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This Week's Free Song Download Free song download of "Invincible Hero," off of Versus' new full-length On the Ones and Threes, out next Tuesday, August 3, on Merge Records. With original drummer Edward Baluyut back in the fold, Richard (Baluyut) and Fontaine Toupe's melodies are as beautifully haunting as ever, the band balancing their soaring, guitar-burn rock with bittersweet pop numbers. The first Versus album in almost a decade, On the Ones and Threes is a triumphant return for a group who are creating some of the best music of their career. This Week's Featured Downloads Autechre deliver their best, heaviest, and outright FUNKIEST record in years (... possibly ever?) with Move of Ten, coming mere months after their previous Oversteps album. While Oversteps saw the duo in a more introspective, ambient mode, this new album finds them going back their b-boy obsessing electro roots, delivering ten tracks stuffed to the gills with their trademark flanges, blips, and squealing machine equations. The rhythms on display here are the closest thing Autechre has delivered on record to their impressive live show, where the bass hits deep in the chest and your feet, head, and ass don't stop moving. This album is as melodically and texturally rich as anything they've done in their prime, but mixed with the technical complexity they have mastered in recent years. They suck elements of acid, dubstep, and heavy electro into their vortex and spit it all back out into 48 minutes of concise, pulverizing pleasure. This one ranks up there with Tri Repeatae, Chiastic Slide, and the Anti EP. Absolutely classic and easily one of the best electronic records of the year. -Mikey IQ Jones It's September 1978. You're out on the road, a traveling salesman, peddling carpeting and reupholstery to hotels and motels all over the Midwest. You find yourself in downtown Fargo, winding down for the evening at the lounge of the Holiday Inn where you're staying for the night. It's the weekend, and you're alone with your club sandwich and gin gimlet, popping Dexedrine and wondering where it all went wrong. All of a sudden, the Little River Band song playing on the jukebox fades out, and the bartender walks to the stage to introduce a surprise act who'll be performing for you this evening. And out comes Justen O'Brien and Jake, whose stage outfits match the curtains that flank them on either side. Then they start to play, and it sounds familiar, and the next thing you know, you're out in the Badlands, being pulled aboard a UFO with some sort of tractor beam technology ... wait, what?!? Justen O'Brien and Jake are being touted as the finest musical rediscovery to come from North Dakota, but since most people can't think of a band from there otherwise, that'll have to do. Excellent outsider lounge-psych, with a heavy leisure suit vibe, but pulling in weirder, darker directions than the radio, or common sense, would allow. The duo was influenced by alien abductions and extraterrestrial contact, either due to first person experience, or from eating the brown acid at a drive-in during a showing of Close Encounters that year. Either way, it's an arresting listen, completely of its time and well-preserved -- you won't feel the weird waves of humiliation washing over you the same way that Jade Stone and Luv might bring, and the claustrophobia of the entire enterprise recalls Bobb Trimble's first albums. Wonderful! -Doug Mosurock The first album available stateside from Helsinki's Regina, Puutarhatrilogia (which translates to Garden Trilogy) doesn't contain a single decipherable lyric, for us non-Finnish speakers at least, but one doesn't need to understand the trio's native tongue to enjoy their breezy electro-pop. To mention St. Etienne as a touchstone isn't too far off, especially with Regina singer Iisa Pykari's lilting, sultry delivery, just replace the baggy grooves with more of a jazzy shuffle and some surreal detours. During "Tapaa minut aamulla," Pykari's exotic melody seems to borrow equally from Western and Far Eastern scales, eventually leading the light, Balearic-kissed song through a storm of cascading piano keys that come down like a summer rain shower. The same piano wrenches up the tension in the skeletal leftfield house-pop of "Saanko jäädä yöksi?" and helps steer the album towards slightly darker, more mysterious territory which arrives a few tracks later with "Sinun tässä salissa," a song whose sampled sitars and poly-rhythmic pulse recall the Knife on a magic carpet ride. An enjoyably diverse outing, fans of the aforementioned shouldn't hesitate. -Gerald Hammill
While signed with Hi Records in the seventies, Syl Johnson was constantly working in the shadow of label heavy Al Green, so it's no small wonder that 1974 is the year of Green's #1 R&B album Al Green Explores Your Mind, not the year of Johnson's Diamond in the Rough. But this underrated gem only gets better with age, and when it comes to slick, powerful soul, Johnson proves that he's just as nimble and graceful as the household names of the era. Featuring the same session musicians that worked for Green, Diamond nails that Hi sound: the warbled, sultry swirl of the Wurlitzer, that fatback snare drum, and minimal (but essential) strings. Johnson's voice is grittier than Green's, closer to Taj Mahal and O.V. Wright, but that grit gives songs like "Please Don't Give Up On Me" a feeling of testimonial and confession that is sometimes absent from Green's recordings. Johnson also scores with "I Want to Take You Home (To See Mama)," probably the sweetest and most jubilant song ever written about taking your "shining star" home to meet the folks. -Michael Stasiak
Of all the contributions Billy Childish has made to civilization, a humble disposition is not one of them. Only a churl would argue his status as an accomplished visual artist and hugely influential musical forefather. While Childish inarguably deserves credit for drafting much of the sound and D.I.Y. ethic that essentially drives the modern garage scene, he would probably also take credit for being the first punk, pressing the first independent record, and basically inventing rock primitivism as we know it. So when Billy Childish sings praises, it's time to pay attention. Such is the rarefied air that the Downliners Sect breathe. Childish has gone on record as a huge fan of the Sect, acknowledging them as an indispensable influence on his music -- and anyone who's ever shook a tail feather to the Headcoat/ees, Pop Rivets, or any of his myriad incarnations will know exactly what he's talking about. Coming out of the same initial British Invasion that gave birth to the Pretty Things, Small Faces, and Yardbirds, the Sect were rawer than any of these groups in both musical attack and lyrical concern, unafraid to write a song about, say, car-crash decapitations. The early Stones are an obvious reference point, along with the rock 'n' roll bluesmen who shaped the band's sound: Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, etc. Far from a one-trick garage-pony, they also whipped the butter with dashes of surf, r&b, and rockabilly, making this two-disc set requisite listening for fans of the Mummies, Black Lips, and neo-primitive rock-and-soul period. So good. -Jon Treneff One of the Dead C.'s most forwardly-rockin' career moments came by way of Clyma est Mort, a fake live album recorded in the band's practice space for the enjoyment of one person: Siltbreeze's Tom Lax, who flew the tapes back to America and pressed up a bootleg-style album. This is the Dead C. at their most immediately recognizable -- Michael Morley and Bruce Russell, guitars splayed open and spewing transistor rage to a rock-solid backbeat by Robbie Yeats. Contains some of their best songs in definitive performances ("Sky" and "World" are particularly transgressive), and this reissue tacks on key tracks from early '90s singles. If the Dead C. are new to you, this is as good a back door into their vicious rock career, in its most primal stage. New Zealand's punkest band ever, philosophically at least, doing what they did best in the early '90s -- which was try to melt solid objects with focused intensity through an unfocused presentation. They are an endpoint to free/improvisational rock music that has grown into its own language. Like the Fall, who the Dead C. appropriates in the cover art for this effort, there are very few bands that can keep going in a certain direction in as many ways as possible while still retaining key elements of a persona that is undeniably their own. -Doug Mosurock For those who aren't familiar with Blaze Foley, Fat Possum's The Dawg Years: 1975-1978 will sound an awful lot like a lost Townes Van Zandt gem. It feels unearthed, fresh from the Texas soil where Foley is buried and soaked in whiskey -- all skillful fingerpicking and rough hewn voice, it's just about the best retrospective we could possibly hope for from one of America's greatest unsung country heroes. Foley's notorious bad luck kept his full studio albums from seeing the light of day (number one was confiscated when his executive producer was busted by the DEA, two was stolen from Foley's station wagon, and three was lost to a flood), so these twenty demo recordings are a godsend and required listening for anyone with a taste for unadorned, unpolished country music. Most of these recordings are comprised of two instruments: Foley's percussive fingerpicking and that voice of hardened oak, but on several of the demos like "Election Day" (later covered by Lyle Lovett) and "Cold, Cold World," a young newborn's voice can be heard coming from another room when the vocal track begins. The baby's bleating is as high and reedy as Foley's is low and smoky, but it's a fitting and intimate metaphor for the rebirth of Blaze Foley's songs, and how sweet it is to hear many of them for the first time. -Michael Stasiak
Performed to a packed house at the peak of his prowess, this live double-album from Townes Van Zandt has been referred to by many as the "Rosetta Stone of Texas music." He was a gentle soul, and this set showcases his varied and varying personality -- sometimes he tells jokes between songs, and other times he reminisces about their origins with a twinge of regret. Van Zandt certainly made his share of fine studio LPs, but if you want a crash course in one of the finest songwriters of all time, there is no better place to go than here. It's hard to choose highlights because Live at the Old Quarter is that rare double-album that can hold your attention all the way through -- and believe me, it will -- but tunes like "Two Girls" and "Loretta" show both sides of a man who could smile through the pain and bring an audience to tears. Van Zandt's work stands up there with contemporaries like Dylan, and often times will hit you as hard in the heart as Bob can in the brain. -Andrew Siskind
From the first loping harmonica trill, 1978's Flyin' Shoes feels like one of those true Townes Van Zandt records. His 1960s output, though brilliantly written, was blustery and overproduced (fatal decisions like all those damn twirling flutes that mar otherwise pitch-perfect songs like "Be Here to Love Me"). After a busy four years that saw the release of five records, Van Zandt did his disappearing act, emerging six years later with an understated record of casual country tunes that ranks among my favorites from this famously troubled genius. It's the mandolin on "No Place to Fall," or the aching pedal steel on opener "Loretta," and the gorgeous panoramic road song "Rex's Blues." It's not as gritty and open as Live at the Old Quarter, but for one of his many stabs at great record making, it's one of Van Zandt's best. -Michael Stasiak Prog 101: Gong rules over you. Camembert Electrique is regarded as one of the seminal works of outsider progressive music from the era when such things mattered, and its heady reputation still holds some 40 years down the line. Spacey, elastic musicianship with a definitive groove throughout, a loopiness and drug-fueled sense of humor unparalleled in their peers (even Hawkwind, from which Gong is a recommended stepping stone on the path deeper into the well of strange music from the early '70s), and a liberating vibe that allows Daevid Allen and company to lift off without losing the script -- their music, unlike someone like Zappa's, has no ceiling, no reason to box in the listener. Drop out of college with this in hand -- there is a planet that accepts this album as a diploma, and it's up to you to find it; those cosmic student loans aren't going to pay themselves! -Doug Mosurock
This gorgeous second album from Papa Seck and Alioune Diallo's legendary Star Number One was first released in1976, and is in many ways indicative of the shift in Senegalese popular music from distilled Cuban rumba to m'balax -- a new, roughly hewn fusion of traditional rhythms and Afro-Latin pop. Built around spidery electric guitars and the sabar (a talking drum attacked with a wooden dowel to create polyphonic overtones), m'balax was born out of the movement toward "authenticity" -- a catchall phrase signifying a return to tradition -- that swept through the art and music of West Africa in the 60s and 70s. Along with Etoile de Dakar and Orchestre Baobab, Star Number One were among the first bands to break off from Star Band de Dakar (Senegal's pioneering popular orchestra) to pursue their own ideas of what a distinctly Senegalese music could be. Also releasing records as Number One du Senegal and Orchestre Number One de Dakar, Star Number One features many of the same players as the early Etoile and Baobab records, and has considerable stylistic and sonic overlap with its compatriots. The gruff call and response, slinkily refracting guitars, overlapping cyclical rhythms and cavernous production are all tenets of the sound, and laid the groundwork for an m'balax tradition that still thrives in Senegal today. At its most raw and hypnotic ("Liiti Liiti"), Jangaake holds its own with anything released by better known bands of the time, and Papa Seck's anciently anchored vocal performances could give Youssou N'Dour passionate pause. However, the deepest moment here is on the title track, a folkloric lament for a lost sister sung by Wolof griots for centuries. Seck's arrangement, with its soaring guitar crescendos and interlocking horns, creates space for the band to steer the singer, with the casually determined vibrancy that hallmarks the greatest sounds of first wave West African pop. -Simon Gabriel Wonderful reissue of an early-'90s Crammed Discs compilation of pre- (and early) Franco Congolese rumba. Characterized by a distinct leaning on imported Cuban musical tropes, Congolese pop has always been dependent on smoothly rhythmic guitar pyrotechnics and dynamic group drumming to propel the music into the beautiful revelry it so often invokes. The Congo has the dubious distinction of having the first European-run record labels in Africa, and due to the money introduced by the industry, 1950s-era Congolese bands were among the first African adopters of the electric guitar. The early 78s collected on this compilation burn with the restless glow of groups intent on discovery, as well as the spirit of competition. Battle of the Bands-style showcases were not uncommon, and the desire for supremacy was rewarded via consistent bookings at hotels and nightclubs, which in turn led to more practiced and tighter ensembles. Truly, the keen musicianship necessary to play rumba and soukous is awe-inspiring and even pre-Franco, the liquid guitar leads are marvelous to hear. Of course, Franco's OK Jazz band, formed in 1956, is the group which denotes the standard for all Congolese musicians to follow, but this window into the sound of his early contemporaries is not to be missed. Beautiful, celebratory music whose time is ripe for rediscovery. -Simon Gabriel For 35 years, Alceu Valença has made a career in Brazilian pop music, mixing the sounds of his native Northeast town of Pernambuco with modern pop melodies and an accessible approach. Like most artists of his country (though not all), the earlier works are the most true expressions of their talent, which Molhado de Suor and Vivo! (below) both dutifully reflect. Molhado de Suor blends folk styles with a sense of adventurous arrangement and wild, soulful sounds that make themselves more evident as the record goes on, like a great birthday that someone has ensured will get better as the day continues. It's mostly acoustic, though there are some righteous fuzz flourishes on "Cabelos Longos" that are impossible to shake. Released in 1974, it's entirely possible that Valença had heard the Faces, Ry Cooder, and lots of Philly soul records, and boiled their influences down into his own creation. It's a wonderful album that, unless you're ultra-familiar with all the different regional musicalities of Brazil, defies easy categorization, but it's a powerful record that you won't soon forget. Vivo! captures the artist live in 1976, and trades in some of the studio polish for jazzy flourishes and energetic performances. Not much of the material of Molhado de Suor is revisited, as Valença focuses on everything from freakbeat breakdowns to solo guitar medleys, but all of it is pretty exciting no matter where you're coming from. Highly recommended! -Doug Mosurock |
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