What is spinning?

[nobody]

Thai Funk Volume 1

This is really good and fun. Vinyl reissue of a CD collection from a couple years back. Crate digging of the highest order to bring you a selection of Thai funk, soul and disco from the 70s and 80s. The music is fantastic and if you'r into vinyl, the pressing excellent and the packaging, including a woven cloth outer cover, is exemplary. Includes a Thai version of Do It Till You're Satisfied and a cover of Another Brick in the Wall. (Mostly originals but the few covers tossed in are pretty amazing.) This thing ain't leaving my turntable for a while.

[Rae]

Two months without a post in this thread?

Long drive back from NOLA this past week:












~Rae

[nobody]

What's that one with the eyeball?

I'm listening to this right now...


Mark Van Hoen: The Revenant Diary

Too lazy to write on this myself outside saying I've been enjoying this one quite a lot, so here's the boomkat description.

A very welcome return for Mark Van Hoen, the Seefeel founder member best known his ambient techno work as Locust and under his own name on Apollo and R&S in the mid-90s. The Revenant Diary, his first release on Peter Rehberg's Editions Mego, follows last year's fine City Centre Offices set Where Is The Truth, and explores similarly deep electronic sound-worlds, but it's less obviously song-based, and has different origin: while remastering some of his earliest recordings, Van Hoen was struck by the simplicity of a recording he made in 1982, a reel-to-reel experiment that, through serendipity as much as anything else, achieved a truly spooky, spellbinding result. Freshly inspired and reconnected to his young music-making self, he resolved to make his new record on 4-track using a minimal set-up. The resulting album is recognisable Van Hoen - all decaying drones, star-gazing synths, hypnotic rhythm and richly layered crackle - but there's a directness and an honesty to it that is palpable and refreshing even out of context. It's truly haunting music, with memory as its central theme - particularly powerful is the swirling 'Don't Look Back', and the epic closer 'Holy Me', a layered collage of voices reminiscent of Peter Christopherson's work in Coil and with CoH. Amazing cover art from Stephen O'Malley too.

[bobsticks]

Um...Rae...Cetu Javu? Is that the one with the studio version of "Have In Mind"? I seem to remember spinning that in clubs many more years ago than I would care to admit.

Afternoon spinning...

[Swish]

He started this monstrous thread and fell off the planet.

Anyway, I'm really digging some of the best of last year and a few recent ones...

James Blake - S/T
Destroyer - Kaput
Yuck - S/T
Andrew Bird - Break it Yourself
Dave Kilgour and The Heavy Eights - Left by Soft
EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints

[Rae]

What's that one with the eyeball?

Ga'an self-titled... great Chicago psych-trance-kraut-prog-whatever. One of my travelling companions absolutely wouldn't allow this tape to be taken out of the tape deck in her truck a couple of winters ago so I heard it then a lot... seems like they've got a new one now, too.

Um...Rae...Cetu Javu? Is that the one with the studio version of "Have In Mind"? I seem to remember spinning that in clubs many more years ago than I would care to admit.

sticks, that's actually the other Cetu Javu record (Southern Lands) but tbh we were actually listening to a mix of stuff that my friend had from both records and more.

Yuck - S/T

"Georgia" off of that record is so fucking good. The rest of the album I could take or leave but I could listen to that song forever.

~Rae

[jonnyhambone]

some good ones that've come out already this year and I'm spinning a lot of...



miss the female vocals of Bubblegum but a nice one and great sounding vinyl

his last album is still one of my favorite late night studio listens...this new one is more fleshed out but still a drifting psychedelic haze of an album in the Skip Spence-tradition. very nice

really excellent new one from The Tindersticks. 'nuff said

from last year I guess but finally picked it up...growing on me. He recorded on a pipe organ in an old stone church, taking great advantage of the ambience and soundscape provided by the reverbering space and then tweaked, looped, and layered it all in the studio. unique and cool headphone album.

[Rae]

jonny, cop that new Brute Heart 7" that's coming out this week... I know Treehouse'll have it

~Rae

[nobody]

Mind Over Mirrors: Small Portion

Recorded in belgium at AIR in Antwerp. Pipe organ with electronic augmentation and tape loops. Droning yet rhythmic. On Digitalis cassette. I really like this one a lot, but be warned it is a bit repetitive.

[Swish]

Mind Over Mirrors: Small Portion

Recorded in belgium at AIR in Antwerp. Pipe organ with electronic augmentation and tape loops. Droning yet rhythmic. On Digitalis cassette. I really like this one a lot, but be warned it is a bit repetitive.

I mean really weird. Where the heck do you come up with this stuff lol?!

[nobody]

The internet is a strange, strange place for music hunting and while I do have my old favorites I do like to hear something different than my same ol' same ol'. I'll give you another oddball one...


Frak: Muzika Electronic

Longtime artist for the Swedish label Börft makes his debut on Digitalis. Modular synths, techno and dance influences abound. At times both minimal and noisy. Walks a nice line between accessible and experimental music. A bit too overtly dancey for me in some moments but not enough to turn me away.

[nobody]

Nancy Wilson & Cannonball Adderley

Excellent 1961 release with a great blend of instrumental and vocal cuts. How good is this album? In the June, 2004 issue of Down Beat, Frank-John Hadley interviewed 73 of the best jazz singers in the world, with the idea of compiling the 30 "best" vocal jazz albums of all time. The consensus had this as #1. I'm not well-versed enough in jazz history to make such a definitive statement myself, but this is certainly a great record and I highly recommend it.

[noddin0ff]

(links out to a track on youtube)

Been spinning this new one from The Heartless Bastards. Despite the band name, it's got some heartfelt rock and weariness. A well composed album overall and a reasonably wide range of songs.Currently digging the track linked above which is on the laid back and laid out end of the spectrum; really displays her vocals well and I'm a sucker for a bass solo. I like Erika's voice although she kinda slides all over on her diction, mostly too good effect but pushing it on a couple tracks. Some reviews here and here and here.

Also had these two on repeat.

Regard the End

Mojave

I really have to thank Davey's Light So Dim comp for putting me on to this group. Some amazing songs inside. These are the only albums I've heard so if there's a strong recommendation for any others or similar, I'd love to hear it.

[nobody]

I keep going back and forth on that Heartless Bastards. When I just play it on its own I'm kind of underwhelmed, but when a song on it pops up on shuffle I really enjoy it. Weird.


Right now, I'm playing this...


Panabrite: Sub-Aquatic Meditation

Panabrite is Norm Chambers and damn is he prolific. I can get skeptical about some of these synth artists with so many releases and little quality control but the Panabrite stuff I have come across has been uniformly excellent. This one and Soft Terminal have both been released in the last couple weeks on different labels and they are both quality stuff, alike enough to have a similar vibe but different enough to make it worth multiple releases. This one, as expected from the title, has a bit of that underwater vibe. Reminiscent of last year's Science of the Sea by Jürgen Müller which I liked a lot. This will get a lot of plays.

[noddin0ff]

I keep going back and forth on that Heartless Bastards. When I just play it on its own I'm kind of underwhelmed, but when a song on it pops up on shuffle I really enjoy it. Weird.

Pretty accurate though. I'm finding the same thing. My theory is that this is because it's so fundamentally rock oriented. I often don't have the patience to listen to a whole album of 'rock'. I think the songs shine brighter when contrasted with other stuff. Their previous album was rougher and more wild and I was better able to enjoy the whole album, but the songs weren't as good...

[Davey]

I really have to thank Davey's Light So Dim comp for putting me on to this group. Some amazing songs inside. These are the only albums I've heard so if there's a strong recommendation for any others or similar, I'd love to hear it.

Yea, those two may be my favorites, but wouldn't wanna be without Flying Low and Everything's Fine either, cause once in a while, maybe only once or twice per record, it just all comes together and the voice and the music and the words are just perfect, and when WGC hits that spot, it's pretty special. Think they first showed up on my Twilight compilation. Funny, just listening to that, still holds up pretty well, if you want a copy let me know and I'll link you ..

[Slosh]

Got my Break It Yourself CD yesterday. It sounds so much better than the leaked mp3 I had been listening to (although there is a lot of tape hiss that I doubt would even be masked on vinyl, and of course, not enough dynamic range).

Musically, I think it ranks right up there with his best albums, which was a pleasant surprise after being a bit disappointed with Noble Beast/Useless Creatures. I like that there's a little "Case In Point" in "Fatal Shore".

[noddin0ff]

Got my copy last night as well. I like it. Very fluid and lovely. Didn't notice the hiss...but now that you call it out... I probably don't have your ears. There's a lot of brushing on drums and maybe some buzz (I'm not a drummer so what do I know) and that's what I think I'm hearing. Great album though.

[nobody]

Erykah Badu: World Wide Underground

Personally, I consider this one of Badu's best and a too often overlooked and underrated gem. After Mama's Gun, Badu released this one as an EP, despite it being plenty long enough to be considered a full length. Still, it was a different track from the more conceptual albums like Baduzium and Mama's Gun that she had released before. This one is a lot more light and breezy, just good laid back hip hop inflected soul grooves.

[Davey]

... if you want a copy let me know and I'll link you ..

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22278349/Var...1-Twilight.zip

[Slosh]

I usually don't go for live albums but this double CD is pretty good. If you don't know the cover it's The Decemberists - We All Raise Our Voices To The Air.

[Mr MidFi]

I'm planning on picking up that Decemberists live set, it looks like a keeper to me.

I'm 2 spins in with the new A. Bird, and it's definitely a keeper. If you have a chance to catch the 30-minute, live-in-his-rural-house vid on Palladia, it's worth watching.

[bobsticks]

[Rael Imperial Aerosol Kid]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22278349/Var...1-Twilight.zip

Davey, I get a 404 error when I try the link (???)

[nobody]

Lilacs & Champagne

Momentarily off my recent reggae kick (lots of Tommy McCook, Don Drummond and Alton Ellis) for this moody, sample-based electronic album. I've seen this compared to Flying Lotus, which makes a bit of sense in the way of both being cut and paste constructions, but this is a lot less beat inspired, more atmospheric and quite a bit more gloomy. I'm guessing this may become a late-night summer staple.