Junie Bezel - That's How Mess Get Started (2001)

ARTIST`````Junie Bezel

ALBUM`````That's How Mess Get Started

GENRE`````Rap, Underground, Local Rap, Hip Hop

YEAR````````2001

No Info

I rarely listen to hip hop/rap and I probably know more about Mongolian folk but I liked this immediately + I have no idea where I got it from. There is basically nothing about this girl but I found some info about the label here: The Take Fo' Story.

Excerpt: Take Fo' Records is a little known (outside of New Orleans) music label that truly broke ground with its motley roster of artists and progressive attitude, yet it's never received adequate recognition for its pioneering role in music. Take Fo' welcomed gangstas but also ball busters, dancer-cum-rappers, party starters and probably the first openly gay rapper. Read the whole article here.

- I really love the way she just won't keep her mouth shut in more fast-paced tracks that are for me - the best ones. I have no idea what she is rappin about most of the time but the longer, faster and more irritating she does it - it just gets better and better. Add a lot of really sharp retro synth stabs pouring all over the place and you get some really choppy, hot, funky rhythms. The general attitude seems to be "we, over here, live like shit and we don't care" so I guess that may be one additional element why this obviously never got any coverage.

Here is a useless Myspace profile

Also, a completely useless Last.fm page

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MADJID KHALADJ - IRANIAN PERCUSSIONS (2001)

Original cover. Cant fid a better one:(
FROM THE ROCKS AND SANDS OF THE BURNING PERSIAN EMPIRE! ONE OF THE BEST IRANIAN PERCUSSIONIST EVER
ARTIST`````````````MADJID KHALADJ
ALBUM`````````````IRANIAN PERCUSSIONS
GENRE`````````````TRADITIONAL/ETHNIC/FUSION
YEAR```````````````2001

MY VIEW:
I was surprised that this guy is actually famous and popular... This album, brilliantly precise but insanely improvised, produces a much needed hypnotic expirence which I can only call "completely empty but filled like burning hell"... If I had this album during my "psychedelic years" - I'd probably be dead by now:)
Yes and... sorry people, no vocals, fancy production or cheap ambient effects. Just great desert drummin' untill the mornin' comes:) My favourite track is "The Esoteric".

NICELY WRITTEN SHORT BIOGRAPHY (by Eugene Chadbourne):

Of the many talented younger players from the Iranian classical music scene, this player of the tombak and other traditional instruments has made the most widespread inroads on the Western music scene, although the rewards of that may be questioned when they include soundtrack appearances on such Hollywood duds as Geronimo or Last Man Standing. The farthest thing artistically from a bad commercial film is the musical environment this artist came out of, the brilliant world of Iranian dastgah. Like the Indian raga to which it is related, compositions in this genre are based on various modal systems, which the performers extrapolate at great length, building up to high speed chases that are the dream of every percussionist. The instrument played by Madjid Khaladj is known as a tombak in Iran, a dombak in Turkey, and has an Irish relative in the bhodran. Khaladj began studying the instrument at the age of seven, the initial pounding and banging of a youth leading to a brilliant career as a traditional musician, pedagogue, composer, and lecturer.

He has mastered an entire family of Iranian percussion instruments, including the daf, which might sound like some kind of British insult but is actually considered a mystical drum. The musical adventures of Khaladj have led to collaborations with the traditional Armenian vocal group Kotchnak, as well as the laid-back California recording scene of world music wannabe Ry Cooder. The Iranian also went far from his roots when he recorded an album entitled Chopin, Impressions with pianist Leszek Mozdzer and the results of this collaboration can only be described as fascinating.

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