Blind Lemon Jefferson – King of the Country Blues [1990] (Compilation of songs from the late 1920s)

In the first few decades of this century, most commercial blues singers were women – Bessie Smith and Ma Rainy are two well-known examples.  Noted for his intricate guitar technique, Blind Lemon Jefferson was one of the first men to find success in the style, and served as inspiration several other noted Texas bluesmen, including personal favorites Leadbelly and Lightnin' Hopkins.  While other musicians have adopted similar playing techniques, few choose to imitate his high, almost ghostly singing.  That’s a shame, as that lonely-sounding timbre is an appropriate fit for his mournful subject matter.
This compilation was released by Yazoo records, who at the time refused to filter the 78 RPM sources in order to minimize the hiss and pop of the records.  This means that each song emanates from beneath a light haze of noise, but in my opinion it only adds to the character of the songs.

[YouTube] Blind Lemon Jefferson – See That My Grave is Kept Clean

Blind Lemon Jefferson – King of the Country Blues
01 - That Crawlin' Baby Blues
02 - Bad Luck Blues
03 - Matchbox Blues
04 - Hot Dogs
05 - One Dime Blues
06 - Shuckin' Sugar
07 - Rabbit Foot Blues
08 - Corrina Blues
09 - See That My Grave Is Kept Clean
10 - Easy Rider Blues
11 - Broke And Hungry
12 - Black Horse Blues
13 - Lonesome House Blues
14 - Oil Well Blues
15 - He Arose From the Dead
16 - Beggin' Back
17 - Prison Cell Blues
18 - Rambler Blues
19 - Gone Dead On You Blues
20 - Wartime Blues
21 - Booger Rooger Blues
22 - Right of Way Blues
23 - Big Night Blues

Soil & "Pimp" Sessions - Pimp of the Year [2006]

I've got a terrible, dirty secret....  I don't like jazz.  As far as western music is concerned, it's the only major genre that I haven't yet "cracked."  For some reason, I never found the band or artist that I could listen to long enough to temper my ear, to give me the ability to read other jazz artists.

That may have changed.  Soil & "Pimp" Sessions (I don't know what that means either) is a group of Japanese kids who play fast and tight, using considerable melodic and harmonic dissonance without losing a sense of tunefulness.  I wish I could provide a more apt description, but as I said, Jazz is a new world to me.  All I know is that this is a badass album.

[YouTube] Soil & "Pimp" Sessions - Crush

Soil & "Pimp" Sessions - Pimp of the Year

01 - Memai

02 - Summer Goddess

03 - Worldwide

04 - Crush!

05 - Sabotage

06 - Scoop Out

07 - Sahara

08 - Ha Hen (Splinter)

09 - The Black Widow Blues

10 - The White Widow

11 - I-Rony

12 - Last Long

13 - Satsuriku New Wave

Cubanate – Barbarossa [1996]

Marc Heal and Phil Barry, the duo that make up Cubanate, marry high speed techno to industrial-influenced metal, and makes a glorious racket in the process.   Guitar riffs, played both on real electric instruments and by synthesized pads (though it can be difficult to tell one from another), are cranked up to a punk rock tempo and underpinned by a furious dram machine assault.  It's notable that, at a time when most of Cubanate's coldwave peers were programming drum machines to a simple and speedy rock or dance beat, the duo were creating some brutal but complex and refined techno.

[YouTube] Cubanate – Barbarossa

Cubanate - Barbarossa
01 - Vortech I
02 - Barbarossa
03 - Joy
04 - Why Are You Here
05 - Exultation
06 - The Musclemen
07 - Come Alive
08 - Vortech II
09 - Lord of the Flies

Kaki King – Everybody Loves You (2003)

My introduction to Kaki King was a performance on Conan in 2003 or 2004.  It began inauspiciously; one young girl with her head down, hair hiding her face from the camera, slouched over an acoustic guitar held flat in her lap.  Without a word of introduction she began to play, and the sound was something I hadn’t heard before.  The song was from this, her debut album, on which every track but the last features only her solo acoustic guitar.  King often plays percussively, making liberal use of slapping and striking.  She also favors harmonic runs over traditionally strummed chords, lending the denser pieces a fragile ornamentation.  Critics have cited the lack of conventional melody as a weakness of this piece, but that seems unfair – this type of playing is more about texture and timbre than melody, though it is much more akin to folk than twelve tone music.  Those who characterize the acoustic guitar as an intimate or tender instrument may have trouble adjusting to the heady contents of this album.
I’d lost track of Kaki King in the last several years, and in doing a bit of research for this post, I found that she tours with a full band these days, and has played with the likes of the Foo Fighters and Tegan & Sara.  I’ll have to check out her latest sometime.

[YouTube] Kaki King – Close Your Eyes and You’ll Burst into Flames

Kaki King – Everybody Loves You
01 - Kewpie Station
02 - Steamed Little Juicy Bun
03 - Carmine St.
04 - Night after Sidewalk
05 - Happy As a Dead Pig In The Sunshine
06 - The Exhibition
07 - Close Your Eyes and You'll Burst Into Flames
08 - Joi
09 - Everybody Loves You
10 - Fortuna

Carpathian Forest – Fuck You All!!! Caput Tuum In Ano Est [2006]

Time for some fucking metal!  Carpathian Forest built their reputation on keeping black metal stripped down and primitive, the Great Black Hope for kvlt kids who scoffed as their once-favorite band had the temerity to grow and evolve.  However, Fuck You All!!! is punky, chunky, rock n’ roll oriented black metal that keeps riffs short and makes blastbeats a tool instead of the whole trade.  Those same kids were probably pissed upon hearing it, and with a latin subtitle that translates roughly to “Your head is up your ass,” it’s pretty obvious that the band didn’t care. 

[Youtube] Carpathian Forest – Diabolism (live version)

[MySpace] http://www.myspace.com/blackshiningleather

Carpathian Forest – Fuck You All!!! Caput Tuum In Ano Est

01 - Vi Apner Porten Til Helvete

02 - The Frostbitten Woodlands of Norway

03 - Start Up the Incinerator (Here Comes Another Useless Fool)

04 - Submit to Satan!!!

05 - Diabolism (The Seed and the Sower)

06 - Dypfryst Dette Er Mit Helvete

07 - Everyday I Must Suffer

08 - The First Cut is The Deepest

09 - Evil Egocentrical Existentialism

10 - Shut Up, There No Excuse to Live

Guillaume Dufay – Chansons [Performed by Ensemble Unicorn, 1996]

Guillaume Dufay was a fifteenth century composer who worked for most of his life in northern France.  Regarded even in his lifetime as that era's premiere composer, Dufay’s oeuvre contains elements of both the high Medieval and early Renaissance, managing the difficult balancing act of innovating while staying rooted in tradition, and getting contemporaries to appreciate it.

The songs presented on this album are secular, and consequently are more forward-looking.  The track list alternates between instrumental and vocal performances, though it must be said that the vocal pieces best display the rich and tuneful polyphony for which Dufay is known.  The instrumental tracks muddy the interplay of voices (at least to my uncouth modern ear), but the use of period instruments is still a treat.

[Youtube] Dufay - Ce Jour De L'an 

Guillaume Dufay – Chansons

01 - J'ay Mis Mon Cue

02 - Par Droit Je Puis Bien Complaindre

03 - Quel Fronte Signorille - La Dolce Vista

04 - Puisque Vous Estez Campieur

05 - Belle, Que Vous Ay Je Mesfait

06 - Vergene Bella

07 - Se La Face Ay Pale

08 - Donnes L'assault À Ia Fortresse

09 - Par Le Regard De Vos Beaux Yeux

10 - Resvelons Nous

11 - Ce Jour De L'an

12 - Mon Chier Amy

13 - Pour L'amour De Ma Doulce Amye

14 - Helas Mon Dueil

15 - Bon Jour, Bon Mois

16 - Resvelliés Vous Et Faites Chiere Lye

17 - Adieu Ces Bons Vins De Lannoys

Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins – Rabbit Fur Coat [2005]

Critics will tell you that Jenny Lewis has a voice that is too sweet for an alt-country chanteuse.  They’re not wrong – Lewis does have a sweet voice, but don’t get that confused with weak.  I like the pack-a-day drawl of some of country’s underground matriarchs, but the intimate atmosphere of this record is engendered in no small part by keeping the drama in the lyrics, not in her voice.  For all of the darkness in the libretto – autobiographical tales of broken families, grappling with apostasy – it is never grim.  That’s a  tough trick to pull off.

[YouTube] Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins – Rise Up with Fists

 [MySpace] http://www.myspace.com/jennylewismusic

[Official Site] http://www.jennylewis.com/

Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins – Rabbit Fur Coat

 01 - Run Devil Run

02 - The Big Guns

03 - Rise Up With Fists

04 - Happy

05 - The Charging Sky

06 - Melt Your Heart

07 - You Are What You Love

08 - Rabbit Fur Coat

09 - Handle With Care

10 - Born Secular

11 - It Wasn't Me

12 - Happy (Reprise)

Error [2004]

Error is a studio project helmed by Atticus Ross of 12 Rounds and NIN, his brother Leo, and Brett Gurewitz from Bad Religion and founder of Epitaph records.  What’s more, they managed to entice Greg Puciato from Dillinger Escape Plan to undertake vocal duties.  What I love about this EP is that each artist adds what I like best about him to each track.  Each song contains a memorable hook thanks to Mr. Brett’s songwriting, which is then sliced and diced into a digital cacophony of cutup guitar riffs and urgent jungle-influenced beats by the Ross brothers.  The vocals are wisely left unprocessed, giving a sense of cohesiveness and melodic contour to songs that might have been too hard to decipher for the punks who don’t typically listen to digital hardcore flavored aggro.  Not to mention, it’s Greg Puciato!  Why would you fuck with his voice?

It’s a damn shame that Error left us with only this five track EP and little hope for future releases.  Still, considering NIN’s imminent hiatus, there is a slim possibility that there may be some life left in this project yet.  Yeah, right after the third 12 Rounds album drops.

[YouTube] Burn in Hell and Jack the Ripper

Error

01 - Nothing's Working

02 – Homicide (999 cover)

03 - Burn In Hell

04 - Jack The Ripper

05 - Brains Out

Trollfest – Villanden [2009]

As you can see from the album cover above, Trollfest is not a band that takes itself too seriously.  The lyrics, which are a combination of two languages I don’t know and one that’s made up, are purportedly about drinking, trolls, and drinking too much.  I like all three of those things, so I can’t help but dig this album.  Unlike Finntroll, to whom Trollfest is often compared, there are no synthesized sounds (at least that I can discern) on this album.  Instead, the horns, accordion, and acoustic strings are all the real deal.  For some reason, this goes down easier than Finntroll’s arguably more catchy tunes.  The only drawback in my mind is the unrelenting death metal vocals which can dampen much of the melodic content of the songs, as they are always foremost in the mix and rarely silent.

[YouTube] Trollfest – Der Jegermeister

[MySpace] http://www.myspace.com/trollfest

Trollfest – Villanden [2009]

01 - Wo Bin Ich Jetz Aufgewacht

02 - Der Jegermeister

03 - Uraltes Elemente

04 - Villanden

05 - Per, Pål Og Brakebeins Abenteuer

06 - Das Uhr Ist Skandaløst Schändlich

07 - God Fart

08 - Festival

09 - En Ny Erfaring

10 - Trinkenvisen

11 - Die Kirche Undt Der Mache

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble – Mutations EP [2009]

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble’s first self-titled LP on Ad Noiseam sounds like what you would expect from a jazz band on a dark electro label – plaintive horns atop subterranean drones and subdued violins, underpinned with percussion that weaves between quiet brush strokes and clicky IDM.  It’s good stuff, but I wasn’t terribly excited by the band until I heard this year’s Mutations EP.  

Mutations sheds much of the jazz trappings from the first album favor of languorous tones, acoustic and electric, draped over minimal electronic percussion.  I can’t disagree with anyone who would call this a collection of ambient music – on paper it certainly sounds like it - but ambient to me has always equated to “low impact” and this is anything but.  Lush sweeps of sound slide slowly atop each other like cirrus clouds, evoking candlelight and shadow and humid summer nights.  Each song is impelled by the largely unobtrusive percussion that nevertheless manages to help build the tracks to a climax that is subtle and so long in coming that when the harmonic or melodic tension is resolved, it comes as a surprise to the listener just how invested he or she had become in the buildup.

TKDE have a new album, Here be Dragons, coming out in October, for which this EP is intended to be a bridge.  Download this, and then preorder that when you find out how great this is.

[Youtube] The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble – Shadows

[MySpace] http://www.myspace.com/tkde

  

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble – Mutations EP

01 - Caos Calmo

02 - München

03 - Serpents

04 - Twisted Horizons

05 - Shadows

06 - Symmetry of 6's

07 - Horns of King David

08 - Avian Lung