LA's Orgone, easily one of the funkiest up-and-coming combos around, have received a fair share of publicity lately, enjoying comparisons to hot modern funk acts such as Sharon Jones and Amy Winehouse.

While the band is clearly rooted at the backbone of the modern funk sound, what makes Orgone's sound unique is that it draws as much from disco and afro-beat as it does from Memphis soul and New Orleans funk.

The results definitely shine through on their monstrous full length debut on Ubiquity Records, The Killion Floor. The album contains a solid collection of heavy hitting, organic soul grooves, including a stellar version of "Funky Nassau" and a killer cover of Isaac Hayes' "Do Your Thing," which feature the sultry vocals of Fanny Franklin.

Orgone's reputation has been growing steadily, as evident on their impressive resume that includes touring as the backing band for The Pharcyde and Plantlife, and backing the legendary Eddie Bo at the Hurricane Katrina benefit. Some of the band members have also performed and recorded with such acts as Breakestra, Dakah (the 30-piece hip hop orchestra), as well as The Lions and Connie Price.

Many, many questions … mostly about the space-time continuum. I imagine it doesn’t actually run in a straight line, but in a vertical spiral, spinning in several directions simultaneously and at undulating speeds, analogous to a surging elliptical orbit, gyrating and wobbling like a mountain of dradles as they lose momentum. Think of ‘time’ as one of those old turntables that change a stack of records by dropping the next platter, except this turntable twists unpredictably forward and backwards, erratically spiraling and switching speeds, coughs up the record done, spits out a new one. Better yet, think of ‘time’ as a turntablist who is sandwiched between two turntables stacked on top of each other spindle to spindle, and the DJ is simultaneously scratching, looping, cross fading, juggling beats, rubbing, bugging, juggling the thing of a thing of a thing, cutting and pasting, grinding and humping, downbeat sweeps, creeps, bumping and slamming, twiddle, diddle, tweak, zig zag, squirrel, scribble scrabble, kif lift, willy nilly, dada, nada, dodo, zoot horn rollo, zither zather zuzz, hepcat swinging over a Euclidian three ring circus gumbo, without a net, without a tent, without an answer, up shit creek, without a gift on xmas day hallelujah.… then the record changer drops another disc on the other turntable and the tone arm continues all over again.  

This is also how one might explain paranormal phenomenon. If the ‘time’ spiral spin’s in conflicting and inconsistent directions, on occasion this spiral inter-splices momentarily into a singular part of the coil. In that collision, we could experience a virtual and distinctive time door, opening briefly, accounting for ghostly apparitions, UFO sightings, déjà vu and even disappearing socks.

I woke up in an odd mood and while I was grinding   coffee this morning, for some unknown reason, I  started thinking about the legendary folk musician
Woody Guthrie and that sign he often painted on his
guitar.

“This Machine Kills Fascists”

And no, I don’t mean my  Italian espresso maker …

In this frame of mind, I don’t even dare open the paper … not today.

Woody once wrote, "I took a bath this morning in six war speeches, and a sprinkle of peace.”  

Yeah, I know that mood.

I’m thinking, what could throw me even deeper into this funk?  Maybe the right song and I can revel in this shithole state of mind for a while; I do have the morning  to myself!

So I went digging though a few boxes of 45’s  for this minor keyed, slow funky version of  “This Land Is  Your Land” by Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings originally released in 2006 as a 7-inch single with a red, white, and blue label (and a flip side of  What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes?). It’s a masterpiece, if not the modern definitive version of Woody Guthrie’s classic paean to the America he saw in his travels in the 1930’s. Guthrie originally wrote this song in 1940 in response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," which Guthrie considered unrealistic, self-satisfied and smug.

Sharon Jones’ version of This Land should be the one sung in grammar schools, especially since she includes the seldom sung verses about private property and government relief. She’s brought back the anger, the defiance and rebelliousness that had been lost; trashing the soft-pedaled, whitewashed, yankee-doodle dandy edition we’ve heard for decades.

    At Amoeba SF's electronica section, we've usually got at least four or five titles each month that we're extremely hyped on. Here's our current batch:



    First we've got Gui Boratto's Chromophobia on Kompakt. Boratto's Brazilian heritage gives him an edge when making his brand of tech-house, and that's an ear for rhythm. Straddling between minimal and electrohouse, Chromophobia avoids any LP pitfalls by working equally on a dancefloor as on headphones, it's got enough oomph to sound fantastic on a large sound system, but intricate enough that you notice small details while listening at home. I love his way with melody, particularly the swooping tones of "Terminal" and the bleep counterpoint in "Gate 7"; it gets quite emotional. The rhythms are key, though, and it's clear from the first track on that Boratto has a good grasp of syncopation and funk. Between the Hug and Field albums and now this, Kompakt are on a bit of a roll, again!



    Next up is We Are Together by Japanese producer Kuniyuki Takahashi, released on Mule Musiq. This is an album that is a unanimous vote amongst the electronica staff - everybody loves it (well, at least four of us). It's jazzy house music only in the loosest sense of the phrase, managing to perfectly walk the tightrope between noodly and stiff. The thing I like best about this album is its sense of space, the production on every track sounds so expansive and widescreen as to conjure up images of the music's physicality. In that sense it reminds me of the Burial album where there's a very conscious sense of three-dimensional space - it's a real "smokers delight". Check Kuni's MySpace page to hear more of this excellence.

I co-produce a radio show on local community station KUSF called the Friday Night Session. Along with my fellow producers Andrew Jervis and Tomas Palermo, we visit brand new music for two hours every Friday night from 10pm to Midnight. While there's no set music policy, we tend to play jazz, soul, funk, latin, reggae and electronic dance music that is influenced by all those things, including Broken Beat, so-called "Nu-Soul" and Disco.

Last week we were lucky to have Gilles Peterson, BBC Radio One DJ and selector extraordinaire as our special guest. Gilles was in town working on the second volume of his Gilles Peterson Digs America compilation series for Ubiquity Records, as well as to DJ at local superclub Ruby Skye, but still found the time to kick it with us at the KUSF studio in SF's Western Addition.





Over a killer falafel plate from Haight Street's Blue Front Cafe and a wonderful bottle of wine, Gilles took us on a tour of his record box for two hours, while regaling us with tales of being a globetrotting DJ. Inbetween sips of cabernet, Gilles managed to play us a diverse selection of tunes ranging from latin jazz from artists like Tito Puente and Ray Camacho to more contemporary jams from Louie Vega and Simbad.