August 26th, 2009
Something old, something new, something Blu.
Jay-Z ft. Drake-”Off That” (Left-Click)
Chalk it up to the strung out numbness of the Internet IV drip that’s made the run-up to mid-September feel so anti-climactic. Where breathless anticipation should precede new and long-overdue records from Raekwon, Jay, M.O.P. and Boosie, it all feels mundane. Even a self-consciously “Event” album like Blueprint 3 can barely cause a ripple in the endless deluge of song-a-day for a month freestyles and 44 daily blog updates turning your RSS arteriosclerotic. After all, it is hard to stay focused when there are Drake and Trey Songz “Making of the Video” clips to watch. Rap is dreamy.
So Blueprint 3 is starting to mathematically eliminate itself from the playoffs. When the best song is “D.O.A.” and Luke Skywalker from Emperor of the Starship Enterprise has more facetime on your album than State Prop and Primo, the situation is grimmer than the playoff prospects of the Cincinnati Reds. I’m surprised Jay didn’t want Bronson Arroyo to croon hooks–his style has to be at least as innovative as Drake.” “Off That” is perfectly fine but totally sad–Jay raps like Willie Mays on the Mets and would probably try to lecture the “Say Hey” kid for wearing tight pants. Someone needs to tell him to stop saying “Ahhh,” at the end of the every bar. He should be saying “oy.”
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Posted in The New Rap Language | 13 Comments »
August 25th, 2009
My former Stylus colleague, Mike Orme tagged “Feel It All Around,” from South Carolina’s Washed Out, with a Pitchfork Best New Tracks this morning. Rather than fritter away an afternoon grappling with ways to reiterate what Mike already said, I’ll just co-sign his sentiments regarding Ernest Greene’s sublime vision, “stuck somewhere in an imagined euphoria set after the art rock of the late 70s, with a dotted line drawn directly through the swath of synth pop and all the way to the psychedelic, guitar driven Brit-pop of the Stone Roses.”
It’s easy to sneer at the Balearic descended beach pop that’s bombarded the blogs all season long, but there’s also something heartening about it–the wide majority of it self-released or on tiny indies like Acephale or Sincerely Yours. All of it ideal for that last Labor Day gasp of summer. Save your censure for the PR deluge surrounding the Girls or Big Pink records. Right now, trying to fight Washed Out, JJ, Javelin or Memory Tapes is tantamount to swimming against the tide.
Download:
MP3: Washed Out-”Feel It All Around”
MP3: Washed Out-”Belong”
MP3: Washed Out-”You’ll See it”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 5 Comments »
August 25th, 2009
The Next Spot is a recurring series dedicated to the albums that could’ve, would’ve, should’ve made the Decade Top 50.
Capture the essence of the most important album from one of the most important emcees to come out of Houston in the last 20 years in less than 200 words, including this intro? That doesn’t leave much room for masturbation jokes or Blood In Blood Out references, but here it goes:
Z-Ro is so much not like you (street certified, genuinely depressed, woefully star-crossed) that he’s exactly like you (completely lost in his own skin). He’s the rare tough guy rapper that wholly understands the futility of being a tough guy rapper, and that realization tinges everything he does with an amount of desperation that endears him to seemingly everyone without allowing him to personally connect with anyone. It’s madly ironic that he’s talked about his heartbreak and loneliness so perfectly that it’s provided a level of fame that has only magnified each. His music is wildly reactionary, which humanizes the obvious contradictions in it, and never has he offered a more conceptualized representation of that incidental grit –from the legendary “Mo City Don Freestyle” to the ghostly “Help Me Please”- than on Let The Truth Be Told.
Done. Count ‘em. That’s exactly 199 words. In your face, putas. –Shea Serrano
Download:
MP3: Z-Ro-”Mo City Don Freestyle”
MP3: Z-Ro-”Help Me Please”
Posted in The Next Spot, Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s, Shea Serrano | 1 Comment »
August 25th, 2009
I could spend months combing crates in Spanish Harlem, and still lack Oliver Wang’s knowledge of Boogaloo, that fusion of Afro-Caribbean polyrhythms, Cuban Jazz, doo-wop and soul that flourished in New York and Latin America from 1965-1970. If you’re looking for a definitive take on the music and culture, his Da Capo anthologized essay from last year is as comprehensive and sharp as you’ll find. I also recommend O-Dub’s LA Weekly piece on the Assassins last year. Needless to say, it’s difficult to match someone who DJ’s and curates a night called Boogaloo LA.
By contrast, my recent Pop and Hiss interview with Los Angeles revivalists, The Boogaloo Assassins, is little more than an ABC-guide. In researching the piece, I became fairly obsessed with the music. Anyone interested in the intersection of Curtis Mayfield and Cal Tjader will want to grab this elementary primer (which also includes non-Boogaloo songs from Boogaloo-affiliated artists.) Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the MP3 for “Tito Puente’s Revenge,” so the video will just have to suffice.
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Posted in Boogaloo, Latin | 1 Comment »
August 24th, 2009
The Bug, the British dubstep-dancehall deity behind last year’s hit that never was, “Poison Dart,” drops a coal-colored cloud over Two Fingers and Cecile’s original ragga work-out. Perhaps not as indelible as some of his work from London Zoo, but a typically claustrophobic and haunted interpretation of “Bad Girl.” I suspect Kevin Martin has smoked his fair share of that De La Soul ghost weed.
Download:
MP3: Two Fingers-”Bad Girl (The Bug Remix)
Posted in Dubstep | 2 Comments »
August 24th, 2009
Sach O:
1. Holy shit. Ghostface blacks the living fuck out on this. He doesn’t walk away with the song, he runs. Like his house was on fire.
2. Dilla is posthumously sonning Rza on his own shit. Which is kind of bittersweet in a weird way but whatever.
3. This Raekwon fellow’s album has me *ahem* hyped.
4. If I was Rae and Ghost, I’d be weary of inviting Cappa to the studio, you never know if he’ll rip it or come “meh”.
5. They should let me pre-order this thing. There’s no way I’m gonna make it to the release date and the chances of my spending money on it largely depends on my paying for it before I can acquire a leak.
Weiss:
1. There is clearly an unknown alchemical balance involving albums named Cuban Linx and Ghost name-dropping vaguely obscure R&B singers. Aaron Hall & Ray J are the new Adina Howard on his mind all week. Sidenote: Ray J making a sex tape with Kim Kardashian was easily the best thing that happened since he was born with the last name, Norwood. Otherwise, he’d be doing guest-spots on Koch refuse not the new New Boyz single that’s running the radio out here.
2. If Rae’s promo team had any sense they’d get him on Iron Chef immediately.
3. Taking baths with white women> Taking Baths with Mr. Bubble>Taking Baths with Rubber ducks.
4. One day a decade from now, people will accept my assertion that Starks is the greatest rapper of all-time without snark or derision. Not everyone will agree, but most won’t argue. Those who argue probably listen to “Flowers for Algernod,” or as he is popularly known, Plies.
5. Ghostface has a supplier named “Loose Bruce?” Was Fruity Rudy unavailable?
Download:
MP3: Raekwon ft. Cappadonna & Ghostface-”Ten Bricks”
Posted in Sach O, Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 24 Comments »
August 23rd, 2009
Sach O something-something-something Muhammad Ali.
Lyrics. In this dance about architecture, lyrics are the proverbial Tango on a Gehry. For every genre with an expressly coded form of lyricism (say, Hip-Hop) you get two where it’s impossible make an objective statement. Is Jim Morison’s poetry art or the ramblings of an overblown 60’s acidhead? Depends on who you ask. And the plot just gets thicker when you throw in a foreign language: how can a reviewer accurately assess a song when he can’t even understand the words? With this in mind, I approached Brazilian legend Caetano Veloso’s Bicho (Beast) humbly and with but a few tools: a longstanding appreciation for the man’s recordings, an Allmusic profile describing him as “The Bob Dylan of Brazil”, Babelfish and the absolute certainty that you don’t need to understand a word of Portuguese to appreciate the grooves on display.
Best known as a singer-songwriter in Brazil’s late 60’s Tropicalia movement, Veloso is one of those artists that everyone’s heard of and yet few grasp. It’s understandable, considering his intimidating discography spans five decades and over thirty albums. Genres covered include acoustic balladry, psychedelia, straight-forward rock and experimental, to name just a few. Recorded after an eye-opening trip to Lagos for that year’s Art and Culture festival, 1977’s Bicho stands as one of the most interesting and approachable points in Veloso’s oeuvre-boasting a great song collection, an inspired backing band, and clean, occasionally orchestral production that never goes overboard.
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Posted in Diggin' in the Digital Crates, Sach O | 3 Comments »
August 23rd, 2009
See the photo above. HEALTH don’t need to “get color.” But both the title of the LA electro-noise cabal’s forthcoming full-length, and the decision to enlist Tobacco for remix work intimate that they want their shine blinding. Yet the frontman of Black Moth Super Rainbow never bleaches eyes, instead he angles towards chromatic distortion. Other than Joker and Caribou, no one’s got the striking synesthesia of Tom Fec, who slathers the grisaille tones of HEALTH’s original with an ice cream paint job that could make Dorrough salivate.
Ignore the bad beards, asymmetric hair-cuts, and the anvil irony of a man named Tobacco remixing a band named HEALTH. “Die Slow” is liver than a Super Bowl kickoff–ideal for watching Saved by the Bell on your dashboard.
Pre-Order: Health-Get Color
Download: (via Nialler 9)
MP3: HEALTH-”Die Slow”
MP3: HEALTH-”Die Slow (Tobacco Remix)”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | No Comments »
August 23rd, 2009
Bleary braille eyes, acrid tobacco tongue, and an apartment a drained swamp of beer bottles–no problem–San Francisco’s Sic Alps hit harder than caffeine. Where bubble gum meets barbed wire, channeling that anorexic aperture between harsh daylight and phantom fragments of forgotten conversations. Mike Donovan sneers “she went to seek adoption, just to see wot she had gotten for me, we bombed that mansion, its gonna be the last one, its gonna be the last fling.” All tocsins and toxicity.
Lo-fi employed as a tool, not just a crutch. Sic Alps’ new 7″ on Slumberland is teleological in its intent–only the ends matter. The idea is that they won’t meet you halfway, but they do–a slinking propulsive piano line, jangly sun-soaked guitars, and shambolic 60s garage clatter. They only need few sentences and the right tone to get their point across: “we went to see a doc then, just to see wot she had gotten for me mind searching, shes gonna get back at them, gonna gonna get back at them with violence.” Even if they telegraph their intent, escape is ineluctable.
Buy: Sic Alps-L Mansion 7″
Download:
MP3: Sic Alps-”L Mansion”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 1 Comment »
August 23rd, 2009
While all bets are off as to whether Damien Marley and Nas’ forthcoming collaboration album will somehow redeem Nas’ career (perhaps by sampling Redemption Song) or finalize his descent into We-are-the-world fuckery, it’s always fun to look back at a time when Hip-Hop/Dancehall collabos were devoid of pretension and as natural as PB&J. Case in point: Shabba and Blastmasta Kris’ The Jam which splits the difference between Ced G horn stabs,
Casio MT-40 bass and a strong riddim just waiting to be recycled by some enterprising revivalist. As for Shabba and KRS they do what they do best: talk slack to dem gyals and condescendingly diss sucka emcees just for living. That they do so in a video featuring enough spandex-covered-azz for a whole jazzercise tape is a nice touch.
Youtube version is an alternate mix, the superior original is here in MP3 form for your listening pleasure. And if anyone has the instrumental (or full 12” rip) and can send a link our way via the comments, I’ll be your new friend.
Download
Mp3: Shabba Ranks ft. KRS-ONE - the Jam
Posted in Sach O | No Comments »
