hip-shaking

Tim Exile – Listening Tree

/ David James / 2 Comments

Tim Exile creates slamming dance-inclined tracks by pulling at the threads of several electronic movements and stitching them together into an inclusive parachute – escalating, enveloping, exhilerating high altitude drops over an expansive oscillating environment.  Listening Tree is a galaxy-surfing warp drive pop electronica extravaganza.

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Pouring the excitement of peak-era big beat into a swirling dervish of glitchy textured electronica and experimental hiphop madness, it’s difficult to pin down; which is perfectly acceptable, as head nodding, dancing, or driving too rapidly take precedence over silly genre name games.  The stunning percussion and breathtaking tone shifts keep a heightened mood throughout, unrelenting in its seductive energy.  Undeniably futuristic laser-guided synth lines and cavernous bass manipulations consistently serve up hook after wacked-out hook, while vocals on several of the tracks create an immediacy many of Exile’s peers lack, though they’re never so prominent as to overshadow the jawdropping sonic adventurism.  It’s basically the whole package.  This album hits on several important fronts and then takes the listener back to bed at the end of the night.

[check up on Tim at his myspace while snagging Listening Tree at bleep or amazon, which sells cd, digital and vinyl issues]

Fela Kuti

/ David James / 2 Comments

Fela Kuti is a supernatural being.  An extraterrestrial.  A god.  A politically charged, female-fueled rhythm machine.  He basically invented what we know as afrobeat.  He challenged the deadly authority of Nigeria’s oppressive government through song and action, and paid a price for it.  He popularized and reinvented jazz in Africa, then brought the explosive results to the West.  He was a visionary, a revolutionary, a womanizer, a pioneer, a king… a bad ass mother fucker.

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Most of his music was released in single and 12″ form, and the majority of his tracks were 10+ minute floor pounding epics.  Thus when being reissued, most of the originals were combined on CD, with it’s longer running time; which brings me to Expensive Shit + He Miss Road.  The impossible nature of selecting a favorite Kuti track or album led me to sharing, as an introduction, the release which I simply have listened to most often.  The tracks here are simply some of the most addictive numbers in his catalogue.  Aside from the two title tracks, we have Water No Get Enemy, Monday Morning in Lagos, and It’s No Possible – all long form, mercilessly energetic pieces designed to kickstart brains and shake asses at the same time.  Most Kuti songs follow a formula of intense rhythm buildup, chanted or sung culturally incisive lyrics, a beat explosion, and an extended hypnotic ending.  The sound itself begs no description; it just is.  Those who have listened know; those who have not are missing out on some fiercely energetic hip-shaking deep groove jams.  The stories behind the songs’ genesis are often intriguing enough for a small book, Expensive Shit in particular, so be sure to read up on them.  It not only aids in the enjoyment of the tracks (as if these masterpieces needed help to be enjoyed) but provides some insight into the man and his tumultuous life.

Just give this a try, especially if you’re completely new to it – in such a case, I promise no less than the most interesting thing you’ve heard all week/month/year.  Open your ears and prepare for spastic motion, mental and physical.  This is only the beginning.

[purchase the groundbeaking combo at cduniverse, wrasserecords, or the always-reliable amazon]

Air France

/ David James / 11 Comments

With only a handful of released tracks totalling over 30 minutes, Air France have become the favorite new artist many forward-thinking and fun loving music fans.  Swathed in sun drenched woozy atmospheres and grounded with a fundamental understanding of beat centered propulsion, this enigmatic duo has managed to become both the hottest ticket from Gothenburg and the leading light in a balearic trance pop revival stretching around the globe.  This is the pair of unfathomably striking EPs with which the group has garnered so much attention.

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First we have No Way Down.  Released in the summer of 2008 with little fanfare, it was luckily picked up on pitchfork‘s radar and received a glowing review, now echoed in hundreds of like minded gushing writeups.  This is dangeously addictive electronic love-sound nirvana.  Cutting through multilayered samples with the ease of Avalanches, they’ve also got an ear for pop hooks that would make other recent (and excellent) Swedish exports blush.  There’s not a second wasted among the six equally brilliant tracks.  Forced to pick a standout, Collapsing At Your Doorstep would fit the bill for it’s dreamlike sampled refrain, “sort of like a dream. no – better” flitting over weeping romantic strings and a beach party conga line of percussion.  Truthfully, the entire record is required listening.

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Speaking of beach parties, here is the first release, On Trade Winds, dropped in 2007.  Beach Party is practically the group’s manifesto, the snowball which has since grown into an avalanche of attention.  Too many people have listened to and loved the new EP yet remain ignorant of the burgeoning genius on display with these four tracks.  Honestly, it should have gone first but recognition beats propriety.  Flip these tunes on, line up the second record, and take the whole 36 minutes and 7 seconds in one hit.  It’s as simple as that.  Words, however eloquent, aren’t equipped to convey the blast of fresh air and heartpounding excitement this music evokes.  Once it’s over you’re nearly guaranteed a repeat play.  The only problem arises when the craving for more sets in.  Hopefully Air France can keep the momentum and swing for the fences again with a new release in the near future.  Is a full LP too much to ask?

[available separately as Swedish imports, and download-only from various outlets including klicktrack.  Best option is the UK edition at Amazon which contains both EPs for the relatively low price of $17.49 us – an option I wish were available when I discovered them]

Dusty Kid – A Raver’s Diary

/ David James / 3 Comments

Here we have a truly mind warping, expansive, and impulsively danceable new album from Dusty Kid.  It’s a headlong rush into ballsy beats and trance-inducing atmospheres seemingly forgotten since the heyday of Underworld or Chemical Brothers.  There is a reason, after all, the album is titled A Raver’s Diary.

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The record starts things off on a minimal tack, with the first song’s title broadly (but reductively) indicative of the forthcoming beats –  Here Comes The Techno.   The course is seemingly set for some ambient house, minimal techno, essentially Kompakt-esque left-of-the-dial approach.  That notion is neatly sliced apart via Lynchesque, an off-kilter wobble of pulsing dub beats and stratospheric key tones.  Tension and surprising depth are revealed as layers are peeled away, then rebuilt with pinpoint accuracy, paving the way toward the rest of the album’s skyward trajectory.

Soaring above cumulonimbus clouds on the quarter-hour behemoth America, the rocketship momentum blasts through affecting surges of echoed guitar tones and romantic organ swells, the distinct feeling of a heart growing four times it’s size.  Feeling like a series of towering waves crashing against eardrums, every buildup and breakdown reveals richer textures and an evolving structure.  The low-end grows deeper, organs are interrupted by staccato-pulse synths, strings and woodwind gusts wash over the dubby guitar line… and it all recedes into a gentle lull you may have seen coming for miles, but were hoping would happen anyway.  It’s instantly rebuilt, vertically, with an intense picked guitar solo as the spine every element wraps seamlessly around.  Anyone with a heartbeat would want to repeat the track at once; Dusty Kid never allows the opportunity to arise.  Agaphes grabs the torch running full speed and jumps through multiple doorways, burning toward the terminal end of this habit-forming beat odyssey.

After that, it’s okay to hit Play again.  In fact, it’s recommended.  The perspective is essential for grasping the journey this album takes.  He drops the listener straight into a party comprised of the tangible accumulated knowledge of travellers who journeyed to learn what partying meant.  Which is to say.. nothing more, nothing less, than the thrill of the rhythm.  Have fun.

[get your hands on this at boomkat or check out amazon – if so, make sure to utilize the customer review function to negate the ridiculous shipping-related score of 1 star (by a fellow who obviously doesn’t know what ‘review’ means)]

Bombay the Hard Way

/ David James / 10 Comments

Kalyanji Anandji is the name of an Indian composer duo known for their work on Bollywood film soundtracks, particularly action potboilers in the 1970s.  One glance at the cover artwork for this LP should be enough to give any music or film lover a head start on these sounds.

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In 1998, Dan the Automator collaborated with DJ Shadow to remix, re-title, and reintroduce this action packed eastern funk to a near-clueless western audience.  Floating from jazzy windups to frenzied spy-flick jams, it’s a slick and concise rendering of a very specific intersection of geography and time.  Imagine the best aspects of the greatest hollywood funk scores (Superfly, Coffy, Shaft, etc) reinterpreted by bollywood composers, and processed though a modern hip hop sensibility.  Or just throw this record on and get heads nodding.

[you can grab this used via amazon]

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[Credit to last.fm for info on Kalyanji & Anandji Shah and especially to beatfanatic for introducing me to this album in the first place.]

ROVO – Mon

/ David James / 4 Comments

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…

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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]