Steering us into the shadows

Chromatics, Nite (Troubleman 2006)
New Chromatics single on Troubleman is hot as fuck -- night music for the doomed, a reverse disco ball throwing off black-light glitter. Can't wait for the album. (It looks like the generous bounty of their myspace is over, but one last track, a reprise of "Shining Violence," is up now.)

Chromatics - "Glass Slipper"

My second track today was gonna be "Little Ease," the new one by Brennan Green (ex-Pop Your Funk), but the Nutrament beat me to it (thus saving me the embarrassment of posting my umpteenth Lindstrom remix). Head over there and check it out, there's also a couple of older Brennan Green tracks and plenty of other treats for the earhole.

Deal with this

Since people seemed to like the last post, here's a bonus round, sort of. I haven't felt like writing much recently but I'm more into music than ever ... I'll just let the songs speak for themselves sometimes. In order: awesome soulful electro from '82, a bizarrely great Cat Stevens track (as heard on the NegroClash mix), and a RZA techno collab that I found disappointing until I realized it sounded totally sick at the wrong speed.




The System - "You Are In My System" (Mirage 1982)



Cat Stevens, Izitso (A&M 1977)

Cat Stevens - "Was Dog a Doughnut"




I:Cube + RZA - "Can You Deal With That? (33/45 Screwed Version)"

Dollar bin diving #2 - Electric kingdom

Twilight 22 - "Electric Kingdom (Inst.)" (Vanguard 1983)



Key-Matic - "Breakin' in Space" (Radar 1984)



Tripple B & Co. and Precious Metal - "Nursery Chrymes (Dubbed Chrymes)" (Dangerous Jams 1984)



Nocera - "Summertime, Summertime (Hard Summer Dub)" (Sleeping Bag 1986)

Tagged

It's not my all-time favorite track by Germany's DJ T -- that'd be "Time Out (Acid Dub)" -- but I gotta send this one out to the dude who saturation-bombed my neighborhood with flyers and black-marker graffiti: "I love you Katie K," "I (heart) Katie," and my personal favorite, "Please believe in me Katoosh (see I'm bad ... I thought you liked bad boys)."

Out on Get Physical.

DJ T - "Stalker"

Spread Love Pt. 3

Love, Reel to Real (RSO 1974)
As heard on How to Kill the DJ Pt. 2. ("One more tune!")

Love - "Everybody's Gotta Live"

Spread Love Pt. 2

Love, Four Sail (Elektra 1969) [Buy it]
After the breakup of the original Love, Arthur Lee reconvened a new lineup and released this pretty good record two years after Forever Changes. "More progressive" isn't really the best way to describe the difference but it's all I can come up with -- a slightly less focused West Coast rock sound following on Changes' near-perfect psychedelic orchestra pop.

Love - "I'm With You"



Love, False Start (Blue Thumb 1970) [Buy it]
True to its title, False Start doesn't really hang together as an album; the songs sound like they are in varying states of completion, and Lee seems to be paying homage to Jimi Hendrix (as can be heard on the live "Stand Out") and Sly Stone rather than furthering his own vision. But even the "worst" Love album has its moments.

Love - "Gimi a Little Break / Stand Out"

Trouble

It looks like I have exceeded my iDisk's data transfer limit, so all the music files are temporarily unavailable. Please bear with me while I get the site back up and running.

Update: Everything should be working now ... leave a comment if you have any problems.

Spread Love Pt. 1

I've been planning on doing some posts about Love for a while now, and while I was working on it, sad circumstances arose: Arthur Lee was diagnosed with leukemia, and like many musicians does not have any health insurance. According to news reports his prognosis is good, and a benefit concert is planned in L.A.



Love, Da Capo (Elektra 1967) [Buy it]
I don't have the first, self-titled Love album; apparently it sounds a lot like the Byrds. By the time of Da Capo they had added churning, Count Five-style garage rock to their repertoire.

Love - "Seven & Seven Is"



Love, Forever Changes (Elektra 1967) [Buy it]
The masterpiece. An evolutionary leap over Da Capo (did these really come out in the same year?), and the swan song for the classic lineup of Love, which continued on with a rotating cast and Lee as the leader. Combines folk, rock, psychedelia, a string section and amazing songwriting. "Alone Again Or" is the most well-known song from Forever Changes but I've always found "The Daily Planet" inspiring.

Love - "The Daily Planet"

More to come ....

Pointers

• First Hour mix by Optimo. The music they play before they play the music.
  
• Aw yeah, Everything Is Fire rises from the ashes. New shit from Vetiver, Six Organs of Admittance, Sir Richard Bishop .... plus "flashbacks" of hairy 1970s psychrock by Human Beast and Paternoster.
  
• Some great stuff on this blog scouted out by the Bookworm. Hard to tell if it's still being updated or not, but there is plenty to plunder. (Hints: #29, #31, #68, #116.)
  

Move it!!

I love how dance music can grab stuff from its past now instead of always trying to start with a blank slate. These tracks update two club classics (George Kranz's "Din Daa Daa" and Reel 2 Real's "I Like to Move It") into 2006 burners. Further study: Cosmo Vitelli's MySpace (streaming his next single, "Delayer," which sounds like a Todd Terje space freakout), I'm a Cliche Records, Daughters of Invention (for another recent Solid Groove & Sinden track). Oh and before I started looking for links for this post I didn't even know the Solid Groove dude was in Switch, too -- that gives him two of the biggest tunes of the past year. Not bad.

Solid Groove & Sinden - "Din Da Da"

Cosmo Vitelli - "I Like to Move It (Tekel Remix)"

3X12

Tiga, Good as Gold 12" (PIAS 2006)
Great single from Montreal's Tiga, teamed up with Soulwax on production -- love that siren/squiggle thing. Morgan Geist remix on side B.

Tiga - "Good as Gold"



Uhu, Constellation Mixes 12" (Interational Deejay Gigolo 2005)
Another wtf-genre-is-this type record. Pitchfork called it space disco but to me "Jupiter Family" is almost like Blade Runner music and "Kinetic Energy" is on some Belgian new beat slooowwwed-down Logic System style.

Uhu - "Kinetic Energy"



Jona, The Learnings 12" (Get Physical 2006)
Interlocking guitar patterns give texture to this lush house workout on Get Physical ... maybe a kindred spirit to Isolee Wearemonster ... ?

Jona - "Full Pool"

Image burned onto their brains

Parts & Labor, Stay Afraid (Jagjaguwar 2006)
Spazzy Load Records style hyperspeed rock, strangled and throttled electronix, plus (new for the '06) anthemic punkrock vocals. Great stuff. A split release on:

• Jagjaguwar, home of Oneida et. al. (According to that Oneida site, their new LP, Happy New Year, is coming out in June ... )
  
• Brah Records, Oneida's recently launched label, set to release Home's Sexteen ...
  
• Cardboard Records, P&L's label -- where you can download "A Great Divide," which might be even radder than "Pleasant Stay."

Parts & Labor - "A Pleasant Stay"

Peechy

A Larry Levan joint, from the pioneering DJ's New York Citi Peech Boys guise along with Michael de Benedictus and Bernard Fowler. What genre is this? Who cares? It's Paradise Garage disco-dub-house-R&B.

NYC Peech Boys - "Don't Make Me Wait (Dub Mix)"

At the same time I found this Peech Boys 12", I ran across T-Connection's self-titled album with the track "At Midnight," a disco favorite that I first heard on the double-disc CD Larry Levan Live at the Paradise Garage -- a great set and a total gateway drug for me as far as getting into disco. For which I am grateful. T-Connection were from the Bahamas and put out music on Miami's prolific T.K. Records. Great song for New Year's Eve.

T-Connection - "At Midnight"

Mixless

Being as how it's almost mid-April and I don't have any bright ideas, I'm gonna take a breather on the mix-of-the-month project and come back strong on May 1. In the meantime, check out the previous installments, I'm going to remove some of the older ones soon to free up some disk space. Also recommended is the Riddim Method mix on Lemon-Red, if you're into the global diaspora baile / dancehall / hip-hop vibe, plus electro Tom Waits and crunk Standells.

I'll definitely do another quickie soon, I've got a few new dance records I've been liking -- such as this Cosmic Sandwich remix, hits clean and hard while still being subtly psychey inna Fleucht style.

Cosmic Sandwich - "Man in a Box (Daso Remix)"

Mutated jeans

I already posted once about the delightfully named Pissed Jeans from Allentown PA but now I've got the CD in my mitts and it deserves a place of pride all its own. Loud shrieking pounding feedback wrangling scumrock, sample lyrics: "I'm sick!! / I've got a headache!! / I'm dehydrated!!!!" Perfect for my foul mood the other day when it fucking snowed in fucking April. There's only eight songs on this so I'm not gonna post another one, go get "Closet Marine" off their web site like I did, or see if the xxjfg still have "Boring Girls," or just wait for June when Sub Pop puts out a 7". Y'know the plague-infected teens in the woods from Charles Burns' Black Hole -- this is the noize they would make if they started a band.

Boots and braces and Levi's Sta-Prest

Fresh, Out of Borstal (RCA 1970)
British oddity credited to inmates from a juvie-delinquent prison, masterminded by producer Simon Napier-Bell, who had a hand in the careers of Marc Bolan and George Michael among others. Best known (and rightly so) for the beats and horns on "Borstal," but the rest of the record has some likeable enough ersatz Stones and Kinks tunes. (Although the actual Jagger-Richards song, "Long, Long While," is more of a slow blues and not one of my favorites.)

Fresh - "Borstal"

Fresh - "Shift the Blame"

Dark clouds and sun

The Bar-Kays, Cold Blooded (Volt 1973)
Vocal effects give a menacing edge to this Sly-influenced track by Otis Redding's onetime backing band.

Edit: My friend =dan= points out that that last phrase is a little off, since four members of the original Bar-Kays died in the 1967 plane crash with Otis. Duly noted ...

The Bar-Kays - "Waiting and Hating"



Rasputin Stash, Rasputin Stash (Gemigo 1974)
Instead of nasty funk these guys are on more of a loverman trip for most of their self-titled LP. But check out the climax on "Ooh Baby."

Rasputin Stash - "Ooh Baby"

Rasputin Stash - "The Devil Made Me Do It"



If you're feeling like the narrator in the Bar-Kays song, my prescription is to put on this 1981 R&B/disco groover by Rene & Angela ...

Rene & Angela - "I Love You More"

33/45 archive

[Work in progress]

This will be a list of all the songs featured on 33/45 ....

Up all night with the machines

These tracks came out about a year apart but they have a similar feel, merging retro electronics and analog instrumentation. I don't think Metro Area's Environ label has put out a bad record yet; "Honey Circuit" is the lead track from the Metro Area 6 12". The Daniel Wang is from a 2004 single on Ghostly.

Daniel Wang - "Berlin Sunrise (Die Nacht)"

Metro Area - "Honey Circuit"

Herbs and spices

Turns out that Ghostface song I was going on about is produced by none other than MF Doom, probably my favorite current lyricist and a pretty good producer too. Last I heard, he and Ghost were collaborating on a whole album together. I think that "Jellyfish" track began life as a Special Herb, on one of Doom's instrumental albums ...

MF Doom - "Arrow Root"