By Vivian Ponte-Fritz

Review of Staff Benda Bilili -Très Très Fort (Crammed Discs)

This weeks post is focussing once again on an album and band that is considered world music. Many people do not tend to lend an ear to this genre when looking through the stacks, seeing as it might be unfamiliar or unfavorable to the good old american aesthetic. But let me tell you, Staff Benda Bilili is easy, beautiful sound that has a broken but equally beautiful story behind it. The musicians in this band all are paraplegic members of the Congo’s slum called Kinshasa, inhabited by many street kids or sheges. They are all subject to hard lives and are creating amazingly creative, innovative and joyful music nonetheless, while living in the zoological garden of this Kinshasa. These artists, most above the age of 50 have created tricycles to get around from place to place. Their one young member, Roger, is 17 and rocks out on an instrument of his own making, a tin can, bow and steel guitar string. Other strange sounds featured on this happy-go-lucky afro funk album are the toads of the garden and the whizzing cars around the outdoor recording “studio” they have fashioned with an old lap top and wires rigged through mud.

You can learn more about them and the documentary about their amazing band at www.staffbendabilili.com.

My favorite track on this album is Mwana, the last track. It summs up the unique sound of the satonge that Roger created and also features the lovely voices all in harmony of the older band members. However, Tonkara or “cardboard” in my second favorite. It is a slower, slightly latin groove that discussed finding luck once one has had to sleep on cardboard. This sense of unparalled optimism really sums up the message that many of Staff Benda Bilili’s songs send. This band is about more that their music, it is about their culture, their struggle and a way of finding a creative force throughout. There is no shame in their situation, they are proud of their accomplishments and sing with cadence and gusto! As Tonkara says:

“A man is never finished

Chance can hit you without warning

It’s never too late in life

Someday I’ll make it too.”

- This band, who’s name translates to “put forward what is hidden” articulates the hidden beauty of the Kinshasa with grace.

Here is a showcase of their recording sessions in the park:

To compliment this review I will provide you with a recipe I tried out today to feed my gluten-free and dairy-free friends.

I hope you enjoy it! It might seem strenge, but as we have experienced with Staff Benda Bilili, something that is unusuall or strange can often turn out to be the very best.

Gluten and Dairy Free Beet and Poppy Seed Muffins

or for my savory seeking friends

here is a recipe for some food you might find in the Congo, the home of the band reviewed today:

Aloco

KSPC week EDITION!

The CECE’S!

This duo sister group from Ithaca, New York have just released one album that compiles their live recordings and some other less live ones.

It starts off with a cover of Bon Iver’s Skinny Love and the rest of the album takes you off your feet with whimsical and original tunes.

This album is a debut of a band that has much potential in their delicate and easy sound of two young women with lots to say (they were recently interviewed on KSPC!). With influences coming from Corrine Bailey Rae, Cat Power, and Bon Iver, these girls permeate a very current sound. Their simple acoustic tunes such as Let Go are also very reminiscent of a much older, more mature feel. This track specifically, in it’s accessibility and cute acknowledgement of cliche being a love song, reminds me of female folk greats like Joni Mitchell, Kath Bloom and Jenny Lewis.

Their DIY aesthetic is clear and is not distracting. If anything this type of humble, live recording makes the songs feel close to home. Seeing as Lydia, on of the front women singers is a student at the 5 colleges, they really are very close to home! KSPC is proud to be associated with this sweet sounding croon squad. Maddie, the other sister visits often and they will probably maintain in their forming tradition of performing at Pitzer college’s intimate venue, the Grove House for it’s free and acoustic displays of student talent and other local gems.

This album portrays a message of melancholy growing up in love and lust and in mourning and in general awareness of emotion as a universal language. Using sweet harmonies, various string instruments and light percussion these little poems highlight life’s subtleties. Lots more goodness and growing up to come from these stellar KSPC affiliated gals.

visit their website at http://www.thececesband.com/ for more info on the band and their adorable Cinderella story as well as cool videos they made themselves!

This week’s recipe is one that I made just this morning here on campus as well. It’s all about staying as local as possible this week, I mean literally blocks away from this mighty basement. Although not quite in season, this recipe is one that can be appreciated all year round, but especially amid these falling fall leaves and windy days.

Blueberry Banana Muffins

and to supplement this home baked treat I will provide a recipe that is wackier, further from home, but more true to KSPC’s style!

ASTRO BOY BENTO BOX

By Vivian Ponte-Fritz

This week of November Music Month is all about WORLD.

So I will be reviewing the album :

CAMBODIAN ROCKS released on Parallel World Records in 1996

and letting you know how not being worldly on your thanksgiving can really make a difference  That is, eating locally and mindfully will save the greater world in the long run.

This groovy album features various artists including Yol Aularong, Ros Sereysothea, Pan Ron, Sinn Sisamouth and many more notable psychedelic Cambodian geniuses from the 1960′s and 70′s. This album emulates dinner time back at my house, so I thought it would be a perfect one to review for the week of thanksgiving, seeing as it just might be playing during my turkey meal! But I also think that this music is generally ignored when djs are looking through the stacks down in this little basement we call home. So I thought, “why not draw attention to this rockin’ slice of gamelan, spooky, surf rock from another part of the world?” This is the week to do it, so I did it! Yeah!

The noise that I think sometimes makes people steer clear of Cambodian psych rock from the 60′s and 70′s is the lovely crooning of very nasally-inflected female vocals. And while this album, especially track 3, has got it’s fair share of this sound, it is also full of lots of other crazy vocals that might catch you off guard. In fact, some of the shocking vocals sound as if the singer himself was caught off guard. The shrieks and yelps let out by some of these guys can get quite crazy. However, if you are not looking for a relapse of your Halloween haunted house soundtrack, this album contains a good amount of shredding guitar, and crooning slower vocals, such as in the fifth track, “My Petite Girl” or “Srolanh Srey Touch” by Sinn Sisamouth.

I can highly recommend this album to anyone looking for a good dose of talent-filled instrumentals in the surf, psych rock genre before it was turned inside out by today’s hipsters in Silver Lake or some obscure Canadian town. These guys are feeling the Cambodian heat and getting rough and tough with it. These songs can be played loud on the highway or during your next neighborhood cock fight or a bit quieter for a pleasant and unusual thanksgiving dinner where one might serve fried turkey toes as an aperitif! So whatever your needs are, I’m pretty sure they can be met by this world music album. Get down and dirty, listen to this album with The Black Lips’ album Let It Bloom (the song Dirty Hands would go well with dinner), and feed your hunger.

So to accompany your musical main dish I thought I would provide a nice cambodian dish as well as some more traditional Thanksgiving  eats.

first:

shrimp fritters and sweet potato rolls with ginger!

and now: What will be eaten at the White House this Thanksgiving?

click on the photo above to read all about the Obama’s kale salad shenanigans.

But more importantly, keep your holiday cooking local and sustainable to help the environment and feed your body what is best!

HOW TO HAVE A 100-MILE THANKSGIVING

enjoy!

By Vivian Ponte-Fritz

The California Honeydrops – “Spreadin’ Honey” (Tubtone Records in Oakland, California) (2010)

The theme for this week of November Music month is my glorious state of California. A place where they say the streets are paved with gold, but hey, maybe the music is golden too!

This album is one that resembles the style of an older time, with a new, fresh and zippy mood. These five guys make good ol’ fashioned rhythm and blues while looking in the mirror and making funny faces. The sunny quality of their sound can be heard across their jazz, blues, rock, folk and soul inspired tunes. Each track on this album is fully fleshed out with a variety of winds, percussion and strings. The voice is also fresh and upbeat, reminding me of Little Richard or Percy Mayield.

This revival of an old country sound is not something foreign or strange in the Bay Area. The Arhoolie Record Label, based out of El Cerrito, has the wonderful collection of old time blues, bluegrass and folk called Hear Me Howling that spans four Cd’s with recordings made by Arhoolie’s president, Chris Strachwitz in the Bay Area in the 1960s. This group of rare recordings is also worth giving a listen. It features artists like Lightning Hopkins, Skip James, Big Mama Thorton, Sonny Simmons and many more.

The Bay Area has been proven to be a hub of the blues revival movement due to bands like the California Honeydrops and record labels like Arhoolie and Tubtone keeping the golden oldies sounds alive. Join in and give em’ a listen and maybe you will be inspired to keep some of your traditions alive too, because  in the realm of music it is shame when what is old becomes what is forgotten. I have been gearing up for thanksgiving and I can certainly say I am very thankful for the musical history and inspiration our nation and my home state has provided. I am also thankful, more particularly, for the specific tracks on this stellar California album: Lovin’ Like This (to dance to), It Ain’t Hard to Tell (reminds me of The Beatle’s Her Majesty) and Brokedown (with it’s samba percussion and breakdowns of cowbell-infused solos.)

check them out in their merry spirits in this awesome video:

To accentuate the good ol’ feel of this week’s California post the recipe I am first presenting is the the good sandwich, California style. While there is a constant debate about what this sandwich really is, as seen here, this one seems pretty darn good to me:

The California Powerhouse

If you are looking for something sweeter try out a recipe including one of California’s seasonal fruits! Right now kiwis, apples, pears and persimmons are ready to be consumed.