I’ve actually just left seeing Ibeyi perform here in Los Angeles, at the Masonic Lodge over at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. If you’ve had the chance to hear these twins perform, hearing them live is even better. Channeling not only the spirit of their personal family lineage (their father was a percussionist with the Buena Vista Social Club in Cuba), but even deeper ones associated with Yoruban culture in Cuba and Africa, and combining them with decidedly 21st century sounds and technology, they have created a unique style all their own. The EP they released in 2014 only gave us a taste, the full-length record feels like more of a main course, but the great pleasure is from seeing these two women perform together on stage. If you have the chance, make sure to do all you can to bear witness…absolutely one of the strongest contenders thus far for record of the year.
It was sooooooooo nice to be back on this air this past Sunday! I hadn’t been on the air since January 25th and I was worried I might not remember what to do, but thankfully it is more or less just like riding a bike. As is often the case when I haven’t been on the air for a while, the releases pile up. With only two hours, there’s a lot more music that I could have played, but overall, I think it’s a pretty solid return. Lots of new tunes, but the show starts off with a little tribute to one of my musical heroes, Sly Stone, who celebrated his 72nd birthday on Sunday. I’ll be sure to keep things on track here at the blog (playlist up tomorrow or Friday) and hopefully I’ll be on the air for a good amount of time here throughout the rest of the year. Enjoy!
{opening theme} Booker T & the MGs – Melting Pot – Melting Pot (Stax)
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Sly & the Family Stone – Underdog – A Whole New Thing (Epic)
Sly & the Family Stone – Color Me True – Dance To The Music (Epic)
Sly & the Family Stone – Remember Who You Are – Back On The Right Track (WB)
Sly & the Family Stone – Can’t Strain My Brain – Small Talk (Epic)
Sly & the Family Stone – Just Like A Baby – There’s A Riot Going On (Epic)
Sly Stone – Africa – I’m Just Like You: Sly’s Stone Flower 1969-1970 (Light In The Attic)
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Rongetz Foundation feat. Gary Bartz – Marshmellow Throne – Kiss Kiss Double Jab (Heavenly Sweetness)
Zion I feat. 1-Oak – Last Nite – Sun Moon and Stars (Mass Appeal)
Tropics – Hunger – Rapture (Innovative Leisure)
Romare – Jimmy’s Lament – Projections (Ninja Tune)
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Swervedriver – Setting Sun – I Wasn’t Born To Lose You (Cobraside)
The Amazing – Broken – Picture You (Partisan)
Emmy The Great – Swimming Pools – S EP (Bella Union)
Ibeyi – Faithful – Ibeyi (XL)
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Prhyme feat. Jay Electronic – To Me To You – Prhyme (Prhyme Records)
Harvey Mandel – Light’s Out – Cristo Redentor (Phillips)
Dom La Nena – Menino – Soyo (Six Degrees)
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Zomba Prison Project – Women Today Take Care Of Business – Zomba Prison Project (Six Degrees)
Bappi Lahiri & Chorus – Taqdeer Ka Badshah – Bombay Disco 2 (Cultures Of Soul)
Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band – Lam Tang Wai Yook Pattana – 21st Century Molam (Zudrangma Records)
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Nedelle Torrisi – Fool Boy – Advice From Paradise (Ethereal Sequence/Drag City)
Portico feat. Jamie Woon – Memory Of Newness – Living Fields (Ninja Tune)
David Korevaar – Le Tombeau De Couperin II: Fugue – Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau De Couperin (MSR Classics)
Charles Mingus – Duke’s Choice – A Modern Jazz Symposium Of Music and Poetry (Bethlehem)
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{closing theme} Dungen – C. Visar Vagen – Tio Bitar (Kemado)
I wasn’t really planning on posting this record anytime soon, but when Harvey Mandel turned 70 years old on March 11th, there was a beautiful and touching appreciation for the man posted to Aquarium Drunkard that detailed the terrible times that Mandel’s been going through over the last several years. Just calamity after calamity, in recent years Mandel has been diagnosed with Nasal Cancer, lost both his mother and his son, and even his dog has come down with cancer. Josh Rosenthal’s post mentions that if you appreciate Mandel and have the ability to help him during these trying times, you can donate directly to his paypal account via harveysnake[at]comcast.net or via the Help Harvey Mandel website.
Mandel is one of my favorite guitarists, though he’s been fairly overlooked, his sound is so iconic and so repeatedly fantastic. From his debut along with Charlie Musselwhite, to his many varied and adventurous solo LPs, to stints with Barry Goldberg, Canned Heat and John Mayall, he’s laid down some of the most beautiful guitar lines and gorgeous sustains of any guitarist since the 1960s. This particular album that I’m sharing is the one that carries his nickname, “The Snake.” In contrast to the more psychedelic sound of 1968’s Cristo Redentor (which was one of the first records I shared on this blog back in 2009) The Snake features a more muscular and funky sound, in a slinky groove on the title cut to more upbeat tracks like “Peruvian Flake” and “Bite The Electric Eel.” It’s a sound that’s well known by Hip-Hop and beat heads and one that I can’t imagine never have hearing. Felt the need to post something and maybe direct people, not only to the music, but also to help out this extraordinary musician in his time of need.
It’s no secret that one of my all-time favorite contemporary bands is the Swedish neo-psych group Dungen. In the same way that I’m always eager to hear new music from them (which hopefully will be coming sometime soon, since we haven’t had anything since 2010), I love hearing projects from some of the people associated with that sound. Picture You is now the third album from Sweden’s The Amazing, once again featuring Dungen guitarist Reine Fiske and also the magnificent drums of Moussa Fadera (whose style is eerily similar to Dungen’s drummer Johan Holmegrad). While the Amazing shares many qualities with Dungen, it’s frontman Christoffer Gunrup’s breezy vocals that separate the group, giving the band a sound that’s a bit more ethereal than it is psychedelic.
In addition to the lead track “Broken” posted above, here’s a video for the title track, one of the centerpieces for the album:
Until this past Sunday, this had been the last time I’d been on-air at KPFK, by far my longest hiatus from the show since coming over in 2010. This was the end of the month all-vinyl thang we always do. As the year has begun I haven’t bought nearly as much vinyl, mostly connected to adopting a new dog who now takes up all of my loose change. Pretty soon though I’ll be getting back to my diggin’ ways and I’m looking forward to being back on the air to be able to share it all.
Had originally planned on posting this just after we’d had a spell of multiple days of rainy weather in water starved Los Angeles. But a quickie storm rolling through today gave me a chance to have this record be timed perfectly (after all, who knows when it will rain again out here). After The Rain was the follow-up to the much more well-known and more controversial Electric Mud. In some ways the fact that they crafted a follow-up, with essentially the same group (featuring the other-worldly guitar of Pete Cosey) should have dispelled some of the controversy surrounding Water’s feelings on this sound. It’s clear that after the sonic freakout of Electric Mud, Waters exerted perhaps a bit more control over these proceedings, as the record has a more conventional sound (though “Bottom Of The Sea” sounds like it could have been an out-take from the first session). But dialing it back from the previous effort still gives this album a sound all it’s own. While not as overtly psychedelic, with more slow groovin’ songs, After The Rain has a bit more ooomph to it.
I’d been looking for a copy of this for years and years, and finally ran into one at Gimme Gimme Records new location at 5810 N Figueroa St, essentially down the corner from my other favorite record store (at least in the Record Store heavy Highland Park) Avalon Vintage. If you haven’t been, he’s got more space and more records, and that is a mighty good thing, just like this album.
There’s been a recent trend towards tracking down funky and soulful gospel music. Helping a whole lot of people out is this reissue from Light In The Attic of the Supreme Jubilees super rare Gospel Boogie burner, originally released in 1980. Though the overtly funky bits might be the reason people will pay big money for a record like this, it’s the slower songs that I find more appealing to the ears, especially “We’ll Understand.”
To say that I was overjoyed would be a massive understatement, when word came out that Swervedriver was not only reformed, but here in 2015 would release a brand new album of brand new material AND tour the US! Swervedriver for me was the crown jewel of the “shoegazer” sound out of the UK, with a sterling emphasis on quality of sound perhaps best exemplified in the swirling twin guitars of Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge and the propulsive beat of the many, many drummers associated with the group. This week the band will land here in Los Angeles on March 5th, for one of their earliest shows here in the states at the venerable Roxy. If you’d like to see this band, and get lost in the sound, make sure to e-mail me at michael[at]meltingpotblog.com before 5pm Wednesday, March 4th for a chance to win.
My first experience with the band was watching this video, jaw agape in shock, on a recording of 120 minutes back in the early 1990s. No other song compares to the thrill of driving on a clean stretch of highway to this song:
Here the band performs “Deep Wound,” the song that would eventually be the first single from their latest release, I Wasn’t Born To Lose You, from a recent performance at KEXP. This gives you a sense of what you’ll experience on Thursday if you make it to the show:
While the first single from the new album gave us the impression the band was focused on a tough “Mustang Ford” return, the second single, “Setting Sun” gives a better representation of the sound of the current band. A song that could have easily found it’s way onto any of the other previous albums from the band, representative of the classic sound and many joys of Adam Franklin’s songwriting, singing and playing:
Getting back on track means that I’m finally getting around to posting the last couple of shows we did in January. Since we’re not currently on the air, due to a fundraiser, in some ways this works out nicely, because by the time I’m caught up, we should be back on the air! This was the show just before MLK Day, and it begins with a tribute to “The Dreamer” featuring a bit of his final speech with music from the recent film Selma, composed by Jason Moran. This show also featured a tribute to Kim Fowley, as well as tunes from Sleater-Kinney, Quadron, Buyepongo,Chain & the Gang, Nedelle Torrisi and a beautiful and long track from Pharoah Sanders. Enjoy this, we’ll be back to business as usual before you know it.
Playlist: 01-18-2014
{opening theme} Booker T & the Mgs – Melting Pot – Melting Pot (Stax)
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Jason Moran – Selections from Selma – Selma: Original Soundtrack (Paramount)
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – Excerpts from Memphis April 3, 1968 – Free At Last (Gordy)
Marha Bass – Walk With Me – Selma: Original Soundtrack (Paramount)
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Pharoah Sanders – Healing Song – Live At The East (Impulse)
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Quadron – Herfra Hvor Vi Star – Quadron (Plug Research)
Tropics – Rapture – Rapture (Innovative Leisure)
Nedelle Torrisi – Don’t Play Dumb – Advice From Paradise (Ethereal Sequence/Drag City)
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The Runaways – Cherry Bomb – The Runaways (Mercury)
Kim Fowley – The Trip – 7” (Corby)
The Byrds – Hungry Planet – Untitled (Columbia)
Ariel Pink – Exile on Frog St. – Pom Pom (4ad)
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Sleater-Kinney – No Cities To Love – No Cities To Love (Sub Pop)
Chain & the Gang – Devitalize – Minimum Rock’n’Roll (Radical Elite)
Hunx & his Punx – Lover’s Lane – Too Young To Be In Love (Hardly Art)
Yvonne Carroll – Mister Loverman – Girl Group Sounds, Lost & Found: One Kiss Can Lead To Another (Rhino)
Joe Hicks – I’m Goin’ Home Pt. 1 – I’m Just Like You: Sly’s Stone Flower 1969-1970 (Light In The Attic)
DJ Lengua – Cumbia Squares – 12” (Unicornio)
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Buyepongo – Mulatu Para Ti – 7” (Soul Fiesta)
Mulatu Astatke – Mulatu – New York – Addis – London –The Story of Ethio Jazz 1965-1975 (Strut)
Jungle Fire – Snake Pit – Tropicoso (Nacional)
Sons & Daughters Of Lite – The Real Thing – Let The Sun Shine In (Ubiquity)
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{closing theme} Dungen – C. Visar Vagen – Tio Bitar (Kemado)
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, better known as Malcolm X. Malcolm is an important figure in my life, as he is for many others. For me Malcolm’s influence is two-fold, there is the model he provides of Gramsci called an “Organic Intellectual,” the individuals who are the vanguard of social change, who through their lived experience and talents are able to bring together disparate communities to fight against inequality and push towards liberation. Perhaps more than any other figure from the 1960s, though his time in the public was relatively short, Malcolm presented a critical and uncompromising understanding of the nature of racism, oppression and the promise of uplift through self-determination. This is especially true of Malcolm after he split from the Nation of Islam, and broadened his vision of equality.
Malcolm is also deeply important to me because there are few people who so vividly modeled the nature of redemption. From street criminal to prisoner to firebrand to finally, in his final year, visionary. Part of the lesson in the life of Malcolm X is that we always have the possibility of changing our lives, living our lives for the better and effecting change once we start on the righteous path.
So on the 50th anniversary of the moment he was ripped from us, I wanted to commemorate that by sharing one of the many tributes dedicated to Malcolm. This album by Leon Thomas is fairly well known. It marked his debut as a leader, after gaining attention earlier in 1969 as the vocalist on Pharoah Sanders’ legendary Karma album. The album features Sanders on tenor, though strangely he’s listed as “Little Rock,” a reference to his birthplace and I suppose connected to contractual obligations (you would have thought Bob Thiele’s connections to Impulse would have smoothed things over, but guess not). Aside from that, the album is notable for having a much shorter version of “The Creator Has A Master Plan,” a vocal version of Horace Silver’s “Song For My Father” and the anti-war anthem “Damn Nam” and most importantly, “Malcolm’s Gone,” dedicated to the fallen leader.
I know he’s gone,
But he’s not forgotten,
I know he died,
Just to set me free.
Yes Malcolm’s Gone,
But he’s not forgotten,
He died to save me,
Gave me my dignity.
It’s a beautiful sentiment, one that pays tribute to this beautiful man and one that I felt compelled to share on this day…Additionally, here is Malcolm, in the last few months of his life, debating the issue of “extremism” at Oxford in December 1964. On display are so many of the things that many of us loved so much about Malcolm, his exceptional intelligence, his disarming smile and sense of humor and his ability to critically dismantle his opponent’s argument, often using the very same logic his opponent attempted to use against him. Missed dearly, but especially during the last year of his life, a beautiful model of the redemptive power of love and the strength of speaking truth to power:
{Sooooo…I know I’ve been away for a while. I could excuse it away connected to a lot of things, the start of school, my responsibilities taking care of my new dog, getting divorced, but no matter what, I’ve just been taken away from this blog and from music in general. Well, this Lent I decide to give up procrastination, and thus, I’m back and I plan to keep it regular. I’m not going to pull 40 days, 40 posts, but I do promise, I’ll be back here on the regular and getting everything back to the way it should be, at least until Easter!}
This was a collection that unfortunately slipped through the cracks of 2014, and would have been in my best of list had I gotten time to spend with it last year. Boogie music has broken big in some circles, especially here in LA due to Dam Funk and Funkmosphere, but much of the focus has been on US based artist. Some of the more interesting and funky bigs of Boogie were created elsewhere and maybe the best was made in Brazil. Cultures of Soul has collected some of the best Boogie from some big names, such as Tim Maia, Marcos Valle, Jorge Ben and Banda Black Rio and combined it with deeper cuts from the likes of Sandra Da Sá, Tarántulas (covering MJ’s “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough”!) and Cassiano, who is featured above. As I said, it’s a shame I didn’t get a chance to give this one all the spins it deserved in 2014, but I’ll more than make up for it here in 2015.
Longtime listeners of Melting Pot are very familiar with Morgan Rhodes. She’s filled in for me on the show a number of times and she was a regular fixture on my fundraising shows on KPFK. Up until recently Rhodes was the host of KPFK’s Listening Station, but she’s now moved on to bigger and better things. Morgan returned to our studios to talk about her work on Ava DuVernay’s exceptional film Selma. So much of the power of a great movie lies not only in the imagery and performances from the actors, but also in the way the music connects to the narrative. This is the work of the Music Supervisor. During our interview we talked with Morgan her work on the film, how she went about making choices between 1,000s of songs to land on the 15 or so that actually make their way into the film and some of the specific choices made for particular scenes in the film. I hope you enjoy this fascinating look behind the scenes of one of the best feature films on the Civil Rights movement.
First show of the new year is sometimes tough, since there isn’t a whole lot of brand new music that’s been released. Over the last several years I’ve worked out this format, where I take a look at some of the upcoming releases, some coming later in January, others later in the year and still others only rumored to be released in the near future. 2015 is looking like a really solid for music, with releases from Belle & Sebastian, Beat Spacek, Sleater-Kinney, Ghostface Killah & BadBadNotGood all coming out in the next month or so. 2015 should FINALLY be the year we get a full-length record from KING and there are rumors that we’ll have new music from Francoiz Breut, Martina Topley Bird and Damon Albarn’s project, The Good, The Bad & the Queen. In our second hour we spend time with Music Suprevisor (and now former KPFK host) Morgan Rhodes, talking about her work on the recently released film Selma. If this is the way 2015 begins, I’d say we’re in for a great year of music on KPFK and Melting Pot!
Playlist: 01-11-2015
{opening theme} Booker T & the MGs – Melting Pot – Melting Pot (Stax)
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Fink – Yesterday Was Had On All Of Us – Selma: Original Soundtrack (Paramount)
Francoiz Breut – Les Jeunes Pousses – A L’Aveuglette (T-rec)
Belle & Sebastian – The Cat with the Cream – Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance (Matador)
Haitus Kaiyote – Molasses – By Fire (Flying Buddah)
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Sleater-Kinney – Surface Envy – No Cities To Love (Sub Pop)
Swervedriver – Deep Wound – Single (Cobraside)
Beat Spacek – I Wanna Know – Single (Ninja Tune)
Dengue Fever – Durian Dowry – Cannibal Courtship (Concord)
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Sankofa – Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (Honest Jon’s)
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BadBadNotGood & Ghostface Killah feat. Danny Brown – Six Degrees – Soul Soul (Lex)
Ibeyi – River – EP (XL)
The Good, The Bad & the Queen – Behind The Sun – The Good, The Bad & the Queen (Virgin)
Martina Topley Bird – Baby Blue – Some Place Simple (Honest Jon’s)
KING – Mr. Chameleon – Single (Self-Released)
BadBadNotGood – Since You Asked Kindly (J-Rocc Remix) – Single (Self-Released)
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Morgan Rhodes – Interview – Recorded Live At KPFK (KPFK Archives)
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{closing theme} Dungen – C. Visar Vagen – Tio Bitar (Kemado)
