I raved about Lost Animal's Ex Tropical CD a few entries below when summing up 2011's highlights. I noted that you must hear the highlight track from the disc, "Lose The Baby". Now you have no excuse. This clip is unoffical, though its spacey imagery perfectly complements the effortless glide of the song. Like I said, if this wasn't pulled off so damn well, I may be prone to dismissing its wares as pure pretension: more post-rock & roll (ie. - it ain't rock) of the open-neck-shirt/crumpled-suit variety. But Lost Animal's combination of '70s Eno/Bowie, Suicide, Serge and suit-rock is impeccable. "Lose The Baby" remains one of my favoutite tracks from the last 12 months - hell, I'd rate it as a fave contempo track from the past 5 years - it's something special indeed. Listen to some 21st-century music worth hearing.



And this clip requires little explanation. I've blogged many a time on the genius of Don Cherry, a man whose '60s/'70s works rank amongst the very best. Cosmic ethno-jazz stuck within its own time, and 1971 was a highpoint year for him, recording and releasing his two best discs: Orient and Blue Lake (the former being a top-10 desert-isle disc for moi) and heading for the stratosphere. Check the link here for more killer jazz clips from the vaults: Steve Lacy, Marion Brown, Anthony Braxton, Derek Bailey, Art Ensemble, even a goddamn Milford Graves documentary. What did we do before Youtube came along? That's right, we sat around dreaming of this shit.