Music Reviews Uakti Mapa (Point Records)
Uakti (pronounced WAkatchi) is a group of Brazilian composers who design and build their own instruments and play them. I think of them as the Harry Partches of Brazil. There are some cuts on this that are intensely sweet, sad, and vividly sensual at the same time, and there is a curiously ancient feeling to this newly invented music. The instruments are truly inventive, and the tone qualities are deep and haunting.
Jaron Lanier
The Loud Family Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things (Alias Records)
Before somebody inevitably describes The Loud Family as "clever pop" and you go off sneering, be advised that this is the new musical phoenix risen whole and rocking from the ashes of the late great Game Theory. With images lifted from a decade's worth of old books, TV shows, and rock songs, plus patented Scott Miller tongue-in-tweek lyrics (priceless song title: Ballad of How You Can All Shut Up), The Loud Family is the aftermath of a high-speed collision between several solid pop bands and the cast of Firesign Theatre.
Chris Hudak
Jai Uttal Triloka (Monkey)
Jai Uttal has created a new sound, a blend of progressive jazz (usually not my favorite) with Indian Classical music. His band is called the Pagan Love Orchestra (a band that includes authentic Silicon Valley engineer musicians, by the way). This music has a rare combination of agility and gentleness, and is at once accessible and exotic.
Jaron Lanier
Parliament Tear the Roof Off 1974-1980 (Polygram)
If James Brown finally got his due, then Parliament would be next in line - thanks to the merciless sampling of both their catalogs by the hip-hop nation. If still alive, Joseph Campbell would declare the P-Funk story equal to any other enduring modern creative musical mythology. "Uncut funk" is like a Boudin's mother sourdough yeast-starter - leavening innumerable loaves of sound to feed generations. They don't call it the "Mothership Connection" for nothin'.
Will Kreth
Various artists Pay It All Back, Volume 4 (On-U Sound)
Fourth in a series of heavy soul-dub-funk compilations, this volume finds producer Adrian Sherwood loosening up the reigns of the company he began by allowing several artists to produce their own tracks. On-U is the British recording stable that gave the world Gary Clail, Tack>>Head, the Dub Syndicate, and African Head Charge - to drop a name or two. Hip- hop beats meld with alien synths and gospel-soul-inspired singing - especially on the cuts by Strange Parcels. It's a tasty, bass-heavy, dirty silicon groove throughout, sans House or Techno beats - which may work for you.
Will Kreth
Tonggeret Idjah Hadidja (Electra-Nonesuch Explorer)
Jaipongan has to be the most purely sexual music around. A pop music style from the Sunda region of Java, it is so beautiful that it makes time stop and simple things around you appear exotic. The music is a blend of gamelan (gong orchestra), a virtuoso singing style with roots in Islamic and Indian cultures, wild whorehouse music, and astounding melodic percussion that sometimes sounds Afro-Cuban, and sometimes like talking drums. The female singer floats, flawless and inaccessible, over a nether world of horny male antics.
Jaron Lanier
John Oswald Plexure (Avant)
Perhaps you heard about Canadian John Oswald and his Plunderphonics CD when he was sued by Michael Jackson's record label for sampling, manipulating, and releasing a version of Jackson's Bad. Now, a record label brave enough to put its name on a CD of Oswald's work has emerged in Japan. Over a thousand familiar pop artists are "electro-quoted" on Plexure, none for more than two seconds. Program your stereo to spasticly change stations in perfect sync to the beat - now you've got the concept of "Mega-plunder-morph-o-nemiclonics." It's sure to be sampled itself - and that's a high compliment.
Will Kreth
Nicky Skopolitis Ekstatsis (Axiom)
For years, an in-house guitarist for producer Bill Laswell, Nicky Skopelitis has delivered an instrumental knot of artfully mutated World rock. Filo-dough-fine layers of buzzing acoustic instruments sidle-up to a dream rhythm section of Jaki Liebezeit, Zakir Hussain, Zig Modeliste, Jah Wobble, and Laswell. A global encyclopedia of hypnotic drone instruments give Ekstasis its density and bring on the Theta waves in a big way. With all the sublime melodies and rhythms, it's time to dust off those headphones in your closet.
Will Kreth
