Simon Jurad - Ambiance Des Antilles

Zouk is (or was) the party music of the French Antilles, the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe. It is a hybrid music combining influences from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and western pop, funk and jazz. The dizzy mix is sometimes disorientating on this great, funky album by Simon Jurad.

Tracklist:

01 Ambiance Nous
02 Critique
03 Deception
04 Changement
05 Colette
06 Mi Bel Jounee
07 Experience

Get it HERE.

Famous Indian Film Music sung by Lata Mangeshkar, Mohd. Rafi, Asha Bhosle, Mahendra Kapoor & Sulakshana Pandit (1969)

Great album of songs from Hindi films by some of Bollywood's best known singers. Nice crackly, charity shop sounds from the films of 1968 and 1969. Here is a clip from the 1968 movie, Shikar featuring Asha Bhosle's song 'Parde Mein Rahne Do':



Tracklist:

01 Lata Mangeshkar & Mohd. Rafi - Main Hoon Saqi Tu Hai Sharabi
02 Mohd. Rafi - Likhe Jo Khat Tujhe
03 Lata Mangeshkar - Parai Hoon
04 Mohd. Rafi - Na Aadmi Ka Koi Bharosa
05 Asha Bhosle & Chorus - Parde Men Rahne Do
06 Lata Mangeshkar - Mere Jeevan Saathi
07 Mohd. Rafi - Aaj Purani Rahon Se

08 Asha Bhosle & Mohd. Rafi - Aulad Walon
09 Mohd. Rafi - Mere Pairon Men Gungharoo
10 Lata Mangeshkar & Mahendra Kapoor - Ye Kali
11 Mohd. Rafi - Babul Ki Duayen Leti Jaa
12 Lata Mangeshkar - Rama Duhai
13 Mohd. Rafi - O Nanhe Se Farishte
14 Mohd. Rafi & Sulakshana Pandit - Jab Jab Apna Mel

Get it HERE.

Soweto - Various Artists (Zensor/Rough Trade 1982)

This compilation from 1982 is a total treasure. Here's what Robert Christgau had to say back when the album was released:

"It's fair to assume that these fourteen crude, tuneful little singles, released six or seven years ago out of a Johannesburg record shop and featuring a writer-producer named Wilbur Dlamini and a backing band of Jo'burg Zulus called the Bamalangabis, are typical of nothing. They're apolitical except by their sheer existence, mostly small-group instrumental, with guitar, sax, and organ leads. Not too clearly recorded, either. And they're delightful. It's possible Dlamini is a lost genius. It's also possible that when I've heard more music from South Africa's hellish black urban work zones I'll find him minor or derivative. But what's certain is that a lot of very talented people are getting lost in black South Africa. Ain't capitalism grand?"

Check out this fuzzy monster from the album:

Tracklist:

A1	New Lucky Boys	Jane
A2	Kid Bera-Bera And Mister King Jerroo	Katanga Country
		Backing Group - Bamalangabis, The
A3	Unknown Artist	Nobamba
A4	Unknown Artist	Wilburforce
		Backing Group - Bamalangabis, The
A5	S. Tshabalala	Bonakele
		Backing Group - Bamalangabis, The
A6	Unknown Artist	Saulsville
		Backing Group - Bamalangabis, The
A7	New Lucky Boys	Indoda
B1	Steven Phiri	Malangabi D-One
		Backing Group - Bamalangabis, The
B2	S. Tshabalala	Ukwenza Kwendoda
		Backing Group - Bamalangabis, The
B3	John Motha	Zulu Boy
B4	Unknown Artist	Queen Shikwambani
B5	Elfas Zondi	Umkumbani
		Backing Group - Bamalangabis, The
B6	Saul Malapane And Mister King Jerroo	Here We Come
		Backing - Abafana Bamalangabi
B7	A.M'Kosane	Amaswti Special
		Backing Group - Bamalangabis, The

Get it HERE.

Sun Ra & His Arkestra - Out There A Minute (Blast First 1989)

I thought it was a bit of a tease to mention Sun Ra in the last post without including some of his music, so here is the compilation of unreleased recordings that was released on the infamous noise label, Blast First, back in 1989. These tunes were all recorded in some New York loft apartment sometime in the late '60s, yet this is a strangely accessible and coherent album, its various styles and textures being held together by the murky lo-fi quality of the recordings. If you've never heard Sun Ra, then this album is a really good springboard into his amazing soundworlds.

In the Kool Keith post I touched upon some stuff about Kool Keith's use of alter egos, something also important in Sun Ra's artistic and spiritual life. While many people often think of Sun Ra as a jazz crackpot with a thing about Saturn, in 'reality' he was something of a mystic, a deeply knowledgeable trickster who constantly tried to bring heaven and earth closer together and who attempted to marry knowledge of ancient African spirituality with space age rhetoric in order to promote the kind of human understanding that could free humanity from its home-made chains. Here's an excerpt from John F. Szwed's excellent biography, Space is the Place: The Life and Times of Sun Ra, in which Sun Ra discusses his change of name from Herman 'Sonny' Blount, and his reemergence as an Egyptian god:

""Sun Ra is not a person, it's a business name...it's a certificate which was gotten in New York City; they didn't notice that I didn't have down there what my business was. They stamped it, notarized it, and they filed it. So therefore, it's a business name, and my business is changing the planet. If Jesus had done that, gone and gotten himself a business certificate, he'd have had the right and he wouldn't have had to go up there on the cross"

...So Sun Ra was a stage name, in the tradition of jazz royalty, but no one, not even the most desperately ambitious entertainer, had ever assumed the name of a god, and defied mortality.

He was well aware of the implications of his choice, and the African-American tradition of naming which lay behind it. Once, while speculating on why black people were treated as property in the United States...he saw that they were considered as goods, a word he in turn traced to the Middle English "god". And as gods (as with kings and queens) they had no last names. When these names bacame necessary they were given or took those of their white owners.

"That's why I don't use no name except Ra because I saw that, and I'm not going to go and take somebody else's name, I'm not going to do that. I got my name, the Creator gave me my name.""

John F. Szwed (1997) Space is the Place
Edinburgh: Payback Press

Here is Bill Sebastian's incredible film for 'Calling Planet Earth' which is the source of the cover images on 'Out There A Minute':


Tracklist:

1. Love in Outer Space

2. Somewhere in Space

3. Dark Clouds With Silver Linings

4. Jazz and Romantic Sounds

5. When Angels Speak of Love

6. Cosmo Enticement

7. Song of Tree and Forest

8. Other Worlds

9. Journey Outward

10. Lights on a Satellite

11. Starships and Solar Boats

12. Out There a Minute Get this great album HERE.

Kool Keith - Black Elvis/Lost in Space (1999)

Kool Keith is to hip hop what Sun Ra is to jazz and George Clinton to funk. A weirdly liminal figure, Kool Keith exists both within and outside of the hip hop world, occupying an artistic space that encompasses depictions of the realities of life in the modern urban world, bizarre counterfactual alternate realities and wildly imagined intergalactic futures.


Over the years, Kool Keith has taken on a number of identities, twisted misfit personas who come on like comic book villains or characters from a William Burroughs novel: Dr Octagon is a rogue gynecologist, Dr Doom a crazed killer, Rhythm X, Mr Nogatco...the list goes on. Black Elvis is however, the world's greatest rapper, a rhyming phenomenon bringing the world the sounds of the future. Kool Keith says of his multiple personality disorder: "I have a lot of ideas. I'm not like the average rapper stuck with an image. A lot of these rappers are uncomfortable. They're stuck with an image that they have to maintain." In these terms, Keith is an hip hop anomoly. Not tied to the gold chains, baggy pants and bad attitudes associated with mainstream hip hop, he becomes mobile, able to shift co-ordinates to occupy different levels and parallel universes.

Black Elvis is a great album, chunky sci-fi beats and electro noise create queezy backdrops for Keith's heavier than uranium rhymes. 'The Girls Don't Like the Job' is a particular favourite of mine. Here, Keith flips the rap cliches, taking on the role of tough office manager to bring us an ironic rhyme on the impossible economic position of female office workers.

Before you get to that, here's the hugely entertaining video for 'Livin Astro':


Tracklist:

1. Intro

2. Lost in Space

3. Rockets on the Battlefield

4. Livin' Astro

5. Supergalactic Lover

6. Master of the Game

7. I'm Seein' Robots

8. Static

9. Intro 2

10. Black Elvis

11. Maxi Curls

12. Keith Turbo

13. Fine Girls

14. Girls Don't Like the Job

15. Clifton

16. All the Time

17. I Don't Play

Get record 1 HERE and record 2 HERE.

Soul...In the Beginning - Various Artists (Avco 1970)

Its been a while since I posted the Staple Singers album, so I thought it was high time for a bit more blues. This great compilation came out in 1970 and is excellent from start to finish. Lightning Hopkins rambles his way through a couple of great tunes...his banter is almost as entertaining as the songs themselves. Billy Biser's 'Tell Me Where You Stayed Last Night' is dark and hypnotic, laced with railroad harmonica and anger.

Here's Lightning Hopkins doing 'Mojo Hand' and looking hip in his shades and black shirt...


And here's a great bit of footage of T-Bone Walker playing his electrifying blues guitar...


This clip from a documentary about zydeco music has Clifton Chenier appearing throughout. And its worth a look for the evocative footage from zydeco dances in Louisiana...looks like a great time was had by all.


Tracklist:

01 Lightning Hopkins - December 7, 1941
02 Lightning Hopkins - Mojo Hand
03 Billy Biser - Tell Me Where You Stayed Last Night
04 Calvin Loudmouth Johnson & Johnny Winter - Down and Out
05 Calvin Loudmouth Johnson & Johnny Winter - Lein On Your Body (Mortgage on your Soul)
06 Clifton Chenier - Trouble in Mind
07 Clifton Chenier - Be My Chauffer
08 T-Bone Walker - Please Come Back To Me
09 T-Bone Walker - Treat Your Daddy Well

Get the album HERE.

More Scratchy Old Persian Pop from Pre-Revolutionary Iran

The last batch of Persian pop 45s that I posted here proved very popular, so here's a few more for your listening pleasure. All 3 of these great records feature unknown male vocalists. The first two are kind of urgent and quite hectic, while the last (which has the beautiful label artwork) has a kind of languid, melancholic psychedelic beat sound going on.

As before, I'd really appreciate some help finding out who the artists are because I can't read Farsi. And many thanks to those who took the time to find out about the last lot, all info about them can be found in the comments for that post.

UPDATE (04/03/09):

Many thanks to Iranian blogger, Jadi for the information about these great Persian songs.


These two songs are by Aghasi and side 1 is called Amene:





These two are also by Aghasi and side 1 is called Leily.



Having done a bit of digging, it seems that Aghasi was very popular across Iran and appeared in a number of films. This clip of the man in action is great:



This one is by Artik while the song title is Matrood.



This is the b side of the Artik single and its called Vaghti Del Khosh Nabashe (When you do not feel good in the heart). The label artwork belongs to the Shah's Ministry of Economy and the Empire of Iran's logo is printed at the top...every object has a story to tell, and this record came dancing to the market just like Marx's table.




23/10/2009

Here is a zip file containing all 6 tracks:

Pops Sounds from Pre-Revolutionary Iran Volume 2