Bowing us out this week is former Can keyboardist and  all-round cool dude, Irmin Schmidt with his 1991 track “Le Weekend”. Taken from the album Impossible Holidays, the song is a four and bit minutes of tango-inspired silliness, which let’s face it, all of us need after a loooong week in the office, and with the impending Rapture and all (plus in my case a stinking hangover), a little silliness is good for Friday.

So have a good weekend. Take it away Herr Schmidt!

Irmin Schmidt – Le Weekend

Some usual dub stylings for you today from the acclaimed Japanese percussionist Pecker.  Released in 1980, the LP Pecker Power was the result of the sometime Yellow Magic Orchestra collaborator asking a certain Bob Marley whether he would be interested in recording a dub/reggae album. Bob thought it was a great idea and despite not appearing on the record, he sent his mates Sly & Robbie, Augustus Pablo, Rico Rodriguez, Mikey Chung, Aston Barrett, Earl ‘Wire’ Lindo and Carlton (phew!) down to help out instead.

The record is now considered one of dub’s finest, with its brooding fusion of avant-garde recording techniques with authentic reggae rawness. Jamaica meets Japan with “jammin’” results. (Sorry)

Pecker – Pecker Power Part Two

Taking their cue from Antonin Artuad and his studies of ancient Mexico solar culture, Material’s Ciguri is a dark and warped piece of ‘punk-funk’ disco. Released on Red Records in 1981, this special disco mix 12” combines one wicked bassline from one of the stalwarts of the New York ‘Downtown’ scene, Bill Laswell, with the awesome musicianship of Fred Maher and Robert Quine, resulting in another spooky and avant-garde gem from the maverick Laswell.

Material – Ciguri

Ahh, Yoko Ono. No Surreal Week on a blog would be complete without her. Always remembered by the masses as the bird that split up the Beatles, here at Days Are Numbers however, we regard her as a pioneering female avant-garde artist. But we don’t really have time to get in to that right now and everyone knows who Yoko Ono is, so let’s have a look at her entry in today’s Surreal Singles Club…

Taken from her groundbreaking 1971 album Fly and produced by the avant-garde musician Joe Jones, ‘Hirake’ (or Open Your Box to you and me) was also the B-side to John Lennon’s single ‘Power To The People’. Banned by UK radio for it’s rather risque lyrics, the sonic cacophony of, well, weirdness might have also played a big part of the whole banning thing. Ahem *cough*. As one of my favourite Yoko songs, ‘Open Your Box’ has quite a concise madness about it. It will leave you feeling rather dizzy and give other people a headache. Isn’t that what Surrealism is about or am I getting this all wrong?? You decide!

Yoko Ono – Hirake (Open Your Box)

Hello cool cats and jive turkeys, welcome to Daysarenumbers’ Downtown week! This week we’ll be traveling back in time to late 70s & 80s New York to celebrate one of the most creatively fertile periods of popular music and film.

From the Big Apple to Gotham City, New York has always been one of the most mythologized places in the world, and undoubtedly it’s most influential era was in the seventies and early eighties. Artists, musicians and filmmakers were drawn to the city’s sleazy mystique and found creative freedom within it’s crumbling walls and burnt-out buildings. The Lower East Side of Manhattan was the experimental playground to the free-spirited bohemians and the emerging young art practitioners who gave the area a raw and urgent energy.  Artists, musicians, choreographers, sculptors were likely to be living within a ten-mile area of each other, exchanging ideas, films and performances. A vibrant community was born and so was The Downtown Scene. Best described as ‘noisy but disciplined’, the fusion of sounds and sub-cultures (ranging from disco, post-punk, new wave, hip-hop and avant-garde), that were shared between the dilapidated lofts and cheap warehouse spaces, still seem radical and relevant as ever.

From the music to the films, we’ll be your ultimate Downtown guides. We’ll be zipping from The Kitchen to the Paradise Garage, taking a cab to Max’s Kansas City to CBGB’s and then we’ll catch a movie and head to the Roxy. And hopefully, we’ll squeeze some more in between. So, what are you waiting for? Let’s go Downtown!

But first, here’s a little something to get you in the mood…

Electronic pioneers Can have always been a bit funky. From the disco silliness of I Want More to the hypnotic Vitamin C, the group’s influence stretched further than the usual rock parameters. The band’s experimental sound broke the mould of traditional rock ‘n’ roll. Their use of early synthesizers, avant-garde noises and ground-breaking recording techniques left an indelible mark on modern music. But you guys already knew that.

‘Aspectacle’ first appeared as a vocal, but a Holger Czukay edit transformed the piece into arguably more effective, shorter instrumental for the 1978 album ‘Can’. Influential from the studio to the dancefloor, this piece of free-flowing, off-kilter disco later became a firm favourite of clubs such as the Paradise Garage and the Loft and you can’t get a higher recommendation than that, can you?

Also, check out that brilliant harmonica bit at the beginning. I love that bit.

Can – Aspectacle (Holger Czukay edit)

Not many bands would take creative inspiration from the Jewish Mourners’ Prayer – The Kaddish, but cult avant-garde electro-disco pioneers Gina X Performance did just that with their 1981 song ‘Kaddish’.

Led by the charismatic Gina Kikoine and probably best known for their cult 1979 Quentin Crisp-inspired hit ‘No G.D.M’. This curious oddity ranks as one of my favourite records of all time – and I’m not just saying that to get your attention.

‘Kaddish’ is one of the undisputed highlights from the band’s third album ‘Voyeur’. A mesmerizing, slow-mo disco track with ice cold Teutonic vocals, this is a radical and wonderfully peculiar record that still impresses to this day. It was even featured on Lindstrom’s 2007 Late Night Tales Mix, which only furthers the song’s enduring appeal. Track down a copy of the album if you can. I think LTM re-issued it in 2005 with added bonus tracks, it’s definitely worth splashing your cash on.

I mean, who’d have thought religion could be so bloody cool? Well, apart from the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus and my mate Rich but who else, eh?

Gina X Performance – Kaddish