Do I have to think up a pithy post title every freaking day?

Seriously... but enough of my kvetching... here's some mellowness for your Monday...



Futique is an alias of one Taylor Deupree, who's one of those dudes that does all sorts of stuff... music, photography, art, runs a label... yeah, one of those guys. Fuckin' overachiever. Bet he doesn't have a blog! Who am I kiddin', he's probably got 3. I first became a fan through his Ambient stuff on the Spekk label... like really, really ambient. Like whooshes and then there's a click and then some more whooshes and then the amplified sound of a stove burner then field recordings of frogs having sex and shit. That kind of Ambient. Which I love, don't get me wrong. This one is from a while back, however, and has a beat...

Futique - Beamship (ysi)

Go check out homie's photography website, too... I'm really diggin' it...

House Music Friday The 13th

... but I promise you nothing but good luck if you play this jam out...



I seem to be getting hung up on names this week... and we have another one today that's not great. Lovebirds is a, and let's just be honest about it, pretty gay moniker of one Mr. Sebastian Döring, a dude about which there is very little info out there. Which is odd, because his Discogs resume looks pretty strong, with a good number of releases on some high quality labels. Maybe he wants to be all mysterious and shit. But really... being mysterious only works if anyone cares, so just get a Myspace or something, dude. It'll still be kind of mysterious.... no one ever looks at Myspace any more, anyway. Anyhoo, this one's out on Fred Everything's Lazy Days Recordings and is chock full of deep deepy deepness...

Lovebirds - N2Deep (ysi)

And just to be all on-the-nose about it...



Have a great weekend... IF YOU LIVE!!!!!

Learning to properly misspell

What's in a (rap) name?



There comes a time in every young rapper's career, very early on, when they must make a decision that they will have to live with forever... perhaps the most important decision they will ever make. No, it's not whether to stay indie or go major... it's not whether to pick up the bong or put it down... it's not even whether or not to bang the hootchie with the peg leg and three kids who looks good anyway because you just slammed 3 bottles of overpriced Cognac. It is, of course, the choosing of one's rapper name. Brooklyn MC/Producer Milton Campbell did it right when he came up with Ohmega Watts. That's shit's catchy. That shit's got levels, yo! Then you get the dude who joins him on the track (from his excellent 2nd album on Ubiquity), who goes by Genahral Victor. Dude you can't just spell a word wrong for the hell of it. Spelling "general" like that does not make it cooler. It makes you look retarded. And don't get me wrong... I'm not the kind of white person that's going to make fun of misspelled rap words just to be white. I see how "grillz" is far superior to "grills". I think Ludacris is a great rapper name. Shit, I don't even know how to spell that properly. What's my point? Oh, right. "Genahral" is fucking stupid...

Ohmega Watts - Memory Lane (ft. Genahral Victor) (ysi)

What, you were expecting me to talk about the music? What are you, new?

The Passion Of The Pete

Today the shuffle finally brought me around to something I'm quite frankly shocked that I've never blogged upon. FOR SHAME!



Say what you want about Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation Of Christ... and it's a hard movie to figure out - upon first viewing I thought it was genius (because I was in college at the time so OF COURSE I did) but watching it more recently I found it hard to stop cracking myself up imagining Harvey Keitel to suddenly morphing into The Wolf and dropping F-bombs all over the place. "Jesus, what the fuck are you doing alive? You need to do what I say and get the fuck back up there before I tell Marcellus of your little change of plans and you end up with a few more holes in ya, understand?" And don't get me started on Willem Dafoe. If Jesus had really been that creepy, I doubt the whole Christianity thing would have been such a big hit. But regardless, there's no debate that Peter Gabriel's score is one of the best in the history of film, and if you disagree with that, I will fight you. Amazing North African/Middle Eastern sounds with just the right amount of synth textures = one of my desert island discs...

Peter Gabriel - The Feeling Begins (ysi)

As far as I can tell, ol' Pete never toured this music live, which is quite unfortunate. However, whilst navigating the Tubes of You, I did stumble across this Italian ensemble who went ahead and did it themselves...



Nailed it. But just FYI, I went to this guy Francesco's home page and it prominently features his other project, a Genesis cover band, so A) now I get it and B) NOPE.

Hey, remember this?

Well, do ya?



Remember Beth Orton? She was pretty cool, right? She started her career by boinking William Orbit, which led to appearances on a couple of his Strange Cargo albums and work with The Chemical Brothers, which made her the hip folk-tronica girl of the late '90s... and then she followed that up with a string of albums that maybe we're quite as electronic as you'd hoped but were still some nice acoustic singer/songwriter stuff with a little bit of synthy goodness. Nice husky voice, too. Remember her? Here's one she first did on the Strange Cargo Hinterland album, then came out with this stripped down version on her own debut record...

(DMCA'd? Really? F to the O.)

Remember that one? Huh?

Wish I had a better running joke for today's post? (You don't have to answer that one, I think we all know what you'll say...)

House Music Yaum al-Jumu'ah!

Got a very interesting tune for you on this, another House Music Friday...



Okay, so what we have here is, courtesy of Frenchies Alexkid and Rodriguez Jr. is basically Arabic drones over a dirty, dirty house beat. It's kinda odd but it's also kinda fucking mesmerizing and under the right circumstances this would absolutely KILL a floor, in a good way. Under the wrong circumstances, it would probably kill it in a bad way, too. I've been a little too much of a pussy to play it out my last couple of gigs, but I personally am fuckin' into it. Give it a minute or three though, because this one takes its sweet damn time to get going...

Alexkid & Rodriguez Jr. - Jeri Call (ysi)

That bass is the kind that makes your teeth vibrate, innit? And I'll leave you with this rather amusing video of Rodriguez Jr. trying his hardest to keep a live outdoor set going in the rain...



I get by with a little help from my friends, true dat. Have a great weekend...

We like new girls and we cannot lie.

Today, I'm going to start off by giving the official Tonegents Stamp Of Approval to the new kid on the blog, Sheblogsaboutmusic. This good friend of mine knows her stuff and specializes in music you won't generally find here... music with geetars and whatnot. Pop on over, dig the crunchy grooves, bookmark, RSS, follow and love... I'll wait...

...

...

Okay, good. You've done the right thing. And as a reward, here's a special pre-release sneak peek from the mighty Ninja Tune...



... and I think it might be one of, if not the first, female vocalist to have a full-length released on the label, which I think is a pretty fair achievement considering Ninja Tune's storied history. And no, I'm not going to look that up. Get me an intern if you want this shit fact-checked. Anyhoo, the name is Andreya Triana, she first appeared on Bonobo's latest record (which you need) and get used to her... because if you like Morcheeba, Corinne Bailey Rae and other such goodness, you've just met your new favorite singer...

(DMCA'd. I will, of course, also remove the link to buy, because two can play the fuck you game.)

Hells yeah, I am diggin' that smokey voice. And the tunes, in an incredible coincidence... were produced by Bonobo. It pays to keep good company. Here she is singing with them...



So pissed I missed that show when it rolled into L.A. just after Coachella. Grrrr...

I pity da foo that don't like this record

All I need is a snappy opening sentence for today's post and I'll be ready to go...



There's not a ton of information out there about sax man/jazz flute playa Rudolph Johnson... he released two records on the esteemed Black Jazz label and that seems to be it. Don't know why there were only two considering the quality of the tunes, because they are Soul Jazz hotness... I like to think that shortly after recording the second one he left the music business to pursue a career as a crocodile wrestler, because that would be pretty damn badass, don't you think?

Rudolph Johnson - The Highest Pleasure (ysi)

Go ahead on over to the newly re-animated Black Jazz website to buy this and pretty much everything else you see. Foo! (Sorry, watched some A-Team re-runs this weekend...)

Put some jerk on the barbie

Now that it's August and hot as fuck (well, it's not at my house... I live at the beach. If the marine layer had a dick, I would glady suck it... I am that gay for moderate temperatures and cooling breezes.), thoughts turn to barbecue music, which for me always includes some Jah...



... therefore, here's some smooth roots Reggae from The Travellers, who were what they call a "harmony group", which isn't that difficult to understand. They sing harmonies and shit. Like the '60s Soul groups. I love the idea of a Reggae harmony group, though. I can see it now. Dude in front and three in back. All wearing the matching suits but with three-foot dreads. And their mic stands are all shaped like giant bongs. That's what they looked like, right? Because that's what they should have looked like... and if they didn't, I don't wanna know about it...

The Travellers - Know Yourself (ysi)

And that's pretty much all I have to say about that...

Of Jell-O and Junos

Went on what ended up being a 30-mile bike ride yesterday as part of a friend's birthday festivities, and today... well let's just say that my legs are so Jell-O-like that Bill Cosby just tried to take a bite out of them. HEYOOOO! But seriously, I learned an important lesson yesterday... just because you are not morbidly obese, it does not mean you are in shape. It's a fine yet important distinction. But hey, it was fun. As soon as I can walk again, I'll consider giving it another go. Next, in music...



... I have an underdog entry for the Best Of 2010 (So Far) List, and that comes courtesy of L.A. producer Tom Wilson, aka Take. There's this whole scene of really esoteric, cerebral downtempo coming out of Los Angeles these days (a scene more famously known for Flying Lotus, Nosaj Thing, Ras G, etc.) and this might be my favorite record so far from said scene. That got you interested? Check it...

Take - Incredibright (ysi)

Nice, huh? And yes, I am aware that a couple of sentences back I used the word "cerebral" and "Los Angeles" in the same sentence which is quite the oxymoron... hope that didn't confuse you too much... but if that didn't, this might. WARNING: GEAR NERD TALK...



I'm pretty glad I was able to avoid developing a serious gear habit... I'm broke enough as it is...