The first Brenda Lee album I bought was …”Let Me Sing”. (Yes, the ellipsis and quotation marks are all part of the title.) I love that album. It’s great for drinking a bottle of wine to and considering your life too. And because I loved it I decided to grab a couple more the next time I was at the record store. The result was a good example of why sometimes a little bit of research is a good idea before snapping up records willy nilly.

You see, Let Me Sing is the last album that Brenda Lee recorded that charted in the Top 40 (at #39). That’s not to say that albums that don’t chart aren’t worth anything, but it seems that anything after that album, recorded at the end of 1963, sounds a little uninspired. Coming on Strong, recorded in 1966, bears little resemblance to the awesomeness that is Let Me Sing. Not that it’s entirely awful. The title track of Coming On Strong was her last hit before reinventing herself as a country artist. (Yes, it’s the song Golden Earring sings about playing on the radio in Radar Love.) It’s just that it’s offset by some truly lame material. For example, on that album is one of the least energetic and unfunky versions of Stevie Wonder’s Uptight I’ve ever been privileged to listen to.

Johnny One Time, I feel, is a better album than Coming On Strong. Maybe it’s because it has If You Go Away on it, a song I enjoy to hear sang by pretty much anyone. It feels a little more vibrant than Coming On Strong. This could be because it seems that Brenda took a little bit of a recording hiatus, having not released anything for a year and a half beforehand. That doesn’t seem like much of a rest, but not if you take into account she was releasing two albums a year from 1960 to 1966, that’s huge.

The point of all this is that I guess I need to be smarter with my impulse record purchases. Even when I’m buying an artist I know I like, who has a giant back catalogue to choose from, you can’t always expect gold.

Today I went to the record store and I bought three jazz records. All of these records are by artists I have a very vague understanding of. Mostly they were chose because of name recognition, and how cohesive a package the cover made it look like. I didn’t want “greatest hits” packages or some other cash-in title, of which it seems there are many.

I normally do a little bit of research about an album before I write about it here but I’ve decided instead to write this post in a way that displays my ignorance of the subject matter. After I write a very uninformed piece about my meandering thoughts on these albums, I’ll go off and read up about where they fit into the artist’s careers and jazz as a whole.

The Cat by Jimmy Smith

I was first introduced to Jimmy Smith through Sideshow Sid’s CJSW show The Musiquarium, which uses the track Walk on the Wild Side as it’s theme song. It’s a kick ass song that has always been something I thought that a burlesque dancer could light a stage on fire to. (Get on that, Garter Girls.)

I found myself a copy of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf somewhere along the line, I think even before I put two and two together that this album was by the same guy. I don’t listen to it very often because it looks like someone used the record as a doormat before I got it. Too scratched to enjoy. But the couple of times I did listen, it exhibited the same grand virtuosity that is evident in Wild Side.

I think The Cat is a pretty excellent album. I feel like I’m not the one to proclaim anything about it, but like Virginia Wolf, it has all of the things I’ve liked about Jimmy from the beginning. The fingerwork that seems to be beyond human capacity and songs that are just incredibly funky.

In a Silent Way by Miles Davis.

I’ve watched a little over half of Ken Burns’ 19 hour Jazz documentary. (Despite this fact I still cannot speak intelligently on the subject.) I think they were just about to get to Miles when I believe I got distracted by The Wire.

I once briefly owned a Miles Davis CD, Panthalassa, that was “remixed” by Bill Laswell. When I bought it I was expecting something like Laswell’s dub experiments, using Davis’s material as a jumping-off point. Instead I got a straight-up jazz album only mildly remixed, and I don’t really understand what the point of it was even now. It had the entirety of In a Silent Way mixed down to a 15 minute selection as it’s opening track. I remembered having heard most of the album as I was listening to it, so I guess it gave me a good base to rest my opinions on.

Have Trumpet, Will Excite by Dizzy Gillespie

Of the three artists, Dizzy is probably the one I should know the most about due to his stature as a historical figure and also because of how much time was devoted to him in the Ken Burns documentary. At least I think so, it’s been awhile. Funny thing is, I think he’s the one I’ve heard the least amount of music from.

It’s my understanding that he’s of a certain era of musician that came directly from the Big Band era. Musicians like Davis and Smith were not, (I don’t think) of the generation that started off playing big band jazz and then branched out from that. Where as Dizzy was. (If I’m wrong about this, it will be unnecessary to correct me as I’ll be reading about all three of these guys on Wikipedia pretty soon.) As such, his music reminds me a little of that era and sounds a little more dated than the others. Not that Jimmy Smith doesn’t sound firmly of the 60s, but Dizzy sounds older, 40s or 50s. I enjoyed Have Trumpet, but it wasn’t my favourite of the bunch. Of course, it was the last of three albums and I might have not as into it as I could have been, so I’ll reserve my judgement.

All three of these albums will receive multiple listenings from me, I’m positive of that. Especially the I a Silent Way. I already feel like it has subtleties that will reveal themselves as I grow as a jazz listener. It’s my hope that next time I choose an album it will be based on more than just the cover design and I also hope I’ll soon be able to write about a jazz album in reference to more than just my own ignorance. I’m sure you’ll be grateful for that, as I doubt this was all that interesting of a read as it could have been.

I’m a big fan of Saul’s Trent Reznor produced The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! from 2007. What we have here is a less abrasive, (although with the punk-rock influences kept firmly in place) venture that is also more polished and accessible.

Once again I’ll allow myself to indulge in the cliche of using a blend of artists to describe an artist that by all means should be described on his own terms. If you could resist describing this album as a holy alliance of Lennie Kravitz and Nine Inch Nails, then fine, you’re a better person than I am.

As I was listening to it Saul announced on his twitter that he’s signed with YMCMB. I found that pretty surprising, but regardless, I expect we’ll be hearing a lot more of this album in the coming months because of this.

I was expecting more from Tycho.

I’m primarily familiar with Scott Hanson as ISO 50. It seems he’s been making posters and selling shirts under that name since forever. I never thought to listen to the music he made as Tycho until today. I liked it, but it felt very “surface” to me. There are some beautiful Boards of Canada-esque textures on this, and the beats are pleasant. The problem was that at no time did I feel like I was being challenged by the music or even pulled from what I was doing to really listen to it. Even when I stopped myself from puttering around the house and take it in, I found I couldn’t recall any part of any song that actually stuck out to me.

I understand that some music isn’t meant to be catchy and hooky, some is meant to let your mind wander around and meditate through. I’m a big appreciator of that type of thing. The problem is is that this rode a line between those two areas and I felt that it didn’t excel at either.

Who knows, maybe I’m not “getting it” yet. I’ll give it a couple more listens I’m sure, but I have my doubts that I’ll be recommending it to anyone for anything but background music.

Do I sense a trend here? I hope this doesn’t continue. I have what I expect to be a barn-burner of an album up for my 3rd MONM pick.

Pretty but not particularly notable. This is how I’d describe the entire “Dream Pop” genre. Not quite as interesting as Shoegaze, not quite as catchy as Pop. So it’s unsurprising that Citrus never got me interested, as pleasant of an album as it is. “Pink Cloud Tracing Paper” got me to listen, but only because it sounds exactly like My Bloody Valentine. The rest of the songs sound like The Sundays (remember them?) if they were Japanese and were more into MBV.

I don’t put music on as background noise, but if I were the type, this is what I’d put on. Like when your friends come over, and you don’t want the music to over power the dinner conversation. Yeah, if only more restaurants played this, rather than that horrible chill-out background music.

I lived in Japan during the years 2006-07, and while I wasn’t there long, I truely loved the country. This past week I’ve been sitting here, safe and sound, thousands of miles away, watching the horror of the earthquake. I’ve felt helpless, wishing I could do something. I decided that the least I could do would be to encourage you to donate by selling some of the photos I took during the time I spent there. Right now there are only eight, but I might put a couple more up eventually.

The photos can be purchased here.

100% of profits (approximately $40 from each sale) made from these prints will go to Architecture for Humanity’s Japan Earthquake Reconstruction Fund. The reason I chose them is because I wanted to pick a charity that might get overlooked, while the Red Cross is wonderful, they get the lion’s share of the money being tossed around. Also, I’m a pretty small operation, it might take awhile for a decent sized chunk of cash to get raised. I’m willing to bet that they will still be needing money for that fund in the months to come.

If you buy one, please let me know who you are. If you’d rather just donate to Architecture for Humanity, without worrying about buying the photos, (you can do that here) let me know as well. Either way, I want to thank you.

Another worthwhile charity is Second Harvest, essentially the Japanese version of the Foodbank.

First off, I never really thought about what the bitrate of the mp3s I was listening to were, I’m a little surprised they were that high. Higher than iTunes or Amazon sells them at. There is some serious digital distortion in the music and now I understand that it’s meant to be there, artifacts from the processing and the samplers used. I don’t have a problem with this, just noting. That distortion is easier on the ears from the vinyl than it is from the mp3s. While I don’t have an audiophile setup, music from my turntable and computer essentially follow the same path to the speakers, so I feel it’s a fair comparison for me to make. In a blind test I honestly think I could hear the difference between the two easily.

So, why the eff do I need to write a blog entry about this specific record, when I bring home one or two records a week? Good question, jackass. Let me explain to you what hearing this record caused me to think about.

Records need to be mastered differently than digital delivery methods (CDs, mp3s). If they pressed a record with music mastered as loudly as a CD, the needle would jump right out of the groove. To keep that from happening, they don’t just turn down the volume on it, they apply a RIAA approved equalizer setting to it that is then reversed when it passes through your preamp or phono input on your amplifier. It’s my belief that because a master for vinyl requires more finessing to make it work in the medium, a good portion of why it sounds better is as much attributable to the careful processing that happens to it before it gets pressed into wax as it is to the medium itself. These have been my thoughts for years, and I’m sure I’ve written this paragraph at least once before.

What makes this interesting to me is the aforementioned digital distortion. There is a TON of it on this album. So much that I thought it was a problem with the download. I know nothing of what gear Kanye used in this album, and I’m ignorant to his production process. In the Runaway video he uses an Akai MPC-2000XL first made in 1997, which, looking at the stats, could easily offer up the sort of distortion that I hear. Ok, so “big deal”, right? Well, maybe. I honestly don’t listen to a lot of hip hop albums, but it would seem to me that a lot of the excitement I feel for this album comes directly from how raw the production is. I can already hear people arguing with me, “But this album is so slickly produced you dumbass.” I don’t think “slick” is the right word though. “Carefully” yes, but there is a specific LACK of slickness where it counts. Timbaland is a slick producer, Dre too. I think this album has more of Afrika Bambaataa’s DNA in it than either of those guys, and I’d call that guy precise, but not slick. Examples of so-called raw production: Ghostface’s lyrics are cut off before he finishes words, which makes them sound like they are a sample cut from another song, the crazy treble distortion on vocals (especially female vocals) and samples, these all make this album sound positively OLD SCHOOL. All of this, when pressed onto vinyl sounds very special to my ears. The harshness gets rounded out, makes it more musical, while keeping the lo-fi fun of it.

Anyway, back to the actual album. It’s on three records, which annoys me. I understand the reasoning behind it. Hip hop artists like doing splitting their albums up over many sides because it essentially makes their album a bunch of 12″s, which are much more DJ and scratch friendly. The reason I like this album so much is the seamless way the songs flow into each other, and this way of pressing it breaks it up. Who knows, maybe this will be my preferred method of hearing it. The songs do make for 6 good combinations. Monster has side 3 all to itself and I think it’s a possibility that the bass on that song was so fierce they needed to cut the grooves exceptionally far apart, which would make that the primary reason for the decision to press the album on three records.

Ok. Enough writing about this, I have my doubts that there is anyone out there that got this far in this post. I’m pretty much the only one who cares about this shit. Although, I’m sure there are others that care that the Phoenix artwork that was meant for the cover was pixelated even in the insert. Totally pissed about that.

This.

Is supposed to look like this.

Not Music, or as it looks on the sleeve, (while assuming Stereolab’s normal cheeky sense of humour) Snot Music is apparently off-cuts from Chemical Chords. Making this their Amnesiac.

Not Music is packaged as if it’s two 12″ singles. A few songs on side A of each, with remixes of Chemical Chords songs on B, each of the two records in their own no-frills sleeve.

So — when I started listening to this, I wasn’t aware of the album’s place in the Stereolab’s oeuvre. (I’m allowed to use pretentious words like “oeuvre” in this because they’re French. Don’t mess with me.) I had a high hopes that there would be some real stand out tracks for me to get excited about because while I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve ever heard by them, Stereolab hasn’t made anything that I’ve been rabid about since Dots and Loops. As I did the cursory research I do — so I can sound somewhat informed when I write these things — and I understood the album on it’s own terms, my expectations didn’t exactly drop, but they smoothed out a little. By then I just wanted some good, new catchy Lab to listen to, I didn’t care if it blew my mind or not.

When a band announces it’s going on hiatus, especially when they are still putting out a quality product, it’s bittersweet. Is the fact that we are not able to look forward to new songs by a favourite artist a small price to pay for them not shitting on their legacy by putting out album after album of just going through the motions? When Pulp announced their retirement after We Love Life (an album I absolutely love) I was sad, but not so sad as I was the day I realized I hadn’t listened to Think Tank all the way through more than twice.

Anyway, there is also a Laetitia Sadier solo album for me to seek out and enjoy yet. The same way there are still Jarvis Cocker albums that I adore. I guess life goes on even if Stereolab doesn’t.

Download Sun Demon

I don’t usually read Pitchfork reviews, because they often give poor ratings to albums I like, and high ratings to albums I don’t, (I should probably read them more often to get differing opinions, but I don’t) but for some reason I did read this one. I really liked the last paragraph:

The Stereolab story for the last five years has been, “Yep, they still sound like Stereolab.” And if we’re disappointed that the band’s ever-experimental drive feels stifled by the brevity of this newer material, perhaps this hiatus is well-timed. While we learn to finally miss the quirky, stylish synth-pop that we’ve begun to take for granted, we’ll have to content ourselves with Not Music as the band’s final hurrah– at least for now. I suspect it won’t be long before we realize that the leftovers of a band like Stereolab are still better than main dishes offered up by many of their peers. And maybe by then, they’ll be back to recording.

I love this guy. Funk and hip-hop of course have a long history of social commentary but not a lot of it is a poignant as his. Only knowing as much of his history as I’ve learned through osmosis and Wikipedia, he’s always struck me as the sort of writer who uses music as merely a vehicle for his words. Meaning, he sings more to get his thoughts into more people’s ears, and not because he’s a musician who also writes great lyrics. I don’t want to say it “sugarcoats” his poetry, but it certainly makes the medicine go down easier.

This is also not to say that Gil doesn’t have a great voice, or that the music isn’t quality. It’s been my theory that the only reason that Gil Scott-Heron isn’t as big of a household name as say Barry White or Isaac Hayes, is that his lyrics and music are just that much more challenging. His voice is easily as sexy as either of those guys — if more vulnerable and less refined. The music is also more raw and jazz-influenced than more commercial soul artists, probably thanks to Brian Jackson, his long-time collaborator.

I found this album in the basement of a Mount Royal house during an estate sale. The other records in the piles were all yiddish folk music and classical 78s. It didn’t surprise me that it was there because the entire house was full of similar juxtapositions: modernist desks, turn of the century quackery instruments, mortar and pestle collections, japanese wall hangings, etc. The reason I bring this up is that I am not really sure who is reading this blog, so I might sometimes write as if the reader has never heard of an artist that many (most) of you are already well versed in. I don’t mean to be insulting, or for it to seem that I’m claiming some sort of authority that I’ve barely earned. I just get excited about music and I’m using this place as a way to explain the way I think about and enjoy it.

I’m obviously not a soul music scholar, and perhaps the fact that I’m a white guy talking about the “poignancy” of Gil Scott-Heron’s lyrics makes me all too aware that my footing is shaky at best 90% of the time. What I’m saying is that I’m acutely aware that I’m talking out of my ass, in case you were wondering. This post more so than others, I’m having a hard time writing something worth reading so I’ll just end it here.

Download Better Days Ahead

but then an instant later, I think “fuck that guy, I’m no old man!” I mean, I make jokes about being one all the time, and I can be a grumpy bastard at times BUT I’m also prone to ridiculous dancing in my living room when no one is around and anyone who truely knows me knows I’m an old man who really isn’t a grown-up.

So I’m sorry, I didn’t mean fuck that guy REALLY. As far as I know John O (the artist who decided his first stage name wasn’t good enough for his recording project), is a very nice young man. (although Last.fm seems to be confused by his oh-so pretty face, because it’s tagged “female vocalist”. ha. ha.)

I can’t really write much more about it than what I have. You like MGMT or Empire of the Sun, or any other bands in the electro-pop-headdress-wearing genre then you will like this. It’s not challenging in ANY way, but it certainly IS fun. It probably should have been released in June rather than October, but then it’s target market probably downloaded it in June and was TOTALLY OVER IT by Oct.

Get it? Because hipsters are elitist.

Shit, I was hoping to get through this blog entry without using the word hipster.

Download Something Else

Also, I kind of want to hear a mashup of It’s Not My Party and Patio Lanterns by Kim Mitchell.

______________________________
November 22 16:43
Subject: Tron soundtrack
From: (redacted)

(link)

I think it’s real?

______________________________
November 22 16:51
Subject: RE: Tron Soundtrack
From: (redacted)

Hope you downloaded it already because it’s ALREADY down.

Luckily, I had.

Don’t expect a “real” Daft Punk album. This is a score, and it’s effing good. If you’ve listened to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ The Social Network soundtrack, then you’d have a good idea about what this feels like. Of course, there are banging chunes on this album (like Derezzed, which we all heard in that trailer) but it’s not an album full of them. My personal favourite tracks are the ones that combine the orchestra and electronics, and give me shivers that are only partially attributable to the -25 degree weather.

It’s really grand, it’s really sharp, it’s really without much sense of humour. It also sounds really, really good turned up really, really loud. Any time you need to say, “I will now take on the world” and really, really believe it, this is your album. Really.

I’m interested to hear what Daft Punk make after this, because while this album has a very different feel from their normal releases, I could see this informing future albums in very positive ways. I half-predict that they might remix this album themselves into something more dancefloor ready. I hope so, because many of the songs end just as I’m getting into them. (The average track is about 2:30.) At the very least there will be a ton of remixes of nearly every song on this score by other dance artists.

Here’s C.L.U. which was the song in the first trailer. (WRONG. That was The Game Has Changed. Whoops.) I fully expect to get a DMCA notice for posting this song.

Download C.L.U.

Postscript: One thought that hadn’t occurred to me until I started listening, I wonder how much they reference the soundtrack to the first Tron movie? I’ll have to check that out.

Post Postscript: My conversation with (redacted), that started above, ended with this show-stopper of a quote:

You should do both Kanye and Daft Punk for monm and just have a photo of a blown wad.

The Greenhornes released an album on my birthday, November 9th, just 5 days ago. This is not that album. Gun for You is their debut album, and man it’s pretty damn good. At least I think it is. I’m tired and grumpy and I spent most of the day hung over, so it’s hard for me to be genuinely excited about it right now. Tired, grumpy and hungover — in my head, that’s how I imagine every garage rocker to be anyway, so I’m in the right head space.

Ok, so if you like garage rock in any way (The Sonics, The Zombies, The White Stripes even, who are friends and collaborators to these guys) then you will enjoy this. Very well done, and more than just an exercise in pedagogy.

That’s it. That’s all you get. I was planning on writing a bit about Third Man, (Jack White’s label, which releases The Greenhornes’ records now) and how I thought what they are doing is interesting, but fuckit, this is all you get.

Download I’ve Been Down

I don’t know why I never got into these guys more than I did. The Cult has always intrigued me. No one needs to question why or how this band was accepted by the goth community, the hair rockers AND the “college” rockers (as was the vernacular of the late 80s). It makes sense the first time She Sells Sanctuary washes over you — that is, if it isn’t irreparably associated with Labatt beer commercials. And look at that cover. Native American Goth is not a design sensibility that you would think would look hip, but damn.

I’d like to say that this album is surprisingly good, but it isn’t. Surprising, that is. I knew this album would be good back when I was a kid, I just never got around to listening to it. There must be a hundred albums for which I’ve let the same thing happen. I didn’t own a copy of Siamese Dream until this summer. Pinkerton — never heard anything from it. Never listened to a Kiss album from beginning to end. Queen — the only album I’ve heard front to back is Flash Gordon. God damn greatest hits collections, (unless they are collecting songs that were only available on singles) they’re fit — for the pit.

Download Black Angel

Swamp Tech does a great job translating the energy of a Quintron live show into a studio recording. (probably because it was recorded live, all in one studio session) The Quintron Pussycat train barely stays on the tracks It’s so balls-out, full-tilt that it’s a wonder they keep it together. It’s a crazy blend of blues, punk, R&B and dance music that for all intents shouldn’t work, but totally does.

I’m not sure if I’d be as into this if my first encounter with them wasn’t a magical, memorable live show, but I’d like to think I would. If this is your first time hearing them, who knows, maybe you won’t be sold on God of Thunder, which I’ve shared with you below. But if I were you I’d hold off on making a final decision until after you’ve seen their show. It’s something special.

Download God of Thunder