Podcast: Play in new window
A largely maritime theme on Suffolk’n’Cool this week. Not particularly by design, it just seemed to come together that way and hell, with music this interesting, why fight it?
Southwold, where the beer comes from, looks very “easterly” from the sea.
The Rolling Sea – Bagas Degol (Penzance, Cornwall, UK)
The band is Rick Williams (clarinet), David Twomlow (bag pipes and soprano saxophone), and Dave Trahair (tabor drum and percussion).
From Penzance in the far west of Cornwall, BAGAS DEGOL has a fast growing reputation on the Cornish music and dance scene with their distinctive style of traditional music delivered with a powerful, raw edge. Their name in Cornish means ‘Feast Day Band’ in recognition of the occasion for which they originally came together – to accompany the famous Tom Bawcock’s Eve lantern procession in Mousehole.
I first played a track (Bodmin Dubbing) from their album Tonight we’re going to party like it’s 1399 on SnC 039 back in November 2006. One concern is that their website is advertising gigs from 2007. 🙁
www.bagasdegol.com
Sailing the Sea of Tea & Keeping it Me – Tom Caruana (UK)
From the masterly album, Welcome Aboard (Budabeats).
Tom Caruana is a music producer who has the ability to create an eclectic range of beats, most of which fall into a hip-hop style. His experience ranges from working with rappers, singers and musicians in studio and live environments, to reworking classic a cappellas in a series of renowned remix albums. He is not only a master of blending samples, he raps and is also a multi instrumentalist playing drums, bass, guitar and keyboards. His production has provided the perfect backing to artists such as Grand Agent, Count Bass D and Insight. His live band Son Of Sam have supported Raekwon and KRS One, and his remix work has caught the attention of The Chicagoist, The New York Times and The Guardian.
www.myspace.com/tomcaruana
www.teasearecords.net
www.budabeats.com
Pirates – Entertainment for the Braindead (Cologne, Germany)
From the excellent Roadkill album which is on the aaahh netlabel.
Entertainment for the Braindead is in fact Julia Kotowski
“There are lots of instruments that I’d always really wished to own or be able to play, a piano, a cello, a harp, a clarinet … but I would never had expected that one day I could fall in love with a banjo.
Yet since this is exactly what happened, I decided to start exploring this instrument’s versatility by recording a couple of songs equipped with nothing else but a banjo. (Well… I admit, there’s a tambourine in one song..)
Over the last four months I collected those songs. They occasionally sprouted, sometimes several a day, sometimes none for weeks, and then grew and ripened. I harvested them at home, though a bit more carefully than usual. They tell little tales of friendship and failure, of discovering the world and of hiding at home, and the banjo helped tracing their contours and gave them a shape.
It brought me through a very cold winter. Now maybe it can brighten yours a bit, too?”
Far away from the massive and unresting sounds of electric guitars and pounding noises of drums, Singer/Songwriter Julia Kotowski creates a small, intimate and especially silent musical sphere that she fills with notes, lyrics and rhythm. She lets these outcomes ripen slowly. Then, sound tracks are being arranged and ranked in lonesome nights and home appliances will be misused for special elements. There is a lot of tinkering and pottering, but little sleep. All this takes place at home, in her bedroom, in front of her computer.
Julia is a girl of the German city of Cologne, where she was born and where she grew up and, unlike most young people, she does not feel the urge to leave her home. Thus, she lives with her parents. That at some point she will be leaving Cologne is for sure, but before that day, her home city is the source and the playground for her life – Julia does “audio-visual Media-Studies” at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne (KHM).
www.entertainmentforthebraindead.com/
www.myspace.com/entertainmentforthebraindead
www.aaahh-records.net/
In the trial of Pirate Bay (the file sharing site) the RIAA sought $13 billion in damages for 34 cases of copyright infringement. One case per file. That values the download of one any one file, song, movie or game at about $382,000.
Your average 8 gig iPod can hold about 2,000 songs. According to the RIAA, that’s worth $764,705,882 making it the most valuable object on the planet.
Swallowtail Jig – The O’Marleys (Exeter, Devon, UK)
Reggae, rock, folk and traditional Irish tunes mix into the O Marleys sound. Taking influences from Romany music, The Upsetters, Bob Marley and Moving Hearts creates a heady and exciting soundscape.
In the rhythm section there is the wild yet subtle Bodhran playing of Mike Nangle and the heavy relentless electric bass of James King, complimented with electric percussion. On the top line is premier fiddle player Mac Moulton who plunges from Irish set dances into the jazz style of Stephan Grappelli with surprising ease. At the centre of the band is the rather mysterious 12 string guitarist, John Fitzsimons. His playing is a startling combination of cross rhythms/ jazz chords and counter melodies that produce completely original arrangements of the songs. With a background on the London music scene he brings many diverse influences to the band. Lead singer Mike Nangle hails from the theatrical tradition and adds rasping drama to the songs. Three members of the band sing (and make strange noises), creating rich vocal patterns and harmonies.
Their new album, The Rising of the Moon, (their second) is out in September on Idleday Records. It is available for download from i tunes, amazon and Tesco online. You tube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHmQSFLosV0
www.myspace.com/theomarley39s
The Reprisal – Sand River (Durham, UK)
It just proves how quickly things can move. I’d never heard of Sand River until this morning. An email from the band just landed at a point where I was finalising the playlist for this show and things really took off t=from there with the track arriving in the middle of recording and going straight into the show at that point.
Sand River are Si Robinson (guitar/vocals) and Guy Siviour (drums / percussion / ukulele who have been playing together for a few years.
The band’s eponymous debut EP can be purchased online, both digital and hard copy formats.
UPDATE: The is a gig in the pipeline. In fact, in the beer pipeline. Guy tells me that they are playing the Durham CAMRA (CAMpaign for Real Ale) annual beer festival. The band will be on at around 1:30pm on Saturday 4th September.
Details at: http://events.myspace.com/Event/6842395/30th-Durham-Beer-Festival
www.myspace.com/sandriveruk
A Husband, a Mother, a Daughter, a Lover, by Sand River
A Husband, a Mother, a Daughter, a Lover by Sand River, released 17 June 2012 my fingernails are scraping all the dead skin from my chest if i am constantly becoming, will i ever be at rest? well, there's just too much of myself bound up in everybody else to go on.
What a joy – Kwayze Judah and Iyanman Gabriel (LA, CA, USA)
Kwayze Judah found his musical roots as he grew up in Belize City and more specifically at Queen Anne’s nightclub which was owned by his grandmother, where world music shaped his musical identity.
Iyahman Gabriel had a more complex upbringing, both in the village township of Gringa-Dang, Belize and the streets of South Central LA. Two very different ghettos.
“Roots Reggae Music. Conscious Lyrics to promote Irie Vibes. We promote Ital Livity and Oneness with the Most High!!”
www.Jahbandismusic.com
Beauty and the Beats – Filthy Kicks (London)
Stuart played a Filthy Kicks track Crave on IR UK a couple of weeks ago which remind me that I was meaning to follow up the track Awaken that I played back in June on SnC223
This too is from the album Dirty Little Secret on Jamendo all tracks excellent tunes and beautifully produced.
Filthy Kicks are Darren Turze, Violeta Barrena, Roland Heap, Beats Boy, Ibrahim Sha’ath and Jana Skene.
You can download the MP3 album from Jamendo or trek over to the band’s site and you’ll have a choice of MP3, FLAC or glorious Apple lossless downloads.
Then you can just listen and enjoy it or accept the band’s invitation to share and remix their work under the Creative Commons licence arrangements: attribute it to Filthy Kicks, non-commercial use and distribution only under the same licence terms. Neat. Creative Commons is such a useful system.
www.filthykicks.co.uk/
www.myspace.com/filthykicks
www.jamendo.com/en/album/56612
Rude – Nando (New York, NY, USA)
Nando is a singer /songwriter who is equally adept at gliding over mellow one-drop reggae grooves, riding uptempo dancehall and soca riddims, or belting out pop and R&B tunes with a comfort that belies his Jamaican roots. While the majority of his catalogue either address male-female relationships or are meant to make you dance, Nando is not afraid to tackle social issues such as racism or single-parenthood.
That Nando would venture outside of the reggae boundaries on his debut EP is not surprising, as he draws inspiration from a diverse pool of illustrious musicians from across a wide range of genres for both his songwriting and his singing. Nando counts mainstream R&B singers, such as D’Angelo, Babyface, and Maxwell, and iconic reggae artistes such as Bob Marley and Beres Hammond, among his primary influences. However, he also points to Dave Brubeck, a less familiar name (at least among non-Jazz aficionados), as an early influence who eventually led to his love affair with jazz and the broadening of his repertoire beyond his native genre.
www.hearttoartmusic.com/
www.myspace.com/nandohearttoart
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=552347865
www.twitter.com/themusicofnando
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