Thursday, December 24, 2015

Dengue Fever - Little Drummer Boy



Pa Rum Pum Pum Pum is the same in all languages, apparently...

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Death Cab For Cutie - "Black Sun" (Official Video)



Watch the video, no small symbolism...

Monday, December 21, 2015

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Friday, December 18, 2015

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Man On Fire [Official Video]



Everybody want safety (safety love)
Everybody want comfort (comfort love)
Everybody want certain (certain love)
Everybody but me

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Bebe - Siempre Me Quedara (translated)



Time calms everything, la tempestad y la calma...

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Evi Vine - Inside Her



Watch the VDO: rainy day woman, rainy day roominations, chiaroscuro, mostly cloudy with a chance of afternoon sunshine, crispy words on soggy backgrounds, prepositions without objects, pronouns without antecedents, propositions with no promises, proposals lying naked on autumn leaves quickly turning to winter...

Friday, December 11, 2015

Glen Hansard - "Love Don't Leave Me Waiting"



Americana, don't leave me wanting...

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

Ray LaMontagne - Beg Steal or Borrow



Think this won Grammy song of the year a few years back; who knew?

Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Foxygen - San Francisco (Official Video)



Riffing on a theme, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...

Monday, December 07, 2015

Ladytron - Seventeen [Official Music Video]



They only want you when you're seventeen, so what happens when you're thirty-nine?  Sixty-four?

Sunday, December 06, 2015

Saturday, December 05, 2015

Bombino, "Tar Hani" Live



Tuareg rock, big sound big desert...

Friday, December 04, 2015

Thursday, December 03, 2015

Beirut - Gibraltar (OFFICIAL VIDEO)



Only 3699km/2000mi+/- from Beirut to Gibraltar, almost 10 hours by flight, taking you over parts of Cyprus, Greece, Tunisia, Algeria, and LOTS of water, and air...

Wednesday, December 02, 2015

First Aid Kit - Wolf



From the mouths of Swedish babes: shades of Emmy Lou, shape-shifting images from the Far North...

Tuesday, December 01, 2015

Youth - Daughter



"If you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones..."

Monday, November 30, 2015

Buscabulla -Sono



Airespanol... chevere'...

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Nicolas Jaar - Aphex Twin + Notorious B.I.G Mashup



Mashed potatoes on Sunday, yum yum....

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Wolf Alice - Giant Peach



Riffing on a theme...

Friday, November 27, 2015

Pedestrian At Best - Courtney Barnett



Garage rock, carport locks, biker chick with pedestrian kicks...

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Korey Dane - Jules Verne



Shades of Dylan, not-so-dark shades...

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

LHASA -LA FRONTERA



Border towns of the world unite!

Monday, November 23, 2015

Dillon - Thirteen Thirtyfive at Studio 8



Sometimes pain is its own reward...

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Yuna - LANGIT #flyinghigh



Flying high in the sky...

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

ST GERMAIN - REAL BLUES (Official Video)



Blues for Paris, naked and unafraid...

Monday, November 16, 2015

Mdou Moctar - Adounia



Is this the new face to Saharan desert-rock? Will Mdou Moctar be Jimmy Cliff to Tinariwen's Marley, Bombino's Tosh?  We'll have to wait and see the movie 'Akounak', the harder they fall...

Saturday, November 14, 2015

سلام-عبدالرحمن محمد ومهاب عمر/Peace-Abdulrahman Mohammed&Mohab Omer



Published two weeks ago: "With all the distractions and difficulties we have in life, I'm so happy and proud that we are still able to make some Arts, some music, some hope, living some freedom dreams through the arts we are trying to make. Deeply Thanks for all your deep understanding to the difficulties we are facing as independent artists in such a delicate and hard time for all the arts and artists in the Arabic countries and the Middle East in the current time."

Friday, November 13, 2015

Giant Sand & Rainer - The Inner Flame.wmv



How do you know that you've been in Tucson too long? When is death day really a birthday?  Happy birthday, Rainer Ptacek!

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

De Lux - "Oh Man The Future" (Official Video)



I guess the future is not so cool, after all...

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Lykke Li - No Rest For The Wicked



Sometimes peace is hard to find...

Monday, November 09, 2015

Beck - Dreams (Official Audio)



This how it's done, Kanye, words and music...

Sunday, November 08, 2015

Saturday, November 07, 2015

Joaquin Lievano - The Art of Bowing


      

TURN IT UP and you just might get a buzz... this is one of my jazz favorites of all time, don't know why it's not famous....

Friday, November 06, 2015

Thursday, November 05, 2015

Band of Horses - Laredo



Welcome to Laredo, x-roads of the world, x-roads of your life...

Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Tuesday, November 03, 2015

SOFI TUKKER - Drinkee (Original Mix)



Now for something completely different, mixing drinks mixing metaphors... genial, gabacho, aproveche...

Monday, November 02, 2015

The Helio Sequence - October (not the video)


October's gone, but hopefully there will be another one; fingers crossed...

Sunday, November 01, 2015

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Timbuktu Official Trailer (2015) - Oscar Nominee, Best Foreign Language ...



DVD Review: Timbuktu—Jihad for Dummies
A gazelle zigzags through the landscape while macho maniacs fire at it with guns. That represents fragile systems under attack. Remember 'Bambi Meets Godzilla'? The same macho maniacs then destroy cultural artifacts as a matter of (religious) course, anything a threat to the doctrines and dictates of dogma. People are corralled and cajoled into concentration camps of convenience for the sake of religion without reason and even less rhyme: neither cigarettes, music, nor football—God forbid alcohol—are allowed.

I think everybody has at least some vague recollection of the events that occurred in northern Mali in 2012, when Arab jihadis basically co-opted the desert nomadic Tuaregs' long wished-for dreams of an Azawad homeland, using them in their quest for a fundamentalist Islamist state, then basically hanging the Tuaregs out to dry before the central Bamako government—with French help—regained control.

Friday, October 30, 2015

Soko - I'll Kill Her



Confession-rock at its best...

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Steve Earle -- "Mississippi, It's Time"



I'm officially casting my vote, right here right now.  Lock it up in a museum!

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Habib Koité & Bamada - Massakè



Mali has the best music of any country in the world; this is just one of many...

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Erykah Badu - Your Mind (Live)



Live soul, bordering on the blues, bordering on the badlands, bordering on the news...

Monday, October 26, 2015

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Friday, October 23, 2015

Geoffrey Oryema - Ye Ye Ye



Classic world music...

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Temples - Shelter Song



Pure pop for NOW people...

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Dengue Fever - Tokay (opbmusic)



ตุ๊กแก the gecko, not the cheap wine...

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Sylvan Esso - Coffee (Live on KEXP)




Morning coffee, riffing on TJ & Shondells, diving for dough, nuts...

Monday, October 19, 2015

Silversun Pickups - Nightlight (Official Video)




Like day for night, blanc pour noir, LA for Paris, leaves me breathless; still miss that auto dealership on Sunset for some reason, don't know why, residual memory from another dream; what was the name?  

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Nu - MAN O TO (Original Mix).wmv



Persian;
khonak an dam ke neshinim dar eyvan, man o to
be do naghsho be do soorat, be yeki jan, man o to
khosh o faregh ze khorafat-e-parishan, man o to
man o to, bi man o to, jam' shavim az sar-e-zogh
English;
the pleasant moment of sitting in front of the door, me and you.
with two figures and two faces, with one life, me and you.
joyful and careless, free from distracting myths, me and you.
me and you, without us (ego), gather because of virtu (love)--Rumi

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Elemotho - Kgala!Namib (live)



Greetings from Windhoek, the other South (West) Africa...

Friday, October 16, 2015

DVD Review: The Lunchbox--Like Chilies for Curry...

The Lunchbox poster.jpg
Talk about Bollywood movies and the natural assumption is that there's a few lines of plot to punctuate the extended song-and-dance that Indian audiences seem to want in large doses, sweet as the sugar-laden confections that spike the carbs at the end of an otherwise mostly veg plate of Indian food—with curry. There has to be curry: season to taste. Some like it hot. But 'The Lunchbox' plays for subtlety; that means there are changes in the Indian market or this movie is made for foreign audiences, or both. Stay tuned for more...

Radio Krioyo Live



Live stream from.... Curacao?  Papiamento language?  Somebody help me here...

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Ylja - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)



Icelandicana, evoking images of long lonesome geothermal midnight suns...

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Gigi - "Enoralehu"



Now for some exotic product from Ethiopia...

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Toro Y Moi "Rose Quartz"



Nice song, cool video....

Monday, October 12, 2015

Tame Impala - Let It Happen



All this running around... I can't fight it much longer

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Saturday, October 10, 2015

MGMT - Electric Feel



Share it with a friend...

Friday, October 09, 2015

Sarah Jaffe - Clementine



Life by the 50's, time wasted? Think not...

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Wednesday, October 07, 2015

Novalima - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)


Un poco de ritmo y color desde la niebla de Africa hasta la niebla de Seattle por via de la niebla de Lima, loco viaje... 

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Monday, October 05, 2015

Sunday, October 04, 2015

Saturday, October 03, 2015

The Shins - New Slang [OFFICIAL VIDEO]



"There's nothing worse than old slang..."

Thursday, October 01, 2015

Hindi Zahra - Beautiful Tango

DVD Review: Automata—Clunker with a Heart of Gold

I missed this movie when it came out a year ago, but that's nothing new. I miss a lot. And foreign-made films don't always rate first response from the American press. I suspect that's why the reviews were not so good, either. Hollywood loves nothing so much as itself, even with Antonio Banderas in the lead role and Dylan McDermott and Melanie Griffith backing up. It's just not a Hollywood flick and that speaks volumes. Even Robert Rodriguez rates better press than this from his Texas stronghold, but then he follows the bang-bang playbook to a 'T'.

Okay, so 'Automata' might not be 'Birdman' or even 'Matrix', but it's not bad, not bad at all. It's not easy making a good sci-fi film. It has to be 'scientific' enough for that crowd, yet realistic enough to be believable, and still satisfy the human need for narrative and sympathy—not easy. Apparently the main beef seems to be that it doesn't live up to its promise. Geez! Give it credit for even having a promise! Most sci-fi flicks don't, and action films don't even pretend to..

'The Matrix' was great, but totally unbelievable. 'Star Wars' doesn't even count. That's just live-action animation based on the 'Hero with a 1000 Faces' mono-myth like 1000 other stories. And space-based tales like it and 'Star Trek' are largely a failed paradigm now—too bad—though '2001' will never be surpassed in that genre. Space is dead—for now. Wait for the Mars space program—if we're lucky. So we're left with robots for our science fix, still relevant if kept up-to-date.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Natalia Lafourcade - Hasta la Raíz





"I carry you inside, down to the root"....


Monday, September 28, 2015

Beach Baby - Ladybird





Just one more day of summer, please? And a liter of eternal youth on the side...

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Bonobo - Black Sands





Sunday Serenity: Get it while you still can...

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Friday, September 25, 2015

Shake It Off





Remember the old Taylor Swift classic from a few months ago? Brilliant exercise in musical relativity, what goes around, comes around...

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Terakaft: New Album 'Alone', Still Second Best, and that's good...



Any discussion of the musical genre 'Tuareg Desert Blues” starts and
ends with one word: Tinariwen. They basically invented the genre,
built the playbook and have since spawned dozens of friends, fans,
and imitators from all adjacent regions, from Libya to Burkina Faso,
from Bombino to Tamikrest, usually with native costume, always with
jangly guitars. I've even considered learning the language myself
just to get some lyrical insight...


Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Allah Las - Tell Me (What's On Your Mind) (Official Video)





Song with a certain 'tude, no religion required إن شاء الله

Monday, September 21, 2015

New Order - Restless (Official Video)





New tunes from old masters are always welcome, especially when they're good...

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Khruangbin - A Calf Born In Winter - Official Video







เครื่องบิน = Airplane 

Sunday Serenity: Sometimes the best things from Thailand are not Thai at all...

Saturday, September 19, 2015

DVD review: Rosewater and Julep, Movies and Reality, USA and Aryan Iran...

Imagine a place out on the steppes of Asia, the stepping stones to Europe, maybe the Caucasus, or somewhere farther east, out on the outskirts of the civvies and the cities, say maybe 5-6000 years ago, with the climes warming up and paths leading north, where a group of people probably only a few thousand strong, not so urban, but not so stupid, playing around with wheels and ales and axles and weapons, found a will and a way in this world, spreading outward until they gradually lost contact with each other and their languages became harder to understand, eventually to become the Celts of Europe and the Persians of Asia and the Greeks of the Mediterranean, and the Hittites who never really left, now North Europeans, South Europeans, Indians, Iranians, and... Armenians, who never really left...

...speaking related Indo-Aryan-European languages, Aryan the same word as Iran, long before it meant 'Nordic', swastika a Hindu symbol, Persian sharing words with English and Spanish, “Swas Ti Ka” meaning “hello” in Thai via Sanskrit, long before Hitler crapped on us all, long before Muslims felt like they had to fight for their lives to survive Western colonization, long before Jews decided they weren't really Middle Easterners at all, more like Europeans in fact, with all that represents...

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

BOMBA ESTÉREO - EL ALMA Y EL CUERPO [HD]



"Body and Soul": 'I'm burning up inside"...

Monday, September 14, 2015

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Film Review: 'Force Majeure' Coolly Metafizzical...

Image result for force majeure movieSwedish movies are known for their brooding interiors, but brooding exteriors? Now there's fresh food for thought, a thought experiment, that is, which probably best describes this little peach of a movie from Swedish director Ruben Ostlund. The premise is simple enough: a 'controlled avalanche' in the French Alps goes a little bit out of control, giving tourists dining on the view and crepes a good scare, and their split-second reactions a good lesson in metaphysics. Spoiler alert: get your popcorn before the movie starts, because the climax comes within the first ten minutes. Everything else is denouement. Alternative title suggestion: 'Premature Extrapolation'....

The French title (better than the Swedish title 'Turist' BTW), translates most obviously to 'Major Force', but that sounds like a Charles Bronson movie, so 'Act of God' is probably the better rendition, referring as it does to the clause in most contracts that allows a way out for everyone, much harm but no foul; i.e. 'sh*t happens', responsibility must be shared, if the concept even applies. And that's the plot: when the 'little avalanche' comes, people revert to basic instincts for survival, if only for a minute. The wife and mother immediately protects her kids. The husband and father pulls a George Costanza and makes for the exit, reappearing only long after the fog of disaster has cleared. Food for thought? You bet...

Saturday, May 09, 2015

Remember 2014? Remember 'The Interview'?


The year 2014 had to be one of the weirdest years ever, politically and socially, almost unbelievable even months later. First (but not necessarily most) was the wave of child refugees from Central America swarming the US border. That's weird! That makes Putin gobbling up Ukraine almost pale in comparison, way beyond the pale. And remember Ebola, aka 'Apocalypse Now'? Then there's Malaysian Airlines' MH370 and MH17, the one lost in water, the other lost in war. 

War! ISIS! ISIL! And the pseudo sorta' Islamic State! Just when you thought that Netanyahu could 'mow the lawn' of the Mideast with Palestinian bodies, accomplished with impunity and consummate skill, a group of jihadis decide to form a new state in their midst with a ragtag gang of hell-bent misfits armed with sharpened knives and blood in their eyes. But the weirdest part of 2014 had to be the movie 'The Interview'. Remember that, the Seth Rogen farce starring him and James Franco in character as television personalities assigned to interview (and assassinate) North Korean leader Kim Jong-un? 

I finally got around to seeing 'The Interview' this week. It's a farce, all right, and if I were a dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy fanatic, then I would have to conclude that the North Korean threat of terrorism against the producers and distributors of this movie surely must've been factory-made PR to boost sales of what is otherwise one of the worst movies every made. Save yourself the streaming fee (this year's Oscar picks are all available on Netflix DVD by now BTW; streamers can wait).

Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Tucson's Hypertravel Hostel Proudly Supports Public Radio KXCI! (not Jay Z, just sayin')...

I Amplify KXCI
Is the new celebrity-studded 'Tidal' subscription music service, supported by the likes of Jay Z, Madonna, Beyonce and music's favorite bully Kanye, really a game-changer?  Will it succeed wildly where other streaming services like Pandora and Spotify have fallen short?  I have a better question: who cares?  Remember, we're just talking about a newer, arguably hipper internet-based form of radio, after all.  Huh?  Radio?  Maybe a little back story helps:

Radio: the word inspires... not much really, not any more, and yet it has been the soundtrack to many of our lives, up until now, not bad for a medium whose electromagnetic waves were not even theorized until 1873 by James Clerk Maxwell, and whose frequencies were first proven to exist by Heinrich Hertz in 1886, with practical applications first experimented in 1896 by Guglielmo Marconi, and commercial broadcasting begun in the US in the 1920's.  That's quite the international success story: kudos (and don't call it 'wireless' any more)...

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