Joel Schalit

Sound Travels

For the last month, I’ve indulged myself in a bit of music writing. For those who know my professional background, it’s in my blood. I co-edited a well-regarded music and politics magazine in the US for nearly eight years, which The Washington Post once called “The New Yorker of punk magazines.” I also served as the label manager of a now-defunct electronic music imprint, for whom I wrote all of the marketing and media copy.

Publishing these pieces anonymously, in Souciant’s new Boombox column, has allowed me the breathing room I’ve needed to resume my former passion. Avoiding traditional music criticism, I’ve used the opportunity to experiment. The first column deals with Italian hip-hop, something near and dear to my heart. The second covers leftists bemoaning the lack of decent music at demonstrations, while the third takes on a bedroom recording about being made an orphan by the Arab-Israeli conflict.

This week’s column is the most formally written of the lot. It’s a dissection of several recordings of Tokyo Rose-style broadcasts, made by NATO forces, during the Libyan War. Posted to Soundcloud, these noisy, Marine band announcements help document the cultural dimension of the struggle against Gadaffi. I go out of my way to brand them field recordings, as they constitute their own ‘found sounds’, captured in the so-called ‘field’.

A field recording enthusiast myself, who has used numerous similar recordings in their own music – the Christal Methodists sampled Christian radio, for example, while the Elders of Zion use live recordings of just about everything – it was a way of tying together my musical interests as a journalist. Here’s to more such explorations. It’s a welcome relief from covering race. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy doing that. I just miss writing about sound.

Massiv CD photographed at Media Markt, Neukölln.

Obscured by Details

I only discovered her last year, at the Tower outlet in kibbutz Gan Shmuel, while running errands. It was a classic Cairophone/Digital Hellas anthology, filed in between obscure Mizrahi fusion titles.

I’d heard of Leila Mourad before, but only as an actress, as credited in this vintage Egyptian film poster. Even though she was better known as a singer, because of her relationship with Om Koulthoum.

Clignancourt flea market, Paris, June.

Rock the Space Bar

The Elders of Zion have been quiet for the last three years. I’ve been the culprit, as I’ve had to focus on writing Israel vs. Utopia. With the exception of Basra Memorial Orchestra,  our contribution to the fourth edition of Fifteen Sounds of the War on the Poor (2009), we haven’t issued anything new since our Twilight War EP in December 2006.

On Friday, however, the Elders published their first DJ mix in Zeek. Longtime fans of Turkish psychedelia, we pieced together a forty minute jam, featuring our favorite tracks by artists such as Erkin Koray, Mogollar, and 3 Hürel. The audio is hosted by Soundcloud. You can listen to the mix on this page, or download an MP3 directly.

The New Italian Pop

‘Eurabia’. Local gig flyer, Corso Buenos Aires. Milan, May 2009.

Zionism as Genre

Of the seven Jewish artists displayed, only two are actually Israeli. Global musics section, HMV Oxford Circus. London, March 11.

Leaving Here

I couldn’t think of a better title for this post than Motorhead’s very first single. Released on Stiff Records in 1977, it was one of the first 7″ singles I think I ever saw – in a London record store. Three days away from moving back to the UK for the first time since 1979, I couldn’t imagine a better heading to affix over this genius of a shop sign, three blocks away from where we live, on Mission street. Boasting a fist full of skull rings, Motorhead leader Lemmy Kilmister practically invented bling.

If only we were leaving here by car. Not just any, but in our prized Prius, now being cared for by friends in the People’s Republic of Berkeley. It’s just about the only hybrid we know that felt the need to balance out the obligatory Obama propaganda with a reminder that at least some of the people who will be voting for the Democrat in the upcoming US elections first thought of themselves as leftists because they listened to bands like Black Flag.

Nuclear Sound Affects

 
During the late 1970s, I can’t remember how many times my siblings and I would hear a song on the radio–most often English-language pop and disco–and try to sing along. We’d mimic the lyrics, switching back and forth between English and Hebrew as we unsuccessfully attempted to master particularly difficult American-sounding turns of phrase. Boney M‘s 1978 mega-hit “Rasputin,” and Earth, Wind and Fire’s 1979 smash “Boogie Wonderland” were particular sources of amusement, as friends and family would struggle to properly enunciate “R” and “W,” sounding, in the case of “Vonderland,” like Israeli caricatures of Bela Lugosi.

To read the rest of my review of Soul Messages From Dimona, click here.

Found Sound

Two weeks ago, I stumbled upon several boxes of LPs sitting in front of a house across the street. Containing everything from Glenn Gould’s rendition of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, to first edition Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins records and post-WWII electronic and musique concrète recordings like these,  was one of the best and most thoughtfully curated record collections I’d ever seen.

Most of the albums turned out to be in perfect condition, as though they’d sat in their sleeves for the last forty years without ever having once been played. I wondered who could have amassed such a library, without leaving as much as a thumb print on any of these discs. Then, it began to drizzle. That’s when I made up my mind to redeem these recordings, and carry them all home.

Freedom is Reverb

In what could be one of the most crucial dub reissues of the year, Greensleeves has just published the sequel to my favorite King Tubby production of all time, Dangerous Dub. Out of print since 1996, this 1981 LP is the kind of record that teaches you to appreciate an entire genre.

Much brighter sounding than other Tubby recordings (at times the treble sounds an awful lot like Scientist) amidst a sea of never-ending reggae re-releases, More Dangerous Dub most definitely stands out. The mix is so clear and expansive, I can hear even the tiniest of details on my MacBook’s crappy internal speakers.

One of the principle points Charlie Bertsch and I put forth in our presentation on Burial at the Experience Music Project conference last month is that dub’s political meaning inheres in the way it uses reverb to symbolically create space, to enlarge it, as though the effect is it’s own metaphor for freedom.

Given how bleak things looked in Jamaica when this album was recorded, it’s no surprise that it sounds  as optimistic as it does, especially by Tubby’s standards. It is as though More Dangerous Dub is an exercise in irony, particularly given how dark dub first sounded during it’s heyday under socialist rule in the mid-1970s.

Rootless Occidentalism

C’mon Fairuz, where was this album really recorded? The fine print on the upper right says Lebanon, but the LP’s title indicates that it might also have been made in the US. The ambiguity of the record’s ideal location, as somewhere in between America and the Middle East, suits this 1971 release extremely well. How contemporary, especially considering the fact that the record is nearly fourty years old.