Whoops, I'm An Indian

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A truly inspired record. Hal Willner, as many readers will be aware, is something of a legend in production circles, working with luminaries such as Tom Waits, Lou Reed, Sun Ra, Henry Rollins, Gil Evans, Sonic Youth, William Burroughs, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, etc., and overseeing a stunning series of tribute albums. This however is his debut release. Howie B is an extraordinarily lucky chap to have this gem on his Pussyfoot label, after he encouraged Willner to lay down a couple of tracks a chance meeting. Willner, plus cohorts (Martin Brumbach and Adam Dorn on studio and beats/loops respectively, with Ralph Carney on occasional sax) returned with a whole album of the finest quality sampladelia you'll ever hear. Willner's record collection, from which this music emerges, must be truly extraordinary, the breadth of sound sources running from the earliest available popular recordings to all manner of found sounds, spoken word and nature recordings, through to contemporary classical, via American folk music of all flavours and the finest jazz, rock and funk references. Just about every other sample-based record pales into insignificance compared to this. The only things that might come close are Timet Lorenzo Brusci for the range of source material, and John Wall or DJ Shadow for the construction skills. A forerunner of this release would seem to be Willner's earlier work producing tributes to classic cartoon composers Carl Stalling and Raymond Scott. The maniacal humour, fast cuts, unpredictable pacing, riotous dance and brooding drama, the ability to veer from darkness to light swiftly and subtly. It's all here in a tour-de-force of arrangement. Willner's musical sensibilities are such that the mix is often impossibly dense yet never seems muddled or clumsy, despite incorporating what sounds like the outtakes of psychiatric hospital tests, beautifully haunting klezmer music, groovy Quincy Jones samples, religious speeches, drum 'n' bass, Jacques Arel, drill instructors, Rimsky Korsakov, free jazz, 'Home On The Range', big bands, avant-garde electronics, barber shop trios, tawny owls, and numerous isolated instrumental and vocal fragments used intelligently, funkily, dryly. A particularly smart aspect of this record is that Willner's constructed an essentially instrumental record, but using lashings of vocals. Often the world of sample-based music can be an arid, soulless place, and one is left yearning for the touchstone of the human voice. This music is built around voices - lovely looped samples of voices old and new, warm, funny, unsettling, dramatic, used as texture, melody, rhythm, harmony. I can't recommend this enough really, as you've probably guessed.