New York Noise:Soul Jazz

Artist: Various Artists

Date Released: July 30, 2003

Label: Soul Jazz

Produced By:

Tracklisting:
 * 1) Liquid Liquid - Optimo
 * 2) Konk - Baby Dee
 * 3) Dance - Do Dada
 * 4) Material - Reduction
 * 5) Lizzy Mercier Descloux - Wawa
 * 6) DNA - 5:30
 * 7) Rammellzee vs. K. Rob - Beat Bop
 * 8) Contortions - Contort Yourself
 * 9) Glenn Branca - Lesson #1 for Electric Guitar
 * 10) The Bloods - Button Up
 * 11) Dinosaur L - Clean On Your Bean #1
 * 12) Theoretical Girls - You Got Me
 * 13) Bush Tetras - Can't Be Funky
 * 14) Mars - Helen Fordsdale
 * 15) ESG - You Make No Sense
 * 16) Defunkt - Defunkt

Review: Having not been alive between 1978 and 1982 makes it hard for me to have a fleshed out mental picture of what it was like living in the lower east side of New York City during that period. Thanks to my excessive media intake, the stories from survivors of the scene melt into one pieced together mental picture made up of an interethnic post-hippy pre-hipster congregation joyously dancing with neon clothes and pompous hair to a group of artists finally playing the music they feel like making. Punk melts into slap bass funk, disco mutates into electroclash, new wave sheds into no wave, hip-hop starts making its way to the front of the stage and genres start sporting a snazzy post- tag. The always-incredible Soul Jazz provides the soundtrack to my mental fantasy compiling an eclectic blend of artists that probably sound more hip now than they ever have. From the afro-beat inspired Konk to the original dance-punkers Liquid Liquid to the streetwise (and surprisingly fresh) rhymes of Rammellzee and K. Rob, New York Noise brings the party as heard by the people who were there, though with a little less white powder floating around inconspicuously in the air. The most relevant reason for this comp, other than education, is to hear the evolution of (or lack there of) independent music. The similarities between the artists on this comp and the majority of the popular independent scene is uncanny and obvious; deciding whether it should be considered an homage or a disappointment is up to you. The fact of the matter is that without this music, people like me would never know of the creative revolutions happening in some grimy hole-in-the-wall club in the East Village on a cold winter night in 1979; and living life thinking that those people were Gloria Gaynor and The Village People is just plain sad.