sleeplab, the brokers, myles and james

lately my fave music to stream at work has been the album-length demo by sleeplab, a project of recent wednesday night wreck room jammers jeffa and fern (and a drummer who's since bailed). this stuff hits like the soundtrack to a movie yr eyes haven't seen yet. some of the "scenes" are arid soundscapes that could, with the addition of a femme vox (like the one in "sambastyle"), take on a portishead-like astringency. others are more wired and fonkier and jostle like the sounds heard behind '70s blaxploitation flicks. atmospheric, evocative, me like a lot.

just heard that the brokers, the young reggae crew fronted by sin-c's drummer adrian, will be at the black dog on saturday, october 1st. they played a solid first-ever show at the ridglea a few months back, opening for ph7, in spite of the fact they were using a fill-in drummer (the original one having bolted...is this beginning to sound like a trend?) and suffering from an overabundance of hats onstage. the good news is that they've solved the drummer problem, have a bunch of new toons _and_ a one-member fedora limit at shows. nice to hear they're getting that hat thing under control.

the first time i met myles hayes, he ran naked across the yard at the old darth vato house. since then, he's become a kind of _avatar of joy_, dancing ecstatically at many a berry street show. myles also fronts a blues-oriented outfit called trouble in mind that includes ex-solomonic/keith wingate trio bassist chuck brown (whose old sectionmate lucas white has found a home in confusatron), and now he has a duo thang with another vocalist, jazz jam stalwart james norris, that could, perhaps, become the fort's own martin & lewis. their cd, empty tables, features top local jazzers (including jaelun washington, jeremy hull, daniel hardaway, and new father wingate his own self) and the release party for it is at the moon this friday.