The Latin Section

I'm opening a new shop, dedicated to everything Latin and it's called The Latin Section.

You can find it at http://blowsoftly.blogspot.com/ or with a seperate link down below.

O bird

A while ago I posted some tracks from around the globe. One of them was from Fairuz. Fairuz is one of the more seminal figures of Arabian music and still very popular. Knowing that she's born in Beirut, it’s only appropiate enough to repost it in order to reminiscent about what’s going on right now in Lebanon. After so many years of war it seemed that Beirut was finally becoming the city of light again, with it’s grandeur and glamour which gave it it’s nickname of the Paris of the Levant.
You never can take anything for granted.



O bird flying on the tip of the world
If you would only tell the beloved about me,
O bird.

Go ask the one who is alone
and wounded, all remedies of no avail
pained and not telling
what pains him
and in his memory recur
nights of childhood.

O bird, who carries
the color of trees
in which there's nothing but boredom
and waiting
with the sun's eye I wait
on coldness of stone
the hands of reparation shake me
and I am troubled.

I beseech you by your teachers
which are equal to my days
I beseech by the thorn-rose and the wind
if you are going toward those
whom I love and were love to erupt again
take me even for one minute
and return me.

All The Way Summer Lovers Bailin' Out... it's Really Somethin' being Intimate Friends. Evil Vibrations, giving y'all a Love Hangover.

A brand new Warren G, two Dogg G-funk production, some solid Deep Soul from the Malaco label, vintage Motown, Gumbo Funk, a classic Hiphop sample and 80's Soul [yes, they made Soul music in the 80's].

019 213 – Another Summer [Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, Warren G feat. Latoiya Williams]

020 Benny Latimore – All The Way Lover

021 Maxayn – Bail Out

022 Donna Washington – It's Something

023 Eddie Kendricks – Intimate Friends

024 Mighty Ryeders – Evil Vibrations [Help Us Spread The Message 1978]

025 Diana Ross – Love Hangover [radio edit]

One Mashed-up Thing

It’s been really hot over here but finally the weather is cooling down. This change of the physical context for living can be beautifully expressed in music.

By chance I stumbled upon a song from last year’s summer which was one of the summer hits of 2005. Amerie’s One Thing. Really a great funky go-go driven tune with an ear catching urgent vocal [which is makin’ school now – just listen to Beyoncé & Jay-Z recent Déjà Vu] written by Rich Harrison but there was also an alternative version circulating all over the internet that year which sheds a totally different light on the song. The Siik remix from http://siik.org/.

Pure technically it’s more of a mash-up but that’s a form of remix too. It mashed-up together Amerie's acapella floating over ‘Arurian Dance’ by Nujabes from a soundtrack of the Anime series Samurai Champloo. Usually a good mash-up works because they take two, relatively incongruent pieces of music and manages to find a synergy between them; but this remix by Siik sounds as if Amerie was meant to record her song with that musical arrangement. Which is a rare thing. Hearing that remix makes you listen at it as a completely new song.

Siik takes it in an other direction with that sublime guitar melody from Japanese producer Nujabes. They both definitely have that summer vibe. Compared to the weather, the originally version is like the torrid sultry scalpburnin’ weather we had; the remix is like a soft summer’s breeze.

I give you both versions in order to compare and enjoy because the original is also titillating hot, and off course Arurian Dance.

016 Amerie - One Thing

017 Amerie - One Thing [Siik Remix]

018 Nujabes + Fat Jon - Aruarian Dance [Samurai Champloo Departure 2004]

Big Star *

More classic cuts, some classic Rock this time
- apparently it’s golden oldies time over here –

Big Star is perhaps the most famous obscure band in the world. They're the definition of a Cult band. They had it all but despite critical acclaim they didn’t make it. Distribution problems and just bad luck prevented albums to reach a wide audience.

After their break-up in 1975, Big Star's records went in and (mostly) out of print, yet the band continued to attract new fans, along with legions of musical offspring. One of the big clichés of Rock is that anyone who bought the Velvet Underground's early records went on to form a band, and certainly the same can be said for the Big Star catalogue. A lot of the music on the Indiescene of the 80’s and 90’s and even today was never possible without the music of Big Star or they would have sounded differently.

Before founding the band, Alex Chilton had achieved fame in the late 60’s as the 16-year-old vocalist sounding like an old Blues singer singing ‘The Letter’ with the Box Tops. Basically a puppet for producers, Chilton felt unfulfilled with his minor role and walked away from fame into an uncertain future in Memphis with his childhood friend Chris Bell. Their mutual love for British Beat, Stax Soul and LA-styled harmonies brought them together and they formed the band Big Star.

Obviously they loved the Beatles, Byrds and Kinks so they sound like a pop band but there’s a certain dirty, even creepy, edge to it that ads layers of meaning to their music and lyrics. It’s highly tensed or intense music. There’s a certain urge to it. An element of anxiety that gave it a dark undercurrent not usually associated with guitar-pop music, is what their site says. A feeling of imminent collapse… against… an atmosphere of wild spontaneity… which creates… times on the album that the tension is virtually unbearable is what the liner notes of the second album Radio City say. The different dynamics and tempo changes of Daisy Glaze is a fine example of that statement. A lot of critics call it lost innocence [after the Box Tops debacle and the Altamont Music Festival], teenage angst and a sublimated Sex drive which sounds a very appropriate match to Rockmusic, if you ask me.

Apart from that, there are off course the gorgeous melodies and the awesome sound. Especially that of the guitars and the powered interplay which is highly unique and immediately recognisable. I'm not really fond of the songs that show too clearly the influence of The Beatles. My favourite one is O My Soul and it proofs their original approach to Rock and their Memphis roots. The song is from the second album but the sound and style was already largely established on the first album in the song When My Baby's Beside Me. The first album it seems is like a learning process, the second one is just on the edge of a knife, almost tipping over and the third and last one Sister Lover just goes way over the line.

Their best known songs though, are the ballads. Thirteen and September Girls are standard ballads that get frequent airplay on Commercial as well as Independent radio.

After the break up, Chilton and Bell worked again together in 1978 on a song for a solo album of Chris Bell. This song is You and Your Sister which got a lot of airplay years later in the version of This Mortal Coil featuring Kim Deal of the Pixies.

Big Star reformed a couple of years ago without Chris Bell who died in 1979. I haven’t seen them yet, because I no longer visit the big festivals, but if you can believe the critics, they’re still great.

#1 Record 1972

Big Star - The Ballad of El Goodo

Big Star - Thirteen

Big Star - Don't Lie to Me

Big Star - When My Baby's Beside Me

Big Star - Watch the Sunrise

Radio City 1974

Big Star - O My Soul

Big Star - What's Going Ahn

Big Star - You Get What You Deserve

Big Star - Daisy Glaze

Big Star - September Gurls

Sister Lover 1975

Big Star - Thank You Friends

Big Star - Holocaust

Big Star - Kangaroo

Big Star - For You

Big Star - Nightime

Big Star - Blue Moon

Big Star - Take Care

Chris Bell - You And Your Sister

This Mortal Coil - You and Your Sister

John Davis [Electro]

Today some classic Electro. Wild robo-funk jams and smooth, soulful serene vocoder melodies and outrageous drum programming. Funk master John Davis - no to be mistaken with the second half of The Folk Implosion, the Classic composer and yes the reborn Christian country rocker with the same name - previously only known to addicted electro collectors, is perhaps the last remaining electro-funk pioneer to be rediscovered. In 1984 he made a couple of legendary party jams which have been said to have inspired artists ranging from Juan Atkins [Detroit’s Cybotron, model 500] to I-F [Dutch electro revivalists]. Davis produced these tracks in 1984 when he was stationed in Germany as part of the US Army.

John Davis was born in Anderson, South Carolina to musical parents, and started playing the guitar when he was seven years old. He went on to learn the bass guitar, drums and keyboards and began his musical career travelling around America singing gospel music with his father and his five brothers. In the 70s he joined the army and was stationed in Germany; when he left the army he continued to play with both local musicians and American acts who were touring the country.

John recalls, ‘I had a friend, Manfred Radtke, who had a small studio in Kitzingen, Germany. He offered me the chance to work in his studio and there I began to write songs in the style that I really liked, that came out of my soul and heart. One of my favourite bands was Zapp and they often worked with the voice box or vocoder. At the time, music was very electronic and groups like Parliament were doing a mixture of smooth funk and electronics, and so I mixed them together to create my own tracks’.

These tracks reminds us of a more electroid Zapp, Prince, Rick James and a more mellower Egyptian Lover. As an experienced producer he worked in the early 80’s with Terry Lewis of The Time [Prince prodigies] and in the 90’s moved to Los Angeles where he played with Babyface and many other artists on the Solar Records label. Davis is credited to have been working with Ice-T and Terry Lewis [of R&B production don's Jam and Lewis, Michael and Janet Jackson, SoS band, Kymaxx,...].

The bottom-line is that he produced a couple of brilliant, futuristic lost classics which are now for the first time collected on the second release of a new electro/funk label, based in London, called Citinite.

- Surprise surprise! John Davis is also the real voice behind Milli Vanilli but don’t let that scare you off -

some other lalala later on because of complaints. I will make a elaborate compilation of early electronic music some day which will feature a selection of John Davis' music. Maybe I will switch over to a podcast system. I don't know yet.

Whippin' post

The Wailing Souls are undoubtedly one of the finest exponents of vocal harmony singing to have come out of Jamaica. They’ve been making quality Roots Reggae ever since the 70’s, are ambassadors of the entire Jamaican music scene and are part of the few Jamaican artist that made reggae what it is today. Bredda Gravalicious is my favorite track and a token of their early style.

015 The Wailing Souls – Bredda Gravalicious [1979 Wild Suspense]

Wonderboy and amazing Lee

The sensual, honeyed vocals of Wayne Wonder have made him a consistent hit maker with both extraordinary songs for lovers and the streets since the late 80’s.

Up until that moment in 2003 when his carrier exploded with the global #1 hit No Letting Go was Wayne Wonder only known to dancehall lovers.
From the moment he started recording music in the 80’s, first with the late King Tubby himself and later on with his childhood friend Dave Kelly at Penthouse Recordings, he caught attention with his richer, more soulful vocal approach to Reggae rhythm tracks than many of his contemporaries.

At Penthouse Records, which label is synonymous with Dancehall Reggae hits of the late 80's/early 90's and after that on the Madhouse and Xtra Large labels and his own Singso label, he created a steady stream of successful tunes for himself and others. He has co-written hits for artists like Buju Banton.

In 2002, he earned the first #1 hit of his career with No Letting Go based on hypnotic Diwali rhythm track from Steve ‘Lenky’ Marsden. In 2003 the song and album No Holding Back were re-released on the Major label Atlantic Records and the rest is history.

The follow-up single and video was the equally good Bounce Along from the same album.

011 Wayne Wonder – No Letting Go

012 Wayne Wonder – Bounce Along

Beat guru extraordinaire Shawn Lee is the man behind The Ape Breaks and Planet of the Breaks series which were sampled by everyone from Guru to The Gorillaz. As a multi-instrumentalist and singer he has played and recorded with a diverse range of artists including Coldcut, Leeann Rhimes, Martina Mcbride, UNKLE, Tony Joe White, Chateau flight, The Dust Brothers, St. Etienne, Jeff Buckley, Bomb the Bass, The Spice Girls, and Natasha Atlas not to mention solo records for the Talkin’ Loud and Wall of Sound labels.

Taking inspiration from classic library records he made 2 albums worth of mood setting tracks that work great as an album to listen too, as a DJ tool, a production tool for sampling, or music for beds in advertising or film. My favorite tracks from the first studio sessions Music and Rhythm are El Duce and East West although the rest is just as groovy.

Library records were often recorded by top session musicians and featured tracks capturing a variety of moods - from the frantic bongo-driven chase scene to the string-laden back-drop for a tender love scene - the music featured was aimed largely at TV, film and radio producers. Many of these obscure records are highly collectible for the single one or two tracks that the best LP’s featured - often times selling for hundreds of dollars for an amazing breakbeat or a great funk track.

you can learn more about the amazing Mr. Lee at www.shawnlee.net

013 Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra – El Duce

014 Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra – East West

Camille

Prince has almost as many unreleased albums as released ones. The most interesting ones were made around the time of Sign 'O' the Times. Around 1986 he was fooling around in his studio and produced the now classic Housequake. He was so thrilled with the result that he produced an entire album worth of material with a sped up vocal that sounded like a female voice. He even invented a character to go with it, Camille [named after the French hermaphrodite] and planned to release it under that name. But he didn’t. Instead he started an ambitious 3 LP project called Crystal Ball which was later cut down to the double record Sign 'O' the Times. Many of these lost tracks reappeared later on on bootlegs [the famous outtakes] and semiofficial records like the Black Album but most of them made it to Sign 'O' the Times because he was very pleased with the Camille material and rightfully so. For me the prizewinner is If I Was Your Girlfriend which is also one of my all-time favourites. It’s the sound and atmosphere, the theme and lyrics but most of all the vocals. The version here is the original Camille version right from the Master copy. Thanx to http://www.rawlikesashimi.blogspot.com/ you can find the entire album at http://rapidshare.de/files/22477119/Camille.zip.html

010 Prince –If I Was Your Girlfriend

La Ritournelle

Sébastien Tellier's last real album Politics came out in 2004. Whenever someone says that an album sounds Zappaesque it tickles my fancy. So I bought the album and it was a pleasant surprise in many ways. The tracks that refer to Zappa are great and circulate somewhere around Apostrophe (‘) and Over-Nite Sensation but on that album there was also one really outstanding track which was something totally different. That track was La Ritournelle and ever since its release, it started a life of its own with many remixes and even different video versions. It turns up on one compilation album after the other and it stills gets re-released.

A recent video version in Quick time is here but it’s a cut down version.

Sébastien Tellier - la ritournelle [Mr dan’s magic wand mix]

The original full version is on his site under the music & video section right here.

Sébastien Tellier - La Ritournelle [original mix]

If you wonder what Ritournelle means you can read what J.J. Rousseau has to say about it in Diderot’s encyclopédie right here.

RITOURNELLE, s.f. en Musique, est un morceau de symphonie, assez court, qui se met en maniere de prélude, à la tête d'un air, dont ordinairement elle annonce le chant, ou à la fin, & alors elle imite la fin du même chant, ou dans le milieu du chant, pour reposer la voix, pour ajouter à l'expression, ou simplement pour embellir la piece. Dans les partitions ou recueils de musique italienne, les ritournelles sont souvent désignées par les mots si suona, qui signifient que l'instrument qui accompagne, doit répéter ce que la voix a chanté. Voyez REPETITION. Ritournelle vient de l'italien, & signifie proprement petit retour, ritornello. (S)

[Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des métiers de Diderot et d'Alembert (1751-1776)].

There’s also a more up to date version of it. The great French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who died in 1995, developed a new concept for the term as a constantly repeating melody in relation to the act of de-territorialisation. I’m not going to try to explain it right here but just think of a child that sings or hums a little tune to fall sleep because it' afraid in the dark. there's off course plenty more of it on the net.
So maybe the track is a tribute to Deleuze. My view on it quite similar. The music evokes the feeling of a kind of dreamlike state of being you don’t want to end. But you know that situation has to end sometime. Imaging you’re just falling in love and your love get’s answered. You feel on top of the world and you just don’t want to get off it. You repeat or reconstruct that feeling over and over again, kind of mantra-like, to keep it with you, but deep down you know it has to stop somewhere. If not in a fight or an argument, a more moderate normal relationship or finally death itself. I was really impressed how he can make the music tell this story.

Feli-cidade or the Merry-city

Brasioe is more than just carnivaoe, caipirinha’s, capoeirha, futíbol, samba, bossa and all the other stereotypes which blend nicely into a great summer’s party back at your place. As stereotypes do, these archetypes of the brazilian way intend to mask and show their essence at the same time. They’re all powerful cultural icons which lead a live of their own by now, but they take strong root in brazilian life. Still today. They’re not just fashionable for summer but meaningful expressions of what it means to be brazilian or what it means to be part of a nation with just a small number of extremely wealthy people living together but apart from large numbers of have-nots, to live in an nation which gave us one of the most magnificent architectural styles and visions of modern life but doesn’t manage to home large quantities of it’s population properly, to live in a city like Rio which is one of the largest cities on the planet but who’s history is written everyday at the beach and in the sea.

The merry view on brasil still lasts and seems to be indestructible and doesn’t need expensive publicity campaigns. Brasil, it seems, sells itself. It’s a total brand on it’s own or is it just a product of our dreams?

There’s a flipside to all of this. Apart from the happy joie de vivre there’s also a lot of tristeza. There’s a lot of crime, corruption, poverty and violence and it’s part of everyday life. Movies like Cidade de Deus aren’t cooked up fantasies but many people’s reality. For an outsider everything looks pretty save if you stick to the beaten tracks but for the same outsider are no-go areas really no areas to go if you plan to come back.
A friend of mine lived in brasil for two years. He got well adapted to the way of life but still got shocked when he found out that the reaction of the elderly of the village, when someone he knew well got shot, was that it was a shame that it took place on main street, at broad daylight and not in the forest at night. It was bad for commerce and a damn shame. A human life isn’t worth shit apparently.

All this aspects are sides of the same coin. You can’t keep them apart because they belong together. The way people live up to get lost in carnival, the way they celebrate life trough music and dance and dream nostalgically for better or of once good times is probably an answer to the hard facts of life.
This stress of city life makes up a very vibrant and dynamic society. Everything has a certain urge to it. A certain edge, a certain need for things to happen. Preferably right now, while it’s still possible. Which is different from the way we live here in Europe.

One of the wonders of brazilian music is the way all of this comes together naturally in the rhythms, voices and melodies. They’ve got a word for it, Saudade, which is difficult to translate [so they say]. It expresses vitality, the urge to live, the need for chance, remorse and desperation, hope and sadness. All in one. The paradoxes keep on. It’s highly modern and ancient, tribal and trendy or sophisticated. It’s a fairly young hybrid but with very strong roots. It mixes African, Portuguese and other European roots with indigenous sounds, rhythms and instruments. Samba is a great vehicle, a constant flexible flow or flows that absorbed all styles and influences and gave back original points of view that triggered now evolutions and changes of style [antropofagus]. It’s truly one of the main branches on the Afro-American tree next to the Afro-Cuban and the Blues.

- à suivre -

The pictures are from a great brazilian photographer called Alexander órion http://www.alexandreorion.com/_orion.htm

Piggiebag and how's the Weather like on Mars?

Not to many words today, only music. Weather Report is known as being one of the leading fusion bands of the 70’s. Maybe less known is that they were also really funky. I will give more proof of that later on.

008 Weather Report - Mysterious Traveller - Nubian Sundance (short version)

Someone corrected me on this. Mysterious traveller is not with Jaco Pastorius but with Alphonso Johnson on Bass. Thanx Jacek.

After the split up of the famous no wave band The Pop Group, a couple of members formed Pigbag. Their best known song and only hit single, I guess, was a great dance track which refers to James Brown’s milestone Papa’s got a brand new bag. I give you an alternative 12” version which I like better than the original 7”.

009 Pigbag - Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag 12” (mix) 1982

There’s also a nice fansite of Pigbag with some music of another split up band called Instinct.

............Black Gold

I have to start somewhere so I might as well start right here!

I originally intended to post a lot of black or black related music. Soul, funk, fusion, rare grooves, dub, reggae, dancehall, … but up until now it seems that I only got my act together concerning other types of music. They’re a little bit more orderly packed while the motherload of black music in my collection is just one big mess.

Nevertheless I’m starting right here and now with something that’s not too obscure but that doesn’t mean that it's no good. Beverley Knight is about my age but boy, that’s about as much as we have in common. I can’t sing and I’m not half as good lookin’ [even though it’s an older picture].

Anyway, she’s Jamaican, grew up singing gospel and made a fame for herself singing R&B with the dark brown colour of her voice. My favourite tune is Greatest Day in the classic mix.

001 Greatest Day (Classic mix)

Next. The meaning of the Name.
This should have been the first post up this alley, but I couldn’t find the original version of a certain song right away [remember the mess] so it’s the second one.
Black Gold of the Sun is a great anthem and a cool name. Around the time that many rap and hip-hop artist were starting to pay respect to their roots and idols [~ Guru’s Jazzmatazz] a tribute album was released called Nuyorican Soul.

Nuyorican Soul is an alias for good old Masters at Work or MAW. They gathered around them a variety of old Latin and Soul legends (Ayers, Benson, Palmieri, Salsoul Orchestra, ...) to make a great double album back in 1996. The opener of that album is Black Gold of the Sun sung by Jocelyn Brown. A soul diva with whom they collaborate frequently [more later]. The original version of the song is by The Rotary Connection with the famous Minnie Riperton [even more later on].

002 I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun - Rotary Connection feat. Minnie Riperton

003 I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun - Nuyorican Soul feat. Jocelyn Brown

More from the Barrio and some Smooth Jazz
While picking up Black Gold from the Nuyorican Soul album I stumbled on an old favourite of mine, Nautilus from the Jazz pianist and bandleader Bob James. MAW reworked it and rebaptised it as Mawtilus.
Bob James is best know as the Godfather of Smooth Jazz. He became famous as writer of the theme song of the sitcom Taxi but he will be remember best for a series of classic albums with a couple of killer tracks he produced in the 70’s. In my opinion the term Smooth Jazz is not a appropriate branding. It’s a moniker which suggest that it sounds slick in stead of seductive which most of it is. It’s pretty hot and broad ranging stuff. It’s a highly customised blend of jazz, funk, pop and classical music. A real crossover if you have to brand it something.
The first one is ballad featuring a young Patti Autin. The others are very scenic instrumentals. I always think of them as soundtracks to a still unmade movie.

004 Nuyorican Soul – Mawtilus

005 Bob James feat. Patti Autin – I Feel a Song in my Heart – [Two 1975]

006 Bob James – Night Crawler – [Heads 1977]

007 Bob James – Westchester Lady – [three 1976]

Bubblegum 3

Ye, it seems that I'm posting nothing but bubblegum popmusic. This is already the third one. I originally intended to post all sorts of rare grooves and black music but I just don't get around doing so. I will manage some day, until then some pastime paradise music. The magic word of tonight is S0 80’s.

The fist post is an obscure Italo disco track van 1982 by Miss Vivien Vee and produced by Claudio Simonetti [from 70’s group Goblin and many horror picture soundtracks after that]. It’s not awesome but alright. I like italot.

The second one is and track from 1981 by the Yellow Magic Orchestra. YMO is one of the many founding fathers of electronic popmusic. Cue is one of their best early tracks. YMO does no longer exist but former member Ruichi Sakamoto is still doing great makin’ records, collaborating [listen to the sad old men post from David Sylvian] and makin’ soundtracks. He even found some time to play in a movie alongside David Bowie.

The last post is from The Talking Heads. Remain in Light is still one the best albums from the 80’s. Cross-eyed and Painless is the central piece of the funk loaded first half of the record.

There's a video of it on Youtube. Nice storydancing.

brasil não tem jogado bem

brasil is kicked out the soccer world cup and justly so. To soften the pain I've added the 3 first letters of the alphabet in the previous post about brasil.
Enjoy!

Cinta Manis Indonesia

It was all over the news but now it’s no longer there. This doesn’t mean that trouble in paradise is over. The Merapi is still blowin’ tons of ashes and the chances for a new major earthquake are still very real. The results of the last one are still visible. People in Indonesia have lived with this kind of situation for millennia but nobody gets really used to such terms. Not only people suffer from earthquakes and volcanoes but also buildings. Apparently Borobudur is damaged. To what extent is not yet clear.

I visited Java and Bali a couple of years ago for a period of 20 days. It was an intense and challenging trip to a totally different world. Travelling long distances across an overwhelming landscape with crowded cities, full of noise and life. Djakarta is well known for being one of the most air-polluted cities of the world [I can tell ya, it’s true] but apart from that it’s also the nation’s musical capital. Indonesia has, together with neighbour Malaysia, one of the biggest music industries of Asia and a strong home market. The Indian, Japanese and maybe the Chinese markets are bigger [it’s hard to tell because of all the illegal copies].
A typical music shop or street salesman carries not only home made and western products but in equal parts cassettes and DVD’s with Bollywood soundtracks, Malaysian, Mandarin and Cantonese pop singers. Occasionally you can find some Japanese stuff.
I’m not going to try to explain the history of Indonesian (pop)music. I can’t. I read about it and it looked to me that none of the authors got anywhere either. Obviously people in Indonesia have a strong sense of the nation’s own musical heritage [for instance, Balinese Gamelan] but for years they have also been incorporating a great variety of foreign influences in their music. A cross-section of Indonesian popular music will give you good impression of what people around Asia perceive as pop music.

After the trip I made a collection of oldies and contemporary songs. It’s not a flawless or mint collection. Of some tracks I don’t know the title or even the artist’s name. Some tracks are edited because the original copies where also edited. They’ve just cut off tracks right in the middle or they switched over to a different tune for no particular reason at all. The old ones are copies of old records just like those scratchy ones from Bollywood. Original master tapes are sometimes pretty rare. Nevertheless there’s enough to enjoy and cracks, as wrinkles, have their charm.

Sakura – Harvey Malaiholo

Dunia - Masi Mari – Salute to Koes

Penasaran – Rhoma Irama and Soneta Group

Malayang – Dewi Sandra

Berdendang – Soneta Group, Elvy Sukaesih and Rhoma Irama

Mari Berjoget – Salute to Koes

Tukang Tuak – Benyamin S. and Ida Royani

KNTP - Sunyahni

Nsantana – Salute to Koes

Jaleuleu – Sambasunda

Ayun Ayun – Manthous

Ku Akui – Dewi Sandra

Nolam Susu – Indro

Cinta Berduri – Elvy Sukaesih and Soneta Group

Hanya Memuji – Shany and Marcell

Keadilan – Nasida Ria

Keraguan – Trie Utami

Sengaja – Elvy Sukaesih and Soneta Group

Masya Allah – Rhoma Irama and Soneta Group

Sakura Dalam Pelukan – Chrisye

I’ve added some extra tracks from Sambasunda, Elvy Sukaesih and from Rhoma Irama. He’s the Indonesian answer to Elvis [reborn Christian parallel and everything], has a prolific state of duty in the music industry and still makes records.

Malam Terakhir – Elvy Sukaesih, Rhoma Irama and Soneta Group

Seni – Rhoma Irama and Soneta Group

Team Risk – Sambasunda

Corrupted files

Yes, it’s been awhile again. It’s not always easy to keep up. I didn’t even got around doing a first brazilian post. Today just some quick laughs.
After their classic first album The Sex Pistols made another one that was linked to a movie. The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle. Now, personally I think it’s their best or most interesting one. It’s punk music that even punks don’t like.

I give you a Sid Vicious favorite that addresses a really pertinent question which should be a genuine concern of the government. It's more hilarious than the My Way version. Next a French version of Anarchy in the UK that shows where Les Négresses Vertes got the mustard or at least an good idea.

Who Killed Bambi?

L'Anarchie Pour Le UK

...............6 6 6

I don’t know if any of you is aware that tomorrow is a special date. It’s the sixth day of the sixth month of year six. Actually it’s 2006, so I personally don’t pay that much attention, but it still makes a funny combination of numbers *.
What kind of sounds go with these numbers? Apart from the easy pick for horror and thrillers (no it isn’t Halloween right now) I can only think of one sound that could do justice to a certain sense of discomfort. I’m listening to Trout Mask Replica for years now (no not constantly, thank you) and I still find it disturbingly beautiful. Other people think I’m nuts but it grows on ya. It’s truly a real piece of Art. So totally out of tune with the times in which it was conceived (the sixties) and still right at yer face. The man who was responsibly for all this Captain Beefheart kept producing highly original recordings untill the eighties and now he makes a living painting pictures under his real name Don van Vliet.

Frownland

Moonlight on Vermont

* and today it's World Environment Protection Day.

Diva Lady

I never paid much attention to The Divine Comedy. Why? I don't know. There are bands that produce fine music for years without really getting noticed or they are just simply ignored by critics and potential fans. It's a big world out there with a lot of music.
But now, all of that is going to change. They released a new album Victory For The Comic Muse and a new single Diva lady. I just heard it on radio one. Based on these facts, I think I'm going to pay more attention to their music.

I'm posting 2 versions. The long album version and the shorter radio version*.

Diva lady (Radio Edit)

Diva lady (Album version)

* Why record companies still produce so called radio friendly shorter versions is a mystery to me, because I heard the long version on the radio.

Bubblegum 2

Music that is able to paint a big smile on your face, just anytime or anywhere you need it, is pretty rare .
Junior Senior is one of those bands that ‘ll always do the trick for me.
It's short, simple and effective. I guess their secret is one big, happy and catchy uptempo mashed up sound based on 50 years of pop music and a lot of humour. They make it sounds so simple but it isn’t. It takes great effort to do what they do. One band that’s very familiar is the Go Team! only JR SR are doing it for years now.
Their popular but not famous apart from their homeland. Their music is featured in movies and sitcoms but also on radio. Move your feet was a hit in this part of the world but not very exemplary for the rest of their output. It's based on samples while the rest has more the sound and feel of a live band.

My favorite song is Shake Your Coconuts from D-D-Don't Don't Stop The Beat. I give you song and video which has some footage from the film in which the song featured.

Dynamite

Shake Your Coconuts

For the video as Real Player file push the button

Give a Damn

After the racist murders in Antwerp, a couple of weeks ago, some students made a special song to commemorate the occasion. They had a little jazz group called Patricks’s Hot Sugar Juice and in one afternoon they recorded a single at school. The benefits are meant to go to an organization for the protection of children’s rights.
They ask everyone who cares to give some publicity to this initiative. They supplied a version of the song at a low bitrate. A genuine version can be obtained at their website.

Luna On My Mind

Sad Old Men

...................After the High the Low

My hair is getting a little bit gray at the side. That’s no worry because it’s been like that for more than 10 years now, ever since I turned 21 but nevertheless, sometimes it makes me feel like a sad old man… at such moments it’s comforting to listen to some Sad Old Men who carry the load of the world and experience that it’s not that bad after all.

I’m a fan of David Sylvian [remember Japan, he used to have a fake föhned blond hairdo like all the big rock stars of the era but also a great voice] the hairdo has gone or dim but the voice remained. A dark sad melancholic tenor with a sparkle of light and a glance of hope to set the balance. He gathered a group of people to form a band called Nine Horses and released an album this year called Snow borne Sorrow.

Nine Horses (David Sylvian + Nina Nordenstam) - Wonderful world [Snow borne Sorrow 2006]

Daníel Ágúst is a member of GusGus, a Scandinavian electropop collective. He turned solo I guess or did a side project of some sort and released an album called Swallowed a Star. He’s touring around Europe to promote the album and got invited at the last edition of De Nachten at De Singel in Antwerp. That’s where I saw him perform this music with a little string quartet. It’s quite different from the music of GusGus. It’s very appropriate for the type of weather we’re having right now [and for my hair].

Daníel Ágúst – The Gray [Swallowed a Star 2005]

And last a song with a very appropriate title: Closing Titles by Tindersticks. A unique band if you ask me. You either love them or hate them. The singer’s voice tend to get unto some people’s nerves. I have to admit that I can’t always listen to it. Only when I’m in the right mood... What kind of mood if you hear a song like Closing Titles? This is definitely one of my all time favorite songs. I find it very comforting and I can imagine that some people would want to play it at their or anybody’s funeral.

Tindersticks – Closing Titles [Trouble Every Day OST 2002]

Pauline et Paulette

Just, for no reason at all... apart from the fact that my mother looks a bit like Paulette in the movie en my sister’s daughter is called Pauline and the music is simply gorgeous. What more do you want?

Docteur Nico & Orchestra African Feiste - Pauline [Golden Afrique Vol. 2 2006]

Balla et Ses Balladins - Paulette [Golden Afrique Vol. 1 2005]

Sonderangebot

Hi there folks! Because of the last post about Barbara Morgenstern and the simple fact that Miss Kittin is playing at Petrol tonight , I was getting aware of some kind of theme there…

Today’s post is about leading ladies in dance music [who happen to speak German - Miss Kittin is actually French but she lives in Berlin though -]… Ellen Allien, Miss Kittin, Barbara Morgenstern, Ada,… I like all of their music.

Ellen Allien is making music and playing dj for many years now. For me she’s a kind of reference - what German dance music is concerned - and well wouldn’t you know… she has a new record out this year in collaboration with Apparat called Orchestra of Bubbels. It’s featured in many top 10 lists and will probably popup again in some final end lists as one of the best albums of the year.

Ada is maybe unfamiliar but I saw her spin records at the fuse last year and she’s just great. She has a record out called Blondie, also from last year.

Miss kittin still has a great summermix2005 on her site. Check it out under HEAR ME at http://www.misskittin.com/

Miss Kittin – I.com
Favourite remix (got a lot of airplay on Stubru radio) and song of the album.

Happy Violentine (Marco Passaranis San Valentino mix)
Kiss Factory

Ellen Allien
3 albums. Thrills is strictly dancefloor, the other 2 are more radiofriendly.

Cloudy City

Funkenflug Der Träume [2001 - Stadtkind]
Wolken Ziehen [2001 - Stadtkind]
Data Romance [2001 - Stadtkind]

Stadtkind (Barbara Morgenstern remix)

Alles Sehen [2003 - Berlinette]
Sehnsucht [2003- Berlinette]
Wish [2003 - Berlinette]
Abstract Pictures [2003 - Berlinette]

Your Body Is My Body [2005 - Thrills]
Naked Rain [2005 - Thrills]
Ghost Train [2005 - Thrills]
She Is With Me [2005 - Thrills]

Ellen Allien + Apparat
50/50 match of Ellen Allien and Apparat but 200% outcome.

Turbo Dreams
Way Out
Jet
Do Not Break

Ada - Blondie
Take your time to listen to these tracks because they intend to evolve slowly but nicely into varies directions and moods.

Eve
Blindhouse (each and everyone) - yes an EBTHG cover
Our Love never Dies

Next time, I promise, no more dance music :-) but I’m just in a dancing mood … blame it on the weather.

Barbara Morgenstern 13.05.06

One of my favourite electronic albums of last year was Tesri, a collaboration between Barbara Morgenstern and Robert Lippok from To Rococo Rot. I only knew Barbara Morgenstern from remixes she did for other people but that album was reason enough to go and see her play live at Petrol as a opener for DAAU.
She’s doing a promotion tour for her new album The Grass is always Greener. While she’s best known for makin’ electronic music her new album is largely made up of acoustic songs, a kind of up tempo piano ballads. I could say that what comes close is someone like An Pierlé, only this time in German. Her songs work well live because of the enthusiasm with which she delivers her songs but on the album they are a bit flat, more like sketches. But still, there are a couple of great acoustic/electronic tracks on it that make it still worth while.

Tesri

Please Wake Me For Meals + Sommer

Grass is always Greener

Die Japanische Schranke + Quality Time

The Urge to fly

As a kind of alternative Eurovision contest, some rare grooves from one of my favourite compilation albums The Urge - volume 1 from 2002. I'm still waiting for volume 2.

Ocells del Més enllà (part II) - Jordi Sabatés [Spain 1977]

Turtle Soup - Chakachas [Belgium 1973]

Casa Forte - Isabelle Aubret [France 1971]

If you guess that most of this sounds very Brazilian than you're right. But than again, the world championship soccer is coming soon. You may guess again which team I'm going to support.

Il tempo viene per chi sa aspettare

Yes... all things come to those who wait. Hi, it's been a while. I've been really busy workin’, being ill (damn cold weather and airco) and abroad but now I’m back on track. I found out that some links were dead. Sendspace is very handy for uploads but apparently not reliable for downloads. Box is easy for downloads but a painstakingly endeavour for uploads. Anyway, I fixed the dead links and replaced them with better ones.
So because of all this fixin’ about I had no proper time for new ones. But I will not leave you empty handed and give you these handsome Scandinavian blokes who play Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart.
They are Norway's most famous kitchen appliance band and I like their crazy stuff. If you want more of it, they have an Official Site and you can follow some hilarious mockumentary adventures on their present American tour right here (beware this is an actual Ford ad).
All of a sudden that group Lordi from Finland isn't that strange anymore. Lack of sunshine can do strange things to ya so come and meet Hurra Torpedo.