Saturday Night Traxx (and Albums)_013021

Now Rhythm Music Sounds: Los Hermanos, Oui Ennui, eLBee BaD, Florence Adooni, Aquiles Navarro, Jeff Mills & Jean-Phi Dary, Jay Simon, and more

“It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you…” My apologies for being out of touch with for a minute. As I continue to figure out what the proper cadence is for Dada Strain—considerations include: being VERY conscious of not turning into a pointless daily content machine; needing the time to do paid commissions (feed fam, pay rent); only covering subjects that make sense in the grander scheme of this space representing a specific point of view *and* which aren’t being covered by everyone else; de-contextualizing the day’s hot takes—such breaks might become semi-regular. If you are looking to stay in daily touch, or to kvetch even, a reminder that the Dada Strain Twitter and Instagram feeds remain active, even as the many-worded musings gestate.

The main piece of writing I’ve been busy with the past week considers Madlib’s great new album Sound Ancestors, features interviews with both him and Kieran “Four Tet” (who helped make that record), and places it in the context of MF DOOM’s passing. The writing was as much a labor of love as paid assignment, Madlib and Four Tet being two artists I have admired for a long time, and the conversations with them bore more fruit than that article could fit—so stay tuned to full transcripts. (Awaiting the artists’ permission.) One reason I point this out is that the only reason you don’t see the either Sound Ancestors or the opening track from Four Tet’s Parallel below, is that there are plenty column inches devoted to both throughout the Internet. They do not need more; though let me simply add that both are marvelous.

In the meantime, enjoy this extra-sized bounty of Saturday Night Traxx. Maybe use them as a buyer’s guide for next Friday, thoughI’ll try to be back before that. Reminder that dancing is fundamental for the mind, body and soul.

The way I understand it, the past 17-18 years, Los Hermanos has been a catch-all for the collaborative umbrella of Gerald Mitchell (Underground Resistance 044) and a rotating cast of great Detroit producers, players and vocalists—many of them, members of the Latinx community, hence the monicker. The records that carried the Los Hermanos label have always been excellent Detroit hi-tech soul jams, and Mitchell continuously has his hand in great current music with classic Motor City techno pedigree. Truth in advertising would probably call this three-song EP more of a “Los Hermanos presents…” release (each track has Mitchell involved in a different context), but its quality is undeniable, two of the three taking the classic Detroit electronic vibe to church. “Another Day” finds Mitchell and a female vocalist (anyone know who???) in great gospel-house uplift mode. “Let Love In” reunites Mitchell with vocalist Billy Love (on the heels of their massive Celebrity BBQ Sauce project, a must for hi-tech funkateers) for a beatless vocal/electric keys improvisation, with shivers. The electro-jazz of “Binary Funk Infusion” (featuring another Detroit veteran, Bob Rogue) is the EP’s UR’est moment: light acid touches, a Rhodes, an everlovin’ kick, all fire. Basically, a great record. Sunday Music galore!

Elbee Bad is another artist with depth and history (house music in ‘90s New York version) whose tracks speak to tradition pointedly but in a broader way. He’s got a decent new EP on Black Catalogue, Feels Lovely On Venus Since U Been Away, with one helluva closing tune, which sounds especially poignant in the stretch of time we’re experiencing. It’s a no-melody, bass-and-percussion rhythm machine whose whispered vocal asks an old question that has acquired bonus pathos: “What’s an artist supposed to do…to keep the lights on?” LB adds a second line to elevate the metaphoric juxtaposition, “Drug dealers flip drugs.” Set to a great house beat, the layered lines become a mantra that turns philosophical, one of those thoughts where the more you hear it, the more you think about. (For some reason, it reminds me of “The Message.” #RIPDukeBootee)

My favorite dance-music oddity of the last few months comes off an EP by the anonymously monikered SKYNET-313 (Dutch producer Kole Leijen + Spanish producer Eduardo De La Calle, on a fascinated-with-Detroit kick), who decided to name their record, A Essential Tribute To Bill Evans The Future Of Modal Jazz. This instantly made the EP 100x more curious. "The Loquacious Son of Harry and Mary Boroka‎" is the four-tracker’s stand-out, an extended, live-meets-sample interplay between electronic and jazz textures, synths and effects, ride cymbal and electric piano, a minimalist bassline and dub pings. Its a mixer’s dream. Does it even slightly echo a specific Bill Evans song? I do not know the great pianist’s catalog well enough to say, but it certainly creates a magnificently deep weirdo mood.

I’ve already shared my admiration of Irreversible Entanglements as both great band, and a conglomerate of incredible individual artists. Trumpeter Aquiles Navarro underscored the latter point in the waning days of 2020, when he dropped this solo full-length joint, [TOTAL IMPROVISACIÓN], which builds on his love of horn-lines, electronics and dance beats. And though that description hopefully gives you a sense of what to expect, it does not do IMPROVISACIÓN true justice. There are deep rhythmic attacks (“[NUEVO MUNDO]”), bursts of house music (“[DONDE]”), an epic quasi-acid fantasia (“[CÓDIGO]”), even a piece of electronic keyboard minimalism that is the best techno-jazz samba-fication of a Philip Glass vibe I’ve heard in a while (“UPTOWN”). Many of the best parts on IMPROVISACIÓN are only available once you buy the LP, so listen to what’s there to get a sense of what it is, and there prepare for that much more. I can not recommend this one enough for a different kind of dance experience.

The Paradox is duo made up of Detroit techno legend Jeff Mills and French keyboardist Jean-Phi Dary, the latter of whom spent much of the past two decades playing with the legendary Nigerian drummer, Tony Allen. Dary was also central to 2018’s wonderful Tomorrow Comes The Harvest album which saw the late percussionist who helped Fela Kuti create Afrobeat and the co-founder of Underground Resistance record together; so it makes sense that he and Mills, who’s been wonderfully collaboration-happy the past few years, would keep working together. The LP they’ve made, Counter Active (available via Mills’ Axis Records), continues The Wizard’s streak of finding artists with whom to share not only a post-techno Black electronic rhythm mindset, but an improvisational sense as well. You have to buy Counter Active to get its full scope but the lead single, “Residence,” illustrates the modus operandi pretty clearly: Dary’s keys develop a hook, Mills drum machines fire up the propulsion, and both men paint the context with synths. A wonderful tune amidst a great set of them.

The other massive, late-2020 album in this post that you should not let pass-by. Oui Ennui is a Chicago musician whom I first learned of from Message From Daoui, a great collaborative album he released with Angel Bat Dawid in October. Hypnagogic Jerk The is a 25-track opus that shares some of its songs. But where Message was more outwardly instrumental and experimental, Jerk is focused on creating shorter, beat-wise pieces—a post-hip-hop producer’s record akin to what Dilla and Madlib (sorry, this is where my head’s been the past few weeks) would do, thinking of hip-hop more as process than genre. Like those classic beatmakers, Oui Ennui mixes samples and live instruments, moving between tempos and ideas and dance-floor cultures with extreme ease, to create an exceptional, fully realized, broader-than-broad rhythm world. Watch his space.

I first encountered the Ghanaian singer Florence Adooni via her participation on Jimi Tenor often-wonderful, West-African-beat-meets-cocktail-jazz-meets-Arkestral-asides LP, Aulos—before drilling into the fact that she is part of the Frafra-language gospel group, Alogte Oho & His Sounds of Joy, and a presence in Kumasi’s religious community. Where much of Frafra gospel is carried by percussion and keys (see: minimalism), “Mam Pe’ela Su’re,” seemingly the first track released under Adooni’s own name in “the West,” is a gorgeous performance by a big highlife band, with curling electric guitar, and a great horn-line bursting around Florence’s bouncing delivery, which harkens more to bossa nova than to any American gospel. It’s a wonderful kaleidoscope, and a massive groove.

Last but not least, a mix that we should all just enjoy the f*ck out of. 67mins from Atlanta-based DJ/producer Jay Simon, who also runs the wonderful Must Have Records, under the hashtag of “Garage” (Paradise not UK), stringing together soul beats, disco dubs, quasi-boogie, and more. It tweaks the old-dancers’ memory banks, while unfurling a stone-cold groove. Lots to be thankful to people in Georgia for. Add this to the list.