Give Me Unconsciousness

So, yes I've received many of your emails and instant messages and comments and other harangues to come back to this blog.

I've been working on it. Hopefully I'm back for real this time. No big promises though. Not this time. The world has been falling apart somewhat of late the past few months, and I'm just trying to tread water. (that said, anyone hiring, or just looking for a freelance writer, or whatever, send an email this way, and you'll have my resume promptly. If it's an incentive, a steady paycheck that I can live on makes the return of this blog to full daily status that much more likely.)

But I have some choice tunes to share with you, and many more where these two come from.

The Hypertonics - The Moments We Don't Allow - The Hypertonics are from New York. Some time ago, they decided to say "fuck it" to the whole capitalist record industry. They now give away all of their music for free on their website. They also do a very nice job of explaining why, over on their website. They just today released their newest studio recording, an album entitled Vigilante Ballast that careens between the retro and the thouroughly modern. "The Moments We Don't Allow" is a steady pump of spacey surf rock that wouldn't have been out of place on Bossanova. It pulls at the simple infectious energy of older Hypertonics songs like "Beer get me a Woman, Woman Get Me a Beer," but where those older tracks often sounded laid back, if not downright lazy, the new album is a forceful in it's determination. It makes demands not casually, but powerfully.

[Download Vigilante Ballast from TheHypertonics.com - Be sure to check "America is a Miracle" and "You Get So Uncomfortable When You're Uncomfortable" - they made choosing a track today very tough.]

Rachid Taha - Rock El Casbah - It's a cover. It's a novelty. It's also the best damn thing I've heard on my hiatus from this blog. Announcing an entrance with a fanfare of flutes and drums before those distinctive guitar chords declare to the world that this is not just another Clash cover. This is an ironic Clash cover. See, Rachid Taha is Algerian. The Casbah is in Casablanca. Get it? But enough of that. The point is that Taha has infused the old staple with that soaring Rai trained voice of his and enough raucous energy to make it seem vital again, rather than the last desperate grab for relevance it feels like when I listen to the Clash original these days. The multilayered drums, both the traditionally african rhythyms and the pounding, almost reggae layers under the chorus. The tense stabs of violin. but mostly just Tahas vocals. There's a venom there, and a swing that makes this something special, even translated, and when that English chorus comes in, with the gang vox and the spit in the sharifs eye... Oh, it's something perfect, oh yes.
[Buy Tékitoi from Amazon.com - the album also includes a great collaboration with Brian Eno.]