#not the breakdown but the. you know keyboards and percussion solo

[angstics]

I feel like sing (the mcr song) would benefit greatly from a total barrage of sound rather than a fairly (and purposefully) thin instrumental. i dont know if i imagined this or if it’s another instrument or something, but i just heard a saxophone quietly going ham at the end of the song and this delighted me greatly. Saxophone could have saved the song

[lnights]

okay, so I might have a little request. In a lot of your storys you mention that Aleksi has a thing with seriously overworking himself, and I think you had him dizzy and sick once, and made him fall asleep from exhaustion because of this i think more than once. So I am actually kind of craving a scenario where Aleksi is so overworked that he actually passes out from it, or injures himself or has a breakdown because of it or whatever else could happen that I now can't think of. (The boys probably tried to prevent this from happening, but we all know how subborn he is)

Whump Aleksi you say? Gladly👀

Side note I love having him in some way fall asleep and need to be taken care of, it warms my cold heart.

...

Aleksi took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

They only had a week in the studio before they started the next leg of their tour, and they needed to get done as much as possible.

HE needed to get done as much as possible.

With LOTSAD they had decided to produce it themselves, do as much of the process themselves that they possibly could, and they would be doing the same on this next album.

And since he had the most production experience, having been a major part of his solo career, it had been delegated to him.

And of course he still helped with songwriting, they all collaborate on their songs and lyrics.

And he helped with the recordings.

Came up with his own demos...

And then of course his parts of songs, making sure any percussion or samples were perfect.

And if Niko wanted to run through something with someone else that could play keyboard, why wouldn't he help?

And Tommi trusted his opinion on the drum tracks so he HAD to make sure he was available for that.

And he and Joonas worked so well when he had demo ideas, they had even put together one of their singles!

And Joel always wanted his opinion on the vocals, plus he was the only one who would indulge him in conversation on song stats because he watched them like a hawk too.

And Olli is as happiest and worked the best when they were all together...

For a moment he felt his heartbeat increase, his breath starting to come faster, and he decided he needed to get away from the desk.

How long has he been sitting there? The guys had gone home at least a couple hours ago...

He looked at his phone and groaned.

5:32am. More then a couple hours then.

Sure enough, when he went to their window and moved the thick curtain, there was sun painting the sky streaks of purple and orange.

They had agreed to all meet up again at 8.

Aleksi sighed and went to brew a new pot of coffee, there is as no reason to go home for such a short period of time. His mom still has Rilla, so he didn't need to worry about his baby.

He was already on his third cup when the guys got in, well rested and joking, ready for a new day.

He caught a couple concerned looks, but he waved them off. He could handle it. No one would ever be able to say he lacked work ethic.

But as the day progressed he felt his chest just get tighter and tighter and he needed it to stop because he was getting more and more concerned looks, Olli gently suggesting he take a break, Joonas trying to pull him away from the desk because his chair was on wheels but Aleksi knew he was stronger and yanked himself back, telling him he was in a groove and he didn't want to lose his momentum.

When the group decided to finally break for a late lunch, Niko came to look over his shoulder.

"Um... Alex? Did you record that last take?"

Aleksi blinked up at him. Of course he had, it was-

Not there.

He clicked through a couple of files, the tightness in his chest gripping his heart.

The last recording, the best of the day by far, was gone.

Had he not saved it? Had he somehow forgot to hit record?

"Fuck." He ground out. "Sorry. Fuck."

Niko patted his shoulder "Not a big deal man, it happ-"

But Aleksi couldn't hear him anymore.

Almost as if out of himself, he got up and walked to the bathroom, locking the door behind him and slid down against a wall.

How could he be so stupid as to not hit the record button? He knew what he was doing. He KNEW how to hit a fucking button!

What the fuck did they even need him for if he couldn't even do this right? The simplist of things.

He looked down at the BC logo right above his wrist, trying to not let tears escape.

Why had they even let him in the band?

He needed to get control of himself, let this roll off his back and get back to work, he would worry them if he didn't.

But he realized he was shaking, tears were running down his face and he couldn't stop.

It was absurd. He was an adult and a professional, he wasn't a newbie teen anymore, why was he reacting like this to one fuck up?

He heard a knock on the door

"Aleksi?" It was Tommi, "you've been in there a while, you ok?"

He needed to respond, he need to assure Tommi he was ok. They needed to rerecord because of him, they needed to go over the drum tracks, they needed to-

"Alex!" Tommi was a bit louder, "hey say something!"

He couldn't make his mouth work, a pathetic noise between a whimper and wheeze came out of him instead.

But Tommi must of heard it because he heard him swear before he walked away.

A couple minutes later he realized there was something happening to the door, a strange scratching noise at the knob before the lock moved and the door opened.

Joonas stood up, a bobby pin in his hand as Tommi and Joel ran in.

"Shit" Joel swore. "Allu, what happened?"

He looked at Joel, tied to make his restricted throat work but still couldn't.

"Panic attack I think." Tommi said softly.

The larger man crouched down by him. "Can I touch you?" He asked.

Aleksi nodded a bit, still unable to talk.

A strong arm wrapped around him and he found himself against the other man's side.

He felt a something cold press against the back of his neck, making him gasp and clearing the wild thoughts in his head suddenly, looking to see Olli kneeling on the other side of him, holding the wash cloth to him.

Joel had taken his hands, rubbing the knuckles just slightly, telling him to breathe.

Instead of relaxing or working, they were taking care of him.

He was pathetic.

He was able to look up when Niko and Joonas joined them in the small room, both of them loaded with backpacks.

"We got everyone's stuff." Joonas said, "Let's go."

He finally found his voice. "We don't need to-"

Five voices cut him off at once, Tommi's the loudest being in his ear.

"You can walk to the car or I will carry you. Your choice."

With an almost hysterical laugh he tried to get to his feet, muscles held tight for so long screaming at him and rushing pins and needles to his limbs.

They stayed around him as they led him out of the studio and out to the lot, dividing up when they got to the cars, Joel sitting in the back of Joonas's car with him, an arm firmly around him.

They took him back to Niko's place because it was largest, directing him to the couch.

Olli made him some tea while he was pushed and pulled so that his head was in Niko's lap, his hair being stroked.

He knew they would want to talk about it, but the tightness was gone as they spoke to him, told him stupid jokes and made sure he was comfortable.

He felt his eyes drifting closed, but he heard Joonas's final comment.

"You have nothing to prove with us ya'know? You're one of us, no getting out of it now."

He smiled before his exhausted body dragged him to sleep.

[nobody-knose--archive]

hey all, resident person who does music analysis without knowing how to do music analysis here (looking at you, mind electric post from last september with a few dozen notes), have you ever wanted a vaguely concise list of all the differences between not one, not three, but two different versions of ruler of everything? i made it regardless.

to start, i’ve got to highlight various aspects of the ruler of everything mmmm 2008 version (the reference i’m using to compare the other versions with):

-the bpm is 83

-the key is b minor (bm)

-instruments featured include various strings (violin, cello, bass, i probably can’t name them all by ear), glockenspiel, chimes, acoustic guitar, calliope, drums of course (a drumkit), a specific keyboard synth, electric guitar, bass guitar, choral vocals separate from the lyrical ones (technically not an instrument but i’m including it here for a reason), tambourine, and one more percussion instrument that i genuinely cannot name precisely but theorize is some snare-drum-with-brushes shenanigans or maybe possibly a güiro (sounds like lighting a match, you can hear it in the breakdown part).

-the song is 3:42 long, not counting 13, which is, of course, 13 seconds long

-approximately 32 seconds of it is the outro with only glockenspiel

-notable situations in which there are differences between audio channels include the intro, where the glockenspiel is mostly, but not entirely, stored within the left channel; the reversed cymbals leading into the second verse, where two separate cymbal tones are played in each channel, with very little overlap; the “aaah”s following the first verse of “ruler of everything”, where the sounds switch between coming mostly, but not entirely, in the left & right channels; the reversed “jackrabbit” line, where the sound starts on the right channel and ends in the left, never entirely in only one channel; the laughter immediately following the “wonderful life” verse, which pans between the left & right channels; during the bridge, where there are some backwards vocals that hang out greatly in the left channel and, to a lesser (& different) extent, the right; the final “smile” at the end of the bridge, which echoes between channels as it fades away; and the final choral vocal during the outro, which emanates more from the left channel, though it is still present in the right.

-miscellaneous points in which there are differences between audio channels include, in about the entirety of the “do you like how i dance?” verses, guitar power chords are heard primarily in the left some bowed string flairs come primarily in the right or left (i would guess there’s a cello part in the right & a normal violin part in the left, but i can’t name them by ear), and there’s an electric guitar riff that dwindles off in the left shortly before the breakdown/bridge. during the bridge there is the aforementioned weird percussion bit coming in primarily in the left, two separate reversed synth riffs in the right & left, and another electric guitar riff primarily in the left. during the final chorus, the vocoded (a la taken for a ride 05 ver) and deeper vocals are more present in the right channel than the left & vice versa, respectively, though neither is fully absent from the other.

now that we’ve got this out of the way, time to look at the 2005 release:

-right off the bat, there’s a couple key differences. the key itself is raised up half a semitone, which less places it in a different key & more makes it sound horrendously out of tune with the 08 release. the tempo is also slightly faster, despite its longer length of 4:17 (about 1:10 of which is the glockenspiel-solo outro, about 22 seconds of which is silence covering up the existence of hidden in the sand, with the following 19 seconds being ocean sfx that further lead into hidden in the sand). i’d place the tempo around 85 or 86 bpm, not a significant change, but enough to offset it from the 08 ver.

-instruments featured include- with those that appear in both the 08 & 05 versions in bold, and those that only appear in this version in italics- various strings (i’d wager the same ones as in 08), glockenspiel, calliope, acoustic guitar, real bells/chimes, a specific keyboard synth, a drumkit, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, choral vocals separate from the lyrical ones, that same unnamed percussion instrument from earlier (but more subdued), and tambourine.

boy, that sure is a lot of the same instruments isn’t it? time to move into the meat of the differences: musical shenanigans!

-for starters, the 05 ver sports many different mixes between audio channels from the 08 ver. the intro glockenspiel is located squarely in the left audio channel, leaving only an echo in the right (far less space in between than the 08 ver); the reversed cymbals are mixed together in both channels rather than separated; the calliope is only found in the left channel; the specific keyboard synth is only found in the right channel (this & the previous point apply to the entire track); the small guitar riff during the “powerful job” line that follows the “i’ve been you” melody is mostly in the left; when the glockenspiel returns around the final verse it keeps primarily to the right channel for the rest of the song; the wonky percussion instrument is only in the right channel for the first go of the breakdown, but switches to the left for the transition between the two; the electric guitar riff is far less relegated to only the left, if at all; the reverse tambourine during the transition to the other half of the breakdown is mostly in the right; and the cello (i think) that comes in before the final chorus emanates more from the left channel.

-concerning the vocals in particular for the audio channels, the gentle “ah-ah”s in the first verse move from the left to right channels; the “aaah”s following the first lines of ruler of everything are less concentrated in individual audio channels; the reversed “jackrabbit” line pans between channels more than once; zubin & joe’s vocals across their verses before the breakdown do various things such as taking place entirely within the left & right channels respectively, only having a line’s echo in the one channel, having two different audio distortions/harmonies of a line be in different channels, or having a distorting line pan between channels; the laughter immediately following the “wonderful life” verse is mostly found in the right audio channel; the vocalize following the “you’re making me cry” line is mostly in the left; the falsetto harmony in the following verse is mainly in the right; one deeper, distorted harmony in the intro to the breakdown is only in the left; the final “smile” at the end of the breakdown keeps more closely to each ear as it echoes between them; the deeper and vocoded distorted vocals during the final chorus are fully relegated to the left & right channels, respectively; the “aaah”s following the final lines of ruler of everything switch between coming primarily from the right & left channels; and the echo on the final line is, in one part, offset & in primarily the left channel, and in another part, distorted & primarily in the right channel.

boy oh boy! that sure is a lot isn’t it? what if i told you the part i’m going to cover next includes literally everything else. not being a trained musician, i at the very least won’t start by pointing out every subtle difference in mixing & mastering, and instead catalogue all the other changes i can pick up on. granted, i’m going to ignore the obvious things like sound quality, alternative harmonies/melodies/etc, and different samples, and i’ll try not to restate anything that can be gleaned from comparing the data further up this post

-assorted differences of note include generally greater acoustic guitar use (notably in the first verse), amplified reverb on too many lines to count (the “aaah”s, first verse, and zubin’s lines are notable at least), drastically reduced echo on the reversed “jackrabbit” line, a complete lack of vocal distortion on all of zubin’s lines, far quieter hi-hat from the “practice your mannerisms” line on to the next verse, the chime in the buildup to the breakdown is louder & holds for longer, there’s no glockenspiel immediately following the breakdown, and a far stronger echo placed on the final line.

is this it? is it the end? good question. i could very easily move on & do this all over again with the complete demos version, if anybody cares about that. but from my own point of view, i find that ver to be so different from the finished product that it’d be like comparing a song and a cover of it. anyway, if the tally hallmanac page for ruler of everything gets updated based on all the work i did i want to be cited. the wikia gets a pass though

[100albumcountdown]

5. Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen we are Floating in Space (1997)

There is no other album quite like Ladies and Gentlemen we are Floating in Space. Although it contains many familiar elements – the euphoric surge of gospel, the churning swirl of psychedelic rock, the snotty snarl of brit-pop, and the world-weary ache of the blues – it combines them in a way that’s entirely unique, even within Spiritualized’s own three decade long discography. The ideas that inform this album can all be found in the story that precedes its creation: in a cocktail of heartbreak and heroin abuse that steeps every note of every track. Prior to recording this album, Spiritualized keyboard player (and Pierce’s long-time girlfriend) Kate Radley ditched him and married Verve front-man Richard Ashcroft soon after. Pierce dealt with this blow by upping his heroin consumption to Herculean proportions and creating his finest record to date – an album that echoes all of the glazed detachment of a desperate drug dependent, yet periodically weeps, bleeds and howls as it struggles to contain the great sorrow it holds back like a dam in a flood. This dichotomy defines the entire album, from its spiral-like sequencing with its violent mood swings, to its overwhelming sense of barely contained anguish that eventually erupts in the form of devastating closer ‘Cop Shoot Cop’. The opening duo of the title track and first single ‘Come Together’ set the scene; the former piling on loops of layered vocals and shimmering instrumentation into a majestic swell of starry-eyed melancholy, before crashing headfirst into the latter – a thuggish, muscular declaration of pure nihilism that surges forward in blasts of brass and squealing feedback. Everything you need to know about this album can be found in these opening ten minutes – the dense production, the swirling textures that alternately soothe and leap forward in a vicious assault, and the whirlpool of emotion that Pierce is constantly spinning in. His voice moves from lip-curling detachment to quivering sadness in a heartbeat, and the music follows suit: the whiplash-inducing ‘All of my Thoughts’ switches between gentle, forlorn verses and frantic, explosive, free-form breakdowns like a tornado crashing through a funeral home.  As the album progresses, these contrasts grow longer and deeper – the dense, tender, narcotic waltz of ‘Stay With Me’ is smashed to pieces by the furious charge of ‘Electricty’ – a song that evokes it’s namesake with a breakneck flurry of live-wire guitar noise, crashing drums and spluttering harmonica soloing. The record reaches the depths of abstraction in the form of ‘Home of the Brave’ and ‘The Individual’, two tracks that finally swallow Pierce’s longing whole by slowly consuming it in total chaos. Just as it seems like everything as been washed away in a sea of droning noise, ‘Broken Heart’ swims into view; a gorgeous, aching, string-laden expression of utter loss rendered even more powerful by it’s positioning between the astringent grind of ‘The Individual’ and the freeform mania of ‘No God Only Religion’. By the time ‘Cool Waves’ rolls round and the gospel choirs are finally soothing the pain away, it begins to feel like Pierce has exorcised his demons and found peace at last, but the epic finale of ‘Cop Shoot Cop’ has one last trick up it’s sleeve. Stalking forward with grim resolve, the verses create a hypnotic eddy of piano licks, finger snaps and queasy guitar textures, before each chorus whips it all up into a spinning frenzy of crashing percussion, swirling organ and psychedelic noise. Each time it just brushes the edge of the abyss, but pulls back at the last minute. By the third repetition it can’t hold itself together anymore and everything begins to rip itself apart, revealing the vast, aching pit of pain and confusion inside. For what feels like an eternity the horns blast, the guitars melt, the drums cascade, and the bass tumbles into what can only be described as an aural black hole. Eventually in the distance a solitary trumpet appears, signalling the way back to dry land, followed by sighing, wordless voices and eventually a discernable rhythm. Once calm is restored, Pierce reappears for one last time – his voice still numb, still broken – but seemingly at peace, as the song quietly drifts to a gentle close. There is no other piece of pop music in the world that comes close to what Spiritualized manage to achieve with ‘Cop Shoot Cop’, nor is there any album that manages to express the emotional turmoil of heartbreak and loss better than this. It’s not subtle, lyrically or musically; it won’t ease your pain like some folksy troubadour’s musings or some whimsically ironic synth-pop. Instead it reaches deep into the very heart of what it’s like to be crushed, lost, and fucked up inside, and it splatters the blood-soaked mess over a 70 minute long canvas using every mode of musical expression that ever found a way to mourn the loss of love and hope. It’s a beautiful, devastating, fascinating, overwhelming experience, and it’s a masterpiece in the truest sense of the word.

Also listen to: Songs in A+E, Live at the Royal Albert Hall

[linernotesandseasons]

My 18 Favorite Albums of 2018

Well...Here it is again! 2018 was a...YEAR. One of the toughest I’ve had so far. But full of hard work, growth, challenges, & little victories. Here are some of the albums that soundtracked it. 18 releases that I loved & supported. Songs that helped me make it through. For the seventh year in a row...My favorite albums. Listed here in no particular order (unless you know/enjoy the english alphabet). Top 5 are probably Monae, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Field Report, McEntire, & Liza Anne, in that order. Music marks time & space. These are the ones for this year. Enjoy! 

AMERICAN TRAPPIST   /   Tentanda Via

       We start our 2018 journey in a comfortingly familiar place with the second official full length album from Toms River, New Jersey’s American Trappist. His self-titled debut made my 2016 favs list and his old band River City Extension (top 5 reunion tour wish list for sure!) were second to Fun. on my list way back in 2012. Safe to say Joe Michelini is one my favorite songwriters of the last 10 years. Lucky for us, 2018 found Michelini writing equal parts depressing & uplifting boardwalk rock & roll for/from the underdog/underground. Tentanda Via (Latin for “the way must be tried”) is a blast of an album; full of horns, drums (both jazzy & rock & roll-y!), inspired piano, & Michelini at the helm sounding altogether confident in his existential breakdowns. To me this reads like a coming-of-age album at heart (the way must be tried!), but a deeper, wiser sort of unraveling. A mid-30′s rock opus about learning to live with yourself. Learning how to make yourself better. These songs are inspiring and mix more than a little Springsteen ethos (maybe it’s the horns?!) with some late 90′s/early 2000′s emo/indie/alternative etc...

The straightforward rockers “Death Wish” & “Nobody’s Gonna Get My Soul” bookend the nine track album with surprisingly nimble & crunchy electric riffs and off-the-charts energy! In between, the mid tempo drive of “Getting Even” & “Don’t Get In” lets Michelini’s emotional writing really shine. The words jump out of the songs, full of passion, desperation, & an urgency that makes me glad people are still making records like this. There’s also a unholy, weird interlude that you have to hear to believe called “Unfresh Dirtwolf.” American Trappist is a band that came from the ashes of another band. A band that seems reluctant to tour West of...Ohio. A band that stays under the radar. Michelini has been writing some of my favorite songs for awhile & it feels good growing older together. Here’s hoping for a new one of these every other (or just every?!) year for me to belt along to with the windows down in my Subaru. Joe, if you’re listening out East, don’t stop. This is why I love music. 

       “Driving through my hometown I feel the peace of the Lord / Ride up behind me on a blind dream from my childhood / Looking back again, it’s hard to understand / Getting older, I guess I do / Waiting on some waking dream like it might find you...”

BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT   /   Mother of My Children

       I bought Black Belt Eagle Scout’s debut album at Twist & Shout Records the day it came out. I think I loved the cover art and the idea of Katherine Paul’s solemnly solo rock album, recorded in the dead of Winter in rural Washington, sounding like just what I wanted in my headphones to face the Fall. Then (as so often happens) I got a text a month later from my partner at 12:27am that read simply...

“I’m okay. Going to bed meow. Listen to Black Belt Eagle Scout.” 

From there we took Mother of My Children on a snowy road trip to Durango, Colorado. Crisscrossing mountain passes through snowstorms, & visiting Mesa Verde National Park, we let Paul’s earnest, determined, & emotional songs, sweep us into the gray. All this to say that this album has already marked some pretty specific time & place for me. There is a starkness to these songs, a simplicity that makes the songwriting stand alone. Where lesser lyricists would be revealed as phonies (or simply bad) Katherine Paul’s stark, powerful words are illuminated by her minimalist production. With a rhythmically mournful 80′s/90′s emo touch (for more modern emo fans I might even hear a little Manchester Orchestra) Paul doesn’t pull any punches. The guitar gets delightfully heavy on the outro to six minute epic opener “Soft Stud” and then twirls & spirals with the drums in the entrancingly sad “I Don’t Have You in My Life.” This is an important album for Paul to have written and there is a great power in her words. Oh also... she plays every instrument on the album!?! Guitar, bass, drums, vibraphone, keyboard, organ, various percussion, & all vocals. Very Vagabon. Very Caroline Rose (spoiler alert!)! With our world on fire, and full of threats (from our own government) to native lands & native people, it’s increasingly important to listen to and hear/heed the words and writings of people like Paul; a radical, indigenous, queer, feminist from Oregon. Thanks for speaking out KP. Listen to Black Belt Eagle Scout. 

       “Do you ever notice what surrounds you? When it’s all bright & tucked under / Do you ever notice what’s around you? When it’s all right under our skin...”

CAMP COPE   /   How To Socialise & Make Friends

       Camp Cope is a GREAT band name. Camp Cope is a REALLY GREAT band. Camp Cope has a wit & an attitude that is so punk rock, so genuine, & How To Socialise & Make Friends is a powerful album. Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Camp Cope rides a practiced garage-y sound and lead singer & lyricist Georgia Mac’s passionate howl and impressive writing. As someone who grew up on early 2000′s pop-punk, emo, & alternative (something I guess I probably regret more often than celebrate. Because toxic masculinity & white male fragility) there is something so bittersweetly nostalgic in these chord progressions, the earnest electric strums, the yell-sing vocals, that takes me back to high school. Georgia Mac has a way with words, sliding them in & out, over cascading, steady strums, & then sometimes building them up to a frantic yelling. These are songs that sound as if they had to come out, had to be sung this way, like no one else could write or sing them. With an equally muscular rhythm section, “The Opener” attacks music industry sexism head on (if you haven’t seen Camp Cope live, it is chill inducing hearing a whole room belt along to every word) with a bass riff that could fly a jetliner. The three members interact so well together musically and everything from the driving “UFO Lighter” to the lilting “Sagan, Indiana�� sounds tightly rehearsed. Equally passionate in their social media presence and their willingness to engage and fight for social justice issues, Camp Cope represents the future. Bands like this are changing the game right now and it’s exciting to hear it in real time. 

When I close my eyes for a second, as the title tracks rings out and the gorgeously, lightly sad “The Face of God” ambles in, I’m 17 again. I’m driving for the first time, crying at the moon by myself or laughing with my friends. I’m a freshman in college, skipping my Friday classes (and braving mountain passes!) headed west, headed home. Then I snap awake and I’m 32, it’s Winter here and Georgia bellows “Just get it all out, put it in a song. Just get it all out, write another song!” Thanks Camp Cope. This album is special. 

       “It’s another all-male tour preaching equality / It’s another straight, cis man who knows more about this than me / It’s another man telling us we’re missing a frequency / SHOW ‘EM KELLY / It’s another man telling us we can’t fill up the room / It’s another man telling us to book a smaller venue / Nah, hey, cmon girls we’re only thinking about you / Well, see how far we’ve come not listening to you / ‘Yeah just get a female opener, that’ll fill the quota’...”

CAROLINE ROSE   /   Loner

       It took Caroline Rose four years from her weirdly rootsy-riffy debut album to find her true self, but Loner sounds every bit like an artist comfortable in their own skin & confident in their craft. Dialing up the synths, fuzz, and brilliantly tongue-in-cheek lyrics, Rose touches on all the big topics: drugs, death, sex (ism), and money! with a casual, conversational songwriting maturity that belies her 28 year old sophomore-ness. Favorites include “Jeannie Becomes a Mom” (check out that bouncy organ!), the steady build & twisty, head-turning songwriting of “Getting To Me,” & the electro warp & wend of “To Die Today.” I was finally convinced into falling for this album when my partner played it three times (or was it six?) back-to-back-to-back on a rainy Summer Sunday afternoon drive from Granby, CO back into Denver. Something about the pacing; the complex, yet immediate song structures that leave you wanting more. These are songs of tested confidence. But shining through it all, Rose is a wild card. A red clad rockstar with a palpable spirit, not afraid to wear her heart on her sleeve & laugh a little along the way. Loner is full of dance jams for the cool kids & the loners. At its core it preaches acceptance, and teaches us to love ourselves & love each other for who we are. Go Caroline! See you in a month in LA! 

       “Waitress sets the tables, two & four & six / Laying placemats, knife, fork, spoon, upon napkin / All the counter people, she knows us all by name / A counter people fission, everywhere we are the same... / & so you line ‘em up, a single cell, another one gone / Ostracon vase with your name on the line...”

FIELD REPORT   /   Summertime Songs

       At some point during this year I begin to realize how important beloved songwriters releasing new works is always going to be to me, I was falling (& re-falling) for new works from long time favs Calexico, Gregory Alan Isakov, Florence & The Machine, & of course Phosphorescent. But somehow it was Field Report’s third release Summertime Songs that stuck and became perhaps the most meaningful of all. I fell in love with Field Report in the midst of a hard, hard winter (2012 I think). Their sophomore album Marigolden has been a constant companion since 2014. I first heard this set of songs (the ones that comprise Summertime) in the June of 2017, sweating in the familiar Eau Claire, Wisconsin heat. Hearing a set of 100% new, unreleased material is exciting and also kind of a risk. After the set I wrote that the new tunes “Sound like June. Like wet cement & flash floods. Like swollen rivers & mosquitos full of hard fought human blood. Like growing older & having kids. Intimate details stretched over skittery, percussive thunderclouds. Like grabbing an electric fence. Digging in &...replanting.” I was 100% in it. On a high in Wisconsin & falling deeper in love with music. Then Field Report went mostly silent & we had to wait till early 2018 to get the recorded versions. Adding even more drums (Shane Leonard deserves a shout-out here as a killer pocket player!) some electronic effects, and ramping up on the arm-out-the-rolled-down-window singalongs definitely serves Chris Porterfield (did you know the name Field Report is just an anagram of his last name?!) well. Whoever it was who asked him “why don’t you try Summertime songs” was on the right track. His songwriting is as electric as always on this set of heartbreakers & as usual he follows a lot the same threads. His lyrics here are visceral, wordy, & wise, & i can feel the songs growing up with me. Sometimes I lead, sometimes they lead me, but we always seem to find each other exactly when we need to. 

       “Time is a bird with a mean, hooked beak / & he’s just waiting around to work on you & on me... / Shotgun wedding, black on blue / The river’s swelling like a bruise...”

H.C. McENTIRE   /   Lionheart

       Heather McEntire has been carving out a name for herself in the North Carolina music scene for years fronting old-school punk band Bellefea & more recently, the much loved Mount Moriah. But way way back in January, Lionheart roared in under her own name; all ferocious & tender, confident & wild. A true southern record, Lionheart is vocal & lyric forward. From the Sunday morning hymn swell of opener “A Lamb, A Dove,” to the driving swing of “Baby’s Got the Blues,” & the late night, red wine country of “When You Come For Me.” McEntire enlists all her talented musical friends on this effort. There are co-writes with the legendary Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill (whom McEntire credits with helping her find her individual voice), bgvs from Amy Ray (Indigo Girls), Angel Olsen, & Tift Merrit, & inspired guitar work from William Tyler & Durham favorite Phil Cook!

Through it all, McEntire stays true to the thread that made Mount Moriah’s “How To Dance” one of my 2016 favs. Lionheart exudes the smells & scenery of North Carolina and reads like a map at times, referencing points from Stoney Creek to the Green River Gorge. Some of my favorite songs written over the last five years (or ever) have a very strong (& often specific) idea of place. If country music is going to representative of the country that I want to live in, it’s going to be sung by people like Heather McEntire.  A powerful queer southern woman; vulnerable & brave, a true Lionheart. 

       “You’ll find me in the hollow, dosing anything that might / Make the map look any smaller, give me a dog in the fight / So call it off or call it God, call it anything you like / Do you see it in my eyes? / A levee on the rise, do you see it? / The tellin’ ain’t told gently, so pay your tab & pay your dues / The dogwood & the chicory & a silent wood stove flue / Your baby’s got the blues just like you...”

iZCALLi   /   IV

       I was late to the party on Izcalli (a band from my own city!) and when I found them, it was magical, I think they were playing an opening set for Jessica Hernandez & The Deltas at Lost Lake and I probably stumbled in late from PS Lounge or Tommy’s Thai to shredding electric guitar & ska, latin funk, & pure Led Zepplin Rock & Roll. Frontman Miguel Avina was howling & stomping in Freddy Mercury-meets-Mariachi white pants, his long curly hair everywhere, all energy. I was immediately hooked. Calling them my favorite local band and finally getting to put them on this end of the year list. Izcalli joins some pretty good “local band” company here on linernotes&seasons. From Nina De Freitas’ EP last year; Yawpers, Covenhoven, & Rateliff in 2015, to Isakov & Covenhoven in 2013 & The Lumineers all the way back in 2012! Izcalli has been playing around Denver for 13 years and have slowly built up enough of a following to headline the Bluebird Theater last year. Their fourth album (aptly titled IV) comes out swinging and showcases plenty of heavy power chord riffs, violin, horn, & songs in both English & Spanish. Their heavier, more classic rock influenced songs (”Lightning Red” & “Eso Velocidad”) absolutely explode with fiery lead guitar and inspired drumming. When they dial it back and let their Mexican influences show through, like on the eerily crunchy, violin led “Quite de Mas” and the woozy saxophone breakdown of “Solo Se Morir,” they showcase depth and a real songwriting ability. There is an almost Muse-like thunder to the monstrous organ riff of “A New Lie” and closer “Si Estoy Contigo” sends everybody out dancing. With influences from all over (most notably their homeland Mexico City) & a live show that’s not to be missed, Izcalli embodies everything I think of when I think of a true Denver band. 

       “A frozen heart in me turned out to be my one way home / I swear I’ll leave, I’ll drive myself down to Mexico...”

JANELLE MONAE   /   Dirty Computer

       Dirty Computer is my favorite album of 2018. Much like my favorite album last year (Lorde’s Melodrama) no one was as simultaneously honest & excavating in their personal songwriting; while still writing such absolutely shredding club bangers, as Janelle Monae. Dirty Computer acts as a coming out party of sorts for the 32 year Kansas City-ian, although, to be fair, her first two albums had already scored her Grammy nominations and the stamp of approval from Prince, Eryakah Badu, & Michelle Obama. Her debut The ArchAndroid and her followup The Electric Lady, found her creating elaborate alter egos, protest songs, and complex, critically acclaimed song cycles about life as a black woman in America. With Dirty Computer she is able to hold multiple titles at once. Schizophrenically on top of her game, tying all her alter egos together with stellar production, monster vocals, and some of the best, most interesting pop songs since...well...maybe since Prince. From the Brian Wilson assisted eerie sci-fi sweetness of stage setting opener “Dirty Computer,” she lets loose on some of her most fun, live-a-little anthems “Crazy, Classic Life,” and “Take a Byte.” Deeply personal, political, & inspiring “Django Jane” is stunning, & sets the stage for mega back-to-back singles “Pynk” & “Make You Feel.” Songs of my (and everybody else’s) Summer for sure. “I Got The Juice,” is light & bouncy, & personal favorite “I Like That” is rebellious & rides an immediately memorable instrumental into one helluva vocal take from Monae. She makes a political statement in closing with the anthem “Americans,” (anybody else think this one especially sounds like a lost Prince track?) but her strength is her ability to be both personal & political; a true diva with a purpose. These songs are Janelle creating and sounding exactly how she wants, pushing the limits of what a superstar can do, Her show at the Paramount in July was a highlight for me, and Dirty Computer is hands down my album of the year. 

       “Box office numbers & they doin’ outstanding, running out of space in my damn bandwagon / Remember when they use to said I look too mannish? / Black girl magic yall can’t stand it...”

LIZA ANNE   /   Fine But Dying

       In a year where I seemed to gravitate to albums & songs about living in, and growing through, mental health issues; Liza Anne’s blistering (and epically titled!) Fine But Dying was definitely a top five album for me. A gifted songwriter, Dying finds Anne finally letting it out with a heavy band, a light touch, & a deep dive into the insecurities & struggles that seemed to be (gulp) some of the same ones I was going through this year. Songs about conversations, relationships (both romantic & platonic), and most importantly, about examining & improving yourself. No one on this list unpacks, observes, and mines their own heart & mind as well or as deeply as Anne does across these 11 tracks. When she really cuts loose, like in the ballistic breakdown of “Kid Gloves,” the fuzzy crunch of “Get By,” or the spiraling, swirling (& also epically titled!) “I Love You, But I Need Another Year” she shines. Fine But Dying is wise beyond its years and a no-holds-barred, place-in-time look at mental health & how we should all be addressing our issues & working things out. Her show at Globe Hall here in Denver back in April was cathartic, thoughtful, & one of my favorite of this year for sure. Yay for fearless songwriters, Yay for rock & roll. Fuck yeah Liza Anne!

       “I ran once, took my flight across the ocean / I thought if I could make my way across the sea I’d find a place / Now I’m swallowed up by a city that doesn’t give a fuck / To whether I am up on time / Or whether if I am, well...alive / & I’m so good - getting too good at hiding / Too good at keeping to myself that I’m spiraling...”

MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO   /   Ventriloquism

       I think it was “Atomic Dog 2017″ that first caught my ear at some point last year. I didn’t know Meshell Ndegeocello, but I knew that what I was hearing was classic. The off-kilter guitar strums slithering into that bass drop, finally settling into a steady groove, that melody appearing (seemingly out of nowhere) into a rolling, & instantly recognizable chorus. Next thing I know I’m googling George Clinton and off into an 80′s funk youtube rabbit hole. A covers album to stand up to any other covers album, Ndegeocello has a masterpiece on her hands in both song selection & creativity. In a year where she turned 50, the sneakily titled Ventriloquism is her 12th studio album, Inspired by listening to oldies radio on car rides to her childhood home, influenced by Prince & Neil Young; Ventriloquism is a super smooth revamp of 80s & 90s R&B. What Ndegeocello does so seamlessly on Ventriloquism is take these songs and make them flow as a part of a whole. There is light in the darkness here. There are threads of continuation here. An appreciation for those who came before, those who paved the way. Ndegeocello is a true artist and these reinterpretations not only nod to classic songs & artists, but dig out their own little important niche in 2019. 

       “Sometimes it snows in April / Sometimes I feel so bad, so bad / Sometimes I wish life was never ending / & all the good things they say, never last / Springtime was always my favorite time of year / A time for lovers holding hands in the rain...”

MIYA FOLICK   /   Premonitions

       Every year I wait till the last minute (and beyond!) to finish this list. I write it up in November & December, agonizing & filling out what I think are my favorite albums (18 this time!) of the year. I enjoy whittling the list down to a manageable number, but I also enjoy reading everyone else’s lists; finding new finds & hearing what other people liked. Then, sometime in the middle of December, I am knocked out by something I missed over all the year of listening & reading. This year it is MIYA FOLICK! I was given a wintry new year’s mix of goodbye 2018 (and F*** you!) tunes from my partner (which I will probably post & write about sometime as soon as I finish posting this because it is goooood), and track 9 of that spotify mix. Bouncy horns, a killer beat, & lyrics that cut right to me but leave me smiling. Rhyming “self home” with “cellphone”?! Singing about leaving the party?! Yesssss!. This is for me! On deeper listens, Premonitions is a goddamn masterpiece. Starting slowly & melodically, openers “Thingamajig” and the title track are captivating, then it unexpectedly explodes into 80′s dance bangers about half way through. Most of the album is deeply personal and self examining, finding Folick digging into to her own weaknesses & fears, without always settling on answers. She is vulnerable yet grand; part Lorde, part Florence, part Stevie NIcks, part Regina Spektor...All Miya. At its core, Premonitions celebrates life, celebrates the little victories. If you want to know/hear what that sounds like, maybe I should let you read from Miya’s bandcamp page...

       “Premonitions begins with ‘Thingamajig’ -- something you can't quite recall the name of, but you know exactly what it means and what it feels like. Like the pull of desire that comes with not quite remembering fully. The magnetism of something just on the tip of your tongue. I wanted the album to feel like that thing.

I think a lot about about memory-making as an act of creation, the words we use to describe a memory give shape to and sometimes mutate the memory itself. I believe that the way we choose to describe the events of our lives is not only a means of creative fulfillment, but an absolutely vital part of creating the world we want to live in. When we are dishonest in the present, we create a dishonest future. When we are honest in the present, we create a more honest future. I wanted this album to be the vehicle for a hopeful, truthful, generous, and loving world. I tried not to posture or pretend. I wrote about my life as I've seen it and how I'd like to see it, as both memory and premonition.

The producers, Justin Raisen and Yves Rothman, and I spent months collecting organic sounds to fill the world of this record. We threw away everything that felt false and tried to keep the soul of each song alive. I hope Premonitions gives you comfort and joy. I hope it feels like all the mysterious details of your lives, all your massive and mundane glories. I hope it reminds you that there is beauty in the details. Rainbows in your sprinklers. Drinking water from a hose. The way it felt to make a friend for the first time. Locking yourself in a bathroom to avoid everyone. Dancing until your shins burn. Leaving your phone in an Uber and making your best friend drive you an hour away to knock on a stranger's door after locating it on Find My Phone. Losing a friend. Losing yourself. Remembering...”

MT. JOY   /   Mt. Joy

I had almost finished making this list and nearly forgot about an album that marked a month-plus in the Spring when I listened to almost nothing else! Philly by way of LA’s Mt. Joy debut with an album that blends sunny California folk & smoothed out east coast pop-emo, into easy listening, easy singing indie rock. Named after a mountain in Valley Forge National Park (SE Pennsylvania); Mt. Joy’s songs similarly find geographic touch points across the US, making this a true road trip record. Multiple California references (San Fran, Mulholland, Hollywood, the ocean), make their way down to New Orleans, and end up on the east coast (”blood on the streets in Baltimore” & “the beaches of Chincoteague”). Without breaking any new musical ground, Mt. Joy sounds comfortable & confident, and their songs play bigger & stickier than your average radio friendly pop-saturated-folk. When the title track hits its festival ready build (”you can’t stop us, feel like Ziggy Stardust”) you’ll have a hard time not rolling down your window and singing along. “Way up over Mt, Joy. Where everyone’s free now. To move how they feel now.”

       “Your life will change straight out of the blue / The clouds in your mind just passing through / Image the horses when you set ‘em free / Go tear down the beaches of Chincoteague...”

NONAME   /   Room 25 (& Song 31)

       Room 25 kicks in innocently enough: smoothly humming wordless voices, steady drums, & jazzy piano flourishes. Like a lazy Sunday morning. Noname (Chicago’s 27 year old Fatimah Warner) introduces herself with a laid back, matter-of-fact, stream of consciousness “maybe this is the album you listen to in your car when you’re driving home late at night, really questioning every god, religion...” But then she says something that should make you pay attention. 

“Nah. Actually this is for me.” 

That creative confidence. That freedom, defines the rest of her album. No matter how much critical acclaim Room 25 racks up (I saw this album on a ton of end of the year lists!), no matter how downright fun & laugh out loud funny her breakneck rhymes are, this one is for Noname. I mean, you can still download (aka OWN...like for your ipod!) the whole album on bandcamp FOR FREE! Following in Chance’s footsteps, it’s free mp3s for people like meeee! Raised in Chicago’s slam poetry scene, she dabbles here in downtempo, smoothed out, futuristic jazz & soul. All the while she is unapologetically herself. Her words tripping over each other, too many thoughts, too much energy, too much passion to hold in. A clear blockbuster talent. One of my favorite new finds from last year’s Eaux Claires festival, her late afternoon set up on the hill was radiant & joyful. The artwork I used here is from her early 2019 single “Song 31,” as she has pledged to change the official Room 25 cover art, due to assault charges leveled in October against the artist who did the original cover. “I do not and will not support abusers, and I will always stand up for victims & believe their stories.” Noname said, and she has been proven to be as vocal in her personal life as she is on tape. As she says in the uplifting “Ace...” 

“Globalization is scary, and fuckin’ is fantastic” And yall still thought a bitch couldn’t rap huh?...

       “When labels ask me to sign, say ‘my name don’t exist’ / So many names don’t exist / Moved into Inglewood & the trauma came with the rent / Only worldly possession I have is life / Only room that I died in was 25... 

Medicine’s overtaxed, no name look like you / No name for private corporations to send emails to / Cuz when we walk into heaven, nobody’s name gonna’ exist / Just boundless movement for joy, nakedness, radiance...”

RAINBOW KITTEN SURPRISE   /   How To: Friend, Love, Freefall

       Rainbow Kitten Surprise made one of my five favorite albums this year (and probably the one that I sang along to in the car more than any other!) Imagine Modest Mouse growing up in North Carolina, in the 2010′s, writing smart, anti-lumineers-imagine dragons tunes, and going on to play arenas & rock clubs alike. This Boone, NC (pop. 17,000) five piece crank out catchy pop rock tunes; equal parts funky basslines, ooohs & ahhhs, and deceptively clever lyrics about religion, the south, and relationships both platonic & romantic. Huge single “Fever Pitch” rides rolling drums, background whoops, and finds charismatic frontman Sam Melo languidly recounting his religious upbringing and sing-rapping about getting to know you better. Other standouts include the acoustic blues (and Aha-Shake-era-Kings of Leon reminiscent!) “Painkillers,” the “Moon & Antarctica” rattletrap sing-song of “Possum Queen,” and the laugh-out-loud funny breakneck alternative pace of “Matchbox.” But it is song of the year contender “Hide” where Melo lays bare his feelings about growing up gay in a deeply religious south, when you get a peek at what Surprises these Rainbow Kittens are capable of. What starts as a bouncy love number takes a turn into some deep songwriting with “I’m running from a place where they don’t make people like me, I keep the car running, I keep my bags packed. I don’t wanna’ leave, just don’t wanna’ leave last.” This is Fruit Bats’ “Soon-to-be Ghost Town” written by someone who’s lived it. RKS packages it all up as emotional anthems, dancey-catchy choruse that stick, & an album that-while serious, is so damn fun to sing along to. They’ll be at Red Rocks next Summer so come hop on the bandwagon and get to know your new favorite band!

       “You’re a master of passive-aggressive magic tricks like “that’s not the card that I would’ve picked, but it’s your life to live like how you’d like to live...’”

SUN JUNE   /   Years

       Sun June’s debut record Years is an album that I never expected to be on this list, but one that pushed its way into my heart, ears, and mind a lot over the early Summer. I kept comparing it to Leif Vollebekk’s gorgeously haunting 2017 release Twin Solitude that made it on last year's list in that it managed to be rhythmically funky & interesting while being mostly SO quiet. Even the more “upbeat” numbers; from the gorgeously, golden swing of “Young,” to the steady backbeat of “Baby Blue” keep their composure meticulously. The writing is transfixing on Years and the band is so tight, with every member adding just the right amount of soft sound. I tried to explain it to somebody as music you have to “squint to hear.” It sounds good in the background, all sweet & rolling. But better up close, turned up in headphones. All together & bright. This is an album I would listen to sleepily, on my way home from work, driving Colfax in the first light of dawn at 5 in the morning. Sun June’s lack of an internet presence is refreshing (is there ANYWHERE I can find the lyrics for this album??!!), I think they’re from Texas, and I don’t think they’ve even played a show in Colorado yet! Regardless, Years is tied together with a quietly tight rhythm section, and Laura Colwell’s wispy vocals, grabbing at the edges of my brain, calmy insisting “Four in the morning, I could get used to this...”

       “I was almost always leaving / Looking for the reason / Bedside hospital daylight / I go with the Southern mountains / Down the 405, I’m coming tell me you don’t deserve this / I was young...”

TIERRA WHACK   /   Whack World

       I love me a good concept album, but even I would’ve thought that the idea of 15 one minute songs(complete with video accompaniment) making up an entire album, would be a tough sell. Whack World makes good on an innovative concept, delivering something breezy, catchy, & lasting, and making Tierra Whack one of my favorite new finds of 2018! My little sister showed her to me on a “Get-your-ass-to-the-gym” playlist and “Fruit Salad” was immediately stuck in my head for weeks. Mostly down-tempo, Whack is clearly a witty lyricist and creative mind, and at 23, a game changer in the music scene. Also an effortlessly cool, musical, badass. With almost no choruses, this is an album you can listen to over and over (and throw any tracks in mixes) without any clear singles. The bouncy gospel-tinged “Pet Cemetery” has hand claps & dog barks, and is followed immediately by the laugh-out-loud vocals of “Fuck Off.” Whack never takes herself too seriously (so many off the wall and laugh out loud funny vocals!) and the Philly native shows that one minute songs can turn a lot of heads and end up on a lot of end of the year best album lists! Whack World!

       “Crispy clean and crisp & clean / For the dough I go nuts like Krispy Kreme / Music is in my Billie genes / Can’t no one ever come between yeah / Don’t worry about me I’m doing good, I’m doing great, alright...”

TYPHOON   /   Offerings

       It seemed like a lifetime since Typhoon released their sophomore knockout, masterpiece album White Lighter back in 2013. I’ve grown a lifetime since, experienced everything since. In the first few weeks of January 2018, out of the darkness, out of the silence: came something darker, weirder, but still magical and at its core, celebratory. Typhoon is one of my all-time favorite bands, one of my favorite live shows, and frontman Kyle Morton writes about memory & loss, life & death, better than anybody in the game. With Offerings they have dropped the peppy horns, slimmed down to (only!) seven members, and zeroed in on the heavy, spiraling folk-rock that hearkens back a little to Bright Eyes or The Decemberists, Broken Social Scene or Arcade Fire. As a loose concept album, Offerings explores in four movements (Floodplans, Flood, Reckoning, & Afterparty) what happens to a mind stripped of memory. Or (side quest/plot/twist) a world willfully forgetting its history. From the hushed chanting that explodes into huge string swells, drums, and shouts of opener “Wake” to the rhythmic, glowing build of the 8 minute “Empricist,” to the mystical picking and ruminating of “Algernon” the first movement could almost stand as an album of its own. The rest of the album unravels at equal parts slow reflection (”Mansion” & “Beachtowel”) and sweeping indie rock (”Remember” & “Darker”). Although a lengthy (and at times not easy) listen, I think Offerings will go down as one of the most ambitious rock records of the last few years. 

       “& so the light fades / It’s still your birthday / So blow out your past lives like they’re candles on a cake...”

VALLEY MAKER   /   Rhododendron

       There is a mysticism buried somewhere in the emotive vocals & break-in-the-clouds writing of North Carolina by way of Washington State’s Valley Maker. Austin Crane is the singular voice behind the Valley Maker project, painting time & space on a dark, slippery canvas, and hiding complex truths in the rhythmic tides of Rhododendron. This ground has been tread before; by countless folk singers & prophets, wailing of death, dark magic, & the myriad mysteries of time, but Valley Maker understand their place in the linear and bring a modern take to ancient stories. Part War on Drugs-highway-drone (check the double yellow rattle of “Light on the Ground”), part Ben Howard’s-foggy-British-countryside (”Beautiful Birds Flying”), Crane writes songs that stick. They claw and seep their way into skin, into veins, and haunt in a way that echoes of the past. This is songwriting as a conduit. These stories are Crane’s, but they are older; tales told since religion begin. From the first lines of the roiling, dark sky opener (”time is just a game I play / it’s written on the ocean’s waves / circling beyond my brain / something I could not contain.”) to the uncertain give & take of the earthy “Seven Signs” (”I’m cutting in line but I haven’t decided...”) the writing is equal to the musicianship Crane and his backing band clearly have in spades. With Chaz Bear (Toro Y Moi) providing stellar percussion and Amy FItchette (who I was lucky enough to see sing with VM at the Doug Fir in Portland) lending absolutely haunting, otherworldly harmonies, Crane has depth beyond his strange tunings and bleep & bloop electric forests. Through it all there is a steady rhythm to the darkness and like in “Baby, In Your Kingdom” when he tops a wonderfully simple, acoustic walk-down with “Baby are you satisfied? Take a decade, take a lifetime, I know we’re always on a one way street...” there is a timeless beauty even in the mystery. Oh, and saxophone. Rhododendron has some great saxophone. 

       “Baby in the next life / I can touch you, I can ride the light / Goddamn I wan’t where I thought I’d be / 29. Burn the world around me & I hide / Baby in your kingdom / Sink my roots in, I’m a tall tree / I know, wind is gonna blow again / I know, when I am with you...I am known...”

[secretradiobrooklyn]

SECRET RADIO | Sept.12.20

Secret Radio Brooklyn | 9.12.20 | Broadcast from the print shop (Hear it here.)

1. Fela Kuti - It’s Highlife Time

Such a cheery introduction to a night at the Afro Spot. There’s an elegance and restraint and Western-facing showmanship that is the exact opposite of what Fela Kuti’s music came to be, but it seems completely sincere — just a different stage of an incredibly productive life. 

2. Ros Serey Sothea - Jam 5 Kai Thiet (Wait 5 More Months) 

The guitar tones, really all the tones of this song, are so perfect, and the structure is both immaculately pop-shaped and full of gnarly rock distortion.

3. Sylvie Vartan - L’oiseau

Such a piercing chorus! It almost sounds like she’s making a birdcall, and we’ve been really appreciating bird sounds this summer in the woods.

4. Singer Nahounou and T.P. Poly Rythmo de Cotonou Benin - Gbabouo

This is a 1978 T.P. track, so they’re in their prime, with Papillon providing those amazingly beautiful guitar waterfalls. I don’t know anything about Singer Nahounou, but his vocal phrasing is a lot more like the Zimbabwean style of Hallelujah Chicken Run Band than any of the Beninese musicians they more often play with. Someone says it has “a strong Ivory Coast influence,” but I don’t know what that means. I do know that this song makes me dance, and as it goes on you can hear the musicians really stretching out and playing with the essential elements of the groove, all led by the unstoppable Bentho Gustave on bass.

5. Teddy Afro - Atse Tewodros

I don’t know if you’ve had the experience of being halfway through a feast at an Ethiopian restaurant and suddenly realizing that you’ve been loving the music the entire time. For us, that restaurant was Meskerem on South Grand, and the band was Teddy Afro. The best part, though, might be this video, in which a collection of beautiful people do the shoulder dance seemingly all over Ethiopia, in grassy fields and castle walls and city streets, in pairs and trios and teams. It’s completely mesmerizing. Meanwhile, the footage of Teddy Afro’s live show sweeps across a crowd of tens of thousands of ecstatic fans. It’s a glimpse into several worlds I know nothing about — but the music certainly seems to speak a universal language of optimism and hope. Anyone who can tell me whether I’m completely mistaken about that, please do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRC6C8bRkQQ&list=RDmAHeyKUKMBE&index=3

6. Francis Bebey - New Track

The way this song gradually coheres from thumb piano to futuristic space jam is a clinic. I could listen to Francis Bebey talk all night.

7. Manu Dibango - Groovy Flute

Our respect to Manu Dibango, who passed on March 24 of this year. He is responsible for giving the world Soul Makossa, which we in the US know as mama say mama sa mamakusa thanks to Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones. But MJ didn’t have Groovy Flute.

8. Chantal Goya - D’Abord, Dis Moi Ton Nom

This is from the Godard film Masculin Féminin. If you like this, you’re going to love the WBFF movies broadcast coming soon!

9. Brigitte Bardot - Tu Veux ou Tu Veux Pas

Sleepy Kitty does a version of this song on a 7”. This could be a great song for teaching first-year French — “You want it or you don’t” — including frank attitudes about hooking up.

10. Newen Afrobeat - Upside Down live

Chilean Fela disciples Newen Afrobeat bring their own approach to Fela Kuti’s Upside Down. You can hear how the political urgency of the original translates directly to citizens of a country on the other side of the world. I recently read one of the singers, Macarena, describe the band as a collective that exists to make music and get the word out about the Mapuche people and their mistreatment in Chile.

Like their masterpiece, Opposite People, this is another song that is enhanced by watching the performance. It’s enough to get you dancing just watching the singer wind her way around the stage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embxt0jQ8f4

11. Antoine Dougbé & T.P. Orchestre - Kovito Gbe de Towe

The arrangement of this song is just stunning to me. The little guitar licks that steal their way between the downbeats, the sick drums, the sudden disco, the arresting tone of voice, the backing vocals, the phasing guitar solo, the breakdown, and those final percussive call-and-response vocals — this track is just flat out the tops. Currently our favorite artist… which means Dougbé, who wrote the song but didn’t sing it, Melome Clement, who arranged it, Papillon on guitar (I think), the incredibly tight drums, the horn section that cuts like a knife, and this whole period of T.P. Orchestre. 

Serge Gainsbourg - Aux Armes Et Caetera 

When this recording appeared there was a freakin uproar among the French, who were scandalized that anyone would translate the French national anthem into (gasp!) reggae form.

12. Van Goose - Last Bus

Credit due to Jen Meller for telling us long ago that Van Goose was a band to be listening for. We saw them for the first time at Underwater Sunshine in Manhattan and danced so hard that when we heard their next gig was New Year’s Eve, our plans were settled. I get so lost inside this song!

 13. Stereo Total - Ringo I Love You

The first two songs that Paige heard of this band were I Love You Ono and Ringo I Love You — as far as we know, they specialize in Beatles-related songs (which is to say we know almost nothing about this band). Both of those songs are perfect expressions of themselves. 

14. 張小鳳 (Zhang Xiao Feng) - 我深深地愛上你 (Eight Days a Week)

We know nothing about this band — this track is the result of supposing that a certain thing must exist, and then finding confirmation of its existence. What a strange chordal relation to the original it has.

Harvey Danger - Authenticity

20 years ago this week King James Version came out, which was a really really big day in a really big time in my life. One fine detail I just noticed is that I lived about a mile north of Pike Street 20 years ago, and I live about a mile south of Park Slope today. Which I don’t think me-then would have hated. Anyway I’m still enjoying every damn day, modern horrorshow notwithstanding!

15. Ben Blackwell - Bury My Body at Elmwood

So many times every year where we realize how much we miss Bob Reuter — his radio show, his photographs, his writing, and more than anything the man himself — and this is a song we first heard via Bob’s Scratchy Records. 

16. Jacqueline Taïeb - 7 heures du matin

This song kind of encapsulates a lot of what I want this collection of songs to be — a crashing together of cultures that ties back to the universal elements of rock n roll. Jacqueline Taïeb is flat out the coolest.

17. Liev Tuk - Rom Sue Sue (Dance Soul Soul) 

Another entry in our James Brown shockwave studies. This is a Cambodian track from the ’60s, so presumably made around the interaction of French and American soldiers with Cambodian citizens… probably mostly in bars near bases? That’s what I picture happening, but I don’t actually know anything about it. I will say that I think Liev brings his own thing to the track, a real animal grandeur.

18. Soumitra & Mousumi Chatterjee - Urbashi Soundtrack - Jogi Jogi 

We’ve been trying to learn more about Bengali culture and language from our young neighbors in our building in Kensington. We’re kind of hoping that someone in the building recognizes this song — though it’s equally possible they would look at us like we were crazy. This is a soundtrack to a movie billed as a “thriller” — dig that ’80s keyboard movie-soundtrack solo — and Paige and I have already spent quite a bit of time theorizing, based purely on the music, what sort of movie we’ll encounter when we find it.  Also, this is a new earworm you won’t be able to shake. I’d say I’m sorry but I’m not!

19. The Fall - Shoulder Pads

The Fall is one of our very favorite bands — actually, T.P. Orchestre is the first real contender for other favorite band in years — but I’m very aware of the fact that I have pretty much always approached these songs as broadcasts from an alien culture. The decisions that Mark E. Smith made, song after song, are so completely mysterious and thrilling to me, as is the way the band composed, and for the most part they’re talking about British cultural winds that have almost nothing to do with my world. Anytime we play a song by The Fall I feel like I’m in danger of losing myself to only Fall songs for the next month. Tie me to the mast!

20.  T.P. Orchestre & Bentho Gustave - Agnon Djidjo (Tu as bon caractère)

This is the final track on Le Disque d’Or, and the melody just feels so full of importance, like something absolutely vital is being transmitted. When we were trying to keep track of songs, I referred to this song as “Benin’s Phil Collins.” Obviously not much overlap, but I do feel like the chorus has PC’s paranoid urgency. As far as Paige can tell, the lyrics are “Je suis heureux de vivre pres de toi jusqu’au le fin du monde,” which would be “I’m happy to be with you til the end of time.” We don’t know if those are the lyrics, but they certainly work for me.

21. Joanna Kulig & Marcin Masecki - Dwa Serduszka

If you haven’t seen the film Cold War, we can’t recommend it highly enough. Also, you should know that it’s devastatingly sad. But right from the opening scene, the music alone is a revelation, and the main actors are enough to make you understand that we’re only seeing a fraction of the world’s charismatic actors in the English-speaking context, o yo yo.

22. Blossom Dearie - Manhattan 

Paige has always loved this song, especially because Blossom Dearie is the piano player as well, which is something we think about with Nat King Cole but not necessarily with a singer like her. And now this song seems like a description of the empty streets of Manhattan, and it being such a strange time. Mott Street is different right now — but it’s still New York, and these buildings have been there so long, through World War II, September 11, a lunatic for pres, and now COVID-19. Sadness and optimism: “The great big city’s a wondrous toy.” 

Orchestre de la Paillotte - Kadia Blues

A Guinean band created to promote Guinean music.

23. Scott Walker - Duchess

A pandemic discovery for Paige. I always meant to get into Scott Walker. I was in a band in Chicago and the guy whose house we practiced at loved Scott Walker. He kinda looked like Scott Walker. He was living in the ‘60s. He had a word processor. I didn’t get into Scott Walker then, nor 10 years later, but over the last year his music landed, at some point between now and the beginning of the pandemic. 

24. Inga - Silver Moon 

So weird that this song has been translated from English into German… but they use phrases in English that do not exist in the original. I really want to know more about the circumstances of this translation and arrangement. Inga was a German pop star with excellent eye makeup game.

25. Avolonto Honore - Na Do Sê Kpon Wê

The word “elegiac” exists for occasions such as this. The song feels so sincere, whether with regret, loss, love, or bitter experience. It also sounds like the voice of a father to his son, at whatever age. He sounds wise. 

[stevecanmakeanythingnerdy]

Battle #27

Janet Jackson: Control (Side 2 )

Vs.

Quarterflash : S/T (Side 1 )

Janet Jackson: Control (Side 2 )

Janet Jackson is the youngest child of the very famous Jackson family. The family is a product of “local” upbringing in Gary, Indiana and helped launch the careers of other famous Jacksons, such as Michael. Janet began her career with the variety television series The Jacksons in 1976 and went on to appear in other television shows throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including Good Times and Fame. Other incidents (such as the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction from over a decade ago) are footnotes in her resume as well, but what sets her apart is her music. She got off on that career perhaps slower than her brothers but I think it’s safe to say enjoyed as much if not more success than them in the long run. Signing a recording contract with A&M Records in 1982, she became a pop icon following the release of her third and fourth studio albums Control , and later Rhythm Nation 1814. It’s hard to say which of these two albums had more appeal and success, but they both largely attribute to her setting herself apart. Both figuratively AND literally. With this album, she gained (*ahem) CONTROL (#seewhatididthere) from her family affairs, getting out from under her father’s clutches and attempts to access her fortunes. Janet cited it as one of the hardest things she has ever had to do. Side two may not have all of the BIG hits, but you should recognize a few of the titles, for sure. “The Pleasure Principle” starts off and right away, the dance beats are club worthy and catchy. This was a charting single off the biggest R&B album of 1986. “When I think of You” follows in that success pattern. It’s lighter fanfare but perhaps a more recognized hit. You can probably already imagine the back and forth simplified piano chords. VERY 80’s with the noises and fake key-horns. Even a decent breakdown and it rocks like a lullaby back and forth. The song comes across as honest, which I think is partially true of the whole album and why it sold so well. A laugh at the end helps solidify it all. “He Doesn’t Know I’m Alive” is an emotional tune (which I suppose is to be expected- Janet was only 20 when this came out and most likely written at 18 or 19) It does have a fair share of tooting horns though, too much for me. It’s the please notice me song. Another minor B side charting single follows with “Let’s Wait Awhile”. You would immediately recognize it if you have heard it. Really showcases the pop range of the younger sis. You can really hear the Michael blueprints here though. Even a little scat style vocal is explored. It’s often a record like this (3 or 4 into a career) where the artist seems to be open to exploring new things or just determined to destroy expectations that either really great things happen or really disastrous things. I think in this case Janet came out of her shell and landed on top. “Funny How Time Flys (When You’re Having Fun)” is the last tune. Is it a bonus French jam? At least it sounds foreign at the intro. Slow and jazzy. Lazy Sunday. Acoustic in nature and minimalist In stature. Is it necessary? Probably not, but then again why not? The icing on the cake to all of this is Janet is a soon to be 2019 rock and roll Hall of Fame inductee. She deserves it honestly.

Quarterflash : S/T (Side 1 )

Quarterflash is an American rock group formed in 1980 in Portland, Oregon. The band was originally made up of the two current members, Rindy Ross (lead vocals and saxophone) and her husband Marv Ross (guitars). Along with Jack Charles (guitars), Rick DiGiallonardo (keyboards/synthesizers), Rich Gooch (electric bass), and Brian David Willis (drums and percussion) the rest of the band is formed. Quarterflash is notable for having a lead singer who also played the saxophone. In a 1982 interview, Rindy Ross said that she viewed the saxophone as an extension of her voice, enabling her to express things she could not express with her voice alone. The group was formed by merging two popular Oregon bands, Seafood Mama and Pilot. They originally continued under the name Seafood Mama, and had early success with the song “Harden My Heart”, but thankfully changed to Quarterflash once the song picked up steam and labels took interest. I’m sorry, but GOOD CALL. Can you even imagine a more corny name? Fucking seafood mama?!? What?!!! Even just Seafood would be fine, it’s the addition of mama that makes it lamer than no hush puppies with your Seafood meal. Seafood Mama. GTFO Quarterflash! Why not Pickle Loaf? Bloated Socks? Fetish Meat? Sadly ANY of those are better than Seafood Mama. Wow. Just, wow. But I digress... Quarterflash signed to Geffen Records and released their self-titled debut album Quarterflash in September 1981. By middle 1982 the album had gone platinum. They had a follow up in the works, but in between had singles which ended up on popular soundtracks. Yes, things were looking good for Seafoo...er...Quarterflash. By the middle 80s though they were dropped from their label and disbanded. So that aforementioned chart topper, “Harden My Heart” is the first cut on their debut. Another great choice because it’s a pretty solid tune with a good message about independence. Smooth sax and at the appropriate levels. Not too crazy/lead off sax. Rindy has double duty with both lead vocalist and solo saxophonist in the band, and she’s really good at both. She has a smokey Stevie Nicks kind of voice and it helps to create this early 80s jukebox jam. Empowerment-core! It’s followed up by “Find Another Fool”-another hit in its own right. Maybe not AS big, but it made a splash and helped push the album to platinum. A decent rock level on this one. Plus some angelic harmonies. Berlin (the band) is a sincere comparison. Some violin Shiz too! At one point there is even some sax vs violin call and response. Quarterflash Mama! No denying the talent levels at least. It calms down a bit with “Critical Times” and it’s shhhuuuuuuullloooooooowwwwwww jam tempo. Harsh the buzz for sure. Did the drummer writer this one? (#seewhatididthere). Rindy steps back and one of the dudes take lead vox for this one. “Valerie” sees a return to form though. Rindy is back and the rock ensues. The song sounds vaguely familiar...possibly a radio player? Still, not the strongest or best cut. Definitely the first two for that moniker. “Try To Make It True” is the last and mid paced ballad that ends Quarterflash’s debut rookie card. It has moments of clarity and perception but it’s buried deep in the middle for a reason. Melody gets an A+ but overall a fade to black. I must say, I kind of hate it when the sax tries to take too much of a lead role. It’s a fine line of “too showy” vs “just filler” and in this case Quarterflash gets it. Just the right amount of sax.

So in today’s battle Janet Jackson took control and began her dominance in the music world she burned 158 calories over 22 minutes and 5 songs. That averages to 31.60 calories per song and 7.18 calories per minute. Janet earned 10 out of 15 possible stars. Quarterflash took their 22 minutes to sax us up on their debut. 5 songs were played and 162 calories were burned. They averaged 32.40 calories burned per song and 7.36 calories burned per minute. They earned 8 out of 15 possible stars. Even though they’re only a quarter flash, the other three quarters are rock and roll. Quarterflash wins!

Quarterflash : “Find Another Fool”

https://youtu.be/DHoIs1e_1Xg

#Randomrecordworkoutseasonsix

#Randomrecordworkout

[tinamrazik]

Review: Elton John Re-visits South Florida for His “Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour” March 16,2019 at the BB&T Center, Sunrise Florida.

 For the third time in four months the Legendary Icon Sir Elton John has graced a So Flo stage. This evening in Sunrise at the BB&T Center a sold-out house will once again wax nostalgic with one of the biggest selling recording artists of all time. Worldwide John’s record sales have soared above 500,000,000 and have topped the charts for over 50 years.  But don’t think for a minute the “Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour,” is his swan-song. I’m positive there is more music in our favorite Rocket Man on the horizon.

This evening is all about good music, good times, good friends, and the family Elton’s music and life have brought together.  This current leg of the tour (as well as last years) has played to sold-out audiences all over the world. It would be naïve for me to think all the fans here tonight are mega followers like myself.  Some may be seeing John for the first time, some may be here to see his last hooray, all have come to hear the classics we all know and love. Gone are the feathers, sequins (replaced by Gucci suits), 500 pairs of glasses, and the glitz from John’s show past but not forgotten.  The screens along the side and back of the multi intricate stage are constant reminders of days gone by. This tour is not a solemn showcase of his work. It is a celebration of his music with lyricist Bernie Taupin and their significant influence in the world of popular/rock music over the past half century. Oh, what a ride it’s been.

From the moment John stepped onstage and took his familiar seat behind his Yamaha grand piano, the show was on. The legendary first chords to Bennie & the Jets rang through the arena loud and clear reminiscent of the Pied Piper and his flute. Standing ovations were a constant theme of the evening as people danced, sang along, and cheered. It would be silly of me to pretend I don’t know what to expect for Elton’s live performances. I’ve seen him so many times I’ve lost count. What I can genuinely say is, it is not relative. He is a constant surprise and delight. His set list represents the finest music of his career with a few unfamiliar ditties (album cuts not released as singles) thrown in. Stating to the crowd, “If I don’t play your favorite song tonight, I apologize. If I played everything, we’d be hear all night.” His 26-song set, and two-hour forty-five-minute non-stop extravaganza is a fans dream. Border Song, Tiny Dancer, Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be A Long, Long Time), Levon, Candle in the Wind, Crocodile Rock, my goodness the list goes on. That’s not all, it’s just a tip of the iceberg. My favorite songs to see and hear performed live remain Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding – it has all the elements of a phenomenal rock-and-roll moment. Fog machines, amazing piano breaks, great guitar solo (by Davey Johnstone), lyrics by Bernie Taupin, and an all-encompassing feeling of ‘awe’. Believe and the heartfelt Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me are also show-stoppers.  Indian Sunset from the ‘Madman Across the Water,’ album features Ray Cooper on percussion with Elton on solo piano.  It is an astonishing performance from beginning to end. I’ve said it before and will say it again, Cooper is a show upon himself. His is amazingly fun to watch and a focal point of this number. The band itself comprised by three of the original members of the Elton John band are as good as they’ve ever been. Nigel Olsson (drums, vocals), Davey Johnstone (musical director, guitars, vocals), and Ray Cooper (percussion) could probably play these songs in their sleep. Like John himself there is an undeniable sense of fun between the boys in the band. The rest of the musical line-up includes Matt Bissonette (bass guitar, vocals), Kim Bullard (keyboards), and John Mahon (percussion, vocals).

Of course, no Elton John live show would be complete without The Bitch Is Back, I’m Still Standing, Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting and Burn Down the Mission.  The most touching moment of the evening was Elton’s spoken goodbye. Sensing a breakdown of emotion, John thanked all of us for our loyalty over the years, buying his records, and coming to see him live. With a tear in his eye and poignant pause, “I’m really going to miss you,” is as real as it gets.

With a mere three costume changes under his belt during the evening, John returned to the stage for the encore dressed in a boxer’s robe. The heavyweight champ wasn’t done yet. Elton closed out the show with Your Song and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road as he ascended up a lift waving goodbye to the masses. Elton, my friend, my idol, you have given me so much love over the years through your music and life. I can’t thank you enough for sharing my joy and pain and making me feel like I was never alone. If this is really goodbye from the road, I wish you love, health and enduring happiness. If it isn’t…I’ll see you again down the yellow brick road.

As a footnote: I want Funeral for a Friend played at my funeral.  All those attending may wear jeans and Elton John t-shirts.  Just sayin’.

[jazzreloaded]

More beats than your mama gave you...

Jeremy Sylvester is a highly influential and prolific Producer in Drum and Bass, UK Garage and House . As well as his famed solo work, he claims a huge backlist of remixes and has been a regular collaborator with many established dance producers. He was involved in jungle-drum and bass production in the early 1990s before his more permanent venture into mid-tempo dance music. Jeremy is known almost as well for the number of aliases he uses as he is for the quality of his output.

The backbone of UK Garage – The Drums

A solid drum groove is the most essential element in any UK Garage track. Shuffling swung beats give UK Garage its unique stamp, so when building your drum pattern its important to set your quantize/swing groove to between 50-56%. This will set the tone for the rest of the elements added later on. A good tip is to start creating your drum patterns from a good drum kit, beginning with the kick drum. Spend time searching for good sounds. For 4x4 Garage tracks, a strong punchy kick drum that’s not too bass heavy naturally with a nice mid range frequency is the perfect starting point for any groove. This will leave head room for when you start to look for sounds for the bass to create bass line patterns later on.

Once you’ve decided what kick you are going to go with, which can always be changed later on, search for a nice crispy clap, but try to take some release off it and shorten the length of it, if it has to much sustain. You want it to sound quite short and sharp, but not too short so that you can still hear the natural sound of it. From here begin to add all of the other elements of your pattern. It is very important to keep the groove simple, with enough space in the groove to add all your other sounds later on, so keep that in mind. Lots of people make the mistake, I included by over complicating the drums. Less is more as they say. The key is to make every element of your pattern have a role, so every drum element is there for a reason. Another good tip is to make several patterns, all slightly different to give your overall groove some variety. When programming drums, imagine you are a ‘Drummer’ and how a drummer plays to help you construct patterns.

Try to keep the kick drum and other bass parts in mono and other drum parts such as hi hats in stereo to give the groove a nice spread. Keep your hi hats neat and tidy. Another good tip is to try and keep effects on the drums to a bare minimum. Too much FX such as reverb can drown out the groove and make it too wet thus loosing the energy of the drums. This will be very noticeable over a club sound system. Additionally, try playing around with the pitch of the sounds. De-tuning kick drums or percussive elements of your groove will bring another dimension to your pattern and completely change the overall vibe.

Chords, Stabs & Melodies

As well as the groove drum pattern, another important element of UK Garage is the melodic structure. If you are not a keyboard like like most people, then you can always use one shots / hits to help you. One shots can be in the form or short chord keyboard hits, bass notes, percussive sounds or synth stabs. When creating a pattern, try to listen to the drum groove you have and work with it, not against it. The rhythmic pattern of your melody must compliment the groove, in other words, the drum pattern and the melody line must ‘talk to each other’. It must become part of the groove. Try using low –pass filters automated by an envelope with effects to manipulate and create movement with the sound and add reverb for depth and warmth. Use parameter controls over velocity maps for example to control cutoff and decay. This will create shape and by adding compression to it will really bring out your sound to new life.

If you are going for a rhythmic UK garage 4x4 style, space is important. When I mentioned above about ‘Less is more’, it really means something here. Picture a melody in your head and imagine how people will be ‘dancing’ to it. This will determine the way you create your melodic groove pattern. UKG melodic patterns tend to be ‘off beat’ grooves and not straight line groove patterns. This is what gives it its unique style and vibe. When choosing sounds, try to look for rich harmonic sounds. Obscure jazzy chords, deep house chord stabs or even sounds sampled from classic keyboard synths such as Yamaha’s Korg M1 keyboard for those classic organ sounds.

Arrangement

When arranging your song, always keep the DJ in mind and imagine how he/she will be mixing your track within their Dj set. The intro is very important for Dj’s as this allows them enough room to mix your track into another. Make your arrangement progress in 16 bar sections, so the DJ and the clubber knows when to expect changes within the song. Within each of these sections, some elements of the groove may consist of 1, 2, 4 or 8-bar repeating patterns. These elements tend to move around by adding, removing or altering every four or eight bars.

Breakdowns tend to be in the middle of the track, so if you have a track that is 6 minutes, you can drop the breakdown around the 3 min mark. There is no hard & fast rule to this, so use your imagination, this is only intended as a guide. You could also have a mini breakdown either side of this, for instance right after the intro and just before the first major section of the song when everything is in. Try to be imaginative and try different arrangement ideas. You could start with drums then lead into some intro vocals then the mini drop, or you could start with a non-percussive intro building up into a percussive drum section and into the main section of the song, its totally up to you and depends on the elements you have within your song. Another good tip is to finish the final section of your sing with drums. This is something a DJ really likes, as it allows once again for them to start mixing in another track within their Dj set.

Vocals & Vocal Chops

Garage is known for its very percussive vocal chops which is an essential part of the genre, especially when you are doing ‘Dub versions’. You can use various kinds of midi based samplers and software instruments to do this. Back in the day, Akai samplers were very popular. You would chop up and edit sounds within the device and map it across a keyboard and play it manually. Nowadays there are many different ways of doing this such as Ableton Live sampler or ES24 being the most popular. Have a play around with vocals by chopping up samples every syllable. You could have a short vocal phrase of 5-6 words, but once chopped up and edited you can create double or even treble the amount of samples allowing you possibilities to manipulate the phrase in any way you want, even completely disguising the original vocal hook. Map out these vocals across a keyboard of matrix editor and have fun coming up with interesting groove vocal patterns over your groove pattern. Try adding effects and filters and play around with the sound envelopes in much the same way you would with ‘one shot chord sounds’ as explained earlier. Treat the vocals as a percussive element of the track, but listening to the melody and lyrical content so it still makes sense to what the track is about. It’s a good idea to program 4-5 variations to choose from.

[jazzworldquest-blog]

USA: Sax-vocalist Michael J. Thomas is "Driven" to compete with an upbeat and diverse passion project

Contact: Rick Scott 310.306.0375 rick@greatscottpr.com

Sax-vocalist Michael J. Thomas is “Driven” to compete with an upbeat and diverse passion project

The first single, “Baby Coffee,” earned most added honors at Billboard and hit the SiriusXM playlist ahead of Friday’s album release, leading to a distribution deal.

DESTIN (18 August 2017): No sophomore slump for contemporary jazz-pop artist Michael J. Thomas, who released his second album, “Driven,” on Friday on the Harbor Breeze Records imprint. The ten-song set burst out of the gate jolted by a wave of national airplay for the first single, “Baby Coffee,” earning Billboard most-added honors in its debut week followed by an add at SiriusXM’s Watercolors, leading the saxophonist-vocalist to sign a distribution deal for the project with Perry Music Group/Sony Music.            

It’s been seven years since Thomas issued his instrumental debut album, “City Beat,” and six years since he made his vocal debut with the infectious standalone single “I Think About Amy,” which peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard chart after a remix by two-time Grammy winner Paul Brown. “Driven” is his first collection to combine sax-led soul-jazz instrumentals and R&B-pop vocal tunes that showcase a voice that programmers and reviewers have compared to Michael Jackson and George Michael. It’s a varied, exhilarating session written and produced by Thomas and longtime collaborator Shannon Wallace with additional tracks produced by Oli Silk, Trammell Starks and Music Man Dre Forbes.   

"I got the bug to record a new album in 2014. I hadn’t written anything new in a while and all of these melodies and lyrics were hitting me. However, the songs didn’t all fit into one genre, but I recorded them anyway. I decided that this would be a passion project for me more than trying to write music that fits the traditional model,” said the Destin, Florida-based Thomas, who is submitting “Driven” for Grammy nomination consideration. “I titled the album after one of the pop-oriented songs I wrote that has to do with staying driven and motivated to compete.”

While “Baby Coffee” has all the makings of a late summer instrumental hit –percolating groove, stimulating funk beats and energizing horn-powered harmonies – Thomas opens the disc with the shimmering and slick “My Love,” one of four vocal numbers. An empowering vocal drop adds street cred to “In America, You Can Do It!,” an instrumental inspired by Thomas’s alto sax and Gino Rosaria’s glistening keyboards. “You Know You Got This” is another confidence-building instrumental. A Minneapolis-style old-school funk party meets disco vibe breaks out on “Girls Got Moves,” a dance floor filler vocal tune that also closes the album in instrumental form. The percussive instrumental “Make Me Crazy” is an aggressive agitator that showcases Thomas trading barbs during an extended improvisational breakdown with trumpeter Paul Scurto. A congenial “Get Your Smooth On” benefits from a luminous anthemic chorus. Thomas caresses on the intimate “Say Goodbye” with a mix of heartbreak vocals and a tender soprano sax solo followed by the reassuring Quiet Storm instrumental affirmation “Never Gonna Leave You.” The title track offers a take-no-prisoners attack on raw ambition as kinetic beats, incendiary horn and synth blasts, and a screaming electric guitar solo from Mark Jaimes (Simply Red) ignite this scorching vocal number.

Underneath the invigorating instrumental veneer and the pure power pop panache that make “Driven” a bright, vibrant and an assured listen, there is a vulnerable artist who struggled to overcome an intense personal crisis to complete the record.   

“‘Driven’ is very personal and represents a particularly sensitive and difficult period that I endured emotionally. I started writing it in the midst of a romantic relationship. Tragically, she passed away and I didn’t know if I could finish the album after dealing with depression in the aftermath. But I did and I continue to push forward. That’s what I want the takeaway to be from this album.”  

The “Driven” album contains the following songs:

“My Love”

“Baby Coffee”

“In America, You Can Do It!”

“You Know You Got This”

“Girls Got Moves”

“Make Me Crazy”

“Get Your Smooth On”

“Say Goodbye”

“Never Gonna Leave You”

“Driven”

“Girls Got Moves” (instrumental)

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