23 posts tagged with funk by filthy light thief.
Displaying 1 through 23 of 23.
Ike White, a combination of lies and truths, held together by his music
Ike White had the kind of life that sounds too outrageous to be true. Given a life sentence for murder at the age of 19, he spent his time writing songs with his fellow prisoners and was soon discovered by Jerry Goldstein, a record producer and affiliate of Jimi Hendrix. They managed to record Ike’s debut album, Changin’ Times (YouTube playlist), from a mobile studio in prison in California in 1974. By 1978, Stevie Wonder had caught wind of the socially conscious, funky record and secured a new attorney for White, who petitioned for his release that year. Set free, White was poised for stardom and had just had a child with his new wife – Goldstein’s secretary. Then he disappeared. Murder, mystery and a hit record: the unbelievable story of Ike White (Ammar Kalia for The Guardian) [more inside]
Analog Africa's journey through Somali cassette and radio archives
In 2007 John Beadle, digitized a cassette and uploaded MP3s of 'Mystery Somali Funk' (previously) to his Likembe blog. He had been given the tape twenty years earlier by a Somalian student, and Analog Africa founder Samy Ben Redjeb take the reverse path, heading to travel to in Mogadishu in November of 2016 to track down the original music. This lead to his meeting Dur-Dur and hearing the stories behind their fusion of traditional Somali music with whatever rhythms would make people dance (Bandcamp): funk, reggae, soul, disco and New Wave were mixed effortlessly with Banaadiri beats, Daantho and spiritual Saar music. Samy also went through the archives of Radio Muqdisho (Somali and English news), now compiled in Mogadisco: Dancing Mogadishu (Somalia 1972-1991) (Bandcamp). [more inside]
Sudan Archives: North African style violin + West Coast RnB, funk, soul
Sudan Archives (stage name of Brittney Denise Parks) is a self-taught musician, who blends North African inspired violin (naming Asim Gorashi and Francis Bebey as notable influences) with wonky and experimental R'n'B. She moved to Los Angeles to pursue her musical career, where she signed to Stones Throw, who put out her two EPs, and now her debut album, all of which is up on her Bandcamp account. Sudan Archives talked with Stereogum and shared the story behind every song on her new album Athena, an autobiography documenting her tribulations and her successes. [more inside]
"Green Balloons is every version of myself that I've been so far" -Tank
New Orleans' Tank and the Bangas (previously) are back to NPR with a first listen of their sophmore album, Green Balloons. NPR's summary is that this is "music without boundary on instruments ranging from sax, flute, cello, vocal scratches, keyboards, synths, real drums, fake drums, a djembe and, of course, the poetry, philosophy, comedy and voice that is Tarriona "Tank" Ball," who called the new album the older sister to the prior album, Think Tank (YouTube playlist; official links to other platforms).
More than J-Pop: Ongaku 70-90, Kankyō Ongaku compilations
Four (plus Four) for Friday: the trio of decade and genre-focused "Ongaku" (音楽, music) compilations from the dubious French label, Hiruko Records: Ongaku 70 (YouTube playlist; Discogs), subtitled "Vintage Psychedelia in Japan" / Ongaku 80 (YT album; Discogs), subtitled "Alternative Waves from Japan" / Ongaku 90 (Discogs with some YouTube clips embedded), subtitled "Underground Music from Japan," (Discogs lists styles as New Wave, electro, experimental, and ambient) // If you want more experimental, ambient music from this period, Light in the Attic recently released Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990, and a YouTuber made a playlist of some of the clips that are already online. [more inside]
The Baghdaddies: Balkan melodies, Latin grooves, elements of English ska
The Baghdaddies (official site) are purveyors of Baltics-via-Britain party-starting off-beat gypsy-ska-blues-funk, and have been going strong for more than two decades (Narc Magazine interview). Their official blurb is that their "exuberant and rampant brand of world music is an exhilarating cocktail of Balkan melodies, ska and latin grooves and sizzling brass played with furious energy and theatrical humour, making them as unforgettable on stage as they are when performing as wandering brass troubadours." Sounds good, but don't take their word for it. Enjoy their music on Bandcamp and Soundcloud, and check out five short videos from them on YouTube. [more inside]
A world of (disco and more) sounds from Athens of the North
Need a little pick-me-up today? Try some proper rare vintage soul and disco from the label Athens of the North, a nickname for Edinburgh, Scotland, where the label is based. Euan Fryer, label head, talked about his favorite releases from his label with The Vinyl Factory back in 2015. Since then they've branched out farther, for instance two albums by Hampshire & Foat, one of nocturnal jazz bliss and and the other of hypnotic ambient folk sounds for a fictional fairy tale book, Galaxies like Grains of Sand and The Honeybear, respectively. Or just poke around their collection on Bandcamp and find your own jams.
STEREO At Its Best...When You Hear It On COLD BUSTED
Sometimes, you just want to listen to chilled hip-hop beats, reggae and funk from around the world. If now is one of those times, try some music from the Cold Busted label on Bandcamp, Soundcloud, or YouTube. If you're wondering how the nostalgic visual aesthetic matches the music, their line is that they're trying to capture the sound of today with the looks from the past. A few samplings from the label: Latin-influenced hip hop from Greece, funky Belgian beats and something more upbeat from Azerbaijan, and some headnodders from Manchester. Or if you want a continual flow of something new, check out Cold Busted Radio, streaming instrumental hip hop, trip hop, funk and downtempo 24/7 (playlists linked, and on YouTube live). [more inside]
Virtual crate digging through diverse music from Africa with PMG
Presch Media GmbH (PMG) is an Austrian vinyl broker, licensing agency and copyright holder, who has a fantastic collection of vinyl and CD re-presses, many by African artists from decades past, that they sell via Bandcamp, which means a lot of streaming media, even after the limited run records sell out. A random selection: Fela Kuti collaborator, jazz legend, and highlife pioneer Prince Eji Oyewole's Me & You, Oby Onyioha's I Want To Feel Your Love, "much-hyped and sought-after African disco from 1981 Nigeria", and Ikon Allah Bala Miller His Great Music Pirameeds Of Afrika's Pyramids, "a breathtaking fusion of Hausa rhythms, jazz and funk."
Sharon Jones, May 4, 1956 to November 18, 2016
Sharon Jones, the Grammy-nominated soul and funk singer With Dap-Kings, died following her "heroic battle against pancreatic cancer" at the age of 60.
Jones recorded six albums with the Dap-Kings, but it was her exhilarating live shows, which functioned as equal parts Baptist church revival, Saturday night juke joint and raucous 1970s Las Vegas revue, that showcased the singer's unparalleled energy. In venues filled with people half her age, Jones was the most dynamic person in the room, bolting onstage and commanding the crowd like her idol James Brown. It was homage without mimicry; respecting the soul and funk elders that defined the genres while displaying seemingly boundless vitality.Sharon Jones, previously. [more inside]
Ahoy, ye scurvy dogs! Are you eating your spinach and lemons?
Limestrong is a slightly cheeky but also totally serious attempt to prevent and end scurvy, based in part on an ill-fated Sunkist ad campaign from the 1970s. That was just one of the company's many odd forays into fighting scurvy and sell more California citrus with an awkward nod to the present culture, like Just1.com (1998) and Scurvy Boy Television (2000; both archived sites hosted on Internet Archive), radical marketing approaches for this conservative group. Just like scurvy boy was adopted by cheeky Gen-Y skaters and such in the late 1990s, Limestrong self-promotes through desktop images, photos of cats wearing fruit helmets, and more. [more inside]
Mndsgn: distilled cosmic soul funk from the early part of the decade
Mndsgn is pronounced mind design. The law calls him Ringgo Ancheta. He says his music has dirty, dirty soul vibes, but after checking out his video for Eggs (2014) and Cosmic Perspective (2016), you might agree with this interviewer and think that he might be a mystic jazz player who traveled to earth with Sun Ra. Any way it shakes out, enjoy Mndsgn's music on Bandcamp, and his new concept album*, Body Wash (YT playlist), or just hang out and have some breakfast with Ringgo, Knxwledge and The Koreatown Oddity, the first of five such breakfasts, via Boiler Room. [more inside]
Who you gonna call? The story behind the Ghostbusters music video
How did a funky R&B guitarist and singer get signed on to a spook-tacular music video? No, I'm not talking about Ray Parker Jr.'s very Halloween-appropriate music video for "The Other Woman", but his later video for the scary-funny movie, Ghostbusters. Screen Crush has the inside story on the making of Ghostbusters theme song video (alt source: Daily Motion). [more inside]
Digging up (and editing) Polish lost grooves, funk, soul and psych
The Very Polish Cut Outs is a label/ collective/ collection of that has been busy bringing Poland’s lost grooves to a new world audience, everything from disco, funk, soul, electronic and psychedelic for the past few years. They're active on Facebook, where you can get previews of new releases and hear more funky fun music, or you can go straight to the source with their Soundcloud and Mixcloud accounts. Of course, there's even more, if you're down to dig. [more inside]
The Bombay Royale, music for daring Bollywood-style adventures
Snakes! Bullets! Super secret agents! Bandits! Monkeys and tigers! Espionage and romance! Are you excited yet? Are you on the edge of your seat? Does this sound like a movie to you? Ah, these are the recurring themes in some of classic Bollywood’s greatest cinematic extravaganzas, where acting and plot took a backseat to some of the craziest, over-the-top song and dance scenes ever committed to celluloid. Enter The Bombay Royale, a local 11-piece musical powerhouse who have taken the themes and soundtracks from these films and have infused them with all the colour, production and energy one would expect from a four-plus hour Bollywood movie. The Bombay Royale had first set down to do strictly covers from the gilded ‘60s era of Bollywood, but soon evolved into writing their own material.Sit down with Parvyn Kaur Singh AKA "The Mysterious Lady," one of the singers of the band, for an introduction to the cast of characters behind the albums You Me Bullets Love (Soundcloud; track-by-track description with musical director and saxophonist Andy Williamson, AKA "The Skipper") and The Island of Dr. Electrico (Soundcloud; a review of the Bollywood inspired surf / disco / funk album). [more inside]
A look back at the funky, psychedelic, soulful 70s in Nigeria
According to the Daptone Gold compilation liner notes (auto-playing music, click on "Biography"to read the notes), written by Pitchfork contributor Douglas Wolk, "the world capital of soul" has moved from the US ("between Memphis and Detroit, with occasional stopovers in New Orleans, Cincinnati and elsewhere") in the 1960, to Lagos in the 1970s, then it went into hiding, finally reappearing in Brooklyn, with Daptone Records. Let's go back - why Lagos in the 1970s? [more inside]
What in the hell is country funk? Here are 33 tracks for reference
Here's a song I didn't know existed until summer 2007, when Lemon Jelly's Fred Deakin released an impeccably curated three-CD mix (full 4 hours on Mixcloud). Halfway through the first disc, the music slipped into an easy, loping groove, sunburned and hungover, and a regretful voice offered Otis Blackwell's lonesome lyric: "You know I can be found/ Sitting home all alone …" [Billy Swan's version of "Don't Be Cruel" is] a beautiful record, though, and utterly different from Elvis's 1956 recording. And it opens a fantastic collection of country funk songs, collected and remastered by Zach Cowie of Light in the Attic Records. More sounds below the break. [more inside]
Quincy Jones And Bill Cosby: The Original Jam Sessions, and remixes
Later this year will mark the 45th anniversary of Bill Cosby's first self-titled sitcom, The Bill Cosby Show. Ten years ago, the original jam sessions were released, which are notable for the "various collection of notables who steal the show with contributions at various points." Pianist Les McCann, sax man Ernie Watts, and guitarist Arthur Adams get things going on "Groovy Gravy," Tom Scott shows some legit chops on "Toe Jam," while Jimmy Smith offers sampling of his Hammond B3 on the interlude "Jimmy Cookin' On Top." If seeing Quincy Jones and Bill Cosby get top billing confused you, the album credits reference their roles, which are not front-and-center, except for some vocal improv by Cosby on "Hikky-Burr." You can hear more tracks on Grooveshark, and if you're into more of that modern dance remixery, you might (also) enjoy The New Mixes, Vol. 1, which can also be sampled on Grooveshark.
The northern soul and R&B sounds of Lenis Guess, straight outta Norfolk
Lenis Guess was one of the pioneers in the Norfolk recording scene. This self-taught vocalist and musician was cranking out records from his 35th Street studio in Norfolk for many artists, including his own and himself. This, producer, singer, musician, performer was at the forefront of the Norfolk sound. With songs like, “I was Born to Be A Drummer,“ his funk band, The 35th Street Gang, were mainstays of the 70s in and around the Hampton Roads area. Lenis himself had hits like, “I Keep Coming Back for More,” and “Working for My Baby.” [more inside]
Elvis Costello and the Roots: 'There's no such thing as too funky'
Ahmir Thompson, aka ?uestlove from The Roots, and their producer, Steven Mandel, are secret "Elvis freaks." One of their early discussions about agreeing to their gig on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon was the possibility about playing with Elvis. The Roots took the job, and Elvis has now played on the show five times. From these collaborations, the seeds of something bigger grew, and that came to a very funky (and political) fruition with Wise Up Ghost, embedded as streaming tracks in this Guardian review, and available in a single stream from a fan on YouTube. If you'd like to hear more about how the "remixing" of some prior Costello pieces (Pills and Soap, National Ramson, and Hurry Down Doomsday, to name a few songs), Costello and Thompson spent about 40 minutes with NPR's World Cafe, or you can read their interview with the Guardian.
The one-off garage rock and funk wonders of Plato Records, circa 1968
About 30 miles west of Charleston, West Virginia is a little town called Milton, which was the home to the Plato Records label back in the 1960s. According to Al Collinsworth, vocalist and co-songwriter for The Outcasts, Plato was intended to be an African-American music (Afrilachian) label, but the only known Plato releases are a handful of garage rock and funk singles from predominantly white bands, like The Outcasts' Loving You Sometimes. That particular track has seen an uptick in interest, since it has appeared on some recent mixtapes, including Diplo's Chasing the Dragon (MP3, streaming on Grooveshark). For more on those few known Plato recordings, Garage Hangover has interviews, information and promo photos from members. [more inside]
Going Back to My Roots, Oh Yeh Soweto! Funky disco, covered and edited
In 1977, Lamont Dozier, Motown veteran, released his album Peddlin' Music on the Side, featuring "the Afro-centric disco hit" Going Back to My Roots. That sound was popular in the US, and also in South Africa, where veteran alto player Teaspoon Ndelu covered the song with his group Teaspoon & the Waves as Oh Yeh Soweto, "changing the lyrics and toughening up the beat, but with the same killer riffs!" The one fault with the song could be that it's only half as long as Lamont's original. Fear not, Dr. Horn has edited the track into an extended form, which you can stream or download from Soundcloud. [more inside]
The line between science fiction and true science is often thin
In 1990, Isaac Asimov was working on a TV series to bridge science fiction and science fact, "synthesizing his visionary ideas about where humanity is going." He passed away in 1992, and the series never progressed beyond the pilot, which was re-worked and released as the documentary Visions of the Future (YouTube playlist, via Brainpickings, which calls the video "essentially, the antithesis to the Future Shock [documentary] narrated by Orson Welles"). [more inside]
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