MON., MAY 14, 2007
Your Music: May 2007
by Michael Azerrad
"“Oh, no! There's only a few days left in the month and I still have some downloads to use up!” Sound familiar? Well, never fear, dear subscriber, eMusic’s crackerjack Editorial staff has the answer. Or, rather, thirty of them. Welcome to the May edition of “Your Music,” a monthly feature where we'll suggest some of our favorite eMusic tracks for your downloading pleasure. And now, without further ado…
J. Edward Keyes, Managing Editor
Todd Burns, Production Editor
Michael Azerrad, Editor-in-Chief
Lewis Taylor – The Lost Album
I got turned on to Lewis Taylor's absolutely stunning Lost Album by Barney Hoskyns' eMusic column about it and wow, talk about discovering music — what a find! This is utterly sublime stuff, an impeccable meditation on the elegantly manicured pop of the mid '70s. All stacked close harmonies, silky-smooth playing and subtly intricate arrangements, it recalls soft-rock renegades like 10cc, Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan, and even vigorously un-hip stuff like Air Supply or Stephen Bishop, but rendered into something very exquisite: high-art MOR.
People like David Bowie, Paul Weller and Elton John were outspoken fans of Taylor's successful r&b-oriented 1996 debut album, but Taylor didn't like getting typecast as a "blue-eyed soul singer," and retaliated by writing and recording demos for what he later called "the most un-r&b album you could probably ever hear." Some clueless person at his label rejected the new approach and it was nearly ten years before Taylor came back to the tapes and reworked them for this exceptional album. Smooth but smart, airy but deep, it has that distinctly sleek LA sound — you can almost feel the golden sun and otherworldly perfection of the weather. The gifted Taylor plays most of the instruments, contributing to the authentically hermetic feel to the album. You can hear a lot of Todd Rundgren, Carole King and the Beach Boys on one of the album's most immediately gratifying tracks, "Leader of the Band."
Download: "Leader of Band"
Cidadao Instigado – E O Método Túfo De Experiências
Wonderfully unhinged and musicianly, Cidadao Instigado mastermind Fernando Catatau is fully prepared to bring his songs wherever his wayward muse guides him. E O Método opens with a fairly straightforward Brazilian folk-pop tune, but that's just a fake-out. Cidadao Instigado's utterly distinctive music zooms all over the map: prog-reggae, free electronic space-outs, alien electro-funk, all with a distinctly Brazilian flavor. If you're like me and you dig the nut-job Tropicalia of Tom Zé, this is right up your alley. Start with "Os Urubus Só Pensam Em Te Comer," at first sounding like the Walkmen playing a creepy carnival, with maybe Carlos Santana on lead guitar… then a crazy wipeout section like Ian Dury jamming with Afrika Bambaataa. If you like that one, just download the entire album, it's wildly creative and elegantly surreal, the kind of record Beck would give his bola esquerda to make.
Download: "Os Urubus Só Pensam Em Te Comer"
Eugenius – Oomalama
One of the musicians Kurt Cobain enjoyed most was Eugene Kelly, who used to lead the wonderful shambling, minimalist Scottish pop band the Vaselines. After that band went kaput in 1990, Kelly started a much more rocking outfit called Captain America. A lawsuit by Marvel Comics quickly forced them to shed that name, but not before they released a couple of great EPs. One of them was the Wow! EP, all big singalong choruses and infectious, bone-simple riffs — you know, bash 'n' pop. I played those four songs over and over back then, and they're still great. After they changed their name to Eugenius, they released the disappointing Oomalama on Atlantic, never to top the Wow! EP, which is sprinkled throughout the album. Recommended for fans of Dinosaur Jr., Teenage Fanclub and anyone who enjoyed Nirvana's covers of the Vaselines songs "Son of a Gun" and "Molly's Lips."
Download: "Wow!," "Bed-In," "Wannabee," "God Bless Les Paul"
Rudy Ray Moore – Eat Out More Often
Among many other things, Greil Marcus' quintessential 1975 book of essays Mystery Train explores the myth of Stagger Lee, the ultimate bad-ass, and how it's popped up in African-American culture for so long and in so many places, from pre-war blues songs to blaxploitation films. "It is a fantasy of no-limits for a people who live within a labyrinth of limits every day of their lives, and who can transgress only among themselves," wrote Marcus. "It is both a portrait of a tough and vital character that everyone would like to be, and just another pointless, tawdry dance of death."
Raunchy (and that word is the understatement of the century) comedian Rudy Ray Moore's blue verse epic "Dolemite" both falls squarely into the Stagger Lee tradition and goes a long way toward explaining why so many hip-hop musicians revere him. Moore's 1970 debut album Eat Out More Often kicks off with an extended narrative about Dolemite, delivered in rhyming, rap-like couplets (often similar in structure to "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," actually) like "At the age of one, he was drinking whiskey and gin/ and the age of two he was eating the bottles it came in." In a wonderfully Oedipal image, Dolemite slaps his father's face shortly after being born; he eventually gets kicked out of "San Antone" at age 13, then takes "a job in Africa kicking lions in the ass to stay in shape." He eventually comes back to the "jive-ass USA," where the newscast warns of "storms, atomic bombs… and Dolemite"; the Rocky Mountains part to let him into the country. After a monumental sexual tryst, Dolemite dies, although his body is still capable of congress, shall we say. It's side-splittingly funny if you're not a Puritan, but there's also a lot of rage in there; the album was a big hit with Moore's almost purely African-American audiences at the time, who must have felt the uproarious tale on all the levels Marcus describes.
Warning: I left out all the X-rated language, which is copious, so don't play this the first time you meet your in-laws.
Download: "Dolemite"
Komitas Vardapet – The Voice Of Komitas Vardapet
With fans like Debussy, Fauré and Saint-Saëns, you're probably doing something right. An Armenian Catholic priest with an incredible story Komitas ("Vardapet" means "priest, church scholar" in Turkish) is a major figure in Armenian classical music, both as a composer and as a folkorist; among other things, he wedded Armenian folk music and chants into the unique classical vocal form heard on this remarkable album.
These recordings of his compositions were made in 1912, and after what must have been some fancy remastering the fidelity is kind of incredible, considering it was originally recorded when William H. Taft was president. The singers' remarkable voices (Komitas apparently sings on only the first two tracks — a capella — and a couple of other singers pick up from there) and the mystical power of the music transcend any technical limitations. (In fact, the distortion on certain loud vocal notes actually produces a beautiful overtone.)
I wish I could tell you more about this remarkable music, but information is frustratingly scarce. Whatever they're singing about, it's stunningly moving and deeply spiritual all the same, with a profound mournfulness that eerily anticipates the genocide which would befall the Armenian people just three short years later. Later tracks incorporate piano and strings, and they're not quite as striking, but if the first couple of tracks speak to you, keep going.
Download: "Mokats Mirza," "Hov Arek Sarer," "Gutan Yerg"
David Soldier – Thai Elephant Orchestra
Do you love elephants? I sure do. So I was pretty excited when eMusic got this album: recordings of music by pachyderms. Inspired by artists Komar and Melamid, who did paintings with these same multi-talented creatures, downtown NYC composer and violin ace Dave Soldier, and his collaborator, elephant conservationist Richard Lair of the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, conduct these enormously intelligent animals as they hit a xylophone-like instrument called a renat, tuned to a pentatonic scale (which gives the music its Third Worldy sound), gongs, slit drums, a single-string bass, and a thunder sheet, and blow through a harmonica. It's even better than that cat who plays piano. Some of it sounds like giant wind chimes, some sounds like Buddhist temple music and some of it bears a surprising resemblance to some of the tracks from Bjork's fascinating soundtrack to Drawing Restraint, but mostly it sounds like Javanese gamelan music as played by a bunch of listless stoners. Besides being great fodder for the eternal "what is music?" debate, it's just totally fun, and it made me smile.
(A really good piece by Soldier about making the recordings is available on pdf here.)
Download: "Duo for Renats," "Swing Swing Swing"
Todd Burns, Production Editor
Lewis Taylor – The Lost Album
I got turned on to Lewis Taylor's absolutely stunning Lost Album by Barney Hoskyns' eMusic column about it and wow, talk about discovering music — what a find! This is utterly sublime stuff, an impeccable meditation on the elegantly manicured pop of the mid '70s. All stacked close harmonies, silky-smooth playing and subtly intricate arrangements, it recalls soft-rock renegades like 10cc, Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan, and even vigorously un-hip stuff like Air Supply or Stephen Bishop, but rendered into something very exquisite: high-art MOR.
People like David Bowie, Paul Weller and Elton John were outspoken fans of Taylor's successful r&b-oriented 1996 debut album, but Taylor didn't like getting typecast as a "blue-eyed soul singer," and retaliated by writing and recording demos for what he later called "the most un-r&b album you could probably ever hear." Some clueless person at his label rejected the new approach and it was nearly ten years before Taylor came back to the tapes and reworked them for this exceptional album. Smooth but smart, airy but deep, it has that distinctly sleek LA sound — you can almost feel the golden sun and otherworldly perfection of the weather. The gifted Taylor plays most of the instruments, contributing to the authentically hermetic feel to the album. You can hear a lot of Todd Rundgren, Carole King and the Beach Boys on one of the album's most immediately gratifying tracks, "Leader of the Band."
Download: "Leader of Band"
Cidadao Instigado – E O Método Túfo De Experiências
Wonderfully unhinged and musicianly, Cidadao Instigado mastermind Fernando Catatau is fully prepared to bring his songs wherever his wayward muse guides him. E O Método opens with a fairly straightforward Brazilian folk-pop tune, but that's just a fake-out. Cidadao Instigado's utterly distinctive music zooms all over the map: prog-reggae, free electronic space-outs, alien electro-funk, all with a distinctly Brazilian flavor. If you're like me and you dig the nut-job Tropicalia of Tom Zé, this is right up your alley. Start with "Os Urubus Só Pensam Em Te Comer," at first sounding like the Walkmen playing a creepy carnival, with maybe Carlos Santana on lead guitar… then a crazy wipeout section like Ian Dury jamming with Afrika Bambaataa. If you like that one, just download the entire album, it's wildly creative and elegantly surreal, the kind of record Beck would give his bola esquerda to make.
Download: "Os Urubus Só Pensam Em Te Comer"
Eugenius – Oomalama
One of the musicians Kurt Cobain enjoyed most was Eugene Kelly, who used to lead the wonderful shambling, minimalist Scottish pop band the Vaselines. After that band went kaput in 1990, Kelly started a much more rocking outfit called Captain America. A lawsuit by Marvel Comics quickly forced them to shed that name, but not before they released a couple of great EPs. One of them was the Wow! EP, all big singalong choruses and infectious, bone-simple riffs — you know, bash 'n' pop. I played those four songs over and over back then, and they're still great. After they changed their name to Eugenius, they released the disappointing Oomalama on Atlantic, never to top the Wow! EP, which is sprinkled throughout the album. Recommended for fans of Dinosaur Jr., Teenage Fanclub and anyone who enjoyed Nirvana's covers of the Vaselines songs "Son of a Gun" and "Molly's Lips."
Download: "Wow!," "Bed-In," "Wannabee," "God Bless Les Paul"
Rudy Ray Moore – Eat Out More Often
Among many other things, Greil Marcus' quintessential 1975 book of essays Mystery Train explores the myth of Stagger Lee, the ultimate bad-ass, and how it's popped up in African-American culture for so long and in so many places, from pre-war blues songs to blaxploitation films. "It is a fantasy of no-limits for a people who live within a labyrinth of limits every day of their lives, and who can transgress only among themselves," wrote Marcus. "It is both a portrait of a tough and vital character that everyone would like to be, and just another pointless, tawdry dance of death."
Raunchy (and that word is the understatement of the century) comedian Rudy Ray Moore's blue verse epic "Dolemite" both falls squarely into the Stagger Lee tradition and goes a long way toward explaining why so many hip-hop musicians revere him. Moore's 1970 debut album Eat Out More Often kicks off with an extended narrative about Dolemite, delivered in rhyming, rap-like couplets (often similar in structure to "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," actually) like "At the age of one, he was drinking whiskey and gin/ and the age of two he was eating the bottles it came in." In a wonderfully Oedipal image, Dolemite slaps his father's face shortly after being born; he eventually gets kicked out of "San Antone" at age 13, then takes "a job in Africa kicking lions in the ass to stay in shape." He eventually comes back to the "jive-ass USA," where the newscast warns of "storms, atomic bombs… and Dolemite"; the Rocky Mountains part to let him into the country. After a monumental sexual tryst, Dolemite dies, although his body is still capable of congress, shall we say. It's side-splittingly funny if you're not a Puritan, but there's also a lot of rage in there; the album was a big hit with Moore's almost purely African-American audiences at the time, who must have felt the uproarious tale on all the levels Marcus describes.
Warning: I left out all the X-rated language, which is copious, so don't play this the first time you meet your in-laws.
Download: "Dolemite"
Komitas Vardapet – The Voice Of Komitas Vardapet
With fans like Debussy, Fauré and Saint-Saëns, you're probably doing something right. An Armenian Catholic priest with an incredible story Komitas ("Vardapet" means "priest, church scholar" in Turkish) is a major figure in Armenian classical music, both as a composer and as a folkorist; among other things, he wedded Armenian folk music and chants into the unique classical vocal form heard on this remarkable album.
These recordings of his compositions were made in 1912, and after what must have been some fancy remastering the fidelity is kind of incredible, considering it was originally recorded when William H. Taft was president. The singers' remarkable voices (Komitas apparently sings on only the first two tracks — a capella — and a couple of other singers pick up from there) and the mystical power of the music transcend any technical limitations. (In fact, the distortion on certain loud vocal notes actually produces a beautiful overtone.)
I wish I could tell you more about this remarkable music, but information is frustratingly scarce. Whatever they're singing about, it's stunningly moving and deeply spiritual all the same, with a profound mournfulness that eerily anticipates the genocide which would befall the Armenian people just three short years later. Later tracks incorporate piano and strings, and they're not quite as striking, but if the first couple of tracks speak to you, keep going.
Download: "Mokats Mirza," "Hov Arek Sarer," "Gutan Yerg"
David Soldier – Thai Elephant Orchestra
Do you love elephants? I sure do. So I was pretty excited when eMusic got this album: recordings of music by pachyderms. Inspired by artists Komar and Melamid, who did paintings with these same multi-talented creatures, downtown NYC composer and violin ace Dave Soldier, and his collaborator, elephant conservationist Richard Lair of the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, conduct these enormously intelligent animals as they hit a xylophone-like instrument called a renat, tuned to a pentatonic scale (which gives the music its Third Worldy sound), gongs, slit drums, a single-string bass, and a thunder sheet, and blow through a harmonica. It's even better than that cat who plays piano. Some of it sounds like giant wind chimes, some sounds like Buddhist temple music and some of it bears a surprising resemblance to some of the tracks from Bjork's fascinating soundtrack to Drawing Restraint, but mostly it sounds like Javanese gamelan music as played by a bunch of listless stoners. Besides being great fodder for the eternal "what is music?" debate, it's just totally fun, and it made me smile.
(A really good piece by Soldier about making the recordings is available on pdf here.)
Download: "Duo for Renats," "Swing Swing Swing"
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