SOUNDTRACK: SONGHOY BLUES-Tiny Desk Concert #455 (July 17, 2015).
Songhoy Blues are from Mali. They play an interesting style of rock/blues that follows rock conventions but subverts it as well.
“Sekou Oumarou” is a pretty straightforward bluesy number. Until the vocals come in and you realize that they are not singing in English. I think they are singing in French, but I’m not exactly sure.
It feels like the main instrument on “Al HassidiTerei” is the drums which, while keeping pretty steady beat, don’t keep a simple 4/4. This is not to say that the guitar and bass do nothing, because they play a cool riff and rhythm. But they tend to keep the music pretty steady while the song plays on. That is, except for the massively cool fuzzed out guitar solo at the end.
“Soubour” has a great classic rock style riff and when the guitarist stars going it sounds like it could be coming from the late 60s. It’s a stellar track with a groovy psychedelic sound and wailing solo.
It’s tempting to want to like Songhoy Blues because of the politics and story behind the band (which is pretty intense), but they are so good that you don’t need to know anything about them to really get down to their great songs.
[READ: May 17, 2015] Essex County
I saw this book in the library. I was intrigue by the hockey player on the cover (okay and that it was 500 pages). When I saw that it was a 2011 selection in Canada Reads, I knew it had to be at least worth a look.
This graphic novel looks at several generations of people living in Essex County, Ontario, Canada. It collects the three books Tales from the Farm, Ghost Stories and The Country Nurse as well as some other odds and ends.
The introduction by Darwyn Cooke is really great for contextualizing this piece, although i wish he hadn’t spoiled the scene with the hockey players (so maybe for maximum impact, don’t read this before reading the book itself–actually, read the whole thing except that 8th paragraph). (more…)
I Just Read About That... 