Have you ever had a day that you just couldn't seem to get out of? How about a year? Well... it wasn't 2020's fault that everything just sort of fell to pieces. The tumblers just locked into place. After all, 'age ain't nothing but a number' (or so sayeth R. Kelly, and he would know). … Continue reading Hindsight 2020

Piece Free Your Mind Planet E: 1992 In the early days of Planet E, anything was possible. Carl Craig and Damon Booker had just shuttered their short-lived (but legendary) Retroactive imprint, and the young C2 was determined to strike out on his own. He'd already recorded his Psyche/BFC trilogy for Derrick May’s twin imprints (Transmat … Continue reading Piece – Free Your Mind

Harold Budd: The Atmospheric Man Though he rejected the label outright, Harold Budd was one of the towering figures of ambient music. Much like Jon Hassell, he was pulled into the orbit of Brian Eno and accordingly was understood in the popular imagination as a card-carrying member of the scene. Even if Budd was reluctant … Continue reading Harold Budd

Rammellzee vs. K-Rob Beat Bop (12" Single) Tartown: 1983) Put simply, the Beat Bop 12" is one of the stone tablets of hip hop. Originally released in an ultra-limited run on Tartown Records, which — paired with its skewed street-level funk and visionary, impressionistic raps — virtually guaranteed that it would quickly attain the status of hip hop holy … Continue reading Rammellzee vs. K-Rob – Beat Bop

Cruising down Baltimore Bridge in the pale Morricone moonlight, eyes gazing into the rear view mirror, visions of Curtis Mayfield and the long Roots shadows sprawling out into the night — Beautiful Brother Of Mine slipping into About Love and back again, three feet high and rising — second story apartments overlook the circuitry/the lights of freeway; needle drop … Continue reading Baltimore Bridge In The Pale Morricone Moonlight

The Maytals: Kingston Superfly The great Toots Hibbert passed away a couple months back, and I've been meaning to spin up a little something in honor of his crew, one of the great shining stars of reggae. The Maytals were one of the first Jamaican group to make a serious splash worldwide, predating Bob Marley … Continue reading Toots And The Maytals

October's become something of a rock/new wave dub-disco month, what with last year's Japan/Ian Dury & The Blockheads entries and the recent discussion of Roxy Music’s Love Is The Drug, which is no bad thing as far as I'm concerned. After all, the rolling dancefloor grooves of Suburban Love and Hit Me With Your Rhythm … Continue reading Loa Funk Logic

Roxy Music Love Is The Drug (7" Single) (Island: 1975) Hovering right in there at the midpoint of the 1970s, Love Is The Drug is axis on which the decade hinges. Take it one step backward and you're knee deep in T. Rex, The Chi-Lites and King Crimson — the realm of prog, glam rock, Philly soul, … Continue reading Roxy Music – Love Is The Drug

If there was one band that served as the axis on which seventies hard rock gave way to eighties heavy metal, it was Van Halen. Arriving on the scene just as many of metal's first wave giants were running out of steam, their flashy, glamorous sound set the stage for the next decade of rock … Continue reading Van Halen

Tournesol Tournesol (R&S: 1993) Tournesol were just one among dozens of artists pushed out into the wider world by the towering edifice that was R&S Records in the early nineties, an era when the various strands of eighties-derived dance music wove together in a vibrant tapestry of sound under the aegis of a post-ecstasy dance … Continue reading Tournesol – Tournesol