It started in 2001 with a simple premise: take acclaimed musicians from a shared hometown but very different musical backgrounds, put them in a funky recording studio and have them create spontaneous art. From that humble thought came the Mighty Oak known around the world as the Philadelphia Experiment and hot on its heels the underground classic Detroit Experiment. And now after 4 years of crafty deliberation, ropeadope is breaking out the lab coats once again. We headed back into the studios, setting up shop in NYC and emerged with what is fast becoming the most anticipated record of the year.
Grammy-winning producer Aaron "Ace" Levinson and ropeadope founder Andy Hurwitz have assembled another genre-bending tribute to perhaps America’s greatest cultural crown jewel – Harlem USA. While the musicians were busy recording, ropeadope industries was back in a laboratory of their own, cooking up a line of Harlem based apparel that will celebrate the exuberant spirit of the music.
Visit The Harlem Experiment
Hey Folks! We're taking a two-week break from our regular release
schedule in honor of the Stanley Cup finals, but we'll be back June 15
with the next track - a bizarre remake of Bo Diddley's Who Do
You Love.
So...to tide you over till then, we've compiled eight videos from
production rehearsals at the Capitol Theater and posted them HERE and HERE. You can also download the audio files
for free (yes, free) from the main Kicksville site HERE. We've been getting a LOT of questions
about when we'll be touring again, so read this week's blog about the Capitol Theater gig for the gory details.
Enjoy the videos and MP3s, and we'll see you in two weeks (Go Penguins!)
‘The Singles – Season 2’ is Kicksville’s most cohesive album, a recording featuring primarily the Kicksville City Council and contributions from members far and wide. But in typical Kicksville fashion, the songs on ‘Season 2’ run the gamut of genres, layered with crazy sounds, organic samples and recorded spoken word from legendary poet John Beecher (grandfather to Commissioner Conrad St. Clair).
This Week: Kalamaya: Tani Diakite, the singer on Kalamaya, is from the Wassoulou region of Mali. The language he's singing in is Bambara (also called Bamanakan), and very roughly translated, Kalamaya means "it's not good to fight." The song was built around Tani's melody and kamale ngoni (African harp, like a cora but smaller), but since Tani makes this stuff up on the fly, the final version is very much Kicksville-ized...there isn't much structure to Tani's open-ended jamming/improv.
And forget about getting him to do the same thing twice ;-)
The Music: Tani's melody is incredibly haunting and beautiful - the main goal when arranging this song was to stay out of its way! Andy Ewen's guitar part (the main riff through the song) really adds a nice touch of old-school R&B, and Chris Huntington's flowing Afro-pop lines in the bridge provide an interesting contrast.
Spice it up with some airy synth textures and a 1974 Buick hubcap strapped on top of a snare drum, and you've got a song!
with special guest DON'T BE GLIB 
