~music Listening Club 8 - Exuma
Hello all you good people, week 8 it is! Here we've got this week's user-voted record: Exuma by Exuma!
Taking @leech's original pitch:
I think it's probably one of the most legendary spiritual albums recorded, a look into some Junkanoo, Carnival, and Calypso music with a raw, ecstatic energy behind each song. His music is truly unique and nothing has quite reached it.
The story of Exuma's music is really captivating and later on in his career he toured with some big names
Here's the place to discuss your thoughts on the record, your history with it or the artist, and basically talk about whatever you want to that goes along with Exuma. Remember that this is intended to be a slow moving thing, feel free to take your time and comment at any point in the week!
If you'd like to stream or buy the album, it can be found on YouTube here or purchased physically here.
Behind the scenes of @Whom's work :p
Berating myself didn't work well enough this time...
I love this album, it is one of the most unique pieces of music I have ever found. The opening track is an infectious blend (just try not joining in on an 'Obeaaaaaah') of a spiritual chant, junkaroo rhythms and a seriously diverse percussion section, and it doesn't look back from there. Dambala jacks up the spiritual quotient even more, and adds booming (almost) distorted drum smashes cut with aggressive triangle. This sonic texture is continued into Mama Loi where it forms a heart-beat-esque backing rhythm not coincidentally, this song is steeped in the English-speaking Carribean's tradition of zombies:
Junkanoo is unsurprisingly a junkaroo rhythm piece. I think the most surprising thing here is how at ease you might be with it. It's a weird shifting pattern of slide whistles. whistles, conga, and harmonica, but yet it doesn't not remind me of some more mainstream afro (or even electro) rhythms.
And then, and then... we get to Seance in the Sixth Fret. This song (and the next) are where this album becomes transcendent for me. Looking at the lyrics, Exuma is telling something like a strange biblical verse that I have no idea of the meaning of. There are very clear references to people, possibly historical, possibly his friends from his time in the states? Long portions of the song also sound a bit like letters of poetry, e.g.:
And then we land on the backside into You Don't Know What's Going On, the song most likely to appeal to a casual listener on this weird odyssey. The final track, The Vision tells the story of a dream with seven angels, several bearing things strikingly similar to biblical plagues. The song builds to the final angel who delivers judgement.
I wish I knew more about the Caribbean traditions that went into this album, and generally 'what the hell he was talking about', but there is sadly little information on this that I've found.
I first heard this a long time ago and my memory of it was a bit fuzzy so I gave it a relisten this week.
Good album. Very good album. I find it more interesting to listen to than I really find it enjoyable listening to except for maybe the opener and another track near the middle. I think a lot of what @arghdos says echoes my thoughts in general. It really just makes me want to take a lot of my time and listen to a bunch of Caribbean folk music and also go on a reading spree where I attempt to take in as much of culture as I can through text. It's honestly unlike anything else I know of.
I frequently get recommended this based on the rest of my taste (I guess maybe it's the Comus and blues Beefheart?), and I've put it off so long...having this chosen works out very well for me :)
This is really cool and I feel the urge to give it a lot of time to sit with me. I think I'm mostly surprised with how familiar something so outwardly foreign to me feels (though, as I've just learned, Exuma was hanging out in Greenwich Village in the 60s, so that makes some sense).
I'm worried that I won't like this much beyond the surface aesthetics, but for now I'm really happy with this thing. It walks this wonderful line where it manages to be very accessible but still different enough to catch my interest in a pretty unique way.
Listened to the first 6 minutes straight through then I had to skip around. Honestly sounded noisy and generic. Couldn't hold my interest.