Trying to keep each week eclectic, always looking for new and different stuff... A release I took a look at last fall but didn't pick up until now, something different from South Africa, discovering just how much Rumba is in Zimbabwe's music, and a compilation I had sitting in my digital pile.
New Releases:
Die Antwoord - Ten$ion
Label: Zef Records
Released: 2/7 2011
Genre: Hip-Hop, Rap
A trio from South Africa, a DJ and alternating male and female MCs. It's styled as 'Zef' which is a South African street subculture I'm not even going to try and describe, I'd have no idea where to begin, but it has some definite parallels to American Hip-Hop culture. The music itself alternates between hip-hop and trance/rave beats. Lyrics alternate between English and Afrikaans, which makes for a very rapid fire delivery. It's definitely a little different, and I like it, though the lyrical content towards vulgar, almost purile, some of it is gangsta to an almost comedic effect. Hopefully, the musical style catches on, it doesn't rely on standard hip-hop beats, mixing in rave, dubstep, drum'n'bass and house styles throughout.
Adding To The Collection:
Icon For Hire - Scripted
Label: Tooth & Nail Records
Released: 2011
Genre: Hard Rock, Nu Metal
The debut full length album from the band almost looks like it will fall lock step into female-lead vocal hard rock of the last decade, made popular by Evanescence. Luckily, it does nothing of the sort. Ariel has a strong rock style, not the classical singing style others try to emulate. The music is solid rock, with a bit of industrial sensibility tossed in to keep it from being just heavy metal. Ariel can easily switch between a slower and faster sung styles, keeping up with tempo changes in the music so the vocals match up. The album has a theme behind it about fame, fortune, and identity. Well put together, catchy, I can only imagine they're getting some decent radio play - or I hope they are, they deserve the exposure and I'm looking forward to the future of this group.
Sarah McLachlan - Surfacing
Label: Arista Records
Released: 1997
Genre: Soft Rock, Folk Rock
Most of my exposure to Sarah is actually through a proliferation of house, ambient, and other remixes from the electronic music scene. It's a wonder that I never really went back to the source to give her a closer listen. So I do, finally, and... her voice is excellent, alluring, melodic, and easily adapted to trip-hop and related genres. I can hear how someone would listen and think she needed a heavier treatment to the music, even if most of her remixes and covers ended up on the ambient style. This album, itself, is a pretty standard sound of soft, or folk, rock. The music light, non-intrusive on her vocals, which are a light touch, no yelling and indignent sneering from her, even when the song content sounds like she should be a bit angry. I think I'll come back and check out more recent albums to see how she's evolved. As it, this album is a good light album to put on when you want an acoustic background. This is the album with Building A Mystery, that song that was on the radio every 14 seconds for a while there.
Matrix Downloaded 001
Label: Alfa Matrix
Released: 2011
Genre: Industrial, EBM, Electro
To celebrate ten years as a label, Alfa Matrix decided to offer up a 34-track free download, which has been sitting on my hard drive since the fall sometime. And now it is loaded into my library. And most of it I have already, not because I own a lot of these albums (honestly, I don't, the exchange rate to get music from Europe sucks), but because I ended up with a lot of compilations through 2010 and 2011 that contain tons of the same songs here. Which makes this slightly redundant in my library, but still cool. This is essentially a Double CD (they even conveniently meta-tag the tracks as 2 17-track discs) compilation spanning most of ten years, for free. You really can't argue with that. Most of this is EBM and Electro, from light to hard - and well mixed to flow evenly between the two, a DJ set this order up. There are about a half dozen tracks you won't find anywhere else, and most of the rest are only available on various compilations anyway - making it a pretty good download unless you're overly obsessive...
Rough Guide To The Music Of Zimbabwe
Label: World Music Network
Released: 1995
Genre: Zimbabwe Tradtional, Rumba
This time around I went into research mode and learned something about traditional Zimbabwe musics, coming up with a few genres local to the area. And then listened to this compilation and found a whole bunch of it full of Rumba, a lot done with traditional instruments, but the beats are unmistakeably Rumba in a lot of this music. Even the local Shona and Chimurenga. It's also unclear if the Mbira (sometimes known as the thumb piano) is just an instrument, or a genre unto itself. Since the instrument appears all over the place, I personally think it's just an instrument used to create the local rhythms. This is all good, fun, upbeat, and danceable music - everything presented here says Move. Good enough I think i'll start looking for more of it.
Bonus Track:
Seki Yukio - My First Hardcore Song by 8yr Old Juliey (Dubstep mix)
Label: Soundcloud release
Genre: Dubstep
So... someone recorded what had to be their little sister singing to a pretty hardcore punk bit, the original is about a minute or two long. The opening line "Get your 2-step on" is shouted loudly and with the kind of energy I wish more bands brought to the stage, the guitar is anything but 2-step... German producer Seki Yukio got ahold of it, and turned it into a pretty fun dubstep track. While the original could easily fit on an SOD album, the remix belongs in a club at top volume. Really, it's these kinds of random bits that make the modern digital age so cool... you'd never get this in a record store.
Next week - keeping it diverse; Industrial Rock (Neue Deutsche Harte, technically), Electroswing, Soft Rock, Blues Rock, and a Moombahton collection.
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