Battles – Atlas

While I listen to a lot of mood setting ambient & experimental stuff, I’m primarily a song guy. Whenever even a tiny bit of chorus or riff occupies my mind, I can’t stop repeat-listening the song. However it takes around 4-5 listens to memorize every aspect of the song, so the passion dies probably within a week but there’s always a new challener that runs in my head and takes the former’s place. Sometimes I get hooked to a song but don’t like the album enough so I can’t decide whether to feature it on undomondo or not. To end this struggle I decided to make a top 3 most listened series every week taken from my last.fm charts, so that I can write 3 songs lacking any distinct connection whatsoever without thinking.

Our first contender comes from Finland’s Sahkö Recordings home to our favourite crackpot Jimi Tenor. Released on 2004 it features the vocal talent of singer Carola alongside famous Finnish pianist Heikki Sarmanto’s trio. The traditional Irish tune “Black is the colour” gets revamped perfectly into silk smooth vocal jazz here.

Second tune is from Pink Martini’s latest album Hey Eugene. Pink Martini is a mainstream big band which I normally skip, but I got stuck on this Arabic song called Bukra W’badu, originally sung by Abdel Halim Hafez, an Egyptian musical superstar. This should be theme song of a big budget Arabic romantic comedy with big band brass arrangement, a sexy strippers swing in the bridge and a chorus.

The third song is off the Battles debut on Warp that’s generating a lot of buzz (both positive & not as positive) right now. This is pure roboprog from 2094, a time when the music machines have taken on the world. On the opener Race : In, layers and layers of wacky melodies and precise rhythms, guess what, race against time in this chaotic futuristic piece. The group features Ty Braxton (son of avantgarde jazz musician Anthony Braxton) on pitched up vocals and keyboards, ex-Helmet drummer John Stanier, ex-Don Caballero guitarist Ian Williams, and ex-Lynx guitarist Dave Konopka. If you’ve been listening to Prog Rock or Mr. Bungle this is probably nothing as complex or as weird as promoted by mags and 9.1 by Pitchfork is way over the roof, but it’s so full of energy and presented so well that it’s easy to say that the avantgarde has finally met with the mainstream. The next Zappa is going to be a machine I tell ya!

Carola & Heikki Sarmanto Trio – Black is the Colour
Pink Martini – Bukra W’bado
Battles – Racein