Kush Arora - Boiling Over

Record Label Records



When Kush Arora dropped his fourth title, "The Dread Bass Chronicles", a while back, we at Properly Chilled pointed out that he had produced a hybrid of dub, industrial and dancehall for the new millennium. That assertion remains true when addressing the newly released "Boiling Over", described as the first instrumental album by the San Francisco-based producer and remixer in five years.

Now that the first decade of the new century is fast drawing to a close, dubstep has to be named one of its greatest achievements in music. The deep dancehall-flavored bass sounds, which, in Arora’s case, are informed by the Southeast Asian inebriant perfumes of bhangra, are impossible to miss when looking in retrospect at these exciting new times.

This is music for late-night driving, for the after-hours activity that you may surrender yourself to after a long and tiresome night out. The reworking of "Alabaster Dub" by Kush himself and Sub Swara is especially suitable for that worn-out feeling of the mind and body, as is "Constructing the Absence". When abstraction is king and your senses are dormant, listening to this vacant kind of music is like getting punched in the stomach, only not painfully and quite enjoyable after all.

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Bobby Womack - Across 110th Street

Em semana de estreia de "Sacanas Sem Lei" de Quentin Tarantino, o Cotonete Play fecha mais uma ronda de escolhas com uma música essencial na economia de uma outra fita do realizador. 'Across 110th Street' abre "Jackie Brown" (1997), acompanha os créditos iniciais e a passada rápida de Pam Grier no aeroporto e ainda fecha o filme, de novo com a protagonista. Tarantino já revelou em entrevista que a sequência inicial é a parte mais importante no seu processo de filmar, é ela que lhe dá o ritmo do filme.

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Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions

A obra dos Sunn O))) é como um enorme bloco de granito erguido num local onde as leis da arquitectura recomendariam uma peça de mármore polida. A música deles respira por entre vagas maciças, tocando as franjas do black metal e de um ruído arrastado e denso. "Monoliths & Dimensions" é já o sétimo álbum mas ainda não faz dos Sunn O))) uma banda que dispense apresentações: Stephen O'Malley e Greg Anderson conheceram-se em Seattle no ano em que o mundo pasmava com "Nevermind" (1991).

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Bibio - Ambivalence Avenue

O produtor britânico Stephen Wilkinson nutre uma grande admiração pelos Boards of Canada (BoC). Felizmente para ele, que na música assume a identidade Bibio, esse amor, longe de ser platónico, é muito bem correspondido. Falamos aqui de amor e admiração mútuos, portanto. Acontece que, desde que o duo escocês se estreou em 1998, com o seminal "Music Has the Right to Children", a ficha de casino que Wilkinson e os BoC lançam para a mesa deixa-os muito próximos da bancarrota.

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The Supervisor

Não chega a 12 minutos a maquete promocional dos Supervisor mas serve bem como amostra do potencial da banda alfacinha. Para já, o percurso deste power trio está conforme com os mandamentos do catecismo pop/rock nacional. Começaram por alinhar um tema na colectânea "Fnac Novos Talentos 2009", gravaram a maquete em avaliação nestas linhas e preparam a edição do EP de estreia.

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Project Ahimsa Presents Global Lingo

Project Ahimsa



Benefit albums are generally praised in the press because, even if the music is not that good, they mean well. Until proven otherwise, a good review is one of the most flawless ways for mere enjoyment to convert into proceeds. But Project Ahimsa is different because it's better. Not only does it have good music to speak for a good cause, it also engages the children in need in the whole process. And that is noble and fair.

Founded in the wake of America's troubled response to the 9/11 events, the project has since been home to some funky, socially aware rhythms. For this "Global Lingo" release, luminaries like Michael Franti & Spearhead, Miguel Migs, and J-Boogie joined forces with the children that benefited from the Project's programs over the past seven years. That engagement is most evident on tracks like Seasunz & Diamond of Art in Action's "Sunshine" or "El Tiburon del Lago Cocibolca", as performed by The Children of Ritmos en los Barrios.

Even when the chanting sounds just too childish (and that does happen a couple of times), the grooves are deep and the beats are pretty sharp. There's plenty of dancehall-oriented stuff to marinate on as well, like the aptly titled "Ahimsa Street Dub", delivered by J-Boogie & Tablapusher. But the greatest highlight from this hour's worth of music has to be Franti & Spearhead's "Hello Bonjour", which features no less that rhythm section legends Sly and Robbie.

This is well-intentioned celebratory music that connects the dots between faraway forms of expression like bhangra and reggae, African tribal chants and electronica. By doing so, this record does so much more than most disposable, contemporary music records with chartbusting qualities. And, in addition, as the old saying goes, by working with the poorest kids in the world, Project Ahimsa teaches them to fish so they can then feed themselves for a lifetime.

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