friday four

In what may become a 17 Dots semi-tradition (?), we thought we’d share one record each that we’re particularly digging on this Friday afternoon. Yancey’s got the sniffles today, but the rest of us gave it a whirl. Starting off with Joe:

Joe:
Emperor
Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk

It’s been all metal, all-the-time for me lately. I’d forgotten just how phenomenal Emperor’s Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk is. It opens strangely: some plaintive finger-picking and a bunch of weirdo spoken word incantations. But once it ignites – look out. Full, awesome demonic power – black metal for people who think they don’t like black metal. The word “symphonic” gets thrown around a lot in reference to metal, but this is the rare record that deserves it. The synths sound like a string section, sawing gamely across the white-hot guitars. And for something more recent: French metal band Celeste is giving their latest record away for free here. Metal fans, do not sleep: blistering and brutal, Celeste takes the time-honored black metal template an heats it to boiling. It’s an avalanche of sound, drums and guitars battering and battering and battering brutally, relentlessly. Both of these records are like spending six hours in an incinerator. And I mean that as a compliment.

Maris:
Elaine Dundy
The Dud Avocado

Bettye Swann
The Money Recordings

I’m in a 50’s/60’s kinda mood today. I just started reading Elaine Dundy’s The Dud Avocado, a 1958 cult comedy (don’t call it chick lit) adored by that incomparable book critic, Groucho Marx. What will I be rocking on my iPod this weekend while I’m reading about the romantic travails of a young American in Paris? Some Bettye Swann, of course! Check out The Money Recordings for some poppy soul music that makes heartache sound so fetching. The perfect book/music pairing.

Jayson:
Joe Simon
Drowning In A Sea of Love

Philly soul, and goddamn, is it good. Joe Simon had an almost terrifying voice – like a visit from an unwelcome ghost. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard his vocals hollering in the background of some Ghostface Killah song before. He was a country boy, and his hair-raisingly deep voice had a lot of fire and brimstone in it, which, when paired with the cosmopolitan production of Gamble and Huff, hit that deeply gratifying midpoint between lushness and grit. On this record, he is surrounded by the thick, plush bed of strings that Gamble and Huff loved to swaddle singers in. The strings on Gamble and Huff records are generally as good as any string arrangements in the 20th century (they could go head to head with any Bernard Hermann Hitchcock score, for sure) and here they sound like Samuel Barber in a Pentecostal church. From the fevered vibe of the title track to the laid-back, Bill Withers chug of “Glad To Be Your Lover” today, this record is magnificent.

HONORABLE MENTION:
Beanie Sigel
The B. Coming

Speaking of grit, and Philly, and terrifying people – it’s Beanie Mack! Beans will forever be underrated, despite the fact that he has a percussive, relentless flow that could crack bones, and this record, from 2006, is his masterpiece. Few rappers (Ghostface is of course one of them) have the gravitas to hang with the soul records they are paired with, but Beans would sound great rhyming over anything from the Joe Simon record. This record opens with the Heavy D-produced “Feel It In the Air,” which, each year, I suspect might be one of my favorite songs of the decade.

Alex:
Various Artists
Unearthed Merseybeat Volume 1

I was checking to see if we had any Wimple Winch on the site (don’t ask) and their only appearance was on this non-descript-looking Merseybeat comp. Five seconds into sampling the first track (the Merseys’ soaring, tin-can psych jam “Sorrow”), I basically had a case of the where-have-you-been-all-my-lifes. My favorite stuff on Unearthed are the chiming, layered-harmony tunes (especially the aforementioned “Sorrow” and The Kirkbys’ “Don’t You Want Me No More”), but there are also a bunch of lo-fi electric blues stompers that are nice dirty reprieves from the Rickenbacker treble storm. RIYL: rock & roll. How’s that for easy?