysm in 2004, Palestinian-American dub specialist Andre Afram Asmar had to undergo a
lot of rigorous therapy to get his chops back. He got 'em back! Check Harmonic Emergency, his radiant new set on Mush Records.
Asmar says, "The purpose of my music is just to possibly channel some kind of light through it. I believe that certain humans on this planet
have no choice but to be conduits of good. I believe that it's my moral obligation to channel good."
Here's the interesting and kinda heartening story of Nantucket's Willie Wright,
who self-released this album Telling the Truth in 1977. Wright started in doo-wop, then
became a hippie making serious politico-soul, which rendered him unniche-able, thus the album
quietly wisped away out to sea...Respect now to Numero Records for making its sweetly funky
charms available for our enlightened consideration.
From deep within her sexy brain comes Joan As Police Woman誷 new soulfire set The Deep Field, out now digitally; on CD/vinyl etc. in April, on PIAS Records
Chicago-bred, L.A.-based singer-songwriter Haroula Rose's self-released These Open Roads is a deceptively
easy-on-the-ears debut that launches Rose as a triple threat: a deft melodicist, a superb acoustic guitar crafter and a winsome vocal presence.
These are timeless tales of loneliness and bad breakups and adios a la pasada and all that, and while this particular palette of fears and cheers
could be a recipe for maudlin moping in lesser hands, in hers it's a chance to revel in creation.
From San Francisco, neu-jazz and supersoundscape Sun Ra sickness is their metier, plus they're real good at it.
Their City of the Future album is just out on Third Culture Records.
His new album Life Coach is due out imminently on the eminently righteous Thrill Jockey label;
you all know Phil as the guitarist in Trans Am, and he was/is also a member of the Fucking Champs and loads of other interesting projs;
he's also done loads of praiseworthy recording engineering, for the likes of Alps, Arp, Mi Ami, Moon Duo, Wooden Shjips and others.
Anyway, here's a free download of the title track from Life Coach.
scores massively again with Dark Sunrise, an anthology of
Zambian "Zamrock" kingpin Rikki Ililonga and his psycho-Afrodelia band Musi-O-Tunya. The set
contains Ililonga's first three albums plus several 7 singles in a 2-CD hardbound book; it's also available as a triple-LP box set.
Download 褼ark Sunrise by Rikki Ililonga and Musi-O-Tunya right here.
