Mat Maneri - Pentagon

Thirsty Ear



Rating: 10/10

This is Mat Maneri’s third Blue Series installment, and comes as Easter eggs around Christmas time. Not one to sit idle for long, Maneri has a fine treat for all lovers of jazz impressionism. His violin playing is mesmerizing, and his attention to detail is so anti-scholastic that it arranges room for others to sit and learn. Shuffling through the entire album, one must note the sweeping, bruised grace of Maneri’s vault-scrappings on “Inslut”, which makes up one of the very best offerings of recent memory in the jazz/hip-hop intersection.

There is no filler to be found on Pentagon, and it is safe to say that a year or two from now it will remain a classic in its own right. It does reveal cracks at its edges, though, notably on disassembled gems like “Third Hand – The Fallen”, but little imperfections were never supposed to blunt the core of creativity. From the blurring landscape that the aforementioned track triggers, to the earthy laments of “Howl in My Head/Motherless Child”, Maneri proves to be the wizard that astutely augments the flutter on the tape to make it pass through the portals of escapism that his music forces open.

Cuts like “Witches Woo” should be played at an insanely high volume, so as to allow its instrumental howls to blossom, neatly interchanged with the microtonal strings. This record also features Thirsty Ear veterans Craig Taborn (on Fender Rhodes and laptop) and Tom Rainey (on drums) alongside Mat’s world-renowned father, Joe Maneri (organs, acoustic and electric pianos, alto sax, and voice). But it is Indian master musician T.K. Ramakrishnan’s mridungdum (aka mridangam, which is the South Indian complement to the pakhawaj and the most important drum of the Carnatic music) that sprinkles the jazzy numbers with magic, percussive garnish.

Stating that Maneri’s violin at times resembles “a human voice”, as the press release does, is not overheating the hype to make the musician profitable in the industry; it’s underlining the provocative style of someone who feels his heart beat mightily where his fingers are. In this sense, there’s a theoretical shamanism going on throughout the record (even if it includes abstract titles like “The War Room” or “An Angel Passes By”), which almost builds an electronic chapel in which tribute can be paid to its pagan gods.

A female, pristine-like voice (credited to Sonja, another member of the Maneri clan) erupts on “Howl in My Head/Motherless Child”, but its presence is merely decorative as the instruments executed here are like syllables tossed out of their collective mouths. Later on, the title track brings back that human touch through Joe’s voice, pasted onto a background of percussive, surreal effects.

Please mind my words: these are not party-tested beats, but rather a suitable compagnon de route for those times when you’re driving late at night; or when you’re smoking the post-coital cigarette with your loved one. Maybe you’ll find a handful of records this year that rival Pentagon in those departments, but few provide as convincing an argument as Maneri's offering, for either instance.

Pentagon is a tour de force, and I do not state lightly that the contemporary jazz history may require complete redrafting in light of it. It may be just me, but this sounds like the jazz intellectual’s next wet dream; and if this is not a good reason for the books to be rewritten, I don’t know what it is.

http://www.lostatsea.net/review.phtml?id=30543589143cbcfc6e7419

Various Artists - Choubi Choubi! Folk & Pop Sounds From Iraq

Sublime Frequencies



Rating: 9/10

World music from a specific country is like a river running through the alluvial floodplain of the communal fruition of cultural forms. The Sublime Frequencies label has been collecting sights and sounds from around the world with the intent of shedding some light on the unknown cultural works from non-Western countries. Without proper recordings, these forms of art, culture and tradition have a rather unfortunate tendency to disappear. Fortunately, Sublime Frequencies have taken up the cause with their catalogue of field recordings, found sounds, and all other means of capturing the essence of a people or a region. Compiled by Mark Gergis, this collection of folk and pop songs from Iraq is a notable one, especially in the face of Iraq's impending Westernization and national reform.

First off, let’s clarify the concept that the title encloses: choubi is an Iraqi musical style which puts an incantatory rhythm at the forefront of the musical mantra, and which sometimes includes double reeded instruments, a menacing bass, tribal percussion, disarranged keyboards, and even fiddles and oud (this being an instrument of northern Africa and southwest Asia that resembles a lute).

According to Sublime Frequencies, other traditional styles augmenting the reach of choubi's signature beat are the basta (an urban style from Baghdad), the bezikh (there’s even a song called "Segue Bezikh"), the hecha, and the mawal ("a vocal improv that sets the tone of a song, regardless of the style"). And there’s also the syncopated work of a unique nomadic hand drum called a khishba, or zanbour, which is the Arabic word for "wasp".

Three of the 16 cuts on Choubi Choubi! are taken from Ja’afar Hassan’s 1970s album Let’s Sing Together, and those are without doubt the most menacing tracks in the record, although they perfectly glue together with the rest. The important thing is that you can tell whenever Hassan is singing, be it the notable opener "They Taught Me," the in-your-face "Front My Hope," or the beautiful "Palestinian", which resonates with the energy of the Iraqi Socialist movement, which Ja’afar Hassan was very active with until the arrival, just a few years later, of Saddam Hussein.

Some of these songs are not credited to any specific author. One half of the record is indeed of unknown origin, which adds a mysticism to the whole endeavor. Being relegated to anonymity, cuts like "Oh Mother, the Handsome Man Tortures Me" or "Ahl Al Aqi (Oh, People of Reason)" acquire a fascinating state that elicits concern for the singer's plight from collective being. The interesting thing about this release, besides its obvious autochthonous importance, is the politically informed core of every song. Most of the music collected here was produced during the Saddam period, i.e. between 1980s and 2002.

Selected from Iraqi cassettes and LPs found in Syria, Europe and even the Iraqi neighbourhoods of Detroit, Michigan, Choubi Choubi! is a traditional journey through a little fraction of the Arabic world, which utilizes the political subtext to sow a message in the listener’s head. Never mind the arcane film scores of the video games that squeeze their guts so hard to sound authentic, for this is the real deal. Sure a misinformed neighbour of yours may mistake you for a terrorist whenever the record is pumping, but that’s the price you’ll have to pay.

http://www.lostatsea.net/review.phtml?id=111672115243c27f82ec072

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life : #1

7-8 Janeiro 2006 (00-01h)

01 Lotek HiFi – What You See
02 DJ Flack – Meet Mr Doobie
03 Massive Attack – Man Next Door
04 Thievery Corporation – Lebanese Blonde
05 Evolver – The Proper Word
06 M.I.A. – Bucky Done Gun
07 Anita O'Day – Sing, Sing, Sing (RSL Remix)
08 Heather Duby & Elemental – Love You More
09 Bent – I Love My Man
10 DJ Osirus & Mr. Dibbs – Listen
11 Snowpony – Starfish (Dub Version)
12 Rhythm & Sound – See Mi Version