detroit emeralds FEEL THE NEED

yet another find from Backspin Records. this little curio might not be the rarest record around (in fact it had one of DETROIT EMERALDS biggest hits of their career!) but it captures an interesting moment in their career and is one of the better examples of "a TOM MOULTON mix" disco record.

the aforementioned hit is "Feel the Need." here, in 1977, it's the paradigm of a Tom Moulton mix. what's salient though is that it was an even bigger hit for the DE's in 1973 when it went to #22 on the R&B charts. the rest of the album carries this mindset of classic motown-inspired R&B commingled with healthy does of extended disco mixes. so the first side ends with "feel the need," you flip the record and get down to the ballad-y disco groove of "wednesday" and then BAM!

"Love for You" opens with what is easily the most aggressive 2 seconds on the entire record. the guitar continues to set the tone throughout the song, coming across like Ravi Shankar jamming with the Isley Brothers. when the guitar sits out the grandiose disco production (sweeping strings, horn stabs, etc) elegantly shines. now, I dare you to sit back, listen and try to take in everything going on in this song. layer upon layer upon layer. still it comes across as a effortless little disco love song, and nowhere else on the record is ABRIM TILMON'S songwriting more palpable than on this cut. like a psychedelic motown disco jam that the TEMPTATIONS wish they could have done.

this record was the DETROIT EMERALDS rebound attempt after leaving the court in 1973. even though they scored a giant disco hit ("Feel the Need") their comeback was shortlived as their next album would be their swan song. even though the DETROIT EMERALDS enjoyed most of their success in the early 70's, this little foray into disco is a fleeting moment of brillance that should be preserved.

muchacha (ojos de papel) ALMENDRA

wandering the streets of buenos aires, full of incident, in search of old records is not unlike ingesting a pharmacological dose of nutmeg before trying to memorize a recipe in hebrew.  i'm certainly one of the first to tip my hat to intuition, a handy bit of inference-free consciousness, but it won't get you anything more than several james blunt imports simply beating feet through this enormous city.  feeling more like a typecast object for jungian dissection than a media hungry journeyman motivated by my sensory faculty alone, i cruised the net and found that the shops worth shopping were tucked away in plazas:  atrium-based mini-malls with shops like satellites, selling optical hardwares, leatherwork instruments, and any other imaginable trade tool.  i had the most luck in microcentro, the financial district of b.a.  the shops are tiny, but impeccable.  it was in these shops that i was introduced to yerba mate and the stories of argentina's inimitable ROCK NACIONAL.

after about three stops in, it became perfectly clear to me that the story of rock music in argentina from the late 60s on is an allegorical companion to argentina's political story, the two acting as cultural cross-pollinators, telling of struggle and identity.  one of the loudest voices from this generation, to this day casting a maradonnian shadow, was LUIS ALBERTO SPINETTA, founding member of ALMENDRA, a group i had listened to on south american comps.  he was nineteen when the group released their self-titled debut in '69, a difficult time politically for argentina.  almendra released only two full lengths before spinetta expatted to europe for several years, only to return several years later to continuously evolve with projects like PESCADO RABIOSO and INVISIBLE.  spinetta's voice, througout his career, is one of clever, metaphoric polemic, one situated within his melodically propelled songs, and one that has incredibly deep roots in the collective memory of the argentinians, evidenced by the anthem RUTAS ARGENTINAS.

the cover's a strange one and the story goes that spinetta drew this figure for the cover, but several days before printing, RCA lost the drawing. spinetta searched through the trash and recovered it.  the meaning of the figure and it's hieroglyphics, viz a viz, via tete a tete, the tear drop, the plunger, and the eye all figure into the names of the songs printed on the back of the record.  the tear is given to a woman from this character on the front, which represents one thousand years of sadness.  what is completely clear, though, is the impact this album had on establishing the sound of rock nacional.

muchacha (ojos de papel), girl (paper eyes), is the first song on a strong side A from their debut, released in mono on RCA subsidiary VIK.  the tune explores spinetta's relationship with his first girlfriend and stands as a benchmark in the sexual revolution occurring in argentina at the time.  spinetta's guitar work became extremely popular and this intro guitar is referred to as spineteano in its style.  

puffy areolas LUTZKO LIVES

a bit of a stylistic left turn here for those so inclined. i recently decided to take part in the 2nd year of Columbus Discount Records' 7" subscription series based pretty much off of the fact that i loved two of the bands (CHEVEU and TYVEK) and had never heard but was familiar with a lot of the other names listed. this is the first record of the series and it literally has not left my turntable since i got it in the mail.

let me start with a quote from Charles Albright expounding upon the function of being in a band from Sacramento, CA. sometime in the future i will probably write about his incredible 7' on SS Records, but for now we'll just stick with this:

"People know how to have fun here and not take themselves too seriously. How can you REALLY be a hipster here? All the real smart hipsters figure this out after the second person they sleep with and move to Oakland, San Francisco or New York."

PUFFY AREOLAS are from Toledo, Ohio and exemplify this quotation better than anyone. "lutzko lives" only speaks in sincerity and veracity. there is so little pretense in this song that nobody from New York, Oakland, San Francisco, Portalnd or any other hip enclave could have possibly written it. this sounds like THE STOOGES and HAWKWIND had a child in COMETS ON FIRE'S backyard. it's so raw, simplistic and brutal yet grooves in a sinewy way. upon researching this band more i found out that the lead guitarist is none other than Damon who also spends time in previously mentioned (and hopefully reviewed in the future) TYVEK.

pay close attention to details on "lutzko lives". the little bits are what really got me after repeated listening. the vocals are of particular note (not only cause the singer goes by the name: KRAUTY MCKRAUT!!!) because this is the best use of echo pedal on vocals since COMETS ON FIRE! also check the beautiful extended feedback outro on this track, it's the first thing that really made me think these guys are onto the next level.

i cannot wait to hear what PUFFY AREOLAS have in store for us next. this 7" is taken from the same sessions that produced their upcoming full-length LP on SILTBREEZE so keep your ears open!

old man love young gal vegie GENERAL ECHO

here's a sensitive foray into the distinguished, post-erotic codpiece of jamaican chivalry.  turn off annie hall, screw in the red bulb, and let GENERAL ECHO take you by your lingham or yoni into a simmering bath of ranking slackness, who's every perfectly formed bubble is cloaked in a diaphanous, tender psychoanalytic mystery.  with ten brilliantly manicured song titles, i found choosing just one song off this piece of blue vinyl to be a lot like jogging in place, trying to explain phenomenology to strom thurmond.  admitted fantasy aside, i shelved SHE HAVE A PAIR OF HEADLAMP BREAST for the curious, OLD MAN LOVE YOUNG GAL VEGIE.  it feels really good to type that.  old man love young gal vegie.

the year is 1980.  the world lost both JOHN LENNON and smallpox, but was given 12" OF PLEASURE from the folks at GREENSLEEVES, a five year old record store cum record label on the island floating next to france.  ECHO had already released a full-length the year before on TECHNIQUES, a smaller kingston-based label and home to the female toaster SISTER NANCY.  ECHO emerged as a key figure in the slack scene, having worked his way through several sound systems.  slack is a more sexually oriented form of reggae than roots or dub, that helped usher in dancehall thanks in large part to the technique of beat-juggling discovered by djs.  if you were to trace the phylogeny of dancehall back into the late 70's, you would find ECHO's monotone vocal delivery and repetitive rhythms to be the foundation for artists like YELLOWMAN, EEK A MOUSE, and worth noting SNAGGA PUSS, who's toasting gimmick sounds a lot like ECHO'S intro on this track.

as for the song itself, i find it interesting that GENERAL ECHO merged with the infinite not long after this record was printed, when he was 25, a fair distance from discounted coffee at mcdonalds.  was this song, like the knowledge of how to organize a tackle box, passed on from one male to another?

bonus material

PATOIS TERMS OF NOTE:

cabin stabbin

nuttin' nuh go so

rakstone inna mi shoe

all sheg up

wa mek yu galaan so?

nuno canavarro PLUX QUBA

i was having a lot of trouble deciding on what to write for my first contribution to this blog. there's no need for me to add onto these obscure & unknown 45s cause i know that my co-conspirator will continue to unleash countless more. so as i prepared to sit down and write my first post i went to put on a record and gravitated toward the album you see above, much the same way i came into contact with this album in the first place. i first laid eyes on this curious & fascinating cover at End of an Ear here in Austin. i immediately picked it up and went over to their record player to preview it and now it resides permanently in my collection.

the basic story behind the record goes something like this: it was recorded in Portugal in 1988 and released on Ama Romanta, a small label run by Joao Peste (singer of Pop Dell'Arte). It was one of the label's dozen releases before folding, but more importantly was the first time anyone had heard anything of Nuno Canavarro since his time playing keyboards in Portugal's new wave stars Street Kids. from there the album remained in relative obscurity until Jim O'Rourke, Jan St. Werner (Mouse on Mars, Microstoria) & Carsten Schulz (C-Shulz) discovered this album while record shopping in Germany during a tour in 1991. then in 1998, O'Rourke started the label Moikai and re-released the album after being remixed and remastered by avant portugese guitarist Rafeal Toral.

as for the music itself, well if you're familiar with any of the artists listed above you'll notice how much of an impact it has made on all of them and so many more. this record basically sets the tone for almost all electronic music to follow. some of these songs sound like they were recorded last year (except this was in 1988!!!). the album flows from piercing, glitchy high frequency stabs (see Oval, Microstoria, etc) to warm analog synth washes (see Black Dice, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Emeralds, etc) and even into vocal cut-up montages (that many people reference Robert Ashley). as ghostly and glitchy as this album gets though it never leaves behind a warm, fuzzy, almost childlike simplicity and beauty. just play the song above and bask in it....it's heavy.