2015-10-08 Belongs in a Cave

Now that's a dwelling

5 Players: K, M, J, W & G
Game: Caverna
Choice: K
Location: K

Waffley, County, Chatty, Angry & Doc

Game One:
G (39 pts), J (37 pts), M (35 pts), W (29 pts) & K (27 pts)

Here Piggy Piggy Piggy

Final Tally:
G was declared this week's victor


Game Notes:

• Game called early (only 9 of 12 rounds played)
• Judging by the used score sheets, it appears that every time we've played this game it was won by either G or S, usually by G

Music Notes:

9 Lazy 9: Electric Lazyland (1999)
 

It doesn't get much lazier

[Notes from AllMusic.com] The second album from 9 Lazy 9 goes deeper into the dark, jazzy world of the duo's debut. If there's one thing to set apart James Braddell and Keir Fraser's brand of cool, jazzy trip-hop, it's the quirkiness and a feeling that things could go very wrong at any moment. "B Hip & Shop" has an uplifting sax riff but noisy rattlings and shifts bring the Residents to mind. The sampled female voice on "Very Gently" could be chanting either transcendental meditation text or instructions for slow torture. The music fits, bending the jauntiest tunes and melodies and backing them up with echoing keyboards and shuffling dark beats. Braddell and Fraser must have quite a collection of golden-age Blue Note and Verve to sample from. They don't do much with Thelonious Monk's "Monk's Dream," but generally their samples and the wall of sludge constructed around them are cool and crafty.



Gabin: Gabin (2002)

Gabin: Not at all pretentious

[Notes from AllMusic.com] Milky, silken rhythms lace through this collaboration between Roman DJ Filippo Clary and jazz bassist Max Battini. Their perspectives find accord in the realm of what martini-addled old-timers might label "acid jazz." Electronic timbres are tactile and smooth, guest vocals by Ana Carril Obiols of Mano Negra and Joseph Fargier waft forth from washes of reverb, drum tracks move sensuously from the space-age bossa nova of "Sweet Sadness" to the impish manipulations of "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" on "Doo Uap, Doo Uap, Doo Uap," whose spelling as well as vibe betray European roots. Though the beat keeps things moving along, it seldom disturbs the texture, which in these appealing performances is just as important -- more so, in fact, on tracks like "Urban Night," on which Stefano Di Battista's soprano sax and Gabin's synthetic strings paint a midnight mood that recalls a much earlier collaboration, between Gerry Mulligan and Beaver & Krause in the primeval days of electronic music. The only exception to this balance of elements is "House Trip," in which crowd noise plays a major role and compensates for the less subtle sound shading. The irony might be that this delirious audience is sampled from somewhere else and looped -- if so, listeners have only themselves to blame for surrendering to this groove as well.