Deniece Williams

Deniece Williams spent the first half of the '70s establishing herself as a background vocalist for an impressive line of artists, including Stevie Wonder, Minnie Riperton, Roberta Flack, and Esther Phillips. Though she'd continue to do session work throughout her career, she also became accomplished as a solo artist. Unfortunately, a lot of people think she came out of nowhere for 1984's "Let's Hear It for the Boy," a number one pop hit, but she was making excellent albums as early as 1976. The songs that would eventually make up her debut, This Is Niecy, were sent to Earth, Wind & Fire. Williams didn't intend to make her own album and thought these songs would be a good fit for Philip Bailey. Instead, she got to record them with most of EW&F, including Maurice White and Charles Stepney as producers, Verdine White on bass, Freddie White on drums, those glorious horns, and several other associates of the group. Three of the album's seven songs were released as singles, and they're all stunners, each with its own mood and style (fittingly, one peaked on the disco chart, one hit the Top 30 of the pop chart, and one scraped the black singles chart). The best of the lot is "Free," a subtle but powerful sparkler that expressed Williams' desire to break from the more traditional lifestyle that had been mapped out for her. Out of everything she recorded, this low-key song demonstrates most how her time with Riperton and Syreeta rubbed off on her, showing how a bedroom whisper can be just as affecting as an in-the-red wail. Also containing strong album cuts, This Is Niecy is a great complement to Earth, Wind & Fire's Spirit, released the same year -- not only for its overlapping personnel, but also for its greatness.

Ass

Over the past years Andreas Söderström has played bass with multi-awarded pop genius Jenny Wilson, trumpet and lap-steel with the international renowned electronica-project Tape, and harmonium, key harp and guitar with contemporary folk/rock-combos as Barr, Pallin and Blood Music. Now is the time for one of Sweden’s most brilliant music minds to do his own thing: Ass – Andreas Söderström Solo, after a decade of talented but neglected living room recordings.

Ass debut album is a beautiful, mainly instrumental, folktronic journey, that probably started amongst “a jungle of strings” in his father’s bouzoki factory when Andreas was a child. Playing, of course, all instruments himself, he has given himself freedom to stretch out (and in) as it suited him. A lot of magic moments are collected here by this self-taught music man. But the interesting thing about Ass is the wholeness of it. Even though it is driven by “small” minimalistic musical ideas, or hymn-like melodies, it is the big picture that impresses. Andreas also sings on two majestic, but low keyed-tunes; Two Different Ways and Don’t You Tell A Word, with an almost melting voice, a crossover between a Thurston Moore and Jim O’Rourke

Jubilee Singers

The Jubilee Singers are from Pasadena,California. They used to be called No Little Kindness. Their s/t record is by far one of the best releases I have heard from a local band here in Southern California in a long time. Please go see them play live if you ever have the chance. you won't regret it!

The Temptations

Best known for their silky soul vocals and smooth-stepping routines, the Temptations were firmly entrenched as the undisputed kings of Barry Gordy's Motown stable when cutting-edge producer Norman Whitfield walked into the studio and announced that it was time to shake things up. The resulting freakout became the first half of the stellar Cloud Nine, an album that would become one of the defining early funk sets, with songs that not only took Motown in a new direction, but helped to shape a genre as well. On one side and across three jams, Whitfield and the Temptations would give '70s-era funk musicians a broad palette from which to draw inspiration. The title track, with its funky soul bordering on psychedelic frenzy, was an audacious album opener, and surely gave older fans a moment's pause. Only two more songs rounded out side one: an incredibly fresh take on "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," which jazzed up the vocals, brought compelling percussion to the fore, and relegated the piano well into the wings, and "Run Away Child, Running Wild," an extravagant nine-minute groove where the sonics easily surpassed the vocals. After shaking up the record-buying public with these three masterpieces, the Temptations brought things back to form for side two. Here, their gorgeous vocals dominated slick arrangements across seven tracks which included "Hey Girl" and the masterful "I Need Your Lovin'." Funk continued to percolate -- albeit subtly -- but compared to side one, it was Temptations business as usual. It was this return to the classic sound, however, which ultimately gave Cloud Nine its odd dynamic. The dichotomy of form between old and new between sides doesn't allow for a continuous gel. But the brash experimentation away from traditional Motown on the three seminal tracks which open the disc shattered the doorway between past and present as surely as the decade itself imploded and smooth soul gave way to blistering funk.

The Wedding Present

From the start, Cinerama was not a drastic diversion from the Wedding Present. David Gedge rounded off whatever remaining edges were left in the Weddoes' sound and developed a crack chamber pop group. Softer songs off Watusi and Saturnalia, such as "Catwoman," "2, 3 Go," and "Real Thing," dropped hints. Gedge's gruff yelps vanished, replaced by bedroom whispers; roaring electric guitars were swapped out for delicate acoustic strums, with extensive use of strings, brass, woodwinds, and keyboards. After Cinerama released their first album, they began to sound more and more like the Wedding Present, to the point where the two groups were virtually indistinguishable from one another. In 2004, Gedge and his associates began recording the fourth Cinerama album with Watusi producer Steve Fisk and resurfaced instead with the sixth Wedding Present album. To no surprise, Take Fountain sounds just like Cinerama and the Wedding Present. Opener "Interstate 5" gets it across right off the bat, its first six minutes an effectively repetitive chugging groove that shifts into a drifting hybrid of Ennio Morricone and John Barry for the final two minutes -- a bracing zip up the West Coast turns into a restful gondola ride alongside an Italian village. From then on, the album is populated by a range of three- to four-minute pop songs that you're accustomed to hearing from Gedge. For every hushed, playful passage, there's an explosive chorus, and for every verse dealing with some form of romantic frustration, there's...a bunch of romantically frustrated verses. Most songs are of the standard that made Gedge one of the most loved indie figures of the '80s and '90s, though the bluntly sexual phrasings that repelled George Best/Tommy-era fans from Watusi, Saturnalia, and everything released by Cinerama remain. Take Fountain is a solid Wedding Present album, one that will satisfy those who have been following Gedge all along. (As an important footnote, the Wedding Present name was reactivated in time to record one final Peel Session before John Peel's passing in October of 2004.)

Dino Felipe

Previously know for his electronic work with Miami's Schematic label and his experimental records on his own and with others (Old Bombs, Fukktron,etc) this time Dino stares right at the ghost of his MTV dreams childhood years and comes out of it with the most beautiful record of well put together songs you'll hear this year. A full instrumented record of pop rock, ballads, psychedelia, no-wave, rock noise and total mutations injected with Dino's own unique approach. This is the pop music of the present, and a recording shooting to change the future.

Crime & The City Solution

Starting with "The Shadow of No Man," the band's zoned atmospherics accentuated by both a nicely grimy keyboard drone and brisk pace, Crime & the City Solution continue carving its own strange path. The same lineup from Shine reappears here -- keyboardist Chris Haas appears only as an auxiliary member, but still adds to the music here and there, while Mick Harvey doubtless contributes most of the organ work. Simon Bonney continues to evolve into more of his own man -- if anything, he's embracing country and western more explicitly in his singing style, where Nick Cave would prefer blues and Vegas-style show tunes. He takes over the lion's share of the lyrics this time as well, again working with the mix of sometimes cryptic, sometimes concrete imagery of empty landscapes, forlorn towns, ill-lit city streets and the people who live there. In terms of performance, the lineup carries out its shadowy brief well once again -- Alexander Hacke sounds a little more integrated into the mix than before, as well as a touch more prominent, while Harvey's peerless drumming remains a delight. Bronwyn Adams, meanwhile, still performs her violin with skill and haunting style. A number of interesting approaches surface -- consider the deeply funky guitar/keyboard intro to "Stone," which gives the track a major boost of power as well as nicely sitting apart from the band's usual approach. The second half of the album consists of a suite of songs called "The Bride Ship," starting with the track of that name and continuing through "Free World" and "New World." Bonney sometimes sounds far more like Cave than ever, but otherwise, it's a dramatic convolution of everything from Moby Dick to modern apocalypse, with appropriately doom-laden backing. The CD version includes B-side -- "Three/Four," an okay enough track, and an alternate take on "The Bridge Ship."

The Fates

The Fates (Una Baines', ex-Fall/Blue Orchids) This collection of Celtic folk-flavoured songs, originally inspired by tales of white witchcraft through the ages, it's a pleasant enough gathering offlutes, percussion, poems, laments, vocal harmonies and acoustic guitars from a group of nine women. Ignore the Linder-type off-putting cover and delve inside to become gently bewitched by the melodic, mystical spell of this frail, proud music. Old hippies all? Maybe, but you don't need to be loud to be worth hearing. Possibly the two poems on Side Two, 'Who Am I?' and 'Ritual', slip over into pretentiousness with their 'atmospheric' backgrounds and monosyllabic vocals. But in the main, as Laurie Lee might put it, "this music has something of the quality of charm; radiance, balance and harmony."

Crescent

After a string of promising singles, Crescent took the full plunge with Now, at once very much of its place and time -- the mid-nineties Bristol avant-garde rock scene -- and making its own fierce stamp on things. Matt Jones is again main mover and vocalist, though his influence as distinct from the rest of his bandmates is hard to specifically distinguish, especially as the songs as a whole are credited to Crescent rather than any individual. Recorded in a two day session, the material shows signs of both a careful arrangement -- witness the exquisite tension between loud and soft on opening track "Sun," reappearing from the self-titled EP -- and a free 'see what happens' approach. If Crescent on Now is close to any of its sister bands in particular, it might be Amp, but instead of that band's often blissful if dark drone, heightened by lovely female vocals, Crescent are rougher, more brusque. Jones' speak-singing is often delivered in a semi-snarl, not really intelligible at many points, while the moody groove the band creates even at its calmest seems laden with a hint of threat. Sudden changes and surprises -such as Jones' burst into screams on "Song," leading to his hoarse delivery on the increasingly chaotic "Exit" and then the quiet acoustic strum "New Sun" -- keep Now from being entirely predictable. The unclean, commercially unfriendly production helps all the more, but it's not just simply style over substance -- it brings out the music in ways a crisper approach would have lost. More than once the feeling is of extended psych jams a la Spacemen 3, but with a less formal tone -- thus "Third Light Home," with its extended soloing, gently rolling drums and Jones' low-key murmuring up front.

Meanderthals

Apparently Norway's Rune Lindbaek and London's Idjut Boys formed a soft rock group. There are steel drums and huge clouds of misty echo to cut through on "Kunst Or Ars," the opening track to next month's Desire Lines on Smalltown Supersound. What's happening in Europe? Do you think minimal techno fans have gotten to a point where they are over tininess and want something tender yet expansive? Like going to the expensive mattress store and trying everything out, being polite to the salespeople and feeling the way the different pressures nestle your back and neck. They don't want to sleep on a plump futon anymore. The days are dark enough. Meanderthals soothe.

Hollywood, Mon Amour

Introduction by Marc Collin
Rock and pop have reached and passed the ripe old age of 50... yes, they've aged and now seem to be retracing their steps somewhat to their golden past.

Like Nouvelle Vague, Hollywood, Mon Amour revisits a genre, a period, retaining only the basic skeleton of the songs (melody and lyrics) to demonstrate that by arranging them differently they can take on a new life while still respecting the original. The titles are, certainly for my generation, classics in their genre.

For this project my attention was drawn to the songs featured in the movies of the 80s, those mainly produced in Hollywood... strangely enough, you come across quite a lot of bands from the post punk era whose success led them to writing songs for feature films... Blondie comes to mind, Simple Minds, The Human league, Duran Duran and their godfather, David Bowie. Even if all these songs were a huge success, and will always remain classics, nowadays they suffer from having that typical end of the 80s sound which isn't any longer of our times.

John Barry is hailed by one and all for the film music he composed in the 60s, 70s right up until the 90s, and while Diamonds are Forever or Goldfinger are the first songs that spring to mind, what about A View to A Kill, written like the others for a Bond film in '85 and performed by Duran Duran? Barry's musical star has certainly not waned since then, it's still there, possibly hidden somewhat by (perhaps) a little too much make-up. So, let's imagine what A View to A Kill would have sounded like if Barry had produced it 10 years earlier...

Well, here is not history revisited, but a part of musical history rewritten that all came about while rearranging the songs from the movies of the 80s, each time imagining a different story and a different era. For the project I surrounded myself with the finest voices I have had the pleasure to come across recently: Skye, Juliette Lewis, Cibelle, Yael Naim, Dea Li, Katrine Ottosen, Nadeah, Leelou,Nancy Danino, Bianca Calandra ...

Hollywood, Mon Amour (some people will undoubtedly see an allusion to French cinema here), is a collection of the greatest songs from the movies of the 80s rearranged by Marc Collin, Nouvelle Vague's producer.

The Gentleman Losers

Gold Dust Afternoon


The new Gentleman Losers record is beautiful. Imagine a soundtrack of loss and hope and you get the picture. Dustland came into my life the other day and now I have a soundtrack that is perfect for those long walks when I try to figure it all out. Breathtaking stuff!

Mazzy Star

Thanks to the fluke hit "Fade Into You" -- one of the better beneficiaries of alt-rock's radio prominence in the early '90s, a gentle descent of a lead melody accompanied by piano, a steady beat, and above all else, Hope Sandoval's lovely lead vocal -- Mazzy Star's second album became something of a commercial success. All without changing much at all from where the band was before -- David Roback oversaw all the production, the core emphasis remained a nexus point between country, folk, psych, and classic rock all shrouded in mystery, and Sandoval's trademark drowsy drawl remained swathed in echo. But grand as She Hangs Brightly was, So Tonight That I Might See remains the group's undisputed high point, mixing in plenty of variety among its tracks without losing sight of what made the group so special to begin with. Though many songs work with full arrangements like "Fade Into You," a thick but never once overpowering combination, two heavily stripped-down songs demonstrate in different ways how Mazzy Star makes a virtue out of simplicity. "Mary of Silence" is an organ-led slow shuffle that easily ranks with the best of the Doors, strung-out and captivating all at once, Sandoval's singing and Roback's careful acid soloing perfect foils. "Wasted," meanwhile, revisits a classic blues riff slowed down to near-soporific levels, but the snarling crunch of Roback's guitar works wonders against Sandoval's vocals, a careful balance that holds. If there's a left-field standout, then unquestionably it's "Five String Serenade." A cover of an Arthur Lee song -- for once not a Love-era number, but a then-recent effort -- Roback's delicate acoustic guitar effortlessly brings out its simple beauty. Tambourine and violin add just enough to the arrangement here and there, and Sandoval's calm singing makes for the icing on the cake.
by Ned Raggett

A Mix of Spring 2009

I have been asked a lot recently what i am listening to. So here you go!

1. Pink Mountaintops - Axis: Thrones of Love
2. Wooden Shjips - Motorbike
3. Whitetree - Tangerine
4. Valet - Rainbow (Boris)
5. Glen Johnson - Les Catacombes
6. The Wooden Birds - Afternoon In Bed (The Bats)
7. Stuart Murdoch - Another Saturday
8. Au Revoir Simone - The Last One
9. Bill Callahan - Faith/Void
10.St. Vincent And The National - Sleep All Summer (Crooked Fingers)
11.Great Lake Swimmers - River's Edge
12.Total & Notorious B.I.G. - Can't You See
13.Subway - Crystalline
14.Lindstrom and Prins Thomas - gudene vet + snutt

Have A Great Week!

The Wackness-Music From the Motion Picture

The Wackness is a coming of age story about sex, drugs, music and what it takes to be a man. NYC in the summer of 1994. Girls were fly, the music was dope, the heat was on and Luke was just trying to deal. The soundtrack features classic period hip hop and R&B tracks from legendary Hip Hop icons like Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, A Tribe Called Quest, KRS-One, D.J. Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, R. Kelly and more. Starring Josh Peck, Ben Kingsley, Famke Janssen, Olivia Thirlby, Mary Kate Olsen and Method Man. The Wackness tells the story of a troubled teenage drug dealer who trades pot for therapy sessions with a drug addled psychiatrist. Things get more complicated when the kid falls for one of his classmates, who just happens to be the doctor's daughter. Set against the backdrop of the greatest year in Hip Hop history.

Grouper

Portland, Oregon based Liz Harris might have achieved a significant fan base thanks to the whispering, near ambient vocal crusades of her debut album ‘Way Their Crept’ and its follow-up ‘Wide’, but those with a careful ear would have heard slightly more trapped beneath her fuzzy chain of effects. ‘Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill’ marks a departure of sorts for Liz which sees her turn down the fuzz-boxes which caged (and to some degree defined) her sound and allows her voice to ring out above everything else. It is an album steeped in the world of dream-pop, a genre pioneered by the likes of 4AD’s Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil, and far from shy away from the reference Liz has instead grabbed on with both hands, in the process creating an album’s worth of perfect, leftfield pop songs.
Using delicate song structures which are at once both familiar and alien somehow we hear her words cry out hauntingly over stripped down guitar lines and looped environmental recordings. Just listen to ‘I’d Rather be Sleeping’, a track that could be a mournful take on Belly, albeit with a more fragile heart. These unforgettable harmonies and vocal lines that embed themselves in your consciousness before you even realise it are the key to the album’s success and the reason why it makes such a lasting impression. There is something to Liz Harris’s music that defies the time, makes you sit up and listen in an age where we’re told that recorded music is disposable. These are the future soundtracks to love, despair and ultimately hope.

Eddie Callahan

"False Ego" 1976 (Ocean)

This wonderful album has been described as “loner rock,” an interesting distinction since so many of these thoughtful, quirky songwriters make folk records that, um, don’t rock. Within about two minutes of the first song, I was eternally hooked. It starts abruptly, almost in the middle of a conversation with Eddie, acoustic guitar in hand, asking some of life’s bigger questions to an unnamed echoed respondent. After a few verses, the rhythm section comes in, followed by the most perfectly realized batch of synthesizer noises you’ll ever hear. The songs ends in waves of sound effects and at this point you’ll already be ready to proclaim Eddie a genius. The good news is that most of the album keeps pace, with gorgeous pop (“Just Across The Line”), power pop with backwards guitar (“Don’t You Know”), stunning acid rock (“Paper Rain”) with a Stranglers-type synth break, and all sorts of surprises. This album has a timeless quality, like the very best pop, and only the talk box on one song places it firmly in 1975/1976. Otherwise it could just as likely have been from 1970 or 1979, and in fact has a bit of a new wave feel to it. It’s not exactly “psych” or “power pop,” and genre fans might not be sure what to make of it, but it’s just plain too good for classification. Even a music hall ditty with comic snyth bleats and a funky rock song with a talk box manage to work. Callahan is a Hare Krishna, which explains the mystical questioning of many of the lyrics. He’s also a bit of a chameleon, sounding like three or four different singers over the course of the album (which, along with the unusual arrangements, makes this album fresh and unpredictable in ways few pop albums are.) The last three songs are a bit of a let down, as they’re merely good. If they had been as good as the rest for the album, it would be an eternal masterpiece. As it is, it’s still one of the finest and most distinctive private press albums I’ve ever heard. Great album cover, too (despite being a cheap paste-on), and an even better label design.

Henrik Schwarz, Âme & Dixon

When we first started thinking about the compilation, we had in mind the idea to put together a great minimal techno selection with stuff from the early 90s, which really inspired us, like Robert Hood, Dan Bell, Plastikman, Pansonic and Mike Ink to name a few. Whilst working on the project we had the feeling that there is so much more great and influential minimal music from way before the techno thing started.

So we were very excited to combine the music from the electronic pioneers, with the tracks from the minimal techno godfathers in a very modern way. In Minimal Music there is so much (space) in between the sounds and the space that gives you a lot of opportunities for an own interpretation.

The Grandfather Paradox is a scientific theory about time travelling and was first described by the science fiction writer Rene Barjavel in his book - Le Voyageur Imprudent. We took suggestions out of that because we felt like we are travelling back in time and manipulating the old music with modern knowledge. The fact that we did all this with the deserved respect to the originals makes us quite sure that the results are bringing something new and interesting to the old tracks and transport the past into the here and now.

Henrik Schwarz, Âme & Dixon

Tracklisting 2xCD release:

CD1: Mixed by Henrik Schwarz, Âme & Dixon

01. Steve Reich & Pat Metheny
Electric Counterpoint - Fast (Movement 3)

02. Etienne Jaumet
Repeat After Me (Âme Mix)

03. Kenneth Bager
Fragment Eleven… The Day After Yesturday Pt.1

04. Liquid Liquid
Lock Groove (Out)

05. Cymande
For Baby Oh

06. Patrick Moraz
Metamorphoses 1st Movement (Live)

07. To Rococo Rot
Testfeld

08. Matematics
Blue Water

09. I:CUBE
Acid Tablet

10. Ø
Atomit

11. Conrad Schnitzler
Electrocon 11

12. Green Pickles feat. Billy Lo & M. Pittman
Feedback

13. La Funk Mob
Motor Bass Gets Phunked Up (Richie Hawtin's Electrophunk Mix)

14. John Carpenter
The President Is Gone

15. Yusef Lateef
The Three Faces Of Bala

16. Robert Hood
Minus

17. Raymond Scott
Bass-Line Generator

18. Moondog
Invocation


CD2: Un-Mixed

01. Conrad Schnitzler
Elektrocon 11

02. Steve Reich & Pat Metheny
Electric Counterpoint - Fast (Movement 3)

03. Liquid Liquid
Lock Groove (Out)

04. To Rococo Rot
Testfeld

05. Patrick Moraz
Metamorphoses 1st Movement (Live)

06. Young Marble Giants
N.i.t.a

07. Kenneth Bager
Fragment Eleven… The Day After Yesturday Pt.1

08. Arthur Russell
Make 1,2

09. John Carpenter
The President Is Gone

10. Robert Hood
Minus

11. Raymond Scott
Bass-Line Generator

12. Pyrolator
November Mühlheim

13. Cymande
For Baby Oh

14. Can
Sunday Jam

WhiteTree

Ludovico Einaudi: piano Robert Lippok: electronics Ronald Lippok: drums Inspired and named after a very special, paradise-like retreat in Amos Tutuola’s novel ” The Palm-Wine Drinkard“, the album is the cosiest pair of french mittens, helping to withstand the cold and fast pulse of our technology-driven times. Think about it: ”Cloudland" is not the first effort to merge electronics with classical music. Far from it. Carsten Nicolai worked with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Carl Craig and Moritz von Oswald inject Ravel's Bolero with a techno twist, a whole new generation of musicians is as comfortable with a laptop as with classical instruments. Yet brave and remarkable efforts, Cloudland brings across a playfullness, a looseness and broadness which makes the album something unique.

Skyramps

Skyramps is Mark McGuire and Daniel Lopatin. This record "Days of Thunder" was limited to 75 copies. I heard this was a tribute to Top Gun? All I know is that you will not find a better record than this in 2009.