Chelonis R Jones

is it not "emotions run like a tap"?

i don't know

emotions run like a child?

emotions run like.......carl lewis???

sometimes I think it's "emotions run like a trial".

it definitely isn't tap actually, maybe I just made that up to try and make sense. it does sound like "towel".

VOWELS MANGLED AT NIGHT??!!?

"I roley luuve yooeeeaaha"

VIALS MINGLED ALL NIGHT?

All this makes it quite ironic that the consensus on "I Don't Know" is that it has great lyrics!

I do think his lyrics are great, but mainly for the way he wraps them around the beat, and this is especially true on "One and One". I mean like, "One and One" is seriously electrohouse's "Your Love"!

Does that make "Blackout" electrohouse's "Baby Wants to Ride"? I'll definetely agree with the "One and One" statement at least.

I really should start a great House-style lyricist (that can't be right) thread.

Can anyone tell me about DJ Remo ft. Chelonis R Jones - "Black Sabrina"?

Yeah it's quite dry and techy, I'm not mad keen on it but it is quite good, the vocal is sort of crazy. I bought it on sight practically, but have never played it.

He did a thing with Oliver Huntemann that's just out, "Terminate The Fire", and it's not amazing I didn't think.

the lyrics to Black Sabrina are great as well!

Black Sabrina aint just a female, she's a movement
Shapes and defines a whole new territory thunder, duh, with an "a"
She ain't about actions, she's the ultimate action, mmm hmm
By the time you gave her directions she was already there
Black sabrina will dabble into the wells of the he-she-she-he islands
Dig pyscho sexual
She won't make any promises she can not keep, no
She laughs at your stupid titles of names,
She talks of sexuality, mentality, mortality

Black as a definition of death
Black as Langston Hughes, a space odyssey
Black as a stigma, as a lecture, as a volume, nah

She's phallic pictoral, a vaginal cave with teeth
There are rumor of her non being, inhumanity, unself
There are legends of an inner whiteness, brightness, uptightness
Black Sabrina never pushes nor shooves
She's a foot up your ass
She then questions why you walk so funny,
And utters "punk bitch" under her rum tinted breath
Black Sabrina is a poem, she don't give a damn about your disco dancing, designer prancing, showoffish bullshit.
She already knows what she's about, worth and what she will always add up to.
She might not even be a she
He might not even be a he
Black Sabrina is a fucking riddle, myth, legend, voodoo sorcery
Black Sabrina ain't even urban royal, ain't even intellectual, nor religious
Black Sabrina probably ain't even black
She's periwinkle psychedelic
She was there when the ultimate blackout arrived
Do you like her better in jeans?
Do you like her better in jeans?
Do you like her?
Yeah you do
Yeah you do
Yeah you like her
She was there when the ultimate blackout arrived
She's a movement
A movement.

almost as good as Lenny Kravitz 'Black Velveteen'!

OMG.

Fucking hell this album is great, and I'm only halfway through it!

(so so many thanks to Toby for hooking me up)

arno from booka shade sez the lyric is "emotions rung like a towel / vowels dangled and knived"

Ooooooh!

i assume he means "wrung".

I like those lyrics

still loving this.

me too. so far get physical are 3 for 3 on the albums front. i think booka shade is my favorite, but this album has been a huge grower.

i dunno, there are moments, but it seems hugely uneven to me. i always want to like get physical more than i actually do.

I can't get into Booka Shade or Dj T. all that much. I like the mixes and I like Chelonis, though.

i agree about the uneven quality, but that's part of it's charm. i think i would call it idiosyncratic before uneven actually. the first few times through i didn't like it at all. the lyrics are really good. to each their own of course. i think it's the spliffed out production that i like the most (same goes for booka shade, but i guess that goes without saying).

the singles do feel a bit out of place in the context of the rest of the album. synthpop-tastic vs. art damaged funk.

I think MANDY is the best, certainly the most radically good anyhow, DJ T has a string of really good sort of "floorworker" type records with that trademark GPM disco beat but I'm not sure he's the equal of the best MANDY tracks, I dunno. Am I wrong in saying "Body Language" is in the top 5 best GPM tracks? Maybe even top 2 or 3?

I still think Vince-Superworld (DJ T Dub), on Art of Disco is DJ T's best track. Check that out if you've not heard it Adam.

Booka Shade often sell themselves a little short with their own work, touching on overly retro sort of deep techno/tech-house, like say the Juan Maclean remix. It's very good but not amazing maybe. Though "Vertigo" and "Mandarine Girl" are both about as good as it gets. I never fully got into the album. Though I wouldn't say I'm fully into the Chelonis album either, I still think the best ones are the ones he had released already. Maybe I'll get into it.

The "Body Language" mix I like more and more with each listen, I don't know if I can overstate how good I think it is. It's up there with the best mix CDs I've ever heard I think. It changes direction so seamlessly, sometimes without even mixing. My only gripe is perhaps it's a tiny bit dry in the opening 7 or 8 tracks and I WISH they didn't use that Slam Wighnomys track, cos of the awful vocal. The Triola Polar Zipper thing would be so much better.

Everytime I sell a copy to someone who has no idea about Get Physical and buys it from hearing it on the shop system (and that's alot of times, to all sorts of people) my faith in humanity is restored.

best thing for me is still the get physical 2nd anniversary mix

yes!

Yeah I mean I think I rate that as highly as "Body Language" but it's not a mix in the same way really, it being all their stuff.

Maybe it is actually!

i love how the body language mix changes directions, too. it reminds me of what tiefschwarz did for their misch masch mix, but bl really succeeds where mm feels continuous, but dry/over-engineered and almost aimless.

"mandarine girl" is one my favorite gp tracks ever for sure.

"but dry/over-engineered and almost aimless."

Yes! "Aimless" is precisely the word to describe what bugs me a bit about that Tiefschwarz mix.

just goes to show that track selection is only one component of a good mix...

holy shit. I missed out on this Chelonis bizness by obsessing over Luciano/Villalobos/Two Lone Swordsmen type minimalism but i downloaded a lowfidelity mp3 of Justus' vocal remix of I Don't Know and i can't stop listening to it. It's like the first time i heard the 12" of Your Life by Charles Webster. Must find Chelonis LP and Get Physical Mix NOW!

anyone know of any Seattle shops carrying these?

This just in: Chelonis is k-razy! I'm really going to enjoy writing up my interview with him.

I still think he reminds me of Terence Trent D'arby

http://www.sanandamaitreya.com/interviews/ttd_sans_ego.html

http://www.askmen.com/toys/interview_100/111_terence_trent_darby_interview.html

Hopefully it makes up for your Superpitcher interview.

Is it true that he is originally from California? And if so - what part of California?

I dont love the Chelonis album but I like it.
Body Language is good but almost too diverse for me.
How much do you guys recommend the Booka Shade album? I'm deciding whether 20.99$ is too much to pay for a CD I could potentially acquire when I get broadband again.

Definitely glad I paid for 2nd Anniversary Mix aka the CD I cannot stop listening to. By far my favorite thing in this whole vein; I like it more than the Mei Lwun mix, even, if just because the aesthetic is so consistent throughout. (Mei Lwun got a liiiiittle tacky at the end of the mix I thought, although the beginning is perfect.)

i rate the booka shade album, but i think the other usual suspects here weren't so hot on it. i would say that it sits right in the middle between chelonis's album and dj t's album. not every cut is 4/4 and parts of it sound kind of blunted and paranoid (in a good way!), but some parts are also the opposite of that. really nicely produced...

Deej I definitely think you would like the Music For Freaks See You @ the Party mix.

Stick with Body Language, I think it's an album that really grows with relistens, and the stuff that initially seems quite abstract (like the Guido Schneider "On & On" remix) eventually seems really catchy and populist! Sorta.

Actually one odd thing is that each time I've heard one of the tracks on the mix in another context, I've gone back and loved that part of the mix a lot more.

The Booka Shade album is v. good, worth it for the astonishing opening track "Vertigo" alone, though I also really like "Double Identity", "Memento", "Something Physical" and a few others heaps. It could do with a few more anthem tracks though (one of the most anthemic tracks on the vinyl, "Ain't Got Much To Lose", was left of the CD version).

I sometimes start "Body Language" at track 9 or 10, to avoid that Slam vocal! And cos it's about a 40 minute journey to work and I don't want the entire build up intro and no pay off!

tim so right about "vertigo"

Also recently I've been adoring the Afrilounge remix of the track "Body Language", which I had initially kind of dismissed. It's totally hypnotic.

wait - tim, i've been waiting for a day and an hour to hear how k-razy chelonis is. please enlighten the people.

"The last decade has been a tough time for house vocalists. Oh, there’s a steady trade in brassy divas delivering shrill proclamations of ecstasy over brisk disco-house grooves; what has been sidelined is the Chicago house tradition (think Jamie Principle or Robert Owens) of evocative and seductive personalities delivering showstealing performances that run the gamut from heartbreaking to creepy; only old stalwarts such as Aaron Carl and Romanthony have been left to fly the flag.

Which made Chelonis R Jones’ emergence on Germany’s Get Physical label last year feel like quite an event: with a brace of anthem-ready tracks such as the bouncy falsetto One & One, the catty spoken word Blackout! or the devastating ballad I Don’t Know, Chelonis quickly established himself as the pre-eminent diva in a scene whose Chicago house revivalism has tended to the dry and techy side. Not that he necessarily likes this label:

“Chelonis R. Jones is an entirely different can of beans altogether! I have dangerous depth to my concept. I started as painter/novelist! This has nothing to do with diva, it's a fact! There is no one in vocal house singing the shit I'm singing; most don't have the balls, anyway! They keep going on about "everyone must be free"/"peace and harmony is the key" blah blah blah! I am a special case: I lived on the streets, for crying out loud!”

On his first album – bearing the unsurprisingly portentous title Dislocated Genius – Chelonis puts distance between himself and the diva with a succession of brittle, paranoid electro grooves and deadpan performances that recall Green Velvet, although again, such comparisons are not particularly welcome. This side-swerve into alienated eccentricity was a deliberate move for Chelonis:

“I was in a hospital to treat my wars with manic depression. I am well aware of my blessings and my curses; everything has its price! That's why my CD is quite dangerous to the average disco club singer... People can take a single look into my eyes, and just feel that I've been through it and mean every word and action! The public is not so stupid as most attest! I chose to keep the shady parts, even the mistakes, and paid close attention to leaving it all in the mix; that is the ultimate secret of Dislocated Genius. I chose not to polish/censor/whitewash or perfume my debut! I did nearly everything to get the CD adored, despised or banned.”

“I come from an extreme 70's/80's indie rock background, and this accentuates my eccentric position in vocal electro-pop. Until last year, I had no idea who Green Velvet was! I listened to no dance or electronic music whatsoever while working on Dislocated Genius... I just kept it harshly real, which most others aren't daring to do. I could've just sat back and sold my ridiculous face: people always compare me to the same 4 black musicians all the time. You know who they are! It gets tiring...flattering, but still tiring.”

Chelonis’s insistence on his own uniqueness perhaps reflects the convoluted path which has led him to his current incarnation, a path which took him from California to New York to Germany in the pursuit of a variety of vocations: “I was painting and songwriting in rock groups up until the very moment I met the highly charming Arno Kammermeier of Booka Shade; the rest is...history.” Booka Shade, the duo responsible for much of the music produced on the iconic Get Physical label, are Chelonis’s main production foil: “I guess, in a way, they were/are my sound/trend police hahaha. They know what's hot, and obviously what's not. I adore them for helping shape such a respectable start in the electropop ( yes, that's what it is) world. My ideas are presented in demo landscapes, they re-tone the hues and trim pastures.”

Between his already established anthems (“you are so kind to consider them club hits... I still wonder about this”, he avers) and the singular vision of his album, Chelonis is quickly earning the status of hot property, most recently providing guest vocals on the new Royskopp album. But, he insists, this modicum of notoriety hasn’t changed him: “Oh, I'm still the same, still a struggling artist. I don't drink crystal with Diddy… I'll never be number one, I'm not interested. Innovation is the key!”"

Chelonis! He is great! An excited person!

ah, thanks tim!

haha did you plan that setup nate?!

Tim I saw poker flat 4 in dr. wax today - have you heard that yet? I thought about picking it up but decided to wait.