Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Food - Last Supper


Another great example of the Scandinavian "New Conception of Jazz". Led by Arve Henriksen (Supersilent, Christian Wallumrød Ensemble, Veslefrekk).

"New on Rune Grammofon from Arve Henriksen's exceptional Food project! Food was formed at the 1998 Molde international jazz festival when the profiled English sax player Iain Ballamy was invited to perform with three exceptional young norwegian musicians, including the incredibly gifted Arve Henriksen. It soon became clear that the blend of Iain's distinctive saxophone and Arve Henriksen's breathy trumpet textures was the perfect foil for the entrancing bass and drum trips created by Mats Eilertsen and Thomas Stronen. A key aspect to "last supper" is the delicate balance between the melodic and lyrical nature of Ballamy and Henriksen´s playing and the electronic soundscapes that Food started to explore with their previous album "veggie" - all glued together by an astonishing rhythm section. Another boundry-pushing album from one of the most innovative labels and musicians of our day - Highly Recommended." - Boomkat

Savagery

Monday, January 25, 2010

Dr. Israel - 7 Tales of Israel


First effort from a Suma Cum Laude graduate of the Rhythm Science course. Dub shall endure.

"Many are called but the chosen are few, so when Jah ready, you gotta move...

Dr. Israel has been an ever-present, ever-ready souljah in the WordSound army, contributing to every release to date including the Qaballah Stepper's timeless Dub In Fusion (WSCD004), the track "Saidisyabruklinmon (Nobwoycyantess)" from the subterranean scorcher Crooklyn Dub Consortium: Certified Dope Volume 1 (WSCD003) as well as cuts from the new Dubadelic, 2000: A Bass Odyssey (WSCD007). Now, he gets to shine on his own with 7 Tales of Israel, a dub journey through ancient landscapes on a caravan of drum and bass.

Yes, herbal vapors and biblical capers flavor this innovative approach to roots music in today's, dread era. Beginning in the lush Garden of Eden, the good Dr. resurrects the majestic power of the word with "Adam and Eve." He then plunges headfirst into the jungle on "Deborah," a smoother version of drum-and-bass. "The Tribulation of Job" presents an all percussive beatdown as the powerful vocals of Chemda Khalili swirl above the fray, while "Psalm 87" goes retro with a Tubby's echo-chamber dub style, swimming in the latest studio science. Dr. Israel does not discriminate against any style for Zion "shall be called a mother in whom men of every race are born."

Take heed, for the 7 Tales of Israel, brings glorious sounds for all of the children of creation." - Wordsound

Alms


2562 - Aerial


A magnificent dubstep release.

"Over a succession of rhythm melting vinyl releases for Tectonic, SubSolo and Philpot, Dave Huismans has asserted himself as the leading practitioner of forward thinking dancefloor motions currently in operation. Under the' Dogdaze, A Made Up Sound and his revered 2562 moniker Huismans has shocked the now merged techno and dubstep fraternities with a brilliantly consistent stream of bare bones riddims encompassing brittle 2-step, lurching techno and bass driven dub with a fractured brokenbeat aesthetic that sounds quite unlike anything else being produced today. Aerial is Huismans' massively anticipated debut album and contains some of the most deadly material produced under his 2562 guise, formed into a coherent statement of ten tracks set to detonate headphoness and Soundsystems around the world this summer. This CD edition pulls together four tracks previously dispatched over the course of three individual 12"s released in the last year, plus six sparkling fresh productions primed to dub the world into submission. The set skanks into view with 'Redux' plumbing the depths of a breezing downtempo dub cut in the finest Rhythm & Sound styles, and clearing the airspace for the snaking syncopations of 'Morvern'. From here there's a run of tracks culled from recent releases, ready to educate unblessed ears with some bass stepping sanctification, but the real treats for those who've been paying close attention come in the form of the stunning 'Basin dub' composed from delicate blue chords and a double-timed rhythmic intuition that couldn't have come from anyone else, followed by the equally crushing 'Greyscale', realisng many a technoXdubstep nerd's wet dream with a sacred stylistic blend of Burial, Basic Channel and T++ that leaves us floored. Finally another new effort 'The times' signs off the album with some moody and expansive dub chords whipped into spectral plumes over a coma-slow riddim that brings us full circle and ready for repeat. This album follows in the massively revered tradition of dub experimentation and rhythm science laid down in the lineage stretching from Lee Perry through King Tubby, Scientist, Steve Gurley, Dillinja, Photek, Rhythm & Sound, Kode 9 and Burial, so all we can say is that if any of those names have remotely affected you in any way you really need to check this album out. Without doubt one of the albums of the year - absolutely mighty."- Boomkat

Muro

Friday, January 22, 2010

The Angels of Light - New Mother


First album of M. Gira's post-Swans main project. As always, a brilliant affair.

"Gira's first post-SWANS projects were the primarily instrumental The Body Lovers and The Body Haters (see also "Number One of Three", "34:13"). With The Angels of Light, Gira returns to vocal based songs. And it's so good to hear Gira's voice and words again! Lyrically "New Mother" is probably his most personal work to date. Many of these songs reflect Gira's relationships with himself, his parents and Jarboe (also of SWANS): his faults (alcohol comes up more than once), regrets, love, sorrow, repentance. It's a confessional of sorts, very honest and genuine. Gira has many voices here: spoken, melodic, hums, quiet whispers, fragile whimpers and the occasional grating caterwaul. These songs focus on Gira's vocals and guitar, similar to the quieter side of recent SWANS and Gira's '94 solo album "Drainland". A few are solely Gira ("How We End", "Fear of Death") while the rest are more fleshed out. All are relatively quiet ... you won't find crescendoing walls of electric guitar or drones here, they've been replaced with beautiful layers of melodic acoustic/organic instrumentation. The numerous musicians contributing to this album (many of whom are veterans of past Gira/SWANS live and studio projects) weave an elegant tapestry of sound as backdrop, where necessary, to Gira's words. Look at the credits above and you'll understand the abundance of exquisite sounds to be found within these songs. The only person missing is Jarboe, but she is most definitely not forgotten ... this album is dedicated to and in many respects is about her. "New Mother" could also be considered an accompanying counterpart to Jarboe's '98 solo album "Anhedoniac". This is a bold step forward for Gira ... from the ashes of SWANS has risen an abundance of new expression through art and music. The packaging is first rate as is usually the case with Gira's projects. The digipack comes with a five panel insert that features all of the lyrics, credits and original photography by Wim van de Hulst (who also did "Drainland") one of which is a wonderful new portrait of Gira. If you're a fan of any of Gira's past melodic work you will love this disc. For anyone unfamiliar with Gira, The Angels of Light is a great starting point to his superb songwriting skills. I'm positive that "New Mother" will be near the top of my favorites list for 1999 …" - Mark Weddle

Link removed by request

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Tinariwen - Amassakoul


Before these Touareg Desert Blues mofos got themselves well-known with the album "Aman Iman", they released two albums, and this their second. Nomadic roots music given a vibrant jolt of electricity.

"Tinariwen strip rock down to its basic building blocks of rhythm, guitars, and voice. On their second CD there are no fancy studio tricks or multiple overdubs. They stick to what they've shown they do well -- keep the music raw and emotional. While there are similarities to the desert blues of Mali, these Tuareg nomads from the Western Sahara are as much as rock band as the Stones at their best, capable of conjuring up magic with a guitar riff or lick. Oftentimes, the music has the same bluesy, undulating, hypnotic rhythm of a camel crossing the sand, as on "Aldhechen Manin." But they can also crank the amps and unleash something to tingle the spine and feet, which they do on "Oualahila Ar Tesninam," as frantic and primal a piece of rock & roll as you're likely to find. There's even a touch of rap on "Arawan." But there's a complexity in their basic approach, the interlocking layers of electric guitars and the plaintive, defiant voices. To listen to Tinariwen is to believe once more in rock and its power. This is angry and passionate; it's dangerous music in the very best sense. Western bands might have forgotten how to rock as if their lives depended on it; Tinariwen can teach them." Chris Nickson

RIP Yabby You

Static Static in Puerto Rico



Hailing from L.A. Static Static describe themselves as noisy new-wave. Most of the underground bands that have visited us in the past decade have either been punk, hardcore, garage, pop-punk or power-pop so to me this is a breath of fresh air.

check out their myspace.

Thursday, Jan 28
The Vatican
with: espaZmos
10:00 pm
$6.00

Friday, Jan 29
La Respuesta (Santurce, Ave Fernandez Juncos, 1600)
With: Necronazis y Davila 666
10:00 pm
$6.00

Cubist Blues


I don't know if any of my filler mates has this but anyhow, felt like this should be here.  
fuckin retarded good coming-together of three legends in their own way 
( Alan Vega , Alex Chilton, Ben Vaughn), make an impressive
jam session album in only 2 nights in 1996, NY.




Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Pain Teens - Destroy Me, Lover


Houston's finest purveyors of nightmarish noise rock, with demented vocalist Bliss Blood in particularly fine form in this release.

"Trance has signed a number of talented bands that together define a fairly new sound that is unique to the label. The Pain Teens find a way to pull their music through your head and while it flows there, pounding rhythms set the stage for eerie tales of torture and power. Obscure samples, freaky tape loops and mesmerizing guitar effects wash around throbbing percussion for a disturbing ride through the mind of a psychopath. Then you realize it’s not a psychopath at at all, but bits and pieces of every day life. Then they turn around and deliver such a simple and pretty ballad as their cover of “The Story of Isaac” and still manage to leave you with a major case of the willies. We love the gruesome, the tragic and the warped. It’s reality and the Pain Teens drink it for breakfast."- Grind

Nizoral

Monday, January 11, 2010

Listen up New Yorkers.


Dear Friends and roudy musicians Campo-Formio are on tour in your area. Check em out.







Here's their EP

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Mothlite - The Flax of Reverie


With a name honoring the great Stan Brakhage, you'd expect this group's music to sound cinematic. And it does, wonderfully so. Led by Daniel O' Sullivan of Guapo, Aethenor et al.

"Something of a shadowy iconoclast, Daniel O'Sullivan has been making darkly sensuous music, heavy on the obscurantism, for some time now, be it with Guapo, Miasma & The Carousel Of Headless Horses, Æthenor or Sunn 0))). On his latest project he teams once more with programmer/producer Antti Uusimaki to script a beautifully composed macabre fairytale for adults... Grim like the Brothers, as heavy as an anvil made of clouds." - Rock-a-Rolla

Caldo de Oso

Steve Tilston - An Acoustic Confusion


Celtic Folk from Village Thing Records. The type I like to listen to when im unbearably sad or irritatingly happy, never in the dull in-between.

It's Not My Place To Fall.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Daniel Givens - Age

Chicago DJ and sonic explorer Givens brings us his vision of futuristic afrodelia. Exploring and merging all the variants of 20th Century Popoular Black Music into one glorious, thick, disorienting whole. Magnificent and cruelly ignored.

"This is the evolution of a new Negro, naturally..." intones Daniel Givens on "allies," the first track of his debut album. If Black people had to pick an album as a starting point with which to reinvent themselves, beyond the predictable traps of baller and shot caller, evading the "Erica Voyeur or Marcia Brady" dilemma, to be more than just a thug life advocate or the R&B crooner who would rather bump and grind than nurture and provide, this album would be considerably more challenging than most. Much like Ornette Coleman's "free" theories on jazz would spark debates that continue until this day, there is enough information on Age to keep a listener occupied well into the next century. For all intents and purposes, Age is a free jazz/post-rock release. But even that description is inadequate. Multiple listens can help trace familial ties to those who were here before Givens: Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Tricky, Carl Craig's Innerzone Orchestra, and many others could be referenced.

Each track is a journey unto itself; together they create an otherworldly experience. While a large percentage of this album is Givens' creation - he produced it himself and plays several different instruments - he does call on the assistance of a number of comrades within Chicago's artistic circles. Vocalist Seth Hitsky adds a haunting aspect on "rotation" with a spellbinding and spiritual utterance. Hitsky later dives into jazz scat exercise on "transitional," a drum 'n' bass bodied tune whose insides have been picked clean of its dance floor appeal. Josh Abrams' bass playing on "no visible color" leads the groove for Daniel's poetry to follow. His voice for prose can be a fixed monotone ("allies") or an impassioned Black Power chant ("never worship earth"). Musically, Daniel weaves a sonic tapestry for you to get lost in. The irregular time signature of "petals" makes the song sound like a more developed take on one of Tricky's abstract moments in time. "mandala/mural" signals a return to the motherland with the drudging sounds of an African drum section and a steady guitar pattern. It's as if Afro-beat was taken out back and severely flogged until it was forced to slow down the tempo. And the 18-minute, three-part opus "acknowledgement" is beyond words.

Daniel Givens was wise enough to mix past, present, and future sounds into this release, thereby creating a timeless work. What better time to listen to an album of this nature? Its effects will be felt long after his life span on earth has passed. Thankfully for us, that won't be for a long while. The reexamination of urban possibilities starts here.
" - Macedonia

Motherland

Dean Roberts - Be Mine Tonight


New Zealand's deliverer of phantamasgoria in songform in one of his best solo efforts (after the masterpiece "..And the Black Moths Play the Grand Cinema"). Few can enter and turn a song inside out like he can. Produced by Valerio Tricoli of fellow tricksters 3/4HadBeenEliminated.

"Beginning with the post punk rock trio Thela and moving through White Winged Moth and into his solo recordings, Dean Roberts has marked himself as a guitarist of unique talents. Be Mine Tonight is the first recording from the New Zealander (now based in Vienna) since And The Black Moths Play the Grand Cinema was released in 2000.

Roberts has played a variety of solo gigs and played with some of the heavyweights of electrical/acoustic improvisation. �Be Mine Tonight shows how �Roberts has moved from electronic texturing into songwriting and arrangements, combining rock music and sound manipulation. �

Be Mine Tonight �is a recording of songs. �Slow, often wrenching songs where the brush of a cymbal, a voice or a plucked string can have great impact. �Through arrangement, processing and editing Dean Roberts has crafted out rock that presents listeners with familiar forms as it challenges them with oblique gestures. �Improvisational and electronic strategies are ably utilized to push the dimensions of rock songs played by a group of people together in one room.

As Roberts told Grooves magazine; "The idea was that we would do something with really elaborate arrangements using largely acoustic instrumentation. �Something like a 60s recording, and in place of a string quartet or orchestra playing harmonic parts, it was approached like imagining a contemporary music ensemble was used instead."

Be Mine Tonight is the very first production of a young engineer and composer Valerio Tricoli, a rising name in the world of improvisational music. �It was recorded in Bologna , Italy from Dec. 2000 to Dec. 2002. �Giuseppe Ielasi, of Fringes Recordings and a legend of Italian improvisational guitar, contributed prepared guitar, as did Christian Alati. �The deft drumming by Antonio Arrabbito marks his recording debut. Roberts played acoustic and electric guitars, piano, percussion, bass, harmonium and glass harmonica." - Kranky

Agape

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Peter Brötzmann - Fuck de Boere : Dedicated to Johnny Dyani


Germany's Colossus of the sax turns pillars of concrete into dust with his unforgiving, blistering SOUND. An essential document of European free jazz.

"I am hoping that German saxophonist Peter Brotzmann will be given his just due one day as an avant garde Godhead. Maybe, just maybe, in the same fashion that saw the late mainstream hornman, Joe Henderson, become a reluctant icon, although past his prime playing. This two concert CD documents Peter Brotzmann in the maelstrom of like-minded European improvisors. Fuck De Boere is equal parts justified political diatribe and historical relic of the then burgeoning European outcast scene. "Machine Gun" is performed here as its first incantation, three months before the BRO/FMP release. Brotzmann leads this nine-piece aggregation in a wash of sonic spectacle. This version of "Machine Gun" is forty minutes of sometimes frustrating episodic beauty and excess, all dedicated to the late South African bassist, Johnny Dyani.

Even in this boys-noise of swirling tenor saxophones (3), blurping trombones, and the skrunk of Derek Bailey's guitar, Peter Brotzmann proves himself to be an acute listener.All in all, both pieces offer an uncompromising blend of free jazz that lacks the focus and variety of Brotzmann's subsequent work.Track listing: Machine Gun (17:34)/ Fuck De Boere (36:33).Personnel: Peter Brötzmann Nonet: Brötzmann, Willem Breuker, Gerd Dudek, Evan Parker- saxophones; Fred van Hove- piano; Peter Kowald, Buschi Niebergall- basses; Han Bennink, Sven-Ake Johansson- drums. Peter Brötzmann, Willem Breuker, Evan Parker- saxophones; Malcolm Griffiths, Willem van Manen, Buschi Niebergall, Paul Rutherford- trombones; Derek Bailey- guitar; Fred van Hove- piano (organ); Han Bennink- drums. Recorded: March 24, 1968 and March 22, 1970, Frankfurt, Germany." - Ludwig Van Trikt

Ruda

Monday, January 4, 2010

Talking Heads - Fear Of Music


My favorite Talking Heads record, all tracks are sheer perfection. Byrne & company in top-form with Eno on production duties.



Air.

Dub Echoes OST


the original soundtrack of the documentary. the album name pretty much explains it as it is. from classic dub tunes to the more experimental and broad world of dubstep music.

Dub Echoes - trailer from Bruno Natal on Vimeo.




witness!