Blending live instruments (many played by Mos himself) and samples (among others a twisted, barely recognisable “Marcus Garvey” by Burning Spear), Black creates a warm, socially conscious vibe–it’s easy to like. Many rappers allude to reggae, though the crossover is most explicit on Soul Jazz’s excellent Nice Up the Dance.īlack On Both Sides is Mos Def’s solo début and almost all killer.
Appreciating Brown’s polyrhythmic musicality and lilt, I “got” hip-hop that instant and a new world opened up. I spent a decade and a half wishing Hip-Hop would just go away until I had a eureka moment listening to the U Brown toast during the second half of the 12″ version of the Chantells’ “Children of Jah” (Phase 1). Jungle Bros’ Forces of Nature), but several others were in fine shape. Unfortunately, several pieces I would have had were thrashed (e.g. Such was the case when I was with Grampa Asbo the other day in Sandwich and Deal and I found a clutch of pound-a-piece, high-quality turn o’ the century hippity-hoppity see dees. In the course of thrifting, I always appreciate finding what is obviously a curated collection. where there’d been none. This was particularly useful for albums whose lyrics were indecipherable, e.g. In order to make local albums more appealing for sale, Japanese manufacturers made it a point to utilise original tapes for remastering and include lyrics, posters, etc. I might have the story wrong here, but I believe the tradition of Japanese album issues being that much better than their US/UK counterparts goes back to the early 80s/late 70s when unfavourable exchange rates meant that import albums sold at a fraction of the cost of domestic product.
My ears aren’t fine enough to tell if this 2006 re-issue is the same remaster as the 1992 Ryko or not, it’s certainly the same tracklist order logic suggests it should have been updated. It is a very good record and recommended to anyone who appreciates outsider pop art. Fourteen years later, Ryko issued a resequenced version, including five worthy bonus tracks from the original, ramshackle sessions. In the end, the recordings were too harrowing to release commercially and sat, dejected, on Ardent’s naughty step for four years until a clamour of voices from the New Wave, recognising a kindred and desperate love of both pop and self-flagellation, rose up and enabled its necessarily cobbled release. For good reason is it compared to Plastic Ono Band, Tonight’s the Night and Who By Numbers. Having previously perfected an incisive, yet winsome writing/ performing/production style (let us call it Power Pop, for the sake of argument) 3rd was, infamously, sabotaged by leader Alex Chilton for reasons too perverse, personal or, indeed, psychologically complex to understand. 3rd (aka Sister Lovers) was recorded in 1974, the quartet reduced/expanded to a duo/gaggle of session men. One pound for the 2006 Japanese CD issue of the ultimate pop cult artist’s ultimate pop cult album in a mini-LP replica card sleeve with a printed inner and lyric sheet in Japanese & English? You bet I will. I bought Big Pink and the brown album around the same time, but no way would I have forked out that much. I photographed them in their plastic cases, in spite of aesthetics, to demonstrate that sometime in 2001, HMV could get away with charging £17 for a simple re-issue compact disc because someone would pay it. These two cds cost me a quid apiece yesterday. Simply put, they’d lost their natural eccentricity. What’s missing is the group’s singular thrill of discovery and its off-kilter, but dynamic and perfectly judged sense of timing, melody and proportion. Northern Lights features analogous, slightly inferior versions of previous songs: so oddball love song “Jemima Surrender” becomes the amusing enough lost-love “Ophelia” the oblique, yet aching history of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” becomes the linear narrative of “Acadian Driftwood” “It Makes No Difference”‘s straightforward sense of loss is the new “Tears of Rage”, etc.
Moondog is an oldies record with verve aplenty, though loosening up what were originally fabulously concise recordings takes some getting used to. Taken on their own terms, Moondog Matinee and Northern Lights are enjoyable and successful albums in context, they pale somewhat. They made two of the best records ever and then only made good records after that.
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