Who can school me on William Onyeabor?

Luke Jenner, once of the Rapture;

lol at this

anyone else going to the show at the Greek tonight?

so those who have this collection? how does it _sound_ compared to the many downloads that brought this guy to american attention? it's all mastered from vinyl sources i would assume.

i mean i love this guy's stuff but i don't want to plunk down hard-earned dollars for stuff i already have unless it sounds notably better.

btw i don't think this warrants the term "outsider art" (a term i'm not terribly comfortable with to begin with)

it sounds pretty great to me

this remix album is pretty wack

FUCKING HELL THAT WAS A GREAT SHOW. if I wasn't in the middle of the music-seeing-est run of my life right now it would be the best thing I've seen in 2014 by a comfortable clip. Kele Okereke was the big guest vocalist for this date and he was fucking GREAT; also holy shit I forgot how great Alexis Taylor is at singing. highlight was "When The Going Is Smooth And Good", although Byrne was stupefyingly awesome on "Fantastic Man."

speaking of "When The Going," if you're on the fence about buying a physical copy of the comp, that song's not on the Spotify version and it's arguably Onyeabor's best song so yeah.

well, unlicensed downloads of all his individual albums (save, i think, for one very rare one) were and probably are widely available. so i have all of the songs on the comp in MP3 format. of course, chances are that a professionally-mastered, physical-media copy will sound better, but with needle-drops like this one can never really know.

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/21006/1/ever-wondered-why-william-onyeabor-wont-play-live

Weird. Previous articles said he wouldn't play his secular stuff anymore because he found religion. No mention of the man from Milan.

could be onyeabor is fucking with people there.

given em the ole Keyser Söze

uh

9 cds?

uh

http://williamonyeabor.com/giftshop

Just met a guy who is a painter and a deejay, parent of my kids' friend, and Onyeabor was his brand new jam that he was playing at his kid's birthday party.

uh

awesome news but i'm hoping they make the individual LPs available at some point because the box is like a million dollars

(20 seconds later)

ok, there are LP boxes available, and they both include 4-5 full lengths, a 45 and other good stuff for $75-$85. so not that bad. xmas is around the corner...

I've been needing a new denim hat, too.

the CD box set is not terribly expensive.

will these be remastered i.e. did they actually locate the tapes or are these just going to be fancy needledrops?

that comp must have sold pretty damn well, btw, if they're going all-out like this.

Xpost I hope they're sourced from the original tapes because the mp3s that I've been able to find are needledrops from really scratchy records

xp i think the touring show is doing well

my interest in onyeabor is well piqued thanks to the comp but i think 9 cds is a bit excessive as a next step

it's me, I'm the guy who pre-ordered both of the vinyl box sets. (Who Is William Onyeabor? was a transcendent record for me and the live show absolutely blew me away, so it was an easy buy.)

the comp sounded great, so I can't imagine that they're going to put out a bunch of scratchy-ass needledrops. at least I sure hope not.

but i think 9 cds is a bit excessive as a next step

I'm in the same position but 9 CDs seems like a GREAT next step because that comp rules.

Yeeeeep

I've got all of the "albums". Most of them have only 4 or 5 songs on them and come in around the half hour mark (apart from Atomic Bomb where nearly all the tracks are 7 or 8 minutes long (or longer) so 9 CDs is not that excessive.

There's also 2 versions of the same album (Crashes In Love) which he released a couple of years apart.

live show absolutely blew me away

Agreed that the BAM show was very special. Unabashedly joyful. I was on the fence about the lp boxsets but will probably take the plunge.

i don't really see how it is "excessive" given that it's most of his discography and i assume people are interested in the whole discography... i also assume that the albums will be "unbundled" and released separately at some point, as these things always are.

still curious to know if these are going to be very professionally done needledrops or what. the versions out there in the blogosphere are pretty scratchy, but i've almost grown fond of that aspect of them.

you don't get why i wouldn't want to spend $15 rather than $50?

huh?

there's already a best-of comp. that came out last year.

?

ok. i bought the best of. i liked it. i would like to explore some more william onyeabor because i liked the best of. but i don't want to buy his entire discography for the princely sum of $50. guess i am just a big old weirdo!

$chooled

#brokeboi

there's only like two great songs on the Who Is comp, anyhow. if the albums have more stuff like "good name", i'm in. But if it's just more rote amateurish afrobeat ehhhh i'll pass.

sorry, i meant rote amateurish afrobeat with ~zany synths~

This is probably one of his best tracks that didn't make the comp (apart from the vinyl version):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Yb7NAEft8

there's only like two great songs on the Who Is comp, anyhow. if the albums have more stuff like "good name", i'm in. But if it's just more rote amateurish afrobeat ehhhh i'll pass.

what's the other great song (besides good name) in your opinion? i happen to love them all but i also don't think of him as someone who was trying to make afrobeat music

it's gotta be atomic bomb right? that's my fave.

"Body and soul" is the other one I like. Don't like "Atomic Bomb" at all.

Hot Chip's cover of atomic bomb is the best thing from this compilation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59aXNmdUIPw

Been a big fan of his music since listening to him on the Nigeria 70 compilation. If I were a producer I would keep sampling his music, has anyone famous done it? It shouldn't be long. 'Better change your mind' and "body and soul" are very sample-worthy.

I don't love the original 'atomic bomb' but Hot Chip's version changed my mind.

I'm vice versa: love the original and the hot chip version made me question what it was about the song that moved me in the first place. then i relistened to onyeabor's version and remembered.

Weren't they going to do a "Deluxe" 2CD version of the comp with the vinyl only tracks included, or was that idea dropped? Also it is a slightly odd release strategy to go from just that to pushing out all his albums as large box sets.

Anyway - 'Something You Will Never Forget' is one of the more "afrobeat" of the tracks on the comp and it's bloody brilliant, amauterish or not.

How can you not like 'Atomic Bomb'?!?! What?!

(By which I mean the original. The very words "Hot Chip version" make me cringe.)

"When the going is smooth..." track posted above is amazing. thanks for posting it.

good name > when the going is smooth&good > everything else

and so on and so forth