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secretradiobrooklyn · 4 years

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SECRET RADIO | Sept.5.20

“Crosscountry Rabbithole” curated in the van on a drive between Brooklyn and the countryside of Illinois on Labor Day Weekend 2020 (Hear it here.)

As there’s still very much a pandemic going on, we really didn't want to stop overnight if we didn’t have to on our drive from New York to Illinois, so after we exhausted the fantastic Saturday NPR lineup we figured a great way to stay awake was compiling the second issue of WBFF. You’ll hear a lot of the African and tropical vibe from last week, plus more French yé-yé and Europe in general. Here’s the track list, and of course, detailed notes below:

WBFF, édition 2, 5.SEP.20

1. Michel Polnareff - La lezione del capellone

Le Beatnik is one of Paige’s all-time favorite songs — the guitar is just such a rad riff, and it was a real debate on which version to put on, the French version of the Italian, and we figured we didn’t have much Italian yet… plus check out how he rolls his Rs! That’s one thing about the major hitters of French pop in the ‘60s — they all sing in different languages. (Keep an ear out for France Gall later!)

2. Antoine Dougbé - Honton Soukpo Gnos

Dougbé just hit us like a ton of bricks — these arrangements are completely perfect to our ears. So detailed, and with super funk and super Velvet Underground tones at the same time (check out the freakin guitar solo, and guitar outro), plus of course a Beninese pulse that is just unstoppable. This one was produced, uncredited, by Melomé Clement, and Dougbé isn’t the singer, he’s the composer.

3. The Velvet Underground - Cool It Down

The guitar tones here come so naturally out of the T.P. Orchestre sound. There’s plenty of stuff he’s saying that I don’t understand, and he’s saying it in English.

4. Ranil - Ranil y Su Conjunto Tropical - Licenciado

This is another Analog Africa release, with a fantastic album cover. Paige dove into it and soon found that she was checking every day to see if the vinyl was out, cos it was under 300 copies and falling. It’s got a parrot on the cover that looks like the Greenwood parakeets. This song is how she learned that she loves cumbia music.

5. T.P. Orchestre Poly Rythmo - Trop Parler C’est Maladie

The guitar launches into these endless patterns that wind around an unknown number of percussionists. Everyone feels so fluid together. “Trop parler c’est maladie”: “Too much talking is bad,” literally, which Paige imagines as essentially meaning, “Let’s stop talking and make out.” But we don’t really know.

The way the voices layer together when they’re singing, and then the guitar rises into the spaces between them, twisting and winding and droning and melodizing, is just completely mesmerizing. This incredible guitarist is Papillon, and he died in 1982. What a huge loss — he plays so eloquently and so conversationally.

6. Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang - Somebody

I learned about Janka Nabay by hearing that he had just died. Listening to KDHX, the DJ (Caron House?) said she was sorry to hear about his passing and put on this song and I had to stop driving so I could just listen to all of the patterns crossing. I sure would have loved to see this band perform live — I feel like this is a specific reason we want to be in NYC, to meet people with capabilities I hadn’t previously known existed and work together.

7. Anna Karina - Roller Girl

Our friends Phil and Archie are an intercontinental love affair. When Phil tries to express an American accent, it’s always dripping with RRRRRs. This song feels like that, a French singer dramatically unrolling her Rs like she’s messing with her English teacher.

8. Wells Fargo - Watch Out

We believe we first heard about Wells Fargo from a Snap Judgment episode. It’s really great, starting with how they picked the name from the side of a stagecoach in a Western movie as a completely random phrase.

9. Patrick Coutin - J’aime regarder les filles

This song — this pretty freakin radical recording — became a huge hit in France in 1981 and apparently served as the soundtrack of that period. It was his big hit.

That main phrase he keeps repeating translates to “I like to watch girls on the beach,” which gets weirder and sometimes creepier with each pass.

10. Jacques Dutronc - Les cactus

Credit to Pandora for bringing us Jacques Dutronc! He sounds like Bob Dylan on a lot of songs, but he doesn’t seem to be the Dylan of France — that would be more like Serge Gainsbourg. But we could be wrong about that too. He’s also longtime partners with Francoise Hardy, which made them two of the hottest and hippest and most talented musicians of the ’60s.

Clip from Diablo Menthe

This is the clip of the schoolkids that we told you about, singing the Sylvie Vartan song from last week.

11. El Rego - Zon Dede

One of our main appreciations now is how deeply and broadly and internationally James Brown hit the ’60s and ’70s. People seemed to be struck by him and his approach planetwide, and it shows up like a shockwave through the whole era. This is Benin’s El Rego (thanks to Analog Africa once more for pointing him out), and his whole character seems to be in conversation with James Brown, shouting at each other from opposite sides of the world.

12. T.P. Poly-Rythmo, Bentho Gustave - Iya Me Dji Ki Bi Ni

The level of simultaneous groove and drone happening here is just unstoppable. This song has a sound I feel like I’ve always been looking for, not to play but just to dance and freak out to. Bentho Gustave is T.P. Poly-Rythmo’s bassist. We just got his headlining album on vinyl, so amazing!

13. Cambodian Rocks 1 - Yol Aularong - Jeas Cyclo (Ride Cyclo)

It’s amazing to think about how many sudden collisions of American and Cambodian experiences there were in the ’60s — so many disastrous ones, but also whatever combination of factors lead to the existence of this music. It’s so incredibly skilled and smooth, and I want to know more about who made this and how.

14. Adriano Celentano - Prisencolinensinainciusol

Don’t miss the videotape version of the live TV version via YouTube. Celentano is an Italian singer, but this is him tweaking Americans with a songful of non-English English.

15. France Gall - Der Computer Nr. 3

Another example of French pop multilingualism. One of Paige’s favorite voices, just throwing herself into the melodies all casual and easy breezy. We found out about this song because Paige was listening to a bunch of Quebecois radio, and they were talking about her, and they were playing a bunch of clips of her performing, including this one. It turned out that she had just passed on. We had to find it find this track.

16. Saigon Rock and Soul - Thành Mái - Tóc Mai Sợi Vắn Sợi Dài (Long, Uneven Hair)

What a vocal performance! Everything about the tones and melody of this recording — voice, organ, guitar — make it feel like a dream of hardcore hippie rock, minus even one shred of San Francisco. Every time I hear this song hit its crescendo I am completely in its thrall.

17. Ofege - It’s Not Easy

So these guys are from Lagos, Nigeria, and were in high school when they recorded this. Which is just freakin perfect. It sounds like enthusiasm and bad gear and good voices and that singular feeling of being sixteen and having a stone blast.

18. Avolonto Honore et l’Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - Sètché Wêda

It took some time for us to find this song. This version is from an album we found online, but it also exists on an Analog Africa album. The hand drums locked in with the guitar lick for the verse get so deep when the other voices come in. And the cascading guitar riff creates a sudden electric waterfall, while the horns point straight over to jazz and western rock and soul.

19. Ranil y su Conjunto Tropical - Marlenita

Paige became completely smitten with this album, which we found after getting caught up in an album promising Peruvian chichidelica.

20. National Wake - Everybody Loves Freedom

When I started looking for African punk, I found this set of videos of National Wake and pretty much all of them are this good. They’re a Black and white band (the first?) from South Africa in apartheid ’70s and the rock and punk that they make overflows with feeling. There’s a documentary called Punk in Africa that clearly needs watching.

21. English Beat - Mirror in the Bathroom

The live version of this song really amps up the energy from the studio version I’m used to. This song always makes me think of my friend Audrey, who made me a mixtape when I was just a wee twig, and this was one of the songs that broke through and made a lasting impression. I think of her every time.

22. Fela Kuti - Roforofo Fight

“Translation from the original English hrm hrm hrm”

This song structure is so very cool, where he’s kind of playing around, setting the stage, warming up his story, and then the horns crash in with a shocker part, which gives away to this cartoonish, endlessly repeating horn phrase, like a piece of early Disney footage on repeat. Also like loop-based recordings that were still more than a decade in the future. This is one of my favorite versions of Fela, where he’s exploding with a new self and a new mode of music.

23. Fela Ransome Kuti and His Koola Lobitos - Ololufe

Now some time travel - this is from a collection of earliest Fela Kuti, when he’s in a completely different mode, more in the high life and samba form. He and his band are playing in a crowd-pleasing style, and it’s really very beautiful, with gorgeous vocals and horn passages. But this is also all prelude to Fela Anikulapo Kuti, a character we haven’t even glimpsed yet when this song was recorded.

24. William Onyeabor - Atomic Bomb

We really don’t know much about this song except that it seems to always show up at just the right time — or maybe its presence just makes the time right.

25. Assa Cica - Tinma Sa Le

We were down a different rabbithole when we saw this video appear that we couldn’t pass up. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rpI09vbq_Q) It’s a long and winding song that was one of Assa Cica’s most notable hits in Benin.

I love the three slapped notes in the middle of the song that never come back — that’s the way to slap. The bass throughout this song, but especially in the choruses, is exceptional, telling its own separate story but staying in relation with the vocals. And Paige’s favorite part of the melody is the bridge.

We just learned that Assa Cica died on May 22 of this year. It feels so strange to fall hard for a person’s music just as they leave the stage for good. (See also Janka Nabay.) It also feels good to realize you’ve already become part of a musician’s music living and giving beyond their own lives.

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…And now we are safely arrived in the woods of Illinois. Time for a whole bunch of screenprinting and music listening!

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