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Free song download of "Perfect Fit," from Apostle of Hustle's third full-length, Eats Darkness. Led by Broken Social Scene's Andrew Whiteman with bassist Julian Brown (Feist) and Dean Stone (Amy Millan) on drums, the new record eschews the subtle Latin music influences earlier AoH releases and instead moves into a more taut and slightly darker conceptual territory. Sound collage snippets and dubby experimental pop sit alongside the kind of harmony-filled indie rock that put the whole BSS collective (and Arts & Crafts) on the map, resulting in an album that's all at once visceral and catchy, leaving the listener guessing what's coming around the corner. Win Tickets to Apostle of Hustle at Bowery Ballroom This Week's Featured Downloads
The Phenomenal Handclap band started out as an ambitious studio project birthed by noted NYC producer/DJs Daniel Collas, a talented keyboardist who has produced records for salsa legend Joe Bataan and Brazilian funk band Uniao Black, and Sean Marquand, co-runner of the long-running Brazilian Beat party in Brooklyn. Pulling from their love of psychedelic rock, New York disco and tropicalia, PHB's self-titled debut is an extremely focused listen, and the fact that all of these influences are able to co-exist within the same song without sounding like a mess is a testament to their great ears for arrangements. Featuring a long list of guest musicians which include Jon Spencer, TV on the Radio's Jaleel Bunton and Carol C from Si*Se, the vibes are sunny and bright all around. Highlights include the live neo-disco of "You'll Disappear" and the roller disco-rock bounce of "15 to 20," which features old skool rapper Lady Tigra of L'trimm. There's also a nice psychedelic vibe that pervades throughout and the whole record that kinda comes off like a Phoenix on acid...and this is a good thing. The Phenomenal Handclap Band have already garnered quite a bit of hype in the UK and loads of acclaim for their impressive live shows; this is definitely a group you need to check out. Quality! -Duane Harriott
For over two years now, we've been captivated by Los Angeles duo Pocahaunted's knack for breathing new life into the heady, elusive genre of improv psych. The prolific team of Bethany Cosentino and Amanda Brown (co-head of noise/drone/psych label Not Not Fun) has already out-released most masturbatory psych-rock lifers, with over twenty limited cassettes, CD-Rs, and records to their credit on esteemed underground labels like Brooklyn's Fuck It Tapes and Iowa City's Night People. Owing to a wildly-fluctuating stream of musical obsessions ranging from Double Leopards to the Beach Boys to Tom Tom Club, the band's appetite for subverting and revolutionizing typical psychedelic/experimental/drone elements has borne collaborations with Christina Carter, Robedoor, and members of Raccoo-oo-oon, and even inspired inclusion on a DVD compilation by hometown diy punk-pop label PPM (run by Dean Spunt of No Age). We couldn't be more psyched to feature Island Diamonds on Other Music Digital; our favorite full-length to date, these half-dozen eight-minute-or-so jams were born on the wings of Pocahaunted's love affair with Lee Scratch Perry and doing household chores to Soul Jazz box sets. The result is a collection of inspired one-take stunners that innovatively synthesize dark, spaced-out bass grooves, Middle Eastern-influenced guitar drone, and steady, beat-driven psych-pop. Cosentino's airy chanting channels Elizabeth Fraser, and "Riddim Queen" sounds like a Garlands-era Cocteau Twins song over an R&B beat. "Iron Shirt" is the most straight-ahead nod to '80s-era shoegaze pop, with waves of distorted guitar, hypnotic blown-out drums, and layered, unintelligible crooning -- think the ultimate slow-dance jam for the gothiest Nite Jewel fans. We're hard pressed to think of other bands -- Blues Control and Mountains come to mind -- who are making such soulful, unrestrained, inventive psychedelic music. -Karen Soskin
This west coast "ambassador of boogie funk" had been honing his patented brand of "modern funk" in his basement for about a decade-and-a-half, unbeknownst to anyone until about two years ago when he began releasing it to the world. Picking up where his heroes Prince, Patrick Adams, Roger Troutman and Leroy Burgess left off in the mid '80s, Dam's music is an intoxicating blend of spacey, new school g-funk that kicks like true school hip-hop, but sounds a helluva lot warmer with nary a sample in sight. With only a handful of records and a popular weekly boogie party called Funkmosphere that he throws in LA, Dam has created a buzz around his forthcoming debut album, Toeachhizown, for Stones Throw. Dam's Rhythm Trax is a great glimpse at what he has in store. Recorded in a marathon 24-hour session, we get eight short instrumentals with titles like "Silver," "Indigo" and "Sunset;" each one is drippin' with Technicolor boogie that ranges from the new wave, double-time, Minneapolis-funk of the aptly named "Purple" to the percolating, pocket calculating rhythms of opener "Black." Rhythm Trax 4 is an addictive listen and quite a primer, as this album could stand alone as an impressive debut for anyone; add to this a forthcoming full-length and remixes for Animal Collective, Nite Jewel and Cubic Zirconia all in the bag, it sounds like this is only the beginning Dam Funk. -Duane Harriott
It's quite possible that Jonathan Kane makes THE perfect road music...if the road is 300 miles of endless swamp with nary a soul in sight. This is road music for ripping through the Everglades in a fanboat, hitting terra firma, and finding that instead of the land of palm trees and flamingos, you've got to drive through Death Valley in a GTO with no AC. This is when you pop some Jonathan Kane into the cassette deck, pass the dutchie, and just let it riiiiiide, brutha. I know, I'm probably not the only one thinking that "getting into a groove" would be something you'd ever expect (or want!) to utter in the same sentence as "founding member of Swans," but that's exactly what Jonathan Kane has been up to these last years. Having done time in groups with minimal monsters La Monte Young and Rhys Chatham, Kane has gone back to his first love: the blues. Then again, this isn't exactly your dad's Saturday night hootenanny version of the blues. I mean, yeah, it JAMS, but not in the sense of endless solos. No, Kane finds a slinky groove and gets in DEEP, riding it out with a motorik sense of propulsion not unlike Neu! or Harmonia...if they could swing! It's a precarious pairing on paper -- modern minimalism and the blues -- but it comes off so naturally, one wonders why it took this long to be executed. After all, the blues is perhaps THE original minimalism. John Lee Hooker and Mississippi Fred McDowell often wrote pieces consisting of nothing more than one long, droning chord and a driving, hypnotic riff. Kane is simply expanding the notion of what can be done with an old dog, churning out a furious, souped-up primal stomp that simultaneously beefs up and strips down the blues. Every piece takes at least six minutes to get up to full steam, but most feel like they could go on forever without wearing out their welcome. Many men have worn out the soles of their snakeskin boots in search of the endless boogie, but Kane has run it down and created a monster. -Jonathan Treneff
By now, anyone with a small working knowledge of Latin music should know the name of Joe Bataan, even if one is unfamiliar with the man's music. Bataan is to late-'60s/early-'70s boogaloo what Curtis Mayfield is to soul; both wrote anthems that spoke to the working class, the hustlers and frustrated urban youth. Harvey Averne and Joe Cuba might have been bigger stars on the Copa dance floor, but the street corners, house parties and parks belonged to Bataan. A Filipino born and raised on the corner of 103rd and Lexington in East Harlem, Bataan was an aspiring doo-wop singer who ran a street gang in the early '60s; after serving a two-year bid for stealing a car, he lost his taste for street life and turned his attention to the burgeoning boogaloo scene in Harlem. Signing to the legendary Fania label in 1966, he and his band the Latin Swingers had a huge hit with their cover of "Gypsy Woman," a song that combined Bataan's raspy doo-wop singing with the boogaloo rhythms that would become his signature sound. Subway Joe was his follow-up in 1967 and it made Bataan a star. The title track is swinging boogaloo with lyrics talking about trying to pick up tough, Latina girls on the train, and the song has pretty much become a NYC standard. (My friend Daniel refers to the tune as the "'New York, New York' of Spanish Harlem." Another album highlight, "Special Girl" is classic Bataan, with lots of doo-wop harmonies and his soaring tenor cookin' on top of a sweet melody.
Riot came next and was even bigger than Subway Joe. The cover photo of Bataan and his cohorts causing mayhem on the streets gives you a glimpse of the fiery Latin funk that this album contains. Embracing the militant Chicano imagery of the times, Bataan and his band really soar on this set, "It's a Good Feeling (Riot)" stretching past seven minutes and hitting a depth and energy that many of his contemporaries couldn't match. This record also contains the classic ballads "Ordinary Guy" and "What Good Is a Castle?" Needless to say, these two albums are absolutely essential for all Latin music lovers. -Duane Harriott |
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