Woooooowwww!!!!
There are days when I have to stand corrected to my sister-in-laws francofilia. This is absolutely among the coolest France have ever produced.
9/05/2009
Rita Mitsouko - Don’t Forget the Night
Hey, I thought I knew Rita Mitsouko. And then, suddenly Don’t Forget the Night begins. And I have no clue, to begin with. This is just so cool.
Tony Joe White - Polk Salad Annie
This is a real favourite. Tony Joe White, Polk Salad Annie. Sort of singer/songwriter with a sort of funky blues sound. Really worth checking out. Great songs from the 70s.
Tony Joe White - The Swamp Fox
9/04/2009
Abba - Slipping Through My Fingers
Late friday night, watching Mamma Mia with the family. It suddenly hits me. I’m getting old. And so are the kids. I’ve never had any age-crisis, but honestly, the feeling is really strong, when they sing ABBAs Slipping Through My Fingers.
!!! (chk chk chk)
I first heard !!! (chk chk chk) when watching Breakfast at Sulimay’s. So I checked them out on YouTube. This is really catchy dance music, on a funk/punk/rock/electronica foundation. I get happy just listening to this.
Their latest album is called Myth Takes on Warp Records, 2007. On their homepage there’s an explanation of how their band name is supposed to be pronounced: !!! (‘Chk Chk Chk’ or any three repetitive sounds).
Wathing the YouTube video-clips, included below, makes me think of an early unpolished Talking Heads. Now that’s something!
!!! (chk chk chk) is: Mario Andreoni – Guitar, Percussion, Tyler Pope – Guitar, Bass, Electronics, Allan Wilson – Percussion, Sax, Drums, Keys, Nic Offer – Vox, Dan Gorman – Percussion, Keys, Paul Quattrone – Drums.
Discography
Perfect for a Friday Night Party!!!
YouTube - !!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Must Be The Moon (taken from Myth Takes)
YouTube - !!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Yadnus
YouTube - !!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Live Pukkelpop
YouTube - !!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Yadnus
YouTube - !!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Live Pukkelpop
!!! (chk chk chk) is: Mario Andreoni – Guitar, Percussion, Tyler Pope – Guitar, Bass, Electronics, Allan Wilson – Percussion, Sax, Drums, Keys, Nic Offer – Vox, Dan Gorman – Percussion, Keys, Paul Quattrone – Drums.
Discography
Albums
!!!, Gold Standard Labs, 2000.
Louden Up Now, Warp Records, 2004.
Myth Takes, Warp Records, 2007.
For a complete Discography: www.chkchkchk.net.
Breafast at Sulimay’s
This is hilarious. Breakfast at Sulimay’s is a TV-show broadcast on the internet. Three senior citizens, in Fishtown, Philladelphia, sits down over breafast to listen to and review three CD’s every week.
It would not have been funny if one laughed at them, which one don’t. Instead one is laughing with them. It reminds me of Seinfeld when their hanging out at Monk’s Cafe, just three friends debating whatever.
It’s a production from Woodchop Films. 29 episodes available.
Breakfast At Sulimay's
Cast: Bill, Ann, Joe, Moon (early episodes).
Breakfast At Sulimay's
Cast: Bill, Ann, Joe, Moon (early episodes).
9/03/2009
Robert Wyatt – Comicopera
It’s that feeling that it’s all a little bit askew, almost distorted at times. And yet not. It’s just Robert Wyatt. He’s one of those wonderful composers and musicians who’s impossible to pin down, put a label on. Thankfully. It’s just Robert Wyatt.
Comicopera, 2007, is divided into three acts. Act One, Lost In Noise, begins with Stay Tuned, a song by Anja Garbarek. It continues with, Just As You Are, a track written by Wyatt and his wife Alfreda Benge. It is a beautiful song in which they declare their love for each other, despite their shortcomings.
Act Two, The Here and Now, starts out with A Beautiful Peace and continous in a much more jazzier way with the fantastic song Be Serious. The steeldrums and saxophone battling it off in On the Town Square can almost give you a feeling of carnival. However in A Beautiful War, the storyteller thinks of how nice it will be returning to base, after dropping the bombs, and see it on film, even with replays and all. This is followed by Out of the Blue wich ends with the lines “You’ve planted your everlasting hatred in my heart”. I found the following quote on the homepage of his record company (Domino): “After the bombing – it's to do with feeling completely alienated from Anglo-American culture at that point. Just sort of being silent as an English-speaking person, because of this fucking war. The last thing I sing in English is ‘you've planted all your everlasting hatred in my heart’. I then wander off round the world searching for different kinds of meaning - whether its avant guard, or revolution, or serialist fantasy, or religion, or all those things. Pretentious or what?! Well I don't care anymore.”
Act Three, Away With the Fairies. This part starts out much darker with Robert singing the first song, Del Mondo, in italian. Followed by Cancion de Julietta (text by Federico García Lorca) sung in spanish. The album ends with a cover of Cuban composer/musician Carlos Pueblo’s most well-known song Hasta Siempre Comendante. Once again sung in spanish. The song's lyrics are a reply to Che Guevara’s Farewell Letter when he left Cuba. It recount key moments of the Cuban Revolution, glorifying Che Guevara and his role as arevolutionary commendant. Allthough this Act is much darker, it is alarmingly beautiful.
The album was voted by Wire magazine as best of the year in 2007.
I’ve included a link to Domino Records, his record company, where you can buy his records. I’ve also included two links to YouTube with videos on two covers; Shipbuilding and I’m A Believer (with Nick Mason, Pink Floyd, on drums). (Sorry, but I just couldn’t find anything from Comicopera.)
Domino – Artists – Robert Wyatt
YouTube – Robert Wyatt – Shipbuilding
YouTube – Robert Wyatt – I'm A Beleiver
Biography
Robert Wyatt (born January 28, 1945, in Bristol, England) is a musician and composer. He is married to English painter and songwriter Alfreda Berge.
In the early 1960s Wyatt and Hugh Hopper formed The Wilde Flowers with Kevin Ayers, Richard Sinclair and Brian Hopper. Wyatt was initially the drummer in the Wilde Flowers, but following the departure of Ayers, he also became lead singer.
In 1966 Wyatt and Mike Ratledge formed The Soft Machine with Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen. Here Wyatt both drummed and sang.
In 1970, after three albums with Soft Machine, Wyatt released his first solo album, The End of an Ear. On this album he played most instruments, sang and worked with tape effects.
A year later, Wyatt left Soft Machine and formed his own band Matching Mole (a joke on ‘machine molle’, French for ‘Soft Machine’), a largely instrumental outfit. Matching Mole made two albums. On 1 June 1973, during an alcohol-fueled party, Wyatt fell from a third floor window. He was paralysed from the waist down and subsequently uses a wheelchair.
He then set out on a solo-career, and with musician friends (including Mike Oldfield), he released his solo-album Rock Bottom. Later that same year he put out a single, a cover version of I’m A Believer (composed by Neil Diamond and recorded by The Monkees, 1966), which hit number 29 in the UK chart. Both were produced by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason.
Wyatt's next solo-album, Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, was more influenced by jazz. Brian Eno appeared on guitar and synthesizer. During the rest of the 1970s Wyatt appeared on various artists albums.
His solo work during the early 1980s was increasingly politicised. In 1982, his interpretation of Elvis Costello’s Falklands War-inspired song Shipbuilding, reached number 36 in the UK singles chart. It was part of a series of political cover-versions, collected as Nothing Can Stop Us. In the late 1980s he collaborated with Japanese recording artist Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Returning in 1991 with Dondestan, considered by many to be one of his best albums. He followed it up with Shleep in 1997. In 2003 Cuckooland was released, nominated album for The Mercury Music Prize.
In 2004, Wyatt collaborated with Björk on the song Submarine which was released on her fifth album Medúlla. He then worked with Steve Nieve and Muriel Teodori on the opera Welcome To the Voice. Wyatt is both singing and playing pocket trumpet. Welcome To the Voice is an opera in one unique scene, on the street in front of an opera house. Welcome To the Voice was released in May 2007 on Deutsche Grammophon, and features Robert Wyatt, Barbara Bonney, Sting, Elvis Costello, The Brodsky Quartet, Marc Ribot, Steve Nieve and Muriel Teodori.
In October 2007, Wyatt released a new solo album entitled Comicopera.
Recently the verb ‘Wyatting’, named obviously after Robert Wyatt, appeared in some blogs and music magazines to describe the practice of playing weird tracks on a pub jukebox to annoy the other pub goers. The name was coined by Carl Neville, a 36-year-old English teacher from London, because one of the favourite LPs for this effect is Dondestan.
Discography
Soft Machine
The Soft Machine, ABC/Probe, 1968
Volume Two, ABC/Probe, 1969
Third, Columbia, 1970
Fourth, Columbia, 1971
Matching Mole
Matching Mole, 1972
Matching Mole's Little Red Record, 1972
Solo
Albums
The End of an Ear, 1970
Rock Bottom, 1974
Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, 1975
Nothin Can Stop Us, 1982
The Animals Film, 1982,
Soundtrack Old Rottenhat, 1985
Dondestan, 1991
A Short Break, 1996, EP
Shleep, 1997
Flotsam Jetsam, 1998
eps (5 CD-box set), 1999
Solar Flares Burn For You, 2003
Cuckooland, 2003
His Greatest Misses, 2004, compilation
Theatre Royal Drury Lane 8 September 1974, 2005
Comicopera, 2007
EPs
EPs
The Peel Sessions, 1974, (Alifib/Soup Song/Sea Song/I'm a Believer)
Work In Progress, 1984, (Biko/Amber and the Amberines/Yolanda/Te Recuerdo Amanda)
4 Tracks EP, 1984, (I'm a Believer/Yesterday Man/Team Spirit/Memories)
Airplay, 2002, (Fridge/When Access Was a Noun/Salt-Ivy/Signed Curtain)
Singles
Singles
I’m A Believer/Memories, 1974
Yesterday Man/I’m A Believer, 1974
Yesterday Man/Sonia, 1977
Arauco/Caimanera, 1980
At Last I'm Free/Strange Fruit, 1980
Stalin Wasn’t Stallin/Stalingrad, 1981
Grass/Trade Union, 1981
Shipbuilding/Memories of You/Round Midnight, 1982
The Wind of Change/Namibia, 1984, (as Robert Wyatt with the SWAPO Singers)
The Age of Self/Raise Your Banners High, 1984
Chairman Mao, 1987
Free Will and Testament/The Sight of the Wind, 1997
Heaps of Sheeps/A Sunday in Madrid, 1997
9/01/2009
Robert Glasper – Double-Booked
Robert Glasper is a jazz pianist. from Houston, Texas, US. He attended the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City. In 2004 he released his debut, Mood, on Fresh Sound New Talent. He followed up his debut album with Canvas, (2005), In My Element, (2007), and Double-Booked, (2009), on Blue Note Records. He has also collaborated with many hip hop, jazz and soul musicians, including Kanye West, Terence Blanchard, Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Q-Tip and Bilal. In addition to his jazz trio, The Robert Glasper Trio, he also has another line up, The Robert Glasper Experiment, in which he explores fusions of jazz and hip hop.
In Robert Glasper the best of hip-hop, jazz and soul is united. He seems clearly influenced by jazz icons like Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk and Keith Jarrett. On his latest album, Double-Booked, he plays six songs with The Robert Glasper Trio and six songs with The Robert Glasper Experiment.
Allthrough The Robert Glasper Trio section of Double-Booked, Thelonius Monk’s spirit is present. It seems only natural to compare this part of the album with Esbjörn Svensson Trio’s early albums, since both trios are so clearly influenced by Thelonius Monk. It begins with with a telephone message from Terence Blanchard. Yes I'm Country (And That's OK), Downtime and 59 South are all elegantly performed. This sections only cover is, of course, a Thelonius Monk song; Think of One.
The Robert Glasper Experiment section of the album he keeps exploring the boundaries in the fusion of (fusion)jazz and hip hop. I usually have strong anti-feelings when musicians involve a vocoder, but here it actually works. The Herbie Hancock song Butterfly stands out as this sides strongest composition.
You can listen to Butterfly on his website as well as Downtime and 59 South with the jazz trio.
I also recommend the WNYC radio show Soundcheck hosted by John Schaefer where The Robert Glasper Trio performed live on August 28, 2009.
Robert Glasper - Double Booked
YouTube - Robert Glasper - Butterfly
WNYC - Soundcheck: Robert Glasper (August 28, 2009)
The Robert Glasper Trio is: Robert Glasper – Piano, Vicente Archer – Bass, Chris Dave – Drums.
The Robert Glasper Experiment is: Robert Glasper – Piano, Casey Benjamin – Saxophone & Vocorder, Derrick Hodge – Bass, Chris Dave – Drums.
Discography
Albums
Mood, Fresh Sound New Talent, 2004.
Canvas, Blue Note Records, 2005.
In My Element, Blue Note Records, 2007.
Double-Booked, Blue Note Records, 2009.
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