M.I.A.'s Bird Flu Audition

Here is a really amazing four legged dance from the auditions for M.I.A.'s "Bird Flu" video (which incidentally is also amazing). I'm not sure how this trick is done. I think there might be two people in there. The song is also pretty great.

Eartha Kitt, The Woman With Many Lives

News of Earth Kitt's death was all over the Internet this week. If you ever get the chance, read her autobiography, Thursday's Child, in which she details her incredible life from poor sharecropper to globetrotting modern dancer to slinky singer. In addition to playing Cat Woman, she voiced her disapproval of the Vietnam War while lunching at the White House with Ladybird Johnson. The Johnsons were not impressed. Kitt was effectively blacklisted and her teatime activism was a near-career wrecker that took several years to overcome. Eartha Kitt was also an incredible multilingual singer. We especially love listening to her croon in Turkish.

Chatri Sichon

Chatri Sichon's "Chom Nang" is a really interesting Thai tape, posted at MonRakPlengThai. Apparently he was really into Indian film music and made this album which sounds exactly like an old Bollywood soundtrack except with Thai singing.

Here's the first track. Download the album here.


We love MonRakPlengThai. My only complaint, as a Mac user, is that everything is posted in .rar format. But, that is easily remedied by downloading RAR Expander.

music-berbere

113 back in 2000

This week I was hoping to hear something cool on The FADER. To no avail. Last week they sent me in Fat B's direction, but now nothing. Then I remembered that now and here is not where it's at. I went back to Marseille circa 2000 and was feeling it again.

Gainsbourg Overdose, Part 4: France Gall

It's been a long time since this Gainsbourg Overdose thing started. So long, in fact, that the video that I linked to, Charlotte Forever, has been removed from the Korean site where I found it. But if you Google it you'll find this version, this version, and this version.

Anyway, Gainsbourg liked doing duets, and he liked putting words in women's mouths, especially young women. Witness France Gall, whose career was made on the songs he wrote for her. Poupée de cire, poupée de son is a stunning Gall/Gainsbourg pop collaboration. Her not catching the double meanings to his lyrics is what makes it all work, like most famously in Les sucettes (Lollipops: Did Lil' Wayne get inspiration from this song? Rappers in France say Serge Gainsbourg is the grandfather of the genre there.). If she understood it all, there wouldn't be the contest for meaning, which is what makes the songs exciting pop, and you don't have to know French yourself to get it.

Music videos with overdubbed bad playing are back!

Patrick Juvel's Où sont les femmes THREE TIMES

It's so nice I posted it thrice. Definitely Bee Gees-esque but without the high-pitched squalling. Settle in and watch and I think you'll agree that each video has its own merits.

In the first, the painfully sparkling sequins recall Jintara's temple fair video, with fast cuts at the end that might provoke a seizure.



Next up, some nice restrained dance moves and crazy mirror action. What's better than Patrick Juvel? More than one Patrick Juvel.



And finally a speeded-up version where you can spy French TV personality Michel Drucker getting down and a guy in a leopard-print shirt and overalls.

Patrick Juvet - Où sont les Femmes
Uploaded by Discodandan

Hadramie Ould El Meydah

Here's another really cool video from Mauritania. This one is old, I'm guessing from the seventies. It's shot in front of the "Banque Centrale Mauritanie", complete with shots of ladies counting money. The building looks really cool, too.

มนต์รักเพลงไทย AKA monrakplengthai.blogspot.com

Awesome Tapes from Africa is still amazing. But now we've discovered MONRAKPLENGTHAI which is ยอดเยี่ยมเลย It's like a Thai version of Awesome. So many ลูกทุ่ง (luk thung) cassettes! So little time! The most recent posting is on ไวพจน์ เพชรสุพรรณ (Waiphot Phetsuphan). Here's a video of his, which is very Thai traditional, which means it's awesome, too, even though it's a sad guilt trip about moms.

Wezen

This is one of my favorite YouTube videos. It is a Mauritanian guitarist playing a quarter-tone guitar. I don't really know anything about it, but it sounds and looks pretty amazing. If you look at related videos, you'll find some other gems, including Mauritania Didi, another favorite of mine.

Lavomatik Session with Guem

Lavomatik Session - Guem
Uploaded by imuzzik

The I-Muzzik's Lavomatik Sessions are unplugged concerts of musicians in laundromats, in Paris. Most of the bands are not my cup of tea, and there's really only so much strumming on the acoustic I can take (which is not very much). But watching Guem play the darbouka is pretty mesmerizing. He's mind-blowingly good, and the acoustics of the space really work with the instrument. Here he is in concert, too:

The Trusty Knife, It's All Built In

The bassoon and flute player for The Trusty Knife, Annie Killelea, is also an amazing filmmaker, and she made a video for the band's "It's All Built In" this past summer. But calling it a video seems like a misnomer since it was shot on 16mm film. The French term clip seems more suitable. Scopitone pioneered clips in the 1960s. France Gall's "Laisse tomber les filles" with the singer's inconsistently messy hair and occasional bits of dust on the lens, or Jacques Dutronc's "L'opportuniste" and its acidulous background are both kindred spirits with "It's All Built In".

The Trusty Knife also have a new CD out. We don't know where you can get it so you'll have to ask them.

Who the F#*k Is B.o.B Download

Back in August we gave our favorites from Fat Lace's Top 10 of 2008 (so far) - what we construed to be a hip-hop crème de la crème. Atlanta hip-hop upstart B.o.B's Fuck You was one of the goodies.



There's a new mix of it on Who the F#*k Is B.o.B, which you should go download at his MySpace. While you're unzipping it you can watch his smoker's anthem from 2006: