March 25, 2010

EL-P listens to Debonair Dimension, now you can too!



Found this awesome and surprisingly rare electro rap joint from 86 out of california on the Macola label, (it's one of the 2 hardest to find releases on the label) and sadly I decided to Ebay it but I did get $260.00 for it so I was pretty pleased. Anyhow, I upped the full thing in a rar for yas because there are so many tight instros vocals and accapellas I thought yall might want them all. Personally, I feel like Free Bass 9000 is the standout track on the 12" because it sounds like the kinda shit that El-P jams out to before dropping a wickid crunchy beat, I love how hard this sucker hits, and the A side; Sound Attack, is pretty rad too. Its kind of an exercise in DJ prowess, y'kno the synths scratching cutting and all that good stuff and with pretty tight vocals. Also I was amazed to see that the record had been signed by MC Bam Bam and Debonair Dimension "To JR Boy and Stacy", which is quite bad ass. Anyway, I highly recommend it for the oldschool and electro fans out there, I havent checked to see if its been posted to any other blogs yet but if so I doubt they have all the tracks so ENJOY!

BANG YO HEAD LIKE ITS A.D. 9000

March 24, 2010

Some Gospel Finds Fo Yuhs




Excellent gospel album for those who really like gospel gospel stuff, not just soul or funk gospel, but the one track that is kinda soulful happens to be my favorite, I guess I could put up the whole LP but I figured the interest would be mainly in these tracks so I will stick with this for now. This is the Jubilee Hummingbirds - I feel the spirit LP tracks: Try Jesus. Glory is Coming. From 1977. Try Jesus is very heartwarming and quite a soulful track with great drumming too. Goes to show it doesnt have to be super funky to be great!




I was really going crazy when I first needle dropped this at the flea market cause it starts off massive and its completely unknown, but then like most weird unknown records 75% was not so hot, but it did really grow on me, and that one beginning track is still fire as far as i'm concerned, but I am really upset with myself for not ripping all the tracks from this before I ebayed it out, now I just have a 6 minute clip of samples from the best parts, but its unique enough I thought yall should hear it anyway. Go Bishop Smith!





And last but CERTAINLY not least we have one of the ultimate boner records I've found recently, and as it is technically gospel I thought this would be as good a time as any to unleash it upon you. This is 8 year old Patrick Dwayne Fortson the II. He writes and sings his own songs, and he is a mad player. I can only imagine how much PDF is ballin nowadays. The album cover is definitely better than the music, but it's kind of interesting too in a bad 80s way. Here's a taste, cause you cant handle this LP.

March 16, 2010

Uber Weird Find: The Ballad of Glooscap!





So there are many reasons why this record is odd, but I do like the minimal DIY ambient synth atmosphere approach of Calle Ornemark's Ballad of Glooscap, the poetry I could do without but in small doses it adds a cool element I guess, as it is only on a few tracks, the real winners are the first track Birds of the Sky, with its minimal synth experimental ambiance that really warms the soul in a way, and then the 'rhythm' pieces which are a nod to John Cage as Calle is using a self-altered custom piano to produce strange rhythmic notes that echo out into a weird organic yet mechanical soundscape, the whole album is very trance inducing. The poetry tracks, (the 2 longest I left out of the rar because trust me you dont really want them), are mainly just Calle reading a really earthy mystical Native American style poem in Swedish, and then a female voice reads after him in English translating it sentence by sentence, again freakishly mesmerizing but a little kitschy/ campy I guess. I still am not totally sure what Calle the Swede was going for, my best guess is a pseudo native American homage slash earth prayer warning ala koyaanisqatsi double LP with John Cage like experimental piano etudes, and Klaus Schulze like synth atmosphere, and some Swedish poetry in between tracks. There is some interesting stuff to read when you wiki Glooscap, but I just don't see the Swedish connection. I could not find a date for the recording, but I am guessing about 1977-1985. There is to my knowledge not a single mention of this crazy double LP anywhere on the internet, zero zip nada, though I didn't deeply research Calle Ornemark because I figure the money potential for this kind of thing is never that strong, so I will just enjoy it's weird obscurity until I find something out. Despite all the description I gave it isn't going to floor you musically, but it is quite well done for being a DIY experimental/ambient album.

BALLAD OF GLOOSCAP

Found the Holy Grail of Austin Modern Soul, just sitting in a dusty old cardboard box... TRACE OF SMOKE - TREASURE MIND



Here it is, one of the holy grails of the modern soul world and produced and recorded right here in Austin TX. I really dig this track, it's from 1977, and it has the classic modern soul crossover funk sound that really represents what the UK clubs were playing in the 80s to present as floor friendly northern soul (which after about 1975 became modern soul, to mark the difference in era and sound, but still serving basically the same purpose for club DJs.) I don't know a whole hell of a lot about the background of John Calvin or Mary Williams, (probably no relation to Mary Lou Williams but the track she is on is a jazzy number) but I do know that Melvin Winn occasionally produced soul records for artists around Austin and maybe Dallas, and that he also produced another later soul/boogie record by Karizma that is also very good and equally rare, but worth about 150-300 dollars as opposed to Trace of Smoke which fetches 1000-2000 dollars in good shape. Treasure Mind is not only awesome it's a grower too, the first time I heard it I was at about 3.5 stars out of 5, but honestly I am at pushing 5 stars now, atleast for the soul 45 category, theres just something kinda otherwordly about it's lyrics, which are quite elusive, and the breakdown in the middle just levels me. Anyway, I am very thankful to the record gods for this one and I wish I could have kept it but the $ is too irresistible. Enjoy a real non cd comp copy of this, and I'm throwing in the U.R. side too, cause not many people have heard it.


Trace of Smoke - Treasure Mind

Trace of Smoke - U.R.