Tighten Up

Somebody give me a cookie! I'm posting twice in 24 hours!

Tighten Up was the 1968 hit by Archie Bell and the Drells, and I seriously would never have known this or cared had this cover of the original not come as a bonus track on some new edition of R.E.M.'s Reckoning. It's ridiculous and very '60s and is a song that generally makes me want to get up and prance around.

mp3: R.E.M. - Tighten Up

Number Girl

Horaay. Possibly my most obsessed-over Japanese group.

Yeah. Number Girl. They mix a very distinct rock sound (think The Pixies or Sonic Youth on some Asian form of crack) with a very distinct Japanese sound (pentatonic! Using only a specific five notes from a scale. I love it in rock music. Thus what I meant by "Asian crack"). Their lead guitarist collaborated with Shiina Ringo, thus how I discovered them. In fact, so did their vocalist/rhythm guitarist, Mukai. But stuff.

I also tend to occasionally obsess over their drummer, Inazawa Ahito, for being a) awesome b) collaborating with everybody and their mother, including Shiina Ringo and another fairly bizarre and almost Debussy-esque group called Luminous Orange.

But you don't care about names. You care about sounds. Sounds!

mp3: Number Girl - Super Young

mp3: Number Girl - Mangasick

mp3: Number Girl - Yaruse Nakio no Beat

In addition to the very good blend of sounds and the pentatonic stuff, there is a lot of musical and rhythmic juxtaposition between the two guitars, and in the rhythm section. Juxtaposition pleases me greatly.

Number Girl disbanded in 2002, only for the members to go off and form a bunch of other really insane-but-awesome ensembles. So clearly it wasn't a completely sad thing.

Marquee Moon

Maybe it's just me, but I almost love this version more than I do the original by the early punk band Television. Yeah. I think it's just me, and maybe the fact that I'm a string player and I have hero-worship issues with Kronos Quartet and the covers of some popular tunes they've done (Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze, Sigur Rós' Flugufrelsarinn). Also, every other composer work I've experienced through them.

Kronos actually comes through my area once every couple of years. I've been really lucky to see them perform live several times since I was about ten or eleven. I actually suspect that they were my initial introduction to new music as I know and appreciate it now, and might have influenced some of my ideas for what I want to do professionally.

Wow. But that's definitely another entry for another time.

In the meantime, here's the song. Really cool stuff.

mp3: Kronos Quartet - Marquee Moon

In a true Kronos fashion, it's as much in accordance with the original as it possibly could be in consideration of four string-players and no recognizable percussion. The cellist even tunes the C string down to a B to enable a lower octave in places. Also: David Harrington (1st violin) has and always will rock my world.

My apologies for the severe shortage of posts. I've had the plague/been busy/am lazy. Will try harder.

Little Fluffy Clouds

I have a definite soft spot for The Orb, and I suspect it is due to this song.

mp3: The Orb - Fluffy Little Clouds

It's true, you might have heard this song before, if you watched TV in the late 90's and ever happened upon a commercial for the new VW Beetle.

I've gotta say. It's beats, keyboards/pitch producers, and cut&paste when done the right way that make me incredibly happy. This song actually features a sample loop of minimalist composer Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint (originally recorded and performed for guitar by Pat Metheny, but is apparently also arranged for guitar ensemble). Sadly, I have been listening to both this song and Electric Counterpoint for well over four years and it took me until somewhere in the middle of LAST WEEK to go "huh," check Wikipedia, and then kind of want to hit myself in the face.




The other pasted clip featured in this song is from an interview with Rickie Lee Jones, a sample which was found on a promo CD. According to Wikipedia, Steve Reich was cool about his work being sampled, but Rickie Lee Jones was not down with the interview being used. Fascinating.

The other point I want to emphasize is that those VW commercials from the mid-90's featured some interesting tunes. The Orb, Hooverphonic, Nick Drake, Stereolab, and even Fluke. Maybe they still do. I don't know. I need to actually watch TV, apparently.

Georgy Porgy

It seems that with Spring Break, my will to obsessively push-button publish was simply gone. But behold, for it is Monday, and Monday means covers.

This is Shiina Ringo and...somebody else, doing Georgy Porgy, originally by Toto. I kind of maybe don't like to admit how much I really like this song. Nobody tell my family members. They would give me funny looks.

This version is basically a copy of the original, except the mixing is slightly more clear. The piano is slightly more sustained. The vocals are slightly more rumbly and Shiina Ringo-y. I also enjoy the slide guitar solo thing.

So good. And yet so bad.

mp3: Shiina Ringo - Georgy Porgy

Buffalo Daughter

I need to ramble. About Shibuya-Kei pop. I know. It's technically J-Pop. But it's SHIT-ASS WEIRD J-pop. Also, the more I listen to it and think about it, it's a lot more electronic and punk-based than it is pop.

What's truly crazy is how everybody in the Shibuya-Kei pop chain all know each other and have collaborated or remixed one anothers songs. As may have been implied with the weekly Cover Song dealie, I am thoroughly excited by collaboration and line-crossing and all that. But the weird thing is how some of this Shibuya-Kei ended up on the Grand Royal label (aka, The Beastie Boys). And that would be Buffalo Daughter, with their first two full-length releases ending up on Grand Royal, along with the probably better-known Cibo Matto and all their released albums.

But enough with the credentials and connections and crap. Let's cut to the chase.

Things I love about Buffalo Daughter:
-the cut&paste electronic techniques
-the use of moog and other keyboards
-the general guitar sound
-the interaction between electronics and guitars
-the fact that one of their three members names is Dr. Moog.
-another member calling herself "Sugar Yamamoto."
-the musical build over repetition
-the repetition (my aural attention-span is might sturdy)
-the whimsical-ish vocals
-the absurdity (which you will hear)

Here are some sounds for your listening pleasure...

mp3: Buffalo Daughter - Sky High
mp3: Buffalo Daughter - Dr Mooooog (this song doesn't actually start doing anything much until after the 1st minute, so sit tight...)
mp3: Buffalo Daughter - I

*edit*

Oops. I was having some ftp problems. Everything should be fixed and where it belongs now.

You Don't Own Me

I know that a week has passed and I haven't posted. But hey, school is hellish. Cut me some slack.

But anyway. It is once again Monday. You know what that means.

This week is Rasputina, covering You Don't Own Me, originally by 60's pop singer Lesley Gore.

Very cello-y. Kind of ominous. Enjoy.

mp3: Rasputina - You Don't Own Me (Lesley Gore cover)

Pets

It's a Perry Ferrell Rave of sorts.

This is a cover of a Porno For Pyro's song, Pets (as well as a short quote from the song Sadness, and Mountain Song by Jane's Addiction). In SKA FORM, by a band called Greenhouse and the Tender Ju-Ju Coins.

I first heard this song as a ten-year-old (which...how did I find such odd music when I was ten?), and I suspect it is the reason I am as enamored with keyboard and electric organ sounds as I am. Sad but true. Anyway, this song is so upbeat and weird and not like the original and honestly, I am a little bit ashamed to admit that I still really enjoy it, despite its whatever-ness.

And try as I might now, I can't dig up any information on the covering band. Google has returned nothing. This is one of those "my sister put this on a tape I stole, and many years later I ganked the CD and ripped it" songs.

mp3: Greenhouse - Pets (Porno for Pyros cover)

Sheer ridiculosity.

808 State

And now for something completely different, I give you electronic group 808 State (Yes, named after the Roland TR-808), formed in Manchester, England around '88. They are of I guess you could call the Acid House genre but...well, I'm bad with genres. And names and things in general. I discovered 808 State through a collaboration with Björk on one of their songs (Ooops), as well as some of Björk's released songs (go figure, as Björk is the queen of collaboration as well as ridiculous award-wear garb). So here is one song.

mp3: Mooz

So my question is...WHERE IS THE BEAT EMPHASIS IN THIS SONG?!

I'm asking a serious question. Where is it? I feel like I hear a steady beat of count 1 and 3, but then later it seems like what is the back-beat could actually be beats 1 and 3. Seriously. It changes. For at least three years, I've thought the beat landed the first way, and the last two have left me wondering if it's really the other way. Now I'm starting to wonder if it's both and we're just not supposed to figure it out. I'm not crazy, right?!

Anybody who can give me a satisfying answer gets some sort of a prize.

And aside from not knowing where the beat is, I greatly enjoy this song. I like heavy beats anywhere, especially when those strong beats are back-beats (which, they might be in this song, at least some of the time?). And juxtaposition of beats with bright sounds. The unintelligible vocals are pretty cool, too.

To be quite honest, though, I love songs where it takes me a few tries to figure out where the beat is. It gives my brain something to do, something more to listen for.

It's difficult to categorize 808 State. Maybe they sound a bit old-school for what people are used to these days, but that's probably exactly why I like them (I've been noticing recently that have a soft spot for out-dated crap). I think they are very "real" sounding in a lot of ways, but in contrast to some fairly unconventional sounds that lead them to be a little quirky. If you listen to enough of their songs, you'll pick up that their most consistent and unifying sound feature is the fundamental type of sound (via keyboards, synths, somewhat organic and plain-sounding), whereas the actual songs in their structure and layering are complex and very different from one another. To refer back to their "real" sounds, I've noticed that they integrate real instrument sounds for a reasonable sum of their music (regular band-setting instruments like guitar, also sax, strings), as opposed to using strictly electronic sounds. And the real seems to alternate with the electronic a lot. Cool stuff.

Enough rambling. Here are some more sounds for your ears.

mp3: Joyrider

mp3: Ooops (with Björk)

Occidental Brothers Dance Band International

I just want to preface this first entry by saying that this has been one of the most difficult blog entries to write. I guess I didn't realize how difficult it is to really write about music. Maybe because music is intangible in the first place. But maybe also because the more I try, the less qualified I feel to be trying to specify the things in music I like. I was tempted to just insert "I like sounds" and then just link to the mp3s. Instead, I came up with a little something like this...

Music is great. Rumba-type rhythm and bass are great. Afro-pop is apparently great (it and I are only recently acquainted). Superbly skilled guitarists are great. What more do you need to know?

I guess I could mention that bands who can captivate an audience live are great.

My first encounter with the Occidental Brothers was last November at the Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago, when they opened for Andrew Bird. I usually try not to expect much from opening bands whose names I don't know. Just because taking the "aim low and never be disappointed" slogan has helped to cushion life's hard knocks, or whatever. But then I went to this show. And had to try my hardest not to a) dance and b) kidnap the guitarist, which are both valid indications that I really like something.

Then Andrew Bird played and I bought an Andrew Bird t-shirt but nothing else involving the Occidental Brothers. Shame on me. And then I left the show and basically forgot about this crazy afro-pop band. Until last week, that is, during what I am going to call the mid-winter blues, when I was really in need of a pick-me-up. I can't even remember what possessed me to Google the Occidental Brothers. I think I was just perusing a playlist when it hit me that I needed to hear them again. And then I was listening to the sound files and realizing that an active beat, some diatonic harmonic motions and some jazzy sounds were what I needed.

Here are some sounds of the Occidental Brothers.

mp3: Bomboko Awuti Na New York

mp3: Eso Pele
(according to iTunes, I have listened to this song 23 times in the last three days)

mp3: Makozi Ya Mboko

mp3: Masanga

More can be found at the Occidental Brothers' sound page.