Thursday, May 10, 2007:
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra are a Brooklyn-based musical collective expanding the sound laid out by Fela Kuti, who originated the term Afrobeat and set its political tenor in the 1970s.
Si alguien te dice que no se puede hacer algo, sólo dílo <<sí, se puede. Mientras vivo, mientras respiro, lo haré, lo hago, en hacerlo yo sigo.>>
I've seen this one listed as "si se puede." It is not. "Sí, se puede" means "Yes, it's possible" whereas "si se puede" means "if it's possible." Diacritics and punctuation are not optional in Spanish; aside from the años/anos trouble some early Spanish students stumble into, there are other more common semantic differences.
One I've noticed recently: an early Alfonso Cuarón movie cited as Solo con tu pareja, which means "alone with your wife," whereas the title is actually Sólo con tu pareja, or "only with your wife." I'm not sure if the second one is a more lecherous title or a more prim and proper one, as I haven't yet seen the film, but given Cuarón's other films (Harry Potter excepted) I think I can guess.
[Liberation Afro Beat, Vol. 1]
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra -- Indictment
Or, a list of people who should be indicted, and how we can dance as it's done. I'm not sure why Noam Chomsky makes the list, or if by that point people are groaning and booing because politics isn't fun.
The indictments continue; Antibalas pave over them with horns blown from the bottom, electric guitar lines, funky beats, polyrhythm, and syncopation: the aural equivalent of a protest with puppets.
[Who Is This America?]
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra -- I.C.E.
This one is not the typical Afrobeat (or Antibalas) song. It starts with a sedate trombone over a two-bar metallic percussion figure with alternating accents, is joined by electric bass, rimshots, and a pensive organ, and then by a horn section and electric guitar playing against the organ ... and then the song deconstructs itself into a kind of grand cinematic music that might play over some inexplicable revelation.
[Security]
[Antibalas' official site: they're gonna code it like it's 1999]
[Antibalas concerts @ archive.org]
[and from Well-Rounded Radio, some background about the group and an interview]
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra -- Sí, Se PuedeAntibalas Afrobeat Orchestra are a Brooklyn-based musical collective expanding the sound laid out by Fela Kuti, who originated the term Afrobeat and set its political tenor in the 1970s.
Si alguien te dice que no se puede hacer algo, sólo dílo <<sí, se puede. Mientras vivo, mientras respiro, lo haré, lo hago, en hacerlo yo sigo.>>
I've seen this one listed as "si se puede." It is not. "Sí, se puede" means "Yes, it's possible" whereas "si se puede" means "if it's possible." Diacritics and punctuation are not optional in Spanish; aside from the años/anos trouble some early Spanish students stumble into, there are other more common semantic differences.
One I've noticed recently: an early Alfonso Cuarón movie cited as Solo con tu pareja, which means "alone with your wife," whereas the title is actually Sólo con tu pareja, or "only with your wife." I'm not sure if the second one is a more lecherous title or a more prim and proper one, as I haven't yet seen the film, but given Cuarón's other films (Harry Potter excepted) I think I can guess.
[Liberation Afro Beat, Vol. 1]
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra -- Indictment
Or, a list of people who should be indicted, and how we can dance as it's done. I'm not sure why Noam Chomsky makes the list, or if by that point people are groaning and booing because politics isn't fun.
The indictments continue; Antibalas pave over them with horns blown from the bottom, electric guitar lines, funky beats, polyrhythm, and syncopation: the aural equivalent of a protest with puppets.
[Who Is This America?]
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra -- I.C.E.
This one is not the typical Afrobeat (or Antibalas) song. It starts with a sedate trombone over a two-bar metallic percussion figure with alternating accents, is joined by electric bass, rimshots, and a pensive organ, and then by a horn section and electric guitar playing against the organ ... and then the song deconstructs itself into a kind of grand cinematic music that might play over some inexplicable revelation.
[Security]
[Antibalas' official site: they're gonna code it like it's 1999]
[Antibalas concerts @ archive.org]
[and from Well-Rounded Radio, some background about the group and an interview]
posted by Tuwa @
11:57 | permalink |
3 comments
|
Monday, April 30, 2007:
Opening credits: a woman in her mid-30s in an overcoat, dress, and heavy shoes, walking down a snowy sidewalk. An immediate sign that the film is more expressionist than realist: the buildings in the background are all missing their facades as Vanya passes them. Inside each apartment the people go about their daily business, apparently oblivious to their exposure: a mother playing peekaboo with her toddler; a woman in curlers at the stove, smoking as she fries liver and onions; a man doing pushups, the TV blaring behind him; a couple in bed in flagrante delicto; a young man in bed flat on his stomach, holding a pillow over his head. Vanya walking down the sidewalk, a distant look in her eyes.
Waiting at the bus stop: Vanya pines for Stefan yet he pays all his attention to Dora. Dora: bold, beautiful, flashy, flirtatious, the kind of girl with a reputation.
Listening to the seemingly random bleats and blats of traffic, Vanya begins to sing her frustration: what's a woman to do, and maintain her dignity? How can you compete with women who don't? She imagines herself Julia again.
The sound of traffic merges into muted trumpet and tuba and drums and triangle, the people at the bus stop nodding in rhythm; pedestrians accenting the downbeats; passing traffic in both lanes joining in, bicyclists and cab drivers and businessmen all together singing "Stefan: come to your senses." She is Julia, taking the lead, respectable, well-dressed, and intelligent. The song dies and the fantasy dies with it, and then she's just Vanya waiting for a bus.
End credits: Vanya and Stefan paying the bill and leaving the cafe together, Vanya with a quizzical, half-sad smile. The music longs for the whimsical chintziness of Herb Alpert; feels itself pulled towards the mournful dissonance of Sketches of Spain: what to do when you've got what you want and are no longer sure you want it? Isn't achievement supposd to lead to happiness?
[Last Balkan Tango and @ emusic which, in spite of its crummy user interface, is increasingly coming to seem like a public service.]
[Queens & Kings and @ emusic]
[The Promise and @ emusic]
Vanya and Julia
Vanya pretends she is called Julia, pretends she wasn't born where she was, pretends she doesn't look how she does, pretends she's graceful and witty, glamorous and poised. Yet she is not ugly, not dull-witted, not socially incompetent; what she is is self-conscious. She spends her spare time composing a soundtrack to a film that's never been made, a film she imagines as a musical Amelie, though her deepest convictions will lead it astray.Opening credits: a woman in her mid-30s in an overcoat, dress, and heavy shoes, walking down a snowy sidewalk. An immediate sign that the film is more expressionist than realist: the buildings in the background are all missing their facades as Vanya passes them. Inside each apartment the people go about their daily business, apparently oblivious to their exposure: a mother playing peekaboo with her toddler; a woman in curlers at the stove, smoking as she fries liver and onions; a man doing pushups, the TV blaring behind him; a couple in bed in flagrante delicto; a young man in bed flat on his stomach, holding a pillow over his head. Vanya walking down the sidewalk, a distant look in her eyes.
Waiting at the bus stop: Vanya pines for Stefan yet he pays all his attention to Dora. Dora: bold, beautiful, flashy, flirtatious, the kind of girl with a reputation.
Listening to the seemingly random bleats and blats of traffic, Vanya begins to sing her frustration: what's a woman to do, and maintain her dignity? How can you compete with women who don't? She imagines herself Julia again.
The sound of traffic merges into muted trumpet and tuba and drums and triangle, the people at the bus stop nodding in rhythm; pedestrians accenting the downbeats; passing traffic in both lanes joining in, bicyclists and cab drivers and businessmen all together singing "Stefan: come to your senses." She is Julia, taking the lead, respectable, well-dressed, and intelligent. The song dies and the fantasy dies with it, and then she's just Vanya waiting for a bus.
End credits: Vanya and Stefan paying the bill and leaving the cafe together, Vanya with a quizzical, half-sad smile. The music longs for the whimsical chintziness of Herb Alpert; feels itself pulled towards the mournful dissonance of Sketches of Spain: what to do when you've got what you want and are no longer sure you want it? Isn't achievement supposd to lead to happiness?
[Last Balkan Tango and @ emusic which, in spite of its crummy user interface, is increasingly coming to seem like a public service.]
[Queens & Kings and @ emusic]
[The Promise and @ emusic]
Labels: balkan, is fiction, world pop
posted by Tuwa @
00:17 | permalink |
0 comments
|
Tuesday, April 10, 2007:
I was a teetotaller losing his faith, bitter and angry and self-righteous, and took comfort in my arrogance. Cypress Hill was a fixture in the room that year, even before "Insane in the Brain" hit MTV; I heard their first two CDs constantly and hated them for their stoner vibe and the gangsta theatrics, but still I wondered if it was a deeply ironic word choice or a sly wink and a bit of hiding in plain sight that--among the machismo and claims to murder--they'd drop lines like "I'm a chicken hawk huntin' for a chicken."
Some time back I remembered the group with some fondness, and bought Black Sunday, and found that their sound on the CD was actually fairly interesting. In trying to describe it, I thought it would be like a pitchfork: deep prominent bass, high far-off (far-out) sounding noises, vocals in the middle. And going back a bit further, to high school, to Young MC, I stumbled onto what seemed like a precursor to their sound; a track with all that lethargy and sonic separation yet from someone who, from his lyrics, would clearly not approve of Cypress Hill's lifestyle. I'm not sure if Young MC has changed his attitudes towards drugs since 1989, as mine did, and did again, since 1993; his first CD was the only one I listened to, and I listen to it still: I enjoy the beats and the facility with rhyme (even silly rhyme) ("I'm sloppy like Oscar but neat like Tony Randall"?) and the general party atmosphere of it, which is light and fun as long as it's not taken seriously. In this regard it's like the early Tribe records, which also have some green lyrics, some clumsy seductions and misplaced wallets.
But the more I think of it, the more I notice songs flirting with this Cypress Hill sound, this same sound predated by Young MC's track: decades earlier, in Bill Wither's "Ain't No Sunshine"; and a few years later, in The Coup's "Fat Cats, Bigga Fish," in Louise Attaque's "Du Nord Au Sud"* and, to a lesser extent in Radiohead's The National Anthem (the vocals at the high point, the horns starting in the middle ... but too thick a sound overall, too much overlap and chaos) and in The Cure's remix of "Fascination Street" (the bass needs to be thicker, the middle thinner).
The more I think of it, the more I think I hear it (Pink Floyd, Depeche Mode, Baaba Maal), leading me to wonder if it's everywhere or if it's anywhere at all. It's possible I'm imagining it: representative samples in a frequency analyzer show some similarity, but not the separation of sound I thought I'd heard:
But quite distinct songs (Tears for Fears' "I Believe," The Beatles' "Helter Skelter") don't show nearly as much difference as I'd expected:
In '93 I'd probably bend over backwards, making any contortions necessary to prevent saying "I don't know" or "I was wrong." I don't know, and I may be wrong. Yet I'm not sure that recognizing that puts me any closer to finding what the similarities are, if they even exist.
Readers, if you care to comment (musicians, music theorists, music historians and/or critics--anyone with a clue really), is there actually any similarity between the Young MC track and the Cypress Hill track? If there is, how would you go about finding more of it?
[Stone Cold Rhymin' @ amazon, @ emusic]
[Genocide & Juice: out of print]
[Black Sunday @ amazon]
[Comme on a Dit]
[Mixed Up]
[Kid A]
* First posted 63 years ago in internet years on my guest post to Said the Gramophone.
stop, hey, what's that sound?
College was a culture shock: going from true poverty to an artificial poverty with secure housing and a clear end, from a small town where I was considered brilliant to a college town where I was surrounded by people who were, from oversight that was vindictive and capricious to authority that were indifferent, all of it coupled with an exhilerating and terrifying freedom. My first roommates were from Boca Raton, the three of us sharing the second-cheapest room on campus, built for four, their friends coming over to drink or smoke, one of them once memorably complaining about being given a car which cost more than my mother's house but wasn't what he wanted.I was a teetotaller losing his faith, bitter and angry and self-righteous, and took comfort in my arrogance. Cypress Hill was a fixture in the room that year, even before "Insane in the Brain" hit MTV; I heard their first two CDs constantly and hated them for their stoner vibe and the gangsta theatrics, but still I wondered if it was a deeply ironic word choice or a sly wink and a bit of hiding in plain sight that--among the machismo and claims to murder--they'd drop lines like "I'm a chicken hawk huntin' for a chicken."
Some time back I remembered the group with some fondness, and bought Black Sunday, and found that their sound on the CD was actually fairly interesting. In trying to describe it, I thought it would be like a pitchfork: deep prominent bass, high far-off (far-out) sounding noises, vocals in the middle. And going back a bit further, to high school, to Young MC, I stumbled onto what seemed like a precursor to their sound; a track with all that lethargy and sonic separation yet from someone who, from his lyrics, would clearly not approve of Cypress Hill's lifestyle. I'm not sure if Young MC has changed his attitudes towards drugs since 1989, as mine did, and did again, since 1993; his first CD was the only one I listened to, and I listen to it still: I enjoy the beats and the facility with rhyme (even silly rhyme) ("I'm sloppy like Oscar but neat like Tony Randall"?) and the general party atmosphere of it, which is light and fun as long as it's not taken seriously. In this regard it's like the early Tribe records, which also have some green lyrics, some clumsy seductions and misplaced wallets.
But the more I think of it, the more I notice songs flirting with this Cypress Hill sound, this same sound predated by Young MC's track: decades earlier, in Bill Wither's "Ain't No Sunshine"; and a few years later, in The Coup's "Fat Cats, Bigga Fish," in Louise Attaque's "Du Nord Au Sud"* and, to a lesser extent in Radiohead's The National Anthem (the vocals at the high point, the horns starting in the middle ... but too thick a sound overall, too much overlap and chaos) and in The Cure's remix of "Fascination Street" (the bass needs to be thicker, the middle thinner).
The more I think of it, the more I think I hear it (Pink Floyd, Depeche Mode, Baaba Maal), leading me to wonder if it's everywhere or if it's anywhere at all. It's possible I'm imagining it: representative samples in a frequency analyzer show some similarity, but not the separation of sound I thought I'd heard:
But quite distinct songs (Tears for Fears' "I Believe," The Beatles' "Helter Skelter") don't show nearly as much difference as I'd expected:
In '93 I'd probably bend over backwards, making any contortions necessary to prevent saying "I don't know" or "I was wrong." I don't know, and I may be wrong. Yet I'm not sure that recognizing that puts me any closer to finding what the similarities are, if they even exist.
Readers, if you care to comment (musicians, music theorists, music historians and/or critics--anyone with a clue really), is there actually any similarity between the Young MC track and the Cypress Hill track? If there is, how would you go about finding more of it?
[Stone Cold Rhymin' @ amazon, @ emusic]
[Genocide & Juice: out of print]
[Black Sunday @ amazon]
[Comme on a Dit]
[Mixed Up]
[Kid A]
* First posted 63 years ago in internet years on my guest post to Said the Gramophone.
Labels: hip-hop, out of print, personal, rock, world pop
posted by Tuwa @
22:26 | permalink |
7 comments
|
Monday, October 23, 2006:
Allmusic.com tells me that Roscoe Shelton was in the Fairfield Four before joining the spinoff The Skylarks. I'd never heard of The Skylarks, though I'd heard of the Fairfield Four--I saw three of them in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (a Coen brothers joke, since there are five members in the group. Speaking of, the Radio Four also have five members. Is that some peculiar counting system specific to gospel groups?)
I can't help thinking The Skylarks were probably misnamed; Roscoe Shelton's voice, at least, is a trained falcon, snatching notes from the underbrush and soaring away until it's a speck in the sky.
Bloody writhing metaphors aside, this is a very nice soul track that I'm glad to be introduced to.
[Remember Me Baby @ iTunes]
[Remember Me Baby @ eMusic]
The African Brothers -- Practice what you preach (MP3, 192kbps. Left-cllick download.)
Righteous political reggae taking some preachers to task for being hypocrites and leading children astray. Can I hear "amen."
[Want Some Freedom @ iTunes]
[Want Some Freedom @ eMusic]
Embee -- Send Someone Away (feat. José Gonzáles) (MP3, 192kbps. Left-cllick download.)
Embee is the Tin Man and José González is the heart. The producer is the Wizard, one of the few who can magic warmth into electronica.
[EP @ iTunes]
Pierre Ardene -- Cristalina (MP3, 192kbps. Left-cllick download.)
This track has such a warm and effortlessly welcoming feel to it that it puts me in mind of an infinitely generous host with a cozy house, the kind of place that in your weaker moments you might wish you lived. But you know it's absurd; you can't overstay your welcome, so you just thank the host, and mean it, and go on your way.
[Casa de Praia @ iTunes]
[Casa de Praia @ eMusic]
These four are all from IODA/Promonet, the site I mentioned a couple of months ago that lets mp3bloggers poke through their catalogue for tracks to post.
I'm not getting kickbacks (or getting paid for anything I'm doing here); I just like the service more than most of the PR firms that send me tracks. For starters, I get to pick the tracks, rather than having them foisted upon me (most of the ones I get sent are ones I'd never have any interest in posting), and the site's interface is good: the embedded Flash players give a brief sample so you don't have to download an entire track just to find out if you like it.
Speaking of usability, I reworked this site's HTML and CSS recently so that the main column appears before the sidebar in the source but the visual layout is the same. The result should be that the posts appear before the sidebar on PDAs and cellphones, as well as in Lynx and text-to-speech browsers. I've also tried to simplify the site's CSS for handhelds but I notice that Google's and MSN's mobile proxy both serve up the images that the stylesheet instructs it to strip. I'm still trying to figure out why it's done that; I think I have an idea but don't know how to get around it.
I'm still debating whether to strip the sidebar altogether from the information sent to handhelds; if you have one and use it to access the site, I'd love your feedback on it. I probably wouldn't use all my fingers counting the number of times I've used a cell phone, but I'm interested in making the content as accessible as possible.
Even if you don't use a PDA or cellphone to access the site, if you've noticed any bugs in the layout or behavior, or if you have any other suggestions, please send them along.
And now for some politics. Keith Olberman on The Military Commissions Act and the death of habeas corpus. And again. The reaction to this law among the general population seems to have been a protracted yawn, and I can't imagine why. The points in brief: Congress has decided, and Bush has agreed, that people can be thrown into jail, without ever facing charges, and with no legal right to challenge their jailing. Since this new law states that people in jail under the law have no right to challenge their jailing in court, there is also arguably no standing to challenge the law's Constitutionality. Yet the new law goes against our entire history of legal precedent and also is blatantly un-Constitutional since it destroys the balance of power set forth in the Constitution, exceeding the legislative authority and the Presidential authority both also set forth in the Contstitution. It's a stupid, dangerous, reprehensible law, the kind of thing that absolutely must go before the Supreme Court anyway and be defeated.
End rant, climbing off the soapbox.
IODA , usability, habeas corpus
Roscoe Shelton -- Worry (1962) (MP3, 192kbps. Left-cllick download.)Allmusic.com tells me that Roscoe Shelton was in the Fairfield Four before joining the spinoff The Skylarks. I'd never heard of The Skylarks, though I'd heard of the Fairfield Four--I saw three of them in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (a Coen brothers joke, since there are five members in the group. Speaking of, the Radio Four also have five members. Is that some peculiar counting system specific to gospel groups?)
I can't help thinking The Skylarks were probably misnamed; Roscoe Shelton's voice, at least, is a trained falcon, snatching notes from the underbrush and soaring away until it's a speck in the sky.
Bloody writhing metaphors aside, this is a very nice soul track that I'm glad to be introduced to.
[Remember Me Baby @ iTunes]
[Remember Me Baby @ eMusic]
The African Brothers -- Practice what you preach (MP3, 192kbps. Left-cllick download.)
Righteous political reggae taking some preachers to task for being hypocrites and leading children astray. Can I hear "amen."
[Want Some Freedom @ iTunes]
[Want Some Freedom @ eMusic]
Embee -- Send Someone Away (feat. José Gonzáles) (MP3, 192kbps. Left-cllick download.)
Embee is the Tin Man and José González is the heart. The producer is the Wizard, one of the few who can magic warmth into electronica.
[EP @ iTunes]
Pierre Ardene -- Cristalina (MP3, 192kbps. Left-cllick download.)
This track has such a warm and effortlessly welcoming feel to it that it puts me in mind of an infinitely generous host with a cozy house, the kind of place that in your weaker moments you might wish you lived. But you know it's absurd; you can't overstay your welcome, so you just thank the host, and mean it, and go on your way.
[Casa de Praia @ iTunes]
[Casa de Praia @ eMusic]
These four are all from IODA/Promonet, the site I mentioned a couple of months ago that lets mp3bloggers poke through their catalogue for tracks to post.
I'm not getting kickbacks (or getting paid for anything I'm doing here); I just like the service more than most of the PR firms that send me tracks. For starters, I get to pick the tracks, rather than having them foisted upon me (most of the ones I get sent are ones I'd never have any interest in posting), and the site's interface is good: the embedded Flash players give a brief sample so you don't have to download an entire track just to find out if you like it.
Speaking of usability, I reworked this site's HTML and CSS recently so that the main column appears before the sidebar in the source but the visual layout is the same. The result should be that the posts appear before the sidebar on PDAs and cellphones, as well as in Lynx and text-to-speech browsers. I've also tried to simplify the site's CSS for handhelds but I notice that Google's and MSN's mobile proxy both serve up the images that the stylesheet instructs it to strip. I'm still trying to figure out why it's done that; I think I have an idea but don't know how to get around it.
I'm still debating whether to strip the sidebar altogether from the information sent to handhelds; if you have one and use it to access the site, I'd love your feedback on it. I probably wouldn't use all my fingers counting the number of times I've used a cell phone, but I'm interested in making the content as accessible as possible.
Even if you don't use a PDA or cellphone to access the site, if you've noticed any bugs in the layout or behavior, or if you have any other suggestions, please send them along.
And now for some politics. Keith Olberman on The Military Commissions Act and the death of habeas corpus. And again. The reaction to this law among the general population seems to have been a protracted yawn, and I can't imagine why. The points in brief: Congress has decided, and Bush has agreed, that people can be thrown into jail, without ever facing charges, and with no legal right to challenge their jailing. Since this new law states that people in jail under the law have no right to challenge their jailing in court, there is also arguably no standing to challenge the law's Constitutionality. Yet the new law goes against our entire history of legal precedent and also is blatantly un-Constitutional since it destroys the balance of power set forth in the Constitution, exceeding the legislative authority and the Presidential authority both also set forth in the Contstitution. It's a stupid, dangerous, reprehensible law, the kind of thing that absolutely must go before the Supreme Court anyway and be defeated.
End rant, climbing off the soapbox.
Labels: electronica, politics, PR, reggae, RnB, world pop
posted by Tuwa @
01:36 | permalink |
0 comments
|
Monday, June 12, 2006:
Zap Mama -- Mr. Brown
Orchestra Baobab -- Hommage À Tonton Ferrer
Ibrahim Ferrer -- Buenos Hermanos
Paul Simon -- Gone At Last
rapidshare download
-- or --
sendspace download
Ever have one of those weekends where you're walking down the sidewalk minding your own business and someone punches you in the face, and then when you stand up someone else hits you in the knee with a two by four, and then when you get back up and lean against the nearest light post--hand to forehead, eyes closed, concentrating on summer breezes and chocolate mint and "Elvira Madigan"--a passing elephant stops just long enough to piss on your foot?
If you have, take a few of these and post in the comments if it doesn't help.
[Complete Upsetter Singles 1970-1972]
[Sabsylma ]
[Specialist in All Styles]
[Buenos Hermanos]
[Still Crazy After All These Years]
punches, two by fours, & inconsiderate elephants
Bob Marley -- Mr. BrownZap Mama -- Mr. Brown
Orchestra Baobab -- Hommage À Tonton Ferrer
Ibrahim Ferrer -- Buenos Hermanos
Paul Simon -- Gone At Last
rapidshare download
-- or --
sendspace download
Ever have one of those weekends where you're walking down the sidewalk minding your own business and someone punches you in the face, and then when you stand up someone else hits you in the knee with a two by four, and then when you get back up and lean against the nearest light post--hand to forehead, eyes closed, concentrating on summer breezes and chocolate mint and "Elvira Madigan"--a passing elephant stops just long enough to piss on your foot?
If you have, take a few of these and post in the comments if it doesn't help.
[Complete Upsetter Singles 1970-1972]
[Sabsylma ]
[Specialist in All Styles]
[Buenos Hermanos]
[Still Crazy After All These Years]
posted by Tuwa @
01:31 | permalink |
2 comments
|
Wednesday, April 19, 2006:
D'Gary -- E! Nama Inona Ny Anzaranao
Once upon a time I decided I wanted to play guitar, so I bought one and jumped in. I loved Jimi Hendrix but I'd bought an acoustic, thinking maybe I should start simple. Armed with a half-dozen chords and the most rudimentary understanding of rhythm, harmony, and melody, I was ready to bore and annoy myself playing, and I did, until I didn't anymore, which happened when I decided that maybe my time was better spent on other things.
Later I discovered Django Reinhardt; he was equally inspiring and intimidating. I'd put him or Jimi on and lay back in awe, struck by the skill and grace. I didn't understand everything they were doing--I didn't understand a fraction of it--but I didn't doubt that once they put that guitar on they said exactly what they meant to say with it.
Some time back I bought Dama and D'Gary's The Long Way Home beause I'd heard good things about it. I mention this because someone at allmusic thinks D'Gary is one of the world's greatest guitarists. I'd been inclined to say that he is impressive, but the liner notes say that the songs on the CD I'd been most impressed with, "Hiakatra Sa Hidina" and "Mitady Kandra," are both played by Dama.
(The liner notes also say that "Hiakatra Sa Hidina" is about capitalism versus socialism. Based on its mention of unity, I'd imagine it finds in favor of socialism, preferring community interests to a quick buck.)
And then there's D'Gary's album Malagasy Guitar/Music from Madagascar which shows that, yes, he is in fact quite good.
"E! Nama Inona Ny Anzaranao" is, like Tom Waits, also from an alternate universe. But this one is one where Godzilla bleeds to death from a cut foot and Bambi goes back to eating grass.
[allmusic.com review]
[RFI Musique biography]
[Dama and D'Gary -- Long Way Home]
[D'Gary -- Malagasy Guitar/Music from Madagascar]
Dama and D'Gary
Dama and D'Gary -- Hiakatra Sa HidinaD'Gary -- E! Nama Inona Ny Anzaranao
Once upon a time I decided I wanted to play guitar, so I bought one and jumped in. I loved Jimi Hendrix but I'd bought an acoustic, thinking maybe I should start simple. Armed with a half-dozen chords and the most rudimentary understanding of rhythm, harmony, and melody, I was ready to bore and annoy myself playing, and I did, until I didn't anymore, which happened when I decided that maybe my time was better spent on other things.
Later I discovered Django Reinhardt; he was equally inspiring and intimidating. I'd put him or Jimi on and lay back in awe, struck by the skill and grace. I didn't understand everything they were doing--I didn't understand a fraction of it--but I didn't doubt that once they put that guitar on they said exactly what they meant to say with it.
Some time back I bought Dama and D'Gary's The Long Way Home beause I'd heard good things about it. I mention this because someone at allmusic thinks D'Gary is one of the world's greatest guitarists. I'd been inclined to say that he is impressive, but the liner notes say that the songs on the CD I'd been most impressed with, "Hiakatra Sa Hidina" and "Mitady Kandra," are both played by Dama.
(The liner notes also say that "Hiakatra Sa Hidina" is about capitalism versus socialism. Based on its mention of unity, I'd imagine it finds in favor of socialism, preferring community interests to a quick buck.)
And then there's D'Gary's album Malagasy Guitar/Music from Madagascar which shows that, yes, he is in fact quite good.
"E! Nama Inona Ny Anzaranao" is, like Tom Waits, also from an alternate universe. But this one is one where Godzilla bleeds to death from a cut foot and Bambi goes back to eating grass.
[allmusic.com review]
[RFI Musique biography]
[Dama and D'Gary -- Long Way Home]
[D'Gary -- Malagasy Guitar/Music from Madagascar]
posted by Tuwa @
13:25 | permalink |
1 comments
|
Thursday, March 09, 2006:
There are things I like and feel mostly unqualified to talk about. This is one of them.
This track is originally from the film Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, which is apparently about the hippie culture in India at the time. It's the first track on You've Stolen My Heart, a collaboration between Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle which features Asha Bhosle, in her 70s, re-recording songs from earlier in her career (sometimes decades earlier) composed by R.D. Burman.
Apparently there was some controversy around Bhosle's re-recordings (here and in other CDs), as she changed sometimes the melodies. If anything, that makes me more interested in the originals, not less, because I think the ones here are all great. There's something about the texture of these songs that appeals to me a great deal, and Bhosle's voice is in fantastic shape for her age; if I didn't know otherwise I'd have guessed she was 30 or so. To me the entire album sounds great, and it's refreshing to find an album so solid that I'd be happy posting any track at all off it.
The liner notes tell me that "Dum Maro Dum (Take Another Toke)" features two violins, a viola, a Farfisa organ, a cello, an Indian trap set, a tambourine, a madal, finger cymbals, breath, and--the instrument I'm guessing sounds almost most like it might not belong, but which somehow does--a pipa.
[You've Stolen My Heart: Songs from R.D. Burman's Bollywood]
[wikipedia article about Asha Bhosle]
...
Found at boingboing: Radiohead's "Just" reimagined as a party-hopping song with animated graffiti interacting with its environment--a Lego castle broken up, turned into a terraformed space colony.
...
And here's this video of a skateboarding dog, which for some reason makes me giddy with happiness. (link found at metafilter, though I've had a time trying to find the thread again.)
...
"Look, if you want to stop theft, you can't think like a security guard, you've got to think like a thief. Same thing with terrorism. You want to stop terrorism, you've got to think like a terrorist."
He did not mean, as the Bush administration seems to think, that we ought to adopt the methods or the morality of the terrorists -- embracing indiscriminate killing, abandoning the rule of law and dismissing the Geneva Conventions as a "quaint" luxury we can no longer afford. He meant getting inside their heads and imagining how and why and what they're thinking.
Slacktivist has an interesting post and discussion on the nature of storytelling and the systemic forces against empathy inherent in conservative/free market capitalist ideology. This is the second on that theme, with the earlier post as interesting but saddled with train wreck of a discussion.
... There's a small movement afoot pushing for Bush's impeachment, and I guess it's a sign of my compromised ethics that I don't think it's worth it. I wonder if, hundreds of years ago, anyone seriously imagined a situation where the entire Cabinet isn't worth a shit. At any rate: Congress doesn't even have enough courage, integrity, and tenacity to vote down the PATRIOT Act, much less to do things up right, which would go like so:
Impeach Bush, swear in Cheny
Impeach Cheney, swear in Hastert
Impeach Hastert, swear in Stevens
Impeach Stevens, swear in Rice
Impeach Rice, swear in Snow
Impeach Snow, swear in Rumsfeld
Impeach Rumsfeld, swear in Gonzales
Impeach Gonzales, swear in Norton....
Personally I think that Congress would probably, at best, get as far as impeaching Bush, leaving us with a President who radiates evil more clearly than Hannibal Lecter. The satirist at the back of my mind keeps suggesting that maybe the hunting accident wasn't even an accident--maybe Whittington let it slip that his Ayn Rand shrine had gotten a bit dusty--or maybe he made the mistake of calling the Civil War justified, and preferable to letting market forces put an end to slavery....
Asha Bhosle & Kronos Quartet -- Dum Maro Dum (Take Another Toke)
Asha Bhosle & Kronos Quartet -- Dum Maro Dum (Take Another Toke)There are things I like and feel mostly unqualified to talk about. This is one of them.
This track is originally from the film Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, which is apparently about the hippie culture in India at the time. It's the first track on You've Stolen My Heart, a collaboration between Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle which features Asha Bhosle, in her 70s, re-recording songs from earlier in her career (sometimes decades earlier) composed by R.D. Burman.
Apparently there was some controversy around Bhosle's re-recordings (here and in other CDs), as she changed sometimes the melodies. If anything, that makes me more interested in the originals, not less, because I think the ones here are all great. There's something about the texture of these songs that appeals to me a great deal, and Bhosle's voice is in fantastic shape for her age; if I didn't know otherwise I'd have guessed she was 30 or so. To me the entire album sounds great, and it's refreshing to find an album so solid that I'd be happy posting any track at all off it.
The liner notes tell me that "Dum Maro Dum (Take Another Toke)" features two violins, a viola, a Farfisa organ, a cello, an Indian trap set, a tambourine, a madal, finger cymbals, breath, and--the instrument I'm guessing sounds almost most like it might not belong, but which somehow does--a pipa.
[You've Stolen My Heart: Songs from R.D. Burman's Bollywood]
[wikipedia article about Asha Bhosle]
...
Found at boingboing: Radiohead's "Just" reimagined as a party-hopping song with animated graffiti interacting with its environment--a Lego castle broken up, turned into a terraformed space colony.
...
And here's this video of a skateboarding dog, which for some reason makes me giddy with happiness. (link found at metafilter, though I've had a time trying to find the thread again.)
...
"Look, if you want to stop theft, you can't think like a security guard, you've got to think like a thief. Same thing with terrorism. You want to stop terrorism, you've got to think like a terrorist."
He did not mean, as the Bush administration seems to think, that we ought to adopt the methods or the morality of the terrorists -- embracing indiscriminate killing, abandoning the rule of law and dismissing the Geneva Conventions as a "quaint" luxury we can no longer afford. He meant getting inside their heads and imagining how and why and what they're thinking.
Slacktivist has an interesting post and discussion on the nature of storytelling and the systemic forces against empathy inherent in conservative/free market capitalist ideology. This is the second on that theme, with the earlier post as interesting but saddled with train wreck of a discussion.
... There's a small movement afoot pushing for Bush's impeachment, and I guess it's a sign of my compromised ethics that I don't think it's worth it. I wonder if, hundreds of years ago, anyone seriously imagined a situation where the entire Cabinet isn't worth a shit. At any rate: Congress doesn't even have enough courage, integrity, and tenacity to vote down the PATRIOT Act, much less to do things up right, which would go like so:
Impeach Bush, swear in Cheny
Impeach Cheney, swear in Hastert
Impeach Hastert, swear in Stevens
Impeach Stevens, swear in Rice
Impeach Rice, swear in Snow
Impeach Snow, swear in Rumsfeld
Impeach Rumsfeld, swear in Gonzales
Impeach Gonzales, swear in Norton....
Personally I think that Congress would probably, at best, get as far as impeaching Bush, leaving us with a President who radiates evil more clearly than Hannibal Lecter. The satirist at the back of my mind keeps suggesting that maybe the hunting accident wasn't even an accident--maybe Whittington let it slip that his Ayn Rand shrine had gotten a bit dusty--or maybe he made the mistake of calling the Civil War justified, and preferable to letting market forces put an end to slavery....
posted by Tuwa @
23:36 | permalink |
2 comments
|
Monday, December 19, 2005:
A few days ago I got a Christmas gift from my sister overseas: a small box of German chocolates. In a show of restraint, I didn't open them for at least five minutes.
I'm heading out tomorrow and will be away until early January. If past experience is any indication, I'll be able to pull a camel through the eye of a needle easier than I can find an internet connection, so this is it till 2006.
I know you'll do the right thing and leave these unopened till Christmas. Or at least pace yourself. Or maybe not. I won't blame you if you don't.
Little Johnny Taylor -- If You Love Me (Like You Say)
Milk chocolate with almonds. You have to snap pieces off and eat them quickly, else they melt between your fingers.
This is a somewhat atypical Little Johnny Taylor tune; most of what I've heard by him is a grittier blues.
[Little Johnny Taylor's Greatest Hits @ amazon.com]
Keb' Mo' -- Am I Wrong
Dark chocolate/jalapeño cake. You can't decide if you love it or hate it, but you keep cutting another thin slice. It's hot, feisty; it wants to kick your ass; you're not sure if it is.
Keb' Mo's first CD is brilliant; the second is okay; the third is bad; the fourth rocketed past bad into sonic Ed Wood territory. I haven't listened to any after that. But damn what a good album that first is. ... I sent Sean a track from this CD a year ago, but here's another. That self-titled debut is just amazing, and why he fell off is just as puzzling.
[Keb' Mo' @ amazon.com]
Blind Gary -- You Got To Go Down
Chocolate-covered peanuts.
Public domain track I found somewhere ages ago. (One of the older file stamps on my system: late 1990s.) Early blues here, and great stuff. I love the clear, catchy guitar, and the man's scratchy voice, and his long bit in the middle about not making assumptions about drinkers.
Skylab -- Seashell
Chocolate with a high minty taste that lingers.
Most of this Skylab CD is so minimalist as to make me question my definition of music. This one's one of the more, er, ornate tracks, insofar as anything in a monastery might be called ornate. Drums, bit of keyboard, waves on a beach, and a bit of dialogue. Aural opium.
[Skylab -- #1 @ amazon.com]
Dead Can Dance -- Black Sun
Chocolate-covered caramel nougat.
I love it when this singer cuts loose from the emoting a bit and belts one out with his giant wodden sledgehammer voice. Which is not to say I don't like the rest, but this is better. Sock it to me.
[Dead Can Dance -- Aion @ amazon.com]
Pharoahe Monch -- The Light
Chocolate toffee.
Most of this disc is thuggish posturing, or maybe not posturing, but definitely not my cup of tea. Then there's this one, which is a very welcome change.
In retrospect it seems this disc was in and out of print as quick as a sneeze.
[Pharoahe Monch -- Internal Affairs @ amazon.com]
Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek -- Expansion Outro
Dark chocolate. Bitter but so good.
A reprise/commentary on Nina Simone's "Four Women," which I described in September 2004 as a lacy silk sock pulled over a brick. Nina Simone is awesome and so is this Talib Kweli/Hi-Tek CD. Very impressive work all around.
[Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek -- Reflection Eternal @ amazon.com]
Albinia Jones -- Give It Up Daddy Blues
Hot chocolate on a cold morning with fuzzy bunny slippers.
Another public domain track. I've no idea who Albinia Jones is, or what else she's done, but she's awfully saucy here. Apparently she played in the 1930s and 1940s (which doesn't prevent her works from being in the public domain, contrary to popular belief--prior to the 1970s in the U.S. the requirement was to list something as copyrighted, either with the full word or the c in the circle, then to list the year and the rightsholder, plus the statement "All rights reserved," for the copyright to be valid. Too bad that was changed so the legislators could have a land of copyrighted grocery lists on the backs of envelopes.)
Cheb Mami -- Yahamami
Chocolate wafer cookies that snap apart and leave crumbs everywhere.
Algerian electronica, complete with string section, flute, and birds.
[Cheb Mami -- Delalli @ amazon.com]
Domez M -- Born Again (Cycle Mix)
Chocolate chai that steams and burns your tongue, but you keep blowing on it and trying again.
Actually, no; if this one were any more chill it would give you a Slushee headache.
[Arabic Lounge compilation @ amazon.com]
Baaba Maal -- Senegale Ngummee
Orange chocolate with a shaved coconut center.
Baaba Maal steps up to the plate, swings, crack!, walks around the bases. His album with Mansour Seck is just as good; those two CDs are a force of nature.
[Missing You (Mi Yeewnii @ amazon.com]
Sukhwinder & Sapna Awasthi -- Chaiyya Chaiyya
White chocolate and ginger with ground cloves and chopped pecans.
There are a number of different mixes of this floating around, of different lengths. This one's from the Dil Se soundtrack, logically enough. Great scene, that, with them all on top of the train singing as it chugged along--something you'd see in the U.S. with a bad bit of bluescreen.
[Dil Se soundtrack @ amazon.com]
Charles Mingus -- Theme For Lester Young
An empty wrapper breezing down the street, and all the stores are closed and you're out of cigarettes.
Melancholy work from an irascible genius.
[Priceless Jazz @ amazon.com]
Happy holidays: Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hannukah, whatever celebration of light and companionship you gravitate towards in the coldest months.... Peace on earth and goodwill towards men, and other unfashionable wishes from a bloodthirsty nation. I'll be back with some vinyl finds in early January.
So this is Christmas
Very brief writeups today, because my planned holiday posts aren't finished.A few days ago I got a Christmas gift from my sister overseas: a small box of German chocolates. In a show of restraint, I didn't open them for at least five minutes.
I'm heading out tomorrow and will be away until early January. If past experience is any indication, I'll be able to pull a camel through the eye of a needle easier than I can find an internet connection, so this is it till 2006.
I know you'll do the right thing and leave these unopened till Christmas. Or at least pace yourself. Or maybe not. I won't blame you if you don't.
Little Johnny Taylor -- If You Love Me (Like You Say)
Milk chocolate with almonds. You have to snap pieces off and eat them quickly, else they melt between your fingers.
This is a somewhat atypical Little Johnny Taylor tune; most of what I've heard by him is a grittier blues.
[Little Johnny Taylor's Greatest Hits @ amazon.com]
Keb' Mo' -- Am I Wrong
Dark chocolate/jalapeño cake. You can't decide if you love it or hate it, but you keep cutting another thin slice. It's hot, feisty; it wants to kick your ass; you're not sure if it is.
Keb' Mo's first CD is brilliant; the second is okay; the third is bad; the fourth rocketed past bad into sonic Ed Wood territory. I haven't listened to any after that. But damn what a good album that first is. ... I sent Sean a track from this CD a year ago, but here's another. That self-titled debut is just amazing, and why he fell off is just as puzzling.
[Keb' Mo' @ amazon.com]
Blind Gary -- You Got To Go Down
Chocolate-covered peanuts.
Public domain track I found somewhere ages ago. (One of the older file stamps on my system: late 1990s.) Early blues here, and great stuff. I love the clear, catchy guitar, and the man's scratchy voice, and his long bit in the middle about not making assumptions about drinkers.
Skylab -- Seashell
Chocolate with a high minty taste that lingers.
Most of this Skylab CD is so minimalist as to make me question my definition of music. This one's one of the more, er, ornate tracks, insofar as anything in a monastery might be called ornate. Drums, bit of keyboard, waves on a beach, and a bit of dialogue. Aural opium.
[Skylab -- #1 @ amazon.com]
Dead Can Dance -- Black Sun
Chocolate-covered caramel nougat.
I love it when this singer cuts loose from the emoting a bit and belts one out with his giant wodden sledgehammer voice. Which is not to say I don't like the rest, but this is better. Sock it to me.
[Dead Can Dance -- Aion @ amazon.com]
Pharoahe Monch -- The Light
Chocolate toffee.
Most of this disc is thuggish posturing, or maybe not posturing, but definitely not my cup of tea. Then there's this one, which is a very welcome change.
In retrospect it seems this disc was in and out of print as quick as a sneeze.
[Pharoahe Monch -- Internal Affairs @ amazon.com]
Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek -- Expansion Outro
Dark chocolate. Bitter but so good.
A reprise/commentary on Nina Simone's "Four Women," which I described in September 2004 as a lacy silk sock pulled over a brick. Nina Simone is awesome and so is this Talib Kweli/Hi-Tek CD. Very impressive work all around.
[Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek -- Reflection Eternal @ amazon.com]
Albinia Jones -- Give It Up Daddy Blues
Hot chocolate on a cold morning with fuzzy bunny slippers.
Another public domain track. I've no idea who Albinia Jones is, or what else she's done, but she's awfully saucy here. Apparently she played in the 1930s and 1940s (which doesn't prevent her works from being in the public domain, contrary to popular belief--prior to the 1970s in the U.S. the requirement was to list something as copyrighted, either with the full word or the c in the circle, then to list the year and the rightsholder, plus the statement "All rights reserved," for the copyright to be valid. Too bad that was changed so the legislators could have a land of copyrighted grocery lists on the backs of envelopes.)
Cheb Mami -- Yahamami
Chocolate wafer cookies that snap apart and leave crumbs everywhere.
Algerian electronica, complete with string section, flute, and birds.
[Cheb Mami -- Delalli @ amazon.com]
Domez M -- Born Again (Cycle Mix)
Chocolate chai that steams and burns your tongue, but you keep blowing on it and trying again.
Actually, no; if this one were any more chill it would give you a Slushee headache.
[Arabic Lounge compilation @ amazon.com]
Baaba Maal -- Senegale Ngummee
Orange chocolate with a shaved coconut center.
Baaba Maal steps up to the plate, swings, crack!, walks around the bases. His album with Mansour Seck is just as good; those two CDs are a force of nature.
[Missing You (Mi Yeewnii @ amazon.com]
Sukhwinder & Sapna Awasthi -- Chaiyya Chaiyya
White chocolate and ginger with ground cloves and chopped pecans.
There are a number of different mixes of this floating around, of different lengths. This one's from the Dil Se soundtrack, logically enough. Great scene, that, with them all on top of the train singing as it chugged along--something you'd see in the U.S. with a bad bit of bluescreen.
[Dil Se soundtrack @ amazon.com]
Charles Mingus -- Theme For Lester Young
An empty wrapper breezing down the street, and all the stores are closed and you're out of cigarettes.
Melancholy work from an irascible genius.
[Priceless Jazz @ amazon.com]
Happy holidays: Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hannukah, whatever celebration of light and companionship you gravitate towards in the coldest months.... Peace on earth and goodwill towards men, and other unfashionable wishes from a bloodthirsty nation. I'll be back with some vinyl finds in early January.
Labels: blues, electronica, hip-hop, jazz, rock, world pop
posted by Tuwa @
23:07 | permalink |
4 comments
|
Monday, October 31, 2005:
Marisa Monte -- Segue O Seco
Marisa Monte -- Para Ver As Meninas
Marisa Monte is a Brazilian singer who tends to combine traditional Brazilian rhythms and instrumentation with modern pop tendencies: keyboards, electric guitar, light friendly melodies.
Barulhinho Bom is a two-disc set, the first disc studio recordings with a pop bent; the second disc is live recordings with a more traditional sound. Both of them have some great tracks. I'm hard pressed to say which I like more, though I think the pop disc might be more immediately accessible to people unfamiliar with Brazilian music. Memórias, Crônicas & Declarações De Amor continues Monte's experiments in combining traditional and pop instrumentation; it's also an interesting and accessible CD with some great tracks.
"Para Ver As Meninas" is a samba off Memórias, Crônicas & Declarações De Amor; it's not so typical of the album it's on, except maybe in the cello and the addition of bits of distortion, but it's compelling work and well worth sharing.
"Cérebro Eletrônico" has a funky guitar and bassline, bouncing thumping drums, and the occasional vocals through a megaphone. Plus it's fun, which is always a plus.
"Segue O Seco" is more traditional and subdued but no less impressive; it's an Afro-Brazilian tune, which would have been my guess based just on the harmonizing background vocals. Lovely work.
Monte has a number of other CDs that are well-regarded but that I haven't yet heard; I first heard her on a mix CD a friend made for me and immediately added her to my (already too-long) list of musicians to look into. It's an ongoing process.
Allmusic.com biography
[amazon.com]: Memórias, Crônicas & Declarações De Amor (allmusic review)
[amazon.com]: Barulhinho Bom (allmusic review)
Marisa Monte
Marisa Monte -- Cérebro EletrônicoMarisa Monte -- Segue O Seco
Marisa Monte -- Para Ver As Meninas
Marisa Monte is a Brazilian singer who tends to combine traditional Brazilian rhythms and instrumentation with modern pop tendencies: keyboards, electric guitar, light friendly melodies.
Barulhinho Bom is a two-disc set, the first disc studio recordings with a pop bent; the second disc is live recordings with a more traditional sound. Both of them have some great tracks. I'm hard pressed to say which I like more, though I think the pop disc might be more immediately accessible to people unfamiliar with Brazilian music. Memórias, Crônicas & Declarações De Amor continues Monte's experiments in combining traditional and pop instrumentation; it's also an interesting and accessible CD with some great tracks.
"Para Ver As Meninas" is a samba off Memórias, Crônicas & Declarações De Amor; it's not so typical of the album it's on, except maybe in the cello and the addition of bits of distortion, but it's compelling work and well worth sharing.
"Cérebro Eletrônico" has a funky guitar and bassline, bouncing thumping drums, and the occasional vocals through a megaphone. Plus it's fun, which is always a plus.
"Segue O Seco" is more traditional and subdued but no less impressive; it's an Afro-Brazilian tune, which would have been my guess based just on the harmonizing background vocals. Lovely work.
Monte has a number of other CDs that are well-regarded but that I haven't yet heard; I first heard her on a mix CD a friend made for me and immediately added her to my (already too-long) list of musicians to look into. It's an ongoing process.
Allmusic.com biography
[amazon.com]: Memórias, Crônicas & Declarações De Amor (allmusic review)
[amazon.com]: Barulhinho Bom (allmusic review)
Labels: electronica, pop, world pop
posted by Tuwa @
12:25 | permalink |
0 comments
|
Friday, October 28, 2005:
Seu Jorge -- Rebel Rebel
If you've seen The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, maybe you had the same reaction to the guitarist that I did--"Wow, that's awesome, who is that?" He's Seu Jorge, who also was in Cidade de Deus as Knockout Ned, and spent much of his time on the Life Aquatic filming answering questions from the other actors like "Are the slums really as bad as in City of God?" (Worse.)
"Don't" is from Cru Seu Jorge's solo album; I think it is by far the best thing on it, though the rest has been growing on me. Just a wonderful sound to it: quiet, tender, and subdued, somehow it conveys loneliness and pleading even without considering the lyrics. (update: I should mention that this is a Leiber/Stoller cover.)
"Rebel Rebel" is from The Life Aquatic: a David Bowie cover in Portugese. Interesting, unexpected, delightful.
[amazon.com]: Cru
[amazon.com]: Life Aquatic soundtrack
(Looks like they'll be releasing Seu Jorge's studio sessions from the film on a separate disc--rock!)
In other news, Girish has begun mp3blogging. He's been blogging about movies for a year or so; so this is a new direction, and one I'm glad to see him take. I think I first found his site from following the link in a comment he'd posted, and the site has been a constant joy since. He writes clearly and passionately and he's got insightful, thought-provoking things to say.
(Girish points to a N.Y.Times article on Seu Jorge. [Register or bugmenot required])
And now some housekeeping:
The mix CD I proposed should be going out next month, or Dec. 7 at the absolute latest. More about this once it's ready.
I've nixed the Haloscan comments in favor of Blogger comments. Haloscan eats the comments after awhile, which is craptacular, and I've lost some good comments as a result. Also, the Haloscan links can't be accessed in text-only browsers or in browsers with Javascript turned off, which by some accounts is about 11% of the internet. So. Lacuna no more. (update: I goofed here somehow. It puts comments on the front page, beneath the post. Working on it. Ok, I think that's done. If you find anything about the site's layout that seems wrong, please let me know in the comments or at the email address at left.)
...
Amazon.com has just today moved its search box from the top of the screen to the bottom which is, in a word, stupid. (And yes, sometimes I goof around with peoples' site logs.) (update: Holy smokes, Amazon.com moved the search box back up top. Awesome. ... time to work on my own site's accessibility a bit.)
Seu Jorge -- Don't / Rebel Rebel
Seu Jorge -- Don'tSeu Jorge -- Rebel Rebel
If you've seen The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, maybe you had the same reaction to the guitarist that I did--"Wow, that's awesome, who is that?" He's Seu Jorge, who also was in Cidade de Deus as Knockout Ned, and spent much of his time on the Life Aquatic filming answering questions from the other actors like "Are the slums really as bad as in City of God?" (Worse.)
"Don't" is from Cru Seu Jorge's solo album; I think it is by far the best thing on it, though the rest has been growing on me. Just a wonderful sound to it: quiet, tender, and subdued, somehow it conveys loneliness and pleading even without considering the lyrics. (update: I should mention that this is a Leiber/Stoller cover.)
"Rebel Rebel" is from The Life Aquatic: a David Bowie cover in Portugese. Interesting, unexpected, delightful.
[amazon.com]: Cru
[amazon.com]: Life Aquatic soundtrack
(Looks like they'll be releasing Seu Jorge's studio sessions from the film on a separate disc--rock!)
In other news, Girish has begun mp3blogging. He's been blogging about movies for a year or so; so this is a new direction, and one I'm glad to see him take. I think I first found his site from following the link in a comment he'd posted, and the site has been a constant joy since. He writes clearly and passionately and he's got insightful, thought-provoking things to say.
(Girish points to a N.Y.Times article on Seu Jorge. [Register or bugmenot required])
And now some housekeeping:
The mix CD I proposed should be going out next month, or Dec. 7 at the absolute latest. More about this once it's ready.
I've nixed the Haloscan comments in favor of Blogger comments. Haloscan eats the comments after awhile, which is craptacular, and I've lost some good comments as a result. Also, the Haloscan links can't be accessed in text-only browsers or in browsers with Javascript turned off, which by some accounts is about 11% of the internet. So. Lacuna no more. (update: I goofed here somehow. It puts comments on the front page, beneath the post. Working on it. Ok, I think that's done. If you find anything about the site's layout that seems wrong, please let me know in the comments or at the email address at left.)
...
Amazon.com has just today moved its search box from the top of the screen to the bottom which is, in a word, stupid. (And yes, sometimes I goof around with peoples' site logs.) (update: Holy smokes, Amazon.com moved the search box back up top. Awesome. ... time to work on my own site's accessibility a bit.)
Labels: world pop
posted by Tuwa @
01:05 | permalink |
7 comments
|
Tuesday, October 25, 2005:
Thumpin' 1-3 1-3 beat going KICK (hi hat) KICK (hi hat), a trilled R interpolated with "ay-oh-ay-oh," with lyrics something like "Flip. Flip. Flip. Filip flip, filip filip flip. Flipeh peh-peh peh-peh peh-peh. La la-la-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la-la-la la-la la-mam ma-ma ma-ma ma-ma fliperama" and--hey--this is aural amphetamines.
Tom Zé mentioned not wanting to be just somebody you dance to, and I'm all for political speech in general, but really, now: can you listen to this and sit still? Do you not break into a grin, nod your head, tap your foot?
More to the point, Luaka Bop has the lyrics in translation, but they leave me puzzled. Maybe, like another Luaka Bopper once said, about his own lyrics, I will understand it better if I dance to it. It's worth a try, right?
[amazon.com]: Tom Zé -- Brazil Classics 5 (The Hips of Tradition)
Tom Zé -- Fliperama
Tom Zé -- FliperamaThumpin' 1-3 1-3 beat going KICK (hi hat) KICK (hi hat), a trilled R interpolated with "ay-oh-ay-oh," with lyrics something like "Flip. Flip. Flip. Filip flip, filip filip flip. Flipeh peh-peh peh-peh peh-peh. La la-la-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la-la-la la-la la-mam ma-ma ma-ma ma-ma fliperama" and--hey--this is aural amphetamines.
Tom Zé mentioned not wanting to be just somebody you dance to, and I'm all for political speech in general, but really, now: can you listen to this and sit still? Do you not break into a grin, nod your head, tap your foot?
More to the point, Luaka Bop has the lyrics in translation, but they leave me puzzled. Maybe, like another Luaka Bopper once said, about his own lyrics, I will understand it better if I dance to it. It's worth a try, right?
[amazon.com]: Tom Zé -- Brazil Classics 5 (The Hips of Tradition)
posted by Tuwa @
02:15 | permalink |
0 comments
|
Wednesday, October 05, 2005:
Banco de Gaia -- Last Train to Lhasa (11 MB)
Today's track is the title track to Last Train to Lhasa, a two-disc set about Tibet that tends towards the quietly political, calm and assured rather than fiery and shrill. This one is--like most of the rest of the set--very sedate: train whistles, gentle chug, vocals low in the mix.
Banco de Gaia's music is mostly ambient dub, full of slow developments, careful overlaps, often a low persistent beat that on a good day matches your heart and makes you feel unborn and perfectly content: unbothered by quickness and flash and pressing demands. I love to listen to it late at night after a long day; it's perfect to drift off to sleep to. It's soothing, comforting, a modern-day lullaby.
I wrote about Banco de Gaia a year ago, shortly after nailing the last plank in place on the shanty, and mentioned this song then also (if nothing else I seem to have consistent likes and dislikes). If I remember right I didn't post this song then because it struck me as a bit too long, but I was bumping up against the self-imposed ten-minute limit already with "Sinhala" (and with Alejandro Escovedo). Then I broke it months ago with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. So here it is. All aboard....
And thus ends the train mix. Up next: a short run and a shorter walk.
[Amazon.com]
Banco de Gaia -- Last Train to Lhasa
Banco de Gaia -- Last Train to Lhasa (11 MB)
Today's track is the title track to Last Train to Lhasa, a two-disc set about Tibet that tends towards the quietly political, calm and assured rather than fiery and shrill. This one is--like most of the rest of the set--very sedate: train whistles, gentle chug, vocals low in the mix.
Banco de Gaia's music is mostly ambient dub, full of slow developments, careful overlaps, often a low persistent beat that on a good day matches your heart and makes you feel unborn and perfectly content: unbothered by quickness and flash and pressing demands. I love to listen to it late at night after a long day; it's perfect to drift off to sleep to. It's soothing, comforting, a modern-day lullaby.
I wrote about Banco de Gaia a year ago, shortly after nailing the last plank in place on the shanty, and mentioned this song then also (if nothing else I seem to have consistent likes and dislikes). If I remember right I didn't post this song then because it struck me as a bit too long, but I was bumping up against the self-imposed ten-minute limit already with "Sinhala" (and with Alejandro Escovedo). Then I broke it months ago with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. So here it is. All aboard....
And thus ends the train mix. Up next: a short run and a shorter walk.
[Amazon.com]
Labels: world pop
posted by Tuwa @
15:04 | permalink |
0 comments
|
Friday, July 15, 2005:
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan -- Kali Kali Zulfon Ke Phande Nah Dalo (from Shahen-Shah) (this is an 11+ minute track, 12MB download)
It's hard to know whether to run with this, since yesterday's post didn't get any comments. But, uh, here it is. I love this man's music.
"Kali Kali Zulfon Ke Phande Nah Dalo" is another romantic song, talking about love and the woman's beauty. This track is in no hurry, and I love it. I find it oddly hypnotic, like much of Khan's work; the phrases repeat and repeat, the song building slowly and becoming more intense. It's got the typical scat sections in it; the melody is infectious; and for some reason I'm quite fond of the false start and the little hiccup there where they seem to decide, that quick, to start over.
"Allah Hoo Allah Hoo" is a song in praise of Allah; Khan's concerts would typically start with a song in praise of Allah, followed by one about Mohammad, and branch out from there. This is another of Khan's more traditional songs; in interviews, he lists it as his favorite of his own work.
... I saw the Whirling Dervishes when they came through Gainesville some months back; it was a very interesting show. I think there's just something endlessly fascinating about the notion that a devotion to art--whether dance, or music, or any its other forms--could lead to spiritual enlightenment. Like the edict to study the sciences as a means of praising God by coming to know his creation better, I think the notion of art as a path to enlightenment is at odds with many of the fundamentalist Christian beliefs I was raised with (Nazarene, if you're curious--think Southern Baptist, then imagine that that is simply too liberal for you).
At any rate, thus ends my Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan posts. Next up: some kickin' indie rock.
[Amazon.com]: Shahen-Shah
[Amazon.com]: Devotional and Love Songs
more Nusrat
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan -- Allah Hoo Allah Hoo (from Devotional and Love Songs) (8 minute track, 8.3 MB download)Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan -- Kali Kali Zulfon Ke Phande Nah Dalo (from Shahen-Shah) (this is an 11+ minute track, 12MB download)
It's hard to know whether to run with this, since yesterday's post didn't get any comments. But, uh, here it is. I love this man's music.
"Kali Kali Zulfon Ke Phande Nah Dalo" is another romantic song, talking about love and the woman's beauty. This track is in no hurry, and I love it. I find it oddly hypnotic, like much of Khan's work; the phrases repeat and repeat, the song building slowly and becoming more intense. It's got the typical scat sections in it; the melody is infectious; and for some reason I'm quite fond of the false start and the little hiccup there where they seem to decide, that quick, to start over.
"Allah Hoo Allah Hoo" is a song in praise of Allah; Khan's concerts would typically start with a song in praise of Allah, followed by one about Mohammad, and branch out from there. This is another of Khan's more traditional songs; in interviews, he lists it as his favorite of his own work.
... I saw the Whirling Dervishes when they came through Gainesville some months back; it was a very interesting show. I think there's just something endlessly fascinating about the notion that a devotion to art--whether dance, or music, or any its other forms--could lead to spiritual enlightenment. Like the edict to study the sciences as a means of praising God by coming to know his creation better, I think the notion of art as a path to enlightenment is at odds with many of the fundamentalist Christian beliefs I was raised with (Nazarene, if you're curious--think Southern Baptist, then imagine that that is simply too liberal for you).
At any rate, thus ends my Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan posts. Next up: some kickin' indie rock.
[Amazon.com]: Shahen-Shah
[Amazon.com]: Devotional and Love Songs
Labels: world pop
posted by Tuwa @
20:48 | permalink |
0 comments
|
Thursday, July 14, 2005:
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan -- Longing (from Night Song)
Two tracks today from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a Pakistani Sufi with a voice that was just short of a force of nature. I've heard these tracks probably four dozen times each in the last few weeks, and I still love them, but it's been much easier listening to them than writing about them. The best I've got is remembering a comment someone made years ago about Freddie Mercury's voice being a weapon. Suppose Mercury had something like a shamshir, elegant and refined. What Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan had was more like a claymore: greater heft and weight, and slower to swing, but he had strength in abundance and when he took a mind to he just might swing it broadside and knock you silly.
Mustt Mustt is a fairly westernized CD for Khan; much of his work is more traditional and explicitly devotional, with lyrics in praise of Allah, Mohammad, or various caliphs. Many of the songs on Mustt Mustt were edited heavily: lyrics chopped up and rearranged without regard to what they might mean, or fail to mean, after. "Nothing without You" still has lyrics, and they still make sense; the song is about romance.
Night Song is, like Mustt Mustt, a collaboration with Michael Brook. I think it's a fairly accessible album, though I might not be the best judge since I've liked most of Khan's work immediately. What I like so much about "Longing," in addition to the tabla and the singing (wow--that singing) is the way the song seems a good embodiment of what it's about. It suggests itself, it builds, it circles around, it becomes more insistent; it ends abruptly, dissatisfied. Nice.
I am very tempted to post more about Khan tomorrow; I think he was a fantastic and compelling singer (and, after growing up in the southeastern U.S., I'm perversely delighted to read about a religion that believes that art can lead to revelation rather than fire and brimstone).
In any case, I've also got some good indie tracks on deck. Look for another post tomorrow.
[Amazon.com]: Mustt Mustt (Allmusic.com writeup)
[Amazon.com: Night Song (Allmusic.com writeup)
Wikipedia writeups: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sufism, Qawwali
More Qawwali reading.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brook
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan -- Nothing Without You (Tery Bina) (from Mustt Mustt)Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan -- Longing (from Night Song)
Two tracks today from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a Pakistani Sufi with a voice that was just short of a force of nature. I've heard these tracks probably four dozen times each in the last few weeks, and I still love them, but it's been much easier listening to them than writing about them. The best I've got is remembering a comment someone made years ago about Freddie Mercury's voice being a weapon. Suppose Mercury had something like a shamshir, elegant and refined. What Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan had was more like a claymore: greater heft and weight, and slower to swing, but he had strength in abundance and when he took a mind to he just might swing it broadside and knock you silly.
Mustt Mustt is a fairly westernized CD for Khan; much of his work is more traditional and explicitly devotional, with lyrics in praise of Allah, Mohammad, or various caliphs. Many of the songs on Mustt Mustt were edited heavily: lyrics chopped up and rearranged without regard to what they might mean, or fail to mean, after. "Nothing without You" still has lyrics, and they still make sense; the song is about romance.
Night Song is, like Mustt Mustt, a collaboration with Michael Brook. I think it's a fairly accessible album, though I might not be the best judge since I've liked most of Khan's work immediately. What I like so much about "Longing," in addition to the tabla and the singing (wow--that singing) is the way the song seems a good embodiment of what it's about. It suggests itself, it builds, it circles around, it becomes more insistent; it ends abruptly, dissatisfied. Nice.
I am very tempted to post more about Khan tomorrow; I think he was a fantastic and compelling singer (and, after growing up in the southeastern U.S., I'm perversely delighted to read about a religion that believes that art can lead to revelation rather than fire and brimstone).
In any case, I've also got some good indie tracks on deck. Look for another post tomorrow.
[Amazon.com]: Mustt Mustt (Allmusic.com writeup)
[Amazon.com: Night Song (Allmusic.com writeup)
Wikipedia writeups: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sufism, Qawwali
More Qawwali reading.
Labels: world pop
posted by Tuwa @
07:31 | permalink |
0 comments
|
Saturday, December 04, 2004:
Spooky Tooth: picture "I Am the Walrus" as a distraught bit of stoned blues rock. Audacious? Yes. But it's not a coy song in the first place. And that "expert texpert" part, holy shmoly that's good. (aside: I've long thought "Can't Buy Me Love" could work as an electric blues number. Might be wrong. I suck as a musician.)
Rotary Connection -- Life Could: psychedelic soul, with Minnie Riperton making use of all the octaves she can find.
Sayonara: Word. Bittersweet, cheesy and sincere, and somehow charming; and yes I genuinely like it.
The first two tracks are available on CD, but I just have the LPs.
[Spooky Tooth @ Amazon.com]:
[Aladdin/Dinner Music @ Amazon.com]:
...
I've been missing this Cannonball Adderley track, "Experience in E," off and on for nearly ten years, and heard it again today--they had the LP at the music library on campus and it turns out they let the public check out headphones (this was news to me). But no, you can't take the LP out of the building; you have to listen to it onsite. So I went and sat in the library listening to it. "Not bad," I was thinking, "not bad," then, a few minutes in, "wow"--the sax came in over that bass and my God it was just perfect; whatever part of me it is that intensely loves music was doing cartwheels and shouting to the heavens "yes! exactly! don't change a thing!"--silently; it was in a library--and then the excellent part was over and the song turned into a cacophonous mess: screeching horns and spastic drums and generally annoying shit for most of the rest of Side 1.
And I sat thinking "that was a two-minute pearl in a twenty-minute oyster." Wondering whether I'd rather have stuck with the memory. How much of this is typical? How often do you find something you remember fondly and it's as good as or better than you remember it? I'm curious what you (all) think.
...
Well, I'm done here. What have I learned?
1) I'm not as good a writer as I thought. Half the time there's some word or phrase I've left out that I shouldn't have.
2) My memory is not reliable; my understanding of any given thing isn't either.
3) My research skills aren't very good. And I'm intensely lazy, which leads to the misremembering/misunderstanding trouble above.
4) Which leads to alarming logical conclusions about my view of the world in general. ^_^
5) The political rants, while satisfying to write, are deeply dissatisfying to read.
There are tons of mp3 blogs around still, some of them really quite good; and more are springing up every day. Look through the sidebar on the Tofu Hut; you're certain to find something you like.
Tracks are staying up until the end of December, when Racknine cuts off the hosting. I'll be checking in on my favorite mp3 blogs (listed to the left), and if I find something great I won't hesitate to send it to whomever I think would be most interested in it (usually that's Sean at Said the Gramophone or John at The Tofu Hut).
Thank you, you've been very patient and very kind.
see you on the flipside
Three songs today, the last.Spooky Tooth: picture "I Am the Walrus" as a distraught bit of stoned blues rock. Audacious? Yes. But it's not a coy song in the first place. And that "expert texpert" part, holy shmoly that's good. (aside: I've long thought "Can't Buy Me Love" could work as an electric blues number. Might be wrong. I suck as a musician.)
Rotary Connection -- Life Could: psychedelic soul, with Minnie Riperton making use of all the octaves she can find.
Sayonara: Word. Bittersweet, cheesy and sincere, and somehow charming; and yes I genuinely like it.
The first two tracks are available on CD, but I just have the LPs.
[Spooky Tooth @ Amazon.com]:
[Aladdin/Dinner Music @ Amazon.com]:
...
I've been missing this Cannonball Adderley track, "Experience in E," off and on for nearly ten years, and heard it again today--they had the LP at the music library on campus and it turns out they let the public check out headphones (this was news to me). But no, you can't take the LP out of the building; you have to listen to it onsite. So I went and sat in the library listening to it. "Not bad," I was thinking, "not bad," then, a few minutes in, "wow"--the sax came in over that bass and my God it was just perfect; whatever part of me it is that intensely loves music was doing cartwheels and shouting to the heavens "yes! exactly! don't change a thing!"--silently; it was in a library--and then the excellent part was over and the song turned into a cacophonous mess: screeching horns and spastic drums and generally annoying shit for most of the rest of Side 1.
And I sat thinking "that was a two-minute pearl in a twenty-minute oyster." Wondering whether I'd rather have stuck with the memory. How much of this is typical? How often do you find something you remember fondly and it's as good as or better than you remember it? I'm curious what you (all) think.
...
Well, I'm done here. What have I learned?
1) I'm not as good a writer as I thought. Half the time there's some word or phrase I've left out that I shouldn't have.
2) My memory is not reliable; my understanding of any given thing isn't either.
3) My research skills aren't very good. And I'm intensely lazy, which leads to the misremembering/misunderstanding trouble above.
4) Which leads to alarming logical conclusions about my view of the world in general. ^_^
5) The political rants, while satisfying to write, are deeply dissatisfying to read.
There are tons of mp3 blogs around still, some of them really quite good; and more are springing up every day. Look through the sidebar on the Tofu Hut; you're certain to find something you like.
Tracks are staying up until the end of December, when Racknine cuts off the hosting. I'll be checking in on my favorite mp3 blogs (listed to the left), and if I find something great I won't hesitate to send it to whomever I think would be most interested in it (usually that's Sean at Said the Gramophone or John at The Tofu Hut).
Thank you, you've been very patient and very kind.
Labels: blues rock, psychedelic rock, vocal, world pop
posted by Tuwa @
03:00 | permalink |
0 comments
|
Wednesday, December 01, 2004:
8 1/2 Souvenirs -- L'amour Toujours
8 1/2 Souvenirs took their name from the Federico Fellini film--his self-proclaimed eight-and-a-halfth film--about a film director who's suddenly become quite popular, is now directing a silly big-budget film, and is retreating into a fantasy world. Funny that; Fellini was in a similar situation after La Dolce Vita--at least in terms of popularity--so the film might be about Fellini filming his previous short, or it might be a film about Fellini filming 8 1/2. To prevent my head exploding from unescaped recursion, I'll just say that I think it's funny and odd and fascinating and sometimes disturbing but very cool, and then move on.
I think 8 1/2 Souvenirs picked a good namesake. Picture a European country-western jazz cabaret: classical violin, guitar reminiscent of Django Reinhardt, piano ranging from jazz breakdowns to ragtime to country, lyrics in French or English or Italian, albums covering rockabilly, swing, rock, and jazz standards.
The band has had a number of lineup additions and changes over the years, and I believe they called it quits after Twisted Desire: the one constant over all three albums was Olivier Giraud, and he's now playing with the Asylum Street Spankers (a group focusing mostly on old acoustic blues/folk/country tunes).
[Amazon.com]: Twisted Desire
[Amazon.com]: Happy Feet
And an Artist Direct writeup from 1997.
8 1/2 Souvenirs
8 1/2 Souvenirs -- After You've Gone8 1/2 Souvenirs -- L'amour Toujours
8 1/2 Souvenirs took their name from the Federico Fellini film--his self-proclaimed eight-and-a-halfth film--about a film director who's suddenly become quite popular, is now directing a silly big-budget film, and is retreating into a fantasy world. Funny that; Fellini was in a similar situation after La Dolce Vita--at least in terms of popularity--so the film might be about Fellini filming his previous short, or it might be a film about Fellini filming 8 1/2. To prevent my head exploding from unescaped recursion, I'll just say that I think it's funny and odd and fascinating and sometimes disturbing but very cool, and then move on.
I think 8 1/2 Souvenirs picked a good namesake. Picture a European country-western jazz cabaret: classical violin, guitar reminiscent of Django Reinhardt, piano ranging from jazz breakdowns to ragtime to country, lyrics in French or English or Italian, albums covering rockabilly, swing, rock, and jazz standards.
The band has had a number of lineup additions and changes over the years, and I believe they called it quits after Twisted Desire: the one constant over all three albums was Olivier Giraud, and he's now playing with the Asylum Street Spankers (a group focusing mostly on old acoustic blues/folk/country tunes).
[Amazon.com]: Twisted Desire
[Amazon.com]: Happy Feet
And an Artist Direct writeup from 1997.
Labels: world pop
posted by Tuwa @
01:07 | permalink |
0 comments
|
Tuesday, November 09, 2004:
Dead Can Dance -- Don't Fade Away
Dead Can Dance started in the early 1980s as a quartet--Brendan Perry, Lisa Gerard, Paul Erikson, and Simon Monroe; I first heard them about 10 years later. The album I'd heard first was their debut, and it didn't interest me much--too dark, too synthy--but I gave them another chance. I missed their next four albums, jumping to their (then-recent) Into the Labyrinth, which was much more my speed. Their next, Toward the Within, was a live album, somewhat uneven but with some standout tracks; but for my money Spiritchaser was the best out of the four I'd heard. They released that album and then they quit.
Along the way Erikson and Monroe had left, and Perry and Gerard brought in different collaborators on their albums; here they were making some jaw-droppingly beautiful tracks: typically mellow and haunting, with an other-wordly quality about them, piercing singing and a percussion that struck me as somehow organic and soothing.
Spiritchaser came out in 1996, shortly after my father died (or, as Stephen King might say, "reached the clearing at the end of his path"); those were hard times, and I spent most of my time casting about for some meaning or purpose, and spent most of the rest of it flirting with alcoholism and lying in bed listening to the CD, trying not to think. Yet that loss hasn't tarnished the music: the music has a sense of loss about it already, a bit of foreboding, but it also has abundant beauty and hints of optimism. I'm not a very poetic person and I'm not sure there is any clearing at the end of the path--it depends on a notion of self that lives on after the body--but if there is, and the clearing has music like this, then arriving there won't be as much of a blow as feared. (There might even be dancing--the group does have some uptempo numbers, though I haven't posted any here).
On a much less morbid note, I'd like to give a shoutout to Apple for Balkanizing my music collection. iTunes is a killer app, no doubt, and before the win2000 port came along I'd been ripping all my CDs to .ogg (smaller filesize, as good or better audio). iTunes doesn't play .oggs (except through a third-party plugin that makes the computer lock up briefly every time you start to play one or edit a tag), and so I'd forgotten about nearly half of my record collection; I've only begun to re-encode them.
None of which means I'll be blogging for longer than I'd thought--most of the music is by groups like Radiohead and The Beatles, who've had enough attention already. But there are the occasional semi-obscure gems like Dead Can Dance: an old friend I'd wrongly neglected, still faithful, still true. It's time to get reacquainted: there are four more albums by them I've never heard, and solo and side projects to boot.
update: Dead Can Dance are getting back together for a tour of Europe and North America. More info here.
[Spiritchaser]
[Toward the Within]
Dead Can Dance
Dead Can Dance -- NierikaDead Can Dance -- Don't Fade Away
Dead Can Dance started in the early 1980s as a quartet--Brendan Perry, Lisa Gerard, Paul Erikson, and Simon Monroe; I first heard them about 10 years later. The album I'd heard first was their debut, and it didn't interest me much--too dark, too synthy--but I gave them another chance. I missed their next four albums, jumping to their (then-recent) Into the Labyrinth, which was much more my speed. Their next, Toward the Within, was a live album, somewhat uneven but with some standout tracks; but for my money Spiritchaser was the best out of the four I'd heard. They released that album and then they quit.
Along the way Erikson and Monroe had left, and Perry and Gerard brought in different collaborators on their albums; here they were making some jaw-droppingly beautiful tracks: typically mellow and haunting, with an other-wordly quality about them, piercing singing and a percussion that struck me as somehow organic and soothing.
Spiritchaser came out in 1996, shortly after my father died (or, as Stephen King might say, "reached the clearing at the end of his path"); those were hard times, and I spent most of my time casting about for some meaning or purpose, and spent most of the rest of it flirting with alcoholism and lying in bed listening to the CD, trying not to think. Yet that loss hasn't tarnished the music: the music has a sense of loss about it already, a bit of foreboding, but it also has abundant beauty and hints of optimism. I'm not a very poetic person and I'm not sure there is any clearing at the end of the path--it depends on a notion of self that lives on after the body--but if there is, and the clearing has music like this, then arriving there won't be as much of a blow as feared. (There might even be dancing--the group does have some uptempo numbers, though I haven't posted any here).
On a much less morbid note, I'd like to give a shoutout to Apple for Balkanizing my music collection. iTunes is a killer app, no doubt, and before the win2000 port came along I'd been ripping all my CDs to .ogg (smaller filesize, as good or better audio). iTunes doesn't play .oggs (except through a third-party plugin that makes the computer lock up briefly every time you start to play one or edit a tag), and so I'd forgotten about nearly half of my record collection; I've only begun to re-encode them.
None of which means I'll be blogging for longer than I'd thought--most of the music is by groups like Radiohead and The Beatles, who've had enough attention already. But there are the occasional semi-obscure gems like Dead Can Dance: an old friend I'd wrongly neglected, still faithful, still true. It's time to get reacquainted: there are four more albums by them I've never heard, and solo and side projects to boot.
update: Dead Can Dance are getting back together for a tour of Europe and North America. More info here.
[Spiritchaser]
[Toward the Within]
Labels: world pop
posted by Tuwa @
14:08 | permalink |
0 comments
|
Friday, October 22, 2004:
Occasionally I notice discussions about the "timelessness" of music, which leads me to think that "dated" is often used as a criticism, but I'm not sure I agree that it should be. You know 1950s teenybopper-rock when you hear it, and it evokes a certain nostalgia (mostly because of a belief in a 1950s world that never existed outside of sitcoms--but that's a different matter entirely).
Here's something emphatically "dated," but I love it for what it is: a bit of mid-1980s Indian synth-pop. I dig the fake drums, the sitar, the unbridled energy, the overdubbed vocals. That woman can sing.
Sheila Chandra is an Indian raised in the UK, and formerly of the London trio Monsoon. She left her label once it became clear they were more interested in her looks than her talent; she and her two band members set up their own label, Indipop, and then they produced and released her solo debut. Her early work on Indipop focuses on a dance/pop/Indian fusion (like her work just before with Monsoon); her later work on Real World is still fusion but drones a bit. Allmusic favors her Real World work; and, though I think the Real World label does have an excellent track record, I favor her work on Indipop. I prefer the vocal range she shows on it, and think the arrangements are more dynamic and immediately accessible--but, as always, ymmv.
This song is from Chandra's solo debut, Out on My Own.
Allmusic biography
Official site
[buy the album]
...
Saw Shaun of the Dead tonight, which was clever and amusing and worked quite well when it was on the tightrope between horror and comedy. Loved the use of music throughout, starting with the synchronization in the credit montage, but for $25 I'll skip out on the soundtrack until it has U.S. distribution. There are definitely some post-worthy tracks on it.
...
Some mp3blogs focus on a certain genre ... is it clear from the writeups here what's being offered any given day? Are there any genres you'd rather avoid? Would you like the posts labeled by genre?
Sheila Chandra
Sheila Chandra -- Missing the VoiceOccasionally I notice discussions about the "timelessness" of music, which leads me to think that "dated" is often used as a criticism, but I'm not sure I agree that it should be. You know 1950s teenybopper-rock when you hear it, and it evokes a certain nostalgia (mostly because of a belief in a 1950s world that never existed outside of sitcoms--but that's a different matter entirely).
Here's something emphatically "dated," but I love it for what it is: a bit of mid-1980s Indian synth-pop. I dig the fake drums, the sitar, the unbridled energy, the overdubbed vocals. That woman can sing.
Sheila Chandra is an Indian raised in the UK, and formerly of the London trio Monsoon. She left her label once it became clear they were more interested in her looks than her talent; she and her two band members set up their own label, Indipop, and then they produced and released her solo debut. Her early work on Indipop focuses on a dance/pop/Indian fusion (like her work just before with Monsoon); her later work on Real World is still fusion but drones a bit. Allmusic favors her Real World work; and, though I think the Real World label does have an excellent track record, I favor her work on Indipop. I prefer the vocal range she shows on it, and think the arrangements are more dynamic and immediately accessible--but, as always, ymmv.
This song is from Chandra's solo debut, Out on My Own.
Allmusic biography
Official site
[buy the album]
...
Saw Shaun of the Dead tonight, which was clever and amusing and worked quite well when it was on the tightrope between horror and comedy. Loved the use of music throughout, starting with the synchronization in the credit montage, but for $25 I'll skip out on the soundtrack until it has U.S. distribution. There are definitely some post-worthy tracks on it.
...
Some mp3blogs focus on a certain genre ... is it clear from the writeups here what's being offered any given day? Are there any genres you'd rather avoid? Would you like the posts labeled by genre?
posted by Tuwa @
01:46 | permalink |
0 comments
|
Sunday, October 17, 2004:
Forgive the posting schedule. Class is kicking me around a bit--or, rather, I'm kicking myself around a bit. I'm starting to think there should be more weedout classes, or that any given program should have some cranky old bastard like in Kill Bill vol. 2, only you'd have to go to the mountaintop and answer the question "how bad do you want it?" A lie would get a sharp crack on the skull, and so would anything less than "with all my heart," and sometimes that would too. That would be just to get in the program. You'd have to do it again for every class.
How bad do I want this degree? Well, it would be nice. Currently I've got the Pillow of +8 Drowsiness. My bed's going to eat me, only it won't be like in that one Nightmare on Elm Street; I'll just simply be gone. Maybe with my Castells book left behind, as that book's mostly indigestible anyway. The detectives will glance through it briefly, looking for some kind of note, skimming through the marginalia: check marks, asterisks, counterarguments.
So here's a song about being disorganized and having your life in a mess. It's by China Moses, who goes by the google-proof name China. She was raised in France, is the daugher of jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, and sings on this track in English and French.
This is off the Putumayo disc Global Soul--they piqued my interest with Mississippi Blues, and this is another good one (though I'd be interested in a boxed set of global R&B and hip-hop--maybe Moebius Rex and Benn loxo du tàccu could compile one).
The liner notes aren't bad, though I would disagree with their classification of 1 Giant Leap as a band--it was the title of a documentary featuring collaborative international music and interviews about a number of big subjects (sex, death, religion, etc.) but I don't think the musicians ever formalized into a band. The Speech/Neneh Cherry track is from that film.
Each artist in this disc gets a page writeup and a photo--that's good to start with, I guess, though it hasn't yet been enough to track down a CD from some of the artists. And I'm still looking for more music from Sanjay Kumar Verma (Indian classical guitarist) and Revetti Sakalar (vocalist) as a result of seeing them on 1 Giant Leap. Anyone with tips, please share.
update: July 15, 2005: I've gotten a comment from China Moses, but Haloscan continually eats the comments, so I'm adding the substance of it here: China Moses has a website here; she also has a myspace account under "china moses" or "mllemoses." And I'm delighted she was not unhappy with the post.
[Amazon.com]
Time
China -- TimeForgive the posting schedule. Class is kicking me around a bit--or, rather, I'm kicking myself around a bit. I'm starting to think there should be more weedout classes, or that any given program should have some cranky old bastard like in Kill Bill vol. 2, only you'd have to go to the mountaintop and answer the question "how bad do you want it?" A lie would get a sharp crack on the skull, and so would anything less than "with all my heart," and sometimes that would too. That would be just to get in the program. You'd have to do it again for every class.
How bad do I want this degree? Well, it would be nice. Currently I've got the Pillow of +8 Drowsiness. My bed's going to eat me, only it won't be like in that one Nightmare on Elm Street; I'll just simply be gone. Maybe with my Castells book left behind, as that book's mostly indigestible anyway. The detectives will glance through it briefly, looking for some kind of note, skimming through the marginalia: check marks, asterisks, counterarguments.
So here's a song about being disorganized and having your life in a mess. It's by China Moses, who goes by the google-proof name China. She was raised in France, is the daugher of jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, and sings on this track in English and French.
This is off the Putumayo disc Global Soul--they piqued my interest with Mississippi Blues, and this is another good one (though I'd be interested in a boxed set of global R&B and hip-hop--maybe Moebius Rex and Benn loxo du tàccu could compile one).
The liner notes aren't bad, though I would disagree with their classification of 1 Giant Leap as a band--it was the title of a documentary featuring collaborative international music and interviews about a number of big subjects (sex, death, religion, etc.) but I don't think the musicians ever formalized into a band. The Speech/Neneh Cherry track is from that film.
Each artist in this disc gets a page writeup and a photo--that's good to start with, I guess, though it hasn't yet been enough to track down a CD from some of the artists. And I'm still looking for more music from Sanjay Kumar Verma (Indian classical guitarist) and Revetti Sakalar (vocalist) as a result of seeing them on 1 Giant Leap. Anyone with tips, please share.
update: July 15, 2005: I've gotten a comment from China Moses, but Haloscan continually eats the comments, so I'm adding the substance of it here: China Moses has a website here; she also has a myspace account under "china moses" or "mllemoses." And I'm delighted she was not unhappy with the post.
[Amazon.com]
Labels: world pop
posted by Tuwa @
21:17 | permalink |
4 comments
|
Thursday, October 07, 2004:
A track in honor of the recent debates, mostly because I'm reading this spotty ponderous text for class but the author recently got interesting when he brought up Karl Popper's "Worlds of Knowledge" theory and implied that people spend their time in deeply ideosyncratic personal worlds, unaware of or unable to perceive "objective" reality. (It sounds sensible enough to me--I've been puzzled enough by peoples' reactions to various things not to question it--and I'd like to think the theory also calls into question what we can know. But that's probably just my agnostic bias, and it's certainly more than I can expect a politician to admit.)
At any rate. Asian Dub Foundation don't want to get into discussions of objective reality or subjective personal worlds. The truth is out there, even if we can't always find it, and they're pissed when people hide it.
I was listening to the Asian Dub Foundation a few years ago when one of my friends asked if I had anything by them that wasn't dub. Um. No, I don't. Sorry. They do tend to focus on dub, though they cut it with rock and ambient and punk and Bengali and dancehall and whatever else they take a mind to. But it works.
The group hails from the U.K. and came about as a result of a project to teach Asian children the basics of music; the group is unabashedly political, anti-racist, and collectivist; they can get a little didactic at times, but I think they're great. (On that note ... tomorrow, a track from The Coup).
Official site (with downloads)
review of the band--their place in, and reaction to, British culture.
[Amazon.com] Behold the puzzlement of distribution systems--no US distribution for this disc.
...
I was thinking of posting Salif Keita's "Ananaming" tonight, but benn loxo du tàccu beat me to it. All right then. I should have known better; the man did say he was on Mali this week. So go give "Ananaming" a listen; it's very good. And check out everything else he's posted; they've all been winners.
Truth Hides
Asian Dub Foundation -- Truth HidesA track in honor of the recent debates, mostly because I'm reading this spotty ponderous text for class but the author recently got interesting when he brought up Karl Popper's "Worlds of Knowledge" theory and implied that people spend their time in deeply ideosyncratic personal worlds, unaware of or unable to perceive "objective" reality. (It sounds sensible enough to me--I've been puzzled enough by peoples' reactions to various things not to question it--and I'd like to think the theory also calls into question what we can know. But that's probably just my agnostic bias, and it's certainly more than I can expect a politician to admit.)
At any rate. Asian Dub Foundation don't want to get into discussions of objective reality or subjective personal worlds. The truth is out there, even if we can't always find it, and they're pissed when people hide it.
I was listening to the Asian Dub Foundation a few years ago when one of my friends asked if I had anything by them that wasn't dub. Um. No, I don't. Sorry. They do tend to focus on dub, though they cut it with rock and ambient and punk and Bengali and dancehall and whatever else they take a mind to. But it works.
The group hails from the U.K. and came about as a result of a project to teach Asian children the basics of music; the group is unabashedly political, anti-racist, and collectivist; they can get a little didactic at times, but I think they're great. (On that note ... tomorrow, a track from The Coup).
Official site (with downloads)
review of the band--their place in, and reaction to, British culture.
[Amazon.com] Behold the puzzlement of distribution systems--no US distribution for this disc.
...
I was thinking of posting Salif Keita's "Ananaming" tonight, but benn loxo du tàccu beat me to it. All right then. I should have known better; the man did say he was on Mali this week. So go give "Ananaming" a listen; it's very good. And check out everything else he's posted; they've all been winners.
posted by Tuwa @
13:04 | permalink |
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