Junior Boys Release “It’s All True”

Free song at end of article

Junior Boys. Photo illustration by John C. Tripp.

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/dominorecordco/junior-boys-banana-ripple”]

It’s All True is the name of the bold new album from Junior Boys, released on 14th June around the world (save the UK where it was released on 20th June). The epic 9-minute album track “Banana Ripple”  with remixes by The Field and legendary disco mixer Tom Moulton was also released on 12″ and digitally.

Ask most musicians about the inspiration behind their latest magnum opus and, at best, you’ll get some barely thought out guff about wanting to emulate the Beatles/Kraftwerk/Miles Davis/insert any other exalted artist within the canon of popular music. At worst you’ll be confronted with shoulder-shrugging indifference: “Just listen to the music, man.”

Ask Junior Boys’ Jeremy Greenspan about what motivated the making of his and partner Matt Didemus’ fourth album, It’s All True, however, and you’re soon basking in a multitude of cultural, geographic and gastronomic touchstones: namely Orson Welles, Howard Hughes, China, in particular Shanghai, Japan (the band, not the country) Banana Ripple ice cream, Carl Craig and analogue synths, but mostly Orson Welles.

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What’s The Big Idea?

[gigya src=”http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649″ width=”500″ flashvars=”offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=/photos/scionart/sets/72157626813156800/show/&page_show_back_url=/photos/scionart/sets/72157626813156800/&set_id=72157626813156800&jump_to=” allowFullScreen=”true” ] Scion’s upcoming show at their LA Gallery, “The Big Idea” features a […]

Helado Negro Turns Dance Music Inside Out on “Canta Lechuza”

Helado Negro translates as “black ice cream” and Canta Lechuza means “sing owl.” Rightly so—like the wise ol’ owl, like Davey Crockett and the Jersey Devil, Canta Lechuza is a thing born of woodsy zones.

In November of last year Roberto left Brooklyn for a month-long artist residence in rural Connecticut. From his piny retreat, Roberto awoke each morning to the dead-quiet of the forest. He got up, showered, put on a kettle, fixed a cup of black tea, then sat in the woods, om-ing out into the almighty (and very scenic) Void. Staring straight ahead, he centered himself for the recording hours to come. When the tea was gone he went back inside to get warm and began the workday. It was no stress, no pressure; a great cosmic calm presiding. He was in a benevolent place where nothing moved, where all was quiet and subtle. The result is Canta Lechuza—a majestically pretty electronic pop record; easygoing and beautifully mellow, but each piece danceable, each part a dance party.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/24250511]

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American and Cuban Jazz Meet on “Ninety Miles” Documentary

Stefon Harris, David Sanchez & Christian Scott will perform at their album release party at S.O.B.’s in NYC on June 21.

Opening Tuesday, June 21 – S.O.B.’s, NYC – Win Tickets

Hear ‘Ninety Miles’ In Its Entirety

All distance is relative, especially where geopolitical borders and ideologies are involved. We speak one language, they speak another. We follow our system, they follow theirs. When we focus on the differences, a relatively short stretch of land or water starts to look like a yawning chasm. But when we look at each other as individuals and focus on the similarities, that “chasm” is actually a very short distance. Less than a hundred miles.

Musicians – especially jazz musicians, whose craft is in many ways an improvised form of communication – understand this principle inherently, perhaps better than any politician or diplomat could ever hope to. Vibraphonist Stefon Harris, saxophonist David Sánchez and trumpeter Christian Scott cross that divide in Ninety Miles.

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Rediscovering the Malian Jazz of Sorry Bamba

Sorry Bamba

Sorry Bamba was born in 1938 in Mopti — “The Venice of Mali” — a city whose setting at the confluence of the Niger and Bani rivers made it a true cultural crossroads. This diversity sparked an unsinkable curiosity and passion for learning that characterizes Sorry’s career to this day.

Sorry Bamba’s father was a noble, and a veteran of the Emperor Samory Touré’s army. In Mali’s caste-based society, this meant that he was forbidden to play music, an art reserved exclusively for griots. However, after being orphaned at a very young age, he turned to music for solace, particularly a six-holed flute that kept him busy day and night.

It was in 1957 that Sorry formed his first band, Group Goumbé, named after a dance craze from the Ivory Coast. Consisting of little more than some percussion instruments and a trumpet, Group Goumbé became popular with the young people of Mopti, publicizing their performances in a small van equipped with a loudspeaker.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J1vEukdN-A]

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Battle of Balkan Brass: Fanfare Ciocarlia vs. Boban & Marko Markovic

The two foremost Gypsy brass bands are battling it out: who is the king of Balkan brass?

Fanfare Ciocărlia

Finally, the two titans of East European Gypsy music go head to head in a Balkan brass encounter of epic proportions. Following the tradition of brass battles from Serbia’s legendary Guca Brass Festival to New Orleans’ mean streets, the Balkan Brass Battle showcases the wit, passion and musical genius of Europe’s Romany Gypsy people.

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Electric Cowbell Records First Digital Release: 101 Things To Do In Bongolia

Label boss Jim Thomson steers Electric Cowbell as an independent, artist-run label that produces and releases unique records. 101 Things To Do In Bongolia gathers the labels singles of the past year.


Initially the vinyl-oriented 45RPM Electric Cowbell record label politely shunned any concern that their singles be made available digitally until our family members and friends without turntables began asking how they were going to get a chance to hear the songs. This formatting issue, coupled with the label’s intrinsic desire to promote and disseminate the bands and their music to a wider audience, has been resolved by offering digital album version-also available as CD-of the label’s first year of singles. 101 Things To Do In Bongolia is a sonic brochure of Electric Cowbell’s first batch of singles from 2010-2011 with the addition of some bonus tracks and remixes from the label’s current releases.

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Brazilian Tropicália Paid Tribute to on Red Hot + Rio 2

Two free songs at end of article

It’s fitting that Red Hot + Rio 2 would pay tribute to Brazil’s Tropicália movement since both exhibit a desire to act on social-political issues through music. Red Hot + Rio 2 is the natural successor to the 1996 original Bossa Nova inspired Red Hot + Rio.

Owing its roots to musical tolerance and innovation, the arrival of Tropicália on the scene began in the 1960s. Despite its success, the movement lasted few years, its influence on Brazilian music was broad and far-reaching.

Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil

Politically engaged lyrics and artistic forms of activism drove much of the movement following the coup of 1964. Its initial leaders, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, were incarcerated by the military government over the political content of their work. Their 1968 collaboration album Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis is largely considered the musical manifesto of the movement. The two, along with other artists commonly associated with the movement, experimented with unusual time signatures and other means of unorthodox song structures.

After two months, Veloso and Gil were released and exiled to London by the military government, where they lived until 1972. “Others in the Tropicalismo movement were less fortunate; several underwent torture or were forced into ‘psychiatric care’.  Not unlike what those living with AIDS today face daily in countries where violence and ostracization are part of the culture.

Red Hot + Rio 2, a pays tribute to late 60’s Brazilian Tropicália movement with over 30 original collaborations between Brazil’s legendary musicians and today’s international indie artists including John Legend, Os Mutantes, Devendra Banhart, Caetano Veloso, Dirty Projectors, Seu Jorge, Beck, Bebel Gilberto, José Gonzalez, Beirut, Tom Zé, Of Montreal, Marisa Monte Gogol Bordello, DJ Dolores, Aloe Blacc, Angelique Kidjo, Rita Lee, Madlib, Money Mark, Céu, Apollo Nove, Mayra Andrade, Trio Mocotó, Tha Boogie, Alice Smith, Carlinhos Brown, Los Van Van, Brazilian Girls, Marcos Valle, St. Vincent, Neon Indian, Forró In The Dark, Mia Doi Todd, Javelin, and many more.

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4hero’s Dego to Release Solo Debut “A Wha’ Him Deh Pon?”

The endlessly inventive musical creator known as Dego will release his own solo debut “A Wha’ Him Deh Pon?” this summer in 2011. Having recorded several seminal albums with his previous musical collectives 4hero, 2000black, Silhouette Brown and under the moniker, Mr. GoodGood, “A Wha’ Him Deh Pon?” marks Dego’s continuing musical evolution, integrating his past as an avatar of electronica, jazz, dub and soul, while blazing a new path forward beyond convention and expectation.

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