It's an inspired move -- this tribute to an elder statesman of Polish jazz while managing to keep a unique style intact. Komeda - The Innocent Sorcerer is one of those jazz projects that doesn't rely on sounding so...you know, jazzy. There isn't a labored urge to swing the beats, and the band doesn't play in predictable rounds by passing solos off to one another. And even though it's a tribute to a long dead composer and bandleader, the original recordings are not treated as unalterable gospel. Reverence and reconstruction comfortably walk hand-in-hand, and the music never...

Even if Jonny is Tracasseur's panda (what indie kids are called in Sweden because of their white-powdered faces and dark eyes), I have of course also listened to some indie music, even if it always have been sort of on the side. Sweden had a great indie scene around the mid to late nighties, and I remember one of my favourite bands was Komeda . They were a pretty obscure band from the northern university city of Umeå, which you almost could hear in their cool and brainy music. It's that arty sort of indie music that university students [...]
What a decade, huh? This one's notable as having been spent entirely in NYC, and entirely of the digital age which changed the way everybody listened to music. (Maybe not my parents but everyone else.) We had more access to everything, and less to to spend with it. That said, there was no shortage of good music, though I don't think anything hit me quite as hard as the previous decade -- partly due to age, party due to aforementioned information overload. There's nothing from this year, as I feel it's too close to [...]

Furthering my hypothesis that Sweden is the world's finest purveyor of pop music, Umeå's Komeda crafts some of the most instantly-likable songs around. Not to be confused with the composer (whom they are named after), the band released a bunch of albums throughout the nineties and ending with a final full length in 2003. I forget if they are still together or not, but I do remember that I played their songs so much when I was younger that I had to put them away for a while. Below are some selections from one of their best albums, [...]

all this talk of summers and festivals and suns and beaches has got so excited.. kate hates the hotness but i for one love it.. sand, salt, haze, singlets and sunburn certainly are the chilli peppers of life arent they? and isnt music made that much more nicenice and significant when accompanied by any of those things? YEEAAAAAA my best summerish memories are from jim's (word) place a few years ago.. the forces of ping pong, pool, alcohol, music, fairy lights and failed flips all banded together to organise some kind of a good time. ministry of sound would [...]
I love when a collegial atmosphere is created amongst music enthusiasts that breeds sharing and the open exchange of ideas. Its like all the good parts of socialism without all those pesky Anarcho-syndicalists! I might have that wrong. Anyway, a comfortable free love atmosphere has been created by Three Imaginary Girls, who have asked their readers to talk abo ut what is currently on their playlists . Below are a few of their choices. Up top is the superb video for B.L.O.S.S.O.M. by Komeda from 2003. You know you got [...]

Tomatoes and corn and longer shadows. That's August to me. Here's #6 in this Summer series. Forgetting to bug any of my more artistic friends to make cover art, I did this one myself... and it shows. But musically, this one turned out pretty good. Have a good weekend. DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS #6 Here's the track list: 1. The Kinks - Party Line 2. Envelopes - I'd Like 2 C U 3. The [...]
As if we needed a reason to spend a Saturday at the record shop, today is RECORD STORE DAY . Record stores are awesome. Especially the ones that kick-ass. Dave Kuzenko's X-Ray Records in Regina is one such kick-ass, awesome record store. When I was forced to move to Regina at age 15, Dave's shop (then a Records on Wheels) was the first place I went after I signed up for high school. Othen than school and eventually workplaces, I doubt I spent more time in Regina outside of my home anywhere else but X-Ray. [...]
Komeda -- Binario Le Tigre -- After Dark Is it a hyperacute critical sense or a complete lack of critical sense that leads to judging everything harshly, to watching a brilliant film or listening to a complex and demanding album and thinking it mildly interesting? What changes to cause a reassessment, to allow a three-year-old album or an eight-year-old album to register as what it is rather than what it was seen as needing to be? And why is that, in all the characteristics a work [...]
First a note to say that, as of tomorrow, my domain and web issues will have been resolved, thanks to donations from readers like you. Thanks! In addition to my being able to afford to host my own stuff, my longtime Internet pal Mikey has also offered me some of his space/bandwidth, which may afford me the luxury of posting more frequently. Today's songs are on his server as a test to make sure he can handle the mighty power of the Copy, Right? downloaders. Mwahahahahaha! Komeda "Mushroom" [...]
For no apparent reason, I decided to buy the 1996 release The Genius Of Komeda by the Swedish band Komeda. A leetle sticker on the case helpfully informed me that the group "combines the fresh sounds of Stereolab and the...

Saturday marks the first of two total lunar eclipses that will occur this calendar year and it will actually be the first one since 2004 that will be visible here in Chicago. According to the Adler Planetarium , Moonrise will occur at 5:39 pm on Saturday, at which point the Moon will already be eclipsed by the Earth's shadow. Don't be late in checking out the skies, as "totality" ends at 5:58 and the "partial phase" ends at 7:11 pm. So, in honor of this stunning phenomenon, RFC [...]

My little dude threw up last night. Our first foray into the whole vomit scene. This post is in honor of him as I think he is starting to feel all right. (These are songs with "All Right" or "Alright" in the title; some I have posted before, some are new. Hope y'all feeling alright.) Voices On The Verge ~ I'll Be Alright (great one-album female foursome) Stoll Vaughan ~ Alright (Southern Rock that mentions a "midget with a pitchfork") Chris Tsefalas ~ I'm All Right It's Ok [...]