Category: Music

Link Wray died. He was 76.

In honor of the “father of the power chord”, I bring you this special “non-Friday Music” selection:

Link Wray – “Rumble.”

Another week down, and the holidays rapidly approaching. Yeesh.

This week’s selections:

First up, a song that I hadn’t thought of in a while, until and I were singing it on her front porch last weekend. It’s the theme song from the late-80s TV miniseries “Shaka Zulu”: Margaret Singana – “We Are Growing (Theme from Shaka Zulu)” Bayete Inkosi!

While we’re on the subject of South African music, here’s a track by my favorite group from the region: Johnny Clegg & Savuka – “One (Hu)Man, One Vote.” Clegg is a white musician who performed with black musicians during Apartheid, in violation of the cultural separation laws of the time. This track is from his 1990 album, Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World.

Another track which has wormed its way into my ear and gets me moving on a regular basis is the new Madonna single. It appears that, like Cher, she (or her handlers) recognized that a huge portion of her remaining fanbase is in the die-hard club-going crowd (gay and straight)…so the new album, “Confessions on a Dance Floor” is straightforward thump-thump dance music. Given her roots, she’s essentially come full circle. The lead single: Madonna – “Hung Up (radio version)”

One of my favorite tracks from Kula Shaker (whom I’ve talked about before) — this is the lead-in track from their second (and final) album, Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts: Kula Shaker – “Great Hosannah.” The song takes a while to build (vocals don’t start until two minutes in), but with the organ, the soul choir backup vocals, and the revalatory lyrics, it plays like a hidden track from “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Love it.

Here’s an odd mixture. Take chillout acid jazz mixed by a DJ, and blend it with hip-hop….in Japanese. DJ Mitsu The Beats – “Jazz” I have to admit that Japanese, being a language of discrete syllabic elements, heavy on the consonants, lends itself fairly well to the rythmic demands of hip-hop.

Staying on the Japanese stuff for a moment, here’s an interesting blending of future and past: Hifana – “Uchi-Nan-Champuru”…a blending of traditional Japanese music in the folk style with big-beat electronica and sampling.

Lastly….I picked up an album recently called Baadasss Cinema: The Sounds of Blaxploitation, which is a soundtrack to a documentary on the urban-crime-drama films of the early seventies. Lots of good stuff on it…Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, etc. This is a great track from the album, a lesser-known single by James Brown – “People Get Up And Drive Your Funky Soul.”

So, you heard the man: Get up and drive.

More next week.

Wow– that week just FLEW by.

Not a whole lot of stuff this week. I’ve been really busy

Here we go again:

Saw a nifty documentary the other night about Suicide Girls (the website and the burlesque tour), and there was some great music used. I had to hunt down one of the tracks immediately: Ima Robot – “STD Dance.”

This is one of the best uses of a vocoder that I’ve heard. Too often, vocoders are used to cover the fact that the singer can’t quite hit the tune, or for a cheesy effect (“Believe” by Cher, I’m looking in your direction), but this is…well, beautiful, actually. Imogen Heap – “Hide and Seek.”

One of my clearest memories of this song is dancing to it with at an industry party thrown by White Wolf at GenCon in 95 or 96. It starts out slow, but when the drums kick in…woof. Dead Can Dance – “Cantara.”

Speaking of , here’s another track for her, since she has said that she enjoys French hip-hop. This is from the French group 113, and, as usual, hip hop uses the music of the ghetto as its base…and in France, that means the music of the Middle-East and North Africa. 113 – “Tonton du bled.”

I recently discovered this group, which performs a mix of electro-pop-goth-stuff which I like. It’s pretty much “Hot Topic- the in-store playlist”, but an nice bit of work nonetheless: The Birthday Massacre – “Horror Show.”

One of my favorite tracks from Timo Maas’ album Loud, which I’ve posted from before. This time, he’s paired with UK-based female MC Chickaboo. I love her voice. This used to be one of my “commuting soundtracks” when I was working in NYC. Timo Maas (feat. MC Chickaboo) – “Shifter.” (EDIT: right-click, copy and paste the link instead of direct-clicking it)

One last link, which isn’t a music file…but will help you find new music. Pandora- a part of the Music Genome Project — I first heard about this on NPR. They’ve amassed a huge database, breaking music down into tempo, note progressions, tonal qualities, etc. Pandora asks you to enter a musical artist or song you like, and then will make suggestions of other stuff you might like…and tell you why. Very cool.