The Other Music Update

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	November 28, 2007

	OTHER MUSIC ON EAST VILLAGE RADIO Did you know that Other Music has its own radio show? Every Monday afternoon from 4 to 6 p.m., our staff takes over East Village Radio's Internet airwaves, and just like being in the shop, you'll be sure to hear an eclectic mix of music. During the first hour, we'll be highlighting the week's new arrivals -- a sneak peek at our upcoming email update if you will -- and then the second hour is total free form with our staff DJing their favorite tracks. Like all of East Village Radio's programming, Other Music Radio is archived, so you can listen to past shows at your convenience, and if you didn't catch an artist or song name, just check out the playlist.


	FEATURED NEW RELEASES Les Rallizes Denudes Six Organs of Admittance Michael Harrison The Gist Boris with Merzbow Major Stars Kraftwerk Bonnie 'Prince' Billy Chaz Jankel Pinch Delphonics Beans Richard Crandell James Murphy & Pat Mahoney (Fabric Mix) Sonic Chicken 4		Gruppo Di Improvvisa Melodii Tuvi (Various) Black Mirror (Various) Andy Votel (Mix CD) Jose Maceda Achim Reichel King Khan & BBQ Show Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour Box of Dub 2 (Various ALSO AVAILABLE Expansion/Contraction (Various) Valerie Project Pole COMPLETE LIST OF THIS WEEK'S NEW ARRIVALS

NOV

Sun 25

Mon 26

Tues 27

Wed 28

Thurs 29

Fri 30

Sat 01

DEC

Sun 02

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Tues 04

Wed 05

Thurs 06

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Sat 08

OTHER MUSIC IN-STORE CONCERT SCHEDULE
CELEBRATION - Friday, November 30 @ 9:00 p.m.
RICHARD HAWLEY - Monday, December 3 @ 8:00 p.m.
WHITE WILLIAMS - Thursday, December 6 @ 8:00 p.m.

OTHER MUSIC: 15 East 4th Street NYC
Free admission / Limited Capacity
Other Music closes for shopping an hour before all in-stores

NOV

Sun 25

Mon 26

Tues 27

Wed 28

Thurs 29

Fri 30

Sat 01

WIN TICKETS TO ONE STEP BEYOND W/ JUAN MACLEAN
Other Music has two pairs of tickets to give away to Flavorpill's upcoming One Step Beyond party, this Friday at the American Museum of Natural History! This month's line-up is killer once again, with a DJ set from DFA's Juan MacLean and JDH & Dave P cranking out the electro and techno. In addition to cocktails and dancing, party goers can enjoy complementary screenings of The Search for Life: Are We Alone?, narrated by Harrison Ford, and also receive a free pass for a future trip to the museum. Enter to win by emailing tickets@othermusic.com, and please leave a daytime phone number where you can be reached. Winners will be notified Friday morning, November 30th.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30
American Museum of Natural History, The Rose Center for Earth and Space: Enter at the 81st Street entrance, right off Central Park West
Tickets are $20 and can be purchased in advance at Other Music and at the Museum, and at the door, or on-line at: amnh.org/rose/specials/


	$17.99 CD		LES RALLIZES DENUDES Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go (10th Avenue) "Field of Artificial Flowers" "Otherwise My Conviction" A formidable influence on the likes of Fushitsusha, High Rise, and a host of other blown-out psychedelic rock bands from Japan and beyond, the legendary Les Rallizes Denudes has managed to achieve such critical acclaim with hardly any official releases in their on-again, off-again forty-year history. Lately, labels like Univive have been dropping pricey boxed sets that document various live and in-the-studio stages of the band's history, plugging gaps in between the few "official" live and studio sets that seem to pop every once in a while. But with all this stuff trading hands for silly price tags, what's a relative newcomer to do to get their fix of these black-clad, amp-destroying balladeers? As if to answer that very question, a more widely available edition of the oft-bootlegged Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go thus arrives, capturing on a real compact disc this veritable best-of/beginner's guide to all that Les Rallizes Denudes has to offer. Be it in the dreamy guitar heroics of the classic "Enter the Mirror," the chugging black hole noise that is "Smokin' Cigarette Blues," the corrosive six-string blasts that punctuate "Flames of Ice," or the driving fury of "Field of Artificial Flower," these eight tracks provide a necessary (and affordable) way to sample and skim one of Japan's most highly regarded, and yet paradoxically underdocumented, founding psychedelic rock acts. [MC]


	$13.99 CD $9.99 mp3		SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE Shelter from the Ash (Drag City) "Jade Like Wine" "Shelter from the Ash" Never one to rest for long on his laurels, multi-tasking singer, songwriter, and guitarist Ben Chasny returns again with Shelter from the Ash, his third Six Organs of Admittance record for the Drag City label in the past three years. Outside of that singular body of work, the man has remained remarkably busy as well, be it with his continued contributions to Comets on Fire and Badgerlore, and his occasional collaborations with David Tibet and Current 93. All told, it's hard to believe Chasny's been at work for a mere decade now, as his collected output thus far would be enough to keep most other musicians busy for a lifetime. One thing Chasny's always been great at is establishing a pretty cohesive identity for each successive Six Organs of Admittance, whether it's the improvised percussive clatter that punctuated the genteel sway of School of the Flower, or the dark, almost metallic dronescapes that dotted last year's The Sun Awakens. In that respect, then, Shelter's unifying theme is its reliance on pure, Brit-folk by way of SoCal drenched songforms. Save for the scorching blast of "Coming to Get You," nearly every track here cascades with an effusive yet still somber glow that suggests bits and pieces of Jackson Frank mixed with a little touch of early David Crosby. Aided and abetted by Matt Sweeney, Tim Green, Elisa Ambrogio, and Noel Harmonson, tracks like the aching "Goodnight" and the ominous "Jade Like Wine" succeed both as some of Ben Chasny's most accessible and best written songs to date. [MC]


	$17.99 CD $9.99 mp3		MICHAEL HARRISON Revelation (Cantaloupe) "Night Vigil" "Finale" Michael Harrison's Revelation is one of those rare pieces of music that is both uncompromisingly radical and infinitely listenable. Composed and performed by Harrison himself on the "harmonic piano" -- a modified piano of his own design, Revelation is simply awe-inspiring for its spiritual depth and for the specificity and power of its conception and execution. The result of several decades of studying Indian music and an esoteric tuning system called "Just Intonation"-- Harrison was a long time student of both Pandit Pran Nath and La Monte Young, to whom one section of the piece is dedicated -- Revelation functions just as well as a discourse on pure physical phenomenon as it does as a beautiful piece of solo piano music. A thorough explanation of just intonation won't fit here, but basically it is a tuning system wherein in musical intervals are determined by ratios of whole numbers. Two notes in a 2:1 ratio, for example, create an octave, 3:2 a fifth, 4:3 a fourth and so on. The music of ancient Greece, early European music, and the classical music of Persia, India, Indonesia, China and Japan all use forms of just intonation as their basis. In the West however, these pure intervals and resonances were gradually sacrificed in favor of the ability to move easily between chords and scales via a system, still in place, called "Equal Temperament." Equal temperament, while allowing great flexibility in terms of chord changes, required that the mathematically perfect intervals of just intonation be taken slightly out of tune. Thus, the specific resonances of just intoned intervals, which are more vibrant and pure than those in equal temperament, were lost. Harrison's use of the piano as his main vehicle for creating music in just intonation is ironic in that the piano was the instrument that led to the spread and dominance of equal temperament in the West for hundreds of years. His harmonic piano is adapted to accommodate for 24 notes to the octave instead of the usual twelve. The resulting music is full of harmonic overtones that interact and combine with one another to dramatic effect -- often a dense, rhythmically activated cluster of notes, which Harrison refers to as a "tone cloud," will yield a spectral mass of recombinant pitches. Often these halo-like apparitions will sound like other instruments playing independent parts or even a choir of voices harmonizing with the fundamental tones. This effect calls to mind the shimmering, wave-like sound fields of Charlemagne Palestine's piano music, but while the two composers may share an interest in the piano's inherent resonances, and even a sense for the romantic, Harrison's approach is far more varied, moving deftly between complex resonant chord formations and passages of percussive, arpeggiated lines. And Harrison's understanding of the minute subtleties and dramatic clashes his tuning system makes possible is astounding; certain notes hang in the air like struck gongs of an Indonesian Gamelan, while elsewhere vigorously played chord patterns create something akin to a harmonic avalanche. Like an ever-shifting mandala, Revelation just gets deeper and more intriguing the more one listens. [CC]


	$15.99 CD		THE GIST Embrace the Herd (Cherry Red) "Light Aircraft" "Public Girls" First things first, no B.S. -- this is one of my favorite records from Rough Trade's salad days during the post-punk boom, and I am unabashedly psyched that it's finally available again. After the Young Marble Giants split in 1980, YMG's main songwriter Stuart Moxham got depressed, did a bunch of drugs, and released this album in 1982 to virtually no fanfare or success. That's a damn shame, because Embrace the Herd is a stunning, beautiful record of stylistic variety and melancholic beauty that had few parallels at the time. Eschewing the stark contrasts of YMG's Colossal Youth for a sound that mixes the pastoral ambient soundscapes, arty Germanic grooves, and lyrical non sequiturs of Eno's Another Green World and Before & After Science albums with the heartbreaking desperation and bedroom bossa novas of early Everything but the Girl and the Marine Girls (whose second LP was produced by Moxham), he assembles an all-star crew of Rough Trade pals to contribute -- both of his YMG bandmates make appearances, as do members of This Heat, Swell Maps, Essential Logic, and the Flying Lizards. Though I love the album as a whole -- best experienced from beginning to end as a suite -- the disc is worth buying for the album's lone single "Love at First Sight" alone. Any fan of Young Marble Giants, the aforementioned Eno LPs, or of the more introspective side of the bedsit indiepop scene should check this without hesitation. Highest recommendation! [IQ] )


	$14.99 CDx2		BORIS WITH MERZBOW Rock Dream (Southern Lord) "Rainbow" "Ibitsu" Just in time for Boris's exponentially growing American fanbase to suffer symptoms of withdrawal and/or regain partial hearing, Southern Lord has released Rock Dream. Seemingly a commemorative forget-me-not gift, this limited edition (5000 hand-numbered) double disc emerges less than a month after the conclusion of the trio's 22-date US tour, on which they shared the stage with inimitable Ghost guitarist Michio Kurihara. Rock Dream immortalizes an even earlier, yet enduring collaboration -- that of Boris and Japanese "God of Noise" Merzbow. Surely the only artist to ever be celebrated in the form of a 50-CD box set, the prolific Masami Akita has collaborated with Boris on at least three albums previous to Rock Dream. This live recording, which took place at Earthdom, a 100-capacity-or-less basement in Tokyo, chronicles what was, in retrospect, a pivotal era for Boris -- just five months after the release of Pink, their critically-acclaimed stateside "breakthrough" record, and a mere two months before starting recording on Rainbow, their most recent full-length. Accordingly, while the two discs boast one hour and fifty minutes of material, only the title track from Rainbow makes the setlist; more fast-paced and impulsive than the patient studio recording, Merzbow's intermittently sizzling electronics dislocate this sultry duet between Wata's calmly crooned lullaby and Takeshi's minimal, hypnotizing bassline. "Feedbacker," the sprawling 35-minute opening track of the first disc, reflects the dynamic between Boris' masterfully sludgy, psychedelic compositions and Merzbow's pummeling blocks of fuzz and explorative journeys through frequency. On the second disc, however, Boris rips away at their heavier, louder garage punk, performing half of Pink. It is here that Boris with Merzbow sound their strongest, turning "Woman on the Screen" and "Nothing Special" into back-to-back sonic nightmares, the plateau'd noise on the latter emphasizing the raw chaos of Boris' totally unleashed, gong-bashing, double-neck bass-shredding, mosh-inspiring live experience. Instead of completely synthesizing, Boris with Merzbow finds two distinct auditory presences uniting to complement one another. This new live recording is further evidence of the infinite possibilities of adding evolutionary layers to Boris elemental rock; but predictably, in spite of added complexities, the trio's basic instinct still dominates. [KS]


	$13.99 CD $9.99 mp3		MAJOR STARS Mirror / Messenger (Drag City) "No More" "East to West" Besides running the excellent Twisted Village label and record shop, Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggar have made all varieties of psychedelic guitar music over the years, from twisted garage-psychedelia with Crystalized Movements, to hazy pop-psych (with collaborators Damon and Naomi) in Magic Hour, and touching all points in between. What holds these disparate sounds together is Wayne and Kate's soaring, triumphant guitar interplay, as whatever form the song takes, their music generally detours sometime after the three-minute mark into six-string abandon. Major Stars have been around for about ten years, with varying lineups exploring the heavier side of guitar freakouts. But this current group (the same as on last year's excellent Synoptikon), with longtime bassist Tom Leonard moving over to third guitar (of course), and one-time Other Music Cambridge employees Casey Keenan shredding on drums and Sandra Barrett howling on vocals, is the most dynamic and invigorating yet. The reference point would be early '70s hard rock, with sweaty, pounding rhythms and melodic, wailing guitars bursting out from the punishing chords, and Barrett creating a focal point in the maelstrom that was tough to achieve when Rogers was handling lead vocals. This is surely the group's finest recording to date, coming as close to capturing the thrill of their live performances as a recording can, and hopefully the Drag City association will make a few more folks tune it in and turn it up. [JM]


	$28.99 CDx2		KRAFTWERK Kraftwerk / Kraftwerk 2 (Germanofon) "Ruckzuck" "Strom" Like it or not, Kraftwerk, your early recordings are as ripe for rediscovery as ever. A contractual reissue by Vertigo in 1973 brought the group's first two albums, originally released by Philips Germany, to a wider audience, and the lasting appeal of the group's early, non-roboticized works has been validated by countless bootleg issues over the years, despite being disowned by its creators. 1 & 2 are the products of the early '70s and fit somewhere in between the loose, wild streaks of experimentation of Damo Suzuki-era Can, and the streamlined motion-oriented works of Neu! (to be sure, Neu's Klaus Dinger plays drums on 1). Mostly composed and performed on woodwinds, keyboards and "electric percussion," these works find Ralf and Florian finding their feet, hinting at the graceful, gliding machinemusik of their imminent future, and providing the more adventurous with breaks to spare (check the end portion of "Vom Himmel Hoch" for a crunching, flatulent funk the band would reinvent on future releases, and the gentle tumble of "Ruckzuck," appropriated for years as the theme to PBS's series "Newton's Apple"). It's a jam, albeit a sideways one, but there's no denying the originality and unique focus presented within. [DM]


	$11.99 CD-EP		BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY Ask Forgiveness (Drag City) "I Came to Hear the Music" "The World's Greatest" Ask Forgiveness features Will Oldham in one of his more subdued states, accompanied by Meg Baird and Greg Weeks (both of Espers as well as solo artists), musing on a handful of songs written by a diverse cross-section of his favorite artists, from Phil Ochs to Bjork to Glenn Danzig to R.Kelly to Mickey Newbury to Frank Sinatra to the Mekons, plus one new original. Obviously that is a pretty eclectic bunch of songwriters working in a broad swath of styles, but Ask Forgiveness is not hokey or jokey, as Oldham makes the music his own with a straightforward Bonnie 'Prince' Billy take on the simple underlying songs. Backed up mostly by quiet acoustic guitar, ambient feedback, organ and Baird's sweet harmonies, this is a record without jagged edges or sharp turns, just the warm comfort of Billy... save the creepy pencil cover portrait. [JM]


	$15.99 CD		CHAZ JANKEL My Occupation (Tirk) "You're My Occupation" "Oh You Pretty Thing" Chaz (a/k/a Chas) Jankel was a Blockhead. To be more specific, he was Ian Dury's chief Blockhead, co-writing and arranging many of Dury's best tunes over the course of the Blockheads' entire career; he also continues to lead the band since Dury's unfortunate passing back in 2000. What most people don't realize, though, is that he had a fairly successful, more dance/disco-oriented solo career on A&M Records in the early '80s, scoring a few club-chart hits and a butt-load of film scoring work. Curiously, though, only one of his solo records has ever made it onto CD -- that'd be his first, self-titled album, featuring "Ai No Corrida", a song made popular on the R&B charts by Quincy Jones's cover version on his 1981 album The Dude. Aside from that, most people know Jankel's 1984 track "Number One" from '80s film Real Genius (Netflix that sht!), used during the requisite "workin' hard to accomplish our goals" montage sequence which plays out in nearly every '80s youth-oriented dramedy. Both of those songs are included on My Occupation, a fantastic compilation of Jankel's best dancefloor-oriented tunes, most represented in 12" mixes which hold their own against your best Mutant Disco (Not Disco)* tracks. If you're a fan of Larry Levan/Paradise Garage flavored jams with soulful (yet slightly off-kilter) vocal turns, electro flourishes, clavinets, and rock-solid ass-bumping foundations, you need this. It's tough to pick highlights on a disc that's filled with 'em, but "Glad to Know You" (co-written with Dury), the aforementioned "Number One," the proto Derrick May/Larry Heard monster "3,000,000 Synths" (self explanatory), and the teach-Jamie-Lidell-a-thing-or-two "Get Myself Together" are all instant party rockers. Turn on the disco ball, grab your tambourine, and spike the punch -- this is quality. [IQ]


	$20.99 CDx2		PINCH Underwater Dancehall (Tectonic) "Brighter Day" ft. Juakali "Gangstaz (Instrumental Version)" Run by Rob Ellis (a/k/a Pinch), the Tectonic label offers some of the best selections of dubstep, ranking right alongside Burial's Hyberdub imprint. Much of his two-CD debut comes off as what the title suggests: "underwater dance hall." What Ellis brings to the dubstep arena is a homegrown brew made from Bristol's marriage of reggae vocals and "techno" beats -- from early Shut Up and Dance and More Rockers to his contemporaries Skream and Burial. Ellis' style of production is soaked in his love of dancehall's bass potential when digitally maneuvered for the adventurous dance floor. There aren't any shredded beats here, as his style is more rolling bass, loopy yet not repetitive. With rubbery low end, wet snares, shimmering cymbals, waves of low end tones, you do feel submerged as the sound moves like a school of fish darting in, out and around in Pinch's sonic ocean. It's a great marriage of soul/dance hall/reggae and digi-dubstep. This two-CD set includes both raw and strong vocal versions and another disc of more aquatic, instrumental versions, giving the listener a choice as how to digest the music. Want more? Well, he's also featured on Box of Dub 2 and both of the new Planet Mu comps. Making a splash for sure. [DG]


	$18.99 CD		DELFONICS LA LA Means I Love You / Sounds (Kent) "La La Means I Love You" "A Lover's Concerto" Philly's Delfonics earned their place in history by ushering in that city's evergreen compositions of soul back in the late '60s and early '70s. Working closely with producer-arranger Thom Bell, the group helped to define the template for R&B for their times, fabricating a gossamer swirl of strings, sitar, muted brass and a truckload of reverb around buttery falsetto street-corner vocal group styles that, after the release of the group's hits "Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time" and "La La Means I Love You," would forever associate themselves with this style of music. Still played the world over on oldies and dusties radio stations, the Delfonics enjoyed a resurgence in popular interest throughout the late '80s and into the following decade, finding champions in everyone from Prince Paul to Quentin Tarantino. No one sounded quite like them in their heyday, and this release does well to sustain their legacy as the catalyst for pop innovation in a new decade. [DM]


	$11.99 CD $9.99 mp3		BEANS Thorns (Adored and Exploited) "Thundermouth" "In Effect" Former and "future" member of Anti-Pop Consortium (word is the group are reuniting and will be releasing a new record), the illmatic Beans returns with a new solo album, Thorns. Now that his relationship with Warp has dissolved, the New York rapper goes back to his independent roots with a more personal outing. Thorns is mostly self-produced with one song by Detroit producer Dabyre and a few songs featuring backing by Holy F**k. Less of an electro-tastic journey than you might expect, his beat production now feels more organic and intimate. Not to say that the rapper is growing soft over the years, his vibrant verbal skills and unique delivery still makes him one of the most original emcees to walk the city streets. [DG]


	$14.99 CD		RICHARD CRANDELL Spring Steel (Tzadik) "Inner Circle" "Beckoning" Spring Steel finds minimalist composer Richard Crandell once again crafting lucid, and by turns, infinitely deep melodic compositions for mbira and percussion. His control over the mbira (a thumb piano of African origin) is masterful and rich, the instrument producing a polyphonic mélange of gorgeously reverberating bell tones. In Crandell's hands, the mbira proves to be the link between the music of Africa, east Asia, and Latin America. Backed with sprightly, deft contributions by Cyro Baptista on traps, brushes, metal, and all manners of hand percussion, Crandell has created a deceptively complex and ultimately centering musical work for our times, perfect for meditation and the earlier part of your day. [DM]


	$16.99 CD		JAMES MURPHY & PAT MAHONEY Fabriclive 36 (Fabric) "Like Some Dream" Daniel Wang "Love Has Come Around" Donald Byrd James Murphy may have sung a lament to the Big Apple on the latest LCD Soundsystem album, but this DJ mix for the esteemed Fabric series sounds like Murphy's aural blood oath to the city he hates to hate. Murphy and Pat Mahoney take us on a historic tour of NYC dance floors of yore, deftly mixing the quirky, avant disco of Mudd Club faves Gichy Dan and Was (Not Was) with the blissed-out jazz disco of Donald Bird's Paradise Garage anthem "Love Has Come Around." Every track is re-edited and presented in a fresh context, incorporating tracks from fellow keepers of the NYC disco flame like Daniel Wang, Still Going and Detroit's Theo Parrish. As opposed to Lindstrom, Glass Candy and the like, James Murphy is a fan of the organic. Handclaps, cowbells, screams of ecstasy, foot stomping and live bass lines are what it's all about for him, and it defines the disco sound for him. The dance floor isn't a place to float away, but a place to root right in and get sweaty with the stranger next to you. This mix personifies that feeling through and through. Highly recommended. [DH]


	$13.99 LP+CD $9.99 mp3		SONIC CHICKEN 4 Sonic Chicken 4 (In the Red) "Sexiest" "I Had Too Much to Drink (Last Night)" It's been a banner year for In the Red, with the success of Jay Reatard and amazing rock n roll albums by Demon's Claws, King Khan, and Mark Sultan. And now, feel free to add France's Sonic Chicken 4 to the list. After innumerable 7"s, the band finally gets an opportunity to spread out over two LP sides (fear not, every LP comes with a free CD), and the end result is a red hot mix of '60s punk, pop melodies, the chime of Velvet Underground, and revved up rhythm & blues. I give this Sonic Chicken 4 out of 5. The most irresistible, carefree, and FUN record since Black Lips' Good Bad, Not Evil. And that is obviously praise of the very highest order. [AK]


	$16.99 CD		GRUPPO DI IMPROVVISA Nuova Consonanza (Bella Casa) "Eflot" "Scratch" For all the Ennio Morricone records out there, his involvement in the Italian Gruppo D'Improvvisazione is probably the least well-known aspect of his career. The Gruppo was founded in 1964 by Franco Evangelisti -- a student of both Luigi Nono and Karlheinz Stockhausen -- as a collective of composer/improvisers devoted to developing a radical new form of improvisation. Improvisation, of course, was nothing new, but the Gruppo was intent on creating a form unrelated to jazz or any other style of music, or even to the most basic Western theories of melody, harmony and rhythm for that matter. Like much of the avant garde music of the '60s, Gruppo shifted its emphasis away from musical form and structure and towards the material, physical properties of their instruments and the sounds that came from them. Extremely disciplined, the Gruppo's approach involved rigorous pre-performance exercises and the drawing of strict parameters for each member's contribution. These parameters more often than not included a moratorium on making sounds bearing relation to any tonal system and forbid the participants from creating rhythms or any other recognizable or repeatable patterns of sounds. Gruppo was instrumental in founding the tradition of free-improvisation in Western music and unsurprisingly counted among its ranks many musicians who became well-known composers in their own rights, Ennio Morricone foremost among them. Aside from an illustrious (and expensive) 2CD/DVD box released by Die Schactel, little has been made available by this extraordinary group, a problem this album should go a long ways in remedying. [CC]