Since we’re all caught in this folk wave, it would only be fair to write about the clash of these two very All-American traditions in music: Bluegrass and Metallica. They’re similar in so many ways that it’s a mixture that can’t go wrong. Like Bluegrass, Metallica is all about heaven & hell, war and peace, struggles and perils of life and so forth. These core themes are not only found in Irish-white folklore but in any other culture, so i don’t think i’m alone to regard Metallica universally traditional in some ways. That’s probably one of the reasons they’re no less famous around the world than USA.
Thanks to Iron Horse, who covered Metallica entirely in Bluegrass, it’s a “what-if” dream that came true. The songs are more “interpretations” than covers, so aside from the instrumental factor there’s that “point-of-view” angle i like so much in a cover project.

While checking Julie’s tracklist from the previous Free Kitten post, I noticed “When the Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin. While no one can say Zeppelin’s cover isn’t top notch, I think I might have found a better version. Tuvan throat singer & guitarist Albert Kuvezin’s cover with his Yat-Kha project. Off 2005’s Re-covers album. Sounds a bit like Ali Farka Toure, no?

Blog favourite German from Chile, Señor Coconut aka Uwe Schmidt and his orchestra has the latest installment to their series of latin pop covers.

I know the excitement fades after 3 albums and BBC even wonders if it’s time for Coconut to retire, the idea is barely new but it’s terribly infectious and successful plus you can’t be critical when it’s summer and it’s over 30C when all you wanna do is to hear some good spirited tunes and singalong.

We see the orchestra in top shape once again as Coconut veteran Argenis Brito sings on most of the tunes while Louie Austen sings on two. We even see a duet on Prince’s Kiss. Tunes like Telex’ Moscow Discow, Les Baxter’s Voodoo Dreams which kickstarted the series as well. There was a comment about Baxter not getting enough reference so it’s a welcoming occassion. Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams, and the 80s German hit “Da Da Da” gets covered (with Stephan Remmler on the vocals)

What I picked for you is Replicant Rumba Rockers‘ “La Vida es Llena de Cables” (which I assume is Schmidt and fellow musician Bernd Friedman which also make up Flanger) and the merenguified version of “White Horse”. Not as good as the “Yellow Fever” album but that’s simply because songs like “Yellow Magic” and “Rydeen” can’t be matched.

Señor Coconut - Around the world (Interlude)
Señor Coconut - White horse
Señor Coconut - La Vida es llena de cables

* Bob from Brockley writes a postscript to my Marc Ribot post. I’ve read this before but I forgot to mention it. Having a postscript written to your post makes you feel like you are an actual music critic!. Mind you, his postscript is better than the original post. Cheers mate.

* Bit of a late find for me, music like dirt’s top 150 tracks of 2007.

* A great find on It’s a Trap, the Scandinavian Music Journal. Jonas Knutsson & Horn Please reworking a traditional carnatic Indian tune. What’s more, the original tune was also interpreted by the master saxophonist Kadri Gopalnath whom we featured a few weeks ago. Download both and listen consecutively!.

* Bandfind is A private network that caters to musicians, where you can meet with fellow musicians for band tryouts , jam sessions, gig fill-ins & recording. Good web2.0 concept that’d be nice to see working.

* Another indie startup is virv.tv this time for the fans, is a free TV broadcasting an all-indie playlist 24/7, exclusively on the web. Their playlist includes Bright Eyes, Of Montreal, Spoon, Arcade fire, Xiu Xiu, The Good Life, Now Its Overhead, Architecture In Helsinki, M.Ward, Devendra Banhart and more, download their plugin and check!

* The Spannered Oddcast No #4 featuring a truly odd 4 and a half minute Ska mix by Randomoidz of London’s Adverse Camber collective.

* A remix compo of the latest The Politik album we reviewed a few weeks ago here. Unfortunately this mail has been rotting in my mailbox for over a month so if you wanna enter, please be quick as there’s only a week or so left in the contest.

* Lovely happy birthday post for Holger Czukay of Can, on Metafilter with lots of references & links. A late happy birthday from us to Mr. Czukay as well.

It was in the year 1967 when I had a job as a music teacher when I heard that Karlheinz Stockhausen was giving a performance of his new created piece “Kurzwellen”(short waves) in Bremen. Early in the afternoon I went to Bremen so that I could also listen to the rehearsal. Five musicians were equipped each with a short wave receiver and some additional instruments. Again they got linked with a small mixer and the famous Maihak W49 filters. Everybody had a little “score” in which I could read an arrangement of the signs +, - and 0. It seemed to look like a composition directory to me. The musicians were searching on the radio for some short wave specific in sound and rhythm, keeping it in tune for a while, playing with their “ordinary” instruments and again searching for another sound signal coming from the radio. Meanwhile Stockhausen was mixing and giving treatments following his score and it turned out to become a concert of a, let’s say “advanced ambience” category. This all happened one year before CAN was born!

It was years later. I was about to take off from CAN in order to follow my own nose when I phoned Karlheinz Stockhausen up. I wanted to see him again after all these years. First he said he didn’t have time, but then he changed his mind : “come for dinner tonight”. We were talking about his influence on the young music scene in general and I mentioned to him how important his ideas have been to me . CAN had been without a singer for some time and I told him how unreplacable the short waves had become to us, looking for a singer or other material coming out of the radio.Today you would probably make a download from the internet. And that his “Kurzwellen” piece had become such an important key event, especially for me. Karlheinz replied that this piece got released on a record, but as the record company didn’t sell more than 3 discs in one year they wanted to take it off the catalogue. This made him go to Hannover, the place where the record company was situated and as he said he was fighting ‘like a lion’ to make this piece remain in the catalogue.

He has been a real good mother to his music I think. He gave me all his records when we said goodbye. He wrote the following notice into the “Kurzwellen” sleeve : “Dear Holger, this is apparently my most important record and you should say that to everybody. Cordially, Karlheinz Stockhausen.”

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Holger Czukay: Oh Lord, Give Us More Money

* And the controversial, violence against emos issue. Watch the video or read via Sturgell.

image cred

Making covers of well known stuff are almost always a good catch. However getting to do a cover album of the greatest electronic anthems ever straight on is a mammoth task. Simply for the fact that these are really the biggest electronic anthems ever and you don’t have the chance to go wrong. Decide to cover Jaydee’s “Plastic Dreams”, Isolee’s “Beau Mot Plage”, Josh Wink’s “Higher States of Consciousness”, Kraftwerk’s “Trans Europa Express”, Mr. Fingers’ “Can you feel it” and you are officially not allowed to mess up. With courage and over 10 years of musicianship though, Christian Prommer pulls it together on his Sonar Kollektiv debut. Although it’s debatable if Prommer’s version of “Beau Mot Plage” surpasses the original jazzy version by Freeform Five, it’s a lovely gift to listen to Ame’s “Rej”, a much recent anthem that I’m sure most of you have heard at least once in a club. Veteran musician C. Prommer’s been in Fauna Flash, Voom:Voom and Trüby Trio, done remixes and releases on Compost, Mole and G-Stone, the holy trinity of so euro dub & urban lounge music. The idea for this one came out when he did a remix of Derrick May’s classic “Strings of Life” which received rave reviews all over and by the man himself!. You can’t go wrong with this track selection and making jazzy reinterpretations generally but Prommer pulls it off so easily, it’s baffling why he got so few buzz for this one.

Christian Prommer’s Drumlesson - Rej
Christian Prommer’s Drumlesson - Beau Mot Plage

D-I-R-T-Y guys are not the only ones doing re-edits of course, there’s a whole slew of artists like the king Tangoterje Barna Sound Machine, the Sa-Ra Collective, Sasso, Otterman Empire, Freaky Funk, The Delicate Genius, DJ Harvey, Krikor1 and more, there’s a thread on ILX that calls them bearded disco, but most of the vinyls are either bootleg or too limited so they’re very hard to find. Best places to look for them would be the blogs bumrocks and lovefingers, and the D-I-R-T-Y collective blog Alainfinkielkrautrock, and of course the record shops Fatcity or Piccadilly are always a source for the soulful. I’ve selected 5 tracks, a Pilooski re-edit of Yellow Power from the upcoming D-I-R-T-Y compilation, The Delicate Genius with a funky disco edit, and 3 more disco re-edits for your pleasure, will do more soon, I promise!

Yellow Power - Hai Samurai (Pilooski Edit)
Kleer - Tonight (Sa-Ra Remix)
The Delicate Genius - Personal Message Unit
Debarge - I Like it (Barna Soundmachine Remix)
Carl Carlton - She’s a bad Mama Jama (Freaky Funk Edit)

* Farben - Live At Sahara Tahoe, 1973 (Little White Earbuds) : glitchy electronica
* Differnet - Perpetual Summer (Homemade Avantgarde)
: ambient/textural
* Mou, lips! - looking for symmetry in the laws of nature (Homemade Avantgarde) : Once again from the “On how a picture can sound” release
* Stars of the Lid - And their refinement of the decline (Shameless Complacency) Ambient / from their new release.

[youtube Nt_Y3pzFNlQ]
Stars of the Lid & Eluvium - Heaven Water Fire Earth

* Herbert - Back to the Start (Brooklyn Vegan) : Might be my fave Herbert track, anticipating his new release Score.
* 120 days - SXSW (woxyblog “The Futurist”.) : electropop
* 50 Hertz - Ring of Fire (My old Kentucky Blog) : electropop / MOKB’s covers project has over 15 “Ring of Fire” covers, this is by far the funniest cover by Swedish mockelectro band 50 Hertz.
* MF DOOM - Elite Scooby Doo Shit (Gorilla vs. Bear) : hiphop / rare MF Doom piece.
* Redman ft. Method Man - Blow Treez (The Passion of the Weiss) : hiphop / been reading mixed reviews about his new album, but this is some good dubby shit!

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Redman interviewed on High Times potcast.

* Polish Jazz Quartet - Przechadzka Pusstymi Ulicami (Waxidermy) : jazz / quality retro Polish jazz
* Jumbonics - Bubble Drop (Aurgasm) : downtempo & nujazz / great piece by leftfield hop crew Jumbonics.
* Rare 80’s hiphop 12″ rips from Stretch Armstrong’s blog Konstant Kontakt : hiphop
* Weekend Steve Mix by Allez-Allez (alainfinkielkrautrock) : rare retro disco mix / YSI be quick.

[youtube mVDOpbJF8IU]
Tommy Seebach Band - Apache

* Ni Hao! - Wiper (tenzenmen) : spazz punk / if you liked afrirampo
* Ni Hao! - Romantic Scratch (Tenzenmen) : spazz punk / you’ll like these japanese all girl trio.
* ILiKETRAiNS - Citizen (The Daily Growl) : postrock / instrumental rock

[youtube XWhFkfEmMpA]
Korpi Ensemble - Like Father Like Son

* Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Live at The Boston Opera House Full Set (Bradley’s Almanac) : indie rock / A full live set from 2006.
* Born Against - Self Titled EP (7 inch punk) : hardcore punk / I reject the corporate sellout.
* A spoonful of Emo (Can you see the sunset) : emo hardcore / now this is a great history lesson to all the new wave emo kids and/or emo haters on what the first/second wave emo was about featuring 39 tracks from Braid, Jejune, Get up kids, Hot Water Music, Mineral, Knapsack, Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Cap N Jazz, Nation of Ulysses, Rites of Spring, Fugazi and more. Salivating!

To:read

* Alan Vega interview (Alainfinkielkrautrock)
* The April edition of Textura magazine with around 50 reviews.
* Watch VBS.TV, the official tv of Vice guys, with great micro music / street life documentaries
* Wired on P2P and music economy.
* Microtonal Music on Wikipedia.

I then searched more to see what else was around and there he was, none other than our old friend Herb. Although the Herbert take isn’t one of my favourite covers of him, the moral of this review is, it’s interesting when you get the chance to explore how a music piece (or any art form) has it’s own life, and if it’s a solid-enough piece, how it outlives it’s creator and continues to evolve as time goes on. Original piece is from early ’50s, Marsalis version from around ‘87 and Herbert from around ‘04. I don’t have a date for 80 Drums Around the World but i presume it may be from late ’60s. Nevertheless, i think Duke would have enjoyed all this :)

Mersenne’s note: I found 4 more covers, mostly from stuff I downloaded from sharity mp3blogs, there’s a surf version from an Xtabay surf compilation, a Martin Denny exotica, and even a Balkan version by one of our favourite brass ensembles Fanfare Ciocărlia.

Ella Fitzgerald & Duke Ellington - Caravan
Matthew Herbert & Michael Petrucciani - Caravan
Wynton Marsalis - Caravan
80 drums around the world - Caravan
Fanfare Ciocarlia - Caravan
Ape - Caravan
Martin Denny - Caravan
The Three Suns - Caravan

Last years self titled delicacy was a surprise hit with me as I didn’t know that Jukka was already involved in that many groups (as Tumel told in the last post, sidemen names are rarely remembered unless they’re from 80s metal bands.) but his club flavoured nujazz stuff had made me go back to that album more than once.

That’s why I was pretty hyped up with this one where Hubbard originals like Gibraltar, Keep Your Soul Together and Povo are beatifully rendered and modernized here, with some modern day electric-funk. The band is used to playing together as the Five Corners Quintet, so expect the playing to be top notch. Great balance between a fluid style / experimentation making this album suitable for both worlds. Make sure you listen to these splendid versions of “Keep your soul together” and “Love Connection” both Hubbard classics, also featured is “1974” from last years self-titled CD, which could be noted as a minor downtempo hit in the years to come.