1 D-Styles - Phantazmagorea (Won't You Be My Neighbor)
2 Siekiera - Nowa Aleksandria
3 DJ Shadow - Entroducing
4 Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol.1
5 System Of A Down - Hypnotize
Jimmy is a friend of mine I only made in recent years, but I have a tremendous degree of respect for him that built up so fast I can't quite believe it.
We don't see each other as often as I'd please, but he's one of the few people I know I feel I can relate to on such a basic level, really surprising considering our polar opposite lifestyles !
He's one of the most intelligent, questioning and dedicated guys I know, dependable, and will always do what he can to help a friend in ways that always amazes me.
I've always felt that we clicked in some way, he has great respect for everyone who tries their best at anything, regardless of what it is, more so than I ever could.
I feel I can speak to him about anything, and there's very few people I can say that about in my life.
As you may get from the list above, Jimmy is a skratch DJ.
A pretty damn good one from all accounts I've been given, having beaten World Champion scratchers in competitions, that must surely make him world class I'd guess?
And true to form, he provided me with a tour de force of DJ music others have since informed me.
So, let's rattle through in my approximate order of preference.....
Top of the list has to be D-Styles - Phantazmagorea.
My first comments were "little wacky and inconsistent".
After listening through this album, I've come to the opinion that a better description is "fucking epic"
The flow of this album in incredible, dark, moody and menacing.
Reminds me a lot of the recent stuff I've heard from Carpenter Brut.
But it's so much more, it flows the whole way through, tracks do have distinct seperations but merge together in to one long musical journey.
I think the first half of the album is stronger than the second, and I take a little offence at the 2 minutes of silence on the last track (if I want silence for 2 minutes I will turn off my radio dammit), but it is an incredible album that has soared up the list of the best albums I've ever listened to.
I had a girl break it off with me and this album has been listened to at least 10 times in the last week of January alone.
I've come back to this one in the gym several times on extremely high volume, and that only makes it all the sweeter.
This one album alone makes the entire month worthwhile, if not the entire year, but thankfully is not the only jewel in Jimmy's musical selection.
Siekiera - Nowa Aleksandria
Polish punk from the eighties. I'm gonna have to get the answer where he even picked this one out of, but this really is something special.
I have no idea what these guys are saying, but I'm sure they have something to say.
And to be fair, when you've had to deal with communisim, you probably have something to say.
The drumming in this album is incredible, driving, rhytmnic and forceful.
I love jazz myself, Art Blakey in particular, so whenever people mention drums in modern music I generally ignore them and hum Evidence to myself.
But this stuff in amazing - if someone wants a lesson in what drumming in rock and punk needs to sound like, THIS is the album you need to hear.
Raw, driving, with force, feeling and message.
DJ Shadow - Entroducing
I heard this album before Phantazmagorea, and it was what I expected a scratch DJ album to sound like.
It's great in that respect, but it by no means blew me away.
Having listened to it several times, I'm just after realising I can't remember much about it right now.
It flows great though, real steady all the way through, not entirely sure I'd ever come back to it ?
I blame D-Styles, he just totally overshadowed Entroducing.
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85 - 92
I will openly admit, I hated this album the first time I heard it through.
It felt all over the place, and I guess one of my failings in music of recent years is my inability to appreciate sublety.
Jimmy told me this was one of the defining musicians of his youth, inspired him to pick up decks, and was totally unlike anyone else in that era.
However, about the forth time through I started to appreciate this one.
I can leave this on in the background whilst I'm doing other things now, I guess that's an improvement to me saying "Jesus Christ, this ambient shit sucks".
That probably sounds harsh, it's possible I'm not mellow or relaxed enough to appreciate it, but despite that it did grow on me a little.
We can't all like the same things, otherwise we'd all drive Toyotas.
System Of A Down - Hypnotize
I'll be straight, I'm not sure SOAD got a fair shot in this month.
It was a last week substitution, and I only got to listen to it 3 times, but it didn't really resonate with me.
I'm not a lyrical person when it comes to music.
The voice just sounds like an instrument to me, I find it extremely difficult to pick out the words as they go along, and even when I get to the point where I know words, I rarely pay any attention to the MEANING behind those.
The drive, the rhytmn, timbre, these are all things I pick up on in the voice, I love a good singing voice.
In that respect, I'm probably not a great person to listen to bands such as SOAD.
I greatly appreciate that they have a relatively "unique" sound, I can't quite pick out another band that sounds like them.
I really enjoyed the song "Lonely Day" in particular, which is quite amusing as a SOAD fan (Luke, who is February's pick) commented that Hypnotise is usually the most hated SOAD album, and Lonely Day the most despised song on it !
Using that particular nugget of information, I may not be a SOAD fan.
I also have this feeling that at 33, I'm about 15 years too late to hear this music for the first time.
