Triple Mango NL07: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's Record Collection
Pharoah Sanders 🥭 Cindy Lee 🥭 Mountain People 🥭 and some dusty Italian prog rock
Hey there!
I’ve been reading a great book recently (Martyr!) and one of the chapters I read this week really resonated with the essence of sharing and receiving music, as well as the importance of human/friend recos vs the algorithm.
In the chapter, the protagonist is having a dream in which his imaginary brother, Beethoven, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are having an esoteric conversation that meanders into Kareem losing his prized collection of thousands of vinyl records in a house fire in 1983.
True story, and many of the records were incredibly rare jazz records handed down by his parents, his dad being a Julliard-trained jazz musician who played Carnegie Hall and his mom an accomplished choir singer in NYC and Philadelphia.
“It’s like the background to your life”
Following the fire, Lakers fans from across the country began gifting Kareem all sorts of records by sending them to the Lakers front office or handing them directly to him on the road. In the book, the lightly fictionalized version of Kareem tells Beethoven:
“Imagine that a bunch of people who’d never met you, for whom you’re just a myth, began sending you art you loved, or the art they loved, the art they thought you might love too. An old woman sending a bunch of old standards. Or an eight-year-old boy sending you his prized Monkees record. Imagine how that might contribute to your sense of amongness. To your sense of earth being the right place for you.”
The rest of the conversation is more cynical and the subsequent chapters veer a bit darker, but the sentiment regarding the hidden undercurrent of feelings of togetherness, or as ‘Kareem’ puts it ‘amongness’, that comes from sharing art, music, or love for such things with friends or strangers is a nice little nugget to Mango this week. A definition of the mission.
Here’s what I’ve been listening to and digging up 🥭🥭🥭
Album: Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee (2024)
Another slammer out of ‘the Canadian Riviera’, this time in the form of a 2-hour epic from avant-garde rock’n’roll drag queen Cindy Lee, mysteriously released without fanfare a couple weeks ago via YouTube and GeoCities of all places.
Came across Cindy last year via a feature on a cruisey house track on MoodHut but this is in a whole other lane. Feels like the soundtrack to a cosmic campfire. Anti-algorithm ethos, long-form, immersive runtime. Love to see it. Love to hear it.
Mix: The Do!! You!!! Breakfast Show w/ Charlie Bones - In Memory of Pharoah Sanders (2022)
One of the highlights of the pandemic times was discovering/tuning into NTS every morning for Charlie Bones’ Breakfast Show. A sweet respite that lit many a group chat on fire every morning and sparked that feeling of togetherness when it was needed most.
He’s since launched his own internet radio station over at doyou.world with a deep archive of shows, one standout being this Pharoah Sanders tribute broadcast a couple days after he passed in 2022.
Album: Sassy 009 - Heart Ego (2021)
Forward-thinking, trance-infused electro-pop that I got turned onto via this artsy, eco-conscious ski film crew, The Bunch, out of Stockholm. Ethereal feelers tip to tail.
EP: George Riley - Un/Limited Love (2023)
Ultra versatile artist out of London whose previous release Running in Waves was in heavy rotation last year. Sweet, sultry R&B topped off with a dance floor bomb featuring Hudson Mohawke.
Tune: Mountain People - La Colline (2022)
Giegling-affiliated, ski aficionados out of Switzerland who make some of the most beautiful house tracks I’ve heard as of late. Seeing them last year at Waking Life festival was a peak dance floor moment and I’ve been chasing them around ever since.
Tune: Lone Saxon - Raise By The Island (Running Hot Remix) (2023)
Just about time to start firing up the Balearic library. Warm weather heater from Barcelona’s Balearic Ensemble to put it in motion.
Tune: Dylan Dylan - Sorry (ft Emma Wizz) (2024)
First single from the upcoming LP from rising French producer Dylan Dylan. Emotional garage has been a common thread here and this one ticks all the boxes. Her debut LP on Shall Not Fade from a couple years ago is a vibey long boy too if this is your vibe.
Archive: Lali Puna - I Thought I Was Over That (2004)
Was listening to a radio show from Headache this week and came across a DNTL (Jimmy Tamborello of The Postal Service) remix of this Lali Puna song that is featured on this album/compilation. Been rinsing the whole thing all week. Early aughts experimental electropop in the same vein as TPS and Broken Social Scene.
Archive: Bent - The Everlasting Blink (2003)
Another ‘anytime music’ classic that I keep harping about. From the club to the couch. ‘Beautiful Otherness’ and ‘Magic Love’ are particular standouts but you’ll never go wrong throwing the whole thing on and letting it rip.
Archive: Isabel’s Dream - Monomara (2000)
Discovered the genre ‘Drum & Bliss’ recently which has subsequently led me to a bunch of shoegaze-y crossover albums from the late 90s and early 2000s, this being one of them.
When the streets of Berlin are cold, grey, and wet, as they have been this week, shoegaze always complements the setting, especially stuff like this that leans a bit more ambient and breakbeat-y.
Archive: Sensations Fix - Music is Painting in the Air (1974 - 1977)
One of those diamond-in-the-rough reissues that somehow resurfaces and finds your ear.
DIY Italian prog-rockers who set up shop in Virginia in the early 70s and proceeded to churn out 7 albums in 4 years, the cream of which are featured on this comp. Gorgeous ambient tracks, spaced-out roadtrippers, synth-y prog jams, yacht rockers. Feels like a record that should be a classic.
The Bob Ross-ian album title really brings it all home.
🥭 Here’s a Spotify playlist that has a taste of everything mentioned 🥭
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See ya in a couple weeks for NL08 with more friend features!
Nick
🥭🥭🥭