Ode to Caribbean beaches

Photographic Ode to Old San Juan

This Blogger has gone to the Caribbean

But I leave you with Linton Kwesi Johnson's soothing, bass-heavy, Caribbean-inflected voice rolling over languid dub-reggae grooves. This is the magnificent 2 CD set Independant Intavenshan: The Island Anthology, minus the dub-cuts (the echoes and repetitions tend to get on my nerves).

http://www.sendspace.com/file/vb34bh

When mango ripe, ee muss drop!

Back in June...

Dubuffet and his brutal art

Tapiès' Cloud and Chair atop the Tapiès Museum in Barcelona

Great, another mystery solved!!! Another band's name clarified, another overt reference finally picked up on. After The Cloud Room who named themselves after an Art Deco bar in the Chrysler Building, who is the lucky one this time? Art Brut. Taking their inspiration from an art movement initiated by Jean Dubuffet, they have now staged a marvellous coup d'état, by out-googling their inspirators! What's the deal with the picture at the top? Well, I took it in Barcelona, at the Tapiès museum. And his name was recently linked to the Art Brut movement (in a newspaper article I read) and so, we come full circle again. More serendipity! Grrrrreat (see post 7). But to bring an end to the chain of connected events, here is a non-sequitur. Serge Gainsbourg's collection entitled Initials S.G.

http://rapidshare.de/files/18233592/SG-I.S.G.rar.html

The '97 archives: "Een eenzame stem in de woestijn"

(Love Bug Starsky mixes with Busy Bee and Grand Master Caz 1980 c/o Charlie Ahearn)

“Why Hip Hop sucks in ‘96” legde DJ Shadow uit met het gelijknamige nummer op zijn grensverleggende CD Endtroducing..., uitgebracht bij onafhankelijke platenlabel Mo’ Wax. Slechts 42 seconden heeft hij nodig om zijn standpunt te verkondigen. Over een melancholieke loop voegt hij drie woorden toe: “It’s the money”.

Daar vinden we, in een notendopje, de strijd die Hip Hop tegenwoordig met zichzelf voert en waarmee het zichzelf ten gronde richt. Verdwenen zijn de de lyrical en turntable skills, ervoor in de plaats gekomen zijn niemendalletjes om de massa de laten dansen. Uitzonderingen daargelaten (Common: “I (w)rap like a mummy,/ Not for the money / I could have sampled Diana Ross a long time ago”) worden de principes van Hip Hop op grote schaal overboord gegooid uit eigenbelang en zakkenvullerij.

Het lijkt er soms op dat de trouwe volgelingen van de Hip Hop-voorschriften zullen verdrinken in de inspiratieloze ledigheid om hen heen, maar dan staat er weer een originele ziel op die hen een zwemvest toewerpt in de vorm van een sonisch meesterwerkje. Josh Davis aka DJ Shadow is zo’n bron van inspiratie voor de ware liefhebbers. Hij leerde zijn kunsten door urenlang op zijn zolderkamer te scratchen op één draaitafel, totdat hij genoeg geld had voor een tweede. Toen hij bij een plaatselijke radiostation mocht draaien was zijn toekomst bepaald.

Voor DJ Shadow zijn melodie en ritme de belangrijkste componenten van Hip Hop, vandaar dat in zijn composities rap ontbreekt. Zijn muziekale landschappen vormt hij door een collage te maken van allerlei geluidsfragmenten die naadloos bij elkaar en de sfeer van het geheel aansluiten. Hij neemt je mee op een reis door je innerlijk; omdat iedereen de melodieën verschillend interpreteert, wordt de beluistering een persoonlijke ervaring. Eén ding hebben alle nummers gemeen: ze hebben een unieke panoramische kwaliteit, zodat ze een soort soundtrack vormen van wat er in je hoofd omgaat als je naar de muziek luistert. Nu maar hopen dat alle gemakzuchtige artiesten de strijd met Shadow’s originaliteit aandurven. Slijp de degens en ... keep it real!

Rough English translation: I like DJ Shadow.

Here's a link to Excessive Ephemera, the second CD of the double-disc reissue of classic Endtroducing, as you probably all have the original CD already.

http://rapidshare.de/files/17685929/SHAD-EE.rar.html

Good bite!

Sup a little Aesop Rock

Most of the time, I don't know what the hell this guy is rapping about, I find many of his beats and musical backgrounds pretty lacklustre and uninspiring, but boy, does he know how to package his shit! I bought his EP Fast cars, danger, fire and knives solely for the artwork of the CD and the beautiful booklet that came with it. I peruse it every now and then, while listening to something completely different like Franz Ferdinand or Vitalic. Sorry Rock. But for all the people who would beg to differ, here's a taster...

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=E8ZRSRSL

Payback

Joost gets his revenge for post number 11/12, although I honestly meant nothing by the (admittedly unhappy) juxtaposition of a smiling Joost and the heartbreaking defeat his football team suffered at the hands of mine... Still, props to Jean and thanks for the contribution!

Open letter to Jens Lekman

Oh, you're so spell-binding Jens, and I must apologize for still not having bought your album. I did however take the time to download all the mp3's up for grabs at your site, I did go and see your show in Rotterdam with two friends (and was stunned into glowing silence) and I did play your music so doggedly and so tactically, that my girlfriend has really started to like your music as well. Not a bad score eh? Unfortunately, I have little else to offer you, although you are more than welcome to check out the Crow Lost Tapes of course (see below, any musical accompaniment more than welcome). That, and extend you a warm invitation to the luscious little city of Leiden, next time you hit the Netherlands on tour. And please, keep that brass section, they are magic.

Work of Art in the World of Football

You should have seen it. It beggared belief.

Celebration!

(Joost is just as happy as I am)

Having safely navigated my way through ten posts (and one sort of disclaimer post which I am excluding from my tally), I am in a jubilant frame of mind as you can well imagine, my dear reader. So ecstatic in fact that I came very close to printing T-shirts with the following:

BRIGHTSTUFF = 10 POSTS OLD! But seriously though: I will be celebrating this occasion by going to see the infamous Infadels (no typo!) on Thursday evening in the Patronaat (Haarlem). Why not join me?

As a sign of the coming of age of this blog, I shall from this day forth dispense with the annoying habit I was in the danger of acquiring, that is of affixing a number (spelled out of course: how different, how... artistique) to every post. No, from now on, the posts will stand alone, independent of their illustrious/pathetic ancestry.

And what better party music than that of Goodtimes, a Hong Kong outfit, who are notoriously anonymous on internet, but producers of a startling and disturbing brand of pop-rock-disco. Thanks to Hylknikkop for enlightening me in the summer of 2000 (Remember the Hoegaarden Grand Cru, the quarry, the femurs and the Kung-Fu fighting Hell's Angels...).

http://rapidshare.de/files/16707821/GT-HB2.rar.html

Cheers!

Ten: "Checkin' out some Fromm, some Sartre, Camus"

(with apologies to Cartier-Bresson and an anonymous photographer)

Aaaaah yes... With the air now tinged with April warmth, birds' cat-calling from the trees and just the slightest promise of good times ahead, I can't help but turn to one of my favourite feel-good rap-albums, with the ridiculously presumptuous title "Reachin' A New Refutation Of Time And Space". Yes, it's the Digable Planets or DP's, heralding from an era when that acronym didn't immediately conjure up wild, triple x-rated shenanigans. From the jazzy basslines and hard drumbeats to the laidback, smooth delivery of uniquely literate lines, this music never fails to put a smile on my face. And even after ten years of listening to the album, I am still finding little nuggets of information throughout: my recent discovery of Erich Fromm's name being dropped in "NY is Red Hot" being a case in point. I must admit, the whole revolutionary, class-struggle theme underlying DP's work was entirely lost on me at the time as well, and knowing it now only serves to enhance my esteem for the music.

So, if you need a break from the tedium of whatever you should be doing at this moment, check the album below and check this page, just to find out what Fromm would think of you, were you to land on his couch one early Spring morning.

"And we out, out, out..."

http://rapidshare.de/files/16226220/DP-REF.rar.html