Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Various Artists (2009) -Eastern Standard Time
Artist: various
Album: Eastern Standard Time
Released: 2009
Quality: mp3 CBR 256
Size: 93 MB
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Flat Duo Jets (1998) -Lucky Eye
Artist: Flat Duo Jets
Album: Lucky Eye
Released: 1998
Quality: mp3 CBR 192
Size: 63 MB
After spending the prior 15 years recording lo-fi roots-rock albums, Flat Duo Jets were finally taken into a modern recording studio for 1998's LUCKY EYE. Produced by Scott Litt of R.E.M. fame and Chris Stamey of the db's, the Jets' major-label debut found the band's sound enhanced rather than subverted by the use of updated recording technology. The duo (Dexter Romweber and Crow) not only churned out traditional rockabilly ("Blues Wrapped Around My Head") and rollicking instrumental surf music ("Ludwiggin," "Virginia Surf") but ragtime-soaked songs of titles normal ("Hot Rod Baby") and absurd ("Sharks Flying In").
Throughout, Romweber's delivery bounces between a grating rasp ("String Along") and a romantic rumble ("Go This Way"). His cackling intro preceding the noirish instrumental "Creeping Invention" even brings to mind Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Crow's sole vocal performance is a pleasantly honeyed reading of the countrified "Little M." By far, the most inspirational contributions come from master cellist Suzie Katayama, whose gorgeous string arrangements take LUCKY EYE to another level, particularly on the instrumental "New York Studio 1959," a sweeping number reminiscent of Nelson Riddles' work. These orchestrations allow Romweber to play both the dashing crooner (the tango-influenced "Go This Way") and the beautiful loser ("Lonely Guy").
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Dino Saluzzi, Anthony Cox, David Friedman (1995) -Rios
Artist: Dino Saluzzi, Anthony Cox, David Friedman
Album: Rios
Released: 1995
Quality: lossless (FLAC tracks) / mp3 CBR 320
Size: 237 / 100 MB
Because Dino Saluzzi is an Argentine who plays the bandoneon, it is inevitable to compare him to Astor Piazolla. This comparison is unfair, however, because if Saluzzi is playing tango, it is so abstracted and transformed that we may as well just call it jazz. If a better comparison is sought it would be to another international jazz musician like Renaud Garcia-Fons.
On Rios, Saluzzi plays with American bassist Anthony Cox and American vibist and arranger David Friedman, a musician who's run the gamut from Yoko Ono to Disney soundtracks. Together they play an assortment of tunes by members of the group, about half of them Saluzzi's, plus the one cover "My One and Only Love." The numbers are thoughtful but not flashy. Friedman's "Penta y Uno" is largely a deconstruction of bossa nova and tango, featuring percussion as well as vibes. Cox's "Jad" uses weird effects from the instruments and the occasional Arabic motif to build up to a subdued bop frenzy. Other tracks are more straight-ahead combinations of the primary instruments. ~ Kurt Keefner
Monday, March 21, 2011
A Hawk & A Hacksaw (2011) -Cervantine
Artist: A Hawk & A Hacksaw
Album: Cervantine
Released: 2011
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 83 MB
Though so much of A Hawk and a Hacksaw's Balkan folk-inspired music is tied to a particular sound from a particular place, the passion they imbue into their performances seems to know no bounds. On Cervantine, their latest, Hacksaw principals Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost have expanded both their sound and their scope, expanding their sonic search further into southeastern Europe, making connections between what they've heard on their vast European travels and the sounds of their New Mexico home, transforming disparate (occasionally transcontinental) styles into something rich and rousing. Rooted as their music is to geography, the feelings A Hawk and a Hacksaw conjure on Cervantine are borderless. more info
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
16 Horsepower (1995) -Sackcloth'n'Ashes
Artist: 16 Horsepower
Album: Sackcloth’n’Ashes
Released: 1995
Quality: lossless (FLAC tracks) / mp3 CBR 320
Size: 292 / 100 MB
Driven by off-kilter fiddles, a bizarre sense of humor, and punk-inflected country-rock, 16 Horsepower's second album, Sackcloth 'n' Ashes, is a weirdly captivating listen. Nearly every song is a strange, backwoods fable, delivered with clever irony that never undercuts the essential, disturbing intentions of the songs. It's not for everybody, but for alt-country fans tired of Gram Parsons homages, Sackcloth 'n' Ashes is a welcome listen. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Charlie Haden & Kenny Barron (1998) -Night & The City
Artist: Charlie Haden & Kenny Barron
Album: Night & The City
Released: 1998
Quality: lossless (FLAC tracks) / mp3 CBR 320
Size: 281 / 185 MB
The third in a series of Charlie Haden duet projects for Verve in the 1990s finds the increasingly nostalgia-minded bass player working New York City's Iridium jazz club with pianist Kenny Barron. Moreover, it is entirely possible that we are getting a skewed view of the gig; according to Haden, he and his co-producer wife Ruth tilted this album heavily in the direction of romantic ballads, eliminating the bebop and avant-garde numbers that the two may have also played at the club. Be that as it may, this is still a thoughtful, intensely musical, sometimes haunting set of performances, with Barron displaying a high level of lyrical sensitivity and Haden applying his massive tone sparingly. Most of the seven tracks are fantasias on well-known standards, although one of the most eloquent performances on the disc is Barron's playing on his own "Twilight Song." If Haden deliberately set out to create a single reflective mood, he certainly succeeded, although those coming to Haden for the first time through this and most of his other '90s CDs would never suspect that this man once played such a fire-breathing role in the jazz avant-garde.. ~ Richard S. Ginell
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Hyacinth House - 2 albums
Artist: Hyacinth House
Albums: Hyacinth House / Black Crow’s Country
Released: 2005 / 2008
Quality: mp3 VBR ~200
Size: 69 + 82 MB
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Various Artists (2011) -Pakistan Pop and Folk Instrumentals 1966-1976
Artist: various
Album: Pakistan Folk And Pop Instrumentals 1966-1976
Released: 2011
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 127 MB
Spending the greater part of the last decade assembling this masterpiece while tracking down most of the musicians in the process, Stuart Ellis of Radiodiffusion International has compiled a mind-blowing set of Pakistani instrumentals spanning the period between 1966 and 1976. It's all here: rock and roll beat, surf, folk traditional mixed with pop, film tunes, electric guitars, sitar and organ solos, brilliant percussion and arrangements crafted by the grooviest bands of the period: The Panthers, The Mods, The Bugs, The Blue Birds, The Abstracts, The Aay Jays, The Fore Thoughts, Nisar Bazmi, and Sohail Rana. Situated between Afghanistan, India and Iran, the collision of cultural influences in Pakistan gave birth to music that was, and still is, unlike anything heard anywhere else on the planet. By the late 1960s, previous restrictions on musical expression began to soften and bands that were playing American and British pop covers became popular in Karachi's burgeoning night club scene and at private dance parties. Long hair came into fashion among young men and hashish became the popular drug of choice on college campuses across Pakistan. Soon, hippies from both North America and Europe began flocking to Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Very few of the bands that formed during this time actually got to record. Like their neighbors in India, the Pakistani record industry was more focused on releasing "filmi" music, which had just started to incorporate the electric guitar and electric sitar. Pakistan's musical revolution ended in June 1977 after a coup d'état and the establishment of a pure Islamic state governed by Sharia law. This marked the end of the "Swinging '70s" in Pakistan as night clubs and alcohol were banned throughout the country. Television and cinema, as well as popular music, were now subjected to government censorship. After the clamp-down, many Pakistani musicians left the country and moved to America, Canada and England. The audio quality here is top-notch, sourced straight from the original EMI Pakistan masters. ©
Monday, March 14, 2011
Various Artists (2011) - Sa-Re-Ga! (Psychedelic Funk Music In India 1970-1983)
Artist: various
Album: Psych Funk Sa-Re-Ga! (Seminar: Aesthetic Expressions Of Psychedelic Funk Music In India 1970-1983
Released: 2011
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 165 MB
By the end of the 2000s, compilations of non-Western psychedelic music were becoming a dime-a-dozen propositions, while Bollywood compilations were getting even cheaper yet. Psych-Funk Sa-Re-Ga! Seminar outdoes the low expectations of both, stretching the boundaries of Bollywood exploitation music, and also featuring a set of '60s/'70s Indian pop at its finest, courtesy of producers extraordinary R.D. Burman and the brothers team known as Kalyanji Anandji (with multiple tracks each). Unlike most discs of this sort, the compilers at World Psychedelic Funk Classics are experts, well used to digging deep into the dustbins of history throughout Southeast Asia. Aptly, this collection is structured more like a film soundtrack than a run of singles, beginning with two scene-setting instrumentals (including a surfsploitation gem by a group called X'Lents) before splashing in with five tracks from the producers above in all their frenetic, chaotic multi-layered glory. True playback singers aren't common here (just Asha Bhosle on several tracks), but that serves the disc well; digging as deep as this, and providing a seminar on Bollywood soundtracks and the psychedelic scene around India during the '70s makes for a much more distinctive compilation. Highlights will vary from listener to listener based on whether your tastes lie in traditional Bollywood, psych-funk curios, or '60s exploitation (here courtesy of some remarkably garagey instrumentals), but shining above the pack are discoveries like Burman's "Freak Out Music" (which is exactly that), and Bappi Lahari's "Everybody Dance with Me" (reminiscent of "In A-Gadda-Da-Vida" gone Indian). ~ John BushSpin
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
The Giljoteens - two albums
Artist: The Giljoteens
Album: Get A Head / Out Of Our Hands
Released: 2004 / 2007
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 87 + 57 MB
Sixties garage beat/punk is probably the best stuff ever produced. In the sixties rock'n'roll broke free from the 12 bar format. Riffs, bridges, big choruses etc was introduced for the first time. Everything after the sixties has been tagged and labelled to death, but back then it was just Rock'n'Roll! THE GILJOTEENS understand this better than most. Today when new music sounds dated almost the same second you hear it, it's refreshing to find that there are bands out go right to the roots for their influences. THE GILJOTEENS play garage punk, but they aren't simply a nostalgic retro act. Because where many bands like this are only about reproducing a sound and rely on covers from compilations like "Back From The Grave", THE GILJOTEENS also add the most important piece of them all - talent and a knack for writing killer originals! The melodic yet raw vocals, perfect in yer face attack of the drums, reverbed and sometimes fuzzed out twang of the guitar, the rolling bass and the great atmospheric farfisa organ all combine together to a great and original listening experience. Many sixties nuts often ask themselves "Why should I bother listening to a new garage band when there's so much good original stuff?" In the case of THE GILJOTEENS the answer is simple: Because it's fucking great!
Friday, March 11, 2011
GravelRoad - two albums
Artist: GravelRoad
Albums: Gravel Road / Shot The Devil
Released: 2004 / 2008
Quality: mp3 CBR 192 / CBR 320
Size: 157 MB
Imagine how you like yr blues. Do you like ‘em traditional (whatever that is)? Creepy and slidin’? Sweet? Heavy? Tough and shiney? Weird and wiggy? Brilliant and stoney? That’s how GravelRoad likes ‘em too. Seattle’s GravelRoad are deep blues fiends who have crawled through the vast black hole left by the deaths of Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside, been absorbed into the razor light shining from the ancient beacon of Mr.Fred McDowell and have smelt the bleached burnt rubber black top left in the shadow of ZZ Top‘s last ride through and back to Greenville and in turn fashioned their own entity and identity out of Mississippi rain, dirty warehouses, downtown last calls, beer stank basements and Capitol Hill Country Hi-Rises. Songs, freakouts, grooves, stomps, humps, knuckle draggers and dirty remixes about bad women, worse men, brand new babies,and trouble. Plenty of trouble. How do I like my blues? GravelRoad Style. more info
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