Category Archives: music

this period in music

ZE 30 – ZE Records 1979-2009 Founded 1979 by Michael Zilkha and Michel Esteban, ZE records was something of a touchstone of early 80’s post-punk and no wave music. ZE went defunct in the mid-80’s but the label has been restarted to reissue old records now considered classic. This record is the best choice for [...]
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circular trends, pt. 1

YACHT members Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans took the lyrics to “Psychic City” from Two Million Years, an early K Records cassette tape release by Rich Jensen, then added a synth part inspired by Althea and Donna’s “Uptown Top Ranking”. [source] See holy trinity
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modern arrangements

Pitchfork (the main, if not sole determinant of the popular-music zeitgeist these days) had this to say about Air’s part in Charlotte Gainsbourg’s debut solo album, 5:55: Gainsbourg’s contributors buckle beneath excessive reverence for the paterfamilias. Nigel Godrich’s production dips more deeply into lounge nostalgia than during his work for Air, who proffer their own Serge-besotted [...]
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the unspeakable trail of katrina

Farish Street in Jackson Mississippi is paved with new bricks and dotted with new street lamps. Saplings punctuate the sidewalk. The dinny exhalations of the South, that place in America that seems older than all others, reverberates along the empty street. The facade of the Ross Furniture Company is all that remains to commemorate the [...]
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I dub thee…

Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, has died at the age of 50. Jackson wasn’t the only titled member of the musical aristocracy. Besides the obvious James Brown (The Godfather of Soul), many other artists have been given honorific titles to better remind us of their pioneer roles in music: The Architect of Rock and Roll: [...]
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holy trinity

Junior Brammer AKA Trinity was born in 1958 in Kingston, Jamaica. He attended the catholic Alpha Boys School; another notable alumnus is Desmond Dekker. Trinity’s first hit as a reggae artist came in 1977 with the hot single “Three Piece Suit”. The song samples Alton Ellis’s “I’m Still In Love With You” rhythm; a riposte [...]
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rebel waltz

I slept and I dreamed of a time long ago I saw an army of rebels, dancing on air I dreamed as I slept, I could see the campfires, A song of the battle, that was born in the flames, and the rebels were waltzing on air. I danced with a girl to the tune of a waltz that was written [...]
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music: larytta

Larytta is two swiss guys on a bunch of synthesizers with outsize ideas about modern art and how fun it can be. 3/14. about the ranking system: A NEW NADIR refuses to be bound by arbitrary norms created by the hegemonic discourse of base-10 counting. All media given a qualitative rating will be judged on a [...]
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unbound music, #1

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The Rakes – Klang!

Let’s get this out of the way: Klang! is a good album. The Rakes are a bunch of guys who are probably quite sick of being compared to the Strokes. Moreso they are probably tired of 90% of their listeners pirating their music. 20 years ago a band like this never would have made their [...]
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