Check out this piece in Paper Mag by our friend Billy Parish. 

Posted by Stephen Glicken
stephen@greenowl.om

Just caught the news on the net about Guruputting a prayer and praise into the universe on behalf of the MRE crew for one of our great voices and icons all of Gang Starr's work and the Jazzmatazz records had a big impact on me but i've posted two lesser known tracks that hit me on a personal level"The Planet" - Guru's story of making the move from Boston to NYC was my anthem, his story mirrored mine down to saying goodbye to the folks and getting on an Amtrak train with only a bag heading to the Big Apple and finally arriving in Brooklyn on the way to trying to create and make a living in hip-hopwhen he talked about working in the mailroom - well, i thought as I made copies and stuffed CDs and vinyl into jiffy packs at the temp job, if Guru got through this shit then i can tooI'm pretty sure I played this track really loud every morning before I got on the train at Clinton-Washington "Feel The Music" reminds me of partying at Giant Step in the LES, when I had 'made it' (at least in twenty-two year old terms), having that first real job and a steady place to live and finally getting a grip on a city which had damn near ground me down the year before16 years ago that Gang Starr record helped me get from one day to the next, for that I'm always grateful and that's why I'll be saying a prayer for Guru's recovery tonight

"Feel The Music" and "The Planet" here

peace
LEE
Midnight Rockers Express
US&THEM

Recently a friend turned me onto a band that he got into while living in southern Africa a few years ago. The video, which is a short film to accompany the track "Lulla", off of their latest album, Imidiwan: Companions, depicts part of the band's Saharan tapestry. Their debut album, The Radio Tisdas Sessions, which was recorded in the Malian desert and was released in 2001, brought them attention in Europe and in other parts outside of Africa.

The band describes themselves as,  "initially a loose collection of displaced Touareg musicians centred around Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, who, although born in Mali, grew up in the refugee camps near the Malian border in Algeria and later around the southern Algerian city of Tamanrasset following the suppression of the Touareg people by the new independent Malian government in the early 1960’s. Coming together in the late 1970’s with a shared passion for everything from traditional Touareg music & poetry to western rock and pop artists such as Hendrix, Santana, Bob Marley and Led Zeppelin, the collective steadily built their reputation in and around the Sahara desert."

Posted by Shilpa Nadhan

shilpa.nadhan@gmail.com

An album worth mentioning just came out on the great Post Present Medium label, headed by No Age’s Dean Spuntz. PPM has released records by many highly acclaimed left coast bands (Mika Miko, Wavves, and No Age of course) and the streak continues with the new LP/CD by Kyle Parker, here working under his Infinite Body alias. My first exposure to Infinite Body was a one-sided 12” on Arbor called A Series of False Awakenings, and I remember being surprised and charmed by this 17-minute musique concrete piece that drifted in and out of place, time, and melody. The kind of piece that feels unassuming at first but still holds up weeks and months later. After tracking down two other releases of his (a bristling, sometimes ecstatic LP called CMBCMEINAPTD and a stunning, meditative tape on Young Tapes), I am without question following future output…which brings us to this new album, called Carve Out the Face of My God.

I don’t think this music is inherently complicated, but when was that ever a prerequisite? Parker gets great mileage out of his setup—so far as I can tell, he’s often sourcing keyboards, melodica or something that achieves that same buzzing chordal quality through a ton of reverb and overdrive. What you end up with is music that seems to float above itself, achieving a kind of middle ground between the melodic gauze of shoegaze and the more traditional noise that he produced earlier under different names. And then sometimes all of the distortion is stripped down and everything sounds like it is being transmitted from a cathedral. Lovely.

He’s definitely doing this better than most people out there, so please…support this man. You can here the brief, cathedral-esque “Lived On Its Knees (For Matt)” from the new LP below.

posted by Ned Milligan

mistermilligan@yahoo.com

8 Bit Weapon has gained notoriety for the modification of old video game consoles as well as the production of retro synth music in the same vein. A recent modification, and the resulting sound has caught my attention. While it is something that may be well outdated, it is without a doubt cool. The digital music synthesizer for the Apple II computer. You just insert this floppy disk into your Apple II and start typing away. Listen to the results after the break, oh and if you want one of these floppies you can get it here. 

Posted by Sam Donahue
sam@greenowl.com

The people over at VICE have started a broadband television network that broadcasts news and features with the usual mix of music, food, sex and journalism. However, in their recent travel programming, they've put up the Vice Guide to Liberia. Three VICE producers travel around the civil war ravaged country with a journalist to document the atrocities, warlords, slums, rampant drugs and instability of the country in a five-part series. The result is one of the most gritty, unfiltered and close-up depictions of a country that will most likely slide into another civil war after the UN peacekeepers leave next year. 

By Shilpa Nadhan

shilpa.nadhan@gmail.com 

Matmos on Digital Technology and the Internet from John Vogel on Vimeo.

With the release of Mac's iPad this portion of my August 9th, 2009, interview with Matmos came to mind. Here is their response to my question regarding their feelings on digital distribution's encroachment on CD sales.

Posted by John Vogel
john.l.vogel@gmail.com

These guys are spot on. The Intelligence, based out of Seattle, with out a doubt live up to thier name. Thier songs are smart and their sound seems to progress with each new release. The intelligence remind me of chuck berry mixed with an electronic 13th floor elevators. With six full length albums and a hand full of ep's The Intelligence is by no means a new band, however each release maintains the kind of individuality and forward motion nessisary to keep from getting boring. Check out the songs below and see for yourself:

Posted by Sam Donahue
Sam@greenowl.com

Check out our boy CHLLNGR on the front page of submerge mag. Stay tuned for the EP dropping in March!

Posted by Stephen Glicken
stephen@greenowl.com

Hope everyone had a good January!

Earlier this month I started digging out some albums that I hadn’t really listened to in years and got reacquainted with them, among them three albums by the ferocious Don Caballero. Though they still exist, the only remaining original member is their (admittedly brilliant) drummer, Damon Che. For a few albums, Ian Williams (currently of Battles) was on board, and those records remain some of the best music of their time. Genre tags like “post rock” or “math rock” do a better job of describing the bands that used Don Cab as an influence and, generally speaking, rounded off the edges—the knock-offs aren’t always interesting to listen to, but I think the original is still frighteningly unique.

Don Cab’s last album before breaking up in late 2000 was American Don. Fueled by acrobatic loops and fractured riffs by Williams on guitar, it also featured new member Eric Emm on bass. A collaborator with Williams in Storm & Stress, this was Emm’s only appearance on record with Don Cab but his work stands out mostly by anchoring the two musicians who sound close to becoming untethered. I hadn’t given much thought to what he was doing in the past 10 years since that breakup, but apparently he had stayed active in bands like Good Morning and doing production work with his brother as…The Brothers. Now there’s Tanlines, his latest project, this one a partnership with Jesse Cohen, formerly of Professor Murder and concurrently of Restless People. And Tanlines is what I’m here to talk about, sorry about the history lesson…

Tanlines have been playing around New York for sometime now but haven’t released much—in fact, they’ve been busy on the remix front, doing production for Telepathe and the Tough Alliance, among others. But with the recent digital release of “Real Life” and the upcoming Settings EP in early March, that will change. I’m a relatively recent convert myself, but I suggest you might enjoy their music as well. In “Real Life,” which you can hear below, the keyboards jumps out instantly but are quickly colored by that lovely gliding guitar sound. There’s more going on than appears at first glance, yet you could probably hum this song after hearing it once. (Turns out Eric is a pretty decent singer, too!) And the lyrics are simple and humble in an oddly comforting way—“You might still think I’m that way/It’s only natural/It was a past life thing/it wasn’t anything at all.” I think anyone who has generally been into DFA output these past couple years should be excited by this and ready to hear more. “Real Life” is below and be sure to enjoy the song “S.A.W.” from a recent 7” here too.

Posted by Ned Milligan

mistermilligan@yahoo.com

I was at a club in a town called Castro in Chile last night and looked up to see the video above. Amazing! Some funny shit.

Posted by Stephen Glicken
stephen@greenowl.com

Grandchildren featured in Beyond Race magazine. Click here to read full article.

Posted by Stephen Glicken
stephen@greenowl.com

Many trees in North America, including firs, spruces and other greens are in danger of becoming nothing but dead leaves and grasslands because of beetle invasions. We are in the midst of one of the worst insect invasions in decades. But recently, Richard Hofsetter, a beetle expert at Northern Arizona University, found out that he could deter beetles from ravaging the trees by driving them crazy through sounds. The experiment started off with GNR albums and recordings of Rush Limbaugh, but found better success when the beetles were exposed to high frequency aggression calls made by the male beetles. The beetles got so annoyed, they would literally dig themselves out of plexiglass in order to escape the sounds. Hofsetter intends to outfit trees this Spring with speakers emitting sounds in hopes that it will deter beetle invasions and save millions of acres of forest.

Posted by Shilpa Nadhan

shilpa.nadhan@gmail.com 

Ninjasonik's new mixtape -- Strictly For My Hipstaz!!!  DANCE!!!

Duck Sauce – aNYway (Ninjasonik’s Boosted Hot Sauce Mix)
Udachi & Jubilee – Paypur (Ninjasonik Remix)
Major Lazer vs. Ninjasonik – Pon De Floor vs. Somebody Gonna Get Pregnant
Major Lazer – Pon De Floor (Ninjasonik Remix feat. Tasleems and MNDR)
Johnny Nelson & Ease Da Man – Watch Yo Girl
Theophilus London – Humdrum Town
Ninjasonik – She’s My Pharmacist
Q Lazarus – Goodbye Horses
Abstract Truth – (We Had) A Thing (Matty’s Body & Soul Remix)
Kenna – Say Goodbye To Love (Ninjasonik Remix)
Treasure Fingers – Cross The Dancefloor (Ninjasonik Remix)
AC Slater feat Ninjasonik – Take You
Ninjasonik & Kicks Like A Mule – It’s Ok (Extended Mix)
Mr. Starcity – Welcome To Starcity
Ninjasonik feat Ease Da Man – NOFUNFORUGLYGIRLS
Memberz Only – Fuck Outta Here
Johnny Nelson feat Ninjasonik – Put Em In A Bodybag

Posted by Vanessa Bronfman
vanessa@greenowl.com

This past week around the world we’ve been focused on the recent earthquake in Haiti. As disastrous as it was, there are three remarkable things worth highlighting that have occurred as a result of the earthquake:

·     The announcement on Friday by the Department of Homeland Security’s Janet Napolitano that Haitians in the US would be granted TPS or Temporary Protected Status.  Major hats off need to be given to the Administration for acting so quickly after a flood of pleas and letters to the White House had asked for Haitians TPS. For those that are unaware of what TPS does, it gives temporary humanitarian immigration relief in nations that have experienced a disaster (anything from a genocide to a tsunami) by allowing nationals to apply for work authorization, apply for travel back home with a guaranteed re-entry into the US, and prevents them from being deported or held in immigration detentions. Which, you know, helps when you have to send money, aid or help back to family and friends who need assistance back home.

·     To date, over $16 million dollars have been donated via mobile phones to Haiti Earthquake Relief.

·     The Boston Globe has posted an amazing “Big Picture” photo essay of Haiti in the six days of aftermath, with incredible photos of looting and rubble rescue team efforts. The picture above is just one of many of the shocking and stunning photos in the series. You can check it out here:

Posted by Shilpa Nadhan

shilpa.nadhan@gmail.com