mashdownbabylon

Found Sound

 

Two weeks ago, I stumbled upon several boxes of LPs sitting in front of a house across the street. Containing everything from Glenn Gould's rendition of Bach's Goldberg Variations, to first edition Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins records and post-WWII electronic and musique concrète recordings like these,  was one of the best and most thoughtfully curated record collections I'd ever seen.

Most of the albums turned out to be in perfect condition, as though they'd sat in their sleeves for the last forty years without ever having once been played. I wondered who could have amassed such a library, without leaving as much as a thumb print on any of these discs. Then, it began to drizzle. That's when I made up my mind to redeem these recordings, and carry them all home.

The Liberal Arts

   
Ron Nachmann is an Israeli-American journalist based in San Francisco. A close friend and colleague, we've worked together at a number of different periodicals, including Tikkun, where Ron served as music editor. Now a contributor to Zeek, his latest article, a review of Tom Segev's 1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East, was published in the December issue. It's not only a marvelous piece of writing on an incredibly complex and politically loaded book. Ron's essay is an excellent introduction to the politics of writing about Israeli history.

The appropriately-titled Continuity has finally arrived. A CD/DVD by the Tokyo-based, Polish sound artist Zbigniew Karkowski (in collaboration with Japanese videographer Atsuko Nojiri), this unorthodox career retrospective is the last project we signed when I was Asphodel's label manager. Already receiving excellent reviews in Europe from publications such as Vital Weekly, given press like this, I have the sneaking suspicion that Continuity will cement Karkowski's reputation as one of the world's most forward-thinking electronic musicians.

Just Say Fez

Oh No's new American take on Middle Eastern hip-hop is not without similarly single-minded precedents. In terms of actual full-lengths, Mutamassik's 2005 LP, Definitive Works, is of equally subversive significance. For anyone familiar with post-war Egyptian pop, from the sampled string sections to the galloping percussion, the influence of Om Kholtum's band looms large on this Brooklyn DJ's debut album.

Listening to Definitive last weekend, like a lot of records of its kind, I was struck by the ways in which Mutamassik almost plays with Western clichés of oriental music. Particularly the popularity of specific types of orchestral arrangements, and belly dance signifiers popular during the early '60s, when cities like Los Angeles boasted of a number of Arab-themed club bands.

I don't mean to suggest that this album intentionally stakes out a critical position in relation to these long forgotten artists. However, if you're hip to the phenomenon (think guitar-driven mini-orchestras with fez-wearing, Arab-American and Armenian band leaders, not shriners), its hard not to place the new engagement with Mideast music in American hip-hop in relationship to them.

I own a number of out-of-print recordings by several of these groups, but they're hidden somewhere deep inside my office closet. This weekend, I'm going to do some serious excavation work, and slap them straight back onto my turntable. I imagine that I'll find them a bit more ideologically complex than I did before.

Download Me

Between the fall of 1999 and the summer of 2001, I spent an untold number of hours capturing field recordings of anti-capitalist demonstrators from around the world. Posted to an assortment of websites ranging from Indymedia to the BBC, once I'd start playing a file, I'd record it in real time to a Phillips 765 CD-R dubbing deck.

The best example of these recordings is a montage I pieced together of a demonstration in front of the IMF HQ in Washington DC, in April 2000. Cut and sequenced manually, and then placed over a heavily edited hip-hop percussion track, the song, What's Your Badge Number?, ended up on the first Elders of Zion record, Dawn Refuses to Rise.

Today, at the request of a listener, a community radio DJ posted the piece to her blog. Click here to read the entry and download the track.

Cultural Imperialism That Works

By now, you'd think that a beats and Bollywood synthesis would be the stuff of nineties cliche. Indeed, it most certainly is. Witness all of the lazily titled 'Buddha Beat'-style anthologies issued by exotica imprints on the one hand, and the 'sitar and bass' records once the province of boutique ethno labels like Outcaste on the other.

Finding a copy of this new Madlib disc for only four bucks, I decided to make the plunge. When this kind of work is done right, absolutely nothing beats it. Luckily, my intuition proved correct. Sampling both film dialogue and music, with Beat Konducta India, the legendary Oxnard DJ takes the idiom in an entirely new direction.

What makes this record work is how it inverts the experience of world music. Instead of making the listener imagine they're somewhere else, it helps you figure out where you already are. Like my block, where sometimes I can hear Bollywood soundtracks blasting out of an Indian restaurant, while cars idling in front pump out loud hip-hop as they wait for the light to change.

A Canon (of Sorts)

Working feverishly on my next to final chapter, here's a brief list of the cultural product I'm presently fretting about:

Film

Walk on Water, directed by Eytan Fox (Israel, 2004/US, 2005)
Paradise Now, directed by Hany Abu-Assad (France/Israel/Palestine, 2005)
Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg (US, 2005)

Books

A Little Piece of Ground, by Elizabeth Laird (Macmillan, 2003/Haymarket, 2006)
Palestine, by Joe Sacco (Fantagraphics, 2001)

Music

Magnetic Storm, Smartut Kahol Lavan (CD-R, Boshet, Israel, 2005)
Discography, Dir Yassin ( LP, Alerta Antifascista, Germany, 2006)
Vote Hezbollah, Muslimgauze (Soleilmoon, 1993)

Terminal Preppies

The only known 'band' photo: Christal Methodists, SF Weekly cover pic, 1999. Found on an old hard drive yesterday evening.

Back to School Special

For the last three years, I've been the owner of a satellite radio. Early adopters, we both installed them in our cars because of the access it gave us to non-American news services and genre-based music channels.  (I was immediately sold on the idea of a 24/7 death metal station.) Given what poor reception the radio received in my twenty year-old Volvo, and how long my commute to work was (an hour and fifteen minutes either way) for the first few months, my new radio was an enormously refreshing change of pace.

Unfortunately, Sirius' allure ran out rather quickly. Each one of its channels - even when they weren't run by the host company, such as the BBC's World Service - sounded far too disciplined. Everything came across as being so thoroughly programmed that if an announcer so much as made a pronunciation error, you'd fear for their careers. (The word 'cautious' always came to mind.) The lack of ads was great, but the absence of spontaneity was even more noticeable.

Perhaps the worst aspect of our Sirius experience was the alternative music station, Left of Center. At times sounding like it was programmed by the editors of London music tabloid NME, the endless repetition of throwaway British bands like Starsailor seemed like a very curious choice given how ill-fitting such groups sound in domestic indie context. What about a band like Spoon? Totally beige, but less obvious. Equally awkward was the fratboy-friendly vibe of Sirius' reggae station.

Driving our new, satellite radio-free car home today (we couldn't afford the option), I turned on KUSF and heard an absolutely iconographic, mixed-genre set of electronica, post-punk and hip-hop. Sometimes the DJ spoke too softly. Sometimes he segued a little too quickly. Nevertheless, it sounded like manna had descended from radio heaven. Moving from the great new Zeph and Azeem record to the Slits' classic New Town, listening to our local college station was like running into a cherished old friend you'd mistakenly assumed dead or disappeared.

Commercial Break

If you live in San Francisco, and you like smart, genre-defying music, this gig is just for you.

A brilliant pairing of two of Europe's most creative, dub-influenced producers, this promises to be one of the best local shows of the year.

For more information and tickets, click here. 

Almost Free

Every weekend - or so we intend - Jennifer takes one day for herself. I assist by either working at cafes, seeing friends, or spending the day perusing the aisles of one of my favorite local record stores (or two). In either case, its a good weekend ritual for us. After an exhausting work week, we both need a break from our routines. Having a little personal downtime is always helpful.

Last weekend was no exception. On Sunday, a close friend who moved to Arizona several years ago was in town to see his family, who were out here visiting from New York. We met up for breakfast at the Pork Store Cafe on 16th street, and then made a beeline for Streetlight Records on 24th. Eager to take advantage of a sale, Joe indulged me while I worked the bargain bins.

I walked out with a number of gems: Nina Hagen's Nunsexmonkrock, the new 2.13.61  CD edition of Negative Trend's sole EP, a Homestead-era copy of Nick Cave's Kicking Against the Pricks, The Need's last two records (including the soundtrack for Nomy Lamm's rock opera, The Transfused), Le Tigre's Feminist Sweepstakes, and three other LPs, all for 16.95$

Thinking of myself as the champion discount music shopper, I said goodbye to Joe, and proceeded to walk home feeling absolutely triumphant. Delighted at the prospects of Jennifer's reaction to the purchases (for several years, she's expressed interest in owning nearly all of the records I'd bought), nothing prepared me for what I encountered three blocks from our house.

Standing near the corner of San Jose and 30th, a woman in her mid-thirties was hosting her own DIY music sale. In front of her stood two makeshift tables. One held gangsta and crunk CDs and DVDs, while the other sported piles of unsorted grime, electronica and indie rock discs. Tight on cash, I decided I'd still take a look to see if there were any absolute must-haves.

Low and behold, a number of records fit the bill: Lady Sovereign's Vertically Challenged EP, DJ Clever's Science Faction: Dubstep comp, Panjabi MC's Beware LP, and Rammstein's Reise Reise (featuring the hilarious 'Amerika') all caught my fancy. Looking over the 15 discs I ended up holding in my hands, the person selling the records sighed and said, "Take 'em, they're free. I'm having a hard enough time moving the hip hop as it is. Nobody likes music anymore."

Nevermind the Clichés

The last time I devoted a serious amount of mental energy to Adrian Sherwood was a typically cold summer night in San Francisco in 2004. Prior to a gig at the Elbo Room in support of his first solo album, Never Trust a Hippy, together with a couple of close friends, I managed to get myself admitted to the venue's dressing room. There stood the surprisingly tall, fifty year old producer, sweat pouring down his bald head as he shook hands with his guests, discussing the production work he'd done on the then-forthcoming Asian Dub Foundation record, Tank.

It was one of those moments when I didn't feel like I had anything to say. Having met dozens of my favorite artists over the years, I'd thought that I'd gotten over feeling star-struck. As it so turned out, this specific evening turned out to be an exception to the rule. Having produced some of the most influential records of the past generation - by Dub Syndicate, Creation Rebel, the New Age Steppers, and countless others - for his own legendary On-U Sound label (whose creative A&R work served as the inspiration for the label I managed, Asphodel) - I felt like I was in the presence of the Creator.

Unfortunately, this experience  proved to be all-too brief. Not long afterwards, as I sat behind the stage watching Sherwood mix his set, I started to feel queasy. In fact, nauseous. DJ'ing decidedly psychedelic, fast-paced material (according to my friend Ron, consisting of unreleased African Head Charge material, if I remember correctly), after twenty minutes, I decided that I had to leave. Could it have been what I'd had to drink that night, I wondered as I stumbled down the club's crowded stairs, hoping to be relieved by the cool night air. What a lightweight. I'd only had three beers.

Thus, I approached listening to Sherwood's new album, Becoming a Cliche/Dub Cliche, with a little bit of trepidation. So far only released in the UK by Real World, import copies have been slowly trickling into the US since the record's release last November. Picking up a copy yesterday after having breakfast with the same two friends I'd gone to the Sherwood gig with, I took the disc home, and spent most of yesterday afternoon giving it a good listen.

Though I'm not prepared to do a serious critical take quite yet, I'm not exactly feeling speechless this time out either. Very much in the vein of his last solo record, Becoming a Cliche is a dense, drum and bass and ragga-influenced album every bit as rewarding as Sherwood's last record. Boasting the vocal talents of longtime collaborators Lee Scratch Perry, Mark Stewart and the late Bim Sherman, it almost sounds like an updated Pay It All Back-era On-U Sound anthology.

In a November review  in the Guardian, critic Dave Simpson inconclusively asked whether Sherwood was still creating work as groundbreaking as his past achievements - particularly given how many producers have assimilated his style over the years. I'd say yes. However, I'd qualify that judgement by saying that Sherwood is doing so by refining his work rather than introducing new musical idioms. Artistically, though far less dramatic, that's of equal significance.

Music to My Ears

It's taken nearly four years, but the second Elders of Zion record is officially out. Released by Sounds From the Roof - a terrific new LA label run by  Rooftop Promotion's  Garo Kuyumcovic -  this eight track EP compiles a number of songs we wrote for queer festival porno shot Damnaged, our final pieces recorded with Pansy Division/Plus Ones drummer Luis Illades, and a remix of the Tight Bros From Way Back When's "Show Me," which spent a good number of months housed on the front page of the Kill Rock Stars website before disappearing into the hipster ether.

Like the last Elders record, Dawn Refuses to Rise, Twilight War features a few interesting guests in the sample department. Mixing Ho Chi Minh with a group of Russian Jews recorded at a passover service during the 1950s (saying "next year in Jerusalem" in Yiddish) on album opener "Viet Cong Jerusalem," we have our fair share of fun again employing obscure vocal parts. However, what makes this record distinct from our last is that it is primarily instrumental. The politics, as it were, are carried forth by the tone the songs set rather than by traditional protest music polemics.

Released as an iTunes exclusive, we'll be following up Twilight with a brand new full-length album on SFTR in the fall.  Delightfully enough, it'll appear on vinyl as well as CD and downloadable formats. I'm quite excited about producing a vinyl version. By no means an analogue loyalist, (I've been composing music on computers for eleven years), I still prefer the sound of analogue over digital. The former label manager in me is also tickled by the fact that vinyl LPs and 7"s have been going through a sales resurgence over the last several years.

Despite all of this business nonsense, its just nice to have a new record out again.