Music reviews, news, opinions + more
Jon Kennedy has yet another 45 release coming out, this one bringing “Boom Clack” together with “Mr. Brown”, credited to KRS Jon vs. Bob Marley so get your hands on this one. You can order your copies from Organik Recordings.
Madlib’s Medicine Show continues with the third installment in 2010, with what he calls Beat Konducta in Africa. Two vinyl pressings have been made: a 3LP version and a 2LP version. The 2LP version features all 37 tracks that are on the CD, while the 3LP version features bonus tracks on the extra piece of wax.
The 3LP version will have a silk-screened cover designed by Hit+Run, in five different color variations. The standard 2LP edition will have a printed cover, but the cover is meant to replicate not only ring wear of an old album, but moldy ring wear.
(Significance of moldy album covers, especially pertaining to records from Africa, can be found here.)
To pre-order your copy, head to the Stones Throw store. The album is scheduled for release on March 23rd.
Kingdom has turned Shyvonne’s “Mindreader” inside out and has turned it into a wicked club track. The song, b/w “You” is being released as a 10″ single by Acephale Records, and it sounds like it will seriously turn some heads no matter where you play it.
You can order your copy here. Only 500 copies will be made, so snatch doubles while you can.
April 6th is the day for the release of I Learned The Hard Way by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, which comes out in time before summer vacation, paving the way for a big tour and some festival shows.
The album is being made available in a number of ways: LP,CD, MP3, and FLAC lossless. Those who order the vinyl and CD will get a bonus 45 featuring a track recorded during the I Learned The Hard Way sessions, and its instrumental counterpart. Vinyl purchases will get a coupon to download the album for free as MP3’s. Digital fans will get the song on the A-side of the bonus 45 as a bonus track, minus surface noise.
You can make your pre-orders by heading to Daptone.
The news about a Soundgarden reunion at the start of the year was a great one. Still no mention of a tour *yet* but I’m sure an announcement will be forthcoming.
Until then, there’s news about Sub Pop Records reissuing the band’s debut single, “Hunted Down” b/w “Nothing To Say” on April 17th for this year’s Record Store Day. This edition of SP12 will be on orange vinyl, whereas the first pressing was done on blue. Also, this edition comes with a proper picture sleeve, done in the familiar style made popular in the label’s Single Of The Month Club.
It will be available at participating Record Store Day stores, but make sure the store plans on pre-ordering so you can snag your copy.
When people think of a vinyl record, it always leads to it being discussed as an audio medium. But vinyl has been used as a visual medium too, and this example is a pretty cool one. Sculpture is the p/k/a used for this project, where he combines vinyl and audio tape to create a unique approach to sight and sound. If any of you ever rejected wanting to be in the audio/video club in school, this is the kind of ingenuity you missed out on.
(Discovered @ PSFK.com.)
Lizzie Huffman is a Seattle-based vocalist who likes to mix up pop, country, and folk in a formula that is easy to consume, one that doesn’t sound like a melange of different sounds and textures just because. She’s about to release a 6-song EP in the form of a 10″, credited as being by Lizzie Huffman & Her Brother Band.
The EP is being released by Suburban Home Records, and you can stream the entire album right now with the player below. If you like what you hear below and want acopy for yourself, you can pre-order a copy of the 10″ from Vinyl Collective
Look Mexico are a band out of Tallahassee, Florida who have released a number of albums in their existence. They now have a new home at Suburban Home Records, and recently offered a taste of what’s to come with a 7″ single called “You Stay. I Go. No Following.“. Now they’re about to break out with a brand new full-length LP called To Bed, To Battle.
The group have already done a few record release parties, and are currently on the road in support of the album. You can find out where they’ll be playing on their MySpace page.
Look Mexico “You Stay. I Go. No Following.” from Look Mexico HD on Vimeo.
When record collectors talk shop, conversation can often lead to someone saying “damn, someone must be sitting on a pile of those records”. This is a photo of Frank Gossner, an avid collector of Afrobeat music from West Africa who has turned his love of African music into a career that has lead to doing DJ sets and compiling reissues for record labels.
This photo is a document of a recent journey to Ghana and Nigeria, but you’ll have to read his journey towards the records. The actual color photos of what he found are amazing, one of the photos is captioned “My head was about to explode”. Any of us who have done any level of digging and collecting will know what it means to find something decent, but this is, in the words of the Geto Boys, the other level of the game.
You can find out what I mean by clicking to this entry on Gossner’s Voodoo Funk blog. This is that cache DJ Shadow referred to in Scratch, that mountain many of us aspire to find someday, even if it means wearing a gas mask.
Some of the records found on this trip have been compiled for a compilation album called Lagos Disco Inferno,to be released on March 16th by Academy LP’s.
An older interview with Gossner can be found here.
(Mahalo nui to Stephanie “DJ Stef” Ornelas for the link.)
UHF are a band out of Portland, Oregon who combine psychedelic and psych rock with pop. By doing this, they know how to corrupt your emotions, as they have for the past twelve years.
They have a new album coming out called Here Come The Ghosts (Second Story), a 21-track album that is being released as a 2-record and 2CD set. The CD and MP3’s can be purchased through CDBaby, and the vinyl version will most likely be made available through UHFweb.com.
If you happen to be in or near Portland on Saturday, March 6th, the band are having an album release party at The Secret Society (116 NE Russell {map}), with local stalwarts Derby and Ravishers starting up the festivities.
