Music? you ask… I think I’m a bit of a binge purchaser. Months will go by without my being able to find the time to swing by a store and browse or get on line to do some digging, but when I do it’s as if I’m consumed by irrational emotions and needs to possess. I think I might stem back to fantasies from years ago when stores used to have prize shopping sprees in which you could run around a store and grab all the vinyl you could in 60 seconds.

I dropped by a little used cd store on the north side of Dundas near Derek’s place and started browsing around. Picked out a few things and then came across the $5 bin…a lot of good stuff but I already had so much of it, but did manage to snap up a couple of good pieces including The Tragically Hips “Phantom Power” and “Beautiful Garbage” by Garbage. Two decent albums by two of some of my perennial favourites.

Amongst others I picked up:

-Bjork “Post” – lovin’ it!
-Bob Marley “Exodus” …figured it was time to dig deeper than “Ledgend”
-Beastie Boys “Licesned to Ill” told I should like it but don’t…but it helps to put perspective on “To the 5 Boroughs” that made it onto my top ten a couple of years back.
-Pink Floyd “Atom Heart Mother”…what the fuck?…I’ll give it a few more listens!
-Pulp “This is Hardcore” …to me, really lacks the playfulness that makes “Different Class” so fun….was not aware that they put out their first album in 1983!
-Gotan Project “A Gotan Project DJ Set” – Bullshit! …But if you do not yet have “La Revancha Del Tango” do yourself a favour and pick it up for those evenings you want a little sexiness happening in the background. It still gets slipped from the shelf on a regular basis after all these years around our place.
…plus a hoard of other crap that I won’t get into.

So new stuff that is coming to the next metaBeats gathering…

I searched out a bunch of stuff from the Jazzland label out of Norway from which you might remember I brought you Bugge Wesstletoft. I would still highly recommend his releases “Moving” as well as “FILM iNG” (sic.) …and “sick!” it is, as well. His grooves take me away…beautiful explorations of the boundaries of jazz and electronica and the lands in between. I just picked up two others of his…”Live” which as the name suggests was actually recorded live…direct to a two track recorder with the exception of one track that was recorded for the Gilles Peterson show on BBC. Again, a really nice groove that will get many, many more playings from me. I can’t say enough about this guy. Sweeeet!

I picked up a collaboration of Bugge with Sidsel Endersen “Out There, In Hear” Once again, well worth a listen (and a couple more on my part to do it justice) but I find that Sidsel’s at times inane lyrics and poetic form of address get in the way of the Wesseltoft’s music and the album as a whole. Pretty at times, exploratory at others, it’s a stretch as a whole. This album has a lot of quiet time…solo piano and a beautiful rendition of Neil Young’s “Birds” …just goes to show what you can do with a great song. As they say, if you don’t make mistakes, you aren’t taking enough risk! …a hard listen, but worth it.

From the SmalltownSupersounds label, you might recall a few sessions back I brought you “For the Ladies” by Kim Hiorthoy also from Norway(spelled with a slash through the “o”, but I have no idea how to get that on my keyboard and am not willing to find out!) …anyhow, it was shit…absolute crap…barely a note on the album, let alone any harmonics. Well, the album I was actually trying to get my hands on was “Live Shet” which is actually well worth a couple listens. Filled with a combination of sampled sounds from physical instruments as well as a hoard of clicks, blibs and samples, this album has a real jazz feel to it. Some may argue it’s not jazz, but to my ear it is full of improve and exploration.

And now for Something Completely Different! More Norwegian music from Jazzland…actually two albums I really love by Eivind Aarset…I really have to get some work done now…it’s not as if I’m employed after all! …to be continued.