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This Week's Free Song Download
This week's free song is an Exclusive Advance download of "Loom," taken from Solo Andata's self-titled album, out on Tuesday, September 8. The Australian duo's first full-length for 12k, Paul Fiocco and Kane Ikin craft otherworldly sonicscapes from a beguiling blend of live instrumentation (guitar, piano and strings), organic sounds and field recordings. Fans of 12k artists like labelhead Taylor Deupree and Minamo as well as other electro-acoustic luminaries like Mountains and Tape won't want to miss this album and its accompanying single "Look for Me Here," which will feature remixes by Ryiuchi Sakamoto and Giuseppe Ielasi. This Week's Featured Downloads
Here are some sweet jams to get you through the end of this seemingly never-ending summer swelter. Pamelo Mounk'a was one of the stars of the 1980s Congolese soukous (a/k/a rumba or kwassa kwassa) scene, and these reissues of his first three solo albums are a welcome treat. These records are some of the best of the era, and some of the last before many producers went synth crazy (sadly, not in a good way) for a good 10 to 15 years, gooping up great tunes with unfortunate presets and poor mismanaged arrangements. These albums, thankfully, have none of that; Mounk'a lets his records breathe with a steady bounce and the sensual interplay of some three or four guitars (led by the brilliant Master Mwana Congo), electric bass, skittering cymbal-led percussion grooves, stately horn sections, and vocals from Congo heavies like Tabu Ley and M'Bilia Bel. The opening cut on L'essentiel, which reissues his debut LP (from 1981), his fourth LP (from 1982) and the second side of his fifth LP (1983), is "L'Argent Appelle L'Argent," one of my all time favorite African jams. It sets the scene for what follows across these three collections quite nicely -- the hook is so damn catchy and the vocals so deep and soulful that after years and years of knowing the tune, once it enters my brain, it's stuck there for days. The album's other rock-solid jam is 1983's "Le Travail Toujours Le Travail," whose groove and arrangement comes off like Kid Creole on holiday in the Congo.
L'indispensable, which includes his second LP, Samantha (from 1981), and his sixth LP (from 1984), is a bit more sedate but none less enjoyable -- after the sunset party vibes of the first record, a bit of a comedown was inevitable. The standout on the second album is the title cut, a huge tune for Mounk'a and the start of an ongoing trend in his music which saw him writing longing, swinging tunes about ladies with names which end in the letter "a". The fifth record picks up the pace again a bit with "Camitina" (see!?) and "Aminata D'Abidjan" (again!!), and "Tamara" (noticing a trend here?), the songs' crab-walking shuffles and robust horns working magic in your speakers.
The last set, L'incontournable, collects his third LP (from 1982), side one of the 1983 fifth LP also featured on L'essentiel, and another mystery album that I've never seen or heard otherwise of the same vintage. (Anyone wanna help me out on this one?! It's so good!) On most of the disc it's business as usual, more sultry jams about ladies whose names end in the letter "a" ("Nourama," "Cynthia," "Selimandja") with all of the quality we've come to expect and enjoy. It's the tracks from that mystery album, though, that prove the most satisfying, particularly "Mon Monsieur"'s Compass Pointillist dubby synth punctuations, drum machine handclaps, and a more upbeat, hard driving rhythm -- it's a welcome addition to the trademark sounds going on already. Both that song and "Mbala Liboso" also feature vocals by soukous queen M'Bilia Bel, adding a wonderful counterpoint to Pamelo's soulful ululations. All in all, this is some of the greatest Congolese music of a more modern vintage ever released. Many folks go bonkers for Franco, Tabu Ley, et al., but personally, Pamelo's my man. These three collections are the definition of essential African listening for me, and I seriously cannot recommend them enough. Dig in and enjoy!! -Mikey IQ Jones
Cali's Dublab collective continues to support their homegrown talent with this new compilation released on Porter Records. Several of these tracks first came out in 2007 on a limited (and sold out) twelve-inch that commemorated the two-week Echo Expansion tour through Europe, featuring names like Flying Lotus, Blank Blue and Dntel. Here those cuts are fleshed out with eight new songs, a total of 16 tracks from the likes of Daedelus, Adventure Time and Andrew Pekler, as well as a new generation of beat maestros, including the Gaslamp Killer, Dimlite and Ras G. The mood shifts from light and fluttery beat science to a more electronic-acoustic hybrid, but the end result is a solid cross-section of music from an eccentrically diverse yet still like-minded crew of producers and artists. A good cap on the summer of 2009. -Daniel Givens
Another month and another wonderfully weird, mysterious Woodsist album. This time Portland, Oregon's Meth Teeth are here to play a game I call hide the pop. They had a great 7" on Sweet Rot and a cassette last year, and make the move to the larger format in fine fashion. The record is loaded with tribal drums and warbly guitar and tape hiss, and vocals that often remind me of the Country Teasers. But like fellow Portlanders Eat Skull, their distorted vocals, blasts of static and fuzz can't completely obscure that catchy pop. It may be buried but by the second listen you'll find it. -Dave Martin
Australia's Summer Cats keep the fires lit for a modern-day indie/twee pop revival. Like labelmates The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and the Vivian Girls, Summer Cats dust off ideas from proven formulas and dress them up with youthful energy and inventiveness, reaching out to bands like Superchunk and the Go-Betweens with equal fervor.
Man, things are worse than I thought. You know it's gotten really bad when bands are being priced out of Brooklyn, left with no option but for retreat into the wilds of Queens in order to find affordable rent. Wait, I'm hearing that the Beets may actually be FROM Queens. As in, their parents lived there, so they did too -- maybe still under the same roof in some cases. While I can't confirm whether these Beets have left the hive yet, it seems to matter less and less the more I listen to this new LP. The lo-fi, echo-drenched aesthetic has become something of a go-to lately, and parallels can be drawn to current local jangle-darlings Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls, and Cause Co-motion. However, the Beets are cutting an even cruder path through the brush, using similar tools, but winding up a mile or two down the road from where the rest of the party ended up, triumphantly emerging with tattered, beer-soaked map in hand. That is to say, there's a certain naive, unrefined charm here that buys them a lot of time and credit. While we're certainly not lacking for bands playing a slopped-out garage-folk hand these days, there's a refreshing sense of purity and, more importantly, real joy and FUN here, that effectively insulates it from any attempts at hating. If this kind of thing had even the slightest whiff of irony or calculation the spell would be broken, and you'd be beside yourself with anger and disgust. Instead, the Beets carry it off in the same way the Television Personalities or the Pastels turned a shambling racket into something lovable and endearing, creating one of the more inspired messes I've heard in a great while. Make a joyful noise. -Jonathan Treneff |
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