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This Saturday: East Village Radio Music Festival Filling the cyberwaves of New York City and beyond with wonderfully eclectic and truly freeform programming, our friends at East Village Radio celebrate their fifth anniversary of Internet broadcasting with a music festival this Saturday, September 6, at the South Street Seaport. Hosted by KRS-One and an appearance by The Daily Show's John Oliver, the line-up is amazing, featuring Boris, Devin the Dude, Awesome Color, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Flying Lotus, Vivian Girls, High Places, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Olof Arnalds, 4-Ize, as well as a side stage with performances by Aa (BIG A little a), Crystal Stilts, Lil' Dusty (new solo project from Pete Nolan of Magik Markers) and Dan Friel (member of Parts & Labor solo!) Bunnybrains, Hex Message and Woods, plus tons of DJs and art installations. The fest goes from 12:30 to 9PM and it's FREE!!!! See you there! Don't miss Other Music Radio on EVR, every Monday afternoon from 4 to 6PM. This Week's Free Song Download
Free song download of "Tonight" off the solo album debut from Jean on Jean, a/k/a Out Hud's Molly Schnick (currently available on Other Music Digital). Her new project moves in a very different direction from the 'Hud's spazzy, cerebral electro-funk, and while her cello still central, this is sweet melancholy folk-pop, focused around Schnick's haunting and beautiful multi-tracked vocals and introspective poetry.
Olof Arnalds is a young Icelandic singer/songwriter with an otherworldly vocal presence that bears obvious comparison to artists like Joanna Newsom, or even fellow countrywoman Bjork. She has been known for some time in her homeland for collaborations with Mum, Mugison, Skuli Sverrisson and others, but has fully come into her own with this embracing solo debut, which topped many prominent 2007 best-of lists in Iceland. Sung all in her native tongue, the appeal of this intimate album is nonetheless universal, a deeply emotional, wonderfully delicate suite of songs that focus on gently plucked string instruments and high-lonesome vocal melodies, making for a truly beautiful album that evokes the most precious folk chanteuses of the ages. -Josh Madell Olof Arnalds is making a couple of appearances in New York over the next two weeks, including a free performance tomorrow (Saturday, September 6) at the East Village Radio Festival at the Southstreet Seaport, next Tuesday, September 9 at Le Poisson Rouge, and then the following Tuesday, the 16th in Greenpoint at the Lutheran Church of the Messiah (with Kria Brekkan and Sam Amidon). Other Music has two pairs of tickets to give away to her show at Le Poisson Rouge! To enter, send an email to tickets@othermusic.com. We'll be notifying the two winners on Monday, September 5.
I must admit that this album won over a rather skeptical critic. My first trepidations arose from my bias against a trendy band name. As bands with names including "crystal" or "jeweled" permeate our musical horizons, Crystal Antlers' self-released EP pummels its way into the forefront of your mind, twenty-four minutes of true psych-rock that offers an ever relentless argument to fit in with a new wave of psychedelic rock able to jump from stoner metal, nature psych, and prog. This recording bares aural kinship to a member of its etymological relative, the Jeweled Antler collective of California's lush psychedelic scene. Over the EP's six songs, the reverb and feedback never quite leave the fray, making the atmosphere that bookends each song an appropriate highlight. At times breaking from its driving guitar solos, pounding keyboard bridges, and garage rock vocals to swirl and uplift a solitary note for inspection, dissection, and utter defiance. The whole time, keyboards are a cohesive glue, ranging from drone to melody in appropriate proportions. A favorite for me was the song "A Thousand Eyes," where a culmination of all Crystal Antlers' influences merge for a catchy and engaging ballad. Many bands water down what could essentially be a great EP by adding filler, but Crystal Antlers leave you wishing they had included more as the recording will loop twice through on you before you even realize it. -Brian Cassidy
Numero's well-regarded Eccentric Soul series of releases -- which celebrate labels that barely operated as such -- turns its focus to the Atlanta-based imprints headed by Jesse Jones Jr. Jones was a well regarded and seasoned music business veteran who had unsuccessfully tried to run a couple of labels in LA in the early '60s before setting up shop in Georgia. The "Tragar sound" at its best was an interesting mix of Motown-styled soul-pop and the clean-bottom, heavy rave-up funk of Wexler-produced Atlantic sides. Tracks such as Bill Wright's "You Put a Spell on Me" and "I'll Be There" by Franciene Thomas are great examples of that sound. Both are sweaty, soul steppers that could've easily have been hits of that era. There's also a great selection of gritty, soul ballads in the tradition of Otis Redding like Richard Cook's "Love Is So Mean." But the real jewels in this collection are the ones from teenaged vocalist Eula Cooper, who sounds like a bit like Carla Thomas and the raw, Wilson Pickett-esque stylings of Richard Cook. This is the most solid offering from this series in a while and, with fifty-plus tracks, there are more than enough helpings of sweet soul to satisfy your cravings for a long time. -Duane Harriott
The Malady of Elegance is a beautifully sparse piano-based full-length by Keith Kenniff, who is better known for his work as Helios. This piece nestles in aside Sylvain Chauveau's Nuage score as a dramatic and finely crafted instrument-focused album. Goldmund's release differs as it does not pertain to a film, but both albums are rooted in a European cinematic experience. The title for this record is strikingly apt, as the album is both melancholic and gorgeous minimalism, where the entire focus of each song centers on individual notes, each as important as the next, occasionally building into melody and frequently dropping into atmospheric and delicate silence. Though many songs reach minimalist heights, the repetition is not the focus of the entire record, functioning more as a foundation or centering theme. Technical and precise production makes The Malady of Elegance a particular joy. The touch of each key is an experience in itself, and the mechanics of the piano envelope the listener in a safe and tender world. You will find yourself at times begging to hear the next note, clinging to the reverberating strings as they oscillate with a personal and private reverence. Contrastingly, other songs drift through meditative minimalism, inspiring feelings of solace. Kenniff does not approach the piano to display virtuosic ability, but uses it as a means to create and capture sounds unique to the piano, reminding the listener that the magnificence of this instrument lays as much in its construction as in its acoustics. This is a must listen for fans of Sylvain Chauveau, Philip Glass, Hauschka, and of course, Kenniff's other works as Helios. -Brian Cassidy
The dreams referred to in the title are of a rarified sort, although I imagine quite a few of you have had them over the years. The hilarious Robert Crumb drawing that graces the cover art says it all: a graying, skinny, sweaty record fanatic in his room, pulling "the dead sea scrolls of record collecting" from the mail "at last, after forty years, it's mine...look at the luster of those grooves!". Yazoo has collected 45 ultra-rare and classic early blues and old-time country tracks, mostly culled from impossible-to-find 78s or never-issued masters (including two never released Son House tracks!). The set magnificently walks the line between obscurity and accessibility, with a trove of treats for collectors that will also thrill the casual listener. You can make your life's work pursuing these rare birds and break the bank in the process...or let Yazoo do the work for you, and sleep the night in peace. Sweet dreams... -Josh Madell
An impeccably curated compilation of mostly unknown blues artists recorded from the forties to the sixties. This is the third installment in a series produced by Walter De Paduwa a/k/a Dr. Boogie of Belgium, who does his part in ensuring culture prevails through his home grown museum dedicated to boogie woogie and his radio programs in devotion to the same. Highlights on this album include better known artists absolutely killing it with holes in their amps, damaged and sloppy guitars, and out of tune pianos like Champion Jack Dupree, Homesick James, Doctor Ross (whose "Texas Hop" is worth the whole disc), Lonnie Johnson, and Albert Collins. True down home fans will die for Moses Williams' "Which Way Did My Baby Go," which is a washboard and jug recording appropriated into modernity and urbanization with a crying baby in the background. Another absolute gem is Hasker Sadler's "Do Right Mind," which is interrupted by a repetitive and hysterically maniacal laugh in the background. Whether a person arrives at this album as a blues aficionado or a casual listener, it is compiled to suit everyone's needs, balancing the accessible with the challenging. Shim Sham Shimmy sits up high with a handful of blues compilations I've revered over the years. My shortlist includes a title called West Coast Down Home Blues, from the Audio Book and Music Company, the Modern Downhome Blues Volumes I - IV compiled by a young Ike Turner and Joe Bihari on Ace records, and the compilations on Boulevard Vintage under the labels Down Home Blues Classics. What these all share with the album highlighted in this review is a freedom of creation that can only exist in music made for the sake of making music. These musicians were definitely hustlers, but they did not yet -- if ever -- fall into the grips of a "clean" producer. The listener can fully imagine this music played in juke joints in the Mississippi hills, backroom bars in Memphis, card rooms in Oakland, on the corners of Maxwell Street, or in dive bars in Los Angeles in this special time between the early forties and the sixties that lead to this unbelievably idiosyncratic music. Frankly, you just won't find the original 45 of Slim Gailard's "Fuck Off" where he sings the title in imitation of a clucking chicken, and you just won't hear what that means unless you own this compilation. Fans of Fat Possum records listen up, Sub Rosa's done it again, and now it is time to pay up. -Brian Cassidy
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