Recently discovered Guy Maddin (Fresh Air) and his films are incredible. I've seen Tales from the Gimli Hospital and Careful. They're rich with impishly perverse humor - especially visual humor. They both remind me of early in film in their sense of story - the stories are mordid, yet fairy-tale in feeling. The movement of the plot is spritely but profound. It is unencumbered by any kind of gesture towards realism, especially psychologically. A refined pathos comes through.

The jerking movements of the actors (ala charlie-chaplin), the cartoonish characters, the papier-mache sets and especially the Murnau/Noir lighting and cinematography: it is easy to point to the superficial aspects. But what can I say - what matters is the originality that never makes a show of itself, the freedom borne of confidence of vision.

The worst aspects - occasional terrible acting, awful lighting - one doesn't notice them, really. The lack of budget matters not at all, and I guess I am curious whether the resources that will be available to him now that he's more successful will make any difference - especially whether they will broaden the appeal.

Looking forward to the forthcoming Saddest Music In the World.

The early in johnny lee hooker is just blinding. I greatly prefer blues recorded before the 50s-60s, especially before the Chicago sound. I didn't realize before how long Hooker's career was; I associated him with the band-based "boogie" sound of his later recordings. His solo recordinge from the late 40s and early 50s are stark and lyrical.

Here is a tourist's guide to jamaican music (yawn), for newcomers to the genre. The songs with the broadest appeal, the songs that get people interested in Jamaican music in the first place.

Lists are a solipsistic affair, but I am always looking for ones from genres that I don't know, such as AfroPop and other international music. Interesting ones are surprisingly hard to find. So, my humble two cents.

Compilation are a good place to start, but royalties & permissions are a severe limitation for them. And, I'd like to cover The songs that are too over-exposed for record collectors to bother talking about. Or the songs that people tend to "outgrow" as they get into Jamaican music. Just the basic starting points.

I'll try to represent conventional wisdom more than my own outlook - and I'll try to err on the side of obviousness.

The 4 disc set, "Tougher than tough: The Story of jamaican music" Is an excellent place to start. It is very similar to the 4 cd set "The Reggae Box" on Hip-O Records. They both cover from the 50's to the mid-90s quite well. They're definitely worth the price.

I'll skip any songs on them, as you can find the tracklistings on Amazon.



The Abyssinians - Declaration Of Rights
Althia And Donna - Uptown Top Ranking
Augustus Pablo & King Tubby - Brace's Tower Dub No 2
Barrington Levy & Scientist - Rock And Come In
Barrington Levy - Under Me Sensi
Beenie Man - Who Am I
Black Uhuru - Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
Burning Spear - Creation Rebel
Carlton Livingston - 100 Weight Of Collie Weed
The Congos - Congoman
Culture - Two Sevens Clash
Dawn Penn - You Dont Love Me (No, No, No) (there are a few good versions)
Horace Andy - Skylarking

Johnny Osbourne - Buddy Bye
Johhny Osbourne - Truth And Rights
Junior Byles - Fade Away
Junior Murvin - Police & Thieves
Junior Reid - One Blood
King Tubby - Bag A Wire Dub
Lone Ranger - Badder Dan Dem
Marcia Griffiths - Feel Like Jumping
Max Romeo - War In A Babylon
Max Romeo - Chase The Devil
The Maytals - Pressure Drop (from the excellent Harder The Come soundtrack)
Michigan & Smiley - Nice Up The Dance
Money In My Pocket - Dennis Brown
Mr. Vegas - Heads High
Prince Jazzbo - Crabwalking
Sammy Dread & Tappa Zukie - Dreadlocks Girl
Sister Nancy - Bam - Bam
Tenor Saw - Ring The Alarm (and the other version with Buju Banton)
Toots & The Maytals - 54 - 46 Was My Number
Toots & The Maytals - Pressure Drop
U Roy - Tom Drunk

"...this line shifted dramatically in the 1920s, when a black vaudevillian named Thomas a. Dorsey got saved at a Baptist convention and decided to incorporate the sounds he knew best into a new genre called "gospel songs." Many people would be surprised to learn that the same man wrote both the salty blues classic, "It's tight like that," and the haunting air sung at King's funeral, "Take My Hand Precious Lord." But Dorsey did.

music.for-robots
the suburbs are killings us

I've been reading Martha Bayles' "Hole in our Soul." I love it. The major issues are pretty boring, but the little passages are sweet! S'all culture wars, tcha?

1. Is Bayles white or black? She looks white, she writes white... The only reason to think she is black is that she strictly holds forth the identity: good music = "Afro-American Music." And the inverse, converse and contra-positive.

My guess is - she's white.

2. Nice observation: "European musicians tends to vocalize their music with syllables containg soft consonants and short vowels, such as da and di; jazz musicians, by contrast use syllables with more explosive consonants and fuller vowels, such as djah and bah.

From Edgar Allen Poe's "Imp of the Perverse":

We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know
that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of
our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We
glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the
anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It
must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until
to-morrow, and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse,
using the word with no comprehension of the principle. To-morrow
arrives, and with it a more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but
with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a
positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This
craving gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action
is at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us,
-- of the definite with the indefinite -- of the substance with the
shadow. But, if the contest have proceeded thus far, it is the shadow
which prevails, -- we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and is the
knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the chanticleer -- note
to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It flies -- it disappears
-- we are free. The old energy returns. We will labor now. Alas, it
is too late!

We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss -- we
grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger.
Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness
and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling. By
gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as
did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the
Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud upon the precipice's edge,
there grows into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any
genius or any demon of a tale, and yet it is but a thought, although
a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with
the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of
what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a
fall from such a height. And this fall -- this rushing annihilation
-- for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and
loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and
suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination --
for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because
our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the
most impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so
demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge
of a precipice, thus meditates a Plunge. To indulge, for a moment, in
any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but
urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If
there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden
effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and
are destroyed.

Examine these similar actions as we will, we shall find them
resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse. We perpetrate them
because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is no
intelligible principle; and we might, indeed, deem this perverseness
a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it not occasionally
known to operate in furtherance of good.

From Edgar Allen Poe's "Imp of the Perverse":

We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until to-morrow, and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse, using the word with no comprehension of the principle. To-morrow arrives, and with it a more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This craving gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action is at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us, -- of the definite with the indefinite -- of the substance with the shadow. But, if the contest have proceeded thus far, it is the shadow which prevails, -- we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and is the knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the chanticleer -- note to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It flies -- it disappears -- we are free. The old energy returns. We will labor now. Alas, it is too late!

We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss -- we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud upon the precipice's edge, there grows into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any genius or any demon of a tale, and yet it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height. And this fall -- this rushing annihilation -- for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination -- for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the most impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a Plunge. To indulge, for a moment, in any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.

Examine these similar actions as we will, we shall find them resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse. We perpetrate them because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is no intelligible principle; and we might, indeed, deem this perverseness a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it not occasionally known to operate in furtherance of good.

There have been some mp3s by Analyst kicking around the web for a while. Jungle + classic reggae (josey wales, King Tubby, Black Uhuru) mixes. Well executed. I can't find any info on this DJ.

This might be the same person. Doesn't seem like it though.

Finally got my hands on

the streets - a grand don't come for free

Here's hoping "Blinded by the light" gets the remix treatment. Nothing fancy, just ready for it.

Album's a bit of a disappointment. But Mike Skinner would definitely make the conversion to musician-slash-actor better than most.

The one African album everyone seems to have is:

Nonesuch Explorer - Africa Witchcraft And Ritual Music

Which often sounds to me like the "carnival" interludes from the "Black Orpheus" soundtrack.

Martha Bayles is the woman.
Believe that.

From and old Woebot post:



……….IS THE NEW NIGERIA/ETHIOPIA

OK you’ve got the Strut (RIP) Comps and the Shrine Comps and the Fela Kuti Box Sets and the entire Etiopiques series etc etc

1) Mali
2) Guinea
3) Zimbabwe
4) South Africa
Cloudy heads will be unlikey to latch onto the sweet gentle music of the Congo, Senegal and Madagascar. They like it dark, hard and weird.



A crude outlook has emerged from my listening to African music. In my ignorance, I perceive three eras of African music.

1. Traditional pre-colonial music, from field recordings and the first generation in recording studios.
2. Colonial + post-colonial music, having a Western influence, with artists operating largely in their country of origin, working in distinct local styles, operating in a local scene. Some examples: The music of the Ethiopiques series, Congolese Soukous, Mali "blues", etc.
3. The current, Afro-Pop "World Music" scene in which locality is less relevant, style + influence are indelibly interwoven, etc. Dominated by individual artists, rather than styles or scenes.

Which is to say, the most obvious categories in the music I have heard so far seem to be about:

1. The absorption of foreign influces.
2. The shift from rural traditions (sources) to urban scenes (development)
3. The shift from the relative isolation + provincialism (not perjorative) of the "classic" national styles to the post-modern, transnational present.

Rudimentary + obvious way to analyze things; oh well.

Congolese music is exemplary of the middle phase. Fomented in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo, (Kinshasa, DNC), it went on to become the mother-genre of the continent. A vital musical scene developed in an urban environment (usually a capital), patronized by a white elite. Catering to colonial tastes, certain foreign influences were integrated by the scene. In the case of Congolese music, Cuban music figured large. The capitals of the two Congos, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, both served as centers of this music. After the 60s, Congolese music spread across the continent.

By the 80s, many musicians had moved to Europe, especially France. This had a number of consequences. World Music fans from the first world became the primary audience, and musicians catered to their tastes. Musicians recording in France developed a "produced," studio sound and integrated electronic instruments.

Question: I know I am going to get this wrong, but what is the relationship between the terms?

a. "Congolese music"
b. Rumba
c. Soukous
d. Afro-Cuban music

Answer: All of these are problematic terms that refer to music from the two Congos. Rumba more commonly refers to the style of Latin American music that originated in Cuba and was (with other Cuban music) an important influence on Congolese music. When people speak of Afro-Cuban music, they mean music from greater realm of cuban influence - much of it from Africa. Soukous refers specifically to Congolese music from the 60s, and more broadly to all Congolese and Conogolese-influenced music from then on (much like American RNB).

Questions:

1. What are the worst misunderstandings in the foregoing?
2. Why did guitar emerge as the dominant lead instrument all over the continent, regardless of what traditions preceded or foreign influences were at work? Provisional answer/guess: the piano, which usually dominated the western styles that African musicians drew from, wasn't available in Africa.
3. Why did France become the headquarters of so many expatriate African musicians. Ie. why were so many recordings done in Paris? Provisional answer: political repression + economic instablity in central African (ie Zaire/DNC under Mobutu) lead many musicians to a wealthy, receptive public in France. Still, why France?

See:
WikiPedia
AfroPop

Dominatrix - Dominatrix Sleeps Tonite
Or rather, I am reconsidering a great deal of music that I had written off based on the rote.
Duke Ellington - Melancholia

I Love these.

Esther Phillips - And I Love Him

Classy ancient pop-blues. Quite reminds me of Anita O'Day in the sense that excellent singing moves over a wretched backing track. The track really does sound exactly like elevator music. But isn't music all about those experiences that lead you to appreciate you had previously dismissed? I am discovering a great deal of music that I had written off.

For the record, my favorite Anita O'Day songs are probably:

Anita Day - Fly Me To The Moon (A.K.A. In Other Words)
Anita Day - (Ah, The Apple Trees) When The World Was Young

Candi Staton - Young Hearts Run Free

Another example. Stereotypical disco - stereotypical in worst sense, I guess. But the vocal pleases.

Johnny Otis - Ma! (He's Making Eyes At Me) (with Marie Adams)
Johnny Otis - Willy And The Hand Jive

RNB is of course the worst term, being undescriptive. Early, light rock.

Baaba Maal - I definitely favor "Baayo" (1991) and Missing You (Mi Yeewnii) (2001). Missing You returns to instrumental style of Baayo. His albums in the intervening decade were with an electric band, "Dande Lenol".

From afropop.org - a list of classic afropop records:

Abdel Gadir Salim "Sounds Of Sudan Vol. 1: Songs From Kordofan"
Les Vétérans présentent Ahanda: "Envuvut Man Minga"
Various Artists "Assalam Aleikoum Africa, Vol. 1: Progressive and Popular Music of West Africa"
E. T. Mensah, Dr. Victor Olaiya "Highlife Souvenir Vol. 1: Highlife Giants Of Africa"
Khiama Boys "Kutambura"
Ephat Mujuru & The Spirit Of The People "Mbavaira"
Orchestra Maquis Original "Karubandika"
S. E. Rogie "Palm Wine Guitar Music: The 60's Sound"
Robson Banda & The Black Eagles "Mukwasha"
Super Diamono de Dakar "Mam'"
Tanzania Yetu "Our Tanzania"
Various Artists "The Guitar And The Gun"
Thione Seck "Chauffer Bi"
Warrior and his Oriental Brothers International Band-Original "Onye Obula Zoba Isi Onweya"
Xalam "Apartheid"

Hamza El Din - Nubian Oud Player. Oud sounds to me much like a very resonant guitar or lute. The Nubians live in present-day Sudan and South Egypt. He is best known for his first release, 'Escalay: the Water Wheel." Its graceful and very composed. Sometimes soaring, sometimes a lamentation.

From Amazon:
"One of the first world-music releases to reach Western ears (originally issued in 1968), this album rightfully established Hamza El Din as one of the leading instrumentalists on the lutelike oud..."

Apparently He was a pioneering "world music" musician in more ways than one. Having attracted notice with this album, he went on to collaborate with American rock musicians such as Sandy Bull, Joan Baez and Mickey Hart.

The Mutant Disco compilation is decent. The excellent "Disco Not Disco" finally has a succesor - "Disco Not Disco 2" was pretty lame. It's offbeat, leftfield disco; disco without the stultifying formula. It's actually fun and vital. Isn't that why most disco is so irritating? It presupposes itself to be playful and lively, but is neither.

Probably my favorite record of all time is Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. I just rediscovered how good the liner notes are. For every record, Harry includes

1) details about the performance, recording and release.

61. James Alley Blues
(R. Brown)
BY RICHARD "RABBIT" BROWN
Vocal Solo with Guitar,
Recorded in New Orleans, LA> March 6, 1927
Original Issue Victor 20578A

2) a telegraphic summary of the lyrics - which are funny and yet also somehow distill the pathos of the song.

TIMES AIN"T LIKE USED TO BE, TELLING TRUTH, TAKE
FROM ME. SEEN BETTER DAYS, PUT UP WITH THESE, BETTER
TIME GIRLS IN NEW ORLEANS. I BORN COUNTRY; SHE THINKS
EASY LOSE, HITCH TO HER WAGON, DRIVE ME LIKE MULE.
I BOUGHT GOLD RING, PAID RENT, SHE TRIED MAKE ME WASH
CLOTHES. IF YOU DON't WANT, TELL SO, I NOT MAN GOT NO
WHERE GO. I GIVE SUGAR FOR SUGAR, SALT FOR SALT, IF
CAN'T GET ALONG; YOUR FAULT. YOU WON'T LOVE, TREAT ME
MEAN, YOU'RE MY DAILY THOUGHT NIGHTLY DREAM. SOMETIMES
YOU TOO SWEET TO DIE, OTHER TIMES OUGHT BE BURIED ALIVE.

3) All-too-brief commentary.

Richard Brown, one of the earliest musicians to learn the twelve bar 'blues' chord pattern, was the first and most important New Orleans folk singer to record. Three ten-inch sides "James-Alley-Blues", "I'm Not Jealous" (Victor 20578), "Never Let The Same Bee Sting You Twice" (Victor 21475) and two twelve-inch ones, (Victor 35480) "Mystery Of The Dunbar Child", "Sinking Of The Titanic", were cut in a New Orleans garage the same day that tuba player Joe Howard, another alumnus of the Buddy Bolden Band, recorded with Louis Dumaine. Brown was famous for his dramatic guitar playing which, on recordings, closely resembles that of Willie Johnson.

Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra
Coco Rosie - By Your Side
Ottis Redding - My Lover's Prayer