Midori | Complete catalog

I remember seeing the cover of the album to your right, Midori's last, the moment I walked into Tower Shibuya in May of 2010 while in Japan on a two week vacation. If any of you have been to that Tower, you know how it feels to suddenly “wake up” after apparently having spent hours listening to samples, which are available at dozens of stations throughout each of the superstore’s 8 or 9 floors. Midori’s Shinsekai was the first thing I listened to and, for reasons my present self can’t begin to comprehend, I decided not to pick it up. I know I saw it again on my way out and thought: “Gosh … should I …?”

Back in the States, as I recalled the mysterious album with the shrieking girl and crazy cascading piano I’d heard at the Tower listening station, I grew sick with horrible pit-of-the-stomach XRGs (Xtreme Regret Gnawings), the haunting song of the collector filling my feverish head: “Gotta have it, gotta have it, gotta have it, gotta have it …” So deep, so dark was my misery, not even repeated listenings of this, which I did purchase at Tower, could console me.

Those remiss-filled days, weeks and months are a blank to me now. I can’t remember anything that I did or felt, other than the sucking wound in the pit of my soul: what I now refer to as “BM” (“Before Midori”). I don’t even remember how, finally, I discovered this album again—online, natch, exuberantly touted by some music blogger in Argentina no doubt, or, perhaps, gay Peru. I do vaguely recall, having the band’s name suddenly at hand and in mind, that I began searching the web, from YouTube to JRawk, for any possible shred of their online presence.


A song from Mariko Goto's first, pre-Midori band, Usagi (included in "Early" link below)

More than a year later, I’m now the “proud,” “fulfilled” “owner” of every album, EP and single Midori ever put out.

A few random factoids relevant to the band: Shinsekai, which means “new world,” is an Osaka neighborhood near the downtown Minami area. According to Wikipedia, it was built in 1912 “with New York as a model for its southern half and Paris for its northern half.” After the Second World War, it devolved into one of Japan’s poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods and, to this day, boasts a reputation far worse than Joan Jett’s.

The members of Midori all hailed from Osaka and, one assumes that at the very least, singer Mariko Goto was specifically from Shinsekai. 

A brief, colorful description of Midori's last album, Shinsekai, from JRawk:

“Midori has mixed the sour and sweet in the past, often blending them evenly to create an uncannily disturbing rumble, but here, they're flung together to create some truly weird sparks. “ メカ” (“Mecca”) isn't just all over the map, it's specifically built on chaos: crunching hyperactive, diseased tango, Boredoms style flashes of transcendent freakout, feverish repetition, madcap Carl Stalling-esque interludes, and God Knows what else in just under three and a half minutes. It's the strongest track they've done since "わっしょい" ("Wasshoi") from their first EP, and a quantum leap forward in their unique brand of brain smearing musical schizophrenia.”

Get the early albums. (Includes Usagi's Akemi-San to Midori-san and the following by Midori: First Demo; Second Demo; First; Second)

Get the late albums. (Includes Shimizu/Spring Water; Hello Everyone. We Are Midori. Nice to Meet You; Live!!; Swing; Shinsekai)

Mina | Brava

Get it here.

This was not something I found in a Bodega or immigrant run media store, although I certainly could have, as Brooklyn has at least one well-stocked place on 18th Ave in Bensonhurst where I've picked up more than one similar treasure from the former Roman Empire. 

This particular CD was a gift, to my now ex-wife and I, from the poet Benjamin Friedlander, whose wife, scholar and translator, Carla Billitteri, is from Sicily, where they've spent most of their summers over the last several years. Ben knew we'd love Mina's hyper-emotionality -- she is, I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark -- Italy's most famous living diva. (Someone once called her the greatest white singer in the world.) I don't remember how many languages Ben said she sings in, but I'm guessing it runs in the double digits.

I've been meaning to post this for some time now, but the European section of my CDs is aaaaaalllll the way at the bottom of my shelf, and I, frankly, hardly ever look there. Shame on me. I think you're going to love this. Here's a live vid of Mina singing the title song on Italian TV, ca. 1968:

Mar Mar Aye | Kauk Sike Ma

Listen to "Taung Thu Pyao"--which catapults itself from jaw-dropping classical Burmese piano and vocal to, four-and-a-half minutes later, upsettingly awesome funk groove--and learn everything you need to know about this supremely mind-blowing Burmese cassette from 1980.

Just reupped in 320 listenable kbps here.

Born in 1942 to a family of artists, Mar Mar Aye began music training at a very young age, recording her first hit record “Thet Tan Paw Hmar Kasar-mae” when she was 13 years old. Over the next four decades she recorded thousands of songs, acted in a couple of films, wrote a couple of novels, and became a member of Burma’s National Music Council. She is probably the most famous Burmese traditional singer.

A politically active artist who has written songs in support of the Saffron Revolution and advising citizens to “Vote No!” in a national referendum on a new planned military-backed constitution, Aye left the country for the U.S. in 1998 and has lived here ever since.

Watch Mar Mar Aye on Burmese TV in 1981:

And here she is in 1987:

Various Artists | Punk Islam

One of the all-time most popular Bodega Pop DLs, reupped here.


 

Tracks:

1. Suicide Bomb the GAP | The Kominas

2. Thaleo Vi Chumero | Noble Drew

3. Hey Hey Hey Guantanamo Bay | Secret Trial 5

4. War Crimes | Diacritical

5. Gaza- Choking on the Smoke of Dreams | Al-Thawra

6. Sharia Law In The USA | The Kominas

7. I like you | The Fatsumas

8. Teri Assi Ki Tassi | Dead Bhuttos

9. Rumi Was A Homo | The Kominas

10. Ignorance | Diacritical

11. Years Ago | Edifice Al-Thawra

12. I Want A Handjob | The Kominas

13. Dirty Looks | The Fatsumas

14. The Exile of Hope | Al-Thawra

I haven't been so excited about music coming (mostly) out of the USA in a long, long time. The bands in this 14-song compilation share at least two things: they're punk and--whether practicing or lapsed, straight or queer, sober or stoned--Muslim. They're also writing some of the funniest, most outrageous and, without question, politically savviest lyrics in English (and Urdu and Punjabi) since The Clash. 


Musically, they're all over the map, drawing from 70s punk, 80s rap, ska, rock, bhangra, Bollywood, metal, noise, folk, disco, etc.--the sum total of which almost convinces me this might be the missing LP between London Calling and Sandinista!. 

I put this compilation together after watching Omar Majeed's documentary, Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, which I highly recommend. The moment the DVD ended, I started hunting around online for songs, the result of which, pared down to this blogger's personal favorites, you can now listen to yourself.

Naseebo Lal | Pakistan's Last Diva

Reupped with groovy new cover embedded in songs here
+ NEW 12-song super-rare live acoustic recording: here

[Look, kids! some label has been SELLING this comp, song-for-song--though in scrambled order--on Amazon and via iTunes! Not that I care that much, but it kind of gives lie to the claim that if one buys from "official" sources that means the artists are getting paid. I mean, this label -- Alchemy -- just took the comp I've been offering here for free since 2010 and slapped an $8.99/$11.99 price tag on it and Amazon & iTunes clearly aren't checking to see if they're the copyright holders.]

Okay, let's get down to business. For whatever reason, this compilation, which originally included only the studio songs & which I first posted in April 2010, has consistently been one of the most popular DLs from this site, right up there with Motrat Mustafa and Punk Islam (both of which I also need to reup). I've dreaded schlepping this thing back up online because (a) I no longer had the mix itself in my iTunes (tho the iTunes Store now has it! *cough*) and (b) the separate songs were spread out over the 40-50 Naseebo Lal CDs I own.

What do you mean, "too many" Naseebo Lal CDs?

But, being as how so many people are apparently seeking her music out, and because I really hate the idea that people might possibly shell out money to iTunes or Amazon, money that ain't ever going to be moseying its way over to Naseebo herself, it's not like I have a choice. 


A track from the live album

While I had been bodega-diving long before I discovered Naseebo, it was her incredibly soulful voice that turned me into the incurable obsessive that I ultimately became. More specifically, it was one song in particular that I happened to hear on a VHS of "Pakistani Dancing Girls" that I picked up on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn one afternoon for like a buck. The VHS practically had to swim to life through layers of dubs -- this was a copy of a copy of a copy. It didn't survive more than a year or so.

But the first song -- I remember the first time the first song on the tape sprung to life very, very well. A thin Pakistani woman (not Naseebo Lal) came out on a cheap-looking stage, flipping her long, black hair around, lip-syncing "Mahi, mahi! Mahi, mahi!" while an insanely cool bass guitar riff chunddered* beneath. (*Yes, I realize that's a made up word. I, in fact, am the person who made it up.)

Mahi-mahi! It was like she was singing about this especially delicious ocean fish, though I later discovered that the word meant something more on the order of "soul." Or, wait, no: World. 

World? 

Soul?

I can't remember. What I do remember is that I went back to the store and tried to describe the song to the clerks, to see (a) who the singer was and (b) if they had it on CD. As hard as I tried, I couldn't sing "Mahi, mahi!" well enough for them to figure out what the song might be. They were pretty sure, however, that it was Naseebo Lal.

I wound up bringing the VHS back to the store with me on another visit, begging the clerks to play it so we could identify the song. They did. "Mahi Mahi" was what I remember them telling me. It's a song that I literally searched for, buying every Naseebo Lal CD with the word "Mahi" in one of the song's titles, and then everything else I could find by her just in case, for the next decade. I never found it.

Naseebo Lal was born poor and made her early living singing in weddings. In 2000, when Lollywood superstar Noor Jehan passed away, Naseebo was given shot at filling her shoes, a job she's fulfilled now for more than a decade. 

Here's an excerpt from what I wrote when I first posted this comp (under the title "Best of Naseebo Lal") here in 2010: 

Late one night coming back from a night out in Manhattan to Kensington, Brooklyn, I remember getting into a long, drawn-out conversation with the cab driver about music as we barreled along down the western and southwestern edges of Prospect Park. Somehow, probably because the driver was Pakistani, the subject of Naseebo Lal--one of my favorite living singers--came up.

He hated Naseebo Lal. Of all the music to come out of Pakistan, why would anyone bother with this filthy shit, he wanted to know, before spitting out the window. Naseebo Lal was vulgar. She was simply aping everything Reshma had ever done, but lamely, vulgarly. She was probably a drug user. There seemed to be one topic, and one topic alone, that she ever sang about: S-E-X. Was I aware of her drug abuse problem?

Mind you, the entire time he was "explaining" all of this to me, he nearly had to shout over John Cougar Mellencamp's "Jack & Diane," which--again, mind you--was not coming out of the radio, but from the tape deck. (E.g., he had chosen to pay for the "privilege" of listening to it.)

Abou el Leef | Super Leefa

Reupped by popular demand here. 

This is, without question, my absolute favorite album of 2012. Yes, you heard me correctly. Super Leefa, the cover of which features what looks like a homeless guy in a tattered superhero costume, is my favorite album of the year.

And yet, owing to (a) my prior ignorance of Abu el Leef's up-to-the-moment sweepingly postmodern Egyptian pop and (b) the aforementioned CD cover, in all its sad, be-bearded homeless-looking-guy glory, I avoided picking up a 
copy for months after first seeing it in the racks and shelves at the Nile Deli and Alfra on Steinway Street. I don't know what I thought it was. A comedy album? Some sort of Weird Al of Arabia? 

No. It's actually a sha'bi record, with Regular Joe Cairo lyrics about how music isn't against Islam, how people like to get all up in your business, and how people living an honest an honorable life are often the first to get stepped on by everyone else. The music, though, is less sha'bi and pure, unadulterated, inventive pop--a range of it, from 70s US funk and disco to 60s popular Egyptian music to contemporary dance and house.

Born Nader Anwar Gaber in Alexandria in 1968, el Leef is a relatively late bloomer, having recorded his first album (which includes the hit single "King Kong") in 2010, when he was 42. His music divides audiences: in Egypt, you apparently love him or hate him.

You know where your bodega proprietor stands on the matter. Where stands you?

Chief Akunwata Ozoemena Nsugbe | Omenana

Reup by popular demand, here.

Another wonderful item found at Blessing Udeagu (99-08 Lewis Avenue, Corona, Queens).

Awutolo & Fada | Ogene Nkpakija Enugwu Ukwu

Reupped by popular demand, here. [Apologies for no longer hosting a sample; but trust me, you'll enjoy it.]

Unlike yesterday's post, this morning's features what I can only assume to be Nigerian folk music. The sample track above opens with what sounds like a homemade brass instrument of some kind, not uncommon in Nigerian folk, and Awutolo and Fada laying down a terrific, complex rhythm while singing at times in a kind of call-and-response and at times in unison. The total effect is of an intricate soundscape that snaps, pops, buzzes and honks far enough above the level of ambient to keep the listener's ear keen, while never swerving into catchy hook or melody.

I found this sublime recording, along with yesterday's offering and a few other things, at Blessing Udeagu (99-08 Lewis Avenue, Corona, Queens). Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but after I posted yesterday morning's--the first western African recording to appear on this blog--my traffic shot up to rather insane levels. I typically have about 600 visits in a 24-hour period; this morning, at not quite 6:30 a.m., I already have nearly 1,200, and the day still has about 17 hours left to go.

So, uh ... you like the western African music, yeah?

In other news, I'll be reading tomorrow night (Thursday) at 6:30 at RH Gallery with Catherine Taylor and Sandra Liu at this event, which is in part a celebration for the publication of Ernst Herbeck's Everyone Has a Mouth, which I translated from the original German (some poems in collaboration with Oya Attaman and Ekkehard Knoerer). While the book has not yet been officially released (they're still hand-stitching the covers), I'm told there will be about 50-60 copies there the night of the celebration.

And, finally, I reserved bodegapop.com, which I've currently set to redirect to this blog. Ultimately, I'll be creating something that I think is sorely lacking: a portal to music blogs and other sources of information about and samples of international musics. It seems insane that no one has yet put something like this together. Write to me if you'd like in some way to be involved at: bodegapop@gmail.com.

Zuoxiao Zuzhou | You Know Where The East Is

There is no equivalent to Zuoxiao Zuzhou in any culture I can think of. In addition to having launched one of China's most notorious rock bands of the 90s, No, Zuoxiao Zuzhou is a successful visual artist, poet, novelist, and film score composer. (His CDs, which are often self-released, typically include his own artwork on the cover--those are his pigs, to the right.)

If the U.S. were a bit less culturally provincial he'd be nearly as well-known here as Ai Weiwei; as it is, he's probably best known in the States, if at all, for having contributed vocals to the Cowboy Junkies' "A Walk in the Park."

His music is all over the place, as is his voice, which at times seems to evoke Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen or even Tom Waits, and at other times--especially on this album--Pere Ubu's David Thomas. His music defies description, having a foot in traditional Chinese music as well as the more experimental strains of American and British post-punk.

You Know Where The East Is is considered by more than a few critics in China to be one of the--perhaps even the one--greatest rock album(s) to have ever been recorded in the People's Republic. It's not something I'm inclined to argue with.

Check out 方法论 from this album:

This ("Money Song") is worth watching as well, though it's from a different album (which I'll upload soon):

Reupped double CD album here.

Various | Roots of Cambodian Rock

 

Grab this mind-blowing collection here.

I'm tempted to post every single song to Soundcloud because this is one of those records where your first impulse is grab the lapels of everyone who passes by your bodega and pull them in, throw them into the chair, and crank up the volume.

This isn't what it looks like. It's not a Cambodian rock album. It's traditional Cambodian music. Some sounds like it could be Sinn Sithamouth or Ros Sereysothea singing, perhaps, and if so, that would explain the cover. But, trust me, I don't care how massive the Cambodian album posse you've managed to assemble over the years, you haven't heard anything quite like this. I sure hadn't before this evening when I popped the disc into Mr. Smarto. (My computer. I'm a bodega proprietor; I'm required to spew a certain amount of colorful, idiosyncratic language.) 

Yellow Music: Shanghai Pop 1930s-40s

Reup with groovy new cover embedded into songs and songs correctly ordered, here.

In the 1920-30s, American jazz musicians began to visit and, in some cases, make extended stays in Shanghai, where a songwriter and composer originally from Hunan, Li Jinhui, was taking in everything he heard and integrating it into the popular Chinese music of the time. He composed hundreds of songs from the 20s to 40s, helping to launch the careers of China's most famous singers of the time, and single-handedly inventing shidaiqu, the precursor of contemporary Mandopop. Denounced for his "yellow" (meaning "pornographic") music, Li would eventually fall victim to Mao's Cultural Revolution in 1967.

Li's contribution is covered in depth by Andrew F. Jones in Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age, a well-written academic history of this period that, despite how the subtitle sounds, steers clear of academic language to tell an engaging and fascinating story of one of the most culturally rich periods of modern Asian history.

What Jones' book does not do is to breathe life into the specific histories of any of the singers of the time (though there is a passage near the end of the book detailing a bit of Zhou Xuan's performance in Street Angel). For that, we must piece together what little we can from Wikipedia entries on shidaiqu and the so-called Seven Great Singing Stars, and then hunt and peck our way through mostly other blogs for whatever scraps are out there. 

Despite the richness of Chinese pop music of the 20s-40s, it's effectively unavailable anywhere in the United States outside of media stores run by Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwanese immigrants. Which is where your friendly bodega proprietor comes in.

As you've probably guessed, I'm on a constant lookout for recordings of shidaiqu, the Mandarin-language pop music that migrated from Shanghai to Hong Kong in the 40s, where it slowly morphed into the Twin Towers of Mandopop and Cantopop. Most of the nearly 50 CDs I have of this music is later stuff, recorded in Hong Kong, but I do have a dozen or so very coveted collections recorded in Shanghai that I've managed to pluck from mostly two stores (one no longer extant) on Bowery, just above Canal, in Manhattan's Chinatown.

For this mix, I included six of the Seven Greats: Zhou Xuan (Golden Voice), Yao Lee (Silver Voice), Bai Guong (White Light), Bai Hong (White Rainbow), Wu Yingyin (Queen of the Nasal Voice) and Lee Hsiang Lan, who was born Yoshiko Yamaguchi to a family of Japanese settlers in Manchuria, and thus apparently does not deserve a nickname. I have only a few songs by Gong Qiu Xia (Big Sister), but nothing that thrilled me as much as the songs that made the cut here.

Two other singers of the period are also repped: Chang Loo and Yun Yun. I limited myself to my two favorite songs by each of the eight, bringing the mix to a tight but hopefully fulfilling 16 songs. 

A final note: Just as easily as an enterprising scholar of popular and/or Chinese culture could make a career telling the life stories of these singers and placing their significance into the cultural context of their time, she or he could write a really interesting paper on the preservation of this music. A number of people, including a handful of non-Chinese, have been exploring a variety of methods for noise reduction and arguing about whether or not one should digitize the music directly from the original 78s or later LPs. And, as you'll hear on the first track: Someone is doing something ever-so-slightly obtrusive, but nonetheless kind of cool, using some form of digital overlay and delay.

Take a listen: First song on the mix:

Cheb Hasni | Hasni

Get it in 320 rockin' kbps here.

As some of the Bodega's regular customers know, your proprietor is a poet. Worse, he is a postmodern American poet. Given his thus obviously tenuous-at-best grasp of reality, why then, why oh Sir or Madam Customer, will you bother to listen to him when he hands you some long-winded BS explanation, circling around ye olde tired notions of gender and genre, class and (pre- and post-) colonialism, race and rhizomatic structure, as to why all of these rai songs are beginning to, um, sort of sound the same?

YOU: But I didn't say any--

BODEGA POP: I'm sorry. Are you an expert on rai, now? [Stares into your eyes with a questioning-yet-condescending look.] More like ham on rai. [Deep chuckle.]

YOU: But--

BODEGA POP: Shush, now. There's someone I'd like you meet. Sir or Madam Customer, I give you Ms. Helena Blavatsky.

HELENA BLAVATSKY: Accordeengk to my Weekee-peedee page, I was small gorl of 10 years when thees, my family, retorns to Ukraine and I contract zee herpeez.

YOU: I don't--

BODEGA POP: Is this your blog? I'm sorry, Helena; please, continue.

HELENA BLAVATSKY: Many of people zey tell me "Zis rai, she sounds always zee same to me. Which song is deefernt from next? How tell?" [Pause.] How tell, you are asking of me? [Wry smile.] To you I am saying there is no telling. Is like zee fonny accent, no? All blend into one, like zee single fonny accent. Could be Rohshan, could be Portugeesa, who is counting? Why count? Is not enoff zer is fonny accent or rai song in forst place? Why you need to know deeference?

[To be continued ...]