Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record

I'm happy to say this record is everything I had hoped for and more. It still has the classic jams, pop songs, and aural controversy, but now the gang sounds like they are branching out a bit, experimenting in the studio with new textures. Amazingly they all hold together as 'songs' so I can imagine that they may gain a few fans. The John McEntire influence (Tortoise, Sea and Cake) does not go unnoticed - in a good way. It sounds like Broken Social Scene, just a little more grown up. Amazing.

BTW, wish John a happy birthday to John on April 9, he turns the big four-oh.

Smooth Richard Hawley

More Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes Frontman sings Joanna Newsom

Soul - Light: On The South Side

You've seen the YouTube preview (see Nov 18th post) now here it is baby:

Lady Margo - This Is My Prayer

Andrew Brown - You Made Me Suffer

not available (yet) on iTunes

Ghana

I'm in Ghana this month. Hopefully bringing you some new tracks asap.

Rock

A great collection of fuzzy Matador Records tracks.

LISTEN

Follow That Bird! - The Ghosts That Wake You

The Young - Blister - sound like The Grifters to anyone?

buy on iTunes

New Animal Collective!

Out today is the newest from Animal Collective! Basically only for the hardcore fans. It's actually a hard one to recommend.

buy

New Look for 2010

I thought I'd put up some of my photo manipulations for you to enjoy. It's a new year and there is going to be much more art coming your way.

The word 'music' transformed into vectors and manipulated

ROCK - Peter Wolf Crier

The first thing I thought of when I heard this record was the sounds of clean Swedish pop bands put through the crunchy filter of White Stripes or the Black Keys. Quite good. I think they are self-published

buy

END OF A DIFFICULT YEAR

I feel so greatful and excited of what's to come. Let's just say that 2010 will be a year of truth.

70s Chicago Soul Photographs

Losing My Edge - Basic Channel

Coming out of Detroit techno of the late 80s, two Berliners Mark Ernestus and Moritz Von Oswald created a style super-influential minimal dub-techno that has continued to morph into their fantastic Rhythm & Sound reggae influenced work. I was glad when LCD dropped their name since these guys have been so great for so long. A real piece of history for music fans.

LISTEN

Quadrant Dub I Edit

buy at iTunes store

back to Losing My Edge

Rock - The XX

I feel a little mainstream posting this but if you don't know this record you will probably hear it in some Ossington dinner joint and wonder what the hell it is. Pretty easy to like. I guess easy is a bit vanilla but once and a while you just want some music without the big challenge. Know what I mean?

LISTEN

Crystalised

buy at iTunes store

Jazz - Sun Ra

A stellar Mingus style record that is actually two records, We Travel The Spaceways from 1956 and Bad and Beautiful from 1961. For Sun Ra, this is extremely easy to get into, and is freaky good fun.

LISTEN

We Travel The Spaceways

buy at iTunes store

AfroFunk - Legends of Benin

Another stunning release from Analog Africa. I am seriously freaking out right now. A good mix of deep funky African grooves, James Brown breaks, and deep Latin track thrown in for good measure. This is a must.

LISTEN

Dadje Von O Von Non

buy at iTunes store

Rock - zZz

It seems like someone loves Death From Above 1979. Who doesn't? Stripped down to drums and organ. This is a pretty interesting and varied record. Maybe a sprinkling of Jim Morrison? Straight outta Holland. Thanks Henan for the tip.

A crazy cockfighting art video for Running With The Beast - youTube it.

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Running With The Beast

Majeur

buy at iTunes store

Rock - Spiral Stairs

Garage Rock - Thee Oh Sees

'This is like meat and potatoes prepared by a master chef-- totally familiar but utterly delicious.'

- Pitchfork March '09

'Nuff said.

LISTEN

Can You See

Enemy Destruct

Buy at iTunes Store

Rock - Surf City

It's funny that when I hear a fantastic song these days I'm thinking to myself 'this would make a great iPod commercial song'. Well this whole EP is like that.

Basically 'The Strokes' go surfing. Love it crazy time.

See also: pavement, sonic youth, the clean, velvet undergound, the jesus and mary chain, the beach boys, the zombies, the boredoms

LISTEN

Headin' Inside

buy at iTunes Store

Lo-Fi - Kurt Vile

Man I love this record. Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, Arthur Russel's World of Echo... this is a gem. Not everyone will get it, but I love its simplicity and devotion to a single riff. Basically just vocals and guitar with occasional drums. Plenty of echo and reverb.

I love the fact that the entire album sounds like it was recorded in one go.

LISTEN

Amplifier

Heart Attack

Buy at iTunes store

'Time After Time' by We Have Band

Rock - Dark Was The Night (compilation)

Wow this is a great comp! This is a must-have. I haven't even gotten to every track yet since I keep replaying over and over the first cd. I'm assuming that this is the only place you can find these tracks, since they are probably one-offs for this long-running benefit compilation. Kev, you once again manage to give me a little more info than I'm comfortable with.

Come on: Kevin Drew, Feist, Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire, Yo La Tengo, Iron & Wine, Cat Power and more... For real?

LISTEN

Brackett, WI by Bon Iver

Tightrope by Yeasayer

I Was Young When I Left Home by Antony + Bryce Dessner

buy at iTunes

ROCK - Anne Soldaat

Great rock band out of the Netherlands, courtesy of my friend Henan, this is a great effort, a solid pop record. Some songs like Pray For Delay remind me of REM if I actually liked them, others like Runaway remind me of mid-70s Bowie/T-Rex/Supertramp, and finally Teenage View has a sick early-90s hook in the chorus.

LISTEN

Pray For Delay

Runaway

Teenage View

buy on iTunes

SITE DOWN

I WAS TAKEN DOWN BY MY PROVIDER SO SOME LINKS WILL NOT WORK UNTIL I GET A CHANCE TO GO THROUGH EVERYTHING. SORRY.

E

ROCK - Animal Collective

Don't stare at this too long....

Yes, I know I need to get out more, find some bands that DON'T remind me of my love for mid-70s Beach Boys but hey, they are probably my favorite indie outfit going these days. Amazing production, so inventive, you have no idea where they are going, but you are happy to be taken on the ride.

LISTEN

My Girls

buy

Indie Soundz - tUnE-yArDs

An amazing record.

LISTEN

Sunlight

For You

Little Tiger

buy on iTunes

"In and around 2007 Merrill Garbus creates tUnE-yArDs. She thought the exasperating capitalization will buy her some time.

Merrill came from parents who sewed their lives together with music, and at age seven she proceeded to hum her way through days. She hummed her way through the family record collection: Old Timey fiddling, Revolver, Django. She hummed her way through mid-’80’s pop radio and an obsession with Christmas music. She hummed her way through folk music camp, through Smith College and a theater degree, through anarchist puppet training, through brazen, all-women a cappella singing, through heat rash in Kenya, through deeply scrutinized puppet performances in Europe, through her lonely, swirling 20’s. The hum seems to have become a yell.

In 2008 she released BiRd-BrAiNs, which she had recorded over a span of 2.5 years on a hand-held voice recorder. Sampling snippets of her life as a nanny on Martha’s Vineyard and later as a young musician in noisy urban settings, she weaved sounds together to make substantial rhythms and then layered her ukulele and vocals over top. The album came out on recycled cassette tape to the chagrin of many, but was also offered by donation as an online digital download." -forcefield

Sing higher damn it!

I can just hear the producer in the booth saying "why don't we try this falsetto?"

Woods - Rain On

buy

Rock - White Williams

A strong debut with echos of Brian Eno, Smoke has lots of ideas but is so simple and clean. The production is easy to listen to, but not underdeveloped. Williams wrote produced and engineered this record.

LISTEN

Headlines

The Shadow

New Violence

buy on iTunes

re: mailer

In all seriousness though: we pray wickedness DEcrease. And cease. "Let righteousness cover the earth."

JAHlove everytime

Thanks Jeremy

Eric

Rock - Chad VanGaalen

Much like his first incredible record, this one just made me shake my head when I heard it. Every song is fresh and new with the freedom and drive of indie-rock and enough 'classic rock' in there to keep the peeps in the stadium happy. Wow, I'm so totally impressed. His voice is not for everyone, but it's singer-songwriter man, Neil Young has a weird voice too...

Wilco, Neil Young, Beck, Guided By Voices.

LISTEN

Phantom Anthills

Molten Light

Inside The Molecules

buy on iTunes

New from D.M.S.T./Broken Social Scene's Charles Spearin

http://www.happiness-project.ca/

Reggae - Jamaica Funk (Soul Jazz)

I'm on a Soul Jazz Records odyssey, trying to get as many as I can of the ones I'm missing. A sweet new addition to my collection is Jamaica Funk which pretty much sums up two of my favourite things.

LISTEN

You Can't Hide Love

R&B - Raphael Saadiq

This is up there for my record of the year and I've only heard it once. A classic R&B album in a Motown style, you get smooth vocals and vintage rhythms. Sounds of Smokey Robinson and Cornell Campbell, wow can this guy sing. Sounds best with the bass turned down a little. It actually sounds pretty good on a laptop.

LISTEN

100 Yard Dash

Big Easy

Buy on iTunes

Stone-cold 1980 Funk - Jackson Jones

I first heard part of this jem on the James Murphy Fabriclive CD but I had to hunt down the original. Put your pants on? This track will have your pants off in about 5 seconds and I doubt you'll ever wear them again.

LISTEN

Jackson Jones - I Feel Good, Put Your Pants On

zip

Fes, Morocco: Gnawa Music

I first heard something that sounded like Gnawa music when Ed Kent  loaned me and then gave me a bunch of cassettes that he had brought back from Morocco years earlier. One really stuck out, and as Andrew Whiteman will remember, it not only stuck out, it rocked our collective world.

I was walking here in the medina in Fes last week and suddenly heard something that sounded almost exactly like that old tape of Ed's. I stopped and asked what it was. 'Gnawa' replied Mohammad, who was bombing the music really loud in his tiny fabric shop. The next day was my birthday, so when asked what I wanted to do, there was no question that it was high time to hunt down some serious Gnawa (guh-nawa). We went back to Mohammad's shop and I ripped a bunch of cd's. He then told me that he knows some Gnawa musicians and asked if we'd like to arrange a concert. No-brainer. The next day we were in Mohammad's house with his family, being served mint tea and snacks, and rocking out to some serious Fessi Gnawa. What an experience!

That's what I love about Fes... it has the most friendly people I have ever met, and a great local tradition of music.

Gnawa is essentially Sufi music, since all of the lyrics are referencing God or about serving God. The band (and traditionally the audience) tends to get really high smoking Kef and drinking Berber whiskey as the music builds intensity. I personally love the call and response style the best.

Unfortunately none of the cd's had track listings...

LISTEN

Gnawa of Fes 01

Gnawa music from Morocco

Stay tuned for a few posts from Morocco. I'm here now and have collected a bunch of great music to share with you...

Funk

Great track:

George McCrea - I Get Lifted

from the Soul Jazz 'Miami Sound' LP

Unfortunately you can't buy any of the Soul Jazz LPs on iTunes... Check out the whole series though...

http://www.souljazzrecords.co.uk/

Soul

So amazing and so short

Bob & Fred -  I'll Be On My Way

NeoSoul - Musiq

Some will say, this is a travesty. All I know is that when I play this for a crowd, the girls get sexy, the crowd starts moving. As a DJ, I would say that this is a ten out of ten.

LISTEN

Miss You

NeoSoul - The Foreign Exchange

If you don't love D'Angelo then stop reading.

If you can't handle crazy weird shuffle beats, and the snare sounds off, I dig.

But otherwise, this is great great shit.

LISTEN

All Or Nothing/Coming Home To You

Thanks Steven Mann

buy

M.I.A. Remix

I must have listened to this 20 times today...

Inna dancehall style... no slackness...

LISTEN

Galang (Dave Kelley Remix)

Soul

Classic early soul - complete with talking section... Beautiful vocal performance...

All These Things - Art Neville

buy

My Wife Has A Blackbelt In Crazy...

In honour of getting her Blackbelt last weekend, here is a fitting tribute from the great Bo Diddley.

Mona

I Love This Song...

Dripping with phase, haunted with Lee Perry-esque animal sounds and heavy reverb and delay, this is a classic Wackies Rhythm cut. Wackies is a Brooklyn label that was in it's prime in the mid to late 70's and still puts out re-issues through our friends in Berlin at basic channel (Rhythm & Sound). 

http://basicchannel.com/label/Wackies 

LISTEN

Addis Ababa Dub

buy

Losing My Edge - Althea & Donna

Young Jamaican singers Althea Forrest (17), and Donna Reid (18), were are worldwide sensation in 1978 with their classic, "Uptown Top Ranking". It was produced by Joe Gibbs using a re-recording of the riddim of the 1967 Alton Ellis' song "I'm Still In Love", which had already been re-popularised in the 1970s by Marcia Aitken's cover "I'm Still In Love With You Boy" and the deejay track "Three Piece Suit" by Trinity.

The original Losing My Edge Post is here

LISTEN

Uptown Top Ranking - Althea & Donna

Bonus Folk Version - Uptown Top Ranking - Scout Niblett

back to Losing My Edge