Balanescu Quartet is an avant-garde string quartet founded in 1987 by Alexander Balanescu that achieved fame through the release of several complex re-interpretations of songs by Kraftwerk and collaborations with Michael Nyman, David Byrne and Goldfrapp amongs others. 

A new compilation, “This Is The Balanescu Quartet”, is available on www.mutebank.com and all good physical and digital retailers.

https://www.facebook.com/BalanescuQuartet

Balanescu Quartet - The Model

With this record, The Como Mamas join forces with the boys of Menahan Street Band (billed pseudonymously here as The Radiant Rhythm Band) to lay bare the funkier side of gospel music. 

“The rhythms we all play were already right there in their vocals,” explains drummer Homer Steinweiss, “so it felt natural to lay down the grooves behind them.” Thomas “T-N-T” Brenneck, the up-and-coming producer who brought us both Menahan Street Band and Charles Bradley, presided over the collaboration, which took place in the old Dunham Studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

https://www.facebook.com/thecomomamas
http://www.daptonerecords.com

The Como Mamas - Out of the Wilderness

Jean-Charles Zambo, a.k.a. Joyss, shot to overnight fame after this video of his Take Five routine at Montreal Swing Riot 2015 went viral. 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5iMNzDG_g4

In a preview of our forthcoming episode, we hear from Alain Wong, the maker of that and many other famous videos. 

For Joyss' side of the story, listen here: www.fromthetoppodcast.com/episodes/8

Take Five: the other side of the story

AYE WE GOT THAT HAWT NEW ALBUM "IV" COMING JULY 8TH!!!!!
Pre-order our album IV now ;) ;) ;)
Global iTunes: http://hyperurl.co/BBNGIV
Global Vinyl/CDs: https://badbadnotgoodil.bandcamp.com/album/iv
Canada Vinyl/CDs: http://craft-shop.ca/artists/badbadnotgood/badbadnotgood-iv

Time Moves Slow (feat. Sam Herring)

For more from reggie, follow him on:
twitter: @<a href="http://soundcloud.com/reggiewatts" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reggiewatts</a>
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<a href="http://www.reggiewatts.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.reggiewatts.com</a>/

"Spring Semester / Music In The '90s / Kurt Cobain" (On Life & Quantum Entanglement - Part 2 of 11)

The Olympians self-titled debut album, featuring members of The Dap-Kings, Lee Fields & the Expressions, and Menahan Street Band, is out now. Order now: shop.daptonerecords.com

The Olympians - Sirens of Jupiter

This podcast comes from our friend Dima Prutkin, Kiev-based collectioner and a DJ. It’s a must-listen because of Dima’s brave and unpredictable selection : Ukrainian obscurities, records from famous “Melodiya” label, mystic midnight folk songs, heartbreaking Soviet slow dance numbers and a little bit of early house and crazy reggae. As Dima said it’s “Carpattian Grooves & Gutsul Disco”

@prutkin

Krossfingers Podcast 9 - Prutkin

This land is your land, This land is my land

Though it has often been co-opted as a benignly patriotic campfire sing-a-long, "This Land Is Your Land" was actually written by Woody Guthrie in 1944 as a subversive protest song in biting response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." At my sister Samra's urging, we recorded our version in 2004, during the George W. Bush presidency, in an effort to re-establish it as a song about social justice.

Ironically, when Woodie Guthrie resided in Coney Island in 1950, his landlord was none other than Donald Trump's father, the infamously racist real estate mogul Fred Trump, about whom Guthrie composed his poem "Old Man Trump," including the lines:

     I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate
     He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts
     When he drawed that color line
     Here at his Beach Haven family project 

Using a dark re-harmonization of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" as an intro, the Dap-Kings re-arranged "This Land" as a rough blues-y march, setting the tone for Sharon to tear into the lyrics of the song with the fiery gusto of a revolutionary. However, it was the inclusion of Guthrie's rarely-heard original verses that really enabled Sharon to reclaim the song as an urgent and unambiguous demand for equality and human dignity in a nation rife with social injustice and patriotic hypocrisy.

Today, as we inaugurate a rapacious billionaire to the highest office in the land, those original verses resonate with us as loudly as the day they were written:

     There was a big high wall there
     That tried to stop me
     The sign was painted
     Said 'Private Property'
     But on the backside
     It didn't say nothing
     This land was made for you and me

     One bright sunny morning
     In the shadow of the steeple 
     By the relief office 
     I saw my people 
     As they stood hungry
     I stood there wondering 
     If God Blessed America for me

We are grateful to Woodie Guthrie and to Sharon Jones, two friends of the people and bitter foes of the Trumps, who have given us an essential soundtrack to our struggle. When times get dark, let us not crumble in fear and bigotry. Let us honor the unbreakable spirit of those tireless fighters who have fallen before us. Let us rise to the fight, and let us help each other never to forget this noble truth:

    This land was made for you and me.

-Gabe Roth

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings "This Land Is Your Land"

Мы выросли внезапно

Алексей Королев - гитара, бас, клавишные, вокал /экстраверты/
Валентин Огнев - вокал /интроверты/
Сергей Балашов - ударные, перкуссия
Кристофер Херндлер - бас
Бернхард Глатц - труба
Иван Протасов - Moog synth
Люсинэ Каграманян - бэк-вокал

Интроверты

Алексей Королев - гитара, бас, клавишные, вокал
Валентин Огнев - гитара, шумы
Сергей Балашов - ударные
Таир Исмаилов - бас
Бернхард Глатц - труба
Иван Протасов - клавишные

Москва-Товарная

From the Top is a podcast from IG HOP, a swing dance collective based in Vienna, Austria. 

It looks at the big issues in contemporary swing dance culture.

Researched, produced and presented by a dedicated team, it brings you the best expertise and knowledge from around the world. 

Feel free to contact us with comments and questions at contact@ighop.at or on Facebook. 

Take Five: the other side of the story

From the Top podcast

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