Jonas Reinhardt – Atomic Bomb Living

Just got hit by an incredible driving drum solo?

Try reliving those 5 atomic bomb seconds into the Jonas Reinhardt track – Atomic Bomb Living. The point of inflection in the masterful Powers of Audition album, this track is going to blast out everything you ever thought was electro, rock, electro-rock.

Explosive layer on layer of trippy synths, a driving disco bassline and the final climatic surprise of a miraculous lead guitar – deep-defining a novel electronic catharsis.

Jonas Reinhardt have just come out with a new EP ‘Foam Fangs’.

More information can be found at the Jonas Reinhardt site, Discogs, and Wikipedia here:
http://www.jonasreinhardt.com/
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Jonas+Reinhardt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Reinhardt

Calvin Johnson - Cool, Hip and Spare

One of my chance discoveries has been Calvin Johnson - the perfect apostle of non-assembly line music. So necessary to have one, wouldn't you agree? Oh, by the way Johnson runs an electronica band too. His eponymous band is his side project. But you wouldn't equate Johnson with anything electronic or "space age-microwave-processed-popular", never that kind of category. He most certainly defies categorization. Instead, please prepare to be startled.

And startled I was. With Rabbit Blood, or I Am Without or Can We Kiss? and his albums - What Was Me or Before the Dream Faded. He got me sitting bolt upright, afraid of his turn of his phrase, the music coming from a dark warm place that had me shouting out the silly anarchic word "soul".

A first parallel - Johnson is what Morrison must have wanted to be I guess. He takes a hard look at the blues, and he delves bodily into poetry, with a droning rich voice that you may suspect is nearly out of tune with his hollow deep strummed guitar.

You'll be tempted to think Johnson's "odd" or eccentric, and you'll be right. He is. So while you make up your mind, here's a cool YouTube playlist to show you the genius of this cool, hip, and spare Washington born artist:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBB84F0590BD59AB4

DJ Prashanth & the Down Town Tempo

DJ Prashanth Pallemoni’s performance at the “VH1 presents 0101 Electronic at CounterCulture presents Fling – Electro Swing, Trip Hop, Drum and Bass and more…” event on June 24th, 2012 was to me one of the most incredibly exciting, liberating, courageous, and genre-defining live electronic music shows I have ever seen.

Prashanth delighted me most with the possibilities of creating music in the here and now, “like dripping wet paint in a sonic museum” to quote from another context.

Here is my stream of consciousness experience and interpretation of DJ Prashanth’s seminal performance:

————-Start, Let’s Start——————

Then… let’s start with the Down Town tempo, let’s get lush folks… shoot some ambience into the air, treat solitary to some seating, so permit me ladies, to be anachronistic, to screen this set for some 50s-60s pride… evolve beat lounge, tripping insects into a hush… and swing rap out to introduce the revolving turntable… the Master.

The lone hip hop star, the man in a hat, the scratched beat on control… from turntablism to the New Needlism, from smoky New Orleans to the bylanes of Byculla. 

Sri Sri wafts in… cutting Down a System to… you guessed it? 

Soul, man, Soul…

Shimmer in track on track, pause-pick-spin, chill-in, chill-out… barefoot Brass, and oh, yes of course, Jazz!, never forgotten, but fetched, Sound on Noise, the Storm, the blizzard from without. Served Soundscape, glittering House, Deep. Spoken, Words throng out – the tin tinkling, touching syllablism…

Genre-bending Atmospherics, offbeat Big Band, Dream in some Pop, so here we go…. so Flute, Arching Temple Tubular Bells, Defiant Glitch, Submarine Trance, Arctic Found Audio,
File Flaring Nadaswaram, some of the Unknowns, Invert Solipsism, the End of Time & the Return to Synth, to seal my fate… with the Growing Glowing Tribal Big Beat…

——– End, The Slow Peaceful End ——-

For more -

A wonderful do by TimeOut on DJ Prashant: 

http://timeoutbengaluru.net/music/featuresfeatures/dj-prashanth

The DJ Prashant public page on FB: 

https://www.facebook.com/UNNAYANAA

And about the VH1 events at CounterCulture, Bangalore: 

https://www.facebook.com/events/447681828590448/

Pink Floyd’s Signs of Life – Another Way

While thinking about a creative response to a much-loved track in a form which is not a music review, not a remix, not a cover version and definitely not karaoke, I found myself putting words to the gentle atmospheric spirit of this song. Here goes…
————————————————————————————————————————-
Signs of Life - Another Way

For now, let’s start silence.

Wrap silence around. Make no sounds, act no life.

Make those moments pass.

Make him lay there dead like, make no sound.

OK. So leave those runway lights on.

Leave the rest to the crosswinds.

Then as Jay comes to, sense a man rowing away.

So fix it – make him escape.

From anything – from the shadows of a creek. Swiftly.

Distant shouts from the pack. Muffled. Try to reach him.

We shout, make him open his eyes.

Only to see their lanterns wheeling wildly?

Pass from his lips – the gritty salt.

Spray to his skin – the stinging rain.

Have a seaman save him? A seaman, Rob, Ram or Ron?

How far out to sea do we let the buoys be?

Prepare for the last dim shout from the shore.

End the mainland chase.

For sure, we’ll have all the buoys, all the buoys

Bobbing up, gently

Then down, then up again…

Then down, Then down.

- Adil@SpiritSoakingMusic

————————————————————————————————————————-
(Track 01 from Pink Floyd – A Momentary Lapse of Reason).
And here is the “master” track as beautiful as ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC-lMMO8aRY

Hello World!

Hello World!
Welcome to my new blog – Spirit Soaking Music.

I’m going to be making posts about the music I love – new and old. The real stuff that defines and engages me as a person – past, present and future.

Of course, I promise to make it all juicy and explosive!

Please be at your freest – give me a shout or write in your comments on the posts…

Cheers!
Adil