I’m not the first to tip Congotronics 2 (see The Suburbs Are Killing Us), and the previous Congotronics release Konono No1 was blogged to death, but yesterday was the day this finally hit the shelves in the US, so go out and pick up a copy, wilya?

Volume 2 has the same hallucinogenic rhythms, beautifully distorted metallic percussion, and teetering over the abyss energy, but with more of a range of different bands and music. Volume 1 was relentless and unstoppable. This one is more of a survey of the current scene in the suburbs of Kinshasa, and it has some of the same energy, but also includes some more lyrical, reflective sets. It also includes a DVD with live performances from several of the bands. Highly recommended.

You can find Congotronics 2: Buzz N Rumble From the Urb’N'Jungle here. More info about this at the Crammed Disc site here.

Word arrives today that the Golden Bear Awards last night at the Berlin Film Festival featured several numbers performed by… Nina Hagen?! That’s not unlike the Academy Awards featuring special musical guest Diamanda Galas. As if.

This track comes from Hagen’s first American release, 1982’s Nunsexmonkrock, which holds up surprisingly well. The song features samples of Cosma Shiva herself, who is Hagen’s daughter born in 1981. The music technology may sound quaintly dated, but there’s no shelf-life on Hagen’s extraordinary voice and blasphemous sensibility. That’s not a sample from Earth Wind & Fire’s Boogie Nights, just an appropriated riff; someone who has the time, please make a mashup of Boogie Nights and Cosma Shiva. Thanks.

You can find Nunsexmonkrock paired with four tracks from 1979’s Nina Hagen Band here. The Nina Hagen Electronic Shrine is here. You can see Nina Hagen interviewed on David Letterman’s show in 1985 here, which includes a clip from a live show in Brazil.

The Year of The Dog is almost two weeks old, but the celebrations continue.

I picked up this CD in a shopping mall in Phnom Penh in 2003 - I should say “the” shopping mall, because there is only one mall in Phnom Penh. They had just installed Cambodia’s very first escalator in the mall, and there was a young woman in a flight attendant’s uniform instructing people in how to use the escalator. The teenagers were way into it, but I saw several older people consider escalating and then move on; it was simply too fast, and too technically challenging. On the third floor of the mall there were many small shops apparently leased by independent vendors with more the feel of an open air market, although the space was typical of shopping malls worldwide - marble floors, glass and steel storefronts etc. In one small shop a man had made a fire out of sticks placed directly on the marble floor and was roasting meat, oblivious to the need for ventilation in an enclosed space.

I’m telling you all of this not as an exotic travelogue, or as a patronizing “look how primitive the Cambodians are” sort of thing. I’m telling you this as an example of how ubiquitous hip-hop has become worldwide. Hip-hop is now a universal pop culture. Consider this: in a country which has only one escalator, there are kids with recording studios, wearing baggy pants and bandanas, rapping over sampled beats, burning CDs of their work, and selling them in the mall.

Anyway, two doors down from the meat roasting man was a music shop, not unlike a music shop in any mall worldwide. Chrome racks of CDs, mirrored walls, Madonna blaring, sales clerks who look like moonlighting high school students. I bought a stack of CDs, including Cream Remixes of Khmer Hip Hop, which this track comes from. The CD also features tracks from The Phnom Penh Bad Boyz and DJ Sope.

I’ve reprinted a fascinating article about the Cambodian hip-hop scene from The Phnom Penh Post here. Miraculously, you can actually purchase Cream Remixes of Khmer Hip Hop for $5 here.

Happy Year of The Dog!

Sublime Frequencies, the label responsible for releasing rare gems of Burmese garage rock and Southeast Asian insect electronica, recently unleashed Choubi Choubi, a collection of rare Iraqi folk and pop music produced during the last two decades of Saddam Hussein’s rule.

This track from Souad Abdullah closes the CD, and is apparently a prime example of the Iraqi style of “choubi”, described in the liner notes as having signature “rapid fire machine-gun rhythms fluttering atop the main tempo.”

It sure would be interesting to hear some stuff coming out of Iraq right now, but failing that, this CD is a great jumping off point for getting to know Iraqi popular music. And the track is burning hot. More info at Sublime Frequencies here. You can buy Choubi Choubi here.