Thursday, June 16, 2005:
Affable enough fellows.
Urban Blight -- Get Closer
I picked this album up expecting it to be intellectual hip hop from the mid-1980s: Urban Blight in orange graffiti in the sky over some buildings that have seen better days. Then I flipped it over: white men in Bermuda shorts on the beach acting wild and crazy. In concert: guitar, drums, two saxes, a trumpet, a trombone, a keyboard, with an alarming amount of plaid and what looks like tweed. Not hip hop, I would guess; more likely ska. I debated whether to get it--hadn't I heard all the ska I wanted to? But get it I did, and I'm glad.
It's a six-song EP. One of them ("The World Keeps Spinning") sounds very familiar, maddeningly so--I know I've heard it in a DJ mix by either The Avalanches or Terranova, but I can't find it on any of the CDs or mp3s (it segues from "stomp your feet and move your body" into "The World Keeps Spinning," but sung by a woman). I know I've heard it on the radio a lot, in the late 1980s, before that, but I can't remember the singer.
That's not what I'm posting here. "Get Closer" is an optimistic song that starts off commenting about loss and then pleads for unity. The rhythm's nice; the vocal melody is too; the dual horn/guitar solo is tip-top; and I really dig the horn fills and the bits of syncopation. Overall the song just gives me a case of the warm fuzzies. That's something I've been in short supply of lately, and I'll take it where I can find it.
tougher than ... something that isn't tough
Affable enough fellows.
Urban Blight -- Get Closer
I picked this album up expecting it to be intellectual hip hop from the mid-1980s: Urban Blight in orange graffiti in the sky over some buildings that have seen better days. Then I flipped it over: white men in Bermuda shorts on the beach acting wild and crazy. In concert: guitar, drums, two saxes, a trumpet, a trombone, a keyboard, with an alarming amount of plaid and what looks like tweed. Not hip hop, I would guess; more likely ska. I debated whether to get it--hadn't I heard all the ska I wanted to? But get it I did, and I'm glad.
It's a six-song EP. One of them ("The World Keeps Spinning") sounds very familiar, maddeningly so--I know I've heard it in a DJ mix by either The Avalanches or Terranova, but I can't find it on any of the CDs or mp3s (it segues from "stomp your feet and move your body" into "The World Keeps Spinning," but sung by a woman). I know I've heard it on the radio a lot, in the late 1980s, before that, but I can't remember the singer.
That's not what I'm posting here. "Get Closer" is an optimistic song that starts off commenting about loss and then pleads for unity. The rhythm's nice; the vocal melody is too; the dual horn/guitar solo is tip-top; and I really dig the horn fills and the bits of syncopation. Overall the song just gives me a case of the warm fuzzies. That's something I've been in short supply of lately, and I'll take it where I can find it.
Labels: out of print, ska
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