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Free song download of "Desert Storm," from the new Gang Gang Dance album (out October 21, on the Social Registry). On Saint Dymphna, GGD play around with the pop format, juggle Eastern influences and dubstep (Tinchy Stryder guests on one track), and achieve experimental, ambient bliss. All in one fell swoop. Great, forward-thinking album by a band that continues to shift the parameters for modern pop, dance, and avant-garde music.
We're in a recession, so maybe it's fitting that the Dead C. has returned to rock-based forms to bring across their anguished languish, full-bore rock deconstruction. The esteemed New Zealand trio hasn't been this on point since 1995's Tusk, and here they give up any semblance of non-traditional (for them) experimentalism -- no electronics pieces, no digital skipping, nothing cerebral other than the throbbing headache these four long, tumultuous tracks could generate. It's great to hear old masters of non-electronic noise going at it in a stance they helped to create, and as always, there's very little around that sounds quite like the Dead C., not-so-elegantly wasted, ragged, struggling panoramas of post-industrial depressives meant to freeze where others would console. Secret Earth recalls the group's glory days, and gives us hope that they're not behind. -Doug Mosurock
These days it can rather difficult to dig out really good new electronic music. Sure there's plenty of throbbing techno coming out of Berlin and the noise set are doing their bit to re-engage fans of Tangerine Dream et al, but the sort of electronica that filled the shelves at the turn of the century is almost nowhere to be seen. Maybe this is a good thing, because it makes it all the more special to hear this fabulous record from New Yorker Ezekiel Honig, an artist who understands how to make truly great electronic music. Absent is the tiresome trickery of the Warp-endorsed old guard and we are instead treated to a selection of impeccably crafted tracks, clever yet unpretentious and warm without ever being sugary. This isn't Zeke's first record, but it is without a doubt his most complete as he submerges the rhythmic elements ever deeper into the mix, allowing the gorgeous progressions and thoughtful field recordings to take center stage. "Field recordings and ambience," I already know what you're thinking but Zeke's music is far from cliched, and anything but 'another' drone record. His are short, concise and studied pieces, their structure at times owing more to pop music than Pop Ambient and Zeke's choice of sounds is nothing short of masterful. Just listen to the album's highlight "Broken Marching Band" with its effortless 4/4 throb, unusual environmental sound and simply heart-stopping harmonies. Almost Rhodes-like in its warm tone the synthesizer drifts and falls across the subtle clatter of some sort of sampled percussion (is it a clock ticking? A coin rattling? Who knows) and the track unfolds delicately over a brief (in today's terms) five minutes. There are those out there who are convinced that electronic music is a lifeless, robotic affair without anything like a semblance of soul or verve, but Zeke's music is the antidote to this. Organic is a word that has been overused, but these tracks teem with life, and as each track drifts into the next there's never a sense that the human element has been disengaged from the zeroes and ones. A hearty recommendation. -John Twells
One of the great resurgences of the last 10 years is the re-discovery of the early LA-based west coast electro-funk tunes of the '80s and the fertile club scene that was based around them. No less than Dr. Dre, Arabian Prince and DJ Quik got their start deejaying massive electro-funk parties in the area, but NO ONE was bigger than Greg Broussard, a/k/a Egyptian Lover, and the parties thrown by him and his crew, Uncle Jam's Army. At the height of his popularity, it was not uncommon to have upwards of 5,000 or more pack the LA Coliseum on the Friday nights he was playing. The sound and look he helped pioneer was basically a hornier update on Afrika Bambaataa and Kraftwerk, combining the sexed-up urban new wave sensibilities of Prince with the electro-funk sounds pioneered by Bambaataa back East. The similarities don't stop there. Both crews were obsessed with the mystic numerology and imagery of the ancient civilizations of Africa. But E.L.'s vision was decidedly more hedonistic and escapist, embracing the classic mythic imagery of pyramids, palaces and flying carpets. This proper debut album from the Lover contains one of his biggest hits, "Egypt, Egypt," a saucy, take on "Tour de France," complete with gratuitous heavy breathing and apt descriptions of a "kinky nation" with a "total female population and shiny pyramids." To this day, this tune will fill floors and sounds as fresh now as it did 25 years ago. The record also features the dark, electro new wave of "Computer Love (Sweet Dreams)" and "I Cry (Night After Night)," two tunes that Autechre and I-F consider major influences on their sound. Any fan of the aforementioned or any sort of electro-funkiness should check out this talented trendsetter's output, and if you like this album, don't stop here! Other Music Digital has several solid offerings from Egyptian Lover and his crew, including a great new album Platinum Pyramids, that continues in the same freaky tradition of his more classic, well known material. -Duane Harriott
Debashish Bhattacharya was born in 1963, to a musical family in Calcutta. His parents were devotional singers and classically trained musicians, so from a very early age he was immersed in the classical music of India. Beginning at about the age of three, Bhattacharya studied vocal scales and rhythm with his parents, and it was also around this time that he became fascinated with a Hawaiian slide guitar that he had found lying around the house. In Calcutta, Hawaiian music and the steel slide guitar were popular from the late-'20s through the '40s, largely due to a visit from the legendary Tau Moe. For Bhattacharya, there was a natural draw to the instrument, and while continuing his voice and rhythm studies he began to experiment with the slide guitar. Over time, key modifications in the guitar and advancements in his technique allowed him to expand the sound and color of ragas. His slide-work gives the music a sparkling effect that appears to resonate outward. Some of the picking seems to stretch in such an elastic contortion as to test the boundaries of control before snapping back into place, only to refract again in bright, undulating cascades of sound. His music tells stories with color and space, and interplay as tabla and tambura weave intricate patterns. From slow, sliding drones to quick agile improvisations, Bhattacharya leaves you feeling at once calmed and highly stimulated. To date, he has designed 19 steel slide guitars with new additions such as drone and resonating strings, while developing a three-finger picking technique that allows him to move about with great speed and dexterity. There are so many different patterns to this music it practically begs for repeated listens. -Geoff Albores
Let me begin by saying this: If you are indeed new to these records, you're in for a treat. Perhaps the most influential German "Krautrock" band in existence whose followers and antecedents spread throughout countless genres of music, the three albums Neu! (pronounced "noy" and always spelled with the exclamation point -- it's the German word for new, and was intended to be an almost pop-art styled brand name) created in the 1970s remarkably still sound exhilarating and fresh. After leaving an early version of another seminal German band, Kraftwerk, guitarist Michael Rother and drummer Klaus Dinger formed Neu! in 1971, stripping rock music to its most minimal skeleton, defined by chugging, chiming guitars and one of the most propulsive, simple 4/4 backbeats. The debut album Neu! features some of the group's most championed and influential pieces of music, namely "Hallogallo," which is perhaps the most concentrated definition of the group's sound -- as Dinger thumps incessantly on his kit (playing a beat which he termed "Apache" but which would go on to be dubbed by many as "motorik"), layers of Rother's guitars chop, scratch, and soar above below and around Dinger's backbone. The result is still, after 37 years, completely hypnotizing. Interestingly, most of the rest of the album is of a much more ambient, weightless nature, with tracks like "Sonderangebot" and "Im Gluck" featuring soundscapes of electronic processing and effects-warped cymbals, along with some field recordings of Dinger in a rowboat. The second half picks up pace again with "Negativland," a more dissonant, slowed down groover that marries a low-end bump with squeals of dissonance, clouds of effects, and some of Rother's gnarliest guitar playing during these early days.
Neu! 2 is perhaps the group's most underappreciated and misunderstood release, but is also the one album in their canon which proved a true milestone in the rock world, as it is perhaps the first rock record to extensively feature "remixes" and radically altered versions of its music, particularly that of a single which the band released as a stopgap in between albums. It is also on this album that the huge dichotomy between Rother and Dinger's sounds began to show their true colors -- Rother's compositions tended to be of a more melodic, ambient, weightless nature (a direction he'd explore to its fullest potentials when he'd join Harmonia a few years later); Dinger's music, on the other hand, was raw, unchecked adrenalin and more energetic, so much so that it has often been termed "proto-punk" partly due to the addition of Dinger's somewhat cavemanesque vocal delivery. In most groups, such polarization would be disastrous, and while it did prove to be a deciding factor in Neu!'s demise, for the next two albums it brings out the band's most incredible music. Neu! 2 begins with "Fur Immer," an even more crystalline version of the "Hallogallo" mindset which stretches out for 11-plus minutes and could indeed go on forever (this is a good thing). Dinger gets his rock on with the stomping "Lila Angel" and "Spitzenqualitat," and they provide a brief interlude for what lies ahead with the ambience of "Gedenkminute (fur A + K)." Then comes side 2, an assemblage of "versions" (including the originals) of Neu!'s single "Super" b/w "Neuschnee" played at varying speeds and even by a cassette recorder which goes on to eat and mangle a copy of the tape it's playing. Though at the time this "stunt" was done in desperation due to a shrinking budget that had already been blown, and though this music was met with harsh criticism at the time as a crass, "up yours" gesture (which in some ways it was -- to their record label in particular), these deconstructions now stand up as very listenable and endlessly influential pieces of work, filled with humor, ingenuity, and most importantly, great music.
Neu! 75 is perhaps the most championed of their albums, and with good reason. The group's personality is split entirely down the middle, essentially; side 1 is Rother's, filled with absolutely gorgeous keyboard and guitar textures for some of Neu!'s most aesthetically beautiful duo music, while side 2 is all Dinger, with three songs of Apache stomp (this time by two drummers instead of one!), single chords and snarled vocals. Every tune on this record is a winner -- propulsive, immersive, and insanely catchy. If you're only going to buy one of these records, Neu! 75 is probably the best one to get (though if you do enjoy this one, chances are you'll end up coming back for the other two, trust me). All killer, no filler, this is hands down one of the greatest albums ever recorded. Period. Anyone interested in the foundations of not only indie rock music by the likes of Stereolab, Radiohead, and pretty much anything with an experimental/punk slant, anyone interested in what would go on to hugely influence Bowie and Eno's Berlin period, any fan of remix/dance culture, any... oh, who am I kidding. Just buy these already. This band was as important as the Beatles and the Velvet Underground, and that's about as much praise as I can pile on. Absolutely essential. -Mikey IQ Jones
A beautiful, slow-burner of an album by Koen Holtkamp (one half of electro-acoustic duo Mountains) that instantly rejuvenates the tired drone genre. Holtkamp's ear for details and composition is brilliant, as he constructs mini-symphonies using guitar, electronics, and field recordings; the sound is mostly minimal yet warm and grandiose. One the year's best releases.
Brand new album from Luomo, one of the many guises of Finnish minimal house producer Sasu Ripatti, who also records as Vladislav Delay, Uusitalo, Conoco and Sistol. Luomo has always been Ripatti's "pop" outlet, where he crafts wonderfully romantic electro-house, and that mission's accomplished once again with the help of guests like Apparat, Jake Shears (Scissor Sisters), Chicago house legend Robert Owens, and Panorama Bar resident, Cassy.
Their debut single was sampled by Jay-Z on his smash "Roc Boys" track, and this all-star band, featuring members of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Antibalas, the Budos Band and El Michels Affair, is ripe for a few more tasty bites. All instrumental grooves with a diverse set of influences that coalesce around a funky, laid-back '70s soul sound, a la Curtis Mayfield's early solo productions. And they pull it off!
Black Moth Super Rainbow frontman Tobacco delivers this woozy and weird solo debut. Fully wasted on analog synthesizers, dirty bass and loopy drum programming, this is a darker and slightly more uncomfortable album than those of his band. Psychedelic for sure, but less acid dreams and more narcotic nightmares, but always with a soulful groove. |
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