Free Form Freq's "Urban Mythology"

[originally published at AllAboutJazz.com]



Guitarist Vernon Reid, bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma and drummer G. Calvin Weston give the power trio new meaning with Urban Mythology Volume One. Released under the moniker the Free Form Funk Freqs, the album is less jazz and more improvisational rock, powered by Weston's double bass drum and heavy crash, hard rock approach and Reid's space-bending, delay-loving fretwork.

The awesome impact of the trio is also shaped by Tacuma's ability to take a repetitive funk form and keep it interesting—by finding new ways to interpolate the same idea, flipping patterns on their heads, adding and subtracting, dividing and conquering the rhythm he creates.

Remarkably, Urban Mythology Volume One marks just the third time that Reid, Tacuma and Weston ever performed together (the first being a night during Tonic's last days, the second a gig one month later in Weston's Philadelphia).

”A Tale Of Two Bridges” is thoroughly dominated by Reid, who unleashes note after note like bombs bursting in the air. His guitars dance around each other, as in an electronic seance, the strings conjuring sounds only angels and ghosts make.



”Over And Under” finds Tacuma slapping his bass with enough intensity to match Weston, who keeps a steady double bass beat going and crashes his cymbals as if playing for a crowd of thousands. After the workout that is “Over And Under,” the trio wisely take things down a couple notches with “A Lost Way Found.” Though it seems Weston didn't get the memo: as his bandmates settle into an atmospheric groove, the drums stay busy as ever.

”Cump Chank Chunk” is a bluesy riff that gets the trademark Thirsty Ear post-production touch, as Reid adds layers of angels moaning and other spectral sounds. “Doing Within,” on the other hand, may be just too heavy a workout to sit through; some listeners, like the band, will likely have been whipped by the time this penultimate track comes along, worn out by the sheer funk freakiness of the session.

Reid and company are definitely onto something here, and hopefully they'll continue to explore this monster. Urban Mythology Volume One is punk rock jazz, free-form funk declaring sonic warfare on the rhythm and the beat.




mp3: "Over and Under"
myspace: www.myspace.com/freeformfunkyfreqs

3 Dope Hip Hop videos

Gotta thank the great writers at nahright.com for hippin me to these great new hip hop videos.

The Cool Kids - "Black Mags"
http://www.myspace.com/gocoolkids

This shit makes me wanna get the tires on my 20 inch fixed. Cool Kids have been generating buzz among hip-hoppers and hipsters for a minute now. Two skate kids from Chicago, Chuck and Mikey get as much attention for their brightly colored alt-B-Boy fashion as they do for their trunk rattling beats.



Jim Jones - "Love Me No More/Byrdgang Money"
http://www.myspace.com/jimjones

Jones represents the best of NYC hip-hop. Founder of the Diplomats/Dipset with Cam'ron, Jones recently signed a joint venture deal for his Jones Family Productions with Columbia Records. His latest, Harlem American Gangster drops soon this Tuesday, February 19. Dude has been surrounded by controversy for his beefs with Tru-Life, Jay Z, and ex-runningmate Cam'ron.



Wiz Khalifa - "Say Yeah"
http://www.myspace.com/wizkhalifa

First off, how many dope emcees are coming out of Pittsburgh, PA? Wiz is one of those cats who's done stuff indie for years and recently been sucked into the major label machine - type of cat just waiting for a hot single to break him through. His mixtapes have been in and out of DJs and fans hands. Great quote from his manager: "[Mixtapes] are to hip-hop what touring is to rock," he says, "an important tool in getting the word out on an artist, and to let the streets decide whether he is ready for the world."

Sometimes I just have fun with these CD reviews...

What if Paramore’s Hayley Williams screamed and had less cute hair? Well, she could probably try out for Eyes Set to Kill, the Tempe, AZ five-piece whose debut full-length Reach is out now on Break Silence Records.



Now if you'll please excuse my while I sip a little Hater-ade...

Of the bubbling pool of female-fronted rock bands (In This Moment, Kenotia, Patience, etc.), Eyes Set to Kill is certainly one of the better ones. But looking at this band it’s hard not to think they were created via some nefarious conspiracy involving Hot Topic, Fuse, and their label Koch Records (parent company to Break Silence). Led by sisters Alexia and Anissa Rodriguez, Eyes Set to Kill play a watered-down version of the metalcore / screamo those myspace kids get so moist over – I’m thinking The Devil Wears Prada, Memphis May Fire, and the like. From the perfectly placed facial piercings to the combed over hair, pouty lips, and token metal dude with full sleeves and huge plugs, Eyes Set to Kill look more like a marketing department’s master creation than a legitimate band worthy of respect, praise, and a recording contract. Maybe the record industry is folding because they keep signing bands not worth the price of admission.

Maybe?

Man this Hater-ade is tasty.



Alexia and keyboardist Brandon Anderson trade vocals in a boring call-and-response format. It seems like the two sat down with Alexia’s lyric book and decided, “OK, you sing that line, I’ll scream this line, then you sing that line, then I’ll scream this line, then I’ll sing that line…” I think you get it. Drummer Caleb Clifton would do well to lay off his double bass pedal. The kid plays like a chef who only keeps salt and pepper on his spice rack – about as flavorful as tapioca pudding. And as for the guitars, they’re typical Killswitch Engage style metalcore, nothing interesting in the slightest.

“Reach” is a predictable title track, with empowering lyrics and a doodling guitar melody you can’t get out of your head, “Violent Kiss” is at the tempo and shuffle that those two-step kids love to get down to, and “Give You my All” is your token acoustic track. Overall there is little variation in this twelve song album, little to get excited about – little substance at all.

It’s a shame, really, that "female-fronted" is getting to the point where it sounds like such a gimmick when used as a qualifier. It’s like that band Loom – am I supposed to ignore the fact that their post-ATDI indiecore is rather generic simply because they incorporate a violin in their music? Likewise, am I to ignore the fact that Eyes Set to Kill is rather generic screamo simply because they feature two rather attractive females?

But then again you know me – steady sippin' on some Hater-ade. Take it as you will.

Today's YouTube Find...

Came across this amazing video on YouTube today, while snacking on a Red Barron's microwave pizza. This live video taken from the Knitting Factory in NYC features three amazing musicians who never cease to amaze me.

Ronald Shannon Jackson: Out there drummer, really out there. Helped pioneer the "free funk" sound (a blending of funk rhythms with free jazz improvisation) leading the group The Decoding Society, circa 1979. Went on to perform with Last Exit, a "super group" if ever there was one, featuring Bill Laswell (bass), Sonny Sharock (guitar), and Peter Brotzman (sax). Killer drummer. Live at Greenwhich House is one to check out.

Vernon Reid: C'mon dude - Living Colour? Seriously one of the best rock bands of all time. Dude is an extraordinary talent. The stuff he's done with Thirsty Ear Records, primarily his work with DJ Logic as The Yohimbe Brothers is brilliant.. He's got a record coming out under the banner Free Form Funky Freqs that I'll be reviewing shortly.

Melvin Gibbs: Like Reid, Gibbs got his start working with Jackson in the late 70s. Later he would join Rollins' Band and perform with DJ Logic as well. Unfortunately, this video cuts off right as Gibbs is about to launch into a solo. Sucks.

Enjoy.

Sparks is a Diamond sign to Pluto Records

This band is on some hot shit.

A little like Death From Above 1979, a little like Blood Brothers, a little like Circle Takes the Square, a little like Pretty Girls Make Graves, a little like The Faint - Sparks is a Diamond is three piece (guitar, drums and an amazing female vocalist) hailing from Philladelphia, PA. The band just signed to Pluto Records (HORSE the Band, the JonBenet) and are destined for big, big things. Trust me.



Look at those kids - cute as fuck, eh?

Here's a sweet little video for their amazing track "Check Your Lease, You're In Fuck City" from their Emerald Moon Records debut EP.



The danceability of their tracks, the screamed male/female vocals - Sparks is a Diamond are the next hot internet buzz band - guarantee it. At least in the screamy, dancey punk hardcore community.

Enjoy friends - this is what I'm here for.

myspace: www.myspace.com/sparksisadiamond

Saviours - "Into Abaddon"

I had the opportunity to see Saviours live at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin late last year. Unfortunately the band was sandwiched between Sweden’s Witchcraft and Austin’s own The Sword – two bands exploring a similar sound as Oakland, California’s Saviours. In this awfully repetitive live context, Saviours were too much to handle – no matter how high I was and how ready I was to hear some old fashioned riffage, because with The Sword due up, I admittedly turned my back on Saviours' set, choosing to go check out one of the other bands on the diverse festival lineup.

If that live set was anything as impressive as Into Abaddon – the band's Kemado Records debut – I can say just one thing: WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING?!?! This shit is brutal, harder hitting than a cross-face bitch-slap from a big black dildo. Stoned out grooves fueled by fast cars and loose women, Sabbath-loving and Lemmy-inspired, Saviours are four motor heads stuck in the wrong decade and loving every minute of it. The band was born from the ashes of East Bay thrashers Yaphet Kotto but sound nothing like that incredible proto-screamo band. Saviours are good in their own right, without the need to name drop Yaphet Kotto (who also happen to be one of my personal all time faves).



“Raging Embers” kicks off Into Abaddon with an almost Yes like chromatic groove. Like a lot of southern sounding seventies metal, “Embers” shuffles forward in 6/8 time. This can get tiresome after a few songs, but Saviours manages this formula tastefully.

One thing I definitely dig about Saviours' songs is their length – five, six and seven minute stoner metal jams are where it’s at buddy. The closing “Inner Mountain Arthame” is some epic Brit-metal and shows all of the band's talents perfectly. Recommended listening, no doubt.

Austin Barber half-screams, half-chants his vocals, like a drunkard yelling at the night sky before kissing the cold concrete. Barber’s hoarse throat sounds like it’s nursed enough bottles of Jim Beam to give the man a liver aged well beyond it’s years. Fuck it – if it helps you write riffs this brutal, who gives a shit? Party hard.

“Narcotic Sea” begins with fazer-effected guitars panned from one channel to the other, dizzying the listener, before the band drops into some early Metallica thrash. “Cavern of Mind” settles into a groove that’ll make every kid want to be a guitar hero, crushing posers in its wake.

Seven songs deep, Into Abaddon is the perfect length, clocking at just under 40 minutes. That's just enough time for you the really begin to enjoy Saviours post-hardcore meets “New Wave British Metal” sound without wearing you out. Into Abaddon is a stellar effort.

Enjoy a live video for "Cavern of Mind" below:



mp3: Saviors - "Raging Embers"
myspace: www.myspace.com/saviours666

San Antonio's The Grasshopper Lies Heavy

I'm really digging this brutal instrumental band from from San Antonio, TX called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Check out my review of their CD from decoymusic.com below.



Though billed by the band as “54 tracks of dense, heavy, delicious, moist poundcake,” The Grasshopper Lies Heavy’s Gun (released via Forgotten Empire Records) is really just six tracks of dense, delicious doom metal – and 48 tracks of nothing but beeps.

San Antonio’s The Grasshopper Lies Heavy play feedback heavy instrumetal and their second EP is a promising introduction to a band with big potential. But for all intents and purposes, Grasshopper is merely the demented ramblings of James Woodard. With the closing of each measure, Grasshopper leaves the listener worried whether the bottom will inevitably drop out, if the crushing riffs will collapse upon themselves, resulting in a dismal display akin to a self-imploding building, the rubble of a bombed out suburb, the twisting metal and shattered concrete of a trade center collapsed.

“Equalizer Drone” begins with feedback, a reverberating fury; as anticipation builds the band teases like a buzzed 18 year old. The level of tension developed is something along the lines of what Tool creates on some of their feedback-laden interludes. Grasshopper comes in as band for the first time with “Gifts” and immediately make a map of thematic ideas to be developed over the next five tracks.

“Untitled2” is Grasshopper’s most melodic offering – sounding almost like a ridiculously heavy version of Mineral or some other mid-90s shoe-gazing indie rock band.

Read more about Gun here.

mp3
The Grasshopper Lies Heavy - "Equalizer Drone"

Colin Munroe

Colin Munroe is this cat from Toronto that I'm really feeling right now. His latest release is a remix/cover of Kanye West's "Flashing Lights" (Graduation, 2007) available on his myspace profile. He's also dropped this beautiful music video for the track:



I guess I'm really just feeling this tracks as a struggling musican and artist myself. I WANT THOSE FLASHING LIGHTS for real - just gotta get that shit PLAYED.

Beyond this track though, Munroe's material is interesting, but nowehere near the quality of his Kanye remix. According to his myspace profile, the young songwriter has hooked up with Dallas Austin to work on some tracks. Could this kid be some sort of Canadian J.T.? It's certainly a possibility.



Here's another video from Munroe, a great stop motion flick for the Ben Fold's like "World of Pain." This is more piano rock akin to The Fray or some other adult-oriented pop but still an entertaining video and decent song.

Robots and Empire - Poughkeepsie's best kept secret

Robots & Empire writes the most intense, blue-jeaned and whiskey gutted rock ‘n’ roll ever. These Poughkeepsie, NY natives know how to rock a riff like the best seventies guitar gods. The band's sophomore powerhouse Omnivore would have been the sort of post-hardcore record to rival Quicksand and Failure if it was released back in 1996. This album is a post-post hardcore record that challenges the best of their generation’s output by blending the best of rock ‘n’ roll from 1976, 1996, and 2006.

“Pure Shit” is sludgy trash metal, with ultra-distorted bass and throaty growls, which kicks this album off in stellar fashion. On “Monolith,” the next track, the band naturally switches from 90's-esque grunge to Neruosis-leaning doom.

Vocalist Brian Conway’s voice is what seals the deal for this band. It’s not that his voice is really unique, it’s just not the way most metal or hardcore vocalists sing today. His approach is more of a late-90’s alternative rock style of singing but a hell of a lot more intense. Conway does tend to wear his influences on his sleeve though: Mike Patton (“Spider Mites”), Ken Andrews (“The Midst of This”), Layne Staley (“Monolith”), and Matt Talbott (“Nameless”).

The rest of the band all matches Conway in intensity. Drummer Jason Petagine’s beats sound like the slow-moving drums of Satan’s marching band, guitarist Nick Haines creates a wall of sound, a shit-covered-and-smiling palate for Conway’s song, and Greg Nazak’s bass tone is just sick... sick like leaning over a toilet bowl sick.



“Mudgash” moves like a four-wheeler stuck in 8 inches of slush. “Erase Your Name” is too tough-guy, too much of a meathead bro-mosh, so much so it almost sounds like Sevendust meets Throwdown. “Bob Roberts” is written for fans of Open Hand’s Trustkill Records classic "You and Me".

Robots & Empire is where the flannel shirt meets the skinny jeans, where the Meat Puppets meet Mastodon. Rarely does an unsigned band excite me this much. Plain and simple, Robots & Empire are a rock band and this album is intense as fuck.

Visit Robots & Empire on myspace here.

Oh Astro

This husband and wife duo is sample happy - they're sample crazy. Shit is ridiculous. Oh Astro is husband and wife duo Hank Hofler and Jane Dowe and their latest Champions of Wonder is currently streaming at their promotion teams website here.



These two are like mad scientists - they even look a little kooky - cutting up the best tracks from all over the music landscape and piecing them back to together as the best post-everything groove pop out there.

This is straight from Fanatic Promo's press release - trust me, I ain't hip enough to recognize any of these originals Hofler and Dowe dissect. But just look at some of the works reworked by Oh Astro:

"Snow Queen" - Ratatat "Desert Eagle" and Lily Allen "Everything is Wonderful."

"Hello Fuji Boy" - Hot Chip “Boy From School,” Fujiya & Miyagi “Ankle Injuries,” and Lionel Richie “Hello.”

"Candy Sun Smiles” – Busdriver “Sun Shower,” Gnarls Barkley “Gone Daddy Gone,” and Electronic “Getting Away With It."

CMJ said the debut Oh Astro mini-album, Hello World (Illegal Art) was “funky and pretty...Hello World’s bite-sized samples concoct a weird pop universe." The same could be said of Champions of Wonder. Oh Astro live in a world where the synthesizer has taken over, where humans only speak in sampled cuts of previous conversations, where originality lies in the ability to manipulate previous attempts at originality. The say there's nothing new under the sun so Oh Astro say fuck it - we'll take we what got and rethink that shit.

Can't wait to pick up Champions of Wonder when it hits the street.Oh shit... and the physical release contains surround sound mixes of the first three tracks by Aaron Paolucci (who also mastered the stereo mixes) that can be played on a computer connected to a 5.1 sound system. Fucking nuts. Audiophiles please hide your hard-on.

Here's a link to Oh Astro's label home, Illegal Art, on on Wikipedia. The label is the home of the popular Girl Talk and releases sampled-based music only, challenging copyright law and advocating their artists' right to sample freely.

Visit Oh Astro on Myspace.