Baby lambs. Tiny peeping chicks. KITTEHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All newborn things, all adorable. But really — let’s be honest here — is there anything in life more precious than a newborn record label? In these trying times, it gives one heart to see a fledgling label giving it a go, and that’s precisely what the good people at revered label Soul Jazz’s London record store Sounds of the Universe are doing. That’s right! A record label’s store is giving birth to another record store. Babies having kickass babies. Somebody call Maury!
Appropriately enough, the store’s new label shares the same name: Sounds of the Universe. Its inaugural release comes from Chicago electronica dude Jamal ‘Hieroglyphic Being’ Moss, a fellow equally influenced by his hometown’s storied dance music past and the ethereal space strains of the legendary Sun Ra. The Sounds of the Universe label will release Shikaakwa, Moss’ limited-edition one-sided 12-inch named after the Native American word for Chicago, sometime towards the end of January. With hand-etched artwork from Japanese artist 2yang and a limited run of only 300 copies, this puppy, available through the Sounds of the Universe shop and website, will likely sell out quickly. Better break out those nasty bubblegum cigars while you’re at it.
Time to take your pants off and show everyone that neon pink g-string you’ve been wearing since 2 Live Crew had you feeling so horny all those summers ago. There is no better time for a 2 Live Crew reunion, especially as the emcees are in their 50s at this point. If they were to reunite at 65, you’d probably have to see them play nursing home venues, where many a hips would be sure to pop out of joint.
Luther Campbell is all the wiser, so on his stop through the Sundance Film Festival — where he’s promoting a short called The Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke — he announced his group will begin touring this summer. Get ready to pop that coochie and shake that azz all summer long. We’ll have tourdates as they become available.
If there’s one guy the writers at Tiny Mix Tapes get a huge boner for, it’s Canadian stack-of-bricks bass saxophonist Colin Stetson, whose album New History Warfare Vol 2: Judges on Constellation made #3 on our year-end list. But for me, it’s less about his lumberjack physique and more about his enormous… saxophone.
This spring, Stetson will arrive in the East Coast with his mammoth horn to stir up our hormones. Alongside the beefcake will be the smoldering sexpot Sarah Neufeld, whose powers of seduction have overtaken the likes of Tim Hecker and who Stetson has performed with in Bell Orchestre and Arcade Fire. You might want to clean your pipes before going to any of these gigs.
Tourdates:
03.23.12 - Durham, NC - Motorco Music Hall $
03.30.12 - Kingston, ON - The Grad Club *
03.31.12 - Waterloo, ON - Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics *
04.01.12 - Buffalo, NY - Big Orbit’s Soundlab *
04.03.12 - Brooklyn, NY - Glasslands *
04.04.12 - Amherst, MA - Hampshire College
04.05.12 - Troy, NY - The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center *
The Roots did it with undun (TMT Review), and now the breath of fresh old-school air that is De La Soul (or at least 2/3 of them) have planned their own concept album under the moniker First Serve: the album is called First Serve. It’s the first De La-related album since 2004’s The Grind Date (TMT Review), but this time they’ll be spitting from the mouths of the fictional characters Deen Whitter and Jacob “Pop Life” Barrow, two brothers in Queens who want to get the hell out of Queens (can you blame them?).
Stream the first track, “Pushin’ Aside, Pushin’ Along” right here:
And be sure to watch the 40-something rappers dressed up as Whitter and Barrow living a cartoon life in the early days with Ma Dukes breaking down the door while they tryna get they smoke on. Catch that over at NME.
James Ferraro has returned to the mixtape game only a few weeks after making his biggest splash yet as the fueled-up, jet-setting bad boy DJ BEBETUNE$$$ (via the straight fire mixtape inhale C-4 $$$$$ that’s been spinning at the office for a minute). SILICA GEL finds BEBETUNE$$$ introducing a twisted new alias into the mix by the name of BODY GUARD — a wink, perhaps, to James’s growing female fanbase and the lengths they’ll go to catch him “off [his] game.”
SILICA GEL drops everywhere in less than a month (February 23), so get your fix in the buffertime with these #FRESH #UNRELEASED BEBETUNE$$$ AKA BODY GUARD beats:
Something tells us tunes these #LIQUIDMETALPUNK, #INFRAREDPUNK, #BLADEPUNK, and #FLAMETHROWERPUNK won’t stay unreleased for long.
Freak-jazz duo Talibam! and multi-instrumentalist Sam Kulik (Nervous Cabaret) have joined forces to create a “new underwater thriller fairytale” album Discover AtlantASS through UK publishers Belly Kids. The album consists of 19 tracks and an accompanying 25-page comic (drawn by London artist James Clapham) that illustrates this epic psychedelic opera, due out February 25 (advance order here).
According to the press release, Discover AtlantASS tells the elaborate story of a young teenager named Franklin, who gets abducted to the undersea world of Atlantis by a laid-back “jazz fish” revolutionary named Stinge. Together, they attempt to combat a disastrous oil spill that has nearly eradicated the underwater community of poets, musicians, artists, and fornicators. The story is said to be based on strange experiences the trio shared on a 2008 tour of Finland and recent geopolitical events, such as the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the controversy surrounding the “Ground Zero Mosque” in Manhattan.
Belly Kids informs us that the overall aesthetic of the opera is “like a radio play for the post-television era” and makes ample use of Talibam!’s signature genre-riddled style, featuring synthesizers, trombones, voices, guitars, banjos, and homespun sound effects in an Ethiopian-jazz-meets-Balkan-folk rhythmic style.
Talibam! and Sam Kulik will be touring Europe in support of the release from February 27 - March 25. The trio will perform tracks from the album in full costume, with puppets and video accompaniment. After returning to New York, they will showcase the work in an eight-night festival at St. Mark’s Church, presented by Incubator Arts Project. The CD and comic book will be sold at all performances this year and will be available from retailers in New York, London, and wider Europe.
