zaire: musiques urbaines à kinshasa

The tale of how a collection of Congolese thumb pianos provided the missing link between punk, techno and all points in between, has taken 25 years to tell. And like fellow music visionaries across the globe, the remarkable sound they created was forged in the most desperate of circumstances and in the harshest of places.
Konono No 1 emerged from the Angola/Congo border bush and relocated to Kinshasa, steeped in the traditional Bazombo trance music. They amassed a collection of differently pitched likembé (thumb pianos, or metal rods attached to resonators and pick-ups), plus pots, pans, cutlery, microphones adapted from car parts, whistles, massed vocals passed though megaphones and a massive sound system.
This remarkable, unique noise soon garnered a fanatical following at home. The DIY nature of their equipment provided an integral, distorted sound, a healthy hum seeping into every rhythmic pause. The combination of all these elements created something notably African in pace and texture, coincidentally nodding to Western electronica.
The likembé merge to provide a brutal, hypnotising beat, the cousin to The 13th Floor Elevators' electrified jug or John Cale's manic viola. The rapid intensity of rhythm matches the finest exponents of Krautrock, occasionally drifting close to the confused energy of Aphex Twin or Autechre, with the damaged tempo of Beefheart or Marc Ribot slithering in.
It could really be from anywhere, at any time; its rawness at odds with the slow fall towards slickness and a polished, homogenised sound so sought after these days. And like all the best music, it needs to be played loud, as loud as their legendary, dizzying live performances...
This music comes from somewhere unknown and offers hope that there are worlds of music out there, unexplored and waiting to be discovered.
- Dale Shaw BBC (UK)

zaire: musiques urbaines à kinshasa
ocora c559007 hm65 (1987)
Recorded live November 1978 Kinshasa

cd @320vbr
01 ORCHESTRE SANKAI Rythme Kuatankuaka 14.25
02 ORCHESTRE TOUT PUISSANT LIKEMBÉ KONONO No. 1 Mungua-Mungua 26.50
03 ORCHESTRE BAMBALA Animation Kifuti 9.25
04 ORCHESTRE BANA LUYA Animation Bana Luya 23.05

super-expanded dual-cassette set @192
01 ORCHESTRE BANA LUYA Animation Bana Luya 28'50
02 ORCHESTRE BAMBALA Animation Kifuti 28'33
03 ORCHESTRE SANKAI Kuata Nkuaka 28'16
04 ORCHESTRE T.P. LIKEMBE KONOKO (sic!) Mungua-Muanga 28'41
05 ORCHESTRE T.P. TULU LISANGA BANGANGA Animation (unnamed) 15'14 (extra track!)
(see Bolingo69's comment)

Tom Verlaine - Dave Bascombe Sessions 1986

Rejected by Fontana UK, which begat Flash Light. Loose and slightly goofy, many of these ended up as b-sides for Flash Light and The Wonder singles. The rough mixes of 'Sixteen Tulips' and 'One Time At Sundown' here end in breakdown instead of the usual fade, while 'Olive' has not circulated widely as far as I can tell. Although Flash Light is more literate and more focused, guitar rave-ups like 'Call Me The' can hold their own against bratty Yardbirds b-sides like 'The Nazz Are Blue' and 'Psycho Daisies'.

Tom Verlaine
Dave Bascombe Sessions 1986

01 Sixteen Tulips   5.01
02 Caveman-Flashlight   3.13
03 Anna   5.09
04 The Scientist Writes A Letter   5.23
05 Call Me The   3.39
06 Circling   2.33
07 Smoother Than Jones   3.30
08 Vanity Fair   5.58
09 Olive   4.03
10 One Time At Sundown   4.53

ZippyshareFLAC1
ZippyshareFLAC2

Faraquet Cincinnati 06/28/99 - Chokebore - Unwound - Phleg Camp - Pitch Fork - Tom Verlaine

01 Yo Yo
02 Whole Thing Over
03 Study In Movement
04 Um Die Ecke
05 Review
06 Call It Sane
07 Pretty (Without The R)
08 The Alaskas
09 Corpse Pose
10 Everything Is Weird
11 Twilight Pink
12 Hog Bottom
13 Thin Ice
14 Goat
15 Sinking
16 Clear It Away
17 Bomb

01-07 Faraquet live in Cincinnati 06-28-99
08 from Chokebore Black Black LP
09-10 Unwound 45
11-12 Phleg Camp 45
13-15 Pitch Fork Saturn Outhouse 45
16-17 Tom Verlaine live in Berlin 04-03-87

Future Noise

Peter Blegvad - King Strut & Peter Who?

Part of some world, I suppose. This one or that one. We've been through thick and thin, etc. (Are there any extant snapshots, something to show our kids? Cut to social analysis, mirrors of lost time, lost self, gone forever). But "The wounded monster utters 'Musica, Friend.' Away, lonesome sensation, away sensational tune. No. I don't mean thinks, I mean feels" (Melanie Nelson). The blues, barbershop quartets, traditional ballads, even the troubadours are felt here, but the story is all, without ever giving up on the line: no shirt shall ever touch my skin, nor comb go through my hair, but I'll think of the bed you're in & wish that I was lying with you there. Perfect fictions, fractured out of a world that can be ours, the moment thrust into prominence, from Raymond Chandler (life has a throat, we learn to grab it, that kind of thing comes automatic in a zone like the one we inhabit); to The Misfits (our rations ran out, our horses were dead, she forgot what gold was & I had to remind her: the lowliest of metals, too soft for serious use, pretty, of course, & warm to the touch, but no longer alluring when you've handled so much...) The refrains never repeat, just transform and shift the time of the tale, tipping the scales to embellish the facets of the events we've been let in on, as intimates. Nostalgia? If anything, then, for the present: "The final page of my notes is about deception, a tree falls. There is the blank face of indifference in the afternoon of staring happily and thoughtlessly into your child, the ultimate learning, there is the face of hardheartedness, the adorned face of the confusion of having been taken away by storm before thought could leap up, take you higher, and there is the face of wickedness, again the face of my education upon which I walk backwards like a devil on a moral precipice to cast off." (Bernadette Mayer). Ladies and gentlemen, Peter Blegvad.  - Ammiel Alcalay liner notes

Blegvad (rhymes with egg bad) proves he can write timeless heartbreak songs as well as conceptual puzzles. Produced by dB and fellow Golden Palomino Chris Stamey. Bonus track is muddy cassette dub of Peter Who? promotional CD recorded with Andy Partridge.

Peter Blegvad
King Strut & Other Stories
Silvertone Ore LP 511

01 King Strut
02 Gold
03 Meantime
04 On Obsession
05 Not Weak Enough
06 Swim
07 Northern Lights
08 Chicken
09 Real Slap In The Face
10 Shirt And Comb
11 Stranger To Myself
12 Peter Who?

cd and cassette @ 320

Lucky out

I will back from this blog, and already have deleted all my posts. Reasons are the killing of several filehosters and the threats, deletions and angry e-mails from from authorities, filehosters and copyright holders. It's no fun anymore, and I have better things to do than to worry about stuff like that. Thanks to all supportive contributors, bloggers, commenters and readers over the years.

Cheers, Lucky

bembeya jazz national @ 45tours

Since a greatest hits collection was released in the wake of lead singer Demba Camara's death in 1973, many of these have been slightly more available over the years than Balladins or Horoya or Keletigui singles tracks, but everything is here in one place.

bembeya jazz national @ 45tours
complete syliphone singles 1968-73

01 République Guinée (1968)
02 Sabor de Guajira (1968)
03 Armée Guinéenne (1968)
04 Net a Sec (1968)
05 Minuit (1969)
06 Guantanamera-Seyni (1969)
07 N'Wato M'Barale (1969)
08 Montuno de la Sierra (1969)
09 Waraba (1970)
10 N'Borin (1970)
11 Bembeyako (1970)
12 Dagna (1970)
13 Festival National (1971)
14 Doni Doni (1971)
15 Camara Mousso (1971)
16 Wouloukoro (1971)
17 Lefa (1971)
18 Bembeya (1971)
19 Kouledegbe (1973)
20 N'Diamono (1973)
21/2 Super Tentemba 1 & 2 (1973)
23 Bembeya (1973)
24 Ilé N'Yarabi (1973)
25 Mami Wata (1973)
26 Whiskey Soda (1973)
27 Sénero (1973)
28 Alalaké (1973)

cd @ various bitrates, mostly 320vbr

sam and dave - can't stand up for falling down

A collection of '68-'71 Atlantic singles along with two cuts from Stax, one from a Stay In School radio promo album and the title cut, a b-side (apparently dubbed from vinyl) that was famously covered by Elvis Costello. Some have subsequently been collected on CD anthologies, some really good ones, like Ooh Ooh Ooh, have not.

sam and dave
can't stand up for falling down
edsel ed 133 (1984)

01 Baby Baby Don't Stop Now
02 I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
03 Born Again
04 My Reason For Living
05 This Is Your World
06 Holdin' On
07 Come On In
08 When You Steal From Me (You're Only Cheating Yourself)
09 I'm Not An Indian Giver
10 Get It
11 Ooh Ooh Ooh
12 Don't Pull Your Love Out
13 Knock It Out The Park
14 You Easily Excite Me
15 One Part Love, Two Part Pain
16 Jody Ryder Got Killed

vinyl @320vbr