FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD: OHM Dedication Series #1: Beautiful Swimmers Present Don Cherry

One Handed Music (OHM) have just posted their inaugural mix in their newly-announced OHM Dedication Series. There will be 12 mixes created by 12 different artists throughout the year, and for this one, legendary jazz musician Don Cherry is being honored by the Washington, DC-based Beautiful Swimmers. If you’re a jazz fan, a devotee of Cherry, or just someone who wants to expand your mind a bit with a blend of the old and new, try this out. Stream and listen, or download for free.

As for the graphic above, it was designed by Emily Evans, created with her perspective of the music

TRACK LISTING:
1. Don Cherry – Brown Rice
2. Old & New Dreams – Song For The Whales
3. Trilok Gurtu – Shangri La/Usfret
4. Don Cherry – Moving Pictures For The Ear
5. Don Cherry & Latif Khan – Air Mail
6. Don Cherry – Journey of Malarepa
7. Don Cherry – Brilliant Action/Amejelo (drum solo Ed Blackwell)
8. Sonny Murray – Black Art (poem Amiri Baraka)
9. Terry Riley, Don Cherry, Karl Berger – Piece 1, Koln Concert 1975
10. Don Cherry – Kamapa Chenno
11. Don Cherry – Love Train
12. Tullio Di Piscopo – Stop Bajon
13. Bengt Berger – Tongsi
14. Old & New Dreams – Guinea

SOME STUFFS: P.G. Six to bring smiles on the road

It has been a few years since P.G. Six were last together in a studio to record music. Either that or they’ve been living the good life and have been keeping any recording sessions a big secret. My guess is that it’s more of the former, but that has changed.

As you can see, the look happy and content, and that could mean one of many things:
1) Someone made a joke
2) The second guy farted
3) New album

My guess? #3 and perhaps a hint of #2, but this is unconfirmed. After a four year break, the band released Starry Mind (Drag City) last summer, and what is confirmed is this list of tour dates, as P.G. Six are bringing their new music and fan-favorites to who else? The fans, along with the guy who has to scrub toilets at the venues they play at. He’ll have fun, as you should. They’ll do two shows in April before taking another break, and then they own May:

April 12… Brooklyn, NY @ Public Assembly
April 13… Easthampton, MA @ Flywheel
May 3… Somerville, MA @ Radio
May 4… Montreal, QC @ Casa Del Popolo
May 5… Toronto, ON @ Placebo Space
May 6… Cleveland, OH @ Happy Dog
May 7… Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
May 8… Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
May 9… Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups
May 10… Washington, DC @ DC9
May 11… Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
May 12… Baltimore, MD @ Golden West Café

(You can order Starry Mind directly from Drag City on FLAC, MP3, and CD, or click the Amazon boxes below for MP3, vinyl and CD.)

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REVIEW: Ellynne Plotnick’s “I Will”

It’s nice to hear a vocal jazz album that keeps it plain and simple, but not boring. That is what I would call I Will (Princess Monkey Music), the new album by jazz vocalist Ellynne Plotnick. The recording is plain and simple: Plotnick singing with guitar and bass accompaniment. It may bring to mind going into a coffee bar and just hearing the group with a bit of cups clingning and clanging, but you want everyone to shut up so you can hear the music. Seven of the ten songs on here are original compositions, and the title track, a Beatles cover, places the original song into a jazz style and shows why Paul McCartney‘s simple approach works in any musical context. Other highlights on this include “I’m Sorry (I Really Mean It This Time)”, and “I Want A Place In Your Heart”. With luck, you’ll find a place in your heart for Plotnick, her voice and music.

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VIDEO: Jneal & Big Baby’s “Need A Light”

If you “Need A Light”, who you gonna call? Well by golly, forget Ghostbusters, instead go call Jneal and Big Baby, as they have the light you need in their new track and video, and it’s a nice one.

REVIEW: Cristina Morrison’s “I Love”

With an album cover that showed confidence on her behalf, I looked at the title and had to question it. What exactly does Cristina Morrison love on I Love? The answers lie within each of the album’s nine songs, and it is worth finding out what those answers may or may not be.

For fans of vocal jazz with a nice pop and soulful touch, Morrison is a vocalist who sounds like she has a lot to love, and in return a lot to give back. These songs show such a rich maturity, it makes me wish that this was today’s pop music because it deserves to be, and Morrison is a singer that should be teaching these young ladies (and a number of male singers) how to… sing, period. The bluesy vibe of “Fifteen Day Affair”, complete with a harmonica solo that will bring to mind the bright moments in Stevie Wonder‘s discography, will definitely make you wish you were having an affair or seeing the possibility of one with a window view full of rainy days. So what makes this work for me? Morrison doesn’t sing like someone who is trying too hard to prove a point, it irks me when there are singers who do a bit of a gymnastics dog show in order to say “hey, look at me”. Sure, I’m looking but I still want to hear, and Morrison (to me) represents a singer’s singer. When she gets into singing in a bebop fashion or something that might make Natalie Cole proud, I Love is one vocal jazz album that is worth a listen or two, and worth suggestion to any and all.

AUDIO: John Lennon vs. Van Halen’s “Imagine A Jump (Mighty Mike mash-up)”

I’ll admit: I get a fair share of music, a mixture of what I enjoy listening to on a regular basic, along with music that artists and publicists would like for me to listen to, and at times it is overwhelming. Then there’s the music I end up not knowing about or simply missing, I can’t be hounding the interwebs 24 hours a day. Fortunately, I’ll get some tips, and this one was sent to me by David Kelly, a/k/a Rheomatic.

It seems simple right, nothing more than a mash-up of a John Lennon song from 1971 and a Van Halen song recorded in 1983, released in 1984 on the album 1984. In this case it’s a funny mix, and yet it works quite beautifully. Odd? Eerie? Come up with whatever word or phrase for it but… it’s cool. This mix was done by someone named Mighty Mike, and while some of you may say “I heard this last spring”, then all I can say is the next time you find something you think I might think is cool, pass a link to me. Or a year or two later, doesn’t matter. I share this with you.

REVIEW: Rural Ghosts’ self-titled EP

A recording that sounds like it was done one weekend in a bedroom, kitchen or garage, pressed up on some Taiyo Yuden CD-R’s (the preferred CD-R for CD-R collectors, traders, and archivists), made with hand-numbered, “100% hand-cut & hand-painted archival-quality heavy card-stock packaging” and and sold on Etsy? It sounds homemade because it is, and the music and lyrics sound and feels like home, what you sometimes wish to hear and when you arrive, you’re comforted by the sound.

That’s what Rural Ghosts represents on his seld-released EP (on his own custom label, Lorem Ipsum) and at a time when we have the convenience of digital distribution, I know I still make an effort to hear people who make, create, and package music with some level of effort, and this is no exception. Rural Ghosts is a Portland, Maine resident named Erik Neilson, and for the six songs on this EP, all he does is pick up a guitar, play and sing, and deliver some heartfelt songs. He talks about life and the work involved to keep head above water, but also telling tales of feeling love or wanting to offer care to a loved one. A word like “introspective” could be used, but I think it has been used by a lot of recordings like this, whether it’s by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco or even the occasionally-twisted tales of Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips. It’s not so “in-my-head-forever” like Jandek‘s stuff, there is a sense of the outside world in each of these songs, especially when you hear the sound of thunder and rainfall. A metaphor, perhaps? The world is essentially his audience, and now he just has to find the people in that world to stay with him for his musical journey. I would like to be considered “one”.

As simple, comforting, and humble as these six songs sound, I could easily hear him stretch out these songs with not only a small group of fellow musicians, but even to bring in the Portland Cello Project or even a full orchestra, to be able to fit into that basement, garage, or back porch-vibe he has created on this and to show how wide and diverse that porch can be if you simply let people in for the excursion.

(ADDITION: I did a quick Google search and noticed a post from Nielsen, as he looks to bring in a few more people for what he calls “dark folk-indie”, so I look forward to seeing and hearing the next path in the journey of Rural Ghosts.)

(You can purchase Rural Ghosts’s self-titled EP at Etsy.com.

FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD: Flosstradamus vs. Ludacris & Shawnna’s “Hood Fantasy”

This is a Flosstradamus remix of a well known Ludacris & Shawnna song, the song that fucked up everyone in thinking it’s okay to turn on the radio and year songs about sucking toes. Yeah, point the finger on this track, and then finger yourself to this not new remix. Can you taste its asscrack? CAN YOU?

VIDEO: WIN WIN featuring Spank Rock, Andrew W.K. & Matt Sweeney’s “Pop A Gumball”

Is their “music cinematic, psychedelic and dreamlike”? Which one is it, or can be be all? I speak of Win Win, and for this video… well, it seems someone noticed the model’s hard nipples in it first, and not the fact that Andrew W.K. is popping in and out of it, along with Spank Rock and Matt Sweeney.

So what is it: potential earworm, or hard nipples? Which one is it, or can it be both? Let it tingle in your mouth for a moment.

SOME STUFFS: 2:54 to explore North America in June

The first thing this song reminded me off upon listening, especially as it reached towards the chorus, was Curve‘s “Coast Is Clear”. You can hear the results with the song below called “You’re Early”, which will be released on their self-titled debut album due out on May 28th via Fat Possum. If you like what you hear, and hope to see what these two ladies are capable of doing in a live setting, check out these confirmed dates for their forthcoming tour, along with some shows throughout the United Kingdom:

April 2… Norwich, UK – Waterfront Studio $
April 4… Manchester, UK – The Deaf Institue $
April 5… Glasgow, UK – Captain’s Rest Glasgow $
April 10… Bristol, UK – Thekla #
April 11… Brighton, UK – The Green Door Store #
April 12… Tumbridge Wells, UK – Forum *
April 13… Liverpool, UK The Shipping Forecast *
April 14… Leeds, UK – Cockpit *
June 7… London, UK – Scala

June 9… Brooklyn, NY – Knitting Factory !
June 10… Washington, DC – Rocknroll Hotel !
June 11… New York, NY – Mercury Lounge !
June 13… Boston, MA – TT The Bears !
June 14… Montreal, QUE – Divan Orange !
June 15… Toronto, ONT – NXNE/Lee’s Palace !
June 16… Columbus, OH – TBD
June 17… Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle !
June 18… Minneapolis, MN – Triple Rock !
June 21… Seattle, WA – The Crocodile !
June 22… Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge !
June 23… Vancouver, BC – Biltmore !
June 25… San Francisco, CA – Independent !
June 26… Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour !
June 27… San Diego, CA – Casbah !

$ = w/ Palma Violets
# = w/ Chelsea Wolfe
* = w/ Deaf Club
! = Widowspeak

To find out more about these two ladies, sisters Colette and Hannah Thurlow, head to their website at twofiftyfour.net. This is the official photo of what the album will be like, perhaps it will put you into a mind state equal to the emotions felt in the music.

Now the song, as promised.