You might know award-winning critic/journalist Tom Moon from his bestselling book 1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die, his contributions to NPR’s All Things Considered or his freelance work in the likes of Rolling Stone, GQ, Blender, Spin and Vibe, but around the MAGNET office, when we think of Moon, we think of the nearly two decades he spent as the music critic of our hometown newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer. When you regularly read a writer’s work for that long, you feel like you really get a sense of who someone is, so we were shocked to find out that Moon is also a musician who just made an album. Into The Ojalá (Frosty Cordial) is credited to Moon Hotel Lounge Project and came out earlier this month. MHLP is an impressive, instrumental, jazz/lounge/Latin-leaning project featuring Moon and six local musicians playing nine Moon-penned tunes as well as a cover of gospel standard “Rock Of Ages.” We are excited to have Moon guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with him.
Moon: Santa brought vinyl back into our lives this holiday—in the form of a very cool Zenith Cobramatic tabletop turntable circa 1959. (It’s similar to this one.) Within a few days I’d snagged the supercharged, deeply satisfying Fela four-song EP Knitting Factory put out for Record Store Day and was in pursuit of hipster wax from all over Africa. The hypnotic Les Meilleurs Souvenirs De La 1ere Biennale Artistique Et Culturelle De La Jeunesse features a state-funded youth ensemble recorded in the early 1970s; it’s akin to the Kashmere Senior High stage band records recorded in Houston, Texas, around the same time. If, that is, the stage band kids had an innate sense of polyrhythmic subtlety, deeply rattling singing voices and a penchant for intricately criss-crossing guitar accompaniments. That record has a haunting, otherworldly sheen, as does another Mississippi release called Fanajana: A Collection Of Recordings And Photography From Madagasikara. A compilation showcasing field recordings made by Charles Brooks, this contains some of the most infectious, oddly shaped melodies over drone chords I’ve ever heard. Since releasing Fanajana in the late ‘90s, Portland, Oregon-based Mississippi has been carefully reissuing all sorts of African gems, including the first record from another government-sponsored ensemble from Mali, L’Orchestre National “A” De La Republique Du Mali. A showcase for the precise and ornately carved accompaniments of guitarist Keletigui Diabate, this suggests one point of origin for the incredible music that erupted in Mali later in the ‘70s. Less rhythmic but no less intense is Kigali Y’ Izahabu, the debut of the Good Ones, a folk trio from Rwanda. The sticker claims that this group of survivors from the Rwandan genocide is the first to release a record outside of Africa, and while it’s nearly impossible to verify that claim, what’s not in dispute is the arrestingly earnest beauty of the music. These voices have a calm, plaintive quality; they might be affirming whatever positivity they find in life around them, but they feel no need to wrap their observations in a coating of World Dance Party Happy. Instead, they sing with a purposeful air and absolutely zero contrivance—this was all recorded on a single day in summer 2009, on a back porch.
Video after the jump.
http://vimeo.com/15170516
