Check Swimming in Speakers online now

Happy Monday everyone! I just put up the on-demand stream of last Friday's show, which includes the five songs plus interview with Swimming in Speakers. Later today, we hope to have free downloads...stay tuned...

Beat Authority playlist: 8/28/09

Swimming in Speakers!! Joel Hurd, our engineer, and I huddled and here's the plan: on Monday we'll post both the entire Swimming in Speakers set with interview segment included, and the five individual songs as independent files. Stop back on Monday and we'll have SiS for ya in spades.

The word, bird: Swimming in Speakers live this Friday

The word is getting around the innernets... Swimming in Speakers will be on the Beat Authority this Friday around 3:30pm. So tune in and check it.

Swimming in Speakers LIVE! this Friday

Earlier this summer, Chris Clarke of Saranac Lake's Swimming in Speakers came to the station to guest DJ. We said we had to do a live in-studio sometime. Chris had had his laptop - his main instrument - stolen in Buenos Aires, so we had to wait. Plus he had to think about how to convert a largely electronically sequenced and produced musical style into live production.

Well, we gonna see how it all turns out this Friday on the Beat Authority. Chris, and his fellow SiS band member, Meadow, are bringing a cellist and a drummer into the NCPR studios for a special live set on the show. So tune in this Friday and hear the sweet sounds of Swmming in Speakers...

Free MP3: Kailash Kher

Jacob Edgar over at Cumbancha in Charlotte, VT is getting aggressive finding new, unsigned artists around the world, and in bringing musicians famous in other countries to a US audience. His latest in the latter category is reknowned Indian singer, Kailash Kher. An album is coming out this fall, but you can check a free track here.

Beat Authority playlist: 8/21/09

Fresh and funky.

Free MP3s: Manu Chao, man of the people

Manu Chao, and his original band, Mano Negra, are legends throughout Latin America. The music oozes with social justice and props to the underdogs (the single from his latest album, "Me Llaman Calle", is told from the point of view of prostitutes on the streets of Barcelona) of the world. Mano Negra imploded when the band insisted on doing a whistlestop tour in 1993 through the jungles of Colombia. There's even a book about it.

Manu's latest project is another one with a message. "La Colifata" is a radio station based at a psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires. He made a digital-only record with some of the patients. You can download it for free here, and hopefully, donate a little bit to the radio station while you're there. A little bit like a public radio fundraiser.

Dreaming on the Hudson

Sigh. If I could go to one musical event this summer - this year, maybe - it would definitely be this Sunday's "Sunday Getaway" on Governor Island in New York City. Two of the best DJs in the city - at least, as far as Beat Authority-style world beat goes - Nickodemus and Mariano, are organizing one of the Turntables on the Hudson events, and they've invited musical soulmate, Quantic of the UK, to bring up his new Combo Barbaro from Colombia. This is only one of three gigs the Combo is doing in the US.

If you're anywhere near New York City, go out of your way for this one. I'll be there in spirit. If it's anything like this, you'll be happy you went...

Le Fanfare Funky

The World's Global Hit turned me on to Tarace Boulba, a Parisian fanfare, the French equivalent of a New Orleans brass band. But Tarace Boulba is a collective of 30 "amateur" musicians playing for free, and the style of fanfare they play is rooted in james Brown-style funk.

Now that's what we like. It's like joining a community chorus for fun and fellowship, except you get to tour around the world and sound like this...

Here they are in a more informal, second line, street thang...

Free MP3: Bomba Estereo

Bomba Estereo's "Blow Up" has been the CD on repeat in my life lately. It's electronic beats with a soaring female vocals on top, much like Brazilian Girls, except the beats are rooted in indigenous southern Caribbean rhythms of Colombia rather than the ironic disinterest of the East Village.

You can download the song, "Fuego", for free here. And the video makes you want to hit the streets of Barranquilla cuanto antes...

Beat Authority playlist: 8/7/09

Get on the Good Foot.