This week is light and heavy, not much rolling down the middle. Intros are boring, onto the music.
New Releases:
Jimmy Cliff - Sacred Fire EP
Label: Collective Sounds
Released: 11/29 2011
Genre: Reggae
Jimmy Cliff is a reggae legend, with about four decades of music behind him. This little EP is five tracks of mostly covers (the Black Friday Record Store 12" is 6 tracks on Vinyl). He covers The Clash with two versions of Guns Of Brixton, opening and closing the EP. The first one is a nearly straight up Reggae protest song, you'd almost never guess it was a Punk Rock song, but given Reggae's close association with early Punk music in the UK this is unsurprising. The second version has much more bassline to it, more drums, it's a little deeper, both versions are excellent. Jimmy has one original song on here, which is a nice little ballad. And he also covers a Bob Dylan song - I've always held that Dylan is not great as a performer but is one hell of a song writer, and I think this proves it, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall is great as a reggae song. But my favorite track (the second track on the CD version of the EP) is Jimmy's cover of Ruby Soho (originally by Rancid). It turns a moderately sad broken-heart punk song into a full on classic, it's just beautiful (and again outlines just how close Punk and Reggae really are to each other). This is an awesome CD, even at only five tracks.
Dave Clarke - Fabric 60 DJ mix
Label: Fabric
Released: November 2011
Genre: House, Electro
Fabric is a nightclub in London, every month it puts out either a DJ Mix or a Live Mix. This month was a DJ Mix from Dave Clarke. It's heavy, bassy, with electro undercurrents, and absolutely not a standard House mix. Dave eschews standard dance-house rhythms and club-cuts in favor of a more driving style. The opening tracks lay down a deep, heavy, bass line than doesn't really let up until about a third of the way into the mix, where more electro, and even a few goth-rock elements take over and carry it through to the end. Overall, a good mix, better than most, and a different from just about anything else. If you want a less thumpy and more rhythmic house mix this is a good choice.
Adding To The Collection:
Chris Isaak - Baja Sessions
Label: Reprise
Released: 1996
Genre: Rock, Light Rock, Rockabilly
I am not a particularly big Chris Isaak fan, my wife is which is how this ended up in the collection. On the other hand I don't find him outright bad, he's very easy to listen to, has a good voice, and is generally good for a slow day. This album is very mellow, a little surf rock sneaks in, a lot of 1950s and 60s seems to sneak in too. This also has a cover of Only The Lonely - and I'm a huge Roy Orbison fan. For a moment when I first put this album on I almost thought Roy was singing the track, it took me a few seconds to realize that Chris has not only some good range, but can really do the song justice. I'd pick up this album for that cover song alone.
Sarah Brightman - Harem
Label: Angel
Released: 2003
Genre: Modern Classical, Rock
Sarah Brightman has a gorgeous voice, with amazing soaring ability to it (without getting into the ear splitting too high level). The music behind this album is fairly generic Arabian beats, nothing too clever was done on that front, the classical pieces behind it are likewise very good but also just background music. Sarah really is the primary instrument on this one, and I'm not actually sure I could pick out individual songs, but when I put it on to listen to the whole thing is just a delight. It's about an hour of audio enjoyment. The special edition version I have here has one bonus track and a DVD with some video footage - not actually adding a lot to the album honestly. It's near for collectors though.
Unwoman - Knowledge Scars
Label: self-released
Released: 2002
Genre: Industrial, Dark Ambient
This is Unwoman's first official full release from the early 2000s. It's very raw, not overly produced, and does not have a lot of clutter. The sound ranges from an industrial tone to what was a signature Goth/Darkwave sound from the late 1990s and early 2000s. The whole thing is structured nicely, and you can see that she has a lot of room to grow into. Her cello doesn't feature overly much on this one, it's just as much that as it is standard industrial/darkwave synths and drum machines. Overall, not a bad album to have on hand. The one track I'm on the fence about is Freedom From Religion - it's an early track to be sampling George Bush, but after nearly a decade of the industrial scene sampling his speeches and quotes it sounds dated, and a little tired. The song structures are light, not overly done, and feels a lot like a one-woman production from top to bottom.
Bonus Track:
Dire Disorder - Let's Get Naughty (Dire Disorder Remix)
Label: self-released (soundcloud)
Released: 2011
Genre: Moombahton
Dire Disorder takes Jessie And The Toy Boy's club track "Let's Get Naughty" and turns it into a full on slow heavy Moombahton track. This is all low bass, slow groove, kind of dancefloor hit. Pure fun, and extremely danceable. I love the low basslines and slower rhythms of Moombahton and this track delivers it excellently. Nice little cut from the clubs made even better.
Next Week - a Psychobilly Christmas Album, a 2-Disc Dubstep compilation with some really weird cover productions, and the new albums from Korn (mixing Dubstep and Metal) and The Black Keys (pure blues-rock awesomeness).
Listen Hard!
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