Little Women is like the human heart. It works on the principles of technicality and electricity. There are four valves that give blood to the heart, which is the technical side. The electrical side is what makes the heart beat. With Little Women you have four individuals; four distinct sounds; four distinct personalities; four distinct perspectives coming together in harmony to make the blood flow. The electricity is a manifestation of these four individuals combining their souls and spirits together in the moment to create the ultimate beating heart. Little Women was formed to put the heart back into the music that we love. These few records below are musicians/recordings we feel that have that special heart quality we strive for in our music.
Madvillian, Madvilliany
I have a love hate relationship with hip-hop, but when I heard Madvillian it was all love. It was the first time I felt I could just listen to a hip-hop record from beginning to end and continue to find new things to dig on. This record combines everything I love: sexiness, rawness, innovation, intelligence, and soul power. MF Doom and Madlib have created a universe with Madvillian that is so attractive it makes me want to put on a metal mask and start making beats. When “Figaro” opened with a jazz organ riff and then dropped into this beat that made me want to shake my ass, I was hooked. Look, you “bubble lipped, subtle lisp midget,” Madvillian is a musical masterpiece that transcended me to my alter-destiny.
Ryan Power, I Don’t Want To Die
Ryan Power is my favorite undiscovered gem of modern American pop music. It’s almost laughable how brilliant his songs are and the fact that no one has yet to release his music. It’s a very embarrassing experience for me to hear Ryan’s music live, as I inevitably end up crying in the way that I imagine I’ll cry on my wedding day, or when my first child is born. His music manages to both stimulate my inner music geek with his adventurous orchestrations and imaginative arrangements while at the same time cutting straight through my brain directly to my emotional center.
Hearing Ryan Power’s music along with a few others (Early Blonde Redhead, The Descendents,) strongly assisted me in moving out of my Bebop Police phase in high school, opening me back up to the full spectrum of music. “I Don’t Want To Die” is his newest release that to me, is his most brutally honest record to date. I’ve already listened to “Mondo Rush” a couple hundred of times. It is simply a masterpiece pop song, while still having elements of extreme strangeness lurking in the background, which is what I love about Ryan’s songs. It’s still uncompromising music even though some of the songs have extreme pop appeal. Ryan should be on the same short list as Syd Barrett, Jim O’Rourke, and Brian Wilson as important songwriters of their respective generations.
Lighting Bolt, Wonderful Rainbow
This record destroyed my ideas of the sonic possibilities in a duo context. The brutality of their sound was completely fresh to my ears, which had been steeped in the often timid nyc downtown improv scene. Too often, music this virtuosic can be weighed down by concept and complexity. And while there are many layers to this music, what grabs me is immediacy and simplicity of their approach.
Morton Feldman, Patterns in a Chromatic Field
I've been really into this album since I acquired it about 6 months. Listening to it all the way through is a big commitment (its one piece for Cello and Piano that goes on for over 80 minutes), but also extremely rewarding. The overall effect of the piece is very powerful and disorienting (for me at least), but in a way thats specific just to this music. On a smaller scale, I like how the slow pacing allows for every sound to occupy its own world, and also that sounds breath in a way that is very revealing of their decay. On a slightly larger scale, the melodies, rhythms, and clusters of notes that comprise the music are really beautiful and creepy in their own right. The Liner Notes have some cool quotes from Morton Feldman, including one that references John McEenroe (its nice to see that Feldman was a fan of tennis).
Download: Little Women, “Throat I” (Off their upcoming album, Throat)
