What is spinning?

[nobody]

DJ Clash featuring Nicodemus and Toyan

Been on a bit of a reggae/dub/dancehall kick lately. Just picked this one up on vinyl and I'm loving it. Great dubbed out backing with Nicodemus and Toyan taking turns over the top. Henry "Junjo" Lawes handles the production on this and does a fantastic job as the backing tracks steal the show for me.

[Slosh]

I stumbled across this the other day. I didn't even know he had a new one coming out this year. One spin so far and it doesn't disappoint.

[Enochrome]

I've enjoyed this thread recently more than any other here. For go the gear and just get into the music.

Thanks to all who posted in the last couple of weeks you've just added a huge amount to my "want list"

Cheers

....I guess I should post some albums I've gotten recently when I get around to it.

[Slosh]

2012 is finishing up strong

[Snowbunny]

~Rae

Holy F**k, Rae! This is a fantastic rec! Not at all what I was expecting, but right up my alley.

And if all goes well, I will be getting an emailed link to the cassette!

Thanks!

Snowie

Edit: The link to bandcamp is really cool, as well.

[Snowbunny]

I stumbled across this the other day. I didn't even know he had a new one coming out this year. One spin so far and it doesn't disappoint.

Alright, you Indie Hipster! Would it have been so difficult to tell those of us who don't always connect the dots, that this is a solo album by the lead singer of Grandaddy!

I was just listening to I'm Okay with My Decay (ipod shuffled) on my walk and thinking how much I like Sophtware Slump, but its the only album of theirs in my collection.

There's no mistaking Lyttle's voice!

Snowie

[Slosh]

Hey, a new Clinic record

[poppachubby]

[poppachubby]

God what a nightmare posting at AR has become. It took great effort to get these up!!

In any case this 3 disc collection is a revelation in soul music. I am convinced that he was the greatest deep soul singer EVER. That's right, better than Marvin, Otis and anyone else you can name. I managed to actually get my hands on this Japanese LtdEd, and it was worth every penny.

[Rae]

Holy F**k, Rae! This is a fantastic rec! Not at all what I was expecting, but right up my alley.

And if all goes well, I will be getting an emailed link to the cassette!

Thanks!

Snowie

Edit: The link to bandcamp is really cool, as well.

Oh, great! I didn't see this until just now. I'm glad you dug it!

I haven't posted in here in a while, but in the last day or so:













~Rae

[Slosh]

Just about to spin: OK, listened a few times now. Usually reunion albums suck but this is really, really good. Maybe AOTY

[poppachubby]

... a nice mix of Blue Note with a couple Riverside LPs thrown in for some live cuts.

Blakey and The Jazz Messengers :

• Ugetsu
• Kyoto
• The Complete Blue Note Recordings Of The 1960 Messengers

[Rae]

So far today:


Fabulous Diamonds - Commercial Music


Os Ovni / Blue On Blue split


Nathan Bowles - A Bottle, A Buckeye


UV Race - Racism


Teengenerate - Get Action!


Plasmatics - New Hope for the Wretched


Erase Errata - At Crystal Palace


Peoples Temple - More for the Masses


Michael Chapman - Fully Qualified Survivor


Arthur Blythe - Illusions

All stuff I picked up on vinyl in the last month or so. Some familiar to me, some new.

~Rae

[Swish]

So you are indeed still alive Rae? Happy New Year dude.

[Rae]

Same to you, babe!

~Rae

[Hyfi]

Happy New years all!

Last week I watched the Kennedy Honers and was thoroughly blown away by Beth Hart who I knew nothing about. I am really enjoying her latest venture with Joe Bonamassa but she has a whole catalog to go thru with plenty of awesome stuff.

[bobsticks]

Late night spinning...

[noddin0ff]

The Men - New Moon


Good.

Plenty of reviews of this one out there; in aggregate they seem to characterize this as country-infused indie punk rock and cite Lynyrd Skynyrd, Crazy Horse, Wilco... All seem to be true-ish.

I'd add The Kinks to the list for the lyrical earnestness of the hard working class, balancing intimacy with hard rocking grunge. I'm very curious what their previous albums sound like.

[noddin0ff]

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away

Excellent.

I started listening to NC&tBS when 2008's Dig! Lazarus Dig !!! was released. This one's not Dig!!! Rather its a languid set of ballads, fairly minimal. But there's a lot buried in the minimal. Currents of tension and darkness and insecurity (and sex, of course). One review I read put it this way

"a thoughtful, oceanic work that sucks one in, its hidden currents exerting a subtle but strong undertow."

I'll extend that metaphor a little more in that the album comes in slow tidal washes of hope and beauty that, as they wash back out, take something from you. Even lines that start out corny and almost charmingly funny fall back into the weight of the ebb tide.

I got love in my tummy
and a tiny little pain
And a ten ton catastrophe
on a 60 pound chain

You hear the first phrase and think, "did he really just sing that?" and then word by word you feel the simplicity of love erode...then "Oh, yeah. He did."

I personally, can't stand Leonard Cohen...bores me to tears. However, I can hear the similarity, if not influence, here. If you like Cohen, you'd probably like this too. I think of Cohen as extending minimalism to a dreary depressing, predestined conclusion. By contrast, here Cave uses minimalism as framework for artistry and poetry that promises ambiguity and exploration. That sounds pretty bullsh*tty. But that's all the words I got. Cave doesn't lack for words though...



Higgs Boson Blues:
Can't remember anything at all
Flame trees line the streets
Can't remember anything at all
But I'm driving my car down to Geneva

I've been sitting in my basement patio
Aye, it was hot
Up above, girls walk past, the roses all in bloom
Have you ever heard about the Higgs Boson blues
I'm goin' down to Geneva baby, gonna teach it to you

Who cares, who cares what the future brings?
Black road long and I drove and drove
I came upon a crossroad
The night was hot and black
I see Robert Johnson,
With a ten dollar guitar strapped to his back,
Lookin' for a tune

Well here comes Lucifer,
With his canon law,
And a hundred black babies runnin' from his genocidal jaw
He got the real killer groove
Robert Johnson and the devil man
Don't know who's gonna rip off who

Driving my car, flame trees on fire
Sitting and singin' the Higgs Boson blues,
I'm tired, I'm lookin' for a spot to drop
All the clocks have stopped in Memphis now
In the Lorraine Motel, it's hot, it's hot
That's why they call it the Hot Spot
I take a room with a view
Hear a man preaching in a language that's completely new, yea
Making the hot cocks in the flophouse bleed
While the cleaning ladies sob into their mops
And a bellhop hops and bops
A shot rings out to a spiritual groove
Everybody bleeding to that Higgs Boson Blues

If I die tonight, bury me
In my favorite yellow patent leather shoes
With a mummified cat and a cone-like hat
That the caliphate forced on the Jews
Can you feel my heartbeat?
Can you feel my heartbeat?

Hannah Montana does the African Savannah
As the simulated rainy season begins
She curses the queue at the Zulus
And moves on to Amazonia
And cries with the dolphins
Mama ate the pygmy
The pygmy ate the monkey
The monkey has a gift that he is sending back to you
Look here comes the missionary
With his smallpox and flu
He's saving them savages
With his Higgs Boson Blues
I'm driving my car down to Geneva
I'm driving my car down to Geneva

Oh let the damn day break
The rainy days always make me sad
Miley Cyrus floats in a swimming pool in Toluca Lake
And you're the best girl I've ever had
Can't remember anything at all

[jonnyhambone]

yeah, that new Nick Cave is pretty excellent! I'd add that it taps into a similar vein of sparse, but very subtle-y rich and deftly played music that Neil Young hit with On The Beach and Van Morrison on (esp. the first half) Veedon Fleece.

Currently listening to both the Tame Impala albums a lot - Innerspeaker I find even stronger than Lonerism. In a totally different vein, the new one (only one maybe?) from Rhye is gorgeous. Obvious comparisons to Sade abound though its two dudes singing and making the music. The production is lush on it too.

[noddin0ff]

This has been spinning a lot this weekend.

Phosphorescent: Muchacho


Should appeal to those who like a the taste of indie-alt-country. This thing is so full of sound it's hard to believe its more or less a solo project. Starts out sounding like a Fleet Foxes redux, but then carves out its own space in grand sweeps.

I particularly like THIS track, "The Quotidian Beasts". Nice quote from Paste

"...in Muchacho Houck achieves the near impossible by upstaging “Song For Zula” with the scorching pulpit testimonial “The Quotidian Beasts.” Holy ****. Crescendo after crescendo of outlaw fiddle, volcanic guitar and cross-handed Jerry Lee piano fills, everything but live snakes and kerosene as the track erupts with the brimstone fury of Jason Molina’s “Farewell Transmission,” no lurching Crazy Horse but a Goddamned Whipping Post Gethsemane, dark magic and lighting and nails in the spine while whooping and testifying to battles done and battles lost and battles won purely by virtue of staggering up to chance another blow."

I'm not sure I got all that out of the track. Personally, I think of Son Volt when I hear it. But, it's a damned good cut. The aformentioned "Song For Zulu" made me think of U2's Joshua Tree "With or without you", except that Zulu's more personal, intimate, raw and maybe better.

Worth putting on the watch list.

[Hyfi]

Been on a Jeff Kollman kick for a while.

[noddin0ff]

Steve Mason - Monkey Minds in the Devil's Time


Warm grooving and thoughtful trip-hop, psychedlic-tinged alt-pop from former Beta Band frontman. Pulls in a diverse array of sounds without ruining the very nice flow of the whole album.

Easy to listen to, engaging positive sounds, thoroughly enjoyable. Got it on repeat.

Some reviews
Steve Mason - Monkey Minds In the Devil's Time / Releases / Releases // Drowned In Sound
Monkey Minds in the Devil's Time - Steve Mason : Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards : AllMusic
Steve Mason: Monkey Minds in the Devil's Time

[Davey]

Electr-o-Pura for me by Yo La Tengo. Never get tired of this one. Just about the perfect mix of styles. Well, that and the next record. But 1995 was the best.

My Bloody Valentine is the best this year, by a big margin. Be fun if that changes. Listened some to Nitin Sawhney Beyond Skin from the turn of the millennium. That's a good one. And the new David Bowie, way too loud and sounds like crap, but some of his best music in a long time. And worked on a comp, remember those? Mine was called Desert Roads, and was inspired by dean_martin's Desert Drive Mix thread, and then the sad passing of long-time favorite Jason Molina. And it had some Mark Linkous too, cause I miss him too. And that led to some PJ Harvey, because they made some pretty amazing music. And you know how that goes. Pretty soon it's about twice what will fit on a CD, but deleting anything is like selling your soul. Imagine what it must be like when it is actually your music that has to be cut

[jonnyhambone]

A couple new ones I've kept cued up lately -
the new Low 'Invisible Way' is just gorgeous. Nicely produced and recorded I think by Jeff Tweedy at his studio in Chicago. My wife heard this right away in a way I haven't..."is this some weird new Wilco album?". It's not that transparent to me, but his sound definitely seeps through. The sound is lush and rich though. Plus Mimi sings, finally, a majority of the songs and the band just sound excellent throughout.
Jim James - 'Regions of Light and Sound of God' I'm not a big My Morning Jacket fan (he's the lead singer/writer) but this is a nice one. Extremely John Lennon-heavy in sound/vibe/vocalization but that's not a bad thing I guess. Sort of reminds me of the feel that some Traffic albums have - of another era, groovy, soulful in a white-boy way but still not contrived...The clincher for me is an excellent use of keyboard-sound that borrows from a more laid-back Mike Ratledge (Soft Machine). The production and mastering on the vinyl is also really nice - Chris Bellman mastered at Bernie Grundman studios...
The new Kurt Vile is just awesome, laid-back groovy psychedelic perfect pop, awesome.