new music again

it's like christmas every fucking month! i get six albums that i've either been waiting on (in my saved for later list) or something completely random that i've never heard of. awesomeness:



lyric 1 – get in on the ground floor

canadian hip hop. yeah, that's right. canadian. and you thought they were all so polite and nice. get over it. they're americans that can deal with the cold better than us. and with health care.

UPDATE (from Arjuna): ...groan... this sucks. there was one track i heard on cbc3 that was pretty good -- good enough for me to find and buy on emusic -- and now that i have the whole album i'm very disappointed. you know those guys that stand on haight street saying things like "support local hip-hop" and are selling home-burned cd's of their rhymes? they would kick this guy's ass for sullying the name of the genre. he sucks. he sounds like someone actually making fun of underground and unsigned hip-hop, except he's serious.

for good canadian hip hop, check out k'naan's "dusty foot philosopher" and cadence weapon's "breaking kayfab."



voxtrot – your biggest fan



voxtrot – raised by wolves

i think that these two are julia's fault. i have no clue what they sound like. please, oh hip and stylish scenesters with whom i am blessed to debauch, should i like or revile this group?



the awkward stage – heaven is for easy girls

canadians, again. blame cbc3.



songs: ohia – protection spells

songs: ohia/magnolia electric company is always a delight. i just wish they'd clear up the whole naming thing.



scarub – one for the road, volume one

i went looking for more m.i.a. or similar and this guy came up as an artist frequently downloaded by fans of m.i.a... anyone ever heard of him? know where he's from? anything?



tom waits – orphans: brawlers, bawlers & bastards

i really hope i don't need to explain myself on this one. i only wish i'd had more downloads so i could've picked up the bastards group along with the brawlers and bawlers. if any of you have the bastards, let me know...

long live emusic!

Ray Barretto's Acid

Holy Shit!

i was lying in bed last night, reading my book, and this little gem of a song comes on. truly a delight.

the song is the title track of ray barretto's album "acid".

as most anyone reading this knows, i have a thing for percussion. this song (and, really, the whole album) is delightfully rhythm-heavy and dripping with poly's. in a word, it's awesome.

i think it was my dad that first introduced my to percussion, but it was really the loadies in capitol park that got me into it -- drum circles and acid and long, warm sacramento summer nights can do that to an impressionable young man...

when i listen to music that is this good, i find myself imagining (or is it remembering) my earliest conscious memories of the genre being heard. in this case, it's to portola way, my childhood home. i'm in the living room, on a big blue couch, listening to something with timbales. it's the first time i've really given congas and timbales and clave and that zipper-sounding thing any undivided attention, and my mind is being blown. how do they all stay in time with each other? is this one drummer or seven? and where the fuck is the one?

then my dad got a pair of congas. i immediately started spending my afternoons playing (playing? well, more like hitting them repeatedly and learning how to make new sounds) them and annoying the neighbors. when i got back from holland two years later i started going to capitol park and drumming more... how shall i say... traditionally. trance-states and such. heart-beats and pulse rhythms. stuff that would probably annoy the shit out of me now if i were to try and participate in a similar circle.

anyhow, ray barretto is amazing. this song (and the whole fucking album) is amazing. check it.