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Lord Kitchener – London Is The Place For Me

‘Tobiume’ is taken from the album ‘Sakura’(1999)

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Very happy to see the No Pain in Pop site back up online

The Proper Ornaments debut 12″ is out tomorrow, and you should order it here

Very, very nice from Maria Fischer.

Balam Acab – Welcome

The Duke of Uke, needs your support! Come along to one of these two great fundraising events, happening tomorrow and Friday at the Crypt in Spitalfields. There is a great post here from Darren Hayman about the situation facing the Duke of Uke and why you should get involved. I’m particularly excited to be seeing Omi Palone and the Wave Pictures playing at the first event tomorrow.

I’ve been tormenting/blessing my housemate Alex with the first and last of these every morning for the last few days now. Going to save the David Sylvain version till last!

[1983] Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence – Ryuichi Sakamoto

[1983] Forbidden Colours -Ryuichi Sakamoto & David Sylvain

[1996] Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence – Ryuichi Sakamoto

[2006] Ax Mr.L – Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto

Something happens after Bird’s solo on this Kern penned masterpiece that is unlike anything I’ve heard in jazz before.

The recording is lovely, and features Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet and what sounds a lot like Max Roach on drums.

All The Things You Are – Charlie Parker

“Bebop has been around for seven or eight years, and something of a fad for two, but experts still disagree over what it is, and whether it will last. Gusty, oldtime Blues Singer Chippie Hill says flatly and hopefully that “It won’t last. My 16-month-old niece does it when she drinks beer out of her bottle, and does it better than any of them.” To the naked ear its shrill cacophony seems anarchistic; on repeated hearings it becomes clear that the players planned it that way. Duke Ellington, now a disc jockey, has been kind; old Satchmo Louis Armstrong, critical. The feud now raging between partisans of the New Orleans school of jazz, who enjoy their music, and the “progressives,” who seem to undergo theirs, is reminiscent of 12th Century theological squabbles.”

TIME Magazine, Monday December 20th, 1948

The recording at the bottom of this post, ‘Bebop‘ was made live at ‘The Royale Roost’ with Charlie Parker on Alto Sax, Kenny Dorham on Trumpet, Al Haig on Piano, Tommy Potter on Bass and once again, Max Roach on drums. The indomitable  ‘Symphony Sid’ introduces the Charlie Parker Allstars for the evening broadcast from the ‘The Royale Roost’, a Chicken restaurant that turned into a focal point for the NY jazz scene after its opening in 1948 at 1580 Broadway.

In April ‘Symphony Sid’ and promoter Monte Kay, who had already staged a number of successful bop concerts and sessions locally, convinced the owners of Ralph & Bill’s
Chicken Roost, a nondescript Broadway nightspot that had flirted unsuccessfully with jazz in the past, to try out a onenight-a-week bop policy. Sid talked up the sessions on his
nightly broadcasts. The initial Tuesday night mini-concerts were such popular events that within a month the newlynamed Royal Roost had adopted a nightly modern jazz policy and was rightly billing itself as “the house that Bop built.”

Sleeve Notes to ‘Bird at the Roost’ record written by Bill Minder

Bebop – Charlie Parker Allstars

The Proper Ornaments – Recalling

It’s a beautifully produced and fascinating collection featuring 28 poets in total. Particular highlights for me are the pieces from Sam Riviere, Jack Underwood and Matthew Gregory, whose works are visceral, funny and at times downright disturbing.

2011 feels like the beginning of a golden time for British poetry, with a burgeoning scene created by the hard work of poetry collectives including SSYK and Clinic.

You can purchase SSYK 4 here.

You can buy the ‘Dagger Paths EP’, in a variety of formats, from the No Pain in Pop shop here.

Echo Lake’s debut EP, ‘Young Silence’, is an entirely different affair. Released on 14th February 2011, their reverb drenched guitar jams create a fragile and distant prospect, one made intimate by some truly haunting vocal melodies. The EP release party, at the Old Blue Last on February 19th, was a wonderful night with the Proper Ornaments providing an incredible support slot.

The video for the title track ‘Young Silence’, produced by Dan Nixon and Dom Jones using Microsoft’s Kinect sensor, is something very special indeed;

Forest Swords – Miarches

Echo Lake – Young Silence

So it is with great excitement that we note the release of the 4th, 5th and 6th issues of No.ZINE by the incredibly talented Patrick Fry

You can purchase and find more information about No.ZINE here – the quality of the contributors, layout and  design is exceptional. Grab copies while you still can.

Here’s a sneak peek…

(Photographs copyright Patrick Fry)

In other news, we hear whisperings of a new zine by name of ‘TEAM‘, winging its first edition your way imminently. The content they’re had in already, visible via the tasters on their blog, looks absolutely amazing. To whet your appetite, here are two examples of the work of Katie Scott, the latest confirmed contributor to TEAM. You can see more of her work on her flickr here

(Head and Hands by Katie Scott)

(Pineapple Shirt by Katie Scott)

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Broadcast – Colour Me In

From all of us here at PBP we wish you a very Merry Christmas.

This post is particularly aimed at my cousin Al, currently residing in Tokyo, Japan and making waves in the software development world:

If you haven’t come across Orange Juice, I reckon you’ll love them – you can hear the influence that Dogs Die In Hot Cars and countless other Scottish bands have drawn  from their work – Edwyn Collins was their front man and  you might know them for ‘Rip It Up’ a staple of Indie DJs everywhere. ‘Hokyo’ is a lovely rare B-Side I came across recently in a spate of mass record digitisation – I’ve been loving it for its weird synth inflected curves – the version below is a rip from a 12″, hence the crackiliness.

The Air track, ‘Alone in Kyoto’ features in the film ‘Lost in Translation’ – it’s a lovely slice of gallic electronica and through its use in the film is always going to remind me of Japan (and Scarlett Johansson!)

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Orange Juice – Hokoyo

Air – Alone in Kyoto

As predicted by Brother Walter, the skies opened this morning and two of our gutters are leaking everywhere.

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It’s Gonna Rain (Part One) - Steve Reich

It’s Gonna rain (Part Two) – Steve Reich

Over at Casa Del Malpas we celebrated Día de los Muertos in style last week – I thought I’d post a mix of some of the tracks that accompanied the evening.

My first proper foray into Mexican and Central American music was a pretty mindblowing experience. There’s some wonderful blogs out there covering specifically this, and they’re well worth checking out.

It has been a while since I’ve encountered a genre of music that is so completely unknown to me. Originating from a traditional courtship dance in Colombia and swiftly spreading across the whole of Central America, Cumbia is some of the most full on party music I’ve ever heard!

“Women playfully wave their long skirts while holding a candle, and men dance behind the women with one hand behind their back and the other hand either holding a hat, putting it on, or taking it off. Male dancers also carried a red handkerchief which they either wrapped around their necks, waved in circles in the air, or held out for the women to hold. Until the mid-20th century, Cumbia was considered to be an inappropriate dance performed primarily by the lower social classes.” more here

The songs in the mix are mainly taken from records put out in Mexico and Colombia during the so-called ‘golden age’ of Cumbia – 1950 to 1975.

To give you a little taste of the evening here’s a photo of a handmade Día de los Muertos skull, one of many made by Faye and Havva :

Tracklisting

1. Cumbia en do Menor – Lito Barrientos y Su Orquesta
2. Cumbia – Alfredo Gutierrez
3. Cumbia De Sal – Los Falcons
4. Cumbia Arabe – Mariachi Nuevo Tecalitlán
5. Cumbia Sampuesana  (La Sampuesana) – Chicken Y Sus Comandos
6. Cumbia Mexicana – Desconocido
7. Cumbia Y Guitarra – Los Mirios
8. La Cumbia De Los Cuervos – Juaneco y Su Conjunto
9. El Platanito – Los Dinamicos Del Ritmo
10. El Guamo – Anibal Velasquez
11. El Sucusu-Sucusu – Anibal Y Jose Velasquez
12. Mira Mira (Ella Baila el Pompo) – Los Curramberos de Guayabal with Anibal Velásquez
13. Has Regresado Viejo Amigo – Rodolfo

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Cumbia Mix (320k stereo mp3)

Cumbia Arabe – Mariachi Nuevo Tecalitlán

Cumbia Sampuesana  (La Sampuesana) – Chicken Y Sus Comandos

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Todd Rundgren – Just Another Onion Head Da Da Dali

Click Here

After a few hours immersed in Soane’s house,  I wandered a few doors down to the Royal College of Surgeons and the Hunterian museum, which, prior to World War II looked like the above photo. Unfortunately bombs took their toll upon the collection, with what was left being rehoused. The current collection is still focused upon the private collection of John Hunter, surgeon to King George III. The collection was bought by the British government in 1799 and presented to the Royal College of Surgeons. Even in it’s current form the collection is utterly mindblowing and an aboslute must for anyone with an interest in science and medicine (as long as you’re ok with looking at human quintuplet foetus’ preserved in formaldehyde!). Again it’s free to access!

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Moondog – Do Your Thing

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Henryk Wienawski – Caprice (arr. Kreisler) – Itzhak Perlman

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Sun Ra – Space is the Place

Around the time that Spare was creating some of his most seminal works, in Paris, Maurice Ravel was writing his ‘String Quartet in F’, a piece of music that has utterly enraptured me over the last few weeks. Here is the third movement from it; ‘Tres Lent’.

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Ravel – String quartet in F – III – Tres lent

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Rites of Spring – Persistent Vision

Here’s a wonderful mix a friend played me a few nights ago from London producer James Blake (see my previous post on CMYK below). I should explain I’ve cut the section below from a longer weekly 90 minute podcast, which you can hear in its entirety here.

The mix comes courtesy of Electronic Explorations a great website run by Rob Booth that does exactly what its title purports and has been an instrumental factor in Blake’s recognition.

Blake’s hitting a lovely style with his forthcoming material, some of which he showcases in the mix- I’m looking forward to catching him perform it live.

Tracklist:

01 – James Blake – Limit To Your Love (Cover) [Unreleased]
02 – Pinch – Airlock [Tectonic]
03 – James Blake – Air and Lack Thereof [Forthcoming 'Hemlock Recordings']
04 – Mala – Hunter [DMZ]
05 – James Blake – Sparing the Horses [Forthcoming 'Hemlock Recordings']
06 – Untold – Bones (Hemlock Recordings)
07 – Mount Kimbie – The Mighty Gee [Forthcoming 'Hotflush']
08 – Starkey – Time Traveler [Planet Mu]
09 – James Blake – I Never Learnt To Share [Unreleased]

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James Blake – Electronic Explorations Mix

This is the opening.

Buy it now.

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Talking Heads – Born Under Punches

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Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto – Logic Moon

(from the album Insen)

“Our installation explores reciprocal musical interactions between the mosquito and the computer. The computer produces a stimulus signal to which the living mosquitos synchronize. Subsequently, the computer sings a third voice that responds to the musical inflections of the mosquitoes’ buzz. These three voices come in and out of harmony depending on the mosquitoes propensity to maintain its sync with the stimulus signal.

In our installation, each mosquito is equipped with a loud-speaker for providing the stimulus signal, a sensitive microphone for picking up the mosquitoes’ buzz, a camera for giving us a closer look at the insect, a kinetic component that allows the mosquitoes to rest every few minutes and a light bulb that shows the mosquito’s activity.”

A collaboration between Robin Meier and Ali Momemi

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Cousin Mosquito #1 – Malinda Jackson Parker

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The Stooges – Raw Power

Max Richter is a new discovery for me thanks to Alex over at Selected Poems. Richter is a wonderfully open and diverse composer with collaborators varying from Vashti Bunyan, Future Sound of London to Roni Size. He’s had his work on a number of film soundtracks, ‘On the Nature of Daylight’ included below, features on Martin Scorcese’s 2010 film, ‘Shutter Island’.

I’ve just spent almost two hours playing this on repeat, safe in the knowledge that it will be punctuating my days for the foreseeable future.

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Max Richter – On The Nature of Daylight

New Cross based producer James Blake has been making waves on the UK underground for nearly 18 months now. Blake’s EP ‘Air & Lack Thereof’ (released on Hemlock in 2009) was a breath of fresh air amongst a bewildering array of derivative dubstep / wonky / 2-step garage releases, with the title track included on Soul Jazz’s ‘Steppa’s Delight 2′ and the flip ‘Sparing the Horses’ featured on Dubstep Allstars Volume 7.

2010 has seen Blake release his ‘CYMK’ EP on the seminal R&S recordings, resulting in a legion of excitable dance music journalists dusting off unfamiliar language and extolling the virtues of chord progressions and harmony whilst stuttering in amazement at the sheer precocity of someone singing over programmed material. Comparisons to Jamie Lidell abound, but in all honesty this is a unique and well crafted record with some of the most well considered sampling I’ve heard in recent years. It’s a big leap in both style and individuality from ‘Air & Lack Thereof’, a testament to Blake’s growth as a musician and a strong sign for Blake’s future releases.

One of the most engaging things about this EP is the feeling of subtle depth in both the samples and the production styling (The paring of Kelis and Aaliyah for example). ‘CMYK’ feels like something quite different compared to the average UK underground release. Blake deserves the praise that is being heaped upon him. Here’s hoping that he continues along his current path.

The title track of the EP, ‘CMYK’ sees the vocal skills of Kelis and Aaliyah juxtaposed to beautiful effect over a hissing sea of noise, clicking rim-shots and warm synths – I’ve included it below.

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James Blake – CMYK [removed by request]

Mount Kimbie – Maybes (James Blake Remix)

Having been a little bit out of touch over the last month, I’ve just checked out a new release from the ever brilliant Glasgow label ‘Numbers’. The fantastic ‘Quote’s EP’ is birthed from Croydon based producer ‘Kavrsrave’. Numbers’ description of it is so on point that I feel any addition from me would be purely superfluous.

“The sound of neon dipped maximum power R’n'B as it’s dragged through the sewers and elevated to the heavens. This is the DREAM, racing up and down a Croydon high street pumping out UK bass in a souped up purple Corsa”

Expect big things from this chap in the future – you can and should buy his EP here and follow him on Myspace here.

I’ve picked my favourite track ‘PClart’ for your delectation below.

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Kavsrave – PClart

TOKiMONSTA’s Cosmic Intoxication EP is an absolute banger, if you don’t believe me ask FlyLo & Mary Anne Hobbs, they’ll tell ya.

“WOW! This girl is absolutely incredible… She’s my favorite female producer on the planet!”  - Mary Anne Hobbs

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TOKiMONSTA – Doing It My Way

Greetings all.

Just a short post today.  I want to draw your attention to the launch of the new online Photographic Youth Music Culture Archive.  This great website includes essays, rare videos and pictures and more concerning all the great youth tribes: rockers, hippies, skinheads, emos, mods, punks, New Romantics and so on.  You have to register to see most of the good stuff, but it’s worth it.

To find out more you can read this Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/02/youth-culture-photography-archive

Or you can visit the site itself: www.pymca.com

I will leave you with this nostalgic song about the 1960s by Brixton ska favourites Maroon Town:

Maroon Town- Nostalgia

Like what you heard? Maroon Town perform this Friday 7th May 2010 at the fabulous Hootananny, Brixton.  And it’s free!

For more info: http://www.hootanannybrixton.co.uk/brixton-live-music.html

Definitely a contender for the best remix I have ever heard. Check out Hudson Mohawke on myspace here.

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Ooops – Tweet feat. Missy Elliott [Hudson Mohawke Remix]