dolphonic© by simbarashe

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

The Winter Sessions

My band Sandia has entered the studio to begin recording new songs for an upcoming EP. Day 1 was rather uneventful; I spent about and hour and a half setting the mic positions for Antonio (aka Bil's) drums, then testing the levels with Jason's help. We spent a wee bit of time working out "Lose My Mind" before moving over to "Here Comes the Rain Again" (think early Beatles meets angry Fiona Apple). Jason's good people. Thing I like best about him is his level of sheer theorical knowledge when it comes to music. Some people watch me play and instrument and think I'm a genius *cough* but I try to explain over and over that while I feel I have a thurough understanding of theory, I can't print it out in 0's and 1's.. Jason on the other hand is well trained in this area so his expertise is quite helpful, esp in understanding my emphasis on continuity. The band had a good healthy row about what to do with the next 6 months, so in principle we've sort of relegated to taking things one step at a time. For now, this means getting on track with good recording sessions. I'm happy to give up the other apsects to Jake and Jas till we've got enough headway to know where we stand, so for now there's no reason to be anything less than optimistic. They're starting to keep me on my toes, which is great and scary for me at the same time. Till next time, hombres!

Friday, December 16, 2005

My Top 5 albums of 2005

OFFICIAL SIMBARASHE OPINION

Yes, it's that time again.. that time where I get to tell all of my friends (yes, I suppose this includes you) what my 5 favourite albums of the past year were. No, it's not scientific and no, I'm not a snob, but I hear sometimes the pay is good. Feel free to disagree and repost if you have a better 5.

Before I get to the list, I just want to say that for all its worth, there were a lot of albums this year that I was really looking forward to, but all in all the year was quite lackluster. And there's nothing worse to me than artists mailing in half-assed CDs... except maybe killing strippers. Killing strippers is wrong.

5. John Legend, Get Lifted - I had a heard time deciding on going with either this, My Chemical Romance (which I still staunchly defend) and Franz Ferdinand. I have to go with this one though because for me, this did a lot in saving any bit of faith I might've had left concerning the utter disaster that is R&B these days. Alicia Keys's Unplugged is great yeahyeah but it's not as good as the live Wilco album. Get Lifted doesn't contain as many of the urban cliches that fill up other discs, and Legend can sing a soulful tune without all of the crazy haired ad-libs (somebody PLEASE tell Mariah to shut the hell up already). Get Lifted is also among other things, positive and optimistic. How bout that for mainstream music these days?

4. Wilco, Kicking Television - In my opinion, this is quite possibly one of the greatest live CDs ever (its a double disc). The quality of musicianship, the band chemistry, the cleanest of which you can hear everything going on... I mean the mix alone should be enough to warrant a Grammy.


3. Sigur Ros, Takk - This is a beautifully made CD. All of their albums are beautiful in some way, but this time out they actually used "pretty" instruments. They're making albums the way Radiohead wish they were at this point in their career. I saw them in San Francisco and was equally blown away. I sing along even though I don't understand a damn word they're saying, but neither does half of Slovenia at a U2 concert.

2. Fiona Apple, Extrodinary Machine - Fiona isn't hip hop, but this album is hard. It's so serious the air is just thick listening to it. My friend Jason first hipped me to the early version of the album that had leaked on the internet. I would've still bought that version if it came out, but c'mon, when ?uestlove is drumming on some breakup shit you know its gonna be a hit. And that voice.. she sings like Norah Jones wants to be hot. It's ridiculous.


1. Kayne West, Late Registration - This was the best hip hop album since Outkast dropped Speakerboxx/The Love Below, which was the best hip hop album since Illmatic which was the best hip hop album since Doggystyle (and yes, I do agree with Chris Rock that that album was better than The Chronic. A critic once said that the difference between Eminem and Jay-Z was that Jay was a better storyteller but that Em had better stories to tell. The thing about West is that while his stories aren't Em's and he doesn't have Jay's delivery, he makes his stories more relatable than both of them. Not too many people know what it's like to strangle a [Kim], or push [crack], but everybody knows what it's like to be late for class, the real behind your degrees, and so on. Besides, he still has in my opinion the best Punk'd episode of all time. When a person protects his film like its a newborn child and skirts off in a van like he just robbed a bank, well that's just priceless...

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Where's Simbarashe?

Wanna know what I've been up to? Check out these links:

http://www.myspace.com/simsploitation

http://www.mypsace.com/sandiamusic