Gil Scott-Heron - I'm New Here (2010)

man that New Yorker piece depressed the hell out of me. beautifully done yeah but I am really bummed to hear that GSH is still on the pipe. cosign on the Los Tigres piece, though, that was completely awesome.

Which issue was that in? Just looked for it on the newsstand and doesn't look like it's in there?

it's from two weeks back with a woman dropping her iphone into a pool cover. can't recommend that piece enough.

this album is astonishing. right now i'm thinking this is the best full-length disc i've heard all year.

Just read the New Yorker piece a few days ago. It's so carefully structured, with that hint of the propane torch at the beginning leading to the heart of the piece.

My favorite GS-H song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDC_ZM48S0Y

is the new yorker piece online at all?

it's not. there's an abstract of it at the site but the whole piece is subscription-only. eazy way otm about the development of it - the first line about the propane torch and you go "no...not full-on like that, please no" and then he leads you into how the whole story panned out for him. hard stuff.

i don't know if this is maybe kinda a quagmire to wade into, but while i dug the piece and like any vehicle for GSH's theorising and rambling, i found the whole thing a bit problematic, in permanently juxtaposing GSH against this mythical, potential-fulfilling alterno-GSH that would exist if he were clean. this isn't a full-on he needs those drugs to create! thing, but it's awkward to me to set a benchmark of where the guy should be at, considering that in some senses, the guy is doing well - he's out, he released a record, he's an expressive guy etc. i don't think i'm just romanticising & compartmentalising how grim it is that he's got a problem, but it felt like the article went full-on towards painting his life as tragic and wasted, when he's still an autonomous guy.

I didn't read it that way. Before I read it a lot of people commented "oh, it's very sad" etc. but it's not totally sad. I thought it was quite fair. Gil Scott-Heron occasionally makes superb music, often smokes crack. And it's still very sad but it didn't feel like a "wasted potential" theme hitting you over the head.

Well, I mean, yeah, I fretted about that some as I read it - but, like, it's one thing to be strung out to the point where you leave your torch laying around. By the end of the interview, though, Heron is openly smoking rock in front of the interviewer. I thought, actually, given the reality of an interview subject openly smoking a crack pipe, the interviewer did a good job of sketching as complex a picture as he could. Autonomous or not, openly smoking crack in front of an interviewer from the New Yorker is way out there on the margins, imo. I mean yeah - he's doing better than he was a while back - but, you know, it's crack. It's just an incredibly destructive, suicidal drug - anybody who's addicted to it is living a pretty tragic life, imo, the more so when it's a titan of American music.

is the new yorker piece online at all?

Wish I had a way to read this... hmmm, anyone have a newyorker.com login I can use? O_O

yeah, it's not sanctimonious, it's only a small thing. it'd be pretty difficult to be open ended enough to keep everything in perspective and not quantify over a few pages.

sick chris cunningham "audio/video remix" of new york is killing me

http://pitchfork.com/news/40202-video-gil-scott-heron-new-york-is-killing-me-directed-by-chris-cunningham/

I'm gonna see his show in three weeks. What's he like live?

954767022
7 months ago 16
im white and im not gonna let the illuminati separate me from black culture and the truth peace yall

this and the grinderman album are the most interesting discs in reaction to -- or bristling against the idea of -- getting older that i've heard in a long time.

two of the best discs of the year imo.

i cant decide how much i 'really like this' vs. 'sounds like a moby rmx album'

I like this, and yes the production sounds like a Moby remix.

But I'm not sure this is up to the standards of Gil Scott from way back (and Daniel, I'm not sure that Grinderman is up to the standards of the Birthday Party)

both albums connect to the middle-aged guy in me (tho I was never a fan of TBP).

So there's a Jamie xx remix record of this out in Feb.:

We're New Here:

01 I'm New Here
02 Home
03 I've Been Me (Interlude)
04 Running
05 My Cloud
06 Certain Things (Interlude)
07 The Crutch
08 Ur Soul and Mine
09 Parents (Interlude)
10 Piano Player
11 NY Is Killing Me
12 Jazz (Interlude)
13 I'll Take Care Of U

I was gonna see him Thursday night in DC (he was scheduled to be in town through Sunday for 2 shows a night at small cozy Blues Alley) but he just cancelled due to "illness"

pretty sure the guy has an "illness", but uh huh that sucks. a friend just saw him and got talking to a guy who'd gone to see him five times ... and had never seen him.

he should do a tour with Sly

they could both get paid and no one would have to show up!

at least sly's been doing that since the 70s

So there's a Jamie xx remix record of this out in Feb.:

oh i heard this, it's ok then it gets really great at the end

with a rui da silva sample, no less

Sad and pissed off that this album isn't on more year end lists.

DJ Crudderz was saying something similar today!

Yes - not sure if it's because people really think that it shouldn't make their top ten, or whether it's just faded into the mists of time thanks to its early 2010 release...? Either way, yes, sad about the lack of love for GSH.

it's made several magazines' EOY lists. personally, it faded away for me and i didn't end up going back to it much - one of those records i admire more than love.

Reviewing the remix album (which I love) sent me back to I'm New Here. What there is of it is so good I feel like it should be Top 10 but then it just stops - there's not enough there, especially given the fact there were other good session tracks that only appeared on the vinyl version. But it is damn good.

i was really sceptical about the remix album - kind of like, it has good beats and good sounds, but i didn't really see the point of it - it almost seemed a bit cynical. why remix that particular album other than that the idea is a critical banker and you're on the same label? what does it add to the original album? the original was dark, moody, menacing; so is the remix album. and for a lot of it, the music wasn't quite good enough to justify it. then it got really really amazing in the last 15 minutes, so, yeah.

couldn't help but compare it to the cassie remix compilation that local action has just released though (producers inc altered natives, slackk, 8bitch, brackles, lunice, jacques greene taking on various cassie songs) - that feels like an actual labour of love for a one-hit-wonder babydiva that most of the rest of the world has forgotten. rather than a bid for cred set up by a record label that doesn't actually take too many risks.

it was funny going to the playback though, all these very serious young men looking very serious and occasionally nodding their head, and then that vague ripple of confusion when the rui da silva sample came in, and you could tell none of 'em recognised it.

Have you heard it since the playback? The subtlety grows on you, like the way he sets up a dialogue between Gil and Gloria Gaynor on I'm New Here. And I love the Burial-style ghosts-of-rave vibe that he applies to deep house and mid-90s drum'n'bass. I agree that the motive might have been a little cynical but I honestly think it stands up as a companion piece to the original.

i haven't, must remember to ask for a copy. yeah i expect it will grow on me, i didn't dislike any of it, it's just...a companion piece is all it is, y'know? a curio. when - going by what the various members of the xx have done together and individually - i think it could have been a lot more surprising and risky than just reworking one of the year's most critically acclaimed albums with a different sonic palette but broadly similar mood. i'm sure i will like it, it just seems like the safest thing jamie xx could have done to announce his solo career.

i wonder if the record's suffering critically because it doesn't sound as good as a lot of the content on there. the production doesn't really add a lot. the material on the record, the poems especially, is stronger than the lp versions imo.

I find your take on it a bit cynical Lex, especially since you've only heard it once... I think it's a brilliant album and I didn't feel that way the first two or three times I heard it. "The point" is that its much more coherent and contemporary than the original, which does Gil Scott Heron quite a large favour.

I haven't heard the remix yet, and am wondering what you mean about it being "more coherent" than the original?

And by "contemporary" do you mean that it sounds newer than triphop?

i dont see the point of the remix album - of all the people, why jamie xx? its like those generally pointless modern remix albums of old motown or verve vaults or whatever. id rather hear a live version of the album.

stream of the new remix album: http://bit.ly/1shUwb

Someone could put together the best of the remix stuff with almost all of the original album, plus the vinyl-only tracks, and you'd have a seriously excellent album.

Listening to “We’re New Again- A Reimagining by Makaya McCraven. Not bad . Although listening to it after just hearing songs Pieces of a Man, Your Daddy Loves You, and Home is Where the Hatred Is, makes me sad how his health disintegrated

Although on second thought the comeback vocals are still pretty good, despite the more limited range

Maybe some of you are talking about this on the rolling jazz thread where McCraven gets discussed

it's been briefly mentioned. I actually wanted to start a dedicated McCraven thread, but I've been super busy and have only managed to listen to the GSH project once. I quite liked it, but must admit I'd never heard the original.

Bill Callahan must be amazed at how far "I'm New Here" has traveled via Gil.

Yes. I had forgotten that his 2005 song was covered on the 2010 GSH album.