Mas Sexi

Mas Sexi Mixtape #1: Holiday Dance Party, USA!

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 22:33:00 +0000

Hello, friends and strangers, and happy holidays! The last time you heard from Mas Sexi we were mere days from a Thanksgiving turkey-induced coma, but after a month of lazing about and waiting for snow, we've grown restless and, frankly, a little bored of hibernation. Cue the Mas Sexi Mixtape!

MP3: DJ Cuckoo - Mas Sexi Mixtape #1 (Holiday Dance Party, USA!)

In the absence of a Portland-based Meatball Magic, yours truly dons his virtual DJ Cuckoo hat to bring you an extra-special holiday dance mix via The Internets. Ladies and gentlemen: the Mas Sexi Mixtape--first of a lifelong series, no doubt--is an hour-long MP3 mix featuring some of the year's best bangers, as well as a few of our dancefloor favorites. Click above (or here, or there) to download. Consider it an early Christmas present. Or a belated Hannukah gift. Or, you know, whatever you like. Point is, dance!

Tracklist:
Stars - "What I'm Trying to Say Pt. 2 (The Dears Remix)"
Hot Chip - "Ready for the Floor"
Chromeo - "Waiting 4 U"
Calvin Harris - "Disco Heat"
Kylie Minogue - "In My Arms"
Grand National - "Close Approximation"
The Black Ghosts - "Any Way You Choose to Give It"
Treasure Fingers - "Come True Tonight"
Dizzee Rascal - "Pussyole (Old Skool)"
Lyn Collins - "Think About It"
Can - "I Want More"
Blonde Redhead - "Spring and by Summer Fall"
Arcade Fire - "Keep the Car Running"
Dennis DJ - "Vasco 2000"
Diplo - "Diplo Rhythm (Percao)"
Kraftwerk - "Tour de France"
Bonde do Role - "Marina do Bairro"
Santogold - "Creator"
Ce'Cile and General Degree - "Na Na Na Na"
Groove Armada - "Drop That Thing"
M.I.A. - "XR2"
The Postmarks - "Goodbye (Tahiti 80 Remix)"
Robyn - "Crash and Burn Girl (Jesper Dahlback Remix)"
X-Wife - "When the Lights Turn Off"
Ladytron - "Nothing to Hide"

Devo work it out for Dell.

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:45:00 +0000

You've seen the commercial. Maybe you've heard it from the other room. The music sounds familiar, the stylized production's nice, and the models with power tools remind you of that Benny Benassi video. Then you realize it's a Devo song you've never heard before and they're selling you computers. But it's so cool, you're compelled to go out and buy one. And I don't know about you, but I'm sold.

MP3: Devo - "Watch Us Work It"

Yes, it's really Devo (confirmed when watching the long version), and yes, it's a commercial for the new Dell XPS laptops. The spot is directed by Jonas Akerlund, and the track--produced by Teddybears and titled "Watch Us Work It"--is Devo's first major release in 17 years. No word yet on whether the track is to be followed by a whole new album, but wouldn't that be awesome?

Efterklang - Parades

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:12:00 +0000

You can thank Bjork. Because of her musical antics--as well as those of other Icelandic bands like Múm and Sigur Rós, Norway's Röyksopp, and Sweden's The Knife--there's a certain sound one now associates with the majority of Scandinavian alternative music. That frosty tinkling from that far-off land of ice age remnants tends to conjure images of fur-clad musicians clanging together instruments fashioned out of icicles and snowballs--whistles and wails chasing flurries and gusts up the sides of icebergs. It's all, for the most part, heavily glacial and coolly detached, and even when the beats anchor the tune to the dancefloor or the background vocals swoop in like a chorus of tiny angels, there's either an aloofness or quirkiness that grabs you while still keeping you at arm's length. It's gorgeous and often overwhelming, but even in the embrace of an opus like "Pagan Poetry," the track's sentiments belie the sense that you're making love to a robot with an internal combustion engine for a heart.

And you wanna know something else? Unless it's a duo or just one artist, no one ever knows exactly how many members are actually in most of these bands. Efterklang is no exception. Up until this point, the Danish group had, ok, five official members? Plus one guy who does accompanying films and visuals. Plus at least two other people who joined them regularly while touring in support of their ambitious 2004 debut, Tripper. That album, by the way, was the fastest-selling album in the history of The Leaf Label, and deservedly so. Its computer-guided melodies and bit-gilded strings stuttered their way throughout Denmark and across the pond, creating ripples and flooding American college radio airwaves the following year. Tracks like "Swarming"--whose video was directed by Karim Ghahwagi, that visuals guy--introduced us to a band capable of more than whispering and ringing bells.

At any rate and on all counts, all bets are off with the release of their new album, Parades. The glitchy atmospherics of Tripper are still there, but rather than forming a base for the band's music, the electronic elements have been allowed to float over the top, touching down occasionally with clicks and pops here and there. Acoustically-based performances, like the epic opener "Polygyne," build momentum and bloom into fully-formed productions whose exaltations challenge even the most majestic of post-rock outfits (hello, Godspeed!). A full orchestra and backing choir stomp and glide along with the warm male-female vocals now familiar to most fans of the band, and even the synthesized flourishes seem to develop organically, floating in and out of the mix like ticker tape.

MP3: Efterklang - "Polygyne"

And much like an actual parade, each track on the album approaches you from somewhere out on the horizon, bowling you over with fanfare and fireworks, then marching away to the echoing of Sousa-sized strains. Lead single "Mirador" floats in with fluttering harps and pianos that open up to Matterhorn crescendos, then back again. The accompanying video--a sort of pinball-countdown-goes-north-pole affair--is as mesmerizingly surreal as you'd expect.

MP3: Efterklang - "Mirador"

Much of Parades recalls Arcade Fire or Sufjan Stevens' more bombastic fare in that every colossal action is met by an equal and opposite reaction. It also seems to happen subconsciously. Towards the end of the album, when the marching band thundering of "Caravan" flows gently into "Illuminant," you forget (if you've been good and allowed the record to play through in its entirety) that the whole thing consists of 11 different tracks rather than one homogeneous behemoth. Musical experiences like that are few and far between.

MP3: Efterklang - "Caravan"

Parades took a full 18 months to record, and it shows. The music moves like a glacier, sliding smoothly at times and landing with a series of booming cracks. This isn't just headphone music. With its soaring orchestral movements and crashing drums, it's music for loudspeakers and concert halls. It's a cadence for a march of millions. Efterklang haven't just created an amazing album here--with an earth-shaking spirit that all but sends you into cardiac arrest, they've composed a soundtrack for a revolution that will melt the icecaps.

Death to the pig: OiNK.cd is no more.

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 22:16:00 +0000

And so the first dawn fades on an OiNK-less day. Chances are you're already privy and in full mourning, but here's the news for those of you who couldn't care less: Early yesterday morning, British police raided the home of a Middlesbrough man, lugged his computer equipment away in plastic bags, and threw him in the pokey. Why? The 24-year-old IT worker, known at this point only as "Alan" (not me, I promise), was the administrator of OiNK.cd (previously OiNK.me.uk), a private bittorrent tracker site notorious for supplying quality-controlled leaks and pre-release albums to pirates lucky enough to hold memberships. Boasting 180,000 members and about a bajillion music and software torrents, OiNK was considered by most to be the ultimate invite-only torrent community. Practically anything--even some pretty obscure stuff--could be found and had within a matter of minutes (or, you know, so we hear). But like the days of Napster, you figured it was only a matter of time...

Following a two-year investigation by Interpol (not that Interpol), IFPI and BPI put the smackdown on the site in a hot minute, and those logging on yesterday hoping to find--oh, who knows, I'm just guessing here--the newest uploads or the top ten most transferred torrents in the last 24 hours were greeted instead with an ominous 90s-looking splash page reading, "This site has been closed as a result of a criminal investigation by IFPI, BPI, Cleveland Police and the Fiscal Investigation Unit of the Dutch Police (FIOD ECD) into suspected illegal music distribution. A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site's users." That's right--Dutch police. The site's servers, located in Amsterdam, were also confiscated. Meanwhile, in other parts of England and the Netherlands, the unwashed music-deprived masses murder each other and construct pipe bombs in red district flats.

In the hours following the raids, critical backlash and memorial sites cropped up on the Internet. Then there's the collective click of long-forgotten Soulseek and Limewire connections being fired up again. "Alan" has since been released from custody. By the way, that "criminal investigation" into the "identities and activities" of OiNK's users? Don't even trip. Word is, OiNK's user database was encrypted and equipped with a "self-destruct" type of mechanism. In completely unrelated news, stay tuned to Mas Sexi for more tunes. And in the spirit of that, please accept the following song. It's a good one.

MP3: Elvin Bishop - "Fooled Around and Fell in Love"

Copycat Sunday #1: Britney Spears

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:43:00 +0000

Say what you will about Britney Spears, but it's impossible to deny the space she occupies in popular culture. Whether it's a voyeuristic disgust of her downward spiral or a genuine veneration of the python-wielding diva of yore, there's an undeniable magnetism there that propelled her from teen-pop stardom to intergalactic phenomenon practically overnight.

MP3: Britney Spears - "I'm a Slave 4 U"

I don't know about you, but that night six years ago when she performed "I'm a Slave 4 U" on Letterman? Granted, it wasn't so much the performance as the relatively minimal sound that surprised me, but it was different enough to be interesting and, frankly, I dug it. The Neptunes were at the height of their production game and, in terms of mega-pop, it was as cool as anything they'd ever done. Something about the song, though, seemed oddly familiar. I didn't catch it right away--chances are most people still haven't and probably won't--and while modern pop isn't exactly known for its musical and thematic originality, the samples on which "Slave" are based are as surprising as the sultry persona assumed by Britney at the time.

MP3: Matmos - "Lipostudio...And So On"

In March of 2001, seven months before the release of "Slave" as a single, San Francisco-based electronic duo Matmos released their fourth LP, an experimental concept album titled A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure. Created around the recorded and manipulated sounds of plastic surgery and medical procedures, the album is, despite its gimmicks, pretty great stuff. It's at times even beautiful and, given the subject matter, surprisingly approachable (provided you don't think too hard about the way it was made). "Lipostudio...And So On," for all its groovy slurps and organic squelches, is practically pop already. With a little beat adjustment and some heavy editing from Pharrell and company, the dizzying track becomes a suitably pornographic backdrop for Britney's breathy advances.

But the idea of sweaty bodies writing together to the sounds of body fat and other fluids being sucked through tubes? It's not all that sexy. That's likely why Britney's camp acknowledged a more obvious sample of Vanity 6's "Nasty Girl" on "Slave," but "Lipostudio" has always been Pharrell's greasy little secret. Little did everyone know that, eventually (sooner rather than later), the idea of Britney Spears being associated with a liposuction tube wouldn't seem all that unattractive after all.

Pinback - "From Nothing to Nowhere"

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:25:00 +0000

MP3: Pinback - "From Nothing to Nowhere"

It's a great way to start off the album, I'll give them that. Pinback's latest may not quite be their White Album, but lead-off single "From Nothing to Nowhere" is a lot better than the video might suggest.

The rest of Autumn of the Seraphs is just as classy and pretty as everything else they've ever done, but no one's socks are gonna be knocked off or anything. Know what? That's totally OK.

En Español Friday #1: Volován

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 10:40:00 +0000

Because of its close proximity to the U.S., its numerous colleges, and the technology afforded by its relative wealth, the highly-industrialized Mexican municipality of Monterrey (capitol of the northeastern state of Nuevo Leon) has, in the last ten years, become one of the biggest wellsprings of alternative music in Latin America. As the richest city in Mexico, Monterrey was known in the past more for its factories and shopping malls than its music clubs and recording studios. Nowadays, its thriving music scene has earned it the nickname "Monterrock," and bands like Control Machete and Plastilina Mosh have helped to establish it as "the Seattle of Latin America."

MP3: Volován - "Ella Es Azul"

Indie pop foursome Volován emerged from the Monterrock scene with their self-titled debut album five years ago. Produced by Andy Chase (Tahiti 80, Ivy), Joe Robinson (Badly Drawn Boy, Mom and Dad), and Alejandro Rosso (Plastilina Mosh), Volován spawned two international hit singles. "Ella Es Azul" and "Flor Primaveral"--both heavy on layered "whoo-hoo" choruses, tambourine, handclaps and Fender Rhodes--recall the summery beach pop of mid-century California rather than the traditionally-inspired norteño music popular throughout most of Mexico.

MP3: Volován - "Flor Primaveral"

Elsewhere on the album, when the band isn't picking sand out of its toes, it's caught up in a sunny swoon. The power pop chords of "Invencible," bearing down in waves of bass and snare, summon the spirit of Sonic Youth and The Cars with the warm fuzzy edge of shoegazey synth.

MP3: Volován - "Invencible"

Stay tuned at the end of the album for a quick New-Order-inspired instrumental hidden track. It's sorta nice. Then go out and buy the album--you'll wear it out in no time. As for follow-ups? Earlier this year, after whittling the band down from four members to three, Volován released a sophomore album called Monitor. Frankly, we haven't been as captivated by it as you'd think, so that's about all we have to say about that.

MP3: Volován - Hidden Track

Freestyle Wednesday #5: Exposé

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:24:00 +0000

MP3: Exposé - "Point of No Return"

One of the most successful freestyle groups of the 80s was, like most pop acts of the day, a record label construct. Exposé, formed in 1984 by Pantera Productions, initially consisted of Miami natives Sandra Casanas, Alejandra Lorenzo, and Laurie Miller. "Point of No Return" debuted at number one on the Billboard dance charts in 1985, and the success of the single earned them a contract with Arista Records.

MP3: Exposé - "Exposed to Love"

The following year, to the strains of their second hit single, "Exposed to Love," Exposé prepared to begin work on their full-length debut, Exposure. Changes in the group's lineup would stall the album until 1987, but when it was finally released to a #16 position on the charts, Exposure set a new musical record for the group. With chart-topping hits like "Seasons Change," "Let Me Be the One," and "Come Go with Me," Exposé surpassed The Supremes and even The Beatles for the most Billboard Top 10 singles from a single album.

MP3: Exposé - "Come Go with Me"

Exposé's current lineup of Anne Curless, Gioia Bruno, Jeanette Jurado (and, occasionally, Kelly Moneymaker) is still coasting on the triple-platinum sales of Exposure. County fairs, "Freestyle Explosion" concerts, gay pride festivals--you name it, they're there.

Caribou - "Melody Day"

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:14:00 +0000

Chances are you know Dan Snaith as Manitoba, the musical alias under which he released two albums in the early aughts (including 2003's incredible Up in Flames). But in 2004, under threat of a lawsuit from the Dictators' "Handsome Dick" Manitoba, Snaith changed his stage name to Caribou, re-released his previous material under the new dub, and began work on his 2005 motorik Krautrock-inspired album Milk of Human Kindness.

MP3: Caribou - "Melody Day"

Andorra, Snaith's latest release as Caribou, follows his tradition of musical metamorphosis. On "Melody Day," the album's first single, he fuses the 60s jangle of The Zombies, The Beach Boys, maybe Margo Guryan, and processes it through a dream pop nuclear reactor. The Four Tet remix--which you'll find alongside "Zoe" on the single's b-side--strips the original track down to an acoustic wisp of a song.

MP3: Caribou - "Melody Day" (Four Tet Remix)

The smell of repetition really is on you.

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 23:20:00 +0000

It's only been a year since the release of Hot Chip's Mercury Prize-nominated sophomore album, The Warning, but you know what? You can't just drop a single like "My Piano" and then say, Oh, by the way, you're gonna have to wait until next year for the actual album, okay? Come on already!

MP3: Hot Chip - "My Piano"

!K7's DJ Kicks series--the label's genre-spanning remix project--is 12 years strong this week. Hot Chip's own DJ Kicks album is the latest mix (not yet counting next month's mix by Booka Shade), and it's just as eclectic as the series' roster of remixers. Along with the first appearance of "My Piano" is an awesome Etta James & Sugar Pie DeSanto track, bookended by Young Leek and Black Devil Disco Club and fused into one big club stormer. Here's an excerpt.

MP3: Hot Chip - "Jiggle It/In the Basement/On Just Foot" (DJ Kicks)

Hot Chip's new album, tentatively titled Shot Down in Flames, will be out in February on DFA Records. The next single, which they've been performing live everywhere (and apparently features Todd Rundgren), is due out any day now. In the meantime, here are some very nice remixes they've done for various folks.

MP3: Ladytron - "Destroy Everything You Touch" (Hot Chip Remix)
MP3: Le Tigre - "TKO" (Hot Chip Remix)
MP3: Scissor Sisters - "Take Your Mama" (Hot Chip Remix)

Face the music.

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:06:00 +0000

British electro-rockers The Black Ghosts began splintering into existence in 2005. That's when Simian's Simon Lord and The Wiseguys' Theo Keating met with the intention of doing a few songs together. Two years later, the duo are working on an LP and have released a handful of singles and remixes. "Face," released late last year, is a tasty teaser limited to only 500 copies. Guess who's got it?

MP3: The Black Ghosts - "Face"

"Anyway You Choose to Give It," released on limited 12" in late 2006, is the first official single from the forthcoming album. This is the one we just can't seem to stop playing. A remix EP released earlier this year finds the Midas-esque Playgroup re-working the cut with that Lyn Collins/Rob Base drum track, James Brown samples, and air raid sirens. Seriously.

MP3: The Black Ghosts - "Anyway You Choose to Give It"
MP3: The Black Ghosts - "Anyway You Choose to Give It" (Playgroup Remix)

Remember Olivia Newton-John's 1982 classic "(Let's Get) Physical," in which she all but begs her date to just stick it in already? A compilation released in March (mind-blowing not so much in execution as in concept) revives the sexytime single with 12 exclusive covers done in alternating degrees of awesome. Let's Get Physical with Wesc was doled out by the shop at their store openings. The Black Ghosts' cover is, not surprisingly, the album's best.

MP3: The Black Ghosts - "Let's Get Physical"

The Black Ghosts' full-length debut, courtesy of Southern Fried, is due out later this summer. Tour dates, no doubt and hopefully, are sure to follow. Listen to their summer mixtape while you wait.

MP3: The Black Ghosts - Summer Mixtape, July 2007

Tracklist:
Syclops - "Mom the Video Broke"
Beckett and Taylor - "You Gotta Work"
Vincent Markowski - "The Madness of Moths" vs. The Black Ghosts - "Repetition Kills You"
Lindstrom - "I Feel Space" vs. The Black Ghosts - "Something New"
Noze - "Remember Love"
Cursor Minor - "Hair of the Dog"
Gossip - "Listen Up" (The Black Ghosts Remix)
Bass-a-rani & Dexter - "Boogie Chasers" vs. The Black Ghosts - "Face"
Ear Pwr - "Jack & Jill"
The Black Ghosts - "Some Way Through This" (Plastician & Skream Remix)

Mas Sexi Honors: Jeff Buckley

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:09:00 +0000

It came to me in a dream. My sister Jannette and I are standing in front of Livingstone's, an old favorite bar in Fresno, and we're waiting for someone to exit. That someone ends up being our mother and her sister, two-and-a-half sheets to the wind, tossing money at us so we can go inside because Livingstone's has suddenly become Club Fred, a live venue that's just one street over. Inside, a handful of friends are sitting at three or four of about 20 tables, and they're watching in the dark as Jeff Buckley does a posthumous and slightly girl group-esque rendition of a Sketches-era demo called "I Know We Could Be So Happy Baby (If We Wanted to Be)." Jannette and I can't even manage to sit, we're so enthralled, and as he runs through his arabesques and falsettos... those chords! Those swirling chords that dance in and around each other and seem to trail off as easily as he snaps them back toward himself...

We stand there watching until the very end, and as Jeff quickly says his goodbyes and the band starts to break down their equipment, the room is overcome by a palpable grief. Grief not just because the show is over and we'll probably never experience anything like it again, but because we're all somehow aware that he's only temporarily gracing us. Somehow, despite the fact that he's just a few feet away from us, we all know, logically, that's he's not really alive anymore, and as soon as he walks out the club doors he'll be gone forever. As we allow it to sink in, heads bowed and faces drawn, I wake up with that song in a loop through my brain.

MP3: Jeff Buckley - "I Know We Could Be So Happy Baby (If We Wanted to Be)"

It's been ten years since Jeff Buckley's death. Doesn't seem like ten years, does it? It's the progressively clipped pace of each passing year that seems to be sneaking up on us, making us stop in our tracks and wonder, "Really? Already?" It's hard to believe he would have been 41 this year. Like his estranged father, cult troubadour Tim Buckley, Jeff left the world with an ephemeral image of youth that isn't easily blurred by the persistence of time. Tim died just two months after meeting his eight-year-old son for the first time, and it was the image of his father--his mythology, his music and its profound influence on so many people--that would haunt Jeff for the rest of his life.

As a child, Jeffrey Scott Buckley was known as Scotty Moorhead. In an effort to spare him any confusion, Jeff's mother Mary Guibert and her second husband Ron decided to use Ron's surname for Jeff's enrollment in kindergarten. After Tim Buckley's death in 1975, however, Jeff decided to change his name in an homage to his late father, and while his family would always continue referring to him fondly as Scotty, to the rest of the world he would soon be known as Jeff Buckley.

Raised in Southern California, Jeff's love of music was encouraged not only by his mother--who was a classically trained pianist and cellist--but also by his stepfather, who bought Jeff his first Led Zeppelin album, Physical Graffiti. He began learning to play guitar at age six, and after high school Jeff enrolled in the Los Angeles Musicians Institute, graduating from the guitar program at age 18.

MP3: Jeff Buckley - "I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain" (Live)

In 1991, Jeff was invited to perform at a benefit concert for his father at St. Ann's Church in New York. The concert, called "Greetings from Tim Buckley," was to consist of mostly unknown local acts covering classic Tim Buckley songs. Conflicted with both resentment and admiration for his father, regretful of not having gone to his funeral, and anxious about performing in front of an audience, Jeff reluctantly accepted the invitation. Concert attendees were Tim Buckley fans and people who had known and worked with him, so expectations and curiosity about Jeff hung in the air like incense. The legacy left by Tim, however, was not only musical, but also genetic, and all bets were off as soon as Jeff--armed with a backing band including ex-Captain Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas--took the stage. David Browne, author of Dream Brother: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley, writes:

After an instrumental interlude, a new group of musicians took the stage. One of them was a long-haired kid wearing a black t-shirt. Danny Fields, Tim's onetime publicist, was in the audience, keeping an eye out for the supposed son. Though Jeff had his back to the audience as he tuned his guitar, the spotlight caught his profile and one cheekbone. "And I said, 'Whoa--there he is,'" Field recalls. "I didn't have to wonder too hard. It could take your breath away."

Jeff, who had billed himself as Jeff Scott Buckley, began strumming rigorously as Lucas surrounded him with waves of soaring-seagull guitar swoops. It was "I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain," Tim's song to Mary and her son. The audience suddenly stopped glancing at their watches. After an hour of esoteric music, here was one of Tim's most recognizable songs, emanating from a very recognizable face and sung in a familiar (if slightly deeper) voice. Halfway through the performance, a light behind the stage suddenly flashed on, throwing Jeff's silhouette against the back wall; it was, as Willner says, "like Christ had arrived." ("My God," Jeff said to a friend on the phone after the show, "I stepped onstage and they backlit it and it was like the fucking Second Coming.")

Just before he went onstage, Jeff had finished writing his own verse for the song: "My love is the flower that lies among the graves," it began, ending with a plea to "spread my ash along the way." Anyone familiar with the subject matter of the song knew this performance was more than a faithful rendition of a '60s oldie. It was a tribute, retort, and catharsis all in one, and as soon as Jeff left the stage, the audience was literally abuzz with chatter: So that was the son.

Once quoted as saying, "The only thing I ever stole from my father was a fleeting glimpse," Jeff intended to become a true artist in his own right. After his compelling performance at the St. Anne's benefit, Jeff moved to New York, plunging headlong into the avant garde performance art scene and embarking on what he called his "café days." Influenced as much by Nina Simone and Edith Piaf as he was by Freddie Mercury and Pakistani Sufi musician Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (whom he idolized and called "my Elvis"), Jeff's repertoire and musical style astounded anyone within earshot. He could, quite literally, sing anything. Garnering a following at local clubs and coffeehouses, he eventually took up residence at New York's famed Café Sin-é for a weekly gig every Monday night.

MP3: Jeff Buckley - Banter/"Yeh Jo Halka Saroor Hai" (Live)
YouTube: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party - "Yeh Jo Halka Saroor Hai"

Those early solo performances--consisting of original material as well as requests and covers of favorites--began quietly enough. A few nightstand-sized tables and standing-room stragglers gathered around Jeff and his guitar for intimate sets near the back of the small café. That soon changed, however, and after just a few months of playing for a humble and rapt audience, record execs were literally lining up at Sin-é's doors to sign him. It steamrolled from there. A sea of limousines on the street, people on tiptoes trying see over the throng of fans; it was a phenomenon, and in 1992 he received a three-album deal from Columbia Records. The gears were quickly greased and while Jeff assembled a band to record his debut album, Columbia released Live at Sin-é, a four-song EP of recordings from his old stomping ground. Included on the EP, along with a breathtaking Van Morrison cover and two original songs, was a covered translation of the Edith Piaf classic, "Je N'en Connais Pas La Fin."

MP3: Jeff Buckley - "Je N'en Connais Pas La Fin" (Live)

Grace, Jeff's full-length debut, was released in August of 1994 to critical acclaim, and though it was delivered warmly into the open hands of fans, the album initially received otherwise modest attention and slow sales. Proving, however, that American audiences are notoriously slow on the uptake, Grace went gold in Australia and France and was awarded the Grand Prix International du Disque.

MP3: Jeff Buckley - "Grace"

Sprawling and ardent, Grace was an astonishing manifestation of Jeff's innate talent and sense of musical history, and its colossal sound took many of his long-time followers by surprise. Given new form and texture by the addition of a full band (including former bandmate Gary Lucas), Jeff's own instrumentation--from guitar to organ to drums and even sitar and tabla--seemed to weave a sort of musical Persian rug. That Eastern sound, like a flurry of filigrees, was most pronounced on "Dream Brother," a song written to one of Jeff's best friends and, parenthetically, to Jeff's own father.

MP3: Jeff Buckley - "Dream Brother"

It's those acrobatic vocals with the multi-octave range that get you in the jugular, though, and Jeff's command of his voice made it the most arresting instrument in his arsenal. A song like "Last Goodbye"--with the string quartet gliding into tiny collisions with the chiming guitars and Jeff's voice, a lilting melody that builds into an anthemic declaration of love almost as quickly as it concedes into one final languishing farewell--hangs onto you for dear life. It's his most commercially successful song to date. It's also one of the most touching moments on Grace.

MP3: Jeff Buckley - "Last Goodbye"

The two years following the release of Grace were spent on a worldwide tour in support of the album. Caught smack between the death of Seattle grunge and the birth of Britpop, Jeff's sound was a departure from anything on the current music scene, and people took note. While college rockers were clamoring in existential angst, Jeff's blues manifested into crescendos of falsettos and cabaret croons. Given the musical landscape of the time, his maverick sentimentality and barefaced talents were radical in a refreshingly unexpected way, and every new stop on the tour begged the question, What next?

MP3: Jeff Buckley - "Vancouver"

By mid-1996, the makings of a second album were well under way. Tentatively titled My Sweetheart the Drunk, plans (and expectations) for the follow-up to Grace were Sgt. Pepper-scaled. Tom Verlaine (of Television fame) was enlisted to produce the album and studio demos were recorded with him. But new songs were not coming easily. The pains and excesses of touring had taken their toll, and Jeff found it increasingly difficult to produce new material that wasn't just Grace II. The demos recorded with Verlaine were left incomplete, and in late spring of 1997 Jeff decided it was Tennessee, not New York, that was conducive to writing. He rented a tiny house in Memphis, set a four-track recorder in the middle of the living room, and began reworking the new material all by himself.

MP3: Jeff Buckley - "I Know We Could Be So Happy Baby (If We Wanted to Be) (4-Track Demo)

There's a certain sort of bittersweet sadness that's reserved for that very specific moment when you realize that what you're listening to--that forgotten voicemail, or the sound of someone's keys on the other side of the door, or the album that you're in awe of at every turn and could quite possibly be one of your favorites of all time--is the last you'll ever hear from someone. Grace is a gorgeous album, nearly dizzying in its perfection. There's no doubt that if Jeff had lived, My Sweetheart the Drunk would have been one hell of a sophomore effort, but he was swallowed up by the Mississippi River before anyone could know for sure.

On May 29th, 1997, as Jeff and his friend Keith Foti were en route to meet the band at the Memphis studio where they were to begin recording, they decided to take a quick detour along Wolf River Harbor, a tributary of the Mississippi. With a guitar and boombox in tow, Jeff and Foti relaxed on the bank of the river, strumming along with the music and swapping stories. After a few minutes, spontaneously overcome with the need for a swim, Jeff waded into the water fully clothed, singing along to Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" and still wearing his boots. Foti watched from the shore as Jeff backstroked away, ignoring Foti's calls for him to come back, and he disappeared under the wake created by a passing boat. On June 4th, floating near the end of Beale Street, the home of the blues, Jeff's body was found by a riverboat passenger.

As with most late musicians, Jeff Buckley fans seem to come out of the woodwork year after year. This is perhaps because, despite the fact that he's gone, Jeff continues to be a fairly prolific artist. Since his death, his mother Mary has been working closely with Columbia regarding all posthumous releases. The first of these was 1998's Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk, a double-disc collection of the Verlaine-produced demos as well as his Memphis four-track recordings. Live albums and deluxe editions were to follow, and while they all cement the idea of Jeff as a dazzling talent doomed, as he saw himself, to his father's fate, it's Grace that will always be regarded as his masterpiece.

MP3: Jeff Buckley - "Hallelujah" (Live)

This year, Grace re-entered the Top 50 charts. It went six-fold platinum in Australia, where Jeff's even more of an icon than in America, and has sold over two-million copies worldwide. Music magazines and high-profile fans such as Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Thom Yorke of Radiohead, and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Robert Plant have lauded Grace as one of the greatest albums of all time. It's considered an irrefutable classic by anyone who's had the chance to listen. Haven't had a chance yet? Go ahead. Halfway through that listen, you'll encounter what is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful songs in musical history. "Hallelujah," Jeff's signature tune, is a cover of the Leonard Cohen song by the same name. It's been covered countless times by dozens (maybe even hundreds) of artists, but it's Jeff's version--especially this live version from the Sin-é sessions, a ghostly hymn with its sparse production of guitar and vocals--that fifteen years on seems to be calling, still, with a quiet urgency that refuses to die out.

Up to our eyeballs in M.I.A.: Another new single.

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 23:00:00 +0000

We have no idea what's going on over at Camp M.I.A., but whatever it is, it must be just as awesomely nuts as her new album. Touring, album leaks, cease-and-desist letters, fake-out singles, elusive work visas, tearing Pitchfork a new asshole, and yet she's still got time to make another video for another new single before the album's even officially out? Yes yes, we know, settle down. Here:

A little back-story? One of M.I.A.'s favorite movies as a kid was an amazingly camp Bollywood flick called Disco Dancer (which was also huge in the Soviet Union--go figure). The basic premise is this: A little street urchin-slash-performer named Jimmy and his mother flee Bombay after they are beaten and imprisoned by a wealthy villain whose daughter Jimmy had the gall to befriend (big mistake!), and he vows to return someday to exact his vengeance. He's back 15 years later and while dance-walking down the street, Jimmy is "discovered" and soon replaces the arrogant Sam as disco king of India. Jimmy eventually falls in love with a girl named Rita, who we later discover is not only Sam's sister, but also the daughter of that wealthy villain we hate! (Stay with me.) So Sam and his father have Jimmy nearly beaten to death and in a cruel (but awesome) twist of fate, his mother is electrocuted to death by an electric guitar. No joke. Ok, so, long story short? He goes nuts and gives up disco-dancing forever, and this song? "Jimmy Aaja"? It's Rita's siren song to Jimmy, begging him to come back and dance for us once again. We're sure you can figure out the rest. And M.I.A.? This was her joint back then, apparently. She had a routine set to "Jimmy" that she did at parties--cardboard cutout guitar, cloak, the whole deal. How adorable is that?

Freestyle Wednesday #4: Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 04:38:00 +0000

Depending on who you ask, Lisa Lisa was anywhere from 16 to 20 years-old when she met New York producers Full Force at the Fun House (the same club where DJ/producer Jellybean Benitez discovered Madonna). Despite having had no previous musical experience, Lisa had the type of singing voice that teenage girls could easily sing along with and imitate. That was enough to land her a place at the helm of Full Force's new musical conceit: a freestyle group called Cult Jam consisting of guitarist/bassist Alex Mosely and drummer/keyboardist Mike Hughes. After enjoying considerable success with hip hop act UTFO, Full Force were golden (platinum, actually) after the 1985 release of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam's eponymous debut.

MP3: Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam - "I Wonder If I Take You Home"

As was the case with most early freestyle singles, the dancefloor popularity of "I Wonder If I Take You Home" lead to the track's popularity on the airwaves. Columbia Records took note and signed the group, re-releasing the single to worldwide acclaim. It reached #1 on the Billboard dance charts and was quickly certified gold.

MP3: Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam - "Can You Feel the Beat"

Follow-up single "Can You Feel the Beat" climbed the dance charts and spilled over into the R&B charts, and their third single, "All Cried Out," scored them another gold record. All three singles are still old-school radio staples, as are tracks from their following albums. As a matter of fact, we bet if you go to your radio right now and switch it to R&B/Top 40, somewhere, at some point in the immediate future, you'll find yourself dancing to Lisa Lisa's sing-along vocals.

Mas Sexi coming back with power-power!

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:04:00 +0000

My babies, my babies! I've been in California the last few weeks, enjoying my farewell Meatball Magic. Practically every friend and acquaintance left in Fresno came out to see me off and I love you all and thank you for shaking ass to my final residential set (Roxy Carmichael-homecoming guest sets to come in the future, I promise). Daniel and I also spent a beach-front weekend in Monterey and it was a great respite before the big move. I'm now an official resident of the Portland/Vancouver metro area (as is half of California by now). This last week consisted of unpacking boxes, shaking sand out of everything, organizing too many books, and enjoying typically amazing weather. Expect many Pacific Northwest-based surprises. Just you wait.

Enough disclosures, now on to the good stuff. So many albums have leaked in my absence from the Internets that I hardly know where to begin. Most importantly? Possibly the most anticipated one yet:

YouTube: M.I.A. - "Bamboo Banga"

It's like Easter Sunday, except with less palm fronds and more lasers. The album's opener, "Bamboo Banga," is indeed a certified banger. There's a Modern Lovers reference, some now-familiar baile funk beats, speeding cars and sirens weighted with bass, and that "Power! Power!" clincher that's the drunken cherry on top of this big sticky floor-filler. The track makes way for its Bollywood foundations at the 3:40 mark (she even does a straight-up cover of this a few tracks later), and it's that layer-cake approach we're used to hearing from M.I.A. that begs us to turn it up to 11.

YouTube: M.I.A. - "World Town"

"Hands up, guns out, represent that world town," she commands on the album's clear, albeit nutso, standout. It echoes the 2 Live Crew's "Face Down Ass Up" by appropriating their call for poon and turning it into a call for worldwide revolution. The sentiment is punctuated by the click clack of guns cocking. You know, just in case you weren't sure. Also? Her use of the word "explodify" is bound to be the next "hateration." Remember that.

YouTube: M.I.A. - "XR2"

I was a 7th grader taping episodes of MTV's 120 Minutes and Alternative Nation in '92. M.I.A. was, by her own admission, listening to hip hop and learning how to jack cars in London. (If you've been under a rock, "M.I.A." is a play on her name, Maya, and the battlefield acronym for someone "missing in action" or, for these purposes, her old London neighborhood of Acton by way of Sri Lanka.) We've all been listening to that shoddy Myspace demo rip of "XR2" for months, so it's great to hear the final album version with all those freshly-polished bells and whistles coming at us from all angles.

If you want to hear it that way, though, all crisp and amazing-like, you'll have to wait until August 21st. That's when Kala drops--and no, you're not imagining things, the MP3s posted here previously have been removed by request and replaced with YouTube links. Sorry, them's the breaks. Go out and buy her album after sampling, just like us. The rest of it is just as incredible--yes, even that song she did with Timbaland that they're both sharing on each other's albums. By the way, if you should feel the need to peruse M.I.A.'s Myspace or official site, here's a tip for all you Firefox users: hitting the Escape key will save you an epileptic seizure by freezing all those animated gifs.

The sun is setting here now, and the smells and sounds of a summer barbeque next door wafting through our open windows are distracting me something fierce, but remind me to tell you about this at some point:

Where are your friends tonight?

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 05:37:00 +0000

Yes, it's been a while, but cut me some slack! I'm in California for a couple of weeks and Vance needs to start writing. Miss us? Here, take a couple of quick songs in the interim...

So, Sound of Silver, LCD Soundsystem's second studio album, was kinda hit-or-miss, right? That's not some sophomore slump bullshit, I'm just saying: when your first album is so good, and your production house/record label side-project (or main project, whatever) spits out such consistently incredible music (The DFA even made Britney Spears' scratch lyrics on that unreleased demo sound kinda cool), you've got some impressing to do. I ain't saying I was unimpressed, I'm just saying, WHY AIN'T YOU DANCING! Is it cuz the best song on Sound of Silver is not all that dancey? Suh-NAP!

MP3: LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends"

The "All My Friends" single comes in a few different incarnations. The title track itself is a Roxy Music-on-a-rollercoaster chunk of belly-fluttering sweetness, and the longer album-length version is even that much more so, but it's the Franz Ferdinand version (one of two covers on the EP, along with an astonishingly just-OK John Cale version) that stretches our guts just as far as "Age of Consent" does.

MP3: Franz Ferdinand - "All My Friends"

It might even be, dare I say it, better than LCD's original? Don't hate, I'm just saying. Just saying! Go listen to more LCD Soundystem stuff over on their Internets. See y'all soon enough.

Party people in the place, get ready for this.

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 01:28:00 +0000

British uber-band The Go! Team (two drummers!) sure love their samples. So much so, in fact, that when their first album (2004's Thunder, Lightning, Strike!) was unleashed, they had to do a do-over and release a "legal" version of the record the following year after most of their samples had cleared. Double-dutch rhymes, Black Panther Party chants, Supremes and Lee Hazelwood tracks--they got it all. That sample-happy sound earned them a Mercury Music Prize nomination that year, and after touring the album and getting breaths good and bated for a sophomore release, they've assuaged fans' white knuckles by signing with famed Seattle record label Sub Pop and dropping a single that's about as hot a mess as we've ever encountered.

MP3: The Go! Team - "Grip Like a Vice"

Proof of Youth, The Go! Team's second album-to-be, is out on the 11th of September. Guest vocalists include Solex and Marina from Bonde Do Role. You can pick up the "Grip Like a Vice" single on the 2nd of July. B-sides include a cover of Sonic Youth's "Bull in the Heather" and an acapella track of the single's old school rap vocals.

MP3: The Go! Team - "Grip Like a Vice" (Acapella)

That's legendary female MCs Sha-Rock (of Funky Four + 1 fame) and Lisa Lee--who, along with Debbie Dee, formed the group Us Girls--and that rap is a Cold Crush callback (read: diss) from a 1984 BBC documentary on the history of hip hop (here's a clip). It's all but long-forgotten and that, right there, is the beauty of The Go! Team's archeological style. The final product of their curating hasn't, obviously, just been pulled out of thin air throbbing and alive. The single isn't simply an ape on someone else's genius; it had to have been painstakingly and lovingly pieced together by all six members of the band, and their own backing instrumentation seems not to devour the sample, but to propel it and give it weight. It's not biting; it's resurrection. It's not poaching; it's canonization. That proud proclamation of their loves and influences affords one an appreciation, if one didn't already have it, for The Go! Team's hot hot mess.

Freestyle Wednesday #3: Noel

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 02:30:00 +0000

A few years ago, while waiting for my new apartment to finally become available (the previous tenants had been taking their time), I went out into the country, two hours into the west, to move in with my grandparents while I waited. Once, during that slow succession of lazy days, I woke up to a morning that felt like most mornings in my early childhood--with all the windows open, with the smell of my grandmother's cooking, light on the back of a morning breeze, carried throughout the entire house. I went out to my car for something, I forget what, and was greeted by my grandfather, up since daybreak, watering the roses. Just then, somewhere around the corner, perfectly and as if on cue, I heard an approaching car being trailed by the familiar strains of a certain freestyle classic, and somehow, with my bare feet caught mid-tiptoe on the cold driveway I used to tiptoe barefoot through as a kid, avoiding the bees on the lawn, my brain did a sort of memory double-take; it processed the sound of that car booming down the street, and the presence of my grandfather behind me with the garden hose in hand, and the bare feet and my grandmother calling us in to eat, and it settled into some long-forgotten and comfortable nook, but the paradox created by the car keys in my hand and the conscious understanding that I'm no longer seven-years-old and this is no longer my summer home and is, in fact, 20 years older than when I remember it, and smaller at that--that paradox created some new form of memory that surfaces every time I hear an 808 beat.

MP3: Noel - "Silent Morning"

That song, "Silent Morning," was a top 10 hit in 1987, and everyone in town knew it. Including, most importantly, my older cousins and youngest uncles, who spent every single summer day installing huge carpeted boxes of speakers (were those woofers or tweeters?) in the trunks of their cars. Ride-alongs consisted of my younger cousin and I buckling ourselves into the backseat and having our ribs quite literally rattled by the bass as we sped down the main road.

Noel (born Noel Pagan) caused a considerable ripple with that first single, and although it was his second hit, "Like a Child," that made the biggest wave (it peaked at #1 on the dance charts), it's "Silent Morning" that does it for me. (That embedded video up there, by the way? With the new wave girls in the audience hamming it up for the camera while Noel tries his best tortured artist stance? That totally does it for me, too.)

It's an umbrella, ella, ella term...

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 00:57:00 +0000

...Pop, that is. It's technically, as we all know, just an umbrella term for music that's, well, popular (and generally, though not always, manufactured with the express intent to be so). Sometimes it catches and sometimes it don't. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it ain't. (Hi, welcome to Earth.) And this track that, despite ourselves, we're about to gush over? Yes, we know it's everywhere. Yes, radio and TV have probably killed it by now and you've probably already got the whole album anyway. Wouldn't be caught dead, you say? Mas Sexi say relax!

MP3: Rihanna - "Umbrella"

After having been turned down by the likes of Mary J. Blige, Akon, and Hilary Duff, "Umbrella"--written by Terius "Dream" Nash and C. "Tricky" Stewart, the same guys who whipped up that Britney Spears single where Madonna plays the hater grandma--eventually trickled down from Karen Kwak at Universal to Island Def Jam's LA Reid and so, finally, to Rihanna and Jay-Z (who makes an opportunistic play at being the male Madonna by reaching with a rap verse over the beginning of the song).

I wonder what that's like, you know? To have passed up a song that went on to debut at #1 on iTunes on the day of its digital release (the biggest debut in iTunes' six-year history), made history in the U.K. by being the first single by a female artist ever to debut at #1 on the Official Singles Chart on download sales alone, and is still topping nearly every other chart imaginable? I wonder if the bigwigs over at Jive Records are lamenting Britney's lost chance (and, admittedly, lost marbles) at snagging a song that's rumored to have been offered, turned down, and may have made for an impressive comeback. Chris Brown realized the potential there and jumped on it in one hot minute with an answer song called "Cinderella"--it's the exact same song with Brown's own auto-tuned lyrics about "looking for the one with the glass slipper" dubbed over the original musical track. There's also a "remix" (really just a hip hop term for "additional guest rap verses inserted at will") featuring Lil Mama, and it's not nearly as good as her own debut single, "Lip Gloss", but it replaces Jay-Z's original verse and that's good enough for me.

And wouldn't you know it? Rihanna's actually singing! We loved playing "S.O.S." at Meatball Magic, not just because of that Soft Cell sample, but also because no one really cares about vocals when the song is that fun. "Umbrella" caught us off guard, though. It's not exactly a floor-filler; not a ballad or anthem either, really, but it's undeniably irresistible. Her 19-year-old voice, even on that cheesy bridge verse, seems to have matured into something that can hold up to the production. And kudos to whoever mixed the track; it sounds awesome. The tail end of that bridge, when it swells back into the chorus in a slightly altered key, is squeaky clean.

MP3: Rihanna - "Breakin' Dishes"

The only other track on the album (titled Good Girl Gone Bad, by the way) that Dream and Tricky mutually collaborated on is "Breakin' Dishes," but if you didn't know better (and I didn't, actually, at first), it could just as easily have been done by Timbaland. It's practically a straight rip of "Maneater," but with a meaner "Sunglasses at Night"-on-a-rampage feel that rumbles up from the floorboards. Those "I don't know who you think I am" and "I'ma fight a man" hooks even sound like they were recorded by Nelly Furtado herself, but while "Maneater" is the modern pop song that all new pop songs are inevitably compared to, "Breakin' Dishes" is bound to be a fleeting and brazen pastiche that will no doubt get asses bouncing for a minute or two.

MP3: Rihanna - "Lemme Get That"

One of three tracks on the album that actually is produced by Timbaland, however, is "Lemme Get That." Ok, two things. First--that fucking backing track! Imagine a high school marching band parading down the streets of Rihanna's native Barbados playing reggaeton covers. It delights me. I'm literally delighted. You've got to hand it to Timbaland: the man is occasionally absolutely brilliant, and tracks like this, when handed to us along with our asses, seem to exist solely to remind us of that fact right when we're about to forget.

Secondly--this robo-diva persona Rihanna seems to be morphing into? I'm in. Whoever decided to slash her hair into that angular Aeon-Flux 'do and squeeze her into some fetish gear knew exactly what they were doing. It suits that icy android voice of hers--and the current pop-friendly hipster-asshole scene--quite nicely. That's something our friends across the pond do really well. It's that cold Euro-pop that's cool enough to fit in anywhere without being soulless, but has you centered in it's red-hot predatory stare. Alison Goldfrapp, we salute you.

So dance, friends! Ain't no shame! Besides, it's a lot cooler than standing there with your arms crossed.

M.I.A. - "Boyz"

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:40:00 +0000

We've been teased with "XR2," been blown away by "Bird Flu," decided that she saved Timbaland's shit, and wondered what "Hit That" was all about--now it's finally official: M.I.A.'s new album is going to be fucking nuts. A new track has leaked and, as usual, we had to listen to it a bajillion times before our brains processed the madness.

"Boyz"--hitting shelves June 11th on XL Recordings--is the first official single from M.I.A.'s forthcoming sophomore album titled Kala. That album's been a long time coming, and with her visa troubles, her break-up with Diplo, and her beef with Timbaland over stolen beats (he gave hers to Snoop Dogg), that there's a whole 'nother story.

As with "Bird Flu," her first fake-out single for Kala, "Boyz" is a huge monster of a track produced by Switch and rife with Indian influences, behemoth tribal beats, and electronic effects that sound more organic than robotic. Coming to us in 12" and USB memory stick format (yes, that's right, USB), the single is accompanied by, among other things, a video intro by M.I.A. which--cunning blogger that I am--is embedded below for your wonder and joy.

Kala is set for a late August release date. Somewhere around the 20th, we're told. We'll keep our eyes and ears peeled for you. M.I.A.'s first album, Arular, is available all over the place.

Freestyle Wednesday #2: Debbie Deb

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 23:55:00 +0000

Unbeknownst to the general music-listening public, we're all sort of experiencing Debbie Deb overkill at this point. Not that that's a bad thing. It's just that whether you know it or not, everyone's been biting her for years. The Black Eyed Peas, Xscape, Pitbull, Janet Jackson, countless Brazilian baile funk bands, and a couple handfuls of other nostalgic artists have honored their freestyle roots by sampling and covering Debbie Deb's two legendary hits.

MP3: Debbie Deb - "When I Hear Music"

Deb was only 16 and working in a Miami record store when a chance meeting with musical artist and producer Pretty Tony (member of the freestyle group named, you guessed it, Freestyle) found her recording her first single the very next day. Tony, rumor has it, "just liked her voice." That track, "When I Hear Music," quickly became a club and radio hit, ensuring that Deb would be around for at least one more hit.

MP3: Debbie Deb - "Lookout Weekend"

Unfortunately, one more hit meant just that. Deb's second single, "Lookout Weekend," while considerably successful (arguably even more so than her first), came on the heels of tensions with her record label. She had struggled with her weight for most of her life, and in a bullshit move that crushed Deb, her label decided to use a slimmer stand-in for her on record sleeves and even in live performances à la Milli Vanilli. Not ever having received any royalty payments from the label for her records, Deb ultimately quit the music business and took up work as a hairdresser.

In the mid-90s, Deb attempted a comeback with She's Back, an album full of modern re-workings of her 80s freestyle hits, and she's been riding that second wave with frequent billings on "Freestyle Explosion"-type concerts. The two songs she performs that are met with the loudest cheers and grandest ovations? It's the same two songs that everyone (including Deb herself) still can't seem to get over. And you know what? With songs like "Lookout Weekend" and "When I Hear Music," which encapsulate the 80s freestyle vibe, defined it, and even did it one better, who can complain?

Mas Sexi Live: Arcade Fire

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Tue, 29 May 2007 02:12:00 +0000

May 27, 2007
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
Portland, Oregon

There is sometimes a certain and very specific type of syndrome many people experience after attending a particularly compelling concert. Related to the better-known "movie hangover," the "post-show stupor" can last hours, even days, and its symptoms include vertigo, swooning, fatigue, loss of speech, earworms, uncontrollable humming, and sometimes OCD-like manias in the form of pressing the "play" button on one's iPod until the related band's albums drain the battery. There is no known cure, but writing to you while my own post-show stupor is still in its death throes, I can't imagine anybody wanting one.

When Arcade Fire played Portland's Crystal Ballroom in 2005, their encore consisted of marching everyone out onto the intersection of Burnside and SW 14th and playing an impromptu 20-minute set. I wasn't there to see that, but I was still holding out for some special sort of transcendence this time.

We arrived at the Schnitzer (affectionately known as the "Schnitz" in this neck of the woods) not long after the 8pm starting time and opening band Electrelane were already well into their set. The Schnitz (once known as the Paramount Theater and easily recognizable by the large "Portland" sign on the side of the building) is a classical concert hall and vaudeville that has been restored to its 1920s Italian Rococo splendor. It's also easily one of the most beautiful venues I've ever seen. The juxtaposition of a marble and velvet theater lit by huge crystal chandeliers and scored with Electrelane's motorik art-rock created a sense of "through-the-looking-glass" surreality and it halved my head right down the middle.

We found our seats on the orchestra level and the adorable couple to my right proposed a swig of Maker's Mark from their flask. Already vibrating from the drinks we started with at home, I couldn't in good conscience refuse their offer and so I accepted. Then we spot Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein front and center and we're all having a coronary. (The Decemberists' Colin Meloy and Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard are, we later hear, somewhere out there, too.) When the 60s soul and girl group tunes being piped into the hall fade out and the lights finally dim, everyone explodes.

MP3: Arcade Fire - "Keep the Car Running"

Can I just tell you? The sound? Flawless. The lows were deep and rooted at the base of our spines; the highs were loud and crisp with a snap at the top of our skulls. And once we heard the crescendo of strings that lead into "Keep the Car Running," all 3,000 people in that hall jumped up out of their seats with a shout and never sat back down.

MP3: Arcade Fire - "No Cars Go"

From "Keep the Car Running" to "No Cars Go," the band started as they meant to go on: with a series of epic bangs. One song after another, even when they slowed it down for a moaner once or twice, the entire show was a constant barrage of gorgeousness. But that's not to say they were over-precious. Frontman Win Butler provided levity throughout the night with cute asides to his wife-slash-musical partner-in-crime Regine Chassagne and running jokes about the goth convention in town (three consecutive nights of goth and industrial bands at the Crystal Ballroom brought the black-clad ones out in droves all week), but Butler's own dark roots evinced his intended good humor. "Aren't they supposed to be... you know, solitary?" he quipped between songs. "The Internet is a powerful tool!"

It was organized chaos--musicians trading off instruments, going from accordion to keyboard to guitar and hurdy-gurdy--sometimes resembling a rather beautiful carnival sideshow. Percussion was banged on drums, amplifiers, the stage, even other band members' backs. Halfway through their set, the dirge-like title track from Neon Bible segues softly into "Distortions," a Clinic cover that absolutely no one expected. The room darkens and spotlights focus on Butler and his mirrored guitar, creating an effect that makes it appear as if he's made of stained glass. Shards of light shoot out of him and into the crowd as the band joins in for the last few strains. It is, if you'll excuse the sap, frankly magical.

For "Rebellion (Lies)," the last song before the encore, Butler dives out into the crowd to take pictures of folks with their own cameras. It's a sweet send-off before the fake-out exit, and when the band makes its way back to the stage after a minute or two, Butler is replaced by a cardboard cutout of himself with a display screen face. The real Butler has positioned himself at the pipe organ in back for "My Body Is a Cage" and his singing face, captured by video camera, is projected onto the figure's head. How's that for stage presence?

MP3: Arcade Fire - "Rebellion (Lies)"

He assumes his place at center stage once more for the finale, and when all 3,000 fans and converts in the crowd shout along with the ten band members up on stage at the top of their lungs to "Wake Up" (the booming soccer-chant anthem from their freshman masterpiece, Funeral), it becomes more than just a music concert. It becomes a spiritual revival. That huge pipe organ up there in the back, that big open bible projected in neon onto the drapes and screens, the fog and the lights--no matter how cliched and trite it may sound, and no matter whether you're a middle-aged couple spurred by the article in the New York Times or you suspect you'll be late to first period the following morning, I defy you to say, straight-faced and honestly, that you haven't just had a religious experience. That transcendence I was looking for? Got it. And who says no one goes to church on Sunday anymore?

Setlist:
Keep the Car Running
No Cars Go
Haiti
Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
Black Mirror
In the Backseat
Neon Bible
Distortions
Antichrist Television Blues
The Well and the Lighthouse
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
Intervention
Ocean of Noise
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
Rebellion (Lies)

Encore:
My Body is a Cage
Wake Up

Freestyle Wednesday #1: Shannon

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Thu, 24 May 2007 03:23:00 +0000

Freestyle--also known in other forms as Miami bass or, more generally, old-school electro--is a musical genre familiar to most children of the 80s. Those who were cool enough to cruise around in a Camaro IROC-Z with 808 beats pumping out of the trunk (or who had older siblings letting them ride along in that tiny backseat) will wax nostalgically when an old freestyle song comes on the radio, and unless you were already waist-deep in either the goth or butt rock of the era, you can't help but love it to this day.

MP3: Shannon - "Let the Music Play"

Widely known as the first freestyle dance track in musical history, "Let the Music Play" has been remixed and covered by others, but it's the original record by Shannon and New York producer Chris Barbosa that made all the waves. Barbosa, along with co-producer Ed Chisolm, isolated the electro funk sound made famous by Afrikaa Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" (whose own sound was birthed by the grandaddies of modern electro, Kraftwerk) by incorporating Latin American dance rhythms and electronic elements taken from the era's emerging new wave movement.

There's still plenty of speculation as to why the resulting sound was dubbed "freestyle." Some believe it's because after the steady and consistent disco beats club DJs had been mixing together up until that point, the syncopated drum machine rhythms in this new sound gave them more creative freedom on the decks. Others believe it's either because of the vocal techniques or the style of dancing that freestyle music spawned. Most likely it's due to a mix-up between a musical group called Freestyle and the sound that became synonymous with them and their contemporaries. Whatever the reason, "Let the Music Play" topped the charts and blazed a trail that's still being tread by artists who incorporate samples and lyrics from well-known freestyle tracks in their music.

MP3: Shannon - "Give Me Tonight"

Shannon's follow-up single didn't chart quite as well as "Let the Music Play," but it was still embraced in clubs and on the airwaves. "Give Me Tonight" received recent attention from its spot on the Party Monster soundtrack as well, and while it has no shortage of fond affections due to nostalgia and the current music scene's "80s chic" resurgence, "Let the Music Play" is the one that will always be remembered as everyone's "jam." Dance pop, and pop of any species for that matter, would never be the same after that first unmistakable whiplash intro.

Kudu - Death of the Party

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Sat, 19 May 2007 20:59:00 +0000

Death of the Party isn't really Kudu's first album, but we suspect that's what they'd tell us if we asked. An earlier incarnation of the band found them trying on a dress of an entirely different shade, and while their eponymous debut is just fine for relaxing in, say, a smoke-filled room, the electronic tendencies they hint at on that first album come out swinging in a blur of fishnet and leather on Death of the Party.

MP3: Kudu - "Suite Life"

The album's opener, "Hot Lava," betrays their influences nicely. Traces of Siouxsie & the Banshees and latin funk culminate in a lascivious hook about shaking and blowing, but it's the next track over that finally puts out. "Suite Life" opens with a speaker-rattling bass and jungle beat that's a perfect match for front-wraith Sylvia Gordon's come-hither vamping. She even spits a little rhyme before the chorus thrusts you in the general direction of her penthouse.

MP3: Kudu - "Bar Star"

The clear standout comes two tracks later. "Bar Star" is palpable Chicago post-house that always seems to make it into most of my sets. Whispered Salt-n-Pepa references, handclaps (I'm a sucker for those), and lyrics about someone with "a rhinestone rocket ship and disco balls"? We're practically all danced out.

MP3: Kudu - "Let's Finish"

An album that relies so heavily on beats and synths is bound to take it easy at some point for fear of pummeling us, and that's what happens in the second half of Death of the Party. Overblown electronics and histrionic operatics make way for fuzzy washes of synth and tinkling harmonics over falsetto come-ons, but it's a slick and easy trudge to the finish line. Just short of, actually, because it's those last few inches Gordon's begging for on "Let's Finish" that are going to bring it on home for Kudu. The street sounds of their native New York introduce the slithery affair, and that descending stab in the background seems to be beckoning you lower, lower. It's a production we know Prince would be proud of in so many different ways, and who are we to argue with that?

Damn girl, don't hurt 'em.

noreply@blogger.com (Alan DeCoronado) — Sun, 13 May 2007 19:56:00 +0000

Female rappers fall into one of two tendencies. The first one, the "Unladylike Diva," re-appropriates the gangsta rap notion of all women as "bitches and hoes" and turns it on its head. Like their male counterparts, they use the iron fist of sexuality to stake their claim in pop culture, and though it's usually all-up-in-your-face, they're just out of reach for mere mortals (and they don't hesitate to remind you). Bling may or may not also be involved. Think Lil' Kim and Trina.

The second one is the "Hip Hop Hipster." More "club" than "rap," she's not as notorious as the Foxy Browns and Eves in the game, but she's not really keeping score either. She's too cool to make a spectacle of herself. While her DJ's whipping up electronic blips and beeps on his Casiotone, she's conjuring up a catchy rhyme that's both sexually subversive and relevant. It's often also kind of weird and fun. Think M.I.A. and Uffie.

Every now and again a female MC will straddle the line between the two distinctions (Missy Elliott's made her entire career doing so), but they're otherwise mutually exclusive. That's why Kid Sister is suddenly generating so much hype. The Chicago native may be new on the scene, but she's already making herself at home smack on that line, if not slightly left of center. She's fresh off her set at Coachella. Before that she performed at SXSW and we hear she tore it up. Her brother is one half of DJ duo Flosstradamus, who also produce and share bills with her. Her new EP? It's produced by Kanye West's tour DJ, A-Trak. Seriously, how much cooler can you get?

MP3: Kid Sister - "Control"

Kid Sister's Control EP is the first release from A-Trak's new label Fool's Gold, and the title track is three minutes of Spank Rock-produced jerky goodness about twerking, rolling, stopping, then regaining one's composure. We're not exactly sure what that means, but it's probably some sort of dance. Know what, though? When you're commanding the ladies in the front row to "touch them toes" and you're backed by a track made up of handclaps and rolling synths, not much else matters. It's undeniable, really. Drop this one on an unsuspecting crowd at your next night out and you'll be everyone's hero.

MP3: Kid Sister - "Girlie Rock"

The B-side for "Control" is another A-Trak production called "Damn Girl," which is fun and all, but remember Diddy's embarrassment called Press Play? Remember "Diddy Rock," the one good song that was ruined by Diddy's posturing and Timbaland's uncomfortable interjections? It's been saved by Flosstradamus' J2K. He's essentially snatched the instrumental track from Diddy, the most unladylike diva of all, and transformed it into something hip and fun by dropping it under his big sister's rhyme. The new spawn is called "Girlie Rock" and the musical world is better for it.