Son De Madera - Son De Mi Tierra

Even if you may not know what Son Jarocho is, you probably have heard it in some form or another. Richie Valen’s version “La Bamba” comes from a very popular Son Jarocho standard. Groups such as Los Lobos, Café Tacvba and Quetzal have all used elements of Son Jarocho in their music. The string-driven traditional music based out of Vera Cruz, Mexico, was once very popular in the 1930-1940s. However, most Mexicans who are hell-bent on progress view Son Jarocho as music for days long past, perhaps in the same way young people in the United States perceive Jazz and Blues.

A new generation of Son Jarocho musicians have emerged in recent years bringing the music back to life. Among those musicians, Son De Madera, is a big reason why folks have discovered (or rediscovered) Son Jarocho. What makes them and their new release, Son De Mi Tierra, so great, is that they use the form of Son Jarocho to the fullest without being afraid to experiment with different sounds and textures. The duo Jarana/Guitarra players, Ramon Gutierrez-Hernandez and Jose Tereso Vega Herandez, are complimented by East L.A. native Juan Perez on the Baby Bass, an instrument not native to the music but fits so well with the group. Rubí del Carmen’s Zapateado, a percussive dancing on top of wooden platform, serves as the back beat for the rest of Son De Madera’s improvisations. Improvisation is key in Son Jarocho, both musically and lyrically. Imagine a jazz musician improvising on an instrument freestyling lyrics at the same time and that’s what Son De Madera does. Along with groups such as Grupo Mono Blanco and Los Cojolites, Son De Madera remains both the preservers of a culture and the ones who push the genre forward.

Zizek - ZZK Sound Vol. 2

The Zizek crew dropped a bomb in 2007 with ZZK Sound Vol. 1, and it was like nothing you ever heard before. It was a showcase for some very talented producers who performed on a weekly basis at the ZZK Club out of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Digital Cumbia craze had everyone from Diplo to bedroom beat makers dipping their toes into the Electro-Cumbia pool creating their own take on the genre. ZZK Sound Vol. 2 takes the Digital Cumbia sound to new heights. It’s less Cumbia and perhaps a little more Dubstep but still interesting and boundary breaking. Vol. 2 also steps away from their native Argentina to include producers from Europe, the U.S. and other parts of Latin America. If you can’t fly to Buenos Aires and check out the club, this is the next best thing.

Various Artists - Panama! 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical and Calypso Funk on the Isthmus 1967-77

The Soundways label always does a great job in finding the most obscure yet amazing tracks from all over the world. Some are so obscure that the residents of those countries have long forgotten about them. What makes the second volume of the Panama! series worth listening to is the history not only of the music, but the history of the country itself. The music that is featured on Vol. 1 & 2 comes from the Caribbean immigrants who migrated to Panama starting from the early 1900s to help build the Panama Canal. Along with the labor, the Caribbean immigrants brought over their music. Panama love for Afro-Cuban rhythms, Jazz and Calypso all are due in part to its immigrant culture. Also, during the '60s, many Black Panamanians were influenced by the Black Power movement from the U.S. and incorporated it in their music. Funk, Soul, Salsa and Rock mixed with Panama’s pop culture to create some amazing music. Panama! Vol. 2 captures a moment in time when Panama not only revisited its Caribbean roots, but its African roots as well. Panama! 2 is chock full of big bands and small combos playing the funkiest of funk, the coolest of Cumbia, and hardest of Salsa.

Joyce - Vision Of Dawn

This is a lost album of Joyce that dates back to 1976; it is a recording session that she did in Paris with fellow Brazilians Nana Vasconcelos and Maurio Maestro. They took their cue from their participation in the Clube Da Esquina songwriter movement, which included Milton Nascimento, Lo Borges and Nelson Angelo, who made a brilliant album with Joyce back in 1972. Vision Of Dawn flows much in the same vein as those classic Clube Da Esquina albums, with psychedelic folk, bossa nova and jazz leanings. At times, Visions Of Dawn sounds like what was coming out of California during the same time, but there is a melancholy that Brazilian music captures that no other music in the world has. It’s not gloom and doom, but it’s an instant grey cloud that covers you like a warm blanket. So slip this disc in the player, lay on the couch and cover yourself with a cozy blanket and let the music take over your head.

Los Flippers - Pronto Viviremos Un Mundo Mucho Mejor

This is a comp of the Colombian rock group Los Flippers, mostly from the late '60s going into the early '70s. Gone are their mod looks and their Beatles covers in Spanish. Their hair is now long and the songs are even longer. But before you dismiss them as South American hippies, check out the funkiness of “Vivamos Siempre Juntos,” a song that is a mixture of Buddy Miles' “Them Changes” and the Otis Redding/Carla Thomas duet “Tramp.” During this era of the band, Los Flippers were influenced by groups such as The Chambers Brothers, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. The power trio added a horn section, making their music both funky fresh and bien pesado! Make your 60-year old South American rocker uncle proud and blast this at your next family gathering -- sit back and let him tell you how it was back in the day. Maybe he’ll break out his original Grupo Genesis vinyl for you!

Chico Mann - Analog Drift Muy Esniqui

Chico Mann, a.k.a. Marcos Garcia of Antibalas, recalls those days in the '80s when musicians from the U.S. and England started listening to African and Cuba music. Artists such as The Talking Heads, Grace Jones, Hector Zazou and even Michael Jackson had elements of African music in some of their biggest hits. Chico Mann merges his love of funk and freestyle with Afro-Beat and Afro-Cuban music making this an infectous low-key dance record. Includes an awsome cover of The Talking Heads' "Once In A Lifetime," a song I never really cared for until this version. Perfect music for those loft dwellers pretending their living in New York circa '79-'80.

tip: If you haven't already, check out our newly expanded World Music vinyl section, with more World Music 12" singles, import vinyl and sealed Regional Mexico & Cumbia vinyl...hot hot hot!

Do yourself a favor and get all the Bersa Disco 12" singles.

Doyers Si, Gigantes...No!

Cook's Tortas in Monterey Park kicks King Tortas ass! yeah...I said it!

The Horrors (UK) - Primary Colours

Loveless & Unknown Pleasures collide and give us Primary Colours. The Horrors' sophomore LP is, in my opinion, the #1 contender for "Album of the Year." Quite simply an album full of darkness & noise...So turn the lights low and lay back, feel it.

RIYL: my bloody valentine, joy division, slowdive, boo radleys, curve, echo & the bunnymen, the cure, oh fatal shock, 8-bit revival etc etc

tip: simply discover Joy Division.
besides the Great Amoeba also check out Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee in N. Hollywood and Dark Realm Records in Downey, both are top-notch places.

Bela Fleck - Throw Down Your Heart

If you had bet me even 6 months ago that a Bela Fleck album would be on my list I would have laughed in your face. The soundtrack to the film about his journey through the African birthplaces of the banjo, Throw Down Your Heart is an astoundingly beautiful, joyous and heartbreaking document. It's all incredible, but the pure joy of "Jesus Is The Only Answer," and the deep, deep melancholy of Oumou Sangare's vocal accompaniment on "Djorolen" make it a necessary listen all on their own.

Azar Lawrence - Prayer For My Ancestors

If you want to locate the epicenter of what's really happening in living jazz at the moment, look no further than South Central Los Angeles where you will find Azar Lawrence and his luminous cohorts Henry Franklin, Nate Morgan and Alphonse Mouzon. Using the mantric catalogs of Pharaoh Sanders and Horace Tapscott as springboards, this quartet coaxes it all into the present now. There is a pairing of African kora and soprano sax that stands awkwardly amongst the rest of the tracks, but what a great session!

Dinosaur Jr. - Farm

After a few days of repeated listening I went up to my coworkers and exclaimed that Farm was the best Dinosaur Jr. album yet! Those are fightin' words to people steeped in their love for You're Livin' All Over Me. I thought I must be going crazy...How could it be better than that? The boys are back in town and they obviously love, love, love playing their instruments.

Horse Feathers - House With No Home

Not too far afield from their Canadian doppelgangers, Great Lake Swimmers, Portand's Horse Feathers make an essentially melancholy and sparse country-folk that purrs along with fiddle, acoustic guitar and banjo. Beautiful songwriting that will appeal to those infatuated with Bon Iver, Early Day Miners, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Espers or others of the same cloth.

Kurt Vile - God Is Saying This To You

Folkie singer songs that could fit as easily in the steamy southern summer of 1972 as they do now. Lo-fi and trippin' with reverb and echo and then some tracks just pulse along, no title, no vocals, perfectly content with electronic hiss and the sound of water.

Marissa Nadler - Little Hells

Chris H. said this was what Beach House was supposed to sound like. Miss Nadler has a high, fragile voice that might scare off those frustrated by the likes of Joanna Newsom or Vashti Bunyan, but the music is so well played, so measured, so reservedly psychedelic that it behooves to just let her do what she will.

Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself

TTA spent a couple of their last ventures treading dangerously close to pop-dance material. I feel redeemed by this much more noisy, staticy release. I think the micro-beats and the washes of hiss and static are what they do best. The tragedy of Charles Cooper's death aside, it's worth a listen just because it's so good.

tip: Go eat at Good Girl Dinette in Highland Park! You will cry, "What the Pho?!"

Various artists - Love Is Love

Absolutely beautiful African music. R&B, highlife, and dry guitar recorded mostly between 1955 and 1972.

Frank Fairfield - I've Always Been a Rambler b/w Darling Corey

This is a very exciting new artist. Look for his full-length debut due out this Fall.

Various Artists - Take Me To The Water

"Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography 1890-1950" It's a book with old photos, essays and a CD. Please enjoy.

Polk Miller and His Old South Quartette

This is essential early American Music. It has brought me so much joy this last year. Apparently Mark Twain was a big fan of his as well.

Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp

This is a documentary about Sacred Harp singing, a haunting form of a capella, shape-note singing with deep roots in the American south. It's full of beautiful people and their stories.

tip: Go look up folkstreams.net.
It's loaded with documentary films on American traditional culture. 

Conjure - Music For the Texts of Ishmael Reed

This album puts selections of author Ishmael Reed to music. Sometimes the words are sung, sometimes spoken. The author himself recites the poem "Judas." Now, I don't normally go for poetry, but the lyrics on this CD are so descriptive and full of life that I connect to them immediately. Mythical! Mr. Reed certainly has a gift for communication. And imagination. And storytelling. Then there's the collection of musicians on this album: Carla Bley, Taj Mahal, David Murray, Allen Toussaint, Steve Swallow, and Arto Lindsay, just to name some of them. This assortment of strong talent adds the perfect accompaniment to the words. Songs range from bluesy to jazzy, with the music adapting to the subject matter. At times, since the songs were created for the literature, this album has a musical play feel. But not Broadway. These songs have a looser, down-home sound that reminds me of Eugene McDaniels' Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse. Lester Bowie's super-funky "Fool-ology" is a standout, but each song is a treat. A unique & fantastic work!

Years - Years

I'm very fond of this CD, so I'm a little worried for it too, that it will have the "what is it?" stigma attached. Songs are all instrumental, except one, and the group is made up of two gentlemen, at least one of whom is an amazing fingerstyle guitarist. The main instruments, I notice, are solo acoustic guitar and horns. There are also strings, moody tom-tom heavy drumming, and some looped guitar parts. The album as a whole has a soundtrack-y feel to it. One song sounds SO much like John Fahey, all folksy but scholarly, another is solo guitar in the busy & forceful Flamenco style, the kind that makes some people nervous, and another song reaches the frantic orchestral energy of Godspeed You Black Emperor. My favorite on the album is called "The Major Lift." It has a lovely climbing guitar part, symphonic strings, a live drummer playing a Hip-Hop beat, and horns that sound like they were taken from a made-for-TV movie theme. It's like a collaboration of Godspeed Y.B.E., John Fahey, and Labradford with a Fourtet remix thrown in. Some parts are intense and exhilarating, others relaxing. Makes me feel joyful. Recommended for those especially fond of thunderstorms, the sound of song birds, or who have Venus in an air sign.

Lafayette Afro-Rock Band - Darkest Light/The Best of Lafayette Afro-Rock Band

Love, love, love this re-issue/compilation! On the funky side of jazz-funk. Horns, Afro-Latin percussion, electric piano, organ, Eddie Hazel-ish guitar work, funky drums, flute and even some innocent, sunny vocal harmonies that would belong on a Lowrider Oldies compilation. This record has it all and as the cover sticker says, contains so many songs used later as samples. Truly amazing song-writing! Song credits are listed with various band names because this group went through several incarnations. I suppose the real Hip-Hop heads already know about this one, but if you're like me and have been hoping to find more music in the same vein of The L.A. Carnival or Stark Reality, you'll be in heaven with this album. Gets extra points for the photo of the band on the cover looking like cool dudes you want to hang out with. Warning -- this album may induce '70s nostalgia.

The Field - Yesterday and Today

Building off of a meditative one-note synth hum and sparse, airy programmed drums, Swedish producer Axel Willner brings songs to an angelic crescendo by adding faster drums and synth lines, then adding an unexpected element like steel drums, a drumkit, or slide or bass guitar into the song. Very atmospheric and light, using bells and choral vocals, but not exactly dreamy, it's got those energizing sped-up heartbeat drums. Fluttery. Sparkling. Otherworldly. Gently euphoric, not unlike drinking Kombucha. This music is good for you. Mr. Willner has really come up with a fresh sound. I actually have purposefully been not listening to this so much because I think it's so good, I don't want to "ruin" it by overplaying it. Techno that will help your plants grow!

Oneida - Rated O

Triple CD release by this CRIMINALLY under-appreciated rock group. Another outfit who I'm afraid make songs which sound so different from one another that their own expansive tastes may be hampering a bigger acceptance among potential fans. This record opens with a totally unexpected noise-ragga-dub track that even had me wondering, "What are these dudes up to?" Overall, this record is an acid rock jam record with some noise and techno influences. There are none of the dreamy psych-vocal harmonies of their most recent previous works. Again, less song structure, more jamming, almost all instrumental. There is a sitar-based song on the third disc. Great guitar work that manages to sometimes call to mind Bernard Sumner in his Joy Division days, sometimes Jimi Hendrix. Some looped parts. Synthesizers. Some of the most solid and unstoppable rock drumming! These guys do whatever they want, but it's always so well thought out that it could never sound indulgent. And no, 3 CDs isn't "too much."

Aaron LaCrate & Debonair Samir - B-More Club Crack

What is it about Baltimore that makes its residents the champions of trashiness? Aaron LaCrate & Debonair Samir are the production team working with local talent (except for the Mr. Vegas track), using sparse but clever - I mean super-catchy - arrangements via old-old school '80s hip-hop drum programming & percussive synth blasts, slow & menacing Dirty South male backing chorus lines, manic-fast '90s rave synth parts, lots of handclaps and a dash of dancehall and Miami bass -- basically whatever it takes to get you up off your feet. Rappers Verb and D.O.G. seem to owe some of their flow to Jay-Z, but it's the ladies, Mz. Streamz and Eliza Doolittle, who make this CD come alive. Eliza Doolittle's backing chorus on the opening track is so tough and trippy sounding in combination with the stripped-down bhangra beat. Mz. Streamz is slow and casual on the intentionally auto-tune heavy song, "Everybody On It." She laughs between verses, says she is "ready to go back in" then gives my favorite line, "clear out like Lipitor." She appears later on the rave-inspired "Tear It Up" with some hyper-fast rhyming. The subject: dancing, partying, looking good. A nice balance to B-Rich's "Trigger Play" and Tru Bill's "Bodymore"...you know, Bodymore, Murderland. Now I know that, ultimately, it is the producers who put the song together and make the vocalist sound good, so I'm thankful to Mr. LaCrate and Mr. Samir for adding some much needed female energy into Hip-Hop and providing a welcoming environment for these two women. In the space of their songs, they come across as real, multi-dimensional people instead of just sex objects. A huge shift for Hip-Hop coming from this seemingly simple party and swagger album!

Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke

a kiwi named pip, catchy dance beats, a van halen-esque synthesizer, haunting vocals, and it's totally addictive.

Thee Oh Sees - Help

the san fransico based band's latest release is almost garage-y, with psychedelic harmonies and fuzzy guitars. it's a great record to get up and shake your ass to.

The Obits - I Blame You

out of the ashes of the now defunct hot snakes and a few other bands comes the obits. the obits combine garage and indie for a sound that is raw and sophisticated. can't help but tap your toes to this one.

Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You.

i adore smart ass english girls. this album is a little bit darker, and not quite as poppy as her debut album. lily gave an interview saying she wanted some slower songs so she wouldn't have to kill herself performing and running around. how can i not respect that?

Milk

sean penn's protrayal of harvey milk is truly amazing. he had his accent and mannerisms down pat. it was crazy to watch this film in the theater and walk outside and realize the same ignorance is alive and well. love will prevail and we will have equality for all! prop H8, you're going down!

Lee Fields & the Expressions - My World

One Last Wish - One Last Wish

Pseudo Slang - We'll Keep Looking

Tanya Morgan - Brooklynati

Homeboy Sandman - Actual Factual Pterodactyl

PJ Harvey & John Parish - A Man A Woman Walked By

Horrors - Primary Colours

Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds - Dracula Boots

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Your Funeral My Trial

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Kicking Against the Pricks

The Vaselines - The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History

Telepathe - Dance Mother

Pet Shop Boys - Yes

400 Blows

tip: an amazing local band to check out: Dirt Dress