That Motown Sound

A cottage industry that was churning out 110 Top Ten hits like nobody's business between 1961 and 1971; whose productions possess a timeless-yet-nostalgic quality that reduces music snobs and casuals alike to a quivering heap; that was Motor City's largest export after automobiles (and certainly the more culturally significant); to which generations of musicians and songwriters are indebted; the soul/R&B Mecca-Eden and the driving force behind the Northern Soul 'pre-rave' phenomenon in the UK...
What pop music witchcraft is this?
That's a question which I as a lowly music fan am not qualified to answer, but here's a succinct passage poached from that ever-questionable academic resource the Wikipaedos:

Motown’s music was crafted with an ear towards pop appeal. The company specialized in a type of soul music it referred to with the trademark "The Motown Sound". The Motown Sound was typified by a number of characteristics: the use of tambourines to accent the back beat, prominent and often melodic electric bass guitar lines, distinctive melodic and chord structures, and a call and response singing style that originated in gospel music. In addition, pop production techniques such as the use of orchestral string sections, charted horn sections, and carefully arranged background vocals were also used. Complex arrangements and elaborate, melismatic vocal riffs were avoided; Motown producers believed steadfastly in the ''KISS principle'' ("keep it simple, stupid"). Read the rest as you listen, fascinating stuff!

Great, but it doesn't satisfy my affinity for pointless comparative analysis... Ever seen a classic Martin Scorsese movie, noticed his tendency to big, upbeat orchestral soul? That's one aspect of Motown Records. In fact even in the incredibly unlikely case that you've never even heard of Motown, you will definitely have come across at least one of the songs included here during your lifetime; it will take a cattle prod to the withered memory bits o' your brain - as if you're revisiting a long-forgotten childhood... via the gift of ECT.

It's just that 60s magic to some extent, that is: the clean-but-not-over-processed-to-tawdry-shit analogue production, the guitar sound, the characteristic effects and instruments of the era; but it's also the Motown THING. Is it in-house session musician icons the Funk Brothers, the stock songwriting teams (which included flagship singers like Gaye, Robinson and Wonder)?; or is it simply the perfect combination of time, place, passion and inspiration? Probably... What do I know.

So, not to be missed. Should you even consider yourself something of an expert on the classic single-oriented era of Motown, this'll still knock you for six - 38 tracks! But it goes by in a flash, there is plenty of space for the less familiar stuff and each song retains an unmistakable identity. Despite the classic Motown remit outlined above there is considerable variety - check out the gritty, psychedelic garage stomper below!... The total euphoric effect of all this is something like a whirlwind. They truly had pop music down to a science.

...But there's one catch which I have to apologise for. I acquired this in 2007, and it served as my official introduction to a bedrock of popular culture that had somehow been omitted from my upbringing. Unfortunately the mp3s are in 128kbps. I've scoured the blogosphere and online retailers, but nothing matches the title... this first-class delight of a compilation is likely some blogger's one-off. To some people this won't make a difference, but to the rest of you I would still implore you to take the dive.
On the plus side, the occasional dodgy high-ends in the sound neatly replicate the experience of listening to the songs through a transistor radio on the kitchen table in 1966, or dusty old vinyl. If you can find a collection on a par with this in better quality... you are a better man than I, and you should share the wealth in the comments box forthwith.
cheers, J x

Partario Wun
Partario T'u

(Tracklisting in comments)

Brian Eno & David Byrne 'My Life In the Bush of Ghosts' (1981)

''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is a novel by African writer Amos Tutuola from Nigeria published in 1954. This novel recounts the fate of mortals who stray into the world of ghosts. The 'bush' is in the heart of the tropical forest, an impenetrable thicket left even after the rest of the forest is cleared for cultivation. Here, as every hunter and traveler knows, mortals venture at great peril, and it is here that a small boy is left alone.''

This album, from the very definition of a dynamic duo, is instantly recognisable as being in a genre all it's own, like 'Entroducing...' 25 years before the fact and accomplished not with samplers, but with simple manipulation of the raw tape; from Eno's recordings of radio call-in shows, evangelists, and the various Arabic samples that help to give the album it's haunting quality. Despite an underlying funkiness adeptly provided by Byrne playing most of the instruments (underrated musician that he be), this is a different beast to Byrne & Eno's work on the previous 3 Talking Heads albums.

The fascination with African polyrhythms remains, but as a listening experience it it free of associations with the oeuvre of either artist. The album takes on a life of it's own through the strange grooves characterized by found objects and African percussion, overlayed with those voices from disparate places in languages we can't understand - everything is out of context and the effect is supernatural and, like I said, unique. I've always loved this record and the only thing that comes close (despite all the claims of inspiration by other musicians down the years) is David Byrne's mostly-instrumental 1981 album 'the Catherine Wheel'. Innovative? Probably, 'My Life...' was obscenely ahead of it's time... but nobody went on to imitate the hands-on analogue sampling technique of this album (understandable given the headache it must have been without MIDI). Perhaps that's why sampled-based albums have rarely been so otherwordly? Having said that this would make good rush hour listening; it captures the cold and hollow functionality of an overpopulated urban area whilst being tethered to a sombre spiritual ancestry.

This is the 11-track CD edition (not the whopping 2006 reissue, but you are welcome to buy it for me =P), it's bloody marvellous and of course doesn't include the long-gone but fitting track 'Qu'ran'. The Islamic Council of Great Britain wasn't having a track that sampled readings of the Holy Book, and who were these two nerds to argue? It was struck from the running order, replaced with the B-side 'Very, Very Hungry' and has remained absent from all subsequent reissues. However you can hear it by clicking the link a couple of sentences back.

Here is the extremely cool official website of the album. The samples Eno originally used have all been made public domain so you can download them and do your own mixes. There are also streamable tracks and essays by Byrne about the production of the album and it's connection to the Tutuola book.
And for shits n' giggles here's David Byrne's web-o-log, which is surprisingly good reading... and he doesn't even have to upload any albums?!

Mr. Bungle - s/t (1991)

This is the last of the impromptu Tomahawk background posts, although Señor Patton will be making more appearances in the future. The order I've done this in might seem to imply that Tomahawk are the culmination of all these lesser career highlights, but this is not the case... Consider the albums from this and the previous three posts equatable to four ancient historic landmarks, demolished for their composite materials. These are used to build a towering modern facility for the common good, one that affords views of the land around. However the ancient foundations remain the same, a testament to it's workmanship...
And somewhere in that garbled metaphor is Mike Patton's quite unfathomable debut record with his first band, Mr. Bungle!

However this wasn't the first major label album he'd appeared on. Having done several cassette-only releases with Bungle in the mid 80's, 1989 saw a 21-year-old Patton assume vocal duties on 'the Real Thing', alternative metal group Faith No More's eclectic third album and the one that launched them on the global circuit. Over this album Patton had no control in the production aside from lyrics, as he was brought on board after the songs were already written, dropping out of college to join.
While 'the Real Thing' was far from a conventional album, it was an MTV hit, and responsible for starting an unfair comparison between Patton and Red Hot Chili Peppers singer/frat-goon Anthony Kiedis with their then-similar vocal styles. A bitter rivalry ensued that eventually resulted in axed Mr.Bungle festival gigs (at the behest of the headliners), many a jibe and vindictive 'tribute gigs'.

'The Real Thing' was a hugely successful debut, but Patton merely used it as a springboard to get his first band a deal and to cut an album that fulfilled the previous decade's most bizarre and twisted, avant-garde metal ambitions... complete with horn section!

The objective for Mr. Bungle was and is (three albums in a decade and they've not announced a break-up) an ALL-in-one philosophy. Every style of music that any member of the band can play (i.e. everything) is given space in any one song; consequently I could spend the next twenty minutes reviewing a song, which simply won't do. Oh... maybe just one then =P

^Oh an egg comes out of a chicken
Oh a chicken comes out of an egg

Here's a good archetype for the album (see above), 'Egg' is the Bungle-ites anthem and it gives you an inkling of how volatile and unpredictable their songs are. It's like a contemporary progressive rock, except instead of boarding school boys droning on about classical/jazz influences, you just have punk rockers on drugs doing everything else!
On 'Egg' you have, in order: funk, polka, ska, space rock, some bad-acid doom metal, a quick freakout combining funk and death metal, then back to the ska figure, after that it kind of goes into meltdown. And that's just under three minutes in to what, on record, is a 10-minute song (my description makes more sense with the album version too =P).

By now you may be getting an idea of the sheer scope a reviewer of this album has to deal with, and at this point I strongly suggest you stop reading and just clarify the situation for yourself. Go on, the words will still be hear when you get back:
256kbps (comprend des oeuvres d'art) Ein, Zwei

I could go on playing 'spot the genre' here, which is tedious for you but good fun for me: free jazz, rapping, carnival music (giving the album it's sinister edge), Middle-Eastern modes, even an elegant strings-and-ballroom waltz to see us off when we finally claw our way out of the rabbit hole... You get the picture. And needless to say it's an awe-inspiring set of musicians indeed that could play all of this and make it look easy to boot.

So while at it's core the album is rooted in funk metal, perhaps evoking traumatic images of a certain rival band's early incarnation; 'Mr. Bungle' is still a groundbreaking concept and essentially the ultimate fusion album... Unless you count the follow-up 'Disco Volante', but we won't go there just yet.
Far from being 'a bit like RHCP', Mr. Bungle are quite possibly the little demonseed offspring of that expert manipulator of rock forms, Frank Zappa. And unlike RHCP, you get the feeling Bungle is a tongue-in-cheek project, they're prodding to see just how much they can get away with.

The record presented here is also the easiest entry point for newbies and the epicentre of Patton's two decades of experimentalism, a manifesto on magnetic tape.

Amendment: Bungle did in fact officially split, inamicably, in 2004; and their debut was produced by avant-jazz giant John Zorn.