Does a Ghost Dig the One Drop?

Way back in October 2009 we suggested you navigate over to the blog Distinctly Jamaican Sounds for the annual Halloween Spooktacular.

Kids, we're here to remind you that it's going on again. Blogger John, aka Reggaexx, pulls from his collection a couple dozen of the most choice reggae, dub, dancehall, ska, rocksteady, and even lovers rock singles that have even a gossamer connection to Halloween and horror.

Throughout the month, he puts the songs up for download. But it's not just the songs, he cuts in a some sound effects and bits of dialogue and trailer narration from horror movies to crank the Spooktacular aspect of his efforts as high as the can go.

Plus he makes killer artwork to accompany each tune. And if you're a lazy bum, he strings them all together into one massive download at the end of the month. Having a party? Press play on these cuts and you've got the music taken care of.

Kung Fu and Other Delights

We confess we knew little of the athlete-turned-film-star Jim Kelly before he died and the obituaries began to appear.

The Typing Monkey has never seen Black Belt Jones, despite being a fan of the dub tune by Lee "Scratch" Perry. We knew the title only, and had not carved out time to watch what sounds like a crackerjack good time, combining action of the chop-sockey and Blaxploitation varieties.

It's hot out, and summer laziness has put a few writing projects on hold, so please enjoy first, this YouTube clip of the theme song from Black Belt Jones by Dennis Coffey and Luchi De Jesus:


[courtesy of funkybrezhoneg]

Then spin this playlist of nearly every cut from dub legend Lee "Scratch" Perry's 1975 LP Kung Fu Meets the Dragon, a record clearly inspired not just by Jim Kelly's black man of action, but martial arts movies in general.

Note the only cut that's been pulled from the playlist is "Black Belt Jones", possibly the best tune on the record. Despite that, this is a fun listen, so get yourself a glass of limeade or something and have a relax.


[courtesy of sqezyplus]

We'll be right back after these messages.

Stones Throw Records has always been about more than rap and hip-hop. Beats and rhymes are the taste-making label's bread and butter, but over the course of 17 years, label founder Chris Manak (aka Peanut Butter Wolf) has judiciously stretched beyond his backpacker music base, and not just via re-issued funk and soul sides.

To whit: Singer Anika just released her self-titled LP via Stones Throw. Anika sounds as if it could have been recorded by a German no-wave outfit in 1979. Chilly synths and thin drum machines sharpen the edges around Anika's disaffected voice, but instead of cutting, the music flickers and echoes like a weird daydream.

She proves what a great songsmith Ray Davies is [as if that needed proof beyond The Kinks -- ed.] by running his lonely waltz "I Go To Sleep" through the damp Berlin basement of her style, turning the lyrical ache into numb recitation while retaining the sweetness of the melody via snatches of barroom piano.



And because Stones Throw seems to be in the spirit of '79, after the Anika video plays you may also enjoy The Lions' "Roll It Round" (authentic Two Tone-ish reggae with a dub wash) and Chrome Canyons' "Generations" (analog synth/library soundtrack) -- which should start up in the video player automatically. If not, check them here and here, respectively.

The Typing Monkey may not be up on Homeboy Sandman or Jonwayne, but it's not like Stones Throw isn't giving us anything else to love.

Beats, Intl.

All around the Web, blather about a recording called Kinshasa One Two is bubbling up like yeast proofing in warm sugar-water. Let's not be left out, because it's very much worth blathering about.

Damon Albarn (Blur; Gorillaz; The Good, The Bad, The Queen; experimental opera composer and performer) travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo with a few choice music makers this past July. In just five days, they recorded as much music as they could. They collaborated, sampled, performed and mixed on the fly, and then put together an album sponsored by, and benefitting, Oxfam.

Say what you want about Albarn and the Britpop culture from which he sprang. But while his peers have muddled around doing the same old thing or simply breaking up, (hi, Oasis!) Albarn has proven his appetite for creative stimulation and willingness to act on his convictions with numerous projects far beyond recycling Bowie and The Kinks.

Since some of the Soundcloud embeds on various sites seem to have trouble loading, here's a link to the DRC Music page where you can hear the entirity of Kinshasa One Two and a couple BBC interview with Albarn and a couple of his collaborators. And do listen to the BBC interviews, as it makes Albarn's motiviations clear.

If the music pleases you, pay for it and feel better about yourself. Here's a few quick impressions of what we heard:

"We Come from the Forest" -- Two kalimba loops gallivant in the sun, then race to see who gets to the alien disco rhythm first.

"Ah Congo" -- Whooshing voices pan across the speakers while a man speaks the title (and more) in a basso profundo, outdone only by the molten bass wobble that soon joins in.

"Respect of the Rules" -- Drops a flute onto some Moog-y squish, a melting Alan Hawkshaw theme for off-duty customs officials having grilled cheese sandwiches and soup.

"K-Town" -- Bears the unmistakable stamp of Dan the Automator. Seriously, if that beat isn't his ...

"The Departure" -- More of that dubstep sub-bass rumble lurks below an near-ambient treble. Don't fall asleep!
 
***

Reference material: If you liked Albarn's Mali Music or went (justifiably) bonkers over Congotronics, this is for you.

Summertime is Dub Time

Friends, it's a scientific fact that dub reggae makes summer more fun. Heck it makes winter more fun.

Because The Typing Monkey is spiritually, morally and contractually bound to mention dub producer, musician and sound-manipulator Scientist whenever possible, we would like to clue you in, or remind you as the case may be, of the existence of Max Tannone's mash-up album Mos Dub.

You may have heard it, or heard of it, when Mr. Tannone made it available as a free download in April 2010. If not, or if you made a note and forgot to follow up, now is your chance to correct that error.

What you'll get are Mos Def vocals pasted onto various dub cuts, many of which were culled from Scientist's sublime Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires. It's fun and sounds great when the sky is blue, the air is humid and the temperature demands that you sit back and relax with a beverage.

And if you want, dig around Max Tannone's Website to see what else he's got cooking, because he's cooking plenty ... as in, his just-released Ghostfunk mash-up. See?

Atypical Girl

The news is old already, but The Typing Monkey would be fools to not acknowledge the death of Ari Up, especially given this.

So many lesser musicians owe a major debt to Up's methodical envelope pushing. Is there a better way to dismantle expectations than to just get inside the machine without asking permission? No there isn't. No manifestos or drawing attention to the fact that she was a woman making post-punk weirdo reggae/dub/pop. Up just did it.

The AV Club's obit sums her up well. We shall now retire to the lounge and listen to The Slits magnificent version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine."


[As longtime Typing Monkey associate Kevan says: This news bums me the fuck out. -- ed.]

... Frenzy!

October. Regular readers know that means two things -- National Donut Month and Halloween. As in years past, we'll start the month off with a not-at-all subtle reminder:

[Image from the Wiki media commons -- allegedly these are pumpkin donuts]

For a little complement to the fried dough, and a breather before we dive headfirst into the orange and black cheer, here's a video from 1983 of the mostly female dub/reggae/pop group Amazulu, touching three of the globe's four corners:


[Courtesy of fritz51318]

Cruel and Bewitching

Put down the taco son, there’s another holiday going on in the Northern Hemisphere today that has nothing to do with war or binge drinking. Today is Beltane, otherwise known as the start of summer for those who follow the pagan calendar.

The weather may not be very summer-like where ever you are. At The Typing Monkey’s global headquarters it’s positively autumnal … except for all the green. We’re halfway there. So to celebrate please play the following as often as you like:

The Slits
"Typical Girls"

[courtesy Nemova]

And if the word "Beltane" stirs some distant recognition in your brains, perhaps this is why.

Nice Up the Ghost Dance

Countdown to Halloween keeps delivering the goods, as we discover and explore other blogs created by people who love October 31 as much as The Typing Monkey.

One of these discoveries very much worth mentioning here is Distincly Jamaican Sounds, a music blog that posts some nifty singles and mixes of mostly reggae and dub. Since 2006, DJS blogger John (aka ReggaeXX) has been posting Halloween- and horror-themed mixes of Jamaican music every October.

Ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub frequently reference horror characters in their titles, if not in their lyrical content. And the party friendly sounds of vintage Jamaican music makes it an ideal soundtrack for a Halloween celebration, as we mentioned last year.

We're already downloading the generous amount of tunes posted for 2009 and will start digging our way through past years as well. (In 2007 he included a mix of garage rock, lounge and vintage r&b too, in case the sounds of Kingston aren't your thing. Isn't that nice?)

A Graveyard Smash

Scientist's dub album ... Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires (reviewed below) is an ideal Halloween party album, and here's why: Dub, as a genre, already behaves like a grinning Frankenstein's monster.

Recording engineers stitch these creations together from parts of existing songs. A (usually lone) technological wizard, treating the recording studio as a laboratory, chops and severs a reggae tune. The reassembled bits are reanimated and often enhanced with sound effects that have little or nothing to do with the original work, yet make sense once the new construction breaks free from its restraints.

Obvious thematic elements aside, the self-consciously spooky Curse of the Vampires matches up nicely to the rest of the stuff any reasonable Halloween party playlist will include -- in fact, it's an ideal party closer.

After Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor," the Bauhuas hits, Screamings both Jay Hawkins and Lord Sutch, Birthday Party, Nick Cave, the various garage rock nuggets, Burt Bacharach's dancefloor-filling theme from The Blob and whatever else you're spinning, cool down the drunks and please the heads by dropping the needle on Curse of the Vampires.

The low beats-per-minute and soul-soothing one-drop rhythms will gently release your guests into the night without bringing them down. And they'll call you November 1st to ask you what that record was you played right before they shuffled off to the bus stop.

Or if you're staying in on Halloween to watch movies, Curse works as an alternative soundtrack to some horror films that don't require a lot of attention from the viewer in terms of dialogue.

The album is short -- nearly 38 minutes -- so it gives the viewer enough time to watch the film as intended and establish the essential conflict. Keep an eye on the time and you can watch the remainder of the average 80 to 90 minute low-grade shocker while Scientist's top-shelf second-wave dub enhances the visuals.

The Typing Monkey recommends the living-dead melodrama White Zombie, a tale of lust and Haitian voodoo starring Bela Lugosi.

It Starts With Maniacal Laughter

SCIENTIST
Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires
(Greensleeves)
Counting the number of essential dub albums doesn't require taking one's shoes and socks off. But whichever hand begins the tally, make sure it includes this 1981 LP from King Tubby's apprentice Scientist (aka Hopeton Brown).

Amidst a series of concept dub records all seemingly wrapped around some of Scientist's favorite things (... Meets the Space Invaders, ... Wins the World Cup, etc.) the young studio wizard put out this horror-themed collection.

The 10 tracks are drastically remixed from source material provided by The Roots Radics, Scientist's frequent collaborators. Like King Tubby, Scientist often strips away all other instruments save the drums and bass, letting guitar and horns slide in and out of the mix like distant orbiting bodies.

But unlike his mentor's humid, tropical dubs or Lee "Scratch" Perry's abstract psychedelic versions, Scientist's work has a cold detachment to it. So his creature-feature theme makes perfect sense.

Scientist relies on reverb as much as delay and echo, and the expected speaker-rattling bass sometimes sounds compressed ("The Voodoo Curse"). In "The Corpse Rises" the bass staggers into the song from a distance, a thrilling trick that builds anticipation for the moment when it actually takes over the mix.

The between song declarations ("I want blood!" "This is the mummy's curse") expose the glee of a student set loose in the laboratory -- Scientist cut most of his early material in Tubby's studio -- and add much to the B-movie feel of it all.

He kills the mood once at the start of "The Mummy's Shroud" by letting some bird chirps into the track, and essentially flips on the lights by the last two cuts. "Plauge of Zombies" has positive-vibe Rasta vocals and "Ghost of Frankenstein" seems to be a version of lover's rock.

Perhaps those are the happy ending to Scientist's mini monsterfest?

Reference material: Augustus Pablo's desolate, Near East-tinged collaborations with King Tubby clearly showed Scientist the potential of dub. There are even elements of garage rock twang and Velvet Underground spaciousness.

WWDOOSV (Part V)

BURNING BABYLON
Beat Beat Beat
(Sound Shack)
A fifth LP of one-man dub-reggae creations from Slade Anderson, a metal dude gone to seed. It's all solid, if unremarkable, dub and roots music in the vein of Ticklah and McPullish, two more one-man dub plate makers of the modern age. Like other musicians working in definitive genres inexorably linked to the era in which the music was first divined, Anderson's dub can't top the first and second generation dub wizards. That he's doing it well is what matters.
Standouts: "Sproing-a-Dub" and the ska outing "Manuka Skank"
Released: August
myspace.com/burningbabylon

4HERO
... mixing
(Sonar Kollektiv)
Prefab mixes from crate diggers usually offer a new discovery or three that leads to further investigation. And done well, the completed collage can surprise in terms of what a given DJ wants us to hear when their choices are documented this way. But here's something weird. This entry in the Sonar Kollektiv Mixing DJ series, from Dego of the German nu-soul duo 4Hero, bears an eerie resemblance to The Typing Monkey's own record collection. That's not a boast -- just, what are the chances? Our only regret is the promo copy is unmixed and we want to know how Dego transitions between a few of these cuts.
Standouts: Raymond Scott's "Lightworks" and the SA-RA remix of Roy Hargrove's "On the One"
Released: Aug 12
myspace.com/4hero

TITTSWORTH
Twelve Steps
(Plant Music)
A Baltimore DJ/producer who squeezes a tiny bit more from his hometown's brand of dance music, known as "gutter." Tittsworth crafts his own boozy rhythmic repetitions, ending up with an aggressive blend of techno and hip-hop that actually encourages dancing. Pity the MCs and vocalists he enlists don't do much more than the usual calls to getting drunk and copulating. (Not bad goals, mind, but there are more creative ways to state those intentions.) As a consequence, the instrumentals leave a more pleasant aftertaste, and don't remind anyone over the age of 25 that hangover and regret are the ultimate destination the rest of the album is headed toward.
Standouts: "4:21" and "Bumpin'" ... Kid Sister and Paserock do well by "WTF" too.
Released: Aug 12
myspace.com/titts

Bonus review!
TITTSWORTH
The John McCain Mix
(Self-released)
Offered as free download when Twelve Steps was released, McCain Mix won't beat Diplo or Girl Talk at their own 12-bar cut-up game. Tittsworth executes a few actual remixes, versus the common gutter practice of doubling an existing club beat with overdriven drum machines (ahem, Aaron LaCrate). A tweaking of Hall & Oates' "I Can't Go for That" gives the best evidence yet that gutter is a close relative of those high NRG mixes of '80s hits. The closing mash-up of Lil Wayne's embarrassingly unerotic "Lollipop" and the Wham! slow-dance chestnut "Careless Whisper" manages to add a tiny bit of class to the former without disgracing the latter.