it’s hard getting back into the groove after new year, especially when sydney has just exploded with touring bands, festivals, film events and so much more. january in sydney is when most of the year’s major cultural events happen, both high brow and low brow. last week i caught the wonderful philip glass and his orchestra playing a live simultaneous score to the classic ‘koyanasqatsi’, plus the opening international program in the flickerfest short film festival. this weekend, i’m looking forward to the tom waits / william s.burroughs / robert wilson theatre collaboration ‘the black rider’, the sydney premiere of the ramones documentary, plus i’m dj-ing as support for sydney’s excellent decoder ring. and then there’s next week…
CARLOS LIBEDINSKY [ARGENTINA]
piano secucencia mp3
some tango electronica for you (by way of introduction to two latin influenced tracks on today’s blog). there appears to be a growing body of artists working in electronica in argentina – acida, el cholo, index, alex krygier, but it would seem that carlos libendinsky is at the forefront of this movement thanks to his recent release ‘narcotango’. described as a collection of music for the moment at a tango club where exhaustion gives way to experimentation, where tradition fades and improvisation takes over. libendinsky talks about this being the ‘narcotic power of the tango’. you can find more information and short audio extracts at carloslibedinsky.com.
NOVALIMA [PERU]
sunday canon mp3
one of the best (in many cases only) way to find new music from some regions is the glorious compilation CD. don’t be fooled by dumb titles (e.g. ‘bellydance extravaganza!’) or garish covers of latin women in bikinis – behind many a facade can lie some excellent music. the ‘essential beats / flavas’ series has been consistently excellent – three volumes of contemporary asian beats, one brazilian and two latin. novalima are a peruvian band that i found through the compilation ‘essential latin flavas dos‘ with their track ‘ritmos negros’. they are a four-piece ‘collective’, scattered around the world in bacelona, hong kong, london and lima. that’s what i call a real international collaboration. they describe their music as “heavily driven by afro-peruvian and latin percussions, blended with downtempo, dub, broken and house beats”. [site]
CALAMALKA [CANADA]
hear the most mp3
vancouver based musician michael campitelli surfaces here with an outstanding collection of electronic dub on his newly released for the plug research label ‘shredder’s dub’. i do enjoy a healthy dose of old school dub now and again – but i’ve also been impressed with the newer schools too, such as france’s jarring effects label, and the material on ~scape (such as deadbeat). calamalka‘s album also touches on the crossover region between dub and downtempo hip hop, and is a great addition to the plug stable. check out plug’s epitonic page for downloads from daedelus, dntel and john tejada.
JENS LEKMAN [SWEDEN]
at the department of forgotten songs mp3
i featured this guy back in october, but you can’t keep a good blackly comedic singer / songwriter down. this track is culled from a large collection of rare and unreleased songs over at secretlycanadian.com – as it also doubles for the section name on the site, it seemed like an apt mp3 to pick. i also dig this mp3 as it kicks off with a mournfully eerie instrumental segment that plays for half the track.