socalled music

[foxtongue]

I have a new musical obsession.

Socalled.

Brainchild of musician, photographer, magician and writer, Josh Dolgin, they're a Jewish-culture Montreal Jazz-Klezmer Hip-Hop group with shimmering 1920's piano and Romanian/Latin-American percussion.

Seriously.

Their latest single, You are Never Alone, begins with a soft clip, reminiscent of The Avalanches, and drops down into a catchy riff which positively throbs with promise, clearing the way for a theatrical bout of MC story-telling. It all works exceptionally well with the video, a fantastical transformation of Mr. Dolgin into a complicated, high-tech re-imagining of an antique theatre. (You might remember their rough video with (these are the) good old days too).

"Truly these are the good old days where man, woman, and child can all log on the internet and text message each other across their own house, where there is any form of contraceptive from solid, liquid, to gas, we have reached the point of civilization like the Incans reached when they had gold roads and the Egyptians reached when they had, like, magical buildings and secret things, so what you do is you kiss whoever you kiss, grab whoever you grab, because these are truly the good old days and it does not get any better than this. When it does you wake up and then you're dead."

I've had their latest album, Ghettoblaster, on infinite repeat since I found a copy. I can't not. From the clever intro, the sound of someone slotting a cassette into a car tape-deck, to the bonus hidden remix track, it's eclectic, relevant, wickedly smart, funny, and perishingly sexy. It groans and grins, powerfully melodic, full of cultural anthropology, swinging horn solos, splashes of Yiddish rap, layers of juicy, highly literate rhythms, and a willowy, elegantly stretched sense of timing. Even unexpected clips of musicians talking in the studio are beautiful, adding a charming depth of personality and character to moments that might have been weak without them. As a hint, their wikipedia entry states some of their almost inexplicable, modern style as "...drums & bass and other types of folk music."

It's only when you start to really listen do you realize how gracefully strange their punchy melding of cultures really is, how tightly they wove what should have been a vocal sprawl. Every song is really its own mysterious and wonderfully imaginative mood, an entire exploration into genre. Each time I pay attention, another thread of creativity manifests. Banjo, for example, it has banjo? I missed that it's practically glittering with banjo? Yes, apparently, I think, rewinding and playing again. How rare.



BUY THE ALBUM: it's not even $10.
(find them on MySpace)
(the socalled video blog)

Comments

[uminthecoil.livejournal.com]

I just love this snippet from his bio..
"He wrote for the newspaper and played in any kind of band – salsa, gospel, rock, funk – then discovered MIDI and hip hop. He worked with rappers, he made madd beats, he got into studios."
I can almost hear Wesley Willis speaking this...heh...it's the "madd beats line"

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

No way, not Wesley Willis at all.

[uminthecoil.livejournal.com]

:)
I suppose that some nights I hear Wesley Willis in my head reading everything...heh

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

I think that would drive me entirely up the wall.

[natowelch.livejournal.com]

sampled sound as the new folk.

[natowelch.livejournal.com]

more on the new folk

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

*nods* I can see that, actually, though I think it's a bit of a shame, too. Culture homogenizing, instead of diversifying. Well, nnot that either, but I can taste the edges of it.

[blahchewy.livejournal.com]

Thank you. You never ever fail to find me something I don't positively love. This was no exception. You're amazing. Like my big sister back when she was cool.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that eventually, I too wll pass from Cool into Not-Cool, but my Awesome Big Sister days continue t stretch forward a few more years. My brother Cale recently proposed getting some matching tattoos. I said I'll do it if he gets us air miles somewhere interesting.

[zenrender.livejournal.com]

Very very nice stuff.
It's like The Avalanches minus the disco.
A shout out to you for the find, for sure.
(Oh, and Duncan, I call dibs on the track!)

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Except the Avalanches is sampling whereas these guys are actually playing the music.


(Duncan doesn't read my journal anymore, but I've forwarded the message on. What're you calling dibs on?)

[zenrender.livejournal.com]

Not sampled.

I'll have to keep telling myself that.

...okay, so more like Stetsasonic then.

Crazy. Awesome. Crazyawesome.

Dibs on playing... uh... ANYTHING from Ghettoblaster. I'm about 1/2 way through, and nothing I don't already dig. Wow. Just wow.

How'd you find 'em?

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Ah-hah. You're involved with that podcast that Frank just told me about, the one that plays a significant amount of music that I've sent Duncan. *laughs*

I found them through the video for You Are Never Alone. I think it might have been Duncan, ironically, that sent me the link. People are always sending me stuff - music, videos, websites. I've got eclectic taste.

[yonderboy701.livejournal.com]

Dammit Jhayne, there I was attempting to give you some credit for being the uber music sleuth and this is the one situation that it was actually Duncan tipping you off instead of the other way around. ;-)

Oh well... just so long as the great tunes keep getting passed along. It seems that everyone that Claire and I have directed towards Socalled in the past couple of days just loves it.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Well, yes and no, right? Not everyone sent a video clip will then obsessively track down everything there is to know about the people involved. That's my sickness in this case and mine alone. *grins*

I'm glad it's still circulating. The more the merrier. When I find a good artist, especially like this, someone quiet, relatively an unknown, I like forging them more of a fan base.