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Stairway to . . .

Vallejo Nocturno 2012 - Heaven's Gate

Best Music of the Year 2012- Petar Dundov

A cerebral mix from our holy and blasphemous past. Psychedelic and remisniscent of morning converstation over coffee that grew slowly into the conscious elements of today's cracked sensibilities. Circular songs of our youth. Here, here-he proclaimed.

From RA Reviews:

There's something uncontrived about Petar Dundov's music. It goes from chord change to chord change while always sounding completely natural. Achieving this takes careful consideration, of course. But this is also due to his particularly upfront, '80s indebted style of sound design. Jean-Michel Jarre is a major influence, and like him, Dundov manages to make his collages of harmony very rich, but not indigestible. In other words, Dundov produces unapologetically melodic techno.

While Ideas from the Pond might first come across as congruent, in terms of the consistent prominence of synthesizers and their style of programming, Dundov actually travels diverse terrain here, often within the same track. "Distant Shores," for example, starts with an arresting plucking sound that soon has many layers weaving around it. It moves through various stages, building to a complex climax of dramatic, clattering drums and lyrical arpeggios, and then whispers out at the end, like a dream fading away. It's pretty central to his charm that Dundov can hit that kind of effect and and have it not sound trite.

This description of "Distant Shores," originally released in 2010 and the only pre-released single on the album, could just as well apply to the entirety of Ideas from the Pond. The individual tracks are microcosms of the whole. This could easily become boring over eighty minutes. But instead, they reinforce each other. The journey—and it does feel like a journey—is extended, fluently.

Whether you're gripped for the duration, though, largely depends on whether you're the kind of person who's engaged by the substance of what's washing over you. Ideas is full of detail and tiny motions. The counterpoint to the twinkling melodies is often linear, like in "Silent Visitor." In other places, like on "Brownian Motion," the counterpoint feels more vertical. But what keeps you locked in to Ideas' slow trajectory is Dundov's grasp of emotions. He simply makes you want to stay with the feeling.

From Juno Plus:

Of the producers who emerged during the heady days of the 90s, few have continued to release great music. In fact, apart from Luke Slater, Regis and Neil Landstrumm, the passage of time has led to them following rather than setting trends. There are too many examples of once distinctive artists going down the big room minimal route to document here. In other instances, age has led to a ‘mellowing out’ process that leads to not a deeper sound but in reality bland factory-line fodder. While Petar Dundov’s latest album is certainly more laid-back than the storming intensity of his Brother’s Yard releases, he hasn’t sacrificed creativity, ideas or imagination in the process.

Admittedly, the Croatian’s 2010 single for Music Man, “Distant Shores”, also included here, did edge close to mainstream Ibiza dance music, but it did so with an irresistible flair and panache and an understanding of what used to be popular on the White Island, its pulsing electronic bassline supporting synth solos that verge on the psychedelic. Although it largely eschews the dance floor, the rest of Ideas From The Pond resonates with a similar sense of history. The title track is a perfectly weighted, sun-kissed ambient affair, its melody swirling gently over lazy mid-tempo beats that were made for Cafe Del Mar. “Together” provides the missing link between Leftfield at their most introspective -  think the alternate versions of “Song Of Life”  – and Vangelis, as synths swell and ebb majestically and it’s crying out to soundtrack a movie. Speaking of films, it sounds like Dundov immersed himself in soundtracks during the recording process; “Around One” and “Tetra Float” are wonderfully atmospheric compositions, with spine-tingling keys and spacey melodies realised with a warm, soft-focus production touch. Unlike many of his peers, Ideas From The Pond shows that Dundov is not treading water and has grown older, wiser and more creative.

From Bookmat;

Sublime sophomore album from the Croat native. On 'Ideas From the Pond' he expresses himself through an equally measured blend of classic memes borrowed from widescreen Kosmische, pulsing Techno and Balkan nEuro Disco. It's all beautifully put in context on the 1hr 17min continuous mix, and breaks down to purified trance Techno on 'Silent Visitor'; delicious slow-disco pirouettes on the title track; rolling space Haus on 'Brownian Interplay; and deeply evocative motorik synth sagas such as 'Together' or 'Tetra Float'. Fans of owt from Jeff Mills to Emeralds or Harold Grosskopf might have found a new favourite. Recommended!

The Quest for Air

Vallejo Nocturno 2012- new york in the fall

Best Music of the Year 2012- John Talabot

 

Fin, Talabot's classic house and modern music mix has both an urban and knowing sensibility that produces dance all over my body. Nevertheless, a subtle play on what is fast becoming the most creative space for the future.

 

From RA:

Never tell John Talabot his music's cozy. In a recent interview with Juno Plus, the Barcelona-based producer expressed confusion over many of the labels applied to the music that has made him such a presence in electronic music over the last few years—"tropical" being the most obvious. He insists that he always thought of his productions as kind of shadowy. It's an interesting objection because you can hear what he's saying: There's always been a sly melancholy, a kind of sonic withdrawal and itchy discomfort, to Talabot's material that belies the shimmer at the surface.

Regardless of how you view these timbres though—and, clearly, one man's beachbum anthem is another's depressive tearbait—Talabot's been omnipresent in sets, mixes and compilations for about three years now. Across well-caned favorites like "Sunshine," "Matilda's Dream" and "Families" on labels like Permanent Vacation, Young Turks and Spain's Hivern Discs, Talabot's established his own brand of sandy haired electronica that owes as much to the jumpy Balearic strains of fellow Spaniards like Delorean and Hamburg microscopic deep house as they do to the melodic swellings of early to mid-00 heavies like Kompakt and Get Physical.

Marked by his keen sense of songcraft, Talabot's tunes are just as good (if not better) for country day strolls or evening reading than peak night hedonism. And with his debut album, fIN, finally arriving on Permanent Vacation, it's obvious from the outset that he's constructed a fifty-odd minute piece of music as cohesive and narrative-oriented as some of the best electronic full-lengths of the last few years. There are stepbacks and detours—the ambient whirl of "H.O.R.S.E." and the garbled dystopic blur of "Last Land"—that lend moments of sonic reprieve against the album's heartiest tracks. Fellow Spaniard and recent Permanent Vacation standout Pional turns up on the sultry vocal-bent house of "Destiny," with its brief lapses into bell-laced ambience that almost resemble Pantha du Prince, while "Depak Ine" opens with brief night calls—birds, frogs, all manner of cries unseen—before slipping into an eclipse of pitch-shifted vocal blurs and fuzzy synth blurts (surely one of the songs Talabot had in mind when referring to the album's blacker hues).

From The Guardian:

Barcelona house producer John Talabot has a knack for capturing the very specific kind of bliss associated with dancing on Mediterranean beaches at the height of summer. A penchant for rising chords means that all his melodies make you feel like raising your arms and face to the sun. Talabot also has arguably the greatest sense of build-and-release in dance music since prime Booka Shade: ƒin is full of incredible tension-releasing moments, from the extended break in Destiny to the entrance of Missing You's bouncing bass. The generosity of Talabot's sound can also be ascribed to the amount of disparate ingredients he puts to use in service of his aesthetic – particularly the variety of human voices on display. There are wordless chants and bright, optimistic pop hooks; an echoing scream is plucked from a horror film and deposited in the middle of a carnival on Oro y Sangre, while on So Will Be Now, cut-up vocals coalesce gradually and gorgeously into recognisable language. All of humanity seems to be here – and it's busy celebrating being alive.

From Pretty Much Amazing:

The Catalan producer hails from a sound stable saddled with the early moniker ‘Balearic’, named for the collaborations conjured up between he and his Basque country brethren – check out his shimmering remix of Delorean’s “Sunshine,” and his mate from Madrid, Pional’s many vocals on Fin. His oozy, woozy take on ambient house evokes the sun sinking below Barcelona’s rooftops, so effortlessly captured in his EP Families - yet save for the song titles, somewhat surprisingly there’s no Spanish on the album.

But for all the deliciousness and delicacy, the record is interlaced with moments of darkness – something Talabot is determined to cling to. ‘Why am I always tagged as house, or tropical or happy music when I’m making dark tracks? ’, he said in this interview. ‘I don’t understand’.

Perhaps that’s why opening track “Depak Ine” begins in the way that it does, with a haunting jungle-like atmosphere where the skittering hoots and hollers of unseen wild beasts are offset by a pounding rhythmic drumbeat. This seven minute extravaganza fully immerses the listener into the record as layer upon layer is gently spliced together, until all the slivers make up a complex, melodic slice of sound. It’s an method that’s equally well wielded on album closer “So Will Be Now,” that cuts samples of Pional’s vocal with a groovy, bouncy bass and tight finger-clicks.

Better at layering than any fashion editor, is Talabot. In the same Red Bull interview, Talabot admits he likes to sample – ‘it’s something more creative’, and this is exemplified on ”Last Land.” There are sounds you recognize and yet can’t place – it’ll make you gurn in that desperation to identify it – rounded off by a sequence that recalls Arabian Nights, all twinkly bells and twisted synths.

Best Music of the Year 2012- The Weekend Trilogy

Late to the party but mesmerized by the succulent beats and sweet expressions of desire coming out of this truly addictive auditory trip. The Weekend is what I want and what I need, reminding me of the crevices in my past and the anticipatory surprises in a lost room. Living with these beats for over a year and still sounding new and exploratory. Sensational.

From Rapconqueso.com:

I still remember the first time I heard The Weeknd, it may have been the first public track leaked from them – a chopped and screwed version of “The Morning,” leaving fans to wonder if Drake had been doing a side project with a different stage name (internet was going through a similar phase as Lupe fans when they were trying to figure out if Lu was part of Japenese Cartoon). The second track I heard from The Weeknd was What You Want, which  put all the “it’s Drake rumors” aside.  Their marketing campaign was so mysterious and left everyone anticipating the music; Abel’s face barely seen in low quality pictures, an official site showcasing a pitch black screen with just a logo present, and a few songs scattered around a vast internet world.

Then 2011 showed up – The year of The Weeknd. In 2011, The Weeknd released three projects: House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of silence. The last installment of the trilogy was released on December 21st, a day that had a significant seasonal meaning to Abel.  Each project from the trilogy is unique in it’s own way.  Each project from The Weeknd really reflects the mood of the season it was released in, the temperature climate you may be experiencing, the time of day, nature, and environment.  Talk about sonically pleasing. All of the projects sound amazing, regardless of what time of the day, but Thursday and Echoes of Silence hit an insurmountable peak at night. You know that Nostalgia where the past, present, and future intertwine and become one? On the contrary, the House of Balloons project sounds amazing in the morning, noon, and day time, though the back half of the album should be reserved for night time affairs.  I still remember when House of Balloons dropped. I downloaded the album, put it on a blank CD, and walked to my car. I sat in the parking lot and dozed off to the whole album. I usually catch artists before they get really big. I pride myself in being that fan before the fan and really indulging in my own created frenzy before the music reaches the masses and becomes saturated.

From  Song Meaning:

You don't know what's in store
But you know what you're here for
Close your eyes
Lay yourself beside me
Hold tight for this ride
We don't need no protection
Come one love
We don't need attention

Open your hand
Take a glass
Don't be scared
I'm right here
Even though you don't roll
Trust me girl
You wanna be high for this

Take it off
You want it off
'Cause I know what you're feeling
It's okay girl I feel it too
Let it beat baby breathe
I swear I'm right here
We'll be good I promise
We'll be so good

Open your hand
Take a glass
Don't be scared
I'm right here
Even though you don't roll
Trust me girl
You wanna be high for this
You wanna be high for this

From Pitchfork:

While the previously available versions of House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence already felt definitive, a three-hour immersion provides a new way in, assuming you are willing to take it as a single piece. Which isn't easy: in spite of Tesfaye's diaphanous voice and the lush production, these are heavy records, with tempos that slow to a codeine drip for five minutes or more. But Trilogy as a whole sets up a narrative that was previously only implied. 

House of Balloons is the "fun" part of the story, though that's a relative term. It has the only Weeknd songs you might play at a celebration, and the only point where the illicit behavior feels alluring. On House, the Weeknd introduce an aesthetic that, over the course of the rest of the three tapes, gradually evolves into something deeper and less based in traditional songcraft. It's a continuation of the purple-tinted R&B and hip-hop hybrid forged by The-Dream and Drake, with eye-of-the-quiet storm assurance of Sade and Aaliyah and industrial and trip-hop touches that range from Nine Inch Nails to Tricky. But the Weeknd show a flair for melody that allows every richly atmospheric song on House to stand on its own, boasting strong (and sometimes borrowed) hooks that embrace repetition without feeling manipulative. The cyclical choruses of "What You Need", "The Morning", and "High For This" in particular are both immediately striking and subtly ingratiating, overtures to pop radio that operate outside of it.

Those borrowed hooks mean that House of Balloons is the part of Trilogy most affected by the remaster. If you can't catch how the guitars hit a little harder and the drums have a bit more pop on "High For This", you'll definitely notice how the sample from Aaliyah's "Rock the Boat" has been wiped from "What You Need". If I had to choose, I prefer the original House of Balloons for its spontaneity, but it's kind of like familiarizing yourself with your partner after they get a new haircut; it's just different for a while, and if you want, you can always go back.

The Me Inside

Vallejo Nocturno 2012- After the Flood

Best Music of the Year 2012- Lower Dens

Not a Baltimore prejudice here-a state of mind with the Lower Dens. A hyptnotic croon of everlasting beat tightening groove. Repetitive and addictive like things we like. A smartdrug solution to those who need a a legal addiction. Obviously a sin in the home of heroin. Nootropics is their new sound.

From Stereogum:

I’ve had the digital promo of Nootropics, the sophomore album from Baltimore dream-rock band Lower Dens, for a couple of months now. And according to my iTunes, I’ve listened to its 10 songs an average of 106 times. I’ve mentioned this a few times on Stereogum already, but it almost immediately became my daughter’s favorite album of all time. My kid just turned three, but putting her to bed is this massive ordeal; I need to hold her and bounce her and pace back and forth across her bedroom for something like an hour, until she drifts off. By the end of it, my back is screaming at me. And her attachment to this album has become intense and kind of weird; she cries hard if I try to put on anything else. But here’s a measure of how good this album is: I haven’t gotten entirely sick of it yet.

That’s mostly because I can see where my kid is coming from. Nootropics is a world-class sleeping aid, and I don’t mean that as a slight. When the band released their debut Twin-Hand Movement a couple of years ago, hazy drift was a big part of it. They were mostly a guitar band then, and their sound worked by lazily and comfortably wrapping all their different guitar lines around each other, forming these intuitive tapestries of sound. They reminded me a bit of Luna then; they had that same easy, instinctual interplay, like they’d been born playing guitar with one another. They hadn’t, of course. Bandleader Jana Hunter is a former freak-folk artist, and the band had tons of interpersonal problems and lineup shifts after the album came out. But that calm, familiar sense of drift is still all over Nootropics; it’s just been pushed in some different directions.

From Consequence of Sound:

Nootropics are drugs that enhance cognitive functions such as concentration, memory, and attention span. According to Lower Dens, their album title refers to the band’s “interest in transhumanism–the use of technology to extend human capabilities.” Sure, drugs have been inexorably tied to the inspiration, enjoyment, or the end of music for decades, but smart pills? That’s a new one. In any case, for Baltimore’s Lower Dens, it fits.

Kraftwerk pushed music technology to drive the point home of every album’s theme, such as the monotonous feeling to the experience of driving on the Autobahn’s namesake, or that of man as a machine of production, stipped of any personality or humanity on Man-Machine. Similarly, Lower Dens are using their expanded grandness in scope to create a specific atmosphere for Nootropics. Take “Lamb” and “Proagation”, for example. Here Lower Dens utilize motorik beats, droning guitar noise, and the barely-there whispers of Jana Hunter to build a mood of fearful claustrophobia. Lead single “Brains” is surprisingly uptempo, but its motorik beat just raises the urgency to overwhelming levels. That panicked feeling when uncertainty takes control and time distorts? It’s captured in musical form in the beast that is “Brains”.

These Krautrock stylings are fully unleashed on 12 minute closer “In the End Is the Beginning”, and the panicked sensation of Nootropics gives way to catharsis as the surrealism intensifies to the point at which change is inevitable. If neighbors and former tour mates Beach House are dream pop, then with Nootropics, Lower Dens are nightmare pop.

From Paste:

Whirring forward—at times slick with the velvety magnetism of psychedelic riffs, other times peppered with the oddly attractive hiccups of a vintage movie reel—Nootropics, the latest record from Baltimore quintet Lower Dens, connects layered loops and trippy chants with catchy rock ’n’ roll arrangements, delivering a pure punch of sonic bliss.

Jana Hunter, the freak folk-inclined singer/songwriter who serves as the outfit’s frontwoman, has ditched the majority of the foggy reverb and bulky guitar riffs from the band’s 2010 release, Twin Hand Movement, in favor of a droning progression that mirrors a single, repetitious track. Playing into Hunter’s uncanny ability to craft an emotion-dense landscape, a majority of the record’s offerings inspire a deeply rooted reaction within the listener—stirring up feelings of joy and despair—while tickling the nostalgic corners of the brain.

Adopting a mysterious, otherworldly appeal, Nootropics opens with the meandering “Alphabet Song,” where hypnotic waves of keys frame Hunter’s off-kilter vocals, before giving way to a group-led, eerie chant. Appealing to an opposite realm of trippy tenacity, the instrumental “Stem” is a euphoric collection of surf-reminiscent guitar lines and chiming keys—evoking a jubilant connection to the track’s childlike sense of celebration.

“Candy” changes the pace as a darker offering, with Hunter demanding, “Back it up, nobody wants you ‘round here. What are you waiting for?” In stark contrast to previous tracks, a dangerous and aggressive arrangement of instrumentals forcefully backs disturbed vocals before coming to an uncomfortable, screeching halt.

From Vulture.com:

You grew up in Texas, now live in Baltimore, and wrote much of the new record while on the road. Does location inform your music?
I’ve always thought of Texas as being very open territory, especially because I grew up in a smaller town that empties at night. There’s literally a lot of empty space. Coming to the Northeast in general, but particularly Baltimore, I felt for the first time a sense of urgency in making things. It’s changed not only the level of dedication or the amount of time I put into music, but the process and the outcome have become, overall, more intense.

What was your perception of what was happening musically in Texas growing up?
When I was young, I had this understanding that most of Texas was blues-rock, and wanted to get away from it as fast as possible. After living in Houston for a while, I think of Texas as a good place for particular strains of psychedelic music and experimental music, even free jazz. I don’t think it will necessarily become widely known for that, but Houston was a really great place for me to be as a 19- and 20-year-old.

You started out working alone, writing and recording lo-fi in your bedroom. Is it a struggle to now work with a band?
I find the more that I acquiesce to there being other people — people who have just as much to say and can say it just as well — that it gets easier and the music that I play becomes more interesting. I’ve heard my own voice, so to speak, for so many years now that it’s just interesting to me to work with a lot of other people’s ideas and try to incorporate them. A lot of times I’m more interested in process than outcome, and this process is a lot more interesting than sitting alone in a room and trying to drag out the most confessional music I can.

What do you think is the secret to being a good “front man”?
I’m still trying to figure that out. As far as I can tell, the secret is to give the audience as much of yourself as possible. It seems to involve making an exaggeration of yourself, to kind of see how much you can pull your own puppet strings. But I’m not naturally given to theatricality, so it’s something I’m trying to figure out from an intellectual perspective. It doesn’t really work very well that way. Any success I have with it, I sort of stumble into.

Best Music of the Year 2012- Angelica Sanchez

 

Introspective and angular, Sanchez's compositions and their deployment on Wires & Moss with her capable squadron of musicians take us to novel and surprising places. This high wire set manages to be an emotional car chase where you find yourself in the rearview mirror. Good stuff.

 

From All About Jazz;

Perceptive composer and cunning improviser, educator/keyboardist Angelica Sanchez has risen to the A-list of modern stylists and innovators. As history dictates, she largely summons the crème-de-la-crème of like-minded artists for her solo endeavors. Indeed, Sanchez's burgeoning discography for Clean-Feed records bears witness to her resourceful persona. On Wires & Moss, she traverses a route initiated upon evocative moods and jarring tone poems.

"Soaring Piasa" is an 11-minute opus designed with guitarist Marc Ducret's angular and creaky extended notes that help establish an unwieldy and slightly ominous introduction. As saxophonist Tony Malaby fills in the gaps along with Sanchez's nimble piano voicings. Hence, an unnerving calm underscores the storyline. But they subsequently raise the pitch, due to the leader's fractured jazz phrasings and subtle reverse-engineering processes, instilling a notion that many unanswered questions prevail.

It's an open-ended piece that morphs into a structured theme, centered on a simple and congenial melody line, where Malaby elevates the pitch via his plaintive cries during the finale. Sanchez and associates inject quite a few teasers into this multifaceted work. The ensemble decrees a translucent median, toggling between artistic risk-taking and modern mainstream while tossing several riotous detours into the grand schema

From Free Jazz:

The album is made up of six pieces which work on the development of melody and freedom. It's a concept that is gradually evolving throughout the modern jazz world. Structured melodies give way to open ended improvisations, sometimes wild and improvised, and others based on rhythms or melodic fragments used elsewhere. What gives these records, this one included, a very exciting side to them is the ability to interpret chord progressions using modern vocabulary. Lessons learnt from Albert Ayler, Braxton or Derek Bailey are now the norms, moving the art post-bop orientated improvisation into the realms of jazz for conservatory musicians. On this album tracks such as the fine opening 'Loomed' let the musicians probe areas that aren't necessarily suggested in the initial tune before working in a more melodic area that although semi-written inspires the musicians to find alternative vocabulary. 'Feathered Light' lets Tony Malaby weave intricate soprano lines that are neither tonal nor atonal. However before Malaby solos Angelic Sanchez opens up the material a little in the same way that Keith Jarrett did back in his classic Impulse years band of Paul Motian, Dewey Redman and Charlie Haden. In fact the music probably owes more to that era (style) than one would maybe think.  

  

'Soaring Piasa' finds Tony Malaby and Marc Ducret trading ideas before Angelica Sanchez gives the rhythm section some sort of harmony to work with. Drew Gress and Tom Rainey accompany her like a modern Bill Evans trio before the sax of Tony Malaby joins them by which time it's clear that the melody is being developed and prepared to lead the group towards the end of the piece. It's a very graceful and inventive piece that combines open soloing and classic melodic writing. the excellent 'Wire and Moss' which features Marc Ducret also works a little on the same idea. A sort of A-B-A structure with 'B' being the melody. 'Dore' has a dense melody full of rhythmic surprises. Gradually it lets the musicians find their own way, who then develop a more 'open' approach to the improvisation. 'Bushida' the final track is given over to Drew Gress who opens up the tune with a wonderful unaccompanied bass intro. The piece then moves gradually away into a dark melody that is punctuated by Tom Rainy's (almost rock) drumming which accompanies Marc Ducret rough solo and Tony Malaby's poly-harmonic(**) lines.

From Interview at OmniTone:

Tafuri: At the risk of getting too pedantic right off the bat, why do you play the piano?

Sanchez: That's an interesting question...  I think I came about it totally by chance when I was a kid.  I played the clarinet first, and my brother took piano lessons.  So I wanted to take piano lessons. 

Tafuri: Older or younger?

Sanchez: He's my older brother, and I wanted to be like him.  So we took piano lessons, and I was miserable.  I was terrible at it, so I stopped taking piano when I was around thirteen.  Then, when I got into high school, a local jazz band came and played for us.  I was a freshman in high school, and I was completely blown away.  I had sort of started to get interested in blues music, then they came and played for us, and I was knocked out. 

Tafuri: What kind of stuff did they play?

Sanchez: They played a blues, and they played a standard -- stuff that I had never really heard, because I was pretty green.  I had just never heard people play music like that. 

Tafuri: What was music for you before then?

Sanchez: I liked Elton John.  I liked Boy George.  I actually really liked country music. 

Tafuri: Really?

Sanchez: Yeah, I was really into country music.  I liked fusion [jazz].

Tafuri: This is in Phoenix?  And they had country music on the air there?

Sanchez: Oh, sure.  My parents were like, "You like country music?"  I liked lots of pop music back then.  But then there was the Marian McPartland show that was the first real way I heard piano.  I was just amazed that she had on all these piano players, and that's sort of how I got introduced to playing the piano.  It was a great show.  I mean, it was the only thing they had on the radio that was hip back then, because they didn't have a jazz station back when I was growing up.

Tafuri: There is a jazz station now.

Sanchez: There is now, but, back when I was growing up, it was like KJAZ was sort of "pseudo-fusiony" kind of thing. 

Tafuri: It still is KJAZ.

Sanchez: Yeah, but now they play Dexter Gordon, and back then they didn't.

Tafuri: Wow!  Well, when was this?  This was the '70s?

Sanchez: No, the '80s.  [She laughs.]

More

Jason Evans

From SEESAW Magazine

Best Music of the Year 2012- Zita Swoon Group

Zita Swoon Group - "Wait For Me" (album trailer) from Crammed Discs on Vimeo.

 

An inspirational and successful acoustic blend of African and European sounds emphasizes the power of raw and delicate cultural arrangements by sensitive artists. Zita Swoon Group may be classified as "World Music" but it is much more. Let's hope this is a path other international musicians will take.

From PopMatters:

The collaborative spirit here is openly and explicitly addressed, as many of the songs deal with issues of social relevance such as relationships between rulers and people, and labor relations. It would be far too easy to suggest that these issues are relevant only in the impoverished nations of Africa, and that a group of white musicians is using their good fortune to shine a light on the plight of the “dark continent”. This is most definitely not the case, as the group makes it very clear that the such issues know no racial divide and are in fact universally relatable regardless of nation or creed. It is this acknowledgment of white struggle that truly enriches the collaboration and thankfully destroys any pretensions of this simply being another exposition of the disgusting “white savior complex”, where good intentions go beyond failing to do any real good and in fact only help to reinforce negative cultural stereotypes about the so-called “third world”, and the very people who are trying to help are kept at arm’s length (remember Live Aid?).  And it is appropriate that a group from Belgium undertook such a task, as Belgium, much like the majority of Africa, was long subject to the predilections of larger European powers before it’s independence.

Due to the fact that the band has such a vast array of influences (undoubtedly coming from the disparate makeup of its members and it’s conscious approach of seeking out new and dynamic methods of composing and playing) there is a certain amount of difficulty in pinning down what exactly their “sound” is. Instead of being able to effectively nail down a small number of specific musical ideas that define them, they seem content with applying a broader pallet to a similarly broad spectrum of musical forms and structures, all with the same orchestration that includes things like the banjo and the pump organ. It’s a set of instruments that appears bizarre on paper but ultimately enriches the material.

From Cast the Dice:

Formed in the early 90′s under the name Moondog Jr., Zita Swoon became one of Belgium’s most emblematic bands. Lead member Stef Kamil Carlens, who also co-founded dEUS with Tom Barman, travelled to Burkina Farso in 2010 where he met vocalist Awa Démé and balafon (xylophone) player Mamadou Diabaté Kibié. Zita Swoon Group and the album Wait For Me is the fruit of this encounter.

According to the press release, most of the album’s tracks “are based around dialogues: the content of Awa Démé’s lyrics (sung in Dioula, a Manding language) is echoed and transposed in Stef Kamil’s English-language lines, which reflect the griots’ preoccupations with traditional wisdom, interpersonal relationships, social codes and cultural traditions, but also with very current issues: social and political problems, the depletion of the country’s natural resources, endemic poverty which drives many people to emigrate in search of a better life etc.”.

From Inside World Music:

The Belgium-based world-beat group, Zita Swoon, is a cosmopolitan band representing a host of musical styles that cross the wide, Saharan expanse of North Africa and the Western European region of France, Belgium, and England. The engaging rhythms are showcased on a number of instruments, including drums, balafon, guitar, horns, various folk instruments. The wide-ranging vocals and incredible repertoire of Awa Deme, Mamadou Diabate Kibie, and the Paul Simon/Bob Dylan singing-leadership of Stef Kamil Carlens, produces a solid recording of memorable songs. The balafon and horns represent a West African and Ethiopian sound on the same album. The world music created by Zita Swoon Group is a form of fusion, but it almost works too good to be called fusion. Instead, the music is just great--no matter what you call it.