With few things in this life less obvious than a love song, you have to give credit to the writer who brings something new to a subject exploited more frequently than a woman with father issues. After all, there is such a fine line between a song that stirs your soul to one that makes you feel the way a male model might about his first week in prison.
Striding the right side of that line is the often inspiring Smog, most of whose fantasies involve making someone else cum. This sort of line might come across as crass at closing time at the bar, but our man convinces of his need to simply be of use: like a spindle, like a candle, like horseshoe, or like a corkscrew.
Smog – To Be of Use(right click to download) 5:41 mins/ 160 kbps/ 6.52MB
I know that many people search music blogs as a way to help make themselves more hip, so I thought I’d cut to the chase and post an all out instructional tape on the subject. Recorded by Del Close and John Brent for Mercury Records in 1959, this tongue-in-cheek record was no doubt taken seriously by more than a few wannabe hipsters.
Still, as it never hurts to brush up on the fundamentals, here’s an edited copy of the album for stream or download. Don’t be a drag, baby. Dig it!
Del Close and John Brent – How to Speak Hip(right click to download) 20:00 mins/ 256 kbps/ 36.62MB
While arguably the greatest soul artist of his generation in his own right, D’Angelo has never hidden his desire to follow in Prince’s footsteps. His debut album Brown Sugar was made in the model of the Minneapolis Genius, complete with the trademark ‘written, produced, arranged, composed, and performed by’ credit. Taking a long five years to release his follow-up, Voodoo, D’Angelo transformed his live show from his low-key man-at-the-piano setup to a large stage show modeled after Prince’s seminal Sign O’ the Times tour, and the result was as strong a concert as I’ve ever witnessed, and one I followed across two states to take in twice.
Even being as big a Prince fan as Christians are of Jesus, I admit that D’Angelo clears the bar Prince set in all but one very important way: his debut was fifteen years ago, and his only follow-up was released when the Twin Towers were still standing. When Prince was at the same point in his career he had 17 albums released and a rumored thousand more songs in his infamous vault. Add to that 3 feature films and two theatrically released concert films, and one is reminded of a comment Woody Allen once made: “It’s not the quantity of your sexual relations that counts, it’s the quality. On the other hand if the quantity drops below once every eight months, I would definitely look into it”.
That said, with rumors of an impending double album including a collaboration with Prince himself, D’Angelo is parlaying his lack of output into the sort of hype that preempts a Terrance Malick film or a lunar eclipse, and with the darkly themed “1,000 Deaths” recently leaked, it becomes easy to assume that the album will take some interesting directions and even be worth the long, if not frustrating, wait.
I am 11 and half years old and live in Jawbone, Kentucky.A creek runs behind our house where I live with my mother. She met you once some years ago. You are probably my one of, if not the, favorite person I’ve ever studied.I plan to be either:
A – an oceanographer
B – an architect, or
C – a pilot.
Thank you very much for your good work.
Sincerely, Ned Plimpton,
Blue Star Cadet, Zissou Society.
P.S. Do you ever wish you could breathe underwater?
Bobby Conn applies a Jackson 5 inspired rhythm and string section to this cautionary tale about the compromises one must endure along the road to success. That said, his assertion that you’re never going to get ahead by giving head to the man is probably more morally than factually sound.
Bobby Conn – Never Gonna Get Ahead(right click to download) 3:42 mins/ 160 kbps/ 4.25MB
ailing from St. Pauls, Minneapolis, the birthplace of Prince, production duo No Regular Play makes no attempt to hide their affinity for Uptown’s favorite son. With altered vocals and a washed out backing track, Wolf and Lamb labelmate Nicolas Jaar provides a dense and dramatic remix that makes no attempt to compete with the original.
Forged with sense of grandeur normally reserved for period musicals and aging actresses, this obscure Balearic offering from Escape From New York is as astounding as it as impossible to classify; combining elements of new wave, disco and several other subgenres yet to be invented in 1984. With the original release near impossible to find, the reissue is only slightly less illusive as a white label pressing limited to 300 copies.
A tip of the hat goes to Konrad Black, who introduced me to the song, proving why he remains to Berlin’s techno scene what egg is to French toast.
Escape From New York – Fire In My Heart(right click to download) 5:14 mins/ 192 kbps/ 7.19MB
Providing a pitch-perfect account of one of our languages’ most intangible concepts, this impeccable folk ballad by Jason Molina under his Songs: Ohia moniker is written and performed with such sincerity that the result could bring a robot to tears.
Songs: Ohia – Soul(right click to download) 5:33 mins/ 192 kbps/ 7.63MB
Slow and hypnotic, the aptly named title track from Richie Hawtin’s seminal 1998 release is a masterwork of minimalism, utilizing a clockwork bassline and muted kick as a canvas for a series of restrained acid and techno flourishes.
Depending on how this year pans out, I think we should all consider moving to Detroit.
Sure, the unemployment rate of the state of Michigan rivals that of war-torn Afghanistan, and the justice system is starting to resemble that of a spaghetti Western, lest we forget this is still the city of Motown, of techno and of Axel Foley, and it’s going for a steal.
The impact of a global financial crisis striking a manufacturing city within a country that doesn’t make anything has caused housing prices to plummet to three figure sums, bringing home ownership within grasp of even the least prosperous among us. In November, an unknown Canadian company purchased the 80 thousand capacity Silverdome stadium for about the price of a one bedroom condo in Vancouver. Of course, finding a job or a store that sells fresh fruit would be akin to finding the clitoris on a mermaid, but so goes the life of a new pioneer.
Written on the precipice of the city’s decline, Gil Scott’s Heron’s open -letter to Ronald Reagan offers an earnest response to an accident at a nuclear power planet that threatened to wipe Detroit from the map.
Gil Scott Heron – We Almost Lost Detroit(right click to download) 5:18 mins/ 160 kbps/ 6.08MB
As a bonus, take this Moodyman engineered radio skit set in the shadows of the fallen city.
The strongest single from this polymorphous kiwi band comes from their original incarnation of their 1986 debut album, Kaleidoscope World. Band leader Martin Phillips wears UK influences such as Joy Division and Wire plainly on his sleeve, at the same time innovating what would later be called the Dunedin Sound.
The Chills – Pink Frost(right click to download) 4:01 mins/ 192 kbps/ 5.52MB
Half Cousin’s MySpace page, describes the band’s sound as “Acousmatic”, the sort of made-up term I’d tend to deride if it weren’t so accurate. Their recent single release includes an entry by Brighton-based Fujiya & Miyagi, who successfully claim the song in their own sonic terms.
Sweet Songs is a track I’ve only just managed to get my hands on again, concluding a long-running search made difficult by my failing to remember the names of either the song or the artist, thus requiring me to recite pieces of seventies sassy-black-girl slam poetry over and over, an embarrassing experience that inadvertently degrades both black and white people in equal measure.
Sarah Webster Fabio – Sweet Songs(right click to download) 5:10 mins/ 160 kbps/ 5.92MB
But the ends more than justify the means as my successful hunt not only yielded the afro-picked funk jam that alluded me for so many years, I was also introduced to another gem from the album- a lush and passionate piece of blues poetry that makes me feel like I’ve just tracked down a long lost love only to fall in love with her deep and sultry sister.
Sarah Webster Fabio – If We Come Soft as Rain(right click to download) 3:18 mins/ 160 kbps/ 3.77MB
As featured on August’s Sexier Than Lingerie mix, this impeccable remix from the illusive Salt City Orchestra camp turns this respectable Underworld track into something I would comfortably refer to as classic.
Born in Kansas before transplanting to London for a stint at St. Martin’s and some British pedigree, pop/ folk artist Piney Gir has recently released this earthy single, perhaps as a purge before embarking on a reported electronica project.
In a perfect world, this song would be ubiquitously popular as I imagine it being played in a centuries old pub with the patrons singing along red-faced, joyously swinging their pint glasses back and forth with the rhythm and knocking them back with a roar of unspecified laughter when the tune is finished.
Now months after the death of Michael Jackson, and with the mind-numbing cable news coverage having only recently subsided, we are undoubtedly due for a wave of work inspired by artists revisiting the catalog of the late pop mogul and accomplished kiddy fiddler. In that vien, the eponymous track from Lindstrom and Cristabelle’s recently released “Don’t Stop” EP offers up an unapologetically derivative throwback to “Off the Wall” era MJ.
Another notable highlight from the duos recent record, Lovesick, has been discretely remixed by Fan Death, an American band named after a South Korean urban legend which claims that an electric fan left running overnight will kill everyone inside the room.
Lindstrom and Christabelle – Lovesick3:16 mins/ 320 kbps/ 7.60MB
In what could best be described as hip hop’s answer to National Geographic, GZA confirms his place as the most gifted lyricist to emerge from the expansive Wu Tang Clan by spitting an impeccable string of animal metaphors in a grand analogy between street strife and life in the jungle.
B. Fleischmann adds a richly textured backing track to Daniel Johnson’s sympathetic retelling of the story of King Kong, doing more in under 6 minutes than what Peter Jackson managed in over three tedious hours, and without the painful experience of having Jack Black look deadpan into the camera explaining that it was beauty that killed the beast.
Had Elvis been alive today, I expect he would think as highly of Germany’s techno scene as he would about the invention of The Stairmaster. Still, no reason not to have Richie Hawtin and Guido Schneider give The King a full Berlin make over.
Elvis Presley vs. Richie Hawtin and Guido Schneider – Visual ID7:39 mins/ 192 kbps/ 10.5MB
