So...country music...who knew?

My mum’s second favourite artist is the King of the Cowboy ballad, Don Williams.

The only guy who comes ahead of him is this awesome greek dude.

look at all that glorious facial hair...

I remember her getting quite upset on realizing that my uncle (her younger brother) had gone back to Uni with her Don Williams tapes. “Surely, why would anyone do that??!!” she said in vexation, as she ransacked his mostly empty wardrobe. She never got them back. Poor Mummy.

For most people in this country, there is nothing at all  foreign about country music, and if you think about it, that’s a little weird. This morning, matatu FM played two Kenny Rogers hits back to back and I remembered seeing this (slightly uncomfortable) video of Jimmy Kimmel talking to Kenny Rogers about his popularity here. Does anyone actually know why country music is a staple in Kenya? My theory is that it was brought by all those American, mid-western evangelists who came in the 80s and 90s, but that sounds weak. Do you guys know? Does anyone know?

I thought about it a little more and realized that it's that not crazy that it's quite popular, cause as a genre, country music is actually, quite fantastic. Almost always beautifully arranged with lovely, emotive melodies and really well-written stories, it has some of the most sonically pleasing songs I have ever heard.  Then I remembered that I had even  found one I really liked last week.

Is that grass in her mouth? 

“Merry go round” by Kacey Musgraves is a poignant, brutally-honest, sad and sorta-funny look on the prescribed way of life for a woman in the American south. It's really, quite beautiful.

I think women from everywhere can relate to it because we are all expected to fit a certain mold and we often get caught up in the trappings of trying to fulfill these set roles. In the end most of us live lives that are not actually our own.

The writing in this song is just A+++. I mean, just amazing.

Cause mama's hooked on Mary Kay.

Brother's hooked on Mary Jane.

Daddy's hooked on Mary two doors down.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary.

We get bored, so, we get married.

Just like dust, we settle in this town.

On this broken merry go 'round and 'round and 'round we go

Where it stops nobody knows and it ain't slowin' down.

This merry go 'round.

Got a grammy by the way.

I think, if there are more songs like this, perhaps we need a little country revival in these parts? It’s certainly a welcome change from the mostly vapid stuff we listen to anyway. Maybe? Yes? Let me know.

K.

This is, in fact, a Dedication.

I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please.

~Song of Solomon 8:4~

Did you ever get a mixtape?

*heart skips a beat*

I never did. Always wanted one though. Still do. That shit is romantic man.

I did get a couple of dedications on letters, and when I was 19, one guy even wrote me Lauryn Hill’s rap from “Turn your lights down low”. Damn-near swooned. 

You see words, lovely as they are, can fail us. And even when you know what you want to say, there’s just something about accompanying those words with the right chord progression that makes sure nothing is left unsaid. Some songs do this better than others.

MNEK’s “Don’t call this love” is one of these songs.

He's very cool. A little too cool maybe...

Sent to me by a she-human I like called Patricia, this minimalist RnB ballad from the rising British star who I first heard on an amazing Rudimental track, encapsulates all the emotion one goes through when they know they are smack in the centre of that confusing liminal space one occupies, when they are falling in love against their will.

Emenike’s sweetly-strained tenor accompanies a melancholic piano that brings out the tension that arises when you  find a soul you recognize and inadvertently want, whilst dealing with your own situations and inefficiencies.

The story of our lives.

Anyway, if you are really digging someone but you just don’t know if you handle all the heaviness that comes with it, this is the song that might buy you the time you need  to figure it all out.

K.

"A part of me drifts away with you and will never return..."

You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all.

~Maya Angelou~

I lost my lover and friend this weekend.

Well, technically I have been losing him for a long time, but it just became official a few days ago. The long and short of it is; 

1. Our daemons didn’t match, and, 

2. I have a bunch of solo-growing to do.

It sucks terribly.

But having tried everything to save it, and failing, I had no choice but to release.

Now, everyone needs a release song. Something to carry you on that lonely walk away from something you never wanted to leave. This one here is mine. It found me this morning and held my hand.

Off of Little Dragon’s latest LP, Nabuma Rubberband, I give you, Paris.

I’ll miss you DanDan.

K.

P.S. Yukimi is only second to Sade. Goddess and Oracle.

Clumsy-sounding piano piece = Peace of mind

" Since what we know of the future is made up of purely abstract and logical elements — inferences, guesses, deductions — it cannot be eaten, felt, smelled, seen, heard, or otherwise enjoyed. To pursue it is to pursue a constantly retreating phantom, and the faster you chase it, the faster it runs ahead..."

~Alan Watts~

As it turns out, friends, this ‘live in the present’ thing that everyone says absent-mindedly seems to be like THE secret to a less than sucky life. Who knew?

Here’s the thing though: The present can be grim. It can be all manner of unpleasantness. Dust, spittle, mangy dogs, the intrusive leer of a strange group of men on the street, a sudden putrid smell, a mass of unsightly razor bumps on the face of some poor soul sitting next to you in the matatu, that gnawing feeling in your chest that you are actually nothing at all, Maina Kageni’s noxious voice …it doesn’t end. All around us, there are little bits of ugly that seem to be symptoms of a much deeper sadness that we all seem to be collectively carrying around. Every. Single. Day. Who wouldn’t want to disappear?

Constantly being anywhere else but where you are has its effects though. Your life gets away from you, quickly running through your fingers like fine desert sand. All of the mental time travelling sucks away at your life force, tiring you completely, without achieving much of anything. Then you go home at the end of the day, worn out and empty.  It’s something I have struggled with all my life.

Thankfully, the universe has provided reprieve in the form of Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No.1.

He looks like a physicist, which would make sense because this is probably what the Big-Bang sounded like.

If you have ever wondered why art is necessary for a bi-pedal, somewhat intelligent, carbon-based organism, whose only certainty in life is death, you will find the answer in this piece of music.

Gymnopedie No.1 (and Nos. 2 and 3 for that matter, check them out) nourishes and delights without trying to deceive you about the realities of life. It is simple in its sadness, echoing our often hollow existence and grounding the listener firmly in the present. That same simplicity also happens to be so incredibly moving and so exquisitely beautiful, that it buoys the listener from being completely washed away by the waves of utter uselessness that we, as vulnerable, mortal creatures, contend with day in and day out.

For me, this piece is a 3 minute prayer of beautiful melancholy that keeps me rooted in the earth yet reaching for the heavens.

An incantation that restores balance in an otherwise cluttered and confused existence.

K.

P.S. Interesting fact, an interpolation of this piece was used in the chorus of this Janet Jackson song which also happens to have the most early-2000s video of all time. Cue the shiny skin and pet alligators in slow motion.

Guest Post: Aural Hubris, be gone - By TK

Editors note- Dear Reader, TK is a very cool boy who knows his musics and blesses this editor frequently with said musics. Thanks Tony :) Also, there are some bad words in this post, like belieber. We apologize.

After a couple of hours wafting through SoundCloud, fishing for tracks that may pique my interests, it starts to get a tad bit unstimulating. Complacency in one’s own “tastes” sometimes makes one think that one can spot a gem just from chopping through a track’s timestamp (at least the intro, mid part and around the end). Inadvertently, one ends up denying attention to some thoroughly fresh tunes, this here is one of those cases.

I happen to follow le producteur x DJ français, 20Syl. Been a fan of Hocus Pocus for a hot jiffy, and the amount of devotion I offer up to French artists for their electronic music production puts most religious beliefs to ruddy shame.

Editor to TK: Excuse me Sir, do you have moment for me to share the gospel of DJ Jesus? He resurrects beats and rose on the 3rd day to give you the drop.

Also, could dude look any more French?

So with my eyes and ears collectively knackered, I absent-mindedly clicked to preview his new EP, Motifs. I inattentively skimmed through it and closed the page. Fast-forward, I’m on youtube (which is up to some fuckery btw) and thank fuck for the ‘recommended videos’ section and the ghosts of coincidence that lay beneath the bedrock of these interwebs, because right in front of my face was 20Syl’s video for his new single, Kodama.

In basic terms, best video I've seen in bloody ages.

This thing is a cinematographer’s wettest dream broken down into the most effortless form of minimalism.The whole piece looks like it was done on a 3x2 bit of floor in an apartment. Finely. crafted. art. There was none of that contrived caricature attempt at being deep and forcefully artistic, a subculture that’s presently eating up the indie world. Seen a cornucopia of shite vids attempting such of late.

Back to this pearl Kodama. Here’s a downright dope sensation that’s tough to top. Just when you’re experiencing the conjecture of your new-to-be favourite music video, it hits you that the tune itself is actually a joyride on its own. I might as well attempt to explain to you what's going on with the track. 

In my take, on the first listen it might be tough for the naked ear to fully fathom the diamond that is this newest slice of 20Syl’s genius.  An extremely brilliant producer, 20syl isn’t as well-known seeing as his soundcloud has just over 62k followers. Now in an ideal world uninhabited by beliebers, more enlightened music choices would be made and 20Syl would command a couple million fans for churning out aural gold such as this. But I digress, this is what is great about Kodama: soulful piano chords, seamless drum patterns, nuanced vocal snippets and layers upon layers of warps all come together to create a cohesive enchantingness for your ears to bust a nut to.

 The video, in all its cinematographic glory, kinda provides a snippet into a world of live production. To be honest, an AKAI MPC & a synth/MIDI controller plus a vinyl record thrown into any picture automatically make it look cool as fuck. There's a xylophone and a rubik’s cube in the video too, just for extra hardware sexiness.

An aural and visual feast, Kodama  is the shit. Plain and simple.

For as long as the views for this pure piece of happy are less than one hundred billion, every opportunity I get to play it, I will. Then wonder if I shouldn’t do it again. Then do it again. And again. And again.

TK

More Music Mondays: Intelligent songs edition

We have two great songs today. Yay.

No. 1: “MuthoniKifagio” by Newton “short-but-tough-Karish” Karish aka KK Karish

Why do all these boys bands rock cowboy-chic attire? I digs it. 

Where does one start with this blessing of a song?

It wins EVERYTHING.

•  Melody- Check.
• Writing- check.
•  Getdownability- Please attempt not to move and watch how miserably you will fail.
• Video- Bankai.

In my view, contemporary Kenyan artists rarely know who they are or what their aesthetic is. There always seems to be a need to be a version of something. Sometimes it’s subtle, other times painfully obvious. So it is incredibly refreshing to come across a musician who not only knows who he is but is completely legit in his craft.

This song is smartly written. Karish tells us the story of an unfaithful lover using hilarious, localized metaphors, perfect harmonies and those incredible katitu guitars . Dude leaves you in stitches when in reality, the story is pretty grim. A real comedian.

This is the thing about this song: Whoever you are, whatever your background, whatever you are doing, when this song comes on, you will pay attention. That is rare.

I don’t know when the song came out, but from the video it looks like it could have been some time in the late 90s or early 2000s. Karish has since been elected as the county representative for Muminji Ward in Mbeere North. I don’t know if he’s put the mic down… hope not. It would be a damn shame.

Check out his other songs on the Youtubes.

No. 2: “Bunny in a bunny suit” by Simone White

Sharing Muthoni Kifagio’s authenticity and intelligence is this minimal, folksy number by Simone White.

I heard this song yesterday on a movie called “the pretty one” which is quite lovely. Tafuteni.

The existential lyrics and fractal analogies coupled with the melancholic guitar and White’s now-talking, now singing voice, make me get a weird suspicion right in the middle of my back, that God exists.

All ye non-believers...

I do not think I can listen to a bunch of songs like these though. Too many feels.

Check out her facebook page and website if you digs it.

For the next two weeks we will have guest posts from my very cool friends Tony and Josh. Check out their stuffs here and here.

After that, I will be changing things up a bit. Will raid people’s hard drives and force them at gun point asking them to share the stories behind their musics.

If you would like me to come visit you, let me know on twitter.

I’ll bring a watermelon.

K.

Stop. Not-so-sexy confession time.

If you relate to this song on any level, you are a little broken somewhere.

Thanks Life.

A lovely lady who goes by Lady Lazarus on twitter put me on the work of FKA Twigs, an ethereal yet dark, nymph-woman, who created this aural masterpiece and no doubt leaves black shiny dust in her wake.

Anyone else getting a Frida Kahlo vibe?

Some songs grow on you. Not this one. This one goes straight to the bone on first hearing Twig’s light, whisper of a wail… “Pacify…”

Even before I had heard 10 seconds of it, I knew all too well what this song was about. Don’t worry, I’m not going recount to you the sordid details of my self-hating, love affair with a fella whose emotional retardation was lightly-masked by his expertise on J Dilla’s drums, his mean pocket-squares and how he said in a deep, unaffected voice, “Go on, do as your told.” And I don’t have to because Twigs captured the essence of all that mess perfectly on this song.

Never trust a man with an impeccable pocket square ladies...

The sparse, desperate lyrics, the little melancholic break beats, the kinda-scary-yet-exciting industrial screeches and that terraforming bassline that is Just. So. Deep. All of it weaves the story so clearly, that I am almost certain little Ms. Tahliah Barnett went through some epic, sexual-emotional crapfest herself.

My friend Tony said this of the song on hearing it, “Psychadelics + hiphop in monochrome. This can't even be neurochemically healthy.” And I don’t think it is. Healthy that is. Trip hop as a genre filters everything so finely to make this compound that is a little too pure for my sensitive spirit. I can only listen to it in little, spaced out doses. It is way too HD for me to indulge, on the regular.

That being said, Papi Pacify is everything and more. Easily one of my best finds of the year, so far. Keep an eye out for FKA Twigs work. She is something. 

Thanks again Lady Lazurus.

K.

P.S. The dude in the video is giving me LIFE. *fans self furiously*