Check out my review of the Mr. Beatz Spit Therapy (his new record) release party for Brooklyn Bodega:
Mr Beatz is a rapper and beat-maker extraordinaire in the underground Hiphop scene.
Expanding my aural horizons, everybody!
Check his video for “Plain & Simple” :
Looks like it is shot on location at 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center, an outdoor graffiti wonderspace in Long Island city, across the street from P.S. 1.
Yes, that’s right–Lil’ Wayne is blogging and selling merch from prison.
In his Letter #1, Lil’ Wayne says:
“During my prison stint, I want my fans to know I love you. I want all of you to know that I appreciate all the mail I get, and this is my way of saying thank you. The F is for Family, Friends, and Fans.
“Love. Live. Life. Proceed. Progress. That’s who I am and who I’ll always be. You see, we’re all living on borrowed time, so I’m not worried about this situation. Life happens quick. The more time you spend contemplating what you should have done…you lose valuable time planning what you can and will do. Trying to tear down the past prohibits you from building up your future. So for my time here, my physical will be confined to the yard. My love and my spirit, however, know no boundaries.”
You can even get a ‘Weezy Thanx You’ desktop/Twitter background:
http://weezythanxyou.com/goodies/
Lil’ Wayne is currently serving a year long sentence at Riker’s for illegal weapon possession. Apparently he’s isolated from the general population, and can be eligible for parole in eight months for good behavior. Sigh…
Stay strong Weezy!
Some love for “A Milli” :
Erykah Badu, in all her glory. Well, part of its fuzzy because of the ho-hum politics of nudity that won’t allow us that access. Or perhaps Miz Badu prefers it that way, and it’s one of those “you kinda had to be there” type moments.
Track # 2 on her new record, New Amerykah, Part II: Return of the Ankh
Not quite done with the lo-fi Daily Rotations for today’s installment. It’s this here warm spell in NYC. It’s a love jones I won’t name yet.
It’s Toro y Moi.
Musician Chaz Bundick’s project, by way of South Carolina-
Toro y Moi’s chill wave grooves are all about atmosphere, good times, kickin’ it, Spring Awakening, and shedding layers for smoother skin.
He’ll grace the Brooklyn Bowl stage with New Zealand psychedelic indie rockers The Ruby Suns on March 26th, 2010. Tickets are $5! Pretty voices, cheap tickets.
The video for “Blessa”:
and the boys playing with rockets in the video for “Talamak”:
Alan Palomo of Neon Indian just released “Sleep Paralysist”…The track, co-produced with Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor, echoes the outerworldly video game tunes on his debut record Psychic Chasms.
Robo-R&B art-roc-songstress Janelle Monae, all pompadour and soul, belts this shiny, self-assured ditty with poise ‘n attitude. Big Boi’s smooth foray against the funky bass line compliments the pure abandon that Ms. Monae delivers perfectly.
23 year old Japanese pianist, Yukino Kano, plays Claude Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau (Reflections in the Water) with grace and masterful touch. Each tremble across the length of the piano evokes ripples and currents, and she is a wonder to hear and watch.
Pistolera’s accordion-driven cumbias reside on the border ‘tween Brooklyn & Mexico. Here’s their video for “Policia” from their record En Este Camino:
Check them out at the 92Y Tribeca, this Friday, 1.8.10 @ 8 PM. San Francisco agency Trouble Worldwide & NYC world label Barbès have brought together a motley of bands that crisscross borders, sounds, and sensibilities!
For the band’s website: http://www.pistolera.net/
Here’s the official video, directed by Spike Lee. Much of it’s shot in Gary, Indiana, MJ’s hometown:
As we reflect on the dopest records of 2009, I have to show my love for Grizzly Bear’s third studio length album Veckatimest.
“Ready, Able,” features the Brooklyn Youth Chorus! Here’s the stop motion wonder video for “Ready, Able”:
And the explosive video for ‘Two Weeks”:
Some lovin’ words from the HOVA himself, Jay-Z:
“The thing I want to say to everyone — I hope this happens because it will push rap, it will push hip-hop to go even further — what the indie-rock movement is doing right now is very inspiring. It felt like us in the beginning. These concerts, they’re not on the radio, no one hears about them, and there’s 12,000 people in attendance. And the music that they’re making and the connection they’re making to people is really inspiring. So, I hope that they have a run where they push hip-hop back a little bit, so it will force hip-hop to fight to make better music, because it can happen, because that’s what rap did to rock.”
I admit it, albeit w/ clenched teeth.
I love Rihanna.
I love Kanye.
Here’s a throwback to the Spring. Snow was fun, for a minute, but moving lots of lots of crap through a snowbank…
not so much.
Love this sultry ditty, “Constant Surprises”…frontwoman Yukimi Nagano, a glorious, glamorous woman, amen.
This here second video is a sort of a stop motion Microcosmos-meets-Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” :
Little Dragon: an electronic music band, representin’ Gothenburg, Sweden.
Members: Swedish-Japanese singer Yukimi Nagano (vocals, percussion) and her high-school homeboys Erik Bodin (drums), Fredrik Källgren Wallin (bass), and Håkan Wirenstrand (keyboards).
Happy Holidays!
Math Rockers!
Check it–It’s not an official video–but I liked the heart monitor ala Bright Lines with this tune. “Strange Overtones” is on David Byrne and Brian Eno’s record Everything that Happens Will Happen Today.
While Brian Eno focused on instrumentals, David Byrne blessed the record with his sonorous magic–
Says Eno:
“Upon starting this project, we quickly realized we were making something like electronic gospel, music in which singing becomes the central event, but whose sonic landscapes are atypical of such vocal-centered tracks. This notion tapped into my long love affair with gospel music, which, curiously, was inadvertently initiated by David and the Talking Heads.’”
The beautiful & strange Mr. Byrne
Now, you can see the man’s genius if you read his journal, but I love this entry:
“Some years ago I visited Bell Labs and was shown the famous anechoic (perfect, sound absorbent) chamber. This was where John Cage claimed that he could hear both his heart pounding and the high-pitched whine of his nervous system. His insight was that true silence doesn’t exist — even if we can block out everything else, we can’t stop hearing ourselves.
Here is one such chamber:
He’s even got an Alien Espresso Cup line with Illy.
Love this project of 21-year old Mexico-born, Texas-bred Alan Palomo, AKA Neon Indian.
I’m feelin’ his smooth boy vocals layered with lo-fi pop & video game soundtracks. He’s fly too:
In homage to a beautiful summer gone by, from his debut EP, Psychic Chasms:
Deadbeat Summer, by Neon Indian
This electro-Afro-pop jam “Sabali,” by blind lovebirds Amadou et Mariam (on their sophomore album, Welcome to Mali) leaves me feeling whimsical and refreshed. Especially when Mariam busts out with a lil’ spoken bit over this sweet electro beat.
Their first record, Dimanche a Bamako (Sunday in Bamako), produced by Manu Chao, was heavily influenced by the genius, and his vocals and aesthetic influenced the record a lot. Since then, he’s no longer their producer, and “Sabali” was produced by Damon Albarn, of Gorillaz & frontman of Blur.
Amadou et Mariam, de Mali
Dang! I’m sooooo slow to purchase things, such as tickets, in a timely fashion. Snooze ya lose, I suppose. I really wanted to check out this trio, School of Seven Bells, aka SVIIB, who will be performing at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, as part of the CMJ Music Festival, this Friday, October 23rd. SOLD OUT, son. Along with them is the London based band the xx. DAAANG!
SVIIB is a three-piece band formed by Benjamin Curtis of Secret Machines, together with the dreamy-voiced & visaged identical twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza. The music can be described as dream-pop, shoegaze (or nugaze), just plain indie, y’all.
courtesy of SVIIB's Myspace
Interesting fact: The band got their name afterwatchin a PBS documentary about the School of the Seven Bells, a mythical South American pickpocket training academy from the ’80′s.
Some insight into their debut record Alpinisms, from their record label, Ghostly International:
“Alpinisms is an electronically enhanced pop record of dizzying highs and claustrophobic lows, whose painstaking conception shows in its detail-laden crevices. On the album’s best tracks – the polyrhythmic dream-pop of “Face to Face in High Places,”“the nervous shimmer of “My Cabal,” the menacing lilt of “Iamundernodisguise” – Benjamin Curtis constructs layers of shoegazing, moire-patterned guitars, while sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza intertwine their near-identical voices like the fingers of praying hands. Throughout, the whole heavenly affair is tethered to the ground with a glitchy, tribal thwomp.”
Nervous shimmer? Moiré Pattern guitars?? Loves it!
Enjoy the video for “Half Asleep”
Amidst the bright lines, SVIIB, courtesy of the band's Myspace page
Above: Glimmering juke box at King’s Country bar in E. Williamsburg.
Upon closer examination: who else but….
That’s right y’all–Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s Return to the 36 Chambers. Shimmy Shimmy ya shimmy ya shimmy yea!!!!
(This looks silly written out, I suppose.)
In a bout of Wu-stalgia, I snapped a shot of this most auspicious record. Although his death anniversary is not until November 13, the poor Wu-wallah died of a drug overdose just two days shy of his 36th birthday. I thought I’d commemorate the humorous, eccentric, and lyrically vulgar ODB, known to his loved ones as “Rusty.”
Note: I am not a proponent of ’Ooh baby I like it rawwww”– please make sure you use one of these:
Or:
Aiiiight, enjoy ODB’s Shimmy Shimmy Ya!
I get in these phases when writing– I’ll listen to the same tune over and over and over–What I’m reading right now, Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest, a short story collection (after six novels, including A Pale View of the Hills, Remains of the Day, and Never Let Me Go), called Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music & Nightfall , is a bit like a musical composition in five movements.
After that run-on sentence…
Repetition is soothing. Once I’m finished reading, I’ll offer a few words on Ishiguro’s collection.
The following five tunes compose the nocturnal soundscape that’s inspiring my work at this moment.
#1: Q. Lazzarus’s “Goodbye Horses”
Featured in Silence of the Lambs back in the days. Remember when Buffalo Bill has his moment–tucking away his member, putting on his lipstick, groaning inhumanly?–
According to my Itunes, I’ve played the song 575 times. Sick.
#2 Juana Molina’s “Un Dia”
Something about this Argentine songstress inspires creativity…
#3 Telepopmusik “Just Breathe”
Reminiscent of my summer 2008 in the muffuckin’ French Riviera! First got hold of this tune from my buddy Frances Angevine.
#4 “Tezeta” aka Nostalgia by Mulatu Astatke Ethiopiques Vol. IV. Much of this volume is in Jim Jarmusch’s film Broken Flowers.
#5 Animal Collective, “My Girls” in Merriweather Post Pavillion. Saw these guys at Prospect Park this past August, sublimely shiffaced. Inspired line: ‘I just want 4 walls and adobe slats for my girls.”
Sister loved the film Bronson–about the “most violent prisoner in England.” He’s been incarcerated for 34 years, for armed robbery of a post office in 1974. Originally sentenced for 7 years, his imprisonment has been extended because of his violent behavior in prison. The former bareknuckle boxer has brutally beaten fellow inmates and staff, taken ‘em hostage, and has been transferred between 120+ prisons. Spent nearly all but four of his years in solitary. But he’s made some reforms. At one point, he got hitched. His second marriage was to a Bangladeshi divorcee Fatema Saira Rehman, who found him in the newspaper and started writing letters to him in prison. Look at the happy couple—-> Sistah shoulda read this book.
The Once Happy Couple: Bronson and Rehman
Crazy. He even converted to Islam for a second, called himself Charles Ali Ahmed. They’ve since gotten divorced, and she wrote a couple of books about how negative the dude is. However, during his imprisonment, he’s discovered his talents as an artist and poet and has even written a book called Loonyology: In My Own Words.
Bronson, self-portrait, donated by the artist to Beacon of Hope, a charity supporting people with terminal illnesses
The film Bronson, directed by Nicholas Winding Refn, starring Tom Hardy, was released worldwide on 10/9/09. The film’s soundtrack is stylized–lots of opera–here I’m featuring Digital Versicolor, by the Portland, OR electro/italo disco/freestyle-duo Glass Candy’s music video for Digital Versicolour. Their music’s been used during Spring/Summer 2008 Fashion Week by Chloé & Chanel.
For NYC folks, it’s playing at my favorite Manhattan movie theater, the Angelika Film Center, at 18 W. Houston @ Mercer. They’re also showing Coco Before Chanel, but more about that in a later post.
Vocalist Ida No & Guitarist/Synthesist Johnny Jewel comprise Glass Candy.
Ida No’s reminiscent of Blondie’s Deborah Harry or Nico, and Johnny Jewel claims among his influences Marilyn Monroe flicks and James Carpenter.
Annnnnnd: they produce their music analog.
Ida No Rocks Bright Lines
Enjoy, the video for Digital Versicolour:
Throwback! !!!
Musician/theatre & film artist extraordinaire Hanifah Walidah’s Make a Move Music video, which I appeared in along with–she inspires the best o’ my alliterative abilities–a brownstone in Bed Stuy brimming with brown skinned babes & butches! Walidah’s gone onto produce other music videos and check her blog Finding Black Patti.
A bunch of folks have seen this video on the LOGO channel, but I still have yet to see it on a flatscreen. So, thanks to youtube, you can see it too.
(Pssst! I’m the pixie giving the hottie advice on how to steal Hanifah’s hat)
Enjoy!
U People, sprung out of the music video. It’s a documentary project developed by Hanifah and photographer/filmmaker, the wondrous Olive Demetrius–
“It’s a documentary film about what happened in a brownstone in Brooklyn one spring weekend where 30 gay, straight women and trans folks of color came together to shoot a not so typical music video. What was caught on B-roll are moments that most can relate to how ever you live your life. From this premise a thriving community was born that reflects a more diverse image of queer people of color and finds new ways to promote our connectedness as oppose to differences within the larger society.”
Here’s what Olive says about the photos that were taken along with the podcast:
“I took these photographs initially because the documentary was an unplanned blessing. We didn’t have stills that really captured the time, place and feeling. We took the time after the fact to bring these people to our home to shoot these photographs. These are dynamic interesting people yet drawing something out of them was more difficult than I expected.”
Below is “Anticipate”–evoking the moments before a kiss…
and just breathe…
Sent to me by the dear, clear-eyed Kwami Coleman, PhD candidate in Musicology at Stanford. Click on his name to read his article on remixes of Messiaen, French composer, organist, and ornithologist! Birds and music? Dude incorporated BIRDSONG transcriptions in most of his compositions! But this here song, brings a lot of cheer, on some soul groove type shiz:
Nandz & Kwamz
