New to you in 2006

ambient ethnic instrumentals, buddhist mantra, natural urban background noise and traditional polynesian instruments ...

the undisputed truth said:

ambient ethnic instrumentals, buddhist mantra, natural urban background noise and traditional polynesian instruments ...

Click to expand...

Let me guess. There's some hippy world music chick you want to hook up with for hot tantric action.

haha...twins actually

nah j/k

I'm just in a phase of being over synthetically produced stuff with the dynamic range compressed the fuck out of it. It makes a nice change to just sift through the urban soundscape to hear birds chatting in the trees or listen to breathy traditional instruments and plucky finger noises on weird stringed contraptions or the human voice just humming and hahing away if for no other reason than just because it can...

...and then when i want to, just mashing it up with some dubstep or chucking a big rolling sine wave under it and a halfstep beat

I've also been rediscovering early 90's house femmes like Cathy Dennis and Lisa Stansfield, Martha Wash and Jocelyn Brown...

i bought cathy dennis a drink once, when i was about 17

stelfox said:

i bought cathy dennis a drink once, when i was about 17

Click to expand...

in 2006 i discovered TUD. and to be fair life is more interesting now. but dave - that's a great piece of personal history which totally overshadows TUD's discoveries which i was going to comment upon but now feel no need to do so.

i worry that i haven't made any real musical discoveries in 2006 and i've focused too much on one genre. my 2007 resolution is too (re)expand my tastes but not to max my aural receptors out like i did in 2005 and ever year before that. moderate eclectic exploration i think.

i only found out the other week she wrote toxic for britney and can't get you outta my head for kylie...

I take the easy route and go for the "song" option.

One of my monthly musical routines include picking about ten songs from the Western pop canon that I feel indifferent about, and listen to them assiduously in the hope of unraveling their greatness. This may seem like a wanton undertaking considering the abundance of good-to-great music around, but in a way it makes perfect sense: I find that it's often the songs that you've let in from the cold that you treasure the most. You could pick a great deal more that ten songs, of course, but that would be to miss the point somewhat: more than anything, it's the incessant rumination, repetition as obsession, that makes you truly internalize a song; dog-tiredom is the price you pay for being able to greet the song as an old friend down memory lane. (Sorry, practising English idioms; even dwarfs started small. ) Anyhow:

Three Songs I Considered Unremarkable This Time Last Year but Relentless Overexposure Has Revealed As Absolute Gems:

1. Goapele - Closer
I previously brushed this aside as tasteful but vacuous "nu-soul," but that was unfair. This is easily one of the best singles of the 00s, shame about it being just under four minutes though.

2. Leroy Burgess - Heartbreaker (sorry, no video)
This song has a very generic 80s boogie/funk grounding which fooled me to dismiss it in the past (it's also a little slow, I think; I play it at +6%), but discovering the stunning and sudden chord-change a minute and a half into the song made all the difference. Listening to it now, the upbeat verses form the perfect complement to the heavy-hearted chorus.

3. Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love
I had only heard this song a couple of times before this year, but reading in Love Saves the Day about Francis Grasso mixing this song's break with Chicago's "I'm a Man" piqued my curiosity. One of few rock songs to give slinky r&b a match for dance-floor sexiness imho.

i went through a minor cathy dennis revival at the beginning of the year.

stelfox said:

i bought cathy dennis a drink once, when i was about 17

Click to expand...

what was she like? i'm considering interviewing her about songwriting, but, having never met her, or anybody who knows her, i wonder if she'd be a fruitful interviewee.

the undisputed truth said:

.....I've also been rediscovering early 90's house femmes like Cathy Dennis and Lisa Stansfield, Martha Wash and Jocelyn Brown...

Click to expand...

Don't forget C.C Peneston and Crystal Waters!

I'm really into these Lansing-Dreiden guys right now. A Sectioned Beam is really impressive. They kind of capture the mid/late 80s synthy haze of bands like Tears For Fears but push it a bit looser and throw in all sorts of other strange elements (like metal sometimes). They're a bit like Ariel Pink when he's in soft rock mode although they aren't so loose.

And Ocrilim which doesn't really sound like anything else. The closest thing I can compare it to is the clouds of little metal swarming shards in Lem's Invincible. Fractured bits of guitar solos repeating these bizarre little cycles that form into a dense web that's incredibly complex and like a real thick slab of sound too. It's rather demanding and so far it's been too weird for most people I've played it to, but I find I keep going back to it over and over.

I think that's actually something else he did. This one's on I & Ear and has a pyramid on the front. It's sorta like the other one but it's without drums and it's more repetitive and trancey.

Oh.. it's a SF novel. Probably not a very useful reference but it's what the album makes me think of. It's about these clouds of machines.

I bought a Gil Scott-Heron cd because I´d seen a documentary and I bumped into it whilest in a Virgin Megastore. It was meant for friend of mine, but he had to settle for a copy.

2006 has been an AMAZING year of music for me. lots and lots of sonic archeology going on

the hegemony that hip-hop held over me crumbled and has now been very fully dented.

the realisation that 'mainstream' hiphop artists like missy elliot, jay-z, timbaland etc actually made some wicked tunes and not just the commercial tosh i thought they made (without having ever fully listened to them - the received wisdom of the the def jux et al massive innit!)

the main 'discovery' has been dubstep/grime. the knowledge i had of either was minimal pre-2006

retrospectively getting into garage (why the fuck did i miss it when it was actually massive ) the main part of my acceptance and love of 'cheesy' music, (see also mainstream hiphop)

a fuller exploration of jungle, esp. reggae/ragga congo-natty type biznizz

a growing appreciation and love for hardcore, ragga twins, shut up and dance, moving shadow and the like

flirtations with Detroit techno, minimal techno, dancehall, new-school folk, noise, reggaeton and a shit load of other things that may blossom into full blown romances some day...

my best memories of 2006 have been a) uncovering classic wiley, ruff sqwad etc material and b) the atmosphere and vibes at the dubstep raves ive been to.

viktorvaughn said:

retrospectively getting into garage (why the fuck did i miss it when it was actually massive ) the main part of my acceptance and love of 'cheesy' music, (see also mainstream hiphop)

Click to expand...

^^^yeah that stuff was just so damn sexy. Even now for all the cheese, the songmanship and production seems so much better in retrospect compared to whats out there now...

I was just chatting to a guy, Ian Wallman who was B15 project about an album they've got which never saw release that he's hoping to touch up and pimp around.

...well looking forward to that if it ever eventuates otherwise might see if I can blag some tunes off him

bleep said:

i went through a minor cathy dennis revival at the beginning of the year.

Click to expand...

hey, count me among those wot got into Cathy Dennis this year...there's something luxurious about early-90's dance music that just seemed to work this year...

anybody else heard the ode "Cathy Dennis" by June And The Exit Wounds?...(not an industrial supergroup, but a Chicago bedsit songer-songwriter type in the Epic Soundtracks/Plush mode)...see also: "Cath Carroll" by Unrest, and "Laura Nyro" by Cosmic Rough Riders...