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Archive for the Musique Non Stop Category
Both this video and the song itself offer a really powerful look at commonly adopted stereotypes associated with young black men. It’s a bit dated in some respects, but there is an eerie omnipresence about the messages it contains. Sometimes it’s good to wonder just how far we’ve really come.
With regards to the music, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid remains one of the most impressive and skillful guitarists ever to adopt the instrument. Behind the breakbeats, you can find evidence of his mastery all through this song.
Little Rock’s finest, the one and only American Princes, are back at the wheel again in a couple of weeks. Their new release, Other People drops on Yep Roc on April 15th. We’re looking forward to hearing this one. This single and video are good indications that it’s another strong release from one of the most promising young American rock bands out there.
But Wait! There’s A Contest! And tour dates! — More Info After The Jump –
The news of a new solo album from Aimee Mann has us very excited here at Loudersoft. The album promises to be more stripped down and back-to-basics laden, a “return to form” after the concept albums The Forgotten Arm and her Christmas CD One More Drifter In The Snow. Among her appearances this year, she’ll be playing Bonnaroo, and we definitely look forward to catching her live.
Aimee Mann On Tour
June 2 Los Angeles, CA Largo
June 6 Anaheim, CA House of Blues
June 10 Los Angeles, CA Largo
June 12 Minneapolis, MN Minneapolis Zoo
June 13 Milwaukee WI Pabst Theater
June 15 Manchester, TN Bonnaroo Music Festival
July 9 Boulder, CO Chautauqua Auditorium
July 11 Denver, CO Denver Botanical Gardens
July 12 Park City, UT Deer Valley Resort
July 14 Saratoga, CA Mountain Winery
July 15 Rosebud, OR Stewart Park
July 16 Seattle, WA Seattle Zoo
July 24 Calgary, Alberta Calgary Music Festival
If you know about the various houses left in the wake of this bloke named Jack, you must have been to the house Mark Farina built. His Mushroom Jazz series is the stuff of legend, but on the tremendously promising new effort Fabric 40: Mark Farina, we see Farina elegantly returning to the house he started building at his core — the one built during his early residency at famed Chicago underage hotspot Medusa; the years digging for vinyl at Gramaphone, all the while rubbing elbows with masters of the Chicago house music scene — Derrick Carter, Ralphie Rosario, J Dub, DJ Heather.
Farina’s charisma behind the turntables lies in his ability to integrate styles that aren’t always inherently cohesive. His version of house music blends his famed huge party soundscapes with the intimate “back room” grooves he loves so much. “When making the mix,” Farina says, “I played a sort of fictitious set at fabric on a night that doesn’t exist. Musically, I tried to capture the techy, jackin’ Chicago/SF side of the house spectrum - dubby, chunky tracks. I picked a good variation of underground goodies, a lot of which are unreleased or hopefully not on any other compilations. Tracks that have a good ’shelf life’ but that aren’t proven hits; hidden gems that might go over looked in this fast paced music era.”
Fabric 40: Mark Farina adds another worthwhile chapter to the ongoing legacies of both Fabric and Farina. Attention must be paid.
Frank Solano - The Blues Line (Tommy Largo Remix)
Fabric 40: Mark Farina can be pre-ordered from Amazon By Clicking Here.
The seaport city of Boston, rich in musical tradition and heritage, has a legacy of turning out notable songwriters and musicians dating back generations. If you’re a follower of that long-standing tradition (or you happen to be one of the lucky ones who live there and get to experience it on a regular basis), you might have occasioned to stumble into places like Club Passim or The Middle East without expectation only to stumble back out deeply impressed with what you’ve just seen. This legacy has given root to Meg Hutchinson, a songwriter whose angelic voice, extraordinary lyricism and powerful delivery keeps us singing long after the music has. Ms. Hutchinson, who instantly won me over at this year’s Folk Alliance Conference, has released a new album entitled Come Up Full on Red House Records this year which, it is to be hoped, will help continue to garner her much-deserved accolades and gain a foothold of new fans.
Coming from a creative writing background helps to bolster the warmth layered throughout these twelve songs. It is a document of a woman who appears to have traveled around herself to become whole again, finding in her footsteps pieces of her personal mystery. It is a journey that this listener was able to relate to on a deep level of consciousness, making a connection in the desire to recover from the disasters laid upon us — the desire to find extraordinary beauty from ordinary things. On “Home”, she gives us reasons to count our many blessings; on the songs “Whole Bird” and “Seeing Stars”, she delights in the ironic dichotomies of what brings people together. Crit Harmon’s production values don’t ever become overbearing; they allow us to listen to and enjoy the songs in the simple way it seems they were always intended to be heard.
With Come Up Full, Ms. Hutchinson has catapulted into an upper echelon of songwriters. Seeing her placed along side names like Shawn Colvin, Natalie Merchant or Patty Griffin seems more than reasonable, ones for whom legacies and longevities seem pre-destined.
In spite of the many accolades laid upon Ms. Hutchinson and her work in this article, the simple fact that I can’t ignore is how drawn into the album I have become and, further, how I hope that others will begin to recognize her singularity as performer and songwriter.
Listen to Meg Hutchinson - “Home”
Listen to Meg Hutchinson - “Seeing Stars”
You can purchase Come Up Full
I like this track, I love Saddle Creek Records (don’t you?) and I really like Tokyo Police Club. Their new album, Elephant Shell will be out in April. Enjoy this (sadly really low quality rip) (resolved thanks to Side One Track One) MP3 of “In A Cave” from that forthcoming album. Tour Dates after the jump! YAY!
This is the pure definition of psychedelic interstellar afro-beat jazz funk, horns, crazy Hammond B-3 keyboards, straight-up junkie rhythms from 1971 banging up the block from outer space to the human race and back again. With guest vocal effects from Karolina, Chaka Moon and Elran Dekel, we get an enhancement to what is already a nearly perfect recording. Furthermore, what I would like to call “the Stanley Turrentine/Ahmad Jamal/Yusef Lateef factor” is all over this joint, a form of high praise that I think is well merited once you get to listen (if you know anything about those cats).
The best part is that while the individual sections of this record are wonderful, it’s much better as a complete work. There’s no filler here, no rush jobs or cutting and pasting — this is some handcrafted, vintage funk/soul shit that will stay with you long after the first listen. So if you are down with the notions and the concepts, then the practice and the performance is here for you to lay your dreams in. Kutiman is set to take on the world, and it’s time you climbed aboard and slid into the groove.
Kutiman - Music Is Ruling My World (featuring Karolina)
Kutiman - No Reason For You (featuring Elran Dekel)
You can purchase Kutiman’s S/T album from Amazon (CD or MP3) by clicking here.
The field of American songwriting, at least the kind we like to remember, never seems to grow too crowded. There’s always room for one more, particularly if the delivery and style can be likened to a heritage of memorable works. I remember being dragged to Joel Plaskett’s hotel room the second night of Folk Alliance 2008 where an impromptu songwriter’s circle had formed. I had this sense that I was smack in the middle of some of the best songwriters going — Colin Gilmore, Peter Case, Cory Branan, Adam Levy, Rose Cousins — and I was told to pay special attention to a woman named Rachel Ries. When we walked in, everyone was sitting on beds or floor or chairs, probably 15 people crammed into a small hotel room, and within a few minutes, Rachel began playing the song I’m featuring today, “Hands To Water”. — More after the jump –
I think it must be damning on the soul to never recognize the potential for greatness that lies just under the surface of each of us. I mean, we toil endlessly at these jobs, these relationships, these goals we set for ourselves, and some of us never figure out how good we really are at what we are until the years have slipped by us. Anthony da Costa is in no danger of being struck by this curse. At the tender age of 17, da Costa has quietly made a name for himself throughout the Northeastern U.S. playing coffee shops, bars, schools, and music festivals big & small. As an observer, I’m struck by the casual observation that da Costa’s songwriting and performing is wise far beyond his years, and I’m definitely not alone. His appearances at the 2008 Folk Alliance reassured those familiar with his resume while earning him a large audience of new fans.
People are quick to make comparisons between da Costa and Conor Oberst because of the relative ages in which the two began their songwriting and performing careers. I think that the comparisons pretty much end there; where Bright Eyes is the posterized emotionally distraught poetic anti-hero of disaffected youth, da Costa’s poetry and passions lack the relative bleakness of Bright Eyes, offering the protagonist in his songs hope. In da Costa’s world, our hero’s emotional reactions to what is happening will always leave him a real chance at achieving the life and love he seeks. On his latest CD, Typical American Tragedy, we are offered a clean window into da Costa’s exceptionally complex understandings of love and hope, an unflinchingly moving portrait of a love we’re often curious how da Costa could know about at so young an age.
Regardless of why or how, the combination of spare arrangements and consistently solid songwriting place his current achievements in a class with some of our greatest American songwriters. One has to believe, upon hearing his work, that Tragedy is only the beginning for da Costa on a long string of accomplishments as a performer. Personally, I couldn’t be more excited to see where the future leads or more fortunate to have seen him so close to the beginnings. I sincerely hope and believe that ten years from now, we will all still be talking about Anthony da Costa.
Anthony da Costa - Ain’t Much of a Soldier
You can purchase Typical American Tragedy (CD or MP3’s) from CD Baby by clicking here. 