Stylus presents a mini-mix of some of the tracks that will be featured in this week’s Beatz by the Pound…

Tracklist
01: Trippy Disco - Mote I Verdensrommet [buy]
02: Matt Vega and Morten Fresh - Instant Corruption (Nino Raro Deepend Mix) [buy]
03: Galen - Playing Games (Claude Vonstroke His Chucky Cheeze Mix) [buy]
04: Laszlo Beckett - Bleep Me Daddy [buy]
05: Redshape - Species [buy]
06: Half Hawaii - Into You [buy]
07: Carsten Jost - Love [buy]
08: Mala - Bury the Bwoy [buy]

�He described Hemingway pacing up and down in his den, saying: �There is another dimension. I am fully aware of it, but I can�t get to it. So he was trapped in his reporting of externals, his faithfulness to the surface, to words actually said.� — Literary hearsay, James Boyd quoting Ernest Hemingway, as written by Anais Nin

�I can’t be confined to an earthly plane even though I was, like, born here and everything.� — Albert Ayler

Funny things, words. Hemingway, forever awaiting his apotheosis, stabbed at reality with all he had�taut sentences and good ol� American vernacular�and came up short. Human sentiment echoes forever and seventy years later, I press on writing about music. And somewhere between me and Hemingway, free jazz leviathan Albert Ayler threw off convention and reached for that next dimension. The baptismal font, Live in Greenwich Village, compiles two separate performances from �66 and �67, punctuating the wild arc of Ayler�s career as his finest moment. Comparisons to New Orleans brass abound, Ayler takes his transcendent jazz and puts it on parade in �Truth Is Marching In.�

The dynamic tilt, which I guess might be shaped like a parabola, starts off unassuming enough and falls off into the very depths of expression. The ensemble shudders awake in unison�the last time they will all be seen together. Saxophone and trumpet wander and, every now and then, find themselves in the same rut for a few moments. Michael Sampson�s violin repents with lonely buzzsaw scrapes and somewhere around there, the entire production around him just sort of takes off. Brother/Trumpeter Donald Ayler�s Pentecostal wails are briefly tied down to firm Dixieland melodies and then swept up again by a squall of Sunny Murray�s cymbals and drums�taking his tremulous swoons and squawks out of the march and into the crowd. Sampson too jumps in and bleeds everywhere. And then, when it seems everything�s flying a little close to the sun, then Ayler funnels in the tempo, is rebuffed once, until it all gives way: Murray grinds his sticks into the ground, the Aylers squeeze out their last notes, and the trombone stumbles into a ditch.

�Truth Is Marching In�s enormous, gasping production lies somewhere between a requiem and a hallelujah (it served as the former at John Coltrane�s funeral). The notes are sprawling and tap into all the crevices and�suffice to say, whatever it is he does should just be listened to.

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Famous Jug Band � Saro Jane

Of late I�ve turned to digging up past gems more than discovering new blood. It�s difficult, given my current locale, to comment on up-and-coming local artists or acts kind enough to grace the musically-forsaken backwoods south of Atlanta known as Florida. Suffice it to say the whole �keep an eye out for ____� game grows somewhat wearisome when there�s no one to play with. One Langerado-filled weekend does not a music scene make. As a result, I�ve hunted and clambered from one user�s shared files to another�s in an attempt to unearth a time or place or people yet unknown to me.

The Famous Jug Band, often described as �eclectic� or �short-lived,� is fascinating because they�re one of few bands to fall somewhere between the one-album-wonders and supergroup-side-projects. �Saro Jane� has been covered by just about everyone under the sun with a penchant for traditional music ranging from Bob Dylan (though he calls her Sarah) to the Kingston Trio. However, not many of them contain a rumbling jug solo no more than 40 seconds in. While most would rank the sanity of a man blowing across an inanimate item on par with that of the man talking to one, the members of the Famous Jug Band aren�t the type to give a fig. Instead they give the lyrics of this song an opinionated twist, and it isn�t a far cry to consider it political commentary when they sing, �the white man fell through a hole in a wall� in 1969.

Famous Jug Band � Can�t Stop Thinking About It

�Happiness is free / Everyone agrees / But if it grew on trees / We�d all pine for pain and misery�

Upon reflection, I�m forced to conclude this jug is happy to be half-empty because it knows someone once drank of it. These are people who�ve �got nothing to do but sit around and sing;� they have stories, and sun showers, and women who�ve left them �playing the only friend [they] own� at the turn of a decade gone terribly awry (moon landing aside). They�ve found something past Clive Palmer�s Incredible Strings, past the youthful vigor of Jill Johnson�s vocals, and allowed it to mingle alongside jug-player Henry Bartlett�s breathing into the most seemingly innocent of objects.

At one point the Famous Jug Band proclaims, �I�ll smile if you want me to.� I know they will; it�s what they do, even with a place and people who�ll probably go unknown to them, and I�ve little doubt of their sincerity.

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This week: your guide to Sophisti-pop, a genre popular in the ’80s and early ’90s in England, curated by Alfred Soto and Thomas Inskeep…

Tracklist
01: ABC - When Smokey Sings
02: Aztec Camera - Somewhere In My Heart
03: The Blow Monkeys - Diggin� Your Scene
04: Bryan Ferry - Don�t Stop The Dance
05: Curiosity Killed The Cat - Misfit
06: Johnny Hates Jazz - Shattered Dreams
07: Living In A Box - Living In A Box
08: Sade - Smooth Operator
09: Swing Out Sister - Breakout
10: The Style Council - My Ever-Changing Moods

I was a little rude to some people on Facebook recently. These folks, clearly non-metalheads, belonged to an interest group posing obnoxiously as a mock Death Metal band. I told them to fuck off, and suck the cocks in Hell. But now I�m feeling somewhat guilty. They might not have realized that it was intended as kind of an affable greeting between fellow DM enthusiasts. Also, it occurs to me that Death Metal means something different to people who have been exposed to the concept as it�s surfaced in mainstream pop culture during the past few years. It means something so laughable, artless, and borderline unbearable even to me, that I can�t help but sympathize with non-metallers taking a piss on one of my sacred cows. So what can a poor boy do, except to slaughter that beast Death Metal and root out whatever tale its profusion of guts has to tell�

The song �Homage for Satan� from Deicide�s recent Stench of Redemption album is state-of-the-art Brutal Death Metal, the pick of 2006 according to many. It has two standout qualities: good guitar solos, and the fact that its enthusiasm for fulfilling certain �extreme� commercial parameters actually sounds really, really funny. Aging bandleader Glen Benton is by some accounts a Satanic Death Metal vocal god. He�s good at what he does, no question. In parts of this track it sounds as if he�s bellowing, �moo moo moo, wugga bugga moo moooo� as loud as he can, in perfect time with the instrumental 4/4 quickstep. I�m sure this operation requires a lot of breath control and precision timing. I know from experience. So the mental image of Benton psychologically composed and poised to deliver his lines in the studio�well what can one say in the face of pure mayhem, so carefully contrived! If you actually make it to the chorus, the multi-tracked demonic baby talk sing-along is truly maddening, and even funnier. Melodic lead guitar playing in the flashy Maiden/Priest-based tradition is the revamped band�s new ace-in-the-hole. The extended solos are dazzling, and offer a respite from the vocals, filling in space above a changeless even flow of metronomic riff patterns. �Homage for Satan� is so obviously a studio-assembled product, you can practically count off the merits of the song with the regularity of a ticking clock; which I guess makes it kind of like an un-sexy alternative to �Sunglasses at Night.� And what�s the point of that? Filling the demand for a certain role, I guess. Good work Deicide, be seeing you on Adult Swim.

Sorry guys, gals, collegiate dabblers with no vested interest. I am a little touchy about Death Metal. But your Death Metal is not my Death Metal. Mine starts by cutting every element that a non-initiate might be able to identify as �good music� down to the quick. It�s obsessed with portraying what can�t be portrayed. In this sense it reaches for the paradoxical essence of life, in what you might call a socially critical way. And it�s descended from punk and progressive rock; you can appraise it in terms of band dynamics. You can listen for a combination of unique tones, chemistry between the musicians, good songwriting and personal charisma, among the other qualities that keep all of rock�s essentials on record. In the best cases, a veteran Death Metal band will have honed its idiosyncrasies into the elements of an expressive personal language, unmistakable because developed in self-imposed isolation from commercial standards.

Take the band Incantation. Their recorded work is a maze of blatant disregard for verses and choruses. It�s populated by moist vocal rumblings, beat irregularities, squealing, pulsating guitar textures across a broad frequency range, harmonies carefully assembled for their �wrongness,� and erratic shifts in tempo and intensity. Alongside imagery depicting a logic-defying mash-up of internal organs and warring spiritual entities, Incantation�s best stuff depicts the livid nuances of a fever-wracked biological landscape. They�d already spent over a decade refining this formula when they recorded the song �Heaven Departed� for the album The Infernal Storm in 2000. The band had matured, but remained entrenched in the Incantation identity. And their song doesn�t sound especially angry; it sounds more like an intense group meditation on the interior movements of a vast Body. This is the truest of Death Metal, like any true thing in life, steeped in self-contradiction and dumb-looking from a distance. Tunneling through offal illuminated by weird beauty, and actually kind of sexy provided you�re fluent in the language.

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Stylus presents a mini-mix of some of the tracks featured in this week’s Beatz by the Pound…

Tracklist
01: Rework - Love Love Love Yeah [buy]
02: Goat Dance - Goat Dance [buy]
03: Dorfmeister vs. MDLA - Boogie No More (Reverso 68 Remix) [buy]
04: P�r Grindvik - Casio [buy]
05: Maximilian Skiba - Violet Carnation [buy]
06: Popnoname - No Doubt [buy]
07: Onur �zer - Allegro Energico [buy]

Had some friends over the other day. It was sunny and we were outside doing a bit of manual labor, clearing up the section. It seemed only second-nature to stick on �The Hardest Working Man in Show Business�, pull the speakers up to the open window and crank the volume. As usual, smiles crept across our faces and we found rhythmic coherence in carrying out even the most menial of tasks.

It was only later I realized this was the first time I had heard anything of the man since his passing, and I surprised myself that rather than feeling a sense of somber disquiet the emotion was rather the converse.

Such is the autonomic reflex his music provokes.

Mallory O�Donnell has already written an affectionately unsentimental eulogy on this site here, so I won�t add anything further. His unrepentant shit-talkin� easily eclipses mine.

�Good Good Lovin��
�Unity, Part I� (With Afrika Bambaataa)
�Brother Rapp/Ain�t It Funky (Live)�

[buy stuff here]

Lindsey Buckingham has worn many hats over the years; amazing guitarist and vocalist in several groups, one of which was one of the biggest groups of the 1970s, and most famously, former lover of one miss Stevie Nicks. But one of the aspects of his career that has been passed over is that of a producer.

Buckingham pretty much stuck to producing his friends, namely Walter Egan and former Kingston Trio member John Stewart. But what Buckingham lacked in prolificacy, he made up for in quality.

Riding the success of Rumours, Buckingham, a John Stewart fanatic, signed on (with Nicks in tow) to produce a pop leaning album for the former folkie, 1979�s Bombs Away Dream Babies. Buckingham delivered in spades. With the single �Gold,� he gave Stewart a modern rock shuffle mixed with a bit of the �60s California music sound and a little bit of funk for good measure. In the end, he came up with what amounted to….well�basically a Fleetwood Mac song with Stewart on vocals. But regardless, it�s a damn good Fleetwood Mac song, one that would surely be counted as one of their best had it appeared on Rumours. Nobody has a way with muted electric guitars coupled with a compressed bass like Lindsey Buckingham. It�s a unique sound I�ve rarely heard outside of Buckingham�s work and it works perfectly here. Those guitars married with an electric piano, Buckingham�s ringing lead guitar, and of course, Stevie Nicks�s perfect backing vocals takes this lyrical indictment of the L.A. music scene and recording industry to the next level and makes it downright swing.

Walter Egan made two albums, Fundamental Roll and Not Shy, and both albums are classics of the �70s California Rock genre that included Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles among others. Though listed as producer, Buckingham was only marginally involved with Roll, which is a little more country-rock than its successor (Egan had one of his original compositions recorded by Gram Parsons on Grievous Angel). �Only the Lucky� is a lost classic, a song that with its easy, breezy summertime pop quality could have just as easily shot to the top of the charts. But that just as easily could be said about any number of Egan�s songs�the man simply knew his way around a hit, even if they didn�t all reach that status.

With his next album, Not Shy, Buckingham became more directly involved, and the music became even poppier, with lyrics that echoed the carefree romantic lyrics of popular music of the �50s and �60s. Buckingham�s hand isn�t as heavy as on Stewart�s album. Buckingham simply lets Egan do his thing, but the producer�s clear love for �60s pop music is apparent, with Nicks� at her best as the angelic backing vocalist on most all of the songs. This album actually gave Egan his one hit (�Magnet & Steel�) but with infectious, fun-loving songs like �Finally Found a Girlfriend,� one has to wonder what was working against this man to make him only a one-hit wonder.

Perhaps the best example of Buckingham�s production was Buckingham�s sprawling, overstuffed, probably cocaine-fueled Tusk. In 1979, with both Fleetwood Mac and Rumours under their belt, the band was able to indulge itself a bit. Only, the record company (Reprise) apparently didn�t realize that when you allow Lindsey Buckingham to indulge a little, he gives you a twenty track double-LP filled with music that has more in common with the Beach Boys� Smile and the then-burgeoning New Wave movement than with �Rhiannon� or �Go Your Own Way.�

Tusk is a masterwork, and shows off Buckingham�s production skills at their best; the man would never be better or more out there than he was on these tracks. Giving even the most pop-oriented songs slightly off-kilter production and arrangements, Buckingham may have intentionally ruined his chances at another massive success. Calling it avant garde would be going too far, but it�s definitely not what the mainstream was expecting. However, listening to the songs now and its clear Buckingham was ahead of his time. With a track like �I Know I�m Not Wrong,� with its Africa by way of the Appalachians sound, Buckingham predates Paul Simon�s Graceland by nearly a decade.

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For some comic aficionados, the phrase “So long, Pop! I�m off to check my tiger trap!” bears an Anna Karenina-like weight. The words are the first lines of Calvin and Hobbes, spoken by Calvin moments before he discovers Hobbes, lured to the trap by tuna fish bait. Some might argue that Hobbes�s abiding love for tuna, and Calvin�s loyal attachment to Hobbes, render Bill Watterson�s strip an unparalleled portrait of the heart�s capacity for commitment, but the thing is, of course, Hobbes isn�t real: only a stuffed animal could love us so dearly. The only tigers that don�t abandon us are the tigers we imagine.

Thus Tiger Trap�the early 90s twee-pop band, formed by high school friends Angie Loy, Heather Dunn, Jen Bruan, and Rose Melberg�draws more than its name from Watterson�s strip, culling their awareness of illusory attachment, and the persistence of desire in the face of that illusion, from a story about a boy and the tiger he loved. Nowhere on their 1993 self-titled debut album do the girls of Tiger Trap live up to their namesake as on the heartbreakingly consolatory “For Sure.” Like most Tiger Trap songs, Melberg�s vocals are mixed low, and what holds center stage on first listen are the cheerful, speedy guitar, and the insistent drums. The eager rattle of Dunn�s cymbals sounds like summer, like the promise of going on a good frolic with your tiger, but Melberg�s plaintive vocals dissolve this dizziness. “I�d rather be without you than be anything like her,” she sings, yet we know it can�t be true: we want to believe in that guitar, but the girl sounds too forlorn. It�s hard to stay cool about breaking up when you�re all broken up inside, when all you want is to be her instead of you.

If “For Sure” reminds us that saying you�re over that jerk before you�re over him or her is an integral and creatively fruitful part of the process of, you know, actually getting over that jerk, then Tullycraft�s 1996 hit “Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend�s Too Stupid To Know About” may be this genre�s archetypal anthem. The guy�s lost the girl, but at least he still has the records: “It�s okay for a sunny day but that Sting album won�t do / So when I play you Allen Clapp, you�ll know baby I love you,” and the words are more cheered than sung. The song is one about giving each other songs, about what we trade in when we�re falling in and out of love. In the end, though, Allen Clapp will only get you so far: you might build a better mixtape, but that doesn�t matter if nobody�s listening.

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This week: your guide to Hiplife, Ghana’s most popular music, as curated by Brian Shimkovitz of The Hiplife Complex…

Tracklist
01: Reggie Rockstone � Keep Your Eyes on the Road
02: Obrafuor � Kwame Nkrumah [sample]
03: Okomfour Kwaadee � Ataa Adwoa
04: Mzbel featuring Castro � 16 Years [sample]
05: A Plaz � Freedom of Speech, Parts 1 & 2
06: Big Adams (Da Microphone Prophet)� Asalamu � Alaakum
07: (Sexy) Tinny � He Ko Ejorko
08: VIP � Ahomka Womu