We're full of the Christmas spirit here at the Snap, Crackle and Pop HQ. The sloe gin is flowing and I've just thrown another log on the fire. I thought I should share the love so here is some festive roots reggae for y'all.
Tracklist:
01 The Tamlins & Trinity - Silent Night
02 Barrington Levy & Trinity - I Saw Mommy Kiss A Dreadlocks
03 Home T-4 & Trinity - Dub It For Christmas
04 Carlene Davis & Trinity - Santa Claus Do You Ever Come To The Ghetto
05 Barrington Levy & Trinity - Flash Your Dread
06 Jah Irie Chorus & Dean Fraser - Sensimilla
The music on this unloved piece of vinyl from Kenya is simply gorgeous. Twelve fantastic songs featuring delightful guitar picking and very simple percussion, this should go down well with those of you who enjoyed the George Mukabi album I posted earlier in the year. You can read more about the CMS record label here.
Any info about these artists or songs would be much appreciated.
Tracklist:
01 Watoto Hatujubui Kiingereza
02 Niko Taabuni
03 Wanajiita Sisi Wahuni
04 Baba Kumbuka
05 Wimbo Wa Uruma
06 Mpenzi Josifina
07 Vijana Mnayesoma
08 Africa Tusikilizane
09 Mpenzi Katerina
10 Ofafa Jericho
11 Samwell Ndeje
12 Namulia Rehema
Black Sun Ensemble play the kind of unashamed ultra-psychedelia that can easily slip from the interstellar into fried cliche, but they always seem to just stay on the right side of the line never quite spilling into noodling. When they break into some extended freakout or jam its like being launched into the starry skies of some far off desert land. You can read about the band here.
"It was painful for me to keep my eyes open above a few seconds; the light of day seemed to fill the room with a blinding glare. Yet every object, in the brief glimpse I caught, appeared normal in color and shape. With my eyes closed, most of the visions, after the first chaotic display, represented parts of the whole of my body undergoing a variety of marvelous changes, of metamorphoses or illumination. They were more often than not comic and grotesque in character, though often beautiful in color. At one time I saw my right leg filling up with delicate heliotrope; at another, the sleeve of my coat changed into a dark green material, in which was worked a pattern in red braid, and the whole bordered at the cuff with sable. Scarcely had my new sleeve taken shape than I found myself attired in a complete costume of the same fashion, mediasval in character, but I could not say to what precise period it belonged. I noted that a chance movement -- of my hand, for instance -- would immediately call up a color vision of the part exerted, and that this again would pass, by a seemingly natural transition, into another wholly dissimilar. Thus, pressing my fingers accidentally against my temples, the fingertips became elongated, and then grew into the ribs of a vaulting or of a dome-shaped roof. But most of the visions were of a more personal nature. I happened once to lift a spoonful of coffee to my lips, and as I was in the act of raising my arm for that purpose a vision dashed before my closed (or nearly closed) eyes, in all the hues of the rainbow, of my arm separated from my body, and serving me with coffee from out of dark and indefinite space. On another occasion, as I was seeking to relieve slight nausea by taking a piece of biscuit passed to me by H. E., it suddenly streamed out into blue flame. For an instant I held the biscuit close to my leg. Immediately my trousers caught alight, and then the whole of the right side of my body, from the foot to the shoulder, was enveloped in waving blue dame. It was a sight of wonderful beauty. But this was not all. As I placed the biscuit in my mouth it burst out again into the same colored fire and illuminated the interior of my mouth, casting a blue resection on the roof. The light in the Blue Grotto at Capri, I am able to affirm, is not nearly as blue as seemed for a short space of time the interior of my mouth. There were many visions of which I could not trace the origin.
"There were spirals and arabesques and flowers, and sometimes objects more trivial and prosaic in character. In one vision I saw a row of small white flowers, one against the other like pearls of a necklace, begin to revolve in the form of a spiral. Every flower, I observed, had the texture of porcelain. It was at a moment when I had the sensation of my cheeks growing hot and feverish that I experienced the strangest of all the color visions. It began with feeling that the skin of my face was becoming quite thin and of no stouter consistency than tissue paper, and the feeling was suddenly enhanced by a vision of my face, paper-like and semitransparent and somewhat reddish in color. To my amazement I saw myself as though I were inside a Chinese lantern, looking out through my cheek into the room. Not long after this I became conscious of a change in the visions. Their tempo was more moderate, they were less frequent, and they were losing somewhat in distinctness. At the same time the feeling of nausea and of numbness was departing. A short period followed in which I had no visions at all, and experienced merely a sensation of heaviness and torpor. I found that I was able to open my eyes again and keep them fixed on any object in the room without observing the faintest blue halo or prism, or bar of glowing color, and that, moreover, no visions appeared on closing them. It was now twilight, but beyond the fact of not seeing light or color, either without or within, I had a distinct feeling that the action of the drug was at an end and that my body had become sober suddenly. I had no more visions, though I was not wholly free from abnormal sensations, and I retired to rest. I lay awake till the morning, and with the exception of the following night I scarcely slept for the next three days, but I can not say that I felt any signs of fatigue, unless, perhaps, on one of the days when my eyes, I noticed, became very susceptible to any indications of blue in an object. Of color visions, or of any approach to color visions, there was no further trace; but all sorts of odd and grotesque images passed in succession through my mind during part of the first night. They might have been the dreams of a Baudelaire or of an Aubrey Beardsley. I would see figures with prodigious limbs, or strangely dwarfed and curtailed, or impossible combinations such as five or six fish, the color of canaries, floating about in air in a gold wire cage. But these were purely mental images, like the visions seen in a dream by a distempered brain.
"Of the many sensations of which my body had been the theater during three hours, not the least strange was the feeling I experienced on coming back into a normal condition. The recovery did not proceed gradually, but the whole outer and inner world of reality came back, as it were, with a bound. And for a moment it seemed strange. It was the sensation -- only much intensified -- which everyone has known on coming out into the light of day from an afternoon performance at a theater, where one has sat in an artificial light of gas and lamps, the spectator of a fictitious world of action. As one pours out with the crowd into the street, the ordinary world, by force of contrast with the sensational scenes just witnessed, breaks in upon one with almost a sense of unreality. The house, the aspects of the street, even the light of day appear a little foreign for a few moments. During these moments everything strikes the mind as odd and unfamiliar, or at least with a greater degree of objectivity. Such was my feeling with regard to my old and habitual self. During the period of intoxication the connection between the normal condition of my body and my intelligence had broken -- my body had become in a manner a stranger to my reason -- so that now on reasserting itself it seemed, with reference to my reason, which had remained perfectly sane and alert, for a moment sufficiently unfamiliar for me to become conscious of its individual and peculiar character. It was as if I had unexpectedly attained an objective knowledge of my own personality. I saw, as it were, my normal state of being with the eyes of a person who sees the street on coming out of the theater in broad day."
Havelock Ellis - Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise (1898)
Tracklist:
01 Celestial Cornerstone 02 Da Da Is Gaga 03 Sunset On The Sphinx 04 Three Picks In A Bottle (Somewhere Out There) 05 Leviathan Song 06 Lilith 07 The Burning Lamp 08 Beneath The Sapphire Sky 09 Blues For Rainer
Lovely, bubbly French psyche soundtrack. You might like it:
Tracklist:
1 Déshominisation (II)
2 Déshominisation (I)
3 Générique
4 Le Bracelet
5 Ten Et Tiwa
6 Maquillage De Tiwa
7 Course De Ten
8 Ten Et Medor
9 Ten Et Tiwa Dorment
10 Ten Est Assomé
11 Abite
12 Conseil Des Draags
13 Les Hommes-La Grande Co-Existence
14 La Femme
15 Mira Et Ten
16 Mort De Draag
17 L'oiseau
18 La Cité Des Hommes Libres
19 Attaque Des Robots
20 La Longue Marche-Valse Des Statues
21 Les Fusées
22 Générique
23 Strip Tease
24 Méditation Des Enfants
25 La Vieille Meurt
Here's a Saturday morning treat for y'all! Forty minutes of fierce and funky R&B from the Queen of New Orleans Deep Soul. These songs are raw and heartfelt and Betty's incredible voice are perfectly complimented by Allen Toussaint's gritty production.
Tracklist:
01 Ride Your Pony
02 Show It
03 What A Sad Feeling
04 Take Care Of Your Love
05 I'm Gonna Git Ya
06 Nearer To You
07 What'd I Do Wrong
08 Trouble With My Lover
09 Twelve Red Roses
10 I'm Evil Tonight
11 Cry To Me
12 I'll Be A Liar
13 There's A Break In The Road
14 All I Want Is You
15 I Can't Last Much Longer
16 Mean Man
This is a really classy collection of hot electro-funk tunes from 1984. Should bring back some sweet memories for all you folks old enough to remember Afrika Bambaataa, polyester tracksuits and body popping.
This music sounds so fresh, futuristic and progressive its easy to forget that these tracks were produced in some of America's most impoverished ghettos - the Bronx, Detroit, Washington D.C. - at a time when the Reagan's brutal individualism and predatory capitalism were deepening the divisions between communities and between the haves and have-nots. Fortunately, people find ways to express themselves even in the most desperate of times and this music is a testament to that; as Twilight 22 put it:
Huh, deep in the city people live in the streets You got to be careful of everyone you meet There’s lootin and shootin’, people stabbin’ and grabbin’ The innocent bystander the police are grabbin’
Ain’t it a pity ‘cause you hate the city But the way you feel ain’t no big deal You’ve got to survive and that the real nitty gritty You go uptown, downtown, you’ve got to turn your life around (Huh)
Back in the jungle a man is free Free from the street, from captivity Break out, break in, it doesn’t matter where you’ve been Snake pit, lion’s den, you need someone to be your friend
My first exposure to this stuff came when I was a schoolboy in 1984 when Channel 4 (I think) showed this fabulous documentary:
Tracklist:
01 Tyrone - Brunson The Smurf 02 Warp 9 - Light Years Away 03 Warp 9 - Nunk (New Wave Funk) 04 Man Parrish - Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don't Stop) 05 Herbie Hancock - Rockit 06 Twilight 22 - Electric Kingdom 07 Cybotron - Clear 08 Hashim - Al-Naafiysh (The Soul) 09 Captain Rock - Return Of Captain Rock 10 Time Zone - Wild Style
It's strange how elastic time has become, or maybe has always been. I've been posting here at Snap, Crackle and Pop for just over three years now so I thought it was HIGH TIME for a little mix - around my musical world in 75 minutes or so.
Here is the tracklist, and you'll find that clicking on the artist's name will take you to the original post. Handy eh?
"It all started with a telephone call and a number of new records. The film star, Ahmed Mazar, rang up his friend, Nadia Loutfi, to say 'hello', and it happened that she was listening to some new songs which had just arrived for her from Beirut. He becomes interested and they listen together over the telephone. They like the songs and express their pleasure over them - so why not have a party? This is exactly what happened and they invited all their friends for a big party where the songs formed the major part of the entertainment, and they spent a wonderful evening. We, on our part, wanted you to share this evening with them abd this is where the idea of this L.P. can=me into being. As you listen to the conversation on the telephone and to the songs you will also spend one of the most memorable evenings in Cairo."
I'm dubious about all that party talk. Most of the music on the album, beautiful though it is, does not sound like it would go down too well at any party I've ever been to. Maybe its because I don't understand the language, but these songs sound quite sad to my ears. The sound is full of yearning...longing. The music positively aches out of the speakers, whispering of unrequited love and passions unfulfilled, wailing out nameless sorrows and sighing in resignation.
Tracklist:
01 Sabah – Dahlak Tell Ou Hakina 02 Najat Essaghira – Fakkar Ya Habibi 03 Fahd Bellane* – 12 Youm 04 Randa – Vive L'Amour 05 Sharifa Fadel – Yaeish Al Mouallem 06 Fayza Ahmad – Eteraf 07 Samira Tewfik – Allayina Rayatna 08 Abdel Halim Hafez* – Layali And Maoual
I picked this up at a car boot sale a couple of weeks ago. It's ritalin sharp, heads down punk rock from Finland. I'd never heard of them before I found this and never knew that Finland had much of a punk scene in the '70s, so you live and learn.
"Ratsia just missed the first wave of punk rock bands, but their first LP is without a question one of the best of the early Finnish punk rock albums.
Before signing to Johanna, Ratsia had already recorded most of the album's songs in their rehearsal place and released them on tape Kloonattu sukupolvi, but it was a good idea to re-record them in a proper studio, now with Rubberduck Jones of Pelle Miljoona & 1980 as a producer. The first single Lontoon skidit had just been released, and very well received, so the expectations were high. And when the LP came out, it definitely wasn't a let-down, it was full of great, catchy and energetic tunes.
Perhaps the album opener Taidetta summarizes the overall spirit: we have our own thing and do things as we see fit, even if it doesn't please the previous generations or is against their views of aesthetics. Also the then hot topic in Finland, idolizing the American stars of the 50's as a part of the rockabilly revival, and the way the trend was forcefed to Finnish teens by marketing consultants, is critizited (Aikakone), but on the other hand they pay tribute to their own heroes New York Dolls (Kaatopaikan enkelit). Lontoon skidit was re-recorded for the album, this time with Hepa Halme on saxophone. The new version is good and differs little from the single version, but still the original single version is better. There are also two cover tracks, Stiff Little Fingers' Wasted life (Ne ei haluu kuunnella) and The Clash's 48 hours (48 tuntia), both good renditions of the originals.
In the next couple of years Ratsia moved on from the original punk rock style, made two more (different but good or goodish) albums, and broke up. This first album was probably their greatest achievement, and it's a true crime that it still hasn't been re-released (on CD or otherwise)."
01 Taidetta
02 Yksin
03 Ole hyvä nyt
04 Päästäkää mut irti
05 Aikakone
06 (Mä haluun) R-E-AKTION!
07 Kaatopaikan enkelit
08 Lontoon skidit
09 Ne ei haluu kuunnella
10 Idolit
11 48 tuntia
12 Pikkuaikuinen
13 Ajat sitten luopuneet
14 Me noustiin kellareistamme
Akiko Nakamura was a popular actress and singer in Japan in the '60s and '70s. This album was released in 1968 and it features a cover of Scott McKenzie's flower power hit 'If You're Going to San Francisco' amongst all the bubblegum J-Pop. The big hit from the album is 'Nijiiro no mizuumi' (which translates as Lake's Rainbow Colours or something like that). Here is Akiko herself performing the song in some teenbeat movie or other. Its totally swingin' kids:
What can you expect on the album? Well a much more polished sound than found on the clip above featuring a full string section, backing singers, brass section, marimbas, glockenspiels, tiki style rhythms. A wonderfully mixed bag of gorgeousness.
Tracklisting:
01. 虹色の湖 (nijiiro no mizuumi) Rainbow Lake 02. 花のサンフランシスコ (hana no san francisco)San Francisco Flower (i.e. If You're Goin' to San Francisco) 03. 太陽に恋をして (taiyou ni koi woshite) Love in the Sun 04. 愛の願い (ai no negai) Please Give Me Love 05. ラ・ラ・ラ (la la la) 06. ブルー・シャトウ (blue chateau) 07. 砂の十字架 (suna no juujika) Cross in the Sand 08. 別離(わかれ) (betsuri (wakare)) Separation 09. 霧情 (kiri jou) Mist 10. フラワー東京 (tokyo flower) 11. 夢みていたい (yume miteitai) I Want to Dream 12. ロック天国 (tengoku rock) Rock Heaven (I Dig Rock and Roll Music; Peter Paul & Mary)
Many thanks to Richard and Peter for their fantastic translations. Superfast work too chaps!
This is a very recent release compared to much of the stuff I post here, but its interesting and pretty much unavailable so I thought I'd treat you all to this intense drone work from these two avant-garde hipsters.
Charlemagne Palestine was active in the New York underground scene in the 1960s, a contemporary of characters such as La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Tony Conrad. He composed and performed long and dramatic improvised pieces on pianos, church organs and carillon bells, filling huge rooms (and listeners heads) with a mass of sound.
Christoph Heemann on the other hand is a German sound artist who's been releasing music since the 1980's when he became loosely involved with the surreal English outfit, Nurse with Wound. He's since worked closely with those esoteric pranksters, Current 93, and the likes of Jim O'Rourke, Lee Ranaldo and Andrew Chalk.
Charlemagne Palestine recorded the Bosendorfer piano piece featured on Saiten en Flamen in 2000. The sound was then processed and messed with by Christoph Heemann in 2007. Mr Heemann has softened the percussive qualities of Mr Palestine's playing and brought the tonal qualities to the forefront. The result is something like having a head full of baritone bees.
Tracklist:
01 Saiten en Flammen (Part 1) 02 Saiten en Flammen (Part 2)
It's been an awful long time since I posted any of that mindbending Fuji music so here is something else from the late, great Chief Doctor Barrister. Here the Chief Doctor urges us to dance to the new wave of Fuji and uses a non too subtle wall of percussion, slide guitar and incredibly wonky synth noise to coax us onto the dancefloor. Once there, you won't want to stop.
Tracklist:
01 Duka Hausawa 02 New Waves 03 Cinderella 04 Gbaa - e gwu 05 Alhaji Raheem Tejumola 06 Ori o Gbodo Fo 07 Owo Kilani 08 National Pledge 09 Late Alhaji Muniru Gbadamosi 10 Mr Dolapo Badru
This is a reissue of an album released by Elektra Records all the way back in 1966 and its grooves contain delightful musical gifts from some of the wandering troubadors of Bengal. This music is just incredible - definately one for those who groove on the Sun City Girls.
...but...
"Some People have said that it is possible to characterize the Bauls by a distinctive doctrine. I have never found it possible to do so, for it seems to me that they are first and formost individuals, and that the term Baul encompasses a wide range of religious opinion, traceable to several Hindu schools of thought, to Sufi Islam, and much that is traceable only to a man's own view of how he relates to God. All Baul's hold only this in common: that God is hidden in the heart of man, and neither priest nor prophet, nor the ritual of any organized religion, will help man to find him there."
Edward C Dimmock Jr. - from the sleevenotes
Here's a more recent offering from Purna Das to whet the appetite:
Tracklist:
01 Ki Die Pujibo Hari Charana Tomar
02 Bloey Koey Manush Key Ki Sadhu Kora Jai?
03 Manush Bhaja, Manush Puja
04 Sesher Diney Sheyjon Biney
sung by Purna Das
05 Tumi Jaaliey Geey Moner Aagoon Nivey Geley Naa
sung by Hare Krishna Das
06 Prem Kathati Shuntey Bhalo
sung by Luxman Das
07 Ebar Jeney Shune Namio Saabdhaney
sung by Sudhanhanda Das
08 O're Mone Jele
sung by Purna Das, Luxman Das & Hare Krishna Das
Gorgeous, delicate and summery samba from Brazil. Try it, you might like it like I like it.
Tracklist:
01 Com Que Roupa - Si Voce Jurar
02 Beijo Na Boca - Moreninha do Pom Pom Grenat - Tem Que Ter
03 Boogie Woogie Na Favela - Bonitao - Eu Quero Um Samba - Pourquoi
04 Se Voce Visse
05 Todd Dia e Dia
06 Enlouqueci - Fica doido Varrido - Obsessao - So Eu Sei - E Bom Parar - Calado Venci - Vai Que Depois Eu Vou - Ja Vae
07 Mal de Amor
08 Antonico
09 Louco de Saudade
This little gem was dug out of a pile of old records in a flea market a couple of months back. Lucho Bermudez was a Colombian clarinet player and band leader who blended local Colombian dance styles such as the cumbia and porro with the big band sound coming from the US. The result is a big, brassy and very danceable noise all pinned down by that heavy cumbia beat. The fabulous Soundway record label have just issued some of this fella's music on 7" which you can purchase here, and there's more lp's to download here and here.
Here's a sample of Lucho's itchy sound:
Tracklist:
01 Los Primos Sanchez
02 Mi Sahagun
03 Jalaito en Monteria
04 Cartagenerita
05 Marlene La Negrita
06 Caracoli
07 Hombre Al Agua
08 Palmar
09 Gaita de las Flores
10 Pacho Herrera
I picked up a few cds of Tamil film music at a boot sale about 6 months ago and was lucky enough to find this one which came in the case of a completely different movie soundtrack. What we have here is 18 songs of wonderfully demented Kollywood sounds from Sri Lanka. Expect wild guitars, crazy synths, jarring percussion and impossibly high pitched singing. As the cd came without a cover, I have no idea what the titles of the songs might be so any help with identification would be wonderful. The films though are:
The excellent record label, Finders Keepers has just released two volumes of film music by Dr Ilaiyaraja (which you can buy HERE), and this is what their website has to say about this chap's wonderful music:
"Ilaiyaraaja, Ilayaraja, Ilayaraaja, Isaignani, The Maestro... The undeniable prince of Kollywood cinema, India's second largest film industry, Ilaiyaraaja is more than equal to his forward thinking contemporaries in Bollywood and Lollywood in both productivity and experimentation. However, once you have exhausted all possible leads using his various names (and the numerous misspellings) you're faced with the unenviable task of sifting through a 34-year career spanning more than 900 film scores in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada in order to unearth some the heaviest dancefloor friendly electronic pop to ever emerge from Southern India.
Impossible to pigeonhole and characterised by his own indefinable style the man is a genre in his own right."
The music is, of course, for evaluation purposes only. If you like what you hear then go out and try and buy stuff...or something, give money to a down on his luck musician, or sponsor a good busker, it may be the start of something beautiful.
If any of the zips die, then post a comment and i'll try to repost. And leave comments, abuse, name calling, any response is welcome.
I think all of the albums posted are currently unavailable, but if this is not the case we'll remove the offending files.
We're full of the Christmas spirit here at the Snap, Crackle and Pop HQ. The sloe gin is flowing and I've just thrown another log on the fire. I thought I should share the love so here is some festive roots reggae for y'all.
