Black Mountain, NC blue-eyed soul.
MP3: Floating Action :: Don't Stop (Loving Me Now)
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In 1964, Sandi Rouse, Gabe Lapano and the rest of the Accents entered Gold Star Studio in Los Angeles at the request of a local label, Commerce Records. Unsupervised and lacking any considerable recording experience, the young rulers of the San Diego music scene set out to cut their first single. The result was “Better Watch Out Boy,” an enchanting number that soon became a slow dance standard in Southern California. Draped in reverb, young Sandi’s vocals float along a steady rhythm and Lapano’s suave Wurlitzer like balloons into the rafters of a high school gymnasium. The track . . .
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In her sixty-plus years as a gospel and soul singer, Mavis Staples has rarely been lacking in buoyant confidence. She has the physical muster to stretch her voice from exasperated whisper to jubilant shout in the span of a single bar, but her songs rise on the effervescence of the little counter-sung grunts that she tosses in on the way (“ah-HUH!”); her body of work is, almost without exception, in a constant state of exaltation, completely focused on God, on others, and on positive social change with a singularity of vision and loosely worn sincerity that . . .
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Seattle psychedelic folk-rockers Rose Windows' debut, The Sun Dogs, is out today via Sub Pop. Those looking to satisfy a nocturnal jones for "Planet Caravan" leaning Sabbath and heavy Eastern miasma need apply. Fronted by vocalist Rabia Shaheen Qazi, whose Sandy Denny like vocals haunt the record, I'm immediately reminded of another northwest psych export from a few years back -- Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter's last album, the excellent become a member or log in.
Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra's "Some Velvet Morning". The coupling of a psychedelic country-rock pioneer and a struggling pop princess of the '60s. A risky, experimental and dubious piece of work that did, in fact, reach number 26 on the Billboard pop charts in 1968. It has since been covered just short of 20 times from 1968-2010, including this No Wave version, performed by Rowland S. Howard and Lydia Lunch. Released by 4AD in 1982, the duo’s experimental and off-kilter take opened up new avenues of interpretation, adding a bit of humor to . . .
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Soul, freakbeat, garage, r&b, rock & roll...all are the focus of Bay area crate digger, dj and musician Derek See, the man behind the long-running ode to the 45 RPM record, Derek's Daily 45. See joined me last Friday on the SIRIUS XMU show. We turned his two hour set of vintage, rare, sixties soul into the below mixtape. All cuts sourced from his personal collection of 45s.
Download/tracklisting after the jump...
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Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can be heard twice every Friday — Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.
SIRIUS 298: Jean Michel Bernard — Générique Stephane ++ Doris & Kelley - You Don't Have To Worry ++ The Ambassadors - Music (Makes You Want To Dance) ++ The Emotions - I Can't Stand No More Heart Aches ++ The Webs - Give In ++ Lillian Dupree - Hide And Seek ++ Peppermint Harris - Wait Until It Happens To You . . .
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Cosmic American Ambient? Something like that. Shimmering like an asphalt mirage in the middle of the Mojave, Date Palms' The Dusted Sessions is a woozy beauty, a fever dream consisting of hypnotic violin, droning tanpuras, soft Fender Rhodes, distant feedback and rock solid bass lines. Over seven extended tracks, the band cooks up some seriously slo-mo desert raga that's as lovely as it is ominous. There's plenty of the avant-Appalachia that Henry Flynt pioneered back in the day, as well as . . .
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Inspired by The Georgia Trust For Historic Preservation's annual Places In Peril list, T. Hardy Morris and filmmaker Jason Thrasher traveled to historic sites in Georgia threatened by demolition and neglect. Ten live performances were captured at each location -- one for each track from Morris's forthcoming debut solo album, Audition Tapes. The below video was taken at The Ritz Theatre, located on the courthouse square in Thomaston, GA.
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Water spirit feelin' / Springin' round my head / Makes me feel glad / That I'm not dead . . .
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Welcome to round two of Dead Notes. We kicked things off with a "Good Lovin''' from 1971; today we touch down in February, 1968 where we find the Dead eleven months after the release of their self-titled debut, tackling the recording of their sophomore album, Anthem of the Sun. In the late months of 1967 the Dead . . .
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(Volume 20 of Clifton’s Corner. Every other week on the blog Clifton Weaver, aka DJ Soft Touch, shares some of his favorite spins, old and new, in the worlds of soul, r&b, funk, psych and beyond.)
I’m not sure exactly when or how my interest in Brazilian sounds began. Growing up, my parents had tons of Sergio Mendes LPs and jazz recordings featuring Antonio Carlos Jobim, but I always dismissed them as boring easy listening. The first Brazilian song I remember being interested in (i.e. ‘obsessed with’) was the Os Mutantes version of “Bat Macumba”. DJ Dia would frequently play it in the 60s/soul room at LA indie night, Club Bang. From the moment I heard it, I couldn’t rest until I found out who the artist was and owned it.
Hearing that Os Mutantes LP was a revelation. As a fan of 60s psychedelia, elements of their sound were very familiar but hearing them combined with Brazilian styles (as well as avant-garde, classical, etc.) opened my ears to a whole new musical world. Soon I was backtracking and listening to those records I previously dismissed. As well as bossa nova and tropicalia, I’ve been turned on to the soul/funk stylings of artists like Tim Maia and Toni Tornado, jazz funk hybrids, and a distinctive take on disco.
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Like a dream collab between Fripp & Eno circa No Pussyfooting and peak period Alice Coltrane, Bitchin Bajas' Bitchitronics long player is a stupendous set of spiritual, cosmic bliss. The Coltrane connection is made explicit by song titles such as "Transcendence" and "Turiya" (the latter being the name Alice went by in her later days), and there's plenty of that unmistakeable Frippertronics guitar sound here. Influences aside, this is a purely gorgeous album from the Chicago trio. Take a little time today to bathe in "Sun City . . .
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Lagniappe (la ·gniappe) noun ‘lan-ˌyap,’ — 1. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. 2. Something given or obtained as a gratuity or bonus.
The music world lost a giant in April: George Jones, White Lightening himself -- the Possum. For this installment of The Lagniappe Sessions our favorite Canadian country crooner, Daniel Romano, pays tribute to the legend covering "I Can Still See Him In Your Eyes" and "There's The Door". Jones' body may have been laid to rest at Woodlawn Cemetery in Nashville, but his firebolt spirit is less easily contained. Romano, in his own words, below.
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Following a brief orchestral swell, Glasgow-based pop band Camera Obscura wastes no time getting assertive with Desire Lines, the band’s fifth album since debuting more than a decade ago with Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi. “When I found your girlfriend crying/I could have slapped you in the face,” singer Tracyanne Campbell sings over a restrained boogie. This is Cameria Obscura, of course, so the aggression is more subtle than bombastic, but over the course of the record’s 12 songs, Campbell and co. make it obvious this is no band of wide-eyed kids; Desire Lines is the work of a confident, grown ass band. The underachievers, it’s clear, are trying harder.
“I’m sure we had some ‘twee’ moments back in the early days --of course we did,” Carey Lander (keyboards, organ, vocals) states, her voice flat but warm, from Glasgow, where she’s packing her bags for a morning flight to the States to spend time opening for Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward’s She & Him.
“But I think we’ve had ambitions to move beyond being a gangly indie band,” she concludes.
For Desire Lines, the band’s first record since taking an extended break while Lander was treated for cancer (she’s doing fine these days), the band trekked to Oregon to record with Portlander Tucker Martine, joined at the sessions by Neko Case and Jim James of My Morning Jacket. There’s a stark West Coast vibe to the record, a Pacific saltiness. “We were really happy to come to America for this album,” Lander says. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”
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