Saturday, May 21, 2005

Everybody Loves EMusic (Sue me, Ray Romano!) Thomas Bartlett used a recent Audiofile column to rave about EMusic's recent acquisition of the Sun Records catalog.  And I'm with him:  it's an amazing coup, and quite a collection.    (I'm looking forward to hearing the Howlin' Wolf sessions, but I'm out of downloads for this month.)  But that's not the only coup for EMusic.  Today, I see that they've added Thirsty Ear Recordings, the home of Matthew Shipp.  (I think this label used to produce a bunch of hardcore acts before Mr. Shipp showed up.)  He is one of the most celebrated jazz pianists around, albeit avant-garde wild-eyed jazz in the vein of Cecil Taylor or maybe Monk, and has produced mind-spinning collaborations with Spring Heel Jack, Antipop Consortium, and others as part of the Blue Series, also on Thirsty Ear.  I've only heard one of Shipp's albums, Pastoral Composure, one of his "most accessible."  I'm looking forward to getting into the more experimental parts of his collection.  A couple of weeks ago, Six Degrees Records came back.  Six Degrees, which distributes some of today's finest world music, was on EMusic years ago, back in the heady days of unlimited subscriptions.  I think they were concerned that too many users were downloading dozens of their albums instead of buying them in the stores, and they pulled their music.  (I was one of the people they were probably worried about:  I think I downloaded fifteen Six Degrees albums in one month, right before they pulled out.)  But now they're back on EMusic, and it's worth subscribing just to get their stuff.  They have Bebel Gilberto's first two albums, along with the remarkable "Tanto Tempo Remixes," a collections of remixes of every single song on her first album.   They have Suba's Sao Paolo Confessions, which I've raved about before on this blog.  They also have a Suba tribute album, with remixes and new songs in honor of the late producer.  And they have the excellent first album by Cibelle, one of the vocalists on Confessions.  Oh, and they have an amazing album by Niyaz, who have taken the ancient poetry of Persia and India, including poems by Jalaluddiin Rumi, and whipped them into an exotic, electronic blur.  The music is breathtaking in its beauty.  It's one of the records I'm taking with us to the delivery room as meditative music.  There's so much more on Six Degrees that I've heard and more that I haven't tried yet:  Zuco 103, DJ Cheb i Sabbah, Celso Fonseca, Bossacucanova, the Midival Punditz, Dhizan and Kamien.  So much to choose from.  12:08:48 PM     Speak up!  []

Chaotic I don't have enough self-hatred to watch Britney Spears' "documentary show" Chaotic.  (WARNING:  if you click this link, you will be bombarded with Brit's new single.  Turn your speakers way down, unless you're into that sort of thing.)  I'm fascinated, of course - metaphors of train wrecks and car crashes on ice come to mind.  But I can't do that to my brain. On the other hand, I may read the recaps on Television Without Pity.  The recaps (for every shows, not just this one) are often funnier than the actual shows, and in this case, it's sure to be.  Here's one sample quote from their recap of the first episode: BritBrit's wooden, leathery, Seal/Otis Nixon skin mooshing up next to the vagina beard of K-Fed. Their doubled, tangled co-breath smelling of sex and Cheetos, Miller Lite, Skoal Vanilla, and chewed-up unpaid child support bills. They've also apparently started calling the new Brit/Kevin baby Cheetus.  10:50:28 AM     Speak up!  []