That’s him! That’s from Satyricon, probably their most accessible album. Before that, he was making more industrial dance; after that, he kind of moved to more ambient art/noise exploration.
The band is incredible live, don’t know how much they still play. Based in SF now, though, so easy to catch for Bay Area folks if they do.
From the late 80’s through the late '90s, for electronic music he was one of the most sought after remix producers as well.
So, I got a bass player today, who probably isn’t very well known in North America: Eberhard Weber. He used to play on an electric upright bass, and has a very distinctive sound and phrasing. Here is a beautiful piece together with multi-reedist Paul McCandless - yeah, it is a bit long, but perfect for a Friday, along with the, uhm, recreational drug of your choice!
My last couple days have been all about Aphex Twin, I’ve been meaning to listening to him ever since I got into Squarepusher years ago. I love this shit!
Oh man, so much good music in that vein. I spent a serious amount of time back then geeking out on really obscure techno. Warp was an amazing label.
One of the bands I keep coming back to from back then is µ-Ziq, an experimental musician named Mike Paradinas that is still touring. His music builds very slowly but ends up layered and amazing. Stick with this one until at least 3:30, trust me:
But after recommending it to you a couple days ago now I’m digging out more MBM
OK, I let you guys take care of the “electronic” stuff - don’t know too much about that genre. I only know Aphex Twin’s PacMan (which is hilarious and brings back memories from the 80s) and that Chris Cunningham made some really weird videos with him.
I’ve never heard of µ-Ziq before, but is sounds like they used a Kurzweil HX-1000 expander for some of the sounds (I used to play one of those via a wind controller waaaaaay back when… ah, more memories).
Happy Friday!
Here is Mark King with his band playing the Level 42 song “Mr Pink” - some serious slapping here! (Sorry for the not quite HD quality of the video).
YES I’ve been listening to him play that since I was like 14. Never gets old, by far my favorite Level 42 (maybe because there are no pop vocals, full confession, lol).
Ah and there’s a nice quote from “43” in his intro solo. Love that line too. So cool that he’s kept those shredding slap chops up for so many years and still sounds tight, I’ve heard a bass phenomenon or two who didn’t quite manage to do that. (not naming names!)
I am totally with you there, Josh! And, perhaps not incidentally, “43” is pretty much the only other “non pop vocal” song they have…
What really “bugged” me (in a positive way) the first time I heard Level 42, was how precise their timing was, and that it apparently required no effort from Mark King to put out these slappy, funky bass lines while singing as well, and grinning like a fox in a henhouse…
I like big bands, but if you think they all sound like Duke Ellington or Buddy Rich, think again! Here is a really cool tune by Peter Herbolzheimer’s Rhythm Combination & Brass (a kind of big band). Peter Herbolzheimer was a very gifted composer, arranger, conductor and trombonist, and his RC&B routinely had the crop of European jazz performers in its ranks (and some US musicians as well).
The tune is called “Mixolydian Highlander”, and basically it is in D mixolydian all the way through. So, what do you do in order to make it interesting? You write a kick-ass arrangement! I like how the woods and brass are setting up layers and layers of cool/eerie/awesome harmonic colors, and the whole band does a fantastic job in building up and supporting the guitar solo. A goosebumps moment for me is when, at the very last moment of the final chord, the band leader picks up his bass trombone and puts down the low D - so cool!
Happy Friday! Today with a funky tune by Kyle Eastwood with a neat bass line that I am trying to figure out right now. I don’t think it is too hard to figure out - just hard to play
Josh’s new video reminded me of some of my favorite lesser-known Bootsy. George Clinton did a version of Prince’s “Erotic City” for a movie in the '90s and it absolutely rips it up.
While the Prince version is great and Mark Brown was awesome, it can’t stand up to this (lyrics NSFW if the title didn’t make it obvious):
Bootsy just is impossible to beat for funk. The only problem is I am not 100% sure it’s Bootsy on the bass - you only see the bass player in quick flashes in the video and he doesn’t look like Bootsy in one of them. Hard to tell, especially since he could have recorded the track but not been in the movie, and the credits are just for George Clinton.
The original is still by far my favorite Prince song though. Here it is for reference: