Greetings From Nittyville.
Twenty-one songs, running right back to 1971: assured, lovely, intelligent, good-humoured singer-songwriting, mixing up Americana, folk, pop, art rock, and gentle experimentalism.
Originally released in 2007 this redux edition includes new masters from a recently found pristine tape reel and was remastered by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Mastering in Portland, OR. Revised artwork; extensive liner notes by Arthur’s partner Tom Lee.
The two dubstep pioneers at the top of their game. Truly an album, the music is multi-levelled — dark as anything at times, but engrossingly varied and emotionally shaded, always on the move.
Including a disinterment of his great song Burial.
‘What a big disgrace, the way you rob up the place… everything you can find, you even rob the blind. Now we know the truth… taking people’s business on your head, might as well you be dead.’
The second LP contains the dubs.
‘The bad influences’, from Bogota, with their third album for us: twenty-eight gorgeous variations of saudade, in a warmly acoustic, post-punk take on Tropicalismo — impromptu, snapshot and sublime.
At its darkest and most driving. The group is clear and unanimous — this is their best yet.
Original copies of the 1987 double-LP: OC on one record with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins; on the other with Prime Time… Bern Nix, Denardo, Jamaaladeen Tacuma and co.
Numinous outernational jazz recorded in Stockholm in 1972 — DC originals, and covers of Terry Riley, Nana Vasconcelos, Abdullah Ibrahim, Pharoah Sanders and Leon Thomas.
Wonderful early recordings, some of his very best, from a small club, six yards by twelve, in 1973.
His first professional studio session — in a cupboard set up to do jingles — produced many of his most famous sides and definitive versions. Stuff like Part Of The Problem, Bloody Knuckles, Teen Routines.
Bangers drawn from the bootleg compilation LPs — ‘pirata’ — which were all the rage in 1980s Mexico City, The hottest, rarest hits from Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and beyond — edited, tweaked, EQ-manipulated and pitched-down, to suit the sonideros running the city’s mobile soundsystems.
Quality sweet soul, ballads, thumping dancers, girl-group and the rest from Abe Epstein’s San Antonio label, late-1960s. Curtis and co in the air. Fine singing, big drums, strong horns, sophisticated arranging.