"Late last year Ubiquity was approached by the mysterious Misled Children about another project from Clutchy Hopkins, the man they claim to represent. A vintage Caribbean tracksuit jacket was found in the office fridge, and written in permanent marker on the inside right arm was a request for a meeting where we would “get another piece of the Clutchy Hopkins puzzle.”Despite the goose chase involved in putting out the last album we could not pass up the opportunity to hear some more Clutchy Hopkins music. We agreed to meet the Misled Children in Joshua Tree, CA. Sweating from the 110 degree heat and skeptical about the possibility of a no-show we went to the Joshua Tree Tavern for a cool beer. The bar tender spotted us as we walked in. When we ordered a couple of drinks he looked us straight in the eye and whispered, “Follow me.”
Taking us to a messy back room, filled with empty glass bottles, a collection of stuffed owls, and strewn with old newspapers, he handed over a plastic bag and said, “I think this is what you came for.” Despite the lack of liquid refreshment we decided to leave quickly, the local eyes were glued on us and we were itching to get at the contents of the bag which by now we knew had to have been planted by the Misled Children.
Inside was a short stack off Apex 2-inch reel-to-reel tapes and a small journal. The journal contained stories of Clutchy Hopkins, and his move to Barbados. The dates of the stories were vague but seemed to span the late 1970s through the early 1980's. Hopkins had moved there in search for a medicine man, who also hand-made percussion instruments, named Lord Kenjamin. Over the years Hopkins had heard stories about this simple man and as the notes read “his mission to help people come to a place of peace and humbleness through music.” Hopkins searched for several weeks, tricked on several occasions into dead ends by the local children. At times it seemed that the village people wanted nothing to do with Hopkins, “The children enjoy confusing me with directions that lead me back to where I started. It is like a daily joke,” he wrote, “One day they tell me to head east, the next day west, and all with a suspicious smile.”
Hopkins was about to give up his search and go home when he was bitten by a poisonous Lionfish. He passed out from the pain while in a side street on his way back to his hotel room. He was dehydrated and in bad shape after laying there for nearly 2 whole days. A group of the local children found him close to death when their soccer ball bounced down the street and rolled into his listless body. Feeling guilty that they had misled him on his quest, the children carried Hopkins on a stretcher made of sugar cane to Lord Kenjamin. For the next 3 months Hopkins was in and out of consciousness.
At this point in the journal the notes in the book have been ripped-out, we don’t know why. But the next page that is legible reads “With faint memories of a 4 track, deep-rooted beats, and a melodica, I have been brought back to health by the help of Lord Kenjamin and the music we made together. As a token of my appreciation I have promised the good Lord Kenjamin that the world would one day hear these recordings. The music has made a huge impact on our spirits and health during this time. We will call this record Music Is My Medicine" (From Boombox Website)
Tracklisting:
01. The Old Spot
02. Brother John
03. Cold and Wet
04. Riff Raff Rollin
05. Lord Kenji
06. Dotsy's Leslie
07. Tune Traveler
08. Shadowfish
09. Gourds of the Desert
10. Turtle Rock
11. Heavy Hands
Release Date 20/04/2009
Serato/Mr. Clean - Serato Control Tone/What's Going on 7"(JMS.001)
"Nobody digs deeper than Jazzman in mining the rich seams of musical history, but having said that we are not frightened to embrace the future either - so after over a year working alongside the boffins at Serato we have brought you a global industry first, the SERATO CONTROL TONE on the coolest and most popular musical format yet invented - 7" 45rpm VINYL. Not only do you now have access the cutest control vinyl in the world but when you flip that bad boy over you have one of the rarest funk 45s on the planet, Mr Clean's version of the Marvin Gaye ultra classic "Whats Going On". Let it be known that this version of Mr Clean would cost you $3000+ if you ever saw it on the open market. Now it’s yours for a song, playable like any normal record, on glorious 45rpm 7” vinyl! Serato is a New Zealand company that has revolutionized the way DJs play their records. Instead of playing a normal record in the normal way, DJs play a special vinyl record that has the ‘Serato control tone’ pressed in the grooves instead of the music. Using normal turntables wired up to a laptop, the DJ can use Serato software to play these control tone records, and what you hear is the music the DJ has chosen which is stored on the laptop. The records play using a stylus like any normal record, and the advantage is that just like with normal records, you can handle them to mix and scratch. You can have any number of music files stored on your laptop, so you’re not just limited to what you have in your record box. The software is recognized as a leader in the field of Digital DJing and has been adopted by many of the top DJs in the world. The advantage over having a 7” disc is portability – they will fit into the same bag as your laptop, so no need to carry another cumbersome bag holding your 12” discs!" (Quoted From Jazzman Site)Tracklsiting:
Side 1 - What's Going On.
Side 2 - Serato Control Tone.
BUY NOW - FROM HERE.
The Phenomenal Handclap Band - Baby 7" (Truth & Soul Records TS026)
"The Phenomenal Handclap Band sound is an anthemic, dancefloor-oriented blend of progressive rock, disco, electro, and '60s soul with sprinklings of hip hop-styled orchestral breakbeats and moody, synth-heavy hooks. “Baby” falls right in line with the aesthetc and style that Truth & Soul represents. On first listen, we were blown away by this gem of a song. It manages to capture the soulful qualities of a Delfonics song while maintaining a sonically new and refreshing sound. The is the first single from Brooklyn’s own, Phenomenal Handclap Band. In the midst of popular electronic-based production teams such as Justice and DFA, Embassy Sound Productions (ESP) emerges with a fresh approach to dance-oriented rock and roll, using live instrumentation to evoke the intricate arrangements of Norman Whitfield, Quincy Jones, and Phil Spector as well as the pared down beats of contemporaries like The Neptunes and Danger Mouse.
ESP is Daniel Collás and Sean Marquand, two New York underground club DJs who became restless with the concept of playing other people's music. Having been involved with and disenchanted by the local rock and roll scene, they began to focus on producing. Their initial projects resuscitated the respective careers of two veteran soul acts (New York's Joe Bataan and Brazil's União Black) and garnered critical acclaim, leading Daniel & Sean to set their sights on The Phenomenal Handclap Band, a supergroup comprised of a "who's who" of the indie rock and underground soul scenes. Members of such diverse bands as TV on the Radio, L'Trimm, Calla, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Mooney Suzuki, and Sí Se all contribute their individual talents to the album". (From Boombox Distribution)
Tracklisting
Side A - Baby
Side B - Baby (Instrumental)
The Phenomenal Handclap Band artist page HERE.
Release Date 30/03/2009
Menahan Street Band - The Wolf b/w Bushwick Lullaby 7" (Dap-1045)
"The MSB challenges the Budos Band to a duel with "The Wolf", the fast-paced ethio tinged number that has recently served as the opening song of their on-stage appearances. The song evokes unique imagery in the mind -- part sun-drenched ethiopian desert, part frozen northern tundra. This song is dedicated to Joe "The Wolf" Colgan for building the new Dunham Studios.Without telling Michels and Movshon, Brenneck put a little something special in their gin and tonics. The result is "Bushwick Lullaby", a highly syncopated slow placed number entirely indicative of the participant's mind-state at the time of recording. Next time you put your kids to sleep, why not sing them the "Bushwick Lullaby"?
Attention!! In retaliation to the challenge, 2 members of the Budos Band broke into the Dunham Art files and switched the song titles on the 45 label. "The Wolf" is actually "Bushwick Lullaby", and vice versa. This will be corrected in the next pressing.
Thank you,
Tom Brenneck, Homer Steinweiss
Dunham Records" (Quoted From Daptone Records Website)
Tracklisting:
Side A - The Wolf
Side B - Bushwick Lullaby
Out April 28, 2009!
NOMO - Invisible Cities LP (Ubiquity Records URLP250)
"Less than a year after the acclaimed Ghost Rock, NOMO have completed its spirited sister album - recorded during the Ghost Rock sessions and tours. Invisible Cities is informed by their ceaseless travelling, and visits to places both real and unreal. The sonic empire of NOMO is expanding; busting up genres and musical borders with astonishing results. With a theme stolen from Italian novelist Italo Calvino, each tune on Invisible Cities is a little world of it's own, dense with rhythm and timbre. Hot horns blaze through intersecting lines, heavy percussion drives the band down winding streets, the bass rumbles in some subterranean corridor. The sounds come from far reaching points, not from a fixed place on a globe, but from an area of the human spirit; One that is joyous, open and in motion.Like Ghost Rock, Invisible Cities reaches into new places both sonically and emotionally, and pulls up some real bangers: The title track's horns are drenched in Echoplex and its driving beat is straight from the swamp. Bumbo, Moondog's best tune, gets a NOMO island makeover, with a set of antique fire extinguishers clanging away in a 21st century steel drum style. Crescent is a shimmering silver stream of electric kalimbas, with handclaps and bamboo flutes giving the tune a more delicate feel than NOMO has offered up on previous albums. Giving Elijah a listen, it's immediately apparent that this is stirring spiritual jazz of a higher order; the tune was written as a lament for one of bandleader Elliot Bergman's childhood friends. Warren Defever's immaculate production work creates a space where the music can grow, develop, layer on top of itself, and reveal this band in artful new ways.
Defever convinced the band to come into his UFO Factory studio in Detroit's Eastern Market the morning after their long tour ended. The surrounding market streets were littered with rotting produce and street sweeper tines, which Bergman (who has a propensity for spotting, collecting and repurposing musical junk) quickly gathered and converted into electric kalimbas-with the help of a now-defunct lumber mill, which generously donated piles of beautiful hardwood scraps. This new set of instruments created the foundation for many of these new tracks, and has spawned a very popular side business. These inspired sessions yielded hours of new material and the band quickly realized that what was originally intended as an EP of material from the Ghost Rock sessions, had blossomed into something far more cohesive and substantial than what they had originally imagined.
But NOMO is not just a band of thieves, garbage pickers, drifters, jammers, and players. In their soul, NOMO truly is a party band. From their roots, rocking sweaty basement shows in Ann Arbor and Detroit, to their current gig, rocking sweaty basement shows and the occasional jazz festival in Brooklyn, Chicago, New Orleans, London, Sevilla, or Montreal, the band has developed its own form of celebratory dance music. They've upped the energy level on recent jaunts and it's impossible to find a stationary body in the house. This music moves people, and it's refreshing to see teen hipsters get down with crate diggers, jazz heads nod along with the noise kids at a NOMO show. The band crams three drum sets into the silver Ford Econoline, along with enough electric kalimbas to pull-off all of the two hour marathon sets, plus a few extra to sell to the audience. Horns and guitars fit on top of the amps, and it's a touring eight-piece-sonic-arsenal that packs a pretty heavy punch. Don't worry, there's still room for the band in there-- Elliot, Erik, Ingrid, Jamie, Dan, Dan Justin and Quin are all still hanging out. They're still in the van, still at the party."(Press Release)
Tracklisting:
01. Invisible Cities
02. Bumbo
03. Waiting
04. Crescent
05. Patterns
06. Ma
07. Banners On High
08. Elijah
09. Nocturne
Release Date 04/05/2009
PAUL WHITE - One Eye Open EP (HAND12002)
"London Beat-King, Paul White's debut 12"! Featuring 3 extended tracks from his forthcoming CD only album + two sweet new bumpers (including a hot new Bullion Remix!) exclusive to this release. Totally Out There and sure to crossover into all kinds of record bags. Paul's already a favorite with the like's of Mary Anne Hobbs (he recently delivered a brilliant Breezeblock session) and gaining momentum worldwide with every release" (Rush Hour Records)Click here for PRESS RELEASE.
Tracklisting:
1. PAUL WHITE : One Eye Open
2. PAUL WHITE : Alien Nature
3. PAUL WHITE : Time Wars
4. PAUL WHITE : Phone Pest
5. PAUL WHITE : Hustle
Release: 16th April 2009
Theo Parrish - Going Through Changes feat Danny Banks/Space Station 12" (Sound Signature SS 035)
"New Theo Parrish 12" with on one side 'Going through changes', a midtempo, soulful vocal track, featuring Danny Banks, and on the B side the underground club banger 'Spacestation', a solo production from Theo. Tip" (Rush Hour Records)
Tracklisting:
Side 1 - Going Through Changes feat Danny Banks.
Side 2 - Space Station.
According to Benji B, he will be playing these tracks on his Deviation Radio Show this week, as he hooked up with Theo this week who gave him these new tracks.