Song Of The Month: Holy Hail’s “Elemental”
Lots of bands mix genres, some better than others. New York’s Holy Hale is among those who do it unusually well, with big-beat, pop, Americana, hip-hop, new wave, and electro coming together in a healthy, breathing surge of energy. The lyrics strewn across their debut album, Independent Pleasure Club (due November 11 on Kanine Records) are often political—the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the environment, wire tapping, and the American-Indian genocide are are all touched upon—but, refreshingly, your body’s going to react before your brain does this time, making for a far easier digestion of lyrical agression. The band recently returned from outings in Europe (with New Young Pony Club and Bonde Do Role) and gigging in Mexico. Click here to listen to “Elemental.” Continue reading ‘Song Of The Month: Holy Hail’s “Elemental”’
Song Of The Month: “Guantanamo”
by State Radio, from Year Of The Crow
Man, it’s thrilling to be as knocked out by a band’s sound as you are by its message. “Guantanamo,” the leadoff track from State Radio’s new album, Year Of The Crow, is for sure an astute, impassioned narrative about state-sanctioned paranoia, personal disloyalty, and the disregard of human rights, set in the infamous American-run terrorist detention camp located on the island of Cuba. The lyrics pull no punches: “torture advocate…war president is a criminal…Geneva’s nearly drowned…” Neither does the music: This stuff is raging.
Continue reading ‘Song Of The Month: “Guantanamo”’
“Cler Achel (I Spent The Day)”
by Tinariwen, from Amon Iman: Water Is Life
For a rock fan, much world music can be frustratingly polite: As with many jazz musicians, oftentimes when you put ethnic players in a pristine recording studio with $1,000 mics, much of the grit and mystery of the music is stripped away, and what you’re left with is street-music lite. Not so with the roving and ever-evolving Malian band Tinariwen.
Anyone in love with the druggy grooves of mid-period Rolling Stones or the testifying moan of blues legend John Lee Hooker will hear something familiar on Tinariwen’s third album, Aman Iman: Water Is Life. The album opens with “Cler Achel (I Spent The Day),” a spacious, haunting groover whose lyrics touch on the themes of displacement and exile that the Touareg people have had to deal with since the catastrophic droughts of the ’70s and ’80s. The cut begins with a smooth, muted electric guitar phrase reminiscent of what you might hear on a Bob Marley tune, and then falls into the type of drone you wish you could ride for hours. As the energy slowly builds and the ever-present handclaps pull you further in, the skittering guitar of Ibrahim “Abaraybone” Ag Alhabib tickles the mind and spine with bendy, crying runs.
Ibrahim Ag Alhabib says he often plays solo guitar at night under the Saharan skies, a ritual that sometimes gives him goose bumps. He and his band mates perfectly translate that “alone in the cosmos” vibe to this tune, drawing listeners into a world they likely know little about, yet communicating some very recognizable emotions nonetheless.
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