SOUNDS FROM ALL AROUND

Whitefield Brothers featuring Mr. Lif and Edan: The Gift + Taisho
From Earthology (Now Again, 2009)

Music just wouldn't be as fun without the Whitefield Brothers around. Sure, they aren't as well-known as they should be, but they consistently provide quality and they rarely stay in one place too long musically speaking.

We heard their take on thunderous funk in the mid-90s long before it was en vogue to do so. I'm talking pre-Numero and pre-Daptone. With as much respect I have for the Dap Kings, I'd still take “Augusta Georgia” and “Practice What You Preach” by the Whitefield gang in their multitude of band names over anything I've heard from SJ + DK. That's not to say SJ + DK don't deserve the praise they get; the WB just funk out even harder.

After a short stint with a little discofied funk as Syrup, they started going in a different direction with “In The Raw” on Soul Fire by adding more of an African tinge to their music. By 2008, they had advanced that sound even further with the Karl Hector And The Malcouns project. Now, we get their most diversified sound with “Earthology,” entitled so, at my best guess, as a study of the music from around the globe. This is true World Music.

Songs with an unfamiliar time signature like “Pamukkale” make sense within the frame of the album, although you might be thrown off if just heard by itself. The Eastern sounds of “Taisho” hit you right away before going off into a menacing bass groove. “Ntu” explores a variety of percussion, though not of your standard drum kit. Rap even makes its way on to the record by underground sensations Edan and Mr. Lif on “The Gift” over one of the more straightforward rhythms on the album.

It was interesting to note the copyright date on the back of my promo copy as 2008. While I don't know why it has set on shelf for so long (unless it the year was a misprint), it works well for continuing their legacy as well as that of Stones Throw/Now Again. The front cover calls it a World-Psych Masterpiece, a fitting description for an album that pulls its influences from all over. Left to lesser talent, both by the band and co-executive producer Egon, it might sound disjointed. Under their careful watch, though, we're treated to an exquisite album of sounds and textures. It's available digitally now from Stone's Throw online web store, and hits the racks in January everywhere else.

COME NOW AGAIN

Natural Yogurt Band: Chit Chat
From Away With Melancholy, (Now Again, 2009)

About eight years ago, if you saw a release for Stones Throw sister label Now Again, you could put your last dollar up in a bet that it was a soul or funk compilation. In the last two years, though, they have been delightfully mixing it up with a smorgasbord of musical treats.

On the North American 1,000-piece limited edition (in both vinyl and CD) repress of the Natural Yogurt Band's variety of part jazz, part funk, part psychedelic, and even part Gregorian chant, the sounds of a “genre” known as library music breathes with the drone of chants and a dose of breakbeat drums serving notice that it's a head nodder in “Chit Chat.” It will have you checking the card catalog for the band's other releases.

Top Drawer: Song Of A Sinner
From Forge Your Own Chains: Heavy Psychedelic Ballads And Dirges 1968-1974, (Now Again, 2009)

Continuing along the psychedelic front is Top Drawer's “Song Of A Sinner” that in its intro, and vocally even through the tracks' end, sounds very folkish. But then two minutes in, a guitar solo cuts in and through your soul and nearly bleeds you dry during its (three minute!) epic presence. It's not quite Eddie Hazel in “Maggot Brain” or Hendrix in “Voodoo Chile,” but it's not far off and is a total a face melter. It's torturous and wrenching throughout, and you feel as though YOU should go to confessional after hearing it. “Forgive me Lord, for I have sinned,” would be an appropriate watermark in the song.

MORE HELIOCENTRICS

Heliocentrics: Live In Paris

Over on the Now Again website, there is a 10-minute clip of the Heliocentrics throwing down in live style over in Europe from last year. The Heliocentrics took over due to Madlib having to pull out at the last minute.

Maybe we'll get lucky enough to get a full version of that show from the Stones Throw crew at a future date.

MORE DARK SOUNDS FROM BEYOND

The Heliocentrics: The Gorn
From Fallen Angels (Now Again, 2009)

Quickly becoming one of my favorite new acts, Stones Throw/Now Again have compiled a b-sides album that highlights tracks that, for the most part, have been vinyl (or digital) only. “Fallen Angels” treks through more psychedelic sounds while bringing along some hip hoppers for the ride. The Metal Face one, Doom, raps alongside the waterfall flows of Percee P on a remix of “Distant Star” while one half of Cannibal Ox, Vast Aire, has an off-kilter freestyle flow on “Sirius B (Remix).”

“The Gorn” features a more straightforward funk rhythm, without a doubt the most accessible piece of music on the album. With its Jake Ferguson lead on bass, the lead guitar stairsteps its way to heaven toward the end while flutes fly around like butterflies in a mating ritual reeling the listener into an entranced euphoria.

After their Stones Throw debut in 2007 to their collaboration with Multau Astatke earlier this year on the Inspiration Information series, the Heliocentrics have shown that they're a band to be reckoned with while pushing the musical envelope.