Other Music New Release Update
June 20, 2001

In This Week's Update:

Nuggets box Vol. 2
Henry Flynt reissue
MEV (Musica Elettronica Viva)
Baby Dee
Four Tet
Susumu Yokota
Haazz & Co. reissue
Phil Ranelin reissues (2)
Studio 54 comp.
Yeehaw! country music comp.
Takehisa Kosugi reissue LP
Marmoset
Roy Harper reissue
All Access Detroit electronica comp.
Shins
Chicago Underground Quartet
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Prestion School of Industry EP (Spiral Stairs)
"Le Nouveau du Jazz" comp.
West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band reissues
Cornelius Cardew reissue
Hanged Up

Just In:
Mondo Grosso
Brainfreeze unmixed (compiled by DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist)

Restocked:
RZA "Ghost Dog" soundtrack (Japanese Version)


Featured New Releases:


[V/A] "Nuggets Vol. 2" (Rhino) 4xCD Box $59.99
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On the way to work today, there was this toddler on the subway who
was screaming at the top of his lungs repeatedly. When I looked to
my right, I saw this poor woman struggling to keep him from
squirming out of her lap with her left hand, with her right trying
unsuccessfully to cover the young boy's mouth in order to
suppress his blood-curdling screams. But the kid kept screaming,
laughing and smiling the whole time, amused and delighted by the
discovery of his own voice. I can't think of a better analogy for
the energy and attitude contained within this newest collection of
would-be rock'n'roll classics. This time around, the "Nuggets"
team concentrates on garage rock of the '60s from around the world
(excluding the U.S.). What's so amazing about the songs is how
influenced the artists were by the Beatles and Rolling Stones --
as if wearing their fan club badges on their sleeves -- with their
own energy and inventiveness: whether Peru's We All Together
with their Spanish chamber-pop, or Holland's Outsiders with their
adrenalin-fueled R&B freakouts. Other Music customers are likely
to be familiar with more than a few, from Os Mutantes to Blossom
Toes to Tomorrow. The Creation, the Pretty Things, and the Move
are most recognized, but you also get the fantastic John's
Children, classic Los Shakers (the "Uruguayan Beatles"), The
Tages, The Haunted -- the list goes on. Essential stuff, four CDs
of it. [DH]
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HENRY FLYNT "Graduation & Other Country and Blues Music" (Ampersand) CD $14.99
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The secret history of minimalism continues to expand with the
excavation of Henry Flynt's "Graduation and Other Country and
Blues Music". Much minimal music has a trance-inducing effect; a
composer like Riley, Reich or Young would borrow liberally from
countries whose music had a tradition of using sound to induce
trance states. Referencing Ghana, Morocco, or India gave those
composers' music an exotic sheen. Henry Flynt instead delved
deep into the music of possibly the most exotic country of al l--
America -- to find his inspiration in truck driver culture and the
commercial country radio of the sixties and seventies: George
Jones, Merle Haggard, Del Reeves are his muses. Where Terry
Riley evoked mescaline and psylocybin, Flynt's is all caffeine and
amphetamines. He realized that there isn't anything more trance-
inducing than the painted stripes of the highway from 80 mph, or
any place more hallucinatory than a waffle house along I-75 at 3
a.m. This document reveals is nothing less than Flynt's vision of
cosmic cowboy boogie. The first track is a 'hillbilly' response to
Pandit Pran Nath that wouldn't sound out of place on Mayo
Thompson's "Corky's Dept to His Father", The second track
could be 'Poppy Nogood' transposed to guitar, fiddle and drum.
Much of the music is country raga -- ringing steel guitars,
electric fiddles, a beautiful 20-minute foray of pastoral oscillating
guitar revery. Flynt even explores what I guess could be called
avant-garde country disco,  replete with breakbeats and a steady
backbeat. Baffling; my vote for strangest record of the year. [MK]
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M.E.V. (MUSICA ELETTRONICA VIVA) "Spacecraft / Unified Patchwork Theory" (Alga Marghen, Italy) CD $16.99
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Along with AMM, The Scratch Orchestra, and Gruppo Di
Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, MEV began exploring the
realms of organized chaos in the mid-'60s. But even in that
rarefied company, MEV stood out as easily the most versatile,
able to maneuver fluidly between musique concrete and Fluxus
composition, and onward into primitive electronics, free-jazz,
noise and beyond. This CD collects two previously unreleased
performances. 'Spacecraft' (1967) was recorded in Cologne and
found core members Allen Bryant, Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski,
and Richard Teitelbaum joined by Nuova Consonanza saxophonist
Ivan Vandor for an unbelievable journey into sounds heretofore
unknown. "The instrumentation included Rzewski's amplified glass
plate to which he attached coiled and stretched springs of various
kinds, all highly amplified with contact microphone. With it he
generated a range of sounds from the screaming of wild animals
and viscous percussive clangs to richly resonant low gong sounds.
Alvin Curran used contact mikes to amplify a large Italian olive
oil can, an African thumb piano and various items of junk he
scavenged at the site of the gigs, as well as a distorted
amplified trumpet. Allen Bryant's idiosyncratic instrument, an old
electronic organ he had bought in a Roman flea market and
re-wired by trial and error until he got the sound he liked, and
Richard Teitelbaum's Moog, which he played by twirling knobs
while triggering it with his brainwaves and toes and amplified
heartbeats made up the 'synth' section."-Alga Marghen. 41 minutes
of ecstatic bliss. Imagine Nurse With Wound slugging it out during
the Summer Of Love! 'Unified Patchwork Theory' (1990) recorded
in Zurich, revisits themes first recorded for a 1977 Horo Records
set and finds Bryant absent but Steve Lacy and Garrett List
onboard for a remarkable 34-minute piece that demonstrates
decisively that they hadn't lost a step. Highest recommendation.
[JG]
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BABY DEE "Little Window" (Durtro, UK) CD $17.99
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First, let's put the rumor to rest. Baby Dee is NOT Antony (as in
& The Johnsons). However, Antony fans who can't wait until the
next album should be most pleased by "Little Window" for this Baby
is in-Deed a kindred spirit! The sound is rather spare since Dee
accompanies herself on piano and accordion, yet the songs are
every bit as grandiose, the singing similarly sublime and the
emotions expressed nothing short of devastating. I rang Antony
for the scoop. Dee was an East Village mainstay for many years,
notorious for her exploits atop her signature tricycle. "You know,
the tranny on a trike", he chuckled. "Antony spoke of Dee as the
muse who had helped realise much of the music performed by
the Johnsons. Antony sent me a couple of songs by Dee:
'Little Window' and 'The Robin's Tiny Throat'. I listened and was
struck dumb. So I listened to it again. And again. And again and
again and again. I am still listening to it as I type this, and still find
it hard to put into words quite how unique and touching her work
is. It was certainly amongst the most beautiful and moving work of
any type I had *ever* heard. So I asked Antony to send me more
and more examples of Dee's work. And it was clear to me that I
had to release an album by her. My own love has always been for
those musics and those words which strike one as being utterly
true and absolutely personal, and Baby Dee is both of these."
-David Tibet, Durtro Records. Highly recommended. [JG]
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FOUR TET "Pause" (Domino, UK) CD $21.99
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Four Tet take a slightly different route on their long-awaited
second album. Jazzy warmth heats up the cool electronic
sequencing, but instead of juggling multi-instrumental
compositions, only a few instruments sound in the foreground,
carrying less electronically-driven melodies. A dulcimer sample
pushes through the skittering beats on the first song, floating
above softened hip-hop beats. While 'Give of the World' uses
acoustic guitar and hammered dulcimer, '23' uses horns.
'Harmony One' take the road paved by Boards of Canada and
B. Fleischmann with its children-at-play samples/undertones,
nailed down by an annoyingly familiar dulcimer melody and
backwards tape loops. 'Untangle' plucks the harp amid
techno-ish beats, proving there's more than one speed to
Four Tet: this is the less serious, looser side of Kieran Hebden
and friends. Taken by itself, "Pause" is a pleasing, exotically-
mixed album of acoustics and electronics. A good record for
those put off by the straightforward beat-sample-tape loops of
their first. [LG]
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SUSUMU YOKOTA "Grinning Cat" (Leaf, UK) CD/LP $14.99/$14.99
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Yokota has a split musical personality, but unlike most electronic
artists doesn't segregate his projects under different names.
While most Yokota titles you find are straight-up trance, anything
on the Leaf label are views of his self that reveal only the
abstract, as if looking at one's own arm and not seeing the whole
arm but just the patterns of hair, pores, and possibly freckles.
He revels in textures and rhythms, defining himself in barely
anything else, it's a pretty, pretty record yet has no discernable
melodic paths. It's as if he dreamed of '50s musique concrete at
night, yet when it came to recreating the dream in the morning
retained but an muddled outline. Riley-ish rhythms peel in and out
of phase, sounds encrusted with the grime of age. Fans of
Nobukazu Takemura or Boards of Canada might like this, it's
similar in feel yet nowhere near as clean and polished. [RE]
CD //perl-bin/OM/CD_Add_To_Cart.cgi?sku=66601701962&refer_url=email
LP //perl-bin/OM/CD_Add_To_Cart.cgi?sku=66601701961&refer_url=email

HAAZZ & COMPANY "Unlawful Noise" (Unheard Music Series) CD $13.99
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Just when you begin to think you're all hardcore-like and know
your shit, along comes the Unheard Music Series with another
dazzler you never heard about to take you down several pegs!
Kees Hazevoet (aka "Haazz") was an integral part of the emerging
Amsterdam new jazz scene in the '60s and '70s. On this live date
from 1976, pianist Haazz is joined on two side-long freakouts by
fellow Dutchmen Han & Peter Bennink, the South African rhythm
section of Johnny Dyani & Louis Moholo (take that, apartheid!)
and Mr. Peter Brotzmann (reeds, bagpipe!) blowing his prodigious
guts out. Check out the clips, they'll take you higher than anything
I can scribble down. Originally released on KGB Records, which I
never heard of either. Curse you, Unheard Music Series! [JG]
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PHIL RANELIN "The Time is Now" (Hefty) CD/LP $12.99/$12.99
PHIL RANELIN "Vibes from the Tribe" (Hefty) CD/LP $12.99/$13.99
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From the eclectic Hefty Records, home to The Aluminum Group,
Slicker, and Savath and Savalas, comes reissues of trombonist
Phil Ranelin. "The Time is Now" and "Vibes from the Tribe",
originally released in 1974 and 1976 respectively, trace an
artist's collective development from his influences to his impact
upon his contemporaries and ours. "The Time is Now", the
more "jazz" of the two, is, in its arrangement of a medium-sized
ensemble, reminiscent of "The Prisoner"-era Herbie Hancock.
From the opening hit evoking the mid-'60s Miles Davis quintet to
the token blues number, this album's roots are detectable, but
not restricting. Although "Vibes" lacks the palpable immediacy of
its precursor, it heralds a new sound. From songs on this second
offering, one can hear the lineage of Gil Scott-Heron (the two
songs with vocals are harmonically reminiscent to "Pieces of a
man", but with optimistic lyrics, rather than an address of a
state of affairs) and Tortoise (the ostinato of the title song
could have easily have been lifted for "Standards"). Together
these albums rival the best in groovy, free jazz composition;
standing proudly next to the Art Ensemble of Chicago's "Les
Stances a Sophie." [NF]
"Time" CD
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"Time" LP
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"Vibes" CD
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"Vibes" LP
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[V/A] "Kenny Carpenter presents Studio 54: the Underground Classics" (Obsessive, UK) CD $16.99
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Late '70s disco was the hothouse of music. And Studio 54
was the most public, most celebrated of the breeding
grounds. Underneath the amaranthine 4/4 time, genres
bred and reproduced. With each DJ set, two new cultures
seemed to slam together, for the most part generating the
long-standing genres of hip-hop and house. Despite the
recent abundance of "Studio 54" compilations and films,
if you're looking for the true effect of 54, you call Kenny
Carpenter. Carpenter was a long-time DJ at Studio 54,
and his collection of underground tracks is a most
authoritative mix. But there's no Ashford & Simpson, no
Chic and no Sister Sledge. Instead, Carpenter kicks it
off with Chaz Jankel's smokin' '3,000,000 Synths' and
on with deep love and simple pleasures: the dancehall
proto-rap of Denroy Morgan, the lifting freedom voice of
Loleatta Holloway, the cool acceptance of Change and
the big ensemble funk of MFSB. Even The Clash put
in an early appearance. Now that's a collection pure
enough to have the "54" logo stamped on the front. Like
the Paradise Garage compilation mixed by Larry Levan,
this is an authentic mix, a clean, crisp snapshot of
perpetuity. [DD]
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[V/A] "Yeehaw! The Other Side of Country" (QDK, Germany) CD/LP  $14.99/$15.99
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How come the Germans have so much of a better grasp
on our own country music heritage than any American
label? Like excellent labels Bear Family and Trikont, QDK
puts together a country music compilation that slaps
together country gems of the very late '60s through 1980,
an era much neglected in favor of earlier rootsy rockabilly
raveups. It's when country music got a folk, rock and most
of all a psych edge. (For instance, Peter Grudzien makes
country far more bizarre by adding weird reverb on his
vocals and grinding guitar sound effects.) The feel is of
country music made in that yawning chasm between
country music and hippie cultures, philosophies of different
kinds of roots converging, a musical equivalent of what
happened when the intellectuals descended upon the
farms. The path taken by Bob Dylan trod upon by others,
the feel of the obscure, hand-lettered LPs of the era
birthed from a commune. There's even a track w/an
excellent drum break. Open, fantastic. [RE]
CD //perl-bin/OM/CD_Add_To_Cart.cgi?sku=401176097782&refer_url=email
LP //perl-bin/OM/CD_Add_To_Cart.cgi?sku=401176097781&refer_url=email

TAKEHISA KOSUGI "Catch Wave" (Drone Syndicate, Sweden) LP $29.99
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Another stunner from the Taj Mahal Travellers camp
originally released by CBS Japan in 1975. Kosugi was
a founding member of Group Ongaku (Tokyo university
art-heads circa 1959; AMM-esque sounds a good five
years before AMM!) and an early participant in the Fluxus
movement before hanging his violin bow with TMT. This
vinyl-only reissue of his first solo album offers yet another
incredible drone-fest, two side-long improvisations
commencing with minimalist violin intriguingly reminiscent
of the vocal ragas of Pandit Pran Nath. Things begin to
get really weird as Kosugi folds in electronic effects and
his own ominous vocals recalling the text-sound
masterworks of Robert Ashley. The descriptive text on
the back jacket of this exact repro sums it up this way:
"sounds speeding on lights, light speeding on sounds,
music between riddles & solutions." Once again, a limited
run of 300 copies. Highest recommendation. [JG]
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MARMOSET "Record in Red" (Secretly Canadian) CD $12.99
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Marmoset's latest, "Record in Red" is a refreshing throwback
to the early days of indie rock. Using minimal arrangements,
Marmoset churn out soft and simple pop that relies more on a
singular hook than anything dressed up with ornate production.
Catchy and stripped down in a way that is not far from Josef K,
Unrest or even Joy Division, Marmoset's use of less to
accomplish more is quite refreshing. The oddly affected
vocals add a nicely darkened mood to "Record in Red",
empty howling behind the sparsely-arranged pop songs.
Using the concept of simplicity to it's fullest, Marmoset write
some of the best two-and-a-half-minute pop nuggets to
come out in a long time. [PW]
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ROY HARPER "Stormcock" (Science Friction, UK) CD $15.99
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Roy Harper might be the most underrated member of the
British folk scene. He was friends with everyone from Bert
Jansch to Pink Floyd to the Incredible String Band; Albert
Ayler liked to call him 'tough guy'. "Stormcock" is his best
record. Filled with wonderful 12-string guitar, songs might
begin sparsely and then be fleshed out beautifully by David
Bedford's amazing string arrangements. Vocally, Harper
sounds like a cross between Dylan and Bowie. If you've
been put off by the feyness of some British folk, then you
need not worry about that here -- there's enough classic-
rock vastness here to temper and inflate anything. Great
bedtime music to boot. On Harper's own label, too. [MK]
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[V/A] "All Access" (Planet E) CD $14.99
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Though Carl Craig was asked to step down as organizer
of this year's Detroit Electronic Music Festival, his
outstanding label nonetheless put together a compilation
that is the label's finest to date. Ten seconds into Black
Odyssey's 'Sweat,' and you're lost in a vortex of stereo
panning, slippery snares, a hammering kick drum and a
melodic skein so delicate, it's almost undetectable. The
track is produced by Stacey Pullen, whose recent full-
length on Virgin-Science UK is a gem. Perhaps the most
heart-stopping moment is Random Noise Generation's
driving, spare, melodic 'The Playground'. These three
artists, The Burden brothers, run the 430 West label.
Though their stature is slight and their output is small
compared to many Detroit producers, the music they
release is the finest in Detroit. They are what Thomas
Mann called "the patron saints of all those who labor
at the edge of exhaustion." Richie Hawtin makes an
appearance here, as does Theorem, Swayzak,
Recloose, and Common Factor. As a statement of the
extraordinary breadth of music emanating from Motown,
"All Access" is peerless. [TH]
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SHINS "Oh, Inverted World" (Sub Pop) CD $13.99
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Though tooling around for years under the names Flake
and Flake Music, The Shins, from Albuquerque, spike a
their folky pop music with sublime Beach Boys harmonies.
James Mercer's vocals are drawn to the fore, turning joy
and melancholy on and off like the colors of a stoplight,
traced through sinuous melodies, clarion-clarity. The band
has a bit of the geek pop sound of the Embarrassment, the
psychedelia-with-a-modern-filter of Olivia Tremor control. A
short album, even for a debut, they've pared down 11 songs
to 33 minutes, and not a speck of filler. Fans of Elephant 6
projects or Oranger will be ecstatic to hear or have. [RE]
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CHICAGO UNDERGROUND QUARTET "s/t" (Thrill Jockey) CD/LP $13.99/$10.99
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Much of what defines greatness is the shoulder on which you
stand. The Chicago Underground Orchestra and its various
forms are balanced on the broad back of the Art Ensemble,
Yusef Lateef and Sam Rivers. Disregarding other units, this
is in fact a quartet, with Jeff Parker (guitar), Noel Kupersmith
(bass), Chad Taylor (percussion, vibes) & Rob Mazurek
(cornet, electronics). Here, the Chicago Underground tightens
its hold on Jazz, making it clear they are laying the groundwork
for years of contributions. Yet the quartet also draws a clear
line to Gastr Del Sol and Isotope 217, pushing that sound into
jazzier realms. Consciously subdued, or too concentrated to
care, the quartet is mostly chilled. Those who are enraptured
with the methodical, tonal structure of Tortoise will find a nice
variation here, as Mazurek and Parker trade solos, steps and
improvisations. Those who admire free jazz will also be happy
with this release, as the group recalls late Coltrane, early
fusion and Mingus. In the mountainous tradition of the Art
Ensemble of Chicago, the Chicago Underground Quartet is
starting to spread its avant-garde message to anyone
adventurous enough to listen. [DD]
CD //perl-bin/OM/CD_Add_To_Cart.cgi?sku=79037700932&refer_url=email
LP //perl-bin/OM/CD_Add_To_Cart.cgi?sku=09999157921&refer_url=email

TED LEO & THE PHARMACISTS "The Tyranny of Distance" (Lookout!) CD $13.99
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Since going solo from Chisel, Ted Leo's traced a narrow array
of styles now back to, for this album (his first for Lookout!),
more or less emo. Yearning and trebly, nearly melodramatic,
Leo's inserted a swath of soul into the proceedings, and the
guitars ring without fuzz but edged by static, the drums falling
into solemn march patterns. Where his last excursion (the CD
of demos and random recordings on Gern Blandsten) even made
nods towards new wave, this one turns no such tricks. Amongst
the seven Pharmacists are Leo's brother Danny, and James and
Brendan Canty (Make Up and Fugazi, respectively), the latter
whom produced this CD. I'm reminded (as usual) of Elliot Smith,
but with the lonely-boy maudlin qualities replaced by slamming
'70s rock sounds. Solid and impressive. [RE]
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PRESTON SCHOOL OF INDUSTRY "Goodbye to the Edge City" (Amazing Grease) CD EP $7.99
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Spiral Stairs' (Scott Kannberg) new project meshes two obvious
influences that aren't that far apart together: his old band
Pavement, and Beck's earlier work. Yet 'The Spaces in Between
Us' also sounds to me like it could have appeared on seminal
Scottish label Postcard, yet moves faster than anything that
ever appeared on that label, and 'Somethings Happen Always'
(sic) gets the benefit of a horn section. He loves sounds that
slide around, whether a cello's long glissandos or briefly tweaked
guitar strings. And, strangely enough, it sounds like he's angling
for a late '80s/early '90s sound a la the Feelies ('Goodbye to the
Edge City') too. Upcoming album on Matador won't overlap with
this at all. [RE]
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WEST COAST POP ART EXPERIMENTAL BAND "Part One" (Sundazed) CD $12.99
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WEST COAST POP ART EXPERIMENTAL BAND "Vol. 2" (Sundazed) CD $12.99
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WEST COAST POP ART EXPERIMENTAL BAND "Vol. 3 " (Sundazed) CD $12.99
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Not exactly every bit like their name, the WCPAEB at least fulfilled
a number of their own objectives masquerading as adjectives.
'West Coast', certainly. They were the essence of California
psych, with harmonies bleeding throughout their output, the
legacy of the Beach Boys, an all-male parallel to the Mamas
and the Papas. 'Pop Art'? Marginally, more like popular culture
-- many lyrics are typically absurdist psych surrealism (including
double entendres, too), and very typical of the era.
'Experimental', also moderately -- at the time they were seen
as bandwagon jumpers, and their arrangements, while creative
and revolving around pop melodies, don't present a surprise
to any listener familiar with their contemporaries. Even so,
what they did is classic, perfect psych, so textbook popular
that you'd think that a dictionary definition of "psychedelia"
would include a picture of one of their album covers next to
a photo of Timothy Leary. Slabs of fuzzed-out guitars and
delicate guitar melodies, spastic drumming and swirling
masses of sound, rigorous flighty falsetto vocals plus the
aforementioned perfect harmonies--they're really one of
the bands of the era you should hear in one form or
another -- and their story is even more bizarre (see
http://users.bart.nl/~cvdlely/wcpaeb/history/wcpaeb1.htm ,
printed in Ptolemaic Terrascope a few years ago). The first
is splashy and sweet and interesting, lyrics best here
(especially on 'I Won't Hurt You'). The third is where they
really hit their stride, with more political songs (some of
them touchingly naive), excellent live numbers, a better
sense of swing. Supposedly they got together and
recorded an album in 1999; I haven't found more than
a mention about that anywhere, though. [RE]
"Part One"
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"Vol. 2"
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"Vol. 3"
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[V/A] "Le Nouveau du Jazz" (Irma, Italy) CD $16.99
RealAudio: /ramgen/othermusic/Tanzmusi.rm
One thing I can say about Irma comps that is even more
apparent on this one: they really know how to dig between
genres to make compilations that combine sounds from a
number of areas. "Le Nouveau" in particular corrals what
they call 'future jazz' into one tidy package -- and it is neither
monochromatic nor predictable. Rainer Truby and King Britt
pen a tidy paragraph endorsement apiece, and they're the
perfect ones to do so: though they don't appear on the disc,
the music that does has its closest connections in their work.
This is not space jazz influenced by Sun Ra, nor does its
roots lie in lounge heaven. If anything it's acid jazz descending
once again on jazz, a music pollinated again by its own
ancestor. The music, even if its from 1980 or 85 (Ayers and
Gaye respectively) sounds like 2000-01 (the rest of the disc),
percussion-heavy dancefloor music, rough-edged, the tiniest
bit retro-fusiony, electro-influenced, and with rustic, almost
Afro-rock beats that don't fit into any modern electronic
categories. (techno? no. trance? no. drum'n'bass? no. disco?
no. early hip hop? barely. house? barely. ) Remarkable and
IMHO very useful for any dancefloor DJ especially The artists
here are so obscure (to me, anyway), that it's really nice to
have someone else pouring through massive amounts of 12"
records and selecting the most unusual, interesting tracks.
68 minutes, most tracks over six minutes. [RE]
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CORNELIUS CARDEW "Four Principles on Ireland & other pieces" (Ampersand) CD $14.99
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Captivated by his political beliefs, in the early '70s Cardew
eschewed his own avant-garde past (the work with the Scratch
Orchestra (and Stockhausen), which wasn't at all apolitical --
quite egalitarian, in fact) in order to make music that he
believed had a 'populist' appeal. Of course, how could solo
piano adaptations of Irish and Chinese revolutionary songs
make an impact in the culture of the early '70s, where the
popular music of soul and bubblegum dominated the
masses? Perhaps he was acknowledging that compositions
for a solo performer are more accessible for a player to
re-create on their own (not needing, say, a full orchestra in
order to enjoy). But a piano is a Western tool and a bulky
one at that; I'm still not sure how he could justify that
theory. Even so, his pieces have the glow of a good
melodic adaptation -- the notes are strewn off and around
their original melodic pattern, his performance of them tricky
and bright and nearly virtuosic (another anti-populist
argument, um). Some evoke Satie in places, others have
the stamp of his Bach studies. The 'ethnic' elements seem
to have slipped away -- even the Chinese melodies seem
written in Western scales (oddly enough), but his fervent
political convictions ignite the performance in a way that
you couldn't expect from just reading this description. A
reissue of a rare LP on Cramps from 1974. [RE]
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HANGED UP "s/t" (Constellation, Canada) CD/LP $13.99/$13.99
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The Montreal duo of Gen Heistek (Pest 5000, Biota, Brave
New Waves producer) and Eric Craven (Sackville) with a
record of long loping agitation. Heistek's viola chatters and
swings like a turbine borrowed from The Ex, Craven's
drumming sets a giant platform for it to vibrate upon.
Assisted by Efrim from Godspeed You Black Emperor!,
Hanged Up set up some similar structures: especially
some of the mood shifts in from one extreme to another
over a long period of time. For something so rhythmic, it's
jagged and tough, yet also can hover at the top of the
scale like a giant humming dragonfly. [RE]
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Just in:

MONDO GROSSO "MG4" (Epic, UK) $16.99
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The new album from Japan's Mondo Grosso is a highly
enjoyable blend of soulful, bossa-inspired 2-step, neo-soul
and Brazilian house. The album boasts a heavy-duty set of
guest vocalists -- Monday Michiro, Amel Larrieux, and Tania
Maria. For fans of Bebel Gilberto, Omar, Zero 7 and the like.
Make room for another soundtrack to summer. [DH]
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Restocks:

RZA "Ghost Dog Soundtrack" (Victor, Japan) CD $29.99
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Jim Jarmusch's "Ghost Dog" soundtrack seemed to garner
more praise than the film itself. And if you wandered into
Tower and got that 'soundtrack', as released in the U.S., all
you got was a bunch of songs 'inspired' by the film rather
than what was actually used in it. The Japanese release,
for some reason, was the real deal, yet nearly impossible to
track down. Yet, a year later, we got some! And it's a
blessed thing, too -- the RZA concocted something
remarkable for the story of a disillusioned Samurai in the
service of the mafia. RZA's hip-hop beats, Japanese
percussion and scales, and array of sharp little hollow
sounds placed into a framework of loops and the interlocked
patterns of classical music is, I think, unique in the history of
cinema. Unlike, for instance, the Deltron 3030 instrumentals
CD, which uses hip-hop and orchestral music to make
sweeping, epic statements, RZA sifts his sounds as if
sweeping piles of dust and bits of debris in and out of
corners, for a tiny, dirty, antique sound, like a rococo table
abandoned in a barn. The Wu-Tang Clan make a few
appearances, but it's mostly instrumentals. Lives up to
its great reputation, period. [RE]
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This week's reviews provided by: David Day [DD], Robin Edgerton
[RE], Nick Follett [NF], Lisa Garrett [LG], Jeff Gibson [JG], Duane
Harriott [DH], Tim Haslett [TH], Michael Klausman [MK], Phil Waldorf
[PW].


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