Our Kinds of Music
Sun, Oct 26, 2008
Music from around the World you might hear at the gallery or during our openings. We will update this section constantly.
Music from around the World you might hear at the gallery or during our openings. We will update this section constantly.
10/5/08
1.- Calexico- Carried to Dust
Quarterback Records 2008
This band is one of the ones I would take with me when I disappear into the South western desert. They are Masters of the evocation of Place with their refined mariachi brass, their genius drummer and their great songwriting and evocative guitar.
2.- Lila Downs- Shake Away
Blue Note Label Group 2008
Less Cafe than her last outing, this one finds her more jazzy but still very edgy. Fewer ballads but a smoking version of Black Magic Woman. She was the singer in the movie Frida and I have always felt she would have made a better Frida than Selma. Looks more like her also.
3.- Ali Farka Toure and Toumane Diabate- In the Heart of the Moon
World Circuit 2005
The music on this CD is as close to its title as you can get. They fill silence with visionary delicacy the way a Bach cello sonata does. This is healing and spiritual music for these damaging times.
4.- Shantel- Bucovina Cub Mixture Mixtape 2
Crammed Esay Records 2008
I can't play this when clients come into the gallery because it makes my body twitch in odd rhythmic ways. Shantel is an amazing DJ who has reworked great gypsy music into a positive and sometimes hilarious debauch without any sacrifice of musicality.
5.- Elvis Perkins- Ash Wednesday
XL Recordings 2007
A pure and beautiful CD of exquisite and generous songwriting. Perkins was the son of Anthony
Perkins and recorded this CD after his mother, on returning from his fathers' funeral went down on the 9/11 plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. Despite that the music is uplifting and energizing like a forest at dawn. The song 'While You Were Sleeping" is one of the greatest American songs ever written...up there with Dock of the Bay, A Change is Gonna Come and Tangled Up in Blue, to name a few.
6.- Carolina Chocolate Drops Presents Sankofa Strings- Colored Aristocracy
Music Maker 2007
A contemporary African-American String band playing old-timey music but with a slight twist. Sounding often like an old jug band it is great hearing violin and guitar sound like this.
7.- Watcha Clan- Diaspora Hi-fi
Piranha Music 2008
Smoking on the dance floor, smoking on the stage this band rewards with its combination of Balkan, Jamaican, North African and hip hop among others. From Great Britain, they are loud and rhythmic and just starting to be known in the United States.
8.- Africa Remix
Milan Records 2007
This is the CD that accompanied the Art exhibition of the same name that showed self-taught African Artists as artists and as part of a phenomenon that accepts and expands outside influences without losing its roots integrities. The art should outrage purists and the music raises the bar as well.
9.- Back Roads to Cold Mountain
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings 2004
This CD plays like a mountain spring, clear cool and very very refreshing. The field holler in the first cut is worth the price alone but there is much much more from black and white gospel to banjo and pure blues. Despite the disparate roots the American feel to it is palpable.
10.- Bunny Wailer- Blackheart Man
Island Def Jam Music Group 1976/2002
I last heard this in college and so it was with a bit of trepidation that I played it again and with a sense of relief and great enjoyment heard the power and intensity of its messages. They are still relevant in this bashed up world. Jamaica is listening itself to roots music again and this CD has a definite Old Master quality to it. Highly recommended.
11.- Nation Beat- Legends of the Preacher
Modiba 2008
I ran into this group through total serendipity this summer while surfing musical sites. At first I thought they were an army of drums and violins playing Mexican matachin music but then I heard the Brazilian bottom come through. They sing Hank Williams songs a couple of times to a neo-samba beat. The vibe is up and healthy and sinuous. They are moving up very fast.
Just In- Afrissippi
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