Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Aluar Horns



Aluar Horns (Zaire/Uganda Border)

I got a record needle. The Gemini PT-2000 record player which now functions in my studio is the first fully operational vinyl playback machine which I has ever owned. This is because, I wager, sometimes one is afraid to be happy. Sometimes there is a happiness that hangs so clearly in your eyes, but you recognize its sheer destablizing force, the way it may also threaten to overtake you once you deign to open your arms to it, that you turn away, preferring to cast your glance instead towards inferior delights.

So lord help me, I have a record player now. And I have literally the worldest's goofiest collection, comprised almost solely either of out-jazz rarities or thrift store oddities acquired upwards of ten years ago when I worked in the Salvation Army, and which I have never ever listened to, but never discarded, fuelled only by my good faith in weird records.

This faith was rewarded when I for the first time played "African Ceremonial & Folk Musics." It consists almost entirely of pleasant, unremarkable chants and babbles, but then out of nowhere, there's an insane horn-section jam, which has such a weirdo-wobbly rhythm that I thought my new record player was broken and playing irregularly. The horns overlap in such a loopy, narcotized way, it sounds like Sun Ra remixed by DJ Screw. Or a beardo edit of New Orleans funeral jazz. One of the most surprise sonic bug-outs I've had in a while, a very solid "what the hell is this?" moment was the result, exactly the sort of experience which makes me hoard two dollar thrift store records for ten years.


Enjoy, you won't be disappointed. 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a really cool song and you can hear it without buying the record (and without downloading a file) at this site:

http://music.myspace.com/Modules/MusicV2/Pages/PopUpPlayer.aspx?songid=27955651&artid=13992309

dj slow said...

picked it up at a record fair last weekend....thanks for the tip, although you know dj slow would not pass on a record with such a cover...!

valerierose said...

I just bought this record, and was looking up info on the Aluar horns because it kind of blew my mind upon hearing it. Your description is spot on! Criminally short track, though...

I went right to the albert ayler afterward..

Great ecstatic stuff. Eyes are open for more Aluar horn music!