I’ve been hearing rumors for YEARS now that Mulatu (one of my all-time favorite artists) was going back in the studio to cut a new album. At first it was supposedly going to happen with Quantic, which I hope still comes into fruition someday. But when I heard that it finally did end up happening with the Heliocentrics (who I’ve blogged about a few times with various different projects they’ve been involved with), I got even more giddy. Malcolm Catto & crew have a way of making things sound raw, dirty and haunting unlike anyone else (aside from maybe Mulatu circa 1971). Their trademark mix of psychedelic funk is executed under what seems to me magical studio conditions- beyond being analogue/retro, it sounds like they must have a resident voodoo priest during recording sessions. According to this little sneak peek video on youtube, they don’t, but I can still pretend. Anyway, today I’m sharing the first track off the upcoming album. Listening to some other highlights off the album, I really can’t wait to have this beast in it’s entirety. Thanks to the good people at Strut, you can get a good idea of how it all runs together by listening to       this podcast too.

Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics : Masenqo
taken from the album “Inspiration Information” on Strut (2009)

Gonna keep today’s post short and sweet. This is a song that has been absolutely slaying me for months now. A little slice of heaven so potent you might need to sit down so you don’t get bowled over. (I spent an entire night listening to it for the first time, not sure that a song this good actually existed.) From the insanity of the guitar lines (can you say, distortion?) to the incomprehensible beauty of the vocals (any Portugese speakers out there who’d care to translate this, please, hit a brother up), I literally cannot get enough of this track. The Captain reminded me that this song needed to be shared when he mentioned Milton on a recent post over at Soul-Sides.  Now I’m sharing it with you. Enjoy.

Milton Nascimento : Trem De Doido
Taken from the album “Clube Da Esquina” on Odeon (1972)

    

Artistically speaking, I think a lot can be said for a band that can pull off a good cover. A delicate balance exists in the act of re-imagining somebody else’s art: how much to keep, how much to leave; how to imprint the mark of one’s originality without forsaking the historical precedent of the O.G. A good musician will pull and tug certain parts as if from clay so that the resulting form, hewn from the same elemental parts, exists completely anew.

These two covers resonate for me with particular potency for a few reasons. For starters, they happen to be two of favorite Sly & The Family Stone songs of all time. I love too that the music, both original and redone, emerged in similar contextual environments — albeit ten years apart — at the tip of the proverbial spear in their respective genres. These were highly innovative sounds or, at the very least, great examples of recent innovations in the “new” worlds of Funk (a style Sly was instrumenal in creating) and Post-Punk or New Wave (a sound which Magazine pioneered). (Ps. If you’re unfamiliar with either of these mavens, don’t tell anybody; run don’t walk to the nearest record store and drop a few bucks for your own sake.)

“Thank You” comes off Magazine’s 3rd LP, which finds the band in full stride as a juggernaut of the kind of synthy, drum and bass-heavy instrumentation that would inform the sounds of later bands like A Certain Ratio  and New Order. Having left his punk roots behind with the Buzzocks, frontman Howard Devoto’s stripped down arrangements bring to mind a similar phenomenon which occurred a decade earlier as the frenetic pace of barnstorm funk streamlined into its leaner early 70’s mode. It’s no wonder Devoto chose to re-work this material; likely he recognized in Sly Stone certain elements of himself.

As for Ronny… Okay. So the French model-turned-scenester-turned-singer doesn’t exactly reek of “maverick” (survey any given street corner in Williamsburg and you’ll find more of these types than you could shake a fist at), but, for whatever it’s worth, ol’ girl hits this one out of the park. (The sexy breakdown and the subsequent build absolutely KILL IT.) One of only a small handful of singles she recorded under the musical direction of impressive figures like Vangelis and Yellow Magic Orchestra, this explosive composition and unique delivery on a classic does well to cement her into the annals of history, if only as a pretty, androgynous footnote.  Continue reading…

 

Don’t have too much time to extrapolate on the goodness of these new latin joints, but I was reminded to share them when my track “Speakin Nuyorican” (which STILL hasn’t even been officially released yet) popped up on this Flavorpill/Absolut mixtape this past week (alongside some pretty decent company). Sorry about the somewhat infrequent posts- between getting my computer + entire digital music library jacked, experiencing the over-the-top insanity of Austin’s SXSW festival, and breaking my nose in a mosh pit, I’ve been a little preoccupied. But I’m bouncing back as we speak (and trying to remember all the good songs that I need to find again). 

All I will say about today’s tracks is that they come from albums that are great quality listening all the way through. Never heard of Dusty before, but in addition to producing and playing, he also runs the excellent Jazz & Milk record label (who very well may have the classiest album art in the game right now). 

Novalima is a project I’ve known and loved for several years now. I was skeptical about whether they’d be able to outdo their last album, but Coba Coba really just picks up their whole dubby, electro, afro-peruvian sound where Afro left off. If you’re a fan of funky syncopated time signatures and rootsy production, it doesn’t get better than this. 

BONUS MUSIC: I stumbled upon this very fresh SUPERMERCADO MIX by DJ Emil while looking for one of the tracks from Jazz & Milk. Nomadic Soundtrack indeed!

Dusty :       Salsa Step
taken from the album “Keep It Raw” on Jazz & Milk (2009)

Dusty :       Loco Para La Pista (Solo Moderna Remix)
taken from the EP “Keep It Raw Remixed” on Jazz & Milk (2009)

Novalima :       Yo Voy
taken from the album “Coba Coba” on Cumbancha (2008) 

I wrote about Antony Hegarty a while back in regards to the release of Hercules & Love Affair‘s amazing self-titled debut, which kind of stole the show for me in terms of last year’s cream of the crop records. I think that album appealed in particular to people like me: music heads who felt a significant void in contemporary electronic and/or disco music; folks who loved to boogie but maybe couldn’t help harboring the suspicion that a lot of what they danced to was kind of wack. It was a record  that opened people’s eyes in a lot of ways, not least of all to remind us that party bangers can be lyrical and complex and even beautiful. For them Hercules‘ depth resonated certainly in the music, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, in  Antony Hegarty’s voice. That album left more than a few newbies wondering simply, “Who is that?”

If your only experience of Antony’s pipes came from listening to the psuedo- psycho- emo- disco of that collaboration, then you’re in for a treat. Because it’s the softer, weirder, more elegant stuff that really thrills: music that sticks with you when you go to sleep at night; that drags you through the kind of screwy dreamscape you might find yourself in if you fell asleep watching Alice In Wonderland, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and The Shining… at the same time. His voice and the sonic landscape it inhabits burst with the sort haunting, sensual, confounding beauty that you might expect of a 6+ foot tall ghost-pale transvestite… which is to say, what expectations? 

For my part, I can’t think of too many voices in contemporary music who have elicited the kind of physical response I registered the first time I heard Hegarty sing. I remember cringing. I remember my heart beating a little faster. I remember registering a deep gut tingle, perhaps in disgust, perhaps in awe. Certainly the lyrics themselves, which often alluded to the less-trod paths of sexual aberration, jarred me. I found myself regarding his music with equal parts suspicion, confusion and utter enthrallment. In some ways I felt almost victimized by the melodrama. Syrupy. Hyperbolic. Schmaltzy. But somehow, endlessly captivating. Was this the kind of stuff that you weren’t supposed to admit you liked?  Was Antony Hegarty a hipster’s Celine Dion? Maybe. But if it was schmaltz he was selling, the stuff worked like a potion. I’ve been hooked ever since.

That first encounter came just after the release of his second album “I Am a Bird Now”, at which point I resolved myself to see him in the flesh. I’ve since watched him perform twice and each time I left the show nearly speechless. Live, perhaps even more so than on record, he is a force — smoldering with a subdued intensity that only crests from time to time as the trembling vibrato of his voice rises into a plaintive gale. His live shows reveal a musician clearly at ease with his vocal prowess and a man who thankfully hasn’t forgotten that, at the end of the day, we all still like dance music. Thus Beyonce:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGtmwZjGjyw[/youtube]

I’m supplying you today with a few other things to boot: a favorite track from each of his three albums and his new video, directed by, um, THE WACHOWSKI BROTHERS. (Did you ever hear of that movie called The Matrix?) Like I said, Alice in Wonderland meets Priscilla meets The Shining. Plus maybe a dash of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Bugged out.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y30PCFVTyDQ[/youtube]

Enjoy. 

      Fistful Of Love

      Epilepsy Is Dancing

Taken, respectively, from the LPs “Antony & The Johnsons” on Secretly Canadian (2000), “I Am A Bird Now” on Secretly Canadian (2005) and “The Crying Light” on Secretly Canadian (2009)

Holy crack rocks! We ‘Tards are going to open for Public Enemy this Sunday @ B.B. King’s in Times Square!  And to top it off, it’s going to be Flavor Flav’s 50th B-day party!  How crazy is that?  Flav is 50???  This is going to be a super special show, we are going to have some special performers with us…  I can’t say much more right now…  But yeah, it’s going to be special.  Then after this show we hop on a plane headed to Austin for SXSW.  It’s gonna be a crazy time there.  If you are going to be there, holler at us for our schedule.  We are doing a showcase Thursday at the Red Bull Moon Tower and it’s going to be off the hook! All our other shows there are free with free booze, what else do you need???

So in honor of Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Terminator X, The Bomb Squad, Professor Griff and the S1W’s…  Here is our remix of Bring The Noise.  (Previously released on our Endless Dummer Mixtape.)

Public Enemy vs The Beatards: Bring The Noize
from Endless Dummer on MTR! (2007)