Boris. Often mistakenly considered simply a doom/stoner/sludge outfit, the Japanese band has managed to subtly weave in varying textures throughout their discography. On this particular record, they keep things on a minimal page and emerge with their most powerful, transformative work in the process.
ROVO. Get familiar. Featuring electric violinist Yuji Katsui and guitarist Seiichi Yamamoto (of Boredoms), this group has built a rock solid career releasing consistently vibrant, energetic, forward-looking, impeccably arranged tribal/jazz/electronic/noise/funk/dance-fueled records. Yes, I just made a reductive chain of genre names. Read on to know why…
Mon is an unequivocal masterpiece. Currently in the center of ROVO‘s ever-expanding discography, this is, to me, their most representative album – an absolute highlight of effortlessly addictive yet experimentally-tinged instrumental groovy goodness. I truly hope you give it a listen. For your own sake.
For many people (like myself), discovering this band is that *aha!* moment when they realize there is, in fact, a group making the kind of music that resembles what they’d subconsciously love to hear. This is dream music in the most literal sense; it’s a perfect combination of previously-unrealized elements brought together in a cohesive, ambiguously, strikingly original sound. Still, there’s a warm familiarity bred of the intuitively catchy, effortlessly hypnotic beats. Even if it’s not horizon-expanding for you, this album has my guarantee as an invigorating wave of narcotic bliss. Jump in, the water’s warm. You’ll be back for more.
[this is a reasonably difficult album to track down, but I’ve found copies on amazon.jp (don’t worry, it can be read in english) and ROVO’s myspace has more info]
Gnarls Barkley is the explosive combo of singer Cee-Lo Green and DJ/producer wunderkind DangerMouse. Known for his work with Gorillaz, MF Doom (the [adult swim] associated DangerDoom project), and his breakthrough Beatles/Jay Z mashup Grey Album, DangerMouse proves an apt foil for Cee-Lo’s bipolar delivery of frantically urgent yet smoothly seductive vocals.
Most of you are probably familiar with this chart-dominating duo. Some may have already written them off as one-off pop hit makers, based upon the former ubiquity of their explosive hit Crazy but that would be a grave mistake. The name may have diminished in album-sales stature, but Gnarls Barkley only grew in the years since that particularly inescapable summer jam. Filled with the kind of soul entirely devoid from virtually any modern pop release, and the pure loose fun which latter-day r&b classics exemplify, The Odd Couple is a shaggy, eccentric cousin to your father’s soul classics collecting dust on the shelf. Updated with modern bells & whistles in the production department, lyrical idiosyncrasies previously unexplored, but kept strictly old school in sensibility and mood, it’s a true generational crossover. Head’s in modern times, while the heart mercifully resides in a more earnest era.
[a recent wide release, pick this up anywhere – amazon can help]
Omar Khorshid And His Guitar conjure pure six string wizardry. This sound is perversely incredible. It’s unconscionable. The deep well of feeling I’m overcome with while hearing this – how much I must have been missing out on all these years! The change starts now. Prepare cochlea for imminent eargasm.
Rhythms From The Orient took me by complete surprise. A certain nice young fellow at Everything’s Exploding shared a raft of information about Khorshid which led my ears to this utterly sublime alchemy. It’s Dick Dale-ian surf guitar rumble meets mooged-out spacey atmosphere over a floor pounding belly dance groove. In fact, it’s everything that statement conjures and then some – hammering accordion and hand drums electrify several moments, and a sense of joyous abandon colors the entire project. It honestly sounds as if it were as fun to make as it is to listen to. Which of course, is a blast.
I’ve looked around for legit copies of this album in any form and this place seems to be the only source. If you can help it would be greatly appreciated!
This is not your mother’s disco. It’s one of the most innovative yet short lived bands in the last 20 years!
Disco Inferno are pretty much the definition of “post rock” – though certainly not in the mould of nearly any band currently saddled with the oft-abused label. DI made records truly beyond the rock idiom in nearly every way, and paid the price of an untimely death with slim recognition and anemic sales. Of course now, in the internet age, they’ve been somewhat resurrected… for another generation to ignore. I’m trying to rectify such a musical travesty.
D.I. Go Pop was the band’s second LP, issued after a string of increasingly brilliant singles and EPs which took them from the humble roots of post-punk also-rans to the heights of rock experimentatation. Although the title begs otherwise, this is probably the most ‘challenging’ DI release. However, it’s not a reaction against pop forms. These 8 songs feel like someone broke the model for modern rock and, after forgetting how it originally went together, decided to assemble the pieces into something new and different. They don’t simply de- or reconstruct it, but fashion something more ambiguous, personal and interesting. I won’t try to describe the sounds other than, generally speaking, they were far ahead of their time in the use of sampling, presaging everything from Matmos to The Books to Animal Collective‘s later albums.
[grab this truly worthy yet well-hidden gem at amazon]
Cornelius is the music pseudonym of pop wunderkind Keigo Oyamada, a true maverick and leading light of his nation’s music community. He was first, unfortunately, tagged as the “Japanese Beck” – unfortunate because he’s so much more than this reductive catchphrase could encapsulate. He initially traded in pop-sound mashups and collage song structure, as Mr. Hanson did, but most similarities end there.
One reason the Beck comparison fails is simply that Cornelius was working within a music scene he helped create – shibuya-kei. Starting with his group Flipper’s Guitar, and popularized by Pizzicato Five, the sound thrived in Japan throughout the 90’s and is still the basis for many new projects – everything from Buffalo Daughter‘s trance-rock disco confections to the utterly sublime Katamari Damacy game soundtrack. [Which reminds me, I’ll be writing about that strange treasure of an album soon.]
Since you’re here about the album, I’ll get to it. Fantasma is considered by most fans to be the crown jewel of Cornelius‘ recorded output. As a lover of Point, I’m personally on the fence, but there is no question that this is the place to start if you’re curious about the man and his amazing work. Imagine a musical genius being exposed to all manner of 20th century music – from the bleeding-edge avant garde composers to the purveyors of sixties pop majesty – all at once, with no distinctions drawn between ‘art’ and ‘fun.’ Then imagine him fusing everything he hears into a cohesive shape, focused through a lense of 80’s hiphop irreverence and carved with a DJ’s ear for pacing and transition. Then imagine he makes a record with the ambitions of Pet Sounds-era Brian Wilson. You’re close.
Now, play this album and realize that Keigo Oyamada shares not only the ambitions, but talents of my favorite Wilson brother. This is no mere cheap analogy: Repeated close listens to the nuanced and fractured pop ecstasy he’s made reveal the truth in my words. He may never be as lauded, much less well-known, as those Beach Boys he worshipped as a youth. But he deserves it, and this album is Exhibit A in making the case.
[grab this at amazon or for only $8 from matador themselves.]
Billie Holiday is a true-blue goddess. This is not debatable opinion; it is straight fact. Her interpretations and originals are some of the most enduring recordings in modern popular music. Her voice lacerates soul and body alike and has been known, on occasion, to reduce grown men to tears. Her spirit is defiantly eternal.
Her final recorded work is Lady in Satin.
Optimistic Underground 