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This Week's Free Song Download
Lali Puna (and their sisterband Notwist) left an indelible mark on indietronic music during the first half of the last decade, so we're thrilled to see the German quartet back with their first full-length after almost six years. As you can hear from this free song download of "Remember" (off Our Inventions, which comes out this Friday), their latest is a more introspective offering than 2004's Faking the Books, a return of sorts to the sweetly melancholic electro-pop that put the band on the map and inspired countless indie bands to pick up their laptops. This Week's Featured Downloads
Italians Do It Better's first single of the year finds Johnny Jewel and Ida No reprising fan favorite "Feeling Without Touching" from their Deep Gems collection, here with a little more low end and brighter, buzzier synths. The b-sides are great too: the sultry "Sugar & Whitebread," some nighttime bliss-out a la "Covered in Bugs" and the cosmic drone of "Shine Like Gold & Diamonds," plus instrumental versions of the first two cuts. It sure looks like Glass Candy's going to keep slow motion disco alive and kicking in 2010 and that's more than alright by us.
Hild Sofie Tafjord is known as one half of the noisy duo Fe-mail (with fellow Norwegian Maja Ratkje), who also make up one half of Spunk. Her debut solo set demonstrates a more composed approach to noise than either of those ensembles. Using her French horn as the main sound source, Tafjord has created a dense work involving many more textures than one would expect from a brass instrument. Waves of drone and clang build up over seven minutes before the whole thing erupts into harsh noise territory. Even as crumbling walls of distortion take over, many other ringing tones and electronic pulses can be heard underneath. The CD consists of one 41-minute track, but it never loses focus, shifting through several movements. Tafjord often breaks the piece down to sections of minimal activity, and builds it back up using layers of contrasting sonic textures. The piercing electronic tone that glides over the top of sparse, low-end horn utterances at the 16-minute mark is a masterful use of the full sonic spectrum. By 28 minutes a chugging rhythmic pulse has developed, with all manner of swirling noise building up into a chaotic din. One of Tafjord's strengths is her ability to let things develop slowly over several minutes and the long-form presentation of this track allows this technique to succeed. Kudos to Lasse Marhaug as a label curator and to Tafjord as a composer. While Marhaug is certainly one of the more prolific noise artists active today, it's telling that he is extremely selective about the small number of releases on Pica Disk. Tafjord took almost 10 years from the time the first Spunk CD was released on Rune Grammofon to let the world hear her solo work, and it was well worth the wait. -Marc Moeller
The first in a monthly series of Jazkamer CDs to be issued throughout 2010, Solitary Nail rushes out of the gate with all manner of sharp feedback and noise. After four minutes this dissolves into a short passage dominated by a low rumbling sound, as if the earth is groaning after the initial storm, before resuming its pummeling noise palette for the duration of the piece. Jazkamer is one of the finest noise acts in the world, and the prospect of being treated to a different aspect of the duo's sound every month is one of the more exciting propositions in recent noise history. Solitary Nail consists of one 30-minute composition, and is very much akin to a live set I saw them perform at Erstquake a few years ago. That particular set contained the harshest, most thrillingly difficult noise I have endured in a live setting, even topping known assault technician Zbigniew Karkowski in the feedback punishment category. Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre, here joined by Jean-Philippe Gross, clearly show that years of working together allows them to speak a common language. Their output has always benefited from interplay between two adept artists, and stands out from the glut of one-man acts that simply present harsh sound as one wall of noise. Marhaug's Pica Disk label has so far succeeded with large scope projects, such as the Incapacitants 10CD box set, and the Government Alpha 4CD box set. I fully trust that 2010 will be no exception, with these monthly CD installments forming a grand statement over time. -Marc Moeller
Many of my favorite moments from the deep trove of amazing '60s/'70s African music that has been unearthed in the past ten years feature odd fusions of styles; those moments when you feel you've never really heard anything quite like this before. It certainly applies to many of my favorite moments on this collection, the second in Soundway's Nigeria Special series. As usual, label honcho Miles Cleret has done his homework and uncovered songs which have been forgotten or out of print for nearly 35 years. And as before, these songs combine so many different styles -- Highlife, Juju, Rhumba, Yoruba, Igbo, Bini, Ijaw, Soul, Jazz, African Funk, and Cuban rhythms -- in effortless and inventive amalgamations. It's the musician's sense of freedom, irreverence and sheer joy in music that makes these songs so palpably enjoyable. And it's those unlikely and truly global combinations of style, rather than the staid clichés of so-called World Music, that strike me as being so fantastic. Joy Nwosu and Dan Satch's "Egwo Umu Agbohgho" may be my favorite example. With its tranced-out bass line and vocal incantations, it will appeal to fans of Future Days-era Can and Eno-era Talking Heads. And while songs like Emporer Dele Ojo & His African Internationals' "Jekoyewa," the Professional Seagulls Dance Band of Port Harcourt's "Ibi Awo Iyi" and the People Star's "Onwu Dinjo" promise to soundtrack the summer to come, their laidback, sun-kissed joy may provide even more delicious longing in these nascent days of spring. Many of the songs featured here were intended for radio play, and are therefore in the three- to four-minute range, but a few tracks stretch out; Opotopo's "Agboho" (featuring Easy Kabaka Brown) is one of these and it's a cruiser of epic proportions. Mind you, I could go off, describing each and every song here in vivid detail, but suffice it to say, anyone with a remote interest in this music will find much here to enjoy. Indeed, like all the Soundway collections that have preceded it, you'll find it hard to believe so much of this wonderful music has languished in obscurity for so long. If this is, as the liner notes profess, the final chapter in Soundway's survey of Nigeria's forgotten music, I can only hope Cleret will focus his astute attentions on another musical history as equally rich. And I have a feeling he will. -Alexis Georgopoulos
Awesome reissue of a heavily atmospheric and fairly weird obscure soul LP originally issued in 1974 by Stax subsidiary We Produce. It's picked up a bit of a cult following over the years, but it's still not nearly as known as it ought to be, hopefully this Light in the Attic release will change that. String-laden, yet still strangely sparse sounding, with long, slow-burning tracks that gain in heaviness and momentum, you'll hear shades of Terry Callier and Isaac Hayes, but with a more string-of-consciousness bent. Definitely one of the more idiosyncratic soul LPs that I can think of, with a lovely soft folk edge to it considering the nice finger-picked guitar and mellow flute and string arrangements. Late night vibes for days on here people, pretty sure you'll love it. -Michael Klausman
Another holy grail find from the store turned record label, Honest Jon's, this being a collection of the excellent work of Cedric IM Brooks and his Light of Saba ensemble. Born in Kingston in 1943, Brooks bridged the gap between roots, reggae and jazz effortlessly. He first started playing saxophone and clarinet in a group that included Ernest Ranglin, Tommy McCook, and Roland Alphonso. Having been influenced by Ethiopian music, and the music of John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Pharoah Sanders, an extended stay in Philadelphia '68 landed him a gig playing with Sun Ra; it was there that he became inspired to form his own open/free musical collective. Returning to Jamaica, Brooks began recording his soulful and hard funk brand of reggae-jazz, inviting musicians to live collectively, including poets and dancers. This purposeful mixing of free jazz with Rasta spirituality and nyabinghi drums is absolutely amazing. The playing is spot on and the spirit and vibe is intact, moving from slow burning pieces like the spooky guitar and synths of "Lambs Bread Collie" to the joyful female vocal chant on "Nobody's Business." Also included is a cover of "Song For My Father" and the disco-influenced "Free Up Black Man." This is heavy, serious stuff. -Daniel Givens
Roaming the same hillside as Count Ossie & the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, Light of Saba trombonist Calvin Cameron is one of the lasting members of the Groundation musicians, a group known for creating hedonistic trance jams by combining niyabinghi drumming, reggae and jazz. Wareika Hill Sounds is a new recording featuring various members of the aforementioned collectives. Here, Cameron is joined by players who also were around during Lee Perry's formative Black Ark era, original Saba drummers, and special guest Tony Allen. This is a bassy, thumping, and funky reggae party with sharp, flowing horn arrangements, with Cameron effortlessly floating on top of the heavy percussion rhythms. If you've been following Honest Jon's output, from Mali Music to Lagos Chop Up and the great London Is the Place For Me series, then you know this is quality roots music not to be missed. Jah's light continues to shine bright and deep...recommended for your enlightenment. -Daniel Givens |
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