Having trouble viewing this? Visit the updates archive |
||
 |
 |
Other Music Digital Affiliate Program We are very excited to be launching our new Affiliate Program. You can earn money by sending your web traffic to Other Music Digital for downloads. Click here for more details.
This week's Free Song Download comes to us from City Center, the solo guise of Saturday Looks Good to Me's Fred Thomas, who might have helped you pick out a record or two while he was working with us at Other Music. His eponymous full-length debut (out on May 22, on Type) is a wonderfully swirling outsider pop confection, with plucked guitars rubbing against processed noise and cradling Thomas' intimate melodies. This Week's Featured Downloads
Dirty Projectors have found a new home on Domino Records, who will be releasing their anticipated album Bitte Orca on June 9th. The first single, "Stillness Is the Move," is one of the band's most direct songs to date, almost modular in approach with layers of Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian's playful, soulful melodies hovering atop taut loops of guitar and a steady backbeat. Includes two alternate versions, one being a Lucky Dragons' remix, and two bonus tracks.
Syllart have really outdone themselves with this new volume in their African Pearls 70 series, this time focusing on the Senegalese region of 1970s African groove and dance bands. Featuring groups like Orchestre Baobab, Etoile de Dakar, Star Number One, amongst many others, this volume displays a diversity not as evident in some of the other collections in the series, and it's all the better for it. Star Number One deliver infectious, spacey horn-saturated groovers, Etoile de Dakar and Ifang Bondi give us some moody psychedelic bluesy numbers, while Orchestre Baobab, Etoile 2000, and Ouza offer up sun-warped, hazy doses of chilled rumba that's as disorienting as it is lovely and soothing. I'm absolutely in love with the production (or seeming lack thereof) on many of these tracks. The instruments often sound as if they've been left out in the sun too long and are beginning to distort and mutate in crazy ways that only end up enhancing the quality of the tunes; as usual, the musicianship can't be topped and the tunes are memorable and entirely hummable. Syllart has really raised the bar quite high with this volume; I'm dying to hear where they go next and if they can maintain the quality they've instilled for so long. I already know the answer to that question -- it's a resounding "yes" all around -- but I'll be losing myself in this set of tunes until the next one arrives. Highest recommendation! -Mikey IQ Jones
Coming from the same fertile jazz-funk/new romantic scene that brought us Sade, Light of the World, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, Freeez was formed by John Rocca while he was still a teenager working as a record store clerk in London. Their first 12-inch, "Keep in Touch," was self- released in 1980, and was an underground hit that just barely missed the top 40 UK charts. On the strength of that performance, Beggars Banquet signed the seven-piece band who, in their short three-year existence, released a string of extraordinary modern funk and electro records that still hold up to this day. Tracks like "Southern Freeez," "Alone" and "Sunset" are great jazz-funk/boogie tunes that retain a touch of grittiness that the aforementioned artists lacked; in all honestly, Freeez's early sound is probably a little closer to the leftfield funk of Manchester-based contemporaries 52nd Street and A Certain Ratio. By 1983, the group had trimmed down to a three-piece and was embracing the burgeoning electro and hip-hop sounds coming out of New York City. Teaming up with the legendary Arthur Baker and Jellybean Benitez, they released the percolating electro club classic "I.O.U.," presented here in all of its vocal sampled, eight-plus-minute glory. The song was an immediate hit and is considered to be one of the most "electronic" singles of its time. Their follow up, "Pop Goes My Love," was just as glorious, but the band broke up soon after, with lead singer John Rocca going solo and releasing the classic proto-techno electro tune, "I Want It to Be Real," a year later (unfortunately not included here). Despite that, every track on this record is a funky banger and will feel right at home on any spring or summer playlist, perfect for the coming days of block parties, barbecues and roller skating. -Duane Harriott
A great live Terry Reid perforxmance from the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. Recorded in between the release of his self-titled second record (my personal favorite of his) and his much-lauded The River (OK, maybe it's a tie for favorite), this show was the debut of a new band that featured David Lindley (Kaleidoscope) and Michael Giles (King Crimson). To be frank, the sound is a little rough and it takes the band a couple of songs to fully gel. But soon enough Reid has gotten 'em all together into his trademark lackadaisically tight groove, and the soulful brilliance of the songs is impossible to be denied. Listen here to see where all the beard rockers copped their best moves. -Michael Klausman
Water reissues the severely underheard and underappreciated debut album by Memphis native, Van Duren. While many bands and artists have been hyped as carrying the Big Star torch, and most of them couldn't even light the match (with the exception of the Scruffs,) Van Duren is the real deal. Turns out he even auditioned to join Big Star, and later played with Chris Bell and Jody Stephens. Originally released in 1977, although Duren had started working on demos (with Andrew Loog Oldham!) as early as 1975, Are You Serious? is a thirteen course pop feast, with heaping piles of irresistible melodies, catchy choruses, and shimmering guitar work. It's a perfect mix of Todd Rundgren, Emitt Rhodes, Badfinger, Raspberries, and Big Star. No faint praise but would I lie to you? Now, where's the reissue of Tommy Hoehn's Spacebreak? -Andreas Knutsen
A brand new, mind-melter of an album from Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. features three sprawling tracks, the first being a psychedelic scorcher with some heavy guitar work from Kawabata Makoto. Then the group takes a quick detour through outsider folk and into "Vishnu and the Magic Elixir," a slow-building, 25-minute track that works its way into a truly freaky, spaced-out climax.
Recorded at the tail end of ESP-Disk's heyday, yet unquestionably one of the greatest highlights in that storied catalog, bassist Ronnie Boykins' sole album as a leader is a mesmerizing, serpentine collection of compositions that perfectly ride that fine line between the free and the restrained. Boykins may not be a household name, but in the annals of jazz history his contribution will come to be seen as an important one, as his bass playing graced the greatest of Sun Ra's recordings throughout the sixties. You may not hear his name pop up as often as John Gilmore and Marshall Allen, but Sun Ra heavily depended on Boykins' sense of rhythm, harmony, and improvisational brilliance to ground his compositions. There is high caliber playing here from mostly unknowns, and Boykins' incredibly interesting compositions only make one wish he'd recorded more, full of slyly playful digressions and loping, near eastern patterns. -Michael Klausman
EXCLUSIVE ADVANCE RELEASE. The second release in Pocket's download single series finds the LA-based producer (and Burnside Project frontman) working with two of dream pop's leading ladies. First up is the title track, "Sampo," with Asobi Seksu's Yuki Chikudate singing in Japanese over Richard Jankovich's production, here bringing to mind a little bit of Depeche Mode or New Order. "Swept" is a great follow-up, Lorraine Lellis' (Mahogany, Somnambulants) ethereal melody floating atop shimmering electro-pop. Also features three remixes of "Sampo," including a re-working by Craig Wedren (Shudder to Think, Baby).
Admittedly I am a sucker for anything that even remotely sounds like Joy Division. So yes, I have been buying just about every Factory related item that has trickled out onto LTM, and the Minny Pops reissues are no exception. Imagine an uncompromising minimal electro variant of the Factory sound, so stark and deliberate that you will want to dust off your strobe light and dance like Ian Curtis to every song. Wally Van Middendorp's monotone vocals take on such an extreme depth for their incredible second LP Sparks in a Dark Room, harking back to the melancholic splendor of Joy Division's Closer, while also reminiscent of Andrew Eldritch's half speed -- near spoken -- gloom. The career spanning Secret Stories culls together some earlier singles and some Alan Vega/Suicide sounding demos but the highlight -- in my opinion -- are the tracks, redolent of Tuxedomoon, taken from their late career albums. Such pristine bleakness, like dispassionate tears in the rain, is drama in need of an audience. -Andy Giles
|
|
|||||
|
We Also Recommend |
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
