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dustedmagazine · 3 years

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Dust Volume 7, Number 4

Axel Ruley x Verbo Flow

A little bit of optimism is creeping into the air as Dusted writers start to get their shots. We’re all starting to think about live music, maybe outside, maybe this summer. But as the spate of freak snow storms demonstrates, summer’s not here yet, and in the meantime, piles of records and gigs of MP3s beckon. This early spring version of Dust covers the map, literally, with artists representing Pakistan, Australia, Canada, Sweden, the UK and the USA, and stylistically with jazz, rock, punk, rap, improv and many other genres in play. Contributors include Jennifer Kelly, Justin Cober-Lake, Bill Meyer, Ray Garraty, Patrick Masterson, Tim Clarke and Bryon Hayes.

Arooj Aftab — Vulture Prince (New Amsterdam)

Vulture Prince by Arooj Aftab

Arooj Aftab is a classical composer originally from Pakistan but now living in Brooklyn. Vulture Prince, her third full-length album, blends the bright clarity of new age music with the fluid, non-Western vocal tones of her Central Asian roots. “Last Night,” from an old Rumi poem but sung mostly in English, lilts in dub-scented syncopation, the thump and pop of stand-up bass underlining its bittersweet melody. An interlude in some other language shifts the song entirely, pitting vintage reggae reverberation against an exotic melisma. “Mohabbat” (which is apparently Urdu for sex) soothes in the pristine instrumentals, lucid guitars, a horn, scattered drumbeats, but smolders and beckons in the vocals. None of these tracks feel wholly traditional or wholly Western and modern day, but sit somewhere in a well-lit, idealized space. Timeless and placeless, Vulture Prince is nonetheless very beautiful.

Jennifer Kelly

Assertion — Intermission (Spartan)

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Intermission comes from an alternate timeline. Founding drummer William Goldsmith started his musical career in Sunny Day Real Estate and had a notable stint with Foo Fighters. To cut the biography short, Goldsmith took a decade off from the music industry. He's returned now with Assertion, joined by guitarist/vocalist Justin Tamminga and bassist Bryan Gorder (both of Blind Guides, among other acts). This band picks up in the late 1990s, imagining a new path for post-hardcore/post-grunge music. The trio's name suits, as the songs' energy and the lyrical assertiveness develops the intensity of the release. The group works carefully with dynamics, neither parroting the loud-quiet tradition nor simply pushing their emo leanings toward 11.

“The Lamb to the Slaughter Pulls a Knife” epitomizes the album. The track sounds like Foo Fighters decided to get dirtier rather than more arena-friendly, while the lyrics mix violence with emotional persistence. First single “Supervised Suffering” finds triumph in endurance, turning the aggressive chorus into something of a victory. “Set Fire” closes the album with something more delicate, but it's just the gauze over a seething anger. Goldsmith's time off seems to have served him well, as does collaborating with some new partners. Assertion makes its case clearly and effectively, and if the intermission's over for Goldsmith, the second half sounds promising.

Justin Cober-Lake

Michael Beach — Dream Violence (Goner/Poison City)

Dream Violence by Michael Beach

“De Facto Blues,” from Michael Beach’s fourth solo album, is a barn-burner of a song, rough and messy and passionate, the kind of song that makes you want to take a stand on something, who cares what as long as it matters to you. It snarls like Radio Birdman, slashes like the Wipers and follows its muse through chaos to righteousness like an off-cut from Crazy Horse, just back from rockin’ the free world. It’s got Matt Ford and Inez Tulloch from Thigh Master on guitar and bass, respectively, Utrillo Kushner from Colossal Yes (and Comets on Fire) on drums, and Kelley Stoltz at the boards, and it’s a killer. The rest of the album is varied and, honestly, not uniformly astounding, but there’s a nice Summer of Love-style psych dream in “Metaphysical Dice,” a slow-burning post-rocker in the title track and a driving, pounding punk anthem in the opener “Irregardless.” Beach has been splitting his time between San Francisco and Melbourne, Australia, and lately settled on Melbourne, where he will fit like a native into their thriving punk-garage scene.

Jennifer Kelly

Bloop — Proof (Lumo)

Proof by BLOOP (Lina Allemano / Mike Smith)

The trumpet is already a catalog of sound effects waiting to happen, and Lina Allemano knows the table of contents by heart. So, to shake things up, she has paired up with electronic musician Mike Smith, who contributes live processing and effects to Allemano’s improvisations. A blind listen to Proof might leave you with the impression that you’re hearing a horn player jamming with some outer space cats, and we’re not talking about hip, lingo-slinging jazz dudes. In fact, everything on these eight tracks happened in real time. Smith’s a strategic intervener, aware that too much sauce can spoil the stew, so he mixes up precise layering and pitch-shifting with more disorienting transformations. It’s hard to say how much Allemano responds to the simulacra that surround her brass voice, but there’s no denying the persuasiveness of her melodic and timbral ideas.

Bill Meyer

Bris — Tricky Dance Moves (TrueStory Entertainment)

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Bris left some music behind when he died in 2020, but it took almost a year to shape these recordings into a proper CD. The label CEO Mac J (a fine artist himself) could easily capitalize on his friend’s death, stacking Tricky Dance Moves with features from the artists Bris never would have worked with. Yet the album was prepared with the utmost care, not giving an ugly Frankenstein monster feel. Bris’s references to his possible early death are scattered throughout the whole tape: “Heard they wanna pop Bris cause they mad I’m poppin.” Almost every song could be easily turned into a prophetic tale (a cheap move one wants to avoid at all costs). Nonetheless, something is missing here. Or maybe it is just an image of death that disturbs the whole picture, making us realize that this is the last we’d hear from Bris.

Ray Garraty

Dreamwell — Modern Grotesque (self-released)

Modern Grotesque by Dreamwell

I recently read an interview with Providence’s Dreamwell breaking down in almost excruciating detail the influences that led to the quintet’s sophomore full-length Modern Grotesque. I kept scrolling past Daughters and Deftones and Deafheaven and increasingly disconnected influences like The Mountain Goats and Nina Simone. I went back to the top and looked again. I typed Ctrl+F and put in “Thursday.” Nothing. This is preposterous. I may not be in the post-hardcore trenches the way I once was, but even I’d know a good Full Collapse homage if it swung a mic right into my face the way this one did; hell, just listen to “The Lost Ballad of Dominic Anneghi” and tell me singer Keziah Staska doesn’t know every single word of “Paris in Flames.” That may not look like flattery on a first read, but too often, bands striding the emo/pop divide have chased the latter into sub-Taking Back Sunday oblivion; what Thursday did was much harder, and Dreamwell has ably taken up the torch here. That they did it unintentionally is a curious, bewildering footnote.

Patrick Masterson

Paul Dunmall / Matthew Shipp / Joe Morris / Gerald Cleaver — The Bright Awakening (Rogue Art)

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It’s a bit perplexing that reeds player Paul Dunmall hasn’t spent more time playing with American musicians. He’s firmly situated within the English improvisation community, where he’s perhaps best known for his longer tenure with the quartet Mujician, and his ability to double on bagpipes has allowed him to establish links between improvised and folk music. But

his jazz-rooted approach makes him a natural to work in settings such as this one. When Dunmall toted his tenor to the Vision Festival in 2012 (even then, it could be costly to lug multiple horns on a plane), he found three sympatico partners in Fest regulars pianist Matthew Shipp, double bassist Joe Morris and drummer Gerald Cleaver. They all hit the ground running, generating a barrage of pulsing, roiling sound for over 20 minutes before the piano and drums peel off, leaving Morris to sustain momentum alone. Dunmall’s gruff, spiraling lines find common cause with each of his fellows, and the gradual addition and subtraction of players from that point makes it easier to hear the exchange of ideas, which often seem to take place between dyads operating within the larger flow.

Bill Meyer

Editrix — Tell Me I’m Bad (Exploding in Sound)

Tell Me I'm Bad by Editrix

Wendy Eisenberg’s rock band is like her solo output in that it snarls delicate, self-aware, mini-short stories in complex tangles of guitar, hemming in high, sing-song-y verses with riffs and licks of daunting difficulty. The main differences are speed, volume and aggression (i.e. it rocks.) and a certain communal energy. That’s down to two collaborators who can more than keep up, Josh Daniel on surging, rattling, break-it-all-down percussion and Steve Cameron, equally anarchic and fast on bass. The title track is an all-out rager, thrusting jagged arena riffs of guitar and bass forward, then clearing space for off-kilter verses and time-shifting, irregular instrumental interplay. “Chelsea” follows a similar chaotic pattern, setting up a teeth-shaking cadence of rock instruments, with Eisenberg keening over the top of it. “I know, perfectly well, that we’re not safe, safe from the men in power,” she croons, engaged in the knotting difficulties of the world as we know it, but winning.

Jennifer Kelly

Elephant Micah — Vague Tidings (Western Vinyl)

Vague Tidings by Elephant Micah

The new Elephant Micah album, the follow-up to 2018’s excellent Genericana, has an apposite title. Vague Tidings conveys an atmosphere of feeling conscious of something carried on the wind, a story passed on that may have shifted through various iterations, leaving only a sense of its original meaning. All that can be sure is that this is sad, sober music, unafraid to brace against the chill of mortality and speak of all that is felt. The instruments — guitar, piano, percussion, violin and woodwinds — move around Joseph O’Connell’s voice in stiff yet graceful arcs, distanced by an unspoken etiquette. Repetitive melodic figures, stark yet steady, gradually accumulate weight as they roll along like tumbleweeds. It’s a crisp, forlorn country-blues, in no hurry to get nowhere, carrying ancient wisdom that seems to acknowledge the empty resonance of its own import.

Tim Clarke

Fraufraulein — Solum (Notice Recordings)

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Fraufraulein’s music is immersive. Anne Guthrie and Billy Gomberg beam themselves, and us along with them, Quantum Leap-style directly into multiple environments in medias res. Through the clever employment of field recordings, they transport us to a hurricane-addled beach, performing a voice/piano duet as driftwood missiles careen through the air. In another “episode,” the manipulation of small objects conjures up the intimacy of a water garden filled with windchimes. Partners in both life and art, Guthrie and Gomberg are also consummate solo artists. He is a master of spike-textured drones, while she explores the intimate properties of physical entities. Like a child tends to resemble one parent while borrowing subtle traits from the other, Solum identifies more with Guthrie’s electroacoustic tendencies than it does with Gomberg’s electronics. This is in stark contrast to 2015’s Extinguishment, which felt a little more balanced between those two modes. Both approaches work, yet Solum feels more meticulously crafted and nuanced. Careful listening unveils multiple subtle tones and textures, and each piece is an adventure for the ears.

Bryon Hayes

Gerrit Hatcher / Rob Magill / Patrick Shiroishi — Triplet Fawns (Kettle Hole)

Triplet Fawns by Gerrit Hatcher / Rob Magill / Patrick Shiroishi

The album’s title implies a crew you wouldn’t want on your yard; while those adolescent ungulate appetites do a number on your bushes, the hooves are hacking up your grass. But if they knocked on your door, saxophone cases in their respective hands, you could do worse than invite them around the back for some blowing. Hatcher, Magill and Shiroishi present with sufficient lung power to be heard fine without the reflective assistance of walls, even when they aren’t making like Sonore (that was Gustafsson, Vandermark, and Brötzmann, about a dozen years back). This album, which was released in a micro-edition of 100 CD-Rs on Hatcher’s Kettle Hole imprint, builds gradually from restrained melancholy to pointillistic jousting to a climactic blow-out, and the assured development of each piece suggests that each player was listening not only to what each of the others was doing, but where the music was headed.

Bill Meyer

A.Karperyd — GND (Novoton)

GND by A.Karperyd

On his second solo release, GND, Swedish artist Andreas Karperyd broodingly ruminates on snatches of musical ideas that have been percolating in his consciousness over extended periods. Anyone familiar with his 2015 debut, Woodwork, will find these 55 minutes similarly immersive, as Karperyd manipulates live instruments such as piano and strings into shimmering, alien tapestries. Opener “The Well-Defined Rules of Certainty” appears to take Fennesz’s Venice as its blueprint, issuing forth cascading, percolating tones that tickle the ears. “The Desire to Invoke Balance with Our Eyes Closed” and “Failures and Small Observations” have a Satie-esque elegance to their piano lines, albeit refracted via a hall of mirrors. The 12-minute “Reminiscence of Tar” sounds like a slow-motion pan across the hulking mass of a shadowy space station. And closing track “Mummification of an Empire” slowly fries its piano in static, then unfurls wistful melodica and throbbing synth across the wreckage.

Tim Clarke

Kiwi Jr. — Cooler Returns (Subpop)

Cooler Returns by Kiwi jr

Kiwi Jr.’s brash, brainy indie pop punk vibrates with nervy energy, like the first Feelies album or Violent Femmes’ 1983 debut or that one great S-T from the Soft Pack. Those are all opening salvos for their respective bands, but this one is a second outing, suffering not a bit from sophomore slackening. Instead, Cooler Returns tightens up everything that was already stinging on the Toronto band’s debut and adds a giddy careening glee. An oddball thread of Robin Hood-ness runs through the disc, with Sherwood forest getting a nod in the title track and “Maid Marian’s Toast” tipping the love interest, but these songs are anything but archaic. “Undecided Voters,” the single jangles harder than anything I’ve heard since Woolen Men, slyly upending creative pretensions in a verse that goes: “You take a photo of the CN tower/you take another of the Honest Ed sign/Well, I take photos of your photos/and they really move people.” Has it been done before? Maybe. Does it move us. Yes indeed.

Jennifer Kelly

Kool John — Get Rich, Die $moppin ($moplife Entertainment)

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A year ago, Kool John was shot six times. Yet you wouldn’t know about it from the general mood of Get Rich, Die $moppin, his first tape since then. He does name one song “6 Shots” and explicitly mentions the shooting accident a few times on other songs, but his bouncy music says he wasn’t hurt bad after all. The beats perfectly match the rhymes, playfully ignorant and ignorantly playful. Kool John still doesn’t mix with broke people, doesn’t return calls if it’s not about money and “doesn’t get stressed out.” Instead, he gets high. His new tape is nothing groundbreaking, even though he’s pretending that is: “If I had no legs I’d still be outstanding.”

Ray Garraty

Nick Mazzarella / Quin Kirchner — See or Seem: Live at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival (Out Of Your Head)

See or Seem: Live at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival by Nick Mazzarella / Quin Kirchner

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this recording is that the titular festival happened at all. While most festivals either canceled or went on line, Chicago’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival dealt with COVID by spreading out. Instead of big stages and indoor shows, last September it staged little pop-up events on sidewalks and in parks. So, if the sound of See or Seem feels a bit diffuse, it’s because it was recorded with a device propped in front of two guys playing on a grassy median. There are moments when the buzz of bugs rises up for a second behind Nick Mazzarella’s darting alto sax and Quin Kirchner’s brisk, mercurial beats. But the thrill of actually playing in front of some people (or actually being surrounded by them; when there’s no stage and social distancing is in effect, it makes sense to walk slow circles around the performers) infuses this music, extracting an extra ounce of joyousness from Mazzarella’s free, boppish lines, and adding a restlessness charge to the drumming, as though Kirchner really wanted to squeeze as much music as possible into this 31-minute set. This release is part of Out Of Your Head Records’ Untamed series of download-only albums recorded under less than pristine conditions. A portion of each title’s income is directed to a charity of the artists’ choice; the duo selected St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

Bill Meyer

Dean McPhee — Witch’s Ladder (Hood Faire)

Witch's Ladder by Dean McPhee

Finger-picked melodies cut through haunted landscapes of echo and hum on this fourth LP from the British guitarist Dean McPhee. Track titles like “The Alchemist” and “Witch’s Ladder” evoke the supernatural, as does the spectral ambient tone, reminiscent of Chuck Johnson’s recent Cinder Grove or Mark Nelson’s last Pan•American album. Yet while an e-bow traces ghostly chills through “The Alder Tree,” there’s also a grounding in lovely, well-rooted folk forms; it’s like seeing a familiar landscape in moonlight, well-known landmarks suddenly turned unearthly and strange. The long closing title track has an introspective air. Pensive, jazz-infused runs flower into bright bursts of notes, not quite blues, not quite folk, not quite jazz, not quite anything but gorgeous.

Jennifer Kelly

Moontype — Bodies of Water (Born Yesterday)

Bodies of Water by Moontype

Margaret McCarthy’s voice swims across your headphones like being on an innertube drifting languidly downstream. Typically, saying someone’s vocals are like water indicates a degree of timidity or laziness, obscured in reverb or simply buried by the mix, but on Moontype’s debut LP, it’s a compliment: McCarthy floats across the different styles of music she makes with guitarist Ben Cruz and drummer Emerson Hunton. You notice it not just because she often sings of water or because it’s right there in the title, but also because the Chicago trio hasn’t settled on any particular style yet — just listen to the three-song stretch at the heart of the record where achingly beautiful alt-country ballad “3 Weeks” leads into “When You Say Yes,” a sub-three-minute power-pop number Weezer ought to be jealous of, followed immediately by crunching alt-rock swoon and first single “Ferry.” All the while, McCarthy lets her melodies drift to the will of the songs. I’m reminded of recent efforts from Great Grandpa, Squirrel Flower and Lucy Dacus, but the brief, jazzy curveball of “Alpha” is a peek into whole other possibilities. Bodies of Water is a fine record, but perhaps its most exciting aspect is how much ground you can see Moontype has already conquered. One can’t help but wonder what sonic worlds awash in water await.

Patrick Masterson

Rob Noyes / Joseph Allred — Avoidance Language (Feeding Tube)

Avoidance Language by Rob Noyes and Joseph Allred

The 12-string guitar can emit such a prodigious amount of sound, and there are two of them on Avoidance Language. If Joseph Allred and Rob Noyes had planned things out in order to avoid canceling each other out, they might never have picked their instruments up, so they just started playing and listening. The result is not so much a summing of two broad spectrums of sound, but an instinctual blending of similar textures that ends up sounding significantly different from what either musician does on their own. Even when Allred switches to harmonium or banjo, as he does on the album’s two shorter tracks, the music rushes in torrential fashion. Their collaboration is so compatible that it often seems more like a recital for one big stringed thing played by one four-handed musician than a doubled instrumental duet.

Bill Meyer

NRCSSSST — S-T (Slimstyle)

NRCSSST by NRCSSST

There’s no “I” in NRCSSSST but there’s plenty of swagger. The Atlanta-based synth pop band, formed around Coathangers drummer and singer Stephanie Luke and Dropsonic’s Dan Dixon, taunts and teases in its opening salvo “All I Ever Wanted.” Luke rasps appealingly atop Spoon-style piano banging, and big shout along choruses erupt from sudden flares of synths. It’s all hedonism, but done with conviction. You haven’t heard a big rock song kick up this much fun in ages. “Love Suicide” bangs just as hard, its bass line muttering like a crazy person, unstable and ready to explode (and yet it doesn’t, it maintains its restraint even when the rest of the cut goes deliriously off the rails). Dixon can really sing, too, holding the long vibrating notes that lift these prickly jams into anthemry. It’s been a while since a band reminded me of INXS and U2 without sucking, but here we are. Sometimes guilty pleasures are just pleasures.

Jennifer Kelly

Zeena Parkins / Mette Rasmussen /Ryan Sawyer — Glass Triangle (Relative Pitch)

Glass Triangle by Zeena Parkins, Mette Rasmussen, Ryan Sawyer

Harpist Zeena Parkins and Ryan Sawyer have a long-standing partnership in the trio substitutes Moss Garden, a chamber improv ensemble with pianist Ryan Ross. But swapping in Danish alto saxophonist Mette Rasmussen brings about a change, not just in instrumentation, but attitude. She plays free jazz like a punk, impatient and aggressive, and Parkins and Sawyer are up for the challenge. This music often plays out like a battle between two titans, one blowing and the other pummeling, while Parkins seeks to liquify the ground upon which they stand. She sticks exclusively to an electric harp whose effects-laden tone is disorientingly alien, blinking beacon-like one moment, low as a backhoe engage in earth removal the next. The combination of new and old relationships promotes a combination of instability and trust that yields splendid results.

Bill Meyer

claire rousay — A Softer Focus (American Dreams)

a softer focus by claire rousay

In film, soft focus is a technique of contrast reduction that lends a scene a dreamlike quality. With A Softer Focus, claire rousay imbues her already intimate compositions with a noctilucent aura. She has created a dreamworld with sound. One glimpse at the glowing flowers that grace the cover art created by visual artist Dani Toral, with whom rousay closely collaborated on this release, and the illusory nature of the record is revealed. The reds, oranges, blues and purples of deep twilight are reflected in both the textures rousay weaves into her soundscapes and the visual themes that Toral conjures. Violin, cello, piano and synth are the musical origins of this warmth, which rousay wraps around environments crafted from the sounds of everyday life. She recorded herself moving about her apartment, visiting a farmer’s market, observing kids playing and just existing. These field recordings of the mundane, when coupled with the radiance of the musical elements, are magical. Snatches of conversation become incantations; auto-tuned vocals are the whisperings of spirits; fireworks explode into brilliant shards of crystal. With A Softer Focus, rousay takes a glimpse into the beauty of the everyday, showing us just how precious our most humdrum moments can be.

Bryon Hayes

Axel Rulay x Verbo Flow — Si Es Trucho Es Trucho / Axel Rulay (La Granja)

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Axel Rulay must be kicking himself right now. With more than three million plays on the original version and more than five million on the remix that adds verses from Farruko and El Alfa into the fray, the Dominican is cruising into our second pandemic summer with an unbeatable poolside anthem — and to think, after years of clawing his way up through the industry dregs, working to get his name out there, all he had to do was make himself the chorus over Venezuelan producer Manybeat’s 2019 tropical house trip “El Tiempo.” Presto: Massive visibility in the Spanish-speaking world and a song that ought to transcend any linguistic barriers unlocked even if the best I can manage is a title that translates as “If It’s Trout It’s Trout.” Expect that long-desired Daddy Yankee collabo to follow any day now.

Patrick Masterson

Rx Nephew — Listen Here Are You Here to Hear Me (NewBreedTrapper)

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Rochester rapper Rx Nephew trailed brother-turned-archrival-turned-back Rx Papi’s coming out party 100 Miles and Walk’in by just a few weeks with the 53-minute all-in proposition Listen Here Are You Here to Hear Me. Unlike Papi’s Max B-ish smoothness, Nephew is all rough n’ tumble through these 17 tracks, provocative pump action with narrative bursts of violence and street hustling delivered with a verve most akin to DaBaby or, in some of his more elastic enunciations, peak Ludacris. A recent Creative Hustle interview provides some insight: The first time he went into the booth, “I didn’t write anything. I just started talking about selling crack and robbing people.” The stories haven’t stopped since. If he can keep putting out music as engaging as Listen Here…, Rx Nephew is destined for more than just the margins; until then, we have one of the year’s densest rap records to hold the line.

Patrick Masterson

Nick Schofield — Glass Gallery (Backward Music)

Glass Gallery by Nick Schofield

Nick Schoefield, out of Montreal, composed these 13 tracks entirely on a vintage Prophet 600, the first synthesizer to designed to employ the then-new MIDI standard established by the instrument’s inventor Dave Smith and Roland’s Ikutaru Kakahashi. The instrument has a lovely, crystalline quality, floating effortless arpeggios through vaulting sonic spaces. Though clearly synthesized, these pieces of music resonate in serene and peaceful ways, evoking light, water, air and contemplation with a simplicity that evokes Japan. “Water Court” drips notes of startling purity into deep pools of tone-washed whoosh and hum. “Snow Blue Square” flutters an oboe-like melody over eddying gusts of keyboard motifs. The pieces fit together with calm precision, leading from one beautiful space to the next like a stroll through a museum.

Jennifer Kelly

Archie Shepp — Blasé And Yasmina Revisited (Ezz-thetics)

The Ezz-thetics campaign to keep the best of mid-20th century free jazz on CD shelves (yes, CD, not streaming or LP) breaches the walls of the BYG catalog with a disc that issues one and a half albums from Archie Shepp’s busy week in August 1969. Blasé is a stand-out for the participation of singer Jeanne Lee, whose indomitable and flexible delivery as equal to the demands of material that’s be turns pungently earthy and steeped in antiquity. But the rest of the band, which includes Philly Joe Jones, Dave Burrell, some harmonica players, and a couple members of the Art Ensemble, is also more than equal to the task of filtering the blues and Ellingtonia through the gestures of the then-contemporary avant-garde. “Yasmina,” which originally occupied one side of another LP, makes sense here as an extension of the raw, rippling “Touareg,” the last tune on Blasé, into exultantly African territory.

Bill Meyer

Juanita Stein — Snapshot (Handwritten)

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Juanita Stein was the cool, serene, Mazzy Star-evoking vocal presence in the Aussie dream-gaze outfit Howling Bells, and she plays more or less the same role on her third solo album. Yet she is also the source of mayhem here, kicking up an angst of guitar-freaked turmoil on “1,2,3,4,5,6” then soothing it away with singing, hanging long threads of feedback from the thump-thump-thumping blues-rock architecture of “L.O.T.F.” and crooning dulcetly, but with a little yip, in the trance-y title track. This latter cut reflects on the death of her father, a kindred soul who wrote a couple of Howling Bells songs for her and passed away recently. It distills a palpable ache into pure, distanced poetry, finding a cool, dispassionate way to consider the mysteries of human loss.

Jennifer Kelly

The Tiptons Sax Quartet & Drums — Wabi Sabi (Sowiesound)

Wabi Sabi by Tiptons Sax Quartet & Drums

Over its 30 years together, the Tiptons Sax Quartet has done less to hone its sound and more to figure out how many styles to embrace. The group (typically a soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone sax joined by percussion and even including some vocals) can dig into trad jazz but sounds more at home in exploration, adapting world music or other traditional American styles. The title of their latest album, Wabi Sabi refers to the Japanese concept of finding beauty in and accepting imperfection. The Tiptons, despite that sentiment, don't approach their play with a sloppy sound; in fact, they're as tight as ever. The understanding of impermanence and imperfection does help contextualize their risk-taking. When they turn to odd yodeling on “Moadl Joadl,” they find joy in an odd vocal moment that highlights expression and discovery over formal rigor. When they tap in New Orleans energy for “Jouissance,” we can connect the dots between parades and funerals, celebrating all the while. The whole album serves as a tour of styles and moods, always with an energetic potency. If it's more of the same from the Tiptons, that just means continuance of difference.

Justin Cober-Lake

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blackkudos · 4 years

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Taj Mahal

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks (born May 17, 1942), who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American blues musician, a singer-songwriter and film composer who plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments. He often incorporates elements of world music into his works and has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, and the South Pacific.

Early life

Born Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, Jr. on May 17, 1942, in Harlem, New York, Mahal grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was raised in a musical environment; his mother was a member of a local gospel choir and his father was an Afro-Caribbean jazz arranger and piano player. His family owned a shortwave radio which received music broadcasts from around the world, exposing him at an early age to world music. Early in childhood he recognized the stark differences between the popular music of his day and the music that was played in his home. He also became interested in jazz, enjoying the works of musicians such as Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Milt Jackson. His parents came of age during the Harlem Renaissance, instilling in their son a sense of pride in his Caribbean and African ancestry through their stories.

Because his father was a musician, his house was frequently the host of other musicians from the Caribbean, Africa, and the U.S. His father, Henry Saint Clair Fredericks Sr., was called "The Genius" by Ella Fitzgerald before starting his family. Early on, Henry Jr. developed an interest in African music, which he studied assiduously as a young man. His parents also encouraged him to pursue music, starting him out with classical piano lessons. He also studied the clarinet, trombone and harmonica. When Mahal was eleven his father was killed in an accident at his own construction company, crushed by a tractor when it flipped over. This was an extremely traumatic experience for the boy.

Mahal's mother later remarried. His stepfather owned a guitar which Taj began using at age 13 or 14, receiving his first lessons from a new neighbor from North Carolina of his own age who played acoustic blues guitar. His name was Lynwood Perry, the nephew of the famous bluesman Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. In high school Mahal sang in a doo-wop group.

For some time Mahal thought of pursuing farming over music. He had developed a passion for farming that nearly rivaled his love of music—coming to work on a farm first at age 16. It was a dairy farm in Palmer, Massachusetts, not far from Springfield. By age nineteen he had become farm foreman, getting up a bit after 4:00 a.m. and running the place. "I milked anywhere between thirty-five and seventy cows a day. I clipped udders. I grew corn. I grew Tennessee redtop clover. Alfalfa." Mahal believes in growing one's own food, saying, "You have a whole generation of kids who think everything comes out of a box and a can, and they don't know you can grow most of your food." Because of his personal support of the family farm, Mahal regularly performs at Farm Aid concerts.

Taj Mahal, his stage name, came to him in dreams about Gandhi, India, and social tolerance. He started using it in 1959 or 1961—around the same time he began attending the University of Massachusetts. Despite having attended a vocational agriculture school, becoming a member of the National FFA Organization, and majoring in animal husbandry and minoring in veterinary science and agronomy, Mahal decided to take the route of music instead of farming. In college he led a rhythm and blues band called Taj Mahal & The Elektras and, before heading for the U.S. West Coast, he was also part of a duo with Jessie Lee Kincaid.

Career

In 1964 he moved to Santa Monica, California, and formed Rising Sons with fellow blues rock musician Ry Cooder and Jessie Lee Kincaid, landing a record deal with Columbia Records soon after. The group was one of the first interracial bands of the period, which likely made them commercially unviable. An album was never released (though a single was) and the band soon broke up, though Legacy Records did release The Rising Sons Featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder in 1992 with material from that period. During this time Mahal was working with others, musicians like Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Muddy Waters. Mahal stayed with Columbia after the Rising Sons to begin his solo career, releasing the self-titled Taj Mahal and The Natch'l Blues in 1968, and Giant Step/De Old Folks at Home with Kiowa session musician Jesse Ed Davis from Oklahoma, who played guitar and piano in 1969. During this time he and Cooder worked with the Rolling Stones, with whom he has performed at various times throughout his career. In 1968, he performed in the film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. He recorded a total of twelve albums for Columbia from the late 1960s into the 1970s. His work of the 1970s was especially important, in that his releases began incorporating West Indian and Caribbean music, jazz and reggae into the mix. In 1972, he acted in and wrote the film score for the movie Sounder, which starred Cicely Tyson. He reprised his role and returned as composer in the sequel, Part 2, Sounder.

In 1976 Mahal left Columbia and signed with Warner Bros. Records, recording three albums for them. One of these was another film score for 1977's Brothers; the album shares the same name. After his time with Warner Bros., he struggled to find another record contract, this being the era of heavy metal and disco music.

Stalled in his career, he decided to move to Kauai, Hawaii in 1981 and soon formed the Hula Blues Band. Originally just a group of guys getting together for fishing and a good time, the band soon began performing regularly and touring. He remained somewhat concealed from most eyes while working out of Hawaii throughout most of the 1980s before recording Taj in 1988 for Gramavision. This started a comeback of sorts for him, recording both for Gramavision and Hannibal Records during this time.

In the 1990s Mahal became deeply involved in supporting the nonprofit Music Maker Relief Foundation. As of 2019, he was still on the Foundation's advisory board.

In the 1990s he was on the Private Music label, releasing albums full of blues, pop, R&B and rock. He did collaborative works both with Eric Clapton and Etta James.

In 1998, in collaboration with renowned songwriter David Forman, producer Rick Chertoff and musicians Cyndi Lauper, Willie Nile, Joan Osborne, Rob Hyman, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm of the Band, and the Chieftains, he performed on the Americana album Largo based on the music of Antonín Dvořák.

In 1997 he won Best Contemporary Blues Album for Señor Blues at the Grammy Awards, followed by another Grammy for Shoutin' in Key in 2000. He performed the theme song to the children's television show Peep and the Big Wide World, which began broadcast in 2004.

In 2002, Mahal appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation album Red Hot and Riot in tribute to Nigerian afrobeat musician Fela Kuti. The Paul Heck produced album was widely acclaimed, and all proceeds from the record were donated to AIDS charities.

Taj Mahal contributed to Olmecha Supreme's 2006 album 'hedfoneresonance'. The Wellington-based group led by Mahal's son Imon Starr (Ahmen Mahal) also featured Deva Mahal on vocals.

Mahal partnered up with Keb' Mo' to release a joint album TajMo on May 5, 2017. The album has some guest appearances by Bonnie Raitt, Joe Walsh, Sheila E., and Lizz Wright, and has six original compositions and five covers, from artists and bands like John Mayer and The Who.

In 2013, Mahal appeared in the documentary film 'The Byrd Who Flew Alone', produced by Four Suns Productions. The film was about Gene Clark, one of the original Byrds, who was a friend of Mahal for many years.

In June 2017, Mahal appeared in the award-winning documentary film The American Epic Sessions, directed by Bernard MacMahon, recording Charley Patton's "High Water Everywhere" on the first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s. Mahal appeared throughout the accompanying documentary series American Epic, commenting on the 1920s rural recording artists who had a profound influence on American music and on him personally.

Musical style

Mahal leads with his thumb and middle finger when fingerpicking, rather than with his index finger as the majority of guitar players do. "I play with a flatpick," he says, "when I do a lot of blues leads." Early in his musical career Mahal studied the various styles of his favorite blues singers, including musicians like Jimmy Reed, Son House, Sleepy John Estes, Big Mama Thornton, Howlin' Wolf, Mississippi John Hurt, and Sonny Terry. He describes his hanging out at clubs like Club 47 in Massachusetts and Ash Grove in Los Angeles as "basic building blocks in the development of his music." Considered to be a scholar of blues music, his studies of ethnomusicology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst would come to introduce him further to the folk music of the Caribbean and West Africa. Over time he incorporated more and more African roots music into his musical palette, embracing elements of reggae, calypso, jazz, zydeco, R&B, gospel music, and the country blues—each of which having "served as the foundation of his unique sound." According to The Rough Guide to Rock, "It has been said that Taj Mahal was one of the first major artists, if not the very first one, to pursue the possibilities of world music. Even the blues he was playing in the early 70s – Recycling The Blues & Other Related Stuff (1972), Mo' Roots (1974) – showed an aptitude for spicing the mix with flavours that always kept him a yard or so distant from being an out-and-out blues performer." Concerning his voice, author David Evans writes that Mahal has "an extraordinary voice that ranges from gruff and gritty to smooth and sultry."

Taj Mahal believes that his 1999 album Kulanjan, which features him playing with the kora master of Mali's Griot tradition Toumani Diabate, "embodies his musical and cultural spirit arriving full circle." To him it was an experience that allowed him to reconnect with his African heritage, striking him with a sense of coming home. He even changed his name to Dadi Kouyate, the first jali name, to drive this point home. Speaking of the experience and demonstrating the breadth of his eclecticism, he has said:

The microphones are listening in on a conversation between a 350-year-old orphan and its long-lost birth parents. I've got so much other music to play. But the point is that after recording with these Africans, basically if I don't play guitar for the rest of my life, that's fine with me....With Kulanjan, I think that Afro-Americans have the opportunity to not only see the instruments and the musicians, but they also see more about their culture and recognize the faces, the walks, the hands, the voices, and the sounds that are not the blues. Afro-American audiences had their eyes really opened for the first time. This was exciting for them to make this connection and pay a little more attention to this music than before.

Taj Mahal has said he prefers to do outdoor performances, saying: "The music was designed for people to move, and it's a bit difficult after a while to have people sitting like they're watching television. That's why I like to play outdoor festivals-because people will just dance. Theatre audiences need to ask themselves: 'What the hell is going on? We're asking these musicians to come and perform and then we sit there and draw all the energy out of the air.' That's why after a while I need a rest. It's too much of a drain. Often I don't allow that. I just play to the goddess of music-and I know she's dancing."

Mahal has been quoted as saying, "Eighty-one percent of the kids listening to rap were not black kids. Once there was a tremendous amount of money involved in it ... they totally moved it over to a material side. It just went off to a terrible direction. ...You can listen to my music from front to back, and you don't ever hear me moaning and crying about how bad you done treated me. I think that style of blues and that type of tone was something that happened as a result of many white people feeling very, very guilty about what went down."

Awards

Taj Mahal has received three Grammy Awards (ten nominations) over his career.

1997 (Grammy Award) Best Contemporary Blues Album for Señor Blues

2000 (Grammy Award) Best Contemporary Blues Album for Shoutin' in Key

2006 (Blues Music Awards) Historical Album of the Year for The Essential Taj Mahal

2008 (Grammy Nomination) Best Contemporary Blues Album for Maestro

2018 (Grammy Award) Best Contemporary Blues Album for TajMo

On February 8, 2006 Taj Mahal was designated the official Blues Artist of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

In March 2006, Taj Mahal, along with his sister, the late Carole Fredericks, received the Foreign Language Advocacy Award from the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in recognition of their commitment to shine a spotlight on the vast potential of music to foster genuine intercultural communication.

On May 22, 2011, Taj Mahal received an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He also made brief remarks and performed three songs. A video of the performance can be found online.

In 2014, Taj Mahal received the Americana Music Association's Lifetime Achievement award.

Discography

Albums

1968 – Taj Mahal

1968 – The Natch'l Blues

1969 – Giant Step/De Ole Folks at Home

1971 – Happy Just to Be Like I Am

1972 – Recycling The Blues & Other Related Stuff

1972 – Sounder (original soundtrack)

1973 – Oooh So Good 'n Blues

1974 – Mo' Roots

1975 – Music Keeps Me Together

1976 – Satisfied 'n Tickled Too

1976 – Music Fuh Ya'

1977 – Brothers

1977 – Evolution

1987 – Taj

1988 – Shake Sugaree

1991 – Mule Bone

1991 – Like Never Before

1993 – Dancing the Blues

1995 – Mumtaz Mahal (with V.M. Bhatt and N. Ravikiran)

1996 – Phantom Blues

1997 – Señor Blues

1998 – Sacred Island AKA Hula Blues (with The Hula Blues Band)

1999 – Blue Light Boogie

1999 – Kulanjan (with Toumani Diabaté)

2001 – Hanapepe Dream (with The Hula Blues Band)

2005 – Mkutano Meets the Culture Musical Club of Zanzibar

2008 – Maestro

2014 – Talkin' Christmas (with Blind Boys of Alabama)

2016 – Labor of Love

2017 – TajMo (with Keb' Mo')

Live albums

1971 – The Real Thing

1972 – Recycling The Blues & Other Related Stuff

1972 – Big Sur Festival - One Hand Clapping

1979 – Live & Direct

1990 – Live at Ronnie Scott's

1996 – An Evening of Acoustic Music

2000 – Shoutin' in Key

2004 – Live Catch

2015 – Taj Mahal & The Hula Blues Band: Live From Kauai

Compilation albums

1980 – Going Home

1981 – The Best of Taj Mahal, Volume 1 (Columbia)

1992 – Taj's Blues

1993 – World Music

1998 – In Progress & In Motion: 1965-1998

1999 – Blue Light Boogie

2000 – The Best of Taj Mahal

2000 – The Best of the Private Years

2001 – Sing a Happy Song: The Warner Bros. Recordings

2003 – Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues – Taj Mahal

2003 – Blues with a Feeling: The Very Best of Taj Mahal

2005 – The Essential Taj Mahal

2012 – Hidden Treasures of Taj Mahal

Various artists featuring Taj Mahal

1968 – The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus

1968 – The Rock Machine Turns You On

1970 – Fill Your Head With Rock

1985 – Conjure: Music for the Texts of Ishmael Reed

1990 – The Hot Spot – original soundtrack

1991 – Vol Pour Sidney – one title only, other tracks by Charlie Watts, Elvin Jones, Pepsi, The Lonely Bears, Lee Konitz and others.

1992 – Rising Sons Featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder

1992 – Smilin' Island of Song by Cedella Marley Booker and Taj Mahal.

1993 – The Source by Ali Farka Touré (World Circuit WCD030; Hannibal 1375)

1993 – Peace Is the World Smiling

1997 – Follow the Drinking Gourd

1997 – Shakin' a Tailfeather

1998 – Scrapple – original soundtrack

1998 – Largo

1999 – Hippity Hop

2001 – "Strut" – with Jimmy Smith on his album Dot Com Blues

2002 – Jools Holland's Big Band Rhythm & Blues (Rhino) – contributing his version of "Outskirts of Town"

2002 – Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Volume III – Lead vocals on Fishin' Blues, and lead in and first verse of the title track, with Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Alison Krauss, Doc Watson

2004 – Musicmakers with Taj Mahal (Music Maker 49)

2004 – Etta Baker with Taj Mahal (Music Maker 50)

2007 – Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino (Vanguard) – contributing his version of "My Girl Josephine"

2007 – Le Cœur d'un homme by Johnny Hallyday – duet on "T'Aimer si mal", written by French best-selling novelist Marc Levy

2009 – American Horizon – with Los Cenzontles, David Hidalgo

2011 – Play The Blues Live From Lincoln Jazz Center – with Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton, playing on "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" and "Corrine, Corrina"

2013 – "Poye 2" – with Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba on their album Jama Ko

2013 – "Winding Down" – with Sammy Hagar, Dave Zirbel, John Cuniberti, Mona Gnader, Vic Johnson on the album Sammy Hagar & Friends

2013 – Divided & United: The Songs of the Civil War – with a version of "Down by the Riverside"

2015 – "How Can a Poor Boy?" – with Van Morrison on his album Re-working the Catalogue

2017 – Music from The American Epic Sessions: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – contributing his version of "High Water Everywhere"

Filmography

Live DVDs

2002 – Live at Ronnie Scott's 1988

2006 – Taj Mahal/Phantom Blues Band Live at St. Lucia

2011 – Play The Blues Live From Lincoln Jazz Center – with Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton, playing on "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" and "Corrine, Corrina"

Movies

1972 – Sounder – as Ike

1977 – Brothers

1991 – Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

1996 – The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus

1998 – Outside Ozona

1998 – Six Days, Seven Nights

1998 – Blues Brothers 2000

1998 – Scrapple

2000 – Songcatcher

2002 – Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

2017 – American Epic

2017 – The American Epic Sessions

TV Shows

1977 - Saturday Night Live: Episode 048 Performer: Musical Guest

1985 - Theme song from Star Wars: Ewoks

1992 – New WKRP in Cincinnati – Moss Dies as himself

1999 – Party of Five – Fillmore Street as himself

2003 – Arthur – Big Horns George as himself

2004 – Theme song from Peep and the Big Wide World

#05/17

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undsowiesogenau · 6 years

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Nie wieder Podcasts

Gestern traurig eingeschlafen, und das nur, weil ich abends einen Podcast eingeschaltet hatte. Er sollte mich unterhalten beim Kartoffeln schälen. Zwei Frauen redeten über das Thema »Offene Beziehung«. Die eine hatte aktuell gar keine Beziehung, weil sie von »Menschen gelangweilt« war, würde aber keine offene Beziehung wollen, weil sie dann befürchten müsste, dass ihr Freund mit anderen Frauen besseren Sex hätte. Die andere pries offene Beziehungen an, denn alles andere schränke ihre Freiheit ein; sie erzählte dann allerdings hauptsächlich davon, wie sie keinen Sex hatte, unter anderem sogar in »Vegas« nicht. Beide Frauen warteten mit immer neuen Intim-Bekenntnissen auf, aber ich hatte nicht das Gefühl, sie kennenzulernen. Es war, als würde man jemandem in die Augen sehen wollen und die Pupillen wären riesengroß.

Ich schälte die Kartoffeln. Der Computer, der den Podcast abspielte, stand auf dem Küchentisch. Ich hatte das Gefühl, die Frauen selbst säßen da. Irgendwie musste ich sie loswerden, aber statt einfach auszuschalten, fühlte ich mich schuldig, so als wollte ich zwei von mir extra hergebetene Gäste rauswerfen. Nach einer halben Stunde gelang es mir endlich. Aber da war es schon zu spät. Die Kicherblödheit des Podcasts hing wie Rauch in der Luft.

Ich las zur Ablenkung im »Rough Guide to Reggae«. Besonders die Fotos schienen mir tröstlich. So blickte mich etwa das freundliche Auge von Niney the Observer durch das Mittelloch einer »Observers«-Platte an, die er sich vors Gesicht hielt. Ich würde bald noch viel mehr Reggae hören. Und nie wieder Podcasts.

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mondoradiowmse · 2 years

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12/07/22 Mondo Radio Playlist

Here's the playlist for this week's edition of Mondo Radio, which you can download or stream here. This episode: "Natty Dread", featuring classic reggae and dub. If you dig it, remember to also follow the show on Facebook and Twitter!

Artist - Song - Album

Keith Blake - Musically - Joe Gibbs Scorchers From The Early Years (1967-73)

Errol Dunkley - The Scorcher - Joe Gibbs Scorchers From The Early Years (1967-73)

The Actions - Giddy Up - Studio One Rocksteady, Vol. 2: Rocksteady, Soul And Early Reggae At Studio One

The Paragons - Change Your Style - Studio One Rocksteady, Vol. 2: Rocksteady, Soul And Early Reggae At Studio One

Bob Marley And The Wailers - Soul Rebel - Soul Rebels

Bob Marley And The Wailers - Try Me - Soul Rebels

Horace Andy - Just Say Who - Skylarking

Horace Andy - Every Tongue Shall Tell - Skylarking

Burning Spear - Marcus Garvey - Ultimate Reggae

Keith Hudson - Tribal War - Furnace

Keith Hudson - I Have A Faith - Furnace

Toots & The Maytals - Louie Louie - Funky Kingston

Culture - Two Sevens Clash - Dirty Water: The Birth Of Punk Attitude

Peter Tosh - Burial - Legalize It

Chrome Dinette - Robot Love - Robot Love (Single)

U-Roy - Chalice In The Palace - Dread In A Babylon

I Roy - Thinking Cap - Many Moods Of I Roy

Jah T - Grandfather Land - The Sound Doctor: Lee Perry And The Sufferers' Black Ark Singles And Dub Plates 1972-1978

Pat Francis - King Of Kings - The Sound Doctor: Lee Perry And The Sufferers' Black Ark Singles And Dub Plates 1972-1978

Lee Scratch Perry - Version Train - Upsetter Shop, Vol. 1: Upsetter In Dub

Lee Scratch Perry - Noah Sugar Pan - Upsetter Shop, Vol. 1: Upsetter In Dub

The Congos - Sodom & Gomorrow - Heart Of The Congos

The Congos - Solid Foundation - Heart Of The Congos

Jacob Miller - Who Say Jah No Dread - Who Say Jah No Dread: The Classic Augustus Pablo Sessions 1974-75

Jacob Miller - Each One Teach One Version - Who Say Jah No Dread: The Classic Augustus Pablo Sessions 1974-75

Augustus Pablo - Up Warrika Hill - Original Rockers

Augustus Pablo - Jah Dread - Original Rockers

Herman Chin-Loy - Heavy Duty - Aquarius Dub

The Ethnic Fight Band - Out Of One Man Comes Many Dubs - Out Of One Man Comes Many Dubs

The Ethnic Fight Band - Portobello Road Dub - Out Of One Man Comes Many Dubs

Dub Specialist - Bionic Dub - Bionic Dub

Dub Specialist - Squash Dub - Bionic Dub

Scientist - Steppers Dub - Introducing Scientist: The Best Dub Album In The World ...

Scientist - Chemistry Dub - Introducing Scientist: The Best Dub Album In The World ...

King Tubby & Friends - Guidance Dub - Dub Like Dirt 1975-1977

King Tubby & Friends - Bag A Wire Dub - Dub Like Dirt 1975-1977

Inner Circle Meets Maximillian At Channel One - Down Rhodesia - The Rough Guide To Dub

Revolutionaries - Nuclear Bomb - The Rough Guide To Dub

#Reggae #Dub #Music #Playlist #Radio #Milwaukee #WMSE #MKE

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kalpinga-blog · 3 years

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Hold Music

In those moments where you reach out for help, where you need nothing more than an intimate conversation with another human being in the cold of 3am, you often find yourself faced instead with hold music.

The hold music isn’t cruel or malicious, but it can feel that way. It can feel as if it’s a personification of the universe’s indifference as it laughs at you and your problems.

‘What’s that?’, the music says. ‘You wanted a way out of the labyrinth of your own crumbling mind? A way to find some semblance of peace in this chaotic and alien world? Best I can do is some smooth jazz’

And so, with nothing else to do, you listen to the smooth jazz. You feel it pour over you through a muffled answering machine filter. And you wonder all sorts of nonsense to yourself. How smooth is smooth jazz? Can jazz be rough? Coarse even? And the more you fall down this rabbit hole of rumination, you forget the reason you ever called in the first place.

The hold music won’t guide you out of the labyrinth - instead, it invites you into a new one. One that is somehow strange, yet intimate. Foreign, but familiar. It dresses itself up in a trench coat of piano music and marimba, concealing a truer path to your inner psyche than any support officer could ever show you. For it is in those moments of hold music, where you’re baffled by the absurdity of its existence in the place of silence, that you find who you really are.

You aren’t your problems. And you aren’t the bad things in your head. You’re just someone who wonders why, of all the music created throughout history, this reggae track was picked to hold others back from the brink of suicide.

You’re probably more salvageable than whoever picked that track.

And this realisation always hits you just as the music ends. Just as it awkwardly clunks off into an abrupt silence. It steals away your problems, leaving a now cold-seeming human voice in its place. And, as they ask you how they can be of service, your mind goes remarkably blank.

You don’t know how to explain that the hold music has, in a way, already done their job for them.

#short story #hold music

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audio-bomb · 3 years

Photo

The Rough Guide To Reggae - Going deep into the beginning of the genre in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It also beings in some 1st wave Ska, and ends with some early 80s reggae. Overall a fantastic look into the genres origins. (1997, World Music Network) https://www.instagram.com/p/CUEW_DEr9D2/?utm_medium=tumblr

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seashelbytravel · 5 years

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Prachuap Khiri Kahn, Thailand

June 5-7, 2019

The town who taught me how to meditate like Buddha. Who taught John how to drive a motorcycle. Who taught us how to ride together. The perfect parent town to send us off the right way into our adventure. With the perfect guides.

I’ll explain.

We caught a bus from Pechetburi (the cave town) to Prachuap. We got in around sundown. A sleepy sweet, quiet beach town. We chose a guest house named “Grandma’s House” (of course 💕). A beautiful teak wood home run by several mothers and their little girls.

We decided to hop across the street to a small pizza shop. There was one other couple there. A rough looking man and his pretty Thai native wife. The owner quickly came up to us with menus, a fan, and the warmest most welcoming smile I’ve ever seen. This man had dreads down to his knees and Thai reggae playing. Ahhhh 🥰 comfort. We ordered a pizza. He sat with us. He immediately connected with me and asked me if I was okay. Honestly, I was worn from the travel and my nerves were a little fried. He saw me. We ended up bonding with the other couple and joined them. The man was so drunk. He and John hit it off, but one look at me and he said “He didn’t like my eyes. I had a look that could kill”. But he said this in broken English. I won’t disclose where he was from because he is now very dear to me. At the time, I was offended. He kept picking on me. At one point he turned to John and said “you like this?” While pointing at me. John responded “I LOVE this”. And hugged me. He told the guy to lay off and he did. I was still upset. Bibong (the pizza shop owner) and I struck up conversation and connected deeper. Bibong told me how drunk the other man was, and that he wouldn’t be the same tomorrow. To not be offended. He said he could tell that I can see people and this man probably was uncomfortable on some level with that. He said the man meant “I looked intense”. I understand. So I chilled. Bibong brought me a bowl of fresh fruit and some peanuts. He taught me how to “not play” the base guitar properly, because by playing under confinement, you stunt yourself. I was smiling from ear to ear after my time with Bibong. We also learned to match each other’s pitches by playing with spoons (or whatever) on drinking glasses. If I was playing with too much strength, the would play softer and I would learn to meet his pitch. He, the same. Then he brought John over for us to play together. Lesson in true balance anyone? The other man took John to rent a motorcycle. This guy is a big deal in this town. And a big deal wherever he lived before here. He got John a nice bike for a great price, and taught him how to ride. We agreed to meet them in the morning for a personal tour of the town. I was still uneasy about spending time with the other guy. I was pissed at his immediate (albeit accurate) reading of me. His wife was so kind. We went to bed.

The next morning I had my first “Thai Tea” and realized my debit card had sprung legs and disappeared somewhere in Bangkok. Froze my accounts and transferred money to John. More trust lessons.

We were up for the sunrise and it was....Ouufffff. Spectacular.

We met our new guide and his wife at 11 am. He took us to a local fishing pier where all of seafood in Bangkok (and the surrounding areas) is caught. Each fishing boat had its own unique brightly painted bodies. He (our guide) and his wife explained that all seafood distributed to Bangkok was caught here.

He then took us to his favorite temple. His sign is the Dragon. So is John’s. He said he couldn’t go in with us because “Buddha is his friend, and I weep”. He explained he didn’t feel loved by any other religion because of the judgment he may face. The Christ I know and loved dined with a multitude of sinners and loved them nonetheless. This man and whatever sins he’d racked up over his lifetime, felt differently. Fear and the Church can do that to a persons faith and inner peace I suppose. But, “Buddha loves him”. I was glad this man found a vessel to unconditional love and acceptance. This was John’s temple too. He was moved in a way I hadn’t seen, even after touring numerous other temples. We then went to our guides favorite private beach. I asked him why he moved to Thailand and he very seriously said “That’s a silly question”. I knew what he meant. He then took us to an outdoor restaurant where you selected your living crab, and boom: they prepare it for you. Divine. I love crab so much. My favorite seafood of all the seafoods. This was John’s first time having crab. He loved it. The man noticed how I can clean a crab from claw to claw and he was impressed. I’m winning him over.

Not that I needed to. I knew he already cared about Johnny and myself. But still, gotcha. We finished and decided to tour the local aquarium. After, he and his wife went home for a nap, and he told John and I where we should swim. We stopped for coffee and then off to the beach. The water was HOT. Shallow and roasting in the tropical sun all day. A warm bath, but beautiful nevertheless.

We retired to Grandmas house, then back to Bibongs’ Pizza joint. John played the guitar while Bibong played the glasses (once again). The man and his wife returned. He took John into town to purchase bus tickets for the next day. I sat with his wife while she opened up about her two sons, both of which were not in her day to day life. She misses them immensely. The father of her first son is deceased, and the second “isn’t a good man”, and she rarely sees the two year old. Bibong shared with me how the Buddha meditates under the tree. He told me of a way to sit for meditation that apparently is very difficult for one to achieve. I sat down and did it immediately. Both Bibong and the mans wife looked very surprised. Bibong rushed over to a drawer and pulled out one of his Buddha medallions. He wanted me to have it. He told me I already knew myself, that I just needed to “remember”. I happen to carry stones with me. I had a piece of amber from San Marcos, that I washed in the river before I left. I gave it to Bibong. I also had a pink opal (it is my favorite stone) and I gave that to the wife. She cried. It was a very sweet exchange on all sides. A monumental one for me. Bibong has a stone from my home, and I a relic from his. He gave one to Johnny upon his return. We carry them in our packs. Bibong and I discussed how similar Christ and Buddha seem to be, in their true essence. How the church and modern day Christianity has strayed so far from the divine unconditional love Christ practiced. He confirmed what I felt in my heart. That Buddha and Christ are probably very good friends. Don’t come for me. Why can’t there be peace amoung religious dieties? Just think about it.

We drank a little more. I shared with the man one of my favorite singers from his home country. He almost fell over. Got em again. He took us one by one back to our hotel. He kept saying to me how “he wasn’t a good man”. I looked very seriously at him and told him he was. Before I left, Bibong asked if he could kiss my cheeks. Of course. We hugged and he said “I’ll see you in heaven”.

John and I are planning on returning to this town before we leave Thailand.

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radioelnopal · 8 years

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Entry No. 92 - New Year, New Nopal

I’ts 2017!!! That means... a lot. Here’s some Latin funk to get you out of your funk!

Jungle Fire - Comencemos (Let's Start) - Tropicoso

The Funk Ark - Horchata - From the Rooftops

Los Superiores - Descarga Superior - Soundway Presents Panama 2!

Jimmy Sabater - Kool It Here Comes the Fuzz - El Barrio Funk

Los Destellos - El Boogaloo del Perro - Sicodelicos

Buena Vista Social Club - Candela - Buena Vista Social Club

Bobby Valentin - Descarga en Mozambique - Let's Turn On Arrebatarnos

Jungle Fire - Firewalker - Rough Guide to Latin Disco

Wganda Kenya - Combate a Kung Fu - Rough Guide to Latin Disco

Seguida - Funky Felix - El Barrio Funk

Antibalas - Out With The New In With The True - Government Magic

Los Revolucionarios - Mi Bella Panama - Soundway presents Panama 2!

Willie Colon - Hustler - The Hustler

Jackie Mittoo - Hang em High - YouTube

Cheo Feliciano - El Raton - A Man and His Music

Los Amigos Invisibles - No es Facil Amar una Mujer - Super Pop Venezuela

Roberto Roena - Que Se Sepa - Robert Roena y su Apollo Sound

Los Belkings - Sabata - Rough Guide to Latin Groove (Vol. 2)

Rafael Hernandez - Lamento Borincano - Melodias Para Recordar

Gustavo Cerati - Casa - YouTube

King Chango - Revolution/Cumbia Reggae - King Chango

Brownout - La Raza - La Raza/Arabeesh (single)*

Los Amigos Invisibles - Ultra-Funk - The New Sound of Venezuelan Gozadera

Monguito Santamaria - You Need Help - El Barrio

* denotes new releases

#freetheairwaves #college radio #radioenespañol #latin funk #latin disco

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Best Places to Visit in Jamaica

Negril Beach

Also referred to as Seven Mile Beach, Negril Beach is just one of Jamaica’s most beautiful stretches of white sand and subtropical sea and graces the list of this Caribbean’s finest beaches. The beach extends from Bloody Bay into Long Bay and the Negril Cliffs south of town. Tucked within groves of coconut palms, resorts fringe the coast , from large comprehensive hotels to smaller boutique possessions. Water sports abound, and snorkelers will find schools of fish swimming in the clean waters. Be ready for persistent hawkers prowling the shore. A Few of Negril’s most luxurious hotels lie across the shore, such as The Caves and also The Cliff Hotel.

Dunn’s River Falls

Encompassing a hundred and eighty meters of gently terraced waterfalls, Dunn’s River Falls is among Jamaica’s most popular organic sights. The falls tumble over rocks and lime stone ledges in to the sea. You may climb the organic tiers towards the top of the falls with all the assistance of a guide and cool off at the pools in the base. It’s a good concept to wear water shoes and apparel that you do not mind getting moist. Additionally, try to organize your visit to the cruise ship crowds. This tour stops from the village of 9 Mile,” birthplace of both Bob Marley, and then heads on into the Dunn’s River Falls, to get a guided hike until the falls and a float or float from the Organic pools. Lodge pickup and dropoff, entry fees, lunch, plus a guide are also included. Snorkel around coral reefs, like a sea cruise, also curl up and play from the drinking water at the falls. Hotel pickup and dropoff is included.

Rose Hall Great House

Builtin 1770, Rose Hall is just a restored plantation house or apartment with amazing ocean views. Legendary Annie Palmer (the White Witch) ruled here with cruelty and fulfilled a violent death. Now, her home is adorned with time furniture, also you can choose from per single day tour along with a spooky candlelit day tour topped off with tales of ghost sightings.

Mayfield Falls

Located in the hills , roughly a hour drive from Negril through woods villages, Mayfield Falls & Mineral Springs is a sanctuary for nature lovers. Here, you will find two amazing water falls; 2 1 natural pools; and also a profusion of ferns, tropical blossoms, and also different rain forest flora. Butterflies and birds flit through the lush foliage, also thatched river-side gazebos beckon for pitstops. It is possible to select from a guided hike over the river or you are able to wade through the waters that are cool, clambering over glistening boulders, jumping off shore, and relaxing underneath the cascades. Make sure you create a camera and also wear water swimwear and shoes.

Kingston

At the foot of the Blue Mountains, Jamaica’s busy capital city offers a cosmopolitan comparison to the island’s most relaxed pace. Gritty and rough round the edges, Kingston could be intimidating, however, you can view some of the town’s greatest tourist attractions on coordinated tours. The Bob Marley Museum, at the reggae superstar’s former home, is just one of Kingston’s most-visited attractions, along with reggae fans can also visit the Trench Town Culture Yard Museum in the ghetto where reggae music was born. Music concerts are usually staged at Emancipation Park, a palm-studded greenspace in the center of the metropolis, along with National Heroes Park features statues of leading players of Jamaican heritage and freedom. At the point of the peninsula enclosing Kingston Harbor establishes the community of port-royal , the focus of British fortification in the late 17th century.

Falmouth

Inspired by sugar diversification and cows property, Falmouth is just one of those Caribbean’s best-preserved cosmopolitan cities. Once a top interface, town provides exemplary types of 19thcentury Georgian structure, for example a faithful restoration of the courthouse. Greenwood Great House can be just actually really a big tourist attraction within the field. Other popular what to accomplish comprise researching Great Hope Plantation, an old-established sugar and coconut plantation constructed in 1755, also basking on Red Stripe along with Burwood Beach. East of Falmouth could be your Luminous Fireplace , known for its own marine phosphorescence.

Blue Hole

High in the rainforest-cloaked mountains out Ocho Rios, the Blue Hole (also called Island Gully Falls or the Irie Blue Hole) is really just a series of scenic water holes fed by gushing cascades. Guides guide you across the area where you can explore the drops and jump off cliffs into the sterile pools below. The experience involves clambering over slippery rocks, so appropriate water shoes are suggested.

Doctor’s Cave Beach

One among the greatest beaches in Montego Bay, Doctor’s Cave Beach is an alluring strip of white sand fringed by clear waters that helped shape the fate with the popular tourist town. From early 1920s, a famous British osteopath announced that the water had curative forces after swimming here, a promise that begun to lure people from around the globe. Hotels sprouted up, and the area became a popular tourist destination. The cave for which the beach is termed was destroyed by a hurricane in 1932, but the beach is as popular as ever and is often packed with cruise ship passengers.

Port Antonio

Place between a dual haven, Port Antonio borrows the relaxed charm of a sleepy fishing village. Once a centre for banana export, then the area is less commercial compared to other hotel towns. Popular what to accomplish this include hiking jungle paths, rafting the Rio Grande, carrying a trip to Attain Falls, along with diving and snorkeling the coral reefs. A favourite swimming spot could be your gorgeous 60-meter-deep Blue Lagoon, fed by freshwater springs. Additional highlights of this area range from the 18thcentury British stronghold of both Fort George along with also gorgeous Frenchman’s Cove, the place where a fish-filled river flows to the ocean. The beaches here are an excellent mixture of sand, shallow seas, and verdant outcroppings of property. Neighborhood, Daniel’s River plunges by means of a spoonful of pure stone in a succession of cascades and pools called Somerset Falls. To day, the island is now a popular for picnics and daytrips.

Reach Falls

Tucked from the Montane Forest of This John Crow Mountain Range, Reach Falls are among Jamaica’s prettiest and most peaceful falls. A gentle hike through tropical rainforest takes one to the top of the drops at which a lifeguard patrols. You’re able to stand under the flowing cascades, explore underwater caves, and float from the fern-fringed waters surrounded by volcano. Water shoes are advised.

Treasure Beach

Love the sun, sea and sand when kicking back it with sailors in Treasure Beach. As the four public beaches which make up Treasure Beach are open to people, a visit to Treasure Beach will reward you with a real adventure with locals and an chance to see Jamaican culture in an even more fulsome way. Tempt your taste buds with sumptuous Jamaican food and proceed biking, snorkeling, drifting across the coast before the area fisherman catches and serves up freshly-cooked fish or simply kick back and relax in the darkened vibes that’s Treasure Beach.

Best Places to Visit in Jamaica

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