Having trouble viewing this? Visit the updates archive |
||
 |
 |
Other Music Digital is offering a sneak preview of the new Lau Nau (a/k/a Laura Naukkarinen) album, Nukkuu, out on Locust on Tuesday, May 13. "Painovoima Valoa" is based in folk music but is fortified by otherworldly and exotic additional instrumentation, creating a ghostly, psychedelic and truly modern sound. A natural progression from 2005's Kuutarha, the Finnish chanteuse has created an out-of-time album that should set the standard for psych-folk records in 2008.
The blogs have been ablaze with praise for this young Chicago-based rap duo. The Cool Kids' musical mantra is "bringing '88 back," and although I'm sure they don't want to revisit the harsh social climate of intense street-corner gang warfare and crack infestation that the "golden age" of hip-hop was born out of, they do tap into the exuberant, underground aesthetic of gritty originality and hard beats. Built around a murky, syrupy rhythm that sounds like Premier producing crunk, the Cool Kids drop lazy-cadenced rhymes built around picking up girls on a bike. This might be my hip-hop single of the year so far, and the forthcoming album ain't to shabby either. - Duane Harriott
Back in '06, My Brightest Diamond burst onto our radars with a debut album of original operatic folk-rock. Now with a new record slated for this summer (A Thousand Shark's Teeth, out June 17), Shara Worden and Co. offer us a preview of things to come via this diverse single. While the headliner, "Inside a Boy," certainly is formidable, the B-sides are anything but filler; the French chanson inspired "Black and Coustad" is roped together with breathy lyrical electronica ("I Had a Pearl") and a Son Lux remix. My Brightest Diamond will performing at Other Music on Monday, June 9th at 8PM. -Daniel Salas
From the timely and often on point Blood and Fire label comes a celebration of the "Crown Prince of Reggae," the magnificent Dennis Brown. Often overlooked for his lack of crossover ambitions, Brown managed to be one of the most consistently loved and respected solo performers of the Isle until his untimely death in 1999. He always offered to those who'd listen a wealth of reality songs containing conscious lyrics for the every-man addressing the concerns of the lovers and the militants. The Promised Land is primarily compiled from his Joseph's Coat of Many Colors album with selected 45s released from '77 to '79. The mood is tight up-tempo rockers style with strong rhythms provided by Sly Dunbar and other leading session players recorded at Channel One, Harry J's and Joe Gibb's studios. Brown is in excellent form as he gives his guidance, wisdom and influence, singing tales of right against wickedness. Also included are excellent covers of Marley's "Slave Driver" and John Holt's "Man Next Door." -Daniel Givens
A Kompakt classic! Closer Musik's After Love attempts to get deep inside you from its opening track, "Closer Dancer," which uses a hard-panned, pulsating bass rhythm, creating a spatial ambiance that continues throughout the duration of the album. After Love is alive and breathing in your ear; it's creepy man. There are so many audible treats distributed throughout this album, it's easy to get lost. To give you an indication of its intricacies, the single, "You Don't Know Me," has what sounds like a ping-pong ball dropping, and once you find it, that sound is all you will hear. Each song is seven-plus minutes in length, and keeps you engaged in its movements, with layers of samples built into perfect ensembles. The vocals on After Love are used sparingly and help to direct the mood. It's funky, minimal, hypnotic, and carries this subterranean quality that makes me want to drive at high speeds with no destination. You can dance to this, meditate to this, sleep to this, and when you are done, it will leave you feeling dirty and satisfied. If David Lynch decides to remake Blade Runner, this will be the soundtrack. Find your headphones, and use this album at your own risk. -J Dennis
Heavy indeed. Three minutes into the first track and I am both ecstatic and fearful. You know the phrase "Be careful what you wish for..." If Acid Mothers' volume and intensity on this recording could be harnessed and transformed, perhaps the energy crisis would be resolved. Having seen them perform live and lived through it (kind of), it is mind blowing to imagine witnessing the aural carnage this album spews forth. It is soooo loud; I'll need to rent a hidden, desolate cottage miles from anywhere just to be able to experience this record properly. This is the other side of the coin, the extreme opposite to the peaceful, numbing drone bliss of Japanese psych like the Kosugi Catchwave LP. How can this be described...sonic destruction? Where are these sounds coming from?! Space is too well traveled. This is unexplored territory. Listen to Koizumi Hajime on drums destroying all in his path as the percussion, rolling, gathers the frenzied guitar, space gun synth and who else knows what into a monstrous boulder of metallic psych. Huge. It will flatten you. Kawabata is credited as speed guru on the sleeve- and it's no joke, we will never catch up. This will kick your ass, you will beg for more. -Nicole Lang
Damon and Naomi's first album as a duo was entitled More Sad Hits and years later, the couple curated that concept through the voices of others. International Sad Hits Vol. 1 collects four hand-picked tracks each from four artists: Japan's Mikami Kan and Tomokawa Kazuki, Korea's Kim Doo Soo, and Turkey's Fikret Kizilok, all performing solo in an altogether modern folk context. Mikami is the auteur among the group; his works (covered in other Other Music updates, or just ask around the store) bear little resemblance to any musical peers. Though familiar, his style is unfailingly singular and mournful. Kazuki tends to perform in a style that sounds as if he's trying to shake out of his own skin -- think Simon Finn on Pass the Distance, but sustaining the histrionics to a doleful, intimate panic, rather than the panic attack of "Jerusalem." Kim Doo Soo follows more familiar folk patterns, but his honest, wavering voice and isolated playing style recall artists acquainted with the struggle, from Buffy Sainte-Marie to Neil Young. Kizilok is the real discovery here, adhering to a markedly Anatolian folk style but downplaying a lot of the distressed elements you'd expect, his milky voice vaguely recalling Nick Drake, and his songs definitely recalling the bracing chill of Five Leaves Left. An excellent introduction to these foreign sounds of woeful despair. -Doug Mosurock |
|
|||||
|
We Also Recommend |
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
