Music Video: Miraculous - ยังเสียใจ (Still Sad)

There's something that I always enjoy about really hip-hoppy/poppy reggae.  If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'd know that I love artists that combine upbeat melodies and hip-hop influenced vocals with syncopated Caribbean and African rhythms.  So, artists like Seeed, Afroreggae, Irie Révoltés, and Culcha Candela get a lot of play here.

Well, just because I am going all the way to Thailand today does not mean that I will break with this tradition.  In fact, if you replace the German and English of Seeed, or the French and German of Irie Révoltés, or the Spanish and German of Culcha Candela with the Thai and English of Miraculous - as you do on their song ยังเสียใจ (Still Sad) - you will not feel overwhelming culture shock.

Unfortunately, like much of the music that I find from Asia, I am having a difficult time finding information about Miraculous that I can actually translate.  Bing Translator does yeoman's work of attempting to translate the band's bio on Last.fm from Thai to English, but the result is largely an unreadable garble. This is made even more difficult because, like a frustrating number of bands from around the world, their name is neither terribly unique or easily searchable.  That having been said, if you know anything about Miraculous, please post to the comments.  I'd love to know more.

Music Video: Dub Addiction - Zunguzeng Inna Di Penh

Some of the most interesting - and even sometimes enjoyable - music pops up when you least expect it.  Today I was fumbling around YouTube looking for any available tracks from Irie Révoltés upcoming album "Allez" (due out May 3, by the way), and as always I was checking out the recommended videos that also popped up.  What caught my eye was something that both surprised me and made me somewhat suspicious: a dub ragga band from Phnom Penh, Cambodia called Dub Addiction.

Well, how could I possibly not look into this further?  My suspicions turned out to be well founded, as it turns out that Dub Addiction is only partially Cambodian, with the rest of the band from elsewhere.  But the lyrics are an engaging blend of Jamaican patois and Khmer.  It turns out that the music, as illustrated in Zunguzeng Inna Di Penh, has a surprisingly organic sounding groove.  Unlike some musical styles that have been transplanted in a "foreign" culture, nothing about Dub Addiction's take on dub ragga sounds forced or affected. 

Music Video: Davron Ergashev - Kelinchak

I realize that I'm a little late to pile on, but I wanted to help still(?!?) Presidential candidate Herman Cain with that whole Uzbekistan thing.  This Central Asian nation was a Soviet republic between 1924 and 1991.  It is landlocked, and is bordered by the nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan, placing it in a geographically and politically strategic location.  Uzbekistan is the world's third largest exporter of cotton, and is developing its production of gold, uranium, potassium, and natural gas.  Also high among its national products is the singer Davron Ergashev.

Although Davron Ergashev generally produces central Asian influenced light pop, Kelinchak relies on a heavy reggae beat.  To be honest, combining heavily commercial Asian popular music with this Caribbean groove is enough to make Kelinchak an Open World Music standard.  It isn't going to place highly on my own personal iPod playlist, but Kelinchak is well worth a listen regardless.

Music Video: Babaman - Tentan Di Fermarmi

I am always amazed at how well reggae and its various offshoots (ska, dancehall, ragga, etc.) seem to travel around the world.  If you have read more than a few of my posts, you will note that I post a lot of German reggae.  Well, today I will give you a tasty bite of Italian dancehall.

Hailing from Milan, Babaman has put out 10 albums of pretty decent quality music.  His track Tentan Di Fermarmi, from his 2008 album "Dinamite" is a nicely representative sample.  It has slick, heavy beats, intense vocals, and plenty of typical dancehall bravado. 

Music Video: Xindl X - Dysgrafik

I always hate it when somebody says that a particular language doesn't "track well" for popular music - typically they say this when explaining why everybody wants to sing pop in English, and why non-English music is supposedly inferior.  I hate it. . . but then occasionally I hear music from a non-English speaking country, and I think to myself, "Wow, that language really doesn't track well."  Up until today, that is what I thought of music from the Czech Republic.  Don't get me wrong, I love the Czech people, and Czech art and literature is some of the most moving and complex in the world.  But their popular music has always sounded a little "off" to me.  But totally disproving this prejudice, along comes Xindl X.  His mix of hip-hop, reggae, jazz, funk, and myriad other influences just sounds good.  Listen to Dysgrafik, and I think you will agree.

Music Video: Dodo - Leu vo Zueri

In case you haven't noticed, I have been on something of a roots reggae kick as of late.  What fascinates me about reggae is that, like hip-hop, it seems to transcend languages and borders almost effortlessly.  Today's illustration of this fact is Swiss reggae artist Dodo, and his song Leu vo Zueri.  As with reggae anywhere, Dodo delivers smooth grooves, a powerful message, and a gripping voice.  The only difference between Dodo and other reggae artists that we have seen here before is that Dodo delivers all of these key elements in Swiss German. 

Music Video: Uwe Banton - Aufstehn

Friday afternoons in the summertime always put me in the mood for reggae.  Yeah, I know that traditional roots reggae is typically a voice of protest against social injustice, but it is still so hard to not think of sipping rum on a beach when you hear that groove.  For that perfect combination of social protest and Caribbean groove on this beautiful sunny Friday afternoon, I bring you German reggae legend Uwe Banton with one of his very few German language songs, Aufstehn. If watching a bearded and heavily dreadlocked white German sing roots reggae has you scratching your head, I encourage you to close your eyes and open your ears.  Uwe Banton brings you roots reggae at its best.

Music Video: AfroReggae - Tempo Sem Medida

AfroReggae is one of those bands that, as a non-Portuguese speaker, you would come to think of as being a pleasant enough purveyor of fairly traditional reggae from Brazil.  Dig a little below the surface, though, and you find that AfroReggae is a very political group of young artists striving for bottom up social and political change.  Formed by former drug trafficker Anderson Sá as Grupo Cultural AfroReggae, the band AfroReggae is a project to wean the poor children of the Brazilian favelas away from the deadly world of drugs and gangsterism through education - particularly music education.  As you can hear from the track Tempo Sem Medida, AfroReggae can lay down a pretty solid groove, while also serving to educate the world about life in some of the world's most dangerous slums.

News: Seeed Releases New Single

For the past several months, the website for my favorite German band Seeed has contained little news beyond the simple note that they are working on their new album.  Every few weeks I check back to see if there are any updates.  This morning, I planned to check their website again, but Seeed beat me to it.  Waiting for me in my e-mail box was a note from Seeed titled "Neues von Seeed".  Much to my joy, after a 5 year hiatus and 4 separate solo albums by its members, Seeed has finally released a brand new single titled Molotov (available for free download from the Seed website).

Having trouble with the free download link, I initially went to the Seeed website to see if I could find the new single there.  I made the mistake of first listening to an instrumental version of Molotov.  Frankly, I was unimpressed.  It was all electric guitars, drums, and synthesizers, closer to the style of metal than the dancehall infused reggae that has made Seeed so popular.  Was this really what I had waited so long for?  After spectacular solo albums from Peter Fox, Boundzound, and Dellé, was this really the best they could do?

Eventually they fixed the bugs on the download site, and I was able to finally listen to the song they are actually releasing.  Thank heaven they included the vocal track that had been removed for the website.  It makes the song at least 85% more listenable.  That's not too bad, but still not nearly what I had expected.

Perhaps the greatest potential problem with Molotov is that it strays so far from built up expectations.  Seeed has always been known for their powerful vocals, smooth and complex rhythm section, rollicking horns, and even a DJ to add some auditory spice.  This new track lacks all but the familiar vocals.  Standing by itself, Molotov is a decent enough tune.  Standing together with the rest of Seeed's body of work, it just doesn't fit.  I understand the need for bands to musically grow and evolve.  If Molotov is any indication, Seeed hasn't just grown or evolved; it's not even the same band.

Music Video: Mono & Nikitaman - Digge Digge

This year, at Thanksgiving, my step-sister will be bringing her new husband over from Belgium.  As she is familiar with my interest in non-English music, and as her new husband also fancies himself a music aficionado, my step-sister has challenged the both of us to a DJ competition after Thanksgiving dinner.  Needless to say, I accepted that challenge, and look forward to blowing away my new brother-in-law with my non-stop international beats.  My wife, being even more compulsively competitive than I am, has suggested that we also pull out a secret weapon at this competition.  She wants us to learn and then perform Mono & Nikitaman's song Digge Digge live for the assembled family.  How could I say no?  Austrian/Dutch dancehall act Mono & Nikitaman have been setting dance floors on fire across Europe for years now, and we plan to do the same here in the U.S..

Music Video: Maxim - Systemcrash

A couple of things to note on today's artist, Maxim.  First, if you type his name into YouTube, you get a LOT of videos with topless women.  The other thing is that Maxim is another German artist who has a remarkable grasp of the reggae genre (why are there so many of them?).  Systemcrash has a little more of an edge than his usual soulful groove, but it nevertheless remains a good demonstration of his craft.

Music Video: Iriepathie - Marianne

German band Iriepathie can lay down some smooth reggae grooves.  When they combine those smooth reggae grooves with a video that portrays the band in an 19th Century Alpine village setting as they do in their song Marianne, it gets pretty surreal.  But hey, isn't that part of the glory of musical cross-fertilization? 

Music Video: Koalas Desperados - Keep Marching

What happens when you mix a German and French songwriter/producer team with vocalists from Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Uganda (by way of Sweden), on top of a reggae groove?  Well, with all those different influences, probably just about anything can happen.  In this case, though, you get Koalas Desperados and their tune Keep Marching. 

Artist of the Week: Mono and Nikitaman

With a great driving dancehall beat, Mono & Nikitaman represent Austria and the Netherlands respectively. Check out their videos on my "Artist of the Week" video link on the sidebar to the left (when it's not cluttered by advertisements). If you're interested in finding out more, check out their official website.