The new Serena Maneesh album will be released next week Monday (Tuesday for North American fans), called Abyss In B-Minor (4AD). You can listen to it un full right now, courtesy of The Fader:
It is an incredible album and definitely worth purchasing. It will be released on both vinyl and compact disc. Both are available to order right now from Insound, so if you want it on vinyl, click here. Compact disc enthusiasts can go there.
Pressing start, “First Call” is the opening track to Ship Of Light by Husky Rescue and I’m getting ready for what I’m assuming would be a nice electronic masterpiece. Not even a minute over and it moves to song #2. Did I only get snippets for this album? No, for “Sound Of Love” is 4:14 in length. Now there’s vocals. It’s pretty pop, but what happened to what could have been something mindblowing. “First Call” is only an intro? That’s too bad.
Next song: “Fast Last”. Great intro, but then the beat and vocals kick in. Next.
“Wolf Trap Motel”, now this could be something cool, love the gentleness of the guitar, the bass, the beat that comes off like a heartbeat. I can relax to… nope, here’s the vocals.
Okay, vocalist Reeta-Leena Korhola has a great voice, a delicate whisper that reminds me of Leigh Nash and Miki Berenyi a bit. I also love the band and what they’re capable of doing. Yet somehow I’m wanting to hear either more of Korhola without the band, or Husky Rescue without her. Is that odd? I think the production side of my mind wishes these guys could embellish on the good parts that are cut short by Korhola’s vocals. The vocal side of my mind wants to hear her in a different context.
Some say Owen Pallett’s style of music is orchestral, and that’s because of Pallett’s use of everything from using Russian music to military music based in the 19th century. As modern as Heartland (Domino) sounds, it could’ve been something heard on Disney soundtracks or maybe a hidden album from your great grandfather’s collection. With these lush layers of music comes a delicate voice that sings with such passion, the listener can sense what Pallett is trying to do with this orgasmic blend of sound.
Very few people are doing the kind of music Pallett is doing today, and yet there was a time when it wasn’t such a big deal that someone could create glorious songs like these. The album has a running theme of heartbreak (thus the title Heartland, and the variations of it that might lurk within. It should be listened to as a whole upon initial listening, and once you have a grasp of the storyline, you can divide, listening individually, and then return to it as a whole one day.
What’s also cool is that not only are lyrical metaphors put into use, but Pallett gets into musical/audio metaphor as well. In other words, you can distinctly hear any and every sound he puts into these tracks. Some sounds may not sound like what they’re supposed to, or they turn into something unexpectedly. “Red Sun No. 5″ sounds like what Brian Wilson would have sounded like if he was a young 20-something man making Pet Sounds in 2010.
Heartland is a garden you want to sit in and watch grow in real time. All of the music feels like, and while you could go to a park, bring in a huge sound system and “watch” the music, I think you may have the cops wanting to take you away. If so, you can tell them “officers, it is okay, for I am already not here, thanks to Owen Pallett.” Chances of the police putting you down and walking away: slim, but at least you have Heartland to listen to from the beginning when you get home.
Kieran Hebden, as Four Tet, has done it once again with an impressive album of his electronic production, There Is Love In You (Domino).
Whatever people want to call him, he somehow turns his sounds into something that can be considered lush, dreamy, intense, circular, secular, etc. On this album, Four Tet will bring out various sounds, only to reverse and reflect them, chop them so that it sounds like it comes from sources unlike what they are “Sing” sounds like it caught hold of something nice, imagine biting a delicious bread and wanting to take it in, and eating more. Then he starts to coat it, then eat it in more imaginative ways. Then you have “Love Cry”, which is meditative as the sonic banana unpeels itself to reveal a certain joy in repetition, as the only voice in the song is forever heard saying “love cry” until it is lost in itself. I also like how it moves well as a song that clocks in at 9:13, its pace moves on steady without anything sounding too complicated. One could include this in a DJ set to see kind of magic could be created, the possibilities are endless.
There Is Love In You is a chillout album of a different nature, but as you get deeper into its soul, you find yourself just listening without care and just grooving, nodding your head, or dancing to its pulse.
Tracy Shedd has become a singer/songwriter of note, with a lot of promise. I first heard of her two years ago with her album Cigarettes & Smoke Machines! (which I reviewed in The Run-Off Groove #217) and late last year she released a video for “City At Night”, which is now the opening track to a new EP she simply calls EP88 (Eskimo Kiss).
I love when she sings “how your eyes affect me when you’re sleeping so peaceful/when you wake up, I’ll listen to all your ideas” in “How Your eyes Affect Me”, one imagines a couple in love, looking for and finding more than what lies on the surface to believe in the happiness they now share. In these songs, the arrangements are kept to just vocals, pianos, bass, and maybe some synths. It’s only until the end with the closing song where the drums come in to dust off accumulation and to show that she can rock it out when necessary.
I bring up the singer/songwriter thing because she’s very eloquent in how she brings out what are no doubt personal stories to share with the world, and she’s an artists who deserves everyone’s attention. She has a discography worth exploring, and a quality to her music that will keep people wanting to hear more.
Following the release of Deru’s album Say Goodbye To Useless, he has released “Peanut Butter & Patience” (Mush) as a single, and the remixes on it are definitely worth buying and hearing.
The Lorn Remix kind of has it jumping into Depeche Mode/early Yaz territory, but with much more punch to the drums. If you don’t stay on track, you may catch yourself off of the beat. The Great Mundane Mix is indeed the former but far from the latter, and sounds like something Andre 3000 would probably find pleasure in rhyming over with that type of gallop funk he seems to love. Wrapping up with the Ginormous Mix, the breathy textures could help it become a part of a few episodes of CSIL NY.
Big Light are a Bay area pop/rock band who sound like some of the best pop bands you’ve heard in the last 30 to 40 years. Imagine pop music that sounds like Tom Petty if he morphed himself into Lenny Kravitz, Marc Bolan, Graham Parker, Soul Asylum, and The Hooters, maybe even with a hint of Cheap Trick thrown in. If you’re on the sizzurp, you may even hear Lil’ Wayne if he was serious about his love of crossing over to white audiences.
Animals In Bloom (reapandsow) play with a sensibility that shows a love of playing and an understanding of the craft of writing and executing quality pop-flavored rock’n'roll, all done with attitude, humor, and a smirk which may convey the message “yes, we know what we’re doing”. “Superfuzz Fine” could be the song that may bring the band over to audiences who love their pop a bit more abrasive, while “Rainbow Eyes” will move people into realizing that yes, quality songs are still being written in the 21st century, the future is good with Big Light.
I also like the fact these guys are willing to perform a few of these songs at lengths over 5 minutes, so while they have a nice stash of songs that are radio friendly, Big Light seem to want to be able to find each other and themselves with a bit of jamming too, without having to sound like they’re simply paying ode to The Allman Brothers Band, which they’re not. I easily see them appealing to a wide range of audiences, and they seem to be the kind of group who want to bring out all of their interests and influences into their collective sound.
Fanzine creators do what it takes to make their publications look good, and I say this as someone who used to write, edit, Scotch tape, and publish my own fanzine for four years. Those with better budgets were more than happy to include a record along with the fanzine, so that you could have something great to read and listen to. An Italian fanzine called Youthless has been in publication for a number of years catering to their Italian audiences, but now they’re hoping to gain a wider following by also publishing in English.
The debut English edition of Youthless has been published with a split 7″ single featuring two bands from Italy, Schonwald and The Perris. For the time being, you can order the fanzine + 7″ combo directly from YouthlessFanzine.com.
Madlib is at it again, and I’m not just talking with a new release. In a month, the man has released four albums. It’s like those old U.S. Army commercials where the voice-over stated that the people who enlist will do more before 9am than what most people do all day. What he has done, even in a year’s time, is more than a lot of artists have done in ten years. Granted, Madlib may not have the celebrated hits, and he may not have created the kind of earworms Hollywood tends to want to sponge out of anyone and everyone who is willing to spread their buttchecks, but what Madlib has is class, style, substance, and let’s be honest, a true “I-don’t-give-a-fuck” attitude that isn’t only an attribute to stoners, but a hip-hop attribute that has since been placed in storage.
Credited to the Young Jazz Rebels, Slave Riot (Stones Throw) is being pushed as a “free jazz” album. Anyone who has listened to the many projects he has released under the Yesterdays New Quintet/Yesterdays Universe umbrella knows that anything and everything can happen at any given time. Sometimes the “group” will get locked into a funk and it sounds brutal, rural, and incredible, and as they make their way towards the next song, they’re searching one another to find a common consciousness. With the Young Jazz Rebels, it’s about the search, you hear the examination of each others need to create and make sounds. The craft behind this album sounds as if someone brought Art Blakey, Pharoah Sanders, Rashied Ali, Jack DeJohnette, John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, John Gilmore, Lester Bowie, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Derf Reklaw, and Miroslav Vitous into the studio, and said “let’s play until the 25 foot candle melts into the ground.
Within that process are songs, suites, mini-suites, everything is somehow linked together be it musically, sonically,and if you think deep enough, physically. Percussion instruments rattle off as if they are chains from distant ships long forgotten by some, but are always a means of resistance and tolerance for many. Some sounds come off as things fading away into the ocean, while others is the pain and frustration of making it in the concrete jungle, especially in tracks like “Hate/Love”, “The Sun”, and “The Legend Of Mankind”. Out of the blue (black), a human sensibility (i.e. melody) comes in within “Newear” and changes the soundscape all together. Things become musical, only for it to melt and dissolve into that ocean with unknown entities sinking slowly as it extends its hand, trying to survive or at least make it up for air once again.
To make that a bit more palpable, imagine all of the dramatic freak-outs one may hear on an albums mentioned in this interview. Introductions and interludes that help develop or lead the way towards the song. This is what the Young Jazz Rebels are about, freaks that are about the satisfaction of creating psychedelic moments that may or may not be influenced by hallucinogens. Maybe it’s natural, maybe it’s substantial, no one knows.
To bring things down to Earth, Madlib has definitely blurred the thin line between what may be real instrumentation and what could be samples from his record collection. When he moves towards this direction, he’s very much like Jan Jelinek where he’s making music out of the non-musical, or elements that are often discarded as just noise are turned into something very exciting. If you enjoyed what Monk Hughes & The Outer Realm did on their fantastic A Tribute To Brother Weldon, Slave Riot is not too far from that where songs, sounds, and stories bathe with each other as if Madlib is the pimp and the members of the “group” are his realized fantasies. It’s very orgiastic, and that’s the fun, to be a spectator and either go “this is fucking brilliant” or “I don’t know what the hell this is, but it’s definitely something I have to listen to again.” Will you find the next generation of breaks here, perhaps not. Will you find enough information worthy enough to sample, sure, but it’s the realization that Madlib is a producer who not only creates sample-based producer, but is also adding to the sample library not only for more adventurous producers, but himself. It’s as eclectic as Pink Floyd when they create music for art-house music, but it’s as Afrocentric as he makes it out to be, as if he’s calling back to those who came before him to continue the link between self and origin. This is the sound of hundreds of years of pain and suffering resurfacing and making itself known in a modern context, a Slave Riot if you will, an extension of Sly Stone’s There’s A Riot Going On. Judging from the sounds here, the riot never ended.
It is also possible that the Young Jazz Rebels is music from the mind of someone whose attitude is simply about placing himself into his music, removing the consequences some will place on music like this, created by sound enthusiasts like him.
(Slave Riot will be released on April 6th, but can be pre-ordered from Stones Throw through the appropriate formats listed below with each icon.) | |
EMEK has returned to do the artwork for Erykah Badu’s return, Part 2 of the trilogy that she has promised. This new album is called New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh (MotownUniversal) and true to her nature, she has been hard at work on this album weeks before its deadline. She has been hyping up the fact that the new album would be released on 3/3/3, perhaps a slightly vinyl-centric way to say March 30, 2010 (because 2+0+1+0 = 3) or she’s revealing a bit of mathematics.
A few songs have already been heard through television appearances and gentle leaks of a song or two. As for the production and presentation of the album, we know Madlib is definitely involved. A track listing has been revealed, but little else. Gentle trickles again. I do know that Badu herself, through her Twitter account, did something most would have thought was once impossible: she wanted to release a song with a Paul McCartney sample and asked her close friends and associates to hook her up with the right people to speak to. One thing lead to another, and in about nine hours (perhaps the power of this 3+3+3 thing), the sample was approved. While I have not heard the Badu song in question, the sample that she seeked was Wings‘ “Arrow Through Me” from the 1979 album Back To The Egg. No word if it is an actual sample or an interpolation, but as soon as I know, I’ll let you know. While Beatles samples are (for now) off-limits, McCartney has always been open to experimentation in his own music for the last 45 years. In recent years he has opened his solo catalog to advertisers, so perhaps he’s opening the door for artists to legally sample his work. Emphasis is on “legally” since his songs have been “cleverly” borrowed a number of times over the years.
Back to the album cover. I look at it this way, concerning her trilogy: Part 1: winter album, cover shows mind with clutter. Darkness surrounds. Part 2: spring, flowers blooming, a reawakening. Vivid purples, as if the sun is about to rise. Part 3: 2012, she’ll release this in late August/early September. Sunrise, a la Roy Ayers‘ “Everybody Loves The Sunshine”, with “bees and things and flowers”? Her music is reflective of her “life”, and Badu has referred to the words “my life” in songs such as “My Life” and “Love Of My Life”, so a bit of continuity would not be unlike her at all.
Maybe it will wrap up this New Amerykah she speaks of, either that or she has already planned this out from the start. While the paranoia of 2012 lurks for some, many are looking to the year as a means of a reawakening, be it personal, spiritual, mental, social, political, everything. It’s not the end as hyped, it’s a metaphorical end to the old ways, and the need to not fear a new way.
It will also tie in with the 2012 elections, which raises the question on whether or not President Barack Obama will have another four years. Is the idea of a “new America” already in progress? Everyone wants quick and easy, maybe Obama is doing things kama sutra style: it may be at a methodical pace that seems twice as long, but the end result will be much more joyous. Is this the hope?
So, will this new album feature a Gravediggaz sample, honoring the dead and those who will forever dig, with the use of Prince Paul saying “1, 2 (1, 2) 1, 2 (1, 2)… you ready? (you ready?) from “Mommy What’s A Gravedigga?”
Significance? Some say the end of the world will be on December 21, 2012. That’s 12/21/12, that “one, two”, “one, two”, and Badu will be giving the world a mic check. Could she steer it in that direction? For all I know, New Amerykah Part 3 could be a folky album, Odetta style. Wouldn’t that freak people out?
