Disco Volante - If Not Now, When?

Welcome back, true believers! I hope you all had a wonderful summer full of trees, parks, picnics, skinny-dipping, beenie weenie, staring at your cousins cut-offs and lemonade. But now that it's back to school time, I hope to get back to a weekly schedule here, bringing you the newest in old music for your listening enjoyment, so stay tuned.

This week's headliners are those fun-loving gals from Brighton, England, formerly known as Electrelane. While not exactly jazz rock, their sound still reminds me, in some rudimentary way, of the music of Charles Mingus, the way it careens wildly from structured elegance to barley controlled chaos, often within the same song. Though originally an entirely instrumental band, the 2004, Steve Albini produced record The Power Out added vocals to varied and startling effect, especially on tracks like gorgeous gregorian chanted The Valleys. Sadly, for mysterious reasons known only to them, the band went on indefinite hiatus in 2007, after releasing the excellent No Shouts, No Calls record, from which we take our opening song...

MP3: Disco Volante - If Not Now, When? (Right-Click-Save-As)

1. Electrelane - If Not Now When? (5:47)2. The Kinks - Lazy Old Sun (2:48)3. Sun Ra - Friendly Galaxy (2:17)4. Boards of Canada - Aquarius (5:57)5. Mike Ladd - Off To Mars? (4:25)6. De La Soul - Transmitting Live From Mars (1:12)7. The Sexual Life of the Savages - Fellini - Zum Zum Zazoeira (5:35)8. Lambchop - I Can Hardly Spell My Name (3:24)9. Calexico - Alone Again or (3:25)10. The Free Design - Umbrellas (Peanut Butter Wolf Mix) (3:56)11. Stereolab & Brigitte Fontaine - Caliméro (6:25)12. The U.M.C's - It's Gonna Last (3:56)13. Ken Nordine - You're Getting Better (2:07)

Resume Writing With ESG

Hey gang - long - time - no - see!

And I don't even have a new mix ready for you! What a slacker! Well, as a consolation, here are a few musical helpful hints from Bronx punk funk legends ESG, for those of you waiting for the worm to turn, I certainly am.

Excelsior!

MP3: Resume Writing With ESG (right-click-save-as)

Disco Volante - Kinky Afro

The hooligan exploits of the brothers Ryder, Shaun and Paul have already been documented in Michael Winterbottom's paean to all things rude and Mancuian, the 2002 film 24 Hour-Party People, and to hilarious effect, but what The Happy Mondays should most be remembered for, aside from Bez's dancing, is their music.

Like The Pixies or Joy Division, the Happy Mondays were always one of those bands that came just before my generation, something I was supposed to like, and could certainly name-drop like a speeding bullet, but never got around to actually listening to all that much. The film finally got me around to it, and now I see what all the fuss was about. The Happy Mondays were doing dancepunk when the members of !!! and The Rapture were still in diapers, and were a hell of a lot funkier too! So enjoy “Kinky Afro,” my favorite Happy Mondays song. Gichy gichy ya ya hey hey hey!

MP3: Disco Volante – Kinky Afro(Right-Click-Save-As)

1. Happy Mondays - Kinky Afro (3:59)2. Booker T & The MG's - Melting Pot (8:18)3. David Bowie - Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?) (5:07)4. The Flaming Lips - Unmade Bed/No Quarter (Sonic Youth/Led Zeppelin Cover Live Session Version) (6:49)5. Big Sir - lisa's theme (4:43)6. Grizzly Bear - Knife (5:14)7. Bill Callahan - The Wind And The Dove (4:34)8. Margot & The Nuclear So and So's - Dress Me Like A Clown (4:37)9. Gong - Love Is How U Make It (3:30)10. Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestr - Mondo Mondo (3:13)11. Juliana Hatfield and Frank Smith - If Only We Were Dogs (4:03)12. The Twilight Singers - Fat City (Slight Return) (3:25)13. Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Drake (3:54)14. Daryl Hall and John Oates - One on One (3:58)

Disco Volante - Counting Backwards

Isn't that just the coolest picture you've ever seen?

In 1981, at the grand age of 15, stepsisters Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly formed what would become one of the most influential bands in the Boston Alternative Rock scene, the Throwing Muses. Joined by bassist Leslie Langston and drummer Dave Narcizo, the group released a singles and an EP, before the mind shattering self-titled debut full length, also known as "The Green" album. With Hersh serving as primary song-writer, crafting brilliantly demented blue-grass tinged punk rock , with Donelly's angelic harmonies and pop hooks as a counterpoint, the band's music was as bold, chaotic and revelatory as anything being done by their Boston contemporaries like the Pixies or Dinosaur Jr.

The group went on to release a series of amazing albums, but after 1991's excellent The Real Ramona, Donelly split to co-found The Breeders with Pixie Kim Deal, and later went on to achieve MTV Buzz Clip success with a new band, Belly's and their hit single Feed The Tree. Hersh kept on trucking, reforming the Muses as a power trio for 1992's Red Heaven, with Bernard Georges replacing Leslie Langston on bass.

In 1994 Hersh launched a solo career featuring a gentler, acoustic side on the haunting Hips And Makers album. These days she continues to rock out with her new surf punk band, 50 Ft Wave, occasionally resurrecting Throwing Muses in trio form, and Donnelly also enjoys a critically acclaimed solo-career, (Robyn Hitchcock's a big fan.)

But Counting Backwards is the group at the height of their powers, so check out these criminally under-rated alt-rock giants on this week's Podcast.

MP3: Disco Volante – Counting Backwards (Right-click-Save-As)

1. Throwing Muses - Counting Backwards (3:15) 2. Al Stewart - Turn to Earth (2:53) 3. Stereolab - One Finger Symphony (2:05) 4. Funkadelic - Cosmic Slop (5:20) 5. Tortoise - A Simple Way to Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work (3:34) 6. Peter Gabriel - Digging In The Dirt (5:16) 7. David Bowie - Right (4:21) 8. Ed Dorn - There's Only One Natural Death and Even That's Bedcide (2:59)9. Komeda - Focus (3:38) 10. Animal Collective - My Girls (5:40) 11. Caetano Veloso - Nine Out of Ten (4:57) 12. Interpol - The New (6:07) 13. The Sundays - Joy (4:10)

Disco Volante - Magpie/Laughing With A Mouthful Of Blood

Oh my gawsh, Disco Volante is back!

But first very briefly, I'd just like to thank all of you kind, kind people out there who asked me to keep posting these mixes. Unfortunately, a weekly schedule is just not realistic. But I'll try to put something up at least bi-weekly or so. It really warms my cold, clammy little heart to know that someone's listening out there. Thanks again! And now on to...

Death by Chocolate was the name of the almost sickeningly charming retro 60's project by English winderkind Angie Tillett. It's sort of an Austin Powers swinging London kitsch thing done right. The 2001 self-titled debut and 2002's Zap The World are well worth seeking out in your local used-cd bins, or even springing for the 5 bucks or so they'll charge you at Amazon.

But who I really wanted to talk about was a different Ann, or Annie, Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, whose new album Actor is just fantastic. A former Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens utility player, Clark released her 2007 debut, Marry Me to much critical acclaim, and I count myself a fan. She travels similar territory as bizarro Doris Day-alike Nellie McKay, a sort of fractured fairytale, demented Disney character, melding the sweet and sentimental with the dark and disturbing.

The new record takes her act to another level - the dilemmas are darker, the stakes higher. The noise experimentation is weirder. The characters here are more desperate and dangerous and more lost.

Like the wandering artist on the track, Laughing With A Mouthful Of Blood that follows Death By Chocolate’s Magpie on this week’s playlist. The song would fit right in with any of David Byrne’s at his most neurotic and twitchy, and that’s a compliment.

(And check out her awesome Beatles Cover, wow!)

MP3: Disco Volante – Magpie/Laughing With A Mouthful Of Blood (Right-click-Save-As)

1. Death By Chocolate - Magpie (2:31)2. St. Vincent - Laughing With A Mouthful Of Blood (3:01)3. The Beatles - Dig A Pony (4:18)4. Dinosaur Jr - Feel The Pain (4:19)5. LCD Soundsystem - No Love Lost (Joy Division Cover) (3:38)6. Chain Gang - Son Of Sam (3:12)7. The Death Killers - Rockin' Rally (0:38)8. Beach House - Childhood (3:35)9. Alice Notley - The Ten Best Issues of Comic Books (0:55)10. Elliott Smith - Son of Sam (3:04)11. Kevin Drew w/Feist - Safety Bricks (Live) (3:55)12. Doom featuring Empress Stahr The Femcee - Still Dope (2:39)13. Digable Planets - Blowing Down (3:51)14. Brazilian Girls - Talk To The Bomb (5:42)15. Mike Ladd - Housewives At Play (3:09)16. The Fiery Furnaces - Here Comes The Summer (3:30)17. Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up (8:54)

Bonus Playlist

And because I’ve been away so long, here’s a bonus podcast for you, something I really just made for my own listening pleasure but you may enjoy too. It's a sort of Best Of the “Viktor Vaughn,” MF Doom material, sandwiched between two versions of Fog’s “Pneumonia” and some other stuff besides.

Excelsior!

MP3: Disco Volante – Viktor Hung Up With Pneumonia (Right-click-Save-As)

Disco Volante - Born Under Punches

In many ways, 1980’s Remain In Light represents the Talking Heads at their creative apex. Band leader David Byrne, along with fellow Talking Heads Tina Weymouth, Chris Franz and Jerry Harrison, luminary utility players like Nona Hendryx and Robert Palmer, and visionary producer Brian Eno collectively gave birth to a masterpiece of experimental pop music.

Fusing such seemingly desperate source material as African poly-rhythms, Kraftwerky electronica, dour, Joy Division drone and Parliament/Funkadelic, Remain In Light is a vision of the world at once frightening and exhilarating, the sound of technological America colliding with the Third World.

The persona Byrne adopts to introduce us to this bizarre universe is something like a revivalist preacher, something like an ex-CIA agent, something like a circus clown. He is a thin man, a man so harried and uncertain, that the mere fact of breathing is even in question. He is dangling on the edge of a nervous breakdown, on the verge of achieving spiritual ecstasy. Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) is my favorite song on the album, and the first on this week’s playlist.

MP3: Disco Volante – Born Under Punches (right-click-save-as)

1. Talking Heads - Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) (5:49) 2. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - The Ballad of the Sin Eater (5:20) 3. MF DOOM - Curls (4:09) 4. Electrelane - The Valleys (5:20) 5. Caetano Veloso - It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (6:07) 6. Maria Muldaur - Midnight at the Oasis (3:46) 7. Piero Piccioni - Colpo Rovente (3:43) 8. Fela Kuti - Expensive Shit (13:14) 9. MC Lyte - Stop, Look, Listen (3:20) 10. The Emotions - I Like It (1:59) 11. Erykah Badu - The Cell (4:20) 12. Otis Brown - Boneless Chicken (1:45)

DISCO VOLANTE - Body Rock

I have a friend who grew up in Brooklyn in the late 1990’s, back when Mos Def was just a neighborhood MC, and he remembers the hype being almost deafening. He was the next big thing, all anybody could talk about. And it would be hard for any hip hop fan to deny his talent after listening to his 1998 collaboration with Talib Kweli, Black Star, an instant classic. Whether or not he’s lived up to his potential is debatable. After that first (and so far only) Black Star album, he released an excellent solo LP, Black On Both Sides, but his subsequent releases, The New Danger and True Magic haven’t quite lived up to the standards of the first.

These days it seems like Mos is more interested in acting than rapping, after several appearances on The Chappelle Show, an Emmy nomination for Something The Lord Made Me, and co-starring as Ford Prefect in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. I even saw him on an episode of House on Monday!

But I’m really excited for his upcoming The Ecstatic, (mostly because of this Youtube video which shows Mos rattling off MF Doom rhymes, he’s a true hip hop fan!)

On this week’s opening track from the 1998 Lyricist Lounge compilation, Mos is joined by Q-tip and Tash from the Alkoholics for a really fun song, Body Rock, which features Mos at his early, laid back best.

Excelsior!

MP3: DISCO VOLANTE – Body Rock (right click "save as")

1. Mos Def - Body Rock [feat. Q-Tip & Tash] (5:11) 2. Tom Waits - Way Down in the Hole (1:44) 3. Animal Collective - Leaf House (2:42) 4. Savath & Savalas - Apnea Obstructiva (4:55) 5. Nouvelle Vague - This Is Not A Love Song (3:47) 6. Cornelius - Brazil (3:27) 7. Komeda - Focus (3:38) 8. Jack Logan - Shrunken Head (2:54) 9. Pavement - Black Out (2:10) 10. Shuggie Otis - Inspiration Information (4:12) 11. Jaga Jazzist - Soumi Finland (7:28) 12. Jaga Jazzist - Real Racers Have Doors (3:32) 13. Majesticons - Parlour Party (3:18) 14. John Lennon - #9 Dream (4:48) 15. The Tragically Hip - Eldorado (3:47)