This dosnet need to be said...its been said quite a bit already..but this album dominates!!! So much more than the sum of its parts. Homme, Jones and Grohl are in top form here.
This supergroup is so much more than the sum of its parts. This album is riff heavy and extremely bluesy with Jones adding some very interesting keyboards to the album( like the Trampled under foot esque clavinet on Scumbag Blues).
The explore some pretty interesting musical territory on this album, for example, Bandoliers features a sort of psycho salsa guitar hook with with a very eerie vocal, courtesy of Homme.
Never since the Beatles have i heard an English band use Sitars and Tablas with such facility. On Pigs, Peasants and Astronauts ( Columbia Records), Kula Shaker forks over a slab of psychedelic schizophrenia that scares( in a good way) as well as thrills. This album sums up the entire universe in 12 songs. Everything from Love ( Shower your Love), Hope ( Great Hosannah), Anguish ( 108 Battles of the Mind), Fear (Time-Worm), Anger (S.O.S). This would be the perfect album to listen to if you were the Silver Surfer. The album spans the gamete of human emotion and the production of the album spans the gamete of the human mind.
But even if you strip away all the "Frills and Lillies", you are left with a band that can really tear it up. Crispian Mills is a fantastic songwriter and gifted guitarist, Jay Darlington (On this album) p absolutely sublime organ with rolls and waves of a thick hammond sound. The Rhythm section of Alonza Bevan(bass) and Paul Winterhart(drums) is rock solid, with both musicans keeping a very tight groove and keeping all fills extremely tasteful.
The production of this album is great but it is not what makes the album great. These songs are great songs and even if everything was stripped away, you would still be left with great songs. Pigs Peasants and Astronauts is an album that stands up to repeated listens and actually gets better with time because there is something new to hear every time you listen to it.
A few weeks ago i was talking to Alex Brenneman, good friend of mine ( who is an exemplary writer) , we decided to do a little segment on this blog. The concept was simple--i would send him music, and he was give me his extremely well written first impressions, i would then comment further on music, giving a more rounded opinion of the music. So here we go the first installment of the first and last of!
1.Slavic Soul Party!
Alex:
Did you ever wonder what the world sounds like to the Pink Panther? Slavic Soul Party seems to be a band that pulled their inspiration straight from the head of that mischievous kitty. The quick and playful horns of this band practically beg you to get up to some light hearted wrong doing. It’s as though my speakers are spewing an intoxicating vapor of fun and freedom. So crank some Slavic Soul Party, pull some pranks, get into trouble, and do it while dancing with the grin of Loki’s own grandchild on your face.
Me:
Slavic soul party though very bright in their horn sound, sometimes loses the attention of the audience...at least on record. Not because the music is not spectacular, but because songs like Taketron are so gosh darn inspired, that other, slower paced tunes like "Get it how you live" pale in comparison. It is as if you went trick-or-treating at halloween, and grabbed a bunch of candy, and when you looked at your pile, you saw a twix on top but then you lifted the twix to see nothing but candy corn underneath it. The point is this--the candy corn would be much more enjoyable if there wasn't that twix around for comparison.
Songs like the aforementioned "Taketron" and "Missy Sasa" are truly inspired, while Opa Cupa sounds like it could be the alternate soundtrack to the Borat movie. All the music is good, but some songs definately jump out at you more than others.
Two things that i really really enjoy about this band:
1.Good Accordian: There is some seriously great Accordian on all of their recordings.
2.Style: They do not adhere to a strict brass band format even though that is what they technically are. Their style is much more reminiscent of a marching band than a brass band and they manage to create a sound that is much bigger than they actually are.
I feel like I should be on top of a mountain, sitting on a granite throne and contemplating the fate of the world while I listen to these guys. There is some epic quality to this
band that goes beyond the heavy metal sound, something that makes me feel that by listening
to them I have transformed into a deep and thoughtful man. I could be deciding whether or not to have a banana with my dinner, and if these guys were on I wouldn’t be able to avoid contemplating the grave and direconsequences that would stem from my choice. Eerie and cool.
Me:
Shrinebuilder was a band hotly anticipated by anyone even remotely into stoner metal.
With Dale Crover( The Melvins), Scott Kelly( Neurosis), Al Cisneros(Sleep, Om) and Wino( St. Vitus, Every other awesome band), this line up was sure to be one to impress. And they sure do impress!
Their album is appropriately heavy and dirge-y and at times makes you feel like you are being rolled over a by a steamroller that is on fire. Imagine funeral music played by Orcs..well this is better than that. At least as good as funeral music played by electric Trolls.
For anyone who likes fast music, this album is not for you. It is long and slow, psychedelic and sludgey, and extremly, extremely heavy. But if you dig that...take a listen, chug some molasses, and be buried alive(sonically) by Shrinebuilder!
It seems to me (and this is my very unexpert opinion) that Turkish must be a really hard language to make rock and roll lyrics with. That being said I can only speculate on Yavuz’s style, but here’s my hypothesis: Iimagine he rides a dune buggy with razor wheels and a tinted
windshield through the Turkish desert, only at night and with his favorite pair of sunglasses on, while hunting demons dinosaurs from a different dimension. The evidence that I have for this is that a guy that rocks the guitar like Yavuz does has got to be at least this bad-ass. In fact he probably opened the dimensional portal himself by tearing through our universal fabric with righteous guitar Rockings!!
Me: Alex is right...the music is dead on, but turkish is a strange language to sing rock and roll in. Dont be fooled though. The funkyness of this song can not go unnoticed. Cetin is a very gifted guitar player and if he had Jamiroquai singing for him, he'd be taking over the world right now.
Ropeadope records came up with a brilliant concept in 2001 that basically involved 4 steps.
1. Find a City with a rich musical History. 2. Find Adept musicians from Different genres that are based in that city.3. Get them together in a room. 4. Press Record.
This project became the Philadelphia Experiment (Wordplay!) with Avant-Garde Pianist Uri Caine, Hiphop magician ?uestlove and living bass legend Christian Mcbride. The music created was exactly what everyone hoped for. Seriously funky, out-there, musically heavy jazz.Ropeadope repeated this 'Experiment" with Detroit in 2003 creating an album that had more of an electronic flavour.But to me, the most accessable 'Experiment' is 2007's Harlem Experiment.
Featuring Harlem heavies such as Carlos Alomar, Steve Bernstein, Don Byron, Eddie Martinez, bassist Ruben Rodriguez, and drummer Steve Berrios, the Harlem experiment is less musically indulgent than the Philadelphia Experiment, and more focused than the Detroit Experiment.The emphasis here is on solid melodic and rhythmic performances that are well placed and never masturbatory.
While the Detroit and Philaelphia experiments, are amazing musically, there is a sense that the albums had been padded with extraneous material (eg. 8 minute songs that should have been 5). Not here. In that sense, the Harlem experiment is relatively stripped down, and more focused on the performance of the song and less with jamming.
The guests on the album add an interesting flavor to the music. The version of ''A Rose in Spanish Harlem" on the album, featuring James Hunter is a beautiful ballad that feels like something between soul music and samba, while their rendition of Cab Calloway's classic "Reefer Man" featuring Taj Mahal on vocals is a delightfully upbeat, clarinet heavy take on the tune.
The instrumentals on the album are also top notch, blending genres that have evolved in Harlem like Hiphop, Soul, Funk, and Jazz. Their take on the Yiddish classic 'Bei mir bist du schön' is a prime example of this--it infuses funk, soul, and a pinch of hiphop into an unexpected musical candidate.
The Harlem experiment is an extremely focused album that is very easy to pick up and very difficult to put down. Though Detroit and Philadelphia were amazing, they do not stand up well to repeated listens( At least in a row). The Harlem Experiment, by emphasizing music over musicians, is a thoroughly enjoyable project and i can only hope Ropeadope keeps putting out quality projects like these (New Orleans Experiment...PLEASE!!).
