The Existential Soul of Tim Maia

Back in the 1990s some Brazilian clients of my wife’s company came to our home for dinner; they brought gifts for each member of the family. I received a Brazilian compilation of the music of Tim Maia, who I was unfamiliar with at the time. David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label has recently issued its own Maia compilation, Nobody Can Live Forever: The Existential Soul of Tim Maia, and it’s brimming with the funky vibes of the eccentric Maia, sometimes referred to as Brazil’s James Brown. He’s more a combination of Santana and Wilson Pickett, all Latin rhythms and cocky soul man swagger, and there hasn’t been anyone around who sounds quite like him before or since. A short animated clip narrated by Devandra Banhart came out this week, it gives the Cliffs Notes version of Maia’s life and career:

The compilation is great from start to finish, cherry picking both Portuguese and English language tracks from throughout Maia’s career. Here’s a couple of my favorites:

The Kingston Springs Dirtying Up Retro Rock ‘n’ Roll on Self-Titled Debut

Nashville rockers The Kingston Springs remind me of those 80′s and 90′s bands that threw everything they had into their retro garage rock sound; groups such as The Droogs, The Cynics, The Woggles, Redd Kross, or The Splatcats. Even the album cover looks like one of those old Chesterfield Kings LPs from my college radio days. I say all this to say that this is real, raucous, and raunchy rock ‘n’ roll the way it ought to be played, at least in a smoky bar with a sticky floor and lots of girls dancing to the band.

They hit all the garage rock requirements song-wise, too…there’s a mean harmonica player in the band, there’s a song named after a year (the clap-along “1991″), and not just one but two songs named for girls– “Sweet Susie” and “Dirty Sherry.” Stream the whole thing at their Bandcamp link below, where you may also download it for a modest ten bucks.

Pan, Remixed

Mostly instrumental act Pan already released one of the more intriguing local albums of the year in These are the Things I Love and I Want to Share Them With You, but this week they may have inadvertently topped themselves with PANrmx, a collection of remixes of tracks from that album. Altered into different forms by a host of artists including several from the same Post-Echo stable they are a part of, many of the new versions succeed by dulling the sharper edges and coloring in the lines a little more. The overall effect is akin to a musical Instagram, where the image is the same just viewed through a different filter–these songs are recognizable as what they started from yet the listening experience is a different one, and all the richer for it. Listen and download it for free on Soundcloud:

 

Oh Ginger’s New EP [ohginger]

Lindsay Holler has been making great music out of Charleston, South Carolina for a while now, but recently she has  been collaborating with Michael Hanf on a duo they call Oh Ginger. What makes it an interesting combination is that Hanf is a multi-instrumentalist and former Charlestonian who now lives in New York, making the commute for rehearsals pretty rough, I’d guess. The vibraphone which Hanf primarily wields on the new EP complements Holler’s guitar picking nicely, just as Hanf’s voice is a more strident counterpoint to her own soulful singing.

On her own, Holler tends toward the blues/country side of Americana; with Hanf the sounds that emerge are a more mixed bag of hushed indie folk and classic songcraft, marking this not as a major departure but an intriguing sidestep.

Here’s a video of Oh Ginger singing “And So it Goes” from the new EP:

For more, check out the Bandcamp page for the EP here: