FLASH STRAP

Holy Warbles Has Been Assassinated

2012-01-27T14:24:00.000-08:00

Oh damn. The shittiest thing happened. The pigs burned the Owl. God Damn it.

Holy Warbles was a shining beacon of excellence among the blogs, an earth-shaker despite having been around for less than three years... a deep ocean of jewels... and the cunts shut it down. Assassinated like a Black Panther in Chicago.

Gary at Bodega Pop really says it best. These blogs are libraries of cultural treasures. "Piracy" doesn't even apply, really- blogs like Holy Warbles aren't black ships on the rogue sea, carrying stolen items- they're wizard archives tucked away in the wasteland, preserving the priceless and forgotten, the hard or impossible to find (for no profit). They make it possible to exist outside the horror of cultural homogeny, to find enlightenment in music, in art, beyond the popular mandate or the rigorously selected histories of previous generations. They make it so you can hear something beautiful and timeless, even if the RIAA doesn't see a profit in keeping it in print. These nazis would destroy art for the crime of its obscurity- if they can't sell it, it shouldn't exist.

May the industry burn. It is the enemy of art, of culture, of humanity. Fuck the RIAA, the FBI, copyright law, DMCA... to hell with this charade of capitalism that would rather rape the internet than have industry adjust its practices. Fuck them for taking down whole sites.

Lest we become morose, Owl Qaeda is a tenacious warlock to be sure, and we certainly haven't seen the last of him. I pray he returns, and soon. The world needs his knowledge, to make itself better.

Other blogs have fallen this week, and with the takedown of Megaupload many more have had their content erased. I mourn their passing as well, but Owl is a friend and a comrade. May he emerge stronger than ever.

Electreasure Tronics From The Growing Bin: Peru- Continents, Constellations; Rolf Trostel- Two Faces, Der Prophet; Proxyon- S/t; Charlie- Spacer Woman

2012-01-26T13:13:00.000-08:00

The Growing Bin is a true treasure of the internet, a deep river of e-music rarities and other out-of-print esoteric wonders. Good as it is, however, its almost total lack of write-ups (especially in the earlier days) and dizzying, enormous archives make it easy to miss some of its real gems. So here's some wonderful albums that I've been really into that I'd like to tip you towards with a high recommendation, if you're interested.

Edit: It seems some of these links are dead over at The Bin, so I've uploaded new links.

Peru's 1983 album Continents is fantastic. Of course, I'm a sucker for any album that promises to take me on a musical journey around the globe, and here, Peru paints a sound-picture of the various geographical regions of the world. They operate very much in a pseudo-Berlin School mode, using chilly sequencers and electric drums toward a slightly poppy, almost cheesy sound. Somewhere between the new age-y accessibility of Oxygene and the trashy soundtrack sensibility of Tony Carey's instrumental records- but even better than I'm making it sound. This is actually one of my favorite albums of the genre.

CONTINENTS (192)

Constellations is almost as good, and has essentially the same palate of sounds, although somewhat colder and spacier, naturally, and without the globe-trotting conceit. Like Continents, it's just excellent, enjoyable cosmic synth music.

info
CONSTELLATIONS (link fixed, 192)
more Peru to be found here

Rolf Trostel's Two Faces is legitimately Berlin School (later-period, shorter compositions), although it's pretty similar to Peru, albeit a good bit more serious and Kraut-oriented. Again, very similar to Oxygene, which I keep using as a reference point not just because it's one of my favorite records, but also because it's one of the best sellers of all time. Like Oxygene, Two Faces finds the cold goliath of Berlin School sound moving into what could even be called a more mainstream sensibility, touching tips gingerly with new age and synth-pop.

These are totally listenable, eminently enjoyable synthstrumentals. Deep tracks like a warm metallic ocean.

info
TWO FACES (link fixed, 320)

More of the same, basically. I gather it's even from the same year, more or less. If anything, it's even warmer and deeper- closer to Tangerine Dream territory. Really, really good.

DER PROPHET (192)

Proxyon is in the same ballpark as Peru, but it's just really, really goofy. Handclaps galore, doofy disco beats, vocoder vocals, orchestra hits, huge pop hooks. Super fun stuff, and every track has the word "space" in the title. "Space Guards", "Space Travellers", "Space Hopper", "Space Fly (Magic Fly)", "Space Warriors", "Space Hopper (Space Dub)".

Hilarious, but also incredibly satisfying in the correct context.

PROXYON (192)

I'm just gonna tack this little beauty on the end here... Holly recommended this in the comments, and it's extra dope. Similar to the space-disco of Proxyon, with fembot vocals and relentless rhythm. Handclaps that sound like heavy-duty tinfoil getting whacked with a stick and double-tracked with TV static. So awesome. Thanks, Holly.

SPACER WOMAN (192)

Just A Lonely Seabird, Just A Couple o' Hunks: The Alessi Brothers- Alessi (1977)

2012-01-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

Here's Alessi, the debut LP from acceptably handsome twin brothers Billy and Bobby Alessi. The sound here will likely make sense in the context of the milieu of quintessentially Californian ,70's middle-of-the-road teen-oriented radio pop acts, and sounds a lot like late-period Bee Gees ballads, The Carpenters, or later Beach Boys (especially some of the Bruce Johnston material). On that level, the record is interesting enough; there may not be a song on here as good as the Beach Boy's "Tears in the Morning" or "Deirdre", but there's a lot of pretty good songs that sound a lot like them ("Deirdre" seems to almost be the blueprint for their whole sound, actually). Fortunately, it doesn't need to function solely as a derivative of better acts, or as a time capsule, because it's actually pretty great in its own way.

Don't get me wrong, it's no forgotten masterpiece. It's just an immensely lovable slice of breezy boatin' music with extremely decent songwriting, sugary harmonies, and just enough drum machines and weird synthesizer flourishes to give it teeth. It's the kind of thing that should be playing out of a little baby blue portable radio while you lounge in a deck chair, watching gals in bikinis frolic in the pool. Perfect for a falling-in-love montage that involves a yellowy sunset and feathered hair on the beach, smiling on a clean white sailboat, tennis shorts on the boardwalk... I conjure up these clichés to stress the archetypal specificity, rather than to illustrate nostalgia-inflamed kitsch-- but please, have fun with this record in your own way.

While the majority of the album is as chipper and wholesome as a 14-year old girl pinning up an Alessi Bros Tiger Beat fold out, some of the best moments are when it gets ever so slightly weird, exemplified in the bookends "Do You Feel It?", drenched in synths and graced by a white-funky rhythm workout to die for (dipping its toe into Dennis Wilson territory), and "Seabird", a drum-machine driven curio with intriguingly imperfect double-tracking and wonderful lyrics. Both of these tracks manage to be actually cool, and "Seabird" is a teeny tiny masterpiece, single-handedly elevating the quality and integrity of the entire record.

ALESSI (320)

And here's a video for the album's single, "Oh Lori", which became a top ten hit in eighteen countries (non-US), and their only hit until another in 1982 (this time in the US).

Everybody Calls Me Stupid: Doris Duke- I'm A Loser (1969)

2012-01-19T07:57:00.000-08:00

It would be pretty hard to overstate the brilliance of I'm A Loser. Doris Curry and Swamp Dogg's little masterpiece of deep soul is so real and bracingly bleak it leaves the listener feeling as though they've been dunked in cold water and thrown on the streets in the middle of the night, heartbroken. While it may not be unusual for a soul record of any stripe to mine the subject of heartbreak for material, only I'm A Loser takes it so far: "I Don't Care Anymore" tells a story of a naive country girl lost and jobless in post-industrial America, shattered by bad finance and abusive relationships, numbly living out her days in a motel room turning tricks. That's not just love gone bad- it's the apocalypse of romance. Listen to the frank, matter-of-fact way she delivers the song's documentary lyrics, and try not to get choked up from somewhere deep inside you.

"I Don't Care Anymore" contains perhaps the album's most sensational subject matter, but it doesn't play it up one whit (it's no camp cautionary tale), and it fairly well encapsulates the themes of the record: wholly unromantic descriptions of heartbreak, poverty, hopelessness, and utter, consuming despair. "Feet Start Walking" may be most shattering tale of rejection ever committed to wax. "Ghost of Myself", a song on the verge of suicide, opens with lines, "You laughed, I cried/ You lived, I died... I gave you honey, you gave me dirt." "We're More Than Strangers" comes to grips with total alienation within a relationship, followed by "Divorce Decree" (naturally), which soberly contemplates the bitter freedom allowed by the death of love and ending of commitment. It is one of the peppier tunes on the album. The final track, "To The Other Woman (I'm The Other Woman)" was actually a pretty decent hit- the theme, of course, is that her man's "other woman" is actually his wife, and while it rhymes "degradation" with "obligation" and contains devastating passages such as "Everybody calls me stupid for playing second fiddle... at least I know I'm number two," it may be the record's closest shot at describing a livable existence, if not quite anything approaching happiness or security. True love does not enter this picture.

Before you think this is the type of sob story you'd rather skip, allow me to request that you reconsider. This is a stupefyingly brilliant album, and a lot of the majesty of it is watching them pull off the tonal balancing act. The production is positively phenomenal, understated but endlessly clever, never stooping to emotional manipulation of any kind. The same goes for Ms. Duke's vocal performance. When she sings that she doesn't care if she lives or dies, tells a man that he "took away her womanhood" or that she feels like an "addict hooked on drugs," there's never a cheap appeal to your base sympathy. She's just telling the truth, in a frank matter; neither hiding nor revealing her feelings, they seem to move through her as though she can't help it. She's also a positively wonderful singer, her restrained style gruff on top and tender below.

This is an amazing work of bold soul art. Treat it well and enjoy.

I'M A LOSER (224)

I Believe In Feq'wah: William Onyeabor- Body & Soul Complete Album (1980)

2012-01-17T09:05:00.000-08:00

Moments after returning to Mexico yesterday, I checked my inbox to discover a most wondrous message from the illustrious and generous Mr. Feq'wah. Oh what a happy day, for he has furnished us all with a hot fresh rip of the entire Body & Soul LP from the utterly fantastic William Onyeabor. This is good, my friends.

To put it in Mr. Onyeabor's songwriting syntax: How is the record? How are the sounds? They are so very very fine, and this you must believe.

By now, you very likely know what to expect from this Nigerian master, and on that promise the record delivers squarely. But it ain't exactly same-ol', same-ol', either. As usual, his exploration of keyboard and synthesizer settings yields some delightful new things, such as the "mouth-sounds" solo on "Poor Boy", perhaps my favorite track here. "I Believe In God" is also a treat. The whole thing is a treat, you must know this by now, so get on it, friends!

BODY & SOUL

If you haven't checked it out already, take a gander at my previous Onyeabor Mega-Post, and get as much of the man's masterpieces as you can. And remember the kingly fellow who is making these heavenly sounds happen to your ears and body and soul, and afford him the thank-yous he richly deserves.

Sometimes Songs are Perfect: Gloria Ann Taylor- Deep Inside You EP (197?); Total Disaster Single (1971)

2012-01-04T10:59:00.000-08:00

If you haven't heard this massive little sliver of mind-blowing excellence-- recently posted at the wonderful spot Allegory of Allergies-- you should. Oh, how fine it is! Two spooky soul-funk joints crawling with exotic drum-machine boops, spiderweb guitar, and delicate trails of echo and mellotron sounds, followed by a melancholy left-field string-disco revelation. I will be playing this EP over and over again until it makes me nauseous. It is so good. It melts a man.

DEEP INSIDE YOU

I did some looking around and I found another single from Mrs. Gloria: "Total Disaster". It's good stuff, but a bit more conventional. It's still a really nice soul single along the lines of the Supremes or Martha and the Vandellas, and it comes with some rougher edges, good strings, raga guitar, and a great use of hand drums.

I found it on Derek's Daily 45, and you will too.

TOTAL DISASTER

Thank the dudes who do these blogs!

UPDATE: A gentleman commenter by the name of Nick has left a link in the comments to an additional piece of the puzzle, an excellent track by Gloria's husband/producer/conductor of the Walter Whisenhunt Orchestra, Mr. Walter Whisenhunt. The track, "I'm Saluting You For Your Love", is more along the gently trippy lines of the work found on the Deep Inside You EP. It also bears a more than striking resemblance to the Marvin Gaye tune, "Ego Trippin'", which doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Check out the sounds and give a holler if you have a line on a download of this song or any other Gloria Ann Taylor or Walter Whisenhunt material.

Dub For the New Year: Herman Chin Loy- Aquarius Dub (1973)

2012-01-03T21:07:00.000-08:00

It's 2012. May I venture into this unknowable new year with you, my friend?

Here's a quickie post to get back in the game. I'm still a man on the Holiday Ride so I don't have the kind of "blog time" at my disposal that I might like, but the sabbatical has come an end. Even Achewood is back, so, so must I be.

To kick off this savage año nuevo with some cautious, skeletal optimism, I offer you Herman Chin Loy's Aquarius Dub. Thought of as one of the very first dub projects, it comes off as pretty tentative and bare bones, but its humble charms and bright-eyed sense of discovery are not to be ignored. "Heavy Duty" is an extremely cool cut, the whole thing has a low-key funk sensibility, and yes indeed there's a Carole King cover.

Sorry if some tracks are mislabeled, I'm not 100% sure if this is a problem on this rip (courtesy You & Me on a Jamboree).

So get it or don't. Just know that I am back and we are still in this awful old world together.

AQUARIUS DUB(256)

I promise some more exciting, unique flavors will issue forth from the mouth of this place, and soon, but for now I'm still gettin' back in the saddle.

...That'll Really Really Hurt You One Day: The Persuaders- Thin Line Between Love And Hate (1974)

2011-12-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

There's not a lot of soul records this good, this consistent. There's not that many records, period, this good. On first listen, you might not immediately feel the same way- maybe you'll never agree, I don't know you- but you'll almost certainly find the opening/title track a gripping surprise (assuming you've never heard it before, though you may have, as it was actually a decent hit).

"Thin Line Between Love And Hate" is a masterpiece of soul, and a masterclass in the art of the dark pop song. Part of what makes this particular tale of adultery, deceit, domestic violence and grievous bodily harm is the abstractness of the storytelling, and the neutrality of the narrator. The singer plays the part of the philanderer, and he offers no rationale for his dalliances- he simply notes that he's coming home from one. Later, with a frank matter-of-factness that toes the line of remorse but doesn't quite qualify, he remarks that the sweetest woman can be the meanest woman, if you make her that way. He lays out cause and effect, but doesn't blubber about changing his ways, or how much pain his sins have put him in. It's a quietly amazing quality, a sober sense of remove. By the end of the song, it's reasonable to conclude that it's being "sung" from the hospital bed his silently furious woman has put him in (the method of injury left mysterious), and he's been thoughtfully replaying the night in his head, reliving minute details in slow motion, helpless to stop the inevitable. Elegant.

It's also a lot of fun to listen to. It's so cleverly written, for one thing, but it's also delivered with true perfection. The back-and-forth between lead vocals and backup on deliciously colorful lines, such as when the woman nonchalantly offers, "are you hungry? did you eat yet?" is a revelation, and a joy. It's a thrill.

The Persuaders are excellent with their vocal arrangements, and the leads are always passionate and precise, full of nuance when necessary. The magic doesn't end there, luckily- the Poindexter production on this album is just a god damn miracle as well. I'm not sure how to go about describing it, honestly, because it's not so radical, really. It's just very very specific and tight, stripped down to the absolute necessities; there's very little orchestration, and no horns. There's a lot of tight little drum beats and xylophone. Lean and funky and kind of hard, but bouncy and full and infectious enough to be definitively soul pop. It's a marvel. A rare gift.

Every song is good. It's a beginning-to-end album. Even the very best soul records might have a hard time making this claim- there's always some filler to prop up the singles. On Thin Line Between Love And Hate, The Persuaders put as much heat on the filler as anything else.

"Blood Brothers" gets into a pretty tuff-sounding statement of blackness, but it's also sweet-hearted as a church boy, and 100% unity-oriented: "we are all part of a big beautiful picture!" "Mr. Sunshine" breaks out the falsetto and plunges into Delphonics territory. "Thigh Spy" might have been a low point, but by excluding horns from such a Sly Stone or James Brown-esque track, it becomes an interesting exercise in restraint. "If This Is What You Call Love (I Don't Want No Part Of It)", "Let's Get Down Together" and "You Musta Put Something In Your Love" are pure, sexy delights, with massively soulful sentiments.

If every song is great, the only song that exceeds that greatness and rivals "Thin Line Between Love And Hate" is "Love Gonna Pack Up (And Walk Out)". The first line of the song says it best: "Oo. Wow." This is a mercilessly awesome track. Content-wise, it's pretty basic stuff, but the production, the arrangements, the harmonies, are all in full-throttle and gunning it for the heart of legendary. This shit is perfect. I'm not even gonna describe it anymore, you just gotta hear it. Oh my God.

After listening to this album in it's entirety the first twenty or so times, and keeping engaged through every selection without necessarily meaning to, I realized that this was no ordinary record. I couldn't stop starting it over. It's a sly little masterpiece, and the further into it you get, the more massive the master of it all seems. Do not miss this, my friends.

LOVE AND HATE (320)

Flash Strap Presents: Black Art + Machine Gun Funk Volume Two

2011-11-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

Here is part two of my series, Black Art + Machine Gun Funk (Check out part one here). While some repeat offenders can be found here, I've taken pains to insure that this is more than a just retread of the first one- this is a mean batch, friends.

Thanks to Nicholab of Ghostcapital for the hot tip on Kool & Together. The cover photo for this one is by Danny Lyon, from this Documerica series.

Part One
1. The Meek Ain't Gonna- The Watts Prophets
2. Mean Machine (Chant)- The Last Poets
3. (For God's Sake) Give More Power To The People- The Chi-Lites
4. Who's For The Young- Brothers Unlimited
5. Raising Hell- Norma Jean & Ray J
6. Hard Times- Baby Huey
7. I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun- Rotary Connection
8. Mary Don't Take Me On No Bad Trip- Fugi
9. My People... Hold On- Eddie Kendricks
10. Ball Of Confusion- The Undisputed Truth
11. Peace And Love (Movement V)- Mandrill
12. East- Billy Paul

Part Two
1. Black Noise- Rotary Connection
2. Good Ole Music- The Parliaments
3. Sittin' On A Red Hot Stove- Kool & Together
4. Lying- Black Merda
5. I Can't Stand The Rain- Ann Peebles
6. Feels Like The World- Isley Brothers
7. F.U.N.K.- Betty Davis
8. I Walk On Gilded Splinters- Johnny Jenkins
9. Dance With Your Parno- Bohannon
10. What It Is?- The Undisputed Truth
11. Pretty Soon- The Black Haze Express
12. Wino Man- Kool & Together
13. Life, Dreams, Death- Brothers Unlimited

PART 1 • PART 2

The Walking Octopus & Piero Piccioni

2011-11-23T08:46:00.000-08:00

I was watching this octopus video yesterday- you might have already seen it- and when I got annoyed by the incessant yammering of the spectators in the video, I muted it and popped on the first aquatic-themed music I came across in my library. The results were extremely enjoyable, even majestic, from my point of view. Mute this video, go fullscreen, and play this track.

(The track is "Bora Bora" by Piero Piccioni, from the album Bora Bora. Get it here.)

More Libaek for the Walkabout Masters: Sven Libaek- Nickel Queen (1971); The Set (1970?)

2011-11-21T10:17:00.000-08:00

This record can be found elsewhere amongst the blogs, if you look, but here at Flash Strap we (and I do mean I) have a compulsive desire to display all the Sven Libaek, and in turn make it available to you. Today's post will feature some stragglers of the Libaek catalog.

Nickel Queen is a logical straggler. It's a hard-to-find soundtrack to an obscure Australian film about a wacky-ish mineral-boom rush, and it features more than just a few vocal tracks. It's the vocals, more than anything, that drives down the stock of this Libaek effort- polished, cheesy choruses, folk-pop lite sentiments and melodies... not his best stuff, by a long shot, and not at all what anyone is hoping to hear from a composer with such a masterful ability to weave gorgeously evocative instrumentals. Yet these, the worst selections, aren't really that bad. They've grown on me, anyway. "Look (Every Day)" actually manages to pull off a pretty good take on sunshine pop a la Free Design, and honestly, it's sort of great. Especially when it pops up in the midst of some of Sven's most sunnily optimistic instrumentals, ever.

Lest all this talk of vocal tracks gets you feeling doubtful, though, it's mostly instrumental. Know that.

There's one track in particular that makes me know I absolutely needed this record, after all. "News From The Exchange" stands out from the rest of the album. An achingly gorgeous, perfect diamond teardrop of a composition, this effortlessly belongs with the very best of Mr. Libaek's work. Essential.

A quick note: I can't remember where I grabbed this rip-I know it wasn't Digital Meltd0wn- but it is Digital Meltd0wn's upload (though it may have come to him via Owl of the Warbles, it seems), so be sure to thank him if you have a mind to. Also, I remember there was a bit of a stir (I feel Mr. Zer0 II from Meltd0wn addresses this as well as I could, so I'll be brief) a while back on Pecks Pet Rips over the original ripper feeling the credit due him had not been paid, causing the links there to disappear- so I'd like to thank all the hands this has passed through to keep it alive and moving through the sharing loop. As anyone who has seen Zardoz knows, zealous guardianship of art and beauty can only lead to the invasion of Vortexes by Brutals, the felling of flying stone heads and their wizard pilots, and a realization by the erectionless cultural elites that their main desire is death, anyway.

NICKEL QUEEN (320)

Here's another soundtrack from Mr. Libaek, this one for a film about, I believe, homosexuality and the sexual revolution/youth culture in Australia. It's been made slightly less obscure due to having a few tracks from it included on the Inner Space: The Lost Film Music of Sven Libaek compilation. As far as soundtrack music goes, this is the superior record. A surprisingly wide range of emotions and evocations of scene and mood can be found within these 19 selections, all delivered in a warm, jazzy, smoky sound. Velvety, even. It is, at times, marvellously sophisticated stuff, even for Libaek. It also has less vocal pieces. There is one, which is mainly fine. The rest is fuckin' fabulous.

This rip was given to me on the down low by a friend (if I may) who feels differently than I (or Zer0 II) about rip credits and control. Since it wasn't his rip, he said, I could post it if I wanted, although he mightn't agree with the decision. Fair enough- after all, this album is no longer much of a task to find out there (though there may be a higher quality rip out there that I don't know about). Thank you, friend, for sharing. Everybody please thank this friend.

THE SET (192)

A major piece of the puzzle, which I would love to fill in, is this mysterious and awesome-looking record. I have no information, except that it exists, and I want to hear it so very badly. If you have a line on this, please share.

If you haven't yet acquired the essentials of the Libaek catalog, I encourage you to do so. I can help, here.

Once More Into the Sleepy Lagoon: Miriam Burton- African Lament (1961)

2011-11-12T15:42:00.000-08:00

This record is a minor legend in the Exotica pantheon, one that's managed to stay extremely rare even within the seemingly limitless bounty of the blogosphere and all the other assorted outlands of the internet. I've searched for it a long time, having heard at one point a few engaging selections. Alas, my inquiries and hunting trips failed without exception- so it recently occurred to me to inquire at The Sleepy Lagoon. Witch doctor that he is, it wasn't long before he miraculously produced a copy. It's up on his blog now.

Miriam Burton (former cast member of Porgy and Bess, friend to Harry Belafonte, and a veteran of the jazz world), here plies her impressive soprano in the service of vocal exotica along the lines of Yma Sumac, Bas Sheva, Leda Annest, and other wordless sorceresses. The ostensible concept of the record (and likely the weakest element) is to describe in emotional sound-paintings the African experience. Indeed, there is a track called "Apartheid," so you can tell they're serious. I'm not sure this goal is achieved any more than Bas Sheva's The Passions manages to describe any emotional state other than "moaning in a room"- though I must point out that this is a far better album than The Passions, and Miss Burton a far better and infinitely more bearable singer than Miss Sheva.

So perhaps the conceptual hook is a bit weak, but it wouldn't be the first time an Exotica record endeavored to describe something quite real in an artificial language. This disconnect, after all, is one of the more intriguing aspects of the Cult of Exotica.

But the music! The music is solid. Excellent "Afro-exotic" production, heavy on marimba and percussion (and light on authenticity), deeply evocative and cinematic, with (mostly) awesome, moving, soulful vocal performances from Miriam Burton. The opening track, the almost eight-minute "Rites of Passage" in three parts, is easily the high point for me. A sprawling, unforced suite (highly reminiscent of Perez Prado's Voodoo Suite, especially in terms of percussion), it luxuriates in its aesthetic long enough that the listener can sink wholly into it, and it's abstract enough to function very well as a sound-painting or mood piece. The next track is pretty grating, but enjoyable if you bring some humor to the experience. It's the kind of hyper-upbeat "la la la" nonsense that's always a low point on Yma's records, and very reminiscent of The Passions at its worst. The rest of the album flows by with the same panoramic easiness of "Rites of Passage", with another standout being the excellent "Kalahari Bushman" and the mournful "Apartheid".

With Vocal Exotica records, there's often a fatigue that sets in if you spin the whole record at one go. In some ways, it's best to drop this stuff into a playlist that you intend to shuffle. I love this kind of singing, but I love it most in quick glimpses and stolen snatches. Either way you go with this one though, you'll be glad, because it's excellent and extremely unique. Enjoy, and thank the Lagoonmaster.

AFRICAN LAMENT (320)

Three Exotic KPM Trips: Rogerio Duprat-Brazilian Suite; Les Baxter- Bugaloo in Brazil; Alan Parker & John Cameron- Afro Rock

2011-11-03T20:15:00.000-07:00

In response to an anonymous request for Rogerio Duprat's 1970 KPM library LP Brazilian Suite, I present: Rogerio Duprat's 1970 KPM library LP Brazilian Suite. For me, this is one of those things you download, listen to distractedly once, and never again. I think I've been filing it in the part of my brain that's labelled "too much horns? or not- i don't know man worry about it later", so this was a nice opportunity to give it a second chance and a good listen. I like it. I think a lot of other people will probably like it more than I do. There's a delicate, exotic quality to a lot of the arrangements, making it a somewhat classic intersection of Tropicalia and Production music (of the more soundtrack-esque variety). I do think some of the horns are only so-so, but whatever. It's a good record, especially for fans of 70's Brazilian music.

This rip came from Loronix, a wonderful Brazilian music blog that has since sunk into the tar pits of inactivity, its download links lapsing into dust. So I offer here Loronix's 320 rip for resurrection, although I think I remember EXP ETC has a rip of this one too. I don't know if it's the same, or worse, or better. Or anything.

BRAZILIAN SUITE (320)

Now that we're on this thread, though, let's move on to another 1970 KPM release, from none other than one of my personal favorite artists, the legendary Les Baxter. I don't have a lot of info to share about this release. In fact, it's a total mystery to me. I will say this: of Mr. Baxter's later work, this is a towering success; within the context of his entire career, this can still be considered numbered among the essentials. It's similar in tone to his soundtrack to the film Bora Bora (but more complex and interesting), with Baxter's classic Exotica tropes and production style (minus the huge orchestra, of course) meeting somewhat heavier beats and a "hipper" sound. While this successful blend of eras makes the record fairly unique, I have to say, if I wasn't listening carefully, I might easily mistake this for Golden-Age Baxter. It's kind of a masterpiece, guys, but I do have a habit of calling Les Baxter records masterpieces. After all, he is a fucking master.

BUGALOO IN BRAZIL (320)

And just for good measure, you can zip on over to EXP ETC and grab his rip of a 1973 KPM LP from Alan Parker & John Cameron, Afro Rock. It's pretty damn good, too, and a lot of fun to hear. Some of it is sort of run-of-the-mill library/soundtrack funk, which I can take or leave since I don't sample beats, but it has its true moments of transcendence that aren't to be missed. Especially the track, "Heat Haze." I mean, it might not be Jungle Obsession, but what is?

AFRO ROCK

There's Nothin' Bad About My Good Thing: George Perry- Super Hit! (19??)

2011-11-02T22:52:00.000-07:00

Here's another super fun single- like the last one, I found this at the now departed blog Soul Funk (R.I.P. Soul Funk- you were mammoth). I don't seem to be able to find it anywhere else online, so I thought I'd give y'all a chance to enjoy this silliness.

Against a drum machine beat, Mr. Perry implores, in falsetto, that you understand this: there's nothing bad about his good thing. In fact, his goodness is your goodness. Corroborating this assertion is a female vocalist (introduced as his sister), jarringly edited into the composition, sharply stating, "that's my goodness!" It's goofy and funky and a little bit undignified. Check it out. You got time.

THAT'S MY GOODNESS!

Chocolate Stars: Mtume- Juicy Fruit (single, 1982)

2011-11-01T12:54:00.000-07:00

I am very much enjoying this sexy purplefunk Mtume single, and its titillating litany of candy-related double-entendres, bubblegum beats, and woozy Prince-style harmonies. I haven't heard the record in its entirety, so I can't say one way or another whether you ought to seek it out, but this track is definitely gonna be worth your while. Get on it.

JUICY FRUIT

Flash Strap Presents: Black Art + Machine Gun Funk

2011-10-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a compilation I put together dealing with the tuffer, leaner, meaner, and more experimental side of funk, drawing from the subgenre wells of psychedelic soul, black rock, black power music, 70's Afro-futurism and spiritual jazz, and what Archie Shepp suggested be termed, "Black Art Music". I've done this without incorporating any tracks from Funkadelic or Sly Stone, the best of whose works exemplify the feel I attempt to pursue here. Giant and genius as they are, including them in a compilation would feel silly and obvious (in that regard, I feel guilty for including Betty Davis, too- although she's not as well known or widely praised now as she deserves to be). So if you already have the first three Funkadelic albums, and Sly (and the Family) Stone's There's A Riot Goin' On and Fresh (among others, hopefully), and you're looking for more experimental funk that fears not the murky darkness- that which is trippy without bearing flowers and unnecessary colors, psychedelic and angry- let this collection scratch yall's itch and lead you down nasty pathways to ruff new discoveries on your own personal funk hunt. Follow the links for the fuller story on these tracks- none of them are isolated incidents.

And for the sake of the soul, please download both parts!

PART ONE

1. Listen- Watts Prophets
2. Living In The Ghetto- Purple Image
3. Gettin' Kicked Off, Havin' Fun- Betty Davis
4. One Room Country Shack- Shuggie Otis
5. Can I Help You- Amnesty
6. Masked Music Man- Mandre
7. California Dreamin' (Reprise)- Eddie Hazel
8. Ohio / Machine Gun- The Isley Brothers
9. Oxford Gray- Shuggie Otis
10. Smiling Faces Sometimes- Rare Earth
11. Red Moon- Fugi
12. Cynthy-Ruth- Black Merda

PART TWO

1. Ghettos of the Mind- Bama
2. Let My People Go- Darongo
3. Attica Blues- Archie Shepp
4. Is Anybody Gonna Be Saved?- Ohio Players
5. Save Their Souls- Bohannon
6. I Don't Want To Die- Black Merda
7. Ain't It Fine- Kain
8. Smokin Cheeba Cheeba- Harlem Underground Band
9. Down Home Funk (Full Version)- Larry Davis
10. A Change Is Going to Come- Baby Huey & The Baby Sitters

BLACK ART + MACHINE GUN FUNK: PART 1 • PART 2

This Is Your Heart My Son, And Now You Are The African Man: Duo Ouro Negro- Mulowa Afrika (1968?), Blackground (1971)

2011-10-21T08:15:00.000-07:00

If you don't know by now that the Angolan duo, Duo Ouro Negro, are damn near the best thing your ears can hear, it's time for you to make haste and go to Ghostcapital to grab his immeasurable treasures. Over at his place, you'll find the best of the duo- especially Africanissimo, which is just a phenomenal record (and Com Sivuca which is just as good, really), as well as a comp put together by the Ghost himself. Folks, I can't recommend that stuff highly enough.

For those wanting more, here's some additional bounty for your ears.

As there's not a lot of (English-language) information on these splendid men, I'm not sure of the date or issue of this album. Is it their 1968 first full-length? Is the below cover for a reissue, or another album buy the same name?

The details elude me, and looking at the tracks on this download, I suspect there is a degree of disorder and misinfo. I've done my best to clean it up for you all, but I can't find what the proper tracklist should be, and don't even know what version of Mulowa Afrika we're dealing with here. Let's focus on what we do know: this is prime Duo, every song is beautiful, and it's in 320. The rest is just superfluous mystery, much as I'd like to clear it all up.

There is some overlap with Ghostcapital's comp, and with some other Duo Ouro Negro releases, but it's still a more than worthy record to have in your life.

MULOWA AFRIKA (320)

Here's Blackground, which I believe is from 1971. Again, you'll find some overlaps, but there's wonderful, unique material here as well. It's bookended by partial-English language tracks, the first containing spoken word, the last sung by a giant chorus. The words lay out an allegorical African folk tale, and it's great, ending with a big maraca spirit reminding a mystical river boy (and perhaps the listener), "Don't forget your background, don't forget your blackground, don't forget your blackground..." This makes me happy. It is so good. The rest of the record is excellent, incorporating perhaps more of a heavy "African" sound than they usually might, and in general making some more experimental, slightly concept record-y moves.

Look, this is Duo Ouro Negro. There's not a bad song- there's not a bad moment- on either of these records. Believe.

BLACKGROUND (320)

Also, if you have a line on more Duo records, or better cover scans and further info on these two, consider letting me know about it.

Fantastic Man: William Onyeabor Atomic Post (UPDATED)

2011-10-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

This fine Nigerian master has made many an appearance on the blogosphere, but in the interest of continuing to vigorously spread the very good word of Mr. William Onyeabor, I offer this post. This is not the complete Onyeabor discography, but it is everything I can find, assembled in one place. Here is a brief biography of the man, lifted from the liner notes of the Nigeria 70 comp "The Definitive Story of 1970's Funky Lagos":

William Onyeabor studied cinematography in Russia for many years, returning to Nigeria in the mid-70s to start his own Wilfilms music label and to set up a music and film production studio. He recorded a number of hit songs in Nigeria during the 70s, the biggest of which was ‘Atomic Bomb’ in 1978. ‘Better Change Your Mind’ is taken from the same album, and, as well as slating the power-crazed nations of the world, the second half settles into a unique slice of stripped down spacey, lo-fi funk which is unlike any other Nigerian music being made at the time. William has now been crowned a High Chief in Enugu, where he lives today as a successful businessman working on government contracts and running his own flour mill.

Let's start with 1978's Atomic Bomb, his second record (which I believe I originally came across at the excellent blog Big Head Stevenson). Here we see the first example of the definitive Onyeabor sound: repetition, gorgeously simple electronics and synthesizers, a tradeoff between his own laconic vocals and unmistakable-yet-never-credited female backup singers, and uncomplicated, uplifting messages of positivity, world peace, or everyday emotions. This album contains one of his best songs (the perfect little funk-run "Atomic Bomb") and one of his most well-known ("Better Change Your Mind", featured on the World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love's a Real Thing comp). There's not a bad song here, but another highlight worth mentioning is the charming ode to lifelong fidelity "I Need You All Life", a smile in song-form, bubbling over with gurgling synth sounds of the most optimistic variety and one of the most winning examples of his patented back-up vocals in action. Not to be missed.

ATOMIC BOMB (256)

Next in line we have Tomorrow (1979), which I believe I found at the now defunct Fishtail Lion. All the same elements are in play here, which is for the best. More of the same, in this case, means another little masterpiece- if anything, the beats and compositions are slightly stronger. One of my very very favorite songs of his is here, the fantastic "Fantastic Man", which finds his singers cooing to him "you loook soooooooooooo good.... fantastic man." This is an essential record.

TOMORROW (320)

1980 brought an LP entitled Body and Soul, the entirety of which I've never been able to find. One song, the ten-minute title track (which I found over at DOSCI) can be heard, and it's pretty much a huge home run in my book. Anybody got a line on getting this whole slab?

Update!!! Mr. Feq'wah has indeed found the line on the slab, and he has shared, in the comments. Oh, how grand it is! Check out a post I've done on the record here, or just grab the complete album at the link below. And thank the man in the comments.

BODY AND SOUL (complete LP)

We jump ahead now to his final record, Anything You Sow (1985). In a lot of ways, it's my personal favorite. The sounds are a little fatter, a little goofier, and it's just a damn fun record. Fun as hell. Honestly, it's not all that different from any of the others, but the electronic factor is upped considerably. I guess it's extra-bubbly? With more handclaps, perhaps? Trust me, you're gonna need it, because it's amazing.

This excellent quality rip came, too, from the now sadly gone Fishtail Lion blog.

ANYTHING YOU SOW

Crashes in Love is Onyeabor's 1977 debut. Very little electronics present here- in many ways it's not atypical Nigerian soul/funk- but the specific genius of Sir William is very much in evidence. Were this his sole release, it would likely still be hailed as a lost masterpiece of Afro-funk. As it is, it stands as a bit more of a minor effort in his canon- just not one to be overlooked. Its marvellous, low-key funk sound lays out a loose narrative of, as the cover explains, "a tragedy of how an African Princess rejects the love that money buys." Don't tell me you don't need to hear this now. It's groovy as a jeep on a dirt road, too.

This rip came from the womb of the great Music City- home to many other treasures and more than worthy of your gratitude and respect.

CRASHES IN LOVE (320)

That is the entirety of Onyeabor's output that I can both find and recommend. There are two additions to this, both from the grave of Fishtail Lion. The first is 1982's Hypertension, which I thought was sort of not-too-good, for some reason. You can still find it here. It's definitely worth a listen at some point.

The second is an Onyeabor-produced 1979 N'Draman Blintch record, Cikamele. The jams are super, super awesome, funkier and nastier than anything on a proper Onyeabor joint, but Blintch doesn't bring anything very intriguing to the table, sometimes spoiling the party with kind of awful vocal performances. Or am I just wrong? Certainly this record has been growing on me (more and more everyday, really), and I can't find where it's hosted elsewhere, so I'll put it up as soon as I can for those who want to give it a shot.

here it is:
CIKAMELE´

Remember, y'all, much of this bounty came to us through Feq'wah of Fishtail Lion, so keep him in your thoughts as you groove and maybe give him (and all the other OPs) a shout-out in the comments, in case he ever sees this.

And if you have a line on anymore Onyeabor stuff- anything at all- I would love to know about it, and the world, I think, is ready for it. If you've got anything to share. Let us spread William Onyeabor's love.

UPDATE!!!! The Fantastic Mr. Feq'wah has graced the comments here with a bit of additional info and, most thrillingly, one-half of a 1983 Onyeabor joint, Good Name. It's a 10-minute joyride of a jam, with a really full, rushing, sci-fi funk sound- and one of the most fun things I've heard from the guy. I gotta say, this track is essential Onyeabor. Thank you, Feq'wah! Know that you are appreciated and missed.

GOOD NAME

Hard Times, In This Crazy Town: Baby Huey & the Babysitters- The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend (1971)

2011-10-12T18:30:00.000-07:00

A message to all the fools who haven't heard The Baby Huey Story: get your dark-age asses over to Flabbergasted Vibes and see the light. There's not much I can say here that Flabbergast doesn't handle with aplomb over there, but I will point out that this record has two of the best soul/funk mindblowers of all time: the driving, succinct, and perfect "Hard Times", and the utterly bonkers "A Change Is Going To Come". The latter being a meandering yet oddly precise nine-and-a-half minute odyssey ballad, both wrenchingly in touch with the 70's zeitgeist and, surprisingly, graced with the wacky sense of humor of the frontman. Soaring, echo-drenched screams, rambling monologues (with bafflingly great, extremely conspicuous echo dropped on key words, to spectacular effect) hammering horns, and a perplexing, unsettling finale. This song is an all-time great. All-time. After you hear it, the phrases "all these changes I'm goin' through" and "it's time for you to get mellow one more time" will always bring the warmest smile to your heart.

Go there. Get it. It's time for - for YOU- to get mellow one more time.

THE LIVING LEGEND

Also, y'all, if you aren't already certain that Flabbergasted Vibes is the good spot to know, it's time to go through a change.

Darkest Night, On a Wet-Sounding Dub: Keith Hudson- Playing It Cool & Playing It Right (1982)

2011-10-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

In the comments for the Noel Ellis record I posted a week or so ago, Owl of Holy Warbles lauded the album's "crumbling, left-field production." That well-chosen word, "crumbling" set me to thinking about this, one of the last records from "The Dark Prince of Reggae" and dub pioneer Keith Hudson; a murky, damaged-sounding dub classic that, at its best moments, seems to be disintegrating off the reel-to-reel, like so much bongwater-molded crumbs of funk.

The high point for me, and one of my four or five favorite dub tracks of all time, is "Formula Dub" (which I included in my Dub Hot Dubs, for anyone who heard that). The guitars on this track gurgle and distort, the tape seems to lag and change speed, and everything is just in a glorious shambles. It's an unassuming masterpiece, and it makes the record worth it all on it's lonesome. Not that it has to- the rest of the record is excellent, although I'll admit it was a bit of a grower for me. Comprised of sung tracks (of a highly dubby variety), immediately followed by their dub versions, the album has a cyclical, dreamlike quality to it. You hear a song, it's trippy and dreamy and laid-back, it segues into a full-on dub of itself, you submerge into the shadow realm, and then another song comes on, pulling you back to just below the surface, and the cycle begins anew. One of the better tracks is "California" (followed by it's shadow-brother, "By Night Dub"), which apparently describes a long, late-night drive, it's eery refrain "darkest night, on a wet-looking road" seeming especially evocative.

Also be sure to check out Mr. Owl's post of Mr. Hudson's all-time classic Pick A Dub, as it is awesome.

PLAYING IT COOL AND PLAYING IT RIGHT (320)

Brittle Little Drum Machines on the Funk Hunt: Timmy Thomas- Why Can't We Live Together (1973)

2011-10-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

Here's another quick post- gettin' us back on the funk hunt. I'd only previously heard Timmy Thomas' "Funky Me" on the Miami Sound comp from Soul Jazz, and this installment of drum-machine funk on the wonderful blog Office Naps (where you can find a little bit of good info on Mr. Thomas and a whole lot of great 45s). But the other day I grabbed a rip of the full-length, and it's a treat to say the least. Comprised mostly of a primitive drum machine and Thomas on a Hammond organ and fairly naked vocals, it's a stripped-down affair, but strikingly so. Minimalist funk, if ever there was such a thing. Sly Stone circa Riot Goin' On would definitely relate (though let me be clear: this is nowhere near that piece of work, which should be considered indispensable. Thanks, Nicholab, for tipping me surprisingly late in life to how great Sly can be.) Highly recommended.

TIMMY THOMAS (192)

Vampire Bow: Noel Ellis- Noel Ellis (1983)

2011-09-30T13:08:00.000-07:00

I don't have a lot to say about this one except that I've been digging it surprisingly hard, of late. Noel is the son of Alton Ellis, of considerably greater fame, but this record is a winner. The songs are long, dubby, and gritty- the production value is serious and unadorned, almost black and white, like a xerox of the original- and Noel's delivery is winningly mysterious in all his mystic repetitions. Especially great are the tracks "Marcus Garvey", which I can't seem to stop playing (partly because I'm fascinated by the curious figure of Mr. Garvey himself), and "To Hail Salassie", where he asserts that even the vampires will bow in deference to King Selassie.

NOEL ELLIS (261, VBR)

Heavy Black Sounds: Purple Image- Purple Image (1970)

2011-09-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

Continuing on this funk hunt- here's the sole release and 1970 debut of Cleveland super-heavy psych-funk outfit, Purple Image. A lot has been made about just how rock-oriented they are, working less within the more dominant (for black artists) soul idiom of the time, but that only serves to obscure just how funky this album is. Still, it's worth noting that at its heaviest moments, it's as heavy as Jimi Hendrix a la "Machine Gun" or The Stooges on Fun House. And like on those examples, even at the height of heaviness, it's not just heavy metal excess- it's hard and mean and direct, and still ultimately groove-based. Truly a Black Rock Beast, is Purple Image.

The highest highlight for me is the opener, "Living in the Ghetto", a rip-roaring series of ghetto tableau ("Mama's in the kitchen cookin' midnight supper!"), punctuated by utterly wicked electric guitar "Machine Gun"-isms. You might actually hear specific licks swiped from "Machine Gun", a worthy source to quote if ever there was one, and it enriches the track's dialogue between Black Music and Heavy Metal. (Come to think of it, I think The Stooges said they were cribbing "Machine Gun" when they wrote "Dirt" in this same year, to continue the Fun House comparisons.)

The other enormous highlight of the record is a monstrous version of Bob Craig's "Marching to a Different Drummer". A thrashing, relentless, fifteen-and-a-half minute onslaught that starts out as a funky singalong, then mutates into a psych-rock apocalypse, complete with a free-jazz saxophone to drive the guitars into chaos, and a crunchy harmonica infusion near the end.

Follow the link to Digital Meltdown and grab this bad puppy (at 256), then check out the equally great Fugi record he has there (Mary, Don't Take Me on No Bad Trip) and the especially excellent Black Merda self-titled debut, as well.

PURPLE IMAGE

I Used to Leave You Hangin' in the Bed by Your Fingernails, Screamin': Betty Davis- Nasty Gal (1975)

2011-09-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm back in Mexico- solo, to boot (for now)- and I've got more time to post, the internet out here is so god damn wonky that half the time I can't use it. I certainly can't wrangle any kind of upload. Anyway, I'm doing the best I can with what I got. Hang with me, friends.

The other day I spun Nasty Gal for the first time. I've been on a fiendish funk-hunt, searching high and low for funk, black rock, psychedelic soul, and black art music that falls on the side of the Funkadelic, rather than Parliament. I adore the experimental, groove-and-texture based stoned ghost swamp gospel of Funkadelic's first three records- I generally sort of loathe Parliament's funk-funk-FUNK-afunk-FUNK-FUNK bullshit. I know it's all the same dudes for the most part, but there's a gulf between the extremes of their intent, depending which name they're operating under. Anyway, I'm always searching for stuff that can stand up next to those first three Funkadelic records, and in the course of that trippy funk safari I found a huge, pleasant surprise- one that had been hidden conspicuously in plain sight.

I don't know why I'd never given Betty Davis a shot before. She's obviously awesome (and being a Durham, NC girl, you know she's legit), but I guess I assumed she was like a Rick James Disco P-Funk type. And I suppose she is, at that, but she's so much more than that. Nasty Gal is fucking amazing. It's so heavy, so nasty, so hot and hard and relentless... in an all-out battle for sexual aggression in soul, funk, and rock music, I don't think anyone could take the Betty Davis of Nasty Gal, no man nor woman. She scarcely sings a word on this record- her voice emerges raw like a demon from a lustful place at the edge of holy rage. It's beyond a growl, or a scream. No Tibetan fire demon or tiger monster could look as ferocious as she sounds here. I'm serious. It's awe-inspiring. It's terrifying. When she comes in at the beginning of "F.U.N.K." and snarls from the depths, "EFF... U... ENNN... K-- Help me nigga now HELP ME!", you'd be forgiven if, instead of dancing, you simply cowered in fear.

Now, you might be thinking, all this sounds like the kind of P-Funk in-your-face funkaship stuff I'm claiming to drastically dislike. The thing is, Ms. Davis and her insanely awesome band, Funk House, manage to achieve maximum aggressive, hardcore funkiness without losing sight of the essential swampiness, the Hendrix-inspired, experimental black rock ethos; that something that's hard and mean but still wild and trippy. I mean, on top of these kind of grooves, she could easily be singing about how it's nothing but a party, y'all, but she isn't. She's singing such startling, sexually aggressive lyrics that it's not only too alarming to be labeled simply, "fun," it also becomes such a strident, potent, and unapologetic statement of female sexuality that it demands to be taken seriously and considered significant.

It's not what she's saying, so much as how she's saying it, of course. She's way past the relatively restrained sex-machinisms of James Brown, somewhere deep in territory on the other side of Iggy Pop, circa Fun House- feral and howlingly orgasmic, but far more nuanced and pointed. Betty Davis isn't just cumming and screaming all over the place, motherfucker, she's taking you to school. This is surgery. This is a warzone, and you were not prepared. Throughout the record, she presents the concept of her total sexual willingness and submission in such a way that turns the tables completely on the male listener. She'll do anything- in fact, she demands to do everything- and she's amused by her partner's resulting discomfort, insecurity, and terror. "You said I turn you on I turned you inside out... You said I love you every way but your way
and my way was too dirty for you now."

There's not a bad track on this record. The aforementioned "F.U.N.K." is a highlight, paying tribute as it does to her ancestors in Heaviness, and the title track is hair-raising- a total takedown of a guy who's been smack-talking her as a slut when the truth is he couldn't handle her power. "Shut Off The Light" is similarly incendiary- her guttural, threatening come-ons (almost mocking, predatory- yet righteous) and the band's thick, nasty-as-fuck groove represent an apex of the record's sublime extremeness. There are a few breaks from the pummeling onslaught (an onslaught which never becomes simply tiring, as some heavy records do- it's a thrill from beginning to end). The most dramatic exception is the nakedly honest ballad, "You and I", written with her ex-husband (who, I trust, need not be named) with contributions from Gil Evans. Other (slight) exceptions to the Funk House massacre are the smoldering smoke-cloud grooves "Gettin' Kicked Off, Havin' Fun" and "The Lone Ranger". The first is somewhat along the lines of Funkadelic's "Music for My Mother" or "What is Soul?" It grooves along in a very menacing way, as Ms. Davis coos loaded inquiries as to how street-tuff you are ("Do you like to get high? Do you try to be cool?"), only occasionally launching into harrowing vocal interjections, demanding: "Tell me now!" "Lone Ranger" is the closer to the record, and it's one of the best tracks. Super-slow and swampy, it glides along like a crocodile in the water, going out on a two-minute cosmic orchestral coda that will likely induce goosebumps.

Here is a masterpiece that hasn't lost a bit of its edge or impact. Scary as hell and more fun than anything that's "fun." It's something you probably aren't ready for, something you'll never get used to, something that hurts as much as it feels good- but you gotta start sometime. Betty doesn't wait forever.

N A S T Y G A L (237, VBR- props to the source)

Classical Exotica From the Depths of the Sleepy Lagoon: Edmond De Luca's Safari (1957); Stanley Black- The Music of Lecuona (1958)

2011-09-05T22:49:00.000-07:00

Here are two records that I own on vinyl, but for some time have been unable to obtain a rip of (quality or otherwise- these puppies are for some reason hopelessly obscure)- until recently. After the princely German gentleman and fellow Exotica proselytizer from The Sleepy Lagoon answered my call for Stanley Black's The Music of Lecuona, then was able to again make dreams come true with Arthur Lyman's Legend of Pele, I figured I'd ask him if he had a rip of another Holy Grail desire of mine, Edmond De Luca's Safari. He did.

I'm so delighted to get a chance to enthuse on the subject of Safari (unfortunately, I can't find much information on it, so all I have to work with is my emotions). Like many records of its ilk, I bought it primarily for its utterly marvellous cover art, but fortunately found the musical contents to be easily the art's equal. Falling more on the classical/symphonic side of the spectrum, side one is a suite detailing the stages of an African safari and hunt. It's pure Rudyard Kipling adventure fantasy, laid out with orchestral arrangements of the maximum cinematic variety (especially dizzying heights of the strings and occasional call-to-arms horns), adorned generously with the sort of faux-African male vocals found on Tak Shindo's Mganga! or Les Baxter's Taboo! I cannot speak highly enough of this record's first side. It's a wonderful marriage of Exotica, 1950's epic film soundtrack, and the kind of classical, proto-Exotica ideas found in something like Sir Eugen Goossens Corroboree (or Stravinsky, or Ravel, or Dvorak, or Lecuona, whom we'll get to).

Side two is mostly one long composition, "Polovetsian Dances", followed by a shorter, "Ritual Fire Dance", which is especially stellar. Despite losing the African backdrop in favor of something more Eastern European Gypsy, the treatment and sensibility is similar. These are sensual folk-tradition-inspired orchestra pieces somewhat in the manner of Bolero, and they're really quite enjoyable. It's a bit of a step down from the evocative narrative and exotic geography of side one, but still more than worthy of inclusion in your collection.

This download, once again courtesy of the unbelievably generous spirit of The Sleepy Lagoon, is at a "blistering" 224kbps. Beautiful.

SAFARI

This record has recently been available in the comments section of a post I did where I bragged that I had bought it in a pawn shop in Queretaro, that it was phenomenal, and asked if anyone had a rip (which Mr. Lagoon did). But I wanted to take this time to go further into depth about it. As is indicated by the title, this LP consists of the talented and versatile Stanley Black conducting the compositions of the amazing Mr. Ernesto Lecuona.

I don't know and can't find all that much about Lecuona, although I'm not a particularly thorough researcher. He's an incredibly gifted and influential composer, however, and he deserves a grander reputation than he currently enjoys. Certainly amongst Exotica lovers, his compositions are as familiar as a father: "Siboney" "Malaguena" "Andalucia" (or "The Breeze and I"), "Canto Karabali" (better known as "Jungle Drums", and clearly amongst the three or four most major defining compositions of Exotica), and to a slightly lesser extent the Academy Award-nominated "Always In My Heart", have all been recorded countless times by bandleaders and musicians looking to assemble an Exotica record. (It's also worth just noting, at this point, that his cousin, Margarita Lecuona, composed the stalwart Exotica masterpiece "Taboo.")

Stanley Black plays all these compositions, and more, in a style that's lushly, softly Exotic, without dressing up the intrinsic beauty of the compositions too unnecessarily. Lecuona's mixture of early-20th century pop-orchestral music, classical European symphonic tradition, and Cuban folk styles and rhythms don't need much retrofitting to come off as absolutely classic Exotica anyway. That type of cross-cultural musical alchemy is basically what Exotica is, making him one of the earlier and more significant producers of such art. That his compositions are among the most well-known, and his name and legacy aren't particularly, is a funny little oversight of history. One thing is sure: this record is a journey into the heart of beauty, one of the more perfect things you could ever hope to hear. Please enjoy.

MUSIC OF LECUONA (192)

The Holy Ghost of Exotica, Weaving Dreams in His Aluminum Dome: Arthur Lyman Megapost

2011-08-31T17:03:00.000-07:00

There's really only three true masters of Exotica: Les Baxter (The Father), Martin Denny (The Son), and Arthur Lyman (The Holy Ghost). Sure, Frank Hunter and Robert Drasnin made a stone-cold classic or two, and Xavier Cugat and Perez Prado (legends in their own field) cut some masterpieces of the Exotic variety. Of course, Yma Sumac can't be left out, either, but her stunning uniqueness and divisive abrasiveness sets her apart from the field of hard Exotica and into her own category. No, when it comes to Exotica, there are three names that loom larger than the rest, mean more than most, and have an undeniably greater impact and influence. Les Baxter and Martin Denny get talked about the most; after all, Baxter is the brilliant innovator of the unique voice of the genre- his Ritual of the Savage is practically a blueprint- and Denny is the cunning genius who managed to make the sound insanely popular- his rendition of Baxter's "Quiet Village" was such a smash as to inspire leagues of imitators and make the whole prospect enormously lucrative. Mr. Lyman, while far from unsung, has inspired less of a cult reverence. Which is interesting, because out of all the soldiers in the army of Exotica, no one is as die-hard a believer as he.

Born in Hawaii, Lyman became something of a musical prodigy almost by force, as his father would lock him in his room and order him to play his toy marimba along to Benny Goodman records. Playing a gig at a Hawaiian hotel, he was spotted by Martin Denny and offered a spot in his band, and Lyman became something of a Denny protegé, influencing the shape of the genre along the way (having a big hand in the prominent use of bird calls in the music, for one thing), before going off to start his own band, shortly after recording "Quiet Village" and the first Exotica LP with Denny's group. Lyman's own records were always played by his quartet, which for the prime years consisted of himself, Alan Soares, John Kramer, and Harold Chang. Everything is live, with no overdubs. What's more, nearly all his records were recorded here:

According to the wiki: Most of Lyman's albums were recorded in the aluminum Kaiser geodesic dome auditorium on the grounds of the Kaiser Hawaiian Village Hotel on Waikiki in Honolulu. This space provided unparalleled acoustics and a natural 3-second reverberation. His recordings also benefited from being recorded on a one-of-kind Ampex 3-track 1/2" tape recorder designed and built by engineer Richard Vaughn. All of Lyman's albums were recorded live, without overdubbing. He recorded after midnight, to avoid the sounds of traffic and tourists, and occasionally you can hear the aluminum dome creaking as it settles in the cool night air. The quality of these recordings became even more evident with the advent of CD reissues, when the digital mastering engineer found he didn't have to do anything to them but transfer the original 3-track stereo masters to digital. The recordings remain state-of-the-art nearly 50 years later.

Lyman's albums sound slightly different from those of his mighty predecessors. Less flamboyant, more quietly searching, his sound has been described as "somnambulant." Still, his compositions and arrangements can be surprisingly adventurous and deeply rewarding. For one thing, he carefully manages to wrangle a wonderful complexity out of what was usually a simple quartet- his records sound no less full than even Baxter's, who used a large orchestra. With the aid of the Dome, he's a master of using negative spaces in the composition to imply rich, mysterious atmospheres. There's also more of a sense of legitimate Polynesian and Hawaiian influence, and a darker jazz tinge (enforced by frequent use of positively stellar piano performances) that suggests he was keeping up with Blue Note releases and perhaps Nina Simone at the time. But most importantly, he displays a true mastery of the craft, and the kind of restless, searching experimentalism of the consummate Artist.

Anyway, here's a rundown of some of my favorite stuff from the admirable Mr. Arthur Lyman.

TABOO (1958): This was a big success for Lyman- only his second outing with his own band, Taboo stayed on the charts for a year and sold 2 million copies. This is a huge pillar in the house of Exotica, as archetypal as the day is long and just generally excellent. Wonderful renditions of "Taboo" and "Caravan", but every song is just as excellent. Well, all but one. Lyman has an unfortunate tendency to close out records on some kind of uptempo march, and in this case "Hilo March", while it does have its arguable charms, sort of stinks up the mood of the rest of the record. This is especially annoying when you're listening on vinyl- but if you don't have that luxury, just lose the track from your music player, or something. Also note that this download has a passel of bonus tracks- don't get too excited, they're just album tracks from Bwana A, a record so good you'll need the whole kit n' kaboodle anyway.

TABOO (320)

BWANA A (1958): Hard to believe, but Bwana A is even better than Taboo. Intriguingly spare, with a heavier Eastern, and at times specifically Japanese influence, this total masterpiece is an agony of hallucinatory beauty. Dreamlike and dark, this is more an opium quest for languid sex and misty visions of island ghosts in the night than a tiki cocktail in a poolside loungechair.

"Moon Over a Ruined Castle" is a heart-stopping highlight, "Canton Rose"' and its use of moon harp is especially exciting, Lecuona's "Malaguena" is given utterly top-notch treatment, "Blue Sands" is so ghostly as to barely exist and yet plays so powerfully, "Vera Cruz" is a breathtaking, aching piece of Exotica Noir, and even the march ("Colonel Bogey March", made famous by Bridge Over the River Kwai) is supremely enjoyable, taken as it is rather slow and dreamily. This is a truly excellent record. Highest possible recommendation. Here's an allmusic review that I rather like.

BWANA A (320)

The LEGEND OF PELE (1958): What if I said Legend of Pele is just as good as Bwana A, if not better? You might think I was overdoing it, but I'm not. Pele is a fucking masterpiece. I've had this treasure on vinyl for years now, but I've never had, nor could I find, a good rip of it to share. I always wanted to do a post on my favorite Lyman albums, but without this crown jewel available, I didn't feel I could do it. Finally, the fine fellow from The Sleepy Lagoon contacted me and notified me that he had posted Legend of Pele to his wonderful blog. Please pay him a visit, survey his numerous treasures, and thank him for his heroic efforts. This great man, when all others failed, produced a copy of this Holy Grail Exotica record. Give him your love.

Legend of Pele is fairly similar to Bwana A, albeit a bit more soulfully rhythmic, and entertains the loose concept of describing the Hawaiian legend of Pele. I wish I had a copy of the back cover notes, because they're fantastic. Sadly, my copy of the record is not with me at this time or I'd type it right up.

One of the best things about Lyman is the way he can take aspects of Hawaiian music (a musical tradition pigeonholed and beaten to death during various periods of Hawaiiana enthusiasm) and find wild, exciting new ways to incorporate them into his vision of exotic jazz. The opening track, "Pele", starts with what seems like a musical description of the rumbling of a volcano, drops out to a female vocal (Ethel Azama, perhaps?) in "savage" Hawaiian tongue, then snaps into a quick dark piano run (soulful, jazzy, slightly Latin, reminiscent of something Nina Simone's might do on tracks such as "Black Swan", "Plain Gold Ring" or "Sinner Man") before transitioning into a jungle train ride, and then back to the volcano, like an exotic parallelogram. Every track on this album is good (except the fucking march at the end), finding unexpected avenues to the savage and dreamlike qualities of Hawaiiana. "Y Lai Sian" and "Hana Maui" again bring that insane piano for rhythms so heavy and powerfully repetitive... a good comparison would be with Perez Prado's similarly heavy Voodoo Suite, but much more restrained and hypnotic, and of course without the horns. These two tracks are followed by a great version of "Sheherazade." The slower numbers are disorientingly immersive as well, numbers like "Cumana", with its bonkers bird calls and gentle melody, "Fascination" with its enormous ocean sounds, and the de facto album closer "Tropical" with its glowing vibes and distant bells.

Lyman's band is just firing on all cylinders for this record, and while the pianist (whoever he is, I should probably know) is the standout for me, Lyman's own masterful work on the vibraphone is superb (he uses a four-mallet approach- two in each hand), the percussion is perfectly applied, and the bassist is brilliant, playing deep, woody lines and teaming up with the piano to bolster incomparably subtle and fascinating rhythms. The sound quality of the recording, of course, is perfection itself.

This is in my top 10 Exotica albums, easily. Top 5, probably. Again, highest possible recommendation, and don't forget to afford a thank you to the man from The Sleepy Lagoon (and if you're still not convinced, go over to his spot and listen to his track samples).

LEGEND OF PELE (192)

BAHIA (1959): On Bahia, Lyman continues his run of excellence. The record opens on the track "Bahia", which is one of my favorite compositions ever, so for me it's off to a good start. It's a very good version, to boot. The rest of the record is sterling. Not quite the mind-blowing stuff of the previous two records, but extremely necessary high-quality Exotica. Nice versions of "Jungle Jalopy," "Quiet Village," and "Beyond The Reef" that don't quite exceed the superior versions of Baxter and Denny, but manage to be more than worthy all the same. "Happy Voodoo" is a nice highlight, as well as the echoey "Caribbean Nights." The uptempo number at the end is even fairly bearable.

BAHIA (224)

TABOO 2 (1959): More of that pure misty jungle juice. This is a stellar collection of both classic and unfamiliar Exotica compositions, with slightly more of a "voodoo" sound than Lyman usually might go for. It's like a cross between the original Taboo and Martin Denny's Hypnotique, or something like that. Easily one of his best records, though not quite as strange and original as his very best. "Tabu Tu" is phenomenal in particular, and there's more than enough bird calls throughout the album, in case you were worried about a shortage.

TABOO 2 (245 vbr)

There's more Lyman stuff that's worth knowing about (most notably his 1958 Hawaiian Sunset), but these are the essentials in my book. Hope you enjoy, fellows.

The Fantasy In All Its Finery, Pure As Perfume: John Scott Trotter- Escape to the Magic Mediteranean (1956)

2011-08-24T22:13:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm still just too busy to do a good job with this... in a few days I'll be back in Mexico, where I'll have nothing but time on my hands, and I reckon to spend some of that time catching up here. But for now, have a taste of this: Escape to the Magic Mediteranean. Oh my, how fine it is. This is vacation Exotica at its most idyllic and sublime. Not simply an easy fantasy of some vacation to Italy- this record transcends the lazy-minded escapism of its subject and actually grabs the throat of the root of the desire. The absolute paradise, free from want or discomfort, is lushly laid out here, pure and distilled. If you can actually slow your heart rate enough to slide within the grooves of this almost hallucinatorily pleasant experience, it will bring tears to your eyes. You'll sweat diamonds and float upon the sweetest aromas. All the blues will be a perfect blue.

ESCAPE TO THE MAGIC
(128, but not so bad)

Sophisticated Daydream of Library Exotica: Roger Roger and Nino Nardini- Jungle Obsession (1971)

2011-08-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

Two of the most consistent figures of the French Library world, both when collaborating and working solo (often under a variety of fake names), Nino Nardini and Roger Roger have created a wealth of worthy music. Perhaps none more wonderful than Jungle Obsession, their homage to the motifs and atmospheres of their spiritual cousins from an earlier musical period, Exotica.

This album plays faithfully on a lot of the standard rhythms and instrumentation of the works of Les Baxter, Arthur Lyman, or Martin Denny (replete with animal calls, "exotic" vocal arrangements, and xylophonic percussion), but pushes a harder drum and bass sound, lush strings (and mellotrons and fuzz guitars that sound like lush strings), early-ish electronic instruments, and a trippier sensibility that occasionally edges beyond mystery into menace. It's a masterpiece of both Library recording and revisionist Exotica, a must have for all humans and tigresses with even the most burgeoning of Jungle Obsessions.

I have posted this before, but I'm putting it up again because the original link soured and I want to make sure everyone gets a piece of this new one (192 kbps, can anyone do better?). This is really one of my favorite records, so I figure it won't hurt to hawk it twice. Also, I have officially become too busy and distracted to be a reliable gladiator in this arena- for now. I'll be back in the saddle in a matter of weeks. For now, get this record if you don't got it, and behold the glory of the original cover art below. It's amazing, it has a picture of a tiger, but somehow I still kind of lean towards the immersive composition of the reissue- a rare stance to take, for me.

*Perhaps unsurprisingly, the gentleman Owl from Holy Warbles has scared up a version (with still different cover art) at a "Blistering" 256, so skip down to the comments and make yourselves rich.

JUNGLE OBSESSION

Human Music In A State of Rapturous Perfection: Duo Ouro Negro (com Sivuca)- Africanissimo (1959)

2011-07-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

I just want everyone to know: This is probably the best shit you could be doing with your ears. Utterly phenomenal Angolan vocal pop group, courtesy of the immeasurably valuable blog Ghostcapital. I know this group is one of his pet favorites, and it's some of the best stuff I've ever heard, so I just feel the need to jump on this little bandwagon and steer anybody uninitiated to the ways of Duo Ouro Negro towards the light. I know a lot of you have probably grabbed this by now (either from the Ghost or over at Holy warbles), but for those who haven't, get on over to Ghostcapital and grab his dazzling 320 rip. There's more of the Duo there, too, if you want it. Highest possible recommendation.

AFRICANISSIMO

Opium Dreams of Latter-Day Exotica: Piero Piccioni- Bora Bora (1968), Les Baxter- Bora Bora (1968)

2011-07-21T22:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a wonderful jewel of Italian soundtrack Exotica from Mr. Piccioni, a prolific legend of the craft. I'd previously enjoyed the man's work on various Spaghetti Westerns and the like, and first became aware of him through the many excellent cuts from him on the Beat at Cinecitta comp, but this is a one-of-kind treat, because it is so firmly Exotic. But because it's from '68, and it's an Italian soundtrack, it's not standard fare Exotica. It's more similar to Roger Roger and Nino Nardini's Jungle Obsession or Piero Umiliani's Le Isole Dell'Amore than anything by Les Baxter (although his own soundtrack to another 1968 film by the name of Bora Bora isn't far off). These more extreme derivations from- and later-era interpretations of- a typical Exotica format are always a treat.

Anyway, this record is great. Lush vocals, borderline-trippy, dreamy orchestration, and a few really excellent compositions make this a must-have. I have to say, I don't much care for the fuzz-funk library-style jam on "Blue Festival," but that's the only stinker in my book. I'm sorry to say I haven't seen the film, but if anyone out there has, I'd love to know what you thought.

BORA BORA

And speaking of Mr. Baxter's 1968 soundtrack to Bora Bora, here it is. Not his best work, but very likely his best later work. After spending some time away from the Exotica sound he helped create (and sounding fairly lost in the process), this record is something of a return to form, although the aesthetic here is not quite classic. There's a more modern drum sound, and a bit of a sense of the influence of someone like Burt Bacharach. The lush strings playing against the drum kit/ heavier percussion-and-bass lends it an interesting coolness, an almost contemporary sound, at its best moments (at its worst, something of an unremarkable sub-Bacharach B-movie soundtrack- thankfully, these moments are somewhat rare). Again, we might compare it to Roger Roger and Nino Nardini's Jungle Obsession.

I believe I got this rip from Xtabay's World, and while it's at a mere 128, it's a very respectable vinyl rip. Eclectic Synthetic seems to think he's improved on the Xtabay rip, so you might give it a try (I haven't heard it myself), but for now here's the original. If you have a better copy, consider sharing it, if such a share is your cup of tea.

BORA BORA

To Carry You Through The Muggy Daze: Flash Strap Presents- DUB HOT DUBS

2011-07-11T15:50:00.000-07:00

My friend Jacob once remarked, about the heat on an early summer day, "It's hot. But it's not dub hot." By which he meant, while it was a warm day indeed, it simply had not yet reached the sweltering temperature which is best augmented by the hazy, nauseous, intoxicating directness of the repetition and deceptive simplicity of dub. When you are so hot and high you can hardly stand up - brother, dub is there for you to lean on. It is there to provide a bass-based roadmap through the wall of wet-hot air, combating the waves of haze with layers of phase.

It is hot now. In North Carolina the air is so damn humid you could spread it on toast. I miss the blistering dryness of Old Mex, but it's rainy season there so I ain't missing much besides horrendous torrents of rain and hail. Torrid Rain.

In recognition of the way things are, I put together this mix of hot dubs. How hot, you ask? Dub Hot. These are the Dub Hot Dubs. This is a monstrous slab of hand-picked dub treasures- nearly two hours worth. That should get you through the smoking experience and the first few waves of fear, incoherence, pleasure, and confusion. Once you're on the other side of this, you'll be breathing heat like a lizard and smelling skunks decomposing pleasantly in the distance.

At once lurid and sophisticated, the best dubs exist brilliantly at a stoned, black-as-hell intersection between pulpy low art comic pops and the primitive-conscious avant-garde. These are some of my favorite black magic echo chambers so please enjoy- and don't forget to pull one for the ancients. If that's your cup of tea.

This god damn thing is ripped in two parts- so please get both and reassemble.

1. Population Dub- Tappa Zukie
2. Playing It Right Dub- Keith Hudson
3. Bradsta Dub- Carlton And Family Man Barrett
4. Prophet A Come- Black Magic Dub
5. Addis Ababa Rock- Inner Circle
6. Asibiso Jungle- Vulcans
7. Jungle Dub- Black Magic Dub
8. Nice Up The Yard (Feat. U Brown)- Trinity
9. Walk Like A Dragon- I-Roy
10. Nations Liquidator- Twinkle Brothers
11. The Creepy Crawl- Tradition
12. Untitled E-E Saw Dub- Inner Circle / Fatman Riddim Section
13. Black Cinderella- Tapper Zukie
14. Memories Of The Ghetto- Augustus Pablo
15. Formula Dub- Keith Hudson
16. African Dub- King Tubby
17. Sealing Dub- The Skatalites & King Tubby
18. Drum Song- Jackie Mittoo
19. Untitled E-E Saw Dub- Inner Circle / Fatman Riddim Section
20. Magnetic Enforcer- Twinkle Brothers
21. Star Trek- Vulcans
22. Marching To Zion- Tappa Zukie
23. Back To Africa- Jimmy Radway
24. Marry Me- Winston Riley
25. Capo Dub- Carlton And Family Man Barrett
26. War Is Over- Dillinger
27. Lightning Dub- Revolutionaries
28. Dread Out Deh- Joy White
29. Murderer- Augustus 'Gussie' Clarke
30. Master Mantrol- Mikey Dread
31. Why Am I Treated So Bad- Prince Buster
32. Addis-A-Baba- Augustus Pablo

DUB HOT DUBPt.1 • DUB HOT DUBPt.2

Sven Libaek For Safari Addicts and Discoverers of Hidden Worlds- To Be Used Wisely This Holiday Weekend

2011-07-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

I am fully in summertime explorer mode- a total Safari addict. And with July 4th comin' round the bend (a holiday I've always celebrated with maximum verve, especially now that I'm back in these rotten old glorious States), it's only liable to get worse. Make your own summer-time safaris absolutely pitch perfect with Sven Libaek. Flawless and gorgeous, roaring with innocence and adventure. Excellent for both desert and aquatic excursions- get your Jacques Cousteau or Walkabout fantasy going.

Most of this has been posted here (or elsewhere) in the past, but I'm throwing it up again in hopes of spreading even further the righteous word. Because I care about your summer. New additions include an improved 320 rip of Inner Space courtesy of Owl at Holy Warbles (otherwise available at his blog, offered here with a slightly tidied up tracklisting and sequencing) and a copy of the excellent Boney, courtesy of commenter CBlack.

Put this on a tape. Put the tape in a waterproofed portable cassette player. Take a small boat or aquatic car out upon the water- and the adventure shall unfold, with delight and discovery, from there. Good luck to you.

Surfing and nature documentary soundtracks, respectively. Full of discovery. Two of the consistently best, most necessary records in his ouvre- masterpieces, really.

WHITE HORSE/WALKABOUT

Shark documentary soundtrack, and a giant masterpiece. Some tracks from here notably used for The Life Aquatic. This is the King of underwater music records. (It should be noted that this is not the retrospective comp of the same name- this is the original soundtrack album. Also, this is not the version with the Shatner narration, which is cool too, which you can grab here.)

RON & VAL TAYLOR's INNER SPACE

An audacious symphonic concept piece on his adopted home. Longer tracks, grander ideas- but still the same glorious composer. Sven is a god damn secret genius.

AUSTRALIAN SUITE

Soundtrack to an Australian television series. A little MacGyver-style action horns, but still mostly Sven's signature sound, contemplating the outback, exploring with good intentions. Hard to find, this one.

BONEY

Perhaps not his most consistent record, it nonetheless contains some of his best & coolest tracks, including the superb "Misty Canyon."

MY THING

Ostensibly a space-themed Library record, the mood here is just as underwater-y as his best work. Includes "Meteoric Rain," one of his all-time greatest tracks (it's the sample at the top of this post).

SOLAR FLARES

Penetrating the Black Continent: Piero Umiliani- Continente Nero, Genti e Paesi Del Mondo, Le Isole Dell'Amore

2011-07-01T13:37:00.000-07:00

Umiliani is a true Library King, and Continente Nero is my favorite of his works- but I've gone over this in the past. Full of urgent, tension-building strings, percussion, and the rush of adventure and discovery, this is a documentary in your head, somewhere between Cousteau and the Italian Mondo variety. Very thin and serious stuff. If you like Sven Libaek (who'll have his own mega-post here in a couple days), this will scratch a different aspect of that itch.

As a side note, Continente Nero is the name of my boat, and all these downloads are 320.

CONTINENTE NERO (The Black Continent)

I don't know the whole story behind this record, but it serves as a perfect companion piece to Continente Nero. The two share essentially the same sound, although something about this one feels more nebulous and ambient. The high points are the two versions of "Viaggio Nel Tempo", a composition which can also be found on Nero, by the name of "Preparativi." Fantastic fucking composition.

GENTI E PAESI DEL MONDO (Peoples and Countries of the World)

This one is a change of pace from the serious explorer, heart of darkness stuff. Total paradise music, 70's exploitation-documentary Exotica with Cinecitta-style female vocals. It's really exquisite. Don't pass this up, fools. You need this for when you're done exploring and you need to relax with a Colada and an island gal, hopefully while doing some kind of floating.

LE ISOLE DELL'AMORE (The Island of Love)

Kosmische Through the Desert, Floating Upon a Twinkling Sea: Hans-Joachim Roedelius- Durch Die Wüste (1978)

2011-06-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

Roedelius' solo debut is not just wonderfully challenging music but also somehow essentially summery. When the heat comes down and thoughts start to turn to maximum relaxation, there can be a tendency to shelve the weird stuff and take a break from bending the mind with sounds, but Durch Die Wüste is the best of both worlds: airy, light, pleasantly trippy, and restlessly experimental. I mean, it's not quite the summer-krautrock blue-ribbon holder that Can's Future Days or Soon Over Babaluma (or even Landed- I love Can on some smokin' hot days, brother, but then again they got those huge funky Liebezeit beats) might be, but it's still on the table, and it's its own weird thing anyway. With Conny Plank and Moebius pitching in, it certainly bears a resemblance to Cluster or Harmonia, but the warmth and organic-ness, the sometimes formless yet optimistic explorations, do give a sense of some new thing or sound happening. Of course it's ambient and electronic- what else would you expect from Roedelius- but there's some wonderful moments of tactility all throughout. "Johanneslust" sports an introspective acoustic guitar figure- the fact that it's probably made using a synthesizer doesn't change its sentimental humanity- and "Am Rockzipfel" is non-stop ripping on electric guitar over top of a sparkling rhythm section. "Mr. Livingstone, I Suppose" (likely the best track of all) sports an entirely human enveloping warmth, augmented by cymbal washes and vocal sighs. The title track is almost fourteen minutes of formless sonic dream-questing through synthy soundscapes, but even there you'll find less sequencer than untreated human voices, primitive percussion and actual recordings of ocean and rain, so the whole record feels tethered nicely to Earth in some way. It's really a great showcase for Roedelius, and likely his best as a solo. Enjoy it in 320, friends and fellows.

DURCH DIE Wüste

Kosmische Walkabout Music: Dieter Schütz- Voyage (1985)

2011-06-27T22:08:00.000-07:00

Here we have a fanatstic bit of Safari Synth Adventure Music: Dieter Schütz's Voyage. Somewhere between the krautrock space floats of Cluster and Roedelius' Durch Die Wüste, the synth-rock of Tangerine Dream or someone sort of kookier like Tony Carey, and a kind of New Age warmth, this record wants to be in your life. It can improve your life if you will just let it. It's super fun, exotica-kraut walkabout music; if you like Sven Libaek and Oxygene at the same time, this will be perfect for your next Serengeti stoned-walk. I'm not really doing it justice right now- I'm on vacation, you guys- but it's really perfect and great. You need it so bad.

I got it here, by the way, at Panorama Patchwork. Go there and get it yourselves- the link is in the text where it says Exotic Nights.

Also, you may have noticed I screwed around with the design of the place. What do you all think? Can you live with it? Let me know if it's too hard to read, or distracting, or whatever else. Also feel free to say it is fine.

Space Music in the Rainforest, Another World on Earth: Ariel Kalma- Osmose (1978)

2011-06-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

In 1977, Richard Tinti ventured into the Borneo rainforest endowed with sound equipment and a mission and emerged with a fantastic wealth of field recordings- insects, bird calls, war drums, and the thick cosmic echoes of the jungle. So immersively dense are they, I suspect they could easily stand up on their own, but instead, Tinti bestowed his treasures upon Ariel Kalma, who used them as a foundation upon which to build a New Age cosmic masterpiece. Utilizing the sounds of the rainforest as structure for richly meditative, wonderfully trippy soundscape explorations, Kalma weaves a sonic universe that is oppressive yet welcoming, at once alien and organic, and massive. Monolithic.

Using treated saxophone, synths, harmonium, flute, and drum machines, Kalma keeps the sound warm, deep, and wide. At times similar to some of the more ambient Kraut bands (Edgar Froese's Epsilon in Malaysian Pale certainly springs to mind, as does Popol Vuh), this is "New Age" music in the main- and there ain't a thing wrong with that- but it's so powerful, so textured and intense, that it would sort of make an incredible companion piece to Ya Ho Wha's Penetration: An Aquarian Symphony, another sort of New Age-y conceit taken to awe-inspiring apocalyptic heights.

This thing has been floating around the blog-o-forest for a while now, so I wouldn't be surprised if y'all had already gotten on this, but I just wanted to throw my hat in the ring and make sure you heard it. If you got the bread and the inclination, please pay Kalma a visit and purchase the merchass straight from him. The dude has magic inside him.

OSMOSE

A Perfect Exotic Dream Of A Beautiful Pangaea: David Carroll- Percussion Orientale (1960)

2011-06-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

This record is a pure Exotica delight. The cover may sell it as something of a standard belly-dance cash-in, but let me tell you: it is something special. Ostensibly focusing more or less on some concept of "Middle Eastern" music (lending it something of a mildly unique focus among its peers), the conceit is immediately either betrayed, or revealed as abstract at best, by its opening number, "Caravan". "Caravan" is welcome anytime, anywhere, and scarcely has there been a weak version, the song is so strong; but the fact is, no matter how "exotic" it sounds, it is a prime, perfect and prototypical example of Latin Jazz. No matter- it is played here in an Eastern-sounding manner, and so the theme remains intact. Exotica as a genre sometimes props up all the disparate "exotic" lands as being part of some loosely unified Pangaea or island chain, building, in its creators' laziness or indifference to geographical responsibility, a sort of musical Esperanto. There's almost a kind of progressiveness to be found in these loose boundaries- all are part of the artificial whole, including the white world and its appropriation of Black American jazz, and the classical composers of Europe (many of whom were themselves borrowing from more "ethnic" traditions, such as Ravel, Stravinski, and Dvorak, not to mention someone like Lecuona, a Cuban working partially in European tradition). As I have said before, this is not World Music- no one culture would recognize it as its own, so muddied are the waters- this is Music for the World, a fantasy for all to share. Anyway, I digress.

This is one of those perfect Exotica records. Richly evocative. Rousing and gorgeous. In terms of traditions and styles appropriated, it's wildly all over the map, but the sound and concept are somehow kept consistent. As for the production and recording quality, bragged about such as it is by Mercury on the label, it's beyond excellent (and the rip is 320). This is good good stuff. A masterpiece. (link fixed, sorry everyone)

Percussion Orientale

Valiant Congo & The Fair One Dancing: Stan Kenton- Cuban Fire! (1960)

2011-06-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

Red-hot Cuban-inspired big band jazz from Stan Kenton, working with a 27-piece orchestra, executing compositions by Johnny Richards. I don't always swing on a "big band" sound in this kind of Latin/Exotic jazz territory, but this is rightly and widely known as a phenomenal record and I dig it entirely. There's a lush sense of exotic adventure as it is fantasized about by patrons of Caribbean resort hotels with outdoor music venues, swaying on the patio in the cool tropical breeze; but there's also an element of boundary pushing jazz, complete with wicked little solos, expert playing, superb composition, and a strong conceptual thread. It may not be on the level of Ellington's Far East Suite, but what is? This is gonna come in handy this summer, though. Get it while it's hot.

CUBAN FIRE!

Gun Dub & The Fire of Blood: Techniques All-Stars- .357 Magnum Dub (197?), Inner Circle- Killer Dub (1978), The Twinkle Brothers- Dub Massacre (1983)

2011-06-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

Today we're gonna do three dub jubs with gun-centric cover art. For the visual flavor of it all.

Starting with Techniques All-Stars' .357 Magnum Dub: this is straight-up-and-down street tuff roots instrumentals. Pretty simple formula, but highly successful. Despite the handle, there's not a ton of crazy "techniques" going on here- "Fashion Dub" does get sort of boopy and squiggly, "Techniques Special" has some cool harmonica, and "Weary Dub" pairs laser blasters with soul saxophone, but on the whole it's a straightforward affair with above-average, solidly cool execution. As good as it is, it needn't be more than that. Check it out.

.357

This one from Inner Circle (with the Fatman Riddim Section for the band) is another tuff mother. Of course it's tuff- why else would it have a gun on the cover? Opening with a pissed-off sounding rip on guitar, the whole thing stomps around with heavy heavy rhythms, fat echo, and a really bad ass piano/organ sound. I wouldn't say this record is on the same level of painkiller as a gunshot to the face, but it's certainly bad as hell and a more than worthy addition to your dub library. (Sorry I couldn't pop up another soundcloud sample, please just trust me as you usually might.)

KILLER

You wanna talk tuff, plus "special techniques"? Time to get down to Twinkle Town. The Twinkle Brothers' (at this point just Norman Grant of the original Twinkle Bros, gone solo in the UK) Dub Massacre is a potent mix of punky gangsta, heavy hardness and non-stop, bonkers effects. It's definitely got an international assassin flavor, classy and sneaky, but there's also theremin, warm phases, and huge echo, making this one almost too trippy to cruise to. Ultimately, though, it's too cool to not, so get to cruisin' inna murder style, fellows.

MASSACRE

Exotic Hallucination of a Safari Jungle Maze: Chaino- Jungle Echoes (1959)

2011-06-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

I've had this record for a while now, and somehow I'm afraid I've unjustly written it off as fairly standard "African drum" Exotica. These types of outings can be pretty uninspired ("just record these guys going to town on this jimbe and these bongos, white people will love it and they don't know the difference anyway"), or they can be blisteringly virtuosic, but I never really gave this one a fair shake to see what was what with it.

Well, recently it's been casting lurid campfire light on my evenings with its savage excellence. Where before it had seemed minimal to the point of boring (its mostly just hand drums and a lot of wordless vocalizations), I now find the empty spaces behind the percussion to be fascinatingly pregnant, as though the sounds of the record sale off into a silence that is conspicuously not empty; the whispering echo of a listening jungle. It gives the sense of being fireside in a deep dark, when your entire reality is the limited sphere of the fire's light, and everything beyond it is just an inky void.

The drumming, by the way, is altogether grand (at least to my ears- I'm no drum major), and all the grunting, moaning, and screaming is savory Exotica gravy. This is a record to be played loud into the night. It will stave off the phantoms of the jungle, and fuel your midnight fearlessness and ritual intoxication.

Here's a transcription of the back cover literature. As you might expect, it's juicy stuff, and lays out the compelling myth of Chaino's African origins (in truth, he's just a gifted brother from Chicago).

JUNGLE ECHOES

Savage Fever Dream of a Mambo King: Perez Prado- DILO (UGH!), 1958

2011-06-08T21:31:00.000-07:00

I've been absent from the place for a while. I've been hangin' with my brother, climbing mountains on a daily basis and not having time to do internet. To celebrate my return, I modestly offer unto you this gargantuan mamborgasm landslide from the king of the thing, Perez Prado. Don't expect anything like his rowdy long form exotica masterpiece Voodoo Suite (my favorite of his); instead, this record exemplifies better what you might call Prado's wheelhouse: huge, tight, ultra-fun mambo supernovas, littered with his trademark grunts. What sounds like "UGH!" is actually an incredibly enthusiastic ejaculation of the word "Dilo!" (meaning say it!), a verbal cue for his orchestra. It will pop up often.

I don't know how many 50's-era mambo records you've spun in your life. I've spun more than a few. I like the sound of the style at that time, but it's not my favorite thing in the world. Not always a lot to think about there. This record is just like all the other mambo records of its time, except that it is perfect, and mighty, and awesome. That's sort of the Prado Promise. He's on the bandwagon somewhere, but whatever he's doing there, he's doing it with Power and Intensity. This is great stuff from a great man.

DILO

Forgotten By God and People: Miroslav Skorik- Music From Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (A Film by Sergei Paradjanov) 1965

2011-05-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

Paradjanov's masterpiece, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, is such a mammoth statement, such a mind-bogglingly beautiful piece of work with such a wide influence, it's hard to believe it hasn't been permanently, indelibly installed into the dialogue of Greatest Films of All Time; at the very least, it ought to come up more often when folks are obsessing over 60's New Cinema and European New Wave.

An international festival success and multiple award-winner in 1965, the film predicted the emergence of the next great Soviet filmmaker, a visual visionary to effortlessly rival Eisenstein and a humanist with a refreshingly anthropological, folklorist approach augmented by emotional surrealism. But perhaps unsurprisingly, unity-obsessed Russian authorities reacted negatively to his celebration of regional, cultural, and religious history and lashed out at Paradjanov. An irrepressible, boyish man of great enthusiasm and vigor, he responded with nothing less than a revolutionary call for an end to Soviet Realism and a renewed focus on aesthetic, personal truths. For his transgressions, he spent years in prison, and so we have only four full films from one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is his best, rivalled only by its stunning successor, The Color of Pomegranates.

The film describes a Carpathian folk tale, depicting traditions, rituals, locations, and costumes that have rarely if ever been seen on film. Greatly enhancing the vitality of the film is the revolutionary use of almost exclusively handheld camera, a method which ensures a kineticism is felt in the blood of every scene; every manic, breathtaking tracking shot and stunning movement. The viewer is inseparable from the camera's heartbeat, watching the events unfold with living presence and alien remove as though they were the hills themselves. The people and their story are beautiful but exaggerated in the way of legends, and the anthropological study of the culture is refracted through the beyond-real prism of aesthetic obsession and heightened emotion.

The music of the film, extracted from the film and collected here by my own modest labors, is mostly Carpathian folk songs and snippets of folk instruments (Jew's harp, bells, giant horns, etc.), with a bit of original score here and there. Most of the music occurs in the reality of the film, rather than in the background. You will hear the characters singing love songs to each other, monks chanting, women mourning in terrible, melodic laments, and ceremonial music traditions such as funeral and wedding songs. The Carpathian Gutsul tongue is a rough one, making this somewhat abrasive listening, especially with all the gnashing of teeth and cursing of death, but the glory lies in the savage beauty and occasional horror of it.

I hope you find some interest in this collection, but more than anything I urge you to see this movie. I urge you with all my heart and soul. One day my girlfriend came over and told me about a movie she'd seen that day, and that I should watch it with her. She said it was the best movie she'd ever seen. It sounded good but somehow boring (perhaps I feared a Tarkovsky situation), and I dragged my feet a bit, but we watched it together. By the time it was over, I was crying sheep's blood and pumping lightning from my heart, laughing the animal laugh of a barbarian and eating meat with my hands to feel the life inside. Thanks for that, my Sweet Pea.

So here's the soundtrack. As far as I know, no similar such artifact exists. This music is glorious and intense, and I offer it to you (if you enjoy this, please check out another soundtrack I've made available, from Paradjanov's final feature, Ashik Kerib). Here's the link:

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

And here are some screen shots:

Tracklist:
1. The Carpathians, A Gutsul Land, Forgotten By God and People
2. Funeral for a Brother & Murder of a Father
3. "May God Send Plague Onto Them, and Death on Their Cattle!"
4. Ivan & Marichka
5. Growing Up In Love
6. Dance/ "We'll Never be Together"
7. Going/ Meadow
8. Star/ Hunt/ Marichka Falls
9. "What a Horrible Death You Found"/ Deer at the Grave & Loneliness
10. Religious Visions
11. Rejuvenation
12. Ivan & Palagna
13. Ivan & Palagna: Wedding Ritual
14. Workdays
15. Christmas
16. Tomorrow Is Spring: Palagna Practiced Sorcery
17. Sorceror: "He's God To Us. People Feared Him, Yet They Needed Him."
18. The Tavern/ Struck Down by the Sorceror's Axe
19. Ivan's Death
20. "Remember Me Ivanko, At Least Twice a Day. I Remember You Seven Times and Hour."*
21. Pieta
22. Children's Faces in the Window/ End

*Translated lyrics to #20 (a sung dialogue between a dying Ivanko and the ghost of his lover):

-Sing Ivanko, as you can. I shall sing for you so that you won't understand.
-Tell me, tell me, girl, where have I lost my mind? Or maybe you've hidden it in a birch-tree or in a poplar?
-When we fell in love even dry oaks began to blossom. And when we parted, the lilacs withered.
-Oh, my sweet Marichka, my talkative bird. If only we had been destined to love each other for one summer.
-Remember me Ivanko, at least twice a day. I remember you seven times an hour. And the apple tree's shed its flowers. We had fallen in love as early as children.
- Oh I went to the meadow and saw a bird there. What are you doing now, my dark-haired Marichka? Oh Marichka, I can't forget you! Oh, we'll never be together!

Skulldubbery in Three Parts, the Hard Way: Tappa Zukie- Escape From Hell (1977); The Revolutionaries- Top Ranking Dub (1978); Black Magic Dub (1980)

2011-05-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

Not nearly the incendiary funky-punk, sharp as a razor blade statement of Black Awesomeness that Zukie is capable of when he lends his voice and verbal insanity to the proceedings (specifically, on the superb Man Ah Warrior dropped mightily over at Owl's spot- I say to you it is indispensable), this is nonetheless a heavy, gangsta-leaning slice of right-on dub. Solid stuff, more of a focus on tuff rhythms and fat basslines (with the occasional grace of a saxophone flourish or whatnot, as on the excellent "Population Dub") than waves of echo or out-of-left-field effects. So, not the smokiest joint in the world, but perfect for cruising the streets with a hard stare.

This is the original playlist by the way, none of the reissues bonus tracks are present. I oughtta get those, actually. And you oughtta get this.

ESCAPE FROM HELL

The second in a series of dub records I've been enjoying that happens to feature a skull on the cover. An arbitrary connecting thread, I know, but this is happening. I'm sure it's happened before.

And it's another solid entry. If dub can be repetitive, limited, and occasionally unoriginal in its exploitation of the formula, one can still find immense value in the archetypal quality of the repetitions. A record can find a place inside the hive of the whole, expanding the universe of the genre- a genre that perhaps you love, perhaps you wish to be infinite. This occurs in the motorik repetitions on the simple framework evident in Krautrock; nearly defines Exotica in all its ad nauseum, glorious redundancies; the entire discography of The Fall; and garage rock, free jazz, library music, etc., etc.

So Top Ranking Dub is not a game-changer, but once again we have a solid entry into this dub universe. Not all the vocal snippets are to my liking, but "Lightning Dub", with its cribbing of Sam Cooke's "Cupid", nearly justifies the record on its own. As does the nod to "Suspicious Minds" on "Blockade Dub." These are simple, honest dubs, devoid of any visionary interference. Sometimes, it is better this way; sometimes we need Lee Perry to come along and distort the universe through his haze of weed smoke, schizophrenia, and burning cornmeal on catfish, but not necessarily all the time. This record is for the former instance. A normal dumb dub day, playing badminton in the yard and definitely having beers.

TOP RANKING

And here's the final specimen. Once again, you might say it fits the bill of good&honest, rather than cosmically weird or expertly twiddled, but it's musically quite interesting, with a hard edge that recommends it to those who prefer their Jamaican music more tuff than smiley. Not a lot of info seems to be floating about surrounding this release, but all you have to know is that it's cool as hell. Slightly gangsta, with a foot in Mittoo soul-instrumental territory. "Prophet A Come", in particular, has a bass line with huge stoned menace, and is not to be unheard; and "Jungle Dub" sports some extremely refreshing harmonica. This may be a sleeper but it's very much a winner.

BLACK MAGIC

Tired Fe Lick Weed: Inner Circle/Fatman Riddim Section/King Tubby/ Jacob Miller- E-E Saw Dub (1975)

2011-05-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

This is one of the more insane dub secrets in existence. Information is scarce and somewhat conflicting- my version lists the artist as Inner Circle & Fatman Riddim Section, but Roots Archive has it under King Tubby and Jacob Miller... but I am no dub historian, only a simple sound hunter, and I know what I like when I hear it. I like this very much, fellows. We've got King Tubby mixing, the Ian Lewis/Roger Lewis Inner Circle/Fatman Riddim production, Augustus Pablo sitting in on xylophone, and somebody named Touter Harvey absolutely slaying the whole scene on synths and keyboards. The overall sound is good, from production elements to the playing, but the synth sound is the key here. This kind of thing might slip under the radar on a UK dub record, fitting in amongst the dense tripscapes found on a Creation Rebel or Blackbeard album; but here, amongst the relatively more spare Tubby sound, in the humid island simplicity of a classic Jamaican roots dub, Touter's thinly funky -almost wacky- synths blast through like a frequency borrowed from Dimension X. It's a simple expression of trippiness, but a potent and unique one. One of my favorites.

E -- E S A W

"The White Man, At Best, Is Corny": The Jihad Singers- Black & Beautiful, Soul & Madness (1968)

2011-05-15T11:54:00.000-07:00

Gil Scott-Heron. The Last Poets. The Watts Prophets. Camile Yarbrough. Wanda Robinson. Bama & Kain. The late 60's through the early 80's saw these artists and others combining spoken word and music, racial politics and poetry, rage and compassion, calling for revolution, assailing the oppressor while examining the failures of the oppressed, bleeding for their people and demanding action. Black & Beautiful, Soul & Madness by the Jihad Singers is one of the finest and rarest of examples of this vital art form, and it is not one to be missed. Combining doo-woppy vocal arrangements often lifted from other songs (the superb opening track, "Beautiful Black Women", borrows from Smokey Robinson) with the kind of furious speak/sung diatribes utilized by The Last Poets, this is an exercise in stunning dichotomies, racially salient Intersections in Art. Free jazz meets Gospel pop and begins to lash out verbally, twisting anger and politics into radical poetry, elevating itself into High Black Art. Certainly it's a bracing reminder that the dominant Boomer narrative omitted some of the period's greatest prostestations in favor of the weak resistance offered by Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" or Hendrix playing the "Star Spangled Banner" as exit music to Woodstock.

The inherent tragedy of listening to these types of albums is knowledge in hindsight that the great Revolution never happened, that the energy began to wane in the 80's and that these albums are now considered footnotes in the Great History of Hip Hop. But in light of America's black president and the widespread revolution in the Middle East, as we live under the weird yoke of corporate oligarchy, this kind of call to action and consciousness seems nearly as resonant as it ever did. Not just a musical tourist trip into the heart of a revolution of another time, a record like this howls through the years and appeals to our humanity in the now while asserting a history lesson. This is an artifact of an imperfect social uprising- for all the questionable assertions, misogynistic or racist or violent- as an artifact it is perfect, and as an expression of human passion, an example of ecstatic spiritual exhortation it is timeless.

Credit where it's due: I originally picked this up over at Nothing is v2.0, an excellent blog indeed (although he nicked the fine and excellent rip from Reza), so pay the place a visit and afford him a thank you and thank Reza in the comments.

J I H A D

Another Safari For Your Soul: Grzimek Safari Two, A Flash Strap Mix

2011-05-12T00:16:00.000-07:00

So maybe it's crazy to drop another mix so soon after the last, but, you know, I made two. They're both chock-a-block with great songs. What am I gonna do, arbitrarily withhold the second one? No. I have better things to do than to not do this...

Anyway, here it is. Your second helping of Grzimek Safari, and another guide through but a few fertile corners of the internet. Use this to usher in your summer, if you like, or as a soundtrack to the act of steering your amphibious car into a bloat of hippos. I hope you enjoy.

1. The Old Boat- Eden Ahbez
2. The Empty Foxhole- Ornette Coleman
3. Outlaw- Eugene McDaniels
4. Safari- Don Everly
5. Village Soul- Lennie Hibbert
6. Fantastic Man- William Onyeabor
7. Bad Boy- The Jive Bombers
8. Popcorn- Byron Lee & The Dragonaires
9. Deck Five- Saturday's Children
10. Oma Rakas- P.E. Hewitt Jazz Ensemble
11. Sanctus- Les Troubadours Du Roi Baudouin
12. The Great Fuck Inaccessible- Sun City Girls
13. Like A Ship... (Without A Sail)- Pastor T.L. Barrett & the Youth For Christ Choir
14. Tomorrow Never Knows- Junior Parker
15. Your Feet's Too Big- Fats Waller
16. Na Baixa Do Sapateiro- Trio Nago
17. Someone To Watch Over Me- Jimmy Scott
18. Black Cat ('66)- Scotty McKay
19. Cepheus- Gert Thrue
20. Nachsaison- Liliental
21. O Mar- Edy Pollo
22. The Rain- Eddie Gale
23. Moving Finger- Dorothy Ashby
24. Pretty Ballerina- The Left Banke
25. Formula Dub- Keith Hudson
26. Sexy Thing- Robo Arigo
27. Hari Om Sat Tat (with Orchestra)- Shankar Jaikishan

I urge you to follow the track-links to anything you hadn't heard before. Give love to the source.

GRZIMEK SAFARI 2

Come back soon, too, 'cause I've been cooking up another Paradjanov soundtrack. A treat for those of you interested in difficult Eurasian ethnic minority traditional music, Jew's harp, and the sound of old women lamenting, delivered with an assaultive collage-based presentation. You special breed...

Somewhere A Mountain is Moving: The Left Banke- Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina (1967)

2011-05-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

Another sweet musical gift from my dear friend Morgan, although it must be said in this case that the credit must fall at least equally on the shoulders of his goodly woman, and my own very very dear friend, Julia, the inimitable Julia of Just Julia infamy. The breadth of the man's knowledge and enthusiasms and the depth of the fine lady's pop instincts and curatorial sense has made them excellent fellows and friends to one such as myself, both before and after their fairy-tale coupling, and their bringing into my life The Left Banke is only one of the latest examples of their charms. Happy Mother's Day to you, you crazy kids!

And happy Mother's Day to you, Mom. I love you.

This excellent record from the Left Banke- a band unfailingly referred to as "baroque," or more amusingly, "Bach-rock," for whatever that's worth- has been in frequent rotation around these parts, ever since I first laid ears on it. I, and likely you as well, had heard the stellar "Walk Away Renee" somewhere before, but the real treat was the opening track, "Pretty Ballerina." An unbelievably pretty song about, simply put, a date with a pretty ballerina, the whole thing seems a little twee on its face until the singer poetically non-sequiturs, "somewhere a mountain is moving... afraid it's moving without me." It's hard to explain, but to me, that registers as a thunderclap, a fiercely serene surprise attack of Taoist profundity lurking like a perfect tiger in a song that might otherwise be described as an above-average, more baroque early-Zombies-esque pop single. It's inspired. There might not be another moment on the record as subtly radical as that- or even radical at all- but it is an excellent album the whole way through, and any Zombies comparisons are well-deserved compliments. Especially enjoyable are the selections, "Barterers and their Wives" and "Shadows Breaking Over My Head." Fans of Love (especially circa Da Capo), The Zombies, British Invasion, and Faux-British invasion (these cats definitely hail from New York) will likely enjoy this one. I certainly recommend it very highly, so get it while it's hot.

LEFT BANKE

Mandarin Tornado: "Chinese Surf"- Non Stop Dancing (19??)

2011-05-07T14:07:00.000-07:00

My friend Morgan gave this to me a few months ago and I've been meaning to post it ever since. Positively delightful Chinese surf-pop instrumentals. This is really just lethally pleasant. Not much info seems to exist on this, however, so all I can say is get it y'all.

NON STOP

Upon performing a perfunctory googling of this record, I seem to find that it likely originated at FM Shades, a blog with a lot to offer in its archives despite having slowed to a crawl of late. Mr. Shades aptly compares the sound of this record to Joe Meek, an observation which may titillate you Meek heads out there and persuade you to try this album on for size. Anyway, whether you obtain it from here or there, you should really give this one a "spin." And for Christ's sake, Morgan, don't be afraid to drop a comment now and again. I know you visit here often. Love you bro, see you 4th of July.

Monkey Drop, Good Gracious!: Scotty- Draw Your Brakes (1971)

2011-05-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

For those of you listening to the The Harder They Come soundtrack thinking, who the ding dong is this Scotty fellow, and where can I get more of this charming fellow, babblin' as he does o'er top these old-school rocksteady beats, I have something for you. It is this.

Some kind of "Best of" comp from 1971, as far as I can tell. Seems the delightful Scotty dropped a lot of singles in his day but not much in the way of long-players at this point, so this serves as a sort of debut LP. In fact, it seems it was also released under the name "School Days" and presented more as an LP, with a slightly different tracklist- but I confess I'm not too keenly interested in the chronology of all this. What's important is that this is early-ass, delightful reggae, Scotty's singjay proto-toasts warm and unintelligible- somewhere between righteousness and baby talk, and everything is just as pleasing and cool as can be... as a very young man I remember listening to my father's The Harder They Come album on vinyl, staring into the impossibly tuff cover, and boggling at the singular weirdness of "Draw Your Brakes," a song unlike any I had ever heard before. Scotty may not have another song quite as devastatingly tite as "Draw Your Brakes" on Draw Your Brakes, but the rest of the tracks deliver about as much as you might hope.

On a related note, I finally tracked down a full-length of another group responsible for a fantastic track on that most-gateway of reggae drugs, The Harder They Come soundtrack: The Slickers, of the unbelievably cool "Johnny Too Bad," and their LP, Many Rivers To Cross. It was pretty fucking disappointing, actually. But you can't go wrong with Scotty, my brethren. Go to it.

R O G A R

A Fine Safari Indeed: Flash Strap Mix #1- Grzimek Safari

2011-05-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this is the first of a short series of mixes I'm thinking of doing. There's been a rapturous surplus of truly great music congregating openly in these waters of late, and I just sort of got the urge to throw together a mix in recognition of this bounty. Perhaps, too, it is necessary for me to commemorate a personal moment: this week my Safari, having spent a few weeks collapsed in the dust like a toothless elephant, came back from the shop all patched up, just as functional and pretty as a pony. It was a day that ensured my ability to go on many more motor safaris through the Mexican Serengeti, a tape in the deck and pulqué in the jar. Not only that, I can once again drive my boat (The Continente Nero, a Seahawk Series II 9-foot inflatable rowboat- I assure you it is thoroughly awesome and definitely hilarious) to the presa and hunt for shoreline ruins and tribes of goats. So I'm feeling positive about the future.

This is not just a compilation of twenty-one excellent songs, cleverly assembled and sequenced so as to afford an enjoyable hour-and-some-change of superlative musical diversion. It also, more importantly, provides an opportunity to trace back thru the blogs to find the context and albums-in-entirety of any songs that may strike your fancy; click on a track from the playlist below, and you'll find a link back to the source from whence, for me, these shining jewels originated. The majority of these sources are wonderful blogs, and while most of them get more traffic than my own on the whole, I nobly urge you to visit them, enjoy their bounty, and give thanks where you feel it is due. Then, you know, come back and say hey.

This is the first of what could be several, if there's any interest. Vol. 2 is due to drop in a couple weeks regardless of y'all's fervor or indifference, but after that we can talk.

1. Fear Not- Daniel Higgs
2. Get Thy Bearings- Donovan
3. Contemplating Mind- Barrington Spence
4. Come Show Me The Way- Disco Blaze
5. Andalucia- Ranil y Su Conjunto Tropical
6. Pauline- Docteur Nico/Orchestra African Fiesta
7. My Mary (More Than Ever)- Jade
8. Domain of the Nadir Pasha- Dzhavanshir Kuliyev
9. Baia- Jose Oliveira
10. Funerale Di Un Contadino- Chico Buarque & Ennio Morricone
11. Phir Teri Yaad- Hemant Bhosle
12. Quicksand Beach Party- Missing Brazilians
13. Bogey Wobble- Paul McCartney
14. Blind- Deep Purple
15. I've Got Lightning- David Bowie
16. Techniques Special- Techniques All Stars
17. Ballake- Bembeya Jazz National
18. Cumulonimbus- Zru Vogue
19. Beautiful Black Woman- The Jihad
20. My Tane- Johnny Pineapple And His Orchestra
21. Til I Die (Desper mix)- The Beach Boys

GRZIMEK SAFARI

By the way, the image on the cover is a photo of famed zoologist Bernhard Grzimek zipping towards Uganda's Murchison Falls in his amphibious car. In my best moments, I think I can almost smell the shadow of something so great as this. I wonder if there's a tape deck in that thing.

The Secret Genius of Ferrante & Teicher: Soundproof! (1956); Denizens of the Deep (1950)

2011-04-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

At this point it's not exactly breaking news if I confide to you that Ferrante & Teicher's history contains richer moments of experimentation and creativity than one will usually find in the extremely easy easy-listening records that compose the bulk of their legacy. The fact that they began their careers as piano-treating, texture-seeking Julliard prodigies is by this point well-known to those with the proclivity to know such things, but let's shed a little more light on the subject today. from wiki: The duo... experimented with prepared pianos, adding paper, sticks, rubber, wood blocks, metal bars, chains, glass, mallets, and other found objects to piano string beds. In this way they were able to produce a variety of bizarre sounds that sometimes resembled percussion instruments, and at other times resulted in special effects that sounded as if they were electronically synthesized.

This period in their career is full of fascinating stuff, the textures and arrangements positively bursting with invention and the joy of discovery. One of the finest examples of the boys at their best is the 1956 album, Soundproof, a Dimension-X version of an easy listening record that's been compared to Joe Meek, John Cage, and Moondog, among others. This is fascinating stuff indeed, made all the more bizarre by their fairly conventional song choices- songs like "Greensleeves" and "Mississippi Boogie" find themselves run through extremely different treatments than they would on almost any other record, at least any other white record, in 1956. Especially wonderful are the more Exotica-flavored selections, "African Echoes", "Baia" ("Baia" being always a highlight of a record, it's such a fantastic composition), and "Dark Eyes". The dark, echoey tones and flat, alien percussion of the treated piano lends itself to a truly unique but quintessentially Exotic sensation. This is a must-have.

By the way, if anyone can hook me up with the follow-up record, Soundblast, I'd be most grateful. I understand it is more of the same in the best of ways, but can't seem to locate a source for it. BREAKING NEWS: Holly from Den O' Sin has graciously heeded the call and generously dropped a post with a link over at her spot. Avest yourselves, fellows.

SOUNDPROOF!

As good as a good F&T record can be, they almost always ply their insane talents in the service of standards and lite-pop selections. This provides an excellent contrast of course, and is especially delightful when the song is as awesome as "Baia" or "Tabu" (which they knock wholly out of the park on Hi-Fi Fireworks and Pianos in Paradise), but it means dealing with more than a little outsized wackiness as they caper about in and demolish innocent little bland songs. Usually this is a good thing, but the idea of a record comprised exclusively of F&T originals is pretty alluring. Compositions actually designed to showcase their sensibilities, not retrofitted to acommodate them; if only there were more of this.

What there is, is Denizens of the Deep, a record the duo began making in 1950 at the start of their recording career, and abandoned. A marvellous set of more abstract compositions describing undersea motifs and moods, this could damn near have been their masterpiece. The more ambient approach causes it to resemble a bit of fantastic soundtrack work, or perhaps something by Sven Libaek. Unfortunately, the tapes in all their aged glory don't really sound that great- the music is positively superlative but it does compete with some vicious tape hiss. (Compounding this problem is the fact that my copy is in 128 kbps- if anyone has a better copy, consider throwing us all a bone in the comments.)

Now that I've denegrated the sound quality of this record, let me back up and reiterate. This shit is crazy, crazy good. Lost Masterpiece to the Max. Believe in it, my friends. When you hear the unhinged madness of "The Loch Ness Monster Stomp", you will thank me for convincing you to go on this journey, and that is a promise. If you're still unsure, then have a look at this tracklist, and feel your desire for undersea-themed music surge and rush, flooding your heart with an imperative to night-swim in a lit pool, wearing a SCUBA mask and playing this fantastic record.

1. Underwater Expectations
2. Things to Come at Sea
3. Whiptailed Stingrays
4. Barracudas on the Chase
5. Spinning Steelheads
6. Floating Manatees
7. Plunging Sharks & Diving Swordfish
8. Crafty Bowfin
9. At Sea Watching Voracious Piranha
10. Searching the Seas
11. Loch Ness Monster Stomp
12. Electric Eels
13. Treacherous Octopi & Devilfish
14. Manatees & Dolphins
15. Sneaky Spiny Sturgeons
16. Ink of the Giant Squids
17. Underwater Reflections
18. A Whale of an Aquarian Finale at Sea

DENIZENS OF THE DEEP

(I originally found this over at Music for Maniacs, but that maniac left out all the track names- I have rectified the oversight and provided my own link, but feel free to give him, as well as myself, some love over this share. Also feel free to share in the comments what you know about all the secret goodnesses of Ferrante & Teicher, as my collection and knowledge is far from complete.)

Get Thee Ready to Go to Second Level: Jean Michel Jarre- Oxygene (1976); Zoolook (1986)

2011-04-19T18:11:00.000-07:00

You've probably all heard this album, seeing as it's sold over 15 million copies and is considered one of the most successful and influential electronic albums of all time, but just in case this bold shit remains a mystery to any of you, here's a 320 rip. Not as experimental as the bulk of his forebears and contemporaries, his pop instincts infuse the minimalist synthscapes with an unexpected, pure magic. This is one of my favorites of all time- I bought it at a backwoods thrift shop when I was 13 or so just because I mistakenly thought the cover art was a Roger Dean piece (something which seemed very cool at the time, only moderately so now), and when I finally gave it an honest spin I was transfixed. Dreamy and apocalyptic: perfect.

As for that cover art, it's by Michel Granger, and the original was given to Jarre by his future wife, Charlotte Rampling. The painting served as the primary inspiration for the record, interestingly enough. For those of you who don't know Mrs. Rampling, here she is as "Consuela" with the mighty Zed of Zardoz:

Oh, boy. Oh, heck yeah. It all makes sense somehow... what a groovy cosmic coupling.

OXYGENE

Jarre's next best effort, and by far his craziest, is this twisted little gem. A bit like Oxygene meets My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Zoolook finds Jarre augmenting his soundscapes with the "actual" playing of art-funksters like Adrian Belew and Laurie Anderson, in service of a group of airy, experimental songs piled high with ethno-samples in a multitude of languages (these, among others: Aboriginal, Afghan, Arabic, Balinese, Bhundi, Chinese, Dutch, English, Eskimo, French, German, Hungarian, Indian, Japanese, Malagasy, Malayan, Pygmy, Polish, Quechua, Russian, Sioux, Spanish, Swedish, Tibetan and Turkish). Fans of Holger Czukay, Brian Eno, and David Byrne may very well be pleased with this sample-laden abstract funkiness, which retains a great deal of Jarre's pop accessibility while achieving a surprisingly challenging listen. Good stuff if you ask me, again in 320.

ZOOLOOK

"This Ain't Rock n' Roll, This is in Direct Violation of International Law": David Bowie- Shadow Man (1971), Strange Fascination (1974)

2011-04-03T12:37:00.000-07:00

Six unreleased Bowie outtakes from the Hunky Dory period. A little rough around the edges, and as much akin to Man Who Sold the World rough drafts or Arnold Corns demos as anything off Hunky Dory, these tracks are nonetheless essential, delicious Bowie secrets for any Fan of the Man. The track "Looking For a Friend" can be heard elsewhere (in less clunky form) on Bowie at the Beeb, but the rest are otherwise previously unbeknownst to me in any other ramification (except for "Tired of My Life", which contains prominent components of the much later "It's No Game" from Scary Monsters). Especially cool is the chugging mutant psych-blues of "I've Got Lightning"... when I listen to Man Who Sold the World, I wish the whole record might have sounded more like this.

1. I'm Just Looking for a Friend
2. How Lucky You Are
3. Shadow Man
4. I've Got Lightning
5. Rupert The Riley
6. Tired of my Life

SHADOW MAN

Here's a fantastic soundboard bootleg of a '74 live show in LA. There's lots of Diamond Dogs material here, including a pretty solid rendition of the "Sweet Thing" suite. Diamond Dogs is one of my favorite records, possibly my favorite "non-Berlin-period" Bowie effort, so I embrace with wide open arms the chance to hear some quality recordings of the Diamond Dogs tour, which I understand is a fairly rare proposition. I just recently started listening to this one, but it's quickly risen to become one of my favorite live Bowie recordings, bootleg or official.

Other highlights include "Big Brother", the criminally underappreciated Young Americans outtake "It's Gonna Be Me" (holy holy that's a good track), virtually any thing else from Diamond Dogs, and the always welcome "Time" and "Rock n' Roll Suicide".

CD 1
Intro
1984
Rebel Rebel
Moonage Daydream
Sweet Thing
Changes
Suffragette City
Aladdin Sane
All The Young Dudes
Cracked Actor
Rock And Roll With Me

CD 2
Knock On Wood
It's Gonna Be Me
Space Oddity
Diamond Dogs
Big Brother
Time
The Jean Genie
Rock 'n' Roll Suicide
John I'm Only Dancing (Again)

I got both of these gems from World of Bowie Bootlegs, so make sure to pay the place a visit. You'll have to, to get this Strange Fascination.

STRANGE FASCINATION

Hey y'all, don't be afraid to drop a comment, now. We were doing so good there for a while.

"A Horn Player With A Really Fucked-Up Axe": The Velvet Underground- The Legendary Guitar Amp Tapes (1968-69)

2011-04-01T12:41:00.000-07:00

A monstrously necessary bootleg of the Velvet Underground playing various shows at Boston Tea Party in '68 and '69, as heard through the jagged, swirling prism of Lou Reed's guitar amp. Some fan made the recordings by simply plugging into Reed's amp, and there you have it. The results are juggernaut.

The visionary genius of Reed's guitar playing is no secret at this point. From the epileptic free jazz of "I Heard Her Call My Name" to the sparkling, quicksilver rhythm guitar on tracks like "What Goes On" (with the deranged and brilliant "Sister Ray" lurking conspicuously in between), his work has been undeniably influential and largely unparalleled. One doesn't need this tape to hear the free jazz/avant-garde influences of Ornette Coleman and Sonny Sharrock in Reed's playing- evidence abounds, especially in other live recordings (especially in the indispensable Quine Tapes)- but this is a mammoth-sized treat for those obsessed. Along with the marvellous bootleg Sweet Sister Ray, it's one of the most focused and cohesive dissertations on a specialized aspect of VU history.

Reed's guitar is all the way the hell up front, but the rest of the band isn't wholly excluded. The drums are about as audible and visceral as ever, and the bass, organ, and second guitar can be heard (if more as a support than anything else). The vocals are fairly well washed out, but they are there. This dynamic works best on the more savage compositions; a selection like "Candy Says" may suffer from such reduction more than anything. On the other hand, it should come as no surprise that "Sister Ray" takes a truly awe-inspiring form here, a half-hour of passionate, furious Fire Music, a grand dichotomy of primitive pure expression and an aggressive deconstruction of the "guitar solo." "Foggy Notion", "Run Run Run", "What Goes On", and a welcome version of the somewhat rare "Move Right In" also fare extremely well, among others. This is pure stuff. Uncut ear scag for your loud days, a real brain-stabber.

Disc 1
1. I Can't Stand It
2. Candy Says
3. I'm Waiting For The Man
4. Ferry Boat Bill
5. I'm Set Free
6. What Goes On
7. White Light/White Heat
8. Beginning To See The Light
9. Jesus

Disc Two
10. Heroin/Sister Ray
11. Move Right In
12. Run Run Run
13. Foggy Notion

AMP TAPES FOR YOUR DING DONG, JIM

Secret Genius: Paul & Linda McCartney- Ram (1971)

2011-03-23T18:09:00.001-07:00

Okay, let's just do it. Let's talk about Ram. This record is nothing short of a pop apocalypse to me, the place where the pleasure of the genre reaches a critical mass and just ends it all, eclipsing any other work of a Beatle or the Beatles for sheer enjoyability and playful creativity. I've been listening to this album since I was a youngster, and it's never lost a bit of its luster. Hell, I still have the same tape (not a homemade tape, either, but an official cassette release... that always pleases me, in a strange way) that my father played in his truck when I was a child, that I now play in my truck.

It rips open with the anthemic "Too Many People." This is the song that really stoked John Lennon's paranoia and bile, causing him to drop the vitriolic dis track "How Do You Sleep?", a bit of a rabid response, I would say, to such reasonable, even resonant, observations such as "Too many people preachin' practices/ Don't let em tell you what you wanna be...", but I digress. It's a good fucking song, a real satisfying slice of 70's rock for driving fast through the countryside, feeling good about who you are in the world. It's also a fairly salient entry in the Lennon-McCartney grudge myth, if you buy into that stuff, as McCartney's vague jabs at his friend seem level-headed and ultimately caring. It's followed by the doofy blues of "3 Legs", a marvellously produced trifle about a three-legged dog and a one-legged fly. It's dumb as hell lyrically but there's bigger fish to fry here, the guitars sounding as crisp and weird as they do, and the various vocal filters being applied as they are... At times, McCartney's approach really reminds me of Eno's on Here Come the Warm Jets, laying out artful but nonsensical pop abstractions, then distorting them by treating each instrument, or section, with an effect or filter or Oblique Strategy, tossing in rewarding frills and textures all over the place.

The next thing is "Ram On", an utterly, devastatingly pretty little ukulele ditty with deceptively cavernous, ramshackle production. Opening with a quick blurble of distorted tape, leading into a cascading piano line, studio chatter, and a demo-quality intro on solo uke, it builds layers from there, adding Linda's always-straightforward backing vocals, reverbed electric piano, hand claps and bongos endowed with enormous echo, more and more backing vocals, and Paul performing mouth bass; imitating then shadowing a french horn; then whistling the whole thing out... a wonderfully complex and perfectly simple 2-and-a-half minutes. A similar effect is achieved in the next track, "Dear Boy", an ecstatic revelation of his love for Linda with that divine electric piano, layers and washes of vocals (which even perform the bass line of the song, to delightful effect), and a sudden, staccato chunk of electric guitar pushing the whole thing straight up into the heavens... quite simply, these have been two of the best and coolest love songs ever made.

What Follows is "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey", such an utterly weird little song suite that I hesitate to even describe it. He actually won a "Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists" Grammy for this tune, and while it seems too odd to have warranted the attention of the idiots at the Grammies, it certainly deserved its praise. Beginning with a warmly evocative childhood theme, complete with melancholy/nostalgia-inducing rainfall sounds, then imitating and sampling insect noises; reprising the first verse in a John Cleese-esque brusque British accent, and lurching into a french horn piece, followed by a giant chorus from Linda: "Heads Across the Water, Heads Across the Sky..."; the french horn coming back to accompany a "Pirates of Penzance" reminiscent bit of a maritime nonsense ditty, then back to the chorus, then out of nowhere a "weedle-weedle little gypsy getaround" diversion, back to the chorus, and fade out rocking... This is creativity operating with total confidence and utter abandon. It's so charming, you almost lose sight of how fucking all over the place and random it is. Once you've heard it, babies, it's in your life forever.

It fades into the closest thing the record has to a misstep, the ghastly, raunchy blewz of "Smile Away", a song about how smelly his feet, breath, and teeth are. It's not my favorite, but it's still kind of great. The backup vocals in particular are inspired, and you gotta give it points for being so godawful peculiar.

Side two opens on "Heart of the Country" another composition which finds Paul scatting out bass lines and imitating the other instruments. In fact, this track may be one of his all-time great vocal performances, his wistful delivery of the verses achieving a sweet perfection. It's followed by "Monkberry Moon Delight", a monstrously grotesque shanty of Tom Waits-level of bone machine ramshacklery, scary nursery rhyme imagery, and growliness. So unhinged and howlingly strange, Screamin' Jay Hawkins' perhaps-inevitable cover of it sounds positively tame by comparison. In terms of sheer strangeness as a composition, it succeeds in every way that, say, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" might not. And again I will point out, the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink production is pure gravy. Beautiful.

The Buddy Holly-inspired "Eat at Home" I've always found pleasant but fairly inconsequential. It's central entendre is wonderfully sexy, though. "Long Haired Lady", on the other hand, is another in a series of masterpieces. Opening with the closest Linda would get to a lead vocal, she demandingly inquires, "Do ya love me like you know you ought to do?" in a flat, mock-teenage voice that always flummoxed me as a child (it's seeming so incongruously off-putting), a delivery that I now relish, especially as it contrasts to Paul's especially sweet and heartfelt delivery. It's like a version of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" where Meat Loaf enthusiastically proposes to Ellen Foley (or was it Karla DeVito?) with the reassuring voice of an angel, pledging his eternal love to the support of heaven's horns as they both ascend to a paradise of mutual passion and devotion. Of course the track fades into a reprise of "Ram On", the album's first song of love, and of course it would have to segue into the sublime ode to teenage amor, "Back Seat of My Car." This song has been often compared to the works of Brian Wilson, both from a production and thematic content perspective, and rightly so. The relatively intimate emotions of young love (and all the friction with the girl's father that that usually entails) are here amplified to soaring, heart-exploding heights, the sentiment further heightened by an absence of the kind of goofy playfulness that's been sweetening the album up to this point. Here the record ends, and makes its stand with a gorgeous and heartfelt finale, declaring of their love "Oh, we believe that we can't be wrong."

I strongly suspect that any of you who might be reading this are already familiar with this record. If you're not, then I hope I've managed to pique your interest, and if you are, I hope I've provoked in you a desire to throw it on give it another listen. Seriously, if you don't know this joint in your bones, then get it inside of you, tonight. I'm looking at you, Jacob Kerner. This is Paul's best solo work by a mile, and one of the best albums of all time.

Again, I won't be posting a download link here for fear of being taken out by an anti-Beatles-pirating death squad, but I'm sure you can find it out there in that big old world, my friends.

Also, my friend from UbuWeb has recently tipped me to the delightful and surprising fact that Paul recorded an instrumental version of this record, under the pseudonym of Percy "Thrills" Thrillington. It's god damn great, and I'll be chatting you and your computers up on that subject in the coming days as well. Search it out, fellows, and dare to dream of greatness. Good night.

Secret Genius: Paul McCartney- "Lost" McCartney II (1980)

2011-03-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

Here is the so-called "lost" McCartney II. Like most things bearing the oft-spurious title of "Lost Album," the truth of this one is that it is a collection of outtakes, excluded tracks, and extended or alternate takes. It offers, to my ears, no greater or more complete a vision of the record than the extended rerelease of the original discussed below, but it does make for fascinating listening for those, like me, who always want to "hear more." Get it if you want it, I shouldn't have to convince you. There's some seriously cool mysteries on here, though.

CHECK YOUR MACHINE (link removed by request)

Secret Genius: Paul McCartney- McCartney II (1980)

2011-03-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

It's hard for me to talk about Paul McCartney without railing on about his undeserved reputation as some kind of crassly commercial, unrepentantly cute, baby-boomer bogeyman, but suffice it to say, I feel it's undeserved. Paul was, if the jauntiest and catchiest songwriter of the Beatles, simultaneously the most experimental and avant-garde. If Wings stands as a monument to post-Beatles mediocrity, then McCartney, Ram, and McCartney II tower as beautiful, wild, and endlessly enjoyable masterpieces, a testament to and realization of all the promise and talent the 20th Century's most successful composer carried with him into his solo career. (Not to be needlessly didactic, but I'd say that puts him a step above the teflon boomer-saint and rival in history, John Lennon, who managed about one and a half great solo outings and a few more that weren't too embarrassing. I love him as we all do but come on. How did he sleep at night?) Ram is my favorite of the three, one of my most beloved records of all time, but the strangest by far is McCartney II, and that is what I'll ramble on about today.

After breaking up Wings and spending nine days in jail for marijuana possession, McCartney dropped II, a synth and weedsmoke-drenched bedroom record of epically weird proportions. Utilizing the so-crazy-it-just-might-work technique of holing up in his Scottish studio, getting high, and playing all the instruments himself, he emerged with a surprisingly experimental bunch of songs so creative and cool that even notorious grump Lennon had to muster some praise for his old friend. The big single was "Coming Up", a strange but pop-friendly disco track with massive compression and sped up vocals. After it opens the record, one has to sweat through the agitating new-wave nightmare of "Temporary Secretary", a song I usually skip but have to admit is a fascinatingly garish piece of work, a Devo-esque piece of hot trash worth suffering through for the sadistic pleasure of it. It's followed by the soothing balm of "On the Way", a cruisin' bit of what is essentially a blues, but draped in dub-level amounts of echo and garnished with little bits of angular guitar work. Excellent... and we're off!

Next up is the gorgeous "Waterfalls." Simple, perfect, oddly similar to the TLC hit of the same name... some may write this type of track off as maudlin or corny but to hell with those monsters, and their hardened, bitter souls. I implore you to lend your full attention and whole heart to this video:

After that brief diversion into a land of earnest sentiment, it's back to the playfully trippy. "Nobody Knows", a stompin' trifle, followed by "Front Parlour", a decidedly lo-fi bit of synthy krautrock, a la Zuckerzeit or Ralf and Florian; then a reprise of sentiment in the vein of "Waterfalls", this time distorted somehow into a soaring yet brittle haiku of optimism in the form of "Summer's Day", followed by another grainy kraut jam, "Frozen Jap," complete with handclaps, crushingly hollow compressed drums, and a drum machine. The record is flowing at this point, an unpredictable river of stoned optimism... "Bogey Music" comes and goes, its essential mediocrity hazily cloaked in relentless echo, and is followed by one of the record's masterworks, the sinister, slightly reggae-ish "Darkroom." It's one of those pop songs that comes into your life and makes you feel like you've never heard anything like it, like you've been waiting for this specific mix of pop and art without ever suspecting it even existed. It's like hearing Brian Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets, Roxy Music's debut, or Bowie's Low for the first time. Pop as art with no compromise, utterly unique and essentially familiar.

I guess the original album followed "Darkroom" with "One of These Days", a nicely introspective track with McCartney's signature direct pop appeal and kind, friendly voice. I suppose I have an expanded version, though, because for me, that song has always been followed by the album's other great revelation, "Check My Machine," a powerful dub distortion with looped banjo, falsetto vocals, gallons of echo, and positively brilliant sounding synths. I could groove to this all day. Alien music; truly, truly weird. You can smell the cheeba wafting from the studio as he wrapped this one up. I have no idea how it didn't make it onto the original release, but history and the profitability of re-releases+bonus tracks has rectified the error. Look at what the Rolling Stones did with Reggae in the 70's. Then look at "Darkroom" and "Check My Machine." Then tell me how Keith Richards is the fucking Pope of Rock n Roll and Paul is its Judas. Judas? I don't believe you.

The final track on my version is "Secret Friend", a ten minute synth meandering with tape-distortion warbling and "saxophone" sounds throughout. It's not gripping stuff the whole way through, but it is a stellar fadeout to this secret masterpiece. I cannot recommend this shit highly enough. Here is the work of a man having fun, getting high, being a genius, and doing what he wants to do. You'd best believe, my friends.

I'm not posting a link to this. In this case, I fear the potential recriminations of such an act... but you internet wizards can surely find a way to download this if you don't feel like filling Paul's already overloaded coffers. Just make sure you get the bonus tracks, dig it? They are key. They are necessary to your life.

Kosmische Gehackt und Geschraubt: Flash Strap Presents- Afrokraut•Control Car

2011-03-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

They fiercely hated capitalism and colonialism and immoderately loved psychedelic drugs. They built self-managed nations and communities devoted to the inner space exploration, they were followers of polygamy and esoteric practices. They worshipped the rhythm.. and the ministers were Tony Allen and Jaki Liebezeit. At the out side, RAF urban guerrilla rioted and the Nigerian dictatorship put down the rebellion... and Allah could have been Marxist. Can, Faust, Fela Kuti & Africa 70, Neu!, Ofo the Black Planet, William Onyeabor, Harmonia are the stars of Krautrock and Afrobeat. It’s a journey through the sounds of a buried period, looking for improbable resemblances between seventies Africa and Germany.
-Massimo Carozzi, for his excellent Afrokraut mix, listenable at Music City

"It's a plan of action through non-action. It's an observational/lenticular move, and it's the right move... It's an intended obfuscation; I think the implicit vibe that comes with something law enforcement related is aggression, control, all the dominant archetypes we can watch failing catastrophically at the moment. On Patrol is about flipping that vision: enforcement through perceptual strategies. On Patrol is a statement of place, a statement of being. It's not about patrolling. It's about getting On Patrol."- Camerone Stallones/ Sun Araw, describing the philosophy behind the concept of being On Patrol, also the name of his cosmically badass most recent full-length.

Inspired by the Afrokraut bridging suggested in part by Mr. Carozzi, and the truly evident connections that have always lived within the music itself; as well as the fine Mr. Araw's razor-sharp alchemy of, as he says, "70's classy: free jazz, krautrock, African music, etc.", in addition to the notable elements in his work of funkadelicism, dub, and old-school hip hop; and with considerable attention paid to Brother Murky's revelation of a comp, Purple Chicha Music-- I give you an effort of my own Man-Hours and Brain-Powers, Afrokraut•Control Car.

Stretching worldly Kraut grooves and Afro-psych/synth across space and time, utilizing the slurring technique of chopping and screwing to obtain a unity, to insist the intrinsic connection be felt more deeply in the blood, this set aims only slightly to make points and teach lessons about international musical kinship, instead skewing mightily in preference to the creation of audio-psychic fuel with which to find one's consciousness setting about going On Patrol to, in either the physical realm or otherwise. Observe and Conquer. Move through space like a secret genius, a jalopy wizard, a safari cyborg. You understand what I am advocating, I trust.

The set consists of two programs: the first, Afrokraut, the details of which has been fairly well fleshed out by now, and the second, Control Car, a rundown of similarly chopped late 70's/early 80's disco-funk cuts, largely of African-American or African origin. Control Car is Robocop funk, abandoned city steam vent soul-dubb jams. Originally slated to be a separate project, a review of the two programs side-by-side revealed a kinship that ran deep, one bolstering the other and creating a seriously trippy, groovy, dare I say, apocalyptically radical universe of active-minded, head-bobbing smolderers unrestricted by a simple thesis of duality-- friends, this is a trifecta.

Disregard the inherent pretension in these wordy paragraphs and get cerebrally primitive to these enjoyable musical experiments.

Program One: AFROKRAUT
1. I Want More- Can
2. Everyday- William Onyeabor
3. La Bomba (Stop Apartheid Worldwide!)- Neu!
4. Saduva- Gibson Kente
5. The Seven Game- Baka Pygmies/ Irmin Schmidt and Bruno Spoerri
6. I First U Last- N'Draman Blintch
7. One Thing (Or The Other)- Michael Karoli and Polly Eltes
8. Ceddo End Title- Manu Dibango

Program Two: CONTROL CAR
1. Wind It Up- Control
2. Break It!- Oby Onyioha
3. Over the Ledge (Rub Dub)- Ta'boo
4. Jungle Drums- Wild Fantasy
5. Them Crazy- Robo Arigo

AFROKRAUT•CONTROL CAR

Try this out and let me know how it makes you feel, if for no other reason than because it is my birthday. I love you all.

Exotica Safari in the Lushness of Space: Russ Garcia- Fantastica (1959)

2011-03-07T14:23:00.000-08:00

We are enveloped by the silence of space and swallowed into a nebulous mist of weightlessness…floating far and wide into space.

Onward we fly—when an unbelievably forlorn and mournful sound reaches out to us…desolate and lonely beyond belief.

A sense of deep depression has settled over us, when, without warning, the grotesque monsters of Jupiter appear…is all of space filled with these unspeakable horrors? This is certainly no laugh in the dark.

As we whisk by this barren inferno a glowing, whirling mass appears in the distance. We are witnessing the birth of a planet.

During the final stage of our journey we watch breathlessly the lunar display before us—the exquisite moon rise in all its majestic and peaceful beauty…we’re almost home.

So reads the literature on the back cover of Russ Garcia's sci-fi Exotica masterpiece, Fantastica. I feel like I've heard a number of records in this subgenre, and the majority of them have been relatively aimless theremin squiggles and groans backed by dissonant-yet-humdrum string sections. This is highly satisfying stuff, however, with all the weirdness one might expect of 50's sci-fi music and more than enough of the lushness and sense of adventure one requires of an exotica record. This is a safari on Jupiter, a SCUBA exploration in the seas of Neptune, a dinosaur sighting in the jungles of Venus. Or why don't I just let the track names speak for themselves:

Into Space
Nova
Lost Souls of Saturn
Monsters of Jupiter
Water Creatures of Astra
Venus
Red Sands of Mars
Goofy Peepl of Phobos
Volcanoes of Mercury
Birth of a Planet
Frozen Neptune
Moon Rise

Go on this journey.

F A N T A S T I C A

Sophisticated Daydream of Exotica: All-Star Orchestra- A Far East Fantasy in Latin Dance Rhythm (1959)

2011-03-07T13:59:00.000-08:00

What an excellent example of Exotica culture-collage. Asian songs played in a Latin-jazz style by what might be a Hawaiian band. Sublime. Each influence, from its popular American jazz skeleton to the "Latin" arrangements, up to the mishmash of Hawaiian popular music reflecting and refracting through popular Asian music (which has influenced and been influenced by both Hawaiian and American popular music in general and Exotica in particular), can be heard... This is a surprisingly unique record in the Exotica canon, and one about which I can find very little information. A bit of a masterpiece. Highest possible recommendation for Exotica lovers.

FAR EAST FANTASY

Disco Devotionals: Ofro Haza- Yemenite Songs (1985)

2011-03-07T13:43:00.000-08:00

Here's a ripping slice of culture-mashing dance-pop, another treasure unearthed in the bowels of SoulFunk. It's such a curious piece of work, I thought I'd throw it up for y'all. A bit of text from 1,000 Recordings:

Israel-born Ofra Haza (1957–2000) began this project knowing that the material she'd chosen—traditional Yemenite diwan songs that Haza, the youngest of nine children, heard growing up—would, given ongoing Israeli-Palestine tensions, be considered radical for a Jew to sing. So why stop there? To the devotional poetry, much of it written by sixteenth-century rabbi Shalom Shabazi, she added electronic percussion used as part of diwan celebrations and loops similar to those found in techno and other dance music. It was a mash-up made in heaven, a confluence of ancient wisdom and dance floor escapism that singlehandedly triggered the genre sometimes called "ethno-techno." While many have followed the Fifty Gates idea in pursuit of similarly unlikely fusions, the original has several distinctive—that is, uncopyable—traits: The texts, which are published in English in the accompanying liner notes, are rhapsodic expressions of love ("no bandages will heal the wounds inflicted upon my longing heart") that are conducive to singing. Then there's Haza's silky siren of a voice. She delivers long, mazelike trails of melody with an almost noble air—all alone, just through her demeanor, she makes clear that the textures swirling around her are as righteous as anything traditional ever was.

It doesn't totally strike me as being quite so noble or sophisticated an excursion, sometimes hitting a note of goofy ethno-poppiness similar to the superior Penny Penny, but there's a pleasure to be had in these grooves and why squabble over the anthropological and cultural merits? Especially for one so unqualified to comment on that region or its culture as I. Get it while it's hot, and freak out to your devotion.

YEMENITE SONGS

Eastern Jazz Obsession: Ahmed Abdul-Malik- Jazz Sahara (1958)

2011-03-03T20:30:00.000-08:00

The 1958 debut-as-leader of Ahmed Abdul-Malik, an oud player and double bassist who's thrown down with Art Blakey, Coltrane, Odetta, and Thelonius Monk, among others. These are enormous East-meets-West jams, with a much harder emphasis on Middle East instrumentation and style than American jazz, and very little exotica-style musical tourism. For 1958, this was some pretty authentic shit, and this record was a first exposure to these types of sounds for many. Besides Malik on the oud, this record also features a kanoon, a darabeka, and a duf, all used to beautiful effect. The more typical "jazz" sound rarely makes an appearance, with the occasional swooping solo from sax-bopper Johnny Griffin really beefing up the supreme coolness of the whole affair. It's a lovely piece of work, and nicely aggressive.

I got this originally from Big Fat Satanist, a blog which is long since no more. I know Jazz Sahara is still floating around on other blogs and such, but I was swinging pretty hard to it tonight and thought I should drop it at my spot. Get it if you don't already got it.

JAZZ SAHARA

Awesome Tapes and Ghetto Organs, for Friends: Penny Penny- Yogo Yogo (199?); Jackie Mittoo- A Hearty Sampling of my Own Selection

2011-02-27T11:16:00.000-08:00

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAA! This is Penny Penny-- Second time around again! Hahahahahahahahahaha..."

So begins Penny Penny's second effort, Yogo Yogo. All the elements of his previous masterpiece, Shaka Bundu, are here in the exact same form. For all effects and purposes, this is the same album, but for those of you who swung deep on Shaka Bundu, that should be welcome news. As Awesome Tapes puts it, "This shit is pretty much game over as far as South African dance-pop from the '90s goes."

This was originally posted at Awesome Tapes From Africa, of course, but my friends Morgan and Julia couldn't manage the link there for some reason. For their benefit, for their friendship, I post these mammoth jams here. Anyone who can hack it ought to go raid Awesome Tapes and get the shit from the source. There is great wealth there.

YOGO YOGO

Excellence Out of Blue Note: Art Blakey- Indestructible (1965)

2011-02-25T12:29:00.000-08:00

Hard Hard driving bop from Art Blakey. Chugging, bluesy, and powerful, with Wayne Shorter on sax. Blakey is, as usual, excellent as a bandleader and a drummer, making this a date not to be missed. Not quite Orgy in Rhythm, but still essential Art.

INDESTRUCTIBLE

On Patrol (Tuff Stuff): Control- Control (19??)

2011-02-20T17:13:00.000-08:00

Do you even see how dope this cover is. Do you. I snagged this over at Soul Funk, one of those scrappin', bargain-bin-style blogs that doesn't always provide information or dates. No matter. I got it on the strength of the cover alone, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the contents (at least, the twelve-and-a-half minutes/two songs worth of content provided by Soul Funk- is this a single? who knows) were nearly as thin and hard and funky as the art might suggest. True, I might not be so keen on these brittle ghostbuster-funk tracks if it weren't for the perfect image in my head when I listen, but all art is a collection of disparate influences, and sometimes one ought not be afraid to conflate the packaging with the product. Control is awesome. Control is On Patrol. Control is tuff stuff for your car's tape deck. Believe.

C O N T R O L

Spiritual Jazz Obsession: Don Cherry (& Jazz Composer's Orchestra)- Relativity Suite (1973)

2011-02-18T15:42:00.001-08:00

I would have thought I'd have posted more Don Cherry by this point. Alongside Archie Shepp and Alice Coltrane, Cherry is one of my favorites of the spiritual free jazz scene. The clamor of free jazz, with Cherry, is always organized for maximum emotional depth and musical diversity, using world-influenced patterns to attain a sense of consciousness-raising, either through meditative repetition or expansive soulfulness. He's also a wonderfully intuitive soloer, a truly inspired assembler and leader of ensembles, and he's not afraid to use vocals. I love him.

Here's a great slice of Cherry, in full World-Jazz mode. Featuring Indian karnatic singing, tamboura, a ching, Indian-sounding strings (not unlike some of Alice Coltrane's use of strings, albeit a bit smaller in scale), Cherry's floating cornet lines, and generally employing the kind of Eastern/African/Asian influences one might expect from mid-70s Cherry, the whole thing rolls along beautifully, especially in its first half, at times challenging and at others completely meditative, until the final selection, a gonzo marching brass tune entitled "March of the Hobbits." This is wonderfully dynamic, exploratory work, highly recommended for Cherry fans. (For Cherry beginners, I'd recommend starting out with the excellent Eternal Rhythm, but this would do well also.)

RELATIVITY SUITE

Gigantic thanks to Brewing Luminous, from whom I attained this. Go there for your jazz desires.

"Cast Away the Poison, Throw Down The Dagger! Rejoice, Sister!": Music From Sergei Paradjanov's Ashik Kerib- Dzhavanshir Kuliyev (1988)

2011-02-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

Here is something you won't find anywhere else, fellows and friends: The soundtrack to Sergei Paradjanov's sublime Soviet-Armenian film Ashik Kerib. An Azerbaijan folk tale of a minstrel's intense journey told in poetic imagery, the film is damn near chock-a-block and wall-to-wall with blistering lute workouts, Azerbaijani traditional and spiritual musics, mystifying juxtapositions, otherworldy atmospheres, the occasional electronic flourish, and generally brilliant sound design. Watching the movie, I found myself breaking into a cold sweat. It's not quite Paradjanov's best film (such an honor would go to Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and/or Color of Pomegranates, although I would still venture to declare Ashik Kerib an unequivocal masterpiece), but here his always-beyond-genius use of imagery is augmented by Dzhavanshir Kuliyev's work on one of the best, most relentless soundtracks I've ever heard... so moving and powerfully otherworldly, I felt as though my brain was being penetrated by Colonel Kurtz's diamond bullet, an epiphanic moment of clarity betwixt beauty and horror.

As soon as the film ended I was on the computer hunting for the soundtrack, and came up empty-handed. As far as I know, no such artifact is available. So when I got the Paradjanov box set for Christmas (oh, what a gift it was- thanks Mom), I set to work extracting audio from the film and compiling a home-made soundtrack. Here it is. Please subject your brain to these pleasures.

Here is the soundtrack, the fruit of my humble looms. It is audio curated straight from the film, which is mostly music (the music of Dzhavanshir Kuliyev, with some songs sung by Alim Gasimov), but does include some dialogue/in-film singing and aspects of the film's excellent sound design. I feel it is sonically interesting even for those unfamiliar with the film. To reiterate: the music is insane.

ASHIK KERIB

If you've never seen the film, you very much should. You'd love it. If you've never seen any Paradjanov films, then I urge you to rush to reverse this. I promise you such wild depths of satisfaction and inspiration. Truly one of the most gifted, unique, and important masters of cinema, he is also one of the most obscure, especially today. Tarkovsky once said, "We are guilty of not thinking of him daily and of failing to discover the significance of a master." To view his films is to find a missing link in the history of film, an enigmatic singularity whose influence is felt all over, but whose voice has never been even nearly reproduced or equalled. After viewing a Paradjanov joint, such a magnificent visual stylist and viscerally spiritual filmmaker as Alejandro Jodorowski begins to ring somehow hollower than before (not to be needlessly didactic), in comparison to Paradjanov's hallucinatory visual realm, which is based on, but not slavish to, esoteric rituals of real peoples; using cultural traditions and truths as a poetic kaleidoscope through which to experience passionate, humanist, mystical surrealism.

from wiki: Critic Alexei Korotyukov remarked: "Paradjanov made films not about how things are, but how they would have been had he been God."
Mikhail Vartanov wrote in 1969 that "...Besides the film language suggested by Griffith and Eisenstein, the world cinema has not discovered anything revolutionarily new until The Color of Pomegranates ...".

Get familiar with Mr. Sergei Paradjanov, dear friends.

ASHIK KERIB

For those of you with an interest: I have an unedited file of the film's complete audio. The whole thing plays as an extended, layered sound collage, with even the dialogue being mostly sung or musically delivered, so if you're hungry for a bite this big, then I offer it to you. Let me know if you want that, or I might not bother.

Altered Exotica- Flash Strap Presents Exotiste 2: Schooner in the Mist-Snakes Among the Gods (2011)

2011-02-01T17:15:00.000-08:00

Due to what seemed like pretty good feedback, and a somewhat surprising download rate, I decided to go ahead and finish my second volume in the Exotiste series. Exotiste 2: Schooner in the Mist- Snakes Among the Gods is now here, and trippier than its predecessor. I really am quite pleased with it, myself. If you indulge this, and like it, there may well be more in the future, as I find I'm becoming slightly obsessed with this process of slow-and-lowing these pristine Space Age concoctions and watching them uncurl into sprawling jungle-doldrum purple poison-potion hallucinations.

The other night the dogs caught a desert hare and brought it into the yard, but didn't eat it. They just stood watch over its noble corpse. To honor their kill, and its sacrifice, we built a funeral pyre and sent it, ashen and ablaze, to the Gods, glowing in the Mexican night... along with the accompaniment of cocktails and herbs strange, what sounds do you think augmented the magic of the air? Exotiste. EXOTISTE.

Try it on for size, if you please! Set your schooner adrift in the mist, experience your man-made fantasy as it becomes lost on the purple clouds and enters the native land of myth, exploring the unknown depths, until you find yourself at the foot of the temple, surrounded by snakes mating in massive balls, amassed in erotic worship of the Exotic Gods.

Tracklist:

1. Paradise Cove- The Surfmen
2. Strange Echoes- Frank Hunter
3. Moon Mist- Out Islanders
4. Bali H'ai- Tak Shindo
5. Medley: Rain Forest/Rain in Rangoon/Rain- Les Baxter/Markko Polo/Les Baxter
6. Taboo- Ferrante & Teicher
7. Song of the Bayou- Martin Denny
8. Saycusca! (The Weary Stones)- Elizabeth Waldo
9. Bahia- Michel Magne
10. Happy Voodoo- Arthur Lyman
11. Spellbound Concerto- Marty Manning
12. Moonflowers- Warren Barker
13. Perfidia- Xavier Cugat
14. The Ancient Galleon- Les Baxter
15. Ecstasy- Les Baxter & Bas Sheva
16. Bora Bora- Les Baxter
17. Babalu- Stanley Black

EXOTISTE 2

Black Art Music: Archie Shepp- For Losers (1971)

2011-01-31T11:12:00.001-08:00

From allmusic: At the time this record was recorded, Shepp was bouncing back and forth between Paris and New York. He also bounced between the Impulse! and BYG labels. He also bounced between styles. For BYG, his music reached to grasp the bare beginnings of black music, back to Africa and the blues. His music for Impulse! tried to embrace the contemporary sounds of R&B, with very mixed results that to this day divide his fans. This record is a transitional one. For the traditionalists, there's his shattering and amusing cover of "I've Got It Bad" performed by the usual suspects one would think to find on an Archie Shepp record, including Cecil Payne and Joe Chambers. For those enraptured by albums like Attica Blues, songs like "Stick 'Em Up" will fascinate, as Shepp's raspy tenor is joined not only by a legion of avant-garde brethren (including names like Beaver Harris and Grachan Moncur), but also by the funky wood of electric bass, guitar, and organ. Some will find those later tracks a bit hard to take. Some will even find themselves snickering. But for anyone wishing to understand the music and career of this brilliant musician, this is an undervalued piece of the puzzle.-Rob Ferrier

This review says it fairly well. This is one of several strange funk/soul dissertations from Shepp in the 70's, along with Cry of My People and Attica Blues. These experiments in Black Music Unification can be pretty spotty, and the absence of Red Hot Sax Rage can be deafening at times, but For Losers is a must-hear. The standout, for me, is the final track: "Un Croque Monsieur (Poem: For Losers)", a revelatory piece of experimentation, with China-Lin Sharpe delivering the titular "poem" in the same wobbly, affecting voice she used to tear apart "I've Got it Bad" (another standout on this record), before the composition gives way to a repetitive piano-and-bass part (reminiscent of some of Nina Simone's more hypnotic, confrontational songs), and Shepp's achingly emotive, occasionally fiery blowing. Wonderful.

FOR LOSERS

Black Art Music: Archie Shepp- Pitchin Can (1969/70)

2011-01-27T09:01:00.000-08:00

Here's a raw dose of Fire Music from Mr. Shepp. Most of the record is taken up with a long, two-part track, "Uhuru," a gargantuan 1970 blowout with no less than three percussionists (the wonderful Muhammad Ali on drums); Lester Bowie, Alan Shorter and Clifford Thornton on horns, somebody getting weird with a slide whistle, and Shepp scorching earth with his tenor. This is big nasty Paris-style free jazz, and while it's not as focused and mind-blowing as Coral Rock (my favorite from this period, a total masterpiece), it's bluesy and soulful enough, and Shepp's playing lyrical enough, to maintain a throughline of intelligibility throughout-- a quality often lost on these big band free jazz sessions, with varying degrees of success. Sometimes when sweating my way through an Art Ensemble of Chicago joint, or Noah Howard's Black Ark, for example, I begin to wonder if I'm just getting brain-fuggled or if I'm on the precipice of catharsis. With Shepp, everyone has a part to play, and his sax is usually the star player and spirit guide, so no matter how wild it gets, you can hang with it, break that fever and feel that catharsis.

There's another track on here, the eponymous "Pitchin' Can", a 1969 session with Chicago Beau and a host of other notables. It was included on a Cd reissue of Black Gipsy, for those wondering why this track was omitted from my post that album, but here we find it in the context of its original release. This composition is a little more laid back than "Uhuru", with harmonica and viola lending it a rural color and Beau hollering here and there. Not incredible on a Biblical scale perhaps, and a bit short, really, but an excellent, excellent, highly enjoyable piece of work.

PITCHIN CAN

To those of you who mentioned you'd like to hear Doodlin' and Attica Blues Big Band: Oh so would I. Can anyone lend a hand? More Shepp to come.

Treasure-Hunting in Mexico: Some Things I Have Acquired (with some download links)

2011-01-25T16:11:00.000-08:00

So the other day I took a trip to the next town over, Querétaro. I've been living here in Mexico for five or so months now, and since the situation is somewhat impermanent, I didn't bring down with me such heavy artillery as a record player and records. Because of this, I've curtailed my own record collecting habit, but I finally broke down in QRO at a pawn shop with a cache of exotica records... and for something like four dollars, I came home with these:

With tracks like "Voodoo Moon", "You Belong To My Heart" (a favorite of mine since Three Caballeros), "Perfidia", and "Poinciana", this one looked like an all-time great for a second there. It's actually a little underwhelming, with fairly restrained, piano-based arrangements, but the playing is expert and the songs are excellent, and I like it a lot in the background. Here's a link if you like:

CARMEN CAVALLARO with that LATIN BEAT

The accordion record is strictly average, but what a cover, huh? Then there's this Johnny Pineapple record, which doesn't touch his superior Hawaiian Holiday, but is a fantastic case of top-notch Hawaiiana.

Another grab, more for the cover than anything. The jazz within is pretty standard, but the enjoyment is somehow augmented by the imagery of the cover. I know the syringe is symbolic of the "Doctored For Super-Sound" claim, but the association of an old-school stainless steel works and the word "Jazz" in red letters takes one straight to a retrostalgic junky jazz place of William S. Burroughs and Ornette Coleman.

Here's a link

Then I dug this one up: a single disc with two Yma Sumac albums, Voice of the Xtabay and Inca Tacqui. I already had these in digital form, of course, and I would guess it's hardly much of a collector's artifact, being a compilation reissue and all, but good lord is it nice to hear this gal's pipes howling out of the grooves of a good honest vinyl. If you don't have these records, go find them on the internet.

These two were the real find. Stanley Black's Red Velvet is one of the first slabs of crackly old vinyl that made me want to hear lush vintage music, and a main reason I was so electrified the first time I heard Les Baxter, after I picked up Tamboo! in a Maine antique store. So a Stanley Black affair is particularly exciting to me, for sentimental reasons. Plus, these two records are thrilling on their own merits.

Exotic Percussion is an out-and-out Exotica classic. Everything about the production and arrangement of this record is spot-on, especially the silky and sexy strings and masterful vocals. The track selections are wonderful as well, with "Caravan", "Jungle Drums", "Babalu", "Baia", "Misirlou", and "Flamingo" making this sort of a dream Exotica tracklist. Get it, okay?

EXOTIC PERCUSSION

As good as Exotic Percussion is, The Music of Lecuona is even better. It falls on the "classical" side of the Exotica spectrum, rather than the "Space Age Pop" or Jazz end, due to being made up entirely of Ernest Lecuona compositions. I had admired his work unknowingly, in the hands of many of my favorite Exotica artists, for some time, but this was the first time I had actually noticed who Lecuona was, and how much of his influence I've been feeling in the genre. The best of this guy's work is right up there with Ravel's Bolero for sensual elegance, classical passion, ethnic influence, and predicting & influencing the work of Exotica geniuses like Les Baxter. I love this record so much (I'd go so far as to say it's likely my best find since Tamboo!). I wish I had a rip to share with you all, but I haven't found anything yet. Help a man out if you have a rip of this excellent record. Please.

So when I got home with all these treasures, I was unable to play them. I would just have to wait until I didn't live in Mexico anymore. Except, my wonderful girlfriend got me this marvel for Christmas:

It is likely the best present I have ever received.

At this point I am just bragging, but let me tell you this: the other day, I bought a full-sized cow hide. Check it out:

That is all. Thank you for caring, if you did. More Archie Shepp posts coming soon.

Black Art Music: Archie Shepp- Black Gipsy (1969)

2011-01-20T18:59:00.000-08:00

Here's another magnificent and fierce session of powerful Black Art Music from the inimitable and awesome Archie Shepp. Featuring Leroy Jenkins on viola, Chicago Beauchamp on street poetry, if you will, Sunny Murray on drums, Dave Burrell on piano, and Mr. Shepp on soprano sax (mostly), plus somebody on harmonica. This is as loose and wild, as clever and meaningful, as one might expect from Shepp in his prime. Go to that place with him.

BLACK GIPSY

I'm going to start posting some more Archie Shepp in the coming days, let me know if that please you, and what you might like to see. Thanks to everyone who's been active in the comments in the last few weeks, by the way. It warms a heart to know you care.

Black Art Music: Archie Shepp and the Family of Percussion- Here Comes the Family (1980)

2011-01-20T13:47:00.000-08:00

Here's a marvellously vibrant, off-the-wall, and cosmically hip slab of brilliance from Archie Shepp and the Family of Percussion. This is really a treasure of late-period Shepp, an artist who may not have ever gone soft, but whose later output has trouble standing up to the radically powerful and important avalanche of creativity and productivity he produced in the 60s and 70s. This record features more eastern inflected percussion than one might expect from Shepp, whose African influences are typically more rough-hewn and savage. At first, you might be forgiven for assuming this to be a late 70's Don Cherry outing, at least until the spoken word and pseudo-rapping begins, giving the whole thing the kind of socially angry urban connection that Shepp was always seeking. Shepp was always outspoken in pointing out that jazz was moving to the white community, shirking its relevance to its culture and leaving the black youth behind, all the while insisting that "jazz" itself was an antiquated notion, that his responsibility was to the creation of a "black art music" with no limits to its sophistication and abstraction... this record may showcase a better example of that dichotomy coexisting than most. So highly recommended, my friends. (Thanks to Orgy in Rhythm for first posting this, oh so long ago)

HERE COMES THE FAMILY

Exotica For The New Year: Flash Strap Presents- Exotiste (2011)

2011-01-02T18:35:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, friends. Here is something I've been putting together for myself, and yourself, and now I'm pleased to turn it loose upon you. Inspired in part by Mr. Murky Recess' positively splendid, transcendent home-made comp Purple Chicha, a set of chopped-and-screwed Peruvian Cumbias Rebajadas (my nomination for best comp of its kind, which is to say: a "blog original", of the year... get it if you're smart).

The compilation I present you with today is a concoction of my own labors, an outing of tastefully chopped-and-screwed (if you will) Exotica tracks. My passion for the many works "Exotic" is well known in these parts, and I've always insisted that my enthusiasm stems from a recognition of the sophisticated, oft-times experimental efforts of the creators of this sublimely evocative music, resisting the popular notion that Exotica must retire to one of two ghettoes: kitsch hell or "lounge culture." This compilation, somewhat meaninglessly entitled Exotiste, is not an attempt to improve these tracks, or even make them somehow more "contemporary," it is merely an opportunity to experience these compositions (some not-so-great in their original incarnations, others damn near perfect) in a different way, to hear them anew, to set them more effectively into a different context. Some of these songs, when teased out, stretched apart, and dubbified, take on entirely new character, becoming abstract, trippy sound-paintings; others find a fatter bassline than might have been expected and take a druggier turn; still others become simply longer, slower versions of themselves, an alternate take at a slower tempo, all the better to luxuriate in the mood of the composition. Vintage Exotica, even at its best (admittedly with quite a few exceptions), can have a zippy, optimistic sound, the wholesomeness of which can make it unsuitable for such pursuits as night driving, getting stoned, or becoming weird; this comp offers a reversal of that quality, steering familiar space-age pop sounds further into the dark territory of Angelo Badalamenti, krautrock, and dub menace, not to mention the Dirty South and Cumbias Rebajadas connection.

Anyway, I made this for myself, having realized that what I wanted to hear was this, and that not many folks had done anything much like it. It pleased my ears and boggled my mind enough that I felt I ought to share it with you, the world of strange people on the internet. Put it on, get to being strange, and have the most sluggishly trippy exotica experience you can. This is an opium den on an absinthe beach, a smoky jungle. A slow-motion savage ritual, a spirit quest into the fantasies of our grandfathers, an alligator dream. A table set with zapote negro, guanabana, rambutan, durian melon, hash balls, a suckling pig, coconut milk cocktails, human skulls, ayahuasca, and coca leaves, ringed by a gallery of unusual birds with thousand-yard stares.

Here's the tracklist:
1. Eros in Hiro- Pierro Picioni
2. Jungle Drums- Xavier Cugat
3. Shadow of Love and the Enchanted Reef- Les Baxter
4. Temple of Suicide- Dominic Frontiere
5. Moon Over A Ruined Castle- Arthur Lyman
6. Papagayo-Les Baxter
7. Baixa- Martin Denny
8. Two Silouettes- Michel Magne
9. Mombasa Love Song-Tak Shindo
10. The Games- Les Baxter
11. Mganga- Tak Shindo
12. The Enchanted Sea- Les Baxter
13. Beyond the Reef- Tommy Morgan
14. The Misfits- Don Costa
15. Buddhist Bells- Martin Denny
16. Tabu Tu- Arthur Lyman
17. Otome San/(Love Theme) Landa- Arthur Lyman/Les Baxter

EXOTISTE

Nobody Was Home In the Town That I Called Home: Michael Nesmith- Magnetic South (1970)

2010-12-27T22:06:00.000-08:00

Well, hello, how-do-you-do, and Merry Christmas! It's been what they call a coon's age since I've been active in this place, but let me assure you: I am not dead. By way of proof, I offer you this fine fine record from Michael Nesmith, originally of Monkees fame... a wonderful and delectable slice of country pie, indeed. Not unlike the Country-Rock/Cosmic American Music of Gram Parsons, The Flying Burrito Brothers, or especially Gene Clark (if he were a good bit more fun), or, let's face it, The Eagles, this record marries Country convention with "head"-friendly lite-trippiness (the oh-so-vague sense of the "cosmic" sought by Mr. Parsons) and studio sophistication with a fun sensibility. I would be surprised if you did not like this, buddy-boy.

From the opening strains of "Calico Girlfriend," to the Creedence-aping, rippingly awesome "Little Red Rider", to the one-two punch of "One Rose" (previously found on this blog yodelling out of the pipes of Leon Redbone) and "Beyond the Blue Horizon", a lightly Hawaiian coda to the record, this is a non-challenging yet thoroughly rewarding good-time record with delights, both obvious and secret, aplenty. Get pulled back to the Magnetic South, friends, and get ready for a 2011 to happen while you relax.

MAGNETIC SOUTH

Kraut Fishing in America, Post-Can Edition: Phew- Phew (with Holger Czukay, Jaki Liebezeit, & Conny Planck) 1981

2010-11-28T20:38:00.001-08:00

from allmusic: This is a superb, virtually unknown album by the Japanese vocalist Phew, formerly of the punk/no wave band Aunt Sally. Backed by members of Can -- Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit -- and recorded at Conny Planck's studios in Germany, it has the earmarks of an album Can could have made, had they taken a different path after Ege Bamyasi. Phew's vocals are not by any formal standards very expressive, but they fit the icy urgency her compatriots create, and pitch the song-oriented cycle towards a more approachable form even for the casual listener. The mostly minimalistic landscape of the record is repetitive, rhythmic, and spacious. "Doze" adds an eerie child-like keyboard melody to a wonderful effect, and "P-Adic" is a disjointed, unlikely pop song, with an insistent beat and an off-kilter synth solo. "Signal" come closest to popular music, with Phew's insistent vocals chanting in Japanese over the expansive backbone Czukay and Liebezeit effortlessly create. With small variations in the beat, enhanced by subtle keyboard flourishes and echoey production, the sound manages to capture both the wide surrounding expanse as well as the tight clarity necessary to distinguish even the smallest nuance in the music. The crispness of the production creates a hypnotic loop that insists you pay attention. The mood varies from song to song, most of which are around the three-minute mark, and when the 35-minute record is over you're eager to repeat the experience. Phew's future albums would add more elements to her sound with some success, but the precise organic cohesiveness of her self-titled debut is difficult [to] top. -JT Lindroos

This is intensely awesome music. Primitive, minimalist, naked, avant-japanese, post-krautrock. While all the kids are grooving to the plastic boring inevitable of Joy Division and talking about post-punk like it actually exists in any meaningful way, you can be splitting the universe in half with your Phew record. So recommended.

PHEW

Kraut Fishing in America, Post-Can Edition: Holger Czukay- Movies (1980), On the Way to the Peak of Normal (1982)

2010-11-23T10:29:00.000-08:00

Holger Czukay's first solo album. In a way, it's almost a Can reunion(every single German member of Can is present here, as well as Rebop Kwaaku Bah); or a vision of Can as an instrument wielded by Czukay, acting as composer, chief instrumentalist, producer, and conductor. Some of the songs basically are Can songs, retooled in the Czukay style we might call inimitable if Brian Eno, David Byrne, and the boys hadn't run so far with the formula. "Oh Lord, give us more money," in particular, is a dynamite track that recycles the structure, tone, and hot licks of Landed's "Hunters and Collectors," yet never feels like a retread so much as a naturally occurring mutation.
Rife with Ethnosamples, shortwave warbles, french horn, juicy guitar from both Czukay and Karoli, and bolstered mightily by the mind-boggling power of Liebezeit's drums, this is a crazy, fun and exhilarating record. Equal parts wacky and cerebral, primitive and sophisticated, this is essential listening for the Can fan who needs to see the light at the other end of Saw Delight. This is both a fantastic continuation of the energy of Can, and something new and separate altogether as well.

MOVIES

Mr. Czukay's follow-up, a collaboration with Liebezeit and Wobble that precedes Full Circle by a couple years, is almost as excellent as Movies and even more listenable. The infusion of Wobble may account for the more laid-back, druggy atmosphere (as opposed to Movies' hyper creativity), and it's a tone that really fits with this kind of sonic adventuring. The first song in particular, the 13-minute "Ode to Perfume," is the perfect soundtrack to being a stoned genius, and a sustained exercise in deceptively gnarled mood music. The sampling, as you might expect from the man who damn near invented it, is superb... executed with devastating restraint, it's a god damn masterclass in the subtle potential of the craft. Another awesome track is "Witches' Multiplication Table," its foreboding black magic German dubbiness and UFO synths achieving at the highest levels of intelligent trippiness. This is a real favorite of mine, all.

PEAK OF NORMAL