Joy Division – She’s Lost Control
“While other bands went on stage with an attitude that screamed ‘fuck you’, Joy Division went on stage with an attitude that said ‘We’re fucked.’ ”
There is something so raw about Ian Curtis’ performance, it almost feels like you need to look away. It is much too private.
Visti & Meyland – Stars
Sometimes, most of the time, others are better at articulating what I wish I could.
From the site, Big Stereo:
Visti & Meyland made some waves with their Yes Maam release which featured some huge remixes by Trentemoller and Kasper Bjorke. Now they are back with their latest “Stars.†Its quite unique and could be easily mistaken as instrumental because the vocal comes in late at around the 5 and half minute mark. The release is through Bear Funk and includes remixes by The Time and Space Machine, and Rodion & Mammeralla which is my favourite. Another winner from Visti & Meyland.
From the site, Space Dust:
In fact – you could say that if fellow Dane Trentemoeller is the Dark Prince of Denmark – Visti & Meyland – are the Speedo-equipped, sandal-wearing Balearic Disco opposite bringing in the light, the fun, the Disco and the Funk on the arms of a coked-up Grace Jones!
Arabella, denim-clad dance sensation of the mahala is mocked by her family and neighbors for her modern “disco” Romani style of dance. While her father entertains with hoots and jeers, the mahala laughs but also watches. Perhaps in a few years, the children circling her now will dance as she does, learning, much the way she did: village gatherings, impromptu parties, adults twirling, swaying and shimmying around them. Little gestures caught by the eyes and heart. Arabella is the descendant of master interpreters; her legacy, to create new languages of movement. A lineage stretching from Rajasthan to Romania made up of bits and pieces of everywhere.
Traditional Romanes mixes with the bumps, grinds and pops of the video vixens Arabella watches on satellite TV. The result is a fusion of old and new, rooted, looking back and moving forward and infused with the swing of her ancestors. Called forth by two polyrhythmic violins and a syncopated bass doubling as a drum, Arabella’s hips offer tiny kisses to the wind. Around her, the Rajasthani/Romanian sands rise and warm her body, preparing it for the long night of revelry.
Beyonce and Shakira have nothing on her.
Von Südenfed – The Rhinohead
It’s uncommon for me to come across really good pop music. I often try and listen to the latest buzz bands and I find them lacking. Usually I’m like, really? I don’t get it. This song I get. Mark Smith of The Fall is part of this collaboration, no wonder. Von Sudenfed have been around for awhile and there are rumors of their dis-collaboration – hope this isn’t true.
More from their website:
But Von Sudenfed does more than take a spin, via Düsseldorf and Salford, through the terrain of London pirates. It combines the genre-smashing attack of early-millennia club music with Mark E. Smith’s free-associating visionary wordplay. To adapt the Situationists, under the dancefloor, the beach. Or in the case of a track like “Flooded,” over the dancefloor, a sea – Mark’s lyric retells a dream of Jan’s in which he booked a club to DJ at, only for an interloping DJ to turn up and commandeer the decks. The Von Sudenfed response? Carnivalesque anarchist sabotage: flood the club. This is unmistakably club music, but it’s club music that’s liable to spark off outbreaks of lucid dreaming, mid-move.
The music cuts out at the end, probably some weird record company thing.
All Is Full Of Love (Plaid Remix)-Bjork
It’s strange but I’ve always been on the fence about Bjork. I’m not sure why, I feel like I should be a fan but with the exception of a few tunes which I absolutely love, I can’t claim to follow her music. To be honest, it’s the Plaid remix I’m most fond of in this song. This video though, wow…who knew robot love could inspire such passion?
Fofodji – Toi fais gaffe from Ben Le Pat on Vimeo.
(you will have to click the link to view the whole video)
Fofodji-Toi Fais Gaffe from the Lisbon kuduro scene. Check out the lowrider bikes, the contribution from my people!
You might remember awhile back when I was crazy over the Sound of Kuduro by Buraka Som Sistema. This was back when I was eager to share all kinds of global dance trends with you all. I kept thinking, nothing new’s come along but more likely, it’s just that I hadn’t had much time to seek these things out. And then I remembered these kuduro videos I was going to post long ago and forgot.
More on Kuduro (from Wikipedia, sorry!):
The roots of kuduro can be traced to the late 1980s when producers in Luanda, Angola started mixing African percussion samples with simple calypso and soca rhythms to create a style of music then known as “batida”. European and American electronic music had begun appearing in the market, which attracted Angolan musicians and inspired them to incorporate their own musical styles.[2] An Angolan MC, Sebem, began toasting over this and is credited with starting the genre.[3]
The name itself is a word with a specific meaning to location in the Kimbundu language, which is native to the northern portion of Angola. It has a double meaning in that it also translates to “hard ass” or “stiff bottom” in Portuguese, which is the official language of Angola. Kuduro dancing is similar to Dancehall dancing of Jamaica. It is mostly influenced by zouk, soca, and rara music genres. It also combines Western house and techno with traditional Angolan kilapanga and semba music.[4] As Vivian Host points out in her article, despite the common assumption that “world music” from non-Western countries holds no commonalities with Western modern music, Angolan kuduro does contain “elements in common with punk, deep tribal house, and even Daft Punk.”[5] It is thus the case that cultural boundaries and limitations within the musical spectrum are constantly shifting and being redefined. And though Angolan kuduro reflects an understanding and, further, an interpretation of Western musical forms, the world music category that it fits under tends to reject the idea of Western musical imperialism.[5] The larger idea here is that advancements in technology and communications and the thrust of music through an electronic medium have made transcending cultural and sonic musical structures possible. According to Blentwell Podcasts, kuduro is a “mixture of house, hip-hop, and ragga elements,”[6] which illustrates how this is at once an Angolan-local and global music. Indeed, this “musical cross-pollination”[5], as Vivian Host calls it, represents a local appropriation of global musical forms, such that the blending of different musics creates the music of a “new world.”
Costileta – Xiriri
This is a popular kuduro tune from Angola. The dancing is impressive!
Kuduro is also extremely popular in France as evidenced by this compilation clip of French youth under the kuduro spell. The dancing gets particularly good around 1:28.
Read more here: Kuduro: Techno from Angola to the World
Deerhunter – Desire Lines – (Halcyon Digest) – 2010
The new Deerhunter album was released last week but I’ve been enjoying these pre-release tunes non-stop for the past week. It’s now time to share them with you. They fit in perfectly with today’s gray, damp and gorgeous weather.
Deerhunter-Revival
Zoo Animals on Wheels from the TV show Get A Life
Chris Elliot was one of those comedians who a bit ahead of his time and because of that, very few remember his ridiculously silly feature projects like the movie Cabin Boy and his short-lived TV show Get A Life. Cabin Boy is one of the few movies I can enjoy through repeated viewings (Fancy lad! Sharky!). Many were disappointed when Fox canceled his Get A Life show in the early 90s.
I happened across this clip from the show Get A Life which features an anti-zoo message presented in musical comedy form. It was a timely discovery. Just recently, I was talking to a friend about our mutual dislike for zoos. What a horrible thing, we opined, to take a living creature from it’s environment and lock it up behind steel bars. Neither do I care much for the more “humane” enclosures which are nothing but a pitiful simulacrum of the animals’ natural surroundings. Funny though, we both conceded we quite enjoyed zoos as children. Nostalgic feelings aside, this Waiting-for-Guffman-ish musical theater spoof should be de rigueur for all future forms of political critique.
Sing-a-long lyrics:
Living in a zoo can be very sad
People stare at you and make you mad
‎Oh how I wonder what they would do,
if animals stared at them like they were in a zoo
How do you like it when we stare at you?
It doesn’t feel good now isn’t that true?
Previous anti-zoo musings here.
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou Dahomey
Read about about DJ’s searches for elusive vinyl in Africa here.
Earlier in the year I created a series of posts based on the book, Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco. I finally got around to finishing some of the entries I left hanging.
The Funhouse logo
This installment is focused on the New York City danceclub The Funhouse. According to Turn the Beat Around, this nightclub was inspired by the infamous Paradise Garage, the avant-garde answer to the glitzy drug-fueled Studio 54. All the clubs were in New York, of course, ground zero for nightlife in the 70s and 80s.
The Funhouse became known for introducing the club-set to new 80s genres like electroboogie and freestyle. It’s also well-known for one it’s most famous DJs: John “Jellybean” Benitez, who later went on to become an internationally famous producer and is well-known for his collaborations with Madonna. Madonna, coincidently is said to have earned Jellybean’s attention by hijacking the DJ booth one night and playing one of her demo tapes which was well-received by the dancing crowd.
Below are a few songs Jellybean Benitez was known to throw into his mix set.
Jimmy Bo Horne – Spank (12″ Disco Version) 1979
I never knew this song by name but the opening organ-y melody was well familiar to me upon hearing. The heavy bass drum in the beginning is definitely the first step on the road to House music which would come into being 10 or so years later. What got my dancing shoes moving was the charming sound of a real drum-kit churning out those awesome pre-House beats. The handclaps are cute in a disco way but man, that driving, relentless bass line. I always say who needs guitars in dance music? The message of the song, “spank!” and the “do it, do it” refrain…well, that’s up to you to interpret in any way you see fit.
Man Parrish – Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Stop)
So I guess this song received a bit of resurgent popularity due to a scene in the movie Shaun of the Dead. Uh, I wouldn’t know. I can’t watch any movie with zombies or zombie-like creatures because I won’t be able to sleep for days afterwards. I’m not kidding, it’s ridiculous. So I’ll just take other people’s word on this. Oh my, I just got creeped out writing about zombies. Ay, should I delete this paragraph? Okay, easy now, breathing…
Man Parrish was always known to me as the creator of one of the silliest songs of the Italo Disco/Hi-NRG genre, Male Stripper. Please click the link to listen, please, it’s quite fun.
Anyways, there is some debate on whether Hip Hop Be Bop song is considered hip-hop (as in old school b-boy New York, 80s hip hop) or if it’s considered electro (as in 80s electro). Turn the Beat Around refers to it as “electro.” Listening to this song brings on images of breakdancers, ghetto blasters and all that other b-boy style like it’s right there in front of me. Whoosh, I’m in New York, 1982! What a time it must’ve been!
By the way, anyone catch the Magnificent Seven bassline line around 1:28? Or is that a nod to Kraftwerk?
Wide Boy Awake-Slang Teacher
This one I remember from my kid days in the 1980s, when I’d listen to KROQ obsessively on my little pink Sony radio. It’s one of those cross-genre songs of the time, music that oscillated between new wave, hip hop and freestyle like One More Shot by C-Bank, another KROQ hit. Most of these songs got incorporated into East LA DJ sets due to the prominent break dancing beat. If it sounded sorta new wave all the better for getting the button and trench coat set on the dancefloor. According to Youtube comments and Turn the Beat Around, it was a Jellybean Funhouse favorite.
Also in the same vein is New Order’s Confusion…
New Order-Confusion
Here it is, The Funhouse danceclub, a small moment of disco/freestyle history captured in an obscure New Order video. There are glimpses of Jellybean in his clownface DJ booth and producer of Confusion, Arthur Baker. Baker was also a well-known engineer of all those elecro beats. The sneaky party girls were real Funhouse clubbers named Mama Juice and Eva.
This video is a classic, even recently payed homage to by the band Holy Ghost! The remake sadly proves what little real joy is left in the world, it feels pretentious and awkward, a poor tribute. I found it depressing actually. So don’t watch it unless you wanna see how far we’ve fallen.
Next up, Freestyle and electroboogie, the genre credited to Jellybean Benitez and known locally on the Eastside as plain ‘disco.’