Encyclopaedia Eclectica Vol II

This is the second of four volumes of a mixtape I created called Encylopaedia Eclectica. No, the files are not available on this site; this is just a reference page.

Track	Artist	Country	Title	Year	Album
01	Heath Yonaites	USA	Circular Ruins	?	Rodomontade
02	Troka	Finland	Balkan	1998	Troka
03	Project Pitchfork	Germany	Rush	1998	Chakra Red
04	Arch Enemy	Norway	Dead Eyes See No Future	2003	Anthems of Rebellion
05	Aksak Maboul	Belgium	Milano Per Caso	1977	Onze danses pour combattre le migraine
06	Les Double Six de Paris	France	French Rat Race	196?	Ultra Lounge: A Bachelor in Paris
07	Philip Glass	USA	Floe	1982	Glassworks
08	Townes Van Zandt	USA	Highway Kind	1972	High, Low and Inbetween
09	Kai Winding	Denmark	Morning of the Carnival	?	The Black Box of Jazz
10	Muddy Frankenstein	Japan	Chocolate	1997	Tokyo Trashville
11	The Specials	England	Ghost Town	1981	Ghost Town EP
12	Melusine	France	Les metamorphoses	1998	Voix Contrevoix
13	Lacuna Coil	Italy	To Myself I Turned	1999	In a Reverie
14	Alan Namoko & Chivu Jazz	Malawi	Achilekwa	1994	Ana Osiidwa
15	The Liquid Sound Company	USA	The Art of Ecstasy	2003	Inside the Acid Temple
16	Nina Simone	USA	Sinnerman	?	The Thomas Crown Affair

Circular Ruins

Robert Plant used to talk about Stairway to Heaven in terms of structure. It was something that was consistently built up, from a slow start to a fast finish. It was when he pointed out that most music doesn't do this that I pricked up my ears. He's right.

So let's start this volume of Encyclopaedia Eclectica with something slow. Heath Yonaites is a talented young musician who I talked to on the message boards at EMusic. I acquired Rodomontade from a net label who had it available for free download and I've relistened regularly since. It's a slow, introspective piece of electronica that builds slowly but surely.

Balkan

And what better to keep building than a bit of cheerful world music. Here's some sort of traditional Scandinavian dance from Troka that would liven up any gather. It reminds me of some of the Transylvanian Jewish wedding music that Muszikas have thankfully kept alive.

Rush

From the traditional to the modern with an uptempo beat that owes a lot to Gary Numan but breaks free to pulse with abandon. Project Pitchfork is such a cool name for a band too but there's a lot here above and beyond a name. That pulse should prepare you somewhat for the blitzkreig attack of Arch Enemy too.

Dead Eyes See No Future

Still in Northern Europe, they are the heaviest thing I've included in Encyclopaedia Eclectica. It may not be accessible to everyone but it's possibly my favourite track of the moment so that's tough. The whole 'Anthems of Rebellion' album is superb but this track just blisters along doing exactly what it should at every point. And yes, that's a female singer. Angela Gossow is a damn cute little blonde but she can do the harsh metal growl better than almost any of the guys. I love everything about this song. It's a crafted masterwork where everything sounds so right. I love the little pitch changes in Angela's voice and the guitar soaring over her at the end and the slow drum bit and the fact that there isn't a single wasted second anywhere to be found. Perfection.

Milano Per Caso

So where to build to after a bit of death metal? Nowhere, that's where, at least nowhere I have any right to take someone approaching these compilations from a pop or rock background. So let's snap the pace down a notch with a sexy little Belgian number from Aksak Maboul. All my mixes are prepared in the shadow of those built by a gentleman from Belgium so I ought to fit his home country in somewhere. Why not with this little gem that demonstrates just how well a song can be designed around variations on a catchy theme.

French Rat Race

As fingers run up and down the double bass and the cymbals kick in you know you're in for jazz but nobody is ever ready for this unsurpassable scat masterpiece from Les Double Six de Paris. With the sole exception of the unique talents of the late Shooby Taylor, this is as outrageous a scat as you'll ever hear. I don't think one word makes sense, even if you speak French, but it doesn't matter. The vocals go where they need to go, and that's everywhere!

Floe

And they go berserk enough to need an instrumental afterwards. Nobody could structure instrumentals like Philip Glass, so here's 'Floe'. I could listen to this till the cows come home and still not work out how many layers he throws in here. I can let my ears focus on any one loop but they're soon jumping sideways to another one. Just when I think I've mastered all of them, Glass slows it down for a short while before going at it with twice as much gusto as before. The only time my ears have got this much exercise was listening to a tribe of Central African pygmies practice their polyphony live at Leeds University. That was more complex still but this is complex enough. Twelve, thirteen...

Highway Kind

There's not a lot to follow in Townes Van Zandt's stark guitar picking but there doesn't need to be. It's his poetry that matters and 'Highway Kind' touches the places only Townes can touch. Steve Earle's famous line that 'Townes Van Zandt is the greatest songwriter in the world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that,' has probably been quoted too much but I'm still going to quote it again. He's right. I visited his grave for a reason. The world lost something truly special that New Year's Day.

Morning of the Carnival

Kai Winding was unique too. He was an 'upstream' trombonist who stood out when I started learning about jazz through a couple of box sets of the masters. Among all the timeless classics this is what my ears latched onto and I still can't let go. One day I'll find more Kai Winding that matches this.

Chocolate

Muddy Frankenstein don't provide quite the sort of etude that Chopin would envisage but I'd be fascinated to hear what he'd make of underground Japanese rock 'n' roll. The 'Tokyo Trashville' CD is one of the shortest albums I've ever come across with its set of blisteringly short anthems to the American music scene that was punk 'n' roll, all done with a thoroughly Japanese twist. You've not lived until you've heard the all-girl 5-6-7-8's cover 'Long Tall Sally'. Somehow the Japanese can exude energy.

Ghost Town

Probably the earliest music videos I can remember seeing featured a car overfilled with a multiracial mix of average looking guys wailing away for all they were worth. After the theatrics of Adam and the Ants, it seemed very strange indeed, but then 'Ghost Town' has lived on as a uniquely strange anthem to the depressing urban landscape of 1980s England. I've still not heard anything like it since.

Les metamorphoses

I have heard polyphony like Melusine elsewhere but not done this well. 'Voix Contrevoix' makes total sense as an album title, if my limited French is holding up for me. The percussive introduction sounds African to me but the vocals are unmistakably French. The voices weave in and amongst each other perfectly.

To Myself I Turned

Lacuna Coil veer from gothic to metal and back. I think it's fair to say that Evanescence stole almost their entire sound which is a heck of a shame because Lacuna Coil are a much finer band. There's no nu-metal panderings here either which can only be a good thing. The demos of 'Bring Me to Life' were so much better without the rap metal shouts, and they just sounded even more like Lacuna Coil.

Achilekwa

It's back to Africa again for Alan Namoko and Chivu Jazz, who never fail to get my foot tapping. I love the rawness of 'Achilekwa'. Listening to it makes me feel like I'm right there next to the drumkit listening to that chickenscratch guitarwork and combined wails from mere feet away. Sometimes I think we should sack all the producers in the world and see who would survive without the power of modern technology.

The Art of Ecstasy

The Liquid Sound Company are a side project that are entirely different from the band that spawned them. Solitude Aeternus are a decent doom metal band but guitarist John Perez has a thing for psychedelia and he let that side of him rip on a couple of albums by The Liquid Sound Company which is an apt name, I think.

Sinnerman

And Nina Simone. What can be said about Nina Simone that wouldn't be an understatement? She did everything her way and refused to pander to anyone or anything. There's even a clapping solo in 'Sinnerman'! This sprawling epic of a man's fall and rise isn't commercial in any possible interpretation of that word, but it's truly stunning. I have yet to see the remake of 'The Thomas Crown Affair' but I'm thoroughly intrigued as to how this song gets used. Sit back and close your eyes and let ten sublime minutes of the unique Nina Simone take you somewhere very special.