With Turntables On The Hudson six years strong, pioneering Brooklynite Nickodemus drops his first solo effort. Comprising over a decade of international influence-touching the Balkans, Africa, Latin America, Arabia, Jamaica, and more-Endangered Species is a soulful collection of bouncing vocals and melodies embedded in serious grooves. Malik from Real Live Show, Radio Mundial‘s Jean Shepherd and Si*Se‘s Carol C add verbal dynamite over a cornucopia of global instrumentation that could only call NYC home. The clear and present winner is the clarinet/melodica-driven “Crazy Stranger,” as watery and flowing as the riverside associated with Nick‘s name.
Si*Se More Shine
Four years after their 100,000+ selling debut, Brooklyn-based Si*Se returns with nostalgic evolution. The eclectic band, led by vocalist Carol C and programmer U.F.Low, adds a touch of class to their forward-thinking, Latin-tinged electronica. Soulful soundscapes painted by violins, percussion, and hearty basslines serve as beautifully produced backdrops to Carol‘s lyrics. Her combination of passion and softness and her tranquil poetry-which flows as if heated by an internal, inquisitive burning-make the heart melt. The punchy drums of the title track, the crushing disco of “Agua” and “Karma” and the son-flavored spice of “Mariposa En Havana” (a Buena Vista headnod to the original Nickodemus & Osiris cut) glow with a luminosity certain to shine for some time.
Erik Truffaz Saloua
You can‘t help but make the Bitches Brew comparison-the ethereal-rock temperament of “Salou” and “Ghost Drummer” invoke Miles in a not-so-silent way. Yet French trumpeter Erik Truffaz gets very quiet, quizzically so. Saloua is filled with interlocking influences, from dub rock tributes to serene soliloquies to Tunisian devotional chants by the mighty Mounir Troudi, whose Arabic plays gracefully off Swiss rapper Nya‘s insightful punctuation. After a few spins you realize you don‘t know where Saloua begins or ends. The goal is the journey, and for globetrotting Truffaz it is further testament to a catalog destined to be as classic as his sonic ancestry.
Her Space Holiday The Past Presents the Future
Marc Bianchi‘s been at it for nearly 10 years-ages before anyone thought to label his sensitive-boy, verse-chorus-verse guitar and drumkit experiments “indietronica,” and certainly before Postal Service fever swept the nation like so many teenage love notes. As the successor to 2003‘s The Young Machines-which produced HSH‘s first college radio hit, “My Boyfriend‘s Girlfriend”-The Past finds Bianchi a veritable force. The world is primed for his inner dialogue, a moody outlook he cloaks in fiction and everything‘s-peachy-keen melodies. On “Weight of the World,” Bianchi works out religious demons through the viewpoint of a housewife who muses “Now I finally understand/Jesus is like every man/Tells you what you want to hear/Until you fall in love and he disappears.” Phone messages from loved ones appear at the outset and halfway through, with lyrics like “misery loves company when company won‘t call” interspersed throughout: TMI for some, but those enamored of Bianchi‘s deadpan whisper will enjoy his present progression.
Chelonis R. Jones Dislocated Genius
A poet, painter and musician who‘s lived in Europe for a decade, New York expatriate Jones is a renaissance man, with Dislocated Genius his first electronic full-length. The album‘s best cuts have had previous lives: the deliciously neo-disco “One & One” and tech-house kiss-off “I Don‘t Know,” which was released in 2003 and remixed by Justus Köhncke. (These songs so impressed Röyksopp, they tapped Jones‘ funky, Prince-inflected vocal style for The Understanding‘s “49%.”) Dislocated is Jones‘ canvas, and through his portraits of racism and cliché (“Blackface”) and his disillusionment with consumer culture (“NaNaNa”), he shows there‘s a complex man beneath these body-rocking beats.
Gentoo Hyoshi
Gentoo‘s debut can be seen as the study of an infinite moment. At least one song, “A Million Coins,” takes inspiration from Zen poetry, setting the album‘s meditative mood. Ethereal as Arovane, Gentoo‘s work is also of the earth. Synth tones on “Noumena” and “Quip” meander like a flute and koto, while the title track heralds a thunderstorm with electrical sparks and the buzz of frogs. “Creek” is a recollection of leaving the woods for the world, amid the claustrophobic sound of being lost inside both. Like nature‘s grandeur, Gentoo‘s sometimes heavy-handed flourishes can be overwhelming. It‘s the individual details-and the ways he describes them through sound-that are singularly beautiful.
Various Artists Sonar Kollektiv 4: All As One Again
When Jazzanova formed Sonar Kollektiv in 1998, downtempo was drifting toward bachelor pad purgatory, but this compilation of exclusive tracks, teasers from forthcoming records (notably Fat Freddy‘s Drop‘s reggae-infused “Roady”) and remixes shows the label‘s many evolutions since. The throaty vocals on Dimlite‘s “Back to the Universe” downshift to a halt before blasting through the cosmos on prog-rock wings, a journey George Levin takes “Inside” with a sultry female response. From AME‘s minimal house treatment of Wahoo‘s “Holding You” to the jazzed-up staccato kick of Faze Liquide‘s “Kirkness” and Outlines‘ “Just A Little Lovin‘,” the Kollektiv artists transform retro styles into sexy future soul.
DDay One Loop Extensions
Time flies when listening to LA-based hip-hop producer DDay One-though it‘s hard to say whether that‘s a good thing. The man claims to be a vinyl packrat, and it shows in his production, which is loaded up with a voluptuous array of jazzy instrumental samples: a warm contrabass loop here (“If Eyes Were Ears”), an emotive piano snippet there (“Second Set”). But aside from a burst of double-stepping energy in the vocal track “Unstable Material 2,” the album keeps a lackadaisical pace mired in trip-hop conventionality. Too often, the balance between understated and unremarkable is off-center.
Eats Tapes Sticky Buttons
Hunched over their arsenal of old-fangled synths and drum machines, Eats Tapes (Marijke Jorritsma and Gregory Zifcak) offers a tongue-in-cheek take on the current acid revival with their debut LP, Sticky Buttons. The album oozes a pogo-stick joviality in every burble of the duo‘s Roland TB-303, playing a delightful game of laser tag between manic 4/4 beats and wild-eyed melodies. There‘s a wink and nod on doodly, hyperactive tracks like “Supreme Master” and “Knightress,” which play like analog in-jokes for the art-house glitcherati old enough to remember wielding glowsticks way back when. Sure, it‘s a shtick-but a loveable one!
Numbers We‘re Animals
Not content to continue their herky-jerky garage dance quickies, Numbers holds down the buttons this time instead of tapping them repeatedly. The trio has grown up a little: instead of lashing out on occasion, Dave Broekema‘s guitar now crunches out a downbeat drone, only intermittently poking up for little broken-string flourishes. Indra Dunis‘ drums stop and start with abandon, and occasionally hand over their place in the mix to Eric Landmark‘s groaning Moogs. There are shades of old, funky, two-minute Numbers here, but now they share space with noise and epic drones. It‘s a mess, but a compelling one.
