| | Big Blue Ball Vinyl LP Record
BIG BLUE BALL is an ongoing collaboration shepherded by Peter Gabriel, World Party leader Karl Wallinger, and producer Stephen Hague. The basic tracks for these 11 songs were recorded at Gabriel's Real World studios between 1991 and 1995, during week-long sessions with special guests, including Sinead O'Connor, Tim Finn, Marta Sebestyen, Papa Wemba, Jah Wobble, gospel group the Holmes Brothers, members of Living Colour, Afro Celt Sound System, and dozens of other American, European, Asian, and African musicians. Pieced together and remixed in the 13 years following the last of these sessions, BIG BLUE BALL still sounds primarily like a Gabriel and Wallinger collaboration, with those singer-songwriters' eclectic sensibilities prevailing, although the guest singers and musicians are fully represented as well. BIG BLUE BALL is available as a digital download, a standard CD, a deluxe CD with enhanced packaging, and a vinyl LP.Global Rhythm (Publication) (p.44) - "BBB's voices and instruments float in and out of the 11 songs like fragments of conversations pieced together to create poems." Big Blue Ball Songs | 1. | Whole Thing [Original Mix] - Alex Faku/Big Blue Ball/Francis Bebey/Karl Wallinger/Andy White/Peter Gabriel/Tim Finn (Original Mix) |
| 2. | Habibe - Big Blue Ball/Natacha Atlas/Hossam Ramzy/Neil Sparkes |
| 3. | Shadow - Juan Canizares/Big Blue Ball/Papa Wemba |
| 4. | Altus Silva - Big Blue Ball/Deep Forest/Iarla O Lionaird/James McNally/Joseph Arthur/Ronan Browne/Vernon Reid |
| 5. | Exit Through You - Big Blue Ball/Joseph Arthur/Karl Wallinger/Peter Gabriel |
| 6. | Everything Comes From You - Big Blue Ball/Guo Yue/Joji Hirota/Sevara Nazarkhan/Sinead O'Connor/Richard Evans |
| 7. | Burn You Up, Burn You Down - Arona N'diaye/Big Blue Ball/Jah Wobble/Peter Gabriel/The Holmes Brothers/Wendy Melvoin/Billy Cobham |
| 8. | Forest - Arona N'diaye/Big Blue Ball/Hukwe Zawose/Levon Minassian/Vernon Reid |
| 9. | Rivers - Big Blue Ball/Karl Wallinger/Marta Sebestyen/Vernon Reid |
| 10. | Jijy - Arona N'diaye/Big Blue Ball/Jah Wobble/Rossy |
| 11. | Big Blue Ball - Big Blue Ball/Karl Wallinger/Manu Katche/Peter Gabriel |
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Big Blue Ball Review
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Purchase Big Blue Ball CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Owl City Of June CD (2008)
Big Blue Ball album
 $7.69  
One can imagine that the childhood of Minnesota-born songwriter and electronica artist Adam Young consisted of spending a lot of time alone in his room fiddling with home recording equipment, listening to Postal Service albums, and writing songs. OF JUNE tells that story in sound. Released under the name Owl City, Young crafts warm, wide-eyed indie pop against electronic backdrops. Young's confessional lyrics and emo-tinged sensibility keep things plenty human; in fact, the usually cold and calculated sound of electronica is all but dissolved in the songwriter's open-hearted approach.
Owl City: Adam Young.
| | Samantha James Rise CD (2007)
Big Blue Ball CD music
$12.19
Although Los Angeles singer/songwriter Samantha James claims 1980s cocktail-pop singers Sade and Basia as two of her primary influences, her debut album, Rise, sounds as if her true heart lies in that period in the mid-'90s when those singers' contemporaries Everything But the Girl lost their taste for twee U.K. indie guitar pop and jazzy torch songs and transformed themselves into a downtempo electronica act. It was a transformation that worked surprisingly well, not least because Tracey Thorn's smoky, wine-dark vocals and Ben Watt's knack for languid minor-key melodies both suited the style unexpectedly well. Samantha James is no Tracey Thorn, and her songwriting and production partner Sebastian Arocha Morton is no Ben Watt, but albums like Walking Wounded are no embarrassment as musical touchstones, and James doesn't embarrass herself in her re-creation of the style. The best songs, like the dreamy "Enchanted Life," the lushly tropical "Rain," and the bossa nova-influenced "I Found You," a duet with Celso Fonseca, are those that leave the dancefloor in favor of those dark, intimate banquettes in the quiet corners, where James' honeyed voice and the duo's fondness for mellow late-night atmospheres are best suited. On the more overtly dance-oriented tracks, like "Breathe You In" and "Living Without You," James sounds like just another anonymous dance club diva, and the '80s-throwback rhythm boxes don't help her cause. ~ Stewart Mason
Audio Mixers: Sebastian Arocha Morton; Uli Kaiser.
Recording information: Cyborg Studios, Malibu, CA; Olympia Studios, Oxford, England; Rocasound Studios, Burbank, CA.
Personnel: Celso Fonseca (vocals, acoustic guitar); Sebastian Arocha Morton (piano, Fender Rhodes piano, Mellotron, synthesizer, Moog synthesizer); Davey Warf Rat Chegwidden (drums, percussion); Andreas Allen (hi-hat, percussion, programming, turntables).
Additional personnel: Celso Fonseca.
| | Owl City Ocean Eyes Vinyl LP (2009)
Big Blue Ball music CDs
 $15.09 
A surprising and unexpected indie success in 2007, garnering over a million plays on his Myspace page, Minnesota-based songwriter Adam Young is poised for major success with his project, Owl City. A follow-up to MAYBE I'M DREAMING, Young's critically acclaimed 2008 debut as Owl City, OCEAN EYES (2009) finely hones his already prodigious songwriting talents to a pleasing mix of sweetly lovelorn indie pop and electronica-influenced beats.
| | Karunesh Nirvana Cafe CD (2002)
Big Blue Ball songs
$13.45
Karunesh's second album is a pleasant mix of easy-listening pop and smooth jazz. If from that description you suspect this album of synthesizer ballads is laid-back, you'd be right, but there is enough melodic intrigue to keep things interesting. "Dazzled by the Light" is a smooth cha-cha featuring Real Music label-mate Govi on lead guitar. (He also shows up on the jazzy "Blessings Rain," and lays down a Spanish-style solo in "Follow Your Heart."). "The Peace Within" plays like one of John Tesh's more uplifting ballads. The best composition here is "Sapphire," an engaging slice of melodicism with flute-like voicing and infectious percussion.
8th Rel;Feat.Govi On Guitar
Audio Mixer: Karunesh.
Recording information: Global Spirit Music, Maui, HI.
Arranger: Karunesh.
Karunesh includes: Karunesh, Govi.
Personnel: Govi (guitar).
| | Mindless Self Indulgence If CD (2008)
Big Blue Ball album
$11.05 
IF continues the punky attitude, adolescent fixations, and genre splicing and dicing Mindless Self Indulgence does so well. Unlike the album's predecessor, FRANKENSTEIN GIRLS WILL SEEM STRANGELY SEXY, there's less of an overt rap-rock influence here, and more of a wiry punk and new wave feel. Naturally, lead singer Jimmy Urine is still singing about prescription drugs and erectile dysfunction. But the cranked-up, crunchy guitars and in-your-face production of IF give even more snark and bite to a band that's never lacked for snark and bite. The set includes a bonus disc of live material.
Mindless Self Indulgence: Jimmy Urine (vocals, programming); Steve, Righ? (guitar, programming); Lyn-Z (bass guitar, background vocals); Kitty (drums, background vocals).
| | Amethystium Odonata CD (2001)
Big Blue Ball CD music
$12.75
This is the debut album from Amethystium which received a groundswell of support from online listeners, to the tune of a half million downloads before its official release. The album is attributed to Oystein Ramfjord, a composer from Norway who makes ambient electronic music full of mystifying sounds. The opening song, "Opaque," begins with an incredible underwater sonar pulse that makes way for passages of Indian vocals that are very reminiscent of Deep Forest. In fact, most songs employ well-crafted samples of ethnic music from disparate regions. These are held together by a steady synth percussion and sweeping vocals. The speaker phasing on "Enchantment" is particularly effective when listeners are wearing headphones, allowing the rich drones and sparkling tabla patterns to become multi-dimensional. "Arcane Voices" uses Gregorian sounding chants cloaked in danceable rhythms. The intriguing packaging has no information about the sound sources or participants, opting instead for a silver dragonfly. Meticulously cobbled together, Amethystium's montage transports the listener to evolving sonic realms.
Amethystium: Oystein Ramjford.
| | RE Mnant Vinyl LP (2001)
Big Blue Ball music CDs
$12.49
To most, the idea of a continually skipping CD doesn't quite qualify as a pleasurable listening experience, but, on Mnant, Montreal's RE: (aka Aden Evens and Ian Ilavsky) revel in it. By assembling the broken tones of digital failure, they create a rhythmic phase-shifting cacophony, reminiscent of Godspeed!'s elusive moments of quietude. Even knowing full well that all distortions are intentional, one cannot help from looking up to make sure the counter is still running smoothly on the CD player. RE: quickly graduates from a tedious glitchfest to more spacious instrumental exuberance, employing spare strings and guitar to form skeletal melodies -- a rather quick crossover to the post-rock genre. All sounds are foreboding, dark, and industrial, without being over-the-top in any instance. They may sound bleak and nocturnal but one would be hard pressed to file them alongside Throbbing Gristle and the like. Perhaps having each of the track titles ("Scue," "Solute," "Cipe," etc.) eventually form fuller words when attached to the prefix RE:, suggests a compartmentalization of the musicians' intentions. Their work certainly appears rather detached from the realm of human interaction. What's suspect is that the record, the duo's only release, took three years to produce. Is this the intense, ongoing work of very meticulous noodling, or simply a thrown together collection of nonchalant hobbying? ~ Ken Taylor
| | Salako Musicality Vinyl LP (2007) (Import)
Big Blue Ball songs
$22.85
Track Listing of songs: Bird And The Bag; Green Is The Colour Of Evil; Come Follow Me; Truth In Me; Cloning Of Fudadeg Ulag; Arts And Crafts; Devil's Feet Lullaby; Look Left; Look Right; Maybe We Will Find The Divine Cult; Do It Yourself; Waiting And Thinking; Bedtime Astronomy; Finger Exercise No 1; Cult Of Winter; I'll Be There; Magicality;
| | Geto Boys Foundation Vinyl LP (2005)
Big Blue Ball album
$13.79
2005's THE FOUNDATION marks the return of Houston, TX kings of controversy the Geto Boys, and reunites all three longstanding members--Scarface, Willie D., and Bushwick Bill--after nearly a decade. The record stays true to the complex, conflicted, horror-drenched world the trio conjured up in its early days, with the music recalling the group's heyday of stark albums such as WE CAN'T BE STOPPED. There's a wisdom in the Geto Boys sticking to beats virtually unaltered since the late1980s; considering that their style informed most of the sounds coming out of the South in the early 2000s, it comes across as more princely than dated.
Part of the threesome's genius lies in the ability to shift from the darkest scenes of graphic violence to moments of absolute silliness, exemplified by the first two tunes of THE FOUNDATION, the uncompromising "Declaration of War" and playful single "Yes, Yes, Y'All." For all of their schizophrenic fire, the Geto Boys are also good at exploring the flawed features of their own minds with a disarming tenderness, and both "I Tried" and "Leanin On You" echo with a surprising sincerity.
| | AZ Sit 'Em Back Slow / This Is WH Vinyl LP (2007)
$6.75 | | Joe Budden Gangsta Party (Feat. Nate Dogg) Vinyl LP (2005)
$7.69 | | Palm Skin Productions Magnetic North Vinyl LP (2008) (Import)
Big Blue Ball CD music
$14.29
Track Listing of songs: Wonderful Thing; Wonderful Thing; Magnetic North;
| | Marvin Gaye I Want You Vinyl LP (1976) Reissue
Big Blue Ball music CDs
$16.75
Another in a series of superb wandering groove albums from the premier sweet soul singer. He took the standard three-minute pop soul song and expanded the format. It is Gaye that is responsible for today's smooching urban R&B; he was for much of his career many years ahead of the game. This has been described as his "oral sex" album, not that the others were not; this has the erotic edge. Built around the title track, the album is a theme album and as such should be played as a whole. There are no "Too Busy Thinking Bout My Baby's" on this; it is a much more challenging but satisfying work.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
Recorded at Motown Studios and Marvin Gaye Recording Studios, Los Angeles, California.
Recorded at Motown Studios & Marvin Gaye Recording Studios, Los Angeles, California.
Personnel: Marvin Gaye (vocals); Malvin "Wah Wah" Ragin, Ray Parker, Jr, David T. Walker, Dennis Coffey, Jay Graydon (guitar); Sonny Burke, John Barnes, Jerry Peters (keyboards); Chuck Rainey, Wilton Felder, Ron Brown, Henry Davis (bass); James Gadson (drums); Gary Coleman, John "Jack" Arnold, Bobbye Jean Hall, Eddie "Bongo" Brown (percussion).
| | Moby Wait For Me Vinyl LP (2009)
Big Blue Ball songs
$17.49
Following the decadent, club-style excursions of 2008's HOTEL, Moby returns for a more contemplative sound on the melancholic WAIT FOR ME. Working through deeply personal material and a more intimate, though at times cinematic, sound palette, the album ranks as among his best in over 10 years.
Moby's most unified and understated album, and all the better for it, WAIT FOR ME is a morose set of elegantly bleary material, quite a shift from the hedonistic club tracks of LAST NIGHT. Dominated by instrumentals, "Shot in the Back of the Head" is the most evocative of the bunch, seemingly pulled from an unreleased David Lynch film scored by the Afghan Whigs circa GENTLEMEN--a lament from a dustbowl, full of mournful slide guitar and dewy electric piano. Other than "Mistake"--a glum neo-post-punk rave-up that, despite its cathartic release, remains downcast--Moby leaves the vocals to a series of females (neighborhood chums, apparently) who each contribute to one song. The smoky 3-A.M. gospel whispers from throwback soul singer Leela James on "Walk with Me" steal the show.
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