If college kids spent less time listening to Sublime and more time listening to the catalog of legendary reggae label Channel One, they would be a lot smarter. They would know what to do with bags of Mexican shake thanks to Frankie Jones’ “Don’t Smoke The Seed.” The Meditations would teach them about the complexities of male/female relationships on “Woman Is Like A Shadow.” And they would learn about the dangers of doing too much blow thanks to Dillinger’s rambling shaky drug rant “Cokane In My Brain.” The Channel One Story presents the late ’70s/early ’80s essentials from one of Jamaica’s most prominent production houses in a collection that’s as appropriate for the rookie reggae fanatic as it is for the rockers rhythm completist. Listen dis!
The Timeout Drawer Present Left For The Living Dead
When the haze clears, Timeout Drawer’s latest will dredge up somnolent memories of TNT-era Tortoise and Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, fed through the filter of 21st-century technoculture. But it’s not just a slumber party. The churning epic “Hunting With Fire (The Most Fertile Ground For Drama)” ably channels the entire spirit of Mogwai’s Young Team in only 12 minutes. And if that song’s title (one of only four on the disc) is any clue, these cats get cerebral on the regular-and all without vocals. In other words, Presents Left For the Living Dead is a think piece of a release. If that’s your bag, then these guys might be your gift.
Starving Artist Crew The Kick Clap
Hype-hop that owes its upbeat jazz licks and intricately woven lyricism to early-’90s goldies like Main Source, Three Times Dope and Pharcyde. You can see these guys equally sharing stages with J5 or Slick Rick-now who’s as versatile as that these days?
Shirker Confusion
An ode to hedonism not to be, um, confused with New Order’s similarly-named ’80s hit. Shirker (Nick Strasburg) makes a modern electro club track, declaring “I like to take drugs and go out to dance clubs.” The song’s got a strong buzz, but the effect wears off the next day. Still memorable, though, are Flameboy’s dynamic Red Snapper remixes by Radioactive Man, Jake One and Depth Charge-one of these and yer’ sorted, mate.
Xantone Black Search For the Sun
“Ahhh-la-la-lie-yahh” is the airy bossa-jazz invocation of Xantone’s Roy Ayers-meets-Azymuth song “Search.” Remixer John Beltran brings in a veritable “bloco” of percussion for an enjoyably shaken-up rendering. If you like this, find DJ Shimoyama’s “Ile Aie” (Nitelist), a Rio-house gem, and Gerardo Frisina’s fine “Gica’s Dance” (Scheme Italia) to fatten your modern Brazilian DJ bag.
Meat Beat Manifesto Echo In Space Dub
Jack Dangers’ dub gets touched by NY’s DJ Wally and Dubloner (a.k.a. 8 Frozen Modules). Guest ragga lyricist DJ Collage assembles his toasts in rapid-fire bursts, complimenting the molasses bass of “Echo” and “Retrograde”‘s freaky tones. On a similar tip, G-Corp’s MC-driven side-project Overproof Soundsystem (on Different Drummer) makes dub and dancehall for entry-level ears-a welcome mat for those who wish to explore reggae’s many mansions.
Mouse On Mars Radical Connector
Listening to German tech-house, you might be led to believe that they’re a melancholy lot. Listening to their jacked electro, you might find them hedonists. But listening to production duo Mouse on Mars (aided and abetted by instrumentalists), you’d think the country was full of hiccupping and giggling oddballs. The duo’s first album since 2001, Radical Connector contains no clicks and clacks, though it does have party anthems. Idiosyncratic and out of line with anything overtly current-save electricity-the record finds MoM having a Rooty-tooty good time reconfiguring themselves as the Basement Jaxx of Germany. That is to say, Mouse on Mars’s sounds chirp crisply, distend sloppily and crunch methodically as melodies swoop in, especially on the first three manic tracks, which are rife with meticulous abandon. On Radical Connector, MoM’s car runs red hot then sputters and lurches through rhythmically rotund terrain.
Faust vs. dâlek Derbe Respect, Alder
Faust vs. dâlek is one of the most highly progressive/regressive albums in recent memory. Strafing three nonconcurring sessions together under a fire of frothing percussion, seismic bass yawns and malevolent reverb, German aggressive angst editors Faust and New Jersey grit-spewing hip-hop trio dâlek maliciously test the membrane separating headspace from cosmic space. Not quite as dense and unforgiving as dâlek’s own material, or as unhinged and shard-filled as Faust’s, the staggering loops and drones of Alder still embody a well-informed primitivism, an urgent howl as the participants grapple with each other’s natures.
Phoenix Alphabetical
French quartet Phoenix has contemporaries-claiming fellow Gallic studiophiles Air and Daft Punk as friends-yet their music is imbued with little “contemporary.” The band’s m.o. remains soft rock AM, though at times edging towards more. Constructed in an acoustically dead practice space, Phoenix’s sophomore album, Alphabetical, comes across crisp, flat and sincere. Compared to United, Phoenix’s dancefloor-acknowledging synth-rock debut, Alphabetical is steely-Steely Dan, to be precise. Alphabetical is as good a defense for Hall & Oates faux funk as can be produced today.
DJ Spooky Celestial Mechanix: The Blue Series Mastermix
Thirsty Ear’s Blue Series has put out so much good music-from pianist Matthew Shipp’s avant compositions to the work of the now-defunct (and dearly missed) Antipop Consortium-that it would be hard to screw up a double album that slices and dices from their catalog. The first Celestial Mechanix CD is a series of Spooky’s remixes of previous Blue Series work; CD two is a 35-track mix that culls from the label’s 29 Blue Series albums. The two discs share an atmospheric, jazzy vibe mixed in with hip-hop rhymes and spoken word appearances. Celestial Mechanix presents a serious education about the influence jazz has upon so much good music.
