body english

that phrase came into my head a few minutes ago, and i suddenly realized it would've been a much funner name for a blog than "mr. mammoth." regardless, here we are.

'ello 'ello etc., i'm back from three weeks in canada, where the women are strong, the men are sorta attractive, and the children all seem to be missing (seriously, i feel like i didn't see one kid the whole time). but we're not here to talk about me, we're here to talk about things i like (and dislike, which is more often the case). let me give you the lowdown on this situation here. i own an ipod shuffle. it is cute, clips to the bottom of my shirt, and leaves me free to experience music without the damn ipod interface. however, because it doesn't plug into the wall, it is hard to charge it when you're, say, in canada. however, i managed, and listened to the same 13 albums or so over and over until i rediscovered things i had loved about old releases (case in point: i listened to give up 6 times in 2 days) and find new albums that viscerally excited me. most of these albums will be posted on when i get around to it, and there are more than a handful here, but these three weeks of sloth has made it very hard for me to want to wake up, put my blogging hat on, and mercilessly wade through piles of irrelevant, unimportant, and generally boring music news to bring you what you value most: my opinion. i will get back into the swing of things, never fear, and this WONDERFUL piece of news has kick-started me.

when we were in canada, we had the most unfortunate luck. we missed every awesome concert by one day. menomena played the day before we came, matt and kim the day after (as well as CSS, but i wouldn't've seen them without bonde do role, who had some sickness problems), we missed frog eyes and immaculate machine twice...it hurt. so, i'm practically jumping out of my skin with pleasure that a new free music festival has been announced in new york: CITYSOL. now, as i don't pay my own electric bills (yet), i can't switch to green energy, but you all should. barring that, the $1 off brooklyn beer with your own mug sounds good, as does the lineup. menomena! land of talk! o'death (who i'm missing at the spiegeltent in august)! and, drumroll please, les savy fav! this lineup kicks siren's ass, thank you very much, and you will see me there on july 13 and 14. and brooklyn vegan is co-hosting or something like that, and this sounds awesome. by the way, menomena's friend and foe was one of the canada albums that i need to go out and buy so i can not be hypocritical when i tell you that it's worth spending money on, once i get around to it.

have a great day.

important announcement!

it is a time for joy and for sadness, as mr. and mrs. mammoth depart today (after the bang on a can marathon) for the wilds of the canadian rockies, as well as the not-so-wilds of vancouver, victoria, and toronto. the family mammoth flies to vancouver tomorrow, so this could potentially be the last mr. mammoth post until june 24 or so. i will try to check in from the road, maybe hit you up with some mp3s or news about how good whatever i'm listening to is, but i would suggest, if you haven't done so already, to RSS/atom feed mr. mammoth so you know when something new is up, since it won't be as frequently as usual.

as a present (and a hint for a future worth spending money on), here's battles "tonto," because it's spelled almost like toronto.

battles - "tonto" buy the whole album here. i bought it on vinyl, and, damn, that exclusive poster is fucking sweet.

free music / you never had it so good

here is a list of all the upcoming free (or nearly free) nyc concerts this summer that i would consider going to (the ones with * i would consider going to only because they're free), and links to the four organizations that sponsor them.

june 1: animal collective, south street seaport
june 2-3: bang on a can marathon, world financial center
june 13: booker t. & the mg's with guest sharon jones, rockefeller park
june 16: television w/ the apples in stereo, dragons of zynth, central park summerstage
june 20: poetic city with musical guest taylor mcferrin, rockefeller park*
june 22: ralph stanley & the clinch mountain boys, prospect park bandshell ($3)*
june 24: superchunk w/ oakley hall, dj todd-o phonic todd, mccarren pool*
june 24: sloan w/ apostle of hustle, duhks, central park summerstage*
june 26: the living room feat. martha wainwright, world financial center*
june 27: john pizzarelli and paula west, rockefeller park
june 30: ozomatli w/ babylon circus, dj joro boro, central park summerstage*
june 30: the stills w/ sam roberts band, malajube, prospect park bandshell ($3)
july 1: man man w/ illinois, dengue fever, mccarren pool
july 1: rodrigo y gabriela w/ vietnam, jdh and dave p, central park summerstage
july 4: the new pornographers w/ midlake, battery park (reserve tickets online june 20)*
july 5: shearwater, castle clinton*
july 6: fujiya & miyagi, south street seaport
july 7: cinematic orchestra w/ ramp, el michels affair, kevin michael, dj spinna, central park summerstage
july 8: dan deacon w/ erase errata, octopus project, mccarren pool
july 11: spoon, rockefeller park*
july 12: brooklyn philharmonic: 8 seasons, south street seaport
july 13: menomena w/ beat the devil, south street seaport pier 17
july 15: frank london's yiddish carnival, prospect park bandshell ($3)
july 17: marc ribot, world financial center*
july 19: drive by truckers, castle clinton*
july 20: neko case w/ eric bachman, central park summerstage*
july 20: bishop allen w/ rock plaza central, south street seaport pier 17
july 21: village voice siren festival feat. new york dolls, we are scientists, coney island
july 22: brazilian girls w/ cat empire, himalayas, central park summerstage*
july 26: sharon jones & the dap kings, castle clinton
august 3: krs-one w/ ladybug mecca, prospect park bandshell ($3)
august 5: blonde redhead w/ i'm from barcelona, mccarren pool
august 9: the hold steady w/ the big sleep, the teenage prayers, prospect park bandshell ($3)
august 10: au revoir simone w/ metronomy, south street seaport pier 17
august 12: ted leo and the pharmacists, the thermals, birds of avalon, mccarren pool
august 17: the national w/ the forms, takka takka, south street seaport pier 17*
august 19: ghostland observatory, mccarren pool*
august 24: camera obscura, south street seaport
august 31: battles, south street seaport pier 17

river to river nyc, central park summerstage, celebrate brooklyn!, the pool parties

(maybe) worth spending money on, volume two

stop the presses: illinois is (probably) fucking awesome.

it's such a revelation, i know. certainly no one else has caught on to how (potentially) good their what the hell do i know? ep is, released march 6 on ace fu. so no one is tired of hearing about how they're from pennsylvania, not illinois, how they use (possibly) bitching banjo samples, and how they're touring with the hold steady as we speak (technically, we're not speaking, but it's a phrase, so lay off). oh, and i almost forgot - they're playing with labelmate man man on july 1 at mccarren pool in brooklyn. for free.

so since you didn't know any of that, you might also not be aware that what the hell do i know? is (maybe) absofuckinglutely brilliant. it starts on a solid, if unoriginal tack, with"alone again"'s whiny guitar and ba-ba-ba harmonies, but you, the listener, are thrown a knuckleball (not a curveball, mind you...this is better than a curveball) with the next song, "nosebleed." it comes out of left field (sorry for all the baseball references, but my team is 13 1/2 games up and i'm pretty effing excited) with a distinctly sampled-sounding banjo, on loop, which is then reinforced by a drum machine and lilting bass, before chris "arch" archibald busts in with seriously fuzzy vocals about how bad someone needs a good nosebleed. the song is perfect for hipsters - it has the exact rhythm that you can cross your arms and bob your head to without looking like you're doing it deliberately because you can't dance/you're white (<- not a legitimate reason to not dance, for the record). come to think of it, all of what the hell do i know? fits into that category. it doesn't detract from the overall good-ness of the record, which is generally characterized as plain, simple, indie rock. it feels like a long time since any band has tried to do that, though, with the same ease that illinois pulls it off with. unsurprisingly, "screendoor" evokes a lot of uncle tupelo-esque feelings for me, beginning with a rocking acoustic guitar and keeping that energy throughout the song, underlying archibald's slightly twanged vocals. "headphones" borrows from, of all people, the flaming lips, namely "fight test." listen to both songs again, and tell me i'm wrong. "headphones" is a good song, driven by a strong guitar melody and fuzzy vocals, which, as you might be realizing, is a device frequently used by illinois.

do you remember king missile? there's no reason to, except that they wrote the best song ever*, "detachable penis." well, with illinois' m.o. of borrowing sounds, king missile are probably the least recognizable, and, trust me, i had to do some serious thinking in order to remember them. in any event, illinois's best song, "bad day," chiefly borrows king missile's deadpan, spoken vocals, though, as is their wont, illinois makes theirs fuzzy and layer it under the music. it's also the only track with dirty language...naughty, naughty, illinois. archibald's vocals are buried beneath a heavy curtain of fuzzy bass, massively distorted guitar, and rumbly drums, so you lose most of the words anyway.

most of what the hell do i know? is excellent; where illinois falls apart is in their sameness. on "nosebleed," illinois shows off their original songwriting chops, but their influences, though varied, are too obvious in their other songs. the promise evident in their work is profound, and whatever comes next from illinois will definitely be worth spending money, volume whatever. thanks to the hype machine, you can test drive nearly all of what the hell do i know? and decide for yourself if its really worth spending money on.

illinois - "headphones" (auralfitness)
illinois - "screendoor" (berkeleyplace)
illinois - "alone again" (instrumental analysis)
illinois - "nosebleed" (under the rotunda)
illinois- "bad day" (me!)

buy what the hell do i know? here and fine independent stores nationwide (disregard the itunes, amazon, and b&n links).

microphone biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics

try as i might, i've never really been able to get into quasimoto as much as i want to be. i love madlib's other stuff, and i don't think he can put out a bad instrumental track (see all of liberation, where he makes even talib kweli sound like he can rap), but his raps as quasimoto are just a little too abrupt, too stream of consciousness for me. he barely rhymes and his flow is deliberately off-beat, and it's both recognizably good yet hard to enjoy (unless you're stoned, as madlib undoubtedly was when he made the song).

in addition to quasimoto's off-kilter rhyme scheme, madlib plays with his own voice so it sounds like alvin (of & the chipmunks) rapping about smoking blunts and hating cops, which is the ultimate quasimoto aesthetic. madlib provides his own beats, so they're always damn close to perfect, though they occasionally seem ill-matched to quasimoto's subject matter; it feels odd for the violence of his words and delivery to be accompanied by such mellow beats. i've only listened to the unseen, quasimoto's first album, and while i respect it, and hear why it's good, it doesn't have the ease of his other work.

however, one incredibly dope remix of quasimoto's "microphone mathematics" really fleshes out the song and makes it at least twice as accessible and enjoyable. which, ultimately, leads me to forget remember when #2: peanut butter wolf - "microphone mathematics remix". now, this forget remember when isn't as stark as +/- last week; there are several other good songs on the album where this appears, jukebox 45s, peanut butter wolf's compilation of stones throw songs - most appropriately, as he's the label head. "ernie & the top notes feat. raymond winnifield - things could be better" is a great song, as is "breakestra - ghetto soul togetha (part two)," but the "microphone mathematics remix" is the standout track. it has all of the aural spunk and chipper-ness that the original lacks. it's especially interesting, because i think madlib himself produced the remix, leading to an

for your consideration, both are below.

quasimoto - "microphone mathematics" from the unseen. purchase here.

quasimoto - "microphone mathematics remix" from peanut butter wolf's jukebox 45s. get it here.

forget remember when

i just came up with this idea about 75 seconds ago, and i want to try it out. so let me know what you think.

there are lots of bands that aren't very good. and there are even more bands that are occasionally okay. and, every once in a while, there's a band that isn't very good at all, but, for one song, they pull all the right elements together and something just clicks. forget remember when honors these songs, the single gem on an album that is overwhelmingly...okay. the first forget remember when song is "let's build a fire," the title track of +/-'s third album.


+/-, despite having a bitching name, are not very good. let's build a fire, released last year on (also excellently named) absolutely kosher records, is not a very good album. but, damn, the song is great. the way it starts always reminds me of "jaipur," by the mountain goats - the way it opens with a needle drop and hissy aural scratches. but, whereas john darnielle probably used a real LP for "jaipur," i think +/- are just using protools.

but that doesn't take anything away from the quality of the music. in fact, by relying on that effect, +/- give themselves a leg up, providing them with a horn section that creates the mood before being supplanted by the crashing entrance of guitars and drums. +/- is described as an electronic indie band, but there is little electronics in what i've heard. james baluyut, vocalist and primary songwriter, cradles the opening of "let's build a fire" tenderly, the horn melody old-timey and curious, making the listener want to hear more. once the downbeat rings in the rest of the cast, the song loses none of its allure, keeping its slight-swing feeling. the trumpet is featured prominently here, before the sound trickles back down to the end of the song. it ends like it began, with mock-vinyl pops and the velvet sound of a clarinet. "let's build a fire" is a great song.

enjoy: +/- - "let's build a fire" buy the entire album from absolutely kosher here.

ramallah tel aviv

mr. mammoth's love for balkan beat box is well-documented. which is why we're very pleased to present the recently unlocked (thanks to gizmodo) "ramallah tel aviv," the itunes bonus track off nu-med.


"ramallah tel aviv" is a real breath of fresh air in the bbb arsenal. instead of opening with the expected bass rumble and danceable beats, "ramallah tel aviv" employs off-rhythm acoustic chords before bringing in sparse piano and a hip-friendly beat, though the track is overwhelmingly less layered than most bbb offerings. i imagine that this song, sung in hebrew and arabic, is intended more as a deliberate political statement, an attempt to linguistically and rhythmically bridge the israeli-palestinian divide, and was conceived as such, not as a standard balkan beat box song. it takes nearly three minutes for ori kaplan to bring in the sax, relying much more on the aforementioned piano and bongos to carry the song. as a nice change of pace, "ramallah tel aviv" certainly does its job.

balkan beat box - "ramallah tel aviv" (buy nu-med, released on jdub records, here.)