Far East meets West Coast (sort of)

While Bay Area label Ubiquity Records is the epitome of the relaxed West Coast vibe - dropping beats that seem crafted by and for stoners - they sometimes go outside their wheelhouse (particularly on the Luv 'N Haight imprint). Acts like Nomo and Clutchy Hopkins are indicative of the label's 'sound' and Shawn Lee's solo work certainly fits snugly within the fold, but his collaboration with gu-zheng artist Bei Bei He certainly raised my eyebrows at first.

The gu-zheng is an ancient 21-stringed Chinese instrument and Bei Bei has been playing it since the age of seven. Despite her traditional instruction at a Hong Kong music conservatory, she started looking at incorporating jazz elements into her music (perhaps influenced by the great Dorothy Ashby?). Enter Shawn Lee who contacted Bei Bei and proposed a collaboration. After a brief in-person meeting, the two worked online and crafted the material on Into The Wind - a blend of new sounds and longstanding gu-zheng pieces.

If Quentin Tarantino were looking to do another Shaw Brothers-style flick, he could begin by using this album as the soundtrack. Bei Bei and Lee have crafted an album that is cinematic in scope and deftly blends the new with the old. Gu-zheng proves to be just as flexible an instrument as the piano, with the added benefit of possessing a more novel sound.

Take a gander at "Hot Thursday" from Into The Wind:


And be sure to check out Bei Bei's Myspace page, Shawn Lee's website and Myspace page.

Doing The Spectral Boogie...

After about hour ten of driving through middle-America, you might find yourself needing a little sonic pick-me-up. The interstate stretches on, the drive broken only by the intermittent appearance of a rest-stop Star**cks and you find yourself shaking your head and blinking rapidly to snap out of the daze that has set in. The solution? Ann Arbor, MI band Nomo and their latest release, Ghost Rock!

I went back to the well several times on this album during the gazillion mile drive and it never failed to revive me and what's more, the record held up to repeated listens and revealed new textures and elements with each successive listen. Ghost Rock is the follow-up to the equally solid New Tones (Ubiquity, 2006), though this new record finds the group exploring some new sounds and moving beyond the Afro-beat Tones to incorporate Kraut Rock and noise elements into their sound.

Led by Elliott Bergman the band has coalesced over the past few years into an octet and the firming up of the numbers has resulted in an arguably tighter unit augmented by the addition of a ninth individual who on the face of it is a surprising participant: Warn Defever. The His Name Is Alive founder/member produced Ghost Rock and Defever brought a fresh batch of ideas to the studio as Bergman related in my recent interview with him. The funk is still there and the band continues to create some of their own percussive instruments, but the way in which Defever drew out those sounds is the new element that sets Ghost Rock apart from New Tones.

Speaking of New Tones, check out this sweet video before you click on the link to my interview with Elliott Bergman.

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Then head over to Nomo's Myspace page and official website.

Thanks for reading, now start listening...

C is for Clutchy...

Clutchy Hopkins that is.

And if you're asking who the fuck Clutchy Hopkins is, you're not alone. He seems to have come out of nowhere and there are more fully-formed questions about him than half-baked answers.

While there may be questions about whether Clutchy Hopkins is actually a mystic living in the Mojave desert who fought as a rebel in Nigeria (and that's just the tip of the rumour iceberg), there is no question that the music being released under the "Clutchy Hopkins" moniker is fan-fucking-tastic.

From the rare-groove selections on Sleepers Never Dig and Diggers Never Sleep, to the beat-tastic compositions on The Life of Clutchy Hopkins and People's Market (credited to Clutchy and the Misled Children), his collaboration with MF Doom to the material on a full-length due out February 5/08 on Ubiquity Records called Walking Backwards (featuring guest appearances by Darondo and Shawn Lee!) the marketing-ploy-mystery about the creator is nowhere near as exciting as the creations.

Check out this great video for "3:02" that someone matched up with Steamboat Willie :


And then check out Clutchy Hopkins' official website.

Thanks for reading, now start listening...