The Ecstatic

Mos Def – Quiet Dog
Mos Def feat. Slick Rick – Auditorium

“Bright moments…bright moments always come back vivid.” – Mos Def – “Life in Marvelous Times”

I’m not entirely sure why it’s taken me so long to write this review. I’d planned on reviewing this record since the moment I heard it was going to be released. I was skeptical at first that it would even be released, given Mos’ recent recording history. But since it dropped in June, I’ve been pushing this review back and back and back all summer, for no good reason. Mos Def has been, for over 10 years now, one of the most fascinating and frustrating MCs in Hip-Hop. A supremely talented man, though perhaps more talented as an actor than a musician, which might be part of the reason that his recorded work has been erratic, at best, since the release of Black on Both Sides, his debut full-length in 1999. (more…)

Vampi Soul's latest collection of Soul En Español

Los Bravos – Rudi’s In Love
Los Kifers – El Sol Es Una Droga
Los Roberts – El Saltamontes

This second volume builds on the deep sounds from vol. 1 and, for my money, exceeds the original volume, a feat fairly rare in the reissue game. Vampi Soul has for years been digging up obscured artists from Spain and Latin America, but they’ve really out done themselves with this series, with extensive notes on each of the artists on the comp and pictures of each of the LPs / 45s. That in itself will be a great help to collectors, crate diggers and DJs who love to play soul sounds from around the world. (more…)

Early Version of the Cover For This Release

24-Carat Black – I’ll Never Let You Go

For the second time in as many years, a musical dream of mine has come true. In 2008, I learned that there were instrumental versions of the records that David Axelrod recorded with the Electric Prunes.  I was nothing short of amazed. This collection of recordings from the legendary 24-Carat Black tops that find significantly.

Some 35 years after it was recorded, the Numero Group has dug up the long lost recordings for the second album by 24-Carat Black. The 6 songs on this collection aptly titled Gone: The Promises of Yesterday are very much in the spirit of the debut, sonically, but not thematically. While some of the members in the group had changed, the core returns, Dale Warren, Princess Hearn and a seriously funky drummer Tyrone Steels. Based on the songs on this collection, it appears that band-leader Dale Warren was interested in presenting another concept record, but instead of one focused on the urban condition, he was broadening his scope to focus on love. (more…)

The Aggrolites Fourth Album

The Aggrolites – Tonight
The Aggrolites – The Sufferer

If you just judge a book by it’s cover, the Aggrolites appear to be the kind of guys who routinely get profiled by LAPD as gang bangers. However, aside from the lead song “Firecracker,” which is more of a cautionary take on a guy with a “short fuse” instead of a call to bash heads, the sound of the Aggrolites doesn’t match their image (besides, could they really be THAT tough, they’ve been on Yo Gabba Gabba!). (more…)

Spiritual Jazz Collection

Lloyd Miller – Gol-E Gandom
Salah Ragab & the Cairo Jazz Band – Neveen

Spiritual Jazz: Esoteric, Modal & Deep Jazz from The Underground 1968-1977

This collection was originally released through Jazzman in the UK in 2008, but recently got a stateside release through a partnership with Now-Again, a Stones Throw subsidiary. The music contained here carries the “Spiritual” title, not necessarily because of its religiosity, but more so because of the feeling it evokes. This is jazz music that is clearly inspired by post-A Love Supreme Coltrane and the African turn (expressed in the music of Randy Weston, McCoy Tyner and others) in post-bop jazz in the mid 1960s. It sometimes flirts with the avant-garde, but rarely goes into the kind of aural histrionics that groups like the Art Ensemble of Chicago excelled at.

Instead this music is often contemplative, at times plaintive but often will rolling rhythms at slightly odd time signatures that you wouldn’t generally have seen in American jazz (though most of the artists appear to be from overseas, the vast majority of this music was recorded in the US), except on similarly styled labels such as Tribe or Strata East. (more…)

Francoiz Breut's 4th Record A L'aveuglette

Francoiz Breut – Les Jeunes Pousses
Francoiz Breut – Mouchoir De Poche
Francoiz Breut – L’Enticelle Ou La Contrainte Du Feu

This record was released in France late last year through T-rec, which is how I procured my original copy.  It’s finally been released stateside so this seems like a good time to do a full review of the record.  A l’aveuglette, her fourth album, is her best work yet, all in French (which I unfortunately don’t speak and can barely pronounce but simply love to hear) and lyrics all written by Breut for the first time in her career.

Breut’s music often is compared to artists such as Calexico, Nick Cave and other how shall we say, “dark romantic” musicians.  This record certainly has a certain mood to it in parts, (especially due to some short instrumental tracks that I could personally do without, but understand their inclusion in the complete work) but largely it’s a record that shines and sounds like a springtime afternoon or early summer evening. (more…)

Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications

Jarvis Cocker – I Never Said I Was Deep
Jarvis Cocker – Caucasian Blues

For his second proper solo release, Jarvis Cocker is clearly not playing around.  This is not to say that he’s cleaned up his act at all, I simply mean that for a man that has rarely held anything back lyrically, he’s really pushed himself towards wild, reckless, abandon on Further Complications.  In a similar fashion to Nick Cave’s Grinderman project, this record presents Cocker fronting an often tough, muscular and very rocking group, in nice contrast to the largely smooth and demure affair that was his first solo release.  The first single “Angela” roars with garage fuzz, as do the aptly titled “Fucking Song,” the lyrically deplorable (and I mean that in the best possible way) “Caucasian Blues,” the title track, “Homewrecker,” (which musically sounds like it could have been borne out of an alternate session for the Stooges Funhouse record, minus the Asheton wall of sound, RIP) and the mostly instrumental “Pilchard” which sounds like it would make for a killer opening live show number.  (FYI Jarvis comes to LA July 27th!) (more…)

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Hypnotic
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Sankofa

This is a record that I’ve literally been waiting for 2 years to be released.  The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble is currently based out of Chicago and now features 8 sons, (that’s right, 8 sons…and that’s out of 15 total children!), of jazz musician Phil Cohran (former Sun-Ra Arkestra member) on assorted horns, with honorary family member Chris Anderson on the skins.  Their sound is a mix of soulful, stirring, spiritual jazz, funk & Hip-Hop, though I mean “Hip-Hop” here in a purely philosophical way, not the way we generally think of Hip-Hop/Rap music. They self-released a stunning 10” record back in 2007 that now routinely garners $100+ on Ebay and have been performing all over the world in the ensuing years, with Damon Albarn, Tony Allen & Mos Def.  This record is the culmination of that work, released on Albarn’s Honest Jon’s record label and featuring guest work from three exceptional drummers, The Heliocentric’s Malcolm Catto, Jamiroquai’s Sola Akingbola and perhaps the greatest living drummer today, a true master, Tony Allen, former drummer for Fela in Africa 70.  (more…)