I came across this band while stumbling around through Facebook today. Bleak in a way that one can only describe as post-Industrial ambient, this track lulled me into an absolutely blissful comfort zone. Mind you, I grew up with Noise and Industrial music, as well as with free jazz and punk, so I find bliss in many things. i Am Esper are worth checking out.
HT: Philip Mantione.
Of course they are. Google is about to raise the stakes in the digital downloads game and finally give Apple a run for its money.
A few tunes to keep you lot busy these days!
My brother and I had the good fortune to have an excellent college radio station near us when we were in our early twenties in the Inland Empire. KSPC 88.7 FM was known for playing some pretty far out music, but this particular track blew me out of the water. I had just begun hearing of the New Zealand indie rock scene, and was developing a taste for the primitive, lo-fi screechings of Roy Montgomery, but actually hearing this muffled, pounding, pulsating headache posing as music did more than pique my interest.
My brother gets credit for hearing it first, as he, too, is a man of good muscial taste, but once I wrapped my brain around the experience of being clobbered by Dadamah, I tore up Rhino Records in Claremont trying to find anything I could by the band. As luck would have it, they did have a copy of the ‘Nicotine/High Time‘ 7-inch which the host played, and I proceeded to play the poor thing until it damn near became transparent. Kranky Records saved any more wear-and-tear on my record player by having the good sense to release a full album by the band, ‘This Is Not A Dream,’ and I duly purchased that as well. Sadly, that was the end of the line for Dadamah, though they continued in various guises, and from what I hear, Roy Montgomery is still playing guitar (and quite beautifully now, I might add).
The Yiddish language, that amalgam of ancient Hebrew spicing a Teutonic soup, is not the first choice I’d have for a smouldering, sexy, romantic tongue to pleasure a love interest with. My opinion has, admittedly, been colored by watching cartoons where some Yiddish songs have been featured, as well as checking out the occasional vaudeville act on YouTube.
Still, Yiddish musicians had a tremendous effect on music during the early part of the Twentieth Century, and it is a bit of a shame that the language has pretty much died out since Hebrew was reintroduced into Israel and accepted, more or less, by the diaspora.
Perhaps the most well-known song with a Yiddish pedigree is Jay Jacob’s and Sholom Secunda’s hit, ‘Bei Mir Bistu Shein (Yiddish: בייַ מיר ביסטו שיין, “To Me You’re Beautiful”)’. The most well-known version of the song, recorded by The Andrews Sisters, features lyrics reworked by legendary songwriter Sammy Cahn. It tooks me years to figure out the romantic angle of the song because I had always associated it with the ridiculous Warner Brothers cartoon character Egghead, replete with the “woopie-doopie” after every line.
Here are a few versions of the song:
The Budapest Klezmer Band (in Yiddish):
Zarah Leander (smouldering in German):
Max Raabe und Palast Orchster (going modern):
Max Raabe – Bei mir bist du schoen
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The Andrews Sisters (the most popular version in the States):
While reading National Review Online, I came across the comment of an Iowa-based reader who left their opinion of the first time they heard Lennon’s legendary anthem:
“When ‘Imagine’ was new, and I was young, I, of course, took it literally as the way the world should work. Since at least partially growing up (being 57 now), I have come to understand John Lennon as one sarcastic SOB who delighted in demonstrations of his superiority over lesser beings. I am thinking that ‘Imagine’ was meant as a send-up of liberal utopia, an insult hidden in the open.”
Another reader who grew up in Soviet Czechoslovakia added this comment:
“That John Lennon song always bothered me. It reminded me of the spoiled children of the ‘West.’ They had everything they could possibly want, and they were free. Yet they complained. And, worse, they promoted ideas and regimes that were senselessly destroying other people’s lives.”
It makes one wonder if John Lennon was taking the piss against the liberals of his day. It’s a theory, of course, but one worth pondering.
‘Thumbs of a Murderer‘, written by the legendarily creep Karl Blake, was a longtime favorite in my cassette deck for years, scaring the neighbors terribly. The band, including the legendary Lydia Lunch or Danielle Dax on vocals (I think), added a flamenco introduction for ‘Son of…’, probably lifted from a piece by Manuel de Falla, added a ferocious solo and a murderously loud drum and bass section. Thank Cows Are Just Food for the racket.
Download Shock Headed Peters – ‘Son Of Thumbs Of A Murderer’
Björk had a huge hit with this weirdly beautiful song about a relationship in 1995 (can you believe 15 years have passed?!). Outside of hearing it “remixed” by the Broadsky Quartet, who provided a quirky, modernist interpretation, I hadn’t run across many people brave enough to do a cover of the song. I had a bit of fun using my iPhone to read up on the tune this evening, noting that it had been covered several times. The interpretation that intrigued me the most was by an Indonesia band called Mocca, who manage to re-work the tune into a jazzy, mellow ditty that could play well on one of those snazzy “soft jazz” radio stations we have in the Greater Los Angeles area like The Wave. Not a bad effort at all.
