Altered Zones

Teen Daze says:
Dylan lost his keys the first night I met him. Dylan wore this old 80s looking wind-breaker for the majority of the time I spent with him. Dylan sound checked "Something About Us" at a garage show I played with him. Dylan has a southern accent, and it's charming and seems like it comes from another time. Dylan and his frequent collaborator Rachel drove me to LA from San Francisco, and along the way we watched Youtube videos on Rachel's iPhone. Dylan makes music under the name Persona La Ave and he is my friend.

MP3: Persona La Ave: "Willcave"

You can download Persona La Ave's first EP at his Bandcamp

Janka Nabay says:
This first song, "Bo Sabi Dance" is a form of Bubu from the villages in Sierra Leone. It was recorded by a Peace Corps worker in the '80s in Songo, the Western area of Sierra Leone. The style of the song is called "Tegbe", which is a newer version of Bubu. Bubu is ancient, and faster. "Tegbe" means "easy" or "slow" in Temne, my language. So this is a slower, newer version of the original Bubu, but the instruments are the same. They don’t really have names; they’re flutes made from bamboo cane. Bubu boys travel in Freetown from Union Street to 34th Street; they play this music until they’re tired-- end to end, from the beginning of the town to the end.  

The Temne people own the Bubu and Tegbe music; they are the originators. In the past, Bubu was played at Ramadan. Nowadays, we Sierra Leoneans play Bubu and Tegbe on April 27th, which is Independence Day. This transfer from Ramadan to Independence Day happened after I brought Bubu to the twelve tribes of Sierra Leone. 

I was the first Sierra Leonean to record Bubu properly (during the war), but it’s still going on. New Bubu in Salone (Sierra Leone) sounds like "We Yone Culture" by Pa Follah. "We Yone Culture" is culture music!  I taught Pa Follah everything he knows about music. They call him Pa Follah because he "follows" (follah) me and my work in the Bubu.  Pa Follah is the prince of Bubu and I am the king.

MP3: Tegbe Players of Songo: "Bo Sabi Dance" (1987)

MP3: Pa Follah: "We Yon Culture"

Photo of Bubu boys in Freetown by Vanessa Wruble. "Bo Sabi Dance" field recording is available via Sounds of Salone

Microphone Memory Emotion says:
William Anderson came to Brooklyn with a dream. Then he followed another dream to Vancouver. With Anderson through it all was the ever-playing brain-dream which, put to “tape,” is WEED. “Cody Girl” is WEED at its most vulnerable. Though every song on his To The North cassette and DC Hope EP features what can only be described as a rich, butter-dipped, sticky sound, “Cody Girl” feels almost bare. It’s an emotion-laden song, and Anderson lays it all out. From the guitar jams to the muted snare, each sound stirs the pot of melancholy. About halfway through there’s a breakdown, which could signify that Anderson has figured something out. Or it could just be an interesting way to segue the song from point A to B. As for the fact that “Cody Girl” takes more than 4 minutes to transpire...well, there’s a lot to get out.

MP3: WEED: "Cody Girl"

DC-Hope EP is available on cassette and digital download via bandcamp. A new WEED EP is out on Orchid Tapes this Fall

Jamie Harley of Schmooze Blog says:
When Willie Loco Alexander recorded this song in 1980, he was already a veteran of the American underground music scene. He'd been involved in various acts since the early 60s: The Lost, Grass Menagerie, Bagatelle and also that one band called The Velvet Underground. It would be cruelly unfair though to sum him up as the guy who once stepped into Sterling Morrison's shoes, at a time when Moe Tucker was the only original member left. Everything he has realeased since proves that there's so much more to him than this.

"Gin" opens with a synthetic line that sounds like it could have used to score a romantic scene in an italian exploitation movie, but very soon the song turns itself into an eerie ballad for sleepwalkers, with waves crashing in the distance and a voice that sounds reassuring but doesn't leave much hope. It's dangerous, warns Willie, and he sounds like he really means it.

MP3: Willie Loco Alexander: "Gin" (1980)

Crafting a perfect pop song often tends to an exercise in subtlety. Such is the case with Buddy Holly's sublime "Words of Love" which is more complex than at once appears. The song was never became a big hit for him, but influenced many an artist including The Beatles who covered it on Beatles For Sale by turning a rather melancholy song into pure pop.

Enter Philly's lo-fi wizard Scott Churchman, who crafted this beautiful cover of the tune. He tells me, "it's just me and a shitty keyboard i got off the street for two dollars, a broken tape-delay, some autoharp and guitar. I listen to his version and I really like the vocal harmonies. They are a little bit of creepiness hidden in a happy song. So i decided to exploit that fact and bring it down to a speed that i could relate to. Love isn't always peppy. This is how i thought those harmonies should feel." (via YVYNYL)

MP3: Scott Churchman: "Words Of Love"

Pick up Scott's limited edition releases with hand-made artwork from Single Girl, Married Girl Records.

Awesome Tapes From Africa says:
Another gifted vocalist/n'goni ninja piques my interest. Please go ahead and add Diakari Dia Diakite Dit Dia and his Sadjona cassette to the burgeoning pot of gold recently collected by new releases from Drag City subsidiary Yaala Yaala. Hunters' music from the South of Bamako, Mali is apparently all the rage in 2010, and I am not mad.

MP3: Diakari Dia Diakite Dit Dia: "Sadjona"

Brooklyn-based music blog Awesome Tapes From Africa was founded in April 2006, and regularly features complete downloads of cassettes from all eras and all regions of Africa. It's worth a visit for the amazing artwork scans alone.

Laurel Halo says:
L.A.-based composer Julia Holter creates incredible music full of collaged emotion and persistent decay. She's currently singing and playing the keys with Nite Jewel, and while Julia's music has a similar gauzy feel, her sense of rhythm and pace are free and organic. Metric restriction seems deliberately absent, replaced by invisible LFOs of intensity and exploration. "The Falling Age" is an amazing track. It's nine minutes of ambient-classical doom, commencing with low, detuned drones and an opening melodic narration, then swelling into longing waves of live chamber instrumentation. It's just pure orchestral anguish, minute after minute of breathing suspension and release. Eventually, the track decays, returning to the drone cocoon from which it began. The combination of artificial/actual, of synth moments with live orchestration (the middle section is actually a piece for 13 instruments that Holter wrote at CalArts) is disconcerting and gorgeous, revealing undercurrents of black metal ambience. I'm happy that WCBN, where I first met Julia, has inspired so many contemporary musicians, including Jib Kidder, Kohwi, and COBO.

MP3: Julia Holter: "The Falling Age"

Tragedy is out on Leaving Records in early 2011