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Free song download of "Certain Movement," from remarkable NY composer/mad scientist Tristan Perich's 1-Bit Music machine, a teeny mini-computer that he solders into a plastic CD case. It's a pretty nutty little contraption and it's amazing that the music is as compelling as its delivery system. We just received a limited handful of these amazing devices at the shop, so here is a free sample of Perich's extraordinarily primitive, patterned based and minimalist music-influenced electronic tracks. This Week's Featured Downloads
Alright, super excited to get this one as a download. Of all the thousands of albums I've been exposed to over the last nine years of working for Other Music, this one lands near the very top of most treasured discoveries. It's simply impossible to wear this one out. What I was trying to get at in the review below from 2005 is not that it's some monumentally groundbreaking artistic achievement, but that it's one of the most comfortably persuasive compulsive listens you'll ever be privy to, and one of the rare albums where I'd be astounded if the listener was not moved by it. Here is what I had to say when the reissue first came out: This is a great, charming, unassuming little Spanish folk record that seems to already be defining my summer. Everyone I've played it for has been as surprised as I at how lovely it is. It's not the kind of thing that'll have to grow on you either, for it isn't particularly weird, or psychedelic, or anything like that. It's just, well, like I said, lovely. Warmly and impeccably recorded by Daevid Allen in 1976 in Deia, Mallorca, Pep Laguarda and Tapineria's only album Brossa D'ahir seems to just gently float outside of time. What taste and restraint they show, with peacefully shambolic melodies, delicately strummed acoustic guitars, and lightly tapped woodblocks cocooning the listener in an exquisite Mediterranean glow. I'm serious; it's rare for a record to succeed this well at making a listener feel so content. So, let's just let the rest of summer slowly unwind with Brossa D'ahir as our soundtrack shall we? -Michael Klausman
After the much loved and timelessly essential Give Me Love and Living Is Hard, Sprigs of Time is welcomed with much excitement. Honest Jon's has been digging through over a hundred-and-fifty-thousand 78 records in EMI's Hayes vault, and this collection functions as a sampling of the widely various highlights left untouched for decades, covering indispensable gems from 1903 to 1957. Unlike the last two comps that focused on music from Iraq and West Africa circa 1920s, Sprigs of Time reveals Great Britain's global reach, an eclectic sampling of the world's mainstays, oddities, and exclusive rarities -- all music truly worth saving. 78s of Cuban and Lebanese rumba, British pop, West African string bands, royal Japanese court music and Middle Eastern doduk complement and contrast against each other naturally. Add to this player piano organ rolls from Georgia, Balinese gamelan gong groups and Bengalese street performers, and the album refocuses a balance between the margins. Despite the disparity, Sprigs of Time leaves your mind spinning in the best sort of ways. These songs are artifacts attesting to pre-globalized musical traditions, but they are compiled with vital attention to pacing and process. I can't say enough about this compilation and this series. -Brian Cassidy
A Motown session musician and small time producer, Dave Hamilton seemed to be one of those guys who operated on the fringes of Detroit's soul scene. The busy studio he ran for 30 years fed off of the infinite number of aspiring singers and musicians eager to cut sides in the shadows of Motown. Kent has devoted at least four volumes to Hamilton's productions and session work, culled from hundreds of acetates found in his studio. Most of these tunes were released on teeny labels, barely any of them making an impact even on a local level, but the quality of these recordings are quite astounding and over the years no less than Cut Chemist, DJ Shadow, Keb Darge and DJ Premier have hailed these pieces as some of the finest funk ever produced. I concur, folks. This is some raw, dirty s**t. Tracks like "Hunchin" by Gib Roberts and Hamilton's "Because I Love You" are low-slung and sleazy companion pieces to the "Loose Booty"/"Funky Worm"-styled funk madness of Funkadelic and Ohio Players. The Detroit Funk collection also includes "I Got Some" Part 1 and 2 from unsung Detroit soul legend Billy Gardner, which Shadow and Chemist fans might recognize from the first Brainfreeze mix. Though these tunes were a bit leftfield for hit radio some 30 years ago, the raw, psych-tinged sounds of these records sound ridiculously inspired.
The second collection, Detroit Dancers, concentrates on Hamilton's northern soul productions and sessions. Early Motown was definitely an influence on many of the cuts here, several almost sounding like interpolations of well-known ditties from the Motown vault. But like Detroit Funk, all of these songs have a raw drive to them and the musicianship is topnotch. The stars of this collection have to be O C Tolbert, Tobi Lark and Little Ann. All three were unsung Detroit singer who acquired a reverential audience in the UK amongst the northern soul steppers. The gospel-shuffle of Tolbert's "I'm Shooting High (Reach for the Sky)," Lark's "Talking 'Bout Love" and Little Ann's "What Should I Do" are some of the best of the genre, and all three tunes are included here. But honestly, there ain't a song on here that won't get you clappin' and stompin'. Fans of the Eccentric Soul series, Keb Darge, or any of the aforementioned should check these out with a quickness. -Duane Harriott
Super hot and much needed comp of West African calypso from the fine folks at Honest Jon's in London. Calypso is of course an invention of Caribbean slave descendants, invented sometime during the first decade of our previous century in Trinidad and Tobago. No doubt many of its early practitioners were not too far removed from their West African origins, so it's interesting to see their invention head back across the ocean and take root. Some of the artists here, such as E.T. Menash, would eventually take what they learned from calypso and use it to develop what would become African Highlife. The worldwide commercial success of calypso in the 1950s has tended to obscure the revolutionariness of the music, with its abiding obsession with topical politics and sexual relations. The vast majority of the tracks here are in English, and even despite the presence of heavy patois here and there, you can more than grasp what these artists are getting at. Part of the genius of calypso is that it never operates with a heavy hand, employing instead abundant humor, clever wordplay, and jocular syncopated beats. As this is a comp of West African calypso you can expect some pretty remarkable percussive breakdowns as well. A truly stellar and highly enjoyable collection all around. -Michael Klausman
Editions Mego are having an unbeatable run of releases at the moment and this latest from Scandinavian explorers BJ Nilsen and Stillyuppsteypa is another stunning disc to add to the canon. Swedish drone-lord Nilsen joins Icelandic pranksters Stillyuppsteypa for the fourth time here and they have put together probably their finest collaboration to date. It's too easy to lump this kind of gloomy ambience in together but Man from Deep River succeeds in genuinely standing out from the crowd with its peculiar field recordings and woozy selection of dark drones. Apparently the three extended tracks were informed by an old tape from the mid '70s which I'd like to think was recorded somewhere in the jungle, maybe as part of some daring exploration into uncharted territory. The disc kicks off with an almost untouched gamelan recording that disintegrates slowly into a terrifyingly cold drone. It is almost dark ambient, but the field recordings add a genuine air of displaced terror, not so much from the deep annals of a church basement as from a helicopter somewhere in the Caribbean. As such, we get a sense of being framed as the lost traveler, wandering through unseen lands being trailed by hostile natives. Eventually we drift into the final piece, a compelling half-hour of fizzing, fiery manipulation with disorientating bubbles of synthetic sound drifting above a bed of crackling embers. Genuinely unsettling and always compelling, those of you enthralled by the more experimental end of the ambient spectrum will no doubt love getting lost in Deep River. -John Twells
This is a hugely underrated album in the Don Cherry discography, and one of his most successful attempts ever at reaching an east/west fusion. Don't let that last word put you off, this is really some higher level music, impossible to pin down stylistically, and more relevant that ever. Indian tabla player Latif Khan provides the rhythmic background with cyclic beats, as Cherry improvises on an array of African and Asian string and wind instruments, as well as wordlessly vocalizing over the least offensive keyboards I've ever heard on what is ostensibly supposed to be a jazz record. Actually, Cherry was pretty far beyond jazz at this point, his achievement comparable in a way to how Arthur Russell genetically modified the DNA of disco. Brilliantly produced and an excellent headphone listen, full of ghostly harmonies, sparse melodies, endlessly loping rhythms, and some extremely genius improvising. -Michael Klausman
In a career chock full of new highs and innovations, the late seventies was a particularly fertile era for Sun Ra. Ever the one to push the boundaries of sound and music, this period found him exploring different instrumentation, including electronics, as well as tonality and other rhythm structures. It is right in the middle of this era that Sun Ra and a very scaled down Arkestra -- John Gilmore (sax/vocals), Luqman Ali (drums/vocals), Michael Ray (trumpet/vocals) and June Tyson (vocals) -- took an extended trip to Italy during the winter of '77-'78. The resulting Disco 3000 is an excellent encapsulation of the diversity of Mr. Ra's late-seventies work; a double-CD with six bonus tracks, this expanded edition runs the gamut from, hard bop to a full, smearing sound meltdown. "A Third Planet Incl, Friendly Galaxy" begins with a stark and hollow tone before slowly progressing into a confident and punchy bop workout, with really nice acoustic piano solos and flourishes that showcase Sun Ra's beautiful playing in a way you don't hear to often enough around this time. This is followed by the brilliant "Dance of the Cosmo Aliens," where a scratchy rhythm is picked and pecked at with nervous detail while a slow, slightly off kilter drumbeat provides a shaky anchor. And as if the built tension wasn't satisfactory, Ra comes in with positively wobbly cosmic keyboard madness. Part science fiction, part circus horror movie soundtrack, this seems to operate with only a cursory acknowledgement of life down here on Earth. Oh, and for all the truly forward thinking beatmakers out there -- do investigate. What I like about this album is Sun Ra's ability to fluidly move from the lyrical to loco, from sprawling to urgent, with such ease it's seems like a slight of hand. And from Ra, it all makes perfect sense. -Geoff Albores
Fantastic compilation of Australian punk and new wave and post-punk, circa 1978-1982. I can't say you've probably heard of bands here past the Moodists and the Apartments, but the quality is the Aussie equivalent of Family Fodder, Raincoats, the Fall -- like what came out on the labels Stiff, Rough Trade, Y. Artsy pop, keyboards galore, punk force in shambles, tinny keyboard man-machine melodies, angular angst. From fabulous electro new wave songs to punk slapdash urgency, to more artsy pop experiments, the selection (by David Nichols [Cannanes] and Guy Blackman) is incredible, the vast majority off of tiny-label seven-inches that you'll never find, ever. Electro kids will find something to love, punk's not left behind, even those of you (us?) who lived through this fruitful period of music will find here a ton of stuff totally missed. -Robin Edgerton
As much loved as the first volume of Can't Stop It! was at the shop, I think the second installment is a tad BETTER. Volume 2 has more of a rich, varied and underground post-punk gem vibe, peppered with tasteful bits of synth. It's influenced by British DIY, but it also breaks from the influence with a liberated, self-assured exploratory spirit. I can't even get into my typical blow-by-blow description; there's just too much going on. Of course you get songs that resemble DIY Birthday Party-pop with post-punk vocals, but these are still quality moments. You'll want to check out Wild Dog Rodeo, or how about a 19-year-old Lisa Gerrard (later of Dead Can Dance fame) fronting a very capable art-shamble DIY band called Microfilm?! (It's actually good!!) Then there's an early Severed Heads track featuring female vocals and a drum machine, which sounds like a minimal-synth Essential Logic! Have you heard of The Goat That Went "OM" or Use No Hooks...some great boppy DIY pop. There are lots of lo-fi Desperate Bicycles cum 53rd and 3rd pop sensibility meets Ludus/Family Fodder art girl stuff (BRRR Cold, Use No Hooks, Belle Du Soir). The Swell Guys sound like a cross between Faust and the Nightingales! This compilation just keeps on giving. It especially shines when it confounds expectations by slowly falling off the edge into the blissfully fun quirky/weird zone. Excellent all the way through and completely recommended! -Scott Mou
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