Smoota

I had the pleasure of DJing an hour of sexual music from a window in Amsterdam's Red Light District - on Red Light Radio! Listen below!

Listen to yesterday's show on East Village Radio! I curated some Sexxxy Soundtraxxx for Devon Goldberg's weekly soundtrack show Morricone Youth. Devon's knowledge of the soundtrack world is frightening - his shows are always compelling. He's on every Sunday at 2pm ET! We played some rare and fun stuff, including music from 70's XXX classics Behind The Green Door, Deep Throat, and Debbie Does Dallas, Euro softcore music from Black Emanuelle and Quiet Days in Clichy, romantic masterpieces from Black Orpheus and Henry Mancini's Gunn, and avant-bedroom action from highbrow blaxploitation vampire flick Ganja and Hess! It's archived now and streaming from here to eternity.

http://www.eastvillageradio.com/content/content.php?id=7130

"This Sunday, November 3 at 2pm ET, Morricone Youth host Devon E. Levinswelcomes Smoota as the show's guest curator of two hours of some of cinema's "sexiest" soundtracks of all time, from the most romantic of love themes to music from some of the dirtiest low-budget sex flicks, and everything in between."

http://www.eastvillageradio.com/content/content.php?id=7130

My friend Moist Paula certainly has a way with words, as she does with her bari sax, and I couldn't be happier with what she has to say about her new copy of the Fetishes vinyl on her Bring A Record Take A Record blog!

http://bringarecordtakearecord.tumblr.com/post/63540833322/in-a-deviation-i-want-to-talk-about-fetishes-the

In a deviation, I want to talk about FETISHES, the new LP by my friend Smoota, with whom I’ve been jousting in horn sections all over town and even somewhat around the world for the better part of the last decade.  The man plays a mean trombone, but his gentle side is fully exposed in his male vocal project, Smoota,  On October 29, he’ll release his first album, which he’s been lovingly whipping into shape for 10 years.  To celebrate I’m breaking the rules of #BringARecordTakeARecord, which, after all, I make up as I go along; I came by this lovely hunk of virgin vinyl not by swapping one of my records for it, but by buying it with cold hard filthy lucre and I would strongly recommend to anyone fly enough to have a working record player up and running in their pad to likewise invest 15 beans in support of the continuing tradition of a musician recording their songs and sending the masters off to the pressing plant to have gorgeous 12” long players shipped out into the world by the boxful in large, attractive sleeves.  

This record makes it seem fine to have the loudness on the RCA Victor cranked at 2.30am and could also easily be enjoyed upon awakening with coffee and cream; I’d also put it on were I taking a siesta.  I’d say the dulcet drum machinery, slinky organ sounds, ultra laid back vocals and mellow trombone solos would not be conducive to getting dressed up and going out to the club, or rushing anywhere whatsoever, except to the bedroom.  It could also be unwise to listen while driving or operating heavy machinery. This is music for laying back and getting comfortable, and maybe daydreaming a little.  

Apart from being a deft instrumentalist, Smoota can string a suave sentence together, as he reveals repeatedly in his adult themed  saucy subject matter; from the ballsy taboo buster Black White Yellow Makes Blue, possibly a commentary on skin color fetishism, to Body To Body To Body (for which Smoota’s record label is named, and by the way, I’d think you’d want to check out the artwork on the inner label - it contains nudity - his), all the songs deal with the sexier and therefore more interesting side of human relationships.  

The overriding thing I want to say about this record, and which I can say because I know him well, is that Smoota has succeeded in creating a body of work which strongly conveys his personal aesthetic.  Listening to this record evokes a sense of being at home with Smoota, lounging on a plush velvet chair in a room decorated with the photography of Amy Touchette, whose album artwork on the front and back covers of Fetishes is bound to become iconic, talking about ideas with the man in the leopard spot corduroy bathrobe while the refreshments flow and the HiFi just keeps on cranking the lush funk that inspired Smoota’s musical trajectory.  

I’m looking forward to hours of listening pleasure with this record and it is not up for grabs in the #BringARecordTakeARecord record swapping project.  I hope you get one for yourself on October 29, 2013.