Watch yer toes...

... 'cuz I'm droppin' a heavy one on ya today.



Randy Weston is a jazz pianist I had never heard of until I found some of his music on the great jazz blog Pharoahs Dance and decided to give it a shot, despite the fact that I have a hard time taking anyone named "Randy" seriously. It's just a thing I have, okay? Well, I'm glad I gave Randy a chance, because his music is an awesome meeting of Jazz and African styles. I could pretend to drop all sorts of knowledge about this album, but instead I will refer you to the handy liner notes. I'll just say that this is a big ensemble (featuring a number of heavy hitters like Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter and Max Roach) jazz number made special by an absolute monster of an African percussion break... dig it.

Randy Weston - Bantu

If that doesn't get ya all fired up, I don't know what will. So take that energy and go out and have an awesome Memorial Day weekend, everyone (everyone in the US that is, the rest of you just have an awesome regular weekend. Us Yanks don't have to go to work Monday, so neener neener neener!)

Peace!

Yppah-ki-yay!

You may start to sense a pattern here...



... as once more we turn to the good folks at Ninja Tune for today's selection. You Are Beautiful At All Times is the debut of Houston musician Joe Corrales, a.k.a. Yppah. Kind of sounds like something Speedy Gonzalez would say, huh?



"Yppah! Yppah! Andale! Arriba!"


But alas, this is no Mariachi music. It's atmospheric electronica with a healthy dose of heavily effected guitar and punchy beats (which figures, since according to his bio he has been both a rock guitarist and a turntablist DJ - talk about jack of all trades). And while that description is pretty lame, the music is not. Have a listen...

Yppah - Cannot See Straight

Be sure to check out the Sade remix on his Myspace, it's pretty wild.

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And since the sound is kinda sorta similar, I'm gonna take this opportunity to direct you to another artist with a Myspace page, a good friend of mine, Mr. Shawn Lyon, who produces under the moniker Delicate. This guy is also a super-talented guitarist/knob twiddler despite the fact that he is from Idaho. Seriously, I thought all they had up there was snow and potatoes. Expect his music to be at a record store/on a big screen near you in the very near future.

On Planet Dub, the trees smell really good

I must ask that you don't let the horrendous cover art scare you off of this one :P



... cuz, ya know, a giant, crazed space moth smoking a huge doobie can send, um, mixed signals, I suppose. But never fear! This is actually a pretty good 2-disc set from the now defunct Planet Dog Records, which had a good run in the '90s as one of the better trance-related labels, featuring Eat Static and Children of the Bong at the top of it's roster. Planet Dub features some pretty trippy, Orb-like electronic ambient/dub goodness and also some slightly more traditional-sounding dub selections, like this track by some dudes I won't even pretend to know anything about...

A.N.R. ft. Roots Lepkie - Rockers Rising

It may not be Lee "Scratch" Perry or Mad Professor, but it's pretty close. I gotta go now, though. I need to buy a can of Raid. That moth is freakin' me out...

Ronson's got it covered

I can be all current like those other blogs when the occasion arises...



"Funky" and "Coldplay" are two words not often uttered in the same sentence (unless of course that sentence somehow works in a mention of Gwyneth Paltrow's lisp), but that has all changed now, thanks to the ubiquitous Mr. Mark Ronson. But hey, when you get the Daptone Horns involved, there's gonna be some funky going on. Ronson takes Mr. Paltrow's uber-sensitivity, throws it into the wussy bin where it belongs, replaces the vocals with scorching horn lines, and picks the tempo way up to turn the song into a soul stomper. Pretty damn impressive...

Mark Ronson ft. the Daptone Horns - God Put A Smile On Your Face

Maybe I'm a little harsh on the Coldplay, but hey, you name your kid Apple, you got some smack coming your way. "Hi, I'm Tony, this is my son Banana and my daughter Cantaloupe". Wrong! They're your kids, not a friggin' fruit basket!

As for Ronson, you might be surprised to know that his album of funky covers, Version, still isn't out in the US yet, since the tracks have been floating down the interweb tubes for months... You'll have to wait 'til July 10 for that... but it's gonna be a good one. Here's a bonus live video of Mark and pals from a UK TV show with their take on The Smiths...



Why do I look at that singer and think Blow Monkeys? Hmmm....

Straight, no blather

Another installment from our good friends at Compost Records to start the week off right.



Compost's The Future Sound of Jazz series of compilations is one of the longest running around, with the last installment being number 10, but for today's pick we go back to number 2 and an fast-paced jazz-house number by British producing team Chaser. And, um, yeah... that's about all I know. So I'll spare you the mindless drivel that usually occupies this space and get straight to the tune...

Chaser - Sides of Iron

Nice one... and that's how we roll on Monday. All killer, no filler :P

The man with the fat soundtrack

How about a group living up to their name?



I've been getting into The Cinematic Orchestra more and more over the last year or so, especially since I copped the live set from Vancouver that has been squishin' around in the interweb tubes (go find it... it won't be hard ;) ). Their sound is just so lush and warm and um... cinematic. Really Tone? You don't say? Man, you are so deep... they must pay you to come up with brilliant insights like that!

I wish. Anyhoo, The Man With The Movie Camera is the one work of theirs which was actually composed for a real film, a film with an awesome poster, btw. Check out this baby...





What do they call that style of art?

So they had a film festival in Portugal in the year 2000 and they asked The Cinematic Orchestra to perform a live score to the movie and voila, here's a sample...

The Cinematic Orchestra - Reel Life (Evolution II)

Great stuff. And thanks to the magic of the YouTubes, here's a clip from the film along with T.C.O's score...



Trippy shit, eh?

Finally, they have just released a new album, too, so you might want to check that out. It's a bit different, way stripped back from their normal sound. See what ya think...

... and have a great weekend!

Rollin' thru Khartoum

I don't imagine you could get farther away from yesterday's selection than this...



Okay, I'm not going to pretend I know anything about today's artist, apart from this. Abdel Gadir Salim is a Sudanese singer and oud player, the title means "I am destined to love", and I picked up this song a while back from the great African music blog Benn Loxo Du Taccu. I tried to get some expert opinion, but I couldn't pry Tom Schnabel off his Filipino pool boy long enough to get any information out of him. Figures. So I'll just say this is a nice, subtly funky groove that has African, Arabic and even Western elements (sax solo!) to it and the singing is silky smooth... this is really "accessible" African music (although I kinda hate that term, but whatevs).

Abdel Gadir Salim - Qidrechinna

Sounds like summer music to me!

Stuart Scott owes these guys some money

Before we get to today's music choice, I'm stoked to say that my Brazilian summer mix has been given props and linked to by the king of all Brazilian music blogs, the mighty Loronix. So a big thank you to Zecalouro... I am honored!

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And now, the musical group you least want to ever get in a fight with...



... unless the thought of tangling with 7 gigantic, tatted-up Samoans who, by the way, also used to be card-carrying South Central Bloods, sounds like a good time to you, in which case go for it. I am of course talking about the one and only Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.! Definitely the second toughest group of Samoans ever, after of course these guys...


Afa & Sika say "Boo-yaa" too!

Anyone with me on that one? No?

Anyhoo, the thing about the Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. (standing for Too Rough International Boo-Yaa Empire, so actually they had Boo-Yaa in their name twice, which is twice as awesome), is this... despite the fact that the phrase "Boo-yaa" has become bad comedy, these guys were actually pretty damn good. They were down in the beginning of West Coast gangsta rap, (among the founders, really), they worked with everyone, and their shit is tight. Just check it out...

Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. - Riot Pump

Yeah, the vocals are a bit shouty but the beat is right on. And another cool thing is that all 7 of the brothers (yes, they were all real-life brothers, too) played their own instruments! You can't front on that folks!

And you can't front on The Wild Samoans, either...



Boo-yah indeed!

This is not my beautiful Salsa!

A glimpse into the formative years today...



You know I have a thing for the Latin music, what with the horns and the bongos and whatnot, but strangely, this thing pretty much started with, of all bands, Talking Heads and their final studio album, Naked. If my memory serves me (and it rarely does anymore :P ), I picked this up on my senior year school trip to London. So, I'm expecting, I don't know, something like "Burning Down the House", and I pop this tape (you heard me, tape!) in and all of a sudden today's song starts playing and I'm like Moe from The Simpsons...



"Whaaaaaa?!?!?"


It grew on me though, and then David Byrne's latin-themed solo album Rei Momo (which is awesome) came out shortly thereafter (I think), and I was in. Hey, you get it from where you can when you grow up in a small town. There weren't exactly any Latino (or Black or Asian or Non-White of any kind) people around, so I had to learn about the Latin vibes from some of the whitest people you can think of. But whatever, it did the job!

Talking Heads - Blind

I would pay big bucks to see a Talking Heads reunion, but apparently David Byrne is a huge cock and the rest of his former bandmates hate his guts, so I guess I won't hold my breath on that one...

They plump when ya book 'em?

Oh God, is it Monday again already?

It is? Fuck. Well, I hope everyone had a good weekend. Mine was super, and some of you may have already noticed a little bonus post that I snuck in there yesterday when you weren't looking. What, didn't catch that one yet? Well, go ahead... I'll wait...

...

...

Got it? Good! I want to hear some feedback on that one, folks!

But just because I got all mix-y over the weekend, that doesn't relieve me of my daily duties. So...



Not a whole lot of edification to go with today's pick, just some simple instruction. Plump DJs make fine music known as breaks. Finger Lickin' Records are fine purveyors of said breaks. Search out and acquire said breaks on cd, album, or electronic media such as mp3. Play said breaks on stereo equipment of choice. Shake booty.

Plump DJs - The Funk Hits The Fan

Repeat as necessary. That is all.