Hodge Podge Posted by djmaru

Afreaka!: "Hymn to Mother Earth" From Demon Fuzz (Dawn, 1971) DJ Jamad: "Elevators (locsmif remix)" From Outskirts: The Unofficial Lost Outkast Remixes (ITL, 2004) Cymande: "Bra" and "The Message" From Cymande (Janus, 1972) Can: "Vitamin C" From Ege Bamyasi (Spoon, 1972) This is my first music post so I'm gonna throw a little bit of everything at you. Let's start with the inspiration for this site's name, as well of one of my favorite albums at the moment. Afreaka! was an obscure group from the UK that successfully fused together jazz, funk, and rock music. Sure many groups have done this, but what I think separates them from the pack are the strong arrangements, progressive intrumentation, and overall more interesting sound. It's hard to pick out a favorite track, but I always gravitate towards "Hymn to Mother Earth" as it maintains an almost bluesy feel interspersed with psychedlic and funky bits. An amazing track to just chill to after a hard day's work. Outkast will remain one of my all time favorite duos until they release a few more Stankonia's. Well, that album's not that bad, but the others just blow it out of the water. I don't think I've listened to it in its entirety since the first couple weeks that it came out. Anyways, I picked up this double CD at Turntablelab by DJ Jamad which features a ton of Outkast remixes, either using other beats or, from what I can tell, original productions. Both discs are pretty solid, but one of the remixs for "Elevators" is on some other shit. Although it doesn't surpass the original, it does exactly what a remix is supposed to do and flips the script using this real chill jazz vibe as its backbone, completely reinventing the track. When I first saw The 25th Hour (great movie btw), the scene where Anna Paquin is dancing in slow motion left a lasting impression. Sure, she was hot, but it was the track playing in the background that really got me. I remember feverishly trying to find out the artist by typing in lyrics into google and coming up with the name Cymande (pronounced Sah-mahn-day), a group of eight self-taught musicians from Great Britain. The song in question is called "Bra", a super funky cut that for some reason sounded so fine within the context of the film. The club scene also happened to feature another Cymande song called "The Message," which may sound familiar to The Coup fans for its use in "I Ain't the Nigga." I know very little about Kraut Rock, but I do know that Can is considered legendary in the genre. The first track I heard by them was "Vitamin C" off of a mix the Vinyl Monkies did for Beta Lounge. It has an almost infectious quality with its frenzied tempo and haunting vocals by singer Damo Suzuki. The whole album, entitled Ege Bamyasi, is absolutely killer and is a good starting point for anyone looking to venture into the crazy world of Kraut Rock. Surely more explorations into the genre to come in the future.