East tunes

Archive for the ‘East Tunes’ Category

Eastern European Funk for Eurovision

Eastern Europe’s still has so many negative connotations—golddiggers, corrupt cops, decaying infrastructure—that most hipsters, especially in the East, are wary of using it. Yet, in Europe’s annual schmalz fest, Eurovision, East Europe translates for victory, with countries from the East having won it for five years in a row from 2004-09. Their hegemony was broken by Norway last year, but only because their entry featured an Eastern European émigré. Their Eastern European Trojan Horse inside the Western European voting bloc grabbed them the top prizie.
Lithuania’s jazzy, sexy, boyz band, Inculto, are smart enough to play with the elephant in the Eurovision room, and turn it to their advantage. Their Eastern European Funk track for Eurovision is a clever blend of their trademark latin rhythms, beat-boxing, and Gogol Bordelloesque Balkan fest vibes. It’s an arty Eastern European sound, eerily reminiscent of the direction, Gogol Bordello are going in, by bringing Brazilian live acts into their performance. It’s like Balkan vibes and Latin rhythms were just crying out to be mixed, and Jurgis, the band’s charismatic frontman and a Beastie himself, had the vision to ‘Eurovision’ it. Their video is genius in a way, the hot striped-pant boys heating it up with a variety of Eastern European characters straight out of central casting: the aproned salesgirls, fat cops, jovial bald biznismen, jolly babushkas—and, for sure, a few hot babes in skintight threads blowing kisses at the audience. With Ukraine fielding a hot chansonesque blond (oh, so 1980s!) and Germany, a sexy yet homey R’B babe, Lithuania’s diffferent enough to stand out from the rest. And, yeah, they sure are feeding candy to that Eastern European voting bloc the West loves to fume about. Especially with their lyrics – Get up and dance to a Eastern European kindof funk …We’ve have it tough, but that’s OK, we like it rough . A vote for Inculto is a vote for Beast. So let’s just wear some ridiculous getups, fire up the barbecue, and drink some shots for Inculto on May 29th.

Khan Craves Candy Love

Text by Vijai
March 3, 2010

Berlin-based Khan of Finland never fails to hit the G-spot with his dirty, sweet tunes, that mix deep lets-all-love-each-other Chicago house with naughty electro beats. His new single Candy Love, for his forthcoming album plays with the idea of a polysexual sweetheart, a Joseph Fritzl swanning over Angela Merkel. A Lil Kim who tastes just like candy, blown back into the neon 80s, and serenaded by a vampyrish Khan. The creepy-sexy Candygirl video was produced by Italian artists Miro Mastropasqua and Onze. For downloading the track, check out

ITunes CandyGirl

Amazon Candygirl

For more tunes and Khansky vibes, click on Khan of Finland

Texas Chainsaw Masscre Meets the Taliban

Text by Vijai

Jan 27, 2009

Like most of you, I had thought that the Taliban had a monopoly on gore films from the region, until I stumbled upon Islamabad-based Omar Ali Khan’s masterful ‘Zibahkhana’, Pakistan’s first horror film. Released in 1997, the landmark pulp flick is a Taliban-version of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with a burqa-clad wearing serial killer chasing down five city slickers lost in the woods on their way to a rock concert. Set to Pakistani rock & dark, Bollywoodesque overtures, the slaughterhouse debut uses Pakistani’s already-creepy backgrounds and Jihadist cast of characters, and throws buckets of blood upon them, with body parts—courtesy of Lahore’s butcher shops—flying in every direction meanwhile. Think of all those Taliban videos of women being beaten for adultery, and children lopping off men’s heads, and then imagine those characters doused in blood & chasing terrified teens through a forest, similar in feel to those wild border regions where US drones drop bombs to snuff out Al-Qaeda operatives, and you get the picture.

Check out the trailer for the film here


Interestingly enough, the film’s 45 year old eloquent director, Omar Ali Khan, who studied in the States, runs a cult ice-cream parlor (inspired by an independent ice-cream outlet in Boston) in Islamabad called “Hotspot”. I-Scream, huh! Their innocuous ice-cream parlor is also a high temple to horror: it publishes its own horror magazine, Scream, and funds Omar Ali’s slaughterhouse ventures. Its entire interior is also postered wall to wall with cult B-film posters, and the soundtrack you bet would give even Freddie Kruger a sweet tooth. You can check out their brilliant website (http://www.thehotspotonline.com/hotspot/main.htm), which is also a trove of information on subcontinental horror/pulp/trash and other genres.

Thanks to Bangalorean writer Achal Prabhala for having turned me onto Lollywood horror.