Friday, March 16, 2007
IT'S CRAZY TALK BUT...
...Are online record shops the new music zines?
"There's a rich heritage connected with Chicago's Hypnotic Brass Ensemble family line, the eight brothers are the sons of legendary jazzer Phil Cohran (Sun Ra Arkestra, Artistic Heritage Ensemble, AACM) and in keeping with their virtuoso father they manage to come up with music that is both breathtaking and defiantly modern sounding. HBE are a jazz act, first and foremost, but what they do with jazz is re-work the themes to suit our modern times; you might hear a hip hop rhythm in there or a Reichian phasing phrase, you might hear echoes of Sun Ra or pop-style melodies. This isn't what you'd normally expect from the staid jazz world, but since Cohan has such a legacy it's no surprised his work is being continued by his lads. Apparently Gilles Petersen has been playing this, the band's second single, to death on his Worldwide show, but don't let that put you off - what we have is a slice of 10" wax of the highest order, brass instruments played by real masters of the craft (the boys used to practice with their father for five hours before school in the mornings!) and this has got to be one of the finest contemporary jazz records I've heard for ages. Coming in a beautifully presented package explaining some of the band's philosophy behind these two extended pieces, there shouldn't be any reason to ignore this one - these guys are tipped for very big things indeed. Limited copies!"
via Boomkat
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT
Well, we up out this—NYC's first official HYPNOTIC HOUSE. The ballerific semisuburban quasi-squat scenario out in Ozone Park, Queens, served well as the band's HQ in the first year or so of riding the A train into Manhattan to steal the city's unsuspecting heart. It was here in this musicalia manse that the youngest sons in what is sometimes known as the Cohran Order smoked, joked, strategized and generally got the juju crackin since moving out here from Chicago in 2005. Side note: the band never gave up it's Chicago roots for a second, and actually traveled back and forth between the two cities every month...there's money in Manhattan but home is where HYPNOTIC is.
You'd be justified in thinking that any tri-level structure housing eight or nine world-changing musicians might resound with the strains of round-the-clock composition and rehearsal, but in reality the visitor pulling up to HYPNOTIC HOUSE at any hour was more likely to be greeted by purple haze, the steam ironing of oversize denim and near-constant interlocking rhythms of gaming f/x, DIY keyboard loops and the impenetrable DVD dialogue of bootlegged martial arts classics and dubious black/white buddy flicks of overseas origin—even as one step through the door made it clear that something radically beautiful was based here (or there). As a result, both memories of and observations on the place will probably always be marked by a grid of noise and heat, by a gauze of confusion shot through with moments of seeing deeply into the very nature of things.
Of course you'd also be justified in conjuring up that old cliché about all good things and their inevitable ends, but HYPNOTIC aint on all that. We got a new spot poppin and when we get settled we'll let yall know cuz it's gonna be a big party.
For now here's Jafar Graves aka Yosh with a few words on the end of an era.
Well, we up out this—NYC's first official HYPNOTIC HOUSE. The ballerific semisuburban quasi-squat scenario out in Ozone Park, Queens, served well as the band's HQ in the first year or so of riding the A train into Manhattan to steal the city's unsuspecting heart. It was here in this musicalia manse that the youngest sons in what is sometimes known as the Cohran Order smoked, joked, strategized and generally got the juju crackin since moving out here from Chicago in 2005. Side note: the band never gave up it's Chicago roots for a second, and actually traveled back and forth between the two cities every month...there's money in Manhattan but home is where HYPNOTIC is.
You'd be justified in thinking that any tri-level structure housing eight or nine world-changing musicians might resound with the strains of round-the-clock composition and rehearsal, but in reality the visitor pulling up to HYPNOTIC HOUSE at any hour was more likely to be greeted by purple haze, the steam ironing of oversize denim and near-constant interlocking rhythms of gaming f/x, DIY keyboard loops and the impenetrable DVD dialogue of bootlegged martial arts classics and dubious black/white buddy flicks of overseas origin—even as one step through the door made it clear that something radically beautiful was based here (or there). As a result, both memories of and observations on the place will probably always be marked by a grid of noise and heat, by a gauze of confusion shot through with moments of seeing deeply into the very nature of things.
Of course you'd also be justified in conjuring up that old cliché about all good things and their inevitable ends, but HYPNOTIC aint on all that. We got a new spot poppin and when we get settled we'll let yall know cuz it's gonna be a big party.
For now here's Jafar Graves aka Yosh with a few words on the end of an era.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
END OF AN ERA
Smoke em if ya got em: Clef and Yosh burn a last one. Ozone Park, March 2007
It's a sad day today. The legendary HYPNOTIC House aka the "Ozone Park bungalow" as mentioned by Lily Koppel in the New York Times is no more.
Full report on the decamping (decampment?) tomorrow.
Smoke em if ya got em: Clef and Yosh burn a last one. Ozone Park, March 2007
It's a sad day today. The legendary HYPNOTIC House aka the "Ozone Park bungalow" as mentioned by Lily Koppel in the New York Times is no more.
Full report on the decamping (decampment?) tomorrow.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
"COLD-BLOODED FUNK HEROISM"
Hudah at the Truth & Soul sessions, Brooklyn December 5-6 2006.
"Cold-blooded funk heroism"...that's what the team over at Honest Jons in the UK had to say when they got a shipment of "War" b/w "Mercury"...Europe rejoice!
Stateside, Dusty Groove keeps pumping our "fiercely funky" record out to Chicago while in NYC Other Music has us on the wall next to some Ethiojazz legends and Turntable Lab is telling you DO NOT SLEEP.
Hudah at the Truth & Soul sessions, Brooklyn December 5-6 2006.
"Cold-blooded funk heroism"...that's what the team over at Honest Jons in the UK had to say when they got a shipment of "War" b/w "Mercury"...Europe rejoice!
Stateside, Dusty Groove keeps pumping our "fiercely funky" record out to Chicago while in NYC Other Music has us on the wall next to some Ethiojazz legends and Turntable Lab is telling you DO NOT SLEEP.
Friday, March 02, 2007
THE NEW HIP-HOP ACTUALLY
Mos, LT...and Fela, Brooklyn Academy of Music February 2007.
This is what I was talking about the other day. Check out the way HYPNOTIC gets inside the original Mos Def track "Hip-Hop" and opens it up for a little more raw royalty and realness. More power. More fiyah!!! (And more to come next week).
Mos, LT...and Fela, Brooklyn Academy of Music February 2007.
This is what I was talking about the other day. Check out the way HYPNOTIC gets inside the original Mos Def track "Hip-Hop" and opens it up for a little more raw royalty and realness. More power. More fiyah!!! (And more to come next week).
