various - Zetrospective

This is a late post. I blame the missus, who distracted me with her feminine wiles while I was in the middle of writing this up. Mea culpa: I am quite susceptible to feminine wiles.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might think that I came to ZE Records via no wave. I've written about James Chance multiple times over the years, and the tag has a number of entries associated with it (I should probably remove it from the Screamers' live set). And that's not a terrible assumption. However, it was David & Don Was's Was (Not Was) that poisoned my brain with their mutant disco and led me to the venerable downtown label. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but every time I heard the Waitresses during the holidays, or the DJ spinning "Mr. Softee" as part of a Friday, 5pm closing shift, I was getting introduced to the downtown sounds of ZE.

And this is why I like both types of music: hardcore and disco.

This two-CD set came out back in 1989, an early digital collection of ZE's five-year heyday. I'm not entirely certain where I found it, but I'm sure I plotzed when I found it on the shelf. The combined set was only available in Europe; each disc got its own release here in the States. The artwork on said 2CD set is a horrible merge of the American releases' covers; I've subbed in the vinyl cover below.

All this is to say, I got a good deal when I turned this up for a few bucks.

Discogs

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various artists - CMJ Presents Certain Damage! - Volume 3

Here's a look back to when people still thought the Red Hot Chili Peppers were edgy, when college rock meant you could loop Fields of the Nephilim, Robbie Robertson, and Kool Moe Dee together, and funk metal was the next big thing. Truth be told: I kept this because I found the cover art so goddamned charming. The Cabaret Voltaire song is pretty solid, Lion was on the "The Transformers: The Movie" soundtrack, and I'm not sure I'll ever get Bryan Ferry solo. 1987 was weird for music, man.

Discogs

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various artists - The Lowrider Sound: Low & EZ

If you're not tooling about this weekend in your 6-4, what are you even doing with your life?

You can make up for things by downloading this fun comp from the good folks at Thump Records, who are as Los Angeles a label as SST or Buddyhead, IMHO. Bonus points if you play it while riding a mower while cutting your yard or cruising around on a minibike.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Mojo Presents: ok_Computer

Here's the deal, sports fans: I dug through a few boxes in storage last weekend and found a cache of previously unopened Mojo giveaways. So it's going to Mojo Mondays for a while going forward. You're just going to have to...enjoy it?

It's still a free country...sort of.

Anyway, why "ok_Computer"? I was in a local second-hand media store over the weekend, and they had a bunch of copies of the Arthur Russell biography that came out last year. Now that I see what it's retailing for elsewhere, I'm rather compelled to run back and purchase one this week. But Mrs. Mummy clocked me eyeballing the cover and asked me what the deal was. So I told her I was trying to track down more Arthur Russell-related music recently, on account of a couple of his tracks had come up on comps I'd ripped in the past month or so. This is one of those comps. And now I share it with you.

Like all good Mojo comps, this has a solid mix of artists I'm familiar with (Human League, Gary Numan, Tangerine Dream) and folks I've never really encountered in the past (Xela, Severed Heads). But it's all pretty decent, covering subgenres that I typically don't delve into. The common thread is the synthesized sound, which I can dig, because I love artificiality. As for what this all has to do with the third Radiohead LP, I do not know. I lost the issue and kept the CD.

Discogs

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various artists - The Man Machine: Mojo Presents The Electronic Revolution

It's a jolly good giveaway, this comp. Chock full of synthesized sounds ranging from the ambient to the caustic. There's even something that was written to be played whilst you run with your iPod attached to your bicep. Thanks, Nike.

Looking back at 2009, I wouldn't have given this a second thought. OMD and the Orb were artists I just skipped over on my way from Oasis to Oxes. I fucked with LCD Soundsystem, but most of those dudes had been in punk bands in the 90s, so they couldn't be all bad, could they? Sometime around then, Kraftwerk did some dates in NYC, and a dude offered me a ticket and a ride. I shrugged.

Now? Now this is all I really want to listen to. I want to fall into a K-hole with Tangerine Dream as the soundtrack. I'll buy all the Ultravox vinyl I find abandoned at a thrift store. I'm going to track down all those Flying Lotus productions, using the Discogs production tab as my lodestone. This is the future, circa 2009. Filled you with hope back then, dinnit?

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Purple Soul

I think I snagged this mainly because it has Arabian Prince and Arthur Russell tracks I hadn't heard before. Well, that, and it was a buck. It's a lot of Prince-inspired and Prince-adjacent R&B; everything from Toro Y Moi to Poliça to a sampling of the Stones Throw catalog. And if it seems like I'm reaching for commentary or trenchant insight, well, it's because this is a world of music I always enjoy, but am not particularly educated in...certainly not to same degree I am on punk or hardcore or free jazz. I sound dumb enough writing about music I know a lot about; no need to sound below stupid.

Discogs

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various artists - Street Jams: Electric Funk Part 2

A wise, learned soul, when browsing through racks of thrift store CDs for the little nuggets of gold to be found within, would do well to keep one eye peeled for any of Rhino's early 90s "Street Jams" series. Initially a collaboration with Steve Yano and Andrew Smith of Skanless Records, these 11 volumes are just <chef's kiss> perfect ways to dive into the early history of hip-hop, electro, and American post-disco.

The "Electric Funk" sub-series launched with two parts in 1992. While I wasn't clever enough to snag Part 1 back when it was in print, I did find a cheap copy of Part 2, complete with a lenticular cover and graffiti'ed graphics courtesy of Jesse Rothbeind (Cryptic Slaughter), a few years back. So I had a wonderful soundtrack to which to breakdance, boogaloo, pop AND lock. 12 tight tracks of early 80s electro and hip-hop were mine to share and shake to, from the likes of Newcleus and Cybotron, and even featuring a cameo from Ice-T.

This is an excellent 6 in the morning bop, when you're starting to come down from a night of party and bullshit, you're headed to the all-night taco shop for a fistful of hard shells and a horchata, and you're driving with the windows down at 5 miles an hour under the limit.

Discogs

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Discobelle - Scion CD Sampler V. 24

I found this in a "Friends Of The Library" 25cent bin, so I decided to cop a 13-year-old electronic/dance sampler promoting a defunct car brand.

I continue to stand impressed at the marketing team that managed to talk Toyota into funding a record label for a decade plus.

Discogs

Click here to download.