Mahmoud Ahmed - Yeshi Hargetu

Just a reminder on this great, great artist. Check out my post on Ethiopian funk and enjoy this very rare glimpse on Mr. Ahmed himself...

Can - Ogam Ogat

Can is a recent discovery of mine, music wise. Well, discovery. Of course I'd heard of and read about this band for years, but I never got around to really listening to their records. Strange, because I've listened to two Holger Czukay records since I was little (my father played them). Those records were 1984's Der Osten Ist Rot, and 1979's Movies. From this album comes the song Cool In The Pool:

Czukay was the bass player, recording engineer and sound manipulator in the band Can. Influenced by Karlheinz Stockhausen, like a lot of the originators from the so called Kraurock Scene, Czukay formed Can in 1968.

The most famous, and in my opinion best, records by Can are Ege Bamyasi and Tago Mago, the latter being a double disc vinyl, edited down from hours and hours of jamming. Czukay recorded a lot (some say all) of these jams, and used them to create, through the use of tape editing, the tunes on Tago Mago.


Especially the song Halleluwah earned a lot of fame. With it's 18 minutes and 32 seconds it might seem overlong or pretentieus in some other way, but this song is exciting thoughout and never bores me. With a lot of thanks to Jaki Liebezeit, Can's drummer, who excels in this song. In 2011 Tago Mago was re-released by Can's label Spoon Records, and in 2009, Ogam Ogat was released (unofficiallly). This release features two unedited jams from the Tago Mago sessions in Schloss Nörvenich, a castle near Cologne.

1. Auf Der Einbahnstrasse Part One (16:43)

2. Auf Der Einbahnstrasse Part Two (18:47)

Enjoy!

Jonny Greenwood - Bodysong

It's been a while, so...erm...yeah! I try to post as little official stuff as possible but I do post some hard to get stuff every now and then. This time: the soundtrack from 2003's documentary by Simon Pummell about life. Yeah, as big as that. I recommand to watch this film because I think it's beautiful (if that's enough...). It handles themes like birth, childhood, dance and sex by showing loads of images from all over the world, without dialogue or (for half of the time) even sound with the images. There is music: by Radiohead's guitar player extraordinaire: Jonny Greenwood. He uses sampling, jazz and classical orchestration and experimental music to paint a picture that's weird, comforting and disturbing consecutively or sometimes simultaneously.

The file that you can get here, features four additional tracks: 2 tracks from the 7" that was released around the same time the album was and one track called Untitled, of which I don't know where it came from, but it sounds like it's from the same sessions, so I included it here. Also included is Smear, a symphony Greenwood composed as composer in residence to the BBC Concert Orchestra. Not really fitting this release but yeah...

Pay extra attention to the track Convergence. It sounds like Greenwood arranged loads of percussion to play free form and slowly directs all percussion to play into the beat. I own both the CD and the vinyl as well as the 7" so I paid my dollars & cents to Jonny. Oh, and all artwork is by Stanley Donwood (Radiohead's residential artist) Enjoy!

1. Moon Trills (5:17)
2. Moon Mall (1:12)
3. Trench (2:38)
4. Iron Swallow (2:07)
5. Clockwork Tin Soldiers (3:48)
6. Convergence (4:26)
7. Nudnik Headache (2:16)
8. Peartree (3:06)
9. Splitter (3:57)
10. Bode Radio/Glass Light/Broken Hearts (4:36)
11. 24 Hour Charleston (2:39)
12. Milky Drops from Heaven (4:44)
13. Tehellet (3:40)
14. Duty Lux (2:52) 7" bonus track
15. Untitled (3:56)
16. Nudnik Headache Splitting Mix (5:29) 7" bonus track
17. Smear (12:22)