Ridiculously catchy Belgian new wave disco-funk. Bombastic, soulful vocals from Sarah Osborne; Martyn Ware production, of course. Not too much to say about this other than that it fills a dance floor very quickly. Good for fans of Liquid Liquid, ESG, Lizzy Mercier Descloux. I’m also including a bonus b-side from the single for “Valley of the Kings” called “Wrap Your Legs (Around Your Head)” which, uh, really slaps.
For fans of The Coconuts who haven’t yet dug into their origin story, this is an excellent place to start. Kid Creole was the brainchild of August Darnell, a Bronx-born composer and an absolute genius with big band sounds, Latin jazz textures, and cuttingly clever lyrics; The Coconuts were the band’s trio of backing singers. It was difficult to choose between Tropical Gangsters and their excellent 1981 release, Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places, but this record includes some of my favorite singles from the group, including the stupidly good “Annie I’m Not Your Daddy,” previewed below. Elsewhere, find stomping, four-on-the-floor disco (“I’m A Wonderful Thing, Baby”), samba-funk breezer “I’m Corrupt,” and closer “No Fish Today,” a smirking account of class struggle cleverly packaged as a breezy tropical funk sailboat soundtrack. Steel drums, lush string arrangements, irresistible percussion, and an omnipresent sense of humor, this is ideal May listening.
Ideal “first day of spring spring” soundtrack, released on the legendary Cherry Red Records. If you like Martin Newell, you’ll love this. Aside from the obvious comparisons–a diligently lo-fi DIY ethos, jangly guitar, spronky synth pop, cassette culture, etc.–there’s a similar tendency to couch really pretty and smart songwriting in a playful, totally unserious affect. (For the record, Leer is much funkier.) A part of me wonders if Leer and Newell sold their brilliance short by taking this approach, but at the end of the day I think this was the most truthful language that they could speak. This wasn’t just the way they chose to tell their stories; it’s an important part of the story itself. His world is far from simplistic, though. More whimsical-sinister tracks like “Gulf Stream” and “Soul Gypsy” paint a picture of imagined travels through Leer’s warped version of the world. And that quietly smirking, scuffy, faraway-in-a-big-room thing (“Choices”) clearly evidences Leer’s love of krautrock, but Letter From America is sunsoaked and, well, accessible, or at least I think so.
Still, in spite of its lo-fi trappings, Letter From America (later issued as 4 Movements) is surprisingly dense and elegant up-close, almost sophisti-pop in sensibility. Tracks like “Tight As A Drum” are full of gorgeous washes of sound, with such thorough care for spatial depth that it becomes difficult to disentangle one instrument from the next. As such, be forewarned that this record really suffers in bad speakers–it actually took me a couple years to fully enjoy it, because it took me that long to listen to it in headphones and realize that it was a lot more than tinny, scronky, dude guitar pop (sry guitar dudes). Miraculously, Letter From America keeps opening up with increasing generosity and wit with every listen. Happy spring.
Wow! This one came out of left field for me and has quickly become a precious favorite, serving as a reminder of why music hunting is exciting in the first place: as finding unknown and wonderful full-lengths becomes less and less frequent, finding a record that instantly feels like home becomes all the more rewarding.
Though I often presuppose these posts by mentioning that there’s little available information about the artist, this one feels unusual in its total lack of context. Though they released two of their LPs on the German label Jupiter Records, a major hub for disco singles, none of the names associated with the project have led me to any names that I recognize, and I can’t really figure out who their peers were. Still, the first thing that comes to mind is the subdued lo-fi post-punk of Young Marble Giants (a very good sign), complete with coy vocals that, in spite of their shy hushed deliveries, are anything but naïve. But there’s a flattened minimal synth aspect here, that kind of lizardy quality, that suggests minimal wave favorites like Carol and Solid Space, or even the dark drum machine slink of Lena Platonos. There’s also a playfulness, those unexpected flirty details, that make me think of Leda (another excellent record that I hope hasn’t gotten lost in the archives).
But there’s plenty that defines Art as entirely its own, perhaps most notably its use of saxophone. Opener “The Way It Is” starts out with thirty seconds of free jazz sax riffing, echoed again later in the song in a remarkable use of sonic space, moving from a far echo to a dry forefront only to disappear into a puff of reverb. Brass shows up unexpectedly all over the record, always tasteful and always effective. Combined with gorgeous vocal treatment and sharp, restrained songwriting, this is a deeply sophisticated record. Though I haven’t yet spent enough time with Luna Set’s other two full-lengths, this is by far my favorite of the three, striking an ideal balance between minimalism and playful textural interest.
Note that there’s one noticeable glitch in the opening track–this is still the best quality rip I can find, but I’d be thrilled if anyone can share a cleaner version!
Deeply weird and cool record from Mariah vocalist Jimmy Murakawa, featuring Yasuaki Shimizu production. New wavier and more scronky than the usual around here, even veering into no wave on tracks like “Luci’s Small Hotel Part 2.” With an inclination towards cavernous metallic clanging, creeping synth lines, and echoey muttering, there are moments that feel more German industrial than Japanese–particularly on standout “Down? Down, Down! / Stay Outta My World,” except by the song’s end it’s morphed into what sounds very much like an unfinished Notorious B.I.G. track. A few other standout moments, like “Beauty” and “Vaporous Actor,” call to mind sparser and more percussive moments on Sakamoto‘s Left Handed Dream, which came out the same year. There’s a tunneling, cavernous sensibility to this that reminds me of Colored Music. It’s real good. If it’s for you, it’s definitely for you.
