Gil Scott-Heron‘s first album in 15 years is called I’m New Here, and it is the result of an odd but fortuitous meeting between XL Recordings founder Richard Russell, and the man who has been called the godfather of hip-hop. In 2006, the then fifty-seven year old musician and poet, Gil Scott- Heron, was serving a prison term at Ritgers Island for cocaine possession and parole violation when Russell decided to take a chance on meeting his long time hero. Russell suggested the two collaborate on a project. Initial recordings for I’m New Here began after Scott-Heron’s release in 2007, but really moved forward in earnest over the last twelve months. The result is a stunning and strong master-work from an artist whose unflinching look at the under-side of American life is the result of his own harrowing journey through the pitfalls of the urban nightmare.CONTINUE READING
STREAMING MEDIA LINKS:
VIDEO: Gil Scott-Heron “Me and the Devil” XL Recordings
BUY MP3 ON iTUNES
VIDEO: The xx “VCR” XL Recordings
BUY MP3 ON iTUNES
VIDEO: Times New Viking “Born Again Revisited” Matador Records
WANT SOME VINTAGE GIL SCOTT HERON? YOU GOT IT!! YouTube Selections Follow…
Gil Scott-Heron “The Bottle” 1974
Gil Scott-Heron “Angel Dust” 1981
“Storm Music-The Gil Scott-Heron Story” BBC Four
While you’re at it sign up for our podcast series at these places: iTunes, Podcast.com, and Podcast Alley…to get new independent music videos from Sub Pop, Matador, 4AD, Kill Rock Stars, etc…
Born in Chicago in 1949, Gil Scott-Heron was soon delivered into the care of his maternal grandmother, Lillie Scott, and spent his early chidlhood in Jackson, Tennesse. These formative years under her guidance seem to have nurtured his poetic gifts and indomitable spirit, and references to her can be found throughout his best work. I’m New Here‘s first track “On Being From A Broken Home” is a sort of celebration of otherness, and opens with Scott-Heron intoning, “I want to make this a special tribute/to a family that contradicts the concepts/heard the rules but wouldn’t accept”; and of his grandmother he says, “I loved her from the absolute marrow of my bones/and we was holdin’ on/I come from a broken home.”
Lillie Scott died the night JFK was elected. Gil Scott Heron was thirteen years old, and from there he moved with his mother to the Bronx where he attended a private high school having received a scholarship on the merits of his writing. Later, he would go on to attend Lincoln University, where his hero Langston Hughes had earned his BA, but would eventually take a year off to write and publish his first novel, The Vulture, in 1970. That year he would also begin his recording career, releasing the LP, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, with long time jazz producer and Flying Dutchmen Records owner, Bob Thiele. That album would also begin Gil Scott-Heron’s career long collaborations with his college mate, pianist Brian Jackson. The two would go on to release nine albums through the 70’s, with work like Winter In America, with it’s super-charged “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, becoming the blue print for the later social and politically motivated raps of hip-hop artists like Chuck D or KRS 1.
I’m New Here is the kind of unique and strong work that only comes around once every ten years, or so. Hard won wisdom seems to drip from Gil Scott-Heron’s voice, and he gazes upon the hardest truths with laser-like clarity. In addition, collaborator Richard Thompson has created a perfectly understated and menacing electronic tapestry of glitches and beats, a shadowy night city for Scott-Heron’s nocturnal wanderings. The track “Me and the Devil” seems out for bad times, and after an initial wrong turn down a dead-end alley bursts out into the night looking for scores and hook-ups, led on by a lurching Portishead-like beat and bass line. “Your Soul and Mine” slithers under the black wings of hovering strings while mechanized, barely sentient beats scavenge what human warmth they can find. The album even takes it’s name and contains a curious and faithful cover of Smog’s “I’m New Here”, with Scott-Heron’s voice and the single guitar sounding as stripped down as any recent Bill Callahan recording!
File Under: Must Have Social Document!!
Also up this week for your viewing pleasure, the new video for the song “VCR” from The xx! Understated pop elegance is matched visually by director Marcus Soderland‘s acute minimalist eye! And Times New Viking‘s scuzz saturated “Born Again Revisited” is adorned with eye scrappings under the direction of Pelham Johnston and Brandon Reichard. Enjoy, kiddies.
