One of Austria’s finest nujazz/downtempo artists and a member of the original Vienna sound alongside Kruder & Dorfmeister. Klaus Waldeck has released a new album after 2001’s The Night Garden. The opener track “Make my day” was released last year as a single and was drafted for a Mercedes ad, so it might be familiar to you. “Ballroom Stories” satisfies the building anticipation with a topnotch album that has many unnoticable influences like 20’s jazz & swing, tango, noir films, electro, waltzes. Armed with the singing & songwriting power of Zeebee and Joy Malcolm and with strings & rhodes abound, Waldeck’s easy listening nujazz sound will turn your living room into a hip pseudojazz cafe instantly. For fans of European nujazz & triphop.

Waldeck – Addicted
Waldeck – Jerry Weintraub

World famous accordionist and composer Mr. Richard Galliano has a new album out on Milan Records entitled Luz Negra. There’s a wealth of world music influences that’s hard to pinpoint but I think the recipe is a bit of French music from home mixed with a dose of Tango from Argentina and cooked in Sao Paolo, Brasil. Lots of dancing to do on the opener “Tangaria” and the rest of the album but I’ve chosen a slow piece, a sublime cover of Erik Satie’s “Gnossienne No.3”, and a piece called “Escualo” which reminded me of John Zorn’s Filmworks XVIII album probably because of the accordeon violin combo. There’s also some mandolin to be found on Luz Negra, here’s a more in depth review by All About Jazz

Here’s #9 of our weekly radioshow, this time mixed by yours truly. Remember what I said about #7, that it was coherent and stuff, now I lost coherence once again, but I’ve played enough good records to hopefully make up for it.

The show begins with deejay OM’s middle east inspired eclectic beat album, the second song “arrival” has a Baris Manco sample for all you in the know of the late Turkish star, we continue with some funky new stuff from Chico Mann and Lack of Afro and a short track from a soundtrack by Hair composer Galt MacDermot, the first part finishes with a superb rendition of Pink Floyd’s Money by the dub band Easy Star All-Stars remember kids if you’re in Istanbul, they’re going to be playing live this saturday.

The second part opens with a traditional klezmer piece from the 1920s by accordionist Mishka Ziganoff, followed by an experimental mashup of Deejay Om and Not your Frequency (which I’ll hopefully talk about more), a rare jazz piece by 1917 born Azerbaijani composer Tofig Guliyev, found on a 2 disc compilation called Jazz in Azerbaijan Anthology followed by “Why Me” composed by John Zorn on 2005’s “Filmworks”, a piazzola tango piece with superb violin work from . Then we continue a little bit with my two 2007 faves Mountaineer and Men-an-Tol and Zappa’s funny “Call any vegetable“. The next piece is a percussive instrumental from “Compagnie de ballet folklorique national d’haiti” including some great brass work mashed together with Arve Henriksen’s opener from his new album Strjon on Rune Grammofon, and the second part ends with an unbelievably great 30 sec Thai song from a compilation called Molam by Sublime Frequencies. The third part is a little bit more indie/rock with new songs from Blonde Redhead, Field Music and Trans Am, all three reviewed here a short time ago. The closing track is by Icelandic band Benni Hemm Hemm who’ve released a new album recently.

Now I’ve got to open a new paragraph to the closing sample brutally slaughtered by the guys at Dinamo while being aired. It’s by THE strangest kitsch subculture band Grup Derdiyoklar, which is a group of two Turks representing the Turkish migrant culture in Germany from 80s to 00s, a mixture of disco, folk, krautrock, psychedelia and Turkish tradition. I was utterly shocked (in a good way) to see that there has been a vivid hybrid subculture by a generation of people stuck between Turkish rural tradition and German modernism, and I guess we all had to wait for a postmodern world to understand and appreciate these dynamics, because the modernist world has always taught us that it was bad to be anything but modern!!!.

Thanks to youtube we can see them playing live after decades, look at the sincerity of the event, it’s a probably a wedding and there’s lots of signifiers to watch for and deconstruct, I’ll do that in a future feature with more songs and lyrics from older Turkish artists. The sample actually says something along the lines of “Helmut Kohl wants foreigners out, aren’t we human beings, we could have lived loving each other”

01. deejay OM – passing eternal time with adventure
02. deejay OM – the arrival
03. chico mann – hot foot
04. galt macdermot – fragments 1a
05. lack of afro – roderigo
06. easy star all-stars – money
07. broke’n'english – dial a beating (skit)
08. mishka ziganoff – grichisher tantz
09. deejay OM – middle eastern swan song
10. not your frequency – pulling back from the future
11. tofig guliyev – qaytagi
12. john zorn – why me
13. mountaineer – a town called ivanhoe
14. men-an-tol – orange juice and vodka
15. frank zappa – call any vegetable
16. compagnie de ballet folklorique national d’haiti – yanvalou
17. arve henriksen – evocation
18. unknown – pleng keh sam sip sam natee
19. broke’n'english – yes you’re weak
20. field music – in context
21. christmas decorations – upstage the drips
22. trans am – first words
23. blonde redhead – the dress
24. benni hemm hemm – beginning end
closing sample by derdiyoklar ikilisi

Undomondo Radio Show 09

Hello friends,
a few changes and updates afoot :
you have seen the meebome gadget on the sidebar, you can use it to chat with me whenever you see i’m online, although i sometimes leave it online and go away, i’ll be around most of the times and you can gimme your critics and general requests from there.. while i was saying critics, Paul Irish from aurgasm.us mailed and said the del.icio.us links in the feed are annoying, i haven’t subscribed to undomondo’s own feed, so I’m not qualified to say, but I use it a lot so it could be annoying, that’s why I turned it off, anyone for or against it should comment and give their opinion..

Here’s a guest post from Can, whom I mentioned on the youtube post, he’s a close friend with deep / vocal house and oldschool disco & soul tendencies, and he might surprise you with nice music and obscure youtube finds from now on, he’s already bumped up my youtube favorites to 390!!..

Well, this is not just another Gotan Project replica from Latin America’s growing tango music market its Gustavo Santaolalla and Juan Campodónico’s Bajofondo Tangoclub says the commentary on euronews’ 5am bulletin while i was trying to get a litte bit of sleep in these hot Istanbul days. BTFC seems to be made up of musicians hailing from Uruguay & Argentina. Gustavo Santaolalla (b.1952) is well known for his abilities in producing and compiling soundtrack albums for movies like 21 grams, Amores Perros and Brokeback Mountain which he won an Academy Award for his original score with. They’re mixing tango with electronics, triphop, house and dnb and are one of the premiere neotango movement bands. What’s more they’ve generously put 10 remixes on their site for free download. Serious cooltango..

Bajofondo Tango Club – Pulso (Alexkid remix)
Bajofondo Tango Club – Fandango
Bajofondo Tango Club – Perfume – Luciano Supervielle remix (great song & vocals)
Bajofondo Tango Club – Soc it to me

Gotan Project’s new album Lunatico is upon us, and it’s a charming sophomore album after the marvellous 2001 debut “La Revancha del Tango“. The production and sound quality is top-notch and their Tango-fused Latin American sound has surely got richer. Lunatico was recorded in Buenos Aires with local session musicians; a complete string section, two emcees, one trombonist and Argentine piano legend and long-time Gotan collaborator, Gustavo Beytelmann, conducting much of the musical goings on. The album also features a collaboration with Calexico and a cover of Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas.