Duff Guide to Ska Fast Takes: David Usma & The Siderens, Joe Yorke & Stand High Patrol!

(Reviews by Steve Shafer)

The incredible new single Malé Vol​.​1: Oscuridad (7" vinyl picture sleeve single/digital, Canana Records, 2021; found in the US via Jump Up Records) from Colombia's David Usma & The Siderens is part of a trilogy of releases exploring Usma's process of "healing his wounds" through music (Malé is a woman's name, so draw your own conclusions as to what this is all about). He's accomplished this by composing and recording three sets of songs that essentially go through a compressed version of the stages of grief: Darkness, Catharsis, and Rebirth. The first stage Malé Vol​.​1: Oscuridad (Darkness) features two killer skinhead reggae instrumentals: "Hell Moon" sports an otherworldly ice rink organ carrying a melody that's both beautiful and slightly unsettling, while the sprightly "Darkness" has dubby sections and majestic bursts of brass. I'm sorry for Usma's suffering, but he's making some great music while he's in the process of working it all out.

Joe Yorke & Stand High Patrol's magnificent and haunting new single "Quicksand" b/w "Quicksand Dub" (7" vinyl single/digital, Stand High Records, 2021) is about hidden, lonely suffering and bravely trying to bottle up all the feelings instead of embracing and releasing them (and reminds me of the awful time I had adjusting to boarding school life as a desperately homesick 11 year-old). With an understated but effective rocksteady riddim written by Stand High Patrol's Pupajim (the dub is by SHP's MacGyver) and lyrics by Yorke's frequent collaborator/producer Eeyun Purkins (of The Co-operators--read my review of their latest album Beating the Doldrums here), Yorke's incredible falsetto is brimming with empathy as he sings:

Hey brother, I hope you're doing fine
I know you've been having such a rough old time
When the door is closed and the monsters creep in
You're in the quicksand, feels like you're sinking

Back at school they taught you “boys don’t cry”
The tide is up inside, but no tears fall from your eyes
Brother you know that being big and tough
Means letting the tears flow when times get rough
Rough and tough

It's good advice for everyone to heed (delivered within a terrific song). Highly recommended.

+ + + +

Duff Review: The Co-operators & Friends: "Beating the Doldrums"

Waggle Dance Records
Digital, 2020
LP, 2021

(Review by Steve Shafer)

As I sit here typing out my review of The Co-operators & Friends Beating the Doldrums, I worry that I won't do this phenomenal and beautifully crafted album justice. Not only have ace musician/producer Eeyun Purkins and his crew of exceptional collaborating singers and players created a collection of stellar ska and roots reggae songs, they've managed to adroitly articulate all of the injustice, absurdity, violence, oppression, suffering, and dread that many people experience while simply trying to get by in this day and age. The Co-operators & Friends' Beating the Doldrums delivers relatable glimpses into everyday lives that are sharply and unfussily portrayed--and, at times, are almost poetic in their imagery. And the music is highly melodic, always memorable, and absolutely magnificent. 

A common thread in many of these songs is the challenge of trying to survive in the big city. The majestic reggae track "Gentrification" is both celebration of the vibrant multicultural communities that thrive in less-wealthy urban neighborhoods (expressed through the fantastic diversity of food, like Joe Stummer's "Bhindi Bhagee") and staunch defense against greedy real estate developers intent on destroying it all just to line their pockets. (It's so catchy that I woke up this morning with this track running though my head.)

Down on the city’s street
I can hear the distant beat
Of the soundsystem
Rocking the bass and drum

Cramped from the tower blocks
Down to the squats and shops
Buy Ackee caliloo
Bhaji, Dahl and samosa, too

Rich in culture and community
Next door neighbours like family
And I loved it that way
Before the money men came to play

Gentrification (Invasion, invasion)
Gentrification (Invasion invasion)

You talk with scorn uptown
About how things are going down
You talk about our streets in fear
Dangerous 'cos you're not welcome here

You come to take life blood
From the place you call the hood
You're sending in the law
Looking for papers, drugs and more

Joe Yorke's transcendent falsetto on this tracks and others is something to behold and, as I've previously noted in another review, similar in calibre to The Congos and Junior Murvin. 

The urgent ska cut "Sleepwalkers" conveys how urban life can be bleak and soul-crushing (and suggests that escaping to the country may be the only salvation); Kitma delicately sings, "Even when the sun shines, it's raining/So we stay here in the cage, and fire, dazing/And the smoke clouds up my face/I'll sleepwalk back to bed/And dream about the right way/I've got to out of this place." In the mournful "Agony," Lintang sings about how she is left despondent and almost paralyzed by how our system of living has failed so many people in myriad ways: "Agony, agony got me front, left, and sideways...everything seems broken." "Concrete, Steel and Stone" (released as a single on Happy People Records--read my review of it) features Perkie's gorgeous vocals (delivered quite gently, as she's bearing bad tidings that we know in our hearts are true), which float over a brisk ska beat and express profound sorrow and regret that we live the way we do--out of synch with nature and the world around us, in a prison of our own making (that may be turning into a tomb): "Cars cross fibres, thread veins, sew layers, vessels of busy brains/We don't always notice our chains/So, we don't make change/We stick to the root we feel most comfortable in/But is this your skin?" Lives are off-kilter or becoming increasingly untenable.

But not all is unbearable. 

The bright Spanish-language "Florecer" (to thrive or flourish) sung by Elio AM sounds like something that could have come off The Clash's Sandinista (which I've been listening to a lot, since it was just the 40th anniversary of its release), and the sprightly ska of "Pocket Change" (are you down on your luck and asking for some or is it all you have to get by on?) features some great guitar and keyboard solos. And there's the righteous reggae cut "The Thief & The Liar," about a reckoning for corrupt politicians, who ignore their responsibility to serving the public good at their own peril. Perkie's delivery is fantastically laid-back and confident--world-weary, but determined to set things right.

We could spend our time waiting for them to save us
It's like wasting your days waiting for the bus
The first one doesn't come, and the second one's too late
So, it's best to walk your own way and seal your own fate...

...Bring another log for the fire
And throw on the Thief and the Liar

Can you feel the flames burning?
Bet you wish you weren't a politician
You call us criminals, but you're the crooks that throw the book for all the liberties that you took
You dig your own grave, hard and dogged Thief
The wolves are hungry, looking for something to eat
And they're coming for you, live or dead
It's all on your own head, you made your own bed...

Joe Yorke sings about the casual violence encountered on nighttime transport after the pubs close down is given--in a gently parodic fashion--Homeric epic poem status in the delightful "War on the Nightbus" (shades of "War ina Babylon"):

It was night then and the moon was low
Im was on the night bus moving so slow
Packed in like sardines, tight we were tight
Somebody tell me please did the city sleep that night?

Down in St Paul’s they were dancing til the morning
But on the top deck they started warring
They a shout and they push and push come to shove
Down the stairs he fell, crashing down from above

War, war, war on the night bus
Ism and schism, they fight and they fuss

He was loud and his mouth ran so fast
He stayed on the bus and I saw it sprint past
But he didn’t stay long, the eviction came firm
After he tumbled down the stairs he landed on the curb
I saw a look of shock glimmer in his eyes
As the fists and the kicks silenced his cries
He had it coming I have to say
But I just can’t take the conflict these days

It's brilliant.

For all the longing to flee the concrete jungle, life in the country is not necessarily idyllic. In the gorgeous "High on the Mountain," Beanie sings about someone who couldn't make the escape with her--the loss she feels even in such an awe-inspiring place: "Oh, I wonder if you ever think of me/Or if time's blown your memory/As I listen to the breeze blow gently through the trees..." In the beautiful, dream-like track "Turnpike Town" with vocals by Joe Yorke, this hidden, semi-mythical spot in the countryside may not be the hoped for Zion: "You might get chased by a pack of dogs/Or you might just be fine, who knows?...You could say that it's a refuge from Babylon's cruel embrace/But we all know liberty lives in a long forgotten place." Perhaps it's best to seek a balance between city and country life?

There are no answers offered in Beating the Doldrums. Yet the emotions and many of the experiences expressed in these songs are shared by everyone--and The Co-operators & Friends' music that expresses all of these hopes, fears, and blues, is in a language that unites us, can be a companion that sustains us in our darkest hours, and has the potential to save us from ourselves. 

The Co-operators & Friends Beating the Doldrums is, hands down, one of the best records I've heard in recent memory.

Duff Guide to Ska Bullet Points: Kitma "Runnin'" b/w "Runnin' Dub" and The Soul Sauce meets Kim Yulhee (featuring Yun Seok Cheol) "East Sea"

(Reviews by Steve Shafer)

• 
  While I'm still in the process of digesting musician and producer Eeyun Purkins' brilliant new album Beating the Doldrums by The Co-operators and Friends, he and Kitma--one of the wonderful singers in his musical orbit--have issued a new heavyweight (in every sense of the word) single "Runnin'" b/w "Runnin' Dub" (7" vinyl single/digital, Happy People Records, 2020). The alluring and hypnotic reggae cut "Runnin'" is a journey through a series of surreal nighttime visions (chasing whiskers blowing about; crawling through walls): "I'm in a lucid dream...Where the lights go out and the people can't sleep/Nothing but heels gonna follow my feet...I'm on the run again." The odd goings-on are subtly reinforced by the slightly off-rhythm thumb-piano sounds tinkling in the background in the left speaker/headphone. And its dub version is even trippier with a heavy dose of menace in the mix (a brash pipe organ-like horn blares out the melody in parts). This is the business!

• 
  The latest single from The Soul Sauce "East Sea" (7" vinyl single/digital, Eastern Standard Sounds, 2021) continues their collaboration with pansori singer Kim Yulhee as they reimagine traditional Korean folk music in ska and reggae settings (see my review of their "Swallow Knows" single from earlier this year). For South Koreans, the East Sea holds considerable spiritual, cultural, and historical significance (and there has been a long-standing dispute with Japan over its name that is particularly loaded, as it relates to Japan's brutal annexation of Korea from 1905-1945), and this type of Korean folk song--a Minyo--expresses the emotions of everyday people through songs of struggle, heartbreak, and despair. From what I can tell (and if Google Translate is accurate enough), the song is about someone traveling at sea (or they have already reached their destination), separated from the one they love: "At the pier where I left, only my heart embraced me/Are you carelessly leaving me?/When will you come?/When you leave, I'm waiting for that day to come...Even tonight, only the lighthouse lights flicker so lonely/Ulleungdora [a volcanic island] towering over the East Sea." Despite these downbeat lyrics, the music is brisk and cheery top-notch traditional ska, and Kim Yulhee's singing is rousing and vigorous (as opposed to mournful and defeated). It's different from the standard ska fare--but really amazing!

Duff Guide to Ska Fast Takes: Perkie and The Co-operators "Concrete, Steel and Stone"

Happy People Records
Black or grey vinyl single/digital
2020

(Review by Steve Shafer)

Perkie and The Co-operators' phenomenal trad ska single "Concrete, Steel, and Stone" is being released as a preview of their forthcoming second album Beating the Doldrums, which is due for release in early 2021 on producer/musician Eeyun Purkins' Waggle Dance Records. 

According to the band, the record this cut comes from is, "a concept album of sorts discussing the turmoil and struggles of life under the current system and the journey to escape its confinements." In this regard, "Concrete, Steel, and Stone" seems to be a great choice of a single, as it sharply illustrates The Co-operators' thesis. 

"Concrete, Steel, and Stone" is a song of great beauty and sadness; an earworm that you'll welcome taking up residence in your brain. Perkie's gorgeous vocals (delivered quite gently, as she's bearing bad tidings that we know in our hearts are true) float over a brisk ska beat and express profound sorrow and regret that we live the way we do--out of synch with nature and the world around us, in a prison of our own making (that may be turning into a tomb).

The song's lyrics are worth quoting in full, as one may not be able to make out the verses--and they're worth noting:

"Cars cross fibres, thread veins, sew layers, vessels of busy brains
We don't always notice our chains
So, we don't make change
We stick to the root we feel most comfortable in
But is this your skin?

They built a body out of concrete, steel, and stone
And then they called it our home
They built a body out of concrete, steel, and stone
But now I wanna go home

Noise and lights
Make noise and fight
Who chooses who's worthy or scorned?
Who chooses to be born
Into a life of mourning?
Who's willing to climb the hill to see the morning sun rise
Open your eyes

They built a body out of concrete, steel, and stone
And then they called it our home
They built a body out of concrete, steel, and stone
But now I wanna go home"

Anyone paying close attention will have noticed that another recent Happy People Records 45 came from Eeyun Purkins and The Co-operators--Joe Yorke and The Eastonian Singers' sensational roots reggae single "Judgement Tree" (which I reviewed here). If you like top-notch ska and reggae sounds, they've got the goods!