Brass Trax

This week, we feature a batch of reissues and new albums that hone in on the groove, hearty listening for early winter that will keep you warm at night. A two-disc set from groundbreaking Latin band leader Tito Rodríguez gets the burner started, and Forge Your Own Chains, a new disc of heavy psychedelia greases the pan. New releases from old favorites the Slits and Tony Allen sizzle like collared greens, and a new DJ set from bedroom MC Edan is the dash of Tabasco that makes everything taste right.

Tito Rodriguez

El Inolvidable

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“The Unforgettable” Tito Rodríguez , so named for his gut-wrenching take on the Latin standard “El Inolvidable,” used to be known across New York as the other Tito, Tito Puente’s arch-rival. Like Puente, a percussionist and a bandleader, Rodríguez had the classic Nuyorican backstory—born in P.R. to a Cuban and a Domincan, learned music at an early age, moved to New York as an orphan and eventually rode the Latin tidal wave to local renown—with a tragic twist. He died of cancer in 1973, weeks after an appearance at Madison Square Garden. But salseros have kept his music alive for the ensuing decades, long enough for the rest of us to finally get a chance to catch up. Fania’s new 2-disc collection of Rodríguez’s music, El Inolvidable, gathers together 30 tracks from Rodríguez’s stunning career, from mambo to salsa with the obligatory bolero interludes. The collection should serve as a gateway drug for Latin music newcomers, who can’t help but fall for Rodríguez’s honeyed and versatile voice, famously up to the challenge of any style of music. A comprehensive booklet, in English and Spanish, puts Rodríguez’s achievements in the right context.

Various

Forge Your Own Chains: Heavy Psychedelic Ballads & Dirges 1968-1974

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The new psychedelic comp Forge Your Own Chains is a straight dose of muscle relaxant. Literally. Three tracks in, and the knot in this reviewer’s neck was an unpleasant memory. The tempo is slow and the tone is hippy-dippy, but this is a disc with some heft, a must-have for fans of the genre. Compiled by Egon, one of the vinyl junkies behind Stones Throw Records, it’s marketed as a psych comp for hip hop heads, dudes and dudines who love Eddie Hazel and Jimi Hendrix as much as they do Nas and Spoonie Gee. The album’s philosophy gets an airing in the form of an epigraph from Southern California psychedlicist Damon: “I don’t need anything to build, I don’t need it to get powerful, I just need a groove. I want a groove. Period.”

The cuts are impossible-to-find on vinyl, and only the most stalwart psych collector has them all in reissues. They come from five continents—two of the strongest tracks hail from Iran and Sweden—which gives the record a worldly, survey-like authority, but it’s really nothing more than a well-curated trip through Egon’s favorites. The meticulous liner notes are worth the price of admission alone, and the title track, a heady collision of Velvet Underground and Weather Report from Connecticut mystery man D.R. Hooker, should become a smooth psych standby.

The Slits

Trapped Animal

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Trapped Animal, the first full-length from the reunited Slits, mines contemporary reggae and dancehall for its inspiration. It’s territory that has served frontwoman Ari Up well in the past, like in the skanky rave-up Return of the Giant Slits (1982). And Ari Up should know from dancehall; she’s lived in Jamaica since the 1980s. Tracks from Trapped Animal could more than hold their own on the dancefloor, whether in the dancehall valence (“Lazy Slam”) or in a Euro-hipster mood (“Pay Rent”). The bevy of new musicians—bassist Tessa Pollitt is the only holdover from the original line-up—add a youthful freshness to the sound without attenuating its connection to the band’s oeuvre. The lyrics clunk at times—as they often do with this band—but the personal is still political, and the Slits can still kick your ass.

Jimi Tenor and Tony Allen

Inspiration Information 4

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Finnish reedsman and dance music producer Jimi Tenor ranks somewhere between genius and put-on, which makes his collaboration with Tony Allen, the father of Afrobeat’s beat, such an uncertain prospect. Having spent his formative years in the company of Fela Kuti, however, Allen knows from pranksters, which goes a long way toward explaining the success of this fourth installment of Strut Records’ “Inspiration Information” series.

The series throws an African musician into the studio with a European, and the results on Inspiration Information 4 are suitably international, even if you don’t always know what to make of Berlin rapper MC Allonymous, whose rhymes encompass both Barack Obama and “morning wood.” It’s tempting to say that the best material on this record is the straight-up Afrobeat numbers, but that would ignore the Cymande-like pleasures of “Selfish Gene” or those of the sui generis freakout “Three Continents,” which showcases both Tenor’s short attention span and Allen’s preternatural knack for pounding out the perfect beat.

Edan

Echo Party

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When an interactive, fully multimedia dictionary finally gets going, Edan’s new mixtape Echo Party might be the pop-up theme song for the entry “bananas.” The Boston-bred rapper and producer knows from his old school, a topic he turns to frequently in his candy-colored rhymes. But Echo Party is a DJ’s affair, 30 minutes of mind-bending mixes that plumbs the depths of Traffic Entertainment Group’s back catalogue to expose rarely heard joints from rap’s infancy, mixed together with a dizzying array of effects, synthesizer stabs and deft DJ tricks. The liner notes, which offer a second-by-second play-by-play of the set, claim unequivocally “Serato was used strictly for reel*to*reel phasing emulation”; these are the hands of a DJ who is live, in both senses of the word. But the most striking aspect of the album might be the way Edan juggles his disparate source material and, without saying a single word, makes it sound like 30-minute-long joint from one of his own rap records.

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