Laxmikant-Pyarelal | Khuda Gawah

Reupped in case you missed it, here.

[Originally posted in April 2010.] At some point in 1994 when I was living in St. Paul, Minn., a friend across the river in Minneapolis took me to see an Indian film, the title of which had been translated as “God Is My Witness.” This three-hour 1992 Bollywood epic following a couple of generations of Afghan tribes-people was the first Indian movie of any kind that I had ever seen.

To say that I was not really prepared for it is both an understatement and the wrong approach. More than any other film I’ve seen, “Khuda Gawah” completely changed my life forever. I loved every second of it: the supercharged game of buzkashi that opens and sets the pace and tone; the incredible songs (composed by superstar team Laxmikant Pyrarelal); and the fabulous performances by Amitabh Bachchan and Sridevi:

It is no exaggeration when I say that I spent the next 10 years of my life desperately searching for a tape or CD of this soundtrack. Unfortunately, I was missing a key piece of information: Hindi Bollywood film titles are never, ever, ever translated into English, even though DVDs of almost every Hindi Bollywood film have English subtitles. As I discovered on subsequent trips to Devon Avenue in Chicago, "God Is My Witness" was not a film that anyone working in an Indian video/CD store was familiar with.

It wasn't until 2004, three years after I moved to the Kensington neighborhood of Brooklyn, that I discovered first a DVD of the film (I instantly recognized the image on the cover) and then, shortly thereafter, a CD of the soundtrack (shown above), at a Pakistani video store on Coney Island Avenue (Pak Video, 1058 Coney Island Avenue, just below Foster).

Six years later, I'm still listening to this remarkable CD; it remains one of my all time favorite Bollywood soundtracks.

Various Artists | Kabylie Chantee

Reupped by reader request in 320 Kick Ass KBPS here.

[Originally posted May 23, 2011.] For a guy whose last name conjures up horrifying visions of torture, torment, agony, anguish, nightmare, misery, suffering and pain, Richard Hell is probably one of the sweetest people I've ever met. I can't remember exactly how we got in touch, although I think it had to do with a fake interview with John Ashbery that I ran in an issue of Readme, an online literary arts journal I edited from 1999-2001.

Whatever the case, we wound up having brunch--yes, brunch--a couple of times in the East Village in the mid-2000s. Richard claimed to be a fan of my comics; I said nothing about how I had always considered him one of the greatest people on earth for having come up with what I still think is the single greatest title of a pop song, ever: "Love Comes in Spurts." Or for having practically single-handedly inventing the whole punk-DIY aesthetic; I mean, I think that had everything to do with my having been an "artist" in the first place.

After we hung out, we exchanged CDs and tapes. He sent me a CD of TIME (his greatest hits along with a live CD) and I sent him a cassette tape of a bunch of music I'd found in bodegas--including some of the stuff I've posted here over the last year or so. Including, significantly, to me, the song you'll hear in the sample below.



I was convinced--*convinced*--that he was going to be bowled over by the raw pop power of that Kabylie song, and write me back, singing my praises as the Greatest Digger On Earth..("OMG! Where did you *find* this gem of etc. etc. etc.?!?") Well, that's not exactly what happened. But I've always remembered his response, which I think was one of the greatest tossed-off bits of philosophy I've ever read: To paraphrase (since I no longer have the e-mail), he basically said that it was incredible to imagine all of us, all over the world, walking around with each of our unique "life-soundtracks" going on in our heads. Something like that, but far more eloquently, if off-the-cuffedly--put.

It was a kind way of saying that my soundtrack wasn't his. But that he certainly respected that I had one. And that it was, finally, so different from his own. Or anyone's.

I admit, part of me was a bit disappointed that he didn't thrill to the Kabylie pop as I did, and still do. Pop music is such that, one wants to know others are not just listening to what you're listening to, but mesmerized by it. It isn't an art of intimacy.

So I offer it to you, anonymous reader and potential downloader. What do you think? What are you liking? What are you disliking? What do you want to hear more of? Let me know ...

As for this CD, I know almost next to nothing about it, other than I got it at Princess Music & Electronics in Bay Ridge, which closed sometime last summer. And that it remains one of my all-time favorite pop CDs, ever.

Little Fujiko | White Peach Jellyfish (1996)

Dare you eat a peach? [Reupped b/c you simply can't live w/out it.]

The radiant prayer of steel bursts between your ears. There it is, outside of sorrow. Inferior to the click beetle. 

Things that have poured, of light. That were born in soft legs and the rain that no longer rains. Into the arc lamp above, the "crazed moon." When it arrives and wraps.

Wraps the ocean? The shape of a poem. And horses, larvae. The dung peacefully eating its surroundings. 

The water of mayhem wrapped in the palm of your hand, twisting itself. FOR THE FIGHTING SPIRIT OF THE WALNUT. Nipped by the air creatures everywhere, bewildered, nut-cracking. Able to melt this cloud like a ringing ear.

The quick leaps have a fire!

You would like to stand yourself up, as humans did, long ago. Without gazing and is not here. To think poems are always thunderclouds with our blind eyes and folded branches. Fog descending stairs? 

Wonder what kind of deranged scratch marks resist dyed "Chinese" signs, food displays,  the right to read in any order? Shy twitch where the leaf mulch spreads.

Poetry continues to differ from what people believe the bar tilts, a cheerful hustle, the spirit torn apart by the swirl it's just lived through.

Little Fujiko | Little Fujiko (1998)

Freshly reupped here.

Just then I noticed the thin edge of words thinly glowing of wood. They stumble around with fingers rooted in the ducts of these creatures everywhere, hanging between branches of mistakes. Little Fujiko, little bolt of lightening, lease this illusory space closing in on you.

You believe you really saw this, these vacant bolts randomly passing you by, these blocks of cloud hanging from shoulder. We are all unexploded shells, wrapped around an inner field of nettles. You can't even listen as much as has been sung. You can't even sing as much as has been heard.

They pass it now from their lips to yours.

Maruja Serrano | Valsecitos Criollos

Grab it here.

Yet more awesomeness from Ecuador. This woman does this this thing with her voice that I've personally not heard outside of recordings from Cambodia -- that super-leap that I'm sure has a technical name of some kind associated with it, but which I only know as "that super leap." Do you know what I mean? No? Would you, like ... mind working with me here? Super leap. C'mon.

This woman is going to kick your ass. La musica esta no horrifically somber as everything else I've been picking up from Ecuador -- in fact, by comparison, it's downright life-affirming (altho I'm convinced it's probably addressing the same depressing life/love problems) -- but Holy Crap, what her voice does. Okay, it's like yodeling? But groovy. And look at her. Is that a face that says "Oh ignore me I'm not very talented"? No; no, it's not. We both know that. Look at her. Just ... look at her! And listen to this:

NY Comics Symposium: On Comics+Poetry

Alexander Rothman, Bianca Stone, Paul Tunis and I discuss the poetics of comics and comics poetry at The Rumpus Net.

Anita Lucía Proaño | Lo Mejor De ...

Get it here.

After discovering, a year or two ago, that the shaggy little bodega where I'd found most of my fabulous Ecuadorian music had closed down, I just assumed I would never find another album from the region. All that changed two or three weeks ago, when I acted on a sudden craving I was having for chorizo sopes and made the trip out on the 7 train to east Jackson Heights. There, in a Spanish-language media store (mostly DVDs), I discovered, all the way in the back, a wee rack of soot-covered CDs. This gem was one of the handful that I picked up. (I'll be posting the best of the others in the coming days.)

According to Google's translation of Proaño's official website, the Ecuadorian singer was "always involved in all Ecuadorian music festivals to which you have been invited, so it was that, as in the land was well known and renowned for its fashion and style of singing."

According to me? This record is going to completely transform your blah nothin-goin-on Sunday morning into a lush, green permaculture paradise ... but don't take my word for it; listen to the first song from this environmentally sustainable album and tell me permaculture is not ours:

Carlota Jaramillo | Eternamente

Reupped in 320kbps here.

Found in a bodega somewhere in Jackson Heights, Queens. Known as the Queen of Canción Nacional, Jaramillo was born in 1904 and performed for a solid half century, from 1922 up until 1972. This album was compiled in 1997, a decade after Jaramillo's death.

Listen to the first song from this collection:

Juarez Villamar Sisters | una tumba para los dos

Reupped in 320 Xtremely Fabulous KBPS, because it's just that awesome, here.

[Originally posted May 5, 2011.] I found this incredible gem in a bodega in east Jackson Heights, in what I believe was an Ecuadoran bodega, although it's been a few years, so perhaps it was Columbian or Mexican. I have found nothing other than a few YouTube videos featuring the Juarez Villamar sisters, so if you have any info, it would be greatly appreciated.

I don't really know Spanish, but the title seems to be "A Tomb for the Two." Gack. Is it really that morbid? I'll say this much, it's intensely beautiful, one of my favorite CDs of all time, not to mention that it sports one of the grooviest covers to boot. Here's a video of the sisters to enjoy while you download:

Sharon Mesmer | On Flarf

Sharon Mesmer's Putting Down My Burger To Kick In the Door: An Appreciation of Flarf. Her husband, New Yorker cartoonist David Borchart, drew the image above.