44 Results for : incongruous
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The Heritage of Hatcher Ide
The Heritage of Hatcher Ide - Destiny has a constant passion for the incongruous: ab 1.49 €- Shop: ebook.de
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Collard Greens & Gunpowda
Many dog owners and trainers feed their pets an admixture of leftover food from the dinner table and gunpowder. It is said that gunpowder causes a canine to be more aggressive, erratic. Angry. In essence, the food portion of this strange diet sustains the dog's growth while the gunpowder alters it's temperament and corrodes it's emotional stability. The combination simultaneously nurtures and destroys the animal. Dogs reared in this manner are most often killed in dog fights, die from health complications, or are put to sleep.... Sorepo Records proudly announces the release of Blac Phoak's groundbreaking new album, the aptly titled Collard Greens and Gunpowda. After selling over 9,000 hand-to-hand units of their underground album, The Movement, the eight member group, Yum Yum, Donavelli, Spody, Ni'key Baby, Vorhese, DK, Emlo, and Chozen, are back with their first commercial release. The new project flows as life does itself highlighting and poetically interpreting all of the fundamental human emotions including distress, anger, pain, depression, happiness, fear, love, and sensuality. The album's title relates to the opposing spiritual, emotional, and socio-psychological forces shaping the lives and perspectives of the group members. The group finds it's roots in the historic city of Selma at the heart of Alabama's Black Belt region. The Black Belt, also referred to as the Bible Belt, is one of the most economically deprived regions in the nation, prompting comparisons to third world countries. Moreover, the Bible Belt, despite it's religious intensity, is overwhelmed by crime, violence, and failing educational institutions. It is a world were black mothers are forced to raise their children to survive instead of to live. It is this incongruous background that lays the foundation for the group's unique perspective: While Selma's civil rights legacy, black power ethos, and concentrated spirituality afforded the group members their consciousness, character, and faith, the city's joblessness and hopelessness are partly responsible for the group's anger, emotional instability as well as for the more destructive aspects of their personalities. Collard Greens and Gunpowda is concept driven from beginning to end. Following closely to the theme of the album, most of the songs reflect the contradictory nature of the black experience. However, despite the intensity and scope of the album, it still maintains a unique commercial appeal. One of the group's most defining songs, "First Thang Monday Mornin' (Remix)" is an unusually self-aware song about procrastination, failed self-change, and regret. The refrain reads in part, "First thang Monday mornin', I'm getting off this nicotine, puttin' down this alcohol and slacking off these collar' greens, but Monday neva comes." Also featured on Collard Greens is the subversive "Start a Riot," a street anthem destined to be a coast to coast club banger. This song, in particular, is a classic example of the Blac Phoak formula... "Give your audience what they need to hear, flipped in a way they want to hear it". Not overlooking the lighthearted side of life, Collard Greens & Gunpowda includes the tongue in cheek "Southern Lovers". One of the albums more humorous and whimsical tracks, it is seemingly a song about "gimme guls" (the southern version of gold diggers), but is more a play on materialism. The song finds the artists instructing us on how to get the gold diggers without giving the gold. In the process, they almost make it cool to be broke: "Southern lovers ain't no Casanovas ridin' 'round in no Range Rovers, girl we drive in Chevy Novas hemmin' you up on yo' mama's sofa." All in all, the masterfully assembled Collard Greens and Gunpowda is a breath of fresh air in the some times suffocating world of Hip-Hop music. The album, boldly combining social commentary, emotional disclosure and commercial appeal, can only be described as Collard Greens and Gunpowda. The group members with their varied lifestyles, distinct personalities and diverse perspectives can only be described as Blac Phoak. A movement indeed. Chozen "Man this is fo'real to me. I mean the way I connect with it is almost spiritual. I actually believe, I was born to be an MC. That's why they call me 'Chozen'....and when I hit that stage man, I go into a whole 'nother zone. But on another level, I also believe that what I do can affect the world, and I stand by my beliefs because I was taught that a man is nothing without his integrity. I was also raised to speak my mind, so of course this music is just natural to me. I done seen so much and been through so much...I just want to bring my point of view and my experiences to our music and give something to the world that has as much grit, intensity, passion and significance as this here ditch we represent." Yum Yum "There ain't no way to really describe me or my style. It's slaughta. I been all over and ran with all types of cats, from arm robbers to activist, dope dealers to doctors, hustlers to lawyers. So I picked up a little of this, a little of that from everybody along the way. I ain't no psychologist or nothing, but you could say that that's what shaped the attitude I approach life with. I don't want no stress. I didn't even want to be no rapper. I wasn't one of those cats walking around with a backpack and a notebook all of the time, but when we created Sorepo and set up the studio I would be down there messing around with the group and they started telling me that I had a raw style. They damn near made me get on a song. Up until then, I was doing it as a joke. I still just rap when I feel like it. But I guess I'll keep doing it. Ain't no telling." Nikki Donavelli "My life is crazy because I was like raised in two different places with two different realities. My people back in Ohio was heavy in the dope game-I ain't gone lie I got caught up...did almost a year--but my mom always made me aware of the history of our folk. And then living in Selma just reinforced all of the stuff I had learned. The level of consciousness I put into my songs is just a reflection of the crazy way I was brought up. You know, Collard Greens and Gunpowda. The content of my lyrics is a lot of times inspired by folk like W.E.B. Dubois and Malcolm X, but the spirit of my rhymes have the influence of cats like Tupac Shakur, the Last Poets and Donald Goines. I feel like it's on me to represent them all." D.K. "Man, I have 5 brothers & sisters and I grew up in a home that sometimes had up to 19 other people in it--Foreal. My family was real active in the community, so I was raised on the struggle. At the same time, growing up around all them people, you got to create your own space just to keep your sanity. Sometimes you had to fight just to eat. Man, that's the story of my life. I been at it with someone or something every since I was peeing in the bed. It's been a constant war with myself, always challenging myself, always trying to get better. It really just comes down to survival. You know a lot of people call me hard-headed, but sometimes I feel like it's my will that gets me by. I'm a born competiter. Now, I almost feel like I am competing with myself. It's like 'can I make a hotter beat?' or 'can I write some more fire lyrics?' I feel like I am about to loose it sometimes because I know they ain't ready for us and I'm ready for them to know they ain't." Spody "Man I been hustlin' all my life. And it seem like I been rappin' as long as I been hustlin, so I guess you can say I'm a veteran of both worlds. I bring to hip hop, what I got from the streets. That type of Wisdom and Knowledge that can't be learned in 4th period history class. I know I got something to get and give from this. Ain't no free lunch in life, and ain't nobody gone give you sh-t. You got to earn it or take it. And after watching so many of my homeboys getting locked up and buried, I knew there wasn't nothing left for me on the streets. What I'm doing now- Shop: odax
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Banks of the Little Auplaine
THE BAND: Based in Minneapolis, founded officially in the summer of 2009, the members of Julie Johnson & the No-Accounts, who share a connection to the music program at Augsburg College, have been collaborating for several years. Julie Johnson has played with groups as varied as the Minnesota Chorale and the Texas blues singer Dede Priest, while Doug Otto (of Doug Otto & The Getaways) and Drew Druckrey (of The Jason Dixon Line), have also played together in bands such as The North Country Bandits. THE ALBUM: The original songs and versions of traditional Upper Midwestern tunes on The Banks of The Little Auplaine (written or arranged primarily by Julie Johnson, but developed by the band) straddle a line between song and composition, popular and chamber music. Influenced by many artists, including Gillian Welch, Astor Piazzolla, Patty Griffin, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Bela Bartok, and Robert Johnson, the band has struggled to define the music they make. Thomas Mann in The Magic Mountain comes the closest, in his description of those pieces that "fell between the two categories" of "the lofty and conscious creation of individual artists" and "simple folk songs ... in that they were products of an intellectual art, and at the same time sprang from all that was profoundest and most reverent in the feeling and genius of a people-artificial folk-songs, one might call them, if the word artificial need not be taken to cast a slur on the genuineness of their inspiration.' While the band started out playing the Delta blues tunes and traditional Southern standards that drew them to roots music-artists like Leadbelly, Howlin' Wolf, and Skip James-here they focus on soulful music from the Upper Midwest. They hope to be a part of finding and interpreting their own region's melodic, rhythmic, and thematic folk tradition and history. THE SONGS: Bob Dylan wrote the original Winterlude in 1970 for his album New Morning, but it's hard to find anyone who's ever heard of this unexpectedly sweet and light tune. A jaunty arrangement and an incongruous bass clarinet play up the charm of that surprise. The Removed. Based on characteristics of the French Canadian folk tune "Le Petite Rocher," this song's open, crystal-like harmonies speak to the landscape of Julie Johnson's childhood in Lake of the Woods County, Minnesota: the stark beauty of it's flatness, it's long blue-and-white winters. Originally written for two flutes, this version for flute and resonator guitar captures the effect Johnson originally intended. Writing this piece led to her deep interest in the folk tradition of the Upper Midwest. Arkan, a dance tune popular among the Ukranian Hutsul (from southwestern Ukraine), is often heard at the Ukranian Heritage Festival in Northeast Minneapolis, an area historically populated by Eastern European immigrants. Natalie Nowytski, of the Ukranian Village Band, introduced Johnson to the tune, who arranged it in a tango/bolero style, exploring the percussive possibilities of the mandolin, acoustic guitar, and bass flute. Found in Franz Lee Rickaby's Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy, a collection of lumberjack songs from Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin that were popular in 1870-1900, the Golden Age of American lumbering, the haunting The Little Auplaine speaks to the dangers of the Upper Midwest's early industries. One of the only shanty-boy songs whose original authorship is known (W.N. Allen, also known as "Shan T. Boy," who wrote it sometime in the 1870s), Johnson's arrangement uses an altered version sung to Rickaby by M.C. Dean of Virginia, MN. Allen's version is in a major key, includes differences in the melody, and spells the title "The Little Eau Pleine." Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the eight Little House books, which tell her family's story of living on the land in 1870-1889, is perhaps the most famous pioneer of the Upper Midwest. This version of the hymn The Home of the Soul, as sung by her mother Caroline, is found in The Laura Ingalls Wilder Songbook and referred to in the most harrowing book of Ingalls' series, The Long Winter. Snowed in in Dakota Territory during one of the harshest winters on record, near starvation, the family listens to the song with hope and dread: "The hymn blended with the wailing of the winds outside as Ma sat in her rocking chair and softly sang about the beautiful land where no storms ever beat." A traditional Métis jig includes both European (French, Scotch, and/or Irish) and Native influences, it's up-tempo, lively, and made for dancing. The Métis (a term at times loosely, at others strictly defined, here it is used to describe those of Native-Canadian or American-and European descent who trace their roots to the Upper Midwest or Canada) commonly included extra and irregular beats in jigs to challenge the quickness of a dancer's feet. Red River Jig is one of the most popular Métis fiddle tunes from the mid to late 1700's. Also found in Rickaby's collection and also sung by logger M.C. Dean, The Cumberland's Crew, though it describes an event that occurred far south (the sinking of the Union ship Cumberland off of Newport News, VA in 1862), was, according to Dean, "a great favorite among the boys." Johnson worked for a fraught and lonely mood with a bass flute solo followed by tight and often dissonant three-part harmonies. The shanty-boy worked alone, and, unlike the tunes sung by many other laborers, shanty-boy songs were not often accompaniment for group work. But in the evenings, when lumberjacks came together in camp, storytellers and singers were highly prized. Using extended techniques, the solo flute piece The Panther asks listeners to expand their ideas of what the flute can be and do. Johnson features the influence of Ojibwe music in this piece that drives aggressively forward like a chase. Minnesota Finnish communities often include Jos voisin laulaa (If I Could Sing) in celebrations of the festival of Midsummer (Juhannus). Joyce E. Hakala, in The Rowan Tree: The Lifework of Marjorie Edgar, Girl Scout Pioneer and Folklorist, includes the song and describes Edgar's work of collecting folk music, tales, proverbs and traditions from Finnish people on the Minnesota Iron Range. This song was sung for Edgar in Ely in 1930 and in Duluth in 1931, by various singers. Johnson's arrangement seeks to capture the enchanting mood of many Finnish folk songs. This version of Gary's Polka was collected by LeRoy Larson, head of the Minnesota Scandinavian Ensemble, and is a composite version of those played by Calmer Brenna, a Norwegian fiddler from Middle River, MN, and Bill Sherburne of Spring Grove. While the lazy beginning of Johnson's version was inspired by an old cowboy movie, the flute and clarinet runs in the second half play with both polka and jazz. Cover Art: The Banks of The Little Auplaine by T.J. Malaske Band Photos by Christine Rooney CD recorded at Wild Sound Recording Studio in Minneapolis, MN, and designed & manufactured by Noiseland Industries, Minneapolis, MN.- Shop: odax
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