the of mirror eye

* Habari: Giraffe Trapping Music (5.0 mb)
* Bombay 405 Miles: Na Na Na Yeh Kya Karne Lage Ho (6.0 mb)
* The Burning Train: Title Music (5.0 mb)
From The Bombay Collection Vol. 1 : Bombay Collection Records : BC001

Well, obviously there’s some new changes afoot at The Of Mirror Eye central. There’s a brand new look that, well, looks different from before. I think it actually looks pretty nice and is easier on the eyes than the stark black and white of the last version.

And to go along with the new look, I’ve decided to change focus and only post songs from my massive collection of Bollywood soundtracks. Actually, I only wish that I had a collection of Bollywood soundtracks. Instead, the fine folks at the Bombay Connection Records have opened up their vaults to the general public.

For those who don’t know, Bollywood is India’s answer to Hollywood. The Bollywood industry is one of the largest out there and makes tons of movies every year. While I wouldn’t qualify myself as an aficionado, I have seen a couple two, three, ten Bollywood movies. Many have similar plots that don’t really make sense partly because they’re a mish-mash of pretty much every genre out there without too much discernable plot, and partly because I don’t understand Hindi. But what they do have is some great songs and incidental music, which is where the songs on this compilation come from. The compiler tells a story of how he first stumbled onto these fantastic sounds.

Some 10 years ago, while rummaging through a second hand vinyl shop in Amsterdam, I stumbled across the soundtrack of an Indian film called HARE RAMA HARE KRISHNA. I put the recond on a turntable in the shop, and dropped the needle on a track called simply “Dance Music”. I couldn’t believe my ears. At top speed every imaginable sound passed by: fast tabla breaks, screaming horror horns, vintage synthesizer sounds, bongos, organs, harps, dreamy flutes and even the rhythmic breaking of glass! Every 20 seconds the track transformedinto an entirely new one: another change of rhythm, a crazy new riff, a different theme. I was instantly blown away. (from the liner notes)

And that pretty much sums up how I first felt when I listened to these tracks. There are some incredibly funky, wild sounds on this album. There’s a part of me that wants to actually see how these tracks were made, but a part of me wants to keep the mystery. Although I probably wouldn’t understand it even if I saw the entire process.

So, super kudos are due to the compilers of this album. This is a totally deluxe compilation with copious liner notes, synopses of the films and as much historical info as they could find.

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Hey all. It seems that I’m having a bad couple days with my hosting service. I don’t know what gremlins they used to “fix” my database, but it seems that they misplaced my last post and comments. As I won’t be home ’til later, I’ll repost it then. Hopefully the gemlins have left the system and we can get back to normal business.

-cb

John Zorn: The Big Gundown (10.0 mb) | Poverty (Once Upon A Time In America) (4.5 mb) | Battle Of Algiers (5.0 mb)
From The Big Gundown (15th Anniversary Edition) : Tzadik : 7328

As noted above, for some reason, my host decided to “fix” something that wasn’t broken to begin with and lost this particular post as well as some comments. So, this is a repost of this magnificent tribute to Ennio Morricone. As noted in the BBC Radio 3 documentary, Mr. Zorn was hesitant to do this tribute because he thought the music was already fantastic. But at the same time, he wanted to get back in the studio, and this particular project would allow him to do that. Luckily, he agreed and recorded this amazing album. The great thing about this album is that he doesn’t just copy what Morricone did, he reimagines and reinvents the music.

This is a record that has fresh, good and intelligent ideas. It is realization on a high level, a work done by a maestro with great science-fantasy and creativity. At times my works have been varied from but it doesn’t change anything because the pieces are still recognizable. My ideas have been realized not in a passive manner, but in an active manner which has recreated and re-invented what I have done previously for films. Many people have done versions of my pieces, but no one has done them like this. (Ennio Morricone)

At any rate, hopefully y’all enjoy this as much as I do. And hopefully this is the last time I have to write this post!

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* John Zorn: In the late 1970s, guitarist Bill Frisell (1.5 mb) | Then came ‘Pool’ and the concept of the pool downbeat (2.0 mb) | It’s basically just a series of rules and i don’t talk about sound at all (3.5 mb) | Radical as the game pieces were (2.0 mb) | I found the connection between visual and oral (1.5 mb) | Whether Zorn’s prediction is true or not (3.5 mb) | Zorn’s dedication and energy (2.5 mb) | Jazz music is really one of the great literatures of the saxophone (5.5 mb) | Closing (0.5 mb)
From Documentary (Part 1) : BBC Radio 3 : London, England

As promised, here’s the second half of the first part to this remarkable radio documentary. It seems like people are diggin’ this, so over the next couple of months, I might post the rest of the documentary. The cool thing about this doc is, is that it’s not totally about John Zorn. Well, it’s mostly about Zorn, but there’s also a fair amount about his collaborators and the downtown New York scene from way back when. It’s also a fascinating look into the evolution of a musician and the choices they make for their art.

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And again, here’s the second half of the first part in its entirety (here). As a reminder, if you download the above, you don’t need to download this one.

* John Zorn: Intro, first part (0.5 mb) | British society would never produce a Zorn (3.0 mb) | I look at some of the scores that I bought (2.0 mb) | What’s weird- … you got to get ‘For Alto’ (3.0 mb) | I played on the streets and meet people that way (3.0 mb) | Having established this common ground with a pool of improvisers (1.0 mb) | Piano player Anthony Coleman (2.5 mb) | Hockey (2.0 mb) | The early game pieces were very simply done (1.5 mb)
From Documentary (Part 1) : BBC Radio 3 : London, England

Since the past year has been so weird for me, I decided to reward myself with a trip to the Big Apple. Yep, this midwestern rube is going to visit the New York City again. And even though the trip won’t be for another couple of months, I’m still uber excited about it. I’ve already started planning out places to eat and record stores to visit.

Of course, I always associate the New York City with free jazz, both the fire breathing of William Parker/Test/Susie Ibarra/et al, and the avant-genre hopping of John Zorn/et al. The last time I visited New York, I posted a bunch of songs by John Zorn (look here and here).

John Zorn is most definitely a hard musician to get to know. He does so much genre mixing and plays so much extreme music that most people don’t even bother to listen. And that’s too bad. Hopefully this excellent radio documentary will help to shed some light on him. This was originally aired in 2000 on BBC Radio 3 (by the way, why isn’t US radio this progressive?) in four parts. I’ll post the first part over the next two posts and maybe will get to the rest of it over the next couple of months. This is really well done, with great interviews, music and insight into this remarkable musician. Hopefully you find this as engrossing as I did.

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Because there are so many files, I’m including a rar file of all the above. So, if you don’t want to download each one individually, just download this file (here) and unrar it. But what you don’t need to do is download this file and all the files above.

* Number One Cup: Ease Back Down (4.5 mb) | Concordia (4.0 mb) | So Inclined (10.5 mb) From Wrecked By Lions : Flydaddy Records

Back in my colllege radio days, I was fully enamored (and still am) with the Chicago music scene. Being in a small college town, I was always jealous of the goings ons in the huge midwest city. So, whenever I saw that a band was Chicago based, my ears would prick up and I’d pay a little more attention.

So, that’s how I heard about this band, Number One Cup. Hailing from Chicago, their debut album Possum Trout Plan was hailed as an power-pop masterpiece. They very successfully melodic songwriting with moments of distortion and vocal harmonies. But what intrigued me the most was their album release party. They invited 12 different bands to each play songs off their album. I thought that was totally awesome.

Well, fast forward two years from their debut and we’ve got this one, Wrecked By Lions. And it’s every bit the power-pop masterpiece that their first album was.

* Dump: My Head In Your Hands (5.0 mb) | Positively Jeff Oliphant (6.0 mb) | Made For It (7.5 mb)
From A Plea For Tenderness : Brinkman Records : BKM70CD

There must be something totally liberating about lo-fi four-track recordings that causes musicians to come back to it, again and again. James McNew is a perfect example. As bassist for Yo La Tengo (look here and here), he already has an outlet for his musical demons and decent studios to work in and yet, he still breaks out the ole four-track and gives it a while every once in awhile as Dump (look here).

Well, whatever his reasons for doing these recordings, I’m most definitely glad he does. Dump songs have a totally endearing, cute as a button feel to them that makes me want to tap my toes and give James a giant bear hug.

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