320 kbps | 107 MB | LINKS
Jeremy Enigk has announced the release of his new solo LP Ghosts, which is scheduled for release in October. Enigk is the former frontman of Sunny Day Real Estate and The Fire Theft.
320 kbps | 107 MB | LINKS
Jeremy Enigk has announced the release of his new solo LP Ghosts, which is scheduled for release in October. Enigk is the former frontman of Sunny Day Real Estate and The Fire Theft.
320 kbps | 185 MB | LINKS
Tracklist:
01. Barbara & The Browns – I Don’t Want Trouble
02. William Bell – What’cha Gonna Do
03. Rufus Thomas – Fine And Mellow
04. The Mar-Keys – Grab This Thing Pt 2
05. The Premiers – You Make A Strong Girl Weak
06. Carla Thomas – The Puppet
07. Rufus Thomas – All Night Worker
08. Eddie Floyd – Good Love, Bad Love
09. Barbara Stephens – I Don’t Worry
10. Carla & Rufus – Down Deep Inside
11. William Bell – Don’t Make Something Out Of Nothing
12. The Mar-Keys – The Dribble
13. Carla Thomas – It’s Starting To Grow
14. Rufus Thomas – Talkin’ ‘Bout True Love
15. William Bell – One Plus One
16. Rufus & Carla Thomas – Never Let You Go
17. The Four Shells – Reputation
18. Sir Mack Rice – Mini-Skirt Minnie
19. Rufus Thomas – Greasy Spoon
20. Carla Thomas – I Want You Back
21. The Mar-Keys – The Shovel
22. William Bell – I’m Waiting On You
23. The Triumphs – Raw Dough
24. Carla Thomas – Don’t Let The Love Light Leave
320 kbps | 688 MB | LINKS
Covering his prime years as Stax Records’ ace in the hole, this four-disc set presents Hayes as a complex, compelling bandleader, producer, and songwriter who reshaped the dimensions of soul.
In the late 1960s Isaac Hayes helped save Stax Records. After its considerable success earlier in the decade, the Memphis record label hit hard times that almost destroyed its modest empire. In December 1967 Otis Redding—the label’s biggest act and one of the most popular R&B singers in the world—was killed in a plane crash alongside most of the Bar-Kays. In April 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel, converting what had been a hideout and meeting place for the house musicians into a symbol of the nation’s escalating racial tensions. Meanwhile, Stax’s owners had been renegotiating the label’s contract with Atlantic Records, which had distributed nearly every Stax release; they were horrified to discover a clause that gave ownership of the entire back catalog, along with control of its second biggest act, Sam & Dave, to Atlantic. Stax had no funds and no way to get funds. One of the biggest success stories of the decade looked like it might meet an ignominious end—just another indie gobbled up by the New York giants strengthening their grasp on the market.
Instead, Al Bell—Stax’s African-American president and co-owner—concocted an ambitious plan. He would create “an instant catalog by releasing nearly 30 albums and singles simultaneously,” writes Robert Gordon in the liner notes to the electrifying Isaac Hayes box set The Spirit of Memphis (1962-1976). Among them were records by Booker T. & the MGs, Eddie Floyd, and Rufus Thomas as well as Hot Buttered Soul, the curious second solo album by Stax pianist, songwriter, arranger, producer, and now singer Isaac Hayes. He had come to the company as a keyboard player in Floyd Newman’s band, eventually teaming up with a local kid named David Porter to write some of the biggest soul hits of the decade, including “B-A-B-Y” for Carla Thomas and “Hold On I’m Coming” and “When Something Is Wrong With My Baby” for Sam & Dave. He’d already recorded a solo album, Presenting Isaac Hayes, which had gone nowhere, but the label gave him full artistic control for a follow-up.
Hot Buttered Soul is an odd record, but at the time it must have sounded almost aggressively unmarketable: four songs spread over two sides, only one of which was credited to Hayes himself. Side one opens with a 12-minute psych-soul cover of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Walk On By,” and side two closes with an epic cover of Jimmy Webb’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” prefaced with several minutes of Hayes just talking. It sounded like nothing Stax had ever released, and under normal circumstances it might not have even been released. But Stax was desperate for product—any product—that might keep the company alive.
Hot Buttered Soul marked a turning point for Stax, for Hayes, and for American popular music. Selling more than one million copies, it dominated the pop, jazz, R&B, and easy listening charts for more than a year. It also established Hayes as one of the biggest artists of the era: an exemplar of black sophistication and masculinity, a figure who rejected the fashions of the decade as too staid but embraced the pop songs of the ’60s as the scaffolding for his R&B experiments. Hayes was an outsize figure: bald yet bearded, his muscular frame accentuated by tight pants and chainmail vests. When he accepted his Oscar for “Theme from Shaft,” he stood at the podium in a blue tuxedo with a fuzzy collar and oversize bowtie.
His musical and sartorial flamboyance has at times overshadowed his legacy in the decades following his heyday. To subsequent generations he is a punchline (“They say that Shaft is a bad motherf—” “Shut yo mouth!”) or perhaps a trendy sample source (particularly for 1990s trip-hop). Others may know him as Chef from “South Park” or simply as another name on a long list of celebrity Scientologists. Even more than the recent reissues of Hayes’ records, The Spirit of Memphis presents him as an endlessly complex and compelling artist, one who mixed genres freely and viewed soul music as a vehicle for mind-bogglingly ambitious gambits. Hayes spent the first years of his career learning the rules of pop songcraft, then spent the rest of his life exploding them.
That trajectory lends The Spirit of Memphis a unique narrative thrust that distinguishes it from so many single-artist box sets. It opens with a disc of songs predating his solo career, when he was playing in the house band, producing records, and writing songs for nearly every Stax artist. Porter was the lyric guy, while Hayes wrote the arrangements. Because he had no formal musical training and could not read or write music, he talked the musicians through their individual parts and directed the band while recording. The grooves on Floyd Newman’s “Sassy” and Booker T. & the MGs’ “Boot-Leg” have lost none of their elasticity over the last half-century, and “I’ll Run Your Hurt Away” shows how sensitive Hayes was with singers; rather than try to compete with Ruby Johnson’s sublime vocals, the piano and horns provide a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, underscoring every growl and whisper.
Hayes’ velvety baritone may be his most recognizable instrument, but it doesn’t show up until three songs into the second disc, which collects his singles for Stax subsidiaries Volt and Enterprise. Even then, he mostly moans and beatboxes his way through “Precious, Precious,” off Presenting Isaac Hayes. According to the liner notes, the album was recorded while Hayes and the MGs were drunk on celebratory champagne, which lends the songs their slightly askew sensibility. The second disc portrays him as an artist with an ear for luxuriant and witty arrangements. The Bacharach-David hit “The Look of Love” becomes a crushed-velvet boudoir jam, somehow both macho and gentle. “Theme from Shaft” builds itself from the ground up, starting with a hi-hat rhythm and adding wakka-chikka guitar, bass, strings, and flute. Each instrument subtly ratchets up the tension and colors in the cinematic universe of Gordon Parks’ blaxploitation film.
If the organizing principle falls apart on the third disc, that’s fine, because the music attains its own force, its own momentum. In addition to more covers—including songs byAl Green, Jerry Butler, the Moonglows, and of course Bacharach-David—there’s a short live set that was recorded in Chicago but sounds like Vegas. Perhaps even more enticing is a handful of studio jams on the fourth disc, including a rambling deconstruction of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” and the notorious half-hour detonation of “Do Your Thing.” That song, which appears on the Shaft soundtrack in an extremely abbreviated version, shape-shifts almost constantly, mutating from an R&B stomp into a film score into a psych-rock exploration into something like a free-jazz foray. Hayes and his band stretch the song until it snaps, then keep on playing for another twenty minutes to see what lies beyond the melody and lyrics.
The Spirit of Memphis stops in 1976, the year after Stax declared bankruptcy and Hayes signed with Polydor amid accusations that Stax had withheld royalties. He never hit the same heights again (although 1995’s Branded is a fine late-career peak), but he did remain a constant presence in pop culture until his death in 2008. Living up to its title, “Do Your Thing” is a fitting climax for The Spirit of Memphis, as it reveals Hayes to be a an artist who saw soul as a world-devouring music: one that could not only speak to African American desires and aspirations, but could swallow up any other sound and be molded into any shape he could dream up.
320 kbps | 102 MB | LINKS
Hope Country has released two EPs in the past three years and has supported them with multiple headline tours, festival appearances, and support slots for Brandi Carlile, Ingrid Michaelson, Twin Forks, Joseph, American Aquarium, The Wild Feathers, Nikki Lane, Sturgill Simpson, Rayland Baxter, Andrew Ripp, David Cook, Soul Asylum, Martin Sexton, & more, along with a run of sold out dates with Judah & The Lion.
While “Water, Land, & Sky” is dynamic full-band record and “Thirty One” showcases Johnson’s softer singer/songwriter side, the forthcoming self-titled release marries the two, calling to mind artists such as Jason Isbell and The Avett Brothers. Lyrically, the record continues Hope Country’s heartfelt stories of life and living. The album was recorded at Summer-Winter Studios in St. Paul, MN with Levi Stugelmeyer (The Cactus Blossoms, Caitlyn Smith) and mastered by Huntley Miller (Bon Iver, The Tallest Man On Earth). The record will be released on 02.24.17 with extensive touring to follow.
New album Hope Country’s purpose is to bring hope to our whole world everywhere the music goes.
160 kbps | 115 MB | LINKS
Stars have announced a new full-length—the follow-up to 2014’s No One Is Lost. It’s called There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light and arrives October 13 via Last Gang Records/eOne. The album was recorded in Montreal and Connecticut with producer Peter Katis (The National, Japandroids). “This record seemed to have an undeniable momentum from the start,” says Katis. “Even my being turned away by Canadian border police for the second round of tracking couldn’t slow us down.”
160 kbps | 111 MB | LINKS
Though Robert Plant has returned to the Welsh borders, he retains the sensibility—and the soul—of an itinerant troubadour. His diverse musical points of reference stand out like pins on a map, from Austin, Texas, to Timbuktu, Mali. Plant treasures transience.
On his second Nonesuch album, Carry Fire, due October 13 on Nonesuch / Warner Bros. Records, Plant reflects on the experiences, the emotions and the sounds of where he’s been, and he ruminates on where he—and our world—might be headed. Bittersweet songs of love remembered and of time passing, are juxtaposed against cautionary tales, of people and nations that have failed to learn the familiar lessons of history.
“I’ve filled many British passports,” says Plant. “It’s like I’m just moving through the spheres. I feel like a mariner who has spent so much time in so many different ports of call, experiencing so many different adventures and scenarios. So perhaps this collection is more ‘pictures at twelve’ rather than ‘pictures at eleven’.”
“The May Queen” starts the album on an upbeat note, percussive psychedelic folk, with Plant’s vocal alternating between seductive and yearning. “Carry Fire,” on the other hand, is a kind of haunted desert blues, bolstered by a pulsing rhythm, ghostly backing voices, and a viola chasing the melody of an electric oud. The anthemic rock beat of “New World” visits the everlasting story of immigration, expansion and the disastrous effects on existing cultures. “Carving Up the World Again” is a more contemporary glimpse of “trouble at the border” and the futile palisades and walls. The sole cover is a pounding, trip hop-style take on Ersel Hickey’s 1957 sweet and simple rockabilly hit, “Bluebirds Over the Mountain,” reconceived as an otherworldly duet for Plant and the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, two iconic voices that intertwine beautifully.
320 kbps | 80 MB | LINKS
Carla Bruni has been writing and performing music since 1997, with her first album, “Quelqu’un m’a dit” (“Someone Told Me”), being released in 2002.
Since then she has had three more critically acclaimed releases, selling over 3 million albums worldwide, including 2007’s, “No Promises”, which set English poems to music, 2008’s “Comme si de rien n’était” (As If Nothing Happened), and 2013’s “Little French Songs.”
Produced by legendary musician, producer and composer David Foster, French Touch will be released on October 6th via Verve Records / Barclay / Universal Music Group.
“French Touch” brings together a delightful trove of sentimental pop favorites; all reimagined in Carla’s intimate and moving acoustic style and chosen for their personal significance – in her own words, songs that inspire the French term for love at first sight – “a coup de foudre.”
“French Touch” is warm and familiar, and inimitably Carla. Richly melodic, warm yet minimal, and often slyly playful – all the arrangements in this collection have been given that “French touch”, and still have all the universal appeal as their originals, albeit with a sultry flavor all their own.
320 kbps | 173 MB | LINKS
For Sale: Live at Maxwell’s 1986 is the first official delve into the vaults for The Replacements since the 2008 expanded CD reissues, and hopefully the first of a series of albums of unreleased material. And what better place to start that with this live recording from Maxwell’s in 1986, a relic from the much beloved era of the band with Bob Stinson as the guitarist.
This 29-song performance, captures the Replacements just a couple weeks removed from their performance on Saturday Night Live, with a set list touches on all five of the band’s albums to that point, plus a few rarities and covers.
320 kbps | 179 MB | LINKS
Having teamed up with Parquet Courts bassist Sean Yeaton for Yellow Kitchen last month, Mark Kozelek has announced another collaborative LP, teaming up this time with Ben Boye and Jim White (Xylouris White, Dirty Three).
As a listing for Kozelek’s Caldo Verde Records reveals, the album is titled Mark Kozelek with Ben Boye and Jim White and runs 10 tracks in length. It was recorded and mixed in San Francisco from February through June of this year.
When we talk about the influence of American performers on African music, we usually think about a few obvious examples, legends like Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix or James Brown. In this episode, we go beyond these stars to explore the legacy of some lesser-known inspirations. We’ll learn how the fluid guitar playing of ’70s rock band Dire Straits became massively popular in the Sahel, influencing Tuareg rockers like Tinariwen and Tamikrest. We’ll hear about the American country superstar Jim Reeves’ African career, and the unlikely story of how the pedal steel made it from Hawaii to Lagos. Finally, we’ll travel to Angola with the help of director Jeremy Xido, to explore that nation’s death metal scene. And along the way, we will try to understand just how to account for taste. Produced by Sam Backer with help from Jesse Brent.
320 kbps | 104 MB | LINKS
Ane Brun’s seventh studio album Leave Me Breathless reinterprets fourteen versions of classic hits from an array of artists including Radiohead, Joni Mitchel, Nick Cave, Foreigner, Bob Dylan, Sade, Mariah Carey among others.
Tracklist:
01. I Want To Know What Love Is 04:08
02. Always On My Mind 03:26
03. Unchained Melody 03:52
04. Hero 04:09
05. Show Me Heaven 05:02
06. Into My Arms 03:52
07. Stay 04:37
08. How To Disappear Completely 03:03
09. By Your Side 02:46
10. Girl From The North Country 04:00
11. No Reason To Cry 03:22
12. Right In Time 03:54
13. Make You Feel My Love 02:47
14. Big Yellow Taxi 02:45
320 kbps | 84 MB | LINKS
Andrew Bird has announced a new album: Echolocations: River is out October 6 via Wegawam Music. Bird recorded the eight-track instrumental LP while standing in the Los Angeles River underneath the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge. River is the second installment in Bird’s Echolocations series, which features site-specific pieces.