Author: Jen Monroe

Harold Budd – The Pavilion of Dreams, 1978

A classic and a favorite. Twinkling, lazy jazz-scapes for new agers. A dripping, humid, reactionary piece of anti-avant-garde. Budd refers to this as his magna carta. Gavin Bryars on the glockenspiel and celesta, Michael Nyman on the marimba, Brian Eno production. Enjoy!

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Mix: Winter (Indoors)

I made this mix for ambient indoor listening, thinking about the last few moments of winter and a little bit of thawing for spring. It’s heavy on vocals, folk, and acoustic instruments, so it may be more of a background listen. If you like it, download it here.

Tracklist:
1. 0:00 Arthur – Wintertime
2. 2:50 The Durutti Column – Sleep Will Come
3. 4:38 Bridget St John – Many Happy Returns
4. 6:51 Harold Budd – Albion Farewell (Homage to Delius, for Gavin Bryars)
5. 9:22 Connie Converse – There is a Vine
6. 10:54 Woo – Taizee (Traditional)
7. 13:06 Unknown – Pumi Song
8. 14:13 John Jacob Niles – Go ‘Way From My Window
9. 16:27 Clara Rockmore – The Swan (Saint-Saëns)
10. 19:19 Lewis – Like To See You Again
11. 23:41 Unknown – IV
12. 25:39 Patti Page – The Tennessee Waltz
13. 28:32 Gigi Masin – Parallel Lines
14. 30:57 Yasuaki Shimizu – Suite No. 2: Prélude (Bach)
15. 34:55 Donnie & Joe Emerson – Love Is
16. 37:55 Rosa Ponselle – The Nightingale and the Rose (Rimsky-Korsakov)
17. 41:11 Henri Texier – Quand Tout S’arrête
18. 42:43 Molly Drake – I Remember
19. 45:41 Virginia Astley – Sanctus
20. 47:40 Nico – Afraid
21. 51:11 Arthur Russell – A Sudden Chill

Baby Ford – Monolense, 1994

Not technically an LP, but enough of a world that I’m making an exception to our albums-only rule. I still don’t know how to talk about techno, so I’ll just say that this is a formative piece of minimal techno history and is as elegant as they come. Also, Richard D. James album and Amnesiac probably wouldn’t have happened without this.

Ata Kak – Obaa Sima, 1994 (reissued 2015)

Ghanaian musician A Yaw Atta-Owusu, aka Ata Kak, recorded and self-produced Obaa Sima in 1994 in his home studio while living in Toronto. In spite of only 50 cassette copies being produced, the tape has enjoyed cult status over the past decade. Still, scouring the internet turns up virtually no information about him, which will change today. Awesome Tapes From Africa‘s Brian Shimkowitz has finally tracked him down after years of searching, and is restoring and rereleasing Obaa Sima on all formats, 21 years after its original release.

Obaa Sima lies somewhere in between highlife, house, hip hop, new jack swing, and electro, produced rough and dry. Without wanting to suggest that this is a kitschy bedroom-tape artifact (it’s not), what makes this so exciting is its rawness and deliberate playfulness. Ata Kak seems to have exploited his minimalist production methods on purpose and clearly had a lot of fun doing it. The music feels pixelated and hyper-saturated at the same time, like playing Pacman through 3D glasses.

Ata Kak is a wicked rapper, and his hopped-up flow takes center stge, sometimes backed by pitched-up backing choruses of what sound like his own voice. The result is joyous and strange, a window into something that children of the internet will never be able to experience firsthand–this having been made in 1994, right before dial-up became ubiquitous in America and the world began to shrink. Obaa Sima is the end of an era, the end of (global, if not local) anonymity and microcosms, the last of glee and spontaneity. It’s a vibrant moment that presumably happened without documentation, leftfield and DIY to its core. Obaa Sima has a lot more going on than just nostalgia, though–it’s warped and frenetic and a little scary in its relentlessness. We’re looking forward to reading more about Ata Kak Yaw Atta-Owusu. For whom did he make this music? Was he homesick? How much did it circulate in Ghana? We like to imagine that he was dancing as if no one was watching, because no one was watching, and that was totally fine by him.

Preview the anthemic, blazing “Daa Nyinaa” below. It belongs on every summer mixtape. Side note that this amazing video footage is unrelated to the song and there’s a bit of mastering on the audio. If you want to hear the original recordings, they’re all over YouTube.

buy: tape / itunes / vinyl

This one too:

Saâda Bonaire – Saâda Bonaire, 1983

Saâda Bonaire was a shelved EMI project comprised of songwriter-vocalists Stefanie Lange and Claudia Hossfeld, producer Dennis Bovell (Fela Kuti, Orange Juice, The Slits, whatever), jazz saxophonist Charlie Mariano, and a slew of backing musicians “culled from the local immigration center.” Dub-funk-disco-ish on top of a Turkish-African instrumental conglomerate. Dark and dancy perfection circa 1983-ish. Captured Tracks recently put out an excellent compilation with a whole lot of never-released material, which we’re not posting for download because you should just buy it. A favorite track below.

Brenda Ray – Walatta, 2005

A personal favorite. Brenda Ray rolled around with a handful of musical projects in the UK post punk scene, where she explored African rhythms, dub, hip hop, and electro grooves. After hitting it off with the legendary Roy Cousins in the early 90’s, she helped him remaster and reissue titles from his label, Tamoki Wambesi. Legend has it that it was Cousins’ idea that she make an album using original tapes of Tamoki Wambesi roots reggae tracks. I think this was mostly recorded in the late 90s, released in limited numbers via Tamoki Wambesi, and reissued by Japan’s EM Records (I’m still working our way through their catalog, because holy cow it is good).

Unlike anything else. Responsible for vocals, melodica, keyboards, koto, pixiephone, chimes, claves, bells, cymbal, cowbell, ashtray (?), clavinet, xylophone, cabasa, triangle, idiophone, tambourine, vibraslap, scraper, whistle, recording, and mixing, Ray draped her breathy, 60’s-chanteuse vocals all over her reworkings of some of the best dub and reggae tracks ever made, resulting in what Forced Exposure called “very disturbing slices of psycho-dub/doo-wop/jazz-fusion/exotica music.” Grooving all over Turkey, West Africa, and of course, Jamaica. Alternately shimmery, bossa-nova-flecked, and funky, with appearances by Prince Far I and Knowledge. The sonic equivalent of pink plastic palm trees. A salve for a brutally cold February day. Enjoy!

Testpattern – Après-Midi, 1982

Another gem from the Yen Records treasure trove (Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi production, blah blah blah). Cheeky, unhurried, fairly minimal synth pop, with a dusting of tittering bleeps, bloops, and sleigh bells for dimension. Mostly dry and Disneyland plump, but of course nothing Hosono is quite what it seems. Après-Midi is far from simplistic–there are plenty of well-executed jabs at western pop music (and culture), and then there’s the surprise “Catchball,” which is a deep, dark grinding proto-techno drum groove. Enjoy!

Mix: Winter (Outdoors)

I made this mix with the hope that you’ll listen to it outside in headphones. If you like it, you can download an mp3 of it here.

Tracklist:
1. 0:00 David Sylvian – Preparations for a Journey
2: 3:10 Stellar OM Source – Alpine Architecture
3. 5:30 Meredith Monk – Strand (Gathering)
4. 7:20 Bernard Xolotl – Perseverance (Excerpt)
5. 13:10 Actress – Untitled (Excerpt)
6. 14:50 Emerald Web – Flight of the Raven
7. 16:40 Muslimgauze – Sapere Aude
8. 20:00 Deutsche Wertarbeit – Auf Engelsflügen
9. 25:10 Woo – Hopi
10. 28:00 Dip in the Pool – Rabo del Sol
11. 32:40 Kraftwerk – Ananas Symphonie
12. 35:00 Don Slepian – Sea of Bliss (Excerpt)
13. 37:00 Drahcir Ztiworoh – Elephant Dance (Excerpt)
14. 41:40 The Hilliard Ensemble – Veni Creator Spiritus (Comp. Pérotin)
15. 48:40 Fripp & Eno – Wind on Water
16. 54:10 Li Garattoni – Here is Silence
17. 55:50 Roedelius – Wenn der Südwind Weht
18. 59:40 Barbara Buccholz – Öd

Clara Rockmore – Theremin, 1977

Clara Rockmore may have the coolest story of all the early electronic musicians. Born in 1911 in what is now Lithuania, at four years old she was admitted to the St. Petersburg Imperial Conservatory where she studied violin under Leopold Auer. To this day, she’s still the youngest student ever admitted to the conservatory (probably a good thing). A teenage arthritic condition left her unable to continue playing the violin, leading her to study the theremin (the first mass-produced electronic instrument, and arguably the coolest because it’s played by manipulating electrical signals in the air rather than by touching anything solid).

She was an instant theremin prodigy and went on to help Léon Theremin*, who might have been slightly obsessed with her, make a lot of changes to its design in order to realize its full potential. She insisted on a faster left hand to permit staccato, rather than having it be “all molasses, all glissando.” She also wanted a five octave range instead of three (which made it way harder to control the pitch but allowed for greater melodic possibility), increased sensitivity of the pitch antenna, and a lowered profile of the instrument. Despite touring extensively to widespread acclaim, she only finally recorded her performances at the behest of Bob Moog himself (as in “Ugh Bob made me do it lol”) in 1977. Thanks Bob! There’s a very sweet conversation between Clara, her sister, her nephew, Dr. Moog, and Dr. Thomas Ray which takes place over what appears to be a candy-tinted Tim Burton-esque dessert table that you can watch here.

*Read more about another insane thing that Léon Theremin made here.

TLDR: Nobody has ever inhabited the theremin like Rockmore. Maybe the original female electronic music virtuoso, as she was touring with her custom-made theremin in the 30s. Watch some videos of her channeling sounds out of thin air like a ghostly medium, face far away and ecstatic, and try not to cry. Otherworldly, but deeply human.

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Selda Bagcan – Selda, 1976

Selda Bağcan got real big in the 70s as one of Turkey’s most well-known politically-minded musicians, and from what I understand, became somewhat of a household name. Her sound was a progressive wash of psychedelic guitar funk and angular synth heat, applied liberally to Turkish folk songs as scorching backdrops for her emotive, razor-sharp vocals and political critiques. Unsurprisingly, she was thrown in jail three times and was stripped of her passport, but was eventually freed and went on to tour extensively. She resurfaced again in 2006, when Finders Keepers reissued her self-titled LP with some previously unreleased tracks.

That’s when I first heard this record–my sister gave it to me, and it just about blew my 16-year-old brain open, since I didn’t have much of a grasp on the roots of psychedelic music, or what Turkey was. This record is a classic for many, so I hope this serves as a friendly reminder that it’s still bubbling hot (with the exception of string-infused weeper ballad “Dam Üstüne Çulserer,” flecked with fountain sounds and spiny percussives, which is more of a slow-burner). Note: I’m posting the original album, without the rerelease tracks and with the songs in a different order. It sounds better than ever, almost 40 years later. Enjoy!