I have a new musical obsession.
Socalled.
Brainchild of musician, photographer, magician and writer, Josh Dolgin, they’re a Jewish-culture Montreal Jazz-Klezmer Hip-Hop group with shimmering 1920’s piano and Romanian/Latin-American percussion.
Seriously.
Their latest single, You are Never Alone, begins with a soft clip, reminiscent of The Avalanches, and drops down into a catchy riff which positively throbs with promise, clearing the way for a theatrical bout of MC story-telling. It all works exceptionally well with the video, a fantastical transformation of Mr. Dolgin into a complicated, high-tech re-imagining of an antique theatre. (You might remember their rough video with (these are the) good old days too).
“Truly these are the good old days where man, woman, and child can all log on the internet and text message each other across their own house, where there is any form of contraceptive from solid, liquid, to gas, we have reached the point of civilization like the Incans reached when they had gold roads and the Egyptians reached when they had, like, magical buildings and secret things, so what you do is you kiss whoever you kiss, grab whoever you grab, because these are truly the good old days and it does not get any better than this. When it does you wake up and then you’re dead.”
I’ve had their latest album, Ghettoblaster, on infinite repeat since I found a copy. I can’t not. From the clever intro, the sound of someone slotting a cassette into a car tape-deck, to the bonus hidden remix track, it’s eclectic, relevant, wickedly smart, funny, and perishingly sexy. It groans and grins, powerfully melodic, full of cultural anthropology, swinging horn solos, splashes of Yiddish rap, layers of juicy, highly literate rhythms, and a willowy, elegantly stretched sense of timing. Even unexpected clips of musicians talking in the studio are beautiful, adding a charming depth of personality and character to moments that might have been weak without them. As a hint, their wikipedia entry states some of their almost inexplicable, modern style as “…drums & bass and other types of folk music.”
It’s only when you start to really listen do you realize how gracefully strange their punchy melding of cultures really is, how tightly they wove what should have been a vocal sprawl. Every song is really its own mysterious and wonderfully imaginative mood, an entire exploration into genre. Each time I pay attention, another thread of creativity manifests. Banjo, for example, it has banjo? I missed that it’s practically glittering with banjo? Yes, apparently, I think, rewinding and playing again. How rare.
BUY THE ALBUM: it’s not even $10.
(find them on MySpace)
(the socalled video blog)
