More Jahtari

I'll just keep pimping Jahtari because they keep putting out good shit.

Love the Scientist style cover for the new Solo Banton EP.




There are starting to be a few offshoot labels now. Soom T has Renegade Masters that just put out a decent 12" by The Source which is Soom T and Disrupt. It's not a home run but decent. It will probably grow on me but doesn't connect like most Disrupt stuff.




Soom T also released a 7" on Livity Reggae this year. A solid effort.





Another Jahtari artist, Tapes, has Selah Wadada and they just put out a great 7" with a wicked version by Tapes on the b-side.




It's probably safe to say that Tapes was behind the white label 7" stamped with Selah Waddada (note the extra "d") that came out earlier this year. I'm pretty sure I posted about it here.



And as always, if you want to hear any Jahtari stuff they have almost the entire catalog available to stream on their site.

My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Momma

Youtube

This was always my favorite track off of Weasels' Ripped my Flesh (a weird album even for Zappa). This is a great song to have stuck in your head at almost any time...

RIP Bert Jansch

Saw the obit in the NY Times yesterday...thought the man deserved a shout out.

"I Am Not Myself" by Monastics

Video for hit single off the new album.

dc

A Winged Victory for the Sullen

A Winged Victory For The Sullen (album teaser) by erasedtapes

A Handful of Scree

Bill Orcutt is getting some play these days, and good for him.  The ex-Harry Pussy guitarist is shredding on an acoustic guitar (shredding not here referring to the idiomatic Yngwie Malmsteen shred), and blowing it up with a Derek Baileyesque breakdown of the blues.  His latest is How the Thing Sings, recorded live in SF.  It is available on Spotify.

Yeah, those are Stevie Ray Vaughn picks on the cover.  I think they are apropos.  However, I have no sense of irony left.  It has gone the way of my hearing.

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An pal from the Bloomington days, Eric Weddle, runs a really swell record label known as Family Vineyard.  Every so often, when I want to get something cool in the mail, I put in an order, and Eric usually throws in a few nice little extras.  The last order started with Loren Connors's Red Mars.  Connors also deconstructs blues, but comes at it from a very different angle: as radical as Orcutt, but much (much!) quieter on average, Connors's guitar gestures seem to spread almost subliminally over space.  There isn't any pyrotechnics here (though Connors won't avoid aggressive atonality, if he thinks it's called for), and you find yourself discovering all kinds of interesting space . . . you sit and listen, waiting for something to happen, only to discover down the line that a unified piece has developed almost without your noticing  it.  I highly recommend Connors; but, like Orcutt, he is definitely an acquired taste, even if the approaches are almost opposite.

Give it a try . . . let it sneak up on you.  Also available on Spotify.

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Also in the package was a wonderful, free blowing record from saxophonist Akira Sakata and guitarist Jim O'Rourke.  The rhythm section on this one consists of Darin Gray and Chris Corsano (at this point, I'm the only noise guy in the world who hasn't recorded with Corsano), a.k.a Chikamorachi.  It's a free blowout of high caliber, and if that sounds like a good deal to you, then you should check it out.  It is, indeed, on Spotify.

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I also ponied up for O-Type's Lugubrious.  O-Type is an MX-80 spin off centered around the ambient bent of bassist Dale Sophia, and features Bruce Anderson (another shredder, whose idiom is somewhat closer to Yngwie Malmsteen, but still a fair distance away) and a handful of other MX-80 fellow travelers.  

I've been a part of a couple experimental music festivals this summer and fall, and I've had to sit through an unbearable amount of horrible ambient music . . . which is extra painful, since it is a music that I am becoming more interested in.  I've run across some good stuff - Tim Hecker, Black To Comm - and some bad stuff, which I will not dwell on, since I've met them and they seem like perfectly nice people.  If you were to search for O-Type's Lugubrious, you will find a Pitchfork review which encapsulates much of what I find wrong about ambient music.  Problem is, I don't think it applies to this record: drifty and aimless at parts, it nonetheless has some nice texture, and some parts that smack you right in the forehead.  Lugubrious is not the first ambient record I would recommend, but if you like this stuff, give it a listen.

Indeed, nothing on Spotify (or anywhere else that I can find), so enjoy this YouTube video instead.

YO

Sorry I haven't posted in a long, long time.
I've been listening to lots of stuff, and just thought I'd share a couple things of late that have really stood out for me:

Plastikman - Consumed (1998)

ambient techno/drone a la Vladislav Delay.

Shlohmo - Bad Vibes (2011)

Dark, brooding beats, ambient, amazing manipulation of sound and texture...

Jürgen Müller - Science of the Sea (2011)

Layered synths creating a wash of etheric underwater bliss. Super relaxing, unless you're scared of the ocean.

Andy Stott - Passed Me By (2011)

Really intriguing ambient techno (for lack of a better term) or dub techno....very dirty, fuzzy loops and beats.

Blayyter.

Reccomendations

The Pink Floyd catalogue has been reissued. I'm not to proud to say I've only really been into the Dark Side era to the Wall era. Can someone reccomend another album to me? Preferably the earlier years? I've got Pipers at the Gates of Dawn and only sort of dig it.

Radiohead at Roseland Ballroom

I feel compelled to post something, anything, about the Radiohead show last night, but I’m totally exhausted from last night and not totally thinking straight. But I’ll give it a shot.

The whole thing was a circus at first, a line stretching all the way around Roseland Ballroom as 4,000 people lined up to get in for the will-call only tickets. It was set up that way to foil scalpers, but I think the amount of hassles it created with that line and people swearing at Ticketmaster because they couldn’t get tickets might have made the effort a wash. There were reports of people selling tickets for $2K. Sure, that’s greedy but I wasn’t one of the people on a pedestal about how odious it was: if someone was willing to pay that much to go see Radiohead and dude wants to sell his other ticket, I don’t care. Capitalism, baby. And people cursing about Ticketmaster? I got no love for Ticketmaster, but WTF, Radiohead told them to sell the 4,000 tickets in a certain way, probably a million people called trying to get tickets, and most of them didn’t. Sowwy. Pretty comical all the forlorn Radiohead fans waiting along the line with signs begging, pleading, and offering sundry favors for someone’s extra ticket.

Anyway, the show. I’m a Radiohead fan, for sure. To me they track something like Wilco: started as a fairly straightforward rock-band (alt-country versus Brit-rock) and then progressed through a series of different albums to push boundaries and radically evolve in an exciting way. (Actually, kind of reminds me of the progression of the Beastie Boys on their first three albums.) But I realized pretty early on in the Radiohead set that what I was getting wasn’t what I really love about the band. They had two drummers and an extra guitarist with them and it was a ROCK show, dig? Some of songs really worked that way, like the stuff off OK Computer— “Subterranean Homesick Alien” was one of the highlights of the show for me. But other songs, like “Lotus Flower”, my favorite on the new album, King of Limbs, I didn’t enjoy live as much. There’s a kind of arid simplicity to Radiohead’s electronic stuff that courses with energy but I found got washed out in a bigger context.

One of the cooler moments of the show was Thom Yorke at the piano surprising everyone by launching into R.E.M.’s “The One I Love” as a kind of shout-out to the band, who just broke up after three decades. But I didn’t even recognize “Everything in its Right Place” when he went into it from the R.E.M. melody, again it didn’t sound quite right to me. “All I Need” was another song of theirs I really like but I found fell flat, even though I could hear that song being really epic in that context. On the other hand, “Bloom”, the first track on King of Limbs, and "Bodysnatchers", from Hail to the Thief, were awesome. On “Give up the Ghost” he sampled his own vocals (or someone did it for him) and that worked really well, reminded me of what I’ve seen Brandon Cox do with Atlas Sound. The second encore seemed really spontaneous, it looked like the show was over and then they came back and played two more songs that everyone went nuts for.

Thom Yorke is really charismatic and it’s hard to take your eyes off of him. I knew he was the centerpiece of the band but none of the other players stood out to me, they all seem a supporting cast to Yorke. I admire the way he acts as a conductor to the whole band, his sense of rhythm is really amazing, actually; he’s got this campy tramp shtick going on, it’s cool.

That was a big portion of the whole night for me, just how much of a super big-deal this was to so many people. I looked around and saw so many white people aged 25-45 (my milieu, I guess) who seriously love this band, knew all the songs, and felt just a bit special for seeing one of the biggest bands in the world in a small setting. It felt privileged, something cool to be part of.

Monastics "Topography"

http://monastics.net/category/music

My band's second CD (including other WWALT homeys Rootless and EJ), "Topography" is done and available for your enjoyment! Go check it out and let us know what you think.

dc

Kings Go Forth

I'm not sure how everyone feels about the whole neo-retro-soul thing (Dap Kings, et al), but I happened on this band from Milwaukee and I'm digging it.



There's always something about the fierce drums backed up by a set of congas that gets you moving. The record is on Spotify: "The Outsiders Are Back".

New Shadow is streaming on NPR

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/25/140643384/first-listen-dj-shadow-the-less-you-know-the-better

On a scale of 1-to-5 I give it a solid "Meh". It's not terrible.

dc

Wild Beast, and a few other notes

I haven't posted in a while, but I have a better excuse than all you non-posters out there (step to me in the comments section if you think you got me beat).

I saw Wild Beasts last night, a band from the UK with a couple albums and I was really impressed. They are probably not for everyone (this means you, DC), the vocals are at times theatric and absurdist and if you were telling me about a band and said that to me I'd say "that shit probably ain't for me", I don't like zaniness in my music, I'm more about emotion and melody than humor or theatrics, but these guys don't overdo it, and feature both of those things, they just color the music at times with some eyebrow-raising falsetto vocals and shouts. I was expecting a thin, gay (in the literal sense, not in the WWLTN controversial ironic sense) dude as the lead singer, but it wasn't like that. Firstly, the vocals are shared by two not too effeminate dudes, they do really well trading off. And secondly, these guys were trading off instruments and working keyboards, really impressive, no lead singer preciousness. Anyway, the music reminds me a bit of Interpol, but less angular, more hypnotic, and the Smiths (who I actually don't like), full of surprises, I've been settling into their new album "Smother".

In terms of other things I'm listening to, the new Washed Out was in high rotation for a while and deserves a shout out. Finally got the good stuff from Imaginary Softwoods and that is gold. The newest Grouper album finally grew on me and is the end of many of my days these days.

Tammar (and St. Vincent)

http://tammar.bandcamp.com/track/the-last-line

I admit to seeing this on Pitchfork. Reading the review I was piqued as they are a Bloomington, IN band (my former haunt and music-making locale). The newest record isn't on Spotify, but a couple of older EPs are. Kind of an interesting mish-mash. As the Pitchfork review says, there's some Spacemen 3 in there. I also hear a touch of LCD Soundsystem. I really like the track on the bandcamp page, the EPs sound... um... less mature?

Also, that new St. Vincent, "Strange Mercy." Very good. I wasn't thrilled with the last P.J. Harvey, St. Vincent is supplanting her a tinge.

Social Climbers Re-issue

Any ex- (or current) Hoosiers on this string will remember this record all over the used bins of Bloomington in the 80's. By that time, we were all on to our own thing, and this little gem was slipping totally through the cracks. I myself ignored it, for the most part, until I played it on the local music show I was doing on WQAX.

Genius.

Apparently, someone from Drag City agrees with me on this.  From the press release:

"It's almost 1980. Soho, New York is fertile with young, no-wave punks getting sharper and increasingly angular: Branca, DNA, Teenage Jesus, Contortions, Suicide, et al, as well as the groups they would spawn. Coveted and revered bands for many today, this music was peripheral at the time. Unheard by most save for the underbelly, these were artists living free and dirty, trying to outdo each other. Within the periphery of this periphery, Social Climbers made sounds that were of their environs yet remarkably unique, leaving an indelible stamp on the scene while somehow managing to slither undetected out of all the history books. A downtown New York art band as much as any other, Social Climbers also claimed midwestern roots and actual musicianship that many of their contemporaries lacked, and in trade dismissed and essentially protested the snotty pretensions that drove many others within the scene. Social Climbers are an absolute post-punk blueprint: fat bass (often two), guitar, drum machine (dubbed "the monkey"), feverish vocals, and organ. Their lone, self-titled album is agitated and impossibly wild, yet danceable and composed. Gulcher Records initially released the album as a triple 7". Their record was barely picked up by the local underground rock distributor, as is common in a crowded scene, and the group disbanded in 1982. Their one artifact is as earnest as it is fractured and terrifying. Mostly, it's just fucking cool. And it's here, again, sounding as relevant today as it did when it was of the moment; perhaps, even more so. And the CD contains two bonus tracks!"

Oh, and try to find that used Gulcher vinyl now.

Gay

I'm here with Rootless and we have a qualifying question on the great gay debate. Is it cool to say "I love that band so much I'm gay for them"? I think that's fair game.

New Das Racist

Dear WWALT,

I was just checking out that Wye Oak joint on Spotify (it's really good), and a commercial/banner came up for the new Das Racist CD! Woo hoo!

I'm half way through the first track and it's awesome. I couldn't wait to tell you! :) LOL.

Sincerely Yours,

dc

Wye Oak - Civilian

This came out in the spring, but its heading-into-fall vibe is slotting nicely at the moment.

"Holy Holy" is a frontrunner for song of the year for me. Check the vid below. A talented friend of another talented friend is responsible. (Inspiring kids abound!)

Holy Holy

Done With Fish

This clip from Spike Jonze's Adaptation totally captures how I feel about records right now.



For the past three years, since I moved to Jersey, I've had a shitty iTunes set up for my home stereo. I've acquired a ton of music digitally in that time, but i just listened to it in the car, on my commute, at work.

This wasn't really a problem thanks to my record habit. 99% of the time at home I listened to vinyl. I regularly bought used and new records. I've been collecting for... 15 years?! I have a ton of records and I play DJ all day everyday.

So recently I threw down on a Sonos system. Dope. A little pricey. but it was super easy to set up, i control it with my iPhone, totally intuitive, you can sync all your rooms, or play different tunes in different rooms. It's great. And through that I'm rediscovering all this music that I've forgotten. And it's so easy to put on, like, all the 100% Dynamite Comps on Shuffle and you're covered for the weekend. Today I put on all my Grant Green tracks for jazz brunch, and I had only gotten through the "J" songs by dinner time.

And just like that... "Done With Fish". That may be a bit extreme (I don't think I'll ever be able to pass a milk crate of records at a garage sale or flea market without stopping) but suddenly where I was pretty obsessed with records now I'm... meh. I'm absolutely at peace with selling off a few shelves worth on eBay.

Anywho, the reason this interests you is that I'm in the throes of a vinyl rip-a-thon over here. I have my system worked out, I'm ripping like 4-5 albums a day. You're going to want to do a DVD trade with me sometime soon.

On that note, can some of you motherfuckers post something please? Thanks.

Sincerely,

The Chizzle

P.S. I'm sorry if my use of swear or "curse" words offends anyone. I'm trying to clean up my WWALT act.

Stop Being Gay

Yeah, um, I've just got to say that I always feel a little uncomfortable and disappointed when something is called "gay" on here. I know we all grew up with it, and it's a little funny and it's a pretty quick way to denote something as unworthy in a particular way. It's just seems like that language has a little too much baggage in this day and age, maybe? Thanks for reading.

Clams Casino

Heard the name (which is great) but I never checked him out. When i see things like "beat maker for Lil B and Souljah Boy", it doesn't exactly get my spidey sense tingling, if you know what I'm saying. I am more or less over rap right now. That includes Odd Future Hurt Time Kill Yourself or whatever they are called, frankly.

But when Turntablelab gave his untitled instrumental mix tape a "highly recommended" i took notice. It's dope. He self released the instrumental CD for free, I believe, and it is all over MediaFire so easy to pick it up. A few tracks are approaching gayness, but in general its awesome. It actually reminds me of that Balam Acab joint but with hard beats.

In an interview with B.A. on Altered Zones, an interviewer described his music as "using the human voice and syllabic expression for its associative, emotional impact instead of communicating something verbal". That has stuck with me, and came to mind when checking out this Clams Casino joint.

Anyway, this has been in heavy rotation for me and I absolutely recommend grabbing it on mediafire. Later.

dc

The less you know...

Good News is this is available..

Bad News is I'm not that impressed.

I'm not expecting Endtroducing 2 or anything but I feel he is so much more capable of doing something more interesting.

Barn Owl

Really digging these guys. Droney guitar jams, some electric, some acoustic. Long haired weirdos from San Francisco. They are on Thrill Jockey. Fans of Six Organs of Admittance, etc., should check them out post haste. Their shit is pretty available on mediafire tip and Spotify.

Just to be clear... I'm NOT talking about these guys, FYI.

d-nice

Normal Bias Time Machine

This gorgeous dinosaur miraculously popped up in my wife's glove compartment a few weeks back. I'd written it off years ago, though it is always in the back of my head when I am MP3 trolling for eighties stuff. It was complied by my dear friend Jefferson, the first person I knew with an accent (excluding my father) and the first person I knew who purchased music based on reading N.M.E. as opposed to CREEM. College, natch, and by the mid 80's he had finished and was in Pilsen while I was still slacking in Bloomington. The man has always had a way with the bins, and being in the big city busted it wide open.

First exposure to JAMC, Screaming Jay (back in vogue that year courtesy of Jim Jarmusch), and I think even The Fall for chrissakes, if you don't realize the importance of all that than you shouldn't be reading a music blog. Lots of great tracks from long lost bands, a few things haven't aged that well but over all really listenable. It makes you think that a bunch of what you're getting a unicorn over at Pitchfork was invented by British people in 1986.

For your consideration I have lovingly recreated it here as a mp3 mix complete with fab tape scan artwork. If interested send me your proper email and I will shoot you a few zip files, divided as side A and B of course.

Diplo "Chasing the Dragon"

Before he became a world renown DJ and CEO of a hot shit label as well as “a curator amongst the worldʼs most cutting edge DJs, producers, and musical movements” (his words from Mad Decent website), I got hip to Diplo via the Turntablelab.com website that put out his earliest 7"s... now long gone, sold on eBay to fund my record buying habit.

I haven’t been as into him lately (don’t really check out Mad Decent podcasts anymore, I skipped out on Major Lazer). However, I just came across this on my e-travels… he put out a dj mix more in the vein of his AEIOU 2 mix, lots of psych and garage and no Baile Funk or Bastardized DanceHall in sight. In the words of TurntableLab: “No tropical bass, dubstep, dancehall, or beats here - just straight up rare psych rock for days! Diplo goes deep with all manner of fuzzed-out, freaky psychedelic sounds that are much different from what you're used to him playing these days - and it sounds AWESOME.” Some obscure, some not so much, with flare and flavor thrown in to mix it up. Worth downloading fo sho. And here it is.

If you haven’t listened in a while, or missed him altogether, here are some other top shelf releases from the man:

-First full length "Florida" is still a top notch banger that has really aged well.

-The DJ Shadow Mega Mix he put out as a promo for, uh, The Private Press, I believe? So good… he mixes DJ Shadow tracks with the source material, plus blends of Shadow beats with crunk rappers, etc. Great disc.

-The “Piracy Funds Terrorism” mix tape that basically broke MIA onto the scene, a little played out by now but truly impressive disc and a good listen.

-I actually like his “Live in Montreal” disc a lot, good jams, blends TV on the Radio with Outkast, shit like that. Plus a long “grime” section that’s good crash course on the genre.

If you need any of that holla at me and i'll yousendit it to you. File this under thoughts on an old classic.

dc

Boy & Bear: Moonfire

This is in heavy rotation in Spotify for me. The chorus of this track reminds me of Seals & Crofts! The band calls themselves indie-folk with choral harmonies. Check it out!

Balam Acab

I really dig him, big fan. His "See Birds" EP was one of the best things I've gotten hip to in the last 12 months...

He has a new one coming out shortly, "Wander/Wonder", which I'm pretty stoked about. I was trolling the internet looking for a leaked copy and found this B-side off the "See Birds" single... "Heavy Lifting Things", its pretty killer. Enjoy.

dc

Spotify Invites

I have a few if anyone wants one. Email me directly at clarkstarr@gmail.com (first come first served).

John Cage Meets Sun Ra

Found this on Mediafire.

Pretty bugged out, as you may imagine. This is like a $100 record, so even if it is not the most awesome LP in the world, it's still noteworthy and nice to check it out for free.

dc

Free Download of that New Jay Z - Kanye Joint!

Just kidding, I just wanted to see if the Web Sheriff is out and about.

Dear Web Sheriff, keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

The WWALT Blog Community Brotherhood