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This Week's Free Song Download
This week's Free Song Download, "Swim," is taken from Surfer Blood's forthcoming debut full-length, Astro Coast (out on January 19th on Kanine Records). Sure to be one of 2010's breakout bands, these Florida boys craft unabashedly infectious indie rock, dropping reverb-drenched Beach Boys harmonies over fuzzy guitars and occasional nods to Afro-pop, all immersed in summery vibes befitting of their sunshine state of mind. This Week's Featured Downloads
Waiting for You, the debut full-length from King Midas Sound, the trio of producer Kevin "The Bug" Martin, poet/vocalist Roger Robinson, and vocalist Hitomi, is worthy of their hefty band name and the title is wholly appropriate; ask the guys around the store and they'll confirm that I had been waiting for this record all year! As a fan of the dub politics of Massive Attack, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Tricky, and more recently Kode9 and SpaceApe, Paul St. Hiliare's work with Rhythm & Sound, and Burial, this is the next post-millennium late night nu-dub masterpiece, and it weighed in near the top of my favorite releases of 2009.
Waiting for You is stunning, haunting, deep and worldly, an after-hours journey into a mix of modern digidub and lover's rock. Martin's deep history of exploring and updating the many facets of reggae music is wonderfully focused here; each song has an atmosphere unto itself, womblike, full of hollow space, deep echoes, and ghostly tales. Collectively they float together in an infectious, hypnotic, atmospheric, intimate and tender brew. The sparse yet fulfilling bed of mechanic clicks, muted snaps, tumbling percussion, deep pulses, crackles, warm bass and low end hum gently form the framework for Robinson's soft and magnetic voice draped in reverb and delay, and Hitomi's sweet and sour vocals add a lightness that cuts through the barren smoky wasteland like a ray of light. The lyrics are lovingly conscious, with social and political human themes; it's full of longing, heartbeats and whispers, sighs and kisses, a real 808s and heartbreak. Think of Sade's album Lover's Rock but add in Horace Andy and Gil Scott-Heron on vocals, produced by Keith Hudson and mixed at the Black Ark. -Daniel Givens
It's hard to write about Derrick May without using the words 'genius', 'classic' and 'important' -- the guy was responsible for kick-starting a movement that would define a generation, and really, they don't come much more worthy than that. He wasn't alone, but when he released "Nude Photo" in 1987 under the shadowy pseudonym Rhythim is Rhythim, something in the architecture of electronic music was changed forever. May had taken the house music forms that were making waves across underground American clubs and re-programmed them with his love of Kraftwerk and Funkadelic. He took the sci-fi precision of his German idols and infected it with an electrified funk, creating a blend previously unimaginable. Innovation doesn't go even halfway to explaining how influential these early tracks were; after "Nude Photo" came "Strings of Life," and May was forever guaranteed a place in the history books. His tracks would serve as a prime keystone for the fledgling Warp label all the way across the Atlantic in Sheffield, and would kick start a scene that we're still recovering from over twenty years later. I shouldn't need to say much more really -- this bumper two-disc set has been out of print and much sought after for ages now and it's fantastic to see it available again. Innovator is one of those collections every electronic music fan should own; not only is it extensive, collecting most of the best tracks from May's career, but it's also gorgeously sequenced. We've got "Strings of Life," "Nude Photo," "Icon," "It Is What It Is" and many more classics all sitting next to each other, showing just why great electronic music simply doesn't age. Trends come and go, but good quality techno just never ceases to amaze and astound. -John Twells
It's about damn time! You could write a pretty nifty dissertation on the unsung historical influence of this man's music on the shaping and molding of reggae and all of its variations, a la ska, dancehall, rocksteady, etc. I don't have room to do all of that here, but the Cliff Notes version goes like this: Laurel Aitken was a Jamaican of Cuban descent who was arguably the first major JA-born singer to make inarguably Jamaican music. His 1958 single "Little Shiela" is considered ground zero for ska, earning him the "Godfather of Ska" moniker, and it also happened to be one of the first records ever produced by Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records. He was the first Jamaican artist to gain a recording contract in the UK, and was the first to release a single on the acclaimed Blue Beat label. Many young people adapted his personal style, slang and swagger as a lifestyle and for most UK mods and skinheads at that time, Aitken was God. By the time these two albums were recorded (1969 and 1970), Aitken had relocated to the UK, where for 10 years he built a large, young, London fan-base primarily made up of newly arrived lower class immigrants and working class skinhead youth. The economic and social climate around the country was tense as the rift between classes became ever wider, with conservative leaders playing race-baiting games by exploiting the anxieties of older white British residents. (Sound familiar?) Scandal in a Brixton Market was an unusual concept album built around the story of an unmarried couple living in the diverse, immigrant community of Brixton, and their problems with infidelity. Aitken used the concept to address all of the aforementioned issues, as well as providing an honest reflection of Brixton life in the 60s. With Laurel and his female foil Girlie basically toasting back and forth over killer rocksteady grooves provided by legendary UK reggae band the Rudies, the album would become an immediate hit and Aitken's popularity soared.
The following year, Aitken's label Bama capitalized on his ever-growing following, basically packaging all of his biggest hits together as The High Priest of Reggae and releasing the record as the follow-up to Scandal. In a nutshell, this is some of the best bluebeat rocksteady music you'll ever hear. Considered by aficionados as THE definitive "skinhead" reggae album, every single track here is killer, highlighting the diverse, musical prowess and genius of Aitken. Released right around the same time as U-Roy's Version Galore, which many people consider the first major record to feature toasting, songs like "Jesse James," "Mr. Popcorn" and "Skinhead Invasion" are great call-and-response showcases for Aitken's direct deejay/toasting skills. Elsewhere, brilliant covers of "Don't Be Cruel," "(Sloop) John B" and "Save the Last Dance" spotlight his rich crooning tenor and his love of rock 'n' roll while "Landlords and Tenants" and "Suffering Still" are fantastic socially conscious tunes, addressing the exploitation of poor UK immigrants and the widening social gap then occurring in England. Originally pressings of these records will set you back at least $200 a piece, but for a fraction of that price you get both of these brilliant albums, as well as ten-plus bonus tracks on each release. If you still cherish your Clash and 2 Tone ska comps from the 80s, and you're not familiar with Laurel Aitken, then consider this required listening. Superb stuff right here! -Duane Harriott
There's an awesome quote from Werner Herzog on Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger's Wikipedia page: "He is a magnificent cellist, and he can do anything, anything on his cello. He could play the civil war, the American Civil war on his cello." Reijseger has scored a few of Herzog's more recent documentaries, and a previous disc collecting those works was a pretty big hit around here a few years back. The Herzog quote is no doubt true, as Reijseger's technique and creative mind are beyond reproach, but what I personally love about his albums of late is that while he's quite capable of flaunting his extraordinary virtuosity on the violoncello, he's also just as likely to be content in blanketing the listener in gorgeous cascades of pure sound. His latest album, Tell Me Everything, is an intimate and scaled-down affair, apparently recorded in open air at the La Commenda di San Eufronsino in Tuscany, and accompanied solely by the passing breeze and the song of birds. Full of languorous pauses and lyric beauty, along with his signature ability to create wondrous harmonic overtones, this is a perfect, perfect introduction to an incomparable musician. -Michael Klausman
Renowned for his work with earthy SF outsider collective Thuja, Steven R. Smith's name might still not ring a bell, and even if it does, this is quite a departure from the subtle folkloric soundscapes of Thuja and the Central/Eastern European-influenced solo project Hala Strana. From the initial Richter scale rumble to the Eastern-tinged melody that closes the piece, Crown of Marches slowly undulates and unfolds, with its foundation in the disparity of the ominous feedback and shimmering guitar lines. The thick, dreamy haze is interspersed with quieter moments of bells, cymbals, keyboards, and timpani, making for a constant ebb and flow of harsh and gentle tones. Crown of Marches exists somewhere in between the subterranean psych rumblings of Bardo Pond and Dead C and the meditative trance of Ashra, but also wholly in its own universe. -Andreas Knutsen |
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