Heard That1x
These tunes are worth the time . . .
This column in the past has reviewed music that uses both the Freeamp and Real Player audio players, however there is some outstanding music to be heard through the Liquid Music Player, which is the best free player I?ve worked even though configuration hassles do occasionally occur:
1. Carlos Santana?s two tracks. He has a new album out called "Supernatural" which promises, on the merit of these two songs, to be his best ever. Almost every track features a "friend", a musical guest. The better of the two tracks, " Put Your Lights On" is with Everlast, former front-man of rap group House of Pain. He takes the vocals for the track, written by Santana, and the song is?and I use the word sparingly?great.
Everlast is an interesting partner because he has made a surprising and impressive change over the course of the past decade. Whereas earlier he rapped bad and hateful lines like "If your girl acts up I?m smackin? the ho1x", now, in a solo project, he tackles subjects such as a girl who is abandoned by her boyfriend once he finds out that she is pregnant. Everlast sings laconically "But God forbid you ever have to walk a mile in her shoes. ?Cause then you might find out what it?s like to have to choose." In "Put Your Lights On", he calls out to sinners, lovers, killers and children to put their lights on, because there is a darkness deep down in his soul. It is sad and beautiful.
The song has many sounds and they are blended to perfection. First we hear a folky guitar played to a slow alternative rhythm. Next comes Santana?s classic lead guitaring, sparse and concerned. Then we hear Everlast?s deep rolling voice, under which a contemporary drum beat sneaks in, coupled with the resonant sounds of a conga. The song mounts in intensity, breaking at the bridge, then reiterating the first verse.
2. Next stop is a compilation album called " Random", featuring electronic music. Well worth the dollar and a half download after hearing the paltry thirty second sample of the the Orb?s "
The Orb is the only techno group I have come across (other than Nee From Yugoslavia) that seems to be entirely interested in the music it plays, rather than the trendiness of club culture or the underground smell of DJing. "Jo the Waiter" exhibits extraordinarily patient musicality, much like a Miles Davis trumpet improvisation. They set down a soundscape and, without making too much fuss or resorting to backbeats of hyperbolic speed, keep the listener wound in their world and spinning on their axis. This track is similar rhythmically to Beethoven?s gliding between a two and a three feel in his "Ode to Joy", as well as being similar to polyrhythmic African music (in which two rhythms of different lengths are played, repeating, on top of each other). The Orb constructs a one feel?like a pulse?and within that pulse come many different smaller rhythms?in three, in two? in effortless insinuation of different musical genres.
Moving on to similar instrumentation with different emphasis?the lyrical?for a sample from the Black Gangster soundtrack. Jay-Z, DMX, Ja Rule, Ghetto Mafia and others collaborated to create a soundtrack formed after a novel. "Everything on this album is original, exclusive, and delivers impeccably what Goines did in his literary concepts....it brings the streets alive," say the liner notes. A five minute sample (listed as ten because it repeats itself) is available for streaming. Every song is good, though the message is often the ugly reality of street living. The men who rap on this album don?t have any particular school of thought that they are following, such as NWA?s gangsta-rap or Snoop Doggy Dogg?s West-Coast style. They just want to rap and get across a strong message of brutality and reality, and make money.
It is in hip-hop, though, where most innovation is occurring right now. Hip-hoppers such as these, as well as Missy Elliot (who pioneered the mainstream version of flurrying off-kilter beats and fast-stop-fast-stop rapping) and Foxy Brown, are constantly exploring rhythmic innovation in their words and their rhythms, and that is audible on this sample.
By Ted Koch
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