Majoun is an unusual album inspired by the sacred trance musics of North Africa, created by an American composer and an Iranian singer/composer. It has taken over ten years and six locations (New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Morocco, and Indonesia) for Richard Horowitz and former dancer Sussan Deyhim to complete the album. While reveling in the more ravishing aspects of music is a noble cause, I was a little put off by the pretentiousness of their liner notes, claiming that, "here we put the x back in xtatic." Majoun is okay for those who also like making out to Dead Can Dance, but it has nothing on Al Green. The popular aesthetic that defines what is erotically sensual is often much too narrow for real experience. For example, the brutish rhythms and hoarse shout-singing of Mule are intensely sexy when involved in some serious, knocking-over-the-furniture shagging. However, I have to admit that Horowitz has a firm grasp of Moroccan art and culture. He first visited Morocco in the late 60s and eventually settled there in 1975. While he has more recently lived in New York and London, Morocco has stayed with him, especially on his award-winning soundtrack to Bernardo Bertolucci's adaptation of Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky. He has since worked on albums by two groups of the Master Musicians Of Jajouka and co-produced the Gnawa Musicians' classicNight Spirit Masters, with Bill Laswell. Horowitz has worked with Deyhim since 1980, when they collaborated on their first album, Azax/Attra: Desert Equations. Like their first album, Sussan Deyhim's strange but powerful voice is emphasized and re-emphasized through layers of samples and dubs, much like the experiments on recent Sheila Chandra albums. While they have help from friends like the On-U Sound rhythm section and The Moroccan National Radio & TV Orchestra -- I've seen it in both New Age and Moroccan sections in stores -- the music undoubtedly belongs to Horowitz and Deyhim. Whether or not the ethereal layered vocals ignite the medieval gothic in you and get you (or your parents or grandparents!) all hot and bothered like the duo hopes, it is beautiful stuff.
I am amazed that this band came from a former Duran Duran rip-off. Talk Talk was just about the worst thing British New Wave could offer, going from vapid pop dribble to the pretentious, empty tripe of their last few albums. In 1991 when I heard their last album, Laughing Stock, I thought it was a hilarious low point of lifeless sub-ambient art rock and they would never be heard from again. Surprisingly, people started name-dropping them as early "post-rock" pioneers. Intelligent, respected musicians like Jim O'Rourke listed the album as a favorite classic! While I still disagree with the hype, I can see how their rhythm section was onto something, employing a battery of exotic instruments. While their percussion was barely perceptible on the last Talk Talk records, rhythm is king in Lee Harris and Paul Webb's new band. .O.rang debuted their unique ethno-acoustic ambient music with Herd Of Instinct, in 1995. Acoustic is an important word, because ambient is such a loaded one, which immediately brings to mind the cheesy new age as represented by post-70s Tangerine Dream and Windham Hill. I firmly believe that New Age music is a force of evil. Fortunately, .O.rang have more in common with Miles Davis' early 70s fusion than with any electronic based muzak. Lee Harris exercises his electronic muse elsewhere in the creative drum 'n' bass project Boymerang. The free-form exotica of their first album has since evolved into a more restrained, structured effort. Fields And Waves refers to a discovery in quantum physics that describes how particles can behave like waves. Just as we are bombarded endlessly by waves of particles that actually pass through us, the album reflects the diverse cross-cultural particles of sounds that we are exposed to. .O.rang continue to feature instruments like the zin, didgeridoo, harmonium, zurna, Thai harp, mouth flute, Bali-phone, Italian accordion and sitar. While their source materials are very outward looking, the music seems to be made for a very personal, solitary experience. Perhaps this is what K. Martin (Techno Animal, Ice, God) alluded to when he titled his 1995 compilation, Isolationism, which featured .O.rang. They introduce vocals on this album, though I'd rather they hadn't. However, they are no more obtrusive than David Bowie's on his 1977 classic, Low. This is meditative yet involving music that you'll swear was stolen from your dreams.
These two bands must know each other. They're both from Glasgow, Scotland and they both play complex, meandering, long-winded instrumental rock, not unlike early Tortoise. That doesn't sound like a complement, does it? Well I like it! I could describe each song in detail, but it really doesn't matter that much. Either you like what the British press love to call "post-rock" or you hate it. Mogwai have the edge in that their album adheres to a cohesive vision. While the songs and sounds are varied, they establish Mogwai's unique identity in the indie-rock pantheon. By the time I finished the last cut, the epic "Mogwai Fears Satan," I felt I'd been taken to a new musical space that's worth spending some quality time in. Ganger's album, while enjoyable, compiles four previously issued EPs that are decidedly more earth (and rock) bound. It shows great promise for their first full length. Meander on, Scots.
Him is a side project of Doug Scharin, drummer for the band June of 44. With a little help from his friends, including Ui's Sasha Frere-Jones, he explores dub like only a white boy indie rocker could. Which isn't necessarily bad. In fact, I prefer it to much of the third generation, allegedly "authentic" dub coming out of Jamaica. Even legends like Lee Perry and Mad Professor are putting out some sub-standard albums lately. Unlike Adrian Sherwood's everything-including-the-kitchen-sink dubs, Him takes a more minimalist approach that is more like the self-titled debut album by the Chicago-based Rome. Interpretive Belief System continues in the same direction set by Egg and goes beyond it, actually adding some non-dubwise effects and vocals. If you're a fan of dub but not a purist, you may find this an entertaining ride.
There has been a lot of hype this year about the former English member of Spill. Most of it relates to her "groundbreaking" fusion of folk with trip-hop and drum 'n' bass on her solo debut, Trailer Park. Now perhaps if a hapless reviewer accidentally gobbled some way-expired drugs left over from that one rave back in 1989, I could understand why they'd say that. But all I hear is a folk album heavily influenced by Joni Mitchell. Sure, there are touches of dance rhythms and electronica, but they are little more than superficial touch-ups and background atmospherics and somewhat heavy strings. I repeat, this is folk, not electronica. It is no more innovative than Everything But the Girl's Walking Wounded. In fact, that album was much more successful in achieving a pleasantly homogenized fusion of pop and drum 'n' bass. That said, this is a damn good contemporary folk album. The songs are dark and melancholy, just like my favorites by Tim Buckley and Nick Drake. She sings a bit like Drake, at times, but her voice bothers me a little, reminding me of one of the women in Fleetwood Mac. But I got used to it. I slapped it on a tape with Richard Buckner to give my ex two of the most melancholy albums of 1997.
Robert Wyatt was the drummer and founding member of the Canterbury, England based Soft Machine, who played arty, psychedelic, Pink Floyd-influenced jazz-rock fusion. Although his output has been spotty and sporadic, he has been revered for escaping the syrupy art-rock pretentiousness that his colleagues drowned in. Like Captain Beefheart, Wyatt has maintained a playfully unselfconscious experimentalism that may make for difficult listening, but is never boring. Shleep is a welcome comeback which, on first listen, reminded me of an old Brian Eno album. Sure enough, the booklet revealed that Eno did indeed arrange the first song, "Heaps of Sheeps." He also plays on two other songs. Wyatt's high, fragile voice is also similar to Eno's. Like this album, Wyatt's mid-70s solo albums, Rock Bottom (1974) and Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard (1975), mined the same cracks found between pop, art-rock and the avant-garde as Eno's post-Roxy Music solo albums of the same era. The main difference on Shleep is that the music is a gentler, prettier version of the old Wyatt, who could at times be abrasive in both sound and his ruthless politics. His lyrics are not all flight and whimsy, however. "Free Will and Testament" and "Blues in Bob minor" show that his politics have only grown more subtle in his old age, making more timelessly powerful songs in the long run.
In the beginning, there was the Technics turntable, there was the record, and there was the DJ. Anyone who thinks this focus on scratchin' hip-hop DJs is something new obviously don't know their history. This artform is at least 24 years old now, and that's if you don't count the Jamaican dancehall DJs from the early 60s. This is genuine folk art boys and girls. In 1967, Clive Campbell emigrated from Kingston, Jamaica to the West Bronx. In 1973, his sister needed music for her birthday party. In the recreation room of the housing project at 1520 Sedgewick Avenue, Clive hooked up two turntables, and found the crowd loved the "break" parts of songs like James Brown's "Give It Up or Turn It Loose," when the instruments jammed. Those sonic orgasms were too short, so he got two copies of each record to cut back and forth to create an extended version. By 1974, he was known as DJ Kool Herc and had a mighty sound system and a crew known as the Herculords. Instead of reggae, Herc spun his famous James Brown break beats along with the hard-driving polyrhythmms of Latin salsa. To stymie competition, Herc guarded the names of his records by soaking the labels off.
He couldn't fool a high school student known as Afrika Bambaataa, though. Afrika had an even more impressive record collection, with everything from rock, to r&b/soul, to Latin, calypso, classcial, and the African sounds of Miriam Makeba, Manu Dibango, and Fela Kuti. Bambaataa recognized the samples, liked what he heard and started spinning himself in 1976. That same year, Joseph Saddler, a.k.a. Grandmaster Flash, another Bronxite of Jamaican descent, pushed the envelope in break-beat science another step. He employed his knowledge as an electronics major to perfect the art of mixing and punch phasing, in which a certain musical phrase or vocal snippet from one record could be quickly "punched" in over the other record as it played. He did this by installing a SPDT (single-pole, double-throw) switch on his mixer, allowing him to cue on his headphones. Herc cued by sight, which made for some comparatively sloppy mixing. By the following year, Flash and his crew came up with the innovation of scratching (which, incidentally, resembles the sound of an African instrument called the sekere) and had surpassed Herc's popularity, packing crowds of up to three thousand. In 1981, Grandmaster Flash showed off his early innovations in scratching and mixing on the seven minute long, "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel." But even by 1978, the spotlight had shifted to those controlling the microphone -- the MCs.
By 1980, Afrika Bambaataa had a sound system which featured a group of break-dancers known as the Zulu Kings and Zulu Queens, and a stable of MCs. With his group, the SoulSonic Force, Bambaataa released "Planet Rock" on Tommy Boy in 1982. Just like King Tubby needed Daddy U. Roy to toast over his dubs in Jamaica, the DJs needed an MC to hold people's attention. It was only natural that the charismatic personalities of these MCs would eclipse the DJs who were too busy cutting the break-beats with surgical precision to even notice who was watching. Ever since the DJs have been lurking in the background away from the limelight. But the MCs haven't been so charismatic these past few years. It seems just as hip-hop had finally been taken seriously and accepted as a new American cultural artform as valid as jazz by the mainstream and academic world (see ethnomusicologists take on "My Adidas" in "The Phonograph Turntable and Performance Practice in Hip Hop Music"), the art itself stagnated with the decline in number of quality artists and the dominance of incompetent but mega-successful stars like Coolio and Puff Daddy. The time was ripe for the revenge of the DJ.
Throughout the history of hip-hop, there have always been DJ competitions. Perhaps it's because hip-hop has been in a general slump that people have recently refocused on the competitions. Or perhaps the DJs have gotten that much better. It's probably a combination of those factors, and their newly developed organizational and self-promotional abilities. Hence, a name for this movement -- the "turntablists." And a groundbreaking compilation in 1994, Return of the DJ, Vol. I. The highlight of the collection were cuts by DJs from two turntablist crews who each dominate a separate coast -- Q-Bert from San Francisco's Invisible Skratch Piklz, and Rob Swift from New York's X-Men, now known as the X-ecutioners to avoid legal troubles with Marvel Comics. This is fitting, since a recent climax of DJ competitions was the legendary battle between the International Turntablist Federation sponsored X-Men vs. Invisibl Skratch Piklz. DJs from each crew have become so good and have won so many consecutive titles, that they had been asked to step down to let other less established DJs have a chance at the titles. Turntablism is at its most powerful and impressive when the presence and moves of the DJs are witnessed visually. Keep an eye out for the documentary which starts at the beginning with Kool Herc, Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash, and covers the turntablists in depth. Battle Sounds will hopefully soon be broadcast on PBS. Despite it's visual impact, it is a natural step to progress towards making records. In addition to the hottest American DJs, Return of the DJ, Vol. II features DJs from around the world, including London, Amsterdam, Paris, Vantaa (Finland), Montreal, and Oslo. An essential album, not only as a historical document, but a crazed rump-rollickin' party album too.
The core DJs in the X-ecutioners (Rob Swift, Roc Raida, Total Eclipse and Mista Sinista) all work behind other hip-hop artists, such as Akinyele, Common, Show, Jungle Brothers, and OC. One would think an album of scratchin' DJs would be boring. But this is turntablism at its finest, fusing experimental and classical hip-hop with a swirling array of found sounds, spoken words, and the tightest, most symbiotic, rhythmic meeting of DJ with MC that hasn't been seen in a decade. This isn't just for beat heads, it's for any hip-hop enthusiast. The Invisible Skratch Piklz may even top this with their own album in their attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life. "That's what scratching is. It's communication to the aliens. I think that shit can make them land, for reals," said Mixmaster Mike in the Jan/Feb issue of URB. Unfortunately, the aliens will have to wait, as the release of their album was delayed by their reluctance to hand over their "baby" to the Asphodel label, with whom they have a one album contract.
DJ Krush (aka Hideaki Ishi) is a 35 year-old Tokyo-based B-boy who used to be part of the "Yakuza" Japanese gangster organization. After seeing the movie Wild Style in the 80s, he was reborn and redeemed through music. Despite the traditional gangster exit ritual of cutting off a finger, Krush was lucky enough to have an unusually insightful boss who let him leave with the tools of his trade, all ten fingers, intact. Unlike most boasting, larger-than-life hip-hop celebrities, Krush has taken a more zen approach, quietly making stripped-down avant garde hip-hop beats and collaborating with Guru, C.L. Smooth, DJ Shadow, The Roots' Black Thought and Malik B. His first album, 1994's Strictly Turntablized, on Mo Wax, laid the groundwork that other DJs would build upon, including future Mo Wax star DJ Shadow. On Milight, his fourth album, DJ Krush stretches out, adding melodic moments to his trademark dark, sinister beats. And like his previous album, Meiso, he includes a slew of guest hip-hop artists -- Tragedy, Shawn J. Period, Mos Def, London's Deborah Anderson, France's DJ Cam, Japan's Rino, and even Japanese jazz singer Eri Ohno contributes to "Mind Games." 1997 is the year hip-hop becomes a global music.
The first time I heard of Radio Tarifa was on a boxed set of flamenco music called Duende: from Traditional Masters to Gypsy Rock. The set emphasized "new flamenco," which isn't really flamenco at all. Quietly nestled within the flamenco-tinged pop, jazz and rumba styles that are so widely heard from Ketama and Pata Negra, was Radio Tarifa. Like an alien being disguised as a human, Radio Tarifa does not fit in with the others. While Tarifa is a town located at the southernmost point of Spain, just across the Gibraltar strait from Africa, Radio Tarifa is based in Madrid. The three core musicians, Faín Sánchez Dueñas (percussion), Benjamín Escoriza (vocals) and Vincent Molina (Arabic flutes) imagined what a radio station in Tarifa would play, and came up with a mix that includes not only flamenco cantes, but also Moorish medieval percussion, Islamic flutes, ancient Turkish folk, and contemporary Arabic Moroccan and Algerian influences. The band has expanded into eight members to encompass an enormous range of instruments with names I couldn't begin to define (cumbus, derbuka, djembe, casbas, buzuki, afuce, tar, bansuri, ney, guimbris, crumhorn, balaphon, sanza, oud, ghatham, fidula, tares, adufe, pandero, roncon, sentir, kaval). The result is gorgeous songs with as many atmospheric moods as there are instruments.
Latin music has received a lot of attention this year, with the release of several popular albums that combined the talents of old masters with newer, younger talents. The most successful was Ry Cooder's collaboration with Cuban son legends on Buena Vista Social Club. As great as that was, many other deserving bands were ignored. Not only does Chicago based Casolando merit as much attention as the others, but I believe they're better. Rather than a semi-nostalgic jam session, Iliana is an album made by a tight, working band. This results in a stronger identity that differentiates them from more generic Latin collections, lending a consistent feel throughout the album. The musicianship is masterful. Charlie Baran is an astounding guitarist. Their live performances showcase his intricate picking that leave audiences breathless. Dave Hiltebrand navigates his six string bass with nimble virtuosity, adding a lively, modern edge to the band's traditionally folky sound. In the liner notes, Carlos dedicates the album "to the musicians who played for love and maybe a cup of coffee in the Latin American cafes of my father's time." It sounds like his father passed down the musical knowledge of classic Latin music. I'm not an expert, but this sounds like very authentic 40s style music. Yet, Ortega exudes a youthful energy that never lets you forget this is contemporary. With songs like "Ojos Pa' Matar (Eyes to Die For)," "Te Esperare (I Will Wait)," he plays the role of the quintessential Latin lover, crooning his love songs with a voice as beautiful as the words. Next time you want to woo back your chica, sneak this onto the A-side of that next mash tape.
I've been waiting so intently for a new release from Baaba Maal, that I almost missed this great debut album by Senegalese artist Cheikh Lô. I was surprised to see it was produced by Youssou N'Dour, who was responsible for 1992's Set, one of the worst, overproduced African albums of the decade. Perhaps with that album, the creator of mbalax learned what not to do, and this is a sign of more good work to come out of his Xippi Studios in Dakar. The album combines folky acoustic with lively electric sounds. In addition to mbalax rhythms, I swear I hear some Cuban rhythms in there too. Indeed, Cheikh Lô acknowledge that among his influences was Zairean Bolera, which has its roots in Cuban Son. He is not new to the Senegalese music scene, having played in groups since the late 70s, and worked in the studio with Papa Wemba in the 80s. He went on hiatus through the 90s, carrying the songs for Né La Thiass (gone in a flash) in his bag until the time was right. His lyrics are extremely religious. He referes to himself as a Baye Fall, a follower of Cheikh Ibra Fall, companion to Cheikh Amadou Bamba, a founder and alleged miracle-performing prophet of the Mourides Islamic sect. Bamba rekindled Senegalese Islam in the 19th century, a time when French colonizers were suppressing it. The Baye Fall are recognizable by their patchwork clothing and dreads. The music on this album speaks beyond religious and language barriers, and is hands down the African album of 1997.
Te Vaka are a surprising and inviting enigma. They are a New Zealand-based ten piece group headed by Opetaia Foa'i, whose parents come from two small Pacific Islands called Tuvalu and Tokelau. He sings exclusively in Tokelauan, but draws influences from Samoa, where he spent the first part of his childhood, Balinese Gamelon, African and Aboriginal music, as well as traditional Polynesian musics. The album starts with sounds of the ocean and people in the background. I feared it was going to come off as a faux field recording or even worse, New Age. Fortunately the effects are kept to a minimum, leaving the scintillating music to dazzle with its rich mix of modern and traditional instrumentation, which include the increasingly popular didgeridoo. The rhythms are supplied by the 'Pate' -- the traditional log drum, conga and bass drums. Foa'i plays the acoustic guitar in an open string tuning used since whalers introduced the instrument to the Pacific Island in the 1800s. Te Vaka are a special group who deserve to be heard worldwide. Their UK-based label, ARC Music, seem more than capable of making it happen. ARC Music has an impressive catalog from around the world, but the album art is somewhat of a disservice as it's straight from the 50s. Titles like Original, Contemporary Pacific Music and Traditional Songs and Dances from Africa, give the image of haphazard collections put together by geeky bespectacled musicologists who brought back field recordings on a portable TEAC tape recorder. It would help if they followed the lead of labels like World Circuit, Real World, and Luaka Bop, by updating the graphic design of their covers to the more culturally sensitive 90s, and by using real album titles that reflect their artists' unique visions.
With song writing by Caetano Veloso, Carlinhos Brown, and guest appearances by the legendary Milton Nascimento and Gilberto Gil, Virginia Rodrigues has the best friends anyone in Brazillian pop could hope to have. But even without the help of these celebrities, Rodrigues would stand out and be noticed. The first track, "Veronica," is a startling a-capella number that nearly overwhelmed me with her unusually powerful, operatic alto. I wasn't sure if I liked the formality of her liturgical style, yet, when the dark, hypnotic music came in, it took me from church straight to bed. An eclectic array of horns, strings, Brazilian percussion envelop the force of her voice in a silky musical blanket. Blissful.
I suspect that if it weren't for Arto Lindsay's production assistance, this would be just another pleasant but generic sounding Brazillian samba album. Whoever is responsible, the songs on Sol Na Cara subtly restructure and reinvent the samba. The lyrics (which are beautifully translated in English in the booklet) stick to the traditional romantic obsessions of most Latin folk artists. Cantuaria has been compared to Joao Gilberto, whom I have not yet had the chance to hear. The best gauge to tell if this album is your cup of tea is to listen to Lindsay's cover of this album's "Este Seu Olhar," on his own Mundo Civilizado (review found in Uncle Fester's Lucky 13). If you don't like his strange, soft voice and almost techno arrangements, you might prefer the classic beauty of Cantuaria's original. Or you just might appreciate the exciting future that both of these artists are taking Brazillian music.
Take notice riot grrls, this group of six Moroccan women are your sister rebels. If you think it's tough to be a woman in the West, try living in a restrictive Islamic culture that does not let women show their faces, let alone play music. Fortunately, some cultures are not so strict. At least in the Houara culture (located in Southern Morocco), women are allowed to participate in some festivals. As they do the majority of textile and farm work, they take the liberty to blow off some steam on their breaks and sit in a circle and sing, accompanied by hand clapping and percussion instruments. Their lyrics (in Arabic) talk of their desire for independence and strongly claim their autonomy in their choice of partner, "...Oh mother, other Lord, I don't want the old man, I don't want him! I would rather be tortured than to marry an old man!" and "...the neighbors hate me and gossip about me. Let them say what they want!" They execute a subversive, amazing combination of polyrhythms, alternating choruses, and a cyclical pattern of subtle repetition, accented by the addition of the Robi style tubsil (a metal dish which is struck with finger cymbals), the Houzi jnajel (a small cymbal tambourine), the oud (classical Arabic lute) and the kamanja (violin played vertically). The production is more akin to a field recording than a Bill Laswell production. So rather than feeling surrounded by their percussion, it's like overhearing it in the next room.
In a way, Natacha Atlas might represent all that is wrong with the trend to appropriate a mish-mash of styles and repackage them in pretty boxes for yuppies in the name of cultural pluralism. 'World Music,' feh! The only way I can defend this is that as opposed to most of the generic world music stuff sounding watered-down, this transcends it. While Natacha Atlas is Egyptian, she has taken liberties to appropriate a wide variety of Eastern and Middle Eastern styles. She does so with the help of the pan-cultural Transglobal Underground, one of the few, if not the only band to combine world music with dance and hip-hop beats and not suck. I think it's time she take her band and fly her multicultural butt over to America and rock the house.
Before I even left for London last fall, I knew the best night for clubbing was going to be a Monday night. After most of London is shut down and asleep the most revolutionary DJ-ing around could be heard at The Blue Note, featuring Talvin Singh's Anokha showcase. I was already familiar with the album which came out earlier in the year. The compilation fulfilled much of the promise I saw in the fusion between Indian music and drum 'n' bass way back in 1994, which saw the release of Deep Into Jungle Territory: A Jungle-Bhangra Fusion. That album was only partly successful. The proto-drum 'n' bass programs were primitive and the Punjabi disco didn't always blend too well. But, to its credit, it was a cultural mix that was much more interesting than some of the other relatively sterile, homogenous dance music at the time.
Talvin Singh is a master tabla player and a session player sought after by Jah Wobble, Transglobal Underground, Natasha Atlas, and Bjork. He opened the Anokha club in May of 1996 and has since curated evenings of eclectic mixes of "ethnopsychedelic" dub, Bombay film scores, 80s bhangra, traditional South Asian sitar and female chants, and even Indian hip hop. I walked into the club and was immediately captivated by the exotica sounds of DJ Mukul in the upstairs bar-cafe. The Time Out guide said Mukul and Nelson Dilation were simply spinning "classical Asian music." I got much more than I expected. Every cut was a combination of a variety of dance musics and Eastern rhythms mixed with much more imagination than any drum 'n' bass I have heard all year. While DJs Future Soundz of India, Equal-I, and the inna.most were supposed to be the main attraction downstairs, I found myself repeatedly coming up to escape the sweaty crowd and enjoy the creative mixes.
The intensity of the music downstairs, however, was undeniable. Especially when Talvin Singh manned the tables near the end of the night (morning). Some of the dancers stopped and just gathered around Singh to watch him make his magic during his last DJ gig of the year. His hands deftly scratched, flipped and paused with the grace of, well, a master tabla player. While Singh's album had many highlights, none prepared me for the live energy of the club itself. I felt I had been priviledged to experience some high caliber drum 'n' bass DJing by attending the deadly Dragon Sound System on Sunday nights at Chicago's Empty Bottle. Led by DJ Rik Shaw (bassist for Rome) and DJ U-Sheen (aka Johnny "Machine" Herndon, drummer for Tortoise), the Deadly Dragon had their good nights, but have lately been stagnating, repeating tracks week after week, and relying on lots and lots of standard dancehall reggae. At Anokha, I saw the future of drum 'n' bass. It doesn't necessarily have to be Asian music. There are plenty of other hybrids just waiting to spark new life into dance floors, from Brazillian rhythms to West African music. The Asian Soundz collective of Anokha show the potential of drum 'n' bass. The idea is to take a mere style and use it as a springboard to create art, littered with human elements like mistakes, emotional tantrums, delicate beauty, just as DJ Shadow did for the Mo Wax "trip hop" and Moby, Aphex Twin and Howie B did for "electronica."
On Rhythmic Intelligence, Anokha DJ Vedic (named after India's ancient hymn tradition) gets his turn in the spotlite. While not radically changing Singh's formula, he ups the quality a notch. Especially with Bedouin Ascent's breathtaking "Ancient Ocean." It sucks you in for 13 minutes and you lose all sense of time as flutes and cyber handclaps hypnotize you until you're just a part of the primordial soup.
It is a testimony to the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's forward thinking that he authorized his work to be remixed by these young rugrats. Yet why did he continue to work with that Michael Brook schmuck? He did nothing but poison Khan's devotional music with gloopy production and cheesy whitebread singing. Thankfully, the tasteful DJs of the Asian Underground all but completely phased out Brook's annoying presence on Star Rise, yay technology! It features remixes by Earthtribe, State Of Bengal, Talvin Singh and Asian Dub Foundation. This is a must for anyone who was at least intrigued by the previous two compilations.
"Is it rhythm, merely rhythm, that moves my heart? Is it merely the rhythm of the words, the cadence of falling notes that floods me with longing, calling to me? Does rhythm have memory, can it travel through time and make the old forever new? Can it tell us of other nights, caress us? Does it have a feeling, to make us dance alive in our skin? All the songs that make up this record carry a life force flowing from the different rhythms comprising the rich and varied world of Peruvian culture. They are the ancestral rhythms of the grandparents who told us their stories, the mestizo rhythms of religious processions, the rhythms of cadence searching for words in poetry, and the eternal rhythm of the heart and celebration. Our greatest challenge is to find the one true rhythm of freedom -- something like the wind that allows a bird to fly, or a new language more powerful than speech, that holds you." -- Susana Baca.
What else is there to say? Baca, the centerpiece of David Byrne's Soul of Black Peru compilation, is a middle-aged diva producing an acoustic set that seems to draw all of Latin America (bossa nova, tango, Cuban son, Afro-Peruvian folk) into one long, sexy embrace. I think I'm in love.
Set aside any preconceptions of Brazillian music before you listen to this, otherwise the shock may be dangerous. Carlinhos Brown has often been characterized as the "Brazillian Prince". Unless Prince developed a neo-Jamaican dancehall patois of a Shabba Ranks/Shaggy, and learned the wonders of a percussion section big and loud enough to convince you it is now boogie-down Armagiddeon time, I would say those comparisons are wrong. He croons the occasional mash note too. The whole affair is reigned in by the artful production of Arto Lindsay. An amazing album.
Cheb Khaled Hadj Brahim is the ballsiest mother funker in music today. He has risked assasination for the past seven years since fundamentalist rebels extended their war against the state to the assassination of secular music artists. Rai, Algeria's own casbah pop, is simply too sexy for psychotic fundamentalists. Since rai had been banned, singer Cheb Hasni was assassinated in 1994, and the big rai producer Rachid Baba-Ahm was killed in 1995. Now here's someone who puts everything on the line for their principles. Crowned the king of rai in Algeria in the 80s for taking a traditional music that had been popular for decades and updating it with electronics and Algerian street idioms, Khaled was forced to flee to Paris to avoid certain death in his homeland. In Paris he gets harrassed for it, yet he continues to make the music he chooses to make. In this case it's pan-Meditteranean pop. Sahra is an excellent crossover of many styles (blues, Flamenco, rap, ska, bhangra, soca, rave) in addition to his standard, mesmerizing Arabic vocals rooted in feisty rai rhythms. The genre-hopping may not be groundbreaking, but it's an excellent introduction to people who will likely end up digging into his earlier, more traditional efforts, much the same way people have discovered the diverse, if varyingly traditional Quawali offerings of Pakistan's Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (RIP).
When I saw Oumou Sangare on the Africa Fete '95 tour, she was an annoyance to suffer through in between the dynamic sets of Baaba Maal and Femi Kuti. With this album, however, Mali's prized folk-pop singer finally gets her groove with the help of James Brown band veteran Pee Wee Ellis, who contributes his tenor sax and arrangements to the horn section. The delicate, lilting music also includes Spanish guitars, Peul flute, violins, djembe, kamallngoni and a bolon. Another step in this direction could put her close to the popularity of Cesaria Evora.
Guitarist Ry Cooder is an enigmatic, mysterious figure. Beginning with Captain Beefheart's first record in 1966, he was a sessionman for Randy Newman, the Rolling Stones, Van Dyke Parks and Taj Mahal. He drifted through the 70s in a low key manner, ocassionally putting out bluesy albums. like Paradise And Lunch, which also mixed in Tex-Mex, Hawaiian, gospel and soul. The 80s saw him concentrating on soundtrack work, the best of which was his score for Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas. Music by Ry Cooder (1995) compiled two discs' worth of highlights from Cooder's film work. If each decade could be characterized as a phase, the 90s would be Cooder's globe-trotting phase. First, he recorded A Meeting by the River with Indian musician V.M. Bhatt. Next was a duet album with African guitarist Ali Farka Toure, titled Talking Timbuktu.
With Buena Vista Social Club, Cooder explored and fell in love with the old musical traditions of Cuba. "Music is a treasure hunt. You dig and dig and sometimes you find something. In Cuba the music flows like a river. It takes care of you and rebuilds you from the inside out" he wrote in the liner notes. Indeed, the gentle son-based dance numbers, ballads and Havana hymns flow with ease just as they did in 80 years ago. It sounds like the ultimate hootenanny between some of the most legendary players and singers of the "son de Cuba," including Company Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, and national treasure pianist Ruben Gonzalez. A warm, flamboyant affair.
Mahmoud Ahmed is one of Ethiopia's top singers. He's been active since the early 60s when he modelled his Amharic vocal style on Telahoun Gessesse, an early Ethiopian singer. Since then he has released many cassettes on his Addis Ababa record shop label and nightclub. His band is tight and lively, boasting clipped reggae, Fela Kuti-style funk rhythms, tenor saxes and soulful guitar. However, the thin production, butt-ugly cover art and poor distribution will doom this album to obscurity. What Ahmed needs is support from a label like Real World or Luaka Bop to give him a modern edge without stealing his soul.
The Best Shows of 1997
The JSBX have consistently put on the best rock and roll shows I've seen for the past seven years. There's simply no one who has been able to surpass their saucy, funky energy. I saw them three times last year, and this show stood out as their best night.
The JSBX have consistently put on the best rock and roll shows I've seen for the past seven years. There's simply no one who has been able to surpass their saucy, funky energy. I saw them three times last year, and this show stood out as their best night.
This was one of their last performances. They played a good number of old favorites, along with newer songs. As usual, they played perfectly. It was a great birthday present to be able to see them one last time.
This is one of a handful of shows that felt historic. Like the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. in '87, Sonic Youth in '88, Nirvana in '89, it was the sound of ground being broken. Actually, it was the sound of Slayer, the Sex Pistols, Public Enemy and Ministry beating the hell out of each other in a small dark room punctuated with blindingly bright strobe lights. It was the loudest show I'd ever attended, where my earplugs just didn't cut it. The center was a non-stop maelstrom of a thrash pit. I felt old.
Senegel's Baaba Maal is over 40 years old, but he looks and moves like he's 20. This is the third time I've seen him, and am still amazed by the show. And damn! Those dancers could go up against James Brown!
A typically tight set of "new" songs that they had been performing over the course of the year, and to date have still not released. Nevertheless, a sound engineer's wet dream. They are the next King Crimson.
Punk rawk lives!
The legendary man in black who's life is the epitome of a country song, in fine form, with plenty of old classics.
Carlos Ortega and his band play 20s to 40s style Latin music, from slow, romantic ballads to uptempo numbers. One of the most authentic-sounding, beautiful performances of that style of music I've ever heard. And the bassist and guitarist were incredible to watch.
Cibo Matto, Reverand Horton Heat, Gastr Del Sol, Spring Heel Jack, The Frogs, Vandermark 5, Ruins, Musica Transonic, DJ Shadow, Orb, Chemical Brothers, The Cows, Social Distortion, Chrome Cranks, Fushitsusha, Wilco, Jayhawks, The Grifters, Yo La Tengo, Lambchop, Iggy Pop, Smog, Charlie Hunter, Guided By Voices, Crown Royals, Claw Hammer, Red Red Meat, Harry Belafonte, Agent Orange, Barbara Manning, Los Crudos, The Meters, Third Rail, Solomon Burke, Devo, Tricky, Neil Young, Beck, Legendary Pink Dots, Oblivions, Tranquility Bass, Catherine Wheel, Tsunami, Daft Punk, Bad Livers, Man Or Astroman, Reel Big Fish, Aphex Twin, Sneaker Pimps, Souled American, Bowery Electric, The Lonesome Organist, Teenage Fanclub, High Llamas, The Cramps, Bottle Rockets, Naked Raygun, The Jesus Lizard, Moby, Aretha Franklin, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Adrian Sherwood.
Other shows I remember seeing: