May 15th, 2008
I know absolutely nothing about Brazilian Samba. I do know a little about Madlib, primarily that his music sounds very good on glaucoma medication. He has a new record coming out next month called Sujinho. It is a mixture of Brazilian samba and Bossa Nova. It will be his 65th album over the last four years, I like each one in its own way. This is possibly because of our mutual connection based on having severe glaucoma.
Billed as Jackson Conti, the album is a collaboration between Madlib and Ivan Conti, the drummer for Otis Jackson Jr.’s favorite jazz fusion group, the Rio De Janeiro-based, Azymuth. The record isn’t the least bit “hip-hop.” so if you’re looking for head-nodding stoned chaos this isn’t the right place* to look. But if you’re interested in something cool and tranquil to read to, or marinate heaping slabs of Brazilian BBQ to, or even play Bossa Nova bingo to,** this might be the ideal soundtrack.
* This is exactly the right place. Knock four times. Ask for Victor. He’ll take care of you.
** Is there any other kind?
Download:
MP3: Jackson Conti-”Xbaba”
MP3: Jackson Conti-”Nao Tem Nada Nao”
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May 15th, 2008
Photo via Genaro Molina/LA Times
It’s easy to get jaded writing about music every day. You can ask any writer or blogger. It’s the sort of thing most of them complain about behind closed doors but have the common sense not to bitch about publicly. After all, the only way you’re going to find a sweeter gig than writing about music for a living is if the Tim Floyd Fan Club procures you the sinecure. (hey, USC fans, Lil Romeo!). But every now and then you get to do something that makes you realize how lucky you are to be in this sort of position. Cue corny Reality Bites-esque moment of sincerity.
My story in this morning’s Times covers a concert that the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz put on at Washington High in South-Central. Think of it as the world’s greatest high school talent show with celebrity cameos from Doug E. Fresh, Chali 2na of Jurassic 5 and Herbie Hancock. Interspersed between the performances was a skit between a student and veteran character actor Bill Cobbs, about the ties that bind jazz, hip-hop and all 20th century African-American music. They played snippets of everyone from Duke Ellington to Charlie Parker to Miles Davis, to Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and the story of the birth of hip-hop.
The ultimate goal of the program was teach hip-hop kids an understanding of jazz, how to fuse the two genres and how to get a job in the Roots if all else fails. Watching the students freestyle over a horn section and live bass guitars reminded me a little of the brief Digable Planets/Tribe/US3/Gangstarr jazz rap trend from the early 90s; though admittedly, watching the man who provided the sample for “Cantaloop” didn’t hurt either. As I mention in the story, the best part about the whole thing was hearing Thelonious Monk Jr. deliver the news that the program’s curriculum was in the process of being exported to New York, Chicago and most importantly, Miami. Meaning…your time is numbered, Khaled, your time is numbered.
LA Times: Strutting Their Stuff In Front of Legends
Download:
MP3: Doug E Fresh & Slick Rick-”La-Di-Da-Di”
MP3: Galactic ft. Chali 2na-”Think Back”
MP3: Herbie Hancock-”The Sorcerer”
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May 14th, 2008
The ever-edifying, Mark from Music For Robots converted me to the San Diego-based Muslims when he posted them about two months ago (Does this mean I’m no longer allowed to eat lox and bagels in good faith?). While their band name and penchant for playing conehead in the hot tub might preclude their chances for running for U.S. president, “Extinction” provided a lovely soundtrack for my walk to the eye doctor today (so so hip-hop). Easily one of my favorite rock singles of the year, the song is a two and half minute, Nuggets/Modern Lovers-type, end-to-end burner. Thing is, I could strive and strain all day long to describe the song with faux-eloquence, but really, Mark already cut to the marrow when he said, “The Muslims make rock ‘n roll music that’s catchy as fuck.” Allahu akbar.
Download:
MP3: Muslims-”Extinction”
MP3: Muslims-”Right and Wrong”
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May 14th, 2008
In truth, part of me wants to be like, “Yo, El, why don’t you just chill the fuck out, smoke a blunt, take a deep breath, even if it’s not going to be okay, why don’t you just pretend that it will.” I’m sure by now the guy’s been told this one or two or 34,566 times. Yeah, the oeuvre’s a razor’s-edge from being gimmicky. At this point, it seems like there’s no piece of smooth sheet metal that El-P couldn’t twist into a fun-house of apocalyptic contortion. No sunny personality he couldn’t glare into dyspepsia. No bright day he couldn’t murk. It’s a lot to handle, but ultimately, it’s none of my fucking business. Artists should be allowed to be artists and regardless of whether you love or hate the guy, it’s tough to deny that his paranoid, neo-Bomb Squad wall of noise is as sonically innovative as anyone in hip-hop, 2008. *
Currently, barnstorming the country with Dizzee Rascal, Kidz in the Hall and Busdriver on the Stuff White People Like Tour 2008, the Def Jux chieftain has been peddling the next installment of his limited edition 500-only Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixx 2. The record sounds how you’d think it would sound. Think My Life in the Bush of Ghosts but done by someone convinced the Nazis could kick down the door at any moment. Maybe less original than the canonized Eno/Byrne collaboration, but no less awesome, and either way I’ll take this over a dude freestyling over the beat to “Xxplosive” anyday. (though Crooked I, pretty much killed Week 30).
Split between instrumentals, remixed tracks and original raps from El Producto, “Mike Douglas” stands out as my favorite of the bunch, with its savage uppercut at white music journalists who apparently play apologist for crack rap. (Who knew?) I’m not going to play the transcribe game, but it’s either this or Elzhi’s “Motown 25″ for my pick for this month’s imaginary Hip Hop Quotable. If you aren’t a fan, I don’t see something called Theweareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixx 2 convincing you to join the Def Jux fan club**, but if you are, it will inevitably be vital for the next time you decide to have your next Blade Runner party. I call Edward James Olmos.
*Other correct answers can include Madlib, Black Milk and maybe one or two other producers I’m forgetting at the moment. Answering Timbaland results in a 10-year purgatory where you are forced to listen to Madonna’s Hard Candy ad infinitum.
**Def Jux fan club includes free Mr. Lif hair grooming kit and a chance to Win a Date with Rob Sonic
From Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixx 2
MP3: El-P-”Fuck the Law”
MP3: El-P-”Mike Douglas”
From Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixx 1
MP3: El-P ft. Aesop Rock-”We’re Still Standin’ Here”
MP3: El-P-FunkDiscoChill
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 14 Comments »
May 13th, 2008
Questions to ponder about “Swang On ‘Em”
1. Isn’t this the beat for “Shut Up?”
2. What was the last song that Bun B didn’t crush? Conversely. Orange Crush> 22″ inch rims?
3. Why do I have the feeling II Trill is going to be twice as trill as Underground Kingz?. Why is impossible for me not to laugh when I type the word “trill?” (to say nothing of the words “gadzooks” and “flabbergasted.”)
4. When Lupe entered the recording booth did he get of look of glee in his eye and think, “man, this will really show all those bloggers who thought I liked Tribe Called Quest.” Or did he just creep everyone out by misinterpreting the meaning of the phrase “swang on ‘em.”
5. Best ignorant rap song of the year?
Download: (thanks to Nah Right)
MP3: Bun B ft. Lupe Fiasco-”Swang On ‘Em”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 3 Comments »
May 13th, 2008
North Philly-raised 2ew Gunn Ciz’s Myspace reads: “2ew Gunn Ciz is like Visa. Everywhere You Wanna Be.” It’s not hyperbole either. According to Zilla, Ciz spends less time in the city of Brotherly Love than any other Illadelphian MC, and might be the most successful of the bunch. Indeed, over the past few years Ciz has built a strong subterranean buzz, complete with rumors of an imminent record deal.
Last month, Hip-Hop DX premiered “Crush Rock,” Ciz’s White Stripes-sampling posse cut with Reef the Lost Cauze, M.O.G. and Nico the Beast. Within days it had over 30,000 plays. His latest track, the Zilla Rocca produced “Alter Ego,” hasn’t yet yielded similarly sky-high numbers but I may like it even more. A tale of Ciz’s attempts to elude a persistent female stalker, think of it as more street version of Del or something on the “Strobelite Honey” tip. Put together, the pair of singles ensure that it might be first time I write about Ciz, but probably not the last. Unless, I just decide to write about his alter ego instead.
Download:
MP3: 2ew Gunn Ciz-”Alter Ego” (prod. by Zilla Rocca)
MP3: 2ew Gunn Ciz ft. Reef the Lost Cauze, M.O.G & Nico the Beast-”Crush Rock”
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May 13th, 2008
Last year when Sasha-Frere Jones wrote his now-infamous piece on the whiteness of indie rock, he repeatedly included the phrase “miscenegation” to describe the cross-pollination of sound between black and white music. The diction seemed deliberate, a molotov cocktail designed to rile up the chattering classes and leave them more discombobulated than someone with melanin at a Vampire Weekend concert. It was funny in a way. After all, few things are more comical than watching a bunch of white-guilt saddled liberals squirming with difficult topics like the intersection of race, class and music as though Al Sharpton had to vet every word beforehand.
Ultimately, it was a ballsy essay with some valid points and some not-so-valid ones. Despite their obvious talent, I’ve quite often found myself disinterested in the more vanilla “indie groups” like The Arcade Fire, Death Cab for Cutie* and Sufjan Stevens, who Frere-Jones rightfully declared lack, “swing, some empty space, and palpable bass frequencies-in other words, attributes of African-American popular music. “But as Carl Wilson’s excellent Slate rebuttal, pointed out, “indie-rockers” like “Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem and Spoon,” fuse indie-slanted guitar rock with soul, funk and R&B, to produce music so danceable that it conned my reverse-racist sense of rhythm into getting down. Not bad.
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May 12th, 2008
Sexuality sounds very much like what I’d expect to hear from American Apparel CEO Dov Charney were he ever to move to France and record a synth-pop album: sleazy, a little derivative yet surprisingly stylish. I’ve been enjoying this record for the past few months but haven’t been motivated to write about it, mainly because there are only so many jokes I can make about the Gallic appetite for sexual lecherousness (this is a total lie, I can make Marquis De Sade jokes all day long, don’t push me people). Luckily, my ex-Stylus colleague, the very tall and very technically precise Andrew Gaerig wrote a very good review of the record for Pitchfork today, contrasting Tellier to the G.O.A.T. of all French sexual deviants, Serge Gainsbourg. Read the review, download the tracks below and ruminate on the inevitability of the French coining a term as ubiquitous as, “menage a trois.”
Download:
MP3: Sebastian Tellier-”Roche” (Removed by Label Request)
Sebastian Tellier-”Kilometer” (Removed By Label Request)
MP3: Sebastian Tellier-”Divine (Midnight Juggernauts Remix)”
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May 12th, 2008
Goals for the remainder of the year: Stop writing articles for the LA Weekly involving the phrase, [Random Band] is the Best [Insert Hyperbolic Superlative Here]. That said, I get hopelessly stannish when talk turns to Arthur Lee and Love, in particular their masterpiece, Forever Changes, which was just re-issued by Rhino last month complete with a new alternate mix and a few obsessives-only outtakes.
The article makes the case for Love as Los Angeles’ greatest band based on how perfectly they capture the way the city feels (no, not over-tanned and bloated with excess, that would be Ratt). If you haven’t heard Forever Changes, I can’t recommend anything more, save for possibly yoga on weed. So the morale of the story is probably to listen to Forever Changes while smoking a blunt and stretching. I think that last sentence indicates that I may need to move. Soon.
LA Weekly: The Doors? Black Flag? The Chili Peppers? Nope, LA’s Best Band Was Love
Buy Love-Forever Changes (Collector’s Edition)
Download:
MP3: Love-”Maybe the People Would Be the Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale”
MP3: Love-”Alone Again Or”
Bonus Track:
MP3: Love-”Your Mind And We Belong Together”
Posted in LA Weekly | 11 Comments »
May 9th, 2008
When ex-Just Blaze proteges, Kidz in the Hall released their debut album, School Was My Hustle on the newly revived Rawkus Records, I didn’t listen to it for a variety of reasons. Chief among them was the “Ivy League Rap” label critics ascribed to the duo of Nawledge and Double-O. Still scarred from having heard Brown grad MC Paul Barman, I figured Ivy League Rappers were the last thing the world needed, besides something seemed corny about Kidz in the Hall’s insistence on trumpeting their Penn degrees and posing for their album cover in letterman’s jackets.* And by all accounts, their debut seemed stuck in the “conscious” neo-Native Tongues albatross that has flapped over indie rap since Rawkus’ first-go-around. To say nothing of the fact that one of the Kidz’ had the audacity to bestow himself with a rap name as openly condescending as Nawledge.
But that was two years ago, an eternity in rap time. In the interim, something people persist on calling “hipster rap” has come into vogue, an inane classification that Kidz in the Hall have roundly rejected (like the Supreme Court and prior restraint.) But no matter how vehemently they deny such labels, there’s a bit of truth to them, as the retro-aesthetic dominates the very funny and very good video for “Drivin’ Down the Block,” the jump-off single from The In Crowd, the Kidz’ new record slated to drop next week on Duckdown Records. **
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