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September 28, 2007
The Politics of Pistolera
The band Pistolera proves that the accordion can be as mighty as the bullhorn. With its squeeze box, guitar, bass, drums, and vocals, the NYC-based quartet mixes traditional Mexican music with rock and political commentary to create a sound that's like an outdoor Folklorico festival happening smack dab in the middle of an immigration rally.
In the song "Cazador (Hunter)," the band plays festive Mexican folk music while guitarist/vocalist Sandra Lilia Velasquez sings about Minutemen that patrol the border: "…You with the binoculars, who comes to patrol; GO HOME! Hunter, you have no place here...They say they are protecting the country from illegals, but how, if this land was stolen from the Mexicans?"
Pistolera plays a mixture of norteño (polka beat with accordion), ranchera (waltz or polka feel, similar to mariachi music), and cumbia (a mixture of Latin rhythms similar to salsa and merengue). And their unique sound hasn't gone unnoticed; their album Siempre Hay Salida peaked at #1 on the CMJ (College Music Journal) Ñ Alternative Select Albums chart earlier this year.
It's not the kind of music I seek out on a regular basis, but the ideology of the band makes the seemingly harmless music kick a little ass. In a recent Rolling Stone Mexico interview, Velasquez said, "In Mexico, people are not attracted to rancheras, they are interested in anglo indie rock. For me the real alternative in music is to explore one's roots. People think that if you are born in the United States you should play rock and if you are born in Mexico you should play banda. I was born on the border. I play both."
Nike Goes Native
I waited a couple of days to blog about Nike's new shoe for Native Americans, thinking some sort of backlash would reveal itself in the form of a few web posts, but alas I've seen no scathing critiques. What gives?
Nike this week unveiled what it said is the first shoe designed specifically for American Indians, hoping to promote physical fitness in a population with allegedly high obesity rates. The shoe, the the Air Native N7, is designed with a larger fit (a "taller shoe") for what Nike says is a distinct foot shape of American Indians, and has a "culturally specific look" to it (They look like shoe designs from the 70s to me). Tribal wellness programs and tribal schools nationwide can purchase the shoe at wholesale price ($42.80) and then pass it along to individuals, often at no cost.
All of the articles I found today (USA Today, Fox News, MSNBC, Boston Globe) were reprints of the original AP story, which essentially reads like a press release promoting the socially-conscious folks at Nike. I did track down some good fodder in the blogosphere. On the Huffington Post, Milwaukee Dan wrote: "Wow, how nice. After stealing their land, destroying their culture and shoving them on to "reservations," Nike is going to give them a shoe made by slave labor in China. That's so American."
Raising awareness about the issue of high obesity levels of folks living on tribal lands sounds like a great idea to me, but I'm not exactly jumping up and down just because Nike came up with an affordable shoe with added toe room. Hopefully by Monday some real dialog will surface.
Friday? Don't Cry For Me Music News Day
September 27, 2007
Party Ben Tries Out the New Amazon.com MP3 Store
In our next story, "Monkey learns to type!" But seriously folks, Amazon.com launched its highly-anticipated MP3 store on Tuesday, the first serious competitor with Apple's dominant iTunes service, and I'm interested in checking it out. I'm a pretty big fan of the whole iTunes experience (although a bit annoyed with the protected files and stuff), and I'm somebody who happily grabs free mp3s, or buys mp3s, and then buys CDs, so I consider myself a skeptical yet open-minded consumer. I began my self-administered experiment this afternoon.
First question: what to buy? Okay, I think I heard Amazon's store is missing some labels, but in order to mimic the typical music fan's experience, I'm not going to look them up. I'll just think of something I want to hear. Let's start with a challenge: there's a UK band called Tunng, and their electronic/folk album, Good Arrows, is getting some good reviews, and I would enjoy hearing a song, and I am happy to spend a dollar on it. First up, iTunes. Open it up, search "Tunng." Bing! Up it pops, a list of albums, and there it is. Not available in DRM-free iTunes Plus format, but it's here. I click on Good Arrows, and the album tracks pop up, including a column of bars representing the songs' individual comparitive popularities. Why not grab the most popular one, see what the fuss is about? "Bullets," buy song, password, OK. Download took about 14 seconds. It sounds pretty good, kind of silly, like XTC meets The Beta Band. Amazon, you're up.
I head over to Amazon.com and search for Tunng, selecting "MP3 Downloads." 44 songs pop up, not bad, that's compared to the 69 songs iTunes had. I don't see the new album, and the listing is by "relevance," I'm not sure what that means. Aren't they all basically irrelevant? This is British folktronica we're talking about here. Anyway, I'd like to sort by album title, so I try to click there, but no, that's just a column header. Hmm. Maybe in the "Sort By" menu? Nope, that just gives me the typical Amazon.com choices: "Price - Low to High," etc. Okay, what song did I want again? "Bullets." I click "See all 44 songs"... Nope, it's not here. Very close, Amazon, but Round 1 to iTunes.
What next. Something easier? Okay, howabout Feist's "1, 2, 3, 4," to make it ironic, since that's on the iPod commercial. First, back to the iTunes home page. There it is as #4 on their Top 10 songs. Click "buy song," no need for the password again since it's so soon, and the download starts right up. Amazon? To get back to the home page, I click "mp3 downloads," but that takes me to a random list where Apples in Stereo is #1 on a page that says "Showing 1-24 of 2,335,091 songs." Weird. But, lucky me, there's Feist at #10 on this list. Only 89 cents, as opposed to iTunes' 99 cents. I click "Buy mp3" and I get to the "sign in" page like when I want to order a book. Now it's asking me to "get the Amazon MP3 downloader." Hmm, okay, to be fair, I suppose I should do that. I download it, then glance back over at iTunes—hold on a minute, something's gone wrong with iTunes! The little stripeys are still running, and the track hasn't downloaded! Oh no, malfunction! Error! "Could not purchase 1234. The network connection was reset." iTunes forfeits this round!!! Okay, back to installing the Amazon downloader. It installs in a few seconds and takes me right to the next page: "Complete Your Song Download." I have to select my credit card and address, and then, well, it's done. A message comes up: "You can find your downloads in your iTunes library." Oh, snap! Take that, Steve Jobs! Is it there? Well, huzzah, there it is, and at 256 kbit/s, twice the bit rate of an iTunes AAC file. Not bad! And it sounds great. This round to Amazon, and they came very close on the first battle.
So, verdict? Well, the interface is a little cheap, and as a music head I really do use iTunes' sorting functions quite a bit. iTunes is clearly an experience designed by music lovers, and Amazon's page was designed by a committee of javascript consultants. But, if it's easy, and I get a 256 kbit/s file, and it's cheaper, it's hard to argue with Amazon. It was easier than starting up my file-sharing program and weeding through all the crap, for instance. Some are saying an "MP3 price war" has begun, and they may be right. That can only be a good thing for consumers, forced to pay the same price for a bunch of protected data as we'd pay for a better-sounding CD.
New Music: Baby Elephant - Turn My Teeth Up!
In light of the recent kerfuffle between myself and other Mother Jones staffers on whether offensive hip-hop can be good hip-hop, I thought I'd extend an olive branch with some progressive, jazzy grooves from Baby Elephant. Made up of De La Soul producer Prince Paul, vocalist Don Newkirk, and Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell, their new album is understandably more in tune with classic funk than the current styles causing government entities (and supposedly liberal bloggers) to have fits. Lead single "Plainfield" features Digital Underground vocalist Shock G, but its mellow organ solo separates it from "Humpty Dance" by about a light year; track 6, "If You Don't Wanna Dance," with its wandering bass line and insistent chorus, could be straight out of the '70s.
Anybody who remembers (or, say, still gets out and dances around the room to) De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising will remember the goofy skits between the songs; Prince Paul kind of invented this concept, we get even more elaborate mini-sketches here. What's fun is that since iTunes gives you 30 second previews of songs, any track shorter than 30 seconds is, well, free; that means you can listen to most of the skits in their entirety without paying a dime, ladies and gentlemen! Check out how the "Funk Master," on track 5, mistakes our heroes for cable repairmen!
The trio team up with David Byrne for "How Does My Brain Wave," which sounds, understandably, like P-Funk meets Talking Heads, in the best possible sense. The album occasionally sinks into silliness: "Cool Runnins," a kind of jokey reggae number, sounds a little like something from a Disney movie; and ballad "Crack Addicts in Love" is funny, but not really worth multiple listens. But the updated psychedelia of "Skippin Stonze," with its filtered vocals and loping beat, has more in common with J Dilla than a comedy routine.
Grab an mp3 of "How Does the Brain Wave" at Spin.com or listen at their MySpace; Turn My Teeth Up! is out now on Godforsaken Music. Why didn't I think of that name for a label?
Rappers Find Common Ground With Lawmakers: Exploiting Homophobia is Fun!
While the hip-hop community is understandably perturbed about the recent Congressional hearings on offensive lyrics, a few rappers are desperately trying to point the finger at an even greater moral outrage: the gays. Idolator points out that it's not only the admittedly loopy Ja Rule who's making these comments; mega-star Chamillionaire gave a rambling statement to BET's blog in which he compares bad words in hip-hop to, um, other "messed up" things:
The B word, the N word, the F word, it's all a moral thing inside of each person. If you look at TV, everything is messed up about TV. Gay people kissing each other on shows. The us is in general. Movies, they'll have guns everywhere, nobody pays attention to that.
Wait, gays kiss each other on shows? I thought there wasn't enough gay people on shows to even do that any more? Or maybe he means Broadway shows.
Ja Rule just gave an interview to Spinner where he tried to step back from his comments a little bit, but thankfully just today David Banner (above left) has taken the homophobia (and sexism) baton and run with it in an interview with Billboard:
Banner has butted heads with those trying to ban words like "bitch" and "hoe" from rap lyrics, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and Master P. "Aren't there bitches out there?," he says. "Don't they exist? Those types of women exist, and if they didn't it'd be different. When someone yells in a room full of women the word 'dyke,' my mother isn't insulted because she isn't one." ... "Rap is an art, and I can say whatever the hell I want to," he continues.
Well, true, and I guess, true, but that also apparently doesn't prevent you from making a complete ass out of yourself. Anyway, it's nice to see society's pecking order reinforce itself: white government dudes pick on black rapper dudes pick on queer dudes. But wait, if us queers are upset, who do we get to pick on? The Irish? Okay... Damn you, uh, Bono! I'm sick of you kissing people on shows!
Gangster Rap, Going the Way of All Gangsters?
50 Cent, or whatever his street value is now, may want to start counting his pennies.
According to Courtland Milloy and a University of Chicago study, rap's decline continues. Post-Imus, its sales are still dropping and, even though young people of color still listen to it regularly, they simultaneously feel it's over-sexed and demeans both black men and black women. Ray-Ray 'nem want to keep listening to rap. But now that the shock value's worn off, they just want the quality improved; soon, we'll find out which gangster rappers are actual artists and which the posing, community-despoiling carpetbaggers who've ruined it for everyone.
Milloy veers slightly off track, though, when he frowns on the "Taliban-ing" of rap's critics: protests, boycott calls, picketing and this week's Congressional hearings. I'm fond of the First Amendment, but I think rap's opponents are exercising exactly that (though picketing someone's home does go too far) in forcing the rap community to respond to its critiques. If rappers get to say objectionable things, very loudly and designed for maximum outrage, why not Rev. Calvin Butts or C. Delores Tucker (very early leaders of the fight against rap's excesses). I choose to believe that all our "shame on you's" have something to do with what I choose to see as rap's audience having had its consciousness raised by all our sermons.
Somthing else Milloy didn't get around to is noting that, while nihilistic rap may be snuffing itself out, conscious rap may be on the resurgence. Others have noticed though, and cite the phenom known as Barack Obama for helping blacks with mixing tables and a yearning for attention notice something other than the butt sashaying past them at the bus stop. It seems that:
"Many of today's more socially conscious rappers are putting the spotlight back on political issues and candidates – and their go-to guy has become Democratic contender Barack Obama, or "B-Rock" as he was recently dubbed by Vibe magazine. Rap artist Common, whose latest CD debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts earlier this month, brags that he'll "ignite the people like Obama." Talib Kweli echoes that on his latest release when he says, "speak to the people like Barack Obama." Is there nothing the junior Senator from Illinois can't do?
Soon, I'll get to meet my new MoJo colleague and we can thrash out our differences over rap, but til then, I'll bet that we can at least agree that talented rapping about black empowerment is a good thing.
September 26, 2007
Go Home Productions: Everything Must Go!
The Metallica of bootleggers, otherwise known as Mark Vidler, has posted basically every single thing he's ever made in a series of grouped "online compilations," over at his website. This is the guy who made the legendary Blondie-meets-The Doors combo "Rapture Riders," as well as like 90% of the top 100 best mashups ever made. Full disclosure: I'm a bit player in the, er, "mashup scene," or whatever, and we've had Mr. Productions over to DJ at our mashup club and stuff, but I promise my adoration is by no means logrolling—his astounding work stands on its own.
When you head over to his website, there's a couple options: first up, for those unfamiliar with Go Home, there's a link to grab a compilation he's calling This Was Pop (2002-2007), featuring 20 of his most appreciated and influential tracks. "Girl Wants (To Say Goodbye To) Rock & Roll," marrying Christina Aguilera to Velvet Underground, is a highlight: Vidler's work always makes the originals sound tangential, like the new mix is how the music was always supposed to be.
For completists, grab one or more of twelve (!) grouped collections of his work, featuring, in total, hundreds of bootlegs, remixes, and random tracks. It's all free, but the links are all to file-sharing sites like RapidShare, and demand is high; you might have to keep trying, but I assure you it's worth it.
Vidler is one of the few mashup artists to score legitimate, artist-approved releases, putting out the album Mashed this year, which featured both his and other producers' work. But as he seemed to acknowledge in an e-mail message to fans, the time it took for the album to wind its way through the approval process seemed to take its toll, and its release was greeted with little fanfare. The lack of appreciation (or financial reward) for even the brightest mashup artists seems to be taking its toll as well, as many (including Vidler) are making announcements of "leaving the scene;" French superstar DJ Zebra (again, full disclosure: I'm DJing some dates with him in France later this year) is moving on, and Australian Team9 (my partner in Dean Gray) has also made noises about "retiring" from bootlegs in 2008. What's up, mashups? It's easy to call the phenomenon "dead," but then I hear something new from some random guy in Stockholm and I think, "there's life left in this musical phenomenon yet." What do you think, oh Riffers: have reports of mashuppery's demise been greatly exaggerated, or should we go back to enjoying one song at a time like respectable music fans?
Neato Viddys on the Intertubes: Music/Movie Mashups
So yes, mashups can be many things: two or more songs put together, and then you can make a video to accompany that; or they can be like a Google map with something else laid on top of it, or who knows what. Here we mean "a song set to the wrong (yet somehow so right) video, in this instance scenes from movies." We can get to the other mashup concepts later.
Soulya Boy - "Crank Dat" vs. Bambi
In which the steel drum-featuring megasmash is set to classic Disney animation, and the New York Times pays attention
Depeche Mode - "Suffer Well" vs. Tron
In which the melancholy UK synth-poppers provide an appropriate soundtrack to the 1982 film that I totally have to rent and watch again like right now.
Junior Boys - "In the Morning" vs. Bande a part
In which the melancholy US synth-poppers seem to inspire some coordinated dance steps in the classic Jean-Luc Godard film
New Music: José González - In Our Nature / Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
No phrase can make the heart sink quite like "singer-songwriter." Patchouli seems to waft out from between the words along with all the most hippie-tastic implications of "folk music," and a cue to set your self-indulgence force fields on maximum. While both Iron and Wine (aka Florida-based Sam Beam) and Argentinian-Swedish José González are beardy guys with guitars, they've transcended the stereotypes in very different ways: the former bringing in his buddies and aiming for an aural maximalism, the latter isolated in a kind of monkish self-denial. But both have made spectacular albums.
The Shepherd's Dog, Iron and Wine's third album, will immediately surprise anyone familiar only with Beam's whispery cover of The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights;" the first track, "Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car," with its jaunty beat and multi-part harmony, is already more New Pornographers than Nick Drake, although, like Drake, Beam's delicate voice softens these songs, even when there's a lot going on. It doesn't take long for more musical influences to pop up: "Wolves" has a roots reggae feel that's just this side of jam-band, again held in check by Beam's soft-as-silk vocals.
Critics talk about the Argentinian influence in Swedish-born José González' work, but I'm not sure: his precise, almost repetitive guitar work and James Taylor- reminiscent voice express such a bleak world-view, it seems unfair to foist that on a whole country. In Our Nature, expressly concerned with, well, man's inhumanity to man, doesn't always avoid the pratfalls of political folk music: "How Low"'s line, "invasion after invasion," makes you cringe a little with its awkwardness. But at other times, the restrictive palette, enhanced by a stomp on the down-beat or a bongo slap, seems to explode into a thundering storm of emotion, made all the more powerful by its humble origins.
Both Iron & Wine and González owe debts to Nick Drake, who despite the lovely 2000 Volkswagen ad featuring "Pink Moon" remains criminally below the radar. While González aims towards a melancholy, electronica-covering update of Drake's folky style, his barely-30-minute-long album seems more a collection of songs; Iron and Wine's album (over 50% longer!) succeeds as such partially because of its surprising stylistic turns. In any event, after listening to both, I'm getting out Drake's Bryter Layter for afternoon happy time coffee break listening. After all this tear-jerky music, somebody might want to just check on me later.
Stream all of Jose Gonzalez' In Our Nature at his MySpace, ditto Iron and Wine's The Shepherd's Dog at his MySpace.
If a Gay Musician Has a Picture of Naked Underage Girls, Can He Still Be Arrested?
It's a zen koan for the 21st century. Elton John is being faced with a child pornography investigation after a Nan Goldin portrait he owns of two naked girls was about to be included in a gallery show. The photograph, called "Klara and Edda Belly-dancing," was to be part of an exhibit at the Baltic gallery in Gateshead, UK, but managers there apparently called the police the day before its scheduled opening. That's right, the gallery called the police. Were they just suddenly wracked with paroxysms of guilt or something? "All this time we thought it was art, but we were wrong, officers, so wrong! Take it from us!" So the police have seized the photograph and are apparently still assessing its worthiness as art. A statement on Elton John's website pointed out that the photograph has been exhibited around the world with no previous kerfuffle. Besides, if they were going to seize something, why not seize this Donald Duck photo?
September 25, 2007
Def Leppard Still Shirtless, Awesome
The question pretty much answers itself, but in case you're wondering if seeing Styx, Foreigner, and Def Leppard together in one venue on one night might equal the concert-going experience of your lifetime, I can confirm: hell yes it does.
Okay, so it's kind of like a live, much more expensive version of the jukebox in your favorite bar, but after Styx played "Renegade" during their encore, my roommate was so, so right when she said, "That alone was worth the cost of the ticket," and I dare anyone else on that sold-out lawn to disagree. And yes, Foreigner is basically a cover band anymore, what with only the original guitarist still around, but when the former lead singer of Hurricane (na na na na na na, I'm on to you) does his best Lou Gramm impression in really tight pants through a set of every Foreigner classic you could think of requesting, you don't really care, even if you're an unironic Foreigner fan who's seen them in concert with the old lineup intact.
We weren't that interested in Def Leppard—who were headlining—going into it, but they played a long, rocking greatest hits list, and both their guitar players are disconcertingly buff and topless, and they've got a bass player whose every not-so-dramatic costume change came with a new correspondingly coordinated single fingerless glove. (I love you, Rick "Sav" Savage!) The above elements plus beer plus yelling the words to "Pour Some Sugar on Me" along with several thousand middle-aged white women and beefy dudes in sleeveless T-shirts pretty much equals the best Tuesday night ever.
Unless you happen to live near one of the four remaining tour stops, you probably won't get to experience a slice of this three-tiered rock cake yourself. At least this year. The bands tour pretty regularly, and if the onstage antics of their spry front men (picture lots of senseless running to and fro) are any indication, they'll be up to it again soon. If you're lucky.
Culver City: Where Dub Meets Lounge
Anyone else remember all the cruddy bands nationwide that tried to play reggae-influenced music in the 90s? Well, I do. Thankfully, the Culver City Dub Collective, a group whose members were in some of those bands, is doing its best to not have us relive that era.
The group's 2007 debut CD Dos is unique, creative, well-produced, and played by a handful of talented musicians. There is definitely some reggae music here that is slick, tasteful, and very "dub" (so, plenty of heavy echo and reverb, thick bass lines, and more space for one or two isolated sounds to resonate), but the southern California group's name is misleading because they don't just play dub reggae. The Culver City Dub Collective mixes Afro-Cuban rhythms, jazz, lounge, and folk with its reggae sounds; which is obviously not a new idea in music, but this group mixes its genres with skill and flair.
"No More My Love" is a straight-up Brazilian, bossa nova-inspired track along the lines of "Girl From Ipanema" and Jack Johnson's surf-folk vocals on "Crying Shame" make the song feel suitable for a beach blanket party circa 2007. "Eloise (Baghdad mix)" pairs Middle Eastern-sounding chord progressions (think gypsy music) with a bouncy, reggae- and hip-hop-inspired drum beat while "Waltz for Tomahawk" mixes lofty, John Coltrane-inspired saxophone riffs with enough dark undertones and atmospheric horn accents to make it perfect for a Noir film score.
It's no surprise The Collective has diverse sounds; it has a vast lineup of guest musicians, not all of which have a history of playing reggae. Ben Harper, Beastie Boys keyboardist Money Mark, original Jane's Addiction bass player Eric Avery, and Jump With Joey leader Joey Altruda all sit in. This roundup of mostly Southern Californian musicians are not just having fun with a genre, they're contributing new ideas to it.
Congressional Hip-Hop Hearings Not as Fun as PMRC Hearings
Rappers and music executives gave testimony today at the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on "stereotypes and degrading images" in hip-hop music. Attendees were treated to a guilt-wracked Master P ("I just made the music that I feel, not realizing I'm affecting kids for tomorrow") and a mildly irritated David Banner ("If... hip-hop was silenced, the issues would still be present"), along with slimy CEOs, none of whom seem to have ever seen Martin Short's old Nathan Thrum sketches. Mostly, though, the hearings were about Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), who managed to corral all the execs to his little show, proving that despite his liberal credentials (a former Black Panther!) he can exploit fear of art with the best of the conservatives, tossing in some accusations of damaging the black community for added liberal guilt. We've covered this here before, so let's let Patrick Goldstein in the LA Times point out the trouble with all this:
If I could print a batch of current hip-hop lyrics -- which I can't, because my newspaper has its own standards about offensive language -- most of us could probably agree that much of the language is abhorrent. But it isn't so easy to find a consensus about the next step -- what to do about it? It's one thing to nod your head in agreement when a silver-tongued talk-show host advocates getting rid of all that insulting language until you start to wonder: Who's in charge of defining what's degrading and how far are they going to take it?
Bingo. Well, since nothing ever comes of these types of hearings but some temporary anxiety, you can at least appreciate them for the entertainment value, and in that regard, "Imus to Industry" doesn't hold a candle to the PMRC hearings. It was 22 years ago last week when the videos for "Hot for Teacher" and "We're Not Gonna Take It" were shown in our government's hallowed chambers, and Frank Zappa put on a suit to come and rip the committee a new one, saying:
The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal's design.
Even the late, great John Denver surprised committee members by siding with the metalheads, saying censors often misinterpret music (like his "Rocky Mountain High") and that censorship backfires:
That which is denied becomes that which is most desired, and that which is hidden becomes that which is most interesting. Consequently, a great deal of time and energy is spent trying to get at what is being kept from you.
Of course, the House Un-American Activities Committee, now that was good times. Kids these days just don't know how to throw a hearing.
September 24, 2007
Top Ten Stuff 'n' Things - 9/24/07
This week, quirky covers, funky remixes, shadow puppets, and hyperactive remixers, plus if M.I.A. can't be in the Top Ten without a Riff revolt, I'll find someone who sounds like her, dammit!
10. Japancakes - "Only Shallow" (from Loveless on Darla)
(mp3 at Pitchfork)
It's an eyebrow-raising gimmick: record all of My Bloody Valentine's classic album in a countrified style. It turns out this Athens, Georgia combo have found a hidden link between country and shoegaze, with the pedal steel guitar a perfect instrument to capture the warping harmonies of the original. Actually, I just love pedal steel guitar. Plus the use of the piano to take on the ambient interlude is inspired.
9. Various Artists - Partyshank Mixtape (grab an mp3 at Kidz by Colette)
You get the idea from their publicity photo: Partyshank are a couple of London kids in bright sweatshirts playing with kooky plastic toys, and this hyperactive mix, full of goofball references and sped-up effects, is cartoonish in the best sense. The duo plunders soul, 80s and rave music; anything, really, just as long as it keeps the energy up.
8. Athlete - "In Between 2 States" (from Beyond the Neighborhood, out 9/25 on EMI)
(mp3 at DriveByMedia)
The London combo had been lumped into the Coldplay-wannabe crowd since their 2006 hit single, "Wires;" who knew they could give Boards of Canada a run for their money. This short but sweet sample from their new album features a distorted drum machine and airy electric piano chords, but when the guitars come in, the track achieves an epic scope.
7. Santogold - "Creator"
(mp3 at Nialler9)
Okay, she's a buddy of M.I.A., she kind of looks like M.I.A., and this was produced by M.I.A.'s producer Switch. Well, so what; even if this sounded just like M.I.A., the world could use more M.I.A.'s. But, this Brooklyn-based singer is a little more intense and definitely more American, although the backing track sounds like grime from outer space.
6. Les Savy Fav - "What Wolves Would Do" (from Let's Stay Friends on Frenchkiss)
(listen to the whole album at their Virb page)
This New York band hasn't released a new album in 6 years, and while they've always been in the dictionary under "angular," this track softens the new wave-y guitar with soft harmonies, kind of like Bloc Party after they did a little more living and maybe hung out with TV on the Radio for a while. Worth it if only for the "ahoooooo" howls in the chorus.
5. Spank Rock & Benny Blanco - "Loose" (from Bangers & Cash on Downtown)
(listen at The Fader)
Now here's what I'm talking about, with this whole "offensive lyrics in hip-hop" thing. On its face, this is an obscenity-filled, dirty, trashy song, accompanied by a photo of the guys posing under two pairs of oiled-up ladies' legs. But considering they're doing a kind of piss-take on 2 Live Crew, how does that change the interpretation? Is it still offensive if it's a commentary on offensiveness? Do we ban both?
4. Vieux Farka Touré - "Ana (Goonda Tribal Dub)" (from UFOs Over Bamako on Modiba)
(listen at his MySpace)
The Riff has already covered this excellent remix album from Bamako's most famous son, and for good reason: it's a project that could have easily gone so wrong (imagine a Malian "Stars on 45"!) but turned out so right. Like all good remixes, this dub mix of "Ana" elucidates something essential about the original: a hypnotic, minor-chord intensity present in so much great African pop.
3. Kanye West - "The Good Life" (from Graduation on Island/Def Jam)
I know I've already posted this video, but I have to be honest in this Top Ten, and all week this song has been stuck in my head, making me happier than I have any right to be. Slow enough to almost be a ballad, this standout track from the excellent Graduation is saved from "slow jam"-dom by the quirky Michael Jackson sample ("P.Y.T."), chirping along in the background; but like a good slow jam, you can't help but smile and sing along in the chorus: "Now throw your hands up to the sky."
2. Jose Gonzalez - "Teardrop" (from In Our Nature, out 9/25 on Mute)
(mp3 from The Bathysphere)
"Teardrop" was never one of my favorite Massive Attack songs. I always felt like they went kind of downhill after Blue Lines, and this song, with its pretty Liz Fraser vocals, just seemed too treacly. Leave it to Jose Gonzalez to find the track's melancholy heart, bringing out the strangely Eastern melodies I never noticed before.
1. Little Dragon - "Twice" (from Little Dragon on Peacefrog)
(grab an mp3 at 2manyscenes, video below)
This Swedish band sometimes gets a little noodly on their debut album, venturing into a kind of acid jazz territory; but this simple piece is enhanced just slightly by electronic washes. Yukimi Nagano's soulful vocals ring out over the haunting, repetitive piano melody: "Tell me what led you on, I'd love to know/Was it the blue night gone fragile?" The video, an entrancing piece of shadow theater, imagines a plot without being overly literal, and the ingenious, handmade effects enhance the track's sense of utter heartbreak.
"Heroes" Season Two Premieres Tonight—Party at My House
The saga of NBC's breakout hit "Heroes" is oddly inspiring. Remember back in the Fall of '06, everyone was excited about this new show, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." It's Sorkin Does SNL! What could go wrong? Like millions of TV viewers, I tuned in for "Studio 60," and then just left the TV on, discovering a kind of cheesy "X-Men" ripoff with an eye-rollingly bland and weirdly jingoistic title. And, like millions of viewers, by the third week, I'd stopped even turning on the TV til 9pm, completely exasperated by "Studio 60" and enthralled with "Heroes." I'm a sci-fi junky, for sure, especially if the World Hangs in the Balance, but "Heroes" had unusual charms for a network TV show: first of all, its ethnic diversity was unparalleled for prime-time, with multiple interracial romantic relationships, and significant portions of the show taking place in Japanese with English subtitles. After a while, I began to get the sneaking suspicion that the producers had chosen the title "Heroes" as a kind of cover—behind the vaguely 9/11-y protection of that word, the show was free to push the envelope.
Not that its first season was without troubles. The cast's diversity didn't extend to the gays, and what appeared to be a gay character seemed to suddenly re-enter the closet; plus, an extended subplot about a mother's "bad side" got kind of annoying. Its finale was also underwhelming, with the flying politician sacrificing himself to save New York City in a cheap "oops sorry I've been evil this whole time but now I'm real sorry" plot twist. But for sheer inventiveness, the series reached some amazing heights, most notably an episode set five years in the future, full of head-spinning unexplained situations and dystopian terror. Plus, hello: George Takei!!
Tonight, we pick up where we left off: Hiro's stuck, inexplicably, in feudal Japan, baddy Sylar survived, and a new bigger baddy is apparently on the way. "Heroes" is no "Buffy" (despite its superhero cheerleader subplot) and who knows if the series can survive the transition from ignored underdog to great white hope of a sinking network. But tonight at 9, I'll be tuned in.
Producers Tailoring Mixes for iPods
NME is featuring a British production combo, The Boilerhouse Boys, who got sick of nobody knowing who they were, and decided to craft a press release touting their supposedly new production technique that's specifically designed for the iPod. The previously-anonymous Boys say they analyzed early stereo recordings, as well as the compression effects of MP3 and Apple AAC encoding, to come up with their innovative strategy: turn up the treble!
'Poduction' works by giving a boost to the higher frequencies, copying Motown recording techniques. Now even the likes of Kaiser Chiefs are set to release a 'poduction' remix, reports BBC News. Explaining their method further, Ben Wolff, one half of The Boilerhouse Boys said: "All of those Motown singles were sent up to the technical department who would analyse it and send it back with recommendations on how to make it louder. They'd say 'add another tambourine, put in some footsteps', or whatever. "I don't think the average fan will necessarily be able to tell the difference", Wolff added, "but you'll know which one you like more, even if you don't know why."
Well, if I see a news story about the Boilerhouse Boys, now I know why. Anyway, the quality issue about mp3s is hard to pin down; compression methods vary depending on the encoder, and they've advanced significantly in the past few years. A "Variable Bit Rate" 128 kbit/s mp3 in joint stereo created using a current encoder can sound almost as good as a CD, depending on the song, and Apple's AAC encoding (used with songs you buy from iTunes) has always sounded pretty good at 128 kbit/s. But the Boilerhouse Boys are right that it's the high end where you can really hear the difference with a crappy mp3: a kind of crackly blockiness on the hi-hat, like the audio equivalent of a bad JPEG (see the spectrum analysis of an mp3 above). However, with most current recordings maxed out in terms of volume anyway (compare a new CD with one of your old Cure CDs or something), it's unclear how much louder any part can get.
The uncompressed audio on a regular CD is recorded at the equivalent of 1378 kbit/s; that means it has ten times the info of your iTunes AAC file, no matter how well it's encoded. And let's not forget vinyl records, whose method of pressing grooves into black glop has a resolution limited only by, well, the size and number of atoms in the glop. Now that's bit rate. I've always preferred the warmth of vinyl, and that's why I don't feel bad about grabbing free mp3s: if I really like 'em, I'll buy the record. But honestly, I probably lost about 30% of my hearing at a My Bloody Valentine show in 1992 that was like standing inside a fluffy pink jet engine, so who knows what things really sound like.
September 21, 2007
Fun With Ping Pong
"Weird Al" Yankovic is famous for recording spoof versions of pop songs, but Ubiquity recording artist Shawn Lee doesn't merely spoof, he takes a song that was already good and makes it better. It's not so much ironic pranksterism as kickass, creative borrowing. Think of him as an artier, hipper version of Weird Al.
Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra, which releases Hits the Hits on October 9, changes the entire vibe and aesthetic of other people's songs. Lee turns Missy Elliot's "Get UR Freak On" into an ominous surf-guitar rant; Britney Spears' "Toxic" into an instrumental driven by sitar and flute melodies and hard, funky drum beats; and OutKast's hit "Hey Ya" into a swanky saloon diddy powered by accoustic guitar, piano, and harmonica.
With his collection of vintage instruments (a 1940s Clavioline, a 100-year-old Marxophone zither, and a 1900s Dulcetone), random assortment of covers—and talent—these songs are as funny as they are meticulously-performed. Pop this CD in at a stuffy wine and cheese party and see who's first to notice something is awry.