An Exposition of Sleep

Carly Simon - Why

2010-11-13T22:24:00.000-08:00

Total balearic masterpiece

1982.

Games - That We Can Play

2010-11-13T08:17:00.000-08:00

Warped 80s couldve/wouldve/shouldve been synth-pop hits from Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never) and Joel Ford (Tigercity). Track titles like "Planet Party" and "Midi Drift" should give you a hint as to what you're in for and whether you'll like it or not (Hint: you should).

Games - That We Can Play [Hippos in Tanks; 2010]

Their semi-recent mix of slowed-down sensual funk and r&b is essential listening too:

SPEND THE NIGHT WITH GAMES - Side A by Games

SPEND THE NIGHT WITH GAMES - SIDE B by Games

SPEND THE NIGHT WITH GAMES - Side C by Games

SPEND THE NIGHT WITH GAMES - Side D by Games

Various - African Jazz 'N Jive

2010-09-04T03:40:00.000-07:00

1. N. D. Hotshots - U.S.A. Special
2. Ntemie's Alexandra All Star Band - Daddy Wami
3. Skylarks - Holilili
4. Orlando Six - Beer Club
5. Elite Swingers - Dinokza
6. Spokes Mashiyane - Banana Ba Rustenburg
7. King Jury And His Band - Emsengeni
8. The Four Yanks - Ubuhlungu
9. Kippie Moeketsi & The marabi Kings - Clarinet Kwela
10. Jazz Dazzlers - De Makeba
11. Solven Whistlers - Something New In Africa
12. Father Huddleston Band - Ndenzeni Na?
13. Nancy Jacobs & Her Sisters - Baby Are Yeng
14. Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds - Mtube
15. Royal Players - Omnyakane
16. Dolly Rathebe - Tihapi Ke Noga
17. Orlando 7 - Loafes Corner
18. Manhattan Brothers - Vuka Vuka
19. Dorothy Masuka - Ngi Hamba Ngedwa
20. Reggie Msomi's Hollywood Jazz Band - Midnight Ska
21. Snqamu Jazz Band - Walk To Bube
22. Lemmy "Special" Mabase - Kwela Blues
23. Havana Swingsters - Emaxanbeni
24. The King Kong - Kwela Kong

Poverty provides fertile ground for music. Need it be sad or melancholy? Not really, though it often is. Not on this album though. In fact, poor living conditions and apartheid seems to have posed a challenge to these musicians; 'Crushed? Us? We'll show you. No amount of racism or unclean water will stop us from spitting in your white faces'. Perhaps it is little over academic to approach this music in this manner. To be honest, the free, unsullied jubilation of this music invites at the very least an escape from routine which must have been incredibly important to these musicians and their audiences. At most it inspires wonder in human resilience, just as Tuareg and Gypsy music does from the darker corners of North Africa and Eastern Europe.

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Betsy Jolas - Quatuor I; Iannis Xenakis - Herma; André Boucourechliev - Archipel I - 1st version

2009-12-16T20:27:00.001-08:00

An excellent collection of Avant-Garde pieces. Wonderfully noisy and textural this music is both confrontational and absorbing. It is a pity the two other contributors aren't as well known as Xenakis. Highly recommended.

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Various - Kenya and Tanzania: Witchcraft and Ritual Music

2009-12-15T19:38:00.001-08:00

I am unsure how reflective this is of typical Tanzanian/Kenyan music and the opinions of this album that I have encountered are split. Its good enough for it really not to matter though. This is enjoyable enough music even if you aren't seeking to make yourself look authentic by listening to music not composed by the white or westernised.

Adam Greenberg of allmusic.com seems to be a knowledgeable fellow so I will quote him:

'This album, an early portion of the Nonesuch Explorer Series, makes use of music from East Africa, primarily Kenya, with one track from Tanzania as well. Despite the title saying that witchcraft and ritual music is the focus here, there is little that would now be considered witchcraft-based, and for that manner, many of the pieces are of daily life and simple instrumental playing, without ritual involvement. Nonetheless, for its date, this is a relatively good recording, with a few tracks dealing with witch doctors attempting to heal patients (with accompaniment by drummers, dancers, and singers), a few wedding, funeral, and circumcision ceremonial songs, and various pieces of simple musical works -- marimba playing (but of course, in the East African style that is so similar to mbira playing), bung'o (horn) playing, harp-accompanied vocal pieces, and the like. The quality of the music is relatively good, though there are now more authentic pieces on the market, of course. Still, despite tiny bits of forgivable cultural ignorance, the album is a worthwhile soundbite into Kenyan traditional music.'

Presumably traditional music from Kenya would be highly similar to music from Tanzania considering the borders of these countries were artificially forged, and as Tanzania is the southern neighbour of Kenya we can assume that their musical traditions are very similar. I enjoy this music because it is an example of East African music that has not been as influenced by Islamic music as has its northern neighbours. It is nice to have some variation I suppose. Anyway, enjoy. I had to upload this to Rapidshare because mediafire is causing me problems.

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Amjad Ali Khan - Music from the 13th Century

2009-12-15T19:25:00.000-08:00

This is music composed by Ab'ul Hasan Yamīn al-Dīn Khusrow (1253-1325 CE). Indian classical music is about as sophisticated and complete as any formal music can be, and once your ear has become used to its style it offers boundless possibilities for appreciation and enjoyment.

I don't know as much about Khusrow as wikipedia does, so I will just quote at length from his page:

"He was an iconic figure in the cultural history of the Indian subcontinent. A Sufi mystic and a spiritual disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, Amīr Khusrow was not only a notable poet but also a prolific and seminal musician. He wrote poetry primarily in Persian, but also in Hindavi.

He is regarded as the "father of qawwali" (the devotional music of the Indian Sufis). He is also credited with enriching Hindustani classical music by introducing Persian and Arabic elements in it, and was the originator of the khayal and tarana styles of music. The invention of the tabla is also traditionally attributed to Amīr Khusrow. Amir Khusrau used only 11 metrical schemes with 35 distinct divisions. He has written Ghazal, Masnavi, Qata, Rubai, Do-Beti and Tarkibhand.

A musician and a scholar, Amīr Khusrow was as prolific in tender lyrics as in highly involved prose and could easily emulate all styles of Persian poetry which had developed in medieval Persia, from Khāqānī's forceful qasidas to Nezāmī's khamsa. His contribution to the development of the ghazal, hitherto little used in India, is particularly significant."

This album was recorded live in 2003. Amjad Ali Khan is to the Sarod whatNikhil Banerjee and Ravi Shankar are to the sitar, and if there are requests for any other of his albums, my collection is quite large so I would be happy to oblige with more posts.

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Carl Craig & Moritz von Oswald - ReComposed (2008)

2009-11-21T23:18:00.001-08:00

Maybe if mutism returned my calls he'd be able to say a few words about this, in lieu of that, dusted magazine:

"

At their most pure and powerful, the Detroit and Berlin techno styles can share an almost classical aesthetic and execution that combines a sensuous textural and rhythmic approach with a cool and futuristic attitude to musical structure and architecture. It’s an aesthetic that leads to sonic art with a sense of transport and transcendence that is at once spacious and inclusive: dub and DJ and adventurism combining in a democratic and utopian music for dancing and dreaming.

Carl Craig and Moritz von Oswald have been at the vanguard of efforts to extend techno into collaborations – with other artists, in other styles and genres – that go much deeper than just adding beats and filters to pre-existing approaches. Thus, their collaborative move to “recompose“ by deconstructing, rebuilding and expanding upon orchestrations by Maurice Ravel makes utter sense: Ravel himself was a master of modernist texture and surface who aligned cool and considered classicism with his passions for the more emotional expressions he found in American jazz and the ancient reach of Spanish/Moorish music. That Craig and von Oswald would choose to work with master tapes from the Deutsche Grammophon label featuring Von Karajan conducting the Berliner Philarmoniker makes sense, too: These are some the most glossy- surfaced, lush-yet-powerful orchestral recordings ever made.

It seems our recomposers like a challenge. They take as source material Ravel’s “Bolero” and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” (the latter as orchestrated by Ravel), two extremely popular warhorses of the European art music tradition that have been reworked and re-referenced, alas, almost to the point of losing their original glory.

Recomposed Vol. 3 begins with a long, languid section of slowly shifting blocks and washes of orchestral and analog synth chords and melodies that take on the shadowy shapes of vintage Eno ambient music. Eventually, the insistent – and undeniable – snare drum rhythmic motif of “Bolero” fades in and increases steadily in volume. Next, a sampled/looped cell of trumpet melody leads by way of repetition to a pulsing excursion into Riley/Reich/Glass minimalism. Now, with pulse and rhythm established as the mode of expression for some duration, beat boxes, synths and EQ filters take over for a few long episodes of deep techno, exhaustive and nearly symphonic in timbral exploration, in motivic exposition and variation.

Following this comes a warmly shimmering and slow-breathing synth interlude, a brief meditation before the two epic movements that follow. “Movement 5” is built from massive orchestral textures and their intersection with a gamelan-like pulse of tuned percussion sounds. It could serve as the soundtrack to the climactic scenes of some visionary post-apocalyptic movie, the dark and romantic dense harmonies pushing at the seams of the organic and cyclic percussion and melodies. The final movement loops lush strings and burnished, deep-toned orchestral bells with a gentle, warm drone of spatially morphing electronics, the composition held together here by the pulse of slot drums, congas, gourds and shakers.

Recomposed Vol. 3 stands up very well to repeated close listening. There’s an elegant and carefully wrought command and reinvention of musical and technological materials in evidence, and although the sonic vistas imagined and articulated here by Craig and von Oswald can be quite massive and pervasive, they are nonetheless accessible and inviting."

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Henry Flynt - You are my Everlovin / Celestial Power (1986)

2009-11-13T04:53:00.000-08:00

Along with the obligatory intellectual wankery that accompanies music like this there is Flynt's absolutely undeniable ability with the violin. This is a wondrous mix of avant-garde drone, raga and American Folk. Of course, the use of the term raga with music like this is always very loose, denoting a feel more than it does a technical style - but what a feel it is!

'Celestial Power was recorded in 1980, while "You Are My Everlovin'" comes from about a year later and was taped live at a New York City avant-garde music performance space. Flynt's style on the violin is original and distinct, and these are virtuoso performances technically as well as in terms of concentration and focused energy. The earlier show is more of a drone, complete with Indian-style backgrounds.'

Download it here

Terror Bird - Sociopaths Are Glam (2009)

2009-10-03T05:07:00.000-07:00

Once in a lifetime tapey weirdness. Haven't quite heard anything that is so messy but earnest and manages to pull every imaginable underground trope into something manageable. This is truly music for the masses.

"Terror Bird is Nikki Never from Vancouver's Modern Creatures solo outlet. One of the finest recordings released in any format on Night-People, Terror Bird is honest, heartfelt, nostalgic pop music, layered in touches of dark ambiance and glittery sheen. Centered around Nikki's amazing voice and dirgey piano arrangements, Sociopaths are Glam references classic 80's and 90's dark pop without any historic worshiping or posturing. Couldn't be more excited to just sit around and listen to this amazing album. Artwork by SDReed."

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Oneohtrix Point Never - Zones Without People (2009)

2009-09-22T04:09:00.000-07:00

volcanic tongue says it best, as usual:

"

Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never is one of the most fascinating artists to emerge from the whole new age synth/Hypnagogic pop nexus. He makes startlingly original synthesizer music that abandons ‘traditional’ avant garde textures, tones and formulas in favour of recuperating overlooked or critically condemned musical modes and projecting them into the future via a combination of visionary excess and a precise feel for the reciprocal relation and psychoactive potential of tones and rhythms in combination. Zones Without People is the second installment in what Lopatin has visioned as a trilogy (beginning with the last No Fun LP, Betrayed In The Octagon) that moves from automatic electronic codes through to rigorously arranged psych/pop miniatures, an arc that would track and balance the man/machine interface from one extreme to the other. Zones.. is the fulcrum of the set and so balances psych-pop constructs with machine noise, soundtrack sweeps with the sound of circuitry left to sing softly to itself. Parts of Zones.. touch on the mode of fellow thinkers like James Ferraro, with cinematic, expressive shorts that feel as if they were extrapolated to fit some phantom, never-made 1980s John Carpenter movie but Lopatin works in crystal clear fidelity, giving the album a lucid, transportive facility. Some of the rhythmic/melodic sequences are so perfectly worked over that they seem multi-dimensional, with certain luminous figures and repeat tones almost escaping from the speakers altogether. I’m reminded – in process, not in content – of Coil’s use of sidereal sound to expose the hidden physical attributes of certain vibrations and much of Zones... has that same uncanny appeal, a feeling of sound reified as tactile presence. It also does a great job of blurring and further confusing the demarcation lines between traditionally psychedelic or ritualistic modes – repeating tones, washes of deep drone – and ‘cheap’ junk chatter – video game effects, ginchy keyboard tones, primitive techno rhythms.
Zones Without People feels like a real breakthrough, a sublimely psychedelic album that relies on none of the traditional sleight-of-hand techniques in order to transport you to other zones of there. It’s a major record – managing to be both personal and warm while using ‘vacuous’ and austere musical codes – from a major new talent. Edition of 450 copies with artwork by Christelle Gualdi aka Stellar Om Source. Highly recommended."

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Sic Alps - L. Mansion 7" (2009)

2009-09-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

I don't really mean to be uploading so many 7"'s but they are smaller and sometimes that's just easier.

This, Sic Alps latest release and first one on Slumberland, somehow manages to remain distinctive as a retro-leaning noise-garage-pop release in, as Pitchfork canily reminds us, The Year That Scuzz Broke. They've ditched their more overt indebtedness to a lo-fi American indie rock aesthetic in favour of a more stripped back underground garage rock approach, including Stooges esque driving piano on the B-side (& Donovan cover), 'Superlungs My Supergirl'.

I'm convinced.

This Heat

2009-09-20T05:35:00.000-07:00

People talk about This Heat as some kind of missing link between kraut and post punk, as though it needed one.

The comparison is fair though, and considering they are anarchists you get quite an overload of bohemian credibility that is entirely and unusually deserved. These albums contain some 'post punk' 'classics' as well as extended krauty improvisations interspersed with tape loops and very angry anarcho syndicalist vocals. You should listen to this while you read Noam Chomsky or Bakunin or something.

Probably one of the most inspired bands in English popular/alternative music, and one of my own personal favourites. Each one of these albums is worth downloading.

Deceit - 1981

1. Sleep
2. Paper Hats
3. Triumph
4. S.P.Q.R.
5. Cenotaph
6. Shrink Wrap
7. Radio Prague
8. Makeshift Swahili
9. Independence
10. New Kind of Water
11. Hi Baku Sho (Suffer Bomb Disease)

This album is kind of their standard barer. Pitchfork stupidly rated it 20th in top album of the 80s where it should probably have taken prime position for its innovation alone. Its scope and visionary quality make it one of the best albums released in the last three decades (heh, just realised this is said in the allmusic review. Awesome).

According to allmusics's Andy Kellman:

"Out of all the boundary breaking that occurred during the fertile era of post-punk, This Heat's Deceit is one of the most expansive, imaginative, and remarkably wild records to have been produced during the time -- and very possibly the last three decades. It's an impressive procession of tangential shards that encompass tape collages, Middle Eastern motifs, barbaric vocal clamoring, and occasional pointy-jagged-atonal guitar passages that alternate between hypnotizing and shooting clean through your spine. The typical structures of jazz, world music, and rock & roll are heaved into a blender, cooking up a post-punk paella that's about as relaxing as a crosstown walk through a hail storm. It ends up hardly resembling anything it takes cues from. As with a good number of the album's ten tracks, random peeks into "Paper Hats" at the minute markers will hardly sound like the same song. And that song hardly resembles any of the others on the record; yet, it encapsulates what makes the whole thing so exciting. The song in question trots along arrhythmically with some bass, drum, and spindly guitar interplay until sputtering into a wreck of those instruments and who knows what else -- this 20-second interruption, which resembles the Junkyard Gang's idea of warming up, abruptly gives way to a march down a Twilight Zone-themed corridor of snaky guitar, pulsing high hats, and creeped-out atmospherics. If you can make out any of the lyrics (the ones in "Independence" should ring a bell, though), you'll realize the mushroom clouds and political figures depicted in the sleeve aren't the only evidence that the record is about war and nukes. Know this -- if you really want to be thrown around a room, there's hardly a better source. No greater record has been made in an abandoned meat locker."

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This Heat - 1978

1. Test Card
2. Horizontal Hold
3. Not Waving
4. Water
5. Twilight Furniture
6. 24 Track Loop
7. Diet of Worms
8. Music Like Escaping Gas
9. Rainforest
10. The Fall of Saigon
11. Test Card

Their first album, according to Skip Jansen:

"This British group could neither be called post-punk nor progressive rock, yet This Heat was one of the most influential groups of the late '70s. They created uncanny experimental rock music that has many similarities in approach to German pioneers such as Can and Faust. Other groundbreaking independent groups such as Henry Cow and Wire may be their only peers, and much later This Heat also became profoundly influential on the '90s genre known as post-rock. Their angular juxtapositions of abrasive guitar, driving rhythms, and noise loops on the opening cut, "Horizontal Hold," preempt much later activity in the electronica and drum'n'bass scenes. The outstanding "24 Track Loop" is based around a circular drum pattern that could have been a late-'90s jungle cut were it not recorded in late-'70s London, long before such strategies were even dreamed of in breakbeat music. This album is a great example of ahead-of-time genius, work that draws on elements of progressive rock, notably "Larks Tongues in Aspic"-era King Crimson for all its abrasive, warped rhythm, as well as Can, Neu!, and Faust's pioneering work -- though there is little else that comes close to the unique and distinctive avant rock sound, an entirely new take on the rock format. Their self-titled debut is a radical conglomeration of progressive rock, musique concrète, free improvisation, and even -- in a bizarre distillation -- aspects of British folk can be heard in Charles Hayward's singing. There are very few records that can be considered truly important, landmark works of art that produce blueprints for an entire genre. In the case of this album, it's clear that this seminal work was integral in shaping the genres of post-punk, avant rock, and post-rock and like all great influential albums it seemed it had to wait two decades before its contents could truly be fathomed. In short, This Heat is essential. "

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Health and Efficiency - 1980

1. Health and Efficiency
2. Graphic/Varispeed (45rpm)

This wonderful recording contains the undeniably krauty and agressive Health and Efficiency with angular and pulsating guitar riffs. The second track, the 11 minute Graphic/Varispeed is basically an uninterrupted series of drones with the occasional change of frequency and speed. Not for everyone, but in my opinion brilliant.

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Repeat - 1993 (recorded 79-80)

1. Repeat (20:21)
2. Metal (23:16)
3. Graphic / Varispeed (15:26)

These are incredibly lengthy tracks and may not hold all attention spans. Nonetheless an essential album, and according to Martin Walters: "Repeat is an extraordinary piece of tape loop, guitar, bass, drums, and electronics that picks up the mantle of rock experimentation left by Can and Faust and creates a sound so influential as to echo well into the next decade. Fans of Tortoise, Brise-Glace, Photek, Oval, and Mouse on Mars take note: It all started with this 1980 single, reissued here as a 3" CD."

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Made Available: Peel Sessions - 1996 (recorded 1977)

1. Horizontal Hold
2. Not Waving
3. The Fall Of Saigon
4. Rimp Romp Ramp
5. Makeshift Swahili
6. Sitting
7. Basement Boy
8. Slither

Andy Kellman:

"Made Available compiles two sessions of This Heat in action at the BBC in 1977, two years prior to the release of any of the unit's proper studio recordings. Issued in 1996 by London indie These, the recordings are of excellent sound quality and fine execution. The first session (from March) yields the more gripping material. Charles Bullen's Twilight Zone theme guitar pluckings, circular ringing figures, distorted blasts, and fusion-y leads on "Horizontal Hold" are crystal clear, as are the frantic keyboards and organs from Gareth Williams and/or Charles Hayward. The second session (from October) features the thrashy, jagged, off-kilter rhythms of "Rimp Romp Ramp," foreshadowing the more aggressive, disjointed sides of the Fall, Long Fin Killie, and Painkiller. "Makeshift"'s stream-of-consciousness blasts are neuron frying; the vocals sound like a high-pitched Brian Eno gone bananas. Closing out the second session is a trio of patience-testing snippets based on freeform clarinet, piano, and noise. Not a bad place to start, but the beginner would be better served with Deceit. "

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Live 80-81 (2006)

1. Horizontal Hold
2. Paper Hats
3. S.P.Q.R.
4. Triumph
5. Aerial Photography
6. The Rough With The Smooth
7. Makeshift Swahili
8. Music Like Escaping Gas
9. A New Kind Of Water
10. Twilight Furniture
11. Health And Efficiency

This is just awesome. Get it.

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Albert Ayler - Lörrach, Paris 1966

2009-09-17T05:15:00.000-07:00

This is the allmusic.com description by Thom Jurek:

"The two concerts presented on this disc represent two of the finest dates of Albert Ayler's European tour of 1966. The band -- with brother, Don, on trumpet, violinist Michael Sampson, drummer Beaver Harris, and bassist William Folwell -- was in fantastic shape and performed beyond expectation on both evenings. What is most noticeable about these dates and how they fill in a part of the Ayler mystique as a performer was to hear how immediately he would dictate a marching rhythm, theme, or folk song melody, or even perhaps a child ballad. It was important to acknowledge, right from the beginning in these tunes for a European audience, where this music came from and what continuum he was part of. The opener is "Bells," and for the longest time a Sousa marching rhythm precedes an eight-note melody. Like Ornette Coleman, he uses Sampson's violin and Donald's trumpet to move that melody through the modulation of the rhythm section before taking off into something else, someplace where the saxophone can become a real and true extension of the human voice. The squealing and honking and wailing all become part of a choir of voices forgotten by history, yet inextricably tied to it as ciphers and ghosts. The theme of "Bells" and those of "Our Prayer," "Ghost," "Holy Ghost," and "Spirits" all come from the entryway of emotional clarity and parade churchlike through the band, transferring themselves out onto an audience that must have been staring in disbelief. The shock is how well Ayler moves through his harmonic inventions and involves the band without regard for their involvement. He knows they are there; that's enough, and so he speaks freely. His timbral modulations carry emotions directly from the heart through the horn onto the band, who fills them and sends them out, whether tenderly or terrifyingly, onto those in the seats. This is an amazing document, like the Hilversum sessions but better, because the sound is respectable here and matches the grandeur and shocking emotional immediacy of the performances."

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Iannis Xenakis - Electronic Music (2000)

2009-09-17T05:14:00.001-07:00

This is a collection of some of the most important electronic music composed in the 20th century. Few composers have risen to Xenakis' level of sophistication and vision, to which this album is testament. This is music which shaped the development of electronic music and is therefore not just an extremely enjoyable and challenging listen, but a hugely important historical document.
As it happens, the guy who reviewed it did a better job than I, take a look.

Download (Rapidshare)

Pocahaunted - Chains (2008)

2009-09-17T02:17:00.000-07:00

I am not going to use the descriptor blissed out to explain this music. I don't even want to say drone. What do these words mean any more? Fuck all really. Someone needs to pull an Orwell essay out and kill some of these terms. Unfortunately I just can't say "improv" and leave it at that, because that doesn't quite tell you enough.

I suppose saying this is pretty decent Not Not Fun won't mean a lot to that many people either, though take it from me it is a strong indicator of quality. I will just be satisfied that this is very good, meandering, textured sojourns into rather delicious and rewarding layers of sound (note I have fallen into the trap I was assiduously avoiding) . If you like Vibracathedral Orchestra or Emeralds or other such bands you will like this. Actually, if you like Emeralds then you will probably already have this album.

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Pérotin; Hilliard Ensemble - Pérotin (1989)

2009-09-17T01:18:00.000-07:00

This recording by the Hilliard Ensemble is probably the best interpretation of Perotin available. Though I admit I haven't heard all, the Hilliard ensemble are considered one the pre-eminent performers of early music, and this gives a strong sense of how it may well have sounded to 12th/13th century listeners congregating in Notre Dame cathedral.

To put it simply, this music is sublime. It features probably the first four part harmony ever composed and on top of the religious solemnity it has an earthy force which is as powerful today as it was seven hundred years ago. Little is known about Perotin and his predecessor Leonin, other than what is written by a student of theirs known as Anonymous IV.

This is from last.fm: "Pérotin (fl. c. 1200) was a European composer, believed to be French, who lived around the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century. He was the most famous member of the Notre Dame school of polyphony. He was one of very few composers of his day whose name has been preserved, and can be reliably attached to individual compositions; this is due to the testimony of an anonymous English student at Notre Dame known as Anonymous IV, who wrote about him. Anonymous IV called him “Perotin Magister”, which means Pérotin the master or expert. The name Pérotin is itself derived from “Perotinus,” the Latin diminutive of Petrus, the Latin version of the French name Pierre (just as Léonin comes from “Leoninus,” the Latin diminutive of Léo).

Works

Works attributed to Pérotin include the four-voice Viderunt omnes and Sederunt principes; the three-voice Alleluia, Posui adiutorium, Alleluia, Nativitas, and nine others attributed to him by contemporary scholars on stylistic grounds, all in the organum style; the two-voice Dum sigillum summi Patris, and the monophonic Beata viscera in the conductus style. (The conductus sets a rhymed Latin poem called a sequence to a repeated melody, much like a contemporary hymn.)

Pérotin’s works are preserved in the Magnus Liber, the “Great Book” of early polyphonic church music, which was in the collection of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. The Magnus Liber also contains the works of his slightly earlier contemporary Léonin. However, attempts by scholars to place Pérotin at Notre Dame have been inconclusive, all evidence being circumstantial, and very little is known of his life."

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Otha Turner and the Afrossippi Allstars - From Senegal to Senatobia (1999)

2009-09-17T00:51:00.000-07:00

This is so good. Otha Turner played with fife and drum bands for a very long time. He was born in 1907 and this album was recorded four years before his death. It is incredibly rhythmic and quite raw and is pretty much essential for any fan of American Folk or the Blues. This music, as it happens, pre dates the blues but is often forgotten, not having any figures quite as mysterious as Robert Johnson or as loud as Howlin' Wolf. But Otha Turner shouldn't be compared to these performers. He has a very distinctive style and leaves his own mark on familiar numbers, including 'Sittin on top of the World' (listed on the album as Station Blues) and the traditional 'Glory Glory Hallelujah'

This is from last.fm though:

Otha Turner & The Afrossippi Allstars was a collaborative act between Otha Turner and his Rising Star Fife and Drum Band and various African musicians including R.L. Boyce, Luther Dickinson, Andre Evans, Bernice Evans, Rodney Evans, Sharde Evans, K.K. Freeman, Morikeba Kouyate, Matthew Rappaport, Musa Sutton, Aubrey Turner, Manu Walton, Abe Young.

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Kath Bloom & Loren Conners - Sing the Children Over & Sand in My Shoe (2008)

2009-09-14T03:36:00.000-07:00

boomkat:

"These two Connecticut natives first converged in the early '80s, releasing their first studio album together, Sing The Children Over in 1982 via Boston's Ambiguous Records. That album, along with the following year's Sand In My Shoe (released on Connors' own Saint Joan imprint) have been remastered and repackaged together in this excellent reissue from Australian label Chapter Music, who even throw in some previously unreleased bonus tracks. While their debut combines traditional acoustic blues pieces with compositions from Robert Johnson (the record opens with an excellent rendition of 'Last Fair Deal') and Bloom herself, who would go on to pen the entirety of Sand In My Shoe single-handedly. There's a definite congruity between the old, authentic standards and Bloom's own writing, all of which is brilliantly brought to life by Connors' vivid lead guitar, filled with expressive slides and his customarily weary sounding phrasing. Bloom's voice is every bit as wild as those extravagant bottleneck glissandos however, sounding particularly great on the broad vibrato of 'You Make My Dreams Come True' and the piercing declamations of 'Lullaby', the only song here to feature both Bloom and Connors as writers."

Download it here.

Guitar of North Africa - Three Sublime Frequencies albums

2009-09-08T21:22:00.000-07:00

Do you like ethnic music? I do. Is the music performed by the dispossessed? Even better. Sublime Frequencies is something of a God send to the painfully self aware urban Western hipster. What other label has more faithfully provided a rabid first world audience with music of the third than Sublime Frequencies?

I am of course overstating my point, but this music here is about as perfect as it gets. Not only do these three groups perform traditional music, but they do it with such a deft assimilation of Western styles, that on top of their music’s explicit political alertness it has a seductiveness that truly does have an appeal beyond an audience of tragic bohemians which I facetiously hinted at in the first couple of paragraphs.

The music here is raw and the musicianship consummate. That it comes from a background of such violence and oppression is testament to the hardiness and defiance of a people who manage against all odds to produce consistently beautiful and powerful music. Listen, and enjoy!

Group Bombino - Guitars from Agadez vol. 2

Sublime Frequencies: "Group Bombino is the latest salvo from the Agadez music scene. Led by the guitar virtuoso Omara Mochtar (Bombino), the group’s debut LP-- Volume two in the Guitars from Agadez series, represents the latest chapter in the modern sound of the Tuareg revolution. As of 2008, the Tuareg rebellion is in full force again, and Bombino is in exile to parts unknown. Agadez has been cut off from the rest of Niger. The only road that connects this legendary city with the rest of the country is littered with land mines and the only escorts are the military. This music and its messages of hope, justice, and desire for validation of the Kel Tamachek way of life ring louder than ever. Group Bombino are gaining mythic status in and around the Tuareg community for their incendiary live performances. Coming from the same scene as Group Inerane and sharing some of the same musicians, Group Bombino showcase both sides of the Tuareg Guitar style. Side one features the “Dry Guitar” sound, an unplugged selection of songs sung among the dunes and stars of the Tenere desert. Side two showcases the electric fury of the full band, a melding of heavy, psychedelic guitar heroics with a raw garage sound, back beat percussion, all swirling in extended trance rock moves. Recorded live and unfiltered in Agadez and the surrounding desert in early 2007, with the band’s equipment powered by generators and an unflinching dedication to the rebellion, Group Bombino’s music transcends any influence and ignites the raw passion of its message to the outside world. This is a one-time pressing of 1,500 copies. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl and comes in a gatefold full color jacket stocked with great photos of the musicians and liner notes by Hisham Mayet."

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Group Doueh - Guitar Music from the Western Sahara

Sublime Frequencies: "If you think you’ve heard all the great electric guitar styles in the world, think again. This Saharan sand-blizzard of fine-crushed glass will grind your face to a bloody pulp. Group Doueh play raw and unfiltered Saharawi music from the former colonial Spanish outpost of the Western Sahara. Doueh (pronounced “Doo-way”) is their leader and a master of the electric guitar. He’s been performing since he was a child playing in many groups before finally creating his own in the 1980’s. Doueh says he’s Influenced by western pop and rock music especially Jimi Hendrix and James Brown. His sound is distorted, loud and unhinged with an impressive display of virtuosity and style only known in this part of the world. His wife Halima and friend Bashiri are the two vocalists in the group. Saharawi songs are from the sung poetry of the Hassania language. The music is based on the same modal structure as Mauritanian music, however, Doueh’s style is a looser appropriation infused with a western guitar scope, one that relies, in his words, as much on Hendrix as it does traditional Sahrawi music. It also adds a playful pop element that rarely filters through in this region. Doueh has turned down countless offers from Morocco and Europe to release his music but he decided to offer us access to his homemade recordings and photo archive for this amazing debut LP. This is a one-time pressing of 1000 copies, the first Sublime Frequencies vinyl release. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl and comes in a gatefold full color jacket stocked with great photos of the musicians and liner notes by Hisham Mayet."

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Group Inerane - Guitars from Agadez

Sublime Frequencies: "Group Inerane is the now sound of the Tuareg Guitar Revolution sweeping across the Sahara Desert and inspired by the rebel musicians that started this music as a political weapon used to communicate from the Libyan Refugee camps in the 1980s and 1990s. Spearheaded by the enigmatic guitar hero Bibi Ahmed, Group Inerane has been together for several years and carries the rich tradition of Tamachek guitar songs for another generation. These ten tracks are a combination of amplified roots rock, blues, and folk in the local Tuareg styles at times entering into full-on electric guitar psychedelia. This music is performed with two electric guitars, a drum kit and a chorus of vocalists. The recordings were captured live in the city of Agadez in the Republic of Niger. Group Inerane was also featured in the Sublime Frequencies DVD “Niger: Magic and Ecstasy in the Sahel”. Recorded by Hisham Mayet, this is the second Sublime Frequencies Vinyl Release. 180 gram vinyl, full-color gatefold jacket, and limited one-time pressing of 1000 copies."

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You can buy these recordings from the Sublime Frequencies website

Garbage and the Flowers - Catnip 7" (1992)

2009-09-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

Absolutely great 7" on Twisted Village by Wellington band that are, apparently, still going and based in Sydney now. Don't know what their recent stuff is like but this and the 1997 compilation "Eyes Rind as if Beggers" are both great excursions into lo-fi White Light/White Heat heroics with some so repetitive it's almost meditative folk thrown in there.

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Jackie-O Motherfucker - Ballads of the Revolution (2009)

2009-09-01T04:12:00.000-07:00

New-old-weird-whatever group unsurprisingly have a new album out. The vocals kind of remind me of Galaxie 500 in places.

Dusted Magazine says:

Jackie-O Motherfucker is, at this point, one of life’s little inevitabilities. We can just kind of assume that Tom Greenwood, with a revolving cast of wayfarers who do their time with him in between more refined/less catchall projects (see Adam Forkner and Honey Owens, for two), will continue to follow some erratic astral muse, and that we’ll never go for too long without a new slab of exemplary industrio-rural drone to chew on, some more infallible, sun-deprived grooves for our campfires in outer space. No good reason to want it any other way.

Inevitability doesn’t mean JOMF can’t still pose questions, though, and the question asked by Ballads of the Revolution is whether a freewheeling act like this one has any use for the model of the song. If 2005’s sweetly moody Flags of the Sacred Harp answered more or less in the affirmative, thanks largely to Owens’s ideally off-center lilt, this album seems to take the opposing side. The band’s slow-building jams have historically proven their purpose in the execution, 10 minutes or so into the sound-gnarl, but these six songs are the opposite: they sound like they were saddled from the outset with something to prove about immediacy, and given no further instructions. Even the most splayed-out jams, “Skylight” and “The Cryin’ Sea,” move like they have somewhere to be – but the spirit in which they take shape internally hasn’t gotten any more dynamic. The stopping points are just a little more arbitrary, a little more enforced.

What’s at least good about those two numbers is that they de-center Greenwood’s vocals, which even on the folk ballad-reworking “Nightingale” come off more listless than deep. No such luck on the abstruse “Dark Falcons,” supposedly a reworking of a Lucky Dragons song with some affectless murmuring from Owens, or on “The Corner,” a whispery Slint song drained of everything but a few creepy noises. Both clock in under six minutes; it feels almost like a matter of principle that, given more time to spread out, they wouldn’t so much find their grooves as outstay their welcomes.

And yet the unexpected highlight here is the finale, “A Mania,” which, barring some wah-wah noodling right out of a mid-1990s Phish single, is a perfectly dignified specimen of lonely, off-key Americana. No need to toss in the kitchen sink, no need to stretch out to 16 minutes, just a simple and direct sure-we-can-write-a-proper-song success. It doesn’t quite supply the missing purpose of the rest of the album, but it proves that this band can slip the predictable sometimes, when the circumstances are right. For the rest of Ballads Greenwood and company mostly show their limits by pushing them a bit, which is still laudable and even vaguely comforting.

By Daniel Levin Becker

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Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kurzwellen (1968)

2009-08-30T23:17:00.000-07:00

From the composer:

"KURZWELLEN, like PROZESSION, was created for the ensemble with which I tour since 1964. The instruments are piano, electronium, large tam-tam with microphone, viola with contact microphone, 2 filters with 4 faders, 4 short-wave receivers. The work may also be interpreted by a different combination of instruments which corresponds to the one mentioned. In TELEMUSIC I composed various processes of intermodulation, combining "found" (folklore) music of different countries and epochs with electronic music.

These experiences were expanded in HYMNEN (ANTHEMS), through integrating national anthems into electronic music. In PROCESSION, the musicians transform events taken from my earlier compositions. And now, in KURZWELLEN, each player has – in addition to his instrument – a short-wave receiver with which he receives the musical "material" to which he reacts: he imitates it, transposes it, and modulates it, playing together with the others in reciprocal reactions and intermodulations."

Track list:

Kurzwellen (Radio Bremen Aufname) (Teil 1)
Kurzwellen (Radio Bremen Aufname) (Teil 2)
Kurzwellen (WDR Aufname) (Teil 1)
Kurzwellen (WDR Aufname) (Teil 2)

Download here (Mediafire)

Del-Byzanteens - Girl's Imagination (1981)

2009-08-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

Early 80s Lower-East-Side art music featuring Jim Jarmusch on keyboards. Sounds exactly how you'd think it would, and just so happens to be great too.

Get it here.