Gil Scott-Heron Archives - Parallax Moves

The Parkway Bowl Disco Mix

Posted on April 7, 2018 @ 11:15pm by Coqui

Back in the day, I worked at the Clairemont Library, shelving books and helping patrons. Stimulating work, to be sure. On my lunch break, and occasionally after hours, I'd walk a couple blocks over to the Sunset Bowl to grab a bite to eat, play video games and lay out the plans for Mettrex Recordings. After all, this is where Soul Machine's Essential Funk Files were born. Good times. The general vibe in prevalence was sun-glazed and tropical, which meant of course that it was right up my alley.

There was a DJ booth near the bar that was all done up tiki-style, and I'd always dreamed of spinning disco at the midnight bowling sessions they held on Friday nights. Records like The Incredible Bongo Band's Apache, Freddy Fresh's Roller Rinks & Chicks, Loose Joint's Is It All Over My Face, Paperclip People's Floor and Stereo MC's Rhino. You know, basically the good good. It was a good dream, but alas the place closed down before I had a chance to hold court in the mix. Now, an apartment complex sits where the bowling alley was once comfortably nestled...

The other bowling alley where I spent a lot of time - and did most of my actual bowling - was the Parkway Bowl, down in El Cajon. I most recently hit the lanes again with my brother Brian and cousins Isabel and Joelle a couple weeks ago to discover that the venue hosts something called Cosmic Bowling, held in a backroom with psychedelic lights and dedicated lanes for the renting. Brian commented that it was like something out of Kingpin...

It all brought me back to hours spent at the Sunset Bowl, dreaming up the future, and as is often the case a whole lot of records began to conjure up in my mind. One thing led to another, and I ended up doing a little mix. Within the confines of this two-hour excursion, you'll find dubdisco, new wave, Philly soul, French disco, hip hop, boogie, Italo disco, punk funk, gulf stream and disco-not-disco, all anchored to a bedrock of largely straight up disco in the Chic tradition. It's all of a piece.

No attempt was made to be historically accurate; there's anachronisms all over the shop, because this is a 2018 disco mix - unapologetically so - filled with music that lived well past its era to fuel dancefloor mayhem through the intervening years and still sounds cutting edge some 33 years on.

So without further ado, I give you...

The Paradise Bowl Disco Mix

The Tracks

The Parallax Sound Lab New York City Intro

Welcome to the show, featuring James Woods, master of ceremonies.

The Mike Theodore Orchestra Moon Trek (Westbound)

Kicking off with the orchestral soul of Moon Trek, from arranger Mike Theodore's Cosmic Wind LP. Mike Theodore actually from Detroit - not New York - but the track does seem to conjure up images of the Big Apple. He not only produced Rodriguez's enshrined Cold Fact (alongside frequent collaborator Dennis Coffey), but also a brace of sides for the Detroit Emeralds. In between, he put out two excellent LPs of instrumental disco (of which this is the first) that remain cosmic disco par excellence.

The Clash The Magnificent Seven (CBS)

Which brings back memories of driving to Patrick Henry back in the late 90s. This jam kicked off all manner of C90s during that period, soundtracking the crisp, early-morning drive to school. The album version, from the triple-LP Sandinista! is where it's at, featuring ever more lush production and further discotheque sonics in evidence throughout. The Clash were cool. I've always assumed that this and Radio Clash were their take on the early Sugar Hill hip hop sound.

Part of what was great about disco is how it ultimately pulled anyone and (nearly) everyone into its orbit, from Marvin Gaye to The Rolling Stones, throwing up all sorts of possibilities and drawing unexpected sounds out of leftfield (making something like Disco Not Disco a necessary intervention, bringing together a whole raft disparate material together under its umbrella). Nowadays, it serves as shorthand for whole swathes of music. Kevin Saunderson later mined this record for Reese's awesome You're Mine, rugged Detroit techno of the highest caliber.

Démis Roussos Midnight Is The Time I Need You (Philips)

Luxuriant sun-glazed disco from Greek balladeer Démis Roussos, who of started out in art-prog band Aphrodite's Child alongside synth ambassador Vangelis before striking out on a long and winding solo career. This from '75 finds Roussos with an early entry in the disco canon, with gruff, soaring vocals holding sway over a lazy mid-tempo groove. Dig those gently psychedelic organs! Far and away the best tune on the Souvenirs album, although I have a hell of a soft spot for the motorik country-western vibes of Tell Me Now. Great sleeve too!

Martin Circus Disco Circus (Prelude)

When the chips are down, my favorite disco record. Laying the blueprint for Daft Punk, Cassius and Motorbass, this is French disco par excellence, with François Kevorkian reworking the fourteen minute album version by erstwhile-psych rock band Martin Circus into a seven minute rapid-fire edit replete with electro-boogie synths, soaring guitar solos, Moroder-esque sequences, group chants, rolling basslines, a second-line horn section and backing scat vocals that sound something like Bing Crosby duetting with Dieter Meier. I think the kitchen sink is in there somewhere.

Props to Prelude for licensing the track in the first place, putting François K in the studio to work his magic on the masters. Even as this tune perfectly captures the essence of peak-era disco, you can nevertheless hear the implied presence of the 80s waiting in the wings.

Kurtis Blow The Breaks (Merucry)

How come these early rap tracks all of a sudden sound fresh as a daisy? Twenty years ago this would have seemed like ancient history, quaint even, but in light of everything we've discovered in light of the 21st century disco/post punk resurgence it sounds utterly of-the-moment. See also the Jason Nevins remix of Run-DMC's It's Like That, which now sounds hopelessly dated while the OG sounds as timeless as the Nuggets box set. The Breaks glides along on a nimble funk groove, with rolling percussion, juke-joint piano and Kurtis Blow's off the cuff delivery all coming together to conjure up the moody, half-lit atmosphere of Martin Scorcese's After Hours.

Bruce Johnston Pipeline (Columbia)

Erstwhile-Beach Boy-drummer-on-holiday gets in on some tasty solo dancefloor action, taking his place behind the kit to guide a string section through the cresting waves of the Pacific Ocean. A killer groove, and rawer than you might expect. Check that rude drum beat, sounding like something cooked up on an Akai! Everything goes atmospheric halfway through, when the sounds of the surf wash across the breakdown like high tide on the sea of flesh.

Incidentally, I've often thought that The Beach Boys conjured up a convincing proto-disco sound on their Sunflower LP, what with all those sun-glazed sounds and burnished edges. Lee Perry too, which is probably why - as great as Pet Sounds is - it remains my go to Beach Boys record.

Odyssey Inside Out (RCA Victor)

In the popular imagination, disco was supposed to have died on July 12, 1979 at Comiskey Park's Disco Demolition Night. Of course, history's rarely quite that simple. Rather than some behemoth slayed in one stroke by arena rock, disco was more like the virus that mutated to turn up again nearly everywhere - from ABC and Duran Duran's new wave to the electro boogie of The Gap Band and Mtume to Madonna and Michael Jackson's chartbusting pop to the gulf stream sounds cooked up at Compass Point and played out at the Paradise Garage, the pandemic seemingly spread all over - outliving the dinosaurs and ultimately defining modern music via the sounds of house, electro, hip hop and techno.

Of course, in the Big Apple plenty of groups kept on grooving and the dancers kept on dancing to straight up disco. In truth, some of my favorite disco records actually come from well after its supposed expiration date. Take for instance Odyssey's Inside Out, an low-slung slab of passionate modern soul riding a down and dirty gutbucket groove. Should I be embarrassed that I first knew it as a Electribe 101 song? I suspect that I should, but I don't feel it. I'd even go so far as to say that Billie Ray Martin managed to top the original, if by only a whisker.

Montana Sextet Who Needs Enemies (With A Friend Like You) (Philly Sound Works)

Salsoul Orchestra mastermind Vince Montana (who also spent time in Philadelphia International's MFSB) in full swing during roughly the same era with a slab of minimal, slap-bass propelled 4/4 magic in which his vibes take center stage. I once awoke from a dream with this tune still ringing in my ears, and as I gradually worked out where it came from - sometimes you can't quite recall the specifics of these things right away - it hung over the morning like a mist.

Eddy Grant Walking On Sunshine (ICE)

I've always loved the way figures like Eddy Grant, Grace Jones and Billy Ocean brought the idiosyncrasies of their island life to the gulf stream flavor to their music. Indeed, to this day they form a loose triumvirate in my mind. What is Compass Point if not the culmination of this notion, with these three toiling away in the seventies only to become bonafide stars in the decade to follow. Eddy Grant later provided the theme song to the blockbuster film Romancing The Stone, while Billy Ocean did the same for its sequel (Jewel Of The Nile). And of course Grace Jones managed to become a bond girl and trade scenes with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan The Destroyer!

In light of his high profile, I'm particularly fascinated with Eddy Grant's ICE imprint, formed as he built his solo career from the ground up, he nevertheless stuck with it after hitting the big time with Electric Avenue. Of course he'd already made his mark on dance culture some time before, with this tune and Living On The Frontline being staples at the Paradise Garage (see also Time Warp by The Coach House Rhythm Section). Walking On Sunshine is a brilliantly rewired electro-disco jam dominated by top-heavy afrobeat horns and Grant's loosely-delivered falsetto. The song was later covered by Rockers Revenge, yet not by Katrina And The Waves, who's song of the same title is completely different!

Billy Ocean Stay The Night (GTO)

Early Billy Ocean in this whiplash proto-boogie tune from his sophomore set (City Limit), which is propelled by a uniquely raw-edged drum beat that really snaps the track across the tiles of the dancefloor. Like Eddy Grant, Ocean would later top the charts in the mid-eighties with yacht staple Caribbean Queen.

Ian Dury Spasticus (Autisticus) (Polydor)

The great Ian Dury in Nassau, on leave from The Blockheads and getting in on that Compass Point action. Very much of a piece with the surrounding records here, this was also a staple in Larry Levan's record bag over at the Paradise Garage. Dig this little interview ¹ with old Ian (who in his youth suffered from polio), talking about the story behind the song.

Grace Jones Pull Up To The Bumper (Island)

Yet more peak-period Compass Point (perhaps the peak, in this case) with Miss Grace Jones in the driver seat. The video ² is excellent too (Neuromancer vibes in full effect). In case you haven't noticed, I'm a huge fan of the whole Compass Point phenomenon. At the moment, I have a feature in the works, which I'm planning to post here sometime around the release of the Parallax Pier sequel in June.

Delegation You And I (Ariola)

Lush masterpiece of bedroom disco from the premiere British soul group. I've heard tell that this isn't even their greatest record, but it's the only one I own. You And I perfectly captures the tipping point between the string-laden groove of peak-era disco and the nascent machine boogie coming just around the bend. Check those aqueous, immersive synths straight out of the deep house playbook. Sublime, in a word, and a gorgeous tune.

The Whispers And The Beat Goes On (Solar)

Chartbusting disco, with a two note organ vamp that stands as one of the great tossed-off hooks of all time. Later propellelling Will Smith's Miami into the charts, it also kicked off Jason Forrest's The Unrelenting Songs Of The 1979 Post Disco Crash record. Of course, none of that can touch the original. The L.A.-based Solar Records would later come to define the eighties electro boogie sound with artists like Shalamar, The Deele and Midnight Star.

My Mine Hypnotic Tango (Progress Record)

Italo disco. Like early Depeche Mode, this is bubblegum synth music with an even greater affinity for the dancefloor. That moody synth sequence was later sampled by both Bandulu and Carl Craig, for Thunderground's Amaranth and 69's Rushed, respectively, which is how I found out about this track in the first place. Sporting a peerless play of dynamics between the moody verses and joyous candy-coated refrain, Hypnotic Tango itself is a computer love masterpiece.

Giorgio Moroder Palm Springs Drive (Polydor)

From Moroder's third score, after Midnight Express and Foxes, for the film American Gigolo. This is probably my favorite of his OSTs. Everyone knows Blondie's Call Me, but this album also boasts the sleek motor-disco of Night Drive and The Apartment's moody paranoia (the latter even sounding like the lost score to The Parallax View). Palm Springs Drive - featured here - is my absolute favorite moment from the soundtrack, fusing Moroder's trademark motor-disco sound with an epic chord progression straight out of the Ennio Morricone playbook.

Ashford & Simpson One More Try (Warner Bros.)

Gloriously lush disco from the dynamic husband and wife songwriting duo of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson,. Penning some of the great soul songs of the era for other artists, including Ain't No Mountain High Enough, I'm Every Woman and You're All I Need To Get By, they also managed to put out twelve solid albums between the years 1973 and 1984. One More Try - from their third - finds the duo confidently entering the disco arena with a desperate plea for a second chance gliding over tricky dance rhythms, soaring ARP strings and some of the finest guitar soloing to ever grace a disco record.

D-Train You're The One For Me (Prelude)

The D-Train project was collaboration between James "D-Train" Williams and Hubert Eaves (previously responsible for the Esoteric Funk LP and later to play on some records with Mtume). Appropriately, this record lays down the blueprint for eighties electro boogie, with the zig-zagging synths that would come to define the decade's machine funk sound (see also Jam & Lewis), and took its rightful place as an immortal dancefloor classic. Even Liam Howlett couldn't help sampling its synth-squiggle magic for The Prodigy's Girls.

Forrrce Keep On Dubbin' (With No Commercial Interruptions) (West End)

The quintessential dubdisco record, featuring François Kevorkian yet again reworking an original track to a higher plane altogether. West End had a phenomenal run as the 70s gave way to the 80s, putting out loads of great records hovering on the interzone between disco and dub. In fact, this is as close to the Black Ark as disco would ever get. You can practically imagine Lee "Scratch" Perry's trademark ad-libs over the top. Underground disco par excellence.

GQ Disco Nights (Rock Freak) (Arista)

Conversely, this is disco from high street, crashing the charts and the airwaves alike. Studio 54 music. I first heard this on Magic 92.5, way back in it's early years when it was on fire with live DJs and a killer selection of soul/disco/funk/boogie the order of the day. I remember driving home from the Clairemont Library one day, crossing the bridge from Mission Bay onto Friars Rd., when suddenly Disco Nights comes on the radio. I'd already become unknowingly aware of pieces of it - looped by Chicago's Stacy Kidd in a house cut that had come out recently - and the rush of recognition upon hearing the original for the first time hit like a ton of bricks.

That was one of the great things about branching out from beats, hearing all those records that had fueled the music I grew up with for the first time (and still at such a young age!. The realization that there was this vast continuum stretching back to figures like Curtis Mayfield, Miles Davis and James Brown, rather than everything being these solitary islands of sound, well it was quite a trip. All of this must sound so boring to someone coming in the era of Youtube, where all that information lay at one's fingertips! Well, back in the day, it was a big deal, trust me. And I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Love Committee Just As Long As I Got You (Disco Re-Edit by Dimitri From Paris) (BBE)

If there's a pre-disco sound that was disco's most logical precursor, then it's surely Philly soul. Groups like The Three Degrees, The Intruders and MFSB were dealing in proto-disco way back in '73 with tunes like Dirty Old Man, I'll Always Love My Mama and TSOP, and they all wound up dovetailing naturally into the scene once it was in full force. As if that weren't enough, full-fledged disco groups like Double Exposure, The Trammps and Love Committee all hailed from Philadelphia, starting out under different names earlier in the decade as pure Philly soul. Double Exposure's Ten Percent and Love Committee's Law And Order are both great examples of good LPs in this vein.

This is Dimitri From Paris' exclusive edit from his (excellent) Disco Forever mix. I remember picking this up in San Juan way back when. My cousin balked at the sleeve (I can't believe you're buying that!). This remix is brilliant, opening up the locked-down original to aircraft-hangar size. Transforming those baritone backing vocals into the lead, echoing lonely from within with that same sense of isolation as Bernard Sumner on the early New Order records. Chopping the horn fanfare into a looped refrain that builds and builds the tension to the breaking point before releasing in a single strummed guitar. Exquisite stuff.

Kano I'm Ready (Emergency)

Good old Kano. Kano were great. They must have the highest volume of classics out of all the italo disco groups (shoot me down, I'm no expert on the stuff). Rather than a Moroder-derived machine pulse, I'm Ready is driven by loose-limbed live drumming (as is its b-side, Holly Dolly, famously the template for the proto-Detroit techno of A Number Of Names' Sharevari). The production on this record is just perfect, it's rubberband rhythm underpins gently trilling synths, vocoders and those delicate lead vocals.

Kebekelektrik War Dance (Les Disques Direction)

This the original version, rather than the Tom Moulton mix. I go back and forth on which one I like more, each of which have their undoubted merits. Moulton's version grooves better, but this really places the synths front-and-center. Part of me thinks I made the wrong decision... like I said, it's a coin toss! This is Moroder-esque motor-disco of the highest caliber, always making me picture some motorcade/caravan cutting through the desert under the blazing sun, synth-lines melting in the heat.

Donna Summer I Feel Love (Casablanca)

The godfather of motor-disco disco tracks, produced by Giorgio Moroder for the prototypical disco diva, Donna Summer. Remember a few years back when everyone was calling themselves a diva? That was pretty silly. Donna Summer is the real deal. When I first heard this track, I assumed it was a recent remix and not the original version from 1977! Despite the utterly brilliant chrome-plated futurism in evidence throughout, Summer still manages to outshine everything else with soaring vocals eight miles high and rising.

Bettye LaVette Doin' The Best That I Can (A Special New Mix by Walter Gibbons) (West End)

Going out with a bang! More West End, this time with Bettye LaVette at the wheel of a steadfast galleon constructed by none other than disco super-producer Walter Gibbons. It's impossible not to be moved by this beautifully rendered tale of getting over somebody one day at a time.
At the track's midpoint, when that plaintive organ line erupts out of nowhere, well if you're anything like me you're in disbelief. You've never heard anything like this before! Then, the strings cut back in - horns bobbing and weaving over that groove - and the whole thing goes triumphant, proto-acid lines tearing across the soundscape like it's the most natural thing in the world, before the organ returns and a sublime piano line drives the tune to it's natural conclusion. Every element woven into a disco symphony. She's herself again now. I Will Survive, indeed. An impeccable example of the magic that can be wrought from a 12" slab of plastic, and a perfect ending to our disco odyssey. Hope you enjoyed it!

Footnotes

1. Ian Dury interview (check it out @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSo9OErEmM4).

2. Grace Jones Pull Up To The Bumper music video (check it out @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc1IphRx1pk).

Mixed By: Flynn & DJ Slye.

Special Edits: Do'shonne & Slye.

Samples: Fifty Foot Hose Opus 11, The Beach Boys Let's Go Away For Awhile, James Woods in Against All Odds, Nastassja Kinski in Paris Texas.

Vibes: Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson, FSOL ISDN, Sudden Impact, Moodymann, assorted El Cajon dive bars and nightclubs, Disco Godfather, David Bowie's Station To Station, Patrick Cowley, Jefferson Airplane, Atari 2600 and those endless exquisite gradient skies, ARP Solina String, Palm Desert, Jedi Knights, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Club Stratus, Summer Of Sam, The Mizell Brothers, Arthur Russell, Bobby Konders, swimming in A.G., Morgan Geist's Moves, Hohner Clavinet, Herbie Hancock, Eddie Russ, Battle For The Planet Of The Apes, Jack Kirby, Paul's Boutique, Lakeside discotheques, Lil' Louis & The World, Beck Hansen, Harlem River Drive, Night Moves, Scott Weiland, Wild Style, Terranova, The Parallax View, Innerzone Orchestra, Spoonie Gee, Radio Mettrex, Steely Dan, Fender Rhodes, The Op-art Hall Of Fame, Calypsoul 70, Opinionated Diner, Kirk DeGiorgio, Sly Stone, Sam Mangwana, The Isley Brothers, Glenn Underground, BBE, Parliament/Funkadelic, Ubiquity, Gram Parsons, The Honey Bee Hive, G-Street, East Village, Warren Zevon's Night Time In The Switching Yard, and of course Woebot.

...

Disco is dead.

Long live disco.

Terminal Vibration III (Death Disco)

Posted on January 18, 2018 @ 10:40pm by Coqui

Hey man, I'm back from the bodega. Nothing like a snack, deep fried, to give you a second wind. Here you go my friend. So you like new wave, right? Sure you do... after all, everybody likes new wave. For the moment, let us focus on the dubbed-out dancefloor sides perpetrated by The Clash in that period just after London Calling, which puts us at 1980 A.D. I'm talking about the triple(!)-LP trawl of Sandinista! and its orbital 12" singles, records like The Magnificent Seven and This Is Radio Clash, the latter of which features four versions spread across its twelve inch surface, each one sequentially more twisted and dubbed to pieces than the last. Outside Broadcast (the third version), is one of the great hidden gems in the band's back catalogue, conjuring up images of a careening taxi cab ride through fog-cloaked city streets deserted in the twilight.

The Magnificent Seven - which must be heard in its spacious, sprawling album version to experience its true sparkling third-eye-tactile black magic - finds, as mentioned in their last episode, this band of outlaws messing around with the Good Times bassline and twisting it to their own swashbuckling purposes. In other words, it's disco not disco at its absolute finest. Interesting to hear it as Joe Strummer's take on contemporary rap (note The Clash's turn as backing band for graffiti artist Futura 2000 on The Escapades Of Futura 2000, one of the infamous Celluloid rap records), like Blondie's Rapture but even more so. Think killer disco rap like Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five's Superappin', Kurtis Blow's The Breaks and Monster Jam by Spoonie Gee meets The Sequence (not to mention The Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight if you want to get literal).

Noteworthy in the Parallax sense is also the fact that the intros to both The Magnificent Dance (the x-ray dub version of The Magnificent Seven) and Mensforth Hill form the basis of Reese's You're Mine (the b-side to Rock To The Beat), which suggests that Mr. Saunderson was working with both the album and 12" when vibing out in the studio to create that killer cut. At moments like this, I'm reminded of Norman Cook/Fatboy Slim's review of Big Audio Dynamite's Sunday Best, in which he offhandedly placed The Clash at the genesis of indie dance. Which sounds about right to me, with New Order and Big Audio Dynamite arriving as fully formed ambassadors of the genre before it would go on to become a way of life.

Ah yes, that's right: Big Audio Dynamite! B.A.D. is, of course, a whole other can of worms. Now it's damn near painfully obvious to point out how that crew's merciless caning of the sampler and rewired approach to the dancefloor anticipated whole swathes of music in the nineties and beyond, but records like the proto-house madness of Hollywood Boulevard and Megatop Phoenix (which has nestled comfortably into Sgt. Pepper-status around these parts) serve to drive the point home and then some. Their debut full-length This Is Big Audio Dynamite boasts not only obvious radio bounty like The Bottom Line, E=MC² and the sublime cool of Medicine Show (recently featured in Woebot's excellent 101-200 ¹ - and for the record I agree wholeheartedly with the man's glowing assessment of the tune), but also a wealth of strange dancefloor material on its under-explored b-side (particularily Sudden Impact's phenomenal short-circuiting electroid groove and the proto-ragga dancehall of A Party).

Sudden Impact is particularily interesting in this context, with its strange spaghetti-western-by-way-of-Lee "Scratch" Perry guitar figure riding wicked rails of straight up electro, the track seeming to exist right at the very nexus of a number of contemporary sonic currents. For one, you've got electro boogie along the lines of Aleem's Get Loose, D-Train's You're The One For Me and C.O.D.'s cover of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson's In The Bottle, all of which predict Sudden Impact's own nimble touch in their wiry, skeletal rhythmic structure.

But why stop there? It doesn't' take much effort to draw a short line from Sudden Impact! to honest-to-goodness minimalistic electro missives like Hashim's We're Rocking The Planet, the Imperial Brothers' We Come To Rock and World Class Wreckin' Cru's Surgery, all of which had been tearing up dancefloors for the better part of a year. Of course there's also the flipside of the coin: straight up electrofunk shearing into electro territory, records like Cameo's She's Strange (along with its proto-rap 12" club mix), Whodini's Escape and about a thousand other rap records.

Japan (the band) had their own incursions in this arena, where even amongst their most well-known new pop-era hits like the crepuscular fragile beauty of Ghosts and the supremely funky Visions Of China ² you'd find records like Gentlemen Take Polaroids and The Art Of Parties riding a malfunktioning electroid framework of their own. Yet it's just before the group's widely-hailed peak that you'll find my favorite music they made, from that period when David Sylvian and co. were still slumming it as twilight era glam rockers operating in a weird interzone between new wave and funk that just shades this side of the (totally imaginary) post punk divide, with not only their blinding Adolescent Sex debut album (which featured in the Parallax 200 just the other day), but also the Quiet Life LP (and it's precursor, the Life In Tokyo 12" warning shot - produced by Giorgio Moroder for those keeping track).

Adolescent Sex in particular is the sleaziest rock 'n funk grind this side of The Stones' Fingerprint File, with real red light district velvet curtain bizzness in tracks like Performance (named after the Nick Roeg film, I wonder?) and the slinky cinematic slow burn of Suburban Love. This is funk the way The Isley Brothers played it. By which I mean turn on a dime rhythmic panache, smeared synth stylings - as if every texture were washed out in sun-glazed daylight somehow in the dead of night - and searing guitar lines rising from the murky depths. There's shades too of Steely Dan at their Royal Scam grimiest - bringing to mind The Fez and The Royal Scam itself in particular - on tunes like Wish You Were Black and the marathon nine-minute album-closing Television. This sort of half-lit bedroom funk is a personal favorite sound of mine (see Prince's debut For You for another example), and should if there's any sense in the world at all spawn a feature of its own sometime in the future.

If there's a neon-tinged eighties analog to the sound I'm getting at here, then it must be Mtume circa Juicy Fruit. The album's centerpiece is the title track, no doubt, but there's a wealth of sterling rubberband funk in evidence throughout. The high top blacktop moonwalk of Green Light is emblematic of the whole affair in its casual loose-limbed bounce, with the more explicitly electronic grooves of Hips and Hip Dip Skippedabeat shearing into prime electrofunk territory. The production throughout is just perfect, with none of the overly-harmonized, booming drums that you'd often wind up with during in the era.³ It's the flipside of all the canonical new wave records here and a stone cold classic.

And while we're on the flipside, Funkadelic's The Electric Spanking Of War Babies is another unmissable slice of new wave electrofunk - from a crew that's arguably the progenitor of the form - and the flipside to PIL's Metal Box (the founder of this feast). The deconstructed start-stop groove of Funk Gets Stronger - featuring Sly Stone in full effect - is practically straight up new wave and never fails to make me flash on Adam And The Ants' Dirk Wears White Sox ⁴ (particularily the distinctive guitar tone).

The whole record plays like a roadmap of eighties funk possibilities and beyond, and is absolutely essential listening. It will likely sound patchy at first, but give it time: what you're hearing is the familiar One Nation Under A Groove/Flashlight magic formula being warped and mutated beyond the point of recognition. Its strangeness is its calling card. The band even turn out the Lodger-esque freaky cod-reggae of Shockwaves, which starts out like a joke track (with fake accent to boot) before dropping out into the divine ravishment of the chorus. Definite shades of Bowie and très post punk!

On a related note, I make no apologies whatsoever for the heavy representation of Parallax 200 records here, since the sonic neighborhood on the table today couldn't help but throw up some of my favorite records almost by default. Wrapping up that list definitely put this sound firmly in mind. In truth, it likely inspired the whole trip! No doubt many of the remaining records will make the 300 when the time comes...

Now where was I... Ah yes, Japan. Coming a year after Adolescent Sex, Quiet Life and the Life In Tokyo 12" both seem to predict Duran Duran's self-titled debut in their sleek, chrome-eyed surfaces. Speaking of which, don't sleep on Duran Duran's 1981 debut, a record that is well worth checking out in its own right. The ace new wave disco of Planet Earth stands out as a particular highlight, but really the whole record is golden. Don't listen to the hipster haters - Nick Rhodes is way cooler than any of them anyway. Listened to back to back to back, these three records (Life In Tokyo, Quiet Life and Duran Duran) play like a tour of Europe by high-speed rail.

And while we're still on the continent, it's fitting to round out this strange punk funk-by-way-of-new wave triumvirate with Simple Minds, whose early records belie their Scottish origins and seem to point toward the most shadowy recesses of the Eastern Bloc. From the grimy claustrophobic corridors of Real To Real Cacophony to the sleek steel surfaces of Empires And Dance and even the Steve Hillage-produced widescreen canvases of Sons And Fascination/Sister Feelings Call, this is all prime real estate in the sprawling terrain of post punk/machine funk that just begs to be explored further. I've spent quite a bit of time here myself.

You've got the dead-eyed disco of Premonition, yawning gleefully with cavernous jaws and drip-dropping percussion, the slow-motion punk funk dirge of This Fear Of Gods and Today I Died Again's exquisitely swirling dread on one hand and the kling klang clanking funk of Sweat In Bullet (pointing the way to New Gold Dream) and the clockwork, backwards-crab-walking rhythm box black hole League Of Nations on the other. Taken as a whole, the four record run ⁵ is a stellar excursion into post-Bowie In Berlin sonics.

So check them all out, the Simple Minds records and everything else here too. They won't do you wrong. I hear that the vendor across the street - yes, that gaunt gentleman in the robe - has them all on cassette, so don't sleep. Trust me... you need these records in your life. While you do so, I'll be in the basement down the way grabbing some records from my homeboy Cornelius for the next chapter...

1. http://www.woebot.com/2017/09/101-200.html

2. The exquisite low-slung groove Visions Of China even forms the basis for Tricky's Overcome, pointing toward trip hop's place in all this... but more on that later.

3. Actually, Prince's phenomenal Lady Cab Driver - from the glitzy 1999 double-LP - mines a very similar terrain. It's also got some crossover potential with The Clash's Outside Broadcast, come to think of it...

4. None can test. I'm on record as preferring the U.S. Version for its inclusion of the Zerox/Whip In My Valise, but only grudgingly so: I hate to give up the killer punk funk mekanik rush of not only Cartrouble (Part 1) (which is doubly salient in the current context) but also Day I Met God and Catholic Day. Life's full of tough choices...

5. Real To Real Cacophony, Empires And Dance , Sons And Fascination and Sister Feelings Call are actually preceded by Life In A Day, a solid new wave record in its own right that's well worth checking out too (especially for fans of early Ultravox and XTC. The ingredients just needed to marinate a little longer before morphing into the fractured splendor of Real To Real and beyond.

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TV3 Death Disco Playlist

The Clash The Magnificent Seven (Album Version) (CBS, 1980)
Kurtis Blow The Breaks (Mercury, 1980)
Simple Minds Premonition (Arista, 1979)
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five Superappin' (Enjoy, 1979)
Japan Suburban Love (Ariola Hansa, 1978)
Chic Good Times (Atlantic, 1979)
Japan Life In Tokyo (Disco Version) (Ariola Hansa, 1979)
Duran Duran Planet Earth (EMI, 1981)
Simple Minds I Travel (Arista, 1980)
Adam And The Ants Cartrouble (Part 1) (Do It, 1979)
Funkadelic Funk Gets Stronger (Part 1) (Warner Bros., 1981)
Big Audio Dynamite Sudden Impact! (Columbia, 1985)
D-Train You're The One For Me (Prelude, 1981)
C.O.D. In The Bottle (Emergency, 1983)
Aleem Get Loose (NIA, 1984)
Imperial Brothers We Come To Dub (Cutting, 1984)
Cameo She's Strange (Atlanta Artists, 1984)
Funkadelic The Electric Spanking Of War Babies (Warner Bros., 1981)
Mtume Green Light (Epic, 1983)
The Clash Outside Broadcast (CBS, 1981)
Prince Lady Cab Driver (Warner Bros., 1982)
Big Audio Dynamite Hollywood Boulevard (Columbia, 1986)

The Parallax 200

Posted on January 8, 2018 @ 10:41pm by Coqui

It's been three years and three days since I first posted the original Parallax 100, and I've been wanting to delve into the next 100 for some time now. Over the course of the intervening years, I've worked up a little list that I've tweaked here and there but have somehow managed to shape into a sequence as firm as the original rough-and-tumble 100.

The rules remain the same: each of these records have had a critical, sustained impact on me beyond the rush of a great new record, are all killer front-to-back and I still listen to them all the time. Albums, EPs and singles all rub shoulders here in what is - in the spirit of the original list - a deeply personal selection from the log book of my sonic travels.

Take it as a check-it-out list from a 21st century lapsed rave-dancing chrome-plated digital soul man chilling beneath the computer blue palms of the Parallax Gardens, sipping on a glass of cognac while the soundsytem is likely pumping out any of the following sounds on any given day while the Heights does its thing all around.

Once again, each and every one of these is a stone cold killer.

And so we descend...

200. Eden Ahbez - Eden's Island (The Music Of An Enchanted Isle)

(Del-Fi: 1960)

Mystic exotica from the man who wrote Nat "King" Cole's Nature Boy (he once said that he "heard the tune in the mist of the California mountains"). A concept album shaped around a drifter's encounters on a mysterious island, with gently swaying rhythms cut adrift in an ocean of sound. It's tempting to think of this as one of the very first "head" elpees, arriving just in time for the new decade.

199. Gwen McCrae - Gwen McCrae

(Cat: 1972)

Smoldering Miami soul, like an even more lush and lived-in take on Willie Mitchell's Hi Records output (Al Green, Ann Peebles, et al.). Gwen McCrae's tough vocal presence, already in full force on this her debut LP, is one of the great treasures in soul music. The centerpiece here must surely be the lavishly glazed, smoldering sway of 90% Of Me Is You, which remains one of the great downbeat jams in seventies soul.

198. 2 Men A Drum Machine And A Trumpet - Tired Of Getting Pushed Around: The Mayhem Rhythm Remix

(I.R.S.: 1987)

Improbably early oddball house from the two Fine Young Cannibals that aren't Roland Gift. The original version comes on like prime Yello, while the remix finds Derrick May stripping the track down to its essential organ/whistle framework (while not forgetting that trumpet!) and injecting a nagging piano vamp into this stop-start motor city groove.

197. Dâm-Funk - Toeachizown

(Stones Throw: 2009)

West Coast g-funk spanning ten sides of vinyl like an endless stretch of California highway. There's an almost undisclosed amount of straight up techno running throughout, emerging in the moody surfaces of In Flight and Keep Lookin' 2 The Sky, but the heart of the record lies in the blissed out machine soul of Brookside Park and I Wanna Thank You For (Steppin Into My Life). The atmosphere takes me back to endless summer afternoons in the heat of the mid-nineties, daydreaming to similar moods and grooves for hours on end.

196. Ananda Shankar - Ananda Shankar

(Reprise: 1970)

Raga-rock hybrid, in which massed choirs, oscillating Moogs and Shankar's sitar stalk the streets of Calcutta. First, you notice the excellent (and utterly unique) covers of rock 'n roll standards Jumpin' Jack Flash and Light My Fire, but it's the haunting downcast moments like Snow Flower and Sagar (The Ocean) that give the record it's unfathomable depth and dimension.

195. Yoko Ono - Walking On Thin Ice

(Geffen: 1981)

Icy disco inna new wave style by Yoko Ono, from the last sessions John Lennon ever played on (he was holding these tapes when he was shot). The surreal mood seems to predict both Yello's most atmospheric sides and David Lynch's later cinematic adventures, but Lennon's violent rubberband guitar solo still sounds wholly alien. It's all thoroughly in the tradition of the Plastic Ono Band records, with It Happened and Hard Times Are Over both incredibly moving expressions of a woman coming to terms with devastating loss and vowing to soldier on no matter what the future holds.

194. Nat King Cole and His Trio - After Midnight

(Capitol: 1956)

Well into his late-period career as a baroque pop crooner, Nat King Cole reunites with his original trio for some cool jazz action in a dream after-hours jam session. The group work their way through standards like It's Only A Paper Moon and a killer rendition of Duke Ellington's Caravan, while revisiting (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66 and even cutting the opening song from Tin Men (Sweet Lorraine).

193. Docteur Nico & L'Orchestre African Fiesta - L'Afrique Danse No. 8

(African: 1969)

The birth of soukous, the Congo's beloved post-rumba musical export. In L'Orchestra African Fiesta (the group Docteur Nico formed with Tabu Ley Rochereau), his finger-picking style came to define the sound of the genre. This record the eighth entry in an flurry of LPs that emerged in the late sixties to chronicle contemporary Congolese music, three of which were devoted to Nico and remain the easiest way to get ahold of the man's music. The whole set should be reissued - in a spirit similar to the William Onyeabor box set put out by Luaka Bop a few years back - with gorgeous sleeve art intact.

192. Augustus Pablo - East Of The River Nile

(Yard: 1971)

Instrumental reggae 7" crafted by man from the East Herman Chin-Loy around the singular Melodica stylings of Augustus Pablo. Its smeared exotica stylings and off-kilter skank always make me think of The Man Who Would Be King and Michael Caine and Sean Connery's long journey through the Khyber Pass and beyond.

191. Gilberto Gil & Jorge Ben - Ogum Xangô

(Verve: 1975)

Unfettered head to head guitar duel between two luminaries of MPB, wherein loose strings are bent into soaring fractals as guitars tango like clockwork in the sunset. Transcending even their most stellar individual work, the duo flutter between the lush calm of Nega and the wild careening frenzy of Taj Mahal. The fact that the vocals seem almost improvised, an afterthought even, only adds to the charm of this loose, freewheeling double-album.

190. Mantronix - Scream

(Sleeping Bag: 1987)

Electronic hip hop epic in widescreen. MC Tee's trademark rapid-fire raps hit hard before flipping into sing-song mode for the chorus, all of it backed by impressively futuristic production from Kurtis Mantronik. You also get an extended mix thrown into the bargain, along with a dub version - which might be the man's absolute finest - in which the track's filmic descending spiral gets chopped into strange shapes before shocking you with a cyborg rap in the climax.

189. DJ Rashad - Double Cup

(Hyperdub: 2013)

Chicago juke. I first crossed paths with Rashad's music via DJ Godfather's Twilight 76 and Juke Trax labels (this within the context of Detroit ghetto tech electro) back when I was living at the 1808, and I've kept an ear tuned in ever since. I was pleasantly surprised when he hooked up with Hyperdub a couple years back for both the Rollin' EP and this record, a true masterwork. Hypnotic synths soar over a bed of furious drum programming throughout, as slow-motion raps and bottomless bass twist and turn within. The man was a virtuoso and his music still sounds like the future.

188. Grachan Moncur III - New Africa

(BYG: 1969)

Grachan Moncur's great galleon of soul-inflected free jazz, coming out of leftfield on the storied BYG imprint (arguably the genre's spiritual home). Moncur's trombone flourishes glide gracefully over the loose, swinging rhythms of Andrew Cyrille and Alan Silva's wide open double bass as he trades lines with the likes of Roscoe Mitchell and Archie Shepp. It's the sound of wide-open spaces and crystal clear skies, full of freedom and possibility.

187. The Rolling Stones - Exile On Main St.

(Rolling Stones: 1972)

Stranded in the south of France, The Rolling Stones lose themselves in the basement studio at Nellcôte and manage to wring magic from the whole affair. Careening from the dirty barroom rock of Rip This Joint into the raw clavinet funk of Ventilator Blues and spending a satisfying amount of time with Gram Parsons-inspired country rock numbers, this band of dandy rogues turn out a ramshackle masterpiece that manages to capture the very essence of rock 'n roll.

186. A.R. Kane - When You're Sad

(One Little Indian: 1986)

Sun-warped post-Beach Boys blues. When You're Sad is a joyously aching teenage daydream with Alex and Rudi's gently soaring harmonies drenched in wild-eyed feedback. Meanwhile, the b-side's Haunting offers up an unresolved slab of guitar melancholy that seems to lay the blueprint for the whole shoegaze endeavor and by extension predicts the sound of nineties indie rock about four years ahead of schedule.

185. Joni Mitchell - Song To A Seagull

(Reprise: 1968)

The birth of canyon folk, featuring songwriter Joni Mitchell front and center with virtuoso guitarwork and that voice. In a bold move, Mitchell decided to rely entirely on new material rather than fall back on songs that she'd already provided to other artists (as was common practice for singer-songwriter albums at the time). The results are stunning, with a rich thematic continuity running through the record even as individual songs like Marcie and Cactus Tree glisten like gems in their own right, epitomizing everything that makes Mitchell's music such a treasure.

184. Burning Spear - Burning Spear

(Studio One: 1973)

The Burning Spear's debut album, full of deeply spiritual roots music. Bottomless bass and rock hard riddims play out in stately slow-motion while Winston Rodney's haunting vocals hover above it all like a ghostly mirage. Songs like Ethiopians Live It Out and Fire Down Below ride tough rocksteady beats into the sunset, while the deeply moving Creation Rebel and Down By The Riverside are among some of the most gorgeous roots music you'll ever hear.

183. Funkadelic - The Electric Spanking Of War Babies

(Warner Bros.: 1981)

The final Funkadelic record, where all previous electrofunk innovations are taken to their illogical conclusion. P-funk's engine is deconstructed, the parts spread out across the floor of a Detroit garage while the band methodically rebuilds them into freaky malfunktioning warped machines. The deliciously bizarre Funk Gets Stronger (featuring Sly Stone), seems to rev its engine only to reel it back down again in a nagging stop/start groove, while the title track re-routes their early guitar freakouts through the new wave hall of mirrors before wiring it all up for the next decade's dancefloors.

182. René Et Gaston - Spectacle De Foire

(Fresh Fruit: 1994)

Dutch techno par excellence from the inimitable Dobre and Jamez, in one of their myriad guises (Jark Prongo, Klatsch!, Tata Box Inhibitors, Chocolate Puma, etc. etc. etc.). The carnivalesque wild ride of Spectacle De Foire is undoubtedly the centerpiece here, but the Moroder-inflected digital disco pulse of Houp! seems to contain the germ of house music's next ten years in its gloriously geometric groove.

181. Cheb Khaled - Hada Raykoum

(Triple Earth: 1985)

Algerian raï from a true pioneer of the form. Cheb Khaled plays the cosmopolitan desert mystic, singing his winding, hypnotic chansons over sun-glazed synths and spidery machine rhythms in a stunning roots 'n future mash up that defies its period of origin with striking clarity. He'd go on to international stardom and eventual political exile in France, but this record - released smack in the middle of the eighties - remains Khaled's crowning achievement.

180. Public Image Ltd. - Metal Box

(Virgin: 1979)

Pre-eminent post punk malcontents lose themselves in the studio, intoxicated by the twin experimentations of krautrock and dub, in the process deconstructing the album format into three 12" singles packaged in a metal reel-to-reel film cannister. The ten-minute Albatross creeps out the soundsystem like a ghostly steamroller, Jah Wobble's ten-ton bass kicking you in the chest, while Keith Levene's searing guitar shoots sparks across its surface and John Lydon wails deep into the abyss. And that's just the first side...

179. Areski & Brigitte Fontaine - L'incendie

(BYG: 1971)

Iconoclastic chanteuse Brigitte Fontaine blends sophisticated songcraft with Areski's droning inflections (inspired by music of the Algerian musicians that he grew up around) in a haunting set of skewed chansons. Les Borgias and Ragilia are shot through with a distinct North African inflection, while Il Pleut Sur La Gare and L'abeille come on like Medieval folk ballads. The duo also touch on their jazz roots in Déclaration De Sinistre and venture into acid folk with L'engourdie, a gently psychedelic reverie. Indispensable.

178. The Black Dog - Spanners

(Warp: 1995)

Brittle art techno masterpiece. BDP's deep space sonics remain in full effect throughout this sprawling set of electronic head music, touching on everything from skittering techno to ambient house and the abstract hip hop that had informed their music since day one when they first set to work cloistered in the mystery of Black Dog Towers. The esoteric current running through the trio's work - that ancient quality haunting the music's shadows even as they pushed headlong into the future - inhabits every corner of this record and sounds like the soundtrack to some secret society in lunar orbit.

177. Mýa featuring Sisqó of Dru Hill - It's All About Me

(Interscope: 1998)

Siren song in 3D. Sumptuously produced headphone r&b laid down by Da Bassment cohort Darryl Pearson and masterfully inhabited by star-in-the-making Mýa. From that period when a slowjam would casually sound like a UFO landing in your backyard. Every element, from the crisp beats to the blurred instrumentation and of course Mýa's wistful multi-tracked harmonies, is meticulously placed and blissful to the ear.

176. Devin - The Dude

(Rap-A-Lot: 1998)

Lazing Texas rap from Devin The Dude, featuring guest appearances from the likes of Scarface, Spice 1 and the rest of his old crew, the Odd Squad. It's a supremely lush and mellow LP, to my mind surpassing even the excellent Fadanuf Fa Erybody as the finest full-length on Rap-A-Lot. A laidback, homegrown live sound prevails throughout, with deep blunted bass, smooth guitar runs, synth strings and dusted bleeps enveloping Devin's loose-limbed raps like a twilight mist.

175. Derrick Harriott - Whip It

(Hawkeye: 1983)

Discomix reggae cover version of the Dazz Band's immortal Let It Whip, self-produced by the great Derrick Harriott, which somehow manages to surpass the sterling original. The version on the flip is reworked by Paul "Groucho" Smyke, who also dubbed King Sunny Adé's Ja Funmi into oblivion around the same time. The sumptuously pulsing bassline quickly grows hypnotic as myriad shards of sound reverberate across the soundscape, marking this out as the neon-bathed cousin to the x-ray dubs of Lloyd Barnes on Horace Andy's Dance Hall Style.

174. Johnny Hammond - Gears

(Milestone: 1975)

Definitive jazz funk produced by the Mizell Brothers during their blazing arc of seventies studio excursions. This one is without a doubt my favorite, featuring veteran keymaster Johnny Hammond tinkling the rhodes over rock hard rhythms and soaring ARPs while that odd spectral chorus weaves its way in and out of the ether. The sound of the city.

173. Jonny L - Hurt You So (Alright)

(Tuch Wood: 1992)

Candy-coated ardkore from the man with the golden haircut, recorded well before he turned to the darkside and pounded the jungle scene into submission with his techstep brethren. The Full Mix rides tumbling breakbeats into the trancelike bridge before collapsing into a blissed out lovers rock chorus, while The L Mix brings hard-edged hoover stabs into the equation before exploding into the ecstatic piano-led climax.

172. The Beach Boys - Sunflower

(Brother: 1970)

My absolute favorite era of The Beach Boys is the six year period spanning between Smiley Smile and Holland. There's a strange charm and paradoxical rough-hewn smoothness to the sound that seems of a piece with both Lee "Scratch" Perry's sun-glazed productions at the Black Ark and latterly The Beta Band's oeuvre. The only trouble is, most of these albums are fairly patchy (thanks Mike Love). The one exception is Sunflower, in which Dennis Wilson emerges a master songwriter in his own right, kicking off the whole affair with Slip On Through's insouciant counter-clockwise groove and striking yet again with the immortal ballad Forever. Brian Wilson's presence remains in full force as well, lending his touch to the gorgeous sunstruck reverie Dierdre (co-written with Bruce Johnston), All I Wanna Do's ethereal drift and the ambient surf music of Cool, Cool Water.

171. Cheo Feliciano - Cheo

(Vaya: 1972)

Cheo Feliciano cut his teeth in legendary groups like Tito Rodriguez' Orchestra, the Joe Cuba Sextet and the Eddie Palmieri Orchestra before gradually descending into drug addiction and bad times. After a stretch of rough years and hard miles, Cheo kicks heroin for good and finally makes his record. A delicately crafted masterstroke, it finds him confidently working through a peerless set of Tite Curet Alonso songs like Mi Triste Problema and Poema De Otoño with unmatched depth and splendor.

170. Recloose - Spelunking

(Planet E: 1999)

Nocturnal electronic jazz from Detroit whiz kid Matt Chicoine. Standing outside the boundaries of any one scene or genre, he unfurled a number of exquisite delights on an unsuspecting public at the turn of the century, none better than this astonishing five track EP. Kicking off with the oddball deep house of Soul Clap 2000 before launching into Get There Tonight's off-kilter boogie and the bebop stomp of Landscaping, it's not long before he's easing into the half-lit downbeat moves of Insomnia In Dub and Four Ways Of Saying Goodbye's multi-part jazz funk excursion. A crucial record for me at the time, it's stayed with me ever since.

169. Blue Orchids - The Greatest Hit: Money Mountain

(Rough Trade: 1982)

An utterly out of time acid-soaked masterpiece, existing in the netherworld between post punk and a living, breathing psychedelia. The Blue Orchids splintered off from the mighty Fall, and in the process stretched that band's speedfreak intensity out into a wild, pantheistic celebration of the great outdoors. Una Baines' ghostly keyboard mirages are the crucial factor in these eerie, widescreen sonic tapestries. The mood here curiously similar to On The Silver Globe, and I've often thought that this album could soundtrack the haunting ritual beach scenes from the first half of the film.

168. The Mover - Frontal Sickness

(Planet Core Productions: 1991/1992/1993)

The soundtrack to your nightmares. Mark Arcadipane - the man behind The Mover - wrote the blueprint for rave hardcore with Mescalinum United's We Have Arrived and a sequence of uncompromisingly bleak 12"s that surfaced on his Planet Core Productions (yeah... PCP) imprint. This double-pack combines both volumes of the Frontal Sickness EPs into one blazing package of sonic extremism, ground zero for the zombie sound that would come to be called gloomcore.

167. Skip James - The Complete 1931 Session

(Yazoo: 1931/1986)

Stone cold blues from the Mississippi Delta. Skip James' music remains deeply unconventional, full of shadow and mystery, marking it out as utterly unique even within the rich terrain of early blues recordings. Still, there's quite a bit of weary joy to be found hidden within this record's grooves, even if only in the promise of salvation after a lifetime of hardship and tragedy. Hope against hope, in other words.

166. Cymande - Cymande

(Janus: 1972)

Cymande - featuring musicians from Guyana, Jamaica and Saint Vincent - are the sort of group that could have only formed in a town like London. Merging Jamaican Nyabinghi rhythms (the bedrock on which reggae was formed) and American funk, the crew forged a wholly unique sound that on first listen seems almost too good to be true. The glorious rock hard beat of Bra rubs shoulders here with gentle moments like Listen and the slow-burning groove of Getting It Back, while the eleven-minute Dove finds the group stretching out into a rolling longform jam. There ought to be a copy in every home.

165. Ramsey & Fen featuring Lynsey Moore - Love Bug

(Bug: 1998)

A particularly elegant slice of slinky UK garage, Love Bug's bionic two-step groove seems to expand on both the liquid garage sound of Roy Davis Jr. and Timbaland's android r&b. Diva Lynsey Moore's vocals get chopped and twisted through the tune's very fabric, in which every piece clicks like percussion in the clockwork machinery of this sultry digital juke joint jam.

164. Talking Heads - Remain In Light

(Sire: 1980)

Uptight New Yorkers cut loose in widescreen, stretching the impenetrable atmosphere of Fear Of Music to its outer limits as they mainline on African rhythms and the information overload of modern America. Each track is a dense web of sound spun from layers of throbbing bass, drifting synths, strange guitars and those rolling, poly-rhythmic beats. Hard to believe the album pre-dates the sampler, so intricate is its multifaceted construction. Indeed, you can hear the germ of nineties music (and beyond) buried deep within these unfurling, technicolor grooves... it sounds a lot like a blueprint for the future.

163. Tony Allen with Afrobeat 2000 - N.E.P.A: Never Expect Power Always

(Wrasse: 1984)

Eighties electro-afrobeat monster jam, with Fela Kuti's right-hand man in the driver seat, rocking the drumkit with singular style and finesse. N.E.P.A comes on like one massive arcing groove stretched over two sides of vinyl, each housing a song in two versions (with both an original and a dub) that probe different aspects of the same central theme. Sounding a lot like a pirate radio transmission from the distant future, this is the original groove that won't stop.

162. Prince Jammy - Computerised Dub

(Greensleeves: 1986)

Digital dancehall! This the instrumental companion piece to Wayne Smith's epochal Sleng Teng LP, produced by Prince Jammy, which famously brought reggae into the computer age. Taking Sleng Teng's brittle electronic rhythms into the spacious realm of dub, these tracks embody a sort of machine perfection that one usually expects from places like Cologne or Detroit, but slackened and smoked out with a singular Jamaican flavor.

161. The Three Degrees - The Three Degrees

(Philadelphia International: 1973)

The Three Degrees hook up with Philadelphia International after their appearance in The French Connection, resulting in a vocal masterpiece of lush Philly soul. The ladies' breathless harmonies deftly swoop and glide through the gossamer orchestration of Gamble & Huff's Sigma Sound, their exquisite production ringing clear as a bell. You can hear disco's wings begin to spread in the driving pulse of Dirty Old Man, while in If And When's epic balladry and the swirling A Woman Needs A Good Man their pathos is undeniable. You also get When Will I See You Again, quite simply one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

160. J Dilla - Donuts

(Stones Throw: 2006)

A joyful hip hop symphony composed by the late great J Dilla just before his untimely departure from planet Earth. Slicing and dicing all manner of loops and breaks from his seemingly bottomless crates of arcane records and reconstructing them into rock hard beats and interlocking movements, he created his unassailable masterpiece: a boundless, wildly shifting song cycle that feels like a glorious tribute to life itself.

159. Basic Channel - Quadrant Dub

(Basic Channel: 1994)

Dub techno par excellence. As difficult as it is to narrow it down to just one record from the dynamic duo of Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald, for me Quadrant Dub just edges out Lyot Rmx for the #1 spot. Its two elongated tracks - spanning one to each side - last the better part of forty minutes, dubbing Round One's soul-inflected I'm Your Brother deeper and deeper into shimmering cascades of four-dimensional sound. Over twenty years later, it still sounds like the future.

158. Can - Ege Bamyasi

(United Artists: 1972)

In a further elaboration on the towering eighteen minutes of Tago Mago's Halleluwah, Can submerge their mercurial kraut-funk deep into the swampy voodoo of their Inner Space studio and surface with a spooked out set of seven songs teeming with otherworldly atmosphere. The proto-world music of Spoon sets a rhythm box against a gently swaying, lopsided rhythm, while I'm So Green showcases the group's pop sensibilities at their absolute finest. The spectral tango of One More Night even points the way toward Future Days and beyond.

157. J.J. Cale - Naturally

(Shelter: 1971)

Offbeat slacker blues debut from the great Okie troubadour, this one goes down like the smoothest bourbon at sunset. Containing the original, superior versions of After Midnight and Call Me The Breeze, it's a veritable treasure trove of exquisite songwriting. That crawling rhythm box is a particularly far-sighted touch, putting Cale in shared company with Kraftwerk and Sly Stone as the first artists to put electronic rhythms on record. In the context of the hazy dreamtime sparkle of songs like River Runs Deep and Crying Eyes, it's almost as if they're springing naturally from the surrounding terrain itself. A casual masterpiece.

156. Colourbox featuring Lorita Grahame - Baby I Love You So

(Virgin: 1986)

The a-side cover version of Jacob Miller's Augustus Pablo-helmed lovers rock standard is a post punk proto-trip hop masterpiece, submerging Lorita Grahame's torch song vocals within a murky stew of towering bass, metallic percussion and film samples from John Carpenter's Escape From New York. The flipside's Looks Like We're Shy One Horse, meanwhile, mines Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West over an apocalyptic groove skanking endless into some dystopian horizon as a blood red sun sets in the distance.

155. Brian Eno/David Byrne - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

(Sire: 1981)

Remain In Light's (edgier, younger and slightly mad) sister record takes its forward-thinking fourth world moves further yet into proto-sampladelia and the avant garde. Side one is stuffed with non-stop crazy rhythms: The Jezebel Spirit is a leftfield disco staple for good reason, spooling an actual on-air exorcism out over a frenetic rhythm matrix, while Regiment's stone cold funk is something like the interzone flipside of Once In A Lifetime. Side two stretches out into pure atmosphere, its individual tracks seeming to materialize from the shadows before drifting off again into the night, spectral and sublime.

154. Mr. Fingers - Ammnesia

(Jack Trax: 1988)

A quasi-compilation pulling together a whole raft of choice instrumentals from contemporary 12"s and unreleased material, this record offers a stunning glimpse into the mind of Larry Heard. Bookended by the genre-defining Can You Feel It - the song that took Europe by storm during the Second Summer Of Love - and Mystery Of Love (which has the distinction of being Larry Levan's favorite song of all time), the record also ventures into the deep space ambient house magic of Stars, Bye Bye's sleek electronic soul and the proto-acid madness of Washing Machine. Crucial in every respect.

153. Duke Ellington And His Orchestra - Ellington Indigos

(Columbia: 1958)

Exceptionally lush and melancholy jazz for big band, orchestrated and conducted by the late great Duke Ellington. Moody and spacious, the record evokes lonely nights, long moonlit walks and downbeat solo blues. Melancholy meditations like Solitude and Willow Weep For Me are swathed in layers of sumptuous atmosphere, while wistful reveries like The Sky Fell Down and Prelude To A Kiss overflow with the promise of romance. There's even a solitary vocal showcase in Autumn Leaves, featuring the vocals of Ozzie Bailey intertwined with Ray Nance's weeping violin, a haunting duet in a lonely place.

152. Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - Bridges

(Arista: 1977)

Steeped in nuclear dread, economic uncertainty and post-Watergate blues, Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson casually laid down the definitive late-seventies soul album. I was turned onto this record by Moodymann's set at the first DEMF, which he opened with We Almost Lost Detroit (a rumination on the meltdown at Three Mile Island). I was blown away and simply had to track down the album, which includes songs ranging from Under The Hammer's synth-smeared funk to the downbeat blues of Delta Man and everything in between, each of them rising slowly from languid pools of soul.

151. Mobb Deep - Shook Ones Part II

(Loud: 1995)

The definitive statement in bleak mid-nineties hip hop, that era when the RZA's sphere of influence seemed to spread across the entirety of the genre. Showcasing the peerless words and sonix of Prodigy and Havoc, the loping unresolved piano figure of the epochal Shook Ones Part II is matched here by the more elusive first part, sounding like something that sprang from the same New York shadows that Terranova was just beginning to essay from across the Atlantic. You ain't a crook, son... you just a shook one.

150. David Bowie - Station To Station

(RCA Victor: 1976)

The return of the Thin White Duke, throwing darts in lovers' eyes, sings Bowie as the record opens, setting the stage for his transition from plastic soul crooner to fearless sonic trailblazer. Using his recent forays into Philly Soul as a jumping off point into churning proto-disco rhythms - shot through with the motorik drive of German groups like Neu! and his avowed love of Kraftwerk - he kicks off with the ten-minute multi-part rush of the title track and closes with a heartbreaking rendition of Wild Is The Wind, touching on everything from the insouciant funk of Golden Years to TVC 15's robotic pop in between.

149. Santana - Santana

(Columbia: 1969)

I'm a huge fan of Santana's music throughout the seventies, all of those excursions into space rock and interstellar jazz, but the raw frenzy of the debut remains my absolute favorite. This is where it all began, with the same band that rocked Woodstock within days of this record's release. Songs like Soul Sacrifice and the cover version of Babatunde Olatunji's Jingo are masterful in their building tension and release, while Evil Ways remains one of the great jukebox tunes of all time. If you dig the sound of the Hammond B3, then you need to get down with this record..

148. Janet Jackson - The Velvet Rope

(Virgin: 1997)

This is where Janet goes deep. There's a breadth and depth to this record that one usually expects to find in an Erykah Badu or Moodymann LP - you can really get lost in this record's grooves - but it's really just a logical progression of everything she'd been up to since the days of Control. Jam & Lewis square their production finesse in the age of Timbaland and - with the help of Q-Tip and a young J Dilla - unfurl a set of tracks that are both state-of-the-art yet at the same time imbued with the timeless gravity of 70s soul, remaining right at home in the present all along.

147. Robert Owens - I'll Be Your Friend

(Big Bubbles: 1991)

Released hot on the heels of his excellent Visions LP, this is my absolute favorite moment from Robert Owens (the voice of house music). Teaming with master producer David Morales and Satoshi Tomiie on keys, this seems to be an attempt to recreate the dynamic of their epochal Tears (masterminded by one Frankie Knuckles) in sprawling widescreen. The Original Def Mix is a moody dancefloor burner of the highest calibre, but The Glamorous Mix takes it to another level altogether, where driving strings and organ runs are woven into an echoic epic over which Owens' voice soars.

146. Wiley - Treddin' On Thin Ice

(XL: 2004)

Grime taken out to die in the frozen wastelands. Crafting a surprisingly varied landscape within this icy realm, Wiley roams between the crystalline garage moves of Doorway and the bleak tundra vision of the title track, essaying the almost straight up hip hop shapes of opener The Game and the shimmering r&b inflections of Special Girl along the way. I've always preferred Thin Ice to Dizzee Rascal's Boy In Da Corner, which is the classic grime LP by critical consensus (and a classic it is), but this ploughs a deeper furrow and remains my absolute favorite grime record.

145. Mtume - Juicy Fruit

(Epic: 1983)

Neon-lit bedroom funk from Miles alumni James Mtume, taking seventies cosmic jazz into the computer age. This is without a doubt the greatest electro boogie LP of them all, boasting computer blue dancefloor burners like Green Light and Your Love's Too Good (To Spread Around), while both mixes of Juicy Fruit remain twin pillars of atmospheric machine soul and a font of inspiration for so much music (from Dâm-Funk and SA-RA to Timbaland and The Neptunes) that I hold dear.

144. Yusef Lateef - Eastern Sounds

(Prestige: 1961)

When weaving this record's captivating pan-global menagerie of sound, Yusef Lateef looked East for inspiration, pre-dating just about everyone - from The Beatles to John Coltrane and even Sun Ra - in his exploration of the wider world's sonic shades and timbres. The Plum Blossom employs Chinese globular flute in it's off-kilter shuffle, while Three Faces Of Balal features a notably stripped-down exercise in rhythm. Rudy Van Gelder's peerless production imbues these sonic excursions with an almost exoctica-esque sense of space, remarkable within the context of contemporary jazz.

143. Tony! Toni! Toné! - Sons Of Soul

(Motown: 1993)

The There's A Riot Going On of swingbeat, Sons Of Soul is a lushly multi-textured record that makes for a dense, absorbing listen. Some strange turns are taken in the shifting corridors of this record's jazzed-out r&b (see the almost subconscious funk of Tonyies! In The Wrong Key), even shading into the epic with the closing ten minutes of the Anniversary/Castleers suite. I can't think of many records that I get as much pleasure listening to, regardless of the mood I'm in (indeed, Fun may be the most honest song title you'll ever come across).

142. The Future Sound Of London - Accelerator

(Jumpin' & Pumpin': 1991)

FSOL's sterling debut, featuring ten tracks of brilliantly vivid, four-dimensional breakbeat techno. A brace of tunes from the Pulse EPs get paired with new material like Expander and the epochal Papua New Guinea, rounding out a deft song cycle shot through with unmistakable cyberpunk vibes. From Buggy G. Riphead's striking sleeve art to the paranoid interludes and Central Industrial's slow-motion widescreen cascade, the whole thing conjures up imagery of Neuromancer, Blade Runner and Cabaret Voltaire in its long flowing corridors of Chiba City blues.

141. Forrrce - Keep On Dancin'

(West End: 1982)

Exceedingly warped, fathoms deep disco on the legendary West End imprint. Forrrce unleash a proto-rap party jam with an unforgettable whiplash bassline tearing through its very fabric, while François Kevorkian works his inimitable magic on the flip, stripping the track down to its frame and rebuilding it like a ramshackle minecart before running it off the rails through the illogical machinery of Jamaican dub.

140. The Upsetters - Return Of The Super Ape

(Upsetter: 1977)

Weird reggae forged by its greatest band and produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry at the peak of his powers. The title track is one of the finest dub outings ever, running down a languid skank before collapsing into a rock-hard slow-motion climax, while the Tell Me Something Good cover version blows away everyone I've ever shown it to. Throughout, Scratch coaxes the swirling sounds of the Black Ark into a singular negotiation of reggae roots and the deepest chasms of futuristic dub.

139. The D.O.C. - No One Can Do It Better

(Ruthless: 1989)

Of all the records to spring from N.W.A.'s axis, this is hands down my favorite. A dense, varied record, full of twists and turns like the liquid funk of the title track and the skittering fast-forward groove of Portrait Of A Masterpiece, it even features the entirety of N.W.A. on The Grand Finalé. Dr. Dre's ace production splits the difference between the hard edges of Straight Outta Compton and the nimble funk of Efil4zaggin, while The D.O.C. out-raps everybody else in the crew. No One Can Do It Better indeed.

138. David Crosby - If Only I Could Remember My Name

(Atlantic: 1971)

Cosmic canyon folk from ex-Byrd and CSN main man David Crosby, recorded in San Francisco and featuring local luminaries like Grace Slick and Jerry Garcia (along with further members of Jefferson Airplane, Santana and The Grateful Dead) and a few L.A. colleagues for good measure (including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell). This ad-hoc supergroup shines in Cowboy Movie's low-slung, eight-minute canyon funk jam (a chronicle of CSNY's dissolution as seen through the prism of The Wild Bunch) and the murky tumble of What Are Their Names' abstract, blazing protest, while gentle, otherworldly moments like Traction In The Rain and Orleans quietly steal the show with a shimmering magic all their own.

137. Television - Marquee Moon

(Elektra: 1977)

Sparkling proto-new wave from a four piece group of hard-dreaming CBGB luminaries. Picking up where West Coast acid rockers like The Byrds and Jefferson Airplane left off, Television reshape yesterday's wild psychedelia into a contemplative sonic menagerie - with just a hint of punk attitude - that ushered in a whole new era for rock.

136. Popol Vuh - Einsjäger & Siebenjäger

(Kosmische Musik: 1974)

Pastoral Krautrock from a large, shifting group of musicians centering around the vision of Florian Fricke. Gentle instrumental sketches like Kleiner Krieger and Morgengruß set the stage, gradually giving way to the title track's lush, multi-part longform jam - featuring the ethereal vocals of Djong Yun - that dominates the entirety of side two. The common thread running throughout is a bucolic sense of tranquillity and near-telepathic interplay between the musicians.

135. Underworld - Dubnobasswithmyheadman

(Junior Boy's Own: 1994)

Two holdovers from eighties new wave are joined by younger techno DJ Darren Emerson and dive headfirst into dance music, sculpting a moody masterpiece of electronic noir. Karl Hyde's rock dynamics are crucial to the record's singular tone, with the overcast alternative rock stylings of Tongue and Dirty Epic's subterranean guitar moves utterly unique within the context of nineties dance. This is "binary skyline" music, to borrow a phrase from Snakes, shimmering on a cloudy horizon.

134. Wally Badarou - Chief Inspector

(4th & Broadway: 1985)

Twelve-inch post-disco dancefloor action from synth wizard Wally Badarou, lifted from his excellent Echoes LP of the same year (recorded at Compass Point Studios in Nassau). The Vine Street mix by Paul "Groucho" Smykle is the absolute best version of Chief Inspector (and it can only be found here!), gliding along with percussion inspired by D.C. go-go and slipping into a zero gravity moonwalk for its dreamlike refrain. Tying together strands stretching from disco to post punk, dub to hip hop and even the nascent house music, Badarou winds up with an eerily prescient hallucination of the next twenty years of club music.

133. Terry Riley - A Rainbow In Curved Air

(Columbia Masterworks: 1969)

Late sixties minimalism from one of the prime architects of the form. Absorbing the hypnotic electric pulse of Indian classical music as a prime influence, Riley treats the organ as a proto-synthesizer and plays every note by hand, becoming the human sequencer as he multi-tracks myriad layers of keyboards, harpsichord, tambourine and goblet drum into a cycling electronic ballet on the sidelong title track. The flipside's marathon workout, Poppy Nogood And The Phantom Band, trades kinetic flow for gently droning arcs, with Riley's improvised saxophone dancing across its surface.

132. Jefferson Airplane - Mexico/Have You Seen The Saucers

(RCA Victor: 1970)

Jefferson Airplane are the embodiment of radical sixties counterculture's interface with rock and are the obvious precursor to seventies German groups like Amon Düül II (the commune that coalesced into a band) and Ash Ra Tempel. This 7" single stands as their greatest merger of righteous joy and anger into a triumphant firebrand vision of acid rock, continuing the everyone sing at once (preferably in a different key) and let the chips fall where they may late-period sloppy proto-punk vocal style that they'd pursued since Volunteers. Mexico, possibly the greatest song about smuggling marijuana into the country, expands on the spirit of songs like We Could Live Together, while Have You Seen The Saucers is quintessential West Coast space rock, setting the stage for Paul Kantner's Jefferson Starship and Blows Against The Empire.

131. Japan - Adolescent Sex

(Ariola Hansa: 1978)

Sleazy new wave glam rock, where punk meets disco in the red light district. You can see where Duran Duran got most of their ideas (executing the whole Sex Pistols meets Chic equation years before it had even occurred to Nick Rhodes and Simon Le Bon), and I've often thought that you can hear a bit of Royal Scam-era Steely Dan in the jazz-tinged grooves of Wish You Were Black and Television. An utterly original sound in evidence throughout, this record deserves to be be more widely heard (and imitated).

130. Dillinja - The Angels Fell

(Metalheadz: 1995)

Cyberpunk jungle. Taking in the sonic skyline of Vangelis' Blade Runner Blues and sampling a snatch of Roy Batty's "tears in the rain" speech from the film's conclusion, Dillinja runs riot with his trademark depth charge bassbombs and speaker-shredding breaks to create one of jungle's all-time greatest rollers. The two tracks on the flip pursue the same path of shape-shifting, aerodynamic drum 'n bass intensity, rounding out a three-track set of superbly engineered breakbeat noir.

129. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (U.S. Version)

(Warner Bros.: 1970)

Led Zeppelin and Blue Cheer may have gestured ominously in the general direction, but this monolithic, towering LP was the de facto birth of heavy metal. Slowing hard rock down to a robe-shrouded crawl, Black Sabbath injected a blood-soaked sense of the occult into their music while everybody ran for cover. A key outpost in rock's grappling with James Brown's elegant, funky beats inna caveman stylee, this stone tablet is cherished by rock, rave and hip hop heads alike (just ask Ice-T and Joey Beltram). Containing five ruminations on slow-motion fury, for me the debut remains their finest hour.

128. Ambassadeur International - Mandjou

(Badmos: 1979)

Mande music snaking its way through the desert sands of Mali, cooked up by the region's finest band and fronted by the inimitable Salif Keita, whose piercing wail cuts through the dense instrumentation like a knife. The towering title track rocks a dusty downbeat rhythm before breaking into a double-time frenzy in its coda, while Kandja refracts Caribbean music back across the Atlantic in mutant form. Balla closes the record on a gentle organ-led shuffle (think Booker T. & The M.G.'s), with a vibrant repartee between the band as they ride off into the sunset together.

127. The Cosmic Jokers - The Cosmic Jokers

(Kosmische Musik: 1974)

Endless cosmic jam by an ad-hoc supergroup of Krautrock luminaries, the results edited down into a series of five spaced-out kosmische LPs (of which this is the first) by Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser without the knowledge of the band. This is true outer space/inner space music, with one extended track sprawling across each side. The opening Galactic Joke is a pulsing excursion into deep sonar architecture - its guitars arcing gracefully into oblivion - while the flipside's Cosmic Joy inhabits a dark textural sprawl that ultimately spawns a ten-ton bassline. The record should come with a spacesuit.

126. Donna Summer - I Feel Love

(Casablanca: 1977)

Brian Eno once called this the most important record ever made, and when you hear it booming over a nightclub soundsystem at full volume it's pretty hard to argue. Pulsing machine music produced by Giorgio Moroder, this forward-thinking computer disco remains wildly influential. And then there's the matter of Donna Summer, who takes the whole affair to another plane altogether, her voice soaring in graceful arcs around that central rhythm and putting all manner of would-be divas to shame in the process. This is hardcore.

125. Masta Ace Incorporated - Sittin' On Chrome

(Delicious Vinyl: 1995)

For my money, the greatest late-summer hip hop LP ever. East meets West in this extended song cycle about two cousins from opposite coasts spending a summer together in the city that never sleeps. If you imagine a rap record produced by Roy Ayers, you wouldn't be too far off. Even the skits are good. This always takes me back to August of '95 when my brother and I were refinishing a deck for walking-around-money, tripping out under the blazing sun with Jammin' z90 coming through like a mirage in the Santee heat... Born To Roll, the man said.

124. Bobby Konders - House Rhythms

(Nu Groove: 1990)

The perfect encapsulation of Nu Groove's half-lit, anything goes vision of house music, where reggae, disco, ambient and acid rub shoulders on the dancefloor and nobody misses a beat. Of course it's hard to choose just one Bobby Konders 12", but this one's the reason the man's a household name where I come from. From the rolling pianos of Let There Be House to the searing 303 lines of Nervous Acid, Massai Women's eerie Serengeti atmospherics and the sprawling deep house epic The Poem, it's an unmissable EP of off-the-wall New York house.

123. Massive Attack - Protection

(Wild Bunch: 1994)

This is the sound of my youth. I could have picked any of their first three LPs, but this one's dubbed out, rootsical bass architecture marks it as my absolute favorite. The voodoo calm of Karmacoma, Weather Storm's invisible soundtrack, Mushroom Vowles, Tracy Thorn's mournful croon, the smoked out Light My Fire cover version, Horace Andy's x-ray falsetto, the depth-charging 303 basslines, Nicolette's serenading of the spirits and Tricky's dread magic - still in full force at this point - all blur into the perfect prescription of blunted Bristol blues and a true smoker's delight.

122. Charles Mingus - The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady

(Impulse!: 1963)

Mingus' Impulse! debut finds him righteously at home in the house that Trane built, working through a series of four complex suites inspired by Duke Ellington that - with all apologies to Count Basie - seem to take big band jazz into the atomic era. Mingus was so impressed with Bob Theile's in-house production that in the liner notes he proclaimed that his fans could throw out all of his old records because this was the sound he was after all along!

121. Horace Andy - Dance Hall Style

(Wackie's: 1982)

Skeletal, dubbed out reggae from the concrete jungle. Black and white newsprint paranoia reigns supreme throughout, not unlike a remake of The Parallax View set in contemporary Kingston. Spying Glass, later covered by Massive Attack, drapes gutter-glazed synths over its stately, slow-motion crawl. Horace Andy's lonely falsetto is cloaked in layers of desolate production courtesy of Lloyd Barnes, who stretches these solarized riddims out into echo-chambered infinity.

120. Hashim - Primrose Path

(Cutting: 1986)

Dark and moody electro dubbed out into a mirage on the fabled Cutting Records imprint. Hashim advances from the sparse, crisp edges of his epochal electro jam Al-Naafiysh (The Soul) into deeply blunted terrain, the sound of which seems to strangely overlap with that of certain late-period post punk records like 400 Blows' Declaration Of Intent in its slap-bass fueled approximation of William Gibson's visions of the future. This always makes me think of riding around with Snakes back in high school, bombing down the lonely corridors of Grantville and Mission Gorge at night.

119. Sinéad O'Connor - The Lion And The Cobra

(Ensign: 1987)

The spectacularly powerful debut, and the unacknowledged midpoint between Kate Bush and Neneh Cherry (by way of 4AD). A treasure trove of striking moments, ranging from the machine rhythms of Jerusalem and I Want Your (Hands On Me) (which seem to trace a jagged line between Control and Buffalo Stance) to the warrior charge of Mandinka (featuring the unmistakable guitar of one Marco Pirroni) and the indie rock drone of Just Call Me Joe (sounding like The Breeders a couple years early), the record's heart lies in majestic numbers like Jackie and the drama of Troy's towering suite, while the lush folk balladry of Just Like U Said It Would B and Drink Before The War swoop in deftly to conquer all. O'Connor wields her voice like a weapon throughout, and on The Lion And The Cobra she takes no prisoners.

118. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly

(Top Dawg: 2015)

After his stunning major label debut good kid, m.A.A.d city, Kendrick Lamar went on to top it soundly by improbably hooking up with jazzmen like Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner and Kamasi Washington, crafting a vital modern rap record in thrall to figures like The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron. There's a wealth of material here, from the staggering modal grandeur of How Much A Dollar Cost to King Kunta's nightclub stop and the free jazz interludes in between, while the bleak intensity of tracks like u and The Blacker The Berry are balanced by occasional moments of lighthearted euphoria like These Walls and i. The sonic breadth in evidence throughout is matched only by the vast array of subjects Lamar explores over the course of this often harrowing - if ultimately uplifting - record. Someday, someone will write a whole book about this record.

117. Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal

(Epic: 1988)

The kid from the Jackson 5 delivers yet another pop masterpiece, the claustrophobic machine shapes and soaring chorus of which mark it out as my absolute favorite moment from the man. The Extended Dance Mix stretches the tune's crashing groove to nearly eight minutes of sonic perfection, with Jackson vamping sublime over its protracted jam. I've often thought this tune was a kindred spirit with the contemporary techno output of Detroit's big three: when those gorgeous, soaring synths hit in the chorus - Jackson's vocals sliding effortly across the surface - you're cruising the same sprawling metropolis corridors essayed in Reese's Rock To The Beat, Rhythim Is Rhythim's It Is What It Is and Model 500's Off To Battle. File under futurism.

116. The Ragga Twins - Reggae Owes Me Money

(Shut Up And Dance: 1991)

Swashbuckling ragga ardkore produced by PJ and Smiley of Shut Up And Dance. Setting the tone for the nineties, this swings wildly from the breakbeat madness of Ragga Trip and Wipe The Needle to Illegal Gunshot's straight up dancehall moves and the awesome EWF-pillaging groove of The Killing. The instrumental 18" Speaker - a bassbin-shattering slab of dubbed-out ravefloor magic - spools wild bleeps across a shuffling breakbeat strapped with a bassline like an oil tanker. One of those records where everything comes together to form an unlikely masterpiece (in truth SUAD had quite a few of those under their belt), this is what raving is all about.

115. MC5 - Kick Out The Jams

(Elektra: 1969)

Legendary proto-punk Detroit heavy metal. Maybe the wildest live album ever recorded, and certainly my favorite. The title track and Come Together ride great churning riffs deep into the redline, while I Want You Right Now seems to split the difference between Wild Thing and 1983...(A Merman I Should Turn To Be) in a slow-motion come-on of epic proportions. The closing Starship borrows from Sun Ra in a wild freeform launch into the stratosphere, rounding out a chaotic masterpiece that manages to transcend its era and feel brazenly alive in the present.

114. Rodriguez - Cold Fact

(Sussex: 1970)

An urban troubadour rises from the streets of Detroit to cut a blistering folk LP. Rodriguez hits plain and direct throughout - rather than hiding behind layers of abstraction - as he chronicles his singular visions of the inner city. Each of these tunes progress with a wicked internal logic that slowly creeps toward their inevitable conclusion (like the baptism scene from The Godfather). I only recently learned that it was arranged and produced by disco/funk stalwarts Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey. Right on!

113. Stevie Wonder - Fulfillingness' First Finale

(Tamla: 1974)

The lushest, most laidback LP from Stevie Wonder in the seventies, an era when the man could do no wrong. After surviving a near fatal car accident the previous year, he seemed to enter the studio in an even more introspective mood than usual. Indeed, aside from the blistering electronic funk of You Haven't Done Nothin' - the last in his line of songs to take on our very own Parallax icon Richard Nixon - this is by far his most mellow album of the decade. Even more lavishly arranged than usual, it features appearances by figures like Minnie Riperton, Syreeta and The Jackson Five, lending their rich backing vocals throughout, while Tonto's Expanding Head Band coax the verdant shapes of their machines into a sumptuous bed of sound.

112. Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - New York New York

(Sugar Hill: 1983)

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, firing on all cylinders, dropped this 12" hot on the heels of their debut full-length and somehow managed to surpass everything on it. A crucial, forward-thinking elaboration on The Message, with a next-level reality rap flowing sharp and precise over skyscraper-crumbling beats and a searing, futuristic production, this anticipates and exemplifies basically everything I love about modern music.

111. Jungle - Jungle

(XL: 2014)

Jungle came out of nowhere a few years back with this absolutely blinding album, a sterling debut haunted by a dozen of their gloriously fractured dancefloor hymns. Sounding wholly alien and unlike anything else around, I like to imagine this intoxicating hall-of-mirrors post-disco trip would have sounded right at home pumping out the immaculate soundsystem at the Paradise Garage. These shimmering grooves shift and slide like liquid metal, melting into a sonic T-1000 reclining at the cutting edge of dance music and pop.

110. Edu Lobo - Cantiga De Longe

(Elenco: 1970)

The mesmerizing Edu Lobo's most intimate record finds him unveiling a thoroughly unique take on lush Brazilian samba. I always liked how Woebot would refer to him as "the Brazilian Bryan Ferry". Here you definitely get that same sense of sophisticated languor one finds in Roxy's more downbeat moments. The peerless Quarteto Novo, fresh from Miles Davis' Live/Evil sessions, provide sumptuous backing with their patented turn-on-a-dime rhythmic panache and nimble touch. Everything here is light as a feather, yet deep as the ocean.

109. Alice Coltrane with Strings - World Galaxy

(Impulse!: 1972)

Cinematic free jazz with its eyes locked firmly on India. Alice Coltrane takes her boundless vision into widescreen with a full string orchestra in tow for this record's five swirling rhapsodies. Her masterful reworking of late husband John Coltrane's A Love Supreme breaks into a leftfield beat that leaves you blinking in disbelief at the improbable perfection of it all, while the sprawling Galaxy In Satchidananda feels like the soundtrack to some metaphysical sword-and-sandal epic set on an alien planet orbiting a distant star.

108. Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

(Warner Bros.: 1968)

Wild-eyed Celtic folk troubadour cuts loose with a jazz combo, reaching his true potential as he unleashes a stone cold masterpiece imbued with gentle soul and a spiritual elegance all its own. The heart of the record lies in sprawling character studies like Cyprus Avenue and Madame George, where Morrison lingers on these sad characters longer than most would dare. Sweet Thing and the title track seem to magnify the sum total of human love until it threatens to eclipse all of its bitterness and hate, embracing the world in its weary arms. And really, what could be better than that?

107. Monoton - Monotonprodukt 07

(Monoton: 1982)

Dense NDW. This is a space music that sounds like something SETI picked up on a particularily long range scan, those churning alien sonics emanating from within the center of some distant black hole. Voices echo just on the outerrim of the soundscape as fractal synth sequences pulsate all around, literally absorbing everything within reach. It feels like a staircase spiralling off into oblivion as gravity's pull draws you ever deeper into the churning vortex below. Surreal and occasionally disturbing - like late-period David Lynch - and the true soundtrack to In The Mouth Of Madness.

106. Model 500 - Night Drive

(Metroplex: 1985)

Juan Atkins's second release on his own Metroplex imprint is characteristically ahead of its time with its ultra-modern stripped down production and racing computer blue sequences. A lone driver's tale unfolds, recounting a freaky trip through the nocturnal highways of Techno City and the mysterious passenger he encounters along the way. The flipside is a turbo-charged rework of No UFOs (the centerpiece of the first Model 500 record), which finds Atkins short-circuiting World War III by landing a spaceship in your backyard. A bold, angular line drawn through the middle of the 1980's... this is what Detroit Techno is all about.

105. Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance

(Blank: 1978)

Rising from the ashes of post-industrial Cleveland, Pere Ubu are without a doubt one of the great American bands (in fact, they're almost too good to be true), working up their own unique brand of post-Velvets racket long before punk - let alone post punk - even existed. In the past, I'd always gravitated toward their earliest sides (essayed on the Terminal Tower compilation) but over the last year or so the razor-sharp precision of The Modern Dance finally won me over once and for all. This is either the sound of perfection perverted, or perversion perfected... take your pick.

104. Tim Buckley - Happy Sad

(Elektra: 1969)

Dreamy, jazz-inflected folk from one of the early visionaries of the Laurel Canyon scene. Lazy reveries like Strange Feelin' and Dream Letter drift weightlessly beneath the setting sun, even as a curling undertow continues to build up deep within until the interminable jamming of Gypsy Woman threatens to pull all of its surroundings into orbit before collapsing into a swirling vortex of proto-Krautrock intensity. Sun-baked with an undercurrent of dread, this is the L.A. of Inherent Vice.

103. The Doors - Strange Days

(Elektra: 1967)

Monumental, unclassifiable moody psychedelic cabaret rock 'n roll from the days when giants roamed the lazy beaches of California. Jim Morrison comes on like a twisted beat-poet crooner (echoes of Eden Ahbez in full effect) while Ray Manzarek wields his keyboards as if they were synths. Meanwhile, John Desmore seems to draw his tricky rhythms from anywhere but rock and Robbie Kreiger's crystalline guitar style anticipates Carlos Santana. The whole effect is entirely unique, yet so easy to take for granted owing to the sheer magnitude of their historical impact. Utterly essential.

102. Terranova featuring Manuel Göttsching - Tokyo Tower

(All Good Vinyl: 1997)

German b-boys cut loose in widescreen with Krautrock legend on guitar. Basically a jazz record, Tokyo Tower is eight minutes of somber perfection, while the flipside's Clone is a slab of seriously bleak microtonal madness that drops you into the middle of The Parallax View without map or compass. Terranova's album from a couple years later was good, but this right here is magic. When this first dropped, it seemed to me like a record from another age... whether that age was twenty years in the past or twenty years in the future, I'm still not quite sure...

101. Sneaker Pimps - Splinter

(Clean Up: 1999)

Chris Corner steps out of the shadows to front his own group - sounding like some unholy blend of Scott Walker and Marc Almond - who wrap him up in the raw architecture of feedback and ragged downcast beats on the long road to ruin. The whole trip feels deeply unhealthy and self-destructive - making plenty of stops in some incredibly dark places along the way - yet somehow in its resolute, brave stance finds itself at a strangely uplifting conclusion, crawling through the basement to find redemption. If OK Computer were as good as everyone says, it would sound an awful lot like this.

NOTE:

To continue onward to the original Parallax 100, click here.

AG Memories: In The Heights

Posted on November 21, 2016 @ 7:20pm by Coqui

Picking up where we last left off, it was January of 2006. I found myself back in the Heights - living with my brother in a spot off El Cajon Blvd. - after a year spent living between Hillcrest and Balboa Park. The neighborhood was my kind of place, with a varied working class population crammed into a timeworn infrastructure that pre-dates the second world war. There was a public library a few blocks away and an excellent bar down the street called Shamrock's that played a selection of vintage rock (of the San Francisco variety) or block rocking hip hop and r&b, depending on the night.¹ As Lamont Dozier might say, I was going back to my roots.

A couple of synchronous events had occurred just before the move that colored the next year or so. For one, I discovered Woebot's blog by way of his epochal list of The 100 Greatest Records Ever (via a timely link from Blissblog), which - more than any list I've ever found - seemed to align with my own musical priorities.² It was uncanny! In truth, I'd only heard about half the records in the list, many of which were among my own favorites, and I'd heard of maybe another 30%; the rest represented a new frontier. It was clear that most of them would be right up my alley, and it was time to get hunting.

There were loads of cool revelations, like how often our favorite records by key artists overlapped: Kraftwerk's Computer World, Herbie Hancock's Sextant, The Velvet Underground's self-titled record, Neu! '75, Rhythim Is Rhythim's The Beginning and Captain Beefheart's Safe As Milk.³ His list also tuned me into the music of Scott Walker, Virgo, Edu Lobo, Brigitte Fontaine and Allen Toussaint, sounds that would come to mean the world to me. This isn't even taking into account the writing itself, which always came off witty and warm, coloring even his most esoteric excursions into the avant garde with a down-to-earth flavor. Without a doubt, discovering Woebot's scurrilous activities in sound remains one of the key moments in my musical life.

The other event that went down toward the end of my time at the 1808 was the near-simultaneous appearance of SA-RA and Hot Chip on the pop music landscape: two crews that were so very tailored to my tastes that it was almost comical. There's a piece I've been working up centered around their appearance (in light of the recent Hot Chip show), but for now suffice it to say came along at just the right time for where I was at in 2005.

Moodymann's recent Black Mahogani LP was fast overtaking Silentintroduction as my favorite record of his, and I'd been diving deeper into disco and garage than I'd ever been able to before. The output of labels like West End and Easy Street were in constant rotation, along with some other things that I'd been turned onto by one Kenny Dixon Jr.⁴ There were loads of greet electro-boogie records to be found for pennies (an ongoing obsession), things like Ray Parker Jr.'s Woman Out Of Control and One Way's Who's Foolin' Who.⁵ SA-RA dropping at this point only served to bring my various obsessions into focus.

Shamrock's had tuned me into a whole bunch of hip hop and r&b around this time, along with a number or choice rock selections. This the era when Comets On Fire dropped their masterstroke, Avatar, sending me into the past digging up a bunch of storied Head Heritage material like Pentagram, the first three Blue Öyster Cult LPs and early Grand Funk Railroad.⁶ Augmenting old favorites like the Groundhogs, MC5 and Blue Cheer (not to mention Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Van Halen, of which my brother was a huge fan), it provided the soundtrack to that summer.

Barney Hoskyns' Hotel California had just come out around this time, illuminating the context around the Laurel Canyon scene in L.A. (something I was a bit thin on). Nearly everything I already knew I'd found out by simply following the various lines of flight from The Byrds' orbit. Things like Gene Clark's solo records, The Flying Burrito Bros and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Which then connects to Buffalo Springfield and Neil Young/Crazy Horse, not to mention of the early solo albums by David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. That's how it works, this music thing, you go from node to node. Hotel California fleshed it all out, and provided the impetus to dig a little deeper.

All of which sets the stage for the second era of Radio AG, a period stretching from the dawn of 2006 to the close of 2007. I finally had a proper setup for my decks again (I'd had them laid out on the floor at the 1808). The mixes from 2006 were all coming to terms with the above tributaries, threading them into a matrix of groove-based music and taking the intended audience just a little deeper into the realm. There's that one mix where I played out the entirety of Halleluwah because it seemed like the right thing to do. The lions share of the year's mixes were from the summertime, and it shows. Lot's of high desert action, dry and dusty.

2007 was really the sea change. The winter mix was the first where I was really able to run wild with a consistent atmosphere, opening with Asmus Tietchens and closing with When The Levee Breaks. Everything had an glacial cast to it, from an unreleased Kelis tune to late-period Gentle Giant and early Simple Minds (a perennial favorite), it came on like an icy gust of wind. The next few mixes got deeper and deeper into beats, which is something I'd always meant to do. Drexciya, Scan 7 and Theo Parrish. The table was finally set.

At the end of the year, G.B. loaned me a stack of records with the stated mission to make a mix out of them. The result was Episode 012. It was a great experience, working with a bunch of records I'd never heard before (I was only familiar with something like five of them), and on the whole pleasantly disorienting (like one imagines deep sea diving to be). Especially eye-opening were the Sneakmove Minicomps and the records on Bully, which were great breakbeat-driven slabs of noise seemingly built atop live drums.⁷

The uniting thread throughout was a sort of post-rock, post-everything even, selection of sounds. There were beats that seemed to blur the lines between IDM and abstract hip hop, like the remix of Boom Bip by Boards Of Canada. There was James Figurine's cover of Other 99 (an old Big Audio Dynamite song that became the name of my original blog back in 2003) along with a G.B. original. It was a fascinating realm to spend some time in, resulting in the second true winter mix. Coming at the close of 2007, it's also the perfect way to close out the second chapter of the Radio AG saga.

And then, a long break...

1. Sadly, the place closed down about seven years ago, ultimately being replaced by a hookah lounge.

2. At the time, your typical list seemed to take in 90% classic rock with token soul, jazz, hip hop and - if you're really lucky - electronic entries.

3. Whereas the canonical picks at the time would have looked something like this: Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express, Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage or Head Hunters, The Velvet Underground & Nico, Neu!'s debut, Rhythim Is Rhythim - Nude Photo and Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica.

4. Take for instance his DEMF set (available on Groovetech), where he opened with Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson's We Almost Lost Detroit before running through Curtis Mayfield and William DeVaughn chestnuts, ultimately settling into a boogie groove with The Brides Of Funkenstein and André Cymone.

5. I'd been seeking out this one for ages. It turned up on the floor of some indie rock shop for 50 cents and was the only record I bought that day. Cutie Pie was one of my key jams circa '93 that for whatever reason was in heavy rotation along with The Isley Brothers' Between The Sheets and Kleeer's Tonight on Jammin' Z90. I'd taped them all off the radio, along with Ice Cube's It Was A Good Day, Duice's Dazzey Duks and The Geto Boys' Six Feet Deep, on what was the first tape I ever made.

6. I'd actually bought a couple of their later records way back in the day based on their name alone, and Snakes and I had sampled some material for some of our earlier beats (see G-Street, for one).

7. It makes perfect sense that they reissued the Silver Apples compilation, as that duo seem like the logical ancestor to their sound.

We Shall Overcome

Posted on October 25, 2016 @ 6:12pm by Coqui

This is part one (of two) in a series of loosely interconnected glimpses of the sonic revolution, where righteous protest and sonic exploration meet in time and space...

The resistance started in folk and the blues, stretching from songs like the 17th century Diggers' Song into the fourth decade of the 20th with Leadbelly's Jim Crow Blues, chronicling the ills of their day with a resolute spirit that vowed to one day reach the mountaintop. Some years later, Billie Holiday kicked the door open into the mainstream with Strange Fruit, unmasking the horrors of the Jim Crow south with stark clarity shone right in the media glare. We will no longer be ignored. This spirit coursed through the veins of jazz to come, with Max Roach's We Insist! symbolically ringing in that decade of change with a demand for Freedom Now.

The whole modern folk tradition - which reached critical mass in the early 1960s - seems to stem from this same impulse, summed up in the spirit of a song like We Shall Overcome. It enters the realm of rock 'n roll via Bob Dylan's early records, featuring songs like The Times They Are A Changin' and Blowin' In The Wind, which had a profound impact on the likes of The Beatles and The Byrds. San Francisco's acid rock seemed to split the difference between the two forms (via The Byrds' durable folk rock template and their Fifth Dimension ruminations on John Coltrane), particularly in the case of Jefferson Airplane, who lent songs like We Can Be Together, Mexico and Have You Seen The Saucers a razor sharp tone with a paramilitary edge.

The contemporaneous Wooden Ships, a gentle slice of sun-glazed folk psychedelia written by the Airplane's Paul Kantner in conjunction with David Crosby and Stephen Stills, places two adversaries from an unnamed war alone together on an uninhabited island and marvels at their slow acceptance of one another in a true meeting of the minds. The influence of this sort of West Coast folk psychedelia - blended with The Beatles - could be felt down south in Brazil's Tropicália movement and Argentina's psychedelic underground, and in both instances proved an aggravation to their countries' respective military dictatorships. In a climate of increased militarization and the pitched culture war of the times, Jefferson Airplane's Crown Of Creation seems to run the kaleidoscope of sixties idealism through an apocalyptic prism, offering a glimpse of seventies dread looming out there on the horizon.

This was the backdrop when Jimi Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock. Shimmering Hendrix-penned numbers like Castles Made Of Sand, Bold As Love and the phantasm of 1983...(A Merman I Should Turn To Be) seem to paint across the cosmos the image of a world at peace, while the fiery flipside of the man's legacy could be felt entering the crucible of Michigan's factory cities, with the proto-punk onslaught of Detroit's MC5, Ann Arbor's Stooges and the working-class rock 'n roll of Flint's Grand Funk Railroad raising the stakes and turning up the volume. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, a cold wind cut through Birmingham as Black Sabbath crawled from the darkness to chronicle a bleaker era of opposition with songs like War Pigs and Wicked World.

Now rewind for a moment to 1960s San Francisco, where Sly & The Family Stone made their glorious run of recordings that embody the spirit of righteous protest, records like A Whole New Thing (featuring the triumphant Underdog) and Stand!, which remains - along with their performance at Woodstock - some of the most life-affirming music you could ever hope to hear. The group exemplified the era's optimism and open-mindedness, with their integrated lineup and singular sound imbued with a driving funk soul spirit that touched on the rock 'n roll attitude of the contemporary San Francisco scene. But in truth, soul's tradition of visionary protest stretches back even further. Sam Cooke famously penned A Change Is Gonna Come in 1964 after hearing Bob Dylan's Blowin' In The Wind, while The Impressions took things even deeper with Curtis Mayfield-penned numbers like Keep On Pushing and People Get Ready. True to spirit, this was empowerment as much as protest - empowerment as protest, even.

James Brown had his own anthem of empowerment in Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud, which caught fire in 1968 and later kicked off a series of of records stretching deep into the seventies, including The Payback, Revolution Of The Mind, Hell and The J.B.'s Damn Right I Am Somebody (the latter two are potent ruminations on the Watergate era, shot through with a deep sense of seventies dread). Brown's righteous on-the-one funk of course had a profound effect on Fela Kuti, the storied revolutionary musician operating in Nigeria out of his Kalakuta Republic, who unleashed records like Roforofo Fight, Expensive Shit and Zombie that remain searing indictments of government corruption and brutality to this day.

Edwin Starr's War seemed to picked up where Sly Stone's driving rock soul workouts left off, with a rousing call to (dis)arm riding a peak-period Norman Whitfield production, while The Chambers Brothers' The Time Has Come offered one of the great signposts of the era with its title track ¹ - a signpost of rock-inflected soul in a Sly & The Family Stone stylee. All of this was taken to its logical conclusion with the wild seventies excursions of George Clinton's Parliament/Funkadelic empire, with records like America Eats It Young and Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow sprawling out into a singular acid-fried vision of seventies unrest.

At the dawn of that decade, this impulse went into soul supernova, with Curtis Mayfield's eponymous solo debut - featuring the triumphant Move On Up - and the subsequent Curtis/Live!, its extended reflections on the troubles of the world matched by Mayfield's graceful determination. Something special happens when songs like We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue, We're A Winner and I Plan To Stay A Believer mix with his gentle between-song banter, and you can glimpse a beautiful future in the record's grooves. It's the sound of hope in the face of hard times, digging deep to Keep On Keeping On and trying to somehow make the world a better place.

Marvin Gaye picked up the baton with What's Going On, a glorious song cycle that captured the mood of the day in elegiac style, opening the door at Motown for Stevie Wonder's stunning sequence of seventies records. Check out Innervisions, with the rough and tumble stomp of Living For The City - capturing a gritty slice of urban life in its tough seven minutes - and the gorgeously plaintive Visions, a song that dares to envision a world in which hate's a dream and love forever stands. Former Temptation Eddie Kendricks continued this thread with the hypnotic chant My People... Hold On, a resolute march to empowerment, while back in Chicago, Syl Johnson hit hard in 1970 with Is It Because I'm Black. Featuring the melancholic strains of title track and the majestic grandeur of Concrete Reservation and I'm Talkin' Bout Freedom, it was a record that bubbled deep underground before gradually picking up its richly deserved recognition as a stone cold classic.

Just as everyone seemed to have caught up with where he was going, it seemed that Sly Stone's relentless positivity had curdled into a mystified haze at the turn of the decade.² He took a left turn into the downbeat with There's A Riot Goin' On, a weary entrance into the seventies - especially after the previous year's wild funk 7" Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) - that seemed to signal a sea change in the tenor of the times. From the weary Philly soul of The O'Jays' marathon epic Ship Ahoy (which lasts the better part of ten minutes) to Eugene McDaniels' staggering Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse,³ there were a great many complex soul records that grappled with the demons of the day in unflinching detail.

This was the context from which the bubbling of the sharp, gritty poetry of The Last Poets' debut record - along with ex-member Gylan Kain's scorching The Blue Guerrilla - sprung, both pervaded with a fire-stoked revolutionary fervor informed by the harsh realities of life in the shadow of COINTELPRO. Similarly, Nikki Giovanni's The Truth Is On Its Way - with Ego Tripping's shades of female empowerment - was a sharp-tongued verbal strike in step with the times. Gil Scott-Heron, with partner in crime Brian Jackson, had the longest - and arguably most fruitful - run, unleashing a breathtaking series of records - including Winter In America and Pieces Of A Man (featuring the incendiary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) - throughout the seventies. Theirs was a music - along with The Last Poets, Kain and Giovanni - drenched in soul and low-slung funk, but more than anything was shot through with the spectre of jazz.

Jazz, that enduring edifice, was of course still going strong. John Coltrane had already chronicled transcendence and laid the blueprint for astral jazz, which was later elaborated on by his wife Alice Coltrane and former sideman Pharoah Sanders in expansive indo jazz excursions like World Galaxy and Black Unity, respectively. All of this ran parallel to Sun Ra's empire building (in fact, Pharoah Sanders had played with Ra even before hooking up with Coltrane's quintet), his independent Saturn Research label and mind-expanding records like The Heliocentric Worlds Of Sun Ra and Space Is The Place (the birth of an enduring sentiment that stretched into the nineties and beyond). Figures like Ornette Coleman (with his symphonic Skies Of America record), Don Cherry (responsible for the intriguingly amorphous Organic Music Society) and Marion Brown (whose Vista LP featured a cover version of not only Harold Budd's Bismillahi 'Rrahman 'Rrahim, but also Stevie Wonder's Visions) continued chronicling the spirit of the times even as they voyaged deeper into innerspace.

Similarly, Carlos Santana's continual focus on transcendence had resulted in a series of lush jazz-tinged records spanning the decade (he even collaborated with John McLaughlin and Alice Coltrane), bridging the gap between Woodstock and Montreux in the process. Herbie Hancock cut a similar path through the seventies, with his band adopting Swahili names in the wake of their thrust into cosmic jazz with records like Mwandishi, Crossings and Sextant. Around this time, he also provided the score to the film The Spook Who Sat By The Door, with its revolutionary theme echoing shades of his earlier material like The Prisoner (and prefiguring the direction of his funky Headhunters-era material). Hancock's lush jazz mosaics of the Mwandishi period delved deep into abstraction, engaging with the mind's eye as much as any literal interpretation or meaning. The music seemed to be charting other worlds, mapping their terrain, and opening up the possibilities that they offered.

This spirit found embodiment in Krautrock. A record like Can's Future Days is immersed in the oceanic depths of Inner Space (incidentally, also the name of their studio), while Neu!'s motorik pulse seems eternal - locked onto the infinite horizon. Neu! '75 even predicts the second half of the decade in the proto-punk onslaught of Hero and After Eight. Similarly, Faust's ragged spliced-tape adventures seemed to preempt the experimentation of post punk even as they revelled in a sing it all together now communal spirit, while Amon Düül II sprung from an honest-to-goodness commune. Over in France, Heldon's electronic assaults were informed by a militant spirit (indeed, Richard Pinhas was at the barricades in Paris during the student uprising of 1968) that pervaded atmospheric records like Électronique Guerrilla and Agneta Nilsson. All of this is heavy textural music that transcends literal statement to commune directly with the mind's eye, weaving the fabric of space and time into a stirring sonic tapestry.

Across the Atlantic, the reggae sounds of Jamaica were steeped in a similar expansiveness, most famously in the music of Bob Marley And The Wailers - and later in Peter Tosh's stalwart militant anthems and the spiritual sustenance of Bunny Wailer's recordings - but reaching a sublime peak in Burning Spear's self-titled debut and Junior Byles' immaculate Beat Down Babylon. Songs like Creation Rebel and Beat Down Babylon embody a spirit of perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds, offering visions of a better world in opposition to the surrounding harsh reality.

This path stretches deeper and deeper into the realm of atmosphere as the decade advances. One need look no further than the saga of Declaration Of Rights, a story stretching from The Abyssinians' steadfast original to the depth charging bass of Johnny Clarke's cover version (produced by Bunny Lee and mixed by King Tubby), culminating in the cavernous dub shadows of King Tubby's Declaration Of Dub version. This is music that you feel in your chest when it takes hold. Figures like Tubby and Lee "Scratch" Perry tore up the very fabric of sound in search of new potentials, spooling them out into three dimensions. It's no surprise that King Tubby's studio and Perry's Black Ark often invite comparisons to sonic laboratories or starships.

A record like Dadawah's sprawling Peace And Love used the techniques of dub to create a heady psychedelic trip steeped in Rastafari, spread across four extended grooves, while Fred Locks's roots-informed Black Star Liner (a reference to Marcus Garvey's historic Black Star Line) reveled in dense imagery, with the dread vibes of Walls evoking the plight of the concrete jungle. On a similar tip, Prince Far I's Heavy Manners chronicled life under marshal law in the run up to Jamaica's national elections. This is a list that could go on and on, from Max Romeo's War Ina Babylon to The Mighty Diamonds' Right Time, all of it contributing to a rich legacy of righteous protest and sonic exploration.

It's a legacy that sets up the next leg of our journey: at the cusp of 1977, that year when two sevens would clash, and everything would change...

¹ The Time Has Come also includes a moving cover version of People Get Ready.

² If you miss Sly's positivity, you could do worse than check out The Jimmy Castor Bunch, who cut a rollicking path through the decade with records like It's Just Begun and Phase Two.

³ McDaniels, who was already on the CIA's watch list due to his militant stance on his previous record (Outlaw), was dropped from Atlantic after Spiro Agnew called the label to withdraw the album.

Winter In America

Posted on October 17, 2016 @ 9:54pm by Coqui

Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson running down the truth in 1970s America.

Fall Inna Bassbin

Posted on September 3, 2016 @ 2:25pm by Coqui

During what's turned out to be an exceptionally busy week, I've been vibing out practically non-stop to Woebot's latest mix: Bands a make her dance. The mix's general brief is rapping with instruments inna live band stylee - stretching back through time all the way to the fifties - and it's an absolute burner, packed with incredible music spanning from old school hip hop to killer deejay reggae cuts and beyond: into the nexus of street verse and rough cut funk. Put simply, this is Rap Attack music. Truth be told, it's something of a sweet spot for me, so I couldn't help but dive in with a little off-the-dome commentary... please forgive me.

The mix kicks off with Tone And Poke's lavish production for Jay-Z in 2001's Jigga, from that period when hip hop was routinely interfacing with the machine funk blueprint laid out by Timbaland and The Neptunes. Consequently, the next two tracks are N*E*R*D's man-machine hybrid Lapdance and Timbaland & Magoo's Up Jumps Da' Boogie, featuring Tim's typically lush take on machine soul (with the signature touch of Jimmy Douglass at the controls in fine style).

You could trace a line through material like Supa Dupa Fly and the early Kelis records back into much of the prime late-period swingbeat: things like Tony! Toni! Toné!'s awesome Sons Of Soul record - featuring Raphael Saadiq's fluid basslines and rolling live breakbeats knocked out by Tim Riley - naturally, but also the rugged flexing grooves of Jodeci's sophomore album Diary Of A Mad Band. Indeed, this is where Timbaland's crew Da Bassment hooked up in the first place, with DeVante Swing and Mr. Dalvin linking up with figures like Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott (still with Sista at this point), Jimmy Douglass and Tim himself, who would all go on to map out the future of r&b through the balance of the decade.

Subsequently, this is the context from which all the great Soulquarian material sprung up: records like Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun and D'Angelo's Voodoo, functioning at the nexus of programmed rhythm and live-played instrumentation. These records didn't appear in a vacuum! In many ways they were an extension of and reaction to the crisp, modern blueprint laid out by producers like Timbaland, even as they sometimes pushed against it and dug deeper into the progressive soul roots of the seventies and beyond.

Questlove - key figure and strange attractor in this terrain that he is - was deeply involved in both records, pulling together personnel, offering historical perspective and of course laying down his trademark offhand rhythms at Electric Lady Studios. Indeed The Roots' Things Fall Apart - another peak-era Soulquarian production - is represented in this mix with the next track, Double Trouble, featuring Black Thought and Mos Def trading verses as they run through the classic Wild Style routine.

Appropriately, that other storied hip hop band, the inimitable Stetsasonic make an appearance next with Pen And Paper (from their classic sophomore set, In Full Gear). I've always loved the sort of shambolic, loose-limbed interface between machine music and live funk that Stet traded in. A lot of L.A. records switch into a similar mode from time to time, like The D.O.C.'s The Grande Finalé (one of the great posse cuts, an N.W.A. track in all but name) and The Pharcyde's Labcabincalifornia (with live drumming from Jay Dee on All Live).

Beat Bop - the mix's next selection and another Woebot fave - must be the ur-text for this whole sound. The sinewy live instrumentation gets filtered through a futuristic beat matrix, courtesy of Jean-Michel Basquiat's forward-thinking production, over which Rammelzee and K-Rob trade verses in what I've often described as a hip hop update of Sly & The Family Stone's Africa/Talks To You/The Asphalt Jungle. It's about as next-level as hip hop got in the early eighties, which is no small feat.

Woe sets the scene within an old school context, drawing deep from the pool of Sugar Hill Records, with selections like The Furious Five's Step Off (Remix), Funky 4 + 1's That's The Joint and Trouble Funk's aptly titled Drop The Bomb. All three of which feature MCs doing their thing over live band backing, and right there at the center of rap's evolution (providing further evidence in favor of Woe's central thesis). The D.C. Go-Go of Trouble Funk sits righteously in this context, and tangentially brings to mind one of my absolute favorite records from the scene, The Word/Sardines by The Junkyard Band, with its mad squelching bass and pile-driving breakbeats.

Further old school adventures continue with the improbably early smooth perfection of The Younger Generation's We Rap More Mellow, appearing at the tail end of the seventies as one of the first rap records to hit the shops. There's also the pre-electronic Afrika Bambaataa hip hop tile Zulu Nation Throwdown, featuring raps from the Cosmic Force dancing over a loose-limbed funk jam kicked up by the Harlem Underground band. More honest-to-goodness funk, this time from The Fatback Band (who were twelve albums deep into their career as a hard funk unit by this point), appears later in the mix with King Tim III (Personality Jock), which (depending on who you ask) is often considered thee very first hip hop recording to appear on wax.

These early rap works bring to mind another one of my favorites records from the era, Spoonie Gee's Spoonin' Rap, which almost sounds as if it could have been a stripped down backing track from the Remain In Light/My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts sessions. Similarly far-reaching and futuristic - and featured next in the mix - is The Treacherous Three's The Body Rock, offering up an evocative atmosphere in which a grinding synthetic bassline snakes through a circular guitar figure held down by Pumpkin's relaxed drum breaks, while Special K, L.A. Sunshine and Kool Moe Dee trade verses through carefully arranged reverb effects.

Everything here remarkably in sync with a lot of the era's post punk music: think The Magnificent Seven by The Clash, the Talking Heads's Once In A Lifetime and ESG's Moody.¹ Many such figures were seduced by the burgeoning hip hop culture of the day, from Factory Records' whole dalliance with the East Coast ² to Chris Stein's (of new wave group Blondie) involvement with the backing tracks for the Wild Style soundtrack and The Clash bringing Futura 2000 on tour with them (while also backing him on the Celluloid rap 12" The Escapades Of Futura 2000).

Then there's the matter of Tackhead/Fat's Comet, featuring Doug Wimbish ³, Skip McDonald and Keith LeBlanc of the Sugar Hill backing band. After leaving Sugar Hill, the group started out as East Coast post punk experimentalists, operating their own World Records imprint before running through Adrian Sherwood's cold dub machinery and backing Mark Stewart as the Maffia. Sherwood's On-U Sound label a crucial conduit of leftfield dub recordings throughout the decade, stretching back into late seventies with material like Creation Rebel's early output and the Cry Tuff Dub Encounter series (which - spiritually, at least - seemed to pick up where Joe Gibbs' Africa Dub All-Mighty string of records left off).

Incidentally, the mix takes a left turn into reggae territory with a trio of discomix cover versions from the decade's turn masterminded by Gibbs, Xanadu & Sweet Lady's Rockers Choice (based on Rapper's Delight), Derrick Laro & Trinity's Don't Stop Till You Get Enough and Ruddy Thomas & Welton Irie's Shake Your Body Down To The Ground (the latter two Jacksons covers). Down mix a piece, Woe even gives the original MC music a look in with Big Youth's 1976 deejay cut Jim Squeachy and the impossibly early (1972) Festival Wise by U-Roy.

In between the Gibbs cuts and Big Youth, you get a pair of key jazz poetry cuts from Gil Scott-Heron (The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) and The Last Poets (Related To What). Both artists retroactively recognized as forefathers of rap music, The Last Poets even washing up with an eighties record on Celluloid. There was even a record from Last Poet Lightnin' Rod with backing from Jimi Hendrix that also came out on Celluloid around the same time. Hendrix himself touching on rap with Crosstown Traffic... perhaps the first rap-rock song ever? Well, certainly the best.

Lightnin' Rod's Sport comes in next, taken from his excellent Hustlers Convention LP and featuring Kool & The Gang providing a nimble funk backing (and a clear precursor to all the old school live hip hop records discussed above). The godfather of funk himself slips into the mix with Black President, another foundational piece of music in hip hop, not only by virtue of its breakbeats - adorning as they do scores of rap 12"s - but also James Brown's ad-libbed vocal asides, dropped into the beat matrix with a rhythmic precision.

From there, we move into the final stretch of the mix with Pigmeat Markham's Here Comes The Judge (as mentioned in David Toop's Rap Attack ⁴) from 1968. Interestingly enough, this record seems to be the basis for the Lee "Scratch" Perry-produced deejay record Public Jestering, fronted by Judge Winchester! And finally, Bo Diddley closes out the set with his epochal self-titled number, bringing it all back to the square root of the blues.

Which drops us into the recent climate round these parts. Post punk, hip hop and the blues. Machine soul is that final ingredient - in its triad forms of techno, house and r&b - of what you might call my kind of music. In fact, this is exactly the sort of thing I meant to broach last winter but for the encroachment of myriad real world commitments (what a drag). Yet with the late summer sun looming deep red on the horizon, it just might be the right time to go deep with it for real. At any rate, it's gonna be a wonderful fall.

1. Note that all three cuts were staples at Larry Levan's Paradise Garage.

2. Starting with A Certain Ratio recording their debut full-length To Each... at E.A.R.S. in New Jersey and continuing with New Order's work with Arthur Baker, John Robie and Jellybean Benitez (also at E.A.R.S.) on 1983's Confusion, with Factory even putting out an ESG record at one point in the interim. In a strange twist, New Order once played a tumultuous set at the Paradise Garage in 1983.

3. Wimbish was also later a member of Mos Def's band Black Jack Johnson.

4. David Toop, Rap Attack #3 (Serpent's Tail, 2000), 40.

Two Steps From The Blues

Posted on August 22, 2016 @ 8:36pm by Coqui

A selection of murky blues and dirty beats mixed by DJ Slye.

I recently came across this riotous, blazing mix by Woebot that he terms this grungey, mutated R'n'B-derived sound. In a weird bit of synchronicity I've been crossing a similar terrain lately. In truth, it's a place where I dwell much of the time.

I've recently been ruminating on this intersection between post punk, trip hop and the blues that's sort of tangentially related to some of the shapes he throws in this mix. This is partially down to working my way through A Cracked Jewel Case - long stretches of which run parallel to my own fascinations and obsessions in sound - but also it's a very definite strand of sound that's pretty central to my own musical make up.

In fact, I've long had a loose selection of tracks rolling around that all occupy a similar space in my mind and thought, Why not throw them all together in a mix and see what happens? The end result is a bit of a low slung, moody affair... but then I wouldn't have it any other way.

Skip James Cypress Grove Blues (Yazoo)

We start out deep down in the Mississippi Delta, way back in 1931, with Skip James and some of the mightiest blues ever laid down. This is an ancient, desolate sound: loneliness captured on wax. There's this haunting character to James' vocals - his playing too - that really puts you in the room with him.

Goodie Mob Cell Therapy (featuring Brandon "Shug" Bennett) (LaFace)

Fast-forward 64 years and Dirty South enters the popular consciousness. This paranoid crawl through shadowy imagery of black helicopters, looming fences and the security state features state of the art production from Organized Noise, yet there's an unmistakable grit here that ties everything back to the Delta.

Drugs Brain On Drugs (Kraked)

Psychedelic soul from the turn of the century. Various players from the contemporary touring lineup of Parliament/Funkadelic get down in the studio with this strange slab of hallucinatory sprawl. In many ways, this is like the midpoint between SA-RA and Moodymann. There was even an excellent deep house remix of this tune on a 12" by French duo Château Flight.

Mark Stewart + Maffia Survival (Mute)

The massive geometric rhythm here has always reminded me of the desolate, wide-open spaces of certain old electric blues records. I think the Maffia certainly do have a bit of the blues in them - filtered through an angular, cyberpunk shaped prism, but there nonetheless - and their early recordings as the Sugar Hill house band bear this out. See also No Wave and Cabaret Voltaire.

Martina Topley-Bird Too Tough To Die (Independiente)

Taken from her solo debut after parting ways with Tricky. Quixotic is of a piece with Tricky Kid's earlier records - thoroughly imbued as they were with Martina's indelible presence - and this track in particular makes the strong blues nature of her microphone presence explicit. Ensconced within the grinding rhythms of this gnarled bit of modern blues, she seems as comfortable in the form as a Bessie Smith or Billie Holiday.

Dr. John Black Widow Spider (ATCO)

Martina's voodoo-steeped soul segues into the New Orleans swamp-blues of Dr. John, from sophomore album Babylon. In his autobiography, Under A Hoodoo Moon, Dr. John states, "We were trying to get into something... with visions of the end of the world — as if Hieronymus Bosch had cut an album."

Tricky 6 Minutes (Island)

The first half of Angels With Dirty Faces is among the densest, most atmospheric music in Tricky's oeuvre, rivalling even the Nearly God record and his collaboration with the Gravediggaz on The Hell E.P.. Much of the best trip hop is suffused with the spectre of the blues, and this rolling monster of a track - with that nagging looped guitar figure - is positively drenched in it.

Howlin' Wolf Who's Been Talkin' (Chess)

This is likely my favorite blues song bar none, taken from my most treasured blues LP of all time by my absolute favorite bluesman. That endless, tumbling rhythm seems to predict machine music in its precise repetition, while its stark shapes and spooked-out mood prefigure both post punk and trip hop's modus operandi, respectively. As usual, Wolf himself tears through it all like a man possessed.

Terranova Sweet Bitter Love (featuring Cath Coffey) (Copasetik)

The geometric rhythms in evidence here throw similar shadows, only now as if seen through a blurred lense. Sweet Bitter Love, taken from Terranova's first album, is of a piece with their earlier Tokyo Tower record. The title track and its b-side Clone seemed to encompass jazz, blues and Krautrock in one stroke while remaining trip hop through and through. Here, the sumptuous blues tone of Cath Coffey's voice inhabits the bleak soundscape with a gravity all her own.

Gil Scott-Heron Me And The Devil (XL)

This is the lead single from Gil Scott-Heron's final record, and it hits you in the chest straight out the gate with it's apocalyptic tone and cinematic force. The deep, smooth croon of his seventies records has grown into the rough and ragged voice of a man who's seen one thing too many - this is 21st century blues.

Dark Comedy In My Home (Poussez!)

The second Dark Comedy record, from 2005, just might be my favorite thing Kenny Larkin has ever done. This is deep and moody electronic blues from Detroit, a primal swamp of a record with more than a dose a black humor to it... made all the more unsettling in its juxtaposition with dead-serious subject matter on the flipside. In My Home recounts an episode around the time of his Metaphor LP - ten years earlier - when he was shot in his home during an attempted robbery.

Ray Charles It's All Right (Atlantic)

The original soul man's second album, and a true masterpiece of piano-laced rhythm & blues. This one's of a piece with the Howlin' Wolf selection above as some of my favorite blues music ever, with Charles here in the process of shaping it into what would soon become soul music. The Raelets' exquisite backing vocals haunt this track, the dense atmosphere of which evokes the same sense of dread one might expect in a killer trip hop cut some 35 years later.

Tom Waits Clap Hands (Island)

L.A.'s odd man out, this is the second in Waits' trilogy of avant garde eighties records. This tune always stayed with me, its spooked chords unfold over rolling percussion that sounds as if it were played out on hollow bones, the man's raspy croon smack in the middle as he unfurls another one of his dead end backstreet tales. They all went to heaven in a little row boat, that line always gets me. Pure dread.

Bobby Bland I'll Take Care Of You (Duke)

More spectral blues-bathed soul. A key record in that continuum, and a stone cold classic. This is another one of those tunes, where the atmosphere just swirls around you - encircling your entire field of vision - as Bland's piercing vocal climbs through its murky slow-motion organ runs. Later covered by Gil-Scott Heron in fine style on I'm New Here, the same record that houses Me And The Devil.

Otis Rush My Love Will Never Die (Take Unknown) (Varèse Sarabande)

Electric blues shot through with that same steely cold sense of mystery you'll find in Who's Been Talkin' and I'll Take Care Of You (indeed much of the downbeat blues music from this era is cloaked in it). Otis Rush is a giant vocal presence, his guitar figures hang there in suspended animation like glyphs on a brick wall. I'm always half expecting this song to show up in some Tarantino film.

Aretha Franklin The Thrill Is Gone (From Yesterday's Kiss) (Atlantic)

Smoldering southern soul from the great Aretha Franklin. The swelling Hammond that shades into her piano's wraithlike progression, paired with backing vocals from The Sweet Inspirations - steeped in that same haunting flavor that the Raelets lent so effortlessly - provide the perfect environment for Franklin's deep soul stylings. This has long been one of my key downbeat soul numbers. Indeed, in my mind this forms a loose tetralogy with Who's Been Talkin', It's All Right and I'll Take Care Of You, songs whose spectral ambience inform whole swathes of my taste in music.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience Voodoo Chile (Reprise)

Supercharged rock-hard blues from Master Hendrix. From that first sustained note, bending into the heavy silence, this just builds and builds like a great flaming galleon adrift in slow motion across the night sky. Steve Winwood does serious damage here with his smoldering Hammond runs (glowing like embers in the darkness) as Hendrix's blazing guitar figures arc across the soundscape. The night I was born I swear the moon turned a fire red. Very likely indeed.

Jelly Roll Morton Winin' Boy Blues No. 2 (Rounder)

Back in the early days of Napster, a good friend of mine offered to download a couple tunes for me (I didn't yet have access to that sort of thing at the time). My two requests were Tainted Love and anything by Jelly Roll Morton. This is the tune that he turned up, and it stuck with me for years until I eventually tracked it down on volume four of this Library Of Congress set. To this day, it still knocks me out like it did the first time I heard it. That whimsical melody and Morton's rich croon - it's just perfection.

Mixed By: DJ Slye

Inspirations: Tricky, In The Studio With The Special AKA, Woebot's I've Got Blisters On My Fingers! mix, A Cracked Jewel Case by Kevin Pearce, Trip Hop - The Blues Of Our Time

One Year In The Jungle

Posted on July 15, 2015 @ 10:29pm by Coqui

The Jungle record came out a year ago today. It's crept up on me in a big way over the course of that year. At first I almost heard past it - pleasant enough, I suppose - but as much as I casually dug the record, I hadn't yet totally succumbed to it's brilliance. Then Sari took me to see them live at The Belly Up last September. In the context of the live show, every corner of that venue teeming with such deeply atmospheric dance music, I was totally drawn into their trip; finally everything made sense. You could feel all manner of young people having their first rave experience to this music, eyes closed, hands in the air and dancing with wild abandon. Immersed in the vibe. It lives on even now?

I know that in my case it all took me back to a youth spent dancing in nightclubs and out in the desert to whatever strains of house and techno I could find in San Diego at the time. Cruising the city streets between work and school and the lab, bumping Stacey Pullen and making beats whenever I had the chance. Lot's of time spent digging in the trenches with my head in the clouds. Downcast but not out. The wild shapes and sonics of that music's synthesized pulse kept a young brother's head up and feet moving forward. And forward. Fast-forward to the present. Now here was a live group on stage conjuring that same atmosphere, sidestepping any familiar rock concert forms to approximate the sound of the deepest of grooves coming off a hot 12" in the club - reworked from scratch backwards in widescreen and bang up to date.

The record itself is fantastic. I was baffled by the veil of silence that seemed to cloak this album in the music press. Any coverage the group did happen to garner seemed to focus on the most superficial aspects of their profile. Much has been made of the crew's mysterious nature, for example, but growing up as I did on crews like Drexciya and UR (operating in the shadows at all times), in Jungle's case it just seemed to be some cats who wanted to let the music speak for itself. And speak for itself it certainly does. Yet when all of the 2014 end-of-year polls rolled around, I couldn't find it even mentioned in a single list that I checked! What gives?

This was without a doubt my favorite album of the year, and one of a handful of occurrences that made me want to return to writing about music. I planned to fire this site up in late October just to talk about the record, but various real world concerns pushed that plan up until January. Then, as the year wore on and I got back in groove of writing once again, it just never seemed to be the right time. I caught them live again a few weeks ago, and realized just the other day that it had been a year since Jungle first dropped... so what better time than now?

Jungle quietly inhabits a place all its own on the sonic spectrum, seemingly formed from a single slab of onyx and then submerged in quicksilver. The songs within seem constructed from pure atmosphere rather than any formal structure or notation. You want to reach out and grasp at its amorphous surfaces even as they seem to slip and slide just out of reach. Its beats threaten to crumble to the touch, often seeming to stagger sideways even as they commence to propel the grooves ever forward. The soundscape seems a blur, smeared against distant lights on the horizon, until you squint to notice the intricate details found within. Worlds within worlds, a dream within a dream.

In a sense, its methodology reminds me of Dâm-Funk's Toeachizown in the way they both seems to spool out widescreen sonic vistas sourced in some half-remembered dream. Drawing both on years of his own g-funk sorcery and the atmospheric boogie of his youth (things like Mtume's Juicy Fruit and Kleeer's Tonight), Dâm-Funk wove moods and grooves from the deepest recesses of machine funk and stretched them across five LPs - a sprawling canvas of two hours and twenty minutes - to create a monument to these dreamtime soundscapes, previously essayed only in fleeting glimpses on b-sides and the odd album cut, resulting in a stone cold slab of perfection.

Jungle's sound itself is different, and the record's length far shorter, but it seems to spring from the same drive to build a world of its own from some dream half-remembered. The experience of listening to this record is like nothing so much as that moment when you absorb your surroundings for the first time in a strange new city: it seems wholly distinct and yet there's nearly always something that will make you say deja vu. A cul de sac or stretch of road, a building or bit of hillside that almost feels like some mirror image of home. This record embodies that feeling, coming on like some solarized vision of the world you've known.

On one hand, its tempting to compare Jungle to groups like Hot Chip and The Junior Boys - and maybe that's not a bad thumbnail on the face of it - but those groups always seemed to be coming at dance music from an indie mindset, much like Scritti Politti or Orange Juice did in their day. Neither does Jungle's music truly sound like any of those groups. You'll also often hear allusions to neo soul when describing the group's sound, but that's a red herring as well. This music is soulful, no doubt, but its sound seems to spring from somewhere else entirely. Like Escort and The Sunburst Band, this is post-disco dance music through and through. The only trouble is, Jungle don't really sound like those groups either.

What the record immediately made me flash on were the spaciest passages of the Metro Area LP, especially its lush second side (Soft Hoop and Caught Up, in particular). Those tactile, spongy basslines, the sense of longing stitched between the glistening lines, and that same overwhelming sense of four-dimensional ATMOSPHERE. Loping grooves half-lit in neon, a lone streetlamp and the moonlight. Jungle operate in a similar dubbed out terrain, even as they extrapolate it out into a cinematic scope that makes the most sense in big rooms or under the open night sky. It's perfect that this came out on an imprint like XL, with its well-documented roots in rave culture.

The other comparison that I would make, appropriately enough, is Chicago's Jungle Wonz. A collaboration between Marshall Jefferson and Harry Dennis (also of The It), Jungle Wonz dealt in ambient house before the phrase had even been coined. Records like The Jungle, Time Marches On and Bird In A Gilded Cage fused three-dimensional bass pulses, lush cascading synthesizers, environmental sounds and dreamlike vocals to establish a mood of endless longing. Where Harry Dennis was a street poet, expressing his ideas in spoken word, Jungle trade in fragile falsetto (I'm occasionally reminded of the Fine Young Cannibals' Roland Gift).

Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man OST, a recurring Parallax favorite, is the third and final comparison I could make. That may seem to contradict my earlier dismissal of the neo soul tag, but bear with me. What I hear in Jungle is a similarity in atmosphere to instrumentals like "T" Plays It Cool and "T" Stands For Trouble; an atmosphere that threatens to overwhelm the songs themselves even as it's kept in check by beats and synthesizers tapping out a steady pulse. Chords press on in the face of a hard life, the odds stacked against at all times. One is reminded of Bobby Bland's immortal words: Ain't no love when you're living in the city.

Album opener The Heat, with environmental sounds of the street bleeding into the mix, illustrates this point perfectly. Right on time, backed by the beach... still gon' bring the heat. An organ runs resolute beneath the beat, pressing forward as a falsetto intones pure longing. Distant sirens run throughout. Something strummed, not an instrument but pure atmosphere strummed from some combination of sources. Or formed, perhaps, from the depths of some machine? Conjured from thin air, even. That amorphous sense of sound permeates the whole of this record, cloaking its every corner in a veil of illusion.

The pacing throughout is perfect. Absolutely perfect! Accelerate comes on like some downcast permutation of The Heat. Can I get the car to jump start, please?, intoned in desperation. Everything just seemed to happen at once. Sentiments that I've understood well, and I suspect you have too. I just can't push on any further, won't you cut me a break just this once? Sari told me that it always makes her think of me. That woman knows me too well!

Those guitars that creep in during the tune's second half seem to recall the mood of Roxy Music's Avalon, only heard from within a dream. The masterful Crumbler seems to channel that same vibe through the prism of Love Inc.'s Life's A Gas - shot through with that same sense of ambient bliss - even as those great churning synth figures rev like an engine beneath the whole thing, rushing and overflowing before sinking into the ether again.

This record is above all a mood piece, but there's a couple relentless club burners hiding in its depths. Julia builds up from skeletal verses into the all-out assault of its chorus, tension ever escalating. Busy Earnin', which seems to be the biggest single so far, for some reason always makes me think of the opening sequence in Rocky II, in which Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed are rushed to the hospital after the big fight. Its sentiments do seem to capture the prevailing mood of today. Feeling like nothing so much climbing out from some abyss, every beat - every step - taking you closer to the surface, those horns (not horns) climax in a fury.

Platoon follows, once again illustrating the absolutely perfect sense of flow and pacing in this record. A downcast mirror image of Busy Earnin', it pushes forward on a low key Reese bassline and some siren song that could be vocal or synthetic in origin... or perhaps something else entirely. The driving pulse of its buildup ever unfurling into gentle pools of texture before eddying into another glimpse of the divine. That's the secret of this record: even as it reaches for the epic, it manages to never come off as forced or bombastic, everything remains undercut by a sense of longing. Dread even. Each step may take you closer to where you're going but then the destination seems to be moving too.

There's this whole other aspect to this record that seems to key into that same headspace that much of the greatest trip hop did. Drops' crawling beat staggers along, barely keeping together. Textures unfurl gently, the creaking of a door somehow worked into the rhythm. Barely keeping on. Indeed, as the record staggers toward its denouement, this spirit really does seem to tip over into dread. Son Of A Gun seems to struggle to press on, threatening to collapse at any moment, often cutting the beat to retreat into its gloomy refrain.

The flipside of the coin: no matter how bleak this record may turn on you, there's always a glimmer of hope hiding somewhere between the lines. Lucky I Got What I Want seems to have an almost zen-like acceptance of the passing of time, submitting to the way of the world. It's elegaic refrain simply asks Don't you forget about me, before ultimately drifting into the ether. Lemonade Lake slips quietly into view like something from Warp's Artificial Intelligence series, unassuming keys playing out right there in plainsight, before exploding into lustrous moonlight. Sequences run up and down the spectrum as this river of pure sound, lush as you could possibly imagine, flows steady beneath. This is the sound of the night's own internal logic working itself out, however it may transpire. The record ends on an electronic hymn, and then silence.

One day, out of the blue Sari noticed that a group called Jungle were playing at the North Park Observatory. But was it the same group? It seemed unclear. Being such a die-hard fan, she sprung for the tickets anyway. It turned out to be the same Jungle after all, and we would get to see them once more. Before the show, a DJ warmed up the crowd. I heard him spin The Bottle from outside the club. We made our way inside. Without the presence of an opening act, Jungle took the stage.

The group began to fill the venue with the Morricone-meets-Get Carter-meets-Moroder inflections of Smoking Pixels, the record's lone instrumental. With the group's casual, eerie whistling, the room filled with anticipation. Massive lamps cast their figures as stark silhouettes against dazzling colors shining down from the rafters. I was reminded of the time I saw The Secret Machines perform at Soma back in the day (Fall 2004, if memory serves), where they had these massive lamps blasting white light into the crowd from behind the band. The effect made it feel as if you were in the closing scene of Heat. Jungle's seemed to recall American Gigolo, or even Drive, cloaking the room in that same sumptuous palette.

The Observatory show was, if anything, even better than the one at The Belly Up. Their stage show had graduated in scale without sacrificing any of its intimacy. Passages in the songs opened up into new avenues. There was a point, in Drops I believe, when the sequencers took over and began spinning fractals out into space. Sari had it pegged as sounding like Tangerine Dream circa Thief. The group encored with Time, the record's latest single, its endless cascading waves of sound - bass resonating on three separate planes, each morphing into the other - a perfect note to close on. It turned out that this was the final date of their North American tour.

I can't think of a moment in my life in which, had this music existed at the time, I wouldn't have been blown away. It seems to exist in a space all its own, hovering just out of reach between any number of sonic possibilities that I've called home. Indeed, as we started to file out of the Observatory, a thought that had been materializing in the back of my mind for months finally came into focus: this is exactly the sort of record that Larry Levan would have caned at The Paradise Garage.

The DJ played Water Get No Enemy as we walked out into the streets.