#jakubazookas

[jefferyryanlong]

Fresh Listen - jakubazookas, Makiki (Bandcamp, 2019)

(Some pieces of recorded music operate more like organisms than records. They live, they breathe, they reproduce. Fresh Listen is a periodic review of recently and not-so-recently released albums that crawl among us like radioactive spiders, gifting us with superpowers from their stingers.)

Crossing over. Switching sides. Going electric. It’s a naive nostalgia in me to imagine that there was once a less cynical intent in popular music. Performers would experiment with the conventions of oppositional, and sometimes antagonistic, forms of expression. The reward for their labors was a kind of perverse artistic fulfillment, or the fulfillment of a buried, seething love; not simply to disburse their brands to a more expansive demographic.

Ray Charles, who gestated in the chrysalis of Nat King Cole’s sophistication and, once slickly emerged, satanically defiled the pure, earthy tones of the black church with his pebbled, honeyed voice pounding like tom-toms between clusters of piano keys, very respectfully recorded an album of country and western hits of his time, transfiguring his exhortations, street shuffles and come on’s to operatic pathos swelled by a string section. When the psychedelic swirl could no longer be summoned from the twelve strings of Roger McGuinn’s guitar, the Byrds made a similar change--with a blade of grass between their teeth, they switched out the Rickenbacker for a pedal steel, going whole hog for a shit-kicking sound that carried over, for the most part, to the rest of their recorded output as a band. And lest one forget the curly-headed kid who disposed of his Goodwill garments and political tongue-twisters for a black leather motorcycle jacket, and acid, visionary hipster jive popped off with supreme contempt and confidence, surfing atop the crest of an electric wave that crashed down hard on the balding, disapproving heads at the Newport Folk Festival, 1965. And shortly thereafter, he’d too abandon his visions and try out a mellow country croon, which drawled out moon, spoon, and June rhymes as effortlessly as he’d once sang “A question in your nerves is lit / yet you know there is no answer fit / to satisfy you, ensure you not to quit / to keep it in your mind and not forget / that it is not she or they or or it  / that you belong to.”

We might all agree that commercial genre distinctions in popular music are only convenient signifiers for selling product more effectively. But we might also agree that beyond the superficial textures enwrapping each genre--funky bass, mercurial fiddle, distortion, shouting, rhyming, singing through one’s nose--there is a spirit that crystallizes each music into a unique expression, which in turn defines the form. Musicians, past and present, have tried to tap into those spirits beyond their established ken with mixed results, sometimes succeeding in only a pose. (Apart from “Torn and Frayed,” the Rolling Stones, despite the quality of some of their country-tinged output, were never able to master the sound of the South without oozing their standard irony).

Consider jakubazookas’s Makiki, an arresting full-length departure (or, as the record's Bandcamp description reads, “a score to a film yet unwritten”) composed on and played through, primarily, secondhand, decades-old European synthesizers. The album’s auteur, Christopher Claxton, has involved himself in a side project that feels like a culmination, distilled from a rich musical history. It is a detour that could just as well be a radically remodeled home.

Chris’s jakubazookas music is hardly representative of his principal aesthetics. Though he has incorporated electronics into criminally off-the-grid alter egos Buford Brixton and Summatyme Playerrrz, those digital colors were primarily at the service of an often nostalgic lyric entwined with a melody that seemed to have been imprinted upon the throat of forever, indestructible and immortal. Essentially, though, Chris has been a guitar man, in the singer-songwriter mold (though a seriously effective bassist and shredder when called upon), his melancholy voice spinning short films from his never-dull lyrics. 

Makiki disposes of melody (mostly) and words. On every track Chris hammers, coaxes, sprays and blows replicant instrumental textures from his synths in a single-minded pursuit of setting a groove. In some of his greatest songs (”Happy Ending,” “Lula”), Chris has either presaged or debriefed the events of apocalypse within our little blue world. As jakubazookas, he continues to do so, though through funky, discordant, palpable, and hopelessly antiquated keyboards. 

Tension bordering on paranoia informed by sinister intent is essence of “Blowhole,” Makiki’s first track. Its discomfiting arrangement echoes the national mood, the descent into civic belligerence about the most trivial disagreements. “Blowhole” is simply an apt expression of our times, its recurring percussive motif rising and falling in the background, manifesting in the imagination as distorted chanting, or marching, as if the ancient armies of hate were being mobilized under our noses, just outside the screens of our cell phones. 

The irony of our infatuation with technology is that, in our extreme egotism, we want our technology to be more human-like, even as we despise the true humanity around us. As in our quest to usher in our own obsolescence through the creation of a legitimate artificial intelligence, we want our electric things to talk to us, to anticipate us, and to do so in comforting human speech.

The Mellotron, once of the early synthesizers, for which rolls of tape informed each of the keyboard’s back and white ivories, was built to mimic the stirring fullness of a classical orchestra. Thankfully, it was never used correctly--on songs from the Moody Blues, King Crimson, or Led Zeppelin, the notes of the Mellotron are inevitably uncanny. Despite the haunting quality of the instrument’s tape rolls (when warm, the tapes tended to stretch, giving them a human-voice fallibility), the Mellotron generates a very contemporary unease by the nature of its artificiality. 

The equivalent to the Mellotron on Makiki is a synth effect that appears first on “She Stay on Display” and recurs through the album. I think of it as a “Panophone”; it seems an ill-advised crossbreeding of Pan flute and saxophone, as well as several wind instruments in-between. Through careful overlays and ad-libbed pitch-shifts, Chris is almost able to evoke human breath through his Panophone. Dizzyingly, it chases its own tail between radiated mutants clustered together at a dystopian dance party, the DJ an algorithm spitting out rhythmic equations via a mainframe from 1980′s digital tech.

The soul of Chris Claxton can be discovered on “Coral Cavern,” where the most organic sway of these intricately programmed, wind-up birdsongs lives. Chris’s intimacy with hip-hop, though mostly absent from his guitar-based compositions, is evoked through an infectious call-and-response pattern, which plays out over a droning hurdy-gurdy of doom. 

Tipping his hand on the track “Floor Delete,” Chris at last goes all in on Prince--or at least an abstraction of Prince, projected hologram-style. The inspiration of the method behind Makiki becomes clear: a solo savant layering his electro bumps and buzzes, zapping an imitation of life from the overlapping electrical currents. “Floor Delete,” with its funky, Prince-ian bass-lessness, aspires to that ineffable spark that switches one from listening mode to dancing mode, while in our minds we picture flying cars lifting off from the dunes of deserts.

The Panophone emits some serious Lonely Shepherd feels on the meditative, New Age-style “Sloe Jam and Tonic,” while “1CH1″ and “A Death” lean into Makiki’s soundtrack nature as if the accompanying score to some horrifying onscreen discovery a la Air’s Virgin Suicides record. Though the discovery could be less cinematic than existential--both songs play as if some awful thought has just occurred, “A Death” propelled by the hateful riffing of an electric guitar just loud enough to be imposing.

Both “Grazie 001″ and “Internal Demands” are more complete compositions, as opposed to sustained vibes repeating their technological truths as mantras. While imperfect, each song has a definitive life cycle, a spectrum of modes and tones that begins and ends. “Rebirth,” with its hovering helicopter FX and unholy call to obscene prayer, seems much more terrible than its title would suggest, unless that suggestion is that we are born again in some hideous form we lack the capacity to comprehend. Rather, the song comes across as the end of a cursed life, the part where, trapped within a haunted canyon, you realize the hellhounds have at last tracked your scent and are baying in their bloodlust. 

The expression of dread--of inevitable climate disaster, of racial violence, of the erosion of protective institutions, of atavistic impulses we were sure we’d overcome through learning and a broader awareness--might as well be the lingua franca of our age. With Makiki, Chris Claxton temporarily eschews the artist he was born to be for the artist he must be, gently demanding listeners contextualize our shared predicament as filtered through the psychology of artifice, of saying (through an electronic simulacrum) one thing in an effort to convey a deeper, scarier, other thing.

[jefferyryanlong]

FEEL with DJ Jeff Long - January 27, 2021

the color of the dream i had

East-West - The Paul Butterfield Blues Band Hogbottom - Elvin Jones Hijack - Barry Miles Feelin’ Fine - Eddie Russ The Things You Do - Eddie Harris  One Rainy Wish - The Jimi Hendrix Experience Set Alamenem - Girma Beyene Casina Y Epidecus - Mirtha Y Raul Jungle Lion - Lee “Scratch” Perry and the Upsetters Funky Mama Moose - Roland Haynes The Harlem Buck Dance Strut - Les McCann Minnie - Miles Davis  Blue Monsoon - Brother Jack McDuff Bacalao Con Pan - Irakere The Mental Traveler - David Axelrod Shadow Tricks - Bonobo I Want You - Marvin Gaye  Soaring (At Dawn) - Les McCann Porpoise Song - The Monkees Bachelorette - Bjork Ride Into the Sun - The Velvet Underground Fawn - Tom Waits I Wish I Was in New Orleans - Scarlett Johansson Up on the Roof - The Drifters Superstar - Hi Rhythm Band Coral Cavern - jakubazookas I Feel Love - Donna Summer Dawn Chorus - Thom Yorke Aicelis - Roland Haynes Perpetual Motion - Comus Belur - Wax Audio Have to Go - Lovehandles

KTUH - 90.1 FM Honolulu, 91.1 FM North Shore, ktuh.org

[jefferyryanlong]

FEEL with DJ Jeff Long - May 20, 2020

when you build your house then call me home

Tram #7 to Heaven - Jens Lekman Sax Jive - Leribe Gator Tail - Lee Dorsey Kansas City / Hey Hey Hey - Little Richard Mean Old World - Little Walter Honolulu Blues - Miff Mole’s Molers Waikiki - George Helm Sandbar - Little Wings He‘eia - Gabby Pahinui Jah Jah Ah Natty Dread - Lee “Scratch” Perry and the Upsetters Please, Please, Please - James Brown Way Back in the 1960′s - The Incredible String Band O True Believers - James Blackshaw Galileo - Indigo Girls Sara - Fleetwood Mac Revelator - Gillian Welch  I’ll Fly Away - The Trumpeteers  The Big Country - Talking Heads Jennie Jenkins - Estil and Orna Ball The Werewolf - Michael Hurley Joanne - Michael Nesmith  Byth Yn Mynd Yn Ol - Galwad Y Mynydd Morning Colors - Linda Perhacs Tears Fall - Linus Strangers - The Kinks Glad and Sorry - The Faces Lady Midnight - Leonard Cohen Continuum - Gabriela Montero The Telephone Lines Got Crossed - Jamee Warrenfeltz Blues for Pablo - Miles Davis Once Upon a Dream - Laika Stardust - Django Reinhardt The Days Before Fiction - Mice Parade One Step at a Time - Husker Du Utopia #1 - Amon Duul A Death - Jakubazookas Take 5, D - The Minutemen Cohesion - The Minutemen V. - Mimi and Richard Farina The Bold Marauder - Mimi And Richard Farina Knife - Grizzly Bear

KTUH FM Honolulu - 90.1 FM Honolulu, 91.1 FM North Shore, ktuh.org

[jefferyryanlong]

FEEL with DJ Jeff Long - January 15, 2019

your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working overtime

Music Is My Sanctuary - Gary Bartz Expansions - Lonnie Liston Smith Rozzie - Gene Ammons 153rd Street Theme - Larry Willis You’se a Viper - Stuff Smith and His Onyx Club Boys Your Mind Is on Vacation - Mose Allison Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Hm Goodbye) - The Belmonts My Sweet Lord - The Belmonts Hare Krishna - Marion Williams The Trip - Bobbi Humphrey  Elegie - Bjorn Alkes Kvartett Woman of the World - Donald Byrd Woman of the World - Marvin Gaye One - Leon Thomas India - Gato Barbieri Moon and Sand - Chet Baker Metamorphosis Two - Philip Glass O True Believers - James Blackshaw Blowhole - jakubazookas School Play - Daniel Lopatin Transformer Man - Neil Young Humpty Dumpty - The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble  Rise of the East- The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble Isaac Hayes - Ghost Funk Orchestra Taifa - Gary Bartz NTU Troop Music, You All (live) - Cannonball Adderly Waiting on a Friend - The Rolling Stones Moonlight Serenade - Glenn Miller Giving Him Something He Can Feel - En Vogue Songs My Mother Taught Me - Antonin Dvorak Clair de Lune - Kamasi Washington KTUH FM Honolulu - ktuh.org

[jefferyryanlong]

FEEL with DJ Jeff Long - December 4, 2019

in all your revelation

Wigwam - Bob Dylan Peaks of Yew - The Mattson 2 Floor Delete - jakubazookas Holding Company - Ray Barbee Flying - The Beatles The Fool on the Hill - The Four Tops Till There Was You* - Peggy Lee Burning of the Midnight Lamp - The Jimi Hendrix Experience Reb’ll Message - Richard Reb’ll Hyacinth House - The Doors “T” Plays It Cool - Marvin Gaye Don’t Mess with Mr. “T” - Brother Jack McDuff Black Satin - Miles Davis Spaced Cowboy - Sly and the Family Stone Yekermo Sew - Mulatu Astatke Attack el Robot! Attack! - Calexico Cypress Avenue (live) - Van Morrison Ooo Baby Baby (live) - Smokey Robinson and the Miracles Baby, What You Want me to Do (live) - Elvis Presley Crawfish - Elvis Presley By the Time I Get to Phoenix - Isaac Hayes High Tide - Eddie Suzuki The Lonely Sea - The Beach Boys  Dawn Chorus - Thom Yorke God Only Knows - Gary McFarland and Co. Crest - Tortoise I Got Rhythm - The Residents Bird in Hand - Lee “Scratch” Perry and the Upsetters Speak to Me - The Relatives Fat Mama - Herbie Hancock Four Corners (Part 2) - Lee Perry White Lines (Don’t Do It) - Grand Master Flash and Melle Mel Walking On - The Relatives Girl from Addis Ababa - Mulatu Astatke Tezeta - Mulatu Astatke

* - by request

KTUH FM Honolulu - ktuh.org

[jefferyryanlong]

FEEL with DJ Jeff Long - November 6, 2019

and my soul has been psychedelicized

Time Has Come Today - The Chambers Brothers How Blue Can You Get (live) - B.B. King Please Love Me (live) - B.B. King Machine Gun (live) - Jimi Hendrix Is That All There Is - Peggy Lee African Village - McCoy Tyner Abraham, Martin, and John (live) - Smokey Robinson and the Miracles Lumkili (live) - Pharoah Sanders Cold Turkey - Freddie Hubbard King Harvest (Has Surely Come) - The Band Sign O’ the Times - Prince Controversy - Prince Coral Cavern - jakubazookas (Christopher Claxton) Fire - Arthur Brown Fufu - Donald Byrd Andy’s Walk - Chico Hamilton Peregrinations - Chico Hamilton Maiden Voyage (live) - Herbie Hancock Vera Cruz - Wayne Shorter Falsa Bahiana - Gato Barbieri The Hypnotist - Korla Pandit Procession of the Grand Moghul - Korla Pandit She Stay on Display - jakubazookas (Christopher Claxton) Me and the Devil - Gil Scott-Heron Have to Go - Tommy Yasuhara

KTUH FM Honolulu - ktuh.org

[jefferyryanlong]

FEEL with DJ Jeff Long - January 29, 2020

if you find someone who cares to give a lifetime to you

Body and Soul - Monty Alexander, Ray Brown, and Herb Ellis Chant - Coleman Hawkins Flyin’ Hawk - Coleman Hawkins Caravan - Medeski, Martin, and Wood Black Lipstick (Instrumental) - Chicano Batman Slow Down - Ghost Funk Orchestra Mae Cambina - Airto De pois do amor, o vazio (After Love, Emptiness) - Wayne Shorter Cheese and Onions - The Rutles Owuo - Sawaaba Soundz Funky River - Sure Fire Soul Ensemble Cavity Pressure - jakubazookas Loaded - Primal Scream Gemini - Jimmy Heath Por Una Cabeza - Carlos Gardel Somniloquy - Tin Hat Trio P.P. Phoenix - Elvin Jones Love (Can Make You Happy) - Mercy Reincarnation - Booker T. and the MG’s Blktop Project - And the Stylus Followed Berry Streets - Chon (eat. Go Yama) Andy Andy - Tommy Yasuhara New York Sister - Harold Alexander Bonus Track - Blank Check Waves - Harry Sonoda How Are Things in Glocca Morra? - Hampton Hawes Trio Sparkplug Minuet - Mark Motherbaugh Arthur’s Line - Alika Lyman Group Miserlou - Martin Denny I Can’t Leave Her Behind - Bob Dylan R2, M1 - Ron Carter If I Needed Someone - Hugh Masekela Final Theme- Bob Dylan

KTUH FM Honolulu - KTUH.org