Check out a public library that produces vinyl compilations of local artists, more
Who’s visited their local public library recently? The center of town life for so many decades, libraries have undergone any number of changes in recent years. But a well-managed branch remains a vibrant center of activity even today, no matter how much its nature may have shifted. But residents of Westport, Connecticut have even greater reason to admire their local library as it shifts from being merely the repository for loan-able material, into the producer of some.
Volume One (Verso Records) is flagged by its cover sticker as the first vinyl record ever to be recorded, produced and released by a public library, a great looking 12 track collection of local artists — at least a few of which could easily step into a far. More national spotlight.
It’s a great album, a reminder of the comps that people used to buy blind way back when, simply because they loved the concept. And what’s not to love here? It’s been released by a library, for goodness sake, but there’s nobody shushing the kids here.
Rather, Daniprobably, Ports of Spain, Terri Lynn Hotchkiss, the wonderfully named Flameproof Mascara, Lulu Lewis, Mighty Moon Chew & Dooley-O and Tiny Ocean are just some of the acts cavorting among the book stacks, doing wheelies on the trolleys and looking up rude words in the dictionary.
Musically the album is all over the show, and that’s how it ought to be too; if there was a Dewey Decimal System for styles, this would be your primer. Alexandra Burnet & The Stable Six have a country flavor; Sheneta Nicole closes things out with a gorgeous piano ballad.
The Problem With Kids Today live up their name with a burst of three-piece punkoid energy; and the John Collinge Jazz Quartet declare “I Could Write a Book” without uttering a single word. And then there’s The Zambonis whose “Gretzky Twist” looks and sounds like it just stumbled out of a sports bar at 2 a.m., and decided to wake up the entire neighborhood.
It’s a terrific collection and one more reason to love public libraries. After all, if one can do it….
Forever ranked high among the collaborations that you wish could go on forever, the union of producer Adrian Sherwood and percussionist Bonjo Iyahbinghi Noah’s African Head Charge is 40 years and close to 20 albums old. And still it astonishes.
A Trip to Bolgatanga (On U Sound) is the first new AHC album in 12 years, but it doesn’t feel thatl ong. The blend is the familiar, compulsively kaleidoscopic mix of spiritual reggae, dub and electronics, shot through with whatever additional tastes its makers choose to include - references to Ghanaian blues, mantric chant, highlife and dancehall slip in and out of view, ricochets off the walls of sound that are the album’s overall architecture.
Titled for the north Ghanian town in which Noah met the latest incarnation of African Head Charge, and adding King Ayisoba to the vocal brew for a couple of tracks (including the spellbinding opener “A Bad Attitude”), A Trip to Bolgatanga is both relentllessly up-to-date and reassuringly redolent of past AHC releases… a travelogue for the spirit as well as the dance floor.
Craft Recordings have reissued Hector Lavoe’s La Voz, the salsa star’s 1975 debut album, with the label’s traditional attention to both detail and manufacture - 180 gram vinyl and all analog remastering, and the original sleeve in all its glory.
In collector terms, this isn’t an album that sets the pulse racing when it appears in the used bins; the difficulty always seems to lie in finding a copy that hasn’t previously been played to death. Online, original copies in anything approaching mint condition soar towards $100, and they’r enot especially common in the US either. This reissue should at least take some of the heat out of the hunt.
The final days of R.E.M. come under the microscope with reissues for 2004’s chart-topping Around The Sun and 2011’s Collapse Into Now making their appearance, the former in both black and limited edition opaque white colored vinyl; the latter with a milky clear limited edition.
They’re odd albums, these — no matter how huge R.E.M. were (and remained) as the 2000s came into view, still their post-Up (1998) output felt somewhat lacking… and not only because of the Bill Berry shaped hole at the back. They sounded bored, not necessarily with their music, but with the parameters that the past had placed around the band’s sound, but attempts to broaden their canvas never quite hit the mark.
Nevertheless, the faithful will love these reissues as much as they loved the original albums, and the limited editions will surely ascend into the realms of collectibility. Grab ‘em while you can.
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