Abstract Index Playlist - November 4/10

I don't know how to love you, Rita Indiana.

This is my second blog post about this incredible talent in the past year. Her album "El Juidero" dropped last month with pretty much no notice. Though she maintains a healthy presence in New York, all the tastemakers were blindsided by the sudden appearance of a brilliant, genre-melting album. Considering all I do all day is comb the internet for music news (yes, I'm available for parties) the notion that someone with any kind of profile would release an album with no advance promo is simply unheard of.

Now that it's out there, you'll want to read Club Fonograma's excellent blog post which sings the praises of this album in depth. It's got 160 BPM dance workouts heavily garnished with metalloid guitars. It's got rambling dub workouts for days. It's got those sour, one-finger synth lines. It's got a neo no-wave posture that drives the hipsters wild. But I don't pretend to be able to fully appreciate her. I don't speak Spanish, and with this artist, that's a real liability. This music is far more than "A Bailar, A Gozar".

I can't enlighten you about the specific political issues she gets into this album. Heck I couldn't even do that if she were singing in English (which she apparently can quite well, judging from abut 5% of the album). Even if I could speak Spanish, there's a great deal of slang at play and a heaping dose of Dominican reality & personal backstory in the works. Lyrics are crucial to this album, and in failing to understanding them even after Google Translate, I'm missing a significant part of the art.

Admittedly, this is a problem in writing about non-English and French music. So often I'll hear music whose words I can't understand, and I'm in a position of critical authority in writing about it. Often there's a press release or liner notes to give some context, but that can only be partially helpful at best and totally misleading at worst.

But, hey, I've never staked my reputation on my analysis of English lyrics either. My brain condemns me to seize on the music rather than the lyrics of a song, though I totally respect my music critic peers for which the opposite is true. Nor do I think that being an outsider to her music is categorically a bad thing. This was a strong theme in Yo Soy Cumbia which aired a couple of weeks ago. Uproot Andy observed "I come to almost all music styles living in an immigrant city for more or less my whole life, the different music that I’ve been exposed to, have always been brought to me from different places. I think, more and more, that is a natural situation for a lot of people, I mean, whether we grow up rooted in some musical tradition or not, we’re all much more exposed to music of different parts of the world now. So I think that it’s only natural that we like those things, and take those influences when we make music and as listeners, you know, listen to those things".

From my standpoint Rita's music is trading in a number of elements that I, and most urban dancefloor guerillas throughout the world are familiar with. That's where my appreciation starts. In her case, I just stand back and marvel at how she's brought severely danceable elements together with such substantial lyrics. That's an explosive combination.

I'm really hoping to interview her. No doubt a short, staticky conversation won't be a wide open window to her soul. However she's someone whom I would love to hear explain where she's coming from in her own words; the words I can't get to in her music. Do I understand exactly what she's all about? No. Can I write about her music intelligently? Let's hope so.

Podcast

o aetnos - alaniaris (trio)
traducteur de tradition - glenn kotche vs. konono no. 1 (crammed)
impulse - gaslamp killer & daedalus rmx by teebs (brainfeeder)
dance music - r.d. burman (nascente)
build to last - dubblestandart (visions from the roof)
dear heartbeat - darkstar (hyperdub)
pasame a buca - rita indiana y los misterios (premium latin music)
chacarerada del engano - semillo vs. elpidio herrera vs. tremor (zzk)
regresara a cali - greenwood rhythm section (names you can trust)
cinnamon sugar - danuel tate (wagon repair)
riddim box - nb funky (soul jazz)
ruby (live at berghain) - mount kimbie (hotflush)
khalija pt 1 - khalija (force intel)
pressure in the air - dark bird (under see)
the tribe of triclops - lori freedman (ambiances magnetiques)
bicycle - tania gill (barnyard)
brother b - arthur jones (byg)
leaves and smoke - opsvik & jennings (rune framofon)
el farrah - aisha kandisha's jarring effects (barbarity)
eki attar - huun huur tu (world village)
massani cisse - quartete sextette (syllart)
ena eye a mane me - african brothers dance band (afribos)
tirogo - tirogo (qdk)
pichito - frente cumberio (names you can trust)

Must Have Been The Right Place

A slightly belated congratulations to Karkwa, the first World Music act to win the Polaris Music Prize. They don't sing in English, so it's gotta be World Music, right? Am I going to belabor the point? Hell no, except to say that, depending on the situation, any music of any genre or geographical origin has a chance of winning this prize if the right arguments are made for it. Hopefully this will be the case someday - soon - with hip hop....

Karkwa are also the most decorated yet to win (in your face, Ottawa Citizen's "Give Bieber A Chance") : these guys have won more awards than Biebs and Drake put together. I wish I could find some data proving they've sold more than Caribou (2008 winner), but I'm guessing they may be the biggest selling act yet to win Polaris as well.

A few weeks ago, when I was majorly enjoying myself at the Festival of Emerging Music in Abitibi-Temiscamingue I had the good fortune to sit down and talk with frontman Louis-Jean Cormier about the band's sudden ramp-up in momentum. It was hard not to notice that Karkwa was the buzz of the festival. My fellow journalists were eager to try to explain their appeal in Quebec; to a person, they cited their "poesie" - poetry in the lyrics, which was fundamentally different than the majority of first person confessional Anglo singer-songwriter approaches. As you may have noticed, I'm not the most lyrics-oriented guy, but my French (as it turned out) was passable enough for me to understand how people got into it on that level. What really stood out for me were their deft & ingenious melodies - earworms that turned my brain to compost over several weeks. That quality goes a long way to characterizing their appeal outside of Quebec.

However, the visceral reaction of the crowd at FMEAT was ample evidence of their devoted audience. Karkwa's performance at the Polaris Gala was great, but it inevitably missed that sense of connection they achieved with their fans in Northern Quebec. I was lucky to have witnessed them on their home turf.

With this Volume Du Vent in their sails (sales?) in Quebec, I wasn't too surprised to see them ride that wave to the prize, even though such waves tend to hit the breakwall of the Rest Of Canada. But Polaris is wacky like that, and that's a good thing. They weren't my top choice, but I'm glad they won.

Here's my conversation with Louis-Jean Cormier at Exclaim.

Abstract Index Playlist - November 18/09

One of the world's great guitar bands is back with album number 2 (for Western markets).

Sublime Frequencies has compiled another collection of Group Doueh's recordings, and it's another crunching set of noise-funk/rock. As with the first Doueh album, it's pretty difficult to mix this with other funk because of the midrange-and-up focus of the grooves, not to mention the ebb and flow of tempo. Most funk enthusiasts just don't care for this much REAL funk with their funk; there is no smoothness here - just raw, tense rhythm.

All this makes the sound more distinctive and rewarding for those who can devote forty something minutes to opening up to the vista of harsh sounds on display here. The sidelong "Tazit Kalifa" explodes the style into a 20 minute psyched-out ramble.

I was very fortunate to have secured an email interview with them courtesy of Hisham Mayet at SF. It has just been published as a Conversation at Exclaim.ca.

Podcast

nasil? na zaman? - hardal (shadoks)
times reprise - giant panda dub squad (no label)
crank two - johnny trunk (trunk)
all dead - shafiq husayn (spectre)
i can't sit and wait - 100 proof aged in soul (invictus)
is it love or desire - betty davis (light in the attic)
bang tik-a tik-a - etaoin shrdlu (standard form)
ragsa jaguar - group doueh (sublime frequencies)
atiadele - mangwana all stars (otrabanda)
victory - soul messengers (numero)
gimmee gimmee - bonjay rmx. by grahm zilla (no label)
untitled 3 - cracker and shoe (no label)
untitled 3 - ghostlight (inyrdisk)
tune for wind dog - lucky dragons (marriage)
pure love in your heart - andru branch and halfway tree (no label)
low dem - willi williams (drum street)
spliff long - baijie (truckback)
no cigarettes - mr. williamz (greensleeves)
strength in numbers - matt shadetek (gold dust)
dub missle - liquid stranger (interchill)
cara de no yo fui - ocote soul sounds rmx by ancient astronauts (esl)
move on up - greyhound (compost)

Abstract Index Playlist - September 30/09

Over at Spinner.ca I've written about Kid Koala's new project The Slew which plays Montreal tonight (Oct. 2) and Toronto the next day. The (somewhat edited) post runs down the basic info about the project, but I was tempted to write more about the aesthetic behind it.

The turntable generated cock-rock of 100% goes down easy (ahem), but lurking behind its Bic-flicking 'tude is Koala's typically surreal approach to music making. Perhaps more than any other turntablist, Koala has succeeded in fusing the hip hop aesthetic of the medium (yeah, yeah... John Cage etc., but most turntablists around the world trace their lineage, or define themselves against New York in the 70s) with adaptable, tone-generating techniques which interfaces well with other musical strategies. And he does it with a sense of humour which only occasionally lapses into silliness.

Since he and partner in crime Dynomite D are working within a genre tantamount to musical comfort food, he can get away with some major idiosyncracies. In our interview, Koala said: "We wanted that dust on the record" - that dirty vinyl texture was introduced to modern music by hip hop, and has never been the intention of rock bands, even though the extreme processing of electric guitars generates a similar sort of rough, random noise. Vinyl noise reinforces the artificiality of the collage. You can hear all those turntable siginifiers like looped dust, occasionally awkward flams between loops that don't quite match up, fluctuating levels caused by manual manipulation of audio sources, and of course, 'hand-cut' guitar riffs which underline the music's composition via turntablism rather than a live band.

These techniques also set 100% apart from Fatboy Slim, or more recently DJ Champion, who espouse a smoother sort of big beat, using obvious turntablist sounds as window dressing as opposed to building blocks. With these two artists, the consistency of the beat is always job one; with Koala, it's always about pushing the limits of the technology even if the beat stutters a little. In this context, the slight variability of the beat makes the whole project rock harder, in that the mimicry is closer to a rock drummer's sense of drama than a DJ's.

I've always had great respect for Koala's musical and visual art, but now I'm especially impressed that he's worked harder than ever to create something utterly surreal within something stooopidly satisfying for Q107 disciples and art-gallery bohos alike.

Podcast - excuse the distortion on the mix, since this was the first week of the new studio's operation, the levels weren't optimal.

pama rum kwan - pm pocket music (sublime frequencies)
panatibat - kwan jit sri prajaw (sublime frequencies)
good news for you - m. ashrat feat nahid akhtar (finders keepers)
din ya sugri - christy azuma & uppers international (soundway)
se ba ho - orchestre poly-rythmo (analog africa)
movin' and groovin' - little francesco greaves (soundway)
vuleveme a querer - perez prado (unknown)
angels - max pashm (proper)
beauties from athina - shantel (essay)
pretty face - chancery blame & gadjo club rmx by andy kisaragi (no label)
C. V. J x + 1 - casey foubert & james mcallister (asthmatic kitty)
carbon - dave da gato (fluid ounce)
100% - the slew (no label)
earthshaking - jahdan blakkamoore (gold dust)
la bonita - el remolon (no label)
force to quit - force quit (zung zeng)
salvation - caballo & the mothafu kings (no label)
warren dub - morphy (nerve recordings)
strictly ital - dubkasm & ras addis (dubkasm.com)
i and i - agape (sustainable)
brothers and sisters - version xcursion feat kulcha ites (vx)
holly version - jackie mittoo (coxsone)

Abstract Index Playlist - March 18/09

Blowing the doors off the perception that Icelandic music is all about morose string sections, hushed vocals and the occasional blast of noise, Storsveit Nix Noites' second disc is one of the year's standouts so far.

Strictly speaking this disc has been available for a year and a half for download purposes, but Fat Cat is releasing it in physical form on April 7.

I loved Storsveit ("big band" in Icelandic) when I heard their first album a few years ago on the always cool & polyrhythmic Bubblecore label. The project is something of an all star lark from members of mum, Benni Hemm Hemm and many other bands with that sedate coutenance mentioned before. Whereas their first album featured a large group of musicians mostly holding their own with the super-tricky rhythms of the Balkans (Romania in particular), this recording, still lovably lo-fi, amps up the energy and skill level. If Beirut's Balkanisms are too melancholy for you (ahem), your jams will most certainly be kicked out by this Storsveit.

No kidding about the amps... the coda to this week's track takes a whole chapter out of the Sonic Youth playbook. But that's just the exclamation point to the band's improvement. The instrument voicings, the ensemble work and maximum rock n roll mayhem are all much more confident this time around. And of course, the rock mix (i.e. not too much bass, lots of action in the midrange) sets this apart from most Balkan beats which pump up the lower end - as with Ahilea, who immediately preceded Storsveit with his dancefloor orientation.

Could Nix Noites inspire a new generation of stage bands?

Podcast

far sight - ras moshe quartet (kmb)
misterioso - radio i ching (resonant)
dark lights - bell orchestre (arts and crafts)
mittlere composition no. II - atom tm (raster noton)
burst - tanya tagaq (jericho beach)
tolon wilikan - n'gou bagayoko (frikyiwa)
rise - claro intelecto (modern love)
mostar angels - von magnet (jarring effects)
pajdusko - storsveit nix noites (fat cat)
drip drop march - drumheller (rat drifting)
cathedral sonar - preying mantra (under see)
mulembo - hallelujah chicken run band (analog africa)
trinidad - willie bobo (honest jons)
mosaico santero - fruko y sus tesos (discos fuentes)
if you're lonely now - bobby womack (charly)
halfway up the stairs - rodriguez (light in the attic)
halfway up the stairs - delroy wilson (heartbeat)
dub special - hasan badr (wackies)
walk away from love - ken boothe (trojan)
western promise - the mohawks (vampisoul)

Abstract Index Playlist - March 4/09

No doubt this is one of the better known albums I've blogged about. Discerning readers of this site should already know a little about Monsieur Gainsbourg, the brilliant and controversial dirty old man of French chanson and beyond.

This masterpiece is finally getting its first ever domestic release in North America, courtesy of Light In The Attic. LITA has always sought out rock solid beats within kaleidoscopic orchestration, and this is a brilliant addition to their catalog. A tip of the hat goes to Finders Keepers records, with whom they've partnered in the project. Hopefully the intended domestic audience to this hasn't already torrented this disc into uncommercial oblivion - maybe the outstanding and thorough liner notes will justify purchase.

I'm tempted to say that this is a lush remastering job, but the arrangements and mixing are so deep and delicious that this album would still sound good even if it were dubbed off a cheap cassette. Jean Claude Vannier is a key player here - at a time when orchestras in pop music were getting ever more massive, Vannier knew when to use huge choirs and churning strings judiciously. Beyond Gainsbourg's proto rap vocals (and you keep thinking that some MC with a convoluted, metaphysical flow is gonna start spitting at any minute), the orchestration actually amplifies the power of the beats rather than submerging them in a thick layer of honey. The rock n roll nastiness of his crack session team never got any deeper than this, either, with great, jagged invention in the guitars and non-stop funk in the rhythm section. The disc never overstays its welcome at a mere 28 minutes.

"Melodie", which led off the show this week, combines all the elements into seven and a half minutes of tension and (partial) release - you have to sit through another 15 minutes before you get to the tickle-gasm sounds, though. And that brief section is, er, anticlimactic, because it reminds the listener just how sleazy the concept is: Ol' Serge sexing up a 13 year old after nearly running her over with his car.

BTW, Gainsbourg's muse Jane Birkin is four months pregnant in the salacious cover photo, hence her unbuttoned pants. Why did you think they were unbuttoned, ya big perv???

Podcast

melodie - serge gainsbourg (light in the attic)
tics - lars horntveth rmx. by four tet (domino)
anchors (by design) - jon irabagon's outright (innova)
african escape - alexis baro (no label)
family galaxy - tim exile (planet mu)
rehux - rumpistol (rump)
varashan - ziya tabassian (ambiances magnetiques)
mono hum - humcrush (rune gramofon)
orange peel - reuben wilson (blue note)
sidewalk doctor - jackie mittoo (soul jazz)
addis ababa dub - wackies allstars (wackies)
two face - ticklah (easy star)
hanky's panky - shirley scott (charly)
champion of the arena - jackie mittoo (blood and fire)
hot milk - jackie mittoo (blood and fire)
darker shade of black - jackie mittoo (blood and fire)
warrior - jason wilson (no label)
soul bird - jackie mittoo (light in the attic)
reggae magic - jackie mittoo (soul jazz)
black wax - pablove black (soul jazz)
dub rock - soundstorm (soul jazz)
trouble - citizen sound (VX)
truths and dub - improvisators dub (vicious circle)