King Midas Sound – ‘Waiting for you’

King Midas Sound

Yes, a great way to start the weekend, and a great way to rinse my head of the tacky ’80’s-themed track I’ve been working on all day.  Freshly arrived in the inbox a little while ago…the album from King Midas Sound, the project of Roger Robinson and Kevin Martin.

King Midas Sound mutated from a chance discovery during a collaboration between the two for for Kevin’s other project as ‘The Bug’.

Kevin had employed the skills of Roger as a highly respected poet, but when Roger opened his mouth to sing in a fragile falsetto, everything changed and King Midas Sound was born.

The album can’t be readily compared to Kevin’s previous production work. Although there is a militancy to the beats as always, King Midas Sound is more like the aftermath to  the fierce battleground dancehall of the Bug, Roger’s voice is like a paranoid and vulnerable soul resting inside a blanket of  bass and heavy vertiginous atmosphere.

As opposed to Roger’s spoken word pronouncements and The Bug’s fierce battleground dancehall, King Midas Sound is more like an opiated aftermath; a sound somewhere between Gregory Issacs and Vincent Gallo, nestled inside an intimate blanket of bass and vertiginous atmosphere.

On three of the album cuts, the duo becomes a trio, as the bittersweet backing vocals of Hitomi (Dokkebi Q) adds a further disorientating swirl around the mix like memories gatecrashing the present.

“What genre is it” you ask?  Blues.

‘Waiting for you’ will be released November 30.

Hyperdub on the case again!

Cuentocuentos – Los Silos / Story-telling Festival – Los Silos.

 

This year the annual Story-telling Festival in Los Silos (Tenerife) takes place 4-6 December.
As last year, I’ll be doing a collaboration with two story-tellers, Andrés González Novoa and Ernesto Rodriguez Abad, and providing quality photos will be Juan José Ramos Melo and Oliver Yanes.

 

This event will be a benefit for an agricultural project in Louga, Senegal that is being assisted by La Casa de Africa.  Last years event for La Casa de Africa within Cuentos Los Silos helped raise the ca$h for the  successful completion of a school in Burkino Faso.

More info on the festival is here. Get your tickets early, on one hand the festival could become much bigger than it is, but it’s nice that they’ve kept it at the level it is, intimate, and soon enough you’ll become family.

 

The Coup – 100 Days of Resistance

Faultines, an Al Jazeera English program, went to Honduras to show report on the one hundred days since the Honduran president was removed by a coup.

Writes Avi Lewis who hosts the program:

“The coup regime in Honduras is winning. Tepid pressure from the Obama administration is making it easy for the de facto government to run out the clock until the highly compromised elections in just five weeks. Whether or not international observers bless that vote, a new government will take power in Honduras and declare the stain of the coup removed, democracy restored. Absent the kind of meaningful sanctions Washington has so far been unwilling to impose, the status quo will triumph: the backers of the coup will go unpunished.”

Coincidentally, this morning BBC, The Guardian, The Independent all reported that “an agreement has been reached that will see Zelaya return to office, through a US-sponsored deal.”  How can the deal be fair if the US is behind it, they already admitted funding the opposition to Zelaya?

 

Part 1

Part 2

Ear Conditioning – People Are Strange

 

 

Mente - Cat

More field recordings from Chris Watson, things like the sea, beetles and whales coming up for air.

New joints from Tony Allen & Jimi Tenor, (now that’s a collaboration outta this universe); Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry doing Black Sabbath, then bass-line warped by Pempi, soon to come on On-U Sound; a couple joints from the Nueva Cumbia album compiled by Sonido Martines for /rupture’s Soot label; Mungo’s HiFi with Earl 16 remixed by LD.

Not new but fresh still, Grantby (where are you?); Stina Nordestam getting the Techno Animal treatment, and nuff more.

 

• Chris Watson – Lioness threatening…(Touch)
• Tony Allen & Jimi Tenor – Sinuhe (Strut)
• Elsa – Sonido Martines Remix (Soot)
• Fauna – Piratas del Zanjo (Soot)
• Chris Watson – Deathwatch Beetle (Touch)
• Mungo’s Hi Fi – International Roots featuring Earl 16 – LD Remix (Dub Police)
• Positive Mind (Studio Rockers)
• Salvador Dali – Talks about Paranoia
• Mike Slott – Cadeting (Rush Hour)
• Yoggyone – Preparation (Electrons Libres)
• Flying Rhythms – Typhoon
• Grantby – Timber (Cup of Tea)
• Heliocentrics featuring Vast Aire – Sirius B. (Now Again)
• Joker – Untitled RSN (Tectonic)
• Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry – Iron Man Dub – Pempi Remix (On-U Sound)
• Stina Nordestam – People are strange – Techno Animal Remix (eastwest)
• Chris Watson – 10m (Touch 7″)
• Chris Watson – Southern Right Whale (Touch)

Ear Conditioning is ‘earable at Sunhole, Tuesday 22h00, (repeated weekdays mornings at 11h00)

Mente – Cat by Jesus de Miguel

Now playing….Sonido Martines presents Nueva Cumbia

Sonido Martines presents: Nueva Cumbia Argentina!

Within are contributions from El Hijo de la Cumbia; DJ Taz; a bass-lined  Martyn-flavoured dancehaul thing from Fauna; Princesa;Daledur; Damas Gratis; Chancha via Circuito.

Pincha aqui para escuchar un tema, Los Destellos ‘Elsa’ (Sonido Martines remix featuring FeFe)

The album is available now from Boomkat and other quality establishments.

High like Otis

Magnus Muhr

Magnus Muhr creates  like no other, as you can see from above.   Yes, he finds inspiration in the simplest things.  How come nobody ever thought of this before?  Go on Magnus.  Maybe I like this series so much because I have recently come across a great way of killing flies when they enter the kitchen.  Using an empty plastic water bottle.  Got this theory that the impending doom of the clear plastic bottle isn’t detected until it’s too late, unless I’m a bit slow.  I’d estimate the kill rate is about 95%.  It’s not known if Magnus put his models into early retirement, or if they died from natural causes.

And now sports….I was digging through some of the six cd’s that Leila gave me after her appearance at this years Clandestino Festival.  Included are dialogues on art by such illuminaries as Dali, (and others…can’t read the writing on the cd’s sorry,)  Also among the pile was a track that El-P used for his Weareallgoingtoburninhellmeggamixx2, it’s by Modeselektor, and my man El-P added vocals and some El-P sonics to the track for his mixtape version.  Surprised the hell outta me believe.

New joints this week, come courtesy of the second installment of the Beat Dimensions series.  It’s got the likes of Dorian Concept, Ras G, Samiyam, Mike Slott, Nosaj Thing and Busy doing their thing.

Priming up the ears for the release of new material from Tom Waits, his label, -Anti have made several live tracks available for download, head over to www.tomwaits.com for what you need.

One of the highlights for me and others I know at Womad Las Palmas a couple years ago was Justin Adams, yes he the guitarist with Robert Plant and producer of the latest Tinariwen albums.  I believe he was supposed to perform with Judleh Camara, but visa problems I believe put a spanner in that idea, so Justin and his percussion partner knocked off a set of blues centered improvisation.  For this years Womad Las Palmas, it’s all set to go with Justin and Judleh booked to perform tracks from their new collaborative effort.  If your in the area, make an effort to catch the set if UK/African blues strokes your fancy.  Other artists confirmed are viewable on the Judleh link above.

Ear Conditioning – Take you high like Otis

• Barry Adamson – Preface (Mute)
• El-P – Tasmanian pain coster [Instrumental] (Def Jux)
• Tom Waits – Get behind the mule (-Anti)
• Dub Colossus – Negus Dub (RealWorld)
• Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara – Fulani Coochie Man (RealWorld)
• Massive Attack – Splitting the atom (Virgin)
• Busy – Ecleptic Armilla (Rush Hour)
• Modeselektor – Title Unknown
• James Blake – Air & lack thereof (Hemlock)
• Shape of Broad Minds – Raiders of the lost mix (Lex)
• Filastine featuring – Como fugitivos (Soot/Jarring Effects)

This week’s program is ‘earable at Sunhole, repeated weekday mornings at 11h00.

Planet Radio is undergoing some program changes, so not sure what the deal is there, I’m sure they’ll let me know what a gwan in the distant future.

They got them drummers….

Drummers, the backbone of it all.

Music Radar has a feature on present day drummers that you have to know about.  I learned some shit today.

John Stainer of Battles, David King of The Bad Plus, KJ Sawka, Logan Kroeber of The Dodos, Greg Saunier, the stool pigeon from Pitchfork favourites Deerhoof…they are A-team buziness.

Stroke it baby

by jimmy akin

Humility | (h)yoōˈmilitē|
noun
a modest or low view of one’s own importance; humbleness.

“My version is better than theirs.” He said to me.  I couldn’t believe what I’d heard.

He was talking about his version of a song by a ground breaking group from the UK, a group that practically invented a genre, now I got somebody telling me this shit.  Man, I tried several times to listen to this ‘version’ but no, not at all.  You fucked up one of my all time favourite songs. I should have given you back the cd, but I broke it in disgust, and for breaking it I apologize.  Your an independent artist and spent time, sweat, effort, money creating your masterpiece.  I should have simply returned it to you and you coulda sold it, and made a few pennies.

Fuck sakes man, take two pills of humility, three times an hour, everyday for six years then come back to me.

There are some things you keep to yourself.  Don’t open your mouth about, keep in your head, it’s safer that way,  the person on the end of your words won’t realize your a self-centered asshole.  Maybe on the other hand it’s better you blab out loud, so we know you are a self-centered  asshole from the off.

Had a discussion recently about the attitudes of some artists in this neighbourhood. Some people that ain’t seen shit, but talk it like through a megaphone.  Is it an ‘island-mentality’ thing?  I need to know, Billy, help me out.  I really ain’t come here to play God, the big man from London who knows everything, that’s for others to do, but hey zeus, sometimes you have to call it as you see it, regardless where ya come from.

After Public Enemy played here a couple years ago, a forum was hit with…“Why did they (the promoters and the financially assisting council) pay all that money for Public Enemy?  There are twenty groups here better than them.”

Well, I’m still waiting to see one of the twenty, just one would be sufficient bigmouth.

Survival International – We are One

Survival International present a book We Are One to celebrate the lives, homelands and values of tribal peoples, much of it in the face of the unequal, unjust exploitation of the earth’s natural resources.

Speaking of the worlds rescources, two things:  Naomi Klein has just penned some thoughts on the upcoming conference on climate change in Copenhagen….Oh bama! Secondly, Sigourney Weaver narrates the Acid Test documentary which is available to view online.

Connections – Minsk Calling

In 2007, a gathering of like minds took place in Minsk, Belarus. The occasion was Unsound Minsk and featured Pole along side local artists, and it must have been good as it gave birth to collaborations between artists from Western Europe and Belarus. Alongside the aforementioned Pole, there is Pinch, Buben, Jacek Sienkiewicz & Arciom Kaveluski, Minorscene, The National Fanfare of Kadebostany. That’s right, I never heard of them either until now, and that’s the point. I hadn’t heard of Flying Lotus or Parliament/Funkadelic until I did, get me?  You may have an idea what Pinch and Pole sound like, what about Kassian Troyer?  His contribution would not be out of place on Chris Watson enviromental recording. Top dog!

The following tracks are available as a free download (proper quality too, not that 96kbps bullshit) and cd’s will also be given away at four events that are taking place about now in Krakow and Minsk.

See here for more information.

For this week’s radio program I’m dropping the album in it’s entirety, all backing it up with the following: contributions from Scalper, ‘Zero’ (from his forthcoming debut album which I mentioned last week); ‘Simple’ from the remastered Funcrusher Plus album by Company Flow, and a blast of South Africa’s hip hop crew Basemental Platform, their sound was very left-field like Co-Flow, disjointed beats somehow fitting together in a mind-bending kinda way. I lost the album that I had, but luckily I have two tracks burned on a cd. So that’s the radio program sorted for this week.

Ear Conditioning – Connections Special

• Pinch Meet Pavel – Poison / Remedy
• I/Dex vs. Pole – Minsk
• The National Fanfare of Kadebostany – Untitled
• Milf meets Minorscene – Constans (White Jack Dub)
• Jacek Sienkiewicz & Arciom Kaveluski featuring Minorscene – Alfabet
• Kassian Troyer – Plant Shift
• Buben vs. Hermann Muntzing – Counterbalance
• The Vulva String Quartet w/ Eugene, B. Twisted, Uladzimir Likhaswhapka – Live at Cafe Planeta
• Company Flow – Simple (Def Jux)
• Basemental Platform – Title Unknown
• Scalper – Zero

Ear Conditioning is ‘earable at the following times and locations:

Radio Norte 89.4FM Tenerife Tuesday 20h30

Sunhole Radio Tenerife Tuesday 22h00 (Program repeated weekdays at 11h00)

Planet Radio Thursday 23h00

All times are Tenerife / London time.