Seven Song Spin: There Are No Words
This week's playlist was inspired by my happening to catch an instrumental I'd never heard before by a band I like. I have whole instrumental playlists, actually, because I find it hard to write to music with lyrics. And while these playlists are dominated by classical and jazz, I also particularly cherish a number of rock, pop, and world instrumentals (and not just from the specialists). Here are seven choice cuts.
This entire playlist can be found here.
In search of: "Bam-Bam," a freak-kitsch jam from Luscious Jackson's debut EP, In Search of Manny, is a slight effort I only happened to catch because it was on a vast YouTube music playlist I'd made of guitar-based rock by women. But it made me look.
Hear my doorbell ring: What I love about this rendition of "I Can't Be Satisifed" is not just that it reclaims this Muddy Waters classic from the Rolling Stones. It's also that it gives an old-timey strut that sounds more Dixie than Delta, with room for some art-jazz weirdness, particularly on the part of clarinetist Don Byron.
Bossa baby: In turning his lovely, spiky "Chovendo Na Roseira" into an instrumental called "Children's Games," Jobim made it much weirder, even borderline creepy, yet never less than sumptuous. So much going on in every section here, it's like a tamped-down Esquivel.
Blow by blow: James Brown's band the J.B.'s did some great spinoff records. This track from trombonist Fred Wesley, "Blow Your Head," is a particular favorite, and I much prefer this straightahead funk/brass alternate version to the synth-heavy version I've heard elsewhere. Accept no substitute.
Stereographic lining: I once shared a Brooklyn studio with a Brazilian musician, and his CD collection exposed me to a number of essential artists, from Curumin to the acts sampled on the Favela Chic Postonove compilations. "Forró Esferográfico," by the experimental northern Brazilian outfit Cabruêra, is a particular fave, powered by the beehive buzz of some kind of fiddle-like instrument.
And then we'll have world peace: The sumptuous Beach Boys track "Let's Go Away for a While" (which features none of the Beach Boys) is always worth a spin, but it's seared in my mind indelibly as the soundtrack of my kids' one visit to the exquisite Seaglass Carousel in Battery Park. The day we went it seemed to be on a loop as persistent as "Merry Unbirthday" loop at Disneyland's teacup ride.
The Worried Rabbit, Nineveh, Assyria: A few years before Graceland, Stewart Copeland traveled to Africa to make The Rhythmatist, which was the both the title of an odd hourlong documentary and, to my ears, a far more invigorating solo record than Sting's Dream of the Blue Turtles. There are some cringey colonialist-in-a-pith-helmet vibes on some of the tracks—Copeland comes by this almost genetically, as his dad was a CIA officer stationed in the Middle East—but I hear a real bottom-heavy, root-deep affinity here between his tastes and the sounds he's sampling, and fresh spring in these rhythms and sounds that was only hinted at in his work with the Police. There are few tracks I don't like on this collection, but "Gong Rock" may be my favorite.
Stereographic lining: I once shared a Brooklyn studio with a Brazilian musician, and his CD collection exposed me to a number of essential artists, from Curumin to the acts sampled on the Favela Chic Postonove compilations. "Forró Esferográfico," by the experimental northern Brazilian outfit Cabruêra, is a particular fave, powered by the beehive buzz of some kind of fiddle-like instrument.
And then we'll have world peace: The sumptuous Beach Boys track "Let's Go Away for a While" (which features none of the Beach Boys) is always worth a spin, but it's seared in my mind indelibly as the soundtrack of my kids' one visit to the exquisite Seaglass Carousel in Battery Park. The day we went it seemed to be on a loop as persistent as "Merry Unbirthday" loop at Disneyland's teacup ride.
The Worried Rabbit, Nineveh, Assyria: A few years before Graceland, Stewart Copeland traveled to Africa to make The Rhythmatist, which was the both the title of an odd hourlong documentary and, to my ears, a far more invigorating solo record than Sting's Dream of the Blue Turtles. There are some cringey colonialist-in-a-pith-helmet vibes on some of the tracks—Copeland comes by this almost genetically, as his dad was a CIA officer stationed in the Middle East—but I hear a real bottom-heavy, root-deep affinity here between his tastes and the sounds he's sampling, and fresh spring in these rhythms and sounds that was only hinted at in his work with the Police. There are few tracks I don't like on this collection, but "Gong Rock" may be my favorite.
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