Eclectic Grooves

On Jan 27th,  I mentioned a potential lucrative opportunity that lay just within my striking distance. While I've posted a couple pieces since, I never shared the outcome of this with my readers.   In a nutshell, I found out a few days after I made that post that I had been selected to keep my position at the higher pay rate that my contracting company negotiated for me. Then, after working with the new contracting company for a little less than 2 months, I was told that my contract was terminated, effective immediately, due to me being the highest paid person on the team. I was shell-shocked, and became deeply depressed, questioning and blaming myself for something that was out of my control. Considering that I wasn't ready to start looking for a new job,  I decided to hold off on collecting unemployment benefits. I spent my days feeling sorry for myself, and wondering how my girlfriend and I were going to pay the bills each month while I looked for a new opportunity. Th...

L'Orange and Jeremiah Jae- The Night Took Us in Like Family If you are the kind of person who has a difficult time when an artist you like releases an album that is a little different than what you expected, then you probably don't understand why I've been posting so much hip-hop music lately. Truthfully, I am a child of the 80's, and this was the decade where the seeds of hip-hop started to bloom into an undeniable force of nature that could no longer be ignored by the masses. Fast forward almost three decades later to 2015, a year where Kendrick Lamar releases an innovative mainstream record with heart and soul, and artists like Ghostface Killah, Adrian Younge and the aforementioned Lamar decided to incorporate live instruments into their usual repertoire of samples and programmed drum beats.  Amongst this bevy of artists experimenting with new sounds is producer/rapper Jeremiah Jae, the leader of the Black Jungle Squad, a coalition of rappers and...

If you live in Portland OR, you have no excuse for missing the Hail Mary Mallon show tonight at the Hawthorne Theatre. Hail Mary Mallon is the culmination of two top-tier MC's from the Rhymesayers stable: Aesop Rock and Rob Sonic. The duo's latest long player was one of my most-played records from 2014, and continues to stay on repeat in 2015. Aesop Rock has been one of my favorite MC's ever since the lyrically and verbally dense Labor Days has graced my ears with its presence, and Rob has been Aesop's partner in crime ever since the glory days of the now defunct Definitive Jux label. For my review of their latest record Bestiary , click here , and go to #11 on the list. And for the uninitiated, check out the following YouTube video of their album complete with one of the best  Donkey Kong games ever played. You'll thank me later!

This past June for my birthday, I received a fantastic book from my girlfriend entitled Turn On your Mind by Jim De Rogatis. Within the confines of the book, the author ambitiously strives to effectively present an  overview of the last four decades of psychedelic rock according to his tastes and sensibilities, and he is largely successful at doing so. At roughly over 600 pages, it is a thoroughly researched, painstakingly detailed and thoughtfully constructed opus consisting of lists, further listening recommendations and numerous quotes taken from musicians, producers, writers and other scholars who either experienced psychedelic music firsthand or have taken a specific interest in it over the years. When DeRogatis is firing on all cylinders, it shows in his writing. There is an incredibly insightful introductory chapter that outlines the history of LSD, an in-depth analysis of Syd Barrett and Pink F...

I've received a couple requests to have the Howard Tate "Get It While You Can" re-upped, so I hope you enjoy this soul classic originally released on Verve in 1966. Here is a link to the original post on Howard Tate from May. In other news, I plan on posting a Best Music of 2007 list soon. Hopefully, I can get it to you in time to purchase some great music for the holidays. My hope was to have this list completed by early December, but you know how life can get busy. I'm heading home to Peoria, IL for the holidays, so I'm trying to get everything wrapped up here before I leave for my trip. I will try to re-upload some Christmas blues and soul gems that I had on here last year, as well as a few more new ones. You're probably thinking that this blog is turning into a funk and soul blog, but I have plenty of free jazz and discordant improvisation stuff to fill the experimental music enthusiast's stocking too. Also, after the holidays, I plan on starting a new...

Today, I am featuring a variety of tunes that I've been listening to lately. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Bardo Pond: Destroying Angel From: Ticket Crystals [ATP, 2006] First off, is a sludgy, psychedelic slab of wax from Philadelphia's Bardo Pond . Bardo Pond's music can best be described as long passages of transcendental and psychedelic "stoner rock" which is highly influenced by Black Sabbath , Acid Mother's Temple , and My Bloody Valentine . Destroying Angel is the first track on the band's latest mind-blowing effort entitled Ticket Crystals . While Ticket Crystals is a mellow album for the most part, this song rips out the walls of your speakers with loud, distorted and droning guitars, propulsive drumming and dynamically searing vocals. After the first verse, the band maintains this intensity, while the lead singer's wordless, yearning moans and psychedlic flute playing give the track a sense of mysticism. Absolut...