Russian Folk Songs

Slowly sorting the upload problems, and this one is worth the wait. The Dmitri Pokrovsky Folk Ensemble doing a selection of traditional tunes, and doing them fantastically. I will admit to buying this because the cover was a little psychedelic, and it turned out to be a great purchase. Mr. Pokrovsky was, it seems, a well known and respected enthusiast for traditional Slavic folk music, and he put together a group capable of covering some diverse styles brilliantly. This one is from 1979 is unaccompanied vocals that manage to be both other-worldly and rollicking. I'm a sucker for a good choral record, and this most definitely is one. скачать

Chinese Rocks

Another recent but highly limited and semi bootleg slab of vinyl. Direct from Outhouse Records (?) and on vaguely racist yellow vinyl, 'Chinese Rocks' is a collection of top notch South East Asian rock'n'roll madness. Mostly from Hong Kong and Singapore, it's the sound of western youth culture being reinterpreted and reshaped, a musical concept that I love.  Many of these bands were undoubtedly playing the lounges of hotels or in 'foreign' bars and these recordings may have been little more than an attempt to cash in on an assumed hipness, but there's some wild musical abandon here, and it is good. Find it here.

Tribute To Farid El Atrache

As I lagged last week (visitors, thanksgiving, work, Vinjak, beer, chaos) here's a good one to make it all up for you, one of two excellent under $5 Omar Khorshid scores. He is, to my mind, as good a guitarist as you'll find. Effect drenched Egyptian surf guitar? One side Mr. Clapton, this is the business, and Omar's a suave devil in his Adidas trackie top too. Farid is a star as well, that's him in the header (for the next week or so anyway). Music is here. You absolutely should buy the fantastic Sublime Frequencies compilation which has been reissued on CD with bonus tracks.

Meanwhile, in Slovenia

Yeah, I'm lagging but after turkey washed down with Vinjak it's a miracle I can even type. Music in the next day or so. Opa!

Put The Blame On The Master

A very nice vinyl only compilation of Jamaican gospel sounds. Limited to 250 copies and essentially a bootleg (certainly has the pressing quality of one) with next to no track information, 'Put The Blame On The Master' is not your standard Jamaican fare. It's largely American style gospel from the islands, my guess is ranging from 1950's to the 70's. There's some tracks carried by enthusiasm more than talent, and others that are well slick, but they're all great. Tracks are here.

video fun

Via Aruna Irani, some fantastic Bollywood hotness.

Via Dapper Ben P, some fantastic Serbian biker disco.

Bhangra Fever

Bhangra Fever! All produced by Mr. Deepak Khazanchi and it's crazy t UK disco-bhangra all the way. Mad cheap synth sounds and storming beats are here.

#1

OK, here we go again with an attempt at a private music blog. Simply going to provide access for the interested few to some of the weirder bits and bobs of the record collection, mostly obscure and out of print (excuse any copyright violations) and mostly digitized vinyl (excuse any sound quality issues) I'll try to keep it along the Discostan vibe but will foray into the New World when it damn well suits me. As a test run, here's the first suitable thing I came to in the computer archive. Truly odd and definitely patchy collection of Russian artists covering 'Revolver'. Personally I think the Liverpool Lads are better with more accordions. The files are here, download at will.