Enon Acoustic

As mentioned a couple of posts ago, i had a chance to see Enon live again recently at the HereIStay festival in Sardinia. A couple of days later, while in Cagliari with Tostoini, we climbed into the car to hear Enon once again, performing and being interviewed for a local radio show called On Repeat.
The following week, back home in Duino, i tracked the show down online and found most episodes to be downloadable on its website. Something we hadn't heard at the time were the two acoustic versions that Enon played live in that occasion.
Since i've been listening to them over and over for the past weeks, i separated them from the rest of the recording for enhanced comfort. And since i've been appreciating the songs so much, i've decided to share them here.

Enon - Sabina (Acoustic live @ OnRepeat)
Enon - High Society (Acoustic live @ OnRepeat)
(right click to etcetera)

Unplugged sessions from Enon are something extremely rare, especially considering how versatile they are with electronic implements in studio (most of their creative process admittedly occurs there), and how energetically electric they are live. Sabina -from the recent Grass Geysers Carbon Clouds album- is rearranged here in an almost bossa fashion whilst maintaining most of the strength of the original. High Society, from the eponymous 2002 album, is performed in a slightly lackluster form but is still an interesting listen.

OnRepeat, the radio show which apparently generates live acoustic sessions only because the studio reportedly isn't big enough for electric ones, also has a fair amount of other interesting podcasts available at this link. There's plenty of good stuff to choose from: i personally ran immediately towards an episode with Comaneci and another with a band called June, of whom more will be said in an upcoming post.
Even Trabant recorded with them back in December. Here's hoping they release that podcast soon, too.

Dorival Caymmi, 1914-2008

I was shocked this morning to hear the news of Dorival Caymmi's death. He was 94 years old, so it shouldn't have been that much of a surprise, but it still feels like a strong presence is suddenly gone. Oh, he's still here of course, his songs are still all over the place and inspiring people every day. (Coincidentally, my winamp had been playing his songs on random much more often than usual over the past 2 days. Maybe it was trying to tell me something.)
You've heard his songs, even if you may not know it. Over the years, from the late forties onwards, his songs have been all over the place.

I've made a little compilation, with a dozen of his songs - as performed by himself and by many of his colleagues and a couple of tributes.
You can download it here. Link removed due to a DMCA copyright claim! The whole thing can be heard at this Spotify link, minus the offending track (the one from Jobim's final studio album, which apparently is now in copyright limbo).

Dorival was one of the giants that came before our musical forefathers, and his songs are part of the cultural mud that links us all and it's always good to go back to the genius and the simplicity of his songs, as if we were lizards remembering the time they were dinosaurs.


A quick runthrough of the compilation contents:
Gilberto Gil & Nana Caymmi - Buda Nagô
A tribute to the master, penned by Gilberto Gil and sung with Dorival's daughter (and Gil's ex-wife) Nana. I first heard this song at my first GG concert, back in 1997. It's from the 1991 Parabolicamara album.
Caetano Veloso - Coqueiro De Itapoã
From the 1982 Cores, Nomes album.
Stan Getz & João Gilberto - Doralice
From the quintessential Getz/Gilberto album, 1962. Once again, 24 years after the first time, a Dorival song is included in an international hit album.
Arto Lindsay & The Ambitious Lovers - Dora
Even in the New York post-No Wave, a Caymmi classic can't help showing up.
Tom Jobim & Dorival Caymmi - Saudade da Bahia
A beautiful, heartfelt rendition from two masters of 20th century brasilian popular music.
Carmen Miranda - O que è que a bahiana tem
From the late thirties, the first brasilian superstar makes this Caymmi song an instant classic.
Garganta Profunda - 365 Igrejas
I love the arrangement on this version, it works so perfectly.
The song has one of my absolute favourite lyrics, beautifully simple:
365 Igrejas, a bahia tem
Numa eu me batizei
Na segunda eu me crismei
Na terceira eu vou casar com uma mulher que eu quero bem
It doesn't get much simpler, or better than that. Why try to write complicated, thoughtful lyrics when things like this exist?
Elza Soares - Rosa Morena
An exceptional version from an exceptional voice.
João Gilberto - Rosa Morena
No version is however better than this one. This is from the famous session where João used up an inordinate amount of takes - 59 i think - just to get the right sound on the first "o" of the first word.
Gilberto Gil - Marina
Too poppy and overproduced perhaps (it was, after all, 1979) but it still works. Some songs are exceptionally hard to do wrong.
Tom Jobim - Maricotinha
From Jobim's final album, another duet. This time with plenty of jobims and caymmis on the backing track - they both had very extended musical families, most of whom were part of Jobim's recording team. A video of the rehearsals can be seen here.
Marlui Miranda & Ulisses Rocha - Promessas de Pescador
Even in such a different arrangement, the basics remain.
João Gilberto - Na Baixa Do Sapateiro
João's guitar sings one of Dorival's most famous songs. A classic rendition, Caetano recorded a cover of it (yes, a cover of a cover) on his Livro album, in 1997.
João Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil - Milagre
The way the three voices blend together is a true marvel.
Gilberto Gil - Buda Nago
Gilberto Gil reprises his tribute, this time solo voice and guitar, at a 1993 concert in Umbria with Caetano Veloso.
Dorival Caymmi - Na Baixa Do Sapateiro
Just Dorival and his guitar.

I Hear A Symphony - a photoset on Flickr

"Instead of resting, as i was on the good side of tipsy, i started taking pictures of the very, very rare Pizzicato Five DVD box set which i had recently acquired, and of the images it created on my monitor.
This is probably the nerdiest photoset i have ever made and that i ever will, period.

This series is intended to be viewed as a slideshow."

Taken between 19:26 and 19:31 of Saturday, 29th of March 2008.
The Mp3 of the video pictured is here. (single version - 6.4Mb 201kps VBR Mp3 - Right click to download)

Sardinian posts coming soon, promise.

And then suddenly, a weekend download.

Since i've already had to email it around three times, i've decided to make this a weekend download. Exceptionally, it's actually being posted on a weekend. Huzzah!

A bit of backstory. I first heard this song a couple of days ago in the latest edition of Polypunk, the sort-of-monthly podcast by Digiki which i listen to regularly and often repeatedly much to my hard disk's chagrin. This time around the podcast was Daft Punk themed, so i suggested it to people via Twitter.
The item which captivated most people's interest is the one i'm sharing here today, a completely acoustic cover of Daft Punk's Digital Love by Alphabeat, a scandinavian band i was previously unaware of.

Alphabeat - Digital Love (128kps Mp3, 2.7Mb - Right-click to download) File removed because it was taking up loads of bandwidth even going past googlepages' limits, which is quite impressive but also means you've probably all downloaded it by now and i might as well upload something else instead.

As i was saying elsewhere the other day, it's the kind of thing that makes you feel like learning those three or four chords on the battered-up guitar you keep on top of the wardrobe and go out and entertain people on beaches. Possibly people with an attention span short enough to be entertained by the same song over and over.

In completely unrelated news, the webmaster has once again entered an only-listening-to-kahimi-karie loophole and is actually thinking of devoting an entire week of posts to her works. He will gladly accept bribes to keep him from doing this.

More snippets

Just a few tidbits found across the interwebs on a particularly procrastinating (procrastinative?) day.

Quote of the other Day:

"My entire career has been a secret plan to get this job. I applied before but I got knocked back because the BBC wanted someone else. Also I was seven."

-Steven Moffatt, writer, new executive producer for Doctor Who starting in 2010 and genius.

Also notice how cool the Guardian commercial in that there link is.
(it feels kind of wierd to type "2010" and realize it's only about a year and a half away. Can't help thinking of the Cornelius track of the same name from 1996, which still implied it to be in the distant future.)

Extramegafuckingbig download of the day:

All the sample sources for DJ Shadow's seminal Endtroducing... album. All seventy of them.
(via Ted Mills)

Cats are the new porn:

Gato island: new cat pictures added every weekday.
Which reminds me i should post some pics of Gato which i've been promising people for some time. The internet is, after all, finally revealing itself as just another part of the big secret plan for feline world domination.

On the Winamp: Akron/Family - Lake Song/New Ceremonial Music For Moms

Weekend Download: O Futebol

We're sort of staying in the same world as last week: after all there's not much of a distance between Vinicius Cantuaria and Arto Lindsay. Today's song is quite the rarity, a cover Arto recorded in 2006 of Chico Buarque's composition O Futebol, for a football-themed compilation called PlayUp.

Arto Lindsay - O Futebol (285kps VBR 7Mb 3:21 Mp3)
Credits here; lyrics here.

This song was sent to me by Guerolito, a very very kind reader, and i think this post shows how much i appreciated it! Incidentally, the original compilation seems like a rather interesting find for anyone who manages to get their hands on it: Besides Arto, it also features occasional collaborators Waldemar Bastos and Jun Miyake, plus italian reggae band Africa Unite (who once published a dvd where my presence in the audience is quite visible, or so i've heard) and a number of acts i've never heard from but seem to be worth looking into considering the top quality of the others. Keeping in line with the coincidences, Jun Miyake's thank you list includes Ramuntcho Matta, a name which is all too familiar to me in more than one way. Yet another thing i'll have to keep an eye on.

(Template color opinion update: blue was kind of bleah, grey slightly better but still bleah-ish.)

Fun with UbuWeb

Some links from the quintessential online archive, in case there's still someone i haven't forwarded these to personally. I usually visit ubu.com for the avantgarde audio and video archives, but occasionally come across unexpected gems like the following, which deserve greater diffusion.

Kenny G meets John Zorn (No, really)

The Gaylords sing american hits in italian (from the 2007 365 days project)

A visit to the Postojna Caves (Sadly, it makes no mention of the fantastic hot-dog stand outside - a favourite childhood memory of mine. However, may i suggest an expedition to accompany this soundtrack? Pino, ci sei?)

Telemundo - Dificultades tecnicas (probably the funkiest beat i've heard today)

The Most Wanted Song and The Most Unwanted Song (Featuring Vernon Reid on guitar, ladies and gentlemen!)

Weekend Download: Ominira

I had quite a surprise -and a pleasant one- the other day whilst listening to Vinicius Cantuaria's new album, Cymbals, when i realized one track was most familiar. And no, i'm not talking about the new Jobim cover he records for each new album (this time around it's Vivo Sonhando).
The song was Ominira, which i'd heard before on Lisa Ono's wonderful 2004 collection of lusafrican songs Naima ~meu anjo~. A little bit of research made me discover the song was written by Vinicius in 2002, with lyrics co-written by Angelique Kidjo for her Black Ivory Soul album.
Romero Lubambo, who was the guitarist on that album, brought the song into Lisa Ono's repertoire when working on Naima. And now Vinicius Cantuaria rerecorded his own version, complete with new portuguese lyrics.
Why so many versions? Easy: Ominira is one lovely song. And i've decided to share all three versions here.
(As always, right-click to save)

Vinicius Cantuaria - Ominira (2007) (320kps 10Mb 4:21 Mp3)

Lisa Ono - Ominira (2004) (160kps 5Mb 4:20 Mp3)

Angelique Kidjo - Ominira (2002) (192kps 6Mb 4:23 Mp3) (credits here)

There, now you can decide which version you like best. I already know which one's my favourite!

One last little thing i was wondering: Ominira is the Yoruba word for Freedom, yet this website says the lyrics are in Fon. Can anybody out there confirm or deny this?

First thought of the day

Knowledge (and, if possible, a demographic) of how much people are paying for the new radiohead album is definitely more valuable than the album itself.

Actually, i'm pretty certain that somewhere in the world there must be someone who's thinking of how to hack the website just to get that information.


UPDATE: This website asks people how much they paid, but very cheekily doesn't give the results (unless you're one of the people who gave them the info for free). And it's very cheekily been set up by an online magazine which also does music business consulting. How unsurprising.

...is off again.

Once again, i'm leaving. Once again, to a festival. Once again, to a festival like no other.
And it also seems that in each of these festivals i have and will show a different face. In Rototom Sunsplash it was the face of the translator and bon viveur. At ItaliaWave it was that of the webeditor and music enthusiast (and, surprisingly, of the good team worker). In Guča, it will be that of the anthropologist and drunkard.
If you've clicked the link, you should already have seen that the previous sentence is thoroughly justified. However, it is my pleasure to leave you with this 1951 recording made by Alan Lomax during his travels through Serbia:
Library of Traditional and Primitive Music - Frula Duet(Serbia) (128kps mp3, 1.5Mb)
I dare you to figure out the tempo, especially in the final section. Anyone who succeeds wins a prize.

So, anyway. I'll be away for a week or more. This time i can't promise updates, because who knows when and where i'll be finding an internet connection. What i have done is to put a twitter update on the sidebar. I'll try to update that (from my cellphone) just to reassure people that i'm still alive.

When Great Bands Suck

I was going to post my ultra-rare edition of Sgt. Pepper, but far be it from me to succumb to all this tacky celebration-ing. Instead, we have something fascinating in its own right, thanks to badness.

As you very well should know if you're carbon-based, one of The Greatest Bands Of All Times recently reformed, reuniting all three original members and are currently touring. You may think this is a rather common circumstance nowadays, but finding a band with all three characteristics (reunited, original members, touring) is, i assure, extremely rare. And keeping high in quality, no less. So of course it's Police we're talking about here.

Indeed, some days ago i came across a link to an Mp3 of their second live gig of 2007, in Vancouver, and promptly procured myself it in the manner that is typical of this kind of ethereal artifact.

When i first heard this recording, however, i could tell something was wrong. I didn't pay too much attention to the feeling and went on doing my stuff, thinging my things. Then i read Stewart Copeland's fascinating, hilarious and utterly sincere post - on his own forum, of all places!
(Tnx to Pelodia for pointing me there)

We crash through MESSAGE and then go strait[sic] into SYNCHRONICITY. But there is just something wrong. We just can’t get on the good foot. We shamble through the song and hit the big ending. Last night Sting did a big leap for the cut-off hit, and he makes the same move tonight, but he gets the footwork just a little bit wrong and doesn’t quite achieve lift-off. The mighty Sting momentarily looks like a petulant pansy instead of the god of rock.

-S. Copeland, on the 27 May 2007 Police concert in Vancouver.

Since it's out there anyway, this is one of the many places you may find said recording of said show. 173 Megabytes of poorly recorded rock music, played rather badly by three of the greatest musicians of the genre. Perhaps the most fascinating thing you'll hear this month. (Link courtesy of some guy in a mailing list i still tolerate receiving on an email account i hardly ever check, anyway. It probably won't last so grab it while you still can.)

You will enjoy this.
And as for that hyper-rare Sgt. Pepper version which anybody who's known me for more than a day has heard me at least mention, just wait and it'll eventually make it to these pages. As if today's offering wasn't enough.


Pictured above: first Google Images result for "police+vancouver"

Disclaimer: The webmaster is not responsible for the unauthorized recording, digitalization or uploading of this concert. I am not hosting it on my server and don't even have one as a matter of fact. It is not being used for commercial purposes nor should it be, it is merely being shared for study and analysis. It is freely available all over the internet anyway and is actually quite bad in the first place.

Happy 66th, Captain Beefheart!

It's The Captain's Birthday! Don Van Vliet is 66 today and that already makes it one of the best days in the year. It is usually a matter of celebration on this website. This year, however, we don't really have anything ready. This is not a problem though, because we here at WGD are rather good at improvising.
Therefore, this whole week will be dedicated to The Good Captain in one way or another. For starters, i think we should remind you of what makes the man so important. So here's a link to a 1991 interview which has recently been made into a short film.
And here is an Mp3 of The Captain performing Orange Claw Hammer, guitar backing courtesy of mr. F.Zappa.

Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa - Orange Claw Hammer - 160kps 5.3Mb Mp3

Lyrics:

Orange Claw Hammer

Uh thick cloud caught uh piper clubs tail
The match struck blue on uh railroad rail
The old puff horse was just pullin' thru
'n uh man wore uh peg leg forever
I'm on the bum where the hoboes run
The air breaks with filthy chatter
Oh I don't care there's no place there
I don't think it matters
My skin's blazin' thru
'n my clothes in tatters
'n the railroad looked
Like uh "Y" up the hill of ladders
Ohe shoe fell on the gravel
One stick poked down
Gray of age fell down on uh pair of ears
An eagle shined thru my hole watch pocket
Uh gingham girl baby girl
Passed me by in tears
Uh jack rabbit raised his folded ears
Uh beautiful sagebrush jack rabbit
'n an oriole sang like an orange
His breast full uh worms
'n his tail clawed the evenin' like uh hammer
His wings took t' air like uh bomber
'n my rain can caught me uh cup uh water
When I got into town
Odd jobs mam ah yer horse I'll fodder
I'm the round house man
I once was yer father
Uh little up the road uh wooden
Candy stripe barber pole
'n above it read uh sign "Painless Parker"
Lic-licorice twisted around under uh fly
'n uh youngster cocked 'er eye
God before me if I'm not crazy
Is my daughter
Come little one with yer little dimpled fingers
Gimme one 'n I'll buy you uh cherry phosphate
Take you down t' the foamin' brine 'n water
'n show you the wooden tits
On the Goddess with the pole out s'full sail
That tempted away yer peg legged father
I was shanghaied by uh high hat beaver moustache man
'n his pirate friend
I woke up in vomit 'n beer in uh banana bin
'n uh soft lass with brown skin
Bore me seven babies with snappin' black eyes
'n beautiful ebony skin
'n here it is I'm with you my daughter
Thirty years away can make uh seaman's eyes
Uh round house man's eyes flow out water
Salt water

-Don Van Vliet, 1969

Joyeux Joel

I was fiddling with a couple of soundfiles this morning when i came across something unexpected. What i needed was 2 minutes of white sound, interference or just noise in general. Since i was feeling rather on the lazy uncreative side, i just told myself "Huh. That useless Joe's X-Masage Zappa album had two one-minute musique concréte pieces. Nobody'll notice if i take one of them and extend it to two minutes." Yes, i was feeling very lazy. The endproduct wasn't really for me, anyway.
So i took a 56 second track ("mousie's first x-mas") and arbitrarily extended it to 2 minutes. While i did this, i noticed something wierd: the left and right channel were two completely different tracks altogether. Once doubled in length, what was going on became clear: the composition had a completely electronic/manipulated magnetic tape left track, while the right track was part of a hitherto unheard orchestral composition. All this at double speed.*

The other short musique concréte track ("The Moon Will Never Be The Same"), which proved to be much the same in style, especially when extended from 1:10 to 2:20. Approximately.
An example can sort of be seen in the screenshot below:


Goldwave dealing with Zappa. Two channels, different lengths.


All i could do now was save the soundfiles, put them on the internet and look for something else to sample, splice, dice and maim for my own filthy plans.
So, for all you scholars out there...

Frank Zappa - Mousie's First X-mas(extended 2x) - 128kps 2min Stereo Mp3
Frank Zappa - The Moon Will Never Be The Same(extended 2x) - 128kps 2min20sec Stereo Mp3

And furthermore:

Mousie's First X-mas (extended left channel only) - 128k mono that sounds like stereo mp3
Mousie's First X-mas (extended right channel only) - 128k stereo that sounds like mono mp3
The moon will never be the same (extended left channel only) - 128k stereo that sounds like mono mp3
The moon will never be the same (extended right channel only) - 128k mono that sounds like stereo mp3

All recordings approx. 1962-63.

Edit: Tracks now hosted on a more powerful and trustworthy server. Grazie Pelodia signorFurpo!

*my reaction upon discovering the accelerated tracks: "Cool, i do that all the time."