Tune of the Week: Rain

“Rain” is a turning point in The Beatles discography to the psychedelic sound that would define their music for the next few years. Basically being a song about how people love to complain about the weather, it also is the first mainstream song to feature backwards vocals. It also features varied tape recording speeds that adds to the disorienting effect the song has. Additionally, Ringo Starr considers this is finest drum performance. This can easily be seen as a prelude to the far more psychedelic sounds that would emerge from the albums “Revolver”, “Sgt. Peppers…”, “Magical Mystery Tour” and the “White Album”. Supposedly there were three promo films shot by music video pioneer Michael Lindsay- Hogg. Below is an additional clip with lots of outtakes from the outdoor shoot. Sit back and enjoy the trip!

Tune of the Week: Twilight Circus

Twilight Circus Dub Sound System is reggae embodiment of multi-instrumentalist Ryan Moore. Orginally from Vancouver, Moore moved to the Netherlands in the 90s and joined the Legendary Pink Dots taking on drumming and bass duties. As his interest in dub music grew, so did a desire to create it. Soon Moore was opening for his own band as Twilight Circus, taking turns between playing drum and bass parts for sketches of songs he had recorded. After leaving the Dots, Moore began to take his reggae production more seriously. He began to create vocal version of his instrumentals and connected with many well known vocalists. Michael Rose, Ranking Joe, Luciano and Big Youth have all blessed the microphone for Twilight Circus productions. Ryan Moore’s work exemplifies the international, or should we say “outernational”, aspect of reggae in the present day. Here is some earlier work from Moore, showcasing the atmosphere he can create with the more critical aspects of dub music: drums, bass, keys and effects. Dub it!

Tune of the Week: OMD

Orchestral Manoeures in the Dark are a UK based post punk/synth pop band. Their journey took them from opening for Joy Division to being a poster band for the John Hughes movie generation. While their later material was much more digital and processed, their earlier tunes blended electronic with acoustic instrumentation. The Speak-And-Spell sampled “lyrics” show a clear Kraftwerk influence. The song’s grim message of the present day’s actions repercussions on future generations is still relevant today, unfortunately. While technologically it seems like a lifetime ago, thematically, 1983 doesn’t seem like that long ago at all.

Tune of the Week: Theremin

Gaudi is a London based musician who has been crafting pop, electronic and reggae music for four decades. As of late, he has been championing the first electronic instrument: the Theremin. His 2020 album, “100 Years of Theremin (The Dub Chapter)”, finds him taking dub tracks produced by the UK’s cream of the crop (Adrian Sherwood, Mad Professore, Prince Fatty, Dennis Bovell) and adding theremin leads on top. The above is a more recent self produced version of the Lee Perry produced classic “Bird in Hand”. The combination of roots reggae and the haunting tones of the Theremin help to create something new out of things drawn from the past.

Tune of the Week: Ultramarine

The early 90s were heady times for rave culture. On both sides of the Atlantic folks were getting down to the burgeoning electronic sounds until the early morning, sometimes in dusty warehouse spaces, sometimes in fields and farms. The words of Terrance McKenna reverberated in the space between the beats. Ultramarine, a production duo from Essex, England, created a kind of pastoral electronic music. Similar to the melodic tunage of club and rave favorites 808 State and featuring the tools of the trade: funky breakbeats, arpeggiated synths and vocal samples, their songs sound wholly of their time, however Ultramarine’s music recreates the feeling of having been dancing all night and witnessing a new day dawning.

Tune of the Week: Trans Am

Trans Am is a US based rock band that is a special blend of serious and goofy. Their style is very much in the “post rock” vein, in that they synthesize their sound from a wide variety of influences (krautrock, prog and classic rock) and that a lot of their songs are instrumental. In the above tune we can hear them creating something of a sequel to Kraftwerk’s “Computer World”, but with a decidedly tongue-in-cheek attitude. However, they have released albums that deal with pretty heavy societal issues such as their early 00s LP “Liberation”, released during the George W. Bush administration. They are a very tight live band, but they can also be seen eating a slice of pizza while playing one handed solos. This mix of serious talent and an ability to not take the proceedings so seriously make them one of the better bands from the indie rock scene. Below is an example of their live abilties, captured at a show in which yours truly was present. Enjoy!

Tune of the Week: Amon Tobin

Amon Tobin is a Brazilian-English electronic music producer who specializes in sound design. Much like graphic design, sound design involves taking many disparate elements to create a cohesive new statement. One of the building blocks of Tobin’s designs is the manipulation of samples. In his early days this would entail arranging jazz samples over drum and bass style breakbeats. In time, his sampling and layering of those samples would become much more complex and emotive. Here is an example of him taking many bits from the world of jazz and creating another, more electronic, world.

Ninja Tune labelmate Kid Koala created a routine with this song, along with a samples from the film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, creating yet another distinct sample-based tune. This was a staple of his turntable shows for many years. It starts around the 17 minute mark. Dig!

Tune of the Week: Eno & Byrne

In 1980 David Byrne and Brian Eno were on a break between recording the Talking Heads’ albums “Fear of Music” and “Remain in Light”. They didn’t take much of a break as they proceeded to create what would become a precursor to a slew of beat and sample based albums to come for decades. The result, “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts”, took spoken and sung vocal samples from all over the world and placed them on top of funky and disjointed rhythms created by the duo. In this example you can hear the call of a Lebanese mountain singer mix with the funkier-than-thou vibes of bassist Busta “Cherry” Jones. Sample based production would take off from here, popping up in the realms of techno, hiphop and pop music.

Tune of the Week: Ruins

Ruins is a Japanese rock duo often associated with the noise rock scene of their motherland, but are more in line with progressive rock. The group is helmed by drummer and songwriter Tatsuya Yoshida. He has been joined by a multitude of guitarists, as well as a saxophonist for the project Sax Ruins. The music often involves super complicated rhythm structures and whiplash changes. The lyrics are in a language of Yoshida’s own creation. The above tune, from the 1992 release “Burning Stone”, features guitarist Ryuichi Masuda. Masuda would play a six string guitar which would allow him to access lower octives and mimic the playing of an otherwise absent bass player. In concert Masuda would often incorporate a looping effects pedal to lay down a bass part and then solo his upper register guitar parts. Along with Yoshida’s seemingly inhuman drumming the duo would easily create the sense of a quartet in action! Enjoy the insanity. Embrace the insanity!

Tune of the Week: Tom Waits

Tom Waits is a US based singer-songwriter that defies easy categorization. His songs generally tell tales of desperate people in desperate times. Dying, decay and leaving are common themes. The musical style of these songs can range from traditional piano and voice arrangements to jazz combos to industrial noise. If there is anything to be expected from Tom Waits it is the unexpected.

The song above is from one of Waits’ more bizarre albums, 1987’s “Franks Wild Years”. The album is made up of songs from a play created by Waits and his wife, Kathleen Brennan, and produced by Chicago’s esteemed theater company Steppenwolf. Waits takes on many different character and voices throughout the album, as evidenced here by his rough falsetto. Despite the slightly deranged delivery on the official release, this song seems to have been extensively covered, most notably by mainstream jazz vocalist Diana Krall.

Toon of the Week: Carl Stalling

Soundtracks, like cinematography, production design and audio production, are elements of film that should seamlessly integrate with a whole work. While some outstanding examples can stand up on their own, they are generally works that must be appreciated within the context of a bigger work. Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of underappreciated accomplishments. This is perhaps most so in the case of scoring for cartoons. These short films are generally considered a less artform due to their primary audience being children. However, great artists and craftspeople are required to create these complicated films. One of the grandfathers of cartoon scoring was Carl Stalling. Stalling is most known as the primary composer for Warner Brothers’ Merry Melodies and Looney Tunes series. Every week for 22 years he would compose, arrange and conduct a score for a 50 piece orchestra. These scores often had to include whiplash changes in tone and color, as well as popular and classical music references. All of this had to fit within a 5-7 minute piece. Above you can hear how it could require multiple takes for the music for just one shot in a cartoon to turn out just right. Below you can hear Stalling turning the lampooning on his own work. It’s facinating to hear this kind of music out of its context, but you can also check out what it’s like within the cartoon as well.

Tune of the Week: ISP

The mid 90s saw Hiphop taking a very commercial turn. What was once an expression of inner city turmoil and struggle had become a haven for big money deals and materialism. While the majority of the attention paid to the genre was focused on the feud between New York City and Los Angeles, a new take on an original form of Hiphop expression was evolving in the Bay Area of California. This turned out to be the genesis of what would come to be referred to as Turntablism.

While Hiphop had come to evolve from Bronx DJs who found breaks in songs and looped them utilizing two copies of the same record, Bay Area DJs extended this practice to creating whole songs by manipulating tiny portions of songs into something new. Breaks would be dissected into individual drum sounds to create new beats. Sound effects would be replayed to create patterns on top, often creating new meanings for words and phrases.

The Invisible Skratch Piklz became the umbrella name for the group of Turntablists that would come together and pioneer this new artform. Separately and together their members won so many DJing titles that they were banned from subsequent competitions worldwide. Members such as DJ Disk, Q-Bert and Mixmaster Mike have all gone onto play in much larger contexts, playing concert venues around the world billed as musicians and playing to large audiences.

Bay Area hiphop impresario Billy Jam recognized the innovations happening behind the decks in his own back yard early and began documenting jam sessions. Here is a bit of one of those jams in which you can here aural chaos being shaped into something more musical before your very ears.

Tune of the Week: Siouxsie and the Banshees

Siouxsie and the Banshees is quite possibly the quintessential post-punk band. Mulitple members were actively onhand in the Sex Pistols scene which took the UK by storm in the mid to late 70s. Over the years they acquired and lost many band members who helped shape their sound. Perhaps most notably was the inclusion of The Cure’s Robert Smith during his hiatus from his own band. Smith came onboard to take on guitar dutes for one album and tour. The marriage of songwriting styles helped to create uncommon tunes that simultaneously sound very Cure-ish and Siouxsie-ish. “Take Me Back” sounds as if it could exist on any subsequent Cure album, but Siouxsie’s lyrics and delivery are uniquely her own. As talented a tunesmith as Smith is, here is proof of his worthinness as a collaborator. Hopefully, he will explore this kind of creative space again later in his career!

Tune of the Week: Sensational

Sensational is a Brooklyn, NY based one man hip hop powerhouse. First discovered by The Jungle Brothers, who brought him onboard for the original version of their third full length “J Beez Wit The Remedy”. This version was scrapped after Warner Bros. rejected it as being too experimental. Sensational went his own way afterwards. His productions feature off-kilter rhythms that both recall early hip hop in their simplicity of arrangement but also, as he is wont to say, “match his flow”. The lo-fi, sometimes recorded through headphones, vocals feature a lot of hip hop tropes: weed consumption, money and gear accumulation, sex and general bravado. However, Sensational’s pride in the uniqueness of his style in the face of corniness shines over all. The uniformity of his style and presentation creates something not so weird as something more true to one of the genre’s original ideals: originality above all.

Tune of the Week: Funkadelic

Under George Clinton’s leadership Funkadelic has been a great number of things. Their debut album, recorded in 1968 and 69, displays a firm psychedelic funk-rock sound. In this, the opening track, the rhythm section rumbles on their groove and the guitars do their thing as Clinton gives a treatise on just what “Funkadelic” means. The recording has a very live feel to it with the inclusion of applause and what sounds to be the voice of the recording engineer in the very few last seconds. A truly groovy start to what would be a forty year plus legacy. Fly on, my people. Fly on!

Tune of the Week: Bogdan Raczynski

Bogdan Raczynksi is a US based electronic musician whose hyperactive and silly personality resounds in his creations. Raczynski is one of the first electronic producers to create music entirely within a computer environment. While ultilzing low bit-rate sample and tracking software, in which one must write code for the music to be played, he creates incredibly intricate compositions. Perhaps to intentionally underscore the very heavy and intense sonic proceedings, Raczynski adds his own vocals which sound as if they were recorded by a child upon its first discovery of the “Record” button on a tape recorder. This goes a long way to making such spastic music more palpable and, perhaps most important of all, FUN.

Tune of the Week: James Blake

James Blake is London based musician who creates electronic, r’n’b and hiphop music. Blake represents, along with friends Mountie Kimbie and Airhead, the best of the “post dubstep” school of music. While in college he attended seminal dubstep parties such as FWD>> and DMZ, as well as throwing his own dubstep parties. He has been quoted as saying that “everything dubstep comes from Mala and Coki”. While his later work shows a more delicate and traditional method to songwriting, his early instrumental works show his appreciation of those “eyes down” nights spent meditating on “bass weight”. While it’s nice that he’s garnered the success he has, would someone please remind Mr. Blake to make some weird beats again, please?

Tune of the Week: Dilla and DOOM

MF Doom was an independent hiphop force. He gained world wide fame and influence while staying on small labels. He helped popularize the marriage of comic book and hiphop cultures. While a great producer in his own right, DOOM’s most popular works came from rhyming on other’s beats. They were, in large part, made by some of the best of the best, including Dangermouse and Madlib. Here is a fantastic example of what DOOM could bring to an expertly crafted beat, this one by the late, great J Dilla. DOOM’s flow, timing and wit are all on shining display and his attention to what’s happening within the beat is something a lot of emcees never do. RIP the Madvillian!

EXTRA CREDIT ASSIGNMENT:

MF Doom was infamous for sending imposters to play at his shows. They would don the brand related mask and lip sync to a recording. How could someone get away with this time and time again, you ask? Here’s some documentation of just how energetic an actual DOOM show could be. Armed only with a self-prepared CD-R, DOOM rocks the show with a breakneck pace. The energy transfer between performer and audience is palpable. Seems worth the gamble to have a show like that!

Tune of the Week: George Winston

George Winston is an American pianist often associated with the 80’s New Age movement. In fact his record “December” is the greatest selling title in the catalog of the New Age poster-child label Windham Hill. Here Winston interprets a Bach piece. Winston’s technique is truly a marvel. At times it sounds as if he has more than two hands on the keyboard. The recording itself is amazing, sounding as if you are within the piano. The piece captures the vastness and intricateness of the winter season: delicate falling snow and unfettered landscapes.

Thanks to any and all of you checking out the blog. See you in 2021!

Tune of the Week: Sharon Jones Christmas

If you are feeling Christmas song burnout this time of year, here’s a meta Christmas song by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings to put some funk in your holiday trunk!