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Beirut Soundtracks France: “The Flying Club Cup”

Published by

tyler

August 31, 2007 in the french, baroque, anytime, horns, folk, orchestrated and worldly. 1 Comment

Before even dipping into the latest Beirut offering The Flying Club Cup there’s a whole host of things to keep in mind.

For starters, while not a concept album, per se, Zach Condon was explicit with the intent of the album, and that intent is not so distant from Sufjan’s own 50 States project, on a much smaller (practical?) scale. Each song is meant to carry with it the air of a particular city in France, and as Joshua points out in his review, it makes atmospheres come alive with rich vibrancy through orchestration just the way the soundtrack for Amelie was able to. While listening to the album and trying to draw connections, it’s sometimes just as easy as a cursory glance at the track name to know which city it’s attached to, cities like “Nantes” or “Cherbourg” are directly connected to the track names (tracks #2 and #11, respectively), while others require a little more digging. Track #12, for instance commemorates the statue of Saint Appolina held at the church in Locronan, and still others are plays on French words (track #5: La Banlieu -> “banlieue” as French for “suburbs”). Translations aren’t always as fruitful, with tracks like “Un Dernier Verre (Pour La Route)” translating to “Last Drink (For The Road)” or track #8 “Forks and Knives (La Fete)” is fêteor celebration.

“Forks and Knives” celebrates with violins, and with easy-come drums that sway to-and-fro, backed by voices that almost cheer in the background, cheering for one old man easing and passing away “he means well, sang ‘I’ve got stories of wine, and of course my childhood forks and knives and then the hospital bed where I turn my life over and over again.” It is homage to the folks who live, breathe, and fade away from the lives of the cities themselves. If it wasn’t for the instrumentals, you might even well up, fortunately it is dosed up with a senile, blissful cheer and you can’t help but sway along.

Interestingly, that last track is followed up by “In The Mausoleum” which stings of piano work reminiscient of Charlie Brown, and for me at least, conjures up in those first few strokes an image of the children scurrying along concrete floors. I also can’t help but think of the famous bass-section keys from “Linus and Lucy“.

If you have a knack for Eastern-European instrumentals like I do, you’ll be delighted to know that Jeremy Barnes (A Hawk and a Hacksaw) is once again a real and strong driving force for the studio work on Club Cup, as is Owen Pallett (of Final Fantasy and Arcade Fire fame) present in supplying guest vocals and even some of the signature string arrangements he’s known for. The trio working in tandem like this is undoubtedly one of the reasons that Beirut, since Gulag has seemed to have aged nearly a decade, successfully generating a palette of decadent tracks, and without compromise can seamlessly move about between the playful and the emotional.

As a final and important note, the cover, lush with old-time beach fun (read: bold stripes and over-clothed women in lawn chairs) was Mr. Condon’s beloved inspiration that hung on his wall during his in-home composing sessions for The Flying Club Cup: “Back in the early 1900s, like the 1910s or 1920s, there used to be this hot air balloon festival in Paris– it’s titled after that and after this very bizarre 1910 photo I found. It’s one of the first color photos ever made, at the World’s Fair, and it…shows all these ancient hot air balloons about to take off in the middle of Paris. I just thought it was the most surreal image I’d seen in a long time.”

listen:
Beirut - Nantes
Beirut - Forks and Knives (La Fete)
Beirut - In The Mausoleum
Vince Guaraldi Trio - Linus and Lucy

The album is slated for an October 9th release on Ba Da Bing records, and Amazon has pre-orders up for when you’re ready.

[header image cropped from this photo]

Poland’s Funk.

Published by

matt.

August 4, 2007 in funk, bassbass, horns, worldly and tunes. 1 Comment

As far as genres go, I’d hypothesize that funk is among the leading styles of music that is near impossible to dislike. Between the fat fat bass-lines, the groove heavy drum-beats & the sheer libido-drenched characteristic energy of the music, funk is cornerstone in Western music history. But, while it is well-documented that regions like New Orleans, Miami or, hell, even Texas had thriving funk scenes, it is easy to forget that the 70’s took place outside of America too.

Case in point: I say Poland, you say funk.

Not a natural reaction is it? Well, as it so happens, the Poles in the 70’s had their share of booty-shaking bass, horns & rhythm too. And to drive this point home, the Soul Service DJ Team set to work, digging up & remastering all sorts of rare original recordings to produce, for the first time ever, a true CD’s worth of pure Polish Funk. An impressive endeavor, for sure.

The American influence on Poland’s funk is definitely apparent - from Henryk Debich’s reinterpretation of the Shaft theme to the Piotr Figiel Ensemble’s Agent 008, many of the tracks are variations on a familiar theme for anyone remotely knowledgeable about the genre. However, that isn’t to say that everything on the album is, at all, stereotypical.

Just check out “Introduction” by the Novi Singers, a track which bounces between a typical driving horn rhythm & some awesome scat style jazz mumblin’ vocals. The juxtaposition is clean & impressive. Or the double-timed vocals on Bemibek’s “What’cha Doin’ Mister”, which could easily be a Go! Team out-take. Or the hand drums driven “You Want Too Much” by the ABCs, which breaks down into a horn stanza awesomely reminiscent of Arthur Brown’s “Fire”. Or the psychedelic guitar work on Breakout’s “Listen to the Rhythm”. It is fun shit, all around.

So, check out some of the samples & let us know what you think - does Poland got what it takes? I, for one, can definitely find some room in my collection for another serving.

even the pope grooves on this:
The ABCs - You Want Too Much.
Novi Singers - Introduction.
Breakout - Listen to the Rhythm.
Bemibek - What’cha Doin’ Mister?

Polish Funk is now available directly from Polskie Nagrania, which, unfortunately, is mostly in Polish. Fortunately, you can also order a copy through the Boombox Distribution Network in English.

A Day at the Office, Part Three (M.I.A.).

Published by

matt.

July 30, 2007 in bassbass, bang bang, classy ladies, mashed, grime-love, worldly and tunes. 2 Comments

Post-lunch & M.I.A.’s latest, Kala, hits my speakers with a metallic beat, the sound of zooming cars and M.I.A. crooning about “going 100 miles per hour… with your radio on” & I’m sold. The track is “Bamboo Banga” and, as far as I’m concerned, this brief first minute should mark M.I.A.’s return to the spotlight.

As the track continues, her vocals get layered, the beat intensifies, and siren-esque vocal samples begin to punctuate each lyric. The source of the beat is hinted at around the 3:40 mark, where the breakdown reveals it as a traditional sounding Indian song… before pumping back up the bass & bringin’ it all back home. On par with Oh No’s and Madlib’s latest outings, M.I.A. continues to choose beats whose impressiveness is only contested by their unconventionality.

Other highlights include the remix collaboration with the Wilcannia Mob on “Mango Pickle Down River”, a group of Aboriginal boys rapping over top a didgeridoo beat & scratching. Or what about hand drums on “The Turn”? Or the sweet Bollywood melodies of “Jimmy”? The album is seriously back-to-back world infused hits.

By the end of the album, M.I.A. is, literally, soaring. “Paper Planes” starts off with a rising shoegaze beat. It unselfconsciously references “Hit That”, a track whose omission from Kala is probably one of the only missteps of the album, with “all I wanna do” but instead of completing the phrase… cuts to the sound of three gunshots. What was once the most banging track of May is now, literally, the most banging track on the album. Tongue-in-cheek & ballsy, for sure.

The last track on the album, “Come Around”, will probably get the most peripheral attention due to the presence of the revered Timbaland. The duo trade verses over a simple tambourine & piano beat and, seriously, there isn’t anything wrong with the track… but it is certainly the most conventional sounding song on the record. But, when your record is as varied as Kala is… That ain’t nothing to worry about. This shit is B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

~~M.I.A. - Bamboo Banga.~~ (removed by request)
~~M.I.A. - Hussel (ft. Afrikan Boy).~~ (removed by request)

KALA is droppin’ August 21st from XL Recordings. While you wait, check out M.I.A.’s myspace - but beware. Sunglasses might be required.

Oh No’s Education.

Published by

matt.

July 13, 2007 in psych-freakout, mashed, bassbass, hippity-hop, stones throw, worldly, fuzz and tunes. 0 Comments

There is a longstanding debate in psychology about whether certain behaviours are due to nature, (genetic causes) or nurture (that is, life experiences we encounter that might mold our future actions). Now, class, case-study: the younger brother of an internationally renowned beat juggler puts out an instrumental hip-hop album, which, like his kin’s releases, sample from all sorts of obscure sources. Overall, I don’t know if we can say that the brothers Jackson - Otis Jr. & Michael, more commonly known as Madlib and Oh No, respectively - are genetically-coded to search out & spin beats, but damn… if they don’t make a compelling argument.

Long-winded introductions aside, Oh No’s latest release (for those keeping count, it is his third), Dr. No’s Oxperiment, is his most eclectic yet. Like the last Madlib release, which found the Konducta sampling inspiration from India, Oh No also travels abroad, describing the mix as “an audio tour of Turkish, Lebanese, Greek, and Italian psyche funk”. It must run in the family.

And, in practice, it definitely works, sounding, at times, like a soundtrack to a James Bond film (which I am sure, judging based on the name of the album, is intentional) that happens to take place in the Middle East. It is some classy shit that reminds me, again, of the last Konducta release but heavier on the psychedelic rock sound. So, kind of like a hip-hop reinterpretation of Floyd’s More. It is a definite Tunes Consumed recommendation.

beats international:
Oh No - Higher.
Oh No - Bouncers.
Oh No - My Luck.

Dr. No’s Oxperiment drops July 31st via our favourite Stones Throw Records.

Confusion & Bemusement.

Published by

matt.

July 9, 2007 in mashed, live, gleeful, worldly and videos. 2 Comments

Yeah yeah. Y’all know about Live Earth. Tons of bands, all over the world, playing huge concerts, fightin’ global warming and all that. Now, I haven’t really been paying attention to the press surrounding the event but I just stumbled upon this clip which makes me think that perhaps I should.

What we got here is a duet between Madonna and our favourite gypsy-punks Gogol Bordello, covering the usually pretty lame “La Isla Bonita”. And, damn, if I ain’t at least bemused with the results.

highly what-the-fuck gypsy + madonna dance-party:

My Trip to India in the Canadian Suburbs

Published by

Alley

July 6, 2007 in Indian, free-jazz, worldly and tunes. 0 Comments

I have been absent from these pages these last few weeks as I have been travelling in those oh so exotic regions that are the suburbs of Toronto. I have not, however, returned empty handed. While I didn’t make it as far as India I did stop by my local Indian media store. Amongst other CDs that I randomly picked up I purchased the highly recommended (by some guy who worked in the store) album “Fusion mosaic” compiled by our friends at Rhythm House [see the three random Indian guys awkwardly displayed on the bridge of the paper cover].

Well despite some problems with repetition it turned out be a fairly interesting find. The music is performed by a variety of artists on both Indian and western instruments and has a clear jazz influence. According to my brother, Matthew A. Rubel, (who is believed to be an authority on the subject by at least two of his friends) the introduction of Indian instruments into Jazz in “Jazz Fusion” was made first by Miles Davis in such albums as Bitches Brew.

I would especially like to point out where about four minutes into “Motherland”, after a fairly sweet solo, the strings battles it out against some unconventional (at least along the western front) scatting.

All in all the music makes for a nice background or a relaxed listening. Most of all it serves for a good step in the right direction if you’re looking to expand your music collection.

“mp3s”:

Tandav

Motherland

the Konducta’s Tour of India.

Published by

matt.

July 4, 2007 in gypsy, history, Indian, hippity-hop, worldly and tunes. 1 Comment

For years now, I’ve always held a mild fascination with India. Be it the general culture & philosophies, the food (god damn, do I love samosas and a good curry) or the politics… The country is nothing if not intriguing for the typical Westerner. Rivaling my interest in Indian cuisine, though, is my on-again, off-again love affair with their music. The typical instrumentation is unconventional to my ear and often their use of vocals can be engrossing and melodically intense to the point of irritation. And so, it is to my utter delight that, the ultimate (and self-proclaimed) Beat Konducta himself, Madlib, decided to use the music of India as the palette for his latest record.

The new record, In India, is the third release from Madlib’s ever-growing Beat Konducta alias, where all focus is placed upon the Konducta’s skills with juggling all the various beats he can dig up from his record collection. That a record solely comprised of beats can be as compelling as most traditional hip-hop records speaks volumes about Madlib’s talent.

Volume 3 features 16 tracks over an all too brief 29 minutes. As compared with most music I have heard from the region, the structure of the songs is rather simplified - where most songs may feature a crescendo or build-up in complexities of sorts, there is none to be found here. In fact, the record plays like any other Western beats LP (think Doom’s Special Herbs series), with to-the-point repeated phrases with some vocal samples thrown in on top.

The previous paragraph may make the record sound lack-luster but, in execution, it is anything but. The record relies on the spectrum of Indian instruments, which, in turn, makes the entire record both a good introduction to India’s music and a sick sick sick set of beats. I’ve been listening to the record all morning (at least 10 spins, from start to finish), trying to decide which tracks would make for the best introduction to the concept. And, honestly, it is a tough call. The record, from start to finish, is brilliant and I can’t wait til August to hear the follow-through.

a taste of india:
Madlib, The Beat Konducta - The Rumble.
Madlib, The Beat Konducta - onthatnewthing.
Madlib, The Beat Konducta - Dancing Girls Theme.

Volume 3: In India is now available on vinyl through Fat Beats for a mere $11.99. The record won’t be digitalized til August, where it’ll be packaged with Volume 4 & distro’d through Stones Throw Records.

You’re Not An Island (Kama Aina)

Published by

tyler

June 8, 2007 in islandcore, worldly and tunes. 0 Comments

[Music Activist cover]

Not anymore, Mr. Takuji Aoyagi.

It seems Kama Aina is (finally) getting some Geographic lovin’. It began just last year with Club Kama Aina leaving the shores of Japan via Rumraket, and that was an amazing release. Now it’s time that Music Activist come around to this side of the world. This release is especially appropriate, seeing as it spells out in plain English precisely what Mr. Aoyagi is.

Mr. Aoyagi believes thoroughly in experiencing the world, so it’s no surprise that where he calls home (such a dense city like Tokyo) would elicit in him such potent cabin fever. I imagine this is what fuels his desire to travel, and every place he visits somehow rubs something off on him, which is then turned around and expressed in his music. Often times he will even pull out a mic to capture the scene (like many of the sounds in “Wedding Suite”), and the rest of the time this recreation is a duty he’s taken upon himself to act out with strings and various other instruments.

The name Kama Aina has origins as a Hawaiian word that literally means ‘native man’, and not unlike Hawaii - the island everyone longs for but never seems to visit - his music plays like a faraway fantasy island, no doubt like his mind.

Music Activist is a best-of compilation that doesn’t play like a best-of, but rather, like a series of delicately crafted vignettes. It’s on shelves now, and you can grab a copy direct from Geographic here.

mp3:
Kama Aina - Worms in ‘71
Kama Aina - Wedding Suite

the Pout Education Hour: SKA.

Published by

matt.

June 8, 2007 in history, ska, horns, worldly and tunes. 0 Comments

Pout Education Hour: a SKAndalous Musical History Lesson.

feels like dancin’

OK, all you rude bois & grrrls, listen up. There is an infectious beat happening – one with roots deeper than y’all think that has influenced modern music more than one can even easily conceive. You might have heard about this sweet sweet groove, this lovechild of a genre known to the devout simply as ska. And you might be thinking that all my preceding words are superfluous because, really, what have a handful of punks really changed in the context of the larger realm of musical history? And I tell you, hold yer head in shame. While, to the layperson, ska’s origins lay in a late-1970’s Britain, where groups like the Clash and the Specials mixed punk-rock with Jamaican rhythms, this is almost painfully false. So, let us don the styles of McFly and see what really went down.

As a defined genre, ska actually dates back to the mid-1950’s. A post-World War II Jamaica found itself, for the first time, on the receiving end of an influx of transistor radios and, with this technology, came an exposure to the current musical movements of the southern United States: jazz and traditional rhythm & blues. This exposure would serve to be foundational in a new fusion-genre; ska would combine the American traditional 4/4 rhythm, with a bass drum accenting the 2nd & 4th beats, but augmenting them with a heavy guitar chops on the back beats – creating a rhythmic sound, dubbed a skank, reminiscent of other Caribbean genres, like the calypso & mento. In fact, one theory about the root of the word ’ska’ muses that it was phonologically adopted from this sound, a “skat! skat!” noise.

Earlier pioneers like Prince Buster, Clement Dodd (with his house-band, the Skatalites), Dandy Livingstone and Don Drummond would lay the foundation for this new genre, to the delight of dancehalls (aka ’sound systems’) across the country. By the late 60’s, ska was a foundation genre in Jamaica which, over the course of the next few years, would evolve into what is now labeled reggae, dub & rocksteady.

The slower rhythms and unforgettable voice found in reggae, most notably those of a certain Robert Nesta Marley & his Wailers, inevitably, garnered an international interest. The quintessential Catch a Fire was actually re-recorded – with British ‘flourishes’ – for international debut in England in 1973, bringing the Jamaican ska influence straight to the heart of the upstarts who would breathe life into another burgeoning genre: punk-rock.

By 1977, ska was revitalized in England. This period is generally dubbed Second-Wave ska but can also properly be referred to as ‘2-Tone’, in homage to the legendary 2 Tone Records. The Specials, who operated 2 Tone Records, alongside groups like the Beat, the Selector and Madness, worked to fuse traditional ska rhythms with punk rock lyrics and guitar lines, creating an sensation in the process.

The 80’s saw the ska influence expand as bands from the United States and other countries started to dig 2 Tone releases and form their own groups in response. The more orthodox side of this revitalization is dubbed Third-Wave ska, featuring bands like the Toasters, the Uptones and, later on, Hepcat. These bands were generally more interested in first-wave ska than its punk-rock form.

On the other side of the Third-Wave spectrum, were bands whose influence was more steeped in punk rock. They would subsequently develop a new sub-genre, that of ska-punk. Most notable of these bands were groups like Operation Ivy, who promoted punk ideals of unity over skanking rhythms. Ska-punk has since flourished with hundreds of bands now promoting their own interpretation of the genre.

And so, while most Caucasians, like Caucasians seem to do, would like to think that the roots of ska merely reside in Britain… this opinion is clearly one of ignorance in that ska predates this period by a good 20 or so years. The roots of this important genre run deep to such depths that it, undoubtedly, has influenced practically every modern genre of Western music, ranging from classic rock and punk to electronic and hip-hop.

As punk ethos tells us, we should think globally but act locally so… If you are at all interested in a modern interpretation of the genre, come on & check out our local ska-band, The Massawippi Skank as they rock out at the International Women’s Week Concert on March 8th at 22 Prospect! It is going to be sweet. So, come on out & live up!

mp3 platter:

First-Wave/Traditional:
Don Drummond - Rocket Ship.
The Upsetters - Man from M.I.5

Second-Wave/Two-Tone:
The Specials - A Message to You, Rudy.

Third-Wave/”Ska-Punk”:
Operation Ivy - Sound System & Take Warning.
Hepcat - Rudies All Around.

(this piece originally appeared, in a less interactive form, in the zine Poutine for the Queen, Vol. 2, Issue 10, which went to press March 4th, 2007.)

Talking Timbuktu and just hearing awesome

Published by

Alley

June 4, 2007 in blues, worldly and tunes. 0 Comments

It didn’t take me very long to like this album. In fact I only heard it for the first time today. My wonderful older sister sent it to me along with five other CDs of music she recommends. The album is of Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder on the guitar and is named for Toure’s home Timbuktu, Mali, West Africa. I was informed that Ry Cooder is a westerner, and Toure sings in 11 different languages, however only four are heard in this particular album.

In the beginning it sounds like your average (though very good) African music with maybe some slightly more liberal guitar work. There’s a good background of hand drums and different international sounds, including some that I’d usually think to be Indian. Certainly something very nice to chill to. Then on their track Amandrai, Ry Cooder seems to break loose and we’re introduced to the song with this sweet guitar solo which descends into what feels like your classic blues except in a language you don’t know but really don’t need to. After listening to this track I’ve gone back and noticed the clear Jazz influence I’d missed before because it fit in so well. As the music continues the guitar and all the other soft noises in the background seem to draw you around as though you were floating along some misty swamp. Each track is unique in some way but fits in with the rest. All in all they’ve mixed at least two of my favourite sounds to create something I highly recommend you go and retrieve immediately, then spend an hour just listening to.

mp3:

Bonde

Amandrai