This is brand new (from Ali’s boy’s ace FONDO album) so maybe it doesn’t count coz the world hasn’t had a chance to hear it anyway. But I just need to report it and say it’s probably THE MOST EXCITING PIECE OF ROCK & ROLL I’ve heard in 2009 – full-on driving impossible-not-to-shake-to Mali garage blues frenzy, with outrageously great drumming by Mr. Tim Keiper. The rest of the record ain’t half hot either, mum.
A few doors down from your recommendation, Barney, here’s three of my own ‘should be better known & celebrated’ pleasures, things I’m flat out don’t-need-no-good-reason CRAZY for:
I’ve always liked contamination and cross-purposes in music, one idiom haunting another, house sitting, even a spot of happy parasitism, so …
ONE: Toumani Diabate and Taj Mahal: ‘Take This Hammer’
[from either his Kulanjan CD or The Best of TD on Hannibal]: an absolutely glorious shout-out joy of a blues, given African hue & shading… somehow supremely delicate and jes’ WHOMP at the same time.
Kip Hanrahan’s CONJURE project puts the poetry of ISHMAEL REED to jazzy, RnB-y, soulful musical settings. I love practically everything off the first two collections, but I’ll nominate here:
TWO: Taj Mahal (again) as guest vocalist on “Sky Diving” [from 'Conjure: Music For The Texts of Ishmael Reed', American Clave]. Deep soulful blues with lines like “-from a Frankenheimer video / about skkkky-divin’…”;
and
THREE: Bobby Womack, guest vocalist, on “The Author Reflects on His 35th Birthday” from the second Conjure collection, ‘Cab Calloway Stands In For The Moon’. C’mon, admit it: even just seeing the pairing of THAT title with THAT vocalist, you just gots to hear it now, don’t you?
Hey Ian (and cc. Leyla!), good to hear from you on this disembodiedly virtual bulletin-board (imagine if we’d been able to do this in-house at Carnaby Street…?!?) (How great too to be able to go straight to Spotify and see if your raves are there… which, sadly, they appear not to be, though there IS some Hanrahan and some Conjure…) (Yes, the mind is blown by the idea of BW doing a piece of that name!)
3 Responses to UNKNOWN PLEASURES #2: Vieux Farka Touré’s astounding “Sarama”
A few doors down from your recommendation, Barney, here’s three of my own ‘should be better known & celebrated’ pleasures, things I’m flat out don’t-need-no-good-reason CRAZY for:
I’ve always liked contamination and cross-purposes in music, one idiom haunting another, house sitting, even a spot of happy parasitism, so …
ONE: Toumani Diabate and Taj Mahal: ‘Take This Hammer’
[from either his Kulanjan CD or The Best of TD on Hannibal]: an absolutely glorious shout-out joy of a blues, given African hue & shading… somehow supremely delicate and jes’ WHOMP at the same time.
Kip Hanrahan’s CONJURE project puts the poetry of ISHMAEL REED to jazzy, RnB-y, soulful musical settings. I love practically everything off the first two collections, but I’ll nominate here:
TWO: Taj Mahal (again) as guest vocalist on “Sky Diving” [from 'Conjure: Music For The Texts of Ishmael Reed', American Clave]. Deep soulful blues with lines like “-from a Frankenheimer video / about skkkky-divin’…”;
and
THREE: Bobby Womack, guest vocalist, on “The Author Reflects on His 35th Birthday” from the second Conjure collection, ‘Cab Calloway Stands In For The Moon’. C’mon, admit it: even just seeing the pairing of THAT title with THAT vocalist, you just gots to hear it now, don’t you?
Hey, Ian, how ya doing? Last time I saw you must have been ’81 in the NME office in Carnaby St. A mere – gulp – 28 years ago.
Hey Ian (and cc. Leyla!), good to hear from you on this disembodiedly virtual bulletin-board (imagine if we’d been able to do this in-house at Carnaby Street…?!?) (How great too to be able to go straight to Spotify and see if your raves are there… which, sadly, they appear not to be, though there IS some Hanrahan and some Conjure…) (Yes, the mind is blown by the idea of BW doing a piece of that name!)